Finance, Governance and Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. I will call I don't know what today is. The Yes. 03/03/2026 finance be make going

to

team.

Lot we

We have a of on have. Information the two six zero two four eight. That's the East Spanish or PIEA general development plan that will be held until March 24, so that the public notice can go out. We, Howard, we're gonna proceed at the top of the ordinance. We may move the alcoholic beverage ordinance up, but let's go ahead and do the geo bond ordinances and the special obligation bond ordinance.

260235 authorize the issuance of general obligation bond series twenty twenty six a of the city of Kansas City, Missouri in a principal amount not to exceed $56,000,000 prescribing the form and details of said bonds providing for the levy and collection of annual tax for the purpose of paying the principal of and interest on said bonds as they become due and authorizing certain other documents and actions in connection therewith increasing and appropriating revenue in the amount of $721,500 in the GO Series twenty twenty six A Question one bond fund, increasing and appropriating revenue in the amount of $282,000 in the GO Series twenty twenty six A Question two bond fund, increasing and appropriating revenue in the amount of $40,000 in the GL Series twenty twenty six A question three bond fund, increasing and appropriating revenue in the amount of $263,500 dollars in the GL series twenty twenty six a question one twenty two bond fund designating requisitioning authority declaring the interest of the city to reimburse itself from the bond proceeds for certain expenditures authorizing the director of finance to modify accounts upon the final sale of bonds, authorizing the director of finance to close project accounts upon completion, and recognizing this ordinance is having an accelerated effective date.

02/1937, authorizing the issuance of general obligation bond series twenty twenty six b of the city of Kansas City, Missouri in principal amount not to exceed $15,000,000. Prescribe the form and details of said bonds providing for the levy of collection of annual tax for the purpose paying the principal on and interest on said bonds as they become due and authorizing certain other documents and actions in connection therewith. 02/60238 approving the issuance by the city of Kansas City, Missouri of its special obligation bonds in more than one series including a series of bonds to finance certain projects on taxable basis with an estimated cost of $45,080,817.2 a series of tax exempt bonds to finance the certain projects on a tax exempt basis with an estimated cost of $59,246,600 and a series of bonds to refund a portion of bonds issuance by the industrial development authority of Kansas City Missouri to finance the Kansas City Downtown redevelopment District such as series twenty twenty six bonds to be issued in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $150,000,000 approving and authorizing certain documents and actions relating to the issuance of the series twenty twenty six bonds estimating and appropriating revenue in fund number 3456 the taxable special obligation series twenty twenty six a bond fund and fund number 3457 the special obligation series twenty twenty six b and series twenty twenty six c bond fund designating requisitioning authority clearing the city's intent to reimburse itself from buying proceeds authorizing the director of finance to modify and close project accounts and recognizing this ordinance is having accelerated effective date.

02/1939 authorizing the director of fine of general services to execute

Oh, wait. Howard hold on a second.

Yes, ma'am.

He was on a roll. I think 239, we don't need to read right now.

Okay. But

We're good.

Okay. Alright.

Thank you. It may be more efficient if we just read them all at the beginning and then we can just kind of go on. But no. Thank you, Howard.

Good morning. My name is Mike Buckman. I'm with the public finance section of the finance department, and we're gonna discuss ordinance numbers two sixty two thirty five and two sixty two thirty seven. These are the ordinances for the series 2026 a and 2026 B general obligation bonds. A little bit of background. A couple of committees review the projects and put together the geo bond plan. That five year geo bond plan goes into the citywide business plan. And estimation and appropriation occur for the most part during the budget process. For instance, most of these projects on the bonds here were allocated or appropriated, excuse me, at the end of fiscal year 'twenty five. And this allows projects to be started on May 1.

There are two authorizations for the studio bond program. There's an $800,000,000 authorization that was approved in April 2017 and a $175,000,000 authorization that was approved in November 2022. And to date, we've issued $376,400,000 under the 2017 authorization and a little over $90,000,000 under the 2022 authorization. This is the ninth issuance under the 2017 authorization, and we're issuing about $40,000,000 at par for the three questions. And after issuance, we expect to have $384,000,000 left in remaining authority.

Under the 2022 authorization, the twenty twenty two is a little different. They don't have a corresponding tax increase. They are designed to match the retirement of existing debt. We have a fourth issuance for parks and rec for $7,200,000 and a third issuance for affordable housing for $12,500,000 And after this issuance, we expect to have $65,400,000 in remaining authority, and next year, Spring 'twenty seven, will be the final issuance. Ordinance 260,235 is for the 2026 A bonds, and the 2017 authorization has all three questions represented on here.

They were all appropriated on Ordinance 250,173, And also on 250,173 is question one of the 2022 authorization for parks and rec facilities across all districts. Ordinance 260,237 for the 2026 B bonds is for affordable housing. It's a four year issuance pattern. It was the final tranche will be 2027, and the 2026 contribution to the Housing Trust Fund of 12,500,000 will be divided according

to a

competitive RFP process for projects that are related to new residential construction, preservation and homeownership. One of those provisions for both ordinances authorize issuance of the bonds and execution of the necessary documents, provides for the levy and collection of annual ad valorem tax for debt service on the bonds, authorizes other actions related to the sale of the bonds, and both have an accelerated effective date.

This slide shows all of

the finance professionals, our counsel and our financial advisers. Our underwriting team will be a four firm team led by Ramirez and Company. For our calendar, we're expecting to have the bond awards effective March 5. Now that assumes that we obviously pass through counsel, but also we would need the second and third readings done on March 5 for that to happen. So I need in advance for that. Received credit ratings on March 9, bond pricing on March 24, and closing on April 7. Any questions?

Are there any questions? And just want to reiterate that these are projects that we approved in the last budget and this is just the authorization to issue the bonds, correct?

Correct. Yes.

Are there any questions? Is there any public testimony for ordinance numbers 260,235, 260,237, or 230,238?

Madam Chair? Yes. They really haven't talked about the special obligation bonds yet, and I think there might be a question about that. So maybe it'd be better to dispense with the GO ones first, the first two, or let them continue.

Your choice.

Sorry. I thought you skipped ahead. I was okay. Let's stick with two thirty five and two thirty seven.

Okay. And there was no testimony to move to the ordinance? No.

I would entertain a motion.

Madam chair, move that ordinance number two six zero two three five and ordinance number two six zero two three seven be reported to full council with the recommendation of advance and do pass. Second. It's

been moved and seconded that ordinance number two six zero two three five and two six zero two three seven be reported out of Board of

of

Missing two three six. That's what confused me. And

he still needs to read it.

I I think he read all three of them. Yeah. He read all three of them. We just three? Yes.

Good morning. Dan Grancois with the finance department, along with Alicia Booker, also with finance here at City Hall. The words in front of you authorize the issuance of three limited obligation bonds in the amount not to exceed $150,000,000 The purpose of the bonds is to fund projects previously appropriated, also as well as to new projects and to partially refund some bonds issued about twenty years ago for the public infrastructure for the downtown entertainment district known as Casey Live. The first issuance of bonds is 2026 a which will be a taxable issuance that will fund two projects previously appropriated the Barn Ellis renovation project. This is the second tranche of those bonds for that project.

And also the design work in the amount of $15,000,000 for the Luminary Park design. Both of bonds for both of these projects will have a thirty year debt service timeline, previously appropriated, as I just mentioned, and have the same repayment source being the city's restaurant tax. Next slide, please. The second set of bonds will be issued on a federally tax exempt basis and fund four new projects. The first being $20,000,000 for integration costs for the city's new ERP system that will replace a twenty year old system that is quickly becoming outdated.

The second project is design work in the amount of $5,000,000 for an anticipated detention center facility in the future. Both of these projects have not been previously appropriated, but the proceeds are being appropriated in this particular action. They both have twenty year debt service levels and the debt service terms. ERP

system will

be paid from general revenues, and the design work bonds will be paid from public safety sales taxes. The third project is the second tranche of public infrastructure improvements to the TIFF West Bottoms redevelopment project. The $12,200,000 was previously appropriated. That debt service term for that particular project will have a thirty year debt thirty year term, and the source of repayment will be tip revenues once that redevelopment project is complete. Next slide, please.

The fourth project in the 26 B issuance will be to raise $22,000,000 for $25,000,000 contribution for the city that the city is making for the northland workforce redevelopment center. The ordinance also requests to estimate an appropriate surplus tiff and tdd revenues in the amount of $3,000,000 This action or this plan is to reduce the borrowing cost on the city for the contribution. The borrowed proceeds will be will have a twenty year level debt service term and the resource repayment will be pilot payments redirected from data center development projects. And the surplus TIP and TDD revenues come from three different projects that are outlined at the bottom of the slide. The final set of bonds will be a series of funding bonds that will fund approximately $26,000,000 in principal amortization that would have otherwise occurred over the next four years from the IDA Series twenty eleven A bonds.

These are refunding bonds. They were funded bonds in 2005 and 2006 that financed public improvements to make possible the KC Live Entertainment District. The savings the refunding and savings from that is estimated of about $660,000 with a present value savings of approximately 2.7%. Next slide, please. Besides issuing the bonds, the ordinance also request authority to set pricing parameters, authorize other actions to be taken on the sale of the bonds and request an accelerated effective date.

On the next two slides, you can see the financing professionals, bond counsel and financial advisory firms and also the underwriting team the Board of Board next week based of upon Directors some credit presentations that were held with S and P and Fitch about three weeks ago. We would like to price these bonds in early April and close on before the end of the fiscal year. Any questions?

Okay. Congressman Rogers.

Just a brief comment. In the last hour or so, I've spoken with both councilwoman Frenchie and by mister assistant city manager Queen about some of the debt north of the river and which pots we would pull from. And I think we're all in agreement about the actual numbers, but there may be conversation between now and next Thursday about which pots of money that comes from. So I'm just alerting everyone that Councilman Frishtai may have a floor amendment based on conversations that will happen in the next two days.

Oh, two days. Okay. I thought you said next Thursday. So I know there was a request for an accelerated Next Thursday. Okay.

We'll get it done quick. But we may just have a request that we move some of the money, and we have spoken with this queen about it, and it seems

They just want to switch out the estimated revenues that would reduce the borrowing, still only borrowing $22,000,000 using surplus TIF revenue of 3,000,000 but maybe from different projects in the Northland, not the projects that were in the ordinance. So we can make that change on Thursday as needed.

And we'll keep everybody in the loop on our proposal. I just wanted to let everyone know that we talked about it just a minute ago.

All right.

Madam Chair. Vice Mayor.

I have questions as it relates primarily to Roy Blunt Luminary Park. We have $15,000,000 in bond proceeds here. I think my first question is, is this to address funding for design work or what's the It's the design work. And we've already entered into an agreement on that design work or have we already

I would assume so because that there was a prior ordinance that estimated appropriated that amount. So I assume that's we're well down the road to encumbering that contract, and it's they're probably already working.

I would and I don't know if there's someone you tend to know everything ACM, so I don't know if there's someone who could confirm that for us given the amount. Because I pulled up the ordinance, and I remember the discussion, I think, in this committee. This committee and beyond, city council had pretty robust questions and we included a section relating to the Luminary Park project to identify $50,000,000 in private commitments prior to the city manager bringing an ordinance for council consideration to request the issuance of special obligation bonds. It appears as if that condition to our ordinance has not been met. So my question is, why are we here unless the $50,000,000 of private contribution have been met and perhaps you can help us with it.

Good morning, mister mayor and members committee. Jeff Martin, the city manager's office. Regarding Luminary Park project, the ordinance back in October authorized $15,000,000 to complete 100% design on that particular project. That amendment with the designer HNTB has been executed as in place. The ordinance also required, to your point, an additional $21,000,000 of fund private fundraising to be completed in order to release an additional $65,000,000 for the construction of the project.

Those private fundraising efforts are currently underway and are moving forward. So we'll be back later for additional ordinance authorizing that remainder $65,000,000 once that funding has been raised and we're ready to move forward with construction.

Understood. Always clear, dispassionate. I guess I'll ask a few questions following up on that because we asked this, I guess, now five months ago, do we have any further indications on where we are with fundraising and the private commitments? We've been discussing this now for several years, and I always hear about how close we potentially are. And of course, we're issuing substantial debt to the city as we continue to wait for the private commitments.

Right. So I believe the latest number is just under $2,000,000 of additional funding has been raised, but they have some very strong prospects for up to an additional 15,000,000 asks out right now. So they are making progress and have some good prospects that they're pursuing.

I

mean, I start to have qualms without more performance. Maybe I'll just look for clarity from staff because sometimes we put these things in ordinances and we lose track perhaps. So the $65,000,000 bond ordinance will not come to us unless the conditions set by counsel for $50,000,000 of private fundraising is met.

That is correct.

Any other questions? That comes from girls.

