City Council - Regular Meeting

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roll. Truan here. Garza here. Goss here. Bass here. Mers here. Pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Uh we have Victor Halfmoon here tonight to uh give us the prayer from Legacy Bible Church. Let's pray. Father, we come before your throne of grace and lift these procedures and decisions to you. Lord, we ask you to pour out your wisdom and abundance upon the council members as they discuss the needs of our community. May their words be spoken with respect, seasoned with grace. Lord, you alone know all things and you know perfectly the needs of everyone who is here. Meet their spiritual, emotional, physical, and financial needs in accordance with the measure of your grace. Encourage each person, Lord, and show them in a tangible way that you're a present help at all times. And be the God of all comfort for each one. We ask these things in the name of our risen savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. Thank you. Next item, Mary. Item number four, petitions for monstrances and oral communications from the audience. Um, this is the part of the agenda where we have oral comm communications from the audience. Uh, please limit your remarks to five minutes. and to items not on the agenda. Um audience members may address the items on the agenda when the items discussed by city council.

Council just wanted to introduce you to Cody Smith. He is our assistant city attorney. Started just yesterday. As of August 1, he will be the city attorney. Uh so wanted to introduce you to him. is a Hutch native, a Hutch High graduate, has 13 years of private practice experience, and throughout that time has been a city attorney for other cities. So, please welcome him. My name is Chris Link. I live at 3506 North Lraine. Good evening. I want to thank you city council members uh for the time and effort you uh you take to govern our city uh and its affairs. I also want to thank uh the king of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ, for this city and the country we live in. I'm also thankful for this past weekend. The world celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And I was encouraged. It seemed that more businesses were closed for this joyous season. Christ is risen and has ascended to the right hand of the father and is king of the world. Because of this truth, uh Christ has the right and all authority over all things. Matthew 28:18. Christ gives the duties and limits on all governments. This includes family government, church government and civil government. To the family, he gives the responsibility for education, health, welfare and business. To church government, he gives the training in righteousness and admin administering the sacraments. To the civil government, he gives the duty to protect the people and to punish

evil. And he has given all these duties and limits in his holy word. He has a given standard. He has a standard uh for rulers to govern by. Fathers, pastors, and council members are subject to his rule. When one of these governments goes beyond its god god-given responsibilities, tyranny and oppression ensues. This is why the Bible says in Proverbs 29:4, "By justice a king builds up the land, but he who taxes heavily tears it down." We live in a time when civil government has taken on responsibilities it not ha not to have taken on and the people grown under its oppression. Some examples include managing recreational activities like golf courses, zoos, and parks, purchasing and restoring buildings, picking winners and losers through star bonds and the education system. All in the city are taxed for services that are the duty of the family. Most of the people don't use these services because if they did, a family or business would have provided it. This is unrighteous and burdensome to the people. But there is good news. Jesus died for these sins as well. The Bible says to repent and believe and turn away from our sins. It is time for us to repent and cry out to Christ for deliverance. You've talked about doing something different than what we have done in the past. Uh a new sales tax is not going to save us. Christ is the only one who can save us. Psalm 27 says, "Some trust in chariots and some trust in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God." Freedom is found in Jesus Christ alone. May we repent and submit ourselves to

him and his word and bring peace and prosperity to this city. Thank you and God bless you. Thank you. Good evening. Jackson Allen, 49 Rainer Road. It has been just over a month since the first time I stood before you to propose a study on consolidating the Hutch Rec Commission. Since then, I've learned a lot, not just about our city or the rec commission, but about the friction that occurs when a citizen asks a difficult question. I want to start by addressing a rumor that has reached several of you. The allegation that I was planted here by someone else. This is not only untrue, but it's very insulting to me. The suggestion that I couldn't possibly understand this data or or find the information like the 1994 study on my own is a clear attempt to use my age to dismiss my ideas. There's no man behind the curtain. I found the 1994 study by doing the work, sharing my idea with other community members, following leads, and speaking with former city manager Joe Palosio to understand the context. I'm here because I can think critically. I care about Hutchinson, and I'm not a puppet. I saw an issue, brought it to your attention, gave you the reasons I thought you should look into it, and then asked you to correct me if I was wrong. I never claimed to be an expert on the topic, and I'm fairly certain that it's never been required to be an expert to bring an issue or an idea to the attention of your elected officials. Secondly, I'd like to inform you of my recent attendance at the Hutchrec board meeting. After speaking at the council meeting, I was invited to attend the Hutchre board meeting on March 18th. I was invited under the idea that the board was going to provide more information on the topic and answer my questions. I could not have expected how this meeting was going to play out. I knew that they would likely be frustrated with the fact that I brought this topic up. However, very quickly, I realized that this discussion was not about answering my questions. It was an interrogation to hopefully uncover the

man behind the curtain that doesn't exist. Mostly out of shock, I actually had to pause at one point and state that I was having a very difficult time answering any of their questions because of how aggressive they were being. At the end of this portion of the meeting, an incident occurred that left me feeling like I had I had lost a war I didn't even realize I was fighting. I decided to document that incident and email it to the mayor and vice mayor to make sure it did not go unknown. I've since forwarded that on to the rest of the council and I'd like to read part of it here. This is where I start the quote. After the initial discussion, Director Tony Finley invited me to remain for the next two agenda items which included a review of the February expenditure report. During the review of the expenditures, Mr. Finley specifically highlighted the commission's account with my employer. He noted that he had been notified of upcoming price increases on a certain product and stated that they would be shopping out to other vendors. When I stated for the record that I was aware Mr. Finley knew of my position as operations manager at the company. He acknowledged he was aware of my employment there, though perhaps not my specific title. He then looked at me and commented to the effect of, "I wanted you to see these are things we have to take into consideration. We have to be fiscally responsible." I found the timing and the nature of these comments to be highly inappropriate. Using an expenditure report to pivot toward my employer felt like a pointed attempt to exert pressure. Whether intended as a soft threat regarding our business relationship or not, it felt like an unprofessional response to a citizen engaging in the civic process. That's the end of that quote. And while I know that Mr. Finley can easily deny that this wasn't his intention, everyone who just heard me knows exactly what he was doing by bringing it up at that time. Keep this up and you lose our business. I know from speaking with dozens of people in the community over the last month that this was not a one-time anomaly. I know many people have either found it extremely difficult to negotiate with Hutchre, been wronged by Hutrech, or been intimidated to the point of silence. I can't force any of these people to speak up, but I do hope by my speaking today, it sets the precedent that it's okay to share it publicly. I am of the opinion that no public publicly funded entity or public official gets to be exempt from

scrutiny. The last item I'd like to address is an email that I sent to Mr. Finley following the Hutchre board meeting. I was asked during that time what documents I requested from the city before speaking at the council meeting. Blindsided by an ad adversarial environment, I made a poor decision to overstate that I had requested all the historical information regarding consolidation of the rec commission. I emailed Mr. Finley that evening and informed him that that statement was untrue and I'd only requested the 1994 study because those were the documents I was aware of. I apologized for being dishonest about it and I said I should have requested more. I knew how I knew that he would likely take this opportunity to discredit me and speaking with multiple other people in the community, it sounds like he did just that. Um, and it seems as though Mr. Finley would like to be able to say, "Look, he can't even be honest about what he requested from the city. Why should you listen to anything else he has to say?" Yet, I corrected my statement less than 3 hours after I spoke. And I did that because I value the truth. And my overstating what I requested doesn't mean that everything I brought to your attention should be disregarded. Finally, I'm still firmly of the opinion that consolidation could have a massive positive outcome for Hutchinson. Most citizens I talked to think looking into this is a no-brainer. I'm shocked that key individuals with loud voices are working very hard to prevent a study. I seriously don't understand what they're so afraid of. I want to end by encouraging each of you to not back down from the pressure and remember what you ran for. Did you run to keep things the same or did you run to make progress? It would have been easy for me to stay home tonight and I would much rather be with my wife and kids this evening than speaking here. But after the intimidation and the puppet narratives I've heard over the last month, I realized somebody has to be willing to keep standing up. And I'm ready to support the difficult decisions and work that it would take to make real progress.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Allen. I have a question. You said that you emailed that to all of council. What email address did you use and when was that sent? Um, I sent it from jincade1@gmail.com and I forwarded that just before the meeting just cuz I wanted to make sure you would have a copy of it. I don't have any email from you. Okay, I will make sure that I I'll just I'll double check that right after I sit down. The email that he's referencing. It might have gotten blocked because I know when I sent it to Greg, he Scott had to for my junk mail and I was able to find it. So, it's it I only spoke one portion of that email, just the incident, the actual incident, just so it wouldn't take so long. But, Right. Well, I mean, that's why I'd like to read the email myself, but

then that's why I forwarded on to you so you could see the rest of it. Okay. Can you reforward it please? Yes, I can do that. Thank you.

Anyone else?

That wasn't that wasn't sent to everybody then. Um, Jesse Jim 67502. Um, so I'm u I see where Memorial Hall is on the agenda today later. Um, and that's cool that we're rolling along uh with that renovation of the hall and moving forward. Um, so in that light though, this is a different subject about the hall. um when um when we don't have the answer to an issue or a problem with something or I mean I think I'm counting this off a science scientist practically they um they don't just invent an answer they start looking for an answer I mean in other words if you don't know the answer now it's uh not it's it's how you go about finding that answer when you would have an answer to something. Um, I want to propose that uh we have all these committees and can you hand we have a these committees, these boards, these commissions. Uh we have an airport advisory committee, a board of zoning appeals, a building trade boards, city council, housing commission, human relations commission, land bank board of trustees, a landmarks commission, a public art council, design council, and a tree board. I'd like to propose that we uh put together a memorial hall advisory committee uh composed of people from the public. Uh the list that I gave you is uh just a short list, but actually there's 25 people on the list at this point. Those are actual people that I

was just able to contact before the meeting. Uh there's a former city uh well there's former city council members, there's a former city manager and actually composed of people like um people that are like uh promoters that are here in town. Uh and they they have full-time jobs, but you know, you see that I kind of listed it by um uh people that have promoted maybe some uh shows before. uh people to deal with concessions in town, people to deal with the theaters in town, people to deal with the dance studios in town, people that have put sports events in Memorial Hall, uh people that have businesses downtown. But you can see that we have uh a lot of people that we could use. And that's just my list. And I'm sure we have a lot other people that um you know have an idea of what we want to see going forward uh with Memorial Hall. So, um make a long story short, I guess that's my proposal. I uh don't know where we go from here, but I uh just wanted to get the ball rolling and get the thing out there that we uh start a public advisory board. Any any questions?

I'm concerned this list is so long that nothing will get done. We may need to like half it.

You're welcome. No, I mean that that uh the list isn't pe what that list is is that it's people that approve. I mean that that support. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't mean all that people want to be on the council or or or committee. the the uh the good thing about putting that advisory committee together just like any of these other boards and committees that we have is that it's open to the public. So, you don't have to be on, you know, just like I'm doing now. I don't have to be a council member to come up and come up with some idea what that we want to do with the city. And the same thing with Memorial Hall. You don't have to be on this uh uh committee. It's an open public meeting that we can have regularly and anybody can come to that meeting. But I think it's a good way to move forward with having actual input from the public about how we're going to move forward with the hall. And I think maybe even through that, you know, you know, at some point, oh well, maybe I'll address that later if I can make it back for the uh architect. Then I will. Uh but anyway, that's what I wanted to do was just uh throw that out there and get that ball started so we could look at that.

Jesse, I have a question for you. Do you think that this would this committee if it came to fruition would report to council or be an ad hoc committee like under the DHRP the downtown Hutchinson revitalization partnership because looking at this there's a lot of overlap between the DHRP um people who have historically sat with on that um group um and and the people who would be concerned with Memorial I'd like to be in on that discussion sometime and uh and and you know maybe others but I I think that's the thing too when we get to the point of if we want to do this which I hope we do um I hope we can still have a discussion what this is how we're going to form it uh you know what's the most usefulness of it uh I guess or or yeah how it's going to be put together um that's a good question Um because I think maybe um you know if you look at ad hoc I I was reminded by some of the council uh former council members about how we had a committee put together when we renovated the sports arena and there was this uh group called Hutch wins back then if anybody can remember 10 years ago and uh so we had a public uh committee that helped kind of advise what we're the way we were going and just to get the public interested in renovating the room at the sports arena. Uh so um and maybe this committee, you know, I understand the RFP for the management of Memorial Hall, uh wasn't addressed at this time and uh so maybe in light of that, this can kind of like be in its place for the public to have help with that. But and maybe until we do hire a management company or person for the room and then maybe we that would be when we uh dissolve this committee or not. We'll just see how it goes. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Jesse. Thank you. Well, Jesse, I got one question for you, buddy. Only problem I got with this. Whatever we want somebody else is just in more, oh, wants to be on this committee. I think that in my opinion, we should say how many people was 10 or 12. You got 20 some people here. I don't know. But we should limit it to how many we want and then we should ask out for anybody else who wants to be on the committee. Um and give the So there's other people that would like to have a say in the mortal home. Yes. Um um Councilman Garza, this isn't the this isn't the f this isn't like the list that I'm giving you for people to u this is the people that support the ideal.

So yeah. So then uh uh um one of the former council members uh thought that when they got that Hutch winds committee together, it was like the commissioners came up with people that they wanted to, you know, obviously yes, the word's out there now. We want to put a committee together so the public's if we have the uh where you fill out the application, you know, to be on the board kind of thing, one of those kind of things too. Yeah. So anybody can join. Well, see, when we're sitting in these seats and we do well, I think it's a great idea to have a board, don't get me wrong, but if we don't offer to everybody else and make a way how we're going to pick it, our phones will ring off the hook. What are you doing making a list without putting it out there so everybody who wants to be on it could be on it?

That's what we get and you understand. So, okay. So, um I don't know how we're going to do it yet. I agree with we should have a committee. There's no problem with that. Let's give it a a sit here and work it out that everybody would have a chance to be on it. Now, I don't know how we'd pick them. I don't know that. That's just my idea. I'm trying to cut my phone calls down. Trust me, I get a lot of calls. So, that's just my idea. Yeah. Okay. It's open for anybody to to Well, and then in the end, the public's invited anyway. So, whether you're on the board or not, it's still an open meeting. Gotcha. All righty. Thanks.

Thank you. Uh, good evening. Justin Combmes, director of parks and facilities. I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but just wanted to fill in a gap there. In the um proposal that we'll look at later this evening for architectural design, we do have community engagement baked into that. So, I think we can answer some of these questions about a steering committee and advisory board uh with our architect when we get going with that project. So I don't have a solution for you but we are con do already have that taken into consideration doing some some additional community engagement than what we did originally. So thanks Justin.

Anyone else? Next item number five. Thank you members of the council. I had hoped to uh not speak publicly and just observe. Oh, Jason Phillips, 628 West 17th. Thank you, Hutchinson.

Um, I want to address a couple of points from the previous speaker about Hutchre. I've been involved in a number of conversations this week and at the end of those conversations it was my feeling and my belief that despite some of the friction that is well known among this group, I don't think it's widely known in the community, but we're about to apparently make it widely known. So, let's just talk about it. I'm here because I' I've had those conversations because I believe in the work that Hutchre is doing. I also believe in the work that this council is doing. you, I feel, took a very courageous step in asking this community to support the work you're trying to do and you asked them to support that with your tax dollars and that was successful. And I don't really find much value in an additional study. We tend to study things and then study them again. We studied this last in 2011 94. The 2011 study indicated that the city will not save money. In fact, there's a beautiful line in that study. It says assuming that the city is operating efficiently, it would be impossible to absorb the duties of Hutchre without hiring additional staff. So, I'd encourage you to go back and look at that study. I fear Well, hang on. When we talk about moving this community forward and doing the hard work, dropping bombs in a meeting is not the answer. doing the real hard work which you guys do every every council meeting is what you do. The hard work is trying to work through the difficulties and the disagreements and the personalities and moving this forward. I fear that if we continue down this line of attack from one institution to another, we are jeopardizing the well-being and the future of this community years down the road. We may have a problem in front of

us right now and it's a problem we can solve if we're willing to solve it and willing to work together. If we continue some of this fighting that's going on, we're going to jeopardize the well-being of this community in the future. People trusted this council to do to give them additional tax resources to do the work. And for the first time I can see in a long time, people in this community have some faith in the leadership of this community. Don't trade that in for an immediate victory. Thank you.

All right. Anyone else? Good evening. Uh Sam Conklin, 3808 Cherry Hills Drive. Um I'm the vice chair of the Hutchre and I just wanted to speak to once again Jackson Allen's uh comments and the first thing I'll say is you know Hutchre has been operating dutifully in this in this city for over 75 years and you know in the last I've only been on the board for a few years um and I can honestly say that we've never been questioned financially. we've never been, our integrity has never been questioned. Um, and so this is tough for me to sit there and, you know, talk about. Um, we've had multiple meetings with the city and I think we're we're at a point with the city where I think we can move forward. I think the city and Hutchre are happy to move forward together and work on agreements and figure out everything, but I think characterizing that the Hutch wreck could be just absorbed. It would be a massive mis miscarriage of justice. I think that you'd be absorbing quite a few programs that the city does not want to operate and would not be more efficient from operating. And I know that because we took over the uh ball fields a while ago. And when we took those over, that was a several hundred,000 subsidy that the city was eating every single year. And we brought that down. And Greg, I believe you were on our board and we we've we've talked about that before where we brought those subsidies down to almost nothing. Now, if you look at the numbers, those subsidies are growing, but that's also because we're not turfing those ball

fields. But that's also a money problem that's between the city and that's something different. But it it is worth note that we do operate well and we do not operate inefficiently. And for how much money we get, we are about as efficient as a program as you will see. If you take away these programs or absorb to and trust that the YMCA, which does not run half the same programming that the Wreck has, we have the senior center. We have um all obviously all the festivals. So uh you know if the city is in trouble those programs go away. We have a number of enrichment programs that the YMCA does not run. So I think just if you really think about it and really dig into what the wreck actually does versus other programming you'll see that we are not the same and our some services overlap we do not overlap constantly. So the inefficiencies you guys are talking about uh you know taking over would not be a wise use of city facilities. Now I think I can also speak to the meeting cuz I was at the meeting with Jackson and I do want to address that we were more frustrated um because when he asked for an open records request and keep in mind I've never done I'm 35. I've never done an open records request, so maybe I'm just a little bit new at this. He got the he got the study that was from 1994 when a study was done from 2011. And I think that's the question that we were asking is why weren't you given the study from n why weren't you given the study that pro that said that we should be independent versus you were given the study that says that you should be absorbed. That's where the the consternation kind of came in. It was more frustration of how we got the incorrect records or maybe not incorrect

more so most recent. Um so that that's what I would like to say on that.

Any questions? No. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? All right, Mary. Oh.

