City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the September 15th, 2026 meeting of the Topeka, Kansas governing body. I will now call this meeting to order. This evening's invocation is from Councilmember Valdivia Alcala. Please give her your attention and rise if you are able.

Thank you, Mayor. Our invocation tonight will be given by Imam Omar Hazin. If you want to go ahead and come up to the podium, sir, right here. And just a little bit of background, the Imam is with the Islamic Center of Topeka. He is the Islamic advisor to the Kansas Department of Corrections and has served in these positions since 1990. Imam Haseem was the first Muslim to give the invocation to the Kansas House of Representatives in the Senate on March 9, 1995. So with that, Imam.

Thank you. With God's name, the merciful benefactor, the merciful redeemer, creator of the heavens and the earth, and everything contained therein, we come before you today in humble prayer and ask you to have mercy on and give guidance to this governing body of honorable minds. Please grant them the wisdom, the patience, and the courage to make the best decisions for the people and communities that they serve, please reward them for the noble work that they do. Our Lord, help every individual of this governing body recognize and respect the inherent worth, the honor, and the dignity that you, our creator, has given every human soul. We are here this evening to pray for the success of our leaders, and we ask you, dear God, to grant success to our mayor and the members of this governing body. Amen.

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

All right. With that, we will have the clerk take roll.

Mayor Duncan.

Here.

Council Members Hiller. Here. Valdivia-Ocala. Here. Ortiz. Here. Banks.

Here.

Kell.

Here.

Miller.

Here.

Bradbury. Here. McGee.

Here.

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

With that, we will move on to appointments. City Clerk.

A is a board appointment recommending the appointment of Joe Sharae to the City of Topeka Americans with Disability Act ADA Advisory Council for a term ending September 30, 2028.

All right. Comments or questions on the appointments? Motion is always in order. Motion to approve from Councilmember Hiller. Second from Councilmember Miller. With that, take a vote, please.

Okay, we have nine yes. The motion carries.

With that, we move on to presentations. Presentation A, city clerk.

A is the 2027 sales tax initiative.

City manager.

Thank you. Mayor, members of the governing body, in this item this evening, we will discuss proposed sales tax and city audit initiatives that, if approved by the governing body, will go to voters in March 2027. Through the last few budget processes, I have shared that we have a structurally imbalanced budget and that our expenditures have been exceeding our revenues. During this budget process, we've submitted for consideration a balanced FY2027 proposed budget, but our five-year financial forecast presentation indicated stagnant revenues, most notably our sales tax collections, coupled with increased costs for materials and contractual personnel increases would lead to projected deficits of $13.3 million in FY2028 and $17.4 million in FY2029, and incrementally increasing to $22.9 million in FY2031. We have continued to reduce costs over the last three budget cycles, particularly in personnel reductions. Please note that in 2024, we had 1,187 positions. The proposed FY2027 budget shows 1,155 positions, but we have frozen or unfunded another 32 positions, which means we are budgeted for 1,123 positions, which is a reduction of 64 positions since 2024. Our budgeted personnel savings in the FY2027 proposed budget alone is $5.1 million. To this point, we have managed cutting vacancies and holding positions vacant while maintaining our current service levels. As I shared in a council discussion on August 25th, to balance our future budgets, we will need to either consider significant budget reductions or revenue adjustments. While I understand that tax increases are not popular, sales taxes are one consideration for those needed revenue adjustments. And this evening, we will discuss potential sales tax initiatives that could address our projected shortfalls and provide for funding for housing priorities. I know that what we will be discussing this evening is deviating from previous sales tax discussions, but my recommendations will fund our current staffing levels and plan capital projects and sustain our budget over the next five years of the forecast. My recommendation could also help support the 4,220 housing units needed in Topeka as shared in our recent housing study update. While I understand that homelessness is a priority by considering funding our housing needs through cash, which will be provided by all who do business in Topeka. We could break the cycle of foregoing future property tax value increments, which we have typically awarded for development incentives at all market rates. And instead, add those dollars to our tax base as soon as a property appreciates in value. This in turn would free up funding for initiatives deemed as priority by the community. With that, I will lead us through this discussion. And afterwards, Josh McInerney, Deputy Director of Budget and Finance, and I will be here to answer any questions. So it's presented in the five year financial forecast as we discussed on August 25th. Revenue generated by the general fund is insufficient to cover budget expenditures, creating a recurring imbalance between ongoing revenues and expenses. Assuming no change in expenditures or tax base in capping the 2027 budget, projected revenue growth will not break even with the expenditures until 2023. I do want to point out here again, second column, I guess third column over, 2028 budget. Well, first I'll point out 2027 budget. We are submitting a proposed balance budget for 2027. But in 28, you see our projected deficit going to $13.3 million. And in 2029, you see it going to $17.4 million. After 2028, if all of our revenue and expenditure projections hold, we will basically go into negative reserves in 2029. As mentioned, our sales tax through the first six months of this year have actually come in 1.2% lower than the first six months of 2025. So you can see typically what we do is we project, I believe, a 2.5% growth year over year in sales taxes. And as you can see, we're actually 1.2% lower, as mentioned, this first six months of this year compared to 2025. As we discussed during our financial forecast presentation, a combination of about $17.5 million of reductions would have to be considered without any significant increase in our tax or in our revenues. So we'll just see basically the reductions would have to touch every service area of our city. So you'll see here personnel reductions, you'll see here CIP changes, changes in our purchase of vehicles, travel, and actually the travel we'll talk about this evening as part of a proposed amendment. But essentially we just would have to have about $17.5 million of budget adjustments over the next couple years in order to balance without any significant changes in our revenues. Again, these are some of the things that we discussed in the CIP that could potentially be reduced as part of those changes. I just want to point out that I acknowledge that the governing body hasn't approved any of these. Again, as part of the forecast discussion, these are just potential options. To address projected deficits and maintain current service levels, sales tax initiatives have been discussed. I've actually been talking about this for the last three budget cycles. So previously when we were considering a half cent that would include public safety and affordable housing and homelessness, given our projected financial forecast, I'm asking for consideration of a half cent for general use tax. That half cent would generate about $20 million annually, and that would be used for all of our services across the city. And again, that would be police, fire, code, et cetera. I'm also proposing a new one-tenth of a cent citywide sales tax that would generate approximately $4 million a year. I know that funding and identifying a recurring funding source for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund has been a priority. So I would propose that we use at least 50% of that, roughly $2 million, to fund the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. The remaining, I would ask to consider a market rate housing fund. So as mentioned, we historically have just given RHIDs, which essentially forces us to forego the incremental increase in value of property when we build a structure or house on that property. So I'm just using the example at $100,000 value of a property, vacant property. Once the house, through an RHID program, once the house is built and say that the property goes up to $200,000 or two, yeah, $200,000 value, then we've basically just been foregoing that increment and giving it to the developer. A cash fund would actually allow us to cash fund those incentives so that as soon as a property were to appreciate, as soon as a house was built and the assessed value went up the following year, those tax dollars could actually go into our property tax base. Therefore, identifying and freeing up additional funds that can be used for other priorities as deemed necessary and desired by the community. So it's part of a March 2027 ballot. In addition to the sales tax, the new sales tax, I'd also ask us to consider re-approving or approving the current half cent citywide infrastructure sales tax that currently funds our ongoing maintenance of our streets, sidewalks, traffic lights, et cetera. And then also, too, I would ask for consideration based upon recommendations as part of another measure on that March 2027 ballot implementing an office of city auditor that would report directly to city council. If we go down that route, that would be a necessary public vote given that it would be a charter amendment. So as far as the comparison here, we break out our total sales tax within Shawnee County and what the city of Topeka uses or what the city of Topeka collects. Currently, our sales tax rate is 9.35. You can see that in comparison to other cities, surrounding cities. If the half cent were to go through, that would take us up to a 9.85% sales tax rate. And if both initiatives were approved, it would take us to a 9.95% sales tax rate. This is a breakdown of our current sales tax collections. We bring in approximately $70 million a year. $41 million of that goes to general fund use. $20 million of that is the citywide half cent for our infrastructure. And then the $9 million comes in from the half cent countywide sales tax that funds our JADO. The additional, if approved, the one-tenth of a cent would bring in $4 million for housing. And then the half cent general fund use would bring in another $20 million. I'm going to just point you out to the two red boxes. The top red box shows what our current projected five-year financial forecast is. As mentioned, we start dipping into our reserve amounts going into 2028, and they're depleted in 2029. The bottom income statement includes the half-cent general government sales tax. And you can see the difference. At the end of 2027, we would assume $10 million half-year collection in 2027 beginning in July, if approved in March. So you can see how that $10 million layers in with the additional $20 million going through 2031. So you'll see the new projected reserve amounts respectively at $37.9 million in 2027, $44.6 million in 2028, $47.2 million and so forth in 2029 and beyond. I point out the percentage underneath that second red box, the 31.82%, 32.43%, 31. So essentially, we have a target to have a 20% operating reserve. So essentially, if everything held as shown here, in 2028, we'd actually have 11.82% above our 20% reserves. So that's why I say that there's additional funding that could be, it's the last row at the bottom of the page. Essentially, we'd have additional funds that could be reprogrammed to whatever priorities we wanted to, while still maintaining a 20% reserve throughout the five-year financial forecast. So for the timeline, we did have a discussion at Policy and Finance on September 3, this evening, council discussion. On October 6, we'd ask for a council consideration and approval of ballot language, which there's samples on the next few slides. By the October 20th meeting, we'd have to have, if Council were to approve this, we'd have to have our final ballot language and ask for an approval to call for an election. Again, March 2nd would be the special election held, March 2nd of 2027. And if approved, any ballot questions will become effective, well, If approved, the sales tax collections, first day collections would be July 1st of 2027, as we can only start collections on the first day of a quarter each year. The recommendation would be to do a mail-in ballot. Historically, mail-in ballots have had higher voter participation and cost a little bit less than in-person election. So I won't go through all of the language here. They're in the slides. But essentially, for a new general use sales tax, the half cent is on slide 11. The recommended language for the affordable housing and market rate housing language specifies at least 50% of that, over $2 million, would go to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund with the remaining funds, establishing a market rate housing fund. And then this is a little less, this is the information or this is the proposed language to renew the existing half cent citywide sales tax for infrastructure. Again, that measure if passed would not be imposed until the current measure sunsets in 2029. And then we've also included recommended language for city auditor that would be reporting to the governing body. With that, I'll stand for any questions you may have.

Council Member Miller.

Thank you, Mayor. I know a lot of my colleagues up here are going to have some great questions to ask, but the most pressing and important thing to me is because I understand the sales tax initiative and I think it's an important one to do because I understand the finances of it. But I would rather us find a way to adjust our HIV process than to put in anything about market rate housing With a initiative that a lot of people have already worked on and they agree upon and that we have agreed upon publicly, we cannot change that at the end. And I understand there's some people who are just going to be clapping right after this. I say this and I know that. That's not why I do this. I'm saying this because it's the right thing to do. keep it the way it is. That's my thought. Um, and I hope my colleagues agree with me and I look forward to the conversation on this, but we cannot change the delivery housing. We have a lot of unhomed individuals who need some help. We need to help the process to help those folks in our area. We are not trying to just give them places to live for free and to do nothing. That's not down the line is what it's going to look like, but we need some help to the most vulnerable in this community.

We've got a meeting. We've got to keep moving. Council Member Valdiviacola.

Thank you, Mayor. So last night I met with about 15 to 20 folks from the community and read the components of the ballot initiatives. There was vociferous no, we're not going to vote for anything that has market rate housing because that was not what the intention was. If we are having issues with what is being given to developers for RHIDs, then the bottom line is we need to stop giving them to high-end developers. If high-end developers cannot afford to build here or if like the last high-end developer that was here says we need to redo the process, and I think people on this governing body were open to listening what that could entail, then we need to be going that way. We need to stop so we're not bleeding so much money out with not collecting on property taxes. We need to stop these special ordinances like we did for Klossman. And we need to get back to the basics of what the RHID is actually for. If we find that the RHID is too cumbersome, then we need to consider lowering the amount of years that we are not gaining that property tax. Because I think, is it now anywhere from 20 to 25 years? That's correct. I would really like a comparison to see what other cities RHID in this area of the country because I think that is just massive, a massive giveaway. And so I agree wholeheartedly with Councilman Miller. This is not the original intention. And I also think that we have to have something that spells out when we talk affordable housing how much we see going to the Built for Zero program. We have been designated as a Built for Zero city, my understanding. Carrie, that's correct. Through the state of Kansas, Carrie and her staff are working as hard as they can, but there are so many moving pieces to abide by the methodology that is proven to work. Those include specific housing, which I know that they've been looking at, and it also goes with the need for wraparound service and some wraparound services. Otherwise it's not going to work. We do have a homeless crisis in this city. I know I've been hearing that some people think that we don't, but we do. And so I believe it should be spelled out more succinctly when we talk about putting this as a ballot measure. I have asked Carrie, and I'm going to be asking you as city manager, that we can have a presentation to the governing body. from Carrie and her team specifically about Built for Zero that includes a budget so we can see what it is that we're really looking at. Because up until this point, we have not. And as far as the half cent sales tax, it is way too broad. I don't know if you deeply understand what the feeling is out there in the community. People are really mad. people are upset for any number of things. And for this to be as broad as it is, hoping we'll have some dialogue about this tonight, because I'm anxious to hear what people's suggestions are, we need to be bullet pointing out that half cent sales tax as well. So people understand what it is specifically going to go towards and that we are bound to that. At least I would think we would be bound to that. The other thing, and then I'll stop because I'm sure there's lots of good conversation out here, is that with this half cent sales tax, I will not in any way, shape, or form support any increase with fire and police. I support fire and police. I support unions, but we had a 27% increase over three years with TPD. And I think with fire, what was it, 14 or 16?

It was 12, ma'am.

12 over three years.

Yes, ma'am.

And I think that if we need to have shared suffering in this city, I would not support in any way for that to be something that is listed on here. Thank you, Mayor.

Deputy Mayor Hofer.

I'm going to assume this is our baseline.

This is the baseline. We're here for discussion.

OK. I agree with Christina. I'd like to see more definition to what we're spending the money on. The other thing that I'm seeing missing is a time frame. I don't want to give somebody in any group an open-ended sales tax that goes on in perpetuity. We need to put some kind of a time frame, whether it's five years, 10 years.

Yes, ma'am.

But I'd like to see that in future drafts.

Yes, ma'am.

That's all I have.

It would be 10 is the 10-year time frame is what I would be considering.

Okay. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Council Member Bradbury.

Thank you. I really don't have a whole lot much different to say. I can't support a half cent sales tax that is just so vague, especially when I'm not completely confident that we have actually addressed the structural imbalance in the proposed 27 budget. Additionally, the one tenth of a cent sales tax is for affordable housing and to proactively begin to address the homelessness crisis that we have in this community. I will not support a market rate and neither have any of the constituents that I've heard from about this either. They don't support it either. Additionally, there needs to be language that identifies how it's going to be spent. I think we need to have a clear plan with how that money is going to be spent. I think we need to be transparent with that plan. I think we need to have outcomes and metrics to help us determine if we're meeting our goals. So that way It's transparency and we'll know how we're doing. I can't support the half cents. Definitely not the tenth with part of it going to market rates. And definitely, when we do decide to address affordable housing and the homelessness crisis, we need to do something that's evidence-based. And again, have some metrics to help us determine whether or not we're actually meeting what we say we want to do. I know I have something else, but it slipped my mind, so I will come back to that.

