Regular meeting of the elate the city council to order for November fourth, twenty twenty five.

First item on our agenda is then an executive session.

What do I hear a motion?

Mr.

Mayor, on item A, I move that you'll late the City Council resets into an executive session for discussion of applicate applicants for the project position of city manager pursuant to the non-elected personnel exception provided in KSA seventy five dash forty three nineteen B one for sixteen minutes.

Okay, sixty minutes.

Second, we have a motion second with the city court, please call the role.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Miss Vote?

Yes.

Mr.

Gilmore?

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover?

Yes.

Dr.

Felter.

Yes.

Mr.

Vacchus?

Yes.

Miss Essex?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Seven zero.

We are reconvening from executive session.

A motion be in order.

Mr.

Mayor, on item A, I move to authorize staff to proceed with the strategies as discussed with and directed by the governing body.

Second.

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

Miss Vote.

Yes.

Mr.

Gilmore?

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover?

Yes.

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacchus?

Yes.

Miss Essex?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Motion passes.

Seven zero.

On item B, a motion to be an order.

Recess into an executive session to discuss personnel matters involving multiple city employees pursuant to the non-elected personnel exception provided in KSA seventy five-4319.

We have a motion of second with the city clerk.

Yes.

Yes.

We are reconvening from executive session to hear a motion.

We have a motion on the second one.

Yes.

Dr.

Felter.

Yes.

Mr.

Bunkers.

Yes.

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Ms.

Fett.

Yes.

Motion passes seven zero.

We'll start in about five minutes, five or six minutes.

I don't have a timer anything because it's just a welcome to the regular meeting of the Olatha City Council for Tuesday, November 4th, 2025.

The next item on our agenda is a presentation of colors.

The American Legion Post 153 Color Guard is with us tonight to present the colors and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

So would everyone please stand with me.

Next week, the City of Olatha will proudly join communities across America in observing Veterans Day.

Accepting this proclamation tonight is Vietnam War Veteran Terry Enright.

Here to introduce him as Paul Choppa, founder of Fish Friends in Service of Heroes.

So Terry and Paul, would you please come forward?

And I've got a proclamation I'll read after you get through Paul.

Now 78, he's witnessed a lot of incredible uh changes here in his hometown while remaining deeply rooted in this community.

Terry's a proud supporter of fish.

He maintains our vehicles, our trailers, et cetera.

And uh, Terry, I'm glad you're here.

The city wants to honor you with something very special.

Thank you.

Nice to meet you, Terry.

I'll read the proclamation if you'd like, you can say a few words to.

So the proclamation reads whereas each year on November 11th, we pause to remember those who have served bravely and selflessly in America's armed forces, preserving our strength and security as a nation.

And whereas more than 150,000 veterans call Kansas home, continuing continuing to better our communities with their service and patriotism.

And whereas on Veterans Day, we publicly commemorate the honorable legacy and sacrifices of our veterans, both both those lost and those who are still with us today.

And whereas the City of Olatha offices will be closed Tuesday, November 11th, in honor of Veterans Day, allowing Olathians the opportunity to express sincere gratitude to our veterans for ensuring the freedom and democracy that form the cornerstone of our great nation.

Now, therefore, I, John Bacon, mayor of the City of Olatha do hereby proclaim November 11th, 2025 as Veterans Day in Olatha, encouraging all citizens to pause and pay tribute to our military veterans for all they have done and continue to do to make the world a better and safer place.

So and all you gentlemen in the service, good work.

Thank you.

Thanks again to Terry for being here tonight for her his service and all the other veterans that are in the room, too.

We thank you for your service and want to uh honor you this month.

We'll now move to item B.

Item B is a as a recognition of Olatha Police for the KLEAP accreditation.

Tonight, the City of Olatha Police Department is the first in the state to be accredited by the Kansas Law Enforcement Accreditation Program.

Here to present the award are Derek Beck, Vice Provost of Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center, and Director of Police Training for the State of Kansas and Doug Schroeder, Director of Programs for the KLET.

Captain Courtney Toddy Boyd will accept the award on behalf of the police department.

So would all of you please come forward.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

It's my honor to be here tonight.

My name is Darren Beck, and I'm the director of police training for the state of Kansas.

I have a lot of titles that my staff makes fun of too.

So you weren't making fun, but they make fun of me all the time about them.

As a matter of fact, they tell me I need more than one business card to get all my titles on there.

But what I'm here for tonight, I'm the director of police training, and I oversee a program called the Kansas Law Enforcement Accreditation Program, or CLEP.

CLEAP is a state accreditation program that is designed to honor and recognize those agencies who are who are really the top agencies in the state.

And we recognize that by having created a council.

And the council is made up of six people.

It's made up of three chiefs and three sheriffs, and then and then a chair.

And they decide what the standards are that the agencies are going to be judged by.

