City manager, how are you doing?

I'm doing great, Andrew.

How are you?

Hey, I uh get just like you know I will have something for you.

Okay.

Uh at your retirement party.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

So trying to get my computer up here, bud.

Okay, why I get this to move on.

I cannot get over here.

I'm shifting.

Okay, that's a monitor issue.

Hold on.

All right.

That one mouse is moving just fine.

So any pictures do you have to say we can start colors too?

City staff, can you please roll the video?

Thank you for attending today's city council meeting.

Please take a moment to silence your mobile device.

If you wish to speak on an agenda item after the mayor invites public comment, proceed to the podium, state your name and address, and you will be given five minutes to speak.

A timer can be viewed on the podium screen.

You may speak one time per agenda item.

Please refrain from clapping after other speakers.

Thank you again for joining us today.

Let's pause a moment for our television audience to join us.

With us this morning to provide our invocation is Pastor Philip Moore of Eden Fellowship Ministries.

Following that invocation, we will have the Pledge of Allegiance, and we ask that you please stand for both.

Thank you for the gift of this day and for the privilege of serving the people of Wichita.

Lord, we pray that you guide our mayor, our city council members, and every leader in this room.

Grant them with clarity of thought, unity of purpose, and the courage to make decisions that uplive our communities.

Protect our families and promote justice, equity, and peace.

Bless our city, every neighborhood, every household, every business, every school.

Strengthen those who serve in public safety.

Support those who are struggling.

And inspire all of us to work together for the common good.

May this meeting be conducted with respect, integrity, and a spirit of collaboration.

Let wisdom rise above division, solutions rise above problems, and hope rise above fear.

Amen.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you very much, Pastor Moore.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the first item?

Approve the minutes of the special meeting, November 24th, 2025, and the regular meeting, November 25th, 2025.

Council members, any edits to those meeting minutes.

I see none.

I move to approve the minutes for November 24th, 2025, and November 25th, 2025.

Second.

Motion and a second, any further discussion.

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Aye.

Motion passes seven zero.

Do we have a visitor?

Where is she?

Oh, Miss Kathy.

It sounds like we have a birthday today.

Miss Kathy works the front desk, and she is eighty-three years young, so like to give her a round of applause.

Again, we wanted to surprise Miss Kathy, who greets everyone who comes through City Hall.

And so thank you very much, Miss Kathy Arnold, on your 83rd birthday.

And wanted to also remind our audience who's here today that the parking arms are open, so you won't have to go through the city council offices to get the stamp so that you can easily get out of the city hall parking lot.

We can't let her off that easy.

We gotta sing.

We gotta sing for her.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday, Miss Kathy.

Happy birthday to you.

Thank you very much for singing for Miss Kathy.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the first item?

Awards and proclamations.

Today's proclamations are Sedgwick County Public Defender commitment to Justice Day and greetings from our hometown day.

May I please ask the Sedgwick County Public Defender's Office and their supporters to come forward at this time.

Before we begin, we need the new proclamation.

Unfortunately, that was not the correct one.

So we will wait.

While we wait for the proclamation, could someone from the Sedgwick County Public Defender's Office like to say a few words?

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Sarah McKinnon.

I am the chief public defender for the Sedgwick County Public Defender's Office.

We thank you for recognizing the work of public defenders and the people that we serve.

Every day we meet community members at their lowest moments.

And with your support reminds them and us that we're not alone and they are not alone.

This proclamation affirms the dignity of every person who comes through our court system here in Sedgwick County, and we are deep deeply grateful.

On a side note, I was very um pleasantly surprised to walk down the hallway and see a prayer in progress.

I've been doing this work of public defense as many of my colleagues have for years and years.

Um, I'm in my 34th year as an attorney here in Kansas, and people often ask me, how can you do this?

How can you represent those people?

And it reminds me our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, um, and I'm paraphrasing said, when you do it for the least of them, you're doing it for me.

Um thank you.

Thank you.

While we wait, can I remind everyone this is Giving Tuesday?

So your favorite charity, if you can uh be sure and support them, would very much appreciate it.

And I know they would appreciate it.

So thank you.

Thank you for the delay and waiting for this.

The proclamation reads the city of Wichita, Kansas founded in 1870, whereas the United States Constitution guarantees the right to legal counsel regardless of an individual's ability to pay.

Whereas the Sedwick County Public Defender's Office has served this community since 1984, providing skilled, dedicated, and compassionate representation to those in need.

Whereas public defenders uphold fairness, safeguard due process, and protect the constitutional rights of some of our most vulnerable residents.

Whereas their tireless commitment strengthens public confidence in the justice system and ensures the promise of equal justice for all.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Wichita City Council does hereby proclaim December 2nd, 2025 as Cedric County Public Defender Commitment to Justice Day.

May I please ask the supporters of greetings from our hometown day, including Sophie Barron, who started this movement, and I want to give a shout out to this young lady who is from Wichita, Kansas.

She was named one of Forbes' 30 under 30 for education in 2023, being the founder of an organization called the Conversationalist, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education platform empowering Gen Z.

This proclamation is one that she asked and unanimously got the vote of every council member.

So I will read this proclamation.

Whereas Sophie Barron, a proud Wichita native, unifier and founder of the conversationalists, launched the greetings from our hometown campaign to bring people together, uplift local businesses, and shine a light on the places and people that make Wichita extraordinary.

Whereas inspired by the Jonas Brothers greetings from your hometown album and their upcoming concert at Interest Bank Arena, this initiative turns the spotlight back on Wichita by encouraging residents to celebrate where we come from and who we are.

Whereas from December 1st through 5th, 2025, Wichita's small business creators and restaurants will join in this celebration through special activations, custom menu items, community giveaways, and donations supporting the Kansas food bank.

Whereas greetings from our hometown day captures the true essence of Wichita, a city defined by warmth, creativity, and togetherness, reminding us that Wichita is more than a place on a map.

It's a home shaped by pride, compassion, and connection.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Wichita City Council does hereby proclaim Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025, as greetings from our hometown day.

I can't believe this is happening.

I am emotional.

I grew up here in Wichita my whole life.

This town, this city, this community means the world to me.

And I left for the East Coast for a couple of years in search of belonging.

I grew up here feeling different for most of my life.

I was the only Jewish student in my grade, K through 12, and I thought that belonging meant being a part of a group who looked like me and thought like me.

So I went to the East Coast, found every Jewish group under the sun, from Jewish a cappella to a Jewish sorority to a Jewish boyfriend.

My parents were thrilled.

And I soon realized one day, freshman year walking through campus, that everyone else who I had met outside of my identity group was doing the exact same thing as I was with their respective cultural and religious groups.

And it finally dawned on me that maybe what I resented so much about who I was in Wichita was actually the community I had been taking most for granted.

Because here in Wichita, I was a part of a community of people who encouraged me to think differently, see the world differently, and come together for a cause so much greater than any of us.

And that was the spark that really ignited the work I do today with the conversationalist that led to this greetings from our hometown campaign.

I mean, even just here with me today, we have the best of Wichita leaders, content creators, small business leaders who have all decided to commit an important moment this week to show that if we could come together as a community, we can make a much bigger impact.

So if you are interested in supporting your favorite small business this week, especially today on Giving Tuesday, please head to our website, Greetings from Wichita.com, and you'll see all of the ways to participate and how your dollars could go back to our community and unify us all and give back to the Kansas Food Bank.

So thank you all so much.

Thank you to all of you and to Mayor Wu.

And lastly, I have something for the mayor.

Here I have uh the official tour case from the Jonas Brothers greetings from your hometown tour.

And I wanted to present this to Mayor Wu with some of our t-shirts of the Greetings from Wichita campaign to share with the council.

So here you go, Mayor Wu.

Do you want the whole council?

All right.

Well, can the counselor come down for a quick photo?

One, two, three.

And can we all just wave and say greetings from Wichita?

Sure.

One, two, three.

Greetings from Wichita.

Thank you again, and thank you to the council as this is helping the Kansas food bank.

And again, thank you, Sophie, for bringing a spotlight to Wichita and how great the city truly is.

Hello, Dr.

Sherry Utash.

I think we have your presentation.

Great.

Good morning, Mayor Wu and City Council.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to come give you a little bit of an update for what's going on at WSU Tech.

So I appreciate the opportunity.

As you know, we are celebrating our 60th year.

So I'm gonna start this morning just with a quick video celebrating really what's happened to Wichita's technical community college.

In 1965, Wichita Area Vocational Technical School opened its doors with a simple mission to teach hands-on skills and get people to work.

For decades, that mission remained steady.

It wasn't yet a college, but it was education.

And for countless students, that was enough.

But what would it take to make this something more?

In 1995, the Kansas legislature gave the school, then Wichita Area Technical College, the power to grant degrees.

And in 2001, full accreditation followed.

But then came the real turning point.

A new generation rose to the challenge.

Educators, innovators, believers.

They didn't settle, they disrupted.

The National Center for Aviation Training was born.

And eight years later, WATC became WSU Tech.

With every new program from healthcare and IT to aviation and manufacturing to niche, home to culinary and hospitality dreams.

To the first flight of Wichita's only pilot degree program.

WSU Tech became a place where careers take off.

Now the future is under construction.

Not just in buildings, but in big ideas, new spaces, new programs, new ways to learn, connect, and lead.

We're not just growing, we're transforming what education looks like.

And we're laying the foundation for the next generation.

This school is fueled by grit, and we're constantly moving forward.

It's a place where talent becomes a trade, where education leads to opportunity, where students don't wait for the future, they build it.

The vision is bold.

The foundation is strong.

The momentum is real.

The only thing missing is you.

So we are very, very pleased to serve this community.

Uh and um it's it's my pleasure to come kind of on an annual basis and kind of give you an update.

Uh we have the largest enrollment between Wichita State University and WSU Tech in the history of our institutions.

Uh we uh combined enrollment.

We are serving over 25,000 students this year.

Uh and at WSU Tech uh we have our largest enrollment.

We're we'll we're serving this fall uh just shy of 6700 students, uh and we believe that throughout this academic year we will serve over uh close to 11,000.

So we are continuing to grow and provide for um for this community.

Um we um are up in enrollment 6.9 percent, uh which is really bucking the trend of the nation's two-year colleges.

Um across the nation are back to where they were pre-COVID, but they're not continuing to grow.

This is 11 years of continued growth.

Many of those years double-digit.

Here's some of the programs that have significant um uh have had significant growth for us.

Some of those are in automotive, our business welding, our new pilot program that's three years old, our culinary, our aviation maintenance, which supplies um mechanics for text drawn aviation and bombardier, and uh heating and air, which we now call climate and energy control.

Uh and then we had some we had three new programs that uh created quite an impact for us this year.

Uh, one in uh electrical, so uh creating electricians, uh, mobile equipment, and we have a new mental health technician program.

So we continue to grow new programs.

That's part of the secret sauce of making sure that we're meeting the needs of business and industry and the needs of our students across.

Uh we also have seen great growth uh from our Kansas Promise Scholarship and our Future Ready Student Centers.

And I'm gonna talk a little bit about those because those are two big things, but I can't emphasize enough how important the support of Governor Kelly and the legislators have been in making sure that these programs exist and provide opportunities for not only um citizens of Wichita Sedgwick County, but the state of Kansas.

So if we look at um the impact of WSU Tech, you can see on the right-hand side 15 years of enrollment growth.

That's 148% increase in the number of students that we're serving.

But really more importantly, look at the student success.

This is what I call this is our these are the metrics that we hold ourselves to.

These are the things that are important.

Our retention rate is 80%.

That means that we're retaining students.

Course success rate, right at 90%.

That means that students are achieving a course, a productive course rate of C or better.

Our FT enrollment, which is related to our head count, is over 4,000.

We had our largest graduating class last May of 1,743.

We will exceed that this year.

Our placement rate, this is such an important piece.

This is our job placement rate.

So 89%.

It's always between 89 and 92% is what we're what we do, and that means that students that complete their programs are employed in a job that they were trained in, or they're continuing their education, or they are in the military.

And the other thing I would say is 95% of our students that graduate stay here in Wichita and Sedgwick County.

So we don't have a lot of out migration.

The other thing that's an important factor for us is the applied learning at the bottom.

So we had over 700 students that had an applied learning opportunity.

That means that they were actually working in a job that we procured for them in the area that they were studying while they were going to school.

So there was over just shy of 1,500 experiences, and they're being paid.

And so they earned 4.8 million dollars.

And so a lot of times a scholarship with applied learning can be a job, a JOB.

Excel in CTE.

This is the high school program that we have.

And if you think about this, we're working in over 60 high schools across South Central Kansas.

We are serving over 3,500 high school students.

And that growth, as you can also see, has just really continued over the last since it started in 2013.

And it's grown by more than 540%.

And it continues to grow.

But this is so important because what it does is it takes the dollars that have been that have been funded by the governor and the legislature the legislators since 2013 and enables senior juniors, seniors in high school to start their careers early, and their tuition is paid.

So think about this.

Here's the dream.

You have a high school student that is going through high school.

They also start with us, they they go to their high school graduation, they get their high school degree.

That same week they get a two-year degree from us, and they are ready to be productive work citizens in this community.

That does not mean that they can't continue their education.

But here's the key.

What does that do?

It wipes out student debt.

So it's a really, really important piece.

So please, in encounters that you have with our legislators, this is a really important piece of what's driving the economy and driving the talent pipeline for our community.

If we look at Kansas Promise, this is another program that's funded through the state.

This is a program for adult students so that they can upskill, reskill, come back to school.

And so if you look at this, it started in 2022.

We started with 160 Kansas Promise students.

We're up to 727 this year.

And why is this important?

When they take, when they agree to take this scholarship, they agree to work at least two years in the state of Kansas.

So this is again a driver of creating economic prosperity and a talent pipeline that is being funded by the state of Kansas.

If we look at our future ready centers, we now have uh we now have let's see, we have three of those.

We have one at by North High School.

Uh these are partnerships with USD 259.

They have been fabulous partners with us on this.

We have one in aviation and manufacturing by North High School.

Then down at WSU South, we have a health care future ready center, and we just opened an IT hack, the hub for advanced computer knowledge future ready center.

This is another area of huge growth.

These students are all being covered under those Excel and CTE funding, but we have created a model, a working model with USD 259 that's scalable all across the state.

And you can see the success that we've had with this.

These are this is transforming the way high school students are earning high school credits and college credits at the same time and preparing for their careers.

These are a lot of the partnerships that we have across the city.

I just uh would would tell you that and and nationwide.

Uh we are really blessed to have a lot of people that are working very, very uh strongly and fiercely alongside of us uh to secure success.

The next thing I'm gonna show you is um we just broke ground on a building that I know that you are very, very familiar with, and here is a just a quick um video of the groundbreaking.

It began with a question.

How do we train a workforce ready for the future?

In 2010, Wichita answered with the National Center for Aviation Training, a state of the art solution, a hub for hands-on learning, and a pipeline for skilled talent at 225,000 square feet with cutting edge classrooms and advanced labs.

Today, NCAT is a flagship for training in aviation manufacturing and technology, fueling a pipeline of talent for Wichita's most critical industries.

Starting now, the next chapter begins.

A major expansion of the National Center for Aviation Training will add 85,500 square feet of new classrooms, labs, and training spaces.

A professional pilot training hangar, new frontiers in aerospace, robotics, unmanned aerial systems, and advanced manufacturing.

Smart labs will connect across the campus.

For me a living micro hub where ideas move seamlessly from concept to production.

At its heart, the new ideation and innovation hall will open into the hangar and flex lab.

A dynamic space for community and industry collaboration through trainings, camps, workshops, and more.

A launch pad for the future of work.

But it's more than growth, it's momentum.

A bold commitment to push the boundaries of aviation, automation, and advanced manufacturing.

The future starts here, and it's only just taking off.

So this is the new building.

This building will be open, it's hard to say this, in almost just one year.

So it will open in January of 27 with students.

There's a shot from the groundbreaking.

And we were able to put our hands in the concrete the other day for the very first time.

So we've got fingerprints on the new building of what's going on.

This is a super exciting project for this, and here's why this is so important.

So the National Center for Aviation Training in Wichita, Kansas, is becoming not only known in Kansas, but across this nation and across the globe for quality excellence in aviation training.

This new facility puts us on the front end and on the cutting edge of all things automation, all things robotics, all things integrating those processes into manufacturing.

There are many, many places across the country that are right on our heels, but I am happy to tell you we are we are the front runner on getting this building under construction and getting it open ahead of everybody else.

And this again will continue to build not only for Kansas but for the nation and for across the globe our abilities to train and educate in these critical areas.

Then we have the Biomed Center.

I know you're very well aware of that, but the Biomed Center continues to open build.

It's called the HAC.

And if you have not been there and you want to have a chance, it looks like something out of the movies.

There is a cyber hacking room that teaches students the things that they need to keep us safe in cybersecurity.

It can also be used by our business and industries to challenge to see if they can hack their systems as well.

So this is going to be a great training facility, and we look forward to that.

We have 200 plus students in this already.

This is a completely student built Airbus plane.

So we would love to have you there if you can be there.

And the last um the last slide that I have, and I'll conclude and take any questions that you might have.

But the last thing is I say this every year.

It is the Super Bowl of everything we do.

And this last one, unlike all the others that we've had, they're all Super Bowls.

But this year, because we had the largest graduating class in the history of the college, this year's Super Bowl 2025 commencement was very special.

Good evening.

The 60th commencement ceremony of the Wichita State University Campus of Applied Sciences and Technology is now open.

Family friends and church guests, thank you for joining us on this meaningful and unforgivable night.

Graduately excited.

Tonight we celebrate the accomplishments of the largest graduating class two days.

More than 1,750 students.

I've seen your journey from the classroom to career paths, and now standing here as graduates of one of the finest technical colleges in the nation.

To every graduate here tonight who has ever struggled, sacrificed or questioned their work.

We are more than the statistics we feared.

We are proof that it's never too late to rewrite your story.

And if I can leave you with one message, it would be this.

So congratulations, class of 2025.

I implore you to be bold, to be brave, to be kind, and to be relentless.

Let your life reflect the purpose, the passion, and the power of the education you've earned.

Let it change lives, including your own.

So on behalf of all of us at WSU Tech, I want to thank the city for all of your ongoing support.

This is my 17th year at WSU Tech, and there has never been a time in those 17 years that the city has not been super supportive of what we do.

So I thank you for that.

We are serving almost 11,000 students.

66% who are first generation college students.

So we are we are really lifting people up.

And I say all the time, who would not want to be in the life-changing business?

It is an absolute honor.

So thank you, all of you.

Thank you for that presentation, Dr.

Utash.

Councilmember Hoheisal.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Dr.

Utesh, for that presentation as well.

Um, and all that you guys do.

Um, my niece actually did what you had described, she graduated high school later that day.

She had a two-year certificate in Welling.

Uh, within a month, she was actually baking more than Uncle Mike was.

So we love that story.

I do too, honestly.

I really do.

I so I do appreciate that.

And um the 16th, we unfortunately have a council meeting that day, but perhaps if I get a hall pass or something, I can I can skip out of the meeting and maybe maybe you should have your council meeting, like um, I know, off site, I don't know.

We could host you at the Future Ready Center.

Yes, ma'am.

All right, thank you.

Thank you again for all that.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Dr.

Utah, thank you again for providing the yearly update.

I think it's very encouraging, and for full disclosure, I'm a Wichita State University graduate.

I'm a first generation college student.

Um, and I'm a proud board member of the WSU Tech board as a volunteer.

And I just want to say thank you for doing the life-changing work that you and your entire team do for all these students that are trying to uplift and really empower themselves with a career opportunity here in our own community.

This is true economic impact, and this is really elevating individuals in our community.

And I appreciate you sharing the opportunities because oftentimes people don't know that we have these opportunities for high school students.

So I hope that uh whether you're watching online or here in the audience that you will share what you've learned here and let young people know, especially about future ready centers and the importance of the CTE uh programs that are funded thanks to the governor and the legislature.

So thank you again for all that you and your team do, um, and I appreciate uh the ongoing work.

Council Member Glasgow.

Thank you.

An incredible presentation as an alumni of uh alumnus of Wichita State.

Um you guys are doing incredible work, and so really all I can say is go shocks.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next item?

Public agenda.

The public agenda allows for up to five speakers to have five minutes each to address the council.

No action will be taken relative to items on the public agenda other than referral to the city manager for information as necessary.

Speakers will please state their name and address for the record.

A time clock will display the speakers' remaining time to speak.

Order and rules of decorum will be observed.

The first speaker today is Natalie O'Dour, Kenyan community and how it has impacted the city of Wichita.

Good morning, Mayor Wu, Council members.

Um, like she said, my name is Natalie O'Dor, and I would like to start off by thanking you all for giving me the opportunity to speak about my home, Kenya.

Um, on December 12th, 1963, Kenya raised its flag as a free nation for the very first time, marking the beginning of a journey built on courage, unity, and extraordinary resilience.

