City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the May 5th, 2026 Topeka Governing Body Committee meeting. If I can speak tonight, we're going to see. Um with that, I will turn it over to Council member Bradbury who's has a seat in this invocation. Please stand if you are able. Good evening. It is my pleasure to introduce Pastor Ledbetter. Uh he moved to Topeka in 2021 to start Shining Light Baptist Church. The church moved to their current location at 3601 Southwest 33rd in 2024. Um he is also um a chaplain at the Topeka Police Department and has been doing that since 2021. Thank you. Let us pray. Lord, I thank you for the opportunity to stand before this council and stand before this uh gathering tonight. And Lord, I just ask you to be with the council, be with our leaders that we have elected, be with our city, Lord. Uh what a great city that we live in. Uh the special opportunities to be able to represent the state of Kansas, uh the county of Shawnee, and just uh to be a shining light throughout uh throughout this region. Guide this council as they make decisions, whether they be small or whether they be large, uh to continue to lead in that path, in that direction. Uh Lord, again, I thank you for the opportunity to be here. Uh bless this body as they have assembled. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. I 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. I will ask the clerk to take roll. Mayor Duncan? Here. Council member Hiller? Here. Valdivia-Acula? Here. Ortiz?

Here. Banks? Here. Cow? Here. Miller? Here. Bradbury? Here. McGee? Here. Anthofer? Here. Okay, we have 10 yes. Or sorry, 10 present. Two presentations this evening, a proclamation and a recognition. First up, I will ask See if I pronounce all of these right. Darryl Loney, Andrew Mitchell, Brooke Ashley, and Amy Pringer, and anybody else who may or may not be with me to come on up. I know I didn't get all of those. As long as we spell things right, that's really all that Welcome. Thank you for being here. All right. Whereas, every year on the second Saturday in May, letter carriers across Topeka and Shawnee County collect non-perishable food donations as part of the nation's largest one-day food drive. And whereas, the letter carriers stamp out hunger food drive is one example of the many ways letter carriers work to make a meaningful difference in the lives of those they serve. We recognize the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 10, Capital City Letter Carriers, for their dedication, service, and commitment to Topeka and Shawnee County. And whereas, through their partnership with Harvesters, the Community Food Network, all food collected from our community remains in our community, supporting local food pantries, kitchens, and shelters. Their efforts to helping neighbor experiencing neighbors experiencing food insecurity have generated more than 310,000 meals for local individuals and families. And whereas, we recognize the noteworthy milestone of the National Association of Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger Food

Drive, which celebrates its 34th year in 2026, and has has resulted in the collection of more than 1.94 billion pounds of food nationwide, now therefore, I, Spencer L. Duncan, Mayor of Topeka, Kansas, do hereby proclaim Saturday, May 9th, 2026, as Letter Carriers Food Drive Day in the City of Topeka and County of Shawnee, we encourage the citizens of our community to support the food drive by placing non-perishable food items in or near your mailbox on Food Drive Day. So, that would be Saturday. Your letter carrier will pick it up while delivering the mail, and together, we can all help to feed our neighbors. Thank you for being here, and I will let somebody step up. Fight over the microphone. Well, thank you so much for allowing us to be here and for recognizing this day. Uh, this is the Letter Carriers Food Drive, and every year, they have been incredible partners in not only delivering those packages and the mail that we all essentially depend on every single day for 6 days a week in all of the weather forms, but they, on this day, bring together food and are helping to feed our neighbors. And in the City of Topeka, while Harvesters physical building is no longer here, our presence is and our truck trucks are and our agency partners are. There are 45 different Harvesters agency partners here in Topeka and they are the only partners that get access to this food. It's an incredible day of giving. We're so thankful for the volunteers, for the letter carriers and our neighbors for making this possible for so many in our community. So, THANK YOU.

[applause]

ALL RIGHT, IS BRETT FLUDD UP DOWN THERE? AND if there's anyone else who wants to come up with you or if you would just want to take it solo, that's cool, too, man. You're good. [clears throat]

Just take photos. Yeah, he gets the spotlight all to himself. All right, so this evening we have a recognition for This would be Brett Fludd, just to make sure. I'm the mayor, he's Brett Fludd. Um, but but for for the accomplishment of his tonight, which which this will explain. It is my distinct pleasure to recognize and honor Brett Fludd for his outstanding service and leadership as executive director of Forge Young Talent in Topeka, Kansas from 2021 to 2026. Brett served with passion and dedication becoming the longest-serving executive director in the organization's 27-year history. During his tenure, he led a pivotal restructuring that strengthened the organization's foundation and positioned it for continued success. Brett spearheaded the Topeka flag license plate initiative, an effort I'm proud to support on my own car, which now provides a sustainable source of financial support for our community. He also worked with the Topeka Chamber of Commerce to advance common consumption areas that enhance the vibrancy of the community. Red has been a steadfast champion for young professionals, elevating their voices and expanding opportunities while promoting Topeka across the region and beyond. His leadership has left a lasting impact on Forge young talent and the community it serves. As he transitions to his new role as VP of marketing and communications for the greater Topeka partnership, we are grateful for his leadership that it will continue to benefit Topeka. His service reflects a deep commitment to leadership and community. In witness whereof, I do I hereby affix my official signature and the official seal of the city of Topeka, Kansas on this 5th day of May, 2026. So, congratulations. We are very appreciative. Forge has been very important in helping us keep and retain and bring in young talent. And Forge, even though he won't be there, he helped kickstart after COVID sort of hurt some of our young professionals group, particularly our youth commission. Um, he's helped us Now he's leaving me, but we've had conversations and he made sure that Forge moving forward is going to

kick that back into gear and work with the city to get voices of young folks in our community. So, very appreciative of everything Red has done and will continue to DO FOR TOPEKA. [applause] UM, [snorts] DON'T HAVE A LOT TO SAY AND THIS isn't really about me. This is about Forge as an organization and the young professionals who make it up. They are powerful group of people and they are going to make exciting changes in our community for the better and they are always positive and if you need them to do anything or partner with them, they are there for you. So, thank you everybody and thank you again, Mayor. [applause]

All right, great. [laughter] [applause]

All right, with that we have several presentations this evening. Move on to our first one, city clerk. It will be the North Topeka Business Improvement District annual report. City manager. Thank you, mayor members of the governing body. Pedro Concepcion, chief executive officer of North Arts District, will lead us through this discussion. Welcome Pedro. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for having me. [clears throat]

So, our BID concludes with potentially acquiring between $10,000 and $13,000 through our whole district. So, we are very um conservative about what to do with that money. Um as you see in the presentation, we focus on maintenance, enhancement, and safety. And we double down on beautification. The idea of beautification is as a dark district, we decided that the North Arts District has to create or really champion art throughout every year. So, we're allocating between $2,000 to push in an art um initiative to create a sculpture or painting to champion the arts of the area as well, too. But also be conscious that as we create more murals, there has to be some sort of maintenance. So, making sure that those projects are being maintained, we added another beautification part for $1,000 in in this initiative. Throughout the year, um we focus on um snow removal. Um and we're championing right now a project where we can put AI cameras throughout the district to make it more of a walkable place. And I'm trying to scroll down here, but I don't know how to do it. There you go. Thank you. Do you want to go to the next page? Yeah, next page, please. So, these are new enhancements and safety. We're piloting a program with AI cameras, so we can make our district more walkable and safer. Again, doubling down on beautification, creating murals, for example, the sidewalks and existing murals, making sure that they're being updated. And keeping our district safe during winter storms with snow removal with partnership with the mission. And this initiative and this project have been very important to NODO to really make sure that we create a district that's for everybody and focus on safety and its beautification and just making sure that our district keeps thriving throughout the years. If you guys have any questions, I'm more than happy to answer them. Any questions? Oh, Council Excuse me, Council member Valdivia-Cola. Thank you, Mayor. Hi, Pedro. Um I guess just wanting to check like we do every

year, how is the collection of the BID fees coming? I I know when Tom was in your position, you know, there had been some challenges and some businesses, for better or worse, that were reluctant. So, it Are you noticing a shift in that? We are noticing a shift, but we noticed that we need to create um projects or initiatives that are merchant-y. Um for example, the sidewalks. Um when you walk outside a business, you see this beautiful mural on the sidewalk, so that's tangible. Our business owners now appreciate and understand where the BID money is going to to making sure that our infrastructure is strong and making sure that they can actually see where the money goes to. You know, it's it's it's mainly to create a better district for our area. And I think doing projects like that and focusing down on tangible things are key to create our BID. And we are seeing new businesses as well, and they are actually happy to contribute to the BID because they see the change and they see what we're trying to do to make the area a better place. Well, and I also knew that when you and I had our last meeting, we had talked about safety and safety concerns, which is very good that you're keeping your eye on and following it. So, I think that with the maintaining, you know, with the implementation of the cameras, I can see where that would be a huge benefit. And I just want to tell you, you know, I know we're, you know, communicate quite a bit, but I just want to say publicly that you're doing a really good job. You and Stacy have a lot of ideas, have a lot of passion. I understand that your board does too, but it needs that leadership to help move it through. So, thank you for all you do. Thank you, Mayor. Any other comments or questions for Pedro? See, nice and easy. Thank you, sir. Thank you. [clears throat] Appreciate you being here. Thank you for having me. All right, we have one more presentation, City Clerk. The ESD 2026 Bond Series Disclosure

Presentation. City Manager. Thank you, Mayor and members of the governing body. Josh Mack and Arnie, our Deputy Director of Budget and Finance, will lead us through this discussion. Welcome, Josh.

Hey, good evening, governing body. So, last year when we went through our bond sale process back in August, there was some confusion, and so tonight we thought we'd give a presentation on what are the upcoming items that we're going to sell bonds for um this year. So, um to give you an idea, these projects were already approved in the in the 2026 CIP or prior. So, outlined on your screen now are the projects we're doing and then and then eventually we'll get into the details of those, the the amount that we're bonding and the resolution number it was approved for, that was voted on by past governing bodies. And so, that's why the CIP process is really important because the projects that are issued in the CIP are things that we're planning on funding for in the future. So, if we don't want to fund something, we don't necessarily want to approve it in the So, we use that document as a guide to what we're going to be planning on financing for the future. Um, so the total plan right now on the geo side is issuing about 8.25 million dollars worth of bonds for those previously stated projects over 15 years and at 5%. Now, the 5% isn't necessarily guaranteed. That's just a plugged-in rate. All these go through a competitive bid process. Um, on the day of the sale last year we had a very competitive sale with eight or nine um um bidders. And then so on on the screen to the right, um that shows what the total principal would be in the first column and then the second column would be the interest payments and then total over 15 years, so about 12 million dollars. Now, during last week's presentation, we had a um we had a slide showing if we bonded what's in the currently CIP, what does that do to us for the next five years? This was already taken into account for that, so um we're around our 10% total assessed value ratio when the state cap is 30%, so we're well within that. And then we also had a slide saying what our projected debt service fund balance would be, which is where those debt debt payments are paid out of. Then finally are just those tentative project details. Obviously, they could be subject to change, but um that just

gives you an idea of what we when we're issuing bonds, what when we get those bond proceeds from shareholders, what those what those the inflow of revenues are covering in terms of city expenses. So, with that we just want to be transparent in the process. That way when we go on the day of the bond sale, there's no surprises on well, what are we selling bonds for? So, that just kind of gives you an idea of what what the the plan is for the next 90 days. Now, the reason um it's a 90-day process is there's multiple documents that are prepared by our bond counsel and financial advisor. So, we want to get ahead of this early, that way they have time to prepare and pivot if anything changes when we do eventual bond sale in the second or third week of August. So, with that I'll open up to questions. Questions or comments for Josh? Well, we appreciate that cuz as we you mentioned as you mentioned that was one of the things we'd like a little more heads up to have some more clarification so that we're not bombarding you in the moment. We may bombard you with other things in the moment related to the bond sale but at least we'll have a little more heads up. Council Member Hiller. Thank you, Mayor. Um Josh, glad to see the 15 years in there. Mhm. We've been going back and forth about how much we would borrow and and for how long. So, that's um that's some progress. Our our policy says we won't bond more than 27 million per per 3 years which of course averages out to 9 million a year. So, this is pretty much that whole 9 million. There was some conversation there are a lot of other things in the CIP besides just those things and so there had been some conversation coming into this year that um we'd do some of the some more of the street projects with half cent sales tax. Um

unusual? Yeah, I mean so we don't really for everyone's knowledge we don't really bond that many road projects because we already have that other funding source in the citywide half cent sales tax. The only time we we bond anything related to a a road would be if it doesn't already exist. Um so yeah but we are we are increasing the money we spend on streets but that's uh for a different reason is because we have a built up fund balance in that fund. I wanted to double check.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments for Josh? Doesn't look like it. Thank you, Josh. Thank you. We'll move on to the consent agenda. City Clerk. All right. A is a resolution introduced by Council Member Christina Valdivia Alcup approving a special event known as Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta Kick-Off. B is the resolution introduced by Council member Christina Valdivia-Alcala, approving a special event known as the Our Lady of Guadalupe Fiesta Topeka. C is a resolution introduced by Council member Valdivia-Alcala, granting Our Lady of Guadalupe an exception to the provisions of the City of Topeka Code Section 945-150 et seq. concerning noise prohibitions. D is the resolution introduced by Council member Valdivia-Alcala, granting Our Lady of Guadalupe an exception to the provisions of City of Topeka Code Section 945-150 et seq. concerning noise prohibitions. E is the resolution introduced by the Public Infrastructure Committee recommending approval of project numbers 861038 and 861040 to authorize two equipment purchases under the fleet replacement program. F is a resolution introduced by the Public Infrastructure Committee recommending approval of project number 841097-07 for street improvements to Norris Street from Western to West. G is a resolution introduced by the Public Infrastructure Committee recommending approval of project number 281296-01 for the replacement of 11 water meter vaults at separate locations throughout the city. H are the minutes of the regular meeting of April 21st, 2026. And then we also have 25 serum serial malt beverage off-premise applications. I have provided a list that is all in front of

you guys. I don't know if you wanted me to read all of those off right now. [laughter] No, I think we're good. Um and the staff is recommending approval. Thank you. [laughter] Well, Ortiz says wait You have the time. [laughter]

