City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the June 2nd, 2026 governing body meeting. I will now call this meeting to order. This evening, the invocation will be led by Councilmember McGee. I will ask you to turn your attention to him and please rise if you are able.

Thank you. I'd like to introduce Majors Marcos and Kenya Pena, new Corps officers with the Salvation Army in Topeka. They bring with them 27 years of dedicated service as officers in the Salvation Army. They're new to the community and eager to build upon a strong foundation in place, work collaboratively with staff, volunteers, advisory board members, and community partners. Major?

Good evening, everyone. I invite you to pray with me. Pray to God. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we come before you with humility and gratitude to give you thanks. Thank you for allowing us to gather today to work together and make decisions to benefit the community of Topeka. We ask you for wisdom, understanding, and guidance in every matter discussed during this city council meeting. Help us to act with respect, integrity, and responsibility, always keeping the well-being of all citizens in mind. Bless every person here today. May every decision made contribute to the safety, prosperity, and quality of life of the families, children, youth, and adults in our city. Lord, bring peace, unity, and hope to our community. Strengthen those who are facing difficult times and provide them with comfort, encouragement, and opportunity to move forward. Thank you for your love, mercy, and constant care. May your presence remain among us and guide us in all that we do. We place this time in your hands and ask you to direct our thoughts, words, and our actions. Thank you once again. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen. God bless you.

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

All right.

With that, I'll ask the clerk to take roll, please.

Mayor Duncan.

Here.

Council members Hiller. Here. Valdivia Acala. Here. Ortiz. here banks here kale here miller here bradbury here mcgee here and hofer here all right we have 10 present all right we have two presentations this evening we'll go to presentation a city clerk the first one is the pope quincy viaduct update city manager

Thank you, members of the governing body. If I can ask the representatives from Bartlett West to join us and lead us through this presentation. Thank you. And Steve Bauman from KDOT. Apologies. Thanks.

uh yeah thanks mr city manager mayor duncan council members appreciate the opportunity to give you all an update How about that? There we go. Appreciate the opportunity to give you guys an update on some upcoming closures and traffic changes on the I-70 corridor downtown, including both the Polk Quincy project and California Avenue. As city manager said, Steve Ballman, the metro engineer here for KDOT is with me tonight. We've been here towards the beginning of the project and are back to tell you some things that are upcoming. And just some slides to kind of graphically show what's going to happen here in the near future. So the main closure that we've been communicating for, gosh, the last five years as we had, as Governor Kelly programmed, for full construction funding was that there was a period of time where we were going to have to close I-70. The existing viaduct has to be torn down. The new viaduct bridges have to be reconnected. And so that time is upon us. June 8th, which is next Monday, we will begin I-70 closure. The graphic on your screen there in red, essentially I-70 from Topeka Boulevard through 6th and 8th streets will be closed. You still will be able to get, if you're at McVicker, you can come eastbound and still get off at Topeka Boulevard. From Topeka Boulevard, you can still go westbound on I-70. And then on the other side of downtown, 8th Street and 10th Street ramps are still open to get off and on there. And so that is... the main closure that's going to start next Monday. Topeka Boulevard Bridge has reopened, so that north-south traffic is going. Kansas Avenue Bridge is still open, and that is the main closure scenario from now until late this year that's going to be in place. The main traffic, if we go to the next slide, Yeah. The overall detour, so we want to detour all the traffic that's just driving through Topeka. That detour will be using I-470. So it'll follow I-470 south through town and then on the turnpike back to the east. All the signing in advance in both directions will encourage all of those drivers to use that detour route and avoid getting downtown and getting stuck and getting off and then trying to figure out their way through. So a couple of other closures here in the picture on the left is the existing viaduct that is Kansas Avenue. We have to take down the existing viaduct. So it going over Kansas Avenue, there's a period of time where we have to again close Kansas Avenue to tear down the bridge. That is the next step. There's a missing link there. You can kind of see bridges being constructed, but they stop there at Kansas Avenue. It's because the existing viaduct's in the way. It can't go any further until they take it down. So the details with that closure. So this is starting a week from now. Sunday, June, not a week from now, this Sunday, basically Sunday to Wednesday, 7 p.m. until they finish. They are going to be working on tearing down that section. So the detour as shown in blue, We'll be over to Topeka Boulevard and the Topeka Boulevard Bridge over to North Topeka during that few days of closure to get the viaduct taken down. The next details of closure are for Topeka Boulevard. Again, you see there looking to the west, the existing viaduct has to come down. It goes over Topeka Boulevard. The new bridge, as you can see there on the left, has gone as far as it can, and the retaining wall and fill that needs to be in place is waiting on the viaduct bridge to be taken down. So there are a couple of details with Topeka Boulevard closure to make that happen. So this is Friday, June 12 to Monday, June 15, starting late on that Friday night until early, early Monday morning. Topeka Boulevard is going to be closed through that area to take down the viaduct. And there, shown in green, we have detour routes. If you're going northbound on Topeka Boulevard, it's 6th Street over to McVicker. And if you were going eastbound, it's McVicker to 6th Street and then 10th Street over to I-70. So that is the closure to take down the Viaduct Bridge. And there's one additional one that's a little longer. This is the newly constructed segment of I-70 from at Vicar to Topeka Boulevard. But there are a few things left to do there, inlets that cross lanes that we can't do under traffic. And so eastbound I-70 is going to be closed from that June 12, 16 days or so to June 28. It's basically just extending the first one another period of time so that they can get a few things critical to finishing that piece in place and done. Concurrently then we want to talk about impacts to California Avenue. If you've driven through that section you know that the existing bridge is gone and that right now California I-70 goes one lane each direction through the interchange. That is essentially the way things are going to stay for a while. But after I-70 closes downtown, the ramps are going to close at the interchange so that the contractor can make some improvements on California for later phases when we're going to route traffic through there. So that's the next step. After I-70 closes We're projecting a lot less traffic through the area. That's why the California bridge is being constructed now. At the same time, it's going to keep us away from in a future year having to impact I-70 under high traffic and all the all the issues with that. So starting as soon as I-70 closes, I-70 will stay as it is now, one lane through the interchange, but they're going to close the ramps, start doing stuff at the ramp terminals, and they'll start building the bridge foundation at the same time. And that will shift into, once they have construction further along, they're going to be able to open the ramps back up and continue to build the bridge. Eventually they'll route traffic through the ramps in order to build some of the center portions of the bridge and get the bridge across the interstate.

It should be mid-late July. That'll be mid-late July of this summer when we move into that phase where we're placing traffic on the interchange ramps to carry them through, to carry the I-70 through traffic through.

So we'll have a couple more months of just like it is, and then once traffic's a lot less on the interstate, we'll transition then to shifting those onto the ramps. That's really the main upcoming I-70 pull Quincy things with I-70 closure, closing Topeka Boulevard and Kansas Avenue to remove the existing viaduct. It'll be kind of in pieces, that whole bridge. I had always envisioned a big Vegas building explosion thing, and we're not going to get that. It'll be careful and in pieces and segmented as it makes sense through there. So with that, we'd be glad to answer any questions. I know you guys are all downtown, so you've seen some of the construction going on. Contractors are full speed ahead. You can really see the new bridges coming to life and what those are going to look like downtown.

And the new fills that are coming. Between existing I-70 and the law enforcement center, the large fills are quite a ways up. But a lot of that still has yet to be filled in. That's why we need to have this closure period. So open that up so we can get her finished. And reconnect it to... When it reopens, it'll be to the eastbound. The eastbound side will be carrying both directions single lane because we still have an entire... another year worth of construction work to finish up the local streets and finish up westbound.

So as a part of the bidding process, KDOT made a huge effort to focus on minimizing I-70 closure time. So when that starts Monday, the days start being counted and there is a large incentive, disincentive for the contractor to be done and get it back open. And the first thing that will be back open, the new eastbound I-70 viaduct bridge will be one lane each direction. So that's the goal, get the very minimum open to get I-70 traffic back open, and that's how the entire bid was put together, and that's been the focus of the contractor, get everything ready so that when we close I-70, they can focus, get it built, get it open, and minimize the impact to Topeka. Yes.

All right. Council Member Tiller.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for this presentation. I think most people know I represent District 1, so this is in my district. And it's really impressive, at least from my observation and the feedback that I get about how well it's going. I appreciate the detail because we get asked those hard questions like why would you close California at the same time as you got downtown and you've given us answers which I appreciate a lot. I have two questions. One of them is scary but I think I know the answer. Are we out of time?

Essentially yes. It seems like it. This is essentially where the contractor envisioned us being. Very slightly behind but if you saw how how last year went, they have made back up the time to where we're essentially on schedule to meet all of these periods that they were gunning for.

This is such an intricate, multi-part project. Yes, it is. I think it's so impressive. And I just wanted to ask, because I was pretty sure we were on time, and celebrate that, because that's awesome.

It's hard to express just how much physical work has already occurred and is yet going to be occurring on this project to get it to the finish line.

And then my second question, and maybe I missed something you said, Brian, but if we had kids or grownups that wanted to watch the demo, do you have a place that you'd recommend that would be a good place for people to go and watch?

Outside the project limits.

Yes, sir.

Got it. Can you get them to the top of the town site tower? I don't know. That would be a great viewing area looking down to demolition.

Will you all be publicizing the times? I mean, these don't happen very often.

It's not going to be like the Topeka-Balourd Bridge.

Understood.

That was an event. This is more of a process. I mean, even just the couple of spans that they have to take down to clear over the top of Kansas Avenue is going to take several days. We call it munching and crunching. It's real... It's just they peck away at it until it's gone. It's not real exciting other than over the sheer number of pieces of equipment that they're going to bring to it to get those pieces done on time.

You might have seen a similar effort on the California bridge. They attacked it with 10 different jackhammer things that were all going at the same time to get that done over a weekend. It's going to be a similar effort, just moving segment to segment.

I should be careful what I say, but around 1st and Western, you're way up high, and you can see the whole project through downtown. But there are other places, the bridges and so on, that people maybe could see from. So I just thought I'd ask.

Thank you. As long as folks stay outside the project limits, you will get to see the process of the rest of the bridge coming down over the coming months. It'll take them several months to get the rest of the structure down on the ground. There'll be plenty of opportunity to see the dust, hear the noise, watch the machines work.

Okay.

But even in those areas, KDOT would recommend hard hats, orange vests, and steel-toed boots.

Well, I'm going to stick with what you said at first, which is don't be in the construction area at all. Figure out someplace else.

Deputy Mayor Hofer.

Okay, I've got a couple questions. I'm looking at the Kansas Avenue closure.

Okay.

I'd like to find out. This one shows the section. I know it's when you're going to be putting up steel across and taking down the bridge for June 7th to June 10th. And I'll tell you right now, I am not sure how I'm going to get to work because I'm down by the river. Is Topeka Boulevard going to be two-way?

While Kansas Avenue is closed? Oh, yes. Okay. During the closure of Kansas Avenue to take down that segment of the bridge, Topeka Boulevard will be bidirectional.

Okay. So similar to now, you'll have to come from the east. First Street will be open east-west. Crane Street will be open. So from Madison Monroe, you can come west on First Street and get to your business.

My next question has to do with Kansas Avenue. When are we going to do, because we've already approved the project, the work from First Avenue to probably about halfway, or to the portion that is ground-based? Have we bid that job?

Yeah, I don't think it's this year. No. Mr. Trump.

That's a city project. That's not a Cade out project. And that has not been bid out yet. So we don't have a closure date for that project yet. We're still in design on that project.

So I'll still be able to come through while we're working on between first and third. I'll still be able to come from the north on Kansas Avenue.

That's correct.

Okay. And you're going to let us know when.

As soon as we have design complete on that and we have a contract in place.

Okay. Um, There was another one. OK. What is going to happen when we close 70 for McVicar to First Street? I assume from this picture, we're going to close Topeka Boulevard.

For two days worth, Topeka Boulevard itself will be closed, and that's for the demolition of the bridge. And then continuing after that, that next period will be the closure of I-70 through basically from Topeka Boulevard back to McVicker to allow us to finish that remaining work that we've got to get done in there during this phase. We're trying to get it out of the way here on the front end.

So once the bridge is connected and... They've started working on the west side. Will Topeka Boulevard go back to bi-directional?

Yes.

And I'll be able to access I-7. No, not at all. Never mind on that one. I'm just, I'm looking these and trying to figure out how in the heck I'm going to get to work. Because this is... Essentially closing off that area.

It's restricting the access pretty significantly for that area, yes.

And that's going to affect our street department and all the businesses in that area, which includes the bus barns, the post office, maintenance facility, and several small businesses. So it's also going to be a bear to get any police and... fire down in that area. So I want you to be very cognizant of that happening and watch out for us because I can imagine it's going to extend response times. And unfortunately, the last time when Topeka Boulevard was closed for construction, there were several thefts from people who were on bicycles who could get out and away before anybody could get to them. And I'm praying no fires. That's all I've got for right now. But I will, these dates are pretty fairly solid.

Actually, barring any like really, really significant weather, they are locking down on the 8th as the day we close I-7. That's just how it's going to have to be.

Okay.

To keep them on schedule, to keep their process on schedule for late, late fall opening.

And for reminders, we're going to have signs on west of the 470 and 335, so people coming into town know that they're going to go around the south way.

Reminded several times over, both on the approach on the Kansas Turnpike on I-70, at least two message boards worth, one of them being one of their large over-the-top signs. Coming from the west, heading eastbound, we're actually going to make it three because we feel like we need some additional coverage for eastbound to get them reminded to cut off on I-470. Okay. That's the primary detour.

