City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to our 6 PM work session today. I don't think we're going to be doing a roll call unless Amy, you'd like to do it.

Do we need a roll call?

Typically, we do. Oh, Ashley's over there. I didn't see her. Yeah, let's do a roll call just so we've got that on record.

Mr. Grant? Here. Mr. Savage? Here. Mr. Thon?

Here.

Mr. Delgado? Here, we have a quorum.

Thank you very much. And I believe our first item up is going to be logo and...

Logo and branding.

Logo and branding by Jenna Gant. Go ahead and take over for us.

So the first thing we just need to determine is whether we want to change the City of Spring Hill's logo and branding. Um, a little bit of background. There are currently two different city of Spring Hill signs across town. Um, last year, the governing body discussed changing this logo, but nothing was done at that time. Um, reasons at that time though, to change it included Spring Hill looks like one word, um, the Sarah font. So the little tails and squiggles at the, on the G and the lettering, and then also for ADA compliance issues with the colors. Um, so I just need an answer if you guys do or don't want to do, uh, changing the logo. And a lot of this has to do with the website redesign. We can't go forward until we know, because if we are going to change the logo, Um, it's a huge cost if you do it after the design. So this will just save money beforehand. Um, flip on the, if you go through the slides, um, I talked with three different companies, um, about random logo. One's the KC Area Development Council. Their job is to bring business into cities. And so they are willing to provide a logo and font and branding for free for the city. So what they do is they do a discovery phase. So that will be like a questionnaire. And then it includes the logo, branding, colors, fonts. It does cost a little bit extra, which they will have to find out if we do want to do things like patterns and graphics, email signatures, if we want icons for all the city departments. They created the logos for the cities of Gardner and Edgerton, which you can see on that slide right there. And they said it would be about a six-week process, depending on how long that discovery phase is. And if we want to go forward with messaging and more information on that, it could take another six to 10 weeks. So they can start that process as soon as World Cup is over. They're working really heavy with World Cup. So that is one option that we can do. The other one is called KC Logos. KC Logos was about 5,250 on the low end, up to 13,100 on the higher end. They have a discovery phase with a questionnaire. And it includes logo, branding, colors, font for that lower end price. The higher price includes custom logos, icons for all city departments. It includes patterns, graphics, branding, messaging, email signatures. But you can pick and choose. So let's say we don't want email signatures. That would cut that higher cost down. It's a four-week process for that core brand, that lower end where it's the branding, the logo, colors, and fonts. It will be an additional six to ten weeks if we want to include additional logos and messaging. And they can start right away. So that's one positive for that one. The third company I use, I talk to, is called Lynch Pins. They are really good with messaging. So what and who is Spring Hill? So they do usually a deep dive Zoom phone interview with usually around seven people. Um, and it usually lasts about 45, 50 minutes about with a deep dive, um, includes messaging that we can use for the website, social media. Um, they also do the city logo, branding, colors, font, letterhead. Um, and they created logos for the cities of Riverside and Raymoor. So you can see the different styles that all three have. There's not really a right or wrong. It's just, um, you know, what you guys are interested in. The discovery phase for all of these companies is usually around seven people. And my recommendation would be if we do do the discovery phase, we have one to two city council members, one to two city staff members, once someone from the Chamber of Commerce, and then two to four residents who are like pro Spring Hill that you know, when I have that positive, whether it's growth or not growth, but like someone who is really deeply committed to the city. And again, the reason is just we can't move forward with the website redesign unless we decide. And we can keep our current logo, the one that we have right here. That's perfectly fine. But if we do do that, I still recommend that signs across the city are then that logo, that it's the same so we don't have two different ones throughout. So the discussion, and we can discuss in length here. You can send me some emails and comments. But it's just we want to go with a new logo and branding. And if so, which company you would like me to start having good talks with?

Well, and this was something, I don't know, was it six or so months ago that your predecessor did a presentation? I remember the numbers being quite larger. Was that because they included the signage?

That's probably.

I want to say they were like, Mike, do you remember how much it was? Yeah.

There are companies out there. I looked at a beautiful design from the city of Eagan, Minnesota, and that was $75,000, and that was a discount. So there are companies that do more or less, and I'm sure it depends on how far we want to go and if we want our entire fleet to be wrapped and things like that. I'm sure there's add-ons to that.

Yeah.

So this would be just the basic core logo, branding colors, things like that. Yes, full branding guidelines.

I'd like to remind everybody to pull the microphones close to you and speak into them, please. Or the audience at home can't hear us.

And Mike, you were kind of a part of the chambers when they did theirs, right?

Yeah, so I did the chamber logo and a couple other ones. I mean, with just general branding, I mean, this is pretty simple. And the costs are probably more than that. would say the higher end of all these but I mean if we're redesigning the website and redesigning everything I mean the cost for the logo is not just like you said the logo it's all the signage it's all the vehicles it's everything not just one we can't have multiple logos throughout the city you currently because it gets confusing that would be my big thing I don't know if it

rebranding itself i don't i don't hate what we have now i don't really have a strong feeling either way but i don't like that there's different signage throughout the city so i think as a group we just need to decide if you guys want to go with rebranding or if we just want to go with

trying to sync everything up together so and you could do the rollout like where if once you need a new city vehicle then you put on the new yeah you know logo since this one is really familiar i think overland park did that when they just did their rebranding and then they eventually ended up doing like a city flag so that's something to consider too

We also have, even with that single logo that we have now, there's like colored ones, non-colored. So I think we just need to pick one.

I think this one even has different versions of serifs in it. So even within this one, there's many, which is a little confusing. And I can even see Just maybe a bridge between this one and the next one. So kind of stepping it to not necessarily do a complete redesign, but at a 50 to 100 yard distance they look the same. Removing the serifs and things like that. Just kind of simple changes to step it into the direction we want to go.

Do you guys have an idea of whether you want like a logo, like a tagline or anything like that? Or no tagline? Or something to consider? What does that mean?

Yeah, I mean, PJ, what's your thought? So last year when we had this conversation, again, with your predecessor, there was a lot of excitement in the room about it. We actually gave quite a bit of time to that particular work session on this topic as a whole. And I think as a group, we kind of agreed that we were open to the idea. And then it kind of stopped there. So as far as moving forward with it, I'm going to kind of say the same thing I did last time. I don't want this to be something where we spend an exorbitant amount of money on when we've got so many other major projects going on. Seeing a company that's willing to design something for us that's going to be website appropriate for free makes me excited. We can get that. We can have it ready for the website. And then all the other rollouts and implementations for our signage, vehicle markings, things like that, we can roll that out at a later date. So if I had a hard vote here going with a free design and then utilizing that for future plans, I think would be.

Favorable to me does that one have a total cost kind of our?

Range I didn't see it on here the free it's free for like the logo the branding colors and hot brand standards things like that So the basic core functions they did say there is gonna be a little cost But I haven't heard back yet on what that exact cost would be by don't Don't forget we have two insurance signs that have a logo before this logo right exactly that's my thing is that

We're going to have to change those no matter what.

I think, didn't we discuss those last time? Yeah, we were all excited about the update.

Yeah, so those updates.

All those little plaque signs throughout all the roads that enter Spring Hill, too.

We're at a point where we're we're just starting to get stoplights. And I know in certain cities, they'll even have it on the signs on the stoplights, which would be, I think, nice that we're early on. We don't have to do 20 stoplights. We can do them with the ones that we're going to have. And then as we add them, it's something easier rather than having to do a bunch of rebranding. The vehicles are probably going to be the biggest thing because there's so many of them. But I'm open to it. I mean, I like the idea of, like pj said the rebranding and everything and then figuring out later on at that company if you look at all these in my opinion i like the gardner and edgerton ones best out of all those so it's kind of like that company i kind of like their style at least the way they're doing it i don't know if that's their style or if it's i feel like each one kind of has a style to it and so i kind of like that style myself personally so um if i went with those two things where hey this is someone that's free and i also kind of like the way they've done other cities then I would say that's probably the way I'd be leaning, but what are your guys' thoughts?

I know we haven't picked a vendor for comp plan, but I know in the submittals you've got a lot of them. It seems like they come up with Spring Hill 2050 and different timelines, but that timeline isn't meant to come out until next year.

Well, that was kind of my thought, too. I mean, it might be something that we could... Kind of work in tandem.

Alter it in the future to add a tagline.

Yeah. There will be some branding done with the comp plan. We'll probably utilize whatever logo we decide to go with. Comp plans usually have a logo after themselves to kind of

That's what makes me kind of like this option one, because if we can figure out what we want the look to be, then we can start integrating it into the comp plan along with it. And then if they're looking long-term like we are, they can have our business as we move on through the steps of rebranding. That might be the way to go.

We previously worked with HDR before Kristen left to maybe see if we could do a task order with our own call and contract and stuff. Since they did, we're already branding.

yeah and they were the one that was like I felt like it was a little bit more pricey but it's because I think they were gonna do quite a bit more with it yeah I can't remember I was like said maybe okay I think sounds like we have a consensus everybody kind of wants to move forward with something would you be able to go back through what we talked about back then and maybe bring it to the next meeting and then say this what you guys just told me and this is what they came with or like like from last year yeah from when she had it not been able to find Oh, you can't find it, okay. Oh, well, that's awful.

That's why I'm kind of starting to question a little bit. I can keep digging, but I haven't found it.

Yeah.

You may have it.

I don't think so, because I usually did those presentations, and we were in there, and I just put it on my computer, and I'm really sure it was on her computer.

Yeah.

I may have a copy of it, because I think she emailed it.

Yeah, Mike, I think, was a little bit more integral with that one.

But, I mean, I totally think... Just for the fun of it, we could even go with the free one just to see what they can come up with, and it may hit the nail right on the head, and it's exactly what we're wanting.

With the free option, there are going to be commitments to that. Obviously, if they're offering us a service for free, they're going to want their logo and their work put out there.

There are two people that would be dedicated for this for the long time, and I'm sure they would want what their work was. But no, I would have to go back with them and see if we decided to go with you, and then we didn't. Would there be a fee type thing? Right. Yeah.

I think that would be important. Or even if we went with them and then ended up changing it a year later based on something else. Yeah. Is there a fee or a charge to that?

Well, I think planning on doing something, I think we're all, sounds like we're all kind of leaning towards that first company. Maybe get some more answers for us on that and then we can. make some decisions here. Yeah, that sounds good. In the coming meeting or two.

That sounds good. And then they would, just to remind you, wouldn't be able to start on it until after the webinar. Right.

I think that's fine, because I think we're kind of not, like, gung-ho. We've got to start tomorrow anyway.

So I think it works out. Is that problematic with the website design? Is it going to?

No, it would just delay it. But it's already there, and we've been working on it since. So it's not a big deal.

OK. Great. All righty. Any other questions about this for now?

Nope.

Thank you. All right.

And feel free to email me or send me any comments, questions. Okay, cool.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, Rhonda, I think you've got 35 minutes or so.

Yep, and I'll tell you, I'm not going to. This was, we based this work session on requests that you had. We're going to talk about departmentally what their, we're using the term succession plan, what their people plan is, or long term, five, 10, 20 years. We also did this in order by department size. Jacob has 900 departments that report to him. So he's going to be next time, let's has all the facilities he has public works he has streets he has utilities so we're gonna we've split that off but um chief will go first then um lead the discussion all righty

OK, thank you. Good to be with you tonight. Thanks for the opportunity here to talk about what the police department is doing and what we would like to do as far as succession planning in the future. So on this first slide, you can see our budget. And it's one that I know is one that's increasing. Part of that is due to technology. in a lot of cases, and a lot of it, too, is people. That's what I'm going to be talking mostly about tonight is what it looks like for the PD in the future. Five years, I'll give you a snapshot of five years first, and then I'll look at 10 years. One of the things that I do want to mention is that the police department is always looking at succession planning as far as people when it comes to development and growth of its personnel. And so part of succession planning is growing and developing people within the organization, hopefully so that you create people that are in line to take on my job eventually and other leadership roles in the department. So we're constantly We have a training platform that has a leadership track that picks out trainings that will prepare officers for sergeant, sergeants for captain, and then captain for chief. And so I just wanted you to be aware of that too, that part of the succession planning is maintaining that training budget and making sure that we can send our people to training to get them ready for the next level. which I think is always something you guys are interested in seeing that we're doing. Okay, so looking at today's population with 19 officers currently, we have one vacancy. We have 10,777 people in the city, according to the 2025 census. We looked at a 5% growth over that 10-year period, and if we do that, we're looking at 18 and 19,000 people living in Spring Hill by 2036. And we're taking that off of building permits and considering four people in a family. That's a modest, I think, calculation. And I think the percentage has been higher for growth, but we're taking a little bit of a conservative approach when it comes to that growth. Over the next five years, we would be looking at 13 officers over that five years. That's about two to three a year. Now, in a couple of those years, that means we'd be adding a captain level position, and we would be adding another sergeant for supervisory coverage. diversity of duties because right now myself and the captain take on most of the administrative duties and we're getting large enough now that we're running out of capacity to be able to not only look at operationally how we're working and and meeting our goals and objectives on the street but also are we having time to be visionary plan for future growth train, take care of vehicles, all the little things that sometimes larger departments have resources in them to take care of. Those are things right now that the captain and I are taking care of. And then our sergeants carry a lot of ancillary duties in order for us to make everything work together. So that means out of those 13 officers, two of them are supervisory positions, 11 of them are police officers. In those 11 officers, I'm suggesting three school resource officers. I have been in communications with the school district and with Sheriff Roberson and the Johnson County Sheriff's Department about the opportunity for us to have an officer in one of the schools in 2028. The sheriff's office has received that well, as well as, I believe, school board members and the superintendent. The current contract with SROs and the school district runs through the end of 2027, I believe, and so they'll be renegotiating that. And that's at a 50% cost sharing. So those three positions would come with that in mind, that there would be a 50% sharing between us and the school district once we communicated with them and worked those school contracts out. And that's about what it is currently with the Sheriff's Office and them providing school resource officer duties.

Is that the end of 26-27 school year or the calendar year 27?

I think it's the end of the calendar year. I think it's the beginning of 28-29 is when that new contract would begin.

So the school year of 28-29? Yeah.

So that gives us a little bit of opportunity. But we do need to plan ahead a little bit, because there is training that we need to send a school resource officer to come back and be able to be trained to do those kind of things. Now, we would add one in 20. That's what one of the positions would be in 2028. As we look at 2031, which is when that next contract would come up and around that's when we would add the other two that would give us time to build in these positions because we don't have the capacity at this point to just take over all the school resource duties responsibility and what's the logistically those positions i assume what's the school week 30 to 40 hours or is it yeah is it less than that they would be 40 hours all in the school so not on the street it would be the school yes pretty much 100% time yeah and one of the things to remember is that you know we work closely with the school resource officers now but when there is a report that they take that occurs in the city outside the school they call us to take it so yeah this is one of the benefits of us having one of the benefits would be we're already there to take a report and so that's freeing up officers on the street because they're not responding to take it our officer that's already in the school is taking the report Another thing is we want to build relationships with the students from the very beginning and try to, you know, develop those relationships from an early age. And this would allow us to kind of progressively take on the schools that have school resource officers in the city of Spring Hill. I think the first school we looked at trying to take responsibility for would be the middle school in Miami County. And then we would, you know, branch out from there. However, the school district and the sheriff's department, however,

And we'd stay within the city, right? We're not going to try to go up into the Olathe side of the district. Correct, correct.