We have a motion to a pre-approve from Council member Valdivia-Alcala and a second from Council member Kell. Clerk will take the vote. Okay, we have 10 yes, the motion carries. All right, with that we will move on to item five. Action items, and we'll start with 5A. City clerk. A is an ordinance introduced by city manager Dr. Robert Empraz amending the district map referred to and made part of the zoning ordinances by section 1850050 of the Topeka municipal code by providing for certain changes in zoning on 1.14 acres of property located at 2450 Southeast 25th Street from R1 single family dwelling district to M1A limited multi-family dwelling district. City manager. Thank you mayor and members of the governing body. I'm Warner, our planning and development director will lead us through this item. Thank you city manager. Mayor and governing body, to go over this one again, so the proposal was to rezone, the original proposal was to rezone from R1 single family to M2 multiple family dwelling district. Um once that was submitted, staff's review of the case led to a recommendation for either M1 or M1A, not M2. So among the key findings by staff is that the neighborhood context includes a mix of multi-family and the adjoining single family zoning. The land around the subject property is zoned single family but hasn't developed over time, which lends some support for a less restrictive zoning than R1. R1 is our most restrictive zoning district. Um so

a less restrictive zoning than R1 such as M1 or M1A. Planning Commission held a public hearing on this rezoning request last month um and made a recommendation for approval of M1A after a lengthy discussion. So, the commission uh there were folks that came to the public hearing and spoke uh for and against the rezoning and the Planning Commission spent a lot of time kind of working through it amongst themselves and and ultimately landed on the recommendation for M1A instead of M2. Um I mentioned at the last meeting we had an online neighborhood information meeting uh but we also did the appropriate legal notice and again some folks did come to the Planning Commission meeting and and speak at the public hearing. So, again going over the the M districts and what the difference is. So, M1 allows duplexes. That's the um and and just one point here about all these M districts, single family's allowed in all these as well. Uh but M1 allows duplexes. M1 M1A allows up to four units per building um or per lot basically. Um so, quadplexes or town homes and up to 15 dwelling units the acre. As I mentioned last time, density is that's a maximum density. Um what goes into uh final density has to do with the zoning standards that are applied to the projects, whether that be setbacks, you know, building height, um you know, parking. Parking's a a big consideration that will limit an overall density of a project on on a on a site. Um and finally, M2 allows five units or more per building up to 25 dwelling units the acre. Um with that, I'll be happy to try to answer any questions. All right, questions or comments? Council member Valdivia-Alcala. Thank

you, Mayor. Um Dan, I'm going to ask you questions. wasn't here on the 21st and I watched the meeting last week and I just I want to say I was really impressed with the number of questions that colleagues had trying to get, you know, edification on a number of issues. I'm asking you these questions and I'm just going to be really blunt because we have done a lot of really good things with affordable housing and that takes a real good level of integrity to do that, right? So we want to maintain that. By the same token, I'm going to be honest in that some of what we have dealt with as a governing body, we have not been given complete information and the governing body understands what that's about with someone that came forward that was going to do some upgrades to some some units that have been around for some time. So that's why I'm asking you these questions and I don't profess to be an expert, but I do expect you are. And if not, to pitch it to the city attorney or someone. I know that we received the email of concern about it being foreign entity, meaning anything outside of Kansas, right? And so we received that response from Nick and so I have that here. But my my question Well, first a comment. We voted on a Kalupi um zoning change back in October of 2025. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I remember that because we do so many votes and sometimes we are specific to what our um to what our district is so we can forget about all the other votes that we have to take. But back in October of '25, they came to us about 625 Southwest Polk

and there had been concerns with half an acre of what was considered poverty stacking occurring. Poverty stacking on that half acre was I don't know if it was uh Carolina that was here or if it was, you know, Dan or whoever that was at the forefront. But there was the concern of the poverty stacking, the neighborhood, etc. And so we, as a governing body, those of us that were here back then, we changed it up so it was not going to be as dense. So, when I watched the meeting on the 21st, I had some concerns with the folks that came up and this is not just concerns because if the neighbors don't want it, that means that, you know, I'm not going to vote for it. That's not true. We know we need affordable housing and we know we need it desperately. Wait, but we also know with that integrity that comes with it of what we are dealing with now in the dilapidated so many slum multi-family dwellings that we have in Topeka right now to where when we get these pristine affordable housing multi-family dwellings up, I would imagine that you're going to see the wishing sound you will hear is of people getting out of where they are and moving to these new places that are going to be safer and better. So, with that said, I am concerned about what is going to happen with this property. We have the control and change the zoning part of it, right? To where now it's only going to be 14 living units. Um but if you look at the website and we all know what this LLC does is they buy real estate and they sell real estate. They have a number of Topeka properties that they've taken up and they have a

boatload in Saginaw, Michigan and then they turn around and sell it. They also bought about eight parcels of Clausman's stuff that went up for sale. So, we don't know who's going to buy it. We don't know who's going to develop on it. And I would just have a little bit of feeling of disingenuous And Dan, I don't know if you saw the the model that she gave us of what it could look like with the 14 units and the parking and all of that. To me, that seems a little bit probably unduable because it's on 1.14 acres of land, and that is a pretty tight property. But, I'm no developer. So, what my question is that kind of attaches itself to the foreign entity, but is different, is that in our municipal code under 18.245 rezoning applications, it says that the official Topeka requirement is property owner authorization form. This document is available for download from our website and from a link on the application portal. It shall be completed and signed by the property owners and uploaded through the online application. Owners of record shall mean the owners as contained on the last deed of record filed with the Shawnee County Register of Deeds or submission of a recorded certificate of power No, it doesn't say or. Oh, yeah, it does say or. Sorry. Deeds or submission of a recorded certificate of power of attorney duly notarized and containing the legal description of the subject property. So, my question to you is it's pretty yes or no. Do we have what is needed for that um Topeka municipal code? Yeah, we don't process zoning applications without the owner authorization.

Okay. And so, what we see when I pulled the uh Shawnee County, I see that it is listed as Kalupi Investments LLC. So, we know that this company does not do business in Kansas as far as that's what they're saying. They don't do business in Kansas. So, that's why they don't need that proof that they're a registered entity. Is my understanding correct on that? Is my understanding correct on that, City Attorney? Um I'm not sure what they meant by doing business uh within Kansas. I don't know if they do anything other in Kansas other than own and sell property, but that is something they can do as a foreign a foreign registered LLC. Right, and that was my understanding as well. So, I guess I want to understand the Carolina and I forget her last name, so my apologies to her. How do we know without any of these needed or what we don't need, which is the foreign certificate or whatever it is, how do we know that she can actually sign off on this? I have seen in Florida that her and a number of individuals with similar last names work out of the same address. But, what I'm wanting to know is how do we know that she is the one that can legally sign here in Kansas? And it's a pretty basic question. It's not a gotcha question. It's not a I hate this whole development question. It is merely a question. Well, she's the owner of record of the property, so that's how she can

owner of record of property is is that because it comes under Kalupi LLC in the deed? And then because she is in Florida coming under Kalupi that that is the owner of record? I'm not trying to play games with you here. Believe me when I say that. I'm thinking it through. I Um I mean we have I'm a lot of property owners here that own property that don't live in Kansas or Topeka specifically. She She registers a deed of sale with the the register of deeds. It's on the county's records. We We check the county records through our parcel database and check who owns it. I mean, we She's She has to have recorded a deed. Okay, so since it's not recorded anywhere in here, it probably doesn't need to be and you have all the information that you say that you need. I'm requesting, because I shouldn't have to go look for it. I'm requesting that you send me some Well, to the entire governing body so everybody can see that she can sign off on these type of agreements. I'm requesting that. Okay? I know that's not going to stop the vote tonight, but I am requesting that. Um, the other thing I wanted to know and this may be more for the city attorney. Because we know the concerns that we have with most of what is happening right now is that we're with the affordable housing, we're trying to get as many developers, you know, to pass all the things they need to pass so that and and be reputable so that we can get more affordable housing in the city. Well, again, this particular entity, they just buy up the real estate and then they just look for sellers, right? Is there anything that we can do trying to be more conscientious about the type of housing that we bring into the city for LMI often LMI individuals to live

in. Is Is there anything by state state law or our ordinances where we can put some type of documentation or some kind of this must be done and that would be whoever this parcel of land gets sold to, they can't have all kinds of code violations. They can't be in multiple bankruptcies. They can't owe all kinds of back taxes. They can't have all types of people suing them because, you know, they were evicted without due process. Kind of what came up the last time when the governing body was not informed. Is there anything that we can do in that way, not just to Kolopy, but moving forward on how we state we want to be more conscientious in the type of housing we bring into Topeka? There that particular [clears throat] question we can't really address at the zoning stage. Mhm. Um because property owners have a right to request the zoning and, you know, the factors you have to look at are specific to the property and the zoning type early, the golden factors which we've talked about a lot. Um regarding just sort of a general overall, I I would have to look and see what it what options might be available. I can't think of anything off the top of my head necessarily, but unless Dan Dan might know of something, but No, not off hand. Yeah, direction. So, certainly if the developer were to apply for an economic development incentive, then we would have a development agreement. And the Cap City town homes that you referred to earlier, there is a development agreement on that and I went over that for the governing body. But there are provisions in there that would

say that in the event that they do not maintain the property, then the city has the ability to declare that to be in breach and we'd have the ability for remedies. So, we do have the ability through the through a development agreement, if there are economic incentive um if there is an economic incentive tied to that to have the provisions in there to restrict the use to be able to have a uh tools uh to go in against that developer if they're not uh following the conditions of that development agreement. But, again, as Nick talked about here the governing body is sitting tonight in a quasi-judicial capacity. The sole issue is whether or not to allow for the rezoning of this property as requested by the applicant. And the factors that need to be considered are the golden factors that have been laid out in the Supreme Court case involving Overland Park, which the staff report went through every one of those golden factors. Okay. So, I get what you're saying, Broxton, and I get [clears throat] that your specialty is being a lawyer. I get that Nick's specialty is being a lawyer. So, if these questions that I have may not come up to the level of intelligence that you may be used to, I would say just show some grace. So, anything that we can do, I mean, or that I can help with to help move that forward in the future, I'm asking to please let me know so we can try to work together because you guys know a hell of a lot more than what I do, and you guys are the experts. So, thank you, Mayor. Council Member Kell. Dan, on there it says maximum of of 15 units per uh per acre. So, it's about 1.14 acres. Uh you mentioned parking does factor into that. How many units do you think would be on that property just by a guess-timate, including the parking

and all that? So, I'll answer that two ways. The absolute max is 17 because it's 1.14 acres. That's the absolute max. Um I believe I You know, I think the intent was to try to get to 14. I think is what the intent from the developer was. we we don't have anything attached to the zoning that says that. We this is just a straight zoning case. Um but I think that's the intent, you know, they'd have to park probably about two cars per per unit. So, you can see how the parking starts to add up on something like that. Um And then on on the M1, what's the max per acre on that? Um it's 15 as well, but it really just allows duplexes. All right, thank you. Council Member Banks. Thank you, Mayor. Uh Dan my comments are just going to be comments. [clears throat] I don't have any questions. But um in the area that we're talking about, this development is in the district that I represent. And I've my concerns are, of course, the size of the property that's being developed. And also just for the public record, is that I've heard voices on both sides of the the issue. Uh for the record, I'd like to say that I definitely support affordable housing. But some of these voices are saying that this affordable development could cause other issues. I would never vote against development. But just for the record, I have some concerns about the size of the uh development

many uh units could be put on this property. [cough] [clears throat]

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Hiller. Thank you, Mayor. Just wanted to share some thoughts. I think my colleague um has raised some good good issues about what do we do? Um 625 Polk is in my district, so I've been through this with this developer as well as with the back-and-forth on the zoning already. Um, and I would suggest that well, for one thing, it looks to me like on that the planning commission processed this as they were supposed to with the information input that they had. Um, in looking at the fact that we've got multi-family fairly densely with Highland Park apartments, Colonial Park townhomes, and so on um, east of this property, but yet there are actually more than 10 acres that are undeveloped that this is just a little piece of. And when and almost anybody has has concern when there's development when the property's been vacant for a long time. We've dealt with that even recently. And that's understandable. What I tried to do is and I don't don't know if planning commission did it even, but say, "Okay, the TA owns 10 acres behind it, 9.something, the the rest of that big parcel." And so it's like, "Well, what's going to happen there? How does this proposed townhome, small townhome development fit with what's already there?" Cuz people are concerned that there's already a lot of density and I get that. You know, familiar with that. I guess everybody is. But yet what's going to happen once that property on the on the east side is developed? And likely, I mean, the two likely options in my view are either a single-family development or a multi-family development. Either way, a small nicely done co- collection of 15 townhomes is a is a pretty good transition. It seems. It makes sense to

me. Um, again, either way things happen. Also, wanted to share a little bit of the story um, of what's happening further in Central um and to me, I mean, part of the changing our culture property maintenance initiative is to look at vacant properties. We're finally moving into that in this year. One of the things we've really been missing into into Topeka is a full redevelopment plan, particularly for our older neighborhoods. And so, what and not everything gets governed by just incentives or by zoning laws or other other laws. It certainly we have a lot of those. Code compliance, zoning, and so on already. What we What we don't have is is a lot of shared expertise yet at the staff level and and and maybe as a community in overall redevelopment. One of the things that I ended up talking with folks in Central Topeka about on our 625, the other Kalupi prop- property was they really wanted to transition from what's M3 and and our tall big complexes down into smaller sizes and then ultimately to single-family homes cuz there are some there. And so, the the challenge again was what what's right in the middle. And the concern was that multi-family always means apartments. Uh I ended up talking with one of the one of the active neighborhood folks there. And that individual was not familiar with co-ops and condos at all. And so, as we had this conversation, it was like, "Well, if we're trying to to to to also not only redevelop the housing, but develop a more of a sense of ownership in in the neighborhood and where it's going, maybe these stair steps such as co-ops or condos could happen." Um

as it turns out, the 625 property, which did get finally passed at M2, not M3, which then meant the height was smaller, the volume was smaller, it's a more appropriate segue, but um I think people saw that there was a fire in one of the apartment buildings, a 24-unit apartment building about two blocks from that site. And if you saw the list that came through the trust fund recommendations the other day, um a young developer is is looking at buying that building and turning it into co-ops. And into a co-op instead of apartments. And so, those kinds of steps we need to learn more about, I would suggest, and can help us with looking at more options than maybe we were aware of in in our neighborhood revitalization. Thank you for letting me share that. I'm I'm eager for us to keep moving on this tracks. Council member Kell. I'm I'm a numbers guy. I'm just kind of looking at the numbers. An acre is 200 by 200 square feet, roughly. And 56 units, let's say you have two people per unit, that's 100 people stacked in a 200 by 200 area. And that's where I start looking at aspects of where where do you have room to to to live, to breathe kind of thing, where you're not on top of your neighbor, and you're not um ca- having issues caused because you're on top of your neighbor, you know, and you want to play your music a little loud and the neighbor next to you is, you know, it's it's almost too congested, I think, to to think that I have even 14 on something like that. I know that's what the rules allow, but it's just um you know, and the Councilwoman Valenzuela had a good good um statement on that. It was, you know,

poverty stacking. It's like once you start putting so many people in a situation and and that close together, you're going to it's almost going to cause issues. And I just see that why jam a bunch of people in a smaller area, cause those issues, and then it's creating more issues overall. And then it's also making that area look bad uh for someone trying to do something good. So, I I I can see like a smaller amount of units could could benefit something like that. And and like Councilman Banks said, I'm not against affordable housing cuz I think that's something we desperately need in Topeka, especially since it is so hard to qualify for a house nowadays. But, to just stack people in a 200 by 200 ft area and and say live together uh and get along is going to be a lot to ask for when you have about 100 people stacked in that area. Thank you. Uh do you need to remind everybody that under this item, ex parte communication is required. Prior to proceeding with any vote, each member of the governing body who has engaged in ex parte communication with any individual either in favor of or against the matter being considered must state that the communication occurred and indicate that even in light of having engaged in the communication, they were able to fairly, objectively, and impartially consider the measure based only upon the evidence provided on the record. The record includes the planning commission minutes, the staff report and its attachments, the public comments made during the planning commission hearing, and similar relevant information related to the matter. I will also, as a reminder, say that there are three options in front of you. One is to approve the planning commission's recommendation, which requires six votes. Two is to reject or amend the planning commission's recommendation, which requires seven votes. And three is to remand back to the planning commission, of which six votes are required. And I

will also remind you that under the law to reject this proposal means you also need to indicate which of or which of the seven golden factors you are using as your basis for any sort of concerns. With that, Council Member Heller. Just a quick math correction. We're talking 15 units, not 50. So, we're talking about 30 people. Two per unit. Well, that's That was his number. So, I just wanted to clarify. Sorry, yes, but Townhomes. So, with that Oh, Council Member Miller. Uh yes, I got some emails in regards to it from some constituents and from the developer.

