City Council - Regular Meeting

This conference will now be recorded. We got the military. It looks good. Looks good. Does Linda approve? That's She did it. She did it.

Did she really? Yeah. I told her I said give me okay. It's been a long time.

Not a thing I will ever go into. You got to practice. [Music] All I ask is don't use the dog flipper. probably dog.

Don't use Danny's. Yeah, you didn't have your normally I do. I left it sitting on the thing and I forgot. So, I'm not going to grab it. So, hopefully you guys don't too. No, I'll be all right. I'll make good notes. Hopefully, you never get the only

people without seats. Uh, school just started. So this Yeah, I think there's uh I think they get extra credit. I think I'm in the city council meeting government. So knock it out early in the year, right? Get it over with. I think that's I think that's what civics teachers or government teachers giving extra credit, 10 extra credit points or something. So, we haven't heard anything from the art the art. Um, I emailed him about three weeks ago and he said, "Don't know what having free time is like."

Yeah, I've been in college for 10 years. I'm not going to know. And uh, how are you? Couple weeks. We should be done. We need to be done for the hard show. That's the big thing. Hopefully within the next year. But I've been hoping that we'll see. But then I can put Oh, he's I don't know if he's on his way or if he's already there. Good for him. Say it one time. They're like, "Nope." One time after that, I don't want to hear it again. take the uh

when are you get a chance to go to Ireland and see K State play football? Yeah. That's what I heard. All right, it is 7 o'clock. We will call the August 21st Dotto City Council meeting to order. Let's start with roll call, please. Lane here. Michael Daniels here. Patterson here. Mcmaran here. And walk it appears council member Han Michael is absent. Okay. I would invite you all to please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, our first item tonight is our consent agenda. Tonight on the consent agenda, we have item A, approve minutes from the August 7th city council meeting. Item B, approve pay ordinance number 103. Item C, approve donation request from the DODTO food pantry. Item D, approve bids for the aquatic center and Miller Park roof replacement project. Item E, approve quote from Environmental Process Systems to replace sewer lift station pump. Item F, approve resolution 2072 allowing for consumption of alcohol in the downtown district for item G, approve first amendment to development agreement with Flint Meadows East LLC. And item H, accept easements and rights away for Flint Meadows East Phase 1. Is there any item anyone would wish to remove from the consent agenda for further?

Okay. Uh, hearing none, can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I'll make a motion we approve consent agenda. I'll second. All right. We have a motion and a second. Uh, Brandon, I would note that I would vote on item H. Yep. Roll call, please. Lane, yes. Daniels, yes. Patterson, yes. Mcmaran, yes. Mayor Walker, yes. Motion carries. All right. Item two is call to public. Members of the public are welcome to use this time to comment about any matter relating to city business. The comments that are discussed under call to public may or may not be acted on by the council during this.

There is a 4-minute time limit. Do was does anyone wish to address the council under call to uh please come to the podium. State your name and address.

My name is I do not understand. That'll be a a public hearing item under that agenda item under uh item 4A. So, we'll take comments for that item then. Thank you.

Sure. All right. I'm not seeing any other commenters. So, we will move on in our uh item three is old business. We do not have any. So, we'll go on to item 4. A consider resolution of intent to in issue industrial revenue bonds and approve development agreement with Mount Sunflower Property. Uh yes, Mayor, with your permission, I'd like to give a brief introduction of the actions that are on the agenda for tonight. Um brief description of the development agreement and the processes there. and then um maybe have a few minutes for the applicant to give a presentation just about the overall project. Um you'll see on the on the agenda there are actually three items uh for under item 4A. The first is a public hearing to hear public input on the issuance of IRBs for the project. The second one is a development agreement which really lays out the specifics of the overall scale and nature of the project, the commitments from the developer uh the commitments from the city. Uh and then the last one is a resolution of intent future industrial future phases of the project. So, um, with that, the the the bulk of the the detail to be considered tonight really is contained in the in the development agreement document. Um, and that's been been provided for you uh in the packet. Um, it's it's it's multiaceted development agreement with several exhibits that explain different facets of the of the agreement. We'd be happy to stop and answer any questions, provide any clarification the council might have along the way. I'm not going to belabor every detail of uh of that of

that agreement, but I do want to outline for the council and for the general public essentially what the agreement entails. Um so the the project in question is a multi-phase data center happen on land uh that's commonly known as the Flint Commerce Center. Uh this land is about 290 acres. Uh roughly at the northwest corner of Edertton Road and Third Street. Uh there is an existing 100 million square foot building uh on the Flint Commerce Center. The data center would take essentially the remaining property of that. The proposal uh currently is for a four-phase project. Each phase uh of building would be uh about 285,000 square ft. uh main buildings and some access uh ancillary buildings for a total um a total square footage of about 1.14. Uh the total initial investment for all of those each all the phases of the data center is estimated at about $3.1 billion dollars and there will be a continued investment over time for retooling of the interior components largely uh the server racks the computer chips that run that run the data center over time. Um and that'll be a significant investment. The exact scale uh and timing of that reinvestment as it goes along is difficult to uh difficult to predict u at this time but at the applicant's request we have envisioned a total maximum amount of overall investment including the initial construction the initial tooling and the retooling over this 10 to 15 year period of a maximum of $50 billion. So very important point of clarification for the council. I know the council understands this, but for the public, we are not

considering $50 billion of incentives for this project. This is potentially a $50 billion investment in our community and we are considering much smaller specific incentives to incentivize that investment uh over time. Very important port point of of clarification. Several news outlets have gotten that wrong and um I don't I really wish there wasn't any confusion about that but I know that there is. Um so that's the overall uh the overall project. The construction timeline um the applicant intends to begin construction in 2026 with full buildout may be taking 79 years. 729 uh may be done by uh 20 2035 not 79 years. That is that is in terms of the uh develop the terms of the development agreement there is a minimum of investment that essentially equates to the initial construction of phase one improvement. Uh in the agreement that's identified as $700 million uh to build the initial data center building to tool the initial data center. Um and that investment is required to get the benefits of the that's in front of you. Those benefits do include a reduction in the franchise fee rate of 5%. So in the city of Dotto, like many other cities, when you uh buy electric power, you pay a franchise fee to the local government. Uh Dotto's rate is 5% of whatever that uh this uh this agreement allows a reduction of 25% of that rate. Still, we do estimate uh franchise fees to directly to the city to equate to about $5.5 million annually once uh once the data center is fully constructed and all

phases are in operation. Um by way of example, um the city will collect only about $2.4 million in property tax revenue in 2025. So that gives you an idea of the scale the magnitude of the impact just for city revenues that are that are possible with each phase. Um let's suppose phase one is the only one that gets done and and that's where the project ends because that's all the developers really committing to do. Uh still we estimate that franchise revenue at 1.5 million once it's up and operational. That's based on power usage. So uh an important factor there. Another important factor I think is everybody understands data centers and and you don't have to read you don't have to research them very long to understand that they they are a big user of power and they are a big user of water. Um this one's no exception. They'll need um a significant amount of of water treatment treated water uh delivered to them and they're going to have a significant amount of waste water to be treated afterward. that will require significant capital improvements on the on behalf of the city. In close coordination with rural water district number 7, uh the property is within the service territory of rural water 7. Uh we have enacted a memorandum of understanding with rule water 7 that we're going to cooperate to provide uh service to the property and and um those details are to be worked out with subsequent agreements to this. But this does lay the groundwork uh for substantial improvements to uh the city's diversion works down by the by the Kansas River. There will be additional wells need to be drilled. We'll have raw water manes to construct from the river up to the treatment plant. We'll need to expand the capacity at the treatment plant. We'll need significant uh treated uh water distribution mains along 103rd Street, along 95th Street, potentially along Edertton Road to serve the property and uh elevated water uh storage, additional

