City Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, it is 2:30 and it is time for the study session on the housing update and I'm going to look at city staff who's going to kick this off. Yeah, so we've done uh several housing updates over the last couple years. This is uh just kind of the next step in the housing update. So, I will kick it over to Lauren Driscoll, our our development services director, and she can take you through uh everything housing. Mr. Mayor, commissioners, thank you. Just a reminder, this is a study session, so if you have questions as we go along the way, please feel free to ask. Um,

well, let's try that again. U Thank you, M. Commissioner Ivy. Um, we are in a study session and this is a lot of material to cover. I'm gonna be trying to kind of clip along, but I wanted to kind of put the different pieces in here to kind of see where you guys might want to talk about things a bit more because this presentation is really about where we started, how we've gotten to where we're at, and what we need to do moving forward. So, that is a lot of ground to cover. So, like I said, if you have questions as we go along and you want to dig in more, we can definitely do that. But, in the meantime, next slide. So, I think I've covered this. We're really trying to give you a full picture of what we've done with housing really since 2021 and what we need to be thinking about moving forward. Next slide. How we're going to try and tell this story is giving you all a little bit of background and context because I know this is what you're thinking about every day all the time. Um, but I think we've got some good reminders to tell you how we got here. And then talking about our market and demand numbers because that is really central to this story about how we've met them and what we need to meet in the future. Then is implementation. We've done a lot these last few years. What does that look like? Boots on the ground, what we've built, what we've spent, those types of things. The 2025 study is an update to the live salina plan. just getting us fresh demographics, making sure we're on the right track. As we learned 21 to 22, those real estate numbers, the market demand can change very quickly due to a variety of things. So, having fresh numbers is really important. We'll also talk a little bit about the infill housing scenario document that we had um our consultants put together for us. If you'll remember in 2021, one of the most powerful things they did for us was helping us understand the economics behind greenfield development. And really that proforma development knowing that the second part of the plan had to

do with infill. That's kind of the take we took here in that 20 24 document. And then lastly, what do our next steps look like? Next slide. Next slide. So as I mentioned our original 20 our original live salina plan happened in 2016. Then in 2021 we had some major employment expansion happening. We also had this thing called COVID. And while all that was happening, we started to really see our housing numbers come into effect. And the commission decided in order for us to be able to move forward, we needed to quickly update our lift salina plan, get good numbers, understand what was happening around us and create a policy around incentives that if we were going to incentivize housing, what would that look like? So, we had a clear and predictable process. In 2022, we're kind of coming out of COVID, but we still have a lot going on in the market. We continued to update the plan. In 2022, get fresh numbers. Next slide. In 2024, we did the economic analysis of infill and redevelopment in North Salina. Next. And then, sorry, Scott, go back one.

One more.

Yeah, there you go. Thanks. And then 25 and 26. What you're seeing is we're giving you the latest set of numbers, but we're also kind of in this halfway point in the project. I always think of the livino plan as like part one and part two because we really looked at like a 10-year window, but by the time we started that 10-year window, we were already into 2021, quickly into 2022. So what staff took away from the direction of the commission was you really have from 2021 to 2025, end of 25, early 26 to get through the first part of the plan and that was all about green field development. And the reason we chose that is we needed houses and we needed them fast and we weren't going to be able to do that through infill. And so when you start to see what we were able to do, it's really the efforts of those four or five years of getting green field development built and then we'll start talking about what more infill looks like and how we move into that second piece with our goal being that we've met the objectives of the plan by 2030. So next slide. Just as a reminder, the Liv Salina plan really focuses on increased overall housing production. We need units. And the interesting thing is we needed units from across the board. We needed first-time home buyer. We needed executive housing. We needed rental. We needed buying. Um we needed denser different housing types. We needed housing pe housing types for people to age in place. A variety of different things. And that is really a very different challenge. I've been at this almost 20 years. I've done a lot of housing work in different communities. And it used to be like a kind of walk in, walk around and go, "Ah, this is what we're missing." And I think the whole nation felt this because we've really been in a national housing crisis. We haven't been alone. And a lot of communities turned around and went, "It's not just one thing anymore. It wasn't even just two things. It was kind of everything." And that has definitely been part of a unique part of this

challenge. We also wanted to support neighborhood stabilization. You know, Greenfield is important, but we had great neighborhoods, but they needed some love. They needed new units. They needed units that were updated. Also leveraging public and private partnerships. This can't be done alone. And so looking at through either grant programs or working with employers or even other stakeholders such as universities and uh different neighborhood groups has been a way for us to leverage that public part public private partnership. And then strengthening long-term housing capacity. I think this kind of gets underplayed, but it's really the long game and it's really what gives us stability in the long run. Economic growth is great, new jobs are great, but if there is no place for people to live, they don't want to come to work here. And so this is not a challenge that gets separated of economic development verse housing. I've heard a number of people say it the last few years, economic development is housing and housing is economic development. They have to go hand in hand. So let's talk about the numbers. Next slide, please. Why did housing become a priority for Salina? You know, I think the other thing when I said there used to be one type of housing, you kind of figure out what the problem was. It's usually because there used to be one problem and these days there's not just one problem. Many of them add up and that's what makes some of this so very complicated. Um, I think the easy ones people tend to think about are affordability pressure, right? What you're making in your job, what your family can afford versus what's available on the market. For us, we've always had a challenge at least since the 50s60s is rental versus ownership. We've really uh Mike Scrag used to describe as the log jam, right? Why could we not get more rentals? And there's a number of reasons, but one of them was we had no

comps. And I think that's one of the other things I've learned and I think our team has learned over the last few years is you can't underestimate banks when it comes to producing housing. And we aren't the bank and we can't fix that. But the bank runs into problems when the developers try to build. And so understanding that has become critical whether that's gap analysis, whether that's proformas or understanding what kind of comparable product there is out there because if there isn't a comparable product, nobody wants to take the risk. So, some of the things we did were to kind of open up that market and create those comps. Um, aging housing stock, not just a salina problem. Actually, the state in the last few years has done an update to its housing plan, one of the first in I think 30 years. And what we learned is Kansas across the board had aging housing stock. So, we weren't alone in that. And it could have been worse, but it is one of our challenges. um low vacancy rate, um employer expansion. That's one of those things that it's not just a gradual uptick in people looking for housing. There's usually kind of a glut of it. So, you need to have inventory is really the name of the game. So, those are some of those examples of what prioritized housing for us so much and examples of the challenges we've been dealing with the last couple of years. Next slide. And I do want to note that uh Charlie Cowell with RDG who's our consultant on this project and we've been working with RDG since well 2016 when they did the live salina plan and they've been working with us since we started updating in 2021. And one of the decisions the commission made and why Charlie's here today still with us kind of going through this is after we got through the 2021 update, we realized having them on a 5-year contract to annually help us address those numbers and make sure we were on top of things was a valuable investment in the plan itself and being able to make decisions in a timely manner. And I'm noting because Charlie, please feel free to

chime in anytime, but I want to talk about a couple slides before we get into numbers because one of the things that often gets asked of us at as a staff level, whether we're on the radio or at a community meeting or somebody stops in the office, they're a new developer, and they say, "Hey, I've seen some numbers that your population's going down. Your study, your lift's line of plan says differently. Like, how did you guys arrive at that number? Why? Why is it different than the census population for instance? And I think in this case, we recognize the census numbers, but one of the important things to remember when we're looking at housing production is it's not just the population. You need to be aware of households, household size, how many new households are coming, how many are leaving, workforce growth, uh, healthy vacancy rates, which has always kind of been a challenge in Kansas in general, not just in Salena, because how the state allows the regulation of rentals. We can't license or permit them. So, a lot of it is calling major landlords, uh, working with realers to gather some of that data and looking at census numbers, um, replacement of lost units. So, just because something's always been on the market, doesn't mean it's going to stay on the market. Like every industry, you have people aging out, selling stock, cha, you know, changing their setup. Maybe they don't want to do rentals anymore. So, they start selling off those rentals. That's always something that we're dealing with in a market. And then market absorption. That's again back to that inventory and how we're matching those numbers. So, population is just one piece of how we look at this bigger picture to understand what we need. um how the demand estimate really developed was trying to make sure we had a model that was accurate knowing that two, you know, census numbers coming out of COVID were not great. We're not completely discounting them, but we know we have under underounted populations and some of those are very critical for

populations that are in our rental market um and buying certain types of housing products. So, we tried to understand what those numbers really were. Um we were also looking at breaks in demand um and price whether you're buying a home and there's also the price of monthly rents. So starting to break down and understand some of that data and identifying a range of that data and comparing ourselves to other municipalities to other housing products. So there's a lot of data acquisition that really goes into that and staff helps by making phone calls reaching out to local partners. RDG does a great job of pulling national standards for us, looking at neighboring communities to really feed a ton of data into the model. Um, Charlie, did I miss anything there?

No, I assume you can hear me. Okay. Uh, no, that was a good summary. And I will just uh reinforce that we in the 2021 update uh or 2020 update we we were hearing a lot about there was still a lot of pressure uh for housing uh job openings, job hirings uh and then when the we looked at the 2020 census numbers as Lauren had mentioned it was showing a a pretty decent fine and uh so we look a lot at data and but also the qualitative on the ground conversations as well tell us a lot. And so we at at that time it was it was clear and there were some other studies across the state talking about undercount as well and it seemed like uh that was a a logical situation that was happening here in Salina. And the reason is you know but we and we continued to see that even in the subsequent updates where we were seeing still low vacancy a lot of units being added to the markets uh but vacancy was still low. Uh prices were for sale inventory was still kind of uh uh at the lower end. Um and so all the all the data points were were pointing to okay there's there's probably still a little bit of growth rate even if the household size is declining a little bit uh it could be you know there's probably a range of of slight growth uh from the population side um but as uh Lauren mentioned the household size matters a lot too as we're seeing that start to define and that means uh uh if you're adding people but there's smaller households. That means that adds to household demand. So, whole bunch of factors, but um yeah, I'll pass back to you, Lauren.

Well, I think one of the other things that was really powerful, we learned this in 2021 and it continues to be true. We also look at the the availability of housing around Salina. So, let's say you you can't find a house here. Are you going to go to Bennington? Are you going all the way to Witchah? Like, where else could you live? Are you going to Abalene, Lindberg? And so even doing that analysis with RDG, you know, we're trying to kind of see where where else could people go, but the fact is most of those people are coming here for available units. So we don't have a lot of other available units outside the community. The other thing is our unemployment rate is so low and we saw this in 21 and it continues to be an issue that when we have employers expand, their new employees are coming from outside Salina. They're not coming from inside Salena, which means if you're coming here, you're going to need a house. So, that's another thing that has to do with when we look at our demand model and the production needs that not just a dramatic rise in of population, but that that population needs new houses as well and those are going to come from inside. I have a I have a quick question on the population and I understand in 2020 that the the count because of COVID would you know be wrong but I guess what bothers me is the fact that I don't know if it's the US Census Bureau that gives us our numbers it's the state of Kansas that shows that we shrink from 20 you know from the year 202040 or 2025 who who calculates that and how do they do that because 2020 can be wrong but why the decrease we see the job growth grow. We see the housing growth. Who who comes up with that number and how do they calculate that?

Charlie, do you want to start first and I can follow up? Yeah. Yeah. The um the reason the the denial census is so important is because they base then those future estimates based on that base. Uh so what they're doing is they're uh and I don't know all the math and statistics behind it, but part of it is they're they're basically taking that that base decline and uh uh unless there's drastic changes that they're able to pick up in their surveying. Uh they're basing out that initial 2020 decline and and that's I think pretty weighted in the population estimate. So to kind of piggy back off of that years,

sorry Charlie, it's it's in the data world it's like crud in crud out it's you've those numbers weren't right to start with in 2020 and we are not the only community in this nation fighting this. Um lots of communities have bad data but the census hasn't changed those numbers and so when that data is getting pulled and it's getting projected out the bad projection in the beginning just keeps going. That's why you'll see many of us collecting our own data, making phone calls, working with other information sources to try and get a real and accurate picture. Otherwise, we will continue to be wrong.

And I think some of the other data you're going to see in our presentation shows that those numbers weren't wrong. So, but yes, it's a it's a thing that we're fighting and a lot of other communities are fighting is why 24 and 25 looks like we've got a drop because if you use the 2020 numbers, they continue to push a bad projection of Based on what you're saying, our gap, our gap between what we actually have as a population and what they're projecting is growing larger because they're projecting based on the 2020 shrink. You know, our population is shrinking and we know that our population is growing. So by the time we get to 2030, we're actually going to have a larger gap than we have today. Yes. Is what?

Yes. So the census numbers will be significantly different than our numbers. And then we're all real hopeful that when we run 2030 that we'll see that correction shift back into place. Okay.

Yeah. And and it is possible too that depending on the data we get at the end of this year for the update or the future updates that we we maybe start to see a low flattening if we start to see vacancy creep up. If we start to see uh uh unit supply fill up, then then there might be reason when we do future updates to start to to flatten that that demand a little bit. It just kind of depends. Um but yeah, I'll give another example kind of the opposite end uh if you've uh from the census uh data. So for example, a fast growing city or or county uh they may get the census numbers uh in 2020 and that f their future populations are based on that and they may do a special census say halfway through because they're like we have a lot more people than this and we need we need to re-evaluate. So they'll pay for for that. But that's an extreme case where they they're like growing so fast where the census projections just not it's not accounting for that

and we have I mean we talked about it with Jacob when we saw our numbers and we talked about it with Mike those are not cheap those special census and our numbers weren't so woefully off and for the purpose of what we've been using them for understanding our housing we could still move forward we had other data sources that were more reflective so it the cost didn't outweigh the benefit of this.

I'm not sure there's a great deal of value in doing a a new count. And it I I think you know this this slide and what we're trying to get at is is yeah, there are people in the community that say, "Hey, look, our census numbers are going backwards, but there's nothing about what's going on in our community that makes us think that we don't have a continued housing need. I mean, if you look at the number of new houses that we've had on the on the market, new units uh come on the market, we are still, you know, 5 years on into this plan. we we still have 30 or 40 houses on the market and in order to be a healthy market we really should have you know a couple hundred units on the market. So, so there's nothing about what's happened that's really says that we are slowing down.

And the problem with that is is we feel like we do, but the public gets those numbers and it says, "Oh, SL is shrinking. You're 46,000. Why are you incentivizing new housing? You shouldn't have to do that." Well, it's cuz we don't. We have zero vacancies and and everything we build selling. That's why we we're doing it. So, it's just sitting up here. it gets hard because everybody will look at those numbers and say, "Well, you shouldn't have to do that cuz our population's and I think in this case it's kind of the proof is in the pudding." I mean, at this point, we built a lot of units and we still are not seeing that we have a lot of units that are open and available. We're still seeing the same issue that we've had even though we've had a pretty dramatic increase in the number of units.

Yeah. Next slide, Scott. Next slide. This is just a quick glance at just we have major employers that are continuing to come into the community. Um and whether housing is needed for full-time jobs or even part-time jobs for large construction. Um we have some projects that continue on long enough that living in a hotel month doesn't work and they're looking for either one year of housing, year and a half, things like that. So, we continually work with the chamber and the EDO to get those numbers. Next slide. Okay. So, this next two slides, I kind of want you to hold on to these numbers, kind of walk through them with me because you're going to start to kind of see them come to life as we walk through some of the other parts of this. But in 2021, when we adopted our first update, we had a demand analysis, and that's what staff's really been working hard to implement. and it said we needed 1,039 new homes. Pretty much a 50-50 divide between rental and ownership. Quickly by 2022 with a change in interest rates, um more restricted um logistics, whether the availability of contractors and specialty builders or even the logistics behind getting materials got more difficult, we saw housing costs going up, plus just an overall national demand. And when we came back with new numbers, we actually needed 1,357 units. Still generally kind of a 50/50 uh split between rental and owner ownership. So staff has been tracking our production of housing. There's the larger projects you've incentivized. We have several subdivisions that have been developing on their own, plus just the regular continued construction of homes that we had had prior to. But just to

give you on average, prior to co We roughly built 32 new homes a year. Since 2021, we have built over 1,156 homes. Is that homes or units? Units. Units.

So 50/50 split typically is what we've been going through. So that would include rentals and ownership. Um and you can see that breakdown below in the table. Um, so our estimated production by early 2026, which is now, is 515 units of owner occupied and 641 units of rental housing. That's a lot of houses. That's a lot of units. That's a lot of salin finding a place to live um in not a lot of time. So, we definitely have worked very hard to meet those numbers. Mark and I are a little sad because we did not meet the full end all goal. We're about 201 units short. Um but it's it's significant compared to what we've ever produced really in the past. Um, so that would leave us right now if you take our projected numbers and we kind of go into that second phase from 25 to 2030, we have to take the estimated 1,645 units that are needed for this next wave plus the 201. And that puts us with needing to produce 1,846 units by 2030. And as you'll see, there's really no reason and no data. And that's one of the reasons we keep working with RDG to make sure our numbers are correct. But these units are getting soaked up. We still have an exceptionally low vacancy rate. Our big um one of our biggest projects, the phase one of Slena Destination, now known as Magnolia Village, 250 units, garden style apartments are at full occupancy within days of them going on the market. Their last building is COing this week, I think, and all the units are already leased. There's just nobody moved in yet. So, um,

the product and and the market is there to absorb them. Um, next slide, Scott. So, this is just kind of an example. Um, I want to just highlight we also from ownership and rental then break down by various price point. So, in our ownership category, you've got that under 225 price point, and then you've got the 225 to 300,000, 300,000 to 400,000, and lastly, 400,000 and higher. As you can see in what we've been able to get onto the market these last few years, um, we've got 145 surplus in our 225 to 300, which makes sense. We incentivized it and we knew that's where we had our biggest need. That's really our workforce housing. And then we've got two extra in our 300 to 400,000. We actually have our biggest need in that under 225,000. And we knew that I mean every plan we've done has identified that is a hard hard spot to meet. Um and then in the rental category we've got rent under 625 a month. 625 to a,000 1,000 to,500 and500 and higher. um here really one of our key goal areas and so I like seeing the surplus number because it's what we tried to do was really get in there with that 625 to a,000 a month category because that's again that workforce housing area plus methodology wise it's a lot easier if you're in that under 225 category I might not be able to get you a house but I can get you something to rent right so if I got new households coming in higher chance to get to that rental category so one of the other reasons that we kind of built up and incentivized more heavily there. But in general across the board, I mean, we made progress in almost every category. Um, next slide. Next slide. So, let's talk about what this all looks like. So, this table was actually kind of fun to make this

morning. Um, I just kind of started thinking about the numbers, like what have we spent, what did we bring in, and what has this all gotten us, right? So this table shows you these are your main projects that the city commission has incentivized since 2021. This includes uh Cedarhurst which which was a uh senior living facility that has an IRB on it. You have South View Estates which is um single family and town homes that are owner occupied and a few rentals in there using MIH RHID and a fee waiver on some of their permits. You have aeroplanes which is owner occupied and some rental but those are duplex town homes um using fee waiver RHID MIH and KHITC which is a state program. Then we have line of destination which is a ARPA project and then lastly we have our CDBG grant coming in at 300,000 and federal home loan bank. So, we basically brought this together and looked at money that we've put out. That's through taxes that we will forego to pay for these. So, IRB um is property tax and RHID is another type of property tax. So, all in all um roughly in a 25-year window, we'll have 32.9 million that we'll put out into our investment in housing. Now, money that we have brought in to invest in housing through grants. So, that was not our money. Whether it was through a state program or through a federal program, mainly through grants, we've secured 29.6 million in revenue or money coming in. So, all in all, in the last four almost five

