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.

So we want to make sure that this first ordinance is it gives you all time to provide your feedback.

The plan is for it to go to committee on Tuesday, but we will not anticipate it being passed out until after the first of the year.

Our overall objectives are to ensure economic development projects in Kansas City promote equitable economic development to line the policies with the city policy priorities, and that is generally our citywide business plan.

We set forth our policies that not only inform our budget, but should also set establish those priorities with respect to economic development.

And finally, to achieve efficiency and economic development process and effectively evaluate their performance.

But there are also a few other objectives that we want to undertake.

We want to engage our economic development agencies and Port KC in developing our recommendations.

And I just want to thank Tracy Lewis, Dan Moy, and John Stevens for being here today.

One thing that is going to be important as we move forward is to ensure that we have collaboration and cooperation in implementing our updated policy.

We want to incorporate public feedback and engagement opportunities prior to any final policy recommendations coming before this council.

And we want to have undertake an audit of our economic development agencies to ensure that they are running efficiency, efficiently.

No one is more important than the other.

And this is really coming straight from the ordinance now.

It would direct the city manager to reevaluate and recommend revisions to our current incentive policy and prioritize economic equity that includes the following actions.

Developing a new community benefits analysis structure, structured around the clear public priorities, transparent scoring and recommend how to use this scorecard or analysis.

And I want to stop just right there for a second to talk a little bit about this.

We've had an advanced KC scorecard.

In committee this week, he had some very important questions to ask.

How does a project provide benefits to the community?

This tool, this analysis, I hope, will be able to provide what we as a council think are important, so that it will give developers and others an opportunity to say, here's what the council thinks important.

I should answer these questions.

And so we may not, and this is something for all of us to discuss.

We may not use this tool in the way that it has been used in the past.

And I think that's something that we should all talk about as we move forward.

How best to use this tool in evaluating economic development projects.

Secondly, develop recon and make recommendations for a tiered incentive policy that incorporates location-based metrics and targeted industries.

This, and I want to talk about the two kind of A and B, the the location base metrics and targeted industries.

We talk about them in areas of that need to be developed.

We've all heard Councilman Curls talk about the needs of the 5th district and ensure that when we are developing policies, and it really is kind of a planning-based approach to say this is an area that we would like to see certain development occur in certain areas.

And perhaps the tiered incentives will be tied to those locations as well as targeted industries.

What about the other areas?

How do we evaluate those?

This discussion in this area does not necessarily eliminate the need for incentives.

How do we ensure that really what Councilman Duncan was saying earlier this week when we are moving towards a public-private partnership, we can ensure that the public receives benefits as well as the private.

Develop an incentive toolbox that may be on that same public-facing portal.

One thing that as we were going through this process, I tried to you know get online and find more information about you know what is advanced KC.

There's there's not a lot of information available, and what we want to do is make that information available to our local developers, developers that are coming outside of Kansas City, or to the general public who want to know more about what the city is doing with respect to our incentives and our incentive policies.

This there was a specific recommendation.

I can't remember the city that was mentioned in the Angelo report.

But this would help with the efficiency that you pretty much go online, and for certain programs, if you meet if you meet all the criteria that you can get a permit almost instantly.

I'll leave that to the experts.

That's an easy uh that's the easy um explanation, but there's more information in the the report about that.

Um it would also create a policy that engage and supports neighborhood-based organizations in a proactive economic development in proactive economic development.

We have some of that now, uh, but just to expand uh into gauge neighborhood organizations.

Um we get to evaluation and accountability.

This is all about data collection, performance reporting, again, dashboards, and evaluating our economic development projects at the end.

We spend a lot of time evaluating them at the beginning, but ensuring we have a mechanism as they go through the process to evaluate and re-evaluate to ensure that our policies that we adopt now work.

Um moving quickly, there's a lot, but we've got a few weeks to go through these.

Um the area of land use.

Um we talk about economic development.

Um, I think a lot of time land use and land development is the first thing that comes to mind.

That is great, but I also want to encourage us to think beyond traditional uh land development, but we're gonna talk about land use.

Um the the first item listed is to develop a plan for how city-owned parcels might uh be assembled.

I think this is probably very akin to the putting assets to work program.

Um what I what I want to be clear though is on this or any other thing that we have listed in this ordinance.

We're not looking to duplicate what's already there.

For example, some of the programs, and I'll look again to the third district that that you have started doing this process.

That should be incorporated in what we do.

It should we're not looking to um to duplicate, um, but if if all of our policies can be in one central location or at least reference those to ensure that we are working together as a city with one goal in mind.

Um the second is to activate city-owned land by promoting event programming to generate revenue and strengthen the local creative economy.

We do that to some extent.

I know uh Councilman Rea, you have mentioned this as an opportunity, perhaps some of our park plans to to use those in a way to generate um generate income to have events that we see in other cities.

Um Casey Spirit playbook recommendations.

There are numerous recommendations that are in the Casey Spirit Playbook with respect to economic development.

Connor wanted to put them all in the ordinance, and I said this is gonna be a hundred pages long before we get done.

And finally, is to develop a plan for how the city will anticipate and address future transit needs, including with respect to freight and the last mile connectivity.

So this is our opportunity, even under land use to say we're going to go beyond what is traditional land development.

Before I take questions, um I just want to thank a few people, and I have them written down here, and I meant to do it at the beginning, and I didn't.

