City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening. Welcome to the February 10th, 2026 City Topeka governing body meeting. I will call this meeting to order and I will ask everyone to turn their attention to Council Member Banks who has the invocation this evening. Uh please stand if you are able. What are you doing? Good evening everyone. I have the pleasure of introducing you to my friend and brother Edward Anthony Thomas. He's a member of the New Life Baptist Church here in Topeka. He was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. He's married with 21 grandkids. He's a he's a licensed barber, cosmetology and barber instructor and is a licensed minister. I am he's attending Topeka

ministry institute urban ministry institute and has been a resident of Topeka for the past 30 years. I'd like to introduce you to Ed Thomas.

Thank you and pray for me. Heavenly Father, we come to you in Jesus name. We thank you for this wonderful and precious day and this opportunity. I just ask that you would uh allow these members to make help them make the best decisions possible. We ask for your hedge and protection around this facility and we just thank you for their families. We just thank you that you would reveal your word to them and help them in their direction. We just thank you for the peace that passes all understanding. We ask that love, joy, and peace would resonate in this facility. We just ask that unity would be a part of this facility. We would just ask that any strife be removed and anyone anyone that comes to this podium would be transparent. We just ask that this council would hear their words. and we just thank you and praise you in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. He's also my barber in public. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. I'm ask the clerk clerk to call roll. All right. Mayor Duncan here. Council members Hiller here. Valdivia Aqua. Ortiz

here. Banks here. Kell here. Miller here. Bradberry here. And Hoer here. All right, we have eight present. All right, and we open things up tonight with a presentation from the Topeka Performing Arts Center. Come up here and introduce yourself and take it away.

Fantastic. Uh, thank you, city council, Mr. Mayor, uh, and those that are online. My name is Daniel Cays. I'm the executive director for the Topeka Performing Arts Center. Your art center, the community uh space, the community venue where tons of community use it for all uh of their years of dance and uh coming together uh for gatherings uh throughout the years and we look forward to continuing um this great path with me. I have a few board members as well in the audience. So, if we do have any kind of questions and stuff during discussion um we're all here to help answer those questions. Uh but we're here today. Um we submitted our budget uh which is what you know our contract as a board uh with the city is to submit to you what we are looking at financially and also uh just kind of report how we did the last fiscal year. So that's the basis of this report uh and then just go uh a few things further and talk about the upcoming exciting things that are happening at TAC. So with that, so this is our uh end of year um P&L um that we ended with December and I have on there highlighted circled. Um this is reality. This is where we are. We had put a budget together last year. Um I got here in October. We had to get you a budget right away. Um but we did submit a uh a budget that um had a deficit. It was a deficit budget based on what we had seen the previous year with the construction and everything that was going on. uh we kind of threw in and say this was our expectation and as you can see we actually did even worse. Um, unfortunately, um, the bulk of that is is as we go forward and we're getting towards that budget, uh, going into that January, February, we have a lot of promoters that are asking for dates. And so, we put promoters on dates and they set on dates. And so, we kind of put them in our budget and say if that happens, you know, we're going to to to count on that. And then, uh, by the time the budget's approved and we get into those events, uh, we lose some of those, uh, promoter events. Uh, promoters are trying to get things going about a year,

year and a half out. Um, so we've had um I actually have holds uh in 27 already from promoters uh looking to come through. Um but it's their risk. We can't force them to risk. We can't force them to take the date. If they decide to route somewhere else, then we lose that opportunity. Um so we're trying to be a little bit more realistic uh with our projections on some of those events and really taking a realistic look at those. Uh so going forward as we're going forward and now that I've learned a lot being here now a year uh we'll be more realistic in the in those pictures as we're going forward. But that's just kind of a little bit of snapshot of where we where we ended in December. So what is our plan? Uh this is just a a quick synopsis of our budget that got approved. Um so we are uh looking for um you know a little bit less expectations on the on the use of the space uh with the programming revenue and expenses. Uh we're looking to do much better in our fundraising. As you can see the net there is 81,000. We actually got to a net of 50,000 this year. Um I can tell you that net of 81,000 takes us back to little previous like 2015 2016 is where we were netting around there. And I'd like to even do better. My goal is to be netting at least a h 100,000 a year on the fun on the fundraising side uh with the community support. That doesn't count sponsorships uh corporate sponsorships. That's actually counting out their donations and and donors and uh community supporters supporting this venue because again this is the community venue. It's used 75% uh by the community by nonprofit youthoriented groups of the community of Topeka. And uh so we'd like them to help us uh keep that going. Um, we have our trust endowment which is the original trust uh when we opened in '91. That's the Georgia niece trust and a couple of others that uh we don't have uh control of but we do benefit of uh from those trust and we have to report those in our

audit because we receive those funds and we're going to be looking I'm going to look for a grant to see if I can land a grant this year to help us out. Uh so we forecasted that. um our occupancy expense general uh and other our off basically the office and the operations uh we have there as well. Um it's not a lot different from uh where we came from uh from last year. Uh there's a little bit of savings in some areas. Um trying to be a little bit more fiduciary responsible uh with the funds that we have to spend uh through the office side. Uh and then our net net margin of 150 takes us to the city contribution which uh thank you for that every year. Um, so we factor that in to get us to net zero. Now, of course, I don't like a net zero. I want to be better than that. So, you know, that 81,000 of fundraising, I'd like to get to a 100. Um, I'd like to get more people coming and buying tickets. The more people that buy tickets to all events, the better we do um as an organization. Um, but a lot of those uh shows are beyond our control. Anybody who's a promoter, an outside renter, they are responsible for paying for fundraising or paying for advertising for their events. We do the best we can with the stuff that we do and we will advertise for them, but we expect that to be recouped in in their rental cost. Um, but even a promoter, if a promoter, like last year we had Bob Dylan, a lot of people don't even know Bob Dylan came into our venue because Bob Dylan sold out in 13 hours and didn't have to market anything. Didn't have to tell the he didn't have to tell Topeka that he was here. tickets were sold out 13 hours and then everyone was like, "I didn't know. Why didn't I know Bob Dylan was here?" Because it wasn't nothing we could control. Um, so anyway, so we're going to get better at doing all that kind of stuff and just keep moving that ball forward and being more and more positive and getting people back into the venue. We're going to try to re-engage the downstairs uh as well. Um, we uh, you know, need to get our wedding receptions. We've been out of that business for a couple of years. So, we need to get people uh to remember that we have a beautiful space

