City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the August 18th, 2026 governing body meeting here in good old Topeka, Kansas. I will now call this meeting to order this evening. If you'd please turn your attention to Council Member Hiller, who has the invocation. Please rise if you are able.

Thank you, Mayor.

I chose to bring something forward this evening rather than a guest, but it's sort of a guest, I guess.

I always appreciate the invocation starts to our council meetings, whether they are deeply faith-based or more secular. We've been dealing with a lot of issues lately, and the way we've handled some of them has been unsettling and divisive, and many have argued that they don't need to be that way. In the midst of yet another batch of do this, don't do that communications, passionate, Worried, but truly everyone just wanting to do the right thing for everyone, we all on council got a short string of thoughtful, centering emails from an anonymous individual who called himself or herself Educate Yourself 785. I really appreciated them and told the person so and have taken the liberty of taking one of those messages and generalizing the example in it. to be more overall to the issues we've been facing lately. So what that person shared. Impactful change starts with local leadership. Local leadership having the courage to remain open-minded, educate themselves, and recognize that new information may lead to a different fact-based perspective. Leadership means being willing to step outside your comfort zone, examine something unfamiliar, and determine whether it can be done responsibly and successfully. There is no reason Topeka Shawnee County has to blindly accept new ideas or categorically reject them. Local leadership includes the elected leaders and local community members. The questions shouldn't be, is this good or bad, but is this something that could work for us? Add value. Get us better results in Topeka, Shawnee County. Too often we dismiss unconventional or unpopular ideas before taking the time to understand whether they could produce a meaningful benefit for our community. Similarly, we can be attracted by processes that appear to be a quick fix and find ourselves drawn to those versus actually figuring out what we need in a system and fixing that. Today, we are dealing with issues such as data centers, health and safety of rental properties, upzoning ideas, chickens, detention ponds, development subsidies, budgets, and hundreds of daily issues, with more emerging every day. If you're only searching and learning about negatives or the quick fixes, that's all you find. For all of us, then, blaze a trail. Have a vision for what is possible. Do the work. Set the bar high. Use your power for good. Don't let fear determine your legacy. I hope you appreciate that message as much as I did. Thank you again. Educate yourself, 785. Amen.

May our God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Roll call.

Mayor Duncan.

Here.

Council Members Hiller. Here. Valdivia Acla. Here. Ortiz.

Here.

Banks.

Here.

Kell.

Here.

Miller.

Here.

Bradbury. Here. McGee?

Here.

And Hofer? Here. All right. We have 10 present.

All right. We'll move on to appointments. City Clerk.

A is a board appointment recommending the reappointment of Toby Taggart to the Board of Building and Fire Appeals for a term ending September 6, 2028. B is a board appointment recommending the appointment of Shannon Coach to the Topeka Landmark Board of Trustees to fill a term ending December 31, 2027. And C is a board appointment recommending the reappointment of Kim Schultz to the Downtown Business Improvement District Advisory Board to fill a term ending June 18, 2028. All right.

Any questions about the appointments? If not, we have a motion to approve from Councilmember Kell and a second from Councilmember Miller. With that, let's take a vote.

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

All right. I believe Shannon Coke is here, maybe. There you are. Stand up. And if the rest of you are here, I don't know if Kim Schultz is here or Toby Tagger, but thank you for serving. We appreciate it. This was the easy part. Now, you know, you've got to do the work. Thank you very much. All right. We'll move on to item three, presentations. City Clerk.

First presentation is on Community Impact Measures for City Economic Development Incentives.

City Manager. Thank you, Mayor, members of the governing body. In this item, Leah Boling, Director of Economic Development, will lead us through a discussion of how we plan to incorporate identification and tracking of community impact measures as part of the process for consideration of future CID, TIF, and RHID development incentive applications. With that, I'll now turn this over to Leah to lead us through the discussion. Leah.

Thank you, City Manager. As City Manager said, tonight is a presentation on proposed community impact measures. Staff first took this in front of the Policy and Finance Committee in June for an initial discussion. In follow-up to that, we had conversations and meetings with community and came back to the Policy and Finance Committee on July 10th. That is what is being presented to you this evening. The measures that we're proposing are based on community and governing body input. We also conducted a thorough review of peer cities and what those cities do for their measures. And legal staff provided a memo in regards to the legal implications and considerations related to local contracting, workforce development, and job creation. Completion of these will be voluntary. However, applicants will be highly encouraged to provide responses to the questions. The information would be used for the city to evaluate the broader community impacts of the public benefits associated with the proposed development project. As City Manager mentioned, the three applications we're discussing inclusion in are the Community Improvement District, CID application, the Tax Increment Financing District, the TIF application, and the Reinvestment Housing Incentive District, RHID application. And each project, each developer would complete the section relative to their project. The first measure that staff have identified would encourage workforce training and development. We would ask the developer if any of their selected contractors or subcontractors have an established training program, such as safety training, skills training, apprenticeships, or on the job training. And we would ask if their selected contractors or subcontractors will be hiring out of a training program from one of the approved training program providers, such as Kansas Workforce One, the Department of Children and Family Services, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Support Services and Employment Program, the Kansas Office of Registered Apprenticeships, or the Kansas Commerce on the Job Training Program? And if yes, we would ask that the developer provide the details of what program they will be using. The second question and measure would highlight the importance of job creation and quality. So this is post-construction jobs and wages. We would ask the developer provide details pertaining to permanent full or part-time employees hired once the project becomes operational. And then we would ask that they list each position, number of positions, wages, and benefits that would be provided for each of those position packages. The third and final question we propose adding to our incentive applications would be their opportunity to describe a broader impact and any additional information of the project's broader impact related to workforce training, employment opportunities, or other community benefits that might result from their development. That would include other Other opportunities that they're using for local hiring commitments, partnerships, community benefits, workforce pipelines, and even environmental sustainability elements of their project. Again, these measures, these questions and applications would not be mandatory as some may pertain to certain developments while others may not. Staff would report the information to the governing body along with the incentive application that comes before you. The measures may then be used in the development agreements as staff negotiate the terms with the developer. So we would include potential clawback provisions and requirements for annual reporting that would allow us to ensure the commitments are being met by the developer as they move through the project and at project completion. Staff are presenting these to the governing body tonight as we would intend to update our applications and publish them on the website to begin September 1st and moving forward as part of the application process for those three incentives. As I mentioned before, this has been discussed at the policy and finance committee level on several occasions and I would happily turn it to the committee for any additional comments and I would be happy to stand for any questions.

All right. Council Member Kell.

Now this could be a question for the staff or the committee. This to me looks more like a after the fact, after the construction and all that's done, but a lot of what people have brought to us in public comment and open, or in the public comments and what's I'm trying to think of the word, the open media, the... Oh, when you sit there and read the statement. Okay, I remember. But it's the actual using contractors and subcontractors from this area from Topeka or even in Shawnee County rather than having someone haul a bunch of people from Kansas City to do all the work because that's what maybe they're familiar with is that developer wants to use the people they're familiar with where some of these incentives I know that people have mentioned up there that how many of these projects are using local contractors and subcontractors for the construction aspect of things.

So the measures pertaining to contractors and subcontractors are asking them to provide details of hiring from those job training programs. The legal staff provided a memo that's part of your packet this evening that outlines some of the considerations regarding interstate commerce and dormant commerce clause, which is why we did not incorporate requirements for hiring local contractors and subcontractors in these measures.

Not even a requirement, just reporting that. So that to me is almost where you can look at, hey, they're reporting that they're going to use 50% local subs. And to me that can be more beneficial for us as a body to sit there and say, okay, yeah, this project sounds really good. Plus they're using 50% local workforce. You know, that's where... versus, well, we plan to use zero local workforce. And, you know, it's just, I don't know, that's kind of what some of us up here have thought in the past and several people have said and are in common is the, not just the what's going to happen long term with this project, but what's happening also with the construction aspect of things. Mayor, if I may. Yep.

Council Member, that's an excellent point. And actually, We intentionally crafted that third item that she has that is very general in nature. And so if a developer says, I am committed to hiring to the greatest extent possible local contractors and engaging local suppliers, they have that ability. We have not forced that. We have not mandated it. Therefore, it doesn't trigger the Dormant Commerce Clause. And that would be something that we could even put into the development agreement if they tell us, yeah, we plan to use 50% of the people during the construction from local subs. We can put that in that we would solicit that information through that third question, that third bullet point, and that's something we could put into the development agreement. All right. Thank you.

Council Member Valdivia Alcala.

Thank you. I think This is a good first start, and good job by the committee. I would ask, I know Lizone for years and years has been pushing for what I believe are things such as, you know, what you're incorporating now. And I would ask, anyone on the committee, was he a part of this dialogue or Leah? Can you tell me that?

Yes, he was part of that discussion. I had asked that staff include him on those conversations.

Well, that's really good and encouraging to hear, so I appreciate that. Thank you.

Councilmember Hiller.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Leah. I'm new at being on the policymaking end of this. I guess we don't get to vote on this. We're just kind of getting told, and then there's a plan that you would do it. I guess I'm sensitive right now because of the unintended consequences of what I'm sure was a well-intended idea at the state to give people extra points. if they had given utility or given fee waivers to developers and instead it hit us hard because it was out of balance with some other things. And so I guess I sat down and I thought through the kinds of things that we've appreciated about companies and some of those are in there, but certainly jobs, offering jobs, but we know that just having a certain number of jobs isn't everything and people need a variety. Purchasing supplies or services locally seems important, maybe not mandatory. A business that would attract businesses like that, maybe a new book of business for us, that means a lot to me anyway, that might attract guests to our community. Whether it's a business that would then build whatever they're going to do and then every 20 years need to do a major update for whatever their industry is and also their reputation for involvement in the community. I just thought of all those things and they could be valuable as well. So is there a reason why that particular list is better or to the exclusion of these other elements? It's just a question.

I would say that we were looking along the lines of what was brought to us as far as workforce development and training. And these that were incorporated are based on other aspects of the developments that we generally see in the community. Those things that you've mentioned are still things that we look at and that we think through when we receive an application for any incentive. I would not say that we don't consider those. I would say that those are always on the forefront. They're not written into the applications, but they're certainly considered.

Thank you. And then one more, if I may. where you were talking about a certain requirement not being mandatory but optional and could be put into the development agreement. So what stops that particular item from becoming popular and becoming so normal it in effect becomes a standard?

I'll try to answer your question. So a CID and a TIF would be relevant to a retail or commercial development, whereas RHID is housing. Therefore, the job creation aspect of these questions would not pertain to the RHID development. because they wouldn't create jobs after the project becomes operational. So when we put these into the application, we would state that they're optional to complete. But when we get an application, if we know that there is going to be job creation, if we know that there is likely going to be contractor involvement and where the training may come from, we will have those conversations with the developer as they apply for the incentive. And then based on what information we gather, we would negotiate those terms to the development agreement. So if a CID applicant, for example, says they're going to create 40 jobs, we would have that ability to hold them accountable to that clause in the development agreement and have a clawback potentially for the incentive that we provide them.

So we don't actually have a point system with the ones that we do? You just kind of look at them overall? Point system?

We do not.

No. OK. I mean, again, we got caught on the point system that the state has with that. Oh, the LIHTC application? I'm not that familiar with them. That's why I'm asking the question. Right.

That's a completely different set program, whereas these are ones that we can choose to utilize or not utilize.

That was what I was trying to understand. Thank you.

I appreciate the work on this. I agree. I think it's a first step towards some other conversations. I know staff... believes that. I think that it also, for me, reinforces a couple things. First of all, this is just data that we should have. It's good information if we're going to give out incentives to have this data. It can also help us. We're talking to our federal partners and our state partners to show them, hey, why did you do this? And it adds to the economic impact and development impact and local job impact that we can try to provide that data to get their buy-in on these programs. But the other thing for me is, and I've always said this, is I think it reinforces with developers We're here to support you. We're here to be your partner. We want to be the best partner we can be. But if you want tax dollars, it's not always no strings attached, right? We want to know what the benefit is to the people who live in our city, to how it's going to help with things like employment and job development and growth. And these kind of questions get us towards a little better path for that expectation. I hope. We'll see. As time will tell. So I appreciate all the work that Leah's put into it. I appreciate that everything was done, Greg's brought to the table, and everything staff has done on it. Any other questions or comments on this item? If not, thank you, Leah.

Thank you.

All right. We have a second presentation this evening. City Clerk.

It's the City of Topeka 2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report.

