Good evening.

Welcome to the regular meeting of the Olatha City Council for Tuesday, March 3, 2026.

Before we begin tonight, I want to take a moment to acknowledge a great loss suffered this week with the passing of Kansas State Representative John Resman.

John was a great American, a wonderful Olatha citizen, and an exemplary public servant who represented our community well in Topeka.

He will be missed.

As a community, I ask that we remember John's family, friends, and colleagues in our thoughts and prayers.

And at this time, please join me in a moment of silence.

Thank you.

Next on our agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance.

With us tonight is Cub Scout Pack 3412 and Girl Scout Girl Scout Troop 7699.

So would these scouts please come forward and lead us in the pledge?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice.

Let's thank our scouts for help.

Next on our agenda is special business item A is consideration of resolution number 26-1022, appointing a member to the Persons with Disabilities Advisory Board.

Do I hear a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second.

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

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover?

Yes.

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Mr.

Vacas?

Yes.

Ms.

Essex?

Yes.

Mr.

Creighton?

Yes.

Mr.

Dinal?

Yes.

Motion passes.

7-0.

The Persons with Disabilities Advisory Board gives us a voice to some of Olatha's most vulnerable residents and works to ensure our high quality of life in Olatha is available to all.

So tonight we are appointing one new member.

So here to introduce her is board chair, Mark Gass.

Mark.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Good evening, Council and guests.

Nice job, Scouts.

I remember when my voice did that same thing.

So your persons with disabilities advisory board serves as a resource and representative for our communities disabled and senior citizens.

We empower, provide support, and promote an accessible community for all Olatha citizens through awareness, advocacy, and education.

And we're pleased to have a new board member this evening.

Let me introduce to you Magna Samantha Carlos Travino.

I'm going to go up to the center.

She is a bilingual advocate and strategic consultant, and she's eager to serve on the Olatha Persons with Disabilities Advisory Board, and we're eager to have her.

Through MS Consulting and Training and her board roles at the statewide Independent Living Council of Kansas and the Spina Bifida Association, she helps organizations create truly inclusive environments.

As an Olatha homeowner, in a household where both she and her husband live with Spina bifida, Magna offers a rare firsthand perspective on the daily realities of independent living.

She is ready to leverage her professional strategy and lived experience to help identify barriers and improve accessible accessibility for all of our residents.

Welcome, Magna.

So I'm going to hold this for you.

Thank you.

No, it's okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you, everyone.

I am very honored to receive this.

On behalf of the CD of Aletha, I like Mark said, I am very proud, Latina, and I hope that I can represent people with disabilities and all the different communities that I represent.

And thank you so much.

Thank you for being here.

So thank you, Magna and Mark, for being here tonight.

All you do for our city.

Item B is consideration of resolution number 26-1023 appointing and reappointing members to the Aletha Historic Preservation Board.

Do I hear a motion?

Mayor, I'll offer a motion to approve resolution 26-1023.

Second.

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

Mr.

Skinhopper.

Yes.

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Mr.

Vacus?

Yes.

Ms.

Essex?

Yes.

Mr.

Creighton.

Yes.

Mr.

Denal?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Motion passes 7-0.

At 169 years old.

That's how old Alethe is.

We have a great deal of history.

Our historic preservation board helps us take care of our history to ensure we continue to share it for generations to come.

Tonight we are appointing one new member and reappointing two.

To begin, I'd like to welcome forward our board chair, Tom Carney.

So it's come on up, Tom.

Tom joined the Historic Preservation Board in 2018 and has served as chair for three terms.

He is a valued member of the board and is deeply involved in preservation efforts throughout our community.

In addition to his board service, Tom is active with the Olatha Historical Society, the Optimus Club, the Mayor's Community Food Drive, and the fishing derby.

You catch anything.

Okay.

All right.

He is a former history teacher in the Olatha School District and a longtime Alethe resident.

I have other things I want to say.

So we'll let Tom introduce the other appointees.

Well, I had a speech prepared, but Mayor Bacon did most of it, so here we go.

Thank you, El Presidente A Bacon, the City Council members, administrative staff.

To say that membership on the Olatha Historic Preservation Board has been an eye-opening experience is understatement.

I've been pleased to learn so much about my hometown and its properties.

The mission of the OHPB is to recognize historic properties and contact property owners.

