City Council - Regular Meeting

There we go. Okay.

Welcome everyone to the July 14th, 2026 meeting of the City Council. I'm calling this meeting to order. First thing up is our invocation. Mr. Letterbetter, come on up and we'll do our invocation. Pastor Ledbetter moved to Topeka in 2021 to start Shining Light Baptist Church. The church moved to their current location at 3601 SW 33rd Street in 2024. Their small congregation is very effective in supporting our community. He has been a chaplain at the Topeka Police Department since 2021. The floor is yours.

Thank you for the opportunity. Let us pray. Lord, thank you for the opportunity to pray and bring our city business before your attention. Lord, I just ask you to be with our leaders, be with our citizens, be with our city. We have a wonderful place that we live, and some people may not think so, but Lord, I appreciate and I love Topeka. And Lord, we ask you to guide the decisions, the discussions. in the direction that we need to go. Lord, I thank you again for this night, for this opportunity, and I pray for your guidance and your wisdom tonight. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

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

City Clerk, will you call the roll?

Mayor Duncan? Here. Deputy Mayor Hofer? Here. Council Members Hiller? Here. Valdivia Acala? Here. Ortiz? Here. Banks?

Here.

Kell?

Here.

Miller?

Here.

Bradbury? Here. And McGee?

Here.

All right, we have 10 yes. I mean, 10 here.

Okay, due to the length... of our meeting tonight, I am going to ask the body to consider moving, oh gosh, the utilities item. It's under action items number five, or is it six? No, six. Six A. Six A. Does anyone have any objection to that? If not, that will move till next week. Okay. Okay. Next on the list is appointments. City Clerk?

A is a board appointment recommending the appointment of Lindsey Huff to the Downtown Business Improvement District Advisory Board to fill a term ending July 14, 2028. Is there a motion?

Oh, sir, I have to get used to this board. Motion's been made by Brett Kell and seconded by Karen Heller. Please vote.

OK. OK, we have nine yes, but motion carries.

And I want to thank Lindsay Huff for accepting this appointment. And Lindsey is supposed to be here tonight. If you would stand. And we want to thank you. OK. Next on the agenda is a presentation. The Government Assisted Inspection Report. Brenda.

So we have Carrie Higgins here with our housing services, and she'll provide the presentation. City Manager, any comments?

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Deputy Mayor, members of the governing body, as discussed during the June 30th Public Health and Safety Committee meeting, in this presentation, Carrie Higgins, Director of Housing and Homeless Services, will discuss 2025 housing inspections data for HUD, KHRC, THA, and City of Topeka's housing services shelter plus programs. With that, I'll turn this over to Carrie to lead us through this discussion.

All right, good evening deputy mayor and governing body. Tonight we are going to cover the 2025 government assisted inspections. This report came out of the COC PM committee and will be an annual report that we pull and present to the governing body. So the government assisted housing units are divided into about five different categories, and we will go through each of those. The first is the multifamily properties that are project based, and these are inspected through HUD contracted inspectors. You can see the list of properties there, the inspection date, and the scores for each of those. The scores are based on the inspection. So if the project receives a 90% or higher, the unit will be inspected once every three years. If they score an 80 to an 89, it will be inspected every two years. And then for any properties that score below an 80, it will be inspected annually. The second group is the low-income housing tax credit properties. These are awarded and inspected by KHRC. Again, you see a list of the different projects. Here you'll also see the place and service date, and the inspections are based on the place and service date. It's once every three years from that date. You'll also see the inspection date. And then for this, you'll see the number of findings. And then the far right column is the completed date. So that's the date all of those findings were corrected and everything is in compliance from the initial inspection date. The third group is the Topeka Housing Authority public housing group, which is their site-based HUD assistance. These are inspected by HUD. Again, you'll see the list of properties, the inspection date, and their scores. I would like to note that HUD changed to the INSPIRE inspection standard a couple years ago. And there's been a learning curve. THA has notified us to get all those properties up to the new standards. They have a lot of aging properties and so it has taken them a little longer than they would have liked. The fourth category is, again, Topeka Housing Authority. This is with their housing choice vouchers. These operate a little bit differently. They are placed with private landlords. So the individual receives a voucher and finds a landlord that is willing to accept the voucher. They will do an inspection before a tenant moves in to ensure the unit is up to code compliance. There is no score. It is either pass or fail. And if a unit does fail, the landlord has the opportunity to correct those issues, and then THA will re-inspect. If for some reason the unit doesn't pass or the landlord is not willing to fix the issues, then the tenant is released and they receive a new voucher so that they can find a new home that does pass inspection. So THA will do the initial inspections before any individual moves into the unit and they also do annual inspections for every individual that receives those vouchers. And then the fifth category is the City of Topeka Shelter Plus Care Vouchers. These again operate very much the same way as Topeka Housing Authority. So they are placed with private landlords. We do an initial inspection before a tenant will move in. It's either pass or fail. If it fails, the landlord has the opportunity to correct the issues. And then we also do the annual inspections on every unit as well to ensure they are maintaining compliance. And we do have Trey George here tonight with Topeka Housing Authority if you all have any questions. And I will also stand for any questions you might have.

Okay. Does anyone have any questions for Carrie? I'll start with Christina.

This isn't so much a question as a comment. And thank you, Carrie, for doing this. And I think that what we're going to start seeing here at the governing body level is a more filling out of what is being done at Public Health and Safety Committee to bring forth what we know are the issues that many, many, many, many residents have been asking for and information that we've been asking for as a committee so that we can learn and then in turn give this to the governing body as we look to deal with how do we create a fair and mindful landlord tenant registry? How do we track the different units like you just showed us and how they are graded and inspected? So all of this comes about with the need to educate ourselves on the committee, but also to help educate the governing body. So as much as possible, we can be on the same page as we go through what I believe are going to be really good changes coming forth.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Thank you. Anyone else have any comments, questions? Councilwoman Heller.

I'll just mention that, Carrie, correct me if I'm wrong, this is roughly about 5,000 units. Yes, that is correct. Covered in this report. So of the roughly 22,000 units, you know, to discover that the inspection routines are already there. and to learn about the ratings and be able to follow them. The HUD ones have been on their website for a long time, but correct me if I'm wrong, all the other entities, the THA as well as you and the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation have agreed to make all their data available annually at this point.

That is correct. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other comments? Okay, thank you. Okay, next up on our agenda is the consent agenda. City Clerk.

A is a resolution introduced by Councilmember Marcus Miller granting Greg Lombard Ray an exception to the provisions of City of Topeka Code Section 945.150 at seat concerning noise prohibitions. B is an ordinance introduced by City Manager Dr. Robert Perez terminating the Capital City Townhomes Redevelopment District created pursuant to Ordinance No. 20651. C is an ordinance introduced by City Manager Dr. Robert Perez terminating the College Hill Redevelopment District created pursuant to Ordinance No. 18566. D is approval of a public works department contract between the City of Topeka and Phinney Transportation and Civil Engineering LLC for professional engineering and design services in an amount not to exceed $67,700. E is approval of a public works department contract between the City of Topeka and JEO Consulting Group Incorporated for professional engineering and design group services in an amount not to exceed $90,000. F is a development agreement and a mortgage agreement between the City of Topeka and Weibel Property Development LLC in an amount not to exceed $365,197.50 from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. G are minutes of the regular mean of July 7, 2026, and there are no applications.

Okay. Is there a motion from the body? Okay, it's been moved by Marcus Miller and seconded by Sylvia Ortiz. We're ready to vote.

Okay. Mayor Duncan?

Yes.

Okay, we have 10 yes. The motion carries. All right.

Next up are the action items. Item number 5A, the clerk will read.

A is discussion with possible action of an ordinance introduced by council members Murray McGee, Christina Valdivia-Ocala, and Michelle Bradbury, implementing a temporary moratorium on the acceptance, processing, and approval of applications for data center developments within the city of Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas.

City Manager, do you have any comments?

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Deputy Mayor and members of the governing body, as an extension of the data center discussion held during last week's city council meeting, this item, which is being introduced by Councilmembers McGee, Valdivia, Ockland, Bradbury, would establish a 12-month temporary moratorium on the acceptance, processing, and approval of data center applications within city limits. Given this brief background, I will ask that the sponsoring councilmembers would like to lead us through this item, or we can have our city attorney speak to the points of the ordinance.

Okay. Councilman McGee, would you like to start us off or would you like to pass it to the city attorney?

I would just point out on this that it is temporary. It is for 12 months. But at the same time, it's a way for us to stop and try to get ahead, gather more information. I could tell you even today, I've learned things today that I haven't heard up to this point. So we're getting more information today. There's also at the end of this ordinance a clause that says that we can rescind it at any time as well. So I wanted to point that out. Thank you.

Mr. Jefferson, do you have any comments at this time?

Thank you. I just wanted to reiterate what Council Member McGee said. It's a time for us to pause and evaluate the potential impacts of something that we have not had in our area before and for things we haven't encountered. So I just wanted to reiterate that.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I just want to say so much thank you to both Councilwoman Bradbury and Councilman McGee because it has really been helpful when we went to go meet with the city attorney. And it was a slow meeting. It was a deliberate meeting. And especially to Councilwoman McGee. for saying the word moratorium here at this governing body. I do want to take it one step further before Nick goes and explains it. On my part is that I understand that this is a one-year moratorium, and my goal is to be to push for impact studies because we need to understand what the impact would be on the health and safety of the community, even though there's a moratorium, just like they need it at the county level, we need it here at the city level. I would also go one step further in that my way of thinking about this is that when the moratoriums are over, however many moratoriums end up being whatever, I can only talk about what's here in front of us, is that I really believe it is something that the people should be able to vote on. whether they want something in the city and we have no control of that, you know, over if there would be a vote up at the county level, not that I, the way that I understand it, but this is so imperative as we continue to read more and more articles that are truly shocking in nature at what it is doing to communities. And so my way of thinking is that if we can raise mill levies or not raise mill levies, raise your utilities, raise this, raise that, ask you for more money to pay for this or pay for that, that by all means, when it comes to this kind of public health and safety issues that we're looking at, that we're reading are happening across the country, that the people should be able to vote on it. And I hope, ultimately, that's what happens. Thank you.

Okay. I'm going to step in front of you. I want to do public comment first.

We're going to come back.

We'll come back to that as soon as we get through public comment. Okay. There are so far, well, I guess now 24 signed up for public comment.

Point of order, Deputy Mayor.

Was Nick going to explain anything? Nick, do you want to? City Attorney? Yes.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I think we've covered the major points here. What we're looking at is essentially a temporary 12-month moratorium on accepting any applications for new data centers within city limits. So those are the finer points. As Councilmember McGee said, it's in the ordinance that it can be rescinded at a time before that, if the body so chooses. I will say that our governing body rules say we can't revisit something within four months once it's been voted on and action's been taken. However, there is potential to suspend the rules to allow it to come back before the four-month mark if you wanted to go that route, but I just wanted to make everyone aware of that as well. But I'm also available for any questions as we kind of move forward.

Okay. I'm going to move into public comment. I have 24 signed up. I will call your name, and you come up. You're going to have four minutes, four minutes only, because we're looking at a long comment period. So state your name for the record. No extensions are going to be given, and I think I'm ready to go. So let's get started. If you do not respond, If somebody stepped out of the room, I will try and come back to them. And we're going to start with Gary Morgan. Is Gary Morgan here? Yes. And also, will you state whether you're a city or county resident?

Hello, I'm Gary Morgan. I'm actually a Vassar, Kansas resident just to our south. I've spent a lot of time in Topeka. I did not expect to be the first speaker tonight, so I really signed up fairly late, so I thought I'd be at the tail end. I'm sure you're all going to hear a lot of the points I'd love to talk about tonight, but I'm going to come at this a little bit differently. I've been a mechanical engineer my whole career and spent most of my 40 plus years working in the plastic pipe industry. Over the last eight years, I've had the opportunity to represent North America's largest trade association for plastic pipes as a board member and more recently as chairman of the board. I'm not here tonight to represent the Plastic Pipe Institute, but as a concerned local citizen. That said, I can tell you that concerning our country's infrastructure, we are in big trouble. Most of our city's water distribution and sewer lines are decades past their expected lifetimes. The amount of treated water loss to failing water distribution system mains is staggering and continues to grow aggressively across our country. Most water utilities are simply running around their towns throwing band-aids on corroding and leaking water supply lines with no real plan for long-due replacement. Data centers, no matter what their promoters lie about behind closed doors, consume massive amounts of treated water to operate in most designs today. Furthermore, natural gas turbines utilized to power some of these data centers also use open air towers which inject treated water vapor and water treatment chemicals into the air, not to mention increased potential for pathogens such as Legionella to be released. So now with the potential data centers, we're considering adding a monumental volume of additional water usage for these resource-hungry bemooths. My question is this. How is Topeka's water and sewer infrastructure health? What is our percentage of unaccounted for treated water? Are we greater than the USA's national average of one in five gallons lost? Are we part of the $6.4 billion annually lost to our own aging infrastructure? My guess is that we're also in need of a comprehensive water infrastructure replacement plan. Water is a precious resource and most data center promoters could care less about it. I would challenge this council to review our own water loss and develop a comprehensive plan, including funding, to fix our own problems before you consider giving abatements to the resource hungry giants whom never should have been given the state sanctioned tax abatements by SB 68 a few years ago. Maybe it was last year, but I think it was two years ago. By the way, our Senate Chairman and Governor candidate, Ty Masterson, fully supported these data center tax abatements, as did the majority of our state legislators. Phillip Cernacki is also a candidate for Governor, and he's one of only a few promoting a moratorium on data centers because he knows and he shares the concerns of We the People and the ugly track record of the data centers across the country to date. Secondly, what about electrical usage? From the best of my understanding, that regardless of how much data crunching the CPUs and GPUs are being asked to handle, it's full-on power. There is no idle down. It is on or off. It's like driving your car with the accelerator on the floor and controlling your speed with the brake. That's my understanding of the power consumption and the way data centers work. So in closing, Five points. Please listen to your local constituents. Two, do your own due diligence to explore communities already negatively impacted by these bemooth data centers. Three, don't sign NDAs, which won't allow you to discuss or share information with your constituents before making monumental decisions. Four, evaluate our own local utilities infrastructure health. Are we bleeding water? If so, dang it, let's fix it before considering adding new massive water burdens. And finally, and I'm sure many others will say tonight, please pass at least a one-year moratorium on data center agreements and assemble a group of experts whom at least are partially elected by the public. Thank you.

Okay. And I'm going to apologize up front. I'm going to butcher myself. I'm probably going to butcher names, so please be patient with me. Next is Katherine Andres. Yes, and state your name and if you're in the county or in the city.

Yeah, I'm Katherine Andres. I actually live in Vassar. However, I own two homes in Topeka.

Thank you.

And so I believe I'm a practical business person, and so I own two rental properties in Topeka that I'm very concerned about. I was at an event with gubernatorial candidate Philip Sarnicky, who also is an amazing businessman, and he also believes in a moratorium on the data centers. So he is for progress, but he doesn't feel data centers are it. So today I don't want to talk about hypotheticals about the negative effects of data centers, but I've done some research on some events that have occurred in cities where there are already data centers. Number one, fires. First responders are being overwhelmed by data center fires already. Example, Jerome Township, Ohio. The fire department has already answered 84 emergencies since 2021 between two Amazon data centers. A rate of two calls a month. One fire caused $50 million in damages and tied up first responders for over 24 hours. By the way, Amazon got 100% property tax abatement for 10 years, so the locals in Ohio are paying for the fire department. Columbus, Ohio, suburb of Hilliard, has three data center campuses. They've had to divert already $2 million in tax revenue for emergency services. Number two, water problems. in the San Juan Daily Star, a metadata center in Newton County, Georgia, sits 1,000 feet from the family Jeff and Beverly Morris. Within a year of the data center being built, their water taps in their home went dry. They had to pay $5,000 to fix the water problems. They actually need a new well, which now costs $25,000 that they cannot afford. So now for a family of five, they only have one bathroom that they can use in their home. They cannot sell the home. because by a data center. Phoenix, Arizona home building has been paused because of construction of data centers that is exacerbating the droughts. The third problem is electric power in Lake Tahoe. The residents are facing a power crisis because the NV Energy said they're stopped supplying energy, electricity by May of 2027. So these 49,000 residents are scrambling now to figure out how they're going to get energy. According to a report by Power Lines, U.S. Electric and Gas Utilities requested $31 billion in rate increases in 2025, all due to mostly data centers. Number four, profitability. Data centers are facing $1.4 trillion in computing costs over the next eight years, yet receiving only $13 billion in revenue each year compared to the $1.4 trillion. Most states with data centers offer these facilities exemptions on sales and use tax. In fiscal year 2025, Virginia lost $1.6 billion in tax revenue from data centers under this exemption. And in 2024, Georgia lost $450 million. Let's just talk about job growth. In 2021, a Microsoft data center in Illinois received more than 38 million in state sales tax exemptions, but only created 20 permanent jobs. The largest data centers typically employ fewer than 150 permanent workers, with some employing as few as 25. So the Food and Water Watch, FWW analysis, found that for data centers creating one permanent job that costs $54 million, they invest for equaling one job. People who live near a data center describe it as a living hell because there is noise that goes 24-7. So I would ask anybody who's considering a data center to find and listen to the sound that comes out of the data centers and see how long you can tolerate that. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Next up is Carol Marple.