And those standards are anything from legal requirements for a law enforcement agency to best practices for a law enforcement agency.

But those are the standards that those law enforcement officials say need to be present for every agency that is going to be an accredited agency in the State of Kansas.

There are 167 of those standards for accreditation with the with the CLEP accreditation council.

The other thing that's that's really that's tough is okay, we have the standard.

How do we know that those standards are being met?

Well, we do it number one through policy.

And so we review the policies, but really how do we know that those policies are being followed?

And that's that's where the the rub is.

That's where the tires meet the road.

And that's where the agency has to prove to the assessors for that accreditation program that their people are actually following the policies that are that have been established.

This is a voluntary program.

It's not a required program.

If it were required, we we call that regulation.

It's not a regulation.

It's not a regulated environment.

It's voluntary.

It's because the chief decided that the chief wanted to step up and say, come in and evaluate my agency.

Show me what we're doing well, show me what we're not doing well and need to change.

And so they started on that process along with a lot of other agencies in the state.

They just happened to finish first.

So this is the first ever state accreditation for an agency that wasn't already nationally accredited, but one who went through the state process, first ever accreditation being awarded by the CLEP Council.

And the I am informed by the CLEEP Council that they that you were able to prove to their satisfaction that you met all of the standards, and they did review those proofs, and they awarded accreditation on 1013, 2025.

So I'm here tonight to present the award to the city and to the to the police department, showing that you are an accredited agency with the CLEP Council.

I would just say thank you to Terry and to Courtney and to our um and Paul for being here, and then also to our chief uh for stepping out and and making our Olaitha first in the state again.

So awesome job.

We're very proud of all of our uh police officers.

We'll now move to um 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 Gilmore.

Item F, please.

Are there any others?

A motion to approve with the exception of item F would be in order.

Mr.

Mayor, I move to approve consent agenda as presented with the exception of item F.

Second.

We have a motion and a second with the city clerk.

Please call the roll.

Mr.

Skeenover.

Yes.

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Mr.

Vaucus?

Yes.

Ms.

Essex?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon?

Yes.

Ms.

Vode?

Yes.

Mr.

Gilmore.

Yes.

Motion passes 7-0.

Item F is consideration of agreement with Project One Studio for the design and fabrication of a sculpture for the 119th Street and Northgate Roundabout.

Councilmember Gilmore.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just asked for this item to be considered separately so that we can have a single vote on it.

I have expressed my concerns about this item in the past.

I'm not going to repeat them here tonight.

But that's why I pulled the item.

Any other questions or comments?

The pictures look awesome.

I think it will be a real statement piece.

I'm looking forward to this project.

A motion would be in order.

Mr.

Mayor, I move to approve item F.

Second.

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

Dr.

Felter, yes.

Mr.

Fachis?

Yes.

Ms.

Essex?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon?

Yes.

Ms.

Vode?

Yes.

Mr.

Gilmore?

No.

Mr.

Schoonover?

Yes.

Motion passes 61.

We'll now move to new business.

Item A is consideration of ordinance number 25-45 authorizing issuance of the city's taxable industrial revenue bonds in an amount not to exceed $257 million for Red King Fisher LLC, which is Walmart for the construction of a 320,000 square foot beef processing and packaging production facility on approximately 60 acres of a 138-acre site located near the northwest corner of 167th Street and 169 highways.

The city expressed intent to issue these bonds back in March of 2023.

This building is now complete.

I've toured it several times.

It's amazing.

So this is just the final step in the issuing the bonds.

Any other questions or presentation needed on this item?

Seeing that a motion would be in order.

Mr.

Mayor, I move to approve ordinance number 25-45.

Second.

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

Mr.

Bacchus.

Yes.

Ms.

Essex?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon?

Yes.

Ms.

Vode?

Yes.

Mr.

Gilmore?

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover?

Yes.

Dr.

Felter.

Yes.

Motion passes 70.

Item B is consideration of ordinance number 25 46 approving an engineers survey and authorizing the acquisition of land for the I-35 and Santa Fe Interchange Reconstruction slash Santa Fe Corridor, Ridgeview to Merlin.

Improvement project.

City Project No.

3-C025-18.

This item, these are all partial tracks of land needed as permanent road right-of-way, temporary construction easements or permanent easements for the I uh Santa Fe and I-35 interchange reconstruction project.

I just had one quick question on one of these items.

I don't know if anybody else had questions on this.

But uh real quick, Nate, um the parcel that's at Merlin and Santa Fe right there uh on the it'd be on the northwest corner in front of McDonald's that we're acquiring.

Yes.

And I drove this today, and one of the buses stopped at that bus stop to pick a passenger up and it backs up traffic into the intersection when that occurs.

Will there be enough room for a pull off for a bus?

