City Council - Regular Meeting

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Brandon are you able to hear me.

Brandon are you able to hear me.

I can't hear you guys, Brandon. I can hear you now. You heard Rick.

You know why you can't hear me? Because my mic's not on. That's why. Sorry about that. Yeah, that's why you couldn't hear me. Apologize about that. We still can't. on the iPad, but it's not loading in the GoToMeeting.

My white light is on on my camera.

Yeah. It's just doing three dots on RN. Let me see if that's here.

You haven't enabled camera sharing yet, have

I DID ON HIM, YEAH.

HE'S A PANELIST.

LET ME TRY TO TURN OFF YOUR CAMERA, JOE, AND THEN TURN IT BACK ON. YEAH. ALL RIGHT. I JUST ASKED YOU TO TURN YOUR CAMERA BACK ON. Hmm. Go out and see if you can connect. Maybe we're missing something. We check and make sure you make sure you see if you can connect to the camera.

Yeah, yeah, we got Joe on the. Zach's coming. Virtual yeah, virtual yeah.

Still got three dots. I think Edgar's trying.

Okay.

There's Edgar.

I'm trying to turn it on and off again. I turned it off now.

Okay, just gave Edgar camera access. Yeah, he's got it. Just the very top of Edgar's head. There's his eyes. You may want to maybe try your phone. I'm wondering if it's your technology.

I don't know. Pop out and pop back in.

Yeah.

I'll try that. Okay.

At least we can hear him. Yeah, we can hear you. That's the bare minimum. Yeah, we saw this much of your head.

You're right. You're right. Yeah. Don't forget about it. Ah, it's not real. True. Still no sign of Zach.

OK. Alright, Zach, we gave you. Access. We're still getting the three dots.

Hopefully we can hear him.

Yeah.

Are you able to hear me again?

We can hear you. Yeah, we still can't see you. I don't. Is it are you using maybe like a a company phone or something? I know sometimes they block some of that stuff at all.

I am using the iPad.

Huh?

But I'm I'm not getting the white light on my kid. I was

I'm not sure why it's doing that. I'm gonna Okay Yeah I'm gonna take a hunch and Hey, Abby, I unmuted you. Just wanted to give me a sound check just to make sure everything's working. I think this might be Zach.

Maybe.

Oh, that's probably Zach. Yeah, that's what I... Maybe. Give me a thumbs up. I MIGHT STEP OUT AND CALL JOE.

. . .

Don't pay anymore.

Is that device working for you? We used to give an option.

This is perfect.

Yeah. Yeah.

Where's Brandon? So.

Yeah, I can hear you. I can't see you yet. Now we can see you. Can we get a good sound check for you? Okay, you're still a little faint. I'll turn it up in the room a little bit more. Can you do... Yeah, you're already better than last time. I think, yeah, I think you're, I don't know. That's pretty good. I mean, I can hear. Yeah, I think you're good. Okay. Still trying to figure out Joe's camera, but he might just be camera off today. All right. I'm going to grab some water. All right, Mike, I'll turn this back over to you. Okay. Do you have a mouse? No. Okay. Or a keyboard. Oh, okay. Oh, good point.

How would you have that?

Yeah, you're pretty good, Zach.

You hear us there?

I'll let you do it, Mike.

Go ahead.

Yeah, you're good.

You got another Joe that's a listen only over there, Brandon. I don't know if you might.

You want to take it, Brandon? Yeah, let me let me drive for a minute.

Yeah, let me hold on.

I think. Should be good there. Papa Papa. all right joe yeah try your camera one more time and then we might just we'll um i'll email chris and see what's going on with yours yeah we're still getting the three dots i'm not it's something with your device we'll get it figured out but you are who you say you are right Zach, you can see everything you're good. OK. Uh, you just want to go Mike. If you want to just go to the Council, don't delete that.

Don't close that. OK, yeah, don't close those. Yeah, I know if you pull this tab out. Yeah, usual operation.

I got it. I got it. What are you doing? Is that what you wanted? Yes. OK. Let me fix that. Hold on.

OK. Thank you. Too many cooks. Yeah.

No.

No. Hold on. Give me a second. Well, Faith, I got it. That about right?

Yeah. Can't dock anything. That's good.

There we go. Thank you.

You can't dock anything.

You got a system.

we can certainly grab some real fast.

Okay.

One, two, three.

Mm-hmm.

All right, it is seven, but we'll give a minute or so to get a few more chairs set, and then we will get started. All right, it's still seven o'clock. I would like to call the June 4th DeSoto City Council meeting to order. We'll start with roll call, please. Patterson? Bradley?

Okay. Sabo? McCracken? Lane? All are present today. Two council members are absent. Oh, yes.

I'm sorry. Council Member Patterson is absent. The other two are virtual. I would invite you all to please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, our first item tonight is a proclamation declaring June 5th to be National Gun Violence Awareness Day in DeSoto. Whereas gun violence affects communities across the nation with many lives lost and countless others impacted by trauma. And whereas the city of DeSoto stands united in opposition to gun violence in all forms respectful and peaceful community for all residents. And whereas on June 5th, 2026, people will wear orange to raise awareness about gun violence and to honor the lives of those affected by it. And whereas wearing orange symbolizes the value of human life and it's a tribute to those who have been lost or impacted by gun violence. And whereas supporting the second amendment rights of responsible gun owners aligns with common sense measures to reduce gun violence and protect public safety. And whereas we commit to supporting efforts that reduce gun violence, promote responsible gun ownership and protect the safety of all citizens. Now, therefore I Rick Walker, mayor of the city of DeSoto. hereby declare June 5th, 2026 as National Gun Violence Awareness Day. Soto, I urge all citizens to honor the victims of gun violence and promote responsible gun ownership. And I have some representatives I'd like to present the proclamation to. And one of you had a few comments you wanted to share, is that right?

Okay, sure. Brandon, you got the camera here?

You want to do it over here? Oh, sure. We'll do it right here.

Say something right here? Okay, just briefly. on behalf of all the moms demand action volunteers in johnson county i want to express the gratitude that rachel and i have for um your commitment today for um making june 5th national gun violence awareness day in desoto and for using the occasion to make the commitment you made in the proclamation to common sense measures to reduce gun violence and promote responsible gun ownership We know that firearms are the number one cause of death now for children ages 1 to 19 in our country. And as of the most recent CDC data, which was reported in 2024, firearms are also the number one cause of death for children and teens in our state. So storing firearms securely in our homes and in our vehicles is a way responsible gun owners can help save lives and make our children, families, schools, and communities safer. So this weekend, millions of people across the country wear orange to remember victims and survivors of gun violence and to commit to the meaningful actions such as the city of DeSoto has done here today. So we want to invite everyone, people across the country this weekend will be wearing orange like we are, remembering victims of survivors and gun violence. We would like to invite everyone to our 2026 Kansas City Metro Conference. Kansas City Wear Orange Rally, which will be held Saturday, June 6, rain or shine, at the Alvin Brooks Justice Center, 54th and Troost, on the Rockhurst University campus. Speakers begin at 9 a.m. There'll be area public officials, law enforcement, hospital ER staff, and survivors of gun violence. Following the speeches, some of us will walk along Troost Avenue, with our community partners and co-sponsors of Wear Orange, who include Grandparents for Gun Safety, Lives on the Line, Mothers in Charge, and we'll all be carrying the same message, which is we can end gun violence. So thank you so much for your support and thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our next item is our consent agenda. Tonight on the consent agenda, we have item A, approve the minutes from the May 21st city council meeting. Item B, approve pay ordinance number 1021. Item C, approve fireworks sales permit applications. Item D, approve contract and permit with Walden Company for the 2026 fireworks display. Item E, approve resolution number 2097, scheduling a future public hearing for establishing a TIF district in connection with the proposed 53-unit memory care facility. And item F, approve easements and right of way for Flint Meadows East Townhomes. Is there any item anyone would wish to reboot for further discussion? Hearing none, may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I'LL MAKE THAT MOTION TO APPROVE THE CONCERNED AGENDA.

ALL RIGHT. WE HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND. ANY DISCUSSION? ROLL CALL, PLEASE. LANE?

YES.

MCCRACKEN?

YES.

RADLEY?

YES.

SAVO?

YES.

MAYOR WALKER ON ITEM 1F? 1F, YES. MOTION CARRIES.

OKAY. Item two is call to public. Members of the public are welcome to use this time to comment about any matter relating to city business. The comments that are discussed under call to public may or may not be acted on by the council during this meeting. There is a four minute time limit. Please stand and be recognized to approach the podium. And when you get there, state your name and address, please. Anyone wish to address the council under call to public? We have a countdown clock above Edgar, if you can see that.

Oh, I'm ready. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Walker, Council, and City Attorney Reavy. My name is Jennifer Sharp, and I live at 8220 Hill Circle. With digital realty and Buell infrastructure, we face 1,700 acres of data centers. A temporary pause is not enough. We want them out. These campuses consume up to 10 million gallons of water daily from the Kansas River Basin. This massive drain will drop water tables and dry out our water wells. Don't believe the closed loop sales pitches. System flushes dump toxic wastewater right back into our drinking watershed, ruining pastures and killing wildlife. You can say that our systems are advanced and this will not happen. Let us see this in action functioning as well as the blowout systems that they're planning on utilizing for cleaning. Please note that these chemicals used for these are toxic brine among others. Worse, these complexes sit just a half a mile, I'm sorry, mile and a half to two miles from our schools. The constant 24-7 low frequency hum causes vertigo and insomnia in humans and destroys livestock reproductivity, sorry. The federal government is not forcing this on us as much as I'd like to blame it on them. These are private corporations, some in the Middle East that I found out. They're choosing DeSoto because this council is offering them a $50 million tax shelter via IRBs. We are demanding three immediate actions. to pass a hard town wide, sorry, pass a hard town wide cap on combined data center power and water use. Ban all property tax incentives for digital realty, make them pay 100% of their taxes to our schools. Adopt emergency updates enforcing strict low frequency C weighted noise limits at property lines. Tucson, Arizona recently cut off Beals Water. Their funder Blue Owl Capital is being sued by federal prosecutors for taking, I'm sorry, for faking data center values and stealing municipal water. I would like specific answers for the public record actually tonight for the following questions. First, has Beale or Digital Realty ever used AI bots or mass email blasts to mislead city officials about local support? Second, does the mayor have any family members that will have or have ever been part of any concrete bids for Beale Digital Realty or any of their affiliated builders for concrete work or construction? Mayor, did you or did you not take over $8,000 from labor unions for your campaign? And was this data center land owned by your top financial donors? You are here to protect our community, not delve into backdoor deals that support your personal interests or your sneaky financial gain. Finally, how do you all plan on sustaining the 1.6% increase in our population that has been an upward trend since 2020? DeSoto does not need one data center. They need to pack up and leave, and you guys need to exercise your authority that you have to make them do so. Thank you.