Uh, good evening, council. Evan Patterson, uh, 105 Road Runner Lane. Um, I'm also your city engineer, but I'm not here in that capacity right now. Um, I just wanted to come up and, uh, talk a little bit about how important I feel that Hutchre is. Um, as a young man growing up in Hutchinson, I participated in Hutrech uh, events. I even worked for Hutrech later on and had some fundamental experiences. And then my children and my wife and I engage in Hutrech uh, events to this day. So, I consider it an integral part of the community and I'm not interested in reducing its footprint. Um, uh, Jackson, I appreciate a young man like yourself asking these big questions because, um, I think that represents some of the ideas that, uh, city manager Enrico Viegas has brought to the city where we're questioning some of those things that we've done before. And I'm glad to know we have studied this in the past. I think that's great because it's 2011 isn't actually that long ago in the evolution of cities. So, um, that's actually a fairly recent study. Um, and it's good, but sometimes the new generations aren't aware of what we've studied before, and it's good to consider what are the assumptions that went into those studies. Um, and I think it's great to have this discussion in an open forum because then we can all learn and consider whether this is truly the the establishment that we want for the two organizations. City manager of Vegas has explained to me his rationale for merging them. It makes sense, but I also don't work in the Hutchre organization, so I'm not aware of all the nuances of what they perform, but I think it's a good question to ask and I'm glad we're having it here. Um, I think the city would support any of those efforts. Um, I think our my co-workers at the city are capable and we could handle it, but I also understand maybe they are served best as two separate organisms. But I did want to stress that I really do appreciate it, Jackson. I want to encourage you to ask questions like this

in the future. That's it. Thanks, Evan. There was someone else, too. Yeah,

good afternoon everyone. Uh Christian Smith, um 3200 Garden Grove Parkway. Uh I just wanted to address the topic uh that seems to be the main topic of tonight, the uh hatrek. I was also at that meeting uh that Jackson Allen was at and I just wanted to attest the sort of culture that um seemed to be uh front and center uh during that meeting. They uh we knew that well he knew that uh we were going to go into hot water potter but uh that's sort of an understatement. Um it was more like boiling lava um based on the director um how he had treated Jackson and how he had treated myself who I did not uh ask any questions about the uh study. I only ask questions about um in what ways, you know, I had asked about uh maybe cutting down the soccer program that they have um and maybe seeing if uh private organizations or what I should have said was churches um with their uh ability to get out to their youth um would be able to pick up the slack on those soccer programs. Uh and I had felt from uh the director and the co-director that uh they had thought that was an absolute idiot. Um uh basing myself on even asking that question. Um uh Mr. Conklin, he was one of the he was a good man uh in that meeting. I will say um he was very reserved. um did not uh throw any harsh allegations, but I will attest to Jackson's um descriptions of how that meeting seemed to turn out uh as a third party member in that. Um so yeah,

thank you. Hi, Marilyn Fisk, 1815 North Monroe. One more about Hutch wreck. Um, I'm the current board chair for the Hutch wreck. Um, I do want to address at that meeting that I as the board chair did apologize a couple of times to Jackson and Christian because it did get a little heated in there. Um, and that's not the, you know, attitude that we want to give off. I think we do need to remember that our director and co-director are members of this community and this is their livelihood and so they're going to get a little worked up about it and I just do want to comment on that. I also want to say that we're not afraid of a study. I think that's an accusation that I don't appreciate. We're not afraid of a study but I would love to hear what you think the benefit would be. How could merging the Hutch wreck into the city actually save money before we spend 30 or $40,000 of taxpayers money to figure that out with a study? Do you have any idea what efficiencies could we cut down on? So that's what I would want to know. Um but I do just want to say that again I do apologize for the harshness of that meeting, but we do have to remember that these are real people with their real jobs and families that live in this community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, Karen Neil 109 Hide Park. Um, I first started working for Hutchinson down at Elmdale, uh, Hutchre down at Elmdale in 1997. Um, worked there for a few years and then, um, went on to the board and I was on the board for, I don't know, a long time, 12 12 to 14 years, I can't remember. But um I I would hate to see Hutchre go away. I would hate to see um everything that has been put into that organization and everything that they provide to the community um gone. Um I'm sure the city would do a great job running it. The problem is programs will get cut. And I know this because Justin's budget gets cut all the time. other budgets get cut all the time because we have to. Um, and the more we cut those budgets, then the citizens are the ones that lose out. The residents will not have programs, they won't have festivals. Our elderly who have lunches and everything down at Elmdale, that might get cut. I just we don't know. Um, and so I would hate to see that happen. Um, I won't speak to the meeting or anything else. Um, the one thing that I will speak to is I feel like this is becoming a personal issue between people and Tony and I hate that. Um, I think that if people sat down and had a larger conversation with him, they would find that there is he has the best interest at heart and he only wants what's best for the community. Um, I was actually on the board when we hired him. It was an absolute no-brainer with all the candidates that we had and the work that he's done along with everybody else at Hutchre is just

remarkable. If you take a look at where we started when he joined and where we are now, um, not that it matters to anybody, but it matters to me. So, I'm going to tell you Hutrech is is known statewide for the programs that they run and what they um all the different things that they start new. Um they're known on a national level and I just hate to see all the work that they that they do disappear for this community because it'll be our residents that that that will miss out. So, I urge you to really um take take into consideration what what is being placed on the table before you. Um and also being on the board, I'll speak to what Sam said. I I've we've never had anyone question um inefficiencies or anything that any wrongdoings um ever in my time on the board when I work there or on the board. So, um I don't I don't think there are inefficiencies. I don't think that um we we they run a tight ship. I won't say we cuz I don't I'm not on the board anymore, but they run a tight ship and they they are very good stewards of taxpayer money. So, um

I guess that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone? Hi Katie Link 3506 North the Rain and I know you guys heard lots of stuff. Um may I ask a question clar to clarify Hutch wreck I'm assuming is covered by tax dollars and it's part of the government um one of the programs correct? Yes. Okay. So not they are not our budget. We do not control their budget. But it not you specifically but the government in general. Um they are not actually a government. They're not they're not they don't make money by our tax dollars are privately owned. that doesn't those two things are separate. Okay. How they are not a governmental. Okay. But they are funded by taxes. So that is true.

Back to what my um my lovely husband said earlier in his um gospel message. Um I have a kind of a common sense um approach to this. I don't know a lot of the stuff going on, but just as an outsider listening to all of this, when tax money is used or the government gets into business that and lanes that it shouldn't be in, we end up with tyranny and oppression. And as we can see, there's a lot of grumbling and a lot of problems going on. So, just as a an idea, privatize the HUD. Yes, it'll take hard work. I've heard someone come up here and say that we want to do the hard work, so why not privatize it? I've heard churches take over. Yes, these programs if the government doesn't offer them and they are desired, let the people do it. Trust your people more. And if there are programs that get cut, it might be because nobody actually uses them. Maybe it's not actually desired by all the people. Maybe it isn't something that we want to continue. If we want to let our money speak for it or let the churches, the families, the nonprofits come together and do it. programs for the elderly. Those things are wonderful and if they matter to the people and we want to be a stronger community, we need to let the community do the work. So that's it. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

I just can't help the invitation. Well, I thought that and you know I pretty quiet most of the time. Um, hey Duke, just give me your uh name and address.

My name is Duke Deval. I live at 251 Canterbury Drive, Hutchinson, Kansas, 67502. My phone No. Uh anyways, um there's a there's a line um po poor men want to just survive. Rich men want to be kings and kings they want to control everything. So we really need to be careful there. It's a fine line. Hutch wreck. I'm on the board. That's a disclaimer. I'm on the board. We do the best job we can with what we have. We're in budget. We We make a lot of children happy in this town. If you can see the kids out there playing on the weekends, kids are happy around this town. And um I also I go to church and everything, but I'm a firm believer in separation of church and state. And uh so I don't want to get that argument going. Uh but uh we had you know I coached church church league softball here in town for years and uh that's gone by the wayside. I don't know what happened to that, but it's just gone. And it's too bad that a lot of programs, we've seen a lot of programs come and go. And if anything, we need to be building, not tearing down. And um I do agree with the audience that uh our board, our city council is comprised of some very good me members. And uh I'm proud to say I know them all. And uh but for you know just to get over just get

out of this sit situation I got myself into remember before we make any decisions please think about things carefully and um I made the comment today tonight and I made the comment before I've been on the Hutre board for two and a half years maybe seems like term turmoil and I just want it to end. So if there's personality problems, let's bury them and get it over with. I mean, we're all grown men here and women. I got that in. So anyways, but that's all I have to say. Thank you very much. And I was also at the meeting and I met with Jackson a afterwards and I had to find out some things myself. The rumor got started that Hutchre was cancelling all of their orders through janitorial supply when all it was was just the bags. And I was head custodian at Hutch High and we all know about trash bags. They are you use a lot and they are expensive. Uh anyways, but he is a nice young man and I hope he goes far and good luck. Thank you.

Anyone else going once? All right, Mary.

Before we do go to the next item, I have a question for our finance director, Angela Richard, about our budget. If you could come up. Um this is in the same vein. um is what we've been talking about for the majority of the evening already. Um the 2026 adopted budget item, and you don't have to speak uh perfectly to this because I put you on the spot, but 6.16 is the Hutchinson Recreation Commission. I would imagine that when we include their budget in our budget um as we're required to under state statute that you are essentially saying that they have audit the been audited as they're also required under state statute and you are signing off on their budget as giving it legitimacy. Is that correct? I'm not signing off that they're audited. They get their own audit and they're in charge of that. Um so we don't like oversee that. I do occasionally check to make sure that they have been audited, but um but I don't oversee that or monitor that. Um as far as the budget, they set their own mill levy and we just include it in ours. I make sure that it doesn't exceed what statute or ordinance, I can't remember which, um, says that it it's allowed to be, but other than that, I don't, um, control that in any way. But budget-wise, you've essentially by it being included in ours, and we have the distinguished budget presentation award, you're essentially saying that you've reviewed their budget. It meets all statutory requirements other than their mill levy. No. Here, I'd like to call court of order, please. We're not in a hearing on this, Miss Goss. We will do the hearing. Uh, mayor, would you count me right? We took this off the budget for deciding today what we're going to do. Am I right?

Correct. So, we shouldn't discuss anything about money until we call the hearing. If I'm right, you I think we decided to go ahead and have the hearing on this whether we're going to go with the study or not next council meeting. So, there should be no discussion. When did we decide that? Yeah. Well, uh I think the mayor pulled it off. I asked the mayor. He pulled it off the thing today. Am I right, mayor? No, it would get it got pulled off on Thursday. Okay. And um so it's uh going to be a future. There we go. So no discussion should be allowed until we go to the hearing or the so both sides can present their if we go. I'm not asking anybody to present decide. I'm asking Angela for a professional opinion about our budget. Well, no, we should discuss

and I'm entitled to five minutes as a resident of the city as well. No, then those discussions should be on it until we go and open the hearing to everybody. So that way everybody knows to come to the hearing and give their part. This was not an open hearing for this. All it was was the young man come up. He stated his thing why he did what he did which he did a good job. And we have the board of the wreck here which is great. But this is not a hearing for that. We're not deciding that today. I'm not asking anybody to decide anything. I'm going to ask Angela for opinion discussion is part of the hearing and no it's not. All right that's all right court order we are not have this is not a hearing for it so we should just stop it right here. Thank you.

Well you answered my question anyway but thank you Angela. All right Mary next item. Item number five consent agenda. Um, before we go down this, I would like to pull item N off the consent agenda and move it to the actual agenda. Um, maybe put it into like the item before the um, report to city officials. So, we'd move city officials to 10 and make it nine. You mean put it as 8 F? No, I'd put it Well, no, it go I just moved to I think it go to nine or 10. I'll probably have to write eight.

Just make it 8F. It would be new business as 8F. Yeah, 8F. Sorry. Or we could make it. Um I would also like to separate um 5J and 5K from the consent agenda. The consent agenda is 194 pages long. It's 80% of our packet. Um, these two things to me would be new business and they should be in section 8. Which items were those? J and K.

You want that where, Stacy? The uh, in new business. New business. In whatever order they come to. Mayor, if you're going to remove those from the consent agenda, you need a motion, a second, and a vote. Yeah. Is there anything else that needs to be moved from the agenda? So, I'm looking for a motion to remove those and move them to the new business section.

I motion to or I move to remove JK and N from the uh consent agenda and move them to eight new business. Second.

Okay, I guess we'll leave on the consent agenda. Is that how it works then? Any other questions on the consent agenda? Yeah, I guess I will talk about these points here. Um the 5J. Um so this is a brand new event that we've never held before. Is that correct? Yeah. It's National Horseshoe Pitchers Association. Okay. And so they're going to be serving liquor in Rice Park from 10:00 a.m. on Friday to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. They won't be serving it that long, but they're licensed.

That's the license is 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. those three consecutive days. Is that right? They have um they have caterers who will be providing that service. Okay. So, the packet didn't include like their full application. That's why I had questions. Um who's the caterer who's going to hold the liquor license for them? That doesn't show up in our application. Okay. I've indicated a couple of possibilities, but nothing is set in stone yet. Is that not required under um the special event and designated entertainment district? No. Ordinance.

Um it's not 18-83. It is a special entertainment district. They're not required to tell us who their caterer is providing the service. Okay.

It just allows the city establishes a district within which their event must occur and they have to police their own event to keep it within that that area. And that's basically to protect them as they have that event as as opposed to, you know, if somebody from ABC shows up, how are you authorized to do this? This is the authorization. And we do also require um a million dollars of event insurance insurance. Yes. Okay. All events. And that was included in their application. Yep.

Um is it possible that we can change the times of the um what times they're serving? I suppose we could. We're just setting up the district. That doesn't mean they'll be serving alcohol during all that time, right? But it gives them the opportunity to serve alcohol during that entire time. And that was in their application, correct? That's Yeah. Yeah. We made the hours the same as their event and it was sponsored by the chamber.

Yeah. I mean, it it allows drinking in Rice Park for pretty much the duration of the the weekend. Um, I don't like that. That's not something that we've um we approve of frequently. This is also a new event, which is why I didn't think it should be on the consent agenda. This isn't something that we've um ever seen before as a council. Anything else you'd like to discuss on those other items? Yeah, I was giving anybody else time to respond. Um, then on five K um, how do you is it VIG Industries?

Vig Industries. Okay. So, this contract is essentially just a renewal of the contract that was written in 2006. It's a three-year extension of the contract that was written in 2006. So, the contract that was written in 2006 included um a number of items that they um paid us for different things. Um they pay us 50,000 a year.

Um hold on. I got off of the I got off of my tab for that. Um, okay. So, do they plan to fund any special projects with this? Oh, it's page 149. Paul, can I answer that question? Okay. So, I'm Erin Patterson. I'm the project manager in the utilities department. Vague Industries in the three-year contract extension we've discussed with them is working with KDHE to modify the consent agreement that Big Industries has to reduce and or remove the requirements for their reclamation um based on their limits. So we we've tentatively discussed I say we've discussed and we feel 3 years of an extension is an appropriate amount of time to allow them to work through with KDH what the modifications are. Um it's worked for the last 20 years without any issues. we see no reason that three years extension without any additional projects or an increase in their costs uh we feel that that's reasonable. So, and I'm not saying it's not. My question is on page um 149 of the packet section 5. It says big industries will pay to the city a total sum of $875,000 to help fund the fourth and carry remediation project which shall be paid in three installments as follows and

then separates those out um on or before December 31, 2006. So in 2006 they agreed to pay us $875,000. Is that right? That's already been paid out. Right. So my question is simply that that was a five-year contract in '06. This is a three-year contract in 2026, but we don't have a new provision of them paying us out anything. Would it not be advantageous to negotiate something? They pay us 50,000 a year under the contract and have for years. Correct. Throughout the 20-year period. Okay. What section is that in this contract? It's in the original contract.

Okay. What section is that? Well, uh, you'll have to look it up. I don't have it in front of me. It's in the packet. That's right. Are you Aaron, aware of where that payment is listed?

I am not, but we're not mod the only thing we're trying to modify with this amendment is the duration because the contract expires this year. that was originally signed in 2006. And we would like to leave the situation status quo for the next three years as V Industries sorts out their reclamation with KDHE. And at this time, we have no need for new projects such as a new deep disposal well or a new pipeline. That would require additional funding from VIG in my opinion. And so where is that $50,000 going? Is that going to the general fund? Yes.

Um, and then my other question was, does any of their testing include the Sonokco wells since those would be new since No, they're totally separate from Sen the Sonokco water wells. Okay. So, we're not going to be testing the Sonoko wells at all. We've tested the Sonokco wells last year as part of our due diligence before we did the water rights purchase. And but we're not they're not being continuously tested the same as our other wells.

Correct. Okay. Oh, the other thing about Jay was um we have a requirement that these applications come in 60 days out, come to council 60 days in advance, right? Okay. And this is not 60 days in advance.

It's not far off. It's not till the end of May. I know that we've made exceptions to that before um to the tune of 3 days. we have and I brought up at the last time that we had an application come in that was um underneath that timeline that we should revisit that policy. Um it hasn't been taken up, but it seems like we're granting um exceptions to the rule rather than following the rule periodically. So, um, members, it was your idea to remove in Nancy. What?

So, you want to correct me on this if I'm wrong. Um, so on the library board, the mayor is automatically an exeicio member. I couldn't tell you about the library. So anyway, but in the bylaws of the Hutchre wreck, um it has to be nominated by council to put a ex official on the Hutch wreck board. Says the appointment is made at the discretion of the city council. So that's I wanted to pull that out because I think that is a vote or an appointment that needs to be done by the entire council, not just the mayor alone.

You didn't get a second on it to remove it from the consent agenda. So that's why I'm just stating the fact of why I was uh trying to remove it. So that's my comment on that item. Anybody else have comment on that item? I that this isn't a deviation of our typical um nominations though. Um all nominations whether to hutre etc. But when they say that they're approved by the board um are or approved by the mayor are made and approved by the mayor and the council.

So is this something I need to just completely pull off of it at the moment or do we just I mean I'm just asking you a question because I don't know the answer. It's it's up to the governing body and it's on the consent agenda. No one wants to remove it from the consent agenda along with all these other items. And so, and he did. It's the consent agenda and and unless they're going to have a motion to remove some of these items, it's time to vote on this, folks. We can talk about it. Well, if you're going to debate about it, then it probably shouldn't be on the consent agenda, but no one wants to remove it. That was my point. So then if that's the case, I guess um I'll make a motion to remove it. Can I get a second?

And just your motion is to remove. Yeah, I'll second that. JK and M. No, just N. So, I have a motion and a second. Yep. Mary. Did you motion? Yeah. Who second? I did. Truan. Yes. Goth. No. Garza. Yeah. Fast. Yes. Maggers. Yes. I guess we need a vote on the entire consent agenda now. Yes. Needs a motion. I just need a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda and authorize the mayor to sign. I'll second that. Truly, yes. Darza, yes. No. Fast. Yes. Mayers, yes.

Uh, next item. Item number six, public hearing. Public hearing to consider condemnation of unsafe and dangerous structures.

Good evening, council. Jason Lady, building official. Um, tonight I bring to you uh five residential structures that we uh saw at our regular meeting on February 3rd, 2026 where the city council approved and adopted resolutions 2026 RO3. So tonight um that was to set the hearing on that February 3rd meeting and so tonight is uh the hearing. So the recommendation from staff is that it is recommended that the city council consider adopting resolutions which are uh attached to this and establish orders uh for the repair or demolition of structures deemed unsafe and dangerous by the city building official at the following locations. Uh 419 East Avenue, F 1526 East 2nd Avenue, 224 East 3rd Avenue, 213 East 8th Avenue, and 526 West Avenue. Uh A. Each structure listed has been determined.

Hold on a second, Jason. Did we have a motion to open the public? No, I was good. We need to make a motion to open the public hearing. I thought that was after we listed the uh addresses. You want to do that now? Okay. I need to make a motion of the public. Was that a point of order or do we have points of order? Because I was told that we don't have points of order in our meetings that we don't follow. Okay. We don't use We need to open the public hearing if it's going to be No, I get that. I just wanted to clarify that we don't use point of order or Robert's rules of order in our meetings. Okay. I'd move to open a public hearing if that's okay. I'll second it. True. Yes. Garza, yes. Do Yeah. F. Yes. Yes,

thank you council. Um, so each of these structures that I uh before mentioned there were u listed and has been determined through inspection code enforcement process to present significant health, safety and structural hazards and remains in violation of applicable city codes. Uh formal adoption of these resolutions will authorize the city to move forward with further enforcement actions including demolition as necessary. Uh the building official has inspected and identified these properties below and determined that the structures on these properties are unsafe and dangerous as defined in chapter 21 article 7 on safe and dangerous buildings of the code and ordinances as adopted by the city of Hutchinson. The structures inspected at the below addresses contain structural hazards as defined in section 21 uh 701. The structures also present many hazards that affect the health, life, safety of individuals who occupy or go into the structures. And I say occupy just because we've had squatters in some of these. We've had to board them up and uh deal with constant boardups on some of these. Um, so each property has had previous unresolved property maintenance code violations that the owners were notified about. Uh, then I mentioned the um February 3rd meeting in the resolution to adopt and uh set this hearing here today. So, the structures in question have been subject to ongoing property maintenance issues, including but not limited to structural deterioration, roof and wall instability, open or unsecured access points, code violations related to health, safety, and hability. Inspections of these properties were conducted by building and neighborhood services department and all the documentation has been provided to the owners from the inspections and the code um violations as well as setting the

hearing and notifying the individuals of the hearing. Uh the analysis for this is that these buildings have been deteriorating for several years and are in severe disrepair. The building of official has determined that these structures are considered a substandard building and constitute unsafe and dangerous building pursuant to Hutchinson city code-2701. Uh so the resolutions are presented before you here tonight uh to the council by the building official giving a description and location of each of the structures and stating that such structure is unsafe and dangerous pursuant to Hutchinson City Code 21703. Uh staff recommend proceeding forward in the formal unsafe and dangerous building process including proper notification to the property owner and consideration of appropriate enforcement or abatement action as provided by the ordinance including demolition as necessary. For the financial considerations for these uh there's no really anticipated financial obligations. uh we already have it in the 2026 budget uh funds set forth uh for residential uh condemnation. So there is no anticipated additional funds that staff would be requesting for these. As far as strategic alignment goes, the condomination and removal of these deteriorated residential structures align with the city's comprehensive plan by supporting key goals related to community appearance, safety, and reinvestment. Uh, strategic objective four, invest in gateways to the community and neighborhoods south of 17th Street. This action also positions the department to better support the community priorities identified in the Reno County housing needs assessment specifically to advance the strategies outlined in chapter five strong neighborhoods. Chapter six, economic vitality by removing unsafe blighted structures that detract detract from surrounding property values and hinder

redevelopment opportunities. The action promotes a safer, more attractive environment and encourages reinvestment in priority areas consistent with the plan's vision for a resilient and vibrant Hutchinson. Again, the recommended action tonight is it is recommended that the city council consider adopting resolution as presented establishing orders for the repair or demolition of structures deemed unsafe and dangerous by the city building official. I do have a presentation that will go through just so we can take a look at some of these structures and discuss each one. Uh this is 419 East Avenue F. This is the first one. Uh the individual uh that has owned the property um is deceased. Um there's been uh I think she passed away in like 1960 or 1976, my apologies. um certified letters for enforcement and uh for a hearing have been returned obviously because there's no one to receive uh at the property. I have spoke with the son and and uh daughter sons in Kansas City and daughter in Colorado and their wishes are to remove the structure. Um I do want to note here though that they have no legal obligation or legal right uh to this property. It's it's not been through any court process. uh the condition of the property, the residence currently vacant. We have a PMC that was open in June 23 of 25. Uh we have two property maintenance violations since 2018. Uh nuisance sent for abatement. Uh we did a board up in June of 25. There is no active utilities at this structure um at the moment and the 2025 taxes are delinquent. These taxes taxes were getting paid. Uh the

utilities have been cut off. Uh the uh son was one of the sons was living next door. He was paying the taxes and maintaining the utilities although uh the building was still in in disrepair. You can't see it in these photos but there's been some trees that have fallen on the back of the house. So there's some uh pretty significant structural deterioration to this building as well. This 1526 East 2nd Avenue. Uh recent activity staff staff again has made several attempts to contact the owner with no response to date. Uh certified letters again for enforcement and this hearing have been returned. Uh the residence again is currently vacant. We have PMC case. Uh seven property maintenance violations since 2018. We had a board up in 2025 and May of 2025. And there are no active utilities here at this house since 2020. And again, the property taxes are delinquent since 2025. This house here, 224 East 3rd Avenue, um staff again has made several attempts with no response to date. Uh the owner did apply for a permit in u June 9th of 2021 and that has since expired. There was a little bit of window replacement. I think he replaced the front door. uh past that. He's had no contact with our office and there's been no no work done since then, but that permit did expire in February of 2022. The residence is currently vacantum. Again, we have a PMC case that was open in April 25. We have five property maintenance violations since 2018. Uh we did a board up in May of 2025. There are no active utilities at this structure since 2018 and taxes have been delinquent since 2023.