It's a reminder that when people stand together with purpose, they can shape their own destiny.

Though Wichita and Kenya are continents apart, we share a deep belief in community and opportunity and in lifting one another up.

And of course, in Kenya, there's one thing that brings everyone together tea, also known as chai.

It's so important that if you visit a Kenyan home and say, no, thank you, I'm not thirsty, they'll look at you like something is wrong with you and bring you tea anyway, just to fix you.

So I would like to invite all of you to join us for Jamhuri Day this Saturday, December 6th at Newman University, as we celebrate Kenyan's Independence Day.

Come for the culture, stay for the food, and help us honor a nation whose spirit continues to inspire the world.

And I'll make sure to email a flyer so you have more information.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Natalie.

Look forward to being there this weekend.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next individual?

Nora Sadiqi, Food Deserts in Wichita.

Hello, City Council.

My name is Nora Sidiki.

Today I'm gonna talk about food deserts in Wichita, Kansas.

I was born and raised in District One near WSU.

I graduated with my BSN from WSU, and um currently I am pursuing my FNP from University of St.

Mary.

Wichita has 44 square miles of food deserts, and we've lost a lot of our grocery stores, as you know.

I know you guys have been working on adding shelving to already existing corner stores and such.

So I appreciate that, and that's great.

But I do believe that access to food is a fundamental human right and a cornerstone of economic stability.

So my proposal is to add the opening of new grocery stores to that, or maybe find another way to help with funding those, as grocery stores will probably not open up in those areas without financial incentive.

I have a few case studies that show, for example, in New York, which is a lot bigger, but closer example would be Birmingham, Alabama, where the city allocated 500,000 of public funds to offer loans and grants for grocers, and it was successful in restoring historic the village market.

So a great example.

And that includes waiv sewer and water uh fees and permit fees to fast track it if a grocery store is interested in opening in these areas.

Um but I appreciate your time.

And do you have any questions?

Thank you, Nora.

Councilmember Tuttle.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here today.

And I just wanted to really applaud you for keeping this on the forefront.

I actually helped conduct the food desert study in 2013.

Um, and then we did the follow-up, the hurdles to healthy access to healthy food in 2015, and then two subsequent studies on the economic impact of the food ecosystem within Cedric County.

So something that I'm really passionate about.

I'd love to get together with you and chat more.

We actually in 2022 with Sedgwick County adopted the City of Wichita Cedric County Master Food Plan.

Uh, in case you're not aware, and the three main key goals are to foster the food system to improve access to healthy food and increase local food production.

Um, less than one percent of food is sourced locally in the city of Wichita.

We also implemented a food and farm council.

Every member of the city council and the county commission appoints someone to that.

I know that we're always looking for appointees and would love to have you attend.

So if you wouldn't mind stop by the reception area on your way out, and if they'll you'll ask them for one of my business cards, they'll give it to you.

And let's get together and we can talk about how we can make sure we're continuing to implement the master food plan.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Title.

Councilmember Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just want to tell you thank you so much for being here.

It's um refreshing to see um people take the opportunity to come to the bench, even though sometimes it can be a little intimidating.

Uh food insecurity is incredibly important to me.

I've been working on it for a long time, and we just need everybody to do a little bit.

So I appreciate you coming and speaking to us, and Councilmember Tuttlearie shared some things that that we're doing, but I know we have a long ways to go, so thanks for being here.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Ballard.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thanks, Mayor.

I also want to thank you for being here.

Um I had a question for you, so you've heard kind of what we're doing.

I've long believed that on in addition to the incentives, we should actually be investing in food infrastructure.

So how to grow food.

And um that's not a step that we're taking right now, but common ground growers and producers, Donna Pearson McClish.

Um, they have a farm, family farm, do a wonderful job.

What are your thoughts on in addition to incentives, maybe investing in that type of infrastructure throughout a food desert area, whether that's in ground, open gardening or as she refers to high tunnels where you can grow year-round.

So you're not only providing access to produce in a store, but also growing it and teaching community members how to grow food.

I love that idea, especially if you're involving communities like churches and you know, the parks like Fairmount Park, add one there.

Um, but the main thing for me is the idea of maybe a single mother who has a lot of little kids and has to walk and get on a city bus to go to a grocery store.

That may take 30 minutes just one way.

So I want to make um healthy food as accessible as possible because, like I said, food healthy food is a fundamental right.

I agree.

Thank you so much.

Thank you again, Nora.

Thank you, Mayor.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next individual?

Reverend Wade Miller, need for affordable housing.

Good morning, Mayor Wu and Council members.

It's a joy to be with you this morning.

My name is Pastor Wade Miller, and I serve as co-chair of the Justice Together Steering Committee for Affordable Housing.

Justice Together unites 40 plus congregation to answer God's call to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our gone.

Hundreds join each year, and thousands more are touched.

Over the past three years, we've heard around 2,000 stories from our neighbors.

Every year, affordable housing has consistently emerged as a top concern when we ask families what keeps them awake at night, and their stories are sometimes heartbreaking.

Teachers tell of students living in cars or moving between couches.

Young families are priced out of neighborhoods, forced to choose between food, utilities, and rent.

Seniors on fixed income support adult children while struggling themselves.

These are not isolated stories, they are reflected in sobering numbers because over 40% of Wichita renters are cost burdened.

One in five pay over half their income for housing.

Nearly 2,000 USD 259 students are housing unstable, and we face a 15,000 unit shortage today, which is projected to grow to as high as 40,000 units.

As Proverbs 29 7 reminds us, the righteous care about justice for the poor, and we cannot ignore our moral obligation.

Shelters and services are acts of mercy, and they are they are needed, but they are not the solution.

They are not justice.

You heard it from the United Way last week.

Housing first works.

And federal funding shifts make local investment urgent.

Without homes, God's people cannot thrive.

Families cannot flourish, and children cannot grow in safety.

Across the country, more than 800 communities use affordable housing funds.

That's why thousands in our faith community have united around a moral and spiritual call.

We are calling for you to invest 10 million dollars, specifically to the Wichita Affordable Housing Fund.

We raise this commitment with Council members Ballard, Hoheisel, and Tuttle at our Nehemiah Assembly, where each voiced their support before 1,250 people of faith.

We are encouraged that now is the time to act.

A one cent sales tax is under consideration.

Sales taxes are regressive, and Wichita Forward's property tax relief could favor higher income homeowners while burdening those least able to pay.

Any proposal that asks more of the poor and benefits the wealthy must be carefully examined.

Still, the question before us remains how do we fund what is necessary to meet Wichita's housing crisis?

A well-designed sales tax that protects the most vulnerable and that doesn't worsen inequalities could help secure the 10 million dollars needed annually, giving God's people the homes and stability they deserve.

So today we ask you to let the contents of the proposed sales tax and your vote reflect your conscience.

Please ask yourselves, will any sales tax meet Wichita's growing housing need?

Will it secure 10 million dollars for the affordable housing fund?

And will it avoid worsening inequality for those already struggling?

We are watching your decision, and our members and board will ask ourselves the exact same questions.

If the answer is yes, we stand ready to work alongside you to help ensure that Wichita adopts a sales tax that truly serves the people who need it most.

But if a proposal does not include at least 10 million dollars in the affordable housing fund, and it shifts wealth from those who have the least to those with the most, then the only faithful vote is no.

As scripture teaches, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.

A tax package that fails to sufficiently care for the most vulnerable tell fails our moral responsibility responsibility to our neighbors and to God.

We are praying for your wisdom.

We are grateful for your service, and we stand ready to help ensure that Wichita becomes a city where every family can live in safety, dignity, and peace.

Thank you.

May God bless the work of your hearts, your hands, and as you vote, specifically your voices.

Thank you, Pastor Miller.

We're gonna ask the next individual.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next individual?

Reverend Lori Mills, Homelessness and Housing.

Good morning, Mayor Wu and the members of the council.

I'm Lori Mills, and I serve as the Deacon at St.

Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in Southwest Wichita, as well as chaplain at ESS Breakthrough Club.

I'm here today representing the Justice Together Homelessness Steering Committee.

Over the past year, I have worked closely with several service providers, outreach workers, people experiencing homelessness, and community partners who are laboring every single day to respond to the growing crisis on our streets.

And what I've learned, what every expert and every lived experience keeps teaching us is this.

The only lasting solution to homelessness is permanent affordable housing.

Everything else, shelter, services, encampment response, that all matters, but none of it ends homelessness.

Only housing does that.

When first presented in February last year, the multi-agency center was a housing first vision, promising 250 plus affordable units tied to the project.

A plan just is together, proudly supported as a pathway to long-term stability.

Today it appears reduced to 50 permanent supportive units and 25 non-congregant shelter beds, with no guaranteed funding or plan for additional housing.

The current focus seems to be primarily shelter and services.

We are grateful for shelter beds that will come online, but we must be honest.

Shelter is not housing.

Shelter is not stability.

Shelter is not an exit from homelessness.

Many of those displaced come from encampments, have received vouchers.

But vouchers alone do not house people, especially when our Section 8 waiting list is in the thousands and wait times stretch into years.

A voucher without a unit is a false promise.

This is why strengthening fund and funding the Wichita Affordable Housing Fund is essential.

It is a proven tool that directly invests in building the units that prevent and move people out of homelessness permanently.

And right now it is without funds.

Homelessness does not resolve itself.

It does not get better on its own.

And in a moment when federal housing programs face uncertainty, as we have seen in recent months at the state and national levels, local action is more important than ever.

We are calling on your leadership to restore the housing first vision the community was promised.

For the MAC to succeed, for our shelters and outreach workers to succeed, for families and individuals to truly exit homelessness, we must have more affordable homes for them to enter.

That is why today I join my colleagues and thousands across our faith community in calling on you to ensure that at least 10 million dollars in annual funding for the affordable housing fund is achieved.

Without it, we cannot meet the need.

Without it, every effort will fall short.

Without it, the promise of the MAC we rallied around will be an unfulfilled promise.

I urge you, as leaders entrusted with the well-being of the most vulnerable in our city to make sure this opportunity is not lost.

Wichita can choose a path that moves beyond simply managing homelessness towards actually ending it.

Thank you, Deacon Mills.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Deacon.

And to the other speaker as well, and all of you.

I agree.

I agree.

I've talked about this before.

We heard the recent reports that homelessness with seniors are expected to double here in the next decade.

This isn't an issue that we can piddle along on.

Like we need real action here to make sure that we build affordable housing and we keep affordable housing.

Just some finer points on the sales tax.

We are trying to work to make it as least regressive as possible.

Some things we're looking at right now.

Some things we're looking at right now, we're working with the legislature to ensure we don't have to charge for groceries, the sales tax on groceries.

I think that's a big one.

There has been some talk on rebates for people who are in the lower income brackets as well.

So I think those details should be coming out here in the next week or so as we continue to discuss this.

You know where I'm at as far as the affordable housing part of it.

That's the part of it that makes the most sense for me is affordable housing and uh homeless services because we all see the need out there.

Um there's still dark clouds on the horizon.

We need to make sure that we are out ahead of this issue instead of getting caught like we have been here recently.

So I do appreciate all your advocacy.

We'll continue to work on this next week, I think, is when we're supposed to be hearing the sales tax.

I'll I'll keep working.

Thank you.

We appreciate that.

Vice Mayor Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

Also, thank you for coming.

Appreciate it.

And all from uh Justice Together, thank you for coming.

That's all of our friends as uh as you all walked in.

So uh I appreciate that.

It's something I've been working on for about the last year on the private side.

Um Steve Fellmeyer is taking a very active role in it.

Already got about 50 houses of affordable housing, working with Kevis Harding uh in District One.

I'm working on south of Kellogg.

Um I gave one of my investors a list of 12 to 15 lots that are south of Kellogg, and not one person was willing to sell unless it was 50,000.

Um that it's ridiculous.

You just can't make it work at 50,000 for an empty lot.

So we have to work on a way to uh help convince those people to sell those lots for affordable housing.

So also we each got 30 minutes with the uh candidates for a city manager.

Uh I spent my 30 minutes with each one to talk about affordable housing.

Um it was very interesting.

30 minutes is not long enough to talk about affordable housing.

Um, but I will tell you that the candidate that's moved forward today, Dennis Marstall has seen what you're talking about a fund.

Uh his was uh where he's seen it is five to fifteen million dollars for affordable housing.

So I didn't get a chance to dig into him deeper with that, but uh he is familiar with it, so that bet might be a plus also.

So again, thank you for coming, and and I'm with you every step of the way.

It's just how we do that.

Uh, you know, I'm not sure if it's a sales tax or it's a budget how we do that, but uh we do need to find a way for more affordable housing.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Madam Clerk from the case talk.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next individual?

Uh the next individual emailed me a few minutes ago and advised that they were not able to make it, so we have an open spot.

Would someone like to speak I'd like to speak.

My name's Esau Freeman.

I'm the business representative for Service Employees International Union Local 513, which is the largest number of employees you guys have in one group, and they're probably the least well paid.

Um you guys are gonna be talking a little bit later this morning about uh how much Dennis is gonna get paid, and I want to start out by saying I think even the numbers that have been suggested in the newspaper might be a little bit low.

Um you look at Kelly Billetfield or anybody else, uh the governor, anybody who's given up their life 24-7 definitely deserves to be compensated appropriately.

Um I don't have a problem with what you pay the candidate.

My problem is got to do with the process.

I was very disappointed in the process as it occurred.

Um I think you guys had from last spring until now to really engage with people, and I didn't see much of that happen until about the last week before everything happened.

That was extremely disappointing.

This is not the only type of committee like this I set on.

I set in on the interviews for superintendents and uh chief human resource officers for the school district and and a lot of other employers within the 10 contracts that I represent around the state.

There were some things that happened that uh concerned me from the consulting firm that was chosen.

Um I don't know if Mark really got a fair shot in our interview because disparaging comments were made by the presenter about how he was long-winded, and we might not get to the end of the questions.

Um, if you're gonna pay that much money to have somebody do your job for you, you probably better make sure they don't do things like that.

Secondly, and what probably concerns me the most, and I mean no slight to Dennis about this, but Dante Martin was by far the most wanted and most qualified candidate.

And I have an extreme concern for what would make a 25-year employee drop out from that job search, knowing full well that that person was the desired candidate, knowing that that person has relationships and roots in the community.

Now, Dante's pretty class act, and he's decided to stay on and help Dennis with anything that he needs, and because of his character, I believe that he will do that.

I believe you can depend on that.

It's just very disappointing that he should have to do that.

I think we need to dig deeper and figure out exactly why Dante withdrew.

Why such a good candidate felt like they couldn't assume that position?

What would make them stop?

So, as far as what you pay, not that worried about it.

All three of the candidates told me that they saw no comparison in the people who purify our drinking water or fill our potholes compared to a policeman or a fireman running into a burning building.

So for all those public works employees, there's really not a lot of hope.

We're the biggest group, we're the least paid, and we're not considered heroes.

But the day you guys don't have fresh drinking water, and there's a boil advisory, maybe you'll think twice.

So I'm asking you to, as you continue this process and move forward, um, that you look at those things and that there is some parity and equity in what the employees are paid, and that we stop just throwing money to the top, because that doesn't seem to be fixing the problem.

We've got a water plant we've been working on for God almost eight or nine years now, and it just keeps dragging out.

But the employees that work for those department heads, if they're late to work or they don't show up for snow removal, they get fired.

But we can continue to make colossal mistakes on the management level and keep our jobs.

It's crazy to me.

But having been the union representative for 10 years for SEIU, I can tell you that there is bullying that goes on in the city on a regular basis for management, and I'm afraid that that extends itself into the city council.

And I want somebody to investigate, and I want more answers about why Dante pulled out.

Why such a good employee, such a good citizen, didn't take the job.

Thank you, Isaac Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um first off, I I do consider public works heroes.

You guys are out there in the middle of the snow.

We saw this last weekend in the middle of the night, revving up the engines, making sure that they're ready to go.

You guys face a lot of dangers on the job.

Um I do support paying you guys as much as you're worth, honestly.

Um I have concerns as well.

Um we'll get into that a little more.

Um, but I did want to say that it is a dry time of the year.

Um, I know people's lips get chapped around this time of year, so Esau.

I'm glad you say that, Mike.

Just for you, buddy.

It's right up here.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next item?

Consent agenda items one through 22.

Council members, are there any items to be pulled from the consent agenda?

I see none.

I move to approve consent agenda items one through 22.

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.

Board of Bids and Contracts dated December 1st, 2025.

Morning.

Mayor, City Council, Josh Lauber Department of Finance.

The Board of Bids and Contracts convened December 1st, 2025 for the following items for engineering.

We have water distribution system, stormwater sewer number 789, and sanitary sewer improvements to serve Blue Lake Third Edition Phase 2 for dueling construction for an aggregate bid total of 487,894.50 cents.

We have for purchasing the debt book investment management software as a service subscription for Fifth Asset Incorporated doing businesses debt book for 47,000 annually.

This is how to become a vendor with the city.

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

And these are open public opportunities out on the street today.

And I'd be happy to try to answer any questions and make the agenda a little bit lighter today.

Thank you, Josh.

Any questions for staff?

I see none.

I move to approve the Board of Bids and Contracts dated December 1st, 2025.

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.

Approval of the employment contract for the city manager.

Good morning, Mayor Council Pam Pennington Human Resources.

I am here today for approval of the employment contract for the next city manager for the city of Wichita.

So a little background, which I know you're all familiar with, but uh we'll go through the timeline.

April 22nd, uh the Wichita City Council initiated a national search for the next city manager by launching an RFP for a professional search firm to coordinate the search process.

CPSHR was selected as the search firm.

June 3rd, a selection advisory committee was named.

September 10, 2025, a community survey was issued to identify residents' priorities and preferred leadership traits for the next city manager.

October 20th, CPSHR received 89 applications for the position, and the selection advisory committee reviewed applicants to move forward to the semifinalist interview process.

November 7th, semifinalist candidates were interviewed with the selection advisory committee via Teams.

November 10th, the selection advisory met committee met with the city council to determine which candidates would take part in on-site interviews.

November 17th and 18th, on-site interviews were held with stakeholders, city council members, staff members, and community members.

November 25th, the city council voted affirmatively 5 to 2 to begin contract negotiations with the selected candidate.

For analysis, the city manager is appointed by the governing body in accordance with the City of Wichita Charter ordinances.

Approval of the contract will finalize the appointment of Dennis Marstall as city manager.

The contract outlines compensation benefits and accountabilities.

Retirement contribution of 10% of the city manager's annual salary per year, an auto allowance of $6,600 per year, professional association memberships and subscriptions as desired for professional development and for the good of the city, a phone allowance of $600 per year, and complete moving and relocation expenses.

The agreement is consistent with prior city manager contracts, updated to reflect relevant changes in market, competitive comparators, and organizational needs.

For financial considerations, funding for the city manager position is included in the adopted budget.

Contract negotiation was conducted between the candidate and the city's HR and law department staff.

Compensation costs are within industry competitive range and consistent with council direction.

Also, the law department has reviewed and has approved the contract as to form.

So the recommendation is for council and mayor to approve the employment contract for Dennis Marstall and authorize the necessary signatures.

Thank you for the presentation, Pam.

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.

With that, no one's on the board, so I'm gonna start by saying thank you to staff as well as the consulting firm for helping us get to this position in time after our current city manager Bob Leighton announced his retirement earlier this year.

First, I want to say thank you to City Manager Leighton for his service of 16 years to the city of Wichita.

Uh appreciate your leadership in helping the city of Wichita.

I'm also grateful uh to the selection committee and stakeholders who participated in the interview process.

I believe that this council uh received three very qualified candidates, and at the end, uh we had a vote last week of five to two.

Uh moving forward, Dennis Marstall as the next city manager.

Um, his experiences both in local government in city and county from small to large cities like Charlotte and his nonprofit experience bring him to be the most qualified candidate from the pool, and we're looking forward to having the city manager lead the city of Wichita's 3,000 employees and 16 departments.

With that, I will move to that the city council approve the employment contract for Dennis Marstall and authorize the necessary signatures.

Second.

Motion and a second, any further discussion.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um I agree with the last public speaker.

I also have concerns.

So with that, I'd like to offer a substitute motion.

Cited my concerns from the November 24th meeting.

I would move that the city council rescind the offer and begin the process over again.

Second.

Motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

I see none.

We have an all alternative motion, so we will vote on that first.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion does not carry five to two.

We're back to the original motion.

Motion from the mayor, seconded by the vice mayor.

Any further discussion?

I see councilmember Johnson again.

I did not um hit the button, but again, I repeat my concerns from the last meeting, they still stand, and I think that this process, if it should happen again, should be uh one without some of the concerns that I mentioned, and elected officials should make sure that they maintain some distance from the process.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I agree with councilmember Johnson.

Uh Dennis seems like a fine individual, he seems like a qualified individual.

Um, and if he's hired, I do plan on working with him and enjoying his company as much as I can.

Um, I think we'll get along fine.

