City Council - Regular Meeting
The City Council approved the formation of two new task forces for housing and economic development incentives, and decided to interview all six applicants for the District 3 vacancy. Public comments primarily focused on concerns regarding Flock cameras and surveillance.
About this meeting
- Government Body
- City Council
- Meeting Type
- City Council
- Location
- Lee's Summit, MO
- Meeting Date
- September 1, 2026
Published excerpts
Only published remarks appear here. The full transcript is not published.
97 sections (from 99 segments)
Please rise for the invocation and the pledge of allegiance.
Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us together tonight and for the opportunity to serve our community. As we listen to those who are willing to step forward and serve District 3, please give us wisdom, discernment, and open hearts. Guide us towards the person who will serve that district and our entire community with integrity, compassion, and dedication. Please bless our meeting tonight and help us remember that we are here to serve our neighbors. Amen.
Hello, everyone. I'd like to call the City Council meeting regular session number 12 to order, please. Can I please have roll call?
Here. Thank you. Now we will have to approve the agenda as presented. We'll get a motion for that. Motion has been made by Council Member Funk, and we have a second by Council Member Cravens. Any discussion? If not, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Motion passes 8-0. Thank you. Takes us to the consent agenda. Motion's been made by Mayor Tim Shields and a second by Council Member Frazier. Any discussion? If not, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Consent agenda is approved, 8-0. Thank you. All right, it takes us to Council Roundtable. Yeah, Mayor Tim Shields.
Thank you, Mayor. Well, first I wanted to give a shout out to the free community yoga that happened this past weekend. One of these days you guys are going to join me for it. I'm going to keep inviting you. But they did it at City Hall because Green Street was having the vintage market takeover. So there's lots of great activities going on. This weekend will be the fall open house downtown. So hopefully everyone can come out and support local for Labor Day weekend. Thank you.
Excellent. Thank you. Council Member Pryor.
Thank you. So I know this will make everyone on council happy, but Medi's, the progress that they're making, they're moving quick. So I'm excited to see that. And then also, this has been a few weeks ago, but downtown Lee Summit finally has a grocery store again. I think it's called Brooks Family Farm. So they're at the farmer's market. They serve, it's pasteurized, but it's non-homogenized milk. So that makes my family happy. But yeah, so you guys should visit them. They're open every day, I think. Thanks.
It's good to know. Thank you very much. Council Member Funk.
Thank you, Mayor. Congratulations again to Chief Forbes, Chief Snyder, and city staff, and of course you too, Mayor, for the ribbon-cutting today of the Joint Operations Facility. Congratulations, guys. Thank you, Mayor.
Excellent ceremony. We'll hear about it later, I'm sure. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Funk. Council Member Carlisle? No? I'm okay. Sorry. All right. Council Member Atkins.
Following up on what Council Member Pryor said, we saw the Costco ribbon cutting coming for October 2nd.
Okay. One second. Council Member Carlisle.
Thank you, Mayor. I want to say that hopefully tomorrow, well, Thursday, we're on Tuesday, right? Thursday, we will have our parks groundbreaking for the new field house. Fingers crossed. It doesn't look like it's going to rain, but hopefully we won't all burn to death.
Great. Thank you. It's exciting. Yes, Council Member Pryor.
That's great. It's holidays will be here as soon as you, before you know it. So yeah, today was definitely, the weather's been really hot. So I'm sure you guys are all cooling off in here today, tonight. We did have the ribbon cutting today for the Joint Operations Center. And thank you chiefs for making that indoor. And we were only outside for a few minutes. So thank you guys. That takes us to proclamations. We have one proclamation. I love doing these. I'll meet you guys up front if that's okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much. So now I, J. Bethel Lopez, by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor for the city of Lee Summit, Missouri, do hereby proclaim September 11th, 2026 as Patriot Day and encourage citizens in Lee Summit to join the Prairie Chapter National Society Daughters of the American Revolution to reflect and remember the 25th anniversary of Patriot Day and display the flag of the United States half-staff on September 11th. We respectfully show our reverence to the 2,977 innocent souls who lost their lives and others who were injured. We also remember the families and the first re
Thank you, and we'll take a quick photo. Here it comes. Step back here a little bit. From the podium.
