City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the governing body meeting of February 17th, 2026. Glad to see everybody here. We will open the meeting by turning things over to Councilman Banks, who will lead the invocation. Please stand if you are able. Good evening everyone. I'd like to introduce you to Pastor Gre Gregory D. Durant senior. He was born and raised in Witchah, Kansas and has been in the pastorial ministry for 45 years. He spent 39 years of 39 of those years pastoring here in Topeka between two churches. the New Jerusalem New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church for 11 years and currently the founding pastor of True Light Church of Ministries for 27 years. Pastor Durant meets once a month with local pastors to specifically pray for Topeka and its governing bodies. He has been called to meet with the city with city officials, police chiefs addressing issues that confronts Topeka, including racial tension, crime, and violence in Topeka. Married to his wife, junior high school girlfriend Linda for 51 years, this union has produced three children, Tanisha Greg Jr., deceased and Manuel and Emanuel's six grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren. They have helped increase the population of Topeka. I am proud to introduce you to my friend, Pastor Gregory Durant. Shall we pray?

Father, it is within your name we come tonight. And first of all, we thank you that you've allowed us all to be gathered in the heart of this country uh that will make decisions that will affect not just Topeka but the entire c company country. We pray father now that as this governing body meets that you would give them wisdom, give them knowledge, give them courage. In fact, Father, I pray that you would allow them to become instruments in your hand that will carry out the will, your will, that actually your will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray, Father, that every decision that is made will be beneficial to the citizens of this community that will make Topeka truly be a model city for even the world in which we live. We pray father that these men and women that have been appointed as this governing body will be able to carry out that will uh unselfishly but all with the spirit of humility. We pray father blessings upon each one of them their homes and all of their personal endeavors. We just pray, Father, that this will be a city that will be reminiscent of a city that was once in chaos and confusion in the Bible. But because your spirit move and revival broke out, it brought joy to that city. Let joy come to Topeka. Let joy come to Topeka in such a way that men, women, boys and girls will desire

to be a part of this community because it becomes an example of a truly model community. So let your spirit dwell within these chambers tonight that everything will be done according to your will and according to your way. It is in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, we will begin this evening's meeting by swearing in my councilman and yours now. Our new newest individual, Mr. Murray McGee. So, the judge here somewhere.

He's over there. Oh, had to make his entrance. There we go. Mr. McGee, you can come up here. If anyone else wants to come up with here with you, that will also be okay.

All right. Whenever you're ready, raise your right hand, please repeat after me. I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America of the United States of America and the Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Kansas of the state of Kansas and will faithfully discharge and will faithfully discharge the duties of city council member the duties of city council member for district number eight for district number eight of the city of Topeka of the city of Topeka. So help me God. So help me God. You may lower your hand. Congratulations. Thank you.

You don't have to sit up here, but if you want to talk and vote, Did you get your training on how the little device works? Was that top of the list? All right. With that, I will ask the clerk to read roll. Mayor Duncan here.

Oh gosh. Council members Hiller here. Uh Valdivia Aqua. Ortiz here. Banks here. Kell here. Miller. Bradberry here. McGee here and Hoer here. All right. We have a nine pres or sorry, eight present. All right.

All right. We do have a certificate of recognition this evening. Chuck Engel, come on down. So, this is one of those examples of when community members decide they can make a difference and want to make a difference and are going to make a difference, they get out there and you know what they did? They actually made a difference. And so that's why we want to make sure that that's get recognized as often as possible because while we as a city can do wonderful things, we cannot do it unless the citizens of this city participate and and care about this community. So with that, we have a certificate of recognition this evening for America in Bloom. America in Bloom, AIB, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering vibrant, sustainable communities, conducted an in-depth evaluation of Topeka this past June. AIB's mission centers on strengthening communities through volunteerism and education with a focus on flowers, plants, trees, heritage, and environmental and lifestyle enhancement. This opportunity was made possible through the support of the Bring Back the Boulevard Group, which generously covered all expenses for the AIB evaluation team. Over the course of two days, the team toured the city, met with numerous community members, and assessed Tekka across several key areas. community vitality, floral impact, landscaped areas, urban forestry, environmental initiatives, celebrating heritage, and overall impressions. As a result of this comprehensive review, AIB honored the city of Topeka with an outstanding achievement award in community vitality, recogni recognizing the city's strong commitment to fostering engaged, resilient, and thriving community. AIB has also provided the city with a detailed evaluation report outlining recommendations and opportunities for continued improvement in each category. Guidance that will support ongoing efforts to enhance Topeka's beauty,

sustainability, and quality of life. In witness whereof, I do by hereby affix my official signature and the official seal of the city of Topeka, Kansas on this 17th day of February, 2026. I want to thank all of the members of this city who do this hard work and contribute to these projects. I want to thank all the community members who have contributed to this and Chuck is here to say a few words and sort of represented all I think. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely.

The evaluation report that was conducted that Mayor Duncan mentioned concluded that Top Pig is a very welcoming community that offers its uh citizens a plethora of opportunities to lead a quality of life that it surpasses most other areas of the country. So congratulations and here's a an award from AIB uh noting the vitality of the city. So you want to tell me who you are? You want to tell me who you are? I'm Chuck Engel. I've lived in Topeka for 54 years and I practice law. I'm currently the chair of Bring Back the Boulevard.

Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. He's going to want a picture here. I will take that. There we go. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Try not to break this.

I'll try not to kick it over later. All right, with that, next on the agenda, we have a presentation on the Topeka Land Bank 2025 annual report. City manager. Thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. Uh Quinn Cole, senior management analyst, will lead us through this uh item.

Good evening, mayor and members of the governing body. I'm Quinn Cole, senior management analyst for planning and development and I'm going to be delivering the landbank 2025 annual report. So, what we're going to cover in this, you all should have received a written version of this report in your email prior to January 31st, but this is just going to be a presentation form of it. I'm going to give you a quick background on the land bank. Then, we're going to go over our cash receipts and dispersements. the cler.

Yeah, I think so. Thank you. Then we'll go over our cash receipts and dispersements, all property transfers for the year, and then a snapshot of our property inventory. So, the purpose of the land bank is to serve the public purpose of providing for the orderly, planned, and reutilization of abandoned, tax foreclosed, or otherwise underutilized residential properties. So, we're really looking to transform and create residential properties out of some of our underperforming properties in the city. Uh, going right into cash receipts, we had one sale of land that you'll hear more about in a little bit. We got $150 off that transfer. And then for our dispersements, our first line item is property maintenance where we spent $1,369.50. The scope of our services on our vacant properties includes cleanup of illegal dumping and mowing. Secondly, we have special assessments. Three of our properties are located within Laurens Bay. And the land bank

the land bank is going to be responsible for paying off the special assessments until that is transferred. And that brings our total expenditures for the year to just under $8,000 with $7,938. So for property transfers, the first transfer was on August 19th. The land bank was returned a parcel located at 1326 Filillmore. That parcel had been sold previously in 2024, but the development agreement was terminated because the development could not go on as planned. Secondly, on December 18th, we sold the property located at 1332 Southeast 18th Terrace to Scent. The development agreement is going to require that permits for the proposed housing be pulled by December of 2028 and that the development is completed by December of 2030. This is just a list of all of the properties currently in the land bank inventory along with their appraised values. And then here you can see on the map where those properties are located. Most of them are within central Topeka. And then you can see our three located in Lawrence Bay down in the left corner. And with that, I'll stand for any questions.

Are there questions from the governing body? Just so everyone knows, at some point, probably this summer, we'll do a little more in-depth presentation on where the land bank is. We may come asking back and ask for some tweaks. This presentation is required under the ordinance that we pass to give every year. So, that's why it's a little shorter and a little little different than what you may see later in the year. So, Council Member Hiller, well, just to kind of put a face on this, could could we go back to the list of properties that you have right now, and could you briefly tell us how you got them and and whether there's been interest just kind of

Yeah. So, each of these properties were acquired by the land bank through intergovernmental transfer. So, the city of Topeka previously owned each one of these properties with the exception of the Lawrence Bay properties. Um, there has been growing interest. As time goes on, we're seeing more, but it's still a brand new program, so we're trying to get the word out there. And then for our three properties located in Lawrence Bay, uh, the governing body took action to purchase those from the tax sale in September of 2024, and then the land bank took those on as part of their inventory as well. So for the ones that the city already owned, were those demolitions or right away or

there was there was a variety. Uh some were acquired a long time ago, but they were all identified as surplus residential properties and given the green light. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we've been working to go Quinn's been working hard to go through with staff to go through all the properties the city has acquired over the years for whatever reasons and see why we own them and if there's a way to let the land bank, you know, get them off of our mowing list and on to somebody we could actually put a home there and and utilize that. So, Council Member Banks. Okay. Um, just for the sake of letting the public know who can purchase and how.

Yeah. So, anyone can purchase from the land bank. What we are looking for is a commitment to getting some sort of housing on the property within a reasonable time frame. So, if you have the ability to either work with a builder, construct a home yourself, then you can apply for one of our vacant properties currently in the inventory by going to our web page and filling out a land bank purchase application. In the future, if we are to acquire properties with structures, anyone with the ability to rehab that structure is also welcome to apply. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yep. Any other questions or comments for Quinn? All right. Thank you, Quinn. We appreciate it.

All right, we will move on to the item four, the consent agenda. City clerk.

