Sourdough.

My starter is updated.

Oh my nose rosemary.

Really good.

Don't use cheap butter.

I'll give me a pass.

That's a cent.

Or don't do it at all.

I feel like I'd have to share the line.

That's why I slipped it up there, but for you, so no one would know.

I wanted to keep it.

And you have to bring it more and with the back of the so that we're going to be able to do that.

I often bring by the way.

Mr.

Creighton?

Yes.

Mr.

Denult?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Seven zero.

Okay.

We did.

Actually, it was twenty-five minutes.

So we're good.

We're good.

Yeah.

I think we're gonna wait till seven.

Okay.

That's what you said.

Okay.

Yeah, we're good.

That's why we're gonna go to the speaker.

We'll begin here in just a minute.

Good evening.

Welcome to our regular meeting of the Olympic City Council for Tuesday, April seventh, twenty twenty six.

We just uh reconvened from an executive session.

Do I hear a motion?

Yes.

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

Second.

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

Mr.

Skinover.

Yes.

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Mr.

Vaucus?

Yes.

Ms.

Essex.

Yes.

Mr.

Creighton.

Yes.

Mr.

Denult?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Motion passes 7-0.

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

Would you please stand with me for the pledge?

I pledge allegiance to the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God.

I wanted to take just a moment of personal privilege and express my condolences and sympathies to the family of Mike Haskins, a former mayor and council member here in Olatha that passed away this last week.

So I really appreciate his service to our community.

We'll now move to special business.

Item A is consider resolution number 26-1027 appointing and reappointing members to the Mahaffey Stagecoach Stop and Farm Advisory Board.

Do I hear a motion?

I move to approve.

The reappointments.

Second.

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

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Mr.

Vacus.

Yes.

Ms.

Essex?

Yes.

Mr.

Creighton?

Yes.

Mr.

Denald?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon?

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover.

I'm a little conflicted, but yes.

Okay.

Motion.

Okay.

7-0.

The Mahaffey Board works to ensure this one-of-a-kind property and jewel in our community is available for Olathans to enjoy for years to come.

So joining us to introduce our new and reappointed members is Board Vice Chair Connie Snyder.

Connie?

Good evening, Mayor Bacon and City Council members.

Thank you for your continued support of the Mahaffe Stagecoach Stop and Farm.

As the only working stagecoach stop left on the Santa Fe Trail, Mahaffey Stagecoach Stop and Farm offers unique experiences and opportunities that engage visitors of all ages in discovering 1860s farming, life on the Kansas frontier, and stagecoach travel.

In 2025, we had 63,000 visitors from 41 different states and six different countries, plus 13,000 students from 27 school districts from Kansas and Missouri for a total of 76,000 visitors in 2025.

Half our population, right?

Of the city.

Tonight we are reappointing two members and appointing one new member.

So first we'll start with Marge vote.

We are really pleased that Marge Vogue is continuing to serve on the Mahappy Stagecoach Stop and Farm Advisory Board and Foundation.

Marge is our longest serving board member with her initial appointment in January of 2001.

She was instrumental in Mahaffe Stagecoach Stop and Farm becoming what it is today through her 25 years.

25 years of support, and that includes making the Heritage Center a reality in 2008, among other projects.

They are so passionate about Mahaffey.

And through the advocacy and the fundraising that they do, the goal is to enhance the experience.

And then I'll give a little teaser.

We'll be presenting soon a new project again to enhance the site and the visitation.

So again, uh thank you for the opportunity.

Mayor, how many awards have you gotten?

At least first, second third of the You got a first?

Maybe not.

There's a fourth place to be a good one.

There might be I've got two seconds, a third.

And Susan got a first.

She's got a gold mallet.

You know?

So anyway, I want to make sure everybody knows.

That's open up to the public.

And I hope the council will participate again.

It's a lot of fun.

And there's some pretty mean competition that takes place, too.

It'll be Friday the 5th of June.

Again, thank you for this honor.

Okay.

Okay.

Our next reappointment is Kevin Gilmore.

We're very pleased that Kevin Gilmore is continuing to serve with us.

He started on the board in March of 2021.

His advice on financial matters and our projects has been greatly appreciated.

As a member of the Santa Fe Rotary Club Santa Fe Trail Rotary Club, Kevin has supported our annual Sunflower Wickets and the club's Omlet Fest.

He was instrumental in securing funding for our new stage coach back in 2023.

Hard to believe that new coach is now three years old.

Sorry, Marge, I got to raise this up.

It's just an honor to serve on another community endeavor with a group of wonderful people who want to uh preserve and promote this wonderful historic site in our community.

So thank you again, mayor and council, for this reappointment.

And our new member that we're appointing is Matthew Schoonover.

Matthew has served on the City Council since January of 2024 and will now serve as our representative to the City Council.

He's a graduate of Olatha North High and is a managing partner of Schoonover and Moriarty Law Firm.

He and wife Nicole and their two children live in downtown Olatha.

And I believe your wife Nicole has a very unique connection to Olatha history as she's a granddaughter of Ford and Nan Hire Bowl of the Higher Bootfame.

That's right.

As long as they'll claim me, I'll take it.

I'll take it.

So thank you all very much.

All right, that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you all for serving, and you're willing to uh participate and give your talents and your time towards this great uh Mahaffe uh stagecoach stop and farm advisory board.

We'll now move to um our next item, which is to recognize our champions.

We are a city of the champions here in Olatha.

So tonight with us we have the director of athletic and activities here in Olatha Schools for uh Matt Johnson.

Matt, where are you?

All right.

Uh uh Mayor, City Council, thank you all uh for having us out.

It's it's always such a pleasure to come out to the city council meetings and to um illustrate really that we are a city of champions.

You get to see what these uh athletes and uh students and and uh have done in athletics and activities across our spectrum, and it is it's truly, truly impressive.

But you did not hear come here to hear me speak, so I'm gonna start it right off because we've got a long list tonight with uh Sister Principal Anna Lynn Morris from Olatha West.

Um I'm here to recognize tonight our eSports team.

Um Esports started in Olatha as a club just three years ago, practicing in mostly our libraries, and by the end of this year, Kacia made it an official activity, and we competed in the OPSIC building, which is the Olatha New Innovation Campus.

Olatha West was successful in achieving quarterfinalists in Smash Brothers.

They were the state champion in Rocket League, and as a result, they were the first ever all-state team in esports.

Additionally this group of students has won six college scholarships to five Kansas colleges for next year, and we have eight total students who have already received college scholarships for playing esports.

So pretty great feat for this group.

I'd like to introduce um athletic director, Mike Wolgast from Olatha East.

Up next.

If I could have Audrey Leonard and Coach Griffin, please come up to the front, please.

Audrey is a senior wrestler at Olathe East and a four-time state qualifier.

She's a three-time state placer.

She was third place her sophomore year.

And last year and again this year was the 6A state champion.

And again, not only a state champion this year, but Audrey finished with an undefeated record, was 44-0.

She also topped the career 100 pins mark, uh, 100 wins as well, and was named the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association class 6A wrestler of the year.

And just to top all that off, she was also a four-time All-Stirs Wrestling All-Academic team member with a grade point average of 4.5.

So congratulations, Audrey.

Next, if we could have Ellis Malone and Coach Eucher, please come forward.

Ellis is also a senior at Olatha East and has been a three-year state diving qualifier and medalist.

As a sophomore, he was third.

Junior, he was second, and then this year was the state champion.

He has worked hard to get better each and every year.

And uh this year at the state, he had his best series of dive with a score of 500.80.

Was not only good enough to be crowned state champion, but also broke the Olathe East diving record and was named first team all-state, and those numbers also get him into all American consideration.

So congratulations, Ellis, on great accomplishments during the diving season.

If I could have Mrs.

Staples and our educator rising students, please come forward.

Educators Rising is a network of students, teachers, and educational leaders who are working together to recruit and prepare the next generation of highly skilled teachers.

And Olatha East is fortunate to be the home of the future educators program for the Olatha School District.

At the State Educators Rising Conference this year in February at Bethany College, Olatha East had four state champions.

Chloe Lucky and Deja Deanda placed first in the Project Visualized Service Learning Competition.

And Isabel Liang and Ava Dunn also placed first in the researching learning challenges event.

And these individuals also qualified for nationals this summer, which will be in Portland, Oregon.

So congratulations to you these outstanding individuals.

I'd like to introduce Josh Price, the Athletic Director from Olatha North.

Josiah Justin, Sam, Max, Cam Calvin, Malakai, Tiki, Chase, Abbeck Cotton Dinav, Jacob, Will, and Shaya.

