City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the Monday, September 21st, 2026 City Council meeting. Our invocation will be provided by Rob Douglas, Elder at the East Independent Church of Christ. Please stand for the invocation and remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Madam City Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Here. This brings us to presentations of resolutions. I am going to ask Dr. Cynthia Grant to come forward to present the Susan P. Block Distinguished Public Service Award.

Scramble back to our chairs. All right. Resolution 26-761. Can I get a motion to approve?

Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Please call the vote.

Yes. 26-761 passes with six yeses and zero noes. Just read it. So our September 2026 I-STAR Employee of the Month. It is my pleasure to recognize Fred Woods, District Planner 1 with Independence Power and Light. As the September 2026 I-Star Employee of the Month, Fred is recognized for his consistently positive attitude, reliability, strong communication skills, and commitment to both his fellow employees and the public. His excellent attendance can always be counted on and regularly goes above and beyond what is expected of him. One recent example demonstrates Fred's willingness to step up an

This brings us to proclamations. Constitution Week 2026. Whereas we the people of the United States ordained and established the Constitution of the United States to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our prosperity. And whereas it is important that all citizens understand the provisions, principles, and meaning of the Constitution so that they may support, preserve, and defend the fundamental principles upon which our nation was founded. And whereas Constitution Week provides an opportunity for all Americans to learn about and reflect upon the rights and privileges of citizensh

Thank you. All right. Job one week, October 1st through October 7th, 2026, whereas October is recognized nationally as National Disability Employment Awareness Month to commemorate the many and varied contributions of people with disabilities to America's workplaces, communities, and economy. And whereas Job 1 has been leading efforts since 1967 to champion job choice for people with disabilities in our community by providing employment opportunities focused on individual needs, abilities, and talents in both facility-based and integrated community environments. And whereas 2026 marks the 53rd

Thank you. Our next speaker is Gail Hodges. Please state your name and you have five minutes to speak.

Thank you. Guys, I'm going to say this one more time. I read a statement before this was up about not clapping or doing anything. So this is a second time. I'm going to ask you, we have one more speaker. If it continues, I'm going to ask you to leave the meeting. Fair? Thank you. Next speaker is Dr. Sharon White-Lewis. Please state your name and you have five minutes to speak. Thank you.

Thank you. This brings us to our Mayor Pro Tem. So at this time, I will take nominations for Mayor Pro Tem.

Mr. Mayor, I move to nominate Council Member Stewart.

So I've got a motion and a second for nomination of Council Member Stewart as Mayor Pro Tem. Any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? And for a third time, are there any other nominations? Nominations are closed. Please, Madam City Clerk, please call the roll for vote.

Yes. Mayor Pro Tem, Council Member Stewart, congratulations. You are elected as Mayor Pro Tem with a 6-0 vote. This brings us to consent agenda.

Make a motion to approve the reports and recommendations of the city manager. I have a motion and a second.

Got a motion and a second. Would any council members like to pull anything off the consent agenda? I'm asking, I'm just asking one more time.

All right. Madam city clerk, please call the vote.

Yes. Consent agenda passes with six yeses and zero nos. This brings us to our regular agenda.

Thank you. Any discussion for Mr. Arroyo? Okay. All right. Thank you.

Yes, but I think we did not read the ordinance yet, so we need to read the ordinance first before we... Good call.

Any discussion on 26-089? Madam City Clerk, please call the vote.

Yes. 26-089 passes with six yeses and zero noes.

Thank you Any questions for mr. Arroyo? And I'm sitting clerk

Any discussion on 26-087? All right. Madam City Clerk, please call the vote.

Yes. 26-087 passes with six yeses and zero noes.

Thank you. Please, Madam City Clerk, please call, or please read the second reading.

Any discussion on 26-088? Madam City Clerk, please call the vote.

Yes. 26-088 passes with six yeses and zero noes.

I move to amend that the bill that updates the tax levies based on the final assessed values as reviewed and approved by the state auditor's office be considered for further discussion.

Got a motion and a second on 26-090. Correct. Correct. So we have a motion and a second. Can I just inquire so we understand the reasoning that we're needing to amend this?

All right. Any more discussion on the amendment to 26-090? Mr. Mayor? Yes.

City Manager Anderson, could you clarify that this has, there's no response to what's going on with the county and the assessments, that this is just a typical process that occurs each year, am I correct?

Any further discussion? Madam City Clerk, please call the vote on the amended 26-090. Council Member Dorman? Yes.

Yes. The amendment to 26-090 has been approved with six yeses and zero noes.

This is a full public hearing. If anybody would like to speak in favor of or against, please step forward. If anybody would like to speak in favor of or against 26-090, please step forward. And for a third time, if anybody is for or against, please step forward on 26-090. Seeing none, this hearing is closed.

Any discussion on the amended 26-090? Mr. Mayor.

Yes, I was wondering if the city manager could kind of compare our levy to surrounding areas if there's sort of just a high level discussion of where we stand as a city compared to surrounding areas.

All right. Any other questions or discussion? Madam City Clerk, please call the vote.

Yes. The amended 26-090 passes with six yeses and zero noes. This brings us to ordinances.

Mr. City Manager, this bridge is in Eastern Independence and recently I've heard a lot about it. It's been, it was closed and now it's open. And so can you tell me if this passes tonight, what are the next, I think it's going to be fully replaced. Can you tell me kind of the next steps after this?

