Good evening.

Welcome to the regular meeting of the Olatha City Council for Tuesday, September 16th, 2025.

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

Would you please stand with me for the pledge?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Next on the agenda, we have special business.

But before I go there, we've got one consent and agenda item, item R, that has been removed by staff's request and will come back at a later date.

So item R on the consent agenda is been removed from the agenda.

Under special business item A, we have consideration of resolution number 25-1079 reappointing members to the Board of Code Review.

Our Board of Code Review works with city staff to ensure city codes work for the wellness and success of our residents, our growth, and our community as a whole.

Tonight we are reappointing three members.

May I move to approve resolution number 25-1079.

Reappointing members to the Board of Code Review.

Second.

We have a motion and a second with the city clerk, please call the roll.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Ms.

Vote?

Yes.

Mr.

Gilmore.

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover.

Yes.

Dr.

Felter.

Yes.

Mr.

Vacus.

Yes.

Miss Essex.

Yes.

Motion passes.

70.

And at this time, I'd like to call board the uh Board of Code Review Chair Jerry Bacher to introduce our reappointed members.

Jerry?

Gabe?

Andrew.

Good evening, Mayor.

Good evening, City Council members.

My name is Jerry Bacher.

I'm the uh chair of the board code of review.

Uh a little bit about the board.

So uh we were established by a city adopted building and municipal codes, and it was created by a city ordinance.

And for the the purpose of our board is to hear and decide uh appeals that have been presented to us.

And those appeals range from building code, life safety codes to property maintenance items.

Uh some other things that we do, we also participate in the uh code adoption process, which for the City of Olatha happens about every six years.

So we engage with the city code official.

He has a board, uh we as a board collectively give him feedback and comment uh because our board members have various perspectives that they come from in terms of their industry.

So we offer kind of some insight to help uh give guidance to the code official for making amendments to the code.

Uh the board of is comprised of seven members, and we are on a four-year staggered term.

And like uh Mayor Bacon mentioned tonight that we have three of our board members uh up for reappointment.

The first one being uh Mr.

Gabe Anderson.

Mr.

Anderson, he is a home builder, and he is uh uh he represents the builder contractor prospective position on the board.

He was first appointed uh in June of 2016, so he's been serving almost 10 years.

Any comments or thank you.

All right, thank you, Gabe.

Our question is.

Our next board member for reappointment is Mr.

Andrew Huber.

He is with Huber General Contracting.

It's a family business.

I don't know if this is third generation, but uh he's been with us also since June of 2016, and he serves at a large position on the board.

Thank you, Andy.

Then we have one other member who doesn't appear to be with us tonight.

His name is Mr.

Mike Brussett.

He is a master mechanical.

He represents the board as a master mechanical position.

And on behalf of him, I'll accept his own.

All right, thanks.

We appreciate all these individuals that are willing to serve on our boards voluntarily.

And it's not because of the big bucks we pay them.

Let's move to item B.

Item B is a proclamation recognizing September 15th through October 15th as Hispanic Heritage Month in Olatha.

Hispanic Heritage Month is an important time in our city.

It gives us the opportunity to highlight and celebrate the amazing people in our Hispanic community.

Here to accept the proclamation tonight is Nevis Uria.

Nevis is a longtime Olatha resident and community volunteer.

She gives her time on to Meals on Wheels and the Hope Chapel food pantry.

So Nevis, if you would have to read the proclamation.

You can stay right here.

That's fine.

It says, Whereas since 1988, our nation has observed a month-long celebration to honor our nation's Hispanic heritage.

And whereas Olatha is fortunate to have such rich diversity and recognizes the measurable value of the contributions of our Hispanic community, and whereas Hispanic Americans have enriched the Americans' way of life and their commitment to family and community have helped unite us as a people.

And whereas we are proud of the many Hispanic Americans who act whose active involvement in our businesses, schools, faith community, civic clubs, and local government helped to make Olatha great.

Now, therefore, I John Bacon, mayor of the City of Olatha to hereby proclaim September 15th through October 15th, 2025 as Hispanic Heritage Month in Olatha encouraging all Olathians to help celebrate our rich Hispanic heritage, heritage and culture, and to recognize the important role of our Hispanic neighbors in creating and building our community and great nation.

You're welcome.

I want to thank everybody, and that it's been a pleasure and it's a lot of blessing to serve in Olatha.

And I'm at the Aletha Towers, so the seniors there have been able to enjoy and especially we have drived everybody with burritos and tacos.

So I know that you'll you'll be wanting to have some sometime, right?

Okay, thank you very much.

God bless you.

Then we'll move on to item C.

Item C is a proclamation recognizing September 21st through the 27th of 2025 as family week.

Few things are more important to us than family.

And that's the most applause I've ever gotten for a proclamation, I believe.

And family week.

And family week is an excellent time to slow down, spend time together and reconnect with your loved ones.

Something as simple as having dinner together every night can have a big impact on your family members' lives.

So once again this year, Olatha Communities That Care Coalition is hosting a family day event here to tell us about that event and to accept tonight's proclamation is Jamie Schlat.

She's and Tim Cruz from CTC and Johnson County Mental Health.

So I'll read this proclamation first and then we'll give you a chance to talk about your events.

So the proclamation reads, whereas the Olatha Communities That Care Coalition was established in 2008 as a collaborate collaborative effort by the City of Olatha, Olatha Public Schools, the Olatha Police Department, the Olatha Public Library, Johnson County Mental Health, and Johnson County to enhance community prevention efforts of underage drinking and drug use and to promote healthy choices for all.

And whereas studies show children in strong families who have frequent dinners together have a decreased risk of smoking, drinking, and drug use.

And whereas CTC consistently encourages families to participate in important conversations about the risk associated with underage drug and alcohol abuse as a protective factor for young people in our community.

And whereas coming together as a family, participating in fun activities together and discussing the events of the day can foster open communication, provide opportunities to share concerns, and help guide children toward healthy decision making.

Now therefore I John Bacon, mayor of the City of Olatha do hereby proclaim September 21st through the 27th, 2025 is family week in Olatha, encouraging our residents to dedicate time to their family during this time to strengthen bonds and encourage in meaningful conversations.

Thank you so much for having us.

Thank you so much for the proclamation.

Like I said, Jamie Schapp, I'm the DFC coordinator for Olatha CTC, and it is such a privilege to be able to work in this community and work with our amazing community partners to help keep Olatha family safe and healthy, and that's really what we're about.

Those connect about making those connections.

So family week, we celebrate that every year, and then we end the week with a family day, like we talked about.

Um we're having our family day on September 27th at the Indian Creek Library from 10 to 1.

So it'll be great.

Bring your families out.

Um we'll have a lot of it's gonna be almost like a carnival this year, so it's gonna be a great time to spend together.

And here's my coworker, Tim.

I'm a little taller.

Um this is my uh first um family week.

I'm new to the CTC.

I've been with working with children and families for about 18 years, but I'm this is the last couple years I've been with prevention, and so this is a new coalition that I'm on, so I'm very excited, very humbled to be working alongside uh amazing people putting together this great week, and please on family day come and uh enjoy all the festivities.

There's pumpkins, there's uh animals to uh to pet, there's all kinds of different things uh there.

So um thank you so much for having us and um we look forward to seeing you on family day to the country.

So I want to thank Jamie and Tim for being here, and uh good luck on family day.

We'll now move to the consent agenda.

The items listed below are considered to be routine by the city council, may be approved in one motion.

These may include items that have been reviewed by the city council in a prior planning session.

There will be no separate discussion unless a council member requests that an item be removed from the consent agenda and considered separately.

Councilmember Felter.

Thank you, Mayor.

I would like to pull C and P, like Paul.

Councilmember Schoonover.

I I was also going to pull item P, Mayor.

Any others?

Seeing none, a motion to approve the consent agenda with the exceptions of items C, P, and then R was eliminated.

So that motion would be in order.

Mr.

Mayor, I move to approve the consent agenda with the exception of CMP.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Would the city clerk please call the roll?

Mr.

Gilmore.

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover.

Yes.

Dr.

Felter.

Yes.

Mr.

Vacas.

Yes.

Miss Essex.

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Miss Vote.

Yes.

Motion passes 70.

Item Consideration of resolution number 25-1080 establishing the official newspapers of the city.

Councilmember Felter.

Thank you, Mayor.

This designates the legal record and the Johnson County Post as our official newspapers.

And tonight we have a brand new reporter for the Johnson County Post here, Kate Mays is here.

And I don't mean to put you on the spot, Kate, but would you give everybody a wave?

This is Kate, right back here.

First night reporting on Olatha, and she is designated to be the Olatha reporter.

Welcome to the team.

This is us, one big family, and we're glad to have you.

That's all I wanted to do.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions or on item C, a motion to approve item C would be in order?

Move to approve item C, which is the resolution number 25-1080 establishing the official newspapers of the city.

Second.

We have a motion and a second with the city clerk, please call the roll.

Dr.

Felter.

Yes.

Mr.

Bacchus.

Yes.

Miss Essex.

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Miss Votes.

Yes.

Mr.

Gilmore.

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover.

Yes.

Motion passes.

70.

We'll now move to item P, which is consideration of guaranteed maximum price.

Amendment 1 to the agreement with NAB Holds Construction for Phase 1, Demolition Construction Management Services for the Animal Shelter Project PN6-Cero Zero 7-23.

Councilmember Felter.

Thank you very much.

Mike, did you want to say anything about this?

Or do you want me to say why I pulled it?

What's your preference?

Mike Cerna Director of Quality of Life would love to hear why you pulled it.

I I just I pulled it because I've just gone on the record saying I think we ought to have more council input on the animal shelter due to the high dollar amount.

And that this technically reads that we're approving some spending for the animal shelter.

However, it is not necessarily related to the animal shelter.

It's related to property that we purchased as a city.

Would you like to take it on the yeah?

The property that we acquired for this, it um has buildings on it now and that need to be demolished.

And then it'll be broken into three parcels, two of which are will be for sale right up front on Santa Fe.

So that's that's the intent is to clear the property for for uh redevelopment.

And and we've had some problems with homeless um living in there are yeah, I'm not I'm not exactly sure.

Um there are a lot of folks that kind of gather there, and I think we will uh we'll we'll take make that a less attractive place to hang around.

Well, we want them to be safe but not risky on our property reliable.

Okay.

So I wanted to just go on the record that I support that.

I I want to though investigate partnerships and other opportunities for the animal shelter.

So I will support this item, but I I still want the presentation on animal shelter.

Thank you, Mike.

Sure.

Councilmember Scoonover.

Thank you.

And I'm I'm in the exact same boat as is Councilmember Felter.

I uh, you know, certainly the existing status quo when it comes to the animal shelter, I think everybody would agree is just unacceptable and we need to do something.

Uh I know we're also going to look at the CIP tonight, and the animal shelter is in there for uh for $18, $19 million, which we've already approved.

I also want to say um that although I agree that we need a new shelter, I think there's a lot of gap between what we have now and the 18 or the $19 million dollars that's approved for this, and so I certainly want to want to work towards that.

That said, I support this as well.

Those those old buildings have to come down and and we need to get that property ready for whatever is next there.

So I pulled this for the exact same reason.

So thank you for your comments.

Any other questions or comments on this item?

There will be plenty more opportunities to discuss scope and function of this particular uh endeavor, the new animal shelter.

Councilmember vote.

Mayor, that was what I was gonna add, and I know that staff is working very hard behind the scenes to look for partnerships as well in terms of monetary as well as uh being a part of the facility.

So I look forward to that presentation.

I think you all have heard us loud and clear.

Again, we know what we currently have is inadequate, and we're gonna do best our best to make sure we uh give good value for taxpayers' dollars and meet the needs of uh the animals in our community.

So I want to thank you all for the work you're doing.

Uh a motion to approve item P would be in order.

Mr.

Mayor, I move to approve uh item P.

Um which is the guarantee maxwell price amendment one to the agreement with NAB Holtz Construction for phase one demolition construction management uh services.

Second.

We have a motion and a second with the city clerk, please call a roll.

Miss Essex.

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Ms.

Votes.

Yes.

Mr.

Gilmore, yes.

Mr.

Schoonover, yes.

Dr.

Felter.

Yes.

Mr.

Bacchus.

Yes.

Motion passes.

70.

Okay.

We'll now move to new business.

Item A is consideration of ordinance number 25-31, which is RZ 25-0007, requesting approval of a rezoning from the RUR County Rural District to the C2 Community Center and M2 General Industrial Districts for 175th Lone Elm Center on approximately 145.78 acres located northeast of West 175th Street and Lone Elm Road.

Planning Commissioner's motion to approve this rezoning failed 2 to 5.

While this tonight.

It's important for everybody here to listen our about with our discussion and the presentations.

And I want to be respectful of everyone.

So our homes.

How about that?

Ma'am, please sit down.

No.

Please have a seat.

I won't say anything.

We're all standing.

But you think tell me stay down.

You want to have me escorted out?

Go ahead.

You did it last time.

Yes.

I don't care.

You ain't gonna hurt my feelings.

But you're gonna hurt our homes.

You're gonna hurt our landscape.

Mr.

Mayor.

May I make a comment?

You know, let's look at what has happened in this past week.

No, you didn't plan on doing the Discord and the disrespect.

We're not having to ma'am, you do not have the floor.

Please be quiet.

Please be quiet.

And that should be fired like you.

You want to be able to do that.

Ma'am, ma'am.

If you ma'am, if you cannot listen to us and be quiet, you're gonna have to leave.

Shut up, but you ain't gonna get me to sit down.

Just please leave.

Or be quiet.

No.

If you're not gonna be quiet, I'm gonna have you escorted from the room.

Go ahead.

Please escort this lady from the room.

Thank you.

Now you can't handle the truth.

So I do want to remind everyone that tonight we are this is not a public hearing, but we are going to allow 15 minutes for the applicant and 15 minutes for the public to address the council.

I'm sorry.

That's fine, Kate.

I'm very sorry.

Yeah.

We're we're we're fine.

So we have the president.

Okay.

Okay, let's let's continue on here.

We want this is gonna be a long night.

So we've we've had a chance to hear from the public before.

We had uh several people that spoke at our meeting two weeks ago.

And we've also uh many of us have had a chance to look at the planning commission meeting.

We've had many phone calls, we've had emails, and so I want to thank everyone for sharing with us your comments and your uh thoughts.

So uh today um we would appreciate if the information that you give us is new stuff and not something that we've already heard in the past.

So I do want to remind everyone that we do have an expectation of decorum here tonight.

Speakers and audience members must treat each other with kindness and respect.

Unruly and disruptive behavior.

Well, you can see what happens then.

In the interest of time and our ability to hear what's going on, I'd ask the audience, please refrain from a lot of outburst.

And uh you know the truth is is that if the behavior impedes our process to having a meeting, we can have everyone escorted out of the room.

We don't have to have um this unruly behavior.

So um I appreciate everyone's uh respectfulness tonight.

So we know that this information is important to everyone, it's important to us as well to hear.

We look forward to hearing from all of you about any new information we have today, and we appreciate your cooperation to allow us to conduct a professional and efficient meeting tonight.

So, with that, senior planner Jessica Schuler has a presentation.

Welcome, Jessica.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

Jessica Schuler, senior planner, and I will later be joined by Charlie Love, our Chief Development Engineer and Fire Chief DeGrafen Reed as well.

As introduced, this is a rezoning and preliminary site development plan for the 175th Lone Elm Center.

It is a proposed employment center for general industrial and commercial uses, as well as an automated cold storage facility for lineage logistics.

The subject property was annexed earlier this year.

It currently retains county rural zoning.

The applicant requests to rezone the seven acres at the southwest corner to the C2 Community Center District, and that mirrors the zoning to the southwest.

The remaining 138 acres are proposed to be zoned to the M2 General Industrial District.

This proposed zoning is consistent with our future land use map, which designates this property as an employment area.

Their proposed uses align with the pattern of warehousing, manufacturing, and business park areas that are developing along the 175th Street corridor.

Lineage logistics proposes to occupy lot one of the development and lots two through six are conceptual in nature at this time.

They will require approval of a revised preliminary development plan.

A public hearing was held on August 11th, and significant feedback was received from area residents, which was included in your meeting packets and also provided following publication of the packet.

Tonight's presentation provides more detailed information specific to some of the primary concerns that were stated at the public hearing, specifically pertaining to truck traffic, roadway capacity, emergency response, and building height.

But first, I would like to start with some land use history of this area to provide some broader perspective.

Starting in 2003, the Nottington Creek neighborhood was originally planned and platted in Johnson County, so outside of our city limits.

And the developer requested to annex into the city after the first two phases were already approved.

This was a large concern to the city at that time because city utilities were not in immediate proximity because the development did not specifically meet all of our city ordinances and requirements.

And because of the development pressures that were just being created by the intermodal facility that purchased property in Edgerton, Kansas around that time.

When this occurred, the land use pattern changed quickly and quite drastically for Southern Olatha and the larger Johnson County as a whole.

The intermodal facility caused the city and the county to update the Lone Elm vicinity plan.

This was originally completed in 2000.

And that plan identified most of the land area between I-35 and Highway 169 for business park uses.

That business park definition is now how we define employment area in our comprehensive plan today.

It also spurred the 159th Street Interchange Project, which was specifically designed to handle large truck volumes.

The city also recently brought sewer to this area, which really opened up this land area for development.

Later in 2016, the city updated the future land use map of the comprehensive plan to identify the areas north of 175th Street for industrial and employment uses.

Since then, studies have been completed to ensure that proper infrastructure and roadway design is in place and continues to be accounted for as development occurs in this corridor.

So for the past 22 years, Aletha has recognized that this area of the city will be a hub for employment uses.

As development occurs, roadway capacity is evaluated with every project, and necessary improvements are required as development occurs.

Eventually, a full widening of arterial roadways and additional intersection improvements in the area will be required.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Charlie Love, Chief Development Engineer.