My name is Carol Marple. I live in the county. We have a farm. My husband and I do. I also own a house in the city. Because we have a farm, I'm very familiar with water districts. And I have come here tonight to ask the city council to vote for a one-year moratorium on the data centers. I have grave concerns about data centers, and I would very much think we all need to have more information before we allow them to be built in our city or our county. Even if none of them will be directly built in the city, these data centers are going to affect everyone. My biggest concern is for water usage. Where the proposed site for one of the data centers is, is on 40 acres that is currently under the control of Go Topeka. This tells me that this data center has been in the works for probably a long time, and a lot of people, except the taxpayers, have known about it. In the papers that I handed out to you, you will see an email trail that I received from AJ Byers, who is with Compass Data Center requesting a meeting with us as we live very close to where the center will be built. We have watched Bartlett and West, various surveyors, and the water district out there for months. I believe that this project would probably be on rural water district number three, which currently buys their water from the city. They have a contract for X number of gallons. We have water district, we have meters with water district three. We also have water district eight meters, which buys their water from district three. It's all city water. Water District 1 in Auburn also buys their water from the city. We use our water, a lot of water, in our farming operation. We have water meters in a couple of our pastures. We use city water to spray our crops. And we use city water when we bring our cows home to winter around our property. Most importantly, or at least important, we flush our stools and take showers and drink city water. Who do you suppose will be curtailed if the data center needs more water? A multi-million dollar data center or Ben and Carol Marple's farm? If the city agrees to provide more water to the rural water district, who do you suppose is going to pay for the upgrades that the city is going to have to make? It's going to be the taxpayers. And quite frankly, we cannot afford more money. I wanted to make a few comments about the small data center that has been talked about by the MTAA at the south end of Forbes. Just a quick lesson. This board is run by five individuals. Three of the individuals are appointed by the city who just recently appointed a new person. They have two businessmen and a pilot. The county appoints two. They have a banker and an engineer that works for Bartlett and West. MTAA was served with a judgment this year that amounts to over $1,800,000. We do not know the total amount of this judgment because there are legal fees that they will have to pay for the individual. One, interest, and other assorted fees. Last year, they paid $97,426.41 for legal fees. And I'm done. Thank you. Thank you, Carol.

Next is Richard Johnson.

My name is Richard Johnson. I live at Silver Lake. I'm a retired police officer. I was the president of the Minocan group that stopped the ethanol plant and one who brought light to the Kansas gas illegally taxing over 700 customers for over 20 years. Here we are again, fighting for our rights against another threat to our community, which is physically, financially, and environmentally. Criminal behavior is learned through trial and error, and it's no different with the companies like data centers. They have experts who evaluate the plus and minuses from all of the public meetings. They stack the deck to improve odds before it becomes public. They get locals to change word definitions and zonings. Centers will broker property agreements long before the project is approved, then push time frames to reduce resistance response. I believe our zoning and county commission have been compromised, and here's why. Terry Robinson, whose name seems to be the same as a local developer, made the last-minute motion to increase the solar acreage to 1,000 acres instead of 240 acres. Myron Winovetto seconded the motion, and all but one member of the zoning committee quickly approved it. The data center would not have been an issue if left at 240 acres. This decision came out of the blue. We have had several meetings on solar, and due to the population density, 240 acres seemed logical. Mr. Robinson, who promoted the zoning committee banks, Mr. Robinson was promoted to the zoning committees thanks to Commissioner Mays. Members of the committee had been asked if anyone on the panel should recuse themselves, and no one responded. After the closing of the public comment portion, Mr. Robinson, by his own volition, said he was in favor of solar sites all along, even before the meeting. There was no discussion by the other members of the committee. They passed it immediately. Continuing to the commissioners' meeting, the 1,000-acre solar site was reduced to 640 acres, or one square mile, perfect for a small data center. 240 acres would not have been enough to support a center. Two commissioners voted in favor of the 640 acres. Mr. Mays made the 640-acre recommendation. Mr. Cook agreed. Mr. Rippon voted against it. Later, Mr. Cook, at another meeting, said Mays and Rippon would not approve a moratorium. Why did Ripon vote against an increase in acreage but then say no to a moratorium? Given enough time, elements to the data center started to reveal itself. Mr. Robinson said he would not go a second term in the zoning committee. Evergy had been holding meetings with undisclosed data centers before the acreage approval. Commissioner May's wife works for Deep Fission. Then we discovered test sites had been dug for feasibility studies to see if the area could hold a data center and the possibility of sustaining an underground nuclear power plant. We stopped the ethanol plant based on three issues, air quality, water, emergency preparedness. Fires and data centers are not extinguished. They continue to burn until they burn out. Predominant winds are north and south. Our community bought the last two sites. for the ethanol plant, so they couldn't get the water. Air permits are required, but here's the rub. The permits will tell you the pollution created by the data center will be within the limits, but real issue is how much pollution will it add to the pollution that's already in the air. Consider the diesel exhaust from the 18 wheelers as various warehouses in the area, along with the pollution from the air guard. The data center represents a serious concern to our quality of life and financial burden. Just as serious is when zoning committees, county commissioners, some city council members, and NGOs participate in clandestine acts to push an agenda despite public opposition. I say no to any moratorium and no to any data center. Thank you.

Next up is Amy Gillette. State your name and if you're city or county.

Yes, good evening. My name is Amy Gillette and I live in Topeka outside of city limits in Shawnee County. First, I want to sincerely thank all of you for taking the time to consider a moratorium. And I want to especially thank those of you responsible for pushing it forward so quickly, since in this situation, time is of the essence. I live in South Topeka, just a few blocks south of the city limits. So I live in Topeka, but as I've come to find out, I don't really live in Topeka. I'm a resident of the ETJ, the Extra Territorial Jurisdiction, a three mile buffer zone around the city limits where we live in the city on paper, but we aren't allowed to vote on its mayor or representatives. And that is why I'm here, because we need your help in protecting ourselves as a particularly vulnerable entity without that full representation. On the ETJ, we don't have some things most Topekans might take for granted, like help with tree branch removal, and we don't have some really big things like sewer service. In my area of the ETJ, we're on Rural Water District 3, and though we get our water directly from the city of Topeka, we pay almost twice as much as Topeka residents. These are not my primary complaints, though. We chose to live slightly further out from the city's core, and certain compromises come with that. Although when we moved here, I had absolutely no idea we were in this strange city beyond the city. The address said Topeka, so I thought we lived in Topeka. After last week's presentation, though, I found myself thinking, why should water, sewer, and electrical services be extended out for a data center, but not for the city's ETJ residents that currently lack them? Why should a data center get water directly from the city of Topeka when we in that same area have to pay grossly marked up rates? Can anyone really name a single benefit for those of us that will have to live near this monstrosity? The most we've heard are some vague claims about property taxes, but those benefits will be concentrated not in the areas most affected, but diffused over the entire city. Sadly, the only way our property taxes are going to get lower is because the value of our property is about to take a nosedive. Putting a data center there is effectively salting the land, and there's been absolutely no talk of compensation or how this might be made right with property owners. All we've gotten is evasiveness about what applications are in the works, when all we want to know is, should we even bother making plans here in Topeka anymore? I honestly stood in my garden yesterday thinking, will I even be planting this next year? Are we going to have to flee because no one's going to step in to protect us? The Compass site, which I live about two and a half miles away from, is not a typical data center like we already have in Topeka. We understand this. Their plan is to have 10 buildings, a whole data campus, not just one. According to the International Energy Agency, conventional data centers, like we already have, use between 10 and 20 megawatts, while a hyperscale AI-focused data center like this one can use 100 megawatts or more, almost 10 times the energy, potentially. These sorts of multi-client hyperscale facilities should not be right on top of people because it's not just residents there. It's every person who works at the Mars factory or the Walmart distribution center that will hear increased noise and infrasound every day. Every child who goes to one of those two schools under two miles away, every person who goes to Forbes Field or Combat Air Museum. People already suffer a higher burden here due to the fact that there's already all sorts of existing pollution. We can't just look at the new pollution, as Richard said. We have to look at the cumulative effect here. Along with the moratorium, I believe your commission should, not your commission, your council should recommend the establishment of a committee to evaluate the risks of such a facility with both experts and residents who are direct stakeholders and need to make huge life decisions based on this information. That would be a first big step towards transparency. It's not worth a few decently paid temporary jobs to erect a citadel of torment that violates all the senses and drains everything from our community while giving nothing back. Thank you.

Next up is Megan Ryan.

Good evening. Topeka City Council, thank you so much for bringing this to the discussion today. We really appreciate it. Throughout this process, you know, we've all come to learn something more. And I understand that you are all here because you want to make our city better. That's why you ran for office. That's why you've invested your time. And that's why you're taking time today to discuss a moratorium, specifically to address public health concerns, as it so happens. I have a master's in public health, and I am happy to share my information. So one of the first things I would like to discuss are PFAS. PFAS are what we refer to as the forever chemical. They tend to compound, especially in utero. This leads to a 200% in mortality rates. This is in the drinking water. And I understand that while this is going to be taking place in Monteiro or that area, PFAS occur in the data center cooling systems and fire suppression systems. And I understand that supposedly somebody may have said that there's not going to be water used in data centers. And I do want to clarify that that's a bit abnormal, right? It's the cheapest way to cool down these centers. Also, we are going to be opening up ourselves to multiple data centers, right? There are plenty of people coming to beautiful Shawnee County looking to establish these companies. There's not going to be a shortage of business opportunities if we decide this is the right path. So when we talk about these PIFAs in our water, if the Topeka city water is expanded out to the county to these data centers, we are all on that poison water. It doesn't matter if you're living out there in the county or if you're here as a Topeka citizen. This will impact all of us and that is why I greatly appreciate you taking the time to look deeper into these concerns. I know the folks of Montero are kind of in their own island out there, but we're talking about this greater issue of exploitation when we are talking about, oh, we're going to bring this data center and it's going to be wonderful for the community and it's going to bring in this money, but, you know, we've had factories coming to the area before. Have the folks of Montero been protected? Have their lives been improved? What more risks and health violations are we willing to put on our most vulnerable constituents, our children? We have some drawings here today. We have children across the community speaking out as well. Because when we are talking about this establishment of these relationships with data centers, we're not talking about the resources that we have currently. We're talking about 5, 10, 20 years in the future. And next year, when we have a shortage of nitrogen for our fertilizer and our farmers are struggling to grow crops, when we have the next drought, when the Ogallala aquifer is drying out, we are still going to need that water. This is an issue of controlling the water. These folks, these companies, they are international. They do not care about Kansas. They are not Kansan companies. They're not even American companies. And they are coming in here, like the Wild West, Buying up land, trying to buy land plots closer and closer to the higher up their water so that they can get those water rights. So what we are asking for is a moratorium to buy us time to build protections. If it is the right thing to do, if it is environmentally sound, and if we have the protections in place, then this is going to be the right answer for us in 12 months from now, in 24 months from now. So we are asking for a community board, a panel of experts to weigh in to improve the transparency of this process and to protect the people of Topeka from billionaires trying to buy the soul of Kansas. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

Next up is Mike Morse.

Deputy Mayor. Can they pass those around?

Mike, before you start, some of the council members would like to see the drawings the kids had.

So if you could bring.

You're always going to lose to kids.

So we'll sit and wait until you tell me when to go.

OK. Let's get these passed. Yeah.

I think she's asking right now. OK. Somebody's asking. Are we ready to start, Brenda? OK. Go ahead.

Thank you. Let's start with the first thing is thank you to all my elected official friends. This is not easy. You're inundated with people reaching out to you. People are very lively in their opinions and what they want to do and what they believe in. And your time is valuable. And I think people need to understand how much time this has taken from you. I do know about the data centers and I do know about this one. And I can tell you I can answer many questions. The first thing I hear every time is water. And I respect, let's start, there are good data center operators and there are bad data center operators. There are good businesses, there are bad businesses. There are good people, there are bad people. That's all true. We are farther down the line now in this process to where In order to get anything approved, it's going to be a good data center operator you're working at. I understand at the end of the day where this works is this going to be leased to one of the big five companies. Meta, that's who the end user is, and that's who's leasing it, and that's who they want to do business with, and that's who writes the checks. So in terms of water, the main question, this system that will be used is a, well, it doesn't use any water. It uses antifreeze. The water per building we'll be using is approximately 240,000 gallons of water per building per year. A single family home of four uses 140,000 gallons per year. 240,000 gallons for a 200,000 square foot building is basically zero water. 50 homes to get to 200,000 square feet of 2,000 square foot homes would use tremendously more water. The farm we want to talk about, let's talk about how much water the farm will use. Let's talk about how much water the golf course uses. 240,000 gallons of water per building is basically zero. The main thing, what we have here today is to talk about what this can do to change our community in terms of income. This is the unicorn. These don't happen every day. The value of this project, the first part when it's completed, will be roughly $2.25 billion. The highest assessed property in our community right now is assessed at $80 million. There will be zero tax incentives from you. None are being requested. None are asked for. They will pay full load taxes. I handed out to you what that would look like. And the mill levies that are in our community, Washington University, it had a 2.25 value is the first part. It gets to $3 billion when fully built out. The income for the city of Topeka when it's fully built out. at $2.25 billion is roughly an additional $21 million revenue. Last I checked, we have a budget presentation today that says you're $11 million upside down. We are not funding 19 police officer positions. We are not funding 10 fire department positions. We are upside down. $21 million. This is funding police. This is funding fire. This is an incredible opportunity. The $3 billion mark, you go to $27 million. They are asking for zero benefits. They are going to pay the full freight. There's nothing like this. It is 35 times x of Mars on a much smaller parcel. They do not need new roads. They do not need water. They do not need. This is a straight check. This is the golden goose. And yes, there's ways to do it correctly. And I expect it to be done correctly. And it has to be done correctly to protect our community. But I've been doing this 30 years. I've never seen anything like this for community impact. This will change your community. Mill levy will go down. Community will believe that every person who has a home here will have reduced taxes. Every business, every small business will participate in this across the community. This is major. This is the golden goose. Let's figure out a way to work together and protect everybody and do it right and have a great product that helps everybody because we can go to the library and we'll receive it. Good? One more.

Very good.

I'm good. Very good. Thank you.

What do you do?

I live in Shawnee County, and I have multiple buildings I own in the city of Topeka.

Very good. Thank you. Okay, next up is Kelly Hoffman. You're right. I apologize. I did not introduce myself.

I'm Mike Morse. I apologize. Representing where you live. I live in Shawnee County, and I have multiple buildings I own inside the city of Topeka. Okay.

Kelly Hoffman. Kelly Hoffman. Okay, I will circle back. Kendra Ainsley. Hope I'm close.

All right, good evening. I'm thrilled to follow Mike. I worked with him years ago in a professional capacity, so that's excellent. Yes, I live in the county. I'm actually a resident of Topeka. I live about 200 yards outside of the city limits. So I'm not personally represented by any of you on the city council today, but your decisions impact me, my family, and my community. So I appreciate you giving me a chance to speak today. I want to speak really quickly. I had some prepared remarks, but I want to speak just a tiny bit. Mike, I appreciate you speaking today, and you obviously have more information than the rest of us because we're not privy to the details that you are. I understand, Mike, that you are a commercial realtor. and so your interest in this is very different than mine. I have nothing to gain except for maybe lowered property tax. Golden goose sounds pretty great to me. Man, I wish I could find more of those myself. But it's really hard for me to imagine that of the thousands of data centers that have been built in the last couple of years, that we're going to get the magical unicorn here in Shawnee County. I am generally a pretty optimistic person. I like to face each day and see the good in it. But, gosh, I just don't think that we are going to get the magical unicorn here because it hasn't happened yet. And there is so much changing every day with these data centers. And so while I wish that that was the case, we haven't seen it yet, and I doubt that's going to be the case for us because it hasn't happened. So I've spent the last six weeks really trying to understand the trajectory of these projects and timelines. I've been trying to follow what's been happening with this city council, with Go Topeka, with JADO, and with the county commission, all of whom seem to be working independently enough to maintain plausible deniability when the promises that are made to us by the data center don't come to fruition. And I hope that really we don't end up with one of the disastrous situations that we've seen on the news and in newspapers. I'm here today because a moratorium has been brought forth and I'm urging each of you to vote for that because I think that we need more time. We need more time to understand exactly what's happening and exactly what could happen. I want to begin with the proposed site, which I understand can change. There are five, there are eight schools within a five mile radius of the proposed site. Those represent 5,400 students of Topeka schools. Imagine the noise, the vibrations that are going to have extreme health impacts and interrupt their learning. Imagine water scarcity and I understand we've been promised there won't be much water usage but I'll wait and see. Also the utility group. the utility grid, which is not structured to handle the amount of capacity that we're talking about. And I'm wondering if they're really going to be set up for success. I also want to talk about emergency response. Data centers require cooling systems, but they put off a significant amount of heat. We've talked about the fires that burn the emergency response resources that those take. I don't think we're structured yet to handle that. I also want to talk about regulations and rules. This is going to require regular oversight. Are we prepared to regularly make sure that these data centers are complying with the rules that are going to be put in place? Do we have the manpower to do that? Do we know what those rules are going to look like? I don't think we know all of that today. And then I want to talk about decommissioning. We're seeing an incredible boom in data centers right now, but like all big tech booms, I think we're going to see a drop off. That bubble is going to burst. So what is the plan for when they no longer care about this data center and they move on? Is it going to be a black mark on our landscape and what are we going to do about that? So please support this moratorium and give our community more time to understand. Thank you.

