Member of Commerce and the Kansas Manufacturing Council.

Thank you to Mayor Wu and the entire city council for helping to celebrate Manufacturing Day.

An annual event aimed at honoring the manufacturing industry, its impact on the local, state, and national economy, and highlighting the potential for manufacturing jobs into the future.

Over the next ten years, it is estimated that the U.S.

will need to fill almost four million job openings in the manufacturing sector.

My business operates in District 4, and we want to thank Councilman Glasscock for his leadership and attention to the issues impacting the manufacturing industry.

Manufacturing is the largest sector of the Wichita economy, supporting over 50,000 jobs.

Our products are known all over the world and in all different industries.

A few examples, we have BG products with automotive oils, lubricants, and other fluids that are used by thousands of distributors.

We have gear hall manufacturers protective gear for farmers, linemen, and construction crews, and keeps them safe as they're working out in all sorts of conditions.

And finally, obviously, Wichita is proud of its heritage as the air capital of the world, which would not be possible without the backbone and foundation of the highly skilled aerospace manufacturing jobs that support all airframes flown the world over.

In closing, the Kansas Manufacturing Council would like you to invite you to our yearly event, the Kansas Manufacturing Summit, and the coolest thing made in Kansas celebration being held October 28th at the Hyatt.

We will be discussing the current state and the future of manufacturing in Kansas, as well as awarding the coolest thing made in Kansas, sponsored by Forvis Mazars, to the people's choice from dozens of items nominated across the state.

Thank you again for your support.

One, two, three.

May I please ask the entire city council to come forward at this time along with city manager Bob Leighton.

Polco is one of the nation's most respected civic engagement and data analytics companies.

Polco administers Wichita's annual community survey, and we appreciate their partnership and assistance in turning resident perspective and hard data into actionable priority setting.

Last Thursday, Polco announced their national best in governance awards, and Wichita was named a top performer for 2025 for its transformation in the award category of community connection as determined by the voice of the people.

Only five top performers were chosen in each category out of hundreds of communities nationwide.

Being a top performer in the best in governance awards for community connection signifies a local government's excellence in fostering strong community relationships and trust, as evidenced by high resident satisfaction, active civic engagement, and innovative approaches to connecting with people and ensuring transparency.

It means our community is on the right track in building a foundation of shared purpose and pride through effective communication and collaboration, resulting in a thriving community for residents.

Each year, Polco recognizes communities not only for earning the highest ratings from their residents, but also for demonstrating the greatest improvement over time.

With a robust data set spanning more than a decade and thousands of participants in local government, these awards provide a credible and competitive benchmark for measuring progress and success.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'd like to thank the mayor and council for their commitment to citizen engagement and community connection, and that's recognized by this award that we're receiving from PolCall.

I also want to thank the 3100 employees that we have every day that wake up trying to make the world a little better place for Wichita's residents and who are committed to providing raving fan service on a daily basis.

I do have a teaser for you, Mayor and Council members.

I believe this coming Thursday, actually two days from now, Polco will make another announcement of another award that we're receiving as a result of our connection to the community and improvement in service delivery.

I can't wait for the mayor to share that on Thursday and maybe next Tuesday, we'll talk about that again.

Again, thank you.

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

Thank you.

Thank you for all of our proclamation recipients and award recipients.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Public agenda.

The public agenda allows for five speakers to have up to 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 speaker's remaining time to speak.

Order and rules of decorum will be observed.

The first speaker today is Manuel Gomez, Wichita's public transportation system.

Good morning, council and residents of Wichita.

Um sorry, today to start off is I can speak to you guys about the transit system here in Wichita and how I feel it can be better improved to serve Wichita, not just in connecting our community together, helping people get to and from medical appointments, and even finding jobs in the manufacturing fields.

I was actually one of the strongest speaking points I had today.

Uh simply because trying to get here on the bus, the first bus I was supposed to hop on was 20 minutes late, so I had to run four blocks in the opposite direction to get on a blessed.

That got me here a lot earlier than I to intended to.

So that was one of the first issues I did want to bring up that a lot of us here in Wichita do have to deal with.

Like I said, I've missed out on tons of financial opportunities simply because I couldn't get there.

And I'm sure that that's something that happens around town.

I mean, I've heard stories of people who are asking for assistance for food assistance that were blatantly told that they could have walked to one of the free um diners that is provided here in the city, which is great that they're provided downtown for the homeless community.

But I know a single mother who was asked to walk from uh Al Dorado to which it's all so she could get dinner for free instead of providing her with food stamps.

Like there's no buses that go out there.

There's no buses that lead to Derby that excludes all Derby businesses and manufacturers in Derby and any other outskirts cities.

There's no bus that takes you to the airport.

There's tons of factories where houses are on the airport that people could get jobs at, or even provide commerce to the local area.

There's just no connectivity within the marginalized communities.

We have one bus line that is free for the community for the night life, basically.

It's the queue line that goes from downtown to College Hill, but it only takes one street.

And if you work in any other part of the city, you're stuck at work relying on Uber, which can get expensive.

I know for me to get to work with Uber is $20 a day.

That's three hours of my day just transportation.

Um, I'd just like the city council to look more into this into a way of expanding time slots or expanding areas that the buses actually reach.

Thank you, Manuel.

Uh Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Manuel.

Um, these are important issues that you're bringing up here.

Uh, we have expanded the timing just a little bit here lately.

I know we're in talks with some of our um fellow communities about having connections between Haysville and Derby in Wichita, where their bus routes meet our bus routes.

Um, and also been in talk with some businesses about funding extra and an extra mile just to get to um some of the aircraft industries.

It's not enough, and it is something we do need to continue to keep our our foot on the gas and trying to uh make sure everybody has accessibility.

So I do take your comments to heart, and that is something that we'll continue to look at funding sources as for well.

That's kind of the the roadblock where we've been bumping up against here lately.

But your point's well taken, and it is something we need to continue to look at and improve.

So thank you for coming and speaking before us today.

Councilmember Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Bob, can you speak to this?

Um the survey and the that transit has done recently.

Mayor.

Um Councilmember, the um we spent uh about a year uh looking at service needs in the community and developing a service plan, and that will be rolled out in 2026.

I think one of the issues that will be addressed will be uh the uh frequency of service.

And on some routes, I I think we'll see um more frequent buses, especially during the rush hours.

And uh, we are also working with uh WAMPO to look at connections with neighboring communities.

They finished a study this year, and now we're asking them to determine whether or not there's some kind of implementation plan that would involve our the other communities as partners so we could address that issue as well.

We will not have a system as robust as maybe some other larger cities because of the funding constraints, but I do believe that we'll see improvements in service levels next year.

Thank you.

I also just wanted to say thank you so much for taking the time and uh to come and speak to us.

I think it's really important to get feedback from people that actually use the transit system.

So uh thank you and keep us posted if anything changes that we can draw attention to.

So thank you.

Vice Mayor Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor Manuel.

The the part where you said but you couldn't get to medical appointments really struck me.

Uh since I'm executive director of Gualupe Clinic.

If you don't have any health insurance at all, just call the clinic and we will use Lyft to come and get you and bring you back.

So we do that on a regular basis.

So just offer that to you.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next individual?

420 gym camping ordinance.

Good morning.

My legal name's 420 Gym.

There's actually two things I might address.

The second one didn't come up, and I was supposed to address you all last week.

The camping is I'm here not to camp in your town.

I drive a mobile billboard across the United States of America.

It happens to be on an RV body, but I'm not here to camp.

I'm here to do a petition.

Nobody belongs in jail for weed, and it needs to be fairly legal.

The second part, come on, Wichita, come here every year.

You're going backwards real bad.

You can go to local smoke shop and buy synthetic heroin, synthetic cocaine, synthetic mushrooms and stuff.

But you take God's given herb out of there?

And you lead this with a prayer?

Go look at the Hebrew Bible.

The anointing oil contained canabosum.

We're not supposed to smoke it nowhere.

We're supposed to eat that plant.

He gave it to us as meat.

And I tell everybody in the city of Wichita in the state of Kansas, vote these people out of office that wants to keep God's given herb taken away from us.

If they're either uneducated or lying about that plant, plain and simple, the world didn't explode, the sky didn't fall.

And I'm here just to kill the 28th.

I really appreciate your police department.

They've been very, very nice.

But if I want to put a sticker on the RV to move within 48 hours, please make a donation like everybody else does.

That's how I'll get around the country.

But you've got a really good police department.

They were all very professional when they came and gave me the 48 hours.

I promise you I will not park over 48 hours.

And I appreciate everything that the council does, but please, please, please get the man-made crap out of these stores is killing people.

And let God's herb be free.

Thank you so much.

Y'all have a great day.

Thank you.

Thank you for 20 gym.

Madam Clerk.

Can you please call the next item?

Yodon Dupre, privatize municipal water.

Good morning, Madam Mayor and Council.

My name is Yadone.

I'm a resident of Wichita.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

I come before you with a question and a proposal regarding one of our most vital public assets, our municipal water supply.

Water is not only essential for life, but it is also foundational to public health, safety, equality, and long-term sustainability of our community.

For generations, I believe since the 60s, Wichita's water system has been publicly owned and operated, ensuring local accountability, transparency, and equitable service to all residents.

Across the country, there have been recent examples of municipal water utilities being acquired by private or investor-owned firms, such as in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Illinois, where cities that sold their water systems later faced steep rate increases, loss of local control, and slower responsiveness to community needs.

These outcomes raise real concerns about entrusting our water supply to entities whose primary obligation is profit rather than service.

When water becomes a for-profit commodity, the risk is that the bottom line overtakes the public good.

Given that experience elsewhere, I would like to ask the council a direct question.

Have any discussions, meetings, or negotiations taken place with private equity firms, asset management companies, or other private entities regarding the potential acquisition or privatization of Wichita's municipal water supply.

If the answer is no, and there are no ongoing or planned discussions, I propose that the council take proactive steps to preserve public control of this essential resource.

Specifically, I urge the council to consider passing a resolution declaring that Wichita's water supply shall remain publicly owned and operated in perpetuity.

Such a resolution would provide clear assurance to the public that our water system will remain a community asset, not a source of profit.

Protect Wichita residents from potential rate hikes, degraded service, to reduce transparency that have in some cases followed privatization in other municipalities.

And three, reinforce the city's long-standing commitment to public stewardship of critical infrastructure and affirm that access to safe, clean water is not something that should be ever subject to the logic of profit.

Water is more than a utility, it is a human right, a shared resource necessary for life itself.

Treating water as a commodity is to place financial value above human need.

That is never a good idea for humanity.

As residents, we deeply appreciate the work that the council does every day to safeguard Wichita's future.

Passing a resolution of this nature would be a bold and positive step to ensure that our community holds forever what cannot be replaced.

Control over the water that sustains our lives.

I thank you for your time, and I respectfully request the council's response regarding both the question of any private negotiations and the consideration of a resolution of permanent public ownership.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jadon.

Councilmember Hullheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

No, I don't believe there's been any discussions, or is it the will of council to privatize our water source as for a resolution?

I'm not sure that that would be legally binding.

Jennifer, could you give a little background about any resolutions?

Correct.

Resolutions are generally a statement of intent, not a not a codified form of legislation, but they are they are just a statement of intent.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, I'd be fine if uh we talk about a resolution.

I'm not gonna put my colleagues on the on the line here, but yeah, I don't think there's any issue here as far as privatizing our water source, no desire here.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thanks, Mayor.

Uh, just to be on the record, I don't support that either.

I think it would be a huge mistake for the city to privatize its water.

Um that's me.

City manager Leighton, can you just address that?

Sure, Mayor, thank you.

Um, just uh looking back at a little bit of our water discussions and how we got to the point where we are today.

Uh council uh and staff seriously looked at uh public-private partnership and developing our water uh our new water treatment plant, and after careful analysis determined that it was not in the city's best interest to move in that direction for some of the reasons that were outlined by the speaker, but mostly it wasn't it was not the most cost-effective approach, and it had elements of risk that were not acceptable to the council.

I don't see that any of those factors will change in the future.