Yeah, I just want to make sure so we don't have trucks who get in the middle of downtown and go, where the hell do I go?

That will happen?

I know it will happen some, but I'd like to minimize it.

Yes, we're starting that. The message boards are partially deployed. The last of them are being deployed today. Well, part of them are today. Some of them are tomorrow to try to get them in position and ready to go so that when the detour goes live, they're being turned on and redirecting traffic.

Is there anything with Google for Google Maps or navigation systems that will help redirect people?

We're – okay, so we've already worked with – I know there's a limit. Which way? has contacts where they've been able to get, they're trying to get it changed within those electronic mapping systems, the phone-based electronic map systems, as well as the trucking company map systems, to get this published as quick as we close it. Now, is that going to be within the day? I can't promise that, but sooner than we've previously experienced. and trying to, as much as possible, divert that through traffic on the smoothest path around the city, which is I-470, the turnpike.

Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Council Member Ortiz.

Thank you. I don't have any questions. I just have some comments. I want to thank you for getting the bridge down. And it kept me up all night. But they did it in one night. I called Braxton the next morning. I said, the bridge is down. And I received tons of calls stating that people were over there. They were trying to figure out if they were fireworks or gunshots. And I said, well, if they were gunshots, we'd have a whole dead town over there. But I don't know. You know, it's kind of hard to tell people that this needs to be done, and then when you take your time or delay it, people are just like, what in the world are we doing? So they are understanding the seriousness of this, and they're paying more attention. So I just want to thank you for that, because I was even shocked I ever went on site the next morning to make sure that I heard what I heard. It was amazing. So I know that they're not off track on that one night. I know they are on track. And I also want to tell you thank you for keeping the flow of traffic both locally and out of state or out of town as best as you can. Signage is very important to make sure that we know where we're going. But I'm just watching drivers and how they are detouring and trying to figure it all out. And we have a lot going on with the California Bridge and 6th and Golden to Rice tore up. So we've got a lot. of traffic that's that's um it's affecting in that whole whole area. So I'm getting the calls and I and I just want to say thank you. Um it's much appreciated.

Councilmember Bradbury.

Thank you. First, thank you for the presentation. It's very helpful information. And I just want to touch on something that Deputy Mayor had talked about, and that is response times. And my question is maybe geared towards Chief Boyle and Longstaff about response times. What is the plan with all these closures?

You're directing it to?

Yeah.

Okay.

We look at those closures every day. Operation Chief Nellis goes over with the shift commander. So those maps come out continuously, even from KDOT updating us on the closures. We also attend their meetings.

Tim's meetings frequently in the city as a coordination between law enforcement, fire, KHP, KDOT, Kansas Turnpike, where we talk about what projects are going on within the city and how they're impacting both emergency response time and a lot of it surrounds emergency response time and how we deal with any incidents that might occur on the highways or streets and our ability to react so that everybody knows what projects are going on.

So I'd like to say the updating is constant through here. AMR does respond. Do they come to your meetings, AMR?

We invite them. They haven't been showing, but we keep the primary partners advised. We've been attempting to get also the companies to start attending to help work through this process that we always go through, but so far have not had good luck.

Did I just understand you to say that AMR has not been attended?

No. No. They're invited. We're using the folks at Which Way down in Wichita, who is our statewide TMC. They've been organizing it, and they've been struggling getting AMR and others outside of the immediate Topeka PD, Shawnee County Sheriff's Office, KHP, Topeka Fire Department, and those to be a part of it with us. They've struggled.

I mean, is there a known reason?

I don't have a good reason why. They haven't been able to figure out why.

Council Member, we'll make sure that those maps and information are sent to them, to the Chief's point and to Mr. Bauman's point. I mean, we can make the invite, but if they don't attend, I mean, we can't really control that. But we'll make sure that they have the information at the top of their organization.

and and i believe that coordination meeting happens once once a week right is it the well we have a specific tim's meeting about uh once a quarter okay and it kind of faded out during covet because of some of the challenges with that that we're getting it back to go in and a lot of the drive for it has actually been this project to have better communication with our partners okay thanks

All right. Any other comments or questions on this issue? If not, thank you very much. We appreciate the update. And I remind the public, all this is online. So go to the KDOT's website, KSDOT. You can look it up. You can see the maps. And all those updates are posted on there. So thank you. We have a second presentation this evening. City Clerk.

Second presentation is Topeka Police, ASTRA, and Mobile Crisis Unit Update.

City Manager. Thank you, Mayor, members of the governing body. Chief Vallejo and Assistant Chief Jennifer Cross will lead us to the side. I'm very excited to have this presentation be brought forward. As we explore alternative response models, I think this is going to be something great for our city. I'm looking forward to the presentation. Thank you, Chief and Assistant Chief.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, City Leaders. When I began my tenure as Chief, I dedicated myself to being and looking at innovative strategies to move the Topeka Police Department forward. And I remember distinctly mid-last year, Councilwoman Valdivia Alcala challenging me and looking at alternative responses to mental health crisis through a harm-focused lens. So we took that seriously. So for the past 10 to 11 months, we've been looking at a way to partner and form and collaborate with our community to provide those services to, one, from a harm-focused approach, having people that are more equipped to handle low-level mental health calls with people in crisis, and two, to provide our officers an avenue or a way to get help when they need it. We have the CIT training and are mentally health trained but we're not mental health professionals but we work really well with them and I'm proud today to introduce Assistant Chief Jennifer Cross who has been championing this project along the way to talk about our current collaboration with Astra with mobile crisis, where it is now and where we anticipate going with it in the future. We're excited about that. So I'll turn it over to Assistant Chief Cross for the presentation.

Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity to be here. I think that presentation is there we go. So one of the things that we were tasked with, you know, VHU and a co-responder program for TPD was really innovative. We were pretty cutting edge on that. We haven't really evolved past that in past years. It's a very effective program. We've had much success with it. However, with the merger of Vallejo and Family Service and Guidance Center, we had some opportunities to kind of reimagine what we're doing. So working with Astra Mental Health, and they have a mobile crisis response. They are on first and second shift and we kind of developed a red, yellow, green model. So kind of a stoplight approach, right? A green call would be cold, hot, warm. Green calls would be where our mental health professionals are trying to respond to those absent law enforcement. So even if those calls come in through 911, if we're not needed, there's no reason for us to respond, right? A uniform and a gun shows up at every call if we respond. So how can we divert that to the appropriate place? And then those warm calls falling more to that combined response unit that we currently have, the current model of co-responders. And then the hot calls, obviously, the red calls being law enforcement. There's a criminal component or a safety concern, an immediate safety concern. The biggest focus we've had in collaborating with these partners is that when you respond to these calls, a lot of times there's a lot of different things going on. You may have a mental health crisis, you may have a substance abuse issue, you may have an intellectual developmental disability that you're dealing with. And so identifying the immediate and most prevalent cause of that particular crisis and getting the appropriate resources is our goal. Just in this year alone, mobile crisis response has experienced a 209% increase in their calls for service. This is through diverting calls away from law enforcement for them to respond. Some of that's just been public education. A lot of it has been better collaboration with us. initiative is we've redrafted the MOU with Astra Mental Health. It's currently on their table waiting for finalization. But part of that is we're going to be providing direct communication via radio. So when a call comes in to 911, if a supervisor reviews that call, determines that maybe law enforcement is not the primary responder that needs to be there, we will have a direct communication via radio. But that's also a two way street. If they respond to a mobile crisis call that came in through another avenue or through a referral and they need help, they will have immediate access to ask for our presence to get there sooner. So we're working on that and that will come with training for community on who to call, what numbers are available, as well as for our officers internally. In April 2026, we hosted a workshop meeting and we had our mental health partners, but we also invited some different partners to the table to include veteran service, substance abuse services, housing services, and hoping that we can provide the appropriate resources faster to address what the underlying conditions might be and try to divert away from the criminal justice system. We're currently working on a trifold handout that will identify those resources and the contact information that we can distribute in the public, but also for our officers to have the immediate contact information available to them. One of the other entities we're really collaborative with is the fire department. So the fire department is working on their right care program and their intent is to identify frequent 911 callers that are calling with like low level medical calls. But when the medical call comes in and we're dispatched, we have a certain response. And so if we can identify those and step that response down to where it's a lower level response that's getting them the resources they need, that's going to be a better use of city resources as well as provide better service to the constituent that is experiencing that crisis. So our long-term goals are improving those services for those in mental health crisis, also those with substance use disorders. We had a meeting this morning with our partners over at Mirror Inc. to try to work on law enforcement diversion programs where we can make immediate contact with them and get people into substance abuse. substance abuse treatment rather than taking them to jail if that's the appropriate response. So what we're working on with them right now is identifying the specific circumstances where that's the appropriate measure so that obviously we don't want to just divert everybody there, but identifying what criteria needs to be met and working to not overwhelm their resources as well as they try to expand their mark on the community and what they have available. So the goal would be decreasing law enforcement contact with individuals who are mental health crisis, substance abuse, incidents that are outside criminal activity, decreasing the revolving door that comes through the jail, getting people better services, and making better uses of the resources that we have available to us. It's a brief overview, but I will take any questions anyone has.

All right. Council Member Valdivia Alcala. You're on mute.

Okay, thank you, Mayor. Chief and Assistant Chief Cross, thank you for the presentation. I think that this is, it looks like to me, a possible first steps. It feels like it is more proactive. It feels like it is definitely more expansive in nature with the additional people that you have coming to the table. because it seems to me what you're trying to do is look, understand that there can be a criminal component, a mental health component, but also understanding the intersectionality of all of these additional partners that you have coming on board. Now, I know that we had talked before, Chief, and I've been talking about it for years, and I forget the name of the program. I think it's the CAHOOTS program on the West Coast. My hope would be that if we ever get the sales tax initiative on the ballot, and that we specify some of these things, I do not believe that a lot should be going to law enforcement save for the establishment of a robust program that you are trying to get off the ground? Because we have to move past the old ways of looking at people in mental health crises. So questions that I have for you are, with 911 making this determination, So 9-1-1 is the county. Has there been, have they been involved, has their staff been involved with these meetings as you're building this and are they receiving additional training since it seems like a lot of weight is being put on their discernment?

So yes, they have been involved in conversations, even to the conversation of potentially placing a mental health professional inside the dispatch center that would screen those calls rather than a dispatcher doing it. Clearly, them making those decisions via phone call and triage they're not mental health professionals either. So that's part of why we've gone with the direct contact radio model because they have not expressed a comfort level of doing that. So we're looking at a couple of different avenues. The radios being provided directly to mobile crisis is an immediate solution because we can communicate directly with them and make a combined assessment instead of leaving it to the dispatchers who don't have that training and aren't in a comfortable position to do that. The long-term goal would be to have a designated mental health professional that can do a phone triage and determine if someone needs to respond in person or if there are other resources that need to be sent in place. So we're working through those things. New ideas and new things often encounter resistance, but we are making traction and we're looking for those temporary solutions that we can do right now while we work on the long-term solutions.

And I think that that is a really good approach because it's like until we can get to exactly where we want to be, then we're not going to do anything. And that makes no sense. And there has to be something that the community is going to be able to see. And I hope that you can get information out in an easy to access way for people to understand what you're trying to accomplish. The other question I have. is and and this comes from years and years of meetings with different chiefs over the years that i've been on council when we talk about police reform so this new way that you are in the baby step formation how is that applying the mind that shift that is needed in TPD itself?

Well, I'd go back to the presentation that Assistant Chief Cross just did. There was a 209% increase in Astra calls. That's us calling them to increase their workload, which, by the way, they're happy about receiving that. So to increase their workload 209%, I say there's definitely a good start to this culture shift. And I think officers are, once they understand how we all benefit from that, including themselves, you know, from excessive call load and things like that, they start understanding the picture. And that's what you'll see. I think that's what you see in that 209 percent increase. So we're in a good place.

Well, and that sounds like it to me because we know how weary, I mean, I would imagine how weary the guys and gals, and we've talked about this again for years, way before you, Chief, but I'm sure, you know, Jennifer has heard those conversations, how weary, you know, our officers can get when being placed with that huge burden. At the same time, we know that when you're coming from a particular mindset, being an officer and in a mental health crisis, it can go down a quick spiral very, very, very fast to where the brutality is unspeakable that is not all the time, seldom, that has been waged against our citizens. So I would hope as well that as these calls are transferred over, and this 209% is a huge amount, that the officers, and I don't care if they're male or female, but if they come from that mindset of seeing the mentally ill, those in mental health crisis, or perhaps those of color, in a different way, even if they're not handling those calls anymore, that changing the culture within the police department also means that they get the help that they need because they're the ones with the guns in pocket.

Yes, ma'am.

So the majority of the time. So thank you. Thank you very much for all your work.

Council Member Kell.

All right. Thank you for your presentation. I have this quick question on the – are we part of the Blue Envelope Program?

No, not yet. We've looked at part of it, but we haven't implemented that.

