City Council - Regular Meeting

I have it clipped ready for you to carry home.

Mike and I count it. We count it three times. You can take mine, Lee.

Amy, are we good to go? Good evening, everyone. It is 6.01. We're going to go ahead and get this budget work session started. Looks like everyone is in attendance. Ashley, do you want to take roll?

Mr. Delgado?

Here.

Mr. Savage?

Here.

Mr. Throne?

Here.

Mr. Grant? Here.

All right. With that, I'm going to kick it over to Ms. Rhonda Dunn to get us going.

You got it. Good evening, everybody. We're in work session two for the 2027 budget. We're going to talk about investing revenue tonight. And I think we have some good news about the budget so far. I think it's meeting. The ends are meeting. That's always a good thing. So I did do a handout for everybody. Thank you for the reminder. I have a couple of extra notebooks. if anybody needs one from last week. Anybody reach that? Thank you, there we go. So I'm gonna work first through the presentation and it's up on the screen and this is live stream so anyone at home can see it as well. And I did stick some tabs in here so you can add them to your binder and keep track. Okay, so the objectives tonight are to talk about our revenue trends in 2026 and what the 2027 budget is gonna look like and then some initial expense discussions. I'll talk a little bit more about that. I'm going to give you some expense reports or you got them here with line by line details so you could start to look at them and get familiar and I'll talk about that in that section. Okay, so I got an update for Miami County. This is on the third page of your handout. And the assessed valuation or raised value increased by 2.8% in Miami County for 2027. And I do have to say tonight that everything I give you is preliminary. I have put together what I call the straw man, which is the pieces are all put together, they're definitely not final, because we're doing all of this work, but I did it to say it works, or we have a bust, or we have a problem, and then we go back and fine tune now for the next months, the big picture's together. And so these are preliminary numbers from Johnson and Miami County. By June the 15th, I'll get the final numbers from them. But the Johnson County number didn't change from last time and has increased about 15.99% on assessed, I'm sorry, appraised value, which equates to about 12.82% on assessed value. And Miami County's assessed value has gone up Less than 1%. So what does that mean to us is the bottom section there. Last year, a mill was worth $207,000. And with the preliminary numbers, it'll be worth about $226,000, almost $227,000.

And that's combined with both counties, correct? Mm-hmm.

And so if we kept our mill levy the same as it is now, 21.861, that means we'll have increased property tax revenue of $427,620. So then on the next page, I added that number, $427,000, to what we estimate we'll get in 26, bringing us a 9% increase in property taxes for a value of $5,174,000. Would you like to talk about property taxes there, assessed valuation, any of those things before I move on to something else?

Do we have the percentage of that that is new homes, new property rather than existing?

I do. I don't have that split with me. We'll see that it gets included next time.

Do you have the split for Miami County with residential versus commercial?

I will. What I got from them is not the same. On the surface, I do not. I'm gonna have to dig through that a little deeper to get that. I think that'll be, I think it'll be a bigger piece of the pie is residential because our highest value commercial is on the Johnson County side. So I think it'll be interesting information to have. I think I sent an email to all of you about the split of residential to commercial. Did I send that to you?

I think for me, what I'd like to see is existing percentage increase, because I think that's important to know outside of what the new residential. And obviously, that's why we see a huge difference in Johnson County and Miami is we're not really building in Miami County like we are in Johnson. So it'll look a lot larger. And basically, in my opinion, taking advantage of the new homes and being able to discount some of the existing residents is what I'm looking for, kind of what we did last year.

Yeah, I agree.

Use that growth to offset for the existing business.

I agree.

We have kind of an agreement there. So they can see a real, like last year we gave them a real dollar change. If we can do that again, that would be what I'm shooting for.

Yep, I definitely plan to have that when I get the final numbers. Yeah. And we get to talking about revenue neutral and things like that. I definitely want you to have that. You'll see later in this I did some calculations per household and things like that so you can see the impact.

Okay, thank you.

Okay. Okay. Now the next one is one, I have concerns about sales tax. I think Elaine helped me with a good reminder. at the last meeting about probably what's really impacting that, but it's not. So I gave you a lot more details than you ever see about sales tax, and I get this report done every month. We get retailer level data. If they pay us a nickel, I have their information. And so in these reports, Some of it is not public information because you could extrapolate out a business's sales with that data. And so it is not public. I have that information and I get it analyzed every month and then use from it what is appropriate for us to share. But these are public reports that are in here. And I think what's important to look at in this first chart, which is about deviation from historical averages, if you see the red line is the minimum each month, the historical average of 23 to 25. And you'll notice the yellow and the blue line are together because 2025 is also the max most of the time. And then the white triangles are where we are in 2026. Our history runs typically 5% to 6%, sometimes 7% or 8% above the prior year. And in 2026, we are running at prior year. And at April, we ran below. And so that's unusual for us. Digging a little bit further on the next page, last year there was a major construction project, a private project, not a city project, and it generated a lot of sales tax on building materials, and you'll see this, the fourth bar over, which is a metal service, is the steel they bought for that project. And so it obviously went down to almost nothing now. And so that's one of the big impacts is that construction project and the sales tax it generated in 25 we're not seeing in 26. The other thing that I think you'll find interesting about this is when you look at each bar It also shows you that industries are not performing to prior year. I think that's an economy thing That's where more money is going in your gas tank. So less money is getting spent on eating out or groceries or other things But if you look at the very first column or set of bars electronic shopping like Amazon and Walmart.com and all those, is growing. So they're going for less expensive products or getting more things delivered, whereas the other categories are either equal or below prior year.

So was the supermarket down so much because of the one year no sales tax?

It was in 25 that was... Actually, I think that's an error in the data.

Oh, okay.

It could also be when we see May, maybe one of those stores failed to file in April of 25, and next month it'll be double because they caught up their payment, that kind of thing. Then the next one shows that the data I showed you first was April comparison year over year. The next one is annual. I think it's a little harder to read in the bar because of course the yellow bar is four months of 12 instead of 12 of 12, excuse me, like the rest. So you kind of have to take a look at the dollar figures at the bottom. And if you were to multiply them times three to get your 12 months, some categories are still not gonna reach the 25 level. Some will exceed 25 level. So all in all, our sales tax is underperforming, I think is the word I would use. And when you build a budget this early in the year, I don't know where it's going to end up. And so what I did, I analyzed further, and I think we're in a good spot if we're conservative like we like to be. Since some of you are new, the next page, I thought you'd be interested to know who the top 10 retailers are.

Real quick, I'm sorry to stop you. When it comes to the building materials and things like that, We have a couple projects that should be starting this year, don't we? Between some businesses we approved late in the year, early this year. Are those on pace to start? I know like ProDesign wants to get started this year. Car Wash has talked about getting started this year. Those sales taxes could hit us and catch us up on some of these categories. So sometimes it's a... depending on when it happens in the year or two. So I wouldn't say it's a lost lead, but we got a chance to catch up, because those couple are the ones that are way behind. But I think it's because right now we haven't had anything built this year. They finished at the end of last year, didn't they? You know, there was nothing new.

It's hard to take the first four months of the year. Concrete's one of the ones that's gone.

Or we could have a crazy first four months and be like, well, they pretty much bought everything. Yeah, those don't have a basement or anything.

You have to remember the project that was in 25 was of such a scale, it'll take a lot to fill that.

Sorry to cut you off.

No, that's okay. Please do. The next page is about, I just thought you'd like to know who our top 10 retailers are. These are in no particular order. They're just in a list. I don't think there are a lot of surprises there. So you know the Miami County and Johnson County Treasurers, that's sales tax on vehicles when people buy a new vehicle. That's where that comes from, and then the utilities, of course, and it's always good to see the lumber companies on here, because that means things are getting built and done, so that's good. So what does all that mean? I took the sales tax and I looked at 2025, and I looked at where I feel like we'll be in 2026, and they're pretty close. We don't know what the rest of the year's gonna look like, but just using four months' worth of data, will be close, and so I took 20, 20, six, and I added our normal 5%. We typically grow about 5% a year in sales tax. I could easily do six or seven. but I went on the lower side until we know more. You have to remember, we won't approve a budget or print a final number until July. We'll have two more months of data before then, so we'll keep tweaking those numbers, but I am comfortable putting in a 5% increase in sales tax. We'll see where we go. Can I answer, I gave you a lot of information about sales tax, so any discussion you'd like to have about sales tax? Buy at home.

One thing to think about is that Kansas is a delivery state. So even though some of these companies aren't here, the more people have delivered to their home, That's something to think about. That could drop off at any point if the economy gets worse.

Just on the flip side of that, with the gas prices being what they are, people are shopping online intentionally so they're not having to spend that money to run up to Costco, to run up to Sam's. Those places where we like to frequent at least once a month and now we don't go there because our benefits are gone in the gas tank. I think as long as gas prices stay the way they are, I think

That'll offset the lack of purchases. Because when you look at the home furniture and stuff, that's all way down this year. But like you said, if the Amazons and the daily usage is going to be delivered, that's good, too. Because I was thinking, like, crap, are we going to have a big drop-off? I think it's going to be probably a balance.

A wash, yeah.

The other thing, I hope the public that's listening and everything, you buy at home or ship at home. So either buy in the retail stores here or have it shipped to your home, and that sales tax benefits the community you live in. If you go up to Costco or Sam's or Target or wherever, that sales tax stays in that community. So when it gets delivered to your home, that's a good thing. The other thing I worked through was franchise tax, and you can see I've done 25 and 26. Man, we have a real consistent 6% increase year over year on franchise tax, and in case you don't know what that is, The big ones are Atmos Gas Service and Evergy Electricity. There's a 6% franchise fee that passes through from the customer to Evergy to the city. And housing growth creates growth in franchise tax. And each of the last three years, we've increased 6% every year. And so I added that 6% into this one as well, because I would expect our growth in population runs about 8% on average. And so... It's a reasonable number. Those are contracts and the rate stays the same until we, 20 year contracts and I think we're in the middle of renegotiating one right now. Okay, then all the math gets difficult. I'm gonna blame it on Mike and I'm glad he's here. But it's a good blame because development fees are a slippery slope and a turn in the economy and people don't build houses we got conservative in 24 because we were you know new president interest rates all kinds of things we were nervous about it and so I I did two numbers here the actual revenue is the top line and when you look at you know we almost doubled our revenue from the developmental work that Mike and Allison do from 24 to 25, at the rate we're on pace right now, we'll double 25 and come in the neighborhood of 4.6 million if we continue at the pace we're at. We had a good meeting about development and housing and population with Mike's team and Lane and I and I don't have any reason to doubt what will happen in 26. I did it as a I took the first four months of 26 and the last nine months of 20 or eight months of 25 and added them together. I did it, divide by four and times 12 and just double check things and that's the number. That's what it's looking like. So I'm keeping good close track of that. It makes me nervous to think I'm not gonna budget 4.6 million for next year because you have no idea what you're going to get and that's an oops we can't overcome very easily. So I am recommending that we take a small increase over 25 and at two point, just under 2.5 million for 2027. If 27 acts like 26, we could easily be $2 million better than we budgeted.

One of the things we took into consideration is that some of these subdivisions are getting close to building out. So 30 or 50 homes that are being built there will no longer be built there in 27 and 28. So until we get a couple of the other subdivisions up and running, which will probably occur in 27 or 28, there could be a little lag for a year or two.

could also drop off significantly this year because they put in and get all their permits for the work they're gonna do, and then they won't have any. And so it's one, we'll have to watch it and see where we are. I also put budget history on here for you that you can see. We've been taking a bigger chunk of the pie every year, and at 2.5 million, it'll be double what we had in the 2026 budget. So I think it's a reasonable number. It's a number I think we need to watch closely. It's also, that's the surplus you tend to put back in savings to put projects and things in place and so we don't budget for it to be spent. We budget for you to make a decision at the end of the year where you want that to be and we're gonna take a little more of it in the operation this year and a little less in the

savings part of it if you will that's what i said that's about nine mils yeah so that's something to think about when we go to look at the mill when we get to that point and do we say hey do we want to push the throttle a little bit and say try to get one more mill in that category to help on the other side That's where it can be a little bit scary because you're like, I don't know how 27 is going to turn out.

Between the revenue increase and just overall taxes on top of having potentially operating at a surplus at that level, it's a conversation I think that's going to happen.

Or do you take it from the big potential $3 million gain we have there and not put it here? Because those are the kind of conversations we need to have about where to be put because it's all just a shuffling game of them. the money's there, it's a matter of how we do it so that we pull in whatever we want to pull in for the next year.

I'll also, later in this, we'll kind of put a pin in this. This is the conversation that we need to have. Further in the slide deck, I have that exact answer, which is, hey, all these things are increasing over here while revenue's growing over here, and what's the answer? And so I think we're going to get to accomplish the things you want to accomplish.

Cool.

The next one are all the other revenues. It's a million dollars, and so I don't want to act like we don't get this money too, but these are items like trash fees, municipal court, other fees and licensing. The key thing here is the interest on the EIDL funds. We have had some larger CDs that matured. We got nice big checks for those. It'll be two more years before we see those checks again, so I've dialed that back a little bit over what we're gonna see in 26. So that's the difference here on our revenue.

And they're actively dropping, especially with the talks from the federal government side where they're gonna force the Fed rate down. That's gonna directly affect this.

I've been locking in two years at close to 4% for that very reason.

That's why when we have that conversation, I'm like, let's go longer because this is going to happen.

Two years is the longest we can do it by law.