[clears throat]

And that will not worry me on making a vote today. Okay. Council Member Redberry. I had communication and it won't affect my vote. Okay. Council Member Kelt. Uh emails from both sides. Council Member Banks. Just communication with constituents, but I think I can make a partial vote. Impartial vote. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Valdivia Alcala. Communication on both Communication on both sides and I feel I can make an impartial vote. Council Member Ortiz. Emails, phone calls, and conversations and I can make an impartial vote. I also received several emails, but I know that I can make an impartial vote. I did, too. All right. Ditto for everybody else. Let the record show. All right. With that, do we have any motions in front of us? No. No. No. My thing says we're trying to vote. I don't know why. There we go. Move to approve.

Motion to approve by Council Member Heller Hiller. I will second it. All right. Any questions or comments? If not, I will ask the clerk to take the vote. Okay, we have eight yes. The motion carries with two voting no, council members Felicia Alcala and council member Kilpatrick. With that, we'll move on to action item B. City clerk. Okay. B is an ordinance introduced by city manager Dr. Robert M. Perez to waive certain utility system and connection fees as requested by the developer for an affordable housing development at 2800 Northwest Rochester Road pursuant to Topeka municipal code. City manager. Thank you, mayor and members of the governing body. Leah Bolin, our director of economic development, will lead us through this item. Welcome, Leah. Thank you. This evening you have an ordinance uh in front of you for a fee waiver related to utility system and connection fees as applied for by DW Development Group LLC for a development that's been proposed for 2800 Northwest Rochester Road. The applicant is applying for a low-income housing tax credit 9% application through KHRC and a fee waiver is part of the 2026 QAP to provide the applicant uh eligibility

for five additional points on their LIHTC application. DW Development has requested this waiver for 40,000 and as you can see from the numbers provided, the city would still collect 26,780 in the remaining fees um while waiving the $40,000 if approved. And so the KHC deadline for the 9% LIHTC application is May 15th, which is why this ordinance has been brought to you for action this evening. Typically, we go to the Policy and Finance Committee or present for a discussion prior to action. We are under a bit of a time constraint with this item, which is why it's in front of you for action this evening. This proposed development is 34 units. It will be subject to a LURA for 30 years um in addition to the LIHTC if awarded. Austin Richardson with the development team has joined via Zoom. And with that, I can stand for any questions. We do have one individual signed up for public comment on this issue, so I think we will take that first before we proceed. I will say we have throughout uh we have various individuals signed up this evening, multiple individuals, so not inclined to give any extensions this evening if possible, but so try to keep within your 4 minutes, but then we'll go from there. But with that, I will call up Pat Delap.

[clears throat]

Welcome, Mr. Delap. Thank you.

I I I've looked at this and I cannot fully support it not because of the it's not you know we want to attract people here things like this but the source of funding. I've asked what the source of funding for these waivers and fees going to go. Well, it's coming from the water department. So well, what basis? Well, it's all commingled. We don't know where it's coming from. Well, if they don't know, that's kind of a red flag. We need a forensic audit down there. Now, I did find what I've passed out. This is something written to our former city manager Steven Wade by our contractor Capital Consultant. And what it talks about is using the readiness to serve charges, which is now called the base charges, to pay for developers coming in to give free water and sewer services for it. Um basically, it's saying we can have 300 to 400 new units per year with this help of this free meter. You know, this readiness to serve and base charge, that supposedly is a payment for services, not party favors. And that's what we are doing here. I I also have some concern of the city giving everything away once a uh somebody ask for it. It's horrible. Gentlemen, we've got a budget crisis. We have to solve it, not giving things away anytime anybody ask of everything. We're looking at a $15 million um deficit next year. Interesting how that's almost what we paid for Hotel Tepia. It's got to stop, gentlemen.

We got to make people start paying their own way. We've got people that are behind in the water service, get shut off. They're paying for this RTS, which is going towards these contractors, not developers. And they're without water. They can't have a cup of water from their house. No, I I cannot support this for those two reasons. If we were in good financial shape, fine. We're not. But you're making people that are paying water bills or or RTS, which they don't have water on, pay for other people's ink, which, you know what? This isn't going to make or break the project. If it does, they're undercapitalized and they shouldn't even be considering this. Um please read that. I'll read it later to everybody else, but I I can't support this. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. DeLeuw. Council Member Valdivia Alcalá. Um so I know that Ledbetter, when Wade was here, um the way it looked to me from the outside looking in, it was to get him to not be so vocal and critical of the city, they offered him a hefty uh contract not once, but twice. Twice, the second time I don't think it was for as much. Um which was disgusting. But I need to know, is that true? Can somebody verify with us if if this this in fact is true? I mean, Ledbetter was working for us at the time. And it's saying here, he is saying, the way that you can pay for this is the readiness to serve. You can pay for all of you know, giving giving um

these benefits to So to developers. I'm just wanting to know if it's true.

Yeah, so I think there's two answers. The first is yes, I I and I've never seen this before until I just now read it just for context. Um but the way I read this is he is indicating that the RTS funds could then be used to underwrite doing things like giving free meters to to incur encourage housing development especially in low-income areas. Which actually staff will tell you that's kind of a conversation we're having because I especially want to use our health map, but that's a different but yes, the second piece of this though is and I was going to say this later, I'll just say this now. I don't have a vote on this, but this will answer your question, I promise. Um so I'm not going to encourage or discourage one way. Here's the frustration with what's in front of us. And in fact, Lee and I were at a totally unrelated meeting today and this came up with some other people in economic development is what's in front of us is this LIHTEC credit which is given through the IRS and the federal government basically pits government against government. And it tells us as a local government if we don't give these fee waivers, they can't get the points they need because the county has to be asked to also do something and if they don't get the enough points, they don't get the LIHTEC credit, therefore that makes it difficult for them to build. It is an unfair system. It is not right the way it's set up and in fact, the conversation we got into today after this other meeting was about how we as a city and some others need to start when they do open comment period, see if we can fix that. We shouldn't be we shouldn't be put in a position where the federal government says, if you don't give up something locally, we're going to count it against everybody and not give these essential tax credits to help build this affordable housing. So what's in front of us then becomes frustrating because we are giving up these fees which we could hopefully underwrite if we had a better system, but then they don't get their five points that they need, which then gets them their 10 points, which then qualifies them for the LIHTC credits. So, so it's a twofold answer your question. Yes, what Ledbetter wrote is correct, but it wouldn't help with the LIHTC system as

as it's set up today. Right, but the the perception of what this is is like let's create a new tax so we can do this over here on this side. And I think if this goes on the public record and people read this, people are going to be But my other question is isn't LIHTC going away and like what what what did we do? What happened at the legislature? Is isn't something happening to LIHTC? LIHTC is a federal program and as of right now it's still active. But like with anything that happens of that dialogue

Well, there is a state piece. Yeah, Braxton, I'll let him Yeah, you're right. Yeah, if I can if I can add, um, last year the legislature basically decided that they were going to phase out the state low-income housing tax credit and that is going to be phased out as of the end of 2028. So, that will no longer be available. This particular is um this 9% is under the federal low-income housing tax credit. It's a much more robust uh but provides more equity to the to the investor group. Um that um program there has not been any mention of the elimination of that program because it's been one of the most successful programs in terms of public-private partnership to provide for affordable housing in in the in the country. So. Okay. So, I think thank you for that, Braxton. I think that this is really disturbing and this is in my district and of course I want to support it. Um I know that we're going to be talking about the readiness to serve later on, which is a whole other dramatic issue in and of itself. Um So, then we can look at and I guess I'm asking you mayor or whoever, maybe Leia. So the state's is going to expire in 2028, but we're still going to have these type of light techs come up because of federal or we won't have them come up anymore because the feds are going to do their own stuff and the state program will have exhausted. So yes, as long as the state as long as the federal one stays in place, we will continue to have these put in front of us. I will also tell you at least for the next two years there will be a state program and then we'll see what happens, but there are multiple organizations who are trying to run like particularly builders who are trying to get the state to reinstate that program beyond 28. So who knows what will happen there, but but yes, there will as there as far as we know will continue to be a federal program

that will be put in front of us.

Okay, and then the one last question and I don't know if this would be to Leia or to who. The DW Development Group LLC, have we done the checking that has been told to us is going to be checked from now on to make sure that there's no shady underbelly to this that we're not informed about as a governing body? Yes, and I apologize that I left that out of my overview. The developer and all affiliated agencies have been verified and are active and good standing with the state of Kansas as well as they own no outstanding fines or fees with code, utilities or planning and development services. Thank you for that Leia, and I understand it's new so sometimes you forget when you're up here. So I get it. Thank you mayor. Council member Kell. So the uh kind of rush to this um was the this because the developer came late to the table or is this on the city side of things to make it try to get because you have to have it done by May 15th? So the developer submitted the request approximately one month ago. We have to do the due diligence and we had several back and forth questions for the developer based on their plans that they provided. We had to confirm the number of connections, the size of meters, and all of the information before we could assess the fees that the city would have for the development. And so, it's it's both. It's we had to rush to get everything all the due diligence done and get the ordinance put together and and fine-tune the process before we brought it forward. I I don't like rushing it and then not going through the the proper channels that everyone else goes through just to kind of almost if it from my side of things, it feels like it almost oh, you got to do this or else kind of thing and and when it gets rushed like this and it gets told that we have kind of a deadline, it's it's a little concerning on my end to not be able to

um you know, do my thing or it feels sometimes like maybe the developer is trying to put us in a pickle our end to make sure that we vote yes because they we don't have time to look at a little bit more. So, just want to figure out what kind of cuz they've had about a year to put this in, correct? So, I can add a little context. I don't know anything about the next one, but this one I do know because there's some other groups that reached out. They had talked to staff at one point about this, and then they thought they were going to go a different route [clears throat] for to get their points or to use other incentives that they thought they would be eligible for. That didn't work out for them. They then started having conversations with groups like the Topeka Community Foundation and some local groups to see if they could also get some assistance with the program. They talked to the county about what points they could get. If they get an IRB, they get so many points, which also helps them towards like that. And so, part of it was in their case, the route they were trying to go to actually not put us in the fell through. So, there had been some preliminary talks with city staff. We were aware of who they were, and then they finally we finally said, "Your deadline's approaching, so if you really want us to consider this, you've got to get it in now because otherwise you'll you'll miss out. And so that's that's kind So, yes, the back end of it was rushed, but I will say in this case, they didn't just come to us a month we out of the blue and didn't know who the the city were. And the only reason I know all that is cuz they reached out to me at one point and I reached out to some outside groups and said, "What is what happened here?" And so that's kind of the context in this case.

Well, thank you for the additional information. Councilmember Hiller. Thank you. I guess I I need to do some learning. I've been housing sector a long time, but I didn't realize there were two separate low-income housing tax credit programs. And even when I inquired today, the answers I got back were I thought about the state program. So, is this requirement I I'm I'm really excited about seeing development north of Topeka, so I want to support this, but I'm very sensitive to our water funds. And I don't recall us waving utility fees particularly at this level in the past and maybe I just didn't realize it. So, my question is for whoever could answer it, is this a new requirement for federal LIHTC money? Is this a change to the points? Mr. President. Um Councilmember Fry, I apologize that my emails to you were not crystal clear. I thought that they were, so my apologies. Thank you. There are two different programs. There's a state low-income housing tax program. That is the one that is being phased out. I provided you that information this morning with the additional editorial comments from KLR lobbyists. Yep. This program goes back decades. This is the federal program. This is is administered by KHRC. Last year KHRC made a change to their QAP, which is the qualified action plan, in which they had different levels of points for developers to be able to get to. Approximately a year ago on the almost the exact same time, we brought in front of you a request from a developer for a waiver of fees, and we did it as a um as a home rule ordinance requesting the waiver of certain building permit fees as well as utility fees to get them the maximum number of uh points as

Mayor Duncan has pointed out it really puts us in a very bad position where the state is mandating and giving options to developers that basically are shorting the county or the city because they're also have provision where they can get 10 points if they go to the county to get a IRB, so waiver of the point of purchase retail sales tax for that project, as well as to the city in terms of a waiver of building permit fees or utility fees. Because our building permit fee has a provision in there that says that if you're using any other economic development incentive, you cannot have a waiver of building fees. This developer had to change on a dime and basically say I can get 10 points from the county for an IRB, but I can't get a waiver of city building permit fees, so I'm just going to ask for a waiver of utility fees. So there was no hesitation on the part of the city staff. We had been working diligently with that developer to give him the options and to let him make the decision in terms of how he wanted to move forward to maximize points because this is an incredibly competitive process and it's based on the number of points that you achieve. Because this requires a home rule ordinance, it has to be an ordinance and it has to be published before it becomes effective. Publication date would be on Monday of this week. Megan already has in her file to get an electronic copy of that to the developer so that he can make his deadline of the 15th with the state. So, the rush is not because staff dragged their feet on this. It is very much to be able to get the developer and it's your policy decision whether you want to do this. And do you want to support this affordable housing project in North Topeka? That's at the end of the day that's a policy question in front of you. Thank you for that and I guess my back

to your introduction on this, if in fact it's the state that set that requirement not the feds. And we can get back with the state and talk about changing that back. Well, at some point. At some point. I think there's a there's a comment period coming open this summer or sometime this year again or there there will be. I don't know what it is, but and we plan to comment during that time and try to see if we can get those changes made. Well, good cuz that that Because again they're pitting everybody against each other. Exactly.

