Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I believe it is 745. I hope the planning and the strategy has gone well. And we're going to pick up where we left off, item three, I believe, the Pledge of Allegiance, which will be led by Councilmember Bailey. All right. Item four, approval of the agenda. Do we have a motion? So moved.

Second.

All in favor?

Yes.

Any opposed? Motion passes. Item five, comments from the public. If you are a member of the public wishing to speak this evening, please approach the microphone, state your name for the record, and please keep your comment to five minutes. Thank you.

Good evening. Jack Cooley, Ward 3. I'm here to express my support for ordinance 9785 on the council agenda item 13. I support the city doing more to prohibit and discourage people sleeping or camping on public property. I understand there will be discussion about whether this ordinance pertains to only the World Cup or will remain in effect after. My goal in being here tonight is to show support for both. Leadership requires clarity. And this ordinance provides that. You can either have a town where homeless people are welcome and there's no enforceable rules, or you can have a town where people want to live, play, and work and have enforceable rules. We can't have both. Thank you.

Thank you. Further, public comments? Going once. All right. Moving on to item six. Oh, I'm sorry. Moving on to the consent agenda. Do we have a motion on the consent agenda?

So moved. Second.

All in favor?

Yes.

Any opposed? Motion passes. Coming right along to item 10.

Burlington Water Main Replacement Project Design Update.

Good evening.

Good evening. How are you guys doing today?

Very well.

Oh, good.

I'm Robinson Camp.

I'm with Olson. I am the new group lead for the water-wastewater team. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Hello. Hi. Here we go. Okay. Hello. My name is Rob Camp. I'm with Olson. I am the new group lead for the Water Wastewater Department here in North Kansas City. I'm here today to talk to you about the North Kansas City Burlington Street Water Project. I also want to introduce my colleague, Mike Milius. He is also the water wastewater technical expert here today to help support this wonderful project. I'm here today to discuss the project history, project goals, project information, next step, and any questions. Next slide. Well, to start off with the project, the reason for this project is the original water main replacement project was for the Burlington cycle track project. As you guys may know that that project didn't go forward, but there was an important component of that project that was that was important to the North Kansas City and that was the water main replacement part of that project. The staff believes that this is a very intricate part of North Kansas City and it's failing. It's been here for over 100 years. It has multiple water main breaks which has disrupted traffic, service, and emergency responses. So they really feel that this is a very important project to improve and also create a bigger water supply for the residents of North Kansas City. Now in order to get this done they had to separate that from that own project and create its own significant project and that's why we're here today to discuss this. Now the reason also part of this project it is also identified in phase one of your master water plan that has been done by McClure Engineering so this is the major reason why we're here for you today because this is an important part of that project next slide So the water Replacement is going to happen along Burlington Street from 29th Street all the way to 10th Street This will improve the system reliability It'll improve system capacity capacity and also for a new development within the city this will also minimize the impact for or business interruptions. Whenever there's a main break, we have to stop traffic. Services might not be available for your businesses. So we need to make sure that we address everything that there is inside the water main.

Next slide.

As you can see here, the project is actually broken down into two phases. Phase 1, it starts at East 29th Street and goes to 26th Street and then reconnects at Armor Road all the way to 10th Street. The reason why it's broken up that way is the original part of the project was only set for this. The funding was for this portion. But the 29th Street to 26th Street is a vital portion that's always been breaking down and it needs to be addressed immediately. So that's why that portion was addressed. addressed within the base bid, and then broken out to Armor Road all the way to 10th Street. We then got word from staff that we wanted to create an alternate as part of the bid, so we wanted to see how that would work together along with this bid to kind of get more bang for your buck since the contract will already be there. And so we decided to do an alternate bid from 26th Street all the way to Armor Road, as you can see here on the map. Next slide. The next couple of slides, you will see the design aspects of what Olson has already put together. Currently, the base bid is at 90% design, so we are looking at those, making sure everything's correct. And as you can see here, there's some attributes to where we're actually gonna have to dig across Burlington Road, which is going to be, there's not gonna be any total lane closures, but there are gonna be parts of Burlington which will be cut off to traffic. Then, as you can see here, as you keep on going through the next slides, you'll see different areas where there's lines going across the street. Some of those lines that are not colored or phased out in gray, those lines are going to be bored underneath the road. So therefore, no traffic interruption for those types of installments.

Those are service lines.

So those are either service lines or fire support system lines that can support the businesses that need to have that service there. But the ones that actually have grayed out, those are ones that we actually have to dig up, open ditch, because either it has to be valves attached, fire hydrants, or it's a larger line that has to be addressed in that area. Next slide, please. And again, this is going along the different aspects of the project. It's kind of going down Burlington Street from 29th to 26th and from Armor Road all the way to 10th Street. On this picture, you can see it's a little bit more clearer image of what is kind of you expect during the construction phase or the design phase, the little light blue lines. As you can see, the ones that aren't grayed out, again, are going to be bored. The ones that are grayed are going to be open cut. So we won't open cut all the way across at one time. There will be different lanes that will be closed. So therefore, other traffic can go by. And then we'll close that lane. open that lane and then close another lane so the traffic will still be flowing through Burlington Street. During this improvement, we will connect to existing lines. We will abandon the old lines. That's very important because we don't want the old lines connected to new lines. We want to do new fire hydrants, which are going to match the specs of the fire department, of their request, and new service fire lines to those entities that need fire service lines. new pavement for new streets and for sidewalks. During this improvement, we will upgrade all the ADA requirements along Burlington Street that can be addressed. There are certain areas within the construction area that there is no way that we can address all the ADA compliant in that area. But to the best of our ability, we're going to try to address all the ADA requirements that we can to make it best for the community of North Kansas City. Next slide, please. So here's the big question. How much is it going to cost? So the construction costs for both A and B is $9.9 million. So that's just the base bid. As part of staff, it is hard to keep going from what their day-to-day business is and keep track of the daily construction costs. Is the contractor doing everything right? Is he submitting the right pay items? So they requested for a construction phase services, so there would be oversight during the installation. This cost is $990,000. That's our bid price that we've given to the city. And then there's $990,000 for contingencies. As you know, in any construction phase, there are going to be times where oops, we missed that, or hey, this little thing came up and we need to address that option. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes it doesn't. So we like to put that in there in case it does happen so we don't have to come back to you all the time and ask you for money. So we put that contingency plan in there. So the total cost for everything with the construction cost, construction oversight, and contingencies equals $11.8 million. Next slide. So what do we do next? So that's the big question. So currently we're finishing up like the 90% plans and the 60% plans for alternate bid number two. So we have to finalize those. We also want to do our due diligence in utility coordination. We've had some utility coordination meetings already, but we haven't done that for the alternate bid two. So we're going to re-meet with all the utility companies, make sure that we address everything. Again, there's going to be times where we might But into another utility, but again, it's about it's about communication making sure that we address everything Upfront and trying to get as much as information as we can before that We also have to get modot as you know Burlington Street is a modot highway So we do have to coordinate with modot with that We won't get a permit with modot until after we have a contractor in place But we do submit the plans to modot to make sure that they have a first sight on that to make sure everything is okay and just kind of look at and say yes no this is good this is bad have you guys thought of this and then finalization given the plans back to staff to make sure that they review and make sure everything's alright while they're looking at the final plans we will then coordinate with the citizens of North Kansas City as I've talked to staff if they felt it was very important to have an outreach program to make sure everybody understands what's happening through town as we do construction I'm sure as you guys saw through the SPIRE installation, there was a lot of heartaches that happened with that. I'm sure there was a lot of frustration with that. So in hindsight of that, I had to deal with that with my previous city that I was working at before. We had a lot of times with SPIRE not communicating with the staff. So I felt like this was a similar type of project and you guys wanted that communication outward. suggest that to staff staff thought that was a really good idea so we're going to meet out have a community open wide meeting explain what's going to happen kind of give you enough information that you guys can hand out to your citizens put on your website make sure everything's there also during that meeting if there's any individuals or businesses that have more concerns than normal then we can meet one-on-one with those individuals make sure that everything is being addressed prior to the construction final phase and design. So then we can make sure everything's addressed, make sure, hey, that fire line really isn't there, it's over here. So we can make sure that we address all those issues with the citizens and the businesses of your city. Then from that, then we go out for bid. We evaluate the bids, give them back to staff, they're approved, and then we also do a task order which does your construction oversight. Make sure you guys approve that, and then the construction begins along the side of the project. Next slide, please. Key items for construction that you might need to look at. There will be lane closures during this time. But again, you're getting new lanes, new ADA requirements throughout this process. There are going to be trees that are going to need to be reviewed, removed, because ODOT does not like trees. As you guys have seen throughout town, they've been removing a lot of trees through town. So generally if you have to remove a tree, we generally don't get them back. So we'll try to do our best with putting back landscaping and everything else, but trees are going to be very difficult to put back in place. And then the sidewalk removal and replacement going up to ADA. And then there's going to be minimal water outages. When I say minimal, that's going to be whenever we install it and then we have a service line that has to come in and then flip it over. It might be a couple of hours or so, unless we have a main break, obviously.

