City Commission - Regular Meeting

okay it is two o'clock and time for us to go into study session i will turn it over to the city manager see if he has any opening comments

Okay, I'm very quickly going to turn it over to Debbie. This is first of many budget study sessions as we start to develop the 2027 budget. So, Debbie, take it away.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners. Debbie Pack, Director of Finance. Yes, this is our first of several study sessions that we'll be talking about the budget. Today, first of all, we like to cover kind of where we ended up in 2025 or the previous year, just so you have an idea of where each of the funds ended up. Then we'll talk a little bit about personnel and what our assumptions are in the current budget for personnel. And then the last piece, and then all of the operating budgets that include personnel, so any fund that That includes personnel. We'll go over that and kind of see where those budgets are coming in line as far as requests from department heads. And then the last thing we'll cover today is requests for increases in the comp fee schedule. And this all kind of feeds into our revenue estimates. So we just kind of like to get that out of the way a little bit earlier in the process. And then as we've talked before, we don't get the revenue estimates SES valuation estimates from the county until June 15th. So next week we'll talk about, we'll have the outside agencies here. They're excited to give you some updates on what they've been doing and present their requests. and then the following week the following meeting which is the 22nd we should have the property tax numbers and we'll be able to give you kind of what those numbers are looking like and have some discussion about where the city wants to go as far as that number goes so that's kind of where kind of an overview of where we'll be in the in the next few weeks as far as the budget process is going so the first thing i want to go over is kind of where each of the major funds ended up the budgeted funds ended up in 2025 first as we know the general fund is the main operating fund of the city originally we well the revised budget showed us coming in at about 27 million dollars In fund balance, in reality, we ended up coming in with a $7.9 million net loss. Most of that was intentional. And a ending fund balance of 25.9 million. Debbie, I think we need to change the screen. Scott, next screen, two screens.

Okay.

Well, he's working on that.

Okay. I just wanted to make sure.

I asked for a clicker and he said it wouldn't work, so I couldn't get a clicker. So, but of that $7 million, we knew that $5 million of that was a transfer to the river renewal project. We had the log jam unexpected expense of about $1.2 million. We had some median improvement dollars in that number. So a big majority of that number was expected in the original budget. There were some additional costs and personnel that came in that kind of went over our budget a little bit. And we did do a revised budget for 2025 for that purpose. So general fund coming in. And these are all preliminary numbers. We don't have these audited until this time. So we won't know exactly where these end up, but these are the preliminary numbers as of April that we had in the system. So an ending fund balance of $25.9 million in the general fund. And as I'm going through these ending questions you have, feel free to stop me. The general fund top rep 10 revenues in 2025. Sales tax was 35% of our total revenues. Property tax was 23% of our total revenues. Franchise fees were 12%. Interfund transfers were 6%. Interfund franchise fees, which is the transfer from the water fund for franchise fees, was 3%. Motor vehicle tax was 2%, and then a transfer for property tax stabilization was 2%. Next slide. As far as the expenditures for 2025, the way the numbers came in is 49% of the general fund expenditures were for public safety, which includes police, fire, and municipal court. 19% is general government. That includes all of your overhead departments plus development services and community relations. Parks came in at 15% and public works came in at 12%. And by type of expense for 2025, 66% of our expenditures are related to personnel. This includes salaries, health insurance, capers, anything related to the hiring and keeping of personnel. 16% of our expenses were for contractual services and 4% were for commodities.

Debbie, would you just, for the benefit of the public, discuss Interfund transfers, both on the expense and the income side?

On the expense side, we do a transfer. We have a couple of scheduled transfers. We transfer $260,000 to TPEC to support their operations. We also transfer about $745,000 to the Arts and Humanities Fund as support because they're not part of the general fund like the rest of the departments are supported by property tax. So we do that transfer and then in any given year that a fund a budgeted fund does not sustain their fund balance or goes into a negative situation, then we will do a transfer to that fund from the general fund. In 2025, we did have to do an additional transfer to the golf fund. On the revenue side, the inter-fund transfers that come into the general fund are typically overhead expenses from what we consider our enterprise funds, which is our business funds. That includes solid waste, sanitation, water and waste water, and golf. And the city charges them for overhead expenses, for example, the use of HR and the use of finance and the city manager, kind of those management overhead expenses. They're also charged for a payment in lieu of taxes because they're tax exempt, so that gives us an opportunity to collect a tax from them. They all pay franchise fees, just like a normal utility company would pay. They pay for data processing, so they pay some of those overhead plus some of those other fees that a normal business would pay in the city of Salina. Our businesses pay those as well through to the general fund, but it's just an inter-fund transfer for that purpose.

Thank you. Sure.

The next slide, which is the sales tax capital fund. This fund came in a little bit under budget on the revenue side. It was pretty close and under budget on the expense side. We had a net income of about $73,000, leaving it with an ending fund balance of a little over $2.3 million. The sales tax economic development fund came in with a net loss of about $113,000. That was due to the The Salina Airport overnight program that we voted to support in 24 and 25, part of that payment was in 25. So that's the reason that, typically this fund is self balancing. It usually brings in about the same amount as we pay out for Salina Community Economic Development and the Salina Downtown Inc. But in this particular year we had some additional expenses for that overnight flight support. The next one is the Arts and Humanities Fund. It came in with a fund balance or a net income of $23.7 thousand, an ending fund balance of a little over $200,000. The Special Gas Tax Fund came in with a net income of a little over $367,000, leaving it with a fund balance of $1.2 million. And this one also, besides gas tax in this fund, we also get what we call FF&E, which is Federal Fund Exchange Dollars, that the state allows us to exchange federal dollars at a discounted price. But it's another way for us to be able to support our street maintenance throughout the city. The next slide are some of our smaller, mostly pass-through funds. The Business Improvement District, we collect the fees for them. We're really an administrator for them. They set the fees. We approve the fees. We collect those fees, and then we reimburse them. We pass those through to them. That fund came in with an ending fund balance of a little over $3,000. The Special Parks and Recreation Fund came in with a net income of about $38,000, leaving it a fund balance of almost $841,000. That particular fund is typically used for the replacement playground equipment and the way the plan, the 10-year capital replacement plan works is they schedule different sizes of playground equipment. One year we may not have any, the next year we may have a large one that's maybe a half a million dollar project. So the 10-year plan allows us to collect that revenue and kind of keep it for the next project. So some years we might see one or two projects in there, some years we might not see any. And then we might see some really big ones come through. I think in 25 there were two smaller projects that were replaced. The Tourism and Conventions Fund is collections of transient guest tax. Most of that is pass-through. The only portion that is not, which is left in there, the $21,400, is the difference between what our previous pass-through to the SWANA Chamber and their current budget was. The additional amount was only $21,000. So that fund has a balance of about $45,000 at this time. The next one is special alcohol. This one is a truly pass-through. We collect alcohol tax. We have some grantees that we have approved through a two-year process. And so every quarter when we get that special alcohol tax, we just pass that straight through to them up to the amount that was approved through city commission. Anything that we would have left over in an amount above that that was approved through City Commission, that would stay in that fund and that would become available in the next biannual session so that we could have more the next session to pass through. The Neighborhood Park Development Fund collects the $200 on housing. They did have a little project in here this year, so they had a net loss of about $13,000, leaving that fund balance of $70,800. The specific thing about this particular fund is the revenue has to be spent in the neighborhood park in which it was collected. So it's a matter of we keep track of where it was collected and if it was collected in The park at Oakdale Park in that area then that's the that's the only place that money can be spent So it's very specific in which parks can that can be spent and then the parks department determines if there's projects If they have enough money in that area to fulfill a project that they have that that they need to do otherwise, they would do that through like the maintenance fund and The Tony's Pizza Event Center Fund is that support of the facility at TPEC. It came in this year with a net income of $220,000, leaving its fund balance at right about $220,000. Schilling, former Schilling Air Force Base is of course the remediation money that we received from the federal government. This fund is not really into an active state yet, so their spending is not as high as it will be once they get really active. So they came in at a net income strictly from interest in revenue off their balances of about $1.4 million. leaving their balance at $66,400,000 roughly. The sanitation fund, which is our fund for collection of trash and the recycling center, came in at a net income of $580,000, leaving their fund balance at $1,277,000. Solid waste came in at a net income of $1.2 million, leaving their fund balance at $2.7 million. That fund does have capital reserve funds so that as we go through the the 27 budget we may have we may consider how much if we want to transfer more if we want to look at fees some alternatives we have for that fund balance in that fund The golf course fund came in at, it shows a net income of $28,000. That was after we transferred $50,000. That was one of the things I mentioned earlier in from the general fund. So in reality, it came in about $22,000 net loss. But in order for it to not have a negative fund balance, we transferred that $50,000 in there from the general fund. That left the ending fund balance in there at a little over $28,000. And then the Central Garage Fund, which is an internal service fund that provides vehicle services to not only city departments, but other agencies within the district, the county. That fund came in a net loss of $240,000, leaving its fund balance at roughly $193,000. The wastewater fund came in at a net loss of $3.9 million. Again, this has been intentional in looking at the rate studies. I looked at the rate study to see what we had projected that number to be, and it was in the $4.4 million range. So we really came in a little bit better than what we had anticipated in our rate study. We budgeted about 4.3 million and came in at 3.9 million. That left the fund balance in this fund at $12.2 million at the end of 2025. The workers' comp and health insurance funds are internal funds to provide both workers' comp coverage and health insurance. Workers' comp came in at a net loss of a little over $80,000 due to the claims being a little higher than we've seen historically. But that fund balance is still within the target range at $915,000. The health insurance fund came in at a net loss of about $370,000. That, too, came in within its targeted range. It was left at about $2.5 million in fund balance at the end of 2025. And then the last budgeted fund is the Bond and Interest Fund. It came in, there is one entry I know that has to come out of here for about $300,000 of revenue, but it came in at $435,000 in net income on this. When we take that $300,000 out, it's going to be about $135,000 in net income, leaving that fund balance at just over $3 million. There are several large upcoming debt finance projects, so that's kind of why we've been letting that balance build up a little bit. We've got West Magnolia, both one, two and three phases. We've got East Crawford by the new fire station. We've got East Magnolia with the bridges and some road improvements, some road improvements on iron. So there's just a lot of projects coming up in the next few years that we anticipate will increase our debt service payments. And we'll be digging into that balance pretty quickly as we approve and complete those projects. So that kind of leaves us where we kind of ended up at the end of 2025. Are there any questions on that? I can try to answer them, or I can get your answers later.

I got a couple comments.

Sure.

We talked earlier about the golf course.

Yes.

And I did find out their annual membership. All the golf, somebody wants to play with cart, $90 a month or $1,088 a year. And I believe that we compared about $1,700 at the Muni. So I stand corrected, thinking it's relatively inexpensive based upon how often people... but if you look at a competitor almost across the street, I won't say they give it away, but if somebody plays a lot, it's not much.

Is that the only?

Did you have something else? I'd like to talk roundabouts, but I'll do that later.

Doug, your microphone. We can't hear you back.

Okay. It might just be over too far.

He's got two, yeah.

Thank you, Ben.

Okay, so if there's no more questions about that, I'll move on. So what we try to do when we actually budget, the first thing we do is we estimate revenues so that we kind of know what our pool of expenditures can be. And then the first thing we try to address is personnel. We try to take care of our personnel first to see what we can do and where we are, Ability or limits we might have as far as personnel. So that's why we're bringing personnel to you as one of the first items that we have. When you're looking at personnel, there's two components to increases to personnel's salaries and or benefits. The first is the cost of living. You'll hear us call it a COLA. This is applied to the job classification as we designate. It increases the pay range of the affected classifications. So some of the pros to the cost of living is that all designated employees receive this benefit. Anyone that gets paid by the city receives the COLA. And it also helps keep the city's pay ranges in line with industry standards. So as we compete with some of our public entities, this enables us to kind of keep more competitive with those salaries. Really, the biggest con to it is it's a higher cost to the city because, one, it's for an entire year and it's for every employee. So every employee gets that. Now, that doesn't mean that the City Commission, under its own purview, couldn't say, I only want to give COLA to certain people or something like that. That's certainly up to you. But that would be, from our perspective, the biggest con for a COLA. A merit is the other portion. That is applied to individual employees. It's based on a performance evaluation completed by the supervisor, and it's effective on the employee's anniversary date. So the pros to this is obviously you're rewarding employees for good performance. It's less cost to the city because the percentage is determined by performance and it's also given on the anniversary date. So if my anniversary is in November, it doesn't affect my pay until November. So I'm only two months out of the year that that is being affected to. The cons to this is it's not always consistent across the organization because performance reviews are subjective. There's a form, but no matter what you do, they're subjective by the supervisor. And it doesn't affect all pay ranges. Because employees at the top of the range, they're topped out so they can't go anywhere. We did put into policy a couple of years ago that any employee that received a performance evaluation review that was topped out, they do receive additional vacation days. So we did add that to our policy. So that kind of takes away a little bit of that pain. the next slide kind of shows you the history of where the city's been in the last 20 years as far as colas and merits you can see in the early 2000s things were booming and then 2008 you know we had a lot of economic stuff going on in 2008 2009 so from 2009 to 2015 the city gave zero colas a couple of those years they gave zero merits Back in and then in 2012 they went back to a merit, but no Cola And then in 2016 it kind of came back to what I would call a little bit more normal Where there was a combination of about five percent colon merit 2020 We don't even want to talk about that. And then in 2021 and 2022, we kind of worked on the pay plan. We were struggling to get positions filled, recognized that our pay wasn't competitive. So we did a pay plan study to try to get everybody at a level that was more competitive with the public sector after COVID. Anybody that's in business knows that after COVID, employment It went crazy. I mean, there's nobody, you can't, it's hard to hire. It's, you know, people got to work from home. There was just a lot going on. So for the next four or five years, the city was very aggressive after the pay plan, which in the pay plan was implemented in the fall of 22. And in that pay plan, every employee got a minimum of 2%. And some of them got more, some of them got, you know, Duel did like 10%. It just depends on where they fell in that study. So since then, since 2022, we've been very aggressive trying to maintain our competitiveness with the market and trying to make sure that we're competing with inflation and things like that for our employees. We knew at the time it probably wasn't sustainable, but we were trying to be very aggressive when we were doing that. In this year's assumptions on the next slide, we have included a 1.5% cost of living and a 1.5% merit in the numbers that we are presenting. I know some employees won't be very happy with that, but from my perspective, if you look at the numbers over the past five years, an employee has had the opportunity to get a 32% raise if they've been here that long and they've done a really good job. Not that that defeats anything from today's number. So assumptions in the 2027 budget that we were presenting to you would be a cost of living for all employees of 1.5% at effective January 1st of 2027 and a maximum merit of 1.5% to any employee that was eligible that wasn't at the top of their range effective on the anniversary date of the employee. Health insurance has not been determined yet to see what the additional cost is going to be on that yet. And the current budget does not include any requests for additional staffing. So the staffing table is supposed to stay as it is in 2026. The next slide shows you what that cost, what the effect of those merits and COLAs are. In the general fund with a 1.5% COLA and 1.5% merit, the total personnel cost excluding health insurance and work comp is about $38.5 million. In the arts and humanities fund it's 606,000, sanitation 1.5 and so on. A total of about $48 million. And I've given you kind of some numbers on if you flip those numbers, you stay at 3%, what that does and what the total amount does. The bottom line is the cost of a 1% COLA is about $315,000 to the general fund. And the cost of a 1% merit is about $162,000 to the general fund. And that's based on the current makeup of employees and when their anniversary dates are and such. So overall, to the whole government, the cost of a 1% coal is about 391,000 and the cost of a 1% merit is about $193,000. So that's kind of the personnel side of the assumptions in the budget. Is there any comments or questions? around that. Did you have anything else to add to that?

I'll make a quick comment. And you said the commissioners would have an opportunity to discuss COLA more. If we had an employee that was perhaps on probation or their work was deemed unsatisfactory, would we still be providing a cost of living adjustment?

We would in the current model.

Okay, and a second comment, wages and benefits. It's my understanding that every city employee gets 10% added to CAPERS each and every year.

It depends on what your position is. I believe the rate for sworn personnel is nine point something percent, and the capers percent is- Six percent. Six-ish percent.

Okay.

So.

No.

Well, the point I was going to make, if you want to, Natalie's shaking her head no. Okay.

That's why I was looking back there to see if she was there because I couldn't remember exactly what those were.

Get it straight from Natalie.

Yeah. Hi, Natalie Fisher, Director of Human Resources. So CAPERS and KPNF, the way that's funded, employees contribute for CAPERS approximately, well, it's not approximately, it's 6%. The employer rates change annually. I believe the 2027 rates will be just over 9%. for the employer contribution. And then KPNF is higher. The employees contribute 7.15%, I believe, or approximately 7% for the withholding for every payroll dollar for their payroll. But the employer pays about 21% to 22%. I don't recall off the top of my head exactly what that is, but it's 21% to 22% for 2027 for KPNF.

And so KPNF is for police and fire?

Yes, it's Kansas Police and Fire. That does not mean that is the amount that is directly going into an employee's account, however. That is funding the system.

I know a lot of employers will, when they're talking wages, will include the value of the benefits. and exactly how much the employer is contributing and and added to the overall like if an employee was making a hundred grand if the benefits were included it might be a hundred thirty thousand and just wondering if the city does that by chance we don't currently it is something that i've talked with ct about putting a benefits calculator if you will now that we have a new intranet that's launched and our previous uh...

HRIS payroll system, we had the ability to run statements for the employees that said, here's your gross compensation when you factor everything in. And it was eye opening for a lot of our employees. So we're working on being able to have a calculator that will allow them to enter some information and have that number in front of them.

Well, thank you. I think a lot of the community thinks we have some very well paid employees here at City Hall and just to make sure that they know truly in full what they're getting. Because probably in most cases, the benefits are greater than what's available in the private sector.

I knew I wouldn't remember those numbers. Thank you, Natalie. Now, when we talk about the cost of those numbers, those employee, that cost I was just talking about, that does include the city's contribution of KPERS and KP&F. So when we're looking at that expense, we're looking at that employer contribution in that number. So given that assumption on the personnel, we're going to look at all of the departmental budgets or the fund budgets that include personnel today. The first fund is the general fund.

