City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the September 8th, 2026 meeting of the Topeka, Kansas governing body. This evening, Council Member Christina Valdivia-Alcala has the invocation. If you would please turn your attention to her and rise if you are able.

Thank you, Mayor. This prayer is from St. Teresa of Avila, and it is a prayer for peace and calm. May today there be peace within. May you trust your highest power that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones and allow your soul the freedom to sing and dance. It is there for each and every one of you. Amen.

All right. With that, the clerk would call the roll.

All right. We'll move on to appointments. City Clerk?

Motion to approve by Councilmember Kell. Second from Councilmember Valdivia. Any comments or questions? If none, we'll take a vote, please. We cannot vote.

All right, I do not believe Candace is here this evening, but I'll double check. So no, but we thank her for her service. With that, we'll move on to presentations. City Clerk.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm wondering. if the policy for updating the governing body as soon as possible on emergent issues or issues that they need to know about in a timely fashion before they start hitting over the media, across the media, because that had been an issue even before you were here, Dan, where we would read things in the newspaper and had not received notification across the board with the governing body. And I'm wondering if there is a different protocol for if it is a holiday or a weekend that you're presenting here.

Right. So thank you for that. And I think overall you guys are doing a really good job. I will say, though, I do believe that there was a lapse. I don't. If the text was sent. about the fire that happened at Coach Light before the press release came out because I actually emailed the chief in the morning. It was probably close to 9 or 10 asking if there was going to be any kind of press release update or anything because I was getting calls about it and I had not gone out there obviously because I wasn't going to get in the middle of any of that. I don't recall getting a text notification. If

I wasn't saying that I expected that. I think that Dan was the one that brought up the text. I don't expect that. I'm not asking for that. What I was asking for and what I emailed the chief on later that morning was when there was going to be any kind of update. And I don't expect, you know, continual updates on fires because we have a lot of fires in this town. But I also know that this was not the usual fire.

So I just want to make sure that you understand that. Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I will say we did used to get what I would consider big fire. We used to get those in the system on fires that elevated to whatever this, a level like that. Because I will say I would also, maybe because it was a holiday is why we didn't get one yesterday. But I know there was a time where we did get ones if they were big enough fires that the fire department. So if that's changed, that's fine.

Thank you, Mayor. Dan, I too would like to just make a comment on the extent that you and your team has gone to to be transparent with this governing body. And certainly there were parts here that I did not know that our department covered. So the information was really clear for all of us to understand. And I would like to say my appreciation to you and your team, because you know how I joke around. But I know from the information that you've given us today how serious you take your department position. I think that's great. I'd also like to know, when do you plan on having me on your podcast

Thank you, Dan. I just wanted to say I'm a big deal.

Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member McGee.

Thank you very much. I appreciate all the work that you and your staff do. I also like this last page and the numbers that I see there. Also, I wanted to make a point of clarification for transparency. The grant that was mentioned was from the Information Network of Kansas, and I am the executive director of that. group, I did not this year participate in reviewing any of the applications that we received. I did not participate in their discussions or even the board, the discussions when our board made final action on that. So I, as soon as the application for the city came in, I excused mysel

Yes, thank you. I want to thank you and your staff for everything that you do. I really like, as Councilman Miller said, the communications by the members page. That really puts into perspective the work that you guys do. I do have a question about the TextMyGov. Is there a date when that's going to go live?

Is there going to be something maybe on the city website?

Thank you, Mayor. Thanks, Dan. Thanks for all that you do. Sort of in line with some of the conversation here at the beginning of this conversation, There's so many things that seem unsettled in our world these days, and so many things that we say, you know, we used to be good at, we got to get back at that again. Something that you all have done well, and I think that the press and the communication in the community is quite something to handle, but along the lines of these crises, There's a fair communication from you, from our chiefs, expectation from the press at this point, and certainly

Thank you. Any other questions or comments for Dan? All right. Thank you, Dan.

We have a second presentation this evening. City Clerk.

Great. Thank you. All right. Questions from the council? Council Member Kell.

