City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening everyone. We will now call the regular schedule meeting to order and we'll start with our invocation. Chief, can you uh just take care of

All right. Will you bow your head with me, please? Almighty God, we just thank you for this opportunity to serve. We thank you to those who are here. Lord, we pray for protection over our community tonight as the storm comes in. Lord, we are thankful for the fact that no one was injured or seriously hurt in the last week of storms. Lord, guide us. Give us wisdom as we uh talk about business tonight. We just pray this in your mighty name. Amen. Amen. Now, we'll do the pledge of allegiance.

To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Next we'll do the roll call. Madam clerk, Mr. Thron here. Mrs. Speedback here. Mr. Grant here. Mr. Delgado here. Mr. Savage here. Mayor, we have a quorum present.

Thank you. Next up is the approval of the agenda. I don't think we had any ch uh request of changes. Oh, we do. Am I missing it? Number 10. Oh, I didn't see that. We're removing number 10 from the agenda. I guess I should turn the page next time. All right. With that, is that the only change to this agenda? I will uh entertain a motion. I move to approve tonight's agenda with the removal of item number 10. Second.

Have a motion and a second. Any questions? All those in favor? I

opposed. Motion passes. 500. Next up, we have announcements and reports. I'm going to start with a couple announcements. Uh, well, number one, just thank you to everybody who chipped in last week for the cleanup and for the different um charity events we had. I know Dan's trailer had a really nice one for Hillsdale. I know there was a couple other ones out by Hillsdale. We had committee members jumping in helping out through the wreck. The wreck was a great uh source of kind of central centrality for that to get the volunteers involved and the people who needed help. So, thank you everyone including our public works and even our regular staff. Everybody kind of jumped out of their normal positions to help out. Thank you for that. Uh number two, we are going to be setting up a parks and trail committee. I've kind of got everything lined out with Spencer. Uh the way it'll work is we'll have one governing body member, which right now it'll be I'm volunteering. We're going to have one staff member that needs to be appointed and then three to five uh public residents u or you know residents that will be involved. I'm starting to work through that process. So anybody who's uh interested, please reach out. I've already have three or four people that are interested. We're going to try and have that going here in the next meeting or so. And then once we get that set up, that group will report to the parks uh board, run their ideas through there, get them approved, if it goes through parks and gets approved, we'll either go through consent or um or a formal agenda depending on if there's funding needed or what not. But that's going to focus on trails, different types of parks that we kind of fell off the wayside. We're going to try to set up our own kind of CIP specifically for those items. Um just because right now we don't really have a great outlook on how to how to approach those things. Does anybody have any questions or comments when it comes to that? Everybody's okay with that? Okay. So, we'll see that coming up on the next agenda. Again, anybody in the public who is interested in being involved, please reach out. Um, I'm looking for volunteers. Next thing, um, Mike, I am requesting

tonight if you can go over the updates and where we're at with the zoning and codes that we're going through.

One thing I did want to add, and I talked to him, but I'll let you guys know before he goes into it, is storm shelters for slab homes. That's something that's kind of important to me. So, he looked into some of that today. He's going to give us an update on it. Lane also, I think, is going to have an update for us on QT and the new pumps and parking options they have back there. Um, we do have a couple annexations. I know I had some calls about this. I just wanted to address. Annexations are what they are. Um, they're just people requesting to come into the city. Sometimes you'll see ver, you know, verbiage in there about what they're going to be requesting, what they're looking for. those are really usually there to give them kind of an out in case we don't agree with them when they go to go for those things. Um that isn't happening tonight. Tonight is the annexation. So if you have questions or comments on that, please do that during the citizen participation. It's not a public meeting. So or a uh

hearing so it won't be during the actual annexation portion. So please do that through the citizen participation so that we can hear all your comments and questions. Okay. Out outside of that, I don't think I have anything else. PJ reports for me today. Just want to kind of repeat what he said and thank everybody here at city staff, uh, everybody at public works and the PD for stepping it up this past week. Uh, truly appreciate that and I appreciate the community, everybody stepping up, uh, helping clean all the, uh, debris within within the town. So, big thanks to everybody. Thanks, James. Report Kristen.

Yeah, I have an announcement. Um, first of all, I just want to echo what the mayor and what um, Ivan just said um, about the community support and everything. Um, the other announcement I just wanted to make is um, I was pretty um, forthcoming about moving in May. Um, I was going to run for mayor and I went ahead and um, was vocal about me moving. Um, and so May is upon us and so um, I'm going to be moving to Parkville. um the last week of May. Um so anyway, I just wanted to verbalize it. I've I don't know if I'm going to get an opportunity the my last meeting here. Um but I took a position up there to run a mental health center in the Northland and it's awesome. We're doing some awesome things serving people up there. Um so it was it was a difficult decision but it's it's getting to be May. So, I just wanted to just want to be forthcoming with that and I wanted an opportunity to say it. So, anyway, I just appreciate the opportunity.

Thanks, Kristen. Go ahead, Mike. I just want to echo everybody's kind of sentiments about clean up on the city. It was tremendous to see residents and staff and just how everybody kind of came together. It was it was really cool to see. Um, other than that, nothing else. All right. Thank you, Spencer. Anything for us? Um, nothing for you. If you'd like a discussion of the annexation process, this would be a good time. In fact, do you think that would be beneficial of just, you know, why we see certain things in those agreements? If Sure. everyone like my family is tired of hearing me talk. We can skip that. Okay, let's hear it.

Um, sure. So, the annexation process mostly works through consent annexations where people petition the city. they're actively seeking to come in. Oftent times the property owner has some general ideas of what they want to do with the property. I would say every once in a while they come to Lane or Mike and say we know it's going to be a residential development and the city kind of start pre-planning. Typically it's more of a general this land where it sits in your comp plan. We want it to be a certain zoning but we don't have an enduser or even an industry in mind. That is what we have tonight. Um, so you are going to see more and more because it's become more and more of a trend in annexation agreements that there are outs and off-ramps for land owners. They will come in, but if the city in its discretion and its sole discretion declines to reszone property or declines to enter into any other type of agreements with the property, the property can deanex. Um, you know, that is a strong property rights issue. And the city wants to respect people's property rights on that and it is an agreement by all parties and especially an imposition by the city of there is no obligation to reszone property or to approve any specific uses to come to development agreements. Um that is a function of the planning commission holding public hearings and you all making those final decisions and the city cannot legally wave those obligations under state law. So at any time a property is annexing in they come in and they retain their current county zoning and they cannot change that until they come through the city and formally request that and there's a public hearing and then it comes to you all. So um I understand you know as a lawyer I'm the first to tell you some of these legal agreements have a whole lot of words in them. Um I apologize on behalf of my whole profession for creating agreements that have uh some complex language in there. So part of my function is to help

explain that to you all. I'm happy to do that. But that is why we see agreements where they mention M1 or RP4. That doesn't mean any decisions have been made. It doesn't mean the land is being reszoned at the time of annexation. That's just sort of candidly a property owner trying to be usually more open about, hey, this is what we think we're going to do with it. We want you to know upfront. Um, and on a personal level, I usually like to see a property owner be open about that rather than trying to hide the ball until it's too late. So, okay, great. Thank you. Cool. Thanks, Lane.

Um, just a quick update on Quick Trip. They have started the final phase. I think we have a picture up here on the the screen for you. The the back phase is um diesel pumps. There's approximately, I believe, around 10 of the full-size parking spots for or for the individuals that come in there and get some fuel, maybe want to go inside and get some food. Uh then I think three or four more little spots there. And I believe that should be I think there's five bays for the pumps and that project should be completed this year.

Uh but they're actively undergoing the the process right now of removing the dirt and getting it prepared to to build on. All right, cool. Thank you, Lane. Anything else? That's it. All right, Miss Rhonda, that's your board in the back row.

Um, I have a couple of items. Um, first, um, on the agenda tonight is the event permit for First Fridays. And we won't have another meeting before the first Friday in May. And so, I just want to remind everybody, um, that event is on May 1st. It starts at 5:30 in downtown Spring Hill. and um the team's really been gearing up for those. So, I hope everyone comes out. It's a great community event. Um the second thing uh you have received on your uh desk tonight, the March financial snapshot. And so, um that data is available to you um for the public that will be on our website. It's probably already on our website right now, but the city always publishes it on the website. The third thing that I have that is on your second thing on your desk is the schedule for the budget coming up. And it shows that we're going to gear up next meeting with our first work session. And there will likely be budget work on every agenda from now till the end of September. Um at the next meeting, we'll have a work session. Um at each of the upcoming meetings, we'll have a work session. That first one will be about setting goals. Is this the calendar you want? are you getting enough work sessions? And you guys will determine how you really want the process to work, but this is how we've done it in the past. I'm not a done it in the past kind of a gal, but this is how our schedule typically works, but we want to make sure it works for all of you. We have several new members who didn't go through that process last year. So, put some thought into is this what you want to see? Is there something else that you need? And when we'll be talking about different subjects, but the work is well underway. um the departments are working on their budgets and um identifying projects and things like that. So the budget is started and we'll be working on it every meeting.

Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Miss Glenda wanta um I just want to say that for the aquatic center we have made all offers and I mentioned this previously but I'm bringing it up now because if you have a child that has applied for the aquatic center it would be great to just touch base with them and make sure they know where they're at in the process because I have some that um are a little bit delayed in and doing a couple of things. So, that would be great. If we can get everyone ready to go, we'll have 80 people out at the aquatic center for Wow. Okay, great.

I have a question for you on that. So, um, some of the people are in school still. Uh, maybe they're coming back from college. So, are they allowed to get their TB test? Do they have to come all the way back here or do you allow TB tests from someplace else? We actually don't require uh them to go and do that. So, I'm Don't they have to have some test though? Is it drug test or what is Yeah, I did that for the assistant supervisors and that they're all taken care of. I'm talking about all the nonassistant supervisor positions and so those are the ones that are just at various stages. Got you. Yeah, I'll check with Emry. Okay.

All right, Jacob. So, sticking with the theme of of uh the tree and debris uh cleanup removal, I want to thank thank the uh public works staff. Uh they they worked hard. I also want to thank the Spring Hill Rec Commission. I really appreciate the collaboration with them. Both they had folks out picking up debris as well. Um and they they kind of managed that uh volunteer situation. both provided a a a place for folks that needed assistance to to go and and seek that out and then they also managed the um you know that that outpouring of volunteers and folks that wanted to help. So they did a good job of of matching up uh the need with the with the offer to help. So it was a bad situation uh but it was really great to see um you know our community partners come together and and everybody work together. Um that said, we are using a a engineering or project management term. We are substantially complete. There are I know of about three or four um locations with just kind of an arm load of limbs. Some uh small things that we'll catch in the morning, but we're generally complete with everything.

Great. Do you know how many volunteers we had? I I have not seen a total count. No. The last time I heard Brian said they had more volunteers than people needing help. So that was we had a huge outpouring of people that were volunteering. So all right, thanks Jacob and thanks for all you did. I know you were working hard. I know the night of the storm was a late one for you and your group and the PD. So thanks for everybody there. Mike, what you got?