I'll just jump in here real quick. So after Debbie and I and the finance team kind of went through What we felt like the revenue projections were, obviously, revenues not keeping pace with some of the expenditures. So the conversation, as Debbie said, was what do we do with personnel? And that's where we came up with a recommendation for one and a half and one and a half COLA and MERIT. And then we went to the departments and said, hey, this is where we're at, where we think we're going to be at with revenue. And so we asked them to at least hold the line and if not go back just a little bit from their 2026 budget. So you'll see as we go forward here, the operational budgets outside of personnel, they generally speaking are going to go down with personnel. They're they're about flat or they may go down a little bit. Each departments a little bit different depending on how many employees they have and all those sorts of things the smaller departments You know financed finance has ten people in their department or less HR has five people in their department So it's much more difficult for them to reduce their operational budget But the the goal here was to not grow our expenditures on the operational side it was to actually bring those back just a little bit so that we could be more in line with our revenue. So that's the intent with the departments. They all did a great job of coming back. Um, you know, some of them we had to have more than one conversation with because there's things that, that, uh, they feel that are important. Um, but, uh, they did a great job of, uh, kind of providing the numbers that we're going to see here today. And then, um, As we go forward and we know more about revenue, I mean, we still don't know everything. We don't know what property tax valuations are going to do. There's some other things that are outstanding that we need to continue to shore up. But this first blush is the department's seeing a little bit of increase in the personnel side, but then a decrease in the operational side. So go ahead, Debbie.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

And Debbie, before we move on, I believe Natalie made the comment, the 7% that the employee pays towards CAPERS, that's mandatory? Correct? Yes. Okay. I want to make sure that's not an option. And then I know you made the comment. I don't know if I want to make sure someone made that comment. When we look at a one and a half, one and a half, and we come down to the bottom of $47,948,000, that includes CAPERS. Yes. And everything. I want to make sure everybody knows that includes all benefits excluding health insurance. Yes. Correct?

And work comp. That's correct. That includes that CAPERS and all of the payroll taxes and everything that's included with that.

Okay, perfect. That's what I wanted to make sure everybody was aware of. Thank you.

Yes. So on the general fund side, as you look at some of these funds, what we've tried to provide, and a lot of this is for our own benefit, but I thought it might be beneficial for you as well. As we've estimated revenues, we've provided a kind of a growth percentage of what that looks like. As you remember, we've had this conversation, when we're doing budget, we don't know what's going to happen in 2026. So we're really budgeting from two years, from 2025. So we're trying to do a two year look forward of what might happen. So as you look at those increases, that first column of increases is over 2025. So if you divide that by two, that's kind of what we're looking at. We're hoping we're just going to estimate our growth over two years might be. So for example, in property tax, we show 12.5%. In a normal, if it wasn't property tax, that would be like we expect a 6% growth for two years. And then the second column is what we have that compared to what the 2026 budget is. But a budget's an estimate, so it's really hard to justify an estimate on an estimate. You can get in some serious dangerous situations by estimating on estimates. So we really like to go back to that original actual number and say, okay, this is what really happened, this is what we thought might happen, and then this is kind of where we think we might be going. So just kind of a clarification of what those revenue assumptions are and what those numbers come from. And then as Jacob said, we really tried to toe the line on everything except for personnel expenses on the bottom side. So in this model right now, the general fund is coming up short about $900,000. If you flip the page, I'll get into some detail. The property tax is the one. is the one revenue source that we really don't have all the good information yet. But we did make some assumptions. We talked to the county appraiser. We said, hey, what are things looking like? He said, well, we've got some that are 5%. But if I was going to do it at this point, I'd go about 3.5% as far as growth. So that's kind of where we landed. We landed about 3.5% growth to try to get this first number to see kind of we wanted to be pretty conservative. so um in our estimates we've we've budgeted at a about a three and a half percent growth um and we did budget at the current mill levy rate because we don't know what a revenue neutral rate is going to be we don't know any of that information so we took the current rate of 28.568 and we budgeted that number The other thing we did to benefit the general fund is we took that growth and instead of applying that growth to both the debt service fund and the general fund, we applied all the growth to the general fund. Because in our capacity and in our analysis of the debt service fund, we could go without that additional revenue in the debt service fund. But in the general fund, we knew with the increases in salaries that we were going to need to have that coverage. So whereas last year's split was 22.532 to the general fund, we have it at 22.461. So you see the growth is not a whole lot. Or no, 22.461 was last year, this year's 22.532. So like a half a point percentage growth from the growth of assessed valuation. The next slide the other things that are in this general fund budget that Are unusual but are one-time transfers We currently have an additional three hundred thousand dollar tax stabilization transfer some of the sales tax in this in this budget and We have a $650,000 transfer that would normally go to the debt service fund out of sales tax capital going to the general fund. We have $350,000 from the building and facilities transfer going into the general fund, and $100,000 that would have gone to Kenwood Cove into the general fund. We've also included on an ongoing basis, because of the increase in sales tax in general, in the sales tax future analysis, we've added an additional $200,000 to the transfer for tax stabilization in perpetuity. Just so that as we capture that additional sales tax growth, not only in the general fund, but in the sales tax capital fund, it's going to the general fund to hopefully help stabilize property tax.

And we anticipate we're going to need to do that ongoing and into the future from the sales tax capital fund to limit any kind of property tax increases.

Right. That $200,000 was just what we were seeing today, and that number would change as we see growth in that sales tax capital fund. So from there, we kind of look at each department. What I've provided you is department budgets by category. If any of you have a desire or questions about specifics on any of these budgets, I can certainly provide that to you. so we'll go through these pretty quickly the city commission is budgeting the 2027 proposed budget is two percent over the 2026 budget and that's because we approve the behavioral health court that was not budgeted in 2026 so we didn't have any way of getting away from that so that was just something that we had had to include in there the city manager budget overall is up six percent that's with personnel without personnel it's flat um and i will say that the the um the makeup of the personnel in this department change where we had an assistant city manager we've taken that out and we've added city legal counsel to this budget so that number you'll see when we get to legal how we've reduced that amount significantly and that's kind of shifted into here Media.

And I do, just for the future, we do plan to keep the assistant city manager position on the books. So it will be on the staffing table, but I don't plan to fill that, and we're not going to budget for that. So it won't be filled until there's a time that we want to budget it. So we're not adjusting the staffing table, but it won't be filled, and we're not going to do that until we feel like we might need to. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Debbie, and before we start back up, if I could back up to the City Commission.

Sure.

Maybe it just went over my head, but the contractual services total for the City Commission, what does that cover?

It covers the rent of this building. That's the majority of that cost. We pay for the building authority, basically, as part of their budget. The city pays for a portion of their budget, and that comes out of the city commission line. Don't ask me why. It's just always been there, but it's our portion of the support of this building.

So that's pretty high rent. The city and the county both pay? Yes, the city and the county both. Because there's a separate entity set up that oversees this building.

Currently, the city pays 40% of the overall cost for the city-county building.

Yeah. So is it all charged to the – I mean, is it all – Under the heading of the city commission? Yes. Okay. Yeah. There aren't other entities that are getting charges too?

Not within the city's budget, no. Okay. I take that back, the water fund is. The water fund pays two twelfths of that bill as part of their charges, because they're within the city building.

All right, thank you, Debbie.

The city manager media, up 2.4% overall. Without budget, it's down 2.8%. A couple of the ones that we were able to reduce significantly is risk management. In talking to our risk manager, we had really budgeted a strong amount. in 2026 and we felt like we could reduce that a couple hundred thousand dollars and still be within the means that we needed for those premiums. We reduced the legal services as I mentioned earlier. We hired internal service. We reduced that down from $595,000 to $250,000 just to make sure we had some funding for outside counsel for needs for things that came up.

And we're not really sure exactly how that one is going to play out now that we have Patrick on board internally. We still need to budget some in that line item, but that's likely over the next couple of years we'll be able to hone in on that a little bit more effectively and budget for it more appropriately. But we did feel like we needed to leave some money in that fund.

Yeah. Human resources up and only because we did not budget earned leave. Earned leave for us is anybody that gets paid out when they retire or terminate their employment, they get paid out for their vacation time or whatever they might get paid out for. Historically, we have budgeted that under HR. In 2026, we did not budget that under HR, so we've added that back into their budget. That's why that makes it look like it's a significant increase. It's really not.

Where did it come out in 2026?

The individual departments is where we, that's where we budgeted it in 2025. It came out of the individual, but it's kind of confusing. When we budgeted 2026, we did not budget it into the HR. But in 2025, we took it out of HR. So we haven't, for whoever is in now, it would normally come out of the departments.

Is where it would come out of. So we're taking it out of the department and putting it all under HR now?

Yes. Okay. Yeah.

I know Natalie is right here, but just had to ask the question. Five employees and almost 680,000 in wages.

That includes that payout.

Okay.

Of about 250, I think it's $250,000.

All right, thank you. So it's about $400,000 in wages?

Yeah. Okay. Finance up overall about 1%, down without personnel about 4%. Technology down without personnel 3%. Those are the numbers that the department's actually provided to us. Police down 5.2% without personnel. Fire down 4% without personnel. Public Works is flat without personnel. Parks, and I've listed kind of what all this covers, is down 2% without personnel. And like Jacob said, the numbers with personnel are kind of deceiving because it depends on how much they saved and how much dollars they had in their non-personnel numbers to affect the personnel numbers. So it's not fair to them to say they're increasing their budget when it's really... the personnel that's causing that. Smoky Hill Museum down 2.7%. Development Services down 12% without personnel. And then the last, kind of the last couple of categories are the other miscellaneous. And this is our outside agencies. This is how we provide services to those that we talked about a little bit this morning. Transportation, the Salina Tennis, Salina Grace. In our budget models, we have budgeted them flat. um on this spreadsheet i've kind of shown you what they've requested as you go through the presentation with them next week and you make the decisions on how to fund those we'll obviously update those numbers to whatever number you provide for us but in the model we currently have they're all budgeted at the same amount they were budgeted for in 2026. Capital outlay is down, and that's because we had the comp fee schedule in there for 2026. That's not needed, and we budgeted it all in 2026, so that's not in the 2027 budget. And then transfers are down, the $5 million for the fire station number four project transfer. And then if we move on to the next budgeted fund that has personnel is the Arts and Humanities Fund. You can see currently we have it budgeted with a $70,000 net loss. I think our revenue numbers will probably be a little bit higher when we get to the end of the day on that. I need to talk to Brad about his estimates. And the good thing about them is we'll know what those are here pretty quick because the festival will happen and we'll kind of know what happens in 2026. We have a pretty aggressive budgeted number in 2026, so we'll get a better idea of kind of where that number will be. So I would anticipate that that number comes up to at least be flat and with no net loss in that fund. The arts and humanities portion of the arts and humanities fund came in flat without personnel, and so did the Smoky Hill River Festival portion of that fund is flat for 2027. The sanitation fund with current estimates is coming in with an $800,000 net income. They are going to be purchasing some new automated trucks. So that number, their costs will be going up in 2028 with some additional debt, could be additional debt service financing depending on the cost of those and also on the rate that they receive. So they're kind of building up their fund balance for that. Within that fund, they budgeted under 11.16% on their non-personnel and most of that was in the capital. Typically what they do is they budget for their capital purchases in their operating fund because they don't currently have a capital reserve fund. So their number fluctuates from year to year depending on what their needs are in their capital purchases. Solid Waste Fund, currently the current proposed budget brings them in at about $177,000 net income. With their personnel and non-personnel going up, the main contributor to that increase is the county maintenance fee, which is set by contract, an interlocal contract between us and the county. It's calculated based on the CPI and some other numbers that get plugged into that number. The golf fund, currently we have it proposed at a net income of $23,000. That's under the assumption given to us by golf that those fees will be probably going up in 2027 so that their revenue should be going up a little bit over the 2026 numbers. They did budget flat in the non-personal section of their budget as well. And then water, wastewater, their budget comes in with a negative $4.7 million. And as I mentioned in the rate study, that was intentional. I think it's about 2030ish or so that that number starts turning around in the rate analysis when some of the other debt service drops off and these new ones keep going. They too, oh, those are the two new pages I gave you, sorry. The two extra pages I sat on your dais, those are the two new. Because I had in there a budget transfer of $3 million, and it should have been $2 million, so that number comes down a little bit. Theirs is about 4% over, and that is their transfer to the capital reserve for the, that was the transfers. And then the Central Garage Fund. Its proposed budget comes in at $196,000 net loss. Their revenue, I think, will see some changes because they are raising their rates. They've already sent notification to all of their users that their rates are going up. So it was a little hard to know exactly where that number was going to fall. So that number may come up a little bit. But at this point, they're still within their target range. Without personnel, they budgeted 1.3% less than the 2026 budget.

In Central Garage, it's a little bit difficult to just increase the rates because those are all other governmental entities. So we can't just mid-year change the rates on the county because the county didn't budget for it. We can't do that to our own departments. So it takes a little bit of time. There's a little bit of lag when we do increase the rates. But we have... made a concerted effort to take a look at the central garage and make sure that we are charging closer to market rates because we do have outside entities and that are you know we have we do oil changes and that sort of stuff for the Sheriff's Department and we want to be at least competitive with with the market that concludes that section are there any questions comments concerns additional information you might want on any of that information as we move forward

When you talked about the River Festival, and I'd have to go back to whatever page that was, but it seems to me there was about 350,000 in contracted services. Is that to bring the performers in? But I think one thing that would be, Or where do we show the income for the Riverfest, and what is the income normally from the Riverfest?

It is in those numbers for that fund. Let me see what page.

I've got to give you credit for going through it so quick that I was having a hard time picking up.

Brad can answer that question. I didn't know you were there, Brad. I will say that the number that we have in there for revenue is probably low compared to what we believe it will be.

We tend to under project on income and over project on what our expenses are. The $350,000 is a close estimate to what those contracted services and or cost of goods and services are. That's also very close or slightly below what we anticipate earning in revenue from rental of booth spaces to artists, percentages of sales and food, and earned revenue from rest band sales. The program is actually more expensive than that, but $20,000 cash transfer from the Foundation of Arts and Humanities to the city to reimburse additional expenses for some of those contracted services. So our cash budget is actually closer to $525,000. But 120 of that comes from private donations. Okay.

Thank you. And typically in the fall when everything's kind of lined out, we'll have Brad come back and do a presentation at the City Commission that kind of gives the final numbers where we were at, talks about some of the in-kind contributions and all those sorts of things. So he'll provide a more detailed report of what actually happened with the River Festival.

Our goal is to finish in the black each year. Thank you, Brad.

And they have been. I mean, in the eight years that I've been here, it's finished in that direction each year.

Quick question, because we've asked all the departments, you know, to cut their costs and everything. It appears they've done a good job. Do you feel like there's a chance that we're going to have to do amendments to the budget? I mean, you know, we're running pretty tight on some of that, it looks like, by cutting some of the expense.

No, generally speaking, I mean, the departments do a, you know, personnel is the one thing that's hard to manage. They do a very good job of managing their commodities, contractual services, all of those sorts of things. So I don't think that that's an issue if it's a – What tends to be a problem for us or get us sometimes is overtime is hard, too. Let's say we have a department that has a lot of water main breaks that happen in the wintertime or in the summertime. It doesn't matter when. But if we have a year where we have a lot of water main breaks, that results in a lot of overtime. Police and fire are hard to predict on overtime. If you have a lot of crime or if you have a lot of calls for service, we have two or three or four more fires than what we normally would have. Sometimes that ends up causing us overtime. So really it's the personnel that is the hard part for us to manage. Generally speaking, we do a pretty good job of managing within whatever we budgeted. It's not the stuff outside of personnel that really gets us caught up. And really what will happen is at the end of the year, I mean, we'll start taking, and we'll do this this year, we start to track the budget. And if commodities get to the point where we feel like, hey, this is getting close, we'll talk to the department and say, hey, you better take a look at this. You don't have money to spend. or if we have to do things like, you know, if we have a position that's open and you have to hold it open for a little bit longer to make sure that you're not going over on those sorts of things. So there's lots of kind of checks and balances and measures that we would take to make sure that we're not doing that. We don't generally do a budget amendment for things for things that are typically our budget amendments are where we've missed the revenue mark. We've said in transient guest tax is a great example of this. We do have to amend that budget often because we get more transient guest tax than what we had, which means we have to pay out more because those are contractually obligated. And so when we do that, then we have to do a budget amendment. Generally speaking, we don't do a lot of budget amendments outside of that. Golf course is another one that's been tough, something that we've had to watch. But we do a pretty good job of managing within whatever budget we put forward.

And that is the expectation. The expectation is that as a department head, I'm managing my budget to make sure that I'm not going over. If something happens, then I need to make sure that somewhere else within my budget that I'm – taking to accommodate for that. And we do try to provide updates to the department heads as we go along throughout the year to say, because we budget at a fund level, not at a line by line level. But at a line-by-line level is where we need to be managing. So we'll provide that information to the department heads and say, hey, you're going over here. We need to take some money from somewhere else to cover that just to make sure we're doing that.

And they're generally tracking it close enough that they know. They know that that's the situation. They know, hey, look, my overtime budget over here is okay. I've got something going on over here. And we do. They can't just do it. They have to make a request, and it has to be reviewed by finance and our office to make sure that it's, something that's an appropriate use. So we don't just let them budget too much money in one line item and then shift it later on without some kind of general approval. they would never do that anyway. Thank you.

So the next section is our comprehensive fees and what we try to do is ask departments to review their comprehensive fees every year and this sets the stage for what we charge. Now there are some fees that are not included in our comprehensive fee schedule and that majority of those are parks and parks Parks fees are set by a separate policy within the city. They have their own fee schedule type rules and regulations. It's based on a whole myriad of pyramid of usage and things like that. So you'll see that for the majority of the parks fees, they are not within this comprehensive fee schedule.