downstairs. And I'll talk about an event that's coming up that's showcasing that. Um so, that's where our budget is. Um we're going to continue uh TAC Live. So, we're halfway through TAC Live. We did three shows at the end of the last fiscal year. We now have four shows in this fiscal year. We have one coming up this weekend, which I'll talk about here at the end. Um, I want to go my grow my sponsorships into that TAC uh live second season. We hit 133 in cash. I'd like to get 150 cash uh going into the next season. And that again is split from a fiscal year. We do shows October, November, December, September, and then we come back in February, March, April, May of the following year. But to sponsor that uh set of shows, get it up to uh get it up to 150. talk about booking the events downstairs that have been affected by the renovations. Um, budget-wise, um, we, uh, had a position, a full-time position, uh, leave the venue, uh, and we decided to not fill that position and rather take those funds and bring in an administrative assistant to help us answer phones. Uh, I need someone answering phones. I had the phone in my office so that way when the office phone rang and the general number, I was there to pick it up to say hello. But having obviously a a voice to answer that phone call and not have it go to voicemail and have to call people back makes us better in customer service. And then we're also going to be looking at allotting about 30,000 to go get outside help to market us, market the venue, market the shows that are happening. And so we're going to be looking at um some outside service that can help us, especially in the internet world, in the social media world. Uh try to uh to help us out when those things. we have some expertise, but we'd like to get more expertise in that area. Um, most importantly, I'm trying to get more directly involved with tour promoters, uh, and and actually bypassing the promoters. Um, Alice Cooper that is

coming that we announced a couple weeks ago is a direct connection to the agency without the promoter in the middle. That doesn't happen very often. An opportunity came about. I went to the board. The board voted. We decided it would be a risk. As you can see, when you have a deficit budget, you don't have risk to take risk for a show, but we felt that we could at least break even to uh nominally. And then uh and then obviously make some funds. If that show sells out, it it nets us close to 50,000. A break even is 1,300 tickets. Today, we're sitting at a little over $900. We've paid for Alice Cooper. We've paid his guarantee. We've paid his production cost. Now, the remaining bit to get to 1300 tickets is our expenses that we're going to incur loading them in and doing all that kind of stuff. But our goal, of course, is to get to 1,800 to get to 2,000 tickets. We want that kind of uh return and then that helps us at the end. But that direct connection to get to a sellout of 50,000 versus Bob Dylan where we didn't have direct connection and there was someone in the middle and we only netted 20,000. That's the difference when you get that booker in the middle. And we want that direct connection. But to have that direct connection, you have to have a solid foundation to take risk. We are a deficit budget. So taking risk is hard. Alice Cooper, we're taking that risk because we think it's pretty definite. But a lot of people say, "Why aren't you doing more and more bigger shows?" Well, a lot of that is because we don't have the fiscal footing below us to take the risks ourselves. We need that promoter in the middle. and getting the promoter to look at Topeka as a first stop of the tour rather than a we have a space to fill. Maybe let's do Topeka, which is where we are in a lot of promoters minds. They don't think of Topeka as the prime space to come to. They think of Topeka as the space that they need one more hole to fill in their tour and so

let's stop at Topeka. Okay, so we're going to try to change that with our or with our ticket buying uh behavior. Um so we're doing that. uh obviously continuing to increase the friends memberships and direct donations. Last year we got to equal in terms of memberships that was the previous year. I wanted to do better but we got to equal and we added a bunch of donors at the end of the year. We added um we did a a campaign at the end of the year a matching uh donor matched us dollar for dollar. So we raised $15,000 and they matched that and then added another five on top of that. So, they gave us another 20,000 on that and we um had a nice donor campaign and that really helped build that base to get to where we ended up at the end of last fiscal year. We add a we had a board retreat just a couple weeks ago to talk about fundraising. We need to really focus in on fundraising and getting out in the community. And that board retreat was specific with a outside consultant to help us uh mine the gems. Where are the gems in Topeka? How do we find them? And how do we mine them? and how do we get them to support us not just one year, not just two years, five years, seven years, 10 years consistently. So, we talked about that. Um, this coming weekend, we have a fundraising dinner. We haven't done a fundraising activity like this in several years, and so we're doing a fundraising dinner. Uh, I wanted to get to 300 and be in the banquet hall, but we got to 100, so we're doing it in our new blackbox space. It's dramatic. It's going to be a wonderful signature event. Chef Adam uh from White Linen is going to be doing the the meal for us. Uh I've got quite a few uh items to bid on. A couple of live action, a couple of silent auction uh uh items, and a couple of you know, you buy the tickets and then throw them in just that everyone can participate in the fundraising activity. And so that will be uh this Saturday before the concert. Uh reservations are closed. We had to close them today. Um and then we have the concert. So Jonathan Deli, great

jazz trumpet player. We are doing this show in combination with Topeka Jazz. They p they came on as a a co-sponsor of this event. And so with Topeka Jazz and us, we're putting on an incredible incredible performer. Uh he Jazz trumpet and uh rock and roll, electric guitar. It's a fusion of those two things and it's a great experience and everyone that comes is gonna have a great time. It's $30 uh ticket or there's $20 in the further back, but $30 come see a great concert on Valentine's Day. And then lastly, the big one, um I am going after a naming right. My goal is to take this entire year to get a naming right into uh into some kind of contractual relationship by 27 is the goal. um every fine arts venue that I've been in. I've I've done a lot of city venues, uh municipalowned venues in my history, uh I kind of that's where my expertise is in governmentrun venues and every one of those venues had a naming right on the venue to help with that. So you had city funding, you had uh naming right funding, you had corporate funding, you had individual donor funding, and then you had the revenue of the actual ticket and rental prices. All of that holistically has to happen in order to make us successful. But that naming right is where I'm going after and that was in the packet that you were sent uh earlier. So that is uh the plan um on that. Lastly, uh educational youth programming, we're still doing that. Uh, Gingerbread Homes, we've been out of commission for the last couple of years because of the construction downstairs. Uh, but the goal is to have it back. Uh, that should be uh, 2026. So, December of 2026. We'll have uh, homes for the holidays and gingerbread homes back again. Schooltime theater, we haven't done since co. Uh, we'd like to bring that back again. Oh, no, sorry. Uh, school time the busing program, which we still do uh, with the ballet. So, we'll

still do that. Shuffle Theater Clinic has not been done since uh, right before CO. So, we've got some funding uh thank you Tuck for some of that funding uh to help bring that back because that's important to uh influence those fourth graders into what the arts is holistically and and capture their minds. My goal is I like to reach out um have not done but TCT they do it all the time and I want them to be a part of our program. They have a lot of teaching artists that they already they already have, you know, they already know how to work it. We just want to incorporate it into us as well. The young artist of the year awards, we're going to delay one year. Uh it requires direct funding. We're going after so much funding uh right now. Um we're going to go hold off on the scholarships. We have scholarships that haven't been acred. We we have awarded them, but they have not acred yet. So we're still seeing those funds from previous uh scholarship uh being utilized, but we're going to hold off for one year, and then we'll come back with that uh once we get um the feet underneath us a little bit uh stronger. So that is uh the plan. And then lastly, this weekend, Jonathan Delhi, there he is. Great trumpet player. Uh, get your tickets. There's lots of tickets available. Uh, we want to show him uh what Topeka is all about. And it's just going to be a great night of jazz. And with that, I can take any questions.

All right. Thank you for that. Council member Kell, uh, want to give you first off the chance to clarify. You said Alice Cooper, $900, or did you mean 900? No, there are tickets. Yeah. Okay. So the gentleman behind you that were with you kind of they're kind of I get I get going. Yeah. 900 tickets. They kind of gave me that opportunity to ask that question to make to double check. Yeah. We're over 900 tickets. Yeah. And I think you're doing great on on the event compared to uh the past. I've always felt like um TAC geared themselves for the 65 plus crowd.