elevated water storage uh to to handle the demand. In addition, we'll need a new uh industrial wastewater treatment facility serve uh to serve this property. All of those costs associated with the implementation of those public improvements will be borne directly by the developer. Uh no city funding will be used to implement and when done uh they will provide additional resiliency, additional redundancy uh and reliability to the to the city system. We will have further redundancy in well capacity, further redundancy in uh and raw water treatment capacity and all the things that we need to deliver water service. We'll also be treating uh volumes of water um that will allow uh economies of scale that would tend to put downward pressure on water rates. Now, we can't haven't done analysis on that yet, but uh the expectation is that rather than the worry that this might increase your water bill, I think the opposite is true. Um nothing of obviously in the development agreement um stipulates that, but I would say that the developer um has not negotiated any type of reduction in the water uh commodity charge or wastewater commodity charge. So, not there there no breaks given in the water fee. they will pay the going rate for water and sewer. So, that's an important point to make as well. The last point to make is um with the with the issuance of the industrial revenue bonds uh does allow for a property tax exemption on the property. Um the council will remember in 2002 we negotiated a similar property tax abatement concept for the Flint uh commerce center. And at the time, Flint Commerce Center was to have about 8 million square feet of uh warehouse distribution and possibly light industrial development on it. Um with

and with it bringing uh you know significant amount of traffic and and and jobs but also also some impacts. At that time we negotiated a a payment in lie of taxes. So we we abated the property tax, but the developer was going to have to pay us an amount about equal to 23 cents per square foot of building. Um we've also negotiated a similar uh payment in lie of taxes with the data center project and that amount starts at 40 12 cents uh per square foot. So the rate um is higher and also important to note that the school district's um capital mill levy which now sits at about 8 mills is protected from any abatement. So that'll have to be paid to the school district day one uh and throughout the term IRBs in Kansas. This property tax abatement is for 10 years and the concept is to phase that as the development occurs. So phase one IRBs will be issued. The property tax incentive will start when it's completed. that'll start a 10-year clock on phase one. If phase two takes place a year later, that clock won't start for a year later. And so there'll be there'll be different um phasing for for each uh for each phase. So in o in total, the property tax incentive might last 15 years just depending on how long it takes the the overall project to uh to build out. That essentially is uh my summary. Um there's there's obviously much more detail that I did not go into. I think um Patrick will agree um in in our dealings and negotiations with the developer. We are are strongly in support of this action. We think it will not only transformational investment in our community uh but transformational revenues to our to our city. It lowers the neighborhood impacts associated with the development of the remaining uh

Flint Commerce Center and the infra in infrastructure improvements will uh will set us up to be a much more reliant um service provider for water and sewer. So um with that I would like to stand for comments and mayor with your permission I would uh maybe invite the the applicant to come and give a brief brief presentation.

Please do come up. Mike, if I can just add one thing as um just with the industrial revenue bonds, you know, that that is the vehicle by which the city can tax abatement and sales tax exemption, but it's not the city's money. The city is not the city's uh finances or revenue is not in play here. rather the industrial revenue bonds is just a vehicle that cities in Kansas and counties can uh issue those and it does serve as a vehicle for tax abatement and sales tax. So, as Mike said, all of the money associated with the project is being paid by the developer, not

thanks. Important point. Please come on up.

Lower this a little bit. Can you guys hear me? Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Um, I figured I'd just start us off with a few words and then I'm going to pass it over to the project team to uh get into the development agreement and project details a little bit, but um just want to say good evening uh mayor and city council members. My name is Lauren Harvey and I represent Beiel Infrastructure. Thank you for this opportunity to present project pilot for your consideration this evening. Be infrastructure develops data centers and crit critical infrastructure nationwide. We're long-term partners who work closely with local communities to create facilities that support our digital economy while generating lasting economic benefits. Project pilot represents a multi-billion dollar investment in Dodto with continued maintenance and reinvestment through the project's life cycle. This facility will support the technology services that power banking, health care, education, and emergency systems. Data centers are now designated as critical infrastructure and essential for national security. We've carefully selected this site for its compatibility with existing higher volume in manufacturing and industrial uses in the area and away from residential communities. Data centers are low impact facilities with minimal traffic generation and limited demand on municipal services, making them ideal neighbors for DInnesota's existing businesses. This site is strategically located near resources needed to support our operations and be will privately fund bringing those resources to the site. The project will create long-term local construction jobs, technician and operations positions and generate substantial revenue for Dotto schools and city services. It positions Dodto as a forwardthinking community supporting America's infrastructure and digital economy needs. Today's application represents responsible development on appropriately zoned land. We're committed to ongoing community

engagement uh in advance of construction and workforce development initiatives leading into the operations. Be's excited to be a part of this community and contributing positively to Dotto's forward thinking and future growth. Thank you for your time and consideration and I will turn it over to the postelli team to provide more details. You'll just have to scroll. I believe that's just a PDF.

Thank you, mayor and council members. Corb Maxwell, Pulsonelli Law Firm. Uh pleasure to be here tonight to represent the Beal team and the project pilot team. Uh as you saw, Lauren Harvey's with us. We also have John Michael Handley, development manager that is local here uh in Kansas City. that has been hired by the Beal team and I also have co-consel with me, Scott Zans from the Vorhees firm. So, what a big night. We've worked on this for a long time and we're really excited to uh dive in a little more to the details. Mike did an incredible job of sort of outlining this year of work that it's taken for us to get here. But, if it's okay with the council, I'm going to do a short PowerPoint to maybe provide a little bit more dive on some of those issues and give a little bit of information to uh the public. It's going to have a broad project overview, a development agreement summary, and some of the other project impacts. Um, first, uh, we are on the Flint Commerce site. As you have, as has been said, it is about the 290 acres that is left of the Flint Commerce site, the part outside of the million square foot industrial building. This is roughly at the northwest corner of 103rd in Edertton. And as Lauren said, it is zoned appropriately. It is zoned M1 and data centers are a permitted use in M1 zoning. The pieces that we need to work through with the council is the development agreement that Mike went through and then ultimately site planning through that process. We're using the utilities of Everg Johnson County uh uh Rural Water 7 and the city of Dotto. And the goal of all of this with approval tonight is we would start construction in 2026 and finish the first phase in 2027 and be online. So what is a data center? Lots of people have questions on them uh want to understand them and the simplest way we

know to talk about them is it is an industrial building but what it houses what it warehouses is computers. It's inside of it. It is a uh on the outside it looks very much like an industrial building. On the inside just racks and racks of computers and servers. On that outside, as I said, it very much has the look of an industrial building. It will fit well in the context of the Flint Commerce Center and of the Panasonic facility out there. Um and it ultimately has uh less impacts. Here is a representative site plan. This is not final engineering. This is not final architecture. But it's just a little bit to give scope and scale to the community of uh what could it look like and what could we have? We will have um uh two phases to the project. The first phase is in the southwest corner. There'll be a substation there and then we'll end up having two of the buildings that will go on the south side. And then as we move into phase two, we'll have two buildings up on the north side of the property. We still very much have adequate buffers uh between ourselves and uh Edertton Road over there and the neighbors. I think that we looked at our preliminary planning. These are nearly 200 foot buffers that you will see on that side of Edertton um road. We think it's an ideal site uh sort of tucked in and up against the highway. Um we're going to have uh primary access off 103rd in Edertton and Emergency. We have easy access to K10. We've got great electrical infrastructure in and around the area. And then as Mike described with the improvements the city will make uh out there that we are funding, we have the ability to access water and