I will tell you, good job on that. Because we lost, what, three years on not, at least three years I was around that we didn't do this at all. And look at that, $620,000 in one year if we could have done that. We lost probably a million and a half when rates were high.

It's also a different banking partner.

Yeah.

In honesty. Another thing I wanna point out on here is I have rental income going down a little bit. If we add the positions we plan to add, you know we're busting at the seams. We're probably gonna take one of the rooms that gets rented and convert to office space. So I lowered that a little bit to reflect that we won't have as much rent there. Okay. So then the next page is your total revenue. We budgeted, or I estimate we'll end the year at 15 million, and that 13.3 million is what I'm proposing right now. And remember, everything is preliminary. 13.3 million, that big difference is development fees and the interest. Okay. So then I broke down the main categories on a household basis just so you could see what the impact is to the individuals. The 4,064 households, that's the number of people who are attached to our sewer. That's how many we bill every month. And we grow at a rate of about 8%. And so I added 8% for 27. And so it was important to me that the rates stay similarly, that we're not increasing So our property tax will increase if we follow this plan. 1168 to 1179, about a $9 increase. Sales tax will actually go down because we expect we'll have more houses, but we're not really building a big increase in there. And then franchise tax is from 213 to 208. The impact from the increased revenue is minor to a household. That's the way I'll put that. Probably won't feel minor to everybody, but.

That's a zero change in the mill, right?

Zero change in the mill. Okay, so what does this all mean, Rhonda? You've rambled for 25 minutes. So I took the three major operations of the city and I put the straw man together and so with that thirteen point three million in revenue We're gonna go in a lot more detail about the expenses but in the general fund as it sits right now We would have a surplus of about two hundred and sixty six thousand Bottom lines, that's where you can look at your mill That's one mil I will tweak this budget until I print it in the paper. And as I go through, we've created a budget for an IT department. I took it from other departments. Where we were spending it spread out, I just consolidated it. We're adding things we need in Mike's department. We're adding positions where they're needed. The city attorney is in there. Well, I lowered legal fees and added an attorney. We're having an IT manager. We had... I lowered, we saved that money changing our provider and things like that. So I've been tweaking all of those knobs as we go along. But right now, I hope we can, somewhere to that half to a mil is something that we would be able to accomplish depending on where the chips fall. In the sewer, wastewater, we'll talk about that in a lot. greater length, but with the plans there, closing out the water utility and moving those two employees into the sewer utility, planned projects and things like that, we would have a surplus of about 1.1 million. There's a lot of projects going on in the wastewater utility, so that'll probably come down some, and that's a planned project. 5% increase in rates, so we can kind of look at how that best fits, but that's what our neighbors do. That's our general strategy year over year. Wastewater's very simple. We budget to have an employee in that and a lot of projects, and we- Stormwater? Stormwater. Sorry. And we budget the same revenue from the assessments every year, so... My point in this slide is preliminary view. The pieces come together. We don't have a whole. I don't feel like I have some crazy thing happening. I'm gonna have to figure out that the pieces come together and now we can tweak and improve and put money where we want and take it from where we need to and build a better budget.

Going back to the stormwater, what's the 620 in expenses?

That is to have, those are projects we budget to.

So those are all projects?

Yes, in general. We have money in there for a vehicle for that employee and uniforms and things, but we also have the plan we have to build, MM4C or something. MS4. MS4 report that we need to have for the federal government and then for theirs projects. Okay.

City LinkedIn.

That's what I'm saying. I feel like there was a big number coming out for the city right now.

There's more than a million cash in this fund and this is one year budget. So this would be added.

So we'd add another half a million. That was kind of my question. I'm like, if it's 600 expenses outside of those projects, that's no, it's most mostly projects.

All right. All right. Any other, open the floor to any discussion you'd like to have about the revenue side, then we'll talk some about expenses.

So although nothing has changed, there's been some wild state level budget proposals. Based off of, so some of them that I've heard is the state saying, ballot box for any kind of mill increase. I want to substantially lower the mill and I think we can do it this year as a year that we could probably do it. My biggest concern is are they going to stranglehold us next year with some sort of because they were talking like a super quick turnaround like nope it's next year you got to figure it out. So as much as I'm there I have that in the back of my mind when I think about it because like we show here we have a Basically a 1 mil in that 13.3 that we can look at. We're going to have an extra 2 million there that if we decide how we want to, what we want to do with that excess. On a normal year where we don't have any of that stuff hanging over our heads, I'd be like, let's give a real drastic reduction. But I still am a little nervous. I don't know what your guys' thoughts are on that. When I talk to Chip, who's my main contact, because he's our representative, and Adam Thomas, They're both like, we don't think that's the right one, but it's a possibility.

What are you thinking, Rhonda? Did you run a quick analysis when they were talking about the gap?

I have. I haven't looked at that for a little bit to have it from my memory.

It seemed like it was a mil or mil and a half impact to the city if they did what they were planning on doing.

And let me tell you two things. It's very important to Spring Hill when the solution comes out. that we get the benefit of new construction. Sometimes they act like that doesn't exist. We are only impacted maybe a mil or a mil and a half because we have all that new construction. When you take that out, that's a different number. It's far more negative impact. Let me tell you the other, put my other hat on. What I'm gonna say will not be very popular and that's okay, I'm not worried about that. As my job is to give you advice and provide you information, I would recommend you hold your mill levy because you're going to fight to get mill levy back in the future. You probably won't ever get it back. I heard you last time, and every one of you want to lower the mill levy, and I respect that. I'm a taxpayer. I respect that. But I'm telling you, in the future, if the legislature gets what they want, you will never increase your mill levy again. And I'll give you an example. If you wanted to build a network of sidewalks or replace Nichols and Hale, those are multi-million dollars. Maybe $2 million would be on the low end. We don't just have two million laying around. You'll likely bond those projects. You can't raise your mill levy to pay your bond. You will have to cut or pray your revenue goes up enough to make your bond payment. So we need them to address debt in their plan and we need them to address growth. I think you should hold the line. You can always go down in the future. It's just gonna be so hard to get it back. Columbia Capital addressed the GFOA and told them nobody should be addressing mill levy as a plan to reduce this year.

So that's where, in my mind, we have a couple different options. Is it do we go aggressively after one of these very, very poor streets, so whether it's Hale or Nichols, and say, hey, Instead of going to aggressively lower it, we throw a million bucks and get half of the first treatment. I think it's $2 million per side when we're talking about the one ways.

In a rough draft, yeah.

Yeah. So if we're like, hey, we were looking at taking $500,000 to lower the mill levy, do we say, we're not going to just bank this. We're going to use it now to show that we're actually using it towards a project that's definitely needed so that we hold the mill? Or do we? say, screw it. I mean, it's one of those things. So that's the decision we're going to have to make. I'm about 50-50 on it, only because they have been scaring me the last couple of years with some of the stuff. And to hear some of the outlandish things that they've come up with. If it's an easy, hey, we're going to cap the valuations, that's different. I think that's much more reasonable. But if it's some of the stuff that they've come up with, it really doesn't help anybody. It just strangleholds everybody into a spot where nothing really works. We have to be cognizant of that when we think about this. Again, if it was a normal year and none of these conversations were happening, I'd be like, oh, yeah, we've got all kinds of room to do whatever it is we want to do.

We do have a lot of growth expenditures coming up. 183rd Street, 169th, 191st Street. 191st is relatively the majority of what it's paid for. Potentially has some rail crossings 207 streets coming up is a major all of our cars projects There's going to be a lot of expenditures the wastewater plant is going to be a big item discussion here in the next 30 days on trying to determine Which way we want to go with that and how we're going to pay for that so I think there's going to be some numbers that's going to maybe have you guys lean one way or another. There's no loss of places to use it, whether it's on streets or whether it's on other infrastructure. But it's definitely a discussion point that we need to have.

I agree.

With that said, I... I actually think that the conversation needs to probably extend it out a little further. We have these conversations happening at the state level now. I don't think that they're the end of what they hope to accomplish. I think that there's going to be a large push over the next five to ten years to get cities to kind of restructure the way they fund their cities as a whole to get away from property taxes as much as possible. Those are still obviously more fringe ideas that haven't really been fleshed out at the same level as some of the other proposals they're putting up. Those are conversations that are being had. And for us, I really think it's going to start heading in that direction. So learning to deal without that particular revenue stream now is going to be

Potentially put us in a good position when they inevitably rip the rug out from underneath our feet 20 I think it's 2001 We jokingly said when the state started taking away Funds from cities that there wasn't much more that they could do to us 25 years later they've taken in excess of probably five billion dollars away from cities and they find creative ways to keep doing that and I think you're right. I don't know that it's going to stop depending on the new administration that comes in. It's going to be interesting to see how we can react to that and still be able to grow.

Think for me as much as I would love to say drop that no two full points L3 full points. I told Lane last year. I'm gonna start with three I'm gonna see where Rhonda's gonna say hold up. That's why I say a half because I know you're gonna say three I think Somewhere in the middle of all of this is probably what we're gonna need to settle out just to be careful as you like to say conservative but also I think it's a real conversation that these revenue streams just simply aren't going to be here for us much longer, so we need to make sure that we're doing what I was voted to do, which is to bring the mill levy down, as well as set us up for success in the future and focus on those other revenue streams that are being successful for us. I think property taxes over the next five to ten years, its future is questionable. So somewhere in the middle is where I would like to end. Again, two or three mills would be awesome. We have huge projects that we need to really think about and plan. Hale and Nichols is a huge one. I think that's a great idea to work that in as a consolation for not necessarily bringing the mill down.

Yeah, that's a... Make it a focused decision to say, we're not doing this, we're dedicating it to that.

Right. And it's also interesting when you start looking at the mill today is $226,000. You forecast that out 10 years and at just rough numbers, 10% growth a year, that mill is not worth $226,000 in 10 years. Right. That's a half million dollar mill. Right. And... There's big impacts. It's the same thing that we talked about with the revenue neutral rate. When they proposed that, a lot of cities were in the same discussion. Did we do anything? And most of them actually increased the mill levy to offset that. There were a few that didn't. And I think they're hurting now. But you're exactly right. As the discussion progresses, we probably need to look at, in 10 years, what would that projection look like? And what would that impact be?

And the value of other streams of revenue, whatever it may be, whether it's what does your sales tax look like or what do you, you know, rent more stuff, you know, whatever it is that you take to replace that.

Three mills now today may be half a million, six million, $600,000. In 10 years it may be a million and a half. Right.

The other thing, the finance director group, GFOA, they will start gathering. They do a little survey. Are you raising your mill levy? How many people are you hiring? All those kind of questions. And then they compile it all together so then you can kind of see, are you a lone wolf doing something or are you more like everybody else? The only one I've seen is a press release from Johnson County that their plan is to leave their mill levy the same. I have not heard from any other group so far.

In addition to that, they also have hiring fees. Yes, they have hiring fees. They have been intentionally trying to drop their mill levy the last few years and using reserves, and they just can't sustain that. So they're putting things in place now because things for them have leveled off.

a conversation as we move along here and we get more information you know I'm going to share that with you to say here's what I learned about everybody else here's you know what the scuttle is on what other people are doing so if you see those please share them because I'd love to know if you see them before I do do you guys have an opinion on

what you think at this point.

I'm kind of on board with that. We're just making sure that we're doing things the smart way and we set ourselves up for success in the future. I definitely want to lower the mill levy, just like PJ and I think everybody else here, but I also don't want to set us up for failure. We don't want to do it at the wrong time.

It kind of depends on how much To me, the roads are needing repair. We're doing less road repairs by not doing chip and seal. So to offset that in whatever way we can, especially as our infrastructure grows, we're going to have to do these repairs a lot more often and maintain more. I mean, I'd almost rather leave the mill alone and use that funds for new roads, sidewalks,

The other thing, like on the development fees, if we want to put down another million or four million, you know, add four million, whichever we want, then I would create a reserve for future projects. So it's not like we'd say, oh, now we have an extra two million, let's do this and let's do that. Let's just make it a project thing, and it's a plan that you have, and if the number ends up 20,000, then that's the number. If it ends up five million, then that's the number. But that way you are not ignoring that growth, but you're making a plan with that growth. as opposed to it just washes away in the $13 million we spend every year.

It's super important to me that when we have those surpluses, the people who are responsible for us having those surpluses see a tangible benefit that next year as much as possible.

The other piece I have on the next tab for you is far more detailed than you probably ever want to see again. But it is the 2027 budget by department by line item. And these are the budgets the directors have put in and that I've worked on for these past couple of months. And it is split by department and wastewater and stormwater here as well. And the nice thing about this report is you can see what's planned for 27, what we budgeted in 26, 25, 24, what we actually spent, so you can look at the things increase. I hope what you take from it is one that detail that directors put into their department budget. and two, that we don't just say, hey, give me 5% more, we look at, I shave little things, feel free to dig through the finance department, because I just keep shaving away what doesn't get spent and shaving away, and pretty soon I'll be the one in here begging you for money to keep my group going, but I feel like we always build a budget that gives us flexibility to get things done, but everyone is conservative in their view in saving money, and we're putting, money to the right things. The next time we're together on June 11th, the department heads, the directors will be here. We're gonna do as a, everyone will use the same format where you know what the employee count is, what are our needs, what are we, what's in our way, you know, that kind of SWOT analysis of the department that you asked for last time and the directors will start in on that at the next meeting. That'll be the focus of it. Some of us will be quick and others, Jacob has about seven budgets or something he's responsible for, so his takes more time. And I'm happy to answer any questions you have about the details. I will slice and dice it and summarize it into other pieces, but I thought you might enjoy seeing the detail. And then you may have questions like, what is professional services? What is... How can we pay plumbers over here? That kind of thing. And that's basically what I have for you tonight is I think we have a good straw man. It's heading the direction you want it to. And we'll just keep improving on it from here. And then as much details you want to look at.