While you think about that, I will point out the memorandum that I sent to you all on Friday specifically addresses performance measures by each department and our intent to report on those monthly here at Council to include our budget, our expenditures, as well as our strategic goals. So it will be transparent, it will be out there, and everybody will be updated. Appreciate it. Thank you, ma'am. Thanks.

council member mcgee thank you um i also would not support this for market rate housing i think it needs to be for affordable housing and to address homelessness there is A ton of data out there. There's a group out of Wichita, the Kansas Data Trust. It has a ton of information. I think we need to tap into that so that we can back this up with good data. I think we need more specifics in this. We need to discuss this in more detail, but I do not support this for market rate housing. We need to follow through with what we said and what the people have said they wanted, and that is for affordable housing and homeless program. Thank you.

Council Member Kell.

I see a little bit where the market rate is coming from because you're having people move up, which opens up the affordable housing more. But I think we need to focus more on the affordable housing aspect of things. I think that'll be our biggest initiative for the homelessness aspect of things. If we get affordable housing, especially those people that are just coming out of a house because of job losses or that, medical bills, it allows them to kind of work back into the system rather than going to a shelter or on the streets. Like I said, I'd rather focus more on the affordable housing side than the homelessness side. I think for the six years I've been up here, we've thrown a ton of money at homelessness and haven't seen very many results. But I think the biggest result is having housing available for low-income families is where we need to focus that at. As some other people, it's a little too vague. I think what we're going to get into is people are going to say no just for certain reasons. Like one piece of it is going to be a no for them. If there's eight pieces there, they may agree with seven of them, but that one piece is going to be a no for them, and it's just going to shoot it down. I think we need to look at certain aspects of what's our priority as a city, what our needs are, our greatest needs are, and take that moving forward. I said, for years, we need to look at our mill levy. And then I had to talk with someone who said, sales tax is the way to go. It gets everyone. Those people that are all five miles within the city limits, outside that city limit area, they contribute also. But I'll tell the people, if we're not looking at this, then it's going to be some other things. And we're going to have major cuts. And then it's going to be cuts to programs like the Social Service Grants Committee, which affects a lot of the low-income households. So we need to look at different things, or else we're going to have to make more and more cuts. And people keep on telling us the last couple weeks, well, just make cuts, make cuts. We've been making cuts for the last two years. We're getting down to the bottom of the barrel of making cuts before it's police, it's fire, it's street crews. And then we're just going backwards as a city tremendously fast. So this is something that, as a city, people need to look at. This is not the citizens of Topeka. This is everyone that comes to Topeka, everyone that lives around Topeka. If a sales tax passes and if it's a mill levy that we have to go to, it only affects the citizens. It doesn't affect anyone else outside the city. So we've made our cuts. We've tried to do our best. You know, everyone says, oh, live within your budget. Well, we've had to pay a reasonable rate to our fire, our police, our other unions just to make sure we have those people here. And that's our biggest budgetary cost right there is personnel. And we've got to cut as much personnel almost as we can possibly cut. And if we start cutting any more, then it's going to start affecting every citizen with delays in fire, delays in police, delays in road projects. And it's all going to cost more in the long term. Thank you.

Council Member Ortiz.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Several years ago, we, to get caught up on some of our streets, we passed the absent sales tax on the streets. And we went for hours to figure out the wording. And there's one wording in there that changes the whole dynamics of everything. And that's existing. And I'll never forget that word. And I'll tell you why. Because where I live, I have ditches. I don't have any curbs. I don't have any gutters. And so to use that money, and you'll hear me ask time and time again, Is this that sales tax? If they come and fix my street, they have to put it back exactly how they found it. Even though I pay into it. I pay into that sales tax. All my constituents over there, they pay into that sales tax. But we can't get anything like that. You have to put it back exactly how you found it. So we can't get a new curb. We can't get a new gutter. We can't get any gutters. We can't get any sidewalks. Our streets are narrow, very narrow, and we can't even widen it unless we have other funding to go with that. But it's not fair that we have to pay into that, but we don't get to utilize it. We don't get the benefits of it. And so I want to make sure because the wording is very vague when I was reading it is very vague As bad as I want a fire station up, but I have to be very careful because when we when we past that if it does pass we have to make sure that we use it only for those that specific now we have one city manager and he said maintaining the streets we couldn't use that sales tax money now we got another city manager that says we can so it needs to be so the people understand it because i tell you what they're tired of being taxed to death they're tired of it I would agree we do have a homeless problem. I've been working with Carrie on something. It's like they can't get any help until they're homeless. So they have to get put out of their house and all of that. And people need to understand that they do want to help them, but they don't want to give them a new house. They want to get them up on their feet. They want to make sure that they have the services that they need to stay on their feet. No market rate housing, I can't agree with that. Concentrants don't want it. They don't want no sales tax. They don't care who pays for it. They don't want it. They feel like they're being taxed to death. And I think we need to be really, really careful with that or we're going to lose our street taxes. What's affordable housing? I ask people that all the time. What is affordable housing? And you know what? I get a different answer. I have some beautiful townhomes. out there in Eastgate, and that's affordable housing. But they're like $1,200 to $1,500 to $1,700. That's not affordable housing to me. You know, I have people that say, you know, I had one lady when I was campaigning out there, and she's like, my check, all my whole check goes on rent. And so I don't know what affordable housing is because I know my house, thank God, has paid off, but I know I could not survive that if I had to do that. So it's very interesting, but I can't support this, not at this time. And I would need to look at the wording. I would like to see it go for a vote. only for one reason, so that you can understand that the citizens of Topeka do not want this sales tax. And we're going to have to find a way out of the way. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Council Member Banks. Thank you, Mayor. For weeks now, as we've been going through the budget process, I've mentioned that I did not think that our RHID process matched affordable housing. It just didn't match up. So as I'm looking in the audience, I'm seeing some signs that says 67% of Topekans want to fund affordable housing. I think that's what we need to focus on, affordable housing. And if 67% of our constituents think that we need that, then maybe the process of a tax increase is not that far fetched. I'm hoping right now the information that you gave us tonight that several of our colleagues have talked about how vague the information is. I'm hoping I'm understanding that this is not the final process. This is not the final blueprint. Correct, city manager?

So keep in mind, councilman, because we've been asked questions, right, like even for the affordable housing piece, what projects will be done, how many bedrooms will we get, will it be the square footage of structures? I can't tell you that right now. I mean, very much as we've gone through the process with affordable housing, trust fund, what you hear about here in a little bit, I I can't, it would, I would envision that those dollars would be worked on and allocated through the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Committee. And right now, I mean, we don't have any projects in the pipeline. So I couldn't tell you, I couldn't tell you specifically that, you know, we're going to get 100 units, you know, like one of the, one of the proposals or one of the projects that was awarded money were five single family homes that were developed by SENT. And we provided buyer incentives to help folks get into those homes. And if I remember correctly, I think even one of them went up to 120% AMI. So the thing is that I can't tell you today specifically that we're going to develop 1,000 affordable housing units. I mean, I can't tell you that today. So again, that is part of the reason why the language is vague, because I can't specifically say with any certainty at either the affordable or market rate, how many we would get out of it. All I know is that we need 4,220 units across the spectrum of affordability, which again, the idea of cash funding some of those would actually put property tax dollars into our coffers that we don't have today. So that is part of the reason why some of that language is vague. I can tell you, as I mentioned, going back to the half cent general use tax, Essentially, we'd have to take cuts across every department if we can't come up with significant dollars to sustain our budget. So that's why it's general use. The other piece, too, and city attorney can help me with this, or Josh, I think we only have a half cent capacity in our general use tax, sales tax. And then we also have a half cent capacity in special use. So the reason that, and again, going back to the projected deficit in our forecasts, we would need that funding to basically sustain our general fund. We would need the full $20 million to sustain our general fund budget over the next five years. So if I use a half cent in general use tax, or if I use a half cent in public, I'm sorry, special use, I don't have that additional tenth of a cent capacity to do six tenths of a cent for half of that, half a cent going towards general or public safety and then another tenth of a cent to go towards affordable housing and homelessness. So basically there's a capacity issue on both of those measures as well.

I appreciate that explanation. It clears things up a little bit for me. I don't know how the community sees it right now. I can't say that I would not support your efforts, but certainly would consider it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Council Member Hiller.

Thank you, Mayor. I've got a lot to say on all of these things. For one thing, we should have had this conversation two months ago because all the things about considering what we're going to do with the budget or what we would do with any special taxes, needed to be figured out. And here we are at the last minute on the budget. And I don't like being in a position to say that this way here. But it's been very frustrating. And to not just be, we've talked again and again about looking from a management perspective program and department by department on what we do and is it critical? Are we doing it the best that we can? Are there ways we could do it more cost-effectively? And you've not been willing to do that. You just want to look at cuts or getting more money. And here we are. Some of us have come up with some things, but the things that have been listed as things that might be cuts, the best I can tell have been things you were pretty sure nobody would want to give up. So I'll stop at that point. on the housing and homelessness, I thought that was agreed long ago. The people in this room worked so hard on getting the Affordable Housing Trust Fund going. We went back and forth on that. We didn't always agree. I still feel like we could have raised private money. But here we are, and the consensus was, no, go after a half of a tenth of a cent. And then with the good work that so many people have been doing on homelessness and looking for money for that too, I thought that the consensus, community wide really, to add a half of a tenth of a cent to another one and get a tenth of a cent together for affordable housing and homelessness was long decided. And my colleagues who've mentioned it are right. You know, one of the things I've been asking for some time is when do we know when enough is enough? At different, you know, incentives are fun and they're catchy and so on. We've done a lot and people are responding well to seeing new housing going up. but then we just did the housing study and you know half of us represent older neighborhoods with lots of vacant structures and infill vacant lots and we look at this housing study and it says oh well things have changed so it's not 10 000 units we need anymore it's just four but we got told not to count vacant structures when we were looking at what the need was and what our availability was for redevelopment you know we The latest census update in 2024 said that we had 2,416 more housing units than we had households. we have a lot of vacant housing. So to just be looking at vacant lots and building new and building by formula to market or upper rates doesn't address where our real needs are. And when you look at the housing study, when you look at what they model as the affordability for buying a home or a rent rate for somebody who's at 30% or 60% of median, almost every one of us in this room knows they can't do that. So I don't know where that comes from. So the idea, and I've already floated with you, but I didn't get very far, that if we go ahead with that 4,000 number, that we target at least 25% of it, if not 50%, at getting people back into, at revitalizing the houses in our existing neighborhoods. Those aren't necessarily fancy. And for me, I want to keep the... the prices of the houses and or the rents at or below what they are today. Now we're talking about really meeting the needs of people that are out there to get them on their feet and that also revitalizes, that fills in their vacant house. Councilwoman Valdivia-Alcoa is so good at talking about the social determinants of health and what it's like when you walk down past a house that's overgrown and empty and scary. It's important and so all together Long way to loop around, I, too, support making sure that that 1% does happen, but that it is targeted at homelessness and truly affordable housing. And there are some ways that we can do that very simply. I think through changing our culture, we've already got some developer roundtables set. Our landlords, affordable housing landlords, are one of our most priceless commodities, and so we need to support them instead of drag them around. and the people in the neighborhoods that are willing to buy the house next door and get it fixed up and rent it out or sell it. In terms of the half cent, I agree with my colleagues that it's too vague. Also, your very own projections have shown that it's more than we need. So even if it's going to be general to go 0.4, it makes more sense to me. I'm still not sure people will support it unless we have demonstrated that we put some thought into how we could trim that budget once and for all beforehand. And here we are on this date, so I don't know what my colleagues all want to do, but I think we could have done that and probably should have. Maybe if we trim the request for the general sales tax back, it'll fly. I don't know. Related to that general one is there's been a discussion of the fire stations. In my opinion, and kind of when we all settled on that homeless and housing thing, we talked about the fire station some as well. If those were going to be financed, it costs $33 million to build three of them. I guess the decisions haven't been quite clear yet on where they would be. Maybe we can wait. But nonetheless, that's an easy 10% sales tax in three-year tranches to do them. for cash and save the taxpayers over $13 million. That's what I'm talking about us looking at when we look at cash versus bonding for capital projects. I haven't been able to get very far with you on that. I think we could start that even now when things are really tight. To Councilwoman Ortiz's point, What we've done in the past is use the half-cent sales tax that was just for existing streets, curbs and gutters and sidewalks, and then used our capital budget to supplement that and put in curbs that never were there or work with utilities to put storm sewers that were never there. As long as we keep spending things that really should have been paid for with cash instead of bonding, we don't have room for that in our capital budget, and we could work that around and do it. In terms of performance and planning which I really support I've asked you for three months at least to get us a map of what streets are done and which ones aren't and what their ratings are and for some reason though that's what we used to do all the time before I was on council and since to kind of get an idea of where we are you haven't wanted to do that so for us to kind of figure out where we are terms of having operating budget money one of the things that's happened is that i think that's part of your plan right now is to move even more preventive maintenance into the half cent sales tax but we haven't yet fixed all the streets that needed to get fixed so for us to be able to look at it we need to be able to look at those ratings and that math and then make a very a really responsible decision about whether we should migrate more preventive maintenance into the new half cent sales tax or whether we need to make sure there's room for it in the operating budget. Let's see. Something to keep in mind is that the countywide half cent sales tax is coming up probably not till what? 2031.

2032.

32. But that one has always been collaborative with the county to do big street projects as well as other capital projects and so you know, for us to be thinking out 10 years, that's not even 10 years, to kind of have those things in mind. I think I'll go ahead and stop right now, but I really appreciate what everybody's been saying. I don't know how fast we can work this budget if we have to, and Mayor, you and I talked about it a little bit, if we have to get this passed because we have a deadline, I think there needs to be language in the motion that we make that says we understand that we are going to steadily, starting the day after we vote, get these various budget cuts or plans in place and get them implemented, not just wait another year. So, thank you.

Council Member Valdivia.

Mayor, Councilwoman Hiller, I've never heard you that fiery before. So, um, I want to go back to the 110. And I don't think, I could be wrong, and not to speak to colleagues, but I can, poor colleagues, but with the expectation of you telling us with affordable housing, you know, you can have this much done and this much done and this much done, you know, per year. I don't think, I don't expect that. when it comes to moving away from the market rate when it comes to the homelessness and the build for zero which is why we need to have Carrie make her presentation with the budget wrapped around it and the methodology that shows that can give you the metrics that you're looking for because this is an established program that has worked on on you know the coast So we would have that. I think that we can attach a specific dollar amount to that every year on this ballot and what that would go for, because we have a program already. We just have not had the dollars to get it up and off the ground, plus all the groundwork that needs to be laid, which is taken a while with challenges with partners and that's just the nature of the beast. So I think there can be quite a bit of specification when it comes to the homeless component. And Councilwoman Hiller, I just want to say when you were saying about the half cent sales tax, you think it's too high and that's based on how you see our reserves growing from if we go and looked at look at the revised income statement so from 2027 we would be our reserves would be at 37 million nine hundred thousand dollars and then in 2031 they would go all the way up to 44 million $222,044. I had never thought about that before. That totally escaped me. But I think that there's some merit there that may need to be looked into as we move forward. Thank you, Mayor.