And we're going to have some other issues that have to deal with that.

But as far as the installation is concerned, we're going to be on the opposite side of the street of the old water line. We'll be out of that line, so we'll get the full new line installed first, make sure everything's tested, make sure all the back T tests are complete and passed, and then run a flush line, and then install the service lines, and then everybody's up and running during that time. Next slide, please. Any questions? Yes, sir. Hold on, hold on.

Huh? I'll call around. Council Member Xavier.

Yes. The only question I have at this point is the size of the Lions and the capacity for the future. It seems to me if we're going to be doing all of this, we need to, in fact, have the largest Lions possible for our future needs so we don't have to do this again in 20 years.

I agree with that, and that is a very good question and very good insight. That was my bad on not giving you that information. We are upsizing to a 16 and a 24-inch line. This adheres to your water master plan in trying to develop new business and trying to keep businesses here. So we are definitely increasing the line size from what it originally is.

Yeah, very much so. Currently, it's a 10-inch water main that's in Burlington. As Rob said, it's about 100 years old in some sections, so it's very past useful life. We have trouble sometimes getting water to the Paseo Industrial District. It's kind of weird to think about, but where our water plant is at Burlington and Armor, when we push water out, it's got to go all the way down, all the way around the city. So if there was any kind of silver lining with the cycle track conversation being as long as it was, We had a lot of time to study the whole system, develop models of the system through the water master plan, and this is what came out of that model. So McClure Engineering, when they did their work, identified that it should be a 24-inch main out of the plant. I think it's down to 16. And then going north and past that is a 16-inch. So this would be quite a substantial upsize from what it is today.

I'm concerned that whatever redevelopment may take place, In the future which we don't know what's really going to happen We have plenty of capacity at least in the line since we're replacing them if we have to go up higher I Don't know what the added cost would be but I think it would be fairly minimal compared to redoing the project

For what Burlington is now, you know, when they did the water model, they looked at the entire city for the whole water system. So making this a 24 and a 16 kind of lines us up for the future, branching off of that down 16th Avenue, branching off of that towards the reservoir. And this kind of gives us a nice step in phase one. to build off of as we develop more things in the future. So it was future planned, I guess, in a way to say that it was part of a bigger picture for those very reasons. That's good to hear.

If you remember, we had a presentation not that long ago where we looked at a different pipe sizing and they hit a button and it flipped to show water pressure further into the Paseo Industrial District in particular because they have fire suppression issues, have to get extra tanks and that kind of thing. This cures that.

A 24-inch tank is enormous.

Sorry, a pipe is enormous. It is. What other questions do we have? I understood that there was a point where the main crosses Burlington. Is that true? I didn't see it on the mock-up.

It was. So north of Armor, I think it's at 23rd maybe, it crosses over to the west side of Burlington currently. It goes up to 26th and then it cuts back over. So if you remember the cycle track project was in phases. And so a lot of what you're seeing here is all those phases that would have been the water main all at once moved over to the east side of the street, keeping it on the same side now, which is kind of determined to be a better constructability wise move. And also just for future use. I think it's a lot less crowded over there under the road for current utilities.

So we're just putting it down the east side now. It makes a lot more sense. Very good. The last piece is you mentioned the ADA ramp piece that we're going to do best efforts. Yes. Is that okay? Once something's been taken out, my understanding is it has to be fully up to code. Is it okay that we don't do the ADA ramps back how they are required?

Let me address some of that. In some areas, like say for instance, there's an electrical pad that's That's where the electrical hub is. And currently, there is no ADA ramp to that area. If we have to do that, we have to make enormous amount of ADA retributions to get that just to meet ADA compliance. So it's going to be very few and far between on those. I just wanted you guys to be aware of that. So if someone says, well, why wasn't this one was? It's because it was such an enormous cost just to get one little portion of the sidewalk already.

Obviously, you're the expert of this. I just want to be clear that we're not catching ourselves in a legal gray area where some of the, for example, residential codes require a lot of cost to upgrade a house, but you have to do it. I didn't know if that was a thing we might be stepping into with this.

One of the things I'll add is if you look at this map here, you'll see where the water line is. It's on the shoulder on the east side. It's kind of close to the sidewalk, so when you dig a trench for that, you're going to get into those sidewalks. That's the reason why a lot of the sidewalks and ramps then have to be replaced. As far as what you were saying about how far you have to upgrade, in North Kansas City, everything's very flat, so you don't have to chase ramps and percentages that far. So that kind of is on our side. The other thing is that MoDOT will be along the way. You can't work in MoDOTs right away without having a MoDOT inspector. So they will be there looking at that, making sure that goes back to their standards, and they'll be signing off on that as we go. Excellent. All right.

Seeing no further questions, thank you very much for the presentation. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time.

All right. Moving on to item 11.

Consideration of an ordinance adopting the source water protection plan, bill number 7989, ordinance number 9786.

I assume this is Anthony. Sorry. So council might remember, some might not because it was maybe some months ago, we brought the source water protection plan forward after completing the water master plan. It was kind of a component study of that project. This is looking at... the industrial uses around our water plant, around our water wells. So as opposed to looking at the water lines that we were just talking about, you're actually looking at the wells that go down 130 feet under the ground and pull up water from the aquifer to our water plant. North Kansas City is unique in a lot of ways, one of the being that we're surrounded by industrial use right up to our water treatment plant. So there's a lot of reasons to restrict certain development. I hate to say, you know, right now you could probably build a gas station right next to the water treatment plant, and that's not an ideal situation. So these, the rules that we hope to progress out of this source water plan revolve around certain land use restrictions, development code that would say, you know, you have to document with the city what you're doing, how you're going to mitigate those issues, you're going to store chemicals on your site, what are you going to have stored there, and how are you going to keep that from getting into the ground. So there's pretty expansive, extensive, I should say, policies that will come from this, which will be our next step. So this was then submitted to DNR. DNR approves this plan, endorses it, I should say. And then the next step was to bring it here tonight for approval.