I'll be providing an overview of the existing roadway trucks, staging traffic, and environmental impacts.

So bear with me.

We'll kind of go through some slides and what we're going to start off with first is existing roadways, and I want to talk about just a little bit of what's taken place over the last 10 years in this vicinity.

Lone Elm and 175th are at the edge of our city limits in various locations in border Johnson County.

Due to this, the city is a shared maintenance agreement with the county regarding cost sharing and maintenance responsibilities.

This agreement gets revised as needed due to various annexations.

But currently, Lone Elm is road is maintained by the City of Olatha and 175th Street is maintained by the county.

So in 2018, a major maintenance project was completed on Lone Elm from 175th Street up to the I-35 northbound ramps.

This project included a various locations where we had full depth reconstruction, restoring the existing six-foot aggregate shoulders, major intersection improvements at 167th Street.

Which included which included widening to improve turning radiuses, widening to add dedicated left and right turn lanes at the west leg, and it also included the installation of a traffic signal at 167th and lone elm.

In 2021, another major project was completed at 175th and Lone Elm intersection.

This project constructed new dedicated right turn lanes for northbound and southbound lone elm.

Doing this gave every leg of this intersection a dedicated right turn lane, a dedicated through lane, and a dedicated left turn lane.

And lastly, this project also installed a traffic signal.

This spring, construction was completed, improving hedge lane from an unimproved gravel roadway.

Completion of this project was a major improvement to the traffic connectivity as it provides an alternate route to I-35 for the existing businesses located along 167th Street.

The summer construction was also completed for 165th and 167th Street reconfiguration.

Completion of this project was a major major improvement to traffic connectivity as it provides an alternate route to US 169 at a new signalized intersection.

After hearing concerns about Lone Elm's ability to handle additional trucks, the city collected pavement cores recently.

Based on those pavement cores and existing pavement conditions, the city is planning a street preservation project for Lone Elm from 164th Street and 175th Street and anticipate this to be completed by 2027.

The final scope of work for this major maintenance project is still being determined, but it will include adding an additional two inches of asphalt to the existing pavement section.

This increase in pavement thickness will bring this road way up to industrial standards, making it more suitable for handling truckloads.

Charlie has the floor.

Additionally, 175th Street was reconstructed in 1995 with a section similar to our industrial standards and is also suitable for handling truckloads.

I'm going to talk a little bit about traffic, and I'm probably going to give kind of a little bit more of an executive summary, and then I'll kind of jump into maybe a little bit more details.

But merged Midwest Engineering submitted a traffic impact study.

This study was reviewed by qualified city staff and met our city's requirements.

The study collected existing traffic counts.

It estimated trips generated by the development for phase one and phase two.

And it estimated trip distribution in and out of the project site.

Additionally, per the city's access management plan, required improvements include constructing left and right turn lanes at each of the four proposed drives.

Constructing these turn lanes along the arterials of 175th and Lone Elm will improve traffic flow and safety by providing dedicated space for turning vehicles, preventing them from obstructing through traffic.

Taking this information, the study analyzed the level of service for the roadways and traffic signals by using the latest version of Synchro traffic analysis software, which is based on the most current addition of the highway capacity manual.

The study's analysis included phase one and two, determined that this existing intersections in roadway will continue to operate at acceptable levels of service.

However, even so, even though it was shown to be adequate for phase one and phase two, staff is requiring the study to be updated before any future phase two projects can move forward.

Doing so will require the traffic counts and analysis to be updated.

That's a quick summary of the traffic study, but I do want to give a little more detail regarding uh roadway capacities and what we're seeing down there and what this study told us.

So the two tables on the screen, they show the traffic volumes for Lone Elm and 175th Street.

In particular, I'm showing PM peak hour volumes.

So for reference, um these are hourly traffic volumes, and the reason I'm using the PM is because it was actually greater than what we saw on the AM peak hour.

So we have that data too.

But the PM was the was kind of it had the more volume, so that's what I'm showing.

Uh the existing traffic counts along Lone Elm and 175th, plus all the generated development traffic is approximately 1,260 and also one hundred one thousand three hundred and forty, and that's along Lone Elm and 175th Street.

Each of these roadways with the constructed turn lanes has the capacity of approximately 1,800 vehicles per hour, and that comes directly from the highway capacity manual.

So again, with the turn lane improvements and proposed roadway along the proposed roadway, the roadway meets our level of service requirements per the highway capacity manual.

Low helm is not a highway.

Might sound like it, but it's not a highway.

Next.

There's been a lot of comments regarding the volume of truck truck traffic and truck trips provided in the study.

To clarify, the study states that phase one, the lineage project of this site will generate approximately 500 average daily truck trips.

This is not equal to 500 trucks.

Rather, it is trips in and out of the project site.

This means it is anticipated on average that 250 trucks will visit the site in and out each day for lineage.

Doing so it generates 500 average daily truck trips in and out of the site.

Be quiet, please.

Keep going, Trevor.

Thank you.

Another area of concern has been truck staging.

So I'm going to talk about that a little bit.

First thing is Lone Elms and Arterial, 175th Street is an arterial.

There is absolutely no parking along our terribles.

Whether it's a car or a simurai, there's no parking along our materials.

Next, the site provides approximately 2600 linear feet of private driveway before the gate.

This is a substantial amount of staging before the gate and allows parking for approximately 30 trucks.

Is that not our material street?

Have you been by the Tyson play ahead of?

I am missing a slide, and that's okay.

We're going to talk about environmental impacts.

So the last thing for me to cover is just environmental regarding uh stormwater.

And I actually can use this slide to annotate.

So let's see here.

Regarding stormwater, phase one of this site provides on-site wet detention and stormwater treatment.

You can see it's going to be here and also it'll be in this corner.

And that stormwater quality treatment and detention, it meets our city's requirements, which is established in the city's Title 17 for stormwater requirements.

Future phases, which will be down in this area.

Um, it's going to be required to meet Title 17 as well, but it's gonna and will require an updated stormwater management plan prior to their approval.

Uh lastly, the project site is required to meet all state permitting requirements before a shovel goes into the ground.

Uh the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, KDHE, they have a uh notice of attempt permit, and that includes reviews by the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, Kansas Historical Society, and many others.

This review looks at preserving endangered species, historic and archaeological sites, and other various environmental items.

And now at this time, I'm going to turn it over to Fire Chief DeGravenre.

Mayor Council members Jeff to Graft Reed Fire Chief.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide a few comments related to questions of the community has asked, and you have called and asked me about this week uh regarding the fire department uh response to this facility, uh, should it be approved this evening.

Uh one of the things I was asked to address is our fire capacity uh and capabilities uh related to working around these type of structures.

As you know, we're an ISO class one fire department and we're internationally accredited.

Uh that puts us in the one uh tenth of one percent in fire departments out of the 33,000 fire departments in the United States, and I appreciate the community support and your investment in our capabilities.

As you know, ISO classification is not just about the capability of the firefighting, but also about the water and infrastructure that the community has.

I'd like to talk uh briefly about our hazardous materials response team.

There are two in Johnson County, uh one in a neighboring department to our east and our department.

We are also one of six in the metro that responds uh metrowide to help communities that do not have hazardous materials teams, and there's been significant investment.

Uh while we uh we hope to never need those teams in our community, we've banded together and we train together and have common operating uh procedures across the metro, uh, largely thanks to the coordinating efforts of Mark.

We have automatic and mutual aid agreements in place, and we use them every single day.

Uh automatic gate agreements, uh, it doesn't matter who's the closest fire truck.

Uh, could be Leewood driving through the middle of a letha.

If a resident needs us because of a fire medical emergency, we send the closest fire truck.

It's my opinion that the people that need help are not worried about what it says on the door.

They just want competent and fast help.

And uh those automatic and mutual aid agreements make sure that can happen.

And those automatic and mutual aid agreements are not bound by state line.

We can summon help from the Missouri side as far as Lee Summit, the Hallmark region is underneath these automatic and mutual aid agreements.

We have a high-rise plan and model procedures for all fire departments in Johnson County.

Uh fighting a fire in a traditional high rise would be complicated, and we have done that in our county, uh, and we utilize a common model procedure for that to make sure that we operate the same and safely to do the best we can to protect life and safe property.

As you know, we do regular fire inspections of all commercial structures and we have fire pre-plans for all commercial structures, making sure that we have the best head start when something goes wrong in any building, while we hope that never happens.

I also want to address uh that all buildings uh in our community are built to a modern building and fire code and uh should be approved.

Uh, it would be evaluated and have the same systems that are required of all of these structures in our community.

One specific thing that I was asked to uh discuss was about how the fire department might go about evacuating uh an area if it should be needed.

And while we would hope that that would never happen, uh we do have training in this.

As you know, all of our command staff is blue card certified, in particular around Hazmat.

Uh we have really three main methods that we would use to do this.

Uh oftentimes, maybe even on a regular basis, I would say, we evacuate immediate areas.

So a small fire in any building, we might evacuate that part of their workplace or a building.

Um, but you know, sometimes things are larger than that, and like a medium-sized evacuation that might include a school or a neighborhood is something that uh takes a lot of thought and process, and we have a worksheet in our command vehicle that helps us make those decisions.

Oftentimes the safest thing to do, even in a hazardous environment, is to shelter in place with no HVAC on.

Uh that way we don't move folks that are vulnerable through a dangerous area.

Um but if we have to move somebody because that's the best course of action, we really have three main ways to do that.

One is going door to door and knocking.

That is very time consuming, but it's a very personal touch and you can explain it, and oftentimes there's great compliance.

If it's an emergency when that has to happen, uh we would use our PA speakers and we would coordinate closely with our law enforcement partners to make that happen while at the same time using notified Johnson County uh to call residents in a geofenced area that might need to move or give them instructions that would be helpful to their safety.

We have done this in the past and it has worked well.

It does not require somebody to be signed up uh to send the message one way, uh, although we would encourage all residents to sign up for notified Johnson County because it is the best way to know when there's emergencies in your community.

Um I want you to know that I appreciate the investment you have in our fire service.

Uh and should you approve this tonight?

We'll do our very best to take care of all the residents uh in this area uh should something happen.

But I uh also believe that we put a significant emphasis in our um fire code and our fire marshal, uh making sure buildings not only are built safe, but they remain safe for years to come.

Thank you very much.

Okay, Jessica Schuler, senior planner, um coming to kind of end the presentation this evening.

Um building height.

The proposed facility is a maximum of a hundred and forty feet and uh tall.

And this is because of the internal automated racking system that moves pallets throughout this building.

This height is permitted under the UDO.

It does not require approvals of any waivers or exceptions.

Although the structure is of significant height, they are also significantly exceeding setback requirements.

This building is over a thousand feet from Lone Elm Road.

It's about five hundred feet from the east and three hundred feet from the northern property lines.

This building is more than a half mile from the nearest home in Nottington Creek.

The applicant worked with staff to ensure that the entirety of the northern tree line between Lenon Park is preserved and that all the trailer parking areas west of the building are screened from the roadway through robust um berming and landscaping as well.

As part of the land use analysis for zoning applications, we look at all of the permitted uses in every district and the suitability of those uses for the property.

There are 80 different uses permitted in the M2 district, and staff has worked with the applicant to restrict the uses on the screen here.

These are higher intensity, could generate odors or noise and include outdoor storage areas such as leather and paper manufacturing.

In the C2 district, two uses are proposed to be restricted.

Again, the applic of the applicant is agreeable to the uses that are listed here.

Staff is recommending approval of the rezoning and preliminary site development plan as the proposal aligns with our comprehensive plan and unified development ordinance.

A number of stipulations are included in the staff report for the conceptual developments on lots two through five.

Staff recommends limiting the heights of the buildings to 55 feet in the M2 district.

As you can see here in red, we've re-worded this stipulation since Planning Commission, just to avoid any confusion if future replatting should change the lot numbers.

But in the C2 district, we are recommend, um, we recommend limiting those building heights to 35 feet.

Staff is recommending approval of two architectural waivers for building articulation and glass requ uh percentages, which are necessary due to the unique function of the building as an automated cold storage facility.

The planning's the planning commission's motion to approve the application field by a vote of two to five.

The planning commission discussion uh revolved primarily primarily around local emergency response capabilities and roadway capacity and infrastructure.

So therefore, a two-thirds majority vote of the council would be necessary to approve the application this evening.

With that, I'm happy to stand for any questions.

Um Kurt Peterson, representing the applicant, is also here to make a presentation.

Thank you, Jessica.

Uh do we have questions of staff at this point?

So let's have the applicant come up.

Kurt, we've had um We've got 15 minutes.

I don't know if you want to take all 15 or if you want to reserve some to respond to some comments that we might hear from the public.

But that's up to your discretion.

That'd be just fine, I think.

Okay.

So do you want 12 to start with?

Or you you can watch it.

Very good.

Mayor and council, good evening.

My name is Kirk Peterson.

I'm here on behalf of the master developer on one hand, which is commercial repositioned partner 17, but also the first potential user if this park is approved and constructed, which is lineage logistics.

A quick note on lineage.

This is one of the world's largest cold storage and logistics companies in 19 countries.

They have tremendous expertise and experience in what they do and what they're proposing to do here in Olatha.

Between the lengthy and detailed staff report and staff's presentation we've heard here tonight, you've got a lot of information about this project.

And I don't intend to spend anyone's time repeating what staff has already said.

Instead, I'd like to make what I'd call uh sort of macro point and then follow it with just a few micro points about the proposed project that I think probably deserve a little special attention.

So starting with the macro point.

This type of project is that's proposed tonight is not a surprise to the city of Olatha.

Um, for many years now, the city has pursued projects just like this.

Uh the plan Olathe identifies this as an employment area, as Jessica pointed out, just as it is done for the land on either side of it.

Tim McKee and his team have worked tire tirelessly to find leading companies just like lineage to plant a flag in Olatha, or in this case, a second flag in Olatha, which will bring over $300 million investment, 200 quality jobs, and substantial growth to the city's tax base.

It's not an exaggeration to say that this truly is this project.

Again, hold on.

Okay, now I can hear you.

Is the fruit of many years of efforts by the city to accomplish just this.

But having said that, that was a macro level point, right?

That's not where we end.

That's not where a council ends when they look at a project.

You do have to look at micro points.

And like I said, many of them have been covered in depth by staff in writing in the report that you have, and also uh verbally tonight, but I would say that they're uh just running through this in fact, traffic volumes and safety.

Uh, one point that wasn't really drilled down on verbally that's in the packet is just how much over cueing, if you will, to make sure there's never any trucks that end up uh queuing in a line that out onto Lone Elm.

The design is very, very overdesigned, and we can go into the specifics if there's any questions on that, but I draw your attention to the packet that goes into great detail.

Also, all the turn lanes that staff pointed out on Lone Elm at both entrances that will be installed before lineage would open.

And then also Lone Elm's improvements uh that will be done by the city as pointed out within the next two years, meaning before lineage would ever start operations.

So traffic volumes and safety have been covered in depth.

Noise also uh has been covered, but I wanted to add just a perspective.

Um, when you look at Donington Creek's northwest, where the entrance is to Monticello on Monticello, and you look at the northeast corner of the neighborhood, that's 2,5400 feet to the southern edge of the lineage property.

Um, there won't be any noise issues that are generated that make it to the neighborhood to say the least.

Now, the speaking honestly, okay.

Order the night.

Okay.

In terms of noise, really of more concern for me would be rather than something that's three-quarters of a mile away, would be just the noise that's on 175th Street, and then the future commercial that's planned just to the northeast of Nottington Creek.

Fire safety, I have nothing to add.

The chief gave a very detailed explanation of the capacities and the abilities of the fire department to address any sort of incident that would ever happen here.

On height, I would just point out again that the M2 districts permitted height, all of these buildings fall within that, so there's no special request before the council on that.

Landscaping and screening, there was uh a lot in the packet that talked just about how much screening will happen with booming and trees uh on the west side of the site.

Um I raced through that because again, there's a lot of material you already have, but I thought there were two micro-type issues that I could add some additional color on.

One is the use of ammonia as refrigerant, because there's been a lot of discussion about that, deserves some more discussion.

And two is the visual impact of the project from Nottington Creek.

I think we can spend a little more time on those two issues.

So, first, in terms of ammonia.

As you know, uh ammonia as a refrigerant in the cold storage uh industry is nearly ubiquitous for many, many, many decades.

Um, but um this is not just a United States issue, it's around the world and it's not just around the world, it's in Olatha.

This is something that's happened to Olatha for some time at many at a number of facilities.

It's extremely thermally efficient and it has no greenhouse gas at all.

In fact, it's used in many grocery stores as a refrigerant, it's used in ice skating, many ice skating rinks and many other common applications, again, around the city, around the county, around the state.

But beyond that, its biggest use by far is in agriculture, including injections into fields, again, all around the state, all around the United States and the world.

So where used for cold storage, I think it's important to point out, maybe not like a skating rink, right?

When used in cold storage, it's subject to specific regulations and protocols that have been developed over many years.

And there's oversight, extensive oversight, for example, by OSHA that does regular inspections without any announcement and comes in and lineage has outperformed its peers in the industry continually when it comes to inspections of regulations.

It's also a facility that will be USDA regulated and certified, which carries its own oversight.

So, in short, on this issue of ammonia as a refrigerant, which is an important issue to look at the facts.

There's nothing unusual.

There's nothing unsafe, there's nothing new that's proposed here other than this facility that's proposed, is a state-of-the-art cutting-edge cold storage facility as seen anywhere in the world.

This is the latest technology that's being implemented for safety and everything else.

But not just ammonia.

I want to look at the visual impact because if you live somewhere and there's a project proposed, it doesn't matter where you live and what project it is, you deserve to understand what what it would look like.

So I think a picture tells a thousand words, and there were some additional images that we developed since planning commission based on some of the comments at Planning Commission that we wanted we wanted to share.

