Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everybody. We're going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. Roll call, please. Council member Click. here. Council member Saber here. Council member Bailey here. Council member Mcgrron here. Council member Kaine here. Council member Alvarez here. Council member Selenus here. All right. Next item is the pledge of allegiance led by council member click to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for it stands nationisible for all.

Okay. Now we're going to do the uh item four approval of the agenda. But before we do, we're going to go ahead and remove item 19 from the agenda. Any other thoughts on the agenda? Okay. Do we have a motion? Move to approve. Second. Second. All in favor? Yes. Any opposed? Motion passes. Okay. Now we're going to move to item five, approval of regular council meeting minutes for March 17, 2026. Do we have a motion? Move to approve. Second. All in favor? Yes.

Yes. Any opposed? Motion passes. Item six. Consideration of an ordinance declaring the results of the city's general election for city council members held in the city of North Kansas City, Missouri on April 7th, 2026. Bill number 7979, ordinance number 9776. First reading. Second. All in favor? Yes. Any opposed? Motion passes. an ordinance declaring the results of the city's general election held in the city of North Kansas City, Missouri on April 7th, 2026.

Uh, I move that bill number 7979 be placed on second and final reading and be passed as ordinance number 9776. Second. Call the role. Council member Click, yes. Council member Safer, yes. Council member Bailey, yes. Council member Mcgrron, yes. Council member Kaine, yes. Council member Alvarez, yes. Council member Selenus, yes. All right. Item seven, we're going to have the oath of office for the newly elected officials. So, please come up to

I will need Linda and Lindsay and an Mr. Saper and then I will All right, everybody got their seats? Welcome back to uh three of you and welcome to Council Member Larson. Welcome aboard. Welcome to the deep end. All right. Uh, item eight,

outgoing elected official proclamation.

All right, we have a proclamation of appreciation for Council Member Selenus. Thank you so much for your dedication to the city, for all the time you put in, all the uh the long and late hours we've spent hanging out in executive sessions and at meetings and doing community events. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And uh we look forward to your continuing involvement in the city. Thank you so much. So, we're going to take a little picture out front with this Did you guys want to get up and do the friendship photo? A One more. Three more. All right, now that all the ceremony has happened, we're going to move on to ceremonial matters. Um, item nine,

presentation of Klay County 250 challenge coins. Okay, if you uh will recall and those of you who have been paying attention, those of you watching at home, Klay County 250 is a celebration of the semicesquis centennial uh for the United States. It's our 250th birthday and Klay County has a group that has put together a challenge uh to do a numer number of civic acts, things like reading the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, thanking elected officials. Uh this is important stuff. This is living into the history of our nation and becoming better citizens. And so we've challenged people. Uh Scott Wagner, Klay County Commissioner, came out and offered the challenge. We have put this out publicly and a number of you have responded. And so we have, how many do we have tonight? Seven. We have seven coins to hand out tonight to people who have done this. And so we're going to get out in front and we're going to have a little ceremonial uh handing out of coins. Tom Bailey, Ellen Kirk, Frank Mcgrron, Lindseay Mcgrron, Brett Olazac, George Schlutter, Megan Summers, We're making it earn those today.

Okay, now we are moving on to things that are not ceremonial matters. Comments from the public. Item 10. If you are a member of the public wishing to speak this evening, please approach the podium, state your name, and you have please limit your comments to five minutes. Good evening.

Good evening. My name is Ellen Kirk. I'm a new member of Ward 2. And this is regarding my short and sweet comment, but recently it was my choice to end a lease in Ward One. I have previously lived in Ward 3, so Ward 4, I'm eventually coming for you, too. But when the time for my lease was up, I had some decisions to make, and I knew my one non-negotiable in my move was to stay in North Kansas City. And I just want to thank the elected officials and the members in this room that represent departments that make this city so special. I did graduate from the citizens academy thanks to Kim and thanks to everyone involved, but it was something that really created a sense of belonging and a sense of community and a deeper sense of being a resident in North Kansas City. So if anyone's watching and hasn't done it, I highly recommend it. But it was a very easy decision to stay in this city. So, I really look forward to many more years and my war two era. So, we'll get together, but thank you very much and I just continue to appreciate being a citizen here.

Excellent. Thank you so much. Further public comments.

Good evening.

Good evening. I'm Marisa Reynolds and I want to start off by saying thank you all for serving because I know it's a huge time commitment and uh I appreciate all of you as well and love living in North Kansas City as well. I participated on Saturday in the cleanup event. It was a good time. Felt good doing it. I have a suggestion and that would be to consider putting trash cans by the bus stops on Armor or at the very least putting one at the crosswalk by Wendy's because there's a lot of pedestrian traffic there coming from American Inn to go to Taco Bell and go to Wendy's and I think that would be helpful. Um, so that's a suggestion. And then I have a comment on agenda item uh 27. I guess it is the Y subsidy requirement that you're considering or maybe have already decided to do. I'm not sure. Um, I just wanted to put in my two cents that I feel like the only requirement to getting the subsidy should be residency. And it certainly makes sense to me that there would be an audit, a periodic audit to ensure that people receiving the subsidy do indeed still live in North Kansas City. That makes sense to me. The attendance requirement while very, you know, generous in terms of asking for only three visits in a quarter, I believe it is, um, I think is unnecessary and feels like the council thinks people are taking advantage in some way of the subsidy when really they're just partaking in what you offered. um a subsidy was offered. We're partaking in it and there's many reasons why someone might not be able to

go. So my husband and I belong as a couple. I'm there five days a week. He hasn't been in months. He's not healthy enough to go at the moment. I don't want to cancel his portion of the membership because I don't want him one day to be like, I feel like today I could do a lap. I want to be able to say, "Let's go. Get in the car. Let's go." I don't want to deal with signing them up again, starting a new membership or whatever that might be. So, there's many reasons why people might not be able to do three times in a quarter, and it just seems um unnecessary to me. So, thank you.

Thank you. And thank you for being here for the Earth Day cleanup. I know that was some dirty work. And uh to to clarify uh the point you raised, we'll have a big discussion about this when it comes um on a membership that on the couple membership all we need is three visits between anybody on that membership. So sure. Absolutely.

Thank you. Further public comments. Good evening. Hello, Best Bailey is kind of here on behalf of the SEAK, but also um just wanted to give you guys a roll up on our early Earth Day, pre-earth day, whatever you'd like to call it, event u from Saturday. We had about 30 people join us, mostly people I've never seen before at city events. So, that was really exciting to see. Um, the areas we got to clean up or had people go to in addition to other places they may have found were Mack and Park along the fence line. Part of America bridge gathered four giant trash bags under the I35 bridge gathered one big trash bag due to a lot of glass. Uh, we couldn't really get more done, but a lot of that was done by Ivon Selenas and her daughter. Uh, the heart Nope, already did the Heart of America Bridge. Listed it twice. Sorry about that. along Swift and Dag Park. There's a lot of inbetweens as well. So, a huge part of our city was cleaned up, especially areas that are used by a lot of different people who walk around town. Um, special thanks to Megan who had everything set up and ready for us to go. If I could give you a thousand seats or salads, they'd be in the back of my car. Um, the fire department and uh police department showed up in droves. Very happy to see them here. Kim was around and very helpful answering questions and bringing joy. Our ad hoc committees were here and donut king provided a lot of donuts. Next year I will perfect my doughnut math, but twoish per hour hopeful amount of people showing up plus or minus a few more was overkill. Thank you for everyone who ate more than one donut. Um we take any feedback you have to give us. Um but we really appreciate everyone who came. The morning was cold. There are a lot of other things to do on Saturday morning uh than Centennial for the high school,

the event at the Y, the urban hike, and whatever sports leagues are in play, as well as just staying home and being warm were all priorities, I'm sure. Um, but we did have a fun event. Uh, compost committee was here helping kids plant pollinator flowers. We had people show up when they could, leave when they could if they had to go to other things. But it really was a positive event and SEAK is happy to put on as many more as possible. Thank you guys. Thank you. And thank you to the SEAK for putting that event together. It was excellent. Further public comments. Good evening.

Hello. Melinda Davis, 108 East 21st Avenue here in North K City. And many of you may know me by Mindy Hart, but legal name is Melinda Davis. And I'm here in a personal capacity tonight. I'm not representing Snake Saturday, not representing my business. Um, just as a resident, a homeowner here in North Canton City. Um, we are clearly at a fork in the road. We have development that's going to happen in our community. In 2019, it was presented that the rental to homeowner ratio was at 87%. We've added for apartment apartment buildings since then. We are clearly way over 90% at this point. I'd say we're encroaching on about 95%. That's the highest rental rate I found in the entire United States of America based on the size of our town. We have part of our city that is zoned currently for commercial manufacturing and so on. That is going to require reszoning in order to put residences in there of any kind. Um, we have infrastructure needs that we need to be considering. We also need to think about what our town is going to look like in 10, 20, and 30 years. And that isn't something that historically our council has been very successful at. Um, we have to do something now and we need to put in um processes in place to address what what that is going to look like. If we're going to have more apartment buildings, if we're going to have town homes, if we're going to have forplexes, if we're going to have more single um dwellings, we need to be doing that planning now because the ship is is getting ready to leave the port. And those zoning variances um that they're going to be asking for, they're coming.

You've got something on the agenda, I believe, tonight to that effect. So, I implore you as a council to really think about what our town is going to look like 10, 20, 30 years from now. We already were a unique community. We already were were perfectly positioned within the Kansas City metropolitan area to be a primo place to live, the desirable place to live. We understand affordable housings, that ship has sailed. We're not getting that back. I'm not sure that the entire state or metropolitan area or even the country affordable housing is really um something that is a viable thing in the in the near future to address, especially at a small community like we have. Um but if we're going to do this, then we have to do rental better than anybody else. And just because nobody else is doing it doesn't mean that we don't have to. We can be more agile. We can make those changes. We can plan for how we do that better than anybody else. If we want more home ownership, if we want to town homes that can be purchased, if we want condos that can be purchased, then we need to be making those decisions now on the front end. It's much much harder to fix and way more expensive to fix on the back end. And that's universally true. So, we have to do this now. Otherwise, we're not going to be looking at 95% rental to homeowner ratio. We're going to be looking at 98% and home ownership is going to be almost a thing of the past in North Kansas City. So, I just implore you to really think about what the texture of our town, what you want it to look like. Listen to not just the people that you know, because it's really great to jump on the fads that are out there in the periodicals about urban development. It's really fun to do that. But is that what this town is

supposed to be when we were already a unique place to live? So, let's preserve that. That's all I'm asking tonight. Thank you. And uh to dovetail off of that, thank you Mindy for the comment. Uh we are embarking on master planning and strategic planning processes. You'll see surveys, those of you watching, those of you in the a you'll get surveys about this. Fill them out. Honestly, let us know where you like to see town headed in the next 15 to 20 years. Uh we're planning through 20 240, northtown 2040. So that will be uh a big deal going forward. I have 35 seconds. 35 seconds.