wastewater that will be able to drive the development. Um Mike did a great job uh about talking through what we are seeing in the um uh the development agreement, but it's really got a couple of key components to it that we uh negotiated with your staff in good faith on and think we came to a really good uh project. It's first uh the IRB having the ability to have a uh abatement with a specific pilot and Mike hit it right that we are doubling the level of the pilot. We had a phased pilot in the uh Flint agreement that was 23 cents for uh non-manufacturing uses and manufacturing uses. It was 18 cents and now we've jumped that up and we'll be over 40 cents in this. So, we will have a 10-year tax abatement, but that pilot will end up paying more. We'll then have a sales tax exemption on construction materials and the equipment that's included. Importantly, that does not include an exemption on sales tax on the energy. Another component of this is that we will pay sales tax state uh local county doto we will pay sales tax on all of the energy that flows through this building. So beyond the franchise fees that Mike well uh uh indicated there will also be revenues coming off of sales taxes from the energy something you would not see usually in a traditional industrial project or in a much much lower scale. So I think that's one other positive benefit. And to the point we did ask and requested for 50 billion to be a maximum out there of the IRBs. I do not believe we will ever hit

that number. In the interim since we began working on this uh the legislature in its last session passed Senate Bill 98. And what Senate Bill 98 allowed is that there is a exemption if you meet the qualifications under Senate Bill 98 for both the construction sales tax of the building and of the server refreshes. And that law is very new. It hasn't been fully regulated, codified, no one's gone through it. But if that all works according to plan, we will be able to use that for the sales tax exemption on our servers. And in so doing, uh, we will likely bring down over the life of this those numbers of that 50 billion significantly. So that's an interesting point. I just wanted all to know. Mike went through the franchise fees. There is a cap at 5.5 million. Um, and that will have 1 and a.5% annual increases. Uh, and then water and wastewater. We will be funding. There will need to be improvements to serve this project and we will work collectively with the city on all of those. But the most important thing of that is it will be both the city and the developer that will look at all of those designs and we will absolutely pay for all of that. There will be no taxpayer funding that will go into that infrastructure that we need to serve our project. development is supposed to pay for development and that is no more true in the world than in these data center deals that we need to make sure we are footing that bill so it does not go on the regular rateayer or the taxpayer out there. I would note one uh small component to that though is we're going to end up spending substantial money upgrading that. If someone that's next to us ends up needing to connect to that infrastructure in some form or fashion,

uh given that we fronted all that cost, there is a mechanism so that folks would pay their fair share. And when I say folks, I mean only commercial and industrial users, not residential users out there. Um, we did a good job of laying this out, but what is an IRB? Uh, I say this and I say this as a lawyer, but it really is, and Patrick did a great job. This is not a financing tool from the city. Even though it's called bonds, it's not a financing tool from the city. It is simply the way uh under Kansas statute that we provide tax abatement. It has been around for decades upon decades upon decades. It is the tool that we use. There is no city credit involved. There is no city money involved. This is all our capital that we'll that we will spend on this. The only thing that it provides is that tax abatement that we then pay a pilot on and it pays that sales tax exemption on the construction materials out there. What are the benefits to a data center? We did a nice job, but it ends up having good solid paying jobs. Um that we project there will be over a hundred jobs in in this facility. And we think that's on the low end that there should be over a hundred jobs that end up happening here from the company itself and its vendors and contractors that will be there. That's just on the long-term operation. All of those jobs, those are six figure jobs. And many of those jobs do not require four-year degrees. A lot of those jobs can be achieved with associate degrees and some with technical certificates that can be achieved even in 6 months. So these are very good jobs that are entries into middle class lifestyle. They fit well in the whole Kansas City region and they fit well in Dodto. Uh we will be a significant tax revenue generator for

the city, the county, the state and others. uh as we sit here, we will pay for all of our infrastructure upgrades, we'll provide uh diversification, and we also help in the long term of business attraction. As you end up having uh this high-tech economy, it starts to create uh additional components. We walked through the tax revenues, happy to do that in in further detail. uh very likely that our endusers what we've seen all across the country is endusers end up partnering with school districts. They end up investing in STEM education and on that education point even in our pilot we never capture that capital outlay mills those eight capital outlay mills. So there will be significant revenue uh running out to the school district through all of this. We create long-term employment, as I said, specifically for the project, but we also create a lot of construction jobs. And those construction jobs aren't just temporary. It's not just one building. It's happening building after building as you go. And when you finish, you got to come back and you got to refresh again. And so there's these substantial cycles of capital investment that will be happening in this community providing tradesmen and highly skilled labor work for a long period of time. It is one of the the great benefits of these projects and we end up as I said and many times in this paying for and funding all of the infrastructure that we need happens on the back of this project. With that, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, we're incredibly excited about this project. We would be happy to answer any of the questions that the council would have that the public would bring up through the open public hearing. anything you'd like to bring our team back for, we're here to answer these questions. This project is critical. We think it fits great at this site and we think we're going to be an unbelievable community partner to Dodto over the very long term.

All right. Thank you. Yeah. Uh before I open the public hearing, any questions uh for Mike or for the developer? I've got some I'd like to hold them to Yeah. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right, with that I'm going to officially open the public hearing. I would ask that you'd come to the podium. Uh state your name and address. Um there'll be a threem minute time limit. Brandon, do you have a timer? I can certainly start one. Okay, give me one second. By the time Mike gets the clicker, I'll be ready to go.

Sorry, Mike. Sorry. Oh, and if we're I'm gonna gabble us in and we'll officially start the public here. So, just come to the podium. Uh, state your name and address and then um your time will start.

My name is Martin Boya. My address is 2634 South 28th Street, Kansas City, Kansas. I'd like to thank the council for your time and the representatives for the developers for the information. It was very insightful. Uh they did quell some of my concerns, but a few of the things that I do have a concern about is one, how this do we have the infrastructure for the electricity to support the data center. Just something that we haven't really gotten any I haven't found any information on. Secondly, one of my biggest concerns is the impact environmentally. Um myself, I'm a resident of we do county, but I came here tonight to speak because I am a heavy user of the river recreationally and I have concerns about the water usage. We hear about the millions of g gallons a day that these data centers use and that brings concern to me and and it would be nice to get some information about whether we have the capacity ecologically to support, you know, a a situation like this. uh you know are we going to take it from the river and you know degrade the ecological standards of the river? Are we going to take it from the ground? Are people's you know home wells on their private property going to go dry because the aquafer goes too low? Just all kinds of concerns related to water usage. I know that some systems, some of these data centers will use evaporative cooling and that's more wasteful. Is this a closed loop cooling system? Is it an evaporative cooling system? just things along that nature. I mean, you know, they've, like I said, a lot of good information. I don't doubt that these people want to be a good steward of the community, and it sounds like they're trying to be, but my concern mainly at this point is water and electricity. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Members of the council, thank you for taking my comment. I'm Terry Wilkkey. My address 3221 Yellowstone Drive, Lawrence, Kansas. So, with respect to a data center, they use a lot of electricity. The gentleman's got a very good question about where are we going to get all this electricity? uh they use a lot of water. That has fairly been answered. Uh there are questions there about running wells dry. The river is not as mighty as it was at one time around here. And then an increase in utilities across the United States typically result in an increase in rateayers. Uh we we have to pay we have to pay. So that would result in a situation where a city is giving money to a company that's going to result in the rateayers paying for their increased electricity and water demand. Um there are alternatives to that as you continue negotiating. They can use the rainwater collection system. I don't kid myself that would cool their servers. uh but it would help. There is cloud storage. There are alternatives to using water for cooling. There are other materials. There's foam and uh membranes and that can be discussed with the company. Finally, I'm glad to hear that there

will be jobs made available. I'd like to ask the city of Dotto to ask the company to provide training for people, a training system so that people can access these jobs so that we avoid a situation where we're simply trucking people in from a distance to do these jobs where we really create jobs for the community. And I thank you very much.