I personally don't know that you need a resolution uh that uh says that you're gonna follow good business practices, and in this case, the way we moved forward, especially with the federal assistance that we received was the most effective for our ratepayers.

Thank you.

Councilmember Tuttle.

I I was just gonna see sorry, I was just gonna see if uh public works director Jansen wanted to make any comments or address water rights.

It's a very complicated issue when we have water rights and different things, but um I think that the manager addressed my concerns, so thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next individual?

Richard Churry City Bike Trails My name is Richard Share.

I live at 6 1515 North St.

Paul, District 6.

I'd like to thank you all for all that you do for our city.

I would especially like to thank uh councilwoman Maggie Ballard for her dedicated support in maintaining our city trails.

Whenever I have an issue with a trail and I give her a call, something gets done.

She gets the ball rolling.

Whether it's getting trash picked up or an encampment moved, she's there to help.

My wife and I came here three years ago from a little place in eastern Virginia.

The whole county had 10,000 people.

So this is uh a whole lot bigger place here, and it's really nice.

We like it, we're really enjoying it.

And I was very surprised to find the bike trails that you have on at the city here that were put in place years ago by somebody with a lot of foresight in what the future might need.

The trails are, you know, they run from Zoo Boulevard all the way down to OJ Watson Park.

It's a red bud trail that runs from hydraulic all the way out to Andover.

The Red Bud Trail is the first four miles that I've seen of it.

It's beautifully maintained, everything cut.

It does go through a low economic area, but the trail itself is beautiful.

The trail in the city here that our visitors see, people that come maybe just for a weekend.

It's almost uh, you know, it's it's bad.

It doesn't get clinged unless there's a prairie fire run, and then they come out with backhoes and cling up the sand to troll down the hill.

And I know we you know we've had a ton of rain this year, and I'm not trying to blame anybody, but I really think there should be some type of uh patrol that goes up and down the trail.

The police force, they have some horses, put some police officers on horseback, you know, maybe one officer, one rookie, and they ride the trail once a once a month, maybe.

They get to see where encampments are, they get to see where you know low-hanging branches are.

I know that's not the job for the police, but something to give you guys some visibility on what goes on on the trail on the city trails, which is really like a city park, and it's like they're not being maintained.

The uh grass on the sides is overgrowing in some areas, some areas is low-hanging trees that you really have to duck down on your bicycle to get under.

Uh, but all these things could be addressed by more people being out there from the city.

You know, just take a ride on a golf cart one day and go up and down the trail from Zoo Boulevard to OJ Watson and see what it looks like.

See where the trash is piled up.

I know you have bigger issues than this to care about.

I really do.

But I think these trails are one of the gems of this city.

And a gem like any piece of jewelry, if you don't keep it clean and taken care of that gem doesn't shine.

And these trails are something that could really, I think help sell this city as a great place to live.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Richard.

Councilmember Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Richard, thank you for coming to hang out with us this morning.

Um, I certainly appreciate all of your calls and texts.

Um, sometimes we don't know some issues until people tell us.

So I appreciate you taking the time to let us know, and so that we can get it um addressed immediately.

Uh I agree.

Um we have had a lot of water, a lot of sand, you know, that can be dangerous.

Actually, my dad fell on his bike with some sand.

And you know, I know that that happens, um, but I just appreciate you uh letting us know, and I hope you continue to to advocate for them and let us know as we continue to try to do a better job, I guess.

So thank you so much.

I will actually have Reggie address this question.

I know that we've had emails over the past year regarding trails.

Um can you address just how these um trails are maintained?

Are they only based off of complaints or is there proactive measures to make sure that the trails are clean and safe?

So our mark our park maintenance team does have a schedule that they go through and clean the uh trails periodically throughout the year, and then we rely on public comment when there's safety issues that we need to address, and we ask people to go through C click and fix and report it there, and then it's into appropriate person to prioritize it to make sure it's addressed.

Thank you very much, Reggie and your team.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next individual?

We have an open spot for the fifth individual, ma'am.

Would anyone from the public like to address the council?

I C T 300 uh West Douglas Avenue Suite Florida 405.

Um I uh dropped off uh a uh invitation for you guys for the NFB national convention, and I'm hoping that uh you guys all come to our state convention because we are gonna have a great uh representative from the national office from the NFP here, and uh we would love for you guys to come out and support the blind and low-vision community um here in Wichita.

Thank you.

Thank you, Andrew.

Again, the National Federation of the Blind will have their convention October 31st to November 2nd.

So thank you for raising awareness.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next item?

Consent agenda items one through 14 council members.

Any items to be pulled?

Mayor.

Unfortunately, there are only five spots during public agenda.

Thank you.

Are there any items to be pulled from the consent agenda?

I have a question, so I don't know if I should pull it or go ahead and just ask it.

I did ask.

I'll go ahead and pull it down.

It's consent agenda item number five.

So I move to approve the consent agenda without item number five.

Second.

Motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 7-0.

Consent agenda item number five.

This is in regards to the bronze sculpture donation by Paul Foley in District 4.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Can you tell us about uh the $95,000 to install or transport deliver this item and the value of this item?

Sure.

Um so this item is a donation of a sculpture from the artist as a gift to the city.

Uh the $95,000 listed under financial considerations is part of a bigger project happening at that library branch.

A portion of those funds will be used for the installation.

Um really it's a it's an item later on the agenda under new business.

Uh, but part of that library project is a story walk and that will include sculptural elements.

So this sculpture will be installed there.

So when cement pads are put down for the story walk, we'll be using some of that 95,000 to add uh a plinth or a cement base for this sculpture itself.

So not the full 95,000.

We're estimating that'll be less than $5,000 for the install itself.

Um the artist is actually responsible uh for the costs associated with transportation and delivery of the artwork.

This is such a great uh opportunity, and I wanted to highlight this because I know that there have been some uh residents in the old town area that have also donated sculptures.

Um I'm very appreciative when community members simply want to donate uh art and then allow that to be public art.

Can you tell us the impetus behind uh this artist and why they chose to donate this item?

Oh, I don't know that I can speak for the artist's intent, um, but local artists uh who's been working in bronze for many years and wanted to provide a gift to the community.

Um this particular piece uh is a reclining uh figure uh with a child that's reading a book or a newspaper or something, so it just made sense to him that it should exist um by a library.

So the library uh board approved the acquisition and it made made sense to put it by something, and we have the perfect project or what we believe to be the perfect project at Health Earth branch to incorporate it with the storywalk.

So we are very grateful to the artists for the this gift to the community.

Councilmember Glascom.

Thank you, Mayor Lindsay.

I know that this was pulled from the consent item, so we probably don't have a photo to display or show.

Um worries if we don't.

Do we?

I would love just to show the piece to maybe anybody watching.

I don't know if we have one available to pull up on the screen, but it is in the agenda packet.

Thank you, Mayor, for displaying it for everybody.

Um I want to thank Mr.

Foley for his donation to the city, especially for all the advancements in design and art, and I want to thank you.

Um and Jana for also leading that at the Alpha Branch Library.

This is only gonna compliment that project, and I'm excited as someone who often attended this as a kid to now see it uh progress as a place for all people and really what's happening with our libraries and tying in art as a component of that, and especially Mr.

Foley for this donation, especially in District 4.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you again, Lindsay, and once again, thank you to the artist.

With this item, we will now open it up for public comment if anyone would like to address this specific item.

I see none.

I'll bring it back to the bench.

Uh since I moved this item out of consent, I just wanted to mention the reason why I pulled it is I wanted to make sure we knew that an artist is donating a $70,000 sculpture and providing the transportation and delivery of this item to provide to this community as public art.

So I really do encourage the community to look at these pieces of art as they are going to be around our public libraries around our community.

But again, thank you to an artist that simply wanted to donate a gift to the city, and we appreciate when there are individuals that want to do that.

With that, I move to approve consent agenda item number five.

Second.

Motion and a second, any further discussion.

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 70.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Board of Bids and Contracts dated October 6th, 2025.

Morning.

Mayor City Council, Josh Lauber, Department of Finance.

The Board of Bids and Contracts convened yesterday, October 13th, 2025, for the following items.

For engineering, we have the stormwater sewer number 800, Old Town Trench Drains Rebid for CONCO Incorporated for the amount of 281,185.

We have the Thunder Street, Thunder Circle, Spruce Street to serve Falcon Falls, 7th edition phase one for CONCO or Conspects, excuse me, Incorporated, doing business as Kansas Paving for 263,568.45 cents.

We have the 31st and Osage Crosswalk signal for Phillips Southern Electric Company Incorporated for 109,480.

We have the water main replacement for East Highlands for Mies Construction Incorporated for $1,469,068.

Purchasing, we have the primary clarifier three rotary lobes pump for environmental process equipment company for $54,221.77s.

We have the HVAC controls replacement, which saw Art Museum for Sandifer Engineering and Controls Incorporated for $136,896.96.

We have the trash recycling containers and collection for airport, fire fleet and paving change order for waste connections of Kansas for an estimated monthly amount of $8,330.88.

We have the trash and recycling containers and collection for park and facilities change order for waste connections of Kansas for an amended amount of $20,000 and 10 cents per month.

This is how to become a vendor with the city.

This is our purchasing calendar small business resource partner events that the city is hosting or participating in.

Thank you, Josh.

Any questions for staff?

I see none.

I move to approve the Board of Bids and Contracts dated October 6th, 2025.

Second.

Motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 70.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Petitions for public improvements.

Morning, Mayor.

City Council members, poll Gunselman, Public Works and Utilities for the record.

I have one location for your consideration this morning.

The signature on the petition represents 100% of the improvement districts, and the petition is valid per Kansas statute.

St.

Peter, the Apostle Catholic Church edition and second edition located in District 4.

The project will provide water improvements required for an existing commercial development.

And it is recommended that the city council approve the new petition and budget adopt a new resolution and authorize the necessary signatures.

Thank you, Paul.

Any questions for staff?

I see none.

Madam Clerk, sorry.

I move to approve the petitions for public improvements.

Second.

Motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 7-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Design funding for multiple capital improvement projects.

Paul Gunzelman, Public Works and Utilities for the Record.

The item before you is design funding for three capital improvement projects.

The 2026 through 2035 adopted capital improvement program includes multiple projects that are identified to begin design in 2026.

The projects include 13th Street North from Webb to Gatewood, Pawnee Avenue from Greenwich to 127th Street East, and the Mosley Bridge at Chisholm Creek.

The location before you is Pawnee from Greenwich to 127th Street, located in the on the southwest corner of Pawnee and 127th Street of Southeast High School.

With the project as noted within the agenda item, there is $60,000 program for public art for this project.

Approving the item today will allow staff to issue an RFQ for design services for the three projects.

Once a design team has been selected, an artist will be selected through an RFQ process to recommend artistic elements to design council.

The total project budget for this project is $8,160,000.

The next project is 13th Street from Gatewood to Webb Road.

That is adjacent to collegiate schools.

We have identified a crash history at the intersection of 13th and Gatewood.

The intersection currently does not have left turn lane, so we will ask the consultant to review that.

Staff recommends initiating the full amount programmed in 2026 for each project for a total of $1,750,000.

The design of each project will evaluate lane configuration, drainage, and pedestrian and bicycle components, and all projects will return the city council with design contracts and design concepts for approval.

It is recommended that the city council approve the budgets adopt the resolutions that authorize the necessary necessary signatures.

Thank you, Paul.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Paul, do these include um curb and gutter or is it just ditches?

It no, they they will include curb.

Yes.

There uh Pawnee has ditches now.

Um Webb Road or 13th Street from Gatewood to Webb Road currently has CURB.

Um, but we'll we'll look at expanding that to include left turns.

But the Pawnee uh Greenwich to 127th will include Curb.

Okay, thank you.

I had a question regarding the Pawnee Greenwich to 127th.

I know that $60,000 is programmed for art, and it will require an RFP in order to find out exactly what that art is.

Having traveled multiple times around that area, can you talk about the importance of having art on 127th Street?

Uh along Pawnee.

That yeah, sorry.

Um, yes, that uh each year as we develop developed the capital improvement program.

Um we we take these uh the design council looks at projects to identify to receive um public art for the projects, and that was one of the projects that was identified by design council.