Understanding that that survey has gone out and that there there is going to take time for the planning process to happen as a result of that survey. But you've got things on the agenda that are already coming already here and those decisions are going to matter. And again, once that ship has sailed, good luck getting it back in port. Thank you. Further public comments. Going once. All right. Moving on to item 11. Appointment of Michael Wells to fill the fourth ward vacant council seat.

Okay. And I've been uh reminded to note again, this is not a cere ceremonial matter. This is this is a big deal here. Um and so with that said, I am going to call Mike up in a minute. So I but I want to talk through the process of how we got to Michael's nomination. Um because I've heard from the community more transparency would be valued in these whole processes, especially when it's something as important as a city council seat. Um so after the election for the current seat, the two-year seat in Ward 4, that left uh a seat open that was vacated by council member Clark. I put out an open call for applicants with a cuto off time of April 14th. We put that out on social media. We put it out through the city's official channels calling for applications. I received four applications uh all of who then answered some basic questions about their interest in the position and what skills they could bring to the council and provided a resume if available. After that, I took those four resumes, reviewed them, and set up phone calls with each applicant to ask three questions. One, uh what has your city involvement been up to date? Uh what are two challenges you see that the city faces currently, big or small, and what are three goals you would bring as a new council member in coming to the council? Uh each phone call went great. Uh we had some highly qualified applicants. It made my decision rather difficult to be completely honest. Uh everyone had a great great input and then I did end up selecting Michael Wells for a few reasons and he's going to tell you some about himself as well, but I want to highlight these. Uh Mike's consistently engaged with the city in various capacities. He's attends town hall meetings, chairs the North Kansas City Historical Society, participates in bike and pedestrian committee walk audits, attended and graduated the citizens academy, and even spoke at a recent council member council meeting. He also chairs a working group to potentially kickstart a fall festival series. Stay tuned for that. Uh and when we discussed goals for the city, he surpassed the requested three goals and listed nine very relevant goals that he's bringing to the table. He brings a very measured approach to complex issues and as you as

you would expect from a career librarian, he does his research and comes prepared. Finally, he lives in the River Forest neighborhood, giving Ward 4 a representative on both sides of the highway should he be approved. And with that, I'll bring Mike up to uh say a few words and introduce himself to the council. It's always part of it.

Good evening everyone. Um, I've gotten to know some of you. Uh, but if I haven't had the chance, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm here tonight to accept the opportunity to represent the good people of W4 at city council. I never imagined I would be doing doing something like this. I uh have never had big political aspirations. I never thought I would hold a public office. I'm a, as Jesse mentioned, a career librarian. Um, you know, but I have made a career of helping people. I try to serve as a bridge between people and the information resources and and and things like that that they need. Uh, but North Kansas City is a unique place. We hear that time and time again. And it does funny things to you. It makes you think that maybe you could do some good on city council. So, here here I am. Um, my wife and I moved here two years ago, but our ties go back further. We rented a home here several years ago, and we moved to downtown Kansas City after that, but we always kind of kept an eye on Northtown. We liked coming up here and and hanging out. And uh, we always thought that we might return someday and uh, and lo and behold, we did. We've always been people who want to get involved in our communities. um people who want to contribute something beyond just our day-to-day work. Um but you know that can be hard to do. Volunteer opportunities are easy enough to find. Um they're certainly out there, but you know finding something that has lasting impact that goes beyond sort of an isolated single day event. Uh that can be that can be a real challenge. Um but I don't think that's the case here necessarily in North Kansas City. I I've actually found a place where if you want to get involved in your community, you can. If you want to find like-minded people to work with, you can do that, too. And if you want to make a difference right here in your hometown, you can do that as well. And I love that

about North Kansas City. Some of you, as again Jesse mentioned, may know me from the North Kansas City Historical Society. Um, as a local history librarian, getting involved in that capacity seemed like a natural fit when I moved back here. Uh, beyond a librarian and a historian, I like to think of myself as a community builder. In my work, I try to create the conditions for people to get excited about and engage with local history. And that's really because I believe one of the main side effects of engaging with local history is civic engagement. When I was young, I was taught to think of history as a verb. Not just something you study, but something you use to learn about the past, to make connections to where you live, and to use that information to inspire new ideas about the future. If you know me through the historical society, I hope I've done a good job of living up to that. Um, I hope I've done a good job of being someone who wants to keep trying new things, uh, exploring new ideas, and making new partnerships. And that's what I aim to do as a council representative. I want to look for opportunities to collaborate and move the town forward. And I want to serve as a bridge between the decisions we make today and the stories left behind by those who came before us. I'm inspired by the positive energy of my fellow Ward 4 representative Cynthia Larson and I'm eager eager to hear her ideas about how we can best represent W 4. I'm also looking forward to working with her to improve connectivity across our city. Our highways are both a blessing and a challenge. They make it easy for our residents to get to where they need to go dayto-day, but they also serve as physical and symbolic barriers many times. And that issue is special especially impactful in W4 where residents live on either side of an interstate exchange.

And I know Cynthia shares my commitment to addressing that divide. And we also know that this problem is something that can't be solved overnight. But what I can promise is that we together we'll keep pushing on this issue and working toward practical and creative solutions that move us in the right direction. I try to stay informed on civic matters. But now I have a year to learn how municipal municipal government really works and to determine whether if I'm even suited for this kind of role. But mo most importantly, the voters of Ward 4 have a year to decide whether I'm the right person to represent them. As I said earlier, this is not something I ever saw myself doing, but I I love North Kansas City and I want to help make it a better place in any way that I can. And I promise that whether you live east or west of the highway, whether you're a lifelong resident or a new neighbor, whether you own your home or are renting, and especially if you live in Ward 4, I'll do my best to listen to your voices and to serve as a bridge between you and the decisions that are made in this building. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Yeah. My goodness, that very, very eloquent. All right. The way this process works is the mayor makes the nomination, the council consents or does not. So, we're going to do a quick vote on Michael's appointment. Uh, do you want to call the role? Council member Click, yes. Council member Safer, yes. Very much so. Council member Bailey, yes. Council member Mcgone, yes. Council member Kaine, yes. Council member Alvarez, yes. Council member Larson, enthusiastically, yes.

Excellent. Welcome aboard, my friend. And now be as you settle in, we're going to have uh your oath of office and then we're going to have some cookies. All right, we have cookies from MLAN's Bakery in the back. Uh, enjoy. We'll be back here in about seven minutes.

All right. Is everybody here? We're missing a couple of council members. Paging council members to the dis. All right, everybody has enjoyed their MLAN's cookies. Yes. Good. Uh, for the record, there was rockus applause. Okay. Uh, we're going to move on to the consent agenda. And, uh, briefly at the top of this, I'm going to mention again for transparency sake because I've been asked by a number of folks in the community, uh, why I've made these selections, uh, and nominations. And then we'll, uh, vote on the consent agenda. So, um, appointment of council member Michael Wells to the city council, liazison to the library board. Fairly self-evident. Michael has been a librarian for 18 years. Is it? So, library board seems like a natural fit. Um, thank you for your willingness to serve there. Uh, appointment of council member Cynthia Larson as the liazison to the parks and recreation board. Cynthia resigned her park seat yesterday, today?

A week ago.

Okay. A week ago. Uh Cynthia has been on the parks uh board and has uh all reviews have been very positive. I've spoken to folks on the board and so welcome back as a liaison to the board. Uh appointment of Brett, I'm going to mess this up. Olasic Olac uh to the police and fire personnel board. Um Brett applied after Citizens Academy, mentioned how much he enjoyed visiting both the fire and police and how much pride they showed in their work and in their uh where they work and and their the firehouse police station and uh applied specifically for this board, which is fairly rare. Uh most people don't know it exists. So good on you for that. I passed his resume along to both chiefs and they both said this sounds great. Um and so nomination here and then Nicole Wendell to fill the vacancy uh vacated by council member Larson on the parks board. Uh Nicole has a degree in event management which I think will be very beneficial to all the public facing events we have in the parks. She also noted the immense benefit of wellprogrammed green spaces to community health. Uh so those are the appointments that are on the consent agenda and I will take a motion on the consent agenda.

Move to approve. Second. All in favor? Yes. Any opposed? Motion passes. All right. Moving on to regular items. Item 21. Selection of mayor pro Tim.

Okay. Uh so typically this is done via nomination of the city council. Uh per council member clicks request at the last time we tried something like this. It's tough when the candidates just get shot right in the into the middle and then what do we know? We haven't had any time to think about this. So, I asked in advance, anyone willing to take these positions? Uh, so who wants to raise their hand? I sent out an email to the council and got some responses. Those council members who have said they were interested in this position, council member Mcgrron and council member Bailey. I will also now take any nominations for anyone who did not raise their hand. Okay, those will be the candidates for vote. And Crystal, if you could call the role and we'll vote on Council Member Mcgrron or Council Member Bailey for Mayor Pro Tim.

Council member Click. Council member Mcgrron. Council member Saper. Council member Bailey. Council member Bailey. Bailey. Uh, Council Member Bailey. Council member Mcron. Uh, myself. Okay. Council member Kane. Council member Mcgrron. Council member Alvarez. Council member Mcgrron. Council member Wells. Council member Member Mcgrron. Council member Larson. Council member Mcgrron. Council member Mcgrron. It is all right. Thank you. Thank you.

Congratulations Mayor Pro Tim. And if anyone doesn't know what the mayor proim does, hopefully nothing because I get to be at all the meetings. But if I am absent or need a fill in, you will do an excellent job. Item 22. Absolutely. Selection of council member to serve on planning commission.

All right. Same deal. I asked in advance if there were volunteers for this one. And the three names who uh put in were council member Saper, council member Bailey, and council member Mcgrron. Anyone else wishing to nominate or volunteer? Going once. Okay. So again, we'll call the role. We have council member Saper, Council Member Bailey, Council Member Mcgrron, Council Member Click, Council Member Bailey. I'm sorry, which one? Bailey. Okay. Council member Saper, Council Member Saper, Council Member Bailey, Bailey.

Council member Mcgrron, myself. Council member Kaine. Council member Mcgrron. Council member Alvarez. Mcgrron. Council member Wells. Mcgrron. Council member Larson Bailey. Okay. Council member Mcgrron. It is 431. Congratulations and welcome back to the planning commission. All right. Uh item 23, appointment of council member to the community enrichment advisory committee.

Same drill. I ask for volunteers ahead of time. And at this point, I have no names. So I will take nominations or volunteers at this point. And nominate Dylan. He'll accept it. Dylan, would you like to accept the nomination? There is no pressure to accept nominations, but would you like to accept it?

I think I if it's possible, I would love to meet with members of the committee. Like I know that there's been a lot going on with SEAK, a lot of a lot of overturn um or turnover, a lot of uh you know, a lot that's changed and and if it's possible like the next committee meeting I or the next council meeting, I would like maybe that to be on that agenda. Okay. Can we as a matter of procedure, do we need a liaison for a committee to meet? No. Okay. So, no legal requirement to have the liaison. Okay. Sure.

Um, as the previous liaison, I was sad to leave. I had class at the time. It didn't work. But I would love to offer any like if you can't make it to a meeting, um I just can't commit to the extent of the responsibility. But if there's any way I can support you, I would love to. I appreciate that. And that would just be good just for for my sake to kind of fill in on CAX activities and and everything new. So I I appreciate that.