And ever since I was about 30 till now, I I've had spending money and it's just nothing at TAC that I want to see. And there's things like you have right now like board teachers. I've already seen that once here and want to see it again. The rock orchestra I believe is amazing. You got Allison Krauss coming in. So you have some really good acts that are coming in. Okay. Those are again I just want to be clarified. Those are all outside promoters. Yeah. Bob said there's

which is good but which is a good thing. But those are all outside promoters. The stuff that we're bringing in that's more affordable. Wizard of Oz on Ice. We had a magic show. Jonathan Deli. Uh we have um a James Taylor review. An incredible James Taylor review and and silhouettes. are all going to be much more affordable for the bulk of the community. Um the outside promoters, the ticket prices are much much higher, but we love those promoters when they do come in. But yes, good for brings people in all that kind of stuff. Um and on that aspect of I know you want to do as much as your own you can. Um good example, my wife and I have been traveling every every probably six weeks to Ken City for Broadway off Broadway shows. Mhm.

Is there any, you know, looking into that aspect? Cuz there's plenty of stuff that is fighting for space throughout the US that I think we could have some have certain shows here that wouldn't cost that much. It' be some some even some up and up and cominging ones that if we try to snag those those writers to to want to do that here, I think would be really good because there's a lot of topic that actually go to Kansas City and I go to to um musical the music hall. I see a lot of Topicans there every six weeks when I go. So it's Yeah. No, we can we can absolutely uh go after Broadway shows. We just have to have the financial risk portfolio underneath us because Broadway shows are very expensive.

Uh and then I I think you guys are actually doing really well on you mentioned social media earlier. That's where I'm seeing a lot of the stuff for TBACK is on social media. Like when I saw the raw orchestra, the minute I saw that, I had to look what up what it was. Uh and then I was like, "Okay, I got to go." You know? So, I think you guys are doing doing you always do better, but I think you guys are doing well enough and like I said, I I feel like you guys are heading in the right direction because I feel like I am included now in TAC where in the past I didn't feel like I was included. Good. Thank you. Yep. Any other questions or comments, Mr. K's? Nothing online. All right. Oh, yep. Council Member Hiller,

just briefly, thank you for the report. Thanks for all the work. Um, your renovations were long overdue. I'm glad that we're we're on the city's end getting those done and we're very grateful for the city doing that. Thank you so much. And so looking at at those s sort of survival budgets, I'm glad you did that well. So, um, good work. That sounds really promising. I know you've put a lot into it. Yep. That's all. Thank you. I appreciate it. I hope to see you all at Jonathan Deli. Council member Bradberry. Um you had mentioned the silent

Sorry. Okay. Um you had mentioned the silent auction for this weekend's event. Um if someone wanted to donate an item, how would they do that? Uh for this upcoming auction, contact me directly. Um, and I can give you my business card or you know where I work. For anybody watching, how would they contact you? Uh, they can um they can contact me uh directly at dkawys uh at tpikaperformingarts.org. So dkyss. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. All right. Any other questions or comments? Great. Thank you very much. Much appreciated.

Thank you guys. Appreciate it. All right, we will move on. I will have the clerk read the consent agenda. A is approval of utilities department contract for professional engineering and design services between the city of Topeka and JEO Consulting Group, Inc. and amount not to exceed $115,000. B is approval of a utilities department contract for professional engineering and design services between the city of Topeka and SBB engineering LLC an amount not to exceed $2375 $237,589. C is approval of a public works contract for professional engineering and design services between the city of Topeka and Cook Flat and Strobble Engineering's PA and amount not to exceed $63,691.3. Items 3D through 3J are resolutions introduced by the public infrastructure committee recommending approval of project number 861039 for the 2025 fleet replacement program as further described in exhibit A. E is recommending approval of project number 291 1130 phase 2 for hunting sanitary sewer rehab as further described in exhibit A. F is recommending approval of project numbers 29, 11132, 50, 1112, and 13 for fleet replacement of CCTV inspection units as further described in exhibit A. G is amending the 2026 to 2028 CIB and 2026 to 2035 CIP to add project number 121030 for California Avenue bridge lighting. H is recommending approval of project numbers 121030 for California Avenue bridge lighting as further described in exhibit A. I is amending the 2026 to 2028 CIB and 2026 2035 CIP to provide additional funding for project number 841099 for the 2026 pavement management

program. And Jay is recommending approval of project numbers 84, 10, 99, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 for 2026 pavement management program projects as further described in exhibit A. Okay. Are minutes of the regular uh meeting special meeting of January 27 and the regular meeting of February 3rd. There's one application for CNB on premise for gold diggers at 2900 Southwest Oakley Avenue that staff is recommending approval. Council member Hiller.

Um I would respectfully request to pull item Jes request to pull item J off the consent agenda to the action. It's It's not because I've got a real problem with it, but it's got a it's some new projects that are are less prepared, and I want staff to walk us through it a little bit.

All right. So, item J on the consent agenda will now be item D on the action items. So, I would ask for a motion to approve with that amended change. A motion from Council Member Bradberry, second from Council Member Kell. As No, we did. Well, yeah, but doesn't hurt. So, I'll ask the clerk to take a vote. All right. Council members Miller. Miller. Yes.

And Hoer. Council member Hoer. She on me. Yes. Thank you. Okay. And council member Ortiz. All right. We have eight. Yes. The motion carries. All right. With that, we will move on to our action items. I'll ask the clerk to read action item A.

A is discussion with possible action of an ordinance introduced by city manager Dr. Robert Perez for the purpose of authorizing specific employees to have the legal authority to bind the city for specific purpose pursuant to TMC 33010. City manager. Thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. Patty Biggs, our interim chief information officer, will lead us through this item.

Good evening. The request is for an ordinance to allow three spec specified IT individuals to sign on behalf of the city in the exclusive term for the Apple developer program. The Apple developer program will allow IT staff to be able to develop Topeka city branded applications for things like Cclick Fix. Um, we feel that this is required for the actual developers who Apple requires to be the ones who are signing and the city manager would not be the appropriate person to be the developer or to receive any of the bulletins and updates from Apple themselves on the IT side. I'd be happy to stand for any questions.

Any questions, comments, concerns? I assume we need this because city manager is the only one with the authority, but obviously to her point, we need the developers to actually be able to agree to do this so they can develop because Right. Yes, sir. Mayor, uh, as well, we we provided the governing body with a memorandum on this uh, January 7th to exactly your point. I mean, I like computers, but I don't know. Yeah. Council member Bradberry. Um, is there a defined time frame that this would apply?

Um, the way that we see it enacting is to actually have um letters placed in the personnel file of three specific IT or up to three specific IT individuals. It would have a commencement date and a termination date for those individuals, but until Apple developer changes the terms of their agreement, um, the ordinance would be in place. So, no idea about how long these people would be able to sign agreements is what I'm asking until the point in time where the IT chief information officer would determine that they're no longer the appropriate candidate. Okay. Thank you.