The Parks Department does have to come to the City Commission for approvals that are, I believe, anything over 10%. They have to come. So they have a calculation that's based on the type of event or the type of service that they provide and whether they should be recovering cost on those events. So some of the things that they do, they're required to recover a higher level of cost. So like, let's say... Camp Salina is something that they do. They expect that they're going to charge a certain amount for services and cover a certain amount for that. Some of that is a public service. So they feel like they're not going to necessarily make money on those things, but they try to get as close as they can to breaking even. So they have a, it's basically a pyramid says, this is the kind of service we're providing. This is how much of that service we feel like is a, is a public service and should be something that we're providing to the public without recovering all the costs. Um, and so they make adjustments, um, annually, on all of their fees based on that pyramid structure. But if it is above 10%, then they have to bring that back to the city commission. So they can't just raise fees 20% on anything without. We don't want them filling up a room by raising rates without the city commission knowing about it. So it would come back to you.

And then the other thing I would mention is the water rates will be separately addressed. We kind of talked about that, about the water rate analysis that we do for them. We will get that underway and we'll look at those numbers and bring those back separately. But everything else within the comprehensive fee schedule should be addressed through this particular process. so the departments that have presented changes for this year are the city clerk's department we took a look at these numbers we haven't changed them in six years so we took a look these numbers we try to compare what we charge to other entities other municipalities and kind of those things we try to keep typically when departments raise fees they try to keep them between two and five percent increases The other thing that sometimes will happen is when you raise a fee to a certain dollar amount, it appears that that percentage is much higher. And that's just for administration. It's really difficult to administrate a $22.25 fee. So the department may raise that to $23 or something like that. So we try to, there's a lot of things that go into the calculation. So in the city clerk's fees, you'll see there's under building contractors, those fees will go up. Those are three year fees. So those permits and licenses are good for three years. So it's about $80 a year, $85 a year for a building contractor license. And then the electrical, industrial, and mechanical licenses, those are all three year licenses.

So while those fees look pretty large, they're over a three year period.

On the second page of the city clerk's fees, the mobile homes, plumbing, solid fuel appliance, trees and shrubs, these are all fees that we are charging that, like I said, we haven't raised for six or seven years. Some of these even longer. And these range anywhere from 3% to 4%, 14%, maybe just to get to a flat number down there in some of the adult-oriented business fees. And then there's notes on there which ones are multiple years. If there's no note, that's an annual fee or whenever it's used type of fee. The next page is also city clerks. Nikki did a lot of research on a lot of these fees to get us caught back up to our other entities. So there's several fees here that are being increased, bail bonding. And then the fourth page again is the city clerk. Most of these fees are for licenses. The last section is really for books, if somebody would want a code book or something like that. But the majority of these are licenses that we issue to certain trades or special permit licenses for having special permits for certain things like animals or something like that. On the fire department, these fees are typically for EMS fees. And what we do is, what EMS does is they take a look at the rates that are being charged or that are approved by Medicare, Medicaid, some of the insurance companies. And we try to make sure that we're capturing the maximum rate that we can capture through those those entities. So our fees will be increased based on those numbers from the Medicare and Medicaid approved charges for those particular services. The next page is municipal court. They combined a lot of theirs. They kind of simplified it is what I would say. Instead of court cost, they want to change this to court fees. Instead of having a fee for specific types of different courts, they changed it to just one court cost fee at $80. So I didn't have anything to really compare that to because we took off a lot of their detailed ones and just added one court cost fee. Simplifies it for them for processing and makes it a lot easier for people to know which one they kind of fall under in that case. And as we get a new municipal judge, he'll have an opportunity to kind of look at any of the other fees. That can be assessed by him and take a look at that. The comprehensive fee schedule is not It's not a one and done. So if somebody comes in and they say, oh, we have an additional fee we want to charge, we have it happen in development services and things like that. We can do amendments to the comprehensive fee any time during the year. We typically try to give at least a 30-day notice of a fee change. So that if somebody comes to me on December 15th, we may or may not make that applicable on January 1st. Typically, all these fees will go into effect on January 1st of 2027. And they'll be adopted by resolution during the process of the budget hearing. Gypsum Hill Cemetery increases for their after 2 PM and weekend fees up to 755 and 390. Public Works has a lot of fees that they typically administer so their fees like i said they've gone through here and tried to change it up to about two percent two to three percent um i will point out a couple that are a little higher tires that's driven a lot by the industry and how we and what we have to pay to get rid of those um sanitation curb and alley which is um our monthly sanitation fee they're proposing 21.75 that's a 2.4 percent increase Let's see, what other one? Oh, the recycling center, $1.75 from $1.70. That's 2.9%. Those are just the normal fees that a lot of people get, so I wanted just to point those out. The landfill fee is another one of those. That's a tonnage charge fee. That's $50 per ton. They're proposing a $52 per ton increase. They, however, are proposing a reduction in some fees and a separation of some fees for equipment in the tire section because this is one that the market price has dropped, whether it costs them less or something like that. So they're proposing an actual reduction in a couple of their fees for tires based on the market price that they have. I think that's it. Any questions about what we've, see I took longer this morning and not as much time this afternoon. It's so hard to judge how much time you'll need when talking about numbers.

I have a couple. Sure. And maybe I need to get out more and I'm not going to be taking any notes, but do we have any adult oriented businesses in town?

I don't know, we'd have to ask Nikki. I don't think so.

And would, I think it used to be like, was it Priscilla's? Yeah. Would they fall in that category? I don't know.

No married man here wants to answer that question.

I've never heard of that. We've never heard of that. We can look into that. I don't think we need the- I don't believe we do. I don't think we do either. We don't license businesses.

Not operating above the table anyway.

None that we know of. But we can double check if that's a thing.

Yeah, I can certainly ask. Again, probably my lack of knowledge, under court costs for illegal parking and seat belts, there were no court costs. I assume there's fines still, but

I think there is, and I think some of that is directed by statute. So they don't have the leeway to do things. And when it comes to court costs, I know a lot of that is statutory. So we'd have to ask the judge what that is, if that's statutory.

But I assume there's a fine associated with it. Absolutely. It's not just a slap on the wrist. Yes, yes.

A very small one for parking. It's a small fine. It's like $5. $5. For a parking.

Seat belt. Seat belt's just a little bit more expensive. Yeah, you'll notice the seat belt fee, but I don't know what that is. We can find out. Yeah.

But were these just fees that were changing? Yes, these are only the fees we're changing. I don't know if Commissioner Rims had it before, but I mean, there's a whole schedule. Yeah, there's a whole schedule. I would get that to him because this is just a tip of the iceberg.

I'll send the full comp fee schedule to everyone. It's just a PDF file. I can send it to you. I remember seeing it at one point in time because, yeah.

Because there's, I mean, there's fees for a lot of things.

Yeah, fees and fines are a little bit different. They're treated a little bit differently. So that may be why we're not seeing that on there. Is there anything as we move forward into the next study sessions that we can provide you in more detail that would be helpful?

You might just outline the next couple study sessions we have and how we finally get to the... To the nitty gritty where we have to decide what we're doing with mill levy and all that kind of stuff.

Typically, and this is from memory and mine's not very good all the time. Next week, as I mentioned, we'll be outside. entities, they'll come and they'll give you their updates on what they've done and where they've been and what their plans are and what their requests are. The study session after that, we'll talk about property taxes. That'll be our big conversation about what we're doing with property taxes. At some point, we'll have CIP and sub-CIP. We'll have water rates. We've really condensed study sessions down a lot. So that'd be June 22nd, and then we won't have another meeting until July 8th or so. And so July 8th is when we'll have to decide what we're going to do with the property tax, because July 15th, I have to notify the county clerk what we're doing. So we'll have between the June 22nd meeting and the July 8th meeting, I think is the date, that we'll have to make that decision.

And when do we make a decision on the COLA and the merit?

That will probably be at that July 8th meeting because we'll come back with you with all the kind of decision points that we need from you, which will be all of the funding for the outside entities. It will be the pay plan, which is the personnel stuff. It will be health insurance, it will be property tax.

So when does the new health insurance come out? We'll have the new rates and stuff for health insurance?

Our policy runs January to December right now, so Natalie? But it's a little late then.

Yeah, generally speaking, we have that stuff all programmed out before we get to the actual renewal.

Yeah, we'll be talking to the consultant about what it looks like.

That can be a big swing anymore with health insurance. And then I guess when does the county have to have to us the assist value?

June 15th.

June 15th, okay.

And then we have to reply to them by July 20th, I think. Okay. And I think also at that July 8th meeting, we will talk health insurance. We'll put those numbers in there, either that or the June 22nd, so we can make those decisions on July 8th. Okay. Because once we make some of those decisions, then we only have until August 25th if we do revenue neutral. So with the number of meetings we have in there, it really kind of starts to- escalate pretty quickly as far as timing is concerned to back up for a public hearing and things like that. So we'll probably have decisions on July, the first meeting in July, and then set a public hearing the end of July and then have our public hearings and our

in august and in terms of the you know the personnel stuff if if you have thoughts or you know concerns about where we're headed with one and a half one and a half we'd be happy to take that feedback um as soon as possible yeah is there any comments from the commission on the one half one and a half two they gave us several you know multiple options there

I'm assuming that our brain trust looked at all the numbers and thought that was a compromise between truly holding the line with no increase and breaking the budget by going much higher. I wouldn't have a way to personally sit here with a pen and pencil to challenge it. Although the numbers... I guess as big as the final numbers are, there's not a whole lot of difference.

No, certainly there's not. I mean, it's not a huge impact, but it is compounding. And that's the part that I think we have to look at. As we had 7% for the last several years, that's made a pretty big impact. So we would like to, I mean, I think we need to normalize that in that three to four percentage range. Uh, cause I think that's more sustainable long-term.

Um, so that's kind of when you're looking at the remainder of 2026 budget and you're looking at 2027, the COLA starts January one and the merit starts on their anniversary date, but it runs for 12 months.

Yes.

So if it comes in November,

we're getting that for two months this year but then we have to take into consideration when you're doing the budgeting for the next year that it runs for for the next 10 so yeah i think from a staff pay me now i mean you're paying me now yeah later the big part is is we want to have some kind of cost of living because if we don't do cost of living then we get behind and then we're in a situation three or four years from now where we're going we got to do a pay plan study and we got to study all this and then we got to make a 10 adjustment and that is much harder to swallow than it is a 2% or 3% adjustment here and there. And at the time we were doing 7% a year, inflation was 12%. So inflation was much, much higher. It's not as high now as it was. I mean, I don't know what the future holds. And we were behind. So now we're not seeing those huge inflation numbers, although I don't know what it's going to look like with the cost of fuel and that sort of thing. Recently, it could go up. But at the time we were kind of putting this together, we felt like that was an appropriate number that we could sustain. And there's still a shortfall here. So we're still trying to figure that out. We're going to refine these numbers and see if there's other places that we can peel a little bit back. But it's not as if we have extra cash on the table. So we didn't feel like it was appropriate for us to ask for too much more than that 3%.

And that is remaining revenue neutral.

Well, 3% is not revenue neutral. No, but I mean. Where we're at with the deficit. With the deficit. It's not revenue neutral. It's mill levy neutral.

Well, we don't know what we're capturing if we capture.

So it's basically the mill levy where it currently is plus 3% is kind of where we were at. where the numbers that we presented today are. But they'll certainly be refined as we know more. Okay.

And a mill levy right now is about 500 and... About 500,000. 50,000. 550.

Yeah. Okay. Any other questions? If not, we'll be back here at 4 o'clock for a regular meeting. Thank you, Debbie.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, it is 4 o'clock, and I will call the Monday, June 1, 2026, Linus City Commission meeting to order. I will look to staff for confirmation of the Kansas Open Meeting Act. Required notice has been properly provided.

Yes.

May we have a roll call, please?

I'm all prepared. Mayor Hoppeck?

Here.

Commissioner Ivey?

Here.

Commissioner Davis?

Here.

Commissioner Lankwitz?

Here.

Commissioner Remp?

Here. Thank you. Will those who are able please stand for a pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence? Thank you. We have no public hearings today, so that will bring us to the consent agenda.

Item 4.1, consider approval of the May 11th, 2026 regular meeting minutes. Item 4.2, consider authorizing the purchase of a new wheel loader for the landfill and awarding a bid to Foley Equipment in the amount of $254,900. And item 4.3, consider a three year renewal of the agreement with Flock Group and Incorporated doing business as Flock Safety for continued leasing and maintenance of 22 fixed automatic license plate readers.

Okay, is there an item the commissioner would like to remove from the consent agenda?

I'd like to remove 4.3.

Okay, we will move item 4.3. Are there any others? Okay, if not, I would accept a motion to approve consent agenda items 4.1 and 4.2.

I move we approve consent agenda 4.1 and 4.2. Second.

We have a motion and a second to approve consent agenda items 4.1 and 4.2. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, we will bring.

So again, item 4.3 was to consider a three year renewal of the agreement with Flock Group Incorporated doing business as Flock Safety for continued leasing and maintenance of 22 fixed automatic license plate readers.

Commissioner Davis.

Yeah, my concerns and questions have more to do with our policies regarding the use of the technology. There have been concerns raised about what I'll characterize as invasion of privacy, but another way of looking at this is probably not much different from driving here to Kansas City and not having to pull your wallet out to pay your toll, or driving through Pennsylvania or Ohio without a toll thing. Get a regional license plate and send you the bill. So we've accepted the inclusion of that technology in our lives. You know, when we get credit standing at a cash register or go through airport security, the world knows more about us probably than we do. There are concerns about potential misuse and maybe it's more Hollywood and the police shows on TV at night. But does this system have any algorithms built in to detect use that would be either suspicious or more than what would be expected for the average officer to to use people are afraid well they're going to track me you know the hollywood story is right well he was tracking his old girlfriend riding around town i mean are there are there ways to detect uh

So the system itself does not give any red flags if somebody were to search an abnormal amount of vehicles or something like that. But we do conduct monthly audits. I serve as a system administrator, so every month I'm checking all the officers' activity within the system. Everything that they do within that system is audited. So if I see myself, a certain officer, showing some sort of a trend or something like that, I'll definitely look further into that.

Would you have a way, though, of knowing if that search was, I use the term loosely, legitimate?

Right. So every search that we do, even within the system, an officer can't do a search unless they list a reason for that search and an associated case number. So we will see what the reason is for it.

All right. So would someone truly have to deliberately work hard to...

work through those? Correct. Yeah, they would have to lie about the reason for certain.

Okay. And I noticed the information is deleted after 30 days. 30 days, yep. If a person was truly trying hard to game the system and they put 31 days in between each one of their attempts, There would be no record of the past?

No. There's no record after 30 days, nor is there any way to go back and retrieve that data somehow. It is gone forever after 30 days.

And that's a factory?

Yes. They don't have access to it. We don't have access to it. It is gone after 30 days.

All right. And how often do you interact with police departments in other parts of the country?

As far as flock?

Or the systems that it connects, I mean, get alerts.

Well, so the cameras can be shared with different jurisdictions. So as far as us getting alerts from other jurisdictions, I can't tell you that exact number. I do know, as far as alerts go, We had 722 alerts in the last 30 days alone. I can't tell you exactly how many of those are from our agency or from outside agencies. I don't have that number.

Okay, and the only other question on, and I'm referring to, I don't know if you have this or not. Just so you can probably see what I'm referring to.

Sorry, I gave the commissioners a copy of that P2332. Yep, I have the policy, yep. Okay.

All right, thank you. It would be under item seven, ALPR data, on the second page of it, 7D. And it refers to, and I'm assuming this would be an alert that the officer would get, but people can be classified as, or situations can be classified as officer safety, suspected gang member, sexual offender, past offender, associate only, and information only. Right. What? safeguards or what reviewer information do we have to make sure that we're not pulling people over just because of either their past activity or

Suspect identification as opposed to a legitimate- Right, so earlier in this policy, an officer can't stop an individual based solely on an alert. So if a tag is alerted for whatever reason, whether it's a stolen vehicle, a registered offender, whatever the case may be, an officer cannot stop that vehicle without either confirming that alert or having reasonable suspicion to stop that vehicle.

Okay, but now if it's confirmed, let's just say it's a sexual offender. Is that then used as the reason to pull him over? Do you have to have a legitimate traffic reason?

Simply being a registered offender would not be reasonable suspicion to stop a vehicle.

Do we have any data that would show how many stops were made on the basis of those alerts?

Let me see. I don't have that number exactly.

Or is that information that's collected? I don't need an exact actual number.

So an officer would have to, we have a separate system where we document kind of our successes and that sort of thing. So an officer would have to make a note in that system that they stopped the vehicle based on alert.

And would they then have to give the reason Because that would be a non, I mean, if the person's not wanted, there's no warrant for their arrest. The only reason the alert flashed was their registered sex offender or suspected gang member.

Yeah, they don't go into the system and mark on that alert that they stopped the vehicle and why they stopped the vehicle. If they stopped the vehicle, they're going to have to explain what the reasonable suspicion was for stopping that vehicle, though.

Okay, there's a way to connect the alerts with the- The stops, because it's basically, well, just as a personal analogy, there's a term, driving while black. Sure. Yeah, the taillight may have had a little crack, but that wasn't the reason the guy got stopped. And there may be a reason entered into the system for that stop, but if the only reason he was pulled over originally was because One of these alerts came up, then we're getting into unfair bias policing. Is this, and I may be asking questions above both of our pay grades right now, but would there be ways to internally track this or the law enforcement advisory board, just some review to assure people that they're not being pulled over just Or if they are, then there's record of it and we can internally regulate ourselves.

Within the system, specifically Flock, we don't currently have it set up where we're tracking every alert that we receive, whether we're stopping a vehicle and what we're stopping it for, but that is something we could-

That's something we could do internally ourselves. Yeah, we'd have to- We'd use the flock data, but the work would actually be done internally.

Right, and if something were to come of that stop, an officer's documenting the report that they received the alert and what drew their attention to the vehicle.

Okay.

But that's something we can look at documenting in the future.

All right, thank you.

I have a question or two. You manage this overall program? Right. And how much of your time does that take?

Well, the auditing process probably takes about an hour a month, maybe a little bit more. And then when we get new officers, I train them on the system, any technical problems we might have with the system. So I would say on a monthly basis, five to six hours maybe working on it. Okay.

And following up on Commissioner Davis, we don't have any data on how many bad guys that has actually helped take off the street?

No, we do. So the cameras have directly contributed to at least 108 criminal investigations, resulting in 75 arrests, recovery of 18 stolen vehicles, and return of more than $371,000 in stolen property. In addition to that, there's numerous other cases. that we supplied additional evidence, cooperated witness statements, generated leads that have assisted in ongoing investigations in criminal prosecutions.

