An 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 is Pastor Debbie Garrett of Greater Deliveries Ministries to provide our invocation.

Following that invocation, we will have the Pledge of Allegiance.

And we ask that you please stand for both.

Motion and a second, any further discussion.

Motion passes 7-0.

Mayor, uh, could I use a point of privilege, please?

Thank you.

I'd like to ask my colleagues to come down here with me as well.

And I want to invite up our friend Kathy Sexton and her friends as well.

Thank you, Councilmember Johnson, Mayor, Council members.

My name's Kathy Sexton.

And on behalf of the Kansas Association of City County Management, we're here today with colleagues from our area communities, Sarah Gooding from City of Tawanda City Administrator, and let me find them all here.

Brent Clark, formerly Valley Center City Administrator, Jenny McCauslin of Andover City Administrator, Nick Gregory, Mays City Manager, Sean Fox, Park City City Manager, and I got them all good.

I want to thank these colleagues for joining me.

Um, a couple weeks ago, we had our annual conference of the Kansas Association of City County Management in Emporia, and Bob was not able to be there, but so we brought this home for him.

This is their recognition of him for his many years of service in Kansas and to our communities.

He has been a leader and a guide to many um fellows, interns, um, young people in his classes that he teaches at WSU.

So for growing the profession as well as serving the people of Wichita, we'd like to recognize you, Bob.

If you would come up, please.

My I thank um the Kansas Association of City County Management for uh recognizing uh my retirement.

It has been a true pleasure of mine to be associated with such great professionals as you see here, uh, who every day um uh work hard, uh, are diligent in trying to make their communities a better place for people to live and work.

And uh I uh it's been a noble profession to be associated with, um, but uh it's all of these people here that uh make a difference along with the staffs that they represent.

So thank you so much to the association for this recognition.

Thank you.

And thank you for being here.

Bob, if I could ask you to join us again.

Good morning.

Good morning, thank you.

A resolution honoring Robert Leighton City Manager on the occasion of his retirement and recognition of his outstanding service to the city of Wichita, whereas Robert Leighton has served the city of Wichita with his dis as the distinction of city manager since 2009, demonstrating unwavering dedication, visionary leadership, and deep commitment to public service.

And whereas Robert Leighton has consistently exemplified the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, civic responsibility, carrying, carrying earning the respect and admiration of colleagues, elected officials, and residents alike.

Whereas during his tenure, Robert Leighton has overseen numerous transformative initiatives and accomplishments, including strengthening talent development through the Wichita Management Fellowship Program, personally mentoring 35 fellows, leading Wichita to be named an all-American city twice, advancing major public facilities and amenities, including Equity Bank Ballpark, the Wichita Dwight D.

Eisenhower National Airport, the Advanced Learning Library, and multiple master plans, such as the aquatics, downtown, bicycle, pedestrian, and library branch plans, implementing a reserve policy approved by the city council, and increase general fund reserves every year from 2009 through 2024, improving the city budget process to enhance engagement opportunities and alignments to strategic planning processes, and implementing an improved CIP process that developed debt metrics and enhanced strategic alignment, which contributed to the city reaching a triple A bond rating from standard and poor.

And guiding major infrastructure projects, including East Kellogg, the I 135 47th Street Interchange, the North Junction I-235 and Central, and numerous arterial upgrades, expanding sustainable transportation through the introduction of electric buses and construction of the new transit bus barn and the underconstruction hub multimodal facility and enhancing mobility with 70 miles of expanded bike and pedestrian paths and trails.

And leading the city's response to significant challenges, including historic droughts, the COVID 19 pandemic, and a major cyber attack, delivering critical stormwater and river improvements such as the Blackley Street drainage improvements and the Lincoln Bridge and Dam.

Implementing transformative changes in firefire hiding, hiring by eliminating the pre-employment EMT certification requirement and shifting training in-house, significantly expanding the pool and reducing economic and geographic barriers, investing in modern fire facilities, including three new fire stations with a fourth underway, designed with advanced health and wellness features such as decamp decontamination spaces and individual sleep rooms, supporting public safety through the completion of the law enforcement training center, the Patrol East substation, and the real-time information center and expanding animal services through improvements to the animal shelter and animal control facility and leading park system revitalization, including the transformation of Navskar Park and Clapp Park, creation of five dog parks, and development of Proc What Glends Park.

Anne leading the transformation of Park Elementary into the second light campus based on his beliefs in long-term solution over short-term fixes, which will serve the community for decades to come, making thousands of lives better because he dared to think bigger, and facilitating the city's cooperation with Wichita State University and the University of Kansas, uh and WSU Tech on the construction of the Wichita Biomedical Campus.

Steadfastly supporting the United Way of the Plains by leading the city organization to repeatedly be in the top 10 corporate supporters through employee contributions and serving on its board of directors.

Whereas Robert Leighton has been a steady and thoughtful leader through times of both challenge and opportunity, always placing the well-being of the community at the forefront of every decision, especially during economic challenges and the COVID pandemic.

Whereas Bob Leighton has been a steadfast advocate for childhood literacy, libraries and public education, and strengthening the role of the public library in helping residents connect, discover, learn, and thrive, and inspiring the development of the brand new Family Place Initiative.

Pardon me, now being named in honor of Robert Leighton, the family place on all seven Wichita Public Library locations.

Be ready for seven ribbon cuttings.

Whereas the City of Wichita wishes to express its sincere gratitude, gratitude for his years of dedicated service and celebrate his legacy of consistent leadership.

Now there now, therefore, be it resolved the Wichita City Council that we hereby honor and commend Robert Leighton for his exemplary service as the city manager, not only in Wichita, but also in Urbendale and Des Moines, Iowa, Kansas City, Missouri, and North Syracuse, New York, in his 46 years of public service career, and extend our heartfelt congratulations and best wishes for fulfilling a well-deserved retirement.

Thank you so much.

But other than that, greatly appreciate the comments and thank the mayor and council for their support.

And I have to thank the entire city team.

Obviously, the city manager doesn't do all of the things that you heard.

It takes in a really professional team to be able to accomplish things on a daily basis.

Um it's been a wonderful career um and it's uh been nice to reflect on some of the accomplishments, not just here in my other communities as well.

And I'm looking forward to staying here in Wichita and working for community improvements uh as I go forward, and uh I thank again the mayor and council for this recognition.

We are having fun this morning, but wait, there's more so behalf of the Wichita City Council in recognition of sixteen years of steadfast leadership and forty-seven years of dedicated public service.

The City of Wichita honors Robert Leighton for his transformative impact on our community.

Under his guidance, Wichita witnessed the realization of major civic and infrastructure projects, including the Dwight, the Eisenhower National Airport, the Advanced Learning Library, Equity Bank Park, the Hub Transit Center, and State of the Art Water Treatment Facility.

Mr.

Leighton championed initiatives addressing housing insecurity, mental health literacy, and public safety, embedding social responsibility into the city's framework.

His commitment to trend to transparent governance and community engagement has left an indelible mark on Wichita's evolution.

With gratitude, we present this key to the city as a symbol of our appreciation for his unwavering dedication and visionary leadership.

Congratulations.

Thank you so much.

I I mostly am humbled to be associated with the people who have received this key in the past.

It's not something that is easily given out, and and I appreciate that show of respect and honor.

Thank you.

Thank you again, City Manager Leighton for your 16 years of service to the city of Wichita.

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 is Andrew Crane, affordable housing.

Well, good morning, City Council and Mayor and City Manager also.

And it's where you know a lot of stuff is at.

And uh in that um I just wondered what you guys are thinking um to help out the disability community.

Um you know