So if I could just comment on that really quick. As we said during the, I think you guys allowed some questions during the public comment when we were talking about the forecast. For all the things that you have said here to include being able to pay for things with cash, that's what this would allow us to do. As I mentioned, doing this would free up dollars to go towards whatever priority or list of priorities that our community has had for a long time. So, again, I said that during the forecast discussion. I'm saying that again tonight. Whenever you talk about freeing up cash, we could potentially, honestly with this, we could probably use some of that money to fund, cash fund our fire stations. My whole premise of this, again, is that where our 20% mark for our reserves is what we abide by. Again, that first year, and I want to say that we projected we'd probably have about $16 million of one-time dollars that could be programmed into whatever it is that we wanted. The $16 million, again, could be spent out of cash for whatever capital improvements or however we want to program it. But again, the whole point is that we're stable to maintain our 20% reserves. So that is, you're right, it's more than 20%. But again, going back to my comments on the forecast, we could then in turn use cash to fund some of these things and by funding even just the fire stations out of cash we take 33 million dollars out of our cip out of our debt service fund so again while still also being able to support our operating services thank you deputy mayor hofer we have a lot of diverse ideas so

I'm not a fan of sales tax. I'll admit that. But we're going to have to do something. So I want to get an idea what we need to do. Do you want us to write up our own versions and submit them to be looked at before we get to the October? That gives us two weeks before the October 6th meeting. I'm trying to look forward. So we're not upon that October 20th deadline. I have some ideas on a couple. I think we all have ideas. But it's what do you want us to do next?

If the council would be okay to it, I would love probably a two hour work session between now and the end of the month so that way by the time we get to the 6th, we have an idea of a consensus at least or close to consensus of what would be considered if the council were open to that. If you want to submit You may not believe this, but there might be 10 different opinions. Yeah, there probably will be. Yeah, and so if there's an opportunity for us to come together for a special work session, I would greatly appreciate that. That would help us as a team develop the appropriate language and so forth. Again, the sixth is really just to get our draft language together so we can send it to the elections office. We don't have to finalize that, Brenda, until the 20th? So that way we can get it to the elections office by the end of the month. So again, a work session would be great. If you want to submit individual comments and proposed language, I can take that too. But again, trying to morph that into one uh agreeable um measure or language is it's i think we still come back to council and and still have a robust discussion about it so if it is possible for a work session i would love that if not then um you can submit your individual comments and we can go from there okay so i just want to look at it i'm going to get some clarification because i i'm a little confused about the deadline i guess because i thought statute was 90 days it had to be submitted which

Even though they have to mail it out 10 to 20 days, it'd be a March 2nd sort of date still, which would be December 1st. And I'm not suggesting we wait until December. But I guess I'm confused why our deadline is, say, October 20th versus November 10th, for instance, when we come back after the election.

You are correct, Mr. Mayor. The statute says 90 days. Shawnee County, the elections office, has told us they like 120. Their deadline is 120. But by statute, yes, it's 90 days. So the 120 is November 2nd. So I don't know if we wanted to push the county on the issue of 90 versus 120, but the county has told us.

I'd like a follow-up question with them. If they have the right under the statute, if they have statutory authority to set that deadline, then that's fine. That's the law, and they can do that. And I understand why they want it in advance. Again, I'm not trying to push it until the last minute. But I mean, if there was an opportunity for us to actually have the month of October to work through this as a council versus essentially three meetings in October, that's a pretty big difference versus having to make that decision. So if that's what we have to do, then that would be good information to have. sure yep so again i understand there and and maybe if they understood that our goal was to get it to them by like a november 10th versus waiting until december 1st they might be willing to give us that leeway if they understood what our request was so i think that'd be helpful um just yeah just to know all right sorry deputy mayor did not mean that here uh council member kelly all right um

I don't expect you to have those numbers for affordable housing, because that's going to be a fluid thing. I mean, we can sit there and say, well, we're going to focus on four bedrooms now. But in three years, that could be our lowest demographic that we need. So I think it's one of those things we need to make it as fluid as possible on that, so that way we know what our needs are versus what the plan is. Because we can plan out forever, but if we're not hitting our needs, then it's kind of a waste. I think this is definitely a learning experience, especially on the half-cent sales tax on the roads, as the Councilman put out there, The wording needs to be looked at, and this has been a good learning experience over the years, to what we've done to what we've been kind of pigeonholed into. But the one thing I want to make sure is that what we put in there is what we have to stay with. You see it too many times that citizens vote on something. A good example is the Expo Center. We got half of what was presented to us for the Expo Center. Half was actually gone through with. And so there's all these extras that were supposed to be there that never showed up. And so if we say this is what we're going to do, this is what we're going to do. And no major changes, nothing like that, unless we take it back to the citizens again. The only thing I can say about, you know, as Councilwoman put up for zero, my only problem with looking at that too much is You mentioned the coasts. I've lived on the coast. The coasts are a different animal to what we are here. And I'd rather look at some of our communities like Rockford, Illinois, Lake County, Illinois. They're similar to us. And look at those rather than look at the coast because you have a good example. I know several families living on Long Island. They had three, four, five generations living in one house for affordability. We don't really have that here where you have five generations a good amount of houses being multiple generations living in one house. So I'd like to look at what they do, but not really focus on those and look at more of what cities like us are like and focus on those.

Council Member Valdiviacola.

So I should have been more broader in the scope. This all started with Built for Zero looking and searching and bringing it here, the idea, and us talking back in 2021, I think it was. And then Equity Access Shelter was a small component of that without the full Built for Zero program. I think Carrie was part of meetings, the was part of meetings. There were a number of people part of meetings when we first got started with Built for Zero with the people in Rockford, Illinois because they have a Built for Zero program there and they have for close to 20 years and they have similar demographics as we do. So I should have named Rockford, Illinois right off the bat. But they also, you see that Built for Zero has I think now perhaps maybe close to 100. I'm not sure. And some of them are on the coast. But some of them are smack in the area that have similar demographics as we do. Again, Rockford, Illinois is who we had a number of meetings with about how they got their Built for Zero off the ground. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Hiller.

Just one thing I thought maybe I could clarify a little about the half cent street tax before and the term existing. We had the same kind of conversations that we've been having today about using homeless and affordable housing instead of market rate back when we did the first half cent sales tax as well as the renewal. And the reason that the word, she's right, the key word was existing and that was because at that time we had lots of plans, at least on paper, to turn this street into five lanes and this street into five lanes and mega streets and growing and the citizens said, no, we want to take care of what we've got first. These streets need more than a mill and overlay. They need to be rebuilt, and that's enough money right there. So if we target this money that's in the half-cent sales tax for our existing streets, then we can work additions to it. But that's why that was there, and that's one of the reasons why I've asked for the map, because we used to be able to just look at, well, so how are we doing? Where did we start, and where are we now? And I'm not quite sure. So everybody knows there's cones everywhere right now.

So Councilmember we do have existing pavement condition index rating maps. I'm going to just say that there's no corresponding score on those streets compared to when they were done. You and I have discussed the example of 6th Street by McVicker. That street was done I think a year before the cross street of McVicker and I mean

It's really crummy concrete.

Well, I'm just saying, though, you can see there's no correlation, no real correlation. There might be some, but there's not a significant correlation between when a street was done and its condition. You can't have a street that was done 50 years ago and it's in great condition because it doesn't get a lot of traffic. So I hear what you're saying. I don't see a lot of value in that, putting the date when it was last done. Because you can, again, the street on 6th Street was done a year before the one on McVicker and the street on 6th Street is in worse condition than McVicker, even though it was done just a year before. So I hear you and we can talk more about it. Again, the PCI is really what you should be looking at is the condition of the street.

Well, and that's why I asked because we are, I've thought maybe once a year was too often, but we're spending money to get the streets rated on their PCI level every year. So we might as well be able to see where they are.

Every three years.

Every three years. But at the same time, when they were done matters. You know, something that as much as people fuss about this and that, that we don't do well, this city has always been really good about geographic diversity, about parity and getting streets done in different parts of town. And so when you look at the dates on the streets when the last time they were done, that gives you an idea of what that rhythm has been as we've gotten to this point. And then looking at the PCIs, no matter when they got done, you know, may provoke some conversation, but then you can see the ones that need work. So I think we've got the data. Thank you.

All right. City Attorney, I guess I have a question about the definition, maybe there's no gray area, about special use versus general use, right? And I guess maybe it's an either or. So in other words, if it's not, under the way it's defined is if it's not could be used for, say, everything, once you qualify it for any specific use, it becomes a specific use, even if it's generalized. And by that, I mean, for example, some of the discussions at this point have been about quote unquote public safety. which is 70% of our budget, which includes multiple departments, could also include fire stations as part of that. I assume that then still makes it now a special use, not qualifies for general use under that definition, even though it's not one specific thing. Does that make sense, what I'm asking?

I think so. The special use is restricted to specifically whatever is defined under that ballot question, and then the cap is lower and there's a specified timeline. It can only be up to 10 years. The general use still requires some type of a narrative as to what it will be used for, but it can be used generally. I mean, across. It's not... you're not held to those specific things that are necessarily named in that narrative, if that makes sense.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And they have different caps. I think the general use cap is 2% total aggregate. Special use cap is 1% aggregate. And then there's no required deadline or sunset date for a general.

And what are we capping? Does the Gage Park Authority count against our... special use, even though we had nothing to do with it?

No. I believe right now we only have .5% in place for special use right now. And that's why we're capped at a .5 at this point in time.

Gotcha. Okay. Okay. So then I have other thoughts. These are in no particular order, so I apologize. But as I've been taking notes throughout the conversation. I do want to point out, and I've said this whenever we have RHID conversations, is the RHID program was not created for affordable housing. It was created for all housing. And I think that's important as we have this conversation because it is a tool at our disposal that we should be utilizing to build market rate housing. We should also be using it for affordable, but it's one of those tools at our disposal to put towards those efforts that's less harmful to our bottom line and our budget and isn't us putting out cash. And I bring that up because as we talk about then finding a source for affordable housing and the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, It allows us then, if we can do that, to have those sort of circular program that says, great, we can use RHID on everything, but we can really focus it to help with things like market rate, while we also have programs through the Affordable Housing Trust Fund that are also making sure we're keeping up with and doing what we want to accomplish on the affordable housing piece. So they can be used as sort of this nice complement to each other if we can find some ways to make them work that way over time. Josh, you can totally correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know where you are. You don't even need to get it. But we keep talking about the 20% reserve threshold. I say this every year during budget time. Unless I'm wrong, we have never actually as a governing body, and I've told staff if you want us to change it, bring it to us. But I believe it's 15% that we have established as our official threshold. I understand 20% why we want that at times, and the bond council has advised us. But my understanding is, unless I'm wrong, it's 15%. And I think that's important to this conversation, because through the years, and Councilman Dobler and I, when he was here, used to say this every year, if it's 15%, let's BE IT 15%. SO I'M HAPPY TO REVISIT THAT IF AT SOME POINT STAFF WANTS TO BRING THAT BACK BECAUSE I UNDERSTAND WHY, BUT I THINK IF YOU WORK OFF OF THAT 15 OR EVEN A 17% BASED ON THE NUMBERS WE'VE SEEN, THAT 3% MAKES A DIFFERENCE TOO IN SOME OF THESE NUMBERS THAT WE DISCUSS AS WE'RE LOOKING AT HOW TO FORMULATE SOMETHING THAT THE CITIZENS MIGHT BE AMENTABLE TO AND ALSO STILL MEET THE NEEDS THAT WE'RE TRYING TO REACH OVER TIME. The Affordable Housing Trust Fund exists for the purpose of a lot of the discussion we've had up here tonight. We aren't going to be able to answer some of those questions, but they can. That's why we put them together. That's why they're in place. That's why they're made up of citizens. It's why that they have standards and things that they have put in place and will continue to be put in place. And so I think that is something we can reassure folks, if this moves forward, to say it's not just going into some random pot that we're going to figure out later. It's going into a structured program that we spent years working on and developing in. And it's going to have community oversight into that. And so I think that is also important for the conversation. The same is, if we go back to the homeless piece, that's what the Build for Zero model also has given us. It's given us a structure. We spent a lot of time over the years sort of using the shotgun approach to address the issue instead of that scalpel approach. And by bringing in Build for Zero, and yeah, it's taken us a while to ramp up, but we knew that when we did it. We knew that it was going to be a year or a year and a half plus before we could actually fully kind of utilize that. And at some point, we'll get that update. And you'll see that that's where we're at. But again, I think that we have that structure in place to help reassure folks that if we can put resources there, we have a program that's going to make a difference in this community. We've just got to find a way to put resources towards it. This debate has come up. And I know the city manager, we're not all agree with the approach at this point, maybe, or the questions. But it's real simple. This community has been clear to us, you've got to find a way to figure out how to pay for things without raising property taxes. That leaves us with only so many options. And so this is the option the city manager has brought us. And he and I have gone round and round about this issue for a year on various things. I like this part. I don't like this piece. We're going to have to talk about this. I can get on board with this. What are you thinking? We've had all of those conversations over the past year. But I'm going to sit here and at least say whether we push this forward or don't or whatever the outcome of these conversations are, this is part of what we've asked him to do is to bring this community options that continue to diversify our tax base when citizens have been clear that property taxes have got to find a way to be lowered. And when we get to the budget conversation, because I'll save my comments for that, you're going to see that we have done a lot to this budget that isn't raising taxes or even expenses. And we've done trimming to try to hear that message and still find ways to pay for things. I do to some degree prefer, I guess it'd be a special approach, a more targeted approach, I think, as the council has said. I think we're going to have a difference on what that looks like. As I said earlier, public safety is 70% of our budget. And as I will tell anyone in the public safety sector, If we could target a little more towards those efforts, that doesn't mean you're getting more money. The goal is not to give you more, but it is to find a way to take 70% of our budget and find a way to free up some of those funds on the other side of the ledger so that we have more flexibility with our general fund to fund more essential services. So it's not about giving public safety as I move through this conversation over the next week more money, but it is about an offset of that budget for me to figure out a way to be more productive with what we have. I also think some of that could help us cover fire stations if it was part of a general public safety. Now, it sounds like we can't do that just for public safety at a half cent and a quarter cent or a tenth of a cent for the other. So we're going to have to think about that. I'm going to have to digest that over the next week or two as it was brought up. Maybe based on these numbers, it's a fourth and a tenth and that gets us our half and we go from there. And so I think that's a valid discussion. I think the message has been pretty clear from the council tonight that we want a reexamination of the market rate versus the homelessness as we look at that question. So I think that... Council Member Capp. And so I do think that message has been clear. I do appreciate and I think we've already determined that if anything goes forward, we do want something that's on the ballot that relates to the auditor position. I think that's another reassurance to folks that we're taking these conversations seriously. So that's where my head is at with this conversation. Hopefully, city attorney can get us some clarification. If it's October 20th, it's October 20th. And when we get that information back, we'll We can decide, have a talk amongst ourselves or through the city manager about whether we need a special meeting or whether we think we can get it done in October. And then after that, we can start to make some decisions. Yes, City Attorney.

I will just add, Mr. Mayor, I was looking through some of our correspondence with the county, and it appears that that extra amount of time has to do with what they need to do to prepare federal mail service ballots due to some changes in federal regulations. So I'm not sure exactly what those changes are. Apparently it has to do with federal compliance.

Okay.

Thank you.

Council Member Hiller.

before we continue we just had this discussion if if i heard you right we are capped at 0.5 for a special funds correct right now and 0.5 for general

I'm not sure on the general, Josh might be able to answer that. I'm not sure where we're at, but we're capped overall.

We already have a 0.5 half cent sales tax for streets. So does that mean we're already at the cap and we can't be talking about that?

No, no. We have capacity. So the 0.5 for streets already exists. We are capped at 1%. One total.

So we've still got 0.5 to go. Correct. Thank you. That's it.

