City Council - Regular Meeting

We are now. They're going to barbecue and pie contests, frozen apple cider slushies. Councilman Grace is excellent at those. I'm trying to bring back the Master Gardeners. And so we had an informational meeting to start this fall's program, and we had over 20 individuals go up. So I thought that was kind of cool how we're trying to reestablish something that went away after COVID. And then just a couple other things to keep under your radar. Monday, September 21st at 6 p.m., our Board of Trustees meeting will be at the Mulvane campus. And then October 19th, the Trustee meeting And if you want something else to do on Monday, September 21, the Senator County Geological Society has got Ken Sturgeon, who's going to talk about the history of the US Constitution and how it came to be. And that's at 6.30 next Monday. Questions, thoughts, concerns? Question. Yes, sir.

Can you tell me the enrollment for the EMS? Pretty well filled out. Do you have any idea? And the welding department.

I want to say it's in the 30s right now, but with the new semester, we have new students who are coming in. So what I'll do is next time when I come in with the official numbers, I will talk with Chris Cannon, who's the department chair, and get the specifics on the EMS and paramedics. I know right now he's kind of busy because we're doing the national accreditation this week, and so he's preparing for that big...

Testing.

Yeah. Yeah. It's testing, essentially. They come to the site to make sure that everything that you're doing is going to meet the standards for the area. So they're going to be here for two days. And so they've been spending the last couple days preparing for that coming in, make sure that all the simulations are up and running, that we don't have any technical difficulties where that could come out. Because it is a national accreditation. But when that's done, at the next meeting, I will give you specifics on that program, since it's on our campus. And then I'll give you guys the overall FTE for all of our students on our seminar campus as well.

What about the welding department?

In the what?

What about the welding department?

The welding department, I'll get through the exact numbers on that, too. I know we're doing two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. But I just don't have the exact number. I could tell you a number now, but I'd rather be 100% accurate on that number. I know we got more than we had last year. So that's what we want to see is the increase in those classes. I know the Ag Department, they've had an increase almost I don't want to say double, but he's had quite a few more ag students join into his program as well. So everything's growing. Next time I'll come, I'll make sure I have those statistics for you.

OK, I appreciate that. Thank you. Anybody else? Council?

Thank you, guys.

Next, we have the consent agenda. Approval of minutes, approval of appropriations, seat of council, correspondence.

Move to approve.

Second. We have a motion to second. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Next, we have reports of mayor and council. I think I'll start with Councilman Westmoreland. I don't have anything this evening. Councilwoman Gray.

Lucas.

Lucas?

Sorry. I don't have anything. Thank you.

Councilman Hayes. I've got a few things. Curiosity on the welcome to Wellington sign, what did they turn us down for? Did they say anything?

So a bunch of stuff. One, they weren't happy with the pictures. They said they couldn't tell well enough. So I went and took new pictures. I went and restaked. And then we also had to basically redo the application because the way the form is filled out, you are... Since I am both... IN CHARGE OF THE APPLICATION AND THE OFFICIAL WHO HAS OVERALL SUPERINTENDING RESPONSIBILITY OF ZONING, IT BECAME, WELL, SIGNING BOTH THINGS IS KIND OF PROBLEMATIC. SO WE WENT BACK AND WE REDID THE APPLICATION. THEY AGREED TO ACCEPT THE FACT THAT I WAS SUBMITTED AS THE CITY MANAGER. SO WE SKIPPED SOME OF THE ZONING STUFF. BUT, YEAH, A WHOLE BUNCH OF FUN.

Is this the engineer over at Winfield?

No, it goes to the state now. Does it? Yes. So that's the other thing is Topeka, you know, for them, you know, looking at a picture is as close as they're going to get to the site.

Where are we at on the North B homes, the infamous homes?

So the abatement is completed. The contractors come and completed his task.

Okay. Yeah, the backyard looks really good on that one house, but the house next door, are we going to keep on them on that?

I can answer that.

So we have started new cases, but, I mean, that's all we can do.

I mean, and also maybe the police department could do something about all the cars parked out front, interoperable, inoperable, on the sidewalk, right next, you know, they fill the front yard, so...

I will tell you through experience, if it's not in the street, the police can't do anything. It's all part of codes. If they're parked in the street, the police can do something. If they're parked on the sidewalk, the grass or whatever, it's the codes department. And I did go by there and talk to Jamie about it. And that's what, he went out and he let me know that he moved everything to the house next door.