I mean, it's probably a popular place for people to get on the bus because there's a McDonald's there, but I think that could be helpful, especially if you have a bus stop close to an intersection if you have enough room so the bus could just pull out of the lanes of traffic.

Yeah.

So Nate Baldwin, City Engineer.

Uh with all the improvements we're doing, let me take a look to see if we're relocating that, and I will get back to you on that.

But yeah, we don't want it too close to the intersection.

So it's an opportune time to relocate that.

All right.

That's my only comment.

Any other questions?

A motion be in order.

Mr.

Mayor, I move to approve ordinance number 25-46.

Second.

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

Ms.

Essex, yes.

Mr.

Bacon?

Yes.

Ms.

Vogt?

Yes.

Mr.

Gilmore?

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover?

Yes.

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacchus.

Yes.

Motion passes 7-0.

We'll now move to item 9.

Item 9 is general issues and concerns of citizens.

We do have several people that have signed up to speak tonight.

I think we have nine or 10.

So at this time I'd ask the city clerk to please read the guidelines and introduce our speakers for us.

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, and council members are not required to respond.

Please treat others with kindness and respect.

Since we have 10 speakers tonight, that will be three minutes apiece.

And our first speaker is Carrie Buser.

And if you're a speaker and you're you could come over here on the wall and that might speed things up a little bit and just kind of uh lined up there.

Welcome, ma'am.

Hi, I'm Carrie Boozer.

I am sitting before you today as the president of the Olatha Fraternal Order of Police.

I am also currently a detective with the City of Olatha and an Olatha resident.

The FOP has come before you in years prior, and we've always felt listened to and supported by the council, and we appreciate that.

I know in the past few years, the police department has been blessed with brand new station and some really good pay raises.

Unfortunately, I'm here today to discuss the changes to the retiree health insurance plans.

And many of the people affected by these plans were already retired before they got to benefit from the station or these pay increases.

I know all of you have already received numerous emails regarding this.

And I believe that's what all the speakers here today are too claiming to speak about.

A little background, in 1989, the city decided that employees would pay continue to pay whether it's individual or family rates for their health care after retirement.

This included retroactively including already retired employees, specifically to assist employees as they move into a time when income is normally reduced by a considerable amount.

In 2005, it switched to three tiers.

We're really discussing tier two, which is hired before 04 and retired before 09.

There was controversy of that because it there were people hired during that time who then got moved into tier three.

But this did give people four years to either retire or adjust to the expected pay difference increase of only getting individual retiree rate, not family, and having the addition there.

That includes through the 2008 financial crisis, all the way through furloughs during COVID.

Um there was no mention of possible changes to this, let alone this drastic of a change.

In preparation for retirement, employees meet with the benefits program manager, up including employees who retired a couple months ago were still being told during these meetings that they would continue to pay rate.

And I definitely ran out of time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Damon Bell.

You're gonna have only nine speakers because Gina be with me.

So you come on up here.

I'm gonna say hello and good evening.

Uh my name is Dama Bell, and this is my wife Gina Bell.

Uh I'm speaking tonight regarding the City of Olathe retirement uh 2026 health insurance and the sudden hike increase in our premiums and the financial hardship is going to put us in.

We are currently paying $82 a month each in January each, and in January of uh 2026, the monthly amount will go up to 494 each.

That is going to be 412 more a month for each of us, which is a major increase.

Uh the monthly amount of $494 worry us and others, and it is very stressful.

Ever since we received this information about the 2026 uh cost increase, we're trying to figure out how can we how can we afford it.

Uh with retirement, you are on a fix and set income, and our retirement check does not go up.

Some of us work additional jobs to help with current bills, and now seeing uh such a hike in our health insurance premium has us retirees worried, and this is a major hit on our finance.

My wife and I, we both retired from the lathe police department.

Uh we have lived in the city for over 20 plus years.

Our daughters graduated from the Olatha uh public schools.

Our granddaughters are attending the Olatha public schools.

The bills are invested.

We love our community.

Uh we're going to have to pay all pay over a thousand dollars a month, and to be honest, this is scary.

We're asking for help to make the monthly premium more affordable so that we can afford health care insurance.

Thank you.

Respectfully, Damon and Gina Bale.

Our next speaker is Gary Nickerson.

Good evening, Council, members, other members here.

Uh my name's Gary Nickerson, and I started in the latha fire department in 1982.

We had two stations.

We fought fires, big fires, saved the hospital, lots of fires.

This is a job you do not want a 63-year-old man like myself riding on a fire truck trying to rescue somebody.

It is very difficult job.

If any member of a fire department, we all have bad backs, bad shoulders, bad knees.

It's a very tough job.

I was part of that 2005 that got their whole lives up changed, completely changed, because suddenly my whole retirement plan changed with very little notice.

Every financial seminar we attended, everything says you got to plan 10 years in advance.

You got to five years in advance.

I had two.

Completely changed.

Now it's happening again.