Coach Ulrich, Coach Rippey, Coach Scrugs, and Coach Rabbit.

These are the men and coaches that uh comprised the team at Olatha North this year.

Give me one quick second here.

Olatha North finished 24-4 on the season, playing easily the toughest schedule in Kansas.

They won the fifth, their fifth consecutive substate championship, making their fifth consecutive trip to the state tournament.

After a runner-up finish last year, this team was able to cross the finish line and win the school's first state championship in school history.

Leaving no doubt, the Eagles won their semifinal game by 18 points and the state title game by 17 points, avenging their only two losses in league play.

Truly a remarkable run, not only at Olatha North, but in all of Olatha High School basketball history.

Congratulations to these boys and these coaches.

Your 2026 6A state basketball champions.

There's too many for me to name on all those.

I just would also like to mention that uh Sam Simmons uh is also the Gatorade player of the year, which is the best basketball player in the state of Kansas.

So that's a very high honor for Sam Simmons.

At this time, if I could have Blake Samuelson come to the front.

Blake is a senior at Olatha North.

He was 50 and 4 on this season.

He finishes his career with 179 total wins, which ranks him number four in the state of Kansas all time.

His goal was to win a state title this senior year.

He accomplished that by beating an all-American three times in the last month of the season, the last time of which was in a state championship.

He is the state championship of uh state champion of a hundred and fifty seven weight division.

He joins his brother, Alec, who is also a uh coach on our staff this year as a previous state champion for the Olatha North Eagles.

Congratulations, Blake Samuelson.

At this time, if we could have the girls gymnastics state champions, please come to the front.

Breely, Ariana, Layla, Era, Lily, Morgan, Elena, Olivia, Macy, Megana.

These ten young ladies represent Olatha North gymnastics in 2021, 22, 23, 24, and 25.

These this program has won state championships.

That's a back-to-back to back to back to back, five times in a row, state champions.

Coach Harrington is unable to be here tonight as she had another obligation, but she had some things to say.

Her and her amazing assistant coaches have built a culture of success in the Olatha North gymnastics program that is unprecedented.

These 10 student athletes you see in the room today executed the plan exceptionally and performed at their peak throughout the season.

This year they were pushed harder than ever, and it took each one of them and their individual performances to come out on top as a team.

We couldn't be more proud of their efforts and are excited to celebrate your accomplishment today.

Forever the final state gymnastics champion of Kansas, the Olatha North Eagles.

Congratulations, ladies.

At this time, if we could have uh Garrett and Ariel please come to the front.

So we are very proud of our athletic success.

We're gonna celebrate some academic success at Olatha North.

Both Garrett Lee and Ariel Lee, both seniors, both in the DS Science Program Academy at Olathan North High School, received 36s on their ACTs.

Only one-tenth of one percent of those who take their ACTs receive a 36.

Uh for the for the record, I don't know where the other schools in Olatha or the state of Kansas today, but Olatha North, a lot of juniors took ACTs.

It's a very difficult test.

There might be some kids in the crowd that have a little bit more respect for that thing.

So congratulations to the two of you a feat very hard to accomplish.

36 ACTs.

Congratulations, Garrett Nariel.

I'll now turn the mic over to Olathe South Athletic Director Andrew Miller.

Thank you, City Council Mayor, for having us here tonight on behalf of the Olathe South administration.

At this time I want to welcome up Giovanni Codell and head wrestling coach Connor Fitzgerald as we recognize Giovanni for a state championship at 165 pounds in wrestling.

What better way to speak on behalf of Joe Vonnie than straight from Coach Fitz himself?

His daughters wanted him to read this, but they have to settle for me.

So Giovanni Coddale won his second state title this season.

He finished his high school career with back-to-back 6A state championships at 165 pounds.

The first state title is great.

Reaching the top of the podium is a rare feat, and it's so special to get there.

Doing it again, however, may be a more daunting task.

There's a lot of pressure and staying on top.

I know Joe felt that for a good portion of the season.

Down the home stretch, we really narrowed our focus to competing with gratitude and joy.

High school wrestling is special.

It's fun.

No sense in dampening the experience with focusing on results and applying undue pressure.

Wrestling is a game.

Go out, play the game as hard as you can, have fun, and be grateful for the opportunity to compete.

That's what he did.

And the result was a pretty dominant run to a second second state title.

I'm proud of Giovanni's focus and approach to competition to close out his high school career.

An amazing high school career that was, Joe.

Giovanni Codel.

At this time, I'd like to welcome assistant principal from Olatha Northwest, Mr.

Jonathan Link.

Awesome.

Well, first I would like to invite up to the front.

We have a state champion as well in gymnastics, Sophia Beaumont.

Sophia had a wonderful show out at state.

She placed an all-around vault, the uneven bars, and the floor exercise.

Awesome job.

And to round things out for the night, we are excited to celebrate Kaya Gant and Shea Wessel, our OATC hosts of champions representing Olathe Northwest.

Let's give them a big round of applause.

For those of you who don't know what HOSA stands for, it's Health Occupations Students of America.

So they're going to be the individuals taking care of us here in the next couple of years.

They had an amazing show out at the uh HOSA State Competition in the EMT team event.

Let's give them a big round of applause.

So once again, we want to congratulate all of our champions and appreciate their um dedication and talent in representing our city so well.

So thanks for being here tonight as well.

We will now move on to public hearings.

There are two projects for consideration at tonight's public hearings.

Both are amending their master resolution and phase one resolution to be consistent with the city's updated industrial revenue bond and tax abatement policy.

These items were all reports at our last meeting.

The first two items concern Blue Springs Safety Storage South and their business park in South Olatha.

So item A is a consideration of resolution number 26-1028 on behalf of Blue Springs Safety Storage South LLC and assigns to amend resolution 24-1045.

Motion be in order.

Thanks, Mayor.

I move to approve resolution resolution 26-1028 on behalf of Blue Springs Safety Storage South.

Second.

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

Mr.

Vacchus?

Yes.

Ms.

Essex?

Yes.

Mr.

Creighton?

Yes.

Mr.

Denult?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon?

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover?

No.

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Motion passes 6-1.

Item B.

Is a public hearing, so I'd like to open a public hearing in consideration of resolution number 26-1029 on behalf of Blue Spring Safety Storage South, LLC and assigns to amend resolution number 25-1030, which is building one.

Is there anyone here that if no one is signed up to speak?

Is there anyone in the audience that would like to address the council on this item?

Seeing none, a motion to was that a was that a yes, Jeff?

Did you want to talk on this?

I saw that hand.

I I saw that way.

All right.

So uh a motion to close the public hearing would be in order.

Regarding item seven B, I move to close the public hearing.

Second.

We have a motion and second to close the public hearing with the count or 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.

Vacchus.

Yes.

Motion passes 7-0.

A motion to approve resolution number 26-20 1029 would be in order.

I move to approve resolution 26-1029.

Second.

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

Mr.

Creighton?

Yes.

Mr.

Denult?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon?

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover?

No.

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Mr.

Vacchus?

Yes.

Ms.

Essex?

Yes.

Motion passes.

6-1.

The next two items relate to Aspen funds for their business park also in South Alatha.

Item C is consideration of resolution number 26-1030 on behalf of Aspen Funds LLC and assigns to amend resolution 25-1031.

Master resolution.

A motion be in order.

I move to approve resolution 26-1030.

Second.

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

Mr.

Denult.

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon?

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover?

No.

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Mr.

Vacus?

Yes.

Ms.

Essex?

Yes.

Mr.

Creighton?

Yes.

Motion passes 6-1.

Item D is uh public hearing, so I'd like to open a public hearing in consideration of resolution number 26-1031 on behalf of Aspen Funds LLC and assigns to amend resolution 25-1032, which is building one.

No one has signed up to speak in this public hearing.

Is there anyone in the audience that would like to seeing none, a motion to close the public hearing to be in order?

I move to close the public hearing.

This is item 7C.

Second.

We have a motion.

X we are on 7D.

Yes.

7D, I'm sorry.

Yes.

Yep.

Closing the public hearing.

We have a motion and second with the City Clerk, please call the roll.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Mr.

Schoonover?

Yes.

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacchus?

Yes.

Ms.

Essex?

Yes.

Mr.

Creighton.

Yes.

Mr.

Denult.

Yes.

Motion passes 70.

So a motion to approve resolution number 26-1031 would be in order.

I move to approve resolution 26-1031.

Second.

We have a motion and second with the city clerk.

Please call the roll.

Mr.

Schoonover.

No.

Dr.

Felter?