Tricky guy.

There we go. Keep going, Tim. Okay.

House on North A, I mean, it's been in the agenda packet before, something like in the 1900-2000 block. Can we bring that before council for consideration on cleaning it up? It's been that way about five years that I know of.

We'll see. That's all I'm going to say.

Okay. Last thing I have is this weekend there was a few hundred people down there for the Hargis Creek, out of Hargis Creek for the cross-country meet. I think we could have done a little better on the parks, the playgrounds full of weeds, the weeds around the restrooms. I just think that many people coming in town, And they're visiting here and then they see that to kind of, we need to make more of a impression.

That's the end. Okay. Great. All right, Jerry. Councilwoman Grace.

Matt, thank you for always, every year, providing the young eagles. The only suggestion I would have, because it's an incredible event for everybody to be there, is somehow we need to figure out how to get the word out even better. Even though I was explaining to people it was on News Kyle, it was here, it was here, it was here, it was here, I don't know how people didn't know, maybe in the morning, a major social media blast before it starts I don't know I that's what I'm saying I don't know because in past years you've had a lot of people there by 8 o'clock and I was just surprised, because I usually flip more pancakes than that.

Yeah, as far as general public goes, I don't think we had as many people and pilots and airplanes coming in. We didn't have as many. But we did fly 46 kids.

Oh, OK, good.

We did pretty good overall. So I think it was pretty successful. I would say 150 total people maybe. And then the airplanes was the biggest disappointment. We just didn't have very many fly in.

But you had some cool ones out there that I hadn't seen before.

Yeah, there was a lot of neat airplanes out there for sure.

But thank you for putting that on for the community.

We love doing it.

That's it.

Councilman Elmore. Yeah, no, I just wanted to thank Matt also. I think part of the issue could have been there were several conflicts. We got the State Fair going. They had the Argus Creek Invitational that Councilman Hay was talking about, but I wasn't able to make it because I was at both of those things, but it looked like it was a heck of a time, so thank you again. That's all I have.

Councilwoman Antonich. I'd like to thank the Electric Department and City, whoever, I text Joe, the mayor, and I sent a message to Mr. Porter and one to Jason. It happened a little after 5, a half of a tree, a very mature tree, fell on the opposite side of the alley. And the only thing holding it up were the electric lines, a lot of them that go everywhere. They came very quickly. two tracks one from each direction did a wonderful job left the biggest part of the you know the tree in the alley because they really didn't have anything to load it up with came back bright and early the next morning cleaned everything up looked like nothing had ever gone wrong i appreciated it everybody on both sides of that alley and around there really appreciate it. It was fast, it was accurate, and I thank them a lot. That's all I have.

All right. I just want to remind or citizens to watch out in the school zones, watch out for the kids darting out. I've seen on the news where a young child was hit in Derby this morning. Luckily, he had minor injuries. So I'm gonna preach on this every time I get up here on this, but folks, please, watch out in the school zones. Some of these kids are eager to get home. And I know some parents are eager to get home, but it's not worth hitting anybody. And parents, please educate your kids to wait and look, stop and look, because we can't. I wouldn't even want to think about somebody getting hit, and that's a big burden on that person. So please, folks, watch out for our future. That's all I have. All right, reports of city officials. Jeff, we have a street closing on Lincoln.

So this is the first two street closings. The first one is the Lincoln Interest Day for October 9th. It's Lincoln, Harvey, and G Street around the school from noon to 3.30.

Move to approve.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Jeff, we have the 2nd Street closing, Washington Elementary.

Yep, this is on the 30th of October. It's Washington Street from 17th to 18th from noon to 3 for their jog-a-thon. Move to approve.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. All right. We have no public hearing. We have no ordinance. We do have a resolution. Resolution supporting the acquisition of construction. renovation expansion and equipping of the existing commercial property by jumpstart within the city of Wellington Kansas and considering the advisability the advisability of the use of the economic economic development incentives Jeff So that mouthful of words was to start the process to consider some economic development incentives to

potentially rehabilitate the Jumpstart location off the roundabout. We, I think it was two meetings ago, received the application for Jumpstart to get the cereal and beverage license, so that's one of the first steps in them taking over the store. We have been in communication with them. They're interested in accessing some of the incentives that we offer, including potentially community services Yeah, the CID, Community Incentive District, to potentially make some upgrades as well as accessing the Industrial Revenue Bond Program. And then there's some other discussions surrounding other increment devices to do that. So we will be bringing you probably a slew of other things in the future, but this is kind of the first step to say that we are considering the advisability of these There will be later hearings and other things of that nature. And we have some representatives from Jumpstart if you've got some questions or if they'd like to at least, you know, make themselves known to the council as, you know, the new potential owner of these sites that plans to make some investment in the community.