A is an ordinance introduced by city manager Dr. Robert Impere allowing and approving city expenditures for the period December 27th, 2025 to January 30th, 2026 and enumerating set expenditures therein. B are the minutes of the February 10th, 2026 governing body meeting and there are no applications. All right. I have a motion from Brett Kell to approve. A second from council member Ortiz. I will ask the clerk to take role or to take a vote. We already took role. We're all here. And Council Member Bradberry, what was your vote? Thank you.

Yes. Yes. And council member Hiller. All right. We have eight. Yes. The motion carries. All right. We'll move on to the action items. 5A. Kirk will read.

A is the public hearing regarding the petition by JJH Properties LLC to vacate the public alley between 2nd Street, Third Street, Kansas Avenue, and Jackson Street. We also have an ordinance introduced by city manager Dr. Robert M. Perez relating to the vacation of the public alley lying between 2nd Street on the north, Third Street on the south, Kansas Avenue on the east, and Jackson Street on the west. City of Topeka, Shauny County, Kansas. City Manager. Thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. Dan Warner, our planning and development director will lead us through this item.

Hello, Dan. Good evening, mayor, governing body. Uh, so this first item from planning, uh, JJH properties wishes to vacate the alley located between, uh, located south of Southwest 2 between South Kansas Avenue and Jackson. Um, just some information here, the applicant owns both sides of the alley. Uh, there are no other owners uh, impacted by this alley vacation. Um, the applicant will retain a public easement in place of the vacated rightway. All city and county agencies had the opportunity to review the proposed vacation and express no objection. Uh city utilities department and public works department uh did not object to the proposed vacation provided a utility easement is retained and that's what's happening in this case. Staff recommends the governing body hold a public hearing on this vacation and recommends approval of the vacation. Be happy to answer any questions. All right, we do need to have a public hearing. So I think we will start with that and then we can discuss as a governing body. So at this time I will open the public hearing and ask if there is anyone present who would like to speak to this matter. Is there anyone present who would like to speak to this matter? And I'm going to say it one more time just in case you didn't hear me as I'm supposed to. Is there anyone else here who would like to speak to this matter before I close this public hearing? All right. If not, then this public hearing is now closed. I will now open it up to the governing body for any comments or questions for Dan or anyone else. No. Seeing none, I would also accept a motion. All right. We have a motion to approve from council member Hiller and a second from council member Bradberry. If there's nothing else, then I will ask the clerk to take a vote.

And council member McGee, what is your vote? Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. We have eight yes. The motion carries. All right. We will now move on to action item 5B. The clerk will read. B is an ordinance introduced by city manager Dr. Robert Empere concerning home occupations amending section 18.21035 of the Topeka Municipal Code and repealing original section. All right. City manager.

Thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. Dan Warner, planning and development director will lead us to this item. Thank you, city manager. So, mayor, governing body, home the city's home occupation ordinance dates to 2010. That's the last time it was updated. Homebased businesses and the nature of work have evolved over the last 15 years. Uh, changing technology has facilitated the growth in home offices and e-commerce. Um so the proposed changes um specify that if a business has no employees or customers coming to the home then home occupation permit is not required. Um so just specifying again just so it's clear. So no employees are coming to the house, no customers are coming to the house then a home occupation permit is not required. Those business those home occupations are essentially exempt. Um the changes also make note of inhome daycare for instance as a use that's not a home occupation and is regulated elsewhere in the zoning code. So just providing a little more information in the ordinance. Uh the planning commission recommended approval. Staff recommends approval as well. Be happy to try to answer any questions.

So I'll give a little background on this. Tell a little story. So sometimes when we pass things we get unintended consequences and that's this is a cleanup to an unintended consequence. Last year during the legislature there was a bill relating to homebased businesses and one of the examples given by legislators was well even Topeka requires you to get a permit if you want to sell things on eBay. Technically letter of the law that might be accurate. We have never done that. Never asked people to do that and even we all agreed that was silly which is why we've never done it. But it was an opportunity to say, you know what, that's definitely not what we intended as one example. And so we started having discussions about how can we fix that and clean that up to make it more clear because to Dan's point, times have changed. The internet is changed things. And so that's where this came from. We discussed it originally. Um I think we did we talk about it in policy? No, we didn't. But we had to send it to planning. So they debated it and discussed it, said makes sense to us, and that's how it got here to us. So that's that's where this is coming from trying to fix an oops from many years ago when we passed the original law. So any questions or comments? Council member Hiller.

Um just a quick clarification since people are probably watching and listening. Some time ago we passed an ordinance about probably before my time even, but um regulating signs for homebased businesses. Now that's not changed. So basically, you can't put a sign out. That just has to be something you're doing inside your home. That's correct. We did not get into the the meat of the home occupation ordinance with this update. It's possible we will come back um and kind of refresh the whole thing, you know, in the future, but no, that is accurate. Uh signage is not permitted. I just wanted to refresh that while we were talking about it. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. We have a motion from Council Member Kell and a second from Council Member Bradberry. Any other comments before we take a vote? All right, that I'll ask the clerk to take a vote.

Okay, we have eight. Yes, the motion carries. Thank you, Dan. All right, we'll move on to action item 5C. I will ask the clerk to read, please. C is an ordinance introduced by city manager Dr. Robert Emperez concerning use standards and special use standards for two family and multiple family residential uses and dwellings on the main floor amending sections 186020 and 1822 010 of each peak comm municipal code and repealing original sections. City manager. Thank you mayor members of the governing body. Dan Warner uh planning and development director will lead us to this item.

Thank you. city manager. Uh mayor, governing body, this is another housing related text amendment to the zoning code. Uh this amendment concerns multifamily residential uses in C, D, and X districts. The primary primary ch the primary change that we're talking about here is allowing dwelling units on the main floor in C3, C4, D1, X1, and X3. um really need to mention that multif family is permitted in all of those zoning districts. The issue here is that dwelling units on the ground floor is not. So if somebody wants to build a multif family uh development in one of those zoning districts, uh they have to have a non-residential use on the main floor, which is essentially a mixeduse building. Uh we don't think that's particularly necessary anymore. And since multif family is already allowed, why not allow multif family with dwelling units on the main floor? So the specific um change in D1 and X3 applies sort of everywhere where there's D1 and X3 except for Kansas Avenue between 6th and 10th and North Kansas and on North Kansas Avenue between Norris and Gordon. Um the I the issue there um those two areas of you know that area of downtown and North Topeka are are the primary mixeduse kind of cores of downtown and and Noto. So this is really where we're trying to emphasize mixed use and emphasize the street activity that comes along with that and and uh the action that kind of comes along with that. But what we're saying is once you get outside of those core blocks, it's okay to do a dwelling unit on the main floor. Um so that is the change uh specifically in D1 and X1. Um and one final point here is so this is new also. So this special use requirements I've never had a section with a conditional use permit being a possibility where if you can't meet the

special use requirements. You can get a conditional use permit if these um you know possibly get approved through additional conditional use permit if these amendments are approved. So uh planning commission recommended approval. staff does as well. Be happy to try to answer any questions. Dan, you want to remind everyone briefly what a conditional use permit is?

You bet. So, um, conditional use permit is is similar to a resoning, but where a reszoning, uh, completely changes all of the uses on a property. A conditional use permit only essentially approves one use on that property, additional use on that property. Um, and it's the same process as a resoning. So, uh, staff, um, we have a policy that requires after the application is submitted a neighborhood information meeting where we notify neighbors and the developer runs that meeting. We have a legal, uh, notice requirements that we satisfy. And then the public hearing is at the planning commission and the governing body has the ultimate authority of approving or not or not approving a conditional use permit. Great.

Any questions for Dan? Council member Hiller, thank you again. I represent downtown and not long ago the question came up, well, what if you do have just a the space is just right or can't seem to lease the building at all and want to go ahead and do all residential in one of those Kansas Avenue blocks. Is that where somebody could go after a conditional use permit for that one-time exception? That's correct. Thank you.

Thank you. I see no other questions or comments. Do we have any motions of any kind? All right. Have a motion to approve from council member Banks and a second from Council Member Hiller. There's no other comments. Then I will ask the clerk to take a vote. Okay, we have eight. Yes, the motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. All right, we'll move on to action item 5D. Clerk, please read.

D is a resolution introduced by city manager Dr. Robert Empere Perez setting the public hearing to consider the advisability of establishing a community improvement district at 17th and Topeka Boulevard for the Hotel Topeka property pursuant to KSA 126A26. City manager. Thank you mayor, members of the governing body. Braxen CPPley, deputy city manager will lead us through this item.

Thank you, city manager. Just give Diana a second to pull up the PowerPoint. Thank you, Dan. So you'll remember last week at the TDC meeting we the TDC approved submission of the petition for a CID for Hotel Topeka. So this is the second step in that process. Tonight we are simply going to be setting the public hearing for March 10th for consideration of the CD. The CI proposed boundaries is the entire lot occupied by Hotel Topeka, including the the parking lot and the real property. Uh the area outlined in red on the PowerPoint presentation shows the uh C boundary. We were intentional about this because if we were to have an event at the hotel and we were to have food trucks out in the parking lot, this would allow us to collect that point of purchase retail sales tax because it falls within the district. This is just a a close-up view of the of the district. That's approximately six acres. The scope of the project for Hotel Topeka as discussed by um Roy Arnold um CEO of Endeavor Group includes building envelope, mechanical, electrical plumbing, roofs, windows, civil site improvements, ADA accessibility, and uh just general um overall rehab of the property. Total project cost is estimated at approximately $6 million. Um this will be on a pay as you go. So the CD maximum amount under Kansas law is 2%. Maximum period of time is 22 years. We estimate the revenue just from the Hotel Topeka. So this would be food and beverage and rooms in Hotel Topeka would be approximately $3.2 million over that 22-year period. And again, this uh

resolution tonight is only to set the public hearing and that will be for March 10th, 2026. uh it's to meet the statutory requirements in terms of the number of times that notice has to be published. So with that uh gladly answer any questions that you all have. Are there any questions for staff? Council member Ortiz. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Does this include the mayor building? Did that include the mayor building?