Thank you, Mayor. Uh couple I have a few announcements actually. So, wanted to let um everybody know that we have uh made an offer and it's been accepted for a building official to start with the city. Uh their anticipated start date is May 4th. Uh so, we're we're happy to have him come join us. Uh that leads me into my second announcement or update is that we as far as the adoption of the building codes um and electrical codes, mechanical codes, all of those uh eye codes. Uh we do have a draft uh from GBA who's our third party consultant right now. Uh we are waiting until we get that building official on board uh who has experience with uh doing code adoptions and code updates and that will be top priority once he is able to join us. Um and so we're excited to be able to bring that forward. Uh the updates on the plan development or plan district zoning and the industrial zoning. Uh currently we're still finalizing those drafts. Uh we anticipate a June 4th planning commission meeting with the council meeting on June 25th.

And did you have any um information on the what we could do towards the uh storm shelters?

Yes, I do. Um based upon I I'll need to confer with with Spencer and GBA and also our our building official determine exactly where in our set of codes that should be uh housed. um if if it's so chosen uh by by the governing body for us to proceed down that path whether that's in the building code section uh or local amendment to an adopted building code or if that's in a zoning section somewhere but um I have Amy can you bring up those pictures? So um just doing a little bit of research especially with all of the um you know severe weather we've had recently we've looked at some options in terms of Can you scroll down a bit? uh looking at how uh residential storm shelters can be incorporated into a single family house uh in particular for a house that is not constructed with a basement. Um there are multiple examples, one of which uh is here uh that is embedded kind of into the garage floor with a sliding door. Um different levels of protection for different price points. Uh the the more expensive ones are the ones that are FEMA rated and that can withstand up to you know, an EF5 tornado. And so we have these types of uh situations here that can be built into the garage slab. There are some um that can be disguised on an internal room of the house uh with a a door and essentially doubles as a kitchen pantry. Um, and then there are uh standalone boxes, if you will, that can be incorporated into uh the garage uh to provide multiple. So, there's different options. Um, and so exploring just quickly what other cities in the area do. Um, not a lot of cities have adopted a code that requires such a storm shelter or a requirement for a

basement. Uh, we're able to find that. Lanexa recently did adopt their code. uh I believe is in 2023 or 24. Uh they had a previous requirement that required a separate storm shelter uh for every x number of residents within a development kind of as an external community shelter, but they they removed that requirement and put in a requirement for a residential storm shelter in every uh type of housing unit. So um based upon the direction um from the governing body, we can continue to do more research uh and bring forward an amendment uh to to require that going forward.

I know it's probably not the most popular thing to do with the builders, but I think with how many onslab homes that we've added here as of late and they probably that trend seems to be continuing throughout the metro, I I would prefer to have something in place. I don't know what anybody's opinion is here with that, but I know it probably will add additional cost, but at some point I think that it's probably worth it, especially with how many people were reaching out with this storm, saying, "Where can we go?" Um,

I will continue to say the same thing I say every time we talk about these things. bring me the uh the information and a plan to implement it that's not going to be uh overly obstructive to both our ability to provide lower income homes uh for the communities and uh also be safe and I'm I'm willing to look at any of that but until we have solid information yeah I withhold all judgment yeah I think I think putting something together and seeing what we can do and how it approaches then we can look at it but I think this is the perfect time to look at it as we're updating the building codes anyway. I don't see why we wouldn't have this part of that. Cool. Thanks, Mike, for getting all that info. I know we talked about it just today, so thanks for the quick turn around. Absolutely.

Anything else for you? Uh, just wanted to let everybody know that we did uh issue the request for proposals seeking a consultant to come in to finalize the comprehensive plan. Uh those responses are due back to city staff on Monday, May 18th. Um, and from there we will conduct interviews uh and select a consultant to get this wrapped up hopefully by the end of the year. All right, Mr. Chief, what do you got for us?

Yeah, so just as a matter of information, not to go back to the storm again, but I wanted the governing body to know and for the community to know that the police department was well staffed during both events. we had double the amount of normal staff that we would have in case um there was severe damage or you know worse. So I felt like uh we were well prepared to respond to any kind of emergency that there may have been. So um we'll continue to to prepare and be ready for future storms because it looks like it's going to be a rainy season.

All right, thank you again for all you do. All right, that's all. That's it for announcements, reports, unless anybody else has something. U we will now move on to a presentation from Mr. Larry Sumner and the Cemetery Board President.

Good evening. Good evening.

Uh just give my yearly report, let you know what we did last year and kind of what we're planning on for this year. Uh last year just to start out, it was just about like the year before. We had 30 burials here in town. Uh we sold 33 lots last year. Uh we we had that new pavement that we white striped. Um very happy with that and a lot of the people that come up and ride bicycles and and hike up there enjoy it. Um we haven't had any vandalism for a while. Thank you for the patrols coming through and locking the gates at night. That's That's nice. Um, we do have dogs running loose every once in a while that sneak in. Trying to get a handle on that. I know where they're coming from. So, our pray to flags last year, we did that during Memorial weekend and and during Veterans Day, and we're getting ready for that again here at the end of May. Our plans for this year um is a brochure. I don't know if you all got any of that in your packet or seen them. Uh it's kind of something we wanted to put together and thank Jenna for for helping. Um did a lot lot better than what I could have done on that. But uh but we have a lot of history up there and this is just a way I've I've got it in the out here on the folder on the on the wall for you to pick up for new people by it. and I want to get down with the chamber and and give them a stack of them they can hand out. So, um we're going to install a a kind of a shoulder to that pavement. It's it's up kind of high. Um we've been debating on on how to do that. So, here in a couple weeks when we have our meeting, we'll we're going to go forward with that.

Probably do a lot of it oursel, save some money that way. Uh we had removal of of damaged and dead trees. We're going to be doing that more. We had got some bids in on tree removal. And there's some rotted trees and dead trees. We lost a big limb that uh city boys came and and got it removed. And as I drove through tonight, I saw another limb that had it came down. So, we got a lot of old dead trees and and uh we're going to have a guy come in and we're going to get rid of a lot of those trees and clean it up. Hate we we're just not going to accept having a tree limb fall on stone, especially an old one. You can't replace them. It'd be a shame. Um we had a little bit of roof damage to our shed up there. had a tree limb go through it, but we we got it fixed. The next day, one of the other members and I went up and reshingled a patch of it and got it fixed. Memorial Day is coming up. You're all welcome. Come up uh and be part of that. It's on May 25th. And actually, that's all I have unless you got some questions for me. I

don't have any questions, but thank you for all you do. I know. I know. There's a lot of labor that your board puts out there to help out there. So, we really appreciate it. You know, it's a labor of love, though. Yeah. A lot of family up there. Yeah. So, what time is that? On May 25th. Yes. What time is it? Um I don't know. That's put on by the the American Legion here in town. We just supply the cemetery. So, I don't know. Usually, it's like at 10 o'clock or something like that. But you're welcome everybody. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. The next item up is citizen participation. And we've got a list here, folks. So, we'll start with Mr. John Waterman. Come on up and uh just state your name and address for us. And

uh Thank you very much. Uh John Waterman uh 21110 West 186 Terrace uh Dayton Creek. Um first thank you uh governing body uh mayor uh for all you do and all the decisions you you guys have to make. Appreciate and appreciate the opportunity to be able to to speak u this evening. Um have a three topics actually. uh one uh comp plan uh two annexation and three fireworks. Uh so uh regarding comp plan, I've I've made some comments on comp plan before. I have a couple additional comments I just want to briefly make. Um so kind of going to our neighbors to the north in tha and and looking at uh what their kind of current um future ready plan kind of is and and and and illustrates kind of paints a picture. Um they kind of start off with a with a vision statement and you know it is that takes a future ready approach. Uh we are resilient, innovative, nimble, and collaborative in how we address tomorrow's challenges today. It's pretty impactful. Um I I mean definite things there to u kind of incorporate into what we consider a comprehensive plan going forward that is agile and is able to to capture growing times. Um, in 2040, uh, they state, you know, residents and businesses are thriving, engaged in the community, and continue to adapt and plan into the future. Regionalism has made our metropolitan area a model for the nation. It's pretty impactful. um their goals uh improve the

community's ability to be resilient and thrive, preserve high level of public trust in the city of Altha government. Something you know we've adamantly talked about the last six months is having trust transparency in in local government. So uh very important. Third thing on the comprehensive plan uh that I have is I want to kind of draw attention to our current comprehensive plan for 2006 2010 depending on what what you're looking at revision wise and specifically uh section 5.2.1 and 5.2.2 uh the community and the neighborhood. Uh there are seven points under 5.2.1 the community and six points under 5.2.2 the neighborhood. And all of them are extremely relevant, I believe, still today to our city and things we can grow upon and and and move forward with our new comprehensive draft from specifically if we look at the community. Uh number six, the town core of Spring Hill, including downtown and the Webster Street corridor, must be targeted for reiditalization and future growth of high high intensity development, destination retail and entertainment, and highdensity housing to maintain the area as the center focus of the community. I believe this. I also believe that many citizens have kind of state stated that they want Spring Hill to remain a quaint city. We all know Spring Hill is going to grow. it's going to grow how we want it to grow to where we can cluster it and kind of model that downtown image in our areas as they grow, clustered neighborhoods, uh, etc. So, those are my important points on the comp plan. Uh, switching to annexation. Um, I appreciate, uh, Mr. Lowe's, uh, kind of guide as far as annexation and kind of that process. um knowing that

these uh annexation requests coming before us this evening are um you know don't have kind of an identity only that they want to be annexed into the city. Uh no kind of pre idea of what zoning is is wanted. I would ask without this area specifically kind of drafted currently into our future land use map or comprehensive plan, you know, as as as it exists today that we with intentionality look and make sure and and what I'd like to see the governing body have as part of the discussion on this and then leading to the voting is what are what are your all's thoughts on what those areas could could be used for by the city in in the future? You know, there isn't a there isn't a clear path. So, you know, now's a good time to have that conversation. You know, that that demonstrates to the community, the citizens, there's a level of transparency in the process. you know you're all talking about it before voting so that there's a discussion healthy discussion on hey what could this be in the future so that's kind of my comments related to annexation uh kind of moving on to fireworks I know in the last meeting there was a discussion on you know having u year round firework sales um to to fall in line with the Kansas law from last year that allows year- round fireworks Uh I understand, you know, that that that desire possibly if it brought a significant return to the city financially. I guess my concern is if we look to our north, you know, across the metropolitan

area. Fireworks are illegal, sale, use, everything. I love fireworks. I like being able to set them off here in Spring Hill, but I know that time is limited, right? I mean, not long Spring Hill is just going to be the metro. You know, we're going to grow it, right? But it's going to be part of the metro and fireworks aren't going to be allowed. So, I would rather invest that time. I mean, unless there's I mean, if somebody can tell me that there's a significant, you know, return on that investment to have a brick-andmortar fireworks store here, you know, year round, I would assume ass soon pass on that because at some point that that building's going to have to change hands because we're not going to be able to sell fireworks here anymore. So, anyway, uh with that, I will I will conclude. Again, appreciate the the time this evening and uh happy to stay involved. So, thanks.

