City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It's 7 p.m., and we're going to go ahead and get this regular scheduled meeting started. We'll start with our invocation with Pastor Jack Smith from Generation Bible Church. Please stand.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for all your blessings and all you do and the fact that you watch over us every single day. And I pray tonight in asking for your wisdom to rest upon the members of the city council. Please grant them discernment as they listen to the concerns of our community, the courage to make the difficult choices that they have and a shared commitment to justice and fairness. Bless our neighborhoods and families and the staff who work tirelessly behind the scenes to keep our city safe and strong. Help us to remember always that we work best when we work together for the common good. Give our leaders the foresight to look beyond the temporary divisions and focus on the long-term and well-being of every single resident. May the decisions made in this room tonight foster safety, opportunity and kindness throughout our city. Let us proceed with clarity, patience and mutual respect. Lord, thank you for all who serve this community. All those in this room, our men and women in blue, our fire department, all first responders, and it's in Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen.

Adam clerk will please take the roll.

Mr. Thrawn here. Mrs. Cravier here. Mr. Grant here. Mr. Delgado here. Mr. Savage here. Mayor, we have a quorum present.

Thank you. Next up is our approval of our agenda. We did have a request to add two executive sessions at the end of our agenda, but outside of that, there was no other requested changes. Do we have any questions or comments? If not, I will entertain a motion. I move to approve tonight's agenda as amended.

Second.

A motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 5-0-0. Next we'll move into our announcements and reports. I don't necessarily have any announcements tonight. I think everything's going pretty well. The street road projects are done. I think Jacob's not here to talk about it, but that was pretty good turnout so far I don't know if you've gotten to see any of them but I would find that's something that we're gonna continue doing going forward I think we're gonna talk about later tonight in our discussion so I look forward to that discussion PJ do you have any announcements no announcements today okay James Kendra no announcements Mike no report let's go to Spencer no report Mike Malin

I do not have any report, but I will let Ian talk about some of the stuff in community development. All right, sounds great. Rhonda?

No report.

Glenda? No report, thank you. Moniqueisha?

No report.

Ian?

Do you have a report on ASDF?

Say we have a microphone for him?

Oh, I'm sorry. Can I just come up here?

Yes, so we do have a couple updates regarding the comprehensive plan. A few dates of note. The comprehensive plan website will go live on September 1st. That link will be on the city website for everybody to access. With that, we'll have some information about subsequent events, a survey slash questionnaire that folks can take, and just some general information about the comprehensive plan will be updated as the process goes along. September 3rd will be the joint work session with City Council and Planning Commission. where we'll have a presentation from the consultant, Multi Studio, that is open to the public if folks would like to attend. And then the 10th will be the first public open house. That'll be held in the 401 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. That will be an opportunity for folks in the community to come down, meet with the consultant team, learn a little bit about the plan, what's been done so far. There'll be some interactive components, there'll be some poster boards, and just kind of a good opportunity to come and get a, a refresher on it. And then throughout the month of September and October, there'll be various pop-ups. The dates will be announced shortly once we have some more information kind of finalized, but just keep your eye out for that and check the website as that process goes.

Thank you. All right, awesome. Great, thanks, Ian. Thank you. Allison. Chief.

Real quickly, the storm sirens that you approved earlier in the spring have arrived. We're working with the company who's going to install them on the final locations and just some final details. And so we should be seeing those hopefully go up very soon.

And I think we didn't have anything additional from Jacob that would be for report, Mike, do we? That you'd like to talk about? No. All right. Sounds great. Next up, we have a public hearing, and this is a little bit nuanced. We're actually going to have the public hearing this meeting, and then we're going to continue it into our next meeting. There were some dates that we didn't hit as far as notification goes. So we're going to go ahead and open it, let anybody let Rana do a little bit of talking, and then we'll let anybody in the community who wants to come up and speak and put their comments in, and then we will continue it to our next meeting, and that's when we'll deliberate a little bit up here. It's kind of the plan. We can deliberate today a little bit if we'd like to, but just to give some preface to opening it up. So I'm going to go ahead and open that up public hearing.

Thank you. Good evening. I'm going to just give some brief information about, I'm going to focus on mill levy and R&R since that is part of the topic tonight. And then we'll open it to the public for their comments. And you will not be voting tonight on the budget or the R&R. And then as the mayor just said, there will be a second hearing meeting all the statutory requirements on September 10th. And that night you'll vote on the R&R resolution. So this is our history. By the way, I took our presentation from June. This is the same data. So I haven't created something new. But the key here is the challenge that you gave me is to at least keep the mill levy flat. That is what we've told the public that we would like to hold at a maximum at 21.861. The revenue neutral rate provided by the county for 2027 is 19.486. you can see your five-year and nine-year change there. This governing body over the years has been very focused on controlling that mill levy and being prudent with it. So I wanted to show you the impact of meeting R&R. The mill levy is 21.861. If we move to the 19.486, it would be a reduction of 2.375. The value of a mill at 233 is a reduction in revenue per year of $553,000. And per household in Spring Hill, that would be $137 per household savings. To give you a point of reference, we will be coming Eventually, for 199th Street, we will bond that debt, and a payment would be approximately $306,000. And then the stoplights would be an additional $368,000. So we know in the future, regardless of everything else, we'll have some additional debt payments we'll want to pay, hopefully without ever raising the mill levy to do so. So I want to remind us again the value of a mill over time. You can cut a mill today or half a mill or a quarter mill and the total value of a mill is about $233,000, but in five years or 10 years, that mill is worth $238,000. In 30 years, it's worth over $3 million if we continue to grow like we grow. So killing a mill today has a long-term impact because I think our legislature's working hard to put pressure on the cities to reduce the mill levy, and it will be very difficult in the future if the legislature accomplishes some of their goals for you to get a mill back, or half a mill. So our estimated 2026, Property tax is about $4.7 million. With 4,064 households, that is $1,168 per household in city tax. Going forward, we're proposing in 2027 to have about 5.1 million, we'll have about 4,472 houses that makes the city's tax on property per household $1,140 per household. A positive impact to the household. I like to throw some things in here. I read social media, I try not to focus on it, but to me the most important thing is for everybody to have good information to help them understand the process and to understand their taxes. So I want to point out again, Spring Hills Mill Levy at 21.861 is below the average of the Metro, and we are seventh lowest in the Metro. And to go one step further, when you look at the state of Kansas and rank the mill levies top to bottom, Spring Hill comes in at number seven in the state. And I think that's an incredible place to be when you're sitting not that far from Overland Park and not that far with Gardner with huge economic impact they've had in recent years. We're doing pretty well to operate at 21.861 and to be maintaining that. and I think I just wanted to bring this back. I'm gonna leave this up here during public comment and maybe get overtaken by the timer, but I just wanted to keep people focused on what we're proposing right now in the budget and why we're taking comment is that we wanna keep the mill levy at a maximum flat and it would be above the revenue neutral rate if we do that. Can I answer questions for you before I? move over and let the public talk.

Any questions or comments right now?

Comment being, compared to the presentation we had for the same topic last year, you answered most of the questions that we had before we even had an opportunity to ask them. I really appreciate you taking the time to review the information that we asked about last time and had it ready for it this time, so it didn't require us standing over to make sure that we were getting the info. Having things broken down per household. I think it's a really good way of putting into perspective for everybody because sometimes we we lose the Personal impact of these things and don't always talk about them like we should so I really appreciate the information you're putting out right now great so based off of On that screen if you want to go back to the household one So if we did nothing the household dollar amount would decrease or is that just on average I

It's on average.

Okay. Are you going to be, during the budget process, are you going to be able to show us, like you did last year, the impact per $100,000 of value?

Yes.

Okay. Because that's the only thing I would say is I'm mainly interested in seeing an overall decrease to existing residents. It doesn't have to be big. Last year, like I said, it was like $7 per $100,000. I think that was pretty fair. you know, we're trying to do our best to make sure we're not increasing like how some of the other taxing entities have done. So if we can show that's a good faith effort in my opinion. So that's where I'm looking to try to, I look forward to hearing public comment tonight.

And then next week, next time when we're here, I'll probably tailor some information to questions and things that come up so that we're answering those questions and, and helping the public.

Okay.

I do want to remind the public that this is a public hearing, and any comments in this section would be specific to the budget or R&R, that if they have comments on any other subject besides those, if they would hold them to the public comment, that way we kind of have everything separated like it should be. Yep, no problem. I do have a quick, oh.

A quick question, really quick. Yeah. Not necessarily a question, but maybe, I know it would help me for next meeting to see how our dollar in taxes are broken up as well, just to see. And I know that that's been covered before, but yes, ma'am, just since we're talking about it, if we could see that too, so we can see the true impact, I think too, of right. how exactly everything's broken down per dollar and things like that, if we could do a visual.

I have a lovely graphic I like to look at the full mill levy so we understand our role in total tax. And then I do a lot of pie charts about we spend this much on law enforcement, we spend this much on streets, so that you understand the whole pie, where the big pieces are.

Awesome. That would be wonderful.

This process is so weird that this particular thing we're looking at now is not even the budget. It's like R&R. I don't like the R&R, but I guess it's what we have to deal with. I mean, it's good to see where you land.

I just know that any time we talk about this, it's always like, well, but I spend so much money in taxes. So if we can see where it goes for the city, like how much of that you actually get to the city versus other entities or things like that, I know that helps me with understanding.

We do what's called a budget snapshot, and it's time to do that now. And we have some good graphics in there think that very clearly shows what your tax dollar buys in real things like the Civic Center that the public gets to use or the swimming pool or streets or sidewalks or lawn for me and we kind of break that all down to show the value for the money that and then if you think about if we were to reduce taxes how do you reduce what what is it we would change and We're a pretty lean organization. So what would we change to be able to do that? Perfect. Thank you, Rhonda. Great.

All right. So we will move into the resident portion. I have a couple people signed up for citizen participation. If it's for something besides the R&R, feel free to wait until that section. But if you'd like to come up and speak right now about the revenue neutral rate, feel free to come on up. Rodolfo, I assume you.