Yes. On the sixth slide you had there, it was the 20-year demand, the different types of rental versus purchasing housing. And on the subsidized to the low end of the workforce, it was two-thirds rental. And to me, that's almost – I almost want to flip that for the simple fact of if you have low-end incomes constantly paying rent and not building any equity, then they're not able to move up that scale. So that's where I think it would be more apt to focus on trying to get people into houses that they purchase rather than renting them where they're not – I understand some aspects is they don't

Thank you, Mayor. I have a couple of things. And I understand that there's probably limitations to the study that you've done, but I'm still compelled to ask the question. And it's... where you state that Topeka's housing pressure is driven by structural shifts in households and income trends, not population growth alone. That actually wasn't what I wanted to read. Here it is. Sorry about that. The market is active and adjusting, but affordability pressures persist prices continue to outpace wages when you talk about prices are you talking about it directly in reference to housing prices and i

OK, well thank you for that. I would like to see that. I mean that that first study did you know which people pointed to forever. Even you know right after COVID ended in the world kind of fell apart. You know they were still pushing on that, you know, pushing that report all the time. But the other thing that I see where you say the shortage of quality housing impacts future economic growth and then we see If I'm correct, if I remember the slide that you just showed, that there's been an increase in rental housing, right?

Well, I guess what I'm saying is this, is that we have a number of older multifamily dwelling apartment complexes in Topeka. We have a change in our culture of property maintenance, and one of the things that was seriously looked at is a rental registry. And I don't know if you've ever worked with cities or when you've done more in-depth studies is that there are a number of activists that actually live in some very difficult circumstances because the honest point is is that we have some slumlords here and I'm talking multi-family dwellings and I'm talking not all multi-family dwellings but we

And so, you know, literally we have folks that are afraid to report because they don't have anywhere to go and they're afraid they're going to get kicked out of their apartment. So my bottom line question is, in the numerous cities that you have worked with, Do you have any analysis that you ever go into or have you seen any benefit from a mere rental registry to a rental registry slash licensure? I'm just asking what your experience has been. If you don't have any, okay, that's cool.

Well, I wish he would have weighed in on that, too.

Well, we'll have to look into that because licensure, you know, is on the topic of discussion. We know we definitely have pushback by the legislature when it comes to inspections. So that is a very hairy beast. At any rate, I'll have to look into more of what you said. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm looking at the 2019 housing study, and it clearly indicates that we need more housing. But in my district, my constituents are looking at the houses that are being built are not affordable for the people that probably need them most. So I'm thinking or wondering if you have any idea how we get the people matching the growth of the housing. You have to look back. This is a city that hasn't grown 10,000 people in 50 years. So how are we going to fill those houses?

Well, maybe I can make it a little clearer. The houses that are being built right now, there's a number of them. and most of them are exceeding the capability of some constituents in our city to afford them. So how do we get them to the level, I mean, they're not going to be able to, we can build all we want, but if we don't have people that can afford the houses that we have in our city, we're just spinning our wheel, or as Councilman Kale would say, kicking a can down the road.

So Justin, I'm going to interject on that and then you can add to whatever. But I'm going to connect it to something in both your report that you go into a little more in-depth than the actual report and then what was on your slide tonight, which is we are a city with no infill development incentives or programs. And so I think to the council member's point, he's got people in his district who they're acquiring the land and they're building the homes, but if you don't have any sort of infill incentives or development plan, then the cost of those homes are more to build without some sort of ass

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Hiller.

Thank you. I've got kind of three overarching questions. One of them, you're saying we need 4,220 new units across the board. Yet the same census data that you drew other numbers from says that in 2024 we had 60,213 housing units and only 57,797 households. So there's a gap of 2,416 which are vacant structures. And those are in my neighborhoods and David's neighborhoods and so on. Yet the sentence in the beginning of your vacant housing assessment said, oh, we weren't asked to talk about that. And you mentioned it today. I appreciate whoever... Probably trickled that for me and maybe some othe

Thanks for that. And I mean, if you weren't asked to, if you were just asked to look for how many people, how many units we might want to develop, fair enough, I guess. But I guess a challenge to all of us is I just can't imagine us having an overall housing strategy that doesn't include all those structures. Many of them have been sitting for a while, others not very long, but they're part of it.

Well, I very much agree. I guess when I look at that, if we identify in a certain neighborhood that we actually have 222 existing housing units and we really focus on fixing them up, shouldn't that 222 or whatever it is come off the 4,220 goal if we've brought back into the marketplace one way or another?

Well, just because if we brought those existing units back into the marketplace, and I say that, I represent Central Topeka, and when if somebody is just building brand new subsidized apartments or houses someplace else and people are moving out of my neighborhood, then who's going to be in our neighborhoods? And at least... The third question I had was when you have a number like that, it's much more exciting, at least to some people, to do something new and build something new someplace than to go back and work with what we have. Is there a mechanism that you have built in to this report or

Thank you. Just didn't want us left out.

