City Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this Tuesday morning and the opportunity to gather in service to the people of Wichita. We are grateful for the blessings of this community, for the freedoms we enjoy, for the diversity that makes our city strong, and for those who have accepted the responsibility of public service. As this council begins its work today, we ask that you grant each member wisdom, discernment, patience, and understanding. Guide their hearts and minds as they consider the matters before them. Help them make decisions that promote justice, encourage prosperity, protect the vulnerable, strengthen our neighborhoods, and advance the common good. Give our leaders the courage to listen carefully, the humility to consider different perspectives, and the ability to work together respectfully. even when there are differences of opinion. We pray for the citizens of Wichita, for our families, our neighborhoods, our schools, our businesses, our first responders, our seniors, our young people, and everyone who calls this city home. Lord, may the decisions made in this chamber today be guided by integrity rather than personal interest, wisdom rather than haste, and service rather than self. Bless the members of this council, bless the city of Wichita, and bless all who labor for the good of this community. In your precious and holy name we pray, amen.

and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Pastor Moore. BEFORE WE CONTINUE, I KNOW SEVERAL MEMBERS HERE IN OUR AUDIENCE DON'T KNOW WHEN THIS MEETING WILL CONCLUDE, AND WE NEVER HAVE A SET TIME WHEN THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING CONCLUDES. HOWEVER, WE WILL BE TAKING A BREAK FROM 3 TO 3.30 P.M. FOR OUR COUNCIL TO TAKE A 30-MINUTE RECESS. SO FOR PLANNING PURPOSES, From 3 to 3.30 p.m., we will take a break, but likely we'll take another break prior to that for a quick lunch. With that, Madam Clerk, can you please call the first item?

Approve the minutes of the regular meeting, August 11, 2026.

Council members, any items to be edited? I see none. I move to approve the minutes for the regular meeting, August 11, 2026. second motion second discussion see none madam clerk please open the roll motion passes 7-0 madam clerk please call the next items awards and proclamations today's proclamations are wichita's littlest heroes black bookstore day and national breastfeeding month at this time can i please ask wichita's littlest heroes to come forward to the front The proclamation reads, the city of Wichita, Kansas founded in 1870, whereas Wichita's Littlest Heroes was founded in 2013 by Brianna Baskerville after her young son was diagnosed with a rare and life-threatening autoimmune disease to ensure that no family faces a child's serious medical journey alone. Whereas for more than a decade, Wichita's Littlest Heroes has provided hope, help, and happiness to medically fragile children and their families throughout our community by offering emotional support, financial assistance, family events, peer connections, and programs that improve quality of life. Whereas the organization has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct financial assistance while also creating meaningful experiences through family outings, hospital support, art therapy, educational opportunities, caregiver support and community celebrations that remind every child they are seen, valued and loved. Whereas children battling life-threatening medical conditions exemplify extraordinary courage and resilience, Their families and caregivers demonstrate unwavering strength, and the individuals and organizations who work tirelessly to ensure these families never walk alone in this journey show unparalleled commitment and dedication. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Wichita City Council does hereby proclaim August 18th, 2026 as Wichita's Littlest Heroes Day. We appreciate you guys so much and we love our city and we're so thankful for the support that we've gotten since 2013 and thank you so much. May I please ask Left Unread and Councilmember Shepherd to come forward at this time.

Thank you, Mayor. It's an honor and a privilege to stand before you all today to celebrate this remarkable couple and family who has been in Wichita and transplanted into Wichita and has invested in Wichita in many ways, and I think it's a testament to the power of our city and how we embrace individuals and believe in their dreams. The proclamation reads, Proclamation of the City of Wichita, founded in 1870. Whereas black bookstores have long served as an important literary space where books, ideas and public dialog intersect. And whereas for generations, these bookstores have preserved otherwise overlooked stories while providing gathering spaces for readers, writers, educators and neighbors seeking knowledge and connection. And whereas Black Bookstore Day, observed annually on the last Saturday of August, recognizes the historical and present day contributions of black bookstores and acknowledges their role in advancing literacy, learning, and the circulation of ideas, And whereas recognizing this observance affirms the importance of literacy, entrepreneurship, education, and civic participation in Wichita, while contributing to a broader appreciation of Black bookstores and their impact. And now, therefore, be it resolved that the Wichita City Council does hereby proclaim August 29th, 2026 Black Bookstore Day, signed by Mayor Lily Wu.

Good morning, and thank you, Councilmember Shepherd. Good morning, Mayor Wu, members of the City Council, community members, friends, family, and supporters near and far. I'm Dr. LaTosha Ely Kelly, owner of Left on Red and founder of Black Bookstore Day. And I'm joined this morning by my husband and Left on Red co-founder, Corinthian Kelly. People often refer to Left on Red as Wichita's first black-owned bookstore, usually out of excitement or because they're unaware of the history. We do not make that claim, not only because it is not true, but because we are proud to stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. That is especially important to us as Kansas transplants who have been so warmly embraced by the Wichita community. After graduating from Wichita State University, Mr. Curtis Whitten opened a black bookstore at 13th and Woodlawn, about seven minutes from Left on Red's current location on Central Avenue. In 1989, Dr. Mascala Thomas opened Iqra African American Books and Gifts with her father only three minutes away. Iqra operated nearly a decade at 13th and Spruce from 1989 to 1998. The intention behind Black Bookstore Day is, in part, to ensure that this history is known, acknowledged, respected, and serves as inspiration for what is possible. That foundation includes the legacy of David Ruggles, who in 1834 opened the first known black-owned bookstore in the United States in New York City. and the black booksellers who have continued that work throughout the nation across generations. While not the first, Left on Red is currently the only black-owned bookstore in Kansas, and we are proud of that distinction, as this work is not for the faint of heart. But we hope we are not always the only. There is room for everyone. Black bookstores have long been places where our people gather, strategize, resist, learn, create, grow, and can simply be. They give us space to feel safe, seen, and free, and why wouldn't we want more of that? So it's fitting that Black Bookstore Day takes place during both Black Business Month and Black August, the two observances together recognizing the significance of and ties between black ownership, community, social justice, activism, resistance, black history, and black futures.

so today we celebrate more than a proclamation we celebrate the people relationships community that have helped make this journey possible thank you again mayor wu council member shepherd the entire wichita city council for the proclamation and recognition and to our Wichita Village, the people who have loved on us, embraced our vision, showed up, shared our story, and supported Tasha and me from the very beginning. Thank you. You have reminded us time and time again that when a community believes in you, something special happens. This story is still being written, and we are grateful to have so many of you helping us fill the pages. Left on Red is more than a bookstore. It's a story about community, connection, and what happens when a village chooses to believe. And we can't thank you all enough for that. Thank you and God bless.

May I please ask the Wichita Area Breastfeeding Coalition and Councilmember Becky Tuttle to come forward at this time.

Ms. Good morning. It's really exciting for me to be able to read this proclamation today. This is an initiative that I've been working on for almost two decades. And for someone who may ask, why would we be doing a breastfeeding proclamation at the City of Wichita Council meeting? This is not a woman's issue. This is not a family issue. This is a community, a state, and a national issue. So, it is certainly my privilege and honor to be able to read the proclamation of the City of Wichita, Kansas, founded in 1870. Whereas the American Academy of Pediatricians and the World Health Organization recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life with continued breastfeeding and introduction of complimentary foods for the first two years as long as mutually desired by the parent and child. And whereas breastfeeding provides well documented health, economic, and environmental benefits that support healthier families and stronger communities while reducing healthcare costs and improving lifelong health outcomes. And whereas nearly 90% of infants in Kansas begin breastfeeding, yet many families struggle to meet their breastfeeding goals due to barriers and challenges in healthcare, workplace, childcare settings, and community environments. Whereas National Breastfeeding Month and World Breastfeeding Week provide an opportunity to recognize the importance of protecting, promoting, supporting breastfeeding while encouraging communities to work together to ensure that all families have the support they need to thrive. And now, therefore, be it resolved, the Wichita City Council does hereby proclaim August 2026 as National Breastfeeding Month.

Thank you so much to Mayor Wu, City Councilwoman Tuttle, and to the rest of the City Council for this proclamation. of august is national breastfeeding month on behalf of cara gerhardt who is our chairperson as well as the members of the wichita area breastfeeding coalition i just share with you that we're a coalition of community members who all support and want to advocate and advance the the breastfeeding in our community through policy systems and reduce the barriers which many people face in the workplace and the public to be able to sustain their long-term breastfeeding goals. As was proclaimed, this impacts long-term maternal health as well as child health, and we ask all of you within your own workspaces and your own personal relationships to support people who have breastfeeding as their infant feeding plan. Thank you very much.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the award? Junior Achievement of Kansas Business Hall of Fame Honoree Pete Oakes.

You know, actually my first business was the family business. I grew up in a family farm. My granddad was in the grain business. My father was in the grain business and a farmer. And so from an early age, I just, I kind of grew up in the family business. So I never really had my own business per se. Actually at 25, I wrote my, I did the first thing that was really important. I wrote a personal plan. And in that personal plan, I said, I wanted to be an entrepreneur by the time I was 30. And so at the age of 29, on my 29th birthday, I took my wife to dinner and I said, I've got some good news. I'm gonna be an entrepreneur. What do you think about that? And she was all for that. So at the age of 30, I left the commercial banking business and started a little investment banking company. We represented buyers of companies that wanted to buy companies. So thank God for my wife. Let me tell you, I think family is so important in a family business. I went from a job that was eight to five to a job that went from five to eight, and I took a 75% pay cut for the privilege to do that. And I did that for about two years. And finally, my wife came to me and said, you know, time out. You need to go get a real job. So I agreed to just stop working seven days a week. I said I wouldn't work on Sundays. I'd only work a half a day on Saturdays. I'd make sure I was giving enough time to my, I think at that point in time, probably my one-year-old and three-year-old. Deb, my wife, is a champ, I will tell you. As you know, the life of an entrepreneur, I would come home one day and I would be, this is great, we just closed a big deal. And a week later I'd come home and I'd say, hon, I think we're going under. And she was always there, always steady, and so I love that girl a lot because she really hung with me. So I've got two kids, Austin my son and Lauren my daughter. Austin has taken over our businesses six years ago, and he's doing a great job. I will tell you, you know, I started that business in 1982, and so I'd been at it about 40 years before I transferred it over. And I always knew I'd transfer it over and it wouldn't be a big deal, but signing the stock certificates that day, selling the business, transferring the business to my son was one of the toughest days of my life. And I was so wrapped up in that business. But I do think there are seasons of life. And as I look back, if I wouldn't have gotten out of the way, he wouldn't have lost them. And then that allowed me to do some other things. You know, I'm having the greatest time of my life now because I get to mentor young business guys. Then of course, Lauren married an entrepreneur by the name of John Rolfe, which a lot of people in Wichita know. And they've got six kids. Austin and Danielle have three kids. So we have nine grandkids. So the role models in my life, for sure, had to start with my granddad and my dad. You know, they taught me hard work. They really taught me hard work, let me put it that way. I bet they did, it was way beyond that. You know, they showed me the intangible things of business. When I came to Wichita, I was given a, I got a job with Mike and Mick Michaelis, and I worked with those folks for eight years. I'll tell you, it was a terrific experience. They taught me how to do really good business, good ethical business. They were great mentors to me and I'll forever be grateful to them. Pretty quickly after I started my own business, I took an entrepreneurship class or two at Wichita State. Of course, I ran into Fran Giver. Fran was good enough to come alongside me and coach me up and so Fran was really instrumental. Then I had another couple of men, Marvin Martin and George Fouché. Those men walked with me for 40 years. It was amazing. I really love what Junior Achievement does. You know, beside just talking about business and entrepreneurship and kind of the in-classroom stuff, I think what I like about Junior Achievement is the things they teach in addition to that, what's outside the classroom. Character, leadership, all these kinds of things. And so when you can cast that to a young person, I think it's a really, really powerful thing. So yeah, I love Junior Achievement.

Introducing 2026 Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame Laureate, Peter Oakes.

Thank you again, City Manager, for featuring these awards videos from around our community. The next round of videos will be from the Kansas African American Museum and their Trailblazer videos. So again, thank you for that, Councilmember Tuttle.

Thank you. I always appreciate an opportunity to provide recognition, and I come to you yet again today with another recognition from one of our very own City of Wichita team members, Jennifer Magana, our Director of Law, recently received an award from the Wichita Bar Association, but she was also just given an award from the Kansas Bar Association. Director of Law Magana has received the Kansas Bar Association Distinguished Government Service Award. This award is given in recognition to a Kansas judge or attorney who has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to government service. So thank you to Jennifer, our Director of Law, for all that you do, not only for the City Council, but for the City of Wichita. Much, much appreciated.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

From the city's recently adopted civility pledge, the city council is committed to promoting civility. They stand United, they lead with respect and dignity, and they honor every resident and all communities. They're working to create an environment that values shared goals with increased empathy and genuine dialogue. We now come to public agenda. The public agenda allows for five speakers to have five minutes each to address the council. Please bear in mind that this is not a period of dialogue with council or question and answer period. This is your opportunity to address the council with your concerns. I ask that you address your remarks to the city council as a body and not to any individual council member. No action will be taken relative to items on public agenda other than referral to the city manager for information as necessary. Speakers will please speak into the microphone. Please state their name and address for the record. A time clock will display the speaker's remaining time to speak. Order and rules of decorum will be observed. The first speaker today is Bridget Eby, chain of command accountability.

Is Bridget present this morning? She is not. Madam Clerk, please call the next individual.

I, Pei Chung, Fairness and Equity in the City's Event Permitting Process.

Good morning, Mayor and City Councilmember. My name is I, Pei Chung. I own the farm venue at 221 North San Francis. I'm here today alongside the Wichita Chinese Association to protect our Mid-Autumn Asian Cultural Event and our downtown merchants from severe business interruption. Our community event application has been active with the city for more than eight weeks, establishing our timeline. We are fully code compliant and we have submitted our professional traffic maps, insurance documents and site plans. While city staff is processing our single block event layout, there is a severe, a serious conflict involving the surrounding street closure for Sunware Fest. The festival organizers are planning a total blockade of St. Francis Street from Thursday through Sunday for four days of street closures. Closing these commercial blocks during weekday and weekend business hours create an extreme financial hardship for our permanent businesses. It cuts off access for our clients and vendors, interferes with delivery trucks, blocks customer parking, and makes it difficult for employees to access their properties. To protect our livelihood, I formally filed a statutory merchant protest petition with the park and recreation staff. representing a majority block objection on St. Francis Street. Under City Code Section 3.11.150, if more than one-third of the affected property owners or residents object to the street closure, the request must be set for a hearing before the City Council for a final determination. However, yesterday afternoon, I discovered that the park staff had moved somewhere fast street block it onto the official Wichita.gov calendar despite our statutory protest. We are simply asking the city manager and this council to follow the written code fairly. Our proposed solution is simple. Move somewhere fast barricade one block west to a location that will not cause severe damage to a small business. We are asking this council to support our grassroots organization, protect our local small business, and shield our downtown merchant from severe business interruption. Thank you.

Thank you, Aifei. Madam Clerk, please call the next individual.

Rafael Fazio, support for Somewhere Festival.

Thank you, Mayor Wu, council members. My name is Rafael Fazio. I'm here on behalf of Movement Music, which hosts Summerfest. Just a few points to talk to you about what Summerfest is. It's being held September 25th and 26th. It's our third year. It brings in approximately 15,000 people, attendees from 31 states and six countries. But the music, frankly, is the Trojan horse. It's really about social change and our social change block party. Last year, the Social Change Party was Change Starts Somewhere. This year is Be the People. There are over 20 nonprofits represented here today in support of that. And what is being requested is to shut down part, well, St. Francis is exactly where our block party occurs, and the inability to shut that down not only creates a safety issue for our festival as a whole, but would essentially eliminate our social change block party. And that would be the impact on that. We have tried multiple times to work with the Fun Venue. I met with them in May of this year. Our festival was, just to go back for a moment, our festival was announced October 29th of last year. It was picked up by Wichita Bayibi as well as our socials. I did meet with the Fun Venue owners in May of this year. I asked them actually to rent the venue. We'd rented the venue last year. Ms. Chung had informed me that they had already rentals for those two days, a birthday party on Friday and a wedding on Saturday. And I said, okay, well, like we did last year, we'd like to shut down that St. Francis, so we'd like to work with you on reasonable access. And the response was from Ms. Chung that she was not interested in that. In fact, I have a text in July I followed up with her because I never heard a response from her. So I texted her and asked her as a follow-up. Because as we left that May meeting, she told me that her husband would contact me. I never received a contact. In July, I contacted her and I told her that we'd like to work with Reasonable Access and her response, and this is a quote directly from her text, since our last meeting, I've been pursuing other avenues to address what I believe is an unfair situation. As a result, we have not reached the point where contacting you was necessary. As I mentioned previously, my husband will reach out to you if we determine that there are no other reasonable options to explore. If that becomes necessary, he will contact you directly. That is the, we have tried to cooperate them. We actually met with Ms. Chung on Friday with the help of Councilmember Ballard, and we would incorporate, we would be happy to incorporate a booth on St. Francis for them, for the Wichita Chinese Association, which is also submitting a permit for their event. We have tried what we can do to help work with them and help create They help create a situation that is a win for everyone. So that's all I have, thank you.

Thank you, Raphael. Madam Clerk, please call the next individual.

Joe Woodward, support of the block party at Somewhere Fest.

Good morning, Council. My name is Freddie Hutt. I will be speaking today in the state of Joe.

Is Joe not present today?

He is present. Appreciate everybody's time today. I'm actually here, most people are familiar with me and my promotion regionally in the community for workforce development work. I'm here as a stakeholder of the community and a community member who is incredibly passionate about what we do as part of the social change block party. I am a foster kid. I'm a long time, I guess, kid of two parents that have went through a number of addictions, and I'm incredibly passionate about the work that they do. I've been volunteering my time to help with Somewhere Fest and to grow these last several months because I deeply find their mission to be aligned with what I believe in. I'm not alone in this. I'm joined today by over a dozen leaders from some of the most effective organizations empowering people across Wichita. We're here together because we believe this event is good for our city and the people who call it home. Among those represented today, we have Boys and Girls Club. We've got the Phoenix. Phoenix uses power of community to help people rebuild their lives and recovery. We've got Hope for the Hood, addressing violence and helping people pursue greater opportunity and upward mobility. Lead Wichita, building a citywide movement of people committed to transforming our community. The Kansas African American Museum, represented here as a neighbor of Summerfest and just a couple blocks away with their new facility. Care Portal, helping communities move upstream to strengthen families and help keep kids safe out of foster care. Gathered Strong, led by Jay Hedrick, bringing people together across the continuum of care to strengthen kids and families. We've got Wichita Recovery Hub, helping people recovering from anything, finding community and resources that remove barriers to a better life. We've got MARC Arts and Learning Lab here, providing innovative educational experiences. Army of Normal Folks, which supports ordinary people taking extraordinary action in their communities. We've got Hope Community Development Corporation, Hope CDC it's better known by, led by. I saw Reverend Harding over here. And they expand the opportunity for home ownership for exponentially more Northside families. They also do a lot in the area of financial literacy. These organizations work on different issues, but we all share a common belief. The challenges our city faces, they're bigger than any one organization can solve alone, and every person and every organization has a role to play. Essentially, Wichita faces some real challenges, not just some topical cosmetic things, Too many of our neighbors are affected by addiction. I volunteer regularly on South Broadway. I've got a project on South Broadway. Too many kids and families are touched by foster care. Upward mobility is moving in the wrong direction. Our reading and math outcomes don't reflect the incredible capability of Wichita's kids. Behind many of these challenges is something even more fundamental, a breakdown in human relationships. Addiction, isolation, mental health challenges, family breakdown and violence. Government and nonprofits have important roles to play, but none of us can manufacture the relationships that make a community strong. People and these organizations and the relationships that we build through events like this, That's what makes the social change block party different. There's not another event that I go to, that I attend, where we've got a reason, such as music, where we're bringing all of the people that this gentleman had spoke to from multiple states, 15,000 people that are coming together for ostensibly music, and we pull them in and then we introduce resources and we tell them about what the impacts of these multiple agencies in Wichita are doing. Now, MUSIC has had a remarkable ability to bring people together. Somewhere Fest wants to harness that power for something bigger than entertainment. The Social Change Block Board will put a national spotlight on some of the extraordinary change makers already at work right here in Wichita. We don't want to just have people come hear about problems. We want them to discover what they can do about them. And someone may care about helping a neighbor recover from addiction. Someone else might help, you know, a family stay together. Some people are passionate about foster care. But last month we celebrated the American idea of a country of the people, by the people, and for the people. These words aren't just something to celebrate once a year. They're a responsibility. If we want to live in that kind of country, then each of us has to be the people. That's what this event is about, bringing people together, celebrating the people already doing the work and making it easier for all of Wichitans to understand what's happening in our community and how to be a part of it. I appreciate your time and I'm happy to support this event. Thank you.

Thank you, Freddie. Madam Clerk, please call the next individual.

Andrew Kramer, Flock Safety and the Expanding Surveillance State.

Good morning, council members. My name is Drew Cranmer, and I reside within District 5 at 3626 North Ridgeport Street, Wichita, Kansas 67205. I'm with the Sunflower Privacy Alliance, and I want to talk about something simple. You cannot oversee what you cannot see. On April 30th, the Wichita Police Department denied my Kansas Open Records Act request for the flock safety audit logs, the records that show who accessed our license plate reader network, what they searched, and why. WPD's answer was that producing them would be unduly burdensome. Reviewing the audit trail, they said, would take hundreds of staff hours because every entry would need to be manually reviewed and redacted. That's presented as an unavoidable cost, but it isn't. Other cities that use this exact same vendor have contract language requiring FLOC itself to pre-redact audit reports before they've ever handed to staff for review. That shifts the redaction burden onto the vendor we're already paying instead of using it as a reason to withhold the records entirely. Wichita could ask for the same thing in our next contract or amendment, but we haven't. So audit logs, the one mechanism that lets the public and this council verify the system isn't being misused, are too burdensome. Meanwhile, this department hasn't shown the same hesitation growing the network itself. Wichita's flock camera count now stands at 191, funded in part through budget reallocations that never came back to this council for a vote. This same council also recently approved applying for federal funding to put real-time alert technology directly into our schools over objections about student privacy and the district's own history with the Department of Justice on discriminatory discipline. None of that required hundreds of staff hours to move forward. It's only when citizens ask how the existing system is being used that the hours suddenly become prohibitive. We are funding a department that receives 43% of this city's general fund. That's an enormous public investment, and it comes with an obligation. When residents ask how a surveillance tool touching every driver in this city is actually being used, the answer cannot be that's too much work to show you. I want to be clear about what I'm asking for. I'm not asking this council to relitigate whether flock cameras should exist. I know where this body has landed on that question, at least for now. What I'm asking for is much narrower and much harder to say no to, basic auditability. Specifically, I'm asking this council to direct staff to work with FLOC on a redacted or automated audit export process, the same kind of contract provision other FLOC customers already have, so that burden stops being a permanent excuse. Two, establish a standing public audit mechanism for this network, even a quarterly summary of query volume and interagency access so oversight doesn't depend on residents filing and refiling records requests that get denied. Three, ask WPD directly why unduly burdensome is treated as the end of the conversation rather than the start of one about fixing the process, because the burden is a solvable problem, not a permanent shield. Every week this council approves new surveillance capability, schools, cameras, budget reallocations that never come back for a vote without asking for equivalent visibility into how the tools we already have are being used. That imbalance is the whole problem in one sense. It's easy to expand and it's hard to inspect. I'm not asking you to trust me. I'm asking you to stop being asked to trust WPD without the records to check. Thank you.

Thank you, Andrew. We have one spot available for anyone in the public who would like to speak.

Good morning. My name is Sarah Cowling, and once again, I am part of all of your guys' districts. I lost my apartment last week, and I'm here to speak with you as an example of how homelessness

I can't ever read my writing.