All right. Thanks, John. Thank you.

All right. Next up is Alexander Hatfield. Good evening. Alexander Hotfield, 21720 South Race Street. Um, so first, thank you for serving the community. Um, I know we can't always please everyone and I know you have to make difficult decisions, but I want to thank you for your time and thank you for the opportunity to speak. I got four things I want to discuss. Uh, first is the parking lots. Uh, I want to thank you for redoing the community center parking lot. It is one that my family uses frequently. My daughter loves to take the park and wreck cooking classes that are held there and the last time we went to one, I was like avoiding potholes. So, thank you for for doing that. The second is I know data centers keep getting brought up. Um, and I know the annexations that are going on that's looming and a fear in a lot of the citizens minds. Um, and I know several meetings ago someone had suggested removing the amendment to M1 that had the data center that was placed back in October, I believe. Um, and I I I fully support that. If what do we need to do to get that to happen? Does that need to start at the planning commission come here? How I think that would be a amazing first step in rebuilding that trust and transparency. Uh, third, uh, storm cleanup. Uh, thank you, Mayor Chad and Mayor Young, uh, and Ivan for returning my emails. Um, don't worry, PJ, Mike, James, and Kristen. I didn't email you. Your time's coming though. But I do want to thank Ivan and

Mayor Young for returning those emails. Um, I also did reach out to city administrator Lane Macy and I didn't hear anything back. Um, but I do want to say thank you for correcting the initial post and making it right. Um, I know a lot of us at least on the south side of town kind of felt like we got slapped across the face. Um, so I do appreciate it. Uh, because we couldn't go one block in the village without seeing a tree down. Um, just a few houses down, we had a tree fall on the neighbors cars. So, we felt a heavy impact. Um, I just questions and I know that it's a storm cleanup is going to be discussed in the agenda later. Um, so questions that I had, um, where was the funding coming from for the cleanup? Um, I know that Governor Kelly included Spring Hill in the emergency order. Um, but why wasn't why didn't we use that? Um, and please know that my questions are coming from a place of no knowledge. I don't know the rules or any of the legalities that come with that. So, my question is just curiosity. Um, I know that I did reach out to Governor Kelly's office and heard back on Friday 4:17 and they said that the city had not reached out and I was just wondering why. Um, so those were my questions about that. But again, thank you and thank you parks and wreck. Thank you the city. I know the city stepped up big time and helping to clean up and we great greatly appreciate that. Um, last is road resurfacing. I know that we that was brought up last meeting and approvals were made for certain subdivisions. Um I also know that I heard a couple of you say that chip and seal was a massive failure as one of the subdivisions that got that chip and seal. It is a failure. Um my children can't rollerblade. My children have

skinned knees from learning you can't go through the culde-sac and hit the brakes and bust on that chip and seal. I know a neighbor where a piece of the chip and seal fell into their yard, mowed, and it hit the window. Um, so what's the plan to fix what was clearly a failure? Um, especially in the village, village of Spring Hill, village of victory where that chip and sill is and it's just an epic failure. So, please consider us maybe the next one to fix that because it's my my children love to rollerblade and we're stuck in the driveway. Um, and with that, um, I know the construction crews behind the bank because they're building the, um, on 217th they're building those, um, duplexes. Uh, the construction crews wiped out the stop sign and the street signs. And I did put in a request to replace it, and the stop sign has been replaced. The street sign has not. and they already have such struggles getting race street mail right as it is. Not not the post office but FedEx, you name it. They can't get I get neighbors packages. So having Ray Street labeled and 207 street labeled. If we could get that, I'd appreciate it. Again, thank you for your time and listening.

All right. Great. Thank you. Thank you. I would assume Jacob, do we have that on the docket to get the road signs updated? I will look into that. I don't know.

I don't know if I'm not sure if that's one that we're handling or if we're going through the contractor who damaged it, but I will I will look into it. The stop sign is just a, you know, immediate safety issue. regardless of of fault, we we we get those replaced right away. The street name blades I will I will look into. Okay. Thanks. And I'll try to address the rest of those when we talk about storm later. Thanks. Uh next up is Michael Klutz.

Excuse me. Good evening. How you guys doing?

Um Mike Lutz. Uh 18512 West 194th Street. Um first off want to thank you all. Um you know the storm and really response I know initially it wasn't a great response and but we I think you made it right um after you know citizens made made it known they weren't real happy with the initial response but uh you know Ivan you jumped in it and uh you did what you could and we appreciate that. Um, I do have some notes. I just want to make sure I say this clearly. Um, just a few brief comments. I do need to step out early. Um, I got some family obligations. I'm on kid duty tonight. So, I'm going to try and follow afterwards. Um, first just kind of want to go over the pedestrian safety. Um, I do appreciate the discussion the last meeting about the lighting, the crosswalks at For Spring. Um, and I just want to make sure we're proactive um with the infrastructure uh planned to roll on Ridge View. Um, like between 195th and 199th across from the high school. Um, it's still early for that development, but just like us to be proactive with that, not run into the same problems instead of reactive because it's right across from the school. Um, second, um, just kind of going back into the community concern, uncertainty. Um, gotten to know a lot of people. um hearing more and more from neighbors and kind of the common theme is uncertainty with just where we are with the uh planning um and just through some public records and just some ongoing discussions it seems I mean pretty clear that we've had some significant development concepts considered specifically along the 191st to 199th corridor. Um the concern is not really just the projects themselves. I think it's just the level of detail that we've kind of seen that doesn't seem to match what has been communicated publicly. Um, I think that gap's just creating confusion and

concern. So, I just hope that, you know, really just respectfully asking that, you know, we can outline the city on the record what the vision and planning status is for that corridor. Um, not really speculation, but what's kind of being considered, what stage it's in, and what residents should reasonably expect going forward. doesn't etch it in stone, but I think it could help. Um, I know we're talking about annexation. I know there's 316 acres right there, and that's kind of been the crux of this whole thing for a while. I don't know what goes into that as a council is possibly deanexing that. I think that would if that's a possibility. I think that would ease a lot of concerns in that area. Um, I don't live there specifically, but I've gotten to know a lot of good people over there. Um, another, um, I just kind of want to talk about the process and independent review. Um, I know, you know, I saw on the agenda tonight that the city is appropriately bringing in specialized outside counsel for pretty complex legal matters like imminent domain. Um, that that's appropriate. Given that approach, I just kind of want to see if we can clarify how it determines when independent or outside legal review is being used, especially like with major reasonzoning or industrial decisions. um how does that apply to situations with large scale developments with infrastructure and environmental considerations? And then lastly, just back to the annexation infrastructure responsibility for kind of these large tracks that have been annexed uh particular those without a continuous fully planned development area. um how do we determine who bears the cost for the major infrastructure um like the water main sewer extensions and does the city evaluate whether those costs should be borne by developers rather than taxpayers in some of those situations. I just want to make sure you know I'm not I'm not I think most people agree with me. We're not about stopping growth. We just want to make sure all the decisions are fully informed fully

informed, financially responsible, and just clearly communicated so we can get that trust. So I know everyone cares deeply about deeply about where they live here. Um and I think clarity and transparency can go a long way with that. So I do thank your time and would like to wish you luck. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks. Uh, next up is Jameson Cochran. I'm Jamie Cochran. I own Dan's trailer in town. I live off 183rd in Lone Elm. I have landed 191st in Rener. I've been here for 46 years. I thank you, mayor, council, and staff for everything you do this town. I wasn't really prepared to speak tonight, but I did have one thing that um hit me personally today, and it makes me think of, you know, we're talking about annexing different plots of large land in different areas and going back to the data centers, even though we're not don't know if that's what's going there or what is going there. Um, I received a phone call today at work from a guy that I've done business with for 20 years. Um, he lost his job. Him and the other 40 that worked with him due to data centers. It all has turned to AI and that company that now I still do business with sent I just get emails and if I don't respond to that email I don't get the job versus the relationship I had with those people I talk to not every day but I once a week throughout the last 20ome years that I've been doing it. Um, you know, people tell me it's it's part of the world now. You're going to have to live with it. You're going to have to deal with it. I get that to an extent, but how far are we going to go with it? That's people are losing their jobs over it. They're losing their jobs. They're not going to be able to pay the property

taxes on their house. They're not going to be able Yeah. They go find another job, but that's what they've been doing their whole lives. And I just don't think a data center anywhere in Spring Hill around this area for my opinion, and I spoke with the mayor about it. I'm against it all the way around. And I just wanted to give you guys another reason other than the water usage, the electricity usage, all the stuff that the data centers do. But it actually hit me today. 40 people that I knew that I've done business with now do not have a job. All because of that. So just that's my two cents. And another thing, the storm shelter implementation, I didn't know that was a topic, they're fabulous. Um I don't know anything about the ones that you put in the ground or in the basement or whatever, but the steel ones that bolt to the floor, whatever, they're fabulous. They're very heavy built. I don't know if anybody around here, if any of you's ever been in one or seen one. If you want to get with me and I'll show you. They're fabulous. They're thick, but they are very heavy. I wouldn't want a child around them if adult wasn't around because the doors are heavier than me. So,

they look a lot better than the ingground one. That one looks a little scary. But they are they're, you know, I I second guessed it. Um I'll be honest with you, my dad bought one and I was like, why are you buying that? You got a basement. And then once he got it, it's it's pretty neat deal. Yeah, really is. So anyway, that's my two cents and I thank you guys for everything. All right. Thank you, sir. Next up is Lance Caldwell.