Rodolfo Arevalo, 19419 West 200th Street. I have some comments that I wanted to make, but I wanted to address that chart that was presented. Because I think you folks are misinterpreting what that chart is. That chart basically is saying that if you went to revenue neutral, citizens would be saving $137. It doesn't mean that at the 21.861, they would be saving $127. Okay? Yeah, that's actually the cost, the additional cost. Right. Yeah. it reads yeah okay having said that let me indicate that I have about four or five points I wanted to make first of all at work sessions on the budget previously the mrs. Dunn has mentioned that the city is projected to have an ending surplus this year of approximately $2.9 million. That means that beginning next year, you already have $2.7 million that's not included in the budget. She also mentioned at a different work session that the revenue that she is or the budget that she's providing is a very conservative budget, and that it might yield as much as another $2.9 million at the end of 2027. So simply, my concern is that if you already know you're going to have a surplus, Why don't you provide, instead of having such a high surplus, why don't you provide a reduction in taxes to the citizens? Of all the taxing districts that you and I pay taxes to, it's clear from this year that the projected recommendation that you have would increase, would have the highest Increase of any of the other taxing districts that we get taxed for property to a point of 12% increase in And the average of all the other taxing districts is about 8% Okay So I questioned the need to do that I would provide you some other data there and I only looked at three subdivisions and But Hidden Hills subdivision, aside from the homes that they're currently building, which will be done in about six to eight months, which means they'll be taxed in 27, taking that aside, and there's probably 20 homes related to that, there are 74 units, rental units, that would come online. And that's at $300,000 a pop, maybe more. The Garrett Ranch has 25 homes that should be done in six to eight months. And those homes are at $600,000 a piece or more. And then Fox Hollow has between 25 to 30 Units that they're completing and they're between three hundred and four hundred thousand dollars that are not currently on the city's tax roll So that's additional funding that you that the city can count on The other thing that's not mentioned and I know it's part of developing the budget there are other means Around which the city collects tax revenues That's sort of overshadowed by the fact that we're sort of fixated on the property tax I would suggest that those have been underestimated and so that at 2.9 million dollars that is already projected as a surplus for 27 may be higher than that So therefore let me just finish real quick. So therefore I'm suggesting that the mill levy should be shooting for a is probably not less than or not more than 19.6 mils. It'll give you the benefit of reaping the additional revenue that's understated and get you to where you wanna be.

Thank you. All right, thanks. Is there anybody else who would like to come up and speak on the revenue neutral rate? If not, I'm going to go ahead and continue unless we have any comments or questions we want to talk about right now, but we'll continue it to our September 10th meeting where we'll have our resolution, um, put it on at that point. I'm going to go ahead and continue as of now. Is that right?

And just to clarify at that next meeting, there will also be another chance for, yeah, there'll be more.

Yeah. So, all right. Our public hearing is now closed, and we'll move into our citizen participation. We did have a few people sign up. First up on the list is Bill Peterman. Come on up and just name an address. What do you got for us this time? I like your jersey, by the way.

Yeah. Paul Merck.

Bill Peterman, 19431 West 200th Street. And keep asking questions. I like it when any of you guys ask questions. That means you want to know before you vote. I like that. So thank you. I'm here because September 4th, Spring Hill High School is going to have a children's cancer awareness. Some of the ballplayers are going to wear T-shirts that say children's cancer, we're helping. I've already bought a hundred carnations if you give five five dollars or more you get a carnation Donation a five dollar or more donation you get a carnation. They'll be purple or gold or yellow really It's just it's that one thing and it's all this money will go to Braden's Hope Last year. I was at the event that Braden's Hope banquet. We raised 1.3 million dollars and which is nice. These kids, if you ever watch the St. Jude's, any of those things, it's the same thing. It's the same thing. St. Jude's, Children's Mercy are linked up together and Braden's Hope gives money to Children's Mercy. I hope that in my lifetime I get to see somebody that came up with the cure for cancer, especially for these kids. When you have a granddaughter that has taken injections or taken parts out of their back through the bone, which none of us could probably stand, that's just amazing. I hate to see them kids go through that. Last year, if anybody later on wants to, we'll be going to Ronald McDonald's house. Last year, my son and his family and my wife and me bought over 75 blankets. Them kids love blankets with the cat on it or something that they can say, that's my blanket. Because when they're getting all that treatment, it's colder than hell. Besides being hurting, it's cold. So the blanket helps, and they like blankets. They take blankets over toys. So something to think about. I know you guys are, you donated quite a bit last year to her. And I want you to know, thank you. And it really helped. You can go to sleep tonight and know that you helped some little kid laying there getting that shot, staying warm. So thank you, guys.

Well, hey, I want to remember next meeting. She needs to come and give us an update about what happened. And I want her to lead the pledge if she is willing to do it.

I'll talk to her and see what she says. When you see her, if she comes in, talk to her about doing it.

All right.

I'm grandpa. I don't, you know.

All right. Thanks, Bill. Next up, I've got Rodolfo Arevalo. Did you want to come up again? No? Okay. And then we got Jason O'Kane.

Jason O'Kane, 18804 Skyview Lane in the Foxwood Range development. I was just wanting to get an update. I know you asked Mike and Jacob on the crosswalk issue to see if the city could fast forward that or take care of it. According, we might have $2.9 million sitting around. I'm sure that would pay for a nice sidewalk right there, crosswalk, for that school.

I don't know if we can get the school to pay for their side of it. Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure how much they've been able to get into it yet. It'll probably be something over the next month or so. But, Mike, I don't know if you had a chance to.

No, we really haven't had a chance to delve into that too much. It was discussed at our Community Improvement Committee meeting last week. There's a little bit more to it than just coming up with a quick and easy design to get the kids. We need to make sure it meets all of our state and national safety standards for manual uniform traffic control devices and signage and all those things. I'm sure Allison could make me look very silly with all of that. Well, we have a don't know.

So that's one reason we have our discussion on them at the end of the day to talk about some of those different projects and what we want to put as a priority listing.

Yeah. I just didn't, I didn't hear anything on the report and I didn't know if there was anything to report. So not yet, but also we'll talk about a little bit. Also, I still don't have a street light that the city's paid for a couple of months ago.

Yeah.

So they are taking a while. I don't know if Jacob was able to get ahold of them or.

What Jacob had the other yep, Jacob, I don't know if he's gotten an update when I talked to him about it he said that we're kind of at the the mercy of Evergy because we're waiting to hear back from them as they're the ones that actually put the lights in But I don't know if he has an update on that But you know, I'll check with him and if he has I'll reach back out to mr. Okay, okay

I'm working with Evergy on paying for those streetlights and some other development streetlights and I've had a struggle with them and I have a call with them tomorrow and I'll be happy to ask about your streetlight and see what I can report back so we don't have to make yet another call. They're hard to chase, I'll be honest.

Yeah, I've had to talk to them myself. Yeah, I just didn't know if they had a work order out for it and they were just...

Waiting I know well at one point that flags out there.

So it's kind of yeah, they so somebody marked gas lines Somebody came by and marked the gas line over there. I don't know why there were some survey sticks out there I don't know if that was anything to do with any of the sewer stuff that's going on I think there's some stuff going on on the other side of that County line on the backside of that tree line I've seen some stuff going on there, but I don't know why they would mark the front entrance and Just to let you know, my son just started driving. He's 14 years old. It's scary driving around with him. We just took him for his first night drive around the city. If you see a minivan driving around late at night, you might want to just steer clear. Anyways, he went to turn into that subdivision right there at that turn. And I was like, slow down. You're coming up to the light. I said, it's hard to see. Just slow down. And he missed the turn. He got scared because he couldn't see turning into there. That's how dark it is right there. So he just went down to the next lighted turn in there. But that's the thing. I mean, obviously, he's inexperienced. But, I mean, luckily, we haven't had any big issues with that yet. And hopefully we'll see what Rhonda finds out tomorrow. But the crosswalk thing is a super big thing with the neighborhood because not only do kids use that crosswalk, I see people walking across there to walk their dogs up to the school, you know, to go on walks, runs, things like that, and they cross through there too. So it's not just for the kids. It's basically for the whole community there. So I appreciate any updates on that. That'd be nice if we could use some of that surplus budget. to get that taken care of. Thanks, guys.

Thanks, Chase. That's all we had signed up. Is there anybody else in the audience that would like to come up and speak? If not, we will close citizen participation and move on to our consent agenda. These are items that are just regularly approved as a group. Did anybody have any questions about the consent agenda items? If not, I will entertain a motion. I move to approve tonight's consent agenda. Second. A motion and a second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes 5-0-0. That moves us into formal council action. First up is number 8. Consider approval of ordinance number 2026-22. Rezone application Z26-3 from C2 to M1 at 19072 Madison Street for RIC consultants. And Ian's taking the floor.

Good afternoon. So this application Z26-2 3 is the rezoning request for Bucyrus Auto at 19072 Madison Street. The applicant is requesting a rezoning from C2 Commercial District to M1 Light and Industrial. This is to accommodate a automobile repair facility. The subject property is served by a mix of Johnson County Water 1 for water, Spring Hill for sewer, and regional stormwater detention. The proposed zoning designation of M1 light industrial is similar to the existing surrounding zoning designations. The area is predominantly a light industrial commercial type development. So a mix of M1 light industrial, C2 commercial is located surrounding. The proposed rezoning request meets a number of the goals of the comprehensive plan, including an emphasis on encouraging small business development, as well as locating industrial close to the 169 corridor highway, which this property backs up to. Moving from compatibility to adverse impacts, the proposed zoning designation associated uses have the potential for light, noise, dust pollution generated by vehicles and the operation of the facility. That being said, the surrounding nature of the properties being commercial or industrial kind of lends itself to compatibility there. It's not like it's residential being affected by these offsite impacts. It would be other commercial users, which would only be kind of active during the daytime. And those offsite impacts can be mitigated by site design standards, which will be incorporated as part of a site development application, site plan application, if the rezoning were to be approved. So with that, staff does find that the request of rezoning meets the goals of comprehensive plan and recommends approval.

All right. I mean, this one seems to me to be fairly straightforward. We have M1 over there already. Typically, I would normally not want to see C2 move to M1, but this one makes sense. The area, the type of business that wants to go in, all those things. So it's a good... I think it's a good development. I'm excited to see them move in, and so I don't have any questions or comments outside of that. Anybody else?