Thank you for your comment. Marie Caldwell, 8412 Corass Road and 30900 West 83rd Street. Um, they've brought up some of my s my concerns that I were going to bring up. Um, the other thing is I want to talk about the noise pollution. Um, what was it that you said the barrier was going to be? 200 feet.

200. Typically, it's 600 is where you can hear the noise. And so, it depends too on some of the cooling systems they have. But this, if you've been following the build out of the data center up north, um, this is what you're hearing people complain about. Um, you're compl hearing the complaints about the environmental effects. You're hearing the complaints about noise. Um the other thing is um greenhouse gas emissions. These generators use fossil fuels typically and so again the pollution that is coming out of those. So that's kind of because it's kind of short for me because everybody else is kind of brought up by same concerns. Thanks.

Thank you. Evening council. Zach Bradley, 8341 Laramie here in Dodto. Um, I appreciated the presentation and all the good information that was provided. Uh, I know that there were some concerns from some folks. I think the environmental uh the water usage was interesting about the river usage. Um, I know that the discharge from the uh proposed data center is pretty clean to begin with. perhaps so clean that it can't even be treated by a regular water treatment plant without the addition of additional bacteria due to its dilutant factor. Uh as far as the health effects, the noise pollution I think is a valid concern, although there don't seem to be many residences. There's a few to be sure, but within that um local area around it, there doesn't seem to be much. So, I'm fairly okay with that. Um, as to the no risk to the city, I think that's the most important part that was brought up is that we won't be out money as taxpayers if this doesn't work out for some reason. Um I I did notice in the Colombia uh capital uh data that they attached in the agenda that there was uh just in property taxes an additional 10 million to the city and 48 million to USD232 over the 17 years. I uh know that no one in here could speak for the school board, but it would sure be nice if they got an extra 48 million if they would lower their mill rate a bit and maybe that would help. Um, additionally, I know that uh in there Colombia outlaid 155 permanent jobs, which is fine. not not a huge amount of jobs, I don't think, but I think those uh franchise fees that you mentioned as well as the uh property taxes uh over the life of the center seem to be a fairly good investment for

the city. And I know that there might be other uses that would be better, but it seems like it'd be better to have a bird in your hand than to somewhere off in the bush that you might have glimpsed at one point. And that's um pretty much all I have. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for your comments. Anyone else before I close public hearing?

Okay. My name is Pam Houston. uh 1807 North 1150 Road, Lawrence. Uh I knew nothing about data centers until about three weeks ago when friends from where I grew up in northern Indiana started talking about data centers in that area. Um, I grew up in a on a dairy farm um in a small town of about 3,000 and they put in a dairy it put in a data center near there and all I've heard from my friends is how it's destroying so many things the the the water table the electricity the noise um and I think you all have done seems like you all have done a good job of working with the company and for the company to provide you with information. Um, but it's it these data centers are popping up everywhere and I'm worried that next next tomorrow I'm going to see one in my backyard. But that's not my concern right now. My concern is that um as some of the folks have made the the uh comments to also look at the noise pollution but the usage of water. I read that um the amount of water used can be the equivalent of a small town. How small are we? Is Dodto gonna be all of a sudden using twice as much water as daily? This would be daily they use it. Um so continue to ask questions of the uh the developers and I love the comment about the training for the employees. I think using local employ employees and training them for this work. It's not a lot of um uh employment, but it certainly could help a lot of people. But please be careful because I'm hearing really horror stories from back

home. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Hello, my name is Lisa Alano, 8452 Temper Ridge Drive, Dotto, Kansas. Um, I got some concerns with the noise, the water. Uh, where's the new water tower going to go? Um, is there going to be a new treatment facility? Where is that going to go? Um, and not to even mention the traffic that we already have a huge problem with here. It's it's huge. I I don't even want to leave my house before 9:00 a.m. And then 4:00 comes, you can't get anywhere. So, what's that going to do to us? So, that's that those are my and I I honestly think they're pretty big concerns for us. Not to mention the noise that really everything that everybody has brought up today. So, thank you for the information, but it doesn't make me feel better about it. All right. Anyone else before I close the public hearing? Seeing none, I'm going to officially close the public hearing and we'll take up discussion here amongst the council. Um, so our

first step would be to discuss and ask questions of the developer or staff if you have them. Anyone uh have anything they'd like to start with? I can start, mayor. Sure. Um, I was just wondering, do the tax abatements come with some kind of KPIs? Like if they're not met like by a certain time frame, is there any you know, reduced or revoking of those.

Not with this one. We've done that um on some projects where we will, you know, require that wages be at a certain level or employment numbers. Um but on this one given that the real driver of this is not employee headcount um so no we don't have any clawbacks that if they don't hire a certain number of employees that they would lose their tax abatement but I would add that um given the law and tax abatements for each time that the developer comes to the council uh for a 10-year tax abatement, we'll have to hold a public hearing and you will take a new vote on whether to authorize that tax abatement. The resolution you're passing indicates that it's the intent of the city to do that, but technically you'll have to take that action each time, each 10-year tax abatement. Anyone else have a I have a couple say. Is that all you've done?

Um, so a couple things following up on what you said. It's So it's going to be kind of like Merc where we said there's an intent, but they come back routinely and the council has to pass it each time. So it's exactly not something that we haven't done before in that sense. Um while there's not a clawback there is the performance that they have to hit that se certain level for the pilot to actually be or development agreement to be in place the minimum investment.

Yeah. Um I do have a question for Corb since he's the legal. Um you mentioned that so with the IRBs there's the uh actual bond which is covered entirely by the private entity no right on the city. There's the tax abatement on the property and then there's the sales tax exemption. Yes. Kansas just passed the uh data center bill earlier this year. Um, so you were saying there's a possibility that the IRB would not be including the sales tax exemption because that would be potentially under the state law. Yep.

The question I have, so we're seeing a reduction of franchise fees, but the actual power and energy fees you're paying to EverGy, would that be the standard rate fees or discount? Yeah, it's a great question. And and the reason I'm asking is Senate Bill 98. That is a requirement in the bill that it be standard rates, not discounted rates. And then the reduced franchise fee, would that be considered a discounted rate or not?