Council member Ortiz, that's an excellent question. this this CD and our proposal is only to capture the CD within Hotel Topeka at the boundaries of that property and does not include any of the mayor. Uh the reason for that is the county has already uh established a two cent CI on the entire expo property and I intentionally use the word expo because it was platted as the expo center plat. And so all of that property in the expo center except for Hotel Topeka was included in the CI that the county commission established. Thank you. This is in my district and I'm going to receive calls. So I want them to know that this does not include the Chzn neighborhood, the Clinton Heights neighborhood, uh Central Highland Park. I don't represent them, but further on. Um, this only includes the property that was outlined in red. If you could put that back up for me, okay, which is which is um around what I call the storm or expo, but Stormmont Bell Event Center.

So, this is just this is just Hotel Topeka. That area outlined in red is just Hotel Topeka, including the little um roundabout that we have right in front of it and the parking lots in the little grassy patch that we have on the north side. Does not include any of the expo center. Thank you,

Council Member Hiller. Just to clarify though for the neighborhoods and and for viewers, I mean between what the county is doing a 2% sit on and what the Hotel Topeka would be, then 100% of the Expo Center grounds from Topeka Boulevard to Western and from 17th to to 21st Street, anything that's going on on that property is is going to be under that 2% SID. Correct. Yes. Yes. Yeah. It'll be either under the counties or the cities payable either to the city or the county, but all of it will So any events there are going to have that search charge,

but but you're right. I mean, it doesn't spill over. Thanks, Council Member Hoer. I'm sorry, Deputy Mayor Hoer. Whatever. Oh, um Braxton, I was just curious, does the CD area match the legal description of what Endeavor is buying? Uh yes, we pulled the legal description right off of the the deed for the for the property. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Thank you.

And and great question. And we've had the discussion with with Roy and he is completely comfortable with the city putting the CD the 2% CD on the on the property. He knows he's going to take it subject to that. All right. I don't see any other comments or questions. So with that, we have a motion to approve from Council Member Banks, a second from myself. If there's no other comments, then I will ask the clerk to take the vote. Okay, we have eight. Yes, the motion carries.

All right, we'll move on to action item 5E. The clerk would please read. E is a resolution introduced by city manager Dr. Robert Perez recommending approval to authorize the disposal of real property located at 1335 Southeast 21st Street as described in exhibit A for the land bank consideration. City manager. Thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. Quinn Cole, senior management analyst will lead us through this item.

Hello again, members of the governing body. I'm here to request the approval to authorize the disposal of city-owned real property located at 1335 Southeast 21st Street to be considered by the land bank. Um about this property, it is located on the corner of Southeast 21st in Southeast Michigan and it's a single family residentially zoned property appraised at $1,520 and this is in our central Highland Park neighborhood. uh some special considerations. Upon the conveyance of this property, we are going to reserve additional right ofway so that the right of way on 21st Street matches the lines the property lines of the neighboring properties. Um and with that, I'll stand for any questions.

All right, any questions? Council member Ortiz. Miss Quinn, take me there. I'm at I'm at 21st in Adams. So, I want to go I want to go down two streets. Is that correct? I think so. Yeah. Is that the Is that the property next to um the creek there? Um I don't know how close it is to the creek, but it is in a residential area. Sort of block east of Washington. Is this my parking lot that I've been talking about? This isn't. No, this is not the parking lot. No, that's on the other side. That's on the other side. Yeah. This is a wooded area. Okay. So, this is on the uh south side. Yes. Okay. I got you. Yep.

Quinn, you got to take me there sometimes. You got it. Been here for a while, but I can't. We have a motion to approve from council member Ortiz. A second from council member Bradberry. There's no other comments or questions. All right. I will ask the clerk to take a vote. We have eight. Yes. The motion carries. All right. Thank you, Quinn. Mr. Mayor. Yes. Council member Ortiz.

Miss Quinn, can you go to that parking lot at 21st and Adams? When are we going to get rid of that? Because it's just sitting there. No, I No, I don't I I we we don't know. We'll get you a report. Yeah, because it's it's it's just there. We maintain it and and it's just there. We could put two, three houses there. I think someone was interested, so nothing happened and now we can we'll get you some information on that. I don't I don't know the status, but I know somebody can find it for you. I mean, we could put three houses. I can get maybe three, four more votes out of there. I don't know, but

All right. Well, move on to item six, non-action items. City clerk A is a discussion of the fiscal year 2027 proposed budget. City manager.

Thank you, mayor, members of the governing body. Before turning this over to Josh, um this is our second uh proposed FY27 proposed budget work session. Uh as a reminder, we met on uh January 27th. Uh the intent is to really start the discussion uh of our 2027 proposed budget. um basically to uh provide uh facts for you, information, data. Uh since the uh last work session, Josh has been providing a lot of feedback to you. Um tonight, you'll see some of that feedback. Uh there's things also to um council member Bradberry had asked about us putting together a uh public survey to get uh priorities from the community. And so those are some of the things that we're working on as well. Um this evening again as mentioned we'll be providing uh more feedback some additional data to you. Uh and then our hope is that um as part of the discussion uh you can share with us some of your priorities uh as we move forward in crafting the proposed budget this year. With that I'll turn it over to Josh.

Just just quickly we we do have someone signed up for public comment on this item. But what I'll do is I'll have Josh give his presentation. You can ask questions during that and then before though we open up other questions and conversation. we'll we'll do the public comment and then have that conversation. Just want to give everyone the road map. Take it away, Josh.

Thank you, city manager. Um good evening, governing body, mayor. Um obviously like city manager said, we're talking a little bit about the 2027 budget tonight. Um and so just getting into the agenda, we'll talk about kind of historical budget trends, answer some of the questions uh that were posed at the last session. Um review some of the policy considerations, talk about timing of a sales tax initiative um if that route is chosen. and then um just review review the calendar for the year. So just getting into it kind of like we said last last week general fund the largest expenditures in the general fund are personnel and so what we provided on the screen is just what we spent from 2022 to 2025. So the main thing to take away from the slide is obviously we did we had some union reopeners in 23 and then we had some union contracts kick online in 25. So that's where that growth has occurred. Now, one thing to keep in mind is this isn't all the city's personnel cost. Obviously, we have our utilities funds that um pays for employees. We have our special highway fund that pays for employees, our parking fund, etc. This is solely within the general fund. So, it could be it could be a case where the public works department has other employees within its department, but they're not paid in the general fund. So, just one thing to keep that in mind. And then also too, obviously the increase from the 25 actuals to the 26 budget is pretty high. 26 budget assumes fully staffed. Obviously, we're not fully staffed right now. We have a budgeted we have about a budgeted position about um 1,174, but currently we only have a headcount about 1,070. So, that's just one thing to keep in mind. And then also, this isn't just base wages. This is health care. This is any overtime, standby pay, any payroll taxes, uh KP&NF. So, this is what we call those fully loaded costs. So that's that's one thing to keep in mind on this too. Um

there we go. So um kind of just revealing so just in the general fund um in 2026 791 and then and looking back into 2022 781 FT so it's gone up by 10. Um part of that were some of new services like the planning housing services division was added within that time and a couple of other things. Um and then also when we projected um last week we that projection for 27 automatically assumed and also in 26 that we unfunded or froze 10 police officer positions um seven firefighter positions and a battalion chief and then emergency preparedness manager. So, we didn't eliminate the FTE, but we lowered our budget authority within the within the 26 budget and 27 budget just to uh make it balance within the amount of resources we had. And then one thing that I'm still working on, and I apologize I haven't gotten this out yet, is um department level changes that are not um personnel related. So, I thought I'd hit the macro high level ones tonight and then all and then later on um hopefully later this week or early next send out specific department ones. And so what you can expect to see over the next uh week or two is what changed within each department. Now um those will be material changes which which is are we paying a vendor more? Did the subscription go up within a within a certain contract? Um or are we doing more of something? Not necessarily did we switch vendors but we're still paying the same amount. So we may not have paid a vendor from 21 to 23, but now we're paying them in 24 and 25. So we want to kind of fine-tune that and make sure it's as accurate as possible. That way it's not misleading at all. But just getting into the macro highle items. So we talked about this a lot. So from 21 to 25, what we paid the county in terms of inmate charges went up a million dollars. Um our property insurance um from 20 21 to 20 25 went up $1.4

million. our health insurance claims skyrocketed um five by $5.3 million in in four years. And then um same thing with prescription judge charges. And then also too over the last 18 months or 14 months, we've been switching ERP systems. So we've kind of had to go online with two systems to run concurrent. So there's obviously extra cost associated with that in the short term. Now in the 27 budget and onward, we're just paying for one system. But that's just something to keep in mind is as we made this transition from 24 to 26. Um, and then what I did pull forart department specific and obviously there's there's there's quite quite a bit more are um things that went up. So our public defender contract that was renewed two years ago that went up because we changed vendors. Um our our body cameras that went up in cost. Uh traffic engineering service in the public works department that went up. Uh and then also too what you can expect to see when we provide it is um a lot of those project commodity costs such as concrete, copper, and asphalt that's not necessarily purchased out of the general fund. That's purchased out of the utilities fund either through their projects or the citywide halfcent sales tax fund. But we'll kind of give you on our bid documents how that those have transitioned over time from 21 to 25 to show any any inflationary increase. Obviously, there's been some, but just to give you an idea of what a street project um that was one mile long cost in 21 versus 2025. Um and then so kind of just some reduction scenarios. So obviously we can transfer money into the general fund. Um we can uh delay projects, shift more of our million in the general fund. If we didn't structurally change how we were, we would this is what each of the proration of cut would look like. So a 2 and a half% cut, those are the figures,