Um the intersection I had mentioned, the intersection of Pawnee and 127th Street is also included in the project.

At one time we had considered uh the possibility of a roundabout at that location, so there could be an opportunity there for some type of art.

Can you also address the sidewalks?

Will this one be one of those streets that has both a 10-foot and a six-foot, I believe?

Most likely, yes.

Um, there currently is a 10-foot path uh along Pawnee Street from I want to say from Woodlawn to Rock, and then from Rock to Webb, and we extended it from Webb to Greenwich as we recently completed that project.

So this would be an extension of that existing pathway.

And then last, I just had a question uh regarding speed bumps.

Uh this is a bit uh off from this, but I wanted to know the cost of speed bumps.

What is usually a cost for speed bumps?

We haven't uh we haven't installed speed bumps um on streets since the mid-1980s.

Um we have um installed recently or constructed recently speed either tables or raised intersections, similar to what we had completed in in Old Town on 2nd Street.

Um we've got a raised crosswalk um there on on Sycamore between EPC or 225 Sycamore and the hotel, as well as we have a raised crosswalk down at um on McLean near um Equity Bank Park.

I don't have a cost estimate for you on what those are, but we haven't installed speed bumps.

Can you share why we no longer use speed bumps for traffic calming?

At the time it was um and it was city council um took action on it as well, but at the time in the mid-80s, there was uh concern from emergency vehicles, emergency personnel that it slowed response time.

And we had also found studies um that vehicles would um make up they'd actually speed more to make up the time that it took them to slow down to go over the speed bumps.

And there wasn't really any design criteria, so um we thought we would be liable if anybody damaged their vehicles.

Mayor Mayor, if you could if you don't mind, I'd like uh Gary Jansen to maybe talk a little bit about national research that's been done regarding speed bumps.

Uh this is a commonly requested um traffic calming device or uh approach, but one that is not really supported uh nationally and not utilized that much around the country for safety reasons.

So Gary, if you don't mind adding to what Paul talked about.

Sure, thank you, manager.

Mayor and council members Gary Jansen, public works and utilities.

I think Paul did a good job of uh providing kind of the basis for and I might just mention real quick too that we do have an ordinance in place that the city council voted on sometime in the last eight to ten years that does not allow speed bumps on city streets for a lot of the reasons that Paul talked about.

Um if you look at uh around the country, there was a period of time when it was widely used.

You still see them a lot in parking lots on private property, kind of makes some sense because it's more effective.

Uh but you know, Paul talked about some things and and what studies have shown, and we've seen on some of it here uh from the past.

Uh it's it's tough for emergency response.

Uh it's uh whether that be police, fire, ambulance, anybody else, it can cause some real issues.

It moves traffic elsewhere.

If you try to calm traffic down on one street with speed bumps, people will stop using that street, and next thing you know, they want them everywhere else.

Extremely hard to maintain, costly to maintain, depending on how they're built.

I think there's the right place for these, like the speed tables that we have on uh second street are really effective.

Uh that's a slower traffic area generally already, it's a high pedestrian area.

Uh that was part of completely rebuilding the street, and so those are larger, they're not a typical speed bump.

And so I think those can be effective.

We do keep that in mind with design of other streets of where that might be the most effective.

But I think in the last 20 years or more, uh you've really seen most communities going away from speed bumps just because of the issues that they cause.

There's liability issues.

There's been some communities uh that have had to deal with claims from them, folks that were talking about injuries from driving over them at higher speeds, even though that kind of right is supposed to be going slower.

But that became a legitimate challenge.

So I think it makes sense.

I think there's better ways to do it.

There's things that we've talked about with you all for traffic calming, some of the things that we're still working on now that I think can be a lot more effective during the design of our roadways, the things that we do for reconstruction of those than speed bumps, and and I certainly wouldn't recommend that we ever look going back to that either.

Gary, I'm gonna ask this question because I think myself and several council members got this question, and it was not one of these projects, however, it does tie to all of this traffic calming conversation.

Um on Douglas Street, the high noise concerns of people racing from the roundabout in Delano all the way to Douglas and Navskir Park, um, because there's such a big stretch of yes, there are traffic signals, but if you get a green and you can go from the river or from the roundabout all the way to Navskar Park.

Um we have heard concerns about safety, uh the noise uh concern, but also really the safety concern of people's racing on Douglas Street.

So can you address, I guess, a bit of that, because one of the options was why don't you just install speed bumps?

But you're telling me that former counsels have already said speed bumps are not allowed in the city of Wichita.

Mayor, um that uh concern was uh forwarded to staff, I think yesterday.

Uh Chief Sullivan has uh been working with his staff on an enforcement downtown to address speed, but especially the noise issues, and we'll provide you something in writing regarding that's the status of that.

And I completely understand.

However, I also know from my days of reporting that officers can't be everywhere all at once, and when maybe a situation where there's high noise, it happened at that specific time, but not later on uh during the day or a specific day in the week.

So I don't think necessarily it's the police department's job.

I I do believe that there could be some engineering or anything to plan out, I guess more specifically the areas that we're trying to get more people to walk, which is from Delano to Old Town.

Um, but if people feel unsafe because there's racing going on, um I just want to know what are options that we're considering I agree, Mayor.

Uh we've got some information that will be coming back to the council soon based on something that we talked about previously as far as um traffic calming in neighborhoods, and I think some of that, you know, we've seen some of the where we've put up the delineators.

If you uh look at eastbound first street uh going toward Central Rail Corridor, the elevated corridor, you'll see those delineators in there.

That was done for the purpose of slowing traffic, and it's worked, it's been effective.

Uh if you make if you if you narrow up the roadway effectively, um it it does uh work well for traffic calming.

I don't think it's out of the question at some point in time, especially as we look at future improvements to Douglas to consider some of the same types of improvements that we have found success on elsewhere well before we would ever consider any type of speed bumps.

Thank you.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um not on this, but just for the conversation and everyone, um there was money in the CIP to uh redo Douglas in many ways.

So I think some of the concerns about speed will be addressed by that.

There's a plan we have been working on looking at moving that from the runway of five lanes down to three lanes.

That'll be up for more public conversation soon.

But I think that'll help with the speeding, which will probably end up helping with the noise as well.

So definitely thinking about addressing that in the short term, but I would I would hope we could just wait on doing the overall project and then taking that into consideration.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um yeah, I am I'm we in our discussions.

I'm curious about the speed calming uh study and how effective that is.

Is that something maybe here in the next couple months?

We could have a short presentation, maybe in a workshop.

And um, I know I get a lot of complaints from certain neighborhoods, um, including my own, where we just have a half mile straightaway and concerns about you know speeding through the neighborhood.

So uh maybe that would be something that would be I know we have a pretty stacked uh workshop schedule for the next couple of months, but maybe when we get some info back further down the road, just having a presentation here are the possibilities.

We we can so we had previously uh I'll say one thing, and then if Paul wants to add to it, we had talked about traffic calming efforts on 27th Street in District 4.

It's been an issue for a long time.

We've heard from a lot of folks.

So we've got some temporary traffic calming measures in place.

We're actually getting information this week on bids to go out to do that work permanently.

And and I know it's it's taken some time, it's some information we had committed mayor to bring back to you and the council so that we could kind of look at a comparison of temporary versus permanent, what that looks like, how that could be funded in the future, because in a lot of these neighborhoods, we've talked about the idea of of assessing the cost to the property owners on arterial streets like Douglas that wouldn't exactly be the same, but we're gaining on it.

We've got some more information to see what that looks like.

So I think we'll be ready to have that discussion soon.

Okay, yeah, and um this kind of ties into the safe routes of school as well, because I know we're looking at uh there are some areas where I do get a lot of complaints and concerns about people speeding through school zones, and I know we're looking at some kind of unique things there around the schools, so maybe that would tie in as well.

We're telling my mention one more thing.

We're taking the opportunity with new developments um uh, you know uh wherever new developments going in around the community.

Obviously, those are in areas that are outside the core, but uh we've started taking a lot harder look at the design of those roadways to really incorporate traffic calm because we hear this in even in new developments, right?

As you get that collector street all the way through that connects everything if people driving too fast down there.

So we're starting to implement changes to design uh that we think are gonna do a really good job with traffic calming.

We can take some of that, hopefully, and and help you know move that to some of our existing infrastructure too and see what works the best.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Gary.

I see no further questions for staff.

Thank you, Paul.

Also, we will now open it up for public comment regarding this item.

Andrew Crane guiding pause uh ICG.

Um, you know, the uh tra uh traffic lights with the uh the the beeper.

Um and and uh and those uh you know I I know that uh a couple people uh you know buildings around downtown Wichita were complaining about those.

But uh, you know, that's that's another uh another thing that I'm gonna bring up that the uh the push buttons and those are indications for the blind and low vision community and the disability community.

And for folks walking downtown, that's one thing that is very useful to be able to cross the street safely, folks.

And you want your city to be safe and you want your citizens to be safe.

Let's let's let's get it to where it's really useful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We will continue with public comment.

Um Manuel Gomez again on the note of art, the question you brought up on being uh something that's used in public roads.

I've seen it in a lot of major cities where studies actually show that art being on the corners or being visible, two vehicles both slows vehicles down because people do tend to want to see what's new in the area, and it is something that uh can be used for noise remedition as well, putting up shrubbery and having uh local artist who does tree trimmings and stuff like that, and changing just the dynamics of what it looks like.

You can have one shrub changed into very many different shapes or sizes throughout the year, which will help take cost of public display for the city for celebrations like let's say Christmas.

You can trim that push to look like a Christmas tree, and that makes it easier.

It also helps with the noise remedition, and I think which toss downtown could very much benefit from having more greenery in public view.

We'll continue with public comment.

I see none.

We'll bring it back to the bench.

Both of these projects are in district two and district six.

Council member Johnson.

Thanks, Mayor.

Uh, just real quick on the art piece.

Um that is right by Southeast High, I think.

So if there's any consideration to adding a pioneer or a falcon that would be great.

I think they may not like that, but I would love that.

I'll go ahead and make the motion and council member Ballard if that's okay, and you can do the second.

I would move that the city council approve the budgets, adopt the resolutions, and authorize the necessary signatures.

Second motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 7-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Amendment number one, Evergy Agreement and Funding for Hess Reservoir Improvements.

Good morning, Mayor and Council members, Gary Janssen Public Works and Utilities.

Uh, the item before you this morning is a request for approval of budget and multiple agreements associated with proposed improvements to our Hess Reservoir system.

We uh needless to say our last several years have spent a lot of time talking about what's happening with the Hess Pump Station, uh the overall campus near our current water treatment plant, and what that does to provide us value in the future.

So just to kind of orient you with where we're at, what this does, and then I'll talk about the project itself and what's coming next.

So Wichita Waterworks towards the upper middle, new water treatment plant, what's labeled as MDW MWTP, the main water treatment plant near Botanica and then the Hess Pump Station.

So just as a reminder, once our new water treatment plant is fully online, what you see kind of that orange line uh is the conveyance from the new water treatment plant that was that water will still go through Hass Pump Station to be distributed to the system.

We had talked before, and I might just mention again real quick, you know, when our current water treatment plant was built in the late 1930s, not long after that Hess Pump Station was also built for so our system was built all off of all of that.

Our largest pipe is pipes come out of Hess Pump Station.

We looked at one time what it would take to relocate all of that to where the new water treatment plant was at.

It probably would have added three or four hundred million dollars in cost.

So it made sense to leave it where it's at.

We've got this pipeline in place, it's going to work well for us.

So we need to make sure everything's working right, working well for the future.

Right now, uh we still have test water from our new plants that's actually going through our current plant for final process, it's going through Hass Pump Station, so we're already using it for that, and we will continue to do so in the future.

The one thing I want to mention real quick and then I'll come back to.

So the original budget for Wichita Waterworks, a new water treatment plant, included these improvements for the house pump station.

They're not the same project, two separate projects.

The reason why we did that at the time is we wanted to try to make sure we capitalized on all available federal and state loan funds.

You've heard us talk about WiFIA and SRF.

We want to make sure we didn't miss out on any of that capacity.