City Manager. Thank you. Members of the governing body, as part of this agenda item on July 24th, Josh McInerney, Deputy Director of Budget and Finance, shared with you the comprehensive annual audit report, which is completed by Swindoll, Jensen, Hawk, and Lloyd, LLC. This evening, we will discuss the findings of the annual audit. With that, I will now turn this over to Stacey Hammond, Audit Director of Swindoll, Jensen, Hawk, and Lloyd, to lead us through the discussion. Stacey.

All right. Good evening, everyone. Just to let you know from the get-go, we've rebranded ourselves last week to SJHL, so no one has to remember Swindle, Jansen, Hawk, and Lloyd anymore, just the letters now. So that's all good news. But good evening, everyone. I'm Stacey Hammond, and I'm the partner on the city's financial statement audit. All of you have received three items from us, and one of them is a copy of the audited financial statements, a copy of the single audit report of our single audit of federal expenditures, and then finally, a report that's addressed to the mayor and members of the city council. That report that's addressed to the mayor and city council really puts into writing items that our audit standards require us to present about the results of your annual financial statement audit, and it forms the basis of my presentation this evening. If you happen to have it in front of you and want to open it up and follow along, I'm going to be going through the items in that report. And the first thing I need to visit with you about is our responsibilities in performing the city's financial statement audit. We did perform the city's audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards, government auditing standards issued by the Comptroller General of the United States. The provisions of the Single Audit Act, Uniform Guidance, the Office of Management and Budget Compliance Supplement, and standards set forth in the Kansas Municipal Audit and Accounting Guide. Those standards require us to perform procedures in order to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the City's financial statements are free from material misstatement. The procedures that we performed did include examining on a test basis evidence supporting the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. We also reviewed the accounting principles that management used, significant estimates made by management, and we evaluated the overall financial statement presentation. The most important thing that I'll be telling you this evening is that as a result of our audit, we did determine that the financial statements of the city are presented fairly in all material respects in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Therefore, we issued what we call an unmodified audit opinion, which is the best kind of opinion that the city can receive. The second item that I'm required to discuss with you tonight relates to the city's accounting policies and practices, including significant accounting estimates. We're required to bring to your attention any changes in management's accounting policies, adoption of new accounting standards, significant or unusual transactions, or significant accounting estimates. There's only one item in this area that we're required to present on this year, and that is that the city does have several significant accounting estimates and those are summarized on pages 4 and 5 of that report to the mayor and city council. The city's significant accounting estimates are the valuation of investments at fair value, self-insurance reserves, the net pension liability, the results from the city's participation in CAPERS, as well as total other post-employment benefit liabilities. Our responsibility as auditors is to make sure that the city has a reasonable process in place to measure and record each of these accounting estimates. We were able to conclude for each significant accounting estimate that the city does indeed have a reasonable process in place to measure and record it. We move back to page two of the report to the mayor and city council. There is a section titled audit adjustments where we note that we did make adjustments to the city's trial balance that was presented to us to begin our audit. Those are summarized at the very end of this report. Some of those entries were prepared by the client and given to us during the audit. There were also reclassing items or entries that relate to activity like debt or capital assets. that the city doesn't record on its trial balance on a daily basis, but does report at year-ends so that your entity-wide financial statements can be reported in accordance with standards set forth by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board. The final item that I'd like to discuss related to the financial statement audit relates to observations about the audit process. And in this section, we would let you know if anything bad had happened during the audit, if we'd had any significant difficulties, disagreements with management, anything like that. I'm pleased to report that there's nothing in any of those areas that we need to discuss this evening. Management in the city was extremely cooperative throughout the entire audit process, and they were very transparent in answering the numerous questions that we had. Before I open it up for questions, I would like to talk briefly about the single audit of the city's federal expenditures. We did test one major program this year, which was the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds grant. We had no findings related to that major program. And as a result of our single audit of federal expenditures, we did issue an unmodified opinion on compliance for the major program tested. which is also the best kind of opinion that you can receive on the single audit of federal expenditures. With that, I would turn it over to questions. Before that, I would like to thank Josh and everyone in the finance department staff for their preparation for the audit. To achieve a good audit result is... not something that happened because they rapidly got ready for us the two weeks before the audit started, but it happened because there were good policies and procedures in place all throughout the year. So we appreciate, you know, all of city management's assistance in helping get ready for the audit. And with that, I turn it over to any questions that anyone might have.

All right. Thank you. Questions or comments from the governing body? See none. I think your work here is done. Thank you for that report.

All right. Thank you, everyone. Have a good evening.

With that, we'll move on to the consent agenda. City Clerk.

A, our minutes of the regular meeting of August 11, 2026. And there are two cereal malt beverage license applications. The first one's for Casey's, number 5155, located at 4020 Southwest 6th Avenue. The second store is at Quick Trip, number 280, located at 3901 Southwest Topeka Boulevard. And staff is recommending approval.

All right. We have a motion to approve from Council Member Ortiz and a second from Council Member McGee. Please take the vote.

Council Member Valdivia-Acla, you got it.

All right.

We have 10 yes. The motion carries.

All right. Move on to our action item. We start with action item A, city clerk.

A is an ordinance introduced by city manager, Dr. Robert Perez, authorizing and providing for the issuance of $8,185,000 aggregate principal amount of general obligation bonds, series 2026A of the city of Topeka, Kansas, providing for the levy and collection of an annual tax for the purpose of paying the principal of an interest on said bonds as they become due, authorizing certain other documents and actions in connection therewith and making certain covenants with respect thereto.

City manager.

Thank you. Mayor and members of the governing body, on May 5th, we briefed you on the bonds we intended to sell and the projects we intended to fund as part of the adopted capital improvement plan. On August 6th, we provided you additional notes on the city's AA bond rating and highlighted that we would be issuing 15 year terms on these bonds as well as our plan to hold this discussion this evening. With that, I will ask Kalyn Dwyer, Managing Director of Columbia Capital Management, and Josh McInerney, Deputy Director of Budget and Finance, to lead us through the next three items, which I recommend for approval.

Gentlemen. Thank you, City Manager. Good evening, everybody. So just to recap, we had a bond sale today, and Kalyn's going to go over the results of the sale. But real quick, I wanted to mention we had a ratings call with S&P and that reaffirmed our bond rating at AA. And so we wanted to do the bond sale on the night that we did the audit presentation because the S&P uses that report as one of the criteria to inform the rating system. Long story short, maintain the same bothering, which is good news. So I'll turn it over to Kaylin to get into the details of the sale, the first sale.

Thank you, Josh. Good evening, Mayor, City Council. Kaylin Dwyer with Columbia Capital Management. Columbia Capital is the city's financial advisor, municipal advisor. We've served the city for a number of years. Like Josh said, as part of the city's annual capital financings here, we sold both bonds and notes. I'll cover the bonds here. $8.185 million in general obligation bonds were sold this morning. We had three bidders show up to place bids for the bonds, FHN Financial, Robert Baird, and Bernardi Securities. These are the investment banks and broker dealers that showed up to place bids. FHN Financial won with a true interest cost or overall average yield on the bonds of 3.99%, just under 4%. The second place bidder was Robert Baird at 3.99%, and Bernardi at third place with that 4.05%. So like Josh said, we were in the market this morning. It was successful. We do like to get at least three bids. And the fact that your first place and your second place bid were separated by one one hundredth of one percent, I think is a good indication that the bonds are priced pretty efficiently. This, of course, is a blind auction. So folks go into it not knowing what their competitors are going to bid. So it's always neat when they come out that close to give you an idea of how efficient the marketplace is for bonds of this high quality. So with that said, I will open it up for any questions.

Questions or comments from the governing body? Council Member Ortiz.

So can you tell me why do we get three bids? Like can the first one back out and then we go by the second one? Why is it important that we get three bids?

We like, well, we want to get as many bids as possible because we want folks to buy the bonds and increase the competition for the bonds and to lower the city's borrowing rate as much as possible. There are also tax rules for getting three bids, which I don't want to get too far into the weeds here. Bond counsel's in the audience. I'm sure he'd be more than happy to bore you with some of these details. Kevin, no offense.

I can talk to him at another time.

Yeah, no, just to answer your question, the more bids, the better. We want folks to show up. We want folks to invest in the city of Topeka and to buy the city's bonds. So if we got just two bids at 3.99% and 3.98%, and we know going in, by the way, that we're looking at deals across the country. the coupon, the interest rate on the bonds, Your peers immediately in the state, city of Olathe, city of Leawood. We have an idea of where these bonds are pricing going in. Similarly, we rated credit. So even if we get just one bid, which I'll do a little bit of foreshadowing here when we talk about the notes, which is actually what happened this morning. Even if we only get one bid, we have a strong indication of where those bonds should price in an efficient market. So to answer your question, the more bids, the better. It increases. It increases demand for the city's bonds and ultimately drives down borrowing costs. But the fact that these bonds sold so closely here, the cover bid being just one one-hundredth of one percent behind the winning bid, gives you an idea of how competitive the market is for these securities. Yes, ma'am.

I'll just make one comment. I do appreciate, as I have railed and ranted a few times through the years up here, when we've had these conversations, we're like, great, you've told us after the fact. The heads up would have been nice. I will thank staff. You've been listening. You gave us a heads up a couple times before they went to sale. That way, if we did have questions or concerns, it gave us an opportunity as council members and myself as mayor to say, wait, what? We're doing what and when? And so thank you for that. It does make a difference. And so we're not caught off guard that, hey, you sold them already. So I just want to say thank you to staff for that. keeping us in the loop this time. Well, if there's no more questions or comments on this item, motion is always in order. Motion to approve from Deputy Mayor Hofer, a second from Councilmember Kell. If there's no other comments or questions, we will take the vote.

OK, we have 10 yes. The motion carries.

All right. We'll move on to action item B. City Clerk?

B is a resolution introduced by city manager Dr. Robert Perez prescribing the form and details of an authorizing and directing the sale and delivery of $8,185,000 of aggregate principal amount of general obligation bonds series 2026A of the city of Topeka, Kansas. Previously authorized by the ordinance of the issuer making certain covenants and agreements to provide for the payment and security thereof and authorizing certain other documents and actions connected therewith.

City manager.

Thank you. I gave the introduction on the last item, so I'll just ask the gentleman to run us through this item.

So this is just a resolution reaffirming the bond sale.

Any questions or comments from the governing body? If not, we have a motion to approve from Deputy Mayor Hofer. And a second from Councilmember Ortiz. Let's take a vote, please.

Okay, we have 10 yes. The motion carries.

Action item C, city clerk.

C is a resolution introduced by City Manager Dr. Robert Perez authorizing and directing the issuance, sale, and delivery of $5,260,000 in the aggregate principal amount of general obligation temporary renewal and improvement notes series 2026A, providing for the levy and collection of an annual tax if necessary for the purpose of paying the principal of and interest on said notes as they become due. Josh. Josh.

Thanks, Brenda. This is just an adjacent item. Now, this isn't permanently bonding the project. This is just getting temporary funding to eventually bond it like we did the previous item. And then we had a sale today, and there was only one bidder, but I'll let Kaylin get into the details of that.

Great. Thanks, Josh. So like Josh said, we also were in the market this morning with general obligation temporary notes, which are just one-year financing. They'll come due tomorrow. Next October 1st, just like last year's notes that we priced in 2025, come due this October 1st. So these notes are renewing a portion of the notes we issued last year. And their size, the final issuance size here is 5.260 million. And unfortunately, we only had one bidder. That's the bad news. The good news is it was a strong rate and it was a good interest cost. TIC, true interest cost of 3.024%. When we only get one bid, just like I was addressing your question earlier, it makes us go back and we want to look at peers across the peers that have entered the market recently to get an idea of how aggressive this bid was. And we knew going into the market that about 3% is where we wanted to hit on a TIC basis. In fact, we were a little higher than that on our pre-pricing numbers. But the yield for investors is 265. And the city of Leawood sold about a week ago A little higher than that. A yield that was a little higher than that. City of Olathe sold a month ago, I think they sold at 271 was the yield. Now there are a variety of, so from that perspective, the city's bonds priced well, and that's how we knew we had a good result in hand. But the city of Olathe, I think they did price upwards of $100 million in notes. Sometimes when you get big deals like that, you attract more investors, but you also need to place those bonds with more investors, and so pricing can be a little weaker. So I'm not terribly surprised that we outperformed on a yield basis in that regard. But I did want to provide some context, since we only got one bid, that we can be confident that the bid is aggressive and it's a fair market bid. And Oppenheimer and Company is the name of the investment firm that purchased the bonds.

Great. Thank you for that. Questions or comments from the governing body? Does not appear to be. So we have a motion to approve from Deputy Mayor Hofer and a second from Council Member Ortiz. If there's no other questions or comments, please take a vote.

Okay, we have 10 yes. The motion carries.