You're up ending my retirement to where I may have to go back looking for a full-time job.

Because as you know, some of you may know or will know, under KPNF, your first year of retirement is your best year.

It only gets worse.

And I guarantee the term golden years just means you need gold to keep paying for things.

Okay.

Because KPF doesn't give cost of living.

They fight for it, it keeps going down.

My insurance by myself is going to be raised $800 a month.

The city is paying now zero for me.

Not a thing.

They're paying other members of the different plans, but I'm in the PPO.

They're playing zero.

The other plan is designed for you to be in that plan long term to build up funds.

It's too late for me.

I can't do it.

And to make matters worse, thank God for the people up in Washington, D.C.

who have everything screwed up, and I can't even go out on the marketplace to look for other insurance.

I don't nobody knows what's going to happen there.

So I'm literally being held hostage.

I don't know what I'm going to do.

And this is something that didn't sneak up on anybody.

Healthcare has been rising.

We've all known it.

There should be a long-term plan on how to deal with this and not knee-jerk reactions for what are we going to do this year?

What are we going to do this year?

No, it needs to be planned.

Healthcare is going to continue to rise.

It needs to be long-term planned, just like any other financial decision the city makes.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Tyler Raleigh.

Sorry for a short meeting tonight.

Tyler Raleigh, 17365, West 158th place here in Olatha.

And I just want to say good evening, Mayor and Council.

Thank you for letting me speak.

My name is Tyler Raleigh.

I'm president of the Olatha Professional Firefighters, IFF Local 2542.

And tonight I rise in support of the retired members of our Olatha Public Safety Department whose health care costs have been dramatically increased.

Firefighters and police officers are unique.

We have unique careers.

We work long shifts and are physically demanding.

Firefighters work 24 hours and are prepared for the worst.

And we're always ready to run in to protect the public on their worst day.

It's the oath that we take on our first day of being an Olatha firefighter.

And I know that our police officers feel the same way.

According to CAPERS, the average KPNF member retires at the age of 55.7 years old.

This causes firefighters to help find help to bridge the gap of Medicare at the age of 65.

The City of Olatha has always set the standard for public service, making this a destination for futures future employees to work.

And it doesn't just come down to pay, but also benefits and how they will be treated throughout their career and after their career.

These retirees did not have the opportunity to plan for these increases of health care costs.

And once they retire and enter into the KPNF pension system, they're not on a fixed income.

We have members who are on the drop program who cannot make adjustments, can't make changes or adjust their recent changes.

And recently we've had members who decided to not retire due to these increases.

Even though they're eligible, have served the city faithfully, and were ready to retire, they now have to change those plans due to increased costs.

We understand that this is not isolated to Olatha, and across the nation, everyone is having to make difficult decisions relating it related to rising health care costs.

What we ask is to remember the years of service that these members provided to our citizens and to do everything possible to support them in their retirement.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Steve Minke.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor, Council Members.

Good to see you.

I'm going to be glasses.

I'm Steve Minke, retired police chief here in Olatha, and also an Olathe residence.

I started my career with the Olatha Police Department in March of 1988, and after 31 years of service, I retired in April 2019, the last 10 years of my career serving as your police chief.

I've seen both sides of this complicated and changing issue of providing health care to current employees and to those who retire from city service.

The retirement health care benefits offered by the City of Olatha to employees in 1988 were impressive.

They allowed employees, as we've heard, to remain on the city's health care insurance plan at the same rates as current employees until that retiree reaches 65.

Hiring on at that time, the incentives were just that incentives to stay with the city long term and into retirement.

That was important particularly to public safety employees who generally were able to reach full retirement age in their 50s.

Since that time, key changes were made to various in various years, creating tiers of retiree health care benefits based on hiring dates and retirement dates.

With each change reducing eligibility for the original full benefits and increasing the cost to employees.

Throughout the years, costs creeped up for retirees and current employees for health care, as one would expect.

Some current employees, their ability to retire next year or in the near future as planned, will not happen because of the substantial costs increase in health care insurance now being offered to retirees.

Retired employees who retired under one plan or tier are now facing completely different cost structures, and the impact is even greater.

Personally, if I stayed on the newly offered insurance, my annual premium cost would go from currently 22,250 a year.

That's what I paid in 2025, up to $31,639 in 2026.

So in one year, that's going to increase by $9,389 for family club coverage, which is what I have.

That's a 42% increase in one year.

Other retirees have upwards of hundreds of percentages increases based on their individual coverage.

If you'll allow me to wrap up, the City of Olatha's dedicated employees, past and present, are the most important asset to the city.

They have all contributed to the success and recognition of the city's services to our citizens and visitors.

They are setting the standard for excellence in public service.

The budget process for the 2026 retiree health care plans and cost sharing missed the mark.

I would respectfully ask that you take another look at it and take care of the people who served our city.