But this ordinance only applies to whichever first three specific people and then if we need to do more different people come back and make that request or we would swap them out in it. we would commence and then terminate um that person as the Apple developer technician and bring somebody else in. But it stays at that number three in that role. Yes. Not to exceed three. If if I could add, we we worked with it to draft the ordinance so there'd be a little bit of flexibility. It it has the required specificity so that only these certain people can can do this. But we wanted some flexibility, you know, in case people come and go. Yeah. So I think we found a good middle ground here. So great. Council member Kell.

Uh I I would propose maybe an amendment that this last for like two years and then maybe at the 18 months we bring it back up. So this way this isn't something in the background. This is constantly rolling over and you know 5 years down the line it could be something that get ourselves hand tied and with something. So, I think maybe like a 2-year um limit to let's say and then like I said at the 18-month mark, we can maybe bring it back up or something sooner that says, "Hey, we need to make sure this extends till like 2030 because of these reasons." So, we just won't have a rolling program like this out there. So, is that a motion, council member?

Uh yeah, mo move to amend. Yes. to to add like a two-year two-year window to this. So, that would be an amendment that basically we if we pass the ordinance, we would be obligated to revisit it two years from the date it passes or uh to revisit at 18 months and if it's not, it's it's shut down at 24 months. Okay. Okay. Well, that's a different was that that's a different proposal than your original one then. So what is the motion? What what

the amendment would be to to shut it down after 24 months or have an end date of this exact one for 24 months, but we set it on the schedule for 18 months to revisit it so we can extend it if need be because I just don't a rolling program like this that goes for 10 years that we don't we may not hear about anything about it for 10 years. At least this way we can kind of get knowing what's going on every every couple of years on it. Okay, gotcha. There's a motion on the floor. I have a second. Have a question.

Yep. Council member Heler. Question from staff. Is is is that two years figure a good number or is is there a different number if we were going to put an amendment in? Um, so my understanding is it would be like a sunset provision pretty much to be revisited at 18 months. We'd probably be in the same position as we are now. Um, Apple doesn't generally change their terms of the agreement. Um, it's about 187 pages for that agreement and it's the kind of thing most people will scroll through and just click accept. Um in in this case since we are doing it on behalf of the city it's a little bit different but we would just come back at the 18month mark kind of report on the progress and see if there was an appetite to extend it further.

Well and maybe I don't understand is this an indefinite program or is this just for a period of transitioning and developing this program? It it would be indefinite until such time as Apple would change their terms or we continue use or we no longer use the program. It's like any agreement with any software, but somebody the developer in house has got to be able to agree to it to be able to actually be a developer on the program. This is my understanding and Patty, correct me if I'm wrong, this will allow us to develop apps on Apple's platforms. Otherwise, we can't do that, right?

And and to place them in the Apple Store, so citizens would be able to download that onto an Apple device. The reason I was asking is if what we need if what you're asking for is three designated staff people kind of in perpetuity that we would always have three. It's not like it's just a development phase and then we wouldn't need it anymore. That is correct. Right. So it's up to three and and quite honestly development never ends. There's always enhancements and bug fixes and changes and modifications. So that process is an ongoing process. I I guess I'm not seeing if we just need to designate why why to go through the

We have a motion on the floor. Do we have a second? All right. For lack of a second, that motion fails. We will move on. Council member Bradberry. I was JUST GOING TO ASK I was just going to ask if there were any internal controls for this for the purchasing being developed. No, for the purchasing were there any internal controls that are going to be used

to there's only a price of up to $100 per year. Okay. Um that's levied by Apple to put things in their store. It would go through the IT budget. So I guess who's reviewing that purchase before it's made is anybody or you just make the purchase. I guess that's what I'm just seeking clarification on for the placement of the application in the Apple store. The purchase in general. So from the user like if a user purchases the app, we don't plan on charging users end users any

the IT staff that are making these purchases. Right. That's my understanding on this is so that they can pay or buy things or I'm just completely misunderstanding the purpose of this. So, so the purpose of this is when we develop whatever we're developing in house and we want to place it through Apple products, whether it's through the Apple store, through just using their technology, putting it through their apps so people can use it, the individual Apple requires that whoever's doing that development piece must sign this agreement to agree to their terms to follow whatever Apple's rules are. Okay? Anything beyond that that would be costwise still has to go through Patty and the purchasing department and the they're not allowed to just start spending money by Yeah. Right. That's right. Yeah.

This is just so that they can actually work with Apple directly and Apple knows they follow their rules.

Any other questions or comments? Well, I I you followed me on that, so I wanted to go ahead and offer to the motion as originally written. Yep. Yeah, there's no other. Okay. All right. So, we have a motion to approve by council member Hiller, second by the second. Oh, or Mark, we'll give it to Council Member Miller. Swap that out there. City clerk. All right. Any questions, comments, or on this? All right. All right. With that, I would ask the clerk to take a vote. Okay. Council members Miller, yes. And Hoer, yes.

Okay, we have eight. Yes, the motion carries. With that, we will move on to action item B. Ask the clerk to read. Thank you, Patty. D is a partial assignment and assumption of development agreement between BHI Development, Inc., a Kansas for-profit corporation and Quick Trip Corporation, and Oklahoma for-profit forprofit corporation. All right, city manager. Thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. Braxton Coffee, deputy city manager, will lead us through this item.

Thank you, governing body. Back in December, you approved a tax increment financing and a community investment district for Sunflower Crossing. The first development that will be occurring there is the Quick Trip uh convenience store. The developer has sold part of the project to Quick Trip for the construction of their store. As part of that sale and a condition of that sale, it would be for the developer to assign a portion of the interest in the um CID sales tax under the development agreement to the quick trip and that would be capped at a maximum amount of 532,000 under the terms of this agreement and the developer agreement. We have privity of contract between the city and the Sunflower Development Group which is basically BHI. Um BHI will still be responsible for submitting the cost to us because that's who we have the contract with, but BHI basically is saying we're going to assign the right to receive up to $532,000 of the C proceeds to the Quick Trip. So that's what this agreement does. Ben Bigum who is a attorney with Pulsenelli representing the developer is here if you have any questions but staff would respectfully ask for your approval of this partial assignment of the CI under the development agreement. All right, any questions or comments from the governing body? I'll point out I do remember when we got one of whenever it was as time all collapses when this was eventually originally presented to us when they talked about it they mentioned that this could happen. So, it should not be a surprise to anybody from that standpoint. So, well, if there's no questions or comments, I've got a motion from Council Member Kell and a second from Council Member Banks. With that, I'll ask the clerk to take a

vote. Council members Miller, yes. And Hoer, yes. Okay. All right. We have eight. Yes. The motion carries. All right. I'll ask the we move on to action item C. I will ask clerk to read. C is partial assignment and assumption of development agreement between EIG WMaker LLC and Indiana limited liability company and B33 WMaker 3 LLC, a Delaware limited liability company. City clerk, I mean city manager.

Thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. Braxton CPPley, deputy city manager will lead us to this item.