Okay. Um so I'm hearing a request to potentially table this till next meeting. Is that something we can do? Yeah, I um just to make sure I understand uh Council Member Kaine, you want to meet with them before the next they meet. It'd be the uh let's see, the next meeting is the 5th. So, it' be the 6th, 7th, the 7th of May. Seventh of May. Um but you want to arrange and which we can do, but just to make sure before the May 5th meeting, go ahead and set up a time to meet. It would be two meetings out because they don't have another regularly scheduled meeting before our next they meet once a month. Um

having a meeting between would be tricky because of sunshine rules and all of that stuff. So we might have to go two meetings but that would allow you to attend one of their meetings and see and then also talk with them as well table till second meeting in May. Okay. Do we need a motion and a second for that? All right. Robert's rules say we need somebody to make that motion and second it. Uh there's a move to move this agenda item to the next council meeting. The council meeting in the second council meeting in May. May 19th. All in favor? Yes.

Yes. Any opposed? Motion passes. We'll take it up in May. Very good. Item 24, park lofts to presentation. Okay, we have a presentation coming. Um, but I want to kind of preface the presentation by uh tying 24 and 25 together. The matter before us tonight that we will need a decision on is whether we are approving a funding agreement that allows the developer of the proposed development to pay our financial adviser to run the numbers on the incentive request. No,

it's more than just the financial advisor. It's any of our outofpocket expenses. So, for example, if there became a a question when they reviewed things of an engineering matter, we'd bring one of our on call engineers to look at something, they'd be responsible. Uh I'm assuming that Mr. Sparks will end up being involved in this, and if he is, they pay for that as well.

The point of the matter is to cover our out-of- pocket expenses. So, the city is not Okay, there you go. city's on the hook um for that and so that is what we're approving is allowing the developer to pay the expense so we're not on the hook for any of the money. Uh with that uh we will bring in Luke coming in to give us a presentation on Parklo 2. Hello, my name is Luke Mloin. I am a member of Maxis Properties just down the street here on Armor Road. I'm here to present our Parkloss phase 2 proposed apartment complex which conveniently right behind our Parkloffs phase one building right out our windows here. Um am I in charge of slides? Um a quick overview on the project. Um I want to first apologize for um Dave Johnson who's the founder of Max's Properties, our chairman. He had a family matter tonight and could not make it. But um we'll be obviously we're right down Armor Road. Our doors are always open to anybody and everybody and we're always happy to discuss the project. So if anything does come up, we just want to make sure that everybody knows we're a wide openen book here. Um but to uh in the spirit of time, I've been asked to be brief and brilliant. So I'll do my best on the first one and we'll see on the second. Um, the project is proposing adding a new 115 unit apartment building at the back of the existing Park Lofts building. This is all one lot that is currently owned technically by Northland Lofts LP, which is one of Dave's companies, so it's under the Maxis umbrella. We are proposing to add this 115 unit apartment complex. It's five stories over one story of parking on the first floor. This is a proposed rendering from the southeast looking northwest at what this building can look like. We are obviously working with JW and with the code to

ensure that we are compliant with all of the requirements on this building. I think we have a little tweaking to do on some elevations, but we're getting close. I promise. Um, we're looking towards adding this uh somewhat modern building and hide the parking garage so it's not parking garage in your face as you're coming through. Um, this is the site plan of the building. And to orient everybody, this is not oriented like a map. Do apologize, but it fits on our screen a little better. North is to the right on this image. So, City Hall, where we're sitting in this presentation, is the top right corner. The bottom is YMCA. Directly in the middle is the existing Park Lofts building. And just to the left of that is where we're proposing adding this building onto um our property. As I mentioned before, it's fivetory building proposing 23 units per floor. It's designed to integrate with phase one. So we anticipate that these will both be talking together and utilizing some of the same amenities along with the YMCA across the street. our unit mix here down below. Um 35 studio units, 31 bedrooms, 52 bedrooms. We're designing this to meet the demands of urban housing. Um we also are invested in partial owners in other properties in the North Kansas City area and are drawing on that as part of our experience to make sure that both the unit mix and the affordability rates of this apartment complex comply with what is really needed in the area for housing. We're proposing to add this to the central of North Kansas City, hoping to help support our neighborhood restaurants, retails, and small businesses by adding a little more density to the area. Um, is hopefully going to increase our property value and the uh economic activity in the area, which brings up the value to all of our constituents. Um, this will provide 213

off- streetet parking stalls. 193 stalls are our calculated requirement. We're still verifying all you of course and the code to ensure that we're completely in compliance, but we want to stress that we are following the parking code as closely as we can so that we are not having to ask for any outside uh exemptions to this so that we can park ourselves completely and not be reliant on something else. That being said, we are also asking that across the street we add Go back to the plan. This south lot there's a pointer on here. the lot that is just across the street from the park lofts building which is directly in the middle. There's a lot that is to the left of the YMCA proper lot. That is a cityowned lot right now and it is not part of the YMCA lease and a part of their agreement. It is a publicly owned lot. Our ask is that we put this into a and I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but um that this goes into a overnight parking allowed situation that we think is going to give ourselves flexibility for the future and for the present to park enough people on our site. We are also willing to invest into that, which I'll get into a little further down here. Um, our economic impact, we expect our total development cost to be 27.9 million, but bringing 150 construction jobs over 14 months, two additional on-site permanent jobs from the building, and 15 ancillary jobs with other vendors in the area. Um, we are asking for these chapter 100 incentives on this property just due to the high construction cost. This is hopefully and what we're going to find out with our outside uh experts going to help us find the feasibility of building this project at a reasonable rate that

makes it favorable for everybody. Um onto the chapter 100 request. We're asking for $15 million in financing as a sales tax exemption 15 years at 50% abatement. Um, and this is where the parking request also comes in and a five-year overnight parking allowance on that lot. This is the lot for those that know the area that has the Ripple Glass container in the lot. Our intention is that Ripple Glass container will stay here and we will make sure that it has a permanent home on the site as long as the city and Ripple Glass is willing to do that. We're willing to invest up to $100,000 in said lot to get us a nice crosswalk across the street to upgrade the lighting, planting, and obviously we'll work with planning and with the code to make sure that the parking lot is brought up and restriped and beautified for the area, not only for our residents, but to keep it public. Our intention is not to block this off. Our intention is not to make it a park lofts only parking lot. Our only ask is just to help support those overnight parking needs that are potentially in the area. To keep people located in one spot that are not sprawling out onto the streets or taking other lots they're not supposed to be in. We want to make sure they have a dedicated place for them to go. So this is a little closer up of the lot that we're discussing here. Now, not to confuse everybody, but this is rotated from our last one. My apologies, but this is how a map looks. Um on the left is the aerial image. right, is the proposed drawing of this. We're still tweaking this a little to make sure we're working with the city's needs in this area, but we've talked about some potential storage and access to neighbors here that we are going to maintain. So, the final is going to be a little tweaked and we're making sure we're working with everybody that easements and access works here. This is just to the south again of the YMCA lot, which is not a portion of their lot. to wrap us up here. Uh these are some proposed elevations and again we're

final we're tweaking these to make sure we're completely within the code. Um and that this fits within the existing zoning on the site. So we are not asking for a zoning change here. Uh again, a little closer up of that rendering from the south side, but um we are thankful for your time and your consideration of this uh funding and make sure I'm saying this right, Tom, the city expenses reimbursement policy that we are proposing the economic package here. So, thank you very much for your time. Um again, with Max's Properties, we're right down armor. Anybody has any questions, you know where to find us. We're an open book and and happy to talk to anybody.

Very good. Uh thank you for your presentation. Um and I want to just clarify a couple things you said. Um so you said you're not asking for any zoning variances, correct? That is zoned residential all the way out to the end of the parking lot as is. Um and then you're also not asking for variance on parking. Um because as the code is written, it currently meets parking requirements. Now we can debate on whether the code has holes in it and all that but as it's as it is written it meets the code for parking. Correct. Um I also noted um the if you could go back to the slide on uh the rental rates proposed

uh so rents at 50 to 80 of AMI. So 1190 to 1750 like that um that would be one of the lower new builds in town. Is that right? Correct. I'm trying to think of the oxbow rents in the 23rd and

SW. Yes. And I know it's it's kind of a hot button word, so I don't like to throw it out a lot. We're trying for affordable housing. And when we say affordable housing, I feel like everybody gets in mind government selected affordable housing. We're not necessarily guaranteeing we're going there. We're not asking for extra incentives to get there. We're not taking anything else, but we do want to make sure that we provide good affordable housing for the area that is based on the AMI rates. So yes, to answer your question, in short, we're trying for relatively affordable housing.

Okay. And then last question for me, uh, right now the pilot request is at 15% for 50 years. This is part of what we're going to get at with the financial experts crunching the numbers. Um, the only thing I would point is that's slightly over our economic development policy, but we're going to see where the numbers land just so that we've talked about it. What questions do we have from the group? Council member Saber, uh, what was your reasoning for not including any kind of retail on the ground floor? We think that the retail focused along Armor is more impactful and that there wasn't really necessarily an economic reason for us to add it along uh, Iron Street here.

And to clarify, the ground floor is parking. Well, they have extra stall space in terms of meeting the requirements. So there is that possibility and including something in there. Correct. Yes. But you decided not to is what you're telling me. Yep. Okay. Next question is uh during construction you are located near to our main fire station. Yes sir.

Uh what are your plans to keep that fully open throughout the construction period? We have not put together a specific plan, but I will say that that is going to be one of the things that's going to be high on our priority list is to talk with the fire department and with the planning and engineering to make sure we keep that fully functional. I believe there's been talk of a fence going between the two. We're hopefully to keep everything out of the way, but there's also based on our site plan a distance between those that is approximately 20 ft from our property line. So we have a good clearance to keep between those that we shouldn't affect anything with the fire department.

I'm not concerned about the final product but during the con construction itself. Correct. I think we have enough setback on the site to keep everything on our site and hopefully out of the way of the fire department. Okay. Council member, thank you for coming to present. I know that there was um a little bit of chatter from some of our residents regarding this project. So, I have a few questions and and just a reminder to to the um anybody who's watching uh that this is not us approving this project. This is us approving exploring whether or not it is financially viable to to to do this project for the city.

Um so, one of my questions is in your rendering, uh you referenced parking, uh lots that are designated for city services. So, for example, you mentioned the library and this lot. Are those lots that you're including in your parking counts or are you just pointing those out because they're close by? That is a little more technical. That is going into our parking counts and following the code. So, there's portions of the code that allow you to take some reductions for public parking in the area, but we're not anticipating that any of those stalls are actually used for our residents.

Okay. Uh then um another question is that um our current city policies uh allow for a what is it a 10-year abatement at 50% and then after that it's five years at 20 uh 25%. You want 15 years at 50%. Correct. Uh if we as a city decide that that isn't something that we could do, would you still be willing to go forward with that project or is that kind of where we're at with this exploration? I think that's where we're at with this exploration. Um I think anything is on the table for us to review, but based on our numbers at this time, that is our our request.