Just a follow-up to the mayor's point. Is there a time frame or time limit? Did we put a time frame or time limit on the raising of those additional funds for that?

There was not a time limit within the ordinance put forward. We're obviously pursuing that fundraising as quickly as possible. In order to complete the project within the budget, we obviously have to get the work started soon to not incur additional cost increases due to inflationary.

And to that end, if that amount is not raised, then you'll be back to the city asking for us to fund that additional money that was not raised, that we that we placed in an ordinance to raise. I forgot how much it was, but if that money is not raised, then that's gonna be something that we'll have to So figure out how to

if the private funding is not met, we will continue to pursue all funding sources that we can, including other grants, other loan opportunities, perhaps additional city money. Our intent is not to come back and ask for additional city funds at this time. Hope to be able to raise those private funds that are needed.

Approving this, how does that affect this? Clarification.

As I read it, and anyone can interrupt, I mean, I read it as this is just the $15,000,000 which, I mean, if we don't proceed ultimately with the luminary part, then it would be $15,000,000 in either sunk cost or other studied cost, right, that we would just lose. However, this does not create an obligation for future funding the $65,000,000 obligation that was discussed in the October ordinance. The the trigger is still that they have they, being the group that raises money for this, has to complete the private fundraising. Or I assume if they don't, then staff would come to us at some point and say the bridge project seems in jeopardy. Are there different ways that we can craft this project or it will be our policy choice whether to not proceed?

I will note on timing, by the way, to Councilman Kerr's question, the section that probably this committee added is section 10, which actually notes that these bonds are to be requested for the fiscal year ending in 04/30/2027, which would that be what we're doing now? That's No.

Would be for the $65,000,000 going into next year and to be issued in fiscal year 'twenty seven. But we wouldn't proceed with that unless and until we have that commitment on the private fundraising.

All right.

Can I follow-up on something that the mayor said? Because he I think he said if if they if we don't proceed, we would lose the $15,000,000 Is there I think we talked about kind of an alternative if, you know, could is the design work such that if they don't raise all of the money, there's a, you know, a medium sized version of the Luminary Park that we could build that we wouldn't necessarily lose all the money. And I don't wanna go too much into detail, but I think I maybe my the better question is, is it an all or 2021.

We're we're that work is underway now and moving forward. So with once that design is complete, we can always look at ways to phase the project if needed. Definitely not our desire. Desire is to build it all at one time once we raise those funds. But once the design is complete, product is there for us to use and to reimagine if needed based on funding problems.

I don't like to lose $15,000,000.

I'm with you.

Councilwoman Paterson. Thank you, chairwoman Boo.

Can you clarify, was the 25,000,000 supposed to be raised before the issuance of these bonds? The ordinance make that clear? Because you said it's in progress, but is it asking for it to be raised?

So the additional $21,000,000 which would bring the total private fundraising up to 50,000,000 must be raised prior to the issuance of the additional $65,000,000 worth of bond funds. The $15,000,000 plus or minus that's within this was approved with that October ordinance, and that is for the design work that's currently underway.

Work

we to

the we're to do

work project,

to project And So we would be look at how it could be phased in if that were needed and utilize those existing design plans.

So how much do you anticipate it costing to create a phased in design if you're not doing that now?

I have not looked at that. It's not something that we've been pursuing because our intent is identify all the funds and move forward with the project as a whole. If something changes to where we truly believe that we're not going be able to raise those funds, then we can approach that at that time.

At what point, and I don't, I mean, here's the problem I start to have, and I've been on council long enough to hear discussions about like trains having left the station when we figure out things and all of that. So my when would staff let us know that we don't know that the people will raise $50,000,000? What I'm concerned is we'll get a 100% design. I think councilman Kearl's point is is exactly correct. You'll tell us it's a 100% design. We'll have this full project. It'll come back to us in the form of, well, there's still a gap. The fund private fundraising, which was always supposed to be an element of it, isn't meant, we're going be do to And

then

since October is not overwhelming, and it may be underwhelming for the fundraising effort. And usually downtown council people are here to talk to us about it. I know they love it. I don't see anybody now, but I'd just love more information on that.

Right. So we actually have monthly executive team meetings with the full all the project partners in the group and get updates on their progress. I sit in on fundraising meetings. They have weekly fundraising meetings. I'm in about every other week, sort of two weeks. And so the $2,000,000 that's been raised since October is in addition to the $29,000,000 that was raised previously. So we're $31,000,000 towards that $50,000,000 goal that was set by counsel in this particular order. So like I said, they have some very good prospects for some large sums coming up, and I know that we're working very diligently to continue to raise those funds.

Question back to finance staff. So you wanted in advance for this so you could be ready for all of your April deadlines. I'd love to know a little bit more about the Barnialis project. So I would recommend almost breaking this out and let everything else proceed, but at the very least, I would love an update before the further obligation. You're welcome to tell me that that's impossible and cannot be done, but what's the story?

I think you bring up an important point and probably one maybe we haven't done a good job of as we go through the year, and we bring you things like Barney Ellis Plaza and we tell you we are estimating bond proceeds that we're going to sell later, but we're estimating revenue from bonds in the amount of $30,000,000 so that we can finish this project. That is what the Barney Ellis Plaza advance appropriation on a prior ordinance did. And then basically, when staff has that revenue estimate and that appropriation, they go and let contracts and spend money because we've told them it's okay, and we're going to float them until we actually do the bond issue. And so at this point, we have that to use your analogy, the train has left the station. We have used that money.

They are nearing completion on that project later this summer, and that $30,000,000 has already been used. And so the

And I misspoke, and I'm talking about the luminary part.

Oh, sorry.

But I'm sure the same theory

exact concept. Yes. Yes. Same exact concept. When and we I used to be pretty rabid, I would say, about standing up and saying, hey. Just so you know that when we come to you with a $15,000,000 bond issuance for this ordinance that you are considering, that you kind of have to say yes at that point because we will have already spent the money, we will already be moving down the tracks. So we just exchanged that conversation amongst us here just to say we really need to do a better job of making sure that that's very clear for you all and that it's not you don't get to this point and say, wait a minute, I have a little buyer's remorse, which I get.

Yeah. Question, though, for you. I mean, just purely technically, when do you when does this ordinance need to pass? I assume it has an accelerated effective date. You're requesting advances, all of that. I mean, is this one of those that if it's not passed and signed by the mayor on Thursday, which it could not be anyway, does the world end, or is this a it'd be very good to have it for you?

It would be very good to have. I'm guessing these because they're really smart, built a week into their calendar for just in case. But we have to get we have to have an approved ordinance in order to get to the bond market. And in order to get an offering document out in the bond market, we have to have that piece of paper in our hands. And so that probably needs to happen in the next couple of weeks, So I would I think we have probably a week.

Okay. The consolation I'll give you, if and I don't even know if I have the votes to do this, I would request a business session presentation on where we are on the Barney Alice Plaza not Barney Alice, on Luminary Park from the people that are fundraising that are doing all of the other work. If that so happens to get this gets out of committee, otherwise, I would recommend a committee we break out the Luminary Park portion. We proceed with the rest. We allow a bond offering to many of the other things where the trains left the station and do what we do what we can to learn more. But do they all have to be together in how we've

They need to be together. I mean, it's this is you see how the the the ordinance it's a very long ordinance, and this is just one project within it. It'd probably be cleaner and easier if you want to hold it a week and then talk about it next week with what we would probably have to have passage next week in order to meet the schedule because of the week off that's in between.

That's what I was going to say or bring up that we're off a week. Would the alternative be to pass it out of this committee, hold it on the floor and make any changes that we need after that?

Yeah. I mean, I that I'm sure it's easier that way. I just have to share the frustration, which is, obviously, counsel inserted section 10 because we had serious questions about fundraising. Six months later, we know next to nothing more about fundraising. This is this is going down the tracks of exactly what councilman Kearls is saying. I may be here, I may not, but I hate to burden our successors with, oh, there are only $25,000,000 left and Rob Peter to pay Paul in connection with everything we were talking about in this committee last week. So, I mean, I guess it's been shared. We can throw things in ordinances to make that point clearer, but I would hope that somebody's recognizing that. I I won't there are a lot of people here. Won't filibuster further. But

Well, to to to your

point of the of the I mean, what if we take this out and we made that commitment, the funds have

been paid. I mean You've got a $15,000,000 hole in the budget.

Yes. No, I understand.

And think the point is, if we want to have that conversation because we've you know, the the question is that next step, and we've made that commitment in the ordinance, I think, you know, from a from from the finance chair standpoint is we we did pass that ordinance. We've gotten to this point, and we have to deal with that that commitment that we've made at some point. And so how we do that is is the question that we're gonna have to address at some point. Councilman Gearls.

Thank you, madam chair. I just so that we're belaboring the point in too much longer because a lot of people are here for other things. I would agree with the mayor if we could have a business session to have further discussion about this. And I would like to see, also some type of periodic updates Yep. In regards to this project because we have not heard anything for six months. Now all of a sudden, we get presented with this information. And to my question earlier is, what's the time limit and what's the time frame? And don't seem like we've got one, and I think that that needs to be understood.

Alright. Well, I do you wanna hold it?

No. No. We're fine. We'll follow your recommendation, madam chair.

I'm

sorry.

Madam I'm chair, I I'm move ordinance number two six zero two three eight be recommended with an advance and do pass. Second.

It's been moved and seconded that ordinance number two six zero two three eight be reported out of committee with the recommend recommendation of advance and do pass. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay. The motion passes, and we will ask for business session and regularly updates assistant city manager Martin. Okay.

And our business session, if I may, madam chair, would be this Thursday.

This Thursday. Make sure

we'll be ready.

I've lost Jeff, but

He's back there.

I think oh, there he is.

Thank you.

I think two three nine will go very quickly, helping. So let's do that very quickly, and then we will move on to the alcohol ordinance.

Two six zero two three nine authorizing the director of general services to execute a five year lease agreement with two options to renew for five years each with Wolf Garage LLC doing business as Charlie D's Express for the purpose of a restaurant space in Wolf Garage located at 1124 Oak Street, Kansas City, Missouri, 64106, authorizing an expenditure of $20,000 from previously appropriated funds from 100071600619080 for tenant improvements.

Good morning. Good morning, chair and committee. I'm Ashley Wise, real estate manager with the general services department, and to my right is Gary Hill. He is the owner operator of Charlie D's Express. And this has been a long time coming. We're very excited about this. We are asking for a restaurant in the Wolf Garage across the street, which will be Charlie D's Express. It's a southern style cuisine, seafood, chicken that will offer breakfast, lunch, and dinner, cafeteria style. And I have Gary here to offer any insight if you have any questions specifically about his restaurant. Councilman

O'Neil asked, will there be sit down tables in the restaurant? It's not just like a take and go.

Yes, fast casual quick serve, comfort food.

We looked at the menu yesterday in premeeting and we're all gone hungry. Councilman Araya.

I don't have a question for the restaurant owner, but I do have a question for staff and how we're going to maintain that space down there. I walk by it on most days, and it's dirty, it's gross, it's smelly. We need to go through there regularly with the power washer and clean up the trash, certainly before we have someone welcoming more customers there to get some food. Are we going maintain that space better?

We will. We will. That is a group effort between ourselves and our facilities team, we will definitely pay better attention to that, and especially since our new restaurant space will be there, and we do have plans for the other empty space coming up soon, I think having a presence there will definitely keep that cleaner.

I just I want people to feel comfortable going to these establishments and, you know, give these folks a chance.

Sure. Absolutely. Alright. And councilman Duncan.

Thank you, madam chair. I was in subway the other day, and Jake told me that he's selling the subway. So do we have plans to replace that?

Subway will still be there. He's just he's assigning his lease to another franchisee. So Jake is the only thing that's changing, sadly.

But I love Jake.

I love Jake. We all love Jake.

Alright. Any other questions? Is there any public testimony on ordinance number two six zero two three nine?

No written testimony submitted for this ordinance. No one appears in person or by Zoom.

Madam chair, I move that ordinance two six zero two three nine be reported to full council. Advance and do pass. Second.

And moved and seconded. The ordinance number two six zero two three nine be reported out of committee with recommendation of advance and do pass. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. We'll hear it on Thursday. Thank you so much. I look forward to running over on our lunch.

I appreciate it, Zolly.

Thank 26025 o.

25 o. Yes, ma'am. 260250, amending chapter 10, code of ordinances, alcohol beverages enacting in new sections to 10 dash two sixteen and ten dash three thirty six for the purpose of designing certain geographic area designating certain geographic areas within the city experiencing acute detrimental public safety and public health impacts from the retail package sale of alcohol as retail alcohol impacted areas in placing certain conditions on retail packaging licenses within such designated areas.

