City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I would like to call to order the Hutchinson City Council meeting October 2026. Mary, if you call roll. Truin. Here.

Tonight we have Pastor Sean Jones that's going to give the prayer for us. So if you'd like to come forward.

I would like to introduce our interim city attorney, Jay Hinkle. I don't know if you want to say any words or not. I'm just going to welcome you to the meeting tonight.

The next item is the election of a vice mayor. Council, if you have any nominations you would like to proceed with, we can do those now.

Yes. The next item would be the approval of the proposed agenda. At this time, if you guys want to make any requests, amendments to the proposed agenda, additional removal, reordering, now would be the time to do that.

This is the part of the agenda where any person wishing to address the city council shall be first recognized by the mayor. Come to the microphone, state their name, address, and subject of the comments, including whom they represent, if applicable. Public comments are limited to three minutes and must address matters within the business and jurisdiction of the city council. Comments may address agenda or non-agenda items, but all comments regarding agenda items must be made during the designated public comment portion of the meeting. Public comment will not be taken when an agenda item is lat

Now, if anyone has public comments, you can come forward to the microphone.

So our attorney basically, I guess, put this together. What's different about the Chapter 2 that we have on our – and maybe we just need to have a discussion on it now. I know it's not on the agenda. Correct. Do you want to amend the agenda so we can talk about it now?

Gary, when do we have this on the agenda to discuss this?

So in the okay. So in the chapter two, what's, I guess, different about what we currently have than what's what we have here. I mean, what would be the biggest description?

So this was all, I guess, set up by our previous attorney. Right. So I'm not sure how we should go about handling this tonight in regards to public comment tonight. If we're going to have it on the next agenda item, if it's not going to be how we want it done now, then it definitely needs to be talked about currently right now.

So then we'll stay with these rules for tonight. Now, the question I have is do we want to allow public comment on the city council appointment or application process? or we want to just stay with the current, how we have it. That's just, that's just a question council asked, I guess, to answer, because if that's truly the case and we're not going to comment on anything that comes forward tonight that means we would not open it up for comments on the city council application.

Okay. So then I guess for tonight, we won't engage on any public comment. Again, I still would like to open it up for questions during the time we talk about the city council position. But I do understand, and I think maybe before the public comment on the next agenda, maybe we should have this conversation before. Is that acceptable to have it before the – Before the public comment or should we just stay with how we have it until we have the discussion?

Okay. Well, then Gary and I will talk about that. We'll figure that out for the next meeting. So moving forward tonight, any public comment we will not – engage in conversation or answer questions on the public comment. Like I said, during the council agenda item we will have public comment on that. So anything else moving forward?

If there's nothing else on that point, then we will move forward with anyone else that wants to come forward on public comment.

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. If not, move on to the next item.

Council had a chance to read through the consent agenda. Any questions, comments on those items?

I think that for this item, Gary and Jessica have some information for us before we get started.

So the last time we did this was back in 22, 23, correct? I think I remember right. I believe that's correct. So it's very, basically, the application is basically about the same. I didn't see much difference in the questions and information you're asking on this.

Counsel, do you have any questions or comments?

Are there any other questions on the application council would like to see different wording on anything or do you want to stay consistently with what has been done in the past?

The one thing I would like to see is The important issues facing Hutchinson, the role you believe City Council can play in fixing these issues. I also would like, because I think on the last one there were two applicants. There was one for the at-large and one for a northeast district, I guess. And so I would like to see maybe what they could bring to information from the southwest district to kind of maybe to answer a question. Sure. Tie that in somehow, too. Sure.

I would actually like to see both. I mean, like as a whole and then in the district as well. Okay. I mean, and I would like consensus as well.

Any other thing, anything else on the application itself? Starting there, did you, council would like to see different, or does that all look pretty good?

Because we did not have that. We went through that process. It was basically just an open interview with council, if I remember right.

There wasn't? I thought we had. No. Okay. I was thinking we had one. Sorry. I think they must have just looked at the applications.

So is this something council wants to do is having an open basically interview set time to ask questions to that candidate, or do you want to basically do it like the process we were in where we had looked at the applications to go through that? I mean, what do you guys prefer on that process? more like an interview type process, or do you just want to process the applications?

We'd have to set the questions, I guess, basically a set of questions to similar parameters, I guess.