And then um it says in the memo that you all um discussed like talked to the school board and they had no comment or the school district and they had no comment. So uh are they on board with these abatements as well? Uh or did did they literally just say they don't have a comment? Because no comment is not endorsement. It's they didn't comment.

Correct. Um, I won't get into too much of talking with them, but I do believe that this is under any of their administrative approval limits and something that they've internally already set. So, the school board seemed to be on board with us as well. And I think based off of our existing tenant mix, we're not going to be adding a large stress to the school district. So I in my opinion it's viewed as an ad that we are going to be increasing the tax base of this property that pays into the school district that would hopefully greatly offset any additional students that get added.

Okay. And then the last question that I had is I know we're still in kind of the the feeling it out phase, but for our public works, do we believe that the water and sewer capacity exists to support this project without major capital investment? I think that can you hear me? I think that's something that Anthony and everybody's going to have the team is going to have to put together along with what the uh final goal is on who's maintaining the lot after it's purchased or you know after it's built um you know going forward. Uh there's a lot of um questions there on our part. Um but as far as anything concrete, this is the first I've heard of the project.

Okay. Excellent. All right. That's all I had. If I may, I'll chime in on the water and the sewer. I mean, going through, you know, finishing up the water and the sewer plans, the master plans, we have the capacity for this. I mean, there is a point where we I remember the water the water master plan, uh, I want to say it was seven or eight more. They were they called them oxbow. Um,

and I did want to make one more comment just to kind of address Mindy Hart's uh concern about, you know, she's talking about thinking ahead for the future and what we want to see come in in our our kind of disproportionate rental to to home ownership, but I I I feel where she's coming from. I I do say that population density supports more services and more retail and we could give us more transit options and, you know, we we want a grocery store. Those are things that require um more population and this particular spot isn't one that would be good for single family homes. It's a very small lot and so really the only thing that could be built here is either you know is is a building for like retail or a service or apartments. So um I I think it's good to at least explore it.

Excellent. Uh thank you for those questions to clarify a couple pieces on that. Um, so I've also heard the questions from the community about use of parking uh and how it applies to the code. So to get nerdy for a second, um, there is a piece of our code that allows any public parking spaces within 600 ft of the development. You know this, it's on the map. Um, 600 feet of the development to be counted as 1/ half of a parking spot to reduce the parking needed on site. Personally, I think that's a bit of a hole in the code because it allows uh parking spaces that are not uh overnight parking allowed like city hall and the library to still count. But that's how the code is written and this is how, as we mentioned at a previous meeting, how we find parts of the code that we may want to discuss updating in the future. But again, as this is proposed and as the code is written, it does meet the parking requirement. Now, they're not saying they're going to park their residents at the library. I think that's the misconception around town. I just want to clarif clarify that. School district, great question. Um, we have a good working relationship with the school district subcommittee. This is an item on an upcoming discussion agenda for me, but we did some back of the napkin math and looked at percentage of students in the newer apartment developments. Um, conservatively estimating 10% in this one would exceed um the amount of students concentrated in any of the other new developments. So, smaller percentage than um so even if we're conservatively estimating that many and and giving the school district that number to work off of, that's still most likely overestimating the number of students that would be in the building. But we're going to have those conversations. Um, and then one other thing you said about the funding. Yeah. Uh, so that's why we're funding the agreement theoretically. Yes, sir.

Uh, thank you for coming out to present tonight. I really appreciate all the information. Uh, and also full disclosure, I am a Park Lofts resident, so uh, I I'm sure a lot of my neighbors will have questions this coming out publicly. Absolutely. Yeah. So, I I appreciate your time, but I just have, yeah, some clarifying questions. Sure thing. Um, so the proposed site plan, uh, is listed as option B. Uh, I was just kind of curious, you know, for the timeline of of this idea and this concept. Uh, what other um, you know, what other ideas were kicked around? What other uh, changes uh, were there to say like previous site plans and how did we get where we are today?

There's been, and I'm going to go way over by time aotment, so I'll I'll try to be brief to my first point. Um, we have explored, I would conservatively say for the last two years to do a project on this site. It has spanned from being on different parcels adjacent to us to building multi-level parking garages in between them to now where we have arrived on this version. Now, to directly address option B, we were actually discussing some of the exterior components on the site. Option B is the one that we wanted to go with that kind of mass the building. So, it didn't actually change the site plan. Um, it was just the building elevations that we've been looking at with our architecture team. But, um, yes, long story short, this is the culmination of two years in the making of getting to the best plan that consolidates everything onto our site and makes our our project the most feasible.

Um, were any other um previous plans, did they have any other, you know, variations, considerations for parking? um an additional level, no level, like you know what kinds of things were considered?

Yes. Um multiple different have been considered. Um the no parking on the main floor has been considered, but that substantially increased our ask to the city for additional parking stops, excuse me, parking stalls on adjacent lots. So like the YMCA lot has been floated that we would be leasing the entire lot or purchasing it. And what we're trying to do is focus the project onto we are doing our project that's on our site. Um we did look at doing multi-level parking. The cost is staggering and that is just even as much incentives as we could ask for just would not work on this site. So we feel like we've finally arrived at that perfect kind of happy medium of parking density and not over asking on our incentives.

Perfect. um that first level just by my reading of this. Correct. So 58 spots plus 69 spots, right? So you're at 127 parking spaces for that first level, correct? Yep. Okay. Is that between parklofts one and parkloffs 2 or is that intended for parkoffs 2 residents in the parking garage itself? Yes, correct. That is intended to be open to any resident of either phase of parklofts.

Okay. We want this to be a cohesive project that works between both that can share amenities to both buildings. Parking is shared with everybody on site. We want to make sure that this ends up being park lofts. It's not park lofts phase one versus phase two. It is park lofts as a cohesive unit. And is the intention there for paid or like permitted parking? No. No. Okay. Fantastic. Um I think those are all the questions that I have, but I appreciate it. Thank you. I believe the first go at this had uh a big tower on Caboose Park, right? That was where we started. Yes. Yeah, it is. We've pivoted substantially from that.

Correct. Yep. That's uh probably almost two years ago at this point. Yeah. I remember the first call from Dave on that one. Oh boy. What other questions do we have? Council member Wells. Uh yeah, thank you for coming and presenting about this. Um, thought I did. No. Hello. There. There I am. Okay. Maybe I just got to get it close. Okay. So, yeah, thanks for coming to present tonight. This is all very, very interesting stuff. But, um, I wanted to go back to something on the justification slides for the, uh, is it chapter 100? Am I getting that right? Yes.

Um, yeah. Uh and so it there's a specific line that I noticed um uh the the high cost of structured podium construction

and I just wanted to you know if you could help me understand I I I always kind of thought that those 50 over1 podium buildings were very cost-effective. Is there something unique or above and beyond in this design that um uh justifies the cost? It is cost-effective versus multi-level parking, but versus being able to build the apartment building directly on the ground, it does add significant cost primarily with fire rating between the parking garage and the units above and the extra structural capacity needed to lift your entire building up off the ground. So, in terms of if we were looking to do two or three levels like Oxbow did and lift our entire building higher, this is much more economical compared to that, but it is still expensive to build parking on the first floor just because you're having to lift that entire building up out of the ground.

Okay. Thank you. And for reference, when Oxbow uh had a substantial incentive request, they ended up pulling a a level of parking because it became so cost burdens. I think it's $60,000 plus now per stall for structured. That's the latest we've heard. Yes. Further questions. All right. Seeing none, we will move to item 25. Thank you, council. Thank you. Consideration of a funding agreement for parks park lofts 2 resolution number 26-008.

Okay. Um, do we need a a preamble on this one? This is the allowing them to cover the expenses for our out of pocket for any feasibility studying of incentives and otherwise engineering. Okay. All right. We have the resolution in front of us. Do we have a motion? First reading. Nope. Just a Oh, just a resolution or is it an ordinance? It's a resolution. Oh, resolution. I was looking at the next one down. All right. Uh move to approve. Second. All in favor? Yes. Yes. Any opposed? Motion passes. Item 26,

ordinance approving fourth amendment to city administrators employment agreement. Bill number 7976, ordinance number 9773.

Okay. Uh I will take us into the wayback machine for a minute. Uh once upon a time, we commissioned a compensation study shortly after hiring uh city administrator Nichols. And that compensation study laid out a number of salary ranges that we then approved. And this uh increased immediately all um employees of the city except for the city administrator and the city councelor who would then be the understanding is to slot them into the ranges that were proposed in the approved agreement at their performance review. That happened for the city council. It did not happen for the city administrator. This is to set up a correction of that error. Do we have any questions? Yes, sir. Uh the only question I have is part of this ordinance is retroactive payments.

Yes.

And that that applies to the city administrator. And as part of that original ordinance, there was a portion that addressed to the mayor and city council. There was a memorandum attached to the ordinance from the Michael Nichols, Kim Nakahoto, and Casey Campbell, city administrator, deputy city administrator and human resource manager. And I will read the next last paragraph. As you will see, the effective date for the classifications and salary ranges is January 1st, 2023 for nonrepresented employees. This in no way impacts the salaries for the city administrator and the city councelor as they are both determined separately by city council action respective of their employment. do their employment contracts. Now, there may be some fuzziness here because there's an ordinance that seems to spell out

Speak into the microphone, please. that that seems to spell out that the back pay may possibly be justified. But this attachment to the original ordinance at the time simply makes it clear to me at least that we are not obligated to make that payment. This was this is done by the few one of the few employees who has a direct contract with the city. The rest of the ordinance I have no problem with, but because of that section of it, as it now stands, I could not vote for.

Okay. Um, so I've seen the memo as well, and I asked for legal clarification and I asked for human resource clarification for the interpretation of that line in particular because you you brought it to me before the last one. We tabled it so we can get further clarification. um through HR the intent was to up everyone immediately to the salary ranges except for the two that were then separately reviewed and at their review time they would be brought into at a minimum the bottom of the range and that's what this proposes to do is to take Mr. Nichols salary into the bottom of that proposed range and then cost of living adjustment upward each year and then back pay for the difference that wasn't done. That's what the proposal is. And I I asked Mr. Barzee, he pulled the actual ordinance or the resolution that was approved. Uh, and if you could read the line that you you brought to me.