So this process has been going on for quite a long time, and I want to thank Abby Judah, Kyle Elliott, Nia Richardson, uh Reed Day, Sean Carroll, from our the Sixth District Office, uh, Katrina Foster, John Santner, who um they've been involved in this process from the beginning and have done pretty much everything from hurting people around to making sure this uh presentation was on.

Um and then I've had several groups of interns that have worked, Bari Patel, um Jasmine Gammel, uh Caroline Shop, Story Downing, who's now in our office again.

Um Emily McBride helped me with this uh PowerPoint presentation, and all the errors are mine and not Emily's.

I just want to say that.

Um Dietra Johnson, Madison Hayes.

Um also want to thank Dan Moy, John Stevens, and Brian Rabineau for being here, Tracy Lewis.

But I want to especially thank Connor, Emily Kaler.

The two of them have been have put so much work on this.

I get to do all the talking, but they did the lion's share of the work.

I also want to thank uh Morgan Holichak, Katherine Nace, Reed Day.

Um I think I've listed everyone, and that's a problem about listing people because then you're gonna forget someone.

I think I've hit everyone.

I just want to say thank you.

Please, if you have a lot of people.

Did you want to thank Kevin and get it through?

I want to thank Kevin for not pointing out my errors.

Um but um this has been, I mean, truly, I'm we probably had 120 people, if not more at the stakeholder groups.

Um, but this is only the beginning.

Um, and so I want to thank everyone.

I would I'm happy to take questions now, but know that we are going to be seeking your thoughts and comments on each of the the items and in this as we move forward before we pass this out of committee.

So I will stop talking.

All right, well, thank you so much for the presentation.

Um I saw Councilman Raya first, so we'll start with the Mayor Pro Tim.

I do have questions.

I think I'll have ample opportunity over the coming weeks, especially in committee to go through those.

I just want to say thank you for getting us to this point.

I know this has been a heavy lift to even get us to this point, and you've been trying to coordinate a lot.

Um, so thank you, and I'm looking forward to the continued conversation.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim.

Uh equally just want to impart uh my thanks for your leadership on this.

Um I know it has been uh a labor of love, sometimes not so much love.

Um and and I think you know, to my comments uh in committee earlier this week, um, and some conversations that I had actually today with some colleagues, um, I think we all want to see um beautiful projects be built in our city.

Our city deserves it, our residents deserve it.

The question is how do we rate those projects as far as what is the both one, the immediate return on investment that we're going to see?

Are these how are these projects meeting our policy goals, achieving our policy goals, um, and how do we rate them?

And I think this provides um phase one of how how we get to that system, that tiered rate system, um, so that we can take the guesswork out of it and really say, well, we're hitting this metric, and we're hitting this metric, it's gonna create this many jobs, it's gonna provide this, and is and then we can weigh that out.

Is that does that justify um the tax breaks and incentives and the taxpayer dollars because when we're funding these projects with taxpayer money, the taxpayers need need a return just as much as their investors need a return.

And I think what I always try to impart, and and maybe um not so delicately sometimes, is that the investors are gonna get the return much quicker than the projections are gonna give a return um in their projections for uh residents, and the investors are usually guaranteed their return, and sometimes these projects don't pan out.

And then where's the return for the for the for the investor for for our people for our constituents who were responsible for our clients?

Um so thank you for this.

I'm excited to uh to dig in and um we don't we're not here without you, so that's so thank you.

Uh Councilman Bunch.

Yeah, I uh you know we've we've gone around and around on incentives for a long time, um, even prior to I think our time on this council together, and and at times it's felt a bit rudderless, and it's been kind of project by project, and is there's still gonna be evaluating projects, each one on their own merits.

However, um, you know, the old framework was a bit a bit outdated, I think, and I I think there's a different expectation of what of what the public benefit really should be or is in any of these projects, and um, and you know, I think we all were saying we need to do something, and we need to do it.

It's like, well, who's gonna do it?

And you thankfully stepped up to do it.

I and so all this is to say thank you for the work you put into this because I know it was a monumental task, and uh I can think of nobody better at navigating that and threading that needle than uh then you, Councilwoman Boo.

So thank you for for all of it, and I look forward to the conversations uh on this to go, and I think this is something that you know at the end of our term.

It's uh something I think that you're gonna be really proud of, and you should be proud of, and I'm proud of you, so thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Councilman Patterson.

Thank you, uh Mayor Protim.

Also, uh thank you, Councilwoman Boo, for bringing this effort forward.

I think one of the things we also need to discuss as a matter of our economic development policy is I don't know how to articulate this, but where is the where does staff decisions begin or end or begin and council decisions start begin or end?

So one of the things that I've noticed is that a lot of projects will get um promises from uh either the manager's office, not you, Mario.

Uh well, I don't know what you're up to, but I've seen it in the past.

You might be doing it too.

Um, but I've seen in the past where before the council has actually seen a project, it's gotten quite a few assertions from our professional staff.

Um, one of the things I've noticed is um, for example, promises for infrastructure, um investment, promises for incentives, and and those things kind of give guarantees to the development community, and so they're off to the races on their project before we even know that it's a thing.

By the time we see it is so far along.

Sometimes I feel like saying no is I don't know, diseng.

I mean, I I feel between a rock and a hard place sometimes because professional staff has made so many commitments.

Um, and are those commitments being made through the lens of the economic development pop policy of this body.

I don't think so.

Um, and so how do we get our hands around that?

And also, how do we create policy in a way that the political apparat apparatus can't supersede, you know, because we might have whatever policy and then we're just making exceptions after exceptions because you know we have relationships and and they do good projects.