213 East 8th Avenue. Um again, staff has made attempts and uh to make contact with the owner with no response to date. Uh the residence again is currently vacant. Again, we have a PMC that was open in June of 2025. 26 property maintenance violations since 2018 on this property. We did a board up in March of 21 that was done with voluntary compliance at the time. Uh there are no active utilities on this building since 2020 and taxes have been delinquent since 2021. 526 West Avenue. Again, um this is our last one here. staff has made uh attempts to make contact with the owner with no response to date. Um we have not received any return letters, but we've had no contact with the with the owners. Resident is currently vacant. Uh there was fire damage to the interior of this structure. There was a PMC opened in May of 2025 with 14 property maintenance violations since 2018. We did a board up in July of 2025. We've completed multiple reboards uh due to boards being pulled off and squatters in the building and uh so we've had to clear that building on uh multiple occasions and uh do reboards. There are no active utilities on the structure since 2023 and the taxes um have been delinquent since 2022. And I do want to state again um just so it's on the record that we have made contact with all these as far as the PMC's are concerned. Uh we've mailed out the letters. Uh we've got some returned letters some whether they've been whatever's happened to them. We've had no contact with anyone on any of these properties. And then after the hearing on fe or after the setting of

the hearing on February 3rd, we sent out notices to each owner that we were setting this hearing for tonight. And I'll stand for any questions if you have any.

So my question is, and I I questioned this and I came to see you about that is like what's your process to because I mean these are people's properties. What's your process to getting this information out to the correct person who might own the property so that uh we're doing our due diligence? What's your steps? How many times do they you send out letters etc. So typically uh what happens is we get a report of a violation. Uh we go out we take a look at the property we write that up and we open what we call the property maintenance code violation. Uh so we set that property maintenance code violation for a certain number of days whatever is in the ordinance. Uh so and that's dependent on what the what the violation is. So then we go and if there's no response for the from the owner um then we'll have to go to the abatement process. So we send out another notice and that abatement process is 10 days but we send out a notice um we send that out to the same way we did before and then after we do the abatement notice we have some options on what to do with the property. Uh we can take these properties through the court process or we can take these properties to uh abatement. Uh typically we don't abate on property maintenance issues because it's usually structural. It's usually something to do with the house itself. It's hability. It's um whether it's a structural issue or whatever the case may be. So property maintenance issues don't typically go to the court, but they can. Um, so after we do that and we decide that they meet the uh, so we'll review each one of these and see if they meet the definition of what the code calls for for condemnation. If it meets that definition for condemnation, then we'll board it up. We'll put it on our condemnation list and proceed from there. Obviously, this is our first five when we're talking about our our

residential here in here in Hutch. So after that if we bring any forward to the council what we do is we go and um we have to do investigative work into the property um and make sure that who the property owners are what's the um you know what's the actual property details. So we have to get those details and make sure that we have the right property we have the right owners we have to do all that work. So after that, um, you know, we'll slap that on what we call the, uh, setting a hearing that we did on February 3rd and list all those out and then we'll send that to, uh, council. We'll set the hearing and then we take that hearing letter and we send it to the property owners. Again, there's also some other var and all these are done by certified mail. Well, uh, yeah, all these right now are done by certified mail. We're looking at changing some of that for cost for city. Uh but um all these right now are done by certified mail. So we know whether they've signed for them, whether they've been returned cuz we get a lot of letters back.

So you're you've exhausted trying to reach out to whoever might own this property to make sure we're doing what we need to.

So that that was the questions I had when I came to see you was like going what do we because you know sometimes you're like going do that is actually get to anybody or is there somebody that's not there reaching and so that's what that's why I wanted to be clear on that. And the one that you and I specifically talked about, we can pull up the records and see that the individual actually signed for it. Yes. So, yeah. And so, we watch for that, too. We pull up those records. We take a look at each one of those things and make sure that we're doing our due diligence and that we're giving these individuals due process because if we miss a step, and I've told my staff that if we miss a step in their due process, then we backtrack. I don't care if we take four buildings to the city council. If we miss something on one of these properties, we have to backtrack and make sure that individual gets their due process. So, I think that's I think that's key to the process and making sure all that happens. Okay, that's the question I had. Any other questions from council?

I will say that the um and this isn't a criticism of you and your staff at all. It's kind of a criticism of um the state statute which is that having somebody physically sign for receal um being served by sheriff etc. those are not provisions of um this notification. Um I do believe that we go above and beyond on all of these. Um and we've followed the process. This is the exact same process as the atrium. Um, and so you this is our you guys have a few under your belt at this point. Um, so I and I having known the history of these from the packets and I think the pictures that you showed tonight were kind um and did not show the the full damage, it's it's even hard to see the damage from um the pictures that we've seen um from the packet cuz you can't see the true water damage, etc. But um kudos to your staff for the work that I the undertaking that I know um these demolition projects are.

Well, thank you. More questions? Um any questions from the audience?

No. Um so Jason, do we need to set this? Is this public hearing for February 3rd already set then? Uh or is that something we need to set? No, tonight was the hearing. Oh, sorry. Tonight, tonight's the hearing. We set the um um Yeah, we set the hearing on February 3rd 14. I was thinking we were doing this tonight. So, okay.

No, this is the hearing on whether we want to proceed forward. And and just to clarify something, what we'll do um with this notice that we have now to talk about the process, uh what we'll do is we take this, we post it again, uh there's a 60-day process. We'll send each one of these again out to the uh property owners and notifying them that the council heard this. Um you did not express anything as as the owner. Uh so we have to move forward as a city from here. So they'll know. I mean they'll get notification that um what we're going to do and then at the end of the 60 days we'll discuss further. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Uh so I'm looking for a motion to close the public hearing. I'll make a motion to close the public hearing. Second. Twin. Yes. Garza. Yes. Goss. Yes. Bass. Yes. Makers. Yes. Item 7 A. to consider resolutions condemning unsafe and dangerous structures within the city of Hutchinson. 419 East Avenue A, 1526 East 2nd Avenue, 224 East 3rd Avenue, 213 East 8th Avenue, and 526 West Avenue.

Uh, any comments, questions? If not, looking for a motion. I'll move to approve resolutions condemning unsafe and dangerous structures within the city of Hutchson. 419 East Avenue A, 1526 East 2nd Avenue, 224 East 3rd Avenue, 213 East 8th Avenue, 526 West Avenue, and authorize the mayor to sign. I'll second that. Truan, yes. Garza, yes. Goss, yes. Bass, yes. Mayers,

yes. Item 7B considering an ordinance amending ordinance 2025-33 authorizing issuance of geo bonds to pay for certain improvements. Memorial Hall Road Angela Richard, director of finance. In December 2025, we passed ordinance 2025-33 authorizing issuance of geo bonds to pay for the memorial hall roof. At that time, um, with contractor estimates, we estimated that we would need to bond about $200,000 for the project. Um, it was due to storm damage and insurance did pay us a little over 107,000. After bidding, the results came in higher than we expected at 340,000. So we would need to increase the amount bonded from 200,000 to 260,000 to complete the project. So this is asking that we amend that ordinance and that the total project or authorization be increased from 936,000 to 1,92,000. Um staff recommends approving the ordinance as presented. Are there any questions?

I have a question. Um, will we save anything on our insurance once the new roof is installed? Not likely. Um, does this work also restore the overhang that was at the front entrance that was damaged in the same storm? Justin is naughtiness said yes. And is it being restored to how it looked previously? Is it being rebuilt in a different manner? Can you speak to that design? Uh Justin Combmes, director of parks and facilities. I think I misunderstood your question. You were the awning that was on the east side of the building.

Uh this will not replace that. We will address that um for its historic significance um in the design of the renovation. So this will just res replace the um the roof on the main structure. Okay. So, the letter in the ordinance states, quote, public improvements, assuming that that's the roof plus other things that go along with it. What are the other things that are going along with the roof project? Uh, there's nothing else going on with the roof. I'm not sure why it says other improvements.

Well, it's it's it's called quote public improvements. So, I was just looking for a definition of that. Well, and in the ordinance section one item D, it says at Memorial Hall, remove and replacement of existing roof together with all related apparatus. Um it when it references public improvements, it's it's everything that was included in that ordinance. Um, so there were other projects. There was zoo, the city zoo, nature play, the fairgrounds park, um, and sidewalk improvements. So public improvements is just kind of general term to include all those things. Okay. Because those are being bonded at the same time, but they're not necessarily a part of the um, Memorial Hall roofing project.

Correct. Okay.

Any other questions from council? Uh questions from the audience?

Uh I guess if not, I'm looking for a motion. I'll move to approve an ordinance amending ordinance 2025-33 authorizing issuance of go bonds to pay for certain improvements for moral hall roof and authorize the mayor to sign I'll second truin yes garza yes goss yes bass yes mers yes item 7 consider an ordinance to levy a 34% retailer sales tax.

Paul Brown, city attorney, you have before you a proposed ordinance to actually levy the tax. Uh this question was submitted to the voters on March 3, 2026 with uh 2334 yes votes and 2,178 no votes. In order to impose the tax, we must pass an ordinance levying the tax. And then upon passing that ordinance, it must be published. And then there must be a certified copy of the ordinance along with a certification of the votes cast sent to the Kansas Department of Revenue within 30 days of the passage of the ordinance. We would ask the council to approve the ordinance.

Uh, council, have any questions? I assume we already sent that to the attorney general or to the board that you just said. Kansas Department of Revenue. Not yet. You have to pass the ordinance. So, it's not 30 days from the passage of the vote. It's the 30 days from the approval of this ordinance. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. Um, and is it possible to repeal ordinance 49, the storm water fee at this point in time? Also,

I'll leave that up to the council and I don't know that there's been discussions about that. One of the considerations you want to make is there could be a a gap in revenue because this won't start till October 1 and we won't receive any funds until December of 2026. So it is it possible to repeal ordinance 49 um for a future date though? Yes. And you almost have to do that. It's as I recall it's part of a charter ordinance which won't take effect for 60 days. So, uh, you can, uh, kind of forecast that and, uh, pass the the ordinance accordingly.

So, if we passed the repeal of charter ordinance 49 at this meeting for an effective date of January 1, 2027, um, that would align with when we begin to take in funds from It wouldn't be at this meeting. Why can't it be at this meeting? Because you don't have proposals ordinance to do it. We don't have what? You don't have a proposed ordinance to do it to repeal it. Yeah. You have to have an ordinance and it's a charter ordinance and you'll need to have it drafted before you can pass it. Okay. I asked you how to do that like 6 months ago via email. Well, but we haven't made a decision as to when that needs to be done and it's not presented here today.

Okay. Didn't we promise the voters October 1st? No, that's when this takes that that's when that takes effect. Angela Richard, director of finance, that was going to be part of my presentation with the next resolution is discussion of when to repeal that. Um, I was going to propose October 1st, the same time that sales tax would go into effect. Thank you, Angel.

Thank you. And the reason for that, we have plenty of money in the reserves to kind of stomach not taking in any collections from October um until the sales tax kicks in. So, it's just really a few months. I had a question about um the Hold on. My my screen just refreshed. What page is this on in the packet? 220.

Thanks. So in the um ordinance it seems like before the CIP has all has always been fairly flexible um as far as it kind of es and flows and things are shifted around easily. Um so on I think it's page 224 um it's the signature page the um section 3 allocation flexibility and change limits. Um does this take away any of the flexibility that we have with the CIP?

Are you talking about the resolution? Yeah. In the resolution. Yeah. It's the second page of the resolution. Is that not a question I can ask, Paul? Well, that's really for the next item. Council member, yeah, like I I do have a presentation for this um and was going to discuss all of the resolution. So, I don't know if you want me to jump ahead or if we should approve the ordinance first.

Let's approve what we have at hand and then we can move if you have a presentation for all that. So, there's any more questions that maybe they'll get answered in the next one. Do you have anything on this specific one? Any more? I'm basing my questions off of what's in the packet. I understand. So, um any any questions or comments from the audience on this item? If not on this item, looking for a motion, I'll make a motion to approve an ordinance to levy a 34% 75% retailer sale tax and authorize the mayor to sign. I second. Truman, yes. Garza, yes. Goss, yes. Baz,

yes. Makers, yes. Item 7D, consider a resolution pertaining to the use and oversight of sales tax proceeds and expenditures.

Angela Richard, director of finance. Um before you is a resolution proposing how to use and um oversight of the sales tax proceeds and expenditures. Um again, I'm presenting the ballot question that was approved. Um, the purpose stated in the resolution, it just reinstates what was in the ballot question that we intend to use this for streets, parks, and recreation, and storm water improvements, and that the intent is to replace the storm water utility fee. Um, the sales tax would go into effect October 1st, 2026. I would propose expiring the storm water fee effective the same day. I would advise to expire the storm water fee at the uh beginning of a quarter because if you don't have water, we do bill storm water quarterly. Um so that would just make it easier on our billing department if we could do that. Um, we then wouldn't see sales tax collections until December of 2026, but as Enrio stated, we do have reserves in our storm water fund that could um sustain those two months that we don't collect any storm water fees. As a reminder of how we got to this decision, this is what the general fund structural balance would look like with the blue line being revenue and the green being expenditures without this sales tax or significant cuts to operations. Um, with the proposed sales tax, um, our lines start to even out, but as you notice, we're not going to create a significant revenue surplus by collecting this sales tax. So, it is um, warranted that we have some guidelines and some oversight and transparency built in with this

sales tax. So my proposal would be that we create a new fund specifically for this 75% sales tax. This will help with transparency. It would be a special revenue fund. We would then be able to collect um we would show the collections separately from our normal sales tax. So we would know what we are bringing in. This would help with future budgeting if the uh sales tax does not get renewed after 10 years. It would also help us track expenditures um for clear reporting and transparency. And again, this um establishes the intended use um that for storm water parks and streets. And since it is still a general sales tax, if any other uses were warranted or needed, they would need to be budgeted and approved by council. This fund would be part of the budget process. It would be part of our operating and capital improvements annual budgeting process. Um so we would have transparency of where we intend to use those funds during that budgeted year. Staff would recommend projects and uses to city council but ultimately city council would have the final authority of the budget. Any changes to the budget that are material would need to be approved by city council. So any material reallocations in the budget would come to council to approve. A new form of budgeting um that we intend to introduce with the sales tax is called a hybrid pay as you go system or pay go. There are two parts to this. Um the first part is cash financing and I think this is really warranted for this uh sales tax. So um we only bond

certain projects meeting certain criteria. The rest are paid with cash. So some possible criteria for this if we were to establish payo um for all of our budget is that we must f cash fund maintenance repairs projects with shorter lives but then we would be able to bond new buildings full re street reconstructs or projects that are more long-term um and more uh substantial. So that's something we want to consider going forward with our budget. The other part of that hybrid payo system would be that any non-budgeted projects must be funded by a reduction of current budget expenditures. The purpose of this is to control spending and to remain in budget. Um it would control our bonding and we must re-evaluate priorities as these new projects are proposed. And so council would need to approve any non-budgeted projects. Um emergencies would be the ex exception. So, how this hybrid um payo would apply to the sales tax in this case um we would intend to leave the city in a better position than we first than when we first started collecting the sales tax. That's why we would want to primarily uh cash finance any projects. If any project were financed, we would want that project to be paid off by the time the sales tax expires. The intent is not to leave debt that we're going to have to fund with other means after the expiration of the sales tax. Um, and then non-budgeted expenditures um must be offset by reductions to budgeted expenditures so we can control spending, prevent deficits, and those would require council approval. So staff recommends that council consider the provided resolution and

either recommend changes or adopt as presented. I stand for questions

and I will add uh so in terms of the the PGO and not bonding as much of the work um for I've talked with several of my peers across different states um from Texas to the West Coast and uh for some of those uh municipalities or counties um I want to say it was Maricopa County in the state of Nevada um that does a not a hybrid POGO but a full-blown PGO um their average debt per citizen was around $1,400 and they were able to reduce that down to $85. Um, and so with the debt that we carry obviously um has long-term interest that also needs to be paid off. And so that's part of what we have to bond and or uh to pay off. And so we want to make sure that for us we carry around a total of $55 million in debt. So if you divide that by the 40,000 uh citizens that live here on the per capita is 1375. And so hopefully by go by by implementing PGO um we can also see a reduction in the amount of debt that each citizen carries. Um so I am really excited about this um and hopefully uh 10 years from now we'll be we'll be better off. I also wanted to point out that if the governor does not veto HB2745 um after talking with bond council that could significantly um increase our interest rates because our bonds wouldn't be considered unlimited. They would be considered limited um because we wouldn't have uh un unlimited authority to raise the mill levy because of the proposed changes to that. um that that bill includes. So I think now is a good time to consider how we use debt and if we can reduce that

and also new construction is not exempt in 2745. And so the implication of that is there would literally be no incentive to grow um because if you were to add new businesses, you would have to dramatically cut um uh your budget in order to account for any any any new business that came in. Uh so that is a very real implication of 2745. By that you mean like if we took on a new department?

Uh I mean in this case I'm just talking purely businesses or anything new to the community. Any other questions from council comments? Um, do you have a I know you had the projections that you showed on one of your previous slides, the alligator my mouth slide as it's been referred to. Um, do you have a projected growth showing just the sales tax dollars

themselves? This slide right here is with a flat mill levy and the sales tax for the general fund. Um I I don't have what it would be if u like we remained revenue neutral. If we did then um that would probably change the balance here or we would have to decrease expenditures somewhere. And do you have any projections that show just the sales tax by itself though? Not oh like how much we would collect? Yeah.

Um I believe over the span of 10 years it'd be about 107 million. Um first year starting at um somewhere between 9 and 10 million and then increasing with inflation. Is that like a a spreadsheet or a pivot table that you have that you can manipulate to show different variations? is like in the reports that we approved at the beginning, the um uh January and February financial reports um our sales tax revenue fluctuates um and up and down and is that something that is a widget that you can manipulate each month or

um it wouldn't be hard to do. I have it in Excel and what that forecast is based off of is just like average trends over the last five years. So as that fluctuates I can alter that. Yes. In fact, I would need to do that if we're budgeting this as a separate fund. I would need to project what the next year's sales tax collections would be. Any questions from the uh audience? Um if not, looking for a motion on this. I'll move to approve a resolution a resolution pertaining to the use and oversight of the sales tax proceeds and expenditures and authorized ameritus sign.

Second. Tren, yes. Garza, yes. Goss. Yes. Fast. Yes. Yes. Thank you, council. Item 7E, consider an ordinance annexing a tract generally located south of East 23rd Avenue and east of Lucille Drive.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Matt Williams, director of community development. Uh before you tonight is a petition for annexation by Douglas and Roseanne Vert for property at Lucille and East 23rd Avenue. uh they plan to construct a new residence on the property and they desire city utilities. Uh a requirement to get those utilities uh is annexation by the city. A preliminary plat is attached to your staff report and staff recommends approval of the annexation. Be happy to answer any questions. Is that I was trying to look at this map. Is that off to the north or the southeast? Is that where it is just north of the airport? Yeah, I know. Southeast corner. Southeast corner. Yes. So that's the place where all the green houses and everything are at then.