Yes.

Mr.

Vacchus?

Yes.

Ms.

Essex?

Yes.

Mr.

Creighton?

Yes.

Mr.

Denult?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon?

Yes.

Motion passes 6-1.

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.

Council, are there any such items to be pulled off the consent tonight?

Seeing none.

A motion to approve the consent agenda as presented to be in order.

I move to approve the consent agenda, including items A through M as presented.

Second.

We have a motion and second with the City Clerk, please call the roll.

Dr.

Felter, yes.

Mr.

Bacchus?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

Mr.

Creighton.

Yes.

Mr.

Dinal?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon.

Yes.

Mr.

Skinover.

Yes.

Motion passes 70.

We'll now move to a new business.

Item A is consideration of ordinance number 26-13 levying special assessments on certain property to pay the cost of internal improvements in the City will late the Kansas as previously authorized by resolution number 22-1073, hedge lane, 171st Street to 167th Street, PN3-B-085-22, and providing for the collection of such special assessments.

These special assessments are part of a benefit district and the governing body created in 2022 to finance the cost of building this portion of hedge lane.

Construction is now complete, so the city will plan to issue the bonds this summer.

There's no proper there is one property owner affected by these special assessments who agreed to be part of the benefit district back in 2021.

Is there a need for a presentation or questions on this item?

Seeing none.

Motion to approve ordinance number 26-13 would be in order.

I move to approve ordinance number 26-13.

Second.

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

Ms.

Essex.

Yes.

Mr.

Creighton.

Yes.

Mr.

Dinal?

Yes.

Mr.

Bacon?

Yes.

Mr.

Skinover?

Yes.

Dr.

Felter.

Yes.

Mr.

Vacus.

Yes.

Motion passes 7-0.

We'll now move to item 10, which is general issues and concerns of citizens.

We have no one that has signed up to address the council tonight.

So we'll move then to number 11, which is convene a planning session.

We have one report.

Report one is a report regarding proposed amendments to Title 10 of the Olathe Municipal Code, the Olatha Traffic Coordinates.

So at our last council meeting, we had uh kind of a small group here.

There were several that were out on traveling and different things.

So I asked that this be brought back as a report again so that we could get the uh everyone's that would like to to have feedback on this change.

And we uh it also gave us an opportunity to hear from our team council, which they did and they sent us all a letter.

I don't know if you saw that, but good suggestions.

I thought that was well put together.

So um just an opportunity for uh those of you that weren't here to weigh in on this before we vote on it at a come upcoming council meeting.

So any comments about uh the change in the ordinance concerning mobility devices and electric bikes, e-bikes.

Yes.

Councilmember Schoonover.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh just just as a I I can't remember who brought it up last time, one of my esteemed colleagues, but uh somebody had mentioned the idea of communicating this in a way to our uh the the youth, the children, um, to make sure that they can understand it.

I was just wondering, Bob, if you can if you can give us a little more information on where we are with that, because I'll be honest with you.

Even me reading some of these changes, I'm having a hard time understanding where things might fit in, and I don't ride one of these.

I see a lot of kids writing them, and so I think whatever we can do to communicate it in a way that kids can understand it uh makes sense.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, Bob Gallimore, Assistant City Attorney.

Yes, Council member, um that is something that we're uh working on.

And in fact, I've prepared a short presentation because uh we've done several reports and made some changes.

If you would like, I can go ahead and do that.

That kind of walks through the high point.

Okay.

Okay.

So since our first report in February, following that report, we did receive some feedback from council members and from residents with some suggestions for improving the ordinance.

So we did include some of those.

And those included uh on the e-bike speed limit.

It was pointed out that since we're going back to the state free class system, we would now have e-bikes that can go up to 28 miles per hour on their own.

Plus you add in the possibility of the wind or going down a hill.

It was suggested that we take out the general e-bike speed limit and instead uh implement a sidewalk speed limit, the same as we'll have for the micro mobility devices.

So that would be 15 miles per hour if you're riding any of these devices or an e-bike on a sidewalk.

So we made that change.

There was a suggestion that the neighborhood roads exception for micro-mobility devices, which includes e-scooters but not e-bikes.

Uh it was pointed out that our neighborhood default speed limit is in fact 25 miles per hour, not 20 miles per hour.

And that there are some neighborhoods where it's actually 30 miles per hour.

So to kind of fully implement the intent of this exception, we took that from a 20 mile per hour speed limit to a 30 mile per hour speed limit where you can ride these micromobility devices if there's not a sidewalk.

We changed the streets on which e-bikes may be used from 35 miles per hour to 40 miles per hour.

35 miles per hour is the current limit there.

And again, the feedback we received was in order to use these devices and to get to where you want to go in a latha, sometimes it's challenging when you can't ride them on a 40 mile per hour street.

There were concerns raised about some specific language we had there about paths and trails.

Folks seem to think that we were looking at banning uh these devices from paths and trails.

That was not the intent of the language, so to help clarify that, we just took out the specific language regarding paths and trails.

We also realized we needed to add the e-bike and micromobility sections to the schedule of fines set by municipal judges so that they can add these the same as all other traffic offenses to that schedule of fines.

And then finally, as the the mayor uh mentioned, we did present this to Teen Council.

It was a great presentation, uh great interaction with them.

Uh we were encouraged to find that they were already knowledgeable about existing law, and they uh seemed supportive of the changes.

They did note that most of the school age uh riders of these devices are middle schoolers and elementary schoolers, because when you get to high school and you get your driver's license in your car, you're wanting to drive your car and not uh e-scooter anymore.

And then uh they did uh they did really emphasize the educational component, which you know, since the first time we came to you last fall, that's been our intent and what we think is the major thing that's needed uh, even for the parts of the law that were not tweaking.

And so uh that just underscored kind of the importance, and they really emphasized getting that education out through the schools.

So we are definitely going to do everything we can to work with the school district to get this education out.

They had some uh specific ideas that seemed like good ideas, so we'll kind of discuss those with the school district and see if those uh uh those can be implemented.

Now, just to review some of the additional key changes that this ordinance would make.

These weren't these were in the original draft, so these haven't changed.

Uh again, we're gonna uh more devices will be considered e-bikes in Olatha.

We're gonna go back to that state law three-class system.

E-bike users must be sure their e-bikes properly class labeled.

That's already the law uh in the state and here in Olatha.

There's just some additional clarification regarding that.

E-scooters, but not e-bikes are going to be included in a micromobility device category.

Some of the feedback we had received that led to these tweaks was we have too many different types of devices.

Can we consolidate these?

That's what we're doing with the micromobility device category, where we will treat e-scooters and motorized uh skateboards, one-wheel boards, we're going to treat all those the same.

And then we'll have e-bikes, which we're going to try to treat the same as bicycles as much as we can.

So we'll have two groups.

Uh bicycle, e-bike, and micromobility device users will have to give an audible signal before passing a pedestrian, ring your bell, say on your left, something something like that.

E-scooters uh can only be used on a road if it's posted under 30 miles if it's 30 miles per hour or under with no uh sidewalk.

Again, that's that neighborhood road concept.

You know, uh again, leading into this ordinance, a lot of the feedback we got was the danger of riding these smaller devices in the roadway.

So uh we we want to do that while still allowing folks to get to a sidewalk if they're in if they're in a neighborhood.

Uh e-scooter user under age of 18 must wear a bicycle helmet.

This is a change that's been implemented by a lot of our neighboring cities, and so it was included in this ordinance as well.

And then a user of a micromobility device involved in an accident with property damage or injury must provide information to the other party and report accident to the police.

This is already a requirement for several of these devices, but it will just uh apply that across all of these devices so that if there is an injury accident or an accident with property damage, the police are being notified.

Information is being provided so that there can be follow up.

And then finally, this is current law for bikes and e-bikes.

Again, it'll be extended to all of these devices.

Parents can't authorize or knowingly permit their children to violate any of these provisions.

There were some questions that came up a few uh weeks ago uh raised by um citizens, and I wanted to address a few of those.

There was a concern that uh the proposed ordinance would ban e-bikes or ban them from the roads.

No.

In fact, as we've seen, we're going to increase the number of roads where e-bikes can be used, and we're going to consider more devices e-bikes uh by going to that state law system.

There was a question about whether e-bikes would be considered a micro mobility device.

No.

Again, we're creating these kind of two categories.

Micromobility device will be one with e-scooters, and then e-bikes and bikes will be treated similarly.

Then finally, will the proposed ordinance ban e-bikes or e-scooters from parks or trails?

Again, uh the language was confusing.