We would just, and the school district's aware of that, too. We're only talking about the schools that are within Springham.

Okay, great. No, I like it. I asked about this years ago, and I think it was one of those things where, like, we don't really know because right now they handle the whole district. And so if we could split up the district, so I'm glad to hear that we can.

Yeah, and I know there has been some talk about Olathe doing the schools in Olathe. So I think that's still... Kind of an evolving conversation moving forward, but I do think we have an opening here for at least to start out in the middle school. Yeah, great. And then those other officers would be, and of course with that we would get their, we would have them during the summer or any time school's out. So if there's a holiday or whatever, typically with departments we give the officers that work in the schools those holidays, those days off. They can take vacation days or whatever, because they're already scheduled to be out, so it doesn't affect our staffing. But we could also utilize them to backfill the street when the school is not in session. So summertime, they would be back with us, they'd be working on the street, they would be doing whatever things that we directed them to be doing. Correct.

And they'd also be able to operate on after school hours, before school hours as overtime relief and things like that too?

They could, yes, for sure. We could utilize them in a lot of ways.

Yeah, the relief pool factor has been something that I've been pretty interested in seeing you guys pursue. So seeing that you're providing the officers with opportunities, that's always good.

So if we do this by 20, if we implement this over this five-year period, that would put us at 32 officers. The benefits of doing that in that first five years is hopefully we could reduce the amount of overtime that it takes to send officers to training or to allow officers right now to have vacation or other leaves.

It would also...

keep up with best practices in policing for a small city. We would like to see the ratio, I think best practices for every 1,000 residents, a two officer per 1,000 ratio. And this would get us to just over two, which would be best practice in the industry, and keep our staffing ratios good as we continue to see growth. provides an opportunity for us to get our supervisors out of the call responsibilities. And this is something that I think I've talked to some of you about. We want an accountable workforce. We want to be able to have good guidance and have our sergeants doing that supervision piece. And sometimes it's hard to supervise when you're in the call and you're working it. You don't have that big picture. And so by getting them into their real true role of supervising, then we have better accountability, better professionalism, better review of all of our practices so that we can make sure that we are doing the right things for the right reasons and keeping that integrity intact. And then, obviously, this will help us with 24-hour supervisory coverage. Currently, we're not able to, you know, we use our senior officers a lot of times to supervise a latter half of the midnight shift because, quite frankly, right now we're able to do that without much trouble. But as we do grow, we'll want to have 24-hour supervisory coverage on the street. Absolutely. Any real questions on that first five-year outlook? No. So as we get to 2032 and to 2036, we can take a little bit of a slower growth pace. We're still going to go. So for instance, in 2031, our population could be somewhere around 15,000, give or take. And so between that next five years, we would be looking to add an officer, maybe an officer per year to continue keeping that 2 to 1,000 per capita ratio. Also, our call load will increase as we go through this whole 10-year cycle. And then we'll probably want to look at some professional staff additions, like another administrative person to help with records, property, split up some duties. We have the victim services unit that Jody handles a lot of duties right now. And so dividing some of those duties as we continue to grow will be important. And then I think there's been some appetite from the governing body about looking at animal services. And so I think in those next five years to seven years, we might want to look at do we have enough work, enough calls to support an animal control officer full time. And that would be something that we would also be recommending that we look at in the next 10 years. And I think that will, again, create a good organizational flow. We'll be able to, with another captain, we'll be able to divide up administrative duties, be able to have a little bit easier span of control over those, and then have better supervision, obviously. So I'm open for any questions that you might have, and I'll just turn it over to you guys to see if you have anything for me.

I've got no questions. I think this timeline's appropriate. I like the idea of building up our structure in a meaningful way. I love the idea of getting city officers in the SRO positions. I love the county. They do an incredible job. They've been a great partner. But part of that community policing thing is, like you said, being involved at every stage that we possibly can to make sure that that relationship's there. So I think your timeline is on point. I think the growth, the answer to growth is appropriate. I think we're looking at it the right way. Obviously, space is going to be a contributing factor there moving forward. I know the next slide has addressed that, so I won't. But keep in mind that these plans are going to be great as long as we can facilitate it.

Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. I don't mean to interrupt. The county has been a great partner. And this idea of us getting officers in the school has no way reflect their professionalism or their work in the schools. They have been a great partner. This is just a great opportunity again most cities have their officers in the schools because it's their community it's their students it's their kids in the community and this is a way again we do a great job at community engagement this is a great way we continue to foster trust with school with schools and with the students so when i think retention we have more opportunities it's going to help too with retention absolutely because i know we've heard that in the past where

is really the growth potential is tough. So it sounds like we're going to have a lot more options for that, too, which is going to be good. Okay, next slide.

Let's move on if nobody else has anything else on that. So here's some of the wants and needs. And, of course, I put the first big one on the board is a new municipal building. So just to give you an idea, if any of you have been over to look at our building, we are busting at the seams. We would have to do a little bit of remodeling when we add a captain to find office space for that captain and do a little bit of organization. We're going to have to expand our current locker room. with the growth that we're going to have in the next five years. So I think we are fastly approaching a time when we're going to have a serious need to have a discussion about building needs. So that's really the big one on this list. Are there any on here? I know you've had a chance to maybe look at this. Are there any on here that you have really questions about that I might be able to just kind of answer for you?

We just renegotiated with Axon, didn't we? So how far out is that? That's a 10-year contract. So 10 years from now. Okay.

Now, we can renegotiate that again, and I feel fairly... We did it a little early, I think, Adam. Because if you remember, we saved about $300,000 by negotiating that contract at the time we did over that 10-year period. And I think if we add these people, we're going to need additional cars. That's going to require additional in-car cameras. And so we're gonna have to look at that again as we expand. And then also the other thing that we need to consider, and it just left my, it went right out of my, when it comes to Axon O is, so we're right now in a process with, we're a part of the consortium of county agencies that use the same records management system to write our reports, contain that, retain that data. Um, we are a part of the counties, um, group when it comes to the consortium and we're looking at records management systems, the current contract with niche, which is the current RMS system we use is up in 28. And so right now we've been doing some demos on different systems, one of them being Axon. So if it's something that we decide where the consortium decides that, hey, we're going to go to Axon and the county says that's where we're going, then, again, that's another thing where we might reach back out to Axon and say, hey, can we look at this again and see what we can do as far as making sure all these things are packaged into one, easy to pay and maybe save us some money for the long run.

I mean, these all seem like things that we've done in the past that have a five, 10 year lifespan. So it's not like it's anything new. Um, I know at one point we were talking about a range for the police department. Is that something, I know we have quite a bit of land now. Is that something that we can dual use with like the, the extra land, we got a wastewater treatment plant, things like that. So yeah, there might be, you know, that makes it a little bit easier now that we've got all that available.

So the topography out there may be conducive to it because there's a That one section that's by itself.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. The other thing I'd like to mention on the range

is Gardner and Miami County have both reached out to me on the fact that we might be building a range and have been interested in being partners to be able to go in together to use it all together. So there may be some ways that we could partner with them where that would reduce the cost for us but allow you know the use of the range you're not going to use it 100 of time you might as well right yeah and right now we use right now we the reason a range is important in the future is um Right now, we use Miami County's range. Well, I guess it's Paola's range, but Miami County and Paolan, and we use it. It's hard sometimes to get range time on it without really scheduling it way out. We use KHP's range. And these are free. We get to use them for free. Um, if we can't get into those ranges, which it seems to be more difficult than we ended up having to pay for range time and that's, um, you know, kind of, we try not to do that. So it's just, it'd be nice if we could have someplace close to the city or in the city where we can go and have this opportunity to practice.

At one time we had, was it KHP that was looking at doing a location out here this way?

Yeah.

They've gone somewhere else now, right?

Okay Okay, I remember when we talked about that I was like, oh that'd be really nice because a lot of facilities here locally then the other thing that I promised Ashley I would mention is right now when we have court or when we Take people back at our station to do fingerprints for the public We are rolling them with Let's it's not ink traditional ink, but it's basically like you were doing with traditional ink. Um, it's not that it's hard. Um, it's not that it's a terrible thing. It's just that there's better technology out there, um, to make it faster, quicker, especially on court days when we're helping out with court and we need to fingerprint somebody. So looking at that Morpho Rapid ID fingerprint scanners, they do make a portable fingerprint scanner that we could use at our station. And then when we have court days, we could bring it over to City Hall here and use it to do it here, too. So it could be a dual purpose between departments where it would benefit two departments and not just one. So that's something that we've been looking at. We've looked at grant opportunities to try to get that technology purchased. So far, we just haven't been able to accomplish it. But that's something that I see as a need that could meet two departments' needs and not just the police department's. CHRIS RODGERS. To me, that seems more like a shorter-term need. But I think the only other one that may be up there is the speed trailer. This is a great educational tool for the community, but it's also a way for us to really determine, is speed an issue? And a lot of times, we get speedy complaints, and we send an officer out to the roadway, and they spend an hour or two running radar. and don't get any speed that's being reported. So what this does is a speed trailer, we could set it out. We could take that data. And then when we have these kind of complaints, we could actually share that data with the community and say, hey, we had the speed trailer out during the times that you may have indicated that there was speed. And it is a problem or it isn't, and this is how we're going to address it going into the future. So it serves two purposes. You can also put it out there, and obviously when people just see the speed flash up there and go, you know, it'll slow them down too without, you know, the other part of meeting one of our fine police officers. So that's something that I think would be a real benefit to the community as well as the police department too.

All right. Anything else that we've got to – Every minute goes away. We're taking away from Mike so He's like just keep going yeah, I I've supposed to do one slide mayor, but I snuck in a second Thanks, all right, let's move quickly into Mike's section I

I think I turned it off. All right, now we can hear me. First slide, well, this is our proposed budgets. Last year, as you know, there's been a lot of increases over the last year, mainly in the form of additional staff. And community development budget is almost always staff and resources to help staff do their jobs. We don't have a lot of capital equipment other than the vehicles that we drive to carry out our field work. So our current staff includes myself, project coordinator, the newly hired building official, a building inspector, a code enforcement inspector, and city planner. Future positions will largely depend upon how much growth and development we continue to see. And based on projections, we do not see any signs of slowing down. Our first needs that I believe would probably be next year or the year after would be a permit or licensing technician. The faster, and a lot of these positions are kind of, like I said, dependent upon budget or just growth. But the faster we can turn around permits and we can turn around developments, that makes us more attractive to developers and builders wanting to come into the city, and especially for commercial growth. Predictability and speed to market are two of the biggest things developers look for. We can cut down on those. review times while still getting good quality developments that's essential in order to do that we need staff so a permit licensing tech would be able to handle a lot of the administrative inputs into our permit software and as we look to provide opportunities for the city to know more about what businesses are moving into what buildings we've discussed potentially business licensing processes, or as we have now, but it's underutilized, requests for changing of a certificate of occupancy. We have businesses that will go locate in a business or in a building that was designed for a different land use or a different building occupancy moving from, say, an education, like a daycare into a restaurant, there's improvements that need to be made to that. Um, and so being able to process all of those will add more staff time needed to do it, but we'll have safer buildings and, uh, buildings that are built to code so that when people walk into them, they know that they're going to come out safe.

Well, and I think, uh, sorry to cut you off, but in the past we haven't had, a ton of retail or commercial space and so the changing of uses was not probably as big of a deal with licensing but I think as things are starting to get built we're going to have people changing the uses for what they're what they are like you know we had that smoke shop pop up out of nowhere and then it disappeared but at the same time people were like what happened a lot of us were like we didn't even really know because they don't require a business license so Some of that stuff to me is pretty important. I think the state is also getting a lot more heavy handed with cities and municipalities about how quickly you turn around the permitting and licensing. So I do see that one as probably a higher priority thing than we probably really think.

Yeah, I think they'll keep pushing. The state will come down, especially with the housing priority. In an ideal world, it shouldn't take us more than a week to issue a building permit for a single-family house. And the more that we push the builders towards using a standard plan process and upfront getting all their options approved, and then we just do boilerplates and templates, it speeds it up, but it takes time. That's a lot of stuff to enter, a lot of stuff to check when they do it online. So we are going to keep getting pushed to issue permits faster and faster. The second one would be, and I know that I don't want to steal any of Allison's thunder, but to have an in-house engineer that can review private development plans. We're spending quite a bit of money, or have in the past, on outside consultants to review those plans. And we need to make sure that what is being submitted to us by consultant engineers is verified and that we agree with it. Some cities just blindly take a stamp and say, well, if an engineer stamped it, we'll go with it. But there's mistakes sometimes in those. And we need to make sure that not only do we catch any of that, but that we agree with the assumptions in those plans, whether it's a traffic study or a stormwater report or how they've designed the sewer system. We need to make sure that they're doing it to the way we want it to be done. So I see that need coming in the next two years. GIS coordination. Right now the city is, as many people know, utilizes two different counties' GIS systems, and neither of which is perfect. And so one of the budget items that I would be looking for is an in-house GIS system to not only allow city staff to maintain records, asset management, permitting data, all the utility lines, things like that, We're actually to have an interactive online mapping presence for the community for the citizenry for businesses to be able to find our comprehensive plan or zoning map to find their council members district all of that. Our online mapping presence is nonexistent right now other than static maps. And so those interactive maps can really help get the information to the public faster so that they don't have to call staff and they can find that on their own. So as we know, bouncing between Beacon and Ames can be problematic at times. And then that way we can control how it gets designed. in order to update all that data and maintain it, somebody who has that GIS experience and being able to do that in-house along with working on different story maps to help tell the good work that's being done for the community is important.

Well, as an example, as we're trying to do stuff along South Street, we'll be looking at the map and then we're like, oh, crap, we can't see anything on the south side because we're on Ames. Got to go to Miami County site. Look up there. It's not nearly as... as good as Ames and so robust, I guess you'd call it. And so it can be a real struggle, especially with some of the projects we've looked at along that area, especially with working on the sidewalks and stuff. I mean, it's a real problem. So I thought this was a great idea by Mike to try to get something that was just for the city and maybe a little bit of the surrounding area that may become city at some point so that we have a good map that we don't have to jump back and forth and the community too, because we'll have a lot of people like, oh, you live in Miami County. Yeah, you can't really do that over there. To have something for just the city would be really nice. I don't know what the cost is. I don't know if you looked at it at all. But I think the program at first, but a coordinator, I'm assuming down the road, you probably have to have.

