City Council - Regular Meeting

It's good to see everyone this morning. Welcome to our pre-meeting. Ladies and gentlemen, we're now in the hands of our capable city clerk. Excuse me, we're in meeting. We are now in the hands of Ms. Lisa Carroll.

Any issues? For District 1, can we move to 9 p.m.?

Mr. President, did he say where this ditch is?

So she's looking it up this summer, the summer Dale drive lane. Yeah.

Sunny. It's where Sunnyvale. Is that you?

No, it's it's you. Oh, there's a work order in progress behind that.

What is Hydration Drive? I'm just curious. What is Hydration Drive? Oh, is this giving out water?

On that particular one, I'm requesting that we do a holdover for one week. I've asked legal to work with admin to get some questions answered. One in particular, I've had several, one developer and several residents to reach out, and it's regarding the fact that if we move to that T6 zoning, it would be the only building there that would be a T6, and the concern is that it would unravel the other areas impacted, basically. And if we want to go ahead and just do a full amendment, then that's what we would do. But we just need some more questions regarding the fact, why would we allow just this

On that item, I just want to thank Admin for sharing with us the agreement. And the agreement addresses some of the issues we were concerned with in terms of data privacy, how we are handling PPI information or personal information along with data security. So thanks for sharing this information.

I do have an amendment that I offered last week and it's on file with the clerk's office. I'll be offering just cleaning up some language.

Mr. President, we're working on, I want to add to that amendment, a lot of confusion kind of been going on regarding if this is capital or is it federal. I just want to add language to it in that resolution, know that this is not coming from the federal funds. My attorney is working on that, and I have entire council members and administration before the council meeting. But it just would be saying that it's not coming from the federal funds.

Will this be an amendment? That's what I was going to ask.

We need to hold this one. Mr. Chairman, what do you think? Can we hold it two weeks, one week? What's the deadline? We're not going to make that.

Well, since we've got a finance committee meeting today.

Let's just push one week and see if we can get that after our meeting today.

Mr. President. Ms. Reynolds. I want to go back to the trolleys. I was looking through our contract with VIA on sort of the funding plan. I couldn't find in there where we're saying we must spend so much per year on capital expenditure. Is that in there? Oh, Mr. Woods. Good morning.

I don't understand what that means. There's a federal obligation that they must or we must spend a certain amount of capital money?

I see that we have a cap fixed rate amount that we will contribute at $8 million. That's what we're contractually obligated to spend. $8 million. And as far as capital goes, what you're saying is there is no obligation in that same contract. But you're saying there is some other obligation that's created by some federal statute or federal something or another?

I want to understand that, especially for the budget discussion later on today. But the reason I bring it up is the $320,000 match towards this federal grant, which I hope that we're going to get, I would expect we're going to get. Could that $320,000 serve that purpose of our capital outlay?

these five trolley buses. I think this is a start, Mr. Mayor. I think that's kind of where it should stop for now. Let's try five out. Let's see how this goes. And then we can... explore the idea further. And this is just my opinion later. Let's see how the five work, put them in the strategic areas instead of going after more in this next budget or, you know, more before we know the outcome of what we're going to get in return, because the goal is to increase ridership and to bring up the capital, because if we got budget money budgeted in our upcoming budget for expanding trolleys to, I don'

Mr. President, I have a follow up question regarding that. So the new trolley style buses, are they similar to I saw some, you know, transit is a transit wave. It was like a little bus. And but yet it was small and it was a part of our

Yes, I saw one parked outside last week sometime. But the size of it was similar to the size of the one I'm referring to, just the size.

I don't know what the secret sauce in Kansas City is. I mean, is it just trolleys or is it something else? I can just tell you this. I'm not going to jump on a trolley. If I got to wait out in the rain to catch the thing or if I got to sit out there in a blistering 115 degree heat index to catch it. And I think most citizens probably see it that way as well. I don't care if it's pink or yellow or it's a trolley. I don't care. They're not going to go out there and suffer on the side of the road to catch the thing, you know, or to an inconvenient location. We're doing these wholesale changes wit

Mr. Mayor, you make great points. Chamber of Commerce, I'm not saying those are not valid. They are. But I think we've resolved a lot of that transportation issue by partnering with VIA that taking or tackling this problem by getting a new operator in here. They're rearranging everything. The microtransits are going to be operating. The routes are going to be optimized. The software is going to be used. The rebranding, all of that stuff ties into that getting the people to the job. I'm just simply saying that the trolleys are an idea and we are acting on that idea and by getting this federal m

Mr. President, just to follow up, um, on councilman Reynolds point, the church buses that came about because we needed something smaller, right? So is there a way for us to consider like what has, you know, what has happened with ridership since we have the smaller buses, you know, whenever they came on board and use that data to see how that's impacting it. And just, um, And a follow up to that, and that would allow us to also look at other barriers like you talked about, you know, in terms of the weather, making sure that the conditions are in place so that we can ensure that they will take

Thank you. Mr. Woods. Mr. Mayor, just real quick before you sit down and sorry you sat down already. I know we were kind of waiting on the rewrap and saw the trolley last week. I know it's been in a parade. It's still on target to try to get everything rewrapped like you originally intended.