I just want to tell Ian, thank you for making the map a little bit more legible. The street names are and whatnot.

Thankfully, we were able to get the layers from Miami County as well, because previously we could only do that for Johnson County, but now we can locally make maps like that for both Johnson and Miami.

Any other questions or comments? I know Planning Commission went through this a lot and decided to recommend it, so to me, it seems like it should be good to go. This is an ordinance. So we will I will entertain a motion and then we'll have to do a roll call vote.

I Move to approve agenda item number eight that stated second of a motion a second madam clerk This is career Yes Sorry, I didn't know if his I or yes. Yes Mr. Grant, yes

Mr. Delgado?

Yes.

Mr. Savage?

Yes.

Mr. Throne? Yes. Mayor?

Yes.

Ordinance 2026-22 for rezoning application Z26-3 passes 6-0-0.

All right. Thank you very much. Next up is item number nine. Consider approval ordinance number 2026-23, rezoning application with preliminary plat Z26-2PP26-1 from RR to RP1. northeast corner of 183rd Street and Woodland Road, and Harold Phelps. I don't know if Harold's here, but Ian's looks like he's got it covered.

Okay, so yes, this action is regarding a rezoning and preliminary plan for the Sunset Farm Estates property at the northeast corner of 183rd and Woodland Road. This is a project that contains 149 single-family lots averaging 0.64 acres, so a little bit over half an acre per The total land area is about 153 acres. The surrounding properties are developed with a mix of large and estate lot residential to the east and to the south, as well as undeveloped property to the north and across the railroad tracks and Woodland Road to the west. Notably, there is the Monarch concrete batch plant facility to the southwest of this property as well. That's across Woodland Road and the railroad tracks with some pretty significant spatial separation. With respect to the site itself, it's currently undeveloped. It has some pretty significant topology where it dips towards the center, which kind of creates a stream bed that runs through the property, draining to the southeast along 183rd Street. Let's see here. The requested rezoning to RP1 is to facilitate a modification request to increase the detached structure size up to 1,200 square feet from 120 square feet. This was considered a planning commission was part of their recommendation of approval as a condition that was exempt. It was left out from the staff report. So I want to clarify that they are requesting a modification. Staff is supportive of this modification request because it is not increasing the allowed number of detached structures. So it's only be allowed one. And the maximum detached garage size is already 1,000 square feet. It basically allows them to construct detached structures up to 1,200 square feet, including a detached garage, but only one. You can only have a detached shed or a detached garage. You can't have both. So it's not a substantial increase from what's already allowed. Compatibility of the property for the proposed rezoning and use. It's substantively similar to what's already out there. The lots are pretty large in comparison to your standard detached single-family subdivision. So it's kind of a natural gradient moving from those estate lots out in the county just to the east or those rural piano key lots to the south. This isn't super high density detached single family, not super small lot. They're still pretty sizable. Potential detrimental effects offsite would include additional traffic. A traffic study was completed that indicated that the existing infrastructure was already sufficient to support the proposed development. That was completed in late 2025, and then a revision to that, a traffic memo which incorporated the school year traffic was done and did not change the findings. With respect to the comprehensive plan, the proposed rezoning and project meet a number of goals, including utilization of the existing topography, not altering streams to a significant degree, providing a 10-foot concrete bike ped path along 183rd and Woodland Road, existing tree preservation and the diversity of housing facades by having a flexible elevation allowance. So there were elevations that were provided with the preliminary plan. Staff will review those to ensure that the final homes kind of meet that design style. So with that, staff finds that it is compatible with the surrounding properties, aligns with the goals of the comprehensive plan, and recommends approval. with the conditions that were provided at Planning Commission.

Any comments or questions?

No, I think that this is a good use of that property, like you said, that creating that buffer between the larger estates into the what is considered spring hill proper now by all rights. I think that's a good use for it. It's not gonna be, hopefully not gonna be an eyesore after they get through construction process as a whole and everything that development completes itself. So I think this is perfectly appropriate for that plot of land and where it is for the city.

I was gonna say, I think it's very appropriate there and some of the comments that we've been hearing when new subdivisions go in is can they be larger lots? And so this is, I feel like kind of that, um, uh, not compromise, but, um, yep. Yep. It's a good job. I like it. Okay. Sorry guys.

I mean, I was the first time I've seen RP one be used in this way, which I was really excited to see. Cause it's like, usually they just want to shrink the lot size and get all the changes to be on the smaller side. So it was nice to see a difference. and it's a different landscape than anything we have now with detached garages, you know, they can maybe a pool house, whatever it is they want to do. I've lived in these a little bit larger lot neighborhoods that were really nice. And so we've, we've been working on making some more affordable housing. Now this is kind of an upgrade housing for people that can maybe are moving up in house or whatnot. And it just gives us another level of housing that we don't currently have. So I like it. I'm excited for it. I think it's going to help, um, develop that area. I also liked that it, It's gonna help us coexist with some of the commercial or industrial we already got. It shows that a developer looking to build houses that are expensive or willing to be in that area, it shows that we're not doing anything out of the ordinary. We're kind of trucking right along to where we should be. I like it, I think it's good, and that's all I really had.

Do we know when they plan on breaking ground for that?

That I'm not certain of. I'm not sure anybody from the applicant team is here, but... It would be after the final plat submitted.

The only reason why I ask is with the stoplight that we're putting in on 191st, all that traffic being diverted, did they plan on that?

I can't imagine it would really affect them at all. They'll be interior at that point, but they'll just be doing, I don't know. I think next year you can probably come up if you want.

If you want.

Do you foresee any issues with the temporary stoplight area as we work on 191st through 183rd? No, and again, I haven't reviewed the traffic study in depth once it was approved that it wasn't going to cause any problems. Yeah. Yeah, we're just getting ready to start working on it, so we're going to divert a lot of the traffic to 183rd. Gotcha. As long as it's not going to cause you trouble or... I don't see any issues with that. I mean, it's going to take us a little bit. I was going to say, you'll be doing dirt work for a while, yeah. And get the plat approved and get permits and everything.

I mean, we'd like to break ground soon, but realistically, it's probably going to be early next year.

Yeah.

Cool.

Well, thanks. This looks like a great development. We're excited to have it. Very excited for it. Thank you. The other thing I liked about this one that we don't normally see anymore... that it's not one builder for all the houses so they're gonna be looking at multiple builders in there if I'm correct so I think that adds some character to the neighborhood too because you know not that summit and all those are not nice they build it's just they build all the houses very similarly so for me I like to have a little bit of difference in there there's no other comments or questions I'll entertain a motion okay I moved to approve agenda item number nine as stated second We have a motion and a second. Please take the roll.

Mr. Grant?

Yes.

Mr. Delgado?

Yes.

Mr. Savage? Yes. Mr. Throne?

Yes.

Mrs. Craveer? Yes. Mayor Young?

Yes.

Ordinance 2026-23 passes 6-0-0 for rezoning application Z26-2 with the preliminary plat Application number PP-26-1.

Thank you very much. Next item up is item number 10, approval of ordinance number 2026-24, adopting the 2026 Uniform Public Offense Code, 42nd edition published by the League of Kansas Municipalities. And Spencer Lau will be heading this one up.

Good evening members of the governing body. So this is an exercise we do about every year, um, which is to update the city's incorporation of the uniform public offense code, um, and the standard traffic ordinance, which will be your next item into the most recent version. So the league of Kansas municipalities sends out these sample or model statutes every year. Um, and Statewide most cities adopt the newest version to stay most up-to-date and that's the easiest in our law enforcement to always be aware that they're following the most recent version So that's what we're doing here tonight, which is updating from the 2025 version to the 2026 version Briefly, there were not many changes from 25 to 26 Probably the most substantive change is incorporation of the recent halo law that went into effect state law which Prohibits an individual from approaching a police officer after being directed not to while the officer is engaged in law enforcement duties And that's coming within 25 feet of an officer. So it also defines as a class B misdemeanor The other changes the three other ones are fairly minor One of them changes the definition of theft and adds some more categories of theft which includes farm equipment cattle and certain crops including hay Adds a New definition of criminal use of a credit card to include gift cards, which I'm assuming is a response to the rise in scams we're seeing based on gift cards. And then lastly, the cruelty to animals section was amended to allow an individual to take a feral cat and get it spayed or neutered or veterinary treatment. Until now, that was sort of a gray area where you could hypothetically prosecute an individual for doing that. It is now a clear exception that someone can go out and take care of that without interest. being afraid of the police arresting him. Not that my understanding, Chief was really going after people for that, but it's good to have that incorporated.

I thought Chief was, that was his main thing to do.

Yeah, so he'll have something else to do now with all his free time.

I also wasn't sure where you were going with that at first, and you were like, with the exception of. I was like, wait a minute.

Yes, few exceptions to animal cruelty, but that is a good one. So yeah, that's your change to the Uniform Public Offense Code. Otherwise, what you have before you, in our ordinance, we specifically exempt ourselves out of or amend certain parts of the Uniform Public Offense Code. Those remain unchanged from the last time we did this. So every year, we exempt ourselves or amend certain provisions of the code, and we keep that consistent for our law enforcement officers. Just for your knowledge. This is not something that is a static written written in stone document So in the future if you notice that maybe we need to update our public defense code or the traffic ordinance We can do that mid year. We can do that as many times as we want You saw that last year kind of midstream with the standard traffic ordinance. So but yeah open for any questions. I

I appreciate you explaining it all. In the future, if we could just have like a highlighted portion of it whenever we're reviewing everything. And then I talked to Mike about blasting it out to the public. I know these changes aren't, you know, that crazy this year in the UPOC, but if we can blast it out to the public so they're aware of what's going on.

Sure. And you'll see when we get to the standard traffic ordinance, certain changes that are particularly important likely to affect large numbers of people typically have a ramp up period and we'll talk about the next but one of the new traffic changes requires law enforcement to only give warnings for the rest of 2026 it's sort of a phase in because most people aren't paying attention to what the new sto or upoc says and maybe aren't paying attention to this meeting at a blast out so yeah we can work on that going forward but yeah cool any other questions or comments all right if not i will entertain a motion

All right, I move to approve agenda item number 10 as stated in tonight's agenda. Second.

A motion and a second. Please take the roll.

Mr. Delgado?

Yes.