I understand a little bit what you're talking about, Councilman Hiller, about the number discrepancy is we're living in a different time. A good example, my wife and I, we have our 20-year-old living at home. And you get those from those high school grads to two or three years post-college living at home. And we'd rather say stack up your money And so we have all this pent-up, as he put it, housing need, and we'd rather, like in my case, my wife and I would rather our child stack up that money to be able to go out and afford that rent rather than have to go work two jobs and struggle. And you

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll be brief. So I have some subsidized housing in my district. And I don't know if this study talks about it, but we've talked about it. It's over 60 years old. When does your study say we just need to tear everything down and start from the ground up? Because in this location, it really needs to be configured. It worked 60 years ago. Our emergency vehicles have a hard time getting through there. And we've talked about that, but nothing's ever happened. Does your study address that?

All right. With that, we will move on to the consent agenda.

All right. Motion to approve from Councilmember Miller, second from Councilmember Bradbury. Kirk, take the vote, please.

All right. With that, we move on to action items. 5A, city clerk.

We do have two individuals signed up for public comment, so we will go to them first. First up, Mr. Henry McClure.

All right. Questions or comments from the governing body? Council Member Valdivia.

Thank you, Mayor. As I stated before, I would be voting no for this. I think we continue to see increase after increase. I know that there's a lot of information that has come forth. I have had concerns growing over the years that I'm not going to repeat. I too, like many citizens, believe out there listening and watching right now that we need a forensic audit. To do anything before we have that, to start tracking what is really going on in some of our departments, I believe I can't do it. So I would love to be supporting this. And I too push for a forensic audit. Thank you.

Honestly, I think a forensic audit in any department, you know, we rotated that around to, you know, each department every so many years would be a good idea to know where our money is going. I just know that this is a department that is our livelihood. You know, we need water. And we need to be sure that we're taking care of the stuff that we have and if we're going to cut into any type of general fund or water fund to not raise rates we're going to run into a lot of issues here in the next few years and that is that the one thing that we desperately need is good clean water and things have j

Thank you. I too want to thank staff for Throwing all this crap at me. Met with them today and I learned something new. How about that? So I don't know if you can do this, Sylvia. If you can give it to Dan over there. That bill. Not my bill. The... You know, I want to thank staff for one thing. They have gone, they have dug deep. They have looked, as we've asked them to, they've looked at a contract. So you know when you get your water bill, you are charged for your refuge and your Recycling. Recycling. And we collect for the county. So when we don't get that, they don't get that. I also learn

I couldn't say that like you said that. Thank you. So I want us to remember that. That's not all of us, but we always get blamed for everything at the end of the day. Again, we're paying for postage, which has gone up. And the county, when they don't get their money, we don't get our money when it's out there. And then we also pay for... when we have to go back and take them to court, correct? Correct. Yep. So look at the three things that we don't get paid for. So that's hurting us. What I did ask you, Sylvia, is from my constituents, they don't want that readiness to serve charge, and that's

Okay. So again, they want to pay for a service that they use. So they won't have that in there, right?

It used to be called readiness to serve, now it's a base charge.

So you're going to charge me for what I'm using, right? Correct. And I had them bring up my bill, and they showed me in January. I don't know what I did, but I was shooed. I used a lot of water. I didn't water no grass or nothing. That's the other thing. My low to moderate income people, my elderly, they only want to be charged for what they use. And they think, you know, I'm the only one in this household. Why is my bill? Because it used to be you paid from here to here, right? But now we're paying for what we are using. Yes. If we adopt this, correct?

That's no longer the case. Correct. Okay now I'm going to skip to my commercial who I've got the biggest commercial water user in the city of Topeka who's in this year or maybe he was in this there I don't know but he's out there and if we I I I heard the gentleman say well let's just charge them and make them pay blah blah but if we did that his next bill would be eight thousand

Now that we're, when we do projects, they brought up the Huntoon project and we tear all that out and we put our sewer lines and our water lines, is that saving us money? And Nicole said, yes, it is. Because if, when we have to tear out a street, we have to pay to put it back. And so with us working hand in hand on different projects, this saves us an enormous amount of water, right? Or money, right? And so they work hand in hand with the street department. So I could appreciate that. I can appreciate all of the hard work that you guys have done. And I can support this. I can honestly say I ca

I think I was the only one that was in favor of keeping the base charge or ready to serve, whatever you want to call it. And my point of view on that was if you're hooked to the infrastructure, you pay for the infrastructure. And I did talk to some people afterwards, and I think we did come up with some type of policy that During water volume replacements, if you have been inactive for like five years or whatever, your meter gets taken out. Or if there's a water main break and it's right next to that meter and that person has been inactive for five years or whatever, we yank it. Just because I

to have those either not replaced or removed at certain for certain circumstances thank you other comments or questions from the governing body council member hillary mike is your motion for the latest schedule that the staff has brought us yes I will second that motion.

