City Commission - Regular Meeting

I'll call the December 23rd, 2025 city commission meeting to order at 4 PM. We have all five commissioners present. Uh minutes. Anybody have anything to address? Don't encourage him. Well, you got to do one last. I had to look at the minutes very closely this time. Okay. Because I was a little bit worried that something might happen, but amazingly it's smooth. Smooth. Oh, good. I'm so happy to hear that. Financial statement. Hi, Mr. Rup. It's nice to have sanity.

Good [laughter] afternoon. Kim Rup, director of finance. Uh this is a report of financial summaries for the city of Hayes uh revenues and expenditure activities month ended November 30. Uh revenues in November totaled 1,655 a decrease of 926,000 when we compared to last year. for notable increases in revenue. Miscellaneous revenue for capital projects was up 196,000 due to the received [clears throat] depreciated value on the airport hanger and terminal hail claims still from the May 24 storm. Uh finally working through those last repairs. Economic development was up 70,000 as a result of the CDBG pass through on the main street project. New equipment reserved miscellaneous increased 31,000 from items sold in purple wave that included older greens mowers and three pickups. Notable areas of revenue decrease leading that large drop we mentioned uh reimbursement from FAA of a million 90,000 for the ongoing S sur building runway 422 and taxway M projects last year. Water and conservation revenue were off 73,000 from a year ago. Most of that is due to the fact that last year's cycle was at 35day and uh versus a 28 day this this year. Expenditures in November totaled 3,922 786. That's a decrease of 946,600. Notable areas of increase expenditure include parks improvement projects were up 387,000 for payment of matching funds to KOT for the multi-use path extension. Storm water reserves expenditures increased 157,000 for the equipment storage building project and water and water reclamation reserves rose 136,500 for the reconstruction of the water resources facility parking lot. [clears throat] Notable areas of decreased expenditure.

The contributing factor to that large decrease noted was a,223,000 for the AMI water project a year ago. Another factor includes the three payroll periods this time last year amounting to about 410,000 decrease in salaries across all the departments. Other contractual and communications expenditures fell 692,000 for the payment to Ellis County a year ago for that dispatch agreement that's ending this year. Month general fund sales tax collections were at $753,084. That's a decrease of 4,100 or a half percent compared to last year. Year-to- date general fund sales tax is up 77,282 or86. Six-month average was flat, which was a year-over-year decrease of 1.3. Year-to- date, county sales tax collections were up a million84,577. That's up 24,253. Report of top 10 quarter-toate sales tax collections by classification was down 110,664 or negative 3.35. Those top 10 represent 71% of the total sales tax for the running quarter. And just today got a little better news.

So December came in up 2%. Good. Yeah. And so that ends our year up 1%. So we're pretty happy with that with everything that the roller coaster we've been on. Pretty pretty pleased those.

Uh finally, the total par value of the US treasuries for November 30 was 7.616 million with a weighted average yield to maturity of 4.2. That's flat from a year ago. Total of the portfolio certificates are deposited on November 30 was 66,10,951 with a weighted average rate to maturity of 4% down 89. Total balance on a money market accounted on November 30 was 3.1 million 3,14612 with a current weighted average yield of 3.59. That's down.18 from a year ago. and total investments were up 3,431547.

Make a motion we approve the November financial statement. Second. Been moved by Commissioner Mutual. Second by Commissioner Cunningham. Are there any questions or comments? I was going to suggest to Toby about replacing our finance guys since it's been down. But since it's back up, I guess I redeemed myself. We'll keep him around for a month. Okay. Another month. Yeah. I'll call for a vote. All in favor, please say I. I. Same sign. pass his five to zero rule. [clears throat] Thank you. Merry Christmas. Thank you. Merry Christmas, Kim. You sound like you need to get some rest. [laughter] Okay. I wasn't ready for that one. [laughter]

Anybody uh any citizen comments? We have some citizens. Nobody's moving. Thank you. The consent agenda, we have three items. the boundary resolution, the appointment of Haley [clears throat] Bellser to the care council and the memorandum on agility. Do I have a motion? I move to approve consent agenda consent agenda items A through C. Second. Moved by Commissioner Rutder. Seconded by Commissioner Bareric. Any questions or comments? All in favor, please say I. I. Same sign passes 5-0.

Economic incentives presentation. Mr. Williams Gro Haze executive to learn anything.

Good afternoon, commissioners. Doug Williams, executive director of Gro Hayes. You let me follow Kim up here with all this [laughter] stuff, but thank you for giving me a little bit of time today. uh in light of what happened yesterday in Topeka, I think it's a great day to talk about incentives and the uh impact that they can have on a community from a financial standpoint. And of course, with all the good news that was brought from Topeka yesterday, it didn't take long for [clears throat] the a lot of the negative Nellies to come out and say it's going to raise our property taxes and that kind of thing. even though based on what I understand about the project that it's a starbond project and wouldn't affect property taxes in the least. Now, I don't pretend to know all the intricacies of this uh incentive package that they got, but uh when you start talking about incentives, there's this alphabet soup list of acronyms that nobody really understands or most people don't. They see these initials, you guys deal with them. But I would venture to say that most of us don't know what those letters stand for. But those are all incentives that local governments offer for different types of programs to try and incent behavior. And I'm kind of preaching to the choir here, but what they these are tools that are used to produce a desired outcome. And that outcome is primarily and typically economic, but it can also be other things. There can be quality of life outcomes. There can be safety outcomes that can come from economic incentives. So, it can encompass a lot of different things. In almost all the incentives that are offered, they're conditional, meaning that the recipient has to achieve some outcome or they're not going to get them. as an example, uh when a when a tiff is put in place that allows them to

recapture some of the property tax that they in fact create, if they don't create it, they don't get the benefit. And so, uh there's always almost always conditions upon their performance as to whether or not they get these these outcomes and the these incentives and they almost always only capture the dollars that they have created. So, uh, in the case of a TIFF, you know, or or an RHID, before that goes into place, that piece of property is generating basically zero in terms of property tax revenue. If they go out there and they create the asset that is then taxed at a higher rate, they with the incentives that are put in place, they are able to capture a portion of that to try and recover some of their investment in infrastructure and the things that they put into a project. So, I'm preaching to the choir a little bit here. I know most of you know this, but I think it's sometimes good just to revisit some of these things and understand how these things really work a little bit better. I think this is a great analogy for what I would call economic investments versus incentives because that's really what they are to a community. You choose to invest some dollars, you expect a return. But unfortunately, what we typically see is when Jared comes up here and he says, "We're going to do this project, blah blah blah blah blah, and we're going to offer bazillion dollars in incentives or $1,000 or whatever it might be." That's what we hear. We don't really understand what comes after, what the benefit is. And so, I think it's good to look at these things. We've had a couple recently. I didn't cherrypick these. These are kind of the last two we've been working on. And so I thought we'd take a look at these two incentives and what they cost and yet what the benefits we expect or have begun to reap because of those.