5% cut, 7 and 12% cut cut, 10% cut, etc. Um, just to give you an idea of what how much would be in each departments. Now that's a very just highle overview. Obviously, we'd want to we'd we'd want to go in each department, see what's working, what's what's not working because some departments may the council may prioritize, hey, we know we really need that, but um this other thing another department may not be as high of priority. So, this is just kind of just to show you what the numbers would look like. Obviously, there's some fine tuning, which is why we're talking early on in the process. Um and then couple of other things. This is just kind of a review of the slide from uh a couple weeks back. So, um things that we want to get decided are the kind of what does our CIP want to look like? And obviously we're doing that in April and May, but the thing that we want to hit home on what projects do we want to actually commit to because if we're holding a project in 2028 or 2029, we have to hold dollars today in order to pay for that in the future. So, uh, but if we don't commit to that, we can maybe potentially use some of those dollars in in the 2027 budget. Obviously, we've talked about Project View quite a bit. Um, that's a $ 1.5 million economic development grant that's going to be paid back over 25 years. Um, and then we also have to have a 1.1 million purchase price for the parcel. That payment um would be made in October 2026 um and come out of this year's budget. Um, and then also anything to do with the hotel. We didn't have any operating transfers plugged in for the 2026 budget for the hotel, but any money that we get from a from a conceived sale would come back into the general fund for this year because that's where we've been paying those transfers like we did a couple weeks ago out of the general fund. Um just a reminder, a couple other things to keep in mind. Um contracts that are expiring obviously for 2026 will be up

for a utility two utility unions and asking water and WPC. And then we'll be back at it again in 2027 with the big ones, police, fire, teamsters, aft, which is a large portion of the city. Now, um, on the revenue side, our utility rates are currently set for 3 years for 24 through 2026. We'll discuss that throughout this year on what our next rate cycle will look like. Um, we talked, we kind of floated this idea at the last meeting. Um, we have a builtup halfcent citywide halfcent sales tax fund balance. Do we want to use some of that built-up fund balance to help help our uh current operations, which is our street department that fixes potholes um that maintains just general street maintenance purposes? And then also our parking fund, as we reviewed, expenses are outpacing revenue. So, we could have the bond payments that are currently paid out of the parking fund be paid out of the high uh fund balance we have out of the debt service fund in order to get by for a couple more years. Um, something else that's been talked about too is increasing our permitting and planning fees to run profit neutral. We run about $600,000 expenses over revenue. Do we want to increase that all in one year over a 5year period, three-year period, um, what have you to eventually run profit neutral? And then finally, um, do we want to talk about doing a an additional sales tax initiative to where we could have, um, 4% go to a general public safety and a fire station replacement program and then the the last.1% go to affordable housing and homelessness initiatives. So those are some of the policy considerations I think that are going to be brought forward to you throughout the course of the year just to consider. And then this was prepared by the legal department and I know the law has changed um and I'll let Nick talk to that if there's questions on it but just I'll just go through the first column.

So uh if we wanted to have a vote in November 2026 hypothetically and full disclosure, yes, the council has to vote on that and eventually the public has to vote on it too. But um the council will approve any election um language ballot that would be sent to the election office in July 2026. that has to be published 21 to 60 days before elections. Um then the election would be held in on a November ballot and then you can only collect on the first day of a quarter um and has to be 90-day notification period. So we have our hand and choose if we obviously there's a lot of prior steps to be done but if this was the route that was chosen on some of those dates you could choose which date you could start collecting. So it's just something to keep in mind. Um but obviously again that has to be voted on by the governing body and eventually the public. And then finally, um I always think it's good to have a proposed budget calendar on this. So obviously tonight's the second time we're talking about the 2027 budget. Um but then we'll kind of get kicked off in uh April, May of presenting the CIP to where again the CIP informs our operating budget because that's where our capital projects are listed out at and a lot of our revenue sources that could help fund our general fund also fund our capital fund. So it's really depends on a policy decision. Does our count does the council want to prioritize funding keep the funding levels the same for the capital budget or do we want to divert some of those funds? um into the operating budget. Ultimately, that's a governing body decision, but that's why we do the capital budget first and then um obviously um staff will keep working on saving any money that we can now and the meantime between um when the budget's presented eventually in July. But then it's just typical um standard policies where we had to have our various RNR and public

budget hearings and then um eventually we'll have to approve a budget in September to be submitted to the county clerk by October 1st. So that's just a quick and high level overview of the calendar that we've reviewed before, but always think it's good just to have it have it fresh on everyone's mind. So with that um on it obviously we're we're happy to answer any questions or discussions and again I haven't provided the specific non-personnel department increases. I talked a little bit about the macro level changes tonight but I'm hoping to get that out um relatively soon. There's a rough draft but I just wanted to make sure and then have departments review it too. That way if there was something that was discontinued for 3 years and we we chose a new vendor, it wasn't misleading. it wasn't misleading when it goes to the governing body. So, we're going to fine-tune that and then hopefully send that out as soon as possible.

All right, Council Member Bradberry, and then I'm going to open up to public comment. Council member Bradberry.

Uh, yes. Yeah, I'm trying to bring up my um questions here on the um when you were talking about the increases in some of those departments like the health insurance and the um uh inmate charges in the what what exactly does incur? Sorry. I'm having a heck of time this evening. What contributed to those increases?

So, I'll start with the health insurance. Uh, essentially, uh, we chose to have more coverage on some of our plans that we provided. And so, there there was more of a claim cost increase within our health insurance fund. And so, uh, we had to raise our premiums that the employer and employee paid paid into those funds, um, over the last couple years. Now, that was a huge increase from for 2026 and a a moderate increase for 2025, but essentially the city was providing more more ser more services and we didn't have a revenue to cover on the back end. Um, or we were using fund balance to cover that uh that increase. But um and then we made changes to the plan in mid in mid 2025 and we've seen those claims go down quite a bit um to where we should be our health insurance fund should be pretty stable for the next 3 years I would say since we did make a $2 million transfer into the fund and did increase the employer side by almost 15%. Now, on the inmate charges, that's partly twofold. Um, that contracts, and I'll I could have judge come up here if he wants to speak on it more, but that contract, the two variables you have to look at are the hours served and then um also the the price fluctuation over time. So, from 25 to 26, that went from $4 um a day or an hour, I can't remember the exact time stipulation, to 416, but that's gone up. that's gone up in both hours and and payment negotiated with the county.

And on the property insurance charges, um what what contributed to the increase in in that? I think that's we I would need to get with HR and our uh our broker to see um what what contributed to that. I'm not as familiar with that. Uh okay. But I I need to I would need to circle back on that one. Okay. Um I do have other questions on the department specific, but I don't want to Yeah, we'll do public comment first and then I think the judge was going to add a quick comment here.

Yeah, I was just going to address the uh Curry Antidani, administrative judge for municipal court. In 2023, uh, Councilwoman, we took over prosecution for domestic violence cases, and that's kind of been one of the biggest, uh, drivers of this increase in jail costs. Um, you know, for example, now on one of my dockets now, we have a individual that's got seven cases. And so when the time domestic related, when the time comes for sentencing, if the city prosecutors are going to recommend 180 days in jail, you know, in all likelihood, the judges are going to accept that to keep not only the victim safe, but the community safe. Uh this last year, we did renegotiate from $4 an hour per inmate to 417 an hour per inmate. city manager and I have looked at the numbers. The financial impact per year with that increase of 17 cents is around 60 to 70,000 a year tops. Um in a way a lot of these defendants do have companion cases that are state charges and if that's the case a person's being held on the city and the county we don't get build for that. So along with mental health, drugs in the community, domestic violence, that's sort of the explanation for why those costs have been increasing.

Thank you. That's helpful, especially if people in the community are watching to understand how how those costs came about. Yeah, because on average, that's you it's a little less than this, but that's 100 bucks a day for have to put whenever we have someone in the jail. So that's that adds up. But I mean to the judge's point, I don't think we want to not put people who need to be in jail in jail. Um, you know, and that's Yeah. No, but that's that's kind of the two quick points then we'll call I guess first Josh, can you tell us what time period are we looking at on these lineup? Is this one year, two years, five years? Uh, sorry. What's So slide five that is from 20 I Good question and I'm sorry I should have denoted that. That's from 2021 to 2025. Okay.

Sorry about that. So it's a fiveyear. Okay, that doesn't make it any better, but that helps. No, those weren't one year jumps. It's just Yeah. Um, all right. We do have one person signed up for public comment. That is Danielle Twimllo.