Okay, so we have quite a bit of that data. Right. And does it save any police time overall?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, for example, if we were to have a retail theft, a suspect leaves in a vehicle, we might have to look at surveillance video for hours trying to find a certain vehicle that may have fled the scene, whereas this system can make quick work of it. We can search by vehicle type, color, make model, and we can obtain a tag pretty easily that way.

Yeah, AI is amazing in that regard. Thank you.

I know there's concerns about abuse of the system. Have we had any complaints filed against the Salina Police Department for any type of abuse of the use of this? No, we have not.

Okay.

And for anyone to get on the system, it states in here that it has to be granted by the administrator. So you have to give

individual the operator the code or whatever to get on this right so once they go through training with me then I'll give them some login information and they can get in the system and you can track by that login information who's been in it then yes okay thank you you said the video deletes after 30 days but does the audit trail stay longer yeah the audit trail does not delete

Okay, so if somebody was on there two months ago.

Yeah, so if we get an allegation of some misuse from last year, we can go back and look at that information. Okay, thanks.

Commissioner Lakowitz, any questions right now?

No, I don't have anything to add.

Okay, anything else? Okay, are there any comments from the public on this item?

Maxwell of 422 South 9th. Commissioners, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this matter. I recognize it may be surprising to expect much controversy on a business item that merely renews what was unanimously approved by the commission in 2022. However, I feel that greater public awareness of flock safety and the real costs it brings to communities has resulted in more concern over these last three years and not less. At the time the Commission first entered into a contract for services with FLOC, the governing body wisely raised questions of use, intention, and transparency, as you have today. At the time, Interim Chief of Police Sean Morton highlighted the benefits that this camera network could bring to Salinas law enforcement initiatives, pointing to Wichita's experience as a community to model. I think it's worth looking at some aspects of that experience where two separate illegal abuses by law enforcement took place. In 2022, a lieutenant of the Kichai Police Department was arrested for manipulating Wichita Police Department's flock network in order to monitor the location and habits of his estranged wife. More recently, in 2024, former Sedgwick Chief of Police Lee Nygaard resigned after admitting to exploiting WPD's network over 200 times to stalk his ex-wife and her new boyfriend over a course of four months, a clear violation of legitimate law enforcement use of that system. Especially concerning is the use of search terms in the Sedgwick case. Nygaard, in complying with policies that require the use of legitimate search reasons before accessing the flock system, simply made things up. Over the four-month period of unlawful surveillance, it was matched by search reasons like test, suspicious, missing child, and narcotics investigation, all of which were lies. I've never seen reason to believe that SPD's officers would manipulate our own flock system this way. I think we have a good track record of community trust and of professionalism in Salina. However, the fact that officers elsewhere were able to do so while seeming to comply with our policy requirements meant to prevent abuse concerns me. It could well be that our practices are more secure than those throughout the greater Wichita area. Unfortunately, when an open records request was filed with the SPD in November of 2025, specifically to enable the public to examine the activity logs and the actual audits of the SPD and its ALPR system, the request was denied. The public is assured that our policies and practices can safeguard against abuse, but rather than following the adage of trust but verify, we're told simply to trust, even though nationwide There's plenty of evidence to support reasonable suspicion. But participating in a system that may not be safe from abuse is only the most local reason for Flock's skepticism. Other concerns with data security and the challenges of AI-enabled surveillance may pose for the future of civil liberties have led other communities like Verona, Wisconsin, Ithaca, New York, and Mountain View, California, all of which invested in Flock initially, to terminate their agreements with the company, which they say does not reflect their community's values. I agree. Communities are safer when policing is founded on mutual trust, and the SPD has worked hard to build and maintain that trust. Flock creates too many opportunities to undermine it, and with disastrous consequences. That's why I urge the Commission to vote to reject the contract renewal today. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jim Bent, 1115 Andrews, Salina, Kansas. So I'm here to speak again. I don't think you should renew that contract just right off the bat. So three points, and the first one is I previously heard the police officer say, quote, that the cop, quote, would have to lie, unquote, to manipulate the system. Well, many years ago, I sued the Salina Police Department and the city of Salina. for illegal stop, illegal search, and illegal arrest, and won that lawsuit hands down in federal court. So I saw the depositions that the cops filed in response to my attorney's interrogatories, lies. I never believe anything a cop says, never. So the second thing is that the system can be hacked. The National Security Agency's deep dark secrets were hacked. There's no system that can't be hacked. So the idea that, oh, well, this is going to be protected information, hogwash. And the third thing is I read in February 2025, Flock announced it was rolling out their AI models to determine if our behavior was suspicious. So I have done my homework on AI, AI snake oil, what artificial intelligence can do, what it can't, and how to tell the difference, written by two men whose names I cannot begin to pronounce, professor of computer science at Princeton and PhD candidate in computer science at Princeton. What AI cannot do worth a darn is predictive anything. They can't predict whether the sun is going to come up tomorrow or not. It's terrible. And if you don't believe that, this book's in the library, and I've read it, and it convinced me that this predictive AI business is poison. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Tony Johnson, Celina. I think our founding fathers probably been rolling over in their graves for years now. We can trace this invasion of our privacy and loss of liberty all the way back to the Patriot Act since 9-11. DUI checkpoints, seatbelt checkpoints, you name it. Civil asset forfeiture, this revenue grab. All of our police cars have license plate readers on them, front and rear, I do believe. And I just don't think we need to be tracking everybody because he says it's gone in 30 days, but somebody's got that data. And these cameras have been leaked to Peter Thiel and Palantir. Although he doesn't own it, he's provided hundreds of millions of dollars of funding supporting flock cameras. And he just recently moved his family to Argentina, which ironically doesn't share extraditions. privileges with the United States. I'm sure that's just a coincidence. But what Jim just said, it doesn't take a lot of research to figure out they're building AI models. They're using this for reasons that we can't even comprehend. No clue. But I think we need to quit. giving away our liberties and freedom in the interest of safety. I just think we're going down a slippery slope. Now, if the police would be willing to put a camera inside their car 24-7, I'll make that. Let's do that. We'll put one inside their car recording video and audio, inward and outward, and then they can record us out here on the street. That'd be a hell of a trick.

Thank you.

Hi, thank you guys. I'm Jess White from Salina. I'm a certified human rights consultant, mother of five, been studying AI for a few years now. I currently have an AI human ethics program in review at an Ivy League school. There's been a lot of different viewpoints from people today, and I just want to take a moment just to kind of look at it from a different perspective, kind of some of the things you were saying, a little bit of everything, because I don't believe that there's one cure-all. It's got to be very researched, very strategic, and like he was just saying, the information does not go away. It goes to the meta. It's stored into the super center and the super AI data centers. So no matter what, when you think it's gone, it's not gone. So I'm asking this commission to reject or at minimum place immediate moratorium on the use of flock safety automated license plate reader surveillance systems in our community. This issue is not about being for or against law enforcement. Public safety matters deeply to all of us. The question before the commission is whether mass surveillance of ordinary residents is an acceptable price for that safety. And I do not believe that it is. Flock cameras do not only monitor suspected criminals, they systemically record and store the movements of everyone. Parents taking children to school, residents attending church, citizens participating in protests, individuals visiting medical providers, and neighbors simply living their daily lives. That creates a permanent searchable database of innocent people's movement without a warrant, without individualized suspicion, and without meaningful consent. The Fourth Amendment was designed specifically to protect Americans from generalized government surveillance and dragnet style searches. Our constitutional rights should not disappear simply because technology has made mass tracking easier. The First Amendment is also implicated. In a free society, people should not have to wonder whether attending a political meeting, union gathering, protest, recovery group, or religious service places them in searchable surveillance network. When surveillance become normalized, self-censorship follows. There are also serious concerns regarding accountability and data control. Once information enters a nationwide private surveillance network, local residents lose meaningful oversight over how that data may ultimately be accessed, shared, retained, or expanded in the future. Across the country, there have already been documented cases involving the misuse of automated surveillance systems for unauthorized tracking, personal monitoring, and access beyond their originally stated purpose. History constantly shows us that surveillance powers rarely remain limited once established. This commission has an opportunity to draw a clear line before that infrastructure becomes permanent. We can support effective law enforcement while still protecting constitutional liberties, privacy rights, and the fundamental principle that innocent citizens should not be subject to constant monitoring simply for existing in a public life. Public safety and civil liberty are not opposing values. In America, they're supposed to coexist. And I respectfully urge this commission to protect the rights of the people you represent by rejecting the expansion of mass surveillance technology in our community. Thank you guys.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Alex Bischel of Solana, Kansas, Heel Circle. I've come forward to comment on the flock cameras before. I said I was concerned about an officer in Sedgwick who used the cameras to stalk his ex-girlfriend. But the real thing that bothers me about these cameras is that they give off the feeling that our city government thinks we're all criminals by default. Normally officers have to go to a judge and get a warrant to investigate people, and I don't really feel like this is that distinct from bugging someone's car. There should be some check on how we do that. There's been more stories coming out since I gave that opinion. There's a man in Ohio named Brandon Upchurch who was mistakenly flagged as having a stolen car and was attacked by a police dog. There was a man named Kyle Dousman in Colorado who they mistook him for a criminal and he felt like he was being harassed multiple times because there was an O on his car that was confused for a zero on his license plate. I don't think we should be turning our town into the dark night. I like to think that the people of this town are very kind and giving and charitable. And I think we should have an air of innocent and proven guilty, not criminal by default. So I would encourage not redoing the contract with Flock. Thank you. Thank you, Alex.

I'm Brock. I live at 2500 Virginia Drive, Magnolia Village. I've come here today to voice my concerns regarding the Flock ALPR system in our community. In an age where it is increasingly difficult to maintain personal privacy, I believe it is an overstep to be constantly tracked if I'm driving in the city of Salina. The point has already been made about the two misuses in Kansas. I'd like to reiterate that these reasons were lies, but it still granted access to the data collected by Flock. It is disheartening to know that anyone with access to the Flock database can use vague terminology or lies to access my personal life, along with every other citizen of Salina and the surrounding community. Stated in the documentation for item 4.3 is the fact that the police department has shared access to 40,000 ALPR systems across 2,500 agencies. It is to be assumed that these agencies also have access to Celina's collected data. A Supreme Court decision, Carpenter versus the United States, in 2018 declined the third-party doctrine. Chief Justice Roberts wrote, Quote, whether the government employs its own surveillance technology or leverages the technology of a wireless carrier, we hold that an individual maintains a legitimate expectation of privacy in the record of their physical movements as captured through CSLI. How is Flock any different? There are currently three cases in the United States challenging the flock system as a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And many cities have already canceled or ended their contracts with flock due to concerns of the Fourth Amendment violations. I ask that Celina does the same. Thank you. Thank you.

Is there any other companies out there? Put it out for bids. See if there's another company that might want to do this. You might get a lower bid because you're just renewing with one company. So you're kind of closing the opportunity for another company to come in.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Phillip Urban. I live on Highland Avenue in Salina with my wife and two boys. When reviewing the flock contract, I think we need to seriously consider a few things. Is the cost to taxpayers and the cost of privacy and security of innocent citizens worth any potential benefit of this surveillance system? Or is this money better spent elsewhere? To think how could this money have been used to improve our city if we made a better effort to use our resources to lift up those in need, there would be less crime and less need for a surveillance system like this at all. Our phones already track every move we make and trying to learn as much as they can to try to sell us more products. Now even with the phone off, we have to constantly think about everything we say and do, just walking around and driving around Salina or coming to meetings like this. I work in IT, so I understand the value of this kind of data. It might just seem like a few cameras around town taking pictures, but when you combine all the information together into the cloud in such a powerful searchable format, you paint a much bigger picture of the habits and whereabouts of every person, what they are doing, where they are going, all the time. Politically motivated venture capitalists have been increasing their investments into Flock, but no matter what your political ideology, any current or future government with possession of this data should bother you. Therefore, I strongly urge the city commission to reject the Flock contract and trust our local officers to do their job with the tools we've provided them for decades, instead of relying on companies that play on our fears, selling us a solution to a problem we don't have. Bottom line is, I felt safe in Salina before Flock, and now with it, I feel less safe. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Hello, Commissars. David Norland, 608 East Republic. As Mr. Wilbrock Talley said, thank you for the opportunity to bring this up to the public. and to open it for public discussion. I, for one, am very, very impressed with the ability of citizens to come up here in less than three minutes and put forth a lot of information that, in my opinion, presented almost an arguable case that you should cancel this contract. I wanted to mention two things in particular. When Police Chief Wise came to town, A lot of us were very glad to hear and see the kind of image that he was presenting, and it goes beyond image, but the kind of community outreach and the sense of building trust with the citizens. In that sense, the police chief built some capital that both he and you as commissioners, as representatives, the final authority actually about what happens in this city, accumulated. So you have a capital. I don't want to call it political capital, but you have capital of some sorts that, both in terms of money, $198,000 of capital, and in terms of public trust capital, you could spend much more wisely. I'm also very aware that there are people in this room whom I see that I am on pretty opposite sides of a political divide about how we see issues. I haven't heard from each one of them, but my sense of where those individuals are, both individually and as a group, is that they also would join in, and I may be wrong about that, but they would join in the affirmation of rejecting this contract. So as a community, and perhaps, I hope, as a unified community, I hope you do exactly that.

Anyone else?

Afternoon, commissioners. John Holloway, 217 South 9th. A couple points. I'll be on the side of everybody else and say we should not renew this contract. But for a couple of points that I haven't necessarily heard, one is this $200,000 that we are expected to pay, the data that they gain is worth multitudes more than that. So really, this should be a service they're offering for free because they're making plenty of money off of our data. Two, as this gentleman mentioned, I believe that was Benjamin Franklin that said that. He said another thing, too, that I'll paraphrase, that it's better that 100 guilty men go than one innocent man be held. And as we've seen with these things, they are pretty much a complete failure in terms of security and performance. So please don't renew the contract. Apply that money to the budget shortfall, which is what, $900,000? Be a better use for the $200,000. Thank you.

Good afternoon, guys.

John Waterman, 861 Roach. Of course, I'm going with the rejecting this. My point is I practice looking at similarities with people instead of our differences. And I would say everyone in here wants our future protected, our kids safe, protected. And is the flock cameras going to do that? If they are, why is it instilling so much fear into our community? The majority of people in here find fear in losing our data. And the reason this is, is because we've fallen for it over and over and over. You know, I have a phone contract and there's fine print. I don't get to read the fine print of this contract, right? So they might say, well, we're going to delete all information. But is it all or is it just license plate information and other information gets sold somewhere else? Correct? We all, people that are younger, we're a little bit older, so we may not know, but I work for people with autism. Intellectual disability. However, one guy can get on any network near him in range and control their computer. He can get on my computer and control it. He can get on a neighbor's computer and control it. What's stopping them? Even a young officer here said, I don't really have access to the information. Only certain amounts. Who does? Correct? So in that vein, I would like to say it would be more behooven of everyone, no matter what political divide or age, that we don't want to live in fear anymore. We do not trust corporations to control our data. We're all local families on both sides. We trust each other here. But can we trust a corporation? And plus, are we going to have to update this system? Are we going to have to have cameras to protect the cameras? Are these cameras just here to really protect private property or people that have more money than other people? We really don't know these things yet. So I just want you to weigh, there are more pros than cons here. Does it really benefit your community that much? Thank you, guys.

Kim Hill, Selena. I'm sure those two guys over there will correct me if I'm wrong, but just to give another perspective on Flock. Flock can be a very awesome tool also. When it comes to a homicide suspect, a rape suspect, a robbery suspect, a missing person, a kidnapping with an Amber Alert, Flock is getting real time alerts, correct, during these incidents. They have been proven to help catch these suspects in a lot faster time frame than before we had flock or the license plate readers. Saline is very fortunate in the fact that we don't have a lot of homicides. We don't have a lot of kidnappings. But what if? Because it can happen in this community anytime. So that is one huge benefit. Reference the two cases that I would refer to as misuse involving Cedric PD and Keechai PD. The outcome of that too, they're no longer officers in the state. So they're no longer officers in the state and that's what happens. We all have to face our consequences and stuff. But I just wanted to come up and give the pros to flocks, especially when it comes to major crimes and the real time alerts that these officers can have. Be getting so that they know which directions these suspects are going. And it's not just local. And stuff too, any law enforcement throughout our state or other states that have these flock cameras are going to be getting these alerts to help us bring these people into custody.

Thank you. Thank you, Kim.

My name is Jace Holloway, 217 South 9th. I would like to bring a wider perspective to this. This technology is built on the blood of thousands of innocents. A few years ago, I saw a woman and her child gunned down by an AI-powered Israeli drone. You want to know what I saw a few days ago? I saw a police department using an AI-powered armed drone to stop a simulated school shooting. I know that sounds... as a positive, but these things compound with each other. They will not stop. It will keep building on each other. Soon, from flock cameras, it'll be the drones that are integrated, and then eventually we might even see, like in China, road patrol AI-controlled robots. This, it's already happening. We are in a very important time in human history where we need to decide where we sell ourselves to people who don't even consider themselves as a part of our species. Or we fight for our privacy, we fight for our community instead of selling our information and data to people who don't even know our names, don't even know where we live, don't even know who we love. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mona Hargrave, Celina. I don't have facts for you. All these people already gave you a lot of facts to consider, but What I'm sitting back there thinking about is, so we've heard from what, at least 15 people sharing their concerns about flock cameras in the negative sense. And I think one person that shared the positives. I'm just waiting with baited breath to see what you guys decide on this. Because if you decide to renew this contract with Flock, that tells me that you're not listening to us. And if you won't listen to us, what are you doing up there? We're showing up. And if you care about your community, you should be listening to your community. And it's very plain to me that the people that bothered to show up in this room today, we don't like those flat cameras. We consider them an invasion of privacy. And there have been many documented cases of how they've been misused for nefarious reasons. So I just beg of you. Please, please hear what we're saying. We elected you guys. And I know I will consider at the next election how well y'all listened to us, your community. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Maxwell Salina. So I used to be an officer city of Hutchinson. I was there for a few years. They have flock cameras down there. As an officer who used flock, I can tell you it is a good tool. It does work. It does do its job. My advice to the city commission here would be know what you're getting in bed with because as many people have pointed out, this is a very powerful tool and if misused, it can be very devastating to the community. It is a way to look and develop a pattern of someone's behavior, where they go, what time they leave, where they're going. You get enough cameras together, you can map out someone's entire day every day for months and not even know it. I have tracked down suspects using a flock system before. It does work. It does protect the community. But at the same time, it can be a dangerous tool. My advice, again, just know what you're getting in bed with. Understand how powerful the technology can be. And listen to the people that got you guys in here because they're going to tell you whether or not they want that tool in their environment. I'm neither nor for nor against. I work for the county IT right now. So I've been inside because I've used the camera and I understand how it works now. So I can tell you both sides of that coin. And I won't deny you it is a tool. It's a good tool. But like I said, it can be a dangerous tool, as you can see. Just hope you guys had the best decision for the citizens at heart and make the best decision to help your police department as well. Thank you. Thank you.