All right, I've been here enough talking about BL2. Good evening, everyone. First, I want to thank Patrick for working with me on the core request. We are making some progress. I also appreciate his willingness to answer several other questions I've had along the way. I'd also like to thank city council in the last meeting. You made hydrants and sewer lines a priority. This infrastructure has been an ongoing issue for years, and it's needed to be able to finally rise to the top of that priority list. I love this town for our uniqueness. We have the potential to become something truly different from the rest of Johnson County. We don't need to be another Lenexa, but we are not moving in that direction. We are not acting with intention. We are not listening to the people that live here. Instead, we cater to developers who, I will remind you, were major supporters of the mayor during his campaign, Meanwhile, we've had strong partners who have shown what responsible development can look like. Merck has consistently done what we have asked of them, brought in jobs, and is preparing to bring even more. Grotta worked with residents to reach the best resolution they could. Others have adjusted their proposed layouts to align with the city's wishes. This shows that collaboration is possible from our developers when we choose it. What's missing is leadership that prioritizes residents over developer interest. and now here we are again another proposed 1400 acres for a data center zoning was approved long before any company came forward with a concrete plan i question is there an nda for this one if so when was it signed is there a proposed development agreement when was it agreed upon or is it signed if there is a proposed development agreement when did the negotiation start has it been agreed on and when will it be made public and when is this coming before council Will the plan presented be the same plan, or will it change? Has research been done on this developer, or are we heading for another situation like Beale? Are you aware that there is an active police investigation involving Beale in Coeta? Do we really need companies that insist on NDAs? Do we really need a cap on franchise fees? We already have TIFs. Does that need to be changed? What regulations or ordinances can we put in place to prevent the problems we're experiencing? Or should we pause and see how the BL data centers play out before we rush into another massive project? This town deserves thoughtful leadership, transparency, and decisions that put residents first. And this is what we've been asking for. Thank you.

Hello, I am Sarah Vandecreek, 8175 Ravenswood Lane. I can't decide if what is happening in our community is horrible or brilliant. Maybe it's a little bit of both, depending on your perspective. I don't want to burst the hopeful bubble that the people of DeSoto have formed more recently. But according to what I have spent so much time researching, The city leaders, including staff and most likely the Chamber of Commerce, have managed to get the Beale project by our notice with a minimum of notices. Way to stay just inside the legal. Some bits I find interesting from Beale's website about this project is that we will be the first hyperscale project in Kansas. Wow, aren't we so proud? They have also mentioned on their website that there's going to be a minimum of four buildings. That's interesting. It's not very definitive, but it is what's posted. Now, after everything that has been approved, Beale is finally ready to talk to the community. On June 18th, Beale Infrastructure plans to hold a community meeting from 4.30 to 6.30, which isn't the great time for people who work on a Thursday. At the DeSoto High School, they will finally be ready to talk to the everyday citizen now that the deal is done. Future developers, I hope you are prepared. This community has so much heart. There hasn't been nearly enough communication, but they have heart. My heart for one hurts at the way people in power have chosen to lead our community. You have a huge hill in front of you. Or maybe not. The history of our leadership here has set the tone. People in our community and the surrounding areas take notice. From my conversation with city council members, the hometown table, the planning commission meetings, I know there has been multiple inquiries on things such as data centers, yes, more than one, auto manufacturing and warehouses, to name a very few. We need to pay attention to every single possible form of communication, newspapers, business journals, websites, and any possible source. Things are often hidden just out of sight. As our community moves forward with development, our ordinances need to move forward too. Our agreements need to be written for the health and well-being of our people, animals, and all aspects of the environment. We need to remember the reasons we are here. We, the community, are here. Thank you.

moving really fast, just so you guys know.

Melissa Null, 10175 Edgerton Road. First, I'd like to start by saying thank you to Councilman Bradley. I do not doubt that this whole mess is impacting your life negatively, but you have continued to engage despite that and allowed people to feel heard by you when feedback seems to fall on deaf ears with others. Any conversation or communication with you is not a personal attack and is simply a reflection of your willingness to engage in a way that is real and not strictly canned PR responses. We may not see eye to eye on every issue, but we as a community appreciate what you are doing. Secondly, I would like to address some concerns that are firmly in the hands of the present council and do not rest on the shoulders of those who have come before you. You all got handed a mess. What you do with it is up to you. Beale is building a data center. That is no longer up for discussion. What is up for discussion is what is being done to address the significant changes that are being made to the plans. How did this happen? we have development agreements planning commissions and city council in place for a reason if none of those things are in place to preclude beale from significantly increasing the size of their footprint but do preclude the city from renegotiating franchise fees at a minimum the system is broken maybe i haven't been involved in the right discussions but i have heard no response from the city about why this is acceptable by beale and why the city has no recourse to hold them to what was approved from where i stand It feels like someone dropped the ball. Beale is holding all the power and the city is holding none. I know none of you will address this out loud as the city prefers to stay silent, but I urge you to think about the message you are sending. This is a telltale sign that our processes and documentation are too immature for the level of development we are experiencing. We are in over our heads and don't know how to do this properly to ensure the safety of the citizens in the community. The city should never enter into an agreement or have legally binding documentation giving power to the developer and not the city. The city should not enter into any more development agreements until this is investigated and resolved to ensure future documents are written in a way that protects the city and citizens and not just the developer. The developer is not more important than the residents of this town, and the city should be taking pride in making sure that that is understood. Lastly, I want to double down on the concerns that Councilman Bradley has raised in the past, and I hope he and the issues are being given the credibility and consideration they deserve. I understand the city has laws and codes to enforce audible noises, but these low frequencies are nothing to play with either. There are plenty of already known physical and mental health concerns associated with these frequencies and they are able to be mitigated but the developer won't spend the money or the effort if it is not required we must hold them accountable for the impact to human health and safety they are bringing to the community and not allow their money to take precedence over people's lives the original square footage of the development already posed issues now that it is more than double the size if these low frequencies are allowed to go unchecked you are knowingly placing citizens in harm's way My family and I have been here before you on and off for five years, and some of you know as well at this point. Our previous arguments have pertained to the big ugly warehouse that now sits in our front yard, our property value, and the general distaste we have for the fact that we moved here for the small town feel and the vibe, and it is all being destroyed. Now I stand before you as a lab rat in one of the country's many experiments pertaining to human health and environmental hazards associated with hyperscale data centers, and especially those that sit so close to homes and schools. The warehouse is a mere minor inconvenience compared to the safety concerns you have now placed on my family and my neighbors. We are stuck and literally have zero control over our own health and safety or the health and safety of our children. There's nothing scarier. Additionally, I have not yet heard what the city of DeSoto stands to gain from these data center developments. They employ next to no one with majority of people on site being security. Per normal, we have given all the incentives to the developer and managed to cap franchise fees, but not size and building square footage. It is very clear at this point that literally no one on this planet wants to live by a data center. So all homes and bodies that all this development was going to bring and their financial contribution to the city are no longer valid. You weren't bringing the jobs, the foot traffic, or the value to the city you were supposed to. While I would love to stand here and tell you no more development, that is not feasible or realistic. So I am standing here asking for your help to proceed legally and transparently with some forethought and critical thinking and with the best interests of the citizens, community, and environment at top of mind. Thank you.

Anyone else?

How you doing? I'm Rich Fools, 30020 93rd Court. I back up to K-10 Highway and the trucks there at like four o'clock in the morning do the Jake Brakes stuff, exhaust brakes. I drove a double car for 32 years, so I know what enforcement of law is. I worked for the government for 38 years. I'm retiring finally tomorrow. Not to be proud of, but... What happens to the property values when these people want to resell their homes, and you've got this data center making this noise? Who's going to want to buy their home? Have you thought about their property values? They're in the toilet. You give a tax abatement to this data center, and guess what? Who's holding the bill? We are. My taxes on my property have gone up like 40%. I've only been a resident in total since 2018. That's insane. As a police officer, you don't make a ton of money unless you work buttloads of, excuse me, just a bunch of overtime, which I worked my rear end off the last four and a half years. I felt like I was never at home. So I'm retired from that, but only because I saved am I able to afford a home in DeSoto, but I have to live next to noise. That's all I got. Thank you.

Hello, Mayor, City Council. My name is Clark Alvarez, 32725 West 83rd Street. We already heard about the 1700 acres that's being bought up by Beale and everybody involved. I agree with Jennifer. A temporary pause is not enough. care about our land, our water and our farmers. These data centers will suck up to 10 million gallons of water every day, and that's going to dry up every single river basin. It's going to affect our farmers, their crops, the livestock and our normal everyday household necessities. The wastewater will dump back out and will be hot and full of chemicals. It'll poison streams running through our pastures where our farm animals drink. On top of that, warehouses make vibrating humps 24 hours a day that doesn't stop. This constant noise causes sleep problems, high blood pressures, and many other problems. It can also have an effect on lower milk yields in cattle, major anxiety in the livestock, and who knows what else. I don't pretend to know much about the data, the numbers, the tax incentives, backdoor deals, or anything like that. What I do know is the community that I've known to come to know and love is being pulled apart and picked clean. And if we don't do something soon, there's going to be nothing left to recognize. Thank you for your time.