Before we get started, I just wanna make a couple of announcements, and I think councilman Ray has anything. First of all, we are gonna take public testimony. I will at my chair's election, we will hold this. We will not vote on it. If there is some discussion from the council about holding it more than a week, which I have the ability to do, we will have that discussion after public test testimony. But we will be holding this ordinance and not voting on it today. Councilman Raya, do you have a motion?

Yes, madam chair. Thank you. Madam chair, move that we go into closed session pursuant to section six one zero zero two one subsection one of the revised statutes of state of Missouri to discuss legal matters, litigation, or privileged communications with attorneys.

Second.

Been moved and seconded that we go into closed session. Howard, will you take call the row, please?

Who? I.

Lucas. I. Raya.

I. Gerrles.

I. Rogers.

I'm

go back back the going I'm We're back in open session. Assistant city manager Klein, go right ahead.

Good morning, madam chair, honorable mayor, committee, and council members. My name is Lace Klein, and I'm the assistant city manager of public safety. Oh, hi.

Oh, the mic.

I am joined

Lace, the mic. Yep.

And I am joined by my colleague, Joe Williamson, the director of the multidisciplinary public safety task force. Today we're presenting on Ordinance No. 260,250, which would amend Chapter 10 of the Code by creating new Sections ten-two 16 and ten-two 17 pertaining to the creation of a Retail Alcohol Impact Area Plan. This ordinance establishes a targeted place based policy that applies to limited product restrictions within defined impact areas to address concentrated public safety concerns, and it's going to be called a retail it's known as what's called a retail alcohol impact area plan. So, today, I will first go into, research related to alcohol sales practices and the correlation to violence, COVID-nineteen health We

and

And are strong

committed our employees. Organization.

As you all know, violence We is complex and it has multiple causes including social conditions and environmental conditions. This ordinance relates to addressing environmental conditions. So Kansas City's approach to public safety recognizes that violence is multifactorial. We address prevention and by support we support prevention, we address enforcement when needed, and we also examine environmental conditions that contribute to disorder. For example, last month, council adopted the gas station drug ban ordinance regulating Kratom and seven zero eight through targeted retail sales restrictions.

This ordinance follows the same environmental design approach by addressing alcohol retail practices correlated with concentrated public safety challenges. Higher alcohol outlet density is consistently associated with increased violent crime in the surrounding area even after you control for other neighborhood conditions such as bus stops, the presence of schools, and other factors that make up a neighborhood. And when I refer to alcohol outlet density,

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We Alcohol outlet density combined with the sale of cheap single serve alcohol products are often correlated with increased crime, including violent crime and youth violence, increased calls for police and emergency services, public disorder and other quality of life crimes, and littering. As mentioned, Kansas City has already begun using a targeted the in nation's history history of the crime or public safety risk. Research shows that you can reduce violence and disorder through responsible alcohol sales policies. When evidence shows that certain environmental conditions are associated with harm, again, cities have tools to address those conditions, including through regulating alcohol sales. One way that cities do this is through regulating the number, the density and again the sales practices of alcohol retailers in given neighborhoods.

By reducing the number of alcohol retail research shows that if you reduce the number of alcohol retailers in dense areas, you can improve violence in and around the business, but also if you regulate the availability of single serve alcohol, that is an effective way to reduce alcohol related crime, including when this is used as part of a larger crime reduction strategy. And so I say that to say that this ordinance is not meant to be a silver bullet. It is meant to be another tool as part of the city's overall crime reduction strategy. There are cities that you'll see that have flat out banned the single sale products, but also have reduced the sale through various types of restrictions. So banning or reducing the sale of single serve alcohol has been associated with improved public safety outcomes and it is a tool for violence prevention and harm reduction.

And when we talk about single serve alcohol, these are products that are sold individually. They're not sold in a package that connects them to other containers and also single serve containers can vary in size up to 70 ounces. For example, there are malt beverages that go up that high and are thought of as being single serve. Kansas City would not be alone in strengthening its alcohol regulations to address public safety and public health issues. Cities regulate alcohol in several recognized ways.

There are product based restrictions, which is part of what this ordinance seeks to do, including container size restrictions. Some cities use brand restrictions. Some cities have single serve limitations, and some cities restrict whether alcohol is available in a chilled or ready to drink format. Cities use geographic restrictions based on neighborhood or ward, and there are also other cities that use hours of sale restrictions or do things on a case by case basis. As you can see, there are a number of cities that are already using these regulatory approaches including Washington DC, San Bernardino, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, and a suburb outside of Chicago.

Research shows that the most common restrictions that cities use include a restriction on the sale of individual malt beverages, which under our city's code does include beer, and some cities have regulated up to 70 ounces or less, and that city would be, for instance, Washington DC. There are cities that regulate hard liquor, including pints, half pints, airplane bottles, minis, nips or shorties. And then cities also regulate wine products, including wine coolers and many wine bottles. So what is a retail alcohol impact area plan? It is a place based geographic tool used to address concentrated public safety controls.

It allows cities to apply targeted alcohol sales restrictions within a defined area. We are

committed

community and

We Kansas We Cityians have identified several

to concerns regarding neighborhood the conditions, including quality of life and public safety. The themes that I'm about to discuss were raised through engagement with our multidisciplinary public safety task force, residents, businesses, the Alcohol and Beverage Advisory Group, also known as ABAC, community improvement districts, neighborhood association leaders, and civil rights organizations, including both proponents and opponents of this type of policy. While the perspectives differ on the appropriate policy response, there is broad acknowledgment of the public safety challenges facing our city, including within the impacted corridors. A our communities. Foundation certain types of establishments, the increased demand on our police and emergency services, including nine one one wait times.

With respect to neighborhood conditions, quality of life was frequently raised, the overconcentration of liquor stores in certain areas, blight and vacant buildings were raised by both proponents and opponents of this type of policy, the proximity to bus stops was raised as a concern, chronic loitering and trespassing, as well as litter. Economic impact is also something that has been raised by both sides. Residents are concerned about the effect on business development and housing, including those who are in favor of such a policy because what they have seen is that given the amount of crime in the area, businesses aren't developing stores, housing development isn't happening, and folks are going to continue focus the as well as again the product scope. I will say that there is no research that suggests that these types of policies used by cities have such a negative impact on retail operators that it puts them out of business. Here are products that have been frequently identified as contributing to disorder in Kansas City.

So with respect to hard liquor, we see the same types of items that other cities are regulating. Pints, half pints in the airplane bottles, malt beverages, 40 ounces or less, as well as any wine products. And this is just an example of what these products look like. Able do able to to that. And And

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going committed to committed And our We So the proposed impact areas, we're committed calling them Prospect Aveneuthesoutheast corridor, the Central Business Corridor, Midtown Corridor, Independence Avenue corridor and Blue Ridge Corridor. These corridors reflect areas that have had sustained public safety challenges. They are areas where the Public Safety Task Force has frequent reoccurring engagement. They're areas where residents and a variety of leaders from neighborhoods, civil rights organizations and CIDs have repeatedly raised concerns about crime disorder, quality of life, and economic development. The boundaries that we are about to discuss were determined using a number of factors.

One of that is how much the public the public safety task force led by Joe has engaged in that those corridors to address public safety related issues. Resident and community concerns and feedback helped inform the boundaries. Additionally, peer reviewed research, helped determine the boundaries using a buffer to prevent what's called the spillover effect. One of the things that you will see is, you know, by placing restrictions in one area, there's a concern about does this just shift prime to another area? And so these buffers were put in place using a quarter mile buffer, to address the concern that we're just moving prime instead of addressing it in the neighborhoods.

So for Prospect AvenueSoutheast, those boundaries are 23rd Street on the North through I 435 on the South and Paseo Paseo And Lydia Avenue between 49th And 59th Street on the West and Jackson Avenue on the East, including any businesses or premises that are within or abut these boundaries. So if you're right on that line of the boundary, you would still be included. And if you are visual, then this blue line boundary represents the Prospect Southeast Corridor and you can see the gray pins, those are the amount of retail liquor license package holders and the red pin constitutes a retail package liquor license that would be pleased progress we

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from January 2025 through February 23, we saw 17,331 calls for service. I've outlined a variety of categories, but I want to specifically note that, in this area, there were over a thousand calls for service related to the sounds of shot or shot spotters and 83 calls for shootings. When we look at the crime that was reported in this area for the same time period, you see that there were 1,420 crimes reported, including 38 murders, 700 assault aggravated assaults, which includes non fatal shootings, and a variety of other violent crime in this area for just a little bit over this past year. With respect to the Central Business District corridor, this includes the Missouri River on the North going to 18th Street on the South, and it would include I 35 And 29, I 70 And Bruce R Watkins Drive on the East, and then Broadway would be the western boundary. And, again, with all of the boundaries, it's going to include properties that are but are located within, these boundaries.

Here is a map of the Central Business Corridor and what that looks like. Again, the gray pens are all of these pens relate to retail package liquor license holders and the red pens are those that would be exempted under the grocery store exception. When we look at crime data for the past year in the Central Business District, we see 16,383 calls for services. We see that there were a 127 calls for shots, 27 calls for services related to shootings, and a plethora of other calls for services. When we look at crime for the same reported crime for the same area, we see that there were 2,547 crimes reported over the last year, included including three murders and a 113 aggravated assaults, which again includes non fatal shootings as well as a variety of other types of crimes.

Turning to what we're calling the Midtown Corridor boundaries, that would be 27th Street on the North, 47th Street and Emanuel Cleaver the 2nd Boulevard on the South, and within the city limits of Kansas City on the West and Truth Avenue on the East. And here is the boundary for, the Midtown Corridor. Again, the pens are all related to retail liquor license package holders and the red pens relate to those that would fall under the grocery store exemption. When we look at crime for Midtown, we see that there have been, over the past year, 25,528 calls for services in this area. You see more than four fifty sounds of shots and shotspotter calls and calls for services for 48 shootings during this time period as well as a plethora of other calls for services.

We see that there were 4,161 crimes reported including 14 murders and 165 aggravated assaults, which includes non fatal shootings. As we turn to the Blue Ridge Corridor, that would be 83rd Street through 119th Street as the northern and southern boundaries. And then you have several streets that make up the, western boundary just given the geography of Kansas City. So that would include Newton, Bennington, and Hickman Mills Drive on the West, James A. Reed Road, Eastern Avenue, and Food Lane on the East.

And all of these would fall within the city limits of Kansas City. And then here is the Blue Ridge side of that.

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And the past year and two forty seven of those were for sounds of shots and 21 of those were for shootings. And you see a plethora of other types of calls for services. When we look at the crime data in Blue Ridge Corridor, we see that six seventy five crimes were reported over this last year, including 84 aggravated assaults and five murders. And finally, with respect to the Independence Corridor boundaries, this would include Scarrett Avenue, East Of Benton, Gladstone Boulevard, and a portion of Saint John Avenue on the West. You would also, have Chestnut traffic work way on the northern boundary, East 18th Street on the South, and Forest Avenue would be the western boundary, including I 4035 on the East.

And this map represents, the boundaries description for Independence Avenue with the impacted retail licenses and exempted

impact

the pandemic. Are 382 calls for services. In And You see that there were more than 1,000 calls for services for sounds of shots and shot spotters and 96 calls for services related to shootings. When we look at the crime data for this area for the same time period, you see that there were 837 reported crimes including 357 aggravated assaults, which includes non fatal shootings, and 28 murders. Now I'm going to discuss the framework for Ordinance 260,250.

The purpose of this ordinance is to protect public safety and public health by regulating the retail sale of certain single serve individual containers of alcohol products in designated areas that are experiencing persistent public safety challenges. Under this ordinance, in the designated areas that I just described, retail alcohol businesses except grocery stores would be prohibited from selling single serve or individual containers of customers. For to We deliver strong the minis, shorties and airplane bottles. Additionally, single serve malt beverages sold in 40 ounce containers or less would be prohibited in designated areas. So you've heard me mention several times that there's a grocery store exception for the designated impact areas.

To qualify as a grocery store under Kansas City's liquor code, you have to be an establishment that has 15,000 square footage or more and 70% or more of your sales have to come from products other than liquor. And so that could be grocery, snacks, it could be personal electronics, home essentials and clothing. So while it's called a grocery store under the code, you can see that it includes a variety of items. And I wanna note that the criteria in our existing code is used to distinguish between retail models and not to favor one type of owner over another. The research indicates again that there are several factors that correlate to violence, including how many alcohol outlets there are in an area, where those outlets are located, and how alcohol is sold.

Commonly, grocery stores have a different format and purchasing pattern than what you see in typical liquor stores, convenience stores and gas stations. This ordinance includes administrative penalties for those who are in impacted areas and by would violate the ordinance. So that falls under section 10 dash 17 d of the proposed ordinance, and violators would be subject to all the penalties sent forth in chapter ten-forty of the code which relates to liquor licenses. Additionally, of the ordinance to be grounds for suspension and revocation of a liquor license under sections ten-thirty six and ten-sixty two. So how will this ordinance be enforced if passed?