Before you leave, with the mayor's permission, just ask him one question. Yeah, sure. Because he does have a unique perspective on this. If, not necessarily you, but say an officer wanted to track a particular individual, Does the system allow you to tell it to tell me where this vehicle, that plate or whatever has been, you know, show me all the cameras that this thing has showed up on over the course of a 24-hour period so you could actually surmise what their daily schedule was?

So, a gentleman from Flock, and correct me if I'm wrong, and it's been a couple years since I was an officer, but as far as I understand, the Flock system is a database of captured images. So you tell it, it's a camera, it's constantly running, it's capturing license plates every single time a car passes in front of it. It keeps that information for X amount of time. They could probably give you a better idea. But you could tell it, put it in a license plate number, and tell it how many times it's hit that license plate. And it'll tell you exactly what day, what time, and at what camera it hit that license plate. So with the right information, yes, you very well could track a vehicle if you had enough cameras. Because it'll tell you exactly when a car passed that camera. So you could see if that camera was near someone's house when they're leaving on a route to work, it would tell you every single time they left because it would hit that camera every single time. And if they had another camera, then you could tell they got from point A to point B. Then you could tell point C. So yeah, it does keep that data for a while and it maps it out for you. Officers would use this to be able to tell, you put a license plate in there, it'll tell you when's the last time that car passed by a camera. And if that was in a few minutes, you could easily track that vehicle and kind of tell what direction it was going and where it's going to be within the next few minutes. So again, powerful tool in both directions, depending on how you use it.

Would you, and this would be to you and our city attorney, to do that retrospectively in a non-emergent situation, does that require a search warrant?

I don't believe that requires a search warrant under the current interpretation of the Constitution by the U.S. Supreme Court. Under the department's policy, it would require either an existing case to plug into what they're looking for. They'd either have to say, this is an existing case and this is what we're doing, or there's a suspected case and they'd type that into the search information. But that's if that answers your question.

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. I can tell you that every time I've used it, we've always been tracking a suspect, that we already had a case involved, and we were using it to track a suspect. But like I said, if you had that information, you could just make up a case and plug that information in there and say, I'm looking for this license plate of my ex-girlfriend. That's what I mean by that. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? No. Thank you.

I'm Josh Rubino. I live at 110 North Delaware. I urge the city commission to reject the contract with Flock. And I want to reiterate a few points that were brought up and emphasize some of the more philosophical issues at hand here. namely that Flock, as a corporation, ultimately does not have any incentive to improve public safety, even if their tool claims to do so. Their entire goal is to make as much money as they can as a private company, right? And so I don't think they necessarily actually have any interest in you know, our community, of course, uh, or public safety in general. Uh, and then the other thing I want to mention as some folks have already brought up is that ultimately we are deciding to invest about $200,000 in a mass surveillance company. Um, and I just don't think that is the solution to public safety. I think we need public safety. Um, And I sympathize with those who are concerned about violent crime, rightfully so. But mass surveillance isn't the solution to that. Instead, that money could be invested in education, in ensuring fair housing for all, ensuring access to health care and mental health care that could prevent a lot of these sort of violent crimes in the first place. So I just wanted to reiterate these points, and I urge the city not to renew their contract with FLOC. Thank you.

Ben Winhold, Celina. I'm neutral on this flock camera, but as I listen to the people up here talking, a lot of them are using the analogy that this is invasion of privacy. Well let's look at it at this point of view. If you are paranoid about, in today's society and technology, about your privacy, don't go out in public because you are camera-ed, filmed, every time you go to a store multiple times, every time you drive down anybody's street with all the doorbell cameras that are out there now, it's like, Why are we not paranoid about all of that and just the flock cameras? Flock cameras is just a tool for the police, but there are cameras everywhere. And I don't know what the statistics are today, but if you're out in a public setting for, say, three or four hours, you're probably filmed or on camera at least 100 times. So kind of take that into effect. Honestly, I'm neutral on the whole thing. So thank you. Thank you.

Would Captain or Chief Weiss like to enter in anything else after some of the comments been made?

You know, I appreciate everybody's opinion. I really do. And I think. Can you give us your name? Not everybody knows who you are. I'm C.J. Wise, chief of police. And totally respect that. We can disagree about stuff. So, you know, so we're police officers, but we're also we're citizens also. So as these things come out and one of the gentlemen gave a Supreme Court decision, you talk about the cell phone. So as a police officer, so years ago when the cell phone first started getting really big, police officers would, if I arrested this man here, I'd take his phone and search through his whole phone book. Well, I remember at the time thinking, oh, that just doesn't feel right. And at the time, there was no ruling on it. And the case he mentioned is eventually the Supreme Court took it up and they're like, because these phones are like a computer. They have your whole life on it. So I can't just arrest you for something simple. I've got no probable cause to start searching through this stuff. So I totally understand that. And with these flawed cameras, and I get what people are saying, oh, hey, my invasion of privacy, and people have used and abused it. We have to make safeguards because we see those same cases too. When we see an officer, oh, I was tracking a girlfriend, we fine-tune our stuff like, oh, we need to make sure we're searching these certain things also because we don't want that to happen on our watch. And so... And the Supreme Court hasn't taken this up. Other courts, like the Ninth Circuit, has taken up this case, and they have ruled that it is permissible. And I think, too, so I think Mr. Winholtz brought this up about where if you go out. So these cameras are in places that. There's not an expectation of privacy. CJ, you might make sure you're speaking into the microphone. I'm afraid you're not being picked up by everybody. So the Supreme Court looks at different levels of privacy. And so one is your house is the main thing. But there are certain areas out in public they consider there's no expectation of privacy. And that's why these cameras are put in certain locations where theoretically we could have an officer standing there And recording tags also. There's nothing illegal about that because, like I said, there's no expectation of privacy. The officer has the legal right to be there. And so they're just collecting information that way. We don't have the manpower to do it. So basically, from our point of view, this gives us another set of eyes where Captain Tonnages had made comment to some of the cases that we have solved. We probably would have not if we – I wouldn't say we wouldn't have solved them. But we definitely wouldn't have solved them as quick as we did. Because to Mr. Davis, you'd made the point, can we track somebody? That's how some of our cases get solved, is we have a shooting, an assault, and then they tell us, hey, a red whatever car. We start searching for this car, and they're like, oh, in that area, we saw him going eastbound on this road. And so that's how we go, okay, that's the only car that's in that area. And so we make cases that way off of if, I mean, use the term tracking. So we do use that. So it is a benefit to us. It helps us to solve some cases quicker. But I totally respect everybody, like what they've brought forth, their concerns. Me as a citizen, I have the same concerns on a lot of other things. But I can tell you, we have to do safeguards. to make sure our officers are using this ethically. And Captain Tonnages, he is the one that helped implement this prior to me even getting here. And I know he's always, we're monitoring and everything to make sure that we're not using and abusing this.

Thank you.

Actually, can I get you to elaborate on, and I understand this already, but just for the benefit of everybody in the room, because I know the standard is that the case number needs to be entered before you can do a search, and maybe elaborate on what it takes to actually have a case number in the system. It's not just some arbitrary thing that just you can conjure up.

So having a case number that means so I've pulled a case number that means I'm writing a report about this and so I've got an investigation and it kind of goes back to the example I gave about we've got we had a burglary and they say oh I saw a red car in the area I start searching that well I'm going to link it back to this case and say you know case 2501 this is what it's tied to and you know and i know captain tonnage's make sure hey you know he's reached out reached out to officers like hey you didn't put a case number you need to add this you need to add that to making sure our audit trail stays solid

In the course of an ordinary day at work for the officers, is the camera just recording all day long? Just picking up whatever license plate it sees and responds only to those for which- Picks up motion, from what I understand.

Is that right, Captain Tonnages? Yeah, they're not just recording all the time. It picks up a motion, and then so it will take a snapshot of a car in that area.

So it's just randomly, it's not necessarily searching for a particular number? No.

Now, if that number's been reported and there's an alert for it, it would... Well, it doesn't, you know, when it's taken that snapshot, it doesn't know if that's a stolen car or whatever. It just sees motion, takes a snapshot, and then it feeds it through its information, and then it goes, oh, this car is reported stolen. So it's just taking snapshots.

And that's a relatively, like, within five, ten second time? It's a pretty quick turnaround. I don't know the exact. But enough for an officer to make a response right at that time?

Yes, yes.

Okay. What would be different if you didn't have the system?

Well, a lot of times if we have no direction of travel. Same analogy I gave. Somebody, hey, we got, you know, I got assaulted and this car was a red car. Well, you know, we're driving around, especially at evening time. There's a lot of red cars or just cars in general. We have no direction of travel. And so, like I said, that case is definitely going to be delayed in getting solved or it may not be solved at all. Like I said, these cameras are like another set of eyes out there. They go, oh, hey, that car just passed by here where we wasn't there, so we wouldn't have known that.

And most of our cameras are in motion on vehicles as opposed to being stationary. We have, what, two stationary ones?

The flock ones that we're talking about, they're the stationary ones. They are? Yes.

Okay. Does our department announce where they are going to be?

No.

No, okay.

And, too, I think they are a crime deterrent, too, because people would – and they're not camouflaged. They're not hidden. And I think Lowe's even has one because I know we used to get calls all the time going, why did you put one at Lowe's? We didn't. So Lowe's bought one themselves to keep their costs down for thefts and to hopefully help catch people and a deterrent because when people know that, they go, I'm going to stay out of that area. All right.

Okay.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I will bring it back to the Commission for further discussion or motion.

Well, you know, as far as the privacy issue, maybe I'm just being cynical, but I think that ship has sailed. And, you know, maybe it was my generation that let it leave port or the generation behind us, but... found kind of interesting, the comment, and I apologize, I can't remember your name, but you said they don't know your name, where you live, or who you love. Well, they do. My wife was in Las Vegas, went to a store that I would never go shopping at. I didn't know she was at the store. But the next morning, I got an advertisement on my phone from that store I would never shop at. And it said... Her birthday is Sunday. What would you like to get? Well, I didn't know she was at the store. She came home and said, yeah, I went into such and such. I said, when were you in there? Friday night, and so big brother knew who she was, knew who I was, knew her birthday. And I guess the personally insulting thing, assumed I hadn't bought her a birthday gift and said, you know, you need to buy her something from us. I drove to Kansas City to get these stitches taken out of this hand the other day. I'm assuming I was photographed probably four or five times on the interstate. You could argue if you got nothing to hide, then you don't have anything to worry about, which is what our grandparents would probably tell us. But the issue of safety and privacy, I'm not selling short. Technology has allowed some people to do things that aren't good a little more easily. 50 years ago, a black person driving, in fact, he was a reporter from the Washington Post driving west across Interstate 70 in Kansas, was pulled over for no other reason than he was black. Well, they didn't need AI for that. All they had to do was look at him, all right, in its most basic sense. So the motivation of the person using technology It goes a long way towards determining how it's going to be used. And I don't know to what extent we can put safeguards on the system. I would think that through our policies we can protect our safety and to some extent our privacy. But the same privacy we're worried about is the privacy that we rely on the police using if somebody breaks into our house, or snatches our kid, or if there's a, Somebody shooting a gun, driving down the street. But what did we do? We pick up the phone, 911. Yeah, it was a red car and it was going that way. Well, there are 20 streets that that car could have taken. So what do we expect the officer to do? Call a helicopter, use technology. Well, this is some of the technology that they're using. And I think it's on us to safeguard our protection with stronger policies. And I don't know which agency, organization, committee could be gathered. I know we already have a law enforcement advisory board, but to make sure our policies are strong enough to give us some degree of protection. the protection we want without sacrificing some of our privacy. I mean, you just can't have it both ways. I'm not as bothered by the use of the technology, and that may be because I don't feel like I have anything to hide and there's not much more of my personal privacy that probably ain't known already at this point. I think after hearing comments, and I must admit, as a group of folks presenting, it was a rather uplifting conversation. I appreciate that. I think we owe it to ourselves to make sure that we can put in safeguards to the extent possible. It sounds like the company does not offer that, but it sounds like also we have the ability to dictate How the information is going to be used and how we check to see how it's being used.

I know we have, go ahead. I was going to say, 50 years ago, our officers were sent out with a revolver, a shotgun, and no safety gear. They didn't even have bulletproof vests at the time. Obviously in that time, there's been a lot of technology come our way to keep officers safer, keep the citizens safer. With this type of technology, had we had it 50 years ago, a robber from Wichita may have gotten caught sooner and not led to whatever incidents happened that day. So I just have a hard time voting against any type of tool that would help the police officers in their duties.

I'll go ahead and go down this way. As ex-law enforcement, I guess we'll let you.

I'll start with Flock being a private corporation. I mean, its existence is predicated on profit. So I guess the question is, is that based on the service it provides us as a governing entity on lowering crime rates? Or is it about collecting data that they can utilize in some other manner? I'd like to think it's based on cutting back on crime and violent incidents and kidnappings, etc., And the conversation about privacy is not lost on me, but there's a moral quandary that personally I feel like we're going to have a heck of a time explaining to somebody, for instance, if their kid is kidnapped and killed and we have a tool that we could implement that would help with that situation and look that person in the eye and if we vote this down and say we've done everything we can to make this community safer, And in my opinion, the answer would be no, if we vote this down. And it would be one thing if these cameras were pointed at your home, your driveway, etc. But these are public roadways, and it's been a commonly accepted thing that if you're on a public roadway, your tax dollars pay for it. Your expectations of privacy are nil. I mean, to get on that roadway, you already have to purchase a tag. that says you have the right to be on that roadway and you paid your property tax and registered that vehicle, which I'm sure at some point when their vehicle registration conversation came into play, God knows how long ago, that was probably a similar conversation, but we've already accepted it. It's part of our society. We go in every year, we pay for it. There's an assigned number to our vehicle and there it is. And I don't see the flock system being any more intrusive than our phones. I mean, for God's sake, if I order Pizza Hut, it wants to know where I am. And rightfully so, but these apps, they keep running and they check your GPS location and we've accepted this into our lives with no problem. Here we have a tool that we know is based solely on to keep the city a safer place to be. So that's kind of where I'm at, is I'm in favor of renewing the contract.

Commissioner Ripp? You all make very valid points. As Mr. Windhull said earlier, I'm neutral on this. I mean, personally, I agree with everything that you guys are saying. I'm a big supporter of police. Yet at the same time, we're supposed to work for the community. And everybody that has spoke, with the exception of Miss Hill, spoke out against them. Before this meeting, I heard from 15, 20 people reached out to me to express their their displeasure or not wanting the contract renewed. And with the thought of we're supposed to represent the community and our trust factor is not high right now, I think we should vote to deny.

A couple things, we do have new legal counsel now, so Commissioner Davis, I do think we should, I think he's probably had a chance to completely review what they call the general order, so I would like for us to do that. I'm probably just the opposite of Commissioner Remp. I've had more individuals probably make the comment, like Commissioner Davis did, their privacies already. They've already given up certain liberties by using a phone and things and felt that the flock cameras actually they didn't feel intimidated by or felt like they were being invaded. They felt like it was a safety concern for the community. So I probably offset your 15 people with people I've talked to that that feel like it is a benefit to the community and it's a tool that the police do use to help keep the community safe. And so there are other individuals that aren't in this room that I do know do support the use of it. And so with that being said, I will accept a motion from the commission.

Mayor Hoppeck, I move that we approve a motion authorizing the city manager to sign a three-year service agreement with Flock Group Incorporated, DBA Flock Safety, for continued ALPR services of 22 fixed automatic license plate readers in the amount of $198,000. I'll second that.

We have a motion and a second authorizing the city manager to sign a three year service agreement with Flock Group Incorporated, DBA Flock Safety for continued ALPR services of 22 fixed automatic license plate readers in the amount of 198,000. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. That item passes 4-1 and I do. I believe it's a tough call when you're discussing liberties versus safety. And I guess in my case, safety won out in this case.

From a procedural standpoint, if there was a desire to have a committee to look at policies of use to make sure that reasonable incursions into privacy are not being exceeded. How would we go about doing that?

I think the LACRB has already set up to review police department policies, so we can just ask the police department to put that on an upcoming agenda and have them review the policy for sure.

And in particular, being proactive in setting parameters beyond which it truly should, not necessarily a search warrant, but I mean should go to the highest authority before use. And I don't want to sit here and make up. A policy off the top of my head.

Yeah, and I'm not ready to make one either, but I think we can look at best practices. This is a new technology evolving across the country, and I'm sure other places are looking at this hard, so we can see what else they have out there. And if we need to brush up the existing policy and maybe tie it in more directly to the citizen review board, those seem like reasonable things we could pretty easily do.

Okay, thank you. Okay, that will lead us to item 5.1.