Yeah, it's a it's a great question, Councilman, and thank you. That was something I should have put in my case in chief, as there's always questions about energy out there. Um, so to at a high level, and then I'll come very specifically to your question on the energy point. All of the talk that we had about water and wastewater, all of those same points apply on the energy side. The way it works in our interactions with EverG is all of the infrastructure that it takes to bring the uh power to this site, we pay for all of that. So the public, the rateayer is not charged for the infrastructure out there. That is all 100% covered by us. So we have to build all of that infrastructure. We have to pay for all of that infrastructure and none of that is built into EverG's system that rates are based on. Then right now there is a uh new rate case going on that is about having a large load tariff and that large load tariff that name uh is really about high energy users and those high energy uners users are data centers and very specifically the policy of evergy in that case that they are putting forward is that it will not be an incentive rate a discount rate out there. It will not be a low rate. It will actually be a higher rate to account for our large loads. And so the policy and the thought of the state of Kansas and of Everg and the KCC and everybody that's working on this issue right now is what they're telling us in the data center industry is you pay for all of the infrastructure and then you pay a real rate, not a discount rate. so that this is not a burden that falls down on the regular rateayer and that the regular rateayer sees their energy

rates go up. We've got to pay our own way through that. And so to answer your question, uh we should not have an impact on rates. and then to Senate Bill 98. We do not think that the discount on the franchise fee ends up taking us out of that law. But that is the reason we negotiated with the council and with the city that we have the ability to use IRBs should we need them because that is an absolutely critical function is not paying sales tax on those servers. It's why the state passed the law. It's why we negotiated for that large IRB number that we had that protection so that we could attract the hyperscaler to come and use this facility. So, we're excited about it, but we think we've built in enough protections here that the city is protected as is the rateayer out there. So another way to say that the state is wanting to see this type investment through sales tax exemptions, but in the event that there is something that doesn't technically work out with the state level, the sales tax exemption under the IRB would be the fallback.

Yes, as always, you say it cleaner and clearer than I do, Councilman. Well done. Um, I think that's all the questions. I I do have a couple comments there, but Okay. Mayor, would you like me to touch a couple of There were some questions about water, some questions about noise, some traffic. Would you like me to just extemporate on a couple of those and then I can of course answer any other questions? Yeah. Yeah. Want to go ahead and move that down?

Um, so water, there was a lot of questions brought up regarding water. Um, first, uh, this is not just a Cord Maxwell opinion. It's not even just a city uh, staff opinion out there. We have professional engineers that are hired on our side of the table and you have professional engineers that are hired on your side of the table. And all of us are studying where we're going to get the water, where the route to bring the water is, the infrastructure that will be around behind it, and there are checks and balances both from the municipal level and our level. We believe there can be a path to adequate fresh water in this area. Uh it's going to have to be treated. There's going to have to be substantial infrastructure built, but all of us have looked at it and studied it. Um, about the exact cooling systems, we'll continue to work on exactly what type it will be, evaporative, closed loop, all of those as the design continues to move forward and we work through these processes. What I can say to all of the environmental concerns out there is that these facilities only continue to get more and more efficient and it is absolutely at the top of the mind of the tenants and be to make sure you are as environmentally responsible as possible in bringing down the water use. Uh there's also some really great stats out there across the the country that that we've seen in the data center industry about how much water data centers use as a whole. I think in like 2023 it might have been about 66 million gallons per day, which sounds like an amazing amount, but that's about 6% of what's used on golf courses across the United States. So, while we use a substantial amount of water, we try to do it responsibly and we will be working with your city and the city engineering staff and your third-party engineers to make

sure that it works. Uh, a lot of questions about noise out there. Um the most important component about noise is that we have read and understood and understand the city of Dodto code. You guys have a sophisticated code regarding noise. And the ultimate answer is is what that code says is that we can be about 55 dB at the property line from our facility. And then beyond the property line, we have substantial additional distance to any of the other houses. Everybody, it's always hard when we're talking sound. The way I always describe it, what's 55 dB?

55 dB is about me talking like this. It's normal conversation level when I am not amplified by the mic out there. So at our property line at our property line we will be 55 dB at the property line. We will through this process as we get into site planning and working and coming specifically and all of those site plans will be brought back to the city and the city council. We will also work through and look at noise mitigation in each of those components. We'll look at landscaping. We'll look at buffering. We'll look at burming. We'll look at how we house various parts of the facility to bring down those noise levels. You can operate a data center in a responsible manner and that is absolutely the plan of this developer and we know this council will enforce those codes as well. Um and finally, one of the concerns I heard was traffic. This is one of the great benefits of this uh development. When you look at the average amount of traffic between a data center and if this was built out as full industrial, our traffic will be substantially decreased in this. The amount of traffic that will flow from the development will be uh uh factors lower than what this would be with typical industrial development. and most of our traffic, we do not have the same level of truck traffic that you see when you have an industrial facility out there. So, we think it'll actually be a real benefit to the area for those that have traffic concerns.

Thank you, Corb. Yeah. Questions from over here. So, you you covered I wanted to make sure we covered the the uh questions from the commenters. Um I don't know Mike did you want to comment on the availability of water in the uh yeah a little bit water insurance district?

Yes I I'd like to do that. Um so we have been in kind of a pretty intensive discussion verification between all the engineering uh talent that we have at our you both in-house uh and our and our consultants that have been working with us to do the ext expansion project that we're just just doing. Um, everybody is in agreement that the water source will be the Kansas River. We are not going to be drilling wells on the site. We're not going to be drilling wells anywhere other than directly adjacent to the Kansas River. That water source is it's the same source we get our water from. Now, uh, the water treatment capacity expansion will take place on the site of our existing water treatment facility now, which is, uh, in the middle of the Astra Enterprise Park. Um and to the to the point of resource availability just for a general uh uh a general overall order of magnitude understanding um by virtue of us drawing water out of the Kansas River and using it for a municipal purpose. We are required to be a member of the Kansas water uh Kansas River water assurance district. The assurance district owns storage in upstream res reservoirs Tuttle, Perry, Clinton, and Milford. Uh that can be used to supplement and augment the flow of the river in times of of drought or seasonal uh seasonal variations. Um Dotto is a member of that. Our water rights right now are about two and a half to three million gallons a day. We're going to be expanding those to roughly six or eight million gallons a day really soon. Um the water assurance district currently as it sits now has about 185 million gallons a day of unallocated water resources available for sale for Dotto or Lawrence or any anybody along along the there's nobody beating a path to their door right now but that's the order of magnitude of

resources and that doesn't count the regular stream flow that wouldn't be under the assurance district. So, in terms of of the understanding as as we know it now, we're in agreement. The water source is the Kansas River. I don't want to minimize the involvement of Rural Water District 7. They are the water service provider at the site. This will be a cooperative effort with them to make sure that the water gets delivered. Uh but but we're in agreement that the the source will be Dotto. We will be expanding treatment capacity. the the river will be the source and that's the general uh magnitude of available resources there. Okay. Thank you. Ron, did look like you have a question.

I was just curious when you were talking about the buffering, what what would be some examples of buffering?

Yeah. Uh it's a it's a great question. And there are all kinds of ways that you can end up bringing down the noise that you can end up looking at various sound attenuation of building walls or covering up various components of it and where the generators may be or the the the cooling systems may be also great things that end up creating sort of noise attenuation and buffering. Uh plants landscaping, burming, all of those things are things that eat sound out there. And then sound is also eaten just by distance. As distance travels, there's a scientific principle, the inverse square law, that if I'm talking at that 55 dB right here at 6 ft, it goes down 6 dB. And then as every time you double it, you go to 12 ft, it goes down another 6 dB, and then you go to 24 ft and so on and so forth that that sound keeps dropping as you have distance. So what we do is we look at and bring it into site planning is we're looking at those buffer areas. We're looking at how do you uh house various components of it. How do you end up putting in landscaping, burming, all of those types of things are that what will go into the site plan when we bring those forward and we're laser focused on that around both your code and just as responsible developers to make sure that we're looking at all of those issues. The other good component about it is that we'll have practice because where we're going on phase one, if you saw from the site plan that we put up, phase one is going to be buffered by both our industrial building on our east side and then it has uh Sunflower or Astro Park to the to the sort of south. So, it's kind of our most remote area there that we'll be able to start there before we move to our northern portions. And all of us will continue to get better as we look at noise and sound attenuation through this. We'll always meet the code. We're always going to do a great job, but it'll be a work in progress

that will keep improving this site plan to make sure that there's protections for the community. Say I've got another question. This go a whole different direction. Um, one of the concerns I've heard was the fact that this is a company called Sunflower that was created in 2024. Yep. And so the ability of the company to complete the job, do the job. Tonight we're hearing V infrastructure. Uh, can you speak to the longevity and capability of the history of being able to do these type of jobs from the company that's before us?