All right. Thank you for all the work on this and all the folks who have had a hand in crafting this. I want to shout out Sarah shekels had a big piece of this as well. And all the the community stakeholders who have been in these meetings and agonized over category zero versus one versus all the different things to protect our drinking water, our source water. This is very critical infrastructure. Any questions from the council? That's okay.

Yes, so I absolutely agree with those points. Congratulations on getting to this point. I saw what it's been about a two-year process at this point, so that's fantastic. One question I had, I saw a note about groundwater monitoring and the talk about automated samplers for continuous sampling. So could you talk a little bit about that and maybe any potential plans for the department to implement such a sampling?

Sure. There's a lot of components of the source water plan that look at what kind of development in the future would be happening and what might be involved in that development. A lot of the land is zoned industrial around the plant right now. When you're talking about the whole life cycle of a project from construction to operation to regular building maintenance, this plan asks of the developer to address all of those components. That might be a component that they have to implement in the future is groundwater monitoring to make sure what they have, should it, heaven forbid, be spilled or something, doesn't leave their site. That's just one of the many tools, I guess, that could be in place for keeping track of what's going on.

Thank you.

Further questions? Do we have a motion for a first reading?

First reading.

second all in favor yes yes yes any opposed motion passes an ordinance of the city of north kansas city missouri approving and adopting the city source water protection plan for the city's public water supply system pws id number m01010580 directing implementation of the plan and the development of proposed code amendments in a future phase, providing for severability and establishing an effective...

I move that Bill No. 7989 be moved into second and final reading and pass as Ordinance No. 9786.

Call the roll.

Council Member Bailey. Yes. Council Member McGrone. Yes. Council Member Kane. Yes. Council Member Alvarez. Yes. Council Member Wells. Yes. Council Member Larson. Yes. Council Member Click. Yes. Council Member Saper.

Yes.

An ordinance of the City of North Kansas City, Missouri, approving and adopting the City's Source Water Protection Plan for the City's Public Water Supply System, PWS ID number MO1010580, directing implementation of the plan and the development of proposed code amendments in a future phase, providing for severability and establishing an effective date.

All right. Item 12.

Discussion on amending the sign code.

Okay, I will take this one. She was out not feeling very well, but she has done an excellent job, and she and her department have researched this quite well and put out a memo that is attached to the agenda. And I will go through this a little bit. They looked at the regional approach, how Kansas City, Missouri, Overland Park, and Independence handle their sign codes, noted a technical note, and this I'll read out loud, that roof-mounted signs can alter a city's profile, introduce major structural considerations, including wind and load challenges, For example, a 15 by 15 solid surface sign acts as a sale in near high wind conditions and we had high wind recently. dead load stress or structural framing and strict visibility view angle requirements and comes down to a staff recommendation and I will caveat this with I have been the one who said wouldn't it be cool if, and I gather that, yes, it would be cool, however. Staff recommends that we maintain our current sign regulations, amend iconic display standards to actually lower the size of that, I believe, lowering the current 1,000-foot threshold, introduce historic preservation exemptions, and provide infrastructure-based incentives. And as much as I would love to see our skyline explode with cool signs, I want to trust our staff and our experts, so I would propose that we adopt the staff recommendations. I'm open to discussions. Council Member Alvarez.

Yes, I would say I agree 100% with that. I feel like our staff has the codes for a reason, and I agree that we should follow their recommendations.

Further thoughts, questions, or comments?

Okay, so staff is looking for direction. This isn't a vote of any kind. This is just directing staff to bring us back something that will mirror what we have here. Easy enough? Got it, staff? Chu, you good? Thank you. All right. Feel better. That was easy. Moving on to item 13.

Consideration of an ordinance prohibiting camping on public property. Bill number 7988, ordinance number 9785.

OK. I'm going to take this one as well. So I'm pulling it up on my agenda real quick. OK. So what I would like to do is break this into sort of a double discussion. So the World Cup brings us to front of mind. This is something that does tend to come with World Cups. People, when accommodations get very expensive, will find alternate methods. And it is well documented that over various World Cups, camping has become a means to save money on accommodations. And I would like us to consider adopting the proposed ordinance for the duration of the World Cup. When is the last match of the World Cup in town?

July 11th. July 11th.

So that's our watch party. So I think if we propose a 60-day as written, that would be my first ask of the council. We'll come around to the discussion on that. The second piece is the reason this has come back up is because of the World Cup, because camping is an imminent thing that could happen in the next week or so. This is also something that we talked about in August of 2024. We kicked it over to the Equity and Inclusion Committee for their thoughts. That came back to us December of 2024, and so I went back and reviewed those meetings. It failed to get a motion after some public comments, some feedback from the Equity and Inclusion Committee, and so it did not pass as proposed. And the mayor at the time, Mayor DeLong, said, so the language as proposed is dead. This offers us a fresh start. About 17 months later, I think it's time to have a fresh discussion about this. So what we have is proposed language for where we could start. This is different than what was brought before, and Tom, thank you very much for sending a red line over. Some of the key changes that came in this version is a 24-hour warning period. The previous one just said if police find somebody camped out, they'll issue a verbal warning. If the people don't leave, they will be removed, and then it also puts stricter restrictions Rules around the belongings. Those would then be held by the police department for 30 days, barring some emergency stuff. If they were blocking an emergency area, then it would be a different situation. There would not be the 24-hour piece. And then they could reclaim their possessions at the police department within that 30-day period. And there was another one. I believe it ties back to a penalty, but we'll get to that in a second. And so the other thing, the reason this is coming up, is the police chief, our chief safety officer, has repeatedly asked about this. This is something that he believes that the police department needs as a part of their toolkit to address this issue before it becomes more widespread. Gladstone and Wyandotte County have also passed similar ordinances to prohibit camping on public spaces. And I've also spoken to businesses and various residents who are kind of surprised that this isn't already a rule. that it is still not illegal to camp on a sidewalk in North Kansas City. The pieces that come to mind are protecting critical infrastructure. So right now, the levee district controls the levee area. If somebody is there and camping, the levee district can call in a trespass to our police department, who then goes and looks into it. And I'll let you get into how that exactly works in a minute. There's also homelessness. So if homeless people are camped out in and around town, this gives... Opportunity for the police to interact, to offer other services, and then to say, you need to move along. And then there's the opportunity for protests. So right now, if some issue came up that was really, really heated, and there was an Occupy-style protest, nothing would prohibit people from camping directly on our lawn here, directly out in front of City Hall. So there's a lot to this. But I do want to kick it over to Chief Freeman for his thoughts on this and how it pertains to the police department.

thank you sir um wasn't necessarily prepared for full comment tonight um obviously this was something that we were passionate about in 2024 and brought it to the governing body then trying to trying to address a problem a potential problem and that's what we try to do we try to force foresee things what could be potentially be problems for north kansas city and things that are actively going on at the time. This hasn't really gotten better. In the 18 months, it's probably gotten worse. We have several instances that I'm aware of, of people using public facilities, public right-of-ways to lay down, sleep, throw sleeping bags over the top of them for multiple days. And so all of your points are very valid points. We lack that ability for enforcement on city property. And that's really where the gap is here in North Kansas City. Business owners have the right to refuse anybody on their property, no problem whatsoever. As you know, from every month, the top call for service in North Kansas City is trespassing calls. There's a correlation. Direct correlation, we have some evidence of that. but not probably full correlation. So, yes, it's a problem. It is something that we spend an inordinate amount of time on that we could be doing other things, honestly, if we had strong rules in place and we communicate those rules and we enforce those rules.