Anyways, it's not exclusive. It happens to anybody and it can happen at any time no matter how much we try to prepare. I believe that I'm here more than anything this morning for a reason. Most of the organizations that were listed, I have spent the last year being part of a lot of their events. I can't even list all of them, but even growing up I was in Junior Achievement. I'm now learning to use my voice, and for a lot of us out here, now I can say I'm back out here, and I hate to say that, but I can also say that I can, given you the last year of my life, you know where I stand before I'm here. Things happen, and not everything's fair. And sometimes, we are, sorry. I had all this planned, but planning is not my strong suit, obviously. The last year with grassroots, we did the housing, we went to Chapin Park, we got people where things were starting to be noticed. This year, I think that where I'm at right now is a perfect example of showing how people end up homeless. I, as many of you know, my last year, I've had setback after setback, and we've had housing, and I, like this last week, I fought for my apartment. I was one month behind, and sometimes systems aren't fair, and sometimes just not knowing how to talk through those symptoms, is how we have so many people on the street. When I go to court, and I miss court because I'm talking to Parks and Rec, and call 30 minutes after court's done and put in a motion to set aside an entry, and I go to that hearing and I have everything loaded to, look, I was 14 days late on my rent. I was... My lease was not renewed because I had too much stuff in front of my apartment. But the stuff in front of my apartment comes from the people that are on the streets when they have nowhere to put their stuff. They put it in front of my place. When we have people that are being evicted, because when we can't have people in the encampment areas, they go to people's houses. And then landlords... terminate their leases because they have too many people staying there. We're fighting a fight that just keeps going and going and going in circles. And until we start preventative measures, we're not going to get this nipping in the bud. We need to have more advocacy also for the tenants. We need to have, when a judge tells me that all you have to do is be three days late and you can be evicted. And I have everything in my side of my argument to say that I was right. At least that wasn't even changed from the city of Wichita to mine, and then make me responsible. I'm appealing that. But a lot of people don't know that. The only thing they care about is your rent. And if something happens, like you get hit by a car and you break both your legs and your wrist, and you don't have a job because you're trying to get one, but nobody wants to hire you, without having a car and a phone, and you need a job to get both of those things. frustrating. Last week I lost everything I owned again and because of politics when I go and put in a motion and I'm in the right but I don't have a phone to look it up and they come and lock me out of my house even though when the last time I was trespassed they told me I had to be off the property and the next day my landlord trespasses me again and says I had every right to be there until this process was done. It doesn't get those two weeks back and I don't know where I'm going with this but I just want to say that I know that I'm trying to speak up for a lot of people and I think I'm thankful for everybody that's here. I'm thankful for the power that I've given myself that you guys have allowed me and I want to keep going with this and I need to speak with everybody on more of a level because I mean, I'm not the only one out here. And I'm not giving up. And I'd like to see more people aware because I'm just, I'm not going away.

I see Council Member Shepherd.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm curious if there are any resources within our toolbox to help people like Sarah. Sarah, thank you so much for the courage and I don't know where you went, but the courage and strength that you continue to provide every single day, the vulnerability it takes and the courage that it takes to come and share your story in front of people who don't even know you kicks open doors of opportunity for other people. So I see our director of housing back there. I'm sure you've met with her before, but I'm encouraging you to meet with our director of housing to see if there's anything that we can do for you to make sure that we get you back on a pathway of hope and stability. Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor. Sarah, I do appreciate you. And I'm sorry everything's gone sideways there. We tried to do a number of things surrounding property rights, landlord-tenant relationships here about a year ago. There's a lot of barriers in our way towards acting due to the state and the Tenant Landlord Act. So I would like to meet with you and hear your process and what happened there, and then also maybe advocate on the state level for the changes that we need. I've been doing that for four and a half years now, but we need to continue to keep our foot on the gas with that one so we can make a lot of the appropriate changes that we need as well. So thank you, and I'll be reaching out and setting up some meeting with you.

Council Member Shepherd.

Thank you. I just, I don't want to ignore that we also have a situation that's occurred here. And so what is the plan to reach a healthy compromise? I know council member Ballard, it was mentioned that you met with the two entities from the fun venue and then somewhere fest. How do, how do we get to a healthy compromise? I just, I'd like to believe that we, we can coexist in our city together and we don't have to do one over the other. I like multiple events happening in the city of Wichita. And so how do we get to a healthy compromise? And what has been the standard operating procedure process when two entities apply for a permit or grant in the same area at the same time?

And I'll take that. Thank you, Council Member Shepherd. Knowing that the, I believe it's the Asian Festival, was held in a different location in prior years, and this is the first year they're requested to have it in this location, is my understanding. So there's two things that we need to resolve. There is an appeals process. And so we will have to play that out with our Parks and Recreation staff. But as you heard today, there has been some communication between the partners. And so we will continue to facilitate that where we can on the city side. But it may come to a point where we can only issue one permit for that particular location. But as was offered, there could be some ways to maybe co-exist on some ways to promote both cultures and both events.

Thank you, city manager. I really appreciate that. And I just want to make sure the appeals process is not going to come at a cost to either entity.

No, I'm just bringing clarity to who has the first application in and what the process has been. So then once we determine the right permit holder, how we can work together, then I think that brings some clarity about who can help frame that conversation and who can offer what to whom.

Okay, final question for you, city manager. So given that the promotion of events are already taking place and the outcome of this process could drastically impact both location and timeline, what is our timeline to get an answer to both of these entities on how we're moving forward?

Well, we do have some information, and I'll say there may be some more information that we can share from the city as we've been down this path partway. So we do have a sense of the process underway. So we can share some more information with you.

Quick point of clarification. It's not the Wichita Asian Festival. That is held at Century Two. This is the Mid-Autumn Wichita Chinese Association event. Madam, sorry, Council Member Ballard.

Madam, I like that. Thank you, Mayor. Reggie, could you just give a high level overview? We've never had two groups apply for the same spot on the same day. So this is a little bit new. But if you could just maybe share a little bit. I appreciate it. Thank you.

And as he comes forward, yeah, we'll highlight that they're involved in the appeals process and things, and so I think, yeah, just basic issues will be helpful, and then we'll share with some follow-up information. Sure.

So, as Councilmember Ballard mentioned, this is the first time that we've had an event that has requested the same face at the same time frame. And typically what we do once we have something like this, we're looking at it to see if there's a presence before with the event being held at a particular location, as the manager mentioned before. The other event was at a different location previously. So we're trying to look at the best way that we can make compromise to see how we could potentially have those of them coexist. So just as a point of reference, any of our events that we have from open streets, the other events that we have that's in place, we normally have those annually, and they're reoccurring events, and we typically don't schedule something else during that same time frame because it would be difficult to manage if there's the same space that's there that's being requested.

I see no further questions from the bench. Madam Clerk, please call the next item. Consent agenda items 1 through 30. Council members, are there any items to be pulled from the consent agenda? Council member John Stett.

Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to pull item number 6, settlement agreement.

I move to approve the Consent Agenda Items 1 through 30 without Consent Agenda Item number 6.

Second.

Motion second. Discussion? See none. Madam Clerk, please open the roll. Motion passes 7-0. Council member Johnston has pulled consent agenda item number six, which is the settlement agreement. And this is to approve the settlement agreement of a lawsuit for the amount of $60,000. Council member Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor. Question for Attorney Magana. Yes. I see where the Benson trenching caused $95,860 worth of damage to our 36 inch sewer main. And they already paid us $28,428. And so the settlements for $60,000, which is $88,428, less than the $95,000. Is there a good reason it's $7,400 less?

Councilmember, thank you. This is a negotiated settlement, and it is based on, as all settlements, to avoid the uncertainty of a trial. There are factual issues that are factored into this settlement, and so we believe this is the best outcome available based on the uncertainty of trial.

So we're not 100%? Sure, we could prevail in a trial.

That's generally one of the factors we look at in a settlement.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions from the council? I see none. We will now open it up for public comment regarding this item on the settlement agreement. I see none. I'm going to bring it back to the bench, Councilmember Johnston.

No, I will not. I will vote against this.

I will ask a follow-up question for that specific reason. The difference, can you give us a percentage confidence that we would not reach the full amount owed to the city, which is the damages were $95,860? Can you explain that again, attorney?

Yes, there are factual challenges to any case, and this, you know, no case is perfect. This case has a factual challenge in proving the essential elements needed to prevail. It is hard to give a percentage of certainty on how we would prevail. We think we are more likely than not to prevail, but there is some uncertainty, and that, in our opinion, supports the need for a settlement. While it is $7,000 short, we'd like the full amount. We think this is in the city's best interest.

City Manager, can you share This council often gets asked to be part of settlement agreements. I don't believe this one was one of those. Is that accurate?

This was brought to you in...

Which one? Which council member attended the settlement agreement?

This one was not a mediation. This one negotiated settlement. Sorry.

So that is my question. So often when the city gets sued, which really means the citizens of Wichita getting sued, In those situations, a council member will be part of that negotiation process, and then there's a settled agreement on the amount. Can you share, either city manager or city attorney, why none from the council were involved in this? Yes, I'll jump in.

This was not a scheduled mediation. The parties believed over time and it evolved in a different way because we were the plaintiff in this case. It was us pursuing those funds and we received an early settlement. Then we began in negotiation with the Betson's insurer. So it evolved in a process that didn't incur in a structured mediation. We're not opposed to mediation. In many cases we do that. This was just handled differently. Attorney for the city and representing the city and then the insurer for that. So that's the process in this case. It did not involve a formal mediation.

And one, sorry, one additional question before Vice Mayor Glasscock. because you don't have a percentage confidence of whether or not we could get the full amount owed, can you share what are the legal costs incurred by the city in terms of city staff or outside council in order to reach this type of agreement or settlement?

Certainly, Mayor, there's staff time. This would be involving discovery. There's costs for depositions, transcripts, other fees, sometimes expert witnesses. I'm not certain this one would have an expert witness. But there are costs involved, both staff time and hard dollars, when we take a case to trial.

Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Oh, thank you, Mayor. I would withdraw. My question was regarding staff time and the cost it would take to continue to fight this in the court system. I would believe would exceed the $7,000 difference, and so I'll be supporting this today. I'll also make the motion then that we approve the settlement agreement and authorize the necessary signatures.

Second. Motion. Second. Discussion? See none. Madam Clerk, please open the roll. Motion passes 6-1. Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Board of Bids and Contracts, dated August 17, 2026.

good morning mayor city council josh lauber department of finance the board of bids and contracts convened yesterday august 17 2026 for the following items for engineering we have stormwater drain 549 and 550 paving to serve courtyards at jacobs farm second edition for Pearson Construction LLC in the amount of $4,511,385.63, subject to your approval of the new engineer's estimate and budget authorization just earlier. We have the basketball court improvements at Buffalo Park in Minnesota Park for Impact Services LLC for an aggregate bid total of $164,502.66. We have the paving improvements on Reese Street, Loray Circle, Boone Circle, Cody Lane, 21st Street, North Turn Lane improvements to serve Area 151 addition for APAC Kansas Incorporated for an aggregate bid total of $1,170,595.79. And we have the Water Distribution System and Sanitary Sewer to Serve Clear Ridge Second Edition Phases 1 and 3 from Acola Excavation Incorporated for aggregate bid total of $503,890. This is how to become a vendor with the City. This is a purchasing calendar of small business resource partner events the City is hosting or participating in. And this is our open public opportunities out on the street today, ending on the 28th and the 4th and the 15th. And I'd be happy to try to answer your questions and recommend your approval.

Thank you, Josh. Council Member Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor. Question on slide five. Sure. There's a significant difference at the bottom of the page with the bids. Yeah.

Thanks for the question, Councilmember.

Did somebody not understand the assignment?

Thanks for the question, Councilmember Ballard. Yes, there was an issue with the pricing on one of the line items. It's not uncommon, but it did make it non-responsive.

Thank you. I see no further questions. With that, I move to approve the Board of Bids and Contracts dated August 17, 2026. Second. Motion second. Discussion? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, please open the roll. Motion passes 7-0. Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Applicant Appeal of HPC 2026-206.

Good morning. Scott Waddle from the Planning Department. Apologies about the delay. Usually I have a little bit more time with the zoning case items. But in this case, the applicant is applying, has filed an appeal of the denial of their Delano Design Standards application for the proposed roof replacement at the Taco Rio building. The application was denied by the Delano Design Review Committee which found that the proposed replacement roof design does not meet a design standard from the Delano Neighborhood Overlay District. As part of its considerations, the Delano Design Review Committee did request advice from the Delano Design Advisory Committee which considered the application and did recommend approval of the applicant proposed roof replacement and i'll show you some illustrations of what that looked like so staff's recommendation is that you adopt the findings of the delano review committee and deny the delano neighborhood overlay district design review application The subject site is located at the northeast corner of Douglas Avenue and Seneca Street. It is located within the Delano neighborhood overlay district. Here are some photos of the building and surrounding sites. So this is the Taco Rio building. Yes, and the question at question is the replacement of the terracotta tile roof.

as well, I think.

Okay, so we don't have the images that were submitted by the applicant. I think we had an updated PowerPoint that didn't quite make it, but they submitted photos that showed that there's been deterioration of the roof. You can see that it's covered with a tarp. I'll let them talk more about the water infiltration that's occurring as part of this. And so what they proposed initially was to replace the terracotta roof with a asphalt shingle roof. So the Delano Design Review Committee looked at that and considered it with the standards. and found that the roof replacement would not ensure the visual integrity of the building, which is one of the standards from the overlay district. There's a number of details with this building that are somewhat unique, but keep the character of the building intact, and that is, as you can see from the front, they've got, this is a Spanish colonial revival style architecture. You can see that there are curved windows. You can see the decorative iron work. There's also false shutters that are located on the building, along with the low-profile terracotta tile roof, which all communicate that this is part of the Spanish colonial revival style. So this item is an applicant's appeal of their denial. It is recommended that city council accept comments from the applicant and also open the item up for public comment because this is not a zoning case. The council options include the following. You can deny the appeal and their application. Another alternative is that you can approve the application. And the third is that you can approve the application with conditions, or you may also defer the case, of course, if you want to get additional public input. Now, any of these actions can be approved by a simple majority vote. And with that, I'll stand for any questions.

Thank you, Scott. We'll begin with Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Thank you, Scott. I have a few questions. First, is this on any registry?

It is not. No, sir.

Second, when did they purchase the building?

I'm not aware, sir. I'll defer to the applicant on that.

I'd be interested in that from the applicant, too, especially given the timeline of the overlay as well. When I think of Delano, I don't think of necessarily Spanish terracotta roofs. That's not what pops into my head originally. And so are there any other buildings along this corridor that have this style of architecture that we're aware of?

The only one that I can think of would be the Masonic home, possibly up on Seneca. Okay.

And then this is also next to a McDonald's, a quick trip and a subway, correct?

That is correct, yes, sir.

Okay. And then do we know what the added cost for the applicant would be to require the terracotta versus the other?

No, we're not aware of that. I'll defer to the applicant on that.

Okay. And then two more questions. Sorry, this is rapid fire. Do we have renderings of what theirs would look like?

We don't, one thing I failed, neglected to mention was that after the initial round of their application and then consideration by the Delano Design Advisory Committee, the applicant did submit a revised option for the roof and that was a flat, it was a faux, I believe it's plastic or some similar It's a faux Italian slate design, and it's a flat tile. So it's not curved like the Spanish terracotta.

Okay. I think that might be an agenda packet. Is that the appraisal quoted at like $30,000? It's called the DaVinci RiffScape single with slates?

Yes, sir. That's it. Okay.

So that would be what they would look at instead of the terracotta, but it would still be in the same design? makeup of?

That is correct, that's my understanding. So essentially you would replace the terracotta tile with the flat lower profile tile.

Okay, thanks for entertaining my rapid fire questions. Sure.

I have a couple questions. Can I start off by asking what's the difference between the Delano Design Review Committee versus the Delano Design Advisory Committee and who makes up each of those committees?

Absolutely. So the first one, the Delano Design Review Committee is a three-member committee. It's made up of staff. So it includes the zoning administrator, the planning director, and the preservation planner. And the purpose for that one is they do the initial review of applications. So there are, I would venture to say, tens if not 100 applications that the other committee never sees because we meet every Monday, we go through the applications, those that are compliant we approve and off they go. Those that are not compliant then get sent to the Delano Design Advisory Committee. The Delano Design Advisory Committee is made up of volunteers that have been appointed by the city manager. They review the applications and provide community input. It's an opportunity for the applicant to do a presentation and discuss their project. And a lot of deliberation goes into that and then they provide a recommendation back to the Delano Design Review Committee. We take that feedback and then ultimately decide, render a decision on whether to approve, deny, or approve with conditions, and then the applicant has the opportunity to appeal that decision to the City Council.

And in this situation, there were two requests. One was for the shingle option, and then it got revised to the second option, which was the Italian faux. Can you share what the advisory committee said about either of the two options and what the review committee said about either of the two options?

Sure. And the Delano Design Review Committee said that either of those options, either the asphalt shingle or the faux Italian slate would not be compliant with the design standards because they don't preserve the architectural integrity of character of the building. The Delano Design Advisory Committee, which is the volunteer group, there were four members present, I believe, based on the minutes, and they recommended approval. And the reason why they recommended approval is because, in their understanding, it was difficult to get tiles that would be commensurate or would match the character of what's already there.

And did the advisory committee approve both the shingles the first time and then the Italian faux the second time?

I believe, I'm not exactly clear on the timing, but I believe that they saw just the asphalt shingles.

I'm going to ask Councilmember Ballard, do you know if any of the individuals, the four individuals that initially said okay to the shingles would be okay with Italian faux?

I do not know. I have not had any communication with them.

I'm sorry, but if I could, there are, I believe there's at least one member, if not two, who are present in the audience today.

Thank you. Just for a point of clarification, the advisory committee is made up of individuals who live in the Delano area.

Not all. Or interested parties. Exactly.

And then the review committee are staff members, City of Wichita staff members.

That is correct.

Okay. Thank you. I will have specific questions for the applicant. I want to know how much it costs if, A, they can find terracotta-style shoes replacements, how much that costs versus the shingles versus the Italian faux. I don't want this to become overburdensome for someone that is literally trying to make an older building accessible, safe, and hopefully appealing for the rest of the community. So I am interested in finding out those prices, even though that really shouldn't be us determining whether they're able to afford the cost or not. we are talking about what we do, whether it's overburdensome for someone to simply make their business work. So I will have those questions, I guess. The applicant can now come forward. Is that accurate?

Yes. So I would recommend that you hear from the applicant and then open it up for public comment.

Thank you.

Morning, Mayor. Good morning, City Council and staff. Appreciate you guys taking the time to hear our appeal this morning. Just to give you a little bit of context and some questions that maybe arose here during questioning the representatives' questions there. So we purchased this building representing Equiset this morning in 2024. The building was built itself back in 1968. As I think one of the council members mentioned, this is potentially one of one or one of two buildings within the Delano Design District that potentially have this terracotta tile. existing here today. The situation and structure of how the property and then the tenant, obviously as you see here being Taco Rio, it's a triple net lease, so typically in triple net leases, as some of you may know, repair costs, things like that, ultimately end up in some shape or form getting passed through to the expense of the tenant. I think we started here back in May, just to give some context on timeline, with the Delano Design Committee, that obviously it started with a composite shingle type solution, which was probably the most inexpensive solution here, which I would think was an estimate around $15,000 to get the roof redone and fixed in a safe and compliant manner. We did, as the previous representative mentioned, that did get approved 4-0 unanimously by Delano Design Advisory Committee before getting denied three days later by Delano Design Review Committee. And then I think after that point, we came forth with this kind of, I think it's been called faux Italian style, and I have our contractor here today, Roden Roofing, if you have questions about the specifics of the details of the construction work but i think we've proposed that as a compromise that we believe that both the composite shingles and this faux italian style would kind of match the integrity and design not only of the building but of the delano district overall um i think mayor wu you had some questions about what the cost would be in the different comparisons here this faux tile would essentially that we're proposing as a compromise is about two times the cost of the composite shingle And I think what Delano Design Review Committee's recommendation, trying to find some exact match to the tile that you see there in the picture on the roof today, would be another 30% to 40% premium on top of what we're proposing as a legitimate compromise in our eyes. So just wanted to lay the ground for a little bit of additional context and glad to answer any other questions that me or my team may be able to answer for you.

again can you just share one more time i know you're the owner of the property however the tenant taco rio would bear the brunt of having to pay for this ultimately yeah ultimately this is something that would typically be deemed as a structural type repair so that is going to be the landlord or the owner fronting that cost but as

Those things typically kind of happen over time, maybe not within this lease, but future leases or lease negotiations or extensions, sometimes those costs are passed through to the tenant. So that maybe answers your question there.

And I did not get your name.

Stratton, S-T-R-A-T-T-O-N.

Thank you, Stratton.

Yes.

Council Member Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for being here. Question. Have you all considered the manufacturer Brava? It's a composite style. I think I'm not a roofing expert by any means, but I did talk to some roofing companies and manufacturers over the weekend. And they suggested that maybe this could be a compromise. I was just curious if you had explored that.

Yeah, I may invite Braden here from Road and Roofing to kind of talk about the specifics of that. And we also have some images that we can kind of flash up here on paper if we need to, to kind of discuss the colors and appearances of that.

Thank you.

Good morning, Council. Thanks for the opportunity to speak and give some detail on some material. Lord knows I know probably too much about it. So the compromise that we brought forth is DaVinci. DaVinci and Brava are effectively cousins in the same industry. It's a composite tile that will mimic the characteristics of a real tile without having the, one, installation cost, and two, overall lifespan. The difference between DaVinci and Brava, Brava is going to sit a little bit higher, overall higher cost. So when we're trying to consider the improvement of the look of the building and the presentation of the construction versus the cost, moving up to Brava, one, the color Sonora and DaVinci more closely fits to what they have currently. If you move up into Brava to get that color or that type of color, you have to upgrade into their signature line. and it adds quite a bit more investment. So DaVinci, once again, 50-year lifetime warranty. Same thing as Brava. Actually, it's slightly longer than Brava is. Yes. So that's not the color. That would be the design or the pattern. If you flip the page, that would be the color. Oh, I guess we have it. Would you like me to bring it up to you guys?

But the difference is what you're looking at is flat. Yeah, it's not the Spanish tile looking. So it's a totally different look, right?

Yes. And so even, so Brava does carry, and DaVinci, they both carry barrel tile. However, once again, that is an upgrade. And over this $30,000 mark, we're looking at an additional $10,000 to $15,000 to move into the barrel tile. Thank you.

Again, you reached a compromise. This will now cost more. Your original was shingles, and that was definitely not any of the examples that were provided to us, correct? Correct. So this new compromise does cost more, but it does not cost as much as a Spanish terracotta tile.

Correct. And I don't think that Spanish terracotta tile is exactly going to be a replica of what you see there. So both are kind of, in a sense, faux options.

Thank you very much. I see no further questions from the bench. Thank you very much to the speakers as well as Scott. We will now open it up for public comment regarding this specific item.

Good morning. I did not plan on coming down here this morning. I didn't prepare anything for this, but I may have some ideas that might be helpful. My name is Greg Kite. I'm a local attorney and president of the Historic Preservation Alliance of Wichita and Sedgwick County. I understand the terracotta tile situation. Has anyone checked and seeing whether or not the terracotta tile that I know I've seen at Old Town Architectural Salvage would not match that. It's just a suggestion. You wouldn't have to then back off and put something new. Potentially, you could then put on something that is maybe nearly identical to what they have now. And I would think historically and... historically and architecturally, that would be the better part of valor. It's a suggestion, I know that kind of is a booga ball here for you in terms of being able to come to a decision, but if you could duplicate or replicate that exact tile, wouldn't that be the ideal solution? I'll let you go, I'm so sorry to interrupt.

Good morning. My name is Christopher Parasho. I'm a resident of Delano, member of Delano United and Delano Neighborhood Association. I'm also one of the members of the Design Advisory Committee. As the mayor noted in her comments, we did approve the original shingle plan. One of the reasons for that was that the color chosen came as close to the terracotta color as possible with a shingle and the other reason was that this really is the only roof in this stretch of douglas that has this kind of roof and given the fact that the building is currently having issues with water damage every time it rains right now if you drive by there it's covered in blue tarps And we're trying to accelerate the process as much as we can to minimize how much interior damage is done while this process carries out. One of my concerns that I'm having with this is having two different entities overseeing the same issues. The design review committee was a creation of the Delano revitalization plan that was created back in 2000. And my understanding of that original intent was to have one committee, not one staff committee and one group of people to advise them, but have one joint committee that would go over these kinds of things and try and figure out before they became issues that had to come before city council. And I'm wondering if there isn't a process solution here that we can come up with because we've got another issue coming up next on the agenda that's the same kind of thing where we have two different solutions coming from these groups that are in conflict or are conflicting and maybe we can prevent some of these issues from having to come before city council in the future. I did look at the proposed Italian tile. Personally, I would have approved that as well if I'd have saw that when it was presented to us. So, thank you.

Thank you, and thank you for serving on the committee.

Don't you want to speak?

Are we on the budget yet? We'll have questions for road and roofing unless you're speaking on behalf of being a citizen of the community.

I was just to answer the first kind of question.

We'll have follow-up questions. We have a list of them. We'll continue with public comment.

My name is Sybil. My name is Sybil Strum. I reside at 326 North Walnut. I'm in the Delano neighborhood. I do agree that Taco Real has to get the roof done because It's an eyesore. There's a tarp on the building. And I just think we've had enough improvement at Delano. We've had flowers. We've had a lot of improvement. I live in the Delano area. I go down Delano. I think maybe The only thing I would like to tell the Taco Real owner, please fix your roof because there are employees that are working there that need the job. That's all I ask them to do. Please fix the roof because it's been done to where the tarp has been on there for three months. When I have to fix my roof, I go get a roofer. I don't have people, you know, pay for it. And that's the way I feel. I feel in my heart that the only thing I'd appreciate him to do, fix that roof. Get yourself a roofer that's cheap. Get bids. Because I know some of the people that work there. They are my friends. They have been there for a while. And Quick Trip has done better. I know the employees at Quick Trip. I know everybody in Delano. I go to the people. Maggie don't. I go to the people. I ask them what they want. I'm sorry, Maggie, you've lost me as your vote because I have always been there for the people. That's all I ask the guy to do. Fix your roof and that's it. So thank you. Appreciate it. God bless y'all. And I will talk about my house getting destroyed. Please. Thank you.

We'll continue with public comment.