Next up is Natalie Meyer. Natalie Meyer. Natalie Meyer. OK, I will circle back that one. Matthew Maresh.

Hello, my name is Matthew Marish. I'm a resident of Topeka. I'm here to urge you to vote for moratorium on data centers. You know, when I think about government, oftentimes I'm reminded of George Washington's reference from the Bible, Micah 4.4. I mentioned it nearly 50 times in his, you know, over his written works. And also it's in Hamilton, so that's probably where I heard it the first time. So, you know, Micah 4.4 states, everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid. You know, right now you guys have a really important role. You have a lot of scared people here in your communities. And I think that really is a great quote and it exemplifies what our country is and what this representative democracy we have is. We elect you people to keep us safe, to protect us. And I think that's a really important part of what you guys do. Your constituents have let you know they're afraid. They're afraid of potential harms that can come from data centers. They're afraid of the impact on their water, their electricity, their peace and quiet, their families, their health. As city council members, you're tasked with voting on behalf of your constituents. Your votes keep us safe. We can't do it on our own. You guys keep us safe. Do data centers keep us safe? That's the real question. If your answer is I don't know, which I talked to my council member today, that was their answer. I don't know. This is all new stuff, right? But if your answer is I don't know, what I'm encouraging you is take a year and think about it and find out what that actual answer is. Thank you.

Matthew, please.

Sorry, what?

Where do you live?

Topeka. In the cities? In the cities, yeah.

Okay. Next up is Jesse Scott. No.

I'll wait until we get... Good evening, Council and Mayor. My name is Jesse Scott, and I live in District 6 of Topeka. Even some of the oldest monsters in folklore have rules that they must follow. They cannot touch silver. They cannot consume garlic or enter a home without an invitation. Data centers and their corporate backers are beholden to no such rule set, and yet they are just as bloodthirsty. They do not need an invitation. Instead, they go door to door, state by state, county by county, jiggling the door handle to see where and when they can get in. I'm sure the corporate fat cats behind these data centers will try all kinds of things to win your favor. They'll attempt to sell you an almost utopian future with lies and half truths. All of these will be about how the residents won't even notice that they're there once construction is over, about all the jobs that they'll make, and all of the equipment they'll use to block the noise. But that's not true. None of that's true. They will tell you that knowing full well they only employ skeleton crews and that the noise blocking fences that they've put up only block regular frequencies, not lower frequencies. And they will also omit the fact of the skyrocketing electric bills of those who live nearest these data centers. Tonight, this council has the ability to set the standard that Kansas is not for sale. Secure our door so when, not if, but when these data center companies come here, they have no choice but to move along. I have proudly called Shawnee County and more specifically Topeka my home for my entire life. Myself and many others just like me are pleading with you. Do not give these soul-crushing, bloodthirsty monstrosities an invitation to our home. Thank you.

Next up is Lane Clark.

Hello, my name's Lane Clark. I live just south of the city. I would like to say thanks to the council for letting us all come up here and talk. I'd like to briefly speak about the opportunity data centers can bring to our community. I think everyone here has the same goal, whether you support the projects or you have concerns about them. We all want data centers to be developed responsibly. That means ensuring developers help pay for the infrastructure they require, protecting our utilities, our neighborhoods, and making sure that the community receives lasting benefits. Today's economy runs on data. Data centers have become just as essential as highways, railroads, and power plants were to previous generations. But the real opportunity isn't just the building, it's what comes with it. Construction creates hundreds of good paying jobs, supports local businesses, and generates tax revenue that helps fund schools, roads, and public safety. When these projects are structured correctly, developers can help fund critical improvements to our electrical, water, distribution systems, roads, communications infrastructure, and much more. Those investments don't just serve the data center, but they strengthen our community, create capacity for future growth, and allow growth to help pay for more growth rather than placing the full burden on the taxpayers. These projects are investments in our communities. Our skilled workforce builds a safe, reliable electrical infrastructure these facilities depend on while creating careers that support local families. As you consider this issue, I would encourage the council to focus on smart regulation rather than a moratorium. We can establish clear standards that protect our residents, our utilities, and our neighborhoods while still allowing responsible investment to move forward. A moratorium risks delaying jobs, infrastructure improvements, and economic opportunities that may simply go to another community. Thoughtful regulation can achieve the same protections as a moratorium without putting our city at a competitive disadvantage. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up is Sheridan Rakin.

Okay.

Good evening, council, city members. My name is Sheridan Rankin. I live in Topeka, Kansas. I live in District 1. Karen, my girl, let's go. According to the onesler from Dr. Seuss's The Lorax, a need is something we all need in our lives. He's even quoted saying, it is a fine something everybody needs. And at first it seems incredible, right? It makes so many people happy that the need can be used for so much. An umbrella, pillows, carpets, sponges, boxing gloves. But pretty quickly we see the effects it has. The water and air pollution, deforestation of the truffula trees, and the displacement and extinction of wildlife like the Suomi swans. What I'm here for today is to ask and to plead with you guys. Use your context clues, look into your hearts, and know that we've been told this story time and time again. A story of greed, lack of care and empathy and humanity and empathy for our humanity and our planet. We are still and probably always will be dealing with the effects from DuPont chemicals. Those effects have had crazy outcomes on our wildlife, human health and our trust in officials that allowed all of that to happen. Why are we even debating the possibility of a data center when we have been shown time and time again large corporations do not and will not ever care about us? Bill Gates and his Microsoft touching my good cans and dirt really grinds my gears. That's not cool in my books. Listen to us, work with your citizens. You have been voted into this position. Remember that people hold the power and we are holding you accountable. I am here to demand a moratorium, and I demand further action to be taken. But for now, I will speak for the trees. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next up is Ty Gergoo.

Thank you, members of the council. My name is Ty Dragoo. I live at Lake Sherwood. For my remarks here, I had prepared remarks, but I want to respond to some of the things that have been said today. First of all, thank you for providing the opportunity for everyone to come and speak. The decorum has been wonderful. I've seen these across the state and other municipalities and You're doing it right here, and I appreciate everyone being respectful of everyone's opinions. And that's what it's about, the Great American Experiment, right? Everyone has opinions. No one's right or wrong for having an opinion one way or the other. Our opinion in my capacity here, I represent workers across the state. So I'm the chairman of an entity called the Working Kansas Alliance and we are very big proponents of data centers. The discussion I want to have though with the Topeka City Council today is a moratorium does nothing other than take you off the map when it comes to a decision. They simply go to the next community across a line on a piece of paper. You're taking your ability to say, hey, if there are going to be benefits to these types of projects, Topeka should share in some of those benefits. A moratorium does nothing other than tell developers they're not interested for a year. And it's a disservice because you're going to see literally across the street another government entity getting the benefits that you're saying we want nothing to do with. I want to respond to some of the claims about the jobs I've heard. So I understand, you know, a building project may not bring lifetime jobs, but you have to understand a building project essentially is a temporary job. The building we're in right now, do you see construction workers full time with rafters in this room right now? The argument that a project doesn't bring lifetime jobs is misleading. The jobs that are coming with it are the jobs of constructing the building. It'd be the same thing as saying the bridges that have been built in Topeka, well, those didn't bring full-time jobs with them. Construction jobs are not necessarily full-time jobs. And we're talking about large dollar salaries here, large dollar salaries. I represent workers across the state, but my heart is in Topeka, my home's Topeka. My kids go to 437. I want us to share in the benefits that can come from those. I don't want those going to Douglas County, Osage County, Sedgwick County. They're going to reap those benefits. A smart way to approach this is to have full regulation on these things. They're closed loop systems. We've heard so much about water. We've built these for decades. I think there's a lot of misinformation about the older data centers. There's lots of water use in older data centers. But nothing stops this committee or this council saying these have to be closed loop systems. You compare a closed loop system data center to a golf course in Topeka, it's 200 times difference when it comes to water usage. And we're not talking about the chemicals and fertilizer going on in that golf course. So those are reasonable concerns, but again, let's extrapolate this and really put everything on the straight and narrow and compare these things the way they should be compared. I understand people are passionate about this. We're passionate about it too. You're in a tight situation, but don't let misinformation guide you to say, we're out. This is a generational opportunity for you to be part of something and for Topeka to get their hands on something. You're facing an $11 million shortfall. You're going to get rid of 30 first responders. We have a tax problem in this state, and here's an opportunity to address it. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up is Diane Denham. Diane... Okay, there you are.

Hi, I'm Diane Denham, and I live in... northern rural Carbondale, but very, very close to the Shawnee County line. Unfortunately, you don't represent me. I wish you did. I wish you could help me. I'm here to support my friends in Shawnee County, but also for myself, because this doesn't stop at the county lines, and this will affect me as well. I live on the edge of a five mile radius of the ground zero danger zone, where it's going to be dangerous for people's health. There are multiple concerns with water at the top of the list regarding volume used, which can be up to five million gallons a day. and the contaminated wastewater. Once used, the water is contaminated with toxic chemicals and not fit for use by any living plant, animal, or human. The developers will say, as you heard, it doesn't use any more water than a golf course. Well, many say that's just misinformation in their sales pitch from their playbook because they all say that. To quote Mo Brings Plenty, Water is not just a resource. It is a source of life. For me, second to water is my health and the health of my animals. Infrasound is created by the data center generators. Infrasound, or low frequency noise, is a vibrational frequency that you cannot hear, but it travels for miles. Infrasound is extremely difficult to block, travels through solid objects including doors, walls, floors, windows, as well as the ground, causing severe adverse effects to surrounding plant life, animals, and our human bodies. It's extremely dangerous and can cause issues with inner ear and brain, controlling balance and eye movement. It's very detrimental for children as their brains are developing. It increases the stress hormone cortisol, causing chronic fatigue, headaches, persistent sleep disturbances, adverse cardiovascular effects. such as fibroacoustic disease, which is a thickening of cardiovascular structures along with respiratory issues and severe physical and psychological distress. Now, for example, cattle lose their desire to reproduce. Calves are either born dead or deformed. Milk production is reduced. And so if it does that to cattle, what's it doing to humans? Infrasound has been used by the military as a torture tactic. So understand that Heartland Park is a possible location for a data center. When races were held there, I could hear them plain as day. So I'm quite concerned about the infrasound traveling to my property and putting my health and that of my animals at risk. I'm asking you to please implement at least a one-year moratorium or longer on data centers to allow for more research and studies to be done to ensure our health, water, electricity, and environment remain safe and not be destroyed as it appears that could happen if nothing is done to stop this mad rush to install data centers everywhere. Thank you very much.

Next up is Renee Parker.

Okay to go. Good evening, Council. My name is Renee Parker. I'm a resident of Topeka and I also work for a local drafting company. I've always stood for what is right and what is kind and what is humane. A data center would only bring short-term construction jobs. After that, a security team and a limited specialist team. It would occupy a huge space that could be used to bring more stable jobs, housing, future establishments, anything beneficial to our community. to a town that is trying to go better for our children, for us, not for billionaires. I feel I speak for most here that data centers create unnecessary noise pollution, light pollution, use mass amounts of power and water that is also then left polluted. Farmers in other states have been asked to preserve water from their crops so data centers can use the water. The Montero community already pays expensive water fees, taxes, and electrical fees. This would not only raise rates for them, but probably everyone in Shawnee County. Everyone, I mean, Evergy has a different, difficult enough time as is restoring power during outages and keeping prices down for our residents. We need to change the laws and regulations so these types of centers cannot be built here. Our state and our city should listen to the people and choose us and say no to data centers, protect our land, protect our water, protect our people, and protect our future generations. Our children deserve clean water, not the long-term effects a data center will bring to our community for a billionaire who could care less about us. Learn what these centers are doing to surrounding states, their water, their people, and the people that live near them. Please, for us, the people, our families, and our children, vote in favor of the moratorium. The taxpayers are the ones who foot the bills for these centers. Social media, apps, games, etc. ran just fine before mass data centers. Thank you guys.

Next is Jolene Grable.

Thank you. I am Jolene Grable. I live in the center of Topeka, proudly represented by Marcus Miller. Thank you very much, sir. And thank you all for being here and for listening to us. I'm glad to be in the presence of elected officials who are not afraid to hear from their constituents. So let's start with that. I believe in good government. I believe in strong representation, listening to the people, active community, elected official dialogue. And I want to just say we're not here to say we want to be out. We're here to say we want to be in. We want to be in the discussion. We want to be in the room when decisions are made about what regulations we're going to hold people accountable to. We want transparency, and we want accountability. And I've spent about almost a month now learning about something I didn't want to have to learn about, which was data centers. And I've learned a lot that tells me the people who are pushing this agenda of data centers are short term thinkers. They are looking at money and benefits for their financial gain. Now there's some that are looking at energy needs and requirements. But I'm here to say that when the companies that are benefiting are also making an AI answer to any question I raise on the internet, They've got an inside track that's working against me. I just do not have AI answer every question I need to ask and find a real answer that's already available on the internet. And I'm willing to give some of that up for a better quality of life. So what I've discovered, I asked myself, why is this happening? And I've discovered that there are really some solid reasons why this is happening. The current administration has put forth a number of executive orders that influence the movement for data centers. Relaxing environmental restrictions in particular is a huge one of public concern. Also, advancing the regulatory and permitting process was an initiative of the administration. Also making it a national security issue to the extent, there's probably a reason to do that, but I don't think it's to the extent that it has been done. Also, there was a great amount of money and tax benefits in the Big Beautiful Bill that have promoted the investment in data centers and AI. And just three companies alone, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon, made over $50 billion in the last year, in 2025, because of those tax advantages advanced. And it's required because of the regulations related to the tax advantages that it all be reinvested into AI data centers. I just want to say this is about respect. This is about allowing the community to have a say over our quality of life for the long term. Somebody may come in and make money in our community, but they need to balance out the benefits they take away with the benefits they leave behind. And I really think they should leave behind more than they take away. So there's only one... to deal with this because corporations that have billions of dollars to spend on new projects will just pay the fine for any regulation they violate. We've been told that over and over that that's what's happening. So we have to find out a way. We need time to find ways to truly hold companies accountable for what they promise our community and make it really a benefit to our community, not something they just take away. Thank you.

Next up is Danielle Tremolo.

Thank you. I was going to turn it up a bit and do more storytelling today as thinking about this really caught me off guard. However, I think we really got to address some things because we're in this situation because of all the secrets. We're having to talk about pausing and doing time to do the data pulling and to do the studies because people have been working in secret. These discussions have been happening behind closed doors. Could have been time that we could have gotten all this out. We could have had time to research this closed loop system. So let me tell you a little bit about that closed loop system that's being promoted. Which, yes, less water, right? A process that requires antifreeze, or what we call glycol, It relies on many other additives in it as well. We need to increase the amount of corrosion inhibitors, blends in the antifreeze to make sure that the water is doing its job, to stop like the rust and other things that happen when you have water move through things. So we have a nitrate inhibitor that is often needed within these closed loop systems. That is highly carcinogenic We have glycol antifreeze as being used and we know that when those increase and those disperse into our ground system that it stays, right? It stays forever. You've probably maybe needed to top off your car before and you spill a bit and then it stays, stays forever. An unnatural color as well, right? We have the copper and zinc pipes and those are really toxic when we get the things in there to keep those nice and clean at such high levels that are really dangerous to aquatic life. But we have this trade-off with having this less water and using all these kind of other things to make sure that we can keep the system moving. We have salts and metals and other treated chemicals that then build up within the system. They have to do different things like shut off times that causes these buildups to build up within the actual building. Eventually there has to be a runoff of this, right? And then where does that go, right? There are higher levels of leaking that occurs because the rings and the pipes are requiring to stay stable with higher temperatures, right? So we have to actually use more energy in these closed loop systems. So we're really getting people who are proponents of this to narrow your focus onto one thing, which is water, and they keep trying to divert that focus. So I want you to remember that there are many things that we have talked about, and it's not just the water function. So if we had time to have researched these closed-loop systems, we could talk on and on about how there actually isn't enough data for that. But what we do know is that we don't have a price on our children's future. We don't have a number that we can give out today that's going to say, I'm willing to risk the health of the children in this community without having information. So if you're clearly okay with that, without knowing what these chemicals are going to do, without knowing how these places function, then you've put a number on our children and our community's health and future. So I hope you take that into consideration when we are piling on the south side of town all this industry in these large boxes, when we have a railroad system that's gone through our community that has divided investment, where we have highways that have destroyed black economic development in downtown that thrived for years, and we continue to move in a way that is harming our community instead of looking at ways that we can invest more green spaces. Okay, my time. Thank you.