Yeah, I think we can, in the short term, we can utilize a consultant to build the map, to build that system for us, and then buy some hours for routine upgrades throughout the course of the year. And that may be the most economical way to address it in the near term. But as we start adding more data into that, the need to keep it up to date, is always beneficial. And if we can somehow tie that in to our online permitting software, then we can make more information available to the public. The public can then go on to that and see current development projects or what's been approved or what could I expect in and around my area. And then they can even sign up for notifications that if a development project is proposed within a half mile of their house, then they would get noticed. There's a lot of tools out there that we can be using to help get the information out to the public. If permit numbers continue, the next three are really tied to the amount of permits we're doing and the amount of projects that we're doing. A city that's issuing as many single family permits as we are and then potentially adding in the amount of commercial and or industrial that we are doing, sometimes there's as many as two or three building inspectors and a dedicated plan reviewer aside from just the building official. And so I see that if those numbers continue to go up, we'll have a need for a dedicated plan reviewer so that we're not spending money on outside consultants. Because those numbers, a lot of the industry is moving towards that. There's a lot of private companies that are selling that plan review, that inspection, those services, trying to privatize it. And that way they don't, you know, the city doesn't have to carry the overhead, but they're expensive. And then we have a say in how they're doing it. Then customer service is done to our standards. Plan review times are done to our standards. Not saying that the other companies won't, but then that way we have control over it. If we continue to see growth, I think bringing in somebody on the lower end of the pay scale as an entry level city planner will probably be needed, especially as we look in the succession planning to And I'm taking way too long. Promote from within. So I think that's the next three, actually. The more that we grow, the more people we bring in, the more businesses, the more staff we're going to be.

CHRIS RODGERS, JR.: You got a couple minutes. You're good.

CHRIS RODGERS, JR.: Yeah. I think I have another slide, though.

Yeah. Wants and needs.

Wants and needs. So the GIS internal software, I already mentioned, we'd be looking ideally to do that within the next year. It's that beneficial. Really think it would be beneficial to have an electronic code publishing software service or website that can do that. When we're trying to explain to the development community, the building community, where to find zoning codes and City Council Chambers, Did that design standard subdivision regulations building codes it's difficult the way we have it done now because it's all being done manually through PDF documents on the website. City Council Chambers, And these publishing software to make it very accessible they automatically update our ordinances when we send it into them, they maintain. our code database organized they check it against each other so that if we put in something that contradicts with something else they'll point it out to us and it's searchable so if somebody wants to know about dogs they can type in and it'll bring up any section of the city code or any ordinances that have pertained to dogs with growing staff we'll need additional office space and Ideally an additional conference room, which again gets back to that facility needs. Any new staff potentially would need a vehicle, especially field employees, inspectors, and code enforcement. Potentially a new permitting, licensing, asset management software. All of them provide the service. None of them are perfect. And all of them have problems. And so we have bounced between a few. And most cities are constantly looking. I don't think any city has ever been 100% satisfied with what they have. But it meets their needs at the time. But those can be expensive and time consuming. And it's cannibalization in the marketplace. So whoever we go with will get bought, and we may not like that new company anymore. So that is something I see on the horizon, but I don't know when. And then in order to help make plan review easier, technology. And so one example I put up here are touchscreen drafting tables. It's kind of hard to review a full set of school plans, which come in a big set or 300 pages and can weigh 50 pounds. on a 34-inch or 43-inch TV. Those plan tables allow for real-time annotating of plans and things like that. So that's just one of the examples. Happy to answer any questions.

Hey, Mike. Where are we sitting at on updating the codes for that?

Currently, we are looking to bring forward an adoption of the 2018 International Residential Code, the IRC, which is in keeping with the new state Kansas Senate Bill 418, which says that all cities have to use the IRC, 2018 version of the IRC, to do single-family home permits under 2,500 square foot homes. We do have a lot of those, so we figure it's easier just to do that across the board. Some cities are in of the tracking nightmare. We're planning to bring that forward at the end of this month along with a provision that would address the storm shelter discussion we had earlier. And then following that, we will be bringing forward the 2024 IRCs, hopefully late summer but likely early fall. Okay. And other cities are kind of waiting to do that, some after the first of the year but others within the next three or four months. Okay. So we're planning to follow suit.

And then do we have a plan going forward to update? Yearly by yearly as we move forward So we don't get 20 years behind.

Yeah, exactly I don't I don't think we would work to adopt every code cycle as it right out maybe but in working with some consultants and seeing what Other cities are gonna do looking to do maybe every other code cycle Okay, or if there's not a lot of changes in one then maybe skip that one because not necessary The code doesn't necessarily get better if it's newer. Sometimes there's a lot of industry lobbying that can make the code worse and harder to build to. And so we want to make sure we do it right. We would want a system where we don't have to wait.

Stay in the same century at least. I'll say I probably better wrap it up. I am. No, I thought they both did great as far as I want to see what it looks like now, what you think it's going to look like, and then your wants and needs. Maybe break out more needs and wants, like what you see as a need right now more. I think you did it by hierarchy, it looked like, because kind of the stuff that you were like, I want to have right now, right now. Same with you. I think I feel like I saw that. Yeah. just as everybody else comes in, like Alison, if you have something like this is the one of, if I get to pick one, this is it type thing. So I think she'll probably be all over that.

She's gonna have three or four of those, but like you, you really want slash need a fingerprint scanner. You know, that should be a top of the list kind of thing.

So after two departments tonight,

Let's see how we do, I mean we don't have we've got some time still so I think these are working out pretty well And we're not over in ending with information at one sitting which sometimes can be and you're not having to speed through it Mike had to do a little bit but It wasn't too bad. You had a long talker over here.

It gives us time to digest a little bit.

Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing. We can think about it and say, hey, actually, I think this is more important than what you maybe even thought. So no, I thought these were good. If we can continue that, let's keep it up. And I think one to two a night is probably good. would say so you could probably Jacob he might need his whole whole night to himself but you know and that would be that's fine because he's got so many different things but like you know everybody else all right we got five minutes for the meeting we're gonna go ahead and adjourn and we'll be back shortly You guys ready? Yeah. All right. Good evening, everyone. It is 7 p.m. We have our regularly scheduled meeting. We will start. I'll call to order and we'll start with the invocation. Pastor Jack Smith is here from Generation Bible Church. Please stand.

Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you today with gratitude in our hearts for this opportunity together as community leaders. And father, we ask for your guidance and wisdom as we make the decisions that affect the lives of all these residents in Springfield, Kansas. Grant us clarity of mind and unity of purpose that we may serve with integrity and compassion and help us to listen to the voices of those we represent and inspire us to work towards solutions.

Thank you. Now we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right, Madam Clerk, will you please take the roll?

Mr. Theron?

Here.

Mr. Grant? Here. Mr. Delgado? Mr. Savage? Here. Mayor, do you have a quorum present?

Thank you. First up will be the approval of the agenda. We did have a request to delete item number 11. I don't think there was any other request tonight. So I will entertain a motion to approve.

Really, briefly, we can also remove the second executive session. All right, and remove the second executive session.

So I will entertain a motion to approve as amended. So moved.

Second.

Motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 3-0-0. Next up we have announcements and reports. I don't necessarily have any reports tonight. I will say I know there's quite a few people here to speak tonight and I did put a post out about we will not be discussing a moratorium tonight. We do have a rezoning uh discussion in our next meeting and um and that will be uh where we discuss uh those type of items outside of that i don't have any other announcements uh jacob had a question for you sir it's been a while since we've talked about trails and how that mapping has been going i was wondering if you had any updates on that i know you've got a lot going on right now so honestly no i've kind of put that on hold another you know the mayor's been working on

developing that advisory committee to work on trails. So I didn't want to kind of get too far out over our skis and wanted to wait and let that group kind of build, get some momentum and go in that route. But I think we've got a good foundation with the information we've gathered that can support that committee as it moves forward.

That's a wonderful point. I appreciate that, and that's all I had.

Thank you.

James?

No report.

Mike? No report. It's really cool to see Webster getting repaved. It's looking really good.

I thought that was on. Staff is still working with KDOT on 191st Street intersection, the signalization project with KDOT. It still looks like the timeline is going to be probably in early fall, September-ish, give or take a little bit. With the state funding and the federal funding involved in that, it's pushed the timeline back about two to three months. But we anticipate that that project will still move forward this year, go out to bid, and then also hopefully start on the construction later this year.

Thank you. Spencer.

Any other report?

Chief.

Yes, World Cup is upon us, so we've got our agreements in place with Prairie Village and KC 2026. We have officers over the next month that will be going up to assist Prairie Village with security. Those costs will be reimbursed to the city with these agreements, so I just wanted to make sure that you knew that those were in place and were ready to roll. Thank you.

Mr. McMillan. Thank you. Just wanted to let the governing body know that we wrapped up our interviews for our comprehensive plan consultant. Staff has made a choice to move forward with one, and we'll be bringing that forward to you on June 25, along with the approval of a contract. And so we are on schedule and have a tentative schedule to hit the ground running after that 25th meeting, if approved.

And did you have, was codes on the 25th also some code updates, or is that just the zoning updates?

No, we've been bringing forward a couple of different updates. proposed unified zoning ordinance code amendments for the M1 and new M2 industrial zoning district, a second UZO amendment to modify our planned district and protected overlay zoning, and then we will have a few building code updates that night moving to the 2018 International Residential Code for single-family homes and other duplexes, threeplexes that that would apply to in keeping with Senate Bill 418 and then also proposed language to adopt storm shelters if a basement is not provided in a house.

All right, great. Thank you. Ms. Allison.

Okay, we have been working hard on getting grants submitted over the last few weeks. We submitted the RCE grant last week. We are in the process of submitting the CRISI grant. It's another rail agreement. Both of these are gonna be for the intersection of 191st and the rail crossing at 191st we were not able to get the level of funding that we wanted from the state of Kansas so we did have to rearrange our program a little bit so we did get that submitted through one of the two opportunities we'll submit the other one here in a couple of weeks when that's due We are working towards to answer the question about the the trail connectivity and the trail mapping we are Going to be submitting and I'll talk about a little bit later tonight planning sustainable places Grant application and that's going to be for a transportation master plan Pedestrian connectivity is going to be part of that So just want to let you know that we are working on getting that done. And I don't believe there's any other. We are working hard on 199th Street. That construction is moving. They will be starting on the wall and some of the curbing here relatively soon. I do have an item later on on the agenda, so I'll give you a little bit more of an idea of things that are working on with that project. We are going to have a, we're gonna try to meet with the Homes Association there at Prairie Ridge, before any work that's gonna be done with Norton Street, because we are gonna have to redo Norton Street and we're gonna do it in phases so that it will be able to maintain access to the residents in that subdivision at all times. So we wanted to get together with the HOA ahead of time, head of that construction, just to answer any questions and let them know that we do have a traffic control plan. to provide them access they are working on the entrance to the school they should be working on that here relatively soon again we're going to maintain access to the school district at all times whenever we're working on their administrative drive are you the one doing the ss4a presentation tonight yes i am okay i couldn't i don't remember i heard that or not all right great i look forward to that too it's a lot of good information thank you uh next up veranda

No.

I just wanted to say that for those of you who were out, First Fridays was a great time last weekend. And the next one is July the 1st, sorry, July the 3rd, where we'll celebrate America's 250th birthday. And I'll just keep pounding this because I hope everyone comes out. It was a really good time. A lot of smiling faces and happy people. There will be a parade starting at 5 o'clock from the middle school parking lot. along Main Street to downtown. So get your bicycle decorated, your golf cart, your favorite walking shoes, and it'll be kind of a pedestrian fun parade to downtown to celebrate the 4th. So look forward to seeing everybody. It's gonna be another fun event.

Great, thank you. Glenda. No report. No report. Moniqueisha.

No report.

All right, Jacob. So just to follow up on an earlier comment, Paving has started. The asphalt overlay paving on Webster got started. Contractor is making good progress. We're going to hope for a little bit of help from Mother Nature to wrap that up. The forecast isn't looking great. They've also maybe not quite as noticeable, but that same contractor has already repaved the rear parking lot here at City Hall as well as at the community center. The last piece of that, the aquatic center because they weren't able to start before the aquatic center season opened. They're lined up the very first week of September to get that paved and restriped. So that's also lined up. The other part of this year's street maintenance program is the UBAS, the ultra-thin asphalt pavement that I've talked with you about that we're going to use throughout most of the residential subdivisions. We don't have a start date yet for that, but that will happen this summer as well. It's a separate contractor from the asphalt work that's going on now, and that will follow later in the summer. Also, the cars project for this year on 191st Street just east of 169. That's also, that's yet a third contractor doing that work. Again, that will follow this summer, but I don't have firm dates yet on that one. Sidewalk project is out to bid and we will open bids tomorrow morning on that. So our plan Barring any big surprises or anomalies from those bids. Excuse me bids. We will bring that back with a recommendation for an award on that at the next council meeting and Oh and I've also in one of the weekly updates, I think I had had let council know about some Sewer line failure that that we had on a section of sewer main near 215th and woodland that we Need to make some emergency repairs on that line. I've got a plan in place for exactly what those repairs need to look like. I've worked with a contractor. They've been making submittals, trying to secure the material that they need. And they are lined up and ready to actually begin making those repairs probably the week of the 22nd of this month. And I've got the contracts ready to go for that emergency repair as well.