Hi, my name is Stacy Shules. I live at 30020 West 93rd Court and you just heard from my husband. I want to also add on situations like this, where do you guys draw the line on what us taxpayers get to vote on and what you guys just assume you can just say, oh, you know what, I'm just going to do it. I would say if you want us to vote on a data center, the battery plant, that's great. What I don't care about a vote on is what color a building is, what color you're gonna make a park, how many toys are gonna be in, whatever, that doesn't matter. I sit there and think about, grand scheme of things how about restaurants and when the water is flowing through and properly not filtered i'm not going to want to eat at a restaurant de soto who knows what happens to the water We have problems right now with the water at our house as it is. Ever since more and more things are coming in, the water, the piping and everything is not getting fixed. Our water pressure at our house is 48 pressure and it's supposed to be an average of 60 something or above. When I first lived there, you could run the dishwasher or washing machine and take a shower. You can't do both now. There's something wrong there. I just wanna know about the safety of what these people are telling you. How do we know what they're telling you? When do we get all of the facts, the data? And that none of it is being misled to all of us that live here. And we want to continue to live here, but we want to live here safely and know that generations that come after us, we don't have another Erin Brockovich situation. It's very concerning. We enjoy living here, but we also need to know that not just certain areas, but the entire town, the entire city is safe. And that's all I got to say. Thank you.

Anyone else?

John Marinkovich, 34486, 84th Terrace. Last time I was here, I made a fool of myself and I said I was going to get a bunch of lawyers and sue you. That was really stupid. You know, this deal really stinks. There's something wrong. What I should do is get an investigator and find out where the money is going, who's getting the money, whose relatives or friends are benefiting because I'm not benefiting. You didn't offer me 10 years of incentive when I bought a piece of property here in DeSoto. I don't understand. Their biggest claim is that their taxes are going to really help us. Heck, they're not going to pay hardly any taxes for 10 years. So what help am I going to get from them? This whole thing really bothers me. You know, I lived in California most of my life. I can't believe that a city council would hire a company that's already failed in four other communities like ours. That's all I have to say.

Cheryl Ragland, 8635 Penner Avenue. A couple things. The first one I know after the meeting last couple weeks ago, the intern was going to do some research on the sound and different things. So I'm hoping that he's going to be able to or someone's going to be able to share what those findings were. And then I have attempted several times to watch the meeting from home. And I'm going to request that we look at maybe a different format. It's really difficult to understand what you were saying online. And I know the documents are there, but I'm missing the whole conversation. And all I can hear in the background is ruffling and muffled noises, like muffled sounds. So I think that might be one other way to help us stay in tune with what's going on with the community. It would help for me. And I don't know the answer. Sometimes I feel like, and I know this is not intentional, but sometimes it feels like I don't know how to get the news, right? And I know the mayor has done the short little thing as a synopsis, which has been helpful, but sometimes I think some of the information is left out. So if we could maybe tweak how we're communicating, even if you have to send us three different emails in three different weeks, I know you're busy too, but it would be helpful if we could find ways that work for other cities or other communities. Okay. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Hello, my name is Tracy Smith and I'm at 8950 Oak Country Lane. And I just, I've been standing here the last few meetings and the thing that keeps coming in my mind is like, this is just so perplexing. Like, why is this happening? How did this happen? How did it get to this point? And that's the only thing I can come up with. I'm just perplexed. Like, how did Beale get in here, get this whole thing going, get it approved and And I feel like now we're just being able to voice our opinions and our displeasure with this whole thing. I also am perplexed why I did some investigating with Johnson County Parks and Rec to say, hey, were you guys approached? Was there any kind of studies done for wildlife? What it's going to do to the wildlife? What it's going to do to the land? Anything like that. The answer I got was no. And I talked to someone basically at the very top. So I feel like I was getting the correct answer there. I also have to thank all of us who, some of us live close to this where it's gonna be, some of us don't. But I wanna guess that none of you on this council are living close to it. So it's not in your backyard. You don't have to hear the noise all the time. You don't have to pass by it all the time. You don't have to think, I wonder what stuff is leaking out into the land. So I just ask that you please not just consider the monies that you're receiving from whoever it is. These corporations, like this gentleman just said, they failed several times. There's no reason to think that they're not going to fail again. So I would implore you to really understand your citizens before something like this comes to pass in the future. Thank you.

Anyone else? Sure.

Hi, my name is Jill Moeller. I live at 8990 Corliss Road. I'm doing this off the cuff. You guys have all given me courage because it's scary to get up here in front of everyone and talk about this. So thank you. I want to talk about what these data centers really are doing all across the country. They're powering AI. And what is that ultimate end goal? That's in order to replace lots and lots of our jobs. And that's why it's going at a full tilt boogie right now. And I don't think that we quite comprehend the catastrophic end result of this. To put it in perspective, during the Great Depression, the worldwide unemployment rate was about 20%. They're expecting about 40% of all white-collar workers to lose their jobs by 2027. So this isn't just about Bill. It's about all of the data centers that are going up all over this country at the exact same time. And the other thing I'd like to say is the reason why everyone is up here upset with the city council, with the exception of you, Lindsay, and Zach, and Joe, because you had nothing to do with this, is because once again, we were told on the back end that this is how our life was going to be and we're going to like it. We had no forward warning of it. That started with Panasonic, and it's here again with Beale. I didn't know what a data center was on Tuesday. On Thursday, you voted it in. I'm learning a lot. I'm not learning anything good. Another thing, though, guys, go out and vote when the elections come up. It's important. And the other thing is we're all guilty of this. Every single person here is looking at their phone. I have my phone walking in here. I actually looked on AI to get some answers right now. They're building this because they have a demand. We're giving them that demand. So that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Hi, my name is Cindy O'Connor. I live at 8655 Lynn Road. I don't want to talk so much about data centers. My concern is the overall vision of our town of DeSoto. The history part, most of the people, myself included, why we moved here was we wanted to still be a part of a metropolitan community. but we wanted to be away from the lights, away from the noise, we wanted wildlife in our backyards, we wanted to know our neighbors, and we didn't want a lot of traffic. It seems like so much has happened in such a short amount of time. I have asked before, what is the vision for the city of DeSoto? and I've not gotten any answers. I've not actually seen a vision plan. My question is, how many warehouses, how many industrial, how many factories, how many data centers, do you all have an idea on how many you want to allow in our area and when you want it to stop? Another concern I have that I would like an answer to is what do you all foresee? 1400 acres on this new proposal, I asked Alexa, how many blocks is that? Trying to figure out what else could go in that area. Supposedly the government's cleaning it up, so can nothing go out there except for factories and warehouses and that type of thing? That's a lot of blocks. What did they tell me, 12,000? 1,100 city blocks. A lot could be done with that area. And if we allow all of these data centers to come in, I don't know the answer to this, but I would certainly like for you all to educate us because evidently you do since you're the decision makers. How much, where's this energy going to come from? Do you all know going forward? Beale has doubled the size of their data center. That tells me they're going to double the size of the energy that's needed. They're going to double the size of the water that's needed. I don't know what research has been done and what you all see in the long run. How many more data centers are going to go on this 1400 acres if you allow it to pass? Where's that energy gonna come from? Are we going to all of a sudden then also perhaps have a nuclear power source built in the city of DeSoto to power these things? You can't just look at today, you gotta look at the far future. And I don't feel that that is happening. Another thing is, When I started coming to these meetings, it was like, your big concern was what can we do to keep the small town feel? Well, that was really nice. You passed the thing about golf carts can drive around. Who the hell is gonna wanna drive golf carts around in one little tiny area when the rest of it is full of light pollution, roads with trucks. I think that you really do not have a clear vision and that's a big concern for me. Thank you.

Anyone else wish to comment? We have a commenter online, I believe.

Yeah, there's two people online. We'll start with Amy Baker, or Abby Baker, excuse me. I'm going to ask you to unmute, give you a couple seconds. I'm gonna disable your mic. Abby Bradley, I'll ask her to unmute.

Okay. All right. And the third one's the mayor. So I'm assuming we're good. Okay.

We'll move on in our agenda. Item three is old business. We do not have any. So we'll go to item 4A, receive a presentation from Digital Realty.