My name is Lance Caldwell. My address is 15275 West 191st Street. I'm a resident of the Spring Hill Township and uh I also serve as the elected township treasurer. It's the second time I've been able to address this body. Mayor, I think you weren't here last time, but uh good to see you all again tonight and appreciate your time. Really, really do. Um I've been attending both city council and planning commission meetings recently because I care deeply about the future of Spring Hill, the community, not just how it grows, but what it eventually becomes. Over the last few months, I've been reviewing the city's annexation activity and zoning direction. Specifically, I've I've noticed a pattern that began in late 2025 with areas like where I live around 191st in Ren are now continuing into 2026, including this evening's meeting with areas uh around 175th in Monell. You know, individually, these actions may make sense, but taken together, they begin to shape a broader story, a story of corridor forming, one that appears increasingly aligned with industrial expansion. And that raises an important question. Is this growth happening as part of a clearly communicated long-term vision or is it happening incrementally in a way that residents are only able to piece together after the fact? I want to be very clear. I am not here to oppose growth. Growth is necessary. Uh progress is good and econom uh economic development truly matters. But growth without clarity and without balance can change the identity of Spring Hill in ways that are hard to reverse and will have a long-term impact. The Spring Hill community has long been valued as a place where people can live in a quieter, more rural residential setting. In fact, it's exactly why many of us have chosen to live here, including my my family, which is three generations on our homestead down at 191st in Lackman. What concerns me is not a single NS annexation or a single zoning change. is the emerging pattern

that is happening. Expansion along key corridors by annexing right ride rightways and large tracks. Increasing flexibility in industrial zoning with regard to lot size and structure height. The introduction of a new category like technology facilities for M1 and now discussion of even heavier industrial designations as M2 I heard at our last meeting. And when you connect these dots, it suggests not just isolated decisions but a directional shift. And that shift deserves transparency which is a priority for this governing body. I've heard you say that but it doesn't seem that it's really manifested itself over the last seven months. So as residents we should not have to infer the future of our community by stitching together meeting minutes or zoning updates. We should be able to clearly understand where is the industrial growth going to be concentrated. How much is industrial use is planned rel relative to residential development? What buffers will exist between industrial uses, both rural and residential neighborhoods? And how will the city preserve the quality of life that brought the people here in the first place who want to thrive and see their families flourish? Because one, heavy industrial use because once heavy uh heavy industrial uses are established, they don't easily move. They shape traffic patterns, infrastructure demands, noise levels, and ultimately property values and livability. This isn't just about land use. It's about the identity of the Spring Hill community. Are we becoming primarily a residential community with thoughtful economic development? Are we becoming a broader industrial corridor? These two are very, very different futures. If the answer is somewhere in the middle, then it's critical that the community understands where those lines are drawn. So, three things I would respectfully ask the council to do is first, and you've heard this many times tonight, is just greater transparency. Clearly communicate the long-term land use vision, especially as it relates to industrial expansion, where it will be located. And then second is intentional balance. Ensure that the residential

growth, open space, and quality of life are not secondary considerations, but equal priorities. And third, meaningful buffers protect existing and future neighborhoods from the impacts of industrial encroachment that will not discourage new families from calling Spring Hill community their home. This community has a has an opportunity right now. The decisions that have been made and are being made today are not just about parcels and ordinances. They're about shaping the kind of place this will be for decades to come. And progress and pre preservation do not have to be in conflict, but they do require intentional planning, clear communication, and thoughtful balance. I appreciate your time tonight and I hope you continue to engage residents as all these decisions are made moving forward and the comprehensive plan is updated to reflect the wishes of the residents. Thank you for your time, consideration.

All right. Thanks. That was the last person that had signed up to speak. Is there anybody else in the crowd that would like to come and speak uh before we close citizen participation? Come on up. Please just state your name and address for

Hi, I'm Tara Holmes. Um I'm at 15320 West 193rd Terrace. Um thank you guys for having me. um speak here. My notes real quick. Um so, thank you for listening and for truly hearing me. Um I really appreciate that. Um in the last joint planning commission meeting, there was discussion about the input from residents regarding the comprehensive plan. Um and because I think you guys have heard this, we would like transparency. Um, I am requesting that the feedback that's is made publicly available and that any community feedback received is cons and considered um is verified as true residents of Spring Hill. Um, including the population and appropriate population input from the unincorporated areas like myself. um using websites like Facebook can welcome input from bots and other purchased likes and comments that may not be reflective of the true opinions of the Spring Hill citizens. Additionally, um I am respectfully also requesting more transparency from this council um by holding future executive sessions. I think that would really help um us know what's going on. Um and then being more forthcoming about the plans when you are considering um reszoning annexations, the community improvement projects and their intended purpose and also other data center proposals that you guys get. Um I understand that the statements that were made at the beginning of this meeting um but there are also um strong indications that these things are moving forward with data centers in mind. Um, and that should be officially stated and citizens should be mo fully aware as soon as you guys know what that intended purpose is. We want to know. Um, finally, I just want to state if it's not already clear that I'm adamantly opposed to a data center being anywhere in Spring Hill. Um, I believe

that they're detrimental to our water quality, our utility bills, our environment, and the overall quality of life for the people who live here. Um, we want development and growth that brings positive things to the city like jobs, retail, restaurants, and businesses that don't negatively impact our environment or adversely impact the lives that we've built here. So, thank you for listening to me. All right. Thank you, Ke. I think we had one more. Derek, come on up.

Everybody, Derek Buckards. 0456 West 220th Terrace. I didn't plan on talking, but I can't show up and not talk, so it's kind of how it goes sometimes. Um, for starters, appreciate everybody's involvement with Storm Relief. Um, I really feel like the city kind of went above and beyond. Um, no other city in the metro are you going to put volunteers in somebody's backyard and carry their stuff out to the driveway for them. So, I think you all went above and beyond which was be required or a standard for a city. So, I appreciate y'all for doing that. Um, and seeing Larry Sumner up here, that's a big reason why I'm so involved like I am. That guy has spent decades giving back to this community and the energy that he brings is the what builds us next generation. Um, it's people like him that give us all the reason. So, it was really cool to see him up here tonight. Um, and when he talks about trees at at at the cemetery, I think we need to start treating trees in our city for emerald ashbor. I think that's a big reason we're seeing trees come down in these heavy storms. We we we don't have a parks department truly. Um so taking those kind of precautions ahead of time will definitely help us with that. Um codes were mentioned. Um and so this is obviously where this is my cup of tea. Um I obviously hold a class A license, master electrical. I'm fully involved in the code world. Um I teach electrical classes, I teach GC classes, I work with the county on on bringing this stuff forward. Um, I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel. I think Johnson County has it figured out. We should just follow their amendments. If if I want to pull a permit in Spring Hill, I don't technically have to have a license in Spring Hill. I just have to provide my Johnson County license to build to do stuff in Spring Hill. Um, so I don't think we need to reinvent that wheel. Um, he had mentioned Lanexa 2023. I've been building apartment complex as a multifamily since 2009 in the Kansas City metro and we've been putting storm storm shelters and apartment complexes

and residential neighborhoods for 20 plus years. Um, every one of these every one of these residential areas has a clubhouse with a pool outside of it. They can put a basement in it. That's what every other residential area does. Blackhawk should have a full basement for every one of those people. Um, I don't think this is really an individual residential thing. This is a development standard. Um, and it's a standard that's adopted across this whole entire metro. Leewood has it. Overland Park has it. Every one of these jurisdictions I've built in for the past 20 years has storm storm shelters for their people. Um, other than that, um, QT, I think we just need to get ahead of the ball. I already see semis parking up and down 199th and it drives me nuts in the morning. Um, so I think just addressing parking ahead of time as we kind of bring in more traffic. I think we want more traffic and a general use. Um, but I think it's kind of getting ahead of game on making sure we're not having semis lining our highways in the morning. lining our streets as our kids are trying to get to school. Um, and I think about the 199th intersection. I know we just redid it. Um, but I see cars coming off 199th, coming on the Webster, jumping in that far right lane, jumping all the way across so they can go ahead and go east on 199th. Um, whatever we need to do to maybe carry on that that lane another couple hundred yards, I think would be beneficial for the growth in this traffic. Um, other than that, again, I appreciate you all. You're stewards of our city. You're stewards of your county and your constituents. So, I I really appreciate the time you all put into this. I'd be up here with you. It just conflicts with my interest. So, so, cheers, guys. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Derek. Anybody else? All right, we will close citizen participation. Next item on the agenda is a proclamation, Spring Hill Arbor Day. And they're going to make me read this whole thing. So bear with me here. Uh it's a proclamation of Arbor Day. Whereas in 1872, Jay Sterling Morton proposed to the Nebraska Board of Agriculture that a special day be set aside for the planting of trees. And whereas this holiday called Arbor Day was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska. And whereas Arbor Day is now observed throughout the nation and the world. And whereas trees can reduce the erosion of our precious top soil by wind and water, cut heating and cooling cost, moderate the temperature, clean the air, produce lifegiving oxygen, and provide habitat for wildlife. And whereas trees are renewable resources, giving us paper, wood for our homes, fuel for our fires, and countless other wood products. And whereas trees in our city increase property values, enhance the e economic vitality of our business and areas, and beautify our community. And whereas trees wherever they are planted are a source of joy and spiritual renewal. Now therefore, I, Chad Young, mayor of Spring Hill, mayor of the city of Spring Hill, Kansas, do hereby proclaim April 26, 2026 to be Arbor Day in the city of Spring Hill, Kansas. I have uh Oh, and I'll sign it. All right, that's it. Anything else you need from me on that?

All right, thank you. That was long-winded. Uh, next up we've got our consent agenda as amended. Is there any questions or comments? If not, I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve tonight's consent agenda as amended. Second. Second. We have a motion and a second. Yeah, we took off item 10. We took item 10 off. You're welcome. I got you. All those in favor? I I

opposed. Motion passes 5 Z. Uh next we'll move on to formal council action. The first item number 13 is consider approval of annexation agreement and ordinance for 2026-07 for land located at 17635 Lomem Road and 17725 Lome Road, Breeds Hill, Kansas LLC.

Thank you, mayor, members of council. Um this is consideration of annexation of voluntary annexation and an annexation agreement uh from the property owners for the Breedill annexation. Again uh the addresses are 136 35 Lone Elm Road 137725 Lone Elm Road. Uh city has received a voluntary consent to annexation with an annexation agreement that's before you this evening for the property owners. um property is contiguous to the existing city boundary and is eligible for annexation pursuant to Kansas law. Amy could bring up map real quick. So the property is bounded to the north by 175th Street uh generally west of Highway 169 and uh is bordered to the west or sorry the east by 169 to the west Lonelm Road and the section line to the south. It is approximately 150 acres in total. Uh it is contiguous to the city boundary uh which uh is done through the right of way of highway 169 which is in the corporate limits of the city of Spring Hill. Annexation has been submitted by the property owner qualifying as voluntary annexation. The agreement has been reviewed by staff and is consistent with the city annexation policies and applicable regulations. Uh, we find that the annexation meets all of the city's annexation policies and complies with Kansas statutes for voluntary annexation. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Any questions?

I have no questions regarding the annexation as a whole. I do have some comments um kind of uh in the uh effort of transparency as far as we as as we continue on with these annexations. Um people need to start thinking about not only what Spring Hill is doing, but also what is doing, what Overland Park is doing, and what Gardener is doing. Um as we continue to grow and as we look for new properties to bring into the city, um we are not the only ones looking at these properties. when these properties become available um they are reaching out and trying to find ways to um benefit themselves as they as they come into these uh annexation agreements. Um we obviously um saw just recently we had a line lineage project that um no one wanted here, no one on this governing body wanted here and it ended up getting approved by another municipality. as we uh go through these corridors that are butdding up against other municipalities, we have to keep that in mind as we go through these agreements and as we uh look to deal with things as they come across our desk. We're going to see um situations where if we don't do it, if we don't bring that into the city, it's going to still go there and it's going to go to another municipality. And not only are we going to have to deal with all the impacts that come along with it, but we're also going to have to deal with the fact that we don't see any financial benefit from it. Um, in in regards to this particular project, as we've stated earlier, um, its zoning is going to be maintained as it currently sits now through the county. Um, we will not entertain putting anything on it, whether it be um, reszoning it for an for a new purpose or for any potential plat until it's gone through the proper process that we already have in place. It will go through the planning commission. It will come to us. We will have um announcements put through our social media as well as our um publications that we're required to by law to submit all of these things through. So this is what transparency looks like. We start off going through the legal process. Annexation is the first step always when

we're trying to bring something into our city and benefit from it. So um moving forward as everybody can see 175th is an important part of Johnson County. It's a main thorough affair between both I35 169 and honestly all the way down 269 highway. There are lots of benefits that can be derived from these properties both on the residential side and on the manufacturing side as well as potentially commercial. We don't get to look at any of those issues or any of those potential um benefits for the city unless it's part of the city to begin with. So, um, moving forward, um, as we review these case by case, as I say all the time, I look at each and individual, um, annexation, each individual proposal brought to me by the city council and or by the city employees, and I say the same thing. If it makes sense, we're going to do it. If it doesn't make sense, I'm going to ask all the questions. In a situation, um, with this piece of property, it's clearly in a position that's going to benefit us long term. Um, I support this uh annexation wholeheartedly and each annexation that comes up gets the full um dressing down by me. I read through every line item. I ask all the questions. Chad is constantly answering questions for me. Lane is constantly answering questions for me. Spencer, I don't bother as much. Um, but everybody's answered questions for me and we're always all of us were always looking at these things um with a very very critical eye and it's not just uh by the seat of our pants. But unfortunately the uh the city only has uh the ability to either take things by force or by legal means or have people consent to come in and we don't we don't get to decide who comes into the city. We don't get to just choose that we're going to bring something in and we're going to put something there. It's it's got to go through the process and this is the process. This is what transparency looks like.