So I think that that's something we need to discuss because as a m being the polity policy setting body, um sometimes I think that projects are being greenlit that don't overlap with any policy we've set.

Um so I I think you have Mario.

Yeah, but I think you've identified if we if we can do exactly what you've talked about, I think that we will have been a success in this policy.

Because I think what everyone wants is some certainty in the process, and that's a developer that's taxing jurisdictions.

Um, but not only being able to outline what our vision and our goals are with respect to economic development, just to be able to say this is what we expect to occur, and so that you know if if let's say Mario or the city manager, excuse me, um makes that deal, it's based upon clear policy goals, and that the developer or the school district or any other taxing jurisdiction knows that that is going to be in line with what our policy is, so that when he comes to us with a present uh proposal, we know that we can sign off on that because it is in line with our policy, and I think that is really the goal of having a clear and concise policy.

It may not be the same for every single project that comes through, but at least you can pick up something in our code of ordinances or one place and go and say, What can I expect when I go to the city or any of our agencies?

And the expectations, and I think I think we, you know, I I don't want to make excuses for anyone, but I think part of what I've said, you know, for several years now is I don't think we as a council have really said what we want.

And having served, you know, I I know before you were on the council, we served on the LCR CRA together, and it was hard for you know those agencies to really approve or disapprove of something because we haven't given directives as a council, and that's kind of the the first step here of saying, here's what we think here's what we want.

Now go and you know, follow the the playbook, the guidelines.

And so I think you're absolutely spot on, and then there won't be any surprises for anyone.

There won't be anyone coming and saying we were promised this big huge thing, and then we're like, well, we're not gonna approve that because that's not in line with our policies.

So you're absolutely right.

Councilman Carols.

Thank you, madam Mayor Pro Chim, and uh thank you, Councilwoman Boo, in regards to this and your work and due diligence on this.

Uh I um just want to say that I look forward to having continued conversations with you as uh all of my colleagues know uh and I'm gonna do it again, get on my soapbox and talk about how uh the fifth district needs more economic development, and I would hope that uh this going forward would help spur or help us give us a glide path into spurring more economic development in South Kansas City, as well as working with those developers and working with our colleagues in regards to making sure that that development is going to be beneficial to that community or those that lived in that community, and it's gonna be something that we can look back on and be proud of uh based upon where this is going, and I look forward to sharing my concerns, my suggestions with you, and as well as working with our entities, whether it's you know port authority, uh EDC, PIA, blah blah blah, all that, uh, in regards to how we can you know bring forth a development that's gonna benefit this whole city because we always talk about how we're one whole city and how we want to uh develop this city, but I can tell you, and as I've told all of you before, my cop my constituents in the fifth district doesn't feel like they are part of this city, and that's due to the lack of economic development.

So I'm open and looking forward to how we can incorporate this and make sure that those individuals that feel like they are left out or have been left out are starting to see something take place.

So thank you once again.

All right, any other discussions?

All right, well, thank you so much.

We appreciate all of your diligence, all your hard work on this, and look forward to having this in committee next week.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, uh, the next item is the winter weather update.

We're not gonna get any more snow, right?

It's not part of the economic development plan.

Not until after Friday, right?

Sorry.

Not until after Friday.

We got a road to open uh good afternoon.

Um Mayor Pro Tem and Committee Council.

Uh my name is Michael Saw, Director of Public Works.

Um, and we're I'm here with Blaine, Proctor Director of Housing, and his cohort partner in crime.

Yes, so um, we're gonna talk about the winter uh operations, uh winter preparedness.

Uh, I'm gonna start and talking about snow operations, and then Blaine will talk about um his section as relates to uh houseless uh houseless management.

Um that being said, and snow operations, um we have begun training.

Uh we have begun training uh snow plow operators in September of this year.

Um, and then generally speaking, when we do have a snow event, we have multiple departments that are engaged, uh, public works, water, parks, neighborhoods, planning, health, and general services.

Um when there is a snow event, we have regular team meetings, and generally it's one o'clock every day during the event, um, leading up to the event a couple days prior to the event, during the event, um, where we're always communicating as to what's going on with the event and that kind of thing.

So talk about stages, and essentially you have your PowerPoint in front of you, and we talk about the multiple stages.

Essentially, what the stages do it determines how and what kind of response that we give.

We generally have five stages.

Um this is the guideline.

There's times where we might modify that based on other data that comes in.

Um preparing for all kinds of different events and weather events that come in.

The biggest challenge with snow and weather is the freezing cold.

So how precipitation starts before the event, and um the frigid temperatures during and after the event really determine is the largest thing that determines how we respond between snow and ice and and and those types of things.

So the goal is always to make the streets safe as quick as possible.

Just a little bit of information about what we do.

44% of the fleet on the residential side is used in the Northland, 56 is in the south.

We have about 40 residential routes north of the river, 52 residential routes south of the river.

The material that we have on hand, we have about 11,000 tons of ice band with 2,000 tons of ice band on reserve, meaning when in January or February we'll call in and have more material brought in.

The same with salt.

We have 32,000 tons of salt on hand, 10,000 tons of salt on standby.

We also have calcium chloride, which we actually treat the salt to bring down the effective temperature that salt provides.

And then we also have, which is kind of new this year, is brine, 60,000 gallons of brine on hand with 12,000 available.

And that brine is largely used for pre-treating as part of our pre-treatment strategy.

Some of the things that we've done different that we're doing different this year than in the previous years, is we increase the number of residential routes.

Obviously, we know we had the historic storm last January, and some of those impacts.