Mr. Savage?

Yes.

Mr. Throne?

Yes.

Mrs. Cravere? Yes. Mr. Grant?

Yes.

Mayor Young?

Yes.

Ordinance 2026-24 passes 6-0-0, adopting the 2026 UPOC 42nd edition. Thank you.

All right, moving on to item number 11, the next ordinance, number 2026-25, adopting the 2026 standard traffic ordinance, 53rd edition.

All right, exact same process and procedure here. I'm going to briefly go over the changes. The standard traffic ordinance probably had more, I would call really minor, a couple formatting changes I'm not going to get into. Some of the more major ones are incorporating a prohibition on the use of wireless communication devices, also known as mobile phones, in school zones and construction sites both. So this prohibits uses of your phone while you're driving in a school zone while the school zone is in effect or driving in a construction zone while workers are present. The exceptions for everyone's knowledge are if your car is pulled over, if you're using a hands-free device, or if you are actively calling or communicating with 911 or a dispatcher. So there's your exceptions. But obviously, for everyone out there, please be safe while you're driving. So that's the biggest one. Some other changes, such as allowing certain construction vehicles to flash specific colors of lights, not super important for the general public. The other main change is obstruction of license plates was slightly added. In the last version, you couldn't have any type of film or clear coat that obscured what your license plate, the important information, state, county, number, and expiration. They've added frames to that list of things that can't cover that up. So your frame can't be so large that it covers up your county, your state, all of that. That is one that law enforcement officers are directed just to issue warnings through the rest of this calendar year to give people time to understand that change. A lot of us are very connected to our license plate frames. I'm sure my dad would die if he had to take out his K-State one. So other than that, nothing major, just kind of small changes here and there.

Any questions or comments? None for me. Yeah, I think this will be good if we can at least blast out some of that stuff because that would probably be good for everybody now. I know I heard about the license plate one in an unfavorable way, so it might be good for everybody.

My daughter did as well.

Yeah. So other than that, I don't have any questions or comments.

No, and it's a good time as just a reminder for the public. Our police department works very hard to take an educational role where possible and not be unduly punitive.

All right. If no other questions or comments, I'll entertain a motion. I move to approve agenda item number 11 as stated. Second motion in a second madam clerk, please take the roll Mr. Savage, yes Mr. Throne.

Yes, this is career. Yes. Mr. Grant.

Yes.

Mr. Delgado. Yes, Mary young. Yes ordinance 2026-25 passes 6-0-0 adopting the 2026 standard traffic ordinance 53rd edition Thank you very much.

That concludes our formal council action for tonight and moves us into our discussion item Uh, I added this on council projects and priorities. We, we met really early on when all of this kind of got up here. I think it was before, I think James, you were here already, right? And we did that. Kendra was not. So I wanted to make sure we kind of did a follow up. There's definitely road projects I'm interested in looking at. There's, um, I know individuals have talked to me about different things that are priorities for him. So I kind of just wanted to give Mike the floor to, you know, some of the changes we made. I want to make sure he knows kind of the direction we want to go in and, let him kind of run with where projects are currently at, and then I'm sure everybody else can chip in at the same time.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, so I have kind of a list of projects. I asked each of the department directors and other staff for kind of some of their projects that they've been working on, and these are just a bulleted list. They're in no priority order whatsoever. I do have more details on these, but I want to be able to make it so everybody can read all of them here. Oh, I don't want to do it that way. Maybe we'll go back one more. All right, so these are just in no particular order, but things that have been discussed, projects since I've been here since January that I've been made aware of and that everybody has been working on well before that. So they're not really broken down into any priority list again. There's the first one, the street maintenance for upcoming years. We switched to the UBAS system this year. I think it's going very well. The feedback we've received is that it's a lot better than what our previous attempts have been as a method for improving our streets. And then going forward, what are some of the challenges Goals of the governing body in terms of additional areas that we can cover additional funds being dedicated to that and You know revenue sources to help fund that There's the sidewalk program sidewalk installation program looking at areas of the city where those sidewalk needs are so those are kind of ongoing projects and And then with the success of the you bass I think that that is gonna really give us an idea of what we can do Based upon how much we spent this past year and then what we can look forward to next year the 223rd and Webster roundabout there was a community input session earlier this year that that is a still a need for the city and and You know, with the opportunities that we have with some current funding from the county that's already been earmarked with, you know, and some other funding sources, this could be a priority as directed by the governing body. We've seen quite a bit when we've been doing posts about street resurfacing, about the public's sentiment and businesses in the original part of town for improvements to Hale and Nichols. As the mayor has discussed and the governing body has discussed and staff has talked about as well, the improvements necessary to really get to the root problems of Hale and Nichols and then the improvements to bring that up to a better standard. It's not simply just a UBAS problem or a surface overlay problem. There's far more structural needs underneath the pavement in those areas. And so that is a larger project. But the public sentiment and council's Sentiment seems to be that that is a priority. So we've added that to kind of this list there, you know, let me back up There's there's other projects that aren't on this list and then each one has sub areas of those So this is kind of meant to be an overview and then you know how the discussion goes I have additional information and I also have the department directors here to provide additional information I City facilities needs plans for as we continue to grow and carry out the work to serve our residents and businesses. and visitors, the need for city facilities for staff as we continue to grow as well in order to meet the growing demand for services, really need to start looking at how we want to accomplish that growth. In previous years, it may have been more geared towards looking at a brand new civic complex, coordinating with maybe some of our community partners for some common facilities. But we also want to be respectful of the budget and what our true needs are. And so a discussion related to what we can get away with in the interim. What can we do to utilize our existing spaces to the best of its capacity and maybe some incremental steps as a second option or a third option rather than just looking at a new complex. What are some of our other options out there to continue to meet the growing demand for services and continuing to add additional staff to meet that demand but provide you with other options for doing that. The continued new wastewater treatment facility that's been a high priority item for a number of years. So we're continuing to work on that with decisions made recently by the governing body at the last meeting. And so again, that's kind of one of those priorities that we all know about and are working towards. There's a number of sewer projects that the city is working on, such as the northeast sewer project currently under construction, the northwest sewer project going up the west side of 169, and the north Webster projects. There's potential for many more as we continue to look to annex properties and provide services or two property owners that want to annex and develop their land for residential, commercial and other facilities as we look east and north and even south. Street projects similar to the one we have right now at 199th future street projects include 207th as well as others depending upon the need and And a lot of these could be dictated by future development proposals. It's kind of the the chicken and the egg Developers want to know if we can provide services such as sewer and and the road improvements But we also don't know exactly where to direct our priority projects until we we have firm developers in hand that may help us set that priority level rather than just building it all at once and hoping that development comes. I think there's definitely ways to do that as a means to incentivize certain developments in certain parts of town, but really looking to strategically align where we think that those are gonna be best spent or best done over the next few years. Signal projects at 191st and other intersections, potentially looking towards another one at 183rd in the near future with temporary signal there with the construction of 191st. Overall, in keeping with the K7 plan, the 169 plan that KDOT is doing up and down the 169 corridor right now, which is, you know, Allison and I could provide more information on that, but how our signalization works. works in with that plan and what does that mean for the city in terms of opening up some new land uses along the 169 corridor that would benefit from new signalization. The comprehensive plan, which also could lead to the transportation master plan, sanitary sewer master plan, that is a large priority that has been continuing on our end police department you know an accreditation program and then with communication and our ability to reach out to all of our residents and businesses through looking at new logo and branding and then also new website designed to to help us get that information out to the public in a more concise efficient you know easy to digest manner so that's just some of the projects that we have going on I Just wanted to quickly run through those and then open it up for discussion or questions or more detail from our side, kind of where we are.

Yeah, so I mean, this is kind of stuff we've talked about over the last eight months or so. I don't know if there's anything that's not on here that anybody, and it doesn't have to be something tangible. I think we talked about that earlier where this doesn't have to be a tangible thing. This could be, program this could be I think James had a really good program that he was talking about and I mean you you want to talk about what you were thinking?

Yeah, so we have all the golf carts and side-by-sides and I was talking with the mayor maybe bringing Like a permit process whether it's twenty thirty dollars a year kind of thing and using that those funds to fund a safety program for scooters electric bikes For the kids, some of the kids just don't know a lot of the rules of the road. It would give them an opportunity to learn that. And so if they do do something negative, they have something to fall back on. And we don't want the youth in our city to get hurt because we're headed down that road. It's happened in a lot of cities around us. And I think if we're preemptive and start a... some sort of program that at least gives them some information, you know, say it's a four hour thing, driving school kind of thing for electric scooters, bikes, just knowledge kind of stuff. Um, you know, that's be a, us being preemptive and keeping everybody safe or at least attempting to.

I remember like when I was in school, they used to do a, um, you got like a license. They'd come to like the police department would come to the school and do a program to teach kind of the rules of the road. And they'd give you like this little, almost like a library card. especially for elementary school it was just kind of cool to have something with your name on it and so I'm thinking some toward a program like that that we work with the school district it's gonna cost us a little bit of money this is a funding mechanism to kind of put the two together I don't think it would be a terrible idea to do something like that I don't know what everybody else's opinion is on it but it also kind of twofold I think we still have some issues I don't think it's a widespread issue but there's a couple I would say bad apples out there that don't follow the golf cart and side-by-side rules so I When you do the permitting, we could have some sort of pamphlet we give out that has everywhere they can go, who's allowed to drive them, what insurance you're required to have. So I think it would add that additional layer on of saying, hey, we don't need to give 20 warnings to the same people on the golf cart. They can start getting tickets or whatever it is. So that's kind of my thought behind it when he brought it up. I don't know what anybody else's feelings or thoughts are on it.

I like the idea of the educational program, especially as it comes to e-bike scooters and things like that. I know we had... Mentioned this several meetings ago now and directed Chief and the city administration to focus on working on getting in contact with the school board, trying to set up some kind of education program. I don't know if there's been any traction made on that yet, but I still think that that's probably the best first step in my opinion. I'm gonna be honest, I don't like the idea of us having just legalized something and then immediately turning into a funding mechanism for other things. I know people in my neighborhood are specifically making purchases specifically so they can enjoy this new fun program that we've started here in the city, and then to tell them, okay, now you have to pay us $35, or whatever the dollar amount is.