Thank you. Okay, so I would like to have a discussion first on the first proposal to pass this as proposed for a 60-day time period for the World Cup specifically. Thoughts from the council? Council Member Saper.

Why 60 days instead of 30?

It'll be more than 30 days.

Well, we could have an effective date. Effective.

Yeah, we can pick an effective date.

And do it for 30 days. 60 covers at least that.

But yes, we could do 45 or whatever the count is.

Yeah, 60 seems excessive.

Yeah, we could tie it to the, I don't know what day of the week is the 11th.

So the only thing that I would say is that the games actually end on July 19th, depending on if one of our four base camps. Right. makes it all the way, we would expect to have a presence of fans all the way until July 19th.

Do we want to make an effect? Go ahead. I would also add to that, there is a team already on the ground here in Kansas City, and it is the fan base that we're the most concerned about. Correct. And those fans are starting to arrive today, yesterday, Sunday.

Yes. Okay, so sunset date, July 20th. day after the last match, tying it directly to the World Cup. Further thoughts or questions on that? House Member Alvarez.

Yes, I would like to ask Chief Freeman if you have or see any potential harm with allowing the participants or the fans coming in for camping or setting up camping. What do you think that might entail if we do that?

I mean, the only thing I could speak to on that is, like, we've attended hundreds of hours of meetings leading up to FIFA, and we're not really even directly affected by it other than the park and ride. But as a greater community, regional response, security, police, fire, everything, the intelligence that we're being told is that many of these people, like the mayor said, will come with no plans. They will come with every dollar they have in their pockets just to see their team play in this event. It's a big deal to the world. And so they'll come with no plan, and then they do tend to do this. This is historical evidence to show it has been done in other World Cup sites and locations. We don't know that's going to happen. Like, we don't know that there's 5,000 people that are going to show up to watch a watch party that we spent a lot of money on a TV for. We don't know. But we want to make sure that we're planning for it, like you have done so well with other aspects of this process. Did that answer your question?

You were asking about the negative aspects of it, I mean, sanitation-wise.

Yes, like do we have – that's okay. Do we have things like if we were to allow them to set up camping or tents or whatever – Have we planned for that? I mean, like what, I guess, what provisions have we provided if they want to do that?

No. Short answer, no. No. No, we haven't stood up any sanitation facilities, any shower facilities. We haven't stood up anything like that for laundry or anything for those to accommodate for if this were to happen.

So if we did allow it, it could be a potential, like, sanitation safety hazard? I believe so. It could be. Yes, absolutely. If they come. That's a lot of unknowns we don't know. But if we were to allow it, then we could have issues from that that we haven't necessarily prepared for.

Yes. Yes. And to be fair to the citizens and people that work here, 365 days a year, it's not fair to them to have to deal with that. And so that's just my opinion.

Further thoughts or questions on this part? Council Member Kane.

Yes. So thank you, Chief Freeman, by the way, too, for answering some of these questions in advance. But I wanted to also just check in, too. So what we're voting on, right, is particularly just to amend what exists in this proposed ordinance. um have it sunset july 20th um everything else would remain unchanged for the time being um then would council vote to make it permanent after july 20th yeah so the the idea is to approve it through july 20th and then second part of this item right now is to have a discussion about where we would like to see it go if at all gotcha okay Thank you. And also, I did want to ask one additional question, too. You mentioned Gladstone also has a similar camping ordinance. I know Wyandotte County also does. There's some differences between the language in those ordinances and the language here. For campsites, written notice is 24 hours. In this ordinance, I believe Wyandotte County is at 48. I don't know what Gladstone's language is. is set at, if anyone else knows?

There's this much less specific. There's this permit-based rather than eliminating. Go ahead.

To be candid with you, the 24 hours, I figure, based upon the Grant Falls case from the Supreme Court, I figure there needs to be a time period, but that was just me giving it at least 24 hours. 48, 72 hours, I mean, you know, whatever you folks think. There's nothing magical about 24 hours. I just want everyone to know that. That came from right up here.

Gladstone does not get into the specifics.

Gotcha. Okay. Um, and of course as, as council too. So, uh, we, we could, uh, lower the fine or lower the maximum fine. Um, uh, because I believe Wyandotte County sets their fine at $200. Um, our code is more vague. It's up to $500. Um, so I would be interested in exploring council's positions on, on that, making those two amendments, uh, 48 hours notice, uh, And lowering the fine to a max of, say, $200.

Would you want to make the amendments to the piece that we would approve to sunset July 20th?

Yes.

Okay. That sounds fair to me. I see the penalty piece as more of a, again, up to doing the heavy lifting there. I don't see us collecting money at all on this for the most part. It's more about the fact that it's out there, and up to 200, up to 500 makes, again, very little difference personally.

Go ahead. That's what we can legally allow as a third-class city. That's what the state law allows, and if you look at the very front of our code, that's what we've adopted, and that's why it gives a judge discretion, but he can't go over you know, a given amount of money and a given amount of time in jail, that's the amount, all he can do. That's all the jurisdiction of our municipal court would have. And that's where that came from. This is not a, that part of it is not unusual, okay, because that's what we can go up to.

Is it, can we make those amendments on an ordinance by ordinance basis? Like, can we cap the penalty for a specific ordinance or is that beyond the pale?

So it really depends because there is the Missouri Supreme Court defines fees for certain actions across the state. So it does not give a local municipality the ability to kind of one city charges this and the other city charges that. To be honest, I did not check the uniform fee schedule to see if the Missouri Supreme Court has defined this particular one.

So it's just based on our ordinance. It always refers back to the same section of up to 500, and I think it's three months or something like that in jail. And it gives the prosecutor bandwidth on what to charge with or what to ask for, and the judge what to assign. Okay. Okay.

Can I ask, so Chief Freeman, what is a typical citation, you know, say in cases like this? Obviously it would be other, you know, municipalities, but just kind of based on your understanding, you know, what would you say would be typical?

I don't know that I understand your question, but I do want to reiterate that, like, our goal is compliance first, enforcement second. If we want to say this is not acceptable, need to move on, this is for the people that decide to thumb their nose at our request and decide to stay. So the enforcement, I don't anticipate, honestly, a lot of enforcement at all. I do think that most of the time, as with all of our trespassing complaints, when the police show up, people could ask people to leave all they want. When the police show up, they realize the game is over. It's time for me to move on. So I don't anticipate a lot of enforcement, but I don't maybe, did that answer your question? Or could you maybe rephrase it? Because maybe I didn't understand it.

I think you were asking the actual monetary cost. Yes. That's not the police side of it. That's the court side of it.

That's why that maximum is set there. Then the judge can impose a fine. up to that. That is not on the police department whatsoever. Sure. Sure.

Absolutely. I appreciate it.

All right. Further thoughts?

I'm so sorry. This is a very off topic. I have to go to a family emergency.

Please go ahead.

So I would love to be a part of this conversation, but I'm so sorry.

Go ahead.

I trust you all.

Yep. Council Member Saber.

The question may not be that important, but How would you go about storing this stuff securely for any period of time, whether it be 24 or 48 hours or whatever?

Or 30 days, rather.

Right.

It would be a challenge. We have done a really good job this year getting our property room cleaned out, and we've done a really good job of setting some new standards in place. We have some struggles sometimes with prisoner property that we have to keep here because whatever facility we're transferring them to can't take everything that we intake, so we keep it here already. So we have that capacity. We have two big secure garages that we can load up. So we do have capacity. It would just be a little bit of an adjustment if we start to overload a little bit. I'm thinking of things like tents, things like that. Yeah, well, I was a Boy Scout. I know how to roll up a tent. Okay, you would have room for that.