I appreciate this.

We don't typically get this detailed, so I appreciate it. Breaking down. I know One thing to remember for the department heads that come with all of your future asks, too, and try to have that five-year plan for your department when you come in. That was something I think we all kind of agreed to last time, and whoever's up next meeting, I don't know who gets to go first, but...

You have anything in particular you can decide?

I don't know. Whoever's ready and whoever's got a good plan so they can kick it off. I always like to go first.

It's always Chief.

When I have to do a presentation, I always want to go first because at least I feel like.

I'm only allowed to have one slide there.

Yeah. I told him in front of me. The first thing is going to be him jumping in the pool. I will.

A new cell phone?

We're getting those for free, so how many do you need? I think something a lot of people don't get to see is you can really pick any person because they do a good job with budgeting. Mike inherited a budget, hadn't had a lot of attention over the last couple years, and he really dug in and figured that all out. Allison started with a zero and has a good budget over two years, so Jacob has a lot of operations and puts a lot of thought and care into... Once upon a time, we would write a facility maintenance number down that no one ever, either they blew past it and spent far more, or no one ever spent it. And so he has a much more detailed plan about HVACs and roofs and all the pieces.

He's revamped their entire way of operating. Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, it's 6.46. Give us a few minute break here before the regularly scheduled meeting and We will look to adjourn. Do we have anything else anybody want to talk about before we go?

We'll also have, I've asked Mona Keisha to put together employee counts over the last three years so you can see how departments are moving and the bottom line numbers moving.

All right. Okay, we will adjourn. Thank you. Seven.

Are we ready? Let's do it.

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting. We will call this meeting to order, and we'll start with the invocation. We have Pastor Sarah Terrell from Become Church. Please stand with us.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for Spring Hill and the work that you're doing here, and I thank you for this council and the work that you're doing through them, I pray. that you would give them wisdom, creative solutions and ideas and unity. God, I pray that you'd bless them. I pray for your hand of blessing and protection and favor over Spring Hill, that your kingdom would come and your will would be done in Spring Hill as it is in heaven. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you. We'll now do the Pledge of Allegiance. please take the roll call.

Mr. Thorn?

Here.

Mr. Grant?

Here.

Mr. Delgado?

Here.

Mr. Savage?

Here.

Mayor, we have a quorum.

Thank you. Next up is the approval of the agenda. We did have a request to add one executive session right before announcements and reports, so that's the only change that I see. Is there any other changes requested? If not, I will entertain a motion. Move to approve the agenda as amended. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 4-0-0. With that, we will go into our first executive session and entertain a motion.

I move the city council recess into executive session for 15 minutes to receive advice of council regarding actual or threatened litigation pursuant to KSA 75-4319B2 of the Kansas Open Meetings Act. The open meeting will resume in City Council Chambers at 7.18 p.m. Normal formal action as anticipated following the session. Persons to be in attendance are the following. Lane Massey, City Administrator. Mike Mallon, Community Development Director. Spencer Lyle, City Attorney. Second. Second.

Emotion a second all those in favor aye opposed motion passes 4-0-0 back Let the record reflect the governing body reconvene the open meeting at 718 p.m. No votes were taken or decisions made during the executive session discussions limited to the subject stated With that we will move on to announcements and reports I don't necessarily have any reports, but for announcements, and I'll kick it to Rhonda when it gets to her, but our next first Friday will be coming up next week, and we do have a live band. We got a lot of vendors. There's going to be bounce houses, things like that. We encourage everybody to come out in their bikes, golf carts, side-by-sides. It's going to be a fun night, and I think it's supposed to be pretty nice next Friday. I know it rains the next couple days, but it's supposed to clear up by the end of next week, so look forward to it, and I think Chief and I are going to be there doing question and answers for the next kind of, uh, video Jen has put together. So hopefully we'll see a lot of folks out there. That's all I have.

I wanted to take an opportunity to thank the cemetery board and our, uh, all of our volunteers that helped set up the, um, Memorial day, uh, celebration at the cemetery. It was, uh, it was an honor to be a part of that. Uh, we had an incredible turnout always. I think I've only been involved with a couple of times, but at each time there's a handful of more bodies that are present to, uh, to celebrate Memorial Day, so thanks to everybody involved with that, and hopefully we see more people up again next year.

Thank you. James?

No report.

Nothing? All right, Ivan? No report. Mike? No report. All right, we'll kick it over to Spencer.

No report.

Lane? No report. We're trying to go quick tonight, it sounds like. Rhonda, are you going to talk a little bit?

I'll fix that.

All right.

I just want to build on what the mayor was saying that first Fridays are really coming together. If you got to come to the May 1st one, we had about 300 people that were downtown during that time. So it's really turning into a nice event for the community. It starts at 5.30 next Friday, June the 5th, and then the following one will be Friday, July the 3rd, and we're going to celebrate Independence Day. Some really neat things that are happening, the bounce houses. We have great vendors. We have good music. We have Too Hot to Handle Barbecue and DeBowl. bowls be simple um dirty sodas we may have a beer vendor this time so come down and enjoy whatever entertainment is your kind the july 3rd one is um going to be really exciting we're trying to put together a fourth of july parade we're going to have maybe a community band play together it's just really great evenings to see our community come together and have a good time Lots of smiles and fun. So please mark your calendars. We'll see you the first Friday in June, July, and August.

All right. Thank you. Ashley. No report. Mona Keisha.

No report.

Mike, he's probably got something for us.

Yes, I do. So on next Thursday, the Planning Commission will meet, and we will be presenting the creation of a second, or actually a third, excuse me, industrial zoning district that will be labeled M2. We will keep the MP, or the industrial park. We will then create M2, and we will then, M1 will be a light industrial zone, and M2 will be a heavy industrial zone. primary difference being M1 being primarily indoor industrial uses that won't potentially have a negative impact on surrounding properties and the M2 being more of the outdoor indoor or just outdoor industrial uses. Some of those may include Uses that are allowed in M1 today that would only be allowed in M2 going forward would be vehicle storage, auto wreckage and salvage yard, a freight terminal, information technology center, storage yard and then also creating some uses that are allowed by right and m1 today and making those conditional uses such as manufacturing general could that could have an outdoor component especially the storage of raw materials warehousing welding and machine shop so those are just kind of a in essence what we're trying to do is take the uses that are more intents in land use, move those to M2, even remove some of the allowed land uses from that new M2 that may not be compatible, and then pare down the list of allowed uses in M1. So again, that'll be being presented to the Planning Commission on Thursday, along with our proposed changes to our planned district and protected overlay zoning so that we can allow more flexibility in uses on property, not just development standards.

Great thanks for all those updates I know that's been a point of contention for a lot of us to make sure we get some zoning updates here in the meantime until the comp plan gets completed so it's good to hear some of those more intense uses and less desirable I guess you would say moving over so we have some more control over that because currently we will have when that happens we will have no m2 zoning at the time it'll be everything would have to be changed to that so gives us some some control which is nice thanks Mike Allison chief Report Jenna doesn't want to report I think that gets through our announcements and reports does anybody else have anything No, all right. We will move on to citizen participation This is a time for citizens to come up and speak about things that are on the agenda or off the first one We have signed up It looks like I don't know if I'm reading this right Nicole Bowen Just please state your name and address I

Good evening, council. My name is Dr. Nicole Bowen. I live at 22625 West 191st Street, Spring Hill 66083. I was born and raised in Spring Hill. I'm a former Spring Hill High School teacher. I'm a lifelong public educator, a third generation Spring Hillian, and a longtime resident of this community. Last week I know that Spring Hill held a workshop and community conversations around the future of our city via the comprehensive planning process. I know that right now that this lives in the planning commission, but your positions dictate city strategy and public records, so I'm here tonight. I think the work of comprehensive planning matters deeply because it is simply about answering, it is about answering a simple but important question. What kind of community do we want to become? For growing cities like Spring Hill, comprehensive plans are meant to guide the long-term decisions around housing, transportation, infrastructure, economic development, industrial growth, land use, compatibility, and quality of life before projects begin reshaping community one rezoning decision at a time. And that is why I believe that this moment matters. Most people in this room understand that Spring Hill is changing quickly. It is not the same city that I grew up in. People can feel that this community is at a turning point, and I came into this conversation specifically about AI infrastructure recently from one specific lens, and that is the lens of schooling and children. As data centers expand rapidly across the country, communities throughout our region are being approached for large-scale industrial infrastructure projects tied to data storage, cloud computing, and AI development. These companies are looking for available land, access to utilities, transportation corridors, and communities positioned for growth like ours. I understand why these projects are attractive economically. I understand why cities like Spring Hill are exploring them. I also believe that Spring Hill has a responsibility to slow down to decide what role these developments should play in our future before large-scale rezoning begins settling that direction for us. For me, that matters most because Spring Hill Public Schools are the crown jewel of this community. They are a driving factor in why people move here. They are part of why people stay here. They are part of what has allowed Spring Hill to grow while still feeling like Spring Hill and centering a community that is safe for children to learn, for them to grow without air, water, or land pollution is vital for our school's continued success. Growth itself is not the problem. The question is whether we in Spring Hill are going to grow intentionally. We need retail growth. I don't argue that. We need thoughtful residential development in Spring Hill. We need well-designed streets and transportation plans. We need infrastructure that can support the people here and the people that will come next. We also have to decide if there is a place for industrial development in Spring Hill's future. But these decisions should happen within a comprehensive, publicly understood framework and not through isolated rezoning conversations that occur before a community has clearly established expectations and protections. Comprehensive planning should not just describe desired growth, it should establish the conditions for when rezoning is appropriate, including independent impact studies, land use compatibility, infrastructure capacity, setbacks, buffers, school proximity considerations, traffic impacts, water usage, and protections for surrounding neighborhoods and rural residents. I know and I know that you know that Spring Hill has unique planning considerations. Straddling Johnson and Miami County city rule unincorporated residents are deeply affected by city decisions, but may not always be fully represented in this room. And that makes thoughtful planning even more important. I want to be really clear. I am not anti-growth, and I'm not anti-technology. And I'm not here to say that Spring Hill should never consider AI infrastructure or industrial development. But I am here asking that this council lead with long-term vision before projects of this scale shape our community for us. I know many residents are here calling for a moratorium, and I understand why. When development begins moving faster than public understanding, trust in city officials erodes quickly. At minimum, I believe Spring Hill should require independent studies before considering data center projects of any scale. Those studies should not be paid for by a developer. The public deserves independent information before irreversible land use. decisions are made. I believe that economic development strategies should align with that comprehensive plan and should follow planning, not drive it. We can be a community that welcomes growth without giving up our discernment. As an aside, thank you for the consideration for the infrastructure at 119th and 169 as a resident that drives that every day. That is also a safety concern for Dayton Creek students and families.

Thank you.

Thanks. Thank you. All right, next step, we've got Bill Peterman.

Evening. Bill Peterman, 19431 West 200th Street. We need more sidewalks, but we need to stop and take a minute and thank the lady that got us the one sidewalk we've been, or I've been complaining about for four, five, six months. But it was poured yesterday. So it's in the forms were off today. So we're one sidewalk down What 47 to go? So I appreciate it. Thank you guys for listening to me and helping pass the buck So we get it get it done. Now. My other thing is I'm kind of curious about the Talking about 191st getting a stoplight and we're doing the state spending probably fifty sixty thousand dollars on a study or something and One study idea. Let's take the streetlight or stoplight at 169 and 199th Street. How many deaths have we had there? Let's go down to 231st. We can't really use that one because that's an illegal deal. We've got a stoplight too close to the off ramp. So that's not really a good one to go with because it's illegal. Let's go down to the next overpass and the one after that. How many deaths have we had there? Overpasses don't have deaths. Stoplights have deaths because it's dealing with people. People are stupid. So something to think about. When they want to spend all that money, my money, talking about, well, we need to check this and check that. How many deaths? How many deaths at a stoplight? How many deaths at an overpass? Something to think about. Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks, Bill. All right. Next up, we've got Julia Burmeyer.

My name's Julia Bergmeier, 18908 Mahaffey Street. I'm here tonight to respectfully request that the council place an 18 month moratorium on data centers on the June 11th agenda for discussion and consideration. I want to be clear that, like many of us, we are not anti-growth or anti-business. We support smart, responsible growth that genuinely benefits our community. This request is not about stopping progress. It's about ensuring Spring Hill takes a thoughtful, informed, and proactive approach before irreversible decisions are made. My concern is that we are considering hyperscale industrial use in areas without the infrastructure, protections, or long-term planning necessary to support it. These facilities bring impacts far beyond what our current zoning and development codes were designed to address. A temporary moratorium would give the city time to evaluate infrastructure and utility capacity, local watersheds and wastewater, noise, traffic, and transmission impacts. It would give time to develop clear regulations and protections and ensure meaningful public input before major decisions move forward. Data centers are not clearly defined or specifically regulated and are instead being grouped into broad industrial or commercial categories that were never intended for facilities with this level of power demand, water use, noise, and continuous 24-hour operations. The current planning approach appears to classify data centers as office buildings with servers. That definition does not reflect the reality of hyperscale facilities, which can consume more power and water than all residential households and local businesses in the city combined. Classifying hyperscale industrial infrastructure as standard office use is misleading and unlikely to withstand meaningful legal scrutiny under the golden criteria. The concerns also extend beyond infrastructure and economics. Studies have raised concerns about real health impacts ranging from headaches and anxiety to cardiovascular strain, respiratory issues, immune suppression, cancer, fetal demise, and loss of livestock, literally just to name a few. When projects of this scale are proposed directly among homes, schools, and neighborhoods, long-term cumulative exposure must be taken seriously. Spring Hill would not be alone in taking this step. Counties and cities across the country are actively adopting moratoriums or stricter regulations because existing zoning codes were never designed for hyperscale data center development. Again, this isn't about being opposed to industrial development. This is about projects of this scale being planned responsibly with proper zoning, infrastructure capacity, and safeguards to protect residents' health, safety, quality of life, and our property values. Without updated regulations, developments could move forward without fully addressing long-term impacts on the utilities, the infrastructure, the environment, surrounding neighborhoods. And once built, these impacts cannot be easily undone, and future generations will live with the consequences of today's decisions. A temporary pause would allow the city to properly study these impacts, clearly define data centers within our code, and establish strong specific zoning standards and appropriate safeguards and protections for residents and our resources. This is a responsible and reasonable step that ensures future decisions are made with complete information, transparency, and the best interests of the community in mind. Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Thank you very much. Thanks, Julie. All right, next up we have Mike England Julia was so excited to get up here.