Absolutely. So very common uh uh uh council member as that we go and do searches on sites and put sites under contract and work through development agreements that we use a SPE a special purpose entity but the special purpose entity that was created recently. The company behind it is Beal Infrastructure. Beal infrastructure is a very well- capitalized uh developer of these types of sites. um and that will be working through this. And also important to know is that ultimately there is an enduser uh that is involved in these and those endusers are always very common names that everybody in this room would know and everybody across the country would know and those companies are the strongest most financially profitable companies in the world out there. And so you have both a well- capitalized developer on the front side and then you ultimately have a very well- capitalized tenant. And that's what makes sure that these can be well financed. There's adequate capital that can come into them and we can live up to all the commitments we made to this city and we're making to the public as we move through this process. I might also comment um you recall recently in our economic development policy, it's probably been a couple years ago, but we part of the process is that Jeff White confidentially um does his inquiry to the viability of the the company and and that was done here and and we got a positive um response by Jeff. So,

just wanted to note that. Okay, I have some comments and but some people have other questions. I have no question.

Okay. Um mine was about and I don't know that it was really touched on there as far as somebody even had mentioned training for employees but more so even around outreach and education um along the phases for the community and whether it be meetings and that somebody's involved from each area of that whether it be you know from from your organization from ever from water you know I mean to make sure that there's a good understanding and that there's opportunities for questions during that period, but the whole I guess the training and the education during the application.

Yeah, excellent question, Councilwoman. Um, first, as we've like highlighted tonight, these truly take so many different professionals of so many different skill sets and so many different areas to bring forward both the development side of this and then ultimately the construction side. And really, tonight is but a first step. It is an incredibly important step. It's what allows us to uh move forward. But this is only step one. As we've outlined, we will be back for specific uh IRB issuances in front of this council. We need to come back for site planning in front of this council and your planning commission. We'll be coming back for permits. In all of that, we will be very communive to this council and working through all of those items. And so there will be lots of places for engagement uh with you all as representatives of the public and the public in this process. And then as we move into the construction phase, all of our contractor will ultimately have to gear up substantially. There will be a lot of tradesmen that need to work on this. And so, uh, one of the great things is given the long sort of components that you can have of continued building and investment, people can go and start as an apprentice on these projects and can finish out and get all of their apprenticeship finished over the years of continuing to work. So, we can train and skill levels of construction trades just on these, you know, one project that's right here in folks uh, uh, city and and in Johnson County. So, it's an incredible benefit. And then you get ultimately to that operation side. It's what I sort of said from the beginning. These are good, solid jobs, really well-paying in our county, in our community. Um, but there's also not all of these are four-year degrees, right? And there's a lot of them that are two years degrees, and there's a lot of them that are

certificates. And then we have not just the employees that are employed by the company, we have all kinds of vendors and contractors that help and assist and they end up hiring new folks and training them up and skilling them up. So it really does create sort of a virtuous cycle in these uh buildings in these uh data centers of both from a construction side how you're skilling up folks and from an operation side of as you're scaling up folks. I might also comment part of the development agreement requires that the company be involved in the community and make a contribution to the uh EDC. So um

and we very much rep we very much view Yeah. Yeah.

Um easier for me to say because we we will be the one committing it. But um yeah, our full intent is to engage with the community now that this is going through its approval process. It sort of opens up the gates for us to communicate, hold town halls, uh workforce development programs. So, we'll plan to engage with um local tech schools, uh the grade schools here, uh community colleges to start setting up workforce programs. Um that will be sort of early stages now and then really beef up as we go into the operations and with the um with the ultimate tenant and the end user. But from, you know, where do we go from here is um really opening up the door to the community and and we've been working with the city on um information to provide on the city's website and you guys have done an excellent job with Panasonic. Um so we've been working in the background to supply that information to the public. So a lot of what is available today will be available um on the city website and then following this and getting into site planning and then ultimately construction, there'll be a bunch of community events to follow. um and we'll be excited to join the chamber.

Thank you.

Um I'll start my first comment with actually kind of a question leading into comment. So we're being asked to imp uh approve the intent uh to issue the IRBs up to $50 billion, but that is not an amount that necessarily is being asked for tonight. The phase one phase two buildout with the servers as it stands with the sales tax and property tax baitment would roughly be how much of the 50 billion? um we'll meet for sure the minimum of 700 million out there and we've said that it'll definitely be 3.1 billion over 10 years but I think that we can confidently say we will surpass that 700 million when we come forward for that for that ultimate approval

that includes the sales tax exemption. Yes. So if the sales tax exemption ends up falling under the state, the amount of IRB that will be going through would end up being about what roughly um it will be substantially less. I think here's a good number that a large portion of it. Yeah. that that I've used often, Councilman, is you have somewhere between 25 to 35% hard costs out there and then, you know, 65 to 70% on the other side. Is that sort of server side of the equation? Exactly. It could be about 35% of what's being asked. That's right.

So, as far as what we're being asked tonight, the worst case scenario is it's up to 50 billion. The reality is it's probably closer to the 1215 maybe. But if the sales tax exemption falls to the state, then really what we're considering tonight is the intent for even less, which would be have to be approved by future councils as they come before us. That's exactly right. So to break it down where it's not necessarily you're doing 50 billion, but it's the pieces and with the state legislation that's there, it could be substantially less than actually what's being put before us. That's exactly right, Councilman. So, that was kind of the where I was going with the comment, but getting the numbers to put it into something people can grasp.

Yep.

On that, um, the other comment I have is actually a comment that's based on discussions I've had the past week with a resident from um, not our city, but a resident that lives on the edge of our city. And that resident um, I've talked with them about noise, so we've heard a lot about noise. that you're right, Gorb, as far as the city code actually limits it at about 55 to 60. So when I've read things that have come up in the last week where people are going, "Well, it's 90 dB." Our code restricts it to be far less. But the people that I've talked to actually have no issue with the noise whatsoever. Um, not only that, the traffic, they are super favorable towards this project because the traffic would be less. Um, and when I say less, I'll tell you where they live in just a second, but the traffic would be less. The building usage on the property would be less. So, for these residents of the county that live on our city's edge, this project is a ray of daylight to them. Their address is 10175 Edertton Road. It's Jacob and Melissa Noel who Flint Residential is looking at potentially putting apartments next to them. But they live at the epicenter of exactly what's getting ready to happen and their concerns are actually about the noise and things like that are mitigated extremely because the noise isn't an issue to them. Trucks going in and out of a 7 million to eight million square foot complex of warehouses would be substantially louder than a data center, substantially more traffic, substantially more employees that would be impacting their lives directly since they live across from the warehouse. So, I did want to put in there that they

are actually in favor of this because the impact to them is far less than what is proposed at Flint currently. So, that's the other main comment I had. The other thing is on the IRBs, unlike Panasonic, unlike a lot of the others, we're it's a 10-year IRB. So, it's not a 20-y year, 25 year incentive. We're at a 10-year incentive before it's fully on the tax rules. So, those are my comments. All right. Anything on this side of the table?