All right, are there any other comments or questions on this issue at this time? Oh, so close. OK, I know. No, you're fine. You're fine. Councilmember, I'll .

OK, so what are we looking at right now? I heard what you said. I heard city managers say a work session would be nice. I would prefer to have meetings in October at our regular council meetings. So when are we supposed to find out about that?

that i imagine nick will have our first answer by tomorrow won't take the election office long to give him a response and so my guess is he could notify us in the next day or two and then okay we feel like we need a special meeting we can we can take a poll and do we feel like we have discussed it or there will be further discussion in october so that folks can get a deeper understanding of what this well there will be further conversations because i think as you heard tonight we all have different variations of the question we're going to need to consider. Right.

But explanation of what this auditor will really be doing that we want, you know, that we're changing up the ballot for this conversation later.

I think the best advice I can give is I would suggest that our second meeting in October have as little as humanly possible on that agenda so that we can dedicate it as much as possible to this issue, if necessary.

And Mayor, thank you for that. Councilmember, going back to the schedule, we talked about having draft language together by the October 6th meeting. Again, it's so that we can send that draft language over to the elections office. We don't have to finalize it until October 20th. So to your point, Mayor, and to your question, Councilmember, we can probably use that second meeting in between as another work session.

Okay, and just as an aside, I think it's important, I don't think we're going to be able to discuss all of it, but the chair of the Citizens Government Review Committee gave us a lot of information about the city auditor, Jim Kopp. I hope I'm saying your name right, Jim. Kopp. Kopp, is it? Kopp. Kopp? OK. And so I think that's worth reviewing as we go further down this whole helpful hole. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Anything else? All right. Thank you, city manager. Thank you all. All right. We got through one thing. Look at us. Next up, presentation B, affordable housing trust fund. City clerk.

Affordable Housing Trust Fund update, and Kerry Higgins will present.

City Manager.

Thank you, Mayor. Just give me one moment. Thank you again. Mayor and members of the governing body, in this item, we will provide an update of the activation of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which is one of our FY2026 strategic goals, and discuss the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Committee's recommended use of the remaining funds for smaller projects and a sales tax recommendation. With that, I'll now turn this over to Kerry Higgins, Director of Housing and Homeless Services, to lead us through this item. Kerry.

Thank you. Good evening. So tonight I have a fairly brief update for you on the affordable housing trust fund. So just some background. The purpose of the trust fund is to expand the availability of affordable housing based on ordinance 20554. The trust fund met its initial goal of $1 million in June of 2023, and it made its first project awards in July of 2026. So the initial projects that were funded were sent with five infill homes, Highland Park townhomes for construction costs to rehab those units, and then initially Weibel property development. However, we did receive an update late last week After this PowerPoint was sent out, and I believe the city manager also sent out a memo to the governing body on Friday that gave an update on the situation as well. Unfortunately, Weibel has had to withdraw their project, and so we will not be funding that project. So that brings our remaining fund balance from the little over 319,000 that you see on the screen to actually the new balance would be a little over 684,000. So the committee is proposing that we do a second round of funding, but that it is focused more on small smaller agencies such as NIAs or individuals. We've received feedback from the community that they would support and they want to see two different types of RFPs, one that is more geared towards individuals or smaller entities. We are also holding a public forum tomorrow at 11 a.m. at the holiday building in order to get more community feedback on how the initial process went and what the community would like to see with the second round. So we will take all of that feedback, make any adjustments or changes that we need to. And then the goal is to put out a second round of funding in the next few months. Which brings me to the issue of ongoing funding, and we've discussed this before. So at the November 12th committee meeting, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund did vote to propose a .01, a one-tenth special sales tax that would go specifically to homelessness and the Affordable Housing Trust Fund in order for it to have that sustainable funding source long term that we've been looking for. So the committee tonight is recommending that the governing body moves forward with that recommendation for half homelessness, half the trust fund. And we are hoping to see that on the March 27th ballot for a community vote. Just a refresher of the voting committee members you see listed here. I think it's also important to note that there are a lot of additional city staff that are an integral part of this work as well that are not listed here. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Questions or comments from the governing body at this time? Council Member Hiller.

Thank you. Carrie, I've got a specific question about the project on Tyler. Yes.

How much money was Mr. Wobble seeking? It was $365,197.50. No, but it's private funding. I would need to get back to you on that amount. Okay.

Let's say it was a million dollars. I just want to throw it out to this group while you're here that, you know, I hope that we move into having a housing summit and getting a master plan for affordable housing in this community so that we've got some help in targeting money and efforts. But meanwhile, if anybody knows an individual or maybe a faith-based denomination or some source. A lot of times when really good affordable housing projects develop, they come from unlikely sources that have not been involved before. If there's a way, 817 Tyler's in my district, but if his proposal was to develop a 24-unit co-op, and right in the middle of that area. I think it's a wonderful project. It is not traditional, and times are very, very turbulent right now in private markets. I get that. But if anybody knows somebody who might personally or through their company be willing to do that, let Carrie know. Because it would be wonderful to see. Thank you. But anyway, overall with the trust fund, you know, that flexibility to provide just $10,000 for somebody who did a gut rehab on a house on wherever and brought it to code and put it out. We define what we think affordable is. for people of different incomes and start really targeting making sure that we get and keep our housing affordable. I live in Tennessee town on Lane Street. Most people know where I live, but for us having property values go up isn't a priority. We want to keep those property values where they are and keep it affordable. And I think we've got the horsepower in this community to do it and do things that people didn't think we could and keep it truly and create those first. We've got landlords and people who want to help that. can be that first stop for people that have been homeless. We've got those next steps through our neighborhoods, and people care a lot. And so I'm excited to see everybody here and to see us move forward with not only the initiative or the half cent sales tax, but thinking about who we know. Thank you.

Council Member Valdivia Alcala.

Thank you, Mayor. There's a lot of merit in what Councilwoman Hiller is saying because Weibel's project was really thinking outside of the box. And I think as far as co-op, don't we only just have one other in Topeka? Maybe two at the most? Fox Ridge. Fox Ridge. Okay.

There's just a few, I think.

So it is a wonderful idea for that area. It is so sad. to see him continue to look for funding through financial institutions and not being able to find it. If there is private donors or a cache of private donors or somebody that has an extra amount, that would be certainly wonderful because it would be, I believe, transformative. But I would also request for the information that Hiller is asking for, if you could send that amount to the full governing body. So in case they're having any conversations with anyone that may know a lot of loaded people, they'll be able to say, hey, there's a great project, and this is how much they're looking for. And thank you for the presentation.

Thank you, Mayor. Any other comments or questions for Carrie? All right. Looks like you're free.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. With that, we will move on to the consent agenda. City Clerk.

All right, A is approval of a Public Works Department contract between the City of Topeka and Alfred Benes and Company for professional engineering and design services in an amount not to exceed $85,300. B is a resolution introduced by City Manager Dr. Robert Perez authorizing the City Attorney's Office to initiate litigation. C is approval of a municipal court contract between the City of Topeka and Colossal Law Office, PA, for court-appointed council services. D are minutes of the regular meeting of September 8, 2026, and there are no applications.

All right. Thank you. We have a motion to approve from Councilmember Kell and a second from Councilmember Ortiz. Clerk, take the vote, please.

Okay, we have 10 yes. The motion carries.

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

A is an ordinance introduced by city manager Dr. Robert Perez relating to imposing a real estate lien pursuant to KSA 12808C upon certain lots and pieces of ground in Shawnee County, Kansas, to pay the cost for utility services where such payments to the city have not been made due to neglect, failure, or refusal to pay.

City Manager.

Thank you. Mayor and members of the governing body, as discussed during our September 8th council meeting, the city of Topeka provides utility services for water, wastewater, stormwater, and fire line services to a variety of customers located both inside and outside city limits. When utility accounts become delinquent, state law permits the city to institute a lien on the property of these customers in order to recover payment for services rendered. This ordinance, for which I recommend approval, would authorize staff to work with the city clerk to add the delinquent utility fees to the tax statement that is issued in November. With that, I will turn this over to Nicole Mallott, Deputy Director of Utilities, to lead us through this item.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the council. I don't really have anything new to add from last week. I will just update that you would have received a new ordinance, I believe, in front of you. We had two additional accounts removed, so remaining are 136 accounts for a total of $122,891.04. With that, if you have any other questions, I'm happy to answer them for you.

We do have one individual signed up for public comment on this issue, so we will call them up, Ms. Danielle Twimlow. I will also tell you we have a number of people still signed up throughout the evening for public comment, so we're going to try to keep it within four minutes this evening. Thank you very much, Danielle.

Thank you. and consistent. And I have a suggestion. So this utility lien that we need to be talking about from year to year is happening with a balance of approximately $63 on some of the accounts. And so this is really becoming an admin inefficiency or really an operational loss when we're going after accounts at that level. We should be asking a very basic question. What are we actually accomplishing when the city uses a property lien to collect a debt this small? Municipal government has an obligation to have standards, proportionality, and common sense in the way it collects that debt. The cost and the consequences of placing a lien are not justified in that situation. A lien is not simply another bill. It requires staff time. It requires documentation. It requires legal processing. It requires recording against real property. It creates another obligation that has to be tracked, reconciled, and eventually released. And when the underlying debt is $63, we need to know whether the city's cost of pursuing and maintaining that lien is actually less than the amount they're trying to collect. If it isn't, then we aren't protecting the utility funds. We are spending public resources to chase small balances in a way that can cost taxpayers and rate payers even more in the long run. We have historically done this. Each year, there have been as little as $69, $68.56, I mean, on and on. So it's not a new question. But we need to have a different standard here. We have not had a cost of service of really what does it maintain. Many of these properties are spending quite a bit more on their utility rates because they're right outside of the city line. So what is the actual cost of serving them versus what we are putting in that collection? We know that we have seen this come time and time again of not really evaluating you know, where the readiness to serve charge came within that. At one point it was discussed that that was potentially something that was going to be used to offset some costs for people who were developing. We never really got an answer to what that looked like and how often that was actually used because then it was really found out that this was a charge that we were always doing. So where is that offset cost? Because that matters. We also don't really look like many other cities use the vacant fee and structure it in a way that offsets that utility piece. But I also I know it's been brought up a couple times whether we collect that vacant fee and then what does that look like? How is that structured? And are we actually collecting on that? So I ask just very simply year after year that we continue not to wait until it is time to pass these things to really look at how efficient we are actually being, because again, in the long run, we're likely paying more money to service than if we were running more efficiently. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Questions or comments for staff or Nicole? Council Member Kell.

Just curious, was there a decrease in the number from last week?

Two accounts. Two accounts, okay.

I don't see any other questions or comments. Do we have a motion? Oh, Council Member Hiller.

Just to her, to some of her points, um, I guess my understanding from when you presented about this before was that it's pretty straightforward that instead of going through collections and handling these things one at a time, you're able to just take whatever was due and just take them, record them as you need to, but just in one block and send them over to the county and that you also have let me not misquote it, a really high pay rate that people just pay it with their taxes and it's done. It's over 90%, right?

Correct. Yeah, everything you say that's correct there. This is actually a less cost-intensive process than anything else. Yes.

Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments? All right, do we have a motion? A motion to approve from Councilmember Miller, and a second from Councilmember Kell. If there's no other comments or questions, then I will ask the clerk to take the vote, please.

OK, we have nine yes with council member Valdivia-Oclo voting no. The motion carries.

With that, it'll be good. With that, we move on to action item B, city clerk.

B is an appropriation ordinance introduced by City Manager Dr. Robert Perez approving and adopting the operating budget for the City of Topeka for the year 2027 and appropriating the amounts for the purpose as set forth therein.

City Manager. Thank you, members of the governing body. Although we presented our balanced FY2027 proposed budget on July 14th, we really started this process in January this year. Since we presented the proposed budget, we've gone through departmental overviews and presented our five year financial forecast. Over the last few weeks, the team and I have shared thoughts on proposed amendments, and we'll share those again this evening for consideration and discussion as part of the adopted budget consideration. With that, I will now turn this over to Josh McInerney, Deputy Director of Budget and Finance, to lead us through this discussion.

Thank you, City Manager. Just three things. So we've gone through all the formal publishing of the public hearings, have held the public hearings, and posted the appropriate notice that we were required to do. So we can now officially actually take action on the budget, which we have to submit by October 1st. And then secondly, just because we approve a budget tonight doesn't mean we can take measures to reduce expenses down the line. All the budget does is just set the top line expenditure authority by fund that we submit to the state. So we can over time proactively take approaches if that's the method preferred by the governing body. And then third, one thing that will be an area of emphasis for us over the next year is monitoring revenue. So just because we approve a budget, we still have to monitor and make sure that the revenues come in, cover expenses. Because just like in the private sector, if the revenues don't come in, we have to adjust on the expense side. So that's just one thing to keep in mind. I can't hear you. My computer, I don't have it on me.

City Manager?

No, Mayor, so at this point, we want to begin discussion with any proposed amendments that the governing body has.

Okay, well, first we have some individuals signed up for public comment, so we will go to them first, and then before we start governing body discussion. So with that, first up, Mr. Ledbetter told me he left, so we will go to Pastor Christine Potter.

Good evening. My name is Reverend Christine Potter. I'm the pastor at Lowman United Methodist Church here in Topeka. I'm co-chair of Topeka Jump and I'm on the Homelessness Steering Committee at Topeka Jump and I'm a lifelong Topekan. I'm here today to speak about the proposed sales tax of one-tenth of a penny. As I shared last week with the Policy and Finance Committee, IM and Topeka Jump is deeply troubled by the recent and abrupt switch on this proposal that has been spoken about a lot tonight. For a year now we've heard the city and the review committee talking about proposing a one-tenth of a penny sales tax for the citizens of Topeka to vote on to go towards affordable housing and homeless services. While affordable housing remains on the proposal, support for homelessness services has been replaced by market rate housing. As a pastor and as a citizen of Topeka, I feel compelled to speak against this sudden switch as both unethical and undemocratic. It is undemocratic because there has already been a poll done by the city that indicated 67% of Topekans would vote in favor of this tax supporting affordable housing and homelessness, not market rate housing. Further, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Review Committee, who was established and empowered to do this work, approved the original proposal back in November, not the new proposal for market rate housing. Please listen to your constituents who have been focused on this problem and are actively proposing solutions. In terms of the ethics, it is wrong to prioritize market rate housing over the needs of our homeless and unhoused neighbors. As I shared at policy and finance last week, in Topeka market rate housing equates to housing that's affordable for a family of four making about $120,000 a year. I stand here before you to say that market rate housing is not affordable for me and my family. It is luxury housing. There is just no way that we can sit here and deny that it is unethical to prioritize luxury housing over the homeless human beings on our streets right now. If the city decides to keep this new proposal with half the money going towards market rate housing instead of homelessness, our jump membership can no longer support it. In fact, we will actively campaign against it for these important reasons that I've named today. There are millions of dollars on the line here, and we, the people of Topeka Jump, representing 37 faith communities and over 7,000 of your constituents, do not just want to see the entire proposal shot down by the council or voted down by the public. We emphatically want the original proposal to succeed. The original proposal that the review committee agreed on with half the sales tax going to affordable housing and half to homelessness. The original proposal has the chance to do something incredible in Topeka. Something that Topekans have been excited to get on board with. Something that benefits us all. The homelessness crisis affects all of us. We have a very real chance here to prioritize these humans and this crisis with dedicated funding for researched and proven homelessness services. This is what we will advocate for and vote for, and this is actually what 67% of already polled Topekans said they would vote for. We can have the market rate housing conversation another day, but not at the expense of dedicated funding for homelessness. Let's do something amazing together for Topeka. Let Topeka vote on one-tenth of a penny sales tax for affordable housing and the recommendations of the city's 2024 Homeless Innovation Team Study. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Reverend Julie Makoa. Reverend Julie McCullough.