Item 5.1, consider awarding Phase 2 of the bid to replace and refresh the landscaping on South 9th Street Medians to Landscape Consultants LLC in an amount not to exceed $134,047.07. Okay, Mr. Lehmer. Mayor, commissioners, thank you.

made a decision before that I wear the tie, I'm only gonna be in there for a few minutes. Wrong choice. Most of this you guys have already seen, but for the new commissioner, I'll go over it. We, in 2023, we were asked to kind of revamp our landscaping on 9th Street as it is one of the gateways, one of the high visibility areas. You know what, I'm gonna stop. Brett Lehmer, Deputy Director, Parks and Rec, sorry. Anyways, in 2023, we were asked to kind of revamp the area, high visibility areas. We were already working on downtown, so we turned our attention to 9th Street. In 2024, they kind of came up with a plan. We kind of came up with how much it would cost and decided to start that process in 2025. So Jeff came up here last year, about a year ago, to get the approval to do phase one. I'm here to move to phase two. So we got three quotes, or tried to get three quotes. They came back in fairly favorable. And we ended up still not having enough in our operating budget. And so we decided to phase it out, so into a couple phases. And phase one was finished in fall of 25. There's some pictures to show kind of what it looked like prior. And then thanks to our friends at Google Street View, They probably track us too, anyways. The picture on the right was taken in October, so it was right after it was planted. It's a little different now, and also we do have a year warning on that stuff, so the stuff that is looking kind of shabby is gonna be replaced here very soon. You can just scroll through it if you wouldn't mind. We did the intersections in the first phase. For this phase, for phase two, we decided to move inward and look at the ones that aren't on the corners or on the edges. So sorry for the description. That's how we described them. So Riffle South, Riffle North, the Bold South, the Bold North, Longhorns, Capital Federal, Petco. Those are how we signify them. It's just basically the business that they're in front of. We tried to get it down. We have $125,000 in our operating budget for this. We tried to get it down there. We even kind of relaxed some of our expectations, but we just couldn't. So the total came to $131,418. So we asked that we supplement the $125 with the park capital fund. to just get that extra $6,000 so we can make it, put a nice bow on this. There are a few medians that are not included. They were either already in good shape or we are gonna do away with them. They're off kind of on their own and we'd rather just get rid of the maintenance and so they'll probably be put to turf. There's three that are on Broadway as kind of what used to be Family Video. I think it's a vape shop or something. As you veer off, we decided to put those to turf so we no longer had to go maintain them. And the other ones have plantings in them that is good enough that we think we don't want to mess it up.

They look good enough that we don't want to touch those.

as I stated, we had $125,000 in the general fund. We asked that we get $6,418 from the Park Improvement Capital Fund. And then we also, in the first phase, we ran into a little snafu with some irrigation. We don't think that'll be the case. The irrigation in the beds we're asking for here is a little bit better, so we don't think we would, but we wanted to put it in just in case. So we asked for a 2% contingency out of operating irrigation funds just in case we do run into a an issue because I think we ran into a small $1,300 issue or something last time. So with that, Staff, you could approve the motion as it is with all the changes. You can amend it if you would like and change it. You can postpone it or you can obviously say, no, we'd like to do something different. Staff recommends option one, and I stand for questions.

Any questions for Mr. Lehmer?

Quick question, Brett. Mm-hmm. You talk about the $131,000, but what am I missing down below? The quoted price of $216,000. What am I missing there?

So that was in early 2025 that we got quotes from three companies. That's when it came back, so we split it up. This year, we went back and asked landscape consultants if their prices were still good.

For these specifically?

Yes, and they had to raise their prices. Fuel and some other stuff added it, but they still don't equal what the minimum of the previous bids, so we updated the cost and then went from there. And that's also part of the reason why some of those beds got just taken off.

In the last few days, I've looked at them multiple times and the redone ones look so much better. And landscaping gets to a point where if it gets too overgrown, Yes. Yeah, it's time to start fresh.

That is one of the problems. We did magnolia right as I got here as a full-time employee, and they've actually done so well, we've actually had to go back and remove some plantings because they cause sight lines and issues like that. So with these, these plantings were specifically picked so that we wouldn't have that issue in the future. They shouldn't grow tall, they can be maintained, and we won't have the sight line issues that we had on magnolia.

A little follow up on that. I'm related, but it's related. The trees along 135. I know I've talked to Jacob about it a couple of times, but I hope anything that if we approve this, and I'm a big fan of landscape consultants. I've used them pretty much exclusively over the years. But I think there should be a tie in with making sure that's fully rectified too.

uh... high that's not our project i apologize but i did uh... consult with mister with uh... the director marsh on those and those the reason they look as bad as they did as they have one of our uh... we planted some at the same exact time they didn't all make it but they are they look quite a bit better uh... so we thought about it we were gonna work with landscape consultants to make sure that that uh... area also get some attention as well so i was It's not my project, so I can't say what has been done, but I can also say that we did take notice of it as well. This was an exceedingly dry winter, fair, like mild temperatures. It got cold a few times, but we didn't have that traditional winter, so the trees had a harder time going into dormancy, and then the wind that we had, which was incredible, dried them out, and that's part of the problem that we had there.

And those trees are under a two-year agreement with landscape consultants to maintain them, so anything that dies or doesn't make it will be replaced.

And that has been started. They've been on it. They were aware of it. Thank you.

Any other questions from the commission? Any comments from the public? If not, I will bring it back to the commission for action.

I go ahead and make a motion to award phase two of the bid to replace and refresh the landscape on South 9th. Medians to Landscape Consultants LLC in the amount of $131,418.70 with a $2,628.37. Construction contingency for the total project authorization not to exceed $134,047 and authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with Landscape Consultants LLC upon fulfillment of all the prereqs under the bid docs.

Second. We have a motion and a second to award phase two of the bid to replace and refresh the landscaping on South 9th Street Medians to Landscape Consultants LLC in the amount of $131,418.70. with a $2,628.37 construction contingency for a total project authorization not to exceed $134,047.07 and authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with Landscape Consultants LLC upon fulfillment of all prerequisites under the bid documents. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That item passes 5-0. That will bring us to development business.

Item 6.1. Consider awarding the bid for demolition of 1616 West Crawford Street, project number DS-26-1, to Deal Enterprises of Salina, Kansas, in the amount of $782,411.

Okay, I am going to turn this over to the Vice Mayor. I do have a business relationship with one of the owners of Deal Enterprises, and also I'm gonna recuse myself on item 6.2 as my wife is an employee of Salina Regional Health Center.

You ready? Mr. Furbeck. Well, I guess I don't have to go with good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, but good afternoon, commissioners. Sean Furbeck, dangerous structure specialist. Per the commission's request in resolution number 26-8334, a sealed bid process was started and completed for the demolition of the structure and debris at 16 West Crawford Street here in Salina. Three qualified bids were submitted in the following amount. Deal of Enterprises at $782,411. T&R Construction, $987,000. Remco Demolition LLC, $1,800,000. We did receive a bid from another company, lazy age fencing and dirt work, they have withdrew their bid for consideration. We would ask that, well, you really have three options here. Approve and award the bid for demolition of 1616 West Crawford Street to deal enterprises in the amount of $782,411. Direct staff to publish notice for a second round of bids. Decline to award a demolition project, demolition contract for this project. Staff would recommend that we move the city commission to award the contract for the demolition to deal enterprises in the amount of $782,411. Be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Quick question. Go ahead. No, I was seeing if there's questions. All right. Sean, about a month ago we had bids from from these same entities, I think. Maybe there's a, I know AZH wasn't on there, but do we know what those bid amounts were from a month ago?

For which project?

Well, for taking away the demolition material. Yeah, for this project.

These are the same bids that we received. They opened up on May 1st. Or May 15th, excuse me.

So these are those bids? These are those bids. Okay, because I know there was some confusion regarding an item or two missing or something, but hey, if they're the same bids, question answered. Same bids.

Thank you. Anyone else? No, sorry. Questions, comments from the public?

Tony Johnson, Celina. I have a serious concern regarding the recommendation of Deal Enterprises for this project. According to records and correspondence obtained via court requests involving KDHE, Deal Enterprises met with KDHE officials on May 16, 2025 and represented that they would be taking over the Ambassador Hotel demolition project. The following day, May 17th, they submitted a written plan outlining the sorting, cleanup, and disposal process and stated the work would be completed within 60 days. KDHE accepted that plan on May 19th on the temporary nature of the project. However, on July 11th, 2025, KDHE... directed deal enterprises and city staff that all demolition, sorting, and hauling activities were to cease until the Bureau of Waste Management could determine the possible proper disposal requirements. This action followed KDHE's observation of deal trucks dumping unsorted debris on the property off Cherry Street. The debris originated from the Ambassador Hotel that reportedly contained drug paraphernalia, human waste, and other potential hazardous materials. KDHE's concerns were significant enough to halt operations until the matter was addressed. While KDHE later indicated the issue had been resolved after cleanup of the dumping site, the fact remains this incident occurred and involved apparent violations of Kansas solid waste disposal requirements. My question is this, why is a contractor associated with this incident now being recommended for this project again, this time on our dime? City staff were copied on this correspondence throughout this process and should be fully aware of what occurred. When evaluating bidders, I would expect a contractor's compliance history and demonstrated adherence to state regulations to be important considerations. I also have concerns regarding the bid amount itself when compared to the other bids. I question whether the project can realistically be completed for the amount submitted. Given this city's history of approving change orders, I believe that possibility deserves careful scrutiny before a contract is awarded. For those reasons, I believe the Commission should seriously consider whether accepting the next lowest bid from T&R might ultimately provide better value and reduce risk to the taxpayer. Thank you.

Ben Winholz-Salina. Piggyback on what Tony just said. He was caught red-handed. Okay, and yet you're going to award him another bid. And what's really ironic is Mr. Mayor Hoppeck had to recuse himself because he has a business association with one of the owners of that company. This is the same owner that was on board when the log jam happened. scenario came up and you awarded 1.2 million dollars to him and Hoppe was behind it too. Because I remember that study session, I remember it quite well on what I had brought up and how it was shot down as being a better way of doing a log jam. There's all kinds of different pieces of the puzzle here that aren't quite making any sense and being put together now, it does make sense that you seem to be wanting to award a certain individual more work when he's already had the site stopped in the first place for months, possibly a year, and here we go again. Is it a good old boy situation or is this legit? Thank you.

Anyone else? We'll bring it back for consideration.

Do we know if any punitive action was taken by KDHE last year?

Yeah. I don't know the details of what happened with KDHE. There was some concerns about the way that they were dumping those, uh, dumping the material from the site. I will say that, uh, our agreement with them requires them to take the waste to the landfill. So there is a certified place that they can take it. So they won't be allowed to take, um, waste anywhere else. It has to come to the landfill. And we've worked with all the bidders actually that bid on this project in terms of landfill fees and the costs. So they are all very well, uh, well aware, um, OF THE SITUATION AND WHERE THE WASTE NEEDS TO BE DUMPED.

FOR SOME OF OUR PROJECTS, THERE'S A ENGINEER'S ESTIMATE. WAS THERE AN ESTIMATE OF WHAT Because I'm not going to be able to sit here and tell you whether 782,000 is enough.

I think our estimate in terms of how much we knew, we have an estimate about what we thought would be coming to the landfill in terms of how much waste would come, the number of loads. But I'm not sure that we have an estimate in terms of we did not have an engineer take a look at this.

We believe that there is a minimum of 200 loads. That's minimum.

Yeah, so most of our cost that we estimated was based on what it would take to dump it at the landfill and pay for landfill fees.

Which we're giving a minimum estimation of $360,000 just in dumping fees.

Now is this a not to exceed amount? Yes. So it's keep working until the job is done and this is what you get? I mean, it's unlikely anything new is going to pop up out the ground. I mean, the work's right there in front of me.

There's no, correct me if I'm wrong, Sean, but there's no per unit or per dump bidding in this. There's no real breakdown. It's to clean this site, and what I think we have in our bid documents is to clean this site as per KDHE standards and follow all state laws, follow KDHE rules, and put it back in certain condition. There might be some details in terms of like what you guys require the site to look like at the end in terms of layout. I mean, but basically from laypersons, from our perspective, get rid of all the junk and leave a good site. But we don't have it break down like this is how much, it doesn't really break down per unit. So this is how much you get for doing this work.

So unlike the clearing the log jam, We're not paying for a certain amount of work to be, and we're paying for the job to be completed. Yeah, that's correct. Yeah.

It doesn't, this job does not increase.

Right. Correct. That's what I assumed, but just wanted to make sure.

Because the log jam had a second event that causes a change order.

That's correct, and I and I believe that the business relationship between That that the mayor recused himself. I think that is a new a new situation I think the business relationship has changed over the over the past several months and that that would be the reason that he recused himself I don't have all the details about that relationship and how the timing of that but I don't believe that the same relationship exists today or existed at the time that we did the logjam and as it does today. So that's my understanding.

And to allay any anxiety, the commissioners really don't get involved in opening the bids and setting the prices of the contract. We see this Thursday afternoon, same time you see it. So I don't think we're really... are ever in a position where we could influence the recommendation that comes to us. Now we can not accept it once we see it up here, but we don't have the opportunity to be in a back room setting these deals ahead of time.

I have to throw out there that Tony Johnson brought up information that I was not aware of. And I'd really like to find out more about that.

Hello, commissioners. I'm stating deal the accused. I can answer your question however you'd like it answered.

Well, Tony, Mr. Johnson brought up the dumping of material that on Cherry Street, again, excuse my ignorance, I'm not even sure where Cherry Street is, but the material being dumped there versus being taken to the landfill?

Yes. When this project first started, the mess was created by an original contractor that was not me. There was multiple accusations of me dumping illegal material at multiple sites. He mentioned one place. There was four others that we went to. None of them was under the criteria of what they said. They were false accusations. People were upset about the log jam. People were upset about the jail project that I was awarded. He's still upset about stuff, and this will continue on for the rest of my life, I imagine. Also talking about drug paraphernalia and whatever else he said, that was not in no KDH report. There wasn't any of that. That's a falsified statement on his part, and the loads were dumped there by the previous contractor, before us but I was a contractor at that time dealing with it so it fell on my responsibility to do it and we went over there and did whatever KDHE wanted to do and cleaned it up and have a clean record with them.

Okay. Thank you. I got a question overall. Somebody threw out, I think, $380,000 or something in dumping fees to the landfill. Does that come back to the city?

Yes, it would go to the landfill. So that's included in that 782? It is. So the landfill is an enterprise fund, so the city will pay for the contract, but as part of that, we will pay that it will go to the landfill, and the landfill will collect those fees and will be part of that fund.

So rather than 782, we're looking at 300,000 and change. Well, we will pay the full amount. Right, right, but it will come back to us.

And landfill fee. Yes, but it will go from one fund. So it will go from the general fund into the landfill. So it will still be a general fund expense.

But still with the city, like you're correct. It still stays with the city ultimately, yeah.

OK. I'll entertain a motion.

Mr. Vice Mayor, I move that the city commission award the contract for the demolition of 1616 West Crawford Street, project number DS-26-1 to deal enterprises in the amount of $782,411. Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded that we approve and award the bid for demolition of 1616 West Crawford Street, project number DS-26-1, to deal enterprise in the amount of $782,411. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. That passes 4-0. Item 6-2.

Item 6.2, consider approval of ordinance number 26-11284, rezoning lots 174, 176, 178, 186, and 188 on 4th Street from C3 shopping center and R3 multiple family residential to C4 central business to allow for the construction of a new surgery center.

One second.

I'm going to recuse myself as most of you know I'm an employee of Salina Regional Health Center. I'd probably look better if I wasn't part of this decision.

Okay, Mr. Herz. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm Dustin Herz with Planning and Zoning here for the City of Salina. And our next item is Case ZMA-26003, presenting Ordinance No. 26-1123. The applicant, Salina Regional Health Center, is represented by Trainer Design and is requesting a zoning map amendment for a 30,000 square foot area consisting of multiple parcels along the west side of 4th Street. Next slide, please. The applicant proposes to rezone specific parcels currently maintained split zoning designated R3, which is the north piece there, the highlighted in blue, which is our multifamily residential zoning district, and C3, which is the south block there, the blue. highlighted, which is our shopping center zoning district to C4, which is our downtown central business district zoning category. The objective of this amendment is to bring the applicant's entire property under one unified zoning classification, which would facilitate the potential construction of a new three-story surgery center and medical clinic that they're proposing. In looking at the surrounding zoning, next slide please, The neighborhood context, the subject properties are situated in a highly commercialized area. The site is abutted by C4 zoning both to the north and to the west as shown on the map there. which contains a hotel parking lot and a bank. To the east, you have the existing hospital administrative office building, which is zoned C3. And then to the south, you have the city's water treatment plant, which is zoned R3, and that's the brown at the very, very bottom of the screen. Next slide, looking at the background, Salina Regional Health Center is seeking to redevelop the overall 2.38 acre zoning lot. Next slide there, Scott, the original residential dwellings, which are kind of towards the north end of the property on 4th Street have been demolished and because adjacent lots within the same block were previously rezone to see for 1981. which is the gray parking lot area between, if you look on the right screen, you have the orange areas on the north and the south. Those are the rezoning pieces. The parking lot that Scott is highlighting was rezoned to C4 in 1981. And the existing R3 and C3 parcels, subject to today's request, physically separate one another, creating a fragmented zoning pattern across the applicant's property, which brings us to the nature of the request. Next slide, please, Scott. This request resolves the fragmented checkerboard zoning that currently exists. The rezoning of these particular parcels to C4 would unify the entire lot into one zoning district. and would allow the applicant to move forward with their proposed redevelopment of the property, which would be for a three-story medical clinic. As part of the site development, the applicant intends to relocate the existing overhead power line, which is currently in the alley, and upgrade the sanitary sewer line that is located within the bisecting alleyway. So next slide, please. So it's hard to see here on this screen, but you have the parcels that face 4th Street, you have the parcels that face 5th Street, and there's an alley right down the middle of the property. And so... If approved, the property becomes subject to the C4 district business regulations. The C4 district does not dictate minimum lot sizes, setbacks, or building heights, and allows for up to 100% lot coverage. Additionally, the C4 district makes off-street parking voluntary and doesn't require off-street parking as most of our other commercial districts do. Looking at the rezoning criteria, next slide, please. The first is the suitability of the site for the current zoning and proposed zoning. And when evaluating the suitability of the site under the existing zoning, staff found that evaluating a single 32,000 plus square foot medical clinic footprint under three different zoning criteria under three different sets of bulk regulations and zoning codes is impractical and rezoning the property to C4 resolves the isolated pocket of C3 zoning that you have on the southeast portion of the property and extinguishes the obsolete R3 zoning and matches the existing C4 zoning that you have on the rest of the zoning lot. Next slide, please. Looking at the character of the neighborhood, the block has completely transitioned away from residential use and is predominantly commercial and institutional. A three-story medical clinic aligns with the existing commercial character and the operational intensity of the adjacent downtown and area properties. Next slide. Looking at the public utilities, storm drainage, and services, the site is served by an existing municipal utilities including a 12 inch and 16 inch water lines a 66 inch wide storm sewer pipe and the applicant is proposing to upgrade the 15 inch sanitary sewer line that is located in the alley the proposed clinic will not generate residential population growth will not overload public schools and will not jeopardize fire or police protection looking at street and traffic. Next slide, please. The subject tract possesses significant street frontage on South Street, Fifth Street, and Fourth Street. While all street parking is voluntary in the C4 district, the applicant is proposing 114 off-street parking spaces and three entrances. The entrances are highlighted with the red circles, so you have two entrances and exits on Fifth Street and one on Fourth Street. Next slide, please. Looking at conformance of the comprehensive plan, the request aligns with the comprehensive plan's future land use map, which designates this property as part of the downtown land use category. The proposed medical clinic meets specific downtown development criteria by functioning as a larger institutional and office facility, utilizing a multi-story design that maintains density and incorporating the redevelopment and use of the existing alley, which is a goal of the comprehensive plan. Next slide, staff analysis. Resolving split zoning is a fundamental best practice in planning. Unifying this site under C4 district requirements eliminates the regulatory barrier of enforcing multiple district sets of development standards on one property. It transitions vacant lots into professional medical campus and secures upgraded utility infrastructure for this site. Next slide. City Commission action options that we've identified for you. Number one is approve ordinance number 26-11284 requiring three affirmative votes. Number two, return the item to the Planning Commission with reasons. of disagreement. Number three, postpone consideration to a future meeting to allow the applicant staff to obtain additional information for you. Number four, you could deny the application which requires four votes and alternative findings. Next slide. The Planning Commission held a public hearing on May 5th, 2026 and voted 6-0 to recommend approval of the Zoning Amendment. Following the 14-day statutory protest period, no petitions have been received. staff recommends that the city commission approve ordinance number 26-11284 rezoning the subject properties to see for central business district consistent with the findings and the recommendation of the planning commission with that we would take any questions that you might have and we do have the applicant's representative online if there are any questions for him right um dustin yes

C4 allows 100% lot coverage. Does that mean they have no landscape requirement?