These owners are then made aware of the benefits of inclusion on the Olatha Historic Register.

Our biggest hurdle is refuting many of the falsehoods surrounding this inclusion.

For the next year, we aim to take a more positive and proactive approach to identifying and including these historic properties.

Pursuant to that task, I'm pleased to introduce these two members of the Preservation Board.

First, Emma Plankers.

She was confirmed to fulfill an unexpired term, and in that short time, she has brought a youthful enthusiasm to the board.

She is a longtime lifelong Aletha resident.

Her background in interior design brings professional expertise to working with property owners seeking inclusion on the register.

John Sorensen applied for membership on the board a while back.

In his interview, he noted his publishing and mostly renovating experience.

He has some great suggestions for publicizing the mission of the Preservation Board and can offer guidance to property owners as to funding sources.

He has been lauded in many ways for his work in serving his community.

In his words, he said, quote, I would be an asset to the board.

My 15 plus years of experience in change management and continuous improvement have been proven to be beneficial to every company with which I have worked.

We cannot wait for him to lend his professional expertise to the board.

John.

It's a great honor of service.

I moved here in 1984 from Lincoln, Nebraska.

And my how things have changed in the last 40 years.

So I look forward to being a part of this committee.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll just take a quick picture.

I already do it.

Senator City results.

So congratulations.

So congratulations to our new and reappointed board members, and thank you for all you do for Aletha and our historic and preservation of our history.

Item C is a presentation by ETC Institute on the results of the 2025 Direction Finder Survey.

As you've likely heard by now, Olatha was recently named again the best place to live in Kansas by U.S.

News and World Report.

While we appreciate the recognition, we already knew this was the best place to live, right?

That's thanks in part to our direction finder survey here to present our annual results is ETC CEO Chris Statham.

Chris, welcome.

Mayor members of the council, it's great to be here.

And this is my favorite presentation.

Our company does work for thousands of communities, but this is the one place I can come and say thank you to you all for the great leadership and all the service you provide to the service to the city.

What's really cool is Tom Carney, who just walked out of here.

I haven't seen him for like 20 some years, and he was one of my favorite high school teachers of all time at Elaytha Norris.

So you never know where you're going to run into somebody.

So for tonight I'm going to walk you through high-level findings.

There's a full report.

We have a dashboard out there where you can really drill down into the details.

But really just want to walk you through kind of what's a a well good health physical, you might get.

You see your doctor once a year every couple of years, see how you're doing.

City of Olatha is continuing to do well, but things that are small can change things in a big way for a high performing community like Olatha.

So I'm going to walk you through really what we do.

If you for some of you who are new to this, you haven't heard this presentation in the past.

Walk you through what I consider to be the four takeaways or things to remember.

Lots of information in here, but I'll try not to drown you in that.

Go through some of the major findings, and at the end, if you have any questions, be happy to answer them for you.

Uh and it's been used to objectively assess what residents think of service priorities and how well the city is delivering those services.

And one of the reasons is important is without a tool like this, you'll have public meetings which are important part of the process, but you typically only hear from special interests, not the average person.

So this tool gives you a way to hear from people throughout the city of different kinds and really make sure you're meeting their needs and seeing how those change those needs change.

We then do comparisons with other communities where we perform very well.

And I know a lot of the information is integrated to the city's long-range uh planning process.

So the survey itself is about 10 minutes.

It's about four printed pages.

Uh we conduct it by mailing out surveys to folks.

We then follow up with emails, with texts, and even direct social media ads.

Uh since 2000, we've had almost 50,000 people take surveys for us.

So each year, this last year we had another 2100 participate in this survey.

The results aren't perfect, but they have an accuracy of about plus or minus 2.1% at the 95% level of confidence.

That just means if you did the survey a hundred times, you get these same results within about two percent or less, 95 times out of 100.

Uh, we track the location of respondents.

We actually do it at the block level, so no one has to worry about their exact address.

But if you live at 1520 Main Street, we track 1500 main.

And that allows the city to drill down, and there's a whole separate appendix that has maps so you can actually see how residents in different parts of the city rate different services.

And I'll comment that in a little bit.

And overall, our representation when you compare it to the recent census matches up closely with age, gender, race, Hispanic ancestry, and other factors.

So uh if you had a big dinner and can't hang with me for all 200 slides, these are the four things that to remember.