Um, I just wish that the process was cleaner and I had more faith in uh the process as a whole.

Any further discussion?

I see none.

We're back to the original motion.

Again, uh, Madam Clerk, can you please open the roll?

Motion passes five to two.

Congratulations to the new city manager for the city of Wichita, Dennis Marstall.

Looking forward to new leadership in 2026, and again, thank you to City Manager Leighton for his 16 years of service to the city of Wichita.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Public hearing and request by Interdale Marjoy Apartments LLC for approval of a letter of intent to issue multifamily res housing revenue bonds for Interdale apartments.

Honorable Mayor, members of council, Troy Anderson, Assistant City Manager.

So this is actually this item and the next item are somewhat linked, which is why you may uh notice the Interdale Marjoy LLC that appears in both this item and the next item.

But we're gonna take each one of them separately.

But just to kind of explain why the applicant's intent is to combine these two projects and submit them to the state in January as part of a scattered site application for 9% low-income housing tax credits.

But again, for the purposes of uh today and having separate public hearings for each, we're gonna take each one of these separately.

So a little bit of background, Interdale Marjoy LLC.

Uh it's a Kansas limited liability company that was formed specifically for the rehabilitation of this property at 916 uh and 930 North Broadway into an apartment complex.

Consists of two and a half story 30 unit apartment building with 24 one bedroom units and six two bedroom units.

Um the parcels will commence are concurrently vacant due to uninhabitable conditions.

Project again will be financed ultimately if approved by the state using uh 9% low-income housing tax credits, state historic tax credits, and 35-year fixed loan.

Interdale Marjoy is requesting issuance approximately $8 million in revenue bonds for the rehabilitation and construction of the project.

Based on our review of this project on its own, qualifies for an 85% property tax abatement based on capital investment, utilizing state, federal or utility incentives, and locating within a redevelopment area.

I won't read these, but on the screen in front of you is uh the estimated property tax abatement for the first full year based on each of the taxing jurisdictions.

Project is also eligible for a sales tax exemption.

Um the approximate sales tax exemption totals a little more than 243,000 with the city share being uh almost 19,000.

Cost benefit analysis was performed on the screen in front of you, shows not only the 10 year and 20 year period, something I'd like to point out, and it's something that we're gonna continue to try to work through with Center for Economic Development Business Research, CEDBR on these cost benefit analyses.

These cost benefit analyses were not generally originally designed for low-income housing tax credit projects.

You'll notice down there on the um uh bottom line, some of the uh state of Kansas numbers have very low cost benefit returns.

Coming back up to kind of just really really high level, that makes sense, right?

That the state is foregoing and giving up tax credits and revenue stream in order to encourage low-income housing, right?

And so uh as we continue to work with C DBR, we're gonna continue to fine-tune this to make sure that those numbers are correct, right?

Uh, but just know and understand that the the rest of the taxing jurisdictions all see uh really good on both 10 and 20 year cost benefit returns.

Um, but just looking at the state numbers alone, we wanted to make sure that we all kind of put that out there that again that kind of makes sense that those numbers are extremely low because the state is foregoing that revenue stream.

Standard disclaimer revenue bonds are a mechanism for achieving a sales tax exemption and a property tax abatement in a revenue bond transaction, city's not lending any money, bears no risk.

Owner developer is required to achieve all of its own financing, and again, no taxpayer dollars are at risk.

Um Interdale Marjoy LLC agrees to pay all costs of issuing the bonds, agrees to pay the annual origination fees, bonds will be purchased by Interdale Marjoy or a related entity.

Uh bond documents have been prepared by outside council, but ultimately when we go to bond issuance, those final forms will be reviewed and approved by the city's law department.

With that being said, it's recommended the city council close the public hearing, adopt the resolution and authorize the necessary signatures, and otherwise I'll stand for questions.

Thank you, Troy.

Questions for staff.

I have a couple.

Can I start off with um if this group does not get light tech, will they still move forward with their project?

Um I'm gonna defer to the applicant on this one.

Uh hi, I'm Shane Pullman.

I'm one of the developers on this project.

Um short answer is no.

I can give a longer answer if you care.

Um so the longer answer is that these properties are in such significant disrepair.

I would urge each of you to drive by these properties if you have the opportunity.

Um our scope of work on this is 32 million dollars in excess of that.

And the numbers do not make sense on what the rents could demand if LITEC is not successful.

Um that that is a huge driver behind this.

I I think that we've made a valiant effort in kind of dispersing the funds and the weight that would bear on LITEC as a whole by combining the state and federal credits as long as as well as the historical state and federal tax credits.

So trying to divvy up those and then get permanent financing, deferring part of the developer fee, everything to get the lowest burden on the annual Kansas Housing Resources Corporation tax credits.

Thank you, Shane, and your group for trying to provide affordable housing in the community.

Um we have received multiple um lie tech credit type of applications over the last two years, and unfortunately, have not been successful in actually getting those light credits.

Um that's the reason why I'm asking that question because our community wants affordable housing, but if we don't get these light tech, or you don't get these light tech credits, you're basically saying it's just not financially feasible.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Um I see that you're asking for eight million dollars uh in IRBs uh for 30 units.

So this amounts to about 266,000 per unit, um, which is a high amount compared to what we've seen from this bench on new build.

Can you explain uh just why it costs so much?

Yeah, so um part of the financial projections on this have to do with the utility allowance.

Uh so when we're utilizing LITEC and HUD, the energy standards were raised in the past few years as well.

So the energy standards on these are I mean, they're gonna be some of the most energy efficient apartments that are in downtown Wichita.

Um so that's a huge part of this.

Getting the historical tax credits has its caveats as well.

Historical restorations are an expensive project.

And Interdale is one of the most stunning masonry work I've seen in the city of Wichita, but with that comes a cost.

Um so preserving the historical characteristics of each of these buildings is is a major factor in this, and then the energy standards that have to be adhered to.

And again, they are in significant disrepair.

Thank you, Shane.

Um, I did drive by uh good Broadway and to look at this very property since I knew that this was gonna be uh coming before us on Tuesday, and I saw boarded up windows, and it is in a lot of disrepair.

So I appreciate that you're trying to revitalize that building so that you can provide affordable housing in the community.

Um can you share also?

I know that you just mentioned the masonry is amazing and in that uh building.

However, have have you ever considered what it would cost to demolish and do something brand new, or you're only simply wanting to renovate, and if this doesn't happen, will it just continue deteriorating?

Yeah, um as contradictory as it sounds, it actually is the most beneficial to utilize the federal funding for to achieve the lowest possible rents by the historic revitalization of this property.

So it utilizes so many different sources of funding that that is the best way in comparison to the cost of an entire new build project.

Thank you, Shane.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you, Shane.

So you you guys have the next item too, correct?

Correct.

Okay.

Were these, am I thinking correctly?

Were these paired together for uh LITEC application last year?

You are correct, yeah.

So we're doing what's called a scattered site project and application to where it will be both sides considered in one.

So Interdale apartments as they stand or an existing structure, and then we have under contract 930 North Broadway, which is a vacant lot, which will turn into additional parking.

1240 South Market, which is known as uh Dmarjoy apartments.

Um we also have under contract 1250 South Market, which is a single family home, which will be torn down for additional parking.

Um so we'll do the scattered site, which will be all four of these parcels considered one project by LITEC standards.

Okay, are any of those within uh is it a half mile of another LITEC project?

Um the restriction with when those were built, they are, but not within the time constraints that would restrict these.

Yeah, because it's a couple of years, right?

Yeah.

Okay, yeah, that's that's really all I had from you.

Thank you.

Perfect.

Thank you, Shane, and thank you, Troy.

I see no further questions from the bench.

We will now open it up for public comment.

I see no one from the public.

We'll bring it back to the bench.

This is in councilmember Maggie Ballard's district.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I just want to say thank you for um being willing to entertain investing in these historic um buildings.

It is a very cool building.

I used to deliver meals on wheels there and was appalled that people were actually living in conditions uh such as um in a deal.

So I just wanted to say thank you so much for that.

Uh and with that, um, I'd like to take the recommended action to close a public hearing, adopt the resolution 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.

Public hearing and request by Interdale Marjorie Apartments LLC for approval of a letter intent to issue multifamily housing revenue bonds for Marjorie apartments.

Honorable mayor, members of council, Troy Anderson, Assistant City Manager.

Uh again, this is part two of uh this request, the scattered site application request.

Um, so I'll try to skim through this pretty quickly.

Again, Interdale Marjoy, Kansas Limited Liability Company specifically formed for uh the renovation of these two properties.

This one in particular, 1240 and 1250 South Market.

This project consists of a two and a half story, 26 unit apartment building, 21 bedroom, six studio units.

Um parcels are currently vacant in uninhabitable conditions.

Again, projects will be financed with uh uh a handful of state housing tax credits, historic tax credits, and fixed loans.

Uh this particular project issuance of approximately seven million dollars in revenue bonds for rehabilitation and construction of the project.

This one also qualifies for 85% property tax abatement based on capital investment, utilizing other state federal utility incentives and locating within a redevelopment area.

Um again, I won't read the numbers in front of you, but that's for uh the first full year for each of the taxing jurisdictions.

This one also eligible for sales tax exemption.

This one totals about 186,000, city share being about 14,000.

On the screen in front of you is both that 10 and 20 year cost benefit analysis, uh, the ratios for each of the taxing jurisdictions again, just highlighting that state of Kansas uh and the low-income housing tax credits and our work with CEDBR on the on the cost benefit analysis.

Standard disclaimer revenue bonds are a mechanism for achieving both the sales tax and property tax abatement.

There's no lending of any city money, city bears no risk.

Owner developers required to achieve all of its own financing and no taxpayer dollars are at risk.

The applicant agrees to pay all costs of issuing the bonds as well as paying the annual origination fees.

Uh the bonds will be purchased by Interdale Marjorie related entity.

Bond documents have been prepared by outside council, but final form will be reviewed and approved by the city law department.

It's recommended to city council close public hearing, adopt the resolution, authorized unnecessary signatures, and I'll stand for questions.

Thank you, Troy.

Questions for staff beginning with Councilmember Glasgow.

Thank you, Mayor Troy.

How long is this property set vacant?

I remember doing a fire ride along with uh the fire station off of Broadway, and they were talking about that this often has fires.

I think one night I drove by and then there was a fire going on.

How long is the property set vacant?

I don't know that number exactly, but I know that from everything I've talked to about, it's been applicant for many, many years.

Okay.

Yep.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh the Council Member Glasscock, it's been significantly longer.

It's um, yeah, we've actually had two different groups try and do some sort of affordable housing project, including the neighboring movement with that here a couple of years ago.

I hear about it all the time in the neighborhood, trying to get that building back up and going.

It's a beautiful building, but yeah, um, it's definitely an eyesore and a sore slot in the South Broadway corridor.

May I ask a couple questions to the applicant again?

Again, thank you very much for trying to revitalize buildings that have sat vacant in our community.

Um, can you address how long that building has sat vacant?

I know it's been at least five years.

Um the property owner has owned this for 11 or 12 years, and it was purchased at auction, and I believe when he purchased it, there was still one or two tenants that were in the property.

And again, this relates to the question I asked earlier for the previous item.

If you do not get this Litech uh credit, what will happen with this building?

Um again, this kind of falls down to the challenge of the economics behind this building.

Um so we are we remain hopeful that Litech will you know work out on this.

I will say that this property in comparison to Interdale, the um construction of it being 1918 versus 1950, the construction and the layouts are more conducive to a lessened um budget.

Not that it won't be a significant renovation, but it's it's less run down in comparison.

The construction materials were just much different between those two time periods.

And again, for this specific project is seven million dollars, 36 units, so that comes to about 194,000 per unit.

Um again, trying to revitalize these buildings costs a lot, and you're trying to provide affordable housing.

Um, can you just share again why it's so difficult for things like this to pencil out?

Um, and if you don't get this li tech credit, you won't be moving forward with renovating.

Yeah, um, as you well know, the the light tech behind this is uh is a huge factor because it contributes so much to the renovation cost itself and the budget itself.

Um so that's what really incentivizes this and makes us able to charge the proposed rents as to what they are.

Um and market rate on a property like this just would not be sufficient for what building costs are today for the renovation with this neighborhood and the proposed tenants it would serve.

I I think there's a discrepancy between what their ability to pay the necessary rents for the renovation would be versus what is reality.

Um so LITEC is crucial in this, and you know, uh a associative mine and myself had gone to the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation annual housing conference up in Kansas City in October, and in attending that conference, heard a lot of different um presentations that were specifically geared towards properties like this that were focused on historic, um, that had the emphasis and the need on affordable housing, and we're highly encouraged that seeking a public activity housing bond and tax abatement would go a long way in um furthering the significance of our application.

Thank you again, Shane, and thank you to your team in trying to provide affordable housing in the community and revitalizing vacant lots or vacant buildings.

Um, and I know that this will be again a risk in terms of you don't know if you will get LITEC granted or not.

So good luck.

Uh I think again, this council I can speak on their behalf that we are interested in housing in our community, and we're interested in people that want to build housing or renovate uh so that there is housing at all different price points, and I appreciate that you're trying to revitalize again vacant buildings to provide affordable housing.

Thank you.

Yeah, and um I just want to have one other point too, because I know this was a presentation, and it's quite a shame that they all left before hearing this part.

But um, because I think this is what they were talking about.

Um LITEC in general is the significant costs that come with these applications.

Our group has well over 200,000 into this project already, and this is our second application.

Um so it it takes a significant investment that we have a vision for something to be better here, and hopefully have council members Ballard and Hoheisel's phones ring less about the nefarious activity in their districts.

So thank you, Shane, and thank you, Troy.

I see no further questions for staff or the applicant.

We'll open it up for public comment.

I see none.

I'll bring it back to the bench.

Councilmember Glasscock.

Thank you, Troy.

Thank you for the presentation.

Shane, thank you for developing this project.

Um, I think you're right.

This is what affordable housing can look like in Wichita.

And I think when there's two projects that makes sense, it's these two projects.

These are two beautiful buildings from the outside that just haven't been maintained, and I hope that you can receive flight tech credits on this.

I hope that the state reforms their process to allow more of these projects to happen.

Um but I think this is a win for the community and a win for both uh Councilman Hoheisel and Ballard's district if these properties can be developed and win for Wichita as a whole.

So best of luck, and I hope that you uh achieve it.

This resides in Councilmember Hoheisel's district.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and I'd like to echo council member Glasscock's comments.

Um, but I would also like to point out that in today's world it's hard to get anything done without some sort of government subsidy as far as affordable housing goes.

So let's also keep that in mind as we have ongoing discussions about how to make sure to ensure affordable housing in our community.

So um, with that, I would like to move that the city council close the public hearing, adopt the resolution, 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.

Public hearing and request by Envision incorporated for approval of a letter of intent to issue industrial revenue bonds.

Honorable mayor, members of council, Troy Anderson Assistant City Manager.

Uh, this application, a little bit different, but um similarly.

You may uh recall that Envision has been involved in the disposition of their location at 610 North Main Street, and so in an effort to consolidate their facilities into one location.

Uh, this particular requests considers the remodel and consolidation of facilities into one location at the 2301 Southwater Street location.

Project will allow envisioned to house all of its programs, offices in one location, which will result in the enhanced delivery of their comprehensive services, requesting issuance of approximately 15 million dollars in revenue bonds to finance the project.

However, this is not a request for property tax abatement.

Uh as a not-for-profit 501c3 envision is generally exempt from ad Valeran property taxes anyway.

So, again, no property tax exemption is being requested.

The project is, however, eligible for a sales tax exemption.

Um based on the construction costs, the approximate sales tax exemptions about $615,000 total, with the city share being approximately 46,000.

Standard disclaimer revenue bonds are a mechanism for achieving a sales tax exemption and a property tax abatement in a transaction, city is not lending any money, bears no risk.

The owner developers required to obtain all of their own financing.

Again, no taxpayer dollars are at risk.

Bond documents will be prepared by outside council, but ultimately final form will be reviewed and approved by the law department.

Therefore, it's recommended the city council close the public hearing, adopt the resolution and authorize the necessary signatures.

We do have representative from the applicant here today that answers questions, but otherwise I will stand for questions.

Thank you, Troy.

Questions for staff, beginning with Councilmember Tuttle.

Troy, thank you for the presentation.

Not a question, but just a statement due to a conflict of interest.

I will be abstaining from this vote.

Two questions.

One is for you.

Can you just uh share?

This is a 501c3, so they don't have property tax, correct?

That's between them and the state and the tax allowances that they're given by the state.

But yes, that my understanding is that they're generally otherwise tax exempt.

Thank you.

May I have the applicant come forward and just share the importance of Invision and uh their commitment to the city of Wichita, making sure that uh they continue to provide opportunities for individuals who are uh blind or visually impaired.

Absolutely, thank you, uh mayor and city council.

I'm Mark Eaton, I'm the chief financial officer at Envision.

Uh so Envision was formed in 193, and for the last 92 years, has been grateful for the support of the city in providing employment services and programs uh to the citizens who are blind or visually impaired.

Currently, uh, we have about 100 employees who are blind and visually impaired.

Uh they're in direct labor of the things that we manufacture for the government, as well as our customer service department is 100% employees who are blind and visually impaired.

Um we have uh call center that's 100% blind or visually impaired.

Employees, uh counting information technology also has people that are blind and visually impaired.

Um we also have expanded to services and programs, such as our early childhood development center, where children from five weeks to five years come.

The model is half of the children are blind and visually impaired, half are typically sighted.

So the uh children that are blind or visually impaired start to understand yes, they have a disability, but there's still expectations on life uh for them, and the children that are typically sighted uh learn empathy and learn from the time they were a year old, they're around people that were different, and that's just part of life, and you figure out how to help people out, and they carry that with them for the rest of their lives.

We have a um low vision clinic, uh, people that have miacular degeneration or glaucoma.

We can't do anything to cure that.

We can help those people understand how do you navigate life.

How do you cook, how do you clean, how do you go to the grocery store, how do you go out and do other things in life?

And we're currently serving about 1,600 uh different individuals through those uh services and programs.

The um the products that we sell to the government, uh, we sell at a profit and reinvest that money back into the organization.

The services and programs we typically do not receive any revenue for.

So currently we spend about four million dollars a year on those services and programs that we do not get any reimbursement from the city, uh, the county or the state.

Um the county bought our building at 610 North Maine.

Our commitment to Wichita is to invest all that money back into Wichita, and hence the remodel, and that is the funding.

We're investing it all back into Wichita, and um this is about uh deferring that or not paying sales tax.

That's $615,000.

We we do contracts for uh the federal government.

It might take about 10 million dollars of those contracts to get this $615,000.

Those are very low uh margin, and they're a lot of work.

Um participated in the Gala we rich recently held, and we raised about $500,000 for that, to which we're grateful to the citizens of Wichita that came and supported that.

It's a lot of work, so that this money is significant to us and what we do.

Thank you very much, Mark, and thank you for the continued efforts by your team in helping again individuals who are blind or visually impaired with these opportunities.

I see no further questions for staff or the applicant.

We will now open it up for public comment.

I see none.

I'll bring it back to the bench.

Councilmember Glasscock.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I just want to make some brief comments as well.

Congratulations on moving to this space.

When I it was about 10 years ago, I worked for Envision at the Water Street location, and to see the work that you all do every single day for the blind visually impaired is incredible.

Most of my colleagues uh that worked around me were blind or visually impaired, and uh just to see the talent that they brought to the workforce to have that type of space in our community for people uh is incredible, and we're very lucky to have Envision our community, and I'm glad that you're moving all the location or all the operations to the Water Street location.

I think this is a win in terms of transit and terms of accessibility for people to get to the facility, and so I'll be very supportive of this today.

This resides in Councilmember Hoheisel's district.

Thank you, Mayor.

I like to echo again, Councilmember Glasscock's comments.

This is definitely needed throughout our community, and I do appreciate the investment in South Wichita.

I used to walk right by this location every day on my way to and from school.

So it's very known to me.

But you guys are doing great work out there working with people who are bringing a lot of energy and a lot of experience to a particular field of employment.

So thank you guys for everything that you do.

And with that, I will move that the city council close the public hearing, adopt the resolution, and authorize the necessary signatures.

Second.

Motion and a second, any further discussion.

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 60 with one abstention.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Golf course irrigation improvements.

Good morning, Mayor, City Council, Jesse Kaufman, manager of the golf division, and here to talk about the golf course irrigation project.

So getting to the background, there's four municipal golf courses that are operated under the golf division of the Department of Park and Recreation.

The turf conditions, obviously, the most important part of a golf course, and they're crucial for the quality of play for the patrons.

Enhanced customer experience increases golf the golf system's financial viability.

Irrigation systems systems at all four courses are very aged when we started this program.

This project on October 13th of 2024, staff presented a capital spending plan to the city council for the golf system.

On August 20th of 24, the plan was approved by the City Council and incorporated into the 2025 through 2034 adopted capital improvement program.