Thank you.

The next speaker.

The next speaker is Brian Wesling.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Brian Wesling.

I started my career with the Olatha Police Department in 1987 and did 32 years and served many different capacities.

So what brings us here this evening?

The retirees health care plan for the 2026 goes against everything that we have been told our entire careers.

And it goes against human decency.

But rollout call all retirees off guard.

We expected an increase because we were told that last year.

We expected 50%, maybe 100% for some plans, but 500 to 800 plus percent in one year without warning us that extreme.

Based on Leslie Fortnett Fortney's email, the city took a hard look at the plans to find ways to ensure that the city maintains a reasonable price health coverage.

I guess that's a true statement if sacrificing the city retirees was the objective.

The city has known about the health care costs going up for years, and they couldn't gradually increase our rates, which was the respectful thing to do.

I took a look at the city's proposed reserves for 2026.

The city is proposing an 8.5% increase in the reserves for 2026.

That's taking it up to 46,321,201.

That's an increase of over $4 million from the 25 year.

Keeping your promise and doing the right thing would still allow the city roughly $3.5 million for the 2026 reserves.

Let's talk about our federal government.

But our federal government's been shut down now for over a month.

It's all based on the Affordable Care Act because the recipients, if the subsidies are not passed by the end of the year, the recipients are going to see an increase in their rates of 75% up to 114%, but not 500 to 800%.

And we're shutting down our country.

Rethink the massive increases and the outrageous rollout that we all received.

All we want is to be treated right with human decency.

We appreciate the council support, and I would like to thank the ones that did respond back via email that I sent out.

I do appreciate the communication.

That means a lot.

Thank you for your time.

Next is Don Wesling.

So I'm John Wesling and Brian Wesling is my husband.

For some retirees, despite still being of an employable age, they do not have the luxury of being healthy enough to have gainful employment, even part-time.

If your income remains unchanged and your outlay continues to increase, it is unsustainable.

Eventually you run out of things you can sacrifice.

Quickly get overrun and suffer total financial collapse.

This sudden excessive increase of health care costs will at the very least cause significant hardship and in some cases cause total financial ruin for people that sacrificed so much, and part due to a promise that is now being broken.

It is hard to fathom that so many people who sacrifice so much can be discarded, dismissed, and taken advantage of so easily.

And although it is important to note that I share the sentiment in the statement that I have read to you, the words were provided by a retiree that is too ill to be here tonight.

So thank you.

The emails that people are referencing are the attachments.

I was on the task force at the time.

So the thing I want to leave with you tonight is I'm going to make this short, but I have the history.

And that could have solved this issue so that we didn't have to be here right now.

We had staggering scales.

We had percentages that employees would put towards this stuff.

And I see some of the people that are retired that were in this with me as well.

And then to get this, it really is personal for me.

Very much so, because we gave 110% to make presentation to the city manager, basically told us no, and it caused a riff.

I just would say one thing.

I was the first ever recipient of the Michael Wilkes Integrity Award, and within a year, I was on his bad list over this issue.

So I just have to be honest.

Please call me if you have any questions.

I got the history.

Thank you.

The last speaker is Eric Hardman.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor, City Council members.

My name is Eric Hardman.

I'm a police officer with the City of Olatha.

I've spent the last 35 years of my life in public service.

I spent eight years in the military with an honorable discharge.

I spent two years with the Pre-Village Police Department, and I spent my last 25 years with the City of Olatha.

I've received numerous awards through the police department.

I've received ballor awards to the Kansas Police Chiefs Association.

I've received awards through the city for both individual and teamwork awards.

And I only bring these things up, not to brag uh about myself, but I mentioned these things because here's nearly every retiree in this room, every police officer, every employee in this room probably has very similar stories like mine, um, stories that reflect our dedication to our profession and to the city.

It's employees like us who helped build Aletha into what it is today.

Um what brought me to Olatha was this philosophy, and I'll quote it.

This is from the personnel director uh from Olatha in the late 80s.

We want our employees to realize that despite our rapid growth in numbers, we continue to be concerned about their welfare and happiness, both as an employee and as a retiree.

Retirees would pay the same amount as a regular employee for health care.

I've depended on that amount.

Um I'm gonna go from roughly having to budget about $10,000 for my health care.

Um now it's gonna cost me $74,000.

That's an increase of between seven and eight hundred percent just for me alone.

Um these changes are not consistent in what I believe the city of Olatha stood for.

Um this creates a financial and emotional hardship on everybody, um, every employee hired before 2004 that is either already retired or about to retire.

Um I've already submitted my paperwork to CAPERS, my final average salary is already set, my pension is set.

I chose to leave my wife, who's also a city employee, um, survivor benefits at even reduced pension amount.

I can't change that.

It's irreversible.

Um, had I known the city what's going to increase their medical premiums, um, I would not have submitted my retirement paperwork.