Do we have anything like it? And for anyone that doesn't know, it's a voluntary initiative designed to support safe, clear communication between law enforcement and drivers who are autistic, neurodivergent, or have sensory and communication needs. But I'm also looking past just that with some of the mental health crises of people that have repetitive episodes that they can, you know, officers can be aware of that well beforehand. So

So one of our former reserve officers, Craig Johnson, ran an initiative with an orange sticker incentive that was kind of similar to something like that. We've looked into Blue Envelope Program. I apologize. And we've had some other voluntary registry programs. The biggest challenge to those is the upkeep, the knowledge of them, and keeping them current. We do log a lot of that stuff in our – Mobile response system, our dispatch system, CAD, that's the one. They all have different acronyms. Our CAD system, we are able to document a lot of that, and our documentation skills and what people put into those skills, that expands with the officers, and knowledge is power. So they know that putting that stuff in there when they've encountered an individual or an address where someone has an intellectual disability or a mental health crisis, that stuff is being told to them online. dispatch from the dispatch center based on what we've input so those those programs are great and we have looked at them we're doing a lot internally to improve the communication of knowing what you're walking into before you walk into it because that does change your mindset the information you have when you respond to the call can absolutely adjust how you respond to the call so the more information we provide our officers the better prepared they are

And speaking of that, being proactive, like you met with MIR today, to me or any other organization, making sure they're aware of that so then, especially when it comes to parents of youngsters, they can almost go to you guys and say, here's our issues, here's what we're dealing with, so then that way maybe it can be put into the system or for that address or whatever, so that way an officer knows what they're walking into and being proactive rather than reactive and find out later, well, this was a severely autistic kid. That's the reason they didn't answer to commands or that's the reason they ran or anything like that. At least that way that information is in there proactively rather than reactively.

Yes, I liken it a lot to the Code Red system that we've used. It's voluntary registration. So we have to educate the public to be willing to put that information in there. That outreach is happening all the time. The success stories that our officers have when they have a successful interaction with someone in a mental health crisis or an autistic child. One example, we had an autistic child that wandered off and they were found face down in a pond and their life was saved because our officers had been trained that autistic children will gravitate towards water so they started there. So those success stories make our officers more proactive in wanting more of that information because they're wins for them too.

Thank you very much. Councilmember Ortiz.

Thank you. Yes, I totally agree that this is long and overdue and even more critical as we go forward, this information and this collaboration. What's the age group that this covers?

The age group for the mobile crisis? Mobile crisis can respond to any age. It's not age dependent.

Okay. And what is the follow-up on it?

The follow-up depends on what resources they need to be diverted to. So for mobile crisis response, they generally are looking for a safety plan. If there is the need for someone to go to jail, they have that direct communication with us and we can respond. The DOC is expanding their behavioral health where they can get mental health treatment within. Again, meeting with Mirror today, one of the resources was a soft handoff where instead of us taking them to jail, we would actually physically walk them to Mirror and they would go directly to treatment. There's not one size fits all for the follow up. Generally, it's not going to be law enforcement. It's going to be the mental health services or the substance abuse services. If we determine that there's a veteran involved, it's going to be veteran services. If we've determined that not having housing is a primary concern, then we're looking for housing. If we've determined intellectual disabilities, we're looking, we have some direct contacts with those that register individuals with the state to have housing and resources for developmental disabilities. So the follow-up just depends on what the circumstances are.

That's all great and that's all for adults, but I'm looking at kids. I'm looking at kids. I'm talking to officers that are saying our worst calls, our saddest calls, is the calls that we have with kids that we cannot put them anywhere. Okay, so everybody wants, let's talk about taking them to family service and guidance. And we can take them out there, but they're not required to stay. They can leave. And if they leave, what do they do? They call the police. So the parents have nothing. There's nothing. We don't have the beds here. We don't have that. We need to do, um, look at that, um, to get more assessments for the families of the kids. OK, in order for them to go to jail, you have to file a charge on them. They don't just pick them up and take them and say, OK, for your safety and my safety, we're going to just go ahead and take them to jail. That doesn't work like that. You have to file a report. That report then goes on somebody that's in trauma or that is somebody that's going through a mental crisis. That goes back on them. And then guess where they're put? They're put in jail with a lot of other people that are criminals that they're learning things from, that they're fighting, which makes it worse. I want us to make sure that we look at every aspect for our children. There's not enough beds at Stormont Vale West. People will say, well, there's Stormont Vale West. What if they're barred from there? They cannot go there. Where do they go then? You know, I've dealt with a situation where we've taken them to the hospital, and the hospital, the doctors refuse to come out and assess them. It's a yo-yo game. Take them to family service or ASTER, whatever the new name is. ASTER is saying take them to the hospital to have them assessed. It was a yo-yo game back and forth and back and forth before we can get this child the help that they deserve and send them to Kansas City. They have to be assessed. The doctor would not even come out. The doctor would not even let them go in the padded room for them to be safe and to be assessed. There's a lot of breakdown. And what do our officers say? It's hard on us. It's hard on us. These are the hardest calls that we have to make when we have to take them. We took this patient to the hospital and the hospital staff, the security staff said, Okay, it's not our problem. The police said no. Here you have with the security, it's a securities problem. Security's saying we're not going to make them stay. You have people in crisis. So where do we lie with these children? How do we help them?

So some of the other challenges that we're addressing as far as addressing the gaps within the system, because we do have a lot of system gaps. One of the things we talked about with MIR today is when you have a co-occurring issue of substance abuse and mental health. We take you for mental health treatment. We get there and they go, we can't treat your mental health because you need to detox. We detox you and detox says we can't continue to treat your substance abuse because you got to stabilize your mental health. So part of our efforts are to collaborate better and close some of those gaps. The secondary follow-up to the April workshop that we had is designed to be a case study where absent names, obviously there's HIPAA and confidentiality and all of those things, but it will be more like a tabletop exercise where we bring in scenarios that are based in real things that have happened and try to figure out where those gaps were and how we fill them. Transportation comes up, housing comes up, juvenile care comes up. So they are real problems. We are working as a team to collaboratively try to address those. You know, Councilwoman Valdivia Alcala talked about the sales tax and where that's directed and wanting the culture shift. I don't think it's a big leap for where our officers are at. I think we've been saying the same thing for a long time. We've been using different words and so there's been a disconnect and we feel like we're fighting against each other when what we're really wanting is for people to get the right resource on scene to take care of them that they need and to be able to adequately staff those services and those resources across the city We're making traction. It's not fast. But we aren't blind to the problems. And so that next tabletop is going to be that specifically to say, hey, I had this, and this is what happened. OK, who's at the table, who's in the room, and who might have been able to intervene and offer some service that we didn't know about? You'd be surprised how many people filled out the, what's the review sheet you get? You know. When you leave something and you fill out the review of how the workshop went, the number of people that review that, thank you. Thank you. The number of people that said in that that they learned something about a service that was available from a provider who's supposed to be in the same realm as they are, was probably, I think we calculated it at 87%, that there was someone at the table who offered a service that someone else didn't know about. So that's how we make progress, right? It's not always the jail. It's not always the hospital. But how do we define that one diamond in the rough that you know you can call and you're going to get a response? We met one of those guys today, and we told him that we were going to make him really busy and exceed his capacity, so.

That's all good, but I wanted to bring that to your attention, and I did want to say this. Chief, I will say this. Three officers were really bothered by these situations, and they also said, encouraged that youth and said, you got to put in the work, but you can overcome this. And you can tell that either a family member or they themselves has gone through this. But we need to have special training and trauma for these kids. And that's what I'm pushing for, not only with you, but our school system, so they can recognize trauma and then jump on it.

Thank you. I agree. This is a complex issue, no doubt. It's a whole of city, whole of government approach, and TPD will be at the table every time. We just need the right people to be there with us.

And I appreciate that, and I will get you that information on the latest with the brain, and I told you that really funky thing that they did. I can't think of it right now, but it's something to – It's something to do with the brain that cross-trains your brain. It's a lot to it. Trauma is a lot to it, and it's for PTS.

Might be talking about EMDR.

I don't think that's the name of it. It's something new. Something new. And I met a specialist from Lawrence that specializes in that, and I would like to see our officers trained in that, you know, because it... It cross-trains the brain, which brings them down from their trauma. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Council Member Hiller.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm excited about this. It's nice to see it sort of moving up and firming up. We, and so I understand where you are and it's at a growth stage right now, but is there a vision? We have an existing network, kind of a combination of volunteers, the outreach teams that have been going to the homeless camps, various social services around town that I think what the homeless network that was working on the ahad was either 20 or 40 different organizations and i know some are just volunteers and not just our volunteers as well in that where do you see our role in that um you know in charge of it growing it um partners with some leadership or partners with this whole where does where do you what's your vision not it can't be led by law enforcement um

It has to be a city-wide effort. That's actually been part of the conversation because the problem is that when you have law enforcement leading this or mental health leading this, it becomes singular focused. And so it has to be a collaborative effort and it has to be people pulling in the same direction, not competing for funding, not competing for the same grants to try to divert stuff, but all having a final end game. That's the direction that we see this going.

That's great. Just checking. It can be complicated, yet when you've got the whole network, I like what I heard about having the radios and being in touch with each other. We've got a community that's really been good at collaboration. And so by doing the communication setup that you're talking about, it allows short-term or immediate contact with the right person, no two, three steps, nothing. It's surprisingly easy to do once you say that's how you're going to do it. So thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments? I will say thank you, Chief, for meeting with Mirror Inc. I hope that there's an avenue there. I also went and talked with them and toured with them. So hopefully that bears some fruit.

I think it will. Great.

Thank you. All right, we will move on to the consent agenda. City Clerk.

Items A and B are ordinances introduced by City Manager Dr. Robert Perez allowing and approving city expenditures for the period of February 28, 2026 through May 1, 2026 and enumerating said expenditures therein. Items C, D, and E are resolutions introduced by the Public Infrastructure Committee recommending approval of project number 701070 for street improvements to Southwest 45th Street. from Gage Boulevard to Cambridge Avenue. D is recommending approval of project numbers 84, 12, 0, 1, phase 2, 28, 12, 50, phase 18, and 29, 11, 28, 10 for alley repair between Woodwood Avenue and Greenwood Avenue south of 2nd Street. E is recommending approval of project numbers 84, 10, 99, phase 11, 50, 11, 25, phase 2, and 28, 1300, phase 12 for street improvements at utility improvements to southeast 37th Street from Adams to Indiana. Items F and G are resolutions introduced by City Manager Dr. Robert Perez amending the 2026 to 2035 CIP and the 2026-28 CIB to add project number 12-1052 for bridge deck repairs of three locations throughout the city. And G is to revise the budget and years for project number 9035 for fire department fleet replacement and providing final approval for the project. HR minutes of the regular mean of May 19, and there's a list of cereal malt beverage applications and staff is recommending approval.

All right, we have a motion to approve from Councilmember Kell. Second from Councilmember Banks. The clerk would take the vote please.

Councilmember Valdiviacla. Yes. OK, we have 10 yes. The motion carries.

All right, we will move on to action items. Action item A, city clerk.

A is a public hearing to consider the establishment of the Windward Estates Reinvestment Housing District, the RHID, and the adoption of the Housing and Public Facilities Development Plan. In an ordinance introduced by City Manager Dr. Robert Perez, establishing an RHID for the Windward Estates District and adopting a plan for the development of housing and public facilities in the RHID.

City Manager. Thank you. Mayor and members of the governing body, Leah Bolin, our Economic Development Director will lead us through this item.

Good evening. This evening there are two items on the agenda pertaining to Windward Estates, RHID. And so this presentation will cover this agenda item and the following item. To review the timeline associated with this RHID, in early October of last year, the governing body approved resolution 9721, allowing staff to submit the application to the state of Kansas. Late in October, the state of Kansas sent their approval, deeming it eligible for RHID based on statutory requirements. With that, staff received the housing development plan from the developer. and had the financial advisor conduct the but-for analysis as well as reviewing the housing development plan itself. The RHID team met and discussed the financial analysis in that housing development plan and recommended approval to move forward. So in April, a month or so ago, we requested the governing body set the public hearing with Resolution 9795 that was adopted and set for this evening. A recap of the project location. It is at Southeast 45th and California Avenue. It sets to the southwest corner of that intersection and is outlined in the yellow golden color in the image on your screen. For project details, the project cost is just over $9.8 million. The developer is proposing 40 units in 20 duplexes. They will consist of four bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, and be accompanied by a two-car or oversized one-car garage for each unit. These are market rate rental houses ranging from 1500 to 1750 a month. The rate of the rent will be determined at the conclusion of the development based on the market impact at the time of completion. As a reminder, in July of 2020, the city conducted a housing study and strategy which identified the need for 420 new units per year or 2,300 units over the next five years to address the gap in the current supply. The city's RHID policy outlines requirements that developers must follow. As part of the application process, they must certify the detailed project information for the city to conduct their due diligence. They must cover the cost of the city's services rendered by the financial advisor and outside counsel. The developer and associated entities must not have any delinquent taxes, special assessments, outstanding utility bills, code matters, or zoning or permitting cases. The development must meet the but-for financial analysis, the but-for, the incentive the developer would be unable to continue with the project. And the developer must provide the contractual and financial guarantees that they can meet the project's completion. As part of staff's due diligence, we reviewed the developer's compliance and We determined that the developer and affiliated parties have no outstanding taxes, no outstanding city utilities permitting zoning or property maintenance or other code cases pending with the city. They are also all active and in good standing with the Secretary of State. To review the development agreement terms, key terms include the total project cost of 9.8 million. We have established the maximum RHID reimbursable expense at 2.6 million. It does meet the but-for financial analysis. It is set up as a pay-as-you-go reimbursement over 25 years. And for this agreement, the developer fee is capped at $540,000, which is 7.5% of the vertical construction cost associated with the project. If this amount is exceeded, the city retains the right to recalculate the financial assumptions and adjust the maximum RHID reimbursable amount to not over incentivize the development. And the developer has until June of 2030 to report that final development fee that has been paid to the developer. In conclusion, our next steps this evening are to conduct the public hearing as set by 9795. Following that public hearing, staff would ask the governing body to consider approving the RHID ordinance to formally establish the RHID district, followed by the second agenda item, which is to approve the RHID development agreement. Mr. Watson and Mr. Costler are also available as part of the development team. And with that, we can stand for any questions.