My name is Vince Hancock. I'm also from the Delano District. I also serve with Chris on the Delano Design Advisory Council. A couple of items of context, one in particular that I thought was not exactly reflected in the minutes of our meeting was that the applicant had come forth and said, we really wanted to try to match the original terracotta tile. But they said to truly do a color match, you almost have to find tile that was pulled from the exact same query to get that exact color match. It's not like going to the store, the paint store, and saying a little bit of red, a little bit of green, a little bit of blue, and together we're going to make your exact color match of paint. Here's your fun scientific fact of the day. Do you know why we call it the red planet? Mars is not red because the human eye is so sensitive to variations in the red area of the color spectrum. They took the black and white photographs of Mars and colorized them red so that we could see those variations more than that. Somebody here used to work at a television station and we live and die on whether or not light gets transmitted properly. So because red is such a hard area to match, they said there's just no way to color match that particular area of tile. You could go through 500 different factories and not get the exact same match. So that's why we originally stuck with their proposal. They said if we go with a shingle, we can get really good color matching on that. So, that's why we made the decision we did and I'll stand behind that. We're only two of the four that are here today and we might encourage staff in the future if things get, need to come to council, something that we decided one way that maybe staff should let us know instead of us having to find the agenda. Appreciate your time.

Thank you. We'll continue with public comment.

Myron Ackerman, I live in District 1. Question, is this an operating business or are they closed because of the roof leak? That is a question I wasn't sure. If the building is empty or unusable, what you're presented with is an owner who has reached a reasonable compromise with one of the two committees. and your decision is can he do the compromise or are you going to try and force him to spend 30 to 50% more just because it's not quite perfect. If you have a vacant business that will not open unless this roof is repaired, it really is not fair of the council to try to decide how much the landlord should have to spend.

Thank you, Council Member Ballard. To my knowledge, it's still open for business.

We'll continue with public comment. I see no further public comment. Thank you to the five speakers that spoke on behalf of this item. We will now bring it back to the bench, and I will ask the applicant to come forward or the road and roofing experts. as I have multiple questions that were raised by community members. The first one was regarding looking at a salvage yard and possibly looking at tile that looked similar to the terracotta tile but as another speaker mentioned the color would be very different even if it was the same terracotta tile but from a different quarry so question one question two is there water damage currently at the at the building that is currently being operated and number three the speed of this remedy You guys have, I would assume you've been trying to replace the roofing for quite some time, but it's been held up because of bureaucracy.

Yeah, so to address question one, once again, thank you, gentlemen, for explaining. It was explained perfectly for the color of the tile. Another factor about this particular tile, despite this building being built in 1968, the tile is Ludoichi Imperial Tile, which dates as far back as 1910. All of these tiles have different attachment patterns underneath and different ways that they hook into each other. So when it comes to trying to put a new cap tile and then one row but keep all of the existing, nothing will ever tie in correctly. And not only is that an aesthetic issue, it becomes a build quality issue and an overall warranty issue in the future. and just kind of setting them up for failure. It's the last thing that we want to do for an investment on behalf of the tenant especially. And for question two, I apologize, could you remind me on that one?

Can you talk about the water damage? Yes. There is a current tenant there that is operating as a business.

So upon our inspection, it wasn't just an aesthetic issue where they had a missing row of tile. That is a wooden mansard that goes around the building. So there's negative space there, right? You can think of a wall and then a triangle. There's negative space in here. That's an all original wood mansard. It's relatively completely rotted out. The northeast and northwest corners are the worst. That's where you'll see the tarps if you happen to drive by. They are to the point now where they're still operating because they have to. They're a small business and a restaurant. They can't afford to close. But if you walk in and you decide you want to get a bean and cheese burrito, which is what I suggest, you'll see that their back corners you can't sit in. It is affecting their business daily. They're forced to be open and they cannot close. So this whole process for us, on behalf of Roden as well, it's never the intention to just go get a job. It never has been. We at Roden, and me, I'm born and raised here. Once again, I happen to love the bean and cheese burritos there. I've grown up going there and being in Delano. We're really proud of what Delano's done, and we respect them and their decision making, because they've really improved the area. But this is a tenant that's hurting, and we'd like to do our part to help fix it.

My last question was, is bureaucracy preventing the speed of actually making repairs?

Speaking plainly, absolutely.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Thank you, Mayor. When I signed up for this job, I signed up for a lot of things. I did not think I'd be signing up to be a tile expert and debating a $30,000 or 30% premium on a $30,830 roof. And so, I mean, my question I think we have to have from this bench is this is not a debate. that happens in a top 50 American city, that we're requiring a private business to come in and ask the government to be able to do this when it's not a historic building, when it's next to a QuickTrip, a McDonald's, and a Subway, and we put them through many Hours of going through government bureaucracy to be able to address this. I know I've talked to the manager about this previous I know I've talked to the director of planning about this as well and I think Christopher hit on this as well is we have the DDR C and the DDA see I don't know the difference most days of which is which and which ones debating which and And I think we're facing some real challenges if this is going to be the debate that we're having from this bench. And so this is an easy vote for me. I just had to get all of that out there because I think this is frustrating to the business. This is frustrating to me that we just probably spent 30 minutes talking about this when we're going to be voting on a budget of $800 million later this afternoon and debating that. I won't be supporting the DDRC's vote, and I know there's other people on the board, so I won't make a motion yet. And this isn't in my district, so I'll let the council member in her district.

Council Member Tuttle. Thank you, and thank you, Vice Mayor. I was going to have very similar comments, but you said it very eloquently, and because we're going to be here a very long time, I won't be redundant. But I just, I'm baffled by this, and that's probably the only word that I can use. Again, no other building around there, I tried to look on Google Maps, has that type of roof. If the Delano were holding them accountable, because that's what it was, we shouldn't expect them from 1968, I think, to have the same thing now. So I hope that we can maybe look at the process so that we don't have this type of situation again. It's a complete overreach of government for us to be telling a private business what kind of roof they need to have as long as it's compliant with standards from the MABCD. So thank you for being here, and I feel like I'm now a roofing expert, so if you're hiring Rodent, let me know.

Council Member Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor. To the gentleman from Rodent, did you say that the tile is from 1910? that's on there now. So that kind of goes to my point why this is important. It's important to Delano. Delano is one of the only neighborhoods that does have a protective overlay that has participation in the designs. This is important to District 6. 1910 is a long time ago. And I mean, the Masonic Home is, you know, maybe we can borrow from the Masonic Home. I don't know. But I wouldn't be doing my job if I wasn't having this conversation. I know Vice Mayor Glasscock, you said this is not what you signed up for, but this is what we signed up for, is to be the voice of our constituents. So with all due respect, this is important to District 6, and there was conversation about it last night at the Delano neighborhood meeting that I was at. So, oh, Council Member Joseph, I'll let you go, and then I'll finish up my comments. Go ahead.

No. Council Member Ballard, I was going to just affirm what you shared, I think, because I also represent a district where our neighborhoods are very clear about not just the expectations, but they also go through the work that it takes to get there. And what I do know, one of the things that strikes me as important is that a neighborhood can go through a long time putting in the workforce. neighborhood plans or design standards and yet we are the ones that are supposed to be working with the neighborhood to hold ourselves accountable to ensure that that takes place I currently I definitely hear my colleagues about government overreach I think that that is something that I want to be mindful of as well and yet I think that we have competing values that highlights the complexity of government at times right and so how do we make sure that we're holding both truths while also figuring out a way to honor the voices of our community what they set out to lay as expectations while also making sure that our property owners don't feel the bureaucracy to move things forward so I just wanted to affirm what you said about making sure the neighborhood's voices are heard in the process

Vice Mayor Glasscock.

There may be some other comments as well, but we just heard from the President of the Neighborhood Association, the Vice President of the Neighborhood Association, the President of the Delano United Business Association, and three Delano residents that said that they were fine with this, including me, who lives probably a four minute walk from this location, and it's on my drive in every single day. And so there may be another motion or an alternate motion, but I would move that we override the decision of the DDRC, adopt alternate findings, and approve the Delano Neighborhood Overlay District Design Review application for this project. Is that the correct motion, Scott?

Yes, sir. It would be to approve it, and then that will allow them to get their roofing permit. OK.

I move that we approve the application.

second motion second discussion i have one final thing to add city manager i would like to see per the request of residents a combination between the delano design review committee and the delano design advisory committee there needs to be a rehaul of that because it should have representation from citizens of our community not just bureaucrats when it comes to the committee itself. So I would like to see a future item to be discussed on how to move forward with the consolidation between these two. Council Member Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm sorry, but I think it's extremely rude that you moved the motion when it's in my district, and typically that is how things work, is the person that's districted typically guides the motion. So I just think that's incredibly rude.

I'll withdraw my motion if you want to put a different one. It's fine. Go ahead. I withdraw my motion currently.

Council Member Shepard.

Thank you, Mayor. I was actually going to ask Council Member Ballard, because to Vice Mayor's point, there are people here today, but I recognize that the timing at which these meetings happen are not always accommodating for every single family or every individual to come forward and share their concerns. So to Vice Mayor's point, Council Member Ballard, have you heard from neighbors, from your constituents, that there are some concerns about this that lead you to want to support the alternative motion that Vice Mayor has made?

Yes, and I was at another Delano, the one that Chris and Vincent mentioned is not the only neighborhood association in Delano. We did talk about this last night. And to be fair, I think there's a lot of people that don't know that this is on the agenda for today that would have an opinion possibly either way.

If I may just follow up with commentary, I certainly understand that we're all coming from our different perspective, and I want to honor that whenever I can. I'll push back when I feel it's necessary. But with that being said, I do truly believe that the individuals who are elected to represent our respective districts, we may not always get it right, but I do lean on them to be able to represent their districts and to speak for their constituents to the best of their ability. that's not to say that none of us have perspective that we can take into consideration for our area but having been here for eight months and knowing that there are conversations that often happen in my district without me knowing or decisions made about things in my district without me knowing and then i find out on the back end it's deeply frustrating and then it's also doesn't allow me the opportunity to add in color or context that may be missing so I am going to be supportive of Councilmember Ballard's alternative motion because I want to give a nod to her that she understands her district best and also I think it gives us an opportunity to revisit what the mayor has said. I do believe in regards to the bureaucrats being on this committee that is an issue. I don't like red tape and I want to reduce it as much as possible and also want to make sure that we're combining professional experience with the lived experiences from community members so hopefully in the future we can avoid things like this.

My motion's withdrawn.

Thank you. It is recommended that the City Council adopt the findings of the DDRC and deny the requested building permit.

Second.

Motion, second. Discussion? Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Mayor, with a substitute motion that we override the decision of the DDRC, adopt alternate findings, and approve the Delano Neighborhood Overlay District Design Review application for this project.

Second, Council Member Tuttle.

Thank you. Director Magana, I just have a quick question just to make sure I understand what's going on now because there's been a lot of roof talk. So Council Member Ballard's motion would mean, and Council Member Beth, to deny it. So that means then what? What is the option for the property owner? They... What do they do with their roof?

That's a good question. I mean, maybe there's another meeting with the neighborhood to have them come speak at one of the neighborhood associations. I think there's opportunity for a lot more conversation.

Okay. I just wanted to make sure I understood because I wasn't clear if we were giving them a directive or just saying we're going to deny it. So thank you very much for clarifying.

Maybe Scott has a better suggestion.

Yeah, in terms of what could happen next, if this does get denied, unlike a zoning case, they can turn around and they can reapply tomorrow, maybe even this afternoon, and they could come in with the same design or they could come in with a different design. We would take it through the same review process where the DERC, the Delano Design Review Committee, meets every Monday. If it gets approved there, then they just move on with their building permit. If it does not, then we would go through a similar process.

So follow-up question, Scott, while you're there, thank you. Vice Mayor's motion would then mean what kind of roof or what is the scenario?

Yes, my understanding is that they're currently proposing to use the flat slate roof, the Italian style, and so that would be approved unless maybe there's a clarification if you want to allow them to use the asphalt shingle, but right now my understanding is the Italian.

Okay, thank you. I just wanted to make sure I knew exactly what I was voting for.

Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Oh, nothing.

Council Member Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor, does your motion include the slate roof?

I don't care what type of roof they use. Use whatever type of roof that you want. I would recommend that they do use the slate roof. Is the applicant fine with that? I will make that part of the motion as well. Okay. Thank you.

So we have a motion and a second, and now we also have a substitute motion and a second, which means the substitute motion gets to be voted on first. Any further discussion regarding the substitute motion? I will just add something really quick. That is 82 days since the applicant first submitted an application to try to replace his roof so that the tenant could continue operating in a safe manner. 82 days of bureaucracy prevented these property owners from being able to fix a roof so that, again, a small business owner can continue to thrive in our community. That is unacceptable. And so my second is because of that. And now with the motion, the substitute motion that includes the compromise that these business owners have decided to have so that they can still conform to the overlay, I think it's very reasonable. And I believe that, again, you all have come to the table, tried to be reasonable, and the tenants who are currently in that restaurant want to utilize their business and be able to seat customers that want to come inside. So I cannot delay this any further. while i respect that this is in district six and council member ballard knows her district best i think sometimes we get held up on conversation and asking for more further discussion while right now we have literally a business owner who is operating just a portion of their business because they can't have seating area for customers that would like to come inside So again, this has to be something that moving forward with this review committee that will be reimagined, um, I think will solve this bureaucracy yet again. So, um, council member Shepherd has final thoughts.

Thank you so much, Mayor, and I appreciate your note about bureaucracy. I agree with you that I don't like slow processes, and I think everyone hears me gripe about that a lot, and that I don't believe government has to work slow. And I think oftentimes when we get frustrated with government, that is the response. That's just how government works. On the other side of that, though, I do believe that there is a need to build trust with community. And, you know, District 1's District Advisory Board, the number one thing they ask when an agent or developer comes before and asks for something that is going to impact the community or the community has lots of opinions about is, what have you done to engage with neighbors? And by way of engaging with neighbors, what have you done to go door to door to the adjacent residential properties? Or what have you done to speak with the individuals beyond the neighborhood association? Perhaps the agent did that today. So I think that while delay is not always good, I do believe that in this era of government that we are in, trust is essential. And I do think through more conversations and meeting people where they're at, we do have an opportunity to get everybody on the same page. And so my support of Maggie, Councilmember Ballard's suggestion is not only a nod to say, I not only think you know your district best, But also, I believe that you have done the due diligence to engage with individuals who might be on the opposite side of this coin. And I think that we owe it to you and your community to be able to even delay this for a week to go back and have those meaningful conversations. And in the interim, because I believe we can walk and chew gum at the same time, there's an opportunity to look at this process and not just this process, because if we're talking about bureaucracy and regulation, let's be very clear we have to keep that same energy for everything because there are still lots of communities across the city who have been asking for things for years and have not been met with what they need because of bureaucracy so i just hope that we're consistent across the board when using using that as an argument but with that being said i will be supportive council member ballard with that we have a substitute motion at hand and i see no further discussion madam clerk please open the role

Motion passes four to three. Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Applicant Appeal of HPC 2026-210.

Scott Waddell from the Planning Department again. Similar to the last item, this is an applicant's appeal of a denial of their Delano Design Standards application. This time it's for a proposed building permit for three duplexes. The application was denied by the Delano Design Review Committee which found that the proposed design of the duplexes does not meet two design standards from the Delano Neighborhood Overlay District. Likewise, the DDRC sent it to the Delano Design Advisory Committee which considered the application and also recommended denial of the application and that vote was three, zero, one. There was one abstention. And we'll talk more about the reasons why in just a moment. So the recommended action is that you adopt the findings of the Delano Design Review Committee and deny the application. The subject site contains three vacant lots located on the east side of South St. Clair Avenue within 400 feet south of West Maple Street. So the address is 320 South St. Clair, so it's right next to Friends University across the railroad tracks. A subject site is located within the Delano neighborhood overlay district. You can see the blue arrow pointing approximately to where it's located. Here's the design that the applicant submitted. I'll review some more of this with you in just a moment. Here are photos of the subject site and the surrounding area. Of course, the site is vacant right now, so looking at the surroundings. Here are the standards that the Delano Design Review Committee determined the proposed application was not in compliance with. I'll go through each of them separately. So the first one was about architectural features that shall be retained, building design shall be compatible with the district's historical architectural character by coordinating style, detailing, materials, and scale with original buildings in the district. In particular, there were four items that were found to be at issue. The first is including sliding picture windows. The second is a lack of a front porch or stoop. The third is siding width and materials. And then the fourth was the number of windows. And I'll discuss each of these in kind. Here we go. So the proposed window styles in the elevation that was submitted are sliding picture windows that would open side to side. A more traditional, more common style of window in Delano are double hung windows with sashes that open up and down. So that was one distinction. Another one was the quantity of windows. You can see on the front elevation of the proposed duplexes that there's one side that does not have any windows at all. It's a blank wall. Houses in Delano commonly feature windows throughout the front elevations. So here are just a couple illustrations. This is windows, I apologize, but it's actually about the front porches. So the proposed design did not include a front porch and porches again are a common element throughout Delano. And then the next one was about the siding. The design appears to include 12 inch vinyl lap siding, more traditional siding within the Delano neighborhood or wood with four to six inch lap. So acceptable substitutes could include hardy board or another similar composite material. The second standard was about the amount of live plant material in the yard area abutting the public street. From the documents that were submitted, we were unable to tell or confirm whether or not there was live plant material proposed. The issue is we couldn't confirm it, so that was the issue. It could be rectified fairly easily. So in terms of the recommended action, the recommendation is that you adopt the findings of the Delano Design Review Committee and deny the application. Now again, because this is an appeal of the design standards, we would recommend that you accept comments from the applicant and then open it up for public comment. Council actions include the following. You can deny the appeal in the application. You can approve the application or as always, you can approve the application with conditions. You may also defer if you'd like. And any of these can be approved with a simple majority. So with that, I'll stand for any questions.

Thank you, Scott. I don't see questions for staff. Can we have the applicant present now? Vice Mayor Glasgow.

Thank you, Mayor. I've spoken to the applicant because they reached out again about the process of the DDAC versus the DDRC. It's very similar to what we just talked about. Scott and I have had this conversation though about often when the DDRC corresponds with residents, they tell them what not to do, not what maybe to do in some of these circumstances. So I'm glad that the PowerPoint offered some of those clarifications. And I think that's what, when I talked to the applicant, they seemed that they wanted to be in compliance and they seemed that they wanted to fit the character in the neighborhood. They just were told not what to do. but not how to replace it. And so I think that's really good feedback that we can go back to them. And so I want to defer this until the September 1st council meeting, because I believe that the applicant will come back and make some changes that they want to do in good faith to be part of the neighborhood. And I just want to give them the opportunity to do that. So I would make the motion that we defer this case until... We can't. Oh, yeah, we have public comment. Okay. Thank you. I will hold other comments.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. With that, we will open it up for public comment regarding this specific item.

Christopher Parrishow again. This is a case where both of the entities somewhat agreed. There might have been some differences as far as some of us might have had one issue or some of us might have had another issue. My main reason for not approving this when I voted on it was because the applicant didn't submit anything regarding landscaping, which is part of the overlay. There is a section of their plan that requires a long driveway that goes from the main road all the way back to a unit that's going to be set back further, even though there's literally an alleyway right next to it that they could use instead. So some of the questions that I had revolving around landscaping was, one, I'd like to see at least a plan provided. to see if it even complies with the overlay. And then two, some of the other issues that were also brought up by the design review committee as far as the windows and things like that. My overall issue here today, I guess, is with the process again. One of the things that I meant to mention last time that I didn't mention this time is that as I'm looking at the minutes from the meetings that have been provided to you guys, There seems to be some errors as far as who made motions, who seconded motions, and in this case, the design advisory committee minutes aren't even included. So I think there needs to be some work done so that you guys have all the information you need when something like this does come before you, that it's all encompassing and you have a better idea of what you're dealing with. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll continue with public comment.

Hi, Faith Martin. I do not live in this district, but this seems to come up quite a bit in the district I live in where small developers are trying to build incremental housing, and we find a lot of reasons not to let that happen. Zoning laws were created for safety, not aesthetics. And if the free market is willing to buy a house that doesn't look like everything else, I think we... We need to look at why, and there's a lot of zoning laws that I don't agree with in general on principle, but I think we need to look at why are we making it so difficult when we have a massive housing shortage in Wichita, and if small developers are willing to do some incremental development. If the applications are not clear, to Councilman Glasscock's point, we need to be making things more clear so that we can get more housing in Wichita. We have a huge problem and debating small things like shrubbery and windows seems ludicrous to me when we have massive problems in Wichita. Thank you.

Thank you, Faith. We'll continue with public comment.

Vince Hancock again from Delano. I want to echo and also embellish on Chris's comments on the landscaping part of that. We have landscaping elements that come in front of all city council districts. And I was able to make good on my New Year's resolution. I've been able to make it to each of the six city council districts, district advisory boards this year. So not just the ones that I'm used to going to, but to get a chance to see that some of the things that are happening in our neighborhood are happening all over this town. And so that brings us more together in a lot of ways like that. That said, we've had other neighborhoods who've wanted to pattern their neighborhood plans over Delano because they said, you get a neighborhood overlay. We're not here to be HOAs and have absolute authoritarian control over design decisions in an area, but to have the ability to maintain a neighborhood characteristic. For example, the 12-inch siding. That's one of those things that didn't come up until more recently, and it's purely a cost-saving measure for the developer. No one who's built their home by hand. My grandfather built his own home because he was a carpenter, and I can guarantee you he didn't use 12-inch siding to do so. The other element was the vegetation. We have landscape definitions all over this town for different things, and when their plan that they came forward with showed no green space, it could have been all gravel, it could have been all concrete, or they could have planned where the green was, but their drawings didn't indicate that, so we just said, bring us back new drawings, and we'll be happy to revisit this. And so I'm somewhat surprised that the appeal process involved them bringing it to city council instead of trying a second bite at the apple with the Delano Design Advisory Committee. Just my question. Appreciate your time.

Thank you, Vincent. I see no one else from...

Myron Ackerman, District 1. I just wanted to speak in support of your motion, Dalton. This is something where, as I look at it on Google Maps, I would suggest that all of you go out and look at this property because I don't see that it would be that much of a difference if that road that I see that basically runs parallel, or not well, perpendicular to the railroad, that is an alley right now. And if they're building from that alley south, what's north of the alley is really not that important. It's undeveloped, it's someone that wants to develop it, and it's something where I think if you actually look at the surrounding area, there are houses that don't quite fit with the neighborhood style. But as I see it, the railroad is wooded along that easement, so there would be nothing that people on the street or at Friends would see, depending on how it's developed. But in looking at that little triangle, I think each of you, to make an intelligent decision, needs to go look at it, look at the plans in detail, And bring this back later.

Thank you, Myron. We'll continue with public comment on this item. I see none. Thank you to the four speakers that spoke on behalf of this item. We will now bring it back to the bench. Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Thank you, Mayor. This is also on my evening walk, about three streets away from my home. I think to Faith's point, the process has to be cleared up from the front, and I think we've seen it with both applications of the difference between the DDRC, the DDAC, and why we're involved in some of these things. Sometimes it does make sense to be involved. And I'm appreciative of staff. I would probably vote to just override. However, I tried to reach out to the applicant to walk through a lot of this and was not able to get a hold of them on Friday. And so that's why I want to talk with the applicant. Again, I think they want to make changes. They just want to know what changes to make in the neighborhood as well. So I would motion that we defer this case until the September 1st city council meeting.

I will add one quick comment back to staff regarding the application. Because we have the Delano neighborhood overlay and we also have the College Hill neighborhood overlay, it would be very beneficial if there's a checklist of what is required if someone is trying to build housing. to Faith's point, our community needs more housing of all types, whether it's duplexes, apartments, single family homes, town homes, we need more housing. And so it would be very beneficial if people could check mark, okay, so we need landscaping, that is one thing. We need two windows. I think it needs to be very clear so that people, especially our small developers, the mom and pops that are wanting to build housing in our community, have clear understanding of what is acceptable and not acceptable, and again, cut back on that bureaucracy, I think it would be beneficial for both District 4, 6, and 1, which have overlays right now. So that is just a suggestion for staff to really work on an application that is easier to understand so that everyone is on the same page.

I'll second the motion.

With that, we have a motion and a second to defer. Madam Clerk, please open the roll. Motion passes 7-0. Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

HPC 2026-262, extend interim controls for Crown Uptown Theater.

Scott Waddell again from the Planning Department here to present this item. So this item, as you heard, is to consider whether or not to extend the interim controls which prevent a demolition permit from being issued for the demolition of the Crown Uptown Theater. The recommended action is to take action as determined necessary by the City Council. This item is being presented today because council members have inquired about the status of the demolition permit. And again, this item is to determine whether or not to extend the interim controls. The process for consideration of interim controls is established in the municipal code. You can see the section here. When a demolition permit is applied for and when the subject property is a Wichita undesignated historic resource, then the preservation planner may place interim controls on the property prohibiting any alteration or demolition for up to 30 days. The city council may extend interim controls for up to 180 days. In terms of the background, the Crown Uptown Theater was constructed in 1928. It is not listed on the National State or Wichita Registers of Historic Places. It is identified as an undesignated historic resource by the City of Wichita in the Wichita Historic Preservation Plan. Here's the aerial image from the site there at Douglas and Hillside, just about an older photograph. Here's a more recent one. In terms of the process, in 1998, the City Council approved the undesignated historic resources list, again, as part of the historic preservation plan. On July 27th, the applicant submitted a demolition permit. On August 10th, staff notified the applicant of the interim control being placed on the property, and again, that was for 30 days. On August 11th, staff sent a letter to the applicant requesting thoughts and feedback on alternatives to the demolition and on August 26th, the current interim controls are scheduled to expire. The interim control extension period can provide opportunities to continue to explore alternatives to the demolition. It can also provide time to determine if the property should be listed on a historic register. If the property is listed on a historic register, then a review process would be required for demolition and the demolition could possibly be denied. Here's another photo of the site and the surrounding area. This is looking from the side, from the other side, across the street, looking down the street to the east. These are photos from the interior. These were from the webpage. These are not recent. And so the recommended action again is to take action as determined necessary by the city council. In terms of process, staff recommend that you accept public comments, both from the applicant and from members of the public. And the City Council has a variety of options available, including extending or not extending the interim controls. Again, if they are not extended, they would expire on August 26th. And I do have a brief update, and that's a note that I received an email from the property owner today So last Friday following agenda review, it was in the afternoon, the owner sent an email to me with an appeal of the 30-day interim control period. That appeal goes to the planning director. So I need to schedule a meeting with the property owner to discuss that. So just know that that is in progress. And yes, so with that, I will stand for any questions.