So we reduce the size of the routes in order to try to help get to areas faster across the city.

And so as it stands today, we have 92 residential routes.

Now we're looking to do brine.

You can only do the brine when there's not a lot of precipitation in advance of the storm.

So Brian, it's when we use it.

Because if you recall that on the Saturday, the day before the event, we had a full day of rain and then high winds the very next day.

So that made it challenging to brine the to do brinding prior to the to the event to come out.

The other thing we did is increase training and adding the driving simulators.

One of the things we recognize is that we have some because we use employees from all across the city, things like plowing cul-de-sacs or even plowing at all.

You know, it's hard to simulate plowing, you know, without being in a simulator or actually in the snow, so that we can give them some of the tools they need to be successful.

We also increase our communication pieces and the ongoing technology that we need in order to improve our performance and how we manage the performance.

Some of our ongoing operational improvements that are just ongoing things that we got to continue to work on and that we're continuing to do is that we're looking at uh implementing uh Samsera, which is a software that is also going to help in potholes, but um, but it also helps in snow removal, um integrating technology that helps us see things better, integrating in things like you know, street plates, road closures, and other obstacles that allows us to actually route people better, more efficiently to get get service done better.

Obviously, we always have the the need for more equipment or new equipment, I should say, and then um we're looking at improving operational level performance management at the operator level by being able to uh utilize software and understanding how they're doing what they're doing and the way they're doing it, so that we can improve how they're doing it.

Um as an example, if we can improve an operator, if we have a in a bigger storm, we'll have 350 people out, 175 per shift out doing that.

If we can improve their efficiency by one hour, that's 350 hours a day of improved service delivery, which obviously has a substantial impact on the quality of work that's being done on the roads.

So we're looking at making those front-level solutions.

So I mean, that's the the large sum of the presentation generally of how we do our snow, you know, snow plan and what snow operations is.

Um, and I do have a timeline of what happened in the large snow that happened in January that's there for your review if you just had any questions about that.

So there I'll either turn over Blaine or answer questions.

I don't know how you want me to proceed with that.

Uh go ahead, Councilman Raya.

Thank you, uh Madam Mayor for the Tim.

Um I I do want to hear your thoughts on our preparedness for the most recent storm uh that we experienced a couple weeks ago.

Um I think there were some things that that made it difficult.

That being maybe the snow started a little earlier, uh, that it lasted for a longer period of time.

I'm not entirely sure what our pretreatment operation looked like, but I and this is just anecdotally speaking.

I did notice a little more criticism from folks on this storm than in some of the previous ones last year that were maybe a little larger.

And so uh could you could you walk us through our preparedness for this most recent snowstorm and your level of satisfaction with how we performed with that storm and what your level of confidence is for our ability moving forward for the rest of the winter, and then just a second question before you get into all that.

Do we uh rely on the American forecasting model or the European forecasting model or both?

Uh I'm not sure what you mean by American or European, but we use um uh a service called weather or not, and obviously we look at our local forecasts as well.

Um that's what we kind of use to actually determine how we uh what the weather would be.

Okay.

I the so there's I was talking to Councilman Bunch about this just a second ago.

Um there's been some documented uh evidence that the European forecasting model historically speaking is more accurate.

Um there's a big deal about it with Hurricane Sandy uh many many years ago about how the American forecasting model had a big miss, and there have been other examples of that uh documented where the American model is is uh I don't know if it's maybe more conservative, but the European model has historically been more accurate, especially with big storms.

And so I I don't know if what we rely on is maybe an aggregate or combination of both, but um I was uh uh just curious about that, given that I think uh you know, if you watch our meteorologists, sometimes they will present both the American and the European model and you know, explain that they're relying on both.

I will do a little research on it and give it a so uh very specifically about the last storm.

Um I feel we was very well prepared.

Um obviously the challenge that we had in the last snow, we had frigid days before the um snow even came.

So we were actually doing bridge frost work, meaning frosting hills and curves, hills, curves, and and overpasses uh because we did have freezing temperatures on days before that.

On the Saturday before this storm came in, we had a full day of rain.

Um so any kind of pre-treatment we would have done was gonna be lost because of the rain, whether it would be brinding or salting.

So we just again stayed with hills curves and overpasses.

We began um, and if you recall that on Thursday on the Sunday before the snow came in, very high winds.

So we wouldn't had enough time to brine the entire city.

Brine would have been the preferred method of manage that.

We wouldn't have enough time to do the entire city because we have to switch the trucks back and forth.

Uming that the storm was going to come in on Monday morning.

So what the strategy was was to begin salt treatment, and we began salt treatment Sunday night seven.

The crews came in Sunday night at seven and began salting the city overnight.

And then the storm came in.

Now, when the storm came in, it did come in a little earlier, and it was an all-day snow, right?

So it lasted almost you know, 10 to 12 hours of just snowfall.

It's hard to remove that snow when it's snowing, right?

Because you can plow and then it's it's gonna come right back.

You know, new snow comes back.

So that's always a challenge when you have these long snow events like that.

What we try to do is say 24 to 48 hours after the snow falls is when you start seeing you'll be able to clear the roads or seeing clear roads.

Um the fact that people were actually still driving on the in the conditions, it even makes it even more challenging to even clear the street when you have people on the street driving, you know.

So you have to be careful of them as well.

Um which you know, here or there, that's just the reality of how we do the business, right?

Um we did get substantial completion or substantial clearing of the roads within 18 hours after the event stopped snowing.

So, from that perspective, I think that was well well done in the grand scheme of things.