And it's frustrating. And and I know Leah Snuba jumped right in in terms of negotiating these things. I mean if it can't be it sounds like it can be changed. If it couldn't be being able to work out some sort of trade-off in the in the stacking of of how the subsidy goes. getting the state and the feds to change anything there's no promise there. So.

Understood, but having it on our agenda even if it's an administrative thing rather than a something somebody would pass. Um I would support. Thank you. Council member Miller. Thank you, Mayor. Uh Leah, you mentioned that the developers are online to speak for this meeting. Um I'd like to speak to them if you don't mind. Um knowing that this is brought in such a a fast manner for us uh not going through the policy and finance committee as we usually would um and asking us to commit this money or the these fee this fee waiver, I would be curious in what their commitment is um in such a quick manner to the public in which they are trying to serve right now. We We have a commitment up here at this body to make sure that we get some affordable housing for our area, but we want to make sure that they are on record. Mr. Richardson, it looks like to be able to tell us what they're going to make sure what kind of fees and what kind of cost it's it's going to be minimal for our citizens here. Can you give a little information on that, sir? Yes, good afternoon. Good afternoon and thank you for the time. My name is Austin Richardson. I'm the vice president of DW Development and we are based out of Dodge City, Kansas. So, we are local to Kansas. This this development is going through a low-income housing tax credit program and if some of you may not know, that ties a land restriction to the to the property which is a LURA. That LURA is going to last 30 years. So, we go harvest uh portability the affordability will stay on that property for a minimum of 30 years. The affordability on this property we're going to have 30% AMI units as well as

60% AMI units. 100% of the units will be between 30 and 60% AMI. Thank you, sir. Did that answer your question, Councilmember Miller? It does. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Richardson. Any other comments or questions on this item? If not, what is the will of the body? We have a motion to approve from Councilmember Valdivia Alcala and a second from Councilmember Miller. There's no other comments or questions. Looks like I will ask Clerk to take a vote.

Okay, we have nine yes. The motion carries with Mayor Duncan abstaining. I didn't actually say I just Do I need to hit it when I can't vote or just not touch it? my god. I don't know either. I've never asked that question. The mayor does not vote on this item. Thank you. [laughter]

All right, with that we'll move on to action item C, City Clerk. C is an ordinance introduced by City Manager Dr. Robert Emprez to waive certain utility system and connection fees as requested by the developer for an affordable housing development at Southeast or Southwest 37th Street and Gage Boulevard pursuant pursuant to Topeka Municipal Code. Leah, I'm assuming this is you again. Yes, thank you. Similar to the previous item, tonight is an ordinance for a fee waiver related to utility system and connection fees for Peaks of LLC, which is a proposed development at Southwest 37th and Gage Boulevard. The development consists of 42 units. It's estimated to be a $12.49 million development. This developer is also an applicant for the 9% LIHTC application process. They are active and good standing with the state of Kansas and have no outstanding fines or fees with city utilities, code enforcement, or development services. They have um also a 30-year Laura on this project. And again, this is what is outlined in the 2026 qualified action plan under the KHR LIHTC application. And the fee waiver would be for 40,000 as outlined in the ordinance. The city portion would be collected would be $182 of the remaining fee balance. With that, I will stand for any questions. Council member Valdivia-Alcala. Just real quick. Thank you, Mayor. So, you said with they're in good standing, all of that, but we're also making sure that they don't owe back taxes, right?

Correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Spence. I mean, Mayor. Council member Hill. Um and similar to what you were share shared before, what's the mix on the um income levels for the housing? This is also 30 to 60% AMI. All of it? Yes.

Okay. Thank you. I must have missed it. Sorry. I I will say that Mike Grube, the developer, is in the room and can also answer any questions. Council member Miller. I'd like to have him come up and speak to that as well. Same question I asked the last developer. I want I would I would like them to get on the record and say for sure from them what they expect to do for our citizens. Welcome, sir. Please state your name and who you're with. Yep, right there. Mike Grube, G R U B E, and I'm with MG Real Estate LLC, um consultant and part of the development team for the Peaks of Topeka, the project we're talking about. Um similar to the last developer, and again it goes back to the scoring and the QAP, um we're going to have units at 30% AMI, uh up to 60% AMI. All 42 units will be income-restricted, so it's going to be 100% affordable. Um our those 30% rents will be somewhere between four and five hundred dollars a month rent for those units. And uh similar with the 30-year lower, so it will be affordable for 30 years. Thank you very much.

[cough]

Any other questions or comments? Staff with the developer? Oh, you know what? I good call. Thank you. We did have one individual signed up to speak. Uh Mr. Pat Delap. Sorry, Pat. Wasn't intentional. It's just under my other piece of paper. All maps are signed. Hi there. I'm I'm going to stipulate the same thing. My biggest objection is the funding source, the RTS. We shouldn't be using this for because we're the RTS is supposed to be used. Everything we pay is to the water department is supposed to be for a service. What service are we getting out of it? We're not. Perhaps we should look at another funding source. Now, I there was a meeting today on low-income housing tax credit with the mayor attended. I wasn't there. Low-income housing tax credits have gone down quite a bit, suddenly 9%. When I 30 years ago, it was better than 20% um because of the popularity of them. People just paying them up more and more. It's only 9% credit. Um if I read the ordinance correctly, we're waiving $262,000 in connection fees for this this development for water and sewer connections. People that are paying the RTS or base charge are going to have to be paying for that. Shouldn't shouldn't Now, let me read this to you. You've got this, but I'll read this. This came out of a again, a letter to city manager Stephen Wade. Housing incentive notes free water meters new construction. Additionally, give free water meters for all new constructed single family and duplexes, a savings of $1,500 per unit on the construction cost available because the RTS This is a small investment by the city. Helps create a new housing unit plus an

80 plus year utility customer with each new house or duplex, and it will certainly grow our population. I was told by former head of Tippecanoe Building Association, Ivan Wackert, that this would be a great incentive to get builders interested in building inside the city limits. Additionally, he said they need to allow the building of more duplex units that can be sold to homeowners. He said this is interested in the builders. This free meter incentive uh to builders on a hypothetical $300,000 single unit easy to spend a day's market would only represent 1/2 of 1% as an incentive. This is a great leverage and of course can be paid for by the new utility sales or even the RTS, which now is charged to all vacant homes, commercial properties, or a flat reader for a flat water rate monthly unit and storm water fee. This is a great incentive and investment of the fans. We will get 300 to 400 new units per year with this fee. To help with this help of free meters to them for the new construction economic impact over the next several years that will be huge. It would be It would help create more population growth and more sales tax and excise tax for the city and create tens of millions of new real estate base. Again, gentlemen, we shouldn't be using these things what people are paying on as party treats. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Delap. Any other comments or questions on this item? If not, Council Member Valdevia Acuna.

Of course, thank you, Mayor. Um I'm just going to say again, I I I'm really am leaning in the way that Mr. Delap is talking. Uh once the the dialogue comes up for the readiness to serve, you know, in my opinion, the whole thing needs to be scrapped. Um I I think that that's why a lot of citizens that are tired paying out the wazoo so much feels like the city plays a shell game on them. So, it really would be interesting to know if what is being mentioned here is actually where that money comes from. So, we'll be looking at that later, but for now, I'm going to be supporting these, but moving forward, that whole readiness to serve we're about to dialogue on. So, thank you, Mayor. Council Member Hiller. Just a quick clarification, um Mr. Delap quoted a number of over $200,000 that he thought we were waiving. Could we have the official clarification of what we're talking about? The waiver is for $40,000. That's what I thought. The breakdown uh for the water portion is for 1 6-in 6-in water meter, 1 2-in irrigation system connection, and then an 8-in uh for the sanitary sewer side an 8-in sewer connection. And those are what uh the total fees are in front of you, and the waiver is for 40,000.

Just wanted to get the number out there. Thank you. Thank you. We have a motion to approve from Council Member Kell and a second from Council Member Banks. If there's no other comments or questions, I would ask Clerk to take the vote, please.

Okay, we have nine yes. The motion carries. The mayor does not vote. All right, with that we will move on to action item 5D, city clerk. D is the charter ordinance introduced by Mayor Duncan amending the city's charter ordinance levying the transient guest tax for the city of Topeka. Thank you. I guess my name's on this, so I will take it first before I turn it over to Deputy Mayor, who's the also the chair of the transient guest tax committee, who may or may not have something to add or correct if I say something incorrect. Same with staff. Um so, here's why this is in front of you today. Um this conversation started late last year among some members of the transient guest tax committee uh and just quiet conversations because other communities in Kansas our size and communities surrounding us went up to the eight and eight and a half percent rate. So, it occurred to us we'd kept ours at 7%. We also have uh a clause in ours and I don't remember if it's in 28 it that it's supposed to actually revert back to 6% um and so, this is an effort to just simply get in line with what the rest of the cities in our area and and our size throughout Kansas are already doing. It's an effort to stop the decrease of this um in the which is the current mode if we don't make any changes. Um and so, it really is that simple. We we did talk I know the transient guest tax members talked with and I talked with the community who was impacted by this. They have no issues with it. They're doing this in other communities again, some of the same hotel owners and they've seen no negative impacts. Um the way this is written, it would start in 2027, which means that we would there's be a percent and a half that is not would not be for 1 year allocated to any of our current transient guest tax programs. The other contracts that we have expire in 2028. And so, that's actually a 12-year process that's finally sort of coming to an end. And I think the one thing that I want to be very clear about, and I know

it the deputy mayor and the transient guest tax committee want to be very clear about is there have been no conversations about where that 1 and 1/2% will be allocated. There have been no talk about what will start to happen once these other contracts come off in 2028. Those are conversations that were moot if this doesn't happen. So, so step one was to see just focus on the policy decision of if it's okay if in 2027 we moved 8 and 1/2%. And then I promise you, and I know the deputy mayor will promise you, that this governing body and that transient guest tax committee will get input into and conversations as to how they everyone wants to proceed with talking to the community about how those dollars should be allocated both in '27 and then both when the other contracts come up cuz that conversation hasn't been able to happen in 11 years, which is crazy when you start to think about that. But But so, we did want to make that very clear is no money's been spent. Goal one is just a policy decision on if we want to make this change to 8 and 1/2%. So, with that, I don't know if the deputy mayor has anything to add. Okay, I want to clarify this for those that are listening. This is a tax only on those staying in hotel rooms. It is not a tax on any of our citizens unless they happen to stay to spend the night in a hotel room here in Topeka because this gets confused a lot, and I hear about a lot, and they think that we're raising our sales tax or some kind of tax on our citizens. We are not. This is strictly on those that come It used to be a lot came for Sunflower Soccer. And that teams and families would stay at the hotels. So, those people from out town were the ones paying it. So, I that's one thing I just want to make very clear and basically, it is if you're paying $100 a night for your hotel, you're going to pay an extra $1.50. And it goes towards economic development

in Topeka and currently, we're helping fund Evergy Plaza, Constitutional Hall, um Jayhawk Theatre, and the ice rink. Those are the current ones that are the city committees uh under their control. Another 5% goes to Visit Topeka and 1% goes to the Sunflower Sports Association. Sunflower Soccer or whatever it's called now today. We apologize. Whatever your name is.

So, those make up the 7% we have now. So, I wanted to be clear on that so everybody understood what this was who was going to pay it and what it's going towards currently. And if you have any other questions, just ask us. Council member Kell. I'm I'm piggybacking on on the deputy mayor there. This is a cyclical pool tax because it helps with hotel stays, helps put that money back into things that draw people to stay in hotels so we can keep on kind of reloading the the revenue on that side of things to draw people to Topeka. Um just out of curiosity, a couple months ago I was actually going to bring this up uh for the simple fact of I looked at several cities around the Midwest. My wife and daughter were going uh to a concert and we were looking at the best place to go to, price of tickets, price of hotels, and all that. And we are well below a lot of cities in the Midwest on their uh transient guest tax. Uh there's a couple cities that were very surprising on how much they were charging for that. So, uh that was something I was going to, you know, bring up at our next transient guest tax, but it's already getting brought up now. So, uh but we are well below a lot of other cities in this Like I said, this helps going into things that draw people back into the city, which then draws more tax, which draws more people, which becomes very cyclical. So, uh as the uh Deputy Mayor said, you know, it's this is a pay-to-play tax. So, if you're not staying in the hotels, uh and then I know that some people like, "Well, what about the the low incomes that have to stay in hotels?" After 30 days, it doesn't count towards the transient guest tax is not applied to longer than 30-day stays. So, there's that also. So, uh thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Councilmember Valdivia-Acola. Thank you. I've gotten three emails and basically going over the first part what um Councilwoman Hofer said,

telling them that this was only a tax for those staying at the various hotels in Topeka. Attached to those three emails was "Is this being raised?" And you're saying, "No." Cuz it hasn't been discussed yet with anything with Hotel Topeka. So, you're saying, "No, that has not been any kind of raised to the 8.5 because of it going to Hotel Correct. So, we we raised the as you know, the hotel went to 8%. This would raise it to 8 and 1/2%. But not it doesn't it does it's not on top of that and it and the rest of it it it's still only what's collected at Hotel Topeka goes to Hotel Topeka. Everything else will go back into the transient guest tax fund that can then be redistributed to the community.

And that has not been dialogue talked to the committee. That is not at least from my perspective an option. I haven't watched I watched it. I just want to be on the record from my perspective that would not be a good policy decision on that part. Okay, thank you.