Governing body, this will sound familiar to you because approximately a month ago, we had a partial assignment uh by EIG Waker uh to Cava for the restaurant. And so what the what's the action in front of you tonight is basically the partial assignment and assumption of the uh remainder of the development agreement to the purchaser of the rest of the shopping center. So EIG is still bound to complete the improvements under phase two and that was to construct the Sketchers which is about 9,000 square ft of retail and Rally House which is under 12,000 ft. Under this agreement, they will continue to be obligated until such time as they have completed that construction and the city has consented to the completion of that which would be basically upon issuance of the CO for both of those provisions. At that point, then they no longer would have those responsibilities under the DA and the asign would step into their into their shoes. So in u again Ben bigum council for pulsenelli representing the developer is here to answer any specific questions but basically we're talking about partial assignment of the rights and responsibilities under the development agreement that does not occur until and unless we consent to it. I will tell you that in addition to the conversations between myself and Ben working through the contract documents, um our financial advisor under the terms of the non-disclosure agreement has reviewed the financials as well as the experience of the asign the purchaser of the rest and remainder of this particular mall and has determined that they have sufficient experience and they have sufficient capitalizations to step in and to be successful.

managing this. So with that, staff will gladly uh answer any questions and again Mr. Bigum is here for any specific questions relative to the developer. Any questions or comments from the governing body? And again, I remember prior to that being built, we were told this would probably be requested, so shouldn't be new to us either. All right. Do I have any motions and seconds? A motion from council member Bradberry and a second from council member Banks. There's no other comments. I will ask Mr. Mayor. I believe we have someone.

Oh, I apologize. We have public comment on this issue. Danielle Treml, I am sorry. I should probably turn the page. I need to turn the page over so I can see it. So, that's on me.

No, nobody would have expected it. Thank you. I actually I don't have any um significant um great for all the development. I love the idea of these things, but again want to point out some um discrepancies that we have on the way that we're doing business in the city um and the expectations that we have. So yet we're here another week without bringing up issues. I do want to state that um I did speak with Councilman Miller about bringing up issues in policy um in finance. um under these kinds of stipulations. So here we are um we've entered um an incentive uh situation with an organization with no sort of stipulations about reporting, right? Um so we don't have any of this language like we've been bringing up multiple times. And yet again, you know, going on to the state website, um, and this entity forfeited its business in 2024 and is not registered with the state of Kansas, um, since, uh, 7:15 of 2024, which the state law KSA17901, and there's more, um, require by the Kansas Secretary of State that foreign non- Kansas businesses doing business in Kansas must register ister with the Kansas Secretary of State. One for legal recognition. Um, registering with the Secretary of State provides legal recognition to the businesses, establishes the existence of the business, um, and you know, all the things that go with that. Public record so that there's transparency that businesses know who's owning or public knows who's owning these businesses. Um, who's invested in this and all that stuff. Legal compliance. Registration ensures that the business complies with state laws and regulations governing businesses. Um regulatory oversight, so

agencies may use the registration information to oversee and regulate certain types of businesses. Um protection of the business name. Um enforcement of contracts. So having a registered legal entity with the designated registered agent is crucial for enforcing contracts and agreements. It establishes the capacity of the business to enter into legal relationships, sue and be sued. Uh foreign qualification standards as well. Um there's a whole separate entity as we've established and it's in the the the ordinance as well that they are based out of Indiana. Um so that that's established. Um, so again, we, you know, each year require social service agencies, as an example, to jump through hoops to spend hours upon hours to potentially receive up to $27,000 in social service grant funding, which is an extrenuous process where they have to answer multitude of questions about how and why they are serving our community members. ers um with very important projects and they're required at minimum to provide quarterly reporting back to the city and other entities about the work that they're doing. And yet here we are again, millions of dollars later in an organization that received 13 billion or million dollars in IRBs in 2019 from the county, 7.5 million just a couple years ago, and countless thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars in these incentives with no accountability nor legal registration. So again, we need to start putting this on um the block to to look at sooner rather than later. Thank you. Thank you. All right. There any other comments or

questions from the governing body? All right. As a reminder, we have a motion from Council Member Bradberry, a second from Council Member Banks. I will ask the clerk to take a vote. Council member Miller, yes. And Hoer, yes. Okay. All right, we have eight. Yes, the motion carries.

All right, with that we'll move on to action item D, which is our item from the consent agenda. I will ask the clerk to read. D is a resolution introduced by the public infrastructure committee recommending approval of project numbers 841099 phase 13 14 15 16 17 18 and 19 for 2026 pavement management program projects as further described in exhibit 8.

All right, I guess Councilwoman Hiller, I will turn it over to you since you asked this be removed. Well, I um I looked at the list and saw that there were some in my district, but also other ones that I recognized as streets that had um like 10th Street, for instance, got paved was one of the first the the biggest and first full cross town street done only in 2010 under the the um first half sales tax program, but it was only mil and overlaid. the work for the substructure and the utilities was not done and it it's kind of been our role model for how not to do things and it fell apart right away all kinds of different things if you drive it today you see all the patches so I had a question about whether mill and overlaying that section as proposed here was really the right thing and we've talked recently about uh looking forward for the future half cent sales tax and and saying well when it when are the streets that haven't been fully rebuilt yet going to happen? So, I had a question about, you know, if we were going to do 10th Street, how long was it going to last? Also, um the Washburn going by Stormmont Veil is on there and I'm very familiar with Stormmont having come up with huge projects and um because this was kind of a surprise. It was like, oh, have we checked with the people? They don't even know this is coming. Have we checked with folks? Um, and also I went to a neighborhood meeting about a street project that's supposed to happen this year already, only to have them say that they were only going to do half of it because they didn't have enough money. So, I just had questions about what our expectations were and how much work was already done or would be done before these projects move forward. and Jason's been helpful, but I really felt I learned a lot and wanted him to share with everybody.

First, I'll guess I'll turn over city manager and he can decide who who's going to address this. Yeah, Jason.

So, thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. Uh, just a couple things. Uh, so there was an amendment to increase uh the 2026 CIP for this budget. If you remember uh five or six years ago when the COVID crisis happened, we paused a lot of the projects because we were unsure how that uh event would affect sales tax receipts. Unfortunately, while those projects were paused, the deterioration of the streets did not. Um and so during that time, that fund was accumulating sales tax, but our streets were still deteriorating. We've been working to catch up and get that money spent and back out on that street on those streets since then. So that's why we've asked for an additional $5 million to be able to be spent in 2026 uh to bring down those funds that accumulated during that event. So there are seven projects on here. Uh the first one gaga to Mallister is one that was previously anticipated. The additional six projects, those are all the projects that we've identified for millan overlay candidates. When we do that, uh, what we were looking for was streets that were in a condition where we have good substructure where we don't have a lot of utility conflicts where what we need is a new pavement surface. We would anticipate with a pavement surface depending on the traffic, you're going to get about 7 to 10 years of good road after you do a millon overlay, assuming you have good substructure. So, we wanted to identify locations and which is what we brought for you today where we could do a lot of new surface pretty straightforward mill and overlay uh from here. We're working with the utilities team make sure that they don't have a need to tear up that infrastructure in the next 3 to 5 years for example um that it's not going to create an issue with bad substructure. So from here we're going to take these projects do further investigation confirm that these are good candidates for millan overlay where we can get a lot of new service down quickly get that done under traffic and these are typically projects can be done in 3 to four months uh because we're keeping under traffic and we're not doing a lot below that 2-in mill. Um so of the six projects here there's still additional investigation to go um and then there's also additional cing that we'll do to