Introduce it, Mike. Yes, Mayor. This is placed on the agenda. opportunity to introduce themselves and their project to the community. As we know, in the memo I put that they have recently purchased quite a bit of property at Astra Enterprise Park, and this is an opportunity for an introduction to that and their plans for that property. So, Mayor, with your permission, I'd like to turn it over to Digital Realty. Okay. Thanks.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH, CITY COUNCIL, MAYOR, RESIDENTS THAT ARE HERE. APPRECIATE THE OPPORTUNITY TO PRESENT HERE AND THE RESPECTFUL KIND OF DISCOURSE THAT WE'RE HAVING HERE ABOUT THIS PROJECT. My name is Rafael Rack. I'm Senior Vice President of Leasing and Development for Digital Realty. With me are Enrique Beato, who's leading our entitlement regulatory work, and Matt Gulley, who's with Public Affairs. We are here to introduce ourselves to the city council and to the DeSoto community and talk about our recent land acquisition at the Astra Enterprise Industrial Park and our preliminary plans with the goal of being, again, transparent, making sure we're designing and building a project that meets or exceeds the standards of the city and is something the community will be proud of. We do believe the site we acquired, which is the former Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant, is a good fit for a data center use. Not all locations are, and we understand that. But this site, its industrial history and the fact that it's a brownfield revitalization that has been vacant for 30 years, generating no taxes or economic benefit to the local community makes sense. Today I'll walk through who Digital Realty is, why data centers matter, and then Enrique will cover the specific project details, and Matt will talk about our community engagement efforts. So, slide one there. Or the next one there. So Digital Realty is the world's largest data center provider. We're publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, our ticker is DLR. We have over a $60 billion market cap. We operate 300 plus facilities across 50 major metros on six continents. We've been building and operating data centers for over 20 years. We're the longest tenured, largest scale operator in the world. We have an investment grade rating. We invest long term in our communities. When we enter a market, we're there for decades, not years. Our success and public reputation depends on being responsible, accountable partners to local governments and residents. Maybe on the next slide, we can talk about what we actually do and who we do it for. So we develop and lease data center space to some of the world's largest companies. Our tenants include the major cloud operators, companies that operate cloud infrastructure for thousands of businesses globally. We also lease to Fortune 500 enterprises, telecom companies, financial institutions, government agencies, and healthcare providers. For the site at Astra, we're in discussions with a major cloud infrastructure operator that's a global company with an investment grade balance sheet and name brand company that manages all the data that we create, use on a daily basis. The companies we support are foundational to the modern economy. They process information, enable innovation, support businesses across every sector. Go to the next slide. Data centers support all kinds of businesses. Manufacturing is a good relevant example, considering we're in DeSoto, as there is a large-scale manufacturing plant in the area. Modern manufacturing rely on Cloud infrastructure for real-time production monitoring, sensors feeding data to analytic platforms, predictive maintenance, supply chain optimization, cybersecurity. All of that depends on data center infrastructure. DeSoto has an industrial development in the region and data center infrastructure supports that ecosystem. Logistics companies, engineering firms, testing labs, they all depend on cloud services. And data centers support every industry, healthcare, agricultural, government, finance, retail. They help businesses become more efficient and competitive in the current global economy. Next slide. So over the past 20 years, data centers have become critical infrastructure, similar to bridges, power grids, water treatment plants, telecommunications systems. During the COVID pandemic, when the economy shut down, data centers kept running. Schools went remote. They needed data centers. Hospitals went digital. They needed secure cloud infrastructure. Governments needed data centers to proceed benefits. E-commerce grew significantly. They needed data centers to handle demand. The federal government classified data center workers as essential workers during the pandemic, same as utilities, hospitals, emergency services. Big reason being that data centers are the backbone of the modern economy. Your bank, your doctor's offices, your insurance company, the retail you shop at, they all depend on data center infrastructure. Data centers aren't there for only AI videos and entertainment. They're foundational infrastructure like bridges and utilities. Move on to the next slide, please. So here's how it kind of works. I guess as an example or slide here of when you use your phone or your computer, your data travels over the internet through fiber optics cable. Those cables connect to data center facilities full of servers, storage systems, networking equipment. The equipment processes your data. stores it securely, runs the applications you use. For a manufacturing business, production sensors generate millions of data points per day. Those data points travel over fiber to a data center where cloud infrastructure processes the data in real time. The processing enables them to monitor production, predict equipment failures, optimize supply chains. The data center is the hub. It's the data center processing storage and communication where it all happens. It is the connection point between end users and the cloud services that enable modern businesses. Astra will be one of those hubs, a facility where there's data. This process stores securely to support cloud operations and the businesses they serve. Data centers support virtually every industry, health care, hospitals use cloud infrastructure for patient records, care coordination, diagnostics, Medical researchers process genomic data to develop new treatments. Agriculture farmers use precision agriculture platforms to optimize irrigation, predict yields, manage supply chains. Companies process satellite imagery and weather data. On the government side, federal, state, local agencies use secure cloud infrastructure to process benefits, manage permitting, coordinate emergency response. The NSA, Department of Defense, intelligence, community rely on data center infrastructure. As well as education, universities support remote learning, research computing, library systems. K through 12 schools use cloud for student information systems and educational applications. Financing, banking, retail and commerce, every sector of the economy really depends on data center infrastructure. On this slide, we can walk through what you'll actually see on the ground of a data center. Piece there on to the left is the substation power from Evergy enters here. We're funding the entire cost of the substation construction and grid interconnection, critical infrastructure that Evergy will use for decades. Security fence, data centers are secure, perimeter fence, controlled access security systems, The buildings, house, servers, storage, network equipment, the rooftop equipment there is HVAC and cooling equipment. As part of our end customer's design, they will use outside air for cooling 85 to 90% of the year during brief periods when evaporative cooling is needed. Water storage tanks, reserve water to use during drier times of the year to minimize the impact of water usage. Generators are a part of the data center design, backup power if the grid goes down, located near the substation, enclosed for noise and emissions control, emergency use only, plus limited maintenance testing. And then we have fiber entry points, multiple fiber connections to the internet and our cloud partners global network. What is not shown is the people and jobs that operate these facilities 24-7. We are expecting over 250 full-time jobs on site, not including all of the local trades, HVAC companies, engineering firms, and other ancillary businesses that are needed to support the operations here. Before I hand it over to Enrique, I just did want to add that DeSoto and the larger Kansas City region is growing and obviously attracting industrial investment, which is, I believe, great for the overall region. Grows the tax base for the essential services in towns, schools, bridges, essential fires, police services. And we believe our Astra site is intended to provide the digital infrastructure to support that growth. So thank you for having us here today. I'll send it over to Enrique.

All right. Thanks.

We could go to the next slide, please. One more. As you heard Rafael say a minute ago, and as you all know, back in the day, the ammunitions plant was a major economic engine for the region. It stopped being used by the Army after many years of operation, and an environmental cleanup operation was started. Soon enough, the folks from SRL purchased it and started the effort to create convert the ammunition's plant into the astra enterprise park and in fact there's still cleanup being performed and we we were very interested in the parcel uh because the amount of land available the fact that it was in some proximity to the city of desoto but it is not in the middle of the city. We don't like to be close to residential neighborhoods. We'd like to keep our distance and we will. We like the fact that it is zoned to accept data centers and we would be revitalizing what has been unfortunately a blighted site and putting it back into economic use and hopefully be a contributing part of the DeSoto economy. Uh, you can see on the left hand side, the whole entirety of the, uh, Astra, uh, area we are purchasing we have purchased two parcels one on the tip on the northern tip and one where more or less where the words multi-use are located so two parcels as rafael mentioned there is a customer with whom we work that is interested in the area On the right-hand side, you see some initial, very preliminary sketches. I know they look very final, but they're not. It just happens that they have been drawn with electronic tools. We are working with this customer that is interested on the site. We are working with their prototypes. That is to say, we are using the buildings that they typically use all over the country and adapting them for the area. The campus would look something like what we are showing you, approximately nine buildings. At the bottom, you see two squares with funny lines. Those are the substation components that are going to be built, the little one by us and the big one by Evergy. The source of power is from Evergy. Digital Realty will be paying funding all the improvements associated with the transmission lines as well as the substations themselves. We are not asking the community of DeSoto to pay for any of those improvements. We will take care of that ourselves. Also, a part of the improvements will be Stringtown Road, which is the L-shaped road to the bottom left with a little rotary at the tip of it. That'll be part of the improvements that we will be building. And then on the right hand side, you see a funny shape kind of oval blue thing. That's our stormwater detention facility to handle all stormwater associated with the parcel in accordance to all the regulations that are relevant to that. We know that we have the fire department immediately adjacent on the northern side. So as soon as we have an opportunity, we would like to engage with the fire department, make sure we address whatever concerns they might have, and be responsive neighbors to being next door. Likewise, as you know, Panasonic is just to the bottom left. We will also plan to engage with Panasonic and make sure that we address any concerns that they might have. Please. These are some, again, very preliminary images of what building A, the first building on the left-hand side of the sketch, might look like. You can see we are standing on Lexington Avenue, looking towards the southeast. You can see the first building a little bit further in the distance. We try to be as accurate as possible in terms of how far the building feels with respect to the sidewalk. This is not meant to be the exact location of the trees and the species of all the plants. It's meant to give folks a sense of the design intent. We plan on working with your Zoning Administrating Officer to propose appropriate drought-resistant landscaping, native species, and go through the proper scrutiny to make sure we comply with all the regulations in that respect. There'll be an opportunity to review and comment. I'm sure we could get plenty of comments and we'll be glad to respond to the comments. But it just gives you a sense, a little bit of a sense of how far the buildings are off the road in the fact that we plan to amply landscape the western side of the site. Next one, please. Similarly, this is the view also from Lexington Avenue from the south looking northeasterly. And again, this is the first, excuse me, the first data center building, building A, the westwardly most building. And you can see how they are fairly big buildings. And we put a fair amount of effort on the landscaping in order to be able to mitigate the visual impact and not let them appear so imposing. Addressing community concerns. Next one, please. We heard the term responsible development today, and we like to think that we are responsible developers. As Rafael mentioned, we have been doing this work for 20 years in many, many communities all around the US and overseas. And we've been there for a long time. And part of the reason why we are there is because we do listen, we engage with our communities early, and we do our darndest to try to address local priorities and concerns. We like to support local businesses. During construction, This project will generate north of a thousand jobs and multiple construction trades from earthwork to concrete to carpenters, sheet rockers, painters, electricians, HVAC technicians. Once the BUILDINGS ARE BUILT THE WORKFORCE WILL BE SIGNIFICANTLY LESS WE ANTICIPATE APPROXIMATELY 250 WORKERS WILL BE WORKING FOR OUR CUSTOMER AND WE'D LIKE TO PARTNER WITH LOCAL FOLKS WITH INFRASTRUCTURE PROVIDERS WE'D LIKE TO SUPPORT THE SCHOOLS AND THE COMMUNITY GROUPS We like to become a part of the community. The people that will work here may live in the community. They might live close by. They're going to shop at the same grocery stores. Their kids are going to play soccer with your kids. And they will be part of the community. We are a responsible operator. There are lots and lots of regulations that govern how data centers can build. Specifically, locally, the zoning ordinance has lots of dimensional regulations as to what is allowable and what is not allowable. We intend to follow the zoning regulations. We're not going to ask for any special exceptions of any kind. As we design the buildings themselves for our customers, we will obviously follow the building codes. The building codes are very complex and they regulate in great specificity how buildings can be designed and how they can be built. The EPA regulates the emissions that we are allowed to put out into the environment. Our emergency generators only function during emergencies, but they will need to get a permit from the EPA, and we will plan to do so. Once the buildings are functioning and up and running, OSHA regulations, like in any other business, will govern how we can operate the building and the rules that we have to follow. want to not impact our residents electric rates we are well aware that that is perhaps the primary concern or one of the primary concerns in any town and we have a contract with evergy we'll talk about that in a little bit uh in more detail to whereby we will pay for all the infrastructure transmission substation and otherwise that evergy is going to build for the data center We also know that noise is a concern. We can talk about that in a couple of minutes. Water conservation is a concern. We understand that and we do want to work to minimize our water use. And last but not least, we will manage the construction impacts and reduce the disruption on the air, excuse me, on the area. We are working with some of the areas best construction companies general contractors and subcontractors and they are folks that know how to run construction very well very professionally and a construction management plan will be provided to show how we mitigate the impacts on the community next please uh As a global company, sustainability is important to us, not only in terms of greenhouse gas reductions. We have joined the scientific-based target initiative. work to have our projects be LEED certified. At a minimum, we obtain LEED silver certification. Oftentimes, we are able to secure gold certification. More than 185 data centers and 1.5 gigawatts of renewable energy are purchased by Digital Realty all over the world. As a company, we issue green financing and implementation bonds. And we also try to get our certification on Energy Start from the United States EPA. So we put a fair amount of effort. We're very proud of it in being a sustainable company and being respectful of the environment. Next, please. As I mentioned, in recognition of your comments, power is an important topic for all communities. We have executed an ESA with Evergy. It's a multi-decade ESA. It governs our business relationship. I'll reiterate, approximately 300 million plus of employees Infrastructure improvements will be funded by Digital Realty to deploy the transmission and substation infrastructure that will be required for our North Campus. And under Kansas' large load tariff, Digital Realty will pay industrial rates, which will protect residential consumers from cost increases. Water management is also very important. We have been allocated a million gallons per day of water for the north parcel. And although our customer in peak summer cooling times will need more water than that, they will not draw more than that. What they will do is they will build up storage tanks in the middle of the parcel to store water during the course of the year when the water is not needed for cooling and they will use it at those times. There was mention of wastewater and industrial wastewater, will need to be addressed. And we are trying to fund and partner with the city of DeSoto to possibly build an industrial wastewater treatment plant in our south parcel. So this is in the north parcel. There's another parcel in the south that we have purchased, which has more land. And we are planning on donating approximately 25 acres in one section of the site. And It will be a modular plant that can receive the effluent from our cooling systems, treat it, and send it back to the north parcel so that it could be reused either for more cooling or for irrigation. It cannot be commingled with the potable water. There are regulations by KDHE about that. We plan to follow those, but the idea is that if others in the Astro Park would be interested, we could add another modular section to the plant and more recycled water could be treated. And if third parties would like to take advantage of it, another section could be added. The nature of the Actual effluent coming from the cooling it doesn't have we don't inject toxic chemicals into it What it is is the regular portable water that comes from the de Soto Pipes Gets brought to our campus it gets used in air conditioning and it a portion of that water evaporates and it concentrates the chemical that were always in the water in the first place. So due to evaporation. So that water gets sent back to this new industrial wastewater treatment plant. It gets diluted, it gets retreated, and it gets recirculated. So it is not our intent to release the water into the environment or to put it into the regular sewer system. So those are, I think, some of the two major issues. Sound is also an issue. And we plan on complying with all local regulations regarding sound. And we have a lot of techniques and methodologies that we can use. The two primary sources of noise in data centers are the emergency generators, which, as I mentioned, only get used during emergencies, right? When there's a big storm and we all lose power, we commit to our customers that we They will be able to run their operations 24-7, 365 days a year. And so that's why we have the generators. I'm going to just walk over here.