So that takes us to the next item on the agenda is the public comments. So we've put these in alphabetical order, and we'll go ahead and proceed with that portion. The first one is, I always have a hard time reading that name. Michael Boswick.
Thank you. Next is Samuel Eames. Eames, Eames.
Ma'am, this is your last chance. Thank you. Okay, before we move on from public comments, the people that addressed that topic tonight, there has been information that's been sent out. We had a presentation as was alluded to earlier by Chief Forbes. We do listen to you all, and we, I think, have all been bombarded with emails the past week or so. And one thing I know I can speak on behalf of all of my colleagues is that we're listening, we want to be responsive, and we will talk to city administration to try to get some answers for some of the questions that were asked this evening. So we will
Any questions or comments? Yes, Mayor Pertone.
Thank you. I just wanted to thank you for the update. I think we had a really good discussion about this at our joint session with Planning Commission. That composition sounds fine to me, and it's kind of fast to get folks appointed, but I think it's important work to get going quickly. So I would support the current proposal and bringing forth the resolution. So thank you.
Great. Thank you. I think we have discussed this quite a bit. I think we're all on the same page. So I think no communication means we're all in favor. So let's proceed. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Takes us to the next presentation. We are also forming a group, a task force, for review of our economic development incentives, our policy. So Mr. Elam will speak to that.
Great. Any questions, comments? Mayor for Tim Shields.
Thank you. So first I want to say thank you to Mr. for putting this together. And also thank you, I don't think he's here tonight, but Joe Perry at the EDC, I know that he had some input into this process. And I think it was, oh, I'm just blind. He's there. Thank you, Joe. In terms of recommending this kind of two-group structure that would allow us to both have technical experts, because I don't expect everyone in the community to know the difference between a Chapter 100 and a TIF and a TDD and a CID and a, you know, the alphabet soup goes on and on. We need folks who understand the kind of
Thanks for the presentation and thanks for putting this together. I'm very interested in having this program go forward and having the analysis. I don't know if it's already built in here. It may be your intention that it's built in here, but my biggest concern is education as 90% of the whole thing. Educating not only the members who are assessing it, but later educating all of us about the status of past projects that have had incentives. And I've talked about this many times individually with many staff members. We've talked about it ad nauseum. And I love the charts that we already have th
I'd like to echo what Councilmember Adkins just said. But I do have a question, and I think we touched on it when we met previously. Is it your thought or anticipation that these meetings would be public? As in, even though we can select four per council district, if someone wants to sit in and listen, would you anticipate that they would be able to do that, the public?
Absolutely. I think that's important. And with that, I think we could bring some aspect of education and, you know... information as far as what is an incentive, what's CIP and those sort of things. So I think this is a very good idea. I think it takes a cross section of our community. I think the challenging part I think for us on the dais here is to determine, to solicit information and to determine, hey, Who can come? Who's interested? Who do we think is interested? Do you think, you know, are you interested? So I think it's incumbent upon us to be able to get the word out should we decide
Thank you, Mayor. Can you please go back? Maybe one slide, maybe two. Yeah, right there. So as I stated at CEDC, I still do have concern that just staff and EDC are getting to choose the people in the first group. I kind of feel like it's going to be people that are very fond of giving away a lot of incentives in that first group. So I do kind of worry about that. I do really appreciate Mr. Perry's idea about us getting to appoint two people each. So I do think that will help, but I still do have the same concern about the stakeholder working group. So thank you.