years, the difference is $3.3 million. So that's kind of net what we were not able to recoup through grants and other programs. Um that's just we can nuance that down a different way, but I think it's a fairly good way to kind of step back and go what have we spent? What have we brought in? And what did we get for it? And we just talked about the what did we get for it? Over a thousand units of new housing for our community. Next slide. I think this gives you just a really quick um visual of where housing has popped up in town. It's really hard to get the whole city on one slide, so bear with me on the kind of geographical accuracy, but wanted to kind of give you an idea that we have tried to balance, you know, where the green field housing is at, making sure that we covered east and the west sides of town. Most of our green field space is south, so it was hard to take some of that north. But even actually ahead of the plan, the plan did not have us till 2025 starting infill housing, but staff found opportunities, had those discussions with the commission, and we actually started our work on infill housing in 2024. And so we already have projects underway, and those are identified in the map. And those are primarily in North Salina. So next slide, please. And just a couple visuals of, you know, what have we produced? And I know Jacob's going to give me a hard time because I needed a more up-to-date picture of Magnolia Village, but this is the one I had when we were trying to get this together, but many of you have been out. I think you several you going to the ribbon cutting on Thursday. It is much further than what this picture shows. We are landscaped. We have people living there. All the good things, all the amenities are there. Um they've got a kids park. They're working on trails. um their pool, all those different pieces. So really a type of product

we've never been able to provide in the community. It's definitely what um all of our data shows younger people coming to work in the community wanting kind of that full housing complex situation. So that has been wonderful. And then just examples of South View and Aeroplanes. Next slide. We've got the Brock Court town homes and then Cedarhurst as I mentioned. Next slide. Many people aren't quite as familiar with our infill projects and I just kind of wanted to touch on these a bit, but we have two major grants uh for infill housing. We have CDBG, which the city has done CDBG, community development block grants for a number of years. Um it's good boots on the ground money. Um it helps to stabilize our aging housing stock. Um, and it can help even if somebody's in that unit, when they decide to move on from that unit, we have a better quality of product that goes into our housing stock and is able to be bought by somebody. Because one of the problems and one of the challenges is you, we all may love the idea of a fixeruppper, but your average family moving to the community to take a new job with one of our new employers does not have time for a two-year ren. and they're looking for something that's movein ready. And so making sure that we're also investing in our aging housing stock is really important. And sometimes, and this can kind of feel a little awkward, we have to do that investment while people are in it who own it. Knowing that that house will end up back on the market sometime in its life cycle. And so investing in those now is really important. Um, our federal home loan bank is uh was a really big win for us. It's the first time we've gotten that money and their max allowance or max award is a million dollars and we got $1 shy of that. So,

um maxed out our award with Federal Home Loan Bank. It is a difficult and complex uh grant to apply for and meet their requirements, but that complexity comes with kind of a big payoff. So, our goal is to um improve 44 homes over four years, which is a significant um impact on infill housing. And right now, that program is owner occupied. The interesting thing about federal home loan grant, federal home loan bank grant is we could actually go back year after year and keep applying and not necessarily have to finish off a project. Many other funding sources say, "Hey, here's your money. You've got three years. Come back to us in three years when you've succeeded." So, I think that's kind of a different thing and why we started out with something we knew a little bit more like a traditional rehab project, but I think as we talk about next steps, we could look at applying for that grant and doing different things with it. Um, and as I mentioned, CDBG, we have $300,000 and that is working on 12 to 14 homes. Um, primarily it's it's hard. One of the challenges and I think a lot of folks working in that rehab world is a lot of homes that need these programs and most need about $50,000 and a lot of these programs will max out at 20 or $30,000 and so that's been one of the big challenges. We have been looking at different ways to kind of marry CDBG and Federal Home Loan Bank but there are a lot of requirements that come with both. So it can be very very difficult but we haven't given up and we are working towards those. So I think that's an important piece.

Next slide. Oh, I'm sorry. Quick question. Yeah. The when you go in and you're rehabbing a home that somebody is living in, how do they get selected?

So, we have um you can see online we have an application process and there are certain things that um you have to be able to show your income, your age, those other things that are available in those types of monetary categories. And it's frankly first come first serve. So you get your application in, staff reviews it for completeness and then you know you get re you get basically in the list to be reviewed. So that means staff goes out and does an inspection of the property to see if the issues the amount of issues are even possible to be solved by the grant. Sometimes we'll get out there and someone needs over $100,000 worth of work. Our 20 or $30,000 is never going to be able to cover that. So, you know, we we appreciate their application, but we we can't help that person, for instance.

Well, we certainly have homes in the community, and it's maybe not a very nice thing to say, but it's more like they need scraped than than try to rehab them. And also part of me thinks G are we are we rewarding people for letting the home deteriorate to a point where the city's fixing it up for them. It just seems to me that I guess I would want to see some sort of partnering with them where they have to put some skin in the game because otherwise the next door neighbor might say, "Well, shoot. You know, the city's doing it for you. I'm going to let my I'm not going to do anything. When the city comes knocking on my door, then I'll we'll do the remodeling then.

These are reimbursements though, right? Or so opposed to here's what it's going to cost and I'll take the grant to pay for part of it.

Yeah. So, this project is a little different. We have NRA, which is neighborhood revitalization. So, somebody can and that's a geographical component. So, as long as you live in an NRA area, you can do an improvement to your home that meets the specifications and you can get reimbursed on that if it increases value. So, anybody in an NRA can qualify. This program is actually it's it's we're taking care of that financial piece. Um, we're putting the bids out, dealing with the contractors. Um, there are a lot of different ways to do this and I think you kind of with Federal Home Bank in particular, you have to make a choice of like what segment of a population are you going to help? And our goal was to get through this segment of the population and one because we knew a program very similar to um and you have to be able to get through kind of what your funer is willing to fund and that is that was a category available to us. But I think in having gone through that program, one of the things we've heard from our local landlords is, hey, could you do something like this for us? You know, we do rentals. I, you know, I got to keep these units. It's more work than I thought it was going to be. I mean, I can't I can't always give you examples of like why somebody's let something happen to their home. Sometimes it's things that are out of their control. Um, if you look at some of these examples and some of these pictures, a lot of times the funding is going to things that are actually not cosmetic, you know, um, major damage from storms or years of water repair. I mean, it used to cost about 10 grand to do a foundation repair. Postcoid you're 20 or $30,000. So your money doesn't go as far as you used to go either. Your paycheck didn't change. You knew you were gonna have to take care of your home, but what you can afford to take care of just isn't even possible anymore. And then based on the

numbers that we've just talked about, where else were they going to go? And then that's, you know, when you talk about I think that's the interesting and and the North Salina infill example is great on looking at the math of what it really takes to rehab these homes. Sometimes it is difficult to just do that full flip, but renting these is a very very viable product because you can't build from scratch $150,000 unit. It is darn near impossible. If you are, we are building micro units. So, if you can take something in North Salina, put 50,000 into it, and get somebody in a stabilized home for $150,000, that is way better math than new construction. So, part of these types of exercises is keeping that product alive so I'm not having to scrape it through dangerous structures. Um, example of foundation walls coming in from years of water running down that. This is one where we a were able to stabilize and start bringing that basement back. We've got decks, stairs, one, we've just got human safety, but also again keeping water from entering the foundation area, starting to take out the home. Next slide. Other things like roofs, you know, building envelope is critical. Windows, roofs, foundation. Once those things start to go, it is very hard to pull the home back. But if we can stabilize some of those things, one, we keep a saline in house in a safer place. And two, we keep a product out there that is now not a total scrape job or not 100,000 100,000 to repair. Maybe it's 20,000, maybe it's 50,000, but a heck of a lot better than where we were before. Plus, we also do a lot of HVAC work. You know, getting people new heating systems, new um air conditioning units, also part of that whole environment of that building envelope. If we've got a lot of moisture

building up, you know, if stuff's getting cold, you got pipes freezing, I got water leaking, all those things are again what eat away at the integrity of a home. And one of the reasons we're doing this and all of these programs are income qualified. So they're generally speaking, they're people that wouldn't be able to afford to do it on their own. I mean, it's it's not as if you can just let it go because you wanted to. It's it's more of a a need-based uh situation in the in terms of federal uh loan or federal home loan and and CDBG. Correct. Okay. Next slide. I'm sorry, Commissioner Rem. Did that kind of answer your question? There's a lot of pieces there.

It does. I know I I've talked to Kelly Dunn about this recently and we've talked about it before, too. I've seen other communities. Um, last one I saw was in Texas where they had all all mini homes all through it. All they all seem to be I don't want to say pre-manufactured because there was a lot of variance in them, but really they looked pretty gosh darn nice from the street with the way they were all varied up. And I mean a lot of times people think of like a a mobile home park, but a a nicely done park. We have looked at manufactured homes and and actually, you know, we have contacted companies to try and get somebody to come in here and start building them, you know, building them here on site. Uh haven't had any takers on that. There is a company in Witchah that's starting that's going to build three or 400 homes a year uh that we're meeting with uh later in in June. Lauren and I are going to go down to Witchaw and have a conversation with them and see if we can't get on the list. And I think there are um I I guess that's the thing about housing is it's it's one of everything. So, if there's a solution out there that we can find that's a manufactured housing, like you said, or tiny homes or or whatever it is, um you know, we're willing to to take a look and see what you know, what we can put together. Um

and that is definitely part of our next steps toolbox. It's just I think we know that this is we knew this is something we could do. We know it's a long-term strategy, but this is actually kind of ahead of schedule and trying to find new product, trying to figure out how you get new product onto said property. It we knew we needed more than that

and we're a little bit limited by what you know the funding availability that's out there. So, federal home loan is a is a program that's very prescriptive. It says these are the things that you have to do. CDBG is probably even more prescriptive. It says these are the things you can use the money on. So, if there's uh you know, additional funds or we can find funds that that we could use for additional purposes, we certainly will look for those things. Well, we also I'm sorry, I was going to say we just adopted the new building code and it allows for smaller home construction as well. So, that's something you guys did recently and I think that also kind of opened some doors and that was part of that discussion.

Well, when I was talking to Kelly and I understood this completely, he says the sweet spot in the market is between this dollar amount and this dollar amount. you know, everyone we build um sells right away. And you had mentioned earlier um a mini mini home community would be new. It'd be something different. Um so, yes, um getting somebody to invest in it or put their money into it would be more difficult. But I think a lot of younger people, I got a couple of kids that would be in the same boat if it weren't for mom and dad helping them out a bunch. But there's a lot of young people that would um be fine living in a say 5 to 700 foot maybe even pre-manufactured. I hate pre-manufactured has come a long ways too. Yeah.

But something that would be a lot simpler, a lot denser and then it would be really cool for for younger people if they had like a community clubhouse with a community pool. Yeah. But that that's kind of pie in the sky a little bit

and absolutely open to all of those things. I mean any anybody that wants to come forward I mean that's part of this discussion is what's the next step in implementation is we kind of made our policies based on what we knew was in the market at the time and if we need to adjust our incentive policies to incentivize new things then those are the those are the discussions that we'll have in the future about you know what is what is the housing what does it look like from the city's perspective you got you got developers that are going to do what they do I mean you have some that just are going to build 10 or 12 houses a year and do that sort of thing we've done incentives that have been very success uccessful at getting different kinds of housing in the market and this is kind of an update of okay here's where we're at and where do we need to go and it may include different kinds of incentives and a new update to our incentive policy and how we do those things.

I believe one of the obstacles in this type of housing with it being non-traditional is financing from from banks. It's new. It's somewhat unt untested and I think they're obviously that business model is risk adverse and they're not always down with a new product like we're talking about. Well, sometimes I'll tell you there for it. Well, there is, but you got to find the builders who want to do it. I mean, there's a highest and best use for all ground. And I can I can tell them stuff all day, but like they've got to answer those bankers just like the rest of us.

Yeah. And that's really the other side of this conversation is what do you you know what do we do as the city and what do the de you know what can we incentivize developers to do because we don't have a staff that can build things and we we are doing really well I think with the staff that we have to to manage these programs. I mean there's a lot there's a heavy lift in going through and and qualifying somebody for the process doing the bids getting all and managing the projects getting inspections done. I mean we are really doing a lot of work with the current staff that we have. We could do more uh but that takes more that takes more people that takes more energy and effort and it takes more more funding for those kinds of programs.

Well, just to conclude and let Lauren move on, a lot of us were able to buy our first homes in our 20s perhaps, maybe even early 20s, which unless a young person wins the lottery at this point in time is pretty much impossible to do unless they're able to get help from mom or dad. Yeah,

thanks for Commissioner Remp and and we we can definitely this is I know we're trying to get a lot of information in here, but this is not the last conversation we're going to have on housing. I think it's just trying to kind of get you guys downloaded on all this information. I do think this slide's really interesting. This is actually a combination of Census Bureau and uh Goldman Sachs investment research and this is looking at um so trailing data. So, this would have been the last 12 months, but it's year-over-year. What states have seen the most significant improvement or pull, I should say, a change in single family residential permits? I love that Kansas is smack dab in the middle and we are the only solid true green. That means Kansas has just been producing a ton of single family residential housing. So um I think part of the conversation were some people in uh in Topeka with the legislators saying look MIH RHID these other things did make a difference. Um I think I want to kind of wrap this piece up as we move into the next piece is staff doesn't have access to MLS but we do check with local realators just to kind of get some of those numbers. Uh typically we're uh they're seeing home selling in 20 24 to 48 hours. So the inventory for for desirable units is not even staying on the market very long. Um recently within this last year year and a half we're seeing that the available product is really only to 4050 units 4250 units on the market at a time. I will tell you current numbers show 90 at the moment and that's because aeroplanes and south view two of our incentivized projects have just put a handful of units on. So, it's kind of interesting if you think about that though and why we look at MLS data. 41 of those homes out of that 98 are our incentivized projects. So, if those aren't there, what do we have left? That's 57 units

remaining. Six of those units are under $60,000. That means they need a lot of work. That is that's not quite scraping, but that's that's somebody putting a lot of cash into that. Um, so it's it's a fixer upper. You've got three of them that are between 250 and 350, which is kind of our market sweet spot, and you've got 48 that are over $400,000. So, if you take what we're incentivizing right now, and you leave the market where it's at, you're still missing a lot of product. So, it does give you kind of an idea of our incentivized projects have worked. They're getting product out there and that product is getting absorbed and the market could still handle more. Margie, do you want to talk about the findings of the 2025 demographic updates before we kind of talk about what we learned about infill in North?

Sure. Next slide. And one more. All right. So, we kind of already touched on this piece, but first of all, there's four big findings out of the 2025 supplement that we did with the lives salina um and RDG. So, first was that we need over 1,600 more units through 2030. And Lauren already touched on that piece, so I'm going to skip over that. Um, inventory and vacancy um remain tight. Just like Lauren just talked about, we do not have a lot of units on the market that we can put people into and our employment numbers, as you saw earlier, um are still growing and we need places for these people to live. Um housing costs continue to impact feasibility. go with inflation, interest rates, um construction costs increasing, we just still have that gap. Um and especially with state funding and where we're at with all those pieces where we don't have all of our incentives that we used to have a couple years ago. Um how do we solve for that gap? Um and then that demand is shifting towards diverse housing types. I think Commissioner Remp just kind of touched on that, right? that we need a diverse market that has diverse options for our diverse households, right? So, depending if it's um young people, um it's people that have are older that want to have a smaller house, that want to have uh less maintenance, um we have all those different pieces. So, whether that means town homes, duplexes, cottage courts, um any of those pieces. Next slide. So on that, the 2025 has some revised priorities and strategic direction for us to take um or for the commission to think about and kind of give us some some direction on. So first of all, priority one is maintain our housing production. So we keep doing what we're doing and we keep pushing as much as we can on what we're already doing. Two is

expand that missing middle housing. know where we have those lower pieces um and really focus on encouraging some different products um and focusing on that diverse population. Three is increase our focus on infill and neighborhood reinvestment. So focusing on that NRP program that our community relations division is focusing in on with Federal Home Loan Bank and CDBG as well as other options that we have for Inville and working towards those. Four is continuing uh that strategic public private partnership. So whether that's using RHID, whether that's improving infrastructure, um figuring out where we have that gap and figuring out how we help finance that gap um whether we have new grant programs or existing ones that we try to push for um and then any type of redevelopment partnerships that we can do. And then priority five is addressing attainable ownership housing. So, how do we get to those people that need below $225,000 or below $625 a month in rent? Um, and how do we have that alternative housing strategy? Next slide. Next slide. So, this part is really informational and I'm going to go really quickly through it because your best bet is to actually read this 2024 study and it's really about how to do infill housing and we chose North Salina because that's where the most significant examples of these are. Um, the math behind infill housing is not easy and it is not quick. That's the other thing that I think is hard. One of the things we didn't mention in the conversation we just had is sometimes it's also hard to find larger properties in our more uh our more established neighborhoods. I can find one small lot, but really to kind of make the numbers work, it'd be better to have more units on that or I need a couple lots to create kind of some of that kind of clustered maybe higher density housing. So, some of those

things are a challenge. Um, and there's usually a lot of stacking of some very challenging programs to do this. But part of doing this was rather than saying it's just tough is starting to understand the math so that we could develop programs that really kind of best met our needs and got to where we were after. So we have four scenarios that we explored in this document to kind of help feed how we would do better with infill housing. Scenario one is just about full-on rehab of a single family home. Scenario two is rehabbing a single family home and adding a second unit to that. maybe a basement unit, um turning converting part of that home, maybe a garage, things like that. Scenario three is construction of a new single family home on a vacant or infill lot. And scenario four is construction of new multifamily housing on a vacant infill lot. So, um I think these challenges actually stay right where you're at, Scott. I think what you'll see through all of these scenarios is a a continual set of challenges that we deal with when we're doing infill housing. Higher than expected costs. You start opening up walls, moving things around, it is often much worse than you thought. And that's with like even our rehab program. We've got licensed building inspectors who are out there trying to kind of take a look. And sometimes you just don't know until you know and you open things up. And we hear the same thing from our contractors. Um, appraisal values may not support investment. We talked about this earlier. The gap is not just on new construction, but on existing construction. Again, you're going to go take out a $120,000 loan in a neighborhood where everything around you's comping at 60,000 75,000. The bank is not going to lend on that. So, having good comps can be very important. Small projects lack economy of scale. Sometimes one of the things I hear from

people is like, well, just take one house and make it two. You got to buy two toilets, it's easier. The plumbers's already there, it's easier. That's that actually it it really doesn't work out very well. You don't see the economies of scale to really see construction math payoff. You're at five or more units. And so it really is just truly double the cost. The plumber may have one or two less trips to your project, but you still needed two toilets. It still takes him or her the same amount of time to install the stuff. All of that is roughly the same. So, you're not seeing a lot of money saved um through economies of scale a lot of times in rehab. And lastly is that financing gap. You know, you picked something up at 50,000, it needs 50,000. And then again, we go back to that no nothing around you is comping, right? And so, how do you take a $50,000 gap and fill that? Um those are some of the challenges there. Next slide. And this may not be as much if you're just doing one property, but if you're trying to, you know, find an area where you're going to do numerous, how do we what's our thoughts on the infrastructure? Because, you know, we'll be putting brand new homes on 100-y old water and sewer lines. How do how we address that or what's the plan?