Scott, thank you for that presentation. There's some missing information from that, and that is that this application, a similar one, came before the council last year. Can you give a little bit more background regarding 2025 and what happened similarly? In addition, it also failed because it needed a super majority in order to put it on the historic registry. Can you just kind of walk us back to 2025? Yes, ma'am.

So that is in the staff report and it started on February 5th of 2025. Then what happened was a very similar process. There was a notification. Well, there was a notification indicating that interim controls were placed on the property. On March 4th, the city council considered extending the interim control and they did so for 180 days. On March 7th, staff hired a consultant to assist in reviewing the property and whether or not it would be eligible for listing on a historic register. Then on June 9th, the Wichita Historic Preservation Board reviewed the potential nomination and voted, I believe, it doesn't say here, but I believe they voted to indicate that it was eligible. On June 26th, the Planning Commission likewise reviewed the nomination and found it was in compliance with adopted plans. On July 15th, the City Council considered whether or not to place the property on the Wichita Register of Historic Places and ultimately that vote did fail. My understanding is it would require, my recollection is that it required five of seven votes and it did not. meet that threshold. And so on August 4th, the 180 day interim control period ended. Now between August 4th of 2025 and July 27th of this year, my understanding is that the applicant did not follow through and complete the application process for a demolition permit. And so that's why this process is before you again is because a new application was required because the timeline exceeded 180 days.

scott going back to july 15th of 2025 that vote failed not because of a simple majority but you it required a super majority is that accurate um it required five out of seven in order to place a property on the wichita historic register uh without the owner's consent so in other words even if that vote were four to three it would still fail is that accurate

And that is my understanding, yes.

I want to know if extending this interim period will result in a different outcome. I know you have not met with the applicant, that that is going to be part of the process if you're supposed to meet with the property owner. Do you believe that this will result in a different outcome? Because this application for demolition is very similar to the one last year.

Yes, I don't know if it would. You have the same owner with the same property, so I don't know that it would lead to a different outcome.

So what would an extension really accomplish?

Well, the extension, what it does is it would delay issuing the demolition permit and it could provide an opportunity to explore other outcomes, but again, I don't know how successful that would be, yes.

So what you're telling me is that even if we kept delaying this, you're not certain that there would be the outcome that is, I guess, a lot of community residents have reached out to me and the council. And they want to know what can happen, again, because the city does not own this property. And can you also explain, did the city ever pay to build this building? Has the city ever paid for anything regarding this building? And has it ever been considered that the city paid for this building?

In terms of the first question, is it likely to result in different outcomes? Again, the same property owner, in terms of The other option that exists is one that you've alluded to, which is the city council could vote to place it on the Wichita Historic Register, but again, we've gone over the scenario of what the votes are required for that. In terms of the city's participation or funding at all of the building, I'm not aware of the city ever contributing funding for this building. I don't know if there was an arts program or something that maybe, performances that took place there. But my understanding is the city did not pay for the construction nor has there ever been involvement from the city in the building.

Thank you. Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Thank you. I think you maybe have alluded to this already. Has the applicant been in communication with our department figuring out questions regarding has shared walls with neighbors? Have they been responsive to any inquiry from our department?

I mean part of that when it gets to the shared wall that becomes more of an MABCD issue so I'll defer to representative from MABCD but in terms of the alternatives we have heard again back from the applicant or back from the property owner on Friday that they were appealing the process and then earlier today there's a pretty substantial email that I I still need to go all the way through, but it appears that they're contesting the process, but did not disclose alternatives that they want to explore.

What does the appeal process look like if the 180-day hold, or we put on today, what does the appeal process look like in the midst of that? Does it have to, so let's say we do 180 days, they appeal. Well, then let's say they don't like the decision. Usually the appeal can come back to the city council again at that point.

and so what's that process because maybe both of these things are working in tandem at the same time i'm going to look too legal to correct me if i get any of this wrong but my understanding and looking at the code is that the property owner is able to appeal the initial 30-day interim control that's placed on the property and that sequence of events is that first the appeal would go to the planning director and then following that the appeal goes to the city council If the city council places or extends beyond that 30-day period, I do not see in the municipal code that there is an appeal process for that.

So it could come back to us, his appeal could come back to us if you don't, let's say, grant the appeal.

I think that would be a question for legal, but I don't know that it would because if If it gets extended here today beyond the 30-day process, I do not see an appeal process for that. If you decline to extend it, then yes, there is a possibility that it could get appealed to the city council, but before that would happen, the planning director would have to deny the appeal. And if the city council has already denied it, I don't know that I would be inclined, but we'll see.

So theoretically, let's say this 180 days is granted, there's not another option for that to be extended beyond 180 days?

No, there is not.

So 180 days, final end, this quits coming before the bench.

Assuming that they... assuming that something changes with the property, that either it gets demolished or it's sold or something, we could run into a scenario where nothing happens for a period of time, the permit expires, and then they're back in this process.

Okay, thank you for describing a very complicated process. I appreciate it.

I see no further questions from the bench. Thank you, Vice Mayor Velasco.

I have one more that I underlined that I meant to ask as well. In our packet, it says specifically that staff shall document the resources with photographs and or measure drawings. shall is probably contingent on the applicant allowing us into the property, because this doesn't give us ability to enter the property without their permission, correct?

That is correct. And furthermore, if I could, I would add that when we hired the consultant to help us out last year, they were able to document the property with photos and whatnot. I don't believe that they gained access to the interior, but they documented it based on what they saw online, available online. Okay, thank you.

Council Member Shepherd.

Thank you so much, Mayor. And Scott, I just asked this question at the agenda review, and I want to ask it again. So the mayor asked for a brief history of what happened when Triton placed on the local Wichita historical preservation list. That vote was 3-3. I believe the mayor was not present at that meeting. As she mentioned, you need a supermajority, which would have been five. And I know that looking at the minutes from that previous meeting that some of my colleagues were really concerned about property rights, which we kind of heard that today. I'm curious, since it is attached to another building, what are the implications if a demolition were to take place, would this have on that attached building where there is also a property owner separate from the Crown?

I'm going to defer to my colleague from MABCD.

Good morning, Mayor, Councilmembers, Chris Labram, MABCD. Excuse me. And yes, to your question, Councilman, the part of their application prior to us issuing a permit, we will require the contractor to provide us a plan with preserving that wall. At this point the contractors indicated to us they have not received permission to evaluate from the neighboring property's side, so they would have to receive access obviously to that property for part of the demolition in order to ensure that preservation takes place, but they would have to just that preserve the wall not damage that wall or the neighboring building and if so there would have to be a form of agreement to to repair if if there was something to take place some damage was to take place thank you and given what you know about demolitions that have happened in the past in the city would you expect that the adjacent property owner wouldn't

potentially need to stop whatever operations, I mean, we're talking demolition, so to have operations still going on while a demolition is occurring, I'm not saying it can't happen, but can we for sure say that the demolition would have no impact on their business operations?

and and that is a good question um we'd have to defer to exactly what the neighbor of course has going on at the time i do my understanding which may not be correct but my understanding is that that actual portion of the building is not not currently being utilized that would obviously help but i would say that i would speculate that yes for some time there would be an interruption to their operations i would not expect that to be lengthy but they would they would probably have a day or two

in which that would that would be interrupted okay and i know that um i believe it was it formally was the flying pig improv that was directly right next door but i know that there's a law firm and then there's a skin studio as well and i would assume that any demolition taking place is also going to impact them and just i say that because it's germane to what we talked about earlier we were very concerned about the operations of a building in District 6 and how this delay on fixing the roof and things of that nature could impact operations. I just want to apply that same philosophy to this particular situation as well. Thank you, Chris. I do have a couple more questions for Scott, if that's okay, Mayor. Thank you. Scott, walk us through, very high level, what is the purpose of going through a neighborhood plan for a neighborhood, And who is responsible for holding individuals accountable to honoring the details of a neighborhood plan?

Sure. Well, when it comes to the process for developing a neighborhood plan, usually I would ballpark it six months maybe, sometimes a year, maybe more depending on the complications. First of all, we generally get a steering committee which is made up of volunteers or stakeholders from the area. They're the ones who guide the process. Planning staff then work typically with a consultant just because of the amount of staff that we have. We typically hire a consultant to help us out and we take them through a process of identifying what do they like about the area, what do they want to see change, what are some challenges, what are things that they'd like to see continue. And then ultimately through a variety of public input processes, a plan is developed and the plan identifies what the vision is for the area and then what actions are necessary to help kind of achieve that into the future. In terms of who holds a, who makes sure that people are accountable for implementing the plan, that's something that I'm trying to work on very hard as the planning director. We're working towards having a regular set of implementation progress reports that come out And as part of that, we are surveying the individuals or organizations that are listed in the plan with an accompanying action item. And then we develop a report that we distribute to the public and especially to the stakeholders who helped create the plan. And the idea being that the stakeholders who were invested in the plan or represented by the plan would be the folks who would probably be interested to know how, most interested to know how progress is going.

Thank you, Scott. I just want to mention that in the College Hill Neighborhood Plan, the historic preservation and character of that neighborhood is mentioned 66 times in that plan. To this neighborhood, the historic nature is critical to them, and it is listed that Crown Theater is a cultural hub or visit site for that neighborhood. I say that to say this is why I think that this is bigger than just property rights and really just what the neighborhood wants. I'm really trying to figure out how we meet in the middle. And that 180 days, the reasons why I've asked my colleagues to reconsider interim control for 180 days is because I believe that I am owed my due diligence to try to engage with all parties as much as possible because I owe it to my constituents to honor the work that they have done in that neighborhood plan. And I told them that when they were working through this plan, and I was asking for their support to represent them, that not only should I honor that plan, but I think we all should honor that plan when we're telling a community, spend X amount of dollars to go out and talk about the future of your neighborhood. But then when something like this occurs, we then say, well, you know, that's property rights. That's not really anything to do with what you've said that you wanted in your neighborhood. I think that the neighbor's voices have been very loud and clear. We have overwhelmingly over 70 calls and emails in the affirmative of preserving this building and they continue to come in even as we are in this meeting. So I think overwhelmingly the community is speaking that this building holds significant meaning, but I also understand that we owe it to both the owner and the community to figure out if there is a compromise before we do something or allow something that's irreversible. Thank you, Mayor.

Council Member Tuttle.

Thank you, Scott. This is a question for you, I'm assuming, or maybe Director Magana. So we received an, and if you, I know you mentioned the letter. If you answered this, I apologize, okay? We received an email this morning from the owner of the property. Did you receive that as well?

I did.

Yeah, at 850, like right, you know, when we're walking in. And he is, it's a request for informal hearing and protective objection. And so the owner, the property owner is asking for a 180-day delay so that there can be some sort of hearing. Are we obligated to have this hearing? Is it a request? I'm sorry, I'm not sure. I've never seen this before, so I just want to understand.

My understanding is that there are two ways that this item can get to the city council. One is if the applicant appeals first to the planning director and then appeals second to the city council. So that is one route to get an extension, well actually to get the interim controls considered by the city council. The second way is if the city council takes up this item. And so I requested to place this on the agenda because there have been council members who were interested in this. And so that's why this item is here before you. I think what was contended in the email, again, I have not thoroughly enjoyed it this morning, but I think what was contended in there was that this process should not proceed because the applicant has not worked through the appeal process of the 30-day interim control that was placed by the preservation planner. Now, the response, my thought to that is that the city council, the code does not specify that that process has to occur first. The code leaves it up to the city council on whether or not to extend 180 days. And also given that there's a 30 day time limit on the preservation planners interim control, timing is very much important on this one. So that's why this has been placed. That's why I submitted it for placement on the agenda.

So 180 days would give time for all the things and then he also mentions like no one from the preservation no preservation representative met with me called me did so a delay would kind of make sure that all of his issues are taken care of and. is what I'm understanding.

Yeah, it would allow time for dialogue back and forth. In terms of whether or not anyone has contacted him, we did send a letter with options to consider. I don't believe that we heard back from him regarding that. I did hear back again from him It was on Friday. He was appealing the 30-day interim control that was placed by the preservation planner. I indicated I would get back with him on Monday. It didn't happen. I need to get back with him, but I also want to see what the outcome is from today's meeting before we schedule that with him.

Thank you. I have a quick follow up to what Council Member Tuttle just asked. You just mentioned that there were options that were presented to the property owner. What were those specific options?

I don't remember them specifically, but they're very general in terms of would he look at I believe one of them was using the property for a different use. Has he explored other uses if he says that the theater's not viable as it is? I don't know. I don't want to speculate, but they were just a list of three or four general options. We really see it as a way to start the engagement of the dialogue. We sent him a very similar letter when we went through this process last year.

I'm sorry, one more follow up before Council Member Johnston. I have gotten those positive emails about preserving Crown Uptown as well. And I believe from this council, we're all in agreement that we appreciate this building. I've attended multiple events at Crown Uptown. However, we as the city of Wichita do not own this building. Is that accurate?

Yes, that is correct.

And the city of Wichita has no intention of buying this building. Is that accurate?

I would defer to the council on that one.

That's a no. We're not buying the building.

There we go. So I think I'm not, I'm looking at each of the council members. We, I do not want to buy this building on behalf of the citizens of Wichita. And the council member who represents that district also has said no. So really we're, again, a private property owner owns this property right now. The city of Wichita has not paid any dollars to build this building, and there's no intention from this council to buy this building. Therefore, that's why I'm asking, what's going to be different in delaying this process? Do you believe that there is one of the options that you presented was a different use, but you also have said that there are other options that you can't remember? I just want to know what will be substantially different this time than last year.

We have started the engagement with the property owner. I don't know if they will have a different opinion. I doubt that they will based on the communications that we've received so far. Yeah, I don't know, ma'am, but we would go through the process.

Council Member Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor. Got a question for MABC Director Chris Labrum. Chris, if you just, if the property owner just backed a backhoe up there and started to tear this down, what would the fine be?

Well, so the first action we would take, sir, is to stop that action. So, and a property owner is not allowed to wreck or demolish to raise a commercial building. That's in place for public safety and as we've discussed previously in this case, there's a neighboring building that we would have to preserve. We do not really have a fine in place for that. The current mechanism for beginning work without the proper permits is that you pay a double fee on top of the normal fee for the permit. Now, where a wrecking permit is only $50, that would then mean they would incur an increased $150 fee. Additionally to that would be whatever costs or issues came from them beginning that work and then having to stop it. Okay.

You may or may not know this, but what's the value of that building on the tax rolls? Do you know that?

To my knowledge, the appraised value of that building is just under $300,000 for tax purposes. For tax purposes. Okay.

What is the value of, if it was a vacant lot, you may not know that, but per square foot?

I will have to look. I think the lot, let me see if I have that in my folder. I believe the lot is being valued at around 80,000, but I will try to check that if I can find it quickly. So, and I'll correct myself a little bit here. I'm showing the 2026 appraised value of land at 34,400, the building at 182,000 for a total of 216,400. Now, again, that's for taxing purposes, so I am out of my depth in speaking to how that would relate to market value or sale value. That's purely tax value.

Do you have any comments of what empty lot would be in that area? I do not, sir. Do not. I would say it's substantially less than that. Okay. Thank you. That's all I've got.

Council Member Shepherd.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Mayor. And I think you asked a very valid question in regards to what's different. I honor that. And I know many of my colleagues have asked when I've asked them to support bringing this up and having this conversation out loud. And I know that I've said this over and over again, but I'm going to beat the drum over and over again. I think what is different is we had a community go through a detailed plan to collect data about the priorities that were important to them And on the page, I think it's page 33, question 18, specifically asked the communities, respondents were provided a list of 30 potential projects or programs all proposed during the public kickoff and asked to identify their top seven priorities to be addressed in College Hill. The following is the order of the priorities with corresponding numbers of votes. Number one on that list is preserving historic housing and preserving historic neighborhood character. That was 287 individuals who said that this is a priority to them. Number one. And so as we talk about being data informed and we talk about building trust with our residents and constituents, I think one of the best ways we can do that is by listening to their voices, both the qualitative and the quantitative. You've said that you've received lots of calls. I've received lots of calls and emails and that I said 70, but that doesn't include many Facebook messages and comments. But I think we also have the quantitative data as well. in addition to that this council voted on the college hill neighborhood plan and voted to accept that college hill neighborhood plan and my understanding is that when a council chooses to accept that that is a commitment that we're going to do everything within our power to try to try to try to hold the purpose it doesn't mean that we will always do that But to try the county then adopted that same neighborhood plan in August of 2025, followed by the council in July of 2025. So that brings me back to you. I believe we owe a good faith effort to demonstrate to this neighborhood and the constituents of Wichita that we hear them. and though we cannot predict what the outcome will be 180 days later which by the way it's only up to 180 days we don't even have to take the full 180 days to say private sector do your thing and also we are doing within what's within our scope and saying we want to be able to provide you the opportunity to have those conversations to see if we can come to a mediation or compromise

Can I, I'm gonna ask a quick follow up to Council Member Shepherd. This is your district. Yes, ma'am. Is 180 days what you're considering or is something shorter than the 180 days?

I would like to take the up to 180 days, but I do know that I've spoken with individuals within the private sector who have been actively trying to reach out to the owner and have those conversations. And I'll stop there, but they are wanting to have those conversations.

Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Tuttle.

Thank you, Scott. I'm going to ask you one more question. And I know we all got this letter and this email late, and I'm sorry to be redundant, but I just need to make sure I understand. The owner of this property wants a delay. Is that correct? He had a number of issues. Am I reading that right or from my colleagues who read it? It sounds like he's the one right now who's asking for the delay. Is that correct?

Again, I don't know. I just saw the very beginning of it, so I will defer to you. But I do know that he wants to appeal the 30-day interim control. So my assumption is that he wants the interim control to go away based on that appeal.

And that means in just kind of like neighbor-to-neighbor language, he wants the interim control to go away? What does that mean?

That would mean that he would be able to proceed with his demolition permit.

Okay. And if I'm inaccurate, I'm sorry, but the way I'm perceiving the letter, he's listing all the things that were supposed to happen and didn't, and it sounds like he's the one who wants the delay. Because I think the issue that's very hard for us all here is there are property rights, but we all love the crown, and we hear from the community that they want to keep it. But by delaying so that his requests can be addressed, seems like it's going to be a benefit at this point for everyone. So if I'm misinterpreting it, because again, it's a very legal document. It's infused with lots of legal terms and such. So I could be misinterpreting it, but from how I read it, he wants the delay. So just FYI.

Vice Mayor Glaskopf.

Thank you. My question was in line with Councilmember Tuttle's. So the interim control period ends on the 26th, August 26th is the date that we have in this green period. If he appeals that decision, that's going to delay it further than the final interim date of the 26th. Correct. So my understanding would be that he is also requesting a delay to the 26th. That's next Wednesday, and I believe There's probably no city policy that says an appeal happens within eight days.

I'm sorry. If I may, I interpret that I wanted a longer delay than next week.

And I will say I never got the email. The mayor forwarded it to me, but he had misspelled my name in the email.

Just because even the letter being received this morning also justifies having more time to be thoughtful and intentional. And I could be misinterpreting his letter. I fully understand that. But the way I have read it and the email, it sounds like he wants a delay to be able to see some of the things that were supposed to happen, happen.

And if I may, Mayor and Council, having knowledge of this, I think the only thing that he's requesting is that Council defer this item. until the 30-day discussion that mr wadel referenced does occur so if mr wadel and he meet later on this week i think that is what he wants and then for council determined but that is how i interpreted the uh request from is just about this item being deferred until what's been offered already for him and mr wadel to meet but that doesn't Council from acting on the agenda item in front of you.

Council Member Shepherd.

Thank you Mayor and thank you City Manager for that clarity as well. I would just humbly request from my colleagues that we consider the item before us today. I would like to be in the room when those conversations happen and unfortunately I will be out of town on business for the City of Wichita for the remainder of the week.

Okay I see no further questions from this bench at this moment, which means we can now open it up for public comment. We ask that you please Come to the front, state your name and the district that you reside, and you will have five minutes each.

Stephen Holt, District 1. May I quickly ask for an extension to the time, only to address the shared wall situation, as I am the shared wall property owner. I have a prepared speech, but I'd like to address that part first, since it was before the council.

Could I? Sure. So before we begin your speaking time, because there is a, I'm going to ask MABC, IF IT'S APPROPRIATE NOW OR WHEN WE ASK FROM THE BENCH FURTHER CLARIFICATION. WE'LL START WITH PUBLIC COMMENT FIRST AND THEN DURING COUNCIL MEMBER WHEN WE BRING IT BACK TO THE BENCH WE HAVE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS WHICH WILL BE THE SHARED

I have tons of information on the shared wall, whether I've been contacted and so on, so thank you.

We'll start with public comment, starting at five minutes.

Very good. My name is Steven Holt, and I wear four different hats related to the Crown Theater. I am the president of the College Hill Neighborhood Association. I serve on the College Hill Steering Committee, which was responsible for the College Hill Neighborhood Overlay Plan. As we just discussed, I own buildings on both sides of the Crown Theater with partners. And four, I live and work, make my livelihood and my home in College Hill. As evidenced by the outpouring of public support here via emails to all of you, online petitions, and all the social media, input, I think it should be very clear to this council that the residents of Wichita feel passionately about preventing the demolition of the Crown Theater. I echo that sentiment, but rather than give you an emotional story about neighborhood love and historic charm, I want to give you a slightly different take. I want to take you on a brief visual journey. I took some photos and there should be copies in front of you. I apologize, those were not emailed in time to get them on the screen here. The first is a photo of the area that was supposed to be the water walk. Almost 20 years after ground broke and that's still vacant land. The second two photos are of the area surrounding the Wind Surge Ballpark. We're now seven plus years into that development and there are six foot tall weeds that dominate the landscape. I'm showing you these photos to show that dreams of development grandeur take a hell of a lot more than dreams. To go from dirt to development takes significant finances, business savvy, vision, and relentless fortitude. Properties in the hands of developers or property owners that don't possess those skills end up looking like those pictures. Mike Brown is not a developer nor a builder, and he certainly has proven that he possesses none of those skills. The next picture in front of you is of present day Crown Theater. Then the last picture is what the Crown Theater could look like as a neglected site owned by a quote developer and preservationist that frankly doesn't give a damn. To date no plan has been submitted to the city or MABCD for what will replace the Crown should it be torn down. What sense does it make to tear down a building that by the way has standing offers to purchase from me without an approved plan for what's gonna go there? The building and lot is landlocked on all four sides. I own buildings on the two east and west side, another landowner owns building on the south side, and on the north side is Douglas. Without a plan, and the fact that it's landlocked, to Councilmember Johnston's point, means that what gets constructed there are very minimal things that can be constructed there that make financial sense. Mike Brown had the crown for just over two years before he ran it into the ground and closed it. Other owners managed to run it and keep it open for nearly 100 years. Isn't that interesting? That certainly doesn't suggest Brown has the pedigree, experience, planning, or fortitude to execute the demolition of this building and a rebuild of something in its place. A much more likely scenario is he tears it down, can't figure out or execute anything else to build, and the city and College Hill neighborhood is left with a very unmarketable, landlocked parcel of land that sits vacant for years with six foot tall weeds, leaving an entire neighborhood and city wondering what if. The most prideful neighborhood in Wichita, a long frontage of the major artery of Wichita to which this council and this city, Douglas, has spent decades propping up, could look like that picture in front of you. I understand property rights. I've been in real estate for 30 plus years now. But some things are bigger than others. Some things warrant saving. Your job, your duty today is to do whatever you can in your power to give this building every shot. If that means additional private sector meetings by people like me, great. I believe a gentleman by the name of David Byuth, I don't know if he's here, has also started a public petition with his own visions. There are ample private sector solutions to this problem. Mr. Brown has not responded to comments, questions, emails, anything from me for almost two years now. I've reached out to his attorneys, to him personally, everybody I could think of. I have 20 seconds left real quick on a related note. This council should be aware that the existing mortgage on the building is due in full September 11th, 2026. What different may happen? Well, September 11th, I hate to use that date that way, but September 11th, 2026 may happen. A bank's gonna want their money. Mortgages are public record and kept on file with the Sedgwick County Register of Deeds. I've reviewed the mortgage and shared it with several interested parties. Furthermore, council should be aware, may I have 30 more seconds? Who do I ask? Furthermore, Council should be aware that the sole signer on that mortgage is Damon Bedell, who is listed as the managing member of Dive-In Properties LLC. Damon is also a Tulsa area businessman. Anybody who knows about commercial mortgages knows that signers of business mortgages are often personally liable as well. continued communication needs to not only include mr bedell but he should be the primary recipient of these communications during this next 180 days should it be granted thank you oh any questions thank you stephen we'll ask you during council member comment to talk about the shared wall

Hello, my name is Andrea Bell. I live in District 1. I'm a constituent of Joseph Shepard's. I'm also a resident that lives at 3232 East First Street North, which is exactly one block away from Crown Uptown. And I would like to say that I don't want to see this beautiful historic building, which many people I know personally have had their relatives, like grandfathers and such, take them to place at Crown Uptown. So I ask that you delay the demolition of the building and grant Mr. Shepherd's request for a delay of at least 180 days, please.