make sure that these are good candidates and hopefully we can get most of these projects constructed this summer. Um, but we also do have alternates. If for any reason any of these six projects are not good candidates to get done this summer, we would come back to the infrastructure committee with alternate items that which we then come back to the body if the committee feels that's appropriate. With that, I'm happy to answer any additional questions. Councilwoman Hillary,

um, thank you for that. I I just wanted to make sure, you know, when I look at these, once we vote on them, then people could assume that they're definitely going to happen. And for this particular set with what Jason has said, there's they're checking with utilities going to do those core samples and also at least to some extent check with the the neighboring residents and and businesses to make sure that a timing would not an unexpected timeout for a repaving wouldn't upset major plans that were underway either for redevelopment and construction or whatever the course of business was. So there's a chance we all just need to watch each one of these to see if they actually do form up and and get a schedule.

That's correct. So, anything that we don't feel that we can accomplish within 2026 would either be pushed to 2027, which we'd bring back to the committee, or if we find that the street is really more in need of a complete reconstruction, uh we would definitely come back to the committee at that point and say that's a project that may not be completed next year and may need to be in a further CIP project. And likely based on this timeline, you'll have figured that out by the time we look at the CIP this spring. I would anticipate yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments? I'll just say I appreciate this approach. People know when I was on the council, this is kind of thing I always, you know, talked about is on those target ones. Let's get the mill and overlay done or overlays. So, I thank you for I know you guys been working on this for a while. So, thank you for that. And I know it's another step moving forward to get some of those streets addressed. So, much appreciated by everyone's work. We have a motion from Council Member Kell to approve. We have a second from Council Member Hiller. Oh,

I just had a a comment. Mayor U, Jason, I see any of these projects, uh, whether we get all of them or some of them, it's progress. And there are so many streets in our city that's in decay right now. And to see work happening on any of them, I think, is certainly uh uh uh look the right direction. So, uh, 37th in Indiana. 37th Street. Thank you, Jason. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. All right. Doesn't appear there's any other comments on my sheet, so I will ask the clerk to take a vote.

Council member Miller, Council Member Hoer, yes. Council member Miller, we'll track back and forth. I think that was a yes. Council member Miller. Yes. Yes. Correct. Thank you. All right. We have eight. Yes. The motion carries.

With that, we will move on to Thank you, Jason. With that, we will move on to public comment. We have a number of individuals signed up this evening. So, all the individuals who have come to speak know that there will not be any time extensions this evening. So, you have four minutes as is allotted. The timer's there. It'll beep at you once and give you the the yellow light and then you'll have one minute left after that. So, with that, first person on my list is Key Addington. Keely Addington. I do not see Miss Addington. I don't think she's outside. All right, I'll circle back at the end just to make sure. Next up, I have James Balden. Welcome, Mr. Balden. Good evening.

Good evening. Can you hear me? Yep.

To the Honorable Mayor Spencer Duncan, city council members, city manager, city clerk, city attorney, and of course, Braxton. Members of the city council, fellow residents, and esteemed guests, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight about a topic that touches the lives of so many people, so many in our community. Excuse me. Rent control. As we gather in this hall, we are united by our concern for the well-being of our neighbors and the future of our city. Rent control is more than just a policy. It's a lifeline for families. Seniors and workers who call our city home for many dream of stable, affordable housing feels increasingly out of reach. Recent years, we have all witness rent prices climbing at a rate that outpaces wages. Longtime residents are being forced out of neighborhoods. They've called home for decades. Young people are wondering if they'll ever be able to afford to live here. Implementing or strengthening rent control means taking a stand for the stability of our community. means saying we value the diversity, history, and character of our neighborhoods over unchecked profits. Rent control helps prevent sudden dramatic rent increases that can destabilize families, disrupt children's education, and even lead to homelessness.

It gives tennis peace of mind knowing they can budget for their futures without the constant fear of displacement. Critics of rent control often argue that it stifles investment of discou or or discourages new housing development. Many studies and experiences from other cities show that when implemented thoughtfully, rent control can coexist with a healthy rental market. It's not about punishing landlords. It's about creating fair rules that protect both property owners and tenants. We can design policies that encourage responsible investment while ensuring that our city remains accessible to people of all income levels. Let's all remember that rent control is just one tool in a larger toolbox. We must pair it with policies that promote the construction of new affordable homes and support programs for those experiencing housing insecurity. By working together, we can address both the immediate crisis and the long-term needs of our city. I urge you to listen to the stories of your constituents. The teacher who worries about priced out of her apartment, the senior on a fixed income, the young family hoping to put down roots. They are counting on us. Rent control is not a cure for all, but is essential step toward making our city a place where everyone has a fair shot at a safe, stable home. In closing, I ask city council to act with courage and compassion. Let's protect our residents, preserve the fabric of our neighborhoods, and ensure that our city remains in a vibrant, inclusive place

for generations to come. Thank you for your time and considerations. Thank you very much, Mr. Balden.

Next up, we have Mr. Justin Spees. My name is Dr. Justin Spece. On August 30th, 2025, I was unlawfully removed and unlawfully criminally trespassed from the Topico Library by the Topico Police Department for extending my middle finger inside the library, which is protected expression and speech. I was also given a six-month ban from the library, and that ban is enforced by the Topeko Police Department. On September 5th, 2025, I went into the Topeka Police Station to to conduct business under the protection of my First Amendment rights. I was unlawfully detained by the Topeka Police Department because they said I didn't have any police business to conduct, which was not true. I was unlawfully detained and a citation was being written when a lieutenant determined I did have business to conduct and so he stopped the detainment and citation and said I was free to conduct my business in the police station. The following Monday, September 8th, 2025, I went back into the police station to file criminal charges on the TPD officers who had unlawfully detained me on the 5th because in doing so, they had prevented me from conducting my public business. The Kansas statute I wanted to file against those officers is KSA 215922. I was then unlawfully arrested by former assistant police chief Major Russell Clump because he said I had no business to conduct. And since I didn't leave when he said I had to, I was then unlawfully arrested for disobeying a lawful police order and taken to jail. I was recording the entire time I was in the police station both days. Those two charges are still pending. In December 2025, I filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Topeka Library. And today I filed a civil rights lawsuit against the TPD officers and the city of Topeka for the unlawful detentions and unlawful arrest. And now I'm going to read from that lawsuit. I'll be reading just the counts only because there are so many of them quoting from my lawsuit. Now pliff Justin Spece versus Russell Clump in his individual capacity. Lieutenant Jerry Manis Smith in his indivividual