All right, great. Awesome. Thank you very much. Outside of that, any other, no, Ivan just got here. Do you have any announcements or reports? Got no reports. Got here way earlier than we thought, so good job. Thanks. All right, with that, we are done with announcements and reports, and we move on to citizen participation. This is a time for committee members to speak and talk about things on or off the agenda. we will still we have quite a few people signed up so we'll go through and just please state your name and address for us when you come up and i believe we'll have a timer for the um for uh your allotted time tonight so please since we have quite a few just please stay with within that time frame first up we have is lance caldwell

Good evening, mayor and city council members. My name is Lance Caldwell. I live at 15275 West 191st Street. I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight regarding the proposed zoning code amendments that were discussed at the last planning commission meeting and really the direction of our community in a more broad way. Over the past several months, residents have been seeing discussions regarding annexations, industrial development, infrastructure expansion, to Industrial zoning district as I reviewed the proposed amendments one change that stood out to me was the decision to separate industrial zoning from Into m1 light industrial and into heavy industrial districts along with the proposed relocation of information technology facilities from m1 to m2 and and to me that suggests the city recognizes that these facilities are have impacts and operational characteristics that differ from traditional light industrial uses and are more appropriately classified within a heavy industrial framework. What I found particularly noteworthy, though, was that the proposed purpose statement for M2 District acknowledges that heavy industrial uses are generally incompatible with residential development unless heavily buffered and separated. And that language is important because it recognizes that these land uses create different planning considerations and long-term impacts than traditional residential and commercial or commercial development. While I appreciate the effort to address compatibility through buffering and setbacks, I do remain concerned that physical separation alone may not always be sufficient to resolve the conflicts that arise between heavy industrial uses and nearby residential properties. And for that reason, I believe the more important question is not simply how much buffering is enough, but where these uses are appropriate in the first place. and how those decisions fit within the community's long-term vision. I understand the need for cities to periodically modernize their zoning codes. I also understand the desire to create tools that support future economic development. However, my concern is less about the creation of M2 itself and more about the timing of these changes. As I heard just a moment ago, the city is preparing to engage a consultant to update the comprehensive plan and establish a long-term vision for Spring Hill's future growth. I've also heard discussion about moving toward a more intensity-based planning approach as a part of that process. Generally speaking, intensity-based planning focuses less on traditional land use categories and more on scale, impacts, infrastructure, demands, and operational characteristics of development. That may ultimately be an appropriate direction for the city to explore. However, it raises several important questions. How will residents participate in decisions under that framework? How will compatibility between different uses be evaluated? And how will the public be assured that future developments receiving administrative approval under an intensity-based system shall still receive appropriate public review and scrutiny? These are important conversations and they deserve public discussion as part of the comprehensive plan process. But that also raises a broader question I believe many residents are asking. Why are we making changes significant to our industrial zoning framework before updating the comprehensive plan? That's supposed to guide those decisions. Traditionally, a comprehensive plan establishes a community's vision, growth strategy, and land use priorities. The zoning code then becomes the tool that is used to implement that vision. So today it feels that we may be reversing that process. The comprehensive plan is supposed to tell us where we're going. The zoning code is supposed to help us get there. If we were creating new zoning tools before we update the comprehensive plan, how do residents know the code changes being made today align with the vision that will be adopted tomorrow? This is particularly important when discussing heavy industrial uses and the long-term implications that that may have for infrastructure, public services, utility capacity, and future land use decisions. I'm not opposed to economic development. I'm not opposed to industrial development where it makes sense, but I do believe Residents deserve a clear understanding of how these changes fit within a broader vision for the community before those tools are put in place. Before adopting significant changes to the city's industrial zoning framework, I would respectfully ask the council to consider whether those changes should be informed by an updated comprehensive plan rather than preceding it. Residents deserve the opportunity to understand not only what these zoning tools allow, but how they will fit into the long-term vision for Spring Hill and what type of a community we intend to become over the next 20 to 30 years. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thanks, Lance. Next up, I have Sarah Grady.

Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Sarah Grady. My address is 15690 West 199th Street. My property now directly borders the city limits. I understand that I am not a city voter. I did not have the opportunity to vote for any of you, and I recognize that your primary responsibility is to the residents of this city. However, the decisions made in this room do not stop at the city limits. A data center or building's housing information technology and its traffic, water use, noise, Environmental impacts and changes to the character of this area will affect not only city residents, but also the families who live around it and the surrounding county. Many of us have invested our savings, built our homes, are raising our children, and are planning our futures based on the rural character of this area. That is why I am here tonight asking for a moratorium on data centers. A moratorium is not a rejection of development. It is not a vote against property rights. It is simply a pause, a pause to gather information, a pause to update the comprehensive plan, a pause to ensure that decisions made today are still the right decision 10, 20, and even 30 years from now. Many residents and neighboring property owners have repeatedly asked for this discussion, yet the request for a moratorium has not appeared on an agenda. I respectfully ask, why not? If a moratorium is not warranted, then let's discuss it publicly. Let the community hear the reasoning. Let the council vote. Let the public see where their elected representatives stand. Let everyone understand how the decision was reached. Why are residents being told to participate in this process while this requested action is never allowed to reach the agenda? And why does it seem that development proposals can move forward quickly under a time constraint, but citizens' requests for additional review cannot? refusing to even place the matter on the agenda sends a troubling message it suggests that some conversations are welcome and others are not it creates the appearance that the voices of residents matter less than the interests of developers that the voices of residents matter less than even those in city leadership roles that do not live near spring hill which these types of developments won't affect their homes their properties their families What concerns many of us is not simply whether a moratorium is approved or denied, it is whether the request will be openly considered at all. Good government is built on transparency. It is built on public trust. And public trust grows when people believe their concerns are being heard, even when the final decision is not what they hoped for. Tonight, I am asking you to place a moratorium on a future agenda for discussion and consideration. Give residents, neighboring property owners, and city taxpayers the opportunity to participate in thoughtful conversation about the future of this community. The consequences of this decision will last for generations. Taking additional time to get it right should not be controversial or ignored. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Next up, we have Julia Burgmeier.

My name is Julia Birkmeyer, 18908 Mahaffey street. I'd like to start by apologizing for bringing my baby with me tonight. Uh, quite frankly, I'd rather be anywhere else, but the reality is that many of us have spent countless hours advocating for our communities simply because we want our children to grow up in a place with reliable resources, clean water, and a healthy environment. Unfortunately, we are all still here and we'll continue to be here because we have no choice, but to keep fighting to protect our community.

She really put one on me.

I'm here because I would like to understand why the city is considering significant changes to zoning before the completion of the comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan is intended to guide future land use decisions and establish the community's long-term vision for growth. If that process is still underway, it seems premature to make permanent zoning decisions regarding an industry that could have substantial impacts on our community for decades to come. I would also like to ask for you to consider requiring a conditional use permit for all developments within M1 and M2 zoning. While I appreciate the city's effort to move data centers to M2, I'm concerned that this change alone may not provide the protection residents believe it does. Rezoning data centers into M2 does not automatically give the city meaningful control over future projects. In fact, if data centers are permitted by right within M2, the city may have less ability to evaluate individual proposals based on their impacts. Without a conditional use permit process, the City's review is limited to whether an application meets objective requirements. If those requirements are met, the City's ability to deny a project may be significantly constrained. It would give the City the ability to evaluate whether a specific project is compatible with Spring Hill's character, whether it serves the public welfare, and whether its impacts on utilities, noise, air quality, water consumption, and surrounding properties are acceptable. If the intent of the M2 rezoning is to provide greater oversight and protection for residents, then that oversight must be paired with a conditional use permit process containing subjective standards that allow the city to exercise judgment when evaluating projects. Otherwise, we may be creating the appearance of regulation without actually giving the city the tools needed to protect the community. This is a request to ensure that future proposals receive appropriate scrutiny, public input, and case-by-case review before approval. Specifically, I ask that the code be written in a way that preserves the city's discretion and legal authority to determine whether a proposed data center is appropriate. The language should be objective enough to provide guidance, but subjective enough to allow the city to deny a project that is not the best interest of our community. The city should have the ability to approve the right projects and reject the wrong ones. I also request the applicant must demonstrate compatibility with the existing and planned character of Spring Hill. The city should have authority to determine whether a proposal aligns with the community's long-term vision and future development goals, hence the importance of finishing the comprehensive plan before changing zoning codes. The applicant should also demonstrate that the project will not adversely impact public health and safety or community welfare. Lastly, the applicant must demonstrate adequate utility capacity to the satisfaction of the city. Meeting minimum industrial standards alone should not guarantee approval. Equally important is transparency. The public deserves to know how these standards will be interpreted, enforced, and monitored over time. If a conditional use permit is required, what specific conditions may be imposed? What mitigation measures could be required? How will compliance be verified? What happens if operational impacts increase years after approval? Will the public have the opportunity to review and comment on proposed conditional use permits? Before they are adopted, will there be public survey or community engagement process to identify what protections residents believe are necessary? Because the concerns that existed with the original proposal still exist today. Industrial zoning should not be adjacent to schools, neighborhoods, and farmland, which are fundamentally incompatible with industrial development. Even with the minimal buffer requirements, there's no meaningful separation between industrial operations and the families and land that make up our town. Buffers may reduce some issues, but they do not eliminate all of our concerns. With this in mind, I am still requesting an 18-month moratorium on information technology developments in Spring Hill. The ongoing discussion about modifying M2 highlights exactly why a moratorium is needed. The city should have time to conduct its due diligence, evaluate potential impacts, and establish appropriate safeguards before additional projects move forward. Please listen to your constituents and protect your community and no data centers in Spring Hill. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Next up, we have Jamison Cochran.

Good evening. Thank you for all you do, council. I wasn't planning for this evening.

I'm sorry.

Jameson Cochran, 16960 West 191st. I received a phone call today. I'm going to ask for a moratorium for 18 months too, just for prime example of phone call I got today. First, They're not going to make any jobs anywhere. They're going to take people's jobs. I think we all know that. I've had two companies that I've worked for for over 20 years that have lost over 40 employees that I dealt with every single day. 2AI, which we know it's coming, but now to this level, we didn't know it was going to be this far. The hyperscale data centers are the ones I'm talking about. I'm aware that we've had data centers for years. I was talking to another gentleman this evening And this came out of the blue. This is what made me want to come up here and talk tonight, but he lives in Texas. I've talked to him many times. He is a cattle farmer and he has had, he lives down the road from a hyperscale data center. And since April, he's had 20 calves that were stillborn. And he's 60 some years old. He said, it's never happened in my life. He goes, do I have an exact reason why? No. But it is under investigation, so he wouldn't even let me say his name or the town or anything that it's in. He goes, but I've had over 20 calves stillborn. He goes, and common sense leads to why. He goes, it's not. I don't have proof yet, but it's coming. He goes, I know they did clean the cooling towers that were on the hyperscale data center. Is that the reason why? We're unsure, but he is going to find out, and there is a lawsuit against it. So therefore, I can't speak on why. So I'm asking for a moratorium just so we can see as time progresses of what they're actually doing to society, what they're going to do to our community, what they're going to do to our environment. That's why I'm asking for it. And that's all I got. Thank you.

All right. Thanks, Jamie. Next up, we have Brent Schumann.

Good evening. I'm Brent Scheinman. I live at 19712 Norton Street in the Prairie Ridge subdivision. Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts on what I feel needs to be discussed now. After talking to some neighbors, it's apparent that all would feel good just about having a public discussion on the topic of a moratorium on data centers. The city should use more time to actually research the pros and cons of the data centers They need to make sure that their zoning ordinances are strict enough to protect all concerned citizens. A lot of that's been highlighted by the previous speaker, so not quite as in-depth as that. We feel that a moratorium will not only allow Spring Hill to focus on the completion of its comprehensive plan, but also it'll allow time for more facts to come out about the economic and environmental impact of data centers on our city. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Tammy Noll.

Hi. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Thank you for allowing me to speak. You know, each time I have spoken before... Oh, sorry. Did I not do my name? Sorry. Tammy Noll. I live at 19440 West 202nd Street. Thank you. And each time I've spoken before you, I have always asked for a moratorium to be in place. So that comes without even saying, right? But I do want to address a few things regarding the proposed M2 new zoning category in preparation for the upcoming June 25th meeting. While I understand the idea of having certain industrial-type businesses categorized into light industrial versus heavy industrial. It's hard for me to understand why we would want heavy industrial anywhere in our city because with heavy industrial it is just common sense that with that it would come increase risk for the surrounding community with chemical exposure the possibility of chemical fires and of course land and water contamination There is lots of history nationwide of Superfund sites that we can look at for reference. For reference as far as land contamination, water contamination. So I hope to hear on June 25th what safeguards are being put in place to address those concerns. Because to create a new zone while simultaneously not creating safeguards of protection is at the very minimum unwise, and at the worst, it's just plain negligence. In the last meeting a few weeks ago, there was much discussion about a comprehensive plan, and we heard the term smart growth. It was heavily discussed, and during the survey, we were asked, what does smart growth look like to you? So I would love to hear how creating this new land zone which invites information technology, without at the same time putting restrictions on megawatt usage, the handling of water usage, and the disposal of contaminated water, updating our noise ordinances. How do those two things coincide with smart growth? I would also love to hear from you all with regards to the fact that there was a petition that was started in March. And that petition was talking about the rural residential and changing that to M1. And within 48 hours, there were over 700 signatures that were on that petition. As of today, there are 1,249 signatures on that petition, which is about well over 10% of our population. I believe that it only has that number because the Colossus Data Center withdrew its application. not because there wasn't even more support for the petition the reason that petition was so popular was that the people were voicing their thoughts regarding having a data center built in their town and clearly they were making the statement that they do not want data centers in their town Mayor Young, I noticed on your Facebook page two days ago that you addressed the topic of the request that you have been receiving about instituting a moratorium. And you mentioned in that Facebook page that you felt like creating this new M2 zoning addresses this. And respectfully, I feel like it falls short simply because it lacks the protections needed. I believe that the citizens deserve a hearing, deserve to hear a conversation as to why you don't feel like one is necessary and have chosen not to put it on an agenda for discussion. I believe that you need to go on the record with your views. Actually, all of you council members need to go on the record with your view. I believe that this would be in accordance with the transparency in government that you ran on when you asked us for your vote in November. One last thing, I have heard some discussion on how we have to take into consideration the rights of the landowners Um, and I hear that and I completely understand it. They do have rights, but the rights of the landowner should not override the rights of the other citizens that live in the community to have safeguards in place to protect their health and protect their property as well. Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

All right. Thank you. Next on the list, I have Jason O'Kane. Your last name's kind of running off. Sorry.

I can't remember if it's you or A. My handwriting is awful. My name is Jason O'Kane. I live at 18804 Skyview Lane in the Foxwood Ranch community. First off, thank you guys for letting us speak and doing all that stuff. Thanks for everybody behind me that comes here time and time again voice their opinions and stuff Tammy just kind of took my speech out of me a little bit at the end there I was thinking about this the other day I don't I've had conversations with pretty much everybody up here Mike I don't think I've really had conversations with you but I've talked to and Philip maybe not as much we should probably talk some more when we get a chance but I've talked to everybody else here and City staff also knows that too. I've spoken with them many times. I don't really know you guys as well as I should probably. I feel like I can make assumptions on what you guys believe in and what you guys think about and stuff like that, but I don't want to be proven wrong. I'd like to know. I think a lot of people have too. I didn't vote for anybody here. I didn't vote in the election. Sorry, I'll probably be voting next time but At the same time like I don't really know you guys very well, and I feel like the people behind me don't know you guys very well either I know that Spring Hill is nonpartisan But you guys still have your right and Spencer correct me if I'm wrong to voice your own opinions on your political beliefs, what you feel is right, how you feel. And I think if you guys would voice some of these opinions, I think letting us know how you guys think about this could kind of quash some of these opinions on these people behind me. You know, these people are laboring day and night. They're researching. They're writing speeches that are freaking awesome, by the way. Everybody that comes up here, I've told a lot of people that too. You know, I just come up and shoot at the hip. I don't write nothing. But, you know, just... if we could get to know you guys a little bit more, I don't know if the city could do Facebook posts, get to know your council meetings, you know, council members, you know, if you guys could do it yourself, um, and you don't have to talk necessarily on specific topics. If you don't feel comfortable doing, I'm not saying you guys should do it, but if we could kind of get to know you guys a little bit better, um, maybe we could not have to worry so much. And that's what everybody behind me is doing. They're worrying about their livelihoods. They're worrying about, you know, they're whatever, but you know, I, I, I told the Gardner city council, I said, you know, if you guys decide to approve this data center, just know that it's on you, you know, it's, it's everything that happens after that is on you. Cause you're the one that made that decision. You know, if, if people's lives, her heads get damaged, if sickness and illness and hardships fall on families, that's, that was your decision that you made. And it's a big one. And it sucks because, I mean, you guys are more of a voluntary position. You guys get paid shit. Sorry. Sorry. Smith, don't kick me off of here. Profanity. I've read through the thing too but anyways you guys don't get paid hardly anything and it's mainly voluntary what you guys do and that's why we appreciate you but getting to know you guys better would would probably be awesome whether that is a social media post talking with people I encourage you guys to come out to our HOAs for the comprehensive plan don't just send out city employees come out too and talk with us so We could get to know you better so that we can have some more one-on-one conversations because I love having that with you guys I'm sure you guys have had great conversations with everybody else, you know around here and stuff like that I'm sure I'm not the only one that bugs you but Anyways, I think that would be awesome if you guys could could do that Also just want to thank you guys for my street light is coming and Pending Evergy. We're waiting on them. I was talking to Jacob. They're on their own schedule. Everything being approved and stuff like that, I appreciate the city paying for that and taking care of that issue. Anyways, appreciate you guys. Let's get to know you. Let's get to worrying and stopping. Like I said, these people just do nothing but worry about this stuff behind me. They shouldn't be worrying. they should know that they're being watched over, they're taken care of. So, thank you.