Thank you. Um, I did go and watch um the previous budget um meeting that you guys had as a special meeting and I really appreciated to you all taking that extra time to have that discussion um and heard some things that I thought were really promising. Um, Councilwoman Hiller mentioned needing to really show that we're being good stewards of the money so that when we're asking for increases in and sales tax, um, we need to be proving that before we ask those questions. Um, I think Mayor Duncan mentioned looking uh more closer into certain budgets and those are all really important. Um, I appreciate the request for a survey about what that public um, dollars could look like if a sales tax happened. However, I would like to know um what those previous survey that we spent I think like $70,000 on to um survey the community just this last time we talked about having um a sales tax increase last year. Um I believe we spent money to survey roughly 500 people um before that and I don't recall ever seeing those results. So that would be great. Um because it was specifically also part of that sales tax question was for public safety. Um and you know I want to throw out some things that um I think is really important for us to look at when we're talking about that kind of stuff. Um you know everyone deserves a living wage. um we know that the general public is not receiving that living wage, but just from um these numbers, you know, when we're talking public safety, um in this period of time that Josh has developed for us in this chart, um the police department had a 50.95% um increase um in their budget in that 4-year period of time. um you know, police and fire, public

safety take up 70% of our our general fund um with zero dollars dedicated to any prevention or intervention measures. Um we know by the National League of Cities, the statistics and data on return of investment is very clear. For every dollar that we spend on intervention and prevention, we have a $3.50 to $17.70 return on investment. that would help with our uh cost into um the Department of Corrections. That would help with our cost um in, you know, all realms of our city with our um unsheltered, with our homeless, with our um poverty rate. Um, so we know that if we were sending these funds, this this public safety dollars um to some percentage of that to these prevention and intervention measures, um, it would benefit everyone. Um, I do want to point out just I'm thank you for for finding those things that we've had the biggest changes on, but just so everybody is aware, um, that in 2015, uh, Senate Bill 18, um, demands that Exxon body cameras are required. So we we have to keep that contract as is. Um utilities department um saw a 55.87% increase in their endofear fund balance over that period of time. A 55.87% increase in their endofear fund balance. So I think we really need to be thinking about that. That far outpaces inflation when we're talking about the median household income increasing in that same time period 2.19%. um poverty rates haven't budged and slightly increased. The cost of living has increased 18%. Um so we have solutions. We need to do a full audit of how this funding is going. We need to be investing in prevention and intervention

measures. We need to be doing a cost um burden analysis to do tiered programs for water department and do a projection of what those revenue would be if we started uh building in an incentive string on uh a stream on that incentive. Thank you.

All right, the questions, comments from the governing body. We're good. All right, Council Member Hiller.

Um, thank you. It's kind of holding back a little bit. City manager and Josh, I' I've made a lot of recommendations before and I'm hoping that there's no need to bring them up again. So, regarding debt and and uh overall budgeting, something I'm not seeing that I um I'd like to at least put out is I know that preparing the entire budget book with all sources of income, not just general fund is a bigger deal than just talking about the general fund. But I think without putting the entire budget together and and as you're able to do the different sources of funds that come into any particular department, that's the only way that we really have a full picture of how much staffing we have in a department where we can really do a full comparison to what what the staff and the eb and flow is of staffing and the programming at the same time. Um it it varies what some of our other sources are targeted for and in some cases they could eb and flow amongst the expenses because the certain expenses that we're looking at could be eligible for funding from more than one source. Um and so I I just feel like we're we're kind of doing the budget with blinders on if we're not seeing all the pieces at this at the same time. Josh, I I'll take that. Um, so in our first work session, we showed you an all kind of an all funds fund schedule that showed everything from uh our um from our general fund to uh our health insurance funds. I mean, we kind of gave you a full picture of everything that was in there, right?

We've identified some of those areas where there, you know, potential overlap. We talked about like use of the halfsent citywide sales tax to supplement some of the uh positions that are in um the motor fuel tax, our public works folks. So, so we have that. Um essentially what what we're trying to get from you tonight, we're not trying to make the budget tonight, but we're trying to get your priorities. We're trying to get your feedback. Um again, some of those policy discussion items, the considerations on slide 7. I mean, those are those are some of the things that we've been floating uh both in this room as well as individually. Um, and so again, we've we presented that kind of that all funds fund schedule already. Um, and we we actually attached it to the item. I you brought up an example that is really important to me, but it didn't sound like the recommendation went anywhere, and that is, you know, with the halfsent sales tax that's for rebuilding our our existing city streets and sidewalks and so on. Um, we've got that coming up in two years for people to renew. Um, it was supposed to be to rebuild the streets. And so, if we aren't done building the streets, last time I asked for a a master plan for where we are with all of the main streets, so we've got an idea how close we are to quote finished before we would divert any money away. That's a good example, but I I'm I I I don't Each one of those is an entity unto itself. Um, but it's not just Robin Peter to pay Paul to get by for next year. There's there's other consequences. So, I I again, I hope that the those suggestions are are taken very seriously because if you can't see the whole thing at once, it's hard to know what you're moving over and what's left what what's left behind. Um, council member, we have a I mean, we

we have a an inventory of streets that need to be uh either mil and overlaid or reconstructed. And I mean uh obviously that that need uh that inventories exceeds the amount of available resources. Going back to your uh point about the halfsent sales tax supplementing our streets crews, those projects whenever we award to a contractor, we pay for the contractor salaries and that. So that that was part of the rationale was if we're paying for the salaries of contractors to complete these projects, I I think that it's a it's an acceptable use to pay for the salaries of our employees who are doing the same work. So um so that's just something uh again as we put it here as a policy consideration that that was the rationale behind that. Well, I even prior to being on the council, those discussions occurred and and we did put three full-time positions in oh, I don't know, probably four or five years in, but going to we've gone back and forth about taking money out of that to pay for the snow melt equip um materials and we it was done for a year or two and we backed it back out, which I'm grateful for um similarly to do just preventive maintenance when that fund was intended to be to bring the streets up so that we could do the preventive maintenance on them. Um and and keep them all in good shape. Again, we need to see a whole picture of what that inventory looks like and how we are. We talked about it a little bit last time in terms of mill and overlaying. Uh for instance, 10th Street that only got a mill and overlay the first time and fell apart. So we, you know, what's the best way from a management point of view to get that in in in that example. Um, I had another question. Got a short list.

No, it's fine. So, we're here exactly what we're here for.

We started out with this $15 million balance figure as of today with what what's adjusted here. Where are you thinking we are? So, in the in the slide that was presented three weeks ago, the the amount of if we don't structurally change revenues, we're going to be about $127 million in expenses um all in $140 million. Now, accounting for project view, if we make that $2.6 million cash payment that's coming out of our general that's going to come out of our general fund somewhere in 202 if we commit to that project and we pay that out in October 2026. So that's if we spend that out in 2026, that's less money we'll have for the 2027 budget. So that's how that $15 million was um derived. Now, one thing that I will continue to harp on and I I'm glad you brought up your first point about how funds come, right? So one specific example is our health insurance fund where that is largely funded 80 on average 85% um from the general fund. So that money is then transferred from the general fund as an expense into the health insurance fund as a revenue. So if claims continue to go down as we think, we hope we can chop bits and pieces off of that that $15 million. Now, I'll just be honest with you, there's it there's not enough bits and pieces to make up that $15 million. But I hope as we get more information through the first three, four months of the year, that number is going to come down a little bit. Um, but that's that's kind of where things stand.

Okay. So, so actually the 15 if if I'm following you went down to about 13 something, but then because we have the extra money that we need to put into project view, it brings it back up to the 15 more or less. Yeah. Is that what you're saying?

Okay. I mean, it helps me to know which one is a one-time thing and which one is operating budget. So, again, it just helps to to see that. Um, one of the ways we'd wanted to, again, I I hope we just we can look at them from a management point of view. What are we trying to do? Are we getting it done? Are there some economies? Um, one of the things we've talked about for the last number of years was in increasing the number of staff engineers so that we could reduce the amount of contract work we were doing for in for both engineering and and project management on on our projects. Is any we got a fabulous new engineer. I know that. and we're and staff was talking about doing some of these extra mill and overlays with in-house engineers for the first time in forever and I I think that's great. Is there a factor in yet for further filling of positions that we have and reductions of contracted engineering?

So just I'm going to speak high level in principle. If, let's say, we hired three or four more engineers and we didn't have to pay consultants, the city would save money overall, but that would be savings within the citywide halfcent sales tax fund and any um capital budget project and way it was funded. Those pro those really aren't we don't do much services out of the general fund. Now, one one thing that was on slide four or five, if we had a full-time traffic engineer, we that person would be doing services that we currently pay WSP and Banish to do. So, there would be savings in that regard. But by and large, um project time is charged to the citywide halfcent sales tax fund and any other project fund. In terms of saving money in the general fund, a traffic engineer would if we had a traffic engineer, I'll let Braxton or Jason speak to this. Hopefully, we could we could rationalize getting off those on call traffic engineering salaries or services to third party.

Well, city manager's got a response. to me that kind of combination of management dollars budgeting um that gives us some targeting on what to do with our staffing to keep the great people that we have use their talents. You know, one of the things we've been I think that we've been suffering with for years is when we had so much contracted out, if you were a staff engineer for the city, you were just supervising other people who were getting to do the work instead of getting to do it yourself. And so there's a there's a win-win in pulling pulling it back in. And and Josh, please correct me if I'm wrong, but we also I think we've reduced that line item $300,000 as we've been bringing engineers on.