Uh big increases this year were in stormwater runoff uh management along with household uh waste disposal, hazardous waste disposal.

Areas that we saw the most notable decreases were in snow removal or neighborhood streets, and interestingly, public transportation, not a city service, but it's something that we do track interest in.

So I'll talk a little bit about that.

The biggest thing I want to share with you though is that your rating is now 49% above the U.S.

average.

It's last year it was 44%.

The US average has gone down.

Your average has stayed about the same.

In fact, with all the things that were assessed, there's 56 different things that were assessed this year and last year, and the net change was 0.95 negative percent, so a little down, but of your three big indicators, overall satisfaction with city services, it stayed the same.

Overall level of customer service went up 2%, overall value went down 2%.

So all in all, pretty much the same year on year, which is incredibly good.

But to sustain those levels, you'll have to want to continue to emphasize in things that are important to residents and traffic flow is continuing.

I know you're making lots of investments, but it's continuing to rise.

It had faded for a little bit, but now it's coming back as it was in previous years.

So to share some of the highlights, I want to share start off just giving you some comparisons.

And if you're not familiar with our company, we do surveys for over 1,200 communities across the United States, actually across the globe now, and we have data from about 300 cities that do this same survey every year.

And so we track comparisons.

We also do our own national research.

So when we share national averages, that's actually a result of a 4,000-person survey that we do annually to track what's happening in different areas across the United States.

What I'm showing you here on this, I'm highlighting two things.

These are kind of the big perceptions, the things that I think are most important to the overall condition of the city.

And you'll see overall quality of city services is at 92%.

That's what it was last year, hasn't changed, but the national average has dropped from 48 to 43%.

So in a time when people are more negative, the city has pretty much stayed its course and now it's 49% above the average.

And when it comes to value of taxes, you're at 68%, which is more than double the national average.

So two of the things that we care the most about as far as tracking is the city doing well, you're setting the standard in both of those.

And as we go through some of these other areas, I want to highlight are the major categories of city services.

In fact, for all the services the city actually provides, when we look at the major categories like parks and recreation, fire, police, and so forth, the city is setting the standard in pretty much every area.

In fact, you're 18% or more above the national average in each one.

Few of them are highlighted here.

You'll see things like trash, uh, yard waste, curbside recycling, overall quality of city services.

Everything on this chart you can see is 29% or more above the national average.

It is almost unprecedented.

There's only a couple other cities in the nation that get ratings like this where you're in the 89s and 90s.

You've got to imagine the average is what I'm showing you.

So this is the average.

The average city gets their yard waste removal at 49%, giving positive ratings.

You're at 96%.

And there's almost no negativity.

What we don't show on here are the ratings of threes.

The idea is to maximize the positive, so it's four and fives.

So ones and twos are negative.

There's almost zero in many of these categories.

Other things we looked at, major maintenance of major streets, 43%.

At one time that was average or below average.

It's now nearly double the national average at 87 compared to just 44.

And you can see things, even though we saw a decrease in snow removal on neighborhood streets, you can still see it's 28% above the national average.

And the one item down here at the bottom, you'll see public transportation.

That's just one of the areas the city lags behind.

And again, not a city service, but it is something that does is rated more poorly here than other areas.

I will flag the traffic congestion.

That was 66 last year, so it has gone down 5%.

Nothing alarming, but given the fact that it's a rising priority.

Just to champion some of the things, I used to share this with some of the city employees at a big celebration each week.

And just to give a shout out, because this doesn't happen without great employees.

The items on here are all rated 25% to 29% above the national average.

And I want to point out that in most cities there's nothing rated 25% or more above the national average.

That's typical.

So to have anything in this category is atypical.

To have as many things as I'm going to show you is absolutely outstanding.

And you see water pressure, emergency medical services, shopping retail centers, snow removal on neighborhood streets, street lighting, the overall effectiveness of city communication, how safe people feel in their neighborhood during the day and fire services are all 25% to 29% of the national average.

And that's just the start.

The next slide is things that are 30 to 39%.

And remember, the national average might be 40.

This is when you're starting to be almost double the national average in some cases.

You see the overall perceptions of safety, 38% above, trash service, snow removal, overall quality of wastewater, neighborhood streets, safety and neighborhoods at night, perceptions of the overall image of the city, even value for taxes, availability information, your animal control and parks all are 30 to 39 percent above the national average.