Yes, sir. Okay.

Further thoughts, questions? House Member Larson.

I'd just like to say that I value Chief Freeman's advice, and I want to give him the tools that he needs in his arsenal, pun intended, to enforce this. So I support this for the duration of the World Cup.

Okay.

Do we want to do a – Tom, go ahead, Mike. Actually, we were talking. Our second meeting in July is July 21st. Uh-huh. We would recommend through the 21st. Should you then want to go further, there's not a lapse in it. If you're talking about the 19th, it's two days further.

Is 21st acceptable? Okay. Make it the 21st. I would like to at least have another discussion about this at the first meeting in July about if we're seeing anything and if we are ready to make some decisions on the future of this sort of an ordinance. Yeah, go ahead.

I just want to second that entirely. I understand this is a concern for the World Cup and visitors that could come here, and I don't want people camping in Mackin Park or in Dag Park or any of those places. But I do think that talking about extending this past that is going to be a real thoughtful discussion. Not that this isn't, but I think that it would be a little bit deeper and a little bit more data-driven, I would hope. That's something that I would like to ask is, From the time that we I assume we're gonna approve this for till the 21st, but from now until then Really if you could help us gather any data that impacts this particular ordinance and supports or or doesn't support Continuing it on into the future If we have, if we see things come up, I'd like to know about that at the meeting on the 21st as it pertains to the ordinance itself. Because I do understand that there are people out there that are kind of unofficial residents of North Kansas City that do sleep in places around town that aren't necessarily sanctioned for sleeping. But I'd like to know the impact of what this ordinance does between now and then.

and uh i would like to have the the initial discussion first meeting in july if we have an ordinance that gets crafted coming out of that then we bring it back for final workshopping and approval on the 21st and i appreciate that it is nuanced conversations extremely deep and complicated issue we are not going to solve homelessness in the next month and a half but there are a lot of things that we can look into resources we can get a data on the street sheet The trouble is sort of proving a negative. Right now it's not a huge issue. We don't have, you look around, there's not encampments. So it's hard to say that if we pass this, it will never happen. It's hard to say that if we don't pass it, it will happen. So data may be tough to provide, but we'll see. There you go. You got your homework. Bring the charts and graphs. You're very good at that. Okay, further thoughts? Council Member Alvarez.

I agree with Councilman Larson. I think we need to give our police department the tools that they need to enforce this, so I completely support it. As far as I don't think it, when you observe that you don't think it's maybe a necessary or a real problem in our city, I think there's a lot of it that we don't see. Like during the day, I think our police department does a good job of trying to keep it safe for us. I think it's a bigger problem than I think most people realize because they don't deal with it on a day-to-day basis, so you don't see what's going on. It's kind of behind the scenes. I think our police department keeps us protected from a lot of the bad things that happen. I can remember when I was at the police department, there was a person that was camping up on public property and was a frequent flyer. They knew he was, but anyway, he was allowed to stay there. I don't know if Chief Freeman can maybe give us more of the details, but I believe he did try to shoot one of our officers because this is a big problem. He actually did shoot one, and if you... I can't describe the feeling that you have when you're like a dispatcher and you hear over the radio, so-and-so officer was just shot in the head. It's... It takes you to another zone. Your stomach drops. And it was from a person that was living in a tent just north of some apartments in our city. And I don't remember when that occurred. If I can ask you, Freeman, more details on that.

I don't recall the year either. I do recall it being a very cold day. And you're right. I mean, you just talking about it today, that pit has redeveloped in my stomach hearing that going out over the radio. But, yeah, you described it well. It was a person known to us that was known to our officers, known to have been camping in a tent just north of the apartment complex and committed a crime. So we went to go get him for his crime. That's what we do. And when the officers approached, he shot one of our officers. Luckily, it was a flare gun. Not a real gun, but it did hit him in the face, caused substantial injury to his eye. He was able to get back to work, but I do believe that it was a strong factor in him retiring way earlier than he wanted to. Again, to your point, this is something that, unfortunately, we are dealing with on a daily basis. And I say we because I'm not out on the streets anymore. Our officers are dealing with it on a daily basis. Just most recently, an officer was responding to assist two more officers that were actively fighting somebody down on the levee. She fell. She hurt her wrist. She was out for eight months. That is a resource. We were out for eight months while she was trying to rehab from that response. So everybody has empathy for some people's fights in life, and we're not trying to minimize that, but we also believe there's another side of this issue that is a real problem.

Just in case anybody, I just want to clarify, those particular issues, would those have been avoided with this ordinance? Would this ordinance have impacted what happened in those incidents?

One and one, probably. The first one up on the hill was technically on private property. The other one was on the levy. So very much so, yes, the levy one would have been something that we could have mitigated long before that this wouldn't have happened. We would have mitigated it before anything would have happened.

And I do think it takes up a lot of the time when we respond to those calls because I think they're more frequent than we might realize just because I think we don't see it on a daily basis. So do you have any Like, Councilman McGraw had asked, do you have any data on, like, how many calls for service involved, like, over this last year, or?

Yeah, yes, we do. I mean, and it is not, I would say this is not 100% accurate. We have been trying to track this over the last 18 months-ish to see truly if this is a problem. And this is more or less, these are data points that are self-reported by the officers of people that are known to them to be homeless. I prefer to determine in this situation as transient or semi-transient, people that don't necessarily call a bed in North Kansas City home. But yeah, over the last 18 months, we estimate 625 people bona fide calls for service regarding somebody in that capacity, whether it be trespassings, check the welfares, suspicious activity, and then other litany of crimes that are being committed along with that. So it's 134 so far this year and 492 all last calendar year. And I don't think we started really tracking it consistently until March of last year. But, yeah, I mean, it's something, again, it's a bona fide issue of a time crunch on our officers. Not expecting it to go away. It's not going to go to zero. But if we could make a dent in it, these officers could be doing other things productive to North Kansas City.

Thank you for that information. And I would say that... It's a trend and it's a problem throughout, not just this city or this state, but all over the country. If there was an easy solution, I think we'd try to find it and work our hardest to do it. But in the meantime, it seems to continue if you don't get a handle on it or don't allow your police department to do their due diligence and do their job that we expect them to do. But on the flip side, I would also ask you to to support this so that you also help protect our officers that have to face these people on a daily basis. So I ask you that, you know, the work they do, it's important. I appreciate the service that they provide. But also let's try to help protect them from the confrontations that they have and the contact that they have because it can only grow, I think, if you don't give the police department the tools they need.

Council Member Wells.

Yeah, Chief Freeman, I'm curious with the ordinances that you currently have at your disposal, let's say one of your officers were to encounter someone camping in a city park, what kind of procedures would they go through? What would that encounter be like? Let's say if it was the best-case scenario, and then conversely, what happens when things don't go according to plan and it's the worst-case scenario?

I would say best case scenario, compliance. And we say this is against the law. You can't do this. And they leave. They pack up and leave. That's the best case scenario. And just specific to your example, like there is some ordinance in place already that protects the parks. People just can't do this in parks right now anyway. This is for those other instances where we saw that there's a gap. Worst case scenario is they say, can't do anything to me. This is my home. I've set up my tent here. I'm a resident. I'm speaking a little facetiously, but we would force removal and force removal through arrest and then post and then recover and everything that the ordinance applies allows for.

