Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the informal meeting of the Joplin City Council for Monday, November the 17th, 2025.

We're gonna begin with a financial information update.

Good evening, Mrs.

Haas.

Good evening, Mayor Council.

Um, tonight I'm going to present uh some sales and use tax information.

Uh this is for November, so the first month of the fiscal year.

Um for sales tax, we are essentially flat with November of last year.

Uh you can see just up 0.12 percent.

Um that does put us a little bit over budget for the first month by eight almost 8300.

Um, and then down at the bottom you can see uh we budgeted uh 8.36 percent, but we're sitting at 8.4 percent.

Uh and then on use tax uh for November of this year compared to November of last year, we're up 45 and a half percent, which is a little over 66,000.

Uh so you can see year to date actual, we're at 9.42 percent versus budget of 8.5%.

And then on the marijuana additional sales tax uh November of this year compared to last year, um, we're up uh just over 10 percent, which is uh not quite $3,500.

Uh so actual is 8.31% versus budget up 7.91 percent.

Uh I don't have the general fund expenditures because we don't close October until about the end of November.

Uh so next month I'll have the preliminary October information for you as well as November.

But with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Council.

Questions for our finance director.

I see none, Leslie.

Thank you.

Thank you.

2026 events preview.

Mr.

Tuttle, good evening.

Evening, Mayor, evening council.

Uh, just gonna give you a quick look at some things that are going on for 2026 and some of the exciting points.

Uh five years ago, you all gave me the uh centennial commission, and we worked on the 2021 bicentennial and then the 2023 Joplin Sesqua Centennial, and the final two uh big events coming up are the USA 250 and the Route 66 Centennial.

So it's been a really interesting uh road to get all these things in, and this is some of the highlights that we're doing for the for the next year that are happening.

Obviously, the biggest thing for the centennial is our rural street painting festival.

We're uh we're gonna go to the old Walmart location on 7th Street across from Sign Design, and we're putting uh 20 plus.

Uh I say plus because this time around, Spiva is partnered with the Rural Street Painting Foundation, and they're doing some classes, so they're gonna have at least uh up to 10 uh students that can come in and be a part of this as well.

So we have the 20 artists coming in and maybe uh up to 10 more uh adding it in there.

So it's gonna be quite a gallery.

Uh that time we'll have 33 plus uh 3D art in the ground for the centennial.

It'll be the world's largest collection of 3D art uh for a short time.

Uh we've also got the great race coming back in uh next year, next on Father's Day.

This is the third time in five years that it's come through here.

Uh when they were here last in 23, we talked to about doing a celebration thing during Centennial, during the 66th centennial, and they finally figured out how to do it.

So they're starting in Springfield, Illinois and going to Pasadena, California, and overnighting here on the second night of the of the event.

Uh one of the other big events that's coming up is the World Cup in uh hitting the Kansas City market.

Jim Rowland will be here in a few minutes to talk to you during the formal about some of the preparations in there.

But it's uh gonna be a big event for America.

The president today mentioned about three thirty billion dollars of revenue for the whole country.

Uh you see on the slide there.

This is the first time that three nations have hosted it.

16 cities, 48 teams, and 104 matches.

It's gonna be really amazing, and it'll be putting uh Kansas City definitely on the world stage of things going on.

Uh last year we had the first year of uh Silver Sage Renaissance in town, and they're back again uh this year, and they're moving to four weekends for the different themed weekends, and this year they're gonna be doing two of them.

And each of the week is a different type of Elizabethan type theme.

So it's exciting to have them on board and being a part of it as well.

Uh the uh fairgrounds, the old speedway turning into fairgrounds will be hosting the Route 66 Hot Air Balloon and Kites Festival again.

They're gonna be adding some features there and negotiating to do some more events during the day and make it a fun full pack day of of activities.

So it's gonna be exciting to see what they pull up there with with all those uh coming into town.

They uh this year they got four of the six events up in the air, which is good for a balloon event.

We didn't have that many uh challenges with wind, but it's gonna be great to have them doing uh some great stuff again in the skies over Joplin.

This will be the uh around the the week before Labor Day weekend.

And over uh Memorial Weekend, you all remember uh Memorial Hall with the buff the with the uh the bull riding.

Uh Jeff is bringing his entire rodeo to the fairgrounds uh over Memorial Day weekend.