But we probably need to put some sort of time parameter on that as well. Either that or you could even do it to where they actually just come up and just made an actual statement too. I mean, I don't know. I'm just trying to.

Do you have any recommendations for this process, Gary, either? I know you've been involved before.

Yeah, I think that's a lot better because when we applied, we had like two weeks. And so this way it gives people enough time to process it, to talk to work, spouse, et cetera, and give them that time to make sure that's the right decision for them. Are we going to post this anywhere else than the city website just so we can make sure we get it out to everybody that we possibly can?

Okay. Council, do you have any more questions for Jessica or Gary? No.

Okay. At this point, if anybody from the audience would like to come make a statement or has a question, you can at this point come forward. Okay. Well, I guess not. So, yeah, if we want to work on that process, and then we, again, encourage people to get out there and apply because it's very important to our city and running our council. And so we do encourage you. And if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out. I know I've talked to two or three already, and I know Darren said he had some people reach out. So if you have questions, don't hesitate to reach out to any of us. We can

Are there definitions of emergency? Because you could use emergency for...

And our current policy states there isn't really a limit. Is that correct?

Council, have any more questions before she moves on?

Are there any other things that could have different components to where like one part's 100,000 and then I mean to where it's over 100,000 and then another part is over to where it would somehow would be picked up as combined? Splitting. Is there something like that too that would catch that?

Okay. I just want to make sure that was covered. I thought you said that, but I wasn't sure.

I just wanted to make sure that was in there too.

Okay. Is there going to be a council member tied to that at all or no? I mean, that's something we probably don't need to be involved in or just asking a question.

I didn't figure we'd need a council member. I was just asking a question.

And these one through five-year are really things that are necessary that need to be done ASAP.

And it kind of was a good thing for a council. We went out there and actually toured it and could see for ourselves how bad of shape a lot of these things are too. Yep.

Go back to your slide, the previous slide. This one? So on your three and four, so like if you do all those facility upgrades, I mean, is it going to be almost a new plant once you've done that, or is it going to be kind of like we've fixed some things, but there's still some things out there that if we do that, what's the life of that plant to go before we have to redo a bunch of stuff versus the alternative three?

a big investment you know in 2035 for potential is that going to make that plant as efficient three I mean between three and four if you're just putting it together with older technology that might be 20 years old and you've got newer technology yeah I mean I think I think really this is

Do you guys have any more questions for Chief on this item?

And we don't have control of those boxes. Yes, we do. Oh, we do.

While you're up here, I was going to call you. What's the traffic count? Is that us on 61 Highway? Say that one more time. The traffic count that's out on 61 Highway, is that us? I saw this today, and I wasn't sure if that was us or KDOT. That was the only question I had. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you.

Only on... If you come up with a mic, I'll just tell you. Anyway, agenda and non-agenda items, it's at the beginning during the public comment section. So if you have a comment or question, it's at the beginning. It doesn't happen during the process. So when the agenda item comes up...

Yeah. Public hearings, there's comment. But if there's not a public hearing, there's no public comment. It's only at the beginning of the meeting during the public comment section.

All right. Next item, Mary. I agree with Mr. Duvall.

Is the exterior casing plastic or metal?

And from your comments about those people not being with us anymore and us continuing to move this city forward, I do want to make sure to encourage the people in the Southwest District to get your applications in because we need another council member to be able to help us to navigate the future of this city. That's pretty much all I have.

So that's all I have. Okay. So the next item will be the future agenda items. I know you said that we're going to have public comments and the trash bags.

Okay. Is there any other future agenda items council would like to see coming up?

Not at the moment? Okay. So the next item would be we've got a couple executive sessions. The first one.

So, okay, yeah. So on the first one, I need to consider a motion to recess an executive session pursuant to KSA 754319 for consultation with the city attorney on matters that would be deemed privileged in the attorney-client relationship, specifically legal advice regarding a land purchase agreement, the open meeting to resume in the city council chambers at 9 p.m.

So executive session number two, consider a motion to recess in the executive session pursuant to KSA 75-4319 for consultation with the city attorney on matters that would be deemed privileged in the attorney-client relationship, specifically legal advice regarding pending civil litigation.

I need to make a motion to extend executive session for another 10 minutes, so 9.30. Second. Yes.