Correct. Yeah, in the C4 district, you're not required to have landscaping, so any landscaping would be voluntary.

I know that the complexion of all that area through there is changing dramatically, I think for the better. But any concern about, as we continue to develop, any concern about runoff from all the concrete, pavement, buildings?

Yeah, so in that area there is a 66 inch wide storm sewer pipe to collect water. So we do have infrastructure in the downtown area for those types of events. And one thing that you will find when you're redeveloping the downtown area is that because of the urban development pattern that already exists with not saying everything is paved, not saying everything is rooftops, but for the most part, we are dealing with a lot of pavement, a lot of rooftops in our downtown area. We do have infrastructure that's intended for that pattern of development. Thank you.

Do we have any comments from Mr. Murphy or I see Mr. Nelson's back there?

Good evening, Commission. No comments from us other than the fact that we've been working closely with us and the city planning staff and agree wholeheartedly with their report and recommendations, but we're happy to answer any questions you may have.

We're good? All right. Comments from the public?

This is Christy Dixon from Parham from Salina. I just have a question. Is this going to replace the current surgical center at South and Santa Fe, or this be an additional one?

It's- Additional? Additional, I believe.

Additional? Okay, that's fine, I was just wondering. My next comment is I've lived the majority of my life in the 600 block of South 5th, and now I live in the 700 block of South 5th. But coming north off of Crawford onto 5th Street, the traffic, the traffic from hospital employees is very, very thick, which then you hit Prescott. And then you have Prescott to South Street, and then there's no stop signs in between. Being a hospital employee, past hospital employee for 27 years, I do know that they used to let us park on the one side of Fifth Street. And from what I can tell now, there is no longer any more parking in that area. My comments or concerns is the traffic from Crawford to Probably South Street in the block beyond because the traffic flies down that block. Again, there is a stop sign. We know it's not used because I've ran a couple traumas that I've ran into the building parking garage. So I know that accidents do happen in that block. I guess, is there any thought of where... Are we going to add any more additional stop signs, any more stoplights? What about river festival time? People park along those streets. What are we thinking about those kind of things? I guess mine is more of a concern just with the traffic. There's a lot of traffic in that area, from Crawford down to South Street or something. There's just a lot. Thank you.

Yeah, so the... The element that the project designer, Mr. Murphy, has attempted to use to mitigate any traffic concerns is the parking lot on site. So they do have three entrances and exits that is being proposed, two on 5th Street, one on 4th. And on that site, they're having 114 off street parking spaces that they plan on. using for both their employees and their patrons or people that are coming to the clinic and the idea is that The traffic be contained on the site, or at least the parking be contained on the site in terms of of increased traffic. I couldn't tell you. I couldn't answer that. I know Mr. Murphy has kind of a background and thinking about this thing. So perhaps he can expand on that. But I can tell you from. a parking standpoint, the reason that they're volunteering 114 off-street parking spaces is to accommodate the clinic's proposed activities.

Yes, as Dustin mentioned, that is correct. One of the primary reasons we tried to maximize the amount of parking that we could fit on the site was to help mitigate that concern, knowing that this would bring additional patients and staff to the area, which is why we are providing those additional stalls on site. We've also located the drives to try to help mitigate the flow in and out of the city grid surrounding the site as well. And we are looking at potentially adding a a four-way stop at Fifth and South Street. Right now that is currently Fifth Street has through traffic flow and South has a stop condition. So we are looking at a traffic study to see if the recommendation of adding a four-way stop there at Fifth and South would also help slow some of that traffic down and help with some of those issues.

Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no more comments from the public, I'll bring it back up for action.

Vice Mayor, before we do the vote, I just want to point out whenever we are voting with a quorum of three, items that take a normal majority still take just a two to one majority. Items that require a super majority would require a 3-0 vote. So I think Dustin mentioned the three, the normal rules. It's a little awkward when you'll have three votes, but that's the situation here. Passing the ordinance takes two votes. Thank you.

I would make a motion that we go with the recommendation of the Planning Commission, ordinance number 26-11284, rezoning the properties from C3 and R3 to C4, Central Business District. The motion is to approve them. And I'd like to add a little caveat that I would like the traffic study to be part of that. the part of that to see if we do need a four-way or to make sure that's addressed coming up Fifth Street north up through there.

Commissioner, so this is a rezoning matter, and I don't know that mixing traffic studies into the motion, it's going to make a bit of a confusing motion is my concern.

I'll scratch that portion of it. The first part of it still stands.

I'll second that.

It's been moved and seconded that the city commission agrees with the recommendation of the planning commission ordinance number 26-11284 rezoning the subject properties from C3 and R3 to C4 district should be approved. May we have a roll call?

Commissioner Ivey.

Aye.

Commissioner Lankowitz?

Aye.

Commissioner Remp?

Aye. Okay, that passes 3-0. And we will bring back Commissioner Davis and Mayor Hoppeck.

That will bring us to other business. Is there an item that the commissioner would like to bring before the group?

I'll talk state championships again. Congratulations to Sega Hearts golf team for their record setting 11th consecutive golf state championship.

11th?

11th.

Straight.

It would have been 12 without, except they didn't have it in COVID year. So congrats to them.

I do have two events I wanted to mention. The first, we're both actually on Saturday, June the 6th. Thelana NACP is having a pancake feed at St. John's Missionary Baptist Church to help its scholarship fund. Right after that, there's going to be a Salina Town Hall meeting at the church sponsored by the NACP and the Kansas African American Affairs Commission to gather concerns of and for the African American population in Kansas. That doesn't mean you have to be African American to go. And to give detailed information on the August 4th election on the proposed change to the Kansas Constitution regarding the way Kansas selects its Supreme Court justices. There'll be information on voting changes in the past year, as well as the way ballot is worded. THE SECOND EVENT IS I GUESS AN OFFICIAL GRAND OPENING OF THE REUSE AT SOLANA CENTER ON OHIO STREET OR AVENUE. Street? Yeah, it's north.

Yeah, North Ohio.

North Ohio Street. I was in there this past Saturday. I was trying to look for something I could put CDs in. Didn't have to be a real bookcase, but just something that would hold CDs. Having seen the building when it was empty and seeing it now, it's a fantastic transformation. There's a lot of stuff in there. They got... Any stuff that you wouldn't imagine that they would have, I mean, that you'd need, they have there. So it ought to go up. Even if you don't have anything in mind, I guarantee you'll leave with something. But their grand opening is, I believe, 11 o'clock on Saturday. That's it.

Commissioner Linkwitz. Commissioner Ramper. Okay. I do have a couple things. I wanted to address one of the comments made at the last meeting concerning the ballot for the sales tax. I did do a little research and there was a mail ballot that was done in 2016. It did not go out in the water bill. By state statute, the county clerk handles all elections she's considered our election officer and so all elections and if you remember a few months ago with the BSL the ordinance that went through even though it was a city election it was handled by the county so those are always handled by the county and that sales tax reform was to take the sales tax from .40 to .750 and it passed almost 54% to 46% with about an 866 vote difference and not the 400 as was previously stated. Commissioner Davis made me aware that there was concerns about my involvement in voting for the log jam removal. And yes, I did. At the time, the individual that I do business with, with my business, Land Title Service, did not have ownership in the deal. that business and I found out about it and that's why I recuse myself this time that's the appropriate thing to do but there was not that ownership at the time that I did vote on the log jam removal so just wanted to make that comment On a positive note, the Chamber of Commerce has hired individuals and they're working on digital marketing. As we've talked about last meeting with our housing study, we have more jobs coming to the community. We need to build more houses. We have the need for up to 1,000 doors by 2030. We need individuals to fill those doors, and so they have a new marketing program they just done unveiled and I think they're having some kind of open house this week too and I don't have the times in front of me and that is to help bring individuals into the community to fill those jobs that we have open so with that we will move to citizens forum again we ask that you keep your comments to three minutes and please give us your name

Rosemary Mai. At the last meeting we had, I brought up the discussion on the consultants on the animal shelter and also on the homeless. And Mr. Woods, it was last year. It was in December of 2025. Somebody was listening to the meeting and gave me the information and they also told me that the consultants are working behind the scenes on the homeless situation. And they probably will take a good year to have that all wrapped up. Now, my comment on that would have been, if it would have been announced when I brought the homeless up that we were working on it and let the public know that the consultant is not just sitting on their tush not doing anything. It would be nice if the public knew that they are working behind the scenes and be a little bit more transparent so people don't think we're wasting taxpayers' money. My next comment is I want to thank Brett Lamer from the Parks and Rec Division and also Commissioner Remp and Commissioner Linkowitz. I called them and had a lengthy conversation with them about the condition of our dog park. out on Markley. It is getting worse than it has been. They had one of the pens closed for a year. They opened it up for the small dogs this year and it is in worse condition than it was last year. The small barley and the weeds are just taking over that dog park. they they listened to me they understood what we were talking about and i just wish that maybe something could be done with that dog park because eventually these owners of some of these dogs are going to be having to take them to the vets and having those little barley leaves removed from their paws and also i was informed that there's some fumes that they can breathe in that will make them sick from that small barley so That in mind, I would hope that something can be done with our dog park.

Did we have that small barley treated last year?

They said they treat them in the fall and the spring, but it doesn't look that it's helping. Just every year gets worse and worse.

And I don't know anything about it. Does it take an annual?

Yes, and it has to be hit pretty hard, and then it has to be watered in. I had visited with one of the landscape companies, and they said that's what has to be done. It has to be hit in the fall and in the spring pretty heavily, and then it has to be watered in after a certain period of time.

Okay. Thank you.

And I want to thank them for listening to me. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Tony Johnson, Celina, I'm going to be skipping all over. I may be a lot of things, but a liar isn't one of them. I went back and looked at all my emails and everything. Jennifer Nichols is the Environmental Administrator for the North Central District of KDHE. On July 18, 25, at 11.24 a.m., she logged that a deal truck dumped on Cherry Street on June 4, 2025. She also logged on May 16, she met with Deal Enterprises and was told that they were taking over the job. So he's acting like I'm up here telling lies. And I've seen pictures and videos inside that. The fentanyl ferrets lived in that thing for what, four or five years? Every toilet and bathtub was level full with waste and there was needles and drug paraphernalia everywhere. And I'm pretty sure nobody went in there and cleaned that up before they pushed it in a pile. So one can safely deduct that that was probably in some of this rubble. It's probably still over there. Anyway, that being said, I mentioned about how much money the animal shelter spent last year. I went back and redid my numbers. It looks like they used $682,000 out of the donation fund. $385,000 of that went to dog park construction for a difference of $297,000. So if you tack on that $300,000 roughly with the $900,000, it was $1.2 million they spent rather than, I think I said $1.4 million. And also, as it relates to that, I don't have a lot, but when that consultant gets that report turned in, it needs to be made public immediately. No delays, no excuses, unredacted, let her fly, and let the chips fall where they may, all right? Tony's Pizza, dirt pile. What are we doing with that dirt pile that's been out there at Tony's Pizza? Been out there for what, three or four years? Supposedly, I keep hearing rumors that it's contaminated, and now the city's gonna have to test every load of dirt before they take it to the landfill, but it's sitting out there unprotected in the weather, getting rained on, snowed on, run off into the storm sewer. I'm just curious what we're doing. Like I said, you hear a lot of rumors, but it's been out there for a day or two. Oh, going back to the flock cameras, it is what it is, but the same people advocating for these cameras oftentimes are against themselves being recorded. All you've got to do is go up to the third floor, go down the hall to the county attorney. Government hates it when citizens record them, but they'll use safety as an excuse to record you. Anyway... Mayor Hoppe, you mentioned that you never saw the email from, I think it was February, from Animal Shelter Services that was sent to citycommissioners at Salina.org. Yeah, February 19th, 26th. I'm curious if that is a valid email address today. If it is, does it redirect it to individual addresses? And now do all commissioners have to use official city email addresses?

So that after that comment was made, I went back and checked all my emails because I, I couldn't find it. And I, and I met with, yeah, we took a look at it.

So it was an invalid at Salina.org is not a valid email address. It doesn't go anywhere. A city manager at Salina.org is not a valid email address. So several of the email addresses in that chain are not real email addresses.

So that's what I was wondering.

It did go to Jeff Hammond. That was an appropriate or official email address, but the rest of those are not.

But these umbrella title or addresses did.

Yeah, I don't know where. I mean, I think Mr. Crum. It isn't uncommon for a city manager at whatever to be an email address, so I think he just took a shot in the dark, and he did hit one. I mean, he did send it to Jeff, and that was an appropriate email address.

That'll get you in the Hall of Fame in baseball, one out of three. Anyway, all right, thank you. Thank you.

Ben Winholz, Salina. Okay, so here's the question. You just said that Jeff Hammond got it. I have a copy of an open records request for this on Thursday, February 19th at 8.56 a.m. It was to, they had city manager Salina at Salina.org. It's not an email address. Okay. I just said that. So you look down here, and they have it. City Commissions, Jeff Hammond at Salina Org.

That's an appropriate email address, and it did go to Jeff. I just said that.

But it's got cityclerk at salina.org. It's got citymanager at salina.org.

I mean, you can write whatever you want in front of salina.org, but if it's not a real email address, it's not going to go anywhere. So those aren't email addresses. Jeff.hammond at salina.org is an email address, and it went to that one. So I don't know how else to say it. Those aren't real email addresses.

All right. If you'd like, you can try sending us an email tonight at those email addresses.

If I can send you guys an email, you're not going to read it anyway.

I mean, if you'd like to try, you can sure try to send us one and see if it goes through.

Yeah, it doesn't make any difference.

It does.

Anything I say, you're going to reject anyway. And as far as your comment about... Well, let's just put the name out there since everybody knows anyway. Mr. Craig Piercy was involved with deal construction at the time of the log jam because he was the money backing the equipment that was bought for him. He may not have officially been on the sign, officially been an owner, but it was a known fact that he was supplying money. He was the money man behind deal construction. It was not known by me. It was what? It was not known by me that that was happening. That's because you don't know anything.

I'm not going to argue with you. I've tried to do things by the book. I knew once I found out he had ownership, that's why I recuse myself this time.

Mr. Rumpf, I appreciate you addressing the issue of water usage. Not today, tomorrow, 10 years from now. You want to look into this because our water comes from the Rocky Mountains. And it comes to these rivers, the Solomon, the Sleen, the Smoky, to our Kansas River. It all comes this way. We're having global warming issues. We're not getting snow in the mountains. Drones. Are any of you interested in the security of them? We can bring them in here now. They are here. They are banning drones to come into the United States for sale from foreign countries. We have hot air balloon issues. They can use these balloons to deliver chemicals and weaponize them. I had one of them balloons fly over my property. And that's illegal. You're going to bring in the FAA now. Are you going to provide security to take these balloons down? I had a plane fly over my place and he landed and he come into my yard and he says, I want to buy a property off you. I says, how in the hell do you know I got this stuff? We fly over here. So we're going to have security issues. Homegrown. They flew over this one man's property and they scared his livestock. That's a no-no. So we can weaponize these with chemicals. They're going to fly over your sporting events and they're going to poison our kids. And you're going to allow them here? They can come in under the radar. And you haven't got any facility, any way to shoot them down. Will you bring in the FAA or the military? I don't think you can use military equipment to shoot this down unless it's a federal offense. So we've got problems coming down the road. You got another problem causing. All of these animals in this city, any of you know what the new world screw worm is? I bet you don't, do you? You don't know how to treat it, do you? We can't stop them.

What?

The new world screw worm. It can hook onto humans. And it'll burrow into your skin and it will kill you within two weeks. You better start looking at these animals foreign uh insects and stuff this is this is a big problem these drones can be sent by remote i can be out here or anybody can be five miles away and send these drones in so you better look to the security over the air of the city and this county about fair wages what does competitive mean as cheap as I can play these people. That's what competitive means. So we can clone humans. DNA. Are you really who you claim you are? DNA. We can clone humans. That's what technology's done to us. So you're not really who you are. Who's your daddy?