We've changed that to try to clarify that no, we're not looking to ban e-bikes or e-scooters from parks or trails.

Uh so from here, uh we're tentatively set for council consideration at your next meeting.

Uh and then the educational efforts.

And regardless of what happens with this ordinance, we're going to be doing these educational efforts because we already have current law requirements that we need to educate the public on.

And so we're going to use as many city communication channels as we can.

And then again, work with the public schools to get uh the word out through them.

Um the teen council feedback was that that would be a great way to educate students and parents.

And then as the mayor mentioned in the last meeting, we're gonna have to continue monitoring this.

This is a developing area of the law.

I think it's going to continue being a developing area.

So we'll be we'll be back here at some point with some more tweaks.

And uh along those lines, Johnson County has just convened a work group within the last couple of months to look at these policies uh across the city and see if there's any areas where it might be advantageous for cities to try to enact similar provisions so that you kind of have less variance as you cross city lines.

So we're participating in that, and we'll certainly report back with uh any action items that might might arise from that.

Thank you.

Um couple of follow-up questions on that.

Uh on slide, I think it was slide three, uh, you mentioned that e-scooters uh what was it uh the e-scooter users under the age of 18 must wear a bicycle helmet.

Does that mean with it it I understand that e-scooters and e-bikes are in the different category, but do we also require e-bike riders under the age of 18 to wear a helmet?

The current the proposed ordinance would not.

The policy approach here when it was drafted was that council has not implemented a bicycle helmet requirement for bicycles.

And so since we were trying to treat e-bikes similarly to bicycles, we weren't including that in the draft ordinance.

Now, if that is a policy direction council would like to go, we can certainly add that into the proposed ordinance.

But we were not proposing it from a staff perspective because it council had not yet imposed that on bicycles.

I mean, speaking for me, I know I'm one of seven, but I think that that change makes sense.

I mean, if if e-bikes are bigger and heavier and go faster than e-scooters, um I don't understand why we would require helmets for e-scooters, but not necessarily e-bikes and bicycles.

So I think I think personally I think that that's something that that council should certainly look at setting that policy and and and asking that folks if they're going to be on public streets riding one of these things should be wearing it uh wearing a helmet.

Um slide two.

I think it mentions in and there was some the second bullet point here, this neighborhood roads exception change from 20 miles an hour to 30 miles an hour.

Does that mean that if if a neighborhood speed limit is 25 miles an hour, if somebody is on one of these devices, they could nonetheless go 30 miles an hour?

Good question.

This refers to the speed limit on the road that where you can ride them or not.

You would still be subject to the speed limit because there's an existing provision for all of these devices that say you have to obey the traffic laws.

So because the speed limit is part of the traffic law, like you could not, if it was posted at 20, you couldn't ride your device at 25 miles per hour.

Okay.

That makes sense.

So what we're saying here is that you can ride these on a road that is up to 30 miles an hour.

But if you do that, you nonetheless have to follow whatever the posted speed limit is.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

That makes sense.

Councilmember Vaucis.

Thank you, Mayor.

And I want to acknowledge too, thanks to the team council for their input.

It was very helpful.

Hey, Bob, I appreciate all these changes.

I want to understand what enforcement looks like.

On the assumption we move to approve these amendments.

All right.

So we're rolling forward into the future, and uh uh police officer happens to observe a violation.

So that rider will receive a ticket.

I'm going to defer to Chief Utah.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

Mike Butodd, your police chief.

Uh great question.

Depends.

More than likely it's going to be an educational situation.

Sure.

I mean, I I can see for the many months going forward that there is going to be a great need for educating kids and parents, and we're going to put a big emphasis on that.

If it happens to be a major problematic situation, then maybe.

Yeah, it would all depend.

And obviously, education is going to be the way to go for an extended period of time.

But at some stage in the future.

Then we can conceive of a scenario where a child actually receives a ticket and the parent would be notified.

And there could be a court date tied to this.

It's all part of it.

Could be.

Okay.

Sure.

In particular, the idea that you have repeat offenders.

And the one part in the code here that says that uh parents will not knowingly authorize their kids to violate the ordinance.

How do we prove that?

Something to be seen, but that's something to be determined in the future.

I can see a lot of it being complaint-based.

So you have a problematic situation in your neighborhood.

Yeah.

You call us to try to handle it.

Good point.

Good.

Thanks very much, Chief.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Bob.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Denall.

Thank you, Mayor.

Two quick uh easy questions.

Can you give me a couple of examples of what the fines might be?

And the second one goes back to parents knowingly authorizing.

Does the ticket in that case is the parent then responsible and ticketed?

Going through all the hassle of doing that.

Is that kind of defined?

What does that look like?

So to your first question, I believe the under the current uh schedule of fines for bicycle offenses, which would be similar to these, I think it ranges anywhere from $40 to 110 or so.

Most of them I think are in the $70 range.

Again, those are set by the judges, but I I would think we would see uh kind of similar fines for similar offenses.

Uh to your second question, uh yes, if if a parent, you know, if there was evidence that a parent um violated the provision by knowingly allowing their their child to violate you know one of these uh uh regulations, then yes, they could be uh issued a ticket.

Yep.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Felter.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for holding this over for those of us that missed.

I appreciate it very much.

And thank you to the teen council and to Bob for the report.

Um thank you, Mr.

Schoonover, for bringing up the helmet issue because I understand the tidiness of the policy and being even-handed on bicycles, but I can see the differentiation between e-scooters and e-bikes also as a different category.

So I your head is like a light bulb.

You have one shot at protecting it, and wearing a helmet on an e-bike makes good sense.

So I would encourage this council to investigate adding that to this policy.

It's very much worthwhile requiring helmets.

Under 18, yes.

Nothing onerous.

I'm not asking for regular bikes to require helmets, but e-bikes.

Thank you.

Councilmember Essex.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm so glad that we have done something.

Thank you for all the research you have done and the time that you all have put into this.

Something we've been bringing up for months.

And I'd be remiss, speaking of helmets, if I didn't bring up uh Duke Omert's family in Leewood.

Duke was 10 years old, killed last fall on his e-scooter.

Um he did have a helmet, but I know it meant a lot to his parents to um remember him by sharing the importance of helmets.

And so I know that we've started a movement here because city by city people are doing um e-scooter helmet ordinances and regulations.

So I'm really happy to see that.

And this is for you, Duke.

Thank you.

Councilmember Creighton.

Thank you.

And I appreciate Mr.

Schoonover bringing up the matter on the helmets on the e-bikes because I missed that when I saw the under 18, I just assumed it meant that.

I just assumed it meant that.

And I agree with you too, Ms.

Felter, that uh I think we need to take a look at that.

So I would be if that would be something I would be supportive of.

I'm I'm counting.

I think we need to add some language like that and bring that back, Bob.

Mr.

Mayor.

Um just to clarify, what I'm hearing is added for e-bikes.

Yes.

But not extending it to bicycles and stuff.

Correct.

Okay.

Correct.

Yep.

I appreciate all your research and I think you did a good job.

Um and I love the summary report too.

Um that was easy reading.

I thought it was very well done.

Um the the youth brought up something and they said for future improvements, including visibility and nighttime requirements for lighting.

What do you think about that?

Is that already in our ordinance?

Is it clear enough or do we need to beef that up to?

So they had raised those as questions.

Um so I looked back at it, and yes, there are current requirements that would apply uh if you're riding it after sunset.

Their question was, are there time limits on when you can ride it?

Uh and I said, well, as long as you have the proper lighting as you would have to have on a bicycle, you can ride it after dark.

Um and then there is also uh a high visibility clothing requirement that's that's part of that as well.

Um so we do have some of that already in the code.

Um certainly, you know, in the future we could look at uh are there ways to extend uh high visibility clothing requirement beyond nighttime riding as well.

Yeah.

So in our current ordinance we already have lighting requirements because I didn't read it in any changes.

Correct.

It is in uh part of the law that we're not adjusting, but that we're already apply to all these devices.

Okay.

Well, I think, you know, as far as I'm concerned, I don't know what the chief would say, but somebody that's riding, you know, if it's 10 o'clock at night and it's dark and they're in the street, that would be an easy pullover and possibly a ticket because it's a safety.

Some of them are black and they're wearing black and it's hard to see.

So at least pull them over and give them a stern talking to would be good.

So thank you.

I think we're ready to see this at our next meeting.

Thanks, Bob.

Thank you.

Okay.

We'll now move to uh let's see, where are we at now?

We had another report.

Did anybody want to talk about report number two, which is municipal code ordinance 1010.010 and.020 pertaining to main traffic ways and traffic way connections.