Next up is Dan Walker. Dan Walker? Oh, there you are. Okay.

Just a brief moment. All right, great. My name is Dan Walker.

I'm a resident of the city of Topeka.

And what I'd like to talk about here more is kind of about the process and why it's important for us to have this moratorium, why specifically for the folks here in the city of Topeka and the county of Shawnee and the state of Kansas, why we need this. Now, these quotes I want to preface beforehand. These are from Joni Fandani, director of Shawnee County Planning Department. systems are very technical in nature it's very complicated it's very hard to understand and so we don't want to rush this process we want to make sure that whatever regulations we put into place are correct this statement was made regarding the solar moratorium that was put in place by the county in two thousand twenty four and only recently expired this year These quotes here are her responses to July 9th, a recent county meeting where she kind of spoke. And I do not want to beat on this official. She actually is one of the few technical staffers who's actually put an opinion forth as to why we can't have a moratorium. So I don't want to seem like I'm beating her up. She's just honestly the only one putting her chin up there. So, but to go forward with this, we have right here a statement that, and this is in regards to the solar moratorium, sometimes you have learning curves. One of those learning curves is if I would go back a couple of years and see how we had handled the solar regulations, I wouldn't have recommended a moratorium. So we already have admissions from the county that there are times that the regulatory framework process has not been as robust as possible. Oh, don't worry, I got it. Thank you so much. All right, so moving forward here, we then have here this quote that everything that we know about solar cases can apply the same to battery, to data, to all of it. And this is a statement in between. Maybe they don't have the same technology, but we have to apply the same concepts. This quote shows that the same regulatory, in the opinion of our county officials, that the same regulatory framework for solar projects is sufficient to evaluate the possible impacts of data centers. There are several levers where we can say that the science regarding that is, in many ways, unproven. Solar farms had decades of proven impacts, some of which are quite positive, even. So moving on, we just want to make that point here, that we kind of have an opinion that maybe this is the same as solar. Maybe. And so lastly here, we say that... What it has to do with is the fact that we need the data center to apply for us to know what it is that they're asking for, what it is that they're proposing. And until we know that, until we can review it, you can't put a blind banner moratorium or stop hold because we don't know. And essentially this is stating that we need an application to be put forward for us to even address the concepts of approving of having a regulatory framework even to address these projects case by case, which I got to say that very much ignores several established qualities of regulatory framework where we, for example, larger bodies will establish best management practices. This ranges from stormwater management to installing of new utility projects. The fact of the matter is that this is something that is different and that we need to be taking the time to consider this. So as I said, just to reiterate through all this, what we really see is the knowledge that the statement from our officials that we're not necessarily prepared for this and that we haven't been consistent in our application of these concepts. So all of this needs to be taken into the context that we have actions such as by federal regulators where they have allowed for diesel generators to be near residential areas. We can't count on the feds to protect us. We need this moratorium so that our local regulators are as informed as they need to be. I thank you for your time.

Next is Joe Helgeson.

Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Joe Helgeson, and I'm a Shawnee County resident from Waukarusa, around a half a mile from where the proposed data center site is. Thank you for hearing the community's concerns in introducing this one year moratorium. It's a vital safeguard against a process that thus far has felt rushed and opaque. And tonight, this council can act as a line of defense for our local resources. Under KSA 12-748, no public improvement or utility can be built within our three mile extraterritorial jurisdiction without planning commission review for conformance with our comprehensive plan. And under KSA 12-808 plus municipal code 13.10.120, the city controls water service outside city limits through annexation. Water is the lifeblood of these facilities and that gives the city leverage. Your fiduciary duty requires verifying developers technical claims through our own city engineers before committing any infrastructure. A one year moratorium gives us time to codify requirements, like a 95% water recycling mandate into binding law. Without it, we risk a bait and switch. A developer secures a foothold on promises of a closed loop system, then switches to high consumption evaporative cooling during a heat wave or a grid stress event. With only 10 days until a county application is expected, you must use your authority tonight. Public trust appears to be waning and is further eroded by a web of professional connections. One connection worth noting is Commissioner Erin May's wife, Tara Mays. She serves as a strategic partnerships and stakeholder engagement leader for Deep Vision. a company that's already signed letters of intent for nuclear reactors to power data centers in Kansas. Another connection worth noting is the county's hired lobbyist, David Kensinger, who simultaneously represents Evergy, a utility set to profit from these energy sales. When regulators have a direct professional stake in developer success, a moratorium is the only ethical path. Finally, the developer's identity matters. Microsoft was doing soil testing southwest of our city as early as 2024, yet today we're dealing with Compass Data Centers who, per Joni Thadani at last night's county planning meeting, hope to submit their application by July 24th. If Microsoft is behind this, why use a third-party developer for a rushed application? Microsoft has publicly committed to ending NDAs that hide its development footprint. Using a middleman to bypass that commitment looks poor and only reinforces the need for a pause. Council members, we implore you to put the proper safeguards in place to protect our community, protect our utility rates, our water, our ethics, and our residents. Vote yes on the moratorium. Thank you.

Next up is Scott Henson.

Hello, Mayor and Council Members. Thank you for this opportunity to speak about my concerns this evening. I live at 3218 Southwest Catalan Parkway here in Topeka. I'm a lifelong Topekan. Next year will be my 48th year with Topeka Public Schools as a teacher and also as an administrator. Being a former first grade teacher and a former Head Start preschool teacher, I love the reference to the Lorax this evening. I would also like to say that as an educator, I take exception to the remarks that learning more about the impacts that this center would have on our community is a bad thing. Taking time to learn more, that is what education is all about. I spoke of my concerns. I do have concerns about the water consumption and pollution, air pollution, impacts on health, but tonight I want to focus on the noise pollution aspect and specifically the effect it would have on two schools that are less than two miles away. Pauline South is one mile away, Pauline Central 1.7 miles away. These centers, I did some research and the site that I'm quoting is the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. is that these centers can put out 96 to 105, excuse me, decibels. Excuse me for my stuttering there for a minute. And that goes on 24-7. As a former first grade teacher, I did that for 13 years. I taught preschool for three years. I can imagine what that would be like to be in the classroom and have this constant hum. That noise also has been known to create anxiety and sleep, trouble with sleep and hypertension. So I'm sticking up today. I'm here to speak for the over 700 children and their families at these two schools, Pauline South and Pauline Central. My entire educational career has been devoted to doing what is best for children, what is best for children, what is best for families. implore you to say yes to this moratorium. As you can see, I'm anti-centers, but at least we need to find out more and make sound decisions. Thank you for your time.

Next up is Tim Zyrowski.

Thank you. Tim Zyrowski, Shawnee County resident, Topeka landowner. I have a friend, actually he's deceased now, but he had a timeshare, him and his wife, and they were getting of age, and year after year they were paying this monthly bill, and They got to talking one day. He says, why are we doing this? Our lives have changed. We're not traveling. We're not vacationing like we used to. So they called the company and said, we want to cancel our timeshare. They said, well, come on down. We'll take care of you. So they went down. And the salesman was so good, was so slick, that they came home not with zero timeshares, but with two timeshares. The reference here is salesmanship. These corporates have been playing this endgame for years. Any of you play chess? play chess, what if this is your first game, which it is, and your opponent has played 1,000 games? Who do you think is going to win that? Who do you think has strategy? Who do you think has a script? Do you think you have a chance? If you say, well, we're going to play with you, you've already lost. You've already lost. You've heard a lot of people talk about a lot of things. I was here last week. I talked about some things. I didn't even get through my list. And these people haven't gotten through their list. And I've learned a lot just sitting here tonight. I'm saying we don't know, but there's a lot of communities that are suffering. And as I mentioned last week about YouTube and just doing some research on the Internet, I haven't found anything good. I haven't found anybody that's happy. Oh, gee, we've got great because of a data center. We don't have that information available to us. We don't have it. It's not there. It does not exist. This is for the corporate people. and their desire for making money, and I understand making money, but you know what? We live in utopia. We've got a beautiful community. Yeah, it's not perfect. Yeah, we've made mistakes. Yeah, we're in debt. We can work out of it. We can make it a better community. But you make a commitment that changes the environment in ways that we don't even know today. We don't even know how bad this could be. Can it be good? Possibly. I don't think so. Because I haven't seen any results. I haven't seen any proof of that. I have seen a lot of proof that people are really unhappy when a data center is in their community. I don't think a year is enough. I think you should say, hey, come back in 10 years and we'll revisit. Have a great day. That's what I'd tell them.

Next up is Connor Eubanks. Kim, is he online? OK. You want to bring him up?

I'm here. Go ahead, Connor. Hello. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Connor Eubanks, and I am here on behalf of Laborers Local 1290. I am a Kansas resident, but I am not a resident of Topeka or Shawton County. Local 1290 represents workers in the construction industry across Kansas, including in Topeka. So thank you for the chance to comment, and I apologize I could not be there in person. I respectfully urge you to vote against a year-long moratorium on data center development. A 12-month moratorium may seem like a cautious approach, but it creates uncertainty for companies considering investing in Topeka. In a competitive market, uncertainty often means investments go elsewhere. Native centers are critical infrastructure for today's economy. They support businesses, hospitals, schools, financial institutions, and countless online services that we all rely on every day. As demand for these digital infrastructure continues to grow, cities that are prepared to welcome responsible development will be in the strongest position to benefit. From a labor perspective, these projects represent tremendous opportunities for working families. Constructing a data center requires hundreds and often thousands of skilled construction workers over multiple years. These are paying jobs for local tradespeople, apprentices, and workers. Those workers don't just benefit the workers. They're spent at local restaurants, hardware stores, small businesses, and all throughout the community. For example, a recent 86-megawatt hyperscale data center in the Kansas City area took roughly two years to build. During construction, it employed approximately 1,200 skilled workers across the building trades, generating more than 1.5 million labor hours, and paid roughly 105 million wages and benefits. Those are good-paying, middle-class jobs that support Kansas families. It's also important to remember that the work doesn't end when the construction is complete on these data centers. Much of the equipment inside a data center is replaced on a roughly three to five year cycle, creating recurring work for skilled trades. Data centers also imply full-time operation and maintenance personnel as well. Beyond construction and maintenance, data centers can generate significant local tax revenue over the long term while also broadening the city's tax base and providing additional funding for schools, public safety, roads, parks, and other essential public services. Development of data centers can also encourage additional investment in infrastructure, utilities, and the surrounding business community, creating economic benefits that extend well beyond the project itself. We all recognize that there are important questions surrounding data center development, but a 12-month moratorium is not the right solution. A year-long pause creates uncertainty and time when other communities are actively competing for these investments. Conversations can continue without imposing a blanket moratorium. communities across the country are actively competing for these investments because they recognize the long-term economic value they bring. The city should be at the table and not on the sidelines. I respect you to reject the proposed moratorium, and thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Connor. Okay, I am going to circle back. There were two that did not answer. Kelly Hoffman? Is Kelly Hoffman here?

I'm not Kelly Hoffman. But if she didn't sign up, I didn't realize you had to sign up for the thing. My name is Colleen Campbell. I live in Topeka. If it's all right, I would like to speak.

Go ahead. OK. State your name again.

Colleen Campbell.

And Colleen, are you living?

I live in Topeka off of 29th and Gage. Thank you. I did have my maps that were brought up for you. There's three for each of you to look at. I'm a geographer who studies both people and environment. Today I would like to talk about data centers. Yesterday I attended the county planning and development meeting. One of the committee members mentioned something about how after the public comment had closed, and I would like to address it, he asked, all of you use data. I asked all of you if you used data. You would say that you did. You just don't want it in your neighborhood. This is comparing industries or developments that are often used or unnecessary but are considered for other people, like low-income housing or gas station. This comment made me realize that there's a fundamental misunderstanding of what a data center is, and as a geography, it comes back to scale. There are small data centers all around the city. BNSF has one that helps determine train times and cargo. Evergy has some that help keep the electric grid running. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about hyperscale data centers. Firstly, data is a generic term. It means information gathered, but it can also mean capacity for information. I believe this is where the committee member was thinking last night about data on your phone. So what's bad about data? Again, generic term, nothing. It's when we put context that matters. Secondly, these hyperscale data centers are not the internet. The internet already functions at a level that it does without putting in tons and tons of hyperscale data centers. What are they done? In 2014, Utah completed a massive data center for the NSA. It claimed to be monitoring metadata, things like location or call duration, not the contents of phone calls or internet posts or emails. This is false. There have been documentaries and leaks, etc., showing that this is being used for large-scale monitoring and storing of information, including content. While Americans are often tracked through our phones, internet use, and grocery store purchases, these data centers put a scale that is unprecedented. The data center in Utah is run by the NSA. What does that mean for data centers that are run by large corporations? This brings me to another point. It's no secret that these data centers are meant for surveillance. They aren't hiding it. In fact, they're telling it as a selling point to their investors and stakeholders. AI is being sold to the public as a way to make images quickly to help or write a novel or program an app, but it's the real purpose of surveillance. I know this makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it isn't a conspiracy. They're talking openly about it. About a month ago, I put a petition out for the county residents to call for a total ban on hyperscale data centers. That petition was open for less than a day before it got over 400 participants. A copy of that has been given to you, as well as a map of where those participants live. As you can see, they primarily live within the boundaries. Being members of a government body, I'm sure you can appreciate the rarity of large numbers of unified voices. I have another map prepared for you today. This map is one of the proposed sites the county will likely be getting requests by the 24th of July over the Montero neighborhood. I know that most of the city and county think about Montero, but those people deserve dignity and health just as anyone else. But if that doesn't sway you, maybe this will. This is a site between Burlingame and Topeka, two roads that we all drive on every day. And if you look at this map, it shows a buffer of 5 to 10 miles from the center of that proposed site. It's most of Topeka that is covered by those rings. 15 miles and it's all of it. Do you think the environmental energy and water costs will stay there? No. And to address... what those who are saying about construction jobs. I've lived in places where data centers have been built, and they bring in outside construction. They don't use local. So thank you.

I have one last person to circle back to. It's Natalie Meyer. Is Natalie Meyer here? OK. finishes our public comment. Let me make a note. OK, so the public hearing is closed. And I'm going to open it up to council members who want to speak. Brett, you were first up.

All right. First off, I am going to offer an amendment to the proposed moratorium. I want to speak on that real fast. Our admin staff added up our emails and said who was for, against, or neutral. And then speaking tonight, We're at 90% that are for the moratorium and or against data centers. So we need to really look at that. 90% of people that reach out to us are against data centers and or for the moratorium. I want to thank everyone for being here, being online, sending us emails. It's hard for us to reply to everyone. We've been inundated with emails over the last couple of weeks. But I encourage everyone, please reach out to the county. Shawnee County is commissioners or commission at snco.us. They also have their meetings Monday through Tuesday at 9 a.m. I know that's hard for some people to get to because they are working. Because all we can do is what's happening here in the city. But all three of those commissioners represent parts of the city limits. So please reach out to them. Let them know what you feel as a Shawnee County resident. You may be a Topeka citizen, but you're also a Shawnee County resident. And I feel that sometimes our commissioners don't look at Topeka as Shawnee County residents when they're making their decisions. I am for this moratorium because it allows us to do our research. um you know people have sat there and said oh we wasted our time by not allowing solar not allowing uh wind by having more terms we're able to learn we're able to take the time and learn and figure out what was good for us i think we should look at all the data centers we've built in the last five years and see what's been going on with those communities We need to look at the environmental impact, the citizen impact, the health impact, short and long term, and look at the real numbers, just not from what the corporate maneuvers we've had. You know, just 1972, dumping in rivers was outlawed. So that was only 54 years ago. So by roughly, by looking around the crowd, that's roughly half of our citizens that are here were alive when dumping in rivers was legal. So just think of that. That was only 22% of our nation's time frame that we had the regulations like that. And we know that these large corporations will break the rules, break the laws, and they just pay a fine. They're a billion-dollar company that gets fined $2 million. It's nothing to them. And then laws and rules and policies get relaxed or stiffened throughout time. So today what we decide may get changed two years down the road, which then really impacts us. I do want to add, and I've spoken to the people, the three council members that authored this, that I would like to add battery energy storage systems, or BESs, to this bill, or to this ordinance. These are large battery storage facilities that have been controversial just as much as data centers. We just don't hear about it as much. Just in the last couple of years, a couple here in the U.S. have caught fire. They've released noxious toxic fumes. They've caused evacuations. One even went seven days to put out. That puts a lot of strain on our first responders. So it looks like line, maybe it looks like 14, 16, 19, 23, 24, 26. No, start. Start.