Um, you know, could we have done things better?

Absolutely.

You always look at you know, plan do check, reevaluate on what you can do.

Um improvement is a continuous process.

Um you know, knowing what we know, it would have been figuring out how we could have um had more pre-treatment in sooner.

Maybe we the concern we had about starting sooner on the pretreatment was the high winds blowing the salt off the street, right?

And then the pre-treatment becomes less effective because it's not setting in the road, it kind of gets blown off to the side.

So we we said, well, if we did it at night, we'll reduce the you know the driving where people are blowing the blowing the salt and those type of things.

So it's overnight.

So we it was a rush, you know, the overnight rush was was was legit to try and get as much pre-treated as possible during that time.

But if there's an active snow going on and there's people driving, we couldn't win that.

The expectation to clear during an event is is a challenge.

I don't think we can meet that expectation, no matter how much equipment we had out there.

It's actively snowing, it's an active event.

Um but post-event, I think they did very well.

Um, and then even after that was over, we had frigid temperatures, so now we were concerned about refreeze.

So one of the challenges that now we cleared the road, and even though the snow was pushed off to the side of the road, it's gonna start melting, and now we have a chance of refreeze.

So now we're on ice control.

So we kept crews available to manage and continue to pre-treat to prevent ice buildup or ice control on the roads to continue to reduce um you know the hazard, the road hazard itself.

So that was ultimately the strategy that that we employed.

I feel we're very well prepared to handle any event that comes here.

Um so yeah, my confidence is high on our ability to manage in the future.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

For what it's worth, I was out driving around for a lot of that day, and it didn't seem terrible.

I didn't have any major issues.

I know the mayor was on social media talking about driving out in his 2003 sedan or whatever he was out driving and didn't have any issues.

So 2013, not 2013.

Okay, I was gonna say that's a you can get them a new car.

Um, but uh you know, just from my own observations, I did not have any issues.

So, of course, always appreciate the work our folks are putting in out there.

Thank you.

Councilman Blanch.

Yeah, real quick.

Um also just something I think for the public and our and all of us to always think about is you know, in comparison comparing to other communities.

Um, I think one of the operative, maybe perhaps a way to think about it is maybe you could shed some light on this, but how many trucks and people to operate those trucks per lane mile do we have versus a Leewood or a Prairie Village or North Kansas City or and so they may be able to do more just simply because they have fewer miles, but a higher ratio of trucks to miles or something.

But just one way maybe that I try to think about it.

Um we got a lot of ground to cover in this 318 square mile city, so um it's not no easy task, but um it's been some of the the operation is there, and I see it, and I've gone out to get on those trucks a couple times, so I appreciate the work that you're putting in.

It's we missed you on the bike lanes, by the way.

You call me up anytime, I'll be there.

But we got to the bike lanes uh within 16 hours, actually.

Right, yeah, thank you so much.

Uh councilman French.

Um I do appreciate all the work that you've gone into and all the conversations that we've had from the last season into the new season and the operational improvements.

Um, and just looking at the numbers, when particular to the Northland 40 routes, um total now that was 28 before, now there's 40 south of the river, there's 34, now there's 52.

So there's new routes, or were there longer routes that then were condensed into shorter routes and for more efficiency, or these routes that were routinely missed before that just weren't in our system, or how how are you defining new routes?

Well, we condensed the routes.

The the the residential routes, we had you know 60 residential routes, and they were very big.

The issue with the big route is as somebody's pushing the snow, uh, it's gonna take them longer to get to the end.

So whoever's at the end of the route is going to get you, you know, the the buildup is going to be a lot more substantial, right?

And so that was one of the lessons learned from the the previous snow.

And so the strategy is you know, it does take more trucks, it takes more people, but condense those routes so that we're pushing more collectively that we can get things done a little bit faster.

And um, it's our first run based on what we call time and distance, the logistics of how long how long does it take you to get this far?

And so that's what we're measuring, and we got to continue to measure that.

There may even be more improvements.

This is our first tech chance to get to use that strategy based on what we think.

Now we can actually see how we performed and then what continuous tweaks we need to make in order to make sure we get from point A to point B in a timely manner.

Um, and and that's what's important the logistics of how we do it, um which helps us make sure we can be effective, not so much efficient, but effective in our service.

Okay, thank you.

And then as far as those routes, um is it I guess tracked on when like obviously we have the they've done it within the next two hours within four hours with six hours, but once the the storm has passed and we've cleared those routes, and are we still running trucks through those routes?

Even so I the reason I ask is a couple neighborhoods and stuff that I live close to.

There were still trucks running at like 10 30 at night, and the roads were very clear, you know, the morning of, and we still had uh one of the just regular white you know commercial trucks and then um the larger actual snow plow as we're running it kind of in tandem at 10 30 at night, just driving up and down the streets, but not really plow having anything to plow.

So we're pushing Kurt, we're pushing things back.

You know, again, we always want to go curve to curve and not just a single pass.

So when you go curve to curve, it takes multiple passes, number one.

Number two, even after the event was over, we continue to treat because we know we was in fear of refreeze, and so that's because as the snow begins to melt and the temperatures drop, ice forms, and so we have to prepare for refreeze, especially in the next morning because it's colder overnight, and then in the morning when people get out, it's gonna be ice, and so we we try to pre prevent that from occurring when they get out in the next morning.

Appreciate that.

And then as far as the snow operation, the stages of response, um there's some conversations that we've been having in the Northland.

Actually, Councilman Woolett and I have been having conversations with the the school district as well.