Yeah. Any other questions or comments? If not, we have a motion to approve from Council member Kell and a second from Council member McGee. There are no other questions or comments. Oh, you know what? Gosh, I got to start looking at my paper. No, there is somebody. I am very sorry. Is it Mr. Daily? Mr. Deal? Daily. Daily? Daily. Daily. Daily, uh-huh. That's closer than the first time. Yeah, it's it's German. It's a It's a really strange Um, thank you. Yeah, my name is Christopher Daily and I'm I'm actually a literally a transient. I'm homeless here in Topeka. And like a dollar fifty doesn't sound like much, but if you get social security and you're staying in a motel for like maybe all you can get is like seven or eight nights a month and then you're then you're back to sleeping on the ground. Um, so it ends up, you know, it's like eight you know, eight, nine, ten dollars uh roughly. And uh that doesn't sound like much, but what happened to me last night when I tried to stay at the Days Inn over on Wanamaker, they wouldn't give my um uh Wyndham Wyndham rewards which would bring it down ten dollars, approximately ten dollars off of the sixty-five dollars that they're charging, which is a low rate, which I'm really glad for Topeka's got some low rates. Try to stay out be a homeless person on the West Coast, you won't find anything under a hundred dollars, even the cheapest motels. So, I'm really grateful for Topeka to have the the low prices. But here's what happened to me last night. When I went there, um they said, "Well, okay, sixty-five dollars." I said, "Great." I paid sixty-five dollars. She said, "Well, we need fifty dollars deposit." I said, "Okay." I pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. She said, "I don't have change. You're going to have to go across to Walmart and get change." And I go, "Well, I don't want to walk all the

all all the way to Walmart. I've got a medical condition. I've got a the proctologist said it he suspects it's a rectal cancer." Um so I thought, "No, you know, I'll just go across the parking lot here and stay at the other motel." Um so I got I don't want to have to go through the thing of lugging my backpack all over to Walmart. But so I go, "Could I just get my $65 back then?" And she goes, "No." She She pointed at the sign that says, "Once you're checked in, there will be no refunds." I said, "Well, you know what? I'm not checked in. You just told me that I can't you know, I can't be checked in until I give the deposit." She said, "Well, you're not getting your re- refund back. You're not getting your money back." I said, "You're kidding me." So and they know cuz I stayed there last month at the Days Inn. I spent four over $400 last month there. I paid 300 at the Super 8. I paid $700 just staying in motels. And uh so they know about my medical condition of uh having a tumor coming out of my anus and it gets exacerbated when I walk long distances. So they knew what they were doing is really cruel for them to do that to me. They called the police. They said, "We want this man trespassed." I told the police very clearly I explained, "They just stole my money." And the police said, "Well, it's a civil matter. You got to take it up in the courts." I I said, "I don't have the wherewithal. I'm homeless. I'm on the run, literally on the run because my existence is so precarious because it's illegal. No matter where I go, I can't sleep on the ground without being at at risk of being arrested." So I said, "I needed to stay in that place." They said, "Well, no, you know, that's a you know, that and that's the police policy. They put the onus on the individual who just got robbed." So the business gets away with it. And and so I'll just say this in closing. I got a minute here. They uh I think with this levy uh with this levy, when you have a the objective for this is to bring people into Topeka. So you want to have good business practices in order to do do This is bad business practice. So bad that I might I might contact the Federal

Trade Commission tomorrow when I go to the public library and try to report this if I've got the wherewithal to do it cuz day-to-day I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Um so I'll just say that and and I'll just point out, you know, that perhaps if there was an exemption, you know, for the the one-star motels, that would be helpful, extremely helpful to people that, you know, that are uh you know, really struggling. So, I just like to point that out that uh that that um the uh I I lost my train of thought, but I think I think you get the point. I'll just leave it at that. But, thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight. Thank you very much, sir. We appreciate it. All right, with that we have a motion and a second. Were there any final comments or questions? Not, ask the clerk to take the vote, please.

[cough]

All right, we have a nine yes. The motion carries with uh Councilmember Miller abstaining. With that, we'll move on to action item E, City Clerk. E is an ordinance introduced by City Manager Dr. Robert M. Press imposing a real estate lien pursuant to KSA 12-808c upon certain lots and pieces of ground in Shawnee County, Kansas to pay the cost of for utility services where such payments to the city have not been made due to neglect, failure, or refusal to pay. City Manager. Thank you, Mayor and members of the governing body. Sylvia Davis, our utilities director, and Nicole Malott, our deputy director of utilities, will lead us through this item. Welcome, Nicole Sylvia. Thank you. Good evening mayor members of the council. I'm going to run through some information really quickly here just a refresher from when we were here on the 17th. Tonight we have a lien ordinance in front of you for severely delinquent accounts that have been billed readiness to serve and or base charges along with storm water. Once again the rates and the enforcement thereof are not the question this evening. After much discussion last year the decision was affirmed to maintain rates as established with the name change back to base charge. It is now our responsibility to all rate payers to get these accounts back in good standing. The utilities have a couple different collection methods available to them but the lien assessment is by far the most effective. However a lien can only be used when the utility account holder is also the property owner of record with the county which is the case for all of these accounts. It's important to note liens are also less expensive to the property owner as only the past due amount is being assessed. There are no additional fees or interest added on by the the city's collection agency.

Didn't know it was up there. Sorry. It's the same you saw before. The ordinance in front of you this evening lists accounts that are delinquent by at least 90 days and in many cases have delinquencies dating back to January of 2024. Since our last discussion the total list is down to 618 accounts for a total of 525,517 dollars. Due to customers making payment payment arrangement or a change of ownership. Upon passage of the ordinance this evening it will be provided to the county on June 1st who will immediately start the process of entering the assessments on each property. As with all assessment ordinances we'll continue to take payments and remove accounts from the list up until noon on the day that we send the list over to the county. With that we'd request the approval of the governing body and I'll stand for any questions. We do have two individuals signed up for public comment, so I'm going to call on them first. Uh I will also just let everyone know in front of you you have um an item 5E you were given a printout. The one that was in the packet had a couple of misprints, so this is the corrected version that has been placed into the record. So, when or if a motion is made, it will be with for this amended version in front of you. With that, I will first call up Mr. Pat Dalquist. Long time no see. Welcome back, Pat.

[laughter]

Um again, I'm not not for this. There are additional fees when they they put it on the tax rolls. If you're not paid, pay it and they start charging high interest rates. I believe it's 18%. I believe also there's a hard penalty if you don't pay it in full when your taxes come due. So, it's not a cheaper way of doing it. This is again a fee that I don't think is justified by state law at all. I'm adamantly against this lien on the property for those who have not paid the RTS services or base charge now. I've tried to make clear to council that state law will not support this, and that's KSA 12 808C B. In a nutshell, what y'all going through the legal ease, what that says is you cannot [clears throat] be charged putting the liens on property for unpaid services you did not apply for. But that is what the water department is doing exactly. The city of Wichita I'm going to drink this uh sanitizer. Yeah. Um [snorts] city of Wichita does have RTS, but they don't apply it for service cut off for non-pay for services, for vacant property, or for vacant lots. They do not apply to any of those things. You must have prop- your meter properly turned on before they start charging those things. Found a city who does an excellent job of knowing what their costs are of things. You've been told, gentlemen, Thank you. You've been told um the reason they have this readiness to serve fee is to the cost of that meter. You got to go up there and read it every every

month. Well, we read it Wi-Fi now. And maintaining that service line, things like this. [clears throat]

City of Ohio, similar meters to us, from what I understand, they charge $2 a month for a 5/8 meter, and that's only if you have the thing on. They don't charge vacant properties. They don't charge vacant lots. Don't charge stuff like this. The department has refused to turn water on to purchases of a house because the RTS has not bill has not been paid. So, they're they're holding up a new owner of a property of getting water on because that bill has to be paid now. Uh-uh. Heard water department has done the same thing to Habitat for Humanity. They have purchased vacant lot. It had a meter on it, and the RTS has not been paid for that vacant lot. They told them, "Well, you can have us remove the meter, and that will uh eliminate that fee, but you'll have to pay $4 to $6,000 to get that meter back when you build a house." Board decided to oh heck, we'll go ahead. It's cheaper to go ahead and pay for it. Eventually, that got removed through Well, basically, an act of God. Werner stands state got involved too on that. Um same department turn water on for people in a rental then months later down line found out they owed money back from 2012. You know, you think the statute tations would eliminate. They then shut off the water to to people inside the house. They will not allow them to make payments on that like gas company would like the electric company would a payment plan. Water company doesn't do that. Water department has installed meters where none had been before just to start charging that fee. They did that twice to me. There was no meter existing and they put it on to start charging.

Met a woman a homeowner who has very I'm going to give you one more minute since you had to pause for coughing. That's but that's that's the only reason. [laughter]

Don't don't anyone else try that. It was real but but but I'll give you the minute. Okay. Met a woman a homeowner who has very limited incomes. She had lost water service years ago due to water being off because of break in house. She has water thanks to friends neighbors and buys water indirectly from the city indirectly Lindsay Spring, Walmart, stuff like this. She just doesn't have pressurized water to her house which I don't care. She has water. This woman is charged $34 a month a month for the RTS and can't get a cup of water through her faucet. She is currently $250 behind in payments. She is not allowed to have residential trash service because the city told her she can she can only have residential trash service if she has water service. However, they will allow her to have commercial trash service at $70 a month. Normal trash service is like $22 a month. Um I must say she does have hold her head high and figures by the year after her mortgage payoff, she'll be able to catch up with the RTS fee and maybe have water going to her house. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next up, we have Danielle Twumlow. Thank you. Um so, I'm here to respectfully urge you to reject this ordinance as written. Not because the city doesn't deserve to be paid for services, but because this approach ultimately harms residents, weakens neighborhoods, and undermines long-term financial stability. I can find it in me to see the original purpose to an extent of where this RTS has gone back and forth. Um and there are absolutely landlords on this list who do not take care of their properties, who are skirting their

responsibilities, um developers who just leave land and and I get that. But, we have to admit that this ordinance itself predominantly functions as a regressive fee that hits the lowest-income residents and nonprofits the hardest. The human cost is far too great to continue with this model. I see nonprofit organizations and churches on this list who are working within disenfranchised neighborhoods, feeding and clothing people daily, offering classes and safe spaces. I see rental properties and individual homeowners who are nurses, poets, and active community members who are giving everything to make ends meet. We are creating policy-induced instability rather than building a system that people can pay into, and we can do better, and many cities do. For example, in Philadelphia, the city implemented an income-based water billing program where residents pay a percentage of their income. The result, more consistent payments, less delinquency, and fewer households falling into crisis. Other cities use lifeline rate structures where basic water is kept affordable using higher use charges at different rates. Um these models work because they recognize a simple truth. You cannot collect revenue from bills people cannot afford to pay. The city won't balance its books on the backs of its most vulnerable residents. We need to get a design a tier that is income-based and rate structures that get essential water to to people and make it affordable, while others who are using access use more cost-appropriate tiers. A financially strong city is not one that extracts the most. It is one that builds a system where residents can participate, stay stable, and grow with their community. This is not about avoiding responsibility. It's about designing a system where responsibilities actually possible. Rejecting this ordinance doesn't mean rejecting the financial fiscal responsibility. It means choosing a

smarter and more equitable and sustainable way forward. There are less global policy moves that we can hold people accountable and organizations who are truly aren't valuing our community building with these bulk property purchases when they're out of state, hiding behind LLCs, um and finding other legal loopholes to just not do what they should do. It's okay to say that we thought this would be a good change and realize we need to change course when the collateral damage is too great. We must also take a closer evaluation of the finances that are happening within the water department before continuing to look for more ways to nickel and dime every resident. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Valdivia Alcala. Thank you. Just two quick things, Mayor. One is that I am not going to support this in no way, shape, or form. I think whether it's I think the whole at the whole thing of the readiness to serve and putting these meters and starting to charge now in a way that has never been done before, perhaps to support this, perhaps not, and they just found that was a way that they could put some money in into providing these incentives. I think it should be done away with. I think that it has irritated so many people. There are obviously people that deserve to be on this list, but as a whole, I would definitely agree with what some of our public comments have. I'm also going to state specifically the deep deep concerns I have with the utilities department. If it comes to any additional rate increases, I'm not going to be having those meetings with the director or any director because I believe that the opaqueness continues in this this department. I believe there are serious issues going in in this department, and I believe that there should be an independent auditor since we don't have a CFO, um and that has never audited into Pica that is known to be reputable to finding errors or miscalculations or

whatever. And I think that that should be done not only with the utilities department. I think it has to be done to the whole city because when you're looking at a $15 million deficit, one person said it's all because of the hotel, but I know people that know finances and they don't even understand our books. So, I think we're looking at a number of problems that I will not be supporting this. Thank you. Any comments or questions? Council Member Ortiz. Thank you. Um I did tell the previous city manager that I I could not support the readiness to serve. I think we've had that conversation, Sylvia. Let's be candid. I'm looking at this list and I think I've said it before we've got some dead people on this list. I don't they're they're not going to pay and their heirs are not going to pay because they have a house the one that that I'm looking at on this list has a house that sits vacant that I need to talk to city manager to see what we can do to move that along. It was a nice house at one time. So I've called some people that are on this list that didn't know that they were on this list and and I advise them to set up a payment plan with you is that correct that because you said we could do that correct? Yes. Instead of going to get the lean we could we could do that right? Yep.

[clears throat]

I have another lady on this list that is actually one of my colleagues constituents but I won't she's a lady and I won't have him work with her. She's on this list and we are trying to work with her to get her house empty to get her water but in the meantime this readiness to serve or base whatever we're going to call it now it just keeps going up and up and up and up. I have constituents that have pulled the meters and are sorry that they pulled the meters um because now they still have this base charge. So I know we've got to get the money from somewhere but I think we need to find another way to do it. Um and that's going to take all of us. Because when when I look at a thousand, there was one for 3,000. I don't even know how you let it get that far unless that property just sits there and they just ignore it. Um but we do we do need to look at that. We need to look at

[clears throat] when they do purchase those properties that are vacant and that meter's been on there. Um we need we need to look at that. I think um I did have a question for you earlier and I and and I can't remember what it was, but I think it was if I was on this list and I could call the water department and say, "Hey, I owe a thousand dollars. I could make payment plans, correct?" Correct.

What would those payment plans look like? They range um variety of of options for people. Um usually we see payment plans on people that are just trying to keep their water on. So, we're going to be asking them to make that most um the the longest past due amount. If you could at least make this, we will keep you on. That way they're not getting turned off and getting additional fees. Um but that's that's not the case with these accounts. So, if you know of people that claim they have a meter and are still getting or they've given their meter back. I think that's something you might have just said. They've they've Well, this one has a meter. This this is a lady that her water has been shut off. And um they're trying to empty out her house so they could fix the the plumbing, but

Yep. she she can't even afford this. You know, I think me and you have [clears throat] talked talked trying to get an to help her, but what agency is going to help her because it's it's a meter. It's not [clears throat] It's not water. And so, that makes it kind of a difficult conversation. Um but but hers is going to keep going up and up and up. Well, I might um I might you've been great at representing those people that have come to you and said they're having challenges with this. You get in touch with us, they get in touch with us, and we we usually have an opportunity to work something out with them. The when we when the city voted for readiness to serve charges, we uh committed to you all to establish that assistance program. The dollars that people have available to them cover nearly all of the readiness to serve charges that they may incur in a year's time. So, if they're truly in in need, we can help get them that assistance so then they don't have that burden on them as well. Does that make sense?