There is a sixty day delayed effective date that is built into this ordinance. We're to sure we're future. The for And forward are Additionally, this policy possible is meant to be an adaptive policy. This policy this ordinance authorizes council to create, modify or eliminate designated retail alcohol impact areas as conditions change based on recommendations from the Public Safety Task Force or the Director of Neighborhood Services. It also mandates review every three years to ensure continued effectiveness and justification.

The reason that this adaptive policy the California,

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state the art art those that alcohol policy was inadvertently repealed. Well, what they saw is that in the East Central Zone, the neighborhood had actually stabilized. Downtown started to see those same reoccurring issues related city of New was again included in that framework, York, but there was not it was determined that there wasn't a need to include the East Central neighborhood given the neighborhood stability over that twelve year period. So we've talked a lot about what other cities are doing and also the proposed restrictions in this ordinance. And so I want to point out that compared to other jurisdictions, Kansas City's proposal is narrower.

This is due to community feedback on problem products, including feedback from the multidisciplinary public safety task force. So again, other cities include wine, which is not included in this ordinance, and they also include pints as and their malt beverages go up to 40 ounces. You'll also see that our city is, again, proposing that ABB requirement of 35% or more for hard liquor. You don't tend to see other cities imposing the alcohol by volume restriction. They tend to just have a flat out ban on the single serve products.

We took this approach, again, based on community feedback so that we can ensure that we're addressing the products that are contributing to harm locally. So this ordinance does not ban all alcohol products as you saw. Additionally, you can still so you can still purchase packages containing multiple containers of the restricted single serve products in the designated areas. So for instance, although you might not be able to purchase a single serve beer, you could still purchase a four pack or a six pack in designated areas. Additionally, this doesn't ban alcohol citywide.

You can still purchase the impacted products in other areas of the city that are not designated as an impact area. This ordinance does not apply to bars and restaurants or taverns in the designated impact areas. And as you saw, it does not apply to grocery stores in designated impact areas. And finally, again, there's no research that suggests that businesses shut down in designated impact areas that have similar restrictions. A question that's commonly come up through community engagement is, well, why not just apply this citywide? And the of focused the

And and

addressed through other of means. What do we expect to see if this ordinance passes? Well, research shows that cities with strong alcohol regulations experience a better quality of life, improved public safety and stablehood neighborhoods. So what this means for Kansas City, Missouri is that we hope to see fewer nuisance complaints, fewer calls for services and less strains on emergency resources, improved public safety, quality of life and long term neighborhood stability and the

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All communities deserve to feel safe. Our communities are asking for tools to create safer neighborhoods and reduce violence. While some businesses have raised concerns about economic impact, in the

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and that does not include the societal cost associated with loss of human life. Additionally, a 2010 Iowa State study estimates that a single murder cost society are that we Smart, thoughtful alcohol regulation supports public the safety. Public safety is the foundation of strong economically vital communities. Ordinance 260,250 presents a targeted research supported tool for council's consideration. It is narrow, geographically focused, and adaptive.

With that, I'll take any questions.

Thank you, Ms. Assistant city manager Klein. I do have several questions. Unfortunately, I did not receive this until about an hour before our committee, so I I have some questions. I expect other committee members do.

I don't dispute a lot of the information that was in here, and I appreciate you compiling this information. I think that probably a lot of us would support some version of this ordinance, but just wanted to kind of share and get on the record some of my questions and see if we can get to a point where we can fully support this. You you left off with a point about what it costs for murders, and and I'm gonna stick primarily with the Midtown Corridor because that touches the 6th District, which I represent. You list, like, 25,528 calls for service, and I think this kind of goes to the heart of this ordinance. How not only do you do you how can you know how single serve alcohol is attributed to the calls for service?

And how on the back end can you monitor how this type of ordinance has the impact on reducing those calls for service? Is there a way in which now that we know I mean, obviously, litter, you can see them on the ground. There was a picture of one and we've seen pictures of others. But how can you how is the causation and correlation evidence support to, you know, 14 murders in the Midtown Corridor attributed to single use. And I I get alcohol, but how is that attributed to the 25,000 calls per service?

Yes. So I mentioned that there are a number of factors that contribute to violence. This ordinance and the research is not meant to suggest that alcohol related density or sales is the sole contributor. And so there are social conditions that, contribute to violence, including mental health related issues, substance use, issues, poverty. But we know that there are also environmental conditions that contribute to, violence in neighborhoods, even if it's inadvertent. And there is a lot of peer reviewed research, and I included many citations on this on how other cities And We're

to

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how can we actually tell that this is working and whether something needs to be adjusted. Again, there's a number of environmental conditions. Council has already, you know, decided to address one of those environmental conditions related to unregulated intoxicating substances such as kratom and, seven o h that are commonly sold at gas stations, vape stop shops, convenience stores. And so all of these things when taken together help contribute to violence. It's not a single factor. So the goal is, and what we hope to see similar to the other cities that have implemented such a plan is through constant modern monitoring, we will see the calls for services decrease.

Okay. And my my my follow-up question is, I I think the one of the I I read a study in the social work today that was referencing some of the work in San Bernardino County, which I think did not call necessarily for a complete ban in those areas. So why going to a complete ban? And and I think part of the question is, you know, I understand. I I'm not sure that a single bottle of alcohol is the same as Kratom.

And so my question is not should we is it yes or no on this ordinance, but what spectrum of regulation should we have? I had a liquor license ten, fifteen years ago. So I understand some of the regulations. And so the question is, my first question is, is it a complete ban? Is it a percentage?

Because density was something that you also mentioned. And this addresses nothing about density. It addresses a ban in these areas. And so I'm just getting at, you know, the thought process of how you made the decision. Because if, you know, if if the use of alcohol and the amount of alcohol, you know, and you mentioned homicides, does does that mean, you know, I'm just trying to make the correlation of where do we draw the line in the prohibition for our city. San Bernardino, San Francisco.

Not our city.

The mayor mentioned or tweeted about Washington, D. C. I think they have an exemption process. So people within the businesses within the area can have an exemption. So I'm trying to find what what what do we do? You know, is it an exemption? Is it, you know, is it banning it completely? That those are the questions I'm looking for. So I think

you're asking like, is there any room for consideration on maybe addressing businesses that the task force has specifically engaged with on a case by case basis rather than and then imposing a restriction like this? And so voluntary compliance the task force does already engage with businesses and makes these recommendations to businesses. However, oftentimes that going able And ir to do that. Voluntary compliance in the, you know, stores may chew stores in Kansas City already choose not to sell these products. And then if you had a case by case mechanism in which, say, you know, an establishment has own.

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we're so do applied consistently.

Well and I'm not talking about the task force. I'm talking about regulated industries. We have we have regulated industries that license businesses, and they are tasked with ensuring that people follow what their license is. And when I'm talking about exemptions, I'm talking about going to regulated industries and have a license that allows you to serve either a percentage or of small single servings. It's based upon your license and what you are allowed to do.

And that's my question. It's, you know, what are you permitted to do under our code of ordinances and our licensing mechanism. So I mean, I understand the multidisciplinary task force, but our chapter 10 is a licensing provision.

Yes.

So I think my other question would be, would this prohibit I know it doesn't apply to wine, but when I had my store, we had wine tastings, maybe whiskey tastings. Would this prohibit that?

No. It is not intended to prohibit that. And I believe and John is here with Regulated Industries, but I believe that there's another type of license associated to 20. To

half do

morning. Good afternoon now. My name is John Harbrucker. I am the acting manager of Regulated Industries. Happy to answer any questions.

Would this prohibit someone giving distilled spirits through a tasting?

The way I read the ordinance, it would.

Thank you. So what recommend recommendations, if any this went through a bag. As I understood it, they voted unanimously to recommend denial of or whatever, not denial, but they recommended against this. What changes, if any, were made to the ordinance based upon the recommendations?

Yes. So we did meet with a bag in December about the first iteration of the ordinance. The first iteration of the ordinance included with respect to hard liquor, pints, half pints, and the mini airplane bottles. There was no AVE restriction on hard liquor in the first iteration. Malt beverages, the 40 ounces, I believe, were still there. And the, original ordinance also included restrictions on many wine products, seven fifty milliliters or less. Based on the conversations that came out of the meeting and assessing and trying to be narrowly tailored, And And were

to

And so while, that initial ordinance is supported by, you know, recommendations from the public safety task force and community concerns, we were trying to be narrow in addressing bay we basically ranked what are the most problematic products. We've that. To

think

that's

And you questions, but I'll just make a statement myself. Case. During And the course of my life, I've had the opportunity to live in a lot of neighborhoods in Kansas City, primarily in Kansas City's 3rd District and but also the fifth, the fourth, never in the sixth. I'm looking to get to know all the rest of you a little better too. When I was at 59th in Indiana, when I was at 19th in Paseo, when I was at 50 61st in Walrun, where I was at a lot of areas.

The nearby liquor stores, I would say, in many situations were areas where there was just more activity. More activity is related to litter. More activity is related to calls for service. More activity is related to a number of the harms that you might see in normal municipal and urban life. And the thing that is interesting to me is that thirty years on from some of those places, thirty five years on, not only do we see the exact same challenges in certain areas, we see the challenges in some ways somewhat worse.

Last summer, and I think you were part of my office then, I know Councilwoman Robinson and others, we all went to 35th And Prospect, where we have seen continuous situations as it related to public drunkenness, litter, calls for service, other issues in the area. We have asked our regulated industries group, we have asked our neighborhoods group, our public safety task force, the Kansas City Police Department, and others to enforce again and again. And we have continued to do that forever. And so perhaps just on behalf, frankly, of our residents, and by the way, I've looked at many of the comments that came from a lot of different people. This is not I saw one industry group today that sent us memo and said, let's come up with solutions, not political wins.

I'm not on a ballot anytime soon. Are you on a ballot anytime soon? I couldn't couldn't care less about a political win or a loss. What I'm upset with is the fact that the same conditions that existed for 10 year old me walking on prospect on truce on a number of streets in the core of our city are the exact same conditions, if not worse conditions, that young people are seeing today. So that's, I think, where I start by framing framing this.

I next want to note my thanks to you, which you did not do. And that was a thorough presentation, by the way. As I noted elsewhere, 65 page PowerPoint is not something we get all the time. This was not Clinton and Melissa rolling out of bed and saying I'm introducing ordinance and do something. You have engaged with industry actors. Is that correct?

Yes.

You have studied research from other municipalities. Is that correct?

Yes.

You have talked to other public safety actors at this city, including the police department, public safety task force, and regulated industries. Is that correct? Yes. So this is not just something where we've said arbitrarily we're going to come up with legislation. To the contrary, you have done fairly detailed work for a good amount of time to address this issue. Is that right?

Yes.

And you have also importantly talked to neighborhood groups and other community groups. Is that right?

Yes.

So I appreciate that work. I appreciate the fact that we have aligned it with, frankly, what has been done. And I will note there are nuances to every American city. What is our approach to this may be different than Washington, may be different than Spokane, may be different than Los Angeles, but many of us are trying to address. And I will also note this because some have said, can't y'all solve addiction broadly? Can't you solve all public safety issues? Can't you do all the other work? Something I've appreciated that you said is this is not the exclusive tool at all. Right? We will continue to invest in prevent violence prevention.

We will continue to address in public health investments in Kansas City. We will continue to address in policing in Kansas City. Indeed, we have. But I just think as city council looks to tools, right, I think the tools that we should look to, and I've been here for a while, is not just becking KCPD for more patrols when they say we're actually doing a lot and we're increasing the budget and all of that. Not just saying, Joe Williamson, you need to quadruple yourself and make sure you're there before every incident.

There are real steps that we can take. I will also note that these are steps that city council has taken and certainly seen reviews of in a number of different ways. KCPD, there's risk terrain modeling. We have looked at quality of life impacted ZIP codes, both with parks, for example, and the health department. Right? This this it is not new for us to look to areas where we can try to find good tools. And I will note that, importantly, this came from the ground up that I've heard from neighborhood leaders. So I know from big brothers, big sisters today, the urban league, so many others that have said we need to make sure we address it, and I thank you for coming up with a narrowly tailored approach in connection with doing it. I'd usually ask you questions, but I think that is all I have for you now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman Raya?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I've got a number of questions, but I'm going to start with regulated industries and give you a break, Lace. Before I go into my questions, I share much of that experience with the mayor and grew up right down the street from the LQ store. It's where mom would send me to get a gallon of milk. It's still there.

And as a council member, one reoccurring theme is I've met and worked with neighborhoods in Midtown, where I live now. Neighborhoods downtown is the problem actors that have created a number of issues for the surrounding neighborhoods. And I'm not going to list any of them now, but they have been a frequent topic of many, many meetings and conversations from my first week on city council. And I have we have, I say myself, Councilman Bunch, I know third district council members with neighbors in 3rd District have worked to problem solve. The multidisciplinary task force has been a big part of that.