Correct. The the resolution and remember the memo is simply that a memo in in fact written uh at least it indicates by Mr. Nichols himself trying to clarify a paragraph that I believe if you read the paragraph in the memorandum what the paragraph is referring to is the effective date and just so everyone knows the effective date of raises changes in salary for all city employees that are not non-union okay city employees is January one of any gear except for two people the two that have contracts Mr. Nichols and myself. Okay. And that's what that's referring to. And then the document that's the important document where the council took action is a resolution. Okay. And the resolution I think is pretty clear. It says it's what happens when you get old. You got to take your glasses off to read. Um, the city council hereby determines and declares that it is in the best interest of the city to adjust the classifications and salary ranges of nonrepresented employees effective January 1, 2023. The new classifications and salary ranges are shown on exhibit one attached here to and incorporated here and by reference. And then when you go to exhibit one that's attached through all the salary ranges and you get down to the city administrator is included on the document that was approved by the council and as far as I know was approved unanimously by the council back in 2022. Um, and uh, I don't I'd be glad to

answer any questions from a legal standpoint, but remember whenever uh, as we're trained to read and view documents as lawyers, um, you never focus on just one part. You look at the entire document. And, uh, to me, uh, I always knew what that paragraph meant since it includes me. I don't get a pay uh increase on January one of every year. Okay. Uh instead it's a time mine happens to be generally in u February to March. This year it was because I was gone it was a month later. Same same thing with uh uh Mr. Nichols. So uh I think at the end of the day the whole point here is uh and what the point that was trying to be made the effective date is not the same for our salaries as it is for the remainder of the what I'll call the non-union employees of the city.

Thank you. Any further questions on this one? Uh further comment actually set of questions. Uh yeah, there's a certain ambiguity in the resolution because of the date issue and of the inclusion and for that reason since it's a back pay. In other words, there have been contracts in the interim and they've been agreed to and this is making up for something that may or may not be a legitimate debt of the city. And for that reason, I will vote against.

Understood. Further questions or comments before we take a motion? Do we have a motion for a first reading? First reading. Second. All in favor? Yes. Yes. Any opposed? Opposed. Motion passes. An ordinance approving and adopting fourth amendment to employment agreement by and between the city of North Kansas City, Missouri, and Michael P. Nichols, city administrator. I move that bill number 7976 be placed on second and final reading and passed as ordinance number 9773. Call the role. Second. Council member Click, yes. Council member Saper,

uh, no. Council member Bailey, yes. Council member Mcgrron, yes. Council member Kaine, yes. Council member Alvarez, yes. Council member Wells, yes. Council member Larson, yes. An ordinance approving and adopting fourth amendment to employment agreement by and between the city of North Kansas City, Missouri, and Michael P. Nichols, city administrator. All right. Item 27, update on YMCA membership subsidy. Right, Mike.

All right. Um, based on direction provided during the last meeting, I had a meeting with the with the YMCA. Uh, just to kind of echo the comments of earlier was about total membership uses usage by membership. Um, and then uh going three times at least three times in a rolling three-month period. Um, so, uh, as I said, I met with the Y, uh, to request that that before anything is, you know, if someone falls on that list, kind of the the cancellation list, that they cancel the membership. Um, they would prefer not to do that. They came back with the idea of um getting a an agreement out to all the the current members and then future members where they signed that they acknowledge that should they not meet the usage requirement they will be build for the total bill um versus that I'm bringing back I I told them you know this is this is what the council asked for um but that I would bring that back um I am waiting for some language from them but in the meantime time. It was different than what you asked for. So, I wanted to come back and get thoughts.

Yeah. Uh, thank you for that and appreciate you having the the tough discussion. Um, at this point, and I appreciate Miss Reynolds coming out and to talk about this as well. Um, my struggle is at this point, we're sending about $12,000 a month out the door. And I don't I don't think people are taking advantage of this. I think they fully sign up with good intentions. I'm guilty of this myself at times. sign up with good intentions and then at times just don't don't find the time or they don't go and at I think it was 20 what was it 27% would fall out approximately wouldn't meet the minimum so 27% to 29 $12,000 a month I don't have the calculation in front of me somebody could run that if they'd like um 600ish

that's that's city that's taxpayer money city money going to uh going out the door for actually no use like people actually not taking advantage of the um subsidy. And then again, what's I think is being missed is they're also paying that much money. The people who are not using it are also sending that money out the door and not taking advantage of the OP opportunity at the YMCA. And so it's kind of it's saving public money. It's also saving people their own money. And so I wouldn't favor flipping the switch to full payment. like that would be a shock to somebody to get a bill. Even if they sign an agreement three plus months out, they get a bill that says now you owe us the whole amount. I would be much more in favor of cancelling uh the membership and then having them when they come back in if they decide today's the day to do a lap, you come in, you do the membership, sign up again, and you're back in the door. Um that would be my take. I'm open to question. Council member Gro,

so we've had talks about this a couple of times on the DIS when we first started talking about this as a subsidy. I really argued in favor of us making sure that it's available to the people who want to go when they want to go. And sometimes it doesn't happen, you know, on everybody's schedule. You know, some people go once a week, some people go six times a week, some people might find it really hard to just even get the motivation to go. And we want them to be able to do that. And I think what we need to think about as a council and as a city is what is the purpose of the subsidy? Is the purpose a public health intervention? Is it to try to make our citizens healthier and keep people active? And if that's the case, then we need to decide, are we willing to spend $12,000 a month or however much money we want to spend so that people have the option to do this because it's a benefit. We have other things that are examples of this um are our internet service. There are probably a lot of people who don't use the internet service that the city subsidizes, but we choose to continue to do that because we see that it is a benefit that the residents of our town appreciate. And so we want we say, okay, even though everybody's not using it, we're going to go ahead and put that out there so that people can if they want to. I've come to the to my own conclusion after speaking or after hearing our our public comments and kind of thinking about it and talking to some other people. I think as a resident I am okay with us continuing to pay for subsidies for people who aren't going because we've chosen to make this a benefit for our entire city. This is a benefit that we are saying residents of North Kansas City get and we're not going to question you as to whether or not you're using it. We're not going to scrutinize if you're getting off your butt and going to the Y. We are saying we want you to. We're going to pay for it. Please go. And I So I for that I like I definitely don't

want them to have to pay full price. Surprise or not, I think I'm I'm at the point where I don't even want to touch it. I just want to keep giving the benefit to the people who sign up so that it's available to them. I appreciate the uh the focus on purpose. That's a it's a very rational way to think about it and I do see this as a public health benefit. I do think when we put an initiative out that has a purpose um for public health that it is incumbent on us to check if that's accomplishing that purpose. And in my view if if they're not if somebody's not utilizing the facility that would benefit the public health.

But how do we measure that? Right? Like if 20 it's only 27% and that's of $12,000. So, we're talking maybe $3,000 a month that we're putting out there for people who may or may not decide to go to the YMCA this month. In the grand scheme of things, and believe me, I do not like this argument, but I think it makes sense. In the grand scheme of things, that is not that much money. If

yes, so I think I it really it does again come down to the purpose of what this is. And if the purpose is we want our residents to feel like they have a space where they can go and be healthy and and at at their own pace, then we are accomplishing that with it the way that it is structured right now.

And I I would you ask how do you measure it? This to me is how we would measure if if it's being used is if you're going we set a set a minimum number three times a quarter. Um again hold my ideas loosely open to oh and the internet thing. I I I appreciate that comparison. The difference with this is each user adds an incremental cost. So with with internet, we provide the service. There's not an incremental cost each time somebody signs up. But I I take the point. Council member Click.

Um I am with you on the purpose 100% and I think this is a great and wonderful program. I guess I just don't see it as losing a benefit. If the day that they want to go back, they're free to go back and sign back up. Um, I agree. I don't think that people should all of a sudden have to pay for it. People are going to forget that they signed the agreement and that'll come as a big surprise. So, I'm we're totally on the same page there. Um, I guess I just don't see it as losing an agreement. Sure, it is a sort of small amount of money, but I also think it's our responsibility to make decisions with fiscal responsibility in mind. Um, so just because people can still go in and sign right back up the day that they're ready to go, I I I think I lean towards um stopping the um membership.

Uh further, Council Member Larson,

I have a question. and how we came to the decision that our target is three usages within a rolling three-month period because um some people who use the Y, myself included, are seasonal users where in the winter time when the kids want to go play at a pool, hey, there's an indoor pool. Um but in the summertime we may be at Macken instead of at the YMCA. So I in my opinion, I'd prefer it be a rolling 12 months. And I don't know if a cumulative 12 usages is what we want or if we could go down to six usages. Um I just think there are some people who would fall off just because they've had an injury, they're sick. Um and I I worry that that three-month period's a little restrictive.

So, uh to your question on how we got there, we workshop a number of different options and how we would do it. It came down to once a month average across a quarter. And the reason for that frequency is to pull the report so you're not letting it get a year out because this is all because so it catches people who moved out of town within the year who just don't think to call the Y and be like, "Hey, I moved and we're still paying theirs and they are still paying theirs." Um, and so that that was kind of how we arrived at that number. And to to the seasonal point, absolutely. I'm I'm kind of the same way. I take my kids to the pool when it's really crummy outside. Um, but going back to we're also saving the person from paying while they're not going. So they're you're still paying half that rate. You're still paying 50%. Family members of $47 a month. You can again come back in the next day. You decide to go and have that membership set up. Might take you five 10 minutes at the desk. I don't think they require a facility tour anymore. That sort of thing. Um Council Member Alvarez.

Yeah. I have a quick question. Is it how much are we paying or I guess spending? Is it 3,000 a month if they don't go or We are paying $12,000 for the full program every month. Okay. 27. Let me just get the number real quick. That's 32 roughly $3,240 every month that we're paying for people that don't use the facility.

Yeah. And I think as as council people, we are we want to be good stewards of the money that we spend. And that's just wasted money. I'm sorry, but it goes for nothing. And I think as uh to protect our money, the money that we spend, I want to be good stewards of it. I think it's a waste of money to pay if they're not going. I don't think it's that incumbent to resign up. So, I I think if you go and maybe three months go by and you haven't been and you want to start going again, I don't think it's that difficult. I think it's pretty easy, especially um if you have been there before. or I think it'd be easy to bring up your information. I think many years ago I went and I remember I didn't go for a while and I redid my membership and they already had some of my information there. I think it takes less than five minutes. So I to me I I think it's you know I get it. I think it's a great service that we provide but I I don't want to waste the money. So if people aren't using it

and I I don't know fully how the functioning of the YMCA's membership system works. I mean, I don't know if they have the option to pause a membership indefinitely or if they have to cancel it and write it off the books entirely, but the ability to stop the payment flow and then if somebody comes back in, turn it back on. Uh, I don't know if that's possible, but I would I would favor that if if it's option. Um, and then if not, the cancellation. Go ahead.

So, a couple of things. one if we can't if YMCA we're asking the YMCA to do things at processes that we aren't familiar with what they are capable of doing. So if they come to us and they say the only thing we can do is what they have presented um I I don't like it. I would rather that not happen. Um, when I was a member of the YMCA, uh, we would go over to the Plat County YMCA frequently and we wouldn't come back to this one. We would go to that one all the time. We would get kicked off the rules if because we aren't going to this one. So, that's another consideration. People who use different YMCA's, they could be going every day to the Plat County or downtown and if they're not checking in at this one, they're not going to show up on the role. Uh the other thing is what happens when a kid shows up to play basketball and their family membership has been cancelled because nobody, you know, nobody had been. Now we've got somebody who can't sign up again. The last time I signed up for the YMCA, uh it took 20 minutes and three different people to try to find, you know, a way to do it. I mean, it was it was not an easy process. So, just keep in mind that there are a lot of kind of pitfalls in this. Um, either I think we need to think about it. Either we we want to offer this to our community or we think it's too expensive because too many people aren't using the benefit. I don't think the YMCA is going to work with us in such a way that all of our requirements are going to be met. I I just don't I don't see that as being feasible for their practices. If it is, great. If we can really come up with something, that'd be fantastic. But at this point, I don't want people's memberships to just be raised. And I don't want them canceled out from underneath them with no notice.