Jennifer, you sometimes use technical terms that are above my head. We can do it sort of in layman's terms.

We give half the signal to AATON and half to Kendall-Morris. And then they supply . OK. How is that funded?

You need to come up to the mic. Yeah. Thank you.

Okay, federal funds. And these are just operational dollars for them to go in and adjust as necessary?

I want to follow up. First of all, thank you all for sharing this and also giving us the exact locations of where it's going to take place. But I noticed that it said you stated that they give us in person quarterly performance evaluations. And so did we get those last year also?

And so, like, if there's an area, like, in one of our districts that you have concerns about, you're getting it from these reports?

And I'm interested because I saw Water Street and Government Street as an area that they will be looking at. So recently, have we received anything on that from the previous year?

I want to say thank you to the mayor for making the decision to delay the opening of the arena. I think it was just a wise business move. It seems that we likely could have made it happen at some great expense. And I think the decision was made soon enough to allow these organizations the opportunity to pivot and still modify their budgets or they're operating as a Mardi Gras organization. So I want to say thank you for making that decision sooner rather than later.

We all got to eat a little crow from time to time, but that's fine.

Mr. President, I want to first start off by thanking Public Safety for sharing with us last week some of the things that they're doing in the community. And Madam Vice Chair shared at that time, we really need to communicate more of that information. Recently, there was a shooting in the same area again. I think it was Rickaby area this weekend. And I've had several residents to reach out to me And they're hurting. And the bottom line is they want to feel heard and feel safe. And I know that you all are doing everything that you can. But if there is any way that we could have some open communi

And thank you for that, Mr. Graves. Again, I know that you all are employing all those strategies and resources you have, but back to the request for the community safety meeting, really just giving them an opportunity to know that we hear them and understanding that you still work in the case. So if that's an option, I would like to partner with you in trying to make that happen.

So I guess, Curtis, that when you all have that meeting and when the residents come, you all need to just stress to them that they need to talk to the rest of the residents in the area and the neighbors to talk. Because to me, what I'm hearing is that that's what y'all are looking for is people in the neighborhoods to really talk. to tell you all exactly what they see, what they heard, et cetera. Am I correct?

I know a long time ago there used to be a number where residents can call that they would not be identified. And I believe that's Crime Stoppers.

Curtis, while you're still there, I just want to thank you and Chief Jackson for your quick response to emails that I started getting last Friday and then over the weekend about the intersection at Tuthill and Spring Hill. There has been another accident recently. neighbors are concerned. And it's an intersection we've been working on for a long time, trying to figure it out. And I know that you've got traffic control out there as often as you can, but they can't be there 24-7. So we have looked at some other options. We do have a blinking red light right there at the intersection itself. But

Well, I appreciate you reaching out directly to a lot of those folks who contacted us. I know they really appreciate hearing directly from you and not just me.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Commander Graves. I had a question. I know in the past we had this system where if a homeowner had cameras, they can connect with the police.

The reason why I'm sharing it, I think we're in a situation, I was saddened to hear about what took place at close to Rickaby Park. And of course, in all our districts, we have challenges. And I think maybe we all have to be a part and share the same message. So, you know, maybe in our newsletters, we can kind of also let people know that they have, you know, some people probably might not heard about Operation Shield. So if there's any information that you'd like for us to share as well, And anything that even if it's in other people district, I would love to support any initiative to help st

I just want to remind everyone the public. that September 22nd, we do have a public safety committee meeting so that, again, we are listening and we are trying to come up with, you know, comprehensive solutions for this. So thank you.

You're welcome. Anyone else? All right. Vice President.

Okay. Thank you. Let's look at resolutions that we might waive the rules on, starting with 01992 under resolutions being introduced. So that one, as well as 994, 995, and 998. Any others? Oh, I'm sorry. That is a 5,000, a little over the 50,000. Yeah. So you don't want to do with, okay. All right. All right. Just those three, two. Yeah, two. Okay.

Just a reminder, we have a finance committee meeting at 1 o'clock, and the goal is to have a two-hour finance committee meeting. And I appreciate everybody remitting their questions. Thank you to the Finance Department for submitting those answers back to us. And between now and then, I encourage everybody to take a look at the questions and the answers that we received regarding the budget. But we'll see everybody at 1 o'clock when it comes to the Finance Committee.

Councilwoman Ingram mentioned the Public Safety Committee meeting next week. She has submitted some questions. If anybody else has questions that they would like to have covered, concerns, questions, whatever, please get them submitted so that Commander Graves and the rest of the folks can be prepared with answers. Just let us know ahead of time. Thank you.

Anything else from this council? Anything from the administration? All right. We'll see each other downstairs at 1030. Thank you.