All right. With that, we move on to action item D. City Clerk.

D is establishing a public hearing date of September 8, 2026 for the purpose of hearing and answering objections of taxpayers related to the proposed City of Topeka 2027 operating budget, setting the maximum expenditure limits, and authorizing the publication of the public hearing notice.

City Manager. Thank you. Mayor and members of the governing body, as part of our annual budget process, we are required by state law to hold a public hearing to allow for public feedback on the maximum amount of taxes to be levied as part of our FY 2027 budget. With that, through this item, I recommend that the governing body move to set a public hearing date of September 8, 2026, authorized publication of the public hearing notice in the Topeka Metro newspaper, and setting the maximum amount of tax levy. And I'll turn this over to Josh McInerney, Deputy Director of Budget and Finance, to lead us through this item.

Thank you, City Manager. Like City Manager said, pretty easy item. We're just setting a public hearing date for the budget, which will be one week prior to when we actually have to approve the budget, which is on September 15th.

Questions or comments from the governing body? So I'm going to ask a question because maybe it's in here and I don't see it or it's not in my. Do we need to do something tonight for our revenue neutral hearing? Are we good?

We're good.

Did we do that last week?

We did that last week. We're good.

Just making sure. I'm losing track of that.

No, you're good.

All these hearings start to run together. All right. With that, I don't see any questions or comments from the governing body, but we have a motion to approve from Council Member Ortiz and a second from Council Member Kell. Looks like that's all, so let's take a vote.

Hey, we have 10 yes. The motion carries.

All right. Thank you. With that, we move on to action item E, city clerk.

He is an ordinance introduced by city manager Dr. Robert Perez amending the district map referred to and made a part of the zoning ordinances by section 185050 of the Topeka Municipal Code by providing for certain changes in zoning on property located at 1035 Northeast Monroe Street from R2 single family dwelling district to M12 family dwelling district, all being within the city of Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas.

City manager.

Thank you. Mayor and members of the governing body, this item which I recommend for approval is a request to rezone the property from R2 single family dwelling district to M12 family dwelling district. M1 zoning that would allow the owner to renovate the vacant single family dwelling for use as a complex. With that, I want to ask Dan Warner, Director of Planning and Development, to lead us through this item.

Dan. Thank you, city manager. Mayor governing body, the first item is a zoning change from single family to multifamily, M1 specifically. This property is located at 1035 Northeast Monroe. The applicant is trying to convert the house and then use it as a duplex. So the property was constructed as a single family home back in the day, but generally wasn't used that way. It really has been used as a boarding house in the past or a residential care home. So it hasn't really been used much as a single family home. The property has been vacant for at least the last 10 years. One other point about the duplex is that the property is pretty large, the house is large, so it meets the requirements to have a duplex, specifically the parking requirements on the site, so it's big enough to accommodate all the parking. The applicant held a neighborhood information meeting. A couple of folks attended that. Planning Commission held a public hearing on the rezoning and recommended approval. Staff recommends approval as well. I'd be happy to try to answer any questions.

Questions or comments from the governing body on this? Councilmember Hiller.

Thank you, Mayor. This is not a concern about this particular project, but I'm guessing that this request for zoning started some months ago now. With the change in the state law allowing duplexes by right even in R1, is this really necessary?

Councilwoman, the state law, the bill I think you're referencing is SB 418. That did not do that. That bill did not make duplexes allowed in single-family zoning. That's not what happened with that bill. It dealt with some other things. It basically says if you've got the zoning in place, then there's some by right conditions attached to that. So cities can't really hold you up for this, that and whatever else. So it didn't authorize duplexes and single family. It just basically said if you have zoning that allows the use, then you'd have to allow everything else by right after that. So the building permit and everything else. That's kind of the gist of the bill.

And I will say it was also specific to properties that are 2,500 square feet and less only, and this one's a little over 2,600 square feet. So it doesn't make the cut, even if there were some issues there by a solid 100 square feet.

Thank you. Both.

Any other questions or comments? No? We have a motion to approve from Councilmember Valdivia-Alcala. We have a second from Councilmember Bradbury. No, there's no other questions or comments. I'll ask the clerk to take a vote.

Ex parte communication.

Oh, that's right. That's important. Can't forget that. That's why we have a good clerk over there. All right. Prior to proceeding with this vote, each member of the governing body who is engaged in ex parte communication with any individual either in favor of or against the matter being considered. must state that the communication occurred and indicate that even in light of having engaged in the communication, they are able to fairly, objectively, and impartially consider the measure based upon the evidence provided on the record. The record includes the Planning Commission minutes, the staff report and its attachments, the public comments made during the Planning Commission hearing, and similar relevant information related to the matter. Is there anyone here who needs to indicate any ex parte communication on this specific issue? Council Member Valdiviacola.

I received a couple of emails, and I am able to render an impartial decision.

Anybody else? All right. If not, it looks like now we can take a vote.

OK, we have 10 yes. The motion carries.

All right, with that, we move on to action item F, city clerk.

F is an ordinance introduced by City Manager Dr. Robert Perez amending the district map referred to and made a part of the zoning ordinances by Section 185050 of the Topeka Municipal Code on property located at 1135 Southwest College Avenue from R2 Single Family Dwelling District to PUD Planned Unit Development R2 and O&I to use groups.

All right. Dan, I'm assuming this is you again.

Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Governing Body, the next case is a rezoning from R2 single family, the current zoning of that property, to a PUD, which is a planned unit development that's got R2 and ONI2 base districts, so R2 and ONI2 uses. Property located at 1135 Southwest College. So the existing building is about 131,000 square feet, and it was a former nursing home. The ONI2 use group will accommodate what's being proposed by the applicant, a use of 35,000 square feet of the building as a medical clinic for prenatal and postnatal care. The R2 use group, which is, again, it's an R2 and ONI2, that would accommodate using the rest of the building as a church sanctuary. The reason for the rezoning is really adding the clinic to the use and about 35,000 square feet of that building. Last point to make here is that Topeka Bible Church is in good standing with the Kansas Secretary of State. The applicant held a well-attended neighborhood information meeting and answered a number of questions about the project. Planning Commission held a public hearing on the rezoning and recommended approval. Staff recommends approval as well. I'd be happy to try to answer any questions.

Questions or comments from the City Council? See any? So do I have a motion? No? No? Oh, there he is. Motion to approve from Councilmember Banks and the second from Councilmember Miller. And again, this time I won't forget. Prior to proceeding with the vote, each member of the governing body who is engaged in ex parte communication with any individual either in favor of or against the matter being considered must state that the communication occurred and indicate that even in light of having engaged in the communication, they were able to fairly, objectively, and impartially consider the measure based upon the evidence provided on the record. The record includes the planning commission minutes, the staff report and its attachments, the public comments made during the planning commission hearing, and similar relevant information related to the manor. If there are no other comments or questions, then we shall take a vote, please.

We have 10 yes. The motion carries.

All right. With that, we move on to action item G, city clerk.

G is a resolution introduced by city manager, Dr. Robert Perez, making certain findings pursuant to the Kansas Reinvestment Housing Incended District Act with regard to an application submitted by F&L Enterprises Incorporated to establish an RHID and requesting that the Secretary of Commerce review the resolution and advise the governing body.

City manager. Thank you.

Madam, I'm the governing body, and as part of this item, I'm not going to lie to you.

Our team received a reinvestment housing incentive district RHID Step 1 application from F&L Enterprises, Inc. Let's develop our own 73 lots within the Misty Harbor subdivision located in Southwest Topeka. Given the availability and the ability to develop those lots, I recommend approval to authorize us to submit the Misty Harbor subdivision RHID application to the Secretary of Commerce for review. With that, I'll ask Leah Boland, Director of Economic Development, to lead us through this item.

Leah.

Thank you, City Manager. As stated, tonight is the first step in the RHID process for an application received by F&L Enterprises, Inc. Tonight you have in front of you a resolution staff is asking you to approve this evening. F&L Enterprises, Inc. is the applicant for a contiguous RHID district in the Misty Harbor subdivision. Due diligence was done on the applicant and affiliated parties. They are in active and good standing with the Secretary of State. There are no outstanding delinquent taxes or special assessments and no outstanding utilities, zoning, or code issues. The proposed district would contain 73 lots likely developed in three different phases. It would consist of single family homes ranging from four to five bedroom, three bathroom, three car garage units with floor plans ranging from 1,800 to 2,800 square feet. They would be for sale homes. anticipated in the range of $425,000 to $550,000. These homes would be designed to address the shortage in our community for market rate and higher end residential homes. These homes would not be addressing shortage in affordable or workforce housing. classification, but the upscale and luxury home shortage as indicated on the screen on this slide according to our 2026 housing needs analysis between those two categories show a pent up demand of 203 total units. The 73 units being proposed by this Misty Harbor development in conjunction with the Lawrence Bay development, which was 52 lots, still leaves a delta of 78 just within the pent-up demand for those two units. So we're still with these two developments short in those two areas. Tonight you have in front of you the resolution as I mentioned. It's the first preliminary part of the RHID process as required by state law that the governing body would adopt a resolution authorizing staff to submit the application and resolution to the Department of Commerce. Once staff receive approval from the Department of Commerce, staff would work with the developer to negotiate, I'm sorry, to obtain their housing development plan, which is their step two application and their financial pro forma so that we can conduct our but-for analysis. We would then convene the RHID review team to evaluate that but-for analysis and then start negotiating terms of the development agreement. We would come to the governing body with another resolution to set the public hearing date in which the governing body would review and adopt an ordinance to formally create that RHID district, approve the project plan, and the development agreement. I'm sorry, Mr. McMillan is in the room, the developer. He would be happy to answer any questions specific to the development, and with that I would be happy to answer any questions.

We do have one individual signed up for public comment on this issue, so we'll start with that. Ms. Danielle Twimlow.

Thank you.

I want to point out I do not know this developer or have anything against them as developers or individuals. I want to read a different portion of the information that was included in the packet, and that is the housing needs analysis that is being revised from the 2020 study. And there's some really important things that we need to hear, because I think we need to really have the question answered that I've asked a gazillion times, is this RHID unlimited? Or is the state going to just continuously approve this over and over again until we're like, hey, this isn't a great idea to give it to all these upscale luxury housing? So I'm just going to read out some of the things that came from this housing study. affordability stress remains widespread, particularly for lower income households and availability in the 60% to 120% workforce range is increasingly constrained. Since the 2020 study, housing costs increased faster than local wages and income growth has not kept pace with rising housing costs. The updated analysis indicates that a different mix of unit types and price points is needed, especially affordable housing, workforce housing, and smaller units. Additional financial tools are necessary to encourage the private sector to construct or renovate housing that meets these needs. It goes on to say that constrained availability of workforce housing limits the city's ability to house workers across the wage spectrum, which impacts the ability to attract new industry, potentially limiting the city's future economic growth and development. Public tools will be needed where the market conditions alone are unlikely to deliver needed housing, including infill development in at-risk and intensive care neighborhood areas. Incentives supporting the construction and renovation of quality housing will continue to be an important component of the city's future and economic well-being. So again, we have heard not only from the definition of an RHID, But over and over again with our housing study, that we are providing these incentives to the wrong price points. Our area median income for Topeka is $61,030. So when we're talking workforce, right, housing here, that 60 to 120% of the AMI, we're looking at home affordability of being between $180,000 to $220,000. for a purchase, right? When we know that that's going to go down with that low income range of 59,000 to 117,000. That's how little our wage growth has gone with these housing costs. So we have to be very intentional when giving away these incentives because not only are we subsidizing people are going to make a lot of money off of this anyways, right? And I know there's costs and they're upfronting it and all that jazz. That's the job they chose. But at the end of the day, we don't have unlimited resources at our disposal. When we're talking that in this study that's attached in your stuff, that the workforce housing need is 239 at that demand. The affordability, 209. far exceeding, far exceeding one of those areas alone, both the upscale and luxury combined. So we really need to be way more intentional about our discussions or we're going to, as our study has said, we're going to see an economic impact when we're not investing in the people who are already living in our community and needing this housing. So I ask you to reconsider.

Council Member Valdivia Alcala.

Thank you. I don't have any questions. I just have a comment. For this price point, there's just no way that I can support this. And I'm thinking about the but-for test. I'm just wondering, can somebody give me the definition again of the but-for test?

But for the incentive, the developer would not be able to do the development.

So that's one of the criteria that's being used. So you're going to not usually I mean, the process is going to be looking at this. And if this entity does not get this incentive, then they won't be able to build over half a million dollar houses. And it kind of makes you wonder, perhaps they're in the wrong line of business. But there is no way, not with the needs that we have. I just can't do this. So I can't support it. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from the governing body? Councilmember Miller.