Have you seen those? I have not been up there in a while. I know there was a house there that was demolished and they're about to build their house. I couldn't figure out what was going on there. So that Okay, that's the that's the corner then. Okay. Mr. Williams, you mentioned that this is a requirement for being on the utility. That is that it's a city policy that if you want to connect to city water or city utilities that you need to be annexed.

Okay. Um, and this is like here's the flight path that we're setting funds aside each year to purchase properties with. And I can't remember what that fund is called. And this one's like right here. So, what is the chance that the FAA with our um airport master plan would ever change the like the scope of that area that we're trying to save funds and purchase houses within?

I do am not familiar with that project. I do know that this is not within the area where we're concerned about height of the building. It's not within the runway protection zone. That's what you're talking about. It's next to it. Yes. Right at the corner and on the south of of of that property is one of the north boundaries of the airport and also to the west. And so runway protection zones never change. Is that I've I've run this by the director of the airports so that he was aware this was happening. Uh he didn't make any comment about that he was concerned or anything but

Okay. I mean, it sounds like if you buy a house next to the airport, you're aware that it's next to the airport, but um I just wanted to understand the um that zone and make sure that this was outside of it and that that's a static thing cuz I know we were changing planning to make changes to our runways over the next 5 to 10 years.

I don't have that answer. Okay. Any other questions from council? Uh any public comment? Uh if not, uh looking for a motion. I'll make a motion to approve an ordinance annexing a track generally located to southeast south of East 23rd Avenue in East Lucille Drive and authorize the mayor to sign. I'll second Truan. Yes. Garza, yes. Doss, yes. Fast, yes.

Mayers, yes. Item eight, new business. A consider acceptance of a proposal from SFS Architecture for Memorial Hall renovation design services in an amount not to exceed $451,665 plus 2% of construction costs for construction administration.

Uh good evening. Justin Combmes, uh director of parks and facilities. Um this item is for design services for the renovation to Memorial Hall. Um earlier this uh winter we received uh five proposals. Um the scope of the work that um that was in the RFP um was for conceptual drawings, construction documents, specifications, uh cost estimates, community engagement, uh building or bidding um assistance and construction management services. and then assistance with um monetizing and receiving the historic tax credits that the project will be eligible for. Uh we did receive five responses um from local architects. Uh we narrowed that down to three. Um so the selection committee uh was myself, Matt Williams, and Dave Satello. Um so of the five firms, we narrowed it down to WDM Architects, SFS Architecture, and Focal Design Studio. Um so we then hosted interviews with all three um and ultimately all three of the selection committee members um agreed that SFS presented the strongest case for this project. Um all three uh um consultants did a great job of showing what how they could preserve a building and how they could bring it back to historic significance. Um, but what but what we're most impressed with with with SFS is their ability to think outside the box and the reuse spaces in a creative way but still honor uh the historic nature of the building. Um, so they demonstrated that in several different projects in their interview. Um, their fees were right in line with with the other two. Um, and so as a group we really did feel like they were just going to be the best uh the best architect for this job. Um, so it is our recommendation to proceed with SFS. Um their total amount um was $451,665

plus 2% of construction cost. That's for construction management. Um if the contractor has questions, needs additional drawings, uh those sorts of things, we'll have the uh the architect on board to answer those questions. Um this will be eligible for the historic tax credits. Um so um we should be able to receive up to 40% of this back um at the end of the project. So with that I will stand for questions. Is the 2% of construction cost like in lie of change orders?

Um not necessarily in lie of change orders. That's is to help us manage the project once a contractor is on board. So they have kind of two separate buckets. They have the cost to design the project. Um, and then once a contractor is on board, when there's questions, we want we want the architect to come out um, and look at things and make sure they're op, you know, they're constructing the building as designed, that's also going to be critical in the historic tax credit piece that they're getting everything documented. So, it's not necessarily about change orders. It's during construction. That's standard operating practice for big projects. Was the 2% included in all of the RFPs? Everybody tackled it a little bit different, but they were right in line with everybody else. Yeah.

And in research that 2% is actually kind of on the low end. It is. Um they varied from two to three and a half, but then others had less than design fee. So it was just kind of how they how they baked it all out together. Um but overall the the overall costs were very similar between the three. Um and this process is really a qualifications based. I mean we take the the fee amount in into account, but it's really qualifications based. Any more questions from council? I I have a couple questions. Um, so can you speak to why we didn't why you aren't recommending the lowest bid on this?

Um, we just u didn't feel like they presented as well um in their um in their interview. Also, their construction administration fee was a little bit higher. So, the fees I listed here was just their design fees. So, their construction uh percentage was a little bit higher. Um, and so it's hard to kind of calculate what that's going to be because we don't know the final total of the project. Any other questions? Uh, questions from the audience. Uh, no questions. I'm looking for

I have another remark about this. Um, so the intent of putting out the R both RFPs at the same time was essentially so that the RFP for the um management company would if we selected one that they would be working with this group. So now that we aren't going to have a management company because we didn't have any accepted RFPs on that, um the management of this will fall to staff. Is that

uh I wouldn't say that's that would be accurate. I I think we can try again with an RFP for management once the building is under construction or getting closer to construction or completion. The feedback we heard was it was very risky. um for uh the respondents to the management contract to to enter into a contract where they weren't going to be able to sell a venue for two and a half years. Um and so as we get closer, we would the intent would be to go reissue that RFP. Um and during construction the or during design, uh we will have to maybe reutilize that community engagement that's already baked into this to make sure that we're we're doing the right um pieces for the f future use of the building. Um so uh that is a conversation I had with SFS going into it um with well with all three of them that we interviewed was that we don't have that partner um from the management uh perspective and so we'll have to bake that into the to the community engagement piece. So the professional feedback about like how the kitchen should be set up, how concessions should function, that sort of thing, you're going to rely on the on the architect's input versus an industry input from an industry

expert. And these architects do have experience with similar buildings. That was that was one of the reasons they were selected. So, um, so I think they'll bring some e expertise, but obviously the intent was, yeah, to have the person operating it side by side, but but we couldn't wait forever for the design piece of it as well. You know, you look at this too and you go, okay, so if we don't do this is what the community asked us to do with this building is renovate it. Yeah. So, we didn't get any responses really on the actual use of the building or management companies. So, I feel like if we don't do this, this building's going to set for another 10 years. we may be in the same spot 10 years from now.

Um, so it's one of those things that I think this stuff needs to be fixed and we've had several people reach out to us going if the building had X, we would be more willing to rent it, etc., too. So, I think it gets more use out of the building if we actually go down this road as well. I mean, it's a big chunk. It's a big chunk of change out there, but this is kind of what we've been asked to do. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and this is jumping a little bit ahead, but I've been working on on the financing for the actual renovations. I mean, it's going to be a stack of star bonds, historic tax credits, and then potentially some some general obligation bonds. So, um, so the cost to the citizens will be relatively cheap compared to the overall cost of the project.

I will say that one of the promoters I was visiting with, I spent three hours with him. He was all in about the building and says, "You need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do that, um, to make money and to make a cash flow." Um, but they didn't have any interest in coming alongside building it out. That's not their lane. And so that was I, you know, you alluded to that, but um, certainly could call on those folks and ask them how we're doing and get some input like you said with their engagement piece. Yeah, we could have a stakeholder group or groups that are just known promoters in the area.

And I know we had a lot of interest of that when we had that open house of people that were interested in actually managing it, but some of those didn't actually show up uh when we sent it out RFP either. I think those are fair questions, Stacy, and I I wish in a perfect world it would have worked out that way. That's what I was hoping for. Yeah,

but I think that we're and I'm not saying that we don't want to pursue this project. I think philosophically when we go out for RFPs, even just looking at the next one that we're going to consider, we go with the least expensive. And when it comes to this is a $31,000 difference between um focal I think focal focal design studio and SFS. So when it comes to these intangible like the studies and um architectural and um engineering design that kind of thing um and I know we don't have a policy of going with the the lowest bid but it seems like we take the staff recommendation and this I'm not this isn't to critique of you but we take the staff recommendation it's somewhere in the middle um because there's some fault found with the lowest bid, but then when it comes to paving the streets, etc., etc., um it's a race to the bottom. We go with the the lowest bid, we expect the best results. Um and even looking at the statements that we made as a council and as staff members during the sales tax justification, um we constantly said the cost of asphalt has gone up 66%. We never said, "Oh, well, we spent an extra $31,000 on this architectural design, or we spent," I think with the last Witchaw State strategic plan, they were in the middle, too. Um, I mean, those are those are real dollars that we're not saving by going with this when we don't as a council maybe understand

what the what was the percent because there's more than just one number here. There's more than just the bid. Yeah, there's other things. I mean, maybe if we could figure out what a total apples, I think that would help. Um, and I think better understanding, like you said, this is a funding stack of the historical tax credits, the star bonds. I think that tells us more of a dollar figure of what's that 2% total of versus all I can think of is what we talked about with the star bond. Um, I mean this says it's five million, but I thought just the star bond was, you know, the star was 2.5.

Four million is what's in the star bond. Yeah.

Yeah. I I do want to just push back just a little bit. I think there's there's a difference between professional services and when we're buying a product. Um, and so there has to be a balance there. We don't always want the cheapest engineer or cheapest architect. I think we can get ourselves in trouble with change orders down the road. So that's why we do a qualificationsbased and take fee into account. Um because I think you can you can go too far if you just do purely qualifications and you're not counting fee until after the fact. So to me it's it's a good meat in the middle. Um but there is some judgment involved there. So so you're right. It's not um you know in this case all three probably would would do a fine job. But um again, I think it just if we just do bare minimum for design services, I think I think it'll cost us more money in the long run than what we would save on a design fee.

Well, I don't I don't disagree. I think that this is a Memorial Hall renovations is something that we can point to from 30 years ago and say 30 years ago this was a $2 million project and now it's five. Um, and the goalposts have moved as far as what we were wanting and needing to remodel back then and now of course it's a lot more. But, um, yeah, I'm not saying we we don't need to invest in it. It's just something that caught my eye as a philosophical difference between the two bids that are being presented to us back to back.

Yeah. Uh Evan Patterson, city engineer. Um so I think this is a very good question. Um and I think uh some of what uh you're trying to get to philosophically has to do a little bit with how we characterize the two different types of work for uh purchases or construction contracts. We typically have a very very narrow range of what we're asking for. Uh if we want somebody to mill and overlay a street, we tell them what we want the mill and the overlay to be. um architectural and engineering services. It's a much more broad spectrum of what we can get. So, we're typically looking to choose from the various bids which one lines up with our needs. It'd be as if on a mill and overlay as if we were asking the contractors to recommend what thickness of uh milling and overlaying and we get a wide range with those bids as well. And it'd be harder for us to compare apples to apples. With engineering services, it's it's much more of a lining during the bidding process whereas during construction contracts, we already know what we want. So that may explain why we're uh more focused on the technically acceptable lowest cost bid on the construction cost uh on the construction contracts. But for say for example design bid or uh yeah uh uh design build projects that are much more uh wrapped all in to one with the design and the construction. I think you'll find similar variances um for those kind of projects uh that we do with the services contracts as well. I get that and I think that to prove the point it kind of bit us with Woody seat. I know that we not not me you guys in engineering provided a lot of additional support to the to the subs and to the main contractor on on those projects

we did. Could that have been avoided if we hadn't gone with the lowest bid?

That's right. That's a that's a that's a very I I think it's one of those things that's probably impossible to really forecast, but it's good for us to think about those things because did we burn $400,000 extra dollars with all those extra services that we did in house that would make up the difference or with change orders or other items like that. Um, we actually plan on having a a uh lessons learned meeting about the Woody seed because with these bigger projects, it's good to go through that and think, did we make the right choices? And if we need to change our way of selecting, let's take that into account next time. And I'm sure you go through the same process. I mean, you see enough architectural services bids. We're constantly reinventing uh the way that we select these because yeah, it is it is important. You don't always want the lowest cost. Um, and you sometimes you want the highest cost, but um, it's important to lay out that criteria when you're evaluating these things.

Well, and I'll say too about the Woody Seat contractor. I think collectively we all wanted to give the local contractor a shot. Any other questions? Any questions from the audience? So, I had a chance to actually look into the three uh architects that these guys picked out. And I have to agree with Justin that uh cuz when you look at what the other guys project that they worked on and when you uh particularly Justin mentioned in his memorandum about the Jumplin Memorial Hall that they worked on in Joplin, Missouri, the town about 50,000 people, they have a memorial hall there that's about a 2700 capacity similar to ours and so they have that experience with put in that room uh you know helping them renovate that room and stuff. So I think on that alone uh was kind of like I think what kind of convinced you too but it also uh made me look at the same thing that you know these guys probably had a little better experience at looking at a an auditorium that's similar to ours. Um, and and I just I just want to while we're back in here then that this is why uh I like the idea of a uh of a of a let's get back to when we talk about the other SR um RFP for management. So earlier we had talked councilman you know I brought in some national promoters you know uh we're looking at

the room uh also too and uh one of those guys went to go work for Venue Works which is the company that manages the Heartland Arena in Witchaw now uh the 5,000 capacity room over there. Um and uh well I mean he went to go for Yeah, he went to go work for Venue Works but we talked to Venue Works. I talked to Venue Works and also a couple other companies and that was the feedback that we got was that um the hall wasn't ready yet for those kind of a management company to come into the hall yet. They said continue doing the renovations you know climate control AC was a big thing because this is what their clients expect. This is what they expect when they come into a room. So good. We're back to this point where uh we didn't have anybody to hire for a manager, but we're back to the renovation part. Let's get that infrastructure done and then we'll go back and look at management. But in that meantime, that's why I think that advisory committee composed of people. I was talking to Holly Thomas the other day and she was giving me all her ideas about how a kitchen catering kitchen would work in there. How you know what what she could use as a catering kitchen, you know. So, you know, she's on the list, but like I said, there's plenty of other people out there that we can go to to help us advise and even give back when these architectures come in. They're going to be wanting that input. You know, we're not just going to Yes, you're right. Uh I think it was Stacy to mention or something, but you know, you're right. We're not just going to leave it to the architects to come in and do whatever they want to do. We want to be able to give what Hutcherson what our people want to do with that hall. It's our auditorium, you know, at this point. And so that's why we want to have the voice of where we go and what we do at this room. And we have people here that are ready to give that advice. That's what I just want to reiterate. That's why we need that advisory committee.

Thanks, Jesse. Any other questions? Uh, if not, looking for a motion. I'll make a motion to accept the proposal from SFS Architecture from Memorial Hall renovation design service in the amount not to exceed $451,665 plus 2% of the construction cost for construction administration and authorize the mayor to sign. I'll second that. Truman, yes. Charza, yes.

Bass, yes. Mayers, yes. I don't know why those are in that order. No.

Item 8B, school zone practices, industry perspective, and recommended path forward. Can we take a bathroom break? Hey, sorry, Evans. Can we take a 5m minute bathroom break, please? Yes, please. No, I'm ready. I'm primed. Of course. Yeah.

Yes. Um Evan Patterson, uh city engineer. Um I'm here tonight to introduce uh our presenter for this topic and to explain a bit of the context for this and where we're at, uh for the department. Um so tonight, uh Brad Shores of JO will be talking about um school zone, um practices, uh what's standard for the industry and what the city of Hutchinson can do going forward. Um so we've been getting requests for investigations of our road network um from all sorts of different sources. Um and I am worried um that we're losing track in my department and not doing a good job of addressing those. So, I had proposed last week to city manager Vas that we adopt a policy that lets us be consistent, fair, and transparent in our process for responding to all these. Um, so uh we've determined who's going to handle uh uh managing those requests. It's going to be the uh department uh the director of the public works department, Cecila Wyel. uh and he'll vet these requests when they when they come in and uh we'll keep track of how many responding to and we'll report on that as a an annual basis so you and the other citizens have some idea of our level of customer service for addressing these. Um we propose to have a handful of different categories for assessments with different criteria that we use to assess each. Um, we want to have a formal process for reviewing and responding to those which helps with predictability and transparency for the citizens. We will need to determine costure on a case- by case basis because it's hard to have one-sizefits-all for those kinds of uh uh cases. And like I said, we want to have some annual reporting so that it's transparent how we're doing on our uh on our customer service. Um Brad will be presenting some

general information along with some specific applications for specific requests we've received uh from USD 308 for example. Um we have I think three that I'm aware of from 308 that are still pending. Um and again these are these are ones we received one over a year ago. So this is this is the heart of the concern about us not managing responses to these properly. We got the request to look into the school zone over by the high school I think January 2025 and we still haven't responded. So, while we've discussed it with our experts, we don't have a formal response ready for that. But Brad will touch a little bit on that one. Um, we also have a traffic analysis that we performed at Avenue Avenue A and Maple and that one's on me because uh we did get the response um from the consultant. Um, but since the school was the school's future was uncertain based on the bond, I had set it aside at the time and I forgot to go back and check on it. So that's why it's good to move these things onto Cecil's plate and not on mine so that I'm no longer the bottleneck for responding. Uh, and then the third one, we had last year we had agreed to put flashing beacons for the school zone at three schools last year. And I think there's some confusion and I want to clarify that a little bit. We had discussed, I think, looking at flashing beacons at the other schools. Um, I don't know if we'd ever committed, unless if it's somewhere in in the records or the minutes, I'd be happy to address it, but I don't think we I can't find where we committed to doing three a year. And the reason I bring that up is twofold. One is, as Brad will talk, it's it's not always productive, and sometimes it's counterproductive to put flashing beacons in some of these areas. So, I think we want to study them to make sure we're doing it in the right place. And two, um, it's not a ton of money. I think it was $36,000 for the three sets, but the budget that we pulled from last year, it wasn't something that we planned for. And that

that traffic uh signal maintenance budget probably needs every dollar uh that it can have. So, I want to plan for these things if we're going to actually implement them in the future. Now, I do have some proposals on how to do that. Um, we've been responding reactively. We get requests that come in. We try to address those and I would much rather take a proactive approach. So there are two possibilities for that. We received a grant for the safe streets for all or SS4A program and Brad and I have talked at length about how that program is super flexible and we could apply it to a citywide study to determine where do we want to address safety for pedestrians, safety for bicyclists, we could tailor it to school zones or other zones. So this is this is a good opportunity for us to gather some of that data on where we should be addressing safety. Um we also can use a K dot program called TE traffic engineering assistance program where they'll come in and they actually perform the study for us. So, we put in the request and they'll analyze an intersection or a segment of a street and we can use that as a basis for informed decisions for determining where are our tax dollars best spent on increasing the safety for our kids, for bicyclists, for other pedestrians. Um, so if you have any questions for me, I can take those or I can take them after Brad's presentation. He is a lot more knowledgeable on TE and SS4A than me, so you may want to ask him those. Okay. You ready?

You ready? Yes, sir. You know, I was a senior traffic now, right? Yes. All right. Now, these uh going to be tied into the Bphase movement. I mean, your controllers got do they have enough room for all that? You know, wherever you're going to put these light these in. Are you We got the You're $36,000. Was that just the push buttons or what are they? That was just the yellow flashing beacons that I think they're standalone with solar solar panels and a battery. So, you're going to put up a stand up one. You're not going to tie it into the controller then. That's right. The beacons are going to be right there.

And I'm not going to remember the three locations. I know I know we did we did three sets. So, we did two flashing beacons, one at each end of the school zones for three schools, but I don't it was Greyber and then two others. Um, it was Graber Sherman HMS7. Okay. Thank you. I apologize. I should have written that down. And where was the other one, Stacy?

Um, the order has changed from what? So, there's an article with the Cecil spoke about what order they were going in. It's changed since then. Um, but it was Gber. I know Greyber has them. Um, is it the two? Is it the two middle schools? Okay. Yeah. Seven and eight. There you are. Okay. Yeah. Seven and eight and Gler. Yes. So, actually $36,000 for two beacons. Am I right? It's $6,000 per beacon. So, you get $12,000 for a set. And then since we did three, it's 3 * 12. So,

we're in a battery backup system with a time clock. Correct. The time clock would turn it on and turn it off. Correct. Good evening, Castle. Uh, yeah. So, it it has its own internal timing system. It can be scheduled out to, I think, 12 months in advance. Um, I think it can actually hold two years worth of data, but we don't like that because we want to make sure we're right with what the schools change for their weekends, uh, for holidays and their inservice days. So, uh, we do a year at a time. We get that information from the school. But, yeah, battery backup, solar panel, and has a year worth of data. Okay. Now, how far are these beacons from the reg regular traffic controller? How far are they from? Um, some of these there's no traffic control around it at all. Okay. So, just that's just all by

it's a standalone unit. Yep. So, it's going to be a solar power battery back up. Yep. And Yep. Okay. You do know the traffic lights that the beak that you put by a controller, you can go off that controller. Yeah. Most of these had nothing to do most of these were in areas that didn't have any kind of other traffic light. It just marked the school zone and a reduction in speed on most of the school zones. Yeah, they're at the beginning and end of the school zone, which is baked into one of our ordinances. Okay. All right. Well, you made it to the test. Thank you. Don't go too far. So, are you ready for Brad's presentation? Yes. Go ahead. Okay, that's good.