She forgot her hand out.

Can I please sure?

Okay. So my name is Mike Engelman. My address is 15259 West 193rd Terrace, Spring Hill. Tonight I'd like to address you guys on a couple issues. And I'm going to read them because I want to be accurate. First, I'd like to address the perceived conflict of interest when partners of our city's attorney are out soliciting data centers on behalf of the company that they both work for. Through CORA request, we have a direct link between a law partner at that law firm, the same attorney that caused the firm to pay Burns McDonald $62 million for steering bids to their preferred bidder during the KCI airport construction project. We feel that this is the exact thing Spring Hill must avoid. Whether real or perceived, this conflict could do irreparable harm to our community. Does the parent law firm represent just one data center developer? That's a question. If they represent multiple data center developers, how does the city keep from getting sued? If a contract is awarded to one instead of the other, additionally, it's a terrible look for the city that the majority of its residents are against data centers, yet the city attorney's law firm has multiple pages on their website dedicated to the representation of data center developers. Does the Spring Hill city attorney only work for Spring Hill? According to his contract, the answer is no. Does he spend the rest of his time working with other partners that represent data centers? I hope the answer to that question is no, but the perceived conflict is real. Secondly, I'd like to talk about city planning. My concern is the city planning position not being required to live in the city of Spring Hill. If the planner lived in the estates of Wolf Creek or Foxwood Ranch, he or she planning decisions would be completely different than they would be living in another city or even a different state. The neighbors in a different city or state don't care that person he or she builds a data center next to a school or residential neighborhood in Spring Hill Kansas there is no accountability to do the right thing I propose that the position have an attached residency requirement to ensure accountability thank you for your time next up is John Waterman

Good evening. John Waterman, 21110 West 186 Terrace, Dayton Creek. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. Had a couple things related to the first very good workshop last week, open house for the K7 corridor management plan. I was really interested in seeing what was being discussed there and ideas and kind of the poll from the citizens who participated in that. So very good feedback. Related to that, kind of out of the feedback, the top concern was traffic congestion. And then the mobility preference was to have faster throughput travel along that corridor so Since I live in Dayton Creek 191st and 169 obviously a You know a bit has been a big concern for the five years. I've lived there I'm glad that you know, we're we're looking at investing in a stoplight That's on part part of that discussions on the agenda tonight The the project is targeted at an estimated cost of $3.5 million. And, you know, $2.85 million of that is going to be, you know, covered by federal and state funds, which is good. So at least $650,000 for just, if we just consider that intersection, I know also some of those funds could be targeted to 183rd as well, which is also looked at. So... If I go back to top concern, mobility preference, because I talked to Pat at KDOT, kind of specifically about traffic management and kind of how this study and how kind of the evolutionary plan for the corridor looks for that highway. And it's still too early to tell, you know, because we don't know what that plan looks like. My concern is and hope is that the technology of the signaling that is being looked at for this $3.5 million project are very smart or upgradable. So we can maybe invest in a, I don't want to use the term rudimentary, but a more basic stoplight that can be upgraded to do traffic management. That's going to allow the throughput that, you know, the citizens have desired to have. So I don't know how far along in a $3.5 million project plan, you know, the exact type of signal has been considered, but I'd like us to be mindful of what that does look like and what upgrade options would be available to us. So we can spend money smartly by... doing kind of a basic plan, but then the option to upgrade that as we go down the line. Because we just don't know what KDOT's strategy is going to be. We're going to have to partner with that. He did tell me that city municipalities have to pick up the tab for that signal and what the cost is, which is why we're going to discuss that tonight. So I just want to make sure that we're We're thinking of all the possibilities when we're investing in that project plan, and in the 193rd project plan, because it's very vital to the future growth of that K7 corridor. But frankly, since we don't know the plan and what it's going to look like on down the line, how much do we invest? So with that, I'm I'm kind of putting a lot of questions out there that I hope we can kind of talk through as we get more into the detailed project plan going forward in the coming months. So I think that's around looking at project award around July or August timeframe of this year. So coming up pretty soon, just a good time to discuss kind of more specifically what we're looking for, short-term, medium-term, long-term. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Thanks, Sean. That is the last person we had signed up. Is there anybody else in the audience that would like to come up and speak? Come on up, Jason.

Sorry, I never sign up.

Jason O'Kane, 18804 Skyview Lane, Foxwood Ranch Community. I'm going to talk a little bit, you know, like no data center is great. Let's keep that flow going. But more like comprehensive plan and future for Spring Hill. Going forward with the planning commission meeting that we had the other week, talking about updating codes. I know I've talked to people, too, that the – you know, 06 code, IRC code that we're using for residential is way outdated, and there's plans of updating it. As we move forward with the comprehensive plan, you know, not only looking at, you know, commercial and industrial stuff, we are looking at residential. There's been a big residential boom in this city. It's continuing. Developers are buying more land and building out more stuff. We need to make sure that we're you know that the city inspectors codes department is holding those builders accountable You know that we're planning a lot more for future You know we're having to go back and we've been talking about wanting to get the crosswalk in over there for spring middle And you know we could have planned a little bit better with that and had that already paid for and put in but Now we're looking back, that's probably going to cost a lot more money than it would have been if we would have thought ahead. And I know it was probably none of you guys had anything to do with any of that. But we just need to keep that in mind as we move forward with the comprehensive plan of this town. Specifically, I've had issues in my community with this builder who's also building more stuff in the town. One issue that I had was, and one of the issues I've had was a driveway issue. My driveway was not done per engineered drawings. I had to request my plot plan from the city, and I had trouble getting it. I feel like anything that's involved with my house that I've purchased, if there's any type of engineered drawings, I should be allowed to have it. Now eventually I was able to get that plan, I had a lot of other residents, after I've had that plan, ask me, how did you get that plan? And started requesting it from the city and the city started doling out these plans. Well now they've stopped. And I would assume, I don't know for sure, that the builder complained. Because there are still people having issues. And now my builder's gone back on promises to fix these people's houses. and they're not doing it now. They're wanting to compensate people instead of fix it. Before they were gonna spend tens of thousands of dollars on a person's house to fix it, to make it right, per plans, per engineered drawings. But now they're offering people just a few hundred dollars and that stuff. And I know that the city can't do necessarily anything specific on that. I know it's a lot out of your control, out of your hands. But, you know, when you're pushing on these builders, I mean, they're building in our town. This is our town that they're building in. And they're going to build it here. This is a boom. They're going to build it in this town. But we need to make sure that we're, you know, paying attention to what they're doing. That if, you know, if our... The city planning department needs more training. If inspectors need more training, I feel like that would be a great investment for the city so that the inspectors can spend more time going through buildings, not just residential buildings but commercial buildings. I deal with inspectors all the time and you get inspectors that are super thorough and you get others that have actually no idea what they're doing, which is scary for people that aren't in any construction business at all and they're trusting these builders to do them right and they're not. So if there's anything that can be done, if there's any talk, if there's anything that we can look at on doing this, I mean, I feel like when a building is being built, it needs to be built per architectural plans, details, engineer drawing specifically, and they're not. I had issues with my house that the engineers weren't really willing to fix. I had to bring out an extra engineer before I got them to fix things on my house. And this was just my house. There are hundreds and hundreds of houses being built. So I don't know if there's anything that'd be done, anything to be looked at, talked about, but these builders are coming in, they're building houses, and then they'll be gone. They don't give a crap about this town. They'll move on to the next town and build more houses. So anyways, that was just my two thoughts on that.

All right.

Thanks. Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Was there anyone else that would like to speak?

Baseball games are canceled, so I'm here. I saw bikes on the agenda, so I got to go talk bikes. Derek Buckridge, 20456 West 220th Terrace. As always, thank you all for being here, what you do for the city, for putting in your time. As always, thanks to the participants that come out here. Either stand up or shut up. So they came, right? E-bikes. We could talk about data centers all night, but something that comes from a lot about data centers is environment and wellness and our health. And then we start talking about bikes. And that's one of our biggest tools and our biggest accesses to get into the woods, into nature, into our cities, into our towns. And I think as a realist here, something to think about is we just legalized golf carts for parents to have fun in the streets, but now we might regulate our kids having fun in the streets when we need to be getting more kids outside, more kids in the nature, more kids away from screens. So I'm already going to be emailing everybody to get you guys some information. on what Overland Park just did. I think I could ask across this whole entire room, and I can probably ask across the whole entire council, that who knows the difference in a class one e-bike, class two e-bike, class three bike, class four off-road use. It comes down to wattage. It comes down to mile per hour. It comes down to whether it has a throttle, whether it has pedals. That's a lot for our police officers. That's a big gray area, right? And then we're expecting our police officers to pull over kids that may not have a helmet on and say, hey, now I need to look inside and see what kind of class your e-bike is. Well, these can be jail-braked, right? So I think there's a lot of things that we need to learn before we make a big e-bike discussion, and hopefully I can stick around to hear kind of where this discussion goes. But I think there needs to be some thorough thought through this and understanding that we don't want six people that have never been involved in e-bikes to make a decision for a whole entire community on e-bikes. That gray area is gonna be completely different from one part of town to another. We can't legally say you can ride e-bikes and e-scooters, but they have to be on a sidewalk. Half of our community doesn't have sidewalks. So we're putting ourselves in a situation of a massive gray area. It's just not gonna get enforced, right? So how do we make it safer? So I went to the school district. We're working on all kids on bikes. That puts a bike program in every single school. Um allows kids to have that bike training and understand how how they're supposed to work around vehicles at intersections that stop signs and so forth. I think there should be a push with the school district. If we want to say that you can't be on these, then the school district needs to say you cannot take these to school as a kid. When I left my elementary school, I had If I'm a Walker, I had, these are my paths. This is kind of where we were. I, I went, I moved all over my stepdad was a us Marshall. So, uh, I remember in, in Lenexa that we had a paved trail. If you lived on this side of town, you got to take this paved trail because we had paved trail attendance and those were volunteers from the fifth grade that would hang out in their vest and tell people to stay on the trail and not go fast. And I think there's ways to, to police this outside of the police. Cause I think it adds a whole nother level of gray area. Helmets on kids. We have one brain. Protect them. I think that's a basic. Other than that, when we talk about e-bikes and what they do for access and what bike infrastructure and these corridors do for people, we're secluding out over 14 million people that have basically, from 2021 to 2025, have found the love of bikes and what they do for people. And those aren't just kids. Those are adults with accessibility issues that might have rode bikes at one time or they want to get out into nature. We see these bikes being beneficial for commuters. It can't tell you to take your car when fuel's crazy prices right now. Well, you can jump on an e-bike, a cargo e-bike, and you can go get your stuff for your family. I spend a lot of time riding my bike all over this town, and I've ridden my bike from Kansas City to St. Louis and back. And I'll tell you what, there's a lot of fun to be had on two wheels, and once you get on two wheels, everything else in the world disappears. And as adults, we gotta learn to kind of keep that structure. We're not always out there playing, but there's means of this use beyond our vehicles. So making sure we're taking those. I'll email this stuff over, but Johnson County Health Department and Mid-America Regional Council and a bunch of other entities came together with Overland Park and they actually thoroughly thought out this e-bike process. So I always say let's not reinvent the wheel. You know, we are in a really crazy gray area for a lot of cities that are unlike us, but I think taking into what they've done is going to make us help make that best decision. So I would encourage us as we kind of get this thing rolling to really time this out. This isn't something that has to be decided right now, you know, but it's something that we really need to put a lot of thought into. So. Great. Thank you.

Anyone else that would like to go speak? If not, we will move on to, uh, we don't have any presentations or discussion items at the beginning of the meeting, so we'll move on to consent agenda. There was no, um, changes requested there, so I will entertain a motion. I, uh, move to, excuse me, I move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

Motion is second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes 4-0-0. That moves us into formal council action. And first up, we have, uh, Item number 17, consider approval ordinance number 2026. Let's see. What's the dash on this one? Just says XX.

12.

12. Sorry, got me thrown off here. Granting an exemption for ad valorem taxes for an expansion to a facility used for storing goods or commodities which are sold or traded in interstate commerce located in the city of Springfield, Kansas, and approved, equipped, and furnished by Nordic Equity LLC and Seeds Incorporated, all in accordance with Article 11, Section 13 of the Kansas Constitution, 695 North Lincoln Street. Is this Emma Kate? Come on up. I was looking at Rhonda and had her name on it. She told me she had nothing on there.