I will say again for perspective as we look at these that that northwest corner of Nottington Creek, which is where the access is to 175th Street, Monticello, and then the northeast, so that the northernmost parts of the neighborhood are between, and I always do this because this is how my brain works.

I said uh 2500 to 4,000 feet, that's eight to 13 football fields, just because it helps a lot of us understand just how far away that is, which is a half mile to three-quarters mile.

So looking at some pictures, again, there's some images that were already shown at Planning Commission, which we can look at more, but I'm skipping by for now.

This is gonna show you the additional images we're gonna look at right now that we again just generated based on uh the planning commission discussion.

So you can see 175th Street at the top of your screen, you see Nottington Creek there.

So the first image is at Monticello, which is that access point for the neighborhood on 175th Street.

You can see that we're gazing to the northeast, and you can see again at the distances I mentioned, the the lineage facility in the distance.

Also, while there's no building proposed right now, we thought it would be helpful to also say the land across the street has the same employment area designation in Plan Olatha, and will uh again it will be subject to normal procedures.

But given all the development around it, the natural thing to be there would also be some sort of uh distribution manufacturing, something like that.

So again, this is not a specifically proposed project, but something like this, once it's put up with the berming and the landscaping might look like this, and you'd have zero view, not even three-quarters mile to the project across the street.

Let's now go.

This is a hundred this is a hundred and seventy fifth street in Lone Elm, and we're looking to the southwest.

So that's the commercial area at the at the northeast corner of the neighborhood that's someday, it's planned at least to be commercial.

And I'm starting to wanting to call your attention to all of the natural uh trees and and growth here that are along 175th Street.

When you look at we're gonna go east now along 175th Street and look south.

This is the northern edge of the neighborhood, and just reminding us that there is there are trees.

There is some visual buffer already as you look back to the north.

Then as you look at the then as you look at the entrance, you can see here.

And then we're gonna go back.

We're gonna go into the neighborhood here.

In the next picture, this is the entrance.

That's Montecello.

We're on 175th Street.

And you just go a little bit, you can see back now to the north where 175th Street is.

We just go a little bit in and you now look to the northeast, and you can see there's no vision of this project at all, not even at three quarters of a mile once you're inside the neighborhood, which is the point of that.

So with that, Mayor, I would say this project and lineage in particular is what the city's been fighting for for years for this for this entire area.

Um this project is responsibly designed in every single way.

It will not be detrimental to Nottington residents or any other residents in the area.

And we'd respectfully request your approval of this proposed zoning and the associated plan, and now or later we'd be happy to answer any questions anyone from the diaspora.

Thank you.

Thank you, Curtis.

Um, Council over this.

There's lambers.

We're going to give the public a chance to speak here in a minute.

Okay.

This is an opportunity for us to ask questions of the developer.

Councilmember Vacus has the floor.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Uh Mr.

Peterson, I want to go back to the inner hydrous ammonia issue a bit.

I appreciated the presentation by the fire chief, and we're ready for anything, but it presented a doom and gloom like, oh, something's going to happen.

But you know, I received up until about two o'clock this afternoon, over 65 emails from folks.

Uh all but two from people that live in Nottington Creek.

And I read every one of those and have given a lot of thought over the past week uh six weeks and have done a lot of research.

And this is one area in particular that I took a hard look at.

Now I want to make sure I understand, like you suggest, there's not really much of a safety issue.

The uh the volume of ammonia.

I'm sorry, folks.

If you could just control yourselves, it would be helpful.

We're trying to have a common sense conversation with all of us included, but we need to be able to listen to each other, so please control yourselves.

And I'll try and control myself.

The uh so the system, it's like a car air conditioner, it's like a house air conditioner.

It's just on an industrial scale.

So the ammonia will be used as a commercial refrigerant inside the building.

There are no large storage tanks outside of the building.

And as I've listened to everything, it sounds to me like the volume of ammonia is about 3,000 gallons, I think.

No, no.

Not not pounds, but gallons.

And the uh a truck that fills the gas pumps at QT is about a 7500 gallon tanker.

So the volume of ammonia they were actually talking about circulating within the building is less than a half a fuel truck worth of fluid.

Not that much.

It's a low pressure system with safety valves.

Should there be any leak, it automatically shuts down.

That's right.

So the likelihood of an industrial accident, it's not zero, but it is slim.

Is that a fair assessment?

Not only that I think it's fair, I think what's fair is always to look at past predicts future, and unequivocally I can say with lineage and I said how much experience and expertise and how many facilities they have.

They have never once had ammonia get outside of a building and hurt someone.

Not once.

Think of that across the world, if that tells you something.

Not once, not once.

Well, there was a there was a fire.

Please, please, everyone.

Because we're talking ammonia, right?

There's never there's never been an injury from ammonia from a facility.

There was a fire that happened at a line and plant in another location, another part of the country.

But it's in no way an apples to apples comparison.

True statement.

Totally agree.

And no no issues with ammonia.

That was there was a fire in a building, you're right.

And certainly that building in another part of the country, a legacy building, not designed to modern standard.

It's a different story altogether.

Different building materials.

And again, this building is concrete and steel.

That's right.

There's very little to burn.

Precisely right.

So I I in no way want to minimize the concern about and draw it and draw ammonia, but I I just think we're blowing it a little bit out of proportion.

Is that fair?

You live there?

Absolutely agree.

Again, past predicts future.

I mean that.

I mean absolutely right.

Second point, if I could, I want to talk a little bit about the truck traffic.

So obviously, I'm going to ask the chief to come up and talk a little bit about truck traffic at the other lineage site, but specific to this location.

Tonight we're being asked to vote to approve or disapprove the rezoning of this particular site.

Specifically as it relates to phase one.

Phase two is conceptual.

That's right.

There's no timeline tied to phase two.

Market demand.

And while you have drawn pictures that show suggested buildings, all of that could change.

Correct.

And the reality of it is if we approve and we build phase one, and we see that we are having truck traffic issues on Lone Almond 175th, there's absolutely nothing that stops us from changing phase two to accommodate more truck parking at the location.

Fair assessment?

Correct.

Okay.

Good.

That's important.

Okay.

Mayor, I'll see if anyone else has questions.

Okay.

Councilmember Schoonover.

Thank you, Mayor.

Mr.

Peterson, thank you so much.

Appreciate uh the information.

I kind of I mean, to me, it I'm I'm told uh that if we don't develop this or if we don't approve this here in Olatha, that lineage is just going to go to Spring Hill.

And that Spring Hill is going to annex this land in.

And it's essentially, well, either we approve it and and we have control over this facility.

Um that is they build to our standards, or they go to Spring Hill and Spring Hill has lesser standards than what we do.

It's presented as an inevitability that this is going to be built regardless, and we much rather have it built in Olatha.

Can you tell me about your discussions with Spring Hill?

Councilman Scoonover, I want to I'm going to address the question.

I'm I'm not going to specifically talk about particular discussions with folks in a nearby city, but I will say accurate statements that I think will answer your question.

In this corridor, there's a tremendous amount of competition among multiple cities to have land be part of their city.

Fact.

Not debatable.

Lineage is a very attractive business.

And that doesn't mean everybody in the room has to like it.

That's an opinion.

But there's a lot of there's a lot of demand for businesses like that for the tax base and jobs and things like that.

So a lot of a lot of demand for the other thing.

Folks, this is actually pretty important to us when we're hearing this stuff.

So we understand the passion, we understand the concern, but we are trying to learn about this project and to get their perspective.

So please, if if you can just hold your comments, that would be very helpful to all of us up here.

Cities vying for land in that area.

A business that, while not everyone has to like the business, is sought after by many cities for the tax base and the jobs and things like that.

And so your statement, although I'm not going to speak, I think you'll respect this.

I'm not going to speak for another city as to what they would or wouldn't do.

So are but but are you having discussions with with Spring Hill as a plan B to this if Olatha doesn't doesn't uh uh approve this?

As I'm saying, we're sought by multiple cities, and there was discussions in the past that have been reported in the paper, so that's a good that would be a good conclusion.

Thank you.

Other questions of the developer?

I have a question, Curtis.

Can you tell us um the operator of this facility?

Is it lineage or do they have a tenant that operates the city?

So two different lineage is the owner, and then they have a primary tenant that's a a confidential tenant that would take you know three quarters, very roughly three quarters of the volume of the facility, and then beyond that, you you would have other customers there.

Okay.

So as far as the safety record of the tenant, who can we can we rely on lineage for that responsibility, or who who can we rely on that for?

Yeah, so lineage is responsible for operating.

It's a great distinction you're making.

I understand the distinction you're asking about.

Lineage is fully responsible for operating this facility.

It has customers, though, that will have product that are there that come in, come out.

Awesome.

Okay.

That's what I want to know.

Councilmember Vaucis.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

So a couple of points, uh, Mr.

Peterson.

I wanted to come back to the general discussion that Councilmember Sconover was talking about, and that's uh zoning and the future use of this area.

So regardless of where Spring Hill might fit into the equation.

I mean, the point is that this is a commercial industrial area.

That's right.

And we should expect that given the proximity to I-35, given the nexus with the Edgerton BNS intermodal facility, and given New Century Airport and the air freight component of New Century Airport, this is such prime land.

It's in demand.

And so we've got Nottington, which is a great community, a legacy community from Johnson County days, embedded in what fundamentally is a commercial area.

Now, an Oddington is an important residential enclave that sincerely we want to protect, but none of us should be none of us should be naive into thinking we're going to buy up the farmland around there and have no development.

It's going to be developed.

It's going to be developed.

And you know, this application could well be the first of three or four applications over the course of the next next decade.

We should expect to see that kind of development occur.

Is that what you're saying?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

I want to talk, and you know, look, and I'd come back to as good as Nottington is, over the past decade, there have been no additional residential development down there.

And that's because it's only fans.

In that area.

And that's because the development community recognizes this is fated to be commercial.

True?

For my observation, that's right.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I want to come back to the operation of the plant, because I think it's very important because I think we're all being a bit uh uh kicked back on our heels when we hear about the amount of truck traffic.

And I appreciate Charlie Love's explanation that it's 500 truck trips, and try and understand that.

So this building, uh site one, the lineage cold storage storage facility, it's a frozen foods warehouse.

It's a distribution center.

And so they're going to be trucks bringing frozen foods in, and in turn, empty trucks coming to pick up frozen foods going out.

Is that correct?

Yeah, this is a cold storage facility, so there's some refrigeration, but you're right.

Yeah.

Frozen foods.

There's a large frozen food portion.

Yeah.

So as we look at the the volumes of trucks coming in and going out, the majority a single vendor, vendor, 75 to 80 percent dedicated to one customer.

That's right.

Are those trucks coming in and coming out?

Are they are they branded to that customer, or are there multiple trucking firms contracted out?

I think that one, yeah.

Those will be branded.

Okay.

And so truly, we we can control that truck traffic.

When a full truck comes in, trying to understand the concept of operation.

Does that driver pull up to a uh a loading dock so that the track truck can be unloaded?

It starts by going through in the entrance through the check-in station and then goes around and goes to a loading dock when the loading dock is ready.

That's right.

Unloaded.

That's right.

Trucks unloaded, and then the tractor trailer leaves.

Yeah, most i i i it's it's it's there's more there in general, that's right.

250 in during the day, 250 out.

Sure.

They may swap out trailers.

So just in general, you're exactly right.

So there are truck bobtails running around the facility, repositioning trailers as part of the operation.

Yeah, because there's an area to put trailers in the parking lot to the south, and then they can be taken out, so you're right.

Sure.

Okay.

Good.

Okay, good.

I that's the questions I have for the moment.

Okay, thank you.

Sure.

I'll have more later.

Thank you.

Understood.

Councilmember Felter.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for being here, Mr.

Peterson, and for your presentation.

This site seems to have more thought than the previous lineage site for truck parking.

And in uh Mr.

Love's presentation for addressing you know how many trucks could line up before the guard house.

Um I wasn't quite sure if that was 30 trucks in each line, or can do you know specifically.

Yeah, just metrics-wise, to answer your question, think of it like this approximately.

Think of eighteen hundred linear feet on the way into this facility as opposed to five hundred feet at the Erickson facility.

And the Erickson facility functions great.

I'm just comparing the two.

So one line in, and we're we flare out the double loaded here, and then do your number of trucks.

We could stack as many as 30 to 31.

But just to put that in context, remember when I said this is overdesigned on purpose, which I think is very responsible.

The average number of trucks per hour is being very exact, 10 and a half, so you know, 10, 10 to 11.

And they can be processed in about two minutes each.

And remember, you have two places processing that are always always manned.

And so the you can feel the way over capacity.

So that is designed just beyond design, so you will never have a stacking problem.

I think why they're laughing is we have videos of the other lineage um uh process not necessarily working as seamlessly, and and they were lined up.

And I I think councilwoman, one one distinction, though I'm not an expert on that facility at all, that it does have a dead-end street and you know, isn't isn't a through street right there.

So I'm not an expert in that, but there that may be something about that.

Still it's illegal to be out on this.

Yeah, you can't you can't park on a public street, that's right.

And to my point, Olatha has a shortage of places for semis to park, period.

And whether they're for lineage or Walmart.

And so I mean, I I just did a deep dive rabbit hole, you know, research on this.

And is it it's a metro area mark issue, really.

We're gonna have to deal with this with the intermodal and now all of this.

Um I appreciate um the extra parking spaces on site and the extra double lanes.

That's that's good.

Um I do think that we need to be aware that should they not accommodate all the need, and the trucks absolutely cannot back up on loan out.

So there has to be a plan B.

And um if lineage is aware of that, should this pass?

Lineage is definitely aware, Councilwoman.

And again, I can't emphasize enough just the straight math and just they've operated they they know what they need, and it's it's way overdesigned, but we understand your point completely.

Great.

Well, I plan to ask staff to uh look at this and and study, okay, how can we look at the low-hanging fruit and and deal with the you know immediate issue and then long term, you know, how do we collaborate with the county and mark to to really fix the problem.

But you know, it's there's no quick fixes for I mean we have uh less than 50 parking spaces for trucks officially in available here in Ola that that's not enough.

So um I wanted to bring that up.

And then you mentioned um hang on, I've got to get my right document.

Um the visual impact.

I appreciated those slides.

Um I don't love the 140 feet, I'm not gonna lie.

I I don't just don't love it, I hate it.

Um, one thing that I noticed is the white does tend to blend a little in the skyline.

And at first I was like, good grief, there's no um windows, there's nothing visually appealing in this box in the sky.

And actually, it kind of blends.

And I was surprised to see that.

So you know, um I know this is the developer's slides, but I I will just say uh it was a pleasant surprise to see that because the big the big the big thing you know that was sticking in my craw was just 140 feet in our skyline.

Now, once we have other things around it, you know, I'm sure it will be buffered somewhat.

But it it's sad to see this neighborhood kind of swallowed up in by development like this.

So thank you for your presentation.

I really appreciate it.

Councilmember Vaucus.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I appreciate it.

Mr.

Peterson, I'll ask you to step back just a minute and I'll ask our police chief to come up.

The uh, you know, the here and now about truck issues.

I had several emails who talked about truck issues, truck parking issues at the other lineage facility.

And I asked our police department, get involved and report out.

If you could tell us, Chief, what you've determined.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members Mike Beautod, your police chief.

Yeah, we responded um to uh the lineage plant that's currently out there on Erickson.

And we we did notice that there were trucks staged on Erickson, which is the long uh cul-de-sac right in front of the plant.

Uh we were able to move all the trucks, they were very receptive to moving um at the times we were out there.

And then we also engaged with the um lineage uh management to see if we can find a solution to that.

So we've met with them twice so far uh as recent as this morning uh to come up with a solution.

They're very receptive to trying to uh do that.

They took the first step and went ahead and contacted uh the one company that they work with and the trucking firms uh to see if they can resolve the issue and and we'll kind of take it from there.

Okay.

Good.

Thanks very much, Chief.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions for the developer?

Okay.

I don't see any.

So at this time we're gonna let the public have an opportunity to address the council.

We have several individuals that have signed up to speak.

We have 15 minutes allotted to the public.

Um there's six individuals, so I I don't know, we can give each uh I I have six here on this list.

That's two and a half minutes apiece.

Or we can see how it goes.

Okay.

Uh so if the city clerk would please uh introduce our speakers and invite them to come and talk to the council.

But Doug Doffler, please go to this podium, state your name and address for the record.

So is it true that one of the individuals on the list left?

So we can go ahead and give them three minutes.

Let's give them three minutes each.

Let's see how that works.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Just saying, I we didn't get to do any PowerPoints right then, so we have a couple.

A couple of uh boards here.

Uh this will be Lone Elm, by the way, just in case anybody was wondering that's got the black.

Um is Doug Dorfler, I live at 21834 West 175th Street in Olatha, and I'm a member of the Nottington Creek subdivision.

I know from your comments you all agree that this project is wrong for the proposed location.

So the only reason you are considering this as a yes vote is that the City of Spring Hill is incapable of handling a disaster of the scale.

I agree, but I'm not so sure it would automatically go to Spring Hill.

But let's just agree Olatha is a lesser of two evils.

Because most of you are fully aware of all the issues that will surely come with the cold storage facility.

You have made statements to the following.

Olatha has rules to keep heavy trucks from blocking roads.

Maybe, but start enforcing that on 167th Street.

Olathe has a huge truck parking shortage, and it will be even worse than the expected lineage volume, which you have stated creates safety and neighborhood concerns.

We a hundred percent agree.

Olathe has better fire lanes and access for emergency vehicles.

Maybe, unless all the roads are blocked by all the heavy trucks.

Olathe has more rigorous stormwater, utility, and road standards.

Have you seen Lone Elm lately?

Olatha has more inspectors and first responders with hazmat experience.

I sure hope they can get around all those heavy trucks blocking their roads before the leak spreads into our neighborhood.

Olathe has more safeguards when emergencies happen.

Will those safeguards prevent a traffic fatality at a narrow two-lane road blocked by heavy trucks?