First one's Vern's truck. Uh they got an IRB for sales tax exemption on materials used to construct their new facility and they put in place a CI. Now a CI is a commercial incentive district. It allows them to charge an extra sales tax to their customers until such time as they've recovered certain investments that they've made in this property. That costs taxpayers, the city nothing. That's definitely just between the customers and the the business owners. So, no cost, no exposure at all to the city. The sales tax exemption does allow them to avoid sales tax on all the construction materials used to construct their new facility. So, the local taxing authorities are out that money that would have been paid without that incentive. In this case, that sales tax exemption was worth about $36,000 plus or minus. You know, I don't know exactly what they spent. I know they said they were going to spend around $2.5 million on their building. You can usually figure between 50 and 60% of that is materials that they would pay sales tax on. So you do the math backwards and you come up with about $36,000. As I noted, the C doesn't cost anybody any taxpayers anything. So that's zero. So the cost or the investment that the community has made in that project is $36,000. The return, okay, Bernie sold their existing location just north of Home Depot to Lewis Chrysler or the Lewis Automotive Group. They bought their old facility and they bought the lot next door. Bernie's moved up and they bought the old sail barn location, put a new building on it, and that's what they applied for the IRBs for the tax increase that the new location that Bernie has up there over and above what the taxes that were being paid on the

old sail barn amount to over a 10-year period $261,000 in additional sales tax that is collected on that particular location because of that improvement being made. In addition, the Lewis Automotive Group is building a new collision center at the corner of right across the street from the old Bernie's location. That lot was paying about $10,000 a year in property tax. It'll go to somewhere around 30 to 35 $40,000 when completed. That will generate another $39,000 over the next 10 years. Lewis has also paid sales tax on the construction materials for their build, which would amount to about $41,000. And then they spent that the two buildings combined spent about $5.5 million to construct those two facilities. So that's a direct economic impact locally of about $6.1 million. If you are a student of economic development, you understand the ripple effect. Most of us aren't, but when a dollar is spent, it ripples through the community and generates other dollars. Uh the people who are paid to put the to do the cement slab in that building have employees. They pay them. They go buy things that ripples through the economy. And you can use lots of different multipliers that are used. Typically in a new construction, this is about 60.6% gets ripples back through. So if you use that number, the total 10-year impact of this project is $9.4 million on a $36,000 investment. So if you look at the direct impact 36, it's 6,111, $250, $169 for every dollar that was spent in benefit. If you use the total impact and add that ripple effect, comes

out to like $261. Now we can we can argue ripple effect and that kind of thing all we want. Bottom line here is hard to make a better investment than that. I mean that and if we look at the property tax standpoint when people talk about why have my you know what impact these incentives have in their property taxes. Absolutely. We can very clearly see that this additional property tax revenue does result in lower I'm not going to say lower property taxes for people but less than they would have been. It has a positive impact on the property taxes for everybody because these two projects or these two buildings were built. In addition, it supported about 100 jobs between the two construction projects. It facilitated two business expansions. It facilitated a business succession. So we worry about succession sometimes, you know, when when people get to a point where they want to retire, who's going to take over that business? We don't want to lose it. This facilitated that because the Lewis Automotive Group is moving their collision center from the corner of whatever street that is in Vine, where it is now, to this new location. Something's going to go there. they put it up for sale already, so something's going to go there and have again another positive impact on the community. One would typically think that when two businesses expand, they expect to have higher sales, which results in more sales tax. And so, hard to measure that, but I can think we can safely assume that both of them will be doing more business than they were, or they wouldn't have done this. And lastly, it replaced an empty building that frankly was an eyesore on North Vine Street with a new building and a new enterprise that's that's doing business instead of a empty location.

Pretty hard not to see that as a significant success and a great investment on the part of the city. Next one I want to talk about is agility. Agility to property and sales tax abatements. They were recently in here. uh the sales tax abatement or exemption on their construction job going to would result in about $29,000 worth of sales tax collections locally, city, county, school district and the property tax abatement for 10 years somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.3 million. Sounds like a lot of money and it is. However, if you look at the benefit, uh the construction project $2.3 million. The direct payroll over the next 10 years about $100 million. You start talking about ripple effect and payrolls ripple more than construction jobs do. And so you're talking about a $191 million impact over the next 10 years in our local economy because Agility chose to do their expansion here. Do the ratios again. Not quite as impressive as as the uh the other one because the amount of dollars spent on the other one were so low relative to the the sa the benefits but still phenomenal returns on investment in terms of of offering those incentives and what we get in return. In addition, we have the ability to not only keep but expand a low water usage manufacturer exactly what we need here. Uh these are skilled and technical jobs. a lot of them. So, they're going to pay pretty well. We developed part of the package that uh Tim Tim Zimmerman and and uh David Co David Klingan put together for for agility was relationships with Hayes

Medical Center in Fort Hay State. They were they this whole expansion is based on a new hospital bed they're manufacturing. They wanted an expanded relationship with Hayes Medical Center to be a beta test site to offer input on product development. You know what what better partner can you have than somebody who's basically a major medical center for our part of the world just a mile down the road. They also were concerned about workforce like so many local businesses are. Well, fostering this relationship between Fort State and even down at the high school [clears throat] level, uh, maybe gives us the opportunity to keep more kids here to give kids a career path into a company like this. So, uh, lots of benefits from that standpoint. In addition, they are interested in expansion. If this goes the way they think it's going to go, not only are they going to hire another 140 people, but they're looking at land adjacent to them as potential expansion. So, I think there's a lot of upside opportunity from that standpoint. And the thing we have to remember, I think, is in 10 years that abatement's gone, but they'll still be here. They'll they'll start paying property tax at the full rate at that point in time. They'll continue having the payroll they have now and hopefully expanding on that. So, another great story of a positive use of incentives just like it was yesterday in Topeka. you know, the people in Missouri are screaming bloody murder today, but they, you know, these these incentives used positively have major impacts. The other thing I thought I'd address is the the concept that they would have done it anyway. And uh, you know, we never really know. I can tell you that from the day Larry asked you with agility called me and said, "We're looking at an expansion and we're going to do it either here or in North Carolina." And the CEO of the company lives in North Carolina, so we've got our hands full. We didn't determine,

okay, I wonder if let's play chicken with them and just see if they're really serious about moving or not. We didn't. We mobilized initially as quickly as we could. We brought in Tim from the state. David got busy. We put together the absolute best package we could and it resulted in them staying here. I think when you uh when you want to play chicken with somebody, whether it's a a small local company that's going to do some sort of small local expansion or somebody like Agility, you do so at your own peril because I just think you you you know it the returns as you saw are so good that to to play chicken with somebody and not being willing to offer them some incentives that can make such a difference in their expansion for people who are willing to be invest millions ions of dollars is is not a good plan. So I I don't think we don't we don't make these decisions. You do. Our job is to bring you these opportunities and let you decide if you want to play chicken with them. But uh we don't take that position at all. We're not going to do that. But I think I I'll end with this and try and answer any questions. I think this is what you need to consider is what the benefits are, what the outcomes are from these incentives as opposed to uh getting getting stuck up on the top which we tend to do. And uh that's so as with any iceberg, there's so much more below the surface than is above [laughter] the surface. [clears throat] So with that, I'll try and answer any questions you might have.

This is really a good presentation. I've seen it more than once and every time I listen to the words and see the numbers, I'm amazed. I think maybe as a benefit to our community and to the citizens of our community, we need we should consider when we release this kind of information and get this the minute you hear incentives, somebody's going to complain. You can't when you put this in front of them. And I think maybe getting that information out at the same time that we're talking about incentives. Does that make sense? Certainly. I I think education's great and and informing people. I I do think there's a segment that just want to and it doesn't matter what you show them. It doesn't matter what the facts are. They're just going to gripe.

But I I agree with you wholeheartedly that people need to understand that there is a whole lot more to this than just what the [clears throat] cost is. Well, and I know it and I know my fellow commissioners know it and we we think about it all the time, but until you actually put every line item number on there and you get to that total and you see that total and understand the long-term impact, I think we may we may find that we can educate in a way that'll be more positive. So, I just ask that we just get it out there as soon as we can. Sure. Commissioners,

I was just I was going to say something similar that first I wanted to thank you for bringing this presentation because I do think that it provides meaning and understanding that we get a seat through the whole process, but the public does not always get a seat. And I I hope and I assume this is going to help them really understand the benefits that these incentives do provide. Um, and yeah, I I guess I'm going to echo the mayor in that I I wish we could find a way to present it as soon as possible. I know that those logistics get hard, especially when you're working through when you're dealing with two locations for a business to pick from. You can't always release everything publicly until they've kind of gotten to the point to make their own decision. But I do agree that the sooner we can educate the public, maybe the more positivity we can create. So, thank you.