Emma Kate Dillon, QTAC Rock, Bond Council of the City. What we have today is the ordinance that officially approves the exemption for the 695 North Lincoln facility. This is part of the whole big seats package that we looked at in December. So in December, we did the public hearing. That was after looking at a cost benefit analysis that the city's financial advisor, Baker Tilly, ran. We heard comments on all of the abatements, but including the 695 North Lincoln. And then the council decided to pass the resolution of intent unanimously. to grant a five-year 65% property tax abatement. The only reason that we did not do this all as an ordinance in December was because this is an expansion to an existing facility. So the year of the abatement actually starts in the calendar year after they've completed construction. That wasn't going to happen until this early 2026, so there was no point in going ahead and doing that that early. So we went ahead, did all of the public hearing notice requirements. Now we are before you today to just finalize and pass the ordinance.

What questions or comments do we have? So just to kind of remind everybody, when they came back to us, you said in December, there were two separate

There were three. Was it three separate? Yes. So there were two existing that were being expanded, the actual percentage. And then this one is a brand new one. So this is only on the actual expansion facility, so not the ground underneath.

And I think the gist of the conversation was we agreed to one rate specifically for the expansions and a separate rate for the new to kind of keep in line with how we tend to address new construction versus expansion on existing construction. So like I said then, like I'm going to say now, this is perfectly appropriate for them adding to their value and to our value as a city. So I'm in complete support of this.

Any comments or questions? If not, I'll entertain a motion.

I move to approve agenda item. Let me get this up here. Agenda item 17 as stated in tonight's agenda. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Is this a roll call vote? Yes.

Mr. Savage?

Yes.

Mr. Thrawn?

Yes.

Mr. Grant?

Yes.

Mr. Delgado?

Yes.

Mayor, ordinance number 2026-12 passes 4-0-0.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next item up is number 18, consider approving an amendment to voluntary consent annexation agreement with William J. Mills and Susan R. Mill, authorizing the mayor to execute the amendment. And this is Spencer Lau.

Good evening. So as you'll recall, this is a set of parcels that came in the city previously, also back in December. So we're not intentionally redoing a lot of things that happened in December, but that's how it ends up tonight. We are amending that annexation agreement to keep that parcel in the city. The initial annexation agreement provided an option to de-annex, which was coming up this summer. After some discussions with the landowner, there was an agreement to bring sewer to the property at a future date upon request of either the property owner or a future developer who might buy it. So no construction or spending today. The city will have 24 months from the time an owner of that property requests sewer service. That's kind of the main change. It keeps the property in the city and keeps that development in that area open and under the city's control. So any questions? I'm happy to answer them.

I think there was no other changes outside of just the sewer portion, right? And there's no promise for any particular type of zoning on this like some of the other ones. Okay. All right. I think this is a pretty common thing now that we'll see as we take in some of these annexed areas that may not have development that's imminent that We kind of just make an agreement saying that we will provide sewer when they have an imminent project that is approved so that they know that we can actually get there. That's a big thing in development now is that can this city or this municipality get sewer to the property? And so we just have the ability now to do that. So that's all we're agreeing to tonight is that once a project that is approved by the city comes through and we will get them sewer within a certain timeframe. So any other questions or anything?

All right. I will entertain a motion. I move to approve agenda item number 18 as stated in tonight's agenda.

Second. Motion in two seconds. Is this a roll call or do we just move regular vote? All right. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 4-0-0. Allison's chomping at the bit to get up here. I am. Item number 19, consider approval of amendment number two to task order with Burns and McDonald Engineering Company, Inc. to extend the sewer evaluation and engineering design associated with Northwest Sewer Project.

Okay. The item before you is to request an amendment with Burns McDonald. Back in November, we needed to quickly act to work on some projects that we had that were pending in the Northwest sewer watershed area. We had some annexations. We had some potential developments. We wanted to be able to sewer that area of the city. We had previously reached out to our on-call engineers, and Burns & McDonald had the qualifications. So we engaged in a task order with them to start the preliminary engineering. Could you do a study to figure out what size pipes do we need? What does the alignment look like? So they helped us out with that preliminary study just to see if it's even possible and where it would go. From that, we have developed that preliminary concept. That has been done. And now as we move forward, we want to put that into a final design. So we initially only contracted with them for that preliminary design. So the item before you is an amendment to their contract to allow them to continue that design and so that we can get bid documents together and take it out for competitive construction bidding, similar to what we did on the Northeast sewer. So I tried to outline it, we've got, it's a little messy and in hindsight we probably shouldn't have done it this way, but we were trying to act quickly and get them under contract and this was the simplest way that I could think to do it. But we do have two projects that are moving. The next item on the agenda, and I'm just gonna go ahead and present these together, For simplicity, we do have the North Webster sewer. Again, had to act quickly. We had a timeframe that we had promised the developer that we would be able to get them some sewer. We already had Burns McDonald engaged in the Northwest sewer, so we had to quickly act to get them engaged so that we could figure out, can we serve them? How are we going to serve them? What is the alignment going to look like? what kind of expense are we looking at just in a preliminary design? So that was previously approved. And so I've outlined that. The initial task order and Amendment 1, the initial task order was for Northwest Sewer. Amendment 1 was for North Webster. Tonight we've got Amendment 2 that is for the Northwest Sewer, and we've got Amendment 3 that is for North Webster. And I tried to outline what those total costs are going to end up being The preliminary design, again, has been done. The final design will take us through construction. It'll actually take us through construction. The engineers will stay on board with us after we get a contractor on board. They will help support staff by reviewing any of the submittals. As with constructing a sewer line, there are submittals that are presented to the city with... the the pumps the roof material the color of the building some of those other material things that are specific in the design and the engineers will stay on board to help with that and answer any other technical questions that we need along the way all of that is included in both of these amendments to the task order so again to refresh amendment 2 is for Northwest sewer amendment 3 which is the next item on the agenda, is for North Webster. The two projects are totally different. Northwest Sewer is quite large. It's half again as big as Northeast Sewer. It's going to cost a little bit more money than what we're seeing on the Northeast Sewer project. North Webster is quite a bit smaller. It is a lift station. with some force main and gravity sewer. So it's gonna be quite a bit smaller. So that's why you're seeing the difference in the cost because it's gonna be a huge lift that we're gonna have to do on Northwest sewer. So with that, I recommend approval of amendment number two with Burns McDonald in the amount of $645,644 for the Northwest sewer project. I am available if you have any questions.

I would say let's just do questions for two and three together.

If you want to go ahead and present those together, that would be great. I recommend both.

On three, that's the one we talked about last meeting.

Right.

And so I think this is just kind of formalizing that, which I think is good because I know we got some decent pricing based off of that. It wouldn't probably be as good with how small it is relative to the,

the bigger this isn't part of that that's for the part of that but I did but this is pushing towards that right this is pushing towards that and anything that we could do to help expedite the design so that we can go into construction is helpful we actually did have a meeting today with the contractor to start moving forward on that so you guys will see something hopefully and maybe the next meeting with a change order for that contractor so that we could keep things moving with that project

And this is where, when we talk about imminent projects, that one's probably the most imminent out of all of these that we're doing. Northwest and Northeast are more setting us up for future growth and future success, where this one is, we have somebody ready to go, and we just don't have sewer there. So we've got to get something going there for them. So I think this is good. I'm not always in favor of the kind of the move quickly, but this particular one makes sense.

So I agree.

Number two, I think we're kind of in line with the normal process with it. So that's not a huge difference, but the number three is a little bit more of a expedited process. Any comments or questions for other one of these?

No.

If not, we will move in. Let's do entertain a motion on a number 19. Move to approve agenda item number 19 as stated.

Second.

Motion is second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 4-0-0. Unless there's any additional questions or comments on item number 20, I'll entertain a motion.

Anybody else? Okay, that's good. I move to approve agenda item number 20 as stated. Second.

Motion is second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes 4-0-0. Next up changing gears a little bit and going we had some public comment about this earlier So I will probably follow up with some of the his questions or maybe address those in your presentation But item number 21 consider approval of a funding agreement with the Kansas Department of Transportation To assist with costs associated with the 191st Street signal improvements The next item before you is a request to approve an agreement with KDOT As you know, we were working towards moving forward with 191st Street traffic signal

We were finalizing that design. Little bit of a change, we had, well, originally, originally, the city had budgeted for the full amount of this project. Then we were able to get $2 million from KDOT in state funding to assist with this project. So we were moving forward with getting a funding agreement with KDOT for the state funding. Then we received notice back in March that there was congressional appropriation funds that were available the amount of $850,000 that they wanted to put onto this project. So now we've got, in addition to $2 million of state funding, we have $850,000 of federal funding that we need to put into this project. So this agreement formalizes both funding sources, which are going to be managed through KDOT. KDOT is going to manage this project now that it is a federally funded project. It includes a lot more hoops. then staff has the bandwidth to handle on top of all of the other great things that we're doing here. So KDOT is gonna step forward and help us out with that. The question about connecting the signals with more efficient timing, that is something that we have talked to KDOT on. Through the metro area they have what's called Operation Green Light that helps with getting, once you get one green light, hopefully you get all green lights. It helps with the queuing time with the lighting so that you can get through the signals and get from point A to point B more efficiently. They have that throughout the metro area. I believe the last signal that it stops at is 175th Street. We have been talking to KDOT staff about seeing if we could get an innovation grant. You know, I'm always looking for grants. So as soon as they started talking about grants, my ears started to perk up. So they do have innovation grants that are available out there. And once we get the signal at 191st Street and 183rd Street and all the great things that we're doing, we could then, we've already got the fiber in place, we can then make it an intelligent traffic system so that we can link it up to Operation Green Light so that we can get the timings corrected. And with Operation Green Light, they have a lot more staff that is manned through, I believe it's through both KDOT and MoDOT that's a consortium that operate all of the metro signals. So they will be on staff to monitor the signal timing and be able to adjust those as they need to to make sure that the queuing lines are the most efficient. So hopefully that answered that. We are working on it. It's not quite there yet, but we have had some internal discussions. And it is on our radar.

Well, I knew we had talked about it. I guess the bigger question, and he made a good point, was is the equipment we're purchasing have the ability to be upgraded to that system? Sounds like it will be.

It will be. Yeah, we've had that in mind. There are standards that KDOT has with all the traffic signals. We are also at a special request of, I believe it was the fire chief that had requested some additional safety equipment for the Opticon system. system, making sure that we keep that on there so that the emergency services can push a garage door opener button and be able to get a green light whenever they need to for emergency purposes. So I totally need that in my car. That would be great. But anyway, that is something we have incorporated in there, some of those additional things to kind of help out with the community and everything. We'll have the Um, we'll have all of the cameras and all of the monitoring device. I'm not, I don't design traffic signals. I just build them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The last thing. And, um, I know we've talked about it at nauseam somewhat, but overpasses we've all, we'd all love to have that. I know that was the big, um, feedback that I saw from the KDOT meeting. I think the big issue is we're talking what three and a half million for stoplight here. Overpass wise the last time I heard it was 30 to 40 million per overpass. That's the whole reason we can't do them I mean, it's not there's just absolutely no way to pay for it. We could really budget So that's the issue we have, and the problem is 40, 50 years ago when the highway was being designed, Johnson County, and there's a whole story I'd learned, but Johnson County lobbyists for the farmers basically came out and said, we want access points throughout all of this highway. We don't want to have overpasses because we want to be able to access our properties directly. Miami County kind of said, sorry, we're going this way. Johnson County folded. they kind of gave it up to the counties. And so we are kind of living with that decision now and trying to make the best of it that we can. Stoplights are not ideal. I hate stoplights too. I'd like to be able to get to Olathe or to Kansas City as quickly as I can, but unfortunately it's really the only option we have at this point. Can we limit them as much as we need to? I think so. I think there's a lot of work with KDOT that we still need to do as far as closing I mean, there's a neighborhood that has a direct access point. There's one single house, the church. There's a little truck storage facility that only, I mean, these are some of the ones that really cause the most issues. And, you know, we just don't really, KDOT has no plan. They keep doing these studies, like you said. Um, and so we're going to address the best way we can, but it's, unfortunately we're stuck between a rock and a hard place and we're trying to just make good decisions, um, better decisions than we did before. And if we can, you know, it'll get a little bit better each time, but unfortunately it's, it's just less than ideal right now.

Well, and these are incremental steps that we're taking. We're putting in a stoplight. Um, on Monday I just applied for Safe Streets for All SS4A implementation grant so that we can address some of the safety concerns at 215th Street so that we could have limited access at that intersection to help address it. It's not the long-term solution, but it is a cost-effective short-term solution to address some of the safety issues. And we're gonna slowly carve away at some of the priority projects that we have outlined in our SS4A program I'll continue to chase all of the grants that are out there so that we can start getting some of these projects implemented.

And I can attest, we've given all of these things that Allison's gone through, and she did the whole SS4A, and KDOT's still like, well, can't really do it yet. We'll decide when you can do it. Whether it be extended on-ramps, off-ramps, all the different things that we can do. And it's kind of like, well, let's just see what happens. They don't want to do a bunch of fixes at once and then not know what helped and what hurt. They want to do one thing, see how it affects everything, and then wait a little bit. It's almost like trying to fix the leak, but taking a very long time to figure out where it's going from and just kind of picking and choosing where they go.

I think it's important to note that this single project has been a product of about six years.

Oh, yeah, it's been a long time.