So what specifically is the motion? I got to be honest, it was a little. What specifically is your motion to amend this? I'm not amending it. OK. What do you mean? What's your motion?

Motion to approve the proposal. Oh, yeah. OK. I got you there.

OK. Yeah. I got you. Make sure everyone else gets a chance to talk if they'd like.

Any other comments or questions? I do have a question, Sylvia. I want to clear something up. If I ask your staff right now for a list the past five years of every water line that we've placed, you are absolutely capable of providing that to me, correct? Okay. I do want that to be clear. You do know what lines you've replaced. We do have a chart and a list of actually probably the last decade that can be provided to us.

I didn't vote for the last water rate increase. I thought that it was not put together well. I thought there were some issues which we saw bleed through these conversations as we talked to things like base charge or readiness to serve or whatever you want to call it. I think what I appreciate about this process is we saw the initial drafts. We as a council pushed back and said that's not acceptable to our residential customers. Staff went back and did an analysis of what other markets are charging for industrial and commercial and we found we had some wiggle room there and by making those chan

With that, we move on to action item B, city clerk.

Deputy city manager. That's what I have on here. I don't know why. Maybe it's city manager. I don't know.

All right. Josh, anything you want to say before we end this hearing?

Correct. And just as a reminder, everybody, our plan is to vote next week because it's our last meeting of the month. Our budgets are due to the county by October 1. So unless we need to or feel need to call a special meeting in between next week and October 1, We've got tonight and next week to have these discussions, and today we're hearing from the public. The public's also invited to come and speak next week. It just won't be part of the official public hearing, as we've been hearing from people through this process. So with that, I will now open this public hearing and ask for those who a

Thank you. Next up, we have Mr. Paul Byrne.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up, Jordan Seckman. Welcome, sir. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next up, we have Dr. Tiffany Anderson.

So it's an open hearing. So if you have comments, you can make those now or you can come back up and they can come now. But after I go through the list of people who are signed up, we then will open it up to everybody because this is an open hearing to anyone in the audience. That's a little clearer than seating time and making sure that we're not using more than four minutes.

Thank you. All right. Those are all the people signed up, but is there anyone else here who would like to speak during this public hearing about the 2027 budget? Yep, just come on to the podium.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak on the budget hearing?

Thank you. Is there anyone else here this evening who would like to speak on our 2027 budget? I'm going to ask one more time. Is there anyone else here who would like to speak on the City of Topeka's 2027 budget? All right. Last chance. If not, I'm going to officially close this hearing. And I'm now going to recognize governing body members. Councilmember Kell.

When does this contract end with final one? July. Okay. So we have roughly six, seven months. If we want to find a way to extend this, we can work on this, correct?

This is something I think is very valuable for Topeka. I know some people have had some hesitations when it comes to the financial part of it. But This is something, I've said it before, these youth are, they have that wide life. They're going to go down one path or another, or a fork, whatever you want to look at it, they're going to go down a certain path. And those SROs are very influential in their lives. Like I said, my daughters had Officer Kyle. They still know how many years later Officer Kyle. I worked close with Officer Bell and other things, and that man is has a smile on his face e

Council member Valdivia out there thank you Mayor just a couple of things again as I stated before I think a lot of us have been with the meetings with Dr Anderson and principals and it was definitely appreciated the same thing that I said then I'll say now it sounds like their law enforcement officers or their campus police need more training And my understanding is chief and staff have agreed to do that. This is not going to be some cold, cruel cut after June of 2027. That 501 is just not going to be left in the dark. And again, they have their campus purity. And I was under the impression t

Any other comments or questions from the governing body nope council member kelly one thing I forgot I know I think it's 450 if we have to which I don't I don't want to go this route but they do a 50 50 on schools so that might be something to look at but that is something I don't want to do. But if it's a compromise to get us there, to have something there, that's something that, you know, I think we need to look at. But I'd rather still have what we have in place at this moment. But if a 50-50 is the best compromise we can come up with, with either 50-50 or none, I want to go with 50-50. But

Mayor, it's a question at this point since this item 5B and item 6A look kind of the same. I mean, are we going to do other discussion on the budget?