Sure. Yeah, I'll echo what you two said. I mean, it's the more information we give to people, I think, is always better. We absolutely see it because, you know, we we see it firsthand and we see what it will do for us. But, um, you're right. People's always going to complain. You know what I always see though, people complaining, but they never tell us a better way. And so, I I think you're doing a great job with it. And I mean, we're saying what it's doing. So my only question for you is if we get a star bond here in Hayes, you think we get the Royals to move [laughter] here with that pencil. Did you make that call this morning? [snorts] I can't announce it today. Okay. Okay. Could you let me know as soon as you know more? I'll let you know, Sean. Yeah, I'll be at the first season ticket holder.

You know, you you made some a really good point as well as the other comments. I think when we work on projects, we work on it over a long period of time. six months, nine months, a year, and we're doing it maybe in an executive session, and Doug's doing things without sharing the information. So, when we do actually share it, we forget that people haven't had that whole six or nine or months of what we've talked about, what we've heard, and what we've done. So, I just I I think we've always professed at this, at least this sitting body has professed to be very transparent, and I think we have been, and I think we'll just keep trying to do better with your help, Doug. Thank you. other comments. I

I was just going to say I mean kind of tagging on to that it's [clears throat] between you know when it comes to us finally to even start some of those process that that they themselves take months to go from that point by the time it's reached us. Yeah. It's been worked on by the company through you guys staff reviewing it um for months ahead of time in in general as well. Um and all that's providing you guys saying here's the economic benefit for the entire community and staff saying is this something that we can actually take care of while we wait for that. Um so by the time it gets to us those decision I mean those numbers have been pencled out saying yes we believe that's why we're recommending approval for it that this should go forward because we can handle that both on the staff and infrastructure side of things and the outcomes that we're looking for. Um because if you brought every single thing that you heard to us, um I work in economic development during the day and there's a lot of businesses that thank me for saying thanks for showing me the numbers that I didn't put myself into debt unnecessarily. Um because it it it is it's not a light undertaking. These people don't show up one day and say, "Hey, do you think they'd give me a million dollars?" That's not how that works. Um you know, as much as people think it might. um it goes through a rigorous process and a lot of them are also teamed up with um other governmental entities or grant programs that rely on other things to come together. It's a long process for them. Um and I'm appreciative that so many businesses especially local businesses here have continued to work with grow haze the city and other entities around the town that uh allow them to expand. That's the the one other thing I'll mention is virtually everything [clears throat] that we bring forward is has a costbenefit analysis with it. That's in your development policy which says we want to see a costbenefit

analysis and that's basically in summary what I did there is is the costbenefit analysis. There's a lot more to it. Some of these numbers are you know like the the ripple effect. There's different people have different theories. Some some say it's as high as $7 for every $1 that's spent that ripples through an economy. That that's extremely aggressive. You know, more in that 0.5 to one would be a more conservative ratio and that's what we typically like to tend to work with is not take the absolute far end because it it starts to become a little bit hard to fathom. But uh in any case, your development policy calls for costbenefit analysis. [clears throat] It does call for pay as you go by the developer, by the business. So, it's not like you're taking dollars out of the treasury and giving it to them. They have to earn that by putting these benefits, these assets in place and getting over time. So, uh there's, as you noted, there's a lot that goes on before it ever gets to the point where you're voting yay or nay on something.

You know, I had lunch with Toby today and we talked about a business that we turned down incentives [clears throat] uh quite a few years ago. I think I'm the only one up here that turned it down. And we knew that it was a positive outcome, but the way our policy was, it it didn't work. And so after that, we changed it. And it's I think it's been a very positive for our community. So, you know, we we made mistakes up here, but you know, if you're long if you're here long enough, you can fix it. And uh you know, and it's I think we've had some really positive outcomes with, you know, the way we've adjusted our economic policy. So, is it going to be something you'd like to have over again? Exactly.

It would always be. You used a couple of words that two words that I'm going to use more often because it's something we do and we don't use these words and that's outcomebased. We make outcomebased decisions and we've not used those words before, but it made me look at things differently even sitting in this chair. So, we'll always stay focused on that. And not not every business that comes that gets incentives is going to benefit everybody in the community, but we look at as a whole, you know, and usually it ends up helping. We do our best. We do our best.

We do our best. Doug, thank you. And we know you do your best. Merry Christmas. Um, item seven, tall grass fourth edition, award of bid. Mr. Roar.

Good afternoon. Jesse Roar, director of public works. So handful of items for me today. The first being discussion of the tall grass fourth edition awarded bid for the construction of that development. The property most of us know and are familiar with it by now, but it is east of the technical college north of the workforce housing in the tall grass edition and just south of I7. Here's a little closer view of the property. There's two images here. The one on the left shown with the image with the red box around it. And then the one on the right kind of shows the plat itself, the layout of the streets. There are 101 lots within the development to be developed. Uh this was all platted, zoned, and annexed earlier this year. We've been through design. It's been reviewed and now we're ready for a war. I mentioned platting and zoning was completed earlier in 2025. didn't mention the lots. They are primarily set up for single family development. Wouldn't be unheard of if there were some mixes of duplexes within there. See how it lays out or how it plans out over the next several years. There is just under 5,000 ft water and sewer and street infrastructure in the project as well as quite a bit of storm water infrastructure both above and below ground. So, as is typical, bids bids were solicited for this project. The engineers estimate was just under $4.4 million. We did receive four bids when bids were open publicly on November 18th and um kind of ideal situation for us as we see it. We had two bids that were below engineers estimate and two that were above. That leads us to believe we had a solid engineers estimate and really some good quality bids overall. The um tall grass fourth edition infrastructure project will be funded through geo bonds with the debt service

that was pro approved by the city commission through the RHID that was passed May 8th of this year. I do want to back up here real quick. So talk about the bids just a little bit. So you'll you'll see the range of the bids here uh from just over four million to just under five million. Services Incorporated. A local contractor here was the low bidder on the project about approximately $200,000 less than the second bidder and nearly million dollars lower than the highest bidder. Your commission or excuse me the the commission's options are to award as is recommended by city staff to the low bidder should award the bid to a non-recommended bidder or you can provide alternate direction altogether and this would be the action requested take any questions you might have about this item I'll move to authorize the city manager to enter a contract with Services Inc48,661 and authorize an additional 22 43 contingency for a total of $4,250,469 for the construction of street water, storm water and sanitary stewward improvements for the development of tall grass fourth edition.

Second been moved by Commissioner Rutder and seconded by Commissioner Cunningham. Um do we have any comments? [snorts] Um I'll comment just basically a little bit what I said last week. um you know the uh document that we have on the contractor on what they did for us last um in my time since we we've been doing this for a couple years now. Is that correct? How many years we've been doing the reports? Oh, probably going on four years. Four years.

Is it that long? Okay. Well, time flies when you're having fun. Um it it's just I mean to me it's it's pretty bad compared to what you know we've actually we had another one that we kind of we threw a lot of comments at them saying if they do it again it never happened and and I believe Service is a great company. I know it's a great company. They do a lot of work but um I mean I'll definitely vote for because of what city staff says. You guys recommend it. that you know when you read through there there's a if this was a uh report card they would definitely be you know fail but it was their first big project so I'm I'm assuming they've learned and got better and maybe better staff better training so I I guess I on Toby or Toby or uh you guys believe that they'll be okay I mean

yeah we think they'll be all right um we weren't happy at all with in the project they did in 21/22. Um they know we weren't happy with them in that project. Um Jesse, the construction engineer, they've had uh Tom, the project manager, they've had conversations with the um with the contractor and they've they've assured us that they've they've grown as a contractor. They've learned where their mistakes are at and we're going to do our best to keep them to keep them in budget and and on schedule. I mean, I believe everybody deserves a second chance, so I just hope it works out.