All right, thanks. All right, Jason was our last one signed up. Is there anybody else who would like to come up and speak before we close citizen participation? If not, we will close citizen participation and move on to presentations. The first one we've got tonight is the SS4A year-end review with Ms. Allison.

Well, I'm going to do part of this presentation, but I would like to introduce Jay Aber. He is with HDR. He's going to do the first part of this presentation just to give you guys a brief overview of what we've done in the plan. So I'm going to go ahead and let him take over for a minute, and then I will be back here in a minute.

Okay. Thanks, Ms. Abel. Mayor Young members of council. Thanks for having us here today. I'm Jay Abra. I work for HDR engineering I'm a senior traffic engineer over there and I was the project manager for the comprehensive comprehensive safety action plan last year We're just gonna talk a little bit about what the plan is I know some of you were on council and I recall a lot of the public events we had that a lot of you were were there I think all of you that were on council were there when we were talking and then Do you? Oh, sorry. I thought somebody was snapping at me back there. OK. Some of you were not on council, so we want to give a little review of what we talked about last year. So what is our safety action plan? Safety, I think we heard tonight a lot of people talking about safety in the community. It's very important to everyone in the community. And traffic safety in particular is a key issue because when we looked at the data from 2014 to 2023, there were 379 traffic crashes on Spring Hill streets. Eight of those resulted in somebody being killed on streets in and around the city. 42 of them were serious injuries, those were disabling injuries, and 329 more resulted in some other kind of minor injury. When we talked to the public, 70% of people said they'd been impacted by traffic crashes. Either they had been injured themselves or they knew someone who had been injured or killed in a traffic crash. So there was a lot of interest of improving safety in the community. We look at this from an economic perspective as well because economists have assigned crash costs to society based on different crash levels. And when you add that up, it's over $200 million in crash costs to society just for the crashes in and directly around Spring Hill. So in putting the plan together, we didn't just do a bunch of data and go back to the office and crunch numbers. We really went out to the community to talk to people, hear what their concerns were, what their issues were, what they wanted to see. So we had an advisory committee with 20 members. We met with them three times, five public events, talked to about 150 people through the course of that in person about safety, and also had an online survey and a web map by 250 people participated in that. Overwhelmingly heard the same things over and over again that people were concerned with with speeding They were concerned with being able to get on k7 169 back and forth some of the issues with like the 191st Street signal that I know you've been having ongoing discussions about and also sidewalks And getting more sidewalks built and being making it safer to walk through the community So in all that, we put together the action plan based on what we talked about, the safe system approach, which is really strengthening all parts of the system, looking not just like what are people's behaviors, but what are the kinds of roads they're driving on, what kind of cars they're driving, how we can get the life-saving emergency services care to them when a crash does occur, that whole ecosystem of safety, and then looking at those guiding principles, making sure it's safe for everyone in the community, collaborating with other agencies. We know Spring Hill's growing very quickly, talking to Johnson County, talking to KDOT, how we can build those relationships, having proactive solutions, not waiting for someone to be injured or killed, but going out there before it happens, focusing our action, which is a lot of the action plan that we'll talk about tonight, and then commitment and making progress. So you all have a copy of the plan in front of you up there, and it is posted online, so it's very easy to find. Just search comprehensive safety action plan for Spring Hill, it'll pop up. And we've got all this information in there. There's some information that talks about the public engagement, the data analysis we did, different strategies that can be employed, and importantly, the program projects and the action plan. I also want to point out there are three additional appendices that are very detailed if you ever are having trouble sleeping maybe, you know, you could crack those open at night. Several hundred pages of information about different strategies, the data analysis, and of course all the records from public engagement. So I mentioned the program of projects is a really important part of this, which was identifying where crashes have occurred in the past and where they might have the right conditions to occur in the future, especially if we start having more traffic on those roads. This is being actively used right now for capital improvement program planning and applying for funding from federal government and other entities as well. We also have this action plan we put together. This incorporates thinking about infrastructure, but also a lot of other things and working with the police department, working with KDOT, advocating for different safety improvements, a lot of different elements. We'll talk primarily about the short-term action steps, which was the things that we want to talk about or do within the first two years. So we're about a year out right now from the adoption. I think it was June 26 of last year. So we're almost one year out. So we've made a lot of progress, but still more to come. And with that, I will turn it back over to Ms. Abel to talk about the progress. Thank you.

Actually, Jay, this is the first time I think I've told you this, but you're wrong. We actually adopted this a year ago tomorrow. So June 12th is our one year anniversary. I know, I know, that's why we're here tonight. Yes, so we approved this plan a year ago. So I wanted to come before you just to let you know, hey, this is a reminder of what we accomplished last year. and then moving forward, what have we accomplished over the past year, and then our next steps moving forward. So as Jay mentioned, we have some short-term action steps. There were 15 that were recommended for us to complete within the two-year time period. We're halfway there. So we have completed three of those actions. We've got eight that are ongoing, and then we've got four that are on deck. So I wanted to show you where we're at as far as some of these, some of these, the progress that we've made already. One of the things that I wanted to point out that the mayor is working actively on trying to get some sort of trails committee, parks committee, that kind of thing. I would like to incorporate that and some of the thoughts that we have with SS4A into that committee. So I'd be happy to help out. And again, that's something we can accomplish over The next year we've actively been pursuing a lot of the grant opportunities you know i'm up here every every other week. With a new grant opportunity so i'll continue that progress and trying to work with Rhonda on upcoming tip items so that we can incorporate that into our schedule into our. We are actively working with KDOT and KDOT staff trying to find out how can we fund some of these projects, showing them that we do have priority projects. We do have issues going on in our community and we need their help. So continuing those conversations, um, and then again, trying to do as much as we can to, um, highlight that for the community. So again, we've got a lot of other things that are ongoing that we've, um, you know, you guys are hopefully gonna, uh, give chief a few more officers so we can build up the police staff. Within the next budget and the budgets moving on through that succession plan that we talked about earlier We'll continue to identify some of the traffic data Find ways that we can incorporate some of the safety countermeasures that we've identified within our safety action plan I'll work with Jenna to Continue some of that educational opportunity Maybe we could get into the school district or work with the rec Commission on some opportunities like that in the future and then as we start working on some of our projects throughout the year, throughout every year, trying to have safety at the forefront of every project moving forward. So working with Mike and Jacob on getting some of the technical standards updated. Hopefully we'll have some of those before you here in the next couple of meetings so that we can incorporate some of our safety Action and into that and then we're still working on it, I guess, is still an advocate of the case seven corridor study that's going on right now the HDR is working on. So. I skipped the one about the vault because I still got to work on that one, there was one the last item was explore opportunities, maybe with the recognition on having a driving simulator but that costs money so we'll work on that one later. Again, I wanted to highlight some of the things that we've done. I'm not going to go through this entire list, but I did want to show you just the magnitude of the number of grants that I've chased this past year. This is just a summary of some of the federal, state, and local grants that we've got that we have received that we're waiting to hear back from or that we have planned to apply for within the next month. So that kinda just highlights some of the other projects that we've got going on that are in progress and ongoing. We are working on prioritizing our sidewalk and crosswalk network expansion. We're currently doing that through some of the great things that Jacob's doing with his maintenance program. We are gonna be applying for a transportation master plan, so that'll explore some of those trail opportunities as well as what the mayor plans to do with the committee that he is forming. We've got some other projects that are coming up that have sidewalks and trails as components of that, whether they're specifically trail projects, sidewalk projects, or roadway projects that are complete streets that have trails and sidewalks incorporated in them. Trying to address some of the issues along the 169 K-7 corridor, we've got a couple of signal projects that are in the queue, one that's going to be going out for bid here in a few months. and then also advocating for that K-7 corridor management plan serving on that advisory committee. So that's what we've done over the past year, which is a lot. We still plan on doing a lot more and continuing this effort as we go into year two of our short-term goals and then start looking at ways that we could start carving away some of those middle, the medium-term goals before we get into the long-term goals. So some of the things that we do have plans, I kind of went through some of these already but we'll continue to do great things on some of those ongoing projects that we, you know, still need to address or continue need to continue addressing moving on into the future so those are highlighted up here. And with that, that is all i've got when I open it up to you guys if you've got any questions again, you can you have a formal copy of the SS for a that's for you guys to keep. them through it it's a really nice product i'm very impressed I pull it off the shelf every so often just to admire the work that we went through there was a lot of blood sweat and tears. that went into that document, and I'm very proud of it, and hopefully we can continue this momentum moving forward with accomplishing some of the safety standards for our community.

Can we go back to the previous slide?

Mm-hmm.

So the Transportation Safety Board, what would that kind of handle? Is that a board to manage this SS4A program?

It could be. So I initially was thinking about utilizing the committee that you're setting up with the trail committee and the parks, all of that. So that could be covered through that. We also have internally, anytime that we get a traffic request, we do have a traffic committee that has the police chief and Jacob and myself and Mike, and we all review and we engage our traffic engineer on that. And that's really helpful for us. It might be helpful for us to have a separate Transportation Safety Board that helps us in the future. And that could be a couple of representatives of staff, couple of representatives of city council, just to have those check-in points. Maybe have like a quarterly check-in having, um, some of the dashboards that we're creating. Maybe there's a way that we could have a thermometer, um, to track the progress of some of these, um, individual items that we've got. So it could be a lot of different things and I'd really love your input on that.

That's kind of what I was thinking. I wouldn't mind having, even if it's like biannually or quarterly or whatever, but a check-in of where we're at with these progress points. Um, cause I really liked that tonight to see what we've accomplished, what we haven't, where we're ongoing. Um, So I would like to see that maybe. So however that hashes out, I think I'm okay with it.

And maybe that's a presentation to that committee that you're forming.

Yeah.

And maybe quarterly we can come.

And let them create their own CIP.

And they can have input into the CIP, and they could specifically help us out as far as, you know, it's going to be more than just trails, but it's, you know, safety.

That's why we do a broad name rather than trails and parks. The other thing is, I know we talked about it with Adam's presentation last meeting, but including some sort of bike and e-bike and program for the safety education messaging. So because that's still the biggest complaint I see is just not using the road signs and things like that. So how do we that would be a high priority item to, I know we talked about doing the schools or doing it all over, but I think it's something that would be good for either that board or to work with the chief directly to say, how do we get on top of this right away? Cause I know that we gave that feedback to Adam and he seemed pretty open to it. So those, those two things, I think just from this in itself was, were the two things that popped out to me. Because I think a board that kept up on this all year, I think it would be really good because it holds us accountable to say, hey, why is this not going the direction we wanted? because it's 12 months is a long time. You've got quite a bit done, but once these are done, what are we going to do? You know, how are we going to stay on top of it? So I just like that.

I'll let you know.

Accountability. Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, anybody else have questions on, uh, more of a comment?

Um, as the tone has been about safety tonight, um, this is a perfect example of the, uh, the changes we've been trying to make to what transparency looks like in Spring Hill. Um, This puts a very clear expectation out to the community that these are the commitments that we're trying to make to you. This was pretty much over the finish line when I came in, and at first it was a lot of information to digest, but as I've worked through it, and I've seen it guide the decision-making processes you guys have been making, it's really put a lot of confidence in me as to what the city is trying to do and how they're trying to address the citizens' concerns, so. I'm excited for the success of this and I think it sets a whole mark as to where we're looking at the kind of the benchmark almost for the Comprehensive plan as a whole and what we expect what kind of what kind of a quality quality product we intend on getting from them This is a this is a perfect example of the level of work we want so I'm excited for this I'm excited to see that we've been able to check off so many things off the boxes and then we've got a clear roadmap moving forward and I'm excited to keep this keep this moving forward and

I would like to go back to that map real quick that he showed us. I would also wouldn't mind having like something that shows on the map what we've completed, what we're ongoingly working on, because to me it's a little bit more visually pleasing to see. I mean, not we check this one off, you know, we check this one off. I know you've got a lot of grants on the in the hopper for this kind of stuff. So as we see a project either being addressed or or have happened or have has happened, I think would be really good to have that too. So, cause this is my favorite thing out of the whole thing. Cause to me, it just shows me where all the different items that we're working on are. I remember this was one of my favorites when you came out with it. Well that, and then I think there was even a different map that showed the actual improvement of it too. Um, so what was going to go there and so on and so forth. So, um, the last thing is there was a piece on here that there's a grant that we received. for a big trail system in the 223rd area. Is that a 27 project?

It will be.

It will be? Okay. I just want to make sure. I've had some questions about that.

Yeah, so we currently have that out for soliciting an engineer to get that and hopefully we'll have that designed by the end of the year and out to bid hopefully by the end of this year and under construction sometime in the spring.

Yeah, I had some kids in my neighborhood asking when they would be able to ride their bike to school for middle school. And I was like, actually, I think that hopefully next year we're going to start working on this is going to be the interior loop trail. Yeah. So it's going to help them get across. So right now there's no real good way for my side of the city to get outside of, you know, motor vehicles or golf carts, whatever. But a bike is really tough to get down victory. So it'll be a nice little option for them over there to get.

Yeah, we will have crosswalks and we'll have the

rapid flashing beacon signs that will help assist people getting across the the the major roadways there yeah so i think it'll be really good if we can get that moving i'm really excited for that but yeah again i think this is probably one of the best things we've done since i've been around the last five years just because it addresses so many different things in one

one place so i'm really excited to see us keep moving forward so the more that we can keep it top of mind so people know what's coming and and keep us accountable to it it's even better that's what i'm here for and yeah i think if we add it just as an additional task for that committee no need for us to form a whole separate committee to do a similar thing i think that we could just uh plan to come quarterly uh to that trails committee just to give an update and then if there's any other updates that you'd like to see from staff uh, be happy to do that anytime.