Since that time, the full capacity of those loans has been used on the water treatment plant, not necessarily for any reason.

We just didn't know what the numbers looked like at the time.

So we had set an initial budget for this project.

It was included as part of the water treatment plant.

Today, one of the things that we're going to do is remove it from that.

It's going to simplify things going forward.

It's going to be a lot easier to have this be a standalone project budget wise.

I'll come back to that.

That'll make some more sense.

Talking specifically about the Hess reservoir improvements.

There's a lot of stuff on this map.

Uh, kind of towards the center right, there's a small gray box where the Hess Pump Station is at.

You see a lot of lines connecting these reservoirs.

We have underground reservoirs that provide up to 35 million gallons of storage for meeting high demand peaks.

So these reservoirs get used a lot, the water circulates through them, especially during the higher demand months when we need the additional volume and capacity.

They've been a very critical part of our system for a long time.

Um, across the street from uh Mid-American Indian Museum where we currently we reached to have the parking lots there, there's reservoirs below grade there.

One of the reasons why those parking lots unfortunately had to go because they couldn't sustain the the structure above it.

But there's some exciting stuff coming there in the future.

But anyway, just to give you some kind of perspective where we're at, there's also um additional storage back behind the art museum.

So the current configurations of pipes and valves between the reservoirs creates challenges for controlling flow through the system.

Uh it can cause insufficient mixing, stratification within the reservoirs.

This has gotten compounded over time as the city has grown, especially as our system has grown, we've got a pump further.

Uh we potentially start to have some potential water quality issues within the system.

It's required a lot of oper more operational effort on our part for flushing the system.

Uh looking to the future, we would be uh risking potentially having uh looking at boil water advisories in the future because of water quality.

We certainly want to avoid that.

One of the real that's one of the real reasons for this project today, and is your consideration to move forward so that we can have better mixing and better flow through those reservoirs.

Preliminary design and modeling efforts indicate the that this can be corrected by installing new pipes and valves between the reservoirs and adding new baffle walls within the reservoirs themselves.

Um, as I mentioned, so back in March of 2024, the city council approved the current budget for Wichita Waterworks and a design build agreement with Wildcat Construction for the project that we're looking at today.

Going forward from there, uh I won't spend a lot of time uh with but this just shows more of a close-up.

HESS being the small box again, these three reservoirs being our primary storage and most of the 35 million gallons in capacity.

Uh the black pipes would be uh new pipes with valves.

Uh it may not look like a lot, but there's some things happening within the reservoirs themselves too.

Excation here is really deep.

There's a lot of things to work around.

Uh, there's timing issues that we've got to be uh very cognizant of of being able to shut some of our pipes down during low flow seasons.

It's taken a lot of coordination to get to this point.

It certainly adds to some of the cost digging close to the river and what it takes for shoring because of all the sandy material that's there.

So we've done a lot through the progressive design build effort to make sure that all of our bases are covered there.

Uh the initial budget was based on again available capacity within those uh loans that we had for the overall water treatment plot plant project, and that was prior to design initiation.

The project team has identified the final scope of work, project schedule, and the revised guaranteed maximum price, which I'll speak to you about in just a moment.

Assuming your approval today, construction is anticipated to be completed in the first quarter of 2027.

One other part of this uh is working around existing EverG transmission facilities, which are in private easement, uh, where the black circles are shown.

At one time, uh, this was going to be uh uh very expensive proposition, up to several million dollars.

Because of the efforts of staff and the design build team uh to make some changes to the project.

This is one of the real values of progressive design build to have the designer, the contractor, and the owner, us all engaged from the very beginning.

Uh, we were able to make some changes.

Uh now the agreement, one of the items that's before you today is for EverGee to accommodate that to bring those conductors down during construction, so there's no risk to put them back up.

Uh, and the cost for that agreement is 250,000.

So uh the first part of this I talked about uh with the uh budget.

One of the things that you're asked to be considered today is a revised resolution for the budget for Wichita Waterworks.

The approved budget now to date is just over 569 million dollars.

We would be amending that to remove the original uh budget for this project, just under 12 million dollars to arrive at a revised budget of 557 million uh and 207,000.

Just a part of uh revising uh amending that resolution so that we can move that funding into its own project, nothing more.

Looking at the overall budget then uh for this project.

So we had an initial budget and contract of just under 12 million dollars.

I'll just say it again.

That was only based on the available capacity within the loans.

That was not based on an estimate at the time.

We did not know what this project was going to cost because we didn't have any design work done at that point in the amendment for the contract itself is just over $4 million to be able to complete the project.

Um everything that we've talked about, that means the revised total contract and guaranteed maximum price is just under $16 million.

How we accommodate that budget uh is we'll transfer the money from which Star Waterworks, which I previously talked about, the initial $11.98 million.

The amendment is just over $4 million.

We've got the $250,000 for the average agreement.

Staff project cost is $400,000 for a total budget of $16.6 million.

So the total needed, the difference between the $11.98 million and $16.6 million is available in the Wichita Water Treatment Plant, emergency improvements project in the 2025 to 2036 adopted CIP, which will be added to this project.

That fund, that project budget serves as a contingency to keep the main water treatment plan out in operation.

It does several things.

It keeps the main treatment plan in operation until new plan is online.

It's also uh served us well for unplanned costs associated with the overall water production treatment and distribution system, which this is obviously a very critical part of.

Uh so having that emergency fund in place uh was very strategic to start putting that in place some years ago, uh knowing that we had these improvements coming once we ultimately get through all of these projects at the end of the day.

Uh law departments reviewed and approved uh amendment number one, the EVIGE agreement, the resolutions, and the notice of intent as to form.

Staff recommends city council approve amendment number one with Wildcat, approve the Evergy Agreement, the revised budgets, and adopt the resolutions and authorize the necessary signatures, and I'd be happy to stand for any questions.

Thank you, Gary.

Councilmember Glascom.

Thank you, Mayor.

Can we go back to slide 41 real fast?

So with reducing the approved budget for um Wichita Waterworks, do we have any expectation?

So now the revised budget is the 557.

Do we have any expectation that that's gonna or there's gonna be a ask to increase it back up to the 569 or any different amount?

At this point, we don't.

Um we are moving forward with performance testing of the plant.

Uh right now we are tracking towards taking possession of the facility in December.

Uh we are working through final costs.

Uh staff is with the contractor.

Uh, but at this point in time, I wouldn't anticipate that budget changing, the overall budget number changing.

Councilmember Ho Heisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, thank you, Gary.

Are we getting the same loopia rates for that $12 million?

That was the first time.

Well, sorry.

So, what I should have been clear, we're not getting that $12 million.

The reason why it's being removed, there's no money left within Wi-Fi and SRF.

It all got used for the water treatment plant project.

This is being funded through our normal utility rates out of the CIP.

Okay.

That's why we're we're asking to do this today, and I apologize for creating any confusion, but just going forward, it's just gonna be a lot easier to have this project standalone budget wise because there was no more uh loan funding available.

Okay.

That's that's why we're we're doing this today, which you see as far as taking that out.

Okay, I I appreciate that clarification.

Um the four million extra roughly four million.

Is that cash funded?

Like, do we have that cash ready or is that bonded?

It could probably could be both.

If I had our financial experts here, they could tell you better.

There's a lot of factors that go into that at any point in time during the year, depending on where we're at on revenue.

Um, but it's it's likely a combination of both.

Okay, thank you.

Gary, just a quick question.

Um, again, we have had questions regarding the parking lot that used to be available for the All American Indian Center.

Can you reiterate the importance of no longer having that parking lot due to weight over these reservoirs?

Sure.

Uh I don't know if we recall now when those parking lots were built.

I think at the time it probably thought it made sense, right?

You've got this open space.

We did find uh during one of our prior inspections of the inside of the tanks and the reservoirs that we were starting to see issues, structural issues with those parking lots being there.

Um, as much as we hated to see the parking go and the value it brought to the area, there just was no way long term that we felt comfortable with leaving those there.

We made the improvements, we made the repairs, uh, are not putting the parking lots back.

We actually have a just since we're on it, I'll just tell you real quick.

We actually have a proposal on the street for what happens with that area in the future.

Uh, and I think it's gonna be kind of a good use.

Uh we're effectively gonna allow that area to be leased.

Uh, and it'll it'll be mostly vegetation.

Uh the folks that we've heard from so far, and I may not do the best justice explaining this, but I'll give it a try real quick.

Uh they're gonna look at it as effectively a nature preserve, if you will, uh, looking at it as a habitat for restoration of certain things.

There's been folks talk about uh the ability to have for for bees to be there, butterflies, whatever it might be.

So we're excited to see where that ends up.

The proposal is on the street now.

We've heard some real interest from folks, so uh it's gonna be an area that whoever uh takes that over, they will maintain it, so there'll be no cost for maintenance to the city, uh, but it would be accessible to the public, uh, certainly pedestrians.

There won't be any parking there in the future.

That was one other thing real quick, too, that we had was a lot of safety concerns with those parking lots.

Even with our best efforts to barricade and close those off, it was just impossible.

And Councilmember Ballard, you knew all the issues we had with motorcycle safety and everything else.

So that's been a big difference having those gone you mentioned the proposals out on the street.

Does that mean that there are still proposals coming in?

And if so, uh, where can individuals find that information?

Uh so it probably was included on one of Josh's slides, it should have been.

So it at Wichita.gov uh through finance and purchasing, they can see where any of those procurements are at.

That is out there.

I don't know when it closes, but I would guess it's probably still another 30 days.

Thank you, Gary.

Councilmember Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um Gary, just for clarification, just so nobody panics when you're saying it's going to be able to be leased.

It's not for development or anything like that, obviously, because of the weight.

So I just don't want anyone to think that when you're saying development or lease or anything, that it is anything other than some type of conservation project or something like that.

No, and I appreciate that.

I probably should have left that part out.

It was it was only meant the re yeah, when when I say lease, it was just for the use of the surface only.

Uh, there are still some restrictions on it.

We have to have access to the hatches to the reservoirs to everything that we're doing out there.

We wanted to provide the ability for someone to do what made sense with that ground and uh ease the operational burden for the city.

That the that mechanism for lease allows that, but it is for conservation purposes only.

We're gonna put grass native grasses back in there, whatever that might be.

And Gary, you are correct.

Josh showed um a slide earlier today, and that is RFP 250305, restoration and management of Hess Pump Station Reservoir Landscape.

And that is closing on October 31st.

Thank you, Gary.

Thank you.

Any further questions for staff?

I see none.

We'll open it up for public comment.

I see none.

We'll bring it back to the bench.

I will go ahead and move this item.

I move that the city council approve amendment number one, Evergy Agreement, and revised budgets, adopt the resolutions, and authorize the necessary signatures.

Second.

Motion and second.

Any further discussion?

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes seven zero.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Library branch projects public art.

Good morning, Mayor Council Lindsay Banaca, Director of Arts and Cultural Services for the Rec.

I've got your next several agenda items.

This first one is for the initiation of funding for the for two different library branch public art projects.

So a little bit of background.

So the first is Alford Library Branch, which we talked about earlier with the Paul Foley consent agenda item for an outdoor story walk.

So this would be public art to complement the story walk that's going into that site.

And then that the Walter Branch Library to do some murals on existing acoustic panels at the site.

A little bit of additional background.

This is a little bit unusual, but uh here we are.

We have a reallocation of public art funding from a project that had remaining $95,000 remaining from it originated at the West Street Harry to Pawnee project.

Uh it was reallocated to another project on 21st Street, and then now we're requesting it to be reallocated back to District 4 for this project.

So design council has approved both reallocations and ultimately made the is making the recommendation to reallocate it, uh, the 95,000 uh back to District 4 for the Alpha Branch Library Project.

A little bit of analysis of why why we're in this field.

Public art benefits library visitors in many ways.

Uh it's inviting, uh, it fosters a sense of shared identity, it showcases different artistic voices, local talent, it promotes cultural awareness, and um promotes lifelong learning just beyond books itself.

And it stimulates imagination and curiosity, which enhances the entire library experience.

Artists for this project will be uh selected from an RFQ process uh issued through CAFE or call for entry, which is our standard platform.