Four years of lobbying and two years of direct work with KDOT, back and forth, addressing them as a partner because we have to. They own that highway. We don't get to tell them what they do. They tell us what they're going to let us do.

And we have to pay for it.

And we do. The reality here is there's no quick solution ever when it comes to the state. These last two years, I've seen the most progress on it, period. I think that's something to be commended. It's a win when the deck was really stacked against us to begin with.

Well, what's interesting, even in the 183rd route, 191st, We did a little bit of it, but not necessarily as much. The 183rd is everything that comes in there, we're basically telling them this is the right-of-way we need to be able to do overpasses in the future. It is so much space. It's a crazy amount of space that you need for just an off-ramp at those overpasses. you know, there's at 183rd, it's, you know, you're taking huge corners off 191st. If you look at Dayton Creek, they're really the only spot that did it right. And there's that huge opening and that's for an off ramp, um, in the future at some point. But the other side of the highway was never addressed that way. Um, and so, you know, uh, we'll, we'll address those as things come on. But again, in our lifetime, I doubt we're going to see much, much more than stoplights in our lifetime at this point based off of, my little experience with KDOT so far, between cost and how quickly they move.

Well, and they are finishing up the K7 corridor study, so I think that once, you know, a lot of the hurry up and wait has been, you know, they wanted to study. They wanted to take the time to get the community's input and go through all the public engagement and do it right to make sure that they have thoroughly thought through all of this stuff and come up with a comprehensive plan to address the different intersections along that corridor. So they are working on getting that done. Yes, it is frustrating that we have to pause during that whole thing, but at least we get to move forward with our 191st Street project.

Yeah. All right. Any other questions or comments? Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Allison.

You're welcome.

If not, I entertain a motion to approve. I move to approve agenda item number 21 as stated. Second. Motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 4-0-0. Next up is item number 22, consider approval of an extension of the farm lease with Dale Stiles.

Okay, I'm going to just stay here.

You're going to take this one?

I'm just going to take this one. I slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Yeah, I'll save you a few steps So the next item before you is a request to extend the farm lease agreement with Dale Stiles as you guys Some of you guys are new to the City Council So I'll give you a little bit of background the city last year the city purchased a piece of property down south For the purpose of building a wastewater treatment plant that property was owned by the Stiles family during the purchase negotiations and agreements. Dale Stiles wanted to remain on living in the homestead that is located on that property. He wanted to continue to farm the fields that are there and he also had cattle there on the fields. So he wanted to continue doing that. We had no plans to do anything immediately with the The treatment plant, it's under design right now. It's not going to be constructed for a little bit of time. So we had some time, so we went ahead and negotiated with that. The farm lease expires June 1st, so that's why we're before you tonight. He has requested an extension of the farm lease. He wants to go ahead and plant soybeans for the season with the intent to, he'll probably remove those in November or So the farming lease would extend to December 31st, to the end of this year. He is willing to pay the $80 per acre, which is a very good rate for a farm lease like this. We have contacted Miami County to make sure that since we are taking payment for this, that we don't get crossways. We have worked with the county staff to figure out how we move forward with this so that we pay the property taxes now that we're making an income off of this. And Rhonda can answer some of those questions. She's had the direct contact with them if you guys have anything else. They would like to remain on the living in the home for a little bit longer. They don't want that till December. I believe that was, did we extend that to December? Yeah, so July 1st is when he'll be out of the house. He just needs a little bit more time to button up some things, move out, go through his parents' stuff, that kind of thing. And then he also would like to extend the time with the cattle to give him more time to relocate the cattle to another farm and not have to do that in such a rush. Staff has agreed to all of these terms. They fit within our timeframe. Like I said, we're still designing the wastewater treatment plant, so we're not gonna be mobilizing anytime soon. Definitely not anytime before December 31st. So with that, staff recommends the approval of the extension to the farm lease with Dale Stiles. And there should have been a revised agreement that is at the dais. There is a revised agreement that outlines exactly what I just said that has the extension of the July 1st. And I think there was some cleanup on the address of Dale Stiles. Those were the two major things that were in there.

Well, Dale and the Stiles family has been Really good partners with the city, and we've purchased from them before, and I don't see any issue with this.

It's not going to hurt us. It's not going to hurt us, and it's going to help them. That's good. Rhonda, just a quick question. Does the property taxes work any different for the city than it would for an individual owning that property and leasing it to the farmer?

No, it actually stays exactly the same when you have It's a valuation and all that. Eventually, when the city owns the property without leasing it to someone, we'll file for an exemption to remove the property tax from it.

Any other questions or concerns? If not, I'll entertain a motion.

I move to approve agenda item number 22 as stated.

Second.

Motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 4-0-0. Thank you. The last one up is item number 23. Consider approval ordinance number 2026-13 amending chapter 1 article 9 of the Spring Hill Municipal Code to create section 9-108 establishing the community improvement committee. Spencer Lau will be our

Good evening. Can't pawn this off.

You want the bum foot.

Yeah, can't pawn this off on the city engineer tonight. So this is a new section of city code. We've brought this up as a discussion item I think a couple times now. So you're all generally aware. For anyone who's not aware, we are creating a community improvement committee. That committee will report to the parks board It will be made up of five individuals. So one member of the governing body, one member of staff, three members of the city, residents of the city. Appointments will come through you all the same way as they do for other boards and committees. So mayor appoints with governing body approval. The community improvement committee will get out in the community, look at things to, projects to work on. They don't have any budgetary authority. They can't go spend any taxpayer money, but they can do and an easy target that we discussed as a first step is trails and sidewalks. Where can we repair? Where can we add? Where can we long range plan? It provides another way for people to get involved. It provides another way for you all to kind of push some of that boots on the ground work out into the community so that there's less week to week for you all. Someone can bring their recommendations up forward so you're not out walking around on trails seeing what needs to work. You can kind of rely on some other subject matter experts on that. This committee will make recommendations to the Park Board. Park Board will look at it, and they will pass that on to you all with either, this is good, we recommend the governing body adopt it, we don't recommend the governing body adopt it, or we're going to recommend it with some additions or changes. And you all will have the final voting approval on that. So it's really more of a fact-finding, I guess, function of getting out there and proposing for you all. The goal is for it to eventually be fairly broad. So it's not just sidewalks and trails. It's kind of community improvement. Um, you know, you can think generally within your CID, but it could be whatever they feel the need to bring to your attention and park boards attention. They kind of kind of raise that if any money needs to be spent, that is your decision to make. You don't have to commit any money to any projects, but that committee can provide funding sources. They can provide you cost estimates. They can get out and try to raise some of that money sort of up to them to decide their bylaws, their goals, um, how they want to proceed. So Any questions? Is this the one that you said you wanted to head out?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, originally I was thinking parks and trails, but I didn't want to, you know, pigeonhole to just that. So if there's something that comes up, even if we have recommendations for them, my goal would be, hey, can we have this committee go and do some research on this particular project that somebody's brought, or if there's, like, I was approached by somebody on Memorial Day about a community center slash American Legion headquarters. So that might be something I would say, hey, committee, can you look into this and see where this might fit in or where we could do that? What grants are available and work with this individual. So that's kind of my thought is that group is, my hope is to go find three community members that have some really good subject matter expertise. So whether it be trails, parks, different things. Or just really good networkers that can find money to help pay for things. similar to an Allison, but on the philanthropy side. So, you know, it's one of those type of things that I'm obviously, I'm going to try and be involved in the beginning. I think we're going to have somebody on the development side or public works from the city to kind of run ideas by and say, is this something we can actually do? Once it hits there, we'd go to parks. Parks kind of gives their blessing or maybe, oh, we've seen this before and it didn't work or it did. and then comes to us to, to make decisions. So that's kind of my thought. And then if this works out, if you guys have an idea for something, we can always, that's one thing that we have in our, uh, in our bylaws is we're in our charters that we're allowed to create these committees for different things. So cemetery board was created at one point, parks board was created at one point. So this is just kind of another one that's going to be a little bit more of a proactive type approach rather than reactive.

Do you already have volunteers for the staff members?

For staff members? Yeah. I think they're voluntold maybe for this first go around. For the community members, I've had multiple people reach out, so I think we're just going to put the application process out like we do for any other board, and then I'll interview them, and then I'll kind of have some ideas and give them to you all to kind of tell me, give me your feedback, and then we'll go ahead and appoint people. My hope would be to kind of start doing appointments like at the beginning of probably July or late June, because I really think summertime, if we can get people out there to figure it out, it'd be nice to kind of get some projects done here. We've got budget for some of these things, and we just, I mean, Jacob's neck deep in road improvements now, so he doesn't have the time to go out and try to find other things. If we can figure out what we can do and even have volunteers to do it. It'd be nice to get some stuff done this year. Right.

So ideally with these, with this, obviously I hope it has wild success and we have lots of opportunities if we get a year down the road and we're not seeing any, any movement, any productivity, we're utilizing a staff member's time. What's the, uh, what's the process to make that committee? That's not probably a good use of time. Go away.

If it were the case, um, do this essentially in reverse. So we'll just come up and remove the section out of code. Or you all can just stop appointing people and have the committee be there. Um, you know, you can not staff a committee if you want, and it can not meet the cleanest move is to take it out of code for awhile. Um, if you're not happy with it, or if you want to change it, like you said, maybe staff doesn't need to be there. We're spending a lot of staff time. You can change the membership up and remove a member of staff. Um, so this is the nice thing of your code is you, you can change these parts of it fairly quickly. It's not like a charter ordinance or a zoning change. So. You know six months 12 months down the road if you all want to reassess Absolutely, it's a great and we may get down the road and say, you know what?

We don't need a staff member and a governing body member, right this group. We have a good group We can add two more community members to it and they can just report directly to parks kind of like the Planning Commission Yep, so I think just up front we kind of need that for guidance on what they're looking for and then I'm assuming yeah 12 to 24 months down the road Hopefully we can remove those pieces so that more community people more new members can be involved in Then you cover even more.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

All right. If there's no other questions or comments, I will entertain a motion.

I move to approve agenda item number 23 as stated. Second.

A motion and a lot of seconds. All those in favor? We got to do a roll call on this one.

Mr. Thrawn?

Yes.

Mr. Grant?

Yes.

Mr. Delgado?

Yes.

Mr. Savage?

Yes.

Mayor ordinance number 2026-13 passes 4-0-0.

Thank you. That is everything on our formal action tonight. We do have a discussion item on e-bikes and e-scooters. I did have a request for a five-minute break before that discussion, depending on how long it goes. So can we move into a short break, and then we'll come back to the discussion.

I move that the City Council recess for a break to return to the Council Chambers at 8.36 p.m. Second.

Motion to second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? That's 4-0-0. See you in a minute. Captain Khan's ready to go.

Always.

So we'll jump right into the e-bike and e-scooter discussion.