We've tried to respond. We've tried to get folks to get in line. It has been a major issue. And I say all that to say is I'm going to support some version of this. I just want to make sure it's the right version.

And I don't want my questions to make our friends who we've worked with in these neighborhoods think that this needs to go in a dramatically different direction. I think everyone is agreeing that there are bad actors, and we need to have the tools to either shut those folks down or hold them accountable. I think we're just trying to figure out the best way to do that. So with all that said, I will ask my first questions to regulated industries, and this kind of goes along with Councilman Boo's comments dealt with these problematic businesses that are causing so many problems, we don't currently have something within regulated industries to go and enforce. Do we do we not have something in the code, some mechanism to hold folks accountable when they are creating public safety issues?

I I do think we do have something in the code, councilman. Okay.

Could you tell us what that is and why it hasn't been either utilized or successful or enforced?

Just kind of speaking in general here, I don't know specifically which business that you're talking about. I mean, but if it's

regarding I'll a give theoretical gas station that sells all the stuff we're trying to ban here that the location is littered with these tiny bottles. They've had a high number of calls for police service to the parking lot. Neighbors have reported crime that has spilled over into their neighborhoods that they've directly observed. Litter has expanded out from that business. The police will tell you that they are tired of responding to incidents. Maybe there are suspicions or allegations that the business owner is actively allowing folks to deal drugs or maybe being complacent about criminal activity taking place in their parking lot?

All I can say is that we do have a staff. We do go out there weekends, evening times. We do inspections. I don't know particularly, but we do see a lot of businesses that we come through that we deal with issues.

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take the complaints, and we certainly go out

there and do inspections. That. If But we we're try to and they're not successful, why are we not successful?

I don't have a good answer for you, sir.

Sorry, I'm going to ask the folks on the gallery to please just keep it down while we're we appreciate you being here. We love you being here. We're going hear from you in a sec, but it's kind of distracting and doesn't make for a productive meeting. So I'm trying to understand why we don't have because I think we do have the tools. I'm not going to pretend to know exactly what they are. And Mr. Williamson, maybe you've got some input there. But is it that we don't have staffing? Is it because I'm not a fan of just in any topic of creating a whole new set of regulatory infrastructure if we've got something we're not using that we should be using.

Yes. Do think we have all the keys in place. Certainly, I mean, we could talk further about this, about the business, and we can look more into it.

I'm not going to hold this against you, but I'm very unsatisfied with your answer. And you're new to your position, I get it. I just if you're saying we have the tools and we don't know why we're not using them successfully, I think we should know why that's the case before we go a different route. Or we should understand how those tools need to be tweaked or staffing needs to be increased. Mean, do you have anything to offer in that regard?

We could always use more staffing. We have currently a staff of 10. They go out on weekends in pairs of two. We could always use more staffing.

So okay. So with the situation I described with that kind of a gas station,

a

the situation. Question first time time we have have

the

first

we

Okay. So we have impose penalties, usually a fine, a monetary penalty?

Yes. Or a suspension of the license.

Okay. So we can suspend a license based on some of the factors verifying some of the factors that I outlined in this theoretical case that bears? Yes. How often does that happen? Have we suspended any of the licenses of the businesses that we saw on the maps that were presented? I'm sure we have, yes. Okay. Is how can you tell us how frequently that has happened?

Certainly, it happens more frequently like in summer months versus winter months. But certainly, I could say that there are times that businesses I don't have can get you numbers, but I don't have those off the top of my head.

Okay. Are there problematic actors that are not having their licenses suspended?

I don't think so.

Okay. So is it a matter of we're not being proactive enough and which I don't think that would be the case because we have an entire task force folks that are working hard with us. I've seen them working hard with us. And so I do believe that the referral for investigation or whatever that would be called is taking place. And so are we making referrals that are not being processed and investigated?

No. We certainly, every time we get complaints, we go out there. We certainly pair up with the task force as well.

Think to tools through the regulated industries, and you all are the ones that will go out and do the multidisciplinary task force work, and I've seen you do it a lot of times successfully, what is it about the current tools that we have that are not solving the issue that you're trying to solve?

So what I can say is that during many of our task force visits, when we go out, from complaints, incidents, violent acts that are happening in certain neighborhoods. We oftentimes trace a lot of it back to a particular establishment, and it may have a liquor license. One of the hurdles or, problematic issues, I think, with the current code is that if it's not exactly happening on the premises of the establishment at the time, then regulated industries is kinda limited with what they can do. If although we can see that they're buying their products, they're hanging out on the street corners, sidewalks as we go back to what was happening at 35th And Prospect Prospect where they were openly drinking, gambling, and drug dealing on the corner, it was not necessarily happening on the liquor store premises. Although we could see them coming back and forth from the liquor store and the products they were buying were from the liquor store, the activity on that corner, because it's not

on their

premises exactly, oftentimes is problematic for regulated industries to enforce on them.

So it sound oh, go ahead.

If I might add on to that, to what Joe said. So this ordinance is not meant to or based on identifying, you know, who the bad actors are or the good actors are. It's meant to address the documented corridor level environmental conditions associated with certain retail sales practices. So by city should still continue to use the mechanisms in the existing code to enforce when, there are violations. There are concerns from everybody, including members of ABAC who raised concerns about, you know, gaps in the code that need to be addressed to address better address enforcement related issues with violators.

But targeting individual operators alone will not address the broader environmental conditions reflected in the data, and that's why this is more so environmental stepped head type of model. And I think that that goes to what Joe just said about, you know, someone might buy a product from a liquor store, but they're not they don't necessarily remain on the property. They might go across the street and hang out on the corner. And so that's still in the environment, and the research shows that sales practices impact the environment as a whole.

Right. And so what we often see are the products. So, again, just staying in that that same corridor, there's a park right over in that area off of 35th And Prospect in that neighborhood when we do neighborhood walks and walk through those parks. The products that we see are the ones that are on this list. So those are the products that they're hanging out in that area, what they're purchasing, and what their on-site consumption in these public areas that we then see criminal activity, violent acts, and disturbances occurring.

Yeah. But and I was was trying to piece all the maps together in one city map to understand what areas weren't covered. And so this might not be accurate, but it appeared to me that there are some really high crime areas that are not drawn into a boundary. And so I ACM client, I understand what you're saying, where this is a more geographic global data approach and not to focus on one specific business or corridor of businesses and buffer areas. But I do struggle with that a little bit because the way the conversation is initiated with me or not with me, but at meetings where folks are bringing the concerns is specific businesses that are contributing to some problematic things.

And Mr. Williamson, it sounds like you're saying that one of the challenges that with regulated industries is that we can't we don't have an enforcement tool unless the activity is occurring on their business, on their property. Is that fair?

I will say that's fair from what it relayed to me when I've had these discussions with regulated investors.

And is that something that's codified in our code?

There's an ordinance. I think it's under case. And accountable for? I think if that's we can prove that it's connected to the business, I think we certainly could.

Mr. Williams, they've sat there and observed people coming from the business with the nuisance in their hand and then going and creating more nuisances off the property. And so where are we? I would

say this historically, our offices has been if it's in the immediate vicinity. If it goes down the street, that is something we don't hold the business accountable for.

But it sounds like the code allows you to do that. It could, yes. Okay. So maybe that's the disconnect is we're not exercising our full authority under our code or haven't done so historically.

It could be. Is

that something worth exploring? Certainly is. Okay. All right. So that's helpful. So I guess a couple of questions about the zones. And this goes again to Councilwoman Boo's point is, you know, when we're looking at the crime data, to what extent are we relying on crime that occurs in direct either directly on the property of the liquor store or in close vicinity versus the general crime in the broader area? Are we are we separating those two to understand how to draw the districts?

Yes and no. So, I mentioned that there are areas in which the ir business. And able we're to that. But there we are trying going to avoid do what's called the spillover doctrine where we just move say you have a business on the boundary of 18th Street. You have a business on 18th 18th Street, but on 20th Street, there's another one.

Well, you're we're trying to appropriately draw the boundaries so that it doesn't just move over. And so, the proposed buffers that are in this ordinance are meant to account for that in the overall environmental conditions in the area. And that's what all the crime related and calls for service data is geared towards, is showing that, again, how it affects the overall neighborhood.

And the buffer is drawn from the business? It's a quarter mile

out from, like, where the initial, concerning, concerning types of behaviors and conducts is occurring.

Okay. So is that based on are you drawing a quarter mile out from the business?

And to do And And then then going

No. But I'm sure that we can.

Okay. Because I think that's an important detail. I think that's what you were kinda getting at, councilwoman, is or madam chair is,

you

know, to what extent does this reflect general high crime versus alcohol related high crime? And I I could think of one jury trial where a shooting occurred at a gas station and alcohol was sold there. I don't think it's in any of these maps, but you know, it was literally two guys that looked at each other the wrong way, and then they talked to each other the wrong wrong way, and then they went outside, both threw their guns and shot at each other, and one of them died, one of them got charged. I don't think either one of them were buying alcohol. I don't think either either one of them were under the influence of we're that.

To so we're you know, a problem bred from these alcohol cells and these tiny bottles and all this other stuff in the the in the geographic areas that we're drawing? Because we might draw them differently if we're looking a little deeper.

So the research so the research shows that, again, violence is very complex. There's no one singular factor that contributes to violence, and it doesn't suggest that alcohol is the only nexus. Certainly, you have crimes in which alcohol was involved, whether someone was drinking, and intoxicated when they committed a crime, but the research is based on, again, these related harms due to, when you have single serve alcohol, it increases the consumption. It's more immediate than larger types of bottles. And so it's based on looking at the outward harm, not

the

specific is this crime related was alcohol involved in the backtrack pattern of this crime itself.

Understood. I guess just a couple more points. I do struggle somewhat with the fluidity of the drawing of the lines. And I understand it better now with your presentation. I hadn't had a chance to see this.

And what I'm getting at is, I guess I'm not convinced that we don't have what we need in regulated industries to address this if we imposed a citywide ban on these things, but with an escalation through regulated industries that triggers that ban. You implement it, and it applies in situations after you've escalated through regulated industries and you're suspended or I don't even know what that would be. Partly because as we're drawing lines and trying to figure this out, I mean, is both objective and subjective. If we're taking subjective community input or trying to be objective with the data, I just don't know the long term policy effectiveness of that. I'm concerned that in five years, you might have a council member who comes along and says, I want to draw this line differently because I want to exclude these businesses or I want to include a business.

And once you start getting into the politics of it, you're not necessarily drawing this in ways to prevent crime and so on and so forth. And so guess I would because this is going to be held, and so we're going to have some more time to talk about this. I would ask for a couple of things. I would like to hear more from regulated industries about what are the tools what is the scope of our authority to enforce on these businesses? Not what we've done historically, not what we do by practice, but what do our current ordinances allow us to do.

I'd like an explanation on if there are things we're allowed to do that we haven't been doing, what those things are and why we haven't been doing them. I would like to hear from staff any data on what a total if there are cities where there has been a total ban with some kind of escalation before the ban on these specific liquors are prohibited from selling them. And I'd also like to hear your feedback on a different route if we just created a special use permit to sell these items that we're trying to prohibit. And if we require all operators to get a special use permit, we want to sell these things. I think the special use permit process allows for public testimony and community engagement, right?

You've to have a public hearing, I think. And there's notice to surrounding businesses, residents, people that you got to go through. There are your staff has some regulatory power in Yankee special use permit. There is issues. And it gives us some way to enforce on some of this. And so just some things to consider as we take some time to think through the presentation and before voting and is it next week or is it two weeks?

We'll decide. Definitely one week, but right.

One more point, if I could.

Of

20. The And start with first just another thought.

Councilman And Rogers.

Thank you. So I want to go back to ABAC real quick, Lise. That did go down in ABAC, right?

Wait. Excuse me?

So when this was presented to ABAC, it did go down unanimously, right?

Yes. The initial iteration that was presented to ABAC in December was voted down unanimously.

And I'll give everybody credit because I think people heard the concerns and there was some amendments, that's good. But was the new version ever presented back to ABAG? No, it was not. On the malt beverages, particularly the 70 ounce beers, that's that is a giant beer.

Yes. That's not our restriction. That's a D. C. Restriction in Washington, D. C. That was meant to be illustrate that we are taking a narrow approach by focusing in on the products that are correlated with harm in Kansas City, so 40 ounces for Kansas City.

Okay. Yes, was going to say because I think I mean, the biggest ones I've seen in the gas stations is either 32 or 40, right? Isn't that pretty typical? Yes. Okay. I will say I do have some concern that we didn't present this again to APAG with the changes, and I appreciate the changes too. I may have one more question, but I don't have my thoughts together yet. I think they'll me.

Okay.

Councilman Gearls?