It includes $8 million over four years to fund irrigation improvements at the four golf courses.

On December 3rd, 2024, City Council approved the initiation of 3.5 million in funding for irrigation improvements at two city golf courses.

1.5 million for Arthur B.

SIM golf course and 2 million for McDonald Golf Course.

Arthur B.

SIM irrigation was successfully completed this past spring, and the McDonald irrigation replacement is scheduled to begin next month with completion or in spring of 26.

I do want to mention the uh McDonald irrigation uh came back about 300,000 under budget.

So we're very happy with that.

I want to make sure and Claire point that out for this presentation.

Um, an analysis of the situation that the USGA or United States Golf Association says that the expected life of an irrigation system is 15 to 30 years, depending on climate and various factors.

Um aging systems have resulted in continuous and costly repairs, consuming hundreds of staff labor hours.

Downtime caused by inoperable irrigation systems, obviously equals diminished course conditions, decreased course revenue, and most importantly, it has a very negative impact on the customer experience.

Prior to the start of these projects, the last replacement of the irrigation systems at SIM was in 1988, McDonald was 1995, Auburn Hills 2001, and Texas Consalver was 1992.

So most are well, well beyond their their expected life.

Modern irrigation systems are obviously more efficient.

The technology has come a long way in the 30 years since these old systems were put in.

It's a lower water consumption with the new systems, which is way more effective at water placement, which reduces the inefficient inefficient usage of water, lower electrical consumption from irrigation pumps, and lower maintenance cost.

Financial considerations.

The adopted 2026 through 2035 CIP includes $2 million in 26 and $2.5 million and 27 for golf irrigation systems funded with general obligation bonds.

Staff recommends initiating both amounts at this time for a total of 4.5 million.

The golf fund, which as you know is an enterprise fund, is required to fund the annual debt service on any debt issued for this project.

Also, I want to point out the golf system will encumber the 400,000 debt from the SIM project in 2026 and get ahead on the repayment schedule.

The way that we first laid this out, the plan was to pay a minimum of 117,000 toward that debt in 26.

We are fortunate and very proud to be in a situation where we can get way ahead on that payment schedule, pay 400,000 in 26, and we fully expect to continue to do so for at least the foreseeable future.

Legal considerations and recommended action.

The law department has reviewed and approved the bonding resolution as to form, and it is recommended that the city council authorize initiation of the project, adopt the bonding resolution, and authorize the necessary signatures.

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

Thank you, Jesse.

Questions for staff.

Councilmember Hoheisald.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just one real quick.

You talked about a $300,000 savings on the previous irrigation.

Where did we put that money that savings?

Well, there's several funding sources in this project.

So there part of that would be probably going toward that $400,000 payment that we're using.

We there's funding from the obviously the golf system from a park renovations fund that was in place that was transferred to this project, and then the GO bonds.

So we're just at the end of this year, so figuring out how where that money is going to go.

Um we'll do that at the end of this year.

But that would certainly be put toward the $400,000 payment, and also probably allow us to pay even more in the 2027 to pay this debt off as aggressively as possible.

Okay, thank you.

Appreciate it.

Vice Mayor Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

Jesse I just want to thank you for the great job you're doing.

Uh that's why you're repaying that debt back sooner because you're doing a great job, getting a lot of play, maybe too much play, the golf courses.

Um, but but thank you very much.

It it's you've done a really really good job.

And Reggie, thanks for all your support.

Uh, it really means a lot to the golfing community, and it really means a lot to a community to have good, really good public golf courses.

It's not necessarily CEOs are playing there, but it's all those many managers, the people actually make things go that uh that play there, uh including me.

So thank you very much.

I appreciate the the job that you do.

Thank you.

Thanks, Jesse.

I see no further comments from the bench.

We'll open it up for public comment.

I see none.

We'll bring it back to the bench.

The two golf courses reside in council member Glasscock's district.

Mayor, happy to make a motion.

I move that we authorize initiation of the project, adopt the bonding resolution, 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.

Water and sewer rate adjustments for 2026.

Good morning, Mayor and Council members Gary Jansen.

Public works and utilities.

Uh, the item before you is proposed water and sewer rate adjustments for 2026.

This uh presentation will look very similar to what we discussed during the workshop in October.

Uh there includes some additional information that was requested during that period of time.

We've also included a third uh potential option for rate increase that would reflect a more of a target for our debt coverage ratio, which I'll talk about more in just a little bit.

So uh what this presentation includes, there's a lot of information here.

So I'm gonna talk about the rate drivers, including OM factors, um factors related to the capital improvement program.

The utility is very capital intensive.

Uh, there's two items that are impacting uh probably the rates as much as anything now during our discussion today, which I'll talk about it, which is future loss of wholesale revenue and be in our staffing needs.

Uh we'll talk about the rates themselves, the recommended adjustments, uh, the three options to consider resulting debt coverage, and I'm gonna spend a little bit of time on that because the third option I talked about includes uh contemplation of a target debt coverage ratio compared to we've been over the last few years.

Impacts to customers, want to talk about which saw rates versus Pierce Cities that includes some additional information that was requested during the uh workshop.

Uh I want to make sure we talk too about our affordability and assistance programs and then looking ahead at the impacts of long-term water conservation, and then we'll wrap things up.

So we try to project rates generally three to five years out, but because of so many factors impacting the utility our size, it's necessary to evaluate specific issues on an annual basis, just as we're doing now, just as we did around this time last year.

So start by looking at some rate drivers with OM expenses.

Average OM cost increases in the past three years have been 12% in water, 10% in sewer.

We do everything we can to try to combat that, but there's a lot of that that's out of our control.

So looking at some specifics related to that.

On the left is a reflection of what has happened with chemicals.

After holding steady for years, chemical prices have more than doubled in recent years, blue being a reflection of water, green with sewer future projections.

We expect that those will continue to rise.

The chart on the right is just one example of some other challenges we face with staffing.

Within our we have uh increased use of contractors in our water distribution group due to chronic staffing shortages.

Persistent vacancies have driven up the use of contract services over three and a half million dollars since 2020.

So you can see the red shows our salary and benefits.

We're continuing to see an increase in service contracts.

We're working to continue to hire more staff.

We have had some luck in the last year, but we are challenged with competing against the construction industry.

That's where we lose a lot of folks within this group, especially once they get their CDL and find that they want to move on to higher pay.

Um, and so we've got to fill that gap with contract services.

I mentioned that the utilities are a capital intensive business.

Uh a good majority of what's in the CIP, which I'll talk about here on the next slide and kind of break this down, is for renewal and replacement.

So you can see that the pie chart on the left shows that most of the revenue increases the utility needs are for infrastructure.

The charts on the right, uh, the top being for sewer, bottom being for water, also shows in blue, the bulk being for renewal and replacement with our goal to maintain what we've got first and foremost, uh limited on expansion, but I'll talk about specific projects in just a little bit.

Uh and might just take a minute to mention again.

We are a large utility, we have a lot of fixed costs that we have to maintain the system.

It continues to grow as the city grows.

Uh I've talked about some of these numbers before, but I'll mention again that we maintain over 4,000 miles of water and sewer pipes, over 60 sewer lift stations, eight treatment facilities of various types.

We have over 160,000 metered connections, 53,000 water valves, 16,000 fire hydrants, and over 50,000 sewer manholes.

I mentioned those numbers because it's surprising to me at times when we start looking at our budget needs and considerations uh during this time of year, just how large of an infrastructure system we have related to the utility.

So breaking this down a little bit more, uh looking at the rate drivers related to the capital improvement program.

Within the currently adopted CIP, uh we have nearly 900 million dollars of new projects.

In addition to that, 10-year CIP rate drivers include expenses for Wichita Waterworks, BNR, and 229 million dollars in ongoing projects.

So all in the debt that we need to account for is over $2 billion.

Our staff does a really good job of working with the finance department, uh working with our bond council to balance uh what goes into our improvement fund for cash funding versus financing for bond cover uh debt service, actual bonding of future projects, and I think they do a really good job with that to really optimize and maximize where we need to be at on our revenues.

But we have a large again amount of projects, we have a lot to finance.

Might talk specifically about Wichita Waterworks and BNR for just a moment.

Um, in 2019, around then when the city council made a decision uh to start increasing rates to account for funding, almost 900 million dollars in improvements between those two projects.

We started, we've been building up rates since then to be able to spread that out.

You've heard me talk before about generational equity.

Uh, instead of having try to squeezing things in and have uh people pay for a lot of this up front, it makes sense to spread this out.

The WIFIA funding that we were fortunate to utilize to be able to smooth the rates out, finance this over time is over period of 30 years.

The balance of both of these projects generally is through SRF, which is over a period of 20 years.

So as we continue down this road for many years, the revenues that we have coming in from rates, part of those are used to continue to finance those projects.

Specifically leading up to today that I'll address real quick about there being a guaranteed maximum price for that project.

There was for the contract itself.

All of that was put into the Proforma at that time.

It is included now.

We we estimated an overall budget with contingencies.

That part has not changed.

Even with the 3% of change orders that we currently have on that project, that was part of the contingency that was included.

That has not changed.

So anything that we're asking for today, just like last year, this is not a higher rate increase because anything's changed on that project.

One more part of that I will tell you too.

With the ongoing issues we have right now that we're working through that we've talked about with the clarifiers at the plant.

Currently working through those issues with Wichita Water Partners, trying to figure out what a plant is going forward.

There are no additional costs on the city or the ratepayers for that.

Those will be the responsibility of Wichita Water Partners to make the repairs.

All of the costs associated with that as we move forward until we take ownership of the plant, as we have not, will not be additional cost to the city or the ratepayers.

That is not a part of the discussion today.

These rates that we're looking at and recommending for increases are the same we looked at at the workshop in October, so that is not a factor.

Looking to the right side of this, I'll just highlight real quick before I get away from this slide.

You can see the RRs, renewal, and replacement for most of what we're doing again.

We're trying to make sure that we keep in good shape what we've got.

Give you a quick example of item three on the water, the phase water supply, which shows us an expansion.

That is for the recharge basins within our Equis beds well field.

That helps us to optimize our recharge of the Equus beds.

That's brought a lot of value to us.

We do have part of that includes matching funds from the Bureau of Reclamation, 25% federal funds.

Those recharge basins will really help us to keep the aquifer full, providing long-term value for our overall water supply.

Sewer projects are effectively the same.

We do have some projects, including our plant through our Northwest wastewater treatment plant based on growth, may need to be looking at expansion in the coming years.

We continue to evaluate the CIP for optimizing the timing of needing and needed improvements so that we can know where we need to have the proper timing of rate increases.

So one of the factors I talked about that's different this year that is a part of our recommended rate increase is the future loss of wholesale revenue.

The cities of Derby and Valley Center are expected to utilize water from their own water treatment facilities begin in 2027.

They both have untapped groundwater rights that they're going to utilize.

They will still need some water from us.

This chart that you're looking at.

The blue was the prior projected wholesale volume consumption for both.

Orange being the current current projected wholesale volume, those changes start in 2027.

The estimated reduction in consumption is 400 million gallons.

That does support long-term water conservation goals.

So there's value in that for the region.

Our ability to continue to provide water to 11, the balance of our 11 wholesale customers.

But there is an estimated annual revenue loss of 2.5 million dollars beginning in 2027 that we have to offset somewhere because keep in mind all of those assets I talked about, that's still part of our fixed system.

That does not change.

We still have to maintain those same assets and have the ability to have the funding for operations and maintenance, whatever it takes on the capital side because of that large fixed system, even if we're supplying less water to others.

That's 3% of the projected annual volume, one and a half percent of the annual water revenue.

The other factor that we talked about before is staffing related to our biological nutrient removal project.

I mentioned earlier, this is one of the projects that's funded primarily by Wi-Fi and SRF, nearly 400 million dollars.

Project is well underway.

We're about halfway through.

The next item I have for you after this one is actually one of the first change orders associated with that project, but in particular, the expanded operations of BNR require additional positions to meet regulatory compliance.

To do so, it's recommended to add 13 FTEs, and we would convert another part-time position to full-time.

That includes a variety of positions for process engineer, plant manager and supervisor lab staff, OM specialists, and we were splitting that out over 2026 and 2027 as the facility comes online to try to balance the necessary rate increase.

The impact of B and R staffing was not fully realized when 2025 rates were presented.

We knew when this project started that we would need additional staffing.

It did not make sense at that time to try to estimate that cost.

So we've known this was coming.

We knew this need that would be there.

We've talked about this previously in 2024.

It's been part of the adopted budget that we knew these positions would be there.

There's more bases and basins and equipment that need to meet regulatory requirements.

Odor control improvements require more resources, is one example.

Currently, only our operators work 24-7 for our wastewater facilities.

As we move forward, in particular at this site, because of what is needed to make sure we meet the regulatory requirements, can operate the new facility, we will need to be 24-7 for all staff.

That requires more people, that requires more funding to support that.

That is part of the recommended increase today.

One of the things that we talked about during the workshop, uh, Councilmember Holheis will we talk about often, and I wanted to highlight today was an update on what we're doing for biogas.

We currently, you see that top picture.

Uh the methane gas that is a byproduct of the digestion process during wastewater treatment is flared into the environment now.

Um we are looking for a beneficial reuse for gas.

That gas produced at the plant.

We received seven responses for request for information this August for a public-private partnership.

We have a formal request for proposals under development, expected to publish by the end of the year.

They will maintain those facilities.

Ultimately, the city of Wichita would receive revenue.

We don't know what that looks like yet.

Some estimates were around three or four hundred thousand dollars a year.

We're gonna do everything we can to maximize that, but that any revenue generated by the biocast project would then be incorporated into future rate models.

So it becomes part of the big picture as part of the revenue, hopefully has some impact on future rate increases.

Just wanted to show you kind of what that looks like and have a little bit more formal discussion on that.

Okay, so start looking at uh proposed rate adjustments and our first option.

So just so you know what you're looking at here, the orange line where it says 2024 projection.

That was our projection at this time last year for 2026.

Just to show you that there is some flexibility and the need to again evaluate these on an annual basis because there are so many factors that can change.

We at this time last year had estimated a rate increase for 2026 of 6.17%.

I'll show you here in a couple slides what this impact is on a monthly bill.

It will make a little bit more sense to you.

And uh now we are at a recommended increase of 6.23% for 2026.

We're pretty close.

A lot of that has to do with uh looking ahead at the lost revenue from what Derby and Valley Center are doing and what the needs are for BNR.

Trying to look ahead at least the one year again.

We try to project three to five years out, but it's it's hard to be really right on the same spot every year.

You'll see that peak in 2027, uh, where we had projected 6.34%, is now projected to be 7.04%.

I know these are a lot of numbers.

Again, I'll show you the monthly impact of bills, which will make more sense here shortly.

That is related to losing those uh water customers and that volume and that revenue from Valley Center and Derby in 2027.

So keep in mind that peak.

When we saw that, we thought maybe we'd look at the idea of what would it look like to smooth that out, which is the option two I'll talk about in a moment.

Included here again are cost impact of additional BNR staffing, future loss of wholesale revenue.

Not included is funding for changes in lead and copper or PFOS regulations.

Those are things we are working through right now.

Lead and copper requirements at the federal level could have a pretty significant impact on us here in the coming years.

We're trying to figure out where we're at on that and bring more information back to the council as soon as we can.

This does not include revenue losses due to new watering schedules, which I'll talk about towards the end of the presentation.

This does not include additional bond coverage contingency, which I'm gonna dig into here shortly.

Option number two, uh peak in 2027.

What this does is contemplate trying to bring that down.

It doesn't amount to much.

I don't know that this is a real viable option, but we wanted to see what we could do to smooth that out a little bit.

To be able to flatten that out.

Orange is the same, same projections from 2024.

Uh, what happens is that 6.23% bumps up to 6.53.

The 7.04 comes down to 6.88.

That's the best that we could do to kind of try to level this out.

I'll show you what those numbers look like soon.

It really doesn't amount to much change in 2027.

Don't know that this is a viable option, but we'll show you all of these side by side.

Everything stays the same here, what's included, what's not included.

I will also tell you you're aware we've talked a lot about our water reuse master plan that we're developing, our efforts to move that forward.

Nothing that we're contemplating here right now includes any additional funding for our water reuse efforts, but that is something we will want to talk about in the coming year for sure.

Option number three is new compared to when we talked about this during the workshop.

So what this talked about debt coverage ratio, and I'm gonna get into this in more detail in the next two slides after this.

Uh, our required debt coverage ratio is 120% to be able to maintain our current bond rating.

Historically, staff has set our target at 125%.

I'm gonna explain why here shortly.

I'm gonna show you a list of reasons why it makes sense so that we can buy down future risk so we can have some more flexibility within the utility moving forward and really not put in ourselves, potentially put ourselves in a bad spot in case of emergencies that come up.

So, what this does include is providing debt coverage ratios of at least 125%.

Everything else stays the same.

On the not included list, that last bullet where it says not included additional bond coverage contingency.

I should have taken that part out because this does include the additional bond coverage contingency.

So a lot of numbers.

I'm gonna show you these side by side on a table here shortly.

So let's talk about the resulting debt coverage.

Uh the dark red line is the minimum required of 120% to maintain the utilities double A minus credit rating, a debt coverage level of 120% above is required.

I mentioned before that we have tried in the past to have an internal target of 125%.

We have not maintained that or tried to stay at 125% of our recent years in an effort to suppress the rate increases to keep them as low as we can.

We have pushed ourselves down to the 120%, and I'll talk to you here shortly about the challenges that that presents the further we go forward.

You can see there's a lot of lines on here.

So the green line was what those rates were that we had projected.

This time last year for 2026.

You can see if we stayed there, we will drop below, certainly below the minimum required at some point in time.

The blue and the orange lines are options one and two.

They're effectively the same.

Uh, it's only enough coverage to meet the minimum requirement, does not provide a safety net for unforeseen negative circumstances.

The whatever that last color is kind of purple dotted line, that is the rate plan option three that we have now added for your consideration that provides a debt coverage ratio of at least 125%.

Uh, provides us some contingency, provides us uh some room for risk, uh, and I'll I'll talk about one thing in particular related to that shortly.

Looking at this from a different angle.

I know this is a lot of information, but I would bring your attention to the red numbers in the bottom box, uh, keeping in mind that our minimum debt coverage ratio is 120%.

Uh again, that's required to maintain our current bond rating.

Um, and we want to keep we would like to have our internal target at 125%.

So some impacts to the debt coverage, particularly here of why those numbers are starting to come down.

I talked before about which saw waterworks and BNR.

Repayment of the Wichita Waterworks SRF loans, and one of three of the same loans for B and R begins in 2025.

Repayment of another BNR loan begins in 2027.

And then repayment of the big WifiA loan for which saw waterworks begins in 2029.

So that's why we start to see a real push of the barely meeting that minimum debt coverage of 120% because we've got more of that debt coming on for the loans for which saw waterworks and BNR.

So it's good to look at these projections.

We think that's risky.

We would rather not be cutting it that close.

That's why we've included the third option.

So let's talk about the importance of strong debt coverage levels.

This is a lot of information.

I'll highlight this through here.

So as noted by SP Global, all in coverage is a key component of the financial risk profile for an enterprise system like ours.

According to SP, maintaining strong debt coverage leads to the following.

So it enhances financial resilience and the ability to absorb unanticipated cost.

On the next item that I'm gonna present to you for B and R, as we were working through the project, we had a failure at our headworks where all of the wastewater comes into the facility unexpected.

Old infrastructure, we were trying to make it work until we could get it replaced, almost a half a million dollar cost added to the project to be able to respond to that, make sure that we could continue to treat wastewater, not have any problems for the community.

Those are the types of things that we will continue to see as we go forward with aging infrastructure, even with all of our efforts to maintain what we've got.

We have a big enough system, we have an old enough system in some areas, we just never know what might be coming next.

So when we can cover debt service and other obligations with healthy headroom, it is better positioned to manage revenue and expense fluctuations like that.

Facilities investor confidence and low finance, lower financing costs, future financing costs obviously can be impacted by our bond rating.

If you look at the fact that we have over $2 billion in current debt throughout the CIP with new projects and ongoing projects, it's critical that we maintain the lowest interest rates in the future for the best financing.

It supports affordability and rate setting flexibility.

If we have a health healthy debt coverage, can signal adequate rate setting and financial flexibility to maintain operations, reducing the risk of a revenue shortfall again.

So to kind of wrap this all together, better coverage contributes to a stronger financial risk profile and higher ratings.

SP again has indicated that the minimum acceptable all in debt coverage is 1.2 to maintain that rating.

Keep us from looking at too much risk down the road, and especially the impact we could have to future financing.

Happy to come back to that later if you have any questions.

I know that was a lot of information.

So let's look at customer impacts on the recommended options.

This is usually where we see it's easiest to see what is going on the impact would be to our customers.

90% of our customers are residential, and most of those are within the low volume.

So if you the 2025 bill for low volume was $62.44.

Our projection at this time last year, that 6.17% would have added $3.42 per month.