I feel like that's kind of a... See, and I was for it when we legalized it, to say, hey, we should do it, and at the time, nobody else really wanted to. And so for me... That's why I'm like, well, this is what I wanted to begin with. I didn't have a funding mechanism for it. I like the idea of more of a giving them the information. It's going to cost money to get the information out and all that kind of stuff too.

It kind of runs into it. As the city council, we have a budget set up specifically for education on our side of things. If we're not utilizing that, that would be a fantastic use of that where we're not maybe educating ourselves specifically, but using that funding to educate our children to be safe. I think it's a It's a worthy use of that money. And it doesn't, the money's already being paid for by the taxpayer. So use it to benefit the taxpayer.

And with PJ on that, you know, I don't want to be charging people for permits because then, you know, you also got to start looking at what's the cost if they don't get a permit. What's going to be the fine for that? Or, you know, it just doesn't make sense to me.

Well, we have cities to look off of because every other city who permits this exact same thing, Because it keeps it keeps the honest honest because we do we unfortunately I mean I'm chief and Captain Khan could probably speak to it, you know still 14 15 year olds with no driver's license driving them no insurance We've made that a requirement so we got to hold people accountable for that yeah, but again the permanent process isn't going to change that yeah It's just that's what the you keep the honest honest and the dishonest are gonna do what they want to do

It's a law now in the city that you have to be a licensed driver to operate. People are still choosing to allow their children to drive unlicensed. So I don't think a permitting process is going to address that. I think it's just going to make one more thing for people to complain about.

No, and I think you don't have to do a permit, but it goes back to education. If they don't know, they don't know. I mean, there's many opportunities to get that information out for golf carts or citizens. I mean, we have a huge festival coming up that draws probably everybody in town to it. I mean, that's a great opportunity to push out that information, maybe have a golf cart there or two, and a side-by-side and say, did you know? And just... add that information. I think permit is a good idea. Maybe if we continue to have problems, but like PJ was saying, we just, we just released it. Like I'd hate to just release something and then turn around and say, Oh, by the way, now it's a privilege you get to pay for.

Yeah. Do you have something bill?

Yeah. I was going to say, wouldn't it help the police department if you had permits? So they had something to fall back on right now. They're just, There's a golf cart in this area doing something. We don't know that anybody's got a golf cart because we don't have a data center.

Yeah, I mean, that would be a whole other subject of how are we going to track them and stuff like that. So, I mean, yeah, I mean, I think it's something to think about as a group. If we want to do something like that, it sounds like for the most part, We don't want to. Like I said, I like that.

It's a good idea. I just think that there are other mechanisms. Funded a different way. I love the idea of doing that as a whole.

Well, I know we're meeting with the school district next week, so that's something I was going to bring up if Chief hadn't. Chief, have you talked to anybody yet? Yeah, so I think we'll probably bring that approach to that subject next week.

I think we definitely need to address the bikes. Yeah, because everybody's starting to get them.

Especially, you see them a lot more now that schools, you know, the kids ride them to school. And we've all seen them run the stop signs. You know, it's just, it's more of a safety thing. We don't want to end up on a noose, like some of the other cities around us, if we're preemptive in it. You know, at least educate, because even though it's a stop sign...

Well, I know Chief and Captain Connor are both working on things for Emoto, so hopefully we'll have some information.

What's the timeline for that, do you know?

Oh, I'm sorry. She doesn't want to talk, Chief. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. There was discussion when we brought this forward about having a community group. give input on the ordinance that we want to design. Does council want us to just bring forward an ordinance? So I'm just trying to clear up a little bit of confusion on my part, probably more than anything else, on how you would like me to move forward on this. We do have model. I mean, it would not take long to bring an ordinance ordinance for suggestion to you because every city around us has already created some sort of ordinance so it's just a matter of taking the best from those and what fits our community to design something that works for our city so we could come up with something very quickly if if if you're ready for that I'd be more

place to place. I mean, the way it is right now, 30 mile an hour speed limits. I can't get to downtown to get to that 30 mile an hour.

Yeah. No, that's part of the issue we have with the county roads. We can't change those. And the state law is 30 mile an hour for the golf carts. But for the, I think if you bring us some different laws from different cities, we can kind of pick and choose what we like and don't like from those areas is what I would say. I don't know what you guys think.

I would like a template personally from you based on your guys' training experience and from the enforcement side of things, like what's going to be something that you can actively enforce. So I would prefer to see something more complete. Yeah. From my standpoint.

Okay. We'll get that to you right away. All right.

Thank you, Chief. Sounds good. Any more discussion on this for now? No? And I think we'll have an update for what we talk about with the school district at the next meeting, so. That'll be good. Can you pop that back up? Yeah. Any other things that people didn't see on the list that you would like to discuss about future projects?

South Loop Trail that kind of connects between 223rd South and Poole.

Yeah, so I think she's full throttle on that right now. Allison, do you have any updates for that one?

The survey of that project was done Couple of weeks ago, they're processing it. We're waiting on a preliminary design. Let's see, probably have some better dates for you. But we hope to have the preliminary design completed by this fall. We do plan on having an open house once we have that preliminary layout completed so that we can show that to the public and get feedback similar to what we did. for the roundabout. We hope to have that sometime in mid-October. The final design, we hope to have that done by the end of this year. Bid documents ready by early next year and anticipate a completion date. I'm hoping, fingers crossed, to get that done by the time school starts next year in 2027.

And I assume you took into account the two different possible roundabouts at Webster and at Victory when it comes to that?

We are, we're doing our best to kind of look forward to some of those improvements. So yes, we are looking at some of that, especially since you guys previously approved the 223rd Street potential cost share for that roundabout earlier tonight on the consent agenda. We're going to try to marry all those projects together trying to have that forward thinking, but we also want to make sure that a lot of those crossings are at the right location. So it's kind of a balancing act so We're going to take as much of that information into account whenever we design that, but we may have to rebuild some of those ramps whenever we go to do the future improvements in some of those areas, because not everything's going to line up exactly where it's at, and we don't want wonky ramps at the intersection.

Sounds great. I just want to talk about roundabouts. That's on the SS4A plan, and Allison, you could probably speak to that too.

I can probably speak to all the projects that we've got all night. So we did apply for a grant through the Mid-America Regional Council for their surface transportation program. Mark is currently reviewing those applications and scoring those. If we get funding, the project would include a roundabout at 191st and Ridgeview, improvements to Ridgeview, including a potential mini roundabout at the school entrance.

Oh, okay. That'd be good.

So fingers crossed that we get funding for that, but I'm not sure that we have deep enough pockets to do that without any grant application. So if we don't get that one, you know I'm going to be trying to apply for other grants.

I know I said something to April Horn about once they get that CTE center done, creating some sort of exit so they can go out near the district building. And she said that that's something she's very interested in. So I don't know if we can approach them and talk about that because that parking lot situation is awful.

They need multiple exits.

So I don't know if we have any opinion on that or what you think, but that was something that When I was out there for the CT groundbreaking, I was like, this would be a really great spot to release some of your traffic and go out to the road that nobody uses. That once 199 is done, we're going to have a nice big road out there they can use.

It would be nice if all that was interconnected because especially with the construction that we're doing on 199th Street, that is the only way in and out for the administration building. Yeah. And it would be nice to have that better connectivity and everything. And maybe the school district can use some of their additional bond funding that they have available to them for accessibility to help fund some of that.

So that's not anything that we would be associated with. It's all on their property, right?

It's private property.

Yeah. Do we have to approve to allow them to access it?

It would likely have to go through planning commission as a plan that we would have to review and adopt.

Okay. Sounds like a good thing to support or at least pursue and see what kind of solutions they can come up with.

I like those things you talk about. The roundabout front seems to make a lot of sense. That would make things a lot faster there.

Yeah, and I continue to have conversations with Mark and Kylie with the school district, and I can kind of help guide them and mentor them on some of these grants so that we can work together on that. But they can... hopefully use some of my knowledge of all the inner workings of stuff to help them go get their funding a little bit further.

Okay, great. Thank you. Street maintenance, that's one thing I wanted to talk about. So we get, what, $250 roughly from the highway tax fund. I think we've made a conscious decision that we want to kind of stick with that million dollars for maintenance going forward. That's what we spent this year and last year. And this year it seemed to go quite a ways. If we can continue to do that, I think we can kind of catch up in the road improvements that we've been lacking for the last 20 years. My thought is even going a little bit further and saying, do we add some additional money to that over the next two or three years so that we can actually address this area where this building sits and the surrounding neighborhood that definitely needs... the money doesn't go as far. So we can have like a separate fund that's just for kind of the older streets that don't really work with UBAS. And we have to do kind of a mill and overlay or, and then still have our normal, uh, maintenance that we do with like the UBAS and things like that so that we can kind of get everything up and running so that we can get on a regular schedule and that we don't get to the point where we've been for the last couple of years. But I kind of wanted to feel everybody out and see what you think there.

Street maintenance-wise, for me, the biggest priority is the areas that are curb and gutter where the UBAS is a quick and affordable solution to some of the chip seal projects that we've done over the last four years or so that are getting close to the end of that chip seal life. I would prefer residential areas see the benefit of that before the areas that are going to be a harder hit because I know around here, there's no curb and gutter. It's all ditches, and that's a very, very different price point to get these areas up to the point where we can pave them. So for me, as far as the street masks go, I think that it's appropriate. We're looking at more expensive types of street surfacing. So looking at that budget and having the real discussion about whether or not more money is going to need to be put in there annually for the budget because we are using more expensive product to cover our streets. It is going to be more expensive to repair, come down the road. We'll get a little bit longer life out of it, but by and large, it's going to cost us more year in and year out. The higher quality services we start providing to the the community that the higher the budgetary requirements every year. So for me, uh, it makes a lot of sense to start looking at that maintenance program and prioritizing the, uh, the dollar amount that we put in there because it's just going to cost us more and more every year as we take in more streets and make them better.