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'll be very brief. I know there's a lot of people that's been waiting, to testify for or against this ordinance. But, I'll start by saying one of the first things that I did coming on to the council was look at liquor stores and the proliferation of liquor stores. And I introduced ordinance two four zero six three nine to try to have a better a better way of making sure that communities did not have liquor stores just popping up because that's the way that that's what they were doing, Especially without community input.

So my ordinance was to make sure that there was no new liquor stores created within a seven I think it was a thousand feet of existing liquor store. Then when it came to community input or the neighborhoods having an input, we increased that boundary from 300 feet that those voting forms went out to before or against a new liquor store to 750 feet now. So I was hoping that that might kinda help, but, obviously, we still have some work to do when it comes to liquor stores. And I don't think nobody is in the business of trying to put anybody out of business. Yet do we want to make sure that the community is safe?

Yes. Do we have problems with, some of these liquor stores? Yes. And I think that to councilor Ray's point, that we are to try to look at what we can do, and come up with the best possible solution that we can. Couple questions, and then I'll turn it over so that we can hear public testimony.

And I think that to regulated industries, I think we really ought to take a look at, and we need to take a look at. And I know that I've, had a conversation with director I I mean, city manager Vasquez, and I think, miss Klein is gonna be included in that meeting where we take a look at the issuance of licenses and how we go about that and the, number of licenses that are issued in certain areas. And so I look forward to having that discussion. But assistant city manager Klein, You got in here about the looking at the effectiveness and possible changes. You said in here you mandate a review every three years.

Is there a specific reason why you chose every three years to have a review?

Yes. So, in one of the studies that was reviewed in Minneapolis, the researchers looked three years before and looked three years after. I wasn't able to find any research where cities, did consistent review, but, in looking at the study that was focused on Minneapolis, one of the challenges that I think that any city faces is when you implement a policy, if you don't see quick results, you think this policy isn't working. And so you immediately scrap the policy. So there we didn't get here overnight with the environmental and social conditions that contribute to crime in our city.

And so we this was meant to take a measured approach and to use something that researchers looked at to measure the and whether crime was decreasing and calls for services and the nature of that.

And when you say that the impact areas can be adjusted to councilman Raya's point, say you have a new councilman come in. He wants to change that. Did did you just put that in there just to say that we could adjust it willy nilly, or is there anything that would be considered in regards to how they are adjusted or when they are adjusted?

No. That there is a process for that. That would, the recommendations for changing the designated areas or adding designated areas would have to come at recommendation of the director of the public safety task force or the director of neighborhood services, neighborhoods overseas, regulated industries, related to the modification of any retail impact areas. And then council would vote take a vote on that as a whole. But the recommendations would be coming from the task force and neighborhood services who are frequently engaging in these areas to address these quality of life type of concerns.

And then my last question is, I know you said you had community meetings. You met with the community. You met with certain groups, certain individuals. Have you met with any of the store owners?

I have not met directly with store owners. However, there were a number of store owners present at the December 15 ABAC meeting.

And did they share input or have

we'll first

to And like, many that Baileys bottles would be included. Well, that's not what we're trying to get at. Those aren't the products that you see, associated typically with loitering, the litter that's outside on the street. And so that's when we got back together to narrow what are the problematic products. There was concern about wine and while, a restriction online is supported by the research, we again prioritize what are the most problematic items.

Additionally, in meeting with CID leaders, who, and business for And foundation very the can always amend ordinances through, the formal process. But in taking that feedback, that was incorporated in this to make sure that, you know, we're having a effective policies here and showing, you know, that we are trying to be fair and measured, but also the need to address public safety related issues.

Thank you.

Alright. Councilman Duncan.

Thank you, madam chair. Miss Klein, do you have an aggregate of the crime and the boundaried areas versus the crime data for all other areas?

No. But I'm happy to add that to the list of items to report back on.

Thank you. And then based on your research of other municipalities, what what percentage decrease in crime do you do you plan to see or predict in these boundaried areas?

Some cities had as much as a 20% reduction in crime. I believe that that was in a city in Washington. I don't while I have my all of my research with me, I don't have that specific number flagged.

And are there any I know that this isn't over, right? So we're going have more chances. And so thinking about the data moving forward, what in what specific areas were the crime rates? Was it 20% across the board? And

question is, then

percent decrease across the board? Is that that the and and and then what is the and what and what timeline? And I think in it sounded like Minneapolis was the only one that had a had some follow-up studies.

Yes. So Washington, D. C. Is another city that had follow-up studies and where there was a modest crime reduction across the board. Spokane, Washington, Seattle, Washington also had, decreases. The, journal articles vary by how, like, the crime is defined. So there is research that supports that there was a decrease in, for instance, assault and violent crime to the extent that the articles got into other types like robberies, that type of thing. I'm not able to speak to that right now. There was also a decrease in public intoxication, the quality of life related crimes, related to loitering, trespassing, those types of things as well.

Thank you. And then, similar to and it sounded like we have an answer to this question, but just similar to what Councilman Bu was touching on, you know, does the data support that there's a direct correlation between single serve alcohol containers with murder domestic violence and assault? Are we are are we seeing that?

I'm stating that the research shows that when you have increased alcohol when you have a lot of alcohol retailers in an area that contributes to violence and that's supported by research, when you have retail sales practices related to single sale of certain alcohol products that that increase increases crime. And so when you combine that, you are likely to see an even higher rate of crime, and that includes all crime. And so I'm not saying that alcohol was the cause of every single crime or calls for service listed, and that's not what the research shows. The research is looking at the environment as a whole and finding a correlation. For instance, if you think about domestic violence, you know, by consuming alcohol and immediately consuming it very quickly, you're getting intoxicated faster, being intoxicated impairs your judgment and the way that you, you know, do things.

And so there could be a correlation to domestic violence, but the research was not that I was looking at was looking at more of the environmental conditions as a whole.

Sure. And I and I you know, I think everyone on this council would agree with that, given that we all support Councilman Kearls' legislation to limit how many liquor stores are in a single area. My question was more directly specific this ordinance and in relation to a direct correlation between the single serve that we're focused on and these crimes. And I think the thing that we're not talking about that I have to ask is who are the folks that are with government. And

so

to with

did they implement in conjunction with their ban? Was it just a ban? Or was there also increased services provided with that ban? And and what did that look like? And and again, to similar to councilmember, I I mean, I just got your 65 page presentation right before this committee, so I haven't had a chance to look at your cited sources, but something that may, I think, would be nice to expand upon.

Yes. And so the journal articles relied on didn't specifically examine what other strategies were used in conjunction with this, but the research is very consistent that this cannot be the sole strategy. It has to be a part of a broader crime reduction strategy, and these types of policies are most successful when you have community support for them. And so you mentioned, you know, being unhoused, substance abuse types of issues, that goes to the social conditions. So the city still needs to work actively to address the social conditions and other environmental conditions that contribute to violence in our city.

Thank you. Councilwoman Robinson.

Thank you, madam chair. I wanted to address this as one of the sponsors of the ordinance as well, and this is very personal to me. Some of the places that the mayor spoke about where he grew up, I represent the 3rd District. I grew up on 33rd in Jackson, 36th in Agnes, 25th in Tracy, my two children, which the research shows around youth violence, my two children are under the age of 24, and the research shows the reduction of youth violence when you start to regulate alcohols in this way. My two children stand on 36th And Agnes every morning to go to school, to get on the bus.

And so when you talk about these places, what we're talking about is the urban ghetto. And no one wants to live in urban ghetto conditions. And the urban ghetto was not established by happenstance. It was established by policies, rules. It was methodically done.

There's a reason why there's a liquor store on every corner in the urban ghetto. And when you go to neighborhood associations within the 3rd District, much of the 3rd District, they will tell you that they need another liquor store like they need a hole in their head. And so let's talk about what we as a council committed to do with the violence prevention and healthy communities blueprint. I'll take you to page 13. It says, as a city, our responsibility is to adopt and enforce policies that limit the location and concentration of alcohol outlets and the increased regulations for licensing, advertising, price and hours and days of sale.

That's what we passed, and we specifically centered the third and the fifth districts. And the other thing that we need to address because unlike some of us who have represented the industry, they live in the community, they have their stores, they're not afraid to live where they sell their items. But oftentimes, there's a condition in the 3rd District in which the operators would never live where they sell these items. And so there's a exploitation that is happening that we as a council and a body, if we want to reverse the urban ghetto and the conditions, it's our responsibility to do that. And this ordinance has researched.

I know you just got this. Please read the research because the research is clear. It's not the only lever. It is a lever. And you know the guy from a bag and the guy from in regulated industries knows that a lot of these complaints have to be der derived from residents making these complaints.

How dare us place the burden of residents to let us know when we need to regulate something? They have to make calls. I've been on speed dial with the folks in regulated industries because of issues that have happened in the 3rd District, and they have to make call after call after call after call, and oftentimes these organizations are protected. It wasn't until Robert Woods Johnson did a a and this is maybe something we need to employ, is they train young people to go in and regulate some of these stores. That was in the early two thousands.

But we don't have the regulation that's in place to hold these stores accountable, and let's not act like that we do. So I would encourage us to use this lever to read the document, use this lever, and to understand what people are going through in these communities, and they're depending on us to address these concerns that they have. Thank you.

Chair, I have a 1PM. Thank you all for being here to testify. I will watch it.

Alright. Let's move to public testimony. I have cards. You will have two minutes. Just come up here, and I'm gonna do like well, we always do, but and budget meetings too, I'll call three names. Please line up and be ready to testify. Deborah Love, Lamar Vickers, and Doron Cherry.

Right here?

Yes. And please state your name, and you may need to pull the microphone down a little bit so we can hear you.

Can everybody hear me? Yes.

We how

y'all doing? Good. Yeah. Hey. I'm a need for you to wake up. Mhmm. I'm sorry. I just had to say it. As far as regulated wait a minute. I'm a 60 year old retiree. Okay? I'm not a business owner. I don't have any stock in this game, but you guys are focusing on the wrong thing. Economic development is what we need in order to stem the crime. Now I've been sitting here listening to all this budget money, but none of it's coming to the 3rd District. Economic development is what we need. Why? Why? Why do we have to constantly get low income housing? Is there any reason why we can't have ownership?

Where Parade Park was torn down, we should get some condos there, especially since the Negro Leagues is building a hotel across the street. You got CPKC Stadium doing their thing. You come up the way. You got the walkway that they're doing over the highway. Then you got the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and then there's nothing. A walkway in the Jazz District? Really? Really? If I was a business owner, I wouldn't wanna put my business where there's low income housing because that's revolving residence. I can't count on my income that way. So some economic development would be great. Some kind we we can own condos in the in the 3rd District. What? We don't have a strip mall. We don't have anything for the kids to do.

Nothing. No skating. No gaming. We and we don't the mental health services for our guys. Those are the things we need to be focusing on. And just like she said, but the one thing I'm here to mention to the regulated industries person, we're focusing on the wrong thing at these gas stations. Y'all, please don't be mad at me. But the Missouri law Missouri law four one three point one zero five, the statute specifically says misrepresentation of prices is prohibited. It is an epidemic. Any of these gas stations, convenience stores you go in, you will not see any prices on the food. It's against the law.

Right.

So what so what do we need to do? Take a bunch of groceries up to the counter and make them put them all back because we can't afford them? They'll get tired of doing that. But Thank you so much. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I I gotta maybe I should come back at 01:30.

Thank you.

But that's just what I wanted to say as a 60 year old person. Y'all focusing on the wrong things.

Thank you. I'm sorry. You wanna say something? Yeah. I just

Oh. Sorry. Similar to councilman Duncan, I also have a 1PM, so I appreciate you all being here. You guys taking the time to sit here and listen through counsel and everything. I also will go back and watch this, but I just wanna make sure that you guys know that I am listening. Alright.

Okay. I wanted to start by saying that this is the easy approach. But just like y'all created a ordinance for thirty first and prospect that's not didn't work, are you doing pushing the people away pushing the people away from where they were? We need to help those people. When we heard about this ordinance that y'all created, we said, no.

We're going up there to help them. And when we went up there to help them, we found out that they up there wanting help. They need help to get out of the conditions that they are in. We ask them for your assistance to help us to help those people change their lives so that they won't be up there hanging out. If you help them to have a better life, it will help them to have a better focus.

And just like the mayor said, he'd been watching this for years. So that means for years, these people have been needing help. So we're saying to you that what you're doing is you're stopping them from buying a dollar drink. Now they're gonna have to buy a $5 drink. Now they're gonna drink more than what they wanted to drink because they couldn't just get the dollar drink.

You're not solving the problem. You have to understand that if you want vagrancy and and and and violence to stop, you have to get engaged with those individuals and help them to create a better and another essential path for them. KCOGs, we there. We wanna help. You wanna help clean up this stuff? Call us. We're ready to do it.