I mean, we always are working with utilities to kind of understand what the city's infrastructure is. Most often though, it's not our infrastructure as much is it's that connection from the street to the home. Trees have have grown in, root systems have taken stuff out. There are certain cases in town more often than I think we'd all like, but like where a sewer line's running through the backyards and it's on a shared line and trying to get some of that stuff um redone, re I should say redirected so that it's not set that way. Those are examples of those kind of hidden costs that nobody expects. It's like, oh, well, we looked through, walked through it, it seems great.

We can do this for 50,000 and then you have 20,000 dirt worth of, you know, let's say sewer or water work because of connections. Um, so those are harder for us because those are on private property. But we're always looking to see if we've got spots where we need to. I mean Martha's monitoring our lines and what we have set up and I haven't seen any in our rehab situations where our infrastructure has been the challenge.

Um okay, next slide. So here is one more slide please Scott. Here's an example. Um, and I think timewise I'm going to go really quickly through, but I think you can see single family reh rehab. And these are numbers like one of the things we asked RDG to do was pull real comps from Salina and look at projects that and and use homes from our community. So, we were getting very realistic numbers. And what you'll find is honestly you can get the rehab done, but that dollar perdoll return on investment is very difficult to see if you're going to flip that house. So if it takes me four to five months to rehab the house, by the time I do my carrying costs, what I've put into the home, and what I can actually sell it for, you know, I'm maybe only making 10 or 12,000. if you're trying to actually make a living doing that, you can't do enough homes a year to feed a family, let alone rent any of your own stuff. So, that's why we start seeing a lot of our um infill homes going into rentals because you may have only been able to sell it with a $12,000 profit or $10,000 profit, but in monthly rents, you can see that come back within a year or two. And so, that's that's really the math. You know, sometimes I think we all get swept up in that kind of HGTV moment where we're going to flip that house and you see somebody making these really big numbers like we just made $50,000. Not in our town. You're not not in a lot of Kansas towns. And so I think this one is just a really critical example of, you know, we're going to have to think in the next few years like we have existing homes that are probably going to be most ripe for rental, but then how do we as part of neighborhood stabilization look at owner occupied housing, creating new types of owner occupied housing in established neighborhoods. So it's

really kind of a balance there. Next slide. single family uh rehab by adding a unit. One more slide, please. This can be great, but it's also not easy to find where you're supposed to put this additional unit. And I will tell you, many times your neighbors are not a huge fan of this. And so, even if it's allowable by city code, it can get a little bit challenging. Um what you'll also see is people often the value of the home. If they find maybe being a landlord wasn't what they expected, what it takes to put in to turn it into a second unit is a lot more than most people expect. So then they decide they don't want to be a landlord. They try to put it back on the market. Now the house is not the type of house that a family is looking to purchase. So it's in its own kind of category. So I think that's one of kind of the other challenges we're seeing with single family rehab and adding that second unit. And honestly, to get a second unit in many of our older houses, it's also not like you see on TV where you throw in a kitchenet and you upgrade a little bit of electrical and you're out the door. Like there's a lot more to it. Many of the older homes people are trying to do this in need full-on new electrical because their systems were never meant to handle a secondary user in the home. Um there there's egress and exiting requirements that can get very difficult in existing homes. So there are a lot of challenges around just adding an ADU. Next slide. Let's go one more. New construction on a single family infill. You know, this is one of these that we're kind of looking at whether you know you're going to stick build from ground up or you're going to put some type of manufactured unit on there. Um, besides just that additional unit

cost, many of these require that you had to have demoed something. And that's a cost that's right there upfront before you even start getting into construction. So, that is one of the challenges we see with new construction is just getting those lots cleared. Plus, what you're able to sell doesn't really make you what you were hoping to make. I mean we you cannot realistically build a modern family home for really under 250 is really I mean our projects that we've incentivized I mean you've seen the math you know they want to put something on the market for 225 250 we're filling in the gap to get it to that price point. So, it is a challenge to try and fill these lots with a product that is going to meet the neighborhood comps and the price point in which somebody actually makes a living putting a unit on there. Next, uh let's go one more because I know we're short on time. These are all in the plan, so I'm not you if you'd like to read later or call or have a discussion about these, I'm happy to go over them with you. And this just another example of that kind of new construction missing middle is some of these bigger lots. They're not huge, but some of these bigger lots where you could maybe get a duplex or a quadlex on there, you've got some pretty heavy demo costs on those. Taking down a large home like this, it's uh it's easily $95,000. Um some of our older homes also have things like asbestous and lead that need to be contained while doing that demo. Um demo also in more dense areas is also more difficult. You're kind of watching out for trees and your neighbors. It's not like green field development. So next and let's go one more Scott. So, kind of to wrap up this whole scenario piece and what staff is looking

at as we try to build more infill housing programs and understand how to meet the math as well as the need is single family rehab is really about repairing our existing homes. And there is feasibility only when acquisition costs are low. like whether we're getting it through a land bank or donation or something like that, you know, you can make the math math, but basic stabilization probably needs 30 to 40,000 per home if you're doing sale for owner occupied rather than converting to rental rehab plus a second unit um where you're adding a mother-in-law or a rental unit. Those internal conversions are difficult and especially in older homes and attached ADUs may not be workable within the zoning or within your available lot. By the time you try to plunk plunk that thing in the backyard, you're out of setback. You're out of parking space, some of those other things. Uh single family infill, so we're putting a new unit on an old lot. Construction costs often exceed supported sale values. Land cost and demo will widen that gap. And then lastly, missing middle. Um that infill building town homes, duplexes, apartments in some of our more established neighborhoods. Uh better scale than oneoff homes, but acquisition, demo, and construction costs do creep up and they do take a very particular type of builder. Dr. Davis,

I'm going to use a uh dirty 13letter word. I think gentrification. Who Who are we building this housing for? because it sounds as though for the very reason that these houses need this work, they're not going to be for the people who are currently living in them, which means we need additional, you know, a lot of housing is just moving around. You know, a neighborhood that's the place to be, you know, 30 years later is not. And, you know, it recycles sometimes. you know, it may take a hundred years to recycle, but uh we we're going to be shifting people out of these houses, I'm guessing. I mean, cuz it's somewhere along the way, somebody's going to be paying more for this house than what was being paid a year earlier.

I think that could be something that happens. It's not where we're at right now. It is something that staff is always conscious of and you can't necessarily stop it. But I think for instance, stuff like the federal home loan bank program that's stabilizing existing housing stock rather than creating environment where everything's just being flipped. You're letting people stay in their homes a little bit longer. You're starting to naturalize like the value across the board and then you start pairing it with other things. I will tell you as we get kind of here towards the end, you know, we have a land bank. I would imagine us looking at a land trust. There are ways that you can help with gentrification when it starts to go that those trust properties hold at a certain value for x amount of time, let's say a hundred years. They can still sell and accumulate value, but you kind of set them at what that max value and trade-off can be in order to keep stabilizing neighborhoods. It's one tool to look at. And I think that is an important part and one of the reasons you can't go so fast with infill work. You got to be really smart about it because the market will do what the market does, but how we participate in that market needs to be thoughtful.

Now, once the new housing comes in, I'm assuming property values for the whole block goes up over time, the property taxes start to be the the hidden expense that drives people out. And

that is one of the challenges we actually talk about with folks who are part of the rehab program right now is like what will my taxes be right now? We try to if they're in the neighborhood revitalization area, which based on the maps they are, we try to marry that because then the NRA will get them no increased property taxes for the first 5 years and only a 50% increase for the next five years, which helps people kind of prepare to deal with that increased cost over time. Um, but it is part of the challenge, Margie. And the first few that we have had in the neighborhood um resization program that have gone through and their project is finished, we've then taken those then we take it to the county appraiser. They've applied for um NRA and working through their tax rebate and those property increases aren't actually shown. So what happens at the appraisers's office is that if you're doing like maintenance work, so an HVAC um or new roof, they don't always increase the value of the homes off those pieces. And so we're not seeing that increase. So then we're just saying your property taxes haven't increased. We'll keep your application on file. Um but they're not

impacting it like they we thought they were going to. We're having them apply every single time. But well part of that is you can only do so much with 20 or $30,000. So um that's not always an increase in the value as the appraisers's office would see it, but we do have the NRA that couples with that for those situations. Just as an example, Washington DC seniors who own their homes uh are taxed their property tax is 50% of what it would be uh if they were I'm guessing 65 is the cuto off age, but interesting. Uh but just it's one one program, you know, that that helps seniors stay in place.

No, I hear you. And I think that's something we'll have to continually talk about is like what are what are the effects of our different programs.

Next slide. Next slide. Okay, last two slides. We're almost there. Um, so I think the big takeaway is the city's housing strategy is working, but our work is not done. Um, as Margie mentioned, really that new data is showing and what we've been able to accomplish is showing is focusing on the attainability. We've gotten a good amount of units into the market, but we still have spots where we're we're missing and that's that under 225 to 250 category. Um I think also looking at our full toolbox. Uh the legislaturator's made some very key decisions that have not funded MIH like it's been funded in the past. We also do not have ARPA money to use these next few years. So, I definitely foresee in staff's future is really looking at other funding sources and thinking more strategically about how we incentivize. Uh, just as a reminder, we haven't adopted incentive policy. So, as we go and look at new tools, we'll be coming back to you for guidance on those so that we have that in place. Long-term, we, as I mentioned, just need to keep going. Uh, we now have that new 2030 number. And then staying creative, thinking about different programs, different product type, you know, where where can we find things? As Jacob mentioned, you know what? Cool. Somebody's got something in Witchah. You want us to see it? We'll go see it. Let us see how we can work that in. Um, but I think the bottom line is we keep building. We need to have diverse choices and we're looking for the right tools to help lead us forward. Last slide. And I think ending on that toolbox piece, infill and reinvestment, it is not a quick solution and finding different ways to meet these different needs. I think staff feels much better

now having some good math to understand how to help projects in our neighborhoods that need reinvestment and starting to match programs to that. Um, land bank and lot strategies. We do have a land bank. Um, we formed it, but I'm also very cautious to use it without a program to match to it. So, it's there, but I'm also a big advocate of not just using it because we have it like that it needs to have purpose because it comes along with some liabilities. But, I think that's a tool that we're probably getting to the place where that will become more relevant, especially on infill. Um, attainable ownership, focusing on housing under 225, but up to that 250 point. And I mean we may have a surplus right now in units for that 250 to 350 price point but if you look at our demographics we still need that product. So I think that is also part of this understanding of like okay well what is our relationship to encouraging that development? Is the market there to completely take care of that or will we still incentivize there too? Alternative housing types I think we've talked quite a bit about today. um grants and gap financing and then policy and infrastructure. I think one of the things too is you know prior to co we really weren't also platting a lot and we have really started to plat a number of lots and part of the challenge and part of the cost especially in new construction is the time lag on securing funding and actually building the house because before all of that happens you have entitlements and you've got infrastructure. So, roads, water, and sewer that need to go in. And one of the other challenges is our perimeter policy, whether it's perimeter roads or the connective pieces of our infrastructure, especially for Greenfield where we have areas that we maybe haven't expanded infrastructure. So, I think staff this summer um while you guys all work through the budget,

we'll be ready to talk to you in September about looking at financing methods and kind of that perimeter road policy and how that plays into the future of our housing production and what some of our options are there. Um, but I think that's something a tool in the toolbox that we're going to have to have a conversation about that we haven't done as much before and that may be the key to more of the green field side of things versus the infill. Um with that I know there was a lot of information that we have tried to cover in a few minutes but we are happy to um take any questions. I have one question or comment. Looking at all the information presented in the need for rental properties, whatever type of property that might be at I got a thought that goes back to Magnolia Village. And they initially had a timeline and it seems to me at a meeting maybe two meetings back but we released 12 million I believe to the de developer for costs they already incurred but but the original agreement was that they would be at a certain threshold and they weren't meeting it. I'm just wondering if we're if we're doing the right thing because there's no better way to keep somebody's feet to the fire

than if we're holding a large amount of money that would be due them.

We didn't actually we we changed the method in which we would release the money, but we didn't release the money to them. So, they do have to spend it. Uh but we have to because of the timelines for the state requirements. Um the only really way to make the second phase happen was to to change the way we paid. So the first phase we didn't provide any funding until we pro provided some infrastructure funding up front and then we didn't provide anything until the buildings were actually complete. So we did kind of a per door um dollar amount that we provided because of the way the state funding works. Um we really can't do that on the second phase. So we had to rework it in order to allow them to expend more of that money on the front end. Some of that will be on infrastructure but it has to be paid out in a certain time frame. So that's really a function of the state grant funding and how it came through and there's really not another way to do that but they will I mean they are planning to start uh that second phase and I I think they're I mean I think they'll they'll get it done. Um, we have actually, you know, when we first kind of slowed that that process or when they started to come online a little bit more slowly than we'd thought, um, we really thought that that was kind of a a good thing. Um, because I think there was a lot of concern that we would be putting too many units on the market all at once. I think it's it's borne out that it's been pretty good to have that come on the market, you know, in a slower rate and not just kind of here's 250 units. Um but we certainly um are monitoring that that project and and will do that and it's really in conjunction with the state and the function of how the state's money has come in. We really can't do it any differently than what we've planned it at at this point.

Okie dokie. Yep. So we won't pay that out until money is expended. It will be probably September time frame when all that money comes uh it gets gets paid out. But there'll be quite a bit of work between now and then. I mean, they have to expend um at least the 12.5 million and they will have expended more than that, I think, by that time. So, they'll be sufficiently down the path of of building those units by the time we pay them anything. Good. They're getting ready to start infrastructure construction right now. They just had their pre-construction meeting with public works. So, that next phase is is ready to start.

Good. One other question. Jason Gage used to say there's no code that pre prevents ugly, but it does prevent unsafe and unhealthy. Uh how how much would property uh code enforcement upgrade some of our North Salana and not just North Salana, but the central Salana housing stock to where we might be able to save some uh tax incentive dollars. I don't not you don't have to give me a dollar figure but is would do you think it would be it would put a significant dent

what's been significant is we have a dangerous structures um code enforcement officer he does a lot of things but that's primarily one of the main topics and the more complex property maintenance issues maybe where we have a variety of codes that intersect and um and that's maybe a totally separate uh study session or maybe a a CM for you guys, but the amount of money that that position has saved because somebody has the time to work through and go back and forth and back and forth rather than just sending something to court has been pretty significant. Um, a lot of times those properties though, you're working with somebody who maybe doesn't have the funds, so we can go and do it, but they may not be able to do it. And so then it ends up being a lean on the property. So there's it's just trying to find a balance between like safety and real property maintenance and not using that as a tool to necessarily influence neighborhood property values.

And I I think that we're we're pretty well maxing the capacity of our current code staff to do those those I mean those types of code enforcement. I mean we do have a team that does code enforcement, but they are um they're pushing pretty hard. So it's not like we could just say today, hey, we want you to do more. If we were going to do more, we would need to hire more people and staff up in a different way, right? Because I mean, I'd be hesitant to redevelop a property two doors down where the porch is falling off, the you know, the roof has hole and and and stuff's just piled up in the yard. We have a lot of those properties in town.

It's a lot It's a lot of work. I mean, I'll give mad props to our our property maintenance inspectors because that job is is is part social worker. um part part neighbor, part listener, part enforcement, it's a really tough job and if it um I think one of the things that I've definitely learned from those guys and from the different people that call the office, if it were that simple, most people would take care of those things themselves and particularly in some of our established neighborhoods that maybe have lower economics, um it's a real challenge to to fix some of those issues. But I I totally understand where you're coming from, Trent.

And we certainly can provide some information on the number of, you know, code enforcement actions that we are taking. It is a significant amount. So you can see um kind of the numbers behind that. Sorry, Commissioner Davis. Any other questions or comments? Just appreciate the amount of work and effort that went into this. It was very comprehensive. You covered a lot of ground in a minimal amount of time. And thanks. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. We'll probably have real questions in about two weeks. That's okay. We will be back. Like I said, this is kind of an information dump. We'll figure out next steps. Okay. We will be back here at 4:00 for the regular scheduled meeting. Thank you very much.

Hey,

Heat. Hey, Heat. Hey, hey, hey.

Okay, it is 4:00. clock. I will call the Monday, May 11th, uh, 2026 city commission meeting to order. I will first look to staff to for verification the Kansas Open Meeting Act required notice has been properly provided. Yes. Thank you. May we have a roll call? Mayor Hoppik here. Commissioner Davis here. Commissioner Ivy here. Commissioner Linkitz here. Commissioner Re here.

Thank you. Will those who are able please stand for the pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Okay, we have no public hearings. And before we move to the consent agenda, I would like to move that we have a new item, item 5.5 be moved before item 5.4 um because I will need to recuse myself from that item along with some of them in front of that. So, if I could have a a second to that, I second that. Okay, we have a motion and second to move item 5.5 in front of item 5.4. All those in favor? I I opposed.

Okay, passes 5. That will bring us to consent agenda.

All right. Item 4.1 is to consider approval of the 20 April 27th, 2026 regular meeting minutes. A item 4.2 2 is to consider approval of resolution number 26-8347 authorizing the preparation and submitt of an application to the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation for the 2026 Emergency Solutions Grant. Item 4.3, consider approving phase 2 projects for the 2024 Community Development Block Grant Housing Rehab Grant. Item 4.4, Four, consider awarding the bid for the 2026 sidewalk project to Ram Contracting and Dirt Works LLC of Salena, Kansas in an amount not to exceed $61,40.39. Item 4.5, consider approval of change order number one in the amount of $22,626.35 for project number 255023, Temple Parking Lot. And item 4.6, consider authorizing a first amendment to the lease agreement with AT&T for parking spaces in lot 130 on 7th Street.

Okay. Is there an item that a commissioner would like to remove from consent agenda? I would like to remove item 4.6. I don't think we need the full presentation. I think it could be summarized in two minutes. Okay. Um Okay. Is there any comment from the public on items 4.1 through 4.5? If not, I may maybe my packet was not updated. Is the numbering on the blue sheets off? Because in the consent agenda,

the temple parking lot is 4.5, but on this it says 4.4. See, that's my fault. Somehow my numbers got messed up and I have fixed them online but I didn't fix them on your paper copy. Apologize. So which one is being pulled out? The AT&T uh lease parking lot lease the 4.6. Okay. The last 4.6. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Do we have a motion to approve the 4? Oh yeah. Yeah. Move to approve uh consent consent agenda items 4.1 through 4.5.

Second. We have a motion and second to approve consent agenda items 4.1 through 4.5. All those in favor? I opposed. That passes 50. 4.6. Who's the Item 4.6 again is to consider authorizing a first amendment to lease agreement with AT&T for parking spaces in lot 130 on 7th Street.

Yeah. Commissioners, I worked on this with Ron Marsh, so I guess I can start it and Ron can answer any other additional questions. Historically, the city has leased that lot to AT&T all the way back. The original lease actually talks about Southwestern Bell. So, it's uh been in place for a long time. Our lease agreement with them says that the city that they will do regular maintenance to the parking lot. Um, and what happened was a kind of structural failure that was far beyond regular maintenance. uh which they asked the city to repair as the owner. And in my opinion, that's consistent with the agreement. It's clearly not regular maintenance. It was a major structural repair. Uh as part of that, we went back to them and said, you know, we understand that this is a repair that needs done. The original lease gives you the entire lot. Would you amend this lease so that you only have uh 10 spaces and the rest of it can be turned over to the public since we're going to be spending this money uh of the public's on the parking lot? And they agreed to that. So, that's the amendment to the lease. It will leave Southwestern Bell, which originally had the entire lot. Uh it will reduce them down to 10 lots from that parking lot and then we'll make the rest of them public. That's that's what's before you.