Okay.

Welcome, ma'am. When you hear the first beep, it's going to mean you have one minute still remaining. Okay.

Mayor Duncan, I'm sorry. City Manager Dr. Perez, Mayor Duncan, City Council members, other officials, and citizens of Topeka. My name is Julie McCullough. As I have begun writing this public comment Thursday, September 10th, I have lived in Topeka for 11 years. I am neither a businesswoman nor a politician. I must confess that I am very ignorant regarding business, finance, politics, and many of the ways of the world. While I readily confess my ignorance in many areas, I am smart in one way. I am smart enough to know that I don't know what I don't know. In the years I have lived here, I have seen affordable housing growing less affordable and homelessness increasing. I believe that those who are not wealthy are likely to be in for a wild ride in the next couple of years and maybe much longer. Topeka Jump put forth a proposal, one-tenth of a penny sales tax with half going to affordable housing and half toward homelessness services. But I understand that there is a push to change our proposal so that half of this tax would go to market rate housing. And the example given was for a luxury apartment complex downtown. We have many needs in this city. Luxury is nice to have, but it is a desire, a want, Why change this proposal and call people who are getting less and less able to afford our own housing to pay a tax for luxury that we will never be able to live in or enjoy? We're struggling just to meet our basic needs, and some no longer can and are now homeless. Some are on waiting lists for assistance that can be two years or more long. And as our economy grows more and more out of control, these waiting lists will grow much longer. So let's stop worrying so much about luxury and attend to basic needs so that we can all have safe, secure places to live. And that may get a lot of people off the streets. And the upside of that is that when people have home addresses, they can more easily secure jobs. And that will help our economy. I know that won't be nearly as simple as it sounds, but it's a much more practical goal worth working toward. It can better the lives of many rather than the lives of just a few that are already well on track. Let's think about that. Thank you.

Next up, we have Steve Harvey.

So Steve Harvey is what I think.

So you know Steve Harvey, I think it's Steve Henry. OK.

He doesn't like saying the word Henry.

That's a common. a mistake that's made with my name. I am Steve Henry. I've been in Topeka for 49 years. I live in District 8. I've served as a member of JUMP's affordable housing and homeless committees. And I want to start by saying hooray. Hooray for the buy-in. to first create and now on the horizon to fund the affordable housing trust fund in a meaningful and ongoing way. What an exciting thing. What a piece of work. Imagine blighted housing being rehabilitated or replaced with new housing. Imagine communities becoming new housing and communities. with houses being rehabilitated or replaced with new housing. Imagine communities becoming safer and more attractive to move into. Imagine reversing long-term trends of decreasing population within our city boundaries. This is at hand. This can happen. I see it. So that part of the proposal, I'm excited about. But what a disappointment to see what happened with the other half of the proposal, where the homeless support got pushed out with this concept of market housing. Can't support that, obviously. And I have to say I'm heartened to hear the discussion at council today that suggests that there is a lot of support for the homeless initiative piece of this. I hope that comes to fruition. I want us to take a pause for a minute to reflect on some important groundwork we did together to address homelessness in Topeka. In 2023, the City of Topeka wisely hired an outside consultant to conduct a community engagement process that included a systematic review of homelessness in Topeka and to identify best practices used to address homelessness across this country. Many sessions were held over a period of several months. Many leaders of the City of Topeka, Shawnee County government, social service agencies, and the community participated. Many good ideas were generated for taking a much more comprehensive, systematic, and integrated approach to homelessness to meet the needs of the homeless. On May 21st, 2024, One minute. Brianna Silver presented the City Council findings of that process and a comprehensive plan for addressing homelessness in Topeka. It included goals, detailed steps, and a multi-year timeline for addressing homelessness in a comprehensive and systematic way. It represented the hard work and the best thinking of many people. And it produced seven recommendations, two of which were create a one-stop homeless center, investment in a continuum housing solution, specifically a low barrier shelter and permanent tiny homes. The council received for their work, received this report, but determined no action should be taken because we had a new city manager coming in and it would not be prudent to proceed. So a year later, here we are. Sorry, I'm out of time. Thank you, sir. Time to dust off that report. Time to implement it with the support of the other half.

Next up, we have Mr. Rick Tyler.

Mr. Mayor, council members, thanks for allowing me to be here. I'm going to change the pace a little bit and talk about data centers. What a surprise, right? But I don't want to give you a lot of facts and figures. I want to talk to you a little bit about the more human side of what a data center can do to your community.

I'm going to pause you for a minute. I'm going to let you finish because we're going to be here a while, but this is our budget agenda item, so I don't know if We got put in the wrong spot. I'm going to let you go ahead and finish tonight.

Well, I can.

No, because we're in a budget conversation. It's going to take a while. I have you on here twice, so I don't know if you're going to only speak once tonight.

Just once.

Since you're the last speaker, I'm going to let you speak. I'm just clarifying that that's what we're talking about. So that's it. Go ahead. You're back on. You're good. Your time was paused, so you didn't lose any time there.

Thank you. So what I'd like to do is talk to you about the little bit more human side of what a data center can do to a community. I have an article here that was written just a few days ago from the Kansas Reflector. And it was written by a gentleman who lives and works in Emporia, Kansas. And he talks about what's going on in Emporia. But a lot of it can be applied to what's going on here with our data center situation. I'm going to read you just a couple of paragraphs from that article. It says, Thank God for open courts. Secrecy has been a hallmark of the data center assault on rural America, and few subjects have been as secret or as enigmatic as the money behind the proposed digital campus for my town of Emporia at the edge of the Flint Hills in east central Kansas. The stakes are enormous, and the fight over 1,000 recently annexed and largely pastoral acres at the western edge of the city is representative of a conflict taking place just about everywhere. For decades, Empori has been a pleasant if sleepy college town whose legacy was that of a heartland utopia envisioned by the editor and author William Allen White. In recent years, it has lost hundreds of manufacturing and meat processing jobs, creating economic desperation of historic proportions. Civic leaders sought a big fish solution. The Kansas Park place must have seen like a whale. The choice we've been repeatedly told by business leaders since early June is to embrace progress or to wither away. But the conversation cannot be reduced to progress versus provincialism. Those who engage in the expected arguments about environmentalism or economic development soon find that they have lost the larger narrative driving people to action. The question is, who are we as a community? We stand at a pivotal, if not terminal, moment in human history, taken by surprise at the speed at which it arrived just six years just six years ago, we were paralyzed and separated by Covid. Now things are moving so fast, it seems impossible to keep pace with the changing political, cultural and technological landscape. We must not give into exhaustion or despair because the decision we make now will shape our communities for generations to come. Some readers have objected to my referring to Emporia as my town. in these columns pointing out that I was not born here. Others have said I don't understand the community because I didn't go to high school here. But citizens are more than accidents of birth or survivors of shared secondary education. After 20 years on Constitution Street, I can confidently call this as my town, just as the town where you live is your town also. Give me a community that values humanity over machines, compassion over profits, and fact over folksy fictions. Let us use technology with restraint and pursue economic development with wisdom. Give us competent judges and lawyers and open courts, transparent government and responsive lawmakers, reliable health care and food for all. Give us art and music and love. Let us make communities that they are worthy of our best and most engaged selves. We cannot revisit the past, but we can imagine a future worth striving for. No machine or should do that for us. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, sir. All right, that was our last sign-up for this. It is close enough to 8 o'clock that maybe before we dig into the budget and our conversations, we will go ahead and take our 8 o'clock break. So 10-minute feedback here at 8.05, and then we will continue the conversation.

Hey, Josh.

Okay. All right. We are back from our recess. With that, I guess I will now open it up to the governing body. Or actually, does the city manager have a...

Thank you, Mayor.

I see spreadsheets on my screen.

Yeah. So to start the discussion, I wanted to ask for council's consideration of these proposed amendments to the budget. Again, we discussed some of these in previous sessions. in previous briefings and so just kind of wanted to go one by one for council's uh consideration of these as we look to adopt the budget josh so yeah i'll we like the manager said we reviewed a lot of these last week there have been some slight changes but um the first one of note is that that first line item where

There's been a lot of talks about having a city auditor. So a way to get the ball rolling on that would be to reclassify a current position to be that position and the council and city manager can work in tandem. That doesn't necessarily have to have an expense line item change since that money's already levied for in the budget. This is more of an acknowledgement if the council wants to go that direction that that's a footnote in the budget. And then we talked about amendment number two through Um, 6 last week, um, in regards to the, um, just some just. Lower expenditures for various line items, but 1 changes on the revenue side is that. Since that contract contract is for half the year, we had 300,000 dollars. Really? That should be 150,000 dollars lessons. They pay in quarterly installments. On the flip side, we'll have to. PD, since they did not get a grant, we'll have to fund some printers for their services. So that's an offset. We talked about row nine or amendment number nine about having the internal payment preservation program. That's outside of the general fund. And then also a decrease in revenue to the insurance fund since we lowered that on line five. And then finally, I sent an email out a couple times on this, but currently we have embedded In the budget $28,000 of revenue and 1.76M dollars there about of expenditures in the general fund. So. Related to planning, so we're going to move that revenue and expenses out into the 616 planning development fund. However, if we do that, there's. That fund would be in the red, so it still requires a subsidy. So we're just literally. Moving money out to still subsidize it that way we can better track it going forward and the hopes is if. you raise fees over time given levels of demand that that will eventually be self-sustaining but that's all predicated on supplying the demand within the city market any questions specific to this these changes councilmember kell now on that uh city auditor that's that's just kind of a place marker on that salary because i know it's you know to get someone

that's for a city our size, just looking at average salary, we're probably going to need to bump that up a little bit just to be able to compete to actually get a qualified person.

So a couple things. We've looked at what I think we're right in line with that, actually, in looking at it. Because that's going to be their only job. And so we did look at some other cities. And if that's what we come down to and we need to have that conversation, we can. But this at least gives us an option to start that search sooner rather than later. But I think we're going to be okay, just based on looking at other cities and the market and some other things.

Thank you.

At least that's the hope, based on the information I've looked up. I think what I'm going to... Oh, sorry. Do you have other comments on this? Council Member Miller.

Proposed Amendment No. 7. the decrease in the SR program. I understand where we're at. I get the big picture. But I still don't want to see change in there until there's an adequate situation for USD I will want to be able to do their part. I know that they're trying to come up to something I just don't want to see Change on our end until we can make sure that that they will be able to take over the program in a way that the community feels safe in because It is very clear that They don't think they can do it. I don't know why they don't believe they can do it. But I hope that they can get to a place where they can. But I hope that we can continue to help through funding towards that. That's just my thought. I'm going to stand on that.

Council Member Kell. I'm in agreement with Council Member Miller on that. I know the TCALC teaching position, I could see maybe let them just take care of that themselves, but when it comes to the actual SRO officers, until it's It's gone, done for, contracts over, no more negotiating. I'd like to see it stay there because if we're planning for it to be gone and we go back and negotiate, now we've got to find another place. So I'd almost rather keep that in there rather than have to rearrange later.

Council Member Ortiz.

I guess I'm not understanding because it'll be in there until the contract ends in May and June. Okay. We've had a lot of discussion. We've had a lot of discussion for over a year. And I feel confident that they will be okay. Their director of safety, he wanted this because we had an issue of do our officers answer to him or do they answer to the chief? And I agree with Mr. Avery at that meeting. And he said, it doesn't matter what we do, but the one thing that we need to straighten out is to make sure that they know who they answer to, because they're public health and safety. The judge talked about how he has to swear them in, TPS. And our chief has said he would do the following. campus security assessments including walk-throughs and safety recommendations for free, critical incident response and coordination consistent with citywide protocols, participate in safety planning meetings, emergency drills, and preparedness efforts, Access to community outreach programs including police, athletic league, PAL program. Access to investigative services for major crimes that are beyond the scope of USD 501 investigative capabilities. Ongoing consultation with the USD 501 director of public safety on security concerns, threats, or emerging issues. joint de-escalation and active shooter training with USD 501 police personnel, access to daily shift recaps for intelligence sharing, including emerging trends or concerns, city crime trend beliefs to share relevant youth-related information, threat assessment support with specialized police insights, insight is needed, emergency communication consultation including inoperability and notification protocol guidance, access to specialized units when appropriate including canine support or cyber crimes consultation, support for reunification planning during major incidents, assistance with updating district safety policies and procedures, participate in joint tabletop exercise to strengthen coordinated response capabilities. These services ensure we remain a reliable partner to USD 501 by allowing us to deploy our staffing and resources in the most effective manner for the entire city. And that says a handful. He's doing all of that for free. We cannot continue to go on to have a 76-24. I believe their counteroffer was 360. We pay over a million dollars to have those SROs there. They get a lot of our retired officers who are not the bottom of the barrel, as they were referred to, who are officers. Cochran has been a chief, has been an intern, the director of public health and their safety. He has been a chief. He has been an intern city manager. He has been an officer. So he knows. He knows how to train them. What we need to have moving forward is them to be trained. That's what we need forward. I love our SROs. I love our kids. but I cannot continue to sit here and chop away at different parts of the budget and say, no, no, we're going to do this. So that's why I support it wholeheartedly. We asked our chief to go through and look through his budget, which is however much percent Josh, you can tell me of, of, of, How much of it is personnel in the police department?

Of just the police department, like 91%.

91%. And we say, well, what are we going to cut? What are we going to cut? You know, we've done it for 20 years, 20 years. Just like every other, there's a lot of contracts being looked at, and I will agree with the mayor. We're going to have to make some tough decisions, some tough decisions. So, again, you know, I've had a lot of parents contact me that they don't understand the whole ordeal. Marcus, when I was in junior high, we didn't have SROs. You either got your butt whipped or you didn't. And you came on out of there. And guess what? I didn't take too many butt whippings. But that's the realistics of it. And you know what? I said this in that meeting, and I'll say it again. And I do like what Mr. Avery said. Mr. Avery said he was an SRO, and he would even have them walk through. They could do that to help them. But I said this in that meeting, and I'll say it again. The guys that they have there, they need to come out from their monitors and they need to get in them hallways and they need to talk to them kids. And they need to make a relationship with them. That's who needs to do it. We have teachers, we have paras at the high school level who are breaking up lights. That's not their job. That's not their job. A gentleman near and dear to me, he quit. He said, I'm the only one that's walking these halls at a high school. And he said, you know what? I could go somewhere else. So they need to figure it out. Thank you. That's why I support it.

Council member Kel.

I get more back to having an inside person helps that relationship happen because sometimes our priorities may not be 501 priorities. A good example right now, we've had a lot of car break-ins and, um, porch thievery and things like that that have been caught on video. They're middle school, high school age kids. We could send that over to the 501 police and say, hey, can you help identify it? If they're like that, well, it's not our problem. Having that inside person there that knows who these students are can sit there and maybe help out even if there is talking to those kids and trying to get them when we have certain things going on where we have a lot of middle school, high school age issues going on where it's maybe breaking into cars and things like that. They can do presentations and do educational things for those where we ask the 501 police to do it. They say, no, we don't feel like doing that. But then they're also, when it comes to this planning of things, they know what's going on in the school, having our TPD in there. So when it comes to planning how they're going to work with 501, they're not coming into a cold situation, not knowing what's going on in schools, not knowing the heartbeat of what that school is, and coming up with a plan just because, well, here's a new high idea. We're going to go with this. they can sit there through their experience and say, this is, you know, I don't like your proposed plan because of these reasons of this school don't work together. Right. Having that inside person allows 501 and TPD to, to really work together rather than having another police force in our town that may not even want to work with us at some points. And, um, Like you said, I've seen it personally, just sitting in the monitor room, watching those monitors, not being in the hallways, because I used to substitute for 501. We can't force them. We can say we want them to get out in the hallway, but we can't force that issue. 501 will have to force that, and they may not even force it themselves. So at least having that inside person in there, I think, allows for us to have somewhat of a safety measure for our students and our teachers, because our teachers are, you're saying breaking up breaks, but our teachers are also being assaulted right now on a very scary level. And this way, you know, it allows, I think, a little bit more when we have those active SROs out in the hallways to know what's going on and to be able to react to things a lot quicker. Thank you. Council Member Valdivia Alcala.