Thank you. You said the developer is here to ask any questions too? That is correct. Would they mind coming up?

I guess before you ask the question, I could do a statement to help understand it.

If I today paid for that development and then sold each lot, I would lose over $400,000 off that development for the cost of the development. That development is costing $1.6 million to develop. $50,000 a lot sale calculated on 23 lots. I understand what she's saying. I have no problem understanding that. If I could do that, I would do it in a heartbeat. There's no mathematical. I can't put $1.6 million into a development and build a $180,000 house. It doesn't work. So there has to be other alternatives if you want to get affordable housing. The city needs to supply the land. The city needs to supply the infrastructure. And then I could go in and afford to build a 1,200 square foot house. I've been doing it for 38 years. In 1990, I was selling 1,500 square foot houses for $109,000. What I do, I look back at myself and I go, I was a dummy. I should have kept every house I had, should have rented them, and then sold them today's day. And I wouldn't have to worry about a dime in my whole life. So development in Topeka is not a get rich. It's making a living for people like me. I'm a small developer. I construct the houses. The only way I can make it work is to build the houses on the lot, and the combination of two is where I make my living. So if I could open up 100 lots and sell 100 lots in a year, it'd change the aspect. But in Topeka, I open up 20 to 23 lots of phase. It takes me three and a half years to finish that out in the city of Topeka. So you take my holding costs and everything else that's incorporated into that, I would be broke by just selling lots. So I have to do the infrastructure, I have to put the houses in, and I have to sell it as a package deal to make it work for me. I understand low-income housing. I got some solution ideas, but because of the way the ordinance are you guys have, you can't do it the way it needs to be done because you have certain things on your books that will not allow it to happen. So if you guys are really serious about low-income housing, I can help you change your ordinance, and I can get you into some cheap housing. But the way everything's set up by the city of Topeka, you can't do it to get affordable housing. So that's where we're at on this. So these people talking about high-priced homes. I sold houses for $109,000 and making the same margin I'm making as I'm selling for $450,000. Three times investment, the same profit level. That don't mathematically work out either. So, all right, I'd be glad to answer.

Does that answer your question, Councilman Miller?

Kind of. But from what you said, though, down the line for me to approve this or to get my vote on it, because I understand your limitations, I am. You know, I'm not a developer, but I understand your margins are pretty thin on this regardless. You say you have some ideas that could help us increase housing at an affordable rate. I would like to hear that. Right now? Not necessarily right now. You've got 30 minutes. No, no, no. But at some point, I would like you to be able to send that to the city council and to the city manager so that we can have a discussion about those aspects before we have the second vote when this comes back around.

Be glad to sit down with any of you at a committee or whatever you want. And come on by the Policy and Finance Committee. Okay.

We would love to have you and have that conversation.

Michelle has my email, so you can email me, and I'll be more than glad. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you very much.

Council Member Kell.

So by this chart that was presented to us, hold on a second. Sorry. The keyboard's. Does this go under workforce or upscale?

It is the upscale and luxury. It falls within those two.

Okay. The one thing I can sit there and say about this, this is able to open up some of that subsidized affordable and workforce housing because those are the people, like my wife and myself, we started out at the cheapest house we could afford back in 2008 right before the economy crashed. So now our daughters are out of the house. We're better off in life. We're not able to move up because there might be something available for us to move up to, which now allows someone to come into the house that we're in now. So it has a trickle effect where you have some of these houses, people are able to go up into those upper houses that now can afford it, and now open up some of those other categories for people to go into. The bad thing is, when it comes to the affordable housing, A lot of those, before they even hit the market, they're bought up by a landlord. So that's the sad thing there. So it kind of defeats the purpose of someone going from affordable workforce up to upscale, and then that landlord coming in and grabbing it before it even hits the market sometimes. But this has that long-term effect of... opening up that that market more because the more more house on the market the more availability someone has to move up or as we try to grow our population someone moves into town into it into one of those homes thank you council member valdivia um thank you i have just got to admit i'm very intrigued with where councilman miller is going

So if that would ever get on the policy and finance agenda, that would definitely be something I think worth all of us tuning into because that's needed conversation to have. I still don't support this, but I mean that move is really good. Thank you.

Council Member Banks. Thank you, Mayor. Just a comment. For a while now, I've been saying to our group some of our decision makers, we really need to take a look at our guidelines for developers and streamline so that we can get these types of projects done. We can't expect developers to take a loss when we're looking at meeting the needs of our community right now when it comes to housing. I don't know what we can do, but I sit on that policy and finance committee and I would be more than happy to sit down and hear some of the things that you think we should do because you're not the only developer that has expressed the same concerns that you were just talking about. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Hillard.

Just across the table on this same conversation, I I think we're all really hungry for that kind of input. I hope that we could just have him come to a council meeting so we can all hear it the first time at the same time and hear the comments and the questions and so on. Personally hungry for it. Either that or, looking at Leah over here, we've talked in terms of vacant properties and addressing those issues about having a housing summit where we talk about a lot of those different things. And I know she's working on some pieces, but... I think we're all hungry for that, so thanks for bringing it up. And I hope we can all come so we don't have to get it in pieces and make him come five times.

Council Member Bradbury.

Thank you. I was curious if we've had any other applications or conversations with other developers about potentially applying for RHID for single-family homes. more in the workforce housing range versus apartments. We've had a lot of those applications or HID applications for our apartments, but we really haven't had anything that's come to us recently for single family housing.

I'm happy to take this one. So, as you'll remember, approximately three weeks ago, we did have the Step 1 RHID application for single-family homes in the Lawrence Bay subdivision, the Dultmeyer-Rollenhagen subdivision that is approximately 50, 52 homes. So we have that one. Commerce has approved the initial application. The Roland Hagen Daltmeier team is putting together their project plan as well as their financials. So we will be doing our analysis and then coming forward to you. Urich Center, that was multifamily market rate for senior housing developer has not moved forward on the step two. there is a potential for development in North Topeka, that we've had the step one RHID, that would be for more workforce, but we've not seen the RHID step two. And as, I mean, Floyd is one of our better developers. I mean, honestly, he and I will agree to disagree on a lot of things, especially the but-for test, but he is a asset to this community. And It is a challenge in terms of making the math work once you have to purchase the real estate, put the infrastructure in, and then build those homes. very eloquently put it, it doesn't math out if you're trying to sell something in that $180,000 range when you have millions of dollars of infrastructure costs in terms of just getting the water, sewer, street, and sanitary in, right? I'm happy to hear his ideas. Look forward to that discussion with the Policy and Finance Committee.

I'll also point out, too, that in addition to the RHID, we did also award, forget the dollar amount, to SENT for the single-family homes as part of the Portable Housing Trust Fund. And then we also had the Weibel development that was looking at condos, about 24 workforce income-based condos. So, yeah, I think we've kind of been able to hit those other areas as well through other incentives.

Council Member Hiller.

Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Just a second. I think from my recollection, it was we just haven't had very many RHIDs for that lower price point for single family homes. It's more along the lines of apartments. And that would make sense, I guess, about the margins.

Council Member Hiller.

Well, just across the table again, I I'm realizing that Leah has put together a master vacant properties proposal or actually a calling vacant properties movement. Um, for public health and safety, vacant vacant structures and vacant properties is, has been an undeveloped element of the changing our culture property maintenance. Now that we have her position and she's active on it, she's actually going to be presenting us a compendium of all the different processes that are in place right now. And one of the things that's also happened with the housing study is that the first one that was done in 2020, only identified that we needed 4,000 units, I'm going to say in general, but wasn't counting all the vacant properties that we had in all of our older neighborhoods. And they have considered that this time. So I think we'll all be eager to have a presentation on the housing study and get inside that as well and see those new numbers. Because we have a tremendous amount of property that mom and pop individuals buy to either sell or rent in our neighborhoods, and it's certainly a win-win to work on affordable housing with structures we already have. Thanks.

Council Member Miller.

Last thing on this, thank you very much for being willing to have this conversation with us right now in person. I appreciate that, and I do look forward to that conversation at the Policy and Finance Committee. The final thing is, if some changes were made, would you right now confirm that on the record that if some of those changes were made, you'd be willing to invest some of that capital? If it's all right, it can be done, yes.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Valdivia-Alcala.

Thank you. I would just say with the Weibel development, I have talked to him, and they've run into some glitches. So I would say that, you know, I don't know if we can actually count that. The money is there, but I don't know if we can actually count that. Yes, so that's just an FYI. Thank you.

We have a motion to approve from Councilmember Kell and a second from Councilmember Hofer. Any final questions or comments on this issue? If not, let's take a vote, please. Thank you, Floyd.

Thank you.

Okay, we have nine yes with Councilmember Valdivia-Ocala voting no. The motion carries.

All right, next up on our agenda this evening is action item H, which relates to setting utility rates. If there is no objection, I'm going to move this item to our September 1st meeting. After last week's presentation, there was discussion among staff and council members and myself that said they'd like to pull together some more information, answer some questions that were put in front of them, and bring us a little more clear information as to what exactly the request is going to be to move forward. And so they'd like a couple weeks to do that. So again, if there's an objection, speak now. Otherwise, we will circle back to this on September 1. All right. All right. Well, with that, I think we can move on. So we are now moving on to non-action items. First up is non-action item A, city clerk.

A is discussion regarding the allocation of 2027 social services grant recommendations in the amount of $491,904. City Manager.

Thank you. Mayor and members of the governing body, as part of this item, which I recommend approval for, we're presenting the Social Service Grant Committee's recommendations to allocate our annual social service grant dollars totaling approximately $492,000. With that, I'll ask Carrie Higgins, Director of Housing and Homeless Services, to lead us through this item. Carrie.

Thank you. Good evening. So just some background information. We do contract with United Way for these grants. This process also starts with the Social Service Committee first, and then it comes to the governing body for the final recommendations. The total amount is $491,900 with roughly $424,000 of that coming from the general fund and roughly $67,000 of that coming from CDBG. And with that, I will turn it over to Brett Martin with United Way. He's online.

Can you hear us, Brett?

Yes, I can hear you. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity to share. What you see in front of you are recommendations from volunteers and then from the Social Services Grants Committee for your approval. What you will note this year is that the scores that you see on the grants are higher than they have been past. That has to do with, we believe, better applications that have come in from our applicants. Those applications that were submitted this year, many of the individuals have reached out over the past couple of years to our team for training and technical assistance. grant writing, but also on logic models and on performance and outcomes. And as you can see this year, the scores were higher. What that means, of course, based on the process as laid out by the Social Services Grants Committee is that there are fewer organizations that receive dollars. just a reminder the way the process works is that the applications are scored and then once we have gone through the process the score is multiplied by the request amount and then that amount is subtracted from the total amount so when you have higher scores like this the cutoff amount tends to be higher than it would be in prior years so for example Our cutoff score this year was 88% for a cutoff. In prior years, a cutoff score for us would be somewhere in the low 80s or high 70s. But again, we are pleased with the higher scores from our nonprofit applicants, and we submit this to the governing body for your discussion. Happy to entertain any questions that you might have.

All right. Questions or comments for Brett or Kerry? Councilmember Kell.

So this is my fourth year on the committee. It's first year back after taking a year off. As Brett mentioned, I think their ability to help out the applicants has created the system to be a lot better for the applicants to be able to ask questions, go through things, help them out, and it shows when those, when we've had the applications, had the appeals, things like that, who's reached out, who's gone through certain things, and they are very helpful for all the applicants, and that just shows how the scores, it seems like every year, get a little higher and higher, and Unfortunately, it does cut off some organizations, but it means that with our objectives, that's where the money is going to the best needs of what we need right now. So I just want to say thank you to United Way for the work they do, and thank you to all of the applicants.

Council Member Miller.

Thank you, Mayor. I also think that we do a great job with this. Carrie and Brett, you guys are wonderful people and you do great work for our community and I appreciate you along with everyone who's a part of this. there are some people who don't make the cut and That does not mean that their work is not important. It does not mean that their work is Subpar because they are an important part of our community You know, I I look at the funding that we have here and I see a hundred and seventy seven thousand dollars that just couldn't be done and I wish there were some people that cumulatively that can come together in our community and understand that the programs that reached out for this money and did the work obviously have things in place that they should be supported for. So I hope that there's a way that we can find some funding to give at least partial of their amount requested, if not all. So just reaching out to the community, I hope that we can find something. Thank you.

Any other comments or questions from the governing body? If not, just checking. All right. Well, thank you, Brett. Thank you, Carrie. Appreciate the report. With that, we will move on to non-action item B, city clerk.