Thank you. We'll continue with public comment.

My name is Sybil Strum. I reside at 326 North Walnut. I don't think the city should take authority over the crown uptown because I've seen the Dodge House. It's not getting done. It's just being an eyesore. And if the guy wants to destroy the crown uptown, it's his business. You guys came on my property. You did not even ask me what I wanted. But the crown uptown has been there for a long time. I think the mismanagement of his mismanagement It used to have theater programs, but it's his business. Don't try to tell him how to run his life. You tried to run my life. Look what happened to me. I got homeless. It's not right. But I think you should not be the ones running the place. You don't know how. You don't know how. Dodge House has been an eyesore. I've gone down that place. It's been an eyesore. And then there's other places that you have. The city has their eyesores. Down by Walmart, the grass hasn't been cut. You don't know how to run your business. And I'm sorry to say, you don't. I know for a fact, if you would have called me and told me about my house, I could have reconsidered it, but you didn't. But this is on the ground uptown. You need to butt out of people's business. I'm sorry. You have butted in too much. If he wants it done, let him get it done. But let him pay out of his own pocket, not the taxpayers. Because he could have done a little bit more managing. He could have got people like music theater, probably could have brought in some people. You don't put a strip joint. He had strippers in that place. I do not consider that good business. But you gotta butt out of people's business. Even the city manager needs to butt out. And the attorney. She's been an eyesore to me for a long time. And I want the records of that deal that went through on my house. And I immediately want it. But on this ground uptown, don't you butt in. Thank you.

Eric Westbrook, I live in District six. Good morning, Council. Yeah, like a lot of people, the Crown uptown is important to me. I grew up in Wichita. I grew up in College Hill, spent a lot of time going to the Crown uptown. I moved away from Wichita and even in living in California, when my wife and I were getting married, the crown uptown was where we wanted to do it. So 2013, we came back here. We brought all of our friends from California. They had an amazing time at the Crown Uptown. So I mean, it's a cool place. It's special to me. But more where it relates to me now, what I do in my career is I'm an ex-Google software engineer who now supports independent venues. I'm in the National Independent Venue Association, which is why I'm wearing this shirt today. So this matters a whole lot to me. And frankly, it's kind of disappointing listening to council members really talk about property rights over what I feel is your more important duty, which is preserving our history and our culture. I think that there is a balance in that. I don't expect you to buy the crown uptown, but I do expect the city to actually put forth even monetary means to support it. There's also talk of what a top 50 city would do. A top 50 city would support their independent venues. I'm going to Chicago next month for Riot Fest where their mayor and their city council will be in attendance at independent venues supporting things just like this. So yeah, I just want to remind you that it is your responsibility. It is your duty to protect the arts, I think, over personal property. I'm disappointed to see what happened last year when you had the chance. I think it's up to the community now. I hope we don't blow it. I hope you do your part to get us there. Thank you.

Council Member Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm sorry, sir. What did you say the event was in Chicago?

Riot Fest. What is it? Riot. Riot.

Thank you very much.

Good morning, Madam Mayor, members of the council, and my fellow citizens. Let me start by giving you my bona fides. My name is Christine Ledin. I reside in District 3. I have a master's degree. I am an MBA, and I have an almost 26-year experience a career in finance, specifically real estate finance and accounting. More importantly, however, I look at your faces and I recognize some of you. And if you imagine a crown on my head, you might recognize me too. I have represented the city of Wichita as the queen of your Renaissance Festival for 26 years, the oldest continually reigning monarch of a community festival in the country. I bring this up because I have access to a community that most people don't see. and it's vital, and it's strong, and it deserves a venue worthy of it. Over the years, all of the theaters have died because streaming services have basically taken them out. People watch stuff at home. But if you look around, the little festivals, like the little Chinese festival we were talking about this morning, and Riot Fest sounds like a lot of fun, We have new age festivals, we have cultural festivals and the crown uptown could be a vital part of that landscape. So I urge the council to please. I know there's a consortium out there, I can't reveal who and what and where, who are willing to buy that building. I keep hearing, oh, the city doesn't want to buy it. Fine, don't buy it. But help those people who want to buy the building to come to the table, get an offer, that the seller and owner of that building will accept to walk away and let's get, I consider the Orpheum Steering Committee to be the gold standard of how a venue should be run. Let's get something similar for the Crown Uptown. Let's get a vital community behind it and a steering committee to run it and let it last for another 100 years. Its community and its district and its historic value to that district is undeniable. With creative minds, young enthusiasm, energy, passion, expertise, we have all these things. Long ago, the legendary President John F. Kennedy said about the space race, We don't do it because we choose to do it, not because it's easy, but because it's hard. He was talking about going to the moon. Well, in some ways, this is kind of a lunar landscape, but without tiles. We don't have to deal with tiles on this one. But ad aspera per aspera. to the stars through difficulty. Please give the 180 days a chance. Let that consortium prove that it has a viable solution. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll continue with public comment.

Good morning. My name is David Bayouth. I live at 719 North Brookfield Street here in Wichita. And I'm the director of the Save the Crown Uptown Campaign, which is a very new group of enthusiastic people. And part of what we're doing right now is operating a petition. The petition's only been up for I think about seven days and we're up to over 1,300 people that have signed the petition. I think we've had over 100 since this meeting has started. So we're picking up momentum. I do think it's a crucial thing for Wichita for you guys to listen to the people and the people are speaking. I also, I had a handout on a preliminary plan of the use of the building that had some different things that I don't think had ever been considered. And I don't know if I can use the, it's not good at the moment for the overhead, but I do have copies of it. Can I pass that out now? Yeah.

Okay, here we go.

Okay. I understand the concern about government interfering with property rights. I'm a property owner too. But property rights aren't absolute. We all live with zoning, easements, building codes when there's a good reason for them. So the question is whether the public interest in a 98-year-old Wichita landmark justifies intervention before it's torn down. What exactly are we demolishing the crown for? The Wichita Historic Preservation Board voted unanimously 5-0 to recommend historic designation of the crown. That ought to mean something. Now let's talk about money. The crown contributes to our tax base. More than 6,000 in property taxes last year, Plus, when it's operational, it also raises sales tax revenue as well. The Crown does not consume municipal tax dollars. It helps generate them. Now tear it down and what do we have? About a half an acre of vacant land. Which has the greatest taxable value, the Crown or an empty lot? And how much sales tax revenue does an empty lot generate? I think we kind of were starting to talk about that earlier. We're working to show the Crown can succeed financially and preserve a historic landmark. So the bar for tearing it down should be higher. Before we destroy it forever, the owner should tell us what comes next. What's the plan and what does Wichita gain that's worth losing the crown? And part of what we lose is the theater itself. Our metro area has well over half a million people, yet outside the crown, our private dramatic theaters generally seat about 200 or less. That limits the productions Wichita can attract. The Crown fills that gap. The stage is here, the seating is here, the building is here. Tear it down and someday Wichita may need exactly the kind of theater we just destroyed. What's it going to cost us then to build another one? In just the last few days, we've learned a great deal and our plan is already formidable. And let me be clear, I'm not asking the city to buy or operate the Crown or taxpayers to support it. We want the Crown to support itself, and it historically has done that. Actually, I mean, it's just this last owner that I think has expressed an indication that he's not able to operate the business and keep the lights on. I brought the one-page preliminary plan, which I've handed out to you guys. We'll be posting that too on our Facebook page later for other people to read. You can see there are four parts, theater, facility rental, membership, and community. We think all those have a viable alternative. But I mean, I don't really know that we need to defend the operation of the Crown. It's been operational for almost 100 years. And just recently, now there's a problem. But what we basically recommend is to use the building, keep the theater at its heart, and put the rest of the building and the rest of the calendar to work. We don't have proof of our numbers. We're just forming this plan. David, sorry. Oh, sorry.

Thank you very much. I want to be respectful of everybody else's time. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Everyone gets five full minutes. Oh, yeah. So I want to be respectful of everyone else.

I could go on that one. Is there questions that you have of me at this time from what I handed out or anything like that? No?

Okay. Thank you, David. Hey, thank you for your time.

Good morning, Mayor Wu and city council members. Celeste Bogart Reset. I'm a Wichita native. I was born and raised here. I walked to O.K. Elementary School, Hyde, Robinson Junior High, and East High School. They're all historic buildings. I grew up in a 100-year-old house in College Hill, and we are one of the longest-living families in College Hill. Proud of that fact. Historic buildings are important to me. I have lived in historic homes. I have served on historic boards. The Wabash Valley Historic Trust, Hills and Dells Historic Neighborhood, I was the founding president, and I am honored to currently serve on the Wichita Historic Preservation Board. It is important to preserve our historic buildings. In 2010, Mr. Chung in Project Wichita stressed the desire of younger generations to live in renovated historic buildings. He believed the character of Wichita's historic buildings was essential to our identity as a city, and they needed to be preserved. I take servant leadership seriously and have done my part preserving our heritage. As founder of Save Century 2, we collected 17,265 signatures to prevent destruction of Century 2 and the former Central Public Library. I adopted the flower beds in the area, and with donations from local businesses, including Lowe's Home Improvement and Tree Top Nursery, and the help of many, many wonderful volunteers, we planted 1,000 flowers in downtown Wichita. We did this to honor the legacy of our first black mayor, A. Price Woodard. We did this to honor the gift of gratitude from our sister city, Orléans, France. And we did this because dirt and weeds in our downtown core is totally unacceptable. in the six years of this volunteer effort i have seen a triple designated historic two-story building mead's corner torn down to make way for a three-story office box building at emporium douglas tax incentives were given to ima for this project the five parking lots and the buildings surrounding this property are not on our tax rolls they are tax exempt The tax exempt income we are missing out on this property was supposed to generate revenue to support the CID. It is less than $1,000 a month. So you have to ask yourself, was tearing down this triple designated building worth giving up $150,000 for city funds and $250,000 for the school district? I don't think so. So I want to just close by saying, Wichita's historic buildings are important. And whatever you all can do to save them is critical. And I would think something you would take seriously. College Hill is my family's neighborhood. and has been, as I said, we're one of the longest living families in College Hill, and I respect what David Bayouf is doing, what Steve Holt is trying to say in front of you as the College Hill residents, and I would hope you can do all you can to save the building, but I respectfully defer to your decision. Thank you.

Thank you, Celeste. We'll continue with public comment.

I see, nope.

My name's Kathy Foti. I'm a lifelong resident of Wichita. I have lived adjacent to College Hill, although I've never lived in College Hill. And I'm only able to echo some of the things that have already been said, and to add maybe my two cents, which I think represents the view of a lot of the residents of Wichita, is that the Crown has been very important throughout my life. As a child, I went to matinees and movies there. As a young adult, I was a cocktail waitress and a bartender at the Crown Uptown Dinner Theater. I have incredible memories of that. To me, it's just unthinkable that we would change. It's not a skyline, per se, but it's just the view we have of Wichita, my favorite view in the whole city is from about roosevelt looking west and you see you know the hill starts to go down you see these beautiful buildings the crown being really the crown of those buildings and i would just I just think it would be like knocking the front tooth out of a historic part of our city. The historic parts of our city include Delano and Riverside and College Hill and this is all pre-war buildings and we lose some of that every year and we never rebuild that. that never comes back so to me it seems incredibly important that we find a way to preserve it i know that people have tried very hard to work with this owner and i think we need to try harder anyway i think there's a lot of potential with this building i think a lot can be done with it and i really hope that you will decide on at the very least let's have that 180 delay day delay so that hopefully the what most the best majority of people want in the city we can accommodate and we can utilize what we have and not throw away our past and thank you very much for listening to me

Good morning. My name is Mary East and my address is 5240 North Oliver in Bel Air, Kansas. I'm here because I want the Crown Uptown to stay in Wichita. That's really the heart of it for me. I was born and raised in Wichita and as many others have fond memories there. I have even performed there myself. There are buildings you drive past and hardly notice. The Crown Uptown, it's one of them. It has personality. It has history. It has a presence in College Hill that you simply cannot manufacture in a new building. You can build something new on the same piece of ground, but you can't recreate all the nights people spent there, all the performances, celebrations, and concerts, or that familiar crown marquee that has been a part of Wichita for generations. I also think Wichita citizens deserve the opportunity to participate in this discussion. The response over the last several days show that people are interested. They're signing petitions and they are showing up. The public interest should count for something. So I'm asking council to give this effort room to grow and to not give up on the crown uptown that easily. I'm asking to keep the crown standing and give the community a fair opportunity to work on its future. Sorry. Please stop the demolition. And if you're not prepared to do that today, please give the people working on this the full 180 days to see what ideas and what they can accomplish. Let's find out what this building can still become before we decide what it used to be. Thank you very much.

Good afternoon now. Mayor, City Council, for the record, my name is Brock Booker, living in neighboring nearby District 2. Again, my name is Brock Booker and I'm a member of the Historic Theater Association of Kansas. And I've spent my work, a lot of it, on some of Wichita's stages. With the Wichita Symphony Orchestra Chorus, with the Rise Ensemble, in venues exactly like the Crown Uptown. I want to name what's actually before the city. The demolition application is being framed as a property rights question. And property rights do matter. But look at the sequence. A capacity expansion was denied over fire code violations. And a demolition permit was filed. The historic registry was proposed and then voted down. taking the building protection with it. The theater went dark in December. The phone was disconnected. A show was canceled without explanation. The neighborhood association couldn't get answers, and then another wrecking permit. That is not a business winding down in good faith. That is a pressure campaign. And the community is the pressure point. Consider it this way. A contractor comes to your door and tells you the roof has to come down or off today. He won't show you the inspection report. He won't return your phone calls or he won't return your calls until you sign. And every day you hesitate, he reminds you the damage is getting worse. You do not call that a free market transaction. You call it what it is. And that is the posture this city is being asked to accept. Sign here or lose it. When demolition becomes the penalty a city pays for enforcing its own fire code and listening to its own residents, we are no longer talking about owner's rights. We are talking about whether Wichita's public process can be held hostage. And what happens here writes the playbook for every difficult property owner in this city. If filing a wrecking permit after every unfavorable vote proves effective, you will see it again on Douglas, in Delano, in every historic corridor we have left. Property rights end where coercion of public process begins. But I'm not here only to say no. There's a demand for an 850-seat historic house in the city. There are operators, nonprofits, and preservation buyers. who make projects like this work across Kansas. What's missing isn't a market, it's a willing seller and time. The city can provide the time through rigorous review of this application, code appliance, historic significance protection of adjacent structures, and through an extended moratorium. like the 180-day extension this council considered in 2025. And the city can help the broker with the conversation that finds the willing buyer. The Crown has survived 98 years of Kansas weather, depressions, and changing taste. It should not fall to a negotiating tactic. Protect the process, and you protect the building. lose the process and no building in this city is then safe. Thank you.

We'll continue with public comment. I see.

Christopher Parisho again. This time I'm wearing a little different hat as a member of Wichita Independent Neighborhoods. It's our objective to try and help neighborhoods who need it wherever possible. And one of those efforts is advocacy. In this case, I think I want to thank Councilmember Shepherd for his pointing out that the neighborhood has worked with the city to develop a plan for its future. And that includes this property and other properties around it. They are a jewel in College Hill's crown, so to speak. And I think without spending any more money than the city already has on the neighborhood plan, which is in the tens of thousands of dollars to develop that, The city can help facilitate at this time a deal hopefully between the current property owner and maybe potential buyers or even someone who can manage it for the property owner if they don't want to sell. There's a lot of discussions that I think are just being pushed away because the property owner didn't get what he wanted. Hopefully, if you give this process more time, then maybe something can be agreed to to where we don't lose a historic structure and we're able to revitalize it and bring it back to life to the way that it used to do, the way it used to be able to provide for the neighborhood and provide for the city with tax. Thank you.

He told me to come down there and tell her. I've never been to one.

You're perfectly fine. Can you please come to the microphone? Can someone help him with the microphone?

Oh, I can stand up. Okay. Howdy. Yes, this is the first time I had a council meeting for me. I was born and raised here in Wichita. 67 years. And I'm coming up here to tell them Mr. Glasscock is my I live down off of South MacArthur. But as someone who was born and raised here, we cannot let that crown uptown. I just read the deal about some kind of 180-day thing, but we've got to put it on a historic register, or you cannot give him a demolition permit. Because if you do, it'll be like swatting a hatter's nest. I mean, and then people in College Hill, I can't speak for them, but we cannot let Atlanta, one of our whole historical buildings, go. If that guy tried to tear it down, probably people chain themselves to it. Kind of like we chain ourselves to Century 2 or the tripodio.

No, you're not going to tear a tripodio on Century 2 down.

So I just come up here to say we cannot let that man, we got to buy him out. The city of Wichita, we bought the hotel out. We just don't let that one go. And I think I speak for most everyone in Wichita who was born and raised here, but we can't let the Crown Aptine go. There's got to be someone with some money that'll make something, keep it as another dinner theater or whatever. So that's what I come up here to talk about. You just might keep that in mind because a lot of people in Wichita is watching that big time. All right, thank you.

Sorry, sir. Can you just tell us your names for the record? You can tell Shanita, our city clerk. Can you share your name?

Gregory Rose.

Thank you, Mr. Rose. Council Member Ballard. Thank you, Mr. Rose. Mr. Rose, you don't have to come back. I just want to tell you thank you. Okay. I'm over here. I just want to tell you thank you so much for taking time to come to the council meeting. Well, I was here.

I had to talk to a detective. I had a drunk hit me on my Harley and about killed me 14 months ago, March 2nd, underneath the... The bridge at Seneca and Kellogg in Rand has never been caught. And Annette Lawless, investigative reporter at 12, she did a deal on me. I was on the news at 6 o'clock on July 3rd. They're trying to help me catch whoever did this. And so I never got a witness statement because the trauma nurse that was on scene and the man that put the tourniquet on me saved my life. I've never got a chance to thank them. You know. But I also got pictures of a possible suspect. Okay. because they didn't, the guy, but no one got attacked because I was shooting blood, you know? That's what the said. But I thought, but you know, just to, We got plot cameras. That's a whole nother discussion. That was not used and this person's still out here. They're gonna kill someone else or kill themselves. I made the 67. I'm lucky I'm even breathing because I lost over 10 quarts of blood and collapsed lung and everything. Two months in the hospital. The drunks are just out of control. And the motorcycle, the young man lost his life just last week. Yes. To a young drunk.

Well, I just wanted to tell you thank you for taking the time to come and share your thoughts.

Well, I was here and I thought, well, I got to talk to someone about that, you know, the Crown Uptown, you know. So this is my first meeting. Thanks for letting me speak for you. I've been to county commission.

Feel free to come back any Tuesday.

The jury room, you know, on YouTube and all that. But it's the first time in the city. Thank you.

Mr. Rose, thank you for exemplifying public engagement and public comment. There's always an opportunity for individuals to come and speak.

It's like we're supposed to vote. So many people didn't vote this last deal. It's just embarrassing.

I really appreciate you exemplifying that, and that is why we have five minutes per person to speak. I actually was with other electeds from around the country whom only get three minutes maximum for the full meeting, no matter what the subjects are. So I want to just share with you all that Here, this council is willing to listen, willing to understand, and willing to compromise. And so I'm very grateful to you, Mr. Rose, and thank you for utilizing the microphone, not only to share your perspective, but also at the same time, sharing about the incident that happened on March 2nd, and I hope whoever's watching and as our media partners are here in the audience that your story needs to be shared because someone needs to be held accountable for their actions in causing that accident and so or that crash so again thank you for sharing your perspective regarding this topic but also adding additional color to why you wanted to speak and speaking up and using that microphone to again elevate something that was important to you so thank you mr rose we will continue with public comment okay i see no one else from the public who would like to speak thank you to the 12 individuals who spoke on behalf of this item regarding the crown uptown which does reside in council member joseph shepard's district number one we will now bring it back to the bench Council Member Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll be brief. I do believe with something this important to the community, we need to take as much time as possible to do due diligence. I hear a lot of questions still to be answered from the community. So I will be supportive of Council Member Shepard's motion here. Also to the Queen. It's just another dignitary, another feather in District 3's cap, so I appreciate all your work over the years, and I will make sure to stop by at this next year's festival. I think your regency will still be going this year? I appreciate that, so I'll make sure to stop by. Thank you for coming down today.

I did ask Mr. Steve during this portion of council member comments, I wanted to get a perspective regarding the shared wall. You are the other property owner literally next door to the crown. Can you share your perspective regarding the shared wall?

Sure, and I just prepared some very brief comments. For clarity, I own those buildings with multiple other business partners, just so that's clear. I have, I and we have been severely impacted by the threats of the Crown demolition. We have, as MABCD pointed out, the building that immediately shares the wall is currently vacant. I don't want to say with certainty, but with 98% certainty it's currently vacant because of the issues that are ongoing with the Crown. We have had four separate tenants now agree to lease the space and then back out until there was resolution on the Crown Theater. Their fear was, how do we conduct a business if this guy's threatening to tear the building down? Sure the hell feels like impact to me. Additionally, I've now heard from two other tenants in that same building that are expressing concerns about disruption and noise, and those concerns have now indirectly asked about rent concessions. So for people who aren't aware of that, that means they're asking for free or reduced rent. That's yet another impact that demolishing this building can have on me, also a property owner. Speaking to MABCD's comment about a quote, day or two of disruption, I would remind MABCD and this council that we own properties on both sides of the crown. On another side, the south side, is a property owner, and then on the north side is Douglas Avenue. Where are the cranes, wrecking balls, and other heavy equipment going to go during this process? My parking lot, blocking the driveway to the south where people live. Douglas Avenue, which is about 30 feet from the intersection of Douglas and Hillside. Where's all that stuff going to go? Where are the dumpsters that are going to house all the brick and debris going to go? Middle of the street, we're closing down a lane in my parking lots again. Seems like that should all be part of the plan. Seems like that should be part of a permit request. The applicant has not reached out to me, even though we've reached out to them dozens of times. Not about the sale of the property, not about trying to work along with me when they were first parking their trucks there, and certainly not about, hey, we're thinking about demolishing our building, can we work with you? They haven't reached out to me once. The applicant's contractor hasn't reached out to us once. There was perhaps an unclear comment that the, quote, neighboring business owner hadn't responded. False. I haven't been asked. We'd love to have that opportunity to talk. So would my tenants, who are very concerned. also mabcd hasn't reached out to me i would feel like that that should have been part of a demo request plan when there's a shared wall building shouldn't mabcd have a concern if if the property owner and or the property owner's contractor didn't isn't that why we have oversight hey if you're not concerned about you know damage to the surrounding businesses we are supposed to be that is our role mabcd has not Stand for any questions, more on the shared wall stuff.

Anyone have questions regarding the shared wall? Thank you very much, Steve.

Thank you.

We will now bring it back to the bench for further comments. Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Thank you, Mayor. I know that I think Council Member Shepherd has a motion here in a minute, and I understand why people care very deeply about the Crown Up-Down. I do too. I believe it's part of Wichita's history, and I believe that the city should make a serious effort to find an alternative to demolition. I also will say that property rights should not be the secondary consideration. They're one of the foundational principles of our nation and as a free society, and government has a responsibility to protect those rights, even when a property carries history, memories, and deep meaning for the community. But I do believe the city's role is to provide a fair process, bring people together and help identify realistic alternatives. And it should not be our role to indefinitely control property rights because we would prefer a different outcome. But I will support the full 180 day preservation period contemplated by the ordinance. I believe that gives city staff the time to work through issues with neighboring property owners who share a wall and determine whether there's a legitimate buyer operator or finance plan and hopefully another solution to preserve the building. If a credible path moves forward during that time, I want the city to be able to help facilitate it, and I think we should help facilitate it. But I will not support extending this process beyond 180 days simply because we don't like the answer. If there is no viable exit, then I don't believe that we should stand in the way of the property owner exercising their rights because I believe it's foundational to the country, but I will support the 180-day hold today.

Councilmember Shepherd.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Vice Mayor, for your thoughts and for your support on this 180-day interim control. I do have a question. I don't know if it's for legal or for Scott. When would it be appropriate or could it be appropriate for the Wichita Historical Preservation Board to take a second look at this to see if it's even worth bringing it back to the bench?