In this middle slide, you see a blue box with a yellow engine inside. That engine is the actual generator.

The blue box around it is an acoustic enclosure, and some of the shiny pipes that you see inside are mufflers. So those are kind of the first line of defense for noises in generators. We buy enclosures, we customize them, and it allows us to reduce the sound levels coming out of generators. And when those are not sufficient, you can look at the top photographs. Sometimes we use site walls similar to those barriers that you see on the highway to also mitigate the sound from traveling further. On the bottom left-hand corner you see one of the rooftop chillers with a big wall to the side of it That wall looks like a concrete wall. It is not it is a permeable sound barrier with sound absorbent material so that allows us to mitigate the sound coming from the chillers and In not let it travel press past the property line at levels that are unacceptable so at the end of the day we'll have to perform an acoustic study and before securing a certificate of occupancy prove to the zoning officer that we meet the local zoning requirements for noise and not exceed those even at night so we are planning on doing so uh i have heard a lot about uh vibration and low frequency noises i'm not an expert on it i've tried to read up on it From what I have been able to understand about low frequency noises, they mostly are created by very large fans that move at a slow speed. Something similar to wind turbines and that sort of very large equipment creates low frequency. They are less like sounds, and they are more like vibrations. The way we perceive them in the old days when we used to go to the concert, we could feel the drummers in our stomach. Well, it's a similar kind of a thing. On the bottom right-hand corner, you see a picture of some things that look like springs. Those are called vibration isolators. All of our generators and our HVAC equipment are mounted on vibration isolation devices to prevent the transmission of vibrations as much as possible and not only to not disrupt the operations of the data centers, but to prevent those noises from traveling beyond. Visual impact is also an issue. These buildings, as you saw, are not small, they are large. We put a lot of effort into try to make them as attractive as we can. On the far right-hand side, you see how we alternate the facade patterns to make them interesting. On the left-hand side, you see how we can vary some of the materials and provide some visual accents. In the middle slide, you can see how we use landscaping forms and vegetations to provide landscaping buffer in front of the buildings. So we would like to think that we are thoughtful in our design and we try to make the facilities as attractive as possible and as respectful as possible. Matt, thank you.

WANT TO THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME THIS EVENING. I KNOW THAT THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF A PROCESS AND WE LOOK FORWARD TO A THOROUGH REVIEW OF THE PROJECT AND EVERYTHING THAT WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THIS EVENING. FIRST LET ME CLOSE BY HIGHLIGHTING OUR COMMITMENT TO THE COMMUNITY AND THE AREAS THAT WE'RE HOPING TO FOCUS ON. AMONG THEM IS PROPERTY TAX REDUCTION FOR SENIORS AND LOWER INCOME families. That's, you know, feedback that we've heard consistently in conversations. And we think that's an important area for us to really focus in on, um, STEM education and career pathways. You know, we want to be here as, as, as a neighbor and engaged in education. And, you know, we're in a unique position to be able to lean on some of our resources to develop career pathways and career programs for the, for the community and the area students. That's something that Digital Realty has a really long track record and history of doing in the communities that we operate. sustainability and conservation. That is another area as you saw in some of the renderings and some of the conversation that we've had this evening, that is a really important and critical part of the approach that we'll be taking. So when we think about landscaping, we'll think about native pollinator, native plants, pollinators, those types of efforts to ensure that we're blending in seamlessly as possible with the surrounding area and the native habitat And then finally, wanting to do our part in giving back to those in need. So it's partnering with organizations like the Food Pantry of DeSoto, Kansas, and making sure that we're able to leverage some of our resources, whether it's employees to volunteer, give their time, effort, money, to make sure that those in need have full tables, full stomachs, and we're able to do our part But also let me say, our approach is going to be collaborative. We want to develop programs that are going to meet the needs of the community, that are going to be seen as beneficial for the community. And you all know your community. And so I'm not going to stand up here and say, this is exactly what we're going to do, and this is exactly what needs to happen. I think we want to hear collectively from leaders and from you know, the residents and citizens, what's going to make a meaningful lasting impact, not just today, not just tomorrow, but for the next five, 10, 15, 20 years, that's the horizon, that's the timeline that we're looking at. You know, we're looking forward to being part of the community, getting to know the community, getting to know you, and thank you again for your time. And we welcome any questions that you have.

Okay. Thank you for your presentation. Any questions from council? for the digital realty team.

Yeah, Zach.

Presentation, but I really appreciate digital realty presenting to the community in the room and not just to the council and actually seeming at least to be concerned for residents and their thoughts more so than most any of the presentations from anyone that I've seen in general. I guess to mitigate some of the concerns that some residents have expressed, is there a way that either this presentation can be provided for residents to review later in case they weren't there, or sometimes online that can be helpful? Not necessarily as clear as this.

NEW SPEAKER We're seeing head nods. We can make that available for sure. NEW SPEAKER Thank you.

Joe, anything from you online?

NEW SPEAKER I heard you multiple times mention that digital realty likes to be thoughtful in their design, thoughtful of the community they're involved in. So I'm questioning you as you think about your infrastructure and you mentioned that you're going to need rooftop cooling. If this is something that's going to happen, would you be considering using a local company such as Engineered Air, which has their US headquarters in DeSoto, which would help our local economic benefits?

And Engineered Air is a customizer,

So if you have thought about that and you've thought about having engineered air for the community benefit from this project, can you share how well you plan to use local vendors and how that's going to be considered for your selection process?