Mr. Mayor, commissioners, Bonnie Newbrand, Celina. You guys may or may not know this, but someone approached me and asked me if I knew about the 54 kennels that were purchased from Auburn, Kansas by Andrea. They were 24 by 24, 36 by 30, stainless steel. And this was an invoice of 3226 prior to the other event. Now, the total for 54 was $5,400. Then they had a $350 delivery fee. The other thing that was told to me was that these cages had been moved to the old swimming pool area. So I don't know if they were or if they weren't, but if we have $5,700 worth of cages, what is the purpose? Rumor, of course. I don't have any way to back this up. I do have a receipt for the cages. But she said that was a good buy and she was going to do it. Now, I don't know if it went through Jeff or not. But I'd just like to know, are they being stored in the old swimming pool? Or are they in the swimming pool? Or are they some... somewhere, you know, were you aware that this purchase had been made? It just seems like an awful lot of money for cages we don't need. I think at this time we're so low on animals that you wouldn't need 54 large cages like that for cats or dogs. Just kind of, I guess, making you aware. Any comments? None?

Do the cages exist?

No. So do you look into those kind of situations?

Has anyone seen the cages?

Cages?

Yeah, has anyone seen them?

Yeah.

Yeah, I have the receipt, but I can get you a receipt, not this one. It's got all my notes and stuff on it, but I'd be happy to get you a copy.

Do we have any documentation the cages are here?

I can't hear you. I'm sorry. The delivery, okay, yeah. The delivery was $350, is that what you wanted to know?

No, no, I just wanted to know if anyone has seen the cages.

As my understanding is, yes. Some staff. saw the cages, the staff had to move the cages. And that's why they asked me if I knew about it, because they knew we were watching or trying to bring about the information about money being spent that maybe should have been spent more toward the animals than toward cages or whatever, yes.

We'll have somebody look into that and try to get an answer to you because I have no idea.

Okay, so I would just, maybe somebody could go over to the swimming pool.

We'll have staff look into it. Jeff's here and city manager.

Jeff, are you aware of the cages?

Okay. Okay, time.

Okay. Okay, thank you. Thank you. That's all I had. Thank you. Okay.

We can investigate. You can't expect us to know every expense that the city incurs.

That's why I'm letting you know that something is awry because the community is talking about it and people have seen them and I'll be happy to get you a receipt if you'd like.

I don't need the receipt. I just want to see if the cages are there.

Sue Nichols, Salina. Remember, when I speak to you guys, I speak from documented facts, and that may be why the city is so slow to produce open records to me. On April 15th, I submitted an open records request seeking adoption records for several animals that came through the Salina Animal Services. Those animals included a parakeet, a golden conure, a blue and gold macaw, an African gray parrot, and a bearded dragon. I have received those records today. According to the records provided by the city, the parakeet, the golden conure, the blue and gold macaw, and the African gray parrot were all placed into foster care with animal control officer Bridget Price upon intake. Ms. Price ultimately adopted each of these animals. The records also show that a bearded dragon taken into the shelter on April 11, 2025, was adopted by Monique Colley on November 18, 2025. What is particularly noteworthy is that these animals were never listed for public adoption. Citizens were never given an opportunity to adopt them. I requested records showing adoption fees, fee waivers, reduced fees, and any authorization for those actions. The city clerk responded with the following statement. There are no records of fees charged, nor are there records to document waived or reduced adoption fees, nor authorization for waived or reduced adoption fees. Those are not my words. Those are the city's words. so this macaw can often be worth several thousand dollars african gray parrots frequently command thousands of dollars golden conures are extremely rare and can bring between 45 and 7 500 a significant value even the bearded dragon and parakeet parakeet have some value Taken together, these animals potentially represented thousands of dollars in adoption value or revenue. Yet the city has produced no records showing any adoption fees. In fact, Bridget Price has actually told one of us that she did take these birds home at no cost. So my question to you guys is, were the veterinary expenses incurred while these animals were in foster care? Were taxpayers responsible for those costs as well? These birds were never up for public adoption, and the public never had an opportunity to even see them. The citizens of Salina deserve transparency regarding public assets, public resources, and the policies governing their use. And I cannot help but ask, Isn't this reminiscent of the situation that occurred in 2018 with Chris Cotton and his dog Otis? Did the city learn nothing from that controversy? This is precisely why citizens continue to submit open records requests and continue to ask difficult questions.

Thank you.

Kirstie Dixon, Parham, Salina, Kansas. I would like to discuss accountability. Today, Bridget Price is leading the Salina Animal Shelter. The records we receive shows animals being fostered, ultimately adopted by shelter personnel, yet the city cannot produce records showing adoption fees, fee waivers, or authorization for fee waivers. At what point does accountability begin? When will city leadership start holding employees accountable for their actions? For months, citizens have come to this podium with records, emails, inspection reports, investigation documents, and public records. What we continue to hear instead are references to former shelter director Vanessa Cowie. I have not been aware of any criminal charges that have been filed against Vanessa Cowie. I'm not aware of any adult... audit findings that included that she stole shelter funds. I am not aware of any investigation report making such a finding. What we do know is that Vanessa Cowley's supervisor while she was employed in Salina was Chris Cotton. Today Mr. Cotton is serving in Kansas City where the department under his leadership has recently come under intense public scrutiny following an audit that raised serious, serious concerns regarding financial oversight and management practices. This situation is now receiving significant public attention. I hope this commission is paying attention as well. Because when questions continue to arise regarding oversight, accountability, and the handling of public resources, citizens have every right to ask whether the problems are isolated incidents or part of a bigger, broader pattern of failed leadership and inadequate supervision. What I do have are documented facts. I have records showing approximately $288,000 in shelter donations were spent under the management of Andrea Murphy and Monique Hawley. I have records showing animals adopted by shelter personnel with no records and fees being charged, waived, or authorized. I have inspection reports documenting serious deficiencies. I have emails documenting concerns raised by professionals. I have criminal charges filed against former shelter leadership. These are the individuals the city entrusted to manage taxpayer resources, shelter animals, and public donations. Those are facts. As this city faces an almost $1 million budget shortfall, taxpayers have every right to ask whether public resources have been managed responsibly and whether the same standards are being applied to everyone. Citizens are not asking for special treatment, they're asking for transparency. They're asking for accountability. They are asking why documented facts continue to be ignored while rumors about others continue to be repeated. To many citizens, this situation raises the same concerns that surfaced in the Otis controversy many years ago. The fundamental question remains the same. Are public resources being managed by the benefit of the public or for the benefit of those entrusted to manage them?

The citizens of Salina observe answers and deserve them. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Kathy Schwartz, Celina. At the last commissioner's meeting, I heard one of the most ridiculous things in my life. You don't know what you don't know. I had to look up the meaning because this saying was used as the reason to vote in a $30,000 consultant to evaluate the Celina Animal Shelter. The definition is skills, facts, or concepts you are entirely blind to, to the point of where you don't even know they exist, making it impossible to realize you are missing them. I'll take this opportunity to tell you what we do know. We know two shelter leaders have three charges each of animal cruelty. and they are currently on paid administration leave and we're paying for their attorneys. Also, as of this morning, their court date isn't until September, so I assume they'll continue to collect wages until then. We know the citizens of Salina do not want to pay $30,000 to a consultant for the animal shelter. This is a waste of taxpayer dollars. We know the trust of the citizens of Salina regarding the city council is waning quickly. We know hiring a consultant is not necessary due to the combined years of experience between Rose Base and Annette Cox. In the past, they have shown the experience and knowledge needed to run a successful animal shelter. We know a private company such as Prairie Paws already has procedures in place as well as the knowledge and means to run a top notch animal shelter with the additional benefit of costing the taxpayers less money annually. We know especially with the latest fiasco at Kenwood Cove, the animal shelter should not be under Parks and Recreation. Each entity should be handled by a different department to provide complete focus of each. Neither one has been run competently in the last two years. We know that in regards to the animal shelter, we have been here meeting after meeting, begging, pleading, presenting solutions, offering our help, only to be ignored. The commissioners are not listening to the wishes of the people of Salina. We know there has been a lot of lies, deception, and cover-ups both physically and financially regarding the running of the animal shelter. In the Celina Post dated October 10, 2025, Dr. Davis is quoted as saying, I want to be your city commissioner because Celina deserves steady leadership, someone experienced, patient, and committed to managing your tax dollars responsibly. Also in that same article, Dr. Davis said, we don't need a single issue candidates or those quick to shout that their way is the only way. I believe in listening first, learning always, and respecting every viewpoint brought to the table. The only commissioner I see doing all of the above is Commissioner Doug Rimp. He has taken it upon himself to go to the Salina Animal Shelter and see what's actually going on. Doug listens to the people of Salina, and he has driven to Manhattan to explore the benefits of having a private entity running the animal shelter. He is concerned about taxpayers' dollars and what is happening in the community. The rest of you should be following his example.

Thank you.

Rose-based, Celina.

Well, it feels like a long time. I started attending these meetings in 2023 to tell you that we had problems at the animal shelter. And pretty much all of you were on that board serving as commissioners or mayor. I remember my concern was coming in first to say that the animal shelters closed. We was getting complaints and we was long past COVID. And finally, it did open up, thank goodness. But that's kind of what brought me in is because we had gotten so many complaints that the public was upset about that. I applied for the Animal Control Advisory Board to be a member, but my application was denied. I was told there would be a conflict because of Monique's involvement. Meanwhile, Monique earns approximately $83,000 per year, an amount that exceeds the salaries of many public servants in our community, including some police officers and some firefighters. What concerns me is that the apparent lack of oversight and accountability. There seems to be little questioning about how the donation funds are being spent, whether those expenditures align with the intent of the donors. This concern extends to the use of memorial and donation funds intended to benefit the animals. Last year when a citizen raised concerns about foxtails and other harmful weeds at Markley Park, they were told by Jeff Hammond that they didn't have a sprayer to address the problem. I doubt that those who donated to support animal welfare expected their contributions to be used for items such as snacks, donuts, clothing, candy, name tags, and others. And this is just to name a few expenses while the basic animal safety concerns remained unresolved. And we do have proof that donation money was used to buy these items. And that's just a minimum of what was used for. The public has repeatedly voiced concerns, yet feels as though those concerns are not being heard. We are not going away, and we will continue asking questions and seeking accountability. It is time to take meaningful action, including seriously considering outsourcing management of the Salina Animal Shelter. And I don't care whether it's Prairie Paws or whoever, but it does not belong under Parks and Rec. We just need outsourcing of our animal shelter. I am going to tell the people again not to donate to the Salina Animal Shelter. I would have never thought that I'd be saying that, but please don't leave your memorials, don't donate to the animal shelter because the money's not going where you want it to. And finally regarding Mr. Davis' comment at the last meeting, you don't know what you don't know, I would respond with this. We are learning more and more about what some people prefer us not to know.

Kim Hill, Celina. To keep going on the issue of the donations, in February 2025, there was a presentation given to you. One of the slides in that presentation listed out the objectives for the use of the animal donation funds. Nowhere on that slide did it say to use it for postage, mowing, name plates, name badges, uniforms, swim goggles. Candy, donuts, McDonald's, Sonic for staff. That's not what the slide said the donations were supposed to be used for, so I went a little further and broke it down. In 2024, Fox Landscaping was paid over $2,156 for mowing. Parks and Rec, they don't have a mower? $176.50 for uniforms for staff, $395.39 for postage. Miscellaneous tools, lights, artwork, decorations, and a private cremation, $7,410.98. $400 of that was for a Roomba vacuum cleaner. Food for staff, $44.97. Phone repair, $304.50. Vehicles, such as signs and window tint and a phone holder for a vehicle. Does that not fall under fleet? For $274.82. A computer desk for $224.98. Numerous. items purchased with Amazon or the equity credit card for over $7,248.11 that only said specific shelter supplies. Total of $18,237.13 for 2024. So then I looked at 2025. Tools, shovels, bungee straps, $194.43. Postage, 146 cents. Food for staff, $68 and a penny. Vehicle. Cosmetic items to the vehicles, $2,810.78. Again, miscellaneous decorations, more name plates, USB drives, and a mini fridge for $346.43. One item for payroll for $22.70. What they talked about before, the bearded dragon and exotic bird supplies that staff took home, $1,177.22. Then there was one item, $500 paid to an individual. Additional miscellaneous supplies, only labeled shelter supplies, not specific, $5,213.11 for a total of $10,478.60. This does not include what- A few more seconds. include what was paid to pot and construction was about $300,000. I do know somebody who's in management at Amazon, so I reached out and said, hey, do shelters and rescues get a discount of any kind through Amazon? No, they do not. So with that, do I think there's misuse of funds? Possibly. Do I think it would be worthwhile to have a forensic audit? Absolutely, because one of the tips we also got was to look at June of 2025 purchases through Amazon in relation to an employee's October of 2025 wedding that took place at Kenwood Cove. And this is all of those that I highlighted. Thank you.

Mayor, commissioners, my name is Nancy Slavic. I live at the villa at Presbyterian Manor. I'm here representing the residents who live there independently. I visited with the council previously about the resident's concern related to the traffic at the intersection of Crawford, Markley, and the west entrance to the manor. Recently, one of our residents was involved in a traffic accident at that intersection. The driver and the passenger both suffered injuries. The driver had to be removed by the jaws of life, and the passenger was taken to the hospital. At this time, it appears that the car is going to be totaled. As a result of this incident, there has been renewed questioning about the future of that intersection. You may recall that I advocated on behalf of our residents for a stoplight at that intersection. Soon, the fire station will be completed and operational. The Manor residents would appreciate an update on the plans for traffic control on Crawford and the fire station access to that roadway, as well as the plans for the Crawford-Markley intersection. Thank you. Thank you.

And I can address that. We do have a plan. So we are upgrading. We have to upgrade East Crawford in front of the fire station as that goes. We were aware of that. So as part of that process, we did ask engineers to do a study on that intersection to see if it warranted a traffic signal. They basically said it didn't necessarily warrant one today, but they felt like it would probably in two or three years. So we do plan, as we upgrade East Crawford, to include a traffic signal at that location.

How is the traffic going to be controlled in relationship to the fire station? Will there be lights to control there?

There will be lights as part of that. I mean, it's all part of the same upgrade. But I believe that we're planning a traffic signal at Markley and Crawford. Okay.

Okay, they will be glad to know that.

Yeah, it's not going to happen overnight. Oh, come on. I'll try. It'll happen overnight. We'll get it done tomorrow. No, it is in the plan, though. It'll take a little bit of time, but we do have that in the plan.

Thank you. Thank you.

Lori Hall, Salina. On two different occasions, Commissioner Davis shared his words of wisdom with us. Today I would like to address those two statements and share my rebuttal of those statements. I could have taken your words as a direct insult, a deflection of the current narrative, or a way of shifting responsibility and blame to others, but I chose to dig deeper. And so this is what I found. The first statement that you made is you found what you were looking for. And honestly, my rebuttal is this. When I joined this group as a former shelter volunteer under Rose Base and Vanessa Cowie, my initial interest was to encourage all of you to return the shelter back into a humane, no kill, professionally operated animal shelter for Celina. I had no reason to think wildlife was being handled, euthanized, and disposed of in such large number. wildlife rehabilitation was strictly off the tables to those without permits. So that wasn't something I was looking into. Under Rose and Vanessa, wildlife issues did not occur. Why? Because the former game warden named Greg Salisbury set the parameters as to what wildlife could or could not be handled. Wildlife was hands off to the shelter unless it was certain roadkill situations. Greg took care of Saline County's wildlife and rarely relied on others for assistance. So no, I did not know what I was looking for, but what I did find was there's a lot of illegal wildlife activity at the shelter. Statement two, you don't know what you know. I know you've heard this tonight, but Dr. Davis, you were absolutely correct when you directed this idiom to us. Because of the deception, the lies, the mishandling of shelter data, emails, and behind-the-scenes cover-ups, the truth continues to evade us. This game of keep away with the truth only damages credibility and destroys the trust we have in your ability to govern the city. Here's a few things that I do know and things that I don't know. I stated at previous meetings that 32 bats were euthanized by Andrea Murphy and Monique Holley. I stated only of those 32, eight had been sent to KSU for rabies testing. And I think you do probably remember that, and you probably thought, well, that's, you know, what's the big deal? But that information was given to me through the Kansas Open Records Act.

About 10 or 15 more seconds, please.

I found out that these records were followed because I contacted Dr. Erin Petro of Kansas Health and Environment, and here's what she told me. It wasn't 32 bats, it wasn't eight, it was 45 bats that were sent in from our shelter. And Andrea said the reason she killed those bats was because of rabies. We had three rabies. insulin counting. We did. But it was not until June of 25 that those bats came in as tested positive for rabies. The killing of bats started months before that. So what we need to find out and all of you need to know is it's hard to find the truth when you can't. I mean, when nobody's helping you to find the truth. And so, I come up here and, you know, I want you to make decisions that are sound for everybody. And I want you to keep your moral compass pointed in the right direction, because I think all of us are. And I hope that you do listen to us, because you don't know what you don't know. You're right.

Thank you. Anyone else? I guess my only comment is, as a citizen of Salina, We do want a better animal shelter, and that's one of the reasons we're willing to spend the money to have someone help us. I mean, one of the questions I asked to be asked to the consultant is, should we even be dealing with wild animals? I mean, I don't know that answer. Greg Salisbury's no longer alive. He's no longer our game warden, so I don't know that relationship. But we have a replacement. There's a lot of questions that we need answered, and I cannot build a better animal shelter without having some answers. I have to have them. And whether it's medical records, whether it's intakes, there's so many questions we have that we need to get answers to. And hopefully, we don't want to just build a better animal shelter for today, we want it to be a better animal shelter for years to come. And we're not against, I mean, this isn't a battle. I mean, we're on the same team. Better animal shelter. We never said we didn't have a problem at the animal shelter I Well, I don't feel like we're trying to we've answered open records Well, I don't believe this group is trying to hide anything from you. I really don't feel that way I know sue you think I'm not being honest, but I'm that's We have We have other jobs we're doing. We've answered a lot of open records requests, and we got them to you. We're doing the best we can. So hopefully we get our answers back from our consultant, and it gives us best practices and a guideline to build a better animal shelter. That's our goal.

Are you going to audit?

Audit?

Okay.

Any other questions? Any other comments? I have a question. Okay. I'll take a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn. Second. We have a motion and a second to adjourn. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you.