Well, this is our budget hearing, so we'll move on from this when we're done and then go on to the next actual budget talk. You know, I'm going to be honest. I struggle up here sometimes. People come up here and sometimes they say things that aren't the full story and I let it go because... It's not worth the conversation, right? It's OK. Other times, I hear things that I feel need to at least have some more context put to them. And to be honest, that's kind of where I am a little bit tonight. A couple of things. And these are in no particular order. First of all, 501 doesn't have campus secur

All right, questions, comments from the governing body at this point? Josh, do you have anything to make sure?

Council Member Hiller. I'll kick it off. I think people have known for a long time that I've been concerned about the budget overall. I feel like we need to, for our staff, for our city, and for whatever our next steps are, to take at least some very affirmative final moves right now as we pass this budget, some things that we can start right now in 2026. to move forward, but also to head off getting deeper in the hole. What I put together utilizing to a great extent, the list of possibilities that the city manager had would be a package that would reduce our spending in the city budget by $2

I do want to clarify to the public, we did very specific personnel, not general, because we're not allowed to have discussions. I understand that. We didn't violate that.

But they were itemizable positions. I do think that for the capital budget, if we take out, 600,000 a year for the first three years of the 2027 to 2040 plan. That's how Josh has helped me to try and get this on paper. And I don't think we have the numbers quite fully hung, but I can describe it. I have some handouts if people want it. But if you go all the way to 2040 with the extension of the capital budget, Anyway, just take three years of the city sidewalk project, 2027, 2028, 2029. That's 600,000 a year. Then pick it up and continue on out. Take out the fire station. that is in the plan w

I have always found it interesting. Your numbers are always helpful in a lot of ways to me. Tonight I'm noticing that there are no cuts for PD. And there are. I mean, to cut the fire station programs out puts the fire fighters in a tough position to they're already having difficulty in their living situation as it is. And I think that also it decreases the fire department's ability to increase services to the community. I was mainly interested in the cuts

Thank you for the question on that. For me, I guess I think that the public will vote to support the fire stations if they are done through the sales tax. From when we first started talking about those, basically the way we do construction projects, big ones, whether it's a building or a street, is a three-year project, right? We do design the first year. We do the site preparation or whatever needs to be done. And then we do the construction in the third year. for each of those fire stations was proposed at roughly $11 million. Right now, a tenth of a cent has been about $3.6 million. So boom

And once again, with the fire stations, this is how I thought about it at first, but it could be any way. I thought if we did them just three in a row, that would just be a nine-year sales tax, and it would one after the other get them done. They could be done one at a time, just single three-year projects.

The reduction for starters would be just to take only three years out of the sidewalk program. which, by the way, since we're doing the huge Lyman Road project, we'll be spending more than $600,000 a year on sidewalks. So just the 123 on sidewalks and then take the fire station out and then take the fleet garage out, which we talked about before. We're not really sure when that would happen and if it rolls up because we've got something going with the riverfront.

It's a way to move the financing around. Every one of those projects is going to get done. The sidewalks, those that don't get done now, assuming we continue a sidewalk program, that program is intended to go indefinitely. The DREAMS program, the idea is to move it into the fund, into the cash fund, not to not do it, and to move the fleet purchases into the cash fund, not to not do them. It's originally seeded with $2 million from the general fund side.

Again, that is to get those projects done with cash, not to not do them. And the way that starts to pay for itself, and it takes time, and that's where... Josh, I'm pretty sure we don't have it run out right yet. But... When you pull those, when you don't bond them, then your bonding, your total bonding indebtedness starts to drop, so you don't need as much money for debt service, and you can use that money for cash projects.

That's true. Okay. That would be, at this point, we do a CIP every year if that didn't pass. And you've got a lot of other stuff. You're kind of wedging on the table, hoping that people will pay for it. I just feel like we've needed to get this done in the capital budget for a long time so that we, instead of paying, let's use a single fire station as an example. It's going to cost $11 million, and we can do it for cash instead of bonding it. And we've got that $5 million to spend on something else.

Again, just pushing that sidewalk program down. Otherwise, I don't think there's anything in there that wouldn't ultimately get done. It's a matter of how we pay for it, not whether we want to do it.

Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Kell. I get where you're coming from on trying to reduce our bonds, which we need to try to figure out where we can. But again, if we start pushing too much stuff down the road, are we actually saving any money? With the way things have risen in cost over the last seven, eight, nine, ten years, there are costs keep on going up and up and up. That are we really saving any money by moving something five years down the road that or we're changing stuff around that or are we going to have to change some more next year and keep on pushing more projects an

The adopted CIP only has one of them in there. Yeah. And, and so it's a proposal to do it with a different approach to it, but to do it all. And mostly at the same time within the same timeframe that we've got, it's a matter of biting the bullet to get, to get that cash fund started. But otherwise things like dreams are just moving into that cash pot. And, and the, the single fire station, which is in for 2028, and none of the rest of them even show up on the short-term period of what we have voted on now. And so it's, again... We've all been living through this issue of what people feel like

I just look at the long-term effects. If we constantly have to push back projects, are we spending it?

I'm saying it's not pushing back projects. And we've also looked in there, and there's a couple of other soft spots in there, in that the discussion we had about the CIP was that We had some prospects of being able to get a substantial amount of the I-470 and Huntoon project done with federal or state money. That's $6 million plus within the next few years. So wanting to make sure that we work on that. But again, it's a matter of getting it all, of repositioning some of that money right now for a steady and longer-term excess in dollars available for maintenance and improvements.

Thank you, Mayor. So Karen, when it always gets to, every year when we get to this time in the budget, you come up with an amendment, and honestly speaking, your amendments are so hard to understand sometimes. You don't have any kind of handout that is... I do. ...explaining what you're vocally explaining right now?

I do. Is that a yes? That's a yes. You're remote, so they're print copies, but I can figure out how to get you one. Okay, could we have a copy?

And I understand that based on what you're trying to do, your concern is always how much will came out in bondedness, right? Trying to just get that down, right?

We are also in a position right now where there have been discussions for years about trimming our operating budget. And we've been unwilling to do that. We've had a list of a whole variety of things that we could do. And so taking that list instead of just kicking the can was a way to do both. Yeah.

And tell me what you were saying again about the fire stations and the sales tax. Explain that to me again.

If people want to do them, then the issue is not that we would do them, but if we do that with sales tax, if we did a tenth of a cent sales tax, three-year packages for each of the fire stations, either right in a row, or however, that money to pay for 100% of the design and the construction would have been accumulated from just one-tenth of a cent sales tax over three years. For each station. For each one. Right.

Right now. Okay, so, yeah, I know we need to talk about the... the ballot initiatives later, because I think that there's some real concerns about a general one that I'm very concerned about, the 110th, which I'm concerned about. And I don't know where all you've been hearing, but the 10 are folks out there is that they don't want to vote for anything right now because they're so sore about so many things. My deep concern is that none of this is going to end up passing. So how do we make it to help convince folks Move in that direction, but that's for that's for another. That's for another con

Thank you. I guess my thought along your line is just that separating the big ticket investments from the ongoing operating budget and also demonstrating that we're willing to make some cuts in that operating budget right now, not just kick the can and ask people to vote for a big, big sales tax that's got a bunch of stuff, different things mixed in it. We'll make it cleaner. more effective and let people, I mean, if we're responsible for figuring out the operating budget at this point, and we already voted to cap it instead of raise property taxes, then we've got to figure out how to live wit

Thank you, Mayor. Josh, can you talk about the dollar figure amount for cuts to OOE?

OOE, other operating expenses, not personnel.

Yeah, I'd like to, if there had been cuts to the other operating expenses, just knowing an exact dollar amount and where that was at would be.

Any other comments or questions at this time on the budget? Seeing none, just a reminder, we're going to vote on something next week. So either come prepared with amendments or changes or recommendations. Most of the meeting is just that, conversation. So hopefully there's not too much more added to the agenda. So we'll have some more time to have these conversations before we take any kind of vote. With that, we're going to take a 10-minute break. And then we'll come back for the last couple items on our agenda this evening. We'll see you back here at 9 o'clock. All right, we are back from ou

So over the last few years when we've done this, it seems like by the time the letters go out and all that, we start getting a lot more, that number starts dropping off a lot more. So I think that's kind of the one first good step we have going for us is we get that, because when you go off the 169 letters sent and that number, that's $822.27 per letter. So that's owed. So in essence... Out of those 169 accounts, in essence, that's 820. So, I don't know if some of these are with repeat offenders, if they're just waiting until the city comes and says something to pay or what, but it seems like

We do have someone signed up for public comment on this issue. We'll go to that next. Danielle Twemlow.

Thank you. All right, back to the governing body. Any other comments or questions for staff? Last call. Seeing none. Oh, Council Member Ortiz.

Nicole, if I look at that list, because I'll go over it, do I just have them go to the Water Department and tell them that they're on that list?

So if you put them on a payment arrangement, that takes them off the list, correct?