Thank you for the question. Only recently have we become aware of Engineered Air. They are not currently one of our traditional proven vendors, but we would like to engage with them and have our staff understand their products and engage in a dialogue over what kind of equipment they are able to provide because we are always looking for new and more equipment providers. And we also know that our customer would be interested themselves in understanding the capabilities of engineered air. So we would appreciate it if you would send them our way so that we can engage in a discovery of what products they have available and hopefully take advantage of their them as a local source of hvac equipment because it is in high demand and a lot of competition i think what i would say is there are other ways in which i think we might be able to reach out to local providers the purchasing for 99 of the equipment and products that go inside our buildings is done through our general contractors who are local general contractors and they are very well aware of the local providers in the marketplace so they will be engaging uh electricians as i mentioned before sheet rockers hvsc techs painters floor installers virtually all the trades that are in the local area to To buy from them. It'll be a competitive bid situation Like any other large company, we would like to try to have as much competition in our bidding as possible sometimes There's strategic reasons why we only use one provider, but by and large, we do competitive bidding. I would say we've become aware that not too far from us, there's a quarry. So at the right time, we will engage with them to see if they're interested in providing materials for the work that we're going to be doing on the site. And I think I've also heard that there might be premixed concrete company that is close by. We're going to be pouring a lot of concrete. So we invite them to please reach out to us to hopefully to include them in our list of bidders and hopefully take advantage of a local producer. And as we go into operations, I can let Rafal talk about how might we take advantage of local services and

Before you, just a quick question, follow up regarding, is there anything unique or special about the HVAC equipment that sits on these buildings or is it unique to data centers or is it just typical equipment that's on all buildings of a certain size?

Remarkably, no. They are just chillers. They're train chillers, Dakin chillers. They have been made for 20 plus years in the U.S. and abroad. And there's just a lot of them. That's all.

Thank you. And just to hit on the ongoing operations, I think there's sometimes a misperception that once a data center gets built, it's just servers running and there's no ongoing work associated with maintaining them. And that's not the case. We constantly have engineers there, fiber techs. telecommunications companies constantly repairing, replacing equipment. And our natural engagement with all the communities that we're in is to utilize local resources when available because it's just more efficient that way. We're in the community, have built relationships. And so even from an ongoing operations perspective, that's our our intent, as well as utilizing local restaurants, et cetera, for events, company events and things like that.

ANYTHING ON THIS SIDE?

WELL, THANK YOU FOR THE BRIEF PRESENTATION, AND THANK YOU, FOLKS, FOR ALL COMING OUT HERE TONIGHT. I KNOW THAT THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT, THE HEALTH CONCERNS IS SOMETHING THAT EVERYBODY QUESTIONS, AND I STILL HAVE QUESTIONS, AND SOME HAVEN'T BEEN ANSWERED, AND I KNOW THAT YOU'RE COMING FORWARD AND GOING TO GIVE US MORE INFORMATION AND I KNOW THAT OUR CITY MANAGER IS ALSO OUR CITY ADMINISTRATOR IS SEARCHING AND GOING TO PROVIDE US WITH SOME MORE INFORMATION, BUT, YOU KNOW, I REALLY APPRECIATE WHAT YOU'VE DONE TONIGHT AND I APPRECIATE THESE PEOPLE COMING OUT. SO THANK YOU VERY MUCH. NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU.

NEW SPEAKER LINDSEY, ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS?

NEW SPEAKER YES, I WAS JUST GOING TO SAY THANK YOU AS WELL. a lot of time trying to gather community concerns and answer them tonight. I know that you also heard from a lot of concerned community members tonight and talked about opportunities to engage and make it a two-way dialogue. And I think the, The biggest question is that we all probably have more questions. So at what point would there be another opportunity to kind of have that two-way communication or have some of the continuing concerns answered as we citizens look for answers and kind of delve into that process?

Yeah, and really our goal here when we came out tonight is we're still in the very early stages. We just acquired the site three weeks ago. So we have not developed a completely vetted plan design yet, which I think is a good thing because we want to have a two-way dialogue. We want to make sure that what we're building is something that, again, the community is proud of, that it hits all those things that you were looking for in terms of sound mitigation, emissions. water usage, all these things that we're addressing it right when at the beginning, when we're starting to build up our plan and design the building. And our plan is to continue this engagement. We do want to open the doors to the community. We plan to have an open house where more questions can be asked, where there's more of a two way dialog. We're happy about that. I mean, we don't want to hide behind, you know, the our business or just steamroll anybody here we're just trying to engage and make sure that what we're building uh conforms to the to the community all right thank you thank you

um so mike um just you know danny mentioned it and uh cheryl asked for a follow-up kind of what you want to address kind of where we are yeah so low frequency and i think in previous meetings uh council member bradley expressed some concern about the noise our typical noise ordinances address the nuisance type of noise which typical audio audible uh noise it's in the dbc range i'm sorry dba range there's a growing a bit of evidence that there's also concerns with the lower frequency stuff um and this doesn't necessarily just apply to data centers it's all large manufacturing stuff that has cooling tower it has possible generator stuff. So we've begun engaging a few different experts on that call country on experts that might help us look into a possible regulation change, incorporating the lower frequency stuff into our regs. The number of communities that have done it around the nation, Little Rock, Arkansas was, I think, the latest larger community just at the incorporating that DBC range, which kind of gets to that lower frequency concerns and some other issues as well, monitoring compliance and setbacks and some other things like that. So we've begun those discussions. You know, having an outside independent consultant come in, I think, is the right move. And I might be back with the council meeting soon to engage that and start having that discussion. Yeah.

Thank you. I had one quick question. I was looking at the slide. Are we covering up a QR code that would actually link to the presentation? Yes.

There's a QR code that links to not the presentation, but a website, a landing page.

Okay. So soon we will have an opportunity for the public open house for feedback. Looking forward to that opportunity and appreciate you guys coming out tonight.

Thank you.

All right, item B on the agenda is consider agreement with Johnson County for funding for a design of the 89th Street culvert project.

Yes, Mayor. At the last council meeting, you approved the design of the project. We have an agreement with the Johnson County SMAC program to fund half of that. This agreement just codifies, essentially solidifies that funding commitment on behalf of the county. It's a two-party agreement. Patrick, I understand you've had a chance to review this. It's much like we've done these before. Patrick's good with it, so Mayor... I think we just need a motion to authorize you to enter in the agreement. All right.

Any questions from council on the 89th Street Covert Agreement? I have a motion to approve or authorize Mayor's signature to go on that agreement.

I move to approve to authorize the Mayor's signature to go on that agreement.

Do we have a second?

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion of the motion? Roll call, please. Cebu? Lane? McCracken? Motion carries. All right, thank you. All right. Item C, consider bidding on the Parade of Hearts sculpture for Riverfest soccer fields.

Rick, do you mind if I close the door?

Yeah, we'll just pause for a sec, I guess. Yeah.

A little concerned with the people online. They may not be able to hear. Yes, Mayor and Council. A very light item today to speak about. So I have been working with the DeSoto Arts Council on adding more public art to our community. You may be aware that the Parade of Hearts is going on this summer throughout the Kansas City metro area. In conversations with the DeSoto Arts Council, they had identified the upcoming... Riverfest Soccer Project, that site, as a place to put public art. One of the places they identified, one of the things they identified was a Parade of Heart. So having working with the DeSoto Arts Council, they identified two that they wanted to see, and I have them actually up here, one being Goals in the Sky and then the other being Soccer Unites as two potential options for the city to bid on. Council member Sabo did identify another one. The love of sports unites us, love all, fear none. That is another option. The auction does end tomorrow. And so I apologize for the quick nature of this. This one snuck up on me. Traditionally, these are done in August. And I think they're trying to get this done before the World Cup happens. So with that, go ahead.

Is there a sequence of closing on the sculptures? Which one closes first?

So they all close at noon tomorrow.

So it's everything closes at the same time.

Yeah, everything closes at noon tomorrow. Funding for this would come from the Public Art Fund. We had, speaking with the Arts Council, we had had a conversation about this last year. And so we moved some fund balance forward for this particular thing. So it is a budgeted item for the 2026 budget. So with that, I'll stand for any questions. I do have the hearts up if anyone wanted to parse through them. But this is kind of the first one we have here. And my understanding is I'm not an art expert, but I understand it's a Van Gogh-inspired piece off of Starry Night. And these are live bids right now.

Yeah, right. Just seeing the piece.

Yep. So this is the Soccer Unites piece. Um, and it's kind of two prong. So it has the, the new soccer ball here and then the older, my understanding it's supposed to represent the past and present past and future of soccer, um, in Kansas city.

Can I see the first one again?

Yeah.

I like this one best. Okay. I'm just going to tell my personal take is, uh, nothing against the Kansas city skyline, but the others both feature prominently the Kansas city skyline in the piece. Um, And this one is kind of more, you know, it's got fields and stars.

Yes. This is the one that Joe had brought up. Okay.

I like that, too. Yeah. I wish they were sequenced so when you missed out on one, you could roll, you know?

What I think will happen, and These bids are pretty low right now. If you've ever been on eBay, in the last hour, it really increases. But if something does go above the $10,000 threshold, we'll move on to the next one. So I'm probably going to go high to about $11.30 tomorrow.

Yeah, yeah. Go all in on whatever one we want to go for first. Yeah. Yeah, so we can shift our focus as the closing draws near.

SO IF THERE'S A PREFERENCE FROM THE COUNCIL, JUST A QUICK MOTION, JUST AUTHORIZING ME TO.

I SAID MINE. FAIR ENOUGH, YEAH.

ARE YOU READY FOR A MOTION?

I don't have a preference. I was just going to move to authorize the assistant city administrator to bid on a parade of heart sculpture in the minimum thousand dollars. And if it doesn't end up being one of these three, then I'm sure we will get a good one for the new soccer complex.

All right, we have a motion. Anybody ready for a second? I'll second it. All right, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion of the motion? Roll call, please. McCracken?

Yes.

Bradley?

Yes.

Szabo? Yes. Lane? Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you, ma'am, council.

Okay. Go ahead, Mike, I'll let you do it. Now it's the fun stuff, Mike. We get to start our budget.