I agree with what you're saying on that. Um, as far as like with the UBAS, you get, um, more value out of it because it can go further, you know, more bang for your buck. Um, However, having lived here forever and seeing all the new housing additions coming in, the general theme for the last 30 years has been all the attention goes to the new parts of town. And so the general consensus that I feel is that this older part of town is forgotten a lot of times or just gets, and I understand that Chip and seal was the solution at the time and what was affordable and in the budget and everything. And I completely understand what you were saying, that it does take so much more financially to do this because there isn't curb and gutter and it's not just mill it down, lay it in, it fills in the holes and it's done. And I don't know what the solution would be, but I do feel like the general theme is that The old part of town is forgotten and the focus is on the newer parts of town. And that's not just with the city that's with the school district too. And that's just the general consensus that I've gathered since the building started with housing additions and whatnot. And so While I agree with you, I don't want the older part of town to feel like they're being put on the back burner just because it is more expensive. And I don't know how I'm thinking is clear.

Can I clarify a little bit? Yes, please. So when I'm talking about the street maintenance budget as a whole, that's a separate budgetary item from... say, capital improvements projects we're talking about doing Hale and Nichols over the next couple of years. Those are separate line items. So I was speaking specifically to the maintenance of our current streets, not necessarily the bigger improvement process, because the reality of redoing these things here is it's not going to be simply a maintenance program. It could fall in that broad strokes, but a lot of these, the smaller town, or the sections of Old Town are going to be more in that capital improvements scope. And then... Further, I'm not saying don't pay attention to the side of town.

No, no, no.

Our biggest thing on this side of town right now is connectivity for sidewalks, right? Yes. So the chip seal is actually faring better in Old Town than it is in some of the newer subdivisions, largely because of the amount of people that drive on it here day in and day out. So for us, we're actually getting more value out of the chip seal in Old Town than we are and some of the the more busy Subdivision so for me if we're putting a lot of money on the side of town for the the sidewalks We're really trying to get that that that safety aspect of a public safety addressed for me It's a balancing of the different line items So it's not necessarily that I want to do the newer stuff before the older stuff. It's that they get from they come from different areas

bank accounts I think we're I think what I was saying is I want to continue to I think of millions where we need to stay I would like to add additional money and maybe we consider it CIP but basically from the conversation I have with Jacob was whatever we can do with UBAS for a million bucks, we can do about half of those road miles in this older part of town with a mill and overlay. Right. Even with just an overlay with just milling the sides to get it worked out. I would like to dedicate some additional money on top of our maintenance annually for the next two to three years to catch the older part of town up so that we have better roads. And like you said, there's some areas where the chip and seal worked fine and they're probably okay to stay, but there's a lot of areas where it didn't work. And so, I think identifying that over the next couple years while we have the ability to, while we still are getting the permitting fees over our budgetary distinction. That $2 million doesn't go. Yeah, that's not a normal budget. Those are permit fees that we get that don't always come. So while we have the money, let's use it for these type of projects because I don't want to put it towards next year's budget and then now we're shorthanded. Right. So for me, I'd rather use that money towards projects. Yeah. And so that's where I'm. I'm gearing towards.

Or a curb and gutter or just replacing?

I think just going mill and overlay in the older roads to get them back to a good base that'll last 10 to 15 years. Because what I was told by Jacob is UBAS is about a 7 to 8 year life. So we've got some years that we can get some of that stuff completed. I think next year we kind of think Village can get completely done and then finish up Blackhawk and we can maybe... divert money here so that this part of town gets a good uplift too, so that we can get everything on a good, uh, repeat business. Cause we're kind of, we gotta be to where once they, that, that life cycle dies out, we pick right back up where we're left off in that seventh or eighth year, you know, this kind of thought.

Is that a realistic timeline with, with not having the barriers of the curb and gutter with that UBAS?

We wouldn't use UBAS in this part of town. Right. You're talking about over here, it would be a straight mill and overlay, straight asphalt. Right. So that's why it's about, we could cover like the whole village with uvas over here if we had the same budget we could only do about half of it right which is i think fine because i think over two or three years you could get the mass majority done in the areas that don't have curb and gutter right while also continuing your maintenance plan it's just basically allocating an additional probably two or three million bucks yeah i mean get that over a three or four year period what about slowing it down adding curb and gutter so then old town can eventually get So that's not, you have to add the storm sewer, that's the problem. It's not the curb and gutter. It's the ditch, you can't add it. So the ditch part of it, Allison might be able to speak to that more than I can.

yeah typically we have to enclose that area into a storm drain to allow us plenty of space on some of the projects we might be able to have enough space to put like a sidewalk or something like that in there so it's kind of we have to review it on a case-by-case basis yeah but the overarching it would be tough to do okay bill what was your question

My question would be why can't you take four streets and do them this year or next year and then worry about the outside, the new part, that's different. The old part, that's different. So let's do it in two sections. The whole part, let's do at least four streets a year.

That's what I'm proposing, yeah. Something totally separate from the maintenance of what the neighborhoods curb and gutter gets. Like a separate project? Yeah.

There's got to be a way that you can put curb and gutter in there. And four streets a year. And it doesn't have to go with two blocks, three blocks. And that way... They can get something done. At least you're not 15 years from now, them people that are sitting in here going, same shit.

Yeah. That's what we're trying to avoid, so that's why we're thinking this way.

Could we do a curb and gutter one street at a time?

I don't think.

Should we have already done sidewalks?

I think if you did, I think a million bucks wouldn't go very far for if you added curb and gutter.

The last time we discussed it going block by block or road by road, it was... Right in the round of 1.3 million just to get the stormwater, right? That wasn't any of the road improvements. That wasn't the structural work on the road. You're talking 1.3, 1.4, probably closer to 1.5 just to get it ready to put roads on it per block.

1.3 gets you how much?

A block, and that's stormwater. A single block.

That's a rough estimate based on what we talked about last time.

When you look at it, when you look at, and then we, you've got legal fees. We've got to associate with that too, because we're going to have to have even minutes and taking and taking, uh, eminent domain over private property along those properties a lot. Also, it's the, you're, you're talking about major capital improvement projects that, I mean, I'm, I'm all for pursuing them. Well, that's exactly right. It's, it's only going to get more.

Well, that's why that area may never get those types of things. That's why improving the road is what I'm proposing because you can improve the road, Adding the curbs or getting rid of the ditches, that's kind of out of the league. I mean, you need probably $50 million to do this area as a whole, if not more than that.

Yeah, to address the entirety of Old Town that doesn't have stormwater you're talking about. Again, uneducated guess, probably $75 to $100 million. That's not the roads, that's not the rest of it.

At the time, there was a guy who came in here and talked about... Yeah.

That's the thing. There's a lot going on down there. There's things that you can't do. That's why sometimes you can't even touch the ditches because of it.

Well, and I think discussions like this and stating this information in these meetings is so important because then... the people in the old part of town aren't going to feel like they're being overlooked, neglected. It's like this, it's important to say, this is why, this is why we're doing this subdivision first. It's because it's so simple. It's easy. It's not that we're neglecting you. It's just that it's not feasible. It's so much, or we do have this going on, but it's not going to show up for three years because of the back

one thing that goes along with the street maintenance is I would like to have almost like a three year plan. So we can kind of say this year we did this next year. It's this, the year after is this. If we do that, I think there's some transparency in that where people feel like at least I know where we're going. And then we can put the little things in, like we're going to do these four streets over here.

We've got a lot of really exciting sidewalk projects coming on, and most of it is focused on the Miami County side. And we've had these discussions a lot when it comes to this, but those have been the most attainable things. Those are the most realistic things. Our time, energy, and efforts can produce something real that we can say, here's what we've tried to get done, and here's what we haven't.

You know, Olathe, I mean, just driving up and down quite a bit, when they do new roads and new sidewalks and stuff, they put out a sign that says, as promised, by so-and-so, and they note it. So when you go onto the new road, you obviously see a sign that says, you know, something was done here, and it was because we said it was going to be done. I mean, we could do something.

Yeah, when I see those, I think about that. I'm like, is that more of a slap in the face, or is it a... From the people here.

I don't know but I think as long as we're keeping our promises That's probably because people you know like even the South Street sidewalk project like if that if we get that over the finish line If I'm lucky enough to see it while I'm still sitting in this chair at that point. It's 40 years past due so me standing up and saying I Look, what I did for you is probably not going to be something I'm going to want to do.

But I think it'll be a really fun thing and a cool thing to see. Oh, absolutely. I think we're definitely on our way, so that's exciting.

Mike, for you, I know when we met, getting a sense of our overarching priorities and to help you kind of prioritize things, is there any information that you need from us as a governing body to say, look at this, this is what we want you working on now, I know. As far as I'm concerned, the planning side of things are probably my biggest priority. Obviously, everything else can be worked in conjunction. It's not a 24-7 job to be making sure that the comp plan is continuing to be pursued, that our master traffic plan potentially is being pursued. We can do those things while still doing other things. But for me, the planning side of things, that's my priority, setting up a foundation for the guy who sits in my chair next to be able to lean off of it and build off of and hopefully build something productive. So as far as priorities go off the list that you've got here, planning is always going to be, um, there's always going to be the priority. And then obviously like the, the, the sewer projects, those are infrastructure growth items. Those are items that make us, um, competitive to make us, uh, attractive to developers and, and, and partners coming in to, to work with us and try to try to expand what we have as a city to be proud of. So my focus is always going to be on planning, being able to sell, and then public safety is number one. So the sidewalks, the street maintenance, those are the day-to-day things that we can work on day-to-day while leaving the big picture items kind of in a separate category as a whole.

What about city facilities? I know we've talked about this in nauseam a little bit. Three major ones City Hall police public works Everybody's at a little bit of a tight spot right now some more than others. I Think ideally I think we have room to expand here as far as City Hall goes and or add on at some point I'd like to see us take advantage of all the space that we have here before we go and spend money on a new center and Police, I think that's probably not to, Jacob's not here so we can say it. That's probably the highest priority as far as facility goes, in my opinion. I think there's a couple different options we can go after there and just start pursuing those to see what we need exactly. And then public works, I think as we figure out what the police department's gonna do, public works then opens up some space for them to be able to expand with work they're currently at next to their current building. So that's kind of the way I look at it. I don't know what everybody else's feelings are on the facilities.