You're going too fast.

Okay.

Line 14.

Line 14, where it says data center, we could add battery energy storage system. 16, after 15, 16, it goes data center on both of those lines.

next 19 after data center yes if i could interject council member yes i i think i see you want to you want to add this to the definition if you added this to the definition of data center which starts at number 26 on page one yeah on the end of 29 at the end of 29 um yeah at the end of 29 i was going to put it in an enlarged in large battery storage also we could just add it there and then that would cover it throughout the ordinance

Okay. You're legal, so that's where I'd like to have it just listed somewhere in there also maybe just so not just but kind of get it the large battery storage and also battery energy storage systems. These are, for people that don't know, these are large warehouses that have You know, just like your battery pack that you charge your phone with when you're on the road, these are massive batteries. They're used for when blackout, brownouts, that other companies can, you know, get into and keep operations running while this happens. But we kind of run into the same aspects of environmental and citizen impact, health impacts. So I want to add this so we don't end up running into a situation where we get backdoored. Looking at data centers, well, these kind of almost go hand in hand. So I want to make sure we're looking at this fully. So this way, We're ready for it because, like I said, a moratorium to me is a good time so we can learn more. And people feel like sometimes we may rush through this to put a moratorium. As it was put, we can always retract this. But to me, this is a very good learning time that we all can learn because this whole data center idea has kind of been rushed upon us. And again, I encourage everyone to talk to the county commissioners.

Brett, we need to get this.

You made a motion, and I want to get it to you. I can do a second, but I'm wondering. I have a question about that. Okay.

Well, first let's get the wording correct.

Okay.

Yeah. So this is what I have. It would basically be at the end of line 29 on the second page would be to add the terms, comma, large battery systems, comma, and battery energy storage systems.

Okay.

I'm good with that.

Say that one more time. Is that 29?

At the end of line, it's on line 29, to add, comma, large battery systems, comma, and battery energy storage systems.

Is that correct, Council Member? That sounds good to me. Okay.

Okay, I must be looking at it. I have a motion to make a change to line 29, adding, comma, Large battery, battery energy systems.

Sounds good, yes.

OK, now I'm looking for a second.

Well, second, but I don't know if. OK, ask your question. Second is that I wanted to just put this out there. I think that we should also consider, which I did not think about before, is in that same area where we're talking about BESS, is that consider also adding similarly functioning. So I know that sounds really broad, and I'm asking for your opinion, city attorney, to make this as succinct as possible to try to get around any fancy lawyer that may try to challenge this. to where that could be an additional add-on to his amendment because I would imagine it would be in the same line or thereabout. Again, we are looking at similarly functioning or whatever would be that type of verbiage.

Yes, Councilmember. I think that could work. I think the cleanest way would be to go up with Council Member Kell's amendment and then do a second if we want to add that language to the total.

A second amendment?

Yeah.

So do his first. Then I'll second yours.

Oh, yeah, that's true. That's true. We could do a friendly amendment. Yeah. Oh, we could do a friendly amendment?

Yes. To his? Yes. Yes. Okay.

He has accepted it. Are you seconding it?

I am. I'm seconding it.

Okay.

So we have...

Okay. So just so I'm clear on the language, the last line would be similarly functioning... facility.

Or in your legal expertise for succinct and tight whatever sounds better but still means the same thing.

I think what you said sounds fine.

Yeah. Similarly functioning facility. How about similarly functioning energy system?

Okay. Murray? Council? Woman Bradbury didn't come until the end. Councilman McGee, does that sound okay?

They don't need to.

No, I'm asking them as being nice.

Well, I've got one of them in line to speak, but if you two are fine with that, then we're going to discuss the motion. So, next. Do we want to take a break to have them work out the language and get, you know,

I think they have it. Okay. All right. Just want to make sure. Question.

Spencer is out there. Mayor is out there. Mayor, go ahead.

Apologies. I'm having camera issues. I'm working on that. I just want to make sure. Any language, because I don't believe this is the intention, and I don't think we have a battery storage in the Topeka city limits right now, but I want to make sure this doesn't accidentally shut somebody down who currently has been in existence for a while. So if we could just make sure that it doesn't do that, I think that would be better. Just asking.

Madam Deputy Mayor.

Mr. Mayor, we have a section within the proposed ordinance that addresses that. Perfect. Yeah, so it starts at line 42. Gotcha. Okay, thank you.

City Clerk, do you have that?

OK, now we have Cal's amendment. So we have made a motion by Councilmember Cahill, seconded by Councilmember Valdivia-Ocala. Great. OK. And now we, if there's no more comments, we're ready to vote. I can't.

Let's try this. No, that's not going to do it. I have Councilmember Bradbury next up for discussion. Did you want to say something?

I was just going to be in agreement with the proposed amendment.

Okay, that's fine. Does anyone else have any discussion on the amendment? Okay.

Karen. I'll just make a comment one time, including the amendment, but overall, I think I appreciate all the input that we had today, and then I don't know, what, 50 or so emails as well. The intent in this ordinance, if I understand it correctly, as well as with many of our comments, has been to to set that moratorium to put a message out there, but that we really intend to research and be prepared for discussion and that the way this is phrased, since it says the moratorium for accepting processing, reviewing, approving, or issuing zoning permits leaves then wide open, if I'm hearing the intent right, that we would continue to study and learn and be open to conversations that prospects or the parties that are in the county or the city wanted to talk about. And I think that's wise and good. I mean, we didn't talk about it yet tonight, Well, we learned last week it was the county stuff, so giving ourselves that broad description of what we're talking about and that commitment makes sense to me.

Well, right now I want to be focusing on the amendment.

I understand.

Okay. Does anyone have? Christina, do you have?

No, not on me.

Okay. So we have the amendment. City Clerk, will you read, and then we'll take a vote on the amendment. Okay.

I'll defer to the city attorney.

I'll go ahead. The vote would be on the motion to amend the ordinance as follows, to add to the end of line 29, large battery systems and battery energy storage systems and similarly functioning energy systems.

Okay. Does everyone understand the amendment? Okay. Then let's take a vote.

Mayor Duncan.

Go ahead and vote. Yes.

Okay, we have 10 yes, the amendment passes.

Okay, now we move back to the ordinance in total. Do I have anyone who would like to speak on that? Councilman Banks.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. You know, as we were sitting here tonight listening to all of the comments about the moratorium, there was a lot through the day that came to me by way of phone call, text. What I heard here tonight really set in my mind. And one of the things that really stuck in my mind was I heard old versus new. I had not heard anything like that before. Old versus new. I don't really understand what that means. Are the data centers right now different than the ones from the past? How do we get that information? Where did that information come from? My overall thought is that as a council, we have to listen to the voice of the people. And I know that sometimes when we think of deficit, budget, those types of things, and someone flashes finances in front of us and we quickly jump for it. I couldn't in good conscience go against this community. I mean, it would be really... It would be really hard for me to go back to my district, my constituents, and say, I didn't hear you, because I have. And I just wanted to make clear for the record that these centers are probably something that we really know very, very, very, very little about. And as we start to learn through the moratorium, should it pass tonight, that these big donors is a turn off to me by itself. So as we continue to have the process of learning about what data centers can do for us or mainly what we could do for them, I think it's important that we keep in mind that all of this information, all of these people are not wrong. pretty close to being precise on it. Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Sure. Next up, because he does not have a screen with him, I'm going to work in. Mayor, he had a question. Go ahead, Mayor.

No, that was from earlier. I got in my question. Thanks.

Okay.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I just I wanted to say that I appreciate Councilman Kell what you did and that if this ends up passing tonight, I want to make the commitment that, and I hope others will too, to fight hard for this committee that you all are talking about so that you all can have a seat at the table. Right now we're dealing with something, you know, with our fire stations that you've probably been reading about. And that was supposed to be where the people were going to have a seat at the table. And hopefully that's the way that this ultimately will end with that. But with this, this has so much to do with your health. Everything is on the line here. And I think that it's really interesting the way the proponents, and they have every right to be proponents. But you saw the facts that they brought up were everything about money and nothing about public health. Nothing about- Nothing about this physical world that we inhabit.

Right, right.

Day to day.

What we need to do, all of us, for the legacy for our children, not just because they live in Montero, even though they'll get hit the hardest, but all across the city and all across the county. So my commitment is to work on that. And my commitment would also be to fight with you to get it on the ballot so you can vote for it. Thank you.

Okay. Next up, Councilman McGeech.

I would like to comment about Councilman Banks' remark, old versus new. You know, that's a question. There's questions on that. And I received a phone call today from a proponent of the data centers telling me all the great things about it. And I said, but you know what? The conversations about the data center have not been with this governing body. They've been with other governing bodies, other officials, and some staff, but none of the conversations have been with this governing body. We had to go out and do our own legwork uncovering what information we could. Like I said, I learned more today than the last four weeks. So we as a governing body have a responsibility to make informed decisions. And this gives us an opportunity to have some time to become informed and help us in making our decisions. That's the whole purpose. Thank you.

Next up, Councilwoman Ortiz.

Thank you. I'm glad you said that, Councilman McGee. I want to call you Councilman Murray because, you know, there's so many people that say we knew about this, we knew about this. I received a lot of calls. I was on the phone all day and e-mails. I just want to say this. Everybody has an opinion. Everybody has a voice. Everybody has, I've learned new stuff and I've learned stuff that is not correct. And so when you're calling us, please be respectful. Um, not only because, you know, I got a lot of calls that we got to do this. You got to do this. No, my job in this seat is to sit and listen to everybody, the pros and the cons. I, I, um, You know, it's when you say old versus new, landline versus flip phone. That's where I'm at. And now their flip phone is going away and they're going to get another one. So, you know, you're right. We've got to figure all this out. I appreciate this. July 28th, there's still a meeting that you can come and you can ask questions, questions that maybe I can't answer or none of us on this council. I wanted to ask, how did we get to the 12 months? That's what I wanted to ask the committee that put this together. How did we get to 12 months?

I guess I will just say that a lot of different communities that have passed these have in the past done probably three to six months. The trend now is 12 months. That's the most common. You can't go too long or it becomes legally unreasonable. Right. So 12 months seems to be sort of the most current standard people are going with. So that's, I think, I would have to ask the council members, but I think that's why they landed on it.

I would say that it was a compromise. You know, honestly, if I had it my way, it would be a complete ban, but I know that that wasn't going to be feasible. So the 12 months to me was a marker to give time for impact studies that are done from a neutral entity. And then as we hear more from the public, it makes more sense with those impact studies than to have that committee come together and come out with an outcome before this year, you know, this year moratorium ends. So, to me, with this fast pace as everything is running to try to make all of this happen with data centers and to understand how things really run at a much slower level when you're trying to study something in an intentional way, to me, a year made sense.

I was just going to say, I was really kind of hoping for a little longer, because I'm not sure how long it's going to take to get the information we need to meet to make a sound judgment. But 12 months, hopefully we can get the information that we need in order to do that. I know there was a county in Kansas that went a couple of years, I think, when they implemented one here recently. So my hope is that we can get the information that we need in order to make an informed decision on how to address these within 12 months.

I will say that mine was actually shorter, but it was a compromise. Like our attorney said, we looked at multiple other ordinances that have been passed by other cities and counties. And 12 months was pretty common.

I appreciate that. So my next question is, what's the plan of action within the 12 months? I've heard maybe a commission. I mean, do we have a plan of action? And then the other thing that I'd like to know from the city attorney is, You're saying we can take this out at any given time. Is that per votes? How can we come back to the table and say, okay, we've had enough time to study this? How does that work?

Yeah, it would have to come again before the body, and you would have to make an affirmative vote to rescind the ordinance, or it would just expire after 12 months unless...

I know we're all busy and I know that sometimes we get, this is one of those tough decisions that we get across our plate that we have to study more and study more and so I'm just curious to see, you know, how, what the plan is, what we're going to do, you know, because you look up and it's a year past.

Councilman Valdez.

So unless Murray or Michelle wanted to speak to that, what, you know, this is the bottom line. The bottom line is why we all came together is that we could feel the rush and we could feel the fear and like everybody else. So between one week we're not going to have all that. So I think some grace is in order from, you know, from colleagues as we figure this out because Both I think Michelle and I at the meeting with the city attorney look to Murray as kind of the guy that had more experience with this. I'm willing to listen to whatever colleagues have to say and I think it should be something that we continue to talk about in as most transparent a way as possible. I dread the idea of it going through any committee because this is not a regular vote. nothing like this has ever come before any governing body before. And the serious nature of it has never been so full and high staked. So I am willing to do whatever to make this happen and make it happen fast and have, whoever from the governing body, you know, wants to be involved, how we're going to work with impact studies. But I think that, you know, it's a little bit unrealistic, though I understand your question, within one week of time for us to have all of that.

I'm not saying we should decide this in one week. I'm not saying that. No, I'm just telling you. So if you're talking about me not wanting to give any grace, this is why I'm asking these questions before I vote on this. Right. Because from last week to tonight, I don't know a whole lot more other than what a lot of people have given me. A lot of people that claim that they're this, they're that. No, they don't have a master's, but they know all this stuff. And that's not good enough. We have to figure it out. I understand that. So what I'd like to propose in this is we used to do this years ago. I've only sat on here a couple years. And we had a committee that was called a committee as a whole. And that means that brought all of us together, not separate committee. And we did away with that. And that's been done away with. So what I would like to propose is we do a committee as a whole, including the mayor, so that we had to come to the table and we had to learn all the information. It's not like... If I come to the Public Health and Safety Committee, then I just come. Or I get my information however I get it. I just said the full governing body. Right. But what I'm proposing is maybe putting that back in order as a committee as a whole for the whole governing body. That's why I asked, what is the plan?

I'm going to interject here. City manager, city attorney, do we need a plan of action to go with this? Or is it something that we can work on over time?

Deputy Mayor, I think that it's something that we can work on over time. I was just kind of sidebarring with the city attorney. I mean, depending upon what the governing body wants to see, right? I mean, we don't have subject matter experts on staff who know these things. So, I mean, I do also need the council to consider if we are going to hire outside consulting, how we're going to pay for those consultants. I don't know if they would be available from... especially if nobody's applying for anything within city limits. I mean, that's something that I think that the county's considering as part of this application process, hiring subject matter experts. And so I just need the governing body to understand that if we're trying to look for outside consulting, that's going to cost funding or that's going to basically cost us something. So we can talk about that as a future policy decision. We can talk about it as future direction. But I also need the governing body to understand that we will probably have to hire consultants in order to help lead us through this discussion.

Okay. My question is, do we need to add anything? No. At this time, we can come back with another proposal.

I'm going to make a motion that we add. I don't care what he says. I'm going to make a motion that we add that. So that way it's presented to the whole council and there's no misunderstanding about it. That's going to be my motion. It can die for lack of a second. I don't care. But I'd like this to come back to committee as a whole for the governing body so that anything that's presented out there comes back to everybody and not just one set of person or nobody fills out since we all got to figure this out or whoever presents, it's got to be between all of us. So that's my motion.

Okay. Your motion is to add...

How do you want to order it?

Okay. We need to figure out where it would apply in here.

Deputy Mayor, could I offer a friendly suggestion, having been around for many, many years with a couple of our colleagues? We did used to have something called the Committee of the Whole. And my suggestion would be after you vote on this, you make a recommendation that this item be referred to the Committee of the Whole for further discussion and deliberation. So you would need to amend the council rules. which would be out of order for this item, but it would be a simple amendment to the council rules to add back the Committee of the Whole. Okay, so we amend the council rules to add back Committee of the Whole, and then you would make a motion after that to refer this item to the Committee of the Whole.

Okay, so it's something we'd have to do another time, like next week.

That would be my suggestion. Let's go ahead and just pass this legislation and then give the city attorney an opportunity to draft an amendment to the council rules to put back in the Committee of the Whole, take action on that, and then you could refer this item, this ordinance, to the Committee of the Whole for further discussion and deliberation.

I can do that. The reason why I say that is because I've heard people say, I didn't get this, I didn't get that, I didn't know this, I didn't know that, I didn't know this person, met with this person. I'm hearing all of that from different colleagues. So to alleviate that, we'll all get all the information as a committee as a whole. Thank you.

Just real quick, and I think that's an excellent idea, because as I stated, it does need to be before the whole governing body, as I stated. And I stated also, I would be loath to have it go to a committee where it would get lost. So I agree, and the committee of a whole is fine. You just gave verbiage to what I already said for all the years that you've been on. So thank you for that.