And one thing I'll say, we get a lot of third party help from, for different things. Typically it's not the highest. I mean, I'm not saying they're bad quality. This is probably one of the better quality things we've seen from third party. So I do want to say thanks to you, to you guys and your whole team, because if we could get everything to be this high quality, especially like our initial comprehensive plan, if we get this kind of quality, I think we're going to be really happy with it. So. I'm excited to see us get more of this.

Yeah. Appreciate all your hard work. I've got a new book to read now.

You do?

I know I'm still fairly new up here, but I'm definitely going to be meeting up with you and kind of catching up with everything because I know when this was rolling out, I wasn't really paying too much attention to everything that was going on here.

Well, and because of you and Councilman Savage, that's why I wanted to take a step back. and do the presentation just to bring you into the loop of what we did previously and what that plan was. And I know we had a lot of people in the audience that may not have been around a year ago to hear some of the great things that we did. So that's why we wanted to take a step back to do the presentation to show everyone what we've accomplished. And I do want to have a huge shout out to Jay Aber and to Taylor McHenry from HDR. They were, there's a lot of their blood, sweat and tears into that book as well. So they did an amazing job along with their team. So it was great working with them and yeah, they've helped me secure a lot of, work on a lot of those grants and hopefully secure those here soon.

Yeah. It's amazing to see and hear how much help with funding there is out there and you've done a good job with that too. So I do appreciate that. Keep that up.

I will.

I feel like I'm always signing these letters for requests for money.

Oh, I have another one for you later. Yeah.

Yeah, we can get you a wrist brace. You'll be all right. All right. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? No, sir. All right. Thank you. Thanks for the update. Next up, we have a presentation for exceeding the revenue neutral rate. And that'll be by Ms. Rhonda Dutton.

Good evening. Thanks for your time. I don't have quite as an exciting presentation as a safety action plan, but an important one. So in the budget process, we have to establish, of course, a mill levy, which you're used to. As having a number of new members, some of you have been through this process before and some of you haven't. So I thought we would start the revenue neutral discussion tonight and you don't have anything to vote on. You have some time to digest and talk about it or think about it and ask questions. And then in the next meeting, we should have a resolution or a notification to Johnson County to vote on. So this is a statutorily required process and tonight I'm going to give you the process and some data and then the next time you'll be able to take action on that. A really important thing is this is about establishing a ceiling for your mill levy. It is not establishing the mill levy. So that's really important that it's a step in the process. It's not the final process. So let me start by explaining what the revenue neutral rate is meant to accomplish. And it's a program in Kansas statutory requirement that refers to the rate at which property taxes would remain unchanged from the previous year, ensuring that local governments do not collect more revenue than they did in the prior year. so if our assessed valuation goes up they lower the revenue neutral rate so we get the same amount of money so if we collect about five million dollars in property taxes each year we would the assessed valuation is going up i believe i don't have the official one but they would change our revenue neutral rate so we still get five million dollars and so We have to make a decision about, are you going to meet the revenue neutral rate? Are you going to exceed it? And so that's what tonight is about. The city has never been at or below the revenue neutral rate, not since the program was established a few years back. At the end of this I'm going to show you the history so you understand the data behind it If mo levy is kept the same as we have it right now, it will exceed the revenue neutral rate We have not received the 27 rate But I expect it to go down from the 26 rate because the assessed valuation Just because we have more property, you know new houses built and things like that. It will go down and What we do is we tell the county, Johnson County handles it for both counties, that we plan to exceed the revenue neutral rate and they notify taxpayers. We will hold a hearing and all those things. And so this is that process. When we establish the ceiling rate, you can approve a mill levy below it. You just can't go beyond it. And so that's why it's an important step in the process to say, this is our top number. and then you'll get to decide what the final number is. Well, as much as we can, the county gets to decide the final one. I am recommending that even if you choose to match the revenue neutral rate, that we go through the process and notify the county that it's our intent, that we may exceed it. Because if we say now, nope, that's our goal, we're not going to do it, and something changes, we have to go back through this process. And if we miss the statutory deadlines, we're stuck. And so I always recommend that we notify Johnson County and we have all the steps in place for you to make the best decision you can for the community when the time comes. also in the budget schedule which is in the front of your budget book we will have a combined budget hearing revenue neutral hearing in August we cannot have that meeting before August 20th and so because the county has to notify everybody but I recommend we do them together we used to do them separately and I think it was just not very productive to do it that way so we do it together so the citizens have one time to come talk about budget and have to come twice basically so i'm going to talk a little bit about the mill levy and give you some data points this is a report put out by the league of kansas municipalities and this is based on the 2026 mill levy the ones we're all living with now and i ranked the can't cities in kansas from the lowest to the highest And the top 10 lowest mill levies are on this list. Spring Hill has the seventh lowest mill levy in the state of Kansas. It's often, you'll be told, we have the highest taxes, we have the highest, and that's not correct. We actually have a very competitive rate compared to other municipalities. A couple of important things on this list, I believe, is number one, when you see Chanute, Kansas and Southeast Kansas, the top of the list, they decided to eliminate their general fund mill levy, and they subsidized their general fund through their electrical utility. and the 7.282 is the function of their library. In DeSoto, you're seeing the benefit of a large industrial customer and how revenue they receive from that gave them the ability to lower their mill levy. So just a couple of points there. If you are discussing with the public, I'd want you to be able to have that background. Within Johnson County, I did all the mill levies and took an average. I took out a couple of outliers just to have a really solid average. The red line there is the average, which is 22.053 for the entire metro, and Spring Hill is below the average at 21.861. I think that's important as well. And to see... you know i won't name names on this but when you think of the growth in our county and where houses are being built and where business is going and then you find those cities on this list spring hill is lower than most of them not the giant overland park it's a highly highly dense community generating a lot of texas per mile things like that so it's hard to compete with that rate So what does it mean in Spring Hill? So this, I feel like I pound this at you all the time, but this is about a six, seven year history, I guess eight year history of the mill levy in Spring Hill. And the current, clear out on the right hand side, revenue neutral rate for the city is 20.747. That was in 2026 for this budget. And we approved a more than a mill decrease at 21.861. And so you can see even calling out and cutting the way that you wanted to, we couldn't get to the revenue neutral rate. And so I wanted you to have this history as well. I say it every time that council, this one and the one before you have done a good job of working on that mill levy and keeping it what I would say is reasonable for our community. I think it's actually very competitive, not that it's a competition, but when you compare it to the cities around us in the county we operate in and the state, we have a solid mill levy. So, what, oh, I'll go back. So what we do from here is, again, it's discussion. Look forward to hearing what you have to say. We're letting you mull it and discuss it a little further. But I am recommending that the ceiling for our mill levy, when we notify Johnson County, if you vote to do that, be set at the current mill levy, the 21.861. I don't feel like you have any appetite to raise the mill levy. So I feel like your ceiling is good at your current mill levy rate. And then you can approve anything under that. You just can't go above it. I can think of lots of reasons to raise the mill levy. I just don't feel like that's something you're going to do. Since I've been here, council's never raised the mill levy. So I feel like that's a realistic look at our mill levies to say we are not going to go higher than we currently are. I think I've covered all of my points. You'll get to make more decisions in the process. If I get everything I'm supposed to related to R&R, I'll be at the next meeting with a resolution for you to choose or not to choose to notify the county we may exceed the revenue neutral rate. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

What is the estimated revenue neutral rate for 27?

I do not have one yet. The county sets it, and the deadline for them to provide it to me is June 15th.

Do you have any idea of where it might be?

We saw a 10% preliminary. I don't have the final assessed value. It went up about 10%.

And they take our growth into consideration for the revenue neutral or they do not? No. So that's the biggest thing for the new guys is basically revenue neutral says, hey, your budget last year was $10. It needs to stay $10 even though you had a second job and now you're making more than you did last year. So they don't really take into that consideration. So that's why if you see the R and R rate last year, wasn't nearly as bad as a typical previous years, but it's been like five, five mil difference just because we had so much growth. So with how much growth we had in this year and last year, I think we're going to probably see a bigger difference. It's probably going to tell us like, I think it's going to be probably like 17, 18 is what we'll say, which is kind of unrealistic. We, have staff growth and we have stuff like that. So I've always tried to piece it out and look at it differently. I think we did a good job last year of saying, hey, we want to see the dollar figure change for every mill that we looked at, because I think we looked at a half, three quarter and one last year. So this year, I think if we can do that same thing, say, hey, the worst we'll do is the current mill, which I would not be happy with. But give us a couple options of what what we could do and then we kind of go from there but if you if you strangle yourself to the R&R rate it's just it can sometimes be it would be definitely at Miami County did it and it killed them for a couple like one time killed them for three years yeah I think Lewisburg did the same thing I don't like to name names but you kind of have to look around that it's when your cost of operating is going up

In electricity bills alone, right?

It's hard to survive unless you have a very diverse revenue So lucky enough that growth can make up that difference rather than putting it on the existing resident my focus last year was I had like best-case scenario I'd like to see this set mill living drum and then we said what Ron to give us the Case-by-case if that we if it we went to that point. Here's what it look like for us and our general budget And then we were able to make decisions. One of the biggest things that we're going to have to think about moving forward of this is we're paving more roads with more expensive coverage. We're expanding sidewalks, which we've got all these huge projects coming up that are going to not only cost us money initially, but then over time to maintain them, our needs are going to be higher. So as we set that higher standard and material condition for the city, it's going to require more money year in, I ran on dropping the mill levy. We did a great job last year. My hope is to do a substantial drop this year, but within the realm of responsible adjustments without kind of hamstringing ourselves for the future.

I am working on a budget, hearing your requirements, but I am going to encourage you. to protect your mill levy because you don't know what that legislature is going to do with a cap in place and as we move along here i've done had some calculations done on what that cap will mean and it's a pretty significant hit and so i think we need to be protective of the mill levy this year i have all respect for the way you want to do that i'm just going to provide you with all the information for you to make that decision we really appreciate it yeah you bet

Do you guys have any questions being kind of the first go-around for each of you? It's definitely a confusing process. The R&R thing is probably the worst that I've ever seen when it comes to budgeting.

So the state sets the requirements for the revenue neutral rate, and we have a growth threshold that we meet that qualifies us to extend. Is that correct? No.

So what it is is you're basically, we're basically going to have to put something out because you have to put a notice out saying that we're going to exceed revenue natural understand that it doesn't change anything if we have growth or we had if we went smaller um it's gonna you have to show it tracking i think it's all municipalities it's not just it's not just the city so i think the school district has to do it too i don't think i'm not sure about the school are they the ones that counties do I know the counties do.

The counties do.

So that's one thing to think about is that I don't think if this stays in effect with all the changes they're looking at, if this stays in effect, we will continue to always be exceeding revenue neutral only because our budget's going to grow and it's strictly based off budget, not growth or anything else.

Go ahead, Lane.

If you don't do it, yeah.

Yeah. The other thing is, if we receive about $4.8 million in property tax in 2026, revenue neutral means you would never get more than $4.8 million. No matter what, no matter your growth, no matter your electricity rates, no matter how many police officers you need, the answer on property tax will always be 4.8. And I think that's unrealistic, to be honest.

Well, the best thing that I think you did last year was you gave us the breakdown of what the mill levy was, what this, this, and this, and then it was broken into what it would cost the resident per 100,000. And I think that's probably the most dollar to dollar most people understand because when you look at the mill levy, you're like, well, what does that mean to me? Right. So I think that's probably the best information we can probably get.

It's funny, I do that in my office. I'm working on some budget, and I stop and go, I'm going to have to talk about this by household number, but it all happened. So yes, definitely I'll do that as we move along.

Cool.

Great.

Any other questions or comments for Rhonda?

Always happy to answer them if you think of them later. This is an important part, and like you said, it's kind of one of the harder ideas that we work through each time, so I'd be happy to work with you.

Well, the big thing, I want to go back to this real quick, is that if you look at all the cities in the state and you'll see which ones have kind of the biggest nuisances, they have the lowest mill levy. That's, if we want to stay away from that, which it sounds like we're moving in that direction, we need to find other ways to be able to fund. And so that's going to be through know the growth that we have residentially and all that kind of stuff so as we as we talk about our code changes and things like that becoming or staying um attractive to developers is really important but also making sure we hold to some standards because we can't put sidewalks in for everybody and we can't do this and that because we're trying to burn the candle at both ends i don't want to have the most nuisance We also don't want to tax everybody out of their houses. So it's a, there's a happy medium there. And then really the only way we can help the school district, which is what really makes our taxes super high is by adding some industry. So we need to find that right industry that, that works for us in the right way.

Retail that generates sales tax.

Yeah. It sells taxes, you know, diversify non-invasive industries, franchise taxes for different businesses. So those are things that we all need to think about. And as, as they come in,

That's the balancing act we're playing is being both desirable to developers as well as existing residents and potential residents, because growth is what makes all of this work.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. That gets us through presentations. Next up, we have our consent agenda. And we did have the one change on there. So if we entertain a motion for the consent agenda, it would have to be as amended. I move to approve the consent agenda for tonight as amended.

Second.

Do I have any questions or comments? If not, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 4-0-0. That moves us into our formal action items. First up is number 19, consider approval of a resolution of intent to issue the city's industrial revenue bonds an aggregate principal amount not to exceed 118 million and one or more series to enable a sales tax exemption on construction and building materials for the Spring Hill Town Homes project. Who's handling this one? Looks like third party. Are you trying to hide back there or what?

Wise man said the best meeting is one you don't talk at. I failed again, but Rick McConnell with the Kutak Rock. This resolution is, as it says, one of intent, and it's basically a conditional resolution that says that what we would like to do, provided that certain criteria are met, that certain documents are negotiated in a way that we like, we will issue these bonds. Now, these bonds are not bonds that impact the city's debt limit. They are not ones that you are financially responsible for. This is really more like a framework to create an incentive For a development for townhomes and duplexes about 400 units pretty significant investment It helps them offset some initial infrastructure costs for roads it kind of I think will interlink some of the neighborhoods a little bit better and It seemed like the type of thing that it doesn't cost the city Because there's no property tax exemption either It's only sales tax. I think that's critically important. And it provides a very nice benefit up front for that development. The projection is that it'll phase in through 2034. It's very much based on absorption. As the stuff sells and leases up, more will get built. But we've got some controls in here. So about every three years, we'll have sort of a check-in to see, OK, how are we coming along? the way you get the exemption is you have to ask for a certificate from the state. And so they, they don't do those for 10 years, you know, three years. Yeah. And so we'll make sure that the, that the progress is ongoing. Um, but that's, that's really where we are. And so we'll just, we'll apply for the certificate if you all choose to pass this and we'll see what comes out of the ground.

Um, now can we talk a little bit about what, why we're doing this as far as helping them, I don't know, Spencer, can we go through kind of the background of what we're working on with this RHID area and all that? Because this is kind of in the same area, right?