I think the discussion last week was very good. I think that it was okay for all of us to make our concerns known. Um, I think the ownerousness is on you guys and on Hail Sloan uh to stay on top of it and make sure and and I have full confidence in both those parties. So, I think it'll do great. But the timing, we've seen that happen before and there are liquidated damages in the contract. So, I think we decided what they're 1,400 a day or something. So, it it could uh impact them pretty seriously, but I I have a lot of respect for health services and they're broadening their ability to keep people employed and so forth. And I think this time around with the right people in charge, we're going to be okay.

I agree. I think the biggest issue seemed to be um communication and standards and whatnot. I think that's been done now. Um, and like Sean, you said there, that was our first big project. Um, let us build a baseline. They understand what to expect from us now and vice versa. Um, so I think you guys having those conversations beforehand is a great way to start.

Yeah, I the if you go down, you know, past just the grade marks, you go down to the additional notes, it does sound like the planning on their part was lacking the most. So, it sounds like you guys are already on top of that and starting that communication line. So, I have full faith that this will get done correctly. So, thank you. Hey, anything else? Commissioner Eric, we're good. Okay. All I will call for a vote. All in favor, please say I. I. Same sign. Passes 50. Item eight, tall grass formation [laughter] construction inspection award of contract agreement.

Okay. Well, since you approved the last item, we get to move on to the award of contract agreement for the construction inspection services for the same project, the tall grass development. We've already talked about location of the project. So, we're talking about the same project that was just awarded to Services. I already mentioned about the number of lots. Um, again, this is a larger development. It's um not quite as not quite twice the size of the Grove. Uh just to put it in perspective for the there's about 60 lots in that development. This one will have 101 lots and the amount of infrastructure again is about almost twice. So as is typical with projects like this they are large enough where we have a construction inspection agreement with a engineering firm. In this case it's Sloan Engineering Consulting LLC out of Hayes. Uh they were the same engineering firm who designed the project. Again, it is very typical to see if we have an engineering firm who's capable of providing both design and inspection services. That is often ideal and that is the case here as well. So, their plan under this contract for this project is to perform the various tasks throughout the duration of the project as you see on the screen. Daily inspections, they'll do all the testing, soil testing, concrete testing, testing of subgrade, they'll do perform and make sure that all the call the SWIP inspections that has to do with the storm water every two week inspection that's required by KDHE inspections after every half inch rain event as well through storm water are complete and documented throughout the course of the project and then they'll assist staff with preparing pay applications throughout the project and make sure we're staying on track for the budget and change orders and anything that might come with that. We hope there's a lot of those half inch rain inspections.

That would be nice. If they're timely, they are nice.

So again, this uh similar to the construction award itself will be funded in the same manner through the geo bonds that were approved and will funded with the assistance of the RHID that was approved in May. The total cost of the contract for services again is $196,000 for the duration of the project. That does include, don't know if I mentioned that as daily on-site inspection. So, there'll be someone up there. Hail Sloan has put together a team for inspection services and testing services for the project. Your options on this one are to approve the agreement as proposed. Not action request. I move to authorize the city manager to enter a contract with Sloan Engineering and Consulting LLC in the amount of $196,000 to perform the construction engineering services during the construction of the tall grass fourth edition.

Second move by Commissioner Beric and seconded by Commissioner Mucil. Any other questions or comments? I just want to, you know, ask Doug, you know, my last chance to do this. We're not approximately 101 anymore. We're actually got 101. We're on the money now. All right. [laughter] Thank you. I changed that slide just I just want you to know that I noticed it. [laughter] That's good. Anything else? All in favor, please say I. I. Same sign passes 50.

Number nine, exit 161 property, the resoning request for agriculture from agricultural district AL to commercial general district C2. These two items, these two next items are related to each other. And the first one is the reszoning of what we're calling exit 161 property. This property is located north of I7. It would be just east side of Commerce Parkway and south of 27th Street, extended out to the east side of town there. The image on the right, you can see the red outline of the property. It's approximately a 90acre tractor property that is city-owned. Was purchased from by the city several years ago. This property has been preliminary platted and actually in starting in early 2026, the commission has already awarded the infrastructure project that will get water and sewer and street up to and through this property. But today again we're talking about the zoning. So the current zoning of the property is a and you see that everything in the green on your map is a zoned. And this map, this is out of the feature or this is the feature land use map out of the comprehensive plan. And as you can see is denoted as general commercial, which is exactly the designation we're looking to zone it to. And so again, this is one of the tools that's used for all resonings is how the application relates to the future land use map. As with all zonings, we also show the various uses that could be located on the property if it were to indeed get in this case reszone to commercial. This first couple slides are what we call uses by right. So any of these uses you see on the screen here if reszone to C2 would be fair game. So, it's your excuse me, it's [clears throat] your typical retail and service type oriented businesses

as well as general office type of uses. Here's the completion of the list of the uses by right. So again, these would all be if reszoned, no further permissions will be required to locate any of these types of businesses on the property. Is do stadiums fit in there? [laughter] Some are we'll make sure it fits. recreational fitness, right? Yeah. Yeah. [laughter]

The second use of the second type of uses are limited uses. So again, all these uses are fair game. However, if it's limited use as defined by the unified development code, [clears throat] then there are typically certain restrictions that come with it. It might be restrictions on setbacks or screening or parking location along our trail road or different things like that. So however it is administratively approved does not require any further approval other than planning staff and then the final group are called uses by exception. So if any of these were to be proposed on a property zone C2 it would require public hearing process through the board zone appeals and notification of all surrounding adjacent property owners. So your options that are provided by state statute on resoning options to the commission are to approve as submitted. And I do want to note that this was unanimously approved by the planning commission at the public hearing and there were no public comments at the public hearing either. Uh you could send this request back to the planning commission for further consider consideration if you would do so. You have to specify the basis for their extra review that is being requested or you could um overturn their recommendation by two3 majority vote

which is four. Take four out of the five of you. Correct. This will be the action requested on this particular item. I move to adopt ordinance number 4087 approving the reszoning request from agricultural district to commercial general district and for city property at 27th and Commerce Parkway, also known as the proposed 161 edition as legally described within the adopting ordinance. Second. Moved by Commissioner Cunningham and seconded by Commissioner Rutder. Any further discussion or questions for Jesse? Doesn't sound like it. All in favor, please say I.

Oppos. Same sign. Passes 5-0. Uh item 10, exit 161, property annexation.

Okay. So, we're going to go on to the second item related to the 161 edition. This one has to do with annexation. Again, we're still talking about the same property here. Here's a little different image that shows the property. It's actually how the preliminary plat is is laid out. It's not final platted yet. Final platting would occur probably sometime in 2026 as we get closer to the infrastructure being in place and potential development. However, now that the zoning is occurred, what you just approved and we get the annexation taken care of, those steps will be complete. So, this particular layout shows 11 different lots. There you can see the street kind of in the magenta color running through the middle. Um the project that'll be soon happening will include intersection improvements at 27 the commerce along with the water sewer and storm sewer through the property as well. So um an application was received. Again this is a city-owned property and the property is contiguous with the city limits. There's a lot of different kinds of annexation and different methods to annex property. The simplest and what we see typically are contiguous properties like this one is and makes the process of as simple as it as it can be. Reszoning we just talked about under the last agenda item and I already talked about the city infrastructure that will be extended throughout 2026. Your options on an annexation are to either approve annexation as requested or not. Action requested would be to adopt the ordinance as shown on the screen.