I don't Thanks PJ. I don't really have much else to say other than looking at it from a growth perspective and kind of what we're doing with our sewer projects and stuff like that, how all that's going to mesh with everything. So, and I talked to Lane about that, too. So, I feel comfortable with it. Thank you. Only question I had is the strip club's not in that, right? It's the next property over. It is not the boundary. Okay. Gentleman's club.

Gentleman's club. Uh I think PJ said it pretty well. I think uh we had a president bringing this up and the annexations as you see we have to create some sort of border or you know we have to kind of build out our city in the way that we can when we work with these land owners. And of course we want to be as much in control as we can over what happens at these properties. that there's going to be some times where we have to buckle a bit when we have to make sure that we're getting what we need as far as a a blockade. I would be um remiss if I said that I don't want to be like Gardner was with the inter modal where they deal with all of the issues and they get none of the benefits. And so for me, this type of annexation comes in. We're going to do our best to control the outcome of that area, how the roads look, how the traffic flows, the type of businesses they are, but it's it's going to be probably a, you know, a meets in the middle type type of deal. It's not going to be we're not going to be able to say, hey, everything we want to do here is this, this, and this. We don't have clean control. you get further into the city where we have the openings that are county land that really can only come to us. that's when we have a lot more control and that those are the areas that we really need to d you know dive deep and figure out what is it we want there so we're not just giving the same thing to everybody it's you know there is special circumstances depending on where these locations are and this is a pretty prime location and I was happy to see this come through because as we saw THA um did a project that we were not interested in just north of it I mean couple hundred feet away and so if we can stop that from coming any further south and control at least a little bit what happens there. Um, I'm I'm I'm happy for that. And um, so I this is a great thing. I think if you look at both of them, you'll see that it's kind of given us the ability to kind of control a little bit that that little bit of a corridor. And, um, you know, we'll

continue talking to land owners out there and and picking up larger pieces because that's really the only way to go out there. They're large pieces of of land and people as they look to sell will come to us and I'm sure they're talking to the other two cities that are there, too. And so we're going to be um we're going to be aggressive and we're going to be in the game. We don't want to be out of the game and have other cities decide what's going to happen near us. And so that's uh you know that's our hope for all of this. Outside of that, I will say on these sometimes we run into uh legal conflict of interest and we do go with third party firms when that happens and we'll have Spencer step away if there's a conflict of interest with his firm. I know it's been brought up a couple times by resident and so we do see and you'll see that with some of the imminent domain we've done and things like that. So that is that is something that is part of this annexation. These these people or these companies and land owners can sometimes be represented by a firm or the same firm that he's with and we will use a third party in that situation. We do work with a couple different uh firms also for our financial services and they can also help us in those situations and so we have backups that are kind of in-house already too. So there is multiple options we have when it comes to legal services. Um the sewer cost I know that was one thing too we talked about we're growing into these areas. The sewer cost is kind of on us right now but we usually get that back as people hook up and as neighborhoods come in. you'll see uh large numbers come in when these when these residential neighborhoods come in and they kind of help offset that cost. We typically bond it out and then it gets paid off over time. It doesn't actually go on to the bill. It's something that we build into kind of knowing what may or may not happen in these areas. There's going to be residential, there's going to be commercial, there's going to be industrial, and they all have their different hookup costs, and we use those to help reimburse kind of the cost to get the the uh the sewer out there, which helps keep us competitive in these areas. Um, when you see us do a sewer project, it's because these areas are up

for grabs and sewer is king. It's a weird thing. I remember when I found that out, I was like, "What the heck? Why is it sewer the thing that worry about?" Yeah, it's a hot commodity and uh we have the uh the land to get there. So, it is a is a big piece.

I I I agree with some of the comments we had about clear communication on the land use. Uh that's one reason I was happy to see kind of in the annexation agreement they're pretty forthcoming about land use that they want to do. My understanding is there is no end user. There's no end industry involved right now. They're kind of a um a group that seems to try to build to use or to or to you know to their user. So I know that they're here. I know that there's a representative here. I don't know if there's anything they want to say but at this point just annexation. We don't necessarily have anything to talk about, but um if there was anything you wanted to say, you're welcome to.

Mike Strawberg, Oak Development Company. Um we're working with the land owner for the development of this property. Um been working with Spencer and Lane for quite some time now and um just appreciate the consideration today and um like what a lot of you had to say, we want to be a good partner. Um I encourage everyone to do some research on Opus. we're a um a good developer and we want to be stewards of the land that we develop and uh partner with uh the communities in a meaningful way. So looking forward to develop this ground in Spring Hill. Thank you for your consideration.

All right. Thanks. Outside of that, I don't think we had a ton of other questions to the citizen participation that was anything that really should be addressed right now. buffers that'll all be addressed when that time comes when it when it comes to zoning. And I know Mike is really good about, you know, with Mike and Ian here now, we have a really good team that can go through and figure out all the items that we want to have involved. And um so we'll we'll have those discussions and those things will come along as as time progresses and and projects are presented. Sometimes you'll be surprised. There was a map or land use thing I saw today for the project that never came to fruition at 191st that I had never seen. was something that got presented last minute and it never even got to us. Staff got it and they had kind of backed out at the same time. So, it's very interesting sometimes that um you know, I know core requests happen and people get information, but we don't always have all the information up front either. There's a process to everything. PJ probably said it best better than I I can. So, um you know, again, I've tried to say transparency is is the biggest thing. There's always things that sometimes there's things we can't say. Sometimes there are things if we jump the gun, we say it. You see it with the storm cleanup. You know, we jump the gun and say something and it it doesn't come across the right way and we don't want to do that. So, we got to be thoughtful of how we put information out, too. But if you're not already, and I want to say this because I got a lot of calls yesterday about it, our agenda comes out the Friday before the meeting. Get on what's it called, Glenda? Um,

our website, notify me. Notify me.

Yeah, notify me. and you'll get any updates for communication from the city to your email, I think to your text, all that stuff. So, I would make sure you get involved in that. Um, and then you'll really be able to get because we put it has been doing a really good job. That was a big thing that I wanted to do when I first started was to get the agenda out earlier because it was coming out Monday and sometimes Tuesday. So, Friday afternoon, you have the whole weekend to review it, ask questions, call us, call the city. And so, we try to we're trying to give more time um than we ever have as far as those agendas go. you can get with us and kind of understand it better and rally up the troops if you want or whatever it is you're you're going for. So, um just kind of wanted to address some of those things to this participation that we had. Uh outside of that, I don't have any other comments on this. I think it's a good annexation. I'm happy to have it. I know we've looked at other properties up there that we've kind of competed in Altha took over. So, I'm happy that this one's coming to us and I from what my research on Opus, they seem like a good company and they've done good work. So, any other questions or comments? If not, I will entertain a motion.

I move to approve agenda item number 13 as stated in tonight's agenda. Second. We have a motion and a second. Savage. Any other questions or comments? All right. All those in favor? Oh, wait. Is this a vote? Roll call. Thank you. Gosh, I messed it up again. Mrs. Feedback? Yes. Mr. Grant? Yes. Mr. Delgado? Yes, Mr. Savage. Yes, Mr. Thrawn. Yes, Mayor Young. Yes. Ordinance 2026-07. Uh, passes 600 Z.

All right. And Mike's up here again. Number 14, consider approval ordinance number 2026-08 for annexing rights of way into the city limits 175th Street, Lone Elm Road, and 169 Highway.

Thank you, mayor. uh the second annexation and I and I should say that these uh annexations are being done in very specific order so that we can achieve the required uh contiguous bow duty with city limits. So the the first one was done based on the contiguity with the 169 highway we will but that only included the two parcels that was under the ownership. The second annexation this evening is the rights of way for 175th um the the right of way to the east and LM road. U so in keeping with the the county's desires for cities when they annex property to annex the adjacent rideway at least to the center line of the road that's what we are doing. So uh the proposed annexation um there's two general kind of legal descriptions here. one that that pulls in half of the center line uh with the ride ofway that's to the east um adjacent to the 169 highway uh the rideway along 175th that runs east to west and then a portion of the Lone Elm rightway that runs north and south. Um, so all of those parcels, not parcels, all of those rights of way are adjacent to the new city limit. Once the annexation for the breeds hill annexation uh is recorded and is official once it's published, then this one will go uh get recorded be published. So then these properties or rights of way will be contiguous to the breeds hill property. So this is being done in a sequential order. Uh staff finds that the property is uh it is for public rightway only uh contiguous to the city limits. No structures or occupied properties are included. It will provide for consistent maintenance regulation and service of those rights voy so that there's no portion of a county road that's left

unincorporated. Um no zoning changes are anticipated and we believe it meets the city annexation policy and Kansas statutes for annexation of rightway. happy to answer any questions. This one's a little bit more straightforward. We're just kind of picking up the pieces as we have got the other one. And I know we I think in the past we've missed this before, so it's nice to get it done at the same time so we're not having to go back and try to fix it. Yes. At a later date. So glad we got this done this time. Any questions or comments? If not, I'll entertain a motion. I move to approve agenda item number 14 as stated in tonight's agenda. Second

motion and a second. Madame clerk, will you please take the role? Mr. Grant? Yes. Mr. Delgado? Yes. Mr. Savage? Yes. Mr. Thron? Yes. Mrs. Feedback? Yes. Mayor Young? Yes. Ordinance 2026-08 passes 600. All right, we'll move on to item number 15. Very similar. Uh, let's see here. Consider approval of annexation agreement and ordinance 2026-09 for land located on parcel IDs 9F231427-4003 and 9F231427-4004 American Top Inc.

Thank you. This is the third annexation. Um it is a consideration of a voluntary annexation with the corresponding consent to annexation agreement for two properties located south and west of the Breedill property. It is the American Top Soil property. U approximately 75 acres in total for that property. Um the property will be contiguous to the current city limits after the annexation of both the Breil and the adjacent rideway. The first two before you. Uh the annexation request has been submitted by the property owner qualifying it as a voluntary annexation. Uh the annexation agreement that is corresponding to this request has been reviewed by staff and is consistent with the city's policies and regulations and staff finds that it meets the city's annexation policy and Kansas statutes for voluntary annexation.