All right. I will take questions and comments from the governing body after we open the public hearing and hear comments from the public. So at this time, I will open the public hearing and ask individuals if they would like to speak to this matter. We do have one individual signed up, and that's Mr. Joe Ledbetter.

Good evening. I got to meet Dave Watson several years ago when I was actually doing work with the city on housing ideas. And I first met Freddy Vasquez, and we got him recruited to do a number of units over at Eastgate. And I was asked to get lots of RHID ordinances from other cities, which I did and turned over to legal. What I like about Dave's proposition here is it's in an area that needs housing. It's close to the lake. And it's going to be served, at least in part, by this new KGA entry-exit on 29th. He said, wow, that's just two miles from my development. Dave has just done lots of houses. Those of you on the council are aware of some of the houses he's done just under the neighborhood revitalization program over the last few years. He's done a number in Chesney Park, District 3. He's done a number in District 1. He's done three recently over in Potman Place that have been idle for, I think, 20 years. He's doing one in the fifth district now and a lot that I sold him in Southern Hills. That hasn't had any new houses in, I think, 15 years. Number two has got houses he's built, North Topeka, Oakland. They're all over. And they're really quality built houses. And I think what impresses me is how you can do them so fast. He also did 10 houses over in Rockfire a couple years ago. So all those are back on the tax rolls where all it was was vacant property. And it's all in the city of Topeka, amazingly enough. He's quite a builder in the city of Topeka, and we need more of him building inside the city limits and expanding our tax base. But he'll finish this. He'll follow through. He's a good builder, and he's a good lawyer, but that's besides the point. But anyway, those are my comments. I think it's going to be a fine addition to the city of Topeka. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else here who would like to speak to this matter?

I'm in favor of the, my name's Henry McClure, if you didn't know, from Topeka, Kansas. I'm in favor of the project, but I'm not in favor of the but-for test. That's just an unnecessary charge to the developer that pays Jeff White. You could run, and why should you cap his profit? That seems un-American. If he could make 8% or 9% on his return and his effort, he's got all the sweat equity. So I think you've got to change. You have to change the process around here. Make it more friendly. You've got to get rid of regulations. make it where you come to the peak at least. And they got rid of the but for test and they're not capping my development charge and it might spur development. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Is there anyone else who would like to speak to this matter? Last chance. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? All right. If not, I will now close this hearing, and I will open up to questions and comments from the governing body. Council Member Kell.

I look at this and I just have an issue. Yes, we need more housing, but by going by market rate here, by the time this is done, that could be like $2,000 a month in rent. And it's just... It's something a lot of speakings can't afford. And to incentivize, it looks like almost a maximum of 26%, 27% back of the project with nothing in the affordable rate for our citizens. This is hard for me to sit there and say yes to because I don't see a lot of people be able to afford this. It's hard for me to say yes to something like this. Thank you. Council Member Valdivia Alcala.

Thank you, Mayor. Well, can you tell me that $1,500 to $1,750 a month, that's just the rent. That does not include utilities, correct? That is correct. Okay. And... I really have to say everything that I was going to say. I think Kel basically, Councilman Kel already said, I have deep concerns about where this may end up. And I have concerns about the 2.6, which is closer to 3 million, incentive on a $9.8 million project. It's very concerning to me. And I know we, you know, we've been doing a lot of RHIDs. I know, you know, like I had issues with the cost and RHID and all the special wheeling and dealing and changing that was done, you know, for him. But this is concerning to me. And I was looking today at past RHIDs, and of course I couldn't find what I was looking for. you know, to see what the price of the, you know, the whole development and then what the RHID amount ends up being, you know, ended up being for. And this just seems really large. There's something in this that feels off to me about where it may end up at the top point for rent and understanding, you know, that our median income in, you know, Topeka is like 54, a little bit over 54,000. So I'm not going to be able to support this. I absolutely know that we need the housing. I know that we've been making a dent in affordable housing. I know this is considered, you know, I think you're considering this workforce housing, and obviously there's a difference. But I just, I have concerns about this. So this, I will not be voting for this. Thank you, Mayor.

Council Member Banks.

Thank you, Mayor. As we were listening to the presentation, of course all of us up here are probably thinking about what portion of our community are we looking to serve with this RHID. I think that certainly I've had an opportunity to visit with Mr. Watson and he has developed in my district and I know that those projects in my district are very affordable. Where we are right now I'm not sure who we're looking at as renters. I know that as we look around at my colleagues, I know that it's difficult to think about a low to moderate income person being able to afford $1,500 to $1,700 a month for a rental. So in my conclusion, I think that if we're looking at another level above the moderate to upper level for renters, I think that I'd have no problem supporting this project. And I know the developer, and he's done a lot of really good work in my district and certainly in District 3, and I'd have no problem supporting it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Hiller.

Thank you. Sort of what he said, I suppose. I had the same question, but the framework of being able to have a brand new four bedroom, two and a half bath, two car garage home for between $1,500 and $1,750. is pretty reasonable in today's market. And one of the things, and people know that I've struggled with it, but that housing study was intended to start filling in at different layers, as council and bank said. And this is an upper layer, and we're can be one of the developments that we're providing this investment for to attract more people to live in Topeka and work here and raise their families here. And so it's not often we see four bedroom, two and a half bath, two car garage. My question then is, we've got 1,500 to 1,750 today. Can you talk for just a moment about how firm keeping it at that level for the next 20 years or more is?

That would be a question for the developer, not for city staff. Thank you.

I was just going to say we could invite Mr. Watson or Mr. Costler to the podium if they'd like to make comment to that.

Thank you guys for considering it. To answer your question, Councilmember Hiller, I also own, I didn't hear it, but I also own about 100 plus rentals in the Topeka market. Got my start out in Montero. When I was still in law school, I thought, well, I'd be a great place to develop. As I came out of law school, I got the opportunity to buy some property in Montero, develop Montero before Mars went into Montero. So everybody thought I was a genius. And I built a lot of four-bedroom, two-bath homes in Montero. I think I built 60 or 70 homes. Ended up selling about half of them. Because when you build that large of a quantity of home, you can't just flood the market and sell them. So the goal is to rent them and try to cash flow them and then sell them as the opportunity presents. Right now, we're seeing rents on our four bedrooms in Montero at $1,600. I would submit they're being rented to workforce. The people that rent from us are people that work at the distribution centers. that work at Mars. And because of the proximity of this project, I assume it'll be about the same. The rents can't exceed or I don't believe they'll exceed because people can't afford it, which I think goes to something another council member was talking about. So I don't think over the next 20 years there will rise to the 2000 market. It just doesn't make sense. We're not seeing those levels of rent right now. The Rockfire development you mentioned, I had this great idea. I thought I'd build these high-end rentals. That was a dumb idea. So I ended up building 12 houses in Rockfire all at once. It saturates the marketplace, so then we rent it for a period of time, which I discovered really upset my neighbors out there. But we were able to ultimately sell them all. And we've sold all but two of them. And I really do think it's a plus to the community. And I kind of see this development working the same way if there's a market for duplexes, which in Topeka, that's kind of waned on and off again. Sometimes duplexes will be split and be sold. And it offers housing, affordable housing, because I would expect they'd sell for 220 to 240 per unit. But until then, I'd rent them, and to get that many occupied, you'd have to keep the rents at $1,500 to $1,600 to $1,700. I hope that answers the question.

I hope so. We haven't had... The proposals are coming in with higher monthly fees than we'd seen before on pretty much any of them. So it's a sticker shock sort of thing. And then because of that, I know I hadn't asked specifically how well the developer certainly, but also how much our commitment for returning this tax money was guaranteeing that it would stay at that proportional rate to the market.

Right. Well, for me to be successful, I have to rent them. I can't have them empty. And at that level, I don't believe they could be rented. It's why I'm asking the city for some assistance. The infrastructure cost, it's amazing how expensive it is to do the infrastructure, which I've really taken advantage of the NRP program that the city has offered. Those houses, they're fun to build. I build them, I infill lots. All the infrastructure exists, but there's just so few lots. Like right now we have three of them going, I think. And so we'll build about eight to ten a year as those lots become available. So this was my effort, my thought on this was I'll build in a concentrated area, see if I can get some economies of scale, build a large number of homes all at one time.

Thank you for that. Thank you for both. We need the infill also. Thank you.

Council Member Miller.

Thank you very much. A couple points. First off, thanks for coming up here and explaining that piece of it.

I will say that across the street I lived over there near Michigan Road oh I'd say about 13 years ago now and the rent then was $1,500 for a two one bath And I think three bedroom. It was two car garage. But if we're looking at the rates of that area and what should be affordable, if you're having four bedrooms and multiple families can live there, I think that that rent can be lived in by a number of people. Obviously, I'm a Shining Heights grad. I want more people living out there anyway. But I think that that's an affordable rate for the next 25 years. So if you can stick to that, just like everybody here is asking for you to do, I think that'd be extremely important for our support. But I do love a developer who wants his place rented. I think that's very key. We have houses in our city that have landlords that don't necessarily think that way. So I'm glad that you say that, and I hope that that continues on with other developers.

Thank you.

I think in these conversations, it's also important to talk about sadly what the cost of some of this is now, to give it sort of that balance and perspective. I mean, I will not hold you to the penny, but if you talk right now about what is the square footage costing you on average? I mean, if I look at this project, Mr. Watson, you're talking $10 million, 40 units. You're talking $250,000, give or take a unit, even with your money back, whether it's through the RHAD or the other. I mean, at the 1745, quick math, You're looking at eight years before you even see a return on that investment, give or take. Again, I'm doing this very fast and math in my head. But I think those are important numbers to give perspective when we look at some of these rental rates and these developments as to what the investment is that's going into this as to why some of these rents are where they're at. Because just the simple cost of building these units is a lot more than it was five, ten years ago. Do some of those numbers look... Sound somewhat correct?

Oh, absolutely. The cost to build has gone in the last 10 years. When we started in Montero, I was selling some of those houses for $100,000. And I thought I'd sell them all. I was real excited. I thought I'd sell them all. And I ended up owning about 40 of them. Because at that time, it was unaffordable. And since then, the cost to build, the inflationary cost, both in labor and material costs, have just continued to drive up the cost of the construction. At some point, you would think that the rents would meet the cost of construction. They haven't yet, and so that's what's necessitating the request.

And I just think those are important counterbalances as we have these conversations so that people also understand, sadly, what those high costs are. So thank you very much. Are there any questions or comments on this from the council? All right. If not, thank you.

Thank you, guys.

I guess a motion would be in order. I have a motion to approve from Councilmember Bradbury, a second from Councilmember Banks. If there's no other comments or questions, then I would ask the clerk to take the vote, please.

Councilmember Valdivia-Acla?

No.

Okay, we have eight yes. The motion carries with Councilmembers Valdivia-Acla and Kell voting no.

All right. With that, we will move on to action item B. City Clerk?

B is a development agreement between Windward Estates LLC, a Kansas limited liability company, and the City of Topeka for Windward Estates RHID project.

City Manager?

Thank you, Mayor and members of the governing body. Lib Olin, Economic Development Director, will lead us through this item.

This item is the development agreement for the Windward Estates RHID. It's between the City of Topeka and Windward Estates LLC. Staff are requesting the approval of the governing body for the city manager to execute that development agreement. With that, I will stand for any questions.

Any questions or comments from the governing body? If not, motion is always in order. Did you have a Councilmember Hiller? Oh, we do have someone speaking. I apologize. Mr. Ledbetter.

I'll wait.

No. All right. All right. With that, we have a motion to approve from Councilmember Miller and a second from Councilmember Bradbury. Take the vote, please.

Councilmember Valdivia Acla. Yeah. Okay, we have eight yes. The motion carries with council members Valdivia, Ocala, and Kale voting no.

Okay. Next is for C. City Clerk will read.

C is an ordinance introduced by City Manager Dr. Robert Perez concerning Class B licenses, amending and repealing sections 14, 15, 010 through 080. City Manager.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor, members of the governing body, Richard Faulkner, Development Services Director, who will lead us to this item.

Evening, Deputy Mayor, Council. Thank you for your time. This is a request to repeal Class B license that we have in the TMC. We came across this item when we were going through the fee structures for the city. We saw this fee on there. It has been removed. This license was intended to provide a license for facilities that have skilled personnel on their staff that could do plumbing, mechanical, and electrical work and not require them to get a license. The license was actually issued to the facility. And the facility would have their staff do the work and get the work inspected. The license was, like I said, was issued to the facility. We looked back as far as we could, as back to 1996, and we never found any license where we had issued this license. So we haven't issued this license for quite some time. Nowadays, most of these facilities, they just hire the contractor that specializes in that area to do the work at the facility. So they still are getting the work done. It's just they're not getting it done by their staff. If they want to have... a licensed professional on their staff, that licensed professional will have to go through the same process as a plumber, electrician, or mechanical worker and get their license that way. And then they could have that person on their staff. So by eliminating this license, we're not stopping them from having skilled personnel on their staff. They just will have to go about it a different way. We've checked with the communities that we generally compare ourselves to when we do our code analysis, and of those communities, none of them have anything like this Class B license that we had on the records. This doesn't exist. They just only issued a license to the licensed contractor. Also with this Class B license, there was no continuing education that was required for the facilities, the staff, people that worked at the facilities. That doesn't mean that they didn't even know their job. That doesn't mean that they didn't have to do that. It's just that the people that was working on the economy, they had to demonstrate that they had worked in the field for so long. They had to pass a test, and they also had to continue in education. This facilities license, all they had to do was have liability insurance and pay the new licensing fee. The contractors that do the work now at their facilities, the contractor carries the liability for that. The facilities, when they had their staff doing it, the liability was on them. We took this request to policy and finance committee, and they recommended that we move forward with bringing it to the full council. Development Service worked closely with the city attorney's office on this matter to get the ordinance repealed or written in ordinance form. And the city attorney has agreed with us. So we recommend that this ordinance be repealed. And I'll stand for any questions that you may have.