Any comments or on that?

I am Councilmember Creighton, sorry.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Baldwin, for your time yesterday.

And just if you could take two or three minutes a couple of days before the agenda came out, the Johnson County government put out their report on Carnip and it's and what they are proposing.

And some of those are not going to affect us directly, but they are in future planning areas.

And was wondering if you could just take a couple of moments to just highlight how that report and their long-term plans could impact our main thoroughfares.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

Nate Baldwin, City Engineer.

Uh so the timing of the uh county's carnip uh update and this is purely coincidental.

So I just want to start with that.

There's not m not much of a connection, I will say.

Um part of what you're seeing in here, our major street map does reflect the Carnett plan.

Uh for example, example 175th Street uh was in the original Carnet plan as an expressway.

What that is is you basically want to plan for that street to be three lanes in each direction, limited access, and we require 200 feet of rideway.

A regular Artero Street has a little bit looser regulations.

We only require 120 feet.

So that portion of the Carnet plan has made it way into our um uh main traffic ways um list and the major street map.

So what you saw uh yesterday, what I talked about in that email a little bit, the update to the Carnet plan that the county did is something that we worked with the county on.

Uh K DOT, uh Edgerton, DeSota was uh heavily involved in it.

Uh we even uh talked to um uh Douglas County just to update, we called it the Southwest Metro Area Johnson County Transportation Connection Plan.

That's a mouthful.

That's not a car, right?

So we we really couldn't uh shorten that up.

But what that did is really take a look at some of those rural roads in western and southern uh Johnson County and how do we plan for the growth that is coming and the growth that is here.

And the critical point for us, well, one of the roads that they um changed the designation for was Edgerton Road.

And so I the Edgerton Road was planned to be just a two-lane road.

Well, we really need a connection from the intermodal plant to the Ad Astra um development, because right now it's very impactful to Olatha because K-7 is the route that most um of those trucks take.

And you can see we've done a lot of improvements on Lone Elm Parker, K-7, and it is just heavily congested.

You have a lot of trucks.

So we really need another north-south corridor west of K-7 to help with that traffic in the western um part of the county.

So that was one of the things that came out of that plan that we worked with Johnson County on was to designate Edgerton Road as um four-lane divided future roadway.

This has it's all about planning at this point, so you reserve the ability to be able to build that street properly when the time comes.

Thank you.

That's all I had and appreciate your time again yesterday.

Thanks, Nate.

Um, at some point, maybe um I know many of us saw that first time on Facebook.

So um it kind of surprised some of us.

So I would like to just dive in a little bit deeper at some point and make sure that we're all uh aware of what's being planned.

And I mean, it'd be a good time to talk about when we're talking about CIP and budget and things like that.

Absolutely.

I can put a report together and attach uh a copy of that plan to it, and we can have a little bit further discussion on it.

Thank you.

All right, we'll now move to discussion items.

We have one, and it's the annual report by the Olatha Chamber Chamber of Commerce CEO Tim McKee.

Olatha is very fortunate and grateful to have a super relationship with our chamber.

Um we work hard on economic development and growth, and and uh Tim's had tremendous success.

And so we're excited to have you here, Tim, and just tell us what's going on.

Thank you.

Um Tim McKee, CEO of the Olatha Chamber of Commerce, and I've got a couple of uh my colleagues here that are going to take part of this so that you don't have to just hear from me um this whole time.

Let me make sure I can um do this and advance this.

Um I'm gonna be real quick.

I'm gonna run through some of these slides really quick, just a uh brief um review.

We have three three um departments within the chamber.

Um two of those um departments are because of our relationship with the city and the contractual relationship we have with you, um, that being the CVB and the EDC.

You're gonna hear from Jason and Kelly later regarding um those two departments.

Um just uh a couple of things that I wanted to set the um set the table with.

Um this is you will recall, this is the economic development strategic plan that we did um with you all about two, three years ago.

These are the five um major sectors that came out of that plan.

And we're gonna touch on um some of those here.

But you can see downtown talent uh workforce um recruitment, uh retention, and um uh you know, each one of those.

I'm not gonna dive into those, but those are the those are the things that we look at on a daily basis.

We put them in our business plan and we focus on and each one under each one of those, as you know, there's uh things to achieve those goals.

Here's some of the really quick numbers.

I'm not gonna run through them again, but um uh as you know, we are a five-star chamber.

We've worked really hard for some of these things.

Um a couple of things I do want to point out, actually.

Um the number of businesses that we have as members.

Um it's about 1,200 members.

Um because of that, we have about eight um eighty thousand individual, 100,000 um employees at those member businesses.

So quite a few um people represented within that.

Um not all of those businesses are located in Olatha, um kind of throughout the region.

I would say a little bit more than 50 percent of our businesses that are members um are in Olatha.

The other 50 percent are uh less are from around the metro and do business and want to do business in Olatha.

Um with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Kelly and let him run for you through some things and then I'll come back.

Good evening.

Kelly Pedum with the Olatha Convention and Visitors Bureau.

So I have the Pleasure leading our tourism component, which uh a lot of people don't realize that there is a tourism in Olatha, and a lot of people think skiing or snorkeling or going to the beaches and stuff, but there are.

And a lot of people think skiing or snorkeling or going to the beaches and stuff, but there are.

We have three full-time employees, myself, Ava Miller does our all of our marketing.

So hopefully you get to see some of our marketing things out there from everything from the nice reels and stuff that she does, the Instagram and then our marketing, our website, and everything.

Bree Geary is our actually our sports manager.

Actually, you guys know that we are the race directors for the Garmin Marathon, which is in a couple weeks.

So looking forward to that.

Here again, one thing I like to always kind of pull out for you.

This is the Oxford economic study that I do every other year.

I usually would have one for 2025, but I held off this year to do it for 2026.

So I have to consume the year in order to get that.

So these numbers are actually from 2023, which kind of gives you a little more facts on why we spend time on tourism in Olatha.

So again, $317 million in spending from all the people that do come to visit our our beautiful city.

It does support 4100 jobs.

So again, people always think of tourism.

Is it an industry?

It is an industry and it has kind of been respect, has probably doesn't get the respect it should, but there are issues wide respect.

The big thing I believe is the thing for for you to see is the money that comes actually to state and local taxes is about 35 million dollars from people come in here.

And these are not our constituents, not our people that live here, the people that come visit us.

So they're spending their money in our city and supporting infrastructure or however we see feel, probably from your standpoint, uh how you feel uh comfortable spending those dollars.

So again, there's a why I put those pictures in there kind of to say, hey, that's what tourism is, but there is tourism in Olatha.

So again, one thing that I always like to point out, just kind of points of facts.

Um the Olatha CVB is actually um funded by the guest hotel tax.

We have a great communication with our hotel community.

Um success for us is measured through the occupancy, uh, sales leads and events.

So we are connected to the attractions, the sports facilities, um, the hotels again, and then we provide them leads annually, and we are we have a goal to actually do that, uh produce a specific amount.

And uh, you always hear me say either where the convention of visitors bear or a DMO.

DMO is actually a destination marketing organization.

It's kind of the cool the cool name for it.

But again, purely in its purest form, uh a CVB is actually a marketing and sales organization for the city of Olatha.

So again, just kind of some things I mentioned earlier.

We do uh we hit sports market, these are some of our bigger sporting events we had in 2025.

Um for example, what's kind of really nice with the CVB, we actually work along with the other um city municipalities, the USU Soccer Region 2.

We had it for two years, 24 and 25.

It's a hosted at the Olatha Garmin Soccer Complex and the Shields Complex, probably over 214 teams, about 10,000 hotel rooms, so a nice piece of business.

Um again, the Garmin Olatha Marathon.

And then if you'd like to, you can go down uh they come every other year, Australian rules of football.

If you're interested in that, let me know.

Uh they'll be back here in 27th.

So again, just again, uh these are just kind of terminologies that we use.

Again, marketing, we do a ton of marketing.

We use a ton of different um platforms.

Um I could go into each one of these and explain with each one of them.

But again, we use a lot of things.

I'll say point one out.

Play Easy is actually a platform we use to generate sports leads.

So again, just some kind of unique things that we we utilize as the CVB.

Events, we have two uh really large events that we do annually.

Um like I said, April 25th of 2026 is our uh our Garmin Marathon.

Actually, the new logos came out.

This is uh kind of a little minimalist look than what it had in the past, but is the year of Dorothy, so put on your red shoes and come run out with us.

We have actually almost 3,000 runners for uh this coming uh run, so come check it out.

And our Fourth Friday event.