OK. I have Councilwoman Bradbury.

I just gave you thank you.

I was just going to say that the intent the entire time was for the entire governing body to work together on figuring this out. However it works, if it's a committee of the whole or whatever, the intent was, has been, always will be for the entire governing body to work this out.

Okay, I have a motion from Councilman McGee and a second from Councilman Banks to approve the amended ordinance. Is there any more discussion or are we ready to vote? I think we're ready to vote. City Clerk, go ahead.

Go ahead and cast your vote. Mayor Duncan?

Yes.

OK, we have 10 yes. The motion carries.

I am going to set a 10 minute break so we can reset the room and reset the agenda to go forward. So any objections? No. We are on break.

Before we start, we know we have another executive session, a couple executive sessions, and we wanted to ask if you would consider extending beyond 10 already.

Okay, I will go ahead and do that now. I'll make a motion to extend past 10 o'clock. Do I have a second? Sure. Okay. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed?

Aye.

We will extend past 10 o'clock. Okay. Next up is item 5B, which, okay. City Clerk will read.

B is a public hearing to obtain citizen input on the City of Topeka 2026 to 2030 Consolidated Action Plan and the 2026 Annual Consolidated Action Plan and Budget.

Okay. City Manager?

Thank you. Deputy Mayor, members of the governing body, in this item, we will discuss City of Topeka's 2026 through 2030 Consolidated Action Plan and the 2026 Annual Consolidated Action Plan and Budget. The Division of Housing and Homeless Services receives the bulk of its funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD. which requires the city submit a one-year annual action plan in order to be eligible for grant funding. And in the submission, this submission will help us secure over $2.4 million in federal funding for housing and neighborhood improvements in the community. In addition to the details of the proposed budget for this funding, we'll share how we've completed public outreach to gain input on this plan to include this evening's public hearing. I'll now turn it over to Kerry Higgins, Director of Housing and Homeless Services, to lead us through this item. Kerry.

Thank you. Good evening. So tonight we are talking about the five-year con plan as well as our single annual plan. In your packets, you receive the full five-year plan as well. So what is the con plan? It is a comprehensive plan of how we will use our HUD entitlement grants, which include the three grants you see listed, the Community Development Block Grant, the Home Investment Partnerships Program, and the HEARTH Emergency Solutions Grant. This provides a framework for community dialogue and allows for a summary of actions and activities that allow us to use those priorities. So here you see a chart with all of the grant funding for housing services. We are mostly grant funded, so I wanted to level set by showing you this so we could zero in on exactly what we're talking about tonight. So it is just the green section of this chart. It is our ConPlan grants. These are our entitlement grants. We do receive other HUD funding. It is the yellow section on this chart, but those grants are competitive grants and they go to our homeless funding. So tonight we are strictly talking about the ConPlan grants that you see listed there. So the first grant is the Community Development Block Grant. You can see the programs that that funds. It is a development grant, so the majority of that funding is required to go to development and rehab and repair programs. We do allocate... several programs with that funding that are considered service activities, which are capped at 15%. This grant is just under 1.8 million, and you can see with the chart there, 69% of the funding goes to the rehab programs, 11% is currently going to service activities, and then 20% goes to admin, which is salaries for our inspector positions. The home grant is just under $470,000. It funds the programs that you see listed there as well. You will notice some repeats from the CDBG grant. Several of our programs are funded by multiple grants in order to fully fund those programs. With this grant, 90% of the funding goes directly to rehab and repair programs, and 10% goes into admin. And then the third grant, the HEARTH Emergency Solution Grant, is a little bit different. This grant we put out an RFP for that social service agencies can apply for. It can be used for rapid rehousing, which is first month's rent and deposit for unsheltered individuals, homeless prevention, which is someone who may be housed but has an eviction notice and is at risk of being homeless, and then emergency shelter expenses. and our Homeless Management Information System, which is a system that HUD requires that we use, that we share with our community partners to not only track services, funding, spending, but it also helps us to prevent duplication of services. And those then grants are allocated out to the different agencies based on their RFP application and scores. And you can see with the chart there the different allocation amounts that go to each of the categories. And then HUD also requires that we leverage funding. So this is a list of some of the other buckets of grant funding that we receive. It is not a comprehensive list. It just gives you an idea of some of the other funding we use to leverage our HUD funding. I would like to point out that about two years ago, we added the orange bucket of grant funding. We applied and received two new federal grants. And this year we were able to add the red bucket, which is two new state grants that we have applied for and received. We are always looking for new grants that we can apply for in order to help continue to grow and provide more services to the community. So how did we receive input? Multiple ways. So we met with the Citizen Advisory Council on June 3rd. We met with the Homeless Task Force on June 10th. We had three public meetings. We had one-on-one meetings when requested. We did a housing study survey that was open for over a month, and then we had a 30-day comment period as well. Tonight is the final public hearing before you all, and then we will bring this back for approval as well. I will say this year the housing study was the way we got the most feedback from the community. The housing study, they're still putting together the final report, which you will see in a month or two yet. But I wanted to pull some of that data for you to see tonight because we did get great feedback and a lot of the feedback that we received aligns with the programs that we have that we use with our con plan funding. Additionally, we had scheduled on the agenda to bring the con plan back next week for approval by the governing body. However, Michael Bell did reach out to us today and is requesting that we defer that a few weeks out. And we wanted to leave that up to the governing body as to what you would like to do. And then I am happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Okay. I'm going to... This does have a public hearing procedure, so we're going to open it up and ask if anyone would like to speak to the Consolidated Action Plan tonight. Is there anyone from the public that would like to speak to the Consolidated Action Plan? Is there anyone who'd like to speak to the Consolidated Action Plan? If not, I'm going to close the public hearing. And we will move to questions. OK. I'll start with Councilwoman Hiller.

Thank you. I have two questions. One, with your survey, as far as it's gone, do you have any idea kind of where those survey responses came from? how you got them out and who's answering?

I don't have the information as to who specifically replied, but it was pushed out in a number of ways, different email groups, different listservs. We spoke about it at several public meetings as well.

That's a good number back. Sometimes it matters all of a sudden you find out that people kind of hit the jackpot in one place, things like that. The other question was is there any significant difference in the distribution that you have in this plan both the five years as well as the year from the prior one?

Great question. No, there are no major changes. What we find is that our programs, our funding is spent every year. The programs seem to be well received and we're able to use that funding. I think the other challenge is if you wish to move the funding to either a new program or something different, you also have to decide where are you going to pull that funding from, what program goes away. And so what we found over the years is that we usually get pretty steady feedback that What we're doing seems to work, and why change it if it works?

That's great. I thought so, but I wanted to check.

Thank you. Okay, next up is Councilwoman Ortiz.

Carrie, great job. Good work that you're doing. Thank you. My question is, we have teamed up with Breakthrough House, correct? And I didn't see that unless I missed it. I didn't see that in here. Or maybe that's not the time. Or... Is there budget or what's in a budget?

That is still in the works. Legal is helping me draft some contracts, and then that contract and that partnership will come before the governing body soon.

So I'm just ahead of the curve. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Is there any changes I need to make? Do we need to defer it or are we good?

I think that, I mean, we can seek the governing body's guidance as to whether or not you're ready for action. Or, again, we can just defer the action that we have planned for next week to the August 11th council meeting. But I also need the governing body to understand that we need approval that night because we have to actually submit it to HUD by August 16th. So we can delay so that we can allow for the seat. I'm sorry. Well, it's the 16th. Oh, 15th?

15, 45 days before our.

I'm one day. I'm ahead like Council Member Ortiz. But, yeah, so I just need the governing body to understand that we'll need final decisions on the 11th for it to be approved for us to submit it to HUD.

Okay. Council Member Ortiz.

I'll make a motion to approve it and get it done.

Okay. It's been moved and seconded. So I have Councilwoman Ortiz made the motion, and Councilman Miller seconded. Any other questions from anyone? Any concerns?

Yes. I did.

So the action is actually proposed for next week. So we're trying to, I mean, if you want to make a motion to approve it tonight, you can do that too. Okay. There you go. There you go.

All right.

So Council Member Ortiz is the second.

Miller.

Okay.

Okay.

Then I am going to take some more comments. First up is Council Member Ortiz. Do you have anything? Okay. Next up is Councilman Kelp.

Just curious, Mr. Bell, why was he wanting to wait on this? And, you know, I saw the messages back and forth where he's wanting to extend this out. And I know extending something like that can put a rush on the very end and kind of push things. But I just was curious why he was wanting to send it back to committee.

Mr. Bell wanted more time to give feedback. We did allow a full six weeks for feedback, but he was requesting additional time.

All right, thank you.

Okay, next up is Councilwoman Hiller.

Well, I was going to double-check that same thing. Mr. Bell is the chair of the CAC at this point, and it's his first term doing that. So he's, what, three months in or something like that. Is there anything, was it discussed at these six weeks? There would have been two CAC meetings, one or two in this six-week period.

We presented at the June 3rd CAC meeting. Okay. That's our standard protocol is to present once, give the information, and allow time for feedback in the multiple ways that I previously listed.

Okay. So it was the same as has been done in prior years. Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

Just wanted to double check.

Thank you. Councilwoman Valdivia.

Thank you, deputy mayor. I read your email and saw all of the lines, you know, that said all of the different places and how many different times it was presented, the protocol that you followed. And it seems to me that it was consistent with what you just said, how it's been done in previous years. You know, this isn't, this really is to me, of supporting because the timeline is running so absolutely thin. And, you know, that to me is the reason why I let you know that I supported that whole process that you detailed out in the email today. So, yeah, I will definitely be supporting this to pass tonight or to vote on tonight.

OK, any other comments, questions? I believe a rate of it. OK, we are voting on approving the consolidated action plan.

Mayor Duncan.

Yes.

OK, we have 10. Yes, the motion carries. Thank you.

Okay, next up is Ordinance Item Number 5C. City Clerk will read.

C is an ordinance introduced by Dr. Robert Perez concerning the waiver of permit fees amending section 14-20-060, I of the Topeka Municipal Code, a repealing original section.

Okay. City Manager?

Thank you. Deputy Mayor, members of the governing body, for this item, which was discussed and approved by the Policy and Finance Committee on June 3rd, Leah Boland, Director of Economic Development, will discuss proposed code revisions regarding the waiver of permit fees as part of economic development incentives. Currently, our code does not allow for developers to receive a city fee waiver while also pursuing incentives offered by other entities such as the state of Kansas or Shawnee County. With that, I will now turn this over to Aaliyah to lead us through this item.

Thank you, City Manager. Good evening. You would have the amended ordinance and code in your packet this evening, so I will walk through the highlighted material changes that the proposed language is offering. On page 4 is where you will find all of the material changes. Line 65 updates the adoption process for the governing body approving any permit fee waivers that exceed 25%. Current code permits that under the governing body's adoption of a home rule ordinance. This amendment will change that to allow governing body's adoption of a resolution in order to approve fee waivers. Lines 68 through 71 This clarifies that an applicant is not eligible for a fee waiver if they're receiving or pursuing any other city incentive, tax abatement, or economic development benefit that reduces the city's or reduces or rebates the city's ad valorem property tax revenue payable to the city of Topeka. And lines 72 through 73 explicitly allow an applicant to pursue incentives offered by other political taxing subdivisions, such as the county or state, while remaining eligible for a city permit fee waiver. And finally, starting on page 4 and carrying over to page 5, lines 78 through 84 This language clarifies the exception for an applicant's eligibility to receive a fee waiver. It clarifies the requirement that an applicant can apply for a fee waiver and also be eligible for a city incentive if JADO agrees to reimburse the city for the fee waiver portion so that the city doesn't have to forego the revenue from the fee waiver, thus allowing the applicant to be eligible for a city economic development benefit. With that, I will turn it over to the chair of the committee for any additional comments, and I would be happy to stand for questions.

We do have one person signed up to speak, and I'm going to call her up now, Danielle Twemlow.

I won't take too long. This makes no sense. at all to me, that while we're in a deficit that we are continuing to look at ways to give developers who are making money more ways to make money instead of helping community. I really find it misleading that on our ordinance where it says no budgetary impact, which is true in itself by the wording because we don't appropriate funds or create a direct expenditure. However, There's a municipal financial perspective here that is really important because it doesn't mean there's not any financial impact. A waived permit fee is revenue that we're choosing not to collect. I know there are some good small pieces in there that are trying to hold some accountability of not getting too many incentives, but we have no way of tracking this. We still do not have any transparency dashboards that are showing how much stacking these developers are doing with incentives, because we're paying taxes to the state and to the county and to the city, so they're receiving our taxpayer money to defer their costs to make more money in multiple different ways. So we deserve a transparency dashboard. How much of our taxes are being used to make them money. And what is that return for us? What does that impact look on local job growth? What does that impact look like on clawbacks if they don't do the things that they're supposed to do? We still have reached part. I hear in policy and finance, I think some of that came in the RHID maybe. I didn't catch all of it and starting to make movement that way. But we roughly get about $2 million from what I can find because we don't do lots of itemized budget transparency there. But it appears roughly $2 million a year in those charges. So we need to have more information when we're making these kinds of decisions. How many jobs are being created? Are they paying a comparable living wage? Are we doing that local hiring, the investment amount in the community? Are we prioritizing certain areas? What's that tax revenue that's going to be generated and then incentivized? We get so much of that well after the fact. and often not completely or transparently. So this is lacking a lot of those accountability measures as we continue to just leave developers off the hook for a lot of things. So I would urge us not to continue to look for ways to not generate revenue during a deficit, especially with people who are making lots and lots of money. Thanks.

That's the only comment we had tonight, so I'm going to open it up to council members. The first one is Councilwoman Valdivia-Alcala.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I did not watch this meeting, and I know that I need to because I've been running behind on watching. some of the meetings. I did hear that there were some really good things that happened in policy and finance, which might come up later or might not. But anyway, I guess I have questions as far as whoever can answer this. What is an average fee amount?

So Councilman, it depends on the size of the development. So a few months ago, we had two projects, each requesting a fee waiver. And it depends on the building permit, the total cost of that development. And what the utility fee waivers, that has to do with connection fees and things of that nature, this code currently prohibits our ability to provide a fee waiver for building permits, whereas the utility code fee waiver portion does not. And so when the previous two fee waivers that were approved were in response to a request from applicants who were applying for the KHRC low-income housing tax credit program. And so we worked through that process to say, You're not eligible for the building permit waiver, but you would qualify for utility waiver. However, we can only give up to the 40,000, which only makes them eligible for five points on their application. Either way, the permits really vary based on the size of connections and the development.

Throw some numbers out that you know.

So I believe one of the projects that we couldn't do the permit fee waiver for was around $250,000. You have $60,000, and again, I would be more comfortable if I could pull some numbers and send to you if you would like me to.

Okay, so let's just say $60,000 or $250,000. Let's just... use one of those. So what you're saying is what this, what this does is it is going to make them eligible for this fee waiver, depending on how large their developmental project or development project is. Um, but if that is contingent on that, they, So it says clarified that the applicant is not eligible for a fee waiver if they are receiving or pursuing any city incentive tax abatement or economic development program that reduces or abates ad valorem property tax revenue payable to the city. So what that is saying. is this update will mean that they are not eligible for the waiver if they are trying for any of these type of incentives? Correct. Okay, so that's lines 68 through 71. Then lines 72 to 73 expressly allow an applicant to pursue incentives offered by other political or taxing subdivisions, including Shawnee County, while remaining eligible for a city fee waiver. So if they're not trying for these ones in 68 to 71 that you clarified, but they are trying for Shawnee County, then they're eligible for the city fee waiver. Correct. Okay. And then line 78 to 74... says that establish an exception whereby an applicant may receive both the city fee waiver and the city economic development incentive if JADO provides a full reimbursement to the city for the value of the fee waiver. This provision eliminates a financial impact to the city associated with granting the fee waivers. So what this is saying is JADO is going to reimburse us. Let's just say this was a $250,000 waiver that they received. This adjustment is saying that that would be reimbursed by JADO of $250,000 to the city.

I would say that if the total fees associated with the development which are permit and utility fees they would not all necessarily be part of the waiver. So the governing body would grant a fee waiver of an amount, and it would come to the governing body if it exceeds 25% of the total fees for approval.

So this update is just supposed to be for building permits, because utilities, you can already do it? Correct. Correct? Okay. So when I first, again, not having watched the meeting, but when I first saw this, I thought, oh, what is the fee? I don't know what the fee is. I was thinking $25, $30, $50, $100. And I guess I am wondering how this even, and I'm not even looking at it coming to policy and finance. I'm wondering, with the deficit, and if amounts can be this large, I am wondering why, who came up with this? That's my bottom line question.

