Kansas City City Council Meeting Summary - December 11, 2025
Kansas City City Council Meeting - December 11, 2025
The City Council convened to address three primary agenda items: the codification of the Economic Development Incentive Policy, a winter weather operations update from the Public Works Department, and an update on Cold Weather Shelters for the unhoused population. The meeting focused on establishing clear policy frameworks to ensure equitable economic growth, reviewing municipal preparedness for extreme winter conditions, and expanding shelter capacity through public-private partnerships. Council members expressed strong support for the new economic development roadmap while raising questions regarding operational transparency and resource allocation for snow and shelter services.
Consent Calendar
- The Council unanimously approved the minutes of the previous meeting via motion, second, and a voice vote of "aye."
Public Comments & Testimony
- Councilman Curls: Expressed concern regarding the delay in trash collection due to snow events, noting that delays can extend into weekends, leaving trash out for an extended period in his district. He requested a clear, communicated plan for resuming these services to prevent prolonged storage of waste.
- Councilman Rogers: Highlighted inconsistencies in snow clearing on school district routes and detour roads, citing accidents caused by inadequate plowing on detours. He urged the city to prioritize school bus routes and emergency routes to ensure student safety.
- Councilman Patterson: Noted an overrepresentation of services and shelter beds in the Third District compared to other areas, advocating for a more citywide equitable distribution of resources and requesting a visual map of service locations.
Discussion Items
Economic Development Incentive Policy Update
- Councilwoman Boo (Presenter): Presented an ordinance codifying existing, previously scattered economic development policies. She outlined a multi-phase roadmap (6-18 months) directed at the City Manager to:
- Develop a new community benefits analysis structure based on clear public priorities and transparent scoring.
- Create a tiered incentive policy incorporating location-based metrics and targeted industries.
- Establish an incentive toolbox and public-facing portal for efficiency.
- Conduct an audit of economic development agencies.
- Develop plans for City-owned land assembly, event programming, and future transit needs.
- Mayor Pro Tem Tim: Expressed support for the initiative, emphasizing the need for a "tiered rate system" to remove guesswork from project evaluation and ensure taxpayers receive a tangible return on investment compared to private investors.
- Councilman Bunch: Praised the effort to move away from a "rudderless," project-by-project approach toward a systematic framework that clearly defines public benefit expectations.
- Councilman Patterson: Urged the Council to address the tension between staff commitments made to developers before Council approval and the need for policy consistency. He advocated for a clear policy framework that prevents political exceptions and ensures staff actions align with Council directives.
- Councilman Curls: Emphasized the need for the new policies to specifically spur economic development in the 5th District, which he noted feels left out and underserved compared to other parts of the city.
- Councilwoman Boo (Response): Confirmed that the goal is to provide certainty and clear expectations for developers and staff alike, ensuring that future deals align with established policy goals to avoid surprises or exceptions.
Winter Weather Operations Update
- Michael Saw (Director of Public Works) & Blaine Proctor (Director of Housing): Provided a technical overview of snow operations, including:
- Preparation: Training began in September; routes were condensed from 60 to 92 to improve efficiency and speed of service.
- Resources: 11,000 tons of ice melt, 32,000 tons of salt, and 60,000 gallons of brine on hand.
- Recent Storm Performance: Acknowledged challenges with frigid temperatures, high winds preventing pre-treatment, and a 10-12 hour active snow event. Reported substantial road clearing within 18 hours after the snow stopped.
- Councilman Raya: Questioned the forecasting models used (American vs. European). Director Saw confirmed reliance on "Weather or Not" and local forecasts, promising to research the European model's accuracy.
- Councilman Raya (Follow-up): Inquired about the suspension of trash services. Director Saw explained the policy generally triggers suspension at 5-6 inches of snow or temperatures below negative 15°F to protect staff from frostbite.
- Councilman Curls (Follow-up): Reiterated concerns about trash delays spilling over to the weekend and requested confirmation of a plan to minimize the duration of out-of-service periods.
- Councilman Rogers & Curls: Coordinated requests to integrate school district emergency routes into the city's prioritization system and to track metrics on routes near schools and detours to improve safety for students.
- General Discussion: Council members acknowledged the immense scale of the city (318 square miles) and noted that while performance was good compared to St. Louis (4 weeks vs. 9 days), there is always room for improvement in communication and route management.
Cold Weather Shelters for the Unhoused
- Deputy Director of Housing: Presented the shelter activation plan based on temperature thresholds:
- Level 1: <32°F (790 beds available).
- Level 2: <10-25°F (Adds beds, total increases).
- Level 4: ≤10°F (Adds 66 beds at Turning Point, total 931 beds).
- Funding: The City funds 491 beds, while community partners leverage additional beds to reach a total of 931. All beds are currently fully utilized.