And this last part is just absolutely unseen in almost every city in this country, or whereetha is truly unique.

And you can see here the overall quality of city services is the biggest differential.

You might say, well, why is that?

It's because there's nothing out of whack.

You end up being 49% above the national average because you're killing it in pretty much every single area.

Doesn't mean residents don't want you to do better.

I'm gonna show that to you in a little bit.

But you're doing a great job, and you can see all these areas are 40 to 49 percent above the national average.

We've never made a slide that's 50 percent above the national average.

So maybe I'll come back next year with a first.

So with that said, I want to show you some of the changes.

As I mentioned before, the overall for 56 items that were rated last year and this year dropped by just under a percent.

So pretty much the overall ratings were about the same.

The most notable increases that I mentioned before stormwater, household hazardous waste disposal, adaptive recreation programs, and even promoting diversity were some of the areas that increase the most year over year.

When it comes to some of the decreases, you can see the biggest decrease is perceptions of public transportation, not necessarily a city service, but it is one of the areas we assess for the city.

Snow removal on neighborhood streets went down 11%, level of public involvement was down 7%, and city codes and ordinances down 6%.

Didn't put it on the list, but the trans traffic flow issue is one of the things I noted before, it was down 5% year over year, which is why I thought you should be aware of that.

But to remain at the top, the city needs to continue putting emphasis on things that are most important to residents.

And you'll see that traffic congestion and management is at the top of the list at 65, followed by maintenance of streets and sidewalks, and then police and your emergency uh services.

But you'll notice though that the people historically in this city have put the greatest emphasis, in fact the most first choice on public safety services.

So even though the top three it's third, it's the one people are most likely to pick first.

And then after that, you have a stair step of cleanliness, code enforcement, parks and recreations and sewers, which are all about the same, and then it works its way down to things like customer service.

But I can tell you that with some of the work that we've done, even though customer service is not something that people pick as their top priority, it's one of the biggest factors that impacts people long term with their perceptions of the city.

If someone has a good engagement with the city, they remember that, and then they tend to rate everything better the next time around.

So that's one of the things to keep doing well, and the city's overall customer service rating was up two points from uh last year.

As far as the analysis that we do is we look not just at the overall satisfaction or the importance, we actually integrate it together to try to give you what are the top priorities or areas to emphasize emphasize.

And you'll see traffic flow is at the top, followed by maintenance, public transportation, and codes and ordinance enforcement.

You'll see a little bit further down, you'll see cleanliness and city communication with the public.

Those are areas you want to continue to focus on as well.

And sometimes the number one thing might be really, really costly, but you can do something lower for less money, it can have a significant impact.

And that's why I highlight sometimes look at the things further down.

There may be something you can do that could actually have a big impact on people given its relative importance to the community.

So with that, I'm back to the beginning.

Uh overall, this year was pretty much the same as last year, which for the past five years, you've been in the top 10% of all cities in the country.

Likely to do that again this year, given the fact that the results are the same as last year generally, but the national average has dropped in most categories.

We saw a few decreases, a few decreases increases, but I hope that you'll celebrate that you're 49%.

That's the highest relative position the city has ever been with its overall satisfaction compared to other communities across the country.

But to stay there, keep focusing on things like you've been doing.

The process seems to be working.

The city keeps to be seems to keep doing well year after year, and I thank you all for all the service and time and everything you put in to make it a great place for people like myself and my son, Dr.

Tatham, who's taken over soon to keep uh doing this work for you.

So with that, I'll pause, Mayor.

I don't know if any has any questions, but it's great to be here.

Thank you, Chris.

Great report.

Questions of Chris, anyone?

Or of comments.

Yes, Councilmember Essex.

Thank you so much.

It's always such good news, and you're so cheerful when you deliver it.

It just makes us all smile.

Um, I noticed that the Ward One has just a tiny amount of survey responses compared to the rest of the city.

Any idea why that could be?

It may look that way on the dots.

If you actually look at the number, it's pretty similar.

So in other words, in the 500 we do each quarter, typically there's at least a hundred in each of the districts.

So it could be nature of the housing.

So if you have multifamily housing and you have four respondents from one apartment complex, it would look like one dot.