Uh RFQ submissions will be reviewed by a selection committee.

Concept designs will be approved by the design council, and then we'll come back to city council at a later date.

That's what we call the 30% or design concept.

So we're looking to initiate the funds today, which will then allow us to open up for RFQ, and then we'll come back when we have a little bit more of an idea of what the project's going to look like.

For financial considerations, it's a little bit two parts.

So we have $50,000 in GO funding that the that's CIP public art dollars, and then the $95,000 reallocated uh from project savings from that PONE project or from that previous project.

The law department is reviewed and approved the bonding resolution as to form.

And it's recommended that city council approve the project, adopt the bonding resolution and authorize the necessary signatures.

And with that, I'm happy to answer questions.

Thank you, Lindsay.

Questions for staff.

I see none.

We'll open it up for public comment.

I see none.

I'm bringing it back to the bench.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thanks for the presentation, Lindsay.

Um, on the Walters branch.

Once an artist is selected, is there a way we could potentially try to work with his widow on maybe telling the story of his life or accomplishments through art at that branch?

That's a great question.

And yes, uh, we've already been in contact with the family to be part of the selection committee.

So absolutely.

Thank you.

So this uh is for library branches and council member Glasscock and Councilmember Hoheisel's districts.

Mayor with a motion to approve.

Um the city council reallocate the funds, approve the project, adopt the Bonnie resolution, authorize the necessary signatures.

Second, BC.

Council, uh, we have a motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 7-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

2025 to 2028 public art maintenance.

Back again with another public art presentation here for our uh annual maintenance through the capital improvement program.

A little bit of background, the CIP program uh budget and contains a project line item to address art maintenance, including but not limited to repairs, restoration, treatments, and preventative maintenance uh to artwork within our public art collection.

The design council allocate $160,000 in maintenance funds for 2025 pursuant to the percent for art ordinance that allows up to 10% of the available funding to be used for art maintenance.

And even just an aside, last year was our first year with that allocation, which was a 160,000 last year as well.

So the current fiscal year we're we're in is essentially like our first full year of being able to utilize capital funds for art maintenance, which is really specialty restoration projects, or primarily that's what it has been used for.

In May of this year, we issued an RFP for on call conservation, maintenance and repair services for public art.

Four conservation firms were selected based on qualification and experience with similar public art collections.

These are the four uh conservators who have been selected.

An analysis, art maintenance, including repairs, restoration, and preventative maintenance are required to prevent further damage and deterioration to permanently cited works, and artwork that's in storage needing maintenance before it gets resited, of which there are very few pieces.

The 2025-2028 public art maintenance plan, which is included in your agenda packet today, identifies artworks that require conservation assessments and treatment, including works and storage.

Assessments and quotes will be solicited from the list of on-call conservators based on treatment priority and fund availability.

So our goal is just kind of work our way down the list on priority of what needs to be done in order to preserve each work of art in perpetuity.

For financial considerations, there's a 160,000 in GO bond funding for art maintenance.

Law has reviewed and approved the bonding resolution and contracts as to form, and staff recommend that city council approve the project, adopt the bonding resolution, and authorize the necessary signatures.

And with that, happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Lindsay.

I have a couple of questions.

I wanted to know if you go back to slide number 60.

You talked about a priority list.

Can you address some of the most pressing priority items for public art maintenance?

Sure, I'll do my best.

Um, in your uh agenda packet, you have the 2025 to 2028 public art maintenance plan.

Um, coming to you today is kind of a unique happenstance, our art conservator currently on contract is in town right now doing annual maintenance and some restoration.

So within that public art maintenance plan, you have I would say the first one, two, three, four pieces are ones that she's currently working on as of right now and potentially will be completed by the end of this month.

Um the other ones that we're looking at in terms of priority and really timing with other projects are uh the Warren Lingley sculptures that are near, they're on the river river walk near the River Vista apartments.

We're we need to do some restoration work on those sculptures, and we're trying to tie it uh with a First Street Bridge project so we can remove those at the same time that we're doing that massive project along with the other artwork that's happening on the West Bank.

So we try to time it with other things.

Uh similarly, uh that we have an LW CLAP mosaic mural, the Lindbergh panel that's on the facade of the Kansas Aviation Museum.

We're trying to time that conservation at the same time with the Minnesota Bridge project because it's the a very specific Cartholite restoration, so we're trying to tie that together.

I would say those are two of the main priorities.

Um, but we're kind of just going through the list as we can to see what needs to move up and what needs to move down.

With a conservator being on site right now, she does an annual assessment, so this list might change a little bit depending on what she finds and reports back to us this year.

Does that answer your question?

Yes, I have I think I have seen this conservator because I've been monitoring the sculptures on Douglas Street, um, and they've been getting cleaned as well as I guess assessed.

Can you um address just the cost of something like that?

Um, for instance, we're we're about to receive the $70,000 uh sculpture down at Alfred uh Branch Library.

About how much does it cost to continue maintaining so that people have a perspective of while we may get a donation of something or we may build something, the maintenance cost of it does continue to be in perpetuity.

Sure.

Um, kind of a challenging question to answer because every work of art has its own unique needs for preservation.

The bronzes themselves are cleaned annually and waxed annually by our conservator.

Um our conservators' contract is $50,000 annually, which includes that cleaning and it includes several of the other projects that you see in our maintenance plan.

So I can't say how much each individual bronze costs to because it's kind of included in the entire uh contract, um, which is why we don't, and with that Paul Foley donation in particular, we don't anticipate having any additional expenses because we'll just fold it into our annual plan.

Does that answer your question?

It does.

And I wanted to highlight the reason why is the budget is only 160,000 and a good chunk, 50,000 is simply to clean and wax our sculptures.

And I want maintenance to be the number one priority.

Um so I wanted to know how do we because right now it's only 10% of the CIP arts funds goes goes towards maintenance.

When in reality, I think that it should go more money, should go into maintenance rather than acquiring new things that then require more maintenance.

Um what city manager, can you address how um more allocation could go towards uh restoration and maintenance versus I guess uh the 10 percent it could be higher.

How does that work?

If I could maybe clarify just real quick, the fifty thousand dollars for the R Conservator on our annual contract, that is out of our general budget.

So that does not utilize CIP funding currently.

The CIP funding that you're seeing today for that 160 is for specialty restoration.

So those are large-scale projects that need to go into conservat conservation uh with a specialist.

So just wanted to clarify that point.

So 50,000 every year comes not out of the 10% of the CIP.

It's out of allocated for simply just maintenance of our bronze sculptures.

Uh for in our entire public art collection, which includes bronze.

And so that's just out of our professional services line item out of my general operating budget, not out of the capital budget.

Thank you.

And then this then the work that uh Lindsay just outlined is comes out of the 160,000, and that's more extensive work.

Um Mayor, in order to change that 10%, it would require change in city code because that is adopted by the council uh by code, not by resolution.

And so right now it's a 2% for art, and from the 2%, then 10% of the 2% goes to maintenance.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Make sure our percentages are right, yes.

And looking at our budget moving forward, I do believe that one of the proposals was to reduce the two percent to one percent.

Can you address that from the budget?

Yes, Mayor.

We were uh looking at strategies to uh balance the 2027 budget.

Council did not take any formal action, just we consider that outlined uh a plan that included several items um that could be changed in the budget in order to balance it.

Um the council will have to consider that uh next summer, uh actually probably starting this winter as you go through your initial discussions about the 2027 and 2028 budgets.

Councilmember Hullheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, do we have any best practices for any like communities as far as what they put into the art?

What percentage of that, or about how much goes maybe art piece, how much we spend per art piece.

I'm just curious as to what the best practice is as far as maintaining the art.

I'm not aware of anything that's like per art piece, it's really project specific.

Our two percent ordinance is pretty industry standard for large cities.

Um most have between a one and two percent uh ordinance depending on the scale of their overall capital program.

Federally, it's a 0.5 uh percent budget for for public art or integrated design, but if you can 0.5 to 2% depending on the scale of the overall budget, but the per project or per art piece, I'm not familiar with uh an industry standard.

Lindsay, wouldn't it be safe to say that in all likelihood um conservation is underfunded at most museums and uh for most uh uh cities that have public art.

Yes.

Okay.

I mean, so uh yeah, I'm just curious again what best practices or what the average is as far as if you have a 2% or a 1%, what percentage of that does go to conservation.

That's a great question.

I'm happy to dig in some research on that.

I'm not familiar with the standard on it.

I think what we have as the 10% of the overall budget being available has been adequate, especially as last year was our first year utilizing it.

Our list of conservation projects is fairly short considering the the breadth and depth of our overall collection, and whether that's lucky, just where we are in this place in time, but we've been able to accomplish a lot of restoration work in the last few years and really understand our collection, but we want to be good stewards of it in perpetuity.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um just adding my voice to the conversation.

I don't think there should be any future cuts to the two percent.

Um not to give a big spoiler, but just going to city to city in Detroit here and from Ned Stable, Vice President of Economic Development at Wayne State University investments in art and um quality of life actually makes cities better.

It's good for local economies.

He highlighted how we've been doing economic development wrong in this country for 30 to 50 years, and it's investments in this type of thing that actually makes cities better and has the data to back that up.

So just on the record, I don't think we should cut any arts pieces.

Also, along this item, definitely support looking at art maintenance, but not putting more of the 2% of the arts towards that.

When we do that, it's great to maintain what we have, and we need to that leaves out new opportunities for investment in areas that don't have public art, though, when we significantly reduce that budget.

So just adding my voice to the conversation, I think we should keep it where it's at, if anything, even though we are um reducing the middle levy.

If anything, we should be investing more.

And I think it would pay off in a long run for which it's all as a whole.

I just wanted to share my two cents this morning.

I have a couple more questions.

Sorry, Lindsay.

Um I know that I pulled the consent agenda item for that sculpture.

Can you address if more people have volunteered or uh these philanthropists in our community or artists in our community have shared an interest of donating art pieces for the public art collection?

Um since I've been here, which is about four years, we've had several works donated.

I wouldn't say it's a regular occurrence.

It's something that we're always excited and grateful for the opportunity.

Um maybe in the last four years, four pieces have been donated of varying values.

Um the Advanced Learning Library accepted a donation as well as one or two pieces in old town majority of the time they're gifts from the artists themselves.

However, you'll see in the um a few works that are currently in storage that we're hoping to resite someday soon are uh additional bronze Gerber Georgia Gerber statues uh that exist along along um Douglas Avenue, all of those sculptures were a gift from the DeVore family.

So I think that's kind of a huge gift to the community that has been very long-lasting.

So it's not unusual for cities in our city to uh have generosity with an arts community to donate gifts to the the community or to partner with existing projects to maybe the city's partially funding it and private philanthropy comes in to match or to help contribute to some extent.

It's not unusual at all, but it's not anything that we ever typically plan for.

When people are interested in being a donor of art to the public art collection, how do they go about doing that?

Um I would love to talk to them.

So if anyone's watching, I would love to uh communicate with them, but witchtaw.gov backslash arts is where you can kind of find out everything.

Um but I'm be happy to entertain uh any conversation of the sorts.

Uh our design council is also a great steward of those conversations if they come up.

Thank you, Lindsay.

And then last but not least, I wanted to know uh since we're talking about public art and maintaining what we have.

Um, can you address?

We at the beginning of the year have a new um sculpture uh statute right outside of the city council chambers.

That's Joan of Arc.

Can you address um obviously last year was not there?

Um give us some background into how she got unearthed from the basement, um, and then how much it took to bring her back uh to viewing uh purposes and that she's inside now.

Sure.

Uh so we actually have uh two Joan of Arc statues.

I was actually talking with a guest of City Hall this morning as I was coming in who came uh and wanted to learn more about it.

Um but we have two Joan of Arc statues that were gifts from our sister City Orleans, France.

Um the original one is the one that's on display here in City Hall, um, which was the original gift.

Um the materials of the of the original sculpture make it uh a little bit challenging to be an outdoor Kansas weather.

So it was taken uh off of off-site and a replica was put on site in front of the in front of the former central library where it still remains.

So we still have one on display in its original location.