Again, it kind of leans back to that planning and growth stage. I think it is perfectly appropriate at this point that we are looking through the options. What can we grow into? For me, I struggle with looking at this piece of property and saying, you know what, man, we just got all the space to expand here. We are very, very close to the residential neighbors. Us expanding means knocking out existing parking to build parking somewhere else, which is only going to further take up space. It's going to be taking down the park side of things, either relocating that or getting rid of it. Those are all amenities that people appreciate and like, and the reality is that's a Band-Aid. You're looking at maybe a couple thousand square feet, if we're lucky, before we're at capacity just with the building occupancy and then the parking as a whole. And that's not a park. That's no workstation. That's just us having the space to run a larger facility here. And then the impact that that's going to have on the community, the more people we stuff into this building and have operating here day in and day out, that's more people driving on these side roads that are already... Very, very residential, very, very occupied. Again, putting sidewalks on them is incredibly difficult. There's lots and lots of children around here. So for me, I just don't look at this piece of property as a viable alternative to not looking other places and designing something else. There's definitely things that we can do in the interim to try to make things more comfortable for people, be safer about things, especially when it comes to court. and finding out a way to make this building a little bit more secure during those activities. But I think we're at the point now where as much as we would like to put a Band-Aid on it and try to avoid, at the very least, the public works and the police department. City Hall would be amazing for a lot of people for a lot of reasons It'd be a very exciting project to be a part of but for me, that's not the priority it's making sure people have enough space and I Don't look at this piece of property and say, you know what? This is this is gonna fill our needs for the next ten years.

I just don't see it First City Hall or for what do you mean?

Just I mean for our growing City Hall as a whole like again the courts is a big issue for me as a whole and

Yeah. My idea would to move court to wherever the police goes. Right. I would, I would want to move that I think would be ideal.

I'm, I'm open to both the concept of a, um, a campus and, and just a single standalone places with the wastewater treatment facility. There's a lot of property down there that, uh, realistically, maybe not relocating the entirety of public works, but giving them some of the out the, uh, the outdoor storage and things that they need there that that all makes sense to me. Yeah. Um, but by and large, I think it's, it's really time to start looking at, at serious solutions for our space issues. Not making any commitments, but it's an information gathering time. It's time to start taking it seriously.

I mean, I kind of disagree a little bit with PJ. I think this is a great property. There is a lot of room that we are not using. If you think behind Friendship Park, behind the workout facility.

Well, at the end of this building, there used to be a two-story building that had more classrooms and stuff like that.

We can always go up. it's a lot cheaper to go up than is to go out. Um, a lot of city halls are multiple stories. They're not, they're not one. I mean, we can even get rid of the gym. I know that's a cost increase, but that's a lot of square foot and it would allow for a lot of extra rooms that would maybe even a new courtroom or, you know, something like that.

The only thing I say is like hometown holidays, we use this as a huge thing. And if we get rid of that, I mean, that, that takes care of, that takes away probably the one of the five events a year that we throw that brings everybody in the community together.

Well, and I feel like the, instead of adding on, because we do have a huge yard space over there, that's park, um, But it feels tacky to me to talk about building a new campus or anything like that when we do need sidewalks so bad. And there are so many other issues that people have been very vocal about. I feel like it would be in very poor taste to build something, I'm going to use the term selfish out of lack of a better word, but for the city employees and the governing body that the general public really doesn't use very much being a city hall. Um, I, I would much prefer adding on to what we have, taking up some of that green space, building a couple story addition, having plenty of offices, move court somewhere else and have, have a fix, not even a bandaid, but a true fix.

And that's just what I'm, I'm kind of saying is I don't see that as a true fix. And calling a new police department selfish is...

I didn't say police department. I said city.

Just in general, we've been having these conversations for a really, really long time, and there's some real realities here. When you start looking at this building at an engineering level, there's only so much more moving around that we can actually do. building up on a building that wasn't designed to have a second story comes with a significant amount of costs. And again, I grew up on a farm. So when I look at a barely quarter acre lot, I don't see a space that really can facilitate the level of growth that we're talking about experiencing. We're talking about adding multiple officers a year. We're talking about growing each of our departments that we've gone through these, these budget conversations, and we've got a very clear roadmap for the next five to 10 years. of the growth that we're experiencing. And there's going to be real realistic asks for staffing. And it's not a selfish thing. You can only put so many people into a 500 square foot room. Only so many cubicles can fit into that. And it's a matter of quality of life.

And that's what having my husband, who is a commercial contractor and a superintendent, I'm very aware what you can and can't do. And I'm very aware of the remodel because he was the superintendent for this current remodel for the Civic Center. And so I would disagree with what you're saying.

Ivan, you have anything to say on it?

I mean, I think the police department is a must. Yeah, police department, to me, is a must.

That's not an argument.

I think that the public works, they're going to have something within the next five to 10 years at the new water treatment plant. I mean, so that's kind of something that can be delayed. Here, I mean, we have space.

Yeah. Bill, did you have something?

Yeah.

How many of the employees here go out for recess? We would. You got all that recess area out there? You could build out there.

Yeah. I come out here a couple days a week, and it's full of kids every day. I mean, it gets used by the community.

Our city has a desperate need for green space, and this gets utilized frequently. Regularly, yeah, I would say it's probably one of the most used our selfish talking about taking that space When we've got families that have their children that are able to just walk across the street To this beautiful green space and have a picnic or play on the swings or use the workout equipment Those are all amenities that we gave to the city. So it's I struggle with Minimizing it.

Yeah When they was remodeling this and taking it from a grade school We've been as a city focused really really really really hard on being like not doing the band-aid thing anymore not like trying to make it work for

a few years again. And like I said, I'm not saying board this place up and stop using it right now and give me a multimillion dollar facility. I'm saying it's time to start talking about real plans instead of just having these discussions where we're just, well, what if, or we could, or what maybe, but like putting down some really solid planning.

Well, I think that's what we're trying to do is decide Which because we're gonna have to go one round or the other well We had this discussion at our last budget meeting and we gave staff pretty clear direction then that we were ready to start looking Well, and I think that's what today I'm trying to figure out I want to make sure that we separate those things out Do we want them to be as a complete whole like in the past have been talked about or do we want to look at? individual pieces as City Hall being its own thing police department being its own thing public works and Again, I think Public Works can, between their facilities now and as they move to the wastewater treatment facility in a lot of ways, City Hall to me is a separate beast and I think we can make a long-term plan with this City Hall in my opinion Police I think we need to find them a new location. So that's kind of where I'm at So I really we needed to give them a little bit more direction in that way of do we want to look at? Individuals do we want to look at as a whole? I think just as a group. We didn't give a great direction in that in that respect so

everybody's on board to say hey let's look at one big facility that would be kind of the question because that was where the direction it was going before and I that's not the direction I would like to go so I guess I the confusion falls on me at that point because when we had that last discussion I walked away thinking that we had kind of given them the pretty clear direction that we're ready to start seeing planning but we're also open to creative solutions so if we can get some that's what I just want to make sure because like I said it

Sometimes when we have our individual meetings with Mike or what because that's what I think he was feeling a little bit of hey Which which direction do we want to go and and pursue so I'm just trying to give him clear my answer is yes Let's let's make some and I I am open to all Opportunities and all options.

I would love to see what what savings we can have lumping uses on a single property together I love the idea of seeing what real estate is available. What buildings are currently existing that we can do build to fit our needs, but we just need to start coming up with some ideas. I'm not an architect. I'm not an engineer. I'm not the city administrator. I'm ready to see those things brought to me from the people that actually know how to plan those things.

And it does cost a little bit of money, so I think we have to give them some clear so they can come to us and say, hey, we're going to spend this money to figure that out. So that's really all we were trying to go with today with that particular question. Gotcha. All right.

So clears mud? Yep. All right. I think we can... start looking at space planning needs, engaging with maybe an architecture firm or space planning, municipal space planning consultants that can look at what are facilities we have today, maybe what are some of our options, and look at, you know potential sites that that could house something and then also looking you know using mapping and population density and and looking where best certain facilities could be located to have quick access depending on the need to as much as the population now and as we continue to grow is this a line item that's currently uh part of the comprehensive plan Not yet, but I would envision something like this could either be done at the same time or it could be an implementation step of the comprehensive plan.

Is it an option to reach out to them and to see if that's part or could be part of what we're requesting from them as a whole?

Potentially, yeah. They're a multidisciplinary firm and they have arms. may not be the comprehensive planning experts that we're working with but different arms of that company and and I'm sure that they've worked on municipal projects as well so I think we have some options there as well and and looking at you know other cities projects that at both scales that have developed a brand new City Hall or a municipal complex or some that have maybe purchase property, improved it, and met their needs for 10, 15 years. I think there's a variety of options, and we just need to be able to bring these back to you with some realistic... Timelines, costs, what it could do, potential lifespan. How long could something get us? I think the wastewater treatment facility work session that we had with you was a good example of kind of mapping this out. What can we get away with for this amount of money? How long is that going to last before we really need to do something else? And then comparing all of those different items. What can we survive with? What are nice to have and what are dream scenarios? And the pros and cons and how do you finance all of it I think is incumbent upon us to bring back to use to make an informed decision.

Last thing I want to touch on was sewer projects. We've got quite a few of them. I think direction for staff as a whole to prioritize those as things come in, how do we want to kind of prioritize that? Do we want to say imminent projects are first priority when it comes to the sewer project, or is it the ones that are the most costly? I know that we have like the Northwest sewer, we have the Northeast sewer, we have the North Webster sewer. if we have somebody who comes in and they have a project, do we want them to kind of move that up the list because there's imminent projects that rely on that sewer project? Or is it the ones that are more for future growth that we're, we want to keep top of mind. So I think we kind of need to talk about that a little bit.

That was a question to hear your kind of perspective on that from your new role. Like what would you like to prioritize if you have the option to make the decision?