I don't think so.

We all agree that standards, safeguards, and rules are nice to have, but if you can't enforce any of them, which Olatha admits they don't have the manpower or budget money, they just don't even matter.

You stated that Nottington Creek was built in a rural area, so there was always a risk the area could turn into an industrial park.

You may not understand the difference between a warehouse and a cold story cold storage facility, but we sure do.

Explain why in 2005 the city built Lone Elm Park in the exact same year that you annexed Nottington Creek.

Was it because you thought the warehouse workers and truck drivers might like to play softball, soccer, or even play on a swing set during their lunch breaks.

And I do want to state that all that information that was presented today, the PowerPoints, that was presented at the exact same Planning Commission meeting to discuss this topic originally.

So there's no new information, and they voted it down.

Nothing has changed.

Nothing that has been presented as any different.

Just for your information.

So please listen to listen to that planning commission whose role it is to advise you.

Please listen to your constituents who are you are committed to serve.

Please stand with all of us and vote no on this development.

And in the immortal words of Bill Belichick, do your job.

Excuse me, with Jeff Walters, please go to the podium and state your name and address for the record.

My name is Jeff Walters.

I live at 21581 West 177th Court in O'Laith, Kansas.

The City of Olathe recently developed a special website just for us.

Its purpose was, and I'll quote to share information so residents can better understand what has been proposed.

We understand what has been proposed, and we don't like it.

We don't need a special website to school us because we weren't buying into this development.

We know the risks, and we know we've read the reports.

We've seen it with our own eyes.

Nothing looks good about it to us.

Understand we're not against industrial development.

As long as it's reasonable.

Allowing the developer to build a 140-foot tall structure, two and a half times the standard height is not reasonable.

A nine-foot berm or a 15-foot tree buffer between a residential area and a 140-foot tall building is not reasonable.

High volume semi-truck traffic in and out of a proposed facility 24-7 is not reasonable.

The use of Anheyders ammonia next to a park, busy road in residential areas by a company whose facility in 2024 in Finley, Washington, burned for 60 days and released, according to the Washington Department of Ecology, 14,000 pounds of anheader's ammonia is not reasonable.

We are reasonable people.

But when citizens feel unheard and betrayed, they don't disappear.

They organize and they protest, and that's why we're here tonight.

We feel unheard and betrayed, and we don't need to be schooled.

That's why so many people have signed this petition in about three days who don't want lineage where it's planning to build.

When you decided to run for public office, I'm sure you wanted people, you wanted to help people, you wanted to make a difference.

You occupy those seats because citizens believed in your ability to protect their interests.

And that trust is sacred and fragile.

I keep hearing hearing you say, several of you, that you want to do what's right for Olatha.

Well, we're Olatha.

The people in this room, the people in this room, and the people in the overflow room, the people watching on the video.

We are Olatha.

Lineage is not.

That's right.

A yes vote tonight means that you're standing against the people you chose to represent.

You are breaking a promise and shattering a trust.

A no vote means you're standing with the people who elected you and keeping a promise.

So tonight you can choose one of two paths.

One leads to dignity and legacy, and the other one leads to division and resentment.

In Proverbs chapter one, verse five, it says, Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance.

Well, we are Olatha, and you can listen to us.

We ask that you listen to us and stand with us.

It's time for you to make a wise choice for the city of Olatha and for the people of Olatha.

Please vote no on this project.

Our next speech speaker is Brian Sweetman.

Please go to the podium, state your name and address of the record.

Thank you.

I want to say something about Alpha.

Oh, that's fine.

That's fine.

Representative here.

All right, thanks, Brian.

Thanks, Brian.

My name is Brian Sweetman.

I live at 22198 West 177 Terrace.

The City of Olatha has a mission statement, setting the standard for excellence in public service.

While the agreement with Mayor Bacon signed in April technically did not break the law, it is used, it has used exposed loopholes in the systems.

These loopholes permitted lineage in the city not to be required to send notification to the citizens in the immediate area area, which is why we just begun this fight only six weeks ago.

I'm here today to implore you on the council to do the right thing.

There's still an out.

You must show intent that you have operated good faith.

Once the situation was brought to in light, we the constituents that have elected you the office are the ones you are supposed to be working for.

We have stood our ground against this decision.

In fact, the planning council sided with us in a five to two decision.

In the last three to five days, there's been multiple communications with the developer for lineage and our HOA board.

Our board held an emergency meeting with us, the residents of Nottington Creek, and we went over the facts.

Fact, there was a written offer bribe of 275,000 from the developer that was sent to the HOA board.

The money was to be used on HOA items, meaning no money could go to the residents.

There were stipulations where the HOA board must stop any opposition of this project.

They were instructed to support it and have our residents do the same.

We had a vote with all 247 homes in our subdivision, one vote per per house, with 89.9% voting to not take the bribe.

We cannot will not be bought off when there are so many serious safety issues with this project that directly impacts us, period.

Like many in this room, I have personally spoken to Senator Thomas.

He had made multiple calls, which I believe many of you guys on the council the last few days.

He agrees with us on the many aspects of our opposition.

He knows firsthand that Lone Elm cannot support this type of a project.

He agreed that safety is a huge concern as he resides at 163rd in Ridgeview.

He told me if council was to approve this, it would be opening to the door for class action lawsuits.

I believe the city would also be open to them as well as each of you on the council and your estates as well.

We all know lineage has a shady history at best, so it's not a matter of if, but when something happens, the lawsuits will start pouring in.

I've traveled the country while serving the Air Force for 20 years.

I have not once seen an industrial facility with anhydrous ammonia near any city park.

This system they proposed was going to be a 30,000 pound system.

It would be a closed loop system, and there'd be no no leaking.

Every one of us has had HVAC technicians out to our house, topping off our units because things leak.

Your car leaks, you know, your house needs a new roof.

Nothing is bulletproof.

The decision, this decision you guys are about to make will be a political uh defining moment for each of you.

One that will help propel your political career further, or one that will effectively end it with your next election.

Miss Essex, why would you vote for this when you represent Ward 1?

Why would you want a facility like this adjacent to a city park and one that creates serious safety issues for citizens of your ward that you put represent?

Mike Jensen let us know that he will stand with us if we decide to pursue this further with the lawsuit.

Please do the right thing and vote no.

Mr.

Vacus, you served in the country and defended our safety for 30 years in the Army.

So you are retired colonel, and I thank you for that, sir.

Being on the council, you're still serving at a local level.

Please do the right thing, sir.

Stand up to the safety of our citizens and vote no.

Dr.

Feltner, you have stepped up your Facebook game recently.

You call this a hop skip development.

I'll quote you.

Your commitment to ensure this area as this area grows, it's done as thoughtfully as possible with attention to buffering infrastructure, protecting the quality of life for 19th Creek residents.

How would you propose to buffer 140 foot building?

The infrastructure and roads are falling apart, and you want to add 500 trucks in and out a day.

Please do the right thing and vote no.

Mrs.

Vop Vaught, you you have been on the council in some capacity since 97.

I got like maybe two more things.

All right.

Please wrap up.

Um, in some capacity since 97.

You have a master's degree in nursing.

So I know that you know how dangerous anhydrous ammonia is, and I pray that our medical medical facilities don't need your experience after an accident.

Please do the right thing.

Mr.

Schoonover, I'll be honest, you probably have the most upside of anyone on this council.

You just got you just got into politics in 24.

Um a vote of yes will definitely end your political career.

We want would you want to live across this street from a facility like lineage?

The answer is if your answer is yes, again, I'll gladly sell you my house right now tonight.

Um would you would you take your kids to a park right next to a facility like that?

No, you wouldn't.

Please for our safety and many of our families like yours uh and the citizens vote no.

Lastly, Mayor Bacon, you sign this agreement prior to any type of notification being sent.

That that's fine and dandy.

That's in the past.

Uh, in a perfect world, you can trim a sliver of the six hundred and twenty-six million dollar budget that Olaf is proposing next year and buy the land from Lineage and while the city decides to do what what it wants to do.

Ryan, your time is up.

Okay.

Sorry.

We have a we have two more speakers.

Okay.

Two more speakers.

Okay.

Okay, well, one thing, one thing, one thing.

So we would rather you pass this on to Spring Hill.

Kick the bucket to them.

They have a $65 million operating budget.

They're not going to get the same pack of tax incentives that lineage wants.

Please vote no.

Thank you.

Mayor, I believe Gail is the one that has left.

So I I believe Gail is the one that has left.

Uh okay.

So the next speaker is Nancy Halpin Sadek.

I apologize if I misspelled uh spoke.

She's right here.

Please state your name and address for the record of the podium.

My name is Nancy Halpin Sadek.

Sorry.

I live at 2189 West 177th Terrace in Nottington Creek.

First of all, I'd like to say remember there's an enormous housing crisis, health shortage.

If that land could be rezoned for homes, think about the tax revenues that you would get.

But if you are adamant about allowing lineage to build this facility, despite significant public opposition, then you council members need to move your families into Nottington Creek.

God knows no one else will buy a home in this beautiful subdivision if this monstrosity is built.

Then your children and grandchildren will grow up learning to drive the streets with now an extra up to 2,000 semi-trups trucks, or maybe only 500 per day, barreling down the roads, which you yourselves have said that you have no plans to improve for at least five years.

As Brian has said, the City of Olatha's officials official motto is setting the standard for excellence in public service.

If you intend to rezone this parcel of land, then you better vote to change the official motto to lining the city council's pockets is our number one goal.

City of O the citizens of Olatha and public service be damned.

Remember also, we do know lineage offered money to Nottington Creek.

Our final speaker this evening is Kendall Cook.

Please come to the podium, state your name and address for the record.

I'm Kendall Cook, I've at uh 2156 West 177th in Nottington Creek.

I'm not a speaker, so I've never been up here and done this before.

Um but thank you in advance for the opportunity to speak tonight.

I do not believe this question has been asked yet, so I will.

Would each and every one of you be willing to vote yes to allow this monstrosity of a building to be built in your backyard, next to your homes, your schools, your churches, your ball fields.

Why don't you put money aside for once and give me your human answer to my question?

And what would your answer be?

And then how are you going to handle an ammonia leak that creates a cloud?

Fire chief has no idea how to fight a cloud of ammonia, which would hurt every one of you and every one of your families if you live near to this.

Think about it again and vote no.

Thank you.

Um Council members, questions of staff.

Anyone?

Councilmember Vaucis.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Jessica?

So I want to come back to the fire, the fire issue.

You know, we had uh Mr.

Peterson here say there were no fires, but we had someone say there was a fire.

What what are we talking about?

What's the difference here?

Fire in another location.

You're referring to the um Washington fire location.

Yeah.

Yes, from what we have been told there was a fire at that location.

Very different building built at a very different time, wood frame structure, um, and there are different reasons around why that happened that are very different than this facility.

Sure.

Was that an ammonia fire?

Yeah.

I would defer to the applicant for that.

So Mr.

Peterson, please.

Thank you.

So staff is right in terms of apples and I think that came from your mouth.

Apples and oranges, and we can unpack that.

But on the ammonia piece, there were detectors put all around to see if there was any ammonia that was released that could be detected and there was not.

So that was a fire in a combustible building, which you know is very, very infrequent, but that's what it was.

There was not no ammonia problem, no detectors that picked up any issues.

That's a fact.

Okay.

I mean, that's that's that's what we've got.

Yes, sir.

Good.

Any uh so Ms.

Ms.

Sheeler, if you'd come back up then.

So let's talk about timelines a bit.

Um tonight we're being asked to consider rezoning this piece of property.

Is it are we also approving the preliminary site development plan for phase one?

That's correct.

Okay.

And so on the assumption that that's approved this evening, and then it's built.

How long before it operates?

About three years before it begins to operate.

I I would have to defer to the applicant on that timing as well.

Mr.

Peterson, if you could step back up.

Yeah.

Sir, two years to construct, 12 to 18 months to really ramp up because enough food has to get in and not go right back out where you're building up your inventory, and then really a full five years to stabilize this answer after the two years of construction.

And the the phase two, the potential of a phase two is likely down the road.

Market driven, right?

Market.

Just like the rest of the employment area in this part of Oletha.

Yeah, good.

Good.

And so again, I mean, as um cautionary is we should all have concern about truck traffic.

That doesn't materialize overnight.

That ramps up after the building is built and it begins to operate.

And so we'll we'll phase into that and see what we're really looking at.

And clearly, if if there are undeniable significant issues, we're going to have to make adjustments on operating hours for the facility, for example.

It's a 24-hour facility, but that's actually a good thing because that's why the 250 inbound trucks are dispersed almost evenly over 24 hours.

That that in this case that's a good thing.

Yeah.

But I I just think again, I just offer that that's a point that the problem that people want to highlight this evening, which is, you know, is real, not imagine, it's real.

It doesn't occur overnight.

It takes time and we have time to assess what's going on and adjust as appropriate.

Years.

Yeah.

So uh again, I'd ask Ms.

Schuler to step up.

The the commercial piece on this on the south uh southwest corner of this quadrant, that's proposed retail?

Yes, it's just general C2.

Again, no uh known users at this time, but yes.

Sure.

And and lineage doesn't do this kind of development.

So this would be offered for sale?

That's correct.

But we're trying to bring in some sort of retail to help round out uh what's going on in this area?

Yes.

I mean, in this corridor, um, staff has always tried to transition the uses.

As you get closer to 175th Street, um, you'll see that with um 175th West, where we have BP along 175th, same thing here, transitioning heights and uses to the roadway.

Okay.

Okay, good.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Schoonover.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you so much, Jessica.

So we're looking at this uh square piece of land, but there's the little cutout in here where there's a couple of existing houses, is that right?

That's correct.

They're they're in Olatha too, correct?

Those those houses, or is that county?

They are actually in the county.

They're in the county right there.

Okay.

And then the land across the uh across the street from that, directly north of the neighborhood, but directly west, is that county as well?

That has been annexed recently.

That's that's annexed.

So what is that currently zoned as?

It retains county zoning.

County zoning.

And then the same with the with the proper with the parcel immediately to the west of that one.

This property?

Yes.

Um that is um in the in the city and has been zoned.

It's a hundred that's hedgling east of development.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um this uh when when the neighborhood was uh annexed in 2003 is five.

2005.

Uh the what was the surrounding land use at that time?

Was it was it residential, was it rural, was it commercial?

Yes.

So at the time of annexation, give you a time mark.

Are we talking about Nottington Creek?

Yes, yep.

Okay.

So the comprehensive plan at that time still designated this area as future growth area.

Um it was still definitely just out in the kind of out in the county.

Um so it wasn't until 2007 that the loan owned vicinity plan designated that area for business parking commercial, and then we went back in 2008 and updated our comprehensive plan to match that.

And it was broad at that time.

It said non-residential uses in 2008.

Thank you.

So we annexed the we annexed the neighborhood in 2005.

And at that point, it was residential that that area, is that right?

Under the original loan elm plan?

Yeah, future growth area, it had yeah, rural residential type development.

Okay.

And then it in 2007, we updated the loan elm plan and it became business park at that time.

Business park and commercial.

Yes.

And that's uh you under that plan, that's what we currently call employment.

Is that or that's the one?

That's correct.

The definitions align.

Okay.

Uh I'll also have some questions for Chief DeGraf and read it, but if I'll wait on those if anybody has.

That's great.

Yeah.

Chief.

You thought it was getting away.

Thank you, Chief.

The automatic and mutual aid agreements that you you talked about, those those essentially say that if there's something that happens in Spring Hill and we're the closest, we're going to respond respond to that, right?

And you're correct.

The automatic aid agreement is uh such that the um the closest unit responds.

Um and if somebody needs help based on number of firefighters that are required or specialized equipment, it is automatically happens, doesn't require a set of approvals.

Okay.

So it it exists regardless of and and I know the answer to this question, but I'm just it exists regardless of building code.

So I understand that we have a more modern building code as you mentioned uh in your presentation than the than what they do um uh down in Spring Hill.

But regardless, if something happens down there and we're the closest, we're gonna be the ones that respond.

Uh just based on the locations under discussion, we would be the we would have the four closest units to that.

You would have the four closest to this to this area.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's council member Essex.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um could I have Kurt Peterson come back up real quick?

Thank you so much for your presentation for being here.

So I've I'm hearing a little discrepancy on number of trucks.

I know we've we've talked about this thoroughly, but um I've heard some are of people in the ward one talking about 2,000 trucks.

Is that is that a number that was ever I mean 2,000 versus 500 trips?

Just curious where the discrepancy is.

I heard the same thing, but I can say emphatically, with all of Lynage's experience, which is why I emphasize this as their first time doing this.

250 inbound.

This is after tar exchange, after ramp up, ramp up, ramp up over ye.

This is years from now.

250 inbound, 250 outbound in a day.

So however you think of that, some people would call that 250 trucks, some would say uh 500.

However, your brain thinks about it, but it's I say it's 500 trips, right?

250 in 250 out.

Okay.

So 2000 was not ever mentioned when you were.

No, that's never been lineages.

Not even close, yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And I have a question for Jessica, if I may.

Sure.

It was mainly double the amount.

Okay.

Thank you, Jessica.

I appreciate um you being here as well.

Um actually Charlie Love, let me let me ask him a question.

Maybe both of you can help.

I'll just get you all up here.

Um I just want to double check.

Um there was a lot of concern about lone elm right now.

I mean, even if it's not widened in a couple years, I kept hearing that it's cracking and crumbling, and um the concern with these heavy trucks that that's not sufficient for the road to stay in the quality of shape we want it in.

Um was there is there any consideration being given to get that fixed?

You said there's gonna be um extra inches of asphalt, is that what you were saying on there before the project is complete?

Can you walk me through that?

Yeah, let me let me see if I can get the presentation.

I'm gonna speak on this slide.

So in regards to the condition of road, uh uh, as you know, the city collects uh data on our on our arterials.

We do that every three years.