I would have continued to work for a couple more years, tried to up my final average salary, but because we we had no time to plan, I wasn't able to do this.

Um, in the U.S., the average police officer dies within five years of retirement.

I want to spend whatever time I have left with my family, not working longer than expected, or taking a part-time job just to afford uh medical coverage.

I respectfully ask the city to honor the agreement it has made with every employee and retiree hired before January 1st of 2004 by continuing to offer employee pricing for medical benefits we depend on.

Thank you for your time and thank you for listening.

Thank you to all the speakers that were here tonight.

We uh hear you, and uh we'll take it under advisement.

We will now convene a planning session.

Uh we have four reports in under in our planning session.

Did any council member want to pull any of the reports for questions or presentations of staff at this point?

No item one.

Item one.

Item one is a report regarding proposed amendments to Title 12 of the of the Aletha Municipal Code pertaining to public utilities.

Councilmember Gilmore.

I just asked if we could just have a short presentation on just summarizing what we're doing here.

Good evening, mayor, city council, Bob Gallimore, assistant city attorney.

Um so the proposed ordinance is intended to address a couple of issues that I've been working through related to public utilities, mainly with Brent Barry, uh the city's right-of-way manager, uh, as well as with the rest of engineering.

The first two sections are intended to codify our current practice related to utility easements and clarify the relationship of right-of-way to easements within city code.

We have the right-of-way ordinance, which is what we're putting these sections into, but there are some easements, some public utility easements and utility easements dedicated to the city that don't fall under the definite definition of right-of-way.

So what we want to do is kind of codify our approach to those so it's out there and clear what the expectations are and establishes that the city has similar responsibilities for the administration of these utility easements as it does for right of way.

But essentially we continue to have issues getting uh uh utilities to timely locate their facilities when we're trying to plan city projects.

And that can result in delays when we're ready to start a project uh and increase costs to the city if we have to do a redesign uh to the project or there's other complications.

So we think that adding this to the code will again help to establish some clear expectations.

Uh you're you may be aware of the uh state law, the Underground Utility Damage Prevention Act, but that's really only intended to address uh locates in the shovel ready context.

So your contractor is ready to dig, uh he calls in the locate, she calls in the locate, calls 811, and they come out and market.

But you know, if you're shovel ready and all of a sudden you figure out that there's a bunch of conflicts, now we have to do that that redesign.

Uh also we have the contractor mobilized and they we may be paying them when they can't work.

So we we talked to the Kansas Corporation Commission, which uh is the oversight authority for utilities, and uh the the staff did tell us they encourage cities to kind of address this gap uh in terms of the locates for planning purposes through their own ordinances.

So that's what we're trying to do here.

Uh some of the concepts we're using are similar to what other cities have done.

Um I think Overland Park has that 30-day clock for low case for planning purposes.

Wichita addresses the responsibility to provide locates within their right-of-way ordinance as well.

And so this will kind of fill in that that gap that we seem to have there.

Uh there's also a provision.

Uh we had a utility uh initially indicate uh that their facilities were unlocatable.

Uh it turns out that what they meant was uh they would have to do kind of a more uh expensive uh form of locating them than a routine locate, which they didn't really want to do.

Um but that did raise in our minds what if we encounter a situation where there is actually a facility that the utility can't locate.

That could present uh a risk to the public health and safety.

So we thought we should have a provision, you know, before we actually face that issue that would allow the address or allow the city to address the the risk that might be presented there.

So Bob, the there's some language in there about penalties if they fail.

Can you explain what that looks like?

You don't have to give me dollar amounts.

I'm just curious how that's assessed in the process.

Sure.

Um so that it refers to the existing penalties for the right-of-way ordinance.

I don't have those in front of me.

I will get those while Nate's speaking.

Um then um there's also some specific provisions in there really intended to address the damages that the city uh could incur from from the delays caused by this.

So the cost to make uh project design changes or schedule changes.

I get all that maybe but if someone just doesn't respond timely and we send them notice and there's some type of a penalty, it's just what if we just build a utility as a city and then they have to pay that.

What's the what's our force to do anything there?

So we uh we uh have uh uh franchise agreements with um some of the utilities.

Um the uh uh video service providers operate under a state franchise.

So we do have that relationship with them.

Okay.

Um and so we have some uh means through that to uh take some enforcement.

So hopefully it never gets to this way.

Exactly.

But we're gonna have the leverage if we need it.

Yes, and I want to emphasize that these are things that we think we should protect against, um, but that you know I don't think we've we've actually encountered yet.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Councilmember Voe.

Yeah.

I had it out, shut it up.

So was this part of the problems that we had on woodland?

Was it 'em back.

That project for took forever, and I think it was related to utilities and easement.

Maybe you can speak to that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So Nate Balden, City Engineer.

Um couple of issues on that project that we filed file find with others.