Um, I think there are, Pros and cons to each. As we've seen with certain projects, like maybe the Northeast sewer, that was really jump-started in order to meet some economic development projects in order to get sewer to certain properties, which never materialized. But now that we're putting it in, development interest in those properties going to only increase because it shows a firm commitment that the city is actually doing it and it's not a hypothetical the other projects such as Northwest sewer could be something similar we've got some potential opportunities to provide sewer through other means other than the full build out of that as a rush job if you will but that would require us to coordinate with some other entities. Other projects that may have been a priority five years ago or two years ago have maybe become less of a priority because another property that the developer owns has become a bigger priority. So I think working through Answering some of these unknowns will help us pick a priority for some of the ones that we've been moving very fast towards. Looking towards the future, it's going to be difficult for us, and I think this is where the comprehensive plan could come in, to really take into account where the next corridor of growth will be, if you will, and whether we want to preemptively, based upon growth predictions in the metro as it comes south, focus our attention on serving one arm of that system, whether that's up along 199th and some of those properties in that region or if it's 207th and as property owners out there want to annex and their approach by developers or if there's things down on 223rd. Obviously, I wasn't here for all of those previous discussions where I think staff would Where we run into trouble sometimes is when everything is a priority. Where we're, you know, pedal to the metal on all of it becomes difficult to make sure that we're getting all of it done. any given point we also want to leave everybody the flexibility to pivot if something bigger comes along that we weren't planning on or something changes in terms of priorities so I would need to further discuss with with Allison and Jacob to come up with what our real thoughts are and I think that's something that could come out of that comprehensive plan as an action item You know, really, you know, Jacob and I and the mayor talked about it this morning, about a sewer master plan and where that infrastructure investment could best be spent. Is it – what's the status of the line or the taking over the Bucyrus sewer system? Where is the next pattern of growth? And sometimes we're just waiting and really at the mercy of the development community because – we are not building the neighborhoods. We can build the infrastructure to help incentivize developers to bring their development here, but at the end of the day, if they don't choose to develop along that line, then that infrastructure's not gonna get used. We can make it as much of a welcome home and a welcome place for them to bring their business, but ultimately it's up to them, and their timing is the great riddle of growth. But I think it's something we could bring back at a different discussion item or as part of this comprehensive plan to really look at where the priority Street projects, you know beyond what we've already been looking at where the priority sewer projects will be Feel free to jump in

yeah i think a lot of the projects that we are currently working on are somewhat development driven i totally agree with you know what mike is saying the um you know doing that sewer master plan is going to give us a tool and it's going to help us out and you know yeah it's it's a balancing act trying to figure out the incentives versus trying to balance all of these projects with the limited staff that we have available to us and the limited funds that we have so Having that forward thinking, we've already got three really good projects that are ongoing right now. Let's get those completed. Hopefully the development will come and then we can continue looking forward to another sewer project every year. I think that's how we have it programmed in our CIP right now is one significant project every year for the next five years.

I think it's...

be the wet blanket tonight um as we covered with the public in a in a meeting at the wastewater treatment plant how it will pay for the wastewater treatment plant going forward you know the the plan that we have includes the north webster sewer the northeast sewer and the northwest sewer we've kind of taken out the slack in the operation of our sewer. So as we look forward and think, okay, what's the next path we wanna go down? What's the next line we need to build? It has to come with revenue. We did some speculative things, which are certainly coming into fruition, which I think is great, but we don't have the ability to take as big a risk when we take on that big plant. I know that's not necessarily realistic to say it needs a home run with revenue, but we definitely have to focus on how that line would pay for itself because we've taken the slack out of the operation.

I think that's an absolutely fair point. As we build the infrastructure, as we build the new wastewater treatment facility, it has to be able to pay for itself. For me, one of the things that I ran on, one of the things I talked about with a lot of people as I was deciding whether or not to to start this journey as a whole is the uh the competition between that north johnson county those properties that are left on that are unincorporated between oglen park olathe us and even gardner on the uh the other side of 169 that's a very very real thing um and those those projects are largely dictated by the municipality's ability to get resources and amenities to them quickly. So for me, I wanna make sure that our pacing's appropriate. Managing growth is a huge part of how we make all of this work, and it's a hard thing to do. because every part of an entrepreneur wants to chase that next big project and make sure we're bringing in as much revenue as we can and getting all the money we can and all the big wins that we can get. But those come with real, real impacts. Valuations are a perfect example of that. The more properties trade hands, the more houses are built, all that stuff increases our valuations year in and year out. And if we're chasing the opportunities to the point where we're pricing people out of our areas because the valuations are just going up through the roof. Obviously, that's counterintuitive to what we're trying to do as a whole people matter. So for me, I think our current pacing as far as that one major sewer product here, I think that's appropriate. I do like the idea of prioritizing those people who are at the table ready to move now versus the more speculative stuff, especially since we've been doing a lot of that work. Over the last three or four years, I think it might be time to let some of this infrastructure pay for itself now. So for me, obviously, always keep your eyes open for opportunities, but let the people that are here ready to play take the priority.

The one in the hand is worth two in the bush.

That's exactly right. That's why I kind of tend to agree with Rhonda where it's like, okay, we've done a lot of this. We can't keep doing the speculative that's not paid for. I do like what we did with that Northeast one here recently with the benefit area where we can get reimbursements on that, you know, cause not everybody's expecting us to do it for free and I don't think we need to do that. No, I think we need to get reimbursed for the, for the infrastructure we provide. Great. And so, you know, pursuing that on the West, I know there's some that we have agreements with already, but that whole West side, I want to see us work on that type of thing too. So yeah, that, I mean, That's kind of where my mind was is just I don't want to continue with the never-ending sewer to nothing so that in 30 years it's there for the people that are ready to develop. And we're paying triple bills now to help fund that. So I just want to make sure everybody else is kind of on that same page that if we have some sort of commercial development or something that wants to come in, let's make sure we get that, you know, priority, but we can't have everything. We're not stretch Armstrong. We can't just go in every direction and never break. Yeah. Believe it or not, they break. Yeah. We're going to break it someday. Yeah. So that was kind of the big thing with the sewer projects is making sure that we're not overextending ourselves outside of that. I think the branding, I think that kind of goes along with the comprehensive plan. I think Jen is doing a good job of getting that going. Um, But outside of that, I feel like this is everything we've talked about over the last year. I just wanted to make sure that we didn't have anything new that's top of mind that people are like, we have to work on this. I really do think we need to put more money into Our continued the money in the street maintenance and have some additional towards this part of town in the meantime Like said whether we decide it's two roads a year for half the you know Whatever that money gets us if we just say his dollar amount whatever it gets us gets us But I think improving the roads over here is a very important. I Know Allison's working real hard on South Street for us and we're working towards getting that figured out and that'll be a huge project if we can get it going and So there's definitely some things out there.

Could I add a comment on that?

Yes, ma'am.

What I'm planning to do in the 27 budget, and it kind of goes to Mr. Arvalo's comments, we budget conservatively every year. And at the end of the year, then you have surplus cash. And then you decide where that money gets spent. And each year we put it towards projects and employee health care funds. And you determine when the results are final what comes in. I plan to, I have in this budget bumped the revenue from development applications and fees by about $1.3 million. Some of that will go back into the operation positions that need to be hired, things like that. But I am putting it into a contingency or you will approve this if you agree, in a contingency to be spent on projects. So we're kind of planning for that revenue as opposed to, well, let's just see how the year ends up. And my goal would be to be able to fund your streets, the million dollars you're talking about, through those development fees through our budget each year. But we can only spend that money if the development fees come in. And I like it as a budgeted item because then if things change and they go up, we will have more money. If they go down, we'll have less. And so we aren't trying to, for example, pay for employees out of that. And then when the fees go south, we've got employees we can't afford to pay. I don't want to do that. I'd rather be focused and then you approve the projects and where the money goes through the budget process as opposed to over conservatively budgeting and hoping it works out in the end.

Yeah, I'm on the same page. I do think I would like that regular maintenance that we talk about. That's that million or whatever we're going to agree to, to figure out how to get that into the normal budgets that we're not relying on the excess permitting fees or excise taxes. I think those things are made more for the projects that we want to, we want to go towards, but I think we need to make sure that we have built in somewhere, whether it be a little bit every year that this mill, these couple of mills are dedicated to street maintenance. And I think we can kind of look at the budget that way going forward, too, is we have this many mills that are going to be for street maintenance. This many mills go to staffing. This many goes here. I think if we look at it that way as a whole, we'll be good going forward because Mike made a good point. We don't want to stranglehold all of our access to just projects. There may be something out there that we need to do. And it's a project, but it's not just street projects. It could be other stuff, but. I kind of earmarked about an hour because I figured we would finish early on our formal action. I think tonight we kind of beat this horse a little bit. So it gives you a little bit of direction on these kind of priorities that we've got. And I think we're probably ready to jump into executive sessions as long as nobody else has anything to say right now.

May I say one more thing?

No.

I put together the information on the funds, the information on the fund balances and how they're used, and I provided you a copy of that in there. I think it's a good thought not to go into that heavy material at this point. Be happy to do it another time, but it gives you an idea of what is your sort of unfettered money as opposed to when you look at the full balance at $52 million, most of it has a purpose and a place to go. So I want you to be aware of that money. That information is in your hands.

All right. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Well, with that, I will – do we need a break before – we only have two short executive sessions tonight. Power through. Had it on late, so you guys want to power through it? Good to roll. All right.

Okay. All right, then I move that the city council recess into executive session for 15 minutes to receive advice of council regarding matters of non-elected personnel pursuant to KSA 75-4319B2 of the Kansas Open Meetings Act. The open meeting will resume in the city council chambers at 9.15 p.m. No formal action is anticipated following the sessions. Person to be in attendance will be the following. Spencer Lau, city attorney. Monica Jones, human resource director.

Second.

Motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 5-0-0. We'll see you back. Let the record reflect governing body recommend the open meeting at 9 15 p.m No votes were taken or decisions made during the executive session.

The discussion was limited to the subject stated We have one additional Executive session so yeah I Moved that the City Council recess into executive session for 10 minutes for the preliminary discussion of acquisition of real property pursuant to KSA 7 5-4 3 1 9 B 6 of the Kansas Open Meetings Act. The open meeting will resume in the city council chambers at 9.27 p.m. No formal action is anticipated following the session. Persons to be in attendance are the following. Mike Mallon, interim city administrator. Spencer Lau, city attorney.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 4-0-1.

Do you want eye drops, PJ? No.

Okay.

No, they're not corrective. They're for attention.

27 p.m. No votes were taken or decisions made during the executive session discussion was limited to the subject stated That was the last item we had on our meeting tonight There's nothing else from anybody. Well, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second motion a second all those in favor aye opposed motion passed 5-0-0. See you next time