Mr. McDonald, you're one of the representatives, and I didn't get the name of you. Yeah.

Yeah, I'll let this is Patrick Allen. He also works for jumpstart. So my name is Michael O'Donnell. I've worked for Phil near in the near family for years now as we've been expanding jumpstart across the whole state of Kansas right right at 50 stores now and growing and Wellington is going to be an important part of that. You know, as I was telling Mr. Porter and the mayor, you know, you just go up 81, and many people who live in Wellington stop at the one in Hayesville, and they ask, when are we getting down here? Same thing we hear in Winfield. Obviously, we have one at South Haven, and so this is an important area for our future expansion. One of the prerogatives, and I've been working with Stacey Davis with the Chamber. She was the first person I talked to even before Mr. Porter. One of the things that we like to do when we go in these towns, we've been doing it in different cities across the state. We've done it in Russell and we just did it in Florence and we've got others under contract is see what incentives might be available for us to take advantage of for two reasons. It allows us to expand further and quicker into these markets. And B, it just allows our remodel, because our pumps are very state of the art, very expensive, as you see. But what we're excited about, not just coming into this market, but what you're going to see for sales tax growth, with all of the amenities that that we offer and so we're we're very excited about the potential um not just spring jumpstart here but clean up that existing gas station uh make make a lot of improvements and uh you know hopefully clean up that whole roundabout i don't i'm not authorized to talk more about what what's happening there but there there's future plans that jumpstart has to clean up clean all that up so we're we're very excited about that and we've really appreciated the conversations with mr porter And with Ms. Davis as well. Patrick lives in Conway, but I was just talking to him about it because he used to work here. He worked at the Dillons for a number of years. And so Jump Start, we just stole him from Kroger.

How long have you been with Jump Start? Coming up four years.

Yeah, so we stole them from Kroger, and so Phil's had a lot of success with hiring people that have worked very large retail like that. So we're excited about bringing that and then bringing some Kansas ethanol gasoline to the market as well. What we're asking you today is yes, looking at the CID and then also just IRB for the construction equipment, not not the property tax, the construction equipment sales tax exemptions. But here to answer any questions that you might have.

I don't have a question. I want to compliment you on cleaning that whole area up and definitely the jump start because that section is just kind of an eyesore. And I will admit when I moved here nine years ago, I was told to avoid it. So thank you for doing something.

It will be well lit and very friendly for families.

Well, it's already a huge improvement, and so I'm looking forward to everything that you're going to do. Thank you.

Well, you saw what Jumpstart, what Phil was able to do, and I believe it was store number four or number five in Hayesville. up on 81 how dirty that gas station was before they came in and so you can ask your colleagues in Hayesville and they'll tell you that where we've been a great partner for them and it's it's a very important thoroughfare for us so anyway we're very excited to bring this to the region and and hopefully it's just the start and we'll be able to acquire more so

And I like the one down in South Haven. It's very clean, very well lit, and obviously does a lot of traffic for that area.

Yeah, it really does. Yes, and like I said, our goal is to sell a lot of gas, sell a lot of cereal malt beverages that we talked about, a lot of food. So you'll see a very large increase, hopefully, on the sales tax portion as well for the city and the county as well.

I remember the store in Haysville before Phil bought it. I worked for a soft drink company for 42 years. So he had to service that store. And when he bought it, man, things really switched around. And we did a lot of resets in there. But, yeah, that store was in bad shape.