So, I'm hearing unonyimity of of the like not raising their rate like we're not doubling their rate overnight. That seems to be uh across the board. um whether we land on the rest and the the other piece is like we're we would be directing the city administrator to have these discussions to to drive towards something um whether that's fully possible bring it back to us again. See another hand council member Bailey.

So quick math. This is just a shade under $40,000 a year. I would agree with um Councilwoman Alvarez for 40 grand. The the request to go to the front desk and spend five minutes of paperwork seems worthwhile for our city. Um especially since that's all coming out of our pockets. Uh we have a lot of expenses. Everybody's talking about this. Infrastructure costs are real. Um I'd like to see those expenses used that way if it's not being used. So that's my opinion.

Council member Wells. Okay, I think I got it. Um, yeah. So, you know, first of all, I things Lindsay said, you know, really, uh, speak to me as a librarian. You know, uh, the the public service and and doing something that, uh, spending money on things that that directly benefit people and you may not ever see act exactly see the return on investment, uh, right before your eyes. Um but at the same time I think uh you know I I do appreciate you know checking unnecessary expenses where we can. Um so you know to that end I'm wonder and and I don't think that the YMCA is going to you know slash their membership roles you know just because I mean they I'm assume that they would want their membership numbers to stay up. So this kind of contradicts what what their ultimate goals are. But I'm wondering, you know, we're looking for levers here on, you know, how we can control, we don't have the specifics decided yet for how we can sort of exert a little bit of control on um the the the people who the residents who are receiving the subsidy. And I'm wondering if there's a way that this could be brought in um to say the same system that we charge people their public utilities with with whereas we would collect the money and then we would pay the YMCA a lump sum uh every month or whatever it is and that would at least give us the the tools I think to be able to decide what they are. you know, like is it is there going to be a time period or or you know, does the membership increase or whatever. And we we would also have the ability to communicate more directly with people and say, "Hey, you know, you're you haven't been you haven't been in this amount of time. It's maybe uh you know, do you want to keep this up?" And you know, I know I've been going long, but um in the library world, to go back to libraries again, we do we have this thing called u uh values-based service. And what that

means is that we have our policies and we abide by them, but it gives us the wiggle room to make exceptions where there are cases where exceptions need to be made. So if someone is, say, you know, they've, you know, they're experiencing a long hospital stay, they've gone out of town unexpectedly, whatever it may be, that gives, you know, as long as they sort of like send us an email or call us up or whatever, stop by city hall, then we can say, okay, okay, you know, we can make an exception in this case and and move forward. But anyway, just some food for thought. I know that's a lot for the city staff people over here to get their heads around, but yeah, that's it.

Uh that's uh the first time I've heard that sort of proposal where the payments could feasibly come to us to be remitted to the YMCA and kind of be that go-between. I don't know what that looks like as an administrative burden um because we collect other sorts of payments. Yeah, I I don't know if we could workshop that. Um but that I think we're still driving at the same ideas just how do we implement the system if the YMCA is unable to do it. With all due respect I I would say at that point um we would um say it would cost us more than the 3200. Okay. Than the 38,000 implementing it and then and then the staffing and all that. Yep. I mean just so at that point I would just

Yeah. There's always a cost to something whether it's hidden or obvious. Council member Alvarez.

Yeah. Yeah. And just one thought on that. Um I like you know thinking of different options but I think that would create a problem. I think um in our finances or finance manager I think they had a problem with the auditing if uh we were accepting payments uh one person was accepting payments for different departments. They had to be kept separate. Um, and I don't know if that's correct, but I think that would be an issue trying to keep all the payments separate from a different uh for a different organization. Um, it might seem extreme, but I would rather not fund it at all than keep um or have a subsidiary for the uh members rather than lose money every month. They think that's a lot of money and I still don't think it's it's that encumbersome to resign up. If someone's in the hospital for a while and they don't use it, when they get out, they feel like going again, just go in and sign up. I don't think it's that that incumbent to do.

Council member Saber.

Uh yeah, in terms of the city outlay, I don't see that as a problem. It's a public service and one that's I hope would be expanded upon and more people would use it. But then again, they're paying this their half of the membership as well. And people sign up for all kinds of uh uh memberships and services and that they forget about, especially if they give you a 90-day free trial and then you forgot that you even did it in a year comes by and you're stuck with this bill. This would be every a way of reminding them at that point that it is being cut off and you don't have to pay your half of it either now. And if you want to you can okay maybe it takes more than five minutes but if you're interested you'll spend the 20 minutes because you're going to be there for an hour an hour and a half anyway. You can then sign up again. To me that seems pretty straightforward. I'd really like to explore with the Y if they're able to just pause memberships so that if a kid does come in and they can look in the records, oh this membership was paused for this reason, they could then reach out to the parents. I I agree with Lindsay or sorry, Council Member Mcgrron uh that I don't want to see a kid turned away because they mom hasn't come in three months. Um, but I I do agree with everyone else that uh signing if it's possible to just unpause the membership and it won't take 20 minutes because unfortunately I had a similar experience to council member Mcgrron where it took like 30 minutes to get set up for the first time. But um so if if we can cut through some of that red traape and just reactivate memberships if they fall off the roles, I'm in support of trying to recoup that $3,000 a month.

Okay. If I can summarize, um I I'm hearing a majority leaning toward pausing slashcancelling decide figuring out what's possible there and bringing that back to us for a final decision. I do remember a conversation long ago, goodness, it seems like a long time, um where we asked if they could pause and I don't think they said they could. I don't remember exactly. Um but I know we asked the question uh at some point. So, let's ask again and then let's find out if they that can be streamlined when they come sign back up like keep the keep the information in the system. Um, if a if a kid comes and signs up, remembering they're on a family membership and the kid shows up three times in a quarter. That also counts. This is cumulative visits for the whole membership. So, uh I think that's uh for the next conversation. Did I sum that up fairly well?

Okay. Uh got your marching or any questions? No. Thank you. All right. Uh, moving on to item 28. Approving accounts due and payable by the city through April 17, 2026. Bill number 7980, ordinance number 9777. Do we have a motion? First reading. Second. All in favor? Yes. Yes. Any opposed? Motion passes. An ordinance authorizing payment for certain accounts due to payable by the city through April 17th, 2026. I move that bill number 7980 be placed on second and final reading and pass as ordinance number 9777. Call the role.

Council member Click. Yes. Council member Saper. Yes. Council member Bailey. Yes. Council member Mcgrron. Yes. Council member Kaine. Yes. Council member Alvarez. Yes. Council member Wells. Yes. Council member Larson. Yes. an ordinance authorizing payment for certain accounts due payable by the city through April 17, 2026. All right, staff comments. All right. Um going to point out we do have the department reports tonight. Uh Kim will have a comment. Vic has a a great comment for everybody. I am going to uh also point out the administrator approval report for River Forest Park. It's a deduct. Oh, it's not very much, but it's it's in the right direction. Well done.

So, that's in there as well. Um, so with that, uh, Kim,

good evening, mayor and council, I just have a few things. Uh, the first one is we are working on the FIFA street festival, the watch party permits. We're really hoping to get that on the next city council meeting for your consideration. And if not, it would be the meeting after. We have several that are we're trying to kind of come together. They kind of make visual sense if you can see all of them at once. Uh the second one is the citizens academy kicked off last week. We're having our second session this week. Um so we'll probably be having a graduation in the next few weeks. And then one more thing is we are trying to get kind of an understanding of when Riverforest Park will be completed and when we can schedule a ribbon cutting. So we're hoping to have some clarity on those timelines in the coming weeks.

Excellent. All right. Good evening. I just wanted to share we took possession of the Max 169 today. So training has begun and so hopeers. Yes, for those who don't speak park nerd. Um I saw it in the parking lot. I got very excited. So excellent. It is here. Nice. Nice. Everything working so far?

Okay. Good. Good. What else do we have? All right. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm batting lead off tonight. Um, other than the normal stuff that is included on our report every month, I just wanted to highlight um, some of the stuff that that we did to help keep the community safe during Snake Saturday and those related events. And then one of our outstanding dispatchers, Doris Dodd, received the uh, very first annual props award from the prosecutor's office for a civilian exemplar exemplary civilian employee. Uh, she was nominated by one of her peers uh, and received that award in the month of March. So that's all I have unless I there are questions on my report. Council member Grown,

I don't have a question about your report, but I have a question about like police and fire policy. So in the last several months, we've seen emergency vehicles going down Armor Road, usually in the evening, kind of at night. Um, lights and sirens clearly going somewhere, but speeding like bats out of hell through the intersections, not slowing down, not stopping, just full on 60 miles an hour. We saw four of them do that last night. We've seen it happen over and over. Is Is there any kind of policy that says that the emergency vehicles should slow down or stop or is that expected behavior? their their response to emergency calls is clearly lined out in our response to calls policy. Um, caution is a consideration. So, not I I will not comment on anything that is just being told to me without without any uh real concrete like, hey, this happened this time. Can we look at

At about 9:00 p.m., three police cars blew through Armor and Swift going about 50 to 55 miles an hour without slowing down. not knowing the traffic conditions, what else was going on, the nature of the call, I will not comment on any of that. Okay. Well, just clear policy that that that structures are driving and when we respond to emergency calls. Okay. Thank you. Speaking of fast driving, uh could you update us on the traffic study on 32nd Avenue?

So, yes, uh we we did a second one. Uh we did we've done two two two oneweek studies. Um the first one, the covert radar recorder was used. So it's not the the sign that you see where it's displaying your speed. It's a it's a little black box. Um mostly uh unnoticeable to the public. So we're trying to measure clear behavior there. Um it was studied the middle of March. Uh 17,500 some vehicles were were checked there. uh our variance was set at 7 miles an hour over the posted speed limit which is would be 32 in that particular uh stretch of road and the data showed us about 5% of the vehicles there were exceeding that 7 miles per hour over second check was done uh another week a little bit later in March a little over 10,000 vehicles were checked during that time frame same 5%. So, I know our officers have been up there. I'm hearing them during the daytime. I know they're addressing the stop signs and speeding violations. Um, so it doesn't appear that their presence has necessarily changed behavior, but um they they are up there and they are working on the concerns that were brought to city council.

Thank you for that and thank you for uh setting up some empiric data uh because that that is important. Um I think if I recall correctly, speed limits 25, average speed was 24 or 26 is right there in range. Yeah. Yeah. Somewhere the average speed was Yeah. The variance that the high was 49 I think we we looked at it and the low was seven. Seven. So someone might have clocked somebody on a bicycle. I don't know.