And I know Councilman Rogers and I and Councilman Willett and O'Neill, a big um initiative of ours is safe routes to schools, and just being able to get the students to school, and that's a lot of the feedback that we get is not being able to get students to school, so then parents have to stay home or have to adjust their work schedule, they're not able to get to work.

So, some of the conversations we've had, um I didn't know if where this would fit and kind of your priority staging, but working with the school districts and working with their actual snow routes themselves, like they have their school bus routes and then they have their emergency snow routes.

So I obviously we're not gonna be able to focus on the entirety of the school bus routes because that's mainly all residential routes, um, but if we can work with them to work with their emergency snow routes, school bus routes, in order to get those at a prior higher priority so we can get the students in school.

We can certainly look into that.

Okay.

Um, and then the last thing I have, just because this is very top of mind of Councilman Rogers and I.

Um, there are certain street closures, road closures um in our district, and so therefore we have detours, and then the detour itself was not part of um the road in any of the priority, I guess, wherever that fell in the priority.

If the detour itself was not taken care of and plowed adequately, so then we ended up having three, four accidents on that road itself with um people trying to traverse that detour.

Um, and so therefore people were trying to then use the road that was supposed to be closed instead saying that road was safer detour itself.

Okay.

Um not really a question.

Yeah, I mean, that's I mean, as you can see, one of the things we do talk about is road closures and how do you manage that data and information?

Um we get the data, but it's all not communicating, right?

We should be able to see if we're writing a permit and it goes into our permit system, the operation side should be able to see that.

And currently it doesn't because systems aren't connected and communicating, and so we have to really work on connecting and communicating that from the operation side so that we can get information faster so that things like that can be addressed.

Um, because you're correct that that should be a priority, but if if we just don't know, it's going on all over the city, right?

We you know, it's hard to know every one of those in the heat of battle, so to speak, just to be transparent.

I mean, that's one of the things we have to do is connect that data.

Yeah, just make sure we're paying being cognizant that the road closures and then the detours and being able to focus on those detours.

Agreed.

Thank you.

Will it?

Yeah, thank you for your pro temp.

Uh, thank you, Director and your team for being here.

Um, one of the pros from the last time last snowstorm was the newer subdivisions were added earlier on, so I appreciate that.

A lot of times in my council district, there's another little street added here and there, and they're not on a route.

So appreciate that improvement.

I also appreciate the additional routes and um making sure that they're more manageable.

I have a couple questions.

One, how are the routes prioritized the 92 routes?

Um they're not necessarily all of them are priorities, right?

So when we look at all of our snow routes, all routes are priorities.

Um, you know, if we don't have enough trucks, then we try to look at how we can move them between uh routes effectively.

So that's kind of how that how that's done.

Um so and then there's a lot of variables.

You can have a truck that breaks down, and if a truck breaks down, then that takes a route that's off, and then you have to kind of reshuffle the deck sometimes.

Um so there's things like that.

The other thing that um that's important too is weather is different between one side of the city to the next because you can have more snow in the north than in the south, or vice versa.

If we can see that better, and that's one of the things that Sam Sarah is gonna help us do is to see that better, we can redeploy staff where the need is better and more efficiently, right?

Just because that's the way the routes are, it really should be based upon the event, right?

Because if it if you only have, and I'll just use that example, only one inch north of the river, and you got three inches south of the river, then how you respond to that could change based on that, so that you can be more diligent in your time.

But we have to be able to see that better real time.

And that that's a challenge, and that's what we're working toward.

Um, the I know Councilwoman French talked about the school district side.

Um, is there a way that you can divide up in the Northland?

There are the you know, the Platt County School District, Louie Public School District, North Kansas City, Park Hill.

Can you divide those 40 routes within the different school districts to help um figure out what route maybe is missing or what needs to get more work on?

Because like you said, during the snowstorm, you might have your snow come at this time, even though it was pre-treated and it shows up on the map that it it's it's great.

But allowing the school district to say, hey, two thirds of the routes in our area are great.

This one needs to be checked up again.

Um because right now they can just send um maybe problem areas, but if it's a whole route, we want to be able to figure out which one they can go to.

I would think the easiest thing for us was to identify the bus routes or the emergency bus routes first and then maybe prioritize and then actually have that as a layer on our snow system.

Um and out of respect for everything, I get calls about who's going to cancer treatment.

It's gotta be done.

Yep.

I I I I get you'll be amazed at the calls we receive about who should be prioritized.

We have emergency services, um, we have hospitals, nursing homes.

Everybody is a priority.

We we we believe, I believe, that every person, every home, every resident, every neighborhood is a priority, and we have to figure out how to make sure everybody gets it on in a very timely manner, no matter who you are.

We treat everyone and get everything done, and that's the goal.

That is the ultimate goal.

Um, but we could do layers because to your point, there could be ways that we could do pre-treatments, we can look at our trials and all of those and and some of the collectors and come up with strategies to enhance that delivery, and we we should absolutely look at trying to figure out strategies for that.

Okay, thank you.

Just real quick.

Uh there was a great post on Reddit uh from this last snowstorm, and it has the uh the map of Kansas City, and in that map, you can fit the uh land area of Philadelphia, Miami, San Francisco, and Boston in that area.

And so that is that is the that is the area that you all are responsible for for ensuring that in a quick um less than 24 hours sometimes you have to you have to clear that snow in addition to all the other challenges that we have in our city, right?

So I just want to say thank you.

Well, there's always room to improve, right?

Every time, but when I talk to my colleagues over in St.

Louis, they're jealous.