Questions or comments? Council Member Miller.

Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate you coming and breaking down exactly what we're here to do on this. When we first brought this policy to finance, that presentation did not look like that. Okay. My boss told me to get it better. Yeah. And at the time, because we would have brought this a lot earlier, and at the time I had some issues with it because it didn't make sense. And it felt like we were taking the liability away from companies when they were doing the work for them. And I wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page of it. And the way you presented it today made sure that we all understood it in the way that I was kind of confused about it. So I want to tell you, I want to commend you on your work on putting it together that way. And I appreciate what you do for the city. Thank you.

Any other comments or questions? We have a motion to approve from Councilmember Kell and a second from Councilmember Banks. If there's no other comments or questions, I will ask the clerk to take the vote, please.

And Mayor, you do not vote on this one?

Nope.

Okay. Councilmember Valdivia-Ocala? Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay, so we have nine yes, the motion carries.

All right, we will move on to action item D, city clerk.

50 is an ordinance introduced by City Manager Dr. Robert Perez concerning special events amending sections 12, 70, 0, 10, 0, 40, 0, 50, sections 5, 1, 15, 0, 20, 0, 30, 0, 70, 0, 80, and 180, and 190, and 10, 50, 0, 40 of the Topeka Municipal Code and repealing original sections.

City Manager.

Thank you. Mayor, members of the governing body, Megan Brunson, special events coordinator will lead us through this item.

Hello, good evening governing body members and staff. Tonight I am here to just go over our ordinance special amendments or special event amendments that we are wanting to present to you tonight. Just to provide a little bit of background, the city of Topeka special events policy was adopted in 2006 and since that time events management has evolved requiring amendments in the approval process. Police and fire departments manage crowd control, security, barricade placements and emergency medical responses. Our street and traffic and parking departments handle road closures and traffic control plans. And our legal and city clerk offices manage permits, contracts and regulatory compliance. This evening I will be providing just a brief overview of the proposed ordinance amendments with department representatives that are present for questions. I think we have some that are on Zoom as well. So I'm just going to be going through and just going kind of line for line on what amendments we are looking for and asking for this evening. To begin, we have now added that Juneteenth as a recognized holiday that we would like to add that to the line 22 of the ordinance. And it has been added to the list of holidays there. For our police escorts, we have wanted to add a formal definition for events that require a mandatory police escort, which can be found on lines 39 through 41 of the ordinance. And we will have also added a formal application deadline for police escorts of 30 business days for events requesting a police escort. And that can be found on lines 78 through 79. For our event deposits, we have asked to amend the language to take away the debris portion. We currently have an issue with volunteers and things like that. So we'd like to add it to where we take away the debris portion and just have it as a deposit. And that can be found on lines 55 and 61 through 65. For late fees, applications submitted past the deadline now incur late fees pursuant to the citywide fee schedule, which is adopted by the governing body in January of 2026. And that became effective within the city clerk's office as of March 2026. And that is a $75 late fee. For our volunteer guidelines, we have asked to add new language specifically governs the use and management or event volunteers. And then for vendors licensing, we have asked for exceptions for the transient vendors as well as our peddlers and solicitors and our sidewalk vendors and mobile food vendors. Currently, under our special events application, all of our vendors are able to not be permitted by the city of Topeka to work under a special event. So we are asking that that does be taken out of the ordinance and new language is added. Parking, we have asked for the revision expanding TPD authority to block parking in areas around the parade route or the special event for staging or other event needs. And that can be found on lines 303 to 304. A lot to cover there, but I do also want to provide a little bit more background information. This was presented to the Policy and Finance Committee on May 7th, and it was recommended for approval. And with that, I will stand for any questions.

Questions or comments for Megan? Council Member Ortiz.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So what if they meet the deadline for the police escort, then what?

If they don't meet the deadline for the police escort, we don't have a late fee that is established for the police escort portion, but we do have just the late fee for the special event permit or the block party permit or applications to be turned in.

Okay. So they still have to fill it out, and if they don't fill it out in time, that doesn't hurt them, right?

So from what I'm understanding, the police escorts has already been a policy that the Topeka Police Department has already been implementing. We are just wanting to add that language in there. One thing that we have thought over is probably just adding a portion of our special event or block party, I guess special event application where if somebody was requesting a police escort, they would of course still have to have that request within 30 business days of the date of the event. So what if they missed that? Then what happens? I think that at that point we would have to probably just discuss it further with Sergeant Sloan with our speaker police department. See if that's something that they would be able to withstand or withhold or provide the escort service for. And if they are able to, then we'll just move forward. Otherwise, we may have to either ask them to prolong the event date or kind of work with them a little bit and see what more we can do for them.

I'll also just point out there is a section in here that gives the city manager the authority to waive an application deadline if it's not met. There's circumstances.

That was my concern. Thank you.

It is on page four, line 84, 85. For the record. Any other questions or comments on this issue? Council Member Hiller.

Sounds like you've done a really good job. I think that the last revision, master revision, was since 2006 because I was on council for it and it was laborious. But to the questions about the police escort, something that was really helpful in that was to give people deadlines so they realized how far in advance they should plan their events and that it took staff some time to run it around. to check with the departments and so on. So these all sound like very constructive, useful updates.

I appreciate it. Thank you. Yep.

That's it. All right. There are no other questions and comments. As always, a motion is in order. A motion to approve from Council Member Bradbury and a second from Council Member Hiller. If there's no other comments or questions, I would ask the clerk to take the vote, please.

Mayor, you do not vote on this one.

No.

Councilmember Valdivia-Ocala? Yes. Okay, we have nine yes. The motion carries.

Thank you, Megan.

Thank you, guys.

All right, we will now move on to non-action items. A, city clerk.

A is discussion regarding proposed utility rates.

City Manager.

Thank you. Mayor and members of the governing body, Sylvia Davis, Utilities Director, and Nicole Mallott, Deputy Director of Utilities, will lead us through this discussion.

All right. Good night. Good night. Good evening. We're all ready, aren't we? Good evening, governing body. Tonight, we do come before you to delve into the discussion regarding the city of Topeka's utility rates. Let me... Make sure this works. Thank you. Just a recap of how we got here. The department has been working on rates and numbers for quite some time. We do it on a regular basis. It's a big puzzle that has lots of components to it. So in terms of 2026, rate discussions in particular, we took January to really dive into the rate model that we maintain, review that, make sure that all the information is up to date and accurate. And then we spent the next month really reviewing that data, talking with staff, internal team, looking at some of the initial discussions on our capital improvement projects, some of the lien discussions that we've had with you all, looking at those different components. And as we worked through liens, CIP, and then operating budget kickoff in March, We used some of that information to continue to put this puzzle together. And then that has helped us get more firm data to present to you all. So then we met in April with many of you as we started individual rate meeting discussions and started laying out the approach that we were taking to these discussions and future rate increases, perhaps. wanting to prep you all and really get everybody's minds wrapped around this big animal that we try to tackle as a team. In May, we had four public engagement meetings. We took time to receive more feedback than we have. I was talking to Nicole earlier today. In our tenures here, just because utilities has been pretty popular lately, for good reason or bad, we've had lots of interest, lots of feedback and input, which is good. We all need that. You all appreciate that when it comes to making these big decisions. Then, after May, we have tried to gather as much information as we can, simplify it so that we can start presenting to you all, get some feedback and some more direction so that we can then refine our proposal so that at some point, hopefully in the near future, we can get everybody on the same page and comfortable with being able to vote on some sort of rates. to be established post 2026. Rates also play a very critical role in our operating budget, which we all know those discussions are starting in July. I also wanted to add that we have two major union contract negotiations kicking off here in real time now, so we need to have this discussion with you all to help us get some parameters and see where the future of utilities is going via our employees and personnel costs too. So in a nutshell, That's where we're at today. Where are we going? And we'll talk about that a little bit more towards the end of the presentation. But with all of that, what do our current rates support? They provide for the cost of operating and maintaining our water, wastewater, and stormwater utilities. We pay principal and interest on all of our bonds and other obligations. And our 2026 operating budget is $120 million split up amongst water, wastewater, and stormwater, as you see on the screen. And you recently approved a $40.6 million capital improvement budget that we are responsible for administering. So all of those monies, those funds, those two budgets support 6.3 billion dollars worth of infrastructure across a vast network of assets shown here. We operate and maintain this on a 24-hour basis. We have round-the-clock operators, we have 24-hour emergency response, we have emergency repairs. We have long term planning. We have lots of regulatory requirements that were responsible for and we do that to the tune of those two operating budgets and trying to stretch those dollars as far as we can. So why the need for additional rate discussions? As you know, we've talked about this at length. Many of our assets are at or beyond their useful life expectancy. I've shown some very common industry standard replacement rates here. I didn't go through the litany of all of those assets that you saw on the previous slide. For discussion purposes, our wastewater stormwater mains should be replaced at an ideal rate of every 100 year replacement cycle. Our manholes, for example, should be replaced 50 years when they reach the 50 year age. And then other components of our plant might be at that 50 year replacement cycle. But when you look at electrical and mechanical Those things need to be done on a much more frequent rate, so perhaps 15 to 20 years, depending on the asset that we're discussing. If you take all of those assets across that $6.3 billion worth of network, and we say we want to replace 1% of that, that means we would be investing $63 million every year to maintain a 1% replacement rate. As you can see, some of these assets aren't going to make it 100 years. We, again, just approved a $40.6 million CIP. So the dollars aren't there just in a nutshell. That's an easy way to comprehend that and look at the funding levels that we perhaps should be at. That could be a goal for us. But I will tell you, compared across the country, Topeka is no different than the rest of the country in terms of being victim to deferred replacement cycles, deferred maintenance, and we just have really old infrastructure that we're trying to maintain as best we can. So in response to continued, I'll say deferred maintenance, deferred funding, reduced funding, where are we at today? Currently, RCIP was based on the last rate package that was passed in 2023 that spread over 2024, 25, and 26. According to our estimates and predictions at the time, we anticipated spending $43,433 million worth of investment over a 10-year period. That is the first line on this capital investment planning slide. We cannot currently support that 10-year project effort capital improvement plan. With the current rate of inflation, the impacts that we've had, we talked a little bit about this during the CIP discussion, our dollars just aren't going as far as we had anticipated. And a project like a small sanitary sewer pump station rehab that we did back in 2015 cost us $450,000. in 2024 that cost of a very similar project was 1.7 million dollars and then today we are in the middle of planning another one and that current estimate is between two and three million dollars so you can see I have more examples of how those dollars are just we're combining multiple years of funding to support what we had anticipated one year of funding being able to to provide So just to be frank, we have to ask the question, what happens if we don't support future rate increases? The current rates that are established for 2026 will continue. Our CIP will be able to be maintained roughly through 2028, and then you'll start to see a decline. So you can see how our investment abilities really start dipping down in 29. And beyond the numbers there are really stormwater, which would remain the most viable utility out of all three post-2028 if we did nothing to support additional out years of increases. Over that next 10 years, we would anticipate being able to support $158-plus million worth of work when we have pushed ourselves to be able to fund $433 million. Where should we be? We have done a lot of work over the past few years making sure that we have all of our assets accounted for. done a lot of work putting effort into inspection, auditing our programs, looking at the age of our infrastructure, the condition of our infrastructure, looking at past modeling and master plans, asset management plans. We've worked with our asset management team, public works asset management team. So where should we be? If we were to take $6.3 billion worth of infrastructure and replace every manhole at its appropriate life expectancy, every water line, every pump in a pump station or at a wastewater treatment plant, If we took all of those assets and planned for replacing them at the industry standard rate, that is what we would call an ideal rehab and replacement schedule, which you can see at the top of slide 7. That dollar figure over the next 10 years is $1.2 billion worth of investment needed to support that level of replacement. We, being very realistic, know that our community cannot support getting there, especially in the next 10 years, maybe one day, probably not in our lifetimes. So what should the utilities department come to you and propose? Should we propose the minimal rate increases possible to just get by to get us through the next few years? I think we're all suffering from the consequences of a lot of decades worth of doing that, kicking the can down the road. We don't want to leave things in worse shape in future years for the next parties, the next generations to have to account for. Some of our infrastructure is very realistically at the end and beyond its life expectancy. And we have some critical needs that are out there that we want and need to support as we're also trying to support public works projects so that we can be smart and improve the infrastructure as public works is improving our street network. So we've taken that information and come up with what we believe is a more responsible replacement schedule. It's reduced from the ideal schedule. However, it is an increased investment of where we're at today, where we would be at had those dollars stretched where we thought they would over the last rate package. So we're calling that the phased-in reduced schedule. You can see on the bottom line here that 10-year plan for that reduced schedule increased investment is close to $775 million worth of investment over the next 10 years. Tonight, we're not saying that's what we proposed today. We're saying if you were to ask us, this is where we would tell you we think we can responsibly be. Looking at averages, where our rates are compared to others, what the community is looking like, and growth patterns, which we all know are not huge. Can this community support this level of investment? We believe it can. We just think that we might need to get there in maybe more nontraditional ways. As we move forward in discussions, I just want to reiterate that this is not our formal proposal. We're just trying to gauge the temperature of the room, where you all feel comfortable at, and as we continue through this presentation, you'll see some of the decisions that we need to be able to get some just good responses from you all at consideration so that we can better refine these numbers and give you the data that you need to feel comfortable supporting future rate increases or proposals. Diving into that reduced replacement rate and in that additional investment, by supporting that level investment, that would allow us to again address those immediate needs, support Public Works street improvement efforts, continues advancing. We're just moving the needle a little bit. However, we would still be moving the needle towards a more ideal rehab and replacement schedule. It continues to allow us to maintain days cash on hand, required debt service coverage, and maintain financial viability across the utilities. In order to do that and support that increased investment in infrastructure, hopefully that we don't completely... I don't know if anybody is knocked off of here, but we'll keep going. This would require, I say initial investment because I mean this would require additional investment from where we are today of a four-year investment of $51 million. So you can see how we've proposed putting together increases for all three utilities to the tune of that $51 million over a four-year period. Our recommendation is to adopt a multi-year proposal like this. Four years allows us to have a more steady increase, reducing major impacts to our customer base, allows us to, again, continue to support all of those things we've just talked about. If this level of investment were supported, that equates to a total of over $260 million worth of investment projects over that four-year period of time. So moving forward, you guys can see this maybe on your handouts, if you cannot see it on the screen. I don't know if you can, because this is not advancing for me.