Thank you, Mayor. As stated before, I totally support and continue to support the chief and the city manager in making this very hard decision. With everything that Councilwoman Ortiz just read off, there is every indication that this program is not being dropped cold. I think that perhaps people underestimate Chief Cochran or whatever he's calling himself now. And I think they definitely underestimate Anderson because She was quite adept at bringing forth a number of teachers and students, et cetera. I think what needed to be said, Mayor, when you said it the other night, was something very important. And I know that you may have hesitated a little bit on that. But someone from the leadership realm that was at that meeting needed to state exactly what went on at that meeting. All players that were at that table and that this was not a done deal that all of you have stated behind, you know, talking to colleagues or whatever, but you spoke it. And that was that the communication was supposed to continue on. The chief sent us how many emails spelling out everything to us, that this was not going to be a cold dead end street, that there was going to be a continuation going on. And I consider it pretty, It almost seems to me that there was a side swiping almost of some of the folks with 501 after all of these meetings and all this communication and all of this communication with the governing body at different meetings went through. So again, I think what councilwoman Ortiz brought through so much information, and I think that they really have had a hesitancy in the meeting that I had with them to get their campus security, which they were adamant that if we said campus security, uh, getting them trained and up to par, especially knowing how many of them are excellent enforcement. Thank you.

Council member Miller.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I appreciate the thoughts of my colleagues here. Um, and I understand, uh, the options that the chief and the city manager are making available to the 501 district as a continuation of support, it's just not as a financial one. I think big picture, we probably should get to that. So I'm not totally against it, but what I am against is understanding that this has been a conversation for a little while. I would like a little bit of an onboarding or off boarding, I guess you could say a little bit of a ramp, you know, those, those, those ramps that they have for semis when they go off when they're on those, those hills, that little ramp that allows it to slow down until it gets to a point to where then they can take over and then they can stop and be safe for everybody involved. I don't, I am not a 501 in school every single day employee as of now. I still work at the school, I still coach there, I still support that school, or that school, that district. But that's not the district that I went through middle school and high school at. I went through one that had their SRO supported all the time. and I knew mine, I still know them to this day. So when I was at Shawnee Heights from middle school and high school, that was important. I can't compare our budget to the county's. Obviously different. But I do know that their schools don't have to pay for their officers to be there. But they are. If there's ever overtime and the school pays for it, But the county finds that important to do. So I just hope that we can continue to do that as well. Even if we have to change the program up to where it's more of a support role, cool. But let's just not drop it next year. Allow the district to be able to find some funding in the coming years to get that done.

So I think I've been pretty clear that I wouldn't support this change, but for some reasons. First of all, I get frustrations at times with some of the current officers that may be 501 employees. But I'm going to circle back. It was clear last week I got a little offended when they kept calling them security guards. They are not security guards. I want to reiterate this. They are certified police officers. And there are 16 of them that work for 501. And I've also been told by 501 if they don't have to pay into this contract, they can actually hire more officers to add to that 16. And so, again, they have a certified police department that they can use and incorporate. And there's no reason in conversations that we had with them. They are absolutely open to taking support services from us, which we are now offering at no cost to them because we can offer those services if we don't have this contract. There's nothing that stops us from continuing to have conversations with 501 if we even leave what we have in place. In fact, I'm worried about the opposite. Because of the way, as I indicated last week, that they have approached this issue, I think if we leave it in there, they're going to even continue to take it less serious and drag it out, and we're going to have some of the same problems that we've been having. I think if nothing else, allowing us to take these steps sort of forces some of those in-person conversations that despite the email you all received, they simply have not been open to. They've chosen to do this through email, and that's fine. I'm really not that upset about that, but I at least want it to be understood that that's been part of the frustration with these conversations. And so as the chief sat here and said, and as I've said before, it doesn't mean we're going to stop talking to 501, but it does mean we can pass this budget and they can sit now at the table and say, as of right now, folks, this contract's ending, so let's have some real conversations and put that clock on it. And I think that's critical to us actually moving forward if we want to get something done. I appreciate that the sheriff's office does some work in those other school districts. I'm also here to tell you that we have residents of the city of Topeka who send their kids to all four school districts in this area. And if they came to the table tomorrow and said, we now have an expectation too, because let's say that the sheriff one day has to make some tough budget decisions too, you need to give us police support like you do 501. How do we say no to that? What is our justification for saying, well, I'm going to pick one of my school districts over the other four, over the other three or four? I think that's a tough position, and we've been lucky that hasn't happened. But the county's looking at a budget deficit right now. And if you've looked at any of their conversations or meetings, they have some tough decisions to make, too, and including their departments. It's why they're looking at a mill levy increase that they're hoping not to do, but a pretty significant one, right? We've not taken that step because we've gone a different path. And as I said from day one, as the councilwoman said, We have to make tough decisions. And this is one of those tough decisions. And getting those officers help. I actually believe it's a win-win for us to find a way to continue to support 501 and the infrastructure they have. And also, while we have freezes in our department and budget issues, be able to return those officers from those schools back to the streets where they continue to serve all the citizens of Topeka. So it's not an easy choice. No one up here is sitting and saying, woo, finally, we're out of those middle schools. In fact, quite the opposite. But we're in a position that we can do that. We can continue to support certified officers who are already part of that school district. And so that's why I'm still inclined to be okay with what we've decided at this point with an understanding that we'll continue to have the conversations as we get into 2027. So I don't know if at this point we have an official amendment in a second or where we're at. Council Member Hiller.

I wanted to just support the conversation that I've heard so far. I did do one of the one-on-ones early and what I heard, thank you so much for the time you've spent on this and reading through the list. What I heard in brief was we could probably figure out how to come up with the money and there are some grants and so on. What we don't want to lose is the fact that these are genuinely police officers and that we have a a connection with the department, so instead of calling the front desk if something is happening with one of our kids, we've got this connection. That was their description of it. What I heard is that even if the Corps is 501 police, that there's enough affirmative connection that our chief has offered and that they can reach out to so that there could be a presence from time to time of our our police officers in those schools and the relationship there. I mean, they felt like it was important and beneficial to have the kids have met police officers. But if we're still leaving that in and that also that much more direct line so that if there's something that is happening at home for one of the kids or that emerges during the day, that they can connect with our police force quickly and work jointly where needed, and I'm hearing that, and that seemed to be the fundamental when they talked through what they didn't want to lose. So I'm comfortable that we'll have it.

Council Member Ortiz.

Karen, the middle schools have hired a lot of social workers, and a lot of them come from DCF. And a lot of them, because they're my buddies, and a lot of them are trained in what to look for when these kids, troubled kids, come in, come to school and all that. So the officer doesn't even get involved with any of that until the social worker asks them to come and remove them or to get involved. That's all social work. which I've heard they're getting ready to cut some of their social workers, which, you know, I agree with Christina. Take that money and do something because there's a lot of kids out there. There's a lot of kids. Again, I've had to remind several of the principals and our SROs that they are mandate reporters. They're mandate reporters, and I know firsthand a young man that was going to the teachers, going to the principal and saying, my mom is doing this, my mom is doing that, and it fell on deaf ears. And you know what? Then when it happened, I even went back to that principal and said, yeah, I remember you. By the way, I can show you legal documents where this finally got corrected. You have to build a relationship with these kids. You have to, or they're not gonna talk to you. You got a lot of kids that are out there fighting because they're in a fight or flight mode. And because of what's going on, they're not eating at school, because of the parents, because of the abuse. Our SROs, they're good at filling that gap, but they're not social workers. They're not. You know, but they can take them when they do have their part to play. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. But we need to have more social workers in there. And we need our principals, and we need our everybody on board who's a mandate reporter to be that mandate reporter. I don't care if you call it in 10 times a day. That's what we need. That's what we need. I love our SROs. I like what they do. And they care. And the ones I talked to, they said they're just going to go ahead and retire.

I'm sorry because I thought that they were going to go ahead and continue a force with their own funds. Either way, I appreciate that.

I don't know what they're doing because they knocked her down when she started saying, gave them some suggestions, which were some good suggestions.

Because I remember when they first got them, there were people that I knew that worked in 501 that were concerned that the teachers and the principals needed to have that role and didn't need to have somebody step in. I just remember their comments about being able to connect with the department and get action quickly, and it sounded like we'd offered that, and that was comfortable to me. not stepping in or being on campus.

If I may, Mr. Mayor, that meeting that we had with them was an eye-opener. There's a lot of things that are not being communicated. And you know why? Because our SROs say they answer to this person and not this person. And Avery was right on the money to say we've got to get on one accord because we're talking public safety. here and when we got we got that scattered i think cochran could build his army i think he could he knows what to do he i i think the training that him and the chief that they could do that and they have a little under a year if it was me i'd be i'd be hiring them to come in and show them what they do that's that's what i was hearing and supporting so

I want to make sure we're not missing a step or passing over something we shouldn't be. Is there a formal motion anyone wants to make regarding this specific issue where I make another motion?

Is this page a one part of the budget? We need to do more of these?

No, we'll get to that. I promise that's going to be my motion is to adopt this, but I want to make sure we're not passing over this issue first. Okay. I promise we'll get there. Council Member Reller.

I know I'm probably not going to get support on this. That's okay, but I make a motion to adopt those changes, but taking out the decrease in the SRA program. I have a question, Mayor.

Did you just say that you work for 501? Isn't that a conflict?

It's not a conflict of interest because I am not a part of the SRO program. I coach basketball at the school. I don't answer to the administration of the SRO program. I see what you're trying to do, but that's not a direct conflict of interest. It's not trying to do.

It's because I would want you to ask me that question if the shoe was on the other foot. Oh, yeah. I don't have an interest. I would want you to ask me that.

Yeah. I don't have an interest. I'm a Rule 10 coach. I don't work for 501 like that. I'm a contracted coach, basically. Well, I don't know what that means. What Rule 10 means?

You said you're a contracted coach.

Contractor? Then we're good, right? Then we're good.

Okay. Do we have a second for Council Member Miller's motion? Council Member Ortiz.

But you were working at the grade school, right? In Meadows.

Was. Okay. It's not at this time. Do we have a second for Council Member Miller's motion? I'll place the motion there.

to accept the proposed amendments except for line seven.

Does everyone understand?

Because the item number seven is a decrease in revenue. It's not a cut. I'm not sure we understand what that line is.

I don't want Okay, so what I'm trying to say is that I don't want the SRO program to be changed and I don't want us even thinking about that is as we go through our proposed amendments, if that makes sense.

I'm just not sure that It's complicated, I think.

It is because the contract, as of right now, expires at the end of June. At the end of May.

Right. And so this dollars, which is revenue to us.

Right. Removing the item seven is not going to preserve the SRO program. Okay.

Okay. Let me clarify. Let me clarify. Yeah, I think I understand. I understand that this next 2027 budget already has that in there because that's phasing out. But what I'm trying to talk about, please clarify. I believe what you would like to do is to see the funding for the SRO program added back into the operating budget.

Is that my understanding correctly? The thing is that the funding is still there for the positions. This essentially would be an indication that we're not going to continue with the program as is the contractual dollars that come to the city. It's approximately $300,000. So what this does is we're basically saying for half of the year, because again, going through June, The rest of the year, basically the full year, $300,000 is in the budget today. This essentially takes out $150,000 of that, assuming that we're only going to collect $150,000 of the $300,000 in 2027 once the contract completes in June of 2027. So it's $300,000 total that comes to us, and it's included in the 2027 budget.

Right.

Assuming that the position, or I'm sorry, assuming that the program sunsets in June, we would only get $150,000 of that $300,000 for the year. So essentially this is taking $150,000 of revenue out of our budget.

Right, I understand that. But what I'm saying is, do we even need to have this on there if my motion were to... to pass.

So my only fear with that councilman is that if we come up to June of next year and say we don't do this, then that's $150,000 that we know will not have to account for. That's correct. Yeah. Okay. I thought you said you have an account for that, but yes.

Okay.

So here's what we're going to do because we can make any changes at any time before this budget discussion is over. So if you'd like to think about it for a little bit, we can still adopt this and then still make any change, whether it's a proviso or whether it's an actual budgetary request before this evening is over. Wow. That would not, that would not impact this decision, but still didn't allow you to, take some time to see if there's a better approach.

That's fine. I'll retract my motion. I got to leave. My wife's outside waiting on me right now. So I'll retract my motion.

I do think if it helps, everyone has continued to say that the door is still open to continue conversations with 501. The chief hasn't shut that door. City Manager hasn't shut that door. And I don't think those of us who have issues have shut that door. But what we have said is we have to plan. They just haven't been at the table as much to help us make that plan. So we've got to move forward with the goal of maybe incurring some of those conversations. So I will say I don't take this as an all out. We're done with 501 and talking to them. for whatever that's worth, if that helps. It seems like it because of the budgetary decision, but again, as you said, that money is still going to be there. We still have to pay these officers. We just eventually have to decide where they're going to be. So it's not like we're removing the money from the budget that pays these officers and they're out of work and we're taking them out. So if that helps a little, the actual dollars that we spend towards it are still in the budget. in the budget.

Yeah, I get it. I get it. Okay.

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Ortiz.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to make a motion that we let both contracts collapse. That's my motion. So that would stay right the way it is, right?

Right. I mean, you can make that motion for it's worth the authority happening. So...

Oh, it's already happened. Oh, okay. So I don't need to make that.

Correct.

Well, I was just trying to... No, that's already happened.

No, we don't need that.

Okay.

So the motion I was going to... I just want to move forward. The motion I was going to make then, so we don't forget it later or make the wrong motion, is to simply adopt this amendment. I'm going to move to adopt the amendment in front of you. So that way it's in our budget, and then when we adopt it later, we don't leak something out on accident. Gotcha. Okay. That's the motion I'm making, is to adopt this amendment. You've got to take away your motion there.

I don't have to, but I will.

Oh, OK. So if I have a second for my motion.

I can't.

How do I do it? I don't know.

I don't have a second yet.

I'll second it.

All right. Any questions about the motion or comments? Councilmember?

Just the process, which somebody was asking earlier too. What you're planning to do is there's an assumption that we'll get to the motion to adopt the budget at the end, and we're going to do one amendment at a time. Councilwoman. Stack it up.

Okay. Respectfully, this is your 17th year. Anyone is allowed to offer an amendment at any time and adopt it into the budget any time during this process. Okay. City manager and staff have offered an amendment. Okay. And technically, we could wait until the end and hope that we don't forget to make a motion that says, I move to adopt the budget with all these amendments that have been offered. I think that's sloppier. I would prefer if the amendments presented, whether it's from the staff or from you or from anyone, that we deal with it in the moment and adopt it. And then that way, when we finally adopt the budget, everybody knows what's in it. And if they support every change we've made, they can vote yes. And if they have issues with what we've done, they can say no on the budget. And then we'll have a path forward.