All right, any comments or questions? This one's a little bit different. I don't think we have as much information on this annexation. Uh is this is a nice pickup also because it helps us kind of move west as we like to figure out how to make sure that area stays within Spring Hill city limits. So I was happy to see this one come through also. I don't have any other comments outside of that.

Uh Spencer, could you give us just a brief breakdown of what the current um zoning is for this piece of property and kind of what it entails? It was new to me as I was reading through it. So, these uh these properties are currently zoned RUR, which is the rural residential for the county. They're going to maintain that until the land owner comes and requests a reszoning. Um the current use of the land is a top soil company. So, they are extracting just well, the name is pretty self-explanatory. They're extracting the top soil that you can go to your local hardware store and buy in bags and come put around my foundation with me. So, that use will continue um as a permitted use um subject to a land disturbance permit. Is that right, Mike?

Yes. Um so, that will come to staff uh to ensure that that is done properly and in accordance with our procedures. Um and so that is outlined in the agreement. is just sort of once again it's something that was already allowed that they can continue those uses. But we do appreciate when landowners want to be forthcoming and put that in there and we can share that here and discuss it and discuss it among staff and again the view of transparency have that out there. So thank you very much. Yeah. All right. Is there any other questions or comments?

If not I will entertain a motion. I move to approve agenda item number right it's number 15 correct yes I move to approve agenda item number 15 as stated in tonight's agenda second two seconds he can have it he can have it okay I'll give it to him yes it was all right we have a motion in two seconds we'll uh ready for a vote Mr. Mr. Delgado, yes. Mr. Savage, yes. Mr. Thrawn, yes. Mrs. Feedback, yes. Mr. Grant, yes. Mayor Young, yes.

Ordinance 2026-09 passes 600. All right. Next item up. Consider approval of resolution number 2026-R7 resolution providing the for the range of salaries of various city officers and employees of the city of Spring Hill, Kansas pursuant to section 1-401 of the Spring Hill Municipal Code and Miss Monaisha Jones.

Yes. Good evening, council. So, I'm here to talk about the salary resolution. Um the change that is being proposed tonight is a very simple change in that we are not looking at an overhaul of all the positions and ranges. We're just trying to slot in a information technology or IT manager position. Um as you know um throughout the years we look at the salary resolution annually to make sure supports what we need. We do ad hoc reviews as those come up out and then every couple of years we do the custom surveys to make sure we have that holistic view for um the city compared to the market. So while all those things are going on and then we have discussions throughout the year what makes sense operationally for the city in terms of staff and what we need and the expertise and so right now we are at a point where we need to bring the IT function back inhouse with staff that is trained in that area to offer that specialized knowledge and experience when it comes to the day-to-day as well as any of the projects and things that are going on from an IT perspective. And so here today, we need to slot this position back in so that we can start recruiting and bring that back in house. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer.

I don't have any questions, but I think this is a wise decision. Um, bringing things in house instead of paying outrageous contracting hourly fees and what have you. Um, so I'm excited to see this happening. I think the city um has grown enough to be able to have their own. I don't have any questions. I just think it's a great idea. Okay. Yeah, this is definitely a a need rather than a want. So, you know, going to be beneficial for Amy so she won't have to walk around here. We'll have an IT person here that can help us out. So,

yeah, there's definitely a need for it. We need to have somebody in house that can kind of be a network administrator IT person. Um, we've tried a couple different things. Our previous company wasn't bad. um they kind of I think priced us out a little bit and then new company probably served its purpose and we probably are ready to have somebody here that's on staff that gives us 40 hours a week dedicated to us same person so we know the issues that we've got instead of you know just the nature of being with a bigger company you kind of go through a customer service line and might be a different person every time but outside of that I'm sure

we're still going to have a third party IT company that's helping us but this will be nice to have somebody on staff that knows the ins and outs of our specific equipment and figuring out how to make sure we keep it running smoothly so Amy's not over there panicking when something doesn't work right. Yeah, definitely need someone that that have that centralized point of contact for everything that knows if they say we need a they know that's true we need. So yeah. So I I do have a question though really quick. So do you all have a ticketing system or or like I know it's third party so I'm sure there is a ticketing system there. So when we bring it internally, is there going to be a process in place where they'll get

right? I mean, we'll work through all of the logistics on that and make sure we have that in place. I just didn't know if that was considered. And then um we're still going to have as stuff's going in the cloud. We're still going to have the other We're still going to have that going on. We're going to have someone come in and handle all the projects that we've started and figure out where we need to go with that. Yeah. I mean, that's like a huge undertaking. I know because we're doing it. to have like somebody come internally and then take over for what a company is doing. I'm not saying like there's I mean it's just a big undertaking. Yeah. I just wanted to Well, and I was going to we have quite a bit left. Mayor Young has mentioned that I mean we're still going to have some outside help with certain things because

whenever we bring someone internally, there's always a need to kind of get that expertise in different areas. Exactly. Okay. Stephanie and Overlap are going from 100% kind of third party to Absolutely. probably I would think 5050 for a while at least. We'll get it figured out. Been there. Everything else kind of salary range is just upticked, I assume, for cost living,

right? And so, as I mentioned in um this agenda review sheet, we currently have the comprehensive survey going on. So, even though we're slotting this in here right now, that's not going to prevent us from shifting it around for what makes sense once all of that is done with the survey. We just need to get it in here in a slot where it makes sense from what we could see right now and then go forward. The C biz survey that you all are doing. Yeah. All right. I don't have any other questions. Anybody else have questions or comments? All right. I will entertain a motion. I move to approve agenda item number 16 as stated in tonight's agenda. Second.

Mr. Savage seconded. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I I opposed. Motion passes 500. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think we are on our last item here. Cons. Number 17. Consider approval of resolution number 2026-R08 adopting the employee purchasing policy first edition 2026 of the city of Spring Hill, Kansas.

Thank you, mayor. Um, thanks uh to all of you this evening for your time. We um ran um often review policy, make updates and changes as needed. This one's a pretty straightforward policy change. Um some of the smaller ones are adding city officer as one of the option or one of the uh employee types that has purchasing power for the city. We're taking out the petty cash policy. If you don't know what that is, it means if a employee went to a meeting and they had to buy their lunch, we would give them $20 in cash, they bring us a receipt and some change. We have not used that since I've been here. We use purchasing cards and things like that instead. So, we don't need that part of the policy. I did add a really brief section about fuel cards and that the department is responsible for documenting and verifying those purchases are correct and getting the um monthly statement to accounts payable to be paid which is what we're doing. We just put it in the policy. But the the biggest one and the most important one in this group is taking a look at our on call professional services. You hear a lot of times a lot of work that Allison does is with on call contracts and so we wanted to make policy around how on call contracts are used at different levels. Um there is an option for every single on call contract work task order to be brought to council. Sometimes it would be consent for smaller items. Um, sometimes it's up to the city administrator if he wants it on a consent or formal. And then as it goes up in value, the policy changes. And so, as an example, anything from 50 to 100,000 will always be on formal agenda for you to discuss and approve.

If it's 100 to 300,000, they will do an RFP with existing on call vendors. So, we just look at the ones that we have and have them each bid on it at least three. Anything over 300,000 is a full RFQ and goes through that process. Um, RFPs and RFQS have saved this city, I'll say hundreds of thousands, so I'm not exaggerating, but it's probably in excess of a million dollars. They work. They're time consuming. So, we want to put together a policy that lets um staff utilize the on call policies where we followed all those procedures and be efficient, but then bringing the important decisions in for council to be approving and giving people opportunity to bid on the bigger jobs hopefully to save us money. And that's all I have about the policy changes tonight. Can I answer any questions for you? I know you guys love policy. No,

I think this is uh this is appropriate. It's uh definitely going to help ease the uh the workload and the timelines for a lot of these projects that we have going on. Sometimes having to wait 13 days because we just had a council meeting to get something moving is very very time prohibitive. So I think uh these ranges are appropriate for a city of our size. I think our our staff is trustworthy and all the checks and balances are still there to make sure that we're we're doing everything above board. So I support this in its entirety.

Thank you. Yeah, I like the numbers that we have on the higher end for in-house contractors. Uh I think 300,000 if it's under that typically I don't think we need to spend the extra 30 days it takes for the big RFQ. We have a huge list that we've already kind of gone through and qualified sticking within that getting these projects done quickly. There's a lot of times talk to people and they're like why is it taking so long to do anything? Well, it's kind of in this gray area. We've got to go through the rigomear row of everything else. So that will help. The only thing I wanted to bring up to everybody, we did change these numbers for the actual department heads, finance director, city administrator. Is everybody okay with the zero to 50 there or do we want to we were lower before? Are we okay with that there or do we Everybody's with that. Okay. Just wanted to check that. I know that was something that we had when we did it. It was kind of like we're going to try it out and see if these numbers are good. I do like for the most part you've been bringing even smaller amounts to us.

I would like to continue that. Um, you mean on actual purchasing policy? And you're exactly right. It works pretty well for us to be efficient and quick, but um, Mr. Massie tends to push things in here to you when it's getting closer to that 50,000 range and things like which I appreciate. Um, I don't think everything needs to go. I mean, obviously there's times where we're like, "Hey, we got to do it."

Um, but yeah, I think it's it's good the the practice we've been doing, although it's not the policy. I like the practice we've been using. I think this will be a big um a big good change for us. I'm sad Allison's not here to be she was very happy with this because I think it's going to make her life a lot easier when we're trying to get these projects done quickly or make decisions, you know, more quickly. So, I think it looks good. The only question I had was when it says city officers, is that just the city clerk position or is there other positions that are going to fall into that as well?

Right now, the only one with purchasing policy or purchasing needs is a city clerk. I was more generic. For example, I'm the city treasurer. I get authority from this policy anyway. We have a city attorney. He is not an employee. Does not have any power any purchasing power. You might you don't have any power at all. Zero. Zero. But if we were to hire an attorney, god forbid, if we were to hire an internal attorney, we wouldn't have to change this policy for that person to have purchasing power. Okay.

I do have a question. It might be a little bit on the outside here. Do we How do we pay? Do you just give a check to people or is there like a like we use bill pay or then the vendor the bill is is it goes through the approval process through the appropriate people? Is that what you guys is that what you all have here or do we just do the kind of spreadsheet and write the check out and all that stuff? I didn't know. Some sometimes I kind of want to laugh and bring in the stack of paper that it takes for you to get an appropriation order for this agenda. I just wonder but invoice the physical invoice from the vendor is an original is sent through. So for example, if public works, right,

you know, hires someone to fix something, you know, fix a stop sign, right? They will get an invoice. They've authorized the work. They confirm that it's correct. They code it and they bring it. They put it in our system and it's paid. We don't pay from statements or spreadsheets or anything like that. We use a lot of city credit cards, probably $20,000 a month or so for smaller purchases. That way, we're not doing that whole process. They process one statement as opposed to my last card had 22 purchases on it. We just paid one bill. I just wondered if you used automation because a lot of places are switching to those kinds of systems and it just makes it nice for your accountants. I hope we're headed that way.