Yeah. Thank you. My name is Doron Cherry. I'm the owner of United Beverage Company here in Kansas City. Been here for thirty four years. I'm the Anheuser Busch distributor. There's three Anheuser Busch distributors that service Kansas City. This ordinance here is basically would be discriminating against me and my territory. It's the only part of that territory that would be discriminated against here in Kansas City. Now I served on a back board since its exception.

I was here when we had a moratorium on liquor licenses, when we banned 40 ounces. So we don't have 40 ounces in Kansas City right now. We banned the sale of 40 ounces years ago in the moratorium on liquor licenses years ago because we heard that there was an overproliferation of licenses in Kansas City. So we do have a density requirement that requires liquor control. Am I not correct?

That there is a density requirement that controls the amount of liquor stores that are in Kansas City. I've been here since 1992. When I started, we have 400 licensed accounts in Kansas City. I'm from the river to 85th Street, state line, four thirty five on the East Side. 400 accounts we've had when I started in 1992. Today, we have four thirty. Thirty four years, there's been an increase of 30 accounts in that area. So there's not a huge density of licenses that have been increased. It's basically the same. One per year.

That's my calculation. So we don't have that many licenses. And here, I will say this. If they had came to ABAC before all this got started, maybe we could have supported and helped craft this legislation to make it even more reasonable for everybody in this room. We're not here to to not do anything to help neighborhoods and to support neighborhoods in a positive community. Look at my track record. I've supported Kansas City, and I'm continuing to do that today. So let's just work together to solve the issue together, not apart.

Thank you. Zach, Nace, Frank, and Patrick.

Thank you. Do you have a presentation with you? No presentation. Sorry.

All right.

Well, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen of the council. My name is Zach Nazz. I'm with the Sazerac company. More so importantly, I was born here in Kansas City. I currently live in the Waldo Brookside neighborhood.

So just like everyone here, highly invested in making Kansas City a safer, better place. And I share that goal with many of our retailers, many of our wholesalers that we just heard from Drawn, and also our other producers in the industry, too. And what we've been doing over the past several weeks is collaborating with each other, with different community groups, and trying to put together a plan that would really address some of the nuisance problems that have been outlined today and prior to today without pricing an undue burden on select members of Kansas City. So what we've done is put together a five pillar plan. I believe you guys have that in front of you.

But the first is to drive a community cleanup support. Then we would also be putting in place a recycle bin program. That would be something that would be funded for entirely by our industry members, provided to retailers for free. And these would be placed at different retailers. There would be signage on them calling out responsibly recycling their products as well as responsibly drinking.

Another aspect of this is our public education. We really, really believe that we can participate here and educate the public in safe consumption practices, what folks should do with litter when they have it. And also, we believe that we can help support funding programs in the Kansas City Missouri school districts that we can really reach out to these kids when they're formative years and help them better deal with alcohol. We also, as we have found in the past several weeks of collaborating with different members of the community, we want to have community support. Really, what all this culminates in is a a alcohol nuisance prevention program.

Alright. Thank

you. Sorry. I'm gonna ask you to wrap it up.

Okay. Is it alright if I go through just the plan?

No. We just have two minutes. We have we have a lot of people, and we're way over our time. We're gonna run into impeachment. We have We we have copies, and you feel free to email it to the our council.

I'm Frank Fazino. I'm co owner of the TopSpot. We all agree no one wants loitering, violence, littering or nuisances near our store. It drives away customers and hurts our livelihoods. In our experience, a small group of repeat offenders causes most of these problems.

We've already taken strong action ourselves, banning disruptive individuals from purchasing anything in our stores. It's been highly effective at reducing issues. But when that isn't enough, we need support from the city. The mayor's soft handed approach, focusing on opportunities rather than consequences, simply doesn't work. It fails to stop the same people from causing the same harm over and over again.

What we actually need is straightforward. Prosecute the repeat offenders, use jailing when necessary, enforce a true no tolerance policy for loitering, littering, drinking, and disturbances. Word spreads fast, and behavior changes. We urge other business owners to join us in refusing sales to loiters and troublemakers. And if that's not sufficient, the city must step up and enforce the law.

The proposed ordinance does the opposite. It won't deter criminals, it will only punish our honest, law abiding customers and business owners. Many are elderly residents from nearby retirement communities, who walk and use mobility scooters to shop with us. They buy smaller bottles because that's what they could afford. This ban forces them to pay more for larger sizes they do not want, and it's or they would have to arrange a costly ride to a different store out of the zone.

Our stores do far more than sell just alcohol. In food deserts with limited transportation, we provide everyday essentials mission to mission Let's wrap it up. The real solution is the partnership. Businesses enforcing rules and the city prosecutes violations. Let's work together to make our community safe and thriving for everyone. Thank you.

Hi. My name is Patrick Duhn. My family and I have owned and operated Mike's Wine and Spirits in Waldo Brookside and in Westport, which is inside an impact zone for twenty five years now. I wanna start by saying we do support public safety and clean corridors. That goal is shared between all of us. However, I wanna touch on a couple of things that haven't been brought up by this ordinance. I brought some props. Items like boulevard space camper, IPA, would be banned from us selling in our Westport store. I have a Kansas City beer company, dunkle, 19 ounce can. I don't think this leads to crime in any way, shape or form.

We wouldn't be allowed to sell that anymore. I have one more. I have a Vine Street Brewing can in here, and there's a gentleman back here who works for him.

We're going able sell 20. Our beer, our half

beer,

in Kansas City go out of business. And I don't think this helps breweries where outside of their taproom, their source of income are single serve sixteen- to 19 ounce craft beers. Under this ordinance, I think it's a little broader than what's been led on. Grocery stores being exempt from this is not the same amount of alcohol is going to be sold. It's just going to be shifted.

And like our Westport location, it's 150 yards away from us. There's 40 foot set of miniatures for sale. And I could go into pricing into how some of them are 20% to 30% cheaper than what we sell them for. Every one of my customers shops at a grocery store to get their food. Not every grocery store customer comes to a liquor store. Therefore, that makes it almost as readily available and does not take it out of these communities. Just shifting where it's purchased.

Thank you. A White, Marquita Taylor, and Sharon Hildebrand.

Hi. My name is Kay White, and I am the owner of W. W. Crown convenience store at 27th And Benton in one of the highly dense areas. I not only serve liquor, but I also contribute to the economic value of that entire area, and I am also a neighborhood leader.

What I didn't see in this nice presentation was the head results of the abandoned houses, unkempt locks by the city where these people congregate, live in, take over, and then go to the stores and contribute to this nuisance. And then the group us all with a small group of those who are repeat offenders at their lives. I've also known that grocery stores at 31st And Prospect had a bigger problem just like a liquor store, and for them to be exempt is not fair. Because, wow, Woody's used to have the problem. I grew up at 27th And Olive.

I've been in that neighborhood forever, but what I didn't see is a study that said, if I pulled you over for a a violent crime, did you shoot somebody? Am I gonna take a check mark and say, did you take a shot today? Did you drink a malt liquor? Did you did you do a pint? And all those that have not had a shot on the airplane, did you get off and say you wanted to go kill somebody? Did you say you want to commit domestic violence? Did you say you want to sleep on your neighborhood corner? But where is the the code enforcement? Where is lawyering? Where is our policing when we call for help?

Where is our community when we say, board up these houses? Go and regulate the unhouses or the people that abandoned them and just left them there when the community say, turn them over to us and let us make better resources with This is an overall problem and has nothing to do with a shot, a malt liquor, or a half pint because liquor is liquor. It's no different than overeating with food. Are we gonna be in food? If we say cat candy gives cavities, are we gonna be in candy? We can't be in liquor.

Thank you.

Hi. I'm Sharon Hildebrand, and I'm speaking from a little bit of a different perspective in support of this ordinance. I live in a neighborhood where there was a bar that oddly enough people were hanging outside the bar in large numbers, like in the dozens and up to 100, up and down the streets from where the bar was. And they were not drinking from full size bottles of wine or a six pack or 12 pack of beer or a fifth of whiskey. They were drinking from what I remember because the bar sits close and the problem has gone away from small, mini sized liquors.

So I would just like to applaud Lacey and Joe Williamson and their task force and the invested time in their boots on the ground and all the people they involved, like the regulated industries and the police and the neighborhood and the health department in developing this ordinance. And I just would like to support it because it's evidence based, it's based on data, it's measurable, and it's it's fact based. So I think that using this ordinance would decrease some of the crime in the neighborhood and make it more safe and livable in our neighborhoods. Thank you.

I am Marquita Taylor, president of Santa Fe area council, and I come before you so many times. But to see something being prepared by the city to try to help us eliminate the blight, the loitering, the crime, and all of that in our neighborhoods is commendable. They have invested so much money in in services. We're coming out of our years with services. Some of those help, some don't.

This is an opportunity to look at another way. Another way to look at how do we reduce the issues that we are plagued with, that we live with, that we have to sleep on the floor to avoid bullets, that we can't walk to our stores, we can't go into our libraries, we can't go into a a liquor store or a gas station without stepping over these little bottles, without people loitering around. This is something that's been going on in these stores, are well aware of it. This is an opportunity for us to do something about it. It's just one piece of a big problem, and we recognize this.

But the but the statistics and all of that that was brought forward here proved to us that it's something that's worked in other cities. We need to implement it. It's not gonna put anybody out of business, but it will slow down some of the problems that we're having right now. We've done a number of things. This is just what as Lace says, this is a tool that we need to put in our tool chest. We can do this. It's just the the small bottles, and we noticed that people are loitering because they can. Because they go in, they buy them, they lay around, they hang out on the neighborhoods. We know this is happening. We're not act we can't act like it's not there.

I commend them. I want this to pass. I want to see it happen, and I wanna see the fruits of this labor that Lace and the team has put in. And I thank you city council for allowing them to even check-in and try to do this. Thank you.

Thank you. Pat Clark, Spencer Rounds, and Philip Marquez.

Hello. How are y'all doing? How are you doing, mayor? It's my first time ever coming up here to talk to y'all. I'm against it. I need to tell y'all this. I'm I'm 56 years old. I've been drinking since I was 11, 12 years old. Now I work at In N Out on 5050 And Prospect. Excuse me. This young man right here, he gave me a chance to change my life. See, everybody has a chance to change. See, so what I'm what I'm saying is that I changed. I stopped. I've been clean for about almost well, about two years, a little bit close to three.

So what I'm trying to say is that taking the shots and what y'all trying to take away, that's not it. It's not it. What y'all need

to try to

do is and I'll even help, is give them something to look forward to out there. Help them clean up the neighborhood. On my Saturdays, I work on Saturdays. I go out

and and and participate in it

to help. See, so I know if I can change after I've been drinking since I was 11 years old, they can. But they need somebody to to help them to change. Don't criticize it and say, okay. I think this is gonna help. No. This is take if that's the case, take away all of it. If that's the case, take away all the crack, cocaine. Get off into that. You see what I'm saying? But taking it away ain't gonna do no good. Give them some help. I work right there on 55th And Prospect. Come to me. I'll help y'all. Don't take it away. I'm against it. But I'll help you. I will help you because he gave

me a chance.

So help me to give them a chance. That's all I'm asking.

Mister mayor, mayor pro tem, council, I'm Pat Clark. Listen. I've been in Oak Park sixty two years. I've seen the good, the bad, and I still see But as a community leader, yesterday, I had maybe 15 owners walk in my in my office. See, I was brought into this.

And when we met at the library, there was a conversation that came up. It said, had anybody talked to the owners? So the conversation we had yesterday and I have to give miss Kay White her props because the proposal that she came up with is why a lot of these guys are in here today. Now in my neighborhood, most of them will say, well, where are the black owners at? See, we we can't control that.

You know, they let the neighborhoods have a say in this, that, and that. But when people move in the neighborhood, when people take over buildings, it's a different conversation. But one thing that came out of this meeting yesterday, those people that came in yesterday that's here today were willing to talk and see what we can do together. See, I'm not here to be called no sellout because if I sell out, I'm a tell you why and what we getting out of it. But see, what we getting out of this as a grown man at 62, we getting a relationship that we didn't have before.

Now now now everybody ain't gonna do right by us, but we don't do right by ourselves. But if we're in the same room at the same time with the same opportunity and and I said before, I ain't seen one shot bottle shoot nobody. I got nine, 10 year old kids in my neighborhood with 40 calves with nine millimeters. Our biggest issue right now, Popeyes don't have a liquor store liquor license, but they still hanging out right there. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Philip Marquez. I'm the owner of Country View Market on 5802 Sowell Parkway. How I got there, my father, well, started with Frank's grand, grandfather. Gave my father a chance. He was only 11 years old. Got kicked out of his house, but from his mother. Back in the day, you can buy a pack of cigarettes. One day, he decided he didn't want his mother smoking cigarettes anymore. Got kicked out, didn't bring his mother home some cigarettes.