Our option number one bumps that to $3.67 per month.

Option two, which was the one to try to smooth out the increase in 2027 would be 380, and then uh option, and I'm gonna show all these side by side on the next slide, it'll make more sense for for the next two years.

But this is what we're asking you to consider today.

I will come back to this with the recommendation.

Uh, our only ask of you is for 2026 rates.

This would be the impact.

Option three, which allows for 125% debt coverage would be $4.10 per month.

So we range anywhere in there from $367 to $410, where most of our customers are low volume.

I would bring your attention to the low volume line again.

This shows side by side uh, and I don't want to create confusion, but I'll walk you through this of what this looks like for the next two years.

Again, you're only voting on 2026 today, 2027 is not guaranteed.

2027 is not guaranteed.

You've seen just in the last year that it's changed a little bit, about 25 cents per month.

But as of right now, our projections for 2026 and 2027 with option one is the 367 and the 433.

That peak you saw in there at 2027 that we thought we would try to smooth out by changing those rates.

We bump 2026 by 13 cents to $3.80, but we only bring down 2027 by 4 cents a month.

That's why I mentioned before it's probably really not worth that.

Could be still something you can consider just to try to equalize that a little bit.

And then the added option for the 125% debt coverage would be $4.10 per month in 2026, and a projected $4.62 per month in 2027.

Just one more time, that would get us the 125% debt coverage.

Lots of numbers.

Happy to come back to those, and I will when we get to the recommended page.

So what do we do to help suppress rate increases?

Because this is ongoing for us.

It happens across the board with what we do with our utility.

We've got a lot of great staff that are looking out for ways to save costs.

We routinely routinely seek additional operational savings.

For example, I've we've talked about the additional B and R staffing that is needed.

We're using a phased approach to reduce the initial impact on the OM budget.

This additional staffing is also expected to result in $100,000 in contractual savings.

We unified our call center and business operations into the account services division, which is providing a lot of efficiencies for customer service within the utility in particular.

That's an expected annual savings of $85,000.

Another good example is we uh large meter replacements have increased the accuracy of readings.

Six inch meters and above have seen readings increase by an estimated 13 to 15%.

So we're capturing the actual volume of water that we're selling.

We were losing that revenue in the past.

That is pretty significant.

Operational savings are generally not enough to overcome cost increases and other challenges.

One of the things that we have done, especially in an effort to meet that minimum, 120% debt coverage and keep the rates down as we've reduced and redistributed over 40 million dollars in the CIP expenses over the next 10 years.

What that means is we have pushed more stuff out than we would like to.

That adds to our potential risk if we start having failures with any of our assets over the coming years.

We've talked about this, but the reduced bond coverage contingency levels in the financial model is how we try to suppress rates.

If we try to stay right at 120, we will keep our rates down compared to 125.

And I talked about pursuing favorable financing opportunities for Wi-Fi and SRF.

That's done wonders for us for being able to finance those two big projects.

One of the things we've done too since 2018 is had a very concerted effort at looking at optimizing our utilities across the board.

Actual savings includes large meter replacements, which I talked about, a renewal energy program, LED replacement program for lighting and all of our facilities and the things that we do related to energy, those are just some examples.

We also focus on preventative maintenance over correctives.

So we're trying to be proactive as much as we can compared to reactive.

That will save us money long term.

We've had average annual savings of almost $6.7 million as a result of that.

So moving on to pure city comparisons.

We talked about this during the workshop.

I actually have two slides now.

The second one includes additional information that was requested by the council.

If we look at our I 35 corridor, pure cities, uh, Wichita remains at the bottom of that list, which is a good thing.

You can see, I won't run through these numbers.

Kansas City, Omaha, Oklahoma City, Des Moines and Tulsa and Fort Worth.

We are still in a good place.

What we showed at the bottom of this, and so I talked before, just so there's no confusion.

Most of our customers are that lower user.

We can only get data from other communities for the middle user.

That's why this monthly number looks higher.

So we were around $64 for an annual bill for low users.

The mid-user, $7,500 gallons.

So that's what this reflects because that's what we could get from other communities.

You can see at the bottom, we show what the three options look like for a mid-user range is all stays within that $98 to $99 range.

One more comparison I wanted to show you.

This was a request that came out of our workshop to look at some other communities, especially around the Kansas City area.

So this is more regional and not so much necessarily even related to population, but more regional related to Kansas.

So you can see we've got Olatha, Lawrence, Kansas City Topeka, Lavanworth Salina, Manhattan, which toss three options again.

There's only one community on this list that's lower than which taught with the projected increases, keep in mind, and that is Hutchinson.

So we're still positioned in a good place here, we believe for affordability, doing everything we can to keep our rates as low as possible.

Okay, thank you for bearing with me.

I want to talk about assistance programs, and I'll be ready to whiten this down.

Between uh 2021 and 2023, you'll see a bump here in uh uh the customer assistance funds that were used, approximately $4 million in state and federal funds were used to help customers with utility expenses in the wake of COVID 19.

That's why those are higher.

Um, in 2023, there was a specific extended rate relief as requested by the council.

Assistance funds typically come from customer donations and a one-hundredth of one percent of water and sewer rate revenues as year marked by the city council in 2016.

Customer donations to the H2O program more than doubled after introducing online giving options in 2024.

So our customers, our rate payers are also giving to this to provide assistance uh for those that are lower income.

The H2O Care Fund uh provides emergency financial assistance for individuals and families, it's administered by Center of Hope.

It's assistance is available year-round, can provide up to $100.

The rate relief assistance program is managed through our staff.

Um it's again generally available year round, provides a $50 credit for eligible customers.

Those can be combined so folks could get a collective $150 in really in assistance.

I also know the Center of Hope, they do a lot more things with customers to try to help them through, more so than even the $100.

Uh, we've seen them do a lot of good things for customers in need.

Um good stuff there.

We have really good staff that is educated on this, including offering payment plans, which we talked about before, uh, which helps folks kind of maneuver through difficult times and being able to spread out their payments.

Our outreach efforts include the city's website, director, direct customer contact by city staff.

These are outreach efforts to make sure that folks understand what assistance is available.

We have signage and flyers in city hall, community centers and libraries.

We have an annual contract with assistance agencies that we've previously talked about.

Flyers are provided for them.

We've worked with Evergy through some of their events and website promotion at DCF events, and then in 2025, staff attended new outreach events at multiple community centers, and we will continue to do that.

Last thing I want to talk about before we move on to a recommendation is long-term water conservation.

As you know, in September of this year, the city council chose to move forward with long-term watering schedule, uh, which allows watering three days a week.

We do expect that to provide conservation compared to where we've been in the past.

Ultimately, that will likely will have an impact on our revenues.

Um year to date water consumption is down approximately 7% from 2024.

Water sales have declined by 2.7 million dollars from 2024.

Um I mentioned the permanent watering restrictions to three days a week.

We've yet to see what that impact will be because since September we've had fall weather, not exactly sure where that's going to put us.

We'll continue to monitor long-term impacts of the new watering schedule.

Um, what this chart shows then, blue is 2024, orange is 2025.

Um, even though I mentioned 90 percent of our customers are residential, 50 percent of our annual water consumption is from non-residential customers.

So, even as we went through the stage two drop restrictions, uh the impact of revenue was not quite what we thought it would be because most of our commercial industrial customers were still using the same amount of water as they needed to for their business purposes.

But just want to let you know something we're keeping a close eye on moving forward so we can be a part of future discussions.

Having said all of that, uh staff recommends city council approve one of the rate adjustment options, place the ordinances ordinances on first reading and authorize the necessary signatures.

I'm happy to go back to any slides you would like.

I'm gonna go back to this one for now because this has got the real numbers that you're contemplating for a recommendation today.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Gary.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you, Gary, for that brief presentation.

Um, looking at this slide right here, so over the next decade, if it's averaging let's say three three dollars a year, that would be about a $30 increase over a decade.

So putting the the average low volume payment around 90 to 100 dollars.

Okay, that that is something that I get a little heartburn over seeing those rates coming up.

When I first got on council, was it around five and a half percent?

I'm a little grizzled and one of the older council members.

It might have been uh probably at that time, especially before we started discussing these big projects.

Okay, and I do appreciate you showing the um the one year I think we use some extra ARPA funds to uh do the rebate program.

Uh there was a variety of things that were utilized around that period of time, yes.

Okay, and I will tell you, sorry to butt in, but back from that same time too, even prior to when we talked about these bigger infrastructure projects that we're currently undertaking.

Um, you know, I talked early on about chemical and energy costs, they were considerably less.

We have seen such an increase post-COVID uh on a lot of areas that has not settled down.

So our hope would be as we move forward and you talk about the next decade that we start to see some stable age stabilization there, and maybe we don't see this increase every year, but I don't know.

That's why we come back to this every year.

Right, yeah, it's hard to project.

If I could also um your assumption was that we we would stay at it for your the your assumption is that we would stay at the rate uh at the percentage increases that we are currently recommending for the next few years.

Gary, we can go back to the trend.

We actually show a stair stepping down to five percent.

Right.

So you I don't think it's fair to extrapolate and get to a $30 um uh increase over a 10-year period.

Yeah, yeah, I I mean I understand that.

Um, but it also the percent is on the adjustment as well, so it'd be a five percent on the sixty-two dollars and next year it'd be sixty-six dollars or so.

I mean, I I hear you, I understand what you're saying, but uh that's why I'm kind of low ball on it.

$90 or so.

So I appreciate that.

All right, yeah, that's um essentially all the questions I have for now.

Councilmember Glasscock.

Thank you, Gary.

Can we go back to I think it's slide a hundred?

Okay, yep, this is perfect.

So if we're looking at this to make to make sure that we're maintaining strong debt coverage levels, we would need option three through option three is the only one through 2030 that presents um a debt coverage level that's above 125%, correct?

Correct.

So we're having this conversation today.

Every year we come back with yearly rates.

We know that we would need option three with current projections to maintain debt coverage service levels through there.

What would be the harm in setting rates for five years, give people the in give people the foresight and what maybe additional charges will be able to be, and then if there needs to be an a different change, it could come back to council instead of voting.

If we know that we have to maintain the debt service levels at this rate, and option three is the only one that presents that.

What is the harm in setting that?

And if there's something that changes substantially, it can come back before council.

Otherwise, we give people five years' worth of projections to be able to maintain that.

Uh I think the only I don't know if it's harm.

Uh the only thing I would say to that is just the point that you made uh as far as expectations.

When I started off this presentation, I talked about our desire to look at three to five year projections.

And you know, I guess it depends on your perspective.

Even what we're looking at now is not what I would consider a drastic increase from our projection at this time last year, but it is still a change.

I think we would have to try to manage those expectations of uh right now.

I hear a lot about gosh, you said last year it was gonna be this much, now you said it's this much.

We're gonna have to work through that, whether it's one year, whether it's three years, whether it's five years.

I think we we kind of add to that risk, and not necessarily a risk, uh, but the challenge of trying to manage expectations from our rate payers depending on how far we look out.

Well, we know that there's gonna be additional costs due to inflation and maintenance regardless.

So, I mean, each year you're gonna have some cost increase because of just inflationary pressures.

Correct.

Uh there, you know, as we I don't know that I necessarily would see a problem with that.

We would still need to have the yearly discussion and talk about the details and the specifics like I've covered today.

I know there's a lot of information, but I think it's important to understand what drives these recommendations and these decisions because there's so much that goes into it.

What but what I think I hear you saying is if we if the council were to approve a multi-year increase, we wouldn't have these necessarily annually unless there was a significant change in our financial position.

Also, I you know, five years is an interesting period because if you get to year six in 2031, we're actually overcovering on debt.

And so at that time, you may be looking at dropping the percentage increases below five percent because of that change in financial position.

But again, that's that's a long way to predict out.

But what I hear you saying is one-time approval only come back with exception.

Yeah, I mean, if we're trying to maintain the debt coverage level at 125%, makes sense that we set a rate, set rates that we'll be able to do that through five years, and then we don't have to have an annual review.

Citizens would have a better understanding of what their annual increase would be every year.

And then if there is a change, we could have an annual review and come back, but that would only be if there would be a need a change.

So I'd be interested in that.

I'm interested in hearing my colleagues as well.

But coming back every year, we know that we're gonna have some level of an increase, and so I'd be interested just to hear colleagues' perspectives.

Thanks, Mayor Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, Gary, can you go back to slide 93, please?

Maybe just help me understand.

Um, I'm presuming from this that Derby and Valley Center use about 400,000 gallons of water.

They're gonna be using 401 million gallons less than they previously had.

Okay.

They're collectively right now using about 1.4 billion gallons of water, which is the blue chart.

If you look to the left, that's 1.4 billion.

Collectively, that's expected to drop to 1 billion each year, which is a reduction in consumption of 400 million gallons per year.

Any consideration made for communities that increasing their volume?

Other subjects?

We it's I mean, it's possible uh with what we've been through with drought restrictions and other communities, all of our wholesale customers were required to implement three-day a week watering.

I would expect that we won't see an increase in use, but it might depend on the industry too.

There are some growth uh within some of the communities of our wholesale customers, and if they get big commercial or industrial water users, it certainly could go up.

Okay.

Um, can you go back to 10102?

Go to 102.

Help me through this.

Now, so if I'm a high volume user, do I pay a total of ten dollars and twenty-two cents, or is it 342 plus 512 plus 1022?

No, it's 10, it's 1022, and that would be added to that 178.

So if based on that projection, the 20 the 10 the 10.22 cents was what we were projecting at this time last year.

So that's not for consideration.

Our recommendation is the first one that's option one, the 1056, just to be clear.

Okay.

That's 1056 added to the 1782 eight, which was their 2025 bill.

Okay.

Okay.

I appreciate that.

Um lastly, can you go to number 90?

90?

90, yes.

Nine zero.

You made the statement there's there's no additional cost at this time for the water treatment plant, the new water treatment plant.

I might push back on that because we're hiring two staffs to operate that plant and our present plant.

So we actually do have an additional cost.

It depends on your perspective of when that starts.

My point was nothing is new today that we didn't talk about last year that we didn't already have as part of our projections in 2019.

Uh our operational costs, uh you're correct.

We've got two staffs.

We've had that contemplated for multiple years now.

All I was trying to say is we're not, I've had this question asked, especially related to you know, the repairs that are being made.

So I want to be clear about that.

We're not continuing to add costs each year.

The costs that are in that we're looking at from last year's rate increase, from the previous rate increase, those going forward still include those all in costs that we knew that were there from the beginning.

Yeah.

That's all that's all I was trying to get at was that there's uh there's a thought and a contemplation from others who have reached out to me that we just keep piling on.

We're spreading out the funding of all of that over many years, especially the financing of the overall project costs.

Okay, but if we did have the plant come online yesterday, uh we wouldn't have a cost for as much of a cost for operating the old water treatment.

Correct.

We expect to see a reduction in operating costs once the old plant comes offline.

Is that is that something that we will go back and try to get from Wichita Water Partners?

The extra staff we're having to maintain now to operate two plants?

I think we need to visit about how we calculate our losses, and we'll continue to work with our attorneys on that.

Okay.

I would encourage us to do that.

So thank you.

Can you go back um to slide number ninety-eight, I believe.

So with option three, and again, there is a typo as you already mentioned, the last bullet point should be deleted because this actually does cover your contingency.

Correct.

Um can you talk about the importance again?

I know you had a long slide, but for a lot of folks who are tuning in, they want to know why is it so important to have a debt cover ratio of 125%, not just for utilities, but really for the entire system.

Maybe this is more a city manager question of the importance of making sure that we are able to cover debt.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, the cost of our debt depends on our bond rating and how our financial health is determined by the rating agencies.

There are the bond covenants themselves, and those are the legal documents covering our debt for the utilities as we have to have 120 percent coverage.

Don't necessarily have to do that with our GOs, but we do provide uh additional capacity in our in our fund balances so that we can sell at good at good rates, and we are at, as you know, we receive probably better than our rating, even because of our financial condition uh on our GO debt.

The same applies to the utility because we have consistently stayed at at least 120 percent, and usually hovered more around 125 percent or better.

And so there's a predictability in our bill in terms of our ability to fund the debt service annually for the utilities, and I think that's why it's so important.

Should we ever get to a point where the rating agencies question our ability to be able to cover the debt or meet their required coverage ratio, then I think we would see higher higher borrowing costs, which would impact impact rates more than what you're looking at today.

Thank you.

And also in this uh graphic that you have right here, there was already an expected rate increase for this year.

Is that correct?

That's what the orange is.

That was our projection at this time last year for 2026, correct.

Um, and then I wanted to entertain the question that uh council member Glasscock provided and even city manager uh shared the word predictability.

Um a lot of folks want to budget and make sure that they are able to see if there are going to be increases, how they're going to budget their monthly bills or their yearly bills.

Um I am actually interested in seeing how we can provide more predictability for residents.

We all know that everything increases based off of inflation, the cost of individuals that are employed, their rates increase, um, and as you mentioned, chemical prices continue to increase, energy prices continue to increase.

Um, all of these require the rates to continue increasing.

However, having some predictability to help uh individuals who are trying to budget would be helpful.

So I'm in favor of having more predictability as council member Glasscock mentioned.

I'm curious if the other council members are interested in more predictability for again individuals who budget.

Mayor, if I could add on to that, the council that approved us moving forward with the water uh treatment project as well as with the BNR improvements, that was important to them that we do long term projections so we could show predictability, and it's only because of some changes in the market that we've had to vary from those original projections.

So I what you're saying, and what council member Glasscock brought up would be consistent with the council's initial thoughts and planning when we agreed to both of those large capital projects.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thanks, Mayor, and and thank you, Bob.

That was um what we voted for.

I guess my question on setting a multi-year rate for you, Gary, would be what would that rate actually be?

Would it be what we're looking at now?

And we just set that in stone for three to five years, or would it be a different rate?

And how does that impact us?

Um, I think I heard that this would come back if um if the market or something changed, but how would we be impacted doing that?

I think we would be comfortable with the numbers that you see here, whichever option is being contemplated for the next five years to set those rates to the point that the manager made.

Um, if we're able to make those work, uh, we wouldn't necessarily have to do this every year.

I we're good with predictability also.

That helps us understand what we might be looking at for rates at the same time.

Just like it helps our customers, it helps us understand what we we can expect going forward, not knowing where we're gonna end up with this discussion each year.

So I think that could be a good thing for us too.

Gary, if I could put a finer point on it, I think the predictability only comes with option three.

There's too much risk associated with predictability on one and two, because I just even some kind of variation uh on our finances in one year in 27 or 28, um, would probably get us dangerously close to or below the coverage ratio.

So you pick up that flexibility and the coverage ratio, and if things turn out to be better, that you also have flexibility then on the operating the piece for the operations and maintenance.

Awesome.

That was that was my next question on that because option three was the only one that kind of made sense to me to do that.

But I guess our I'm looking at these numbers, would we still drop the percentage rate after maybe five years much lower?

Because that was one of our goals at the time of approval with the council is you had higher rates up front, but we pushed this out over what 30 years or so to get those lower rates later in the term.

What I would understand is if you adopted, let's say, a five-year program in 2030, our target would be that five percent.

So we'd be dropping from the seven percent in 29 to the five percent in 2030.

And then um, and again, only Mac uh market factors would change that.

Okay, I'm comfortable with that.

Councilmember Tuttle.

Thank you.

I was gonna ask about option three, too.

It seems like that's the only way we could do this.

Um, and I I'm just asking Gary, I this is the first time we've heard of this, right?

So we'd have to kind of brainstorm.

But from you and your team, would three years make you feel more comfortable or five?

I I like predictability, but five years, if you look back five years ago to 2020, who would have thought we went through what we went through, right?

And so three years almost brings me a little bit more comfort, but you and your team are truly the expert in in you know predicting out to 2035.

What would be your comfort level?

And I know we're putting you on the spot right now because this hasn't been discussed, and I'm gonna let you rent your your option and not own it, but upon first blush, would you say three or five would make you most comfortable?

Well, I appreciate the comment about the it's my team the team that works, I get to work with every day being the experts uh to the manager's comment, uh market flexibility and conditions, it's been volatile to say the least over the last five years.

That's really is the hard part.

Um, as long as we have the ability to have this discussion when needed, if necessary, to dig into other factors.

I think we can make either one work based on where we've been, three years might be a little bit more uh predictable at this point, but I'd feel comfortable with what we show here, even at five years.

Councilmember Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Sorry, Gary, I'm gonna have an unpopular uh comment.

I understand obviously the importance of us paying the debt for this giant infrastructure, you know, that we've built, but it's really hard for me to have this conversation with all of the uncertainties just with the new water treatment plan, even though we're taking care of it and you know it's being worked on and all of that.

It's just hard for me to increase the rates.

I know we have to pay for it, I get that, but I just am having a hard time.

Can you help me out at all here?