So they are I I will say that just to put a plug in for us here in Kansas City.

Um after the snowstorm that we had in January, I was you know, the city of St.

Louis did reach out to us and have a conversation.

Um our snowstorm of what we did took us nine days between the two events to to solve in St.

Louis, it was four weeks.

Okay, and they have half the lane miles we do.

So you know, it's it's tough.

Um you know, we're not here to say it's not it's not it's not tough.

We got things to do, we got worries to improve, but we're not as bad as people want to think we are.

Um, but we definitely have areas to improve.

So I'm not here to to tout or gloat or whatever, but I am to say the men and women in Kansas City that is providing snow service, work very hard for this community, and we're doing exceptional work, we're winning national awards, um, and it and it's to your leadership.

You provide us the resource to do good work, and we have more work to do, and we're looking forward to that.

I actually have a question.

Um, in in regards to the um decision to suspend trash services, and I I'm you know, under a new city manager now.

I think think the old city manager would make that call, but what is that what is that process?

Because I actually have received or seen some concern about trash service being delayed in order for you all to you know clear the snow.

Can you just articulate that process and how that decision is made and what happens there?

So I make the recommendation and the manager supported that recommendation for me.

Um said one to three.

We ended up with five and a half.

We saw that it was going to probably be a little worse than what they were saying, and when you have that much snow, it requires a lot more staff.

And so I appreciate the manager supporting me on that decision and and and backing me on that.

And it and it made a difference because we were 24 hours and we were back to business.

So I appreciate that.

The decision is public myself as the public works director had made the recommendation of support to the manager who supported me.

And and so thank you for that answer.

You didn't quite get to what I was what I was really asking.

Maybe I didn't ask it appropriately, but at what point do you determine that you need to suspend services?

So is it three inches or you know, at what point is that decision, the recommendation made um to suspend other services?

And I know it has to do with your staff because those staff then are plowing snow.

But if it would have been one inch one inch, would you have needed to suspend?

Like can you walk us through that, please?

So there's there'd be two major things.

One is roughly, you know, if it's gonna be five inches or so, that's that's probably gonna be a suspend up operation for us.

The policy says six, but you you know, if you get five, you might get six.

Um then the other is the temperature.

The temperature gets below negative 15.

Um, then we actually take people off the street because frostbite sets in, you know, negative 15 or 15 minutes frostbite sets in.

So it's temperature and the amount of snow is generally the two things that determine whether we um shut down the service or not.

And again, I'll make the recommendation, and you know, trust me, they they throw me through the ringer to make sure it's a good idea.

But um but yeah, that's kind of how that goes.

Okay, thank you.

And curls.

Sorry, I just following up.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Chum, and in regards to the comment that you made uh about the uh process of delayed trash pickup, and and I've shared my concerns with you, and that is is that sometimes if depending on the day that the snow occurs, the delay delay is a day later, which could spill over into the weekend.

And I have been one of those individuals where my trash wasn't picked up the day after.

It was on purpose.

I understand.

Call your councilman, yeah.

I called you.

Well done, you can call me, you send me a text.

Yeah.

I just want to I I just want to make sure that there is a process because not only is it my trash, but I obviously my neighbors, and guess who they call?

You know, and so therefore, when it isn't picked up, and now we get into the following week, and their trash is still sitting outside.

Uh I just want to make sure that and I know you are because we've talked about it, but there's a process or a plan in place for those individuals to make sure that their trash get picked up, even though it may go into the following week, and instead of their trash sitting out there for a week, so say, like my trash day is a Friday, and we have a snow event on Friday.

So my trash doesn't get picked up probably on Monday because now you're back on the regular cycle.

Yes, sir.

And so my trash is sitting out there for another week until that next Friday.

So and that's what did happen this past event, Monday's trash.

That's exactly what happened to Monday's trash service.

And um it's not our choice that that's what we want to do, but um you know, the public safety of getting the streets cleared as quickly as possible and safely as possible is is our priority.

And um you know, hopefully it doesn't happen too often.

Generally, it doesn't happen too often, but we only experience snow between 15-18 days in a year, and how much money we spend on those 15-18 could be well into the millions.

So we have a fiduciary responsibility as well to um manage the budget that is given to us uh and do the best that we can with the tools that we do have.

Um, and it's again not always our choice to do so, but it is um the best business decisions we can make with the information that we have at the time.

Um but we always hope to do better.

Well, I mean, you you did respond.

I I will give you credit for that, and I will continue to call you every time that that happens.

Just remember the call.

You send text.

You very rarely call, you send a text.

All right, any other uh council member.

Just one last thing to keep in mind.

So I know we we should not be comparing, and I'm not I don't have the same expectations of some of the municipalities, but there's a good chunk of like Liberty Public Schools is half and half, and they have a smaller town uh to manage, and they always always hear up there that they get it done first, or they're you know, ready to go.

So I just want to get some movement on how we can identify our snow routes by school district, making sure that we can have metrics to bring back to folks.

I you know, I hear it a lot from a lot of people.

I want to show that we're actually doing something in regards to school districts involved within this.

Um, but it is uh with a lot more lane miles, and a lot of um a lot of people come through our our town to get to work and all that kind of stuff.

So we have we have a lot of different things to prioritize, but the school district stuff.

I want to bring back some substantial um uh updates to folks on how we can uh prioritize that, sir.

All right, uh, thank you for that.

Uh our oh, I forgot we have the whole other uh cold weather shelter.

I'm sorry.

So we have uh cold weather shelter.

I was gonna move us along.

