Good evening.

Welcome to the regular meeting of the Olatha City Council for Tuesday, March 18th, 2025.

The first item on our agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance.

Could you please stand with me?

So as you can see, this is our first day in this uh new temporary uh home for our council meetings and also the planning commission meetings will be here held here through mid-May while the work is being done on the chamber uh or the code or our council chambers at City Hall.

It may take us a moment to get used to this and work out all the kinks.

I did want to thank the staff for good setting all this up, and I do hear a little bit of a feedback.

I don't know if that's from me.

Maybe I should back this off a little bit.

Can everyone hear me okay?

So it sounds like uh so anyway, bear with us a little bit as we work out case, and uh we're glad you all found us.

So uh with that we'll start with our special business um item A is presentation of the Seven Days Proclamation.

Each year the Seven Days Foundation brings our community together with one main goal, and that's to spread kindness.

And find a shared vision meeting a strong community.

So joining us today to accept the seven days proclamation, seven days foundation hold members, David Summer.

Okay, it's kind of get down to this helpful community.

So I'll read the proclamation.

Wow, this is really hot.

Okay.

The proclamation reads, whereas the city of Oletha is dedicated to bringing citizens together to build a community of compassion and goodwill.

And whereas we are proud to support the Seven Days Foundation and share their goal of overcoming our conflict by focusing on acts of kindness and friendship.

And whereas Olafa's rich cultural diversity enhances our lives and strengthens our city, and we commend Seven Days Initiative on its efforts to encourage activities that foster peace and harmony.

And whereas we look forward to the opportunity to meet new neighbors, explore new cultures, and give back to our community each year during this celebration.

Now therefore, I jumped the mayor of the city of Olaf to hear by proclaim Olafa to be a seven-day supportive city and encourage all Olafians to spend March 31th through April 8th with their families and neighbors celebrating our differences and focusing on making our community a better place.

But through education, dialogue and action, we have turned pain uh into purpose.

Your dedication to policies, and partnerships that uplift kindness and understanding makes a real difference in our communities.

I've been an educator for 27 years, uh part of that uh as a high school principal.

Uh there's gonna be a special place to meet in heaven, I'm sure.

Uh I just I just want to encourage everyone here uh to get into your school, have conversations and dialogue with your teachers.

Uh they are amazing people.

We have young people in our schools every single day doing amazing work, and you can be sh rest you can rest assured uh that our future, the future of our communities is an absolutely great hand.

So thank you very much.

We'll now move to item B under Special Business, which is a presentation of the case state of the annual report.

One of the one of the city lawyers' twenty four goals is helping our residents reach their whole potential.

For many, that means higher education.

Today, Dean Ben Wolf is with us to give us an update on the school's achievements and activities.

Uh, thank you everyone for this evening.

Um, it's always a pleasure coming from the council to talk about the great things happening at Kansas State University here.

So uh one of the big things about our campus is that we are part of the Kansas State University, but our mission and focus is Johnson County only.

So I'm excited to be here.

So thank you, Dr.

Wolf.

That was outstanding, exciting um information.

Um we may have, I see a problem though.

We might have to have bi-annual reports.

There's so much credit report for it.

So uh Council Member Watch.

Please, thanks.

Thanks very much, Dr.

Wolf.

Appreciate the update.

So with the relocation of the programs from Solana, are we relocating faculty also?

Are we hiring some new?

So we hired a new faculty member, Dr.

George Yang is our faculty member in that.

It's actually not relocating as I misspoke correctly.

It's really bridging the program.

So the program will still be offered at our Celina campus.

Okay.

And it will also be offered after the chance.