B is discussion of the 2027 operating budget.

Yeah, I was going to say we're going to defer.

I was going to say, my bad on last week. Sorry. Due over time. Here we go. City manager.

Thank you. Mayor and members of the governing body, through this item as part of our FY2027 proposed budget process, we'll continue our departmental overviews this evening, these discussions and workshops to include our five-year financial forecast discussion next week. We'll continue through the next several weeks leading up to our budget adoption on September 15th. With that, I will turn this over to Josh McInerney, Deputy Director of Budget and Finance, and our department directors to lead us through these discussions. Gentlemen.

Thank you, city manager. Good evening again, everybody. So we're playing catch up from last week. So we're doing a municipal court and public works before the general government tranche tonight. And so let me grab my clicker. Um, so starting with municipal court, just I'm going to go over the numbers and then judge the Donnie is going to go over kind of the details of the department. So overall it's about a budget of $2.1 million. A majority of that is personnel. Now, um, we've kept our FTE account in courts flat for the last three budget cycles. Um, So that's just the lay of the land with the situation on the FTEs. And then their largest, and we'll get into this in a sec, is the public defender contract, and there's going to be a bit of transition of that. So that's where the majority of their budget lies in providing the court services through personnel costs and that public defender contract.

I'll let you go into it.

So we are in a transition. We had an RFP open. It closed last Friday. We did receive one applicant. The applicant happens to be the outfit that is currently serving as temporary court appointed. So it may work itself out. I'm looking forward to hopefully almost a $50,000 savings on this line item. So we're in the process of reviewing the applicant, and it'll be due back here in a week. We'll give our scores and then take the next steps with contracting procurement.

So that's all we have on municipal court. It's pretty simple budget, personnel, and then that big line item with the public defender contract.

Judge, the last couple years we were doing a lot of transitioning from paper to digital. Have we mostly finished that, or where are we at in sort of that?

That's a great question. Our goal, and big thanks to Patty and her team, first quarter of next year. They're working with Tyler to draft the processes. Several departments are meeting weekly at this point, TPD, prosecution, IT, the court, and Tyler. So it's full steam ahead.

Is any of that still have budget carryover, or have we gotten at least past the most? I won't say never say never, because something always pops up. But the spending part of that, how much of that does any of that carry over into next year's budget?

So the majority of that came out of my tech fund. OK. And it's going to be able to cover the cost. OK. Great.

Council Member Ortiz.

Thank you. Your Honor, do we have anything like any equipment or anything that's mandated by the state that you haven't included in your budget or do you foresee any of that?

At this point, no. The one thing we're not doing is digital fingerprinting. And there's a way around that. As long as we send the A and B misdemeanor convictions to the KBI, then we don't need to do that. I mean, Josh did say the FTE count was 19. But I was at 22 to 23 at one point. So in the last several years, I have given up certain positions that were open. And I say that because having someone back there to fingerprint is a body. And so that's one thing we're not doing. But it's a thing that many courts handle the same way.

Do you foresee us needing that down the road?

Unless it's mandated. I just don't know if it's worth the position.

Okay. What about the guards? Are those under your rim too?

Those are TPD officers.

Right. I'm sorry, TPD officers.

Yeah. And so we have three of them assigned to the court and one to City Hall. They rotate. I suppose if you're asking me if they're important, they're very important. I don't think it's a job that civilians can do. And I can, at a different time, definitely give you more on that. I can simply point you to an event that transpired in Lawrence, Kansas earlier this year at the government building. That did start a municipal court. The perpetrator ended up into City Hall. The perpetrator was shot by a municipal court officer and did not survive. And it happened in front of a lot of employees. City of Lawrence had to provide mental health services for a lot of people. So, you know, it happens. I think municipal courts, volatility-wise, it's probably one of the high liability places for the city, right? We have people that are high strung. We do domestic violence now. I have a direct line. to TPD when warrants come in. I have squad cars out front. It's my opinion we have a duty to the public. We have a duty to my staff and to the prosecutors and the probationers to keep them safe. And so those officers are from TPD. They're not out of my budget. But that's the importance.

Okay. Well, and I know being in your courtroom, if you've ever, if you haven't been, you need to come because it's, people are mad that they have to come with a warrant, a ticket, or whatever. It doesn't matter whose fault it is. I've also seen them on the prosecution side. I've seen them go into their, I'm assuming it's their PO, and come out in handcuffs. And so, yeah, these guys are busy. They're busy.

Just today they served a search warrant, and during my docket I had about, I think it was a total of five. You know, the officers on the street radioed in to the officers here. I took a look at the history. They brought them up here. One of them was an old case. I made her resolve it. I wasn't going to let her out. The other four I gave court dates. So those are the type of things that are happening all the time.

Right, right. No, I just witnessed it firsthand and was concerned that we make sure that those are secure.

And, you know, the other part of it is we do transport defendants. Yep. I mean, I've had, we've had people that are on a million-dollar bond for murder that are coming here to fight their domestic case. I mean, there is a certain danger in that. So that's also stuff that we're always doing.

Right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Any other comments or questions for the judge? All right. You are free, sir. I appreciate it.

Who's next?

Oh, Jason. Okay. Josh, city manager. Who takes care of here?

So public works will be next. And so as Jason's coming up here, I'll kind of introduce it. So public works is a little different than something like the finance department that just uses the general fund. Public works uses an amalgamation of funding sources to – provide services in the form of general operations and projects. So on your screen, what's in green is 100% general fund funded. So that's forestry department, engineering services, the sign shop, and marketing. And then we also have to pay a portion of the average street light tariff out of the general fund. And then in yellow is partially general fund supported. So the fleet and facilities funds are internal service funds that are as a general fund transfer into those funds as a revenue source to cover expenses. And then the debt service fund is funded by property taxes and so we issue bonds like we did tonight to fund projects like traffic signals. And then what is in red is not general fund related. We reviewed a lot of those during the CIP, such as the half-cent sales tax that funds projects, and then we'll talk a little bit about the special highway fund that funds the Tony Trower Street Department, and that was talked about today at the Public Works Infrastructure Committee. So by and large, green is general fund, yellow is kind of like the general fund, and then red is separate from the general fund.

So that was all pretty complicated. I'll try to simplify a little bit about what Public Works does. The best way I can say it before we get into the budget is we fix things. We fix streets. We fix curbs. We fix alleys. We fix retaining walls. We fix the traffic signals. We fix the street signs. We fix the street lights. We pull weeds, we trim trees, we mow lawns, we fix parking garages and parking meters, we fix the vehicles and equipment that the rest of the city needs to operate, and we fix the buildings that we operate in. If the air conditioning stopped working, I'd have a guy named Jacob here in about 15 minutes, he'd fix that too. So we don't always fix things as fast as we would like, but just for some context, in 2025, we received 3,990 C-Click fixed tickets. That's over half the C-Click fixed tickets that the city receives. So just the things that we know about, every week we get 75 more things that people tell us we need to fix, and 75% of those requests we're able to resolve within two weeks. So we have a lot to fix. We do it as fast as we can. It's not as fast as we want, but we definitely do the best we can for our residents. So taking a look at our overall budget, just to provide you some context, we work very hard to keep our budget as low as possible. A couple of the things that we've been doing in Public Works, we have eight positions this year that we have intentionally not filled in order to manage our budget. We're consistently looking for things that we can operate without. That might be vehicles and equipment, or it might be software that's underutilized, so we can keep those costs low. Our general fund budget has been very stable. Over the last four years, it's gone up less than 2% a year, despite some very significant headwinds. So we work very hard to keep our budget as low as possible. So on the screen, you can see what our largest costs are, starting with personnel. We have 42.75 FTEs within our general fund. The largest individual cost that's in our budget are the Evergy streetlights. So about 8,500 of the lights within the city of Topeka are actually on a lease agreement with Evergy that we pay them for the electricity and also the maintenance and operation of those lights. Another big charge is engineering services. The primary driver there is traffic engineering, so we don't currently have a traffic engineer on staff. If we have a request or we need to review a traffic impact study, we have to use outside engineering services. Also, our fleet charges for our vehicles. VRF is another vehicle expense-related item for new vehicles that we purchase throughout the year. And then insurance, fuel, and licenses. Licenses primarily refers to software. So the largest single expenser is our engineering software that we have to maintain so that we can open plans, review plans, and draw the plans for all of our projects.

And so kind of like we talked about earlier, our special highway fund, and I'm just going to get into the financials real quick. Just to reiterate, this is a fund we've been spending down to fund balance over the last couple of years to where we have a structural imbalance kind of like the general fund. So this is funded by the gas tax, as we learned about today through Jason, and it generates about $5.7 million a year, and our current expenses are about $7.8 in 2027. Um, to where we're either going to have to subsidize this through another funding source. Either the general fund, the citywide house and sales tax fund to keep it to keep it afloat, or we're going to have to reduce expenses elsewhere to help fund the services. Now, just 1 thing to keep in mind in 2026. We transferred $2 million out of our retirement reserve fund into this fund to get us by without reducing service to a significant degree. So that's just an annual reminder of how we got through it in 26.

So primary costs, obviously personnel, 58 FTEs within this division. Fuel for all of the street maintenance work that's happening out there, also our traffic folks out there. De-icer is a very large single expense that does fluctuate year to year. We try to set the budget looking out over the past several years. and create something that's approximate. Obviously last year we did not spend that much. Two years ago we spent significantly more than that. So that is going to fluctuate year to year because we can't control the weather unfortunately. But we try to set that budget something that's fairly stable over several years. Signs and markings, supplies for all the vehicles and equipment that we use out there. And then the fleet and berth charges. So some of the largest pieces of equipment that have to be replaced out of that fund would be like our street sweepers. Those are very expensive pieces of equipment that have to be replaced on a regular basis. And that comes out of that berth expense. Equipment maintenance and insurance. And like Josh said, there is a structural deficit here. Currently in the 2027 budget, there is a proposal to fund $750,000 from our half cent citywide sales tax to cover expenses within this area. We covered that at the PI committee today. What types of work that would uh cover i'd be happy to answer any questions on that as well moving on to the fleet fund uh 22 total ftes is the largest single budget item there so one thing to note is that the way this fund works we charge the other departments for our fleet services based on the amount of vehicles they use and the amount of repairs they need that goes to fleet if fleet is under budget or for example they have job openings A fund balance can build up there. That's typically used for purchasing, for example, major pieces of repair equipment like an expensive lift or something like that for one of our fleet shops. In this case, we feel comfortable that the amount that is built up in that fund is above the reserve necessary, so there's a transfer back to the general fund out of the fleet. And then you can see some of the expenses there. Obviously, the major expenses are mechanics and technicians who are out there repairing all of our vehicles. And then lastly, the facilities fund. Total budget there is $3.7 million. Approximately $1.2 million comes from our personnel. And then if you add up all the other utility expenses, that's about another $1.2 million. So the way we operate that is facilities pays for all the departments, for their energy bills, their gas bills, et cetera. And then we recap those costs through their fleet fees, or excuse me, their facilities fees. So you can see some of the biggest costs there. Payments to outside contractors. These would be things like very technical HVAC repairs or plumbing repairs that we can't handle in-house with our existing personnel. And then established service contracts. Those are things that we pay every year for a service. The largest single cost there is janitorial. Also covers things like elevator inspections, fire sprinkler inspections, pest control, things of that nature that we know pretty well going into the year exactly what those costs will be for the year. So that's an overview of Public Works, and I'd be happy to answer any questions on any of the funds.

Questions or comments for the governing body? Councilmember Hiller.

Thank you. I think you or probably everybody knows I'm worried about our moving money from fund to fund. I'm worried about renewing the half-cent sales tax. So the question would be to you. based on whether there have been any discussions you've been involved with, but do people think that the public would be comfortable renewing the half-cent sales tax when it was, for the last two times, was voted in to do projects, to do catch-up, to fix our streets? We renamed it Fix Our Streets last time. And so we, over time, built in a certain amount of personnel A couple people, a couple engineers and some things like that. But what's the risk if we start putting operating money in there that we won't get it renewed?

So I understand that objection. One thing I want to make sure the governing body is aware of is we've been facing this structural deficit for a couple years. Independent of that, our engineering team came to us with a proposal where they were actually identifying work that we're paying outside contractors to do as part of our pavement preservation program. So our engineering team came to us and said, when we do this work, the contractors are doing it, but we feel that our internal street maintenance team is actually doing a better job, that they're getting more consistent work, that the work that they're doing is of higher quality, and also that it's it would save a lot of efficiencies by not having to build those tasks into the bid. So the engineer actually has to go out, measure each one of those things, put those in the bid documents. Each of the contractors have to build those into their bids. What we would propose to do is instead of including that as part of the pavement preservation contract to an outside contractor, we would leave those items off. Our street maintenance team and the engineer would go out, identify the work that needs to be done, They would log those hours, log those materials, log that equipment, and then the project for that pavement preservation would cover the cost of that work. So I totally understand the objection. I understand the concerns. But I'd be open to any conversation with members of the governing body or the public about how we're doing this and why we think this is a good strategy, not only financially, but for the quality of our streets.