Um the the original uh Joan of Art sculpture was put into storage and has been there, had been there for many years, predates my employment, so I'm not sure what the origin story was there.

Uh but several community members, including yourself, Mayor, uh, were interested in getting it out of storage.

Uh, our art conservator took a look at it last year when she was here.

She was in pretty good shape, um, did some restoration work, very minor work.

We built a plinth for her, which is the um the base for her to stand on, and we hired a local art moving company to move her to City Hall.

So all in, I think.

Let me make sure I quote correctly $5,700 was spent in terms of um getting her resited to City Hall.

Thank you very much, Lindsay.

And I really appreciate that uh you and your team um make sure that our public art is maintained.

When I visited the storage, there were a couple of pieces that still needed to be restored also to bring it back to public art.

And I encourage that because I think that we have great public art pieces that need to be maintained first and foremost, and that should be priority number one.

When you've fully maintained, and even though uh you even said conservation is always underfunded, um, it really is conservation means maintenance.

And so, really uh the key is preserving what we have, and I really appreciate that you're trying to be a good steward of that.

And so thank you for what you do.

With that, I see no further questions from the council.

We will open it up for public comment.

I see none.

I'll bring it back to the bench.

I will go ahead and move that the city council approve the project and contracts, adopt the bonding resolution and authorize necessary signatures.

Second.

Motion and a second, any further discussion.

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 7-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

2026 contract renewal with Visit Wichita.

Okay, you're stuck with me for one more presentation.

Lindsay Banaka with the city manager's office for your annual contract renewal with Visit Wichita.

A little bit of background.

The convention and promotion fund supports special activities such as conventions and special events.

Uh, the city of Wichita contracts with longtime partner visit Wichita to promote tourism and convention activities in the community.

Uh, visit Wichita also provides services under a separate contract, which usually comes in uh the springtime under TBID, the tourism business improvement district, uh, that's directed by an advisory board.

Um, a little bit more information that according to tourism economics, visitor spending uh in the greater Wichita area exceeded 1.5 billion uh dollars last fiscal year and supported over 17,000 full-time jobs in the county.

Uh visit Wichita is the city's official destination marketing organization or DMO, uh, and it serves as the expert voice and strategic leader for the tourism industry itself.

Uh they promote Wichita and as a region and a national destination, uh, and they drive economic impact throughout throughout the community.

Um, because it's come up in previous years uh across the we've done some research and across the country.

Uh DMOs are typically not put out to bid.

I couldn't find any examples of that.

That doesn't mean they're not out there, but couldn't find any.

Um, as their work is uh dependent on long-term strategy relationship building and deep local expertise.

Um I have seen DMOs as part of a city operation, so it could be its own city department, it could exist under a chamber of commerce or another partner organization, but for it to be bid out is a from what I for my research was a very unusual.

I could not find an example of it.

In looking at primary performance indicators for Visit Wichita, uh there's two economic impact and financial stewardship.

Um I will note that forecasts for 2026 are largely based on the tourism economics domestic travel forecast.

Uh nationally in 2026 is expected uh to have continued growth in the domestic travel industry.

Here are the estimates uh for 2025 and future group bookings, uh, bookings and repeated uh business and leisure visitors.

This slide is the estimates of financial stewardship results or the return on investment.

Uh the again estimates for this fiscal year.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Susie Santo, uh President and CEO of Visit Wichita to share some 2025 highlights.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lindsay.

Good morning, Mayor, City Council Member Susie Santo, Visit Wichita 515 South Maine.

It's a pleasure to be here today to talk about uh the work of the Visit Wichita team over the past year.

And I was here in May, and I got a chat a little bit about where we had started the year with figure skating and NCAA basketball, but the momentum has continued with TBT and how about the shockers bringing it home.

That was exciting time for Wichita, and we'll round out the year with NJCAA men's and women's soccer out at Stryker.

There have been some big sporting wins in 2025.

And most recently, and thank you so much, Mayor, for inviting us last Thursday to the mayor's briefing.

Uh, we announced that USYS, I looked to the city manager, we had a lot of conversations over this.

Uh USYSU have are bringing the President's Cup to Wichita for three years.

You may remember we hosted it for two years, and this summer it went to Tampa.

So it is now for the first time ever, three years.

Um, this could not have been done without the great partnership with the city at Stryker.

Um, thank you too to um Councilmember Tuttle senior district.

We really appreciate that incredible facility, and that we're able to bring this event here.

So good stuff all along another great year with some big sporting wins.

And I will tell you, we just announced another one yesterday.

Well, we just learned of another one yesterday.

I'm teasing it.

I can't share it yet, but the team is on a roll.

It's led by Josh Howell, and I'm just really proud of all of their efforts, and that's Josh standing next to the mayor.

Uh speaking about some big wins, exciting opportunities and opportunities to celebrate the team.

The picture you're looking at, Jessica's in the middle, and Chris, and they're both members of our sports team.

And just recently at the ETA conference, Visit Wichita was recognized for our marketing plan for the uh prevision figure skating championships, and it was recognized recognized of all the marketing plans around the country as the best marketing plan.

And you may remember last year when we were here, we talked about all the community engagement and how to promote that event.

Just really, really proud of the team.

And speaking of uh potential recognition, tomorrow, um, the team is at Teams right now.

This is a big sporting conference.

Josh is there right now, and we've been nominated as the best sports event host city.

I will tell you, we're in good company.

Last year's winner was Indianapolis.

Anybody know sports, and that they are a huge sports team.

So we are in that uh conversation will be announced tomorrow.

So stay tuned.

Hopefully, there's there's more good news to come.

So very excited about the team and all the great sporting events.

As we move over to the meetings and convention market, we've had some big wins in 2025.

The American Baptist Association for 2028 has chosen Wichita.

And you know, while that's just a few words on the page, I have to tell you, we bid on this piece of business nine times.

It was the tenth time that we broke through and are bringing it, and Lindsay Golding and the team just did an incredible job uh promoting that and bringing that to Wichita.

And you can see on the right some of the great events we've hosted, including the handball musicians.

That was an international.

We had over 400 handbellers from around the nation and world here in Wichita, and most recently our TBEX Summit.

So you've heard me talk the last few times I've come up here about T-BEX.

This was the influencer conference that we just finished hosting.

And I have to tell you, um, as I was chatting with some of the electeds about it, I realized I didn't have my elevator speech down because I went on for 15, 20, 30 minutes.

It so surpassed all of our expectations.

So many people to thank, but I want to start with the mayor.

Um, you came to three events that we had.

You were at our VIP event, you're at our opening event and our closing event, and the amount of people that took their photo with you and posted it and just said, you know, how fortunate we were to have the support of tourism.

So thank you so much for that.

Um, and and to the 160 local partners, 160 organizations came together to make this possible.

That's more than we've ever brought along on any initiative.

And also thank you to Kansas Tourism.

It couldn't have been possible without their partnership, and also thank you to the visit Wichita staff.

They worked tirelessly to bring this event to life.

But I will tell you it only ended about eight days ago, and we've thrown together uh a video just to kind of show the magnitude, and this just touches on a few of the experiences our influencers had while they were here.

So I'm gonna turn it over and ask them to play the video.

This October, Wichita welcomed the world.

T Back Summit America 2025 brought more than 130 travel creators and 60 industry professionals to our city, each one here to experience, capture, and share the spirit of Wichita.

But this was more than a conference.

It was a collaboration hosted by Visit Wichita and Kansas Tourism.

Empowered by more than 160 local businesses and community partners who opened their doors, shared their stories, and helped us tell ours.

From a moment the creators stepped off the plane.

And the unexpected adventures that make Wichita stand apart.

30 VIP creators took part in the forum, diving into meaningful conversations about storytelling and the future of travel.

Between sessions, they swam with penguins, hung with kangaroos, and met a red river hog.

Unforgettable moments that capture the heart of Kansas hospitality.

On their walk to Fidelity Bank's Rise Car Park, they stepped into a living canvas of creativity that set the stage for exploring Wichita's modern entrepreneurial spirit at Grow and Lati.

From there, the BIP experience continued under the stadium lights.

A custom baseball experience complete with personalized jerseys, batting practice, and big weak Wichita vibes.

The conference kicked off with an immersive quirky art walk along the Arkansas River, where local art, dancers, and culture turned a simple stroll into a creative, memorable journey.

The path led to an unforgettable opening night party at Exploration Place, where creators were among the first to preview the brand new playscape before its public debut.

Outside, food trucks and live music filled the river brunt with energy.

While the keeper of the planes lit up the night sky, a moment that set the tone for everything that followed.

At the Hyatt, the Wichita Marketplace showcased handpicked local products and makers.

A love letter to Wichita's creative spirit.

Every sign, every menu, every fight was intentionally curated to tell our story.

The story of a city that welcomes with heart and impresses with hustle.

From custom welcome chocolates to surprise theater performances.

Every moment was designed to delight.

The week wrapped up at the Sedgwick County Zoo, where guests mingled with Wichita's four baby elephants beneath a glowing sea of wild lights.

Creators were the very first to see this year's display, paired with a live speed painting performance that left the crowd in awe.

T-BAX was more than an event.

It was an investment in Wichita's brand, in our future, and in the partnerships that make our city thrive.

And for many creators, the journey didn't end there.

They stayed to explore Kansas through extended postbacks trips, discovering the beauty and charm of our great state.

Every photo, every post, every story shared online amplifies Wichita's voice, reaching millions of potential visitors across the globe.

T-Bex wasn't just about travel, it was about connection, creativity, and community.

Proof of what happens when Wichita comes together to tell its story.

Visit Wichita, big city, bigger heart, and now a louder voice than ever.

So hope hopefully that gave a little flavor.

If I was playing out how to crank that music, right?

So you'd be like, come on.

Um but again, it is just been unbelievable to see the amount of social media, the conversation, the positive comments, all celebrating Wichita.

And I am gonna read just one um post, and I will tell you uh the posts have had thousands in some places, in some cases, millions of uh viewers already.

We will be watching over the next six and eight weeks.

We'll put a dollar value, but I don't even think we can even begin to understand the impact that this has had for years to come as we've changed perception.

So this is from one creator.

This is Kareem.

He's out of Toronto, Canada, and he wrote um about two days after he left Wichita.

Wichita, who knew?

That's the thing about travel.

It'll humble you, surprise you, remind you you don't know a damn thing until you show up.

Came as a speaker for T-Bex, but left with real friends, creative insights, and swapped stories over great beers that tasted better because of the company.

And Wichita punches so far above its weight, it had me checking my jaw for loose teeth.

A minor league ballpark that feels like a cathedral, a quirky riverfront that makes you want to walk, and kind, innovative, weird people in all the best ways.

They showed up for the T-Bex community in a way most major cities wouldn't bother.

Wichita isn't trying to be cool, it kind of just is.

You feel like despite all the things you think about the current state of the nation, here you could disagree with your neighbor and still come out loving each other.

A true peace of America.

Unexpected, unforgettable.

Touches my heart.

And so thank you to all of you for allowing us to do what we do and being supportive of this and all of our efforts at Visit Wichita over the past year.

Really appreciate it.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't um thank Mr.

Manager.

It's been a pleasure working with you for the past 13 years.

I've realized this will be the last time I come before you and you sitting in that seat, but thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Susie.

Thank you, Lindsay.

I'll bring it back here for the recommendation for financial considerations.

Uh, there's an annual allocation that's funded out of the transient guest tax or TJT, um, and 3.1 million.

Uh, this includes the convention and pro promotion contingency funds, which is 150,000.

Uh, and then new and unique for next year's contract is a one-time contribution of 100,000 to a destination master plan uh project that will be underway.

The plan will include a lot of community outreach, and I'll be involved in the steering committee as I'm sure many of you will be involved in that project as it moves forward.

And the recommendation is to approve the Visit Wichita 2026 contract renewal and authorize the necessary signatures.

And with that, I'm happy to answer our questions, and I'm sure Susie is as well.

Thank you again, Lindsay, and thank you, Susie and the team at Visit Wichita.

Councilmember Hulkle.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for that presentation as well.

I'm glad to see Caltown on there as well.

I'm sure a number of people were in the residency in the real wild west, actual artifacts and buildings.