I move to adopt ordinance number 4088 annexing the property known as the proposed exit 161 edition as further legally described within the adopting ordinance. Second. Been moved by Commissioner Bareric and seconded by Commissioner Rutder. Any further discussion or questions? No. I'll call for a vote. All in favor, please say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Passes 5 Z. Okay, Jesse. Number 11. Two more things. Reszoning request for agricultural district AL to Light Industrial District I1 for 2200 Commerce Parkway.

Okay. Well, two more items. Again, these two uh items 11 and 12 are both related and the same property as well. It's also another city-owned property. Uh, this one being on the south side of I7, also east of Commerce and north of what would be 22nd Street if 22nd Street continued through as it may someday. So again, this um request was initiated by the city. We're hopeful and proposed development in the future. However, this one's going from a to light industrial, not commercial as the last property we just talked about. Again, I'll show the current zoning map. We just talked about the property north of I7. Now, we're down below to the south of I7 outlined in red there. This property is also currently zone A. And I do want to point out since we're talking about in light industrial zoning on this one, the adjacent current I1 zoning districts just to the south of the subject property and just to the southwest on the west side of commerce as well. There's other light industrial zone property also. The [clears throat] comprehensive plan on this one um shows something slightly different. So uh it's shown as OS which is open space. When the feature land use map and the comprehensive plan was completed with the comprehensive plan in 2012 areas of park space and open space such as this is currently the city tree farm. It was designated as open space because that was the current use of the property. However, it did not subject to that forever and it could be reszoned as we're doing here today. So, before the last item, I showed you the C2 or the commercial zoning uses. Now, I'll show you the light industrial uses. So, if this one were to be reszoned, light industrial, these are the list of items that would be fair game on this property. So, a little a

lot of uses are very similar. Some of them are the same. However, some of them are slightly more intensive uses. Um, instead of just vehicle sales, service repair, you might see heavy trucks, vehicle sales, service repair, such as the Buckner's facility that you see out there in College Parkway caddy corner to the subject property. Here's the rest of the list of uses by right. [clears throat] Again, one size zone I then located on the property. Again the second type of uses are the limited uses. So again these would require some sort of administrative approval or whatever particular requirements the unified development code might have for each particular use or more of the limited uses. And then the final group, again, if any of these were to be located on the property or be considered, it would require public hearing process through the board. Same options as the previous zoning you can approve. Uh, this one was also unanimously approved by the planning commission. There were also no public comments on this item either. Send back to the planning commission if you had questions or concerns or not. request on this.

Move to adopt ordinance number 4089 approving the resoning request from Agriculture District AL to Light Industrial District I1 for 2200 Commerce Parkway as further legally described within the adopting ordinance. Second. It's been moved by Commissioner Rutder and seconded by Commissioner Cunningham. Anything interest you further? Jesse, I've had a couple um citizens reach out concerned with us reszoning it. If and when there was ever any proposed changes, is there a plan for the tree farm?

Yeah, I'll take that. There is um we have um if if you remember when we rebuilt the um wastewater facility, the ball fields there went away. Um, part of the ball fields are utilized by the fire training facility now, but there's still a a fairly sizable vacant spot between that and the and the wastewater facility. And so we would have access to a fluent for use. And so that would be the plan there. Thank you. Is the is the soil there good enough for a tree farm? I know it changes pretty drastically all over the city. Um, it would be um um parks director Bole um is pretty good at amending soil. So my guess is if they if if we did have to move the farm there, he would have organic matter brought in, have that soil amended and have it ready.

Perfect. But I'm assume it's probably probably some kind of clay. But it's also close enough to the sort of the river bottom area that it might not be too bad. You know what was really important about that question? People are listening. People are looking at our agendas and planning ahead and reaching out. And I think that's outstanding. Absolutely. Um, I have another question, Jesse. How long have you worked for the city? Just over 24 years. And how long in your present role? Since 2017. Have you ever had the commission send something back to the planning commission or turn it down? I don't believe so. It's been a while. Uh, we did one time. Might have been something really early on that went back. Yeah, I think I couldn't even tell you what that is right now.

There was something. We had something to do with signs one time. Go back, but that was that was 2009 or that was prior. Yeah, that was the wayfinding signs, right? That was before me. There was something. What's nice what's the reason I asked the question is I often comment on staff and city employees and associates. I don't give credit enough to the planning commission and they do really really good work. By the time stuff gets to us, it has been vetted every way but Sunday and we can move on it and doesn't have to go back and forth. So, I'd like to publicly thank the planning commission for the work that they do. We'll pass that on as well. Thank you, Jesse. Last item for you, Jesse number 12. We need a vote. Oh, sorry. Oh, yeah.

All in favor, please say I. Oppose. Same sign. Passes 5. [laughter] Fire me. Um item 12, 2200 Commerce Parkway annexation.

Okay, so we just completed the approval of the resoning for this property. Now we'll talk about the annexation. Same property. This is again the tree farm property located south of I7 [snorts] east of Commerce Parkway. Same type of annexation as the property that we just talked about on the north side of I7. It's also contiguous. Again, making it a very simple simple process through state statute. talk about zoning and I've already you know the the same infrastructure that will serve the exit 161 property on the north side of I7 will pass directly directly past and actually through this property as well to hopefully serve development in the near future on this one also your options on this pretty simple item be to annex the property as requested or not this action request

make a motion we adopt Ordinance number 4090 annexing a property at 2200 Commerce Parkway as further legally described within the adopting ordinance. Second been moved by Commissioner Mucil and seconded by Commissioner Cunningham. Anything else? Not. I'll call for a vote. All in favor, please say I. Same sign. Passes 5-0. Somebody asked me one time what I do real quick whenever we move these. I absolutely always write down who moved and who. Oh yeah, because we get in these conversations and it goes totally out of my brain. So that's what I'm doing. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Jesse. Appreciate it. Progress report.

Jared Cuckleman. It's not common. You're thrilled to have me. [laughter] And we are thrilled to have you.

Jared Kuckleman, assistant city manager. catwalk. One of the floodgates along Big Creek near 12th Street had deteriorated over the years and was recently repaired with a new diamond tread steel plating surface and handrails by public works staff. The new public works equipment building budgeted for 2025 and bid out earlier this year is now complete. UMC was the lead contractor on the project. We're pretty satisfied with the results. So, Park staff installed two new sighted signs in Frontier West and East that can be seen driving on Old Highway 40 bypass in both directions. You can see up there the photos of the east signage.

We're going to convert everything to that new any signage we do. That's the goal slowly but surely. Makes me sad. I just want to say it out loud that those limestone posts are going away. They have a nice classic look. Um, yeah, I think it looks great, but our history is Yeah, I think the only negative to the the old signs is they are almost invisible with everything else around it. I mean, driving past the new ones, you can definitely see they're there. Um, the limestone post also break very easily, let's say. I think the new ones are good from a maintenance perspective as well. Yeah. I had a res kind of like bricks with me, you know, limestone and bricks. I had a resident reach out saying they were so impressed with the new signs. I hadn't even seen them and they they like it because you can

you can really see them. Yeah, but I agree. I like the old ones, too. Sorry for the interruption. Yeah, we get excited. [laughter] Over silence. Also in Frontier Park, parks department staff removed the old stairs and landings on the north side of the stepping stones that had deteriorated beyond repair. All new lumber and poles were installed as well as some graded stair treads for maximum grip when going up and down the stairs. Work has been done in the last few weeks as well on the south side of the stepping stones to update that stair section. I think they're really close if not done on that. Is there still a stone in the water that kind of moves when you walk over it? I believe you mean the stepping stone. Yeah, they those at least one. Yeah. I mean that's what was cool about them.