capacity. Sergeant Philip Anderson in his individual capacity. Sergeant Luke Jones in his individual capacity. Officer Adam Arndorf in his individual capacity. Officer Joshua Baker in his individual capacity. Officer Brian Willard in his individual capacity. Officer Scott Calman in his individual capacity. Officer Aaron Bulmer in his individual capacity. Officer Brandon Austin in his individual capacity. Officer Casten Tagert in his individual capacity. And the city of Topeka, Kansas. Count one, first amendment viewpoint discrimination against Monaismith. Count two, First Amendment retaliation against Monaismith. Count three, fourth amendment unreasonable seizure against Monisith. Count four, First Amendment viewpoint discrimination against Cowman. Count five, First Amendment retaliation against Cowman. Count six, Fourth Amendment unreasonable seizure, Cowman. Count seven, First Amendment retaliation, Williard. Count eight, First Amendment, prior restraint, ongoing exclusion, Willard. Count nine, fourth amendment, unreasonable seizure, course of show of authority, Willard. Count 10, municipal li uh manal liability defendant, city of Topeka. Count 11, fourth amendment, fabrication of evidence against Baker. Uh uh count 12, fourth amendment, unreasonable seizure against officer Baker. Count 13, First Amendment retaliation against officer Baker. Count 14, Fourth Amendment, unreasonable seizure, false arrest against Major Clump. Count 15, First Amendment retaliation against Major Clump. Count 16, First Amendment viewpoint discrimination against Major Clump. Count 17, fourth amendment, unreasonable seizure against Officer Austin. Uh, count 18, fourth amendment, fabrication, adoption of false premises against Sergeant Austin. Count 19, First Amendment retaliation against Sergeant Austin. Count 20, unlawful detention, Caesar, Fourth Amendment against Officer Bulmer. Count 21, First Amendment retaliation against Officer Bulmer. Count 22, viewpoint discrimination, First Amendment against Officer Bulmer. Count 23, Fourth Amendment, failure to intervene against Officer Bulmer. Count 24, first amendment retaliation, chilling or protected speech against Sergeant Jones. Count 25, unlawful detention, uh, seizure of Fourth Amendment against Sergeant Jones. Count

26, viewpoint discrimination, first amendment against Sergeant Jones. Count 27, Fourth Amendment, unreasonable seizure, failure to intervene against Sergeant Anderson. Count 28, Fourth Amendment, suppression of exculpatory evidence against Sergeant Anderson. Count 29, First Amendment uh, retaliation against Sergeant Anderson. Count 30, Fourth Amendment, unreasonable seizure failure to intervene against Sergeant Arndorf. Count 21, first amendment, retaliation against Sergeant Arnorf. Count 32, Fourth Amendment, excessive force against Officer Tagert. Count 23, uh, 33, fourth amendment, failure to intervene against Officer Tagert. Count 34, 14th Amendment, deliberate indifference to serious medical needs against Officer Tagert. I would encourage you if you'd like to submit those comments to our city clerk's office. She will make sure they get distributed to the rest of the

And there'll be another lawsuit filed shortly against the Shauny County Department of Corrections for how they treated me in their jail and violated my rights. Thank you, sir, for your comments. Next up, I have Mr. Lloyd Schroeder. Lloyd Schroeder, are you here? Doesn't look like it. And no one's outside. No one's online, right? Okay. Just want to make sure. Next up, Lone Graze. Welcome Lone.

Thank you. easier to get. There may be one for

Good evening, city council, mayor. I'm not sharing uh what I've shared with you. I've shared within that email. Not know if you read the email, but I wasn't really going to sort of speak to this, but it seemed that you are uh into the affordable housing development bill and passing some things and just sort of looking into it, some of the developments that is great for the developer, but I can't see what it is in for the citizens in the community. Affordable housing is important. It's needed and it's great that it's being done, but I'm wondering the payoff on getting an outside developer bringing in outside contractors who bring outside labor for affordable housing and why not in the mode of negotiating these why aren't some of these questions asked? It doesn't mean that they will say yes. uh it doesn't mean that they will say no, but at least it means that the questions will be asked because I think you can see a direct tie to these developments in the multi-millions that you're doing and how that could and should tie into local jobs, local contracts, local training. I spoke to this before. Uh I think that projects of this magnitude large, it creates a great opportunity for entry- level jobs, for training, OJTs, apprenticeships, whether You have to make a motion to make sure that whenever these negotiations are happening, at least these 10 questions are asked, regardless of what the answer may be. I'm not sure if it has to be uh something drafted second in motion. I'm not sure if the mayor can just use his executive authority under the office of the mayor to ensure that whoever is negotiating these affordable housing and huge projects are asking these specific questions. and when it comes time for them to come and present and you vote to give them these developments or projects

that you would have all the information that you would need to know on what is this going to do in the bigger picture for the community. I don't think anything of this is illegal or unconstitutional. I think that is just a factf finding on what's going to be the not so much the immediate impact but after they make their developments and they leave and no one is here with skills, what have we really done in the end? And so whether you ask your negotiators to make sure that these questions are asked, you know, or just become standard procedure that these are questions that are going to be asked on these large developments. At least people would know that when they're coming here and explaining what's happening, you will know if there's positions for apprenticeships, entry level, how the process for contracting with local businesses who can do this work. There are agencies such as I've mentioned before DCF and federal funds that can pay for the tools, the boots and what's going to need to get some of the people lowincome second chance people are motivated for work and training entities so that when a project is here on Sixth Street or behind McDonald's, there are people who probably might live within walking distance. These are opportunities and I would hope that uh you would agree that these nothing wrong with these questions being asked and I think that it would provide some clarity and I think that the citizens would like would feel good knowing that your negotiators are not just negotiating for the developer but negotiating for them as well. And if you need to meet Mayor Duncan on that these are just 10 questions. Maybe it's six. Maybe they need to be refined, but I think that the people should deserve a yes or a no that we are going to ask these questions, asking questions on behalf of the people, the taxpayers.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Grace. All right, before we move on to our next thing, I want to circle back and make sure that Keley Addington is still not here. And the same with Lloyd Schroeder. All right. With that, I will recognize the city clerk for announcements.

Uh on the February 17th agenda, we will have the swearing in ceremony for Murray McGee for council district number eight. We'll have one uh mayor recognition for America and Bloom, one presentation for the Topeka Land Bank 2025 annual report. We will have an expenditure ordinance on the consent agenda. Excuse me. The action items include a public hearing an ordinance for a vacation request to vacate a public alley between Second Street, Third Street, and Kansas Avenue and Jackson Street. An ordinance um amending the Topeka Municipal Code for home occupation, and then an ordinance amending the code for zoning text amendments regarded to multiple family residential uses. We will have a resolution setting a public hearing date for Hotel Topeka CD on March 10th and a resolution for disposal of real property at 1335 Southeast 21st Street. And we will have uh one discussion uh to continue the budget discussion from the uh January 27th special meeting session.

All right, city manager.