Well, I really appreciate that answer because that's the kind of thing, again, some people know anyway. I was here when we cut some of the positions back in 2010, 2011, when the city's finances tanked. And we all knew that if we had to contract it out, it would cost a lot more and plus be layers. Instead of our own people getting to be engineers and supervise and deliver projects, they're all having to be just – brokers, middlemen instead. And so not only for us to save money, but also for us to be able to hire people in at what they train to do, be an engineer, be a project manager directly, I think a lot better luck attracting and keeping staff as well. So I really like to hear that. I just want to make sure, and one of the things I asked for a while ago, and nobody wanted to provide it, I guess, was a map of the city and just how much we'd gotten done with all those major street projects and kind of how old they were and what's left to do. I still think that having that would be helpful for all of us to kind of know where we are.

And one of the things that we're currently working on is a more developed five-year infrastructure planning document that would lay out exactly all the places that we anticipate doing work in the next five years and have some information about where work's been done previously.

Thank you, because we used to get those, and it helped you feel not only just us on the council but the public kind of know where we were. Thanks. Yes.

Any other questions or comments from the council? Seeing none, thank you, Jason. Thanks, Jason. Next.

So next, we'll be covering the Office of Inclusive Communities. So Monice is going to come up here. But overall, their budget's about $700,000. They have five total FTEs, so the majority of their budget is related to personnel. And then getting into that, of the non-personnel cost, a lot of it is obviously dedicated to serving the NIAs of Topeka, about $100,000 total. So I'll turn it over to Monique to go over any details of the department.

Thanks, Josh. Greetings, Nate, Mayor, City Councilmember, City Manager. So we appreciate the opportunity to be able to share both the 26 accomplishments and proposed 27 operating budget. So this evening, I'll demonstrate what OIC has accomplished, explain the proposed 27 operating budget adjustment, and show how this investment positions us to build on progress in 27. So our request is grounded in accountability, aligned with the city's priorities, and focused on one clear objective, ensuring OIC has the capacity to continue delivering meaningful results for our community. So the largest non-personnel costs for FY27 are as follows. In education and travel, that supports essential professional development. In 27, we will utilize less than half of the allocated budget and totally eliminate travel expenses. For neighborhood community budget, I'd like to, actually share a little bit more with what Josh shared. Yes, there's the $151,000 that's there, but it's for both NIAs and the community in general. There's no way that we could provide NIAs with CDBG fund and then also all of the general fund money as well. So $25,000 is earmarked for NIAs. The remaining $26,000 of the $51,000 for neighborhood community budget is utilized for citywide activities and then any other contingency needs. Our contractual services for neighborhoods and community service, other programs support citywide events such as our Trunk or Treat. Please note that we are seeking potential sponsorship this year. Also, our Community Resource Expo Series, any community programming, Community Impact Leadership Academy, new initiatives, ADA training for staff, and translation and interpretation services that ensure programs and information remain accessible and inclusive. In regards to the food line item, it provides modest refreshments for community meetings, trainings, and engagement activities and encourage participation. Our neighborhood and community leader training, it equips neighborhood and community leaders with knowledge, skills, and tools to lead effectively and strengthen our communities. For FY26 accomplishments, OIC strengthened community engagement through major initiatives, including some of these that are listed on the slide. That's our Trunk or Treat event that we had in 25, our National Night event that we had just a couple weeks ago. Our TSC Get Digital Tablet initiative, it was some residual funds from the Kansas Health Foundation grant that we received many years ago. We had $92,000 left. Due to the great work that we did by providing over 1,400 laptops and computers, they allowed us to provide $348,000 more to our low- to moderate-income neighbors, and we were able to complete that project in July. We had Community Resource Expo series throughout the community. We had four of those. Moving on to the ARP Challenge Grant. That was a grant that we received of $25,000 to provide 50-plus with literacy training and also with laptops. We will be providing the detailed information in the upcoming weeks. That will be launched from September through November, and we're partnering with a multitude of community partners. We had the Community Impact Leadership Academy, as well as we received a $25,000 grant from Information Network of Kansas, and I will share more information with you about that as well. These highlights represent only a small portion of our progress, and a host of additional accomplishments can be found in the budget book. Our goals for FY27 are building on our FY26 momentum. Those goals are bold, strategic, community-centered, and expanding access to resources, developing stronger leaders, engaging thousands of our neighbors, and delivering targeted investments that strengthen neighborhoods and create lasting impact. I'll just touch base on a few of those. Our Community Resource Expo Series for 27 will consist of two impactful events. One will be held in the spring and one will be held in the fall. The Community Impact Leadership Academy will continue. We also will continue to host a citywide national event where we focus on having 500 plus neighbors together to strengthen neighbor connections and community safety. That's a partnership that we have with public safety as well. We'll continue with our Trunk or Treat event, where the goal will be to reach about 5,000 of our neighbors in a safe, festive, and community-centered celebration. 27 Dreams program, we've already received 27 preliminary applications, with this Friday being the deadline. Our 27 NIA support will continue to provide neighborhood leaders with in-person and video-based technical assistance. We're proud to announce the TextMyGov. We provided that information with you about this platform earlier in the year. We received a $25,000 grant from the Inc. grant referenced earlier. This will help us to strengthen resident engagement through timely updates via text and more accessible government services through the platform, and we'll be providing you with that launch platform information. So I'll conclude my presentation this evening with this, with the 2027 budget. The Office of Inclusive Community recognizes the city's FY27 budget constraints and is committed to being part of the solution by reducing all non-personnel budget line items by 10%. We will pursue donations, sponsorships, and grants to help offset any budget reductions. Thank you for your consideration, and I'll stand for any questions.

Questions or comments for Monique? C9. Thank you, money.

You're most welcome. Thank you, Josh. You're most welcome.

All right, so the next department we're going to go over is the HR department. So their HR department is solely funded out of the general fund. Obviously, they serve other departments throughout the city, kind of like the finance department or legal department. So the largest portion of their budget is about $1.8 million of personnel. It's about 70% of their budget. But then a lot of their non-personnel line items, as you see on the screen, are supporting other people in other departments. physical screens for employees, medical services through occupational mental health, vaccinations, substance abuse screens for when we onboard people, and then also any employee reimbursement tuition that they proceed. And also the Topeka way to work budget is housed in the HR department, which is about $30,000. So that's a majority of their line items are either A, personnel, or B, services other departments, employees, or even HR zone employees use throughout the city. So with that, I'll turn it over to you.

Yes. As Josh stated, our department consists of 14 FTEs. Our job is internal services, so we serve our employees in a number of ways. The largest portion of our budget that is non-personnel are mainly contractually related. Our medical services, for example, is our occupational type health, so our contracts with work care and ARC for those types of appointments. Our physical screenings are like our firefighter physicals that we send them to every year on boarding things. things of that nature our vaccines are occupational vaccines that we offer to our employees so that varies dependent upon what our employees choose to take advantage of versus what's required things of that nature some things that we have done in 2026 and we did switch over for insurance hr is responsible for managing the city's insurance portfolio And we have partnered with finance on that. And so we were able and looking at those premiums this year to save just under $400,000 in our premium portfolio. So that was a big accomplishment for us in making that move. And we also worked with finance to work on our health care insurance fund for that. We've onboarded. over 50 new employees. Most notable was our chief security officer, and we were actively recruiting for our finance director position. For 2027, as on here, our HRIS system accounts For roughly $135,000 of our budget, we are currently in the phase of implementing that right now with finance and IT, switching over to NeoGov. So that will be a big lift for not just my department, but finance and IT as well, with the goal of having that up and running by first quarter of next year. So we'll be switching over to that. So that is what I have for you.

And one thing I just want to reiterate, going back to the health insurance fund that we reviewed on July 14th, is that in the general fund alone, that's about 9% of our costs. So in this budget cycle, we're only proposing to increase employee premiums by 1%. And even if we increase them by 1% with the way the agreement's written, employees are going to pay less with how it's written. So that's a win where we structurally changed the income statement to make it more solvent going forward. So that was a good partnership that we had to address the financial problem and give solutions on going forward.

Questions or comments? Council Member Bradbury.

Thank you. Can you talk a little bit about the citywide safety assessment program that you mentioned as an accomplishment for 26? Yes.

So we have partnered with the Department of Labor to work with them on what a safety assessment program should look like. They came in and looked at what our person had It was right on par with what it should be. They didn't make any alterations to it, so we've started with our division managers doing a walk-around assessment of different policies and practices they have in place related to various safety measures and PPE and things of that nature. And then we make recommendations and work with the managers on what we think should be implemented based on the task at hand and get those related.

Okay, and then the next question I have is on the vaccinations. I think you had mentioned something about vaccine, required vaccines and others that weren't. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, so some vaccinations are required by position.

Others are available as an option just due to the hazards of the job, but they're not required. But we do pay for them if an employee would choose to have want to take that on. So it would be up to the employee if they would want those. Thank you.

Council Member Ortiz.

Thank you. Can you tell me who takes advantage of the tuition reimbursement?

It varies from department to department. But in order for us to be able to reimburse tuition, it needs to directly relate to the position that they hold. So if an employee wants to do that, we would reimburse up to $1,000. They would submit an application for a review. And then once they pass the class, if it's approved, they provide the receipt, and we would provide the reimbursement. It's dependent upon available funding. So what if they're trying to move up the ladder and they need, if they could show that it's relevant to the work that they would do at the city, then yes, it would count.

Okay. Thank you. Um, I want to get to the vaccinations part. Um, so I know the wellness center, like if you get in the, what is it? The tree, uh, can't think of the name of it. Well, but no, the, the part that like, I'm a part of that and all my, Medication and all of that's free. So that doesn't pay for part of that? If they're not a part of that program?

This vaccination part is separate because the vaccinations that's on the screen is purely for occupational vaccinations. Okay. So things like the flu shot and things like that are separate.

Okay.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Council Member Hiller.

Thank you. With the, well, first kudos on saving 400,000 on insurance. Way to go. On the health and wellness side, you all spent a lot of time working on all the rates and who would pay what and so on and dropping some things that really had been expensive. At the same time, worked with the labor team and the advisory group and knocked back the requirement for points to get your discount from 18 points to 10? Eight. Eight. And so with that, was there some savings in, I mean, you all had done a lot of setup programs and this and that so people could earn their points, educational programs, walks, things like that. Have we dialed that back as well in terms of the programming and the need for staffing and so on?

So a quick clarifying question. Are you talking about savings in terms of savings people who are enrolled in the plan?

No, I'm talking about staffing to support it, all that stuff that was going on.

So, no, there hasn't been a rollback in any personnel at this time?

Yeah, and I think to answer your question, cutting down the points, so a lot of the previous ways that they could earn points with the 18, like one of the ways, for example, you could earn a point is you could log into the portal and there were a number of classes that you could take online. That didn't require any staff management except for on the back end when it would come in, you would have to count the points. So the same staff is still managing the points to... Does the employee have eight points instead of 18? But we did not have to create those classes for them to take. They were part of the portal that we have that we pay for a contract with them that has the portal up there.

Well, some of them were live, though. They were resource fair kinds of things.

Yes, but they weren't always managed by staff.

And things like that. We're on that plan, too, so I see them roll up. I just wondered if we'd been able to reduce... those activities because along the way Blue Cross has begun to offer some of those kinds of educational resources too that we used to put together. Just wondered. Thanks.

Any other questions or comments? Seeing none, thank you very much.

So next will be the I. T. Department. Um, and I've had to come up here, but before I get into the budget stuff, I want to think Dalton bait on Danny Kuckelman. So on the accomplishment side, they went through tirelessly and tediously of going through each phone line in the city and turning, turning a lot of them off to where that was about a $30,000 savings per month. So we truly have gone through. all the minutiae and detail of what we pay out to each vendor in terms of bill to try to lower the cost curve of the city. I know that's a lot of money, but that's what has to be done to save on cost because it's one of those things that we don't always have time to do, but we dedicated time to sacrifice and take time for the city. I really want to thank them for that. Getting to IT's budget, the total budget's about $6.8 million now. Their budget's a little different where only about 50 percent of its personnel and to where the other stuff is mainly licenses, office and computers that we provide to other departments. And then we talked a little bit about this tonight, too, is a lot of the e-citation is housed in IT. And so I'll kind of turn it over to you to go over the operations.