We drive these roads, we collect data, and we collect uh I believe what we call an OCI.

It's a it's essentially a pavement conditioned index.

And we have that data.

Uh in particular, the area south of 167th Street that goes to 175th Street.

I believe it's right around the the fair quality wherever we look at that.

The air the the roadway that's north of 167th Street, that is an area where we've been making quite a few, I'll say internal maintenance repairs.

So if you drive that corridor, you'll see that city staff, city has gone out and done quite a few road repairs.

Uh I I don't know what I don't know what the uh what the details are on those repairs.

I don't know if that's a full depth replacement or if we're just basically doing like a mill in a replacement like a two-inch mill and replacement.

But there are more repairs that are taking place probably on that that um corridor that's north of 167th Street.

And I the reason for that is is that area north of 167th Street has been experiencing more truck traffic than what I would say is this the area south between 167th and 175th.

And that's just due to the nature of these trucks that come here turning and going up that direction.

There's a fair amount of trucks that turn and go up.

And so that that corridor has seen more truck traffic.

So as I stated earlier, the project that went there, that was in 2018, it overlaid uh that section of 175th Street all the way up to the interchange area.

So we got approximately seven years out of that that the life of that overlay.

And so now what we're doing is after we took the cores, uh, and we've seen the pavement condition, and what we're doing is is we're moving forward with another major maintenance project.

And when I said earlier, we don't have all the scope identified.

We're collecting data out there.

There's probably locations along that roadway that's gonna have more significant repairs done to it, such as a full depth repair, versus there'll be some areas where there may just be some mill and overlay, but then throughout that whole corridor, we're actually gonna install another additional two inches onto that existing section.

And the reason I mention that is if you think about that area that's north of 167th Street and what it's experienced over the last seven years, we would I would anticipate that when we put two inches on top of that throughout that corridor, we're gonna get at least that life out of it.

But I would expect that you're probably gonna get a couple more years just in the service life of the project that we're preparing to execute.

It could be as soon as 2026, but in regards to not overpromising, we're I I believe it would be completed by 2027, which is definitely in time before this project would be complete and under construction.

Does that help?

Yeah, I mean it does help me.

I would just like to add we need to pay special attention and make sure that that is going to be able to handle any types of tracks.

If it's crumbling, that's unacceptable.

We need to make do what we can to take care of that.

So thank you.

Councilmember Felter.

Councilmember Felter.

Thank you, Mayor.

Charlie, if you'll stay right there, thank you so much.

So I know the scope hasn't been identified, but thank you.

I watched the planning commission meeting twice, and I was very concerned about lone.

So I'm glad to see that added into the CIP.

And I wanted to know the scope, um, will it uh include anything about shoulders, adding shoulders to that road?

So just a second.

So in 1997, the county they did execute a project along Lone Elm.

And that project in 1997, those as builds, you look at those as builds, at that time there's a six-foot gravel shouldered aggregate shoulder that was installed along that roadway.

So when we do this next project, we are preparing because we're going to be adding that two inches, we don't want there to be that roll off off the edge of the of the edge of the pavement.

So we will be going back through that corridor and having to bring up the grade there along the corridor where that where that sh existing shoulder, six-foot shoulder is.

And so we'll probably be adding there's some places where it has settled, and so there's gonna be two inches or more that's uh uh installed along the corridor.

Okay, so that would be gravel.

It's gonna be aggregate, yes.

Okay.

And at any point in the future, will it be asphalt shoulders?

At this time we haven't uh I don't believe that it's in the scope of work.

There are locations that have that asphalt asphalt shoulders, but there's also locations that have gravel shoulders.

I'll let you know in regards to a shoulder, it's it's not a drivable surface.

It's not intended to be a drivable surface.

It's more in regards to the safety of that corridor and giving you a recoverable area so that when you do drive off, if your wheel does go off the edge of the roadway, you're not immediately in the end of the ditch.

And so that six foot is intended to provide that.

And so there's even does that make sense?

And then what I would say is is if you if it if you drive this corridor, I and I don't know if you have but think of this corridor in comparison to what I'll say is um Ridge View south of 167th Street.

That ridge view corridor does not have shoulders.

There are locations where arterials were we don't have much shoulder, and is a lot more significant drop-off.

But in this particular area, there are locations.

Okay, yes.

What you're saying is the drop-off, like on Ridgeview.

That's a great example.

I can't hear it.

It's literally like you'll have uh a ditch right next to the road.

Correct.

Yeah.

When you don't have the gravel shoulder.

If you don't have that gravel shoulder.

Correct.

Okay.

Okay.

That makes sense.

Um, that's all I have for you.

Can I ask um I suppose Jessica?

Uh question.

I just wanted to reiterate.

This hundred and forty-foot building did not need to have any exemptions or that's correct.

Exceptions made.

The height is permitted by right in our code.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

And then Mr.

Peterson, can I ask you?

So I heard the number three thousand pound system and then in public comments and then three thousand pounds.

So I think it's thirty thousand pounds, three thirty-five hundred gallons, something like that.

So yeah.

Do you want to equate the two?

Just wanted to clarify because this is important.

We've heard several things.

It's a 30,000 pound system.

And do you measure it in pounds or gallons?

Well, there's also a metric that is eight thousand pounds that say it again.

Eight pounds per gallon.

Those are the two metrics.

30,000 and 8 pounds per gallon.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

And again, 500 trucks a day, it's 500 trips a day.

That's I I say it like that.

Fire trips, 250 and 250 out.

That's right.

Okay.

Okay.

Very good.

Thank you.

I want to dash Chief de Graffin Reed some questions.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Chief.

Okay, just gotta find my questions here.

Do we have any ladders that are 140 feet tall?

No.

No.

Mayor City Councilmember Jeffraffy, no, we do not have any ladders that are 140 feet tall.

Our taller slider is 100 feet.

So if not, how do you fight that a fire in that building?

That's a good question.

It's common to have tall buildings in many cities, and obviously a hundred-foot ladder, which is what we have, is the standard in the United States.

They do make taller ladders, particularly used in Europe.

And so we have to rely on the building systems to fight this fire, and then we fight high-rise fires internally when we can.

Okay.

So that means that means our first responders are going in this building.

Yes.

If there's a fire.

Absolutely.

So I was the one who asked you to explain what an evacuation plan looks like.

And thank you for that.

What does it look like when there's an all clear?

Same thing?

Yeah, I mean, obviously uh we want folks to be back in the homes as soon as they can.

Part of our strategy is always to bring back things to normalcy.

Uh and we would use the police department to help us with those operations because you want to make sure you get the right folks to the right place.

An ammonia cloud, it's not up in the air, is it?

It's down low on the ground.

And hydrus ammonia is a unique uh chemical.

It can go up and away depending on uh certain circumstances, but if the temperature is correct, uh if it's cooler, if it's cloudy, the humidity is right, it can hang in low-lying areas for sure.

Okay.

Okay.

Do we have a fire station in that vicinity?

Close enough to service.

I've I've had this conversation.

My my question is this.

If a if someone down in southern Olatha goes into cardiac arrest versus someone in at 143rd in Copper Creek Drive, um, what's the um likelihood they will survive it versus someone in the middle of town?

That's a tough question for sure, but I will say that time is always the enemy of the fire department.

Uh the faster we can get the a problem uh and the faster we can do some intervention um the better the survivability rates are uh and the quicker problems go away.

So it's so if we had uh if we had a fire station, if we had a fire station closer in that area it might be helpful.

I mean I put any words in your mouth, but listen.

Uh we appreciate that you have high expectations of we appreciate that you have high expectations in the fire department, and part of what you've asked us to do is a plan for the future, and this does have a fire station plan for the future.

Where would that be?

167th in Lone Elm.

Okay, so 167th in Lone Elm and what corner of that is.

It's on that would be on the southeast side.

Southeast corner.

Okay.

So pretty close.

Okay.

And is that in the CIP now?

It is in the CIP.

It is not on the funded portion of the CIP.

Okay.

So it's it's got a placeholder.

Okay.

Um let me see.

The collaborative agreement with Spring Hill.

Is there a way to track how many times we respond to a request for assistance in Spring Hill?

Uh I don't have the exact number off the top of my head, but we do have a good working relationship.

They have a different ISO rating for sure, and uh definitely a different type of fire department because of the size of their community, but we have a strong working relationship with them, uh, and we run every fire they have together.

Well, I mean, people are people, we we want to take care of people.

I feel like we're over a barrel here a bit, and I don't like it.

And part of the piece of the puzzle is Green Hill.

So it might be nice to be able to articulate data and the value of having a strong working relationship with Olatha, and that includes our partnership with the fire and police departments.

So I would love to see us track that data.

I know that it's not in your nature to want to do that because of the collaborative agreements because we benefit from them as well.

So they come to us as well.

But I'm just putting that out there that I think there could be value in the future because I don't like being held over.

Certainly I can provide that information.

We report in our annual report, which is on the website, our automatic aid given and automatic aid received.

It would be simple to split it out for who is getting that aid.

Okay.

And do you know in the history?

I mean, I'm new on the council.

Um, has there ever been a like we have a street maintenance sales tax, we have a park sales tax.

Has there ever been anything like a safety sales tax investigated?

Uh I do not believe the City of Oetha has investigated that.

Like they can move like the fire stations that are staged in the queue but don't have a date out of that line and directly fund them because I believe these folks have the right to survive cardiac arrest as much as my husband does.

So something to put on your radar.

I I believe that OLAF is very supportive of investment that makes sense.

I believe that's something that makes sense.

So thank you, Chief, very much.

Thank you, Maybe.

Uh Councilmember Bacchus.

Thank you, Mayor.

I appreciate it.

Uh Ms.

Shuler.

I just have one question for you, but I mentioned a couple of things.

I think someone speaking this evening said the council was taking bribes.

For the record, I've not been bribed.

No one has offered me money.

I want to make sure you understand that.

And then regarding uh, yeah, that's another story.

I don't know what that is.

You know.

But regarding Senator Thomas, I've never received a call from Senator Thomas either.

So I offer that to you.

Could you pull up the the map of the area?

And I want to talk a little bit about the land north of Nottington and west of the proposed site.

North and west.

Yeah.

Of their neighborhood or directly north, I'm sorry.

Yeah, directly north of noting.

It says employment area.

Uh-huh.

So that is currently zoned county rule.

Correct.

To be rezoned.

How would we expect that land to be developed?

I think it's likely to see a warehouse distribution type development.

Um staff would always start the conversation with an applicant, which we do not have a proposal for to do lighter intensity uses along 175th Street, as we have done with the property that I've circled where business park is in the ground, right directly to the road and it transitions uses.

So again, probably a warehouse type use in this vicinity is what I would anticipate.

What precludes a conference a conversation from a residential developer who would propose residential units on that side?

What prec what prequel what would cause a residential developer to shy away from this location?

Well, our future land use map is the first thing that we would look at.

So I so my quandary is I offered to this uh to everybody with sincerity.

A no vote tonight would give you a sense of false security in thinking somehow that we've we've shut this down.

The likelihood the likelihood is that we're going to see continued commercial development in this area.

And that's just going to be the nature of our future land use map.

Correct.

Yes, we have somewhere.

Nope.

Okay, good.

So thanks very much.

That's what I've got.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm not sure I heard Jessica's response, but Councilmember vote.

So I wanted a uh clarification regarding the plot uh comp plan and the land use plan in 2000.

Because I know, you know, I was on that committee, and I thought all of this was designated as kind of industrial.

We use different terminology, but is that correct?

As far back as 2000, we did go open all of those maps and plans, and it was still determined as future growth area, which is essentially a rural residential designation at that time.

So it wasn't until 2005, 2007 where those maps started to change.

Again, some of the pressures that we were seeing from intermodal, um sewering this land, all of that.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

Thank you for the clarification.

Um Charlie, quick question.

And this probably also goes to uh our fire chief.

But the question I have for you is you talked about some of the plans um over the next few years for updating some of the roads there and concerns about the shoulders.

And would you say we don't really have the design for those roads as of now?

No, I would not say that.

Have the designs already been made for these roads for the improvements to include the shoulders.

For loan elm, it's not making those design plans are not completed.

There's still we're still we're still identifying what work needs to be done out there and my point is to let people know if this is approved, the council has the say on how those roads will be improved.

And no doubt, um I've ridden that road dangerously on a bicycle too.

They are dangerous.

Yeah, they are.

And you're right, you're not going to ride the shoulder at all because it's gravel.

And I do see this as something coming again as asphalt.

And again, those are decisions that we have the ability to make pending the type of traffic that is on those roads.

We don't have shoulders on ridgev, still in arterial.

Why?

Because we don't need those there.

It's curb and gutter.

So it's based on uh the type of development that we have in that area.

And so I just want to clarify for everyone we may have a holding place in the CIP, and when the CIPs are approved, it's every year things can move up, things can move down, things can move out, and the council has the ability and should look at those roads to see how they're utilized, as I know staff will.

You're our professionals.

Um but I think uh people will see that we ask questions that uh are important to make sure that the infrastructure that's put in place is appropriate.

Would you agree with that?

Yes.

Okay.

Of course you would.

Okay.

And then this is really for the chief, and it's the same kind of thing.

Is this uh fire station number 10?

Yeah.

Okay.

And we're building nine.

So we know that ten is coming in again.

It may not be funded, and uh loved uh uh council member Felters question about a safety tax.

I'm not sure we would do that, but we know that the county is considering that.

And in the past, when we for their renewal, we've always used those funds for safety and capital improvements.

So I think that is uh something that um again, yearly looking at the CIP, we determine what are the priorities this year.

It may look like it wasn't a priority three years ago, but all of a sudden it can rise to the top and become a priority.

Would you and this just uh validate what I've heard that you feel that we are equipped to handle an emergency?

Mayor, council members Jeff Tigrafreate.

Listen, a fire chief never wants to have any problem with that a large magnitude in their community.

Uh you have a great fire department for the size of our suburban uh city, and it's recognized as one of the best fire departments in the country.

Um we have training on this, we have equipment for it.

And I would say um emergencies are called that because they're complicated, and it does not mean there won't be some consequences if it happens anywhere in our community, whether it's on the rail or the highway or any facility.

Um but you have a very competent fire department and strong um mutual and automatic aid to bring as many resources as we can to bear on any problem that might happen in our community.

And I appreciate that, and I am aware of that.

I want others to be aware of that.

Um thank you.

That's the same.

Council member Vacus.

Uh thanks, Mayor.

I wanted to chime in briefly, very briefly about the sales tax.

So again, just general information.

So we we currently have a county initiative initiated public safety sales tax that was passed nine years ago, a three eighth cent sales tax that was used to fund the county courthouse in the county coroner's building.

That tax expires at the end of 2026.

And the county is thinking through how they put that on the ballot for renewal.

They would like to renew it for safety measures.

I think they may need to restate the ballot measure language to make it broader than it was in the past.

But that is an important source of revenue for Olatha.

And in fact, under the terms of the existing public safety sales tax, each of the Johnson County municipalities gets a share.

That translates to Aletha to about $4 million a year that we would not have otherwise.

So if if there's a ballot measure in the spring and it's a county public safety sales tax renewal, I would encourage you to think about that and let's renew it, because that will give us the source of funding to build more fire stations, and for the county to invest more in the EMS system so that we can better cover the entire county.

I just offer that as a public service message.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay.

Um I I have a couple of questions.

I haven't had a chance to ask.

Um there was a comment about Spring Hill standards.

And I don't know if we know much about Spring Hill standards, but they're saying that they don't have the standards to e or the capacity to even take on a project like this.

Do you want to comment on that at all?

Are you familiar with their speaking from a safety perspective?

A fire safety perspective?

So infrastructure.

Infrastructure, yeah.

Everything.

If they annex this property into Spring Hill, would they be able to develop this in this property as it's being presented to us tonight?

Spring Hill standards.

Okay.

Chet Belcher, Chief Community Development Officer.

So right now Spring Hill is on the 2006 um International Building Code and the 2005 electrical code.

We are on the 2018 and in the process of working towards the 2024.

Okay.

So possibly a different standard for construction if it's annexed into Spring Hill and developed in Spring Hill.

Um I I would just say if we've got no more comments, I would just or questions, I would just make a comment that I certainly have always viewed this as a part of Olatha, a part of our planning area for Olatha.

Um I I don't think it would be right for us to allow this piece of property to be annexed by Spring Hill and developed as a Spring Hill part of their city.

I think we could do a better job, and I've always felt like we could.

Um and I would tell you historically, um, and hedge lane is a good example of this, just north of 175th Street.

When uh we have development that requires a better street network, we've uh done it.

And so we've got curbs and we have sidewalks on hedge lane today.

And I can see that as development occurs along um lone elm that we would consider uh increasing our standard on the you know in our CIP.

So I don't know any other comments before we um I would just say that I think we're kidding ourselves if we don't think this property will quickly de-annex and annex into Spring Hill.

So I don't know any other comments before we I would just say that I think we're kidding ourselves if we don't think this property will quickly de-annex and annex into Spring Hill if uh and and I I don't know what it would be like at a Spring Hill council meeting, whether they would listen to Olatha residents or not.

Maybe they would.

But what does that mean?

It means this facility would be happening under Spring Hill standards.

Those differ from Olatha in that they are significantly lower requirements for traffic improvements, property-line setbacks, landscaping, buffering, building material, parking requirements, to name just a few.

In addition, it's primary emergency response would not come from Olatha's top rated and appropriately equipped fire department.

And in addition, they are lone elm improvements would be the responsibility of Spring Hill.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's the thing.

Because this would be City of Spring Hill, folks.

And they would no longer be in Olatha's construction plan for next year.

It would not be maintained to Olatha's standards.

In other words, this project is going to happen, I believe, and it will be approved quickly by Spring Hill.

They'd be excited, I think, to have this part of their community.

That is my fundamental struggle.

The project is going to happen.

This project will happen.

If it happens in Olatha, its impacts will be significantly minimized by a house compared to what would happen in Spring Hill.