I WANT TO CIRCLE BACK AND CLARIFY WHEN I TALK ABOUT EDUCATION THAT WE HAVE TWO VERY DIFFERENT BUCKETS OF EDUCATION. ONE BUCKET IS EDUCATING ABOUT THE GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND HOW EACH OF THE THINGS WORKS. AND I THINK THAT THAT'S SOMETHING THAT COULD BE HAPPENING WITH OR WITHOUT A COMMITTEE. AND THE SECOND BUCKET OF EDUCATION IS ON OUR SPECIFIC PROJECTS IN THE PAST AND MAYBE EVEN what they do or don't have in common with other failed projects in the region, as an example, like really educating and understanding how our projects have been structured. So two buckets of education, like just one is wh
Yeah, thank you. So I'm not seeing anyone else wanting to speak. So before I kind of address some of the points that my colleagues have made, I want to just kind of reaffirm the selection process of the citizens that will be participating. So in order to keep it consistent, we have two pretty important task forces that we're working with here with the city. And this is in response to what our citizens are asking for in both cases, the Housing Task Force and this Economic Development Policy Review. So they're very important initiatives. With that being said, the selection process, we're going t
Sorry, thank you as this will there be a liaison from council or are we just going to? How is that I guess kind of along the lines of communication? How are we going to know or maybe maybe we're not supposed to know I mean Maybe it's not within our purview of knowing what's going on in the group like where will there be a liaison from?
I guess real quick, so I think The idea, the objective is CEDC is going to be very much involved in the process. They will get reports from these committees on a regular basis. So that's one way of making sure CEDC and the council stays in the loop on things. So if you want more than that, then what you're asking for could be another recommendation.
I don't know how everyone else feels, but I wouldn't mind. I mean, I know it's another meeting that people are going to have to attend. But maybe a liaison? I don't exactly, I do feel like there would be more transparency with a liaison from council in one of, like, in the first group. Well, and not even, I mean, I don't even, it doesn't even have to be CEDC. I don't, I mean, but...
I wouldn't mind having a liaison or maybe somebody that council appoints to be on the group, be in the group. But I'm not, I will do, I mean, I'm not, I don't know. I don't know what everyone else feels is best. I don't want to, I know being a liaison to the group, it's going to be pretty time consuming. So I don't want to say, I don't want to make that suggestion if there's not anyone that feels like they could dedicate the time to being a liaison for the group. So I guess I'll just go with whatever council consensus is.
We have more council colleagues. Do you want to make comments? Let's see if we can come back to your question. Yeah, Council Member Atkins.
And my comment, my third comment is about education. So I don't have an opinion on that part. I don't care. I trust the process, whatever way we choose, whatever we choose. My third comment on education, just to reassure you, is that, Mr. Elam, you've already prepared a really good PowerPoint presentation about incentives. It's a really good presentation. And I've seen it twice because I'm in private meetings like with the chamber or onboarding EDC. Yeah, wherever I've seen it, I've seen it a few times. but 99% of the public has not seen it because it's not been videotaped and it hasn't been d
I see you nodding your head. You're soaking it in.
Thank you, Mayor. As far as the makeup goes, I appreciate Council Member Pryor's comments about wanting to make sure that it's not just folks who are looking for the biggest incentive package possible. And Mr. Elam, when you talked about the actual makeup of that group, in terms of that it could be, like, school board, that it could be not just folks who, like, folks from the EDC, but also, and then in addition to that, builders and other folks that have more technical expertise. Like, I appreciate that, because, like, the school board, the school district, they have very particular thoughts a
But knowing that it'll come to us for a vote to approve the final slates, that's something I would be comfortable with. But if folks feel like that's not quite the level of oversight, I'm open to other ideas.
I'm getting some head nods, so I think that's a direction we might want to head. But there's a couple of people that want to speak still. So Council Member Cravens.