And uh first off, I want to thank Bob for working with my staff on this.

This has been uh very big issue that's been presented to us.

Uh you may recall about 10 years ago.

We developed a position just to manage utilities on our projects because it was becoming such an issue.

So on average, we have about 25 percent of the utilities respond to that request to locate for for planning purposes.

And what we really need them to do, it's it's a partnership between us and them.

We need to know where they're at so we can tell them, hey, you need to get out of our way, or maybe we can design around them, and we're not facing that during construction, where then you're looking at delays, change orders, issues like that.

So this is really just helping us move them along.

Right now, it's just really us begging and trying to push, and we're seeing a lot of delays in design.

Um for example, right now, we've got a project on Herald Street that's under design between um Kansas City Road and Ridgevie.

We have sixteen utilities within that corridor.

And if you're only getting 25 percent of the reply, that's 12 that aren't.

You know you're gonna run into an issue during construction.

So that this is really going to help us put a little uh teeth to our talking with those utilities and get encourage them to better participate.

Well, I was kind of confused also regarding the penalties, and I'm going, so they go, I don't want to sign this one.

You know, I don't want to provide the utility kind of thing.

Yeah, and we we hope it never gets that to that point.

It's just a deterrent.

Because I'm wondering what the teeth is.

Is there a state law is there, you know, statute that helps to enforce that, and I didn't see that there.

Yeah, well, as Bob indicated, really, the uh the state board encourages local communities to adopt this type of policy.

Well, hopefully we never get to that, right?

We hope not to, yes.

Very good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gilmore.

Well, clarification between you gentlemen, the state franchise agreements.

I understand you probably said there were state agreements, then there's our agreements.

Do we participate in revenue off the state?

Is it just going to the state?

Uh yes, the the uh video service provider, the the cable uh uh franchises that are the state franchises, we get uh five percent uh uh franchise fee for those.

Yeah.

So we still have the ability if we're running into issues to also complain to the state about that state agreement.

Yes.

So thank you.

Um and I the the penalties that are referenced in there um for for the right-of-way management section.

These are the current penalties.

Um it's uh a violation as a public offense um with a fine and a sum of not less than 200 nor more than 500 uh every day that the chapters violated shall uh constitute a separate offense.

So, you know, there is a scenario where as it continued past that 30 days, it could be subject to a 200 to 500 fine per day.

Again, we hope it won't come to that, but that would be potentially there.

Any other questions on that?

Okay, no.

Okay.

Thank you, Bob.

Thank you, Nate.

Thank you.

Any other reports?

See no.

I'll we are down to additional items.

I'll start on my right.

Councilmember Vaucis.

Um thank you, Mayor.

Just um I wanted to bring up scooters again.

I know we've received information from the uh legal office uh explaining the current ordinances that we have in place, and I know we have a lot of ongoing conversations about what are the right uh standards in terms of uh ordinance that relate to safety and speed limits and licensing for electric scooters.

I I would just ask that we have a follow-up with additional information and uh perhaps a separate workshop if need be, so that we can come together as a council and make some decisions and then whatever decisions we we do make, I would like to have a conversation about uh how do we how do we uh advertise this to the public to ensure they understand what the expectations are for the sake of safety for all of our Olaythians in particular our young adults and kids.

Thank you, Mayor.

Do you want to get a response from Chief?

I think there was a consensus from the council at our last meeting.

There were several people that piped up about this issue and wanted to see it.

So where are we at on this right now as far as bringing up uh maybe some sample ordinances from other municipalities?

Bob Galllimore, Assistant City Attorney.

We uh have appreciated your comments and questions on this topic.

Uh we uh think our ordinance is in a good place, but there have been some questions raised where we want to revisit it and make sure that it's in the best possible place.

So I'll be meeting uh with uh members of the police department and uh some other uh uh city stakeholders to kind of see okay what changes might we need to make.

Um if we determine that there are changes that should be proposed, um then we'll bring those back to you to to consider uh changes to the ordinance.

Um then uh we do uh continue to welcome any any questions or comments that you do have so that we can make sure that we're addressing them as fully as possible as we uh see if there's revisions to be made.

Once we get that set, then we're going to ramp up the education efforts.

We just thought instead of starting the education efforts before we're sure what we want the ordinance to be.

It would be better to make sure we have that in place first and then ramp up the education.

Good.

Thanks, Mayor, and thanks, Bob.

I appreciate that we we are moving forward on this thing.

I just ask that we move forward with all expeditious uh nuts.

And then also that we take a hard look at benchmarking ourselves to our adjacent cities who are making changes right now.

Okay.

Thanks.

I'll look forward to hearing more.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm going to skip.

We're going to go over to this side.

We're going to let Matt Scoot over.

Uh Councilmember Scootover.

Go ahead and have your turn right now.

Oh, that's fine.