And if it's going to happen, I believe it would be irresponsible for us as a council to not maintain some equality and impact control.

By having this in Olatha.

So I would welcome any other comments.

And if we don't have any, I would entertain a motion on this item.

Councilmember Felter.

I was going to make some comments, but I am not going to if I have to yell over people.

So do you guys want to hear my thoughts on what policy decisions guided where I ended up at?

Yes.

Okay.

Nottington Creek is a valued part of our Olatha family, but because it was built in a hop skip development in rural Johnson County, there was always the risk that something would be developed out there that wasn't what you'd envisioned.

Now with industry industrial growth at the doorstep, our choice is not whether the project happens, but who manages it.

If Olatha says no, Spring Hill could annex it and move forward with less rigorous standards.

Leaving Nottington Creek in the same with the same impacts but fewer safeguards.

So history gives us the cautionary tale of Gardner and the intermodal.

We just have to look to that lesson to know that we do not want to end up in that situation.

So that's an example of why tonight's decision matters.

The question is whether this project will happen, but it's where and under whose rules.

Olathe has the infrastructure, public safety resources, and experience to manage it more reasonably with stronger protections for you.

For this reason, I will be voting yes on this project.

Councilmember Councilmember Gilmore has the floor.

Thank you, Mayor, Council members.

Oops.

Need my mic.

Thank you, Mayor, and fellow council members and presenters and public speakers for all of your input tonight, planning commission and all the correspondence that's gone on in between.

And that is there was a there was a discussion about what we have a responsibility for as city council members.

And one of those responsibilities is looking beyond today.

That's what the comprehensive plan is all about.

That's trying to say what does the process look like 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now.

How is the city going to grow?

How is it going to develop?

What kind of property is going to be there?

We wrestle with those issues.

We gather public input on those issues and we create these plans.

Commercial and industrial development is coming around this Nottingham neighborhood, no matter what.

It's coming.

Now we have the opportunity.

It's a market reality, folks.

I appreciate one of the ladies who said, let's put residential there.

There's no residential coming to this area.

You know why?

Because they know it's going to be commercial and industrial, and they're not going to pay commercial prices for residential property.

Listen, please allow, please allow me to speak.

I have the floor.

Thank you.

You know, when we talk past each other, we don't hear each other.

So please that's a problem in this country.

I don't want it to be a problem in Olathe.

Let me speak.

It already is.

Yeah.

So that reality exists in the market.

That's not necessarily anything anybody did around this dias or prior councils.

It's a market reality what's happening in this in this market.

The other responsibility, one of the many responsibilities that we have as council members is we need to have a level playing field for those people who want to put at risk significance amount of money to build properties like this to hire two and three hundred people to create the jobs.

That then creates demand for more housing.

And it moves on that that way.

Why didn't you tell them that way?

Ladies and gentlemen, I have the floor.

Thank you.

So this is an employment area according to our plan, which means we're doing, we're planning that direction.

So the developers who come in and buy these properties.

I want to go back to the the issue of the April letter that the mayor signed and everybody I want to also say there's been a lot of uh comments here about ill will that everybody has some ulterior motive.

Trust me, that's not the case.

And I don't think that about any of you who have spoken against this project.

I know you're trying to protect your homes.

You're trying to protect your value, you're trying to protect where you live.

I get that.

So help us through that well.

This letter that the mayor signed back in April, whatever it's called, I don't remember the term of it, is not something done in subdifuge.

It's done in the market to try to secure a property for this city for future development so that we can generate the value of that, the taxes related to that going forward that will help lower property taxes and the pressure on property taxes in this state.

You don't help your cause when you won't listen.

Stop.

So that's all part of the master planning that goes on here on a daily basis from our economic development folks to the city staff to our planners.

Not that I thought it was just, you know, that letter that the mayor signed didn't bind us.

We have to do what the developer wants.

That means that if the developer puts a plan together that fits our standards, then we will look at it and it runs through the process, and that's when you all got notified that hey, there's someone looking to develop this ground to rezone it and do X, Y, and Z.

That's the process.

Someone once also said the goalposts removed.

You know, when you when you live in an outlying neighborhood like Nottington has been, development is coming to you.

You don't get to control the ground you don't own.

That's about market reality.

So I look at this property, I support the applicant's request.

I think this proposed development is consistent with the policies and the goals that are outlined in our comprehensive plan.

It meets the UDO criteria for this type of zoning, and the applicant has agreed to the staff recommended stipulations regarding uses in the preliminary site development plan.

Is every street around it perfect yet?

No.

But there's things in the plans that do that.

I can tell you I've I've never met anyone who objected to a project who were satisfied where this way the streets were when the project was first approved.

But those things always do catch up, and you heard about that tonight.

So I'm going to support uh saying yes on this motion.

Are you going to buy my house?

Yeah.

I'm going to go to the house.

Councilmember Schoonover has the floor.

Thank you.

I um I I have heard everybody's uh discussion.

I agree with uh uh council member Gilmore.

Thank you, everybody for for discussing this, everybody who gave the presentation.

Uh this is something that I have struggled with and that I continue to struggle with.

Um I, you know, listen, the reality of it is I wouldn't want this in my backyard either.

Um I'm I'm I'm struck that when we when we annex this land, the neighborhood into Olatha in in 2005, uh that the surrounding area was rural residential.

And over the years we have let it change, we have let that characteristic change in that area.

Yes, I understand it's driven by the market.

Um, but I do think that we owe it to our residents no matter where they are to help them try and protect the value of their homes as well.

So, I think that's a good thing.

Um I really resent as it Lietta in your words being held over a bear barrel though.

I mean uh the the idea that if if if we don't do something that perhaps we don't think is necessarily right for Olatha or for the surrounding uh community, that they're just gonna go to Spring Hill.

Um, we have a lot of reasons why a business would want to develop an Olatha over over Spring Hill.

And I think we have a lot of great area um, perhaps other than this site that perhaps it could look at.

I would encourage though, regardless of of what happens if this is if this is uh denied, I would encourage lineages to still look in Olatha, because uh being in Olatha makes much more sense when when you uh come down to it.

Um perhaps just in a a different location.

So that's where I comments, other comments.

Uh motion be in order.

Mr.

Mayor, I would like Mr.

Mayor, I move to approve ordinance number twenty-five dash twenty uh thirty two, which is RZ twenty-five dash zero zero zero seven.

Second.

Dr.

Felter.

Yes.

Mr.

Sconover.

No.

Mr.

Vacus.

Yes.

Yes.

Mr.

Gilmore.

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

No.

Motion passes five two.

Would you like a little break?

Uh we're going to recess for about five minutes for a bathroom break.

We'll be right back.

Okay, I'd like to reconvene our meeting.

We um we're still on new business, and we're moving to item B.

The next three items are appropriate our approval of our next year's budget.

The budget is one of the most important things that the City Council does, and we take very seriously our role as stewards of our residents' taxpayer dollars.

So thank you to our staff who worked hard to put this together.

We appreciate your time, your attention to detail, and your prompt and thorough responsiveness to our questions.

Thank you, especially to our residents who took the time to share their or give us their input on the budget.

Your comments are important to us because our budget should reflect the wants and needs of our community.

So with that, I'm going to uh call up budget manager Clara Bernhauer to give us a presentation.

So, yeah, twenty twenty-six budget is presented this evening for final city council approval.

Council also uh vote on the twenty twenty six to twenty thirty capital improvement plan and twenty twenty-six schedule of fees this evening.

So we are at the conclusion of the annual budget process tonight with adoption, so we'd like to take a look back at the process that brought us here.

The annual budget process begins all the way back at the start of the year with the development of assumptions and department based budgets, and we have milestones up until this point, as you can see laid out by this uh timeline summary.

In April, we kick off with council, the budget principles, which are affirmed annually.

And we have many other touch points with council throughout the process, including three budget workshops and a public hearing night, all of which we encourage the public to attend.

Taking then many steps back to the beginning of this process, the proposed 2026 budgets foundation was built on some key considerations that we call out here on this slide.

I'll dive a bit more into council priorities and budget principles in the next two slides.

But we also consider our 2040 strategic plan, resident satisfaction results, and maintaining what we have while we continue to grow as a community and keep moving toward the future.

And this is all in addition to long-range forecasts and economic outlooks that we do at the beginning of the year as well and throughout the year.

So budget is a vehicle that helps city uh the city accomplish what council has let us know are their priorities.

These uh are the council priorities that you see listed here, and they don't change much, so that's why we consider them evergreen on that last slide.

Uh they direct staff to focus on priorities like customer service for residents and meeting financial challenges using priority-based decision making so that our long-term strategies can maximize uh reliable and sustainable infrastructure for future generations.

This slide here, uh this we wanted to show the full uh list of budget principles.

So uh those are established and refined by council uh annually, and we have these as a framework to give staff direction, ensure stewardship of public funds, and to ensure that top priorities of the council are reflected in the proposed budget.

There are ten pretty equally important uh principles here, but I'll call out that we established that the budget will fund exceptional city services and the top priorities of the community at the lowest sustainable tax rate.

You'll see the following slides how we adhered to these principles in 2026.

This slide underscores that economic conditions and inflationary pressures were a key consideration for the budget.

Where our priorities and principles stay pretty steady year over year, this dynamic of budget process can really vary and will often drive the budget.

Uh, for this budget season, economic uncertainty loomed large with slowing sales tax, uh, consumer sentiment decreases and possible tariffs impacting forecasting.

Building permits and unemployment have been staying at healthy levels for the city, but inflation continued to be an upward pressure.

When taken together, all of these trends combined to influence our budget recommendations, and we're what limited our ability to reduce our revenue stream of property tax.

So to illustrate two measures that tie directly to our costs, we have this chart.

It shows the building cost index and consumer price index increasing over the past five years by 36.5% and 22.5% cumulatively, respectively.

So you can see that there's a pretty steep increase there, especially in recent years, and we've seen that our commodities and contractual services and project costs have mapped onto those pretty steep trends.

This slide here shows some additional insight into personnel cost trends for the city.

People remain one of our largest costs, and that has also increased for a variety of reasons that we lay out here, namely to remain competitive as an employer, to cover health care and prescription costs, and to cover additional growth in the city.

So as we took stock of the economic conditions and our expenditures and revenue trends, we had a we had a serious challenge to face.

At the start of this budget, we had a 10 million dollar deficit getting exponentially worse in our initial forecasting.

This was because of slowing sales tax growth and that lower revenue amounts, uh, compounding effect in our long-term forecast.

On the other side, then we also had the rising costs detailed in the previous two slides, and that all combined to have uh expenditures or inflationary costs really uh outpace revenues without intervention.

But as we follow budget principles, uh we present a balanced budget.

So when we're faced with challenges, solutions were formed.

The 2026 budget proposes to shift the mills previously dedicated to debt service fund to the general fund.

This will provide greater flexibility and also helps us adhere to debt service fund reserve targets.

This proposed budget also includes nearly $4 million in reductions from frozen vacant positions and decreased department budgets.

The capital improvement plan was also scaled back by delaying and reducing some projects.

This table is a detailed breakout of the city's debt mills.

There's no change to the total debt to the total mill levy.

That remains stable at 23.317 mills, but you can see the debt service fund no longer has a dedicated mill levy in the 2026 proposed budget.

Instead, it will receive a pass through of property tax revenue from the general fund through transfers.

So you can see the general fund now has those uh combined mills in this table.

So that brings us to the general fund.

The majority of general fund revenues comes from sales tax at 40% with property tax at 35%.

Other sources of revenue in the general fund make up the remaining 25%.

As for general fund expenditures, people remain our largest expense at 61%, with transfers coming in second at 18% now.

The 2026 proposed general fund budget totals around $227 million.

This increases a result of the change in philosophy of having debt mills shifted to general purpose and then making that large transfer to the debt service fund.

If you exclude that transfer, operating costs are 5.9% over 2025 budget.

So this budget in brief slide illustrates that 71% of the proposed general fund budget goes to public safety and infrastructure, which is an alignment with citizen input and what should on what should receive the most emphasis.

So again, tying back to that outside on budget principles and council priorities and these considerations we make when we develop the budget.

Similar in that vein, we have this slide connecting how property taxes support city services as they're changing.

So for uh $98.70 per month, residents receive excellent fire, police, parks, transportation, and general city services.

For an average Olatha home, city taxes will increase $7.42 per month.

And that's not because of our mill rate, which is staying the same, but it is instead it's dependent on the county's appraisal, so those uh going up, so the average home value increase is what results in that increase.

Just as a reminder, here uh the city's only part of residents' tax bills for an average house valued at $437,000, $657.

Yeah, uh $437 ish thousand dollars.

Uh Olatha receives approximately one uh twelve hundred dollars in property taxes annually from a total tax bill, uh, which it combines all those other jurisdictions.

So we know residents feel the impact of rising property taxes.

Well, we start out by budgeting by seeing where we could make some reductions.

Uh the current economic environment that we described didn't allow for that this year.

We've been mindful though of our tax rate over the years, lowering it when possible.

We have lowered in the past.

And you can see uh that result uh by where Olatha sits in comparison with surrounding communities, second to lowest in mills.

And again, staff is always mindful of the burden of property taxes on residents, which is why while we couldn't lower property taxes in this proposed budget, we still continue to fund uh this uh property tax rebate program.

So 2026 proposed budget includes uh 250,000 set aside for the property tax rebate program eligible for low-income uh residents and veterans.

In 2025, so far, and these numbers are fresh this week, we've awarded 431 rebates for a total amount awarded of 232-ish thousand.

Uh of those 222 rebates, or 50, almost 52 percent have gone to veterans.

So, and then as the examples of feedback below show in those two bullets, uh this has had a positive response.

Another impact many residents will feel in the 2026 budget year will be will be utility rates.

This table shows the 2026 proposed rate increases for an average monthly residential bill.

It shows that on average, residents with all utilities, so water, sewer, stormwater, and solid waste in 2026 will pay around 135 dollars per month, which is a $7.36 cent increase over 2025 rates.

Here's how that $135 monthly rate compares to other municipalities.

Oletha, as you can see, is second to lowest here.

We believe that this comparison chart tells a great story about affordability and value for utilities in Olatha.

These services get great results from direction finder uh results, and uh we're also charging less than many of the other communities.

Although we perform comparative comparatively well, we also know that these increases have real impacts on ratepayers.

So we have expanded the water and sewer utility discount program for 2026.

Previously, that assistance was $4 per month, but we have tripled that level of assistance, bringing it up to a combined $24 off of a residence bill when they have water and sewer.

And we've also expanded eligibility to 80% area median income with no age requirement.

So the next few slides here are going to provide a brief overview on the city's capital improvement program, starting with CIP highlights here.

As we mentioned, the solution on the solution side, uh, this CIP was a bit scaled back, but we are still uh proposing a $741 million over the next five years with major projects like I-35 in Santa Fe, 119th Street Extension, and West Cedar Creek Sewer Interceptor Project.

We are also continuing investment in annual projects that maintain our existing assets like our streets with the street preservation program and street record reconstruction program.

Last year was one of the largest CIPs the city has ever seen, as you can see in the 25 to 29 adopted column in this table.

The proposed 2026-2030 CIP is again around 741 million dollars.

And this table is just showing how that spread across our systems.

So for all those great services the city provides and the assets we're maintaining.

This table provides more detail on how the city funds capital projects.

The city leverages a combination of debt, cash, and outside funding sources.

And here, when we say outside funding sources, we mean federal, state, and interlocal funding as well as grants.

And one of the reasons we can support such a large CIP is through that outside funding, which is uh around 19% of our total CIP in the 2026 to 2030 five-year span.

So, in conclusion, the proposed 2026 budget is just under $627 million, which is a 2.6% increase over the 2025 budget.

With that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Clara.

Um, questions of staff of Clara?

Councilmember Bacchus.

Thank you, Mayor.

Could you go back to the last slide just real quickly?

Yeah.

And again, what's the increase then?

Uh total total funds, yes.

Yes, including reserves.

Yep.

Okay.

Okay, good.

So I I want so much questions but general comments.

And it's perhaps this is the best place to make them.

So first of all, I want to thank you and Jamie and all of the budget staff, all of the senior leaders, and all of the budgeters distributed throughout departments who pulled together to create uh a very complicated budget to do the homework, to lay it all out.

Just a wonderful effort, wonderful staff effort, A plus as far as I'm concerned.

You know, we had uh public workshops, uh and they were very worthwhile.

And they were advertised.

I think they were pretty well advertised to the public, and I can count on two hands the number of residents that came to those public workshops.

So they were not well attended.

And so we had many people then who are frustrated with their ever rising taxes, but they don't bother to look at what's going on in the city, you know.

So we're just the uh the voodoo dollar gets stick stuck with all the pins and needles of frustrations.

I I'd like to talk about a couple of things.

First of all, next year, I I really think it is incumbent that we build two budgets to tell the right story.

Now we've got a standard budgeting process, which is basically everything I've got and some more as you roll forward into the next year.

And I don't want in any way be critical of that process because the quality staff looks across the board for efficiencies and ways that they can save money.

But nonetheless, basically, we're taking what we're doing what we do and we're adding to it.

So we're always going to end up with a bigger budget.

I'd like to see us look at it a different way, where we just say up front, and this is uh an alternative method.

Up front, we say, look, we're gonna build a budget and base it on we won't have any more revenue than what the projected CPI is.

So maybe we build a budget that is deliberately locked at no more than three percent of where we are this year.

And what we end up with then is a constrained budget, and that will enable us to better understand what could we not do if we made a conscious decision, not uh increase the budget as much as we want to.

You know, our utilities are going up at 6.5%.

Uh if you own property, your property, even though we we hold the mill levy flat, your property taxes are going up because Johnson County continues to be worth more.

So if you're in your home and you're paying property taxes and you're uh a bill payer of utilities, you're paying a lot more every year based on the budget that we put together.