In terms of when it's appropriate, that would depend on, well, there's a couple different options. One is if the city indicates that they're interested in exploring the nomination process, right? That's a formal process, a nomination process, and you move forward, and that is one of the steps is that it goes to the Wichita Historic Preservation Board. Second option would be that you could just simply send it there, just tell staff that you're very interested in getting their opinion and then I guess if there's support for that, then we can do that. What I would add to that is that as part of the process back in 2025, we did hire the consultant that prepared the report The recommendation of the consultant was that it is eligible for listing, it meets the criteria for listing on a historic register, and that the Wichita Historic Preservation Board had a similar finding in that they were supportive or found that it met the criteria. I don't know that their opinion would be different this year as opposed to last year.

absolutely thank you so much i'm not going to spring that on my colleagues today but i definitely am interested in having a conversation of what that might look like in the very near future as we talked about the historic nature of this building and so i i want to make sure that i'm meeting with the appropriate stakeholders so Again, Mayor, thank you. And I do want to take a moment to just be very methodical about this. And I want to address the discussion that we've heard today about several things and particularly property rights. Many of my colleagues know that I respect property rights and I consider myself to be what some call for better or worse business friendly. I want Wichita to be a place where businesses can invest, grow and succeed. And I know that economic vitality that property owners and those who invest in businesses play a big part of that. however being business friendly cannot mean that we yield to the wishes of a property owner every single time regardless of the broader public interest because when we do that we aren't just making a decision particularly for a business owner we're making a decision that affects thousands of constituents who don't have a seat at that table and in this particular community and i would argue every neighborhood and community that is what i consistently heard is that they really want our city to be a city that balances the desire for strong, good business with also hearing the voices of constituents in the everyday neighbor. So property rights do matter, but so do the voices of our residents, the history, our neighborhoods, and the long-term interest of this city. Interim control does not take on Crown Uptown. It does not permanently stop development or even the dreams of the revisioning of the development. It gives us 180 days to have meaningful, thoughtful, methodical conversations to explore the alternatives and to determine whether there is a responsible path forward. You know, as I was doing my research on this, I kept coming back to Doris Kerr Lockins. Just two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit, once again, the Kansas African American Museum. And for those who are not familiar, where Calvary Baptist was is where the current Kansas African American Museum is today, surrounded by the Sedgwick County Jail. And a lot of folks may not remember, but there was a time when Calvary Baptist Church was threatened by demolition. And there was a young lady by the name of Doris Kerr-Lawkins who fought because she understood that this historic place, once gone, we don't get a second chance. That's the choice before us today. We can respect the property's owner's rights while still asking whether there is a way to preserve something that belongs to the story of Wichita and that is meaningful to the constituents of College Hill. I believe 180 days is a reasonable amount of time to ask that question, and in the spirit of Doris Kerr-Lawkins, I will make sure that we initiate the 180-day interim control to bring all parties back to the table, take the time to have meaningful and methodical conversation to make sure we're moving towards a path where both parties hopefully can be satisfied. But if that is not the case, I want to be very clear that I will use every tool in my toolbox, even if I don't have the votes, to align myself with the needs and the desires of my constituents because that is who got me here and that's who I deserve to put my full fight and faith towards. So thank you, Mayor.

Council Member John Stanton.

Thank you, Mayor. Being one that is interested in finance and business, the mortgage by a bank is $1,432,000 on that building. So we don't know how much has been paid and we don't know what the balance is, but it's a pretty big note. So coming due, there may be a problem. So thank you.

Council Member Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to say, as we can see today, this is not just important to District 1, but it's important to all of our districts across the city. So I will be in support of the 180-day extension, if that's the will of the body. And also just to thank Councilmember Shepherd for being the newest on the council. And this is a big topic. And I just appreciate you working hard, doing the work. doing your due diligence to see what we can do to potentially open doors, but I just appreciate you taking the time with your constituents and really all of us to bring us alongside.

And I want to add a couple of comments before I will send it back to the council member who represents this district. I specifically sent an email on July 29th to the owner asking specifically, I've gotten questions asking how much you'd be willing to sell the property to another private owner. with no intention for the city to buy this property. But I can see that there are interested parties and having further conversation is prudent. In addition, hearing Steve, who is the property owner and his other owners in that consortium, that has a shared wall with this specific building we're talking about, he also has property rights. Therefore, I am in favor of having a delay so that there are conversations that need to be had between the parties that are both property owners in addition for community to do what they would like to do. I've heard multiple of you share ideas, but again, the city does not own this property. Therefore, talking to the property owner would be the most prudent thing to do. So with that, I will now pass it to Council Member Shepherd.

Thank you, Mayor. I move that the Wichita City Council enter interim control for up to 180 days related to the Crown Uptown Theater. Second.

Motion, second. Discussion? See none. Madam Clerk, please open the roll. Motion passes seven zero.

We will now, if I may just clarify, Mr. Beto has a clarification on that language.

If I could, ma'am, I just wanted to clarify. The motion is to extend it for 180 days? Correct. Okay, thank you. Just wanted to get that clarification.

Attorney Magana, do I need to change anything?

From the date of receipt of July 27th, just to make that in the motion. That was all we needed. If that's okay.

Do I need to do anything else?

Well, you agreed that that was the motion. Yep, I agree fully, times 10.

Again, motion passes 7-0, which what is the date for 180 days from the application?

That I don't know, but it's calculated from July 27th, so we'll announce.

Yes, that would be January 23rd, 2027.

Thank you, Scott. This item is now having 180 days until January 23rd of 2027. With that, we are going to take a 20 minute break. We will return at 1 10 p.m.

Planning Department. This agenda item is whether to replace the previously adopted downtown master plan with this new version as an element of the comprehensive plan. I will provide a brief overview of the process and then I'll turn it over to Heather from downtown Wichita for her presentation. The draft plan was reviewed by all six district advisory boards and was unanimously recommended for approval by the Advanced Plans Committee on June 11th. On July 23rd, 2026, downtown Wichita staff and planning staff presented the draft action plan to the full MAPC. The MAPC unanimously recommended that the Wichita City Council and Board of County Commissioners approve the draft action plan by a vote of 11 to zero. If adopted as an element of the comprehensive plan, then the new downtown master plan would serve as a guide for the city of Wichita, residents, business owners, and other community stakeholders by establishing a vision for downtown and identifying goals, strategies, and actions to achieve that vision. You'll see shortly that the Draft Action Plan area extends beyond the traditional downtown Wichita boundaries. The recommended action for this afternoon is to approve an ordinance adopting the Downtown Wichita Action Plan 2035 as an element of the Wichita-Sedgwick County Comprehensive Plan, which requires four of seven votes and authorize the necessary signatures and authorize the ordinance to be published. The alternatives are listed in the staff report. with that said i'll turn it over to heather schroeder from downtown wichita to discuss the specifics of the plan and i will be available following her presentation for any questions that you might have

Good afternoon. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share the community's vision for how they'd like to see their downtown grow over the next 10 years. Let's see, what's the best way to advance the slides? There we go. Okay, so the downtown Wichita action plan is actually a continuation of a previous plan. So project downtown was our previous downtown master plan in 2010. And since that time, downtown has changed considerably. In the intervening 15 years, we have counted at least $2 billion of investment that's happened from the public and private sectors in the city's core. That constitutes 119 completed projects, more than 6.3 million square feet of transformed space. And then we have added considerably to the amount of housing in the downtown district, almost 2,000 new units. more than 1,300 new hotel rooms, significant number of new garage and other parking spaces, and also a pipeline of continuing development. So just to give a sense of what that impact looks like collectively from the 2010 plan, this image is actually from 2012 and it shows some early progress with that 2010 plan. And then by the end of 2025, here was the landscape. So each dot represents a completed project if it's green and you can see the concentration there throughout the core of the city. So $2 billion later and a whole lot of new people living downtown and a lot of new companies moving downtown and a lot of new entertainment options downtown, we realized it was time to update the plan. Downtown development is happening at a momentous pace. There's increasing momentum for it. And so it was time to update the plan. So the first step was to define the planning area. You can see that in the blue dotted line, we have the self-supported municipal improvement district. That's downtown Wichita. We also didn't want to leave out our neighbors. There's a lot of development happening to the west in Delano on the west bank of the river and to the north, north of Central Ave, which is downtown's northern boundary, all the way up to Murdoch Ave. So by incorporating north to Murdoch, we encompass the investments that Ascension Via Christi is making and those connections to the biomedical corridor. And by incorporating the west bank of the river, we're making sure that our socks match. You wouldn't want to put on a red sock and a blue sock and have a mismatched effort on both sides of the river. So this is to make sure that we are mimicking the successes that we've seen already implemented in Delano. So the next step was to do market research. We went back to the market research firms that we've been working with since 2009, and we said, will you please give us an update on what we can expect our market to support over the next five to 10 years? For our residential market potential, they would only forecast out five years because that's such a dynamic market. And they said, you know, we can expect to have at least 3,000 new units downtown in the next five years. Our current unit count is 2,898. So that's more than doubling. That's why we had that 125% potential increase. Our office market has been surprisingly COVID proof. It's very strong. We found that from 2017 through 2024, 90% of new class A office leases were actually signed in our downtown district. And we still have potential for new Class A construction as well. And then our hotel market has not tapped out yet either. We still have room for about 500 to 600 new hotel rooms in downtown. So after doing the market research, the next step was to assemble the steering committee. So the supporters of the plan included the City of Wichita, the Sedgwick County, private property owners, some of our major downtown employers, smaller businesses, nonprofits, and our educational health care institutions. And we got together and put out a request for proposals in the fall of 2024 to say who wants to partner as the design professionals on the team. And we were really hopeful that we would get four or five proposals that we would be able to choose from. We were astounded when we got 17 proposals It really let us know that Wichita is on the map. All of these kind of national and even international planning firms were clamoring to work with us, and the selection committee chose Sasaki as the design partner for the team, and they are a global urban planning and design firm. So what is an action plan? It is the community's vision, again, for how they want to see their downtown grow over the next 10 years. And it's great to have a vision, but without action, we don't get anywhere. So what this plan really aims to do is lay out the roadmap and the tools to realize that community vision. So the first thing that the design team did when they got to Wichita was look at our status quo. So what were our current conditions here in Wichita? They noted, first and foremost, our historic assets. We have a great historic building stock here that illustrates both the quality of design and construction and materials. And they said it's so important that we honor that legacy as we continue to build new in our downtown. They also looked at our zoning. Our current zoning for most of the district, or excuse me, for most of the plan area is central business district. And so if you look at the illustration on the left, that is our current development pattern. The illustration on the right is what we can build as of right as a community, but we haven't yet realized. So we have only built 15% of the potential development in the plan area, which means we're leaving a lot of tax base on the table. Part of the reason for that is the proliferation of surface lots in this area. Forty-eight percent of the land is currently used for surface parking. When we factor in garages, 60 percent of our land area has been allocated for parking. So we like to think of every surface parking lot as a future development opportunity, again, that could have a higher and better use and potentially contribute to the tax base. So the next step was to go to the community and say, what do you want? What do you want your downtown to be like? We held three very large open houses starting on March 4th of 2025. We held three pop-up events to meet people where they were. So that was Riverfest, NCAA, the Downtown Y, And then we held more than 50 stakeholder meetings that were topic centered. So what did young professionals want? What did the arts community think? What were business leaders saying that we need downtown? And so just to show the timeframe for that community engagement period, again, we kicked off the project January 2025, wrapped up community engagement at the end of September 25, and then rolled out the draft, the early draft plan in spring of 26. So the questions that we asked the public during community engagement included things like, where do you take your friends and family when you bring them downtown? And we saw these clusters of activity emerging. So you can see along the Arkansas River, a lot of people are showing that off as an asset. and enjoying that with their friends and family. We also saw clusters along Douglas Avenue Delano. We saw clusters of activity along First Street on this emerging cultural corridor. And then you see a whole lot of activity in Old Town Square, Nassau Park, and Interest Bank Arena. This was one of the more surprising findings from the community engagement. We asked people, if you were to live downtown, would you rather rent or buy? Overwhelmingly, people said they would like the opportunity to buy housing downtown. Unfortunately, we have a mismatch in our supply right now. We only have a handful of properties downtown that do permit people to own their residence, and so looking at that demand helps us shape our conversations with developers about what products might come next. Given the amount of time that people are wanting to spend on the river, we asked them, well, what do you want to do there when you're at the river? And they said, we would love to enjoy food and beverage. Currently, you can't get a hot dog or a lemonade or a steak or a martini, any kind of food or snack along the river. We don't have kiosks. We don't have restaurants that face it. So that was an overwhelming response. A third of respondents said that that's really what they want. Recreation was the second most. We have a great multi-use trail along the Riverwalk currently, but there are few opportunities to kind of sit in the shade and linger and picnic and play. I think we have one swing along the planned section of the river, and people want to be able to engage directly and touch the water. There are debates on whether it's clean enough to do that, but they want the opportunity. And then finally, another example was looking at our cultural resources downtown. How do we tie them together and create more reasons for people to come and explore? So at the end of community engagement we had counted more than 1,000 unique Wichitans who had participated in the public outreach and we got to distilling all of their input and organizing it into the plan. So overall the outcomes were four goals, 17 strategies and more than 100 actions to reach those goals. We also included five demonstration sites in the plan as examples of how the priorities might show up in the built environment. So what are the four goals of the plan? Number one, Wichitans wanted to see the downtown more connected. They wanted to be able to walk, bike, scooter, roll, drive from one end of downtown to the next and have that be an interesting route. They wanted to have an active riverfront, you know, this place where you can truly gather, you know, whether you're spending money on food and drink or just enjoying the park-like setting for free, just more opportunities to enjoy that. They wanted to continue that tradition of great design that our consultants had kind of pointed out to us, like, wow, we have great buildings here. When we shared images with Wichitans of current architecture, Wichita has good taste. They said, we want to continue that great standard that we have in terms of materials and design. And then finally, an item that we've all been discussing a lot and heard a lot about is a full service downtown. So what this means is that you could enjoy all of the amenities of living and working downtown without having to leave. You could live a full life just in the boundaries of the plan area. There were five themes that emerged during the public engagement. Number one, we organized into getting around. So this encompasses everything from how our streets are designed, how we incorporate multimodal transportation like bicycling and transit. Next up was living and working. Again, we have a housing shortage here, and that has implications for affordability in our community. We need to build more housing, make sure that we are keeping affordability at all levels, especially in the core where people have multiple options of how to get to work. And that we're managing our parking resources to share those limited spaces among people who live and work downtown. Urban form. This was a theme that encompasses active ground floor uses, making sure that as people are navigating downtown, they have plenty to do and to keep them exploring. That high quality design that we talked about, both in buildings and in streetscape. Landscape and public realm had a lot of strategies attached to it. This encompasses everything from tree planting to making sure that downtown feels clean and welcoming every day. And finally, history and culture. How are we leading people to the destinations in our downtown through wayfinding and through new amenities that are created as further entertainment? So within each of those themes, there were the strategies and actions. I'm gonna highlight five of those strategies for you today to give you a taste of kind of the level of detail that's in the plan. Strategy number one to talk about today is the redesign of Douglas Avenue. What we learned is that our downtown kind of lacks a street hierarchy. It's hard to know what are our main streets because everything's been treated similarly in terms of its scale, and in terms of its delineation of activities. So our two spines that intersect downtown really are Broadway and Douglas. As the spines, those should receive the most attention, the most investment, the most use by all modes of transportation and really have the design eye to focus on what's needed to make those our signature streets. We asked our engineering department for stats on current driving activity along Douglas, and we learned that Douglas is currently built to handle twice the volume of cars that it has. A main reason for that is that since the other plan was was implemented, we have the Douglas flyover that was constructed. And so through traffic from the east side to the west side or vice versa has been rerouted to our elevated viaduct on Kellogg. And so that leaves Douglas as a destination to get to downtown rather than through it. Unfortunately, it's still built as a superhighway. People drive very fast. with sometimes deadly consequences. Unfortunately we had another pedestrian incident over the weekend and we are not designing our city for people, we're designing it for high speed vehicles. So the solution that was proposed for that is to give some of the space that's currently dedicated to traffic lanes over to other uses. So I know this is very small and hard to read, so I just wanted to point out here that our current sidewalk width would increase by 10 feet total if we were to remove a lane in each direction. It wouldn't impede our travel times. We've got plenty of space, not enough cars on the road. So we would regain that pedestrian space and have a protected bike lane and get more parking by being able to angle in the parking. So this was one proposed schematic for how we could better use our signature street and route people through it. Looking west from Douglas on Emporia, this is our current condition. You can see it's very wide. It's a long distance to travel if you are crossing the street. And so one example of how to narrow that for pedestrians is to include a protected bike lane, include raised curbs that divide up the crossing so that you have a shorter distance to go, street trees, facade enhancement, really making this a place that people want to spend time in. Our friends over in Lawrence, if you look up on TripAdvisor what are the top attractions to do in Lawrence, Kansas, Mass Street is number two. Not a destination on Mass Street. Mass Street is the destination itself. That is the attraction. People say you can spend a whole day exploring that street. We have a great precedent. Again, looking to our friends west of the river in Delano, they have already implemented kind of a signature street treatment for Douglas. And I won't lie, I'm a little jealous of the retail activity that we're seeing in Delano right now. I would love for downtown to have that similar opportunity, but first we have to change the landscape. We have to set the table for those businesses to succeed by creating a more walkable environment where people can linger and shop and dine. Looking at case studies from other communities, Lancaster, California spent $11.2 million to reconstruct their main street, and that was shown to generate $282 million in economic impact, including 800 new homes along that street, 57 new businesses and 2,000 new jobs. You can see the impact that it has on landscapes like Greenville, South Carolina. I know a lot of folks who go to conferences now in Greenville. That's become quite a destination.

Another strategy from the plan, activating the river.

One thing that was really interesting to learn during the plan is that there's only one business that has its front door facing the river currently in Wichita, and that is our boat and bike rental facility. So we're grateful to that business for facing the river, but we think there's a lot of opportunity for many businesses to face the river to serve the populations that like to spend time there. And in order to do that, we also need to complement the plantings, the native species, making sure that we have a great riparian system there. Another strategy, starting a downtown shuttle. The queue line predates my time in Wichita. but from what I hear, during its heyday, people really loved to hop on and hop off at lunchtime. You could get on the shuttle and know that it would come every 10 minutes, so you had time to go out to lunch with your colleagues, and get back in time before your boss got mad. Our current queue line runs every 45 minutes at best. It's every 60 minutes on a regular schedule. So it's really not serving that purpose that it was originally intended for. And so the recommendation here was to start a new downtown shuttle in part because our transit hub, which was centrally located in downtown near businesses, has moved across the river to Delano. So with that investment in our neighbors to the west, we now have a disconnect between our workforce that relies on transit and where that transit hub is located. So introducing a new bus shuttle would also help to connect those resources where the jobs are and where the transit goes. It'll also help to serve all of the activity that's happening north and south of Douglas with movement music's investment, with the biomedical campus investment, and housing and hotels that are accompanying that. We've talked quite a bit about encouraging new housing. I think we all know that there is a housing shortage in Wichita. What downtown foresees is new housing that meets every price point and kind of family size downtown. Somebody pointed out to me that we don't have a lot of families living downtown. We don't have family-sized housing. It's really hard to find a unit larger than two bedrooms. So if you have a parent and two kids and they don't want to share a room, you can't find that option easily downtown. We also looked at that statistic on what housing types people would like. And we certainly have a shortage of ownership options. We looked at that amenitization of downtown There's been so much talk about needing a downtown grocery store. And there's a bit of a chicken and egg question there of how many people support a grocery store, but how many people will live in the neighborhood without one? So we're grateful to now a couple of development partners downtown who have announced plans to partner with regional grocers and fill that gap so that we can continue to grow a healthy downtown neighborhood. We did a parcel by parcel study of what housing type would fit on each available parcel in the district and put together a housing toolkit. So this is for developers to use to look up their parcel and say, okay, this is what would be good on my property. And then finally, we have taken to heart the recommendation to create a cultural loop that would link together some of our current resources downtown and also provide a little bit of history. Somebody tried to tell me that our Dockum sit-in happened at Hillside and Douglas and I said, we can't continue to have this misinformation out there. So to make sure that locals and visitors alike have the the fun facts and the important facts about Wichita's history. We applied for funding privately from the Rotary Club of Wichita and their charitable foundation selected this project for funding for the next two years. So we're grateful to partner with Rotary on bringing forth a Downtown History Trail and the survey to see what sites the public would like to prioritize goes live on Thursday in the Downtown Wichita newsletter. and also on our website. Just to give an example of where that loop could go, we're looking at a four mile area within .25 miles of the downtown core, so extending to some of our neighboring districts as well. Having a combination of blade signs, facade signs, and of course a digital template so that we can compete with Pokemon Go and all those other fun games in your pocket these days. Cartholite, our native construction material here, you know, much loved on the Meneza Bridge and the Dockum Building over in Hillside, you know, is proposed as a trail marker that would be something completely unique to our community. So with that, I just wanted to highlight quickly kind of where we've been this spring and what the next steps are. We have presented to a variety of advisory boards run by the City of Wichita, so Historic Preservation Advisory Board, Transit Advisory Board, Ped Bike Advisory Board, and District Advisory Boards one through six to make sure that we are engaging with the community presenting that feedback on what they told us they wanted and making sure we got it right. We presented to the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission Advanced Plans Committee, and then on July 23rd, the MAPC itself unanimously recommended adoption of the plan by the city council and the county commission. And so with that, I think I will pass it back to Justin to talk about next steps today.

Thanks, Heather. I don't really have too much additional information to add other than potentially reiterating the recommendation, which is to approve an ordinance adopting this Downtown Wichita Action Plan 2035 as an element of the comprehensive plan. And then again, those elements are, excuse me, those alternatives are listed in your staff report. But the approval of the plan for this afternoon would require a simple majority vote, four of seven votes.

Thank you, Justin and Heather, for the presentation. We will begin with Council Member Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate all the work that you both have done on this over the year. So, can you break down this process? So, what does this mean? This is the blueprint that we work on as far as improvements go in the downtown core over the next decade or so. Is that correct?

Right. Strategies and actions were identified in the plan. As Heather mentioned before, several of those strategies and actions are assigned to different departments within the City of Wichita. So, over the course of the development of the plan, we'll be working with downtown Wichita and those individual departments to determine or make sure that those actions and strategies are fulfilled ideally.

Okay. And to Councilmember Shepherd's point earlier today, making plans but then not following through on them. So what, what happens if, for example, one of these projects here does not, we know for sure that Council's not going to approve of it. Is that, how do we work through that process? Is it just brought up to us and whoever's sitting on the bench at that time declines it?

I'm sure downtown Wichita will be fairly active in following up with the various departments that are identified in the plan. I know that the planning department is specifically identified there, and obviously we have a relationship with downtown Wichita. We do frequently attend their regular meetings, so there will be frequent opportunities for us to go over anything that's been identified in that plan. And then I'm sure downtown Wichita will continue to remain in contact with the other departments identified in the plan as well. So ultimately it'll be a discussion that we'll have throughout the development of the plan.

Okay, yeah. One, one in particular stands out to me and that's the South Broadway, or the Broadway Improvement Safety Grant that we received from the federal government and the state government. I know a couple of my council members and I share Broadway. So, we want to make sure, for example, none of this is in my district, but I want to make sure that the South Broad, or the Broadway Safety Grant My district gets a good portion of that to do improvements along Broadway as well. So I'm just wanting to make sure that any plans that we have isn't favoring downtown over other parts of the district where it might be applicable. So I just want to make that a note. Two other questions. One, and Heather, this might be something for you. You talked about the variety of housing that is needed. You talk about our economic toolbox to help with some housing development. We will have that discussion at the end of next month, I believe. What are your thoughts on affordable housing requirements coming with some of these incentives?

That's a great question. You know, in markets where you have market rents that don't require subsidy for new construction, those kind of requirements make sense. Unfortunately, Wichita's rents are quite depressed, so we are lower than a lot of our peer cities in the U.S., which is why new housing projects require subsidy to get off the ground in the first place. The cost of construction far exceeds what a developer can plan to recoup from their rental income. So in order to build those new units that our community so desperately needs, that's why those development tools are required.

So would you be in favor of the affordable housing requirements with those as well?

Financially, it's infeasible. So I used to be an affordable housing developer. And the performance don't work that way. There are federal and state programs that help with filling those budget gaps. And the low-income housing tax credit, one of our downtown developers is using beautifully right now on the Market Center project. 155 North Market is using both historic tax credits and low-income housing tax credits. And 100 percent of those new 115 units in a historic building will be available to those earning, I believe, less than 60 percent of the area median income. So, that's a huge win. But it sounds like you're talking about imposing requirements for affordability on recipients of like TIF or CID and the subsidies that we currently have available in our community are not large enough to offset the rental loss from from someone depressing a certain number of rental units. I'm happy to talk more about it, but it's a math issue. So, you know, I used to live in Washington, D.C., and there was a requirement that I think 15 percent of new market rate developments So, 15 percent of the units in a new market rate development would be set aside for those earning less than a certain percentage of the area median income, and so the rents would be more affordable. That works in D.C., where you can get, you know, $5,000 a month for a market rate apartment. I would say it's a good thing that we don't have rents that approximate that level of expense in our community right now. We have much more moderate rents. And so there's not enough for an internal subsidy. So you would have to compensate the developer even further than the benefit that you're providing in order for them to be able to offer an affordable unit.

And you said that was 15 percent?

in dc i believe it was 10 or 15.