If your concerns are with uh new water treatment plant, um I would tell you that even to the vice mayor's point, all of our expected operations and maintenance costs are included in everything that you're seeing here, and I would reiterate that nothing has changed with this projection because of anything that's going on at the new water treatment plan.

It hasn't changed.

This is where we've been tracking all along whether the current issues had happened or not.

Um I mentioned uh recently that we're fortunate that the council made very strategic investments in our existing water treatment plant.

We did not, the council did not choose to build a new plant because the current plant was ready to fall apart.

Uh but as we moved forward, there were very strategic investments made to make sure that that plant could continue to operate as we needed, not expecting to be where we are now, but we needed to stay online and keep moving forward.

Um, as you all know, you've made the decision to make convert that plant to emergency purposes in the future.

There's a lot of stuff, equipment, things are gonna continue to be used, so all good investments.

Everything, all of that, all in is a part of what we're talking about.

It's not impacting, it's not hasn't changed, it hasn't increased this because of the Wichita Waterworks.

Uh, we will get the plant fixed, we will get it operational.

I don't know when that'll be, uh, but we do not expect to have any change or impact to cost or the rates as a result of it.

Gary, could you go back to the pie charts on our expenses?

It's just a reminder on the cost associated with our infrastructure.

That purple portion, a lot of that is for underground expense.

And I don't know that any of us want to be in a position to talk about continued erosion of the condition of our underground infrastructure because we had to short uh our rates uh in order to address those needs, and nobody wants another boil order that we suffered through a few years ago, and um there was a lot of discussion at that time regarding uh reinvestment in our underground infrastructure.

And so what you're approving, yes, has is does impact the debt for the new treatment plants, but more importantly, it finances what we need to do in order to maintain the condition of acceptable condition of our underground infrastructure.

And that's I think to be honest with you, that was one of the problems we had in delivering rate messages when I first came here is there was a lot of discussion about size of the increases, but not looking at the consequences of holding back on rate uh increases and not fully funding the utility in order to make it a sound business and have a predictable water source and sewage treatment operations for our community.

So I I understand the concerns about the new treatment plant, and I I I concur with what Gary's saying regarding the protections, and we've had that discussion with the council regarding next steps and how we protect ourselves going forward.

Um, but these recommendations are not to make uh um up for the inadequacy of the current construction process and the fact that we don't own that plant yet, it is still owned by Wichita Water Partners, and they have the liability to give us a plant that works, um, and we will not accept it until we know we have a long-term can uh um commitment on terms of the operation of that plant.

I guess it's not as much the money of making their um increases, it's just the timing of it, it just is kind of a struggle.

So thanks.

Vice Mayor Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh I would not favor doing a three to five year set rates for three or five years.

I think if you keep your eye on the ball, then you are paying more attention to it.

So out of sight, out of mind.

If we don't look at it for two or three years, it's out of out of sight, out of mind.

Um, I think we should look at it every year.

So that's where I sit.

I would um add a quick comment to that.

Even if something passed with either a three or five years, every workshop every year, this could come up.

I mean, we'd had this workshop in October, so we got to see all of this information prior to today, and the October workshop meeting was the time that we got to see the options and also the rate increases that were already expected.

However, there was an addition to the expectation.

Um so I would concur that we should always be looking at this on a yearly basis, and I would say that every year there needs to be a workshop specific to water and sewer.

Um, and I would also encourage a workshop specifically to public works.

Um because as Gary mentioned earlier, I think a lot of folks um don't know how big the system, the public works and utility system really is.

You mentioned 4,000 lay miles of pipes, et cetera.

And and I think that it's important to remote our community that among the core functions of local government are police, fire, and public works, which means your streets, your sewer, your water.

And so I would like to always have I think a um a workshop once a year that focuses solely not just on water and sewer, but another one on just public works, so streets, um, and then another one on police and another one on fire.

I think it's good for the community to see how their investment into these core functions of local government are serving the people of Wichita and how not just how it's being utilized, but the funds needed to pay for these services.

So I just want to say thank you to your staff.

Um, and I know Esau mentioned a little bit earlier.

We here on this council are very grateful to your public works and utility staff, and we're very grateful, especially during the winter times.

I mean, just yesterday, uh, your crews were out uh over the weekend treating roads, making sure that everything uh was safe uh for our community as much as possible.

And so I just want to say thank you to your staff.

Thank you.

I value them too.

Mayor, if I could just jump on that a little bit.

This is too big a business operation not to have an annual report, so we would definitely have to we would definitely bring something back in October is always been a good time to come back.

Um if uh City Manager Marsdall is willing to do this, we had already teed up as a request from the bench previously uh discussions.

I probably starting in January on our decision support tools and how we make recommendations on the various classes of infrastructure improvements.

So that council should expect that starting January or February until we get through all of our uh asset classes or infrastructure classes.

Thank you, City Manager Leighton.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I I think what a lot of people's consternation is with this is how much it hits um poor people, working people, people on a fixed income.

I I've been consistent on it.

I've been a pain in your guys' rear for four years on this.

I think you can say that for sure.

Um, but for example, uh cost of living adjustments, people on social security or federal um disability.

This year is 2.8% increase.

Last year's 2.5%.

The year before that's 3.2%.

We look at these increases, and what we see is a steady um share of people's income, especially people on disability on fixed incomes that are going towards these.

We need to pay for this.

I I'm 100% on board with that.

I just would like to see something that protects people a little more, so that way less of their money is going to it.

Um I have a widow on my district who lives on eight thousand dollars a year in Social Security.

Uh that's pretty tough to do, especially with additional chunks taken out.

And so that's why I brought up the 10 years, how much this is increasing over 10 years.

That's going to continue to cut into people, poor people, disabled people, again, seniors living on the fixed income.

So I'd like to see something that's a little more top-end heavy as far as uh adjustments goes to take a little less bite out of the working people, out of the people who have less and less to work with in the upcoming years.

So uh for whatever part I have in this discussion, that's what I would like to see.

I might mention just one more time real quick, Councilmember Hull Island.

I appreciate that.

And I just came back to the slide and won't spend any time on it again.

I know you know this because we've talked about this, but uh we've got over $60,000 a year in assistance program funds available.

We have seen a lot of folks take advantage of this.

I might mention again each year we have thousands of payment plans in place.

Not everybody stays with them.

There are no finance cost payment plans too, just to try to help spread things out for folks at different times of the year when they're challenged to make their monthly payments.

So we do a lot of our staff uh is educated to make sure that they provide that communication to all of our customers, especially those who might be challenged, as you talk about.

So we're doing hopefully everything that we can to also provide that type of assistance.

Well, I can't.

If I could yeah, if I could, Mayor.

Um if you look even in the time that we had supplemental uh assistance from the federal government for utility payments, we never got to the eighty thousand dollar range.

You could, I think you could designate some utility additional utility funds for assistance programs that would be targeted similar to the way HTO HTO H2O is targeted, and I don't think you'll hurt the performer.

So you could take it to an 80,000 or 100,000 dollar level, which would exceed what the demand for the program has been, and be able to help those who truly are struggling who are on lower fixed incomes.

Um, and I think our pro we have the program guidelines in place to be able to do that.

Right, and it's also tough to get the word out on these programs to a lot of people who are needing, but even if they're on a plan, they still have to pay that.

That's that's still money that they have to I know I agree.

But I'm not talking about a payment.

I know, I know.

I'm I was talking to Gary's earlier point.

So again, yeah, though that's just my my opinion, and I look forward and on the projections, and that's just that's what gives me hardware right there, is just additional funding that gets taken out of the lower end people who they don't water the yards because they don't have the extra revenue and whatnot.

So that's where I get my my heartburn.

Vice Mayor Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Council Mayor Hose, I I concur with your thoughts.

Um, it does hit people harder.

Uh even the raises we're about to give, or hopefully give uh firefighters, you know, 3.5 plus 2.5, 6%, they're still gonna fall behind because the rate's going up seven percent.

Or your unemployees are you know five and a half percent.

So I I do I do struggle with that.

Um hopefully even get down to that five percent or lower, uh, get to where inflation is.

Um secondly, I think to the mayor's point, I think we we can have a workshop every year, but if we have to look at rates, that will probably guarantee that we have a workshop every year.

Umas if they're set for three or five years, it could just float by and we not have one because they're already set.

So we could it depends.

Um so I just think that would guarantee that we do have to look at it every year.

Any further questions from the bench?

I see none.

Thank you, Gary.

We will now open it up for public comment.

Uh my name's Doug Ballard.

I'm live in Riverside in District Six.

I'm kind of interested in water.

I know I've got a couple comments and uh a couple questions that may seem to be unrelated, but they're not.

Uh my comments are um to Gary, what is what is our leakage rate.

Gary, uh we'll continue with the whole questioning.

Okay.

What is our leakage rate?

How many mile speed of uh water main do we have 12 inch and bigger over 40 years old?

And you may not know that, but you understand why I'm asking the question.

Uh I know we don't ever discuss it here, and you and I've talked about it before.

One of the problems is fescue grass.

So I was it's too bad that we couldn't have years ago gone out and put a separate meter on irrigation systems to water our grass.

Uh that is an extreme luxury, and it's at the expense of the rest of the community.

We should have never gone down that direction.

We've wasted enormous amounts of water by water and a grass, it should be grown 200 miles north of here, and has to be over mown, over fertilized.

A lot of people catch the clippings, they send it to the dump, and that nitrogen that they just put on their yard is gonna leach into the uh our water system.

So I wish you would mention that don't have to be today.

Uh wish there was a more progressive rates on water.

Uh I think people that use over will just say 15,000 gallons a month.

I think they should really pay for it because that affects the uh our capacity, especially in the summertime.

Uh the other thing is uh, and I know this seems unrelated, but it's one of the main problems.

If today, if I had a magic one and I could uh put a 20-year moratorium on the city limits, that would solve a lot of problems that you guys discuss on a weekly basis.

I think the city is doubled in size in the last 50 years, and uh that creates a lot of problems.

So I work for mechanical contractors, so I know a little bit about infrastructure.

It gets old, and uh by making the pipes longer, you have to add a lot of other stuff to make sure the uh domestic water, sanitary sewer, storm water, plus there's always streets usually on top of them, so it really creates a lot of problems.

Anyway, that's that's all thank you.

Gary, is there any way you can answer some of the questions that were posed?

Talking about the uh comment about leaking pipes.

I don't have the data in front of me, but what I will tell you it's that speaks well to the manager's comment when we looked at the pie chart about the bulk of our CIP being from renewal and replacement.

We have a lot of underground pipes.

We've talked about 4,000 miles of water and sewer pipes.

Uh part of our decision sport tool that the manager also talked about as we do monitor leaks, we monitor breaks.

Um there's not enough resources to make all of our pipes new, so we have to fix them as we go.

We have to strategically, based on that DST, make the decisions at the right time when pipes need to be replaced and need to be upgraded.

I could not agree more, and we are using that data.

I don't have it in front of me.

That's a lot of data uh depending on specifically what's being asked for, but we're trying to keep our overall system in the best shape that we can uh without looking at rate increases that would be double what we're talking about today to be in a different spot.

I think we've done a really good job with that.

Thank you, Gary.

Any further public comments?

I see none.

I'll bring it back to the bench.

Councilmember Glascock.

Thank you, Mayor.

I don't see any of my colleagues on the board, so I will make a motion.

I move that the city of Council approve option three from 2026 to 2030 for water and sewer rates.

Place as presented by staff.

That would be for 2026, 7.11, 2027, 7.52, 2028, 6.98, 2029, 7, and 2035.

Um I would move that we place the ordinance on first read and authorize the necessary signatures.

Second.

Motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

Councilmember Tuttle.

So you're going with option three and five years.

Correct.

Would you entertain a friendly amendment to have it be three years to start and try as a pilot maybe for three and see how it goes?

I'm open to that.

I'm open to that.

I I it just I think that and I cannot obviously speak for count for Vice Mayor Johnston, but five years, like I said, it's just a long time in our world, and three just gives me a little more comfort.

I hear what Vice Mayor Johnston is saying about staying on top of it and staying vigilant.

You know, I'm I'm so glad that somebody wakes up and thinks about water and water rates every day, right?

Because we're not.

Um, so I'm sure you'll keep us vigilant, and Gary will make sure that you know it's relate to us.

But three just provides me with a little comfort if you would entertain a friendly amendment.

If not, I understand, but I just thought I'd mention it.

Thank you.

Can I add an additional friendly amendment?

That every October we will have a workshop regarding water and sewer rates.

I'm okay with both of those.

I'll maintain my second.

All right, so we have a motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes four to three.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Change order number one and transfer of funds for biological nutrient removal plant two.

Package two.

I think that it should.

So I talked before about our BNR project, biological nutrient removal project.

We are about halfway through overall delivery of the program itself, which is multiple projects.

This is the first change order we brought forward, and I'll explain kind of how that's worked and the timing and the reasons why.

So the B and R program consists of six construction packages.

Today we're talking specifically about package two, which the bid was approved in March of 2024, and package four approved in June of 2024.

The contractor for these projects, same contractor, identified value engineering items for each package.

That was a critical part of our program moving forward to make sure that we had value engineering practices in place, saving overall program funds.

Construction contracts also include a work change directive process that allows the contractor to begin work prior to issuance of a formal change order.

Projects of this size need the ability to keep moving forward.

This has worked well for us on other projects, including the water treatment plant.

Package two focuses on aging infrastructure and odor control, particularly at plant two.

Package four focuses on uh new solids by uh dewatering system.

Work change directives for package two to this point now, as we've gone along and kept moving forward, have exceeded the value engineering savings.

That is why we're here to request this first change order.

Package two change order number one is made up of 22 work change directives.

The two largest work change directives.

I mentioned this in the previous item is nearly $500,000 for emergency bypass pumping.

I'll talk about more details on both of these in just a moment.

$2.5 million for clarifier mechanism rehab, not the same type of clarifiers we talk about in the water treatment process, just so you know.

Package four change order, then we have a deduct based on value engineering of 1.3 million dollars, which will factor into this overall funding, which you will see on the last slide.

In July of uh talking about the emergency bypass pumping in July of this year, multiple failures occurred at the influence screenings building.

Uh replacement with new is planned with a BNR project.

Our timing obviously was not ideal to have that failure, but to the point I talked about before during our rates discussion, even with our best intentions and efforts.

We have a large enough system, we have uh uh assets from a certain area that we will see failures.

It's gonna happen.

We just don't know when and to what magnitude.

Uh, that will be replaced in the next few months.

The temporary emergency bypass pumping was required in order to install spare parts to keep the old equipment operating.

Bypass pumping of up to 30 million gallons a day of wastewater that's coming to this facility is a significant effort.

Uh, and the car cost can add up quickly.

Donlinger Wildcat provided timely bypass pumping during this time, saved us a lot of headache and troubles that could have resulted from not being able to do that.

The clarifier mechanisms uh for also for plant two.

We have three primary clarifiers that were to have rehabilitation work performed on the upper portion of the rotating mechanisms.

That was the part above water level.

As the basins were drained, it was discovered that considerable rehabilitation would also be required below the water line.

This was not expected, but there was no way for us to get to it during the point in time that we're designing the project.

This is requiring additional work by change order.

The cost to replace uh with brand new mechanisms was similar to the additional rehabilitation, but new mechanisms have an eight-month lead time.

The contractor was able to rearrange the construction schedule to minimize delay.

We'll still be able to complete package two within the overall BNR schedule, which is a good thing.

We've chosen, made the decision to move forward with new mechanisms as opposed to rehabilitation because the cost is effectively the same.

The cost of the change order for package two is just over 3.2 million dollars, which is 2.8% of that specific budget for package two.

The deduct amount of the change order for package four is three percent or just over 1.3 million dollars collectively.

The net increase, assuming your approval today and construction contracts is just under $2 million, which is six tenths of six-tenths of one percent of the overall BNR program and the total budget.

Funding is available within the overall BNR project budget, especially with our ability to use the funding from package four that's now available.

Staff recommends city council approved change order number number one for package two, change order number one for package four and authorize the necessary signatures.

Uh we are still still tracking for an overall completion in 2027.

We're moving forward with odor control improvements now.

We'll start to see should see some uh noticeable improvements to odor control in the first quarter of 2026.

So we're excited about that.

I'd be happy to stand for any questions.

Thank you, Gary.

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.

The BNR facility resides in Councilmember Hoheisel's district.

Seems like it's district three day today.

Um thank you, Gary.

I appreciate that.

Just a note to everybody, this is still within the overall budget of the project.

Um, so I move that the city council approve the transfer of funds, change orders, and authorize the necessary signatures.

Second.

Motion and a second, any further discussion.

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

I'm gonna ask our council members, do you want a 20-minute break right now or an event?

Okay, we'll take a 20-minute break and return.

Um, it's to a price woodard junior memorial park and utility infrastructure improvements for Chester I Lewis Park.

Hello, good afternoon, Mayor City Council Tim Kellum's uh public works and utilities for the record.

Uh Finley Ross Park is located in downtown Wichita and features a sunken walkway uh with large wire fountains.

Uh for those of you that have been to a number of these uh kind of across the country, they are at the time when they were put in, they have um they were great ideas, but over time the last cities have kind of worked to renovate them.

They do cost quite a bit, these sunken uh w uh large water fountains and things like that.

While they are pretty, they do uh take quite a bit to maintain, and they are pretty stoutly in their construction.

Um in 2023 and 2024, CIP funds were uh allocated to the park for improvements after further valuation estimated improvements, uh exceed the cost uh that was originally in the CIP.

Uh working with the community um and the local NAACP branch, uh, worked together, put a plan to do fundraising.

Um, that was a couple years ago.

Uh, they have um been working on the uh on their museum on the Kansas African American Museum, and um anyways, funding has not um come along as as we had kind of anticipated.

Um, so we are looking to uh reallocate these funds for Finley Ross Park.

Staff recommends reallocating them to uh for the funding for Friendly Ross Park to uh address deferred maintenance and enhance a price water junior memorial park as well as utility improvements over at Chester I Lewis or Fecton Square Park.

Uh just to wanted to provide a graphic here, uh knowing that these two are the the next closest spaces.

They are uh right along Douglas, they do get lots of uh activity.

Uh obviously A Price Woodard uh Junior Memorial Park is along the river, and um we know that with the recent renovations for Chester I Lewis, uh, there's been a lot of activity over there, especially working um with the school.

Um so we feel that this would be an appropriate use for refund or if we for reallocating uh these funds for Finley Ross Park, knowing that we um don't have enough funding to move forward with the larger improvements that were uh planned there.

Um funding, uh we would still continue to do what we can to maintain Finley Ross Park, but in terms of a full-scale renovation or things like that, that would then be um deferred to a later date.

Anticipated repairs and modification at A Price Woodard Junior Memorial Park would include a number of things, but I did want I do want to note that we will do a site analysis and public engagement before I get into these to just make sure that we are tracking, but this is staff's general list on things that can be improved and we'd like to uh address at A-Price Woodard.

Uh removal of the former restroom and reallocation or relocation of the existing electrical closet.

Um that one is an eyesore.

Um if you've been over there, you know it's it's not in great condition, especially now that we have the new uh restrooms there on site.

This is obsolete.

Um adjusting product uh pedestrian circulation access.

If you've walked down through there, um you'll notice that while it is grandfathered end for uh accessibility because uh due to its uh construction date, um, we can do better.

We can have better access throughout the site uh in terms of pedestrian circulation.

There are a number of retaining walls and things like that, little hiding spots, things along those lines uh that we can help improve to help make sure that it it's a more uh safer space and feels safer uh when people are in it.

Elimination of unused utilities, we do have a number of utilities that run through there, especially uh pertaining to electrical closet and some of the uh irrigation out there.

So we'd like to look into those and make sure that we can get out what we can, make sure that we don't aren't leaving things just to just to sit in the ground.

Addition and modification of the retainables, as I mentioned, that kind of goes into uh site circulation as well as um just having eyes in the park, make sure that we are providing a safe space and people that are in there feel safe.

Uh it's amazing how uh modifying walls or cutting down shrubs and relocating them or choosing how uh site uh is put together uh can really change the atmosphere of a space.

The other thing is that we are experiencing some erosion throughout the site, so retaining walls would be in strategic locations to help with uh retaining walls uh and help with those erosions that are the erosion that's happening on site.

Uh addition and modification of site amenities, looking at at benches, are there other ways that we can activate the space more?

Are there ways that we can uh encourage more use of the site?

Uh so that's kind of where site analysis would be done to kind of find those weak points and make sure that we can highlight um or minimize uh the weak points and highlight uh the great amenities, especially all the the nice mature trees that are out there.

And one of the big things about this would also include um relocating uh the Dockham Drugstore sit-in-lunch counter sculpture to the park.

Uh so that would be a um one of the main component as part of this project.

And as I mentioned earlier, uh we will be doing uh site analysis and the public engagement uh to help make sure that we're meeting the expectations of the community.

Financial and legal considerations, the 2026 through 2035 adopted CIP has a million dollars in ongoing projects for Findly Ross Park, and that is funded by Geobonds.

