The Wichita City Council held its regular meeting on Tuesday, July 1, 2025, at 9:00 AM in the City Council Chambers. The meeting covered a range of topics including public agenda items on arts advocacy, approval of consent agenda items, contracts, public improvement petitions, promotional branding services, paving projects, a major road design project (Maple Street from 135th to 167th Streets West), and selection of an appeal panel. The meeting also included council member appointments and comments, and concluded with a 30-minute executive session on employer-employee negotiations.
Please take a moment to silence your mobile device. If you wish to speak on an agenda item after the mayor invites public comment, proceed to the podium, state your name and address, and you will be given five minutes to speak. A timer can be viewed on the United States. With us this morning is Minister Nina Shaw Woody with Kansas Family Advisory Network to provide our invitation. Following that invocation, we will stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, and we invite you to join us for both. Father God, help us to be able to take care of our youngest who are oldest resident. Father, give us the ability to make Wichita prosperous so that all those who live here, Father God will not be in need. Father, help them today do all that you have called them to do and walk in all that you have called them to walk, and just represent you in everything they think, say, and do. And we thank you for this now in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you, Minister. Mr. Clerk, can you please call the first item? Approve the minutes of regular meeting June 24, 2025. Are there any edits or changes to those minutes? I see none. I move to approve the minutes for the regular meeting for June 24th, 2025. Second. Motion and a second, any further discussion. I see none. Mr. Clerk, please open the roll. Motion passes 6-0. Mr. Clerk, please call the next item. Public agenda. The public agenda allows for up to five speakers to have five minutes each to address the council. No action will be taken relative to items on the public agenda, other than referral to the city manager for information as necessary. Speakers will please state their name and address for the record. A time clock will display the speakers' remaining time to speak. Order and rules of decorum will be observed. The first speaker is Matthew Broderick. I'm with the Arts Council. Thank you for your time this morning. We've recently hired our new executive director, Connie Bonfi, trying to put our money where our mouth is when it comes to treating the arts like a business. And it's a big business and truly economic development. And we want to ride the wave of many of the new appointees to uh leading roles in our community at uh different institutions, whether that be the Wichita Art Museum or at uh Botanica or TCAM or any of the great fine institutions that we have that uh we believe are uh the backbone and what make our city vibrant. So our new mission then, as it is in front of you, is to cultivate arts and culture in Greater Wichita by igniting creativity and fostering connection and driving economic vitality through advocacy, education, and we uh believe that with our strategic plan, we'll we'll be based on four or five main pillars that's advocacy, education, engagement, marketing, and fundraising. Uh our goal is to champion the role of the arts in the Wichita's identity and economy. We want to integrate arts education into our community, create a regional arts council presence, and position the arts council as a kind of brand booster for arts in our community, and then engage with businesses and donors to sustain growth. Uh we've got some big plans uh ahead for this year based on that strategic plan. What uh I think Connie and I really want to try and hammer home is as you guys are thinking about the budget and you're hearing feedback from constituents uh about you know where to make the cuts and your looking at your budget simulators and reading the comments that you will uh focus on the idea that arts are real economic development. And you guys have all heard uh folks champion it uh time and time again, that just the nonprofit sector in the city of Wichita uh contributes like over 180 million dollars, and that's just the nonprofit section sector. I I know from uh being a boomerang uh kid in Wichita that one of the reasons why I came back was that uh folks in your shoes previously have made investments to the arts and cultural scene in Wichita. And just last night I was at the rotary meeting talking with Clark Carnihan, and he was saying, yeah, same. You know, I came back and I saw what Wichita was doing to make it better, and we we have to keep that investment going. Um that means that when times get tight, we don't immediately look for low-hanging fruit and the easy targets of the arts because these are the kinds of things that bring the quality of life and that retain talent, and that when you have friends in from out of town, you're you're taking them to the uh things that we support. So with my last maybe minute, minute and a half. I'd just like to ask you to consider what the Wichita could look like 10 years from now. When my kid is 25 and he's done with college and what he would come back to if we decided to make cuts or decided not to continue what your predecessors were doing with the percent for art ordinance.