Yeah. So, well, I don't know if it's necessary because we brought engineers on, but that was part of the the cut from in the 26 budget is we did have $600,000 proposed, but that that was capped at $300,000. But the reason we're we're using WSP and other third parties is we we haven't had a traffic engineer in in two two and a half plus years. Um so but if we had a traffic engineer, we could we could definitely look at that and have those services in house kind of like you're referring to. Um that money would that money is specifically coming out of the general fund. Um but most of that other project time is in regards to the citywide housecent sales tax fund.

But again, it all goes into a pot at a certain point. And so if we can save millions of dollars on contracted engineering because we've got a couple more in house, that's huge.

Um, also, um, I was involved in a couple of conversations today. I think everybody knows I'm working on changing our culture of property maintenance and and John Shardan and I were talking about how we calculate billable hours when we do in our case we were talking about code compliance and abatement kinds of things but all over the city um whether it's on a regular basis or when there's been a disaster and we're putting together a a a voucher to FEMA um we've realized that in the past anyway that the city was under billing for what our actual costs were. And so I would suggest, and this is a new one as far as I know for all of our budget considerations, that we do an audit or look inventory of where we are billing our own timeout and make sure that we are optimizing fairly of course what we're billing. Uh, for instance, if somebody's on a on a site cleanup for an hour, um, it took a half hour to get get ready, a half hour to get there, and a half hour to get back, and a half hour to put the truck back. So, it wasn't just one hour of billable time was probably four things like that. But also um even the hourly rate that we use for our employees, you you don't use their salary and just divide it by 2,000 and and some change because there are taxes, health insurance, vacation, and annual leave. That reduces the number of hours that you actually would want to use for your math to come up with what our net is for frontline service. um we were just looking at some samples and it it was it was thoughtprovoking in

terms of maybe something we could look at overall wherever we're doing that citywide. So I would suggest that um I think that's it for now. Thank you. Questions or comments from other members? Josh, you talked about we have 1,174 positions, 170 of them currently filled. Are we going through those and prioritizing those, I guess, for lack of a better word, to determine what we can keep unfilled or eliminate versus what we absolutely need to to fill as we go through this process?

I I would defer to the city manager. I because he handles ultimately all the staffing decisions at the end of the day. But um I just know in my span of control I've done that. Um but I I think that's something we definitely need to talk about as we unfold the process. Short answer is yes. I think we've shared some of the thoughts with you especially as we have been been filling some of our executive vacancies and uh leaving some of those positions vacant that may be vacated through some of those promotions. So the short answer is yes. Um and and again we'll look at that as we continue to experience vacancies. Uh when do we expect to get the CIP the council members?

So we're hoping um let me look at a calendar. We're hoping late March um and targeting for uh that first week of April to go over it publicly but hopefully get it a week or two before to the council members. Okay. Council member Bradberry. Maybe.

Yes. Um I was curious 27 reduction scenarios slide. Um, is that just a I mean just a number pulled percentage-wise or were there certain um considerations taken in to to get to those numbers? Like for example, does that 2 and a half or 5% include FTE reductions? Does it include delay in hiring or OOE or other administrative expenses? or is that how did how did what does that include or is that just a a a number for um just an example?

Council member, that that is just a number for an example. Um I think what we're trying to show is that our defic our deficit is projected at $15 million. Even at a 10% reduction across all those departments, we're still at 13.2. So there there's nothing behind it. It's more just for illustration, uh more for reference. One of the things I've brought up the last couple years and maybe eventually we'll decide whether it's a really good idea and do it or close the door on it. But when I talk to staff who budgeting staff of different departments, they all say this would be a great idea. Not all of them, but most of them. So right now I think we run our IT budget oddly in the sense that our IT department crosses into every department provides services and equipment to most of our departments. Yet we have every department doing their own budgeting for all of their individual IT instead of it who's really managing all of that be the budgeting hub and then distributing those products via their own department. Right now, it's not that this leads necessarily to massive savings on the immediately, but it would give then it some more control over helping control some of those costs by knowing this department needs this every year. So, we're going to make sure they get it, do the request through them. Great. We're going to budget. And so, I would really like us once again to take a serious look. And it's going to take somebody who's smart to actually sit down and figure out how to untangle all that. Um, but I think in the long run it could lead us to some savings through it just because then they have a complete picture that's right in front of them versus, you know, everybody trying to do their own thing and then peacemealing it out. So, so just something I would encourage us to once again for my third year in a row bring it up and this I may push a little harder this year, but I'd

like us to take a look at as we get into the budgeting process. Y definitely. Yep.

Um, the other thing I'll throw out to the universe because this will be fun. Um there is currently a bill in the legislature that could become law, some version of it by the time this session is over. Um and it we'll see what it looks like when it's done. But there's two versions of it that could impact this discussion because both versions would take effect immediately before we hit October one and have to submit a budget. as introduced. The couple of big things it would do is originally as intended, it would have said we would submit our budgets on October 1 and if our property tax portion of our budget exceeded 3% over the prior year and it would only include immediate new growth, nothing, not our bonding, not any of those other tiffs and incentives that come off in that year. it would go to an election in November and the the citizens. So if we submitted a budget that said it was a 5% of that growth in that category, it would if it's 3% or less, no vote of the people, we just lock it in. Anything above that would go to a vote of the people in November. And at that point, it wouldn't be for the immediate budget in 27. It would be for determine that for 28. I think we can all decide that even the legislature first blush said that doesn't seem manageable to do two-year out budgeting. So, there was an amendment that now makes it a petition and it would require 10% of signatures uh from 10% of the people who voted in the last presidential election and if it got the 10% and you went above the 3% you'd have to you drop back into that 3% number and work have to figure out your budget that way. That petition would happen that before the October one deadline. So probably in the July August window, giving us September to figure that out. Um that'll be that would be very significant to how we budget including this budget and the impact that would have on on this budget. Um so they also made some amendments that with the petition process that would actually

include bonding and debt that would actually include some additional new growth which would also help the cause. Um they will vote on that tomorrow in the in the House and then we'll see what the Senate does with it. Um, so I just want to give everyone a heads up that as we're doing this budget, that doesn't stop what we're doing. But come July 1 or actually come the end of March when they go home, that could be the new law of the land, which will, you know, complicate all this. So, I just wanted to put that out there in the universe. Um, all right. Any other questions or comments from the council? If I may.

Yes, Council Member Bradberry. Um what are the some of the things that we can do now to start um realizing some savings 427? Good question.

So council member I think uh the first thing that that we talked about is as we are consolidating I'll give you an example. We recently consolidated our procurement and uh finance division uh through a promotion uh for our economic development uh director uh and with the combination of procurement and finance, we're leaving a division director position vacant and that'll be one of our recommended cuts for 27. Um, so you know, going going to I think it was the mayor's question as far as how we prioritize uh positions and and the things that we look at that that is just one example of of how we're looking at our um how we're looking at our positions uh to you again to freeze and then to uh to cut uh recommend proposed to eliminate as part of the seven budget. Um, as as Josh mentioned, we built in uh I guess what we would call mandated turnover or or unfunding of 10 police officer positions and seven firefighters and a battalion chief. Those are things that we built into our 2026 budget. Uh, and I think between like those two, I think we're saving somewhere like $1.6 million. So, those those are things that we've already built into our budget. And again, we'll take opportunities um to keep positions vacant uh as we either consolidate or uh consolidate departments or uh as we make uh promotions and things of that nature.

Council member Kell, I've said this before. When it comes to our staff, uh our biggest thing we need to watch for is not hurting our staff uh with overworking them by cutting too many people. Uh when it comes to the fire, police, not hurting the community by cutting too many of them. Uh we seem to be having an issue over what previous 6 months uh prior to this was a lot of lot of house fires were going on and uh we can't have burnout and then all that overtime on top of that when we're now we're trying to to have people um fill those vacant positions and things like that and try to fill those holes. And then we get into the other aspect of when we start contracting work out or even just temps for certain certain aspects of the jobs, we're paying more for those jobs than what we do sometimes in house. So we need to definitely, you know, look if yes, if there are unnecessary positions, redundant positions, things that could be consolidated, uh definitely look there. But if we cut our staff too much, we're hurting hurting our staff and hurting our citizens uh because we can't get things done. And uh I know when it comes to certain aspects like when we earlier talked about roads, we don't have that many contractors to do that stuff. So if we don't have the staff to do it and we depend solely on the contractors, we're going to be way behind on that aspect of things. Uh so we definitely need to, like I said, look at our redundancies and where we can, but just to cut to cut is is is and I that's been some people's philosophies is is to me is a bad idea. and especially when it comes to the public safety sector of things. I understand that as a large large portion of our budget and the the mindset is well those been unfilled for let's say six months. Well, how often do we have classes and and that kind of thing and how often are

those classes full? You know, cuz it looks at and and you know, this is talking to the firefighters I've been able to meet with most when they're constantly haveing to maybe do overtime to fill fill in for vacant positions or to let people go on vacation. they're getting burned out and then they're wanting to take vacation which creates this huge cycle and then creates overtime. And if they could be fully staffed where they're not have to plug gaps, that saves us a lot of money and that saves our community by having firefighters who aren't burned out going out to try to put out all these fires that we have. So, um it it's just uh it's something that I know it's always the easy thing to look at staff and cutting staff, but to me it's not not the best when especially when it comes from the public safety side. Thank you.