So to assuage the concerns of the gentleman who spoke a little bit ago, I was actually an active participant in that Mid-America Regional Council Committee. And several of the recommendations that I made have already been adopted by other cities nearby. We're going to talk about that a little bit. What I want you guys to know for sure, this is an informational thing for you guys. It says participative, so I'm going to make you guys talk. But this is to give you guys some information, some education, some thoughts about the reality of e-mobility in not just our city, but the metro. So we'll start with a few things we want to talk about where they can or should operate what they do what they are What some of the complaints are and how we work around those whether that's enforcement models education models Ultimately, it's gonna be up to you guys once you start getting this information and eliciting community feedback To really decide which direction you want to go with it So we're gonna start with some ebike 101 kind of like what was said earlier, we want to make sure you guys know what these are, what the classes mean, what they do, and how that works, and what differentiates an e-bike from an e-scooter from an e-moto. So e-bike, most traditional, this is what most people are thinking about, it's got pedals. It has to be pedaled. There's class one, class two, class three. Class one, there's no throttle. It's pedal-assisted, 18 to 20 miles per hour is about the max speed on those, and the wattage is 750 or less. Class two, they're pedal-assisted, but they have a throttle. That's where you get a little bit of a differentiation. Still about 18 to 20 miles per hour on the max speed, 750 watts or less. And then class three, pedal-assisted, no throttle, a little bit faster. 28 miles per hour, pretty much the norm with those. There are some that can go faster, and then we get into class four. You're not going to see as many of those, but they are starting to emerge a little bit. Again, 750 watts or less on the motor. What we're seeing with some other cities and states and how they treat these, class one, treat it like a bicycle. So a lot of the bicycle rules apply. Class two, little bit different. Some cities aren't allowing them on sidewalks or trails because of that throttle. It's kind of an arbitrary distinction. We'll talk about that a little bit more later. And then class three, some are fast. Some go up to 40 miles per hour. These are the ones that you're probably getting complaints about on sidewalks, streets. Some cities are monitoring them a little bit more closely, treating them a little bit differently. And that's mainly because of speed. Now, e-scooters are classified differently. There aren't any fixed classes for these. They can look completely different than each other. So you have like the traditional scooter styles, more of a motorcycle style and trending towards that e-moto distinction. They're usually kind of broken down by speeds, low speed, mid speed, high speed. So low speed ones, 15 to 20 miles per hour. These are the ones you can buy your kids at Walmart. Mid-speed, 20 to 30, a little bit faster. Treated more like a moped. Some states actually require a license to operate those. And then your high speed, 40 to 60 miles per hour. That's more trending towards your e-moto, so some of the dirt bikes and some of the other things that you see. But we do have these in the area. Kids are riding them. They're more like a motorcycle, and a lot of states require licensure for them. That also requires it to be registered and insured. So why is this an issue that we're talking about in cities now? Kind of like the gentleman talked about earlier, millions of people are buying these. This is the market cap and projected market cap for e-mobility moving into 2030. So you're seeing a very large increase in the amount of these being sold and operated in the United States. Writerships increasing. Most of it is with the youth though. With that, young riders are getting high-speed models and maybe not the training or the education to operate them properly. Some of them may be getting these and not realizing that their state has a licensing requirement on them. This also leads to injury and fatality crashes increasing, and the Metro is not immune to that. We'll talk about that a little bit more later. The biggest complaint that we see on them, sidewalks. So I'm sure you guys have heard these. I know we have gotten them and it's people riding them on sidewalks. That's not unique to Spring Hill. Those are the majority of the complaints we're seeing in the Metro on both sides of the state line and pretty much nationally. The other thing that makes these kind of confusing is that the rules have traditionally varied very sharply from one city to the next. Now with that MARC Council, we're trying to kind of solidify a policy and create a set of guidelines that any city in the metro can use, so they're a lot more similar. That way, if you're going from Olathe to here or from here to Overland Park, the rules will be somewhat similar. With the complaint side of this, Prairie Village noted a 172% increase in calls for service-related e-bikes. Most of that is complaints about speeding on sidewalks. There have been multiple news articles in the metro area talking about hazards for pedestrians, and we'll get into kind of what that means for us and our enforcement model later. So here are a couple state law bases. I put Missouri on there for comparison. Kansas is a little bit more comprehensive. In Kansas, e-scooters, they follow bicycle traffic rules generally. Cities can make more strict regulations on them through ordinance. They can also be classified as a motor vehicle based on speed. So that's a consideration and part of the education piece to that. E-bikes, generally not considered motor vehicles. For the purposes of state statute, they're treated like bicycles. Local authority, something that we already have, is section 14-314 of our code, and that talks about bicycles and some motorized vehicles and operation on sidewalks. Again, Missouri, they treat most of them like bicycles, and then a few with motorized bicycles, some of the throttle-assisted. That actually requires them to have a license in Missouri. That's something that Mark is working through. We'll talk about the KCMO ordinance a little bit. They don't let them on the sidewalks, and we will talk about a little later why that might not be a good idea. So Olathe uses more of a bike model. They recently adopted some of the things we're going to discuss today, and that is a speed limit on the sidewalks. They cannot be ridden on the streets with speed limits greater than 30, similar to our golf cart ordinance. And helmets are required if you're under 18. Lenexa, somewhat similar. Prairie Village, somewhat similar. Leawood, somewhat similar, and so on. You're going to start seeing as we're rolling out more of these MARC guidelines, more of the cities in our area adopting very similar ordinances to what we're going to discuss today. For us right now, how we have to enforce them, even if they're classified as vehicles, they're prohibited on sidewalks based on the ordinance we have now. We've been loose in that enforcement because most of these like we talked about our kids writing They may not know that what they're what they're writing violates some of our ordinances So we're doing some enforcement as we go along with this But that's kind of one of the things prompting the need for it because again you guys are getting complaints We're getting complaints. And so we want to make sure that we satisfy the needs of the people calling and also the public that wants to ride these and So when we talk about what the safety record is, most of our serious injuries and fatalities tend to occur on the roadway. Why do you think that might be? And I'm asking for answers. Like I said, this is a participant. Because there's cars.

Unlicensed operators operating on a roadway that requires a license, not understanding road rules, when to stop, that they have to obey all traffic signalization.

Absolutely. So stop signs, intersection crossings, these are big issues. And a lot of times when we have kids that don't know any better because they've never been taught the rules of the road, they're not gonna think about stopping the stop sign. The other part of that is motorists, right? We have people in cars who may not see them, may not look for them. Same issues we have with bicycles, right? So serious injuries and fatalities, a lot more likely on the roadways. According to NHTSA, injury severity with these are much higher than traditional bicycles. Another question to you guys, why do you think that might be? No helmet.

What's that? No helmets.

No helmets? They're faster. They're faster. So when you crash on one, you're going a lot faster than you are on a bicycle. Now, whether you're on a sidewalk or a street, if you're going 40 miles an hour on an e-bike or an e-scooter, there are going to be a lot more risks of internal injuries. And that's what we're seeing from EMRA, the Emergency Medical Residence Association. What they're treating in hospitals are more incidents of severe broken bones and internal organ lacerations based on e-bike crashes. And that's up, I think, in the hundreds of percent compared to bicycle injuries because they are faster. So what do we have locally? Overland Park. We had an e-bike crash in 2025. That was a fatality crash. Same year, a little bit later in the year, Leawood, a child on the scooter hit and killed. Both of those on the roadway. We had a severe injury crash with an e-bike here in Spring Hill on 223rd Street. Again, on the roadway. Some of the reasons we've got less experienced writers we have People who aren't as aware of their surroundings because they don't have that driving education because they're usually younger And then that thought process of hey, this is just a toy So, how do we mitigate some of that? Well, we want them to ride on the sidewalks right they're safer and But this is where it makes it tough for you guys and for us because sidewalks are dominating complaints for us. That's where people are having the problems. You probably didn't hear a lot about e-bikes based on the crashes. You're hearing about them based on the complaints on sidewalk riding. Again, same problems we have on the road. Speed, inattentive young riders, and then the other one that people aren't thinking about is blocked ADA paths. So people that are having to get out of a wheelchair accessible vehicle and there's e-bikes either parked along the way. For us, that's been a big complaint that we have on Maine. People downtown leaving their e-bikes and people getting out of handicapped spots who can't get up into stores because of where the bikes are parked. This is the most common complaint in the Metro. Like we talked about earlier, Prairie Village saw a 172% spike in e-bike and e-scooter related calls. Most of that's based on sidewalk complaints. Most of those complaints, though, are near misses. They're not actually crashes. It's the elderly and people with kids either walking the stroller or walking around with kids that are almost hit by other people on these devices that aren't quite paying attention. So what does that do for us for a policy implication? Well, the sidewalk ordinance only addresses pedestrian comfort. So you have cities that, like KCMO, will not allow them on the sidewalk. That's all well and good. It does make the pedestrians happy, but it also makes the riders of e-scooters much less safe. And as we're seeing, there's a lot more people riding these. Sidewalk crashes are less likely to be fatal because people are going slower just inherently. They're also actually stopping at crosswalks or cross streets, which they aren't doing when they're riding them on the roadways. Roadway crashes are a lot more likely to be fatal because they're not paying attention, the speeds are higher, and other motorists aren't looking for them. The other part of a sidewalk-only ordinance that creates problems, at least for us on the police side, is enforcement. If you put a speed limit on the sidewalk, That's gonna require a cop with a LIDAR gun or a radar gun standing on the sidewalk trying to hand stop cars. It's difficult to enforce. It's more enforcing behavior than it is something that's an actual violation. Even if we put that into ordinance, I think there's a very large enforcement piece of that that we have to address. So some primary factors for you guys to consider. Injury crashes are rapidly increasing. Just in the past couple of years in the metro, we've seen them kind of go way up. Fatality crashes are going right up with them. Sidewalk use is the biggest source of public complaints, which is what you guys hear about and what we hear about, but they're not the leading cause of injury or death. The core problem is not necessarily a legality problem. It's probably an education problem. So the gentleman talked about getting into the schools and having programs where we talk to people about how and where and when to ride your e-bike safely. Helmet laws, helmet education. These are the big parts of the safety aspect of that. because speeds on sidewalks, some of the other sidewalk issues, they're difficult to enforce for us. We also can't control how and what parents do with these devices when they get to their kids and what education they give to them, because they may not know either. So a couple of things that we can talk about, and again, today is not for you to make a decision. It's just to give you some information to start considering the direction you'd like staff to go with it. Option A, roadway-only ordinances for e-scooters and e-bikes. Ban sidewalk riding except for crossing, driveway access. This is strong pedestrian protection, but it doesn't address the injury costs or the crashes. Option B is allowing them on the sidewalk with some restrictions. So let them be on the sidewalks as long as they're yielding to pedestrians, they're using audible signals. It's easy for young novice riders to learn, but harder for us to enforce. Because then again, we're trying to enforce behavior rather than something legally bound. Option C is a hybrid approach. So ban them in high traffic areas, which is something we're already doing. Specific trails or sidewalks. It's the best fit for a local context, but again, it's a lot more intensive when it comes to signage and education. So some of the recommendations. Obviously, we want to seek community feedback on anything we do. This is a long-term solution, and we want to make sure that we have community's input before we make any decisions. With that, some of the recommendations that we gave in the MARC area that have been adopted by some of these other cities now are to classify e-bikes and low-speed e-scooters separately from the high-powered e-bikes and e-motives, the ones that can go 40 to 60 miles per hour, and permit those to be on roads, roads with bike lanes and shared paths where bicycles are allowed, in keeping with Kansas law. And then also allowing them on streets 30 miles per hour or slower because we already do that with golf carts. Maybe work on some protections for high conflict pedestrian zones like we already do in the downtown area. And then allow them to operate on the sidewalks because that is the safest place for them. With that, we create rules for yielding to pedestrians, to give an audible signal when approaching or passing, and then rules against reckless riding, driving, also helmet laws for people under... Recommendation would probably be recommending helmets for everybody, but for sure making an ordinance that says that if you're under 18, wear a helmet. Ban obstructing ADA paths, handicap parking, things that are generating some of those complaints that we can solve through that. And then create a simple education-first enforcement model. So getting in the schools, putting on clinics, bike rodeo type things where we can get out and tell people, here's what you do, here's how you operate. Creating a trifold pamphlet we can give to parents about the rules, the safety issues, where people should and shouldn't ride, how they can comply with whatever ordinance you guys all create. So the decision points for you guys, what's your sidewalk posture? What do you guys do? Are you gonna allow them on the sidewalks or try to ban them from the sidewalks? It's a tough one for you because again, that's where the complaints come from, but it's also where they're the safest. Another thing to consider is use safety. What do you do about helmets? Do you require them if they're under 18? Do you have them have licensure requirements if they're high speed vehicles? Speed and geography. What speed limits can you assess? What's realistic for enforcement? What locations should be excluded? What parks, trails, where do you want people to ride them? High conflict zones such as Main Street. Accessibility, again we talked about the ADA access. Do you have rules in there that determine where you can and can't park them? And then enforcement styles. Education first, is it complaint driven, is it proactive? Moving forward, there's a few things we could do. We could draft a mock ordinance for you guys to look at, and then tailor it to what you guys get from that community feedback. Or we can wait a little bit longer, continue collecting data on enforcement, crashes, some other aspects, anything that you want us to look into, monitor that, and then work on the ordinance after. But these are the directions that you guys are gonna have to look at as you move forward with this. Are there any questions?

don't have any questions I have some comments but I mean I think helmets for 18 and under is probably the easiest one that I don't see why we wouldn't require helmets I'd probably even be okay with 16 and under but 18 is probably the easiest to do recommending it for adults is probably good but I would I'm not gonna wear a helmet so it's I understand that adults can make their own decisions right I guess the question I do have is, what rules do we have for regular pedal bikes?

So right now, with that subsection, they can't ride them anywhere on Main Street. Regular pedal bikes. Regular pedal bikes. No E at all. Pedal bikes, skateboards, push scooters, e-scooters, none of that can be ridden on Main Street. On the sidewalk, right? On the sidewalk, yeah. Streets, bicycle rules, but on the sidewalks.

So this is – so sidewalks down on Main Street, there's no skateboards, bicycles, rollerblades, anything?

And that's been – I don't want to give you the incorrect quotation, but that's been in ordinance for a very long time. Yeah.

I'm guessing – skateboards. If it's an ADA, do we do something to them?

Right now, there's nothing in ordinance about that, and that's what's generated some of the complaints. We've talked to, because I just did kind of a walk up and down, talking to some of the businesses on Main and saying, hey, have your people park them over here. Some of the complaints came from right in the middle of Main Street because there's a couple of handicapped parking spots there with fan ramp access. It hasn't been as much of an issue since we've had those conversations, and I think people have told people with bikes to park them closer to the edges of their buildings. But we don't have that actually laid out in ordinance.

Okay. What about for on Webster, if they're coming down Webster, bicycles can be on the sidewalks? Or do we have something near the schools right now that they can't be on?

Nothing specifically dealing with schools.

Okay, because I know earlier you mentioned Main Street and like downtown and school zones. That's why I didn't know if there was something.

So the recommendation might be high conflict areas. The reason that some of the cities have deemed near a school a high conflict area is kids that are walking that aren't paying attention and other kids that are riding an e-scooter or e-bike that aren't paying attention, them interacting. Again, that's something that could be solved with education, but it's something we have to consider.

I think... He had a good recommendation earlier where you have specific bike routes. If you rode your bike to school, you have to leave a very particular way.

And that's part of that hybrid enforcement. Yeah. Talk to you guys about where we're designating zones that are and are not used for that purpose.

Because what I wouldn't want to do is say, hey, in front of she's, you can't ride your bike on the sidewalk because for 30 minutes every day, it's a high conflict area. So I would be against that because then. when the kids are riding later on when there's actually more traffic going up and down Webster at a higher rate of speed. Now we're asking them to be on the street. So I would say there's probably something hybrid there that I would want to look at. I struggle wholeheartedly with putting limitations on anything that's under 30 miles an hour, personally. I know when I used to ride my bike, we could ride it really fast. When they made us wear helmets to ride bikes, I switched to skateboarding because I refused to wear a helmet as a kid, which was probably safer than riding a bike because we rode on sidewalks. So I like to keep them on the sidewalks personally. I think if they're going to ride a bike that's faster, putting them on the street is probably safer for everybody, but I would want to hear what everybody else's opinion is here. Bigger education. Yeah.