That's what makes it exciting. Yeah. It's not fun to slip, but No, it's not. But I've seen it happen. Multiple kids. And then on the stairs as well, the staff will be installing handrails as soon as those parts arrive. I like that. At the park pond, parks department staff assisted the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks with a fish study. When the nets were pulled, the species sizes and population were documented as part of fish management processes that the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks does. Pretty good partnership with them on this.

Staff put down winterizer fertilizer on all the greens at the golf course before blowing out the irrigation system. Staff has also been having a local contractor grind out 36 tree stumps. Were these t these pictures taken this month? I assume so. It looks like that. Looks really nice.

Concrete was removed from the previous fountain area at the new police department station and the timing was just right to have fiber optic cabling installed. It was very important to make this underground connection back to the existing law enforcement center before the new concrete is to be poured in that area. This connection will provide network connectivity back to the LEC for the public safety software access and then also connect back to city hall for the general network connectivity. Water resources staff responded to and repaired a water leak at 17th and Oak on December 7th. Water resources staff has also begun preparing fire breaks for this spring's prescribed burn plan burn plans at the R9 ranch. The plan is to utilize the prescribed burn as a training opportunity for our fire department, the state game and parks staff and offer participation in that exercise to the other Edwards County or surrounding organizations that are interested as well. The R9 property has been well utilized recently by local and non-resident hunters. Graph here on the left shows the daily visitation from the opening of the upland bird season through the primary archery and firearms deer seasons which is to December 16th up there. The pie chart on the right illustrates the access distribution between the two different entrances over the same period of time. So you can see it's pretty near equal. During this period, there have been 531 visitors utilizing the property for hunting access.

Can you send us that slide? That's awesome. Yes, we can. I can't read that. No. Can you? No. No. Okay. Thank you, man. You need to move. I can just fine. Apparently,

CBB partnered with Water Resources to host the Outdoor Communicators of Kansas November 23rd and 24th. Their time in Hayes included a presentation on the R9 ranch, a tour of the property that included opportunities for photography and hunting, and a workshop by Fort Hay State's Department of Psychology on the psychology of social media. So, these writers, videographers, photographers, and podcasters now have a better understanding of how the land is used as a walk-in hunting access area and a prairie grassland conservation project. On December 7th, CBB partnered with the Hayes Public Library to bring in live reindeer from Fulton Valley Farms in Towanda, Kansas for a meet Santa's reindeer event prior to the Frostbest parade. Hundreds of people came out to see the reindeer meet the Grinch and enjoy free hot cocoa from Breathe Coffee House. Hayes was chosen to host a FIFA World Cup countdown clock from December 14th through the 21st. There are four Kansas City countdown clocks in various locations in the Kansas City area, while one is devoted to touring the state. DVB completed a Mural of Hayes brochure that maps out murals around the community. This piece allows any visitor or local to take a self-guided tour of the murals around town. The brochure also includes information about the artists as well as a QR code that directs users to a page on the CBB website with details on each mural. This project was spearheaded by CBB fall intern Sydney Madison.

Very cool.

CVB staff completed a new holiday video for 2025 that includes the new downtown pavilion decorations that were added by the bricks as well as a new addition at Christmas at Creekide. So, The seasons [music] that start local I I like that.

Very good. Thank you, Melissa, for having my kids be involved in that. They [laughter] had a blast. You You get They're a lot cuter than I am. You get royalties for that? No. No. No.

Progress has been continuing at the new police station and it continues [clears throat] daily with no significant issues. Demolition is wrapping up and concrete work will begin soon to start to allow the enclosure of the currently open front. With the Haze Med section of the east multi-use paths completed, all focus has been on the Sternberg Museum section. Recently, there's been excellent progress made with only a few portions remaining. Once completed, this will allow unrestricted pedestrian and bicycle travel from Sternberg all the way to 22nd Street and then beyond. Construction of the airport parking lot project has been completed and turned out excellent. This should help to provide suitable parking for the constantly growing airport and their record employment year. Employees recently enjoyed an employee appreciation lunch hosted at Thirsty's. During the event, the management team helped serve employees to show their appreciation for the dedication that all our employees show.

Any questions? Lots of good progress. It's a feelood thing. It's really a feelood thing. Hey, happenings.

Hello, commissioners. Melissa Dixon from the Convention and Visitors Bureau with some things happening in January. I want to be sure are on your calendar. The 42nd annual five-state photography exhibition is down at the Hayes Art Center right now. It is always beautiful. Um, this one has artists from says five different states. It's always so impressive. If you have not been to the gallery lately, it's open Monday through Saturdays 10 to 4 and Sundays 1 to 4. The Fox Theater will present two shows in January. Dad Rock Night with Council Hill on January 9th and then Giovani and the Hired Guns will return to Hayes on the 31st. High will host the Junior Prairie Classic wrestling tournament on the 16th and 17th. Big Creek Crossing will have their winter sidewalk sales, and these will actually start and run about multiple days out at the mall, while the Bricks will run a shorter amount of time for their winter sidewalk sales. They're all indoors, uh, January 22nd to the 24th. Hayes High will also host the Bobc Prairie Classic Wrestling Tournament the 23rd and 24th. And then the Society of Friends of Historic Fort Hayes will have their annual meeting and program out at the historic Fort Hayes site the 24th at 2 PM. And at the time I prepared this presentation, they did not have their program announced, but if it is, you can always find the details on that on our calendar on our website. The Holy Family Chili Supper and Bizaar will be January 25th, 11 to 2 at Holy Family Elementary School. And they will have plenty of games and raffles and

cakewalks to go along with the good food. And the 41st annual Chamber Awards banquet will be January 27th, 5:30 p.m. at the Memorial Union on campus. And just know you do need to have an advanced ticket to this event. The Haze Chamber will also host a legislative coffee on the 31st. So that's a Saturday morning at 8:30 at Hayes Public Library, and you can come ask your legislators all your burning questions. So this weekend should be a little quieter than normal, but definitely check out the last weekend of Christmas at Creekide, the illuminated trail that you saw in our commercial. Uh $12 a person last weekend. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Melissa. Commissioners, Commissioner Mucil, I just want to wish everybody a merry Christmas and uh I know this is your last official meeting. I've uh really enjoyed serving with you. You brought a lot of laughter and seriousness and it's uh just really enjoy you brought a lot to the the table. We really appreciate that. And uh Mason, I wanted to uh tell you that I gave your number. I was at Walmart and people said they heard us. We're gonna pass marijuana and they wanted to know about it. So I said you're the one that brought it up. So you might be getting some phone calls. Way above my pay grade authority. [laughter]

That's what I said. But no, thank you. Good luck to you. Thank you. Um since it is my last meeting, buckle up everybody. [laughter]

Take a little bit of time. partially because and I gave this all about five minutes of thought, but uh Sandy has always been one that says we should pat ourselves on the back, let everybody know the things that we've accomplished. So, I thought I'd do a little bit of that just and I won't cover everything obviously because I gave it about five minutes of thought. But when I ran for school uh for the city commission four years ago, it was really because I wanted to see, you know, I I sort of came from a athletic background which says if you go to practice, you're either getting better or you're getting worse, but you never stay the same. And I looked at the city the same way. It's either going to grow or it's going to shrink, but it's not going to stay the same. It just can't happen that way. And the first thing that was happening at that time was there was a school bond and we it failed like two or three times before and I thought I want to I don't want to run for school board but I want to see the city commission be supportive of the school board and getting a bond passed and working on getting you know the the city pumped about passing the the the quarter cent sales tax to help pay off the school. So that was the first thing because if the city's going to grow, that's the number one thing. You better have good schools. And so that was one of the the main reasons I I ran and we got that accomplished. We have a fantastic high school. Um the other thing, as Doug has mentioned in a couple in lots of presentations, there's a pyramid of things that you have to have if you want to grow, if you want to have a city uh grow. And for Hayes, number one is water. And we have a lot of other things that are built on that. And I wanted to make sure that we were aggressively pushing forward on the R9 project and and securing water because without that, as Toby talks all the time, we hit a 1930 style drought.