So that's our big thing that uh we do May, June, July, and August, obviously on the fourth Friday um past this past year.

We actually reached five to six thousand people.

So looking forward to doing that again this year, and then kind of looking forward to 27 with all the other restaurants and things in down there.

So finally, I'll kind of hit on World Cup.

Um probably many of you heard me mention this term, but uh Gold Latha is our representation to World Cup and what we're doing.

So we have some city staff members from the event side, uh and a couple of our uh committee members from the CVB are part of that.

Um I will actually share and probably drop these off for you guys to see, but we do have uh flyers you can check out and see what we do.

We have a website, a micro site, uh actually go Olatha, it's on the uh chamber website.

But it kind of shares all the events we have, kind of summarizing with the last one will be our June 4th Friday event that will be from 11 a.m.

to 10 p.m.

in downtown.

So we'll have some large TV screens and large actually ones almost like a movie-sized screen with some live music.

So it's kind of I say uh our our fourth Friday event on steroids.

So it'll be just a big music festival, uh watch party, you name it.

So come on down and check that out.

So I think that's it for me.

I know.

Good evening, Mayor Council.

Uh Jason Live, Vice President of Business Development for Olatha Chamber.

Um, Tim leads our economic development efforts, but the rest of the team, uh besides myself and Shannon Latham, uh Duke Hinkey, who's over here in the in the audience here this evening, uh, is the rest of the team.

I'm going to touch primarily on the efforts we do to support businesses, existing businesses, with an emphasis on our small business as well in the community.

So Tim mentioned the numbers earlier about the number of events we do.

As far as we know, there's no other weekly networking event that is held with the number of people that we have each week, around 100 people each time, 50 times a year.

The connections that allows us to make with those businesses as well as for them to connect with each other, provides a ton of resources for those businesses.

We do, we have HR focus, IT, manufacturing.

Kelly does one with hotels as well.

So we use those efforts to allow those companies to interact and work with each other for that knowledge transfer, also to allow those small businesses to be able to take advantage of the same resources that we can bring to the larger businesses in the area as well.

With marketing sponsorship opportunities, kind of goes along with our weekly events.

But as Tim mentioned, with 1,200 members, we are the second largest chamber in the Metro.

So those advertising, marketing, sponsorship opportunities allows those companies to get in from a very large audience.

So along with Fourth Fridays being a tourism development, we also have added the small business expo to that event.

So it gets our businesses that attend in front of over 5,000 people for each one of those events.

Some of the other areas we focus on on how we support businesses and ways and gives them avenues to grow.

So hit a couple of things specific to downtown, the storefront improvement grant, that we've kind of spearheaded managing that process in the last six or eight months.

But with the momentum that we're building in downtown, we've really seen a lot of additional applications for those grants come in.

We've had a number of them approved.

Some of them are getting ready to get started, and others are taking a little bit longer.

But we have half a dozen places that see what's happening in downtown and we've given them an avenue to then improve buildings that already exist in that area.

Most of those are businesses with a handful of employees.

Mentioned the downtown Olatha Business Council.

It's an effort that uh I've been working on the last six or eight months.

Um we finally got a group of people committed and ready to jump on board.

So we should have a our first meeting here before the end of the month, um, if not very early May.

Um the goal there is just to get those businesses connected and kind of have them lead their own efforts that we are able to support them in in bringing additional events, making some collaborative efforts among that group to work together to bring more activity to the core of our downtown.

Um existing businesses, as you're aware, your policy we have a lower threshold for incentives for businesses that are already located in Olatha that are looking to grow, and so that is part of our retention effort to keep them here is um we want to um appreciate the businesses that have already invested in Olatha.

So we have uh, like I said, a lower threshold for incentives for those businesses.

Um then um the downtown library space.

So that is something that um maybe hasn't had perhaps the focus or the um information shared that maybe we could, but there is um shared office space or shared co-working space available.

Um the downtown library, uh we've we've checked and they're that they're full all the time.

There that is getting a ton of use.

Um just saw uh owner of Austin's here before we came in this evening, and they have their um their get-together meetings in that space, and they use utilize that.

So um we're also looking to partner with the library system for a small business symposium type event later this year to help provide some additional resources there.

And then the image on the screen there is for our our small business guide.

Uh we're currently in the process of reviewing and updating that.

So we've got the image from last year on it.

Um but within that there's several dev excuse me, several dozen partner organizations listed, contact information, that type of thing, um that provide support and growth for small businesses in our area.

Um I'm gonna touch on some of the items that are in there, um, and I will just hit on a couple of these as well.

Like I said, there's I think about three dozen organizations listed specifically in that small business guide.

These are some of them, um, but I do want to mention specifically Enterprise Center of Johnson County and kind of paired with the the SBDC at JCCC.

So working with those, those are probably the organizations we refer out to most of all when we or have somebody reach out to us or we're talking to somebody about um starting a small business.

Enterprise centers sort of focused on startup companies, while SBDC looks for about a million dollar revenue company and up.

I do serve on the advisory board there.

They do 504 SBA loans.

So they're doing primarily owner-occupied real estate small business loans.

One of the projects that's been funded is the Billers Design Building downtown Olatha here, uh just down Kansas Avenue.

Um touched briefly also Heartland Business Capital.

Uh I'm sorry, County Economic Research Institute, Siri.

Um Tim and I also serve on that board.

They provide data services for both economic development agencies, but also small businesses, uh, things like trade area profiles, information like that.

Um and then lastly, I want to talk about um the food innovation accelerator, K-State in general, but particularly the Food of Innovation Center.

Um they have hosted 47 different companies in their facility.

That's specific to their their food innovation accelerator.

Um in addition, they currently have four companies that co-look the excuse me, co-locate there.

Um's a small small scale manufacturing bioscience company, tech company, uh, those using lab and office space there.

Uh another business host of theirs, also one that uses the uh that FIA in addition.

Um they recently opened, I think many of you were, I know the mayor was there for to cut the ribbon, and several of you were there for their new advanced manufacturing hub.

Um and so they've got recent funding to provide eventual support and spaces there.

Um in addition to that, they've had they've run in 84 different companies that have either hosted events or had meetings there, um, included over 14,000 attendees at those.

And they also bring in 5,000 consumers annually for century sim sorry research information.

Um and that list of companies they uh do uh make confidential.

So I will also briefly touch on our retention efforts.

Um this is uh specifically Duke's role, but Duke, Tim and I are out um at a minimum on a weekly basis, typically on a daily basis meeting with uh various companies in Olatha, um, just seeing where we can help them out, what um what they have coming.

Um is there something that we can do, how they feel their interaction with the city is.

And um these are just some of them, um, but I will touch very briefly on two specifically.

Um but I don't have them on a separate slide.

They are on here.

Um of them is um, and we've mentioned this, I think before you've heard about uh Centaur Animal Health, that is a company that um obviously is in the animal health space.

They are longtime business, have been here um over 30 years, and are looking to grow um from an existing space of about 10 or 12,000 square feet to at a minimum 40 and perhaps 100,000 square feet of the next couple of years.

Um and then finally, Faith Technologies.

Um they have basically driven their own ecosystem here.

Um they have uh expanded um with a uh around a half million square foot building about a year and a half ago, um, are looking to come in with a dual three-story 170, or excuse me, 75,000 square foot office spaces, and then continuing to grow um on their manufacturing side as well, um, bringing other companies um that's our suppliers to them to the area as well, too.

So those are some just some highlights on how we're helping support small business in the area and some of the efforts that we are able to move on.

I will give it back to Tim.

Are there any questions that you have of either one of those?

Two gentlemen.

I'm sure we do, Tim.

Okay.

Council member Vacus.

Okay.

Yeah.

Or should I keep rolling until the end of the year?

If you would like, yeah.

If you want to uh let me run through this real quick.

And then one of the questions that we can have maybe even Duke.

I'm gonna run through these really quick because we're almost out of time.

So you've you've heard this before.

I think the only two updates that I would want to bring up to you, you know, we continue to work on on the post office, you're very aware.

Um Ron and Susan and I have, I think, bi-weekly calls with them just to update and get further along with them.

The other um issue, and we're meeting with them tomorrow, Third Street Social, um, should be open April 27th, I think is the name that or the date that we're hearing.

Um, that could slide a little bit, but they're hiring and the building is pretty much done.

So we're touring it tomorrow with them.

And um well, no more.

But that's so in less than a month they'll be open.

Um really quick on recruitment.

Um Kelly or uh Jason mentioned um Faith Technologies.

One of the companies up here that um is just actually they're not even here yet, but they they lease 200,000 square feet is Renews.