10 or 15. okay yeah i'd look forward to continuing that um that discussion um the other point is um the circulator that you talked about and i saw on the plan here that you talked about looking at various funding options for for the circulator um you know i'm not the the biggest fan of the queue line i know it serves purposes but It goes east and west, it doesn't go north and south. I do see that. Could you talk about some of the funding options that we have for the circulator and what you guys are looking for as far as that goes?

Sure. So while we've been at the meeting today, there was a story that broke in the Wichita Business Journal that a circulator is already in the works by Wichita Transit. I serve on the Transit Advisory Board and Director Feist shared with us that she has reallocated some grant funding so that she could purchase five new ADA compliant smaller buses that would help to serve that circulator route.

Okay. And so are your thoughts to eventually make the circulator free, low cost? What would your thoughts be on that?

I know that there's discussion about riding the circulator would be free, especially if you paid for parking at the hub and picked up the circulator at the hub. So you'd pay for your parking and then kind of get your you know, pass to go on the bus. I don't think it makes sense to pay twice. So, you know, I would be in favor of something like that if the budget works.

Okay. And that's if you did pay for parking. Okay. I appreciate that. All right. Thank you. That's all I have for now.

Thank you. Maybe it's a question for both you and city staff. We get a lot of comments from individuals who think that vacant buildings downtown are owned by the city of Wichita, which I believe is inaccurate. Do you actually have that quantified? How many of these vacant buildings are actually owned by the city of Wichita versus by private individuals?

I would love to follow up and give you actual numbers on that. Off the top of my head, the only 100% vacant building I can think of that the City of Wichita owns is the former Central Library. And then we have a handful. We don't have many 100% vacant buildings left, which I'm proud to report, but the majority are privately owned. Thank you. One note I wanted to make, given the budget discussion, was that we are not asking for any money with this plan. Approval of the plan makes elements of the plan that would seek public funding eligible to enter that process through the CIP. There is no funding allocation tied to approval of this plan. Any recommendation in the plan, if it wanted to seek public funding, would still have to go through the complete CIP process just like any other infrastructure project.

Thank you. Vice Mayor Glasscock.

That was my question.

Thank you.

Council Member John Stunn.

Thank you, Mayor.

Talk about that a little bit because in this report, 200 pages, probably 20, 30 times it mentions that projects are not viable without CID or TIF or something like that. Sure. Yes. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yes. The advantage, the taxes. Let me grab my notebook.

Okay.

certain projects are not financially feasible without public support. Again, because we have, you know, a mismatch between construction costs and rental income. But the private sector has already started on several initiatives of the plan. So, I counted nine that are already complete or underway that the private sector has handled. And so, I just want to emphasize that this is a public-private plan for executing the community's vision. Things like the History Trail, which we've received private funding for. Things like the Downtown Wichita Clean Team, which is supported by our downtown property owners. Things like, let's see here, the missing amenities, the grocery store. You know, we have private developers who are filling that gap. So this is truly a collaborative experience. Currently we've had zero public investment towards the plan, but we have had significant private support.

Yeah. Talk about the parking lots a bit. Yeah. What the taxes are in a parking lot versus a development, and if a tax abatement was given, how that would benefit the city?

Sure, so our tax rate is significantly lower on vacant or underdeveloped land like surface parking lots. That's why we look at every surface parking lot as a future development site. If those sites were given the resources to, say have a new mixed-use building built on a vacant parking lot, we would have tax generated on that site well beyond what we could ever hope for with our current tax structure for surface parking lots. What some communities have done is they have implemented a higher I would say it's a disincentive for developers to tear down their buildings because if you leave a vacant lot or a surface parking lot, you'd be taxed at a much higher rate than a building. So, that discourages people from just tearing down a building to avoid paying high taxes and from deteriorating our tax base. If we incentivize the development of those vacant lots, we set ourselves up for a much more significant tax revenue.

Do other communities, are they able to tax vacant lots at a higher rate?

Yeah, it's a matter of policy.

They can, okay. I think we should look into that. One thing I did notice in the plan was, and I think you did a great job with the clean team. I think downtown is really clean, so I appreciate that. I see them out all the time, so.

Thank you so much.

It's wonderful. It did mention in there going from three to 10. Do you need 10? Seems like three's doing a pretty good job.

So, the conversations that we're having right now with our provider services block by block are, depending on how our budget grows over the next decade, we would like to add other services from their portfolio. Other services that they have include homeless outreach, landscaping, riverfront maintenance. Other communities that they serve have those services and are able to, you know, experience a more efficient process by having a third party do it. And that's the goal is to build out the amount of services we're able to provide through that team as we dedicate more resources to it.

That's interesting. Homeless outreach included. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Well, good job. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Can you expand on that? What other communities have done something? I know that this council has talked about homeless outreach more specifically, not just at fixed locations, but actually roaming around. And in this situation, it would be in the downtown area. Can you explain maybe an example?

Yeah, Block by Block is based out of Louisville, Kentucky, and I believe that's where their homeless outreach program initiated. I have a list of other cities that they serve through those initiatives. Of course, I don't have that with me, but I would be happy to follow up with you.

Council Member Shepard.

Thank you, Mayor. Heather, thank you so much. To Councilmember Johnston's point, might there be an opportunity to collaborate with government on some of those things, maybe using some of our public works staff and then maybe looking at other unique things that you might be able to focus on as a result of that collaboration?

Sure. Yeah, we we love collaborating with our city departments. We collaborate with public works and parks all the time. also arts and cultural resources, great relationship with our city peers. I think together we achieve more, not to use the trope, but we really, we do leverage each other's resources, and I think the more collaboration we have, the more we can get done with each of our limited budgets.

Thank you.

Um, Heather, in addition, uh, I know that the council, um, has a lot of oversight as well. They serve on the downtown Wichita board. Um, I believe the three districts that are, um, represented are district six, Maggie Ballard, district one, Joseph Shepherd and district four, uh, Dalton Glasscock. Can you talk about how these plans again, do not tie the city of Wichita

to financial commitments this is a neighborhood plan so just as the college hill plan didn't require any financial commitments from the city this is downtown neighborhoods vision for how it would like to grow um you know we welcomed input from people outside of the district who don't live there because you know there's a saying that downtown's everyone's backyard and It's for everyone to enjoy. So we want to make sure that everyone can see themselves enjoying that into the future. But this is a neighborhood plan. So I know our neighbors to the north in Midtown are starting their planning process. So just as there wouldn't be guaranteed funding for any of those neighborhood visions, we don't expect any funding decisions with the adoption. That would be a separate subsequent process.

I want to say thank you for creating a process that allowed for a lot of different community feedback opportunities. And not everyone's going to be happy with all of the aspects that were presented. And among one of them may be the road diet to Douglas. While I voted against the road diet, I wanted to know how this again matches with I guess the pilot project that's gonna happen. I'm maybe gonna ask the city manager that question because that again passed six to one and I'm still wondering when that pilot is happening.

Well, excuse me, Mayor and Council, as a matter of fact, letters are going out this week to property owners along Douglas, kind of there near East High School, between Grove and 135. And so we are starting that process that will be taking place with striping that will change the lane width. corridor and so I think as it contributes to the downtown plan it does help give that feel for how you build community how you control the flow of traffic for pedestrian and other amenities and so I think this will be a pilot program the downtown which I'll be interested in as well but we are starting with that program like I said letters go out this week and I think we're starting some of the striping next week

Council Member Shepherd.

Thank you so much, Mayor. And thank you, City Manager. Just want to remind folks that the reason why we're doing a pilot, it was a compromise for my colleague, Council Member Tuttle, to take the opportunity instead of going all the way in and investing that full, I want to say it was 3.5, on the infrastructure. We listened to the community who came out and maybe had some concerns. So that pilot is going to allow us to track the necessary data, both pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicular, to ensure that we're making a sound decision before we move forward. And the pilot, the cost of that pilot is coming out the full cost of the project already. So I just wanted to also add that caveat.

In downtown, we love a good pilot program. That's how we started with the clean team and then demonstrated efficacy and then expanded that, you know, as additional funding allowed. And so, you know, I think we would be very interested to see the outcome of kind of the eastern pilot project. We already have the data from the Delano project. and see how successful that's been for cultivating their business district. I imagine we would come up with some solution that is a representative center of those two adjacent neighborhoods.

Council Member Shepherd.

Thank you, Mayor. Heather, it just reminded me of something that I know that we have the opportunity to engage a lot. As I'm hearing concerns from my constituents, I try to be proactive in bringing them to folks. You taught me something that's been very interesting as it relates to what other communities have done, and we refer to them as road diets, but other people refer to them as signature streets. And so talk to us about why they refer to them as a signature street. Also talk about how that increases or enhances walkability, bikeability. I'm particularly interested in creating a city where, you know, we just had folks with disabilities in our chambers, what was it, last week, and talking about the accessibility needs. I'm very cognizant of parents who want to be able to walk side by side alongside their families and maybe a newborn child in a stroller. Help me understand how that signature street will help bring that to life as well as those loud motorcycles that we hear on Douglas.

Thank you for that question. So a road diet refers only to the vehicular lanes. It doesn't reflect the reuse of that space for other users. So, like, I was walking down Douglas Ave in front of, you know, the Cocotree-Masson coffee shop the other day, and I was almost run over by four scooters. And I said to the... the young folks, I feel like an old lady now, because I was like, hey, it's a sidewalk. And they're like, yep. And it says on the scooters you're not supposed to ride them on the sidewalk. But where else are they going to ride them? Because they don't feel safe riding on Douglas Ave. So we're missing that middle ground for users of wheeled transportation. What a signature street does is it allocates space for all users. So it expands the sidewalk so that we don't have those collisions between, you know, parents pushing their strollers in our outdoor cafes. We want to make sure there's room for all of that enjoyment of kind of the walking realm. And then it has a separate space for people to enjoy their scooters, their bikes, their skateboards, make sure that they're not running over the pedestrians, for example. It has shade built in between so that you make sure that you're creating a comfortable environment for those who are choosing to bike or walk. And then it makes sure that there's enough space for the cars, plenty of parking, plenty of room to navigate your car through the lanes But again, we've done the study. We know that our current road is overbuilt for the traffic that we have. We built a permanent solution for it with Kellogg. So our current downtown suffers from having very wide lanes that feel very comfortable to drive fast on. If you cross over into Delano, you notice that the lanes are are more narrow and so people adjust their speed accordingly because it doesn't feel safe to drive 50 through Delano. It does sometimes feel safe to drive 50 through downtown. And so by narrowing the lanes, we give more space to other users, but we also deter negative behavior. You know, Dragging Douglas is a great historical event for downtown Wichita, but we would like to keep that in the past. You know, it's not safe given the amount of activity we have, you know, people leaving concerts late at night and things and trying to cross the street. We can't have drag racing in our downtown anymore, and these design solutions help to address that through human behavior.

I see no further questions from this bench. Thank you, Heather. Thank you. We will now open it up for public comment.

Hi there, Mayor, members of City Council. My name is Ted Bush, Wichita Firefighters Local 135. First, I want to make something very clear. Wichita firefighters support growth. We want to see downtown Wichita succeed with new hotels, apartments, businesses, restaurants, entertainment venues. These are all very exciting to us. But as you consider a downtown master plan, we ask that you include one critical component the fire service downtown when we plan for more people to live work and visit downtown we also must have a plan on how we protect them The city already has a roadmap. The Leverum Fire Deployment Study identified deficiencies in downtown fire coverage and specifically recommended a new fire station in the area of Douglas and Wabash to improve response reliability. And that's just right now, since 2022. That particular recommendation has not been implemented. We should not repeat the mistakes of the past. For years, Wichita grew outward without adequately expanding its fire protection infrastructure. And today, we're playing catch up, as you all know. The city council has taken an important step by moving forward with a new fire station in southwest Wichita. And we appreciate that commitment. But we have known about the fire protection gap in that area for years. It should not take seven years to respond to a known need. As we know, the new fire stations have been in the CIP for years. Unfortunately, tragically, the new fire station came too late for a couple in southwest Wichita who were killed in a double fatality fire just a few short days ago, in which that station could have been the difference in the outcome of that fire. Downtown is now at a similar crossroads. We're planning significant new development in the core of our city. More people will live there, more people will work there, and more people will visit there. The fire protection plan needs to be developed at the same time as the development plan, not years afterwards. Economic development and public safety are not competing priorities. They go hand in hand. If the city is going to invest in the growth, we also invest in the infrastructure necessary to protect that growth. Deliverance study has already told us what needs to be considered downtown. So our request to the council is simple. As you approve and implement the downtown master plan, make fire protection part of the plan. Let's not build tomorrow's downtown and spend the next decade trying to catch up with its fire protection needs. Let's plan for growth and protect it at the same time. And it's interesting to talk about changing streets and not even mention trucks going down the street. Can we put aerials up? Can we turn? Can we angle? These are the conversations that need to be had and it's funny that, it's not funny, it's just obvious that we talk about growth and not once was fire protection mentioned for the people that were asking to come downtown or people asked to move outside in our city. So, These are the concerns that I have and I hope that it's part of the conversation. Thanks.

Hello, Faith Martin. I'm one of the people that don't live in the downtown but go downtown quite often. We've actually invited the city manager to a couple Strongstown meeting over the past few years. Strongtown's literature and articles and ideas of ways that we could implement basically what is a Strongtown approach. I don't hear a lot of Strongtown approach. Safety was just talked about. There's a great piece which I'll be happy to send to everyone that Chuck did called One Billion Bollards. We have had multiple, multiple accidents in downtown where people have been killed, where people have been maimed, not to mention property damage, because we spend so much time thinking about cars. I appreciate that this plan has included ways to make downtown safer. And when I travel, I enjoy seeing how other cities kind of set up their walkable areas, and they're very, very, very safe for pedestrians, whether it's pedestrians with disabilities, whether it's children. It feels like you can close off the street when you want. It feels like you can walk from business to business. There's shade, there's water. We spend a lot of time focusing on really, really big plans, and I love that Downtown Wichita's future thinking But a lot of times these are small, small incremental plans that we can measure their effect over time, short periods and long periods of time. And I would ask that you approve this plan because I definitely agree that neighborhoods and districts should set up their overlays. I would just hope like the previous speaker that you would think about what safety looks like for that because part of our tax dollars do go towards that and safety isn't always more police, it could be benches and drinking fountains and trees and you know, so I just hope that you would think of that as we're thinking about large massive projects that there's smaller pieces that we could do with our tax dollars that maybe a sales tax could be approved if it was a small time bound smaller project instead of pie in the sky, thank you.

Council Member Glasscock.

Thank you, Mayor Faith. I think a lot of the things that you raised are needed, especially bollards. And I think we'll be discussing that as we discuss the budget as well. And how can we make sure that we have safety measures downtown? Because that needs to be one of the primary functions. And I think Ted hit on that as well. How are we taking safety into consideration in developing all these plans? 67% of the budget is public safety. And so they need to be probably 67% of the conversation when we're looking at development and how does all this infrastructure tie in.

Council Member Shepherd.

I am also going to affirm the previous speaker's thoughts. I'm gonna take a different direction though than my colleague, Vice Mayor Glasscock, because I remember particularly when the city manager was applying for the job. And one of the things that I remember him distinctly saying that really resonated with me is that public safety is not just police. And I agree with Ted that we need to make sure that we're building this in, not just to this plan, but any plan that we're talking about things that will take a very long time. And as we continue to build, services are going to be needed, especially when we're talking about housing and people moving into the core and adding more density and infill. That being said, I want to go back to something the city manager said when he first applied for this job, which was, prevention is also public safety. Walkability is also public safety. And so we have to be very methodical about unlearning what we may have taught ourselves about what public safety looks like to ensure that we're also investing in the living conditions and the public conditions that don't attract crime or unsafe conditions. And I do appreciate that this plan At the top of the plan, it says that its mission is to create a well-designed downtown, which will create a safe, attractive, and welcoming environment.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor. This is a question for staff. How does the public safety that Mr. Bush spoke about, how does that figure into how this plan was developed? And is there room to add to it as we maybe learn some things about public safety, approve a new fire station downtown and whatnot? How does that figure in? And one thing he brought up, and I'm not sure if you know, Ted might actually know,

um the latter height the latter the requirements for high-rise buildings some of which we have downtown not too many but how would that all figure in and are we able to add that to any plans moving forward i know that one of the things that heather and downtown wichita did while they were putting together this plan and working with sasaki to develop the goals and strategies identified in the plan was to reach out to specific department directors to determine whether or not those strategies and actions were feasible So, while I can't speak to Heather's role and communications with those specific departments, I do know that those departments were consulted when it came to identifying the actions and who was assigned to those prior to putting together the final draft of the plan. So, in terms of those conversations that were had, I'd probably have to defer to Heather in terms of those specific conversations, but I can tell you that there is a lot of communication with specific departments and those directors.

Okay, I don't know. Heather, do you have anything?

Well, actually, before Heather comes, let me jump in on that. Mayor and council, as you think about if you adopt this plan, it then becomes a roadmap for us, for me to work with staff, on how we do the implementation and so certainly how it plays into the CIP do those complement that project but even when you think about anything what we're doing with Douglas here in the next couple weeks every service of the city even snow removal when you talk about changing for bike plan and ped plan garbage services and different things how that's impacted You've already heard from the police chief about looking for grant funding for more resources for downtown for more public events. And so there are some of these conversations being had with our different department directors.

but once council makes their decision on this going forward then we will work with city staff about how do we contribute and address these scenarios that are identified for the next 10 years i can appreciate that my concern i guess is just setting ourselves up in case there is anything that directly contradicts any of the the opinions and thoughts of our safety or public safety leaders here so that's all i wanted to check and make sure that We weren't pitting anybody against each other as far as any of these designs go.

Thank you, Councilmember Hoheisel. Just one comment on that. The first layer of review for the completed plan was every department head in the city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I will just add something really quick. Since we are about to get a new fire chief for the city of Wichita, I would like for that fire chief to see this plan so that the new individual will know what has been discussed. We will continue with public comment.

I preface this as good morning, and now it's good afternoon, Mayor Wu and members of the City Council. My name is Greg Kite. My law office address is 129 East 2nd Street, North Suite 201. I am the president of the Historic Preservation Alliance of Wichita and Sedgwick County. I was also privileged to be a member of the Vote No Coalition against the 1% city sales tax. I am here to address the proposed new performing arts facility. in the Downtown Wichita Action Plan 2035, which is covered on pages 138 to 141 and 160 to 163. I think Heather may have mentioned there's a total of 208 pages to the plan. I want to begin by reviewing the history of recent plans. I don't know if you can hear me. I've got a big mouth. The Riverfront Legacy Master Plan 2019 through 2023. Four of the five proposals require demolition of century two. That would have provided 10 acres of quote unquote green space, taking the place of Century Two at a cost of $330 million. This initiated a grassroots campaign resulting in 17,262 signatures on a petition against the plan, which frankly is more signatures than votes in most local elections. Message sent. Wichita Forward, 2026. It included a new performing arts facility in its 1% city sales tax proposal. They did a number of polls. One of the polls had to do with Century 2. One of the polls had to do with a new performing arts facility. Support for Century 2 in the polling was 60%. Support for a new performing arts facility was so dismal and embarrassing that Wichita Forward refused to disclose the results. 1% city sales tax results, we all remember what those were, another message sent. 82% against to 18% in favor. One major reason the sales tax initiative failed in such dramatic fashion was because of the push for a new performing arts facility to the detriment of century two. Again, message sent. Now it's downtown Wichita. They held three open houses in 2025. I attended two of the three. Post-it notes were provided to express thoughts and suggestions. Post-it notes were to be placed on various picture boards. I saw no votes voicing the desire for a new performing arts facility. I saw notes expressing the desire to maintain Century 2 in its current use. I saw notes stating Century 2 can handle all events, specifically including the Hamilton production. I saw notes declaring Century 2 was the most iconic building in downtown Wichita. Today, Heather mentioned historic buildings, and I appreciate that. We saw a nice screen up there. Utilize the legacy. Where was Century 2? In stark contrast, Century 2 was depicted as an empty shell with a botanical garden inside on picture boards displayed by the leadership of downtown Wichita. In summary, I remember when three self-appointed community leaders stepped up to initiate a 1% city sales tax. Figuratively speaking, back flips and somersaults were performed to accommodate them at every turn. Like a very large number of Wichita citizens, I spoke against the initiative. Unfortunately, self-appointed community leaders don't represent the interests of the community. They represent their own vested financial interests. The same people who were members of the Riverfront Legacy Master Plan were also members of Wichita Forward and are currently members of Downtown Wichita. This is simply a repeat performance by the same people. Conclusion, pages 138 to 141 and 160 to 163 of the action plan involve two things, building a new performing arts facility and repurposing century two to its detriment. Here we go again. How many times does the community have to beat this into oblivion? There is no basis to include such concepts in the action plan and more importantly, no community interest or support for them. This is just another example of the once self-appointed quote unquote community leaders who represent their own vested financial interests, not the interests of the community. Let me conclude by saying therefore we would respectfully request that pages 138 through 141 and 160 through 163 be removed from the action plan because the concepts described therein do not in any way, shape or form represent the interests or will of Wichita citizens. Maybe it's time to start listening to the public. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Christopher Parishow again. I'm asking you to send this plan back to MAPC. My main reason why is after reviewing the entire plan multiple times and watching the presentation here today, it appears as if this plan is in conflict with Delano's plan. Delano in 2001 passed its own revitalization plan. A lot of the successes that downtown Wichita is claiming for downtown were a result of that plan, not downtown's plan. In 2019, we revised that plan. And currently there is a project on Douglas to redo the streetscape from Seneca all the way out to Meridian that is part of our plan. We have been doing everything we can for the last 25 years to make Delano what it is and improve it. And it seems as if downtown wants to come in and claim that success and then impose their own ideas on us. When you've got neighboring communities that both want to have plans for themselves, those plans should not conflict. If you pass this as is, you can potentially have a project approved where someone says, but downtown said it's cool, but it wasn't approved through the process for Delano. I want some clear language in this plan that says that downtown stops at the river. It has been stopping at the river ever since Wichita was founded. It has not encroached across the river until now. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Mayor Wu, thank you. City council members, thank you. Celeste Reset, founder of Save Century II. This downtown master plan is being pushed by the same business leaders who started the Riverfront Master Legacy six years ago. And here I am. That's when I got started looking at city finances and started the Save Century II movement was because of Riverfront Master Legacy. I walked into that room and realized that insiders were shaking their hands and were determining the future of downtown Wichita. And as a recently retired fraud investigator and bank examiner, I was appalled. And that's when I got started looking at city finances, looking at city deals, and trying to be the watchdog over what we do. Now, I want to applaud you, Mayor Wu, and some of you city council members, because I feel like you're doing your best to ask questions. So I don't want to start criticizing you without saying thank you for starting to listen and question these deals. I really do appreciate it. But let me slam you on this deal. You should not approve it. It is poorly developed. And none of the people, such as the Save Century 2 group, were we asked to sit at the table to discuss these plans or to talk about downtown Wichita. And that really disturbs me because we just heard earlier in the city council meeting this morning with the Crown Uptown how important it is to involve the stakeholders to involve the public and to involve the groups that are most invested in that area. And we were not called, we've not been asked to comment on this. I would compare the 1,000 inputs they got to the 17,265 signatures we collected during COVID and say, really? I would give more weight to our group then to the group behind the downtown Wichita plan when it comes to Century 2. And as you may know, 60% of Wichita taxpayers want to see Century 2 saved. And so what's really important is that with the budget looming, where you're going to spend more, you're asking taxpayers to pony up You've got to be judicious with where you spend your money. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, so I'm not going to belabor that point, but you can't go out shelling out money, paying for a private company to do what public works staff is supposed to do. Public works staff is supposed to clean up areas of downtown, They're supposed to do irrigation. And they're supposed to do a lot of what downtown Wichita wants to hire. Now keep in mind, I haven't seen any cost benefit analysis over why these 3 to 10 people, how they're saving us money. I haven't seen how many employees are going to be cut from staff to support these costs. And even though Heather said there was zero public investment, that's not true. It's called a SHMID, Self Supporting Municipal Initiative Districts. And even though you didn't see that, it sounds like that's going to cross over into Delano area, the SHMID. And the SHMID is a property tax that is a special assessment on property tax holders, residential people, that you're going to hear from later today because they are upset that you're at the 10 mil levy to support Heather's downtown Wichita group when they don't even see on the website that they're being charged to Schmidt. And actually I tried to bring this to Wichita's attention and got some backlash. Luckily Sedgwick County Deputy Finance Officer Brent Shelton's working with me, agreed that this is missing from websites and is trying to get the Schmidt put onto every property tax record so potential property owners know if you're in the Schmidt, you've got 10 more mill levies being assessed to you to pay for this private group. And I call it private because I can't core it. I don't know what their travel expenses are for. I don't know where they're storing their equipment for their snow plows, their snow removal. They have a lot of equipment now that is being stored off-site in a building. Imagine a private company when they come to Wichita and they say, we're going to do this job better. They're going to charge you a surcharge because they need to make a profit. So you're going to be paying more. But again, I have no cost benefit analysis. I don't know what we're saving. I do know I take offense to the fact that they say there's no building opening up to the river because actually Century 2 does open up onto the back side towards A Price Woodard Park. And if you want to spend some money to reconfigure, keep in mind Hyatt bought a second site for a second tower. You could reconfigure Waco on the backside of Century 2 to open it up onto the river and beautify that area. Though I'll tell you what, trees were just cut down last weekend in that area west of Century 2 because the irrigation has been off for four years. So the plants we planted in Price Woodard are dead or dying. The trees have been cut down. And now the parking lot trees behind Century 2 are being cut down too. So before you spend more money on this plan, let's do a little bit more definition. Let's get a cost benefit analysis and please involve your stakeholders. Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm Allen Kaler and I'm speaking on behalf of Bike Walk Wichita, asking you to adopt the Downtown Wichita Action Plan. downtown should be a place where people want to live work visit and invest improving connectivity and the overall experience at street level is an important part of that so it is critical that downtown be safe appealing and accessible for people whether they're walking biking driving or simply spending time downtown wichita's mission is to keep wichita safe grow our economy, build dependable infrastructure, and provide conditions for living well. It's not really even debatable that the concepts included in the plan will make downtown safer for everyone. This has been shown in Wichita, on other streets where we've done something similar, and in other cities across the country, both small and large. The need for safer downtown was unfortunately emphasized within the last few days by two crashes on Douglas that caused serious injuries to pedestrians. If you want people to come downtown, they need to feel safe to do that. Please make downtown safer. When you make downtown safer, more people spend more time there, shopping, dining, and spending money. increasing economic activity and property values throughout downtown. It shouldn't be lost on you that this plan wasn't developed by the crazy bike people. It wasn't developed by the bureaucrat staff of the city. It was developed by a group of downtown stakeholders that have invested in downtown because they believe that this plan will, as it says, unlock new opportunities for living, working, shopping, and entertainment. Let's please grow our economy by unlocking these opportunities. Third, you've been discussing in the context of the budget that infrastructure investments require funding, and this funding comes largely from sales and property taxes. The plan includes several proposals to enhance these funding streams, including plans to create a dense, mixed-use urban center that will increase economic activity and values, and therefore increase overall tax revenues. We ask you to adopt these ideas to improve our infrastructure. Finally, all of this will create conditions for living well, or as the plan says, strengthen the urban experience and enhance quality of life in Wichita's core. Please approve the Downtown Wichita Action Plan to advance Wichita's mission and provide conditions for all Wichitans to live well. Councilman Holheisel, you asked a question about the interplay with the Broadway corridor plan. We are also very enthusiastic about the Broadway plan and want to see it completed. We don't see that this plan is inconsistent with Broadway plan. In fact, I think it's complimentary. The concept drawings for some of the design of Broadway on this are different than they are in the concept drawings for the Broadway plan. but I believe and hope that those are only details and that the plans can be worked out in the final drawings for them to implement the Broadway plan as it was presented to you. I've been encouraged in my conversations with the city engineers that they seem to be very focused on going ahead and completing the Broadway plan as it was presented, and we will continue to advance that as well. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council, City Manager. My name is Jeff Flewer, President of the Greater Wichita Partnership. 505 East Douglas Avenue. On behalf of the Partnership Executive Board, I do appreciate this opportunity to convey the organization's support for the Downtown Action Plan. This plan casts a vision for downtown's continued development into the next 10 years, and it's a very dynamic plan. It serves as a blueprint that will provide critical market data research, around housing, commercial, hospitality, and then translates that into actually how the market demand can actually be realized in our market. Master plans serve to really make the unknown known. They help unlock the private sector investment because they identify vision and goals to achieve. They provide guiding principles. They certainly benefit the public sector investment, identifying key investments that will also assist in unlocking the private sector investment. The partnership was one among 20 groups, companies, individuals, organizations that came along besides you and the county to fund this plan. And it also supported the community engagement that followed in the months that followed. As Ms. Schroeder noted earlier, this plan builds upon the foundation of Project Downtown, a project, a plan that was activated by strategic public investment and remarkable private investment, a plan that has been recognized nationally for its success and is actually featured in an upcoming book about the success in Wichita. Master plans help cultivate the environment for opportunity. If you go back to Project Downtown in 2009, when that plan was written, it did not anticipate the osteopathic school, the huge investment by biomedical. And I was out of town and came back and saw the incredible new logos of KU and WSU on our skyline that is creating a whole new legacy for our city. HeartSpring, ComCare. the creation of the biomedical corridor up to Ascension. It was not part of the 09 plan, but what the 09 plan did, and what this plan's going to do as well, is that it's an instrument to create opportunities. It's an environment. It helps create the environment where we can see this type of investment I just noted. How Project Downtown did that is that it worked to activate Douglas Avenue from Old Town to Delano, increasing residential options, adaptive reuse, new construction, securing investments such as the Kansas Leadership Center. Councilman Holheisel, you talked about how is it that we work with the public investment. If you go back to when the Leadership Center was built, A critical piece to make that happen was a parking garage that unlocked what is today the Ambassador Hotel, the Leadership Center, and now Niche. That investment helped unlock all those projects. And by the way, when the Leadership Center was built, that was the first new construction in Douglas, in the heart of Douglas, in over 30 years. So well overdue as far as the timing concerned. Cargill's new regional headquarters was part of that vision with Project Downtown. And that project actually helped us reverse where corporations were announcing they were leaving to where they were staying and also investing in our community. Activation of public spaces like NASCAR Park, Gallery Alley, Chester I. Lewis. It helped foster a broader base investment of small and large companies and organizations. It has helped immensely with the attraction of new companies. Think about NovaCoast and their new global headquarters in our downtown from the West Coast. Nomadics from the East Coast, also in downtown. Block Digital, a company that we recruited from the UK, also in downtown because of the vibrancy of our city center. Key components of the partnership's mission is to grow the economy. That is done through creating industry depth, Also expansions and attraction of new companies. Multiple factors come into that. Part of that is a clear downtown vision that is bold and aspirational. One that builds on the market research and where companies and individuals can see themselves and actually realizing that information. A vibrant, growing, distinctive downtown core that is connected to the region. A city region that is retaining and attracting talent. A city community that is catalytic and strategically investing in itself. A city, a community that provides an individual multiple career opportunities to grow. The downtown action plan is the critical blueprint for the next 10 years of our growth in our downtown. It will be instrumental in all the factors I just noted. We appreciate this opportunity to share our support and we request that you as the council also adopt this plan to be the blueprint of our downtown for the next 10 years. Thank you.