Within 5 to 10 years, the city of Hayes goes from 20ome,000 people to 5,000 people because there's not going to be enough water to because once you start losing people, everybody says, "Oh, this is a bad deal." So businesses close down and move someplace else. People can pick up a move to California a lot easier now than they could in the 1930s when we had a dust bowl. So that's the next big base that we have to have. And I think we've been you know going to the Supreme Court and listening to uh you know our lawyers dealing with with uh the issues that we have. I think we're really close to getting that point where we're going to secure water for the future which will allow the rest of the things to happen to allow haze to grow. So that was another big thing. It's also kind of cool. Since I've been here, we passed the AMI project. We have new water meter meter reading. That's pretty cool. And it was a big project and it's going to benefit the citizens of Hayes for a long time. Um we talk about the next big thing is housing and you know Hayes had not had a lot of housing projects in a long time and I thought you know if we have we may not have already secured the water but we're we're on that way and I was very proud of the whole commission and really working with with Groh Haze and with Doug to come up with interesting new ways of how to fund development and to to get uh developers to And I think the the whole point of getting the grove getting where we are now with uh tall grass uh 160 houses and with that a community center the community center which is already done which was I know one of Sandy's big things of what she really wanted to have done and I think it's really cool that we as a group got that accomplished and we've got more housing uh private development housing that's going on

because I think really of the progress that's gone on with what we've done with Gro Hayes. I also want to take a moment to say it's not just the the single family homes, but um we've got a lot of uh apartment developments going on and um I think that's really, you know, a big part of it. And I think a little shout out to Michael Graham because he's put up so many apartments, you know, behind Washington, we've got the ones going up right by the railroad tracks and he's taken on the Lincoln school. I mean, there's other people, but I just that's that's a huge thing. That's a huge investment of a person in our community. So, I think those are all things that we all had a part in in helping support also. And I think that housing is really on its way. Um, also even using the incentive incentives to, you know, we always like to expand, but we like to infill. One of the last things in downtown that really needed work and is getting the work is the old bank building that we used the CDBG to help support so we can actually get that building to where it really makes downtown attractive and also adds to housing. I think that's a big thing that we can pat ourselves on the back for. Um then once you have housing and we don't have it all done yet, but we've got we've got it going. That's when you can attract businesses because businesses got to see houses and they got to see people and Doug made a great point of you know I was gonna if he didn't give the the lesson plan I was going to talk about the fact that yeah you know Kansas is a great place to you know invest things but oh wait no you actually have to have an incentive if you want to get

somebody to stay there or move there thus oh we got the Chiefs that's pretty mate we did we get that because just we're a cool place to be. No, because we had some in incentives. Um, and as as Doug says, you can have incentives. You're not really giving anything away because you're not getting anything until after it's there. Then you can see what the investment brings into the community. And I think that we have used that extremely well in order to incentivize a lot of um a lot of businesses to either expand or move into Hayes. the number of businesses and new buildings and businesses that I've seen in the last four years that have popped up is really amazing and impressive. It's a it's a different looking uh footprint for Hayes. Um and and always look into the future. I think the 161 property getting you know is is a big deal for the future development of Hayes and the future growth of Hayes. looked to infill as well as expand uh around the city and I think we can be be pretty proud of where we are and what's going to be happening in the next few years. Have fun with that. Um and I also want to mention that I think that uh um we also have had a lot of you know things that are important. Public safety is important. Um, you know, I wasn't here when we started the the with the fire department, but I got to see that construction and and and we got to put furniture and got that started. I got to work with uh Chief Hagens on talking about things with the wildlife wildland urban interface and there's going to be some really cool educational things um that have come out of working with the fire department get

uh getting new equipment for them. I think we're uh a much safer place from that aspect. We can see the development of the new police department. That's going to be huge. And that's uh part of the thing that I think is important was working with the county, the city, working with the county in ways more progressive than have ever been before. And some of that has led um uh to things like, you know, we might we trade off 911 call center and we take on um taking care of a bunch of roads. That that collaboration led to getting 48th Street paved all the way and Commerce Parkway. And that is huge, not just for for people that live in the city, but for that 161 property to be able to develop. We've got paved roads out there. And I think that's huge. Um, so I think that the collaboration that the city's had with the county in the last four years has been really cool and I think we can all be proud of. Um, uh, and said the police department will be going up. That's that's fantastic. You know, sometimes we don't always see the best in our city, but sometimes through tragedy, we do. And uh when we saw the the Scott Heyman with the tragic uh murder and death that that happened, it was it was sort of really appalling and and really sad, but it I saw the city come together, the best of the Hayes, um pulling together. I think that was really impressive. and made me feel very good about the people in our city. Um, I think also we've gotten a lot done with with parks and wreck. We have an

arc park that's pretty pretty cool. And I will tell you this, it's such a wellused and visited park that I don't care what anybody says, equity, and inclusion are important.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are important. If you don't believe it, go to that park and see the kids that are at that park that can't use the the equipment that are at our other parks. And we've got a really great equipment that we've passed to get into our other parks. Um, we've taken care of our pool. We've taken care of the the ball fields, but uh vineyard having that having a great pond. We've done a lot with our park, but it is important to have inclusion and equity for all of our children, and we've done that, and I'm very proud of the fact that we worked on that portion. Um the uh the airport, we've seen so much happening with the airport. We got a parking lot. We've we're getting new runways, uh development. We've got record in plainments. Jaime's done such a spectacular job out there that got the KBI with a new hanger. We've got so much more going on out there. I think that's pretty cool that things that we've seen. I've also been really proud of the fact that I've learned a lot about what goes on in the city that are things that we have to work on that are not that great. We are, you know, think places we support like the care council and we find out, you know, what poverty is doing in the city. you know, what kind of violence that and abuse some women in the city are getting. Those are things that are important for us to learn about, know about, and help support the the organizations that are helping with that. And I think that's been a really good learning part for me and um sort of appreciate being able to learn about that and try to help support those organizations um and just briefly. Like I said, I really enjoyed when you get to learn a city, to learn all the people and work with them a

little bit. Um, Chief Shler has been really great to work with. He used I used to sneak in and talk to him and he'd always be like, "Oh god, there's a city commissioner coming." Um, [clears throat] but he's been always great to work with. Chief Hagens has been great to work with. I've really had a lot of uh chances to work with Jeff Crispen and Chris and Holly on water conservation, but also getting to understand, man, we've got a great system for um dealing with with our water cleanup uh sewage and and it's pretty spectacular. The R9 going out there and visiting and seeing where it's gone from pretty raggedy to really amazing property with all the hunting that's going on. And I think that's it's fantastic. If you ever get a chance, go down and check it out. Um, have to go to Las Vegas, go uh check out some cool shows with Jeff. Uh, Jesse's Jesse's

really good right at that point. [laughter] Jesse's been great to to to work with and it's really kind of cool to see that all the streets and and the sewer and water and all the projects that go on that with his office we get work where the bids come in and they're almost always below what they're projected to be and what we have budgeted and I think that's a a really impressive thing [clears throat]