I did go through the lot um actually a couple of times earlier and I really didn't see where AT&T had something at up against the wall of the building on the south that talked about their parking. But I Again, I talked to Jacob Wood about this this morning. They've utilized that parking lot for 40 years. Um, a dollar a year, I think, is what the lease states, which we probably never collected that 40 bucks, I'm guessing. But a big company like AT&T, part of what I read is they don't have the money to repair the lot. I don't know how you define maintenance in this particular example, but just my gut says, you know, come on, you've got the lot for 40 years. Um, do the 20 25,000 in repairs.

Yeah. I mean, it's a really old lease. Um, probably my guess would be that when the city went into that, they thought it would be very beneficial to have AT&T in that spot and that AT&T probably had a lot more employees at the time, so it was probably thought of as an economic development situation. Um the pro there's the option of negotiating with them and make trying to make them pay it. The problem is that it is in the city's name and we probably have some liability potentially uh for if anything happened to it. So it may be unwise to just leave it in disrepair permanently.

Well, I had found this lease years ago when I was doing some work down in that area and to me um it was a it appears to me it's kind of a negotiating tool. Um they don't have to give us those nine lots. I mean, it's a it's a it's it's a it's a weak lease, but the lease is pretty strong on the fact that they get those 19 for a dollar a year, and there's not an out for the city. So, it goes on into perpetuity. Yep. It's a horrible lease. We didn't sign it, but it's it is what it is. So, to me, with the with the activity we have and everything with the new uh market and everything down there, we need those parking spots that the employees can park across the street. So, uh understand that. I just I think the community needs to know that.

Yeah. Um because we do get comments where we're um pretty easy to give away community assets and just so they know there's a rationale behind that. Yeah. I' I've shared my two cents. That's what I wanted to do. Okay. Any other comments or from the commission? Any comments from the public? Okay. If not, I'll bring it back to the commission for action.

I move that we approve the first amendment to the lease agreement for parking spaces in lot 130 on 7th Street and authorize the city manager to sign the amendment. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the first amendment to the lease agreement for parking spaces in lot 130 on 7th Street and authorizes city manager to sign the amendment. All those in favor? I opposed. That item passes 5. That will lead us to the next. Okay. Um since I have the microphone for just a second, we do actually get that dollar a year. They send us a check every year for $1.

Yeah. Yeah. And I know they do because if they didn't, we could pull there. Yeah, that's the only thing that ties them into it. So, yeah. Um, item 5.1, consider resolution number 26-8352 authorizing the sale of 2026 general obligation bonds and authorized the city manager to execute an agreement for financial advisor services with Stifel Nicolas & Company Incorporated.

Okay, I am going to turn this over to the vice mayor for item 51, 52, 53, and 55. back.

Good afternoon, May vice mayor and commissioners. Debbie Pac, director of finance. Uh, the city usually issues permanent debt financing once a year. Um, I was before you a couple weeks ago to kind of discuss our plan for this year's financing. Um, that process takes about two and a half months. It involves a lot of people. uh staff looks at projects that are being completed. We have uh financial advisors that are looking at our current bonds to see if any of those can be refinanced for a cost savings for the city. Um so there's just a lot of process that goes into this, but today's action actually gives us the authority to start the process, put the the bonds out for sale, and to publish the documents required for those bond sales. Um, resolution 268352 uh gives us the authority to offer our our bonds to the public for sale. Um, we will have to adopt an ordinance. It's a statute. Once we do those bonds, that ordinance will be adopted on June 8th, the day that we actually sell the bonds. And at that time, you'll be given a a synopsis, a summary of what those bonds were and how we how they sold. For this year's bonds uh issuance, we're looking at uh seven projects. Basically, the the city project is fire station number four. Um that is going to be supported by property tax. And then there are six special assessment projects that are being financed through this financing. The total approximate amount will be $14,725,000. Um the tax supported projects that that we do finance and that are currently financed are pro are supported by a levy of current property tax, delinquent tax collections, motor vehicle tax collections, sales tax and transient gas tax collections, special assessment debt is supported by the a separate levy on pro individual properties receiving benefits benefits from those projects.

The current debt service fund mill levy is 6.107. Um if with this 2026 debt, Steph does not believe that that current mill levy will change because of this financing. We we utilize Stifel Nicholas and company and we have they have provided us financial services for many years not only in the debt financing world but in cash management, investments and uh debt issuance. Um, according to municipal services rulemaking board, um, including MSRB rule G2, Stifel is required to enter into a financial services agreement with the city every time we issue debt. Um, and that uh, agreement struct uh, limits or kind of states what the scope of work will be. It it is but is not limited to financial analysis and structuring of the bond issuance, issuing the official statement and offering documents and coordination of all the parties involved in the process. The debt payments for these particular projects will be supported as I stated above. We have two action items for consideration today. One is resolution 268352 which is authorizing the offering for public sale of the general obligation bonds. You can approve that resolution with amendments as you might deem appropriate. You could postpone consideration of the resolution or you could vote to deny the resolution giving staff direction on how you would like to proceed with financing. The second action item is to authorize the city manager to execute a financial advisory services agreement with Steve Nicholas and Company Inc. You could authorize that with amendments consider postpone it or not authorize it and provide staff with direction. staff recommends option one in each of these. Um I I will stand for questions and also I believe Dave Artterbury from Stifel Nicholas and Mitch Walter from Gilmore and Bell are on Zoom if you would have

questions for them. So thank you. Does any commissioners have any questions? Quick question, Debbie. Mhm. Um, according to the numbers here, this will add roughly a million1 to our annual debt, taking our annual debt up to just over 17 million annually, which I believe represents about 12% of our city's income. Does that seem right?

U, the 17 million total debt does not come strictly from a some of that is special assessment. So yes, that that is true in that respect. Uh but it's not all financed by property tax. There's there are a lot of debt service in that 17 million that is provi that is supported by the enterprise fund. So the utility fund, the solid waste fund, sanitation fund, as well as special assessments and then the property tax that that we levy which all those numbers go into our our total city income, right? In the debt service fund. Yes. not in the general fund.

Okay. Well, maybe I'd have to ask um you maybe sometime oneonone to get a better handle on the property tax for debt service is levied separately than the property tax levied for the support of the general fund. So, there's two levies in the city's property tax. The total comprises of a levy for the general fund operations and a levy for the debt service to pay off these this debt. And how much how much money does our community have total in bond obligations? At general obligation bonds, I believe the number is about 77 million. That's just off the top of my head, so I wouldn't quote me on that. Lower lower than what I Yeah.

thought it might be. I don't That doesn't include the utility like that does not include the utility uh like KDH loans and things like that. That's just general obligation bonds. Okay. Thank you. Mhm. Anyone else questions? Any comments from the public?

Benwinho Salina. Uh, at one time you guys were uh going back and forth as far as fire station number four. You were talking about either having to bond it or you were going you thought you had enough cash in the uh general fund to be able to pay for it. Uh, can you tell me how much is being bonded and how much is being paid for cash?

That was part of that conversation we had a couple weeks ago. Currently, the project uh cost is estimated to be about $9.1 million. So, uh, we're going to finance $5 million and the remainder will be out of cash. So, it'll be a little around $4.1 million out of cash and then a little bit they'll finance all the closing costs for the actual bonds as well. Thank you. Question. Yes, I think you did. Anyone else? Okay, we'll bring it back up for action or discussion. Mr. Vice Mayor, I move for approval of resolution number 26-8352 authorizing the offering for public sale of general obligation bonds.

Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded that we approve resolution number 26-8352 authorizing the offering for public sale of general obligation bonds. Uh, all in favor say I. I. I. I. Oppose. Okay, that passes 4 nothing. Entertain a motion for the second part. Mr. Vice Mayor, I move that we authorize the city manager to execute a financial advisory services agreement with Steel Nicholas & Company Incorporated. Second.

It's been moved and seconded that we authorize the city manager to execute a financial advisory services agreement with Stiffl Nicholas and Company Inc. All in favor? I say I I oppose. Same sign. That passes for nothing. Okay, we'll move on to item 5.2. Item 5.2, consider authorizing the city manager to execute amendment number one to the agreement with HDR Engineering for property acquisition relating to the Smoky Hill River Renewal Project. Thank you, Miss Tasker.

Thank you, uh, Martha Tasker, director of utilities, uh, vice mayor and commissioners. Uh the city, Friends of the River, and the community have uh been engaged in river renewal for the last several decades. And most recently, in August of 2024, uh the city executed a design agreement with HDR for the raise grant project. And shortly after that, in May of 2025, the city exe executed an agreement with HDR for real property acquisition services for the construction project. The city is responsible for requiring all the necessary real property permanent and temporary easements for construction and maintenance. Uh the original HDR agreement uh provided services to assist the city with acquisition of 40 parcels of property. Um that work is well underway and is scheduled to be complete by the end of 2026. Uh uh the HDR amendment number one um includes uh the Smoky Hill River renewal project and the raise grant. Um the raise grant is uh currently underway in final design and uh the design work included hydraulic hydrarology and hydraulic modeling. Uh the updated models indicate that the existing condition of the 100-year water surface elevations are going to rise above the federal management FEMA effective elevations by uh up to

three feet 3 feet but will remain within the banks of the river channel. It was determined that a conditional letter of map revision would be required for this and um due to the elevations raising above the flood elevation. The second project, the US Army Corps of Engineers ecosystem would likely require the same uh conditional letter of map revision. Um when that project uh would be underway for design, HDR and the city staff discussed the efficiency, the time frame and the additional cost with having these two um conditional letters of map revisions in the same area over a short time frame. The division of water resources indicated that a feasible path forward would forward would be to obtain a local flood plane permit from the city of Sina and that would require acknowledgements from the property owners where the 100red-year base flood elevation would increase by more than one foot. Uh in this case uh it increases up to three feet but in all cases it does remain in the bank of the channel. With this acknowledgement, the city would be able to move forward with the project and DWR would be able to do their uh relevant permits. Um at the end of the two projects, a uh LOMAR or a letter of map revision would be required to formally update the work. Uh in this case for those uh acknowledgement parcels there was a total of 32 properties. We've currently acquired uh 22 property owners and continue to look for additional property owners that'll sign the acknowledgements. But for this particular agreement, we're considering

uh uh for up to 10 remaining property owners. city will purchase the necessary property from the center line of the river to the high bank uh to allow us to proceed with the raise grant. Uh the attached amendment number one revises the scope of work, the schedule and the estimate. Scope of work is for the 10 additional fee acquisitions. Um the schedule want to talk briefly there about the overall raise grant project. Um uh currently we're in the uh 90% design completion. So we're behind meeting the um engineering completion date of April of 2026. Projecting that that date will probably be closer to April of 2027 and uh the plan the bid letting would be in June of 2027. the substantial completion date and the budget period will remain the same, November 1st, 2030 and June 30th of 2031. Uh the attached amendment uh modifies the property acquisition to be complete by December 26, and that's where we think we're at with the original property acquisitions. Also, um the estimated cost to date for property acquisition for the entire raise grant project is 1,414,845. And that includes all of the step steps with HDR all the way through the survey, appraisals, and uh the closing costs. Uh funding for the uh city's portion of the river renewal project comes from 1.3 million per year of sales tax. Um allocation of $5 million transfer from the general fund, private funding from

friends of the river and the possible star bond funds. Um have uh four four options. um approve a motion authorizing the city manager to execute amendment number one with HDR Engineering for Smoky Hill River Renewal um phase one construction project uh by adding $63,120 to the previously approved mount of $200,3404 an amended mount not to exceed of 263,460. Uh the second option would approve a motion and provide amendments to staff. Uh third would be to postpone and provide amendments or request to staff or vote to to deny execution of the amendment. Uh staff recommends option one. Myself and public works would be here to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you. I have a few comments.

Okay. start out with the project still makes me very very nervous. I know there's a portion of our community that want this and wants it really bad. There's another portion of our community that um I think feels that we have fallen off our rocker perhaps. I've seen a memo recently that talks about our part of the world becoming more aid um less and less natural precept coming down. We had a meeting before the meeting about the water flow in the river and how it's very low. And we also know when we get rain, heavy rain, we tend to get a lot of runoff from fields, which makes our water pretty murky, which causes a lot of silt to gather in the bottom of the river. So, there'll be ongoing maintenance costs. But having said all that, as I understand it, we have the the raise grant and this is in order to make that or to have that come to fruition, we need to acquire this additional property. Is that correct?

That's correct. Which kind of puts us between the puts me between the rock and hard spot. Anyway, I think we want to take advantage of grant money even though it still is taxpayer money. That's it for me. Anyone else? Any comments from the public? Excuse me.

Hi, I'm Nancy Newville. My property is over by the Smoky River, the one you guys want to expand and make this look like San Antonio and Oklahoma City. And I bought my house in 2001. I bought it so I could walk to work when I was downtown, closer to downtown things. I raised my family there. And you guys are talking about water. Where are we going to get this water? Cuz you're not going to get it out of Canopoulos and it isn't coming out of Wilson Lake. Those lakes are way down. And then what are you going to do? Have stagnant water

and then you're going to have mosquitoes and everything. You need to think about this. They have not touched that river by our house at all. I caught a um concrete company. Guy backed up, washed out his his unit, and it just went right down the river. Never heard back from that concrete company why they did it. You guys have not touched the river. So, don't stand up here and say the friends of the Smoky River and all of this have been cleaning it. No, you have not been cleaning it. They've been doing it over by Oakdale Park. Go ahead, put little rowboats in there. That would be cute for the Smoky River Festival, but nobody's going to want to go rowing down underneath a bridge at Iron or Elm Street or anywhere like that and go where? Over to Lakewood Park who used to have the rowboats and the canoes and then what happened there? You can't do it anymore.

Thank you for your comments.

Ben Winhold Salina. I just want to get this out on the record on camera and everything. Uh it is my opinion and the opinion of many people in this town that when it comes to acquiring these 32 properties that in the end the paperwork and the closing costs and everything should not have half of them go to land title who is owned by the mayor commissioner Mike Copic. They should all go to Midwest because with Mike not being here, but the rest of you are and doing what he wants, this is about the biggest conflict of interest I have ever seen. his company is going to make a lot of dollars off of this and this should not be not on this project nor on anything for that matter because he has to recuse himself all the time. But when it comes to this and these 32 properties, he should have bowed out from the beginning. That's my opinion and I think a lot of people would agree with me. Thank you.

Thank you. Norman Mana, that's my name today. Sorry. Has this property been properly properly surveyed? this river because that center river line does move as the river changes course it'll move. So is that a current survey mark or will it be done whenever the project is bid the center of the river? If you want to list the fix, you need to let mother nature do what she does best. We're messing with her and this issue about water. This is in the whole United States. This country does not have water and we're running out of it. We're misusing it. I've been to other countries. We're just a drop in the bucket and you're abusing it.

Yes, you are. And it's about 25 years away. We're going to pay the price because this drought is already here. We're in a D3 drought method right now. And you people, you five are abusing it. You five should be held accountable. Thank you, Nor. Okay, no more public comment. I'll bring it up back here for discussion or action.

Could I just to uh remove any doubt about anything uh improper going on? Could could the city manager or city attorney briefly summarize our rules of engagement for contracts when a sitting commissioner is potentially involved, you know, for providing services for the city?

Yeah. So, with this circumstance, we made the decision to split that up all the properties along that uh I don't know years ago at this point. We made that decision. And it was a it was a discussion that was had at the city commission level. Typically with any kind of work that we have done um with the city commissioner or with anybody, we bid that work out. The decision was made on the very front of this that we would split that between the two title companies that are in the community. So, and I let Jacob go first on this because I don't have as much history, but I did talk to Greg Bangston the other day about something similar to this or related to this. And I believe that there is attorney general's uh letter specifically regarding the situation and how to deal with it and that the city's consistent with that.

Okay. And it's my understanding that for services just services provided that are bidded out there's no prohibition. Yeah. Yeah.

It's that's my understanding as well. And the reason I say that it's a small town relatively speaking uh and for certain services you're only going to have but so many people who provide it. uh and uh you know there will be instances where when the price is already set uh and someone is not bidding or negotiating the price uh it's just a matter of that person providing a a a service for which we've already determined what we're going to pay for it. Commissioner Davis, before I went into uh public kind of law, I was a title I did have a title insurance practice of my own and I can confirm with that title insurance is very much a commodity. It's you provide the insurance of title and and it's based on a fee schedule and so there is not an ability to change the price per um per contract. You know based on the amount of dollars that the transactions taking place what the fee is going to be. So it is whether you buy it from A or B company, it's going to be the same price for the city.

Okay. Anyone else? Okay,

I'll entertain a motion. I move to approve uh I'm sorry. Move to authorize the city manager to execute amendment number one with HDR Engineering Incorporated for Smoky Hill River Renewal phase one construction project real property acquisition by adding $63,120 to the previously approved amount of $200,340 for an amended amount not to exceed $263,460. I'll second that. It's been moved and seconded that um the city commission approve a motion authorizing the city manager to exec execute amendment number one with HDR Engineering Incorporated HDR for Smoky Hill River renewal phase one construction project real property acquisition by adding 631 120 to the previously approved amount of 200,340 for an amended amount not to exceed 263,460. All in favor say I.

I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Nay. That passes. 31.

Item 5.3. Item 5.3. Consider approval of resolutions number 268-8355 and resolution number 26-8356 reling relating to land acquisition and public use in conjunction with the Smoky Hill River Renewal Project. Miss Tasker, you're up again.

Uh thank you, Vice Mayor and Commissioners. Uh similar project that we talked about there before. Um Martha Tasker, director of utilities. Uh this item includes two uh resolutions which states the policy of the city for land acquisition and public use of the Smoky Hill River renewal property. Um resolution number 268355 uh applies to the raise grant project and states the policy of the city regarding acquisition of necessary interest in real estate real estate. Um the city's obtained the surveys, legal description, title reports, and appraisals that's required for the property acquisition. And uh the government body through this resolution will establish the amount of just compensation for the interest in the real property to be uh 1,21,760 or less. uh for the aggreate aggregate of uh up to 43 parcels. Um the resolution authorizes city manager to sign either uh a contract for either the purchase of the interest uh for the real property amount determined by the appraisals or to negotiate a purchase price uh in the excess of the city's initial offer. or upon such terms within the scope of the project budget and consistent with the the city's interest, uh the city manager will shall periodically report to the governing body um uh status of the property acquisition. Resolution number 268356

applies to both uh the river renewal project as a whole which includes the raise grant and the US Army Corps of Engineers project and it states the policy of the city regarding the acquisition of real estate and the regulation of public access to certain uh uh acquired properties. Um the policy is to acquire real property interests in the old Smoky Hill River channel to the high bank of the river on both sides. The public uh will not have access in all areas in which the city has real property interest. Um, however, the public will benefit from this by allowing the city to maintain the channel area and also why while eliminating the potential premises liability exposure for the adjoining property owners. Um there's uh the Smoky Hill River has been determined to be a non-navavigable waterway and by that being said said the the owners adjoining the waterway generally own to the midline of the waterway and um the to the property of the adjoining properties and the public then has no right to use that navigable water area that's owned by the uh property owner. So in this case, we've identified uh two different uh types of improvement. One is a p public improvement property and it's really intended to be used as a transition area between the ownership of uh and management of the real estate for the construction of all of the public use improvements, public areas, amenities and so on. And we're going

we're defining that as public improvement property. And then the other is channel property. And in that case uh it's a transition of ownership and management of the channel to the city. And it provides access to enable public use of the waterway for the authorized recreational uses while eliminating the potential potential premise liability exposure for the uh adjoining property owners and to to enable the city to manage this area from stream bank of each side of the channel. uh an area will will have uh restricted public access between the water level and the stream and the high bank that will not be uh used for public access. Um the uh resolution authorizes the city manager to accept and acquire using any legal process and real property interests for the city in the old Smoky Hill River channel from high bank of the river on both sides. Um the just compensation for the Smoky Hill River renewal project acquisition is 1 million21,760 and includes 105,000 for contingency. uh the estimated cost of property acquisition for uh all aspects from the HDR agreements to appraisals reviews and the acquisition title insurance and closing costs is1,414,845. Again, funding for the city's portion of the river renewal project comes from 1,300,000 per year in sales tax allocations, a $5 million transfer from the general fund, private funding from

friends of the river, and possible star bonds. Again, in this one, there is uh two action items and uh resolution number 268355. Um, adopt resolution number 268355 establishing the amount of just compensation and stating the policy of the governing body of the city of Salina, Kansas regarding the acquisition of real property and easements for the Smoky Hill River Renewal Project, city project number 70014. And the other is to reject the resolution and direct staff to gather additional information. for resolution number 268356. Adopt resolution number 268356 stating the policy of the governing body of the city of Slena, Kansas regarding the acquisition of real estate and regulation of public access to person p to certain parcels um to be acquired for the Smoky Hill River project city project number 70014. Uh the second is to reject that resolution and direct staff for additional information. In both cases, staff recommends option one. Again, we'd be glad to answer your questions uh either with the help of the city attorney or public works staff.