We take a lot of pride in that. You can ask cities like McPherson, Abilene. Like I said, Russell, a lot of the Hoisington Great Bend, the cities that we've been expanding outside the which area they're very happy because all these gas stations have the same thing in common. They're on major, you know, important thoroughfares to the community and they're an eyesore and they're not generating near the sales tax that there should be. So we've been welcomed and like I said, if your colleagues when you go to league meetings or whatever that I hope you hear the same thing that people are happy because we try to involve ourselves in the community. Hire really good people. and then also give back. We do a lot with not-for-profits and stuff. It's the agenda, and that's what's nice about Jumpstart being owned by just Phil and Cheryl Neer. There's a few banks that might have some money in there too, but we don't have large corporate infrastructure to go through. It's just Phil and Cheryl, and it's just our mission in cleaning up Kansas. And so he knew he was going to get into Wellington or Winfield soon, and you guys won. So we're just asking for today. We know you take it very seriously, the taxpayer dollars down here, and that's what I was talking to Mr. Porter about. But I said we'll keep you all apprised as we go forward, but that is what we would – humbly request on the CID and then the IRB just for the construction materials.

Yes. To Councilman Grace's or Councilwoman Grace's point, you guys have done a great job up there so far, and we're really impressed with the turnaround we've seen. What are you looking for as far as timeline-wise to finish the existing property that you guys have?

We're doing the bathrooms now. We're doing the kitchen. No, I'm sorry. We're redoing the bathrooms now, so we're going to clean that up. They were very in disrepair, so I want to make that a clean environment. So we're redoing the food, the kitchen, extending cooler doors. So probably about a month, two months out, depending on when that happens. And then we're waiting on pumps to come in. That's usually a six to eight week process along with the canopies. So it'll be blue and white and it'll light up that corner.

So you're thinking probably by the end of this year?

Yeah, well, we move very fast. We take everything by acquisition and are able to turn pretty quickly. Excellent.

Look forward to it.

Yep, we definitely definitely have a formula on how to do that now and and you've seen that and and Mrs. Nears very particular about that because she says as a woman she has her degree in interior design and so so that's kind of she looks at every store and she decides like oh we need floor to ceiling windows on the front and if she wouldn't use the bathroom herself then it's unacceptable. So that's kind of the floor that that she herself would. So we're very proud of that because those are the that that's the number one thing that we hear about is Please clean up these bathrooms. We just acquired one at 235 and West Street in Wichita. And that was the first thing they asked us to do was clean up those bathrooms. And so we know how important those just it's it's little dust, but it's big to the consumer.

What, ma'am? They indicate a clean store. If you go back or not is based on the restroom. Well, yes.

And yes, ma'am, we take that seriously.

Well, I'd like to thank you for. coming to Wellington and giving it your best shot to improve that area. It's nice to see. Thank you.

Yeah, well, thank you. And we want to make sure we, like I said, Patrick's been four years now, but he knows the area, worked for many of those years. And so we want to make sure the community knows us and we try to hire all of our general managers from those cities and then hopefully pay better staff and then you have friendlier staff. So anyway, we're just happy to be a part of it and hope you all start using us more frequently then.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. I need a motion. Move to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second. Heidi, I need a roll call vote. Sure.

Mr. Elmore?

Yes.

Ms. Grace? Yes. Mr. Hay?

Yes.

Ms. Lucas? Yes. Mr. Westmoreland?

Yes.

Ms. Antonich?

Yes.

So that is six affirmative votes for resolution number 6466. All right.

Mr. McDonald. Thank you. Thank you. Do you have a card or anything like that on you?

Yeah, and this reporter has all my contact info as well, but I'll give it to him.

That's fine, yes. All right, I appreciate it.

My cell number's on there. Okay. Thank you all very much. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, guys.

Guys, have a blessed day.

You too. You too. All right, next we have study items. We don't have any study items. Do we have?

Yes. Let's see here. I motion that we move into executive session to discuss or to consult with the city attorney regarding legal issues related to a proposed development agreement, including contractual obligations, interpretation of agreement terms and protection of the city's legal position. THE JUSTIFICATION FOR THE EXECUTIVE SESSION BY STATE STATUTE IS CONSULTATION WITH AN ATTORNEY FOR THE PUBLIC BODY OR AGENCY WHICH WOULD BE DEEMED PRIVILEGED IN THE ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP AGAINST STATUTE 754319 BRAVO 2. THE SESSION SHALL INCLUDE THE COUNCIL MAYOR, CITY ATTORNEY, AND CITY MANAGER. WE WILL RECONVENE AN OPEN SESSION IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBERS AT 7.15.

Move to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? On returning on the open session, the council reconvenes and set, excuse me, the council reconvenes an open session at 7.15. The council took nobody in action during the executive session. Jeff, do we have anything going on, future items?

Move to adjourn.

Second.

We have a motion and a second to adjourn. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Aye.