I've heard you mention street sheets and so what does that look like? I'm assuming in a best case scenario there's going to be some referral to services or outside agencies can help. And so how does that work right now?

Yeah, absolutely. All of our officers are equipped with the most recent version of what is called the street sheet, which is a referral sheet of services and social service shelters and social services that are available potentially for different people. You have to be willing to want to take them.

Okay.

I'm very confident that, Anybody walked into our lobby today and said, I'm down on my luck. I've lost my apartment. I don't know what to do next. They would take every effort possible to walk them through those steps of referrals to shelters and social services. And I personally witnessed our officers buy food for people. It just happens all the time. Our officers are very compassionate people. So I believe that would happen every time. The caveat is you have to have the person on the other end willing to accept those services. And many times we run into people on the streets that say, hey, we have a shelter bed available for you. We would like you to take it instead of sleeping on this person's property. They don't want it most of the time. They've either been there, done that, or don't like the particular option that we've provided to them. So that is a challenge also for us. But yes, our officers... Work very hard. They're all very compassionate people to make sure that we can provide the best referrals when they're available. Thank you.

Further thoughts or questions? Okay, so as Chief Freeman mentioned, it's already not okay to camp in the parks. There's already an ordinance prohibiting that. This fills the gaps, and we're asking to pass. Did we land on the time frame, 24 or 48?

I would move to amend it to 48 hours, if possible.

Go ahead. You got that?

Yeah, we have that. I kind of assumed that. So your motion to amend would be the ordinance as presented with Section 9.23.040 providing for 48 hours instead of the 24, and then also amending... Where we usually put that would be in the effective, which was the very last section right above the signatures, effective date, and it would have a sunset clause of 1159 p.m. on July the 21st, 2026.

Unless our meeting goes longer, which it has.

Well, it... Yep.

Does that... Is that what you were looking for with those?

Yes, correct.

Okay. Does the rest of the council thumbs up? Okay. So is that a motion, an official motion?

Yes. Yes.

Amend and approve?

Right, because you're going to make a motion to amend, and then you will vote ultimately on the ordinance as amended. Okay?

Chief Freeman has one more.

I just have a question, Mr. Kane. Just from my perspective to your suggestion, this... What is the value in 48 over 24?

I just think it comes more into alignment with what I saw that was existing in other ordinances. In Wyandotte County? Yeah, in Wyandotte County, correct.

And what is your thought on 24 over 48?

I don't see a value. I think we can get done what we need to get done to make the proper referrals within 24 hours without prolonging a potential nuisance. Okay.

thoughts from the council do we want to i mean can we do a hands up hands down vote on 24 48 okay all right um we have 48 we have 24. um who favors 20 go ahead sure um in in the staffing that the police department has if if you

either one is fine. However, I would like to make the point that in the staffing that you have with the police department, they work 12 hour shifts. So hopefully like when you find someone that is not complying to the ordinance. If you do the 48 hours, sometimes it potentially puts it out for a completely different shift or different personnel to then kind of start over maybe with that person rather than the one who initiated the contact would be able to follow through with giving the direction of, OK, we need to move. move out of the area rather than postponing it an additional day where you have a completely different staff or officer that's now on duty that is going to have to get the information from the first one and so forth and then go on to get them to move on. But that's just a thought.

Okay. And through the lens of World Cup, this is more tailored toward... avoiding people camping during World Cup so 24 hours during that period feels to me more useful for what we would be targeting during this period so that would be my thought on it all right do we want to go ahead

I just wanted to point out that if the goal is compliance, giving somebody more time to comply essentially is a reason to do a 48-hour over a 24-hour clear out. You go up to somebody and you say, I'm going to give you this period of time, that is one potential outcome. I'm not saying it's the best reason to do that, but it is an outcome. I think that I don't see a concern with shift turnover because 24 hours they're going to have to turn over shift two. But I do see a benefit of having it be 24 hours over 48 hours in that because it's a World Cup situation. When we talk about this in a broader scale, I think we can have a more nuanced discussion about the timing of that. But literally, if somebody from Argentina rolls up and pitches a tent, it'd be nice if they get out of there within 24 hours. So I support having the discussion further, but for this particular ordinance, I would be inclined to do a 24 hours as opposed to 48.

Okay.

Do we have further comments or do we want to vote it? Okay. Who favors 24 hours? One, two, three, four, five, six. Is that a hand or is that a lean? Okay, six and a half. Who favors 48? Okay, we'll leave that as is. Thank you all for that thoughtful discussion. So we have, do we need, okay, we need to make a clean motion, I imagine. Or are we just motioning for a first reading with the sunset clause? How does this need to be done on an ordinance amending?

Why don't we withdraw the other motion, and this time it's just to amend this ordinance as to the effective, the sunshine date, so that this ordinance will end at 1159 on July the 21st of this year.

So I withdraw my motion.

And make that motion.

And make, yeah, and move to first reading.

Okay. Okay, so that's the motion. All in favor? Of the motion to amend. Correct. Of the motion to amend. All in favor? Yes. Any opposed? Oh, yeah, we didn't get that.

Oh, second. I second. There's the second. You just didn't hear me, sorry. That's okay.

Now we've done the all in favor. Any opposed? That motion passes. So it is amended. Now we can read it for the first time. Do we have that motion?

I move that...

It's just first reading.

Oh, yes. I move that bill number be placed under first reading. That was the verbiage I received.

There you go. Perfect. Do we have a second?

Second.

All in favor? Yes. Any opposed? Motion passes.

An ordinance amending Title IX, Public Peace, Morals, and Welfare of the Code of the City of North Kansas City, Missouri, by adopting a new Chapter 9.23, prohibited camping and sleeping on public property, relating to camping and sleeping on public property in the City of North Kansas City, Missouri, and providing for certain penalties. Okay, that's it.

I move that bill number 7988 be placed under second and final reading and approved as ordinance number 9785. Second. As amended.

Second.

Call the roll.

Councilmember Bailey.

Yes.

Councilmember McGrath. Yes. Councilmember King.

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez. Yes. Councilmember Wells. Yes. Councilmember Larson. Yes. Councilmember Stapler.

Yes.

An ordinance amending Title IX, Public Peace, Morals, and Welfare of the Code of the City of North Kansas City, Missouri, by adopting a new chapter 9.23, prohibited camping and sleeping on public property, relating to camping and sleeping on public property in the City of North Kansas City, Missouri, and providing for certain penalties.

Thank you all for that very thoughtful discussion, and I hope to continue this at the first meeting in July, so please do your own independent research on the topic. find options for services that exist, and talk to your neighbors. Talk to people inside and outside of your circle. Find out how they feel about it. Speak with our police officers. And come prepared for a spirited discussion at the first meeting in July. Excellent. Moving on to item 14.

Consideration of an ordinance approving a temporary license agreement for a parking lot located at 1815 Burlington. Bill number 7991, ordinance number 9787.

All right. So we have an ordinance in front of us. This is for the parking lot that is formerly known as the back parking lot across from F325 next to Chicken and Pickle and Center Block along Burlington. This is an opportunity for the city to lease that lot for $2,000 per 30 days, $2,000 a month or $4,000 total for the next 60 days to provide parking in that area. We were approached by the new owners of that parking lot. This is, in my view, a very good rate. We also leased the lot across from Paul and Jack. So if anyone's pulled other agreements, we pay $500 a month for that one, but we also paid to install the gates. And so there's an amortization of those gate pricing into that lease. That was also the lease amount we paid under NT Realty that was continued. So before us is this option. Any thoughts or questions? Go ahead.