Um but yeah the the average speed and then we use that data to try not only to determine the number of violations but the time and the day. So when then when then we can take that data and then we can go and use our resources effectively and not just sit up there at 10 o'clock in the morning when there's two violations. We're going to sit up there at four o'clock in the afternoon when there's 20 violations. So that's what we're looking to do. Brilliant. Uh data driven policing. Love it. Um and it does help kind of the urban legend of 60 70 80 miles an hour down 32nd. It shows there you go. Empirically it's it shows like 49 is the fastest now. That's that's moving on 32nd Avenue, but it's not 60 plus miles an hour. So thank you for for running that check.

Yeah. And and to be clear and transparent, theme of the night. Yeah. um that is where the the box was set up is really only going to measure from how to cherry. So we can set it up in a different spot and try to get that more swift to cherry or swift to how. But that that was where it was set up this time. Again, we were trying to take into account the uh the speed the stop sign violations as well as the speed at the same time. Excellent. And that covers the folks who have come and spoken at the council meeting. I know where their houses are. That's that covers that stretch. So well done. You can move it down the street and see what happens, too. We'll see. All right. Uh, who's next? Oh, yeah. Go ahead.

Uh, thank you, Chief Freeman, by the way, for that update. I just had a quick question. Um, so 25 mph posted speed limit, correct? A 7 mph variance, right? So, 5% of of um travelers are going over 32 miles an hour. Is that the correct That's correct. interpretation. Okay. What would you say is like typical in a study like that for like a residential street if you had to guess like say what that percentage would be like if we did another another stretch of roadway? Sure. Is that what you're asking? Just Yeah. In your experience with those kinds of things. I'm just trying to get a sense of like if is 5% exceedingly high, is it low? Um typical.

Um if if we could go around the horn, I will pull the data and I maybe hit it. get one more chance at the mic in just a minute. I I'll get that for you. I'll look for some other times that we've actually looked at residential streets. I know we've looked at the 800 block of East 21st before. Okay. And and a couple at 1400 block and and some of those. So, I'll look at the data real quick. I'll pull it while we're working around the table here. Hey, I appreciate that. Thank you. Very good. Uh any other questions for Chief Freeman? This has been fun. All right. Uh who's next? Zachary.

Oh, now. Yep. Uh, good evening, mayor and council. My name is Zach Stone King. I'm filling in for Chief Williams. He is out of town in Indianapolis at a convention. Um, I can answer anything you guys want about the report. Um, so if you have any questions for me, let me know.

Any questions on the fire department report? All seems pretty standard stuff. All right. Um, good evening. So, uh, finance division is in kind of a period of transition right now. We've moved on from audit and now we're starting prep on the, uh, fiscal year 2027 budget, which you'll be hearing more about that in the upcoming weeks and months. Um, and then also just wanted to highlight that we are recruiting for an accountant. Um, that opened up yesterday. So, if you know anyone that would be interested in that position, um, please look forward to. It's kind of a bittersweet. Um, our staff accountant, Brad, is retiring. Um, and we are looking to find another person to help fill that role.

Yeah. Excellent. And Brad, if you're listening, that's big shoes to fill. If you're not, good for you. All right. Who's next?

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Dwayne Muzar's filling in for Anthony Sans, who's traveling the world. I don't really know where he's at. Um but but uh I've been instructed to read my report um verbatim. Um no. Oh no. Somebody put me up to that. Um but anyway, if there's any questions uh that I could answer, um I will I will throw one thing out there u real uh that's kind of ties into the last question. We're getting ready to put a new stop signs right at 32nd Street uh in Howell. So we have those on order. Um, I think you guys know about that project. Anyway, that's moving along. We're just waiting on our um, uh, thermal plastic to get here and soon as that comes in, we're going to start that project. So,

yes, safer. Microphone. Yes. Yes. You bet. Yep. What was that question? Microphone. Aha, the microphone. Yeah. Yeah. Got used to this. Come on now. Yeah, you're new here. Yeah. Uh yeah, they have stop signs with flashing lights around them to get people's further attention. And they seem to at least get their attention whether they observe them or not. Y have we nailed down the placement of where the sign's going to sit. Exactly.

Yeah, we we got with engineering and there they made a slight change um on just the one stop sign that's going to be located on Howell. Yep. Um we we just moved it for a sighteline issue. Um but we h we have just about everything. So as soon as we get everything, we'll we'll actually get that started. Very good. Uh I know that the residents in that that corner of the neighborhood will be very pleased. This has been something they've asked for for a while now. So thanks for getting on that. All right.

Well, I have two items for you all tonight. Since everybody's talking about 32nd Avenue, I'm gonna throw something out there, too. uh for our comprehensive safety action plan. You all being part of it. We're at this stage for the final draft. We have already submitted to the Federal Highway Administration for their blessing. They have a checklist we have to go through and make sure it meets all the requirements they're looking for for the grants. If you remember, we had an 8020% shell share with the Federal Highway Administration. So once when we get that uh information back, we'll make the final adoption process and we'll bring likely a resolution in front of you because remember this is the um vision zero. We have a target that we're trying to hit down the road. Um besides all of that, I want to let you know that the notification of a funding opportunity, the NOFO uh for fiscal year 2026 is open for safe streets for all. The reason we were doing this plan is that we can apply for implementation or demonstration money. So now we're at the point um with the they actually just released it a few weeks ago and the due date will be the end of May. I believe it's like May 26. So, I want to see if the city council is interested to see a list of maybe recommended projects that's uh from the current plan. Um would like to discuss if the city wanted to pursue any of those demonstration or implementation funding for this particular funding cycle. At this point, I would not know if the fiscal year 2027 will have money. Um, I'm not trying to rush us into a particular f funding cycle, but would like to get your it's not to tell me yes, this is something we

want to do or no, let's wait for next year. So, do we want to submit for free money? Is that what we're asking? There is never a free money. 80%. Yes. Yeah. Uh I I think so. Yeah. But that's generally what I'm asking. Are we interested in some free money? Okay. Do do would you be able to bring a like a list of the things that Okay, that'd be great. If you guys are interested, um me and our public works director and our city administrator, we're working on a list for you all uh to do the homework. Awesome. Bring it back on May 5th. Yep. Sinko, that'll be great.

Okay. Um thank you. And then I see master plan on here as well. Um there's a video out. It took me like 400 takes to get it right. So please watch that video and sign up for the uh steering committee. Um thank you for your service when you do that. And then uh if you if you listen to all the staff comments and council member engagement, if you show up and ask us about a street, we're going to talk about that street. 32nd Avenue had two or three people show up over the last month or so and ask us to take a look at it. And now every staff member just about except for Zach has talked about 32nd Avenue. We'll get him next time. Um, so bring your stuff here. We actually do listen and take action on that kind of stuff. All right. Anything else for staff? Oh, yeah. We got roundabout. So, just pulling a few reports here for council member Kaine. We studied the 1400 block east 23rd in September of 2023. That speed variance was also 7 miles an hour over and there was 14% violations there. 800 block of East 23rd was studied in 22 5% was determined to be enforcable. Um 1,00 block of East 22nd was studied and also in 2023 and 6% and then armor and or no 500 block east 28 1.7%.

So those are just a few of the reports that I I was able to pull quickly. Thanks Chief Freeman. I appreciate it. Yep. Could we do a followup on 1400 of East 23rd? My goodness. Coming out of the apartments like a rocket ship. Yeah. I've seen people moving fast. I did not realize 17%. 14. 14%. Yeah, it's 17. We'll call it that. Um it's still I mean still average speed there was 23 with a high of 42. So just a lot of people going 42 maybe. Is all right. Any further questions for staff? Any further staff comments? I was just going to add on you had mentioned the the master plan and Chu had mentioned it as of uh meeting we were in yesterday there were 20 on the steering committee.

Nice. So well we put we're hoping for a hundred um 50 would be great but we put a call out uh you know hey uh businesses we also reached out to the business council. We need some representation uh that that represents the whole city. Yeah. Um, so just saying it again here, there's on the on community development's web page, there's information on it. Um, there's QR codes in multiple places and and if anyone has questions listening. Yeah. Um, reach out to comdev or any of us. Do you know where the current mix of the 20? Is it mostly residents at this point? Mostly. Mostly George, I'd Well, I could say 21 actually. Yep.

21. Yeah. Let him answer. He's in. Don't worry. Um there I I am aware of one business. Okay. As of yesterday that Okay. that had but but maybe more now. Rich, I know you're listening. Put it in bold in the newsletter uh in in the thing you send out after the meetings because we need businesses signing up. We hear a lot of things that we we need to improve, but this is the chance to have a seat at the table. Let's go. All right. And uh welcome uh to the new council members and congratulations to the um incumbents coming back. I won't say old. Um and and to all of you, thank you.

Yeah. Uh okay, council member comments starting with council member Click.

Um echo that. Congratulations. This was a big night for a lot of people accomplishing a lot of things. Um, so yeah, congratulations to everybody. Um, I hate going first. I always forget what I'm going to say. Um, thanks to everyone who came out. Ellen, it was great hearing from you. The positive comments are always um, fun and exciting. Um, and wanted to also thank Bess specifically, too. she um has really just put her heart into the seat committee and is probably one of the main reasons that it um continues and is successful and is um having successful Earth Day events and I was really excited to hear um the brand new neighbors were coming out. That's awesome. Um and a huge success for the SEAK committee. That's uh the point. Um so that is great. Um I think that's it. Yep.

Very good. Council member Saber, uh, again repeating which will be repeated by others, I'm sure. Welcome to all the new people on the council. Glad to have you, including you, who've been here before by a few weeks,

old hat. And the second is SEAK has the opportunity to become kind of an umbrella embracing virtually all of the community enrichment activity committees, ad hoc committees that have sprung up. It becomes sort of a natural home for them and I look forward to seak sort of in embracing that and becoming the sort of the uh overall the locust of all the in committees that are springing up. Some will finish their work and go away, but new ones will spring up and that fits in with community enrichment quite nicely.

Council member Bailey like to welcome the new representatives from W 4. Both of you, thank you so much for joining us. We very much look forward to your uh insights and opinions and um setting us straight. we need it. Other than that, I'd like to thank Ellen uh for her at least hopefully short uh time in W 2 before she leaves us for W four. Um and then Miss Reynolds, thank you for coming out and providing insight. We really do appreciate it. Council member Mcgrron.

Uh I'm just going to say thank you to everyone who came and give public comments. They are really important and help shape our discussions and our decision-making. So, I encourage anyone who has an opinion to please come and share it. Uh, and speaking of opinions, uh, you've heard us talk about Northtown 20 240 for a little bit. It's the update to our master plan. Uh, for anyone in our community who wants to get involved in shaping the future of our town, and I know some of you have opinions because some of you are here tonight. Uh, please reach out to your council person or to city staff uh, to get on the Northtown 2040 steering committee. It is your chance to shape the vision and the future of the town. So there you go. And finally, uh actually not finally, thank you to uh Council Member Sinus for her service to North Kansas City. Uh it's not easy to do this and I appreciate anybody who makes the decision to step up. Uh especially uh our new council members uh Larsson and Wells. I am very excited to work with both of you and everyone else here on the council. It's a um new I don't know what is it spring spring and now there's new people and we'll make probably good decisions. We'll see. And then uh also thank you to the council for trusting me with mayor prom and the planning commission liaison. I really appreciate it and I promise I will do my utmost best.