But when we actually look at the numbers, it's probably more just the way it looks on the map, because we code it to the center of the block.

So if you have some housing that's more multifamily, that's what it would be.

But we track that to make sure the two things we track each time are the distribution to make sure it's about the same.

And also the census with those areas I mentioned up for, things like age, uh gender, ethnicity, to make sure that every time we do the survey, it's pretty similar.

So Chris, thanks again.

I don't see any other comments.

I would like to say uh, you know, it's hard to stay at the top, but we somehow figure out a way to do it.

And so comparing you to the Patriots, and it was to the Chiefs, and you're still here.

Yeah.

So anyway.

So I did want to say uh a lot of this is because of the hundreds of city employees who make these scores great, and uh, I guess a special shout out to our trash employees who are crushing it real literally.

So uh thank you.

Okay, I I get that.

Thank you for your hard work for your commitment to your craft, your passion and helping people and for your dedication to our community.

So you're a big reason Olatha is such an exceptional place to live and call home.

So thanks again, Chris, for the good report.

Look forward to seeing you again next year.

Thank you.

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

Council members, are there any items you would like to consider?

Councilmember Creighton.

I would like to pull item K, please.

Item K.

Any others?

Seeing none, a motion would be in order.

Well, mayor, I move to approve the consent agenda as presented, items A through T, less item K.

Second.

We have a motion and second one.

The city clerk, please call the roll.

Dr.

Felter, yes.

Mr.

Vacus.

Yes.

Ms.

Essex?

Yes.

Mr.

Creighton.

Yes.

Mr.

Dinal?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Mr.

Scoonover.

Yes.

Motion passes 7-0.

Item K is consideration of engineers' estimate, acceptance of bids, and award of contract to Superior Bowen Co asphalt Company, LLC, for construction of the Black Bob Road, 153rd Terrace to 159th Street Improvements Project PN3-C-041-23.

And for construction of the 200 or the 2026 Black Bob Road Arterium Mill and Overlay Project PN3-P-005-26.

Councilmember Creighton.

Thank you.

And maybe the timing on this was good, having that Chris just talked about traffic congestion is always on the minds of our citizens.

The reason I pulled this is about as the mayor said, the area around 159th and Black Bob.

And I've recently had six or seven different residents contact me about the timeline, because there are actually three projects going on along there.

Black Bob South of 159th, this project coming up 153rd to one to 159.

And then 159th from Rome to Black Bob will be coming up.

So I just wanted to be able to have a just a very short presentation, mostly just what the projects entail and a timeline for those because it does impact people getting to and from work to their schools, their homes and the like.

So just just a short update, please, Mr.

Baldwin.

Sure.

So Nate Baldwin, City Engineer.

So right now, Black Bob 159 to 167th is actively under construction.

167th of Black Bob has a beautiful new roundabout and is open to traffic.

We're at the very north end of the project, the last two phases, which we anticipate early summer finishing up with that.

And that is widening Black Bob to a four-lane divided arterial.

Uh that is going in as well.

And then this project here, the what we call Black Bob North, other one referred to as Black Bob South, so we don't have to use all the terms.

But this one here is going to be a mill and overlay up of the north end of Black Bob up around 151st Street.

And then the rest of the project actually improves that last um unimproved portion of Black Bob, widen it out again to what it's gonna look like at the south and what it looks like right now up by high V at 151st Street.

So again, four-lane divided, turn lanes, uh sidewalks, a new bridge is going in with this project, which uh will make the uh just kind of like Black Bob South.

We had a significant uh culvert replacement project will will impact the schedule a little bit.

So uh schedule for this one here, the Black Bob North, I'm gonna call it, uh, is we're gonna start this spring, and then we anticipate it running through next summer.

Summer of 27.

So I don't have a lot of specifics right now because we're just bringing the contractor on board, right?

So we're working with them on schedule.

We actually do have a public meeting on Tuesday, March 24th.

So that's three weeks from tonight.

It's virtual.

It's 530 to 630.

Postcards are getting mailed today to the residents in the area.

I will update you guys later this week or early next week once those postcards go out, give you all the zoom links, just kind of I typically do uh with those public meetings.

Um then 159th Street.

We had a great public meeting last week uh on that to introduce people to that project.

So that's from Brome to Black Bob.

Uh we're gonna widen that out, sidewalk improvements.