They're a supplier to Faith Technologies.

They took an entire building in South Olatha, and I'll point that out here pretty quick.

Um Faith Technology or I'm sorry, Mosaic and Vantage Med Tech are two companies that just moved into 119th and Renner re-tenanting those buildings that you know we had Faith Technology or I'm sorry, farmers insurance and a number of those buildings.

They obviously have left Olatha.

These two companies have um taken um I think one fifty-eight thousand or two about sixty thousand square feet each.

Um so great companies that um are moving in.

And then Indra, um Matt and I have met with uh their CEO a couple of different times.

Um they just they came in, then they won another award and they keep expanding and in South Latha great company.

And and um I know our governor and Lieutenant Governor have met with them at their headquarters in Spain.

Um international company, high tech, great company to um that we were lucky enough to have come to Olatha, and hopefully they continue to grow.

Um this project, um I I don't know what I need to tell tell you about, you're very familiar with it, but it's something that we work on daily, and I know um Susan and I um um talk about it daily as well, and we hope that um we will break further ground on that and you'll see some things happening um this year, we hope a couple of things down south.

That's the south area, you you know, approved two incentives for this area.

This area is really um exploding.

Um we have um a number of projects, and I was just looking at this.

The amount of square footage that we're looking at potentially in this area is about three million square feet of development that could be happening in this area that um hopefully will bring that forward to you soon.

Um so this area is just um not only here, but there's another there's a couple of large projects.

Scanell has one which is off the the picture, but it's about 600,000 square feet, um, which would be a big one.

Um, you know, Amazon really hasn't even started and hiring yet, and um that will be a huge impact on that area down there.

Um and then, you know, up northwest, we have those two um grocery stores that you know living up there, I can't wait um, you know, for those two to um to get started.

And so with that, one last thing, probably this little project that um you know we've been uh working on a couple of neat things.

We did a um kind of had this analysis done.

I don't know if I've shown you this, but I'll let you I'll get this to you if you're interested, but you can kind of see some of what some of the other teams are doing um across the league and um the amount of square footage and what they're adding.

Um a couple of ones that they're highlighting, the Dallas Cowboys.

This is probably this was probably the first project um that, you know, and they were kind of ahead of everyone else.

If you talk to them, they do it a little bit different.

Now they um, you know, I don't know if the school district would want to be directly involved with them as that relationship is a little tough to on usage.

Um they also built the outdoor practice facilities with office buildings around them, and people can watch and film, and I think they would do that totally different.

But their retail that's developed around it, and it's just first class, very first class.

And hopefully we um can you know model some of that.

The one that they're really looking at, we've had an opportunity to visit um as well as the Vikings facility.

A couple of things that are not pictured on this um, literally right off to the right, a 10-story, 10, 12-story Omni Hotel that is probably one of the nicest hotels I've stayed in.

Um, and just the development.

They also have a lot of living um residential um to the left of that that picture, a number of apartment complexes within that.

The owners of the Vikings are in the apartment business, and um so um that was a major focus of them of theirs.

But each one had um uh some of of what you're seeing here, which is office space, retail dining, um, you know, high school facilities that um both in Dallas and in Minnesota that they had a relationship with the high schools there that I think were you know, obviously going to try and pursue.

Both had medical office buildings on their sites too.

Um and the relationship between the team medical is um very close.

Um obviously NFL is pushing um flag football really hard, which I think opens up to just more um uh interest in the game and then Team Store Fitness.

I think you're gonna see all of this on our site, um, which is really exciting.

So with that, I think we are done.

So one of the I'm sorry we're over, but um wanted to open up for questions if you had any exciting stuff, Tim.

Thanks for being here.

Uh we do have some questions, Councilmember Vacus.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just real quick, Tim, I want to make sure I've got the stats right.

So we're the largest in Johnson County, second largest in the KC Metro.

Correct.

You're talking chamber.

Chamber, yeah.

And the largest is the Greater KC chamber.

Correct.

Okay.

So when we say we're we're second in the greater Casey area, the second by far.

I mean, who's who's there?

Um, I uh um you know, Overland Park, Lee Summit are probably right behind us.

Okay.

They're probably 100, 200 less members than what we have.

Um but yeah, good.

And then just on digital sandbox, do we have anyone currently participating in the sandbox?

Um I I don't believe we do currently.

Okay.

Okay, good.

Thanks very much.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Essex.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thanks for being here.

I so appreciate all three of you and all that you're doing.

And thanks for picking up the phone every time you see our numbers there.

Um thanks for the swag.

This is amazing.

Was that you, Kelly?

Did you bring that?

Uh yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That wasn't us.

Okay.

So we'll take the credit, but no, it wasn't us.

We'll take it too.

Um first question is can we get these slides?

So we can see all that you've done.

Because there was I was going to take pictures, but I'd love to just have them.

Duke actually put this together for us.

Uh, wonderful.

Yeah, we can get that over too.

Wonderful.

Yeah.

Um you guys have just done a phenomenal job.

And you know, Olatha is going is now, but will continue to be a the place to be.

I mean, the more things we bring here to bring visitors and the more jobs we provide, the more businesses that come in, that affects our tax relief.

And I just want to say thank you for making Olatha no longer just a drive-thru city, but a place to stop.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Councilmember Denoll.

Yes, thank you.

And excellent, excellent job.

I enjoy every conversation I have uh with you and Jason uh about everything that's going on in Aletha.

I did want to jump back to uh digital sandbox, which is something that uh I know a tiny bit about, but not probably enough about.

As a small business owner, um I like to know about uh the various things.

And you did you do have a slide um and we can go to it.

Yeah.

And so I just want to point that out to anybody watching and listening that we see a lot of these really big companies, but we also have some really good resources for small businesses as well uh that I did not know about all of them.

So um be sure if you're a small business in OLATA um to check some of these out.

I think there are some really good programs there.

So wanted to call that out as well.

Thank you.

Yep.

Uh any other Tim?

Um exciting stuff going on in Olatha.

Um we've got FIFA 2026 coming up, and the legislator says that we're gonna collect guests hotel tax on will City of Olatha receive tax on those stays during that time frame.

And how and so how's that gonna work?

Do we know how we're gonna collect it?

And uh are we making sure that people are aware that they will be paying guest tax during that time frame?

So you're talking about the hotels or is it all collected by Airbnb or the RBO or who's doing that?

And what if they're not signed up with one of those uh management companies?

Um yeah, the hotels, oh, we will collect all that, but yeah, the VRBOs and Airbnbs and everything.

Yes, this there's just been a uh Councilman Essex might be able to just passed a uh resolution, but a house bill that will collect uh the guest tax through the same mechanism that they collected from the hotel.

So they reported to the state that it comes back through through us.

So how much will that be?

We've never really tracked that before.

Actually, we have a platform to track the hotel occupancy, but there's no way currently right now tracking the rental properties because right now they're kind of they come and go as they please and they're not restricted to certain laws.

We've talked about residual things that might come out of uh FIFA 2026.

This might be one of those things that goes on after um uh July of this year.

Um I had an opportunity to go online to YouTube and the star in Dallas and also the uh facility in Minnesota.

There's some YouTube people that just go around video things and they like to produce stuff and and uh they did an excellent job and it gives you a uh a tour of both of those facilities it's phenomenal it gets me excited about this facility being Olatha so if you get a chance to check it out they even go you can even look at uh some of the housing opportunities that are that you were talking about that were off screen a little bit some of those loft apartments rent for over 10,000 a month they're incredible.

So um yeah and the I mean just to get in to r like the smallest units are five four or five thousand so incredible opportunities for people that want to spend that kind of money have that kind of luxury right here in our community.

So I would tell you the the uh Dallas facility um very higher high end and high rise apartments very high dollar apartments you can see them on that screen I think they're that may be the hotel right there to the right but um it's yeah I I yeah it's a very high end it's impressive I mean yeah you go up to the 12th floor they take you up on the 12th floor and it's Roger Stahlback all over the place.

So it's very impressive so yeah I'm excited for um continuing to work with the Chiefs to bring that um facility to reality here.

Um continue to work on a wholesale club in Olatha I mean we we just need to ru I talked to I talked to their broker today.

Good I did after our meeting um with Costco and I love it.

Thank you for doing that.

Let's keep pushing on that and see if we can have a lot to make that happen.

So yeah we are um pursuing both Costco and SAMS to see if there's an opportunity for you there here I like Analetha I know that's a missed revenue opportunity for the city for many years.

So I'm excited to have uh our residents be able to do spend that money here in our community so um good job.

Thank you.