The happiest time of year. Yes, Mayor, is that your introduction to the next agenda item? Let's start our 2027 budget discussion. Thank you, Mayor. For those who haven't gone through this with us, which is the majority of you, we do have the first exhibit to the staff report is this budget calendar. now requires that municipalities fully formulate their budget by October 1st of the year. And then the actual fiscal year for municipality starts January one through. December 31st budget cycle. And Brandon has prepared, as he's done in the years past, this kind of step-by-step, week-by-week budget calendar for you to review. The punchline is we've already started it internally among staff. We're here with the first council discussion here in June, and we need to finish up by October 1st. on a more global level, what we've done, at least for the past six or eight years anyway, we start off with really a snapshot of closing out the prior year. important part you know we get we get all the all the accounting entries done journal entries done at the end of the year we create our end of your snapshot uh so we know where the fund balance is set in each one of those then there's the audit process and so that usually takes a couple months to get through uh then the audit once the audit's done then we can um verify that where we thought we were is actually where we were. So we've done that now. And then we can really start in earnest on projecting what the what the resources might be for 2027. At the same time, we have to project where we think we might be at the end of 26 so that we can start the 27 budget on an accurate footing. So The way I have done it, and most cities do this, large and small, you don't just look at the 27 budget. You have to look out multiple years in the future. And we've set that as kind of a five-year look ahead. So I'll apologize now to you who don't like spreadsheets, but this is very spreadsheet driven still. Haven't found out a way to completely automate this process, but you'll see these spreadsheets that look a lot like this. Lots of numbers, columns and rows. The columns show last year's actual, this year's budget, this year's projected, and then five years into the future. And really, when we're looking at expenditures, we don't just look at them for next year. We're kind of almost budgeting on a five-year basis because what we want to do is make sure that these fund balances we always talk about remain at or above our target reserve balances for each fund, even five years out. So we don't want declining fund balances that will have to have a train wreck in year four to have to accommodate. A lot of what I do is to make sure that the services and projects that we do in year 27 and 28 don't negatively impact later on. This really comes into play a lot when you're adding staff or implementing a program that's going to be ongoing. You're buying a property that might need remodeling. maintenance on an ongoing basis. So that's why it's real important for us to continue to look at these five-year projections. And a big part of what I do throughout the year is staying vigilant about the current year projections. So are the revenues coming in like we thought they would? Are the expenses coming in like we thought they would? Is there a mid-year adjustment we need to make to either side of that to accommodate where we think we need to be. So that's the general scope of that. And in a current economic development climate, these revenues are really, they're changing rapidly. So we're starting to see the real impact of what we had hoped we would see You know, during the announcement in 2022, and they've been building the thing for three years, and they started production on two of their production lines in July of last year. So we started to see some of these revenues sourced during the course of the construction. We saw sales tax revenues increase. We saw that general business activity in the community increase. We also saw a kind of a one-time injection of building permitting fees, about a million dollars of building permitting fees that hit the bottom line on the general fund very positively. And we started to see the trend of the franchise fees from the electric uses go up. But really, the electric use really only started after they started production last year. And so it's all these what's the sales tax going to do now and in the future, the franchise revenues, what's more to permit. So these things in a landscape like we have now with the intense economic developments going on, lots of new things, the permitting revenues are kind of one time, so you don't need to rely on those long term. it's important to get these projections, these five-year projections for the revenues kind of settled. And so that's mainly what I want to talk about tonight, just the revenue side. And I've also for tonight just thrown out a baseline five-year projection for the main, the general fund, three main funds, general fund, law enforcement, and debt service funds. We also have a number of other funds that we'll share. And then the three main revenue generating funds, the water and the sewer and the refuse funds, we'll look at those at the next meeting and be able to talk about those long-term projections. for now um the projections you're seeing are just baseline you know the level of service that we we've established for 2026 continues into the future we're not adding staff we're not adding new um programs we're not buying new buildings we're not doing that sort of thing i have incorporated the results of the capital improvement plan that we just got done um finalizing the five-year cip so you'll see some of that impact on the debt service fund as well as we go through so um with that as a background um first i mean i guess i should have started i'll go as slow or as fast as as we want to and i mean um you know uh zach and joe you're online so chime in verbally i can't really see if you have a question or raising your hand so um just intend this to be kind of a two-way dialogue here The first thing that I wanted to share with you is more or less the basis of the long-term projections. So I have these inflation factors, these factors that move out into the future about where we think revenues might go up or down, where we think appropriations might need to be. So largely these are inflationary figures. So you see for 2027, for the budget cycle in 2027, those numbers really don't mean a whole lot. We're going to We're going to set those revenues, those levels individually as we go through the budgeting process. But for 28 and on, those levels are just increased by these inflationary amounts. So you see things like court fines that we're expecting to go up more or less inflationary over time, 3% and 4%. Planning and zoning fees the same way. Sales and use tax monies, we'll talk about those a little bit. But pretty conservative estimates there. Appropriations the same way. So our expenses, the commodities, the personnel expenses, you can see there. So those are kind of what form the basis of these longer-term projections. I talked about the Exhibit B in the staff report shows this spreadsheet with all the five years. So we'll start with revenues. The first part of the revenue picture is how we calculate the property tax overall. So the first thing that happens is the county appraiser during the final part of the previous year does an assessment on all the real property values. ultimately generates the amount of tax that we collect based on the mill levy that we set during the budget. And this little chart shows the real property valuations heading back to 2017, steady increases through the teens and into the early 20s, or 2020s. And then you see these massive jumps in... or 24, 25, 26, and now 27, almost entirely driven by the Panasonic facility. So this is what that chart looks like. This is the total assessed valuation of all property in the city of DeSoto. So you see the real property values just skyrocketing here. Almost all of that is the valuation of the Panasonic facility. They do evaluate it as a partially complete. So when they're partially done building it, they assess it. how you the property tax started being collected uh the tricky part about the panasonic facility is that it is in a tiff incentive district so that property tax is collected but it's not district it can't be used for general fund activities and so what we need to do is back that valuation out for for the purposes of our mill levy we need to back that out to um to a figure that is the effective assessed valuation rate and so that's what i've done here in this red bar you see the The total valuation is kind of the gold bar here. But once you back Panasonic, and this is how much Panasonic contributes, that's the portion of Panasonic that's the overall assessed value. Once you back that out, you get the red bar there. And that's the red bar that we use as the total valuation figure that will eventually set the mill levy. So we talked about that there in the staff report a little bit. Next big impact to the general fund and really all the funds is the sales tax picture. Starting back in the mid-teens, we've really started seeing the sales tax revenues increase. A lot of that was countywide stuff because we get a portion of sales tax from the countywide. But then clearly, as soon as the construction activity at Panasonic started, we started really seeing those sales tax revenues increase. A big part of that is just having several thousand construction workers in town every day. They're buying lunch, they're buying gas, that economic activity is increasing. But another big part of it, substantial part, is the infrastructure work that Evergy had done, mostly at the Astria Enterprise Park to support the Panasonic facility. All of that equipment they buy is subject to sales tax and they pay sales tax for that equipment. And so we see that specifically in those collections. So you can see that the sales tax number really started to jump in 22 and 23 and continued there throughout 24. At 25, I'm sorry. So for 26, though, their work there for Panasonic is largely done. And so they've had a lull in the last year or so in big construction activities there. So we're seeing some of that start to subside to a more kind of a baseline level. So what I'm projecting for 2026 kind of goes back down to this baseline sort of overall trend growth. which is actually consistent with what we budgeted for this year. We budget very conservatively. So I'm thinking it's going to be somewhere right around $3 million in sales tax collections. And then, so if you look at the out years for 27 through 31 here, budgeting that to be flat next year and then just continue on a pretty conservative inflationary factor, it's actually below the trend lines. for the rest of the projection period there. So that's the sales tax. That's very important. We'll watch it every month. It's a big part of our budget. So that's the picture there. This chart shows kind of an exaggerated view of that sales tax, but this is the portion of the sales tax to the debt service. So a portion of our sales tax goes to pay off bonds from the debt service fund. So you see that this is just a more exaggerated version of really Franchise fees are the other big ticket item on our general fund budget, and we try to assess those. We knew early on that Panasonic was going to use a lot of power in the production of the facility. After the facility came under production, the estimates for that were somewhere around $4 million a year once that facility is completely built out. and operation, eight full operational lines. You can see in this chart, this is just the monthly electric franchise fees that we saw starting in January of 2024 and then continuing, last point there is March of 2026. You see this big jump. Right about July of 2025. And that's right when they started those first two production lines at the plant. So we've definitely seen that and you see it continue to climb as they add production capacity. I don't think they're still running those two production lines on a 24-7 basis. I think they still shut them down at night. So there's even still... room to grow there. And we do expect they'll bring production lines three and four online by the end of the year. So we think this will still continue to climb based on that. So this is the overall franchise fee picture as we look 2027 and continue that. And if you look, we cap out at 2031, even still below $3 million a year. So we're still remaining conservative with that. with that projection there. Other significant revenue sources, interest is another one. We collect interest on temporary investments, short-term investments on bonds that we receive, monies that we have available in reserve. These reserve balances aren't just sitting in a bank. They're actually invested in portfolios that generate interest. A big bump that we got several years ago was when Panasonic came in and we needed to implement the $100 million worth of water and sewer improvements to support that project. They wrote the city a check. We deposited that check and had that in the similar short-term portfolios that generated about $4 million of revenue. between 2024 and 2025, that money is now spent. So we're not going to be generating that much anymore. So that money came and went and it's back down now. So you'll see that in the trend lines here. Another sort of similar story in the building permit fees is Panasonic. And we had about a million dollar permit fee from that facility. So you'll see that bump as well. Continuing on for 2026 and 27, we expect another million dollars building permit fee for the Merck expansion project. That'll generate about a million dollars. They've broken ground now. We expect the bulk of that fee to come in here in the next couple months over the summer, potentially. And then the Beale Data Center project, who's also broken ground, estimating another million dollar permit on that one, possibly in the next two years. So in the projections moving forward, you'll see a $1.8 million building permit fee there. So here on this chart i know it's it's kind of a lot this shows the picture uh the overall lines at the top so this kind of um bombarates everything court fees recreation fees planning and zoning rents and leases most of those lines are kind of down here toward the bottom contribute a lot but um This blue line here is is the building permits. So you see it's spikes in 2023, 24, 25, a little another million dollars in 26, another one in 27. So you see that that we've accounted for. And then the green line is the interest here. We were Chugging along down here at, I don't know, $100,000 a year or so. You see the big spike during 24 and 25 when that Panasonic, that $100 million, we were spending that money down. So that's kind of the picture there. So overall, you see the last three or four years, a lot of revenues from that sort of activity. The budget conservatively shows that tailing off into the future. There might be a reason that that sort of trend line continues, but that's the story on those revenues there. So when we talk about property tax revenues, revenue neutral rate, we explain that a little bit. Essentially, what we try to do is hold the amount of tax we collect from property taxes the same next year as we did the previous year. So that allows us to... to meet that statutory intent of the revenue neutral rate our challenge is that because panasonic's valuation has increased and it increased again this year it's gonna be a challenge for us because then we have to lower our mill artificially essentially to meet that uh so so we'll see how that um how that plays out in the in the long term but the revenue neutral rate is something that we do keep in mind So all that kind of results in these baseline budget projections. So what I've provided you in your packet is this projection of the general fund. And again, as I explained before, this baseline doesn't incorporate because what we've also been doing the last couple of months is reaching out to department heads and seeing what their needs are, if they have any budget enhancements as we call them, a one-time purchase of something or a program that we might wanna stand up. None of that's been incorporated into these projections. And so I think the punchline here is, These bars represent the year-ending fund balance, and this is just looking at the general fund. The lines here represent the percentage of that fund represents in terms of the operating revenue. So we have our fiscal policy suggests that we should aim for a target of maintaining a fund balance that's about 30% of the operating fund uh at the end of the year you know just as a as a buffer and you know our our financial advisors look at that bond rating agencies look at so that's sort of a target and so this blue line here at the top there represents the actual projection where we think it's going to be and this orange line represents that 30 or less. And what I've explained that the difference between these two represents possibly some area where we might implement other programs or enhancements or do some of those things at the council's discretion. The last several years, we've been increasingly, I think, aggressive about some of this. Before then, it's always, let's keep the powder dry. We don't really know how things are going to play out. I think we're certainly starting to see a picture on the Panasonic project with the revenue streams tax, the franchise fee tax specifically. So there's been reason to be a little bit less aggressive or a little bit less conservative with some of the programs we stood up. And I think you see that around the community. So in essence, kind of what we have to consider here is about $1.3 million, kind of in that annual excess to look at. Similar within the debt service fund, we've got a similar long-term projections. We don't have a fiscal policy to maintain a 30% reserve in the debt service fund because we know exactly each year what the debt service is going to be going in. We know how much tax revenue we're going to get. We really don't have a need for that. So there isn't that policy. So you don't see the orange line here. But what I have done here is I've incorporated the results of our CIP. um a cip um assumes eight eight and a half million dollars in new to the debt service fund so it's four million uh for 2027 budget that we're looking at uh 3 million and 28 and 1.5 million in 2030 and you'll see the um the mill levy does have to come up in that fund to meet that now The property tax isn't the only fund that contributes to that. We also saw what sales tax can do there. But this is the picture for that fund. And then lastly, the law enforcement fund, uh, same way. Um, you see, um, we do, we do essentially know what we're going to, the expenses there. So we don't have this fun target, but you see, it's obviously, we don't want to take that fund down to nothing. So you see mill value renting, remaining relatively, relatively flat and actually some increasing funds. So, um, That is the end of what I have to present to you tonight. The next meeting, like I mentioned, I think we're going to look at, it's all these other funds, refuse fund. We have the transient guest tax fund, the vehicle equipment replacement. There's a myriad of these other funds we'll look at. And then the big two are the sewer and the water fund. that we'll also have a look at and we'll be able to start formulating, you know, some directions about about budget enhancements, vehicle equipment replacements, things, things of that nature. I think I will stop there and answer any questions from council.