So kind of echoing everything, because I think we're all trying to get to the same resolve. What I like about this plan is that we have multiple buckets, and all these buckets are going to feed into each other. I think the whole reason why we are creating a task force is because there is an apparent issue that needs more clarification or to be solved. And so with us having all of these checks and balances, if you will, the way I envision it, and I think this is kind of something we talked about in CEDC, is the reason why we want participation from so many different places is for that whole che
Thanks for putting this together. Thank you. Council Member Funk. Thank you, Mayor. Not to go around with what everybody has said, Council Member Atkins on her educational piece, I think it's a great idea, but this stakeholder working group, as we talked about on the housing task force, these meetings would be held publicly. That during those meetings, the public could sit in, they could understand being, they can hear what's being talked about in that work group to maybe not necessarily have a liaison on there, but it is a public meeting that if someone wanted, if a council member wanted to s
I mean, I think it would be important to drill down the times of the meetings. That way they're consistent and we had an opportunity to be transparent and say, hey, the public meeting, they're going to meet this day of every month or so on and so forth.
Thank you, Council Member Funk. So to that point, I did have the opportunity to speak to Mr. Elam earlier today as well. And just like we don't want to reinvent anything, we've been consistent in how we are transparent and include the public in the past, like with the CIP list. The street strategic plan those kind of prop that kind of process and cadence I think worked well for those kind of you know procedures or situations and So yeah, we'll stick to that kind of process and format and they are all public with a lot of public and transparency participation so So, yeah, I mean, that's kind of
uh... just one more at the one last thing uh... i want to encourage because i don't know each of the twenty thousand members of my district at twenty five i want to encourage for especially for those who are not present tonight that are watching online email us call us whatever it is you need to do, if you are remotely interested in being part of this. If you know someone who you think would be good, you have to let us know because we won't know. I mean, we've got folks and we've had a couple that have already reached out, but I can't know and won't know who unless you all let us know. I was j
Thank you. So Mr. Elam, you see you pretty much have the green light to proceed and move forward. You see how passionate everyone is up here about this topic and just being inclusive and transparent and communicate as best we can. So with those marching orders, let's proceed.
Do you think that... Yeah, we talked about that earlier. So, like I said, we're going to have a lot of work the housing task force. We're going to get a presentation here in a few minutes by Mr. Dunning regarding the other issue we're going to be addressing. We're going to need a lot of help from the community. With the housing task force September we're going to choose some people. We can do it as soon as Wait a month have a like a lag in between the housing task force formation and then this one. It's up to us Y'all want to do it all at once in September Yeah, they're pretentious go for it
I guess I was about to ask the same question. Because you talked about bringing forth resolutions. Will those resolutions actually list the membership? Do we need to start sending names to the mayor or to you? I guess that's sort of the question. To me, by the end of September would be great, although I think for the housing one they were saying...
Okay, so maybe by the end of September for the incentive one?
We could set a couple-week gap in between them. I mean, I'm not opposed to it. It's up to you guys.
I assume everybody needs to actually reach out to people and ask them if they are interested and available. So if we want to try and do that by mid-September, that's fine. I was just wondering if we all need to be emailing somebody names or what we're doing.
I think just to keep a buffer between both different task force, I think a couple week gap or lag would be probably better or beneficial. Go for it. No, it's two per district. The housing task force. Per individual, sure. Okay.
15th and then two weeks later then do the the EDS the incentive one Thumbs up We will yeah we will set help you.
All right. Thank you. Great job. Yeah mayor pretend
Just what I was kind of hearing from Councilman Radkins, we have a schedule. After this, can maybe you send us a recap of the appointments we're being asked to make? And also a blurb that we can share with prospective appointees of here's how often this is expected to be. If I ever talk to someone about are you serving on a commission, it's always, well, what's the time commitment? So if you can give us that, I'm sure that would be super helpful as we start to find folks in our district that want to serve on these.
Okay. Good point. Thank you. All right. And we'll proceed with the agenda then. We have one more presentation. Mr. Dunning, something that is pretty critical and also time is of the essence. District 3 vacancy. So if you want to kick that off for us.