So I just had one question about the destination master plan.

How often have we done that before?

Is this a first-time thing?

And then also maybe talk about the other funding sources you're looking at.

Yes, we've never done this as a community.

It's been probably over the last decade, I've seen a lot of other communities lean into that as they're looking at their master plan, but we have not, and our board uh this past March, when we were looking at our next three-year strategic plan, felt like it was the right time to look at the region holistically from a visitor's lens.

So this will be the first time.

Um with this hundred thousand, we're anticipating another hundred thousand from Visit Wichita, and then most likely raising another hundred thousand.

Um, but we have not gone out with the RFP, but that's where we were thinking those dollars will come in.

Okay.

Um our contribution to that is that from transit gas tax as well.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Susie, I'll ask several more questions regarding that.

Um attractions, I could see were not just in the city of Wichita, but the greater Wichita area.

Can you talk about the importance of partnerships and what this master plan will help unite?

I I can't it, you know, when you think about when you visit, the visitor doesn't know when they've crossed the line from Wichita into Goddard.

They see the region or into Derby.

So if they come to Wichita and they experience Tanganyico or they experience the zoo, it's all Wichita to the visitor.

So when we look at this plan, I think it's important with the growth that's happened in Goddard, with the growth that's happening in Park City, that we really look holistically at the region and we think about what does the region need to continue to drive visitors and economic impact for the community.

But partnerships are critical.

We have had uh several conversations regarding a sales tax initiative in the city of Wichita, and one of the things that um was always brought up was the amount of visitors that do come in to the city of Wichita.

Do you remember that percentage?

And can you talk about the importance of bringing people from outside of Wichita to help pay for some of these attractions that then benefit the residents but also the visitor?

Yeah, uh most recently last year of that 1.5 billion, 210 million were in taxes, and those are from visitors outside of the city coming in.

So when you're looking at funding stream, I think when you look at a sales tax, it's great because it allows non-wichitons to help pay for and fund whatever those initiatives might be.

What is holding Wichita back when it comes to bringing tourists into our community?

That's a great question.

I will tell you from the meeting and convention side, absolutely the uh facility for conventions.

We do not have a facility that will attract businesses with conventions that we should be.

When we look at our competitors in our region, Omaha, Des Moines, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Overloom Park, they have all invested in their convention product, and we are falling behind and we are behind.

So right off the bat, we look at that would absolutely be a game changer for Wichita and tourism.

And when you think about when people travel for a convention, a lot of times that's the first time they're there and they see your your city, and it's a great way to bring people in that have never been here and it wasn't on their radar.

A lot of folks confuse uh two buildings that are connected by a foyer.

Can you reiterate when you're talking about convention, what exactly you're speaking of?

Um I actually got off the phone with uh a representative of the Sigma Pi 5 fraternity.

Uh, they'll be hosting their Western Regional Boole in October of 2039.

And so when we had this conversation, um, we were talking about convention space.

Can you talk about convention space and again back to where exactly you're talking about where the focus should be?

You know, I I appreciate you asking that question because I as I stand here 13 years into this role, and we've been talking about Century 2 for about 13 years of that.

I think what's happened, in my opinion, is a conversation has gotten so around the building of the round building.

And when we think about how we sell conventions right now, and I know many of you on the bench and watching go to conventions.

We our team goes out, we sell Bob Brown, which is 90,000, then we sell the foyer, and then we sell all the round piece of the round building of Century Two.

That is not how meetings and conventions are designed.

So when we look at the facility of the convention facility, our thought is, you know, taking that away from the decision on the building, because there's a lot of opinions around the building, but there's absolutely a clear need for a convention center that meets the need of those meetings and conventions that's a flat foot, contiguous square foot piece of real estate, if you will.

And we've studied it and looked at it, and have a lot of designs.

But when we talk convention, I want to take the conversation away from a building and like the need and what the need is for our community.

And we know every year that we don't we're leaving over 45 million annually in economic impact on the table.

Susie, would you mind out just outlining the from the last plan what we were what was being planned for Bob Brown and how that would improve our position?

Sure.

The last plan we looked at that I think we brought, was it a year and a half ago, maybe about a year and a half ago.

It was looking at what we do is extend Bob Brown.

So if you think about Bob Brown and the box, I I feel, and I don't want to misspeak because now I may get an email, but I don't think anybody has an emotional connection to the box.

You know, it's it's a metal box, and there is that ability to extend it out.

And we were looking at the opportunity to extend it out.

You'd get your your 150,000 uh square feet of contiguous, that's your exhibit space, and then you get your other 30 for a ballroom, another 30 for meeting space.

And there's even in that plan that looked at how do you connect kind of underground over into the round building.

If you kept the round building and used it for other uses, um, then I think there became an opportunity to even do you tie into the library.

You know, there became further discussions about that.

But we've looked at it so many different ways over a decade.

There's a lot of ways to address it, but we come back down to the dollars in the cents and what we're leaving on the table by not having a facility that meets the needs.

Um it's pretty significant.

Sure.

And you mentioned right now Bob Brown was Bob Brown is roughly 90,000 square feet, but what is needed is 150,000 square feet.

I believe that's what it was.

You want to talk about the limitations in space as well.

So when you think of Bob Brown right now, we say 90, but there's only a 60,000 that's considered like the prime space because you've got that whole bit that's underneath, you know, that drops down, and so the ceilings aren't the right height.

So you've got about 60,000 that's considered prime.

But the challenge you even have with that, it's not subdividable.

So you have one space, and so that's where we were leaving money on the table.

When you can subdivide it, you can have many groups in there in that space.

But if we have a group that only needs 25,000 square feet, they're in Bob Brown.

You know, it's so becomes there's so many limitations on the setup and the size, but um usable square feet that's considered prime, we have 60,000.

I'm curious um if there have been um more community engagement regarding just the convention portion of it, not century two, but rather the convention, the Bob Brown space.

And if so, when is that next time that community can share feedback?

You know, that's a great question, and I think um I'm actually really excited by the questions that you're asking, and that we're raising this again.

Um I think I'll need to circle back with you, and I would love to pick your brain on the best way for feedback.

We have the data to support what's needed.

I think it's really understanding the appetite, um, especially the appetite of the council and the best way to move forward.

So probably need to circle back on how to engage, but as far as the data on what we need, uh we're ready to go.

And again, I want to make it clear.

I'm not talking about century two, not the round building, we're talking about simply the convention space, which is the box.

That's correct.

Um, and then I wanted to know about partnerships.

Um, can you share some of your partnerships?

Um, I know that a greater emphasis has now been on youth sports or sports in general.

Can you talk about the partnerships you've created or continue to harness here in the community?

You know, and in partnerships are really there's internal, there's external, I mean, internal our partner.

We when I look at 160 partners coming to the table for T-BEX, we could not have done it without them.

And that has been just uh when I think, you know, a long many, many years in the making of those relationships, everywhere from um you know, downtown development to the chamber to all the attractions to hoteliers to restaurateurs, it's very wide.

When I look at our partners outside of the community, those have been built been built by outstanding relationships and sports specifically led by Josh Howell, um, a heck of a job.

But by winning the first USYS and Jessica JV on our team actually won that first time, winning it almost becomes not the easy part, but you got to deliver on it.

And so we bring them here and you develop it, you deliver on it, you hit it out of the park.

Great facility at Stryker, great partnership out there, and then they experience what it's like to be at Wichita and be the big fish.

And we make all of our events feel that way.

But those are relationships that happen with JV and Josh, and then they've cultivated.

And as I just mentioned earlier, they've never awarded a three-year contract ever.

And I am 100% if we hadn't developed an outstanding relationship and delivered and supported as a community, we would not have won that.

And had the facility.

Gotta have the right facility.

We wouldn't have been able to compete.

And so that's all relationships.

I am friends with Mayor Castor of Tampa.

So I will have to send her an email.

Send her an email.

We did win it for three years in a row.

So thank you again.

I simply wanted to highlight that because during the mayor's briefing on Thursday, the organizers of US US youth soccer really credited something we cannot change, which is location.

And they said that's a plus because we're centrally located.

But there were two things that we can control, and that is investment in our attractions.

And Stryker Complex, which is in Councilmember Tuttle's district, is one of those jewels.

And then the second thing that they credited was partnerships.

And so again, it's very important that when we have organizations like Wichita Sports Commission, and they just did the wonderful prairie fire marathon, half marathon, and 5K this weekend, that we all work together to attract uh visitors into our community, but also provide great opportunities for our residents to enjoy these attractions too.

So I am looking forward to the master plan because I think that that will allow for more public comment to help shape these attractions that do bring again guests into our community, which means economic impact and real dollars that we can truly count on.

210 million, is that correct?

In taxes from outside of the community.

Thank you very much.

With that, I see no further questions.

We will now open it up for public comment.

I honestly wasn't expecting to speak up here as much as I have.

But honestly, on the convention being something that, like I said, I've been to major, I've been to a lot of major cities across the US and actually plan to stay permanently at most of them and just found my way here to Wichita.

I've been here for about four years now.

I've never set foot in the convention center.

Um I think something that is needed is a permanent reason for locals to go and not just focus on externals.

I know San Diego has five or six different restaurants and different art attractions inside the convention center that are open year-round.

Um Seattle constantly has different types of local activities, whether it's just wine tasting or even hosting a farmers markets inside the convention center that brings locals in.

Like I said, I haven't had a reason to step foot up, didn't really even realize where it was until just now.

So I just think that's something that could be thought of as citywide.

Thank you, Manuel.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thanks, Mayor Manuel.

Appreciate all your comments today.

Um definitely agree with that.

I've been saying for years we should be investing in ourselves for ourselves and not just for outside folks.

The work that Visit Wichita does is incredible.

But if we really make Wichita awesome for us, it makes their job even easier, and we'll get even more people here.

So I absolutely agree.

A new convention center or any investment we make really should be attractive for locals.

We should have locals in there in those restaurants, not always national chains, like Wichita is very unique in that way.

So I appreciate your words.

I absolutely agree and think that we should be investing in us for us.

And again, thank you for those extra comments.

I just wanted to make mention that there are multiple opportunities for community members to visit the convention center.

One of them happens to be uh junior leagues holiday galleria, with j which just finished up earlier this month, and holiday galleria are just local individuals that's a nonprofit that then gives back to other nonprofits in the community, and they had a holiday uh shopping area, so local to non-local items you could buy.

And so I think that it's important for our community to know that the convention center is also for them.

The performing arts center is also for them, uh, and both of those sit on the campus of where Century 2 is, but we are talking about two separate conversations.

Century 2 is performing arts, and then we're talking about this in particular convention center, which is the the box, and uh there are multiple car shows as well that happen at the convention center.

Uh, encouraging you, Manuel, to attend any of those.

With that, I see no further comments from the public.

We'll bring it back to the bench.

Councilmember Glasscock.

Thank you, Mayor.

Susie, you said something at the end that you're ready to go when it comes to convention performing arts center.

I'm also ready to go.

It's past time that the communities had that conversation.

We need to continue to push forward on that.

I know Visit Wichita is going to be integral in that too.

So thank you.

Um as a board member for Visit Wichita on behalf of the city.

I am continually impressed by the things happening in Visit Wichita, the accountability that happens among the internal um institution, the things that you're bringing to this community, and also just your energy.

I think your energy is reflective up here.

And I think you're a great ambassador for our community, so thank you for that work.

Every single morning since TBEX came to Wichita, I've opened up one of my social media apps, and I've seen some video from somebody across the country.

There were actually really two cool examples.

I was in DC this past weekend, and I had a friend that had talked about how they had seen some of the social media posts.

And when I was in an Uber in Detroit for our city to city on behalf of the chamber, my Uber driver said, I think I saw something about Wichita on uh Instagram the other day.

And so that was just a random instance in an Uber in Detroit.

And so the message is penetrating, and I think it made them look at Wichita very differently.

So thank you for that.

And there's a part of the video that I also think stood out to me is that every moment felt intentionally curated.

And I think that's what I noticed with Visit Wichita is that every single moment does feel intentionally curated.

Um the other day I was walking, uh, so my boyfriend lives in Kansas City.