Uh staff recommends reallocating and initiating uh 900,000 to APRIC Woodard Junior Memorial Park, and then the remaining 100,000 would go to Chester I Lewis Reflection Square Park.

Um the improvements at Chester Idee Lewis would be to um look at reconfiguring and relocating the uh electrical and irrigation components right now.

They're they're not in a super great spot for staff to uh to address maintenance and uh be efficient at doing their job right now.

Um relocating that into a better spot would uh help increase uh productivity for the staff start having to go through uh the current location where it is now.

Law department has reviewed and approved the bonding resolution as to form.

I recommend that city council approve the projects, adopt the bonding resolution and authorize the necessary signatures.

Have a stand for any questions.

Thank you, Tim.

Council member Glasscom.

Thank you, Mayor.

First, I wish there was a photo of the former restroom near uh A Price Woodard Park because it is incredibly dilapidated.

So I'm glad to see that removed, um, especially with the development happening on the West Bank.

I think matching that on the east bank is a very positive move.

Um and especially the removal of that restroom.

I did have one quick question specifically about Finley and A Price Woodard.

There's two large structures there that have historically been used as water fountains.

Obviously, the city is moving away from that towards conservation.

Is there plan to what is the plan with those water fountains?

Is it a completely remove the water fountains and establish something new?

Can you maybe elaborate on that a little bit more?

Sure.

No, I don't think that there's plans to eliminate those water fountains.

I think we're still under the guidance of the water conserving policies.

So if that isn't enacted, then we would then shut down the water fountains.

But I think while we're still approved to do so through the watering restrictions, we would then have them on and working.

Okay.

I do have a question for the manager.

What are our policies regarding fountains that the city owns?

Because I don't I don't foresee in the future that we're going to be turning those back on anytime soon.

Um actually I think now that we're in a different uh stage, we actually could consider putting fountains, re restoring our fountains.

Um, I don't think um, given our current um water conditions that um it warrants us not having them operate next year.

Okay.

However, uh, you know, we have I've shared with a few of you what some cities have done creatively with old fountains that sometimes are difficult to maintain, and there's some space uh or some um creative ways of creating uh of establishing uh gathering areas and uh focal points in parks that don't have to necessarily be traditional fountains, and I think we could explore something like that here.

Um would not be a big maintenance issue and actually could turn out to be an attraction.

Yeah, I mean I'd be very interested in exploring that um and getting away from maybe what we've done previously.

So thank you.

Placemaking.

I can just keep working for that.

Any further questions for Tim?

I see none.

We'll open it up for public comment.

I see none.

We'll bring it back to the bench.

Um, this is in council member Johnson's district.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Tim.

Um, just for the record, I have uh spoken with the NAACP about Finley Ross and this potential action from the council, and they are good with that.

They are continuing to work towards their efforts.

So if there is a policy change for future council on fountains, um, make sure that you look council member Shepherd in uh because he'll be working with them on that because they're looking through a design piece of Finley Ross.

Um, but with that, I am supportive of this.

I think this is a good thing, and especially on the East Bank.

So I would move that the city council approve the projects, adopt the bonding 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.

Before we move, I'm gonna use my point of privilege and just welcome the Southeast High School students who are now in attendance at our Tuesday council meeting.

Thank you for joining us.

Uh, they're here to learn about civic engagement and civics education.

So thank you for joining us for a live city council meeting.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

2026 capital improvement program funding for heavy equipment replacement and snow equipment replacement.

Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the city council.

I'm Aaron Henning with the Department of Public Works and Utilities.

Uh today we are seeking your initiation of two recurring and long-standing capital improvement program projects that fund the replacement of aging fleet assets.

The first of those projects applies to heavy equipment assets used in non-enterprise funded operations.

Those assets include equipment like the dump trucks and skid steers used in the maintenance and repair of city streets and parks, aerial bucket trucks used to service traffic signals and outdoor lighting, and tow trucks that serve the city's entire rolling fleet.

Of the roughly 1400 vehicles and equipment assets comprising the city's total total rolling stock.

Oh, sorry about that.

About 239 presently meet the non-enterprise heavy equipment designation because they are relatively expensive, long-lived assets.

Debt financing is used to support their replacement.

The adopted CIP includes just over 35 and a half million dollars in heavy equipment replacement funding over the next 10 years, and just over 3.9 million is budgeted for 2026.

Both the recurring CIP budgets and targeted equipment replacements are informed by an analytical model, which we refer to as the fleet decision support tool or DST.

The DST was developed several years ago in collaboration with Wichita State University to help staff optimize replacement intervals and the balance between low ownership costs and high operational viability.

At present, that optimized replacement interval for heavy equipment is 13 years.

As shown in the table, the DST prioritizes the replacement of 26 heavy equipment assets in 2026.

These assets have met or exceeded that optimized 13 year replacement interval and include multiple dump trucks, skid steer loaders, and other equipment essential to various operations performed by the departments of park and recreation and public works and utilities.

Before finalizing these replacement decisions, though, staff will be conducting an intensive assessment of these and other heavy equipment assets.

In addition to age, the intensive assessment, which is an industry best practice, considers factors like total miles driven, total hours of operation, total service cost to date, and overall physical condition.

So as staff continues that analysis over the next few months, if another asset should end up scoring lower on the comprehensive condition assessment, or another asset should unexpectedly fail beyond reasonable repair.

The final mix of replacements may change a little from what's shown here to best ensure that we're making the right replacements at the right time and maximizing those investments.

A few examples of heavy equipment targeted for replacement in 2026 include a 20-year-old roll off, sorry, rollback wrecker or tow truck, which is used by fleet maintenance staff to recover disabled city equipment via a tilting hydraulic flatbed, uh 17-year-old concrete mixer truck that is employed by street maintenance staff to ensure the cost effective and timely delivery of concrete used in the repair of city streets, bike paths, and other assets.

And finally, a 14-year-old spray truck that is used by park maintenance staff to control weeds in parks and other green spaces throughout the city.

The second CIP project is much smaller by comparison and funds the replacement of aging snow and ice removal equipment.

The adopted CIP includes nearly two and a half million in snow equipment replacement replacement funding over the next 10 years, and just over 112,000 is budgeted for 2026.

These replacements are similarly informed by the fleet decision support tool, which currently prioritizes the replacement of two so two salt spreader and four snowplow attachments in 2026.

All of these have exceeded the optimized 15-year replacement interval for snow equipment, and all are, of course, critical to the city's winter response efforts.

Again, the adopted CIP includes just over $3.9 million for heavy equipment replacement and just over $112,000 for snow equipment replacement in 2026.

Staff requests initiating the full amounts.

Staff recommends that the city council approve the projects, adopt the bonding resolutions, and authorize the necessary signatures.

And I'm happy to stand for any questions.

Thank you, Aaron.

Questions for staff.

I see none.

We'll open it up now for public comment.

I see none.

I'm bringing it back to the bench.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thanks, Mayor.

If we initiate those funds and you make the order, what is the wait time on that?

Is it a number of years or would that all be delivered next year?

Uh kind of varies depending on what the piece of equipment is, but I would guesstimate that we're around six months to maybe pushing a year and a half, depending on what the asset is.

Okay.

Thank you.

With that, I will go ahead and move that the city council approve the projects, adopt the bonding 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.

Good afternoon, Council and Mayor.

I'm Jason Hood from the HR department.

I'm actually at the next three items for you, but the first one is the fire contract.

So let's get started.

The duration of the contract is for three years from 2025 to 2028.

It was ratified by the IAFF members on November 1st, 2025.

The agreement covers 490 employees within the fire department, and the agreement provisions will be incorporated in the revised budget.

Highlights of the agreement, the GPA increase for 2025 is going to be 3.5 GPA.

A merit increase equal to 2.5%, and OSTEP employees receive a $750 bonus on their anniversary date.

And for 2027, 3.5% GPA, a 2.5% uh merit step, and OSTEP employees receive a 750 dollar bonus on their anniversary date.

Uh there is a new donning and doffing pay provision.

It pay provides pay for required pre and post shift activities.

So firefighters working a 24 hour shift receive 4.6153 hours of pay per pay period at the firefighters hourly rate, and employees on a 40 hour schedule receive 3.2966 hours per pay period.

And donning and doffing pay is included in the regular rate of pay, affecting overtime and pension calculations.

This pay cannot be combined with any other contractual or statutory compensation for preparation for for preparation, standby time, or similar activities.

Longevity pay.

So longevity is calculated by dollar amount multiplied by years of service per month.

So originally uh at six years it was four dollars, it's going to eight.

Um it was uh at 11 years, it goes from 11 to 13 dollars.

At 15 years, it goes from 13 to 15 dollars, and at 19 years it goes from 15 to 17.

Maternity leave uh provides eight weeks of paid maternity leave for qualifying events, which could include birth adoption, foster placement, miscarriage.

Only one employee per qualifying event may receive paid leave.

Employee must have 180 days of service to be eligible.

Written request must be submitted 30 days in advance, except for unanticipated miscarriages.

Leave must be taken within six months of the event and must be taken continuously unless approved otherwise.

FMLA runs concurrently with paid maternity leave, and unused leave is not compensated and cannot be donated.

Recommendation uh is to approve the 2025-2028 memorandum of agreement between the city and local 135 international association of firefighters.

And I will stand for questions.

Thank you, Jason.

Questions for staff beginning with Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, first, can the kids from Southeast keep it down?

I mean, there's a lot of excitement going on here, but uh please try and hold your your energy down a little bit there.

Um second, um can we go back to slide 148 real quick?

148?

Okay.

Now with the maternity leave, um requests must be submitted 30 days in advance.

Does that usually do they put request in around six months?

I know sometimes there's premi sudden um deliveries.

My wife and I kind of had one ourselves, so right.

So the minimum is 30 days, but if they wanted to go, if they if someone provided um advanced notice, that that's fine as well.

So if like you know, they're sitting there, they haven't done it, and you uh month seven comes along and the wife goes into labor early.

How does that work out with this?

Um, well, they're supposed to provide written notice uh 30 days prior to the event that that they want the leave for.

Um, so it might be a problem if they did it like 20 days in advance.

It could be a problem.

Okay, so if they're pregnant and it's three months in, and then they can go ahead and submit the 30-day notice in advance.

Yes, okay.

And then the other one, um, I'm gonna be asking this for the next two as well.

So during your presentation, you might just go ahead and say um what was the union vote, the percentage when it went before.

I do not know.

I do not know that.

I am so sorry, but but back and get it for you.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

I see none.

We'll now open it up for public comment.

Thank you, Mayor Wu, City Council, City Manager.

Uh, my name's Ted Bush, President of Wichita, local 135.

I want to begin thanking everyone involved in negotiating this contract.

Thank you to the firefighters who volunteered their time and effort to serve on our negotiating team and our lawyer Joni Franklin for her support throughout the process.

I also want to thank Jason Hood and Andrew Hudspith.

Jason, I appreciate your openness to a fair and candid conversations.

You were always open and willing to hear our concerns, and because of that, we reached a contract that was approved by a large majority of the membership.

95%.

Together, we made real progress in improving pay and benefits and moving closer to regional industry standards, but there is a lot more work to be done.

Since 1999, Wichita's fire alarm load has increased by 90%.

Operational staffing during that time, the firefighters making the alarms only increased by 13%.

On many days, due to budget decisions, units are taken off track, leaving even fewer firefighters to respond.

This is not only dangerous for firefighters, but most importantly for the citizens we serve.

Also, we must reach a point where the city fully accepts and acknowledges that firefighting causes cancer.

The CDC classifies our occupation as a group one carcinogen.

That means cancer is an occupational hazard, unlike any other job in the city of Wichita.

This greater cancer risk not only affects us now, but well into retirement.

With the help of Councilwoman Becky Tuttle, we have made strong progress in our health and wellness initiatives, especially around cancer detection, treatment, and prevention.

We attempted to secure a contract provision that would ensure the city would cover sick leave for these members who are stricken with occupational cancer, but we weren't able to get there.

Through dialogue, we are hopeful for change in the future.

Our members risk everything to protect this community, and at the very least, the city should meet them with that same level of commitment when they need it most.

We are grateful for the progress we've made, and we're proud of the direction we are headed, but there's still important work left to be done.

We are ready to keep the conversation going and work together to move this department forward and keep Wichita as safe as possible for everyone we serve.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Thank you, Ted.

Councilmember Tuttle.

Thank you, Ted, for being here today.

I appreciate all you do.

Um and thank you for the kudos, but I also want to give a kudos to Chief Tammy Snow, who's in the back.

I think the three of us have worked exceptionally well together, and it's certainly been an honor to work with and learn from you and Chief Snow.

I say all the time, y'all are the experts, and I can be the advocate.

Um, regarding councilmember Hole Heisel, 63.5% of the IFF voted, 95.7 said yes, and 4.3 voted no.

We'll continue with public comment.

I see none.

I have just one question for Jason.

Can you just tell us what's the starting pay for firefighters?

Uh let me check.

See if I have it here.

I do not think that I have that information.

Let me see if it's on the green sheet.

I'll have to get that for you.

I would like to get that number so that our students who are here from Southeast High School know that there's a career path for them in firefighting.

And the starting pay for firefighters is 39 cents.

22 dollars and 39 cents.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

On that, I'm sorry, Mayor.

On that also.

If uh the chief don't we have a high school program that that helps with uh firefighters, kids who are interested in entering the firefighter field.

Good afternoon, Tammy Snow Fire Chief.

Um, yes, South High School.

We support the South High School program, um, and it's a year-long program, so I'll stop by yes.

Thank you.

Councilmember Tuttle.

Thank you.

Just a quick question, and I'm sorry if I don't know the answer to this.

I think I know the answer, but I just want to confirm I had a community member reach out to me and say that this is a sort of a it's a pilot for just maternity leave and not paternity leave at this time.

Is that correct?

Well, I wouldn't call it a pilot, uh, but but it is for maternity and not paternity.

Okay, thank you so much.

Just wanted to make sure I was getting it right.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thanks, Mayor.

Appreciate it, Jason.

Um, I am supportive of this.

I just wanted to say congratulations to Ted publicly on being the president again.

Congrats on that.

And then also just to let the Southeast folks know this is the House of Northeast Bank, the only undefeated school in the city of Wichita.

We will now close public comment and bring it back to the bench.

Any other council members who would like to add any comments?

If not, I will simply say I'm very appreciative of the firefighters who serve our community, and I'm very glad to see that there was a lot of conversations between multiple parties to reach this agreement that is three years in length.

Um, so with that, I will move that the city council approve the proposed 2026-2028 memorandum of agreement between the local 135 International Association of Firefighters and the City of Wichita and authorized necessary signatures.

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.

Teamsters Transit Local 795 memorandum of agreement.

Yes, again, Jason Hood with human resources.

So the duration of this agreement is three years from 2025 to 2028.

It was ratified ratified by the transit members on November 9th, 2025.

The agreement covers 110 employees in the Wichita Transit Department, and the agreement provisions will be incorporated in the revised budget.

Some highlights.

So the uh in 2025, the annual pay adjustment, the three of the GPA is three percent with a 2.5% merit increase and $500 bonus for OSTEP employees.

Um in 2026, it's the same, 3%, 2.5% merit, $500 bonus for OSTEP employees, and in 2027, 3% GPA, 2.5% merit, $500 bonus for OSTEP employees.

Longevity only had one change to it.

The pay doubled from $2 to $4 per month per year for six years of service.

Uh minimum pay provision was added, trainer pay increase from $1 to $2 an hour for instructing trainees, and promotion and vacancies for the maintenance position adds $1.50 an hour shift differential for mechanics A and B working the second shift, which is from 4 30 p.m.

to 1 a.m.

There was a an additional personal holiday given.

The uniform allowance was increased, full-time employees increased from $325 to $400, and part-time employees increased from $200 to $275.

Bilingual pay was made consistent with the bilingual pay across the city organization.

The bilingual pay provision establishes a pay of 135 dollars per month after completing competency testing and receiving designation by the director.

A new article for of injury leave was added to the contract.

It follows the majority of the injury leave language in the Teamsters Airport memorandum of agreement, provides up to 90 days of full salary for job-related injuries, and after 90 days, pay pay transitions to workers' comp.

It is the staff's recommendation that uh the city council approve the 2025-2028 memorandum of agreement between the city and teamsters transit union, local 795.

And I will stand for any questions.

Thank you, Jason.

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.

With that, I move that the city council approve the proposed 2025-2028 memorandum of agreement between the Teamsters Union Local 795 Transit and the City of Wichita 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.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Teamsters Airport Local 795 memorandum of agreement.

Jason Hidd up with human resources.

Duration of this agreement is three years from 2025 to 2028.

It was ratified by the airport members November 17th of 2025.

The agreement covers 24 employees in Wichita Airport Department, and the agreement provisions will be incorporated in the revised budget.

So GPA increases in 2025 go to 4%.

There's a merit step involved of 2.5% provided to eligible employees on their anniversary date, and O step employees receive a $750 bonus on their anniversary date.

In 2026, again it's 4% GPA, 2.5% merit increase with the $750 bonus at the O step for on their anniversary date.

And in 2027, it goes down to 3% GPA, 2.5% of a merit increase, and O step employees receive a $750 bonus on their anniversary date.

Longevity pay is calculated by a dollar amount multiplied by years of service per month.

Six years goes from $4 to $5.

11 years goes from $11 to $13, 15 years from $13 to $15, and 19 years from $15 to $17.

For purposes of overtime, paid leave of absence shall be included in computing hours worked except for sick leave or Kelly days.

Procedures for determining mandatory overtime and shift overtime were separated to provide clarity of operation and expectation.

Field training officer hourly rate increase from $75, I'm sorry, $75 cents per hour to $3 an hour.

Acting pay.

When employees are assigned a temporary duty of a higher position, they will receive an additional $2 an hour for those hours worked.

Well days will accrue quarterly as opposed to annually.

And I'll stand for questions.

Thank you, Jason.

Questions for staff.

I see none.

We'll open it up for public comment.

There is none.

We'll bring it back to the bench.

With that.

I'm just gonna add just one quick commentary.

Um I know that we oftentimes we talk about even earlier water rate increases and the percentages.

Um so I just want to be cognizant that uh property taxes also went up.

Um, and so it is because we have to pay fairly our uh individuals who work for the city of Wichita, and so I'm very grateful to the HR staff in working with multiple entities and getting three different contracts before the council to approve today.

I know it's a lot of hard work, um, and again, negotiations uh require compromise.

And so I appreciate Jason going back to the table and making sure that all employees are treated fairly and compensated appropriately.

So thank you very much.

With that, I move that the city council approve the proposed 2025-2028 memorandum of agreement between the Teamsters Union Local 795 Airport and the City of Wichita and authorized 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.

PUD 2025-17, a zone change request in the city from multifamily residential district and general commercial district to planned unit development to create the 944 South Topeka planned unit development number 149, generally located one block south or correction east of South Broadway and three blocks south of East Kellogg at 944 South Topeka.

Hello, good afternoon.

Scott Weddle from the Planning Department.

So as you heard, uh, for this case, the applicant is requesting rezone the property from B multifamily and GC General Commercial to PUD, which is custom zoning.

Uh this item is being heard today because the DAB and planning commission's recommendations are different.

And the note here that the DAB had a tide vote and did not put uh pass a motion or recommendation for this one.

In addition, protests have been received, and then the third reason is because the state the case was deferred to this date.

In terms of the request, the applicant has indicated they're requesting the zone change primarily for two reasons.

The first is in order to bring the non-conforming church into compliance with the unified zoning code by creating custom zoning development requirements, and the second is to permit additional zoning flexibility for future development on the property to the east.

Approximately 1.18 acres in size, developed with a church, parking lot, and a green space, and the existing church building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In terms of context, properties to the north are zone B multifamily and developed with single family dwellings.

Properties to the west across South Tobeka or Zone B and developed with single family residences and a duplex.

Property to the south across East Gilbert is zone B and developed with multi-family, a multifamily dwelling, as well as another property, which is zone GC and developed with a multi-tenant commercial building.

Property to the southeast is zone GC and developed with a single family dwelling.

Properties to the east across South and Corrior zone GC and B and developed with single family dwellings.

In terms of the staff report, it provides information about the proposed use of portable shipping containers for housing at the site.

Also provides information about the applicant modifications to their initial zone change request, landscaping and also screening information.

In terms of review on August 28th, the planning commission held the public hearing for this item and deferred the case to their September 25th meeting.

Purpose of the deferral was to allow the applicant an opportunity to address concerns with nearby property owners regarding the appearance of the portable storage containers.

Five members of the public spoke at that meeting with concerns about having storage shipping containers as dwelling units, parked on the also parking on the nearby street and questions about the completeness of the application.

On September 25th, the planning commission recommended approval of the request with an additional condition of approval.

And that vote was 1201, one abstention.

The MAPC added language that the storage containers shall be required to use shiplap sighting in either wood or composite as illustrated by the exhibits submitted by the applicants at that meeting.