That was my question.

Thank you. So that's how I'd like to. All right. Make sure we all know what we're voting on at the end of the night, what's in front of us.

Yeah.

So any other comments or questions on this amendment, which is to just adopt the amendment in front of us? If there are none, I would ask the clerk to take our vote, please.

No, we're adopting all.

This is the vote to adopt this amendment.

The whole thing.

Yes, the whole thing.

Just this amendment.

This, all 13, yes, this amendment.

Yes.

Not the budget.

Just this. Calm down.

How long you been here? I just want to make sure. I've been here too damn long.

Some folks say you can't do an amendment until you get a motion.

You can do what you want to do, Karen.

I'm just asking what we're doing.

OK, we have eight yes with Council Member Kell and Miller voting no. The motion carries.

So that amendment has been adopted and is now part of the budget. So we're back to just general conversation, discussion, suggestions, recommendations, amendments on our 27 budget. Anyone? Council Member Hiller.

Well, I think everybody knows I've got lots of issues with this, but it sounds like where people are going is that we need to just get this adopted, but understand clearly that we're going to start working immediately on the programmatic and specific pieces of all these possible changes. I would like to propose a proviso that would go with this motion. The proviso would say that all concerned are aware that various alterations and changes in personnel and programming will likely be needed starting immediately and through the 2027 year. and the city manager is expected to continue to invite the governing body's involvement in any reductions, additions, or changes.

things now i would second that i mean i think it's in line with things we've talked about that this is a living breathing budget and that while we've got this balanced budget we know we've got challenges in the coming year just as we talked about whether it's sales tax or whether it's additional efficiencies cuts revisions to the budget so i think that's what this proviso does is just say that we're committed to working through the budget as the year goes on and making decisions as the budget goes to help defer our 28 issues, if we can, to whatever level that means. So that's all this proviso would do from my perspective. So I can second it.

Can we hear from the attorney? I mean, he's not going to be here much longer. I'd like to know what he thinks.

About provisos in general? Oh, OK.

I don't have any legal commentary on this improviso other than you can add it. That's my legal commentary. Anything else would be policy related and that's really not my position.

Well, to that point, provisos like this, I guess from a legal perspective, are not, it's not legally binding. Correct. But it is direction for staff and for council as we work through it.

It would be a commentary, essentially. It's something that you're adding on to give direction, but it's not, yes, it's not legally binding. I may have misunderstood the question. Apologies.

I think the flip side is we have so many moving parts here and, and, you know, to have the city manager with this budget or even until then just be totally on his own about it when there are so many pieces to go through. And just to make sure we've committed as well as we've done with people.

If I could. Yes, Lee Major.

I just want to say again, as we mentioned earlier and as I've shared with you all, I do intend every month to have a budget discussion with you here in council. I've always told the staff every third meeting of the month, again, to go over our status of our budget, our report on strategic goals, and then also on our... performance metrics. So again, sent that in the memo last Friday. So I just want to make sure that council understands that that is the intent moving forward. So again, as I mentioned, we actually started this budget process. We had a first session in January, but we really started last October going through this. So your point's noted now. Thank you. Thank you, Mary.

So we have a motion and a second on the proviso. I don't know if either Councilmember Hiller or the city clerk would like to read it back to us before we take a vote.

I can read what I've got. Okay. So just to be clear, you're approving the budget along with... No.

This is just on the proviso. We have a motion and a second just to adopt this proviso. Hold on. Don't want to mess this up. It's the budget. We're going to get it right. So were you going to read that?

Move to adopt with the proviso that all concerned are aware that various alterations and changes in personnel and programming will likely be needed starting immediately throughout the 2027 year. And the city manager is expected to continue to invite the governing body's involvement in any reductions, additions, or changes.

All right, so is everybody clear? We're just voting on the proviso to adopt it with the budget. So unless there are any other comments or questions on that, I will ask the city clerk to take a vote, please. We had a motion and a second.

OK, there we go.

I seconded it, yeah. Gotcha.

Council Member Miller, your vote.

I want to be clear. I just popped up. I want to be clear on what I'm voting on.

This is the proviso suggested by Council Member Hiller. Would you like me to read it again?

Please. I just got into the link.

Okay. The proviso is to move to adopt with the proviso that all concerned are aware that the various alterations and changes in personnel and programming will likely be needed starting immediately and throughout the 2027 year, and the city manager is expected to continue to invite the governing body's involvement in any reductions, additions, or changes.

Yes.

Okay, we have 10 yes, the motion carries.

Either comments, amendments, suggestions for the budget? I'm going to make a few comments, and then we'll see if we have a motion or what we want to do next. But I want to remind everybody, the public out there and everybody, that this budget is about cuts. We said from day one, I repeated it as many times as I could, everywhere I could, so that everyone was prepared in terms of the public that we were going to have to make tough decisions. This budget does that. We did not increase the mill levy. Yes, we did not stay revenue neutral, but for the 15th year in a row, we did not increase the mill levy. We are capturing that 4.5%, but I will tell you as you walk through, if you watched any of our presentations, that 4.5% does not even begin to cover the percentage increases. In our public safety personnel salary increases alone, that 4.5% does not cover that. And so that's not a knock. They needed the pay raise, and we worked out those contracts, and that's how we got here. But I think when people ask what our two primary drivers are of this year's budget issues and the next year's budget issues and ongoing, it's personnel and it's rising costs that we have no control over. We don't control what insurance is going to charge us or what asphalt costs or what the new cost to lay, you know, go out and purchase new water lines. Those are not costs we control. So we did make the decision within those constraints to cut over $10 million out of this budget. To put that in perspective, this budget is less than $500,000 more than last year's budget. This budget is less than half a percent increase than last year's budget. So I understand people's frustration when we made the decision not to stay revenue neutral, but I will push back against the narrative that we are out there just spending like crazy and that we've increased our spending and that we've gone wild. We haven't. We made the cuts that we needed to make to get to this budget, and the numbers bear that out and the percentages bear that out. I think all of us acknowledge in this room we would have loved to stay revenue neutral. We'd love to cut the mill levy. We'd love to do all those things. We are not in a budgetary position to do so, but we've managed to make those tough choices that we talked about tonight, whether it's our SRO program, whether it's the positions that we've eliminated or frozen, whether it's the projects that we've had to move around, whether it's the equipment we're not buying or that we're pushing off. We did decide to go that route as opposed to the other routes we could have, which is just a simple one of finding ways to raise revenue. And so I do appreciate, as I've said before, and I'll reiterate again, we asked staff to help us make those tough decisions all the way from the city manager's office to the finance department, but to every department head who then had to go to their staff at every level and say, we've got to make changes here, folks, because this is the budget reality. And so everybody who works for this city at every level deserves a thank you for understanding our situation. for working within these constraints and for providing input through this process. Everybody up here on this day deserves thank you. I know at some days Josh was like, oh my gosh, that's enough emails, please. But those conversations were important to making sure that everybody understood what the issues were and how we get to these decisions. So I just want to reiterate to the public, it's not a perfect budget. There's always things we wish we could do better. But it's a pretty slim budget compared to where we were last year. We did not increase our spending significantly. And that is very important. And it's not something every city is doing right now. And so I just want the public to understand that. And as you heard tonight with the proviso that we've added and with the conversations we've had on future budget years, we all understand we're going to have some other decisions to make as we move forward. We've got to be fluid and flexible and ready to continue to take a real close look at all of this spending. But I also think, as I said before, I'm proud of the fact that two years we've had to make tough choices. And yes, we have frozen positions. And yes, we aren't filling positions. We also haven't laid anybody off. And we have a plan, I think, over the next few years to also continue to maybe reduce some positions. I'm not sure what that looks like, but I do tell staff we can do it in a way that, again, lets the people who work for us know your job is safe, we appreciate what you do, and we're going to continue to work towards a path that focuses on unfilled positions and when people leave, making tough decisions as to what we do with that position. So I think that's what everyone's committed to and I just wanted to put some of those numbers out there for people to understand that we did make cuts this year as opposed to going the route of just looking for new revenue and they've been it's been a tough process but it's also what we were elected to do. It's nothing more important than getting a budget done because everything else flows through it. So thank you to everybody for their work on that. And so I'm not going to make a motion to approve it yet unless, because I don't want to cut off conversation if anyone has more amendments. But if not, then a motion is always in order. And I'm happy to make it if the time comes. Any other comments or questions from the governing body on the 2027 budget? Council Member Ortiz.

I have a question for Josh. I'm not going to let him get out of here. As nice as he looks, I want him on screen. They did take my advice and dressed up for the last meeting here. I know, HR's here, they're listening. Josh, you know, I think me and you talked about this before, like, Wade came in and changed and, you know, now they get so much money for food and stuff like that. What is the total amount on that for all departments if we were to cut that out?

I think when we talked, it's about $48,000. Now, some of that is binding to meal allowances and union contracts. So take that out. It's about probably, I think, $48,000.

Just $48,000? Okay. All right. Can you tell me in the fire department, is our safety guy in for this year or was he taken out for 2028? safety guy.

No, yeah, he's in there.

See, this is what happens when you start throwing a lot at me. I'm just a one-year girl.

So he's in there for 2027? Yes, ma'am. What we did in the fire department was freeze 10 firefighter positions in 2027. I'll remind you that we have seven firefighters and a battalion chief frozen for 2026. So the increment is basically two more positions that were freezing in fire.

Okay, so Josh, we're holding the position, just not putting no money there. Is that what we're doing? Because I know it was explained to me and you talked about that. Okay. Josh, do you see anywhere else we could cut?

No, I think it comes down to what service levels you want to balance. So right now, and we kind of shared last week, we're operating more services and more revenue, so we're going to have to focus on what services do we want to really value as a city. So we can either do a lot of services, but that requires more revenue, or we just don't do them well, or we can do less services with the revenue we have. So that's literally what it comes down to. And then the two major things we spend money on are personnel and capital project costs. And we have a structural imbalance, so if there's no tax increase, those are the first things that have to be cut. That's just the reality.

Josh did remind me it's about the badge. Wait a minute. Let me get it right. It's about the badge, the shield.

Shovel hose badge. Shovel hose badge.

He put it to me like that. Can you do that again? Josh, it was the shovel, hose, and the badge. Yeah. All right. Thank you.

There's no other questions or comments. A motion to approve the 2027 budget from Councilmember Kell. A second from myself. Any other comments or questions before we take a vote on the 2027 budget? Council Member Valdivianco.

You know, I'm going to vote for the budget. I think what gives me more peace of mind knowing of voting yes for this budget are what we have coming down the pike, which is going forward. to be the emphasis on an internal auditor, which I believe is a very serious commitment that we're making so that the people can understand that we are trying to look at everything when we look at these looming deficits and not just depending on let's try to get more money out of sales tax. I'm still in the way of the forensic audit. We'll see what happens with this internal auditor. And so I just needed to say that. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Yeah.

Oh, sorry. Council Member Hiller.

And I haven't voted for the budget for the last couple of years, and I will this evening. Okay. based on the fact that we have really broken it open, I think, in terms of all of us understanding what's at stake. And my proviso was important to me, and it sounds like to all of you that we'll talk about the sales taxes in two weeks and three weeks and so on, but really get inside those. We've kicked it off. We've just got a lot of work to do, but it seems like we have a framework. I appreciate that on the part of everybody, the staff. Council and the public has really weighed in as well. Thank you.

Council Member Miller.

Thank you, Mayor. I would just like to second that I do also appreciate the fact that how much work was put in and to the exact cuts that are going to be made or that are proposed to be made. I know that job, that is not easy. And I may not like every single piece of the decisions that have been made or the ideas that are on the table, but that's okay. It's part of this job. I don't have to agree with everything. But I do appreciate the work that's been done to get us to this point. It looks more robust than anything I've ever seen, even since before I even started thinking about government counsel. So I do appreciate that. Thank you.

Any other comments? Council Member Ortiz.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to support this budget. And I want to personally thank Josh. Josh, you're going to be missed by me and my questions. And I appreciate how you have taken the time. You were patient. And you know this like the back of your hand. I will need your cell number for next year to remind me what happened this year. But you're going to be missed. And you're a valuable employee. And thank you for all the hard work that you've done. Thank you for helping me understand it. And thank you for helping even the community with their questions.

I appreciate that. Thank you.

Anybody else? If not, then I'm going to ask the clerk to take the vote, please. Just to be clear, we're voting on the 2027 budget.

Councilmember Miller, your vote.

Yes. Because we're voting on the 27th budget as amended, by the way. Correct. I know the city clerk already knew that. She's been here a little while, too. She knows what's up.

All right. We have 10 yes. The motion carries.

All right. With that, we will move on to public comment. We have several people signed up this evening. We'll begin with Reverend Julie McCullough. Oh, you're done? All right. Well, then we're up to... No, you're good. Ralph Anderson is next on my list.

Good evening. Mr. Mayor, Dr. City Manager, ladies and gentlemen of the City Council, and citizens of Topeka there watching. I dress you only as a born citizen of Topeka. I've come to realize Topeka is broken. Even our election method is broken. Voting is not a popularity contest, or a beauty contest, or a my party over yours contest. It should be about listening to the candidates and picking the person who can serve the citizens first and best. That is for we, the voting citizens, to take care of. And to say government is not in business to make a profit is to serve the citizens, rich, poor, worker, business owner, or homeless equally. Equally, we do not have a chief executive officer, a chief operations officer, and a board of directors. We don't want a profit or loss statement. A surplus is when you didn't serve the citizens fully. A deficit is when you didn't use your mate properly and overspent. This is tax money we paid to make everyone in Topeka's life safer and as comfortable as possible. Topeka is not a metropolis. It may not be for the lifetime of even the newest newborn in Topeka. Do we need six-plus lane expressway in downtown so visiting tourists and city visitors can just zoom right on through?

I don't know.

Do we need more traffic circles on the edge of town? Driving in town, I have to wonder if some people can even manage driving a straight line. Do we need to give tax breaks to our businesses here when that tax break is over? They'll move on to the next city that offers them a tax break. We need to take care of each other, not hire or lure people from other cities and states that have no investment in Topeka's history. I was born in Topeka. I've lived here most of my life and loved the history of this city and my family in this town. I've joined organizations that try to work with city council, which hasn't proved totally successful. I care about people. I want enough police to have safety and traffic enforcement, an area the homeless can camp where they won't be treated like criminals. And all my neighbors in a safe place where they can sleep. You're not helping with tax increases. Raised taxes mean the owners must increase rent, which means some people are going to be forced out of their homes or else just not be able to afford the rent. They'll move out of town, or they become homeless. Let's get a realistic budget and some realistic plans that help all of us Topekans, every one of us. Ask yourself, what would Jesus do if he is on the city council? Thank you.

Thank you, Ralph.

I have a question, Mayor. It's something you can ask yourselves. Will this touch development? Do we have any guarantees it won't end up like the apartment complex out at the former Topeka Hospital grounds? It's been sitting there for two years closed.

Leave your email and I can answer both those questions for you. I think I even have your email still, but if not, if you could leave your email with the clerk before you leave tonight, I'll make sure I get your answers on what's happening with both of those projects.

Okay.

Thank you. Next up, we have Henry McClure.