There's a lot of areas around there.

If you think of it, it's real narrow road.

We're gonna put storm sewers in, and then also a traffic signal at Brome and Black Bob.

Um that one we're still early on.

We're starting to talk to utilities.

There's some pretty significant utility relocations that have to go on with the 159th and Black Bob project or 159th project from Brome to Black Bob.

So the schedule is a little bit in flux.

We're hoping to start construction uh next year, but it's looking like because of the utilities, you're gonna see a lot of utility work next year, and then we'll come back to construction 28.

So that was discussed in the public meeting.

Um with that, hopefully I covered everything.

If not, I'll stand for questions.

That's all I had.

Thank you much.

All right.

Any other questions of staff on this item?

Seeing that a motion would be in order for item K.

Thank you, uh Mayor.

I move to approve item K.

That's project number three P005-26.

Second.

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

Ms.

Essex, yes.

Mr.

Creighton?

Yes.

Mr.

Denult?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon?

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover?

Yes.

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Mr.

Vaucus?

Yes.

Motion passes.

70.

We'll now move to new business.

Item A is consideration of ordinance number 26-10, which is RZ25-0019, requesting approval of a rezoning from the RUR County Rural District to M2 General Industrial District for 175th Lone Elm Center on approximately 4.7 acres located northeast of West 175th Street and Lone Elm Road.

Planning Commission recommended approval of this item of 7 to 0.

The two properties were recently annexed into a lathe and are requested to be rezoned and will be incorporated as part of the larger 175th Street in Lone Elm Center.

Um we need have need for a presentation or question on this item.

No.

Okay.

See not a motion be in order.

I move to approve.

This is ordinance number 26-10, rezoning 25-0019.

Second.

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

Mr.

Clayton.

Yes.

Mr.

Denult?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon?

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover.

Yes.

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Mr.

Vaucus?

Yes.

Ms.

Essex.

Yes.

Motion passes 7-0.

The next item on our agenda is general issues and concerns of citizens.

No one has signed up to speak to the council tonight.

So we'll move on then.

We um uh the item after that is an executive session.

So we have a need for an executive session tonight.

Do I hear a motion?

I move um I move that the City of Olatha Council recess into an executive session to discuss matters relating to security measures of the city's information system pursuant to the exception provided in KSA 75-4319 B 12 for 30 minutes.

The open meeting will resume here in City Council Chambers at um 805.

Second.

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

Mr.

Denult.

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon?

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover.

Yes.

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Mr.

Vaucus?

Yes.

Ms.

Essex?

Yes.

Mr.

Creighton?

Yes.

Motion passes.

7-0.

Back into executive session for ten minutes would be an order.

So moved.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we'll make one.

All right.

All right.

So we're we are reconvening.

Yeah.

We're reconvening from executive session.

A motion to be in order.

I move to authorize staff to proceed with the strategies uh discussed and with directed by the governing body.

Second.

We have a motion and a second one, the city clerk, please call the role.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Mr.

Scinnover?

Yes.

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacchus.

Yes.

Miss Essex?

Yes.

Mr.

Creighton.

Yes.

Mr.

Janal.

Yes.

Motion passes seven zero.

We're now on additional items.

I'll start on my left, Councilmember Creighton.

Uh just one comment uh related to the uh presentation by Chris earlier tonight on direction finders and when he was talking about the thing that continues to uh be a major concern to the citizens is traffic flow and congestion.

And so I just want to thank the prior council members, those of you that have served on this body who've been visionary, been willing to take on the uh task of improving our networks.

Um we'll you know by the end of the year we'll have a hundred and nineteenth street open, and then of course the work related to uh I- thirty-five and Santa Fe.

So thank you all for what you have done on that.

And I specifically want to thank staff for already talking to the citizens about the impact that Santa Fe and I thirty five is I'd rather uh be very upfront that it is gonna be some tough times, but when it's done, it's good.

So anyway, it just uh thank you to for all your your work in the past getting us to this point.

Thanks.

Council Member Scootover.

Well, I'm gonna um thank you, Mayor.

I'm I'm gonna share something very similar as my friend Jeff.

Uh first of all, you know, we we all know it, but we heard it again tonight.

We have amazing city employees and city staff.

And so to to each and every one of you who work so hard every day on behalf of the residents and the businesses in the community.