His father gave my father my father a chance to be there and own that store and turn that store around. We had a positive impact over the years. I even been got married. We both been married at the churches, local churches. He got I got married on 56th In Swarth Parkway. He got married at the church on 59th In Swarth Parkway. We have a lot of relation. I live one block away from my business. I live there in that house today. Woke up in that house today.

I put on my shoes, and I work all day and night to be there for my community. When quick trips and Walmart were closed, we were the only ones open. You know? And people thank me and praise me. Thank you for being here so I can get my basic essentials that I needed, not just the shots, But to be looked at as a criminal, you know, for serving my community, it feels horrible.

It makes it feel horrible that I have to go to school go to my daughter's school and have to introduce myself, you know, as a role model, and I don't feel like a role model. I'm ashamed to say I'm a liquor store owner. Well, really, I've been the biggest hero. People many people like me have been the biggest hero to many people in the community, you know, to the little ones. I recently took in three little girls. They're 16 years old. Well, they're 16. They live with me now. They've been living with me for almost a year now. I've been making sure they go to school, they go to a local school, Kaufman. You know, we have made positive changes, positive impacts, but them are stories that you don't hear. And we and me and many others refuse to be looked at as criminals.

Thank you. Janita McAfee, and is it Sean Jolies? Sorry if I Shanita?

Hello. My name is Sean Chaudhry, and I own quite a bit stores in Kansas City area. I moved here from Pakistan. I was raised in Dubai, lived in California, and I called Kansas City my home because I've been here for over thirty years. We have not taken any TID, CID, any of the tax money.

We use our own money to get in the communities and clean up. There's a shopping center myself and my partner owned on 4400 East 39th Street that was shut down, Leon's grocery store. We cleaned up that. Midtown market was shut down thrift away. It was shut down for seven, eight years. I took over that, cleaned up. Looks really good. We put grocery in there. Didn't work. We put Indian groceries now.

It works great. Give us a chance. What we can come in and help you guys to get all these bad stuff out of here. Single shots, Bailey's toll Bailey's Remy, all this stuff are very expensive. Poor people can't afford it. Those shots don't hurt anybody. There's a lot of products we carry on people's needs they want. So please give us a chance.

Thank you. Thank you.

Miss Shanita, I had to step away. My name is Harleen Maxwell. I'm with Loving to the Max. I also am with In N Out Mini Mart. I uniquely provide peer support specialist services inside In N Out. I do it at the 50

55th or 56th

And Prospect location and the 51st Street location. We also feed on every third Sunday. It's been paused because I just lost my mother. But with that said, I learned some things serving those communities. I saw some men buying some of those shooters in the store, and I had to ask them, well, why are you buying all those? Why don't you just buy a bottle? It would be cheaper, wouldn't it? He was like, if

I buy a bottle, I'm a drink a bottle.

I have to buy this so that I don't drink too much. This I'm trying not to drink too much. So if I do this,

I can regulate. I just wanted

to add that. But I

wanted to share some things since the young lady was talking a

lot of statistics. And statistically, it says that doing those shooters, they will drink 20 to 25% less. It also says that some of the statistics she was referencing talking about crime and stuff, crime and house the shooters, alcoholism, and houselessness will produce the types of numbers she's talking about. So, yes, it is a dual effort. It's not just the alcohol.

We have to address houselessness, mental health, and a lot of the other core issues in our community. I think this is an aggressive start, an aggressive first step. I think we have to look at the people, the individuals, and see that it will harm them before it helps them. I actually had something that will tell you a few of the harms, especially with an aggressive policy that starts there are harms that can be caused from aggressive policies concerning shooters. And I'd like you guys to look into those because I don't have the time to pull them up for you right now, but

there are harms. Thank you. This is all the cards that I have. And so

We should probably cut off unless we're

on the safe. And we are running into a neighborhood planning. Oh, Carlos, you did no. I actually had a card for Carlos, and I did not call him. Carlos, come on because I did have a car card for you. I saw it, and I don't know what I did with it. Oh, there's more cards up there. Carlos, I don't know what I did with your card. Sorry.

That's okay. Carlos Gomez, president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City. We understand the intent of this. We all want safe neighborhoods. A good percent of my the majority of my members are in areas that are blighted and have high crime and public safety issues.

But we don't support this ordinance the way it's written. First of all, I wanna point out that the cities and states that have done these are very progressive in their programs for homelessness, behavioral health, and they do it with funding and resources. So to say that the elimination of single cell alcohol sales reduced crime completely. It's not a fair comparison, apples and apples, when you look at Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and their policies and their funding in regards to other programs that helps reduce that crime. But the last thing that the one thing I wanna say is, you know, what we would ask is that this committee direct staff to work with the neighborhoods like they have been, but also work with the industry and the small business owners, because you will not have a strong neighborhood if there's not a strong local business on the corner.

Let's give the city tools. Let's give the control beverage, the alcohol control beverage tools to hold bad actors accountable. I think we all would agree to that. Let's get let's make it easier to revoke someone's liquor license. That is that is a nuisance to the neighborhood.

I believe industry and good business owners would also support that. Because bad apples take away from good apples. And we want to make sure that that we don't we can we we believe that with we can have public safety and not ruin the economic vitality of the small businesses that we truly need in the urban core.

Thank you.

All right. So I have four cards left, so I'm gonna go ahead and call all four of those. Bishop James Tindle, Bonita Powell, Sean Chaudhry, and Gwendolyn Grant.

Good afternoon. My name is Anita Powell, and I currently serve as the executive director of total man and the hub, which are co located with Saint Luke Memorial Church at 3100 East 31st Street. That's right between Bellefountain and Walrin. I stand in support of the ordinance. As someone who grew up in the 3rd District, I currently live in the 3rd District, and we serve in the 3rd District.

And from that building, we serve over 2,500 kids a day in addition to some of the other programs that people have talked about today. But we see firsthand what substance abuse can do, whether that be alcohol and the drugs, and that's from vandalism to violence. We have just come through in the last month vandalism that cost our building 42,000 in terms of staff time and in terms of just things that happened to the building outside of the building. This is from just walking traffic just in the neighborhood that clearly are suffering, whether it be mental illness, but compounded with alcohol and drug abuse. As a business owner, I and having a business background, I also understand businesses and their p and l and profit and loss.

But I will say that this is one line in that profit and loss statement that can help the neighborhood and the community. And I would also say that if this is the one line in your business plan that puts you out of business, there's problems, some larger issues in your business model. We are not here to try to take away from your business. And I recognize that we need to be using all levers. This is just one of those, and I stand in support and appreciate mayor Rob mayor Lucas and councilwoman Robinson for sharing their truth. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Gwen Grant, Urban League of Greater Kansas City, and I'm here today speaking on behalf of the Urban Council, which is comprised of our legacy civil rights organizations including NAACP Missouri State Conference, SCLC of Greater Kansas City, and the urban summit. Bishop Tindle will speak on behalf of the urban summit. We are here in support of the ordinance and you all received a letter from us this morning that outlines a lot of our details about our perspective. But I just want to make a point about everything I' heard here today.

And many of the comments in opposition to the ordinance are narrowly focused in thinking that if we if we do this ordinance, we can't do that. And I think it's great. All the things that they're offering to do now, such as, you know, having the the dumpsters there for the the bottles, all the activity and the engagement that you wanna step up and do now, we in our community appreciate it. I live in the 3rd District. I have a business.

I run a nonprofit. The only difference between me and many of them is my tax status. My business is impacted by these sales of folks homeless, houseless people camping out in the vestibule area of my business and we have to change our whole landscaping because to prevent the environmental piece. This is an environmental control issue and if you recall back when smoking was cool and then we regulated smoking and now you can't smoke everywhere you want, this is similar to that. They can still get small bottles they just can't get them at this location.

And this is about public safety. We're in a public safety crisis. We cannot attract economic development in the urban core because of these environmental factors. These very people are saying we need economic development. They're not gonna develop in our community. We've been crying for development for years because of these environmental factors. When they drive through our community and see the loitering and the and the blight and the nuisance of the all of these challenges, they won't invest. They won't build the kind of retail outlets that we need, and we have far too many liquor stores. One on every corner with that needs to stop as well.

My name is James Tindle. I am president of the Urban Summit of Kansas City now for nineteen years. We've been an activist organization in our city trying to make a difference. I was born at 12th And Vine, Kansas City eighty four years ago. I live in the inner city.

I live was raised in the inner city. I live on 19th And Mercington right now, and I am very, very concerned and supportive of this ordinance today. I pray that you will those of US city council will understand the blight, the problems that we're going through. There was when I was growing up mom and pop org stores in our city. Those mom and pop stores have now been replaced by gasoline and liquor stores in our community, and they are far too many.

I applaud mister curls in what he is doing to try to stop the proliferation of liquor stores in our community, But in the meanwhile and in in between time, there are far too many right now. And I the urban summit is willing to sponsor a bus ride for all of our city council people so that you can go with us to see what is going on in our community, so you can see the proliferation of of liquor stores every other block in our community. We we will pay for the bus if you will ride with us just to see what's going on in our community. If you if you ride a city bus right today, if when you get off that bus, you're gonna find the little bitty bottles of whiskey and other stuff all over the bus. So we've got to start somewhere, just somewhere.

I'm not I'm I'm not against economic development nor am I against entrepreneurship, but I do want a control, and we need to have control. So we as a city, we we we as a community, we depend on you to help us make this happen.

Alright. Thank you. I'm told there are two online. Yes. Doctor Nicole Price.

Go ahead.

Hi. My name is, Nicole Price. I'm here speaking as a concerned citizen and in a very distinct capacity in favor of this ordinance, specifically because for the last 20, I have been doing litter pickup in the impacted areas. And for those of us who believe that people are buying smaller amounts of liquor in an effort to consume less, I would invite them to join me on Saturday for litter pickup. Most, if not half more than half of the litter that is picked up in these areas are the airplane flight bottles.

This is not about addressing people's alcohol addiction. This is about cleaning up areas because you can go to any city, anywhere in this country, and you know when you are in a safe community and when you're not, even if you don't see any people. Most of the testimony that I've heard today in favor or in opposition of this ordinance has been about money that people can make. And while I think it is important to be empathetic to business owners, I am a business owner myself, it is important that we think more collectively about the community and what our communities look like because you know that in safe communities, you do not see these little litter these bottles everywhere. And we have to be honest with ourselves that there's not one single ordinance that's gonna create a safe community.

We know that, but it is in bad faith to suggest that we can't do anything because we can't do all things. So I just wanna be super clear and on record to say that I am in full support of this ordinance if for no other reason because of the environmental impact and the blight on our communities. Thank you.

Erica Ostrowski.

Yeah. I'm Erica Ostrovsky. I'm the chief operating officer at Big Brothers Big Sisters down here in the crossroads, so we would be a part of the Central Business corridor. And we are right here at 17th And Walnut. If you're not familiar with our building, we own two buildings down here at 17th And Walnut.

And right in our alleyway, we share an alleyway with the Sinclair and Windstar gas station that's located at 17th And Grand. So they are our backyard. Due to that, we experience everything you've been talking about on the call today, a lot of negative impact when it comes to chronic loitering, littering, damage to our building, stolen autos in broad daylight, from our parking lot, graffiti, theft, assault, violence, and threats against our staff and families. Our staff wakes up every morning, nonprofit staff here to create change in the community, and one of the first things they have to do is clean up single serve liquor bottles and direct paraphernalia, not just from the alleyway, but what spills into our front door, in our parking lot, which creates a risk to our families and the children that we serve. We host evening events, evening meetings, match activities for bigs and littles here at our building in the Crossroads, and people have to dodge people that are drunk and disorderly in our parking lot spilling over from the gas station.

So we have invested heavily in security, in cameras, alarm systems, lighting, doors, locks, staff safety training to keep our staff safe, and that's all due to the issues we face and the insecurity we feel, spilling over from the gas station population that loiter right here in the lot and spill into our buildings. So, we fully support the proposed retail alcohol impact area plan. We hope it's adopted. We think it can make, even a small difference in how we serve families here in the crossroads and how we serve families in Kansas City. So we sure hope it's adopted, and thanks for the time today.

Alright. Thank you. I believe that's it on the testimony. We have heard a lot of good testimony. I think all of us agree that there is an issue, that something needs to be done. We've talked a lot about tools. I think what's important is to making sure we have the right tool for the problem. I don't think there's any question that there is an issue that we have. And I think there's been questions of assistant city manager Klein. Think I would also encourage you and us to kind of sit down.

I know I have more questions that I will forward to you. We will look at the information that we got this morning and follow-up. But I would hold this a week unless there's a desire of the committee to hold it longer. Alright. This item will be held a week. I think considering the time, we will hold the rest of the agenda for a week as well. So oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were gonna say something. Meeting is adjourned.