So, I don't disagree with you, Council Member Kell. I agree with you in the standpoint that, and I've said this for years, I'm not a big fan of across the cut percentages, right? I think every department is unique and different and you have to be somewhat incisive and so sometimes that means you're going to have a different percentage from one department to the other. I think to your point that's a an approach. It's a little harder to do it that way in terms of the work we got to put in to get there, but it it addresses some of what you're talking about. I will say though, regardless of what decisions this council makes about revenue moving forward, whether it's sales tax or property tax or whatever that decision is, it's not going to fully fill this gap, right? And so we are going to have to make one or what I call one or two big tough decisions. That is just a fact. And that's that's our job. We're going to figure it out. But I think that's why over the next from this conversation and last month's conversation and the conversation we have in the next month, that's why Josh and the city manager and everyone else need to hear your priorities because when it comes time to make those one or two big decisions, staff will make them, right? Because they got to fill that vacuum at some point to get us a budget. But I know they would prefer that at least as they're making that decision, they know what we've prioritized along those lines so that we can have that discussion amongst ourselves and with the public about what the impacts of those decisions and that revenue decline is going to be um to get there. So just remember that as we continue to have this conversation that that letting everybody know what you prioritize over other areas is critical to that conversation when that time comes. and be ready when we come and say we've got to make one or two big decisions.

Um if I may, um mayor, I agree completely with what you're saying. Any of those decisions that we make along those lines have to be very targeted and specific to each department. Um I Councilwoman Ortiz had mentioned previously the voluntary retirement incentive program and there was a little bit of discussion about that. I'm not sure if which if the positions that may be eligible for retirement were ever um uh looked at um or what the potential cost impact budget that would be. Yeah. So, I I've actually have that information gathered. Um, but since this meeting got moved up a week, I haven't had a chance to meet with leadership. Um, in terms of cost, obviously, uh, it's going to vary on what your parameters are on whether or not you're paying X percentage of payout and then how long if you're offering health insurance. So, we can we'll the plan is to meet with more then we can send a memo out to council or brief brief um, in that manner.

Okay. Thank you. Any other comments or questions this evening from council? No. Anything else from Josh or staff at this point?

I just wouldn't want to say one more thing. Um, back to council member Bradberry's question on what are some things we can do now? And what I I always think CIP's our large besides personnel CIP or capital projects are our largest expenditures in the city. So I I'd encourage the council to go back and look at last year's CIP because it's really not going to change too much. Um, and see because just for example, if we delay $10 million of bonding for one year, that's theoretically almost $800, $900,000 that we could shift from our going into our debt service fund into our uh general fund to get us by and let our revenue growth rate catch up with our expense growth rate. Now, obviously that's not fun be in some capacity because that means we're not necessarily doing some projects when we originally intended to, but that's one of the trade-offs that the council can mow over as a policy decision. So, that's something to keep in mind, something to review. And, uh, and like I said, the CIP is not going to change too much. Um, but just something to keep in mind.

Okay. All right. Well, if there is nothing else, then we will move on to public comment. At this time, I'll call up the individuals signed up to speak. Remember that you have four minutes to address the governing body. If you haven't been here before, you'll get it'll beep at you once, but you still have one minute left after the first beep. And the timer is right there on the podium. So, first up, I have Mr. Ron Desh. You're all right. Welcome to the city council.

If I can definitely thousand years,

correct? I have pictures showing Lisa Gregson's home before this search that I will show you after all of this if you'd like to see it. Um, this raid, I'm sorry, not a raid, it was a it was a search October the 24th and um I'm slow getting around to this because I had four operations in 2025 and u a new knee put in November. So, I'm crippling around and I'm way behind and everything. I apologize for holding this up. Um, I was born in Topeka. I've lived here almost most of my life. And, uh, I graduated from Hayden High School, Washurn University. I retired from Kansas Highway Patrol. And so I know how things work around here, or at least how they used to. Uh, I took an oath when I became a law enforcement officer with the patrol and I took a very similar oath when I joined the Marine Corps. And I don't remember in any of those oaths promising that that I would be cruel or mean to people that I was sworn to protect. Um, this these pictures are Lisa Greg Gregson's apartment. Uh, I'm her stepfather. My wife Sherry is her mother. Uh, and Sharon and I own half of Lisa's condo. So, we are involved in this. I'm here to tell you that the Topeka Police Department is out of control. The pictures you see indicate a group who is unaccountable to citizens.

Is a bully mentality. When I went to the police station, I showed these pictures to the lieutenant in charge of professional standards. He said he wasn't shocked by the pictures. He claimed that a robot probably broke the four interior doors, but I'm not sure how the robot got to the second floor to break down the bathroom door and the bedroom doors. It's unlikely the robot broke the glass uh of of an unlocked storm door. And and one of the very first pictures there of that that door unlocked glass storm door was shattered. Now, I'm certain that the robot didn't open bottles of shampoo and oil to spill on the floor or to break candle holders and scatter the broken glass all over the floor of the bedroom. It didn't pull food out of the cabinets and drop it on the floor. The robot didn't cover security camera in Lisa's home, but one of the female officers did. Now, I'm not really sure why the police department or police officers who are doing a legitimate and and reputable search would have to cover up a security camera. Apparently, they didn't want to see who was doing this. Lisa's son was the subject of the warrant and it was legitimate. Uh he sometimes stayed with Lisa. So, the search for a gun he was accused of having was legitimate and the police department did find a gun. Ironically, his DNA was not found on the

gun, so it can't be used in a trial. So, all that damage was for not. Lisa and James are nice people, the owners of the condo. They don't cause problems for other people. They both work full-time. They have got good honest jobs. And Mr. D, your initial time is Do you need more time? I do. Is there any objection to two more minutes? You have two more minutes, sir.

Thank you very much. Uh, they're nice people. They don't cause other people any problems and they they don't deserve this kind of abuse. They're both severely depressed because of this. And you could probably see why. If this happened to you, you would you would be down in the dumps, too. They don't have it all cleaned up yet. And they still can't use the upstairs bedroom. We haven't filed a damage claim. And this is really sad. We haven't filed a damage claim with the city clerk. I was hoping to have an attorney advise us first. However, there is no attorney I can find who will touch this. Old friends of mine retired from the Topeka Police Department told me I wouldn't find an attorney. They were all afraid to lose the business they get from the city attorney's office. I'm still looking. I want to find an attorney because I really think this sort of thing should be a jury trial and covered by the news. I'm asking you, you take turns to go to these homes after the police do these searches or a trusted representative because if you folks in authority will go and watch this a little closer, I bet you it gets cleaned up really quickly. They're not going to leave a mess for you to see like that. Now, would you like for me to show you the before pictures? Mr. D, your time is up, but I will my office will do some followup on this and we'll I'll get in touch with you, have my assistant, and I'll get some followup and we can

we'll do some followup. Yeah, we just got these pictures late this afternoon. Didn't have time to get them printed off. So, Sure. Sure. Thank you. Yep. Thank you, sir. I appreciate this. Next up for public comment, I believe is Martha Boatight, I think online. Miss Boight, the time is yours. All right. Can you hear me? Yes, we can.

Okay. All right. Um, usually I'm here and I'm talking about tenant stuff and what have you, but sometimes you just see something that uh motivates you that's outside of your usual wheelhouse. And mine was watching the most recent Jedo meeting and hearing the people from Go to Peeka very enthusiastically talking about the eight offers for data centers to be built around Topeka Kansas. And since I know a lot of people don't follow JTO or some of the small like little kind of side committee meetings, they just watch city council. I wanted that to put that on people's radars. These are just initial um proposals that have been presented to um to go to as quote unquote business investments in our in our community. And of course the issue with that is that you know um as Kevin Cook at the uh meeting discussed uh data centers are disasters. They produce a massive amount of noise pollution and air pollution. Um, each one of these is going to be what 500 megawws or something like that of power that they're going to require. I mean, I'm hoping that this all gets nixed by Everg before it even gets to us. But, um, the the people there were being very enthusiastic and very strongly endorsing this in spite of the fact that these everywhere the data centers have gone up. um they produced a temporary increase in construction employments dur employment while during their construction and then just a handful of jobs afterwards because they are so low maintenance. Um they're not an ongoing investment. They wind up raising the um energy bills of everyone in the community because of the increased demand. Frequently they wind up ra um or draining water reserves because of the needs for cooling them. And also just you know the whole notion that we need

to get on board with these that are largely going in towards uh developing large language uh models large language learning models aka AI not really artificial intelligence but you know that's what everybody calls it because it's a growing field. It's a growing field. Yeah it is growing. It is growing exponentially. It's like a balloon or a I don't know bubble. Yeah, it's a bubble and this is not the sort of thing that really is the future to our investment in Topeka. And I know this is still often the future, but I also know that there was that the level of enthusiasm coming from the go toa people for these projects um trying to talk down the sensible voices in the room saying that this is a bad choice for Topeka were pretty strong. And so I wanted to bring both my opinion in on this and hopefully maybe get a few other people who listen in at these general meetings and not at JATO just to know that this is something that is being discussed and this is something that we for the good of our community are going to have to work hard to oppose if the people in GoPA are trying to support it. Thank you.

Thank you Miss Boatright. Next up I have Lloyd Schroeder. Welcome, Mr. Schroeder.