Thank you, Martha. There was a lot of information there, commissioners. I guess some highlights real quick would be uh on the second resolution, the the 8356 is really an intention to call out there's a unique situation ultimately to make this project work with the river renewal. The city is going to need to own and control from the high bank of the river to the high bank of the river. Uh but we're not going to allow public recreation along those river banks in all areas. We're going to have a lot of the access points are going to be currently in existing parks. Like for instance, the canoe entry points might be um by Riverside Park and then again at Lakewood Park. Um on the opposite side of the riverbank, there will be private property where we will discourage and not allow public access. So that's really what that's trying to call out. Uh it also mentions under Kansas law though, land owners that own to the will own to the center point of the river currently. So, the city is going to be acquiring from people uh from the high bank of their from the center line of the river to the high bank of their property. I think that maybe a lot of land owners don't think of don't don't consider their ownership of the riverbank property as being key to their parcel. So, we're going to be acquiring land that a lot of them aren't utilizing because it's in a riverbank, but we have to do that for this project to be successful. And then we'll also be acquiring property where we'll be building trails and and uh widening bridges. And that's more traditional ownership. And then 50 uh 268355 is more of a standard resolution um authorizing the city to go through with um acquiring property. We are required by law to have a third party appraise the val give an appraisal for what that property is worth, offer that to the land owner um maybe do a little and then proceed from there. So we're in that process of providing those valuations to land owners and asking them to to um sign those agreements with us.

Thank you. Any questions from the commissioners? I'll just state that I know I have a lot of good friends that are very much in favor of the river, but I also know there's a big portion of the community against which I already stated and I'm just um putting that out there. Thank you. Any public comment?

I introduced myself the first time. Now, you're going to know me by my parcel number because I have never seen a list of the 43 properties you guys are wanting to take away. I don't want to see a parcel number. I want to see a house number and a street name. And you guys need to go put faces with those people. So my parcel is 085-86-13-20-01-00002.0000.

It doesn't matter what I say up here. You guys before we ever have these meetings have already decided what you guys want, not what the city wants, not what the residents want. Thank you.

You guys have decided this every time on your own and that's not right. You're sitting up here being God. I don't think any of you have the right to say you get to keep your house, you're going to be homeless. What about the families that can't buy another house or they can't go into a rental because of pets? What are you going to do then? When is this all going to happen? When am I going to see what you guys want for my property? We're not buying your house.

No, you're buying my property. I want to know when is that going to happen? When are when are we buying it? Yeah. When are you going to send me the thing saying, "Hey, we want your parcel?" I don't know. I haven't checked. I have not been that involved. We'll find out and send you a letter. Oh my god. I get a better answer from the Easter Bunny. Yeah, it's his project. I I think what the city attorney means is

there are people who do that. The five of us don't do it. The two of these these two are not the ones who do the nitty-gritty daily hands-on work of handling that. Uh HR is handling that. there is someone who handles that. Well, then get back to your house. Can I say something? Um, my name is Jane Anderson. I'm the executive director of the Friends of River and I'd like to just speak. First of all, everybody had a chance to vote on this issue in 2016 and it did pass the

This is my moment to speak and it did pass for the sales tax for the riverway. Everybody had a chance to vote for that. And the other thing is nobody wants anyone's house. The only building that's actually going to be uh in the way of the trail is the storage unit for the community theater. I mean that is the building that is coming down. So they just want the top of the riverbank. They don't want your house. So it's true. I've been on this and I'm a public citizen. I work for a charity. So I don't work for this city. And so um there's no reason for us to make up those kind of stories. and and there's been a lot of confusion about it, but it really isn't about people's houses. The city doesn't want their houses, and neither does the Friends of the River. We just want a riverway that's running to make it a better place for the neighbors of the river, too. So, the boat drops are the accessible places to get in. And so, it's not about trying to ruin people's lives. It's about trying to make those neighborhoods a better place to live for the whole community. has nothing to do with trying to steal someone's house. Thank you.

Ben Winnhill Salina um new resolution like the old resolution. I'm going to bring up the same thing. I am glad that I can come up here and be able to rebuttle some of the comments that uh were said after I was up here. the first time. We don't care what contract you guys signed early. We're saying that this contract should be null and void because of the fact of the conflict of interest. Two, when you say there's we're a small community and there isn't hardly anybody that wants to do this. We have one other company that's willing to take on all 43 of these properties.

So, that would be leaving out land title in the in the whole thing. So, um, the next one is when you say acquisition of property that possibly these homeowners don't want to give up, the city will take it by other means. That means intimate domain. So, Mr. lawyer, get your get your paperwork together because um there may be some court cases coming up for those who don't want to do this. And Jane, I'm glad you came to the podium and and brought up the the 16 vote. Let's finish that story or let's start off how this vote came about in the first place. We rejected it twice before this came in. All right. And when it did come in this time, it came in as a mail-in ballot with your water bill to every citizen of Salina and you mail it back. We already know how mail-in vowing how mailin bouting doesn't work very well. Okay. We have seen that in the past with that what was in the paper that you got with it had river renewal down at the very bottom. Most of it was was talking about street repairs. Everybody in this town wants street repairs. It's one of the things that's the most neglected in this city. So that is the reason why with all the what I call and always have called smoke and mirrors, this is how this came about. And as far as the vote count of what came in, it won by 444 votes with mail and balloting.

That could be a little bit of was it really 444 votes or did it not go through? Thank you.

Oh boy, it's still today. Okay, this river and you mentioned the high water issue. The United States government reserved the right for navigation at high water. That's in the Constitution. It's in navigable when it's a high water. You're going to bring in the KWBT. I'm going to the meeting next month. Your jurisdiction ceases to exist at high water. It becomes a federal issue. The United States government in the Constitution reserve the right to have control of these rivers at a high water.

Okay. Bring it up back up for discussion and action. I move to adopt resolution number 26-8355 establishing the amount of just compensation and stating the policy of the governing body of the city of Salena Kansas regarding the acquisition of real property and easements for the Smoky Hill River Renewal Project city project number 70014.

I'll second that. It has been moved and seconded that we adopt resolution number 26-8355 establishing the amount of just compensation and stating the policy of the governing body of the city of Salani, Kansas regarding the acquisition of real property and easements for the Smoky Hill River renewal project city project number 70014. All in favor say I. I. I oppose. Nay. It passes three to one.

And Mr. Vice Mayor move adoption of resolution 26-8356 stating the policy of the governing body of the city of Salena, Kansas, regarding the acquisition of real estate and a regulation of public access to certain parcels to be acquired for the Smoky Hill River Renewal Project City project number 70014.

I'll second that. It has been moved and seconded that we adopt resolution number 26-8356 stating the policy of the governing body of the city of Salina, Kansas regarding the acquisition of real estate and regulation of public access to certain parcels to be acquired for the Smoky Hill River Renewal Project city project number 70014. All in favor say I. I. I oppose. Nay. That passes 31. Move on to item 5.5.

Item 5.5, consider approval of resolution number 26-8353, a resolution of advisability establishing a special assessment improvement district in Stone Lake edition number two, phase 4 A, and authorize the related development agreement. Mr. Ritter,

good afternoon, Vice Mayor. Rex Ritter, uh, deputy public works director and city engineer. On September 25th, 2023, the city commission authorized city staff to prepare a special assessment engineering feas feasibility report for phase 4 A and 4B of the Stone Lake edition number two. Phase 4 A of the Stone Lake development is zoned as a mixeduse which contains 22 residential building lots. These include nine lots of uh R single family residential, 13 lots of multifamily residential R2. On May 7th, 2026, the attached petition number 4447 was submitted by Mr. Todd Roberg, managing member of Stone Lake Development LLC, requesting certain street, drainage, water, and sanitary sewer improvements to serve 22 lots in Stone Lake edition number two. City staff has worked with Stone Lake Development LLC on a development agreement to address issues related to the construction and financing of the improvements. The attached development agreement is similar to previous agreements approved by a subdivision development where the developer contracts privately with the contractors and constructs the improvements. The city then reimbures the developer for eligible costs of developers engineering fees and construction costs. It is prescribed by Kansas statutes that city commission consider a petition for street drainage, sewer and water improvements and establish sufficiency on the basis that any of the three conditions be met. Um in this case, condition three is met. The petition is signed by the owners of record whether a resident or not of more than half of the area liable to be assessed under the proposal. The Selen County Treasurer has indicated there are no delinquent special assessment taxes on any property owned by the petitioners. The engineering feasib feasibility report for these public improvements

describes the scope of the project, the improvement district, the method of assessment, cost estimate breakdowns for each improvement, and identifies and describes the properties in the benefit district. 100% of the cost of the improvement is proposed to be assessed to the benefit district and the petitioner is requesting that the assessments be levied for a total for a period of 20 years. A fiscal note 100% of the estimated costs of 1,484,920 and10 cents are to be assessed against the improvement district. The cost of the improvements shall be assessed equally per lot. Property owners will have the opportunity to pay the assessment in full prior to the bond issue. The action items. Number one, approve resolution number 268353 with a bond payment period of 20 years and authorize the city manager to execute an improvement district development agreement with the city of Salina and Stone Lake Development LLC. Two, approve the resolution with amendments as the city commission deems appropriate. Three, postpone consideration to a specified date and provide staff direction regarding additional information. And then four, deny resolution 268353 resulting in denial of assess special assessment financing for the project. Uh staff's recommendation is option number one. Um I have staff here um for questions.

Thank you. Are there any questions for staff? Any uh questions or comments from the public? Seeing none, we'll bring it back up for discussion or action. I'll make a motion that we approve resolution number 26-8353 with a bond payment period of 20 years and authorize the city manager to execute an improvement district development agreement between the city of Salina and Stone Lake Development LLC.

I'll second that. It has been moved and seconded that we approve resolution number 26-8353 with a bond payment period of 20 years and authorize the city manager to execute an improvement district development agreement between the city of Salina and Stone Lake Development LLC. All in favor say I. I. I.

Opposed. That passes 4, sorry. Okay, bring the mayor back. Okay, we're back to item 5.4. Item 5.4. Consider authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with Animal Shelter Services LLC in the amount of $30,000 to provide an operational assessment of the animal services division of the city of Salina.

Mr. Hammond.

Um, good evening, Mayor Commissioners. Uh, Jeff Haymon, director of parks and recreation. Um, by way of background, on February 11th of 2026, at the meeting of the Animal Control and Appeals Advisory Board, the board voted to recommend that the governing body uh consider a request for proposals uh for an independent contractor to operate this line of animal shelter. Uh later on March 23rd, 2026, staff provided an update to the city commission regarding current animal shelter operations and challenges. During that study session, staff asked for commission feedback on two possible next steps. Uh first, whether to pursue an RFP for an independent contractor to operate the shelter and second, whether to pursue uh an RFP for an operational assessment of shelter operations and veterinary practices. Uh based on the discussion of that study session, the consensus of the city commission uh was to first complete an operational assessment uh before considering an RFP for independent contractor for shelter operations. Following that, following that direction, staff issued an RFP for an operational assessment on March 30th, 2026, uh, with proposals due on April 13th at 5:00 p.m. Uh, there was one addendum that was issued in response to vendor questions that's provided in your packet. Uh, the RFP was posted on the city's website and also distributed by email to several firms with relevant experience. Um the city received four proposals. Uh those proposals were reviewed and scored by city staff using a scale uh from 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest score for the five categories.

uh as shown in the RFP, the evaluate evaluated categories uh were relevant experience and expertise, quality and clarity of a proposed approach, qualifications of the project team, cost and overall value, and lastly, uh references and past performance. Uh the city staff that reviewed the proposals included myself, uh the deputy parks and recreation director, Brett Lamer, uh our facilities maintenance superh superintendent, a staff member in the city prosecutor's office, and a staff member in the building service division of the uh development services department. Uh the aggregate scoring resulted in uh the aggregate scoring results identified uh animal shelter services LLC as the top ranked firm. Uh while the animal shelter services uh LLC was not the lowest cost proposal staff believes it provided the strongest overall uh value based on the eval evaluate evaluated criteria qualifications and approach outlined in its submission. That submission is also provided to you in the packet from Animal Shelter Services LLC. Uh staff contacted references provided by Animal Shelter Services. Uh we received a response from the city of Hesperia, California, indicated they were very satisfied with the work performed. Uh the firm provided data and observationdriven recommendations uh produced positive results and delivered both large scale and incremental uh improvements. Um and overall they were very happy with their service and from uh animal shelter services LLC. From a fiscal standpoint, this would be paid from the general fund uh within the parks and recreation animal services budget.

Staff has provided four action items for the city commission's consideration in including u approve approval as presented approval with amendments postponement for additional information or taking no action uh based on the RFP process. The scoring results in the reference feedback provided. Staff recommends approval of the proposed contract with Animal Shelter Services LLC, which which is option number one uh in the amount of $30,000. Um I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. Additionally, Timrum uh is with us on Zoom and uh he would be also uh available to answer any questions uh that you may have, including myself. I have a comment and a question. Um, number one, I've already made my position known regarding bringing in a consultant. Number two, if if we the city, any one of us was paying for this out of our own personal funds, a proposal that delivers 90% of of the service you're recommending. Anyway, if you could get the service for half the price and you were paying for it out of pocket, I think it would give get a lot more consideration. And I guess the third part, and this is probably for Tim, um, on Zoom, have they ever recommended that a shelter go private if there's a viable private entity willing, ready, and able to take over?

Could you clarify your question? Are you asking if we have looked at privatization for other jurisdictions or are you asking in your specific circumstances? Has that ever been a consideration as far as a recommendation during the assessment process?

So I responded to the RFP to do an operational assessment for the shelter. So, uh, the response that I have is in doing an operational assessment and looking at the various areas that I believe you have a package that contains the eight different areas we examine as part of a shelter uh, or an operational assessment. And Tim, I figured that would be the answer, but I still wanted to ask the question.

Tim, we're having a little trouble hearing you. I don't know if you're in a position to get closer to your audio or what, but sorry. Just want to throw that out there.

And does anyone have any questions for Mr. Hammond or for the consultant?

Uh, just one's Commissioner Davis here. Uh this is a fairly comprehensive list of uh aspects of shelter operations that you would look at. Uh, I don't have anything to offer as an example right now, but if there were specific concerns, you know, from of an operational nature that uh we would want addressed, is that something that we should forward to our city manager now before you get started or or because I don't see in here where you would be meeting with us halfway through or 3/4 the way through uh for an initial report to to have direct comment with us or conversation with us. Normally as part of the process, it's a three-step process. So the first stage is uh in which we send a request for information to uh the client. That information is all documentations relevant to the operations of the shelter. So handbook, standard operating procedures. It would also include data about uh housing capacity as well as uh live release rate, number of animals that come in, etc. uh and then we review all of the internal documents and infrastructure of how the uh shelter is operating. The second stage is when we are on site to observe uh practices at the shelter. So we are then comparing what the written practices are versus what the actual practices are. And it's a triangulated approach because we are comparing both

of those versus what best practices are for animal care handling and control in the animal sheltering industry. Um so as part of the process we do normally meet with staff and even volunteers and management to have conversations about uh what it is that we're observing the work that they do. Uh if I understand you right, you are wanting for me to meet with city council members as well.

Well, if if the need or if we had specific concerns uh that would not put undue burden on you, but uh uh uh and I I I can't give you a good example right now. Uh or probably shouldn't give you any examples right now. Uh, but if we had specific concerns that we wanted to address, is that something that we should forward to you? And if it was out of the scope of your review, I mean, you know, just letting us know that would be appropriate. But, uh, and I would have to go through all the pages here again because my concerns may be listed in here and I just, you know, don't recognize it right at this moment. Uh but is that something that should be forwarded uh at the very beginning?

Forwarded in response to the request for information. Uh so if there are specific areas of concern for the evaluation or the operational assessment once we submit our request for information to staff uh then that would be submitted in response to us. uh if there are particular areas uh perhaps you know an example could be uh animal handling concerns uh you want to bring that to our attention. Now regardless of if you bring it to our attention or not, our job is to uh you know uh be independent and objective and do an assessment based on a what best practices are for the industry, what I observe as well as what I have read and reviewed in the documentation. So uh I'm not here to take sides or validates validate anyone's narrative. More so just to examine this from an objective and in in and impartial perspective. Uh that way I'm here to give the city uh clear and factual information so that you can make informed decisions about how things are uh being operated and run at the shelter.

All right. I I I think he answers my question. and I appreciate it. You're welcome.

I think what I would suggest is if we have any cuz I kind of I read through this and there's one or two things that I didn't see put in here that I really want to be addressed as far as best practices. I think if anybody has those, we should send those to the city manager to be forwarded on when the uh uh if when the third party asks for for information. So, um, one question I had is and and I kind of like this idea because sometimes we do things and we just sit on the back burner or on set it aside. Could you talk a little bit about you had a comment in here about you do periodic audits, you know, in the future. Tell us what that would kind of look like if in two, three years we wanted to bring you back in to to review and make sure we were following the best practices that were set forward. Sure. And and can you tell me which page you're referring to in the proposal?

Oh, I'm not. This is on our blue sheet. Um when you answered the question, would you recommend others to use? That was a reference. That was a reference. I'm sorry. You had a reference. I'm sorry. I apologize. That talked about bringing you in to do audits um in the future. Do you do that currently?

We do. There have been numerous instances. Uh, one example is in the state of California involving uh, a party that had litigation against an animal shelter. We were brought in on a five-year contract to review operationals operations every other year uh, three separate times. So the first time was the baseline uh and the next two times were to see if staff was able to make the changes that we had recommend recommended as part of their practices whether it's infrastructure staffing or animal care and handling. Okay.

So yes there have been instances where we have done multiple uh we've been brought back a second time sometimes a third time. Thank you. Uh one one question perhaps for our city set. Would we receive the report in a study session format? I mean wait down the road or is that yet? Yeah, we haven't had a discussion about the you know how the final report would be reported out but we certainly could do that at a regular meeting or at a study session. So we had the the original project timeline. We're obviously past that for the project.