Any other discussion? Madam City Clerk, please call the vote.

Yes. 26-086 passes with six yeses and zero noes. This brings us to our first readings.

Mr. Mayor? Yes. I'm going to make a motion to substitute this bill with a new bill that reads as follows. An ordinance calling for a special primary election and special general election for the first district council member vacancy, proposing the form for the ballots and directing the city clerk to do all things called for by law in connection with the holding of said election. I have a motion. Second. Got a motion and a second.

Can you, just for discussion-wise and for us to make sure everybody understands this, what is the reason that we need to make this amendment?

I'm going to pose this question just to make sure we do this the correct way. This is a first reading, but we have an amendment to it. Do we need to vote on the amendment to this?

I just wanted to double check and make sure. All right, any discussion on the amendment?

Can you talk about some of the updates that we've gotten recently? This has gotten a little complicated.

Thank you. Any other discussion on the amended motions? Madam City Clerk, please call the vote.

Yes. The amendment to 26-099 passes six yeses and zero noes.

All right. This brings us to council member comments.

Okay, so we've had a lot going on recently. The first thing I want to mention is this weekend is our event in the skate park. It is from 10 to 2 at the Park Pavilion. One of the things they're looking for for donations is jackets, sweatshirts, that kind of thing. We have the gift cards. It'll be a fun event. It's something that It gets the community involved. It's cleaned up that park. So come out and join us. And then let's see what other things we've been doing. Where am I now? Oh, we also have the community, which it has a couple of different words. It's either good neighbor week or charret

So that will be starting on September 28th, and it will run through October 4th. We were blessed to have someone from MU Extension that's not in our area. We do have involvement from Mr. Callahan, who's present now, which is MU Extension that represents our county, but somebody from the Springfield area actually was driving through and he's the person that got this event started kind of with an idea that he lived in an area after his kids I think were grown and didn't really know his neighbors. So it started out as an idea just to introduce yourself to your neighbor and it's turned into this b

The Kavanaugh's were the recipients of the Humanitarians of the Year. So it's Marty, and I'm terrible that I don't know his wife's name. Cindy. Cindy. And so their story was incredible. They talked about getting their kids involved, their grandkids involved. So their give back to the community has just been a lifelong journey. It's not like one thing. And they get all the kids going and It was pretty awesome to have it be our person who is also a former Independence Police Department detective at the last that I remember. But it was a great night to celebrate incredible people. So I'm honored

Yeah, thank you. So last week, a number of us were able to attend the Missouri Municipal League Conference down in Lakely Ozarks. So if you were missing us last Monday and just really were wondering where we were, we were all learning about kind of the nitty gritty of how municipal governance works. It was a great opportunity to speak with leaders from other cities across our state and to learn about some things that maybe aren't necessarily on the public's radar all the time. Specifically, there was one session that I found really interesting that probably would bore most people to tears. It

Thank you, Mayor. So to piggyback on that, in order to sign up to volunteer, you have to go to the website, which is independence.gov forward slash IndyCleanup slash dash volunteer. So I think there's a link to the volunteer form on our main web page. Is that right? Yes. So if you can go to the main website and fill out. We definitely need more volunteers. So, two things that I've been involved with since we met last. We were able to attend, several of us were able to attend the ribbon cutting for the Three Trails Behavioral Health Hospital, which is in my district. It was a really great morni

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I just want to say that during the Love Where You Live week, which is in a couple weeks and beyond, it's a good reminder that loving where you live is not always about big things. Sometimes it's the small things that make the biggest difference. So picking up trash just in your own neighborhood on occasions, helping a neighbor, reporting a streetlight outage, simply taking pride in your neighborhood, things like that. We can do that anytime. And I also want residents to know that you can reach out to your council members when you have an issue or a concern. I really ap

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just a couple of things. Number one, next week, it's been kind of a topical conversation, and I can't seem to read an article lately any day without seeing something about automated license plate reader cameras. So the next study session on the 28th, we're going to have a discussion about that and possibly putting some regulations on their use. And then I also want to talk about the cleanup week. Just basically, I want to mention that we're going to have some drop-off dumpsters where people can actually take and drop items off. And the days for those are going to be in th

Thank you. I will just say this. You've listened to several council members up here talk about the cleanup, and you can see this is very important to all of us as a council to try to help our citizens get their area cleaned up and everything to hopefully make a better Independence. I had the opportunity, and I really appreciate it. I attended the Three Trails Behavioral Health with Councilmember Wiley and Councilmember Atkinson. I got the pleasure to speak there, and it's encouraging to have a place like that because I think it can benefit our ARCH program and have another opportunity for peop

I have one more thing just to add because I forgot to do this, but me and Council Member Stewart will be having a town hall slash listening session for anybody that wants to attend that wants to possibly make changes to the UDO language that we went through last time because that was one of the things we heard from the people that spoke is we would like an opportunity to possibly maybe change some of the language. So we want to give them the opportunity to bring that up, and that will be September 23rd this Wednesday at 6 o'clock in the Santa Fe and Oregon room. Okay.

I make a motion to go into closed executive session under Missouri State Statute 610.021 on matters of litigation, legal action, and or attorney-client privileges.

Got a motion and a second. Madam City Clerk, please call the vote.

Motion passes to go into executive session.

Six yeses and zero noes. I want to thank everybody for coming out tonight, and we'll see you next time.