Yeah, we've we've looked into it a couple of times and just haven't made that move yet. And I would like to see us be more autom I don't like shuffling paper. Sure. I'd rather um for example, sometimes a mayor has to sign things that we you guys authorized we bought. I'd rather route it to him electronically. He clicked a button and we knew it was approved as opposed to actually getting his signature. There there are systems out there that'll do it. We're we went through a big thing. It it's great. The Tyler software will do that. Okay. We just have not implemented that portion. You can also move all the way to Visa purchasing where we pay everybody with Visa cards, you know, and vendors do not like that. So, balance. That's good.

There was a big push on those and they've gotten pushed back because there's a big cost cost to the We sold a lot of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then everybody's like, we can't use it anymore. Nobody's taking Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get out there with that. I know that wasn't the original thing. I was just curious. Sorry. Yep. We I always look for ways to make it better. No, and I agree. I mean, we've talked about this over the years just in banking itself when it comes to payments. We do have processes where it's electronic where it goes from one approver to the next and yeah, I get some that I have to approve on Tyler. So, there's different ways to do it. I think we're making our way there. Sure. I think once we have somebody in house too, it'll be nice to

they might have ideas where they worked or been. So, it's always good good to get a different perspective. Any other comments or questions? All right, I will consider a motion. Entertain a motion. Yes. I move to approve agenda item 17 as stated tonight's agenda. Second. Have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes 500. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Rhonda. Yeah. Okay. Does anyone need a break for our discussion item? I would not be mad. Why don't we take a five minute uh break um for before this discussion item? Huh?

We have discussion then we have some discussion. So figured we take a break now. Try to so we're not rushing this discussion at all. So I'll entertain a motion. Okay. I move that the uh governing body move into recess for a bathroom break for five minutes to return uh in the council chambers at 44 8:44 p.m. Second. Motion a second. All those in favor I I opposed. Motion passes 500.

four and we are back and we will move on to our discussion item of uh storm policies. This kind of came up with the uh previous storm that we had. We didn't necessarily have a plan for anything kind of under the threshold of I would say natural disaster for the whole city. Um, I'll try to address a few things. So, I did talk to the governor's office, uh, Ethan up there and through Chip Vanhen, our our state representative. Um, he was a big help trying to find out what funding we can get. The storm was a little bit of an anomaly. We had quite a bit of damage in the area where the damage was, but it wasn't necessarily the entire city and it was on the Miami County side. So therefore, we had a very very small portion of Johnson County that was affected and that kind of affects what happens as far as resources we get from all over. I didn't know that when you go to look for resources outside of just our city resources there there's a very complex uh equation that goes into it. What qualifies, what doesn't qualify, you know, what we can kind of take credit for, what we can't. Um, I think with the damage that was done in Hillsdale, all of our surrounding, whether it be fire, other police, Johnson County, everybody was was dispatched to to Hillsdale. We even dispatched some officers from my understanding because once we looked at it, we're like, "Hey, the damage is is not as widespread here, so we're going to send a couple officers down." I know uh James and I were out in the storm. We were kind of driving around together, side by side, trying to pull limbs out of the street just to get our guys over to where they needed to be. And um you know the comment of widespread it's a it's a geographical comment. It wasn't anything that it wasn't widespread in the areas

it was hit. The areas it was hit was not great. I'm in the most furthest part of uh actually all of us but Ivan are in Miami County and we were all hit. I think James' house was probably the worst. Maybe maybe uh PJ next. I was lucky we don't have mature trees. you know, my fence is broken. Uh, my roof is messed up and my hot tub lid got thrown to the neighbor's house. So, I had damage, but it wasn't tree damage. So, you know, when that first initial comment comes out, um, you know, it came across the wrong way. I took full responsibility for it. And in the future, we're going to be a little bit more mindful of what we, you know, what we say, how we say it, and how we approach things. So, I wanted to come here, get everybody's opinion on how we want to set funds aside. Obviously, we have funds available. We have reserves. We have everything. Uh, but I don't mind having a line item, and Rhonda's been really good about this over the years of having a line item for every single thing. We have one for benefits for our employees. We have one for what are some other weird ones that we've got that, you know, to me, I'm like, why do we do this? And then we have something like this happen. I'm like, oh, it would be nice if we had a storm a line item that we keep 50 to $100,000 in. What other kind of line items do we have that we can kind of attribute this to as far as doing in the future?

Every year in the budget, two important things. Number one, I budget a line called contingency, and that's the unknown. And I don't recall it ever having under $50,000 in a year because things will happen we cannot possibly predict. Plus, you budget to spend every penny you have. Mhm.

I hope we never have a situation that we need to do that, but money will never be the issue for you to accomplish whatever emergency that comes along. Um, I'd also like to point out in this situation, um, purchasing policy was still followed where multiple vendors were called and we followed the best procedure. So, it didn't even have to be an emergency. They were able to follow process and hire the best vendor for us. So, I'm not I'm not sure exactly which line item because I don't know exactly how much we spent yet, but that money buddy budget and money will not is not an issue. We could add an extra line if you want. I don't really know what would go in it because we clean up snowtorms. We have a we have, you know, budget for salt and sand and we

So, where does that come from? Like, what do we have that in now? That's in streets and parks and it's also can be paid. We buy salt from the consolidated highway fund as well. Most of it though in your staffing. I mean, if you think about I mean, aside from the equipment and stuff, you've got to have staff to, you know, so you're looking at overtime and all that stuff. So, that's not going to come from your contingency thing. That's going to come. But we do budget for overtime. Overtime, right? I know you did.

And an example in in parks and streets, a lot of that overtime is snow time in a year. And we are budgeting this year as a percentage of wages so that we're always carrying a guess you would say a contingency depending on what happens and they should run under budget. If you don't have a lot of snow storms or you don't have a storm cleanup and things like that, we give them amp, you know, an appropriate budget for that. Is there some type of protocol that we do in terms of like all hands on deck? We've got a situation here. I mean, do we have Well, Chief had kind of a

and I would say Jacob, I think they both had a plan in place that they followed. I don't think uh employee-wise we were in a terrible spot. It was a matter of do we want to say, "Hey, in the future we want to treat storms like this like we do snow where it's, you know, we're going to make sure it's taken care of for the entire city." And that's kind of the question I think I want to have answered. And if that's the case, then we need to, in my opinion, budget for it annually and and have money set aside for that. I know one of the main issues we had um was the initial bid we got since we don't have like a contractor on file that says, "Hey, this is who we're going to use when we have storm issues." And that's one thing Jacob brought up. He's like, "Hey, I think we can probably have that ready to go and pre-planned so that the pricing we got a day after our first pricing we got was substantially lower because it wasn't the height of the storm. We went out in the height of the storm and looked out and it was we were looking at six figures for cleanup. And then when we go back a couple day, you know, a day later or so and it's substantially lower, we had a clearer picture of where we could maybe put the debris. There's like all these things that kind of came into play that we didn't have initially. And I think that part of the plan is even bigger than even the budgeting because like I said, money's there. It's it's a matter of the sticker shock of hearing, oh, this is what it's going to cost. Do we as a governing body want to say, "Hey, we're going to take care of this in future storms and and make sure we have a set aside amount." That's in my opinion. I think we should have some set aside money. And then should we have a contractor

I think on call contractor for that because we used did a great job.

Yeah. And I liked it was a local contractor and and u and so that's where those type of things come into play. I know I was trying to call everybody and it was like all of us were having our own issues at home. I had water coming in the back window. You know, I I'm checking to see what's going on in my house and so, you know, it's kind of a mix. And I think hell, I mean, Lane was out, too, driving around trying to figure out what was going on. Jacob and Chief were both working. I called Chief and he's I hear like screaming in the background like, I'm going to get off the phone. You just do what you need to do. And so, um, yeah, you know, it's it's kind of hectic. It's hectic for the homeowner. It's hectic for us. That's why I think having a plan going forward is good. So that's where I just want to hear from you guys what you think and and what what you would like to see going forward.

Why not? Go ahead. Go ahead. I'd like to see us do a emergency meeting. That way there's no runaround of hey, I can't talk to more than two council members about this issue. We can just all come in. We can all call in whatever the case may be and just freely discuss and, you know, come up with a good plan together, you know.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know if we necessarily need a meeting. I think if we have a consensus now and we can set up a plan to say, "Hey, we want to afford these." Yeah. Have a procedure for it. I think that's probably better suited than doing a meeting and trying to pick and choose which ones we want to do it for. But that would be my opinion. I think we just decide now, hey, these type of events we want to take care of that are kind of under the threshold of where we're going to actually get, you know, reimbursed for this and we'll do our best. I know there's a lot of pieces that go into it and Jacob you can probably speak to this more but Lane to get reimbured we have to have the contractors pre-planned and pre kind of in contract we have to kind of work with the wreck prior beforehand and make them a contractor so that we can use

there's several steps um in a large scale what I'll call a natural disaster a tornadic event ice storm flood uh the governing body the mayor specifically would declare a disaster then that would typically go to the county and then on to the governor's office to declare that as a state disaster. If it reaches a certain level, the it can be become a presidentially declared disaster, then that opens up potential FEMA funds. This event just within Spring Hill probably won't reach that. It it it's possible with Hillsdale and Oswadami and Poliola that it could uh but we won't know that until much later when all the the damages have been uh brought together. Typically in a FEMA presidentially declared disaster, we have to track the uh the hours of overtime, uh the the trucks, the vehicles, all of that has a a dollar amount associated per hour of use. And then as uh they collect the debris, then they take pictures of the debris, estimate the weight. there there's a whole process of doing this in in a largecale uh disaster. Back to a question that you had, we do have a plan in place uh internally for the staff. We activated um I contacted the chief and Jacob and and they were uh chief came into the to the station and Jacob had his crews ready to go. So they once once that event occurred then they were able to react very quickly. On a larger scale, it kind of goes back to your question of having a meeting on the the emergency operations plan that we have. There are specific processes that we have in place for instant command. uh we would at that time start having meetings and we would have not only meetings with

the governing body, we would have meetings with the um the individual companies like EverGy, Atmos Gas and any other uh players within that that we would need to and then at that point we would also have the PIO making press releases and so there's a there's a there's a process depending on the intensity of the event and if it's a a very major event, we're probably going to bring in Johnson County AOC to help with that and some surrounding areas depending on the severity to the uh our neighbors to the north and east. So again, I think the biggest issue with this particular storm is that it falls kind of over that threshold of all those things. So for us, there's a, you know, a plan in place to make sure we have staff involved that they can handle the public rights of way and things like that and the streets, but do we want to continue doing the type of cleanup that we did for this storm, which I'm completely fine with. And if we do, I just think we need to have a plan in place for that. And I don't think it's as complicated as it probably seems based off of what how complicated it got this time. If we just have if it's Ted Tree I think handled this storm for us. If it's hey we go through the process we get bids for the next year or two. Ted Tree is kind of on call for any storm to repick up that we have we'll we'll pick up you know we'll have it five days after the major storm. You know we kind of have those type of steps in place. I think that's what we probably need to look at. And then if that's the case, I think we set aside depending on what the pricing is from that we get for the on call work. I think a cleanup never really takes more than four or five days I would think. So we'd say whatever that cost is and then the cost of the overtime and things like that. And then also I think working with the wreck to have a plan in place that something like this where they did a great job of jumping in and handling those logistics of the volunteer portion and the request

portion which I think is very helpful because again a lot of the damage was in backyards and if you don't have help to get it out to the curb picking it up doesn't really help you if you can't get it out there. So um I think those things are what we really need to kind of hash out right now just in a consensus. And so if everybody's like, "Yeah, I like what we did after, you know, once we made a plan, let's have Jacob and and Lane kind of figure that out. If not, if there's other things we'd like to see, then let's do that."