My name's Henry McLeod. Good evening, your honor. I'm a native Topekan. What did you know and when do you know it? What did you know and when did you know it? That was the common theme during Watergate. What did you know and when did you know it? So let's talk about, I think I've uncovered, some places where your contractor, Go Topeka, who manages the $5 million in economic development, is breaking the law. So now you know that I think I've made a pretty decent case. I've emailed it all to you. I'll leave it here as public record. What did you know, and when did you know it? I can't change it. You guys could change it today. It was interesting. It was really interesting to hear some of this stuff. And then your epistle at the end about the numbers that you gave. We haven't talked about... We didn't talk about... the use of all these funds. We didn't talk about the hotel. We didn't talk about AT&T building. We haven't talked about the $125 million of the current sales tax. And the current sales tax was supposed to be the silver bullet, the magic pill. It was going to be the thing that was going to make our city grow. We were going to broaden the tax base. We were going to increase the population. And as a businessman, being a co-developer of the business park, I've been a part of this longer than anybody in here. I've watched it as a businessman through the eyes of business. So here's what's interesting. These funds where your contractor is breaking the law, that nullifies, I think that should nullify their contract. Then all of a sudden, you guys have got $5 million to figure out how to divvy it up with the county. You got four votes on JETO. But how can you go forward knowing? And the thing about it is this is just, I mean, you guys keep talking about an auditor. Well, you yourselves are saying there's something fishy here in River City. Get that auditor to start going through every bit of JEDO. If you've been to JEDO meetings, there's all this whiz bang. Hey, you're going to get a 39% ROI. You're going to get these huge returns on investment. But it's not working. So when do you look at your contractor and say, well, not only are you breaking the law now, we need to investigate the whole shoot and match and audit it all. you haven't performed from the beginning. Sales tax is a great way to fund the community. It's a great way because we import so many dollars from our MSA outside of Shawnee County. It's a great way to do it, but it's hard to support it when the sales tax you've got now isn't being shepherded appropriately. Josh's mom, Amy, watches these shows. And I want to tell Amy that you've got to be proud of your son. Man, what a good kid. And I'm glad he's moving on. I appreciate the opportunity to come talk to you. What did you know, and when did you know it?

Next up, we have Ms. Danielle Twimlow.

okay thank you for the 2027 budget so there i said that and i didn't sign up to speak on that because um didn't want to complicate what was already there and the hard work that had already been done but um i do want to address some things that we can look at moving forward as we're looking at creative ways um i do want to reiterate that yes while the rhid has the purpose for any housing needs that we do have within our local ordinance that it should meet the needs of that housing study, which we stretch that very, very thinly to include absolutely everything. And as we're seeing, we have outpaced ourselves on that luxury and high end. And we should really be using those incentives to offset costs the housing that we really need for that low to moderate income affordable housing but did you know that we could also be really creative with the RHID because the city can actually collect the RHID funds if they do infrastructure development around a housing unit that is either being rehabilitated or built instead of giving it to the developer so if it aligns with infrastructure needs or putting sidewalks or gutters or replacing the water line that we in turn could do that work and collect that incremental increase. So we need to be looking at some of those more creative ways that are going to benefit us instead of people who are already making millions of dollars. So this is a very common thing when we have a budget deficit and a population loss, and we've talked about this many times, that municipalities often keep looking at ways that, you know, the instinct to chase growth. One more development, one more incentive package, one more ribbon cutting, but none of the data supports that. We know that city planning engineers over and over again show that we need to slow that type of growth. We need to focus on our infrastructure that is currently here and the current people, our current tax base, and the things that they need. We're not going to get fixed by a big data center or another development that we must optimize our current tax base. And this logic applies on how we handle this debt. currently maximizing the transient uh guest tax dollars like we absolutely could i see cuts all over the place for jobs within the city but nothing was really discussed on how we were going to stop incentivizing luxury or high-end development or how we could kind of improve on a 2025 ordinance where we were collecting some of that incremental increase on the transient guest tax, we have the power and authority to go ahead and stop that type of economic or slow that economic development growth for a period of time and pay off more of the hotel bonds that we have. That is going to lower the amount of time we're spending on paying back that hotel and decrease the amount of interest that we will be paying and free up that general fund balance. So we can slow that kind of economic development for a while, and it's within our purview to do so. So looking at all of these creative ways that we can free up money when we're looking at ways that we're going to keep taxing people we have to do better, right? We have to do better. And there's lots and lots of ways to do that. So I am hopeful that this audit will happen very soon so that by the time we're looking at that 2028 budget, we can be seeing how some of these different ways that we could be finding dollars to be spent more effectively in the short term so that we are not nickel and diming our citizens out of their homes.

Thank you. With that, I don't have anyone else signed up for public comment. We will move on to announcements. City Clerk.

There is no meeting next week.

City Manager.

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to announce that this evening would be Josh McInerney's last budget meeting, or I'm sorry, council meeting. Um, and just wanted to say thank you for the last few years, man. Like it's been, it's been fun and learned a lot from you too. Um, so it just, uh, just, um, not happy to see you go. Um, but to council member Ortiz's point, um, you look good. You look sharp. You're ready to move on to the next, the next level. So congratulations and good luck. Thank you. I also want to announce, Mayor, that this evening will be Nick Jefferson's final council meeting as well. Nick, you've been an amazing city attorney over the last year. I think that got nothing but raving reviews from the team on what you've brought to the office. And I hope that you do get bored in your next role when you come back. But I just want to make that announcement, which is that you both know I'm very appreciative of having had the opportunity to work with you all. And good luck to both of you. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

All right. Councilman Valdivia Alcala.

Good luck to both Nick and to Josh. It seems like we're losing a lot of folks, but good travels to you. Just a couple of quick things. Deepest condolences once the name was released are definitely due to nine-year-old Alexander Honea, I think it was. His family was part of that devastating fire on the 100 block of Northeast Coach Light in the trailer park. There's no words to say how horrific it was listening to witness testimony. And kudos to the fire department. I want to make sure and talk to Chief Longstaff to see how that door-to-door went with having fire detectors and telling folks how to put them in or how the fire department can help put them into the households. Also, just kudos to how quickly the Topeka Police Department was able to identify a suspect in the Noto Double Homicide. Shortly after it happened, one of the business owners in Noto sent me an invitation to go into their chat, into their neighborhood kind of watch chat room. And I honestly believe that everything was moved along so quickly because of the immense help that the no-to businesses slash those that live there also with the voluminous amount of video footage that they had, camera footage which offered excellent photos for identification and I know that it was very traumatic for everyone. Obviously the loss of life, no matter how it came about, was terrible. You know, just reaching out with a real sense of gratitude that Jennifer and John Bolander were okay as well and all of the folks and businesses along that no-toe strip, and I know that they are a resilient community, and I also believe that this was tragic and isolated, so hopefully it will not keep people from visiting the area, and also kudos to the Capitol Peace Project that was out there, I think, today with signs about stopping the violence. Thank you, Mayor.

Council Member Ortiz.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, Brenda, do we have a meeting on the 26th or the 29th? Because you said there's no meeting next week. That's the 22nd.

There's no meetings on the 4th or 5th Tuesday of any month unless it's a special meeting.

You just want to make sure.

I told you yes and see if you showed up.

Well, I wasn't. Just make sure that city manager hears us loud and clear. We need a break. I need a break. I need to go to Chicago real quick, so I don't need that. Nick, it's been a pleasure. Maybe we can do a proviso and bring you back or something. I don't know. It's that gray area, you know, but I appreciate that. Appreciate what you've done. So good luck to you. East Topeka North and South, not this weekend, but the next weekend, September the 26th, is bite the blight, drag it to the curb. There's no kids. You've got to keep your kids. They want all of your unwanted items out there by 7 o'clock. So let's get that trash out there. We've had a lot of dumping, and I know our residents are on alert. We're trying to catch these people that are dumping, but if you do see a mattress or a chair or something, just drag it to your curb so it can get picked up, so hopefully the weather will be right. We're really excited about that. To my buddy Josh there, when I seen him come through the door, I said, he has graduated. He's got his graduating... suit on. So he has graduated. And you've done a great job, Josh, a great job. I just can't say that enough. You listened to your mom. You got your hair cut. And you put that suit on. You look better than Banks tonight. And I don't say that a lot. I don't say that a lot. you're in the running there you're in the running so good luck to you they're going to treat you right over there because i worked over there and you're going to have so much fun and um dig into the cases that's what's exciting ask nick ask nick about them supreme court cases so again good luck to you and keep keep dressing up thank you mr mayor council member banks thank you mayor i'd just like to say thank you to nick and josh for

help, especially with numbers. I really appreciate that. I'd also like to give a shout out to my youngest grandson who is on his way to being a better athlete than his grandpa. He is really amazing. So shout out, Isaiah. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Kell.

Well, the count can help you with numbers. I want to say thank you to Nick and to Josh. Great to work with. People I can trust and lean on and get information from. I worked a lot closer and longer with Josh, and I felt like he was my most trusted employee, that when it came from him, it was the truth. And not to knock any other employee, but this was one of those things of, When you're shoving all those numbers around all the time, it's one of those things that they always pinned out the way it was supposed to. All right. As you see, I'm wearing my duck tie, my duck pin. The Sertoma Club of Topeka Duck Race is on the 26th. You can still buy your ducks. There is a lot of good prizes out there, and the Sertoma Clubs of Topeka have helped out so many causes. This is... I think the 30th year that they've done this. So thanking them for taking care of our community and being involved in our community. Also on October 3rd is the Child Care Aware Celebrity Soiree. I will be involved with that. I kind of float around and do different things. I'm not one of the celebrity waiters, but I help out where I can. And finally, when it comes to NODO, That was a scary moment. One of the councilmen mentioned Jen at the tattoo parlor there and she's very involved in the city and a person I trust very much with her opinion but also with my body because she does all my artwork on me. But That was a scary moment to hear about, but she did mention that the officers involved were very professional and very compassionate. But my wife and I and our youngest daughter went to Noto on Friday night to spend some money because Noto is an arts district, but it is also a business district. So I know some people are sitting there saying, oh, I'm going to stay away from Noto. It's dangerous and all that. That's a very isolated incident. So please don't avoid NoDo because you think it's unsafe. To me, it's a very safe neighborhood. It's a very involved neighborhood. So please make sure you go there. But I want to make sure that I was supporting NoDo and their businesses they have there. So if you have the time, especially on a first Friday, go up there and check it out. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Miller.

Thank you, Mayor. I do also want to appreciate Nick. I think that you and I have had some great conversations, and I appreciate what you have done. You keep your stricter forward, and I have noticed the facial expressions every once in a while. I didn't get past those. Those were good. Josh, like Councilman Ortiz said, you will be greatly missed. You do know the stuff, like the back of your hand, in and out. That's not going to be easily replaced. I won't go on anymore because, as the kids would say, it's blazing anymore. So I'm going to keep pushing on that. But I wish you the best of luck going forward. As I left tonight, I had to head home because of our household being down a bit. And so I needed to get our son to bed at a certain time. And as I got in the car, my son asked me, why are you 20 minutes late? Because I was going to leave at 8.30. I said, why were you 20 minutes late getting here, Dad? And I said, well, Councilwoman Ortiz and I had to have a quick conversation. And obviously, it wasn't just with Councilwoman Ortiz, but I explained to him. He's like, so are we not cool with her now? I said, no, son, that's not the way this works. We have conversations as adults, and you work through it. I want to let her know, and Council Member Valdivia, as we have these discussions, like everyone else, I appreciate the fact that we're able to talk about issues without it ever getting personal. Even when we may think that we have something like that personal that we need to address, it's not, because every single bit of conflict of interest and everything else is always taken care of. So we want to make sure that we continue going forward with the understanding that Everything's always on the up and up. But I told him that it's part of this job to be able to have conversations and disagreements and still be able to do what's right for the people. So thank you for that opportunity to show my son that. Thank you very much. Council Member Bradbury.

Thank you. I just wanted to say congratulations to Nick and Josh. best wishes moving forward in your new adventure, and you will be missed.

Council Member McGee.

Thank you. I also wanted to say thank you to Nick and Josh. Having been on the council a long time, we've had our interactions and work together and I appreciate your input, your feedback. I appreciate what you do and have done for the city and for the residents of our community. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Helfer.

Okay. I've got something a little different tonight. Last Friday was the last open house for the fire department and I think That was an excellent way for the public to be able to get out and see all 12 of the stations.

Can I interrupt you? Sure. I've talked to Chief Longstaff about starting those over again, so we're going to continue with Fire Station 1 next month. There will be an opportunity to put out the smoke alarm detector or the smoke alarm application, so just FYI. Sorry, just wanted to point that out. Thanks.

And last Wednesday night, we graduated six young men from the academy. So our newest fire officers or firemen are going to be Joseph. Sorry. I can't pronounce that one. Aiden Garcia, Brett Hooch and Hart, George Meyer, Connor Scott, and Brian wing, um, councilman banks. And I were very happy to be there and to enjoy that ceremony. with the graduates, the officers, and their families. It's always heartening to see them when they come on board with a little bit of trepidation, but also a lot of excitement. So congratulations to them. And I will also add thank you to Nick and thank you to Josh. I'm not one to say a whole lot, so good luck with both of you.

Councilmember Heller.

Thank you. Not too much this evening, but I, too, want to really give a shout out and a thank you to Nick and to Josh and to echo Dr. Perez's words. We hope that you have a great time. Hope you get a little bored and decide to come back. Thank you.

All right. Well, I'll echo everyone else's comments about Nick and Josh. I will say, you know, these jobs, turnover's higher, sadly, in government than it is out in the private sector in these positions. And we get why. We work pretty hard and long hours. And we ask a lot of you. I'm not going to apologize for that. But I do appreciate that you hang in there with us. You know, in terms of both of these folks, sadly for us, they've just got better opportunities. And I will never regret it, even though I like to say sometimes they're dead to me now. I will acknowledge that you've got to make the decisions that are best for you, and we know that your opportunities are important for the next phase of your life. Now, that means that Kelly and Dalton, welcome to the hot seat. Welcome to now getting to step in, and hopefully both of them will take your call still every once in a while, at least for a few weeks or a month or so, to be like, oh my gosh, how do you deal with this? So you will be missed. And to the public, I always say, It stinks to lose good people, but it is part of the process. I even have to remind myself that the city was here before I got here, and it's going to be here after I get here. And all we can do is leave the best mark we can. And I know that in both Josh and Nick's case, they definitely left their mark for the work that they did that will have a lasting impact for a while. I think more than anything, that's what we appreciate you both for, is that the work you did here is going to have a lasting difference on the work we all do moving forward. So thank you for that. With that, sadly, we have one executive session. Nick wanted to punish us one last time before he left. I'm not going to have us go past 10, because we're going to start it immediately. And it's only supposed to be 15 minutes. So we can make it. So to all of you here, we love you. But please get out here as quick as you can. And we appreciate you coming. And we'll start the executive session here in just a minute. Oh, we need a motion. Could you please read the motion? I forgot that part.

Yes, as my parting gift, Mr. Mayor, the motion would be to recess into executive session for a period not to exceed 15 minutes to discuss current litigation as well as other matters deemed privileged under the attorney-client privilege pursuant to KSA 75-4319B2. The open meeting will resume in this room, the governing body chambers. The following staff will be necessary to assist the governing body in its deliberations. The city attorney and other staff members as needed.

I'm going to move to approve. Do I have a second? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Nay. Oh, look at you. You didn't want to spend 15 more minutes with me. All right. Again, can someone get Mr. Anderson's email? Okay. And then they can...

Not yet. .

Just so the audience knows, we're waiting for the room to clear.

It's all right.

And then we will go into executive session.

No worries. Take your time.

All right. We will now move into executive session. We have come out of executive session. No action is being taken. This meeting is adjourned at 9.49 p.m.