Thank you. Good evening. The licensing that we have here for just about 1.2 million is comprised of Microsoft ecosystem that we have in place that runs about $525,000 a year. The next largest in that category is endpoint protection, intrusion detection, Incident monitoring and response and related costs there, that's about another $320,000. Firewalls, VPNs, and trust-based technologies, about another $105,000. Internal patching, security updates, And web exposure protection comes in at about another $130,000. So that's where those costs lie. The CDW equipment for $305,000 are the things that are often overlooked. It includes structured cabling in the walls, patch cabling to move from one port to another, batteries for the backup power systems, the UPS power systems, switches, servers, patch panels, Ethernet wiring, physical racks that house the IT components in all of the different physical structures that we have across the city. rent for office equipment and computers for about three quarters of a million dollars. Sounds like a lot until you realize we're running about 980 computing devices including both desktops and laptops. We are running between a three and a four year lease on each one of those devices. We had it at and then moved that out to Ford to try to save some of the costs. That drives the cost to be about $790 per year per device, or about $2,750 per device on average, which is about what you would find for the kind of computing devices that we have. In 26, some of our other accomplishments, aside from the cost savings that Josh had mentioned, is the ongoing investment in our GIS software. You've seen some of the examples of the mapping that we've been able to do, particularly in relation to the fire station relocations that were thought about, and a lot of other programs like that. We're looking at some of the water inventory down to the actual... valve level to try to get some of those on the maps as well. We've implemented the recommendations that came pursuant to the findings of the state of Kansas IT security audit. That was a big topic to get that rolling and to put us in a more secure position. And we also started working towards the e-citation, the elimination of paper citation tickets to enhance the efficiencies of both the TPD and the court system. For 27, we're looking forward to successfully deploying the rest of that electronic system of ticketing. We're working towards being able to get that enterprise resource program off the ground to include finance, it includes HR, it includes all of the internal services. After we get those fully up and running, we then come back and have to clean out all the houses. So we will be decommissioning the existing software programs, hardware that supports those programs to be able to get some efficiencies there. We continue to work on security training. Many of you may have seen some of the phishing campaigns that we've sent out in this last year. Some of that was in response to the findings of the post audit, and some of it is just good cyber practice. We're also working to improve and expand our GIS data set. So we're looking to always develop that, become richer in the assets that we track, and be able to map those out for more decision-making based on true data. With that, I'd be happy to stand for any questions you might have.

Questions or comments from the City Council? Council Member Bradbury.

Thank you. If I remember correctly, it seems like one of the findings from the IT security audit was the coup plan. Can you tell me where that's at?

We have a draft that's been put together. It had been submitted to the BOLD system, which I now understand is going away, but we do have a draft plan for IT that's been developed.

Okay. Any ideas when that's going to be finalized?

It will be finalized in conjunction with the other departments as a whole city COOP plan. So I don't have a specific date.

Okay, thank you.

Other comments and questions?

Council Member Hiller. With this changeover in all these master softwares, Then we've got this sort of glut of where we have all the stuff we've had for a long time and we still have it because we've got to make sure we've transitioned well. And then we're paying all this money for the new. Is there a net savings that we should begin to see? And if so, when?

I would anticipate that to be two years out. We're still in the overlap period where we're developing the new systems. Then we have to go back and clean out the house. And we'll be pushing on that because that's not a job that anybody likes to do in any way, shape, or form. But we will be moving towards that. We already have some sketched out plans in place. I thought you did, and I won't hold you to it.

If you don't even want to name a number, OK. But I mean, what could be? These are big figures, aren't they? Pardon me? Big figures in terms of what we should net out saving once we've gotten past that bubble. They are.

There are big savings to be had. I believe CityWorks alone is about just shy of $200,000 a year, $178,000 maybe. So eliminating that, streamlining some of the operations, and then being able to be more efficient, like with the e-citation and not having to handle paper tickets. Those are things that are going to go a long way, not all of which have true dollar-to-dollar savings, but will certainly show savings in terms of the work that the city can do with the same number of people.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Other questions or comments? All right. I see none. Thank you, Patty. Thank you. How many more presentations? Last one. I'm going to make you wait, Dan. We're going to go ahead and take our 10-minute recess because then we still have public comment and a few other things. We'll be back here at, say, 8.15. That's not even a full 10 minutes, but you can do it.

Thank you.

Oh, nobody heard any of that. Man. All right. We're back. We'll get this party started again. I think what's next up is our planning. So take it away.

So next is planning and development. And we'll get into housing in just a sec. But planning and development is general fund FTEs are 10. A lot of that is personnel. They pay into the fleet and birth fund and are on a vehicle replacement cycle. Then they have various licenses to provide their services. But by and large, the current planning group is personnel funded. I'll contract with you.

So just a few things. This is primarily the planning division. So what we have in planning division is sort of the current planning. So those zoning cases that I brought forward tonight, that comes out of our current planning staff. We'll be bringing the old town neighborhood plan to the governing body next month. That's obviously more of our long range staff and we have transportation planning. as well. Just talk about the kind of the largest non personnel costs. You've heard about the VRF already. So $50,000 for contract services That fund gets used every year. It gets used up every year. We use that money to help match transportation planning documents. So we're currently working through the transportation master plan. So we're using some money to match that. We pay 20% of the total cost of those plans with the feds contributing 80%. And then, you know, there's always a special project that seems to pop up that we're asked to take on. So, for instance, we're also using that money this year to update the housing study. Just a plug for some things happening next year. We're going to be updating the neighborhood health map. That's due for renewal as well as the city's neighborhood revitalization plan, which is our property tax rebate program. And we'll get those. Those are due every three years and we'll work on those next year.

So going, I'll turn over to Carrie in just a second on the housing general fund. Now, one thing I did want to denote, the 425 of general fund money that was previously talked about tonight, that's funded out of the general fund, but that's a different department's budget. It's just the miscellaneous non-departmental. That's not inclusive of the housing general fund budget. But by and large, their general fund budget's mainly personnel. They also pay into the VRF fund. But I'll turn it over to Carrie to go in over general operations.

Yes, so we are mostly grant funded. You can see the breakdown from the general fund FTE positions compared to our grant funded positions. Our general fund budget is a little over $516,000 compared to our grants that we bring in is about $6.5 million. Largest non-personnel costs you can see listed there, the VRF. A little bit of education and travel that is for our Built for Zero conference as we work to become an official Built for Zero community. And then our contractual services of that $10,000, $4,000 is our copy machine lease, and the other $6,000 is the city's mowing contract for our vacant lots. um you can see our accomplishments for 2026 one of the things that we are always striving to do is bring in new grant funding you can see that we secured two new state grants both that help with housing costs for individuals in need in our community and we worked with dan and his team to complete the five-year con plan as well as the analysis of impediments and the updated housing study as well you can see our goals listed for 27 one of those being officially achieving quality data for Built for Zero, which means that all of our baseline policies is in place and we are able to really start seeing some improvements in our homeless numbers.

So the next slide is kind of going over kind of a paradigm shift in the How we do how we account for development services within the city. So currently we have a development services budget about, I think it's 18 FTS. And they are currently housed in the general fund. So we were proposing to move those 18 FTS into a separate fund. Along with the revenue they generate through inspections and various other plan reviews that they generate for the city into a separate fund. That way we can. cost account um truly on a fund level basis just like a parking fund and its own enterprise fund to see how much are we behind and lagging on revenue versus expenses so we will have to increase fees to eventually be cost neutral but i will tell you at on the in 2025 we were about six hundred thousand dollars expenses over revenue so we will have to increase fees to eventually run cost neutral. And I think Dan will get a little bit pros on a sec, but that's going to be a phased approach over a couple of years rather than a one hit year.

So just a little more information about development services and so they handle permits licensing and inspections. So you know when we ask for updated building codes that happens through that division or that department or division and so they run through that process of updating residential building codes internet you know commercial building codes that sort of thing. We also manage the floodplain for the city, so we have our floodplain regulations. So that's just some of the items that we work through in development services. We license quite a few contractors through that process. So one thing I want to touch on with development services then is permit regulations. review times. There was a question that came up a couple months ago or a month ago or so about our review times. And so these are business days. So the standard for reviewing a residential permit is five days, five business days, average time to review. Commercial standard is 10 days. So that's the goal. That's the standard for review times for development services. So in 2025, our residential was at four days, which is spot on. We were a little behind on commercials, about 13 days. Since we've kind of moved to some different senior staff in that division, so far this year, we've had four days on residential and nine days on commercial and would expect that that would continue. going forward with the staff that we have. And then just a couple other items to talk about. So the department pays certain legal publication fees. We also pay for the credit card fees. So when somebody pays their their application for whatever it might be their permit application or whatever and they use a credit card we actually cover that fee so it comes out of the general fund so just some some consideration of getting those out of the general fund and charging those back to the users that are that are using the service

So that's, and there'll be, we'll talk a little bit more about this next week during the operating budget presentation because there's going to be a few changes in regards to this and we'll kind of go over it in detail. But that's just a, again, that's just a paradigm shift to see having an enterprise fund, a separate fund to see, to track revenues versus expenses and how much could we theoretically increase rates to run cost neutral. now it is also true if we increase rates too much that could stifle demand but or um people willing to develop but that's the conversation we have a later date and so that will stand for questions council member hillary

This is a question that would apply to this department but others as well. We've been a little inconsistent lately. We've done license plate readers and all sorts of electronic transition transfer. elements, yet you still have to go in person to pay your dog license. And we're talking about these licenses here. What percent of our licensing fees and fine transactions are going to be automated such that people can pay them virtually?

So anyone can pay online via Paymentus right now. So that is an option already. But I don't know the exact percentage of what that breakdown is today.

Obviously, you don't need clerks standing at the desk and things like that if people can do it conveniently online. And I just wasn't sure where we were.

Well, I was going to say for renewing licenses, renewals are completely online now. I was thinking. If somebody is doing a new license, we do ask them to come in because there are certain documents that we need to see. But the vast majority of license renewals are handled online now.

Okay. And permit fees and things like that? I mean, you have a lot of fees in your department.

Sure. I mean, all of those can be paid online or applied for, but sometimes people come in and do it differently. Understood. Yeah.

Just the more, the simpler it is for everybody. Just checking.

Other comments and questions? Seeing none. Thank you, Dean. Thank you, Karen. Thank you. Thanks, Josh. I guess. Thank you, Josh.

Yeah. And one thing I just want to say, so that concludes the department presentation. So next week, we'll have an open discussion item on the budget, but we'll also go over kind of a financial forecast that's high level, going over just general fund revenue, general fund expenses, and then kind of where we're tracking at. So we'll get into a lot of detail next week and on some options to address that structural deficit. So that's all I got. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. With that, we move on to public comment. First up, we have Vanessa Munoz. Welcome, Ms. Munoz.

Hello. How are you all doing tonight? I'm here. It's a little bit different than your agenda this evening. I'm here because my son was murdered May 16th in Highland Park Apartments and it's been three months and I've had really no There was camera footage. There was lots of people present. Um, when it happened, people have said they seen it, but nobody will come forth because they're too scared. Um, but I want to tell you all a little bit about my son, a little bit about the name and the base. His name was Thomas Brown and uh, He was tragically killed just trying to walk into his friend's house in Highland Park Apartments. He was my oldest child of five sons. And it's been three months, which is 94 days since my family's nightmare began. 94 days of waking up to the reality that I never asked or imagined that we would have to live. My son was a good man. Of my five children, he was the one that always called me to make sure that my health was okay, because I have health problems, and he just deeply cared about people. That's what he did in his line of work. He took care of people in their home. Since his death, I've had countless people approach me and tell me stories about my son that I never even knew. One gentleman told me about he was walking, it was wintertime, and my son gave him the coat off of his back. Another one told me that he had given him his food when he didn't have nothing to eat. He didn't know that my son didn't eat when he had given him his food. He was just a very kind person, and I'm not sure... why these young gentlemen decided to take his life the way he did like he was a piece of trash really over just walking through and because he called me before he got murdered and just walking through and excuse me and it became like a just brush of the shoulder turned into a nightmare. For only 30 years on this earth, my son touched more lives than I ever knew. And that is the son that I lost, and I want people, the community, to know more about him. Because I desperately need answers. I don't feel like things are... getting I know that with the justice system and with their steps that they have to take to charge people and things like that, but There were people there. There were lots of witnesses. I don't understand why this isn't being taken into action and why three months are going by and things are just not adding up. There's people on camera that they identified that now it's a different person. I know people make mistakes. They're doing the best they can. I just want justice for my son, and I don't want this to happen to anyone else's family. It's very worrisome. There's Bellevue, Bellevue, Bellevue on police scanner constantly. It's very worrisome, and I know that I have to speak for him, and I know that he would want me to not only get justice for him, but... Would you like more time, ma'am? Yes.

