Remarks by Spencer Duncan
308 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 8 of 13
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Nope. There's no extensions this evening due to the number of people we have signed up to speak.
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Thank you. That is everyone I have signed up for public comment this evening. All right. With that, we will move on to announcements. City Clerk.
Thank you. Council Member Miller. Nothing, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Bradbury.
We both got confirmation back for general public comments fourth one this evening So we'll talk about that. I am very sorry about that. There's really an issue today All right with that we have a need for an executive session if the city attorney would state the motion and
I will move to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second from the Deputy Mayor. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say no. No. Council Member Ortiz and Miller are nos. With that, we will go immediately into executive session. All right, we've come out of executive session. No action is going to be taken by this governing body. That concludes our meeting this evening. And at 10.36 p.m., we are adjourned.
Good evening. Welcome to the September 15th, 2026 meeting of the Topeka, Kansas governing body. I will now call this meeting to order. This evening's invocation is from Councilmember Valdivia Alcala. Please give her your attention and rise if you are able.
All right. With that, we will have the clerk take roll.
With that, we will move on to appointments. City Clerk.
All right. Comments or questions on the appointments? Motion is always in order. Motion to approve from Councilmember Hiller. Second from Councilmember Miller. With that, take a vote, please.
With that, we move on to presentations. Presentation A, city clerk.
We've got a meeting. We've got to keep moving. Council Member Valdiviacola.
Even though they have to mail it out 10 to 20 days, it'd be a March 2nd sort of date still, which would be December 1st. And I'm not suggesting we wait until December. But I guess I'm confused why our deadline is, say, October 20th versus November 10th, for instance, when we come back after the election.
I'd like a follow-up question with them. If they have the right under the statute, if they have statutory authority to set that deadline, then that's fine. That's the law, and they can do that. And I understand why they want it in advance. Again, I'm not trying to push it until the last minute. But I mean, if there was an opportunity for us to actually have the month of October to work through this as a council versus essentially three meetings in October, that's a pretty big difference versus having to make that decision. So if that's what we have to do, then that would be good information…
All right. City Attorney, I guess I have a question about the definition, maybe there's no gray area, about special use versus general use, right? And I guess maybe it's an either or. So in other words, if it's not, under the way it's defined is if it's not could be used for, say, everything, once you qualify it for any specific use, it becomes a specific use, even if it's generalized. And by that, I mean, for example, some of the discussions at this point have been about quote unquote public safety. which is 70% of our budget, which includes multiple departments, could also include fire…
And what are we capping? Does the Gage Park Authority count against our... special use, even though we had nothing to do with it?
Gotcha. Okay. Okay. So then I have other thoughts. These are in no particular order, so I apologize. But as I've been taking notes throughout the conversation. I do want to point out, and I've said this whenever we have RHID conversations, is the RHID program was not created for affordable housing. It was created for all housing. And I think that's important as we have this conversation because it is a tool at our disposal that we should be utilizing to build market rate housing. We should also be using it for affordable, but it's one of those tools at our disposal to put towards those…
All right, are there any other comments or questions on this issue at this time? Oh, so close. OK, I know. No, you're fine. You're fine. Councilmember, I'll .
That I imagine Nick will have our first answer by tomorrow won't take the election office long to give him a response and so my guess is he could notify us in the next day or two and then okay we feel like we need a special meeting we can we can take a poll and do we feel like we have discussed it or there will be further discussion in October so that folks can get a deeper understanding of what this well there will be further conversations because I think as you heard tonight we all have different variations of the question we're going to need to consider. Right.
I think the best advice I can give is I would suggest that our second meeting in October have as little as humanly possible on that agenda so that we can dedicate it as much as possible to this issue, if necessary.
All right. Anything else? All right. Thank you, city manager. Thank you all. All right. We got through one thing. Look at us. Next up, presentation B, affordable housing trust fund. City clerk.
Questions or comments from the governing body at this time? Council Member Hiller.