You know, were they working on something for education for them to figure it out?

Well, I definitely think it's something we have to work with the sheriff's department. If we're going to put anything in place that we go and do big presentations to the entire school and we do it to all the schools within city limits and say, these are what the rules are going forward. And you know, if your parents have questions, they can call us or whatever, but definitely education is going to be a huge thing. Whatever we ended up deciding.

I think for that purpose, education's going to be far more valuable. One is we don't have enough cops to, start doing sidewalk enforcement on some of those.

That's what I'm saying. I'm like, you go to the school and you hit every kid almost, except for a small percentage that don't go to school. But you're going to hit 98% of the kids in the city. And then from there, we could even do after-school ones. We have this new committee we're going to have that is probably going to specialize in this type of stuff that we could work with to come out with programs. What I'd hate to do is limit the use of trails and sidewalks by... bike that doesn't go extremely fast so I think like the class one two and the ones that stay under that 20 mile an hour I don't necessarily see those as a huge difference from a regular bike because I know I could get a regular bike moving and that's that's my biggest thing is I would probably say enforcement of traffic laws on any type of bike is probably important because I know with even like the adult cross-country ones they'll just skip right through stop signs And that's one of the big complaints, too, that we see is people are like, they're just fly right by us, and there's a group of 80 of them, so you can't, you know, or 20 of them, whatever.

And the state has ordinances that address those. The state has not caught up to e-bikes yet.

Yeah. So that's where, for us, I think that's where my mind goes with it rather than limiting kind of the smaller end. It's, yeah, we probably need to talk about, I know my son's friend has one that goes 60, and he was on 175th and would go into Gardner and come back. And I thought that was nuts. But he got pulled over, got cited. I can't remember. That's technically a late over there. So I don't know what he ended up getting in trouble for. But he was 12 years old. And he had a kid riding on the back with his hands. And he was going 50 down 175th into Walmart. So I probably don't want that. But at the same time, I don't want to limit the smaller side, especially as we're trying to encourage kids to get out.

Yeah, a lot of kids are going to ride them to school.

That's just where I start with this. That's my thought is I don't want to be too intrusive.

Mayor, if I can, can I add just to support Captain Kahn here, and that is our goal isn't to stop kids from enjoying these or any adult from enjoying these e-bikes, free scooters, but we do want people to be safe, and we have seen tragedies occur. And any time a tragedy occurs, it impacts the community, not only the family, but it also impacts community in a big way. So if we can work with the community and work together to try to find a good way, and I think education is always our first, it's an important goal and a priority when we have things like this, and is the best way to begin. Enforcement is always kind of the last I think in these kind of cases Enforcement is more of a last resort. We'd rather educate people and get them to use them as safe as possible Well, that's what I'm thinking.

There's some great nuggets in there of like Yeah, should they should they be on a street? That's more than 30. Probably not. I don't think we really have any outside of 35 But can a regular bicycle go on a street? That's 35 45 so if they can Why are we saying this particular one can't when the cars are going just as fast? I mean, car hits you at 45, whether you're going five miles an hour or 45 yourself, I think you're still going to get hurt just as bad.

I'm going to say something. So last Monday on my way home from work, I was coming by 119th Street. A car in front of me hit a kid on an e-bike that was driving on the sidewalk. That e-bike, I think, clearly could have went more than 30 miles an hour. So I'm glad that we're talking about this. I don't want to make a decision on this without getting the community members involved. I know Derek was back there I don't know if you have anything that you want to say Pass your opinion in here and also I hope that we can have a community event where we can talk to people Put this out in front of a lot of people Yeah, that's that's one of the one of the parts of that recommendation is that anything we do before we implement any guidelines when you have some community feedback on that because I

Again, they're the ones riding it. I don't know if anybody up here has any. I don't. There are a lot of people riding them, and if we're not part of that, then we should probably get the feedback from people who are.

So, Captain, what would be a feasible time frame for you to get an educational event set together so we can get the public together and start trying to have these conversations?

Yeah, I think steps-wise, it would probably be best to have some kind of a committee or a group where we get together and just have an open talk about it. And then as far as the education piece, once we kind of craft the direction we want a city ordinance to go, that's when we can start working on what we want from that. You guys have, as you discussed earlier, the ability to create committees. If that's something that you want us to do, we can look into that. And I'd say we could probably... work through that. At least on our end, we're going to be pretty busy through mid-July.

I was going to say, I don't think there's much you guys are going to be working on.

Yeah, so I would say probably we could shoot for mid-August to start setting up the committee.

know I personally would like to see a public hearing just your feedback before we start going down actual policy decisions so if we can get something like that scheduled in the next couple months I would think more of like a town hall type situation where you can have people come in question answer first step and that would be we could do it a different we could do a couple of them throughout town so that again the whole comprehensive plan thing we could tie a couple of these things to it I don't know if Mike's He's hiding there behind Rhonda. But if we're going to like an HOA, hell, he just moved to get it. But I would even go in and say, hey, we're going to dedicate, we're going to come for two hours. We're going to dedicate 20 minutes to e-bike conversation, 20 minutes to whatever else, and then the rest of it to the actual comp plans. That would kind of be my thought. Because to me, this still comes into play. Because eventually, if we're saying, hey, we're trying to create trails for people to get around, this e-bike, e-scooter conversation is involved because at some point I think some of them should be included and be able to use those. I don't know what, you were involved with the MARC thing. Is there other communities allowing some of these bikes on trails and stuff like that too?

Yeah, so all of the cities that I mentioned to you are allowing them on sidewalks and trails. Johnson County Parks is a little different. They have had a park ordinance for this for several years now. They don't, for some reason, allow class twos on trails in the parks. I don't really know what their distinction is, and I couldn't get some clear judgment on that. Sorry, Derek.

I work for Parks.

Okay. Yeah. And I, I've reached out to park PD. Uh, I appreciate that because they weren't sure why that wasn't because the speeds are lower on a class two for the most part.

Well, that's what I was going through. I'm like, yeah, it doesn't make sense of why this particular one, but yeah, no, I think there's a conversation to be had. I think there's something I just, as an individual, I tend to say less regulations better, especially as things change, we overdo it. Um, but I know there's a safety aspect to it. But again, there's the personal responsibility on the parents to make sure their kids are being safe. I know it's my fault if my son goes out and sprains his ankle on his dirt bike like he did, and I had to take responsibility for that. It wasn't on a street. It was at a dirt bike track. But yeah, so I think there's a little bit of those two things, but we also have to take the complaints into consideration. I think some of them are a little bit outlandish. The ones I see or hear from, I'm like, Come on, a kid on a regular bike would have done the same thing. So I think it's an education deal. And I know when I was a kid, I don't know how they did it around here or if they did it around here, but every year we had a, you bring your bike to school and they had like courses to go through and like how to avoid conflict with other people. Like we did that every year up until, I think it was an elementary thing. So it was like every year at the elementary school we did it. I don't know if that's something here that, We can work with Johns County Sheriff's since they're the ones that handle the schools, but I think that would be something that... additionally would be good for every year to do.

Yeah, we are working on one of those, um, with our bike unit for bicycles. Um, and then we have had a proposal from an officer on e-bikes for officers. Also, I know the park PD has used them for a while. Some other PDs are using them. And so they're probably going to branch out and see the same things with those bike radios, uh, with e-bikes that we've seen historically with standard bikes.

Yeah. So, yeah, I'd say if we can get with the schools to do that annually, and include e-bikes with it, I think that would make a big difference, too. But I don't know. That's kind of where I'm at with it. I think you had a lot of good ideas in that presentation that I'm like, I like this one, then I like this one, I like that one. And we could piece something really together that, like you said, once we get the feedback from the community, because we might come in and with how many people, their kids have them, and they're like, if you ban it, I bought this thing, and they can't use it now. That would be my biggest concern, too, is that if we can even get some information out there so parents know what they're buying. All right. So there's a lot of people just buy it.

So let's start with some consensus. I think we can all agree that banning them is not a, is not a direction that we're going as old. So we're going to remove that, keeping them off the sidewalks. That's something that we are not considering as a whole, not as a whole. I wouldn't think so as a whole, we're not considering taking them off the sidewalks as far as community engagement. I think starting with a public hearing in some type, whether it be here, or as a separate unit, I think we can all agree that that's a good place to start. And then drafting some more comprehensive proposals as far as ordinance adjustments and potential go, no-go areas, I think would be a great place to start for us.

That's how we get feedback from the community before we draft anything.

And in the interim, we're going to continue what we've been doing, and we're not taking direct enforcement action on these. We are kind of stopping and educating when we see something unsafe. Now, if it's something like completely burning through a stop sign and that person is old enough to know better, an 18- or 19-year-old burning through a stop sign, we're probably going to take an enforcement action. But with kids, we're kind of stopping and counseling.

Yeah. So as of right now, even regular bicycles, they're supposed to be obeying the traffic signs, stop signs, all that stuff. So if that's the case, I mean, I think – if we do a good job of that, even if it's just stopping, not even getting out of the car, like, Hey guys, make sure you're stopping at stop signs. I don't know how much you're doing it now, but I know I tried to do it a little bit like, Hey, make sure you guys stop there. Don't, you know, whatever, but it would come a lot further. From you.

I'll give you an example, just like the education piece, kind of like you said. I was driving down South Street the other day after school got out. A kid driving on an e-bike. She had a helmet in her hand and was riding her e-bike pretty fast. Pulled up next to her and said, hey, just put on your helmet. I said, I'm sorry.

I remember when bike helmets first came out, we used to do that. We'd hold it on the side. You'd see a cop. You're like, oh.

Put it on. Don't even buckle it. Get a DUI like an e-bike right you can absolutely are you scooter right?

Yeah, anything that is in a human animal motor powered except for a locomotive or a wheelchair If you're giving your friend a piggyback, so yeah, so get a motorized wheelchair that was Captain is there any more direction you need from us at this time? No, we'll start working on some community input things, and we'll work with you guys and city staff to get that scheduled.

When do you guys really ramp up because of the World Cup?

Next week.

So, I mean, as much as this is probably top of mind and we want to talk about it, I get that it's going to take some time. So don't feel like you're having to burn at both ends while you're in.

Always burn at both ends, Mayor.

But this is definitely, I think if we can include maybe something small that once we start doing some of those HOA meetings, we can at least mention it that either these town halls or public meetings are going to happen, we can make sure we have something formal that we can present to make sure you guys come to these meetings so that you can give us input on what you think. So something small like that for now would be good. And then once this whole deal is over with with soccer, we can get you back to working on this kind of stuff.

Could you email that presentation to me?

Actually, if you want to send it to everybody, I thought it was really good.

Yeah, if you get the like, I can send you the presentation and then also our group notes from the MARC meetings. Okay, perfect. I've got a rolling sheet of those.

All right, sounds great. Thank you. All right, thanks, sir. We already took a small break. Are we all good to start moving into our executive sessions? All right. All right. entertain executive session number two now.

I move the city, or sorry, I move the city council recess into executive session for 10 minutes to receive advice of council. Is that the right? 15. Oh, they changed the time. I just want to make sure I've got the right one open.

Oh, just 10? Okay, just 10. You're right. Oh, goodness.

Now you've got me. Number two. All right, I'm on the right one. I move the city council recess into executive session for 10 minutes to receive advice of council regarding legalities training pursuant to KSA 75-4319B2 of the Kansas Open Meetings Act. The open meeting will resume in the city council chambers at 9.24 p.m. No formal action is anticipated following the session. Persons to be in attendance are the following. Lane Massey, City Administrators, Principal Lau, City Attorney, and Mike Mallon. Community Development Director.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor?

Aye. That's not the right one.

That was not the right one?

Spencer, that was the correct one, correct?

Spencer's not paying attention.

That was the correct one, right? Yes. No. He had to make changes.

Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passed 4-0-0. Back at 9-24 p.m. Let the record reflect that the governing body reconvened in the open meeting at 9.24 p.m. No votes were taken or decisions made during the executive session. Discussion was limited to the subject stated. Next up.

I move the city council recess into executive session for 15 minutes to receive advice of council regarding matters of non-elected personnel. Pursue it to KSA 75-4319B2 of the campus open meetings act. The open meeting will resume in the city council chambers at 941 p.m. No formal action is anticipated following the sessions. Persons to be in attendance are the following. Spencer Lau, city attorney.

And Lane Massey, or no? Second. Not this one? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passes 4-0-0. All right, let the record reflect the government body reconvened the open meeting at 941 p.m. No votes were taken or decisions made during the executive session. The discussion was limited to the subject stated. We have one more executive session and we are going to do five minutes. So PJ gets going.

I move that the city council recess into executive session for five minutes to discuss matters of non-elected personnel pursuant to KSA 75-4319B1 of the Kansas Open Meetings Act. The open meeting will resume the city council chambers at 9.48 p.m. No formal action is anticipated following the session. Persons to be in attendance are the following. Spencer Lau, city attorney. Lane Massey, city administrator.

Second.

Motion is second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passed 4-0-0. See you in a bit. Nice and cool. Let the record reflect. The governing body reconvened the open meeting at 9.48 p.m. No votes were taken or decisions made during the executive session. The discussion was limited to the subject stated. After that, we are about done. Do we have anything else we want to bring up before we adjourn? All right, I'll entertain a motion. I move to adjourn. Second. We have a motion and a couple seconds. All those in favor? Aye. But motion passes 4-0-0. See you next time