Thank you so much for for all your hard work.

You guys are are amazing and do wonderful jobs.

You make our jobs um much easier.

So thank you for everything you do.

And I will say, uh I'll I'll also echo what what Council Member Creighton said as well.

We we hear you that uh congestion is a big problem.

And uh I guess I'll just say it's it's gonna get a little worse, a lot worse before it gets better.

But it will get better.

So thank you.

Councilmember Filter.

Thank you, Mayor.

We're gonna call that painful progress, right?

Umgratulations and thank you to our staff for uh amazing scores on the ETC uh direction finder survey.

Uh you're the ones who make it work.

So sure appreciate it.

And then um wow, the USD uh Olatha Public Schools, 233 bond 2026 uh vote.

Uh our community continues to support our public schools, and that's an amazing um vote of about I was spitballing it sixty-three percent ish.

Um I should have computed that, but I think that's about right.

Um just eyeballing the numbers.

Um over my time when I served on the school board, we had three bonds and um this this one reflected definitely 389 million dollars.

And uh uh it's a lot more than the bonds we had, and our message was different in my time.

It was all growth, growth, growth.

We needed Olay the West.

We needed a tenth middle school uh to be redone or built, and then we needed to redo redo Santa Fe Trail middle school.

This bond the whole messaging was different.

So nobody quite knew.

I mean, we're re-sizing and right sizing the district.

So thank you to our residents and the families and uh of Olatha public schools that supported this because this will make sure that our students and our staff have the right facilities and the structures they need to meet the needs of especially the most vulnerable students in our school district.

So I'm so grateful.

All that is just winging it.

I didn't have anything prepared.

Uh but um the uh uh I'm very excited about the Santa Fe and I-35 um progress, painful progress.

We're heading towards we're seeing major demolitions starting where uh the city has bought the properties, and so I think we're uh starting to see actual traction happen.

So thank you to the staff for all of your hard work on that, and sure appreciate it.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Vacas.

Thank you, Mayor.

So I I too would offer my sincere, my sincere appreciation, my sincere thanks to all our members of the Olathe City staff, from the most junior member to the most senior member, the professionalism, the enthusiasm, the competence.

It's just very rewarding.

You know, you talk about what makes Olathe great, and it's great to see the CTC survey results, but it's the quality of our city staff that makes a difference.

So thanks to each and every one of you.

I appreciate this.

Thank you.

Councilmember Essex.

Thank you, Mayor.

This is your fifth thank you for staff.

We appreciate everything you do.

I I did notice this snow removal thing kind of surprised me, I'll say, because I always get the most compliments, especially the most recent snowstorms we've had, of how well we're doing.

So just wanted to throw that out there as well.

Um just wanted to also offer my condolences to Representative John Resmond's family.

I have the honor and had the honor of sitting next to him on the House floor for four years, and he's a dear friend and um he veteran law enforcement officer, uh state representative, and just public servant.

He always wanted to help anything he could do to help people, he will be missed.

And my condolences to Liz and his family.

Councilmember Denal.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I'm going to say thank you to the staff too, but I'll pivot a little bit and say uh I've been doing IT for 25 years.

Uh and I know firsthand how difficult it is to position an organization uh to be safe in an IT world.

So I really want to show appreciation to to Barrett and and all the staff there, but uh as well as everyone else because it takes everyone uh to make a safe and secure uh organization and city.

So thank you.

City manager, Susan Sherman.

Thank you.

I'm gonna flip the script a bit and say um thank the city council for your support and confidence in our staff and what we do every day, giving us the budget that we need.

I know resources are not unlimited, but knowing that you're behind us and supporting us uh means a lot.

And to our 1200 plus employees, you have some great, passionate, dedicated public servants who work every day to make our city better and better, and couldn't be more proud of them.

Very good.

Uh I wanted to thank everyone who joined us for our joint meeting last night with the City Council and the planning commission.

We had a chance to come together together to review the draft of our updated comprehensive plan, Elevate Olathe, something that we've been working on for almost two years now and hope to adopt this spring.

So a special thanks to the thousands of Olathians who offered their input and participated in this process.

The completed document will go before the planning commission for a public hearing and then before coming to the city council for adoption a little bit later.

So that's it for tonight.

Thanks for joining us.

Hope you have a wonderful evening, and we are adjourned.