Um, yeah. I'd like to thank the citizens for coming forward with questions that were very good and well meant and I I feel very good about your program. I think it's a win-win situation. Um I uh have felt that uh from your openness that we've talked to you before and city staff has u really helped with the questions that we had and I think that everybody worked together and came to a good conclusion that I feel comfortable with. Okay. And that's all I have.

Thank you Danny. Um, I'll just close with a couple comments. Similar to Rob, I saw this as a win because much less intense use on that piece of property than what was originally planned. So, the the traffic, the number of employees, the trucks, all that going away with the the warehousing not being used there is going to be a positive to to what we're seeing, you know, have it's a good complement to what we have going on at Panasonic. We have the jobs, the employees, and that synergy there. And then I think this is a great complimentary use where we have the value uh but we don't have the impact of the additional traffic. So I just see it as a a great win for the community for something like this that brings high value uh a great revenue source for the community. Um can be uh very meaningful in our revenue pictures as we go forward and we look at um being able to provide some real property tax relief um as we look at some and dates out there in the future. Um, so I think with that, if if there's no more comment from the council, I think our first action then is to um

development agreement. Authorize the development agreement. Yeah. Authorize the develop approve the development agreement. If we're ready for that motion, I'll make a motion we approve the development agreement with Mount Sunflower Properties LLC. Second, Dan. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Lane. Yes. Daniels. Yes. Patterson. Yes. M Brandan. Yes. Motion carries. All right. I'll make a motion we approve resolution 2073 stating the city's intent to grant tax abatement in this project.

Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion of the motion? Roll call, please. Mcmaran, yes. Patterson, yes. Daniels, yes. Lane, yes. Motion carries. All right. Thank you all. Then our next item is somewhat related to this site because we've taken this action. Then we need to amend the agreement that we had with regarding the previous development agreement. Is that correct?

Yes. Um, so, uh, Flint did, uh, do all the public improvements they were required to under the original development agreement. Um, really the only thing left that we needed to, um, still uh, keep intact is we have uh, warranty uh, bonds on the uh, sewer line and the road improvement. So the amended agreement that you have before you uh make sure that stays in place. Um but otherwise it essentially just closes out um the portion of the property that now will be uh the side of the data center. So recommend uh authorizing uh this agreement with it's uh PB or PB PBP Logistics LLC

for you to say an entity formed by Flint. All right. Any questions for Patrick? I do have one question. The goal of the council over the years has been complete streets. Complete streets being bike lanes, sidewalks, activity on that side. Edertton Road at this point has a sidewalk along one side. It does not have on the other side. Was that part of the requirement of the road was to have that be a complete street with sidewalks on both sides or an activities trail on one side and a sidewalk on the other?

No. The development agreement was specific about the sidewalk on one side. on Flint side, the the assumption would be that as development occurs on the east side that those developers would put that in. Okay. Okay. Any other questions? Motion. I'll make a motion we authorize the amended and restate development agreement with PBP Logistics LLC related to the Flint Commerce Center. All right, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion of the motion? Roll call, please. Daniels, yes. Lane, yes. Patterson, yes. Macaran, yes.

Motion carries. All right. Thank you. Item C, receive presentation from Guyer for Evening Star Road Benefit District. Yes, council. As as Dave makes his way to the podium, [Laughter] I'll wait a moment, mayor, if you sure let them clear. I promise this will be a riveting conversation if you want to say

maybe I should have just declared a whistle. You cleared the room. I thought I showered. Yeah, I know. Nobody wants to hear this anymore.

It's your standup routine, kid. Right. All right. Yeah. Just quickly, uh, mayor, uh, you familiar face here at the podium. we know uh representing Geiger Concrete, there's another familiar face or two in the back row there. Um when they came in initially with the uh with the incentives that were granted already for the site, they uh did not include anything related to the construction of Evening Star Road. As you might remember, special use permit requires that they improve that road from 103rd Street south about a half mile to their site entrance. And uh they're they've designed that designed that now. they're in the process of uh of uh implementing those improvements. But here tonight is an initial presentation for um initial incentives related to that. The the the first one is uh the formation of a benefit district that would fund those improvements. The only member of the benefit district would be the Geer property. We're not talking about including anybody else. And then the other one would be um application of the excise tax that they've already paid uh to that to that project. excise tax about8 $888,500. Um so with that as you know with our incentives policy the first thing that happens is just a discussion between the council and the applicant and then um based on that discussion we'll we'll proceed with formal action at a later date.

Thank you very much Mike Dave Anderson 9152 Shorewood Drive here in Dotto. Uh as Mike said um we Geer bought the property from myself and a partner and we've asked we've offered to help them through this process. Uh Schllegal engineers uh are uh designing it for them. U we will pay for the entire road. We're asking that you would approve a special benefit district, which means uh there is another land owner that I will be bringing to the table that wants to build a travel center on that actual corner. Um Geer's just south of the actual corner of 103rd and Evening Star. We need three things actually. one to uh Patrick uh would draft for your consideration an annexation of a little strip of KU that's on the east side of the road. Um long story, but any rate, it's really a very small strip. They have agreed to do that. Um the the regions board will meet I'll get my dates wrong. What is your last September meeting? 18th.

18th. So the so their meeting is on the 17th. So I'd like to ask that we come the 18th with an annexation prepared for you to annex that little strip. Then we can build the road entirely on city property um or our property and your property. We would then give you the right of way. So the whole road would end up being the cities at our cost. Um but we would use the special benefit district bond if you're familiar with that. Um, it's formed, a bond is made. We have the bond sold uh already. Uh, well, they're not sold cuz they're not here, but we have someone that will buy the bonds, a bank. And then, um, then the then the land owners are assessed the cost. We're going to do 20 years. So, it's all financed through in a 20-year deal, and it is paid through taxes, and then the bonds are paid. So, the city has no financial obligation. and they're not on the hook for anything, but we do need we do need the city to issue the bond. Um, so the right ofway annexation and the bond and then we'd like to ask um for a one using 100% of our excise tax. Um, Geer has already paid that tax. I talked to Mike and the staff so that and uh Brandon so the accounting wouldn't get kind of messed up. It's sort of over here waiting for your decision. Um, and if you would allow us to do that, then when the the before the bonds are issued, we'd use the tax that we paid to pay down that bond, which we're paying for anyway. Does that make sense? I think

it's actually in an account collecting interest, but we won't. Okay. Um, in addition to that, he's already ahead. Uh, the travel center is going to come. I have a site plan and an application for an incentive on that coming shortly. And I'd like we'd like him to be included because he's the only other land owner. His property is like 5 acres. I think the Guyer property is 12ish 15 15

15. So it'd probably be 40ome,000 just based upon that. So I would ask that Musa would be able to put his excise tax into the road as well. So if you have some questions, I thought I'd make a comment. I'm I'm not asking for anything other than moving a couple hundred thousand versus 50 billion. This is pocket dust. I I know. I don't I don't even know why I'm here. Um, so, uh,

yeah, if you guys have any questions, what I'd like you to talk over or whatever is is shake your head yes and also ask Patrick to prepare an annexation agreement that you'd approve bringing that land into the city. Again, it's just a sliver. Um, I don't even know how wide it is, Matt. How wide. 60 feet for the length of the road. Mayor, can I just make one comment just particularly for the newer council members that so the excise tax

um it is pledged for transportation needs throughout the city, but it's a tax. So, we really and we do mention excise tax as being a possible um economic incentive that the city can wave uh portions or all of the excise tax, but it's not, you know, we really can't talk about it in terms of, well, you're building the road, so you shouldn't have to pay excise tax. We've been consistent with that that um you know we can wave it but it really since it's a tax that you have to pay on building permit or platting um you're just waving that tax uh sort of irrespective of the road.