Thank you, staff. My goal today or tonight is to just kind of give you a synthesis of of what I've learned from traffic engineers. Brad Shores, Joo Consulting Group, not a traffic engineer, talked to five traffic engineers multiple times, uh, and kind of put this presentation together to just share with you what they consider the state-of-the-art of school zones to be. Um, don't have any other text on this slide for a reason why this is important. Just want to pause and and this is important because we're talking about the safety of our kids. That's why we're talking about school zones and these issues. Uh there's a gentleman that works for our company who was traffic engineer for city of Lincoln. He has presented internally to our company at large. And when he does this slide, he has a small shoe of a little girl. And so when he responded to a fatality incident, she was a victim. And so that's stuck with him. It will never leave him. And uh we do this because safety and safety matters. Uh so common sense, you guys know this already. You have sidewalk crossings. Sidewalk crossing does not necessarily mean it's a school zone. Typically the school zone is delineated by signage. Uh there can be pavement markings and other treatments that will show that. And then within a school zone, you can have, you do not have to have, but you can have a speed reduction zone. And that's typically identified also by signage. Uh, and we have some more slides that talk about it later on. There are MUTCD guidelines. And there is actually a single state statute that applies. Um, really the only thing uh that we cannot violate is that state statute. You know, that is a law that we have to adhere to. Um, and we try to adhere to the MUTCD as much as possible. Some examples, top left photo, sidewalks, not a school zone. Top right

photo. These are around one of your elementary schools. Top right photo, school zone, not a speed reduction zone. And then bottom photo, school zone. That is a speed reduction zone. I'll just point you to the small sign. And now this is a blurry uh Google Street View screen capture, but that small sign is telling drivers, you know, what times that reduced speed limit applies. And that's going to be relevant to the rest of this conversation because it's a small sign. It's pretty hard to read. Uh we did an inventory of your school zones just based on Google Maps. Uh you have done some action in the past two years, so this needs a little updating. Uh this shows you what we found to be every school that we could find. And and listen, this hasn't been vetted by the city staff, so we might be missing something. But yellow is school zones, orange is school zones with speed reduction, red is the school zone speed reduction with flashers. And again, this is Google Street View. It's not going to capture stuff you did for the three uh schools last year.

I have a question on this slide, please. The orange on the top and yellow on the bottom square. It's kind of in the middle. Is that a Hutch High Graber and CTA? This here. Mhm. Uh I would hope my the staff could help me. I think there's no school zone there though. There's not a school on 7. Okay. That was the one that requested that we have or on 15th that like arrow kind of shaped line. I don't know the one he's you had him point at that would be Graver. Graver would be the orange the yeah 17th and

but there is no school zone on 15th circle which is CTA Plaza Parkway which is CTA. That would be that yellow in the middle and then Seance and 11th Street does not have a school zone either. So clearly I need to get with Cecil and and we need to do another run of this and and correct it. And then the yellow Plum um Holy Cross's school zone is is not on Plum. It is only on the east side um street Independence. Independent Street. Thank you. Theirs is only on Independence.

Okay. Uh we I guess we provided this map just so we could start to get a feel of what's happening in the city. We have not made any decisions based off of this map. So, uh, if it has mistakes, it has not influenced any decisions we've made. Okay.

Thank you for catching it, though. Um, so when you make a school zone, you're going to see a later slide that that says there's not one sizefits-all here. A number of communities do this different ways. Uh, this approach here, I think, is pretty close to what Hutchinson is doing, although your corrections to the previous slide make me doubt that a little bit. Um, so one working definition, the school property boundary plus streets and intersections adjacent to the school property. So in this hypothetical example, if you have non-school property on the southwest corner of that block, then it would not be a school zone in front of that. And if I go back a slide, I do think that up here, sorry for the videos, you can't see where I'm pointing, but that would be representative. you're being consistent with that approach because there's a line of residential homes there and so by that definition it's not on the school boundary. That doesn't mean you can't make it a school zone. This is just one working definition of how to apply that. Uh as an aside, city of Lawrence, just to show you what a sister community is doing. Um they say they will not do it for junior and senior highs. They are only doing it for elementary students, elementary schools. Um that is not Hutch's approach. side is not other communities approaches just sharing that there's a diversity here uh and we're trying to synthesize some best practices for you. Um so within a school zone when to make a speed reduction again every city is different. Um you actually doesn't necessarily have to have a crosswalk there. In our opinion, it's it the type of road, whether it's an arterial collector or local is a factor, but it's not an absolute. And city of Lawrence aside, our traffic engineers would tend to agree that age is a factor, but it's not none of these

are absolutes. There's a lot of context sensitive decisions that go into when and where to do school zones and speed reductions. Here's the state statute we talked about. Um, you can't go less than 20 miles an hour. So, you cannot speed reduce. You cannot sign 15 miles an hour. That is a a state law. So, what are good practices in our opinion around speed reduction? Um, where do we have frequent student crossings uh that should drive speed reduction locations? uh where are higher speeds uh on collectors and typ and arterials typically that can drive where we want to put speed reductions. Um and if we don't have we may not actually have crossings but where do we have a lot of activity uh don't get confused in the bottom left thing. We're not talking about high schools. We're just saying where is there high activity around a school? We're talking about frequent drop off pickup. Where do we have lots of kid activity? um this is area would want to be sensitive more about that can indicate a need for a speed reduction and younger students. So we we are although we wouldn't necessarily recommend an absolute blanket like statement like city of Lawrence does. Uh we want to be sensitive to the lack of uh spatial awareness, the speed, the tendency of our younger students to um to jump out into the street when we're thinking that they why would they do that? Um speed reduction effective treatments. Oh, one thing I want you to hear very clearly is uh there was a synthesis, an agreement amongst all of our traffic engineers that we do like flashing beacons. And that's why I brought up the small sign to you. If you just think about you're driving on a road, oh, it's a school zone. There's a speed reduction says 20. But when is when do those hours

apply? Now, you're trying to read that little sign. then you're looking at the clock on your car and you've had your eyes off the road where they need to be for an extended period of time. So, um, as a general rule, we actually, um, are fans of flagship beacons within speed reduction zones. So, that's maybe the good news. Here's where you can get mad at me. Um, we we want to be careful and not overuse it. And I'm going to talk about it here more on another slide. Speed feedback signs is another option. You know, you're driving this fast and it's telling you how fast you're going. That can be very effective, even more expensive. Uh there are paints you can do on crosswalks. Um and all of these have cost considerations and that's a reality of the world we live in. Uh here's where I want to the the what I just mentioned on the previous slide I want to dig into a little bit more. So, some cautions our traffic engineers had for this council. Um, when we're on an arterial, so think about one of your major roads, um, you know, in Witto, they're every mile. They're not quite that here, but on our major roads with heaviest traffic, uh, particularly when they're signalized, we want to be careful about uh, just saying, "Hey, this is a good spot for a speed reduction." In our opinion, that can actually uh, be less safe. And why are we doing all of this? Because safety matters and it can interfere with the operation and how the signal was was set up to be timed. It can have other issues and so it could be a location for speed reduction, but we want to be careful on signalized arterials. Um the if you don't get anything else from this, the middle bullet or the middle box is is what I want you to hear from me.

You don't want to overuse speed reductions. So, um, what I have learned talking to traffic engineers for many years is that, uh, I say 90% of traffic engineering, I'm sure that's overstating it, but a lot of traffic engineering, surprisingly, is psychology. So, let me give you a quick example. In Missouri, there used to be a trend for whatever reason uh, that I personally experienced, they put stop signs everywhere. And so you'd be you'd go to an intersection stop sign and there's no cars. And so you drive the stop sign over and over day in day out. There's never any cars you're waiting on. And so what do you start doing? You start rolling through the stop. You start ignoring the stop sign. Okay? And and from a safety perspective, not a big deal. But the unfortunate reality of human nature and behavior is uh what you're doing at that intersection with that stop sign that is not warranted. Now at another intersection that has heavy traffic where that stop sign is warranted, you already have trained your brain to roll through that stop sign. So you come to that other location and now you're rolling through. What does this have to do here? If you um it's not in my mind anyway, it's it's not as an extreme connection, but if you are putting speed reduction zones where they're not warranted, drivers will be driving and they will if they particularly if they're driving the same corridor over and over again and they never are seeing young kids or never seeing kids period, they're training theirelves that that speed reduction doesn't matter. It's it's bogus. And unfortunately, you're training them to ignore it in another location where it is needed. Driver apathy matters. Overuse matters. We don't want to just blanket apply speed reduction zones

where they are not needed. And that's where this uh engineering effort and the safe streets for all that Evan talked about can come into play. There was a specific request and it may be warranted. It may be um it may be viable to do a longer corridor of a speed reduction or a school zone. Typically, we're not doing long corridors. We want to be contained to the block and maybe the approach to the block. Um however, the the request the school the school stretch there on severance is quite long. So it is it is going to be a long corridor just because this is going to be hard to understand but just sharing sister communities what their policy is on when to do a speed reduction zone. Uh I'm going to translate for you. If you got a lot of students but not a lot of cars, they'll do it. If you don't have a lot of students but you have quite a bit of traffic, then they want a speed reduction. So when they're talking about safe gaps per minute, that's what that language it's really relating to the number of vehicles traveling that road. Um so that's guidelines they use uh just for your information. In Lincoln, what they've adopted, city of Lincoln, uh they will do signage only when the road is posted 25 miles an hour. They're not doing further speed reduction. They're not doing flashing beacons. Only when it's 30 to 35 mph are they doing flashing beacons for a speed reduction zone. If it's a 40 plus, again, this is that arterial kind of situation. They want to look at it. There's they're not going to make a blanket decision here. They're going to do engineering study for every arterial. I appreciate your patience. We're almost done. Our recommendation, JO, as engineers, as traffic engineers, is let's have an consistent approach. Uh we do think that flashing beacons and speed reduction areas is a good idea.

Obviously there's budgeting considerations have to happen and the the point that might not be popular is let's make sure that our speed reduction areas are where they are justified from an engineering perspective. And I promise you we don't have an agenda to eliminate them entirely. We just and they may all be in the right place. We have not done the engineering evaluation but we think this should be part of the consideration. Um and then I think this is my last slide. So safe streets for all you have won this grant uh with the feds. Uh you have not implemented selected the consultant for it yet. This is a different program than safe routes to school. They get confused a lot. So I just wanted to point that out. So you there are three different types of programs within safe streets for all. You've won the action plan, which is a study. So, your grant with the feds is basically a $200,000 study. My belief is that you're on the hook for 20% of that. So, 40K gets you a 200k study. Um, and you there are some things you're going to have to do with that study, but you have a lot of freedom on what you prioritize within that study. And one of the things you could choose to do is prioritize the school zone and speed reduction with that study. What's what's really nice about that study is it provides opportunity for public engagement. So you can develop a consistent approach. You can coordinate and engage your schools with that study. Uh, think about, you know, if you started, if you put the RFQ out tomorrow, you could have a um a consultant on board within two months and you could have a study complete within 12 to 14 months of today. Yes, ma'am. Sorry.

Can you go back to your previous slide? Previous slide. Yep. And maybe it was one before. Sorry. You Okay. So, you're going fast. You your recommendation is to do an engineered engineering study when it's 40 plus miles per hour. Nope. Not my recommendation. I'm just sharing what the city of Lincoln does. Okay. Yep. And the grant would fund a study even if we're not 40 m an hour.

Yeah. So the the SS4A, you're going to have some freedom to choose how to do it. Uh what I'm just envisioning is let's tackle this whole issue. Where are school zones? Where are speed reductions? And what treatments with speed reductions? And do that for your entire community. And that could be done under the safe streets for all program and we could engage. Anyway, did I answer your question?

Yeah. But isn't the MUTCD recommendation for warranting flashing beacons if you're 35 miles hour an hour or above? And we only have two that were warranted, which is Union Valley and and Plum Creek. I know that doesn't mean anything to you, but they were read on your very first map. So, we've already done those. So, the I think the question is are those funds available to study unwarranted?

I am not aware of a MUTCD and and maybe you found something that I need to look at, but I'm not aware of MUTCD requirement saying whereas with traffic signals and stop signs, there are warrants, right? I'm not aware of a warranting condition on flashing beacons. Okay. Well, I was just one was just referenced to me via email the other day. Okay. I would need to look at that and dig more into that. I'm I'm that never came up in my conversations with the five traffic. Okay. So, there is no warrant required for beacons. That is my understanding for flashing beacons and speeds.

Um if I'm wrong, I will email staff and that will get to you. Uh I will we'll check on that. Um, so you could use this, you could engage with your schools. We haven't talked about police uh and enforcement. That's a component here. And this would be again a great opportunity to make sure they have a seat at the table and and whatever that policy is, you're coordinating with them. Uh and there's an education piece and we well we have someone associate with the school system here but uh I think the education piece can get missed in the safe streets for all. If you just think about if we could create some flyers, some resources to go into the school community to educate our teenage boy drivers like my sons on on good driving habits, man, we might have saved a lot more lives than every flashing beacon we put in the city. So, uh education is a component there as well. and I'll stand for questions.

Um, recently in um Kansas City, Missouri, they added a new law that banned right turn on red. Yeah. Right turn on red in school zones. That would only impact a handful of our um schools. Is that something that would require like is that a a a blanket law application that we could use or would that be against your general recommendations?

Yeah. So, this is where I wish I had cuz I'm not a traffic engineer. I would say if Casey Mo has done it, obviously it can be done and that could be a tool in Hutch's toolbox. Uh, I'd like to get our traffic engineers or whoever your SS4A consultant is to weigh in on that. Um Um, but could do they think that this would have a measurable uh safety benefit for your community? I don't I don't know the answer to that.

Well, okay. Well, I I believe you're here tonight because I had sent an email and asked if we could talk about that as a council. And then I had also asked for engineering to look specifically at um the Allen School um uh school zone on Monroe because it's a it's a problem. Um and um then uh Trinity had or not Trinity, Holy Cross had questions about issues that they have. Um and then the the 308 request for consideration of a um school zone addition or or a a pedestrian push button signal on on severance that was requested for consideration over a year ago. Um, so I was asking for followup on that and we get this presentation tonight

and Okay. And I don't want to speak for staff. I I think um we can certainly look on a case- by case basis at all of those, but we knew that there was this SS4A opportunity where you're paying 20 cents on the dollar to do that. And so we wanted to both present to you high level um kind of what we view as good practices and then share that that SS for a grant uh could be a fantastic opportunity to specifically look at all of those. Yeah.

Well, you not being a traffic engineer, you did a good job. All right. And that was the same question. I know you had to have warrants for traffic license. She just asked you a question. As far as I know, there's no award for flashing lights and the same study you what you're saying through

you have to go through the study and go through the whole thing like you're doing and to make it say that we do need a beacon light here or wherever. And also I like to say if it's going to help the school then fellow council member I think the schools would be half if it cost 30,000 they should pay 15,000. It's not just us. is helping the school more than ever. And of course, it's helping the people kids that walk that block too, I assume. But are those lights going to be turned on during the weekends? Is it? No. Uh, which lights in particular? Are you talking about the flashing beacons? Yes, sir.

They should be off on the weekends. They should be off if they get programmed correctly. They should be off any day anytime school's not in session for normal days. If it's a something that wasn't in the calendar, then we can't, you know, like a snow day that they would still flash on that. But yeah, it should be in the system for anything else to be off when the school's not in session. You do know that I built some of those lights up there at the college. You can build them on your own. You do know that. We we've looked into it. Um, this uh part of what we looked into to do this, and I don't have the exact cost, but we looked into purchasing these was cheaper in the long term because of uh long-term maintenance of running power to these areas that that they weren't

build the battery backup. Um, I'd have to look into that. I don't know if we looked into the battery backup ones, but we did look into what it would cost. And what we kind of found was these were turnkey. They were pretty easy to install and they helped us set up especially some of the calendar settings that are in within it. Um I think that was one of the biggest purchases was that processor just for that port part and they were warrantied they were warrantied for they have they do have they do have a couple year warranty on the I know the clocks you put in them the ETAs you you recognize that name the ETA I I've heard of but I right now draw anyway. Yeah.

Yep. All right. Um, I should have asked this as staff before I came up here. So, I guess if I haven't asked, do you your SS4A grant that you've won, um, if I could just very quickly, it is its goal is to improve safety for your entire community. 200, believe it or not, $200,000, uh, there's a lot of analysis that can be done. You're not going to be able to do everything with the grant you have. you do have opportunities to um uh get other SS4A grants. There's no guarantee you'll get them, but there are additional studies you can ask for to try and be more comprehensive. So, I'm speaking for staff and they can get mad at me if I'm getting out of my lane here, but uh when this when the staff goes forward with the SS4A grant, is this a priority issue that you think is warranted to be looked at in that in that study? school zones and speed reduction.

Is this the the grant from 2023? I think so. Yes. It and we've just never used these funds. Uh so there's a layers to that. Some of it was you had to work with negotiating the contract with the state and that was taking a very long time. Okay. Have any of the other communities who won the grant in 23 used their funds? Yes. and we've helped three uh two or three communities com almost complete SS4A grant. So I guess if I can ask that question again should this be a priority within the SS4A? Um

no the only problem that I have is the cost of it. That's why I bring it up. The schools should pay half the cost. That's the only problem I have. So, I don't know how the other council members feel about that. They're the ones that that's is the school zone's going to be turned off during the week. Um, so I don't know how you other four feel about that.

So, this would be the third time that we've really considered this as a a question before council because it came up when I was vice mayor, it came up when I was mayor, and now it's coming up again. And those first two times we talked about moving forward without the schools paying for the cost of the devices and the installation. Um I mean that's how we decided to move forward. So changing how we're moving forward and going back to say we're going to ask for money now. Um to me feels like we're reagging on our what we've already committed to doing. It's a different budget time. It's a budget different budget. We can't change our mind. We can say that they since it's their school and everything else, but we can say they need to pay half. I don't know how the other three feel about that, but that's how I feel. So, I don't know. Maybe we'll bring this up at another time. Here he comes.

I think I got out of my lane. Um, if I may make a suggestion, if we do prioritize this particular topic and uh have the the school zones of focuses of the SS4A, that would, I think, result in some kind of an identification of rough cost associated with the recommendations. It may be something that helps us decide whether that would warrant some kind of cost share. If they recommend only a couple of different instances when we need uh flashing beacons, that's a fairly small amount and I think it'd be easy for us to justify. But if we come up with a million dollars worth of infrastructure that they say is needed, maybe we do need to talk about do the other organizations in the community chip in on some of those. So if that helps us, we may be able to defer some of that cost share discussion until we get an idea of the scale of the problem. I don't know if that if that makes sense,

right? And and what I'm saying is the the beacons that we've already committed to installing which was a total of nine three over the course of three years, three separate years. Um we've already committed to that and had that discussion as a council. I feel like I don't remember committing to that's what we've and I that's come up because we committed to three last year. Correct. And then we were going to study the others.

Correct. And if I'm if I'm missing the part where we committed to those, I apologize and we'd be happy to budget it, but we can't find that. And it's starting to get to the point where it's piling up to now six figures. And that's the threshold where I start to get nervous about pull, like I said, pulling from this approving that. And I also haven't seen a parade of people from USD308 or Holy Cross or whoever that is asking for this. I that means a lot to me when somebody stands at the podium and says this that or the other thing. I know we had an officer come in and talk about you know the graber speed and and the flashing lights the need for there. I you know I know that um when we were going to take a signal out at Lucille I mean we had a parade of people. I just don't see

I I I of course children's safety is a very concerning thing. I want to do that. That's that's fine. But I don't remember ever approving it. I would love to hear from Dr. Johnson on what she I I called her about one thing. Um the the one way on in front of Greyurn and she's like no that's not what we want.

Right. Because that project was taken that was when Mary Grace was the interim manager. That project was presented to the school district as we're going to do this project and turn the the sole one-way street um which is Cleveland in front of Greyber. We're going to turn that into a two-way street. And then engineering came back and I have the whole email chain. I'd be happy to forward you. The email or the the bids from engineering came back and they were higher than what was budgeted. So then they said to the school district, why don't you chip in on this? And the school district said, hey, it was your idea. If you want to do it, go ahead. But if not, this wasn't our idea. So now it's still it's still a oneway, which is

who brought it to cancel to council. Who brought what to council? Who brought having two-way street in front of you? That was never brought to council. Okay. It was just something that staff engineering took that to the school district and said, "We have this idea to turn this into a two-way street." It required redoing the light. Um, I have the history. Yeah. Adding a turn lane, etc.