What's that? That's our timeline. Then he gives his back here. Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. The in the initial we it's just um we have an updated schedule because when we first drafted his RFP was a while ago and then we delayed it for a little bit and so then the if you look at the back that's the new timeline, but it stays aggressive. I mean the plan is to uh he has an aggressive timeline to go ahead and get this work done relatively quickly. I can't remember what the final deadline is. on July 31st end of July, right?

Well, looks like a draft report to the city on July 24th. Uh, and then incorporate city feedback. So, I'm assuming any information we would want or processes looked at would have to come earlier on to be included. So, it wouldn't be hit with something at the end. Oh, we could have looked at that early. your suggestion of giving him things that you're you're interested in would come early and then if there are questions I think at the very end that's why it's probably a draft if but hopefully we get those to his attention early. Sorry Jeff.

Yeah, if you have items I mean I would provide it to me as quickly as you can and we'll get it we'll get it off. Okay. Uh Jim or Tim, do you have any comments you'd like to to give to us besides the written report that you'd like to share with us currently?

Uh the only thing I would uh offer to you is this is something my company has been doing for quite some time now. And prior to uh being a consultant for animal shelters and I've worked all across the US, West Coast, East Coast, Middle America, um I have been an executive for several animal shelters myself. So I understand it from firsthand perspective uh and I've run a county animal care and control as part of uh my work. So I do understand the work of animal sheltering firsthand. uh and I've been in this industry for nearly three decades. So I think my background skill set and uh my client work uh is really involved and this is the only vertical in which we work. Okay. Well, my my comments are I I do not you know I do not run an animal shelter. I'm not familiar with best practices. That's one of the reasons I think it's important we bring a third party in to to review the workings to see what we need to address and set up basically set up a a template of how we're how we want the shelter to run in the future. So those are my comments. Anyone else?

Okay. If not, we will open it up for public comment. Uh, you have three minutes to come forward. And Rosemary Mine Salina, I have a question to ask. Uh, we're paying $30,000 for consultant for the animal shelter here. Back in 2025, did we not hire a consultant for the homeless? And my question is, we have not heard anything about that. uh study or consultant on the homeless. Where are we at on that?

Yeah, that was earlier this year and it's not complete yet. I mean, we're still in the process. I mean, it wasn't intended to be a several month-long process. Okay. Just just asking. Yep. Thank you.

Sue Nickel Salina. I don't think that we need to spend $30,000 on a consultant to tell you what the citizens have already told you. We've uncovered through your own records. We already know that policies are ignored. There's nothing a consultant can do about that. We already know documentation was incomplete. We already know leadership misled the public. And we already know criminal charges have now been filed against the two former shelter leaders. Citizens have spent months uncovering these facts through open records, public meetings, state investigations, and your own internal documents. While the city's delays, and resistance to producing records may have slowed that process down, it has not stopped it. We, the people, are committed to seeing this through, and we're going to uncover the whole picture, not just a piece of it. You're now telling this community that you're willing to spend another $30,000 on a consultant using animal shelter funds while already spending roughly $145,000 a year for two individuals to sit at home on administrative leave in addition to what could easily exceed another $100,000 in illegal defense. How does that make any logical sense? While other city departments are being asked to cut their budgets and tighten spending and may maybe even anticipating a wage freeze, we also know that the donation fund has fallen to around $22,000 after almost a million dollars was spent over the last two years. After everything this community has now learned, who honestly believes donations are going to continue at the same level? There's no excess money for a con consultant. $30,000 could go directly toward helping the animals. Instead is somebody paying somebody to tell you what the public already knows. People donated that money believing it would help save animals, not buy fast food,

donuts, or $1,200 terrarium for a bearded dragon that ultimately ended up in the shelter manager's home free of charge. How is a consultant going to know that information? Yep.

Instead, this community's has read a nine-page affidavit describing shelter leadership allegedly misleading law enforcement while documenting one of the most disturbing and inhumane deaths imaginable for three helpless puppies. That should have been the moment this commission understood the urgency of meaningful change. Volunteers and fosters are gone. There is no TNR program. Services continue shrieking to the point that the city will not even pick up roadkill. And yes, Mayor Hopic, we heard you when you suggested this was not an urgent matter, but these are not cans sitting on a shelf. These are living, breathing beings. If personal issues or bruised egos are standing in the way of common sense solutions, then set them aside. This job is supposed to be about serving the public and protecting animals, not protecting your pride or holding a grudge. A consultant cannot fix the culture that refuses accountability. The public has already done the investigation. What is missing now is common sense leadership. And who continues paying the price for your decisions? It's the animals in this community. Kim Hill Salina. The time for this assessment was in 2023 after failed inspections that also included animal welfare. The time for this assessment was in 2024 after veterinarians came forward and talked about neglect cases that they had treated. Sina Animal Services has reached a point of being beyond this assessment. It is time to open up the bid process and bring in a private entity to run our shelter.

A clean shelter, a shelter where the animals are well taken care of and that the community is proud of. Thank you. Thank you,

Kathy Schwarz, Salina, Kansas. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Here we are again discussing hiring a consultant that nobody wants except the mayor and three commissioners. Between Rose and Annette, there is 47 and a half years experience. They have offered their expertise at no charge and our group has offered their services to help bring the shelter up to par. You have not accepted these generous offers. You're bound and determined to hire a consultant. Why? It is apparent that the mayor does not want to use Prairie Paws because of issues he has towards Vanessa. Whatever these issues are, put it behind you and do what's best for the shelter and mostly the animals. We've tried it your way and look where we are today. Two employees that have been charged for animal cruelty and several thousand dollar down in the in the donation fund. Where did the money go? I totally agree with Doug Rim's proposal which he has presented during past commissioners meetings. Prairie Paws already has a tried and trueue program in place. They have offered their services on a trial basis. How can we lose? Salina is tired of all the lies, deceit, and coverups from the city manager. And for this reason, the animal shelter should come out from under park and recreation's umbrella. You have been voted in as city leaders. The city trusted you, but you have depo disappointed us over and over again. Please take the hand Perry Paw is offering and get the shelter up to the high standards it once was. Thank you.

Uh Christy Dixon, Salina, Kansas. I'm not going to keep you long. I just have two comments I want to make. Um, still have my phone number and social security number if you're still looking for volunteers. They haven't asked for anybody. Smoky Hill River Festival is coming up and I think somebody said last time that you don't ask for social security numbers to work or Smoky Hill River, but you wanted one for the animal shelter. So, I'm still willing to give you that. I'm a signal 30. Um,

signal 30 means I'm clear. No, nothing to worry about. Um, my second comment is the pool's getting ready to open up. I have a child that goes to the pool. You have an employee that has now psychopath tendencies by killing puppies. That's where serial killers start at is puppies, small animals, defenseless items. Is my kid safe to go to the pool with her being there employed there? Could you address the commission? Is my child safe going there? I know you don't you're not going to answer. Was my child safe going to the pool with Andrea working there? Yes. Who answered that? I did.

She's safe. Are you going to go with her, Dr. Davis, when she goes every day? No, but I expect you will. No. Oh, well, you're damn right. I'm going to right. Well, actually, I'm not even going to let her go because there's no reason to to support something that keeps a serial killer there. And there's no reason to be angry with me. We should be angry at the same thing here. You have a dog. Would you be okay with them stretching your dog out to get underneath the left arm to heartst stick it to put her to sleep? No, you wouldn't be okay with that. And I know damn well your wife would not be okay with that. Speak for yourself. Oh, your wife would be okay with that. Speak for yourself. Your wife would be okay with somebody heart sticking your dog like that. We are not discussing my wife. I I asked you. I asked you originally. Why are you being so hostile?

I'm not being hostile. Yeah, you are. Don't be angry at me. Be angry at the game. Be angry at the game, player. Be angry at the game. You let them do that to your dog. Okay, we're not gonna have to public. Okay, it's my moment. It's still my moment. I know. I didn't stop you. I was asking her to give you some um concerns. Is this young lady, serial killer Andrea, still allowed to be at the Is she going to be able to be employed at the Kinwood Cove where our children, elderly, and vulnerable people are going to be in less than 30 days? At this point, she's on administrative leave from all positions. Yes. Okay. Thank you. That's what I needed to know. Should have asked. Oh, I attempted to, but he referred me back to you.

Um, Alex Sheer, Sina, Kansas. Um, I'm a Kansas Wesley graduate. Um, completing my NBA. Um, I refuse to call on the integrity of anyone here. Um, I've worked with Jeff Hammond before through Salina Tennis Alliance. Um, I don't think it is appropriate to call towards the integrity of anyone on this board. I do, however, think it's appropriate to call towards the financial action and backing of each action we've brought forth today. Um, I think we just voted on many millions of dollars worth of action um, between the river and then the improvement of the roads. Um, I think some of those are necessary, some of those are not. But what I've kind of gathered out of this meeting today is that we're willing to follow where the money goes. Um to the point that it leads us down certain conclusions, which some are fair, some aren't fair. It is what it is. Um my grandmother founded multiple animal welfare societies. I read the affidavits that I'm sure many of the people have brought forth today. Um what happened at the shelter was not appropriate. What has happened in the past at the shelter is not appropriate. Um, I also am in tendency to agree that bringing an independent consultant to a group of politicians that will not follow the money in this case seems inappropriate. Um, and I mean that in the sense that if you bring in a private company, they are going to do what brings them donations and brings them keeping the company afloat. And I don't think the city that has misallocated funds and city governments, state governments, federal governments that are notorious and known for misallocating funds should be trusted with the lives of innocent animals.

Um I say that as someone who has family that works in city government, um state government and federal government. So I I'm just saying that an independent consultant is a good idea except for the fact that a government is not fit to manage the funds of the people that supply the animal shelter. Well said.

Um I'm a firm believer that nobody here is in this room is at fault for what happened at the animal shelter. I am a firm believer that nobody in this room is going to be in the correct position to make manageable action at the animal shelter. And I think as citizens, I think as a board and as city managers and attorneys, we should recognize that and say $30,000 is really nothing to us. But what is important to us is the fact that we as a group can recognize that the people know we're not being efficient and put up the bid for privatization of the animal shelter. I think that's just a logical step because a private funded company will probably manage their funds a little bit more responsibly than any government entity will. And I don't say that to blame any of you. I say that to say that that's how I've understood government since I've been born. And I think the best way to go forward is to privatize the animal shelter. and not necessarily worry about $30,000, but to worry about the fact that as a unit we can be more efficient and this is the best place to start.

Thank you. Can we have your autograph? Well said, Ben Wyn Salina. Man, that's a tough one to follow there.

Don't go into politics. You won't be liked. All right. Um, since when did the city decide to after you've had four bids to go with the highest bid? That's just a question out there that uh this is kind of blowing my mind that you're going to willing to give a company that had the highest bid uh to bring them in. Um Jeff Hammond put out who did the scoring. The problem is, and I'm going to use an analogy of a car show that's being judged. I've been to hundreds of them, and it's a judge's opinion as to what number he's going to give your car that's being judged. So when you take city staff um are they obligated to put a higher number in there to this particular company uh or are they doing it as they saw it or was there some type of pressure from somebody up above? And the last thing that I want to uh dwell on is, and this is kind of a mystery, is the ladies have an open records uh article that said that animal services, animal shelter services reached out to Jeff Hammond back in February. Now, I've been to every commission meeting there has that for the last 5 and a half years, and thinking about going with a consultant didn't come up until sometime in March. So, with him coming in in February, to me, that's kind of I'm nothing against him,

but that's kind of an ambulance chaser scenario. Then why all of a sudden did the mayor decide that oh we need to go with a consultant is there a private conversation that we don't know about that is in violation of the open records act or open meetings act um saying that hey animal shelter services um is willing to come in for a fee and do something for us. Um that of course the ladies have said and I have said that is uh going to be a total total waste of money. Um the timeline is a mystery as to um how this is all going down and how you have come up with this company when another company of exactly half 15,000 had almost the same score. But would you make sure did they get that score? Was it a higher score? Um, a lot of questions here, guys.

And I'll answer the the question is directed to me. It was my idea to bring in a third party and I was not aware that this company had contacted Mr. Hammond. Sure. Really, Ben? We'll go with that. Really? I hope you do. Yeah, we are. I am. Yeah. I've proved I've proven you called me a liar one other time and I proved you wrong and I'm gonna prove you wrong this time. I'm sorry. I believe you. Good. You should record. Next. I'm sorry.

No, you're good. You're good. Um Sonia Shepard and I actually live out at Smolan, but animals are near and dear. Um politics. politicians hear over. Drives me crazy that when somebody asks a direct question, you won't answer us back, but yet you won't wait and say, "Well, we we'll hit it on the next meeting." And you'll come back with an answer or a solution or something. We ask you questions and it's just null and void. So, with that being said, I'm going back to Mon'nique and Andrea on two things here. Number one, they broke policy with the way they treated some of the animals and some of the things that have gone on at the animal shelter. That's where it got them in trouble with the law. Then there's also procedures that are through the animal shelter and those are two different things. You guys have said you're going to pay their fees while they go through court for all this. What's happening with the policy side at the shelter? There's nobody to it. Are you going to bring these two women back into the shelter? once it's done or are you going to start fresh and have somebody in the shelter that can actually talk if you want to bring it bring this committee dude whatever in you need somebody that understands the animals understands an animal shelter and none of you guys to my knowledge I know you have had relations with the animal shelter before you became what you are now but who's going to run it and I do believe and you can correct me. I do believe Kansas is an at will state, is it not? That they have the right to fire and terminate those two based on policies. So why would we waste money? You guys are set. You guys are set. You're going to bring in some sort of committee, some sort of company,

something. You're set on that. Why are we going to not terminate these two, get rid of them, and start back fresh? because everything that has gone wrong this last year because I really started following it with the pitbull thing. Why would we even consider bringing them back? Yeah, you probably have to pay them administrative leave until it's figured out what they do on the the legal side of it, but after that, you should be able to terminate them. But you need somebody that can go ahead and talk and understand if you're going to bring in one of these consulting firms because nobody, very few people, parks and w don't run an animal shelter. No,

they run ball fields. Yes. You got to have somebody that understands the needs. And I'm not even going to go to private. I'm not going to get on Vanessa. I'm not going to do anything like that. But if you bring in somebody new and you guys aren't equipped to walk around and know what you're talking about, why aren't we getting rid of these two and at least hiring somebody in? Exactly. Thank you.

Howdy. I'm Annette Cox from Selena here.

Well, I don't understand why you're going to bring in a $30,000 firm when you had somebody 25 miles away that was willing to come in for free and you guys ignored him for three emails till he put out a an ad or whatever gave his his 25, you know, asking was going to ask for 2500 or whatever and then you finally contact him but it wasn't for that. wasn't to hire him or anything. It was to try to smooth over us with you guys and uh have an article ran. So, that kind of seemed interesting. And I mean, why would we need somebody to come in, a consultant, when we've got the head of parks and wreck that should be able to know when something's going wrong over there, our city manager who was over there when it was so smelly and and failed their inspections and stuff, can he not see? And wouldn't he be able to consult? I told Mr. I told him on the phone when we caught every everybody lying, but now we even caught him.

Look at that affidate. And it came out way ahead of time. And with with all those lies, what they've been saying, it comes back to him. And you guys have hired him. You can fire them. You can fire them. I got one minute and 10 seconds. You can think about it for 1 minute and 10 seconds. Think about it.

Smiling. That's a smirk. Yeah. It's okay. Let him think about it.

My fishing buddy gave me this uh this advice. Fishing buddy that I went with yesterday.

Tell the joke. Oh, it's not a joking matter. Not a joking matter whatsoever. So, no way am I.

Should I try to go over? Yeah, go over. They'll be hauling me off. You're signal 32. I'm sure. Thank you.

Debbie Corales. When we first failed our uh inspection in 2023, how often was the shelter being uh observed by Jeff Hammond? Did he go over there once a week, twice a week, three times a week to see what was going on? Did he check with anybody? Nope. That's why this is a failure because nobody took accountability when we failed the first one. The best is yet to come.

Hello. Uh my name is Bonnie. I'm from Salena, Kansas. Um, a couple of things like right now I I don't feel like there's any supervision that I'm aware of uh going on at the shelter and they don't seem to understand policies and procedures. There was a lady that wanted to adopt a cat recently and she was told the first time she went in it was $10

and she's like, "Oh, that's that's wonderful because they only had two cats or something like that." Well, then she came back with the landlord because he wanted to say it's okay if she has a cat in this uh rental and she was told it was $50 because she didn't adopt it the day before or the weekend before. And so we hear these stories and it's like who's managing the people? I know it's to be Jeff, but I had been going over on Fridays because supposedly they're only open um on Friday and Saturday, but they only have, if I heard correctly, two cats. Maybe they have more now. Possibly 15 to 18 dogs. And when you go in, there's four to five people standing in the little area behind the glass. It's like, why don't they have the dogs outside? Why aren't they cleaning the cages? They're always dirty. I take pictures when I go over and I I uh never can get a good picture of the dog, even if I wanted to draw it, because the it's so dirty that you can't see it. This last time I went, there was poop in one of the uh cages, but there's always an excuse. So, did you want to answer something?

No. Well, and this is we're kind of getting off subject here because we're these are probably comments more for citizens forum. I'll get back because Okay. Hopefully, this will be right. But right now, we're discussing the proposal. I understand. I think the the things you brought up are what we're hoping the third party will analyze and help us with. So okay so

u so then um they already have policy in in place. You already have procedures. You always have the text which is computer with all of the things on there. Um you already have the boards in the back where they're supposed to put the medication or they're supposed to say I walk the dog or whatever they did with the dog. those apparently are not being utilized. And so it's like bringing somebody in isn't going to make people do the right thing. And I believe that this started back when they fired the volunteers. That's all. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Okay. Anyone else? Okay, I'll bring it back to the commission for action.

I'd just like to start with comment. I I I had two columns to write down concerns and good suggestions. Uh I think your comments point out that we definitely are making the right decision. You've all voiced the very reasons why we need to have a consultant to come in without knowing that wasn't your intention. But there's an old saying, a lot of times people don't know what they don't know. And when you go fix something like a car that's making a a noise, if you don't fix the right thing, guess what? The noise is still there. And it's easy. You you already have your mind made up as to what you think ought to be done.

Whoa. Well, stop if you'd let me. And that's the very reason why we need a consultant to carry on

a unbiased scientifically oriented investigation without preconceived ideas. This is going to be benchmarked against industry standards. Uh you may find that some of the solutions or suggestions may look like what you want, but the action taken to get there may not be what you've already made up your mind you think ought to be the way we get there. I'm not going in there with any preconceived ideas. And no, I'm very open-minded. My radar is wide open and I don't have a problem pointing the finger internally if that's where the finger goes. But you know, blame only gets you so far. We have to be in the solution fixing mode. If blame needs to be given out, particularly if there's consequences for that blame, so be it. But I can't go in there assuming that that's what is going to be what I find. I need to find out what's what's going on and to guide our conversation. No, you have found out what you were looking for, right? We are looking for stuff way beyond what you all have asked for. We're looking at the entire operation procedures, you know, do we go to electronic health records? Do we keep paper? I mean, things that I haven't thought of, the consultant's going to bring up. things that you haven't thought to ask about will be brought up. But getting emotional and and not thinking rationally as I'm going through this is not going to get me to make the best

decision. So while it may look like I'm sitting here emotionless, stoic, like I don't care those you don't know me very well then. All right. I am way at the other extreme, but I'm not burning up my energy on the emotional part. I'm burning it up on the trying to reason this out part. And I you don't have to know me. I don't expect you to know me. All right? But the way I take care of patients, the way I deal with things in my personal life is to get information and make what seems to be the best decision. Uh, and rarely in life do you get 100% of what you want. Sometimes the best you can do is settle for 75% because the cost for that other 25% may not be worth it. But we're not just taking $30,000 for one year. We're looking at a shelter that's going to go on to hope for at least another 50 years. So if you want to look at it that way, you know, it's $800 a year that we're going to put in towards proper management and the proper direction. But listening to your comments, you reinforce in my mind this is absolutely the best thing to do. So I'm going to move to authorize the city manager to execute a contract with Animal Shelter Services LLC

in the amount of $30,000 to provide an operational assessment of the animal services division of the city of Salena. I'll second that. We have a motion and a second authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with animal shelter services LLC for an operational assessment of the city of Salina animal shelter in the amount of 30,000. All those in favor I I opposed

nay. Passes that item passes 41. I want to remind everybody of our discussion last week about decorum, please. Um, that will lead us to item 6.1.