We don't have a handout, so. OK. Well, I'm going to keep going. Dan, what's? OK, but we've lost Councilwoman Valdeviacola. Can we still forward the? I mean, was the PowerPoint still working?

Yeah. DNI can't advance the slides anymore. Oh, you got it. That's where we're at. Thank you. Okay, just to keep moving. I wanted to call attention to our current rate schedule. This is what you will find on the internet. I want to just help identify how this rate is currently structured. We have city customer rates. We have outside city customer rates. We have a base charge. We have a volume charge. And then we have categories on top of that. So you have a single family category, multifamily category, commercial, industrial categories, irrigation category. We also have wholesale rates. This is important because as we look to the different alternates that we could propose to you all, it has different impacts to these customers. This current rate structure, which Topeka has supported for a very long time, is what we refer to as a declining rate structure, where the more water you use, the less money you pay per gallon. So you can see just right here that volume rate for a single family for 1,000 gallons, they are going to pay more than a commercial or industrial user paying for 1,000 gallons of usage. The more you use, the less you pay per gallon. So that's important. Base charges, they're also important because a lot of our residential customers are on a 5 1⁄8 inch or 1 inch meter. Some of our larger commercial and industrial partners, they're going to have those larger meter sizes. And so you can see how the rates multiply there. Currently, our outside city customers pay 75% more of the rate that inside city customers pay. So that's how our current structure is made. Do we want to support traditional across the board rate increases or not? I'm going to show you how some of those compare. First, this is some information that we shared during our public meetings. Across the board, uniform increases across all customer classes are absolutely easy to multiply out, easy to give you data on, consistent with historical rate setting efforts. It continues to promote that declining rate structure. It's a little antiquated. It definitely promotes a lot of industries that are high water users. However, it also, that across-the-board increase means those single-family customers, the residential rates are being impacted the same amount as those, they would be impacted more because they're paying more per gallon. We could do something different, which we did some of when we did the last rate package. Start looking at how we can apply these increases differently. If the city of Topeka were to choose to move to a more modern rate structure of applying a standard consumption rate across all classes, virtually eliminating those customer classes, that would move us out of that declining rate structure. Everyone would pay the same amount per gallon of water. And that allows us to significantly reduce the impact that we might have on our residential customers. On the opposite side, though, that would mean that we perhaps would increase more our commercial and industrial users' rates. In a nutshell, some information we shared at those public meetings were based on the comparisons between like cities in Topeka and some of our neighboring cities. Our residential rates are really right in the middle, inching closer towards the higher side. Our commercial and industrial rates are really closer to the lower side. We've been very supportive of our industrial community and our heavy water users. And so we feel like if there's room for adjustments, we could do that there. So how do we stair-step into additional increases, again, longer years out for planning purposes to be able to absorb the impact of those rate considerations and then looking at things differently in terms of our customer classes? So if we were to say tonight we wanted to propose that increased investment, reduced schedule plan at and across the board rate increase like we have traditionally done, It might look something like this. To meet that investment need, we would need a 6, 4, 4, 4% increase across water and wastewater utilities over the next four years. And then you see how stormwater would play out as well, 2% across the next two years, increasing to 3% and 4%. When we do an across the board rate increase, that means every classification gets that same increase. Our base charge would get a 6% increase. Our volume charge would get a 6% increase. So you can see how that magnifies existing rate structures and the differences between those classifications. Tonight, we propose one alternate for you to consider. We're calling this the reduced residential impact. If we want to put a rate proposal in front of you that still meets that increase investment, but that has a very low impact, the lowest that we could work towards for our residential customers, how might we get there? Well, this proposal moves us towards a single consumption rate over the next four years. We get there by eliminating the industrial two class and then the multifamily classifications. And then we stair step increases for commercial and industrial so that at the end of the four year period, they're all paying the same rate per gallon that our residential customers are. We would also propose a slight increase to our wholesale rates. For, again, our residential customers and making sure we can impact certain customers the least amount possible and also give customers the ability to control what their utility bills look like, we propose no increases to the base charge for folks with meter sizes under two inches, so five-eighths inch, one inch, one and a half inch meters. And while we would hold no increases to those meter sizes, we would increase the base charge for the larger meter sizes and propose an increased volume charge. We would also propose increasing our irrigation rate. And then this proposal that we're showing you today maintains that current outside city multiplier of 75% higher. This is a lot of information, so bear with me here. But how does that compare? So what does that look like on someone's bill? I'm going to give you three examples. The first example is our single family residential rate. This would be our most average customer on a 5 8 inch meter using 3,500. This is not my most update, but this GPM does not stand for gallons per minute. This stands for gallons per month. But anyway, this example for that average customer, if we did an across the board impact, currently today their total bill across all three utilities is $91.34. on average. With this across the board increase of $6,444, et cetera, that would result in a $5.22 increase in 2027. And then you see the resulting increases through 2030. Compare those numbers to the reduced residential impact where we still have increased consumption, but we've made those other concessions. That increase, instead of being $5.22, is now $2.87 a month for our residential average customer. If you use less gallons a month, you're going to have a lower bill, but you can see the impact there. Remember I told you that second alternative starts increasing commercial and industrial to get them towards the same consumption rate. What does that look like for a commercial user on a one and a half inch meter with 10,000 gallons a month water usage? Current bill being $273.52 for 2027 and across the board increase is $13.56 for them. If we went the alternate route with that reduced residential rates, that looks like $14.30 in 2027. So you see the percentage increase increases a little bit over the first year and then through 2030. For our large industrial users, a 10 million gallon per month industrial customer who is currently paying $126,000 a month for their bill would increase with an across the board rate $7,475 a month. With the reduced residential impact, that looks like a $12,825 increase in 2027. So you can see how reducing that number for a residential customer could look like this for an impact on a much larger user. Okay, so again, these are just examples. You can see there's lots of things we can do. We're shooting in the dark here right now, almost. This proposal today, this alternate for you to consider, is based on a lot of feedback that we have heard from our customers. Some additional considerations that we haven't put into these numbers that we could consider are, What happens if we stop charging that base charge, what once was called readiness to serve, on inactive accounts? What if we want to stop that practice? That would require either a 1% across the board increase or reducing our CIP budget by a million dollars or finding that million dollar discrepancy in some other way. we could consider increasing outside city customers an additional percentage. So while we have some folks who have given us the feedback that outside customers should be paying even more, we've heard lots of feedback from customers, especially in the Montero part of town. We know you all have as well. who have said they're really struggling to pay that 75 percent higher rate that they're paying as opposed to city customers so we have to take all of those things into consideration we hear that feedback every day we know you all do as well so we have not accounted for that in these two example proposals we could also do additional increases to wholesale rates You might say, what do those numbers look like? What do those increases net you for each change? We're ready. We're happy to provide that information to you. There's a lot of work that goes into those things. So we want to see where you're at, see what direction you want us to go, and start refining that so we can give you that detail. So that I don't confuse things even more, I waited to send you a memo that I will send you later tonight after we get done, which gives you more detail to what we've shown you on the slides tonight. It is the start of this conversation. We're not rushing. We're not trying to rush you. We want to give you time to consider these different alternatives, to consider the rate of funding that you want to invest in our infrastructure, in the community's infrastructure. Along with that memo, I will send you a summary of the meeting notes from our public rate meetings. And we also have the feedback that we've gotten from the survey that we distributed online and we had some folks fill it out in person at those rate meetings too. There's lots of information there for you to digest and read through. And as you guys ask us questions and request additional information, We'll give that to you in subsequent memos or addendums. We'll make sure the clerk has all of this information so that it's put on the public record. And we have a litany of questions that were posed at those meetings that we're wrapping up answers for so that we can share those with you as well and then put those on the website under frequently asked questions, helping explain a little bit more how rates are developed, what goes into them, where the money's spent, etc. So with that, we do have two more discussions. We have discussions scheduled for June 9th. And originally, we requested potential, again, very potential action on the 16th. But that is, we don't want anyone to feel like we're pushing you to a decision. We just need a goal to aim for. If we continue to have that discussion and you guys aren't comfortable with the proposal at that time, we'll just extend it and continue to have the discussion. With that, I'll stand for questions.

We do have one individual signed up for public comment on this matter, Mr. Joseph Ledbetter.

Please don't start that yet. I'm going to be giving some handouts. Clock. I'm going to ask for it to be paused. I did send these electronically to everybody, but I'll go ahead and pass them out again. The first one is the cash balances that Sidney Finkler currently has. The second one is our debt, including most of it in utilities. third one is administrative transfers of 10 million a year that we take from utilities and give to the general fund so we obviously aren't short of cash with our utilities the first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to give a compliment so that i won't be on the record as saying all negative things if you look at Page four of this handout now, it changed during the different hearings I went to. They kept moderating it. There was four of the hearings. I went to three of them. It talks about the number of breaks have dramatically reduced. And that's a good thing, because we're actually repairing the things right, which is something I was pointing out years ago. I said, why are these breaks happening every two weeks in the same spot. And it was ridiculous. I guess they didn't know how to repair the pipes. So the brakes have gone down to 358 from a high of 777 just a couple years ago. Of course, we always kept hearing it was all about the weather. I don't think so. It was about not fixing the pipes correctly. The second thing is I kept asking for this for six months and I couldn't get it out of Sylvia. What is our loss rate? What has it gone down? Because I knew when I talked to her, and I've talked to her a lot over the last few years, that the amount of money we spend producing clean water is very expensive. And we had a loss, a high loss of 22%, which was way above the national average. And I told her, you've got to get that under control. There's something going on. Well, there were some things going on. But besides these breaks, they're now the lowest. The loss is the lowest in 16 years. So they're down to 14%. I actually read some national statistics that say it should be more like 10%. But that's okay. I'm not going to argue with her tonight about it. But what I really find appalling about this whole discussion is how hard it was to find out when these meetings were. And I know I went to three of them. And I know two of our council members were at some of those, the two Michelles. Okay, I'll just say that. I don't know who went on the fourth meeting. I don't know if there were any elected officials at that fourth meeting. I didn't attend. But I know we didn't have upper management at any of the meetings I was at. So I guess this wasn't that big a deal because not that many people were attracted to it. And most of us didn't know about it. It was amazing that we had four meetings, two of them during graduation week. I find that a little bit suspicious. And all of them were done in two weeks. When we did this, when I remember working on this with Steve a few years ago, we spread it out over a number of weeks and there was a lot of public notice. And I remember him attending and I remember we had some in the day, some at night. I attended all of them because I was consulting and I wanted to know what the public thought. And I think that's important for government to want to know what the public thinks. Now, lest you worry too much about Montero, those houses have been selling for $200,000 when they sell now. You heard $100,000 a few years ago. The value of those houses is skyrocketing. People want that area. So one guy was complaining, my rate is high. I said, you don't pay stormwater, and you sure don't pay city taxes. Oh, well, that's right. It's amazing how the people outside the city complain so much when they're not paying the double taxation that we in the city are paying, paying for a city government and a county government and everything else, sales tax on utilities to the city, excise taxes to the city, personal property taxes to the city. We pay a lot of money as city residents. So please give me a break when I hear. I'm going to ask for two more minutes.

Any objection? No. All right. Two minutes.

You on the road?

Nope.

Two minutes. Oh. I got it?

You got it.

Okay. Thank you. We are not in a hurry on this, except somebody wanted to hurry up and get this out, and hardly anybody knew about it in the public realm. Why didn't you send it out in the water bills? No answer. Crickets. I asked again and again, how many people got notifications? I got it off the next door. And I accidentally clicked the delete. And I had to go back and try to find it. I called Sylvia. I said, can I have it? I didn't get it from her. I had to figure out how to get back on the internet and get it. And then I screenshot it to a number of people saying, you need to know this. We're having these utility rates in the middle of budget time. Don't we have enough on our plate? And then they want a sales tax for God knows what. And I will oppose that, I'll just tell you. We are taxed enough and our rates are taxed enough and high enough in this city. If you look at the cash balances they've got, they have hardly replaced anything that's distribution related. I told them years ago, start fixing these neighborhoods where the hot spots are so you don't have so much overtime and you don't have all this cost when you hire private contractors. I asked for a map. I still haven't got it. I asked for that from the people who were conducting the hearing. They still haven't given it of the clusters of all the breaks. And I said, how many of those are you fixing this year? I still haven't got that answer. And I filed a court today asking for a whole lot of other answers to questions. And so those I will have next week, hopefully. I will say that the manager has been good about getting my court requests out. Aren't you glad? I just gave you some of it. I'm really glad that somebody is doing the work to inform our council. Anyway, I want to thank you. I don't know if I'm going to stick around for public comment if this goes too much longer, but thank you for the time.