Do we know how many parking spaces the city has right now available, and how many more would this add?

This would add, I believe, the number 64.

So what percentage does that add? How many does the city currently have?

We're at the depth of a parking study right now. Okay.

Yeah, because if it's like we have 600 and this is going to add 60 more, I don't know if it's worth $4,000. Sure. I also was curious, did they approach the city and say, hey, we would like you to pay us $4,000 to open up this parking lot for two months? Or do we know if they're thinking about opening it up for public use as a parking lot since it exists? Or are they going to come to us every time we have an event and ask us to lease that lot?

Sure. So this lot was purchased for a great deal of money. We were asked by numerous businesses and residents to buy this lot because we Well, not disparage the prior owner, but the practices in that lot were a little tricky. And so we were asked by a number of businesses as a city to buy that lot. We did not. They did. And they paid a lot of money for it. And so as an ROI perspective, just to make any money on this currently, this would be a very, very, very low, below market ROI for what was paid. They approached us to ask, do we want to do this because it would add capacity in an area that has parking struggles already? Many of those businesses will tell you. And so I do see the value in it and the pricing based on, I think this works out somewhere under a 3% ROI for that, or ROI for their investment.

I still need to know the number of parking spaces that we currently have available.

Go ahead.

To everybody who doesn't love my binders, look at this. 544.

So 15%, 12% increase?

That is the number of parking spaces that we lease and or own. Some of the shared is on that 16th and Clay. So the ones that we own is 119, and then store safe allows us to utilize their 156. That's not included in the 544. Okay.

Council Member Wells.

Yeah, like Council Member McGowan, I'm curious about the approach to language that I'm reading here. And I'm wondering, you know, was there an identified shortage of parking? Like, were we worried about this as a city before we were approached?

No. I mean, we're curious with the event and FIFO. where parking is going to be with the park and ride and our current space, we haven't heard. I mean, there's the normal. We can't park in front of our business or the business, but no.

Okay. Thank you. Council Member Saber. I generally have a problem with the return on investment as a criteria simply because the public and the city shouldn't be in the business of bailing out entities that make bad judgments on their investments. And to say that is a criteria for how much we should pay them is way out of bounds.

I'm speaking more to a market rate of what it could cost and what a typical person who owned that lot would charge would be much higher than this typically. Now, we do lease other lots. We have a lot behind Screen Line Armor that we pay. We have a lot across from Paul and Jack's that we pay for. So it's not out of bounds to do this.

But the price is compared to some of the others.

And I disagree.

Okay. We can agree to disagree. Perfect.

Perfect. Council Member Alvarez.

I think we continue to have and always have had parking issues in the city. And I think there's never enough parking spaces. So I think if it's going to be hosted and people coming through here, I think it would cause less stress on everyone else, regular businesses, during their usual time when they're having parking issues, I guess. to provide that so that it doesn't carry over to the other businesses that are already having parking issues. Like you said, that piece of property was worth quite a bit of money. So I think the amount that they're asking is reasonable for that time.

Sure. Council Member Larson.

Do we know what they're going to charge if they didn't lease it to us, what they would charge to park there?

I don't think they've worked that out. They bought it very, very recently. And part of the discussion, in addition, for short term, this will be 60 days for World Cup. Again, a lot of things are being done in influx and in discussion because of World Cup. A longer term solution that has been proposed is forming a community improvement district that could support that parking lot long term, paid in by sales tax to those businesses. And there's interest among business owners in the district and across downtown. to form some kind of CID, but that's a much larger future discussion. And so I could see this being sort of a bridge to that.

I would like to say I think this parking lot will be used. It's optimally located. And I think that there are people who would be willing to pay to park there. And I'm kind of leaning towards just let it be private and people can pay to park.

We've had the pay to park system before, and it was very difficult, almost, I don't want to use the inflammatory term. When parking is paid, it has to be enforced. And when it is enforced, people get upset. And that has been a major, major pain point in that area over the last probably five or six years. Further thoughts or questions? Okay. Do we have a motion on this ordinance for a first reading?

First reading.

Second. All in favor?

Yes.

Any opposed?

No.

Motion passes.

An ordinance adopting and approving a non-exclusive temporary license agreement by and between the City of North Kansas City, Missouri as licensee and Garden Level Holdings LLC as licensor for the temporary use of a certain parking lot owned by licensor. And before whoever's going to say the other one, it's actually ordinance number 9788. I have it wrong on the agenda, but right on the ordinance.

I move that bill number 7991 be placed under second and final reading and adopted as ordinance number 9788. Do we have a second?

Call the roll.

Councilmember Bailey?

Yes.

Councilmember McGrone? No. Councilmember Cain? Yes. Councilmember Alvarez? Yes. Councilmember Wells?

No.

Councilmember Larson? No. Councilmember Saper?

No.

It doesn't pass.

All right. Motion fails. Moving on to item 15.

Consideration of an ordinance approving accounts due and payable by the city through May 29, 2026. Bill number 7990. Ordinance number 9787. Do we have a motion?

Move to approve.

Second. We got to do a first reading.

First reading.

Second.

All in favor? Yes. Any opposed? Motion passes.

An ordinance approving payment for certain accounts due and payable by the city through May 29th, 2026.

I move that bill number 7990 be placed under second and final reading and approved as ordinance number 7987.

Try that last ordinance one more time.

Dang it. Number 7987. One more time. 9787. Second. Call the roll.

Council Member Bailey. Yes. Council Member McGrone. Yes. Council Member Cain. Yes. Council Member Alvarez. Yes. Council Member Wells. Yes. Council Member Larson. Yes. Council Member Sapra.

Yes.

And ordinance authorizing payment for certain accounts due and payable by the city through May 29, 2026.

Staff comments.

All right. As you can see in the packet, not a whole lot. I want to thank you for... Taking the hour and a half tonight with the Planning Commission, it's an important process. Also want to let you know that we continue to work with Meredith Houck with EverStrive on the strategic plan. We hope to get that back to you soon with her. There are no questions. Kim has a couple comments to add in.

Good evening, Council. Just everybody knows that the games begin on July 11th. Also on July 11th is the Streetcar Authority North Rail Open Hot Wheels.

Both of those are June.

I knew I was going to do that. Here's the challenge.

Strike it. Start again.

June. June. Next week, if you can believe it. June 11th, the games begin. And on June 11th, which is a Thursday... from 4 to 6 p.m. at Cinder Block is going to be the North Rail meeting, the one that is in North Kansas City. There is another one the week after that is in Kansas City, Missouri, because the North Rail Study Center is off of both North Kansas City to Kansas City, so they have to do an open house in both jurisdictions. I just want to let you know that the Citizens Academy will be graduating in July 16th. So I know that that is a little ways off, but just so you guys know that that is coming to a meeting near you on June, or is it, God, I am all over with June and July. It is, no, is it June 16th? It's the 16th.

Good Lord.

No, it's June 16th. June 16th. June 16th is your next meeting. And that is when the Citizens Academy will be coming. They actually are going to be visiting the water treatment plant this Thursday. And then they will visit the hospital and then they will come and graduate. And then June 18th, that date is right, is the ribbon cutting for River Forest Parks. We hope to see everybody there. And I'm going to stop messing up the months in between the two right now and hand it off to whoever else.

Words are hard. Further staff comments? Anthony, anything? All right. Anybody? Perfect. Councilmember comments, starting with Councilmember Bailey. No comments for this one. Councilmember McGrone.