The mayor asked us to take a look at this after being called because of developers who came to us and said KHRC has this scoring rubric and we want to score as high as we can. And right now the city, meaning Mean Leah and Mean Braxton are saying no, you cannot have a waiver of your building permit fee because you have gone to the county and you have asked for an economic development incentive from us and the language currently in our code basically says If you're getting any other economic development incentive, you are not eligible for a building permit fee waiver.

I remember you talking about the point system.

Right. Can I follow up on that? Yes.

Yeah, let me just reiterate that I did ask for this change because as we discussed when this came in front of us with those two developments, it is totally unfair to the process and to cities and counties that that state process and those dollars pit us against each other. And we can't do anything about that right now. That's something we're going to have to work on legislatively and otherwise. But in this case, those were both affordable housing projects that, because of this code, didn't give us the flexibility to consider that. And so it could have cost them points, which then would have cost them those dollars, which means we wouldn't have had two more affordable housing developments. So that's why I thought... The good news is anything still has to come before us for approval in these waivers. But this, at least my thought, was gave staff the flexibility to be able to say yes and let us consider it instead of just that straight, nope, we can't even take a look at it. So that's just the genesis of where it came from.

Well, then my question to whoever would be, it can come before the governing body for a yes or a no vote. But this point system that you're talking about, Braxton, if we vote against it, isn't that impacting the point system detrimentally, or am I thinking about it all wrong? And please explain it like you're talking to a 10-year-old.

MR. Again, the point system is the rubric the KHRC has put together to be able to screen out those highly competitive applications for the low-income housing tax rates. MS.

Right.

MR. any decision on any waiver is not done tonight.

Right.

It would be on a case-by-case basis and at that point we would explicitly tell you this is the approximate value of the fee waiver.

Okay.

Okay?

But if we said for case-by-case and if we said no and voted no, does that impact their application with KHRC and their numbers.

100%, ma'am.

So it is a big squeeze.

It would reduce the number of points that they could get, making it that much less likely.

It's a big squeeze.

Less likely.

Okay. So I would then ask, Mayor, have we even approached our lobbyist about this to get some conversation going because this is incredible that I'm not going to be able to support it even though I want affordable housing and I'll help in any way I can which probably won't be any help unless you ask me but this is outrageous in a deficit. I can't support this but I would like to know if we've talked with our lobbyists.

Yes, we plan to bring it up when we meet with them in the coming weeks on our legislative agenda. It'll go before the council, the committee, and then the council. Yes, this will be one of the topics of discussion. But in lieu of the fact that, as you know, we never know what the state's going to do, we're trying to assume that they are going to make a change and act accordingly. But yes, it'll be on there.

And so I would just say that because I'm going to be voting no for this tonight, because I guess we will be voting on it, that I would just ask for you to keep me in the loop about that. Because maybe there will be something along the way that will change my mind, because I understand how important affordable housing is. But on its face, it's a terrible squeeze for the city. And I just can't do it. But keep me abreast, please.

Yep, will do.

Thank you. Next up is Councilman Gill.

All right. I didn't see in there any ineligibilities. Are we, depending on our other things that when they apply that creates ineligibility like the back taxes, the not in good standing with the state, anything like that that we've really been pushing for? Is there anything like that that would keep them from some of these incentives before it even comes, going through the process and wasting the time to come here?

Yes, sir. So this last round of fee waiver requests we received, we treated them just like any other economic development incentive and did all of the due diligence and background checks on utilities, zoning, state of Kansas, secretary of state filing, et cetera.

How much would we not generate if let's say in like the last year, how many projects? Because I can see this as a good benefit for like the projects that are coming out of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. You know, those are local, you know, like SENT trying to develop as much as they can. But, you know, it's one of those things I understand it would be punishing someone from getting more incentives and things like that. But after a while, it seems like all we're doing is incentive, incentive, incentive on some of these projects. And It hurts our bottom line to be able to help the rest of our citizens, and that's the ones that need affordable housing. And that kind of puts us in a catch-22 for a lot of us that want the affordable housing, but also are looking at the bottom line on our budget.

So in 2025, I believe, the governing body approved one fee waiver related to a KHRC LIHTC application applicant. This year, there were two fee waivers submitted. The 2026 Qualified Action Plan under the KHRC scoring rubric allows the applicant to obtain 10 bonus points if they receive a fee waiver of $80,000. or five bonus points if they receive a fee waiver for $40,000. So the previous fee waivers that were approved earlier this year, we looked at that five-point portion because that was all we could do with the fact that they were going to the county for an incentive, which our code doesn't currently permit us to waive permit fees for. We only could waive utility fees, some of the utility fees.

So what's the bottom line? Let's say this next year, what's the guesstimate? You can be very conservative on that also that says what we're going to possibly lose out on fees.

Well, again, as deputy city manager mentioned, any fee waiver would, would come before you for approval. And so, um, I, I don't think I could ballpark, uh, an estimate on what may come before us next year.

Deputy mayor, uh, back in 2025, we had one application and basically in talking to the person, they needed the additional five points. And so we came up with a $40,000 waiver to qualify them for the five points with KHRC. And then we split that amongst the building fees and the utility fees so that not one department was feeling all the brunt of that to hit the $40,000. which was just enough to get them their fee waiver. So does that help in terms of helping to get them the points that they needed? It would be our recommendation to the governing body, even though it could be $100,000 of fees, our recommendation to you would be grant them a $40,000 fee waiver because that gets them the five points under KHRC, which is the methodology that we used back in 2025. But again, the threshold issue is, Staff is not granting the fee waiver. It would be coming to you, and we would ask you, tell you the story, and tell you how much the request is. Thank you.

Okay. Next up is Councilman Miller.

The provision in the amended code allows for a reimbursement from JADO. If they would reimburse for the city fee waiver, that would allow the applicant to also be eligible for another city economic development incentive such as RHID, for example.

Okay, so not requires, but just allows for it. Correct. Okay, thank you very much.

Mayor, do you have any other comments you'd like to make?

I do not, thank you.

Okay, next up is Councilwoman Valdivia Acqua.

Okay, one more thing. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. So with it saying that JADO may get involved in this reimbursement using their dollars to reimburse the city, but JADO is also taxpayer money. Is that right? So it just seems odd, seems off, but thank you.

Councilwoman Hiller.

This all came about because of LIHTC, right? Yes. And at this point, LIHTC is officially being sunsetted by, no? No.

No, ma'am. Only the state portion of LIHTC is being sunsetted. There are no plans to sunset the federal portion, and this is the highly competitive federal 9% LIHTC credits is what we're talking about.

Okay. I guess I was thinking it was the state one. if that requirement is new, right, which is what caught us, is there a thought that if that goes away we would reverse this action? So it's really because of that one grant, right?

MR. KHRC has had a point system for many, many years, even when I was in the private developer side, that allowed for points based on whether or not there was a waiver granted by political and taxing subdivisions. The reason that it kicked this in 2026 is because they had both the ones for the local fee waiver as well as the economic development incentive on the tax exemption from the county. And so you had people going to the county seeking that IRB to get that point of purchase retail sales tax exemption and then coming to us as well. So it's not necessarily going to result that.

Okay.

Either way, then, that will be considered when the staff team looks at but-for.

MR. And more importantly, all of that would be disclosed to you before you making the decision of whether you want to grant that waiver. MS.

Understood. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON WONG. Okay. Any other comments? Seeing none, I will take a motion. Okay, I have a motion from Councilman Ortiz, and I will second that so we can get a vote on this.

Yeah. Mark is good.

Put down Councilman Miller. Okay. Okay, so I believe we are ready to vote.

I've got a motion to approve by council member Ortiz and a second by deputy mayor. Okay. All right. And the mayor does not vote on this one. All right, go ahead. okay the motion carries we have seven yes with council members valdivia aquila and kale voting no okay next up is action item 5d the clerk will read D is a resolution introduced by City Manager Dr. Robert Perez notifying the County Clerk of, one, a proposed intent to exceed the revenue neutral rate for the City of Topeka, two, the proposed tax rate, and three, the date, time, and location of the public hearing to consider adopting a budget that exceeds the revenue neutral rate.

Oh, sorry. So we talked about this last week. So what you're doing tonight is this is the first time is just for the city portion. So what we're doing tonight is we're letting the county clerk on the possibility of exceeding the revenue neutral rate. So we're proposing in this the maximum rate be 37.126, which is our current note rate. So we wouldn't be. asking for an increase of the mill levy. And just as a reminder, this is just the maximum amount. We're actually not approving the solidified mill levy until mid-September. And the next thing you'd be doing is if you do exceed the revenue neutral rate, we'd be setting the public hearing date for the revenue neutral hearing, which would be for the city on August 25th. So that's what's being voted on tonight for this item.

Okay. Are there any questions, comments? I have a motion from council councilman Kell and a second from councilwoman Ortiz. I'm assuming a motion to approve. Okay. Any comments? Then I guess we're ready to vote.

Mayor Duncan.

Yes.

All right, we have 10 yes, the motion carries.

Okay, next item is 5E.

He is a resolution introduced by City Manager Dr. Robert Perez, notifying the County Clerk of one, a proposed intent to exceed the revenue neutral rate for the Topeka Metro Transit Authority, TMTA, two, the proposed rate tax rate, and three, the date, time, and location of the public hearing to consider adopting a budget that exceeds the revenue neutral rate. Okay. City Manager.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor, members of the governing body, similar to that last item we just considered, you heard from TMTA last week about their intent to exceed the revenue neutral rate of 3.832 mils. Currently, their rate is 3.999, and the request is to exceed that and restore the previous mil rate of 4.2 mils. The approximate .2 mils delta represents approximately 329,000. Council approval of this item will direct staff to notify Shawnee County the Shawnee County Clerk, of TMTA's intent to consider adopting a budget for 2027 that exceeds TMTA's revenue neutral rate and authorizes the public hearing date of September 1st. With that, Josh, I'll be here for any questions you may have.

Does anyone have any questions? I have a motion. Oh, Councilman Kell.

I just want to remind the council members that were on last year and the new ones, this kind of reinstates everything back to the kind of way it was because there was a little bit of confusion last year and we ended up cutting their mill rate on, you know, I don't think we intended to and we had to kind of come out of the budget to kind of offset that. So this is kind of just kind of resetting things the way they were. and just trying to get things back to the way they were for the metro. So it's, you know, I think something we need to definitely look at because I think last year was just a little bit of confusion on the whole thing. So this kind of just resets everything back the way it was.

Okay. I have a motion to approve. I made the motion to approve it, and Councilman Cal seconded. Are there any other comments, questions? Let's move to vote mayor Duncan.

Yes.

Okay. We have nine. Yes. With council member Miller voting. No, the motion carries.

Okay. And. Since this has been kind of a long meeting, item 6A has been postponed to next week, so we are moving to item 6B. City Clerk?

B is just discussion on the 2027 operating budget.

Okay, city manager.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor and members of the governing body, this evening I'm pleased to present to you our balanced FY2027 proposed budget. While we're at this point this evening, I believe that we started this process when we adopted our FY26 budget last year. Earlier this year we held budget work sessions with the governing body in January and February. And at the guidance of this body, we conducted a community survey, which received almost 1,100 responses. And those responses provided us guidance to prioritize infrastructure, public safety, and economic development while working within our existing resources. Tonight, we'll provide a budget overview, including how we addressed our projected $15 million deficit, pairing that down to $11 million as a starting point for FY27 considerations. As part of development of this proposed budget, to balance it, our team has combed through line items, and identified opportunities to freeze vacant positions, eliminate vacant positions, and consider revenue and transfer adjustments from other funds, and even create a new self-sustaining planning and development services enterprise fund. As we will share with you this evening, even with these proposed FY27 adjustments, there will be some policy considerations that this governing body will have to consider to address the projected FY28 deficit of $6.5 million. That future deficit assumes keeping the same reductions and frozen positions in place going forward into 2028. For that reason, you will see in the upcoming budget presentations that we will discuss a five-year financial forecast on August 25th. Over the next several weeks, we'll work through individual departmental budgets and any amendments that the governing body wishes to consider, ultimately working towards a September 15th council adoption. With that, I'll turn it over to Josh, Deputy Director of Budget and Finance, to lead us through this discussion. Josh.

Thank you, City Manager. Good evening, everybody. Like the City Manager said, we're just going to give a high-level overview of the budget tonight, and we're going to kind of dig into the general fund a little bit, go through various categories. So this... So this first slide, so the proposed budget. So obviously the city's budget just isn't the general fund. There's enterprise funds, there's internal service funds to where our total expense budget for 2027 will be about $417 million. Total revenues for all those funds is 387 million now. Expenses are more than revenues in this case, but sometimes we do spend on fund balances. An example of that would be the citywide half cent sales tax. We have a 20 plus million dollar fund balance, so we want to spin that down to get projects out on the street. So there's an example of, hey, we have expenses exceeding revenue, but there's a plan on why we're doing that. So a couple of context for that. And then total FTEs citywide in this budget is $1,155. However, as we get to later slides, some of those we're leaving in the budget, but we're not levying funds for them. So there's no budget authority for them in the first place. So when you factor all that in, it's about $1,123. And then in this budget, we obviously have to adjust for union contracts, and then there's a built-in 3% call-out. So just some background. So last year, obviously, we projected a $15 million deficit. And then I guess the inherent question is, well, why did things change? Well, as you get further closer to an introduction date for the budget, there's going to be assumptions that change. The big example is fuel. Last year at this time it was $2.50. Now it's $3.50. So we have to adjust for that as we get more information. Another example is health care cost is $1. We stabilized the health care fund through a couple different mechanisms to where when we projected, we were projecting more of a premium increase. Now we're not doing that as much. But overall, last year, we were talking about $13 million in the general fund, $2 million in the special highway fund. as things we needed to figure out. And then when we started this process back in the spring, it was about $11 million for the general fund. So getting into how we, or then getting into the general fund is, so the total general fund expense budget, obviously the city manager said we balanced it with revenue transfers and other things, but $133.5 million. And that was balanced by freezing some positions, eliminating some positions, and then transferring money through other funds, as you'll see later. So getting into those positions, so what was frozen is a lot of public safety positions. Now, we did freeze 10 police officers last year. That isn't... now a 19 additional to a total of 29. That's just 19 police officers in general. Firefighters went from 8 to 10, and then one engineering tech, and then two management positions in police and fire. And then on the next slide, these are just eliminated vacant positions throughout the spectrum of the organization. They're not necessarily all in the general fund. They're scattered across. But in this case, they're mainly the general fund and utilities funds. But these are vacancies that we're just, quite frankly, going to have to live without in the short term or medium term just because of the situation we're in. And then obviously a lot of words on this slide, but you'll see a graphical representation too in a sec. But when we talked about transferring money in from other funds to help the general fund, obviously a lot of that's one time. And so on your screen, we transferred into the general fund from the work comps fund, $3 million. We're spending down our debt service fund, which we'll get into next week, this year, $5.8 million. Transferred in money from the fleet fund for $1.5 million. And as we talked about earlier about the planning and development enterprise fund, we move those revenues and expenses out of the general fund into their own fund to eventually be self-sustaining in five years, five-year phase-in. So tying that all together, we talked about last week, where are we projected to end the year? So last week, we're projecting about a $4 million spin down in fund balance. And then as we introduced a couple of slides ago, the budget is balanced for 2027. But looking ahead to 2028, since we used a lot of one-time revenue, we're back into a situation where we're going to have to make adjustments on the income statement to be balanced again. to the tune of about six and a half million dollars, give or take, but obviously as we get more information and we still have time to influence the income statement since it's 2026 to 2028. So tying that all together, this is one of the most important slides, is we can balance the general fund by moving money around. But we have to think globally at the big picture of what does that do to other funds. So this is, and I'm not going to go necessarily through all these tonight, just due to time. But these are the projected year end of fund balances for 26, 27, 28. 24 and 25 are already set in place. Those fiscal years are ended. But big picture is we're spending down cash to where In 2024, we had about $89 million to where at the projected end of 26, $78 million. And that trend is continuing since we haven't had a material change in the income statement. for the general fund side. Now, I will say, like I said earlier, some of that fund balance spend down isn't necessarily bad. One example is the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Money was set aside to do projects. We are spending that down now. So that is an example of spending down cash would be okay. But one of the ones I just want to highlight, or a couple I want to highlight are the retirement reserve. That pays for all the pooled, sick, and accrued leave. For when people retire at the city now, we haven't placed revenue in that fund because we had a high fund balance over the last couple of years. But in 2028, that will be something we'll have to start transferring money back into because of the deficit in that fund. Special Highway Fund, that's funded by the gas tax. Revenues in that fund are about $5.6 million a year. expenses are over seven. So in this budget, we're proposing using some of that citywide house and sales tax to cover those services such as materials and other costs just to bias time. Debt service fund. We talked a little bit about this in the CIP process, but right now we have a high debt service on balance to where we are placing less revenue into it, but something to also be cognizant of. In our CIP, we are also planning more projects where our balance of principle will be higher in future years than it is today. So that's something we have to be really mindful of because if we spend on that cash continuously, what does that do to our bond rating if we keep spending down cash and have a lower debt service on that means? potential moderating downgrade, which means we have to borrow at higher costs. So that's something we're going to have to balance through what's the appropriate amount to have in that fund, because we don't want to get in a situation where we have less flexibility with cash to where you're using the KTA project. An example is if we didn't have such a high fund balance, we couldn't have taken on that project most likely, or we had to cut something to make way for it. And then two others. I'll go through the health insurance one first. That was a fund we communicated to the governing body a year or two ago to where we had some problems in that fund. So this is a good example of where we raised premiums but cut some services within that fund and transferred money into it to right-size it going forward to where in this budget we're only projecting a 1% premium increase because claims have gone down overall this year compared to last year, which is good news. And then finally, the work comp fund, we haven't been placing money in that either. So that's a large fund balance spin down to where that's something we eventually want to address to where we have to make material changes to the income statement to be self-sustaining going forward. And this slide is just a graphical representation of that. So obviously, 26 to 27, that's a pretty steep send down. But the good news is, as we work through these many conversations over the next 60 days, we'll have time to address that. And anything we do today can also save money for the future in 28, 29, et cetera. This is, I think, probably the most important slide for those not familiar with the budget. So what this slide breaks down our general fund, that $133.5 million of what categories we spend money in and what categories we get money in from either various taxes or fees in the city. So on the left side of your screen, the one in red, 62% of the city's general fund is public safety personnel just in police and fire. You add in another 14% for non-public safety personnel, That's a 75% total for just personnel. So we're a service organization. Our largest cost are people. And then not on this slide, but police and fire is 70% of the general fund budget. So on the right bar, that's the three ways the city makes money, franchise fees, sales tax, and property tax, to where if we want to right-size this going forward, we're either going to have to talk about ways of raising the bar on the right or lowering the bar on the left. And we probably need to think of those big categories because we can trim things off the top, but those are minor changes. We probably need to talk about structural changes eventually as we move into the future. And then finally, this was a slide that was added. So it's always important to think of we did approve our maximum amount of mill, what we would raise for the mill levy tonight. But if let's say what happens, we wanted to lower the mill levy or we wanted to not exceed R&R, what would happen? So on your screen right here is the three funds property tax goes into for the city. So it goes into our general fund, which is we learned about on the previous slide. mainly funds police and fire. Our special liability fund funds any claim payouts we have to pay for the city, and then our debt service fund pays principal and interest payments. So those are projected fund balances given keeping the mill event current. So if we were to lower or even not capture R&R, that number would go down by $2.4 million in that pooled cash balance. Or we'd have to find cuts in what was on the previous slide, in those boxes on the left. Or we'd have to eliminate projects out of our CIP. Or just continue to be spending down cash balance or a combination of the three. And then finally, some policy considerations for this budget. And obviously, there's more that are introduced by staff or the governing body. But we talked about one already, which is the creation of planning and development service fund, implementation of lane and sidewalk closure fees. And then this has been talked about a little bit, but phase out the cost sharing agreement. With 501 and then another one that we didn't highlight tonight, but we'll highlight later on is the parking fund. We've talked about that over the years, but implement paid parking on Kansas Avenue in 2028. And then Hotel Topeka. Obviously, there's been a lot of talk about Hotel Topeka lately. None of the numbers that you saw tonight incorporated the sale price of $1 million. So on the previous slide, if we were to get that $1 million, we'd place it into the debt service fund. The rationale behind that is That's where the principal and interest payments for the bonds we issued 11 months ago are being paid out of. So that's only right that the proceeds from that sale go to that fund to help pay those bonds. And then finally, talk about a sales tax initiative in March of 2027. That would be an example of raising those bars on two slides ago in sales tax to generate more money for the general fund. And then just as a reminder, that has to go before this body in the form of a question, and then eventually out in the public in the form of a vote. So that's just a, and then this is a timeline of when we're talking about it. So there'll be ample public meetings to be able to talk about the budget, and we're going to go through departments and various funds. to where most a lot of questions we answer then obviously meet one-on-one behind the scenes and help any um answer any questions and then because we have to get to this to the county by october 1st so we want to try to get most things formalized early september so uh if there's any amendments or any questions yeah we like them sooner rather than later that way we can provide ample information ahead of time so With that, we'll answer any questions tonight, but we just wanted to give a high-level overview. And, again, we're balanced for 2026 in the general fund, but we are spending down cash to do it. We froze a lot of positions to do it to where we would have to make a material change on the income statement to be eventually sustaining for the future. So that's all I got tonight.