Council Kane.

Uh yes, thank you. Um I want to thank everyone who came out for public comments tonight. Uh, Ellen, Lisa, Bess, uh, Melinda, thank you all. I appreciate it. Um, I also want to thank Council Member Selenus for her service to North Kansas City. Uh, I know u she and I our overlap was relatively short, but I always appreciated that time and I want to thank her for her service. Uh, I also want to uh, congratulate both uh, council members Larson and Wells uh, for their election and appointment. Uh, I've had the chance to work with both of them and I think uh, they are both going to be great stewards for Ward 4. They're both tremendous advocates in their own respects and I think it's uh going to be nice to have them on council to collaborate with. So, I'm I'm looking forward to that. Um I also want to thank uh Grace Hancock and Rachel Keller for meeting with Council Member Larson and I uh to talk about street safety for residents at Aura Apartments. Um Diamond Parkway is bookended by Armor 210 and 16th Avenue on either side. Um and I think the consequence of that is sometimes there's a a bit of a feeling of being stranded. Uh if in terms of walkability, bikeability, um those segments, both Armor 210 and 16th Avenue were identified as priority ones uh for the draft uh safe um streets plan. Um so we had a chance to talk about that and that was a good time. Um, finally, I want to make a quick note um that I hope will be a potential discussion item for a future council meeting. Um, and it's kind of comes out of our our discussions today, but it's also just a space that's been underutilized in this community. Um, so Caboose Park, uh, people talk about Caboose Park a lot. Um, I think about Caboose Park a lot. I look outside my window. Um but um if we're thinking of ways to uh invest in our community, especially south of Armor, uh as private investment continues, maybe we should

think about public investment, especially in a space, um like Caboose Park. Um I want to read one Google review of Caboose Park that I think would be very fitting and I think a lot of residents would agree with. Um why is this a park? It's not a park. It's a locked caboose next to a parking lot next to an apartment complex. So, I think that captures a lot of people's attitudes about what it is and what it isn't. Um, Caboose Park, it is a nod to important railroad history. Uh, and it does maintain vital green space for our community, which I appreciate, which I know a lot of residents do appreciate. Um, however, much of this city-owned property is dormant and relatively uninviting. Um, again, with that new private investment, maybe now is the perfect time to think about public investment or at least to open up that discussion. Uh, I've had the chance to talk about the space, a lot of residents, uh, including Council Member Wells over the past few months, uh, and had the chance to learn about the space's rich history as well, uh, its history of the, uh, the electric interurban railway and and the street cars that used to, uh, run through this city. Um, and you know, so there's a there's a lot of historical uh importance to that space. Um, whether it's groundbreaking for River Forest Park, uh, which enriches a neighborhood, which provides a a neighborhood public space, uh, or the public Wi-Fi project for Spanish 8. Um, North Kansas City is really, uh, an inclusive environment, you know, uh, including more people uh, in the assets that make our city great. Um, so, uh, I hope that, uh, council members, uh, are also in agreement to maybe include that as a discussion item in the near future.

Council member Alvarez.

Yes, I think many people already said it, but I just want to continue uh, thank um, Ivonne Selenus for her time and she did serve on the board. Um, she did a good job and we'll miss her, but congratulations to our new council member, Wells and Larson. um look forward to working with you and appreciate all your input. Um also want to congratulate the people that um got their 250 challenge uh coin. So I think there were seven people. So congratulations to them. Um I do want to uh comment on best Bailey. I thought she did an excellent job of updating us um for the seat committee and what they're doing and the things that they did this last Saturday. Um would like to mention um I know Chief Freeman mentioned uh an employee Doris Dodd that one of the dispatchers she got an award. Um I know that last uh Friday a lot of people got to go home early employees because of the storm. Um school let out early for employee for people kids got to go home early but I think sometimes we forget you know our officers are seen a lot. They don't they don't get to go home but neither do our dispatchers that you know are behind the scenes. So, I would just like to say a shout out to all those dispatchers that, you know, when the storm came through, they have families at home, but they were still here working. And and that would include um just real quick, Buffy, Mike, Adam, Doris, Dodd, Danielle, Mike Parks, Ann, Jenny, Chelsea, Mia, Sebastian, and Lydia. We appreciate everything that you do. So, and um I think that's it.

Council member Wells. Uh yeah, just uh happy to be here and want to congratulate everyone um incoming or incumbent and uh Cynthia here and also as well to uh thank council member Selinus for her service to the city. Um and just everyone who came out tonight and and spoke during public comments or otherwise and uh all the city staff and everything. Public service is a tough a tough racket, I know, and uh it takes a lot of work and dedication. So, you know, thank you. Thank you for that. Um, and on that note, I wanted to share a couple of North Kansas City experiences I've had recently. I um, my wife and I visited the animal shelter recently, and uh, the staff down there was great. Um, the animal control officer was really patient with us as we hemmed and hawed and everything before uh, coming home with two new dogs, which I don't know why why I did that in the same calendar week as as accepting a city council appointment, but here I am. And that's uh that's where my wife is tonight and making sure that they are not uh absolutely running a muck in the house. So uh um but yeah, great great folks down there. Um you know, anything you can do out there to to help them out um in donations of any kind of pet supplies or anything like that would be um much very much welcomed, I suspect. So um and then also, you know, I really uh had a great time at the North Kansas City High School Centennial celebration on Saturday. Um, you know, I love the the school's uh kind of blending of old and new. Um, I always find it really inspiring when I'm in that place. Um, kind of speaks to me and and how I I like to act as, you know, sort of a history person. Um, got a great tour of the school by uh Bob Hayyatt, I think, uh, who was a longtime uh, uh, teacher and vice principal there. And it's just always a pleasure to see natural teachers in action and and connecting

with young people and and um I I kind of got that that old and new thing with him. He's was clearly very nostalgic about the days of the past, but also very interested in what's currently going on at the school and and with an eye toward the future. So, I'm going to try to uh take that lesson and be a little more like Bob Hayyatt uh going forward. But um um and and just seeing him, he was training a new group of ambassadors while I was there. what he called them were uh they were North Kansas City High School students who were he's showing them the ropes so that you know years down the line when they do the 150th or whatever they'll have uh Bob Hyatts of their own to to show people around the school. So um but yeah, thanks to everyone and yeah, happy to be here.

Council member Lson,

I'm going to sound like a broken record so I apologize to everybody but I have notes. Um I want to thank everybody who came out to give public comment. Uh everybody's welcome. It's not a scary process. Your voice matters. Please come. And you know, if you've got something to share, please share. Um, my neighbors who have stopped me to share their thoughts, I appreciate it. I'm taking notes, but if you come and speak at the podium, your voice will be heard even louder. Um, Ellen, Miss Reynolds, uh, Best Bailey, Mindy, thank you guys so much for coming. Um, speaking of the SEAK event that Beth spoke about, um, I love seeing everybody out picking up garbage. Uh, I know it's not our jobs to pick up trash, but if you see trash, just pick it up. You I couldn't believe the all the garbage that I saw out there. Um, and the SEAK is always in need of more members. So, if you're interested in getting more involved, um, please, our website makes it so easy to fill out. Um, for boards and commissions, um, we we just want to see everybody more engaged. Um, as Dylan, as council member Kaine mentioned, we had a great meeting with Aura. Um, and we'd like to replicate that with more apartment buildings just so that all the renters and residents feel more included. Their opinions matter to us. Um, and so if you have an apartment complex and you don't mind me stopping in and maybe crashing a pool party here and there, uh, reach out. Would love to connect with all of the residents. Um, congratulations to everybody who received their 250 challenge coins today. Um, and also congratulations to Brett and Nicole or thank you so much for stepping up to be um to have positions on the parks board, Nicole, and then the the police or the firefighters board. I should have had that better uh for Brett. Police and fire personnel board. Uh again, like if you have interest in serving on a board, please reach out um to Mayor Smith. We

want to get you involved. Um, congratulations to Council Member Wells. I'm so glad to be serving next to you. I know that we will collaborate well. Um, I look forward to our time together. Congratulations to Victoria for your new delivery of the Max 169 screen. I can't wait to see it. When do we have our first movie? What can it be? Uh, might I suggest The Mummy from 1997? But, uh, we can talk about that offline. And um last but not least, uh I would just like to take time to thank um Council Member Selenus for her time on the serving on city council. Um again, it takes a lot of effort and time to to be up here and it was a a big sacrifice. Um but I think she did great and I really appreciate her time.

Good. Uh we're going to jump back to staff comments real quick. Mike's got one more thing. One that we missed this Saturday is the shredded event at the overflow lot at the at the Y 9:00 a.m. So, we just wanted to and the native plant on Sunday at Mackin party. Shred native plants at Macken. Got it. Perfect. Saturday and Sunday. Rewind the tape. Listen to what Mike said. All right.

All right. That brings it around to me. Um I'm not going to repeat everything. So, thank you for serving. Um, I I will have been mayor for uh one year tomorrow and uh after officially being sworn in. So, look for a survey on feedback uh come out to to the community at large. I want to hear how you feel things are going, what you'd like to see different. There'll be a whole battery of questions, separate uh survey going to go out to council and staff um to find out, you know, behind the scenes, how do you feel like things are going? Uh I got to meet with the Park Loft residents. Uh Dylan set that up and we got to have a good conversation. And if there are any other, as you mentioned, any other apartment complexes, I'm going to the Oxbow next week. I believe a couple council members going to join me from the ward. Anyone in your ward um apartment complex or other uh rental areas, let me know. I'd love to get to to meet with these folks. Also, uh 23rd and Swift may have the first block party coming out of an apartment. Uh my friend Noah has already put in a request with management. I've already got a a line into them as well to get that set up. That would be very exciting to have the first under that. Also, it's block party season. If you've been outside recently, you know, it is incredible outside. We should be having block parties right now before it gets blistering hot in the next 45 minutes or so, it seems. So, go ahead and get those block party apps in quickly. I think we had 13 this past year. Looking to at least double that this year. Let's go. Um, and one thing that might have been missed on the agenda that was snuck in on item number 20 was the city clerk proclamation. So, Crystal, thank you so much for the work you do. If you haven't looked it, open the attachment. The font is ridiculous. Uh, so thank you for making that very flashy. That's all from me. Item 32,

consideration of a request to hold in recess into an executive session as requested by the city administrator to be held on this date pursuant to Missouri revised statute section 610.0211 litigation matter and section 610.0212 real estate matters. Litigation real estate real estate real estate real estate. Do we have a motion? So move second. Call the role. Council member Click, yes. Council member Saber, yes. Council member Bailey, yes. Council member Mcgrron, yes. Council member Kaine, yes. Council member Alvarez, yes. Council member Wells, yes. Council member Larson,

yes. Excellent. And just so everyone knows, those new to the council, we used to have to read this like five separate times for every like each executive session. So, if it sounds goofy to hear the word real estate four times in a row, we used to have to do it for like half an hour. Um, all right, that is all at this time. Uh, the live stream and channel 2 will cut off. There will be no further votes or business this evening. Thank you all for tuning in.