[cough]

Yes and no, because then this this lady that I'm helping trying to get water. This is David's David's constituents. I won't let him deal with her because it's she's a female. Um but I should let him deal with her, but anyway, um and she's stressing about this. So, even if they were to pay it because it's a meter because it's it's because there's no water there, but she still has a meter, it's going to come up again. And so, to send her to a agency, I I don't I don't feel comfortable in that to say, "Hey, can you pay my Can you pay my meter?" I would just refer to it as their bill, right? Because these bills also have storm water charges on them as well. So, they're utility bills and that's what those assistance programs are for to help anybody who is in need. So, if they can apply this year and get that taken care of and they she still doesn't have water on and is even if she does have water on next year and is in need, she can apply again next year. That's That's the intent. I know we talked about can we give them more money in in one chunk instead of uh parsing it out over the year. Yes, we have that flexibility. Um we're trying to be as flexible as we can with folks. Um we have had uh some some people who have called and said this was my mother's house and I didn't know she was having these bills. She's passed on. We helped uh clarify some things with when documents were um requested for her meter to be removed and and we were able to clear some of those charges to work with them so that they could get off this lien list. So, it unfortunately

we can offer it, but unless we have folks willing to reach out and talk with us, it's difficult to connect those resources to those in need. Right. Right. And I appreciate that cuz you know, I've had quite a few here lately. Just just a lot.

Mhm. Yep. Um this question is for Braxton. Thank you, Sylvia. Um Braxton, what what are we trying to do? Get get more money into our utilities deposit when we did this? I I didn't I wasn't here that night for that vote and I didn't vote for this. But I wouldn't have voted for it anyway. I was not in the I was not the director of utilities at the time that this that particular charge went through. So, I cannot tell you what exactly was going on. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, but you were. Sylvia, were you at that time? Can you?

I was newly appointed to that position. Um lots of discussion in terms of you can get This is the amount that is needed. How can we get there? So, as some of we we talked about this the other day, some in the past we have done blanket increases across the board. And this last time, um we were pushed to think of some different ways to see how we can do increase rates, get to where we needed to be, get that to to that number, um without doing just a blanket increase. Uh so, we did things like, um I don't know. Just off the top of my head, readiness to serve was one of them, of course. Um And to the point that you've been, uh sharing about the email communication. Well, that that was not something that we were a part of. It was just part of those general discussions. So, um like I said, our commitment was if we did establish this, um charge, which was already in ordinance, the city had just not been complying with that ordinance. So, if we were to go ahead and start, um charging readiness [clears throat] to serve for those vacant properties, we would use those monies to build this assistance program. So, that that was the part of the discussions that we were involved in. Um additional conversations, uh amongst others, we weren't in a part of those. But, there was a variety of reasons why this seemed appealing at the time to those that were in your seats and and voted to approve that. Part of that was the thought process of if we put pressure on some of these vacant property owners, they may decide to go ahead and fix their infrastructure that's needed to

get somebody in those homes, or they might sell it. So, um whether that happens that way or not, I we've seen it. Right. come to fruition. People have sold their properties. People have pulled their meters. Several people did not know they had meters out there um that they were paying at least uh it was easier for them to remember it because they just didn't know. Right.

Um and then whether what what someone pays if they were to rehabilitate that property, um that is completely up to what infrastructure remains and uh what the plumber that they're working with charges on top of our connection fees. So, we've also been working with folks on that end as well. Sylvia, now I heard you say, if I may, Mr. Mayor, before you tell me to be quiet, um I heard you say that we [snorts] this has always been a charge, but it was called the base charge on our account.

Mhm. But so so basically what we did is just change the name. So, prior to 2024, this ordinance read, you will be assessed a base charge whether or not you have active service. [clears throat] In 2023, the vote to change the rates um happened at the end of 2023. So, in 2024, the name change signified us charging inactive accounts that base charge. Okay. But we we renamed it to signify that this is being done differently now.

Okay. All right. I appreciate it. Mhm. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yep. Council member Hiller. Um thank you, Mayor. Thinking back to your presentation last time, Mike. Please. Thank you. Sorry. Thinking back to your presentation last time and and then kind of getting us ready to move forward. What you've said, I think it was even in the materials today, is that when these things when these [cough]

assessments which we voted to make as part of our rate schedule, when any of that then that are unpaid go on the taxes, your Correct me if I'm wrong. Our our payment rate is 98%. Is that what I read today? 98, 99, somewhere somewhere in there. I mean, the assumption there being obviously that people are paying their property taxes and they're paying the assessments along with it. Okay. I guess for me then um and this was Steph's recommendation before, that since we these are charges that the council agreed as part of the master rate plan, we would charge so that we got the money we needed in for their budget, um that we that we need to approve these liens today. Before this would roll up again though, we will be going through the rate discussions, correct? So, if we do want to change um and not do this anymore or change it incrementally, that's the time for us to do it so we can rebalance the budget and figure out where we will get the money from. Absolutely. Yes, that's the kind of feedback that we would love to have when we're working on our proposal to you all for the next round of of rates. Thank you.

Um that is that's what you task us with doing is collecting what is in our ordinance. So, we can do that two ways. Assess liens or send to collections. Collections then administers an additional burden to our customers. So, that's that's our attempt tonight.

collect very well. 30%? Is that what it said? Correct, yes. And they get additional fees on top of that. Well, with that I will vote to go ahead and get these assessed today, but I look forward to the conversations about how we can restructure. Thank you. Council member Bradbury. Yes, thank you. The question I have is can you talk a little bit about some of these that you say have been on the list since 2024? Um we have had several customers call in and um their opinion is that this is a a bogus charge, an illegal charge assessed to them, and they have just simply said, "I refuse to pay." Some of them have said, "I'm waiting to see what the governing body does." Which is why we went um last year back in front of the governing body to say, "Are we upholding these or doing something different?" And at that point, it was voted on to keep assessing the way we were, but changing the name back from readiness to serve to base charge. So, we have people that have just um decided they're not going to pay to see what happens. Some Again, there's a variety of of folks on that list for different reasons, but um even when we are sitting here at the end of every year talking about liens in general for people that have service, it it's the same situation. Some of them have um just chosen not to pay. Um it's easy for them to go ahead and pay uh through their the lien process. They do it every year. Um others uh maybe the house has transferred ownership and and we've got to clean up that as well. So, it could be a variety of reasons, but some folks have just decided when they started getting these bills, I'm not going to pay them.

So, in those instances a lien wouldn't matter. Is that how I'm understanding? The That then it doesn't make a difference if the decision is just not to pay. If they choose not to pay that on their liens, then again we would still not get that revenue. Correct. Mhm. And to your question, we because of the unrest that is to serve caused, that's why we did not attempt assessing liens in that first year. We waited to see what we were going to do with readiness to serve. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Kell. Okay. Um Yeah, I remember a couple years ago I think we had this conversation. And I'll go to legal on this. Isn't water, portable water, required for home to be considered habitable and meet legal health and safety [laughter] standards? So, and I'm in the I'm in the mindset, you know, yes, I I've been low income. My wife and I were food assistance for 10 years. Water is the I think more important than your gas or your power because it comes down to the cooking, it comes down to the cleaning, personal hygiene, waste removal. I I've worked for moving companies where I've gone into the houses that people haven't had water for two, three years. And just absolutely we've turned around and just walked out out of the house before and said, "Yeah, this is we can't be in here." And so, to me this is one of those things that it's it's it's there I think for the best of of the people to make sure that they have access to water, have that water. A lot of these people on this list are landlords or own multiple properties. I mean, McDonald's is on here because, you know, and that's you know, that's by their choice if they're not paying paying the bills, so um and uh correct me if I'm wrong, this

doesn't affect renters one single bit, does it? Cuz it's on the property owner with that owns that property, correct? It's Okay, so it doesn't affect renters. Correct. So, to me this is something, you know, I've been for because [clears throat] I I I I think the access to water is is needed because there are those instances where, you know, landlords aren't but main main making sure that their tenants have their water turned on, living in a healthy situation, and like I said, to me water's so much more important than than electricity or gas just for the simple fact of of health and safety of the people living there and people living around that area. So, uh this is something that uh unfortu- I I it's unfortunate that we have so many people on this list, but like I said, I believe majority of these are are landlords, so uh and businesses out. There's one that kind of shocked me being Roseville uh being a retirement home for veterans, but uh this is something, you know, I'm I I'd like to see maybe when we discuss this again here in the future, uh house rehabs being able to apply for a waiver. Uh if someone's working on a house, uh really pushing uh as we talked the other day, really pushing the LMI programs to make sure people are aware of those. And as we talked about before, the uh trying to be proactive rather than reactive on when you know you need help uh cuz I've I've been in that situation where proactive saves you a heck of a lot more time and energy and money than being reactive in the long run. Uh but I I look at this as as mainly as a health and safety issue. Thank you. Councilmember Yee, did you have I I uh my question was already asked. Thank you. Councilmember Ortiz.

Thank you. Um, city attorney, I want to challenge you, um, and I will give you the name of the person that's deceased on here. I also want to challenge you to another one that has property, um, but she has dementia. And, um, there's one more. And what we can do to to get them off this list. Thank you. Yep. I just have one comment. I mean, it's no secret I didn't vote for this the first time. I haven't liked it from day one. I know we didn't We didn't just change the name. It did come with an increase and expansion of who got it. And through the years I've tried to bring forward some suggestions on ways we could mitigate this, whether it's lowering the fee, whether it's giving exemptions of some kind, some allowances. Those have It's fine. The process haven't haven't gone up the into you know, made it up flag pole. Um, first time the council by a majority 7-2 voted for this. Last year I was hopeful when it went back to the public infrastructure committee that there would be some kind of review. That did not happen. It came back to this body as simply a name change and that was approved. So, second bite at the apple and and we weren't able to make some substantial changes. Um, so I don't like it, but I'm voting for this tonight because this is what two different times the majority of this body has said is the law of the city of Topeka. And so, I'm going to vote tonight to enforce the law, but I hope there's a little buyer's remorse because I hope that that can lead into our conversations later this year as we talk about rates again, us making some of those adjustments that we've all heard about or talked about and and can challenge staff because I get it. It's a revenue loss if we if if make changes and we have to account for what that means into the system. We can't do this in a vacuum. Um so I really am encouraged that I've heard some willingness to maybe have

this conversation one more time. So, I'm going to begrudgingly vote yes because this is the law on the books that twice have been able to in the vast majority to get to change, and and then we'll go from there. So, that's why it will be a yes vote tonight. So, we have a motion Oh, Council member Valdivia Aguilar. Thank you, Mayor. Oh, wait. Okay, there you go. Um and I'll say that I did not vote for the rate increase either however many years that was ago when Wade was here. Um and I don't agree with it, and I understand what Council or with what Mayor Duncan is saying about the laws being on the books, etc. I also know that in the past 7 years that I've been here, there's been a lot of laws on the books that resolutions have been run to render those basically null and void for various individuals. So, my no is a no. Thank you, Mayor. Yep. We have a motion to approve from Council member Kell. We have a second. No, maybe Oh, second from Council member Hiller. There are no other comments or questions. I will ask the clerk to take the vote, please. Okay. Okay, we have six yes and four no. Motion carries. Um and the four no were Council members Valdivia Aguilar, Ortiz, Banks, and Bradbury. All right, with that, we will move on to our non-action item. City Clerk. Yes, a discussion on the proposed 2027 to 2036 CIP and 2027 to 2029 capital improvement budget.

City Manager. Thank you, Mayor and members of the governing body. Josh McAnarney, your budget and finance division director, will lead us through this discussion. And Sylvia Davis, director of utilities. Thank you, City Manager. Um good evening again, governing body. So, tonight we're covering the utilities department. The last two two weeks or two meetings we just we discussed public works projects such as streets and roads. Now we're actually getting into what's underground. Um and one thing I didn't mention in the prior presentation is this is a unique year where we're actually not at this point planning on revenue bonding anything. So, there won't be an issue in this year for revenue bonds at this point. Um and the reason I bring that up now is that's how a majority of these projects are funded out of the utilities fund. We either cash fund either the rates that are generated from the utilities funds or we issue bonds which are then paid by the rates that are generated. And uh so, that's exclusive of the general fund. So, I just wanted to make that denotion before Sylvia actually gets into the projects. Musical interlude. It happens. We need a jar. Start the jar. Start the kitty. All right. Sorry, Josh. Go back for it. Yeah, I I'm just going to With that being said, I was going to turn it over to Sylvia to discuss to actually get into the details. All right. Thank you. Um as Josh said, tonight we're going to dive into um some of the highlights of the more than $46 million worth of CIP projects and programs that are in uh the utility department's CIP um for 2027. Um just as a refresher, these projects are prioritized using master plans, studies, um whether or not we have a regulatory requirement that's pushing this initiative, um staff recommendations that consider maintenance and operations efforts and longevity of our assets, and feedback from our citizens. Um, we have developed these programs so

that we can ensure that we're addressing all major assets of our infrastructure. We don't want to focus all of our dollars on, [snorts]

say, the collection system while we ignore needs at the plants. So, we're trying to balance the funds that we have across all of those assets. And, um, this this helps us remain flexible and adjust our priorities as emergencies arise. It also allows us to remain flexible as we continue to coordinate with public works projects. Um, I also want to emphasize the fact that this CIP that we're proposing is based on what we can afford today with current rates. So, with that, um, let's dive into the water project summary. Um, each of these utilities begins with a summary sheet in my presentation, um, with our major projects and programs. Um, you can see we've allocated funding again over, uh, all of our assets, including water main replacements, um, items that need replaced or rehabbed at the water treatment plants, water towers, etc. I'll go through those here in a little bit of detail. Um, when a year's worth of funding may not be sufficient to do a project, we're trying to combine funding from two or more years to be able to do those projects. Um, total for these combined projects in 2027 for the water utility is $17.32 million. And, um, we start with our water main replacement efforts. This is an annual program. We have $10.48 million worth of projects, much of which is dedicated to street coordinated efforts, such as the work along Huntoon and 10th Street from Gage to McVicar. It does include some funding for waterline replacement in neighborhoods, work near Gabler and Burr from 4th to 6th Street in East Topeka North neighborhood, Westchester from 6th to 8th west of Gage Park, and West 1st Street from Clay to Fillmore near Ward