He often comes to Wichita, and we were every single time he talks about how there's more events here, there's more parades here.

He talks about there's a fire work show almost every single weekend in the summer, and we just happen to be walking in Delano the other day at 9 p.m.

on a Sunday, and we look up and there's a T Rex in the sky flying across Wichita.

And that doesn't happen in a lot of other communities, and it's because of the work that you guys do to make this very intentional.

So I'm gonna be very supportive of this today.

The mayor had mentioned just one brief thing about a sales tax.

Hopefully, that also fuels a lot of these conversations and making sure that we're moving forward together as a community.

So thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

Councilmember Tottle.

Thank you.

Um, Councilmember Glasscock stole my notes, but I did want to just say thank you for all you do.

I get the unique opportunity to work with you and your team because of Stryker.

And every year, I should just like pull up my notes from last year and say the same thing and then add more on.

But um, I I often say that you and your team run the help with the tournaments at Stryker like you own it, and couldn't be more proud of that.

So just thank you for all you do.

I do want to say, Susie, too, and I said this last year and the year before and the year before and the year before.

You always thank your team, and and you should.

You have an amazing team, and thank you for some of them joining us today.

But you are the leader of an amazing team, and an amazing team doesn't happen without an amazing leader.

So thank you for all you do.

Um, I tell you frequently, I remember the very first time I met you, and I said that woman's gonna change Wichita, and you are with that.

I see no further comments.

I will go ahead and move that the city council approve the contract and authorized necessary signatures.

Second.

Motion and a second, any further discussion.

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 7-0.

Before we move on to another item, we're gonna take a short five-minute break.

Thank you.

Now limited industrial district to planned unit development to create the Proctor Family Indoor Athletic Field, generally located on the northeast north side of the East 28th Street North within one block west of North Greenwich Road at 11010 East 28th Street North.

Good morning.

Scott Waytle from the planning department.

So, as you heard the applicant's requesting the rezone from LI to plan unit development, which is custom zoning.

Uh, this item is uh being heard today because the applicant has appealed the recommendation coming to you uh from both the DAB and from the MAPC.

Now, right around 1040 this morning, uh, I received a text from Boffman Company, uh, the agent for the applicant indicating that they requested and they requested a deferral of this item.

My understanding is that the deferral has been requested so they can uh sort through their options in particular looking at parking.

So, with that, I'm prepared to give the rest of the presentation if you'd like, or I'll just hold off for any questions.

Councilmember Todd.

Thank you.

I would just like to state for the record that this is unprecedented that this would happen in this manner.

Um I am going to uh first I want to thank Scott and JR and Chris for helping through this entire process, but during this last minute change.

Thank you to Jennifer and Legal for making sure that we're following everything.

Thank you to my colleagues for the short delay.

I'm sorry that we had to do that, but we needed to make sure we're following everything.

So with that, I am going to reluctantly, and I say that reluctantly move that this item be moved to November 6th, which is the evening meeting.

Thank you.

Second.

Motion and a second, any further discussion?

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 70.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Zone 2025 25 zone change requests in the city from multifamily residential district to limited commercial district for vehicle repair limited, generally located on the east side of South Hillside Avenue within one half mile south of East Pawnee Avenue.

Good morning.

Scott Waitel again from the planning department.

So as you heard, uh, for this case, the applicant is requesting a rezone, a zone change from MF 29 to LC Limited Commercial.

This item is being heard today because the DAB and the planning commission recommendations are different, and also because this item was deferred to this date.

In terms of the request, the applicant has indicated they're requesting the zone change in order to be able to use this site for additional parking for an automotive repair business that they intend to build on the property immediately to the south of this one.

In terms of the property, subject site is located on the east side of Hillside Avenue, approximately half a mile south of Pawnee.

Subject site is approximately 0.17 acres in size, consists of one ownership parcel and is currently vacant.

In terms of context, property to the north and east is zoned MF 29 and in use is open space.

So here's the zoning map.

M F 29 is that green color.

The applicant owned property to the south and west of this site is zoned LC and is not developed.

Property to the west across South Hillside is zoned PUD Plan Unit Development, which permits event centers in the city and is currently undeveloped.

In terms of the staff report, it contains additional information about development standards, parking, signage, screening, and landscaping.

In terms of review, on June 26, the planning commission deferred this case because the applicant was not in attendance and requested a deferral.

On July 10th, the MAPC deferred this case again for the same reason to their July 24th meeting.

On July 24th, the planning commission held the public hearing and recommended approval of the zone change request.

That vote was 14 to 0.

In support of the motion, MAPC members indicated that the property is buffeted and buffered from residential properties to the north by a creek.

The property directly adjacent the south of the subject site is zoned commercially.

The proposed use would be consistent with the character of the area and removal of the zoning restrictions would not have significant detrimental effects on nearby properties.

The applicant was in attendance at that meeting and provided comments.

No member of the public spoke on the item at that meeting.

On July 2nd, the district advisory board reviewed the request and recommended denial.

That vote was seven to zero with two abstentions.

During the hearing, the DAB members expressed support for the site to be uh in open space, concerns with removing the zoning restrictions and possible detrimental effects to the adjacent creek, and concerns about detrimental effects to surrounding properties if the property adds additional commercial space that ultimately could become vacant.

On September 2nd, the city council considered the request and deferred it so that the DAB could consider the case again, and that time with the applicant present.

On October 1st, the DAB heard the case and recommended approval of the requested zone change, and that vote was 7 to 2.

The applicant was present at that meeting, and during the meeting, they discussed that the site was going to be developed their intention to develop the site regardless of the zone change request.

No members of the public spoke on this item at that meeting.

No protests were received against the case.

Therefore, the zone change can be approved by a simple majority of four of seven votes.

So the recommended actions recommended the city council adopt the findings of the planning commission, approve the requested zone change and authorize the necessary signatures, and instruct the city clerk to publish the ordinance and resolution after approval.

Again, would require just a simple majority, four out of seven.

Alternatives include the following.

Or as always, you can return the case to the MAPC with a simple majority vote.

So just note about process uh that uh public hearing takes place at the planning commission meeting.

So with that, I'll take you through some of the images and graphics.

Here's the subject site outlined.

Here's the zoning map that was discussed earlier.

Here's a map from the comprehensive plan recommending residential at this location.

Here's the notification and protest map.

Again, no protests were received.

Here are photos of the site and the surrounding area.

Looking to the north, south, across the street.

And with that, I'll stand for any questions.

Questions for staff.

I have a couple of questions.

Can you go back?

Certainly.

How about right?

One more.

Right here.

This works.

So the property owner does own this area.

So according to your comment, the develop uh the person who owns this said that they will develop this regardless of a zone change.

However, if there's a zone change, that would accommodate additional parking and trash receptacles.

Can you explain that?

Yes.

So in this case, in order because it's residentially zoned, if they wish to use it for parking, they will need to get some form of zone change.

Either change the zoning or get a conditional use on this property.

So although that is what the uh owner stated that their intention was to develop it regardless of the zoning for their intended purpose that they've expressed, which is to use it for parking, they will need some kind of a zoning approval.

So can you explain according to this current setup, they own this piece of property?

What could they build on this that wouldn't require a zone change?

Uh primarily that would be residential uses.

MF-29 is one of the most intensive residential uh zoning districts, so they could build very tall apartments on it, although it's really an awkward configuration, all the way down to a single family house.

Does the applicant know that their only options for that property currently are just to build a house or multifamily?

I I they are aware of that.

They've uh talked with staff about this uh rezoning, and I believe that's why they're in the process of trying to do this.

Um because their intention is to build an auto repair place to the south and then extend the parking up to this location.

And if this applicant continues despite, because according to the notes, again, this individual was going to develop regardless of the zone change.

What would be the penalty of someone that went against the well in that case uh they would have difficulty uh getting building permits for it because that's one of the things that's reviewed uh during that process is the zoning, and so uh that would halt their project until they got zoning approvals.

And currently, again, this property belongs to this individual, not to the city of Wichita, correct?

That is correct.

Um, and just for context, across the street from this property was once joyland, correct?

Correct.

So I believe this used to be the entrance.

And there have been a lot of uh conversations regarding Joyland recently, and so I wanted to just clear the air.

The city of Wichita never owned Joyland, is that correct?

Uh to my knowledge.

That's correct.

So that property doesn't belong to the city of Wichita, is that correct?

I would say yes.

Okay.

Because people have asked about revitalizing Joyland, and the City of Wichita doesn't own that property, uh, but we are talking about that vicinity.

So I thought I'd bring that up for again awareness.

Um, so again, that little piece of property, the triangle, uh, was that one city of Wichita property that we sold?

Can you ex give us some background to that?

Because it looks like it is open green space elsewhere, but that.

Sure.

Um, I am unfamiliar with the history of the property.

I'm gonna look back to our notes.

We generally have information in our staff reports for the MAPC related to any cases.

Uh so back in 1955, the subject site was platted as part of the Plain View uh subdivision, and there's no zoning cases associated with the property.

So um I don't have any records on property ownership, but uh though that's the information that we do have in terms of planning cases.

So they did not buy this property from the city of Wichita.

Uh I don't believe so, and I think they mentioned uh that they purchased it fairly recently within the last couple of years and the concern that was raised regarding I guess there is the Gibson Creek right over there.

Was the concern about um oils getting into the river, or what was the concern when it came to the river?

I don't believe that it was uh specific, but I think that that falls in the general parameters of what folks were considering.

And the thing that I would uh point out is that when they go to pull their permits, they'll have to comply with all the necessary regulations in terms of stormwater and other licensing and permits.

So there are parameters for this uh property owner if the zone change happens to make sure that it is um environmentally safe.

That is correct.

Thank you.

With that, this is in council member Hoheisel's district.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um yeah, sending this back to the dev was a positive step.

They gotta understand more of the project and grew comfortable with it.

Um I do advise any people who are looking for zoning change applications to show up to the dev to answer questions.

Uh but after the robust discussion, again, they grew a little more comfortable, understood the parameters of the project that it would be used mostly for parking, and that there are safeguards for the nearby creek.

Uh so with all that information, I move to approve the zone change to LLC per MAPC's recommendations in support of this.

Um, I move to adopt the findings of the MAPC, approve the zone change, authorize the necessary signatures and instruct the city clerk to publish the ordinance after approval.

Second.

Motion and a second, any further discussion?

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 7-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Councilmember appointments and comments.

Council members, are there any appointments?

I see council member Hoheisel.

Of course.

Um, I just wanted to say that um this uh Friday, October 17th, from 6 p.m.

to 8 p.m.

at the Plainview Park, we will be having candy crawl.

It's one of my favorite events of the year.

Bring the kids, see the kids all dressed up.

Uh we have our first responders, uh, police and fire will be out there, park staff.

It's a great event.

Um bring the kids and come on down and enjoy the time down there.

Thank you, Councilmember Hoheisel.

Any other comments, Council members?

I see none.

I'm just gonna again say thank you to the organizers of the Prairie Fire Marathon, half marathon, 5K.

Uh, that would be the Wichita Sports Commission.

Um it was great to see so many people not just participating, but also supporting those who are participating.

And um, I do have to give a shout out because Councilmember Johnson uh was one of the participants, and so was Councilmember Glasscock.

Um so I really do encourage our community to whether participate or go and cheer on these participants to do that uh at next year's prairie fire in the spring and in the fall.

With that, uh we cannot adjourn because we have an executive session.

So I will move that the city council recess into executive session for 10 minutes to receive information on a civil action pursuant to KSA 75-4319B2 for legal consultation with the city attorney, which would be deemed privileged in the attorney-client relationship pending litigation and legal advice.

The executive session is required to protect attorney-client privilege and the public interests.

The executive session will begin in a minute.

Uh we will end at noon at and return to the council chambers.

Second.

Oh, you want the restroom break.

We'll return at 1205, so we'll begin the session at 1155.

Thank you.

Uh we motion and a second.

You had a second, right?

Yes.

Motion and a second, can we please vote?

Aye.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, same sign.

We will recess into executive session.

Thank you.

I always do that.

I didn't mean to be so jumping.

Oh, I got power out of project right.