Council Member Kell.

One thing I've said several times up here, the phrase I hate the worst is deferred maintenance. And then tonight, another good way to put it, deferred funding. And for most of us up here, and well before any of us were up here, things started going down where we're pushing things down the road. Well, any time you do that, you're making things costable. Short-term savings end up being long-term costs. more uh the more we push back replacing a water main the more breaks that happens the more it actually costs us rather than replacing it um when we uh defer maintenance on treatment then all of a sudden we're gonna have to maybe have a boil order so we need to look at things um preventive maintenance costs uh cost more and repair and replacement This is one thing that we need to look at. This is the consumption of all the citizens in Topeka. And so we want clean, potable drinking water, good water to shower with, things like that. And if we look at deferring things down the road and not fixing them, which there have been a lot of projects that have gone on in wastewater and also the treatment plant for the clean water. over the last couple of years. And the reason there have been certain things like, as Minister Libero-Luss breaks, is because we've been proactive the last five years or so on trying to get some of these projects taken care of. This is a subject matter I know a lot about. My dad was a master plumber. I worked with him on a lot of projects like this. So one thing that was brought up was the Monterra issue. We've gotten a lot of emails and phone calls about Monterra. Unfortunately, Monterra is not in the city limits. We don't control what they charge for their water. So we just issue them water and whoever out there determines what the rate is. I did mention in our meeting that I would like to see our industrial two to go away and like to see that our commercial and industrials pay a little bit more of that percentage. If, let's say, it was a 4% across the ward, I'd like to see them pay the 5% or 6% and drop the residential side. One question on the two inch charge or less, no change on one of the slides. Would that include apartment complex, like a large apartment complex?

If they're meters smaller than two inches, but a large apartment complex meter will probably be a two or three inch.

Yeah, that's one issue I do have there because people in apartment complex and some lots of times are fixed income and we're trying to get people to buy houses. We're adding more and more costs onto their their bill each month, then that's harder for them to try to save up that money to get into a home. And with some apartment complexes, I know it's a straight, you pay your own water bill. Some it's a large pot that they divvy up any way they want. And here's the thing. Ever since I've been here, things keep on going up in higher and higher costs. Things keep on getting pushed back on availability. the goods payroll maintenance all that's going to cost more over time availability of parts being deferred out six months a year they're just going to start raising the prices on them because the demand is there so they're going to get the price they want for that so This is something that, you know, I definitely don't want this to raise the rate if we don't have to. But this is, like I said, this is something to consume. This is something, a short-term savings is going to cost us a lot more in 10 years. And it's going to stop the momentum we've made the last four or five years on trying to get some of these projects done, working with streets and utilities together on projects to get the cost lower on that so we're not putting the road in. and then tearing it up to put in a new water main. So if we don't have that money there to be able to do those projects like that, then we're going to be questioned on why did you fix this road and two years later now you're tearing it up to put a new water main in. We started getting that route, but if we have to start cutting things, that's what we're going to go back to. This is something I am not comfortable kicking down the road on because it is a consumable. There's other projects we can look at and maybe deferred maintenance is the best thing, even though I hate doing that because it always costs more in the long run. But this is something that Short-term fixes are never going to be a long-term solution, so we always have to look short-term and long-term, and the best thing to do right now is look at what we need to do for the next 10 years to save our infrastructure that we have and make it better in the long run. Thank you.

Council Member Valdivia-Alcala.

Thank you, Mayor. I won't be supporting any kind of rate increase for utilities. I think the flavor out there in the community for the most part, for the most part, is a deep distrust about where the city is right now and specifically with utilities. I am going to continue to push, even if I'm the lone one on council, it doesn't matter, for a forensic audit for utilities and forensic audits are drawn by because of the history of whistleblower claims, budget deficits, lack of transparency, and it takes a deep dive investigation, not just like the regular audit, but it takes a deep dive investigation to uncover fraud, misuse of funds, or systemic financial irregularities. I think that we have that proof that as far as at a topical level from the concerns that have grown with Kansas topsoil, the concerns of how the readiness to serve was rolled out, and how the community was impacted by it. I'm starting to see more and more on social media and at the NIA meeting that I was at last night wanting to understand more about forensic audits. I think that there are some major issues that are going on in utilities. I think that if we could have the director of utilities, the deputy city manager and the city manager basically give us misinformation in a public meeting about workers not getting sick because of the high sewage levels where you had an official or the entity that was investigating it saying that they never said that. and how everybody just stays silent on the whole thing. The community knows that that's going on because the community watches these meetings. So again, there's no way that I will support any kind of rate increase. And again, I will continue to push every week for a forensic audit because there is something off. Thank you.

Council Member McGee.

Thank you, Mayor. A few pieces of information that I would like. to help in looking at this, because I think we've reached a tipping point, is the information I believe you had mentioned, comparison to our neighbors. I'd also like to see the current delinquency rate in the categories that you had mentioned, and the current delinquency balance in each of those categories. That's all I have. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Hofer. I have a couple questions.

Explain to me what the irrigation rate is.

Explain to me what the irrigation rate means.

The irrigation rate is for meters that are not connected to the sewer system, i.e., they are for watering the lawn, watering commercial properties, sprinkler systems.

Okay, we're not talking about farm ground, we're talking about actual grass being irrigated. Correct. Okay. On the wholesale rate, well, I don't know if that's what I want to say. I'm thinking more in terms of the industrial users. Do we have any, I know wholesale rate we have contracts, but where you've got somebody like Mars or Home Depot, somebody that uses a lot of water, Are they on a contract?

They are not.

It's just the standard rate of what they're using at the time? Right. Okay. And the next question, and this is more for the public to know, when we do a road project like the upcoming one for Huntoon, the cost of putting in the water, wastewater, and storm sewer comes out of The utilities budget, not the actual half-cent sales tax?

Correct. To be specific, stormwater assets above ground can be covered by the project. Everything underground is covered by the utilities. Okay. That's all I have.

Thank you.

All right, here's what's going to happen. It's 8.30. We're going to take a 10-minute break and then pick up this conversation because I know some people need a break. So we will be back here at 8.40, which is about nine minutes from now. But let's take that real quick. All right. We are back, and we are going to resume this meeting at 8.40 as indicated. So I'm going to turn it back over to staff. I wanted to clarify something, and then we'll go on to the next council member.

Thank you, Mayor. I did want to clarify something, as is actually quite typical. Braxton did correct me. The Huntoon project is a countywide half-cent sales tax, so there is more investment from an infrastructure perspective there. It is the citywide half-cent sales tax, and it's only the tops of the stormwater assets that can be covered by the sales tax. The water infrastructure on Huntoon is still coming from the water fund. and additional work on the collection system being done outside the footprint, but for efficiency purposes being done as part of the project is also coming out of the utilities. But there is an infrastructure investment from a countywide asset sales tax.

Council Member Bradbury.

Thank you. I can tell you I'm not going to be ready by June 16th. to take any kind of action whatsoever. And I'm also not in favor for families subsidizing larger consumption classes while those families are struggling to pay their own bills. Couple of questions. What percentage of revenue comes from each utility class?

I can do that by consumption, but because meters aren't by classification, I wouldn't be able to clarify that, because meters are just by meters. I don't have that, whether it's a residential or a commercial meter. I do have consumption-wise what comes from each class, if that works for you.

And while we're talking about different utility rate options, have you looked at level pay options?

So my response to level pay is we would like to get there. We're working towards an online customer portal right now, which would allow customers to see their usage in real time. Until that is available to everyone, I think a level pay is a bad tool for a water utility. Level pay people don't typically look at their bills on a regular basis. And if somebody has a large leak and isn't paying attention to their consumption, that true up at the end of the year could be huge. Once the tools are out there that customers can see their usage, even when they're not looking at their bills, it's absolutely something that we want to look at.

I'll have to agree to disagree with you right now. I think level pay option would be something to look at, especially when families do have trouble with those larger fluctuations. At least it helps you budget and have an idea of what your expenses are each month. And then my next question is, are there other municipalities in Kansas that do offer a voluntary level pay option?

Did you say voluntary or involuntary? Voluntary. Voluntary. We'll have to look in and get you that information. Okay.

Council Member Hiller.

Got just a couple of questions. And if I missed it in your presentation, apologies. On the chart that you had on the PowerPoint where you showed the two different possibilities of what the total budget might look like, the full need or the big one and then a smaller one, was any of either of those budgets, did those budgets include debt service?

Yes.

Okay. I would be interested in knowing how much of each of those progressions, not necessarily right now, but how much was debt service?

Which slide are you referring to? I'm sorry.

Page 7.

The projects themselves have a debt service component to them? I'm just looking.

you know obviously this is a very consolidated version of a total budget but of that how much is If the construction's in there and the capital expenses are in there and that includes debt service, just how much of it is?

So those budgets do not include debt service because those are part of our operating budget. What is included in those project budgets is an amount for the debt service capital reserve that we have to hold and cost of issuance. The actual debt service comes out of the operating budget on an annual basis.

Well, if there's a way that we can look at how much that is, I mean, I know that each of the three utilities, particularly stormwater, stormwater at one point was 100% debt-free. And that way, 100% of your dollars are going to your maintenance and your improvements. And so I was just curious what the modeling that you did do, how much is debt-free? Or how to figure that out so we can tell.

I was going to say I can provide a percentage of debt service of the total operating budget is a number that I can provide. Okay. I can also tell you that the improved investment that we were looking at and the rates where that kind of came out at that 6444, that is – assumes 25% cash capital investment and bonding 75% of the projects to keep rates lower.

Okay. I might need a little help and the rest of us will look at that and see what that really looks like. Thank you. Again, this is just a question on overall project planning. You know, we've seen, for instance, you've got one neighborhood that you're planning to do either this year or sometime soon where we're actually doing all the water lines in the neighborhood. And that happened in Southeast Topeka years ago. They got lucky, I guess, to have the red water when they did, but they've got all new ones. Is there... And when you are analyzing cost effectiveness, one of my – maybe it was Councilman Kell talked about, you know, how expensive it is to go out and do an emergency versus just fix the whole dang water line so that it doesn't happen again. So are there places where you've looked at it and said, you know, we really would be better off just to do this entire area versus this catch-up?

Yes. We are currently looking at our worst 1% of the lines that are out there. We have a particular neighborhood that I think three of the top 10 are in that neighborhood. And then there's lots of others that are still within the top 100, top 200 line. So if we were to look at that... Just those three lines that are in the top ten, I'm looking at a couple million dollars to replace those. If I'm looking at the entire neighborhood, I'm looking at seven million dollars to replace that neighborhood. It is definitely a consideration and we are evaluating that right now, how best to spend those dollars to get the biggest bang for the buck.

That's good. I mean, I think when 12th Street went in, for instance, at some point not too long into the project, I said, have we already had 30 water main breaks? And as soon as you have a water main break, often when it's repaired and then the water goes again, something else pops. I just wondered if that was in any of the overall project planning, if that would help us avoid emergencies and minimize all that cost and also manage a little better.

We would love to be able to invest and afford to have that approach. Right now, our highest priorities are always being adjusted to, again, accommodate some of our public works projects too. Just trying to spread those dollars out. We can't do larger chunks at a time without sacrificing the investment that we're making in conjunction with those other projects.

Well, and if I can ask a question on those two then. That seemed like a really good idea at the time. When we first started the citywide half-cent sales tax, it was just mill and overlays. It wasn't the full utility inclusion and if I always say, paraphrase it poorly probably, but the general public reaction about six months into the first one was, you idiots, what are you thinking? Why aren't you going and making sure you've figured out, fixed everything underneath the street before you put the top back on and we switched it at that time? Is that, despite the fact that things happen a block or two away from the major street projects, Does that seem like it is turning out to be a cost-effective thing to have your expense underneath every time we do a street project?

Where we can. We're not doing everything, of course, but certainly the combined cost and investment from a general fund sales tax investment versus utility investment. I think we're absolutely seeing benefits from that. It extends our dollars at Huntoon. We're doing some lining work there to extend the life and not do full depth replacement, things like that. But again, We're saving by only replacing or moving certain assets out of the way instead of just moving the entire line out of the way. So we're trying to do things where we can, where we can fit it in the budget and where it's practical. But at the same time, that then equates to piecemealing, which kind of takes away some of that efficiency, too.

That's why I was checking. But on the other hand, you're not having to pay to put the street back on top. Correct.

Exactly. So we are saving. Yep.

One last question, and this one maybe you covered and I missed it, but did any of the examples that you showed remove the base charge for vacant property out of the mix?

No.

Okay. So if people want to do that, we need to.

Yep. That would be an alternate consideration that we would. You said you did have that in the alternate consideration.

There was a slide about that. There's a slide about that, Council Member Miller.

For an additional consideration. It was not baked into. Yes. I was just. Yeah. Apologize.

No, just clarifying. It was addressed in the slide. It wasn't shown in the examples. It was just listed as an additional consideration.

Okay. Yeah, I knew it was mentioned, but in terms of that, if anybody wants to pursue that, then visiting with you or anything else for that matter, adjustments and rates, is to say, can you run it without charging for vacant properties and with residential, you know, industrial picking up another percent and see how that relieves whatever. We can ask you to do those things, right? Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Council Member Kell.