Yeah. But as I understand the tax has already been paid. Yeah, we intend to pay the excise tax and then ask you to divert it to pay down direct it, not divert, direct it toward this important transportation improvement that will help to develop the Astra inter. I mean, this is an important street. It's one of the key streets in Astra. It's like we we've got uh

we have Kot and and and Panasonic build the one mile or half a mile in. I don't I don't see how this would be any different. This is just another link into the Astron. And actually, this is kind of that beginning of that fat line that connects um K10 to I35 along that uh new transportation corridor. Um, so I I think it makes a lot of sense that um we would use um transportation funding that's paid by this developer to fund the transportation improvement right here that we've identified as part of that uh Astra development.

Some of the geometry too just in in the the the previous discussion in uh bringing energy. There's a giant transmission line that's on our property and that was not going to be moved. I mean, we we in a in a normal circumstance, we might have moved it over and not have to talk to KU, but so we're kind of getting along with the neighbors that you just talked about. They're just our neighbor to the northwest or northeast. But yeah, we had to align the road a little bit different, go to KU and get some ground. But those are the just the three things. Um, and any comments you guys would like to have or share with us or tell us we're going the wrong way?

Oh, I think the I don't I I mean the benefit district I mean it's no cost to us. It's it's how you would wish to pay for that, right? Finance that that road construction, right? So, correct. Um I think it's a a legitimate we part of other um incentive proposals we've had before us recently. So I I think that seems like a reasonable ask and I've shared my opinion regarding the the the use of the excise tax. Any other thoughts from any other council? Um and so this would be something that we would work with the developer if if at the direction of council to

yeah draft an amendment to the current development agreement or possibly or a new one. Yeah, we'll go to the economic development committee. You know, we'll talk that over with that committee. So I unless I hear a veto from anybody, I I would I would suggest that we probably continue in that process. Thank you guys. Terrific job by the way earlier. Thank you Mike. Let's talk about budget. Yeah. Um let's talk about budget. So um you I don't have a start. We are not raising taxes by not raising taxes by 106%.

Some media outlets got that wrong. I think it's very important to correct that. No one in the room. No. Present company exclude. Yeah.

Um yes, council. There is there is uh as predicted mass confusion about the revenue neutral rate and how the Panasonic uh assessed valuations and tiff collections impact our extraordinary art artificially low revenue neutral rate. As you remember, we have um calculated our own revenue neutral rate, which would essentially hold harmless uh the average residential property owner in the city. Um essentially rolling back the mill rate by the same percentage that the average residential property increased in value in the last year. That's kind of uh the the the legislative intent of the revenue neutral rate is that you pay your property tax in dollars, not mills. Don't pat yourself on the back just because you're roll keeping the mill levy the same if your property tax if your property value increases your tax is going to uh we can uh we can say that the average homeowner in Dotto will pay the same city tax property tax in 26 as you pay in 25 um all else being equal. So uh that was one of the bullet point. Uh you know I I didn't intend to I don't have a big uh presentation tonight. what I provided you was kind of the first um about third of what will be the budget document um that we'll that we'll implement um and throughout the 2026 calendar year um it has narratives and explanations and policy directives and um all sorts of uh all sorts of supporting information there also five years projections I provided that um in the packet really the changes. The only changes that we have, I've kind of tried to summarize here in the staff report. Uh based on the last discussions, we've implemented those uh recommended budget enhancements that we talked about a

month ago. Uh we've added $40,000 to the consulting budget and the general fund administration uh with the intent of uh securing a lobbyist, potentially a state lobbyist for that. Uh we've also increased the general fund personnel budget so we can hire the city clerk position at the beginning of the year rather than midyear. We already talked about the the mill rate. Uh the capital improvements plan. We are still compiling the results of citizen surveys and we'll have some more specific recommendations for you um at the first meeting in September about that. for now. There's lots of placeholders in the document, but this essentially this this chart kind of shows the resulting five-year projections in the general fund. We still see a gap between uh the fund balance at the end of the five-year projection and what we uh what we've stated is our fiscal policy 30%. Uh so there's still um about $800,000 shown here of excess funding uh to still allocate if we desire to do that. Uh the budget calendar I've I've shown here in the exhibit. Uh we are on track to hold the budget hearing on September 18th. That will be our budget hearing and budget adoption. That'll allow us to get the state budget forms to the county clerk uh by the due date of October 1st. So I don't really have anything else to add. Happy to have further discussion on this. But retired we can u we can readress there at the next council meeting. Thank you.

Questions, comments? All right. I think everybody's a little worn out. Yeah, same. I I kind of sensed that. Thank you, mayor. All right. Thank you, Mike. All right. No executive session tonight, so we will go on. Mike, anything for us under advisory reports? Nothing this evening, Mayor. Thank you, Patrick. Nothing for me.

All right, city planner. Oh, Brad's gone. All right, city engineer Joe, did you com this year's program [Music] had really good for what? It's hard to hear you. Um Rob couldn't hear you. The street uh I think it was the overlay program.

Yeah, the overlay program. and then Waverly Trail. And so we had very good we had four bids on the overlay. Uh prices were good. Actually, we're going to go back and look at see what streets we can add uh because we have some excess funds. And then the Waverly Trail came in. Um we had nine biders. Uh very competitive bidding. Was that open this afternoon that I Today I saw I thought I saw like a lot of expectant folks hanging around the lobby. Yep. So yeah. So, yeah, lot of biders, which is kind of a change of what we've had in the past.

Good. Yeah, that's exciting. Thank you. Any questions for Joe? All right, Brandon. Anything from the assistant city administrator tonight? I just want to make you guys aware on September 3rd, um, which is the day before our next city council meeting, the Johnson County Parks and Recck District is coming in to the park board meeting to discuss the Riverfest Master Plan. That was a request from the from the board. So, um, the purpose of it is to give an overview of kind of where they're at in the master plan and then just kind of give a general service update um, for the park district because we had some turnover. So, um, if you'd like to give her that update, it's at 6:30 on September 3rd in this room. With that, mayor, that's all I got.

Thank you. All right. Council comments. Danny, you want to start us tonight? Um, just one thing. I wanted to thank uh the street department. They did a wonderful job of getting the things mowed down there along Cedar Creek, even with all this weird rain and the flooding and uh everything. And I thank them for that. and also the uh long um pinner, the uh church signs and everything. They did a wonderful job there and that helped the people that were coming in from White and Air Force Base to find the facility. So, thank you very much and very good for the city.

All right. Thank you, Danny. Victoria, anything tonight? Um yes. Okay. Uh it's a little ways out, but just want to make it known. October 16th meeting. I will not be here. Okay,

Rob. Nothing tonight. All right, Rhonda. Nothing. All right. So, I have one bit of news to share. We are the official owners of the Scout House. They closed on that this week. So, uh we'll have uh some discussion at some point in the future about what to do with that property, but uh right now we've declared it as storage. So, uh Jay has been looking for places to put items. So, I imagine that's where few things will end up. But, um I think one thing we have to get looked at if we're going to keep it is a roof. It's going to need a roof sooner than later. That's the joys of ownership. That That's all I have.

I'll make a motion to adjourn. I'll second. All right. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. All opposed. We are