Meade. Um in conjunction with that water main replacement effort, we also have some zone optimization programs. Um this year we are funding the southeast zone. Uh this $2.1 million is set aside to address needs across the city again in those zones um in 2027. Uh this funding will support design for a 2 million gallon 2 million gallon a day water tower, a new water tower in the um east southeast zone. Sorry. Um Anyway, this will help improve um we have some other work that will help improve circulation um along Deer Creek trafficway from 10th to 8th Street as well. So, um again, I stuttered a little bit there, but $2.1 million that will help start the design work for a new water tower. Um uh next we go into water tower rehab. So, this is work on our existing water towers. Uh Monterra South is a current project that we are working on. Uh we have $400,000 here for 2027. Um this estimate for for this one tower rehab project is just over a million dollars. So, we've had to use 3 years worth of funding to be able to do this. Um just as a comparison, um when we rehabbed the tower 6 years ago, that work was approximately $465,000. So, you can see costs have definitely increased, and these dollars that we have set aside over 24, 25, and 26 are having to be stretched and combined to be able to do some of the work that we had planned. Um if there are funds and funds additional funds left over from that tower work, we would then potentially do a project at 40th and Quincy Tower and then the tower at 29th and Croco. Uh stretching those dollars as far as we

can. Um we are also dedicating uh $350,000 to our booster pump station program. This is the second year of funding for this program. Um we are doing some structural updates at Wanamaker pump station and then some interior painting at several pump stations. Um last on this slide, we have our meter vault replacement program. So, this is dedicating $675,000. Um we anticipate that getting us 11 new meter vaults in areas where we currently cannot access due to safety issues. Um we have some really antiquated meter pits out there that need a lot of attention and we're talking very large vaults here. So, that the cost is pretty absorbent here. Uh and you can see we've identified 145 sites out of 206 that need attention. So, we're trying to start hitting those top priorities. We were able to do that this last year with the first six projects and now that we've got those under our belts, we're moving on to do um almost twice that many in 2027 with this funding. Uh we have $270,000 proposed to continue our hydrant valve rehab and replacement program. This will continue the systematic testing, evaluation, rehab, and replacement of hydrants and valves throughout the entire city. To date, we've been doing that on valves and hydrants that we know are out of service or needing replaced, um broken in the system, but we do not have a current, uh, condition assessment of all of those assets and this effort is helping us get to that point so we can then start, um, going through and identifying where we need replacements at that we just currently don't know exist. Uh, we then have $2.65 million set aside for work at the water treatment plant. Uh, 2027 work will continue to focus on

the East Plant rehab. This includes metal work, paint and coating, and additional work that's needed in conjunction with the East intake and East Basin rehab projects that we, um, established last year. And then last on this slide for the water program is our water fleet replacement. We set aside $400,000 annually to replace whatever equipment and vehicle needs we have at the time. So we, um, have a committee that looks at all of the needs across the water utility. So whether it's water distribution or water maintenance, um, water meter, uh, any of those groups that are needing vehicles or equipment, we come together to look at replacement rates and what condition those are in and see how many we can approve for this funding. Moving into stormwater, um, we have a proposed CIP totaling $12.4 million in 2027. Again, we spread this funding across all of our stormwater assets as it allows. Starting with the stormwater conveyance system. So $4.872 million, um, the largest allocation of funding is dedicated here to help support our stormwater work in conjunction with public works projects. Typically, this is look this looks like replacement of rotting, uh, corrugated metal pipe under streets that has just, um, been a outlived its useful life and is compromising those streets. Um, this year this funding will support Southwest Cherokee and Jewel and then we have some other coordinated projects with the in the Shadywood neighborhood and uh the Oak Park storm sewer project. Sorry, I'm buzzing through these pretty quickly cuz there's a lot here. Um, next we have our levy asset re uh re repair and rehab program. $337.5 thousand. Um, this work helps uh do additional

maintenance work that we have big ticket items that uh we find through our inspection of our levy system and 2027 dollars are dedicated to the North Topeka outfall structure um that needs work there. Um, then last on this slide we have the drainage correction program at $300,000. These projects are intended to address localized flooding issues that impact a couple of homes in a neighborhood. These projects are capped at $300,000, so depending on the needs, we may get one project out of it. We may get two or three, again, depending on the scope of that work. We then move into the stormwater pump station rehab um program for $675,000. Um, that is uh used to address improve improvements this year. 2027 funding um is going to be dedicated to improvements at the Oakland pump station at the Oakland wastewater treatment plant. Um, we also have work um in design at Ward Martin pump station if we can um have enough funding to start doing that design work. We then have stream Okay, let me take one step back. I was wrong there. Um, it's just the Oakland pump station, not at the Oakland wastewater [clears throat] treatment plant, so I wanted to correct myself there. Stream and channel restoration, stabilization, and rehabilitation, $200,000. This really doesn't get us too far when it comes to stream bank work. However, we plan on dedicating this to ongoing channel improvements at 21st and King's Row and Ward Barton Creek channel, which runs through the middle of town and we've highlighted several times at the public infrastructure committee as we've been working our way through segments down that channel.

And next we have the best management practices development and construction. This is a cash funded program, $300,000. This helps us fund any stormwater post construction BMPs that we need to implement to maintain compliant with our stormwater regulations as we continue to do infrastructure projects across the city. Most of the time this is in conjunction with a street project, new impervious surface going in. These dollars are going to be dedicated to potential detention efforts on the Southwest Hunt Tune project. And then last we have the stormwater fleet replacement program, that's $300,000 again dedicated to replacing our equipment. Some of that includes the large vector trucks and we usually switch on and off funding years to fund those out of stormwater utility and wastewater utility, so they're not all coming out of one utility because they are utilized for both. And we do have two standalone stormwater projects that we are allocating funding to. The first is a project at Southeast California Avenue and Southeast Fourth Street, $2.24 million. This work is dedicated to upsizing our infrastructure. That project is a $4.5 million dollar It was identified in our stormwater master plan, so this helps us fund that work. And then we have 3.18 million dollars set aside for um, Shunga Creek flood mitigation. So, this helps us prepare for potential cost share program with um, the Corps of Engineers as we look to feasibility study of what we can do to help alleviate funding along Shunga Creek. With that, we'll move into the wastewater utility project summary. Um,

you can see here we have just shy of 16 million dollars worth of work across the infrastructure um, across our system for 2027. And we will start with breaking down the conveyance system um, working with our wastewater lining and replacement program. That is 2.8 million dollars to help with um, instead of doing costly uh, replacement projects, we are going to attempt to extend the life of that infrastructure where we can, where it's reasonable through lining efforts. So, we are doing some lining on the Huntun project, the Quincy 8th to 10th Street project in downtown, and um, this also helps fund our citywide condition assessment project that we're doing so we can um, have a map that readily shows us where our highest needs are throughout the system. And we also have um, 2. uh, [snorts] I'm sorry, 773,845 dollars for our force main replacement pro- program. This helps support um, design work currently along East Central Park. So, um, hoping to get some good cost estimates there so we can look to see what improvements will cost on some of our force main needs. We then go into um, the sanitary sewer interceptor maintenance and replacement program. That is $6.048 million. This is is a big ticket item. However, our interceptors are huge systems underground that no one knows even exist. They carry a lot of wastewater throughout the city and it is really important that we maintain those and keep them in good working condition. So, 2027 will funds will help continue work on the Shunga and Crosstown interceptors and then additional funding will move to help us look at Chandler and Butcher Creek interceptors. So, we

want to do what we can to extend the life of those because doing replacement work on interceptors is a very very big ticket item. We're not talking $6 million on a replacement project. We're talking $30 million on a replacement project. So, um through our wastewater pump station rehab program, we're dedicating $2.25 million. This next project is work on Thunderbird pump station. So, we will rehab that project with this funding. Uh that pump station. And then last on this slide, our wastewater odor control program. As you recall, we've been working on addressing odors throughout the system. We needed to get moving on the first phase to see what impact that had. This $1.35 million will help us continue those efforts here focused on Wanamaker pump station. We anticipate that project to be a $1.5 million effort. So, we'll look to see what other savings we can realize to hit that 1.5 as we're asking for $1.35 for that project. And if somehow we have additional dollars, we will take that work that money and [snorts] apply it to Atchison pump station, whatever improvements we might see there. Then, uh the WPC facility rehabilitation program. This is a million dollars set aside here to do uh variety of whatever we need to be focusing on at the wastewater treatment plants. We currently um have a great need to start addressing some primary clarifiers. Um these are big big ticket items, so $1 million is an estimate to help get us um a lot of progress on one clarifier. Um so, that's what this money will be dedicated to in 2027. Inflow and infiltration work, $675,000.

This program helps us look at um some of those smaller issues that we are having that end up being bigger issues for us in the wastewater system where we have um broken pipes, root intrusion, etc. that's causing stormwater to inflow into our wastewater system. So, as we um do our inspection work and come across some of this I&I, uh we can use these funds to help address those issues, and we currently have a long list of needs in the I&I program. This $670,000 will be dedicated to work in the High Crest neighborhood at Southeast 33rd and Massachusetts, um Southeast 29th Street and Southeast Iowa in the Central Park Central Highland Park neighborhood, and then Southwest 24th Street and Southwest Jewel Avenue. And then last on this slide, we have wastewater fleet replacement. Again, $500,000 that is dedicated to improving uh replacing our vehicles and equipment across our maintenance operations and collection section of the wastewater utility. And then last, um we are allocating $600,000 to SCADA work that needs to be done uh for the SCADA, which stands for um supervisory control and data acquisition. This is the system that allows us to read what's happening at our pump stations across the city, remote work so that we can um identify when issues are happening without having bodies out there 24/7. Um this work is this money is dedicated to um doing different server projects, updating the system so that we have a reliable communication system um that we can see what's going on out there. So, $600,000 we will work with um our SCADA team and IT to help um implement these improvements that we have for the wastewater system.

And with that, I will stand for questions. I know that was a lot of information thrown at you, but Appreciate it. It's good to show everybody what that we're actually out there doing some stuff. So, Councilmember Kell. Um your department's uh one of those it's out of sight, out of mind. A lot of people don't think about it. And then you just hear these numbers, but you know, they they expect clean water to come through the faucet and the waste to go down the drain. And and as long as those things are happening, uh they really don't think about you guys. Um so I I appreciate what you guys do there. Now, you're talking about uh water tower uh um refurbishing or or upkeep. You mentioned Montera, correct? Wasn't that replaced like 3 years ago? Nicole might have some uh more specific information to help me answer this question, but we have two

it. We added a new tower in Montera because we needed additional capacity down in that zone because we only had one tower. And if we were to lose that tower, we would have lost the zone. So, by having a second tower, it gives us redundancy. Okay, thank you. So, that's the new one. This addresses the existing Montera tower.

you. Additional questions or comments from the governing body? No. All right, then. I guess Thank you. That's it. No, thanks. All right, with that we will move on to public comment. First up, we have Dale Cushionberry. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. I want to thank those the councilperson that voted no on the rezoning. Disappointed with the rest of you because I feel that you're not listening to the neighborhood neighbors that live in the neighborhood. But I just wanted to let you know and I want to let you know that we haven't went anywhere, either. Thank you, ma'am. I'm not going to butcher your last name again, Christopher, so I'll just Cushionberry. No, I'm sorry. I was The next individual's name is Christopher, ma'am. Okay, thank you very much. I I think this time I'll go by Christopher, my first name anyhow, because uh well, pardon me, uh my voice isn't cuz I I had a broken nose and I've got really bad allergies. Um but um I'm speaking about uh 12-step meetings, public safety regarding 12-step meetings as they are open to the public.

And uh I I'm hesitant to address it, you know, publicly because they 12-step meetings I've been involved for almost 40 well, over 40 years now. I've been clean and sober since July 18th, 1985. And uh I've gotten a lot of help from 12-step meetings. But I've also received a lot of harm. And um I wanted to address what I've done is I've studied it and try to figure out where is the harm coming from. And what I what I concluded was that the um religion and 12-step their teachings are both based in paradox. And paradox can be spun paradox can be spun favorably or unfavorably depending on who is doing the spinning. And when when that occurs if it's um spun unfavorably those that are harmed by it it's on it's unbeknownst to them often times. They don't know that the teachings are being used to hurt them. And I know that this has been done consciously and knowingly by people that have the intelligence to do so. Because just like when you have religion and you have individuals that know how to use religion to hurt people you have that same dynamic in the 12-step meetings. I was hurt so deeply by the teachings. I was shamed. I was ridiculed. I was held up as a as an object of ridicule in the meetings. Um because of my perspectives on on on the the uh programs. So I just wanted to point that out and and what uh just the other part of this is that uh I I believe what it comes down to in in these specifics of the harm that it can result the cumulative effect what it can actually result in I've actually here in Kansas in Topeka recently I've got there's a lot of really nice people in the meetings. They've been really nice to me. There's also individuals that have threatened me with violence and used ad hominem attacks on the group level smearing me on group level inferring

outlandish um scandalous behavior on my part in order to discredit myself and my sobriety, my message on the group level. And that's completely antithetical to what the 12 T 12-step teachings teach is love and tolerance of others is our code. Ad hominem attacks are antithetical to love and tolerance of others is our code. They're not abiding by that. And that's in the big book of one of the 12-step meetings. That's in the big book. So, that's what they should be abiding by is love and tolerance and they're not. So, my belief is that because there are religious concepts involved and I've got a minute left here, so I'll conclude um that extremists have infiltrated the meetings and this has been going on for 40 years. So, this is all over the country, probably all over the world. They're ex- extremists that want to control the narrative and they know how to do it. And I and I'll close by saying that this is not hyperbole when I say this, but I shared in a meeting in Colorado Springs, Colorado in in a 12-step meeting. I left that meeting 3 hours later, I was attacked from behind in broad daylight. I received four to five martial arts punches directly to my brain stem. I was choked unconscious twice. I I saw black twice. Put my The man put the fing- put his finger in my eyeball socket threatening to gouge my eyeball out. Etc. etc. The police put it down as second-degree assault, but I found out that that's called a rabbit punch. Just one of those can kill a person. That was attempted murder on myself based on what I shared in a 12-step meeting. But I'm I'm out of time. But just as a public service, uh just wanted to mention. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right. With that, we will move to announcements. City Clerk.

Okay, just a quick overview of next week's meeting on May 12th. We will have a mayor's proclamation for Community Action Month. We have one presentation for the Topeka BID annual report. We have on the consent agenda a noise resolution as well as a professional services contract amendment. For action items, we will have a public hearing and ordinance for Johnson Betts Meadows RHID as well as the development agreement with for Johnson Betts Meadows RHID. And then for non-action, we will have the continued discussion of the CIP and CIB. Um or sorry, what's discussion on the capital improvement project um for Southeast 29th Street Kansas Turnpike Authority Interchangeable. And then we will also have the continued discussion for the CIP and CIB. And that is all that I have. Thank you. All right, city manager. Thank you, mayor. Uh just wanted to uh let the public know that um in accordance with the information I was presented in the mayor's press conference last week on the TSC or TSG Get Digital uh program uh through the Office of Inclusive Communities, um the program is live uh for any members of the public who are interested in obtaining a tablet. There are income uh requirements uh to um to qualify for that tablet. Um and also uh if uh if anybody has previously received uh desktop computer from from that program that they're not eligible for for the tablet. And I do also want to put in there uh that we left out in the press conference that or the in the um press release that this is fully grant funded. So, it's not city tax dollars. So, I just want to put that out there to to make sure that that's on the record. So, with that, thank you, mayor. Appreciate you. Thank you. Councilmember Bradbury. I have nothing. Thank you. Council member McGee.