So if they make a payment arrangement, they don't have to have it paid in full by September?

Thank you. Council Member Valdivia-Alcala.

Thank you, Mayor. Quick question. So I'm not sure... I remember, I don't know how many years ago, but I remember about the system that was going to stop the traditional meter reading.

I don't know what all was involved and how that was supposed to have anything to do with conservative water. I don't know that. So I'm asking specifically the city manager look into that, how we are utilizing, or if Director Davis is there, how that's being utilized and to verify about the six positions still showing when it's stated there was one and any verification of that. If you don't have that tonight, I totally understand, but I would like that. Does anyone want to answer?

That is helpful. So thank you for that. So how long ago did we purchase that $12 million system?

Okay, and how many are you having, how many are in this testing phase that are helping you along?

Okay. And then do you have any idea about any, some kind of verification, the six meter readers down to one? Sure.

Okay. That really didn't end up being what it said it was going to be because they're still being utilized. Sure. I think we're all in this larger program now.

All right. Any other questions or comments on the liens? All right. Thank you very much. When I move on to non-action item C, City Clerk.

Ma'am. A nine-year-old male. CPR is in progress.

All right. Council Member Valdivia Alcala.

Thank you, Mayor. Once again, I'll try to keep this as brief as possible, but I've told the governing body this. I've talked to some individual city council colleagues just one-on-one about my concerns. And in 2020, it was stated that there would be another recommissioning of the fire station, understanding that things needed to occur. It just wasn't going to happen right at that time. Again, as I've stated to the governing body, last year there were three representatives, all from different parts of District 2 on the parts where there are the fire stations, which are going to be 11. There was

Just like Councilmember, I'm going to kind of reiterate what I said before. I think we really need to look at 10. We're looking at an area that 10 is not covering, that it's in that four-minute area that is the fastest growing part of Topeka. And it keeps on getting denser and denser. I'd like to see this map actually show the density of certain areas. Like, you look at something like Big Chunga Park. Put that on the map with maybe some hashtags, because I look at that. Yes, there are people there on occasion that need medical services. But 77 acres. It's being covered where a neighborhood isn

Council Member Bradbury. Thank you. I'm sorry. You don't have to say anything. I just realized I didn't give you opportunity.

And speaking to some of the firefighters, that aspect there is kind of debunked a little bit by actually, if you were to try to, I think, go from that boulevard spot to that area over closer towards like Jardine Middle School and Elementary School, by being able to hop on the highway real quick and go up rather than trying to get off on 37th Street where it's sometimes not the easiest to get in and out of on that fire station there, that you can kind of increase your response time. And this is coming from the firefighters. It's almost like I think maybe some of these areas need to be tested an

showing us a map that, like you said, Big Chunga has got a pretty good coverage to it, but it's an unpopulated area. So that's where I think we need to look at certain aspects and say, this is not an area that we need to really work on. We need to work on certain other areas because we have an area that's rapidly growing, and it's outside the four-minute bubble. And a little adjustment, a tenth of a mile away, makes a big difference.

I used the KTA slash KDOT area, not White Lakes, because it put you right on the highway, put you going south on Topeka Boulevard, put you going north on Topeka Boulevard, put you in a lot more expedited area than...

I think maybe one or two of my questions might have been answered about what stations are maybe operating above your capacity, like which ones you're experiencing the longer

Okay. And then my other question is do you know what the annual cost of operating a new station would be?

As you have it planned now, do you know what the difference in operating cost would be compared to what a station that you plan on moving?

Any other comments or questions? Council Member Hiller.

just the agenda piece, it said there was no budget cost. But if your master plan includes keeping the three vacated stations alive, then there should be a budget note for what it would, even if you're not going to have them staffed or active fire stations, but if you're going to have people working in them from PD or whoever or a museum or whatever they're going to be, there will be some cost.

Other comments or questions? Council Member Ortiz.

Thank you. Thank you for this plan. You know, the city messed up when the Sisters of Charity gave us that property. Should have let the firefighters build a damn shed on it, and we still have it because we didn't fulfill that. I actually asked legal. I said, well, you know, when Mars went in, they were going to give us some money. for a new station out there because they wanted a station out there, and rightly so for their building. I later learned we came back to JADO and said, we don't need this money. So they gave us that money that they were going to set aside for the community to build th

Because you know what? I was going to get some new furniture, but I think I'll keep what I got. And you know, and on a serious note, next month is October, my favorite month, and we need to talk about those smoke detectors. You guys sit up here and you laugh about it, but we need to push those smoke detectors because they do save lives. And in my district and other districts, the wiring's old, the houses are old. We need to help you guys out. They need to help them out.