um that the city does Uh we've got I had a chance obviously um Aaron Gabler does a fantastic job with HR but also with we always see with the uh uh health insurance and and how the city deals with that. She does always been fun to work with except that when she moved out of here I didn't get get to give her as much grief every day when I came in. um getting to work with Tom Howey on the on the especially on the the parts of the uh multi-use path that are going by the Sternberg um learned so much about city and city budgets and how money is managed from Kim and uh so well put together that it's a really great learning experience and another thing that you're going to have fun with coming up very soon. Um, we got we got our IT moved out to the fire department, the new fire station. That was that's a huge thing for protecting our capabilities for uh communication and data protection. So, that was very cool to work with Chad and to see that happen. Um, I'd also just like to Well, I don't even bother with Melissa. Geez. [laughter] Um Melissa Melissa's just sort of in her own sort of uh realm of rock starness of things that keeping everybody uh you know as we always say there's always something to do in Hayes and if you don't know about it I you're living under a rock because Melissa will have told you about it 15 times from Sunday so there's no excuses. Um the commissioners, it's been a lot of fun working with you. Lane is always um wellstied on everything that comes up

and has checked with about 25 or 30 people from the community. Um which is pretty cool. Um, Michael Burgess was who was here before, was I used to sit out there where you are and watch him sit there and talk very softly, staring down like this, but come up with the most direct, thoughtful questions or comments when you weren't really sure what's he doing. Um, Sean, I will I'm going to give you this one piece of advice that comes from directly from Nicole. Uhoh. [laughter] You move to do things. You don't make a motion to do things. [laughter]

I heard that from Henry Schol.

That's not But you know what can you expect from Denver fans? I don't know. But I've [laughter] always always appreciated your thoughtfulness and the fact that we can always share a laugh and uh enjoy working with you. Mason. Uh, I think one of the cool things finding that all for almost all the city commissioners that we all sort of love Teddy Roosevelt, you take it to a a great level. And I guarantee you that if he wants to, he will become a state politician. He'll become governor or he will become a state senator. and I would run his campaign anywhere because he is the most thoughtful, wellressearched person

that I've ever met for as young as he is. Um, it's really I'm just amazed and impressed at what you had accomplished. And so Sandy Sy's when I decided to run, I was worried about who I was going to have to serve with. I didn't know any of these people really very well. And I always, you know, from where, you know, my background, I was like, I'm not sure about this. I kind of want to do it, but I'm not sure how I'm going to get along with anybody. And Sandy was one of them. I really don't know about her. The first thing that happened, not the only one.

And honestly, I was, you know, one of the things I knew, she was friends with with Barb, but I didn't, there were things that Barb was doing that I didn't I didn't agree with. There's still things she does that I don't agree with. First thing that happened, we had to go on a trip and I rode with Sandy in the car and I shared some things. I don't know about this. And she shared some things. And I'll have to say that of of all the commissioners, I really appre appreciate you and the the relationship we've been able to develop over this time because all of that uncertainty over time has melted away and I appreciate your leadership and the things that you've done for the community and how you treat everybody in the community and um finally Toby Colin Jared Um, it's been really cool. And my big thing is to not, one of the cool things is like Toby knows all the places to get you around in DC. He knows all the thing about, you see, he's gone through this enough times that the cool thing is he's got stories about everybody, [laughter]

right? So, you got stories about everybody. That's why I don't travel with him. And and the the key is I like to have fun at the city commission meetings. But the main thing is to try to not leave too many stories for Toby to be able to tell you. [laughter] So if if we can if I could avoid that, then that that would be a big thing. So I appreciate I appreciate um everything that that you guys do. And so I've had a fun four years and I think you are going to have a fun couple of years and just take it all in. Appreciate the people that you work with and it will be that you will always remember.

All right. Thank you much. [applause] Follow that.

Okay. Yeah. [laughter] Um I was just going to comment on thanking the entire community because after Kim presented telling us there was a 2% increase in December, that tells me we had a lot of local shoppers. So, thank you to everyone who chose to shop locally. I really greatly appreciate it. Um, I was going to say a few words to Commissioner Bareric. It has truly been a pleasure to serve with you the last three years. Um, you've been dedicated. Your thoughtful um, and your willingness to engage in meaningful conversations is um, it's made a lasting impression on myself and I'm sure it has on others as well. Um, you've helped shape my perspective and encourage me to sometimes think outside of my realm and I'm grateful for that. Um, you have a way to ground conversations in scientific data and research which I think is invaluable and I appreciate. Um, to the point that we recently had a conversation that made me understand why I prefer the English accent of my Pelaton instructor. So, [laughter] I thank you for all that data you presented. Um, and you always have a knack of bringing a light moment into the commission and I'm going to miss that a lot. So, with that, I'm just grateful to have served with you and I wish you the best in all your endeavors. So, and then lastly, I just want to wish everyone a happy holiday and stay safe, stay healthy, enjoy your loved ones.

Very good. Commissioner Rutder.

Um Reese, it has been an amazing four years serving with you. Um there's not a lot of people on this planet that I get to nerd out about Teddy Roosevelt with. So I appreciate you understanding that. Um uh we've always had a lot of fun conversations about um philosophical deep philosophical thoughts that probably won't go anywhere, but it's nice to have those kind of conversations. Um you have been a very very dedicated public servant. Um the community is a better place for having you been on the commission for the last four years. Um knowing you, you won't sit still like you are now. Um so you'll probably be involved at some capacity within our community for as long as you can be. Um I mean [snorts] definitely be seeing around for sure. Um, you have been a wonderful commissioner and it has been a pleasure to know you and obviously this probably is not goodbye. Um, this is I'll see you in a different capacity, but you know what? Hayes is lucky to have you as a coach. That's you're an amazing person. We're lucky to have you. Thank you. Um, last thing I wanted to to do was uh Kim left early. I was going to give him his Christmas present. He'd always wanted me to do this and I hadn't done it before. Um, kind of for YouTube was uh do my impersonation for him. So, it's a Christmas present. [laughter]

Just for you two. So, I wanted to wish everybody a wonderful and merry Christmas. uh be with your family, your friends, everybody. Uh I love the uh the gold uh lights around town. [laughter] So uh merry Christmas. There you go. To say [laughter] I don't know how you ever follow follow that. I will not follow [laughter]

everything that has been shared about Commissioner Beric. I [clears throat] I could reiterate and I'm not going to um you all did a wonderful job. You know, when you serve in a community, you get the opportunity to meet people that you wouldn't meet under any other circumstances. And meeting you a hard time was one of the best things that's happened to me as a commissioner. Reese is one of the smartest guys I know. Absolutely one of the smartest guys I know. Has brought so much to the commission table. And if you don't believe me, listen to the world's wildlife urban interface. Now, how many of you had anything to do with wildlife urban interface? Um, you're one of the kindest people I know. And to me, that's the biggest compliment I can give you. I'm a better person because you served and because I got to serve with you. And I want to do things with you in the future. We'll find some fun things to do together. I look forward to it. I appreciate you. You are an outstanding commissioner. Um, next thing is going to be big. I don't know what it is, but I'll stand right there with you and we'll figure it out.

Thank you for everything, Reese. You've been wonderful. Now, I suppose you want something. I want to tell a story. So, we were in DC [laughter] and we went to this restaurant and Mason ordered the ribs and he didn't know it, but it was a Fred Flintstone [laughter] serving of ribs. And so, he was already feeling self-conscious about the ribs and he went to Roosevelt themed restaurant. Teddy Roosevelt themed restaurant and Reese told the server it was Mason's birthday. So, when he came back out, he had this giant dessert [laughter] to finish with his ribs as well. Oh my. Um,

that's a cool place. So, I would request that the commission enter into an executive session for a period not to exceed 15 minutes um for to discuss matters pertaining to the acquisition of real property um to include the city commission, city manager, city attorney, and assistant city manager. So moved. Second. All in favor, please say I. I. We are in executive session once cleared. Did you say how many minutes? 15. 15.