Uh, Justin Kum, construction manager. Uh what I recall from that was once we had chip sealed that road, it covered up the existing crosswalks and the school reached out requesting those to be restriped uh with updated ProWAG where sidewalks and ramps had to be attached. We started looking at that and determined that we could not just replace the crosswalks. So our determination was the safest way to get the kids across the street was to get them to be led out on the correct side of or on the school side of the road. And that's what led down the path as you described,

right? Because there was no curb cut on the west side of Cleveland. That was the problem. That was why the um the crosswalk blocks wouldn't couldn't just be repainted. Yeah. Cuz they would they would have to be uh ADA ramps would have to been added and then sidewalk would have had to been connected and then it has to go somewhere. We can't put uh ADA ramps to nowhere anymore. So with those additional cost uh that's what steered engineering into looking at uh the solution that you're talking right and then but none of that I'm sorry

but when the district says hey can you repaint the blocks to mark the crosswalk that have always been there forever and ever and have been repainted by the city for a long time and then all of a sudden they they didn't get painted one year so they were in pretty rough shape. So then this, my assumption of this is that the district said, "Hey, can you guys repaint this?" And that's when engineers swooped in and said, "Hey, we can't, but here's this other kind of a pie in the sky project that nobody asked for." And then said to the school district, "Well, this is like $60,000 and it wasn't budgeted for. How about you guys fork up half?" And the the district pushed back and said, "It was your idea. You should pay for it." Go ahead. So, that doesn't sound like a bad process though to me. I mean, that's the that's the way sometimes we do investigate cases. And I mean, if the cost had been less, maybe it wouldn't have been an issue. But, um, that to me seems like the process we do want to follow is that we we we had someone identify a problem and we came up with a fix and it was just too expensive. So, is that is that what we want to do? I mean, to me, that's what what engineering wants to do is interrogate what kinds of options there are. Um, I wasn't here during the design process, so I'm not

Well, what did we do to fix um Persing or whatever street that is over there? What did we do to fix that? Persing. What's Persian? Which one's Cleveland? Cleveland in front of Nothing has been done. There's been We haven't painted a crosswalk or anything. No, cuz those cuz the the the ADA regulations changed over. There's no sidewalk. When does when did the sidewalks get I mean cuz there are there are some crossings on this Google um on some of these locations. Which ones got removed then? Was there some that got removed or Justin had that one? It's the middle of the block one. Is that what it is? It goes It goes to Google. I'm not sure. I could

Yeah, if if you're turning off of uh 17th um it is that first street. There was a crossing there I believe and and then uh I think there were some farther uh ones to uh I think believe that would be 15th. Was it on the north side? Was it on the north side of the cross versus south side cuz that south side is there and I'm assuming that would be the north side that probably got removed. Right. It's been repainted. The city did not repaint it. Who repainted it?

I have no idea, but it's been repainted. This conversation came up last. I won't say it was the last, but um there's a Hutch Post article quoting Cecil about um prioritizing Greyber. Um he says Greyber Allen and then HMS8. And then he says H I'm sorry, HMS7. Then he says HMS8 and the high school are both on arterials. Um, so that was November 7th of 2024. And then there's another article from May 17th of 2025, which I believe was the announcement from the city, and I know there's an email change between me and Cecil about the next three that were going to be installed.

Okay. So, it's been talked about it.

It it has been talked about. Um, and we knew we were looking at potentially more. We wanted to see where those would be because there's the other end of are they are they needed and we don't want to put lines out where they weren't needed. We wanted to get an expert opinion on those. Um, but we never budgeted for three additional yet because we didn't have location set out. I know the uh school zone that was asked for for the high school um is way outside of the normal of what we would put at any other school around here. I believe it wants to go from like the 900 block to past uh 17th Street, which puts it from basically 9inth up to a block about a half a block past 17th. And that's completely outside of what would be normal in a school zone. It touches three residential blocks that have nothing to do with the school. So, we wanted to verify that with a traffic engineer on how do we do that because there's a lot of side streets that would come into that which is additional signage that you have to put into all those areas. Um the other question that you had about a push button crosswalk, we looked into that as well and we have to get pricing on that because it falls into the same category we ran into with Cleveland. There's no sidewalks on the other side of severance. So we can't have a crosswalk legally that crosses to nothing. So we'd have to put sidewalks in um and make sure we have uh easements. I don't think it's an issue, but we would definitely make sure that there is easements that we would need to put sidewalks in. and then what is the cost to put those in? Um, and where would they go? So, it's not that we don't want to, we just want to make sure we're doing it right and we're not wasting taxpayer dollars and we're not putting these in in a in a method that could get us in trouble later if we don't put them in correctly. Um, and I don't know who repainted the one on Cleveland, but we we should probably find out because that probably could come back if somebody tried to blame that back on the city or the school for it doesn't meet ADA standards.

Um, Yeah, I mean that the request from Superintendent Dr. Johnson to um Enrio was sent over a year ago. Um I feel like if if there's a need for communication, it should be taken up with the district. I don't speak for the district when I sit here. Um my emails about the Allen School Zone and school zones in general are because I drive these every single day during drop off. We we are here to discuss a recommended path forward, not what Miss Goss's emails are and what she wants. I I think we need to uh let staff discuss this a little bit more and possibly look at hiring our the consultant so that we can make a proper decision on this.

So, yeah, I agree. We probably should make this an actual item on the agenda to look into all of this as well. I mean, I I think in listening to this gentleman, he's got a lot of good points. If you would let me finish what I was going to say. I don't think you need to finish. I think I do. Actually, we're not here to discuss what you want to. We're not talking about Cleveland. We're not talking about the school zones. We're talking about I didn't bring that up initially. Mr. Garza did. And I will finish what I was going to say. Thank you,

Mr. Mayor. Finish what you have to say, then we're going to move on. Great. We can move on at any time. I still plan on finishing what I was going to say. My point was that the request that was put in from from HPD and Dr. Johnson followed the protocol for what we had in place a year ago. And so if we do consider a new policy, I think that the requests that we've received up to this point should be considered based on the policy that was in place when those requests were put in place. Do you mind clarifying because I'm not sure what policy are you refer you talking about the nine the nine that are supposed to be in play. Yeah. I apologize.

I mean is that what you're asking about? I was told not to talk anymore. So I I don't really want to clarify. So I guess we need to talk. You guys can just go ahead and speak for me.

I haven't been able to find a policy ne cuz I was I was curious about that too. What was our previous policy? And I have some drafts, but I I can't find a policy that we had. There was some rather rapid turnover. So maybe that maybe I'm just not finding it. But if we had a policy before uh Cecil and I were in our positions, I don't know it regarding our approach to cost sharing on any particular items. Um I still think it's based on a case-by case basis on need. Um, and that's what I'd like to do because that helps us determine is it a case where maybe there's a there's a infrastructure upgrade and it does provide safety, but the opportunity cost of those dollars could be better spent somewhere else. That's why

I wasn't explicitly talking about dollars. My consideration is about a policy that Mr. Vas referenced an email which now I don't know if it exists or not about uh beacons being warranted and Oh, okay. And so I I don't know what this policy is. If you say it doesn't exist, then I I'm curious to learn more about what the current policy is because I believe if we're going to adopt a new policy or hire an expert to draft a new policy, we should have an understanding of what our current policy is.

So, we just basically need to come up with all this information uh and actually have it in a presentation. I guess maybe I wouldn't say the next council meeting, but somewhere because this is a path forward where we need to go and establishing that. And I appreciate the information you guys have brought. I I'm happy to look some more and see if we had a policy. Um I at some point it's something where I think maybe we just if I can't find anything, are you willing to accept my word on that and we can work going forward? Um yeah, I will do my best.

The policy referenced was that all requests need to come from the superintendent. This is the practice that was followed when HPD presented and presented letters from all of the um uh principles from every almost every single school including Hutch Ber and I believe Trinity and Holy Cross were in there as well and then a letter from Dr. Johnson requesting consideration of the the one at Hutch High. the that the request policy we still have that. Okay, that but the request policy that they ask for it.

Uh my understanding after talking to our consultants and stuff is typically when we look at those then we would then we would take the request and say match it. Does it fit what we need? And that's where we're at with um the high school right now. We have the request. it it did kind of get lost in the shuffle through some emails, but we have that request and we are currently looking to see where that um school zone should be and it does it meet what they what the school asked for or should our recommendation come back and actually shorten that up some to meet a standard for the the city. Um most of our other schools are the block the school's on and a half block each direction is a school and again I that

that policy is still in place. We're not planning on changing the policy about how we get the information from the school. I believe it's getting confusing about when we're talking about budget and where we're going to spend the money. And I agree with Evan's stance on if we can take a little time and look at this as a whole and say where do we where do we need to spend the money and where can we budget it? Um because we are trying to go into uh a new budgeting on how we do this the pay as we go. We we want to make sure we're spending the money properly. Um and completely understand but the policy you're referring to that exists. I can make sure Evan gets it, knows what we're talking about. But yes, the request needs to come from whichever school district and the superintendent from those schools, which we have that from the high school. Okay. Thank you. Yep.

One quick thing as we're path forward here. We talked about removing West 23rd, which has 88 cuts to nowhere. Four of them. Yes. And we we talked about it was Gregory Street or one of those streets east of Severance. Um um removing that. We were going to see if they were warranted and pull them out. Did we 11th and Baker 23rd and Tyler Baker and then the other was down at um Bigger and Maple Oh, okay. There were three. There was three that was that was you present the path forward. Will you check on those as well?

Yeah, we've actually those those came back. They're not warranted. Um, so we were going to present on those anyways. And then we were waiting for the school season to end so we can we have a a standard we have to we have to post it for uh I believe 30 days ahead of time and then 90 days with them bag before we can do the removal. Um, so will you be seeking council input on those in the same manner that you did the other three that were removed last year? Um, honestly that's a discussion I think I'd have to need to have with Mr. Viega. Um, I'm not sure that's something we need council's recommendation on cuz we have

I remember him telling us during that meeting that you don't need council's input, but I do believe that one of the requirements is that we have a public hearing before bagging and removing those. Is that I don't I don't think there was a public hearing. I think we just have to put the public notice out which is signs at the location, but we didn't plan on doing anything before we had a presentation to bring to you anyways.

Well, I understand that. Okay. So, if there is no public hearing required and no council action would be taken into consideration, I do believe that it would be prudent to have a public hearing during a council meeting um so that people can express their concerns for the three that you plan to take out because um the the public input that came out after those were those first three were bagged um was pretty significant. and um it was addressed publicly during a meeting, but those people did not have a a public forum. Um we got stacks of letters instead. We got we got stacks of letters from one particular agency.

I understand. Um yeah, and since then we've reached out and u from what I've talked to people that those three we haven't had any push back since they've been removed. Um I've actually had people call and comment that it's made traffic flow smoother in those areas. We just want to make sure what we're doing is right and that is um that is reaching out to a traffic engineer and having the warrant study done because that's the legality of it. Um we would definitely bring a presentation back before we take next steps. Um and but typically with these, especially since these are close to school zones, we want to wait till summertime. We would rather make that transition while school's not in session.

Absolutely. I'm just saying it would be prudent to have a public hearing and I would request that we have a public hearing for people to weigh in on those. Thank you. Cece so it sounds like we have a path forward on where we need to do some research. So yeah, we we'll get something together and put a presentation together for one of the upcoming council meetings. If I may make one last I hope it's the one last comment Justin did point out for the SS4A um that we're actually only contributing 20K um and the other 20k is covered by K dot. So, it's actually 10 to one for bang for our buck. So, pretty solid deal, I think. Okay. Thank you. Is can I ask a follow-up question on that? Yes.

Yes. Which one of us? I'll just email you. Sure. Anyone else? Oh, I asked if anyone else any other Oh, no. No. All right. Thank you. Next item, Mary. Item number 8C, consider bid results for 2026 residential street maintenance project.

Uh Justin Karum, construction manager, uh on behalf of the city of Hudson Engineering Division. Uh purpose of this project is to perform asphalt surface treatment as part of our current 8-year residential maintenance cycle. Uh city of Hutcherson staff completed the design on this project. Uh the project was approved in the 2026 CIP budget utilizing the residential street maintenance and crack program budgets. Uh a little bit about the bid. We had a total of two bids that were open on March 3rd. The low bidder was received by Vance Brothers LLC uh in the amount of 1,169,242 uh2. Uh this is below the engineer's estimate. The bid cost uh is below the adopted 2026 CIP budget. Uh I believe we received very favorable bids and competitive bid for the project. Uh Vance Brothers is an established contractor from the Kansas City area. Uh they recently acquired CircleC Paving uh which you might recognize that was the contractor that has held this contract or has won this contract for the last uh nine years. So they've been acquired. Um we should be working with the same folks that we have been uh but they are under the Vance brothers name now. uh recommendation. It is recommendation that uh that the council approve bids and award the project to Vance Brothers LLC in the amount of 1,169,2 or sorry $2422 and I'd stand for any questions you have.

So I have so question just so there's clarity in the community of how this works. Sure. It's on a rotational basis every eight years. Yes. So we would have done the area at uh like plum. Oh good gracious. Plum and um Lorraine to I don't know where it's at, Monroe. Um that would have been last year, that north section there. Now we're going to the uh the lower uh I don't I don't know what that is. Yeah, it's generally between uh I believe uh 4th Avenue to the south and then uh I think it was Plum Street to Main Street. Generally,

I just want to make sure everybody knew there's a rhyme and reason to what we're doing. So it's not like we're just picking where we're going. And part of that is we've we've sized that 8-year rotation ideally to help our funding. Uh all of those are about equally sized in the footprint. So when we ask for CIP funds each year, uh it's more it's consistent to the funding that we we were allocated. So,

and I know we had some I don't want to say issues up in the north uh the northeast corner. Um did you have any of those similar type things where the I don't know there's comments about the gravel and everywhere and stuff like that? I know we do a good job taking care of that, but I know it's a pain once it happens. I think that's that's a creature of the of the product. I mean, you're basically spraying oil, laying rock, and pressing it in. And you want to oversaturate the rock so you don't miss any of that. That does create excess rock. And it does it takes a full year cycle through the heat and the cold. Truly, the cold of winter is really what binds that asphalt. So, it stops kind of rejuvenating uh the the flow of the temperatures. So, you it's it's typical to see that kind of shedding. Um and we street department does a great job of putting on the rotation to go back after we've chip sealed and try to uh hit those more frequently to kind of reduce that. Uh but it's it's kind of a part of the product unfortunately.

And this and this is also kind of a cheaper process to maintain the roads uh for a longevity standpoint. Correct. Yeah. This is this is kind of your value uh approach. Um you're basically putting a protective layer over the surface prolonging u renewing that driving surface kind of like a a phone case on your phone. You're protecting the outside. Uh, and that's just kind of uh getting more lifespan out of it. We do have a big tool bag of different options. There's microsurfacing, there's mill overlay. We are talking internally. I think I have a meeting with Brad not too much longer to kind of help get us up to speed on all the different options. Uh, but this is currently what we're going forward with uh and value being in mind. So, okay, that's all the questions I had. Some of that was in the packet. I just want to point that out.

Oh, I know. I'm It's a public uh so the public can hear those comments.

Oh, okay. So, it's okay when you ask a question that's in the packet, but not when I do, apparently. That's cool. Um, I did have a question. Oh, I I feel like we do have remarks about that. Um, the the the extra rocks that don't attach or don't adhere into the um oil every year. It seems like the issue in Scott's area stems more from you have more properties that don't have curbs and gutters in that area. And so the rocks are being put into a grassy area versus captured by the gutter and then being the ability to sweep those up and collect those. And

we actually had some of those same issues in the Heather Parkway in your area. Um because I had I had uh phone calls from the Countryside West area about some of the similar issues as well that were out in the uh northeast. They were leaving the rocks in the curb and Yeah. I mean, so they but they're easier to pick up out of to sweep up out of the curb than they are to pick them out of the grass if you felt so inclined. Um or that would ruin the grass that you manicure in your kind of ditch or the extension of your yard. Um, so I I understand where those concerns from come from. Um, and it's just the process.

Any other questions, comments? Uh, any questions or comments from the um public? I I do have an additional question. So, was Circle K the um contractor that we went with last year? Circle C uh was the consistent one that had been winning pretty much our whole uh program. That's what I thought. And how are they in your opinion on warrantying their work and working with you? Cuz I know you're the one who who inspects their work and holds them accountable. Are they easy to work with? I mean, considering they're the lowest bidder, I just want to ensure that we're getting the best bang for our buck and they're not difficult.

I think Circle C has been a great partner for us. Um, I mean, we we entertain we intend to entertain all bids. Uh, but, you know, they've they've built a good relationship with us. Uh, we I believe we get the quality uh that we would want and we get value. Uh, so I think it's it's kind of a win-win uh, as far as this contract goes. So, and is there any concern of yours that that wouldn't be maintained by them now being managed by um, a company that isn't Vance Bros? Uh, fully local.

They are pretty established in the Kansas City area. Um, I've heard of them. They had bid our projects in the past, but their mobilization of Kansas City was pretty substantial. Uh where circle C is based out of Goddard. So I I don't see any issues. Uh they've we're familiar with Vance Bros. at some of the municipal uh conferences we go to. They actually are presenting. They work with the city of Topeka, a lot of those other bigger cities, and they pretty much run their programs uh with them. So uh I no concerns with them. Okay. Thank you. Uh, no other questions. Looking for a motion.

I move to accept the low bid of Vance Brothers for 2026 residential street maintenance project in the amount of 1,169,242 and authorize staff to issue the notice of award and begin work on drafting project contracts and authorize the mayor to sign. I'll second. True. Yes. Garza, yes. Pass. Yes. Goss. Yes. Mayers. Yes.

All right. Um up here for the next one as well. Uh we have an update for the WoodyC project. I believe it was uh nice enough to get their drone out and fly the project. And I think we have a quick video just to kind of show you a little caption of that and then I can get to the update. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. So that was uh flown last week I believe and I want to thank it for assisting us

with that. That's a that's a cool feature to kind of document the project. Uh so what do you see phase two? So that'd be the project uh performed by Kansas concrete. U project's nearing 100% completion. Uh the prime contractors completed all major items on the contract except final final pavement marking on the approach pavement and the avenue bridge. Uh that's stalled due to the work on the Avenue C bridge. Um we are also monitoring the establishment of the grass and will accept uh the seating at 75% of coverage. So those are really the only outstanding items for that specific project. Uh as you can see in the video, the east alley from Avenue B uh to Avenue C uh that is under review by engineering. Uh currently we are looking to see how we can fit in the multi-use trail, improve the alley to a gravel surface and deal with how the slope has terminated in that alley. So, we're working with JAO to go through uh the options and come to solution there. Uh the original uh project substantial completion date was set for January 31st of 26. Uh it was extended uh due to weather days and additional worker working days associated with work added to the project scope through change orders. uh Kansas uh engineering and Kansas concrete. Uh we met, discussed and agreed to justify time uh extension for the project. Uh the new project substantial completion date was set for March 27th. Uh this resulted uh this extension was a 55day extension. 16 uh days were weather related uh documented and 39 days were added uh across 10 of our 18 executed change orders for the project. Um so that's justification of the extension. Uh final completion date which includes all cleanup activities is typically set one month past March 27th. Uh that's kind of what we're holding now for the seating acceptance. Uh but the final striping on the bridge is pending

uh Wildcat's work finishing up that overlay. So that's kind of a quick update of the status of the phase 2 project. Um the Avenue C bridge project is about uh 77.5% complete. Uh the prime contractor is finishing up the major repair work. Uh that included the full depth replacement of the medians and u replacement of both edges of the bridge. Um once the curing is complete, then the deck will receive a 2 and a/4 in Portland cement concrete overlay. Uh and we expect that to be happening in the next the next few weeks. Um the project remains on track for completion in June. So I stand for any questions you guys have. Can you speak to some of the change orders that we had what what those were in nature?

Sure. So kind kind of a variety of change orders. Some were as small as u covering a load of rock for a um additional load of rock that was needed for drainage flume. to I think the largest one was uh there was a 16-inch water mane line at Avenue B that uh was ultimately struck by uh the subcontractor. Uh but when it was determined that it was in the way of installing new uh storm pipes and so that was uh something that typically if a contractor damages a utility, it's on them to fix. But since it was unknown to be at that high of an elevation, uh it needed to be moved to move the work forward. So, uh, we, uh, included it in the project. So, and there's a I think a majority of these were storm related. Uh, the hard part of working in areas of town that that are that old, some of the data that we have, things have changed. Maybe it wasn't documented correctly. Uh, so once you uncover it, you have to, I call it field engineering, but you have to do some changes on the fly. And I will say Kansas Concrete was very fair with their pricing, uh, very responsive and, uh, very happy with the collaboration we had to get through some of those challenges. So,

and I know there was a concern about subs not being paid entirely. To your knowledge, has that issue been remedied? Uh, I couldn't speak on that. That's between the prime contractor and the subcontractor. Um, I'll leave it there. Okay. Thank you. Can you get with Brad on J with JEO and have him get that alley figured out? Yeah, it's on our it's on our one of our front burners. So, I'm just kidding because I I look at the staff reports every week. Yeah. And it's the same thing. We're waiting. We're waiting. We're waiting.