And I can appreciate that, Chief, but we need to do it before. You know, we all can play a part in this and get those applications out there. You know, because every time I read about a fire, that's the first thing I look to see if they had a working smoke detector. And I cringe because nine times out of ten, they didn't. Where are we missing the boat? Where are we missing the boat? And so we need to push those again. We can't push them enough. Thank you.

All right, so two things. First of all, I make a motion to go past 10 o'clock. We've got people signed up for public comments. Second from I have no idea who that was. Councilmember Miller? All right. All those in favor say aye. All opposed? The second thing as we wrap up this conversation is I have talked with chief and city manager And we will put together, call it what you want, a fire commission, a citizen review of this plan. But my plan is to get that moving soon. So I don't 100% know what the structure is, but we'll have that conversation a little bit more over the next couple weeks. Bu

I mean, you can make, we can make that announcement. I mean, partly tonight, but I mean, it's going to be your appointment. So, So, over in your district, you would like to appoint to that thing.

Yeah, I'll talk to the staff about how we want to message that out to people. I'll talk to Dan.

I just wanted to say thank you for that move. And, again, I want to reiterate, This is not saying that 13 shouldn't be built. This is trying to give you consideration in the district as well, who's does not have a formulated plan yet in all three of the fire stations are being impacted. So maybe consider that a little bit, but there was never anything said that it shouldn't be built. or that this is not the good plan, it's that it needs more body to it. Thank you.

I guess I got startled there. A little clarification. So even though they've done all this work with the proposals that they had in mind and are here tonight, we're starting over?

No, this is the plan we're working from. Okay. Goal will be for those individuals to start using this plan, and if they have anything, maybe there's questions similar to what Councilmember Kell asked tonight about, hey, I want to take a second look at why we're building a station here versus here, and they can walk to the staff. Or if we're really going to get rid of a station here and you have an alternative plan for it, maybe there's a better alternative plan, or maybe we shouldn't get rid of that and we can build. So it gives them a chance to ask those questions, but it will be based off of

I guess I'm thinking that if people are thinking about trying to put the proposal on the sales tax, it needs to be clear before it would get put out to the public.

I think it's very clear that we need to build new fire stations. And so I think it's very easy, especially if this group starts meeting a couple meetings into this year. It can meet first quarter of next year. I mean, there's many times they need to over that five, six months. Two things can be done once. I mean, our issue at this point is not that we need to make some changes within a fire department, build new stations. It's how we want that to look. And so I think we can message that pretty easily. People say, we're doing this. What that final plan is, is you've got a base to work from. The

I guess I'm just, and there's some clarification maybe, but if there's a pretty substantial time lag that you need to do in advance of getting a commitment to put something on a ballot, I would think it has to be final before you do that.

Yeah, just think of a tight timeline if you're going to do it.

Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. With that, we will move on to public comment. First up, we have Sharon Gillette.

Thank you very much. I think Colleen left. Is that correct? Okay. And then Amy? Okay. All right. With that, we'll move on to announcements. City Clerk.

I just hope we get rain. That's it. Thank you.

There's two events coming up that I'm involved in. The Child Care Aware of Eastern Kansas Celebrity Waiter's Foray is October 3rd. There's still tickets available to go to that. And then I know I'm probably going to steal some thunder from two of my colleagues up here, but Brew at the Zoo is this Saturday. It's 80s themed. There's still tickets available for that as well. I'll be working the VIP area and wherever else they put me at. This time of year is always tough for me as the fact that we're coming up on the 25th anniversary of 9-11. I was in New York two days prior on 9-9-2001. Saw some

Yes, thank you. September is Leukemia Awareness Month, so I just wanted to bring that to people's attention. People with leukemia often need a lot of red blood cells and platelets, so if you can go donate those. That would be really helpful to patients and their families. And I also want to give a shout out to Dr. Singh over at the Cancer Center at Stormont Vale because he took exceptional care of my mother when she had acute myeloid leukemia. Thanks.

All right. I just want to thank all. It was hot this weekend. It's hot now. Supposedly, we're going to get a little break. But there was a lot of stuff that happened over Labor Day weekend outside from a Washburn football game that kind of got played. They just had made the extra point. We would have won that thing. But that's football. But there were a lot of events the next couple of days outside, including some musical events in the evening. But to everyone's credit in Topeka, they drank a lot of water and they went to those events still. So people still got out and participated in that. So