Item 6.1, consider approval of resolution number 26-8354 adopting 2024 and 2025 Liv Salina plan supplements. Good evening, mayor and commissioners. Um, talked a lot about this already during our study session, so I will not read the whole blue sheet. Um, but just as a reminder, the live salina plan um, started with us in 2016. Um, the original plan was the result of an extensive community engagement process um, and provided us a comprehensive analysis of Selena's housing conditions. We then updated that in 2021 and then as well in 2022 with supplements. Today we are

Excuse me. I'm sorry. Could if we need to talk, could we please go out in the hallway and could we respect or do Excuse me. I said we're leaving. Okay. Thank you. I apologize. Thank you.

So, today we're here before you for the 2024 and the 2025 supplements that we discussed um in length during our study session today. Um, our 2024 supplement focused focused on analysis of North Salina housing scenarios um and broke those down with feasibility and cost considerations of rehabbing existing housing stock in our community. Um, our 2025 supplement did an additional update to the lift plan and gave us our updated demographics, um, updated population projections and refined housing demand scenarios. So to maintain consistency and avoid redundancy, those 2024 and 25 2025 supplements um update the data, give us projections um and target our analysis. Um but we will still use that 2021 live salina plan. Uh the attached supplements provide the city commission with the most current and comprehensive information available regarding housing needs, development feasibility, and market conditions in Sina. There's no direct cost um with these supplements. Um we've already have this budgeted in our operational budget for development services and just get those updated numbers for you each year. Um but the findings today in the supplements hopefully will help you make future policy decisions um and incentive programs. So with that today we have before you um resolution number 26-8354. Your options today are to approve the resolution as presented um two to approve it with any amendments that you deem necessary. Three, postpone consideration. Um, if you have certain things that you want to be updated in the uh supplements or in the resolution, or four, vote to decline to approve the resolution. Staff would recommend approval um of the 2024 and 2025 supplements. And I'm here for any questions you might have.

Okay. Any questions or comments from We spent a significant time earlier in study session on this. I know today's information was moreformational rather than setting up new policies, programs, hard guidelines. So, anything extra that we'd be bringing forward to you, we would use this data um to show you the need um for any housing um scenarios that we bring forward to you. Thank you. And I I don't know if you want to just touch for the public briefly on the information about the the kind of what our housing needs are and and the uh population study that came about from the

Sure.

So in the last four years um we were supposed to build about a thousand units of housing. Um we're very near that goal. Um we're still trucking forward to our 2030 goal um which is 1,800 units um about and so we'll be focusing on ways that we can push towards those numbers. Um as for uh population projections um our 2025 supplement does project that we'll be over 50,000. Um, we'll see what that happens with the next census, but I think what we see through development services and working towards our housing numbers is that even though we've put a lot of units out in the market, there's still a need. So, we're going to keep pushing forward as much as we can.

Okay. Any other question, comment, any comments from the public? Lauren Manina, housing is too expensive in this country. You can go overseas and it costs $240,000 to remodel a five- bedroomedroom, two bath. So why are is the housing so expensive in this country? People are leaving this country. This one family, he's retired. He's got four members. They're moving. Other people moving for You're letting these developers rape the people. Why are you doing this? H I remember how we used to get a job done out conservation work. A little refreshment was left on the terrace.

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. If not, we'll bring it back to the commission for action. Mr. Mayor, I move for approval of resolution number 26-8354, adopting the live salina plan 2024 and 25 supplements and supporting their implementation. Second. Okay. Okay. We have a motion, a second to approve resolution number 26-8354. All those in favor? I opposed. That item passes 50. Okay, other business. Is there an item commissioner would like to bring before the group?

I have one thing I want to mention. Probably won't kind of it's it is old business, but the intersection at Waterwell and 9inth Street. Um, just some consideration to shelf the roundabout, okay, to do the engineering or do the the the pre-work, but everything is expensive right now and the intersection seems to be working just fine. um from personal observation, from community members telling me and from people working out in that area, we've um mentioned the expenses several times over the course of today and that would be several million saved instantly and that would be all I have.

Thank you.

Okay, before we get to citizens forum, I always like to bring up something positive. Um, you may have seen that Kansas Westland um, won the KCAC league and also the KCAC tournament. Uh, they're ranked in the top 10 in the nation and are getting to um, hold the opening round of uh, the National Baseball Tournament here in Salena. Um, they're the number two seed. There's a team uh out of Tennessee that'll be here, Concordia, Nebraska, and then Our Lady of the Lake, Texas is here. Um I did look it up just a little bit ago. They played at 11:00 today and they won 5 to 4, so they'll be in the uh winners bracket uh playing probably tomorrow at some time. Had a very successful season. And it's kind of interesting to see here they tied for the second most victories in the country in the NIA with 48 wins. So congratulations to Kansas Wesley and the best of best of luck.

Okay. They're playing at uh they're playing out at Dean Evans and Pest. Yeah, I think they're Dean Evans or there. Yeah. Mr. Mayor, one quick item if I could. a member of the law enforcement community. Just wanted to mention that it's National Law Enforcement Memorial Week this week, May 10th through the 16th. Just wanted to acknowledge that. Yeah. And there is a service out at Jerry Ivy Park at 8:00 Wednesday morning. Correct. I apologize. Thank you for bringing that up.

Okay. That will lead us to citizens form. You'll have three minutes to come forward and please give us your name and where you're from.

Hello again, Rosemary Mai. I would like to invite the mayor and commissioners and the public to the Granny Brigades May meeting, which is Tuesday, May the 19th at 6:30 at the Knights of Columbus Hall at 1 15 North 10th Street. And our guest speakers this month will be our gubanatorial candidates for governor. And we will have eight out of the nine candidates here. Vicky Schmidt was unable to attend. She notified us today. But the other eight uh candidates will be there and so our doors will open at 6:00. And if you want to hear our um potential governors, please come to the meeting at Tuesday night at 6:30. Thank you.

6. Okay, thank you. Better bring a snack. That could last a while with eight of them.

Rose Base Salina. Um, this is going to go out to uh all the people that are listening at home. Uh, I definitely get a lot of comments from you guys. So, I just want you to be aware of what's going on and kind of what's being swept under the rug. The public has finally got to read the affidavit about what happened to those three puppies at the Saline Animal Shelter, and it is every bit as horrifying as the citizens feared. According to the witness statements, those puppies were fully conscious. One witness said they were walking around trying to play. Another said they were fully conscious and had to be physically held down while the needles were pushed through their chest cavity. The affidavit states that Andrea Murphy herself described the third puppy as flopping around and trying to bite as the injection happened because the medication was burning when it was injected. Think about that. a terrified puppy fully awake, thrashing in pain while being injected through the chest. One employee, one employee described the Heartstick method as the fastest but most painful form of euthanasia. Another witness said the two other puppies got up and ran while yelping after their injections. Let that sink in. These were not unconscious animals peacefully slipping away. These were awake puppies crying out in pain. And the shelter's uncontracted veterinarian, Dr. Melissa Jubie stated plainly that intercardiac injections without sedation were never appropriate on conscious animals and described it as inhumane. She said it constituted animal abuse. The affidavit states that even the AVMA standards only allow intercardiac injections on unconscious animals or anesthetized animals. Meanwhile, Jacob Wood has reportedly repeatedly pointed out that these three puppies were not mentioned in the KDA inspection. as if somehow that excuses what happened. But let's tell the whole truth. The inspector who walked through that facility with Andrea Murphy was never made aware of this incident because the documentation was incomplete. The route of euthanasia wasn't documented. The sedation wasn't documented. So, of course, it wasn't

specifically cited. You cannot inspect what is hidden behind incomplete records. And this is exactly what our group has exposed. Those things that are hidden. I'm sure Jacob would and this commission would have preferred this information remain hidden. But too bad. The citizens of Selena have had enough. We wonder. We will not tolerate abuse. And so far, this is what I've told you publicly. We know much more and we will continue informing the public about the abuse you all are willing to tolerate. And then Jacob Wood has the nerve to stand before this community and call this a hiccup. A hiccup. Maybe things should have been done differently. Maybe they should have been sedated. Maybe. Really, Jacob? Maybe. What the heck is wrong with you people? I mean, really, come on. You know, um, you need $30,000 for a consultant to tell you this is wrong. This is what the public has been trying to tell you along with the citizens. We do not need the expensive consultant to recognize cruelty. We didn't need a consultant to recognize dishonesty. And we certainly don't need a consultant to tell us that awake puppies should not be jabbed in the chest with needles while they scream and yelp in pain. So, I'll ask you one final question. Are are you going to continue supporting these crimes with taxpayers money, or are you finally going to wake up and do what's right?

And to the citizens of Salina, do not donate this to this animal shelter. Do not donate to this animal shelter. Your money is not going to the animals. It is going towards protecting the very system that's failed them. So, do not donate to the slain animal shelter. Thank you. Good evening, Dan Price.

Uh, mayors, commissioners, and public, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I'm here today because of an accident involving involving my mother, Susan Price of Manor Road in Sina, Kansas that occurred on April 10th, 2025 near the 900 block of East Crawford. My mother was struck by an onduty police officer while attempting to cross East Crawford traveling south on Lewis Street. As the result of my the crash, my mother suffered internal bleeding, a cracked sternum, cracked ribs, and several other injuries that required a three-day hospital stay before she was stable enough to return home. She still suffers as a result of this incident. I believe this in accident occurred due to several serious factors, beginning with the unsafe setup of the construction zone at the Crawford Lewis intersection. According to my mother, she sat in that intersection for approximately 10 minutes attempting to navigate it safely. Because of barricades, construction equipment, and limited visibility, she attempted to cross three separate times, but had to back up each time due to oncoming traffic. She even considered reversing down the block to find another route home, but because of the amount of construction equipment surrounding her, she believed continuing forward was the safest option here. On her fourth attempt, her vehicle was struck by a police vehicle traveling approximately 62 mph at impact. The very next day, the barricades and cones at that intersection were moved significantly improving visibility for drivers. Shortly afterward, the speed limit in that construction zone was reduced from 30 to 20 mph. I have photographs documented the restricted visibility the night of the accident, the repositioned barricades the following morning, and later the speed limit change. While my mother was still hospitalized with internal bleeding, I contacted the Salena Police Department request requesting the dash cam footage, biodeam footage, and preservation of the police vehicle's blackbox data. During one of those calls, I spoke with Sergeant Leono, who I felt was hostile, uncooperative, and the call ended with Leono hanging up on me. I formally submitted foyer requests for the body cam footage, dash camera footage, and

preservation of the vehicle's blackbox dbox data immediately after the accident. My mother was issued two citations, one for a stop sign violation and another for failure to yield to an emergency vehicle. Meanwhile, the officer involved received a citation for not possessing a valid driver's license at the time of the accident. Questions were also raised at the scene regarding whether the officer was wearing a seat belt. Later, after reviewing body camera footage the same day I turned in my foyer request, the officer informed the investigating state trooper that she realized she was not wearing her seat seat belt at the time of the crash. I contacted John Reynolds to ask whether a citation would be issued for the seat belt violation. I was told no such citation would be issued and my opinion on it means Jack. Later on May 14th, 2025, the s citation issued to the officer for driving a city-owned vehicle without a valid driver's license while on duty was dismissed with court cost paid by the state. At the same time, our side experienced repeated delays because requested discovery material were not released for many months. We only recently received the body camera footage and dash camera footage despite those requests being submitted in April of 2025. Most concerning to me is that although I specifically requested preserv preservation of the vehicle's blackbox data immediately after the accident, I was later informed that the blackbox data had been destroyed. I believe that this raises serious concerns regarding preservation of evidence and I intend to bring those concerns to the attention of appropriate state authorities.

Mr. Price, a few more minutes and I don't know if you have anything to hand in to the clerk or I have one for each copy. Can I just just cut one more minute? Okay, one minute.

Most concerning me that I uh my mother also suffers from hearing loss. Although you're legally permitted to drive in all 50 states, the constructions, the sightelines, she was unable to see or hear identify the approaching. In addition, the sun and visual instructions. Based on the footage and statements made after the crash, I believe the officer was traveling at an unsafe speed for the conditions of the construction zone. On body camera, the officer reportedly stated multiple times that she struck my mother at 60 mph easily. However, when asked by her supervisor about her speed, she stated that she did not know how fast she was traveling. She paused a few seconds, then looking at the police officer she had minutes earlier told she was going 60 easily. She stated probably 10 over, not crazy. I was say I was doing 50some. The questions I have today that I would like to be addressed by you guys is number one, why was an officer operating a city-owned police vehicle without a valid driver's license? Number two, why was the officer allegedly not wearing a seat belt? And why was she not issued a citation for that violation? Why did it take approximately 10 months for the requested body camera footage and dash camera footage to be released? What steps will the Sina Police Department take to ensure that an incident like this does not happen again? Why was a concerned family member treated rudely and dismissively while trying to obtain a information during a call involving his mother that was in the hospital with internal bleeding? I also ask that each one of you guys review the body camera and dash cam footage for yourselves so you can evaluate the circumstances surrounding the accident firsthand. I do possess the videos. I'm willing to show them. I would love to meet with you guys and show you a wealth of information I have about all the wrongdoing. And I also

Okay. would like to give Would you give them to city clerk? I have a copy for each one of you guys. Give them to city clerk's you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Sorry. Sorry for your mom. We're still fighting in court. Good. They should be saying sorry next.

Thank you. Thank you. Lucille Sanderson, Salina, Dr. Trent, thank you for stepping up and finally getting something done for the animal shelter instead of just talk and pass on. I noticed on 311 where some of the city is doing some repair work on some of the streets. That's nice. You know, the city has how many hundred employees? There's something they can do, especially the trash service. They can take a clipboard and when they find these potholes, they can jot it down, turn it in. Then the street department will have something to work on. 600 East Elm. It's got a nice hole in the street. It's not sudden, but it's a main repair that has gone a little bad and some of it's chipped out. Not only there, but all over town. City employees are in the trucks on the streets every day. Clipboard handy. Not always one man in the truck. Maybe it's two men. One can jot that street down. Think how great our streets would look in a short length of time. Mercury Road has been very bad at for a long time. Now, this other thing is dead meat, but I'm still going to bring it up. You're going ahead with your roundabouts. I spoke from a gentleman yesterday in the little town of Phyllisburg from Hayes.

He said, "The police hate those roundabouts, but yet you're going ahead." I don't like them and I will do my darnest to stay away from those intersections. But has there been an accident at a four-way stop? No, there's not one there. But you're going ahead. So, we're going ahead when it makes no sense. Parking lots. You tore buildings down south United Building. There's private parking across the street west of the United Building. Private parking northwest. Private parking. But yet, what's going to happen at seven and Walnut when you block that off so that you can build that wonderful multiplestory hotel along with a parking garage. Where are those people going to park? First off, it's going to be private. You're hurting yourselves instead of helping yourselves. I was on Santa Fe the other day to see one of the people that has a business there. I went up the door is locked. Santa Fe is not becoming a safe street. That is what I was told. They locked their door to keep undesirabs out. So, let's look into that before it becomes another animal shelter. Okay. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Liselle. Maybe I won't get scolded this time. I wasn't scolding. I just

My name is Bonnie. I live in Salina. I'm just going to kind of read this, but yet I have some comments, too. Um, what gets lost in all of this is the suffering of those puppies endured was not only witnessed by the public, but it was witnessed by the employees in the lobby. Imagine being an employee forced to watch the conscious puppies being held down while needles were pushed into their chest cavities. Imagine hearing puppies yelp in pain. Imagine watching the flopping around because the injection was burning. Imagine seeing two puppies run after the injections, crying, crying out and yelping. And that just image stays with a person who witnesses something of that kind of cruelty. What does it say about the culture inside the shelter? The employees did not feel safe enough to report through leadership. Instead, somebody in this shelter searched out the addresses of the um advisory board and sent us all or most of us um anonymous letters. I received two anonymous letters and I received more and more anonymous incidents. People inside that building were so alarmed by what they saw that they risked their jobs trying to make sure somebody, anybody outside that shelter knew what was happening. And since then, more anonymous complaints, more and more and more have serviced, more stories, more people afraid to come forward. This is not a sign of a healthy workplace. It's not the sign of a compassionate leadership. It's not the sign of an isolated incident. Let me be clear. We will not stand at this podium and say anything that interferes with

any investigation. We respect that process completely. But mark my words, this community does not believe this was simply a one-time incident because when employees are afraid, records are incomplete, leadership minimizes suffering, the public keeps uncovering hidden information. I'd also like to say that I'm not a pitbull advocate, but seven pitbulls were killed April se 2nd, I believe it was, all in a row. It just is sad that those dogs had to stay in those cages that long and a person would find out from the number that the uh pitbull was whether that was their pitbull or whether it wasn't. And so that is just another thing. And this is a progression of murdering. Now, I've been studying this and I'm not going to go into it because, you know, it's long and lengthy. But what we're seeing Andrea and Mon'nique do, I wouldn't put them in any place within the city of Salina because that will always be tarnished and the people they work with will feel that also. So, you know, I know you said you would let them do whatever, work at the pool or whatever. But after you find out more, because there is more we haven't disclosed, then um I don't I think you'll change

Thank you, Bonnie.

Uh Sue, Nichols, Salina, uh listen, I I didn't ever want to get involved in city government. Like I never felt a need to. Uh, but when I read the anonymous letter about the puppies, like I knew I had to do something. And so I I just want to tell you what that has been like for me. So before getting involved in this issue, I honestly had no idea there was so much dishonesty in city government. I was naive. The first animal advisory board meeting I attended was February 11th after learning about the cruelty done to those puppies. And during that meeting, Jacob Wood stated, and I quote, "We have had inspections by the DEA recently and passed all of those with no problem." One of my very first core requests was that for that specific DEA inspection report when I didn't receive it, I filed a core complaint with the AG because I assumed that the report was simply being withheld. It genuinely never crossed my mind that the highest paid employee in this city would intentionally attempt to mislead the public. A few days later, after asking for clarification, I received an email from the city and I'm quoting Salina Animal Services has not been inspected by the US Drug Enforcement Administration regarding controlled substances. I'm still shocked by that. I've also filed complaints regarding inaccurate timelines for record requests. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but when somebody tells me that records will be produced within a certain time frame, I take them at their word. And when those timelines repeatedly come and go, and without the records being produced, I file a complaint. This what you do. Every AG complaint form, by the way, ask what you want the outcome to be. My answer is always the same. To provide the records. I believe the attorney

general's office even told the city, "Give an accurate timeline." So, forgive me if I continue filing complaints to obtain records the public is legally entitled to. I will continue doing whatever it takes to expose this entire fiasco for what it truly is. And let's be honest, I'm fully aware that many of you would prefer that these stains in our city remain hidden. But the only way forward and the only way to prevent these failures from happening again is to expose them for exactly what they are. The public now sees the character of our city manager, the parks and recreation director, the city attorney, and frankly this commission as well. And this will continue to be an issue until it's fully resolved, including placing this shelter under leadership of an outside entity with actual expertise and a willingness to follow the laws and standards meant to protect animals. A standard that should not be difficult to achieve. And if it takes until the next election for that to happen, then we're going to be here for it. And it's you two that'll be up for election next.