Is there any objection? You have two more minutes, ma'am.

Make sure that this doesn't happen to someone else. That's all. I know that he would want that. So I just wanted to bring that in front of you all and I know it's totally different than what you guys are talking about this evening, but I feel like I need to get this out there as much as possible. And that is all.

Thank you.

Oh, I have a

Next up I have Amy Gillette.

Hello, council members, mayor. I'm here, not surprisingly, perhaps to talk about data centers and specifically in the lead up to tomorrow, because tomorrow you all have a great responsibility. because we as citizens by the way i'm sorry my name is amy gillette i live in south topeka in the just below city limits i'm about two and a half miles from where the proposed compass data center site will be all right back to back to the responsibility of tomorrow since we as citizens can't be there to ask questions you are going to have to be our surrogates and be able to be in front of both Compass and Avergy to ask all of the questions that we have so desperately been wanting to know. One thing I've heard over and over again is how none of us are experts, which is absolutely true. But I have been speaking extensively to Juan over the past two months. He's someone who has worked in the data center field for over 30 years. He does closed system water cooling design. He has been giving me some good questions to put forth. I have emailed them, so hopefully they're included with the minutes. Because I think someone who's been in this for as long as he has is probably going to have a slightly better grasp on this than I do. Today I'm going to talk, though, about what we've heard the most about, which is the economic side of things. We hear it's going to be a $3 billion project, which sounds quite impressive, right? $3 billion in the Shawnee County's tax base. But what does that actually mean and how is it going to play out? So, in Compass's Meridian, Mississippi location, I found something in the governor's press release. So what it says is, upon occupancy, Compass Data Center's campus will represent an investment of $10 billion, including future tenants' information technology equipment. OK. So right there, we have a little bit of a catch. That investment includes everything that's in the building. It's not what's going to be property tax accessible. Because according to Kansas statute, commercial and industrial machinery and equipment is generally exempt from Kansas property tax. So if Compass is saying this is a $3 billion investment, we need to know exactly what makes up that $3 billion. Things like land and buildings, of course, but... Things like electric infrastructure, generators, cooling equipment, of course, the tenant servers, GPUs, construction and other labor, but also future phases that have not been built, which is a big thing with data centers. To make any judgments about how this is going to affect property taxes, we need to know at full build out what is the projected taxable assessed value of the site, excluding items that are exempt from local property taxation. The other catch in there that I mentioned was upon occupancy. So it describes that investment as it would happen at full build out several years into the project. And since hyperscale campuses are generally built in phases over many years, that equipment quickly becomes obsolete. That's why they don't usually build them all at once. And so if it's a $3 million project, or I'm sorry, a $3 billion project, we need to know how much will actually be invested in the first phase. When will phase one actually become taxable? What's the projected taxable value of phase one? What's the estimated year of full build out? And what happens, importantly, if those future phases never occur? What is going to happen to our tax base then? Developers like to use capital investment and taxable value interchangeably, but we have to require them to disclose both. Since with an AI data center, the most expensive assets are typically the servers and GPUs inside the building rather than the building itself.

Do you need more time?

I think that covers the property tax part of it. Yes. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

There's a lot more in what I said, but thank you.

Next up, I have Sharon Gillette.

Good evening. I'm Sharon Gillette. I live at 5500 Southwest Mountain View Drive. It's less than a mile outside of city limits. Good evening to all of you. I know we're getting tired. I've attended many meetings these past two months, both Topeka City and Shawnee County Planning Committee meetings and Shawnee County Commissioner and City Council meetings. I've spoken at a few of them and listened very, very carefully at the others. I encourage all of you to listen closely at the meeting tomorrow night when Compass presents about the proposed hyperscale data center. If you should hear inconsistencies, please take note. If you yourself aren't crystal clear about any of the statements that are made, Please ask questions. Be our voice tomorrow night, because as an audience of those most directly impacted, we have to be mute tomorrow night. If you can't easily answer questions from your constituents about water and electrical usage, if you can't reply to the many queries about what's going to be done about noise and air pollution, about land contamination, and who exactly the tenant is, the actual owner of the data center, Once Compass goes back to Canada, then if we don't have those answers, there's going to be a huge void, a lack of basic answers that all of us want. We want answers specific to this hyperscale data center being proposed in our community here, not shown fancy posters of data centers built in other parts of the country. Did any of you see anything specific to Topeka or Shawnee County in any one of those generic posters? I sure didn't. Don't be bamboozled about all the revenues that will be distributed throughout our county. Those revenues will only come from the land and building itself because everything within the really, really expensive stuff will be tax exempt. Plus, those anticipated dollars will only be doled out once each phase is finished. which could take years. A compass rep told us that to Topeka, this will be the goose that lays a golden egg. At first I thought, how odd, he chose that fable. The fable, the goose that laid the golden egg, is a tale about greed and impatience. You know, maybe it was a very appropriate fable. Thank you all. Thank you for the moratorium to slow Compass down. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. All right, that's the last person I had signed up to speak this evening. So with that, we move on to announcements. City Clerk.

Okay, so tomorrow night, on August 19th, from 5 o'clock to 7 o'clock in this room, there will be a special meeting work session on data centers. There will be a question, well, from Compass Data Centers, there will be opening remarks and they'll participate in a question and answer session. There'll be, from Evergy, Kansas Central, there'll be a presentation and also we'll participate in question and answer session. And then the third presentation will come from city staff. which will provide an overview on island annexation process and also participate in question and answer with the governing body. And then on August 25th, there is a special budget meeting. At that meeting, we will have a public hearing and resolution on the Topeka Metro Transit Authority revenue neutral rate. And then we will have a second public hearing and resolution on the City of Topeka revenue neutral rate. We will continue discussion on the operating budget and also discuss the City of Topeka five-year financial forecast.

Thank you. City Manager. Nothing's nicer. Thank you. Council Member Hiller.

Just a couple things. One, in reference to the invocation at the beginning, it's been a big week, I think, for every one of us. Lots of city issues going. But I just wanted to put a thank you out to everybody here and everybody in the community that has communicated with us and has taken the time to express thoughts and share them. They've called. They've written. It matters. On a more fun note, I got my annual kayaking trip on the Delaware River in the Kaw, and I just brought show and tell like you can at school. You can see it shining from where you are. This is a mussel shell, natural from Kansas, from the Delaware River as it comes into the Kaw. Who would think? When you go on those kayak trips, by the way, you get to find things like this. You find fossils. You see mammal and bird tracks in the sand. It's pretty fascinating. I call them Toto or we in Topeka moments. You feel like you're somewhere else. This week was also celebrating the Jayhawk Theater's 100th anniversary. They had a really great event with people that have supported them for a long time, as well as newer newcomers, and it really went well. And last week, I accepted the invitation and attended a Kansas Housing Advocacy Cajon Network get-together that was hosted here, and it was very refreshing and exciting. diverse, refreshing conversation with a really diverse group of folks there to hear facts and provide some input. So that's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Valdiviacola.

Thank you, Mayor. Several things. One is that in preparation for tomorrow's meeting, It's a two-hour meeting, no public comment. I totally understand that. We have a lot packed in, you know, Compass, presentation by Evergy, annexation. That is a lot to put into one meeting. And we know that Compass and Evergy are going to want to do the due diligence on their side. With all the questions that we have been getting in from constituents, from residents, close to the possible building site, but also in the Topeka area. And the questions that I know that I've been working on as I read through, not every single thing because it's just so overwhelming, but a lot of different articles. My concern is that we're just, we're gonna be really crunched for a time. So I would just hope that as we maneuver through that two hours, that we understand that there are definite questions that the people have that they are not going to have the opportunity to ask. And that it is going to be important to try as however we can just to try to bring up those questions. Nobody can be forced as a governing body member to ask those questions. But the tone that we've been getting basically from the emails is rather fleeting. to ask the questions. So I just wanted to state that. Also, I wanted to say happy birthday to the oldest 19-year-old grandchild, Adrian Michael. Sweetheart, happy birthday, and Letha and Letha love you. Also, a big shout out to my husband, who right now is in Colorado Springs, Colorado. for the USA boxing gold certification training, which is the highest level of amateur boxing certification that you can get. He was doing this at the US Olympic and Paralympic training center. It's very intensive. He's there for eight days. I hardly get to talk with him. I don't even know if he's watching, but I think that it is wonderful for what it's going to do for the kids at the boxing club, and we should be proud because I think that he is only one of 24 coaches across the country that was invited to this event for 2026. So good job, honey. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Ortiz.

I have nothing.

Council Member Banks.

Nothing tonight, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Kell.

I just want to encourage people to get involved in classrooms. My wife's a teacher, and some of the biggest compliments you can give a parent is when they're involved in the classroom. And it doesn't matter what level of age. Teachers love having that involvement happen, you know. And you can be that class parent. Sometimes with those students that their parents can't get out of work or for whatever reason can't be there. So you can kind of be that pseudo parent for them, especially when it comes to clubs and teams. being there for all the athletes or all the participants. Be that team parent, that class parent. It means a lot to the students and it means a lot to the teachers. So look at getting involved in your classrooms and the organization your children are involved with and the teams you're involved with. The biggest thing you do is just be there and be involved. Thank you. Council Member Miller.

Nothing, Mayor. Thank you.

Council Member Bradbury.

Nothing, thank you.

Council Member McGee.

I had the opportunity on Sunday to attend the Jayhawk Theater 100th year celebration and I had been there just a few months ago. So it was interesting to see the progress that's been made in just a few months. They continue to work on the facility. They did a lot of tours throughout the day. So I'm impressed with the work they're doing and I do hope the community continues to support that project. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Hofer.

Okay. Tonight I want to let you know that Brew at the Zoo is coming up. It is September 12th. So it's not very far away. This weekend they will have their early ticket price deadline. It is going to be from 6 to 9 p.m. If you're a regular ticket, you will have a chance to drink up to, well, can't do that many, but we'll have 30 different beers there. There will be food, a chance to walk around the zoo. Hopefully the weather is going to be really good. They also have VIP tickets for a few more experiences, including feeding the giraffes. So if you think of it, get your tickets and go. It's a fun event and is a good support for the zoo. And that's all I've got tonight.

This will help ticket sales or not to Brew at the Zoo, but I will be in the dunk tank at some point. I'm not going to tell you what time yet, though. You're going to have to figure that one out on your own. I won't tell you what my time slot is, but I will be in the dunk tank at Brew at the Zoo. In a weak moment, I agreed to do that, so we'll see how that goes. And I can reiterate this tomorrow if I need to, but I'm going to follow up on Councilmember Adebiakoulis. point about our time tomorrow is that there will be questions we just don't get to. I mean, that's just a reality. But I am happy to, on behalf of this body, collect whatever questions are left lingering that maybe you've really wanted to address. If you provide those to me, make sure that then on behalf of this entire body, from me to them, send those along and expect a response of some kind to help us follow up that conversation with Compass. So hopefully we'll get through as much as we can and everything we would like addressed. But if not, I'll promised everybody is I'm more than happy to be the advocate on behalf to get those follow-up questions answered to make sure we get responses to those last thing is everybody knows I donate blood and I know they're always screaming about critical shortages but for like only the second time in two decades they're at whatever the I don't know what the levels called I'm not gonna get it right but whatever their highest DEFCON oh my goodness we really don't have enough blood is they are there right now across this country but also here in the state of Kansas and in this region so as I tell everybody if you give blood make sure you don't miss your chances and if you never have and you're just a little nervous I'm happy to you know walk you through the process and get it done it's not that bad I promise so with that we do have a need for one executive session this evening so I will turn it over to our I guess filling in city attorney this evening still an attorney though let's be clear

Right. Thank you, Mayor. The motion would be to recess into executive session, not to exceed 20 minutes to give legal advice and discuss potential litigation and other matters deemed privileged under the attorney-client privilege as allowed under KSA 754319B2. The open meeting will resume in this room in the governing body chambers. The following staff will be necessary to assist the governing body in its deliberations. The city attorney, the city manager, the human resources director, and any other staff members as needed.

All right. I would move to go into executive session. Do I have a second? Second from the Deputy Mayor or Councilman Banks. Flip a coin. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Aye. Councilmember Ortiz and Miller say no, no, no. And with that, we will go immediately into executive session. All right, we have come out of executive session. No action is to be taken by this governing body. With that, we are adjourned at 9 o'clock.