Many of you have changed over the years. My name's Lori Schroeder. I know I know you. I don't want any economics lessons from you. Um, but bless your heart for trying to educate, but I I've been here for about 30 years. I need no longer to be here. I have about six properties inside the parameters of Topeka. They will be gone within the next two to three years. as a 24% uh tax payer. Um, as far as I know, I try to maintain a mildmannered nature, but um, when when I had different businesses, you know, I looked at how much the city was charging me and I looked at how much was being stolen from me and you guys far exceed what the thieves have stolen from me. I mean, it's just fascinating to me. that this guy said, he goes, "Ah, you go there for vacation, you come back on probation." There's something psychologically wrong with this system. I spent 20 years ago, probably when I was younger and a lot dumber. I said that you guys should go to a a single city manager and you guys do your fun things and the manager can come cut some ties and that would be more efficient so we could just fire one person. But you guys somehow have created the magic and it just keeps going. I would encourage the city of Topeka to tell you guys 10% below and I would do it for the next five years so you don't have to worry and fret and everybody concerned. But also the fire department, couldn't they just drive out? I mean there works

what their schedule's seven days a month that they work because they get paid 24 hours a day whether they eat, sleep or or take a nap. I mean, if that is still true, then think about it. The other thing is there's got to be training so when you see things that are chaotic, you could react to them. I see a lot of things. I I I was just worried about getting my windows reimbursed if I followed this guy that stole buckets of of soap out of the Dillons and and I was worried about whether I was getting backed up by the city or I was going to be backed up by the county. I would have went after them if it was the county, but I don't want any friendly fire and they can't separate me from a crackhead. Okay? I mean, seriously. And when they cuffed me up, they cuffed me up backwards on my right wrist. And the kid was just scared out of his life. Probably one of those guys that just got out of the basement. But the whole thing is this. I showed up. I've done things. I've stood right there in front of that bench. And the city attorney lied. I paid the fee. I left. That's beep. I got one minute.

Yep.

And I left. I went out and the building was raised and he was saying testimony. He wasn't there next time I saw him. And we have a great system. You guys have great judge, a great deal, but can you kind of prosecute people that need it? You know, I mean, I get dragged out and uh I get to go spend Sunday at the jail house that wasn't clean. They tried to feed me things I would not eat. I thought one looked like the hill for a shoe, you know, and that was supposedly the meat. You know, if these people are sick, they need real food and then when they take medicine, it might have a benefit. But if you're gonna feed them like that that they can't eat. And I didn't get to eat until the last day and they finally bought me a baked potato. I was like, "Winner, you know, but and I've spent 27 years in law enforcement working in corrections. That was my part-time job. I wish you well and I will spend no more time wasting my time." But there's some sort of disease you guys have and it becomes worse because you're collaborated and it's disappointing. But I would hope for you and and three things if you would.

Your time is up. Do you need one more minute? Yeah. There's no object. Hold on, sir. There's no more. No objections. One more minute. Go ahead. One minute.

I would like to know how I looked at the budget. 1.2 million because 1.1 million was what was offered for that hotel. There was somebody that should have taken a haircut on that. That was I assume a banker. No haircut was given. You guys wrote out a check for $7 million. that that came out of of tax money and then I heard the last number you're going to get a million dollars for it if you do all these other things. You know, I would have been high welcome to Walmart. I couldn't afforded it. I would have had to write the check. And so if I I missed it and I would like to meet that that guy that was the the deal. The other thing is is um you have what $1.2 million. Why wouldn't you and you drive down Top Pigga Boulevard, it's no better than it was. I mean, those houses are still there. What if you guys wrote out $10,000 checks and made it a contract so they could fix the dang things up so they look nicer? At least a hollow. We want to spend million and hire our friends. I wish you well.

Thank you, sir. Next up, we have Mr. Henry Mccclure. I need a Kleenex. Thank you.

Hello, your honor. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. Maybe the chickens have come home to roost. I would like everybody in Topeka, Kansas to go down to the old AT&T building link, buy a cup of coffee from Sparrow Coffee, and then look where $9.5 million went. This is 46 years of real estate on my standpoint. I've never seen such elegant tenant finish. the um the uh the common areas there are a a A+. I've never seen this. That must be the nicest tenant finish I've ever seen in Topeka, if not anywhere else. I had an open checkbook on a project with John Hancock and I couldn't spend money to make it look like that. But the taxpayers ought to go down and see where their sales tax went as we're as we're grinding over this budget and thinking about, well, where could I get $9.5 million? And you gave it to the private sector. You gave it to a private citizen. And originally that sales tax was to fix those roads, but it was also designed to make people to want to live here, you know, increase the population and broaden the tax base. After 25 years, you haven't done it. So, you want to know where to put five, you want to get $5 million, one of those hard choices, cut off, go to PACA, and just put the money in our roads. Let's do economic development. That is economic development. Not this this there couldn't be a more perfect time

than to bring up um let's talk about the hotel too. So what you you had an offer and you didn't take it. I you know I can't control it. And by the way the uh the preacher did a good job today. It made me think of the serenity prayer. I've just never had the wisdom to know the difference because anybody can change. And uh let's talk about the hotel real quick. You didn't take an offer. You didn't counter offer it. You paid $554,000 to a consultant and nobody lost a job. Nobody got fired. I mean, what a perfect town. You know, you don't have to perform. You don't have to do well. But with this budget, with this budget coming up, maybe everybody can go go look at the AT&T building. Go check it out and see how the other half live. Think about it. You know, I hate to take up your time because this is truly deaf ears, but a lot of the people out there, 1,11 of us, think completely different of how we should do things in this community. I do think the chickens have come home to roost. Now, the young kids won't know what that means, but Google it, look it up. But the chickens have come home to roost. Good luck. Thank you.

All right, that is everybody I have signed up for public comment. So with that, we will turn to announcements. City clerk. All right. Uh nothing for me tonight. Just a reminder, we do not have a meeting next week, but um otherwise I'll have something next time. Thanks, city manager. Nothing tonight, sir. Thank you. All right, Council Member Banks.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, I would like to thank uh, Pastor Durant for showing up and doing our invocation tonight. I have to admit I haven't been to his church in a while. It's been a while. Have to make my way over there. But we do appreciate short notice and he showed up. He does live in my district. So, I'll be stopping by to ask if there are things you see that we're doing, things that we you'd like to see us do, and appreciate you for tonight. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member Kell.

Um, had a great time this last Friday at the uh Be Mine Bingo at the zoo. Uh, just remember we have great events like that and how much it supports the animals there. Um, I was able to uh become the 2026 uh wig snatching champion in a competition they had. Uh, they had some great prizes there uh that were able to meet uh the the uh tank the hippo and uh had different paintings from a couple animals and uh painted tea sets. So, uh there's always those those little little fun things in Topeka. Then you just need to get out and uh try to figure out what what's going on out there. and uh get involved because a great cause like the zoo that helps out the animals uh get a little bit more and and you get to interact with the staff that way also and you can bounce ideas off them to help them uh you know I bounced a couple off on how to uh in essence let the animals almost make their own money by having their own Facebook pages and monetizing those uh because uh that's a very simple easy way just to keep up um keep up the appearances with the animals on on social media idea cuz there's other zoos that do it and do a great job at it and they able they're able to uh let the animals uh kind of subsidize their own enrichment with that. So, you want to take a look at my award there?

Well, yeah. Thank you. So, all right. Thank you,

Council Member Bradberry. Um, I just want to say we had the opportunity to attend the um, fundraising dinner at TAC over the weekend, this past weekend, and it was they did an amazing job. It was beautifully done. Um, there were people from at our table from Perry and Lawrence that attended. Um, and I just thought it was, like I said, beautifully done, and I hope to see more um of those fundraising opportunities, uh, dinners from from TPACK. So, I just wanted to to mention that.

Council member McGee, I wanted to start by thanking the council for allowing me to delay uh, swearing in by a week. that helped me a lot and I appreciate that. Uh I am going through the onboarding process now and I would tell you I've I've been very impressed with the staff and you know they they do a lot of hard work. Thank you. Deputy Mayor, nothing tonight. Council member Hiller

just wanted to shout out in memoriam we lost Jesse Jackson today and he's someone that contributed so much to us as a country being who we ought to be over many many years. So he'll be missed but his contributions will live on. Thank you. That's it. Council member Ortiz.

Thank you Mr. Mayor, I just wanted to say to David that Pastor Durant may live in your district, but his church is in my district. And um he's a friend of mine. Good to see you, pastor. I just had to rub that in. In love. In love, pastor.

I can walk out of my back door and go to your house. Well, just a couple quick things. I I do want to welcome you, Council Member McGee. Welcome to the welcome to the council. Um, we're glad you're here. Glad to get the seat filled. You and I have a meeting coming up soon where I will dump a big pile of District 8 stuff in front of you and say, "Here, now you can handle those issues." Um, so I feel good about that if nothing else. Um, but glad to have you on board and especially as we head into budget discussions and and all the other important things facing the city. Um, I want to give a shout out to the Shauny Heights wrestling team who's every single member made the state tournament this past weekend. 14 of them, I think it was. So, good for them. Um, that's pretty impressive. We also also qualified. And then Topeka High had Kaia Dawkins, I believe was her name, qualify as a freshman uh for the state tournament. So, that's also pretty impressive. So, it's wrestling season. We're we're in the throws of basketball season, too. But it's also wrestling season and so um as someone who's got a friend who's a former Highland Park champion who's in their Hall of Fame, if I don't mention wrestling every once in a while, I'll hear it. So I want to make sure we we give a shout out to the wrestlers of Topeka. So congratulations to all of them. All of them. With that, we have no executive sessions. Is that correct? So I believe that means we can end this meeting. So I will adjourn. Thank you everybody.