Oh, I just had a follow-up question for Bob.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead and thank you.

Well, we'll we'll do popcorn today, I guess, like in elementary school.

Um Bob, uh to follow up on Dean's last point.

Will our review take a look at uh I know Overland Park, um, I know uh other jurisdictions have recently amended their uh ordinances to to deal with this.

Will we do kind of a compare and contrast of where we are now versus some of those uh updated ordinances from our sister jurisdictions?

Uh council member, yes.

Uh we uh a couple of years ago uh we got out in front of a lot of these issues uh with some uh changes that that you passed.

Um and we have continued to monitor what other cities are doing.

Uh a lot of what they're doing are things that you did a couple of years ago or similar to those.

So that's that's the good news.

But we want to make sure that if there's ideas that other cities uh have implemented, then we should consider that we're incorporating those as well.

So yes, we we've continued to monitor and in fact just had our clerk recently uh take a look at the you know most recent cities that have uh either adopted or considered some of those to summarize those for us.

Great.

Thank you very much.

And I'm sorry to go any other uh items.

Just happy election day, everyone.

Yay democracy.

Councilmember Felter.

Thank you, Mayor.

Same thing.

Yay democracy.

Thanks to the Johnson County election office for going the extra mile.

They really put in a lot of work.

I heard that um the election commissioner uh uh Fred Sherman was out directing traffic at the uh Johnson County uh museum, the arts museum.

So that's what you call wearing many hats.

So thank you to Fred Sherman for that and to all of his team for all they do.

Thank you.

Councilmember Essex.

We're gonna yes, we're really doing this.

We are doing this.

Sorry.

Well, I wasn't ready, but nothing further.

Oh, you have nothing.

Okay.

Councilmember vote.

Um we address scooters.

I hope we can also address e-bikes.

Sure.

And I think to I know that we have an ordinance in place.

I know that it superseded everybody else.

Uh to me, the big part is the enforcement, which is very difficult.

So I'll be looking forward to hearing more about that.

And some of it about just the regulating um how fast a scooter or an e-bike can go where.

And I look forward to hearing more about education.

My personal opinion is that we're gonna need to take it to the people instead of them going to a site, HOAs make you know, sign up.

Okay, we've got ten people that are willing to do it, and we go out to them.

So I hope we can look at that and see, you know, what we're able to do.

I I think the education part is gonna be the biggest part of all of it.

It's a little hard to enforce when they've already gone down the street.

So um I look forward to follow-up on all of that.

And then I just wanted to take a moment to recognize and congratulate the Alathe Police Department for uh becoming the first law enforcement agency in Kansas to earn the CLEAP accreditation.

Accreditation is very important.

I have to do that with what I do for a living.

And that provides reassurance to our community regarding excellence and accountability and just uh the excellence of service.

So thank you, Chief Putad and your entire team again, setting the standard for excellence.

And then to our veterans, and we have one sitting here.

Um and those of us that have family members want to recognize them, all those who have worn, and those who wear the uniform today.

Thank you for your courage, sacrifice, and love of country, which inspires us.

Very good.

Councilmember Gilm.

Councilmember Gilmore.

Thank you, Mayor.

Chief, I also wanted to press my congratulations.

There you are back there.

Um I remember when you stood at that podium and said you were pursuing accreditation, and I think of all the things you've already got on your plate.

But you've set a standard now.

This is not a one-time thing.

This is a going forward thing.

And congratulations.

I know it's a lot of work on your part of you and your team.

And uh we look forward to great results in the future.

Thank you.

That's all, Mayor.

Great.

Assistant City Manager Susan Sherman.

Anything to say?

Yeah, I just have a couple of things really quick.

Um one is tomorrow is a volunteer reception at Embassy Suites.

So please join us.

That's always a great time, six to eight.

Uh community prayer breakfast on Friday morning.

So we're doing some other early morning.

And then I wanted to build on uh council member votes um veterans.

We are off next Tuesday for Veterans Day.

And on Wednesday, we're going to bring together our veterans within the city and have a celebration breakfast with them on Wednesday morning.

Where's that at?

That's in Robinson Training Center.

Okay, cool.

Excellent.

I have one item.

I just wanted to thank everybody that joined us for the state of the city on uh last week on Friday at lunch.

We were excited to be able to celebrate so many amazing things that are happening here in our city.

So thank you especially to the Alatha Chamber of Commerce for hosting the event again this year and did an awesome job.

So and uh wish everybody a happy voting day.

So election day.

So uh I told a story uh last time about um a great nephew that thought that he his dad told him that they were gonna go vote, and he thought they were gonna go boating.

And he was so upset that he was crying uh because he wanted to go boating instead of voting.

But anyway, so voting is not for everybody, especially if you're only three.

But anyway, that's it for tonight.

Thank you for joining us and uh have a good evening.

We are adjourned.