Okay. I'm going to open this up for questions, and we'll start with Councilman Gell.

How many union contracts do we have up this year?

So right now we're negotiating two in utilities. That phase out at the end of 26. So those are two things to keep in mind. And then the big ones are police and fire, which expire at the end of 27, which would affect the 28 budget.

Um, I know we're just discussing this, but I've been a big proponent on the public safety of the freezing positions, um, on how much we actually spend longterm over with overtime and then how much burnout we create, how much, um, stress we're putting on our staff and also their families because it's mandatory overtime so people are going to miss things. We did a really good job a couple years ago to get the staffing levels up and I think if we just kind of keep cutting those or keep freezing more and more positions, we're going to create an issue again with the staffing. I know with that last contract with fire and police, we made them competitive to what the area was so we weren't losing officers or firefighters to neighboring communities. And I know that is a big part of our budget, but... Those are the two departments I can't see constantly freezing or cutting positions from because those have effects long-term. If we cut the police and we're having more crime happen and then we're getting arrests, well, now we're paying more at the jail to house these people. And if we're cutting fire and maybe looking, you know, at one point there's talk of shutting one of the companies down or something like that, that's going to be less, longer it takes to get a fire, you know, more things are done. So I know, you know, we talked about the mill every night on the revenue neutral. When I first started up here, I was definitely, oh, we've got to do something with Miller. We can't just let this problem happen, and then, boom, we're in this situation. And then I had a couple of talks with a couple of people. We're a community that has so much outliers that live within 10 miles of the city limits that come in. We have so many people that come from all over Shawnee County. Jackson County, Brown County, Jefferson County, that to me, if we're going to do anything, we have to do a sales tax and look at a sales tax because that affects everyone that comes here rather than the middle levy just affects the residents themselves. But I've been saying for a couple of years, we need to be looking at something like that because... I was thinking four years ago, let's take a small jump forward rather than waiting and have to take a giant jump forward. I feel like that giant jump forward is coming, but we definitely need to look at our public safety and just not freeze those positions and not cut positions that affect all of us and I know there was talk about a public safety sales tax versus just a general sales tax. The other thing is I know the police have that special fund or whatever. I think we need to get creative with that. What legally we can do with that and what we can pay out of that fund for. I think we need to really get creative. I'm not sure how much is in that. I figure what the name of the fund is.

You're talking about the law enforcement fund. I think it's on the screen. Is that from like

Thank you.

when they seize things and stuff like that, it goes in that fund?

Yeah. So it's about $1.6 million in that fund.

Yeah. So I think we need to look at that. And if there's something in the police budget that we can use that for, we need to look at ways of spending that. Because to me, there's no reason other than that, unless we have a long-term plan of, hey, every so many five years, we have to spend so much to acquire this, like let's say new vests or new radios. We need to look at ways to use that in creative ways so that way it falls within the parameters that it's designed for because just cutting and freezing is going to take – we've been doing that for, what, three, four years now? It's – after a certain point, we're hurting our employees, we're hurting ourselves, we're hurting our citizens. Thank you.

Next up, Councilwoman Felde, the output.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. My only question was, I have inquired before about getting the old fashioned line items.

It's in the appendix, ma'am. We added it into the budget book, so you should have it in front of you. We've been given.

We don't have the budget. The budget book? So yeah, I'm sorry. I forgot to mention that. They're in my office. I had some issues on some other things, so I didn't get a chance to deliver them. I'm going to deliver them tomorrow morning. But in the email that was sent out, it is in the appendix item.

So the really thick ones that we used to get way before you were here.

It's all in the line items. We got it. We listened.

And Karen has been asked, or Councilwoman has been asked, I think Councilman Bradbury had wondered about it. So we're going to get it. It's there. Okay. Thank you. That's it.

Councilman McGee.

Thank you. On the vacant positions that are not being funded now, are a majority of those from that list of vacant positions that have been vacant for 12 months or more?

Yes, sir. Yes, that is the case. With the exception of some of the police officer and firefighter positions that we've intentionally kept vacant because they were unfunded, that was one of the first things that we looked at, as I mentioned in the presentation and the introduction. We did look at some of those positions that, in some cases, they were vacant for years. And so for me, when I speak to the department heads, it's like, If a position's really been vacant for a couple years or more, I mean, do we really need it? So a lot of what you see here are positions that have been vacant, aside from police and fire, for quite a bit of time.

Okay. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Council Member Ortiz.

Thank you. Councilman Kell, there's only certain things you can use with the police funds. You can't use... You can't use it for any type of salary. So I would suggest that you get with Nick, and he can give you a list of what it can be used for.

Well, that was talking about equipment. I wasn't talking about salary. I was talking about equipment.

But I'm just saying there's certain things, and even with equipment, I think there's certain things. So I would get with him to get that. And then I do want to correct you. The last contract that we did for the police and fire, we opened up the police and gave them a raise. a raise. But we didn't do it for fire. We just did it for, well, we did do it for fire. We came back, but it wasn't as much as it was for the police. So I just wanted to say that. And to Josh, you're doing a good job. But where's my book at? That's the only thing. I'll get it to you. I'll email you.

I'll get it to you tomorrow.

City Manager, did you have a comment? Okay. Any other comments?

I was just thinking that Uber.

Can you Uber that to me? It is time to move into public comment. I only have one person signed up. Who survived. Siobhan Holmes, would you like to come forward and speak?

Hello, my name is Siobhan Holmes. I live here in Topeka. I am the parade coordinator for Juneteenth. And thank you first for allowing me to speak. And I just wanted to publicly speak about our parade this year for 2026. We did an awesome job. We had over 900 spectators. We had over 150 participants. Several of them were several big groups, like we had Topeka High, the drum line. We had three or four different stepper groups that came, and we had our Divine Nine that showed up and represented. We also had our Mayor and Councilwoman Ortiz, and we had a lot of positive things going at our Juneteenth parade this year. We were excited because we went down Kansas. There was one concern that was brought to our attention and that was that we had spent a little bit of time adjusting. And besides people like Topeka High's drumline and the steppers, they'll take a moment or two and they'll do their dances. But we had a situation where some of our kids were getting candy and for safety reasons and we're going to be safe above all things. That is our number one priority. And so we stopped the van so that the kids could get the candy and in the process of that we had other kids come up And they were trying to get candy. And so it was a safety issue because those kids had to be pushed back to the side to where they were supposed to be with their parents. This was about two minutes. But still, it may have caused some concern for some people. But above all, and I don't care if it's our parade or somebody else's parade, they're going to be safe first. And if that means we have to stop a parade for a couple of minutes in order to assure that our kids are safe, then we'll definitely do that. And we had so many positive, positive feedback about it. The business owners were concerned because this was on a Friday. They were concerned about their businesses, even though it was closed down. But we encouraged all the people that were at the parade to go and patronize those businesses. And they did that. And so the business owners were happy about that fact. So all around, it was very positive. All around, we did a bang-up job. And we want to just thank you for your time.

Thank you for being patient with us and getting to you. Okay. Next up are announcements. So, City Clerk, you're up.

All right. For the July 21st agenda, we have one certificate of recognition for the American Public Works Association reaccreditation. We have four board appointments. We have two presentations, Gage Park Improvement Authority and the Severe Weather Response. Consent agenda, we have one noise exception. We have an amendment to the license agreement for FOTS for the management of the zoo. We have a city expenditure ordinance. Action items include a public hearing and ordinance for a vacation along the alleyway between Northwest 8th and Northwest 7th Street. We have an ordinance and corresponding resolution for a conditional use permit for Kansa Oz LLC that's located at 1117 Southeast Madison Street. We also have another ordinance for Azura Credit Union for a zoning change, another one for Topeka Church of Christ. And then we have a resolution from Doltmeyer, Rollenhagen LLC for Lawrence Bay Redevelopment, RHID, for state approval. And then the Consolidated Action Plan was approved tonight. We have discussion on the utility rates on the draft rental registry program and continued discussion on the operating budget. Okay.

City Manager.

Thank you. I just wanted to, I think a number of our teams, I mean, pretty much all our teams kick some. They perform well. But I wanted to highlight our property maintenance unit this past weekend. They had their second. They had their second tire take-back event under the Changing Our Culture Property Maintenance Initiative. Council Member Heller, thank you. So between the two events that we had last month and this month, we had budgeted 1,000 tires between the two events. They collected over 3,100 tires between the two events. And so very successful events. The team is talking about maybe doing this on a quarterly basis, but I just wanted to shout out, give, and give kudos to Commander Stewart, John Chardonnay, and the rest of the code team. And then also we had some police VIPs out there helping direct traffic this past weekend. So just kudos and shout out to y'all. Y'all rock. Thank you.

Okay. Okay. I believe I'm first up, and I have two things. Tomorrow night is the fourth of four planning sessions on the review sessions on the fire station plan. It is at Garfield Community Center, and it starts at 530. The other thing I wanted to mention was tomorrow, Tiger Trails and Den Academy opens. We're going to have the ribbon-cutting at 11 a.m. After that's finished, I'm guessing around noon it will be open to the public. So everybody get out and see it. It's an incredible facility. The animals seem to be happy in their new homes. They've got a lot more space. Thomas was in his water pool that he's got now when I was there earlier today. So I think they're going to enjoy all the space they're going to have. So please get out and go see that new facility. Next up, Councilwoman Hiller. Councilwoman of Valdivia.

Just go enjoy the fiesta. It starts today. Food sale started at 4. It goes until Saturday. And I think the weather is supposed to get increasingly warm, so make sure you stay hydrated. But the Brandon Bridge is closed, so you're going to have to go around different ways. A lot of people will use River Road, and I cannot remember about the bus or trolley service. I'm sure someone else will remember, but hope to see you there.

Thanks. It's starting from the Holiday Building, so their parking lot, and they will take you over to the Fiesta Grounds. Councilman Ortiz.

I just wanted to announce that the city of Topeka announced a school supply drive, and we are partnering with the Fiesta Topeka Planning Committee to help students start the school year prepared by collecting new school supply donations, and you can leave them at any of the fire stations or take them to the city manager's office. This is just a good way to just give our kids the tools that they deserve. It's not about me, it's about the kids. So hopefully when you're in the stores, you just pick up that pad or two or pencil and just throw something extra in your basket and bring it. Thank you.

Councilman Banks.

Nothing, Deputy Mayor. Thank you.

Councilman Kell.

Do what people have begged for years and be quiet.

Councilman Miller.

That was funny. No, nothing from me.

Councilman Bradbury.

Nothing this evening.

Councilman McGee.

I have nothing to add. Thank you.

Mayor Duncan, do you have anything? I do not. Okay.

If I could just ask for one more, a little bit of grace and just one more. Braxton Copley, Deputy City Manager, sent out a notification this evening that we have closed on the hotel. So I just wanted to say thank you. He looks so happy, I know. But no, I just wanted to put that out there. So thank you, Braxton, for everything. And for the Mayor and Governing Body's leadership in this. Thank you.

Okay. We do have a need for two executive sessions. So... City Attorney, will you read first session?

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. The motion would be to recess into executive session for a time not to exceed 15 minutes to discuss personnel matters involving individual employees as allowed under KSA 75-4319B1. The open meeting will resume in this room in the City Council Chambers. The following individuals will be necessary to aid the governing body in its discussion. The City Manager, Human Resources Director, and the City Attorney, and any other staff members as needed.

Okay, I need a motion. Councilman Kell, motion in second from Councilwoman Bradbury. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Aye. That passes. We will take a five-minute break, and we will get started right away. Okay, the first executive session is finished. We have reconvened the meeting and are now back in open session with no action being taken by the governing body during the executive session. There is a need for a second executive session. City Attorney?

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. The motion would be to recess into executive session for a period not to exceed 60 minutes to discuss current and potential litigation as well as other matters deemed privileged under the attorney-client privilege pursuant to KSA 75-4319 . The open meeting will resume in this room, the governing body chambers. The following staff will be necessary to assist the governing body in its deliberations. The city attorney and other staff members as needed.

Okay. I am looking for a motion.

Okay.

Councilman Bradbury motioned to move into executive session. Councilman Banks seconded. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Me. Okay. We will go immediately back into executive session. And we ready? Okay. Let's go. Okay, we have finished our executive session. We have reconvened the meeting and are now back in open session with no action being taken by the governing body during the executive session. Seeing as there is no further business appearing before the governing body, this meeting is adjourned.