So, as far as our initial response, um, obviously there was a lot of uh, uh, it wasn't received well. We we've we've acknowledged that. We don't need to keep beating that dead horse. there. I want to kind of acknowledge the expectation that I think is fair for the city employees as a whole, for the governing body as a whole. Um, we were receiving requests and um complaints about our initial response within hours of the storm actually happening. And I want to make sure that whatever policy or whatever procedure we set and acknowledges that the city crews have to have time to assess damages, our police officers have to have um time to assess whether or not the roads are safe to be out on. um expecting a city government, especially a city government of our size to to be able to respond and be out on private property helping people um correct private issues um within 24 hours I feel is an unrealistic expectation at every corner. How Jacob, how many people do you have under your employee right now? When you had crews out, how many how many men were you able to mobilize

mobilizing for storm uh pickup? Seven. Seven. Chief, how many officers do we have under arm play right now? Say 18. 19. Okay. Sorry about that. 19. 19. So, we've got we've got seven public works people. We've got 19 officers to make the entire city safe to travel so we can even begin cleanup having

whatever we put in policy. The expectation has to be realistic for the size and and the resources we have available. Um, so as we move forward, that I think identifying uh some potential vendors like we do for everything else, I think is an appropriate step and I think that'll also set us up in the future for pursuing disaster relief funding as it comes from the county, it comes from the state, it comes from the federal government. Um, but I also want to reme remind everybody that I'm not a disaster relief expert. Um most people don't have any kind of training um when it comes to that significant tornatic event that that true natural disaster. Lane Chief Jacob, our city employees are our response to that. We've got all these policies already in place. And honestly, outside of public the court of public opinion saying I didn't like what was said initially, we did exactly what the city should do. like um I'm perfectly okay with setting up a policy so we have things in place. I'm perfectly okay with setting up a line item so we know, hey, this is where that money is coming from, but I want to make sure whatever we're doing, we're acknowledging that this event wasn't a natural disaster. It was a storm. We did have to do cleanup. Um but we also don't need to go to a uh to an extent that's well outside the the scope of what we've already got set up. I was just going to say what I'd like to see because you're correct. We're not experts up here. We all come from different lines of work and different things like that. I'd like to see um Chief and Lane and Jacob, I mean with whoever else is input, put a proposal together with some of these things that we're saying and then present it to us. Um because you as a city official, Lane, you've done this is not your first rodeo and so I would like to see what you would have to say and what other cities have done and propose

it to us. I I just think that would be allow you to exercise your uh your role in this city. Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. I don't uh I don't think discounting the storm at all. We didn't discount the storm at all. It was a matter of trying to figure out what we're going to do going forward. And I think I'm I'm okay with the response that we ended up having. And so if everybody else is too, I'd like to put some sort of like you said, I like that put a proposal together tell us, hey, yeah,

if this happened next year in in April, these are the vendors we could have on on call. This is how we would handle it with the wreck and just be something like we do with snow removal and and and include certain amount of pickup having a line item on the website with every other thing that we have added to it. Here's what happens in the case of storm damage and like you said I mean every year we can budget it and if the first year is 50,000 so because that's what we you know whatever the number is. I don't know what it is but if say it's 50,000 first year we put 50,000 in well we don't use it next year. Okay. Well, the next year we don't need to budget any money into that fund and it sits, you know, we sit with whatever amount we have. Is that a possibility or how does that work?

Um, each year's budget is independent. For example, I made a note to add an emergency response line. Okay. And in that, if you put in say 50,000, then next year you decide what number goes in there. Is it still 50? Does it need to be more? Does it need to be less? Yeah. Kind of like we do with our health fund. Yeah. Like we do with everything else. Yeah. And so whether it's used or not, we just make a decision on that particular fund and move forward. So um is everybody like the uh end result um service that we offered? Does everybody okay with that? Is is there like a cheaper option we can do as far as I know we have land that we could possibly take the wood to dump it and burn it maybe.

Well, and that's what we did this time. So it all got taken out to the wastewater plant. Okay. And I thought it got taken out to uh public works did a really good Well, that's what drastically decreased the cost. Okay. Was Jacob was like, "Hey, I think we can do this out here." He's come up with a lot of these ideas of I think we can get an on call group. So, he's done a really good job of saying, "Hey, we didn't necessarily have a plan. We kind of reacted a little bit coarsely and this is what we could do in the future based off of how it ended up and we got pretty favorable pricing a day or two later after the storm. Even with Friday, I mean, I think we're probably going to build in, you know, uh, I would think, like you said, an expectation of, well, that one was kind of crappy. We were like, what's gonna happen Friday?

I don't want to clean up and then, but you also don't want to have crazy amounts of limbs out that can get blown around by the next storm, right? So, it's like a happy medium there. How do we look at that? And um so there's going to be options whether we do that'll be more of a Jacob uh probably decision making. Yeah, but I did a good job of mobilizing our current staff. Obviously when the weather's bad, they probably can't do a whole lot of what they want to do or need to do and so we can mobilize them there. But if there's still work, I like having that third party there that's that's what they do so our guys can keep doing it because sometimes you have these storms the next day perfect out, right?

So they get back to the road work or whatever it is they're working on. So, I I I don't love the fact that we would take city staff away from our public works away from what they're doing dayto-day for a week because it's going to take them a lot longer with these big trucks. I know the first day was a little slow, but the second day, man, they really made some progress. Yep. And I got a lot of compliments on how clean they left it. We were kind of like, do we have like public works behind them to rake it up because it's, you know, what are people expecting? They just One guy was like, they picked it up and it was clean as like nothing was there. I was like, "Oh, well, their equipment's obviously made for this." So, you know, now we kind of know what people know what to expect. It's not going to be perfect, but we get the majority of it, they can throw the rest in their dumpster or whatnot. And so,

I think if we can put a plan together, Jacob, uh, along those lines, Rhonda, if you can get us through this budget process, it was kind of perfect timing since we're getting ready to start budget and, um, as far as as perfect timing can be for anything like this. But, uh, yeah. Yeah. No, I Everybody's good with that. I think staff sounds like we've got a consensus to say, "Hey, let's move forward with this stuff." And hopefully in the future, we don't have all our all our uh our uh communication will just be this this day is when pickup will start and we don't have to go with the rig tomorrow. All right. I I think on top of that, too, we we need to get on Facebook and make a post as soon as the storm happens like, "Hey, city is working on it." people know and they're not left in the dark and

Yeah. not know what's going on. Well, and I think if we have a plan, we have a a basic here's our here's how we're going to handle this storm or this is how our storm plan storm management plan. It's like a procedure. Yeah. And we can put that out and say storm's going to happen. We're going to reassess as of tomorrow or Wednesday because some of these storms that they like tonight, we'll see what happens, right? You know, we don't know. Um definitely water, you know. So, yeah, that's the other thing is uh one thing I don't think anybody brought this up, but the wreck had a dumpster over at the baseball field for non-tree debris. Yeah. Which was very well used. That thing was like twice as high and they brought another one in. So, I do appreciate that because for us if we're going to burn it really all tree debris is only uh Oh. Oh, that's chief.

All right. Any other comments or anything on this subject? I don't think there was Any other comments about that? Uh, we will move into our executive session portion. We have three of those tonight. I know somebody did make a comment tonight about having too many executive sessions. There's just some things we can't talk about out here that we have to there's a lot of moving parts that are happening. We have, you know, we have to go into executive session for some things. So, I know it it's not great. We try not to have we could probably have six tonight if we really wanted to. We try to limit them as much as possible and and get them out in the public as as we can, but state law dictates. Yeah. Yes, sir.

So, I will entertain the first executive session.

All right. Time here. I move that the city council recess into executive session for 20 minutes to receive advice of council regarding economic development pursuant to KSA 754319B2 of the Kansas open meetings rec or sorry open meetings act. Uh the open meeting will resume in the city council chambers at 9:28. No formal action is anticipated following the session. The person in attendance are the following. Massie, city administrator. Mike Malin, uh, community development director. Rick McConnell, bond council. Emma Kate Dylan, bond council. Colby, I'm sorry. Krennanski.

Uh, municipal adviser and Ron Dunn, financial director. Second. Better you than me, PJ. I messed his name up multiple times. We have a motion in a second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion pass 5 Z. See you in 20 minutes.

Just put more time on the front. It wasn't Ivan this. All right. Let the record reflect. We returned to the city council chambers at 9:28 p.m. We did have Kristen um had to leave. I just wanted to let everybody know she's no longer in the meeting. Um we are trying to extend 10 minutes. Yes. On this current executive session. All right. So I move that the uh governing body um extend the uh executive session for another 10 minutes um to return at the council chambers at 9:39. Second. Motion a second. All those in favor? Opposed? Much past 4 Z 0

We have returned at 9:39 p.m. No decisions were made. No discussions outside of the topics related. We are now moving into executive session number two for 10 minutes. Want to go ahead and read that off? I move the city council recess to executive session for 10 minutes to discuss personnel matters of non sorry personal matters of non-elected personnel pursuant to KSA 75-4319B1 of the Kansas Open Meetings Act. The meeting or the open meeting will resume in the city council chambers at 9:51 p.m. No formal action is anticipated following the session. The persons to be in attendance are the following. Lane Massie, city administrator. Second.

Motion a second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion pass 4.

She is not. Her car is not in the garage, sir. Yes, sir.

Let the record reflect. We returned at 9:51 p.m. No decisions were made and no subjects outside of the one we had were discussed. We'll now move on to executive session number three and final session. For how many? 15 minutes. 15 minutes. 10. Let's do 15 to be safe. I don't trust when you go down. I don't want to come back and extend. Amy will kill us. 06.

07. No. I move that the city council recess into executives executive session for 15 minutes to receive advice of council regarding actual or threatened litigation pursuant to KSA 75-4319B2 of the Kansas Open Meetings Act. The open meeting will resume the city council chambers at um 10:09 p.m. No formal action is anticipated following the session. Persons to be in attendance will be the following. Lane Massie, city administrator, M Mike Mike Min, um, city community community development director, and Spencer Lyall, city attorney. Second.

Motion a second. All those in favor? I posted pass 4 0

We reconvened at 10:09 p.m. No decisions were made. No subjects outside of the subjects created. I now um entertain a motion to adjurnn. Second. So moved. Nope. Second motion and a second. All those in favor I opposed. Passes 400. Have a good night.