It is, yeah. I mean, if you want to talk about the development specifically where this is for, is that what you're asking?

Yeah, so this is right above or right north of the Wiswell Farms. Am I speaking about the right place?

Yeah, northeast corner kind of. Yeah. Yeah.

And so as an undeveloped area, they'll be connecting to Webster there and paying into the RHID or helping in some ways. It's all kind of roundabout. And so this is a funding mechanism to help all of that become whole in one way or another. It will be nice to get some of that development up there done as we have that open corner and a little bit more of It's between the railroad track and the highway. And so dense housing is probably that's where it belongs. And so it'll be nice to kind of get that filled out, have some more affordable options for everybody. Um, again, I was talking about, I have young adult children and they're always talking about, I'm never going to be able to move here. And so it's going to be nice that when they get out of school here in the next couple of years, uh, hopefully they'll have some options. So that's where these types of things are really nice because right now we have pretty high end options. We're starting to get more affordable options and then later we're talking about some really, really nice options too, some different developments. I think it's nice to have the different levels of, of, of housing that we're able to add. And when we talk about putting in the right place, again, more dense housing between these types of areas always seem to make sense. So, um, I just wanted to get that out there cause it's like, why the heck are we waving this for somebody? I wanted to give the whole picture of that. It's part of this, you know, it's a big area there with development. We had to pay for Webster and all that kind of stuff. So we're trying to help the developers make sure that area fills out pretty, pretty quickly.

And I think part of their financial contribution to Webster has to come up front, basically. And it's a lug. And this helps them with their upfront costs to kind of offset that. And I think that some of the, there's maybe some old foundations and things out there. And so I think finishing.

That whole area had to be kind of, yeah, worked through. So, yeah, no, I think it's going to be great. I think it'll be really good for the city. And I'll be happy to see it develop over there. And again, I like the fact that this was just on the sales tax side. It's not really property tax driven. Absolutely.

And that's a one time. It's just on construction and it stops as opposed to a five-year property abatement or a 10-year property tax abatement. Exactly. It goes on. So this is a much better.

And it's based off if they actually do it.

Right.

Compared to if they don't. All right, that was the only thing I wanted to bring up on it. Other than that, I don't have anything else to talk about on this.

This is right in line again with talking about campaign promises, and I hate going back to why I ran, but multifamily units as a whole is a big talking point for all of us. We've got these incredible school districts that put out really, really qualified, intelligent human beings that go out and do incredible work at the state college and even higher levels. and then they have no place that they can afford to move back home and start to pursue their careers. So finding housing options that kind of fill in those gaps, because I don't know a lot of kids that come out of college ready for a $350,000 to $450,000 house. So this is the kind of stuff that I'm excited about. So we can have multiple checkpoints with these kind of projects. I'm going to be a yes all day.

It's always good when we can kind of fill in some of these gaps within Spring Hill we have a lot of these little pockets of Really nothing and this is kind of a good way to do that To just either bring in affordable housing or restaurants or businesses. I think this is how we need to do it I'm just moving forward. I think it's a good idea.

I No, and that corner's going to end up being, it's got the zoning for some of that kind of stuff too. So to have a little bit more dense housing over there is going to help with bringing those, attracting those businesses. Absolutely. Yeah. So any other questions or comments? If not, I will entertain a motion.

Make sure I've got the right item number here. I move to approve agenda item number 19 as listed in tonight's agenda.

Second. We have a motion and a second. It's a resolution. So all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 4-0-0. Next up, we have item number 20, consider approval of ordinance number 2026-14, annexation and agreement at 183rd and Woodland Road, including all rights of way.

Thank You mayor council members this is a proposed annexation as mentioned at the northeast corner of 183rd and woodland on the agenda item review sheet I would like to point out that the parcel number is identified incorrectly but the parcel numbers that are in the ordinance are the correct ones so just an error on my part the property owner CNC development LLC submitted a valid request for voluntary annexation of approximately 147 acres and Property is contiguous to the existing city limits and is eligible for annexation under Kansas law. The property is proposed to be zoned RR. We're still working through that proposed zoning at this time. City has also received a voluntary consent annexation agreement. There are provisions in this annexation agreement which may be a little bit different than what you've seen in the past. One of the exhibits does reference a plan that is being proposed that is going through our zoning review process at this time. That's done to show the level of quality that the developer is asking for. There's another agenda item after this one that speaks to a funding agreement, and that is related to the plan being proposed. wanting to create that district, a special benefit district, to help offset some of the costs associated with the proposed development. And so the included plan is to kind of give the governing body a sense of quality of development. Again, it's on 147 acres. There's roughly 150 lots. All of them are a half acre or larger, and they're trying to hit a upper price point in the housing market that we do not have lots of here in Spring Hill. And so just a couple of different things that you may not have seen in other annexation requests. Being done this way helps give the governing body some reassurances about what is being proposed and what is being annexed and we are working through the zoning and the development plan and we hope to have that back for you within the next few weeks. So I'm happy to answer any questions. Again, the property is contiguous to the current city limits. The annexation request was submitted by the property owner and Staff has reviewed it and we recommend approval. And we believe that the annexation before you meets all the state requirements.

All right. Yeah, this is one that I was talking about before. I mean, really high quality really gives us that other another price point that we don't really have right now. So I'm really excited for this neighborhood. I think it's also in a very busy area where we may have this will give us some more housing in that area to help with bringing in some additional commercial businesses or retail. And so I'm excited to get some of these going so we can see what they look like and have another option to upgrade. This is kind of the upgrade as you're ready to sell and move up to the next level, these type of housing, which is always nice to have too. Add some entry level, add some higher end. It's always nice to have both. Other than that, I don't have any questions. I like when we put a lot of stuff in the annexation agreements and in the development agreements that we build. both sides can have the assurances of what we're looking for and what the expectations are. Any other comments or questions?

Lane, was this the houses that you were talking about up near 167th area? No, the similarity of the house build?

No, that's a different subdivision and developer on that.

This is going to be over there, kind of by Sycamore Ridge area.

No, I'm talking, he was explaining. Oh, you're talking about style. Yeah, the style of the home.

Yeah. Yeah, the reference point, I think, is just showing, yeah, the quality. I think they built in the city before real good quality to some of the higher end neighborhoods. Any other questions or comments?

No, this is the necessity of the other side of that coin I was talking about. Yeah. less excited about these higher-end projects but I understand absolutely yeah that they they help diversify the type of homeowners we have we're attracted to the area so I see the necessity less excited about it I see hey I like him yeah let's see here if there's no other questions or comments I'll entertain a motion with the parcel ID being wrong on the description is that gonna affect the way I make my motion or can I just do it as I usually do

The motion that's listed on the ARS does not include the parcel ID. So I can just say that's fine. And all the attachments to the ARS have the correct parcel IDs. So the legal description is correct. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

All right. So I move to approve agenda item number 20 as listed in tonight's agenda. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Is this a vote? Call. All right.

Sorry.

Is that a clerk?

Mr. Grant? Yes. Mr. Delgado? Yes. Mr. Savage? Yes. Mr. Throne?

Yes.

Mayor Young?

Yes.

Ordinance 2026-14 passes 5-0-0.

All right, thank you. We will now move on to item number 21, consider approval of a funding agreement with CNC Development LLC. Mike you stand up here.

Yeah, I'm gonna be up here for a little bit This is a request on the heels of the annexation request it is to Developer CNC has requested the city as part of that annexation and for residential development requests has included certain conditions on the development and including an annexation or anticipated petition for a special benefit district to finance the cost of infrastructure. Staff has recommended the city enter into a funding agreement with the developer to provide funding for city due diligence on the development which includes the anticipated request for the use of special benefit district funding as well as the annexation agreement to set out certain conditions of development. Under the funding agreement, CNC will deposit a dollar amount of $20,000 with the city, which will be used for the city's reimbursement or the city to help pay for outside consultants and legal counsel to do that due diligence on the city's behalf. Staff recommends the funding agreement for the development. Again, the property is at the northeast corner of 183rd and Woodland.

and I'm happy to answer any questions. Just a couple quick ones. This is something outside of what I've seen so far since I've been sitting here. Why specifically are they helping us with our consulting fees there?

Spencer correct me if I miss anything on this but typically that's how the funding agreement or any kind of incentive request works is the city has to engage outside counsel and outside consultants to do our economic analysis and draft up the legal documents to create the district itself and those costs are borne by the developer who is actually requesting that the city consider the use of these benefit districts or other incentives and so what the fending agreement allows us to do is it gives the approval for staff to begin that due diligence periods and engage with that outside counsel and then therefore it sets the dollar amount in order to do that that's paid for by the developer awesome thank you very much any other comments or questions it's pretty straightforward we're uh

know if we're going to do benefit districts i've always said i like them on the higher end neighborhoods only because people have been through the process before typically and understand where they're getting into and i think this is going to help get this project going i think it'll be really nice absolutely Oh, sorry. I can't hear me. Um, yeah, no. So I said these, uh, benefit districts are typically better in the higher neighborhoods. So I prefer that because people have been through the process before. So, um, I'm okay with this. I'll be excited to see kind of what the, what the research looks like. And after we engage everybody and hopefully move forward with this, uh, soon and later, I know it's been being worked on for awhile. Any other questions or comments? All right. If not, I will entertain a motion.

Move to approve agenda item number 21 as listed in tonight's agenda. Second.

A motion and a second. All those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed? Motion passes 4-0-0. All right. Next up, item number 22. Consider approval of ordinance 2026-15 for annexing rights of way into the city limits 191st Street, Renner Road, and 199th Street.

Thank you, Mayor. This is being requested on behalf of the city, so city staff is initiating this, to annex certain portions of the right-of-way adjacent to the property that was annexed late last year, the Mills property over near 191st and Renner Road. At that time, the annexation only included the parcel itself and not adjacent right-of-way as was done in the previous annexation that I described earlier. After doing that, we had a conversation with some of the representatives from Johnson County and they requested that we annex those portions of the right-of-way in order to transfer the maintenance of that over to us. Um, typically the county asks that when we annex property, we annex the adjacent right away up to the center line of the road. And so these are kind of remnant parcels that weren't included with that annexation. Uh, there are along 191st, uh, Renner and 199th. So, uh, Small amount overall, just less than a few acres. The subject rights-of-way are contiguous with the existing city limit. They're adjacent to the property that was annexed last year, the 300 acres. And the annexation allows for consistent maintenance, enforcement, and service delivery. And we did not believe the annexation of this right-of-way will have any adverse impact on surrounding properties. And therefore, we recommend any approval. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

one thing we we found in this process was that the county over the years has done it differently there's either rights of way or real property so as we annex it in it makes it a lot cleaner when when things happen on top of that they don't want to maintain it once you once we do it so they request that we take from the center of the road and it's just a little different now i think the last couple annexations we've done we did the right away with the annexation. I think that's something Mike's kind of changed over the last couple months. I don't think we were really doing that before. So it just makes it a little bit easier because we have done that in the past where we have to do the right-of-way later. So I appreciate that, that we don't have to do the cleanup on some of the newer stuff as we go through. But that's really all this is, is some cleanup of some areas that we didn't grab when we did the previous. So pretty straightforward. Any other comments or questions? If not, I entertain a motion.

I move to approve agenda item number 22 as listed in tonight's agenda. Second.

A motion and a second. Is this a roll call?

Yep.

Ivan, I think, was it? Yes.

Mr. Savage?

Yes.

Mr. Throne?

Yes.

Mr. Grant?

Yes.

Mr. Delgado?

Yes.

Mayor Young?

Yes.

Ordinance 2026-15 passes 5-0-0.

All right, we'll move on to item number 23, consider approval of change orders number two, number three, number two and number three with Superior Bowen Asphalt Company LLC for the 199th Street Ridgeview to Renner improvements.

Thought I'd give Mike a little bit of a break. He'll be back up here in a minute. The next item before you is a request to approve a couple of change orders associated with the 199th Street project. I had one on the agenda last time And because of the dollar amount, it actually was on consent. So I didn't get a chance to come up here and tell you all about it. So I thought I would. So we engaged in our contract with Superior Bowen to do 199th Street improvements. As with any project, there's some unforeseen things that just pop up. And we cover those with change orders. So this is not anything that was an error or anything like that. It's just things happen. So the first change order is related to rock ditch checks um especially right in front of the school we had some ditches that we once construction started we we started seeing that there was some sediment loss so we wanted to make sure that no sediment no sediment left the site so we needed to put in rock ditch checks that was not an item that was originally in the bid form so we worked directly with the contractor to negotiate a price and the price was based off of time and material their direct costs. So it was a very favorable price. So we went ahead and moved forward with that. And like I said, that was approved at the last city council meeting that was on consent. And that was about $4,000 worth of rock that we needed to put out there to control some of the sediment loss in those ditches in front of the school. The second item is related to some roadway drainage that we needed, so the area up in the northeast corner of the roundabout we needed to place a pipe to drain water. and connect into the storm drainage system, so it was just a little bit of extra pipe, we already had a. unit price for that for that pipe, so it was just a little bit more of a cost that we needed to pay. For that item, and that was $3,870 so again that one doesn't rise to the level of bringing it before you, but because I put it with. The other item I wanted to go ahead and bring it to you and just for full transparency, I wanted to make sure that you guys are aware of what we're doing out on the project. The third change order is related to, again, at the roundabout. After the project started, I was contacted by a resident in the southeast corner of the project. There were some modifications that she had requested when the original roundabout was built a few years ago. She has two access points. to her property, one off of 199th Street and one off of Ridgeview Road. The splitter islands, the medians off the roundabout block her access. So she does not have full access from either of those driveways. So whenever she leaves her property to go on 199th Street, she can't turn left. to go towards the roundabout, she has to turn right. And she has a little bit more space on the Ridgeview side, but it still isn't a true full access. So based off of those concerns, I had actually two of our traffic engineers take a look at this just to get a second and a third opinion about this to make sure that we were in line with everything. And their recommendation was that we could shave off about 25 feet of that median in front of her driveway to give her better access. She has horses that she has on her property, and being able to get in and out of that access, especially since she has limited access on 199th Street, for her to get in and out of her property with the horse trailer, we ran some truck turning movements to make sure that 25 feet was adequate, and it was. So we worked directly with the contractor on that change order. We had some unit prices that were already locked in with and some of the grading and the asphalt and all the things that we needed, all the great things that we needed to make this change. So we put all that together and the cost to make that change is $12,302.50. So those are the three change orders that we've had on this project so far. Relatively minor in the whole grand scheme of things. probably have a few more before the project is over, so I'll continue to bring those to you. But wanted to give you an overall idea of where we're at. We're a little over $5 million with the contract amount with Superior Bowen, and we're still under budget. So I did include where we're at as far as our actual costs with this, incorporating that $5 million contract with Superior Bowen so you can get a better idea of where we're at with the project we still have about 1.5 million dollars left not that I'm planning on spending it but it's nice to have in case I need it for surprises that will come up so with that staff recommends the approval of change orders number two and number three was superior Bowen for revising the amount of the contract and I must have stopped so it is actually Revising the total amount to $5,017,084.68. If you want to put that in there. So that would be 5-0-1-6. Oh, I'm sorry. 5-0-1-7-0-8-4-6-8. Sorry about that. The phone must have rang whenever I was working on that. I'm going to rewrite that so it doesn't look so gross. There you go.