Council Member Hohaisel.

Hey, Jeff, just one quick question for you here. Yes, sir. I appreciate your conversation. Thank you, Mayor. How close have we stuck to the last downtown plan? What are some of the things that we didn't fulfill? What are some of the things that we did and have been successes?

One of the things, and Heather noted it earlier, is that in our housing portfolio, if you will, is how is it that we have more of the fee simple? So what is it that people can own? And that is one thing where I think we've had to get to the density that we have now to be able to actually trigger that. As you think about just the whole medical aspect, The osteopathic school, 80% approximately, and that number varies, are living in the core. So that's added a whole new market into our downtown as far as the residential. We believe as the biomedical opens up that you're gonna have 200 faculty and staff in that building. They may also trigger the opportunity for that market to be realized. As far as the master plan itself, Incredible amounts of that have been implemented, and that's one reason why it's noted nationally, and it's actually a part of an upcoming book of a plan that literally, it was devised by the community, and we have been working diligently as the private sector, but also working in hand with the public sector to make it happen. We haven't deviated from it. Again, it's a blueprint, and it gives us an opportunity to understand where we need to go, and then we work on projects to fulfill that vision. So, I would say that a majority of what we had forecasted to be done has worked. Now, we still need to activate our riverfront. We haven't achieved what we should there. However, we are seeing major investment around that riverfront now. Exploration place, what's happening also around the ballpark. We were just at the ground breaking about two weeks ago. All that's starting to merge, but we continue to need to put pressure on that. You know, one of the things that I'll look at what other cities are doing constantly. Omaha, for instance, just invested $325 million in the riverfront. In the riverfront. And so again, this master plan that we're talking about, sir, helps us drive toward a vision of reality.

And when you say that investment, that's also private investment. As far as? The riverfront, you said.

Yes, we need public and private. I mean, it's going to require both. What you want to have happen is where you take the public investment, because it's finite, but you really utilize that to unlock the private sector. And in order to, like we were talking about the service lots earlier, one way to unlock that will be infrastructure. And so those will be things that we'll be working with the partnership, but also certainly with Heather with downtown Wichita. Thanks, Jeff. Appreciate your perspective.

Clarifying question, and this is actually from the speaker previously, speaker number five, Celeste. My question is to both legal and city manager, because we do have an ordinance regarding century two. It was even discussed when I made my proposed guardrails for the sales tax. You cannot tear it down. Can you talk about that specific ordinance and also what the,

THE COUNCIL HAS PUT OR WHAT PREVIOUS COUNCILS HAVE PUT INTO THE CIP TO RENOVATE CENTURY TWO I CAN JUST TALK ABOUT THAT IS IT A COUNCIL POLICY IT CAN PULL IT UP BUT IT JUST DOES SAY THAT THERE WOULD BE AN ELECTION ADVISORY ELECTION BEFORE ANY MAJOR DEMOLITION TAKES PLACE IT IS A COUNCIL POLICY AT THIS TIME

Then if you look at the CIP, there has been ongoing investments in Century 2. I actually was on a tour there just yesterday. There are more, when we do the budget adoption, anywhere from $6 to $20 million over the next 10 years for Century 2 investments. Some of the upcoming ones, certainly some of the public facing areas, the restrooms, corridors, carpeting, but even making sure the HVAC, there are some other renovations for the concourses. So there's a whole list of projects identified for Century 2 to maintain it as a strong facility that attracts a variety of amenities or shows for the community.

Thank you. We'll continue with public comment.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council, Vince Hancock from Delano. At 208 pages long, for me to give every page in this report its due diligence, I'd get 1.44 seconds per page. So I'm gonna have to pick out some cherries to work on. On page 14, they remind us that the study area extends beyond this mid. The SMID is where they are a taxing entity. They're using the city of Wichita to gather a sales tax on everybody inside of there, get that tax, and then use it to fund their entire organization. There's this blue line on the map, it's called the river, and the SMID stops there. Yet, the study area extends beyond the SMID. Now, I still don't understand the comment of how we include the river, both sides of the river, because we have to have matching socks. That makes no sense whatsoever. What doesn't make sense is if the SMID stops on the east side of the river, then how does the study area go to the west side of the river? How does it continue past the west side of the river to Sycamore, where our new transit hub is at? How does it continue past Sycamore all the way to Seneca Street? There's no way that should happen. Not when we have 26 years of plans in Elano that tells us what happens on the west side of the river. On page 122, the river is described as an untapped development asset. If you've not heard the story or the complaints yet, trust me, I'm hearing them. The people who want to go down the river and see the river instead of apartments on the river. I've been hearing about River Vista for decades, about, oh, I miss the view of the river. Now we, because of a agreement made by the previous previous assistant city manager we're going to get an eight-story apartment complex on the river trust me you will hear about that just like i've been hearing about it i've had neighbors ask me in addition to bathtubs on the river should we just go ahead and put some tea in the harbor because that's they're ready to secede On page 81, they steal the map that we've had in our neighborhood plan for 26 years, talking about the food desert. We're tired of the broken promises for the Economic Development Department that said that we were going to get a grocery store in Delano. We're not getting it. Because the Wichita Downtown Development Coalition is not a government entity, they're not subject to the Kansas Open Records Act. Our legal department has given us their non-binding legal opinion that even though they're completely funded by tax dollars, they shouldn't have any of the responsibility of tax dollars. Their financials aren't open, we have no access to minutes to their meetings, none of that. It's inappropriate. On page 43, they complain about the inefficiency of 48% of the downtown area being used for service parking. At their kickoff meeting, they invited Jeff Speck, the leader of an urban planning design called New Urbanism, to tell them how they were gonna create things and make it more walkable. Well, they've redefined walkability. They've redefined decoupled parking because it's really a hidden agenda to increase the development area capacity. On page 17, they brag about the numbers of engaged Wichitans. I do agree that opinions of stakeholders matter. The problem is this organization proved beyond reasonable doubt this was the opinion that they wanted the opinion that they gave to you. When I went and put a sticky note, very politely, being part of the democratic process, I put a sticky note next to the river and said, please stop the plan here. Not once, but on two different occasions, Heather admitted to removing the sticky note. That is not participation. That is not seeking the consent of the governed. That is censorship, and it has no place in an open process. I'm disgusted by this organization. They can do whatever they want on their side of the river, but as someone in our neighborhood said, keep your chocolate out of my peanut butter and I'll keep my peanut butter out of your chocolate. Some of us are old enough to remember that commercial. If anybody has any questions, I'll be happy to help.

Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Shepherd.

I actually do have a question for you. Thank you. understand the logic behind your your statement but i'm curious how does separate but equal align with your desires to have your own identity but have another side of the river have its own identity

Right, and I appreciate you, we'll get into separately, but equal later. For me, what happened was 16 years ago, when the 2010, they were discussing it in nine, it was published in 10. When the 2010 downtown plan came out, none of you were on the council and I've seen it as being involved with Delano where especially a previous previous mayor and the council said we have two competing plans two plans which overlap each other and they said which one do we go with in my opinion they should have made a smart decision which is let's separate the two plans where they overlap but instead they said we're going to go with the newer plan So if you go with that logic, you've just taken a third of the Delano neighborhood plan and tossed it in the trash because the downtown plan is newer. I disagree with that logic.

Council Member Hohaisel.

Thank you, Mayor. Vincent, real quick. You spoke a little bit at it. Where are the conflicts that you see between the two plans?

Primarily geographical. when we have a third of our neighborhood. Heather admitted that she's jealous of the growth in Delano, and I agree with Chris that a lot of that has been based on, and keep in mind, this isn't my plan. The 2001 plan was people who preceded me on their shoulders. It was partially due to Maggie's predecessor, partially due to Maggie. It took us 20 years to convert a railroad into a trail. That was in the original 2001 plan, so they had put that together. But now, to take the most economically driving part of Delano, the river, through Seneca, and say, oh, that's now in control of the WDDC? That's inappropriate. What you're doing is you're leaving the residential areas to Delano. We've always said there's no North Delano, there's no South Delano, there's no East Delano, there's no West Delano. Delano is bounded by the river on the north, by the river on the east, by Kellogg on the south, by Meridian on the west. That's it.

I understand they overlap. I'm asking if you have any policy points that are in conflict with the Delano policy.

218 pages, I only had five minutes. So yeah, there's plenty of conflicts. I just, I hit some of the high points.

Appreciate it.

If you want me to follow up later, I can do that. I understand this will probably go 7-0, but I do think that we should understand it's a deeply flawed plan and we need to make sure that when the council votes come up in the future and there's a conflict, we say, which plan do we believe?

Appreciate that. Thanks, Vince.

I have a follow-up question, not for Vincent, for city manager or for Heather. Can you address, did each of the six district advisory boards get consulted regarding this plan?

I believe there were presentations were made to each of the districts.

It appears that all council members have shook their head that they all received this at their district advisory board. Can anyone give us feedback from the district advisory boards or if the council members would like to share any feedback from or comments from individuals at the district advisory board meeting because they did see it ahead of time. Vice Mayor Glascott.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll share the votes just for the public, just in our green packet. DABs one and two voted to receive and file the Draft Action Plan, so I'm not exactly sure maybe what the conversation was of those. DAB three unanimously recommended approval 10 to O. DAB four, my DAB, recommended the City Council approve on a three to two vote. DAB five unanimously recommended the Council approve eight to O. And DAB six reviewed the Draft Action Plan.

Thank you. Council Member Ballard.

Sorry. Thank you, Mayor. The conversation was at District 6 Advisory Board. I think obviously some were very excited to see a plan and see what the potential growth could be for downtown. There was a couple questions asking if and what dollars from the city were tied to this plan. And we talked about the CIP, how most of these projects would have to go through the CIP, but how there were no city dollars tied, like projects tied to. This was basically like a roadmap, if that's what the will of the body is to move forward. So there was just conversations on funding, basically. Council Member Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor. As Vice Mayor Glasscock indicated, it was a unanimous pass on my part for my dad, but the concerns about transit did come up, so that was one that I especially made note of.

Council Member Tuttle.

Thank you, District Advisor, Board Member Tooth, Faith, correct me if I'm wrong, but we had just a little bit of discussion, a few questions, but mostly very supportive and it was a unanimous vote.

And for clarification, it was to receive, so this is also to receive and adopt. Thank you very much.

Council Member Shepard. Mine was in support just for clarification.

Council Member Shepard.

Just since everyone shared, yep, we received and filed. Heather actually came to our district advisory board. A few questions that were answered and I think mainly excitement for the most part. There were some some thoughts on ideas, but I also have heard from residents that are not on my district advisory board that were not in that DAB meeting who had some concerns, and I believe I'm scheduling to meet with them prior to the 25th, but.

Councilmember Johnston.

Thank you. Heather got to come to our DAB twice. The first time she came, we had a very contentious zoning case, which, I don't blame her, she left. And then it came back the next month, so, but our DAB voted unanimously to support it.

Vice Mayor Glasgow.

Thank you. DAB 4 moves quick. We don't waste time. So by the time Heather showed up, the presentation had already mostly been presented. She stayed there to ask questions, but she came after we had taken a vote. It was a three to two. It was a smaller DAB that day. And so I think somebody had hopped off online. So I don't think that necessarily met quorum that day. But the bigger concerns were just if there was a financial footnote tied to it. And that was really the concern.

And since we're on the topic of financial obligations, that continues to be my concern, but I have heard it multiple times that this does not tie this council or future councils to some sort of financial commitment to this plan. Is that accurate, city manager?

There is no financial obligation based on your action today.

Thank you. We'll continue with public comment. I see no further public comment. Thank you to the eight speakers who wanted to share their thoughts regarding the Downtown Wichita Action Plan 2035. We will now bring it back to the bench. Vice Mayor Glascott.

Yeah I just have some maybe brief comments. What I think is exciting about all of this regardless of whether people approve everything in the plan or not is I think everybody agrees there's momentum downtown and that we're moving in the right direction and that we just need a vision and as part of that vision I think there's going to be disagreements about what that vision looks like as well. I'm really excited about the riverfront activation part. When I talk to young people and trying to keep people in this community, the number one thing we talk about is the riverfront. There's an example, I had a bachelor party down in Austin, Texas, and we did paddle boarding down the river and everybody thought it was one of the coolest things. I was like, hey guys, we can do that in Wichita. And I have two kayaks in my house. Well, maybe not right now while the river's down, but we'll be able to do it at some point again. And so I think there's a lot of movement. I think one thing that did excite me in that plan as well was that people are looking at home ownership downtown, not just rental units. And home ownership unlocks a lot of potential for people. And if we can have more of that, then more people have a vested interest and a long-term vested interest in downtown. I think that's really exciting as well. To the Delano point, since that is mentioned, I reviewed the 2020-10 plan, and so this is for anybody from Delano. I reviewed the 2020-10 plan and 42 times Delano was mentioned as part of that plan. In this plan, it's only mentioned 15 times. Every time it's mentioned, it's mentioned as a connection point. and so i understand maybe the geographical geographical concerns for it but in terms of policy i didn't see policy that was a disagreement of it i do agree that we should look at the delano plan again it's an older document right now and delano has seen as i think everybody recognizes significant growth especially in the last five years and so i think there is maybe some conversation about what does a future plan for delano look like um So if there is a conflict in the plan, that'll be brought up before us as well. I do think there is one thing that I'd just be interested in maybe perception of my colleagues as well, In most of this plan, it comes off as a idea or a guiding principle of how we move forward. The one exception to that is everywhere where it talks about a performing arts center. That's gonna be a significant debate in the community, as it has always been, but in every single reference in this plan, it says, quote, new performing arts center. that automatically takes off any consideration of a repurpose of a building at some point. And I think that should be part of the consideration and part of the conversation that may not be the path forward we move, or maybe it's not a viable path. But I'd be interested, there are a couple times, I referenced five, so 26 times total, performing arts is mentioned. Out of those, a majority does not mention the word new except on page 40, page 30, and page 31. It specifically says a new performing arts center. And I think on page 138, there's a word of a separate performing arts center that is a little bit different. Page 139 actually lists Century 2 as a location for Performing Arts Center or remain a Performing Arts Center. And I think we should consider all things when we're looking at this, whether we repurpose Century 2 or build a new Performing Arts Center. I think both are viable options. I think both need consideration. Let the best idea rise as part of that. But this plan also preserves the round building. Every single page preserves the round building. So if we're gonna preserve it, we should still be looking at that as a viable alternative to keep as a performing arts center if there's a path forward. So I'd be interested in conversation with my colleagues. I just don't want to set direction on that right now when we could still look at what is the potential for the opportunity in the future. We're investing six to 20 million. I think every single person recognizes we're gonna need significantly more than 20 million to even repurpose the building at the Performing Arts Center. But if we're looking at it, I think that should be a consideration. So I'd just be interested in maybe what my colleagues' views on that are.

I would be in favor of not saying new Performing Arts Center. I understand that not everything in this plan everyone loves, and I understand also that this is just a vision and some action points that then would have to come back to the council for true consideration and vote by an elected council. for me, I would be in favor of removing the word new so that they're again, the option for really renovating century two to its maximum and best use can also be considered and not the immediate consideration of a completely different performing arts center. So I would be in favor of what Vice Mayor Glasscock has suggested. But again, I need other council members to chime in.

I guess I have a question. First of all, Century 2 is here. We need to invest in it. It needs to be renovated. I have significant concerns about the lack of investment Century 2 has seen. The City Manager has already indicated that there are dollars in the CIP to address that. I think this Council is committed to making sure that those dollars go to the appropriate place I think we need to stop having the conversation at this point about whether or not Century 2 is going to stay or go, because as far as we're concerned, it's here, it's staying. There's even a policy on the books for this one building that requires a vote before anything happens to it. Sure wish we had that opportunity with Crown. Maybe wouldn't have had the hour-long conversation we did today about it, but Century 2 has that also checks and balance in place to protect it. i also want to go back to the workshop that we had and i think the subcontractors who operate that building shared some history that this is a community building it's not necessarily nor was it necessarily built for the intent of performing arts it's a community building and so what that means is that community organizations can utilize this space to host their events We see it with Asian Fest. We see it with Pride Month. We've seen it with, I think, some gospel nights that have occurred over the past. River Fest utilizes that building. So we know that the building is being used and perhaps maybe not in the same way that a performing arts facility that is attracting the Lion King or Hamilton is doing or Arise Gospel Choir. And so my main concern is that by changing this one word, I think this is interesting because we're going back to how do we tell people what to do with their private dollars? And if there's private philanthropy being willing to be put up to build the performing arts center, I just think it kind of contradicts the conversation we had around the crown as it relates to property rights. And so I guess I need some clarity on that distinction.

And I'll add to that. Century Two is very different than Crown Uptown. City dollars were utilized to pay to build Century Two. No city dollars were used or spent to build the Crown Uptown. So you do have two different completely separate buildings. And so for me, I am fine if community members coalesce and they want to build something new and they want to do something privately. And then if they want to talk about it moving forward, I don't think that this plan separates that.

Right, so the distinction of taking away new is not necessary.

But I think it makes an implication that there will be a new performing arts center versus can the century two building be further improved? So it could be the stellar performing arts center, or maybe it needs to be repurposed. But that conversation right now with the implication of the word new implies that Century 2 is not the performing arts center, but there will be a new performing arts center.

I hear you, Mayor. I think we're getting into semantics, though. I think both buildings can still serve a purpose. Like, the word new doesn't take away from this historic building not having a purpose. Perhaps there is a smaller grassroots theater that says, listen, we don't need this new performing arts facility and all these seats that are in here. We need century two. That meets our needs, that meets our budget. And because there are public dollars invested in this building, they're able to offer at a rate that is more in alignment with what we are able to provide. So I just, again, I get really uncomfortable when we start trying to dictate what some of these nonprofit organizations do, some of these private organizations do. I mean, we've acknowledged that both can exist, so why does removing the word new have to mean that century two is not relevant?

I think for me it just implies that it's not even an option to use it or repurpose as a performing arts center. perhaps it's not what we should be doing and perhaps that's not but i just want to take that off the table as saying automatically right now our vision that it will not be used as a repurposed performing arts center i think that should be on the table that may not be what rises to the top i think when we're looking at this in the future and if a private philanthropy wants to come and build a new performing arts center then yes i think century 2 has a different life and a different purpose but i just don't My only concern is restricting it right now and saying, no matter what, we don't want this to be the performing arts center if there's another one built. I think it should just be a consideration and an option.

If I may, Mayor, because I don't want to take away from my colleagues who have been patiently waiting on the board, so I apologize about this. As someone who serves on the downtown Wichita board for the past, gosh, I've been on the council for eight months, I'm sorry, been on the council for eight months and I've served on the downtown Wichita board, for about six of those eight months I've seen the work that has gone in to engaging the community as well as prior to that I had the opportunity to attend the Jeff Speck conversation and so I guess I just trust that the due diligence was done more engagement always right we can always have more engagement there's never enough engagement but I do believe that there are people particularly who are in the performing arts industry who will tell you that there is a need There is a need, and I think that by changing that one word, we are really putting ourselves in a very interesting situation. Again, I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Century 2 is here, in my opinion. I'm not in favor of getting rid of Century 2. I'm in favor and have said over and over again, if it's here, it needs investment to ensure that the talent that is operating within that building matches the infrastructure. But I do believe that we see several performing arts organizations saying consistently that a performing arts facility with different needs and purposes is also just as relevant.