Thank you. So before we open it up, to add on to what Mr. Dunning has already expressed, obviously full transparency, I emailed all of you, my colleagues up here last week, requesting two things from each of you. to provide questions that we would, like Mr. Denning said, that we would use during the meeting next week for all the candidates. So I've gotten some from some of you and you have until the end of the week to give me the rest of you to give me some questions. But the other the other point the other question I asked was for you all to either send me a ranking or your priorities or top
I believe it's Dana Arth, Christopher Frederick, and Andrea Young. That's it.
So... I would be comfortable with inviting three folks to the final forum. I think we've had a chance to review their written applications, which had a lot of information in them. And I would like to give each of those candidates as much time as possible to answer questions and make sure that we have a chance to really get to know them that night. So I think when we originally wrote this policy and rules committee a few years ago, the idea was we never know how many applicants we'll get. And if you had 50 applicants for a position, you couldn't have all of them at a forum. It would just take a
Thank you. Anyone else? Council Member Cravens.
So I am taking the opposite position of that. I wish we could have all six of them because I do think that people who have taken time out to apply for this vacant seat deserves to be heard and deserves an opportunity to present themselves. I don't like narrowing things down, especially if it's a matter of going from five to six. I don't think that that's too big of a number, especially since we know that the questions are timed anyway. So we kind of can anticipate how much time we'll spend. I like to just hear everyone as well as know make a decision not only on what they presented on paper be
All right, thank you. Council Member Carlisle.
Okay. Yeah, I'm open either way. So it's up to you guys. You've been through all six? Okay. And then we'll figure out alphabetical order or whatever, how they present. Okay.
Mayor, I mean... Mr. Dunning, are you, staff, okay with where we're headed with this?
Okay, excellent. then we have the six applicants, and they will all participate in the forum. So I appreciate your guys' feedback. Send me your questions. Can we get the other three names? All right, thank you. The information is all public. So thank you. That's it. So we'll move on with the agenda. Agenda item number seven, proposed ordinances first reading. Mayor Patem Shields.
Thank you, Mayor. I move for second reading bill number 26-153 an ordinance vacating certain easements located in 900 Northwest Ward Road and 1131 Northwest Innovation Parkway in the city of Leesaw, Missouri.
Great, thank you. We have a motion by Mayor Patem, Shields, and a second by Councilmember Funk. Any discussion? If not, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Motion passes 8-0. Thank you. Mayor Patem?
And these ones, these ones are just for first reading, so I just go to the next one, right? Okay. I move for second reading Bill number 26-154, an ordinance reading the City of Lee Summit's procedure for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest and substantial interest for certain municipal officials pursuant to Section 2-75 of the Code of Ordinances for the City of Lee Summit, Missouri.
Thank you. We have a motion to advance to second reading Bill number 26-154 by Mayor Pro Tem Shields and a second by Council Member Carlisle. Any discussion? If not, please cast your vote. All votes are in. Motion passes 8-0. Thank you. Mayor Pertem?
Move for second reading of Bill No. 26-155, an ordinance authorizing the City of Leisaw, Missouri, to make certain changes with respect to the Chapter 100 bond documents to be executed in connection with the Lakewood Business Park Project Building 2.
Great. Thank you. A motion made to advance the second reading of Bill No. 26-155 by Mayor Pertem Shields and a second by Council Member Cravens. Any discussion? If not, please cast your vote.
Could we have staff come up and just briefly explain what this is? Yeah, David Martin.
And you mentioned the bonds. The city is not on the hook for those at all, correct?
Okay. Thank you for clarifying. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you.
Thank you. Any further discussions or questions? If not, please cast your vote. Missing a couple. All votes are in. Motion passes 8-0. Thank you. Takes us to agenda item number 8, proposed ordinances, second reading. Mayor Pertem.
Move for adoption of bill number 26-152, an ordinance approving the award of RFP 2026-083A to David E. Ross Construction Co. for the CMAR services for the Giacomo Pump Stations Enforcement Project in the amount of $52,378 and authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement for the same.