If we build that alternative budget that caps it at 3%, and that includes 3% for utilities, we'd be able to understand what's the level of pain that we would have to endure if that's the decision we want it to make.

What would the impacts be?

Well, first of all, on the utilities, we're still going to have great water.

We're going to pick up the trash every week, but we would end up assuming more risk in the capital investment programs for the pipes in the ground in the other utility infrastructure.

We need to understand what that risk would be.

And on the rest of the budget, I think there's no doubt that our CIP would have to shrink significantly because we're not going to defund the police, we're not going to shut fire stations, we're not going to close the libraries.

Those things that would have to go would have to go on as usual, because there's an expectation of quality city services.

We wouldn't want to take a step back, but we'd have to have a smaller CIP.

I think that would help us all as a council, as a staff, and as a community, and we want to be very public about this as a community to make sure people understood if we did what some people think we should do, which is hold the budget line, these are the adverse impact that we would have to deal with.

Okay.

And I think to a degree that helps justify the methodology that we're currently using.

I think that would be a good educational tool for all of us, and we need to be able to talk about that as the city council as the city staff.

Second, I do want to come back to the point.

At our last city council meeting, we had a lot of people in the room, a lot of them tied to lineage, but there was a contingent here that was very much uh, you know, uh lower our taxes.

And they were generally older people, which I certainly get.

And the issue then is if you're someone at full retirement age and you're you're living on your retirement savings combined with Social Security, well, every year you you're getting a CPI increase, but that doesn't match the increased levels of taxation or the increased utility bills that we require people to make here in Olatha and across the state and across the county, you know, for example.

So I think our our aging seniors have very much a valid point that they're looking for property tax relief.

We've kicked it around before as a council a little bit over the past year of what would it take for City of Olatha unilaterally to cap our to freeze our senior taxes, property taxes, and we've decided we we just can't do it.

It's too difficult.

You know, it's just too difficult for us to do it as a city.

Madam, please listen to me.

It's too difficult for us to do it as a city.

And oh, by the way, you've got to keep in mind that out of every property tax dollar we collect, we only get 23% from the city.

So the majority of the taxes go to the county, to the school district, to the community college, and to the state.

And so really the answer is we really do want to push our state legislatures to develop a state plan that would freeze the taxes for for seniors in a way that we've all talked about before.

While you're in your home, you own your home, you you your taxes are not increased.

At some stage in the future, when your property is sold, there's a catch-up, but for the senior in their home, they don't pay any more than they have once we cap that.

I think that'd be very helpful.

And I think this is something that we we very much should have on our state legislative agenda as something that we want to advocate the state to take on, because that's where it can happen.

And in reality, that's the kind of decision, that's the kind of program that should be a statewide program.

Does that make sense to you?

Put you on the spot.

We yeah, we uh that does make sense what you're asking us to look into.

So you know, and and the issue, and it's a difficult issue because if we say, look, we're going to cap the property taxes of our seniors, and we're going to cap the utility rates of our seniors.

You know, you get in a conversation then immediately is okay.

Well, what's the revenue replacement strategy?

Because we can't just give up on that income, we need to find it from somewhere else.

Maybe that'll get a rate.

And what we don't want to do is all of a sudden have to raise the mill rate for everybody that isn't a senior, you know, and that drives the conversation that a state program with the state budget, that's the way to pursue that.

And I would ask and listen to senior citizens, because we don't get a rate.

If we get a little big rate, ma'am, thank you.

No, no, no.

The floor is this is not a public hearing, ma'am.

Ma'am, this is not a public hearing.

The floor is I'm happy to talk to you later, but not right now.

Yes, sorry.

That's fine.

The so I would propose that, and I'd ask for our budget office and our city council to really take this on as something that we want to push with the state.

So those are my comments.

I'm fully supportive of the budget as developed.

I am frustrated at the levels of utility rate increases.

But I recognize that we need those rate increases.

I support the budget.

I appreciate your work.

I'm looking for more math next year.

And for us to actually take a political stand with the State House to do something to benefit seniors across the state.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Felter.

Thank you, Mayor.

And thank you for your remarks, Councilman Bacchus.

And Jessica, thank you for all your work.

I got all the papers in my three notebook, and we're all good to go.

And I mean, it's perfect because throughout the year we can refer to it, and believe it or not, we do.

So thank you for that.

I wanted to dovetail on what Councilman Bacchus was saying.

I would say I probably take maybe the flip side on.

I'm I'm a big advocate for local control.

I love being able to adapt to the preferences of our local residents and uh be nimble.

And I believe we can do this on our local level, meet the needs uh of our specifically seniors.

We've done it already for low-income residents, we've done it for veterans, and now I I've I've already asked staff to look at for next year unique ways and programs to meet the needs.

I pitched uh hybrid between a freeze and a deferral, and I believe it would be a phenomenal um way to offer our residents um a way to to not be burdened by this ever-growing um tax burden uh from the city.

So thank you very much.

I will be supporting the budget tonight, and I really appreciate.

I know it was a painful budget because it's constrained and we had to make a lot of cuts to get here.

So thank you very much.

Councilmember vote.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh again, I want to echo compliments to the staff.

It was a tough budget.

I know that the years ahead of us are not going to be easy if you look at some of the graphs.

I think in past years when we've been able to decrease the mill levy, we have, and in 2024, we did decrease it by a full mill.

Uh economics and what's going on right now in our country, uh, we are not the only city whose residents are saying, hey, the taxes are too high, nor are the cities and the municipalities going, we're trying to provide these services, and we're going as quickly as we can.

You know, our little feet are just running to try and catch up with what's happening in the in the economy.

I'm proud that we are the second lowest mill levy, I believe, in the state.

That's not to say that we can't do better.

We always can.

Um, and as has been said, only 20, we have to keep in mind that it is a bigger picture when you look at what your property bill is, your taxes.

Only 20% is related to the city.

Yet I agree, you know, we want to keep a lathe affordable, not just for our seniors, but for our young families too, uh, to protect their hard-earned money.

Um, and so I agree that we really need to look and see where those savings might be in the future.

I appreciate that we and the county also has a rebate for property taxes, and I'm not sure people fully understand that there are some um avenues out there that can help them, and maybe we need to do a better job.

Um so I think yeah, again, we need to just do a better job and letting people know.

Uh Councilmember Bacchus, I believe last year we did have a comparison.

If we don't, you know, uh exceeding revenue neutral, these would be the projects that we would have to forgive.

And of course, um, we are exceeding revenue neutral, and we're still short, you know, and have had to cut four million plus defer or even completely take projects off of the CIP.

So it's gonna be it's gonna be tough in the future, but it's a challenge that all of us are gonna have to accept uh in order to keep citizens in Olatha and then still balance with what citizens have gotten used to, which is exceptional services.

Tonight we talked about a project we're going to bring in, and we're going to have to take care of some roads out there and do better than what I think has been thought about.

We've got fire station number 10.

That's not funded.

I'm hoping we will get some funding for that to help with that.

But those are the kinds of things that we as a council have to think about as we address the needs of the community.

We talked about, and you have presented some of the issues that have come to pass that is making us have to exceed the revenue neutral.

And our economy is one of them, is that it is in the inflationary pressures.

Personnel, we've got great personnel.

And to keep them, that means we have to pay them.

Again, I know that staff work very hard.

The council worked very hard looking at what we can do, what we can cut at this point in time, and still provide the services that our residents expect.

And so I will support this budget, but believe it or not, in just a few months, staff, you'll be working on next year's budget.

And I think it is important that today we talk about the importance of what can we do?

What will the impact be if we don't exceed revenue neutral or begin to look at cutting eventually the mill levy?

It's going to take more economic development to help that happen because we know that sales tax is continuing to decrease in our community.

That means we need to shop local, right?

To help keep that here.

So for now, maintaining our commitment to provide exceptional citizen services and addressing those ongoing infrastructure projects, which are big, they're huge, they're important, they're critical to our long-term success, bringing in economic development, help pay those taxes, and keep the sustainability of our community.

Thank you.

Councilmember Vaucis again.

Thank you, Mayor.

So I want to emphasize, I'm not trying to be uh a stick in the mud on any of this.

The uh but this alternative budget build gives us a different perspective.

Now, the objective is not to decrease the mill levy.

The objective is not to uh reduce staff.

The objective is to build an alternative budget with the understanding that we're capping the collective income to uh an estimated what the estimated 3 percent of the CPI growth would be.

And that gives us the ability to see what that budget would look like.

And again, not just the general fund, but utilities and the CIP.

I think that would be an important educational process.

And it's something that we'd want to be very public, and we use that as an educational tool for the public as much as anything, I think, to confirm for all that will listen why we don't do that, why instead we follow the methodology that we're currently using, because that's the one that gives the best results.

Then we still have the issue of property tax relief for the seniors.

And I I appreciate uh councilwoman Felcher's comments.

Look, the uh the um relief programs that we have for low-income people and for veterans are great.

They're a token.

They're a drop in the bucket.

They don't in any way answer the true level of property tax we need to provide our seniors, most of which are not low income, they're middle class seniors who are struggling to get by with the income that they've got, you know.

So listen, I would love to throw more work your way and ask you to do the math specific to the seniors in a latha.

Those people who own property who are 66 or older, who are those people and what would the impact be in terms of us just capping their taxes going forward?

We can look at that number and see what that gives us.

I I think that would be a worthy exercise, and that would be also another illustrative number that we need to take on.

You know?

Maybe if we set a standard for other municipalities, that would be great.

In my heart of heart, I think it's a solution that has to be provided by the state, but I'd like to look at it at the city level.

Why not?

Yeah.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Essex.

Thank you, Mayor.

I also want to say thank you to staff.

Man, budget season is is hectic, it's stressful.

Um everybody's trying to do what they think is best.

And I I wanted to I love the robust conversation.

Um I wanted to address uh some of the things that Councilman Vacus has been talking about at the state level.

Let me kind of just share what's happened with property taxes at the state level, just real quick overview.

I won't take a lot of time, but um Kansas officially took itself off of property tax rolls completely as far as collecting um property taxes sessions.

So anything we do collect goes straight to the school districts now.

And um we also have completely eliminated Social Security tax for our seniors at the state level as well.

And my comment would be that property taxes solely in the hands of the counties, the cities, and the schools at this point.

The state has done an awful lot uh to eliminate the property tax burden at that level.

So it is up to us.

And um, you know, I understand that there are um lower than projected sales tax revenue, long-awaited infrastructure projects.

We keep pushing them down, push them down, then we bring them in and we have a bigger CIP year, you know, and everybody's excited about it, but the taxes are a piece of that.

Umgoing impact of inflation, that's something that we have to face all the time.

Um we're right on target with the rebates.

I love what we're doing, and I I would consider it more than a drop in the bucket because I've had a lot of emails saying thank you.

Um we needed this this year.

We were in a bad spot, and Olatha came through for us.

So I'm really proud of what we're doing at that level.

But I just wanted to comment that um this higher property taxes, the burden of uh property taxes are what I hear the most often from constituents, and it's something that we need to put our heads together.

And if it is a road project or a CIP that that is adored by many, I mean, um the quiet zone I've been asking for for four or five years.

You know, I want to I'm happy to see that in there.

But it's it things get pushed out and pushed out and pushed out.

So trying to find that sweet spot is the challenge of these budgets.

So I just wanted to make those comments tonight and say thank you for everything you're doing.

And if there's going to be a property tax relief, um, it's got to come from the local governments.

Those are my comments.

Councilmember Gilmore.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, including this proposed 2026 budget, I'll depart from the council in December, never having voted yes for a budget.

That's not something I aspired to when I came to the council.

But that's the way it's going to be.

And here's my reasons.

They remain the same as they did since 2021.

First of all, I want to say, as I've heard my colleagues say, we're fortunate to have a very crack professional team of leaders and staff who put these things together.

I would not want your job.

It's a it's a monster project.

And it's not just budget season, it's like year-round season for you, and I appreciate that.

But my friends, we as a council have failed.

We failed to provide direction at the start of the budget process.

I've tried to get us to do that without success.

So rather than setting responsible limits on taxation and spending, we've allowed a budget to be built using every available tax dollar at current rates.

Secondly, our property owners have faced unprecedented increases in valuations, which have translated directly into unprecedented increase in property taxes, and this has fueled spending growth that continues to compound year after year.

If we had exercised restraint in previous years, we wouldn't be facing the situation we're in now with lower sales taxes.

So as a council, we've had multiple chances to chart a different course, one that puts taxpayers first, but we continue to follow the same well-worn path.

And it now seems that the solution is going to come from state legislators.

But when that happens, home rule goes out the window, and I have little confidence that a Topeka-centered solution is going to be better than the one we could have chosen for Olatha.

So I ask that you and implore you as you go forward as a council to begin to set restraint.

Our staff can make it happen.

Is it easy?

No.

Do we have the knowledge to go into a budget and tell them where to cut things?

No.

They do.

Years ago, I I recommended that we lower the mill levy for some tax relief and take it out of the debt service fund.

And I run into every kind of excuse why we can't do that.

You know what this budget does?

It moves the entire debt service levy over to the general fund so we can spend more there, and we're shorting the debt service fund.

We're doing exactly what I said we should have done years ago.

That's the reality of this budget.

So I don't support it.

Thank you.

Clara and the staff.

Jessica, thank you for all your work on the budget this year.

Um I will take a little bit different take.

I know uh I listened to all the proposals, you know, about things that we want to do for the citizens, it all takes money.

You know, so I don't know what gives.

I think we as a city in Johnson County, um, it takes a lot of money to run a city.

And I think overall our staff and this council does a great job of being good stewards of the taxpayer money that we get.

Um we have high standards, and we want to provide services for our elderly and our veterans, and that all takes money out that we're giving back.

So um I think with the situation that we were given this year with the lower sales tax revenue coming in, I think we've done a good job here, and I want to say thank you to everyone.

And um we're we're I think we're doing the best we can, and I think everybody's doing a great job.

So with that, I would entertain a motion for uh ordinance number 25-33.

Mr.

Mayor, I move to approve ordinance number 25-33.

Second.

We have a motion and a second with the city clerk, please call the roll.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Ms.

Vote?

Yes.

Dr.

Felter.

Yes.

Mr.

Gilmore, no.

Mr.

Schoonover, yes.

Mr.

Vacchus.

Yes.

Ms.

Essex.

No.

Motion passes 5-2.

We'll now move to item C, which is consideration of a resolution number 25-1082 adopting the 2026 to 2030 capital improvement plan.

As when this was all part of the presentation that Clara gave.

Um, I would just say that there are a couple of things that were mentioned tonight and in previous meetings.

One was the uh the covered parking crotch for our our uh solid waste vehicles, you know, those kinds of things, and also the animal shelter will be something that we'll take up at a later time.

But they are in this CIP funded, but we'll have an opportunity to weigh in on those items.

So other comments on the CIP?

Um Councilmember Schoonover.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

And and just to pick up on that last point, uh I mentioned this earlier.

I'm I'm gonna vote yes for this CIP.

I do still continue to have uh questions and concerns about the animal control uh uh facility.

Um so uh I look forward to addressing those at a later time, but to me there's no reason to hold up uh uh the remainder of the CIP as a result of those concerns.

So I'll vote yes.

A motion to approve resolution 25-1082 would be in order.

Mr.

Mayor, I move to approve resolution number 25-1082.

Second.

So the motion and second with the city clerk, please call the roll.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Miss Vote.

Yes.

Mr.

Gilmore, yes.

Mr.

Schoonover, yes.

Dr.

Felter.

Yes.

Mr.

Bacchus.

Yes.

Ms.

Essex.

Yes.

Motion passes 7-0.

Item D is consideration of resolution number 25-1083 establishing a comprehensive listing of fees and charges.

Is there a need for any more conversation or questions on this item?

I would just say that I was uh pleasantly surprised to hear about the additional uh discount per month on utilities from $4 to $12.

That's significant.

It costs money again to do those things.

So uh with that, a motion to approve resolution number 25-1083 be in order.

Mr.

Mayor, I move to approve resolution number 25-1083.

Second.

We have a motion and second with the city clerk, please call a roll.

Mr.

Gilmore, yes.

Mr.

Schoonover, yes.

Dr.

Felter.

Yes.

Mr.

Vacus?

Yes.

Essex?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Miss Vote.

Yes.

Motion passes 7-0.

We'll now move to general issues and concerns of citizens.

We have a couple of individuals that have signed up to speak tonight with the City Court.

Please invite the speakers up and give them the guidelines to address the council, please.

The council has extended this privilege to allow people who live and work in Olatha to address concerns to the City Council.

Speakers must only address the council.

Council members are not required to respond.

The council has allocated three minutes per speaker.

Tonight we have two speakers.

Would Kate uh Gimbelow please go to the podium, state your name and address for the record.

Wade and nailed the last name.

I'm impressed.

I can promise you I'm under three minutes, but I am going to go over about 20 seconds because I want to start by saying how much I appreciate and respect each of you.

Don't always agree with you, but what you're doing as a service, I appreciate.

And I appreciate your decorum and your professionalism, especially in the last couple of meetings.

So thank you for that.

You know, um, I'm not going to tell you a story that you already know, but I I have some new learning today that I want to share with you because that five foot deep lake that pawns against our home and floods, you know, in the tort denial letter that the city uh attorney sent to us, it said that the city reviews plans for quote general conformance, and that's been sitting with me.

Um that you're not responsible for the adequacy of the system.

It even points to a disclaimer in an agreement that the developer and the city has.

We haven't seen that.

We've asked for it.

They need they've had a week and a half, but the city needs another week before they can show that to us.

Um but I looked at Olive's municipal code code because it tells a different story, and today I discovered that that code, 17.04.070, states that actually developers are required to post performance and maintenance bond to guarantee that that stormwater system was built correctly.

And that if it doesn't work and it's faulty, that it's then the city's responsibility, not the homeowners, to hold the developer accountable.

Now I realize that bond is released after two years, but no one knew that there was a problem until after two years, right?