For some reason, we can't hear you right now, Zach. You're not muted.

Why can't we hear Zach? I don't know. We should be able to. I love this. Nope.

Now he's muted.

Yeah, I just muted you, Zach.

There we go. There we go.

All right.

Don't know. Yes. Yes. No, no, the, the, the projections that you see, uh, on the staff port are spreadsheet based still. Yeah, so right now what we do, it's actually a pretty handy interface. We can send that to the departments. They can go into Questica and request, yeah, their budget requests, submit them that way. We can compile those internally and create those reports. It's just not quite so seamless as I would like it to be in terms of generating these sort of projections like that. It also... Maybe I'm a little stubborn about giving up my spreadsheet, but it does provide the opportunity, even monthly, to do a verification check on these fund balances and the funds that have been spent. When I can also import them into my spreadsheet and we can check summaries and things, it does give a valuable, I think, double check on that.

I just have a question on that.

um so in questica they're line by line you know every every line item in the budget has has a a request in there my projections for the general fund are more like department by department we talked about um there's a personnel there's commodities or contractual those categories are in there but they're not uh line by line except for the water and the sewer i do line by line in the spreadsheet but otherwise quest does have every budget line item in in there Um, Brandon, are you, I don't see why not. Yeah.

I don't see why not. Yeah. I know we're still going through, um, Bonnie and I were talking about that today. We're still going through and going back and forth with department heads and asking questions. That's one of the benefits of it is I can look at a line line that seems high. I can send a quick message to the department head and they'll get a ping on that. And we can kind of talk about it seamlessly and instead of sending spreadsheets back and forth. Um, but that should be cleaned up in the next couple of weeks. I don't see once we're done.

Well, but correct me. I mean, there's a way to give the council viewing ability. Yeah, really? Yeah. Real time. Yeah, we could. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's set up for that for sure.

Yeah. Okay.

All right. Joe, anything?

All right. Okay.

Sounds good.

Thanks. Lindsay, any questions tonight? Danny, any questions tonight? All right. Thank you, Mayor. We have our calendar, so you'll see when we should be expecting these to roll on through. All right. Item five is an executive session. We do not have one, correct? All right. Let's go to advisory reports. Mike? Nothing tonight, Mayor. Thanks. City attorney. City planner. Not here. City engineer. Not here. Brandon, you're up.

I just have one thing. Jay asked me to note the touch truck vet on Saturday. I believe it's at Miller Park. from 10 to noon.

Yep, 10 to noon.

Yep. That's all I got.

All right. Thank you. Council comments. I'm going to let the two online go so I don't forget them. So, Joe, since I can't see, I'm going to start with you.

I'm going to say to you all by not being able to.

First, I'm going to start out by saying this.

the presence and involvement in our city council meetings. And no matter what the opinions are, the opinions are important. And I thought there were some good points tonight. Brandon or Edgar, I'm not sure how many people would still be there, but I did miss the name of lady that got up and talked about a water pressure issue at her house and i would love to speak with her okay thank you joe zach you're up

about, I guess, large trucks on Oak, which is on 90th. And I was told that there formerly was no trucks on one end, and then on the other end, there's still a sign. I guess there's some difficulties with having large truck traffic. I don't know what we can do to address that, but I'd like to see if we can get streets or something.

I'm sorry, which street? 95th Street, I think it was what you're talking about, right? Between 103rd or Lexington and Sunflower Road, correct?

Okay.

Okay. Oh, okay. Okay. 91st Circle or something like that. Oh, by the apartment project. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah.

Okay.

Yep. Hmm. Hmm.

So I don't know if you want to address that, if anything, or if you want to get to it at least.

Yeah. Yes, certainly.

OK.

So something that I also wanted to thank all the residents that shared their . It does take a little bit of test and fortitude to get up on the chair. I also want to thank the presenters tonight. I think were pretty good with the presentation and very receptive to our comments and questions. Hopefully, the relationship that they are building with the community will continue and perhaps be more of a present than some other developers have been. Aside from that, All right. Thank you, Zach. Danny, anything for the group tonight?

yeah i did want to say that i think you did a wonderful job mayor on the uh state of the city and um and some of the people that were there were also here tonight again and um i heard some good comments on that and want to congratulate uh Mike on his award as city administrator. That was a very wonderful thing. And the other thing I wanted to thank Joe Johnson, our city street people, the bad intersection that was dangerous at 83rd and Waverly. They did a wonderful job of clearing all of that so people didn't have to drive out on 83rd to see if traffic was coming and then back up real quick. So I wanted to address that the street department did a wonderful job of securing a dangerous intersection and taking care of it. So that's all I had to nightmare.

Thank you, Lindsay.

Yes, I did want to thank, just kind of what everyone else already said. Thank you to everyone who presented tonight and thank developers who presented tonight and at least are starting that conversation and here to hear the concerns of the community. I did want to mention, I know it was mentioned in public comment earlier, but that the deal from 4.30 to 6.30 at the DeSoto High School. And along with that, wanted to thank the city for the mowing that was because it has really increased visibility, not just down on Waverly and Corliss, but all the way. And that's been very helpful with all of the teenage drivers, especially making it a little bit safer. So thank you. I know Rhonda brought that up just at the last council meeting and it's already pressed. And then finally, we also talked about the pool chairs. So thank you to the city for responding so quickly and of getting a plan in place to get at least a portion of those replaced. Okay.

Thank you. Well, that driving thing, it helps us older drivers. I appreciate that. 83rd and Waverly for sure. I just will reiterate that I do appreciate everybody showing up and sharing their comments. Appreciate Digital Realty engaging and starting off with a presentation to us all before we're starting into the process. Looking forward to that continuing and that level of engagement expanding, I guess. I don't really have anything else, so I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Second, we have a motion, a second. All in favor say aye. All opposed. All right. We're adjourned. Thank you.

Hi Brian. Yeah, we obviously we have obviously the bill.