Thank you. We have a motion made by Mayor Pertem Shields and a second by... Councilmember Cravens, for bill number 26-152, any discussion? If not, please cast your vote. Motion passes, six yes, two no's. So, thank you all. All right, takes us to the next agenda item, committee reports. Oh, that may pretend.
I probably should have brought this one up in council comments, but we had Lee Summit EDC had their monthly reception yesterday. Mayor and I both had a chance to speak briefly at it and talk about the proposed task forces that are coming forward, so I'm really glad that we all came to consensus on those tonight, because otherwise we would have been, I'm not going to say making big promises, because we didn't promise anything, but we were telling the community about these exciting opportunities.
Thank you, Mayor. September 21st, 1130 via Zoom, we will have our legislative intergovernmental relations meeting, and we will be working on our draft outline for our legislative priorities for 2027, as well as wrapping up our RFP for the lobbyist. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you, Mayor. I also should have brought this up during council whatever earlier, but I attended a parks and rec board meeting or park board meeting, sorry, park board meeting where they discussed many things, including our hopeful groundbreaking on Thursday, but also on what to and how to name that building. And so I just wanted to get on the record that I do think Carlisle Courts is a great name. So thank you.
On record, huh? Got nothing. Council Member Atkins.
Thank you, Mayor. I went to Visitors Bureau.
We're technically on committee reports. Is that committee? Yeah. Okay.
Oh, I guess I considered it a committee.
Yeah, we're on committee. Yeah, so hang tight for a second. Any other committee reports? None? I didn't see any. So we'll go ahead and proceed to council comments. Prior to Council Member Atkins, I apologize. If you can hang for one couple seconds. I've asked Mayor Pro Tem Shields to read off all of the applicants that have put their name in for the District 3 vacant position.
Sure. For the record, the candidates who filed for consideration include Andrea Young, Christopher Frederick, Dana Arth, Garrett Denzer, Jared R. Williams, and Jothan J.D. Schiller.
Thank you. Appreciate that. Now, Council Member Atkins.
Thank you. I'm sorry. I guess I thought it was a committee. Visitors Bureau is where I liaison with that committee. Okay. Okay. Well, there's lots of them. So they had, they're kind of kicking off for the year and they had their, the marketing consultant Trezolo came and presented how wonderful their campaign has been the last year because the visitors bureau is brand new. They are in their second year. They're approaching the end of their first three years, which was contracted, like the funding came for their first three years. So they're kind of getting ready to go into their third year. Th
Thank you, Council Member Atkins. I didn't mean to cut you off, so thank you for the report. Good stuff. Council Member Frazier.
Okay, third time's a charm. That's right. If you know someone who is interested in becoming, in participating in any of these task force, please reach out. I know you can because you have before to reach out to us on all things pertaining to city council. So please, even if it's not you, if you know someone else, volunteer them to reach out to any of us. I think I can speak for everyone up here, any of us. so that we can have representation. Thank you. Thank you.
Appreciate that. Not seeing any other comments or the phone, the thing light up here. Staff roundtable.
Is that it, Mr. Dunn? That's it. All right, great. Thank you. We have a little bit more business to take care of in closed session with council. So thank you all for coming out tonight. And Mayor Pro Tem, can you read us into closed session?
Pursuant to Section 610.21.1 of the revised statute, the State of Missouri pertaining to legal actions, causes of action, or litigation involving a public governmental body and any confidential or privileged communication between a public governmental body or its representatives and its attorneys. Pursuant to Section 610.21.2 of the revised statute, the State of Missouri pertaining to the leasing, purchase, or sale of real estate by a public governmental body where public knowledge of the transaction might adversely affect the legal consideration. Therefore, in pursuant to Section 610.21.12 of
Second. We have a motion made and a second. Please have roll call.
These excerpts are remarks by officials whose identity a person confirmed, from a transcript generated automatically from the official public meeting video and presented unedited. Accuracy may vary; view the original recording for reference.