Jason Kelly Duke you didn't you were back there in Moral Sport.

Good job on the slide pro and we want to get a copy of that.

Thanks Tim turn off thanks for being here tonight.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah thank you.

Okay.

We will now move to additional items I believe that's right.

Let me get back to the agenda here.

Yes additional items I'll start on my right council member Denult.

Thank you.

I just want to congratulate the high school students who I know have uh some have left probably so but congratulations on their accomplishments uh this year your your life is about to begin as seniors so enjoy um moving on to that stage of life and the last thing I want to say is everybody looking forward to uh warm weather outdoor activities farmers markets um uh Olathe Live and such because I am so that's all I've got Councilmember Essex thank you also was very excited to see all of our athletes and scholars here so much to be proud of with our Olatha Public Schools and can I also say congratulations to Mary Jager for 20 years of service.

We're so thankful for her and everything that she does.

So congratulations and hope we get you for 20 more.

Councilmember Vacas so on the subject of spring and umetha live Olatha live at Lake Olatha this summer should be nice very nice.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Felter Thank you, Mayor.

Happy birthday to the Olatha Police Department you are 156 years old the City of Olatha government established our police department on this day in 1870 but you don't look a day over 29 I promise.

At the time um Olatha had 2,045 citizens.

That's pretty cool.

I like the picture that was on social media that was really neat.

April is child abuse prevention month and it's important that we work hard to build strong families and strong communities that we have policies in place that includes at the local level that we we invest in parents, children, and uh education and um what's cool uh Mrs well Brenda our our clerk liked my pinwheel pen, which is what is used uh kind of as a little symbol to remind folks about child abuse prevention.

I probably had this 12 years and um they pass them out in Topeka.

Robin do you have one of these?

Yeah.

And they put pinwheels up at at the Capitol and it's uh just kind of a symbol.

I have one coming for you Ron Ron likes pens.

Caleb Stoppel congratulations on his book One Step at a Time Surviving a School Shooting Rebuilding His Life and Rediscovering What Matters Most tells his story about surviving the Olathe East shooting school shooting and about what life was like after the headlines faded and life didn't return to normal he began to wear these wristbands that say one step at a time and mental health matters and when you buy a book it comes with a little two-pack of these little wristbands and you wear one and share one and uh Caleb's a very thoughtful leader in education and I really love that he just took his painful experience and shared with us and hopefully we'll make a difference in your life if you're struggling with mental health.

So well done Caleb and I'm honored to have your book and I'm very proud of you.

And then shout out to Third Street Social welcome to Olatha April 27th can't come soon enough.

We're really excited to have you opening soon and we will be there with bells on.

And that's it.

Thank you, Mayor Councilmember Skunover.

Thank you, Mayor yes really fun night with uh all of the uh high schoolers seeing them come in and and earn the awards they're they're wonderful and and and do a great job.

I think we're we're well represented by them.

I'm gonna say something here that I've I'm passing on as secondhand information.

I heard this I think from my nephew so it has to be true.

But as you all maybe heard we launched a rocket that went around the moon it's on its way back.

I hear there's an Olatha connection to that rocket that somebody in mission control or somebody high up is an Olatha person.

I don't know if that's true but I'm repeating it here as if it is so it'll show up in the minutes from now until forever.

So congratulations Olatha on your role on getting people back to the moon.

Council Bevercraight Okay thank you.

You know after all those nice things I am I'm gonna start with one very positive and I'm gonna throw a couple of things at staff that I'd like you to be thinking about to help us out.

First of all I want to agree with uh all the things that have been said about the student athletes uh wonderful community great group of champions but the one thing that I noticed they are the ones that have the fans this place got empty after they after they were honored and nobody stayed to watch us so anyway.

So I do have two serious things I would like to ask staff to uh kind of look at for I've been last month we heard the report from Chris Tatham of ETC the direction finder report and there was so much in that to be proud of but over the past month I've thought about it I have I went back and listened to his report this week and there was one item that really jumped out at me that was a concern and that is the city uh citizens perception that code enforcement has is not as good as it was that it had dropped several points that's concerning to me and I have had some recent complaints from residents regarding some traffic issues uh specifically on street parking of abandoned vehicles um I understand through through the police department our ordinance meets all the requirements and as necessary they do uh when they learn about it they take care of that um but what was really raised to me by the resident was when it's happening on both sides of the street and especially on residential it's a safety issue uh speaking to Chief de Graffin Reed yesterday I do understand when those situations happen it can impede some of our bigger fire trucks and so that is a concern the other thing is that and I've heard this from the business community um some concerns that we have um some multifamily uh owners as well as commercial retail centers that are only doing the very minimum they are reaching they're doing what they need to do to stay in compliance but we're not seeing some of them taken care of to the standards that we normally see in the city of O Lake I would just see if staff could see if there's a trend there what you're seeing that maybe we can get to the root of why the citizens are feeling that way and how we might be able to raise the bar a little bit on that issue.

What you're seeing that maybe we can get to the root of why the citizens are feeling that way and how we might be able to raise the bar a little bit on that issue.

So that's that was number one.

The second thing is that for many years I know there have been conversations we had conversations when during joint meetings when I was on planning commission with City Council.

We were still talking about it.

Housing attainability still seems to be a concern, and it is a concern across the nation.

If there were a silver bullet, we'd all be doing it.

But it is a concern.

I don't want us to be sitting here three years from now saying what can we do.

And so it's something that I would like to suggest that we consider.

We have a Board of Housing Commissioners, and I want to read what their role is.

Specifically, it's the purpose of the Board of Housing Commissioners to plan, construct, maintain, operate, and manage subsidized housing units for low-income residents.

I would like to see if there would be some interest on that board, as well as some of our uh staff members who are working with some of our vacant land and different things to maybe de act as like a task force because obviously these people that are on the housing commission, they have a passion for that.

And maybe they can come forward to uh us with some recommendations or some thoughts along with uh city staff on some things that we might be able to do.

And I'm just saying let's let's open it up and be um completely open to anything that they might suggest to see what may work.

Um we've we've been able to do it here in the downtown area with our business community, and we're seeing some awesome things.

Maybe we have the same opportunities for housing.

Uh we could look at some of our longtime policies.

So I'm just kind of throwing that out there as a as an opportunity that uh we might be able to, rather than us try to come up with all the answers, let's let people that have a passion for it do it.

So I want to throw that out as some ideas that maybe over the next couple of months on those two items, staff can just say, hey, here's a here's some trends that we're seeing and what might work.

That's all.

Thank you.

Uh and don't didn't mean to close on it down, or extra work.

City manager Susan Sherman.

No problem.

We're happy to um put some ideas together with the housing commissioners.

And code enforcement just quickly often sees it going up and down in seasonal, but we'll look at those trends and uh bring you back some more information about code enforcement as well.

Uh the one thing that I wanted to say um was we challenge our staff to come up with partnerships and think out of the box and especially on the animal shelter.

We've been doing that and continuing um to do that.

And I just wanted to highlight that we have a partnership now with um Kansas State University where they're coming to our animal shelter with their mobile medical surgery.

And um I think that's just the tip of the iceberg and really excited that our staff pulled that together.

I have a couple of items.

Um the farmers market start of that uh was mentioned earlier.

So um and the kickoff is uh Black Bob on April 25th, and downtown will start May 2nd.

So if you're an attendee and you're planning on coming down to those events or going to those events, we would uh encourage you to bring a food item for the Olathe Mayor's community food drive.

We're collecting food this spring to stock food pantries for the summer.

So if you'd like to help us out with this effort, bring any non-perishable food item to the farmers market, we'll get it to the local food pantries.

Um you can learn more about the Olatha Mayor's community food drive at feedolatha kids.com.

And on a second item, I you know, I don't want to it's not a good thing to end on a sad note, right, Jeff.

But I'm gonna I'm like I've got a sad note.

I learned just today that Chuck E.

Cheeses on East of Santa Fe is closed.

So there's a lot of you know, five, six, seven-year-olds in our community that are probably worried.

Uh and and I guess their lease expired.

So, and I think this might be something they they do to get renovate their spaces, negotiate a new lease.

So hopefully, Tim, you're still here.

So, Tim, we went to work hard to find a new home for Chuck E.

Cheeses in Olathe, because there's a lot of kids that uh enjoy and and I've been told that the weekends are busy there.

So they still do have a following.

And so hopefully we can find another location for Chuck E.

Cheeses in Olatha.

So with that, thank you all for being here.

Thanks for joining us online if you're uh one of those folks, and uh we are adjourned.

Have a good night.

Thank you.