- Councilman Curls: Emphasized the success of leveraging partnerships to double bed capacity. Expressed concern that the additional beds at Turning Point are only available at the lowest temperature threshold (Level 4) and encouraged expanding access at higher temperatures in the north.
- Councilman Patterson: Requested a citywide map overlaying current shelter bed locations vs. areas of need (encampments) to address the perceived overrepresentation of services in the Third District and ensure equitable distribution.
Key Outcomes
- Motion Carried: Unanimous approval of the minutes.
- Policy Roadmap Established: The Council agreed to the ordinance codifying existing policies and directing the City Manager to develop a comprehensive, equitable economic development framework. The ordinance is scheduled for committee review next Tuesday.
- Operational Directives: The Council directed Public Works to explore integrating school bus routes into snow prioritization and to improve data communication regarding road closures and detours.
- Shelter Expansion Confirmation: Confirmed that the City has successfully expanded cold weather shelter capacity to 931 beds through partnerships, with immediate action items to provide mapped data to the Council to analyze service distribution equity.
- Audio Equipment Note: Councilman O'Neill confirmed that IT improvements were made to enhance microphone audio clarity for council members.
Meeting Transcript
All right, we're gonna go ahead and call our business session meeting to order. We'll start with the first item on the agenda, the approval of minutes. There are motion. So moved. Thank you. It's been moved to properly second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that motion carries. All right, our next item on the agenda is the update on the economic development incentive policy and next steps. Councilwoman Chairwoman Boo. Thank you, Mayor Pratem. I am very excited to be here today. It's been a little bit longer coming than I had anticipated, but uh we are at the next step in our update of the economic development and incentive policy. Um we'll see if I can do two things at once. Um just to give a little bit of a background about um kind of where we are and leading up to this. Um our current um basis for our incentive policy, advanced KC was um adopted around 2012. Um of the implementation phase came in 2013, and then in 2014 was the enactment of the academic development incentive policy for the city and repealing the private uh prior policy. Um part of the reason I am showing this slide is not only to show when the last um major policy was revised and adopted, but also to show kind of the progress of when the expression of intent occurred in 2012 to really the adoption of the overall policy. So this process does take time, and to ensure that we have a thorough review and engagement, um, this is only the next step in that process. Also, um our city attorney will be impressed. I actually read the city charter, and in the city charter, it provides that the city shall enact policies that reflect best practices for, among other things, the use of economic development or economic um incentives. Um the citywide business plan, as we just adopted an update, provides for inclusive growth and development, and I'm not gonna read exactly what it says with respect to that because we just uh went over that in committee and adopted here on the council. I'm not very good at PowerPoints because I put too many words on it, but uh then I won't read them all, but I just wanted to provide some information. Um I want to talk about where we are now and what our next steps are. Um, the council um adopted an ordinance to authorize a contract with Angelo Economics. They were here in late 2024 and early 2025 and did a series of stakeholder engagements to gather some information. They issued a report which is attached to the ordinance that will be introduced later today, um, and really provided um an assessment of where we are currently with economic development policies, identify goals and priorities through our stakeholder meetings, and gathered best practices relating to economic development tools and policy. The ordinance that is going to be introduced, first of all, codifies our existing policies. That's why it's 67 pages. The recommendations that we have are not only about the first four pages. Um, but I think it's important as we undertake this next step is to ensure that all of our policies are written down in one place. Um I've told this story often, but um before we undertook this step, um Jerry Riffle texted me and said, Can you send me the ordinances on economic development? And my first reaction was Jerry, don't you have an associate at your law firm that can do this? Um but then I said um I want to do this exercise just to see how difficult it is to identify all of our ordinances that we've adopted that have not been codified and gather them and to try to understand what the current state of our policies were. And it wasn't it wasn't easy, and I am not sure that I got them all. Um but that that is what the majority of this ordinance um does. The next part of it, which is actually the first few pages, is the directs the city manager to do certain things. I don't think that blank spot in the center uh box is intentional. I think it was my intent to try to make these slides um fancy, and I just lost the text, but we'll get to what we're directing the city manager to do in just a few minutes. It also outlines a timeline of the four different phases that range from six to nine months all the way up to 12 to 18 months. We're not going to try to do this all at once. We're going to give time and deliberation in order to make sure we have a sound policy that is fully thought out and fully engaged. So what does this ordinance do? It changes nothing to our current policy. It simply codifies the policy and creates a roadmap for crafting and implementing the updated plan. Today's purpose is to present the directives to ensure they align with council's goals, and the next steps throughout the process of policy development, there will be opportunity for council and public engagement. That council involvement starts today with reviewing the directives to make sure that we are all in agreement. And we already have a list of changes that will be in a committee substitute as this goes to council next or goes to committee next Tuesday.
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