Two members of the public spoke against the request with similar concerns, with similar concerns of having storage containers as dwellings and not enough parking for tenants on the site.

On October 1st, the district advisory board reviewed the case and again did not as mentioned before did not approve a motion to recommend denial or approval of the application.

The vote was 5 to 5 on a motion to recommend denial.

Two members of the public spoke regarding the application.

One was against the application citing concerns of crime and the design of the shipping containers, then also parking.

One person spoke in favor of the request, citing having the vacant building be occupied and in use was greater positive than having it be empty.

On October 13th, the Wichita Historic Preservation Board heard the case.

The recommendation of the HPB was to approve the request, and that vote was 311.

So there's one abstention.

The board limited their view to the existing church property.

Twenty protest petitions were received against the request for the rezoning.

13 of the properties of the properties represented were within the protest calculation area, and the calculated area equals 34% of the total protest area, which exceeds the state threshold of 20%, therefore requires a supermajority in order to approve.

So six of seven votes.

On November 6th, City Council heard this case and deferred it to today.

On December 1st, so yesterday, the applicant met with MABCD staff and discussed the permitting requirements for using shipping containers as residences.

The discussion also included a review of possible siting and engineering.

So in terms of council action, it's recommended that the city council adopt the findings of the planning commission, approve the planning commission recommended PUD text, place the ordinance on the first reading, authorize the necessary signatures, and instruct the city clerk to publish the ordinance after approval on the second reading.

Again, that requires six of seven votes.

Alternatives include overriding the MAPC, adopting alternative findings, and denying the PUD, which would require five of seven votes.

In addition, you can also override the MAPC, adopt alternative findings, and approve the PUD with modified text.

That would require six of seven votes, or as always, you can return the case to the MAPC for additional consideration, requires just a simple majority.

Just a note about process at the public hearing takes place at the planning commission, and the city council does not typically receive public comments on zoning items.

So here's the aerial image of the subject site.

Here's the zoning map.

Here's the map from the comprehensive plan showing new residentials recommended in the area.

Here's the site plan that was submitted as part of the PUD application.

Here's the protest map.

Again, the protest was over the 20% threshold.

Here are illustrations that were submitted by the applicant of the proposed units, shipping container units.

There's a number of illustrations, so we'll just go through those pretty quickly.

Here are photos of the site.

Here's the existing church with some of the boarded up windows and doors.

Here's the backside of the building.

So this is the educational wing.

Looking up the street at some of the residential uses, looking north from the parking lot across the street, and looking to the south.

And with that, I'll stand for any questions.

Thank you, Scott.

Questions for staff.

I see none.

This resides in Council Member Hoheisel's district.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you, Scott.

Thank you, everybody who's been working on this.

This is um a unique case.

Um, and as such, um, I'm glad that you guys were able to chat with the applicant about some of the unique um circumstances around some of these units here.

Uh, for example, the the units cannot be grouped together side by side because that's what would make the a required spire suppressant system.

But if they are simply stacked on their own standalone, then that means there is no need for fire suppressor if I'm correct.

So long story short, there's a lot of uh moving parts with this.

Um they did meet yesterday afternoon.

I know they've tried to reach out and talk with some of the council members up here.

I know there's plenty of people up here with questions and concerns about this, so I want to make sure that uh everybody has due opportunity to actually reach out to um the applicant and discuss some of their concerns with them.

So I will be delaying this for one week.

Um, just to make sure that we give due process to everything.

The applicant is here, and if anybody from council wishes to ask a question at this time, that's fine with me.

Also, if you guys just want to wait and reach out sometime this week as well, whatever you guys are comfortable with.

Councilmember Glasscock, um, Vice Mayor Johnston and I had a Teams call with the applicant yesterday after that meeting.

Um, I don't know if the other council members have met with the applicant, um, but we also received emails uh from multiple residents uh around the area who were opposed to this project.

Um, and so I wanted to put that information out there.

I am supportive of delaying another week if the other council members would like time to speak with the applicant.

So with that, do you want to move?

Yes, yes, Mayor.

I do.

Um I move that we move this um item to the December 9th regular meeting.

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.

PUD 2025-22 zone change requests in the city from single family residential district and limited commercial district to PUD 151 to create the Trinity Park PUD, generally located on the northeast corner of South Hoover Road and 47th Street South.

Scott, I'm gonna uh pause.

Councilmember Glasscott would like to speak.

Scott, I'm gonna save you some time.

Um, I've spoken with the applicant and then also some neighbors, and we're still trying to figure out maybe a compromise solution.

And so instead of going through the presentation, I would like to delay this until I'd make a motion that we delay until December 16th.

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.

CUP 2025-29 with zone 2025-41.

Create the East Side Community Church CUP 365 with the zone change from single family residential district to limited commercial district, generally located on the northwest corner of East 21st Street North and North 143rd Street East, 14242 East 21st Street North.

Quick question before we begin.

Councilmember Tuttle.

Um, I asked yesterday for dab notes.

Did anyone provide dab notes?

I didn't see it.

Can that be resent?

I emailed them to all of council members yesterday.

You resend it, please.

Thank you.

Scott.

Sure.

Um, well, first off, my apologies that those weren't included with the packet.

So uh we we were following up on that, so I apologize we didn't get those to you.

In terms of this case, uh, the applicant is requesting uh zone change from SF5 single family to LC Limited Commercial District, and as part of that, they are also requesting to create or required to create a community unit plan for the property.

So they would have the base zoning and then the overlaying uh community unit plan.

This item is being heard today because protests have been submitted within the notification area.

In terms of the request, the applicants have indicated they intend to replat the subject site in the near future, and they've mentioned uh at least one development with a bank or a financial institution on the site.

In terms of the property, subject site is located at the northwest corner of the intersection of 143rd and 21st Street.

The subject site is a portion of a larger property that has a church on it.

The subject site is approximately just over 10 acres in size, zoned SF5 single family and is currently undeveloped.

In terms of context, properties to the north are zoned SF5 and developed with single family dwellings.

Properties to the east across 143rd Street are zoned SF5 and LC.

Those are all in agricultural use.

Properties to the south across 21st Street are zoned LC and part of a C UP.

Some of those properties are undeveloped, and others are developed with multifamily residential units.

Properties to the west are zoned SF5 and developed with a church and single family dwellings.

So here's a little bit back and forth with the zoning map so you can see.

The applicant requested a deferral so that they could meet with the neighborhood stakeholders to discuss the proposed project and the zoning application.

On October 23rd, the planning commission held the public hearing.

Prior to this meeting, the applicant amended their application to address concerns expressed by the neighbors.

The planning commission ultimately recommended approval.

That vote was 12 to 1.

And that was subject to modified CUP text, which is attached to the staff report, and also the conditions that are listed in the staff report.

The CUP text modifications by the planning commission were related to signage for parcel four of the CUP and also the permitted land uses for parcel five of the CUP.

At that public hearing, one person spoke in opposition to the application.

On November 10th, the district advisory board heard the case and recommended approval.

Their vote was 9 to 1 per the MAPC's recommendation.

One member of the public spoke in opposition to the request, citing concerns of increased traffic, maintaining the established tree line tree line along 143rd, a lack of maintenance on 143rd, and establishing too many limited commercial zoning districts in the near vicinity.

Six protests were received against the case.

Zero of those protests were within the calculation area.

Therefore, it did not exceed the 20%, and this can be approved with a simple majority vote or four out of seven votes.

In terms of recommendation, it's recommended that the city council adopt the findings of the MAPC, approve the requested zone change in the creation of the CUP, authorize the necessary signatures, and instruct the city clerk to publish the ordinance and resolution after approval.

Again, requires just four out of seven votes.

Alternatives include the following.

Or as always, you can return it to the MAPC for further consideration.

That would require a simple majority of four of seven votes.

And again, just a quick note about the process that the public hearing takes place at the planning commission meeting.

So with that, I'll take you through some of the graphics and images.

So here's the aerial showing the subject site.

Here's the zoning map again, showing mostly LC and SF5.

Here's the map from the comprehensive plan showing that a residential and employment mix is recommended in this area.

Here's the protest map.

Again, protests were received.

They were just outside, they were outside of the protest area, but within the notification area.

Here's the graphic that was submitted as part of the C UP showing the different zoning parcels that would be created.

Here are photos from the site.

And the surroundings.

Here's the church.

I do want to go back real quick and let you know that one of the substantial changes that the applicant made prior to the MAPC meeting was they removed a parcel number six, which was originally proposed as part of this rezoning or CUP.

And the other thing that they did is they limited the land uses on parcel five.

And what they did is they limited heights also of any mol any duplex or single family dwellings that would be developed there.

And I believe that that was because of concerns that the neighbors to the north had about commercial development being right adjacent to the backs of their homes.

In addition, you can see on here that just above parcel number five is a residential cul-de-sac, and that was something new that the developers brought to the table after meetings with uh nearby residents.

So with that, I'll stand for any questions.

Thanks, Scott.

Questions for staff.

I see none.

This resides in Council Member Tuttle's district.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Scott, for all of your time, and thank you also to legal.

Um Scott kind of highlighted it, but we spent lots of time on this case.

Um it's been delayed a couple times, so I'm excited to see movement happen today.

Um Scott and I spent a beautiful afternoon in the cul-de-sac with the neighbors.

Um, I probably have received as much communication regarding this case as almost any that we've had, other than maybe a car wash a couple weeks ago.

Um, but I want to disclose that I have had expert a communication with the applicant.

I've had expert a communication with the agent who is joining us today, and I have had expertise communication with the residents.

I I checked with legal in it's okay for me to make this statement.

I just want to thank the applicant, um, not only for investing in our community, but for attending all of the meetings that the community members were at, the ones at the church, you know, wherever, um, but also listening to the residents and making the modifications that were made.

Um, I served on this council, it's been my honor for seven years.

I served on the district advisory board for five years prior, and in 12 years, I've never seen such compromise happen.

So truly, truly impressive.

And again, thank you to the applicant for uh listening to the residents in the neighborhood.

So, with that, I will move that the city council adopt the findings of the MAPC and approve the requested zone change and the creation of the East Side Community Church C UP DP 365, authorize the necessary signatures and instruct the city clerk to publish the ordinance and the resolution after approval.

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.

Sale of 29 public housing properties.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Carmen Hoffine, and I'm the real property section manager for the Department of Housing and Community Services.

I'm here to present the sale of 29 public housing properties.

For a little bit of background, in 2017, the public housing authority, also known as PHA board, approved the application to housing and urban development, which also is HUD, to reposition its entire public housing portfolio under the rental assistance demonstration RAD program.

The RAD program allows PHAs to convert their public housing units to a Section 8 platform, which enables housing authorities to borrow private or public funds needed to complete much needed rehabilitation to the properties.

Four multifamily senior units and 352 single family homes.

RAD financing for the two multifamily senior units closed on October 29th of 2021, and construction began shortly thereafter.

The Wichita Housing Authority was unable to secure the remaining financing needed to continue the RAD project for the 352 scattered site single-family homes.

On June 20th, 2025, Wichita Housing Authority approved the submission of the inventory removal application to HUD for 137 scattered sites single-family homes within the 352 property portfolio, of which these 29 properties are included.

In May of 2021, HUD convened a focus group to assist Wichita Housing Authority in evaluating options for repositioning the public housing portfolio and engage the communities group to provide technical assistance.

After further review, it was determined that restricted rents allowed under the RAD program could not support the level of debt service needed to complete the required repairs.

In addition, the significant cost of managing and maintaining 352 scattered site single family homes made the project financially infeasible.

As a result, the most viable option was to remove the 352 single family homes from the public housing program and to use the proceeds to support affordable housing through a different model.

A request for proposal, also known as an RFP number 250272, the purchase of 29 Wichita housing properties located in the area of East 17th Street North and Matthewson Street, known as the Arnold RFP, was published on September 4th of 2025 on the procurement portal.

Property walkthroughs were scheduled for September 9th through the 12th from 9 a.m.

to 12 p.m.

Written requests were due on September 19th at 5 p.m.

An addendum was posted to the procurement portal on October 1st.

Proposals were due on October 10th at 10 a.m.

Presentations were made to the Affordable Housing Review Board on October 27th at 3 p.m.

The selection and recommendation of proposals was made by the Affordable Housing Review Board.

Their decision was based on several factors, including adequacy and completeness of proposal response, credentials, qualifications, and expertise of development team, community impacts of proposed project, proposed compensation, alignment with city affordable housing goals, and project massing.

The Arnold RFP received five proposals, three of which met minimum qualifications.

After reviewing and scoring those proposals, the Affordable Housing Review Board voted to approve the sale of 29 properties to Patterson Home Solutions LLC, received three properties to receive three properties.

To receive six properties, large enterprise to receive 20 properties.

For financial considerations, there is no impact to the general fund.

In accordance with HUD's approval of the disposition, the net sales proceeds will fund Section 8 rental projects and associated activities in accordance with HUD Notice PIH 2020-23.

Legal considerations, the law department has reviewed and approved the agreements as to form.

Recommendations and actions.

It is recommended that the Wichita Housing Authority Board approve a total of five real estate sale contracts for 29 public housing properties, one contract for Patterson Home Solutions for three properties, one contract for Seek First Rentals LLC for six properties, and three contracts for ownership entities of large enterprise for 20 properties and authorized and necessary signatures.

And I apologize for this last slide.

It should say the sale of 29 public housing properties.

And I stand for questions.

Thank you, Carmen.

Questions for staff.

I see none.

This gets public comment, correct?

Would anyone from the public like to speak?

No one from the public would like to speak.

We'll bring it back to the bench.

I will go ahead and move since no one uh is on the board.

I move that the Wichita Housing Authority Board approve a total of five real estate sale contracts for 29 public housing properties, one contract for Patterson Home Solutions for three properties, one contract for Seek First Rentals LLC for six properties, and three contracts for ownership entities of large enterprise for 20 properties and authorized and 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.

Wichita Rad Senior LP Verizon Cell Tower Easement.

Good afternoon, Mayor, members of council.

Sally Stang with the Housing and Community Services Department for the record.

The item I have for you today has to do with that similarly the same RAD project that Carmen spoke about.

So again, going back to October 29th, 2021, the four public housing multifamily senior properties, including McLean Manor at 2627 West 9th Street, conveyed to the Wichita RAD Senior LP under the low-income housing tax credit and rental assistance demonstration programs.

The ownership entities of these tax credit projects are pretty complicated.

So Wichita RAD Senior LP, that is the ownership entity.

It is comprised of AHP Housing Fund 249 LLC.

That is the investor partner.

They're the ones who brought bought the tax credits, as well as Wichita Red AMP 1 LLC, which is the general partnership entity, which is comprised between the City of Wichita and Keith B.

Key Enterprises, who is our developer partner.

So the city still retains ownership of those four properties, but conveyed them to the partnership for rehabilitation and operation under a 99-year land lease.

Rehabilitation of all four properties is complete.

Greenway Manor is currently in lease up with to be ex it is expected to be completely leased by the end of December.

And McLean Manor, Rosa Greg, and Bernice Hutchison have been fully leased for a couple of years.

The cell tower rooftop easements and leases at McLean Manor with ATT and Verizon both conveyed with the property at the time of the closing.

That Verizon lease is set to expire at the end of March 2030, so a little over four years from now.

MD7 is the broker for Verizon, and they provided the partnership an offer to adjust the terms of the lease to a 40-year term for an upfront lump sum payment of $550,000 plus 50% of the rent if they were to bring in any in any new tenant into the easement.

All other terms of the existing lease remain in effect as far as notice requirements, insurance requirements, nothing else there has changed.

The partnership's co-general partner, KBK Enterprises, as well as the investor partner, AHP Housing Fund, they have approved the offer with from Verizon.

So the partnership is seeking approval from the Wichita Housing Authority and the City of Wichita as both the lesser of the McLean Manor property under the 99-year lease and the co-general partner of the partnership.

The offer provides us long-term benefit to the project as it secures annual income of about 26,719 for the 40-year term, which happens to coincide with the term of the mortgage with HUD.

It is based on some assumptions though.

That 550,000 being deposited in a to a trust account in the name of the partnership and invested and managed by the HUD Home HUD loan lender, which is Lumen Capital.

The funds are invested in at least two long-term certificates of deposits.

Of course, that our FDIC insured and making sure that they're responsible.

Current CDs of this nature have been earning about 4% annually.

But variances in CD rates will increase or decrease the annual interest, but the lump sum of $550, $550,000 plus interest will bring in significantly more than a little over 189,000, which is the amount left in the existing lease term.

With technology with the way it is, we can't guarantee that the use of towers the way they are will be in existence for times beyond 2030.

So payments from the trust account can be made to the uh to supplement project operations at the site and are required to stay under the HUD regulation, so any income earned by that property has to stay with the property, but it will help make sure that uh there's enough funding for appropriate upgrades and operations going forward.

There is no impact to the general fund with this activity.

The law department has reviewed the letter of intent from MD7 on behalf of Verizon and approved the document as to form.

And is it recommended that the Wichita Housing Authority Board approve execution of the letter of intent on behalf of the City of Wichita and the Wichita Housing Authority?

And I'll stand for any questions.

Thank you, Sally.

Questions for staff.

I see none.

We'll open it up for public comment.

I see none.

I'll bring it back to the bench.

With that, I move that the Wichita Housing Authority Board authorize the execution of the letter of interest on behalf of the City of Wichita and Wichita Housing Authority.

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.

Public hearing and request by hangar dynamics Jabara LLC for approval of letter of intent to issue issue airport special facility revenue bonds.

Honorable Mayor, members of council, Troy Anderson, Assistant City Manager.

So this is a request by Hangar Dynamics Jabara LLC for approval of sales tax exemption only.

You may recall you recently approved uh land lease with as the airport authority with hangar dynamics to borrow for the construction of an 18,000 square foot hangar in order to expand their uh footprint and their work product uh out of the Jabor Airport.

Uh they're requesting the issuance of approximately 2.54 million dollars in revenue bonds again.

There's no property tax abatement as the land is located on airport authority ground, which is exempt from property taxes.

So this is simply the request for the sales tax exemption associated with the outfitting of the uh for the construction project as well as all the furniture fixture and equipment, approximately sales tax exemptions about 70,000 dollars, with the city's share being a total of about five point uh $5200 again.

Standard disclaimer revenue bonds are a mechanism for achieving a sales tax exemption property tax abatement and uh revenue bond transactions cities not lending any money, bears no risk.

Owner developers required to obtain all of their own financing, no taxpayer dollars are at risk.

Hangar dynamics will has agreed to pay all the costs associated with issuing the bonds, uh as well as the annual origination fees.

The bonds will then be purchased by hangar dynamics or a related entity, bond documents will be prepared by outside council, final form will be reviewed and approved by the city's law department.

It's recommended city council close the public hearing, adopt a resolution and authorize the necessary signatures, and I'll stand for questions.

Thank you, Troy.

Questions for staff.

I see none.

We'll open it up for public comment.

I see none.

I'll bring it back to the bench.

I move that the city council close the public hearing, adopt the resolution, 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.

Council member appointments and comments.

We'll start with appointments.

Are there any appointments, council members?

I see none.

I will now bring up a council member agenda item.

Um I would like staff to craft uh a resolution that will allow for any council member that is retiring from their position uh to receive a symbolic key to the city.

This precedent was created uh last year when council member Fry, Councilmember uh Blueball, and then Mayor Whipple received the key to the city.

Um so I would like that to be crafted.

Councilmember Glascock.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I will make a motion here in a second to add um something to a future agenda as well per legal's advice.

Common consumption delano has been very successful.

And um I confirmed with the chief of police last week that there have been no incidences regarding after speaking with businesses and Delano.

Uh, there are multiple businesses that expressed interest in continuing the pilot uh every day of the week from now until we had established the pilot previously.

And so I would move that staff prepare an amendment to Title 4.08 of the city code, which allows common consumption in the Delano district that would allow common consumption of Delano every day, and this item be prepared for consideration by city council at a future council meeting.

Second to craft the amendment.

Motion and a second, any further discussion?

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the rolling.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, same sign.

Motion passes 7-0.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thanks, Mayor.

I just wanted to note in the public record that we just approved a sale tower in a few years ago in the legislature.

It was said by um one or multiple lobbying teams and companies that the city of Wichita denies cell towers all the time.

I just wanted that on the record that we did not, and we usually do not, and we may ask questions, but since it was said that Wichita does, just wanted to point out we do not.

Councilmember Tuttle.

Thank you.

And I'm curious to learn more about the resolution for the key to the city for council members who are leaving because we have a policy already.

So I'm not sure how those are gonna work, but I did want to state for the record that I've already submitted an application for the key for the city for councilmember Johnson.

Um and it was approved by five council members.

So we have um council member Johnson taken care of, and it'll be an honor to um recognize him here in about a month as he is going on to bigger and better things.

So thank you.

Any further comments?

I see none, Madam.

Um I will move to adjourn this meeting.

Second.

Motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes, six one.

It's not too late to withdraw the key.