I have nothing at this time. Deputy Mayor Hofer. Nothing tonight. Council member Hiller. Nothing. Thank you. Council member Val Divia Aguilar. Thank you, Mayor. I want to touch real briefly on what happened because once again it is in my district. On April 14th presentation on the Oakland spill that impacted mostly building U. Um I was zooming in for that meeting and I had to say that when we came to the slide of where we saw results from testing do not support the U building and or the overflow directly caused any reported illness and then went on to speak to Glenn Robinson with Axiom. It was like watching a slow-motion accident. You could see he was saying that was not the case. They never came on board and said said that. Then he was sitting here, went over here, who was sitting here, went back over there. And nobody really wanted to accept the responsibility for it. At least that was my sense of it. The way that I look at this and everything that we've received on governing body for presentations, etc., etc. and how highly volatile this was because of the allegations of a number of employees getting sick is we were lied to. Anybody in this governing body can sugarcoat it whatever way they want to. We were lied to. And by extension when we are lied to as a governing body then the public is lied to. So in many cases, you know, that would be grounds for termination. If you ask me about termination, I'm like, I don't know what the hell to do because this all feels like it's all webbed all over the place, and it's bigger than one little council person, much bigger. So,

I just want to give voice to that, because there's been no communication from the city manager, from anybody involved in that conversation uh about rectifying the situation and what really went down. We were given some piecemeal as the hot potato was punted around. Uh you know, there was some upset uh you know, by some in the administration with comments that I had made through an email, and I can certainly make that public if people are pissed off about it, but we have problems. We have some serious problems. And it's we are a governing body, so we're all going to swim together in that regard, or we're going to sink together. It's been very painful what has happened with the past couple of city managers, because more than how it's impacted governing body, it has impacted the workers. That is not to say that workers are pristine and angels. Let's be real. But what has happened to the workers in this city is part of the systemic issues that never change in this city. And unless there is strong enough leadership that is going to hold administration to the fire, their feet to the fire and do right by the workers, and also for the workers to be do right by the administration in my opinion, Topeka is going to keep struggling more and more and more, because there is little faith in anyone. People are talking about me all the time, too. She didn't do this, she didn't do that, whatever, whatever. I do the best I can. But one thing I can tell you is that this is a mess, and that we were lied to and nothing has been said by the governing body, or have we discussed this as a whole, or have we discussed this has anything come forth from the city manager or anyone else? Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Ortiz. Thank you, Mayor. Um first I want to say

that I have heard from JUMP and met with JUMP for a long time. They tell me they have 7,000 members. They tell me they want the housing trust fund going. They tell me they want affordable housing, whatever that is, cuz I don't even know what affordable housing is. And so I try to look at that when builders come and they want to build, I try to look at that and and remember that. There was also a conversation, don't ask me what year, but there was a conversation that Pine Ridge and Deer Creek will soon have to come down. And we talked about even reconfigurating Pine Ridge. Um because they are so old. And so when I looked at this last um development tonight, and if you took out Pine Ri- our Deer Creek that's going to that's going to take a lot of housing out of there. When they take out Pine Ridge, that's going to take a lot of housing out of there. Really they you know, I want to talk to Trey and see when they're going to do that, but we don't have anywhere to move these people. We didn't have anywhere to move these people when we closed down Ripley. We didn't have anywhere to move these people. So I understand we do have a need for that. We do have a need for updated um building and apartments. And so that's one of the things that I look at. Because if you ever meet with JUMP and the people that they bring that's all they that's the first thing they talk about. If you look at their invitations, that's always on there. And so it's it's kind of heart wrenching when they say, "Well, we don't want it in our backyard." That's what we hear all the time. The other thing that they're that they're so concerned with, that we're all concerned with, is the homeless. And then when we say, "Well, what about here? What about here?" Or, you know, we've had some prospects in different

areas, "We don't want it in our backyard." At some point some point we've got to come together and and we have to figure out a way to help all these people, which I think that we're trying to do that, because it's got to be somewhere. Lawrence, that didn't work. If you know, my brother lives in Lawrence. He's two blocks from downtown. There's so many homeless people down there that ain't even funny. They steal stuff out of his yard all the time. [snorts]

But we've we've got to come to a point where we can try to understand and try to get some of these developments, these housing developments going. Or we're going to be in the same boat that we're in. You know, I know that people that go to the mission, and then they automatically move them into Deer Creek or Pine Ridge. That's that's what they've always done. That's what that's the easy fix for them. But they're just they're just old. They're old. They're probably over 70 or 80 years old. That's how old they are. They're old. Actually, I'm going to try to find out so I can tell you, but but they're old. Because my mother lived there. I wasn't born yet. And I'll be 64. And she lived there with my older siblings. So that's why I say maybe in between 70 and 80 years old. The asbestos. the stuff that's that's there. But those people live there because they need something over their head. You know,

[clears throat]

I wasn't going to say anything, but I'm going to say something. One of my colleagues said, "So, if you pull the meter, that means that you can't live there." That's right. That's what That's what happened to a friend of mine. A developer pulled the meter. Pulled the meter. And then they called the water department and said, "He doesn't have any water there." And they came and they took it. And then they abated his house. That's what they did. A developer, who I'm glad is not sitting in this chair. Because he did my friend like that. Instead of trying to help him. There are so many people. So, yeah, it can't it's condemned once you pull that meter. My My friend went to his grave aching, hurting, because he was treated like that. Not because he didn't pay his rent, cuz he paid his rent up until he got sick. That's That's That's terrible. That's not Topeka. That's not who we are. But we do have people like that. So, yes, Brett, if you have them If the owner has that meter pulled, they cannot be in that house. There are so many people. I can tell you 20 addresses right now that don't have water. They're off. It's off. They should be condemned. I'm not going to tell you where they're at. I'm trying to help those people. I understand that water is expensive. I understand that. But until we find a solution that we can continue to do what we need to do and continue to help these people,

it's it's really really sad. One of those persons is on this list. She's either going to be sleeping in the streets or be there with no water. I get it. I understand it. Because cuz she shouldn't be there. So, I hope we can sit down and and find a way to help people and not hurt hurt them in in this next instance. Um and that's why me and the previous city manager we had fell out because he knew what this would do to people. And I And we're seeing the effects. If you don't have constituents that don't have lights and gas, call me up. You can come and go to some of their houses with me. I'll take you. Matter of fact, I'll send you there and then I'll tell you how to help them. Because it's real. It's really real. Some of them just have electricity cuz they're not going to pay their gas and their lights. And the bills are going higher and higher and higher. So, when we're having these new developments come in and these people that are willing to build these apartments, these duplexes, and they're willing to put in all this all this all these new things that we have that are saving everything's energy saving except the old houses.

[clears throat]

Then yes, I'm going to listen to what a lot of a 7,000 members, that's what they told me that they have. That's what I'm going to I'm I'm you know, I'm listening to them. I'm hearing them because that that was one of their recommendations and it's still a recommendation today. I just had [clears throat] to get that out. I want to say happy Nurses Week. This is happy Nurses Week. If you know a nurse, call them up. If you see one, give them a hug. But, we couldn't do it without the nurses that we have. Next, I want to say happy Mother's Day. Not only to the mothers, but there's some fathers raising kids. And I just like to say happy Mother's Day. If you don't have a mother, go find a mother and give her a hug. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Banks. Thank you, Mayor. I know that tonight, and I'm speaking to not just my constituent, but to our community as a whole. I know that there was some opposition to the vote that we made tonight on the 25th Street project. But, you know, a few people okay, we don't want the development. But, there are a greater number of people saying that we do want the development. As Councilwoman Ortiz said, some of the older uh developments are going to be going away and these people are realizing they're going to be needing places. And you know, everybody likes a nice shiny car. But, uh for those that going to say, "Hey, you voted uh against the development or you voted for a development that we didn't want." Uh keep in mind, when I vote, I vote on principle and I can't just serve ten, I got to serve many. So, that's what I try

and do. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Councilmember Kell. I want to say uh happy Mother's Day and to uh you know, make sure you spend time with your mother if they're still around uh because one day you don't know when they're going to be there anymore. Um next up I would like to see public comment moved up. Our meeting's been trending more to the 8:00 9:00 hours and maybe see if we can get the public comment moved up behind the action items. Uh we have some people come a lot and I I feel like sometimes we're we have people that also leave the meetings because they can't stay here um as late as as they want. So, if we can look at maybe getting public public comment moved up to um to a a sooner point. And I our meetings have been going longer, but I think there's been more interaction, which I think is a good thing. But, to make the public comment sit and wait for 3 hours plus sometimes uh can be a little a little bit much to ask. And to uh rebuttal what was said earlier, I I do not want anyone evicted from their house because of their water. I I I I would see issues that we have going on in the city that we need to try to get things fixed. I look at the readiness to serve is this is something to also get some of these land owners that just want to sit on a a property, do nothing with it to now okay, now I have I'm I'm losing something on this property. And now that moves it into a someone willing to rehab that house and make it a livable house for someone to live in. That's one one aspect of ready to serve I look at. There's never a time I want someone to be evicted or to be done anything. I mean, there's there's programs out there I'm willing to try to help anyone find any program that they need to stay in their home. I just look at water is more important than

electricity or gas because it it's it's so much more than just that. And it it's one of the things that we need to do what's best for Topeka and and sometimes there is negative effects to that. And that is never my intention to have a negative effect on any one person, but unfortunately with all the decisions we make, there are going to be some negative effects in there. And long-term this I think is a good program because it allows people to not sit there and say, "Well, I'm not just going to have water because I don't want to pay for it." And it's going to put that onus on property owners also that are just sitting on properties that are becoming the squat houses, catching fire because we have people living in there that aren't supposed to be living in there. That's putting so much extra burden on our city that maybe we can start flipping those houses and and and getting those houses going instead of just having them sit there falling apart because the landlord or or homeowner that doesn't live there just wants the property to fall apart because they don't care about it. So, like I said before, there's no intention of me to have any person evicted for any reason. And if it happens, I feel bad. There's sometimes I go away from these meetings and know that there's going to be some negativity that comes from it that I don't feel good with, but I know it's the best for Topeka, the best for the citizens. And that's just sometimes the lesser of two evils you have to sometimes go with. And just one evicted because someone wanted to play a shady game doesn't mean that I agreed with that person's tactics one single bit. Thank you. Councilmember Miller. Thank you very much, Mayor. Um I too would like to wish my mothers, Ruby Bennett, Veronica Banks, Kathy

Liker, and then posthumous Ruthie Ruth Muñoz. They're some of the women that have had a huge impact on my upbringing and my intelligent and beautiful wife, Kaylin Miller, a happy Mother's Day. I would also like to wish all of our teachers a happy Teacher's Appreciation Week. Um as something that I have noticed firsthand this past year is that we have a huge um problem, an increasing problem, of disrespect of the role that teachers and staff have at schools. Um It's coming from a few different ways and a few different avenues, but one of the ways that I do understand it's coming from is how parents are speaking about and and and speaking to administration, teachers, and staff at the schools who were literally there just to try to try to help their child. I'm not going to speak to every teacher and say that every single one of them did does everything by the book and exactly the way they should. But I know your child does not also do everything as they should. Um some of the things that some of the reasons that children treat teachers the way they do has nothing to do with them. Uh and I hope that we can make a concerted effort as a community uh to care for and respect our teachers the way that they should. Also, I'm a big believer in people using their voice, which is a protected right in our country. I encourage those that have feelings on certain items or in general to use the means of communication that we have to address this body. I would like to remind those that come up to speak at our council meetings that we have more than just males who are represented on this council. Knowing that it may be hard to speak at these meetings we sometimes forget our expected manners.

I'm guessing that with all due respect people have more than 5200 reasons of why they should include the respected women of this body. And to address them as well. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. All right, I just have a couple things. Last night I had the honor of speaking at my alma mater as they inducted Topeka West High School as they inducted new members of the National Honor Society. A feat that I don't know what that's like, but I was honored to be in the room and allowed to to speak to the group and it was a very impressive group of of students and I really enjoyed speaking with them and couple of them want to come maybe to their own detriment, I don't know. Follow a few of us around as they're interested in local government. So that's the door that I definitely opened for them to to give them that experience. So you may see them around here soon. Um and then I just want to congratulate uh Topeka's own NiJeria Kennedy who was selected number two in the AUSL draft. So she good for her. She keeps on making Topeka proud and and she always reminds people where she's from and that's nice too. And when you we have people go succeed from Topeka who likes to come back home and and tell the world you know, where their home is. So so congratulations to her. With that we have the need for two executive sessions this evening. I will turn it over to the city attorney. Thank you, Mr. [clears throat] Mayor. The motion would be to recess into executive session not to exceed 15 minutes for the preliminary discussion of the acquisition of real property as allowed under KSA 75-4319b6. The open meeting will resume in this room, the city council chambers. The following staff will be necessary to assist the governing body in its deliberations. The deputy city manager, the director of economic development and other staff members as needed. All right. Councilwoman Hillard. Given that I assume we will get a 10-minute break and we have two

executive sessions, we might need the motion to extend after 10:00 as well. No, we will not. We will not? All right. They're short executive sessions.

Okay. They should be short executive sessions. Do I have a motion to approve from Councilmember Kell, second from Councilmember McGee. All those in favor say I. I. Anyone opposed? I. And with that, we will take a 10-minute break and then we will go into our 15-minute executive session. All right, we have come out of our first executive session. No action is being taken by this governing body, but we have a need for a second executive session. City attorney. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The motion would be to recess into executive session not to exceed 15 minutes to give legal advice and discuss litigation and other matters deemed privileged under the attorney-client privilege as allowed in our KSA 75-4319 B2. The open meeting will resume in this room in the city council chambers. The following staff will be necessary to assist the governing body in its deliberations. The city attorney, the chief of litigation, and other staff members as needed. I will move to approve. Do we have a second? Second. Second from Councilmember Banks. All those in favor say I. I. All those in favor say no. All right, let's do it. We will now move into executive session immediately. All right, we have concluded our executive session. No action is being taken by this governing body and this meeting is adjourned.

Wow.