My thing here is I want to address the staff. Ms. Davis and prior, Mr. Copley sat in that seat. You guys get so much hate and venom when it comes to this time of year or this time of processing. and I'll tell you these are the staff members that I've gone to when people have had issues with their water and they're the quickest most responsive people I've dealt with and when people have a spike in their water or wonder why their water builds this they are the quickest to respond and try to fix things and we have an amazing staff that has done this and is doing this and I feel bad that you guys have taken so much heat over the years for this and such a public eye when it comes to something like this, but I appreciate everything you've done whenever I've reached out, and I know some of my colleagues have reached out, how quick and responsive you are to those issues. Thank you.

Are there any other comments or questions this evening on this issue? It doesn't appear so, so we will circle back to it next week. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. With that, we'll move on to public comment. First up, I have Joseph Legbetter.

I'll be looking for those documents that I asked of the utilities people. including that map that shows all the breaks that I was promised that's never been sent to me. I want the council to have that. I was going to complain about a lack of code enforcement in close to my neighborhood, actually part of my neighborhood, but the problem got fixed. It was fixed this morning, so I have nothing to say on that. But I am going to talk about widows. I'm going to talk about people that have flowers in the front yard that were never notified after 40 years of living there and paying that house off that all of a sudden somebody had this grand idea. I'm going to put a sidewalk in front of your house to nowhere. It doesn't connect to anything. But we're going to build a sidewalk where there's a widow that absolutely, it's my sister, absolutely is melting down about her garden going to be plowed through. And one of my brothers-in-law asked me, what does the city have against flowers and butterflies? And I said, I don't know. It's a stupid, well, it's one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard of. Probably the worst one I ever saw was a big stormwater pit dug in the middle of Gage Park. you know, for the runoff from grass. That only costs, what, 1.2 million? I mean, if you're going to forensic audit, you might as well do them all, right? I'm not proposing a forensic audit. I'm just saying I keep hearing it. I'm not asking for it, but I don't understand why the balances are so high in utilities and all these projects that could have been done when it costs less with less inflation weren't done. But My sister does not want a sidewalk run through her front yard. A lot of people don't want sidewalks in front of their houses. A lot of people. I don't. West Hills doesn't. There's a lot of nice neighborhoods that don't have sidewalks. There's a lot of nice neighborhoods that do have sidewalks. If you want a sidewalk, then live in a neighborhood where they have sidewalks. It's okay. But if you don't want it, live in a neighborhood where they don't have it. It's a choice. And she made that choice 40 years ago with her husband, who's now deceased. And they paid that house off, and they kept it up. And it's a beautiful, beautiful front yard. I don't want to do that kind of work on the yard, but she does. It's what she does. And so there is no reason to plow a sidewalk through her garden, her roses, And I know what she does. I know my sister. She probably goes out there and just vexes over every plant that's been planted by her grandkids and her kids. And it's like, could you just leave her alone? Just leave her alone. After all, you're claiming you got this huge shortfall of cash. Why don't you work on getting Fairlawn reopened after 10 months instead of worrying about a sidewalk? Instead of worrying about all these alley repairs that I'm seeing, why don't we focus on the main streets? And just leave the sidewalks alone. I think we can pause for a couple years on sidewalks, but we can't pause on finishing our main streets. They've got to get done. That's where your sales tax comes from. It doesn't come from sidewalks, and it sure doesn't come from alleys. So could we just make the priorities a little tighter down here if we're in this supposed, you know, free fall of cash. We don't have any money. Sky is falling. I don't think so. But could you just leave her alone, please? I'm just asking as a brother. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, Mr Henry McClure.

Good evening, Your Honor. My name is Henry McClure. Um, I'm trying to figure out how to develop some land over on the evening side. And it's kind of funny, the sidewalks comes into this too. But we've got, we have a place I developed with the engineering, five blocks with a cul-de-sac and then the sidewalks, curb and gutter, And then we designed them with the ADUs, which is really a good idea. But then it came to $70,000 a lot. And I can't get $70,000 a lot to begin with. And then that's zero profit. But so I'm trying to figure out how to redevelop it. And I got a stream buffer behind it. And sure enough, I got to get permission from the utilities director before I touch that stream buffer. So it's like on a Wednesday or Thursday. I'm reading all the regulations. So I sent Sylvia a note. Man, she shows up on Saturday morning, 9 o'clock. And we worked the whole thing out. And she goes, I'll send you an email. So I'm about ready to go to bed Sunday night. My email pops off. I go, who's dinging me at 11 o'clock? It's Sylvia with all the answer me. I appreciate that. And I got, so we figured out now how to get some town homes in there and I'll probably have to get some zoning, but I really appreciated that. That was nice. Thank you. Couple of things I just wanted to talk about. I like that idea of the forensic audit. Let's go to go Topeka. which is turned into just a bank for the chamber members. But there's your $5 million right there for your water. There isn't anything that says economic development better than good streets and fresh water. And then think all the time it's going to free up with you not even have to go to JETO meetings, especially your city manager, because that guy, he's taxed. He shouldn't be on the board to go to Pekin. Neither should you. But look, you guys are going to have all this freedom. But I don't want to beat that up too much. Oh, I want to tell you about one other thing. So I got invited to a town out by Hutchison, the mayor and this other fellow. to build 10 duplexes and 10 fourplexes with my build force, the company I'm trying to move over from Missouri to Kansas. But it was really interesting. They're talking about a $83 million Starbond project done by, it's going to have two golf courses, two 18 holes, nine hole hunting lodge, a whole kit and caboodle. And think about it, we almost funded that because we didn't collect the specials out in Lawrence Bay. And it's the same guy. We're helping Reno County to no end. And what are we getting out of it? But it's the same fella.

Thank you. Next up, Mr. Christopher Deal.

Hello, my name is Christopher Diley. I'm homeless here. It's a little awkward, the microphone tonight. I'm following up on, I'm reiterating the public safety issue, Congressional Bill HR 6078, the Bipartisan Wildlife Road Crossings Program Reauthorization Act of 2025, which would permanently authorize this successful federal program giving states, tribes, and local communities, which local communities would include the city of Topeka, the stability they need to plan and complete multi-year projects. And that's regarding what I mentioned, I think, two months ago. Wildlife crossings, overpasses, interpasses, and fencing have been proven to reduce collisions dramatically, keeping both people and wildlife safe. They also protect critical migration routes and habitats, helping communities and ecosystems thrive together. Our roads shouldn't be a deadly threat to people or animals. Every year, thousands of Americans are injured in collisions with wildlife, and millions of animals from elk and deer to bear are killed. These tragedies are preventable, and there's a solution that works. That all comes from the congressional bill. It's still in the introductory phase since November of 2025. So it hasn't been passed. So this is at risk. This program is at risk of being ended in 2026 if this bill doesn't pass. So the freeze is still on as well. President Trump put the freeze in January of 2025, which means it's held up. The money, the grants that were awarded for the wildlife crossover programs, they're held up. So this, for a year and a half now, this fantastic idea is held up by those grants being frozen and by this bill that's still in the introductory phase. So that bill needs to be passed. And in 2023, I wrote to the then Federal Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, I thanked him for implementing the Wildlife Crossings pilot program to improve safety on American's roadways by preventing wildlife vehicle collisions. I point out the program would be especially helpful if in conjunction with the federal government plan to reintroduce grizzlies into Washington's North Cascades. Since the program grant funding involves highway signs to warn motorists of wildlife, I would suggest a sign, particularly along the Mount Baker Highway, that would read, Please drive carefully. Roadkill mothers leave orphaned cubs. So that was my idea. I'm going to say that again. Please drive carefully. Roadkill mothers lave orphaned cubs. Now, that pertains more in the state of Washington when there's more bears, particularly the black bears and the grizzlies, than it does here. But we have the animals here as well. I just saw a squirrel. just in a subdivision here, a few days this past weekend when I was walking, and it was run over right in front of my face. It got run over, and I watched it go through seizures, flipping around on the street, died. I came back later, I was so angry, I didn't even bother to take the carcass off the street. I was so mad. I just walked out. When I came back later, I realized it was pregnant. It was a pregnant squirrel that got run over. It had the teats on it. It just brought tears to my eyes. People might think, oh, it's just a squirrel, but it's indicative of the larger issue. You know, these are mothers. These are mothers that have cubs that have little babies waiting for them, and they get run over and they get killed in the roads and the highways. And we just accept it as commonplace. And we shouldn't. We shouldn't. We should be making this a higher priority. So I bring that to your attention as public safety tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. We'll now move on to announcements. City Clerk.

Okay, next week, June 9th, we have a Topeka Development Corporation Board of Directors agenda. It starts at 515 in this room, City Council Chambers at 214 Southeast 8th Street, second floor. Agenda consists of approval of the May 19 minutes. There will be a 15-minute executive session to discuss financial affairs and trade secrets of a corporation, update on the sale of Hotel Topeka to Endeavor Hotel Group, and then Amendment No. 3 to the Purchase and Sell Agreement. regarding assignment of the purchase and sale agreement to YBR Properties. Um, and then the June 9th, uh, governing body meeting, we have two appointments. The first one is to the Topeka metropolitan transit board. The second one is human relations commission. We have one presentation, the 2026 Kansas legislative session recap. We have one noise exception on the consent agenda. Action items include, um, old castle infrastructure annexation located at 5230 Northwest 17th street. And then we will continue discussion on utility rates.

City Manager. Not tonight, sir. Thank you. Council Member McGee. Deputy Mayor Hofer.

I have a couple things. I want to remind people we're the first week of the month. It's not only first Friday, but it is also fire station number nine will be open. I believe it's from 430 to 630. This is the one we have that's the most newly remodeled. So if you get a chance, go and look at the fire station. They are interesting to see how they're all different from each other. This afternoon at the police department, we had two promotions. Jennifer Cross was here earlier. She was promoted to assistant chief, and Donnie Eubanks was promoted to commander. So congratulations to them. The last one's a little harder. We lost a very important employee a couple weeks ago. And I've known Michelle for a long time. When she was first starting out and wanting to be an engineer, she came to work for the company that I worked for. And we helped move her onto a job with KU Facilities while she was getting her degree. She came back to Topeka and she worked for my mother. She worked for Evergy, she worked for Bartlett and West, and she finished her career with the city of Topeka in the utilities department. I have a soft spot for any female who goes into the engineering field since I have my license. She's a very good person. was very knowledgeable. She worked very hard. One of her last projects, or not quite last, but was moving the utilities for Polk Quincy. Seven projects, and it was a hell of a coordination to get that, to get those all done and get it ready for construction. And I'm just sorry to lose her, so. Michelle's partner, Lisa, I'm so sorry for your loss because she was just a wonderful person. That's all.

Council Member Hiller.

Thank you. I'll just throw out one thing. The Topeka United's annual Call River float is this Saturday. If you missed a chance to sign up for it and you still want to, let me know. They've closed registrations, but I can still get people in, I think. It's always fun. This one's going to run from up around Perry down the Delaware River and connect into the call at Lecompton. And just let me know if you're interested. That's it. Thank you.

Council Member Valdivia Alcala.

I have nothing.

Thank you.

Council Member Ortiz.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to wish my granddaughter a happy sixth birthday tomorrow. Must be nice being six. Thank you. Gigi loves you, Granny. Granny loves you, Gigi.

I'm sure the other one's true, too. Council Member Banks.

Thank you, Mayor. I'd just like to give a shout-out to my friend and... former firefighter, we're both retired, Dorian Branch, got married this weekend to our dispatcher, Yolanda Alexander, and I was the best man at his wedding. It was such a fun time for him because I know that he's a really remarkable guy, and she's a pretty nice lady. I don't know her like I know him, but I'd just like to give a shout out to him. I wish he'd Wish him and her all the best. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I saw Councilmember Kell pop up online. Is he still there? And if so, does he have an announcement?

I just want to say congratulations to Washington Rural Baseball and the amazing play that Aidy Newberry made. It made the Sports Center top 10. So it's great to see some local teams get national coverage.

Council Member Miller.

Thank you, Mayor. This town and this area, we were blessed by a few different sports teams who were able to win state championships right along with some individuals in track and field who won some state championships as well. um the next thing is i want to make sure that i wish my father a happy birthday whose birthday is today but all of that kind of seems dim and what deputy helfer just said and i could tell in how you said that the the care you had for her um especially she went from the private to come to the the public sector. And that's a hard move for anybody. But it means she really liked what she was doing. So I appreciate you shouting her out. So rest in peace, Michelle.

Council Member Bradbury. All right. I'm going to skip it tonight. We have a need for two executive sessions. So with that, I will turn it over to the city attorney. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The motion would be to recess into executive session not to exceed 15 minutes to discuss matters deemed privileged concerning current litigation and potential litigation as allowed under KSA 75-4319B2. 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 city attorney, the chief of litigation, and other staff members as needed.

All right, I will move to go into executive session. Do I have a second? Second. Second from Council Member Banks. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed, say nay. Nay. All right. With that, we are going to go immediately into executive session. All right, we have reconvened the meeting and are now back in open session with no action being taken by the governing body during that executive session. However, 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 discuss contractual matters deemed privileged concerning potential litigation as allowed under KSA 75-4319B2 and including confidential financial data supplied by a third party as allowed under KSA 73-1319B4. 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 city's administrative judge, the city attorney, and other staff members as needed.

All right, I will move to go into executive session. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second from Council Member Banks. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed say nay. I got a nay or two, but either way, we're doing it.

We got what we need.

We will now go immediately into executive session. All right, we have reconvened in open session. No action was taken. And so this meeting is adjourned at 9.40.