I just want to thank everybody who came out and spoke today and also I think sometimes it's hard to talk about some of these issues because everybody has their own opinions and everybody has their own feelings and our whole community has different ways that they approach these things and I know that we're all really thoughtful and we're trying very hard to take in all of the information that we can and process it so that we can keep our community and our town as vibrant and safe and progressive and positive as possible. None of us are holding tight to firmly held beliefs without having an open mind. And I think that's a really great thing that we have right now. And I just want to encourage everybody who's watching and paying attention to give us some grace and to please let us know what your thoughts are so that we can incorporate those into our opinions.

Amen. Council Member Cain.

Yes, thank you. So first off, I want to point out this is what a street sheet is. So I know it's been referenced previously in this meeting. So if you go to a public library, you'll generally find a copy of these. Generally, English and Spanish is available at the Kansas City Public Library. So I encourage folks to keep one of these in your backpack, keep one in your car, keep one available because you never know when you need it. I also want to say happy Pride Month. And those are all my comments tonight.

Council Member Alvarez.

I want to thank Jack Cooley, who came out in Ward 3 and expressed his opinion on the ordinance for the campsites. I also want to say I think there was a great turnout at Mackin Park recently for the picnic that we had. A lot of people showed up. Nice to see. And also for Councilman Cain, he put really good information, I think, on the internet about the new fairs, the KCATA, how that's going to evolve and how that's going to work as far as getting your past versus the way it has been. So good information on that. And I think that's it. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. Sorry. I had one more thing. To the street department, excellent job again of picking up. We had the winds came through. I don't know. It woke me up in the middle of the night. I thought it was a tornado. I thought my house was going to take off. It didn't. So I'm glad. But great job of, again, picking up the limbs and the trees in the street. Thank you.

Council Member Wells.

Yeah, I just want to echo what Linda was just saying. I mean, the storm response has been just incredible to witness this.

You know, it woke me up.

The wind woke me up at 1.30 in the morning, and I spoke to Anthony earlier today, and he mentioned that he was up driving around my neighborhood by 3 a.m. So hats off to everyone involved with that, all of our emergency services people that helped out. I mean, and just, you know, Not long after, you can see, on the way here tonight, I saw people still picking up tree debris and things like that. So it's incredible the amount of work that has gone into that. And then also, the North Town Supper event at Mackin Park was amazing. You couldn't have asked for better weather. And it was just a great event, a chance to meet your neighbors and talk to people that you don't talk to on a routine basis. So thanks to Mayor Jesse and everyone else who participated Pitched in on that NKC Health for the food and everyone else that was there helping to put that together.

Looking forward to the North Rail meetups.

Very exciting stuff. I'm really curious to learn what that means for the future of North Town. So anxiously looking forward to that.

And then lastly, I just want to encourage everyone.

We talked about a really difficult and challenging ordinance here tonight and the camping ordinance. And so I just want to encourage everyone to reach out and share your thoughts because it definitely, this is an issue that, you know, I work in a public library and a lot of people know that those spaces have kind of become de facto day shelters for a lot of people. So this is an issue that I think about on a daily basis. But I want to hear what the residents and other stakeholders here in North Town think about it.

So please help us out with that. Thank you.

Council Member Larson.

Yeah, just a few notes. The Dag Park splash pad is temporarily closed because of a downed emergency phone line from the storm. which is required for our permit by the health department. We don't know yet when that's going to reopen, but unfortunately the Splash Park is not operating right now. Arts in the Park is June 12th and 13th. Again, we're celebrating 10 years of that, so everybody come on down. And then the ribbon cutting for River Forest Park, as Kim already said, is June 18th at 4 p.m. I have to see... June 18th at 4 p.m. Is that what I said? Oh my gosh. We've been, just so everybody knows, we've been here for a long time and words are hard.

Words are hard.

Council Member Saper. Again, I can't say enough for not only the public works but the entire city staff and their response to what was a real disaster for many people in many ways. Fortunately, no lives were lost. I don't know of any injuries. To people, maybe to houses and cars, but not to people. And to the entire city staff, thank you. Again, we're very, very lucky to have such an excellent city staff. And except for one little part in the upcoming items of note. River Forest Park is not in there. And that's a major event for this city.

It will be on June 18th of this year at 4 p.m. Thank you. Oh, my goodness. All right.

Anybody have any other hard words they want to try to say? All right. Coming around to me. Happy Pride Month, everybody. I want to say that you are welcomed, valued, and loved. You're always welcome here in North Kansas City. I do want to celebrate public works. We've got to find a way to do that. I don't know what the rules are about how we can, but I've had residents asking how they can raise money and buy meats and smoke meats and celebrate our... People are so very excited. It's hard to unify... Everybody, and this has. We have the firewood for this moment. We sure do. So we've got to find a way, look into how we can do that. It's to celebrate our public works and our frontline staff. They've been taking calls around the clock. We've got police and fire. I mean, everyone has had a hand in this. That was a major situation. I mean, I'm not sure if a tornado officially touched down, but we had straight-line winds over 90 miles an hour.

Go ahead. Yesterday, I should have done this in staff comments. Yesterday, I went with the National Weather Service around the city and we surveyed all of the area and they said that it was not a tornado. It was 75 to 82 mile an hour straight line winds or a downdraft. They have actually been in the city. They've surveyed all the property. We went around and looked at pretty much everything that either is down or on the street. I just wanted to say that. Excellent.

Thank you again for all the work, and let's find a way to celebrate the work our people have put in. Tying into that, so you mentioned Anthony was driving around about 3 a.m. I also woke up at 1.30, had two scared little girls come in and hide under our covers and then get down in our crawl space. Once the rain stopped and the hail stopped, my phone did not. So I love all of you watching. I love everybody. I got text messages about down limbs for about the next six hours and then perpetually over the next week. So I would like to direct folks to our new app. It is called North Town Now. You can download it in the App Store on your Apple and Google and all the other devices. It cuts me out of the workflow. So if you take a picture of a down limb and you send it in anonymously or with an account... It will go straight to the people who need to know, cutting me out of the workflow. I'll just put it there. Also excited about the streetcar meeting. Please come out. There's a lot of cool stuff going on with that. 4 to 6, June 11th at Center Block Brewery. The North Town Supper was wonderful. Thank you to the over 200 people who came out to build community and speak to strangers. And thank you for the children who enforced the no cell phone policy. And to Council Member Saper for battling those children with the spray bottles. Big news coming out of NKC Health. NKC Health and Blue KC have figured out their differences, and we have insurance again. So that's awesome. That's good news. If you missed the special meeting, because not everybody knows to tune in for those, we have also approved a development agreement for a grocery store in One North. That is very exciting. More to come on that as we move forward. And then the last piece, if you tune in to KCUR tomorrow morning at 9.09 a.m., I will be bragging about North Kansas City with Steve Kraske. That is all from me. Item 19.

Consideration of a request to hold in recess into an executive session as requested by the city administrator to be held on this date pursuant to Missouri revised statute section 610.0211 litigation matter and 610.0212 real estate matters. Litigation.

Did I do it wrong?

No, you got it.

Litigation and then to real estate.

Do we have a motion? So moved. Second. Call the roll.

Council Member Bailey? Yes. Council Member McGrone? Yes. Council Member Cain? Yes. Council Member Alvarez? Yes. Council Member Wells?

Yes.

Council Member Larson? Yes. Council Member Saper?

Yes. At this time, the live stream and Channel 2 will cut off. There will be no further votes or business this evening. Thank you for tuning in.