Yeah, it's it's one of those things where it's a little challenging uh that alley had gone through a lot of changes from design to construction and uh it's uh one of the unfortunate facts of uh making changes. dark effects. And so I think we're pretty close on a on a good great solution. They have an engineer named Riley out of the Witchaw office that's super sharp and and I think believe we've got him all the information he needs to give us a typical detail and then uh we're going to coordinate with parks to make sure that we're aligning with any amenities projects they have working and uh trying to get the ball rolling in the right direction again. So great. Thanks. Appreciate it. Any other questions for me? All right. Thank you guys. Thank you.

Next item, Mary.

Item AE, considering an asbestous removal change order at 22 West Fifth Avenue. Good evening again, council. Uh Jason Lady, building official. Um this is for a uh asbestous removal change order that happened over at 22 West 5th Avenue. Um so back on August 5th, 2025, of course, passed the resolution to uh finding the structure at 22 West 5th to be unsafe and dangerous and to be repaired and or or removed. Um, we budgeted um, well, there was it it it came out of our annual budget, but there was a bid approval for demolition on November 4th of 25 in the amount of $67,500. Uh, however, we had this change order come in for the presence of asbestous as I tested this. Uh, these were the costs um that were beyond the original cost of demolition. The request for such a change order uh is consistent with the original bid documents. There is a statement in there stating that any asbestous remediation that is recommended by the survey shall be added as a change order. Uh so for clarification as and as per the bid document the contractor has also incurred cost in this uh for the asbestous survey. We do not pay for the asbestous survey. we only pay for the change order of the removal of the asbestous um and the remediation of it. Uh there is no um anticipated additional financial obligations as again this is in our FY26 budget to cover all related cost and uh so um recommending uh staff approval of this for eight in the amount of $8,470

to distribute those funds. And you will see in your packet the uh cost of the change order in the amount of $8,470 and uh the services that were rendered from the asbestous company and I'll stand for any questions if you have any. Any questions? All right. Thank you. Uh no questions. Looking for a motion. I'll make a motion to approve an asbestous removal change order at 22 West Fifth Avenue and authorize the mayor to sign.

I'll second that. Druid, yes. Garza, yes. Goss, yes. Bast, yes. Mayers, yes. Item 8F. So this is the uh the item about the appointment of the exeicio to the hutch rec board. Um so I had put this on the agenda. I thought it was a mayor approval um item and it requires council approval. Um so I just wanted to um open that up to the councils for uh who they'd like to appoint to that position. Um so

um my understanding from earlier conversations is that the state statute is that we that our treasurer is actually that that Angela is appointed to that board. I'm not saying that we can't have additional people there. I think that's in their bylaws and it was quoted um as such. So I have I have no problem in with the point in that. It seems like the state statute is the minimum and that their bylaws go above and beyond by allowing the council to have an exeicio that is appointed by the mayor. Then I would like to appoint Darren Truan to be the exeicio of the Hutchre board. Why is that?

Uh because that's who I would like to recommend. I feel like he's got a um neutral bias to go into this um council so he can come back and report to the council what his uh what he I guess what he finds there um what he interprets etc. Um, and so that's kind of why I think um, and I've talked to him about it as well, um, that I think he'd be a good fit for that role. And so that's why I'm recommending that. I I think at this time I'd like to read into the record my resignation from that board um, a year ago. And I'll just read that into the record and and and people will know. April 9th, 2025. Dear board, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you all personally for the three years I have spent on your board. I've always worked to make Hutcherson a better place to live, work, and play. I will continue to advocate for all citizens, taxpayers, and employees of our city. I will always have my own opinion on how best to advocate to that end. I understand only from a phone call that I placed to Sue that I was not advocating as much or how the board wished. I appreciated the conversation with Sue and the comments she had for me. I only wish that I would have known before now that there was a problem with my advocacy for this organization. Again, I appreciate all of your friendships I've made because of my time on the board great fast. And that was on April 9th a year a year ago in 2025. So, I guess the other question I had was why we did not appoint someone after that um resignation from the board for Greg

cuz he never submitted that to council. Uh you all had a copy of it and I read it in executive session when we were talking about other things. If if you would have wanted me to read that publicly, I certainly would have. I did did just now. I think we're not allowed to take action during executive session. We didn't action with the board. It was I don't believe that that letter states that it's a resignation. Does it?

I The board knew I resigned. They had the letter. I got an acknowledgement here. I can read the acknowledgement of the letter so that you understand that they knew I resigned and you all knew as a council I resigned. Nothing was ever said about me. We weren't I was never asked to fill the position in 2025 as uh while I was mayor. But you could have. I was never asked to. I was part of your responsibility as mayor. It's your responsibility to attend the library board. And that's what I'm going to do the next time comes up. And I'm also going to attend the Hutchre board.

Oh, so all of the Hutchre stuff is my fault because I didn't appoint anybody last year. No, I did not say that. Maybe they ambiguous lack of a resignation. Okay, we'll stop right there. Yeah, I didn't appoint anybody. I wasn't asked to. I was not tasked to. And frankly, Greg's letter is not a resignation. It sounds like an apology.

Well, we can talk about apologies. I appreciated your apology, Marilyn. And I appreciated yours, Duke. I met Jackson on Tuesday. He called me last Tuesday with his concerns that I had that he had with the letter and he he let me know that Duke apologized. and I really appreciate that. And Sue apologized to me for how my resignation went down. There's that means a lot to me and I think that uh we'll just leave it at that. So there is I'll leave it at that. Do you have the acknowledgement of your resignation you'd like to read?

Yeah, Greg. Thanks for sending this out to the board and to Tony. I really appreciate it and I know you did not have to do this. It is very gracious of you. We will make sure we comment on it at the next board meeting. So, right now we don't have an exeicio. Um, and I feel like with everything that's going on right there, we need to have somebody there.

Yeah, I also sent that exact same um sentiment via email 3 weeks ago that we should have more than that actually that we need to appoint in next Fishio. Um, I don't know that staff was ever made aware and board appointments technically go through Dave Satello, the human relations commission or the human the HRO. You know, you were mayor at the time. I did my due diligence with the board of Hutchre. Um, you could have done with that what you wanted. Okay. I I guess did you want me to shout it from the rooftops? What? What do you want me to do? So, I'm just gonna I'm just

I was never asked to make an appointment and I'm saying I've made a motion to appoint Darren to the exeicio to the rec board. Yeah, I will. That's what that's what that's where I'm after. I will second that. Okay, Truan. Paul, do I need to substain from this abstain or do I volunteer by voting yes? If if I if I if I don't have to, I'll say yes because I'll be Did you not want to open this up for public comment? Uh yeah. Is there anybody wants to publicly speak about this?

Hi Sam Conklin, 3808 Cherry Hills. Again, uh I just want to say you are all welcome at our board meetings. We welcome anyone that would be willing to sit. So uh you know all of our stuff is open record. you can find anything very easily accessible. Darren, we would welcome you. Scott, we welcome you. Stacy, Steve, Greg, again, you've attended. We'd love to have you guys back. So, if you guys and and Rico's attended also, so if you guys all would like to come, you were all welcome. So, there does not need to be any infighting about it. You were all welcome to had a seat at our table. So, I didn't feel welcome. Well, I'm sorry that you did not feel welcome. You were there for 3 years. So, um you know, I don't think you felt welcome until the very end, apparently. So

yeah. Yeah. When I was called out on a vote that I made public right here. Well, when when you sit on our board for 3 years and then say that, you know, we're not necessarily a worthy entity, I think we get a little bit upset about that justifyingly. I said that

you you said it several you said it several times ago and I I remember watching and I was astounded. And in fact, you know, you still argue against that direct, which is fine. That's fine. That's your stance. That's your belief. But we are we believe that Hutchre wreck should be an entity apart from the city. So that that is what our stance is. So and obviously you you don't you have different feelings which is fine but that's not why I came up here. I came to say that you are all still welcome at our board meetings. So and I still believe that Greg. So thank you. Thanks Sam. Anyone else?

Mayor I believe we got a second from Mr. passed on that. Yes. And we're um Go ahead. Are you going to abstain? I will abstain. Goss. No. Garza. Yes. Fast. Yes. Yes. Next item. Item number nine. Report of city officials. Stacy. Why am I going first? Why isn't Mr. Garcia going to go first? Because I asked you to go first.

Okay. Um I am curious if Mr. Truan could um report out from his uh attendance at the um kind of joint task force from the uh about uh I don't actually know the title of the joint task force but it was about data centers and best. You want to just report about that in your comments? Yeah, I can do that. Thank you. Okay. Um, hold on. I wasn't prepared to go first, so I have some, uh, if you don't mind.

No, go ahead. I don't know what I did with my notes. Um, maybe you could come back to me. Oh, wait. We're good. Oh, I can just take my time now. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. It's your time on the your time to speak. So,

I do believe that a council member should always be afforded their time to speak. um get found my notes. Well, I will mention um a couple of things um that I've been emailing about um at at least twice. Um and that is the first thing um I believe that we should discuss a moratorum um on data centers until we have um appropriate zoning um in place. Um because currently and this is a a huge concern of mine um under current zoning a data center or a best could go into a residential area um because we have not defined what utilities are in our zoning. what is a major or minor utility? Um, and what's their appropriate use or class? So, while the assumption may be that those would be only allowed in our current I3 zoning, which would be a zone that would allow for like hazard hazardous waste and um things that are health concerns um right now that isn't actually outlined in our zoning. Um I believe that a brief moratorum of possibly um 90 to 90 days to 6 months would buy us time to um hash those out with um um with the the parties that we um would

need to involve in that and and have some um public hearings. Um, and I've asked for that to be on the agenda at least twice since February. Um, I was told that it was going to be on the agenda and then, um, I was, it has not been on the agenda. So, um, I would like to have that on the agenda at sometime in the next couple weeks. I've even drafted, um, uh, sample moratoriums that I emailed to Mr. Vieos and and received no response other than would you like, when would you like this on the agenda? and then no response after that. So,

oh, I've got I'll make I've got some stuff to talk about when we get to me, so I'll make comments on that as well. That's all I have. Um, Mr. Fast,

um, I did I was contacted this week. Um, uh, somebody wanting side by sides on city streets. Again, I don't I'm not sure I'm for that, but I just wanted to mention it. And uh maybe we could look into that and have uh chief weigh in on that and see if anything has changed since the last police chief. Um, again, I I think that uh I think that anytime we begin to think critically and question things, it uh it's probably a good thing. I I've never on any single issue except for the Hutch wreck thing received more um calls and emails and internal emails that were being forwarded to me about us ending the Hutchre. We didn't talk about us ending Hutchre. We talked about looking at it. The study in 2011 was a bunch of lay people like us that probably didn't compare city to city. And I'm not we'll we'll put that on the agenda later and and decide that. But I I just I just want to let the public know that that I got all of these folks that said we're going to talk about ending the wreck. We haven't I I don't know. I want the information. I will say that over the past two to three years I have had a lot of people upset um about some of the the issues at Hutchre and I've encouraged them to go to the meeting and I again I appreciate your apologies and I appreciate your kindness to me Duke. I I should have

mentioned that after I resigned. Thank you. So I'll leave it at that. Thanks for all staff does. You got to sit here through all of this and I apologize. That it. That's it. All right. Can I add one thing that I had worked on this week that I forgot or over spring break? Yes. Um so currently the um I'm going to bungle what it's called. Um it's it's a like a down payment assistance program. Tony, can you shout out what it it it's only in the healthy neighborhoods? What is that called? I'm tired.

Yeah, I am too. But anyway, so there's a there's a program that currently benefits only um and it's like financial counseling, etc., down payment assistance. Um it currently only benefits if you are um south of 11th and within one of the healthy neighborhood um uh boundaries. Um, I met with um, Interfaith Housing to ask them if it would be if they thought it would be beneficial to kind of expand that so that it matched um, kind of removed those boundaries but remained um, south of 11th would which would match our NRP. Um, and um, they they like the idea. We talked about a number of other things as well. Um, I sent that to Mr. V, I guess, and I believe it was sent over to planning and zoning because it it needs to that change needs to originate there. Um, but that would be an overall um kind of a good boost um to the program because it would take out that um strict boundary of where homes are eligible while still remaining focused on um driving people to purchase um and and hopefully rehabilitate to what degree they need to um homes within the core of of the city, which would align with our NRP. Is that it?

Yes. Thank you, Greg. You had one more thing.

One more thing. Um enjoyed our time as a city hosting the um the senator Jerry Moran and Jared Isaacman. If you haven't heard about that, please investigate how big of a deal this is for the cosmosphere and about and for our city. I got to spend some time at Jerry Moran's office uh two weeks ago um at the National League of Cities conference and uh because of that meeting, we had a meeting today about the railroad taking care better care of their things. Um it's amazing how those relationships matter and how quick things get done. And we also met with Terry or Tracy man, excuse me. And we I spent at least four hours in meetings about data centers. The things that we are worried about data centers today are not the same things we worried about before. But anyway, I wanted to mention that huge kudos to the Cosmosphere and their staff. They they put on a show like no other. And and so anyway, big deal.

All right, Darren.

Well, what I originally have here is uh I wanted to give a shout out to Graham at Startup Hutch. Uh last three months uh his monthly meeting at Sand Hills Brewery. He's had three awesome speakers and uh so I've attended the last three and encourage anybody else that entrepreneur or or just wants to go hear some good speakers. I recommend you I don't have the date go on get their Facebook page when it pops up you can RSVP and but anyways it's been very good and I think he's doing an awesome job. Uh going along with uh Jerry Moran he was at Davis Hall with the college this morning. Uh they did the ribbon cutting ceremony for their new facility at Davis Hall and I didn't tour the whole thing but from what I've seen it looked very very nice and uh I think it's going to be very beneficial for training new medical staff and nurses and paramedics and I think it's something awesome for Hutch. Uh now I was asked to so the task force Reno County task force that is something that uh county commissioner Ron Hurst and Randy Pardington I believe came up with. Uh I got involved because I was asked to go last Wednesday. Uh so I attended um there was myself, Randy Pington, the county counselor, uh Ron Hurst, uh Mr. Vincent and uh Jeff Shank from South Hutchen, one of their council members, and then a couple uh people from the chamber. Uh basically, we just kind of discussed uh didn't discuss a whole lot. We discussed kind of, you know, maybe some ordinances, some regulations on data centers. Um didn't go into real detail yet, uh because it was just an initial meeting. Um, I I just want to stress to the

public that I haven't made up my mind yet on data centers. Uh, I keep hearing and when I researched them, the research I found, I believe, was about 15 to 20 years old and and that in that information was pretty scary. Now, I attended the the meeting that the chamber had at the college. Uh, I believe they have that on video. I recommend anybody go to their website and look that up uh because it really changed my mind. Um there's a lot ever has a lot of um safe protocols. The state of Kansas has put a lot of safe protocols in um I think that a data center now haven't completely made up my mind. Um, what I want to see is who whatever data center that wants to come in, I want to speak to them one- on- one and I want to get all their information and and make make a professional decision off of that. Um, one of the things that really sold me was uh it was mentioned the K or the EverG that the city gets a uh uh 5% franchise fee uh from the electricity. I was estimating about $3 million a year. And talking to Deborah Tufall this morning, she's estimating that could be upwards of 10 to 15 million a year just in franchise fees. And we haven't even got to the property tax yet. So, I think it's something that uh we really need to look at. We need to be safe. And you know, I'm kind of talking to the public, to the people here. I'm going to do everything to make sure it's safe before I allow one to come. But I think we need to be open-minded and uh and see what it would take. One of the things I got from the chamber meeting is is that when a city puts a moratorum on

that that uh investors and stuff look at that city and they feel like the city is weak and doesn't want to make make decisions and they recommended that you don't ever do that that would hurt your city. I think there's enough uh protocols and um other ways that we can make sure that this is safe and make a proper decision before we allow them to come in. So again on the u task force it's just a beginning. Uh, one of the things that we did agree on is that we feel like all three entities, the county, South Hutch, and the city Hutch need to be work together as best we can. Uh, because it's going to affect all of us. And, uh, but, you know, again, like I said, I have not made a final decision. I need more information and I'm I'm still reaching out to some people. I messaged somebody to get me in contact with a couple people that have done some research. Uh, one of the things I learned was uh, uh, their new closed loop cooling system. I'm going to reach out to Superior Boiler Works. I want to talk to them about that and figure out if they can get me more information on how that works and what actual water usage there is. So, there's a lot of uh, investigating left to do, but I don't think we should be close-minded. I think this could be beneficial to our community in a big big way. So, that's all I have.

Thank you, Jarza. Oh, now I know what it is to be last. I don't know. Maybe I will be first. Okay. You know, Garza, first of all, on the wreck and everything committee, when a young man came up here, we are supposed to represent the people. People, we're supposed to represent the people. We don't We represent government after we talk to the people. And unfortunately, I receive uh Mr. Rico, you can back me up on this. Maybe you can't. Maybe you don't want to say that. Do you remember a meeting me and you went to the wreck and I was treated very ruby. So, I know exactly what that guy's saying. I had a meeting within the year or two years that I I had a meeting with the wreck, talking about stuff. Their board, I don't know if I remember you guys sitting on the board was very rude to me. And I understand what this guy was saying. Now, I'm pretty sure if I met with this board we have now, they might be different, but they were rude to me. very rude to me. As far as this thing about this young man's coming up saying his job or whatever he did, it's wrong. I don't care if it was a cup that he threatened him with. It's wrong. You don't as a professional. You don't do that. And it's very wrong that that happened. So, I have to I understand this gentleman and he has the right to speak. That's what we want you guys to come out here to do. To come up to that pulpit and say, and you have you have the freedom to come up here and say you disagree, whatever. But Garden City just did it. And only reason we're doing this, it's a look to see if we can save money. We're not saying to do it. And when we when we go about voting for it next week, I believe, or the next city council, we're going to look at it about saving money. Has nothing about getting rid of the wreck. We can't get rid of the wreck. You think we're nuts? We're not crazy. You have to have the wreck. Garden City, there's citizens already

doing that. Garden City just did it. Save some money. So, you know, guys, it's all we're doing is looking at the payway, the the money on it. We're not we're not getting rid of nothing. The wreck and and if we do, we're going to sit back and see how we're going to do this. But guys, I understand what's going on with with with the wreck. When I went to that meeting, they treated me like Now, you know, I thought it was because of my skin color. No, it wasn't. my skin color. It's just the way that board was. And I'm not blaming you guys. I don't remember you guys on the board. So, can you say something? Go ahead. Um, that's up to No, she's fine. Mayor Meers. Mhm. She's fine. Is that fine?

Marilyn Fisk, again, I want to address what you said about threatening Jackson and his job. I want to clarify what happened there. We were going over budget line items that was on the agenda long before I invited Jackson to the meeting with us. And what one of them was is, hey, the company we're with is raising some prices. We're going to look around and see if there's anything better. That's what Tony let the board know, which if we're being good stewards of the taxpayers's money, we should, right? Um, and then Jackson brought up that he actually works for janitorial supplies. I didn't know that at the time and I mentioned, oh, my job actually just looked for new janitorial places and we found out that that was our cheapest option. So, I think while there was some very heated conversation had there, that particular piece, I'm sorry, he took that way out of context. Tony did not threaten him and that was not the case.

But I'm going to tell you something, okay? When I was in my meeting, Tony is very rude to me and your members are very rude to me. So, I understand what this guy is going through. Okay? And I'm not negating that at all. Right? I've only been on the board for a little over a year. I just wanted to address that specific comment because that being aggressive maybe is one thing. Threatening someone's job is another. And I just wanted to clarify that that is not what happened. I appreciate you coming. Absolutely. Thank you. Do you can you come? Uh, Council Member Garza, I I Are you referring to the joint meeting? Yes. Okay. I I was trying to think of the I had to go back in my head.

Can you clarify what the date of that meeting was? Uh, I I I don't know. I'd have to look. Was they not rude or not? It it was heated and probably some of that Yeah. may be inappropriate. Okay. Some of the comments made.

That's all you got to say. But I'm saying that all we're doing is trying to find and moneywise. Moneywise, right? Regardless of Tony, we're just trying to get money and see how it's cheaper. All right. Garden City is already doing it. Okay. And I and I encourage you guys if you got something to say, come up here. Come up and talk to me. Now, you know guys, I had phone calls left and right on this particular subject. And I had one phone call call and told me that all these guys are going to get run out of town if we vote for this. And we vote to do to change it. And one thing I want to say to that one person who told me, I said, "If he's going to run me out of town, can he come give me a lift? I'm too old to run out of town." So, but anyway, it does happen. All right. And I have I had a lot of complaints about the reccomission. So, I think I think what the young man is saying, he had a lot of guts to come up here and say what he had to say. Guys, it's okay. We represent the city. It's for the people by the people, not for the government for the government. It's for the people by the people. And one time, one other thing I want to say, when I was a coach, I had a tournament. The tournament was I went play by play. Mr. Tony turned me down on it. That was my first thing I didn't like about the wreck. I did this tournament for years and years and years and years and he didn't let me do it anymore. For what reason? I don't know. Okay. And the second thing and the last thing I want to say, we did anou. What happened to that? Did we ever get that done?