Thank you.

We're not going nowhere. Deborah Carales, all that I ask is if these ladies plead guilty, are found guilty, or plead no contest, you fire them and you ask them to repay their leave and their legal fees back to the city funds because we should not be paying people that torture animals. Because what's next, kids? Kim Hill Salina, we've been hearing through the course of these meetings that you don't want to make a knee-jerk decision, knee-jerk decision or rush into any type of decision, which I can respect that. However, I want you to understand the frustration and urgency on our part. These issues with our shelter started coming to city commission meeting, animal shelter advisory meetings in 2023, again in 2024, and then here we are. These issues didn't just come up the last couple of months. We're going on three years. So that's where our frustration comes from. The city, a lot of people within the city are upset not just with the shelter issue, but with paying the legal fees. And I understand that it was their good employees. So, I want to make sure you're aware of a situation that occurred with one of those good employees when a subordinate quit and she was walking out of that shelter. And this good employee followed her out, yelling, yelling to get back into that shelter,

reaching for her, even going as far as grabbing her car door and reaching in and grabbing her steering wheel. But hey, good employee.

Yeah. Um, there's also because as I said and some others have brought this up, public opinion is not real high. And while I understand you can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time, you're going to make decisions that we all don't agree with. And that's part of it. But there's some recent polls that have been done and there's seven of them that caught my attention that you might want to go in and look at 311 because it's not just the animal shelter. There's a whole lot of issues and I think you might find those interesting um to go in and look at. And real quickly, um, one of the open records requests that the ladies got was the policies and procedures. On the front of that, it stated that these policies were updated in 2025 and again under new management. Well, we can only assume who that new management was, and it was updated after the December incident. Policy writing 101. You date them. If there's any updates, you date the dates of those updates. And if you are updating a policy, you take out the old policy. That was not done. That policy and procedure totally contradicts of what was being said. So that's it.

Good afternoon, Mayor Hopic and commissioners. I'm Lori Hall from Salina and as you know my interest regarding the Salina animal service uh facility has been the possession and killing of wildlife. The idiom cut the head of the snake and the tail will follow describes exactly what is now transpiring at the facility. The wildlife intake and euthanasia has ceased which was never their responsibility and the intake of uh DOA including roadkill which is their responsibility has also ceased. The animal service employee handbook which she said was just updated states intake of a DOA animal. If the animal is wildlife, fill out the wildlife form, ensuring the address and area where the animal is found. Enter the intake info into PEP point and place in to be scan basket. Place the animal in the freezer in a plastic bag. That is what the handbook says. Cleaning up our roadways and streets of roadkill is their responsibility, but they refuse to engage in that. For some reason, the current manager over at the animal shelter cannot understand the difference between what is legal wildlife handling and what is not. Cost to the animal service facility about a dead possum or squirrel on a roadway is met with the reply, "We don't deal with wildlife." Okay. True. There are wildlife species that need to that end up on the road that law enforcement should be called like deer, turkey, raptors, protected species, and such. I would suggest that whoever is running the facility sit down with the game

warden and be instructed as to the current wildlife regulations. Sadly, Andrea Murphy and Mon'nique Holly may have tarnished the the partnership between wildlife professionals and the animal shelter. And because of that, Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks has a greater workload when it comes to wildlife calls. State licensed wildlife rehabilitators may tend to keep their distance from this facility where alleged illegal wildlife activity has occurred. I'm pleased that wildlife euphanasia has stopped. It should have never happened. The past illegal wildlife activity that occurred under the supervision of Andrea Murphy and Monique Holly will simply simply not be dismissed because they are no longer at the facility. Seeing that the current wildlife intake and euthanasia has stopped tells us that we were right about the actions regarding wildlife. Thank you.

Thank you, Lord,

Sonia Shephard. Um, question kind of statement. When you guys have your next meeting, can you kind of like start deciding what you're going to do with those two as far as when the time's going to start coming in? And if you're not going to be able to do it before you get this committee in or whatever they are, who are you going to get that has animal experience to go and kind of if you want to get it going forward, how are you going to go forward when you don't have anybody running it? Because who knows how long that court stuff can be drawn out. The four-way down on uh down wherever you said water well. Perfect. You don't need a roundabout. It's working very well. I go through it several times a day.

Thanks for the segue.

Jamie Bradley, Doug Bradley Trucking, 680 East Waterwell Road, Salina, Kansas. Here to share just a couple of thoughts about the uh the roundabout, a proposed roundabout at Waterwell and 9inth. Uh I'd ask the commissioners to think back just a bit to where the project started. what what kind of triggered everything, all the thoughts about that intersection. I believe the main driver behind that was the backup of traffic onto Waterwell Road uh at the 4:30 time frame when K Cabota lets out Monday through Thursday. It backs up there, had backed up there uh because of the rightway that was created uh meaning that 9inth Street didn't have a stop sign. Waterwell Road did. And so because of the amount of traffic in a fairly short period of time, what happened was 9inth Street or the intersection, let's just say that was dominated by traffic from the south on 9inth Street because they had the rightway with a single stop as she pointed out. Uh that's now since been changed. Fast forward to now, we've got the four-way stop there. It's actually functioning very well. Traffic is is uh even at that time frame, I went down there, viewed it today just to take a look at what it looked like comparison to what it was before the four-way stop. So, we're seeing much more even flow, much less traffic backup and eventually uh the full uh exit of the the K Cabota facility with less time lost uh waiting in dwell at there. Uh the thing I want to ask you to think forward to to fast forward to is to the roundabout and how that's going to function because I see the problem that we're still going to have. What we're going to have happen with the roundabout is that traffic from the south is now going to again have the right ofway. At a roundabout, the person to your left has the rightway because they get in the intersection first. So if and when we go back or we we move to a roundabout, that traffic coming from the south is again going to dominate that intersection. and all of that traffic because it comes out so quickly and so consistently will be able to enter the roundabout, thus not allowing

anybody coming from the east on Waterall Road to be able to enter the roundabout. So, if we go back to a roundabout at that intersection, we're going to be going back to the problem that we started with from the very beginning, the one thing that caused this to bring it to our attention, we're going to be going back to that same situation. So, as as you've heard several times, I think most people going through that intersection today understand or feel that it is actually functioning very well with the four-way stop. It's functioning better than it did before. And in my opinion, it's it's going to function a lot better than a roundabout will simply because of the type of traffic that we've got in that area. So, thank you for your time.

Thank you, Jamie. Correct. Correct. Sorry. Um, this lady gets to be next. She's like wearing herself out.

I'm so sorry. Um, Alex again. Um, I want to once again not call on the integrity of anyone in this room. Um, I think once again the citizen's job is to be concerned, is to be upset. That's what drives political change and action. Um, I also encourage anyone in this room who recognizes these people and what they do is they are going to be generally more critical of them and all they do. And when they fail, you should be. Uh, my father is a police officer of 30 years in the state of Kansas. And once again, he's always been of the firm stance that when a city employee who's paid um by the taxes of the people messes up, makes a mistake that they should be held liable for that. Um, I ask that the committee and the commissioners and the mayor and the managers and the attorney, whatever you're in charge of, whatever you cannot be in charge of, I encourage you to not do. Um, I don't say that because I don't think you guys can't do it. Um, we've got doctors, we've got lawyers, we've got people all in this room who are fully capable professionals in their fields. I believe there's a lot of people in this room who are fully capable professionals. I also fully believe that when you try and jump through the hoops of city government, you're not going to be able to get the things done that are going to be actionable and successful for the people and keep them happy no matter what you do, no matter what side you come from. So, um I once again bring back the fact that someone like Mr. Price's mother, who I don't think I don't know if he's in the room anymore, um that's something this commission should pay attention to. Um something like the roundabout on Waterwell and Night, that's something this commission should pay attention to. Something like the animal shelter should be something that instead of saying, "Let's try and keep this in the city's possession, let's try and pawn this off. Let's try and make this private. Let's try and put someone in charge of it who has motivations that aren't elections or votes or personal endeavors, right? something as far as nonprofit organizations who want to stay in business and who want to hire people and then can you guys can vote on funding

those organizations instead of trying to manage the emotional complexities of the of the people in this room. Um because once again I I don't agree with the fact that there's been a lot of people in this room that have been attacked today. Um, I think there's a lot of people in here who are great at their jobs. And I think there's a lot of people that I'm speaking in front of that are good at what they do. And I think to ask them to handle this situation as best as possible is unfair. So, I encourage you guys to um to not take this criticism the wrong way because I think it's the citizen's job to be upset, but I encourage you guys to take more off your plate, to vote no more often, um to deinvolve the city in a lot of issues because I don't think a government should be really effective at enacting change because that's when things such as citizens rights and concerns are brought up more often because they get put consistently in danger when government can make actions really easy. So, um I think once again, the more you guys can take off your plate, the more we can privatize issues like the animal shelter, and the more we can take care of things like roundabouts and city employees, I think that'll make this whole process a lot easier and a lot less emotionally charged.

Thank you. Thanks.

I work all day. I don't think I can run. Jesus. Um that's hard to follow up. Um, can we have Jane Trussell here in Salena?

Um, I just want to implore all of you guys to go to other animal shelters. Y'all sit there and talk about that you want to change, but you guys need to change, too. As far as I know, maybe one of you have has even gone to any animal shelters. You guys could go to McFersonen. That's only 30 minutes away. Um, Manhattan, Hayes,

Clay Center. Um, y'all are just need to listen. You're there to listen and to help and you're not listening and you're not helping. That's all I got. Thank you.

I can't speak again. No. Have you been? Yeah. once. Sorry. One time. Okay. But think about the rush hour and stop lights. That's another problem. I can come back.

Hi, I'm Amber Claire. Um I was kicked out at the last meeting for being disruptive. Um and I'm not the one that said anything. So you kicked out the wrong person. And um you called us embarrassments. So, I just thought that I would take some time. I don't know if you guys ever read like the comments and stuff on um the social medias. Um so, I just thought I'd help you out. Um these clowns referring to you guys are the biggest embarrassments to this community, not the citizens expressing themselves over the total ineptitude of the city of Salena clown troop. You worthless pig should be ashamed of yourselves, not proud. And then somebody else said, "Old my pockets," thinking he's better than everybody else.

Could could you read the names of the people who wrote those, please? You can look them up. They're right there in social media for everybody. But you're you're giving credit to them. So, could you read their name into the record? No, you can look them up. Um, and then also I just thought I'd pull up some of these um, Salina 311 polls that they do. Who do you trust more, the city of Salena Commissioners or the Sling County Board of Commissioners 80 to 20 for Sling County?

Yeah. Um, do you agree that the city of Salena should pay a consultant $30,000 for assessment and another $40,000 for training and operations? 87% of Salina said no. And this is over 8,000 people that responded. Over the last over the last few months, the city of Salena has wasted tax dollars over such things as the cozy in, the log jam, and now the animal shelter. If you had to do it all over again, would you have voted differently? 63% said yes. So, I don't know, maybe think about who the embarrassment is. And next time you want to kick somebody out and infringe on their First Amendment rights, make sure it's the right person. in front.

Don't shoot me. Northern Laana. Code of conduct for you commissioners. Oh, the web of deceit. You weave. Delay. Delay. Delay. That's standard procedure in government. going to go a different direction. We got a drone security issue in this state, in this country, in this city. You're going to have public as the park. We can weaponize them. This is being brought up. They can carry anywhere from 20 to 150 pound payloads, explosives. Have you got any way to stop these? They're here. They're already here. That's going to be a job for law enforcement in the parks. You've got poisonous weeds in this city. Do you do anything about them? Do you know what water hemlock is? You better take care of these noxious weeds. That's a city issue. It's on city property. Water hemlock. Spotted water hemlock. Yeah. With the past and the present lawsuits you're having and maybe future lawsuits on the horizon, consider bankruptcy for this city because you're going to be out of money. It's not funny. And the last thing, do any of you know what cloning is? Who are you? Talk to K State. We're doing cloning on humans. You don't know who you are. This is serious. Our birth certificate may not be accurate. It's in the courts. The attorney general spoke here about a week or two ago on the same issue.

So, resign in the best interest of the animals and the citizens of Sena. There is a person that you could contact that would give you good advice on how to handle animals. She's a professor at Colorado State University, Temple Grandland. I'll bet these ladies know. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Okay.

Ben Winhold Salina. I'm kind of glad the ladies didn't steal my thunder when it comes to polls. First off, I would like to thank Lina 311 for a lot of the daily polls that they present. A majority of these polls relate to concerns on how the city is run. 311 reminds me of a sign hanging on the wall above my office desk says, and I quote, "Everyone was thinking it. I just said it." A particular poll that I thought gave a very telling result was presented on April 28th. The question presented was which Salina city commissioner commissioners are earning your approval in parenthesis. Select any commissioners you believe are performing well. Now, the final numbers are quite telling as to how the taxpaying citizens, that's the normal people like us and not the ones with their hand out for city city freebies, how they feel about you guys. And I'm going to start at the top. And I had my own analogy for each one, but I'm not going to say it because one, I don't want to get kicked out, nor do I want to be called a liar again. So, let's start with Commissioner Rimp. 64%. Job well done. Your head's way above water. Commissioner Davis, and I'm going from top to down. Commissioner Davis, 34.3%. Mayor Hopic, 33.7%. Commissioner Lincolnitz 25.3%. And lastly, but not least, Commissioner Ivy, 21.9%.

All of you need to remember that we, the citizens, are the powerful voice that demand that you start doing what we ask and not listen to your egos when they tell you, when your ego tells you not to accept defeat on your part. Because poll numbers don't lie. And you know what, Annette? I liked your analogy before. I still got 36 seconds. Man, you guys, when when you're that far below water on your polls, you guys need to do some changing. do some real thinking of what the citizens think of you and how you are coming across to them. And we're talking 8,000 people a day is a majority of the people in this town that that really want a change and want something done positive for Salina, not just be handing out money. Oh yeah, I'm done. Thank you. my neck again. Uh my fishing buddy also uh had me want to mention uh police department. Is there a way that we could get maybe the animal shelter under the police department since um you know enforcing the laws and everything are kind of more them rather than you know all these laws that you guys got written out that are pretty good like the nuisance animal and you know vicious dogs and stuff and that dog at large you know that if they're not on a leash it's obviously running loose.

You got those, but they're not being enforced. I mean, people are calling and wanting something done and they're not going out. They're I mean, I called for like a month and a half for somebody to go out and look at a pin that was full of feces and a dog was, you know, and they wouldn't go out because I didn't have the exact address. And it was just turning left out of the animal shelter parking lot to North Street and turning left again the railroad tracks. That's all the further. And they couldn't go and and you could see it from North Street. So, I don't know if we could get, you know, Brent Rupert, who is my fishing buddy, um he uh thought maybe, you know, getting it under the police department would help that out. and it would be more under the enforcements that way some of these laws that you guys have ordinances like the picking up of the animals which thank you Jacob for responding back to my text or my email saying about that but yeah your employees are saying that they don't have the legal right to pick them up if they're uh if they're wildlife so I I actually looked that up and yeah they do And so you might have them actually look something up, Google it, and make sure that they know their laws before they tell us what they can and can't do. But anyway, Brent,

thank you. Gave me that idea. Did you? Okay. If there's no one else, I will accept it. Oh, there's somebody. Yeah. Okay. Tony, uh, if you want to go ahead and go. See, you have your hand up there. Tony, you're muted. Where's he at? Can you hear me now? Yeah. Can you turn up your volume maybe? Or how how about now? A little more.

That's all all I've got right there. We'll just uh listen carefully. Go ahead.

Okay. Tony Johnson Salina. Uh hey, I agree with Jamie Bradley. I told you all this before about that roundabout. I don't think it's going to solve the problem that you think it will with the congestion at those busy hours. But uh anyway, let's see. I I just want to expand more on the shelter and how we're doing here. Uh people came before this commission on August 14th, 2023 and warned you about problems at the animal shelter. Three current commissioners were sitting right here and heard every word spoken. Those war warnings were not hidden. They were public. They were direct and they were ignored. Then in November of 24, a vet stood before the animal shelter advisory board and became emotional, describing the horrible condition animals were being brought into her practice from this shelter system. That should have set off alarms across this city. Instead, here we are in 26 with two staff members now facing animal cruelty charges. And in February of 26, Jacob Wood told the advisory board that the former city manager specifically placed him in charge of overseeing the animal shelter back in 23. So my question is, what exactly did that oversight accomplish over the last three years? Because from where I sit, it looks like it's continuously deteriorated. We've now learned there was apparently no proper purchasing agreement in place for basic high-use items like kitty litter and pet food. Instead, staff were running around to local stores buying supplies as needed. That isn't sound management. It's fragmented reactive decisionmaking. And while that was happening, over $500,000 in one year alone was spent out of the donation fund with total expenditures exceeding $1.4 $4 million for the year. Donation money was effectively being used to subsidize

poor financial management. At the same time, the volunteer network that once supported this shelter completely collapsed under current management. Jacob Wood publicly stated that the shelter depended too heavily on volunteers and that volunteers were doing tasks they should never have been doing. But the city uses volunteers for work all over the community. Friends of the River organizes volunteer labor on public property. Private companies assist with city projects and even did an erosion control project in a city park. And I haven't heard anybody say those volunteers are doing too much. So the public has every right to question whether the city is trying to downplay how critical those shelter volunteers really were and how badly they were treated before they finally walked away. I know several commissioners here are successful businessmen. I'm self-employed myself and none of us would look at these financial practices and think they were acceptable. What's most frustrating is that citizens using their own time and money uncovered much of this information through records requests. They uncovered the financial problems. They they uncovered how animals were treated. City Hall already had access to this information. So my question is, did any of you reach out to those citizens for the facts they uncovered? And if not, why not? You are not elected to carry water for city hall. You're elected to protect taxpayers, ensure public and ensure public institutions are being run competently, ethically, and efficiently. You are not here to protect reputations. You are here to make hard decisions and hold leadership accountable when they fail. After nearly three years of warning,

Tony, about another 10 seconds, please. All right. And mounting failures, nobody should still be pretending this was all unforeseen. And I thank you for your time. Thank you. Quick question. And I This keeps coming up about donations. And can you help me with I'm trying to remember. When we did the dog parks, did we use donations for that? Yes, we did. That was the the majority of the donation funds that the use in the last year was upgrade the new dog park and then up upgrades to the to the current dog park. There wasn't a million for spent on operations. The half million went to

upgrades. It was it was for upgrades to the dog parks. That was and those came before the city commission. They were approved in public meetings. Um there there's that was part of what what our uh project and that was all discussed in open meetings and everything. Correct. Yeah. Okay. That's I kind of recollected that but I wanted to verify that for sure. So thank you. Okay, with that I will accept a motion for adjournment. Move to adjourn. Second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. Thank you.