So it was there though.

We know that they're responsible.

No one on our in our neighborhood refutes that.

We know that the developer designed it and built it incorrectly.

But the code goes on to say that if that responsible party fails to maintain or correct a problem, that the city engineer is within rights to order remedial work.

And if the developer refuses, the city can then complete the work itself and recover the cost through the city clerk.

That was mind-blowing to me today.

So the city has both the power and the duty to act.

So in other words, families like mine and the cooks were never meant to fight this battle, right?

We were supposed to be able to account on our elected officials and our taxpaid staff.

But instead of enforcing those protections that are right there in our code, the city paid HNTB over $20,000 to confirm just how bad the system failed and then told us, but it's not our responsibility.

So we're the ones mopping our floors and tearing out drywall and living in fear of the next storm.

You know, tonight the question that I ask, and I have asked it several times and have received no answer, is how does the city deny responsibility for college meadows?

Because they say it was designed and built by an independent developer when there's been an approval of a 4.8 million dollar replacement for the Briarwood stormwater system.

I got a core for the records, also an independent uh developer who designed it and built it.

Same safeguards, same process.

Ultimately, literally, every human who absorbs this information after reading the facts is shocked to know that the city is refusing to hold their past relationship to task, especially in light of that city code.

And I have to tell you, it grieves me to say that it smacks of an accountability avoidance.

And that is undermining both public trust and the very protections that the code was written to ensure we need to solve this.

Thank you.

Our second speaker is Janice Walters.

Please go to the podium, state your name and address for the record.

Do you have a question?

You have a clarifying question.

Kate, would you mind coming back up to the podium for a clarifying question, please?

Sorry about that.

Sorry.

Do you mind emailing that code to me?

I haven't yet to write it down.

And I want to make sure I have that.

Fair warning.

I know only a few of you have been involved in this from the start, and I thank you for the time and attention to that.

I'm going to start copying all of you.

Um because it's such a big picture.

Um but yes, my intent tomorrow is to send you all of that as backup.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Now, Janice, welcome.

Hi, again.

I have a few apologies that I would like to make on behalf of some behavior that just is not right.

Um, I'm Janice Walters.

I live in um Laddington Creek.

And I just had a few follow-up things that I just wanted to mention.

And first of all, I would like to say thank you to the two people on the end.

I appreciate it because I know that you've listened and you listened to our heart and you thought about our families and you thought about our safety, and that's all I care about.

I care about the safety of my family, my friends, my neighbors, and I appreciate it.

And we recognize it.

And I feel um I'll get to it in a minute, Mrs.

Essex.

I'm not going to attack any of you, so you can all take a breath and relax, because that's not my that's not my thing.

We tried everything we could, and I know you know that from the onslaught of paper and emails and calls and all that.

We tried to show you what we had learned.

I didn't know anything about this project six weeks ago.

We thought we were going to fight a tall building.

We had no idea what anhydrous ammonia was.

And the more we've researched and the more we learned, absolutely overwhelming.

We moved in our house a year ago.

Had my house been priced half of the price that I paid, and lineage was sitting there, I would not have bought it.

That's kind of staggering.

What really happened to us is we got caught in a in a web of lies and semantics.

And you're you're sitting here with the lineage people, and when they tell you we didn't lose any uh anhydrosammonia in this Finley fire, yeah, they did.

They lost 14,000 uh pounds, and they know that they lied deliberately, and I don't know how you how you correct for those kind of things because once they say something, we never get to rebut them.

All we can do is send you information and and try to share with you what we have been finding out.

Tonight I heard I told uh the man from Lineage, I said, you know, why don't you guys go back and help the people at lineage?

They're sick.

They need help.

He said, but they're not sick from anhydrous ammonia.

They're sick from the fire, the smoke exposure, the melting plastics, all the little micro uh plastics that get in the air.

When you know the packaging that burns, that's why they're sick.

So he's saying, yeah, but they're not sick because of anhydrous pneumonia.

So he he they they're using semantics.

They're being very, very sneaky and very unethical.

None of you would do the kind of stuff that we are hearing them do.

I've been to every meeting that that we could go to with them to talk about truck trips.

They talk about 500.

The man I talked to the very first night when they had the placards told me, I was asking him about the traffic, and he said the 500 trucks is really a thousand times on the road.

And I used that when I got to the planning committee.

And I talked about the fact that all of those parking spaces on the lot, what are those for?

I don't understand.

And I said, Well, I understand I understand now that I think those are for the front end of the semi, the rig part, and they get to park while they're waiting.

But in reality, they don't let semis park on the lot.

But they they never corrected that.

They knew what what the assumption was.

They knew what people got out of that is that the semis are going to sit there and wait.

The semis go through twice.

They drop it off, come back again.

It's four trips for everyone, but they're underestimating the number, and tonight they really did a number on that.

Mrs.

Essex.

I hope I'm saying your name right.

I want to apologize to you because I think you got caught up in that whole lineage thing with the 200,000 offer.

And I think they've let you, they set you up and they let you be the fall guy, and I think it's wrong.

I think it's tragic.

It's unethical, but they made, they let you be the fall guy.

They never came back and said, Well, you know, we kind of did that on our own.

They never did that.

They didn't protect you, they didn't stand up for you.

And so people believe all these lies about you, and it's not right, and I don't think I don't think that that should have been done.

And then they turn around and they move it to a 275,000 offer, and the offer was that the HOA was supposed to tell all the people in the neighborhood we're not gonna fight this anymore because they wanted to come to tonight's meeting and say, hey, City Council, you don't have to worry about Nottington.

We got them all taken care of.

We've got an agreement with them.

That's what they wanted.

They wanted to preempt everything that we had been doing for six weeks.

It's not an ethical company.

When you do more research, it just terrifies me.

But I think that that has hurt the reputation of our city council.

I am proud of the city of Olatha, and I'm super proud of what you do, and I know those petitions are nothing compared to the rooms that you guys would have if you printed everything you got.

You are extremely appreciated, but I don't like the fact that an out-of-state company comes in and has become a matter of dissension and uh distrust, and they've broken that trust, and I don't think that's fair because I don't think any of you disagree.

I don't think any of you don't care about us, but the perception is that we were sending all this information and it's our homes and our families and our kids, and that you don't care, that only two people care, and I know that that's not true.

I know that's not true, but I know that a lot of neighbors think it's true now, and they're like, well, we're gonna get them out of office, blah blah blah.

We're we're letting some out-of-state company that has a bad reputation come in and do this to you.

And I don't Janice.

I know.

I'm sorry.

You're saying such nice things.

I hated to cut you off.

You know, and you I'll be honest with you, you guys deserve to have some nice things said because we appreciate what you've done.

We're going to move on.

Thank you.

All right.

So thank you too.

Thanks, Janice.

All right.

We are now moving to reports for a planning session item A.

Any questions or comments on Aspen Funds LLC report one.

Seeing done, we'll move on to discussion items.

We have one discussion with city auditor activities and upcoming survey for the 2025-26 audit plan.

Caitlin Clark has been with the city since April.

And we're excited that you're to have you here and welcome you today to give us your presentation.

Welcome, Caitlin.

Good evening.

Caitlin Clark, City Auditor.

It's not very long, so we'll get you out of here on time.

So the first thing that I have been working on is trying to gain an understanding of what was done before me and so that I could build on that.

So the audit, well, what I'm calling the audit charter, the resolution that uh created the audit position was um passed in 1991, and it doesn't look like it's been updated since.

And so I'm working on um suggesting some updates to to that uh that charter.

Um and the changes I'm looking at are um changing the standards from uh the IIA's um global international standards to GAO's government auditing standards and JO's auditing standards are just more built for the government environment and they center the public's interest and public trust as ethical principles, which I think that in goes in line with um the City of Olatha.

Um they do require me to establish a quality management system for the internal audit function, and this includes a peer review of my audit work um every three years.

And so as part of a quality management um, I've developed an audit policy and an audit operations manual to show how I will follow the standards and then the procedures and uh audit operation manual and the base audit program kind of ensure that by following those that I am compliant with the standards.

And so um I simplify I developed a very it's much more robust uh audit process, but I simplified it for the sake of the slide.

Um but just to kind of show the audit um process, which starts with the audit plan, and then we go through the planning, field work, and reporting phases, which are pretty traditional audit phases, and then the last part would be the audit resolution process, and that is where the city management is um creates the corrective action plan to address any of the recommendations for the audit report.

And so there are several places throughout the process where council has oversight um of my role and it starts with the review and the approval of the audit plan.

Um and then um the audit liaison um group um reviews and will review and approve my audit program and the audit program, just to clarify the difference between that and a plan.

The program is just the individual steps of an audit of a very specific audit.

Um they review and approve uh my finding outlines, which are just the initial issues that we identify in the audit process.

They attend the message meeting, which occurs two-thirds of the way through the field work phase, and that is kind of me shaping with them what I see the message of the report being.

And they repro review and approve draft reports and final reports prior to issuance to city management.

And I want to ensure that um I have constant communication with management, and so the audit process also includes uh um several touch points for communication with management prior to kicking off an audit.

The management receives an audit notification letter, and that kind of gives a general idea of what exactly I'm planning to look at, the documentation that I need to get started, and um will arrange for an entrance conference.

The entrance conference is me again going over with city management, like what they can expect from me and like what I need to kind of move my process forward.

Um they will be invited to attend regular status meetings.

Um they will receive finding outlines, so they're gonna know that there's an issue long before they get a copy of the draft report.

Um they will receive a copy of the draft report, and then they will have a chance to review it and then attend an exit conference where we will go over the draft report as thoroughly as they wish.

Um and then they always have an opportunity to provide a written response to the audit report, which gets included in the final report.

And then they always have an opportunity to provide a written response to the audit report, which gets included in the final report.

Okay.

So I um take a very risk-based approach to auditing.

And this is a um proactive approach to identify, it allows the city to identify, assess, and manage risks more effectively.

It focuses audit resources on the greatest areas of risk and helps organization achieve objectives and protect their assets to avoid costly surprises.

So how do I do this?

It starts with um a very in-depth risk assessment.

And this starts with with considers the strategic goals and the objectives of the city and identifying any risk that would prevent the city from achieving its objective.

And then we assess the likelihood and impact of each risk and identify the controls in place to reduce risk.

And then we can prioritize those risks based on the likelihood and impact.

And then council will also be asked to step in to talk about like what the risk tolerance is for um the city and what we want that to look like.

And so it's a very robust um conversation.

And the economy uh focus area has graciously agreed to be my first um uh focus area where I will look.

So I'll be working with the economy director to kind of outline how this process is going to start.

Um but the goal is to go through each of the focus areas and then end with the city manager's office to kind of get the overarching view.

And in the end, we'll have a risk assessment that's been completed citywide.

The city will be able to take ownership of the risk inventory, so all the risks that are identified, the city will be able to take ownership of that, and then I will be able to um conduct a risk-based audit plan.

And that audit plan would not be for this current year, it would be for the next um year.

So um because it takes it's gonna take a little um bit to get that completed.

And so um that brings us to my final slide, which is the 2025-2026 audit plan survey, which if you do uh the QR code, it should work.

Um but this is a survey of with potential um audit topics and the topics were developed from input from city council, senior management, city staff, and the city auditor.

Um the first question will ask you to rank the topics from highest priority to lowest.

And um if you feel that there is something missing from the topics provided, you can include that in topic two for me to um consider.

And um we will use the results to present the final um audit plan for approval next month.

And these audits would be performed between October um 2025 through September 2026.

Okay.

And with that, are there any questions?

Could it you might put it there?

Yeah, yep, yep.

Yeah, and I'll email it to you also just so you have it.

Um don't worry.

Very good, Caitlin.

We have some questions, Councilmember Gilmore.

Um, not really a question, but more.

Isn't it exciting to talk about auditing at 1030 at night on that?

Well, I I I wanted to make a comment more than a question.

You know, uh Dean and Matt and I have had the privilege of meeting with Caitlin numerous times since she's been on board.

And we're just thrilled you're here, Caitlin.

We think you're doing wonderful work.

You keep using the word robust.

That's how I feel about the process that you're using.

And I think this city will be uh much better after as you continue to work working with our our staff and cloud.

One did have one question.

Uh maybe I missed it in the slide, but in all those, at what point does a report come to the council?

So the um I guess it depends on how you guys want that to look.

Um generally, because um the way um reports get put on agendas, they're part of the public record.

So I would not recommend they see the full council until it's final approved.

Right and that um those draft reports get approved or you could see them before then, but they wouldn't like be on the council agenda until it's ready to be issued.

Okay.

So we'll see the final product afterwards and so forth.

Okay.

Yeah.

Typically don't let those get issued until they've been finalized and the uh city has a chance to respond.

So I have Councilmember Schoonover.

I'm I'm gonna echo what Kevin said and just say that it's been it's been great working with you these last several months.

I think I think you're doing an amazing job speaking as somebody who does not have an auditing background at all.

Um, I've certainly learned a lot from you about the process and and everything like that.

So I just want to say how much of an asset you've been and look forward to continuing to work with you.

Councilmember Vaucus.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Caitlin Clark.

I guess this is an echo chamber tonight because I want to echo the comments of Council members Schoonover and uh Gilmore.

I'm so happy that you joined our team.

You're being a great strength, and I'm looking forward to working with you in the years ahead.

Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Caitlin, I would just say that uh well, thanks to the liaisons for being with her.

Um but to you, I'm excited about your work and what this looks like going forward and can't wait to see what your risk assessment brings.

So everybody fill out the survey.

So thank you for being here and for being short.

Yeah, yeah.

I figured it was gonna be right at the end.

So that's great.

All right, we'll now move to additional items.

Um I'll start on my right, Councilmember Vacus.

Uh, thank you, Mayor.

Just a reminder to all, in particular, anyone who might be watching online or watching the recording subsequently.

The Olatha Civic Academy is taking applications.

The first class is February 26th.

There's a series of nine classes in which uh candidates are able to learn all about the inner workings of city government.

We need more Olatha residents to be involved with the local government.

If you're listening, if you have an interest, please sign up for the Alatha Civic Academy.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Felter.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I wanted to reiterate that I am advocating that we begin to strategize for solutions and incorporate a freight infrastructure and parking strategy and all of our future development plans, especially along this corridor that we dealt with tonight.

We're doing a real disservice to ourselves and to our community if we don't deal with that overarching issue that touches every single development.

And then pivoting.

I wanted to congratulate the Ignite Hope Firefighter Outreach, formerly known as the latha firefighter outreach, on a wildly successful third annual outreach golf tournament.

They held it on September 8th at Heritage Golf Course.

It was a gorgeous day.

The course was full, and thank you to everybody who came out to offer their support.

Thank you.

Councilmember vote.

Councilmember Gilmore.

Councilmember Essex.

Councilmember Scottover.

I actually have a few things, but I'll I'll try and be very, very quiet uh quick.

We we discussed tonight um automatic and mutual aid agreements with some of our surrounding uh jurisdictions.

I think that those are very important.

They're very appropriate.

Uh Olatha benefits from them just as as other jurisdictions do.

I am concerned, though, that um if our emergency responders are called to respond in surrounding jurisdictions who have uh building and and fire and electrical codes that aren't up to Olatha standards that we're perhaps putting our emergency workers at risk.

So I would like more information on those agreements and how we can as a city do more to advocate for our surrounding communities, which we support uh to bring their standards up to snuff.

Um if if if our folks are gonna respond, I want to make sure that they are as as safe as possible.

The second item is uh the lone elm interchange slash hopefully overpass.

I I I read in uh the Johnson County Post uh last week that K Dot was just in front of Linuxa to uh advise them on the latest present the plans and and and all of that type of stuff.

I would really like to invite them back so we can tell them our opinions on their plans.

Uh if if K Dot would be willing to join us, I think that would be uh uh great and something that I I think our residents um would really enjoy.

So if if there's any way we can invite them back and learn more about that project, I'd I'd appreciate that.

Uh for at least the next hour.

It is uh National Voter Registration Day.

I hope to say this with more people in the room.

Um but uh you know uh if you're not registered to vote, register to vote.

Um Marge, you raised this earlier.

Uh I've I've raised this before.

Um, we had another instance of of of political violence in this country.

And and I, you know, it to me it's it's just absolutely shameful.

We had uh tonight robust discussion.

Uh we had disagreement.

Um, but you you know, we're all still here, and and of course, somebody uh mentioned how how appropriate and professional they think that we're um conducting if only they knew us, right?

Um but uh you know I really do um want to encourage everybody to to listen and and and try and understand each other because uh the path we're on just isn't sustainable.

And finally, uh thanks to John.

You had a difficult task tonight.

So good job.

Appreciate you.

And and thank you.

That's all I have.

City Manager Michael Oilkes.

Anything further this evening?

Yeah, I'll yield my time to uh the attorney.

Okay.

Thanks, Michael.

Um I wanted to introduce the person who is waving frantically behind me.

Her name is Amanda Stanley.

Amanda is our newest employee in the legal department.

She is deputy city attorney.

Okay.

She comes to us.

Um she's been in my role as City Attorney for City of Topeka the last four years.

And you may remember that she advocated for us as general counsel for the legal municipalities before that.

So we're super excited to have Amanda join our team, and you'll get to know her uh very much over the coming weeks and years.

Welcome, Amanda.

We're happy to have you and nice to meet you.

Um I have one item.

So I just wanted to remind everybody that tickets are now on sale for extravaganza.

This is the largest event all year for the Olatha Mayor's Children's Fund, and we'd love to have you there.

So if you'd like to get tickets, you can get them at OlathaCares.org.

Every penny, every penny that we raise goes to support the basic needs of kids right here in Olatha.

So if you'd like to be a part of that, go to our website.

Um that's all I have for tonight.

Um thanks for being here.

It was an exciting meeting.

Yeah.

I think we uh we survived.

And uh so thanks everyone for being here.

We have a good night.

We're adjourned.