Make sure I got the number right. $5,017,084.68. Yep. That's what I got. Thank you. And are we back on track with this one?

We are. So we had some other delays with any contract. The contractor is going to have some weather weather days that they factor into the schedule. We were delayed a little bit with Atmos. They had to do their relocation. We had to get easements with those relocations. So the contractor is back on site. They're going to be doing the integral wall and sidewalk. They're going to start on the wall portion of it in front of Norton. So they've mobilized for that. We are going to put in a shoe fly and asphalt segment so that we can keep access open. hopefully two way traffic as much as we can, except for, you know, there might be a few, few things here, there that we might need to have a flagger out there for, but for the most part, we're going to be able to maintain two way traffic. So spending a little bit of extra money on asphalt, but that was factored into the bid and the bid documents. Um, so we are still on track to finish that by December.

Okay.

So, and they will be starting on asphalt, I think, uh, here in about three weeks.

Okay. Last time I drove out there look like it's moving along pretty well.

They've graded a good bit of it They've already put all the utility boxes in and everything. They're gonna be starting on curb here relatively soon.

Okay All right, just any other questions. Yeah, just a quick question with the the drainage issue was that connected with what I'm hoping is a fix for the freezing issue that we have over the winter months and

No, we, we actually had, um, that issue was incorporated in the plans. So, um, there's some drainage that came off of the center of the roundabout Island. We added a storm drain that was included in the original design. Uh, this is actually up in the corner by the school. It connects an end section to another end section. So it's connecting from point a to point B and it was just something that we didn't see until whatever we had boots on the ground and, uh, we're out there and we saw it in the field.

And as far as change order number three, thank you so much for working with the property owners affected by these things. That's a big, I know we wouldn't have, yeah, all of us want to see that as much as possible. So seeing that you guys were able to be flexible and get those, those concerns addressed to make sure that those people being impacted by our decisions are taken into consideration. Thank you so much.

And she, we had a great conversation. She had a few other things that, um, she had concerns with. So I'm slowly working through some of those. Um, she had some, uh, grading, uh, concerns. So I'm working directly with the contractor. They're just gonna take care of that since they're gonna be out there anyway. And then, uh, working directly with, um, I think there was a concern with emergency management, um, getting in and out of her driveway. So hopefully this median will help with that. But also I got her connected with the fire chief, uh, or the, uh, fire marshal so that, um, he can work directly with her on, Hey, you need to put down more gravel in your driveway because it's kind of soupy down there or, you know, why, why are there, um, why can't they get into her property with the calls for service? Cause what they're doing is they're parking up on, um, the apron, the concrete apron up at the road instead of going down into her property. So working with her on that. So those are just the little things that, you know, if there's issues out there, if I can solve them, I'll try, but, trying to have a costume.

Thank you for being a store, a steward for the city. That's, that's what it's all about.

Well, I know initially there was like some, the trucks were parking along and they were kind of blocking her driveway too. And so I think they've done a good job of trying to rectify all that and shortening this up. I remember when they built it, she was here every meeting saying you're building it in front of my driveway, both of my driveways.

nobody really listened so i'm glad we're able to finally fix that for her because yeah i was able to do it on one i couldn't yeah i couldn't well i think ridge used the one that's the better access point anyway ridge view is the better access point um 199th street was just too close to the roundabout and it just it would be too much of a safety issue if we cut back that that median island i'm glad we got halfway there at least that's going to be a good good help for her like i said i had to get two different opinions just to make sure that i was doing the right thing yeah you're not getting rid of it

All righty. Any other questions or comments? No, sir. PJ, got everything you need? I think I do. All right. I will entertain a motion. All right.

I move to approve change of orders number two and number three with Superior Bowen Asphalt Company, LLC, as outlined by staff, revising the total contract amount to $5,017,484.68. Second. No. Was it just $84, not $484? Yes. $84. It says $484 right there.

That's what we're using.

It's on the bottom of page 189. Oh, $517.

Or $846. Yeah.

So what I'm reading on mine is actually different from that number, too. OK. Can we just confirm the number that's actually going to be on there? Because I'm seeing three different numbers now.

I have $5,017,084.68. So that's one that's on this page, that one there.

If you scroll down there.

Yeah, that's where she meant. That's where it's posted.

Where the actual documents are. Oh, is it different? It's different on the actual documents, too. Keep scrolling down. I know.

Yeah, that's what I had mentioned before.

I think there's more.

Right here? Yeah, this is the one that we're going for. OK. So I'm going to read that again. I hope that's the right number because that's the number that we're approving tonight.

That's all they're going to get.

Awesome. All right. I am moved to approve change number or change orders number two and three with Superior Bow and Asphalt Company LLC for 199th Street Ridgeview Renner improvements in the amount of $5,017,084.68. Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 4-0-0. You figured it out way sooner than me to just say as written because I used to read the whole thing and it was a nightmare.

Well, today it was not as written.

Yeah.

They'd only get $5,000.

Yeah, they probably wouldn't be happy with that.

I don't think they would.

All right, we will move to item number 24, consider approval of task order 2026-01 with George Butler Associates, GBA, to provide building plan review and support services. We're back to Mike Mullen.

Thank You mayor City Council members this is a task order with the city and with George Butler associates which I will shorten to GBA because that is a mouthful since July 2025 the city development or community development department has required additional staff support, assist with building permit plan review with the staff transitions that we're going through at that time. Subsequent task orders were signed to help bridge the gap during other staff transitions. The most recent task order was signed in December of 2025 and had a budget cap of $50,000. With the idea being that once we were able to hire a building official that they would able to take on some of that plan review We were able to get a building official however, it took a little bit longer than we thought and chewed up most of that $50,000 and so with the building official on right now, we still have a need to have GBA do some of our plan review as he gets up to speed he has started to take over some of the plan review but Not only do we foresee additional plan review being needed as we start to get into the summer months and our permit numbers tick back up here towards the late summer, but also as we look to adopt the 2018 IRC that I mentioned earlier, but also the 2024 codes GBA does provide some of that technical expertise especially as the building codes relate to the state of Kansas our building official has experience in Utah and Wyoming so there is a bit of a learning curve there and so what we're proposing is an additional five months that will take us through November 30th of 2026 with a not to exceed amount of $90,000 and we believe that that should be sufficient in order to help us Get our building official up to speed and help us iron out some of our other processes create checklists Really put some good information out there for the developer for the builders and developers on the Kansas or in the state of Kansas and We do anticipate potentially needing to keep GBA on call as we potentially get a large commercial developer or a large industrial user, those plan reviews can be quite cumbersome. But as of right now, what's before you this evening is a task order to extend essentially their building permit review, their building comment services through November.

I mean, pretty straightforward stuff.

Um, just to make sure I'm understanding, it's an addendum to the original agreement or is it another 90,000 on top of it?

It's an additional 90,000. So they ran through essentially a task order. It wasn't contemplated. Okay.

I'm tracking. Sorry.

Yep.

This just keeps it so that the ball keeps rolling as we get trained up and, um, and really, It may be more work still than one building official, so that's where keeping them as on-call is probably good, especially as we have some of these good commercial developments that are looking at us that we haven't had pull the trigger yet. It'll be nice to have these guys on tap to be able to look at them if we need to. CHRIS RODGERS, M.D. : Ready to go. CHRIS RODGERS, M.D. : Absolutely. CHRIS RODGERS, M.D. : Any questions or comments? CHRIS RODGERS, M.D.

: Nope.

CHRIS RODGERS, M.D. : All right.

I will entertain a motion.

I move to approve agenda item number 24 as listed in tonight's agenda.

A motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 4-0-0. I think we are on to our last item here, number 25. Consider authorizing staff to submit a grant application to Mid-America Regional Council for the planning sustainable places to complete the transportation master plan. And I don't think we've gone through a meeting without you talking about it.

I was just going to say that. You stole my thought.

Good to be the last thing there.

I know, right? So yes, I can't go through a meeting without talking about grants. You know me. So the next item before you is to consider authorizing us to move forward with a planning sustainable places grant application through the Mid-America Regional Council, which is the Kansas City Metropolitan Planning Organization. There's nine counties and like 75, 72 communities within the MARC region. And they have several grants available and everything that they, we're actually going through the review process right now of their every two years they offer transportation grants and such. So separate from that though is they have a planning sustainable places program. It is meant for communities like us to apply for smaller planning studies. Through these planning studies we can get a conceptual plan and some cost estimates together so that we can go through the budgeting process and plan for bigger and better things in the future. But it's a good launching pad for us. With these planning studies, these are a great tool for us to have in the future also for future transportation grants. So in two years, there might be some projects that we can look at applying for with the next round of funding that Mark has available. So great things come out of this grant opportunity. It not only helps us out with CIP planning, but it also lines it up nicely for future grant opportunities. I know we've gone through SS4A. You heard plenty about that earlier tonight. You're going to hear more about the comp plan in the next meeting whenever Mike has the consultant contract for you. This is outside of that. This would be a true transportation master plan. This is going to look at roadway connectivity, sidewalk connectivity, opportunities for us as we start to grow and develop. We need to be intentional about all of these opportunities. I feel like sometimes the tail is wagging the dog and streets go wherever they go. We need to be intentional about making these east-west connections, the north-south connections. How do the trails line up with other trails? How do we make those connections? Where do we have gaps so that maybe Jacob can go fill those gaps with some future sidewalk programs? So this is going to end up with a basically a task list for us. It'll be a great planning document for Mike and Ian as we look at future development projects. It's going to be a great way for Jacob to look at maybe some future maintenance program opportunities and just make us a little bit more intentional with development. To my knowledge, I don't think we've done just a true transportation master plan. We've done the comp plan, which has had transportation elements and everything like that. But we need to focus more on that vehicular and that pedestrian connectivity throughout the city. And this is a great opportunity to do that. So there is $150,000 that's available to us. That's the cap that we have. As a municipality, we have to dedicate 20% of a local match. So that would be a total project of about $200,000 that we would have available to us for that study. So with that city contribution, one of the things with this grant in particular and with some of the other MARC grants, if the city contributes more than that 20%, then we do get a little bit more of a nod. I don't know. Maybe that's just me thinking about that, but they do like it whenever the local community puts a little bit more into the pot. So that's why we're recommending having $50,000 as our local match. Again, I like round numbers. $20,000 sounds really good to me. Or I'm sorry, $20,000, $200,000 sounds really good. And that's sufficient for us to do a citywide transportation master plan moving forward. With that, staff recommends the approval or the authorization to submit the mark planning sustainable places, grant opportunities so that we can pursue a transportation master plan. I'm available if you have any questions.

When we did the SS4A, did we include kind of potential growth areas or was it only current city limits?

We went one mile outside the city limits so that we did intentionally put those growth areas in there.

So this would also be the same way, I'd assume?

We could.

I would prefer that only because it just makes sense.

For consistency, I think it makes sense as well.

Yeah, if we can match up to whatever we did for SS4A, I think would make the most sense in my opinion. So a mile out sounds great to me because that's pretty far in every direction.

As long as it stays within the budget, I'm good with that.

Yeah, no, I mean, I think you put a good budget on it. Yeah, that 25% from us is not a bad setup.

Not at all.

Cool. That was the only thing I had.

Okay.

Anybody else?

No, this is right in line. What would be kind of been the theme of the night is, is trying to get plans in place that make sense that are forward thinking and taking all the, uh, all the, uh, factors into consideration. So I'm all for this.

Well, and hopefully, um, you know, all, all the things that we, that come out of this, um, transportation master plan, we can fold that in nicely with what they're doing with the comp plan. So hopefully those two studies can go hand in hand. we can get once their consultant is on board then maybe we can work directly with you know the two consultants can work directly together so that we can come up with a comprehensive comprehensive plan well this kind of helped us clean up 169 highway too as far as giving us an alternative routes for what are currently being used off of the highway So they are currently working on that right now. So the K-7 corridor study that is underway right now goes from I-35 down to 215th Street. So they are studying those alternative intersection types, and that's just going to be at a very conceptual level.

Well, not even that, just if this is more roadway connection, Like how does the neighborhood that only has the access point off 169, how do they get back over to Lone Elm so that we can close?

That could all be part of it because with the Transportation Master Plan, we will have public engagement opportunities. So some of those problem areas that we may not be aware of or other things you don't know. So we'll have that opportunity to get some of the information from the public so that we could look at some of those problem areas. And look at some of those alternative routes. I know that there's some additional programs through KDOT that might be able to help us out with some of the access management and we've been encouraged to apply for some of those grant funding opportunities in the future.

All right, great. That was just something I thought about. I'm like, yeah, if we could look at that, that'd be great. Because I know the K-7 corridor study, but if this is for us to say, hey, we can go to KDOT with... This is what we came up with independently. Two groups may come up with different solutions. Yeah, exactly.

Well, and hopefully they all work together too to come up with something that's a little bit more cohesive. And, you know, again, I can't talk about these grants more, but I'm sure I can. But through these grant applications, having these studies is a huge positive for us. That's going to get us more scoring on our applications.

All right. Any other questions or comments?

No, sir.

I will entertain a motion.

I move to approve agenda item number 25 as stated in tonight's agenda. Second.

Give that one to Mike. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes 4-0-0. Thank you. We now only have one executive session on the books for tonight, I believe for 20 minutes. I would request a five minute break in between that and then, uh, put you at 32. Yeah. 32 probably.

All right. I moved the city council recess into executive session for 20 minutes after a five minute break, uh, to receive advice of council regarding matters of non-elected personnel pursuant to KSA seven five dash four three one nine B two of the Kansas open meetings act. The meeting will resume in the City Council Chambers at 9.32 p.m. No formal action is anticipated following the session. Persons to be in attendance will be Spencer Lau, City Attorney. Second.

Motion to second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 4-0-0. We'll see you back. We are actually going to do a 10-minute extension onto our go-through here. Let the record reflect, governing body reconvened in the open meeting at 9.32 p.m. No votes were taken. Decisions made are directed During the executive session, discussion was limited to the subject stated. We are going to do a 10-minute extension. So I'd probably be 44, 45, 44.

OK. Do I have a motion? I move to extend executive session number one to return at 9.44 PM.

Second. 44. We have a motion and a second. It was Mike. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 4-0-0. Thanks. All right, let the record reflect the governing body reconvene to the open meeting at 9 44 p.m No votes were taken or decisions made during the executive session. The discussion was limited to the subject stated We are done with executive sessions for the night Amy's over there mad dogging me, but we are Ready to adjourn. I will entertain a motion so moved second motion in a second all those in favor aye opposed Most passes 4-0-0. Have a nice night