No. Did they ever come out with it? Justin, did you can you come out speak to theou? I asked for that to be emailed the draftus to be emailed to council weeks ago and my email went unanswered. Okay. Where's theou what happened? There's twous that are in draft form.

Uh yeah. So several weeks or several months ago we presented trekk um just general ideas um and we had a overall consensus of of overarching ideas for the for the umus. I did present draftus to Tony and to hutre. I've received a response for the Salt City Splash um so their response to my draft. Um I'm reviewing that right now. I have not received a response back for the Fun Valley Piece yet. So we haven't So we're working on it, but we haven't got that done yet. How long have we been working on theou? Have been expired for three years.

But we came with an agreement. Did I Did we not Did we not come with an agreement? I can speak to that because I was in the group that negotiated it or attempted to, but I do I have permission to talk. Yeah, that's fine. Thanks. Appreciate it. But it's my turn to talk. So soon as Yeah. As soon as done. Yeah.

Yeah. That's my turn to talk and that's my feelings. I've been there. I've been there. I've been with the the their board and I don't think it was these guys. I don't remember seeing these guys there. Uh, but they were terribly rude to me and and and I understand what that guy was saying, you you know, and as far as this thing of us taking money, we're just taking an estimate. We're just taking a look at it. I'm not scared. I'm going to say what I have to say. I'm not scared of nobody. I say what I have to say. And all it is is that we're taking like Garden City took it in. All we're doing is doing a study. That's all we're doing. and and and uh so I I don't know, man. That's what I and I think all the time when I'm sitting here, I'm thinking all the time now I'm probably gonna get a lot of hate calls in there and the next person that calls me and says they're going to run me out of town. I'm not going to be on here. Come give me a give me a lift, man. I can't run out of town. Run me out of town. Give me a lift to get out of town. We're we're a city that work together. We have to work together. And what is what is truth is truth. All right. Does that make sense? I don't know. I might be wrong, but I'm a commissioner says what I think, you know, and I'm sitting here. I'm telling you what I think. So, please, it's come together as a city and and and and this all it was was a gentleman coming here showing us how we could save money. That's all it was. We were never going to close. You know how many calls I had that we're going to close the wreck? No. You think we're nuts? We can't close the wreck. That's crazy. Other cities have their their wreck department under the park department. We're not the only department. Other cities do it, guys. It's just we're going to look at it. We're going to hire a company, go look at it. They come back with their recommendation saying, "Yay, we're we're good. The wreck's doing a great job." If that's the case, then we go on. The wreck stays what they're doing. So all

it is guys is just something that the city commissioned that a citizen came for the people by the people and I don't care if he was just one guy but one person comes up there and ask for us to do something we have to look at it we have to look at it that's our job as city commissioners and tell you what if you want to be a city commissioner it's got great benefits you get no pay you work all night you stay up till 9:00 9:30 at night it's a great job but please serve the people please be in the seat to serve the people. So, I want you I thank you for listening to me, my brother and all that stuff. I thank you for that. But I do say what I think. Thank you, mayor. Yep.

Can I have a moment to address, you know, um so well, he brought up a direct commission.

So, let me let me speak. Give me give me a minute. I'm going to talk in my my comments um to g basically maybe give some clarity on where we're headed with this. Um so I was going to talk about this last in my in my comments, but I'm going to bring it to the front. So u last week um I have spent hours and hours and hours talking uh meetings, phone calls, emails, you name it, I've done it. Um I was going to put a lot of time into data centers this week and last week, but that went off the rails. So, it was it was a lot of time of I mean I've talked to board members from the Hutre. I've talked to um city people. I've talked to community members. I've talked you and I still have a list of probably another I don't know how many uh that I still need to talk to because I feel like it's my due diligence to make sure we are doing the best thing for our community. Not based off of someone's one person's opinion or two people's opinion. It's what is the best for Hutchinson and our community with the Hutch wreck and the and the city. And so, so to speak to why it wasn't on the agenda this week, uh, was because there's still a lot of stuff to figure out before it just gets thrown on the agenda to, um, and not not having enough information. So, um, yes, I wanted someone appointed to their board, um, because I think we need to be there so we know what's going on. But, um, I'm accepting the invitation to come to your board meetings because I want to know myself firsthand. I'm going to go to the library board meetings because I want to know what's going on on these, um, entities that are pulling mills from our taxpayers. I want to know this information. I don't want he said, she said. I want black and white, what is right in front of us, what we can truly take and go, this is right or this is wrong. And whatever that answer might be, that's going to be what it is. And so that's that's where I'm at with the Hutch wreck right now is I want to do I I want to dig into it more. I just again I haven't had enough time to to get

everywhere I wanted to with it. So um a future agenda item to talk about Hutchre will be coming. Um but I want more time to research everything I need to community members, etc. Um to make sure we're making the right decision or the path we need to go. um because it's I think it's a very important decision for our community. Um and again, this is a tough job and um it's it's not something I wanted to to put this much time into, but I feel like it's something that has to be done. Um I signed up for this and that's what I'm supposed to do. So, um that's ask a clarifying question. Yes.

So, based on what Mr. Garza and you have said it sounds like there's a consensus from council that we'll be talking about a study at the next No, there's no consensus on the next we're going we're going to have a conversation. I don't know it's going to lead to a study. I I again I think it's going to be an agenda item that we discuss the path forward because we do not have one and I wasn't ready to discuss a path forward because I don't have all the information I need to discuss a path forward logically. Um because if you asked me this week, I I'm I would probably not be in, you know, would love whenever you guys are ready to shed some light on theou process that John and I went through for and I think that's a I think that's part of the conversation as well. I mean I

it's not tonight. I was not allowed to speak on that subject tonight.

Well, you can if you want to in a minute, but anyway, I just wanted to kind of address these points. It's coming. So, pay attention to the agendas. We'll have a conversation and it it's something needs to be um something needs to be addressed. Um, so I'm going to speak to the rest of my comments because they were actually positive for our community. Um, not that Hutch wreck and the city is not positive for our community. It's it's very important, but um, some great things that happened here in the last couple weeks. Um, we had an open house at the water treatment facility. I heard that I got so many comments about how that was great. Could we do more of those things? U, people want to see that. So, u, I really appreciate staff taking the time out of their evening to open the doors and say, "Come on in." um we need to do more of that because I think the community really appreciates. So I thank you all that were a part of that. Um I was going to attend but I had another obligation so I couldn't. So um I also wanted to talk about the the uh Senator Moran uh being here. I mean we don't realize the gym we have with the Cosmos here. I was talking to a bunch of the um staff from Washington uh DC and it's just amazing that they you know there was a there was a new new guy that was here. He' never been to Hutchinson. He's like, "I did not realize you guys had at this level what this was here." So, we just don't take we take for granted of what we have in our backyard. So, I'm really excited about the future things that are coming with the Cosmosphere as in college as well. Um, so there's some really great things there. Um, we had a great um I hope Chief Beer is enjoying his retirement. That was a great event to go to. Um, and I also want to congratulate um Jeremy Enrew for his new position. I think that's a great hire. um and he'll do a great job. I saw him actually today. So, and then the tournament, we had a great um showing for the uh tournament at the sports arena. Um that's a great thing for our community as well. And I just want to praise everyone that was involved with that um at that level. So, um and then I

think and then I go to the data centers. Um so, on data centers, I'm still I'm still up in the air on it. Um, I think it's something I agree with you, Darren. We need to have an open mind on. I was asked about the task force weeks ago, um, from the county and I never heard any more about it until, um, I think yesterday when Stacy asked me about it. Um, I plan on I've talked to the mayor in McFersonen. They have two data centers there. Um, I've got a call to the mayor in Salina. I've watched hours and hours of videos, read documents on data centers, impacts to communities, etc. Um, I actually plan on traveling to Texas to actually go see one. So, if anybody would like to tag along, uh, more than welcome. Um, because I think it's something we really need to dive into before, again, the reason why this is not on the agenda yet because I wanted to do my due diligence and research before we just threw it out there to um, know what to do with that. So, if you would like to speak about theou, you're more than welcome to.

No, if not, we can talk about it at the next meeting. Okay. So that's all I have. Can I Mr. Re, I'm sorry to pull you in on me. That's fine. But you were with me. Yeah. Okay. That was the joint meeting. Okay. I'm sorry about that. I I didn't tell you I was going to do that. I I had to think on which meeting it could have been. So that's why I had I want to apologize to you. That's fine. Can I ask Paul a question about one of the agenda items that was passed? Uh yeah. Um there's a $875,000 clawback in the Vig Industries contract. Can you speak to that and what that is? I don't know that that's a clawback.

Um it says if we lose a certain um certification that we would owe them $875,000 which is the total that would be on the deep disposal wells and we haven't lost certification. Okay. Because that's what the agreement was for them to use our deep disposal wells. are. And are those the wells that are still in service or not still in service? They're still in service. Okay. And so only that that is the only thing that would possibly trigger that. It's it's a term that's been met and so there's no risk there for the city.

Okay. Mr. Enrico. I'll probably just go up there. Good evening, Mayor and Council. um for the uh there's a lot of feelings surrounding the the Hutch wreck discussion and I understand that. Um and I and I want to express at least for myself because often times I feel like I have to talk with at least one arm tied behind my back. Um either say this or don't say this or we need to do this or don't do this. Um, with respect to, um, you know, the young man coming, I've also been told by a lot of people that I sent him here, that he is my puppet, that he is my mouthpiece, what any word you can think of. Um, all of these false allegations made, I did not send him here. Um, and I I've went went at it kind of angry because that's affecting my reputation. But even if I did, excuse me, um, in the past, the council has also encouraged people to come and make statements. So that is not unique. Even if I did do that, I encourage people to come to council meetings whether I agree with someone's viewpoint or not. So what's the harm and where is it wrong? I believe that is healthy. You can't grow as an organization or as an individual if you can't have a difficult conversation.

That is a healthy expectation no matter what you do or who you're talking to. So some of this I am like really struggling with on its face. And a long time ago, at least a year and a half ago, when we were talking about efficiencies, being the new guy, I pointed out a few things, and some of this was already on your radar with the lopsided contracts that we have, whether it's with South Hutch or some of the tweaks that we need to make with the county um Hutch wreck, with the expired contracts, whatever the case may be, we need to fix it. All right. So I went on a mission of okay where are we going to start and how are we going to do this and for every and now that there's an audience of hut track people here I want to explain that my leadership style I love to teach people and I've done this for all of our staff with at the most sincerest of levels the most innocent and honest of levels when people have asked how what's a mill levy how how does the city's budget work I'll draw stuff up on a And we went through here's rev neutral, here's flat and everything. And that was the inspiration behind the video that Bowercom helped us make because the staff from street maintenance employees to Evan and others, they found that very rewarding. They're like, "Oh, wow. We feel like we're a part of the city and like things are happening and we appreciate learning." That is my style. And so people ask me questions routinely just like they ask you, "How does this stuff work?" I will explain it to you. I will sit down and draw it out if I have to. And I've done that for a few people. One in particular, we started off with it was actually a complaint against the city. And then we ended up having a good conversation and somewhere along the way they asked, "How does this work?" And so I explained I'm like, "Here, just

let me draw it out for you." And so I drew out a little scenario in the taxes and how that works, how it works with the city and how it works with Hutchre. And they're like, "Oh, I should be your O." And that's a KC term. I still don't know what O means. I'm like, "What does that even mean?" Um, and they're like, "Oh, that's like an ambassador." And you know, they go out and speak this stuff. I'm like, "Well, if you feel if you feel so inclined." And then we just went our separate ways. We went our separate ways and that was it. And then that person in turn said, "Hey, the city manager was trying to force me to to say these things." That's a complete misrepresentation of the truth and what happened. Complete misrepresentation. Um, but I do want to explain to everyone. Um, I'm just going to draw it out like I did for everyone else what exactly I am talking about. It's not throwing a jab. It's not anything. It's just as the new guy how I see it. Yeah. Um,

because if the intention here is to actually have a conversation, let's have the conversation. We are having this conversation in two weeks. You don't have to do anything. I'm going to I'm going to give her Here you go. Oh, you got it.

Sorry. I got to do this. Yeah, there you go. And also, I I agree with Mr. Garza. For what it's worth, I've also had uh people in the last few days threaten me and my job and all of those things. It got very severe for no reason. Um, you know, it's if I'm going to be guilty no matter what, whether I told this person to come or I didn't, may as well just embrace the conversation is how I see it at this point. Um, so I'm left-handed, but let's do scenario A, scenario B, and scenario C. And as all of my staff knows, I love explaining things. Again, it's part of my leadership style. So, let's say scenario A, located within these boundaries here.

Can you move your microphone, please? Thank you.

So, scenario A, located within the boundaries here, we can call this USD 100. and located within USC 100. Let's say there's three communities. And we can call it community A, community B, and community C. And say community A, community B, and community C. Say we would like to put um a ballot measure together uh to establish a recreation commission. We enjoy recreational festivities and blah blah blah and we would and we would like these things here. and say as part of that um when it's when if say if it passes in this case they wanted it to fall under the USD um school district boundaries because it's a larger tax area and so now there's an equitable dispersement of recreational facilities and the way most in the way not most but I've seen this is fairly typical where say if you live in community C um and say but the community center is in community A you can go use those facilities. Um, so now scenario B and let's call this touch. I know that it's not, but let's call it that. And say somewhere in the middle, this little kind of blob here is USD 308 lo. So it used to be pre11 that the rec commission was established under USD 308. It my government hat. It's that that's a very um inequitable dispersement of recreational services and who's paying for it. So if you're located within this little peanut shape here um those 308 residents are paying for everyone else. So after 11

they start taxing the same boundaries of the city. So if we compare scenario B to scenario A, you have one that establishes for multiple communities and then one where it overlaps with the city's boundaries for one community. And then say scenario C could be any community. Um, and let's call this one for their boundaries. It's just parks and wreck. Here we have the split where we have the city and we have the wreck. This was actually what I kind of drew out for that individual that said that I was trying to stir the pot and all those things cuz they wanted to learn. I thought it was an innocent conversation and so I just drew it out. Here's how I see the world, especially as the new guy. I've never seen this type of setup before. I've either seen this or I've seen this. I'm not saying this is wrong. I've never actually said this is wrong. I've never said that. Um, but I was trying to understand, especially in light of how we can improve our agreements. Um, we've we've all agreed that a lot of the agreements are lopsided, not just with Hutchrect, but for almost all the agreements that we've entered into, even at the airport, we've heard that. How do we fix this? Um, and so this is, if there was anything worth discussing, I think it's this. Like it I just drew out three and maybe there's an endless supply. Um, but that this is what I drew and said that I'm only familiar with this or this. I've never seen this before. Um, so I did want to throw that out there if anyone has any questions about this um, council. Um, I'm I'm here to answer any questions you may have,

but I drew that up recently and then actually probably a couple months ago. Um, again in the interest of trying to teach people. You know, I was always operating under the impression that Hutchinson um is very open-minded. How I don't know how many times I've heard you have to raise the heat and ask the tough questions, but apparently when you do, you get your job threatened. Um or there's a bunch of impropriy and we're going to go after you. What is this? Like whoever approaches it from that perspective and is not willing to at least learn where are you coming from? Because a lot of the allegations made, no one's ever once tried to talk to me. I mean, all of these baseless allegations and no one's tried to talk to me. Like, that sucks. No matter what, you're guilty. Like, let's just own the fact that this is a really awkward conversation right now as well. Um, this was it would Anyway, so you have any questions, council? I I have a few other things I would love to say, but I did want to at least establish like this is just how I've seen it played out. I have I've never seen the middle before until I got here. And as you know, I give everyone plenty of grace and understanding. I do that for everyone because I would want the same to be done to me. Um but I feel like when this gets brought up, it's no, we're going after you. Um, so I will I I would I do want to at least stand for questions. Um, if you have any,

I will feel I feel like for me, the people I was hearing from on this was the same type of feeling. They're worried about this kid that's come before us asking questions, not well, what can we do better? How can we do it different or is it right or not right? Is never once about about maybe it's more beneficial to do it a different way. It was always some other contrived or what I felt like was oh well you're trying to get rid of how to track. No, we're not going to get rid of any our recreational services. I I it it's it's mindboggling to me how this has transformed into this. I I have felt the same thing as you have and I've felt that for a couple years now with just even questioning a few things and you know that's how I feel. I mean, I think what we found across the whole spectrum of things is depending on what you talk about and what you question, the answer is we'll run you out of town.

Um, and I think we've seen that I mean in few other instances. Yeah. I mean, it's it's the good old boy system always. And yeah, it is. So, I guess I I guess my feeling is that's why I'm still digging into it because I don't have that feeling yet. Okay. Um, I just that's why I need to do my research to make sure everybody's on the same page to make sure it's exactly and I understand what you've explained.

No, but the thing is with this, I've never said one is better than the other. Um, I I don't know that. I don't know which one's better. I just here's what I've observed contrasted with what I've seen and what I know. That's it. Besides, it's not even my decision. That's why this whole thing is even is like really silly. Like it's, oh, we're going to run you out of town. There's impropriy and all these things and we need to investigate them. Where's this coming from? It's not even my decision because I make an innocent observation about what I've seen compared to what I know. I need to get run out of town for that. That's that's bizarre to me. Anyway, thank you.

I would like to point out that I did try to ask Mrs. Richardson, our finance director, a question at the top of our meeting and I was told that my question should wait 2 weeks until we meet again about Hutrech. But then here we are entertaining questions from council to staff about the same subject just doesn't doesn't feel like fair uh treatment of me throughout this meeting and I I wanted to say that.

Well, I don't know. I mean, I'm not trying to make you feel like unfair like that, but it's this is like council comments to where Enrico does bring things to us in his comments to where he asks us questions. And this is not the first time I've seen this. So, uh, with not not a Trek side, but to to see where he's brought staff up to whatever and his his time um to ask questions. So, I mean, this is this is his time to do that. So, this is a conversation we are going to have. It's coming. But, yeah, I didn't say it's not. Yeah. But it's just

I've never said it's not something we should talk about. My point is at the top of the meeting I asked the finance director a couple of questions and I was told to save it for two weeks until we talk about this again which honestly throughout this entire meeting it feels like the majority of council has already decided that this will be on the agenda for next week or for the next meeting um to talk about a study keeps being referenced multiple times. Um, so to me that's that's suspicious. Well, I have no intention of doing a study um at the moment because I don't think there's a basis to do it. Well, maybe we should just talk about it in two weeks and not talk about it anymore for today.

Yep. That's kind of where I'm at. We did talk it about talked about it at length a month ago when Jackson came before us and said, "I got questions. You know, maybe we ought to look at this." We all said we maybe we should look at this. It So, for me, it just wasn't the time to put on the agenda because I still had um the fire that started a week and a half ago. So, I it's something that needs to needs to be addressed and we need to have a conversation about on an actual agenda item. All right. Thank you.

A citizen come to us and ask us if we would do something to study it. We can't just say we're going to get rid of the wreck. We came up with an idea that we would do a study. I think you should talk about if we're going to do a study. And Steve, we're going to do that at the next uh Yeah. So, we're going to do that next council meeting. But you say you don't you want to drop the study? No, I I I didn't say I don't I I'm not for it yet. Okay.

I mean, it's you know, I look at this and go it's a lot of money to invest into a study if we can actually come up with the solution ourselves. I don't even know what the cost is. So, anyway, that's where I'm at. I would like to just point out that weeks ago, if not months ago at this point, I suggested we take advantage of appointment for the exficio as well as finalize theus that have been in draft form for about 2 years. Um, and no action was taken on that until the exeicio appointment tonight.

Oh, there's been action happening. It just didn't happen in the middle of this council meeting. There's been a lot of things in play uh for the last week, almost week and a half that I've been working on dealing with and doing my due diligence to make sure that the proper um proper information we receive. So, thank you. So, let me ask you a question, mayor. So, we will talk about it next council meeting. We're gonna have to come up with uh uh information to talk about at the next council meeting and we're not going to let the public be there to to No, the public's going to be here. No, they can say it's a hearing.

It's a it's a Well, I don't know this necessarily a hearing per se. It's um but it's going to be an agenda item. So, the public can comment on an agenda item. So, well, when it comes up, they can comment because Yeah, absolutely. Just like we do on every agenda item, public can comment on it. All right. So, we have an executive session. How long do we need? You want an executive session? No, I don't think so. That's what I thought. We'll pass the executive session. Okay. Then, if that's the case, then I'm just looking for a motion for adjournment.

I'll make a motion to adjurnn. I second that. Tran, yes. Garza, yes. God, yes. Fast. Yes. Yes. Heat. Heat.