Okay, well thank you.

My associate is with me.

Good afternoon, Marion's deputy director.

And we are here to uh present this afternoon on uh the cold weather shelter that is currently in place.

Um the priorities that we have with cold weather shelter are um standardizing a replicable replicable approach um for cold weather response and operations for the unhoused population.

Not only are we looking to replicate this to be able to replicate this year over year, but also replicate it in other communities.

Um the unhoused team has consulted with 18 other communities um to uh create uh uh for them to create uh cold weather plans for for the for themselves.

We're also looking to collaborate with agencies uh to provide a cohesive response to to cold weather, and um allowing uh allowing the navigation team and the the staff to connect unhoused people to re uh to resources such as um inpatient medical and mental health treatment, uh vital document assistance, getting things like driver's license, those sorts of things, uh various types of housing and other um services needed to help achieve um housing goals.

um to uh create uh uh for them to create uh cold weather plans for for the for themselves we're also looking to collaborate with agencies uh to provide a cohesive response to to cold weather and um allowing uh allowing the navigation team and the the the staff to connect unhoused people to rehor uh to resources such as um inpatient medical and mental health treatment uh vital document assistance getting things like driver's license those sorts of things uh various types of housing and other um services needed to help achieve um housing goals they're using established partnerships to provide all of that this illustration shows um the activation plan at level one and level two uh we have 790 beds available um and that is um every night um and then at level two um is is 32 degrees and below at level three um which is between 10 and 25 degrees we add um 70 um unity south adds an additional 75 beds and then level four is actually um there's a typo there level four is 10 degrees and below and at that point um uh there are 66 beds um added uh at a turning point uh so um when the when the temperatures reach 10 or below uh we have a total of 931 beds available uh for the unhoused population um the navigation team which is uh navigation services are provided by heartland center for behavioral change um are helping connect um all of these uh the unhoused population to all of the available beds that we that we we have at these various providers this is the number of beds that we have had over the years uh the the this is the third year for um having um an actual cold weather plan so this the the the plan that we are currently using uh was begun in 2023 with 360 beds in 24 we added a hundred beds to that and this year we have um we've we've over doubled the number of beds that are available and with that I will take any questions that you might have one I sure just one comment um this 931 beds we're we the the city is only paying for 491 beds that increase has been due to the partnerships that our unhoused team has created um and we've been able to leverage those to double the number of beds that we'll be providing this year you said we pay for how many go ahead council sorry I just want to clarify how many we you said 49 we paid for 460 oh I'm sorry I misspoke oh I just want to make sure I understand the so first of all thank you for the presentation thank you for your work on this um and for leveraging uh the relationships to really more than double the number of beds over the years um so the presentation that you have are these in addition to these at the bottom the community partner beds those are in addition to no those are the the those those are the leverage beds or sorry the so what are the total number of shelter beds available when you total in our city do you have that data readily accessible?

I I don't have it um available but we can get it to you okay yes if you could get that please do you mean total shelter beds all year round or just during the cold weather months both okay and then um yeah so I would like both okay and then uh would also like to understand uh do you know how many do you have any data right now about how many folks are staying when you've had to implement this plan since December 1st you have are you tracking how many individuals are utilizing the service?

There's a dashboard that the navigation team has um access to that shows where beds are available and how many yeah okay so I'm glad to see that that's working that was one of the things I really fought for uh but I I really what I'm asking is how many people are actually utilizing the service that utilizing the beds all of the beds are full all of the beds are full okay so the other question I have um mainly because I'm a visual are these um do you have these mapped out anywhere or are they can you tell us primarily where these are located I know Unity Southeast is in the fifth district but just wondering if if um where they're located and if you all have been um intentional about making sure that these beds are located where we have you know an increase of encampments and all of those things because we know we've got the issue throughout our city.

The majority of them are located in the midtown, you know, urban urban area.

Um a turning point is up north.

Um and umity is down in the southeast area, but for the most part, they're in in the heavily urban areas.

Okay.

So a turning point provides how many beds?

Uh 66.

Okay, but they are only open at level four right now.

Okay.

I think you read my mind.

Yeah.

That you know, I know that there's probably an additional need prior to level four up north and you know, in other areas.

So I would just encourage you all at you know to just continue to try to um navigate through and utilize your relationships to continue to to build and grow this.

Uh, but I think it's definitely uh improved from where we where we started.

So thank you for your work on that.

Anyone else have any questions?

Oh, Councilman Patterson has these.

Thank you for your work on this.

Uh, to her question of where are these places?

I think a map would be good.

Um, and I think comparatively a map of where do service providers exist and where have you invested in cold weather shelter beds.

Um we've discussed before that there's an overrepresentation of services in the third district.

Uh so to the extent that we can move toward a citywide approach of where services exist and then a map of where you're making investment in this strategy.

But overall, uh great job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

All right, thank you very much for your presentation.

We will move on to uh discussion of ordinances, resolutions, and communication on today's document for poor introduction.

All right, then we'll adjourn.

Oh, go ahead, councilman.

I just wanted to say that I noticed that the I said something about the speakers not being very loud, and I noticed them today.

So whoever maybe I'm just imagining it, but I noticed it too.

I very much appreciate it.

I can hear so much better now.

So whoever did that, thank you.

Eric, I I went and talked to oh you're welcome.

Thank you, Councilman O'Neill for being our IT person for the day.

Thank you, those.

Um I'm sure you're listening to us in the background.

Thank you for it for your work uh helping us.

All right, so we will adjourn and we'll start back.