Thank you, mayor. Um couple things. I just wanted to announce that um that this week is national salute to veteran patients week. Um, assistant city manager Moore, police chief Aaho and Fire Chief uh, Long Staff and I had an opportunity to go meet with some of our vets uh, this week to thank them for their service and uh, to uh, spend a little time with them and uh, really really appreciated the opportunity the VA and and Miss Cunningham in particular afforded to us um, of a great group of people. Uh it's sad that they're in the hospital, but you know, it's always a good time spending spending time with some of our vets and hearing their stories. Um also want to announce that uh we recently uh submitted our request for proposals um for um projects to uh be considered for our affordable housing trust fund. Um that uh RFP is going to be out through the end of next month. Uh we plan to have a couple of uh presemal meetings uh for any folks who have questions about it. But uh want to thank uh the affordable house affordable house fund uh trust fund committee um for uh getting that uh that program to that milestone. U really excited for the proposals that are coming in. And then the last thing I wanted to announce uh was that uh we are close to kicking off our Topeka Way to Work program. Uh I had an opportunity to share a few details with uh uh Melissa Bruner in the red couch yesterday. Um but uh to speak a way to work program uh is for teens ages 14 to 16 uh who are interested in a 6 week uh job opportunity with various uh organizations across the city of Spika. Um it's a paid think of it as a paid work uh work program for our teens. uh 6 weeks over the summer. Um we're close to kicking that off, finalizing some of the

details, but believe we have a business host business uh information session beginning next month. Um that's all I have. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. All right, Council Member Banks. Thank you, Mayor. Nothing tonight,

Council Member Kell. Unfortunately, lately we've been having u some people decide that it's okay to post personal information of our staff members out there on social media and other places. Um, cool. Po post their city email, post their city phone number, tell everyone to light those up. When you start posting their their personal pages, their phone numbers, their addresses, that type of stuff, that is a way crossing a line right there. So, please look at it in just a professional way. If you have an issue with one of our staff members, like I said, feel free to post their their city email. Feel free post their city uh um phone number. Just leave alone their personal stuff. When they have to, in essence, take their social media and other things into hiding because they're being harassed. That that's crossing a line right there. Um,

I think that's going to be it for tonight. Thank you, Council Member Miller. Thank you very much, Mayor. I don't really have a lot, but off of what Kell just said, um I would implore our attorney's office to I I would like to know if there's anything that can be done about non public officials being harassed in that manner having their public information put online. Yep.

That's all I want to say. So, if there's something that we can do about that, I'm I'm with Kale on that. We don't need to be. The staff members are here for the city. They are not public officials. It is not appropriate to be posting their personal information on them. Thank you, Council Member Miller. Council member Bradberry. Deputy Mayor Hoer. Nothing tonight. Council member Hiller.

Well, just two short things. One, best wishes to our new council member, Mr. McGee. um looking forward to having him come on board next week and uh Valentine's Day is this weekend so I hope everybody uh celebrates it in some way and enjoys it. That's it. Council member Ortiz.

Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to say that um it's tax season and VITA is everywhere. Omnicircle is um they're holding free tax preparation. They just um on Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00, they just ask that you give them a call. Also, they're at the Lungren School and they ask that you give them a call to make an appointment. They're up north and also they're at the library. I also wanted to say that there is the LEAP has started. Um, so fill out your applications if you're having problems meeting um your your um gas bills. Um, it's a federally funded program. Don't wonder if you don't worry about if you um qualify or not. Just fill out the paperwork. They'll tell you. That's what I tell everybody. Um, also, Omni has a free digital workshop. I thought this was interesting. Um, and it is February the 18th at 6:00 and February the 21st at 11:00. And they're asking at the Omni building over there and they're asking you to come and sign up and they want to teach you how to move forward. So, um, that came out of at an NIA last night. Um, I shared with them I still have a landline and I'm not interested in moving forward, but but we are we are getting close. I keep getting these letters. I'll have to talk to my attorney about that. These letters from AT&T stating that if it if my line or something breaks down, they will not fix it. They won't fix it even though I pay that little bit of insurance. So, yeah, we are moving into the digital age. So, um, I'm not ready. I'm going to be the

last one to go, but um they they were pretty excited about having some of our senior citizens or elderly people come and and learn about that. So, I think that's a pretty good deal though. It's free. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Council member, if I get you a long enough cord, I bet I can move you farther than you think. We'll get you going out there. Uh thank you. Um I have a couple things this evening. Uh the first is uh I guess this is to the city attorney. Um the issue that Mr. Balden brought up tonight is probably not the last we will hear of that issue as we continue to talk about housing and and ways to deal with landlords. I also know there's probably some state laws that'll tell us what we can and can't do, but it'd be really great to know what those are so we can address that issue and be able to move forward in one direction and know what our options are. So, if staff could just at some point present a present a memo and and give that to my office, I can distribute then to the governing body, but that'll give us a step up in understanding that a little bit better. That would be appreciated. Um, Council Member Hiller's point, next week we should be um seating Mr. Murray McGee in District 8. So, it'll be nice to have that seat filled after several months and and have him here. So, we will welcome him next week. Um, reminder that the Citizens Police Academy is open uh till February 27th. you can still apply. There are spots still available in that. So, I would encourage people to to do that. I'm I went through that program. I served on the Citizens Academy Ambassador Board for six years. So, um it it I I tell folks every time it doesn't just show you the things that our department is doing. It they're also very open and honest in conversations with folks about how they do them, why they do them. If you have concerns, they're ready to address them. So, I always appreciate the openness of that program and I know that still continues. So, I would encourage folks to apply for that. And the last thing is I will also make a comment on the National Salute to Veterans Patients Week. I didn't get to go with the cool kids yesterday, but I did get to go this morning. Um, and I spent my morning there talking to patients up at the VA. You know, as a kid, I grew up not that far from the VA. And so, sometimes when I got older, we could ride our bike kind of in that area and you could you just knew it was a veterans hospital, but you didn't really know what that meant as you were a kid. Um, obviously as you get older it you

kind of take understand more the significance of that. Um, and it's important to go there and make those visits not just to connect with those individuals because they keep you grounded and they have a lot to teach you in those conversations and and they have fascinating stories that they that they tell you, but it's also a reminder of how important that facility is. And through through the years I've lived here, we've had several occasions where they tried to take parts of it away or piece it out or reduce its its ability to serve people in this community. And we've always done a good job as a city rallying to to not let that happen. And so those visits also a good reminder us to keep that fight up and make sure that the VA stays here. It stays strong and that we support the services and hope that in the future there can be an expansion of what's at that that facility. So I appreciated my time there this morning and and it was a great visit. So with that, there's nothing else from staff that we've forgotten at this moment. Uh I believe there is a need for an executive session. City attorney Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The motion would be to recess into executive session not to exceed 15 minutes to give legal advice and discuss cases currently in litigation and other matters deemed privileged under the attorney client privileged as allowed under KSA75-4319B2. The open meeting will resume in this room in the governing body chambers. The following staff will be necessary to assist the governing body in its deliberations. The city attorney and other staff members as needed.

All right, I would move to approve. Does anyone have a second? Second. Second from council member. Thanks. Thanks. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Say nay. If you're back there, I don't know if it counts, but we'll take it. Uh, all right. I'm going to say we're going to take a 5m minute recess, which I know will be 10, but we're going to say five and try. It's a short executive session, so let's get back here so we can knock it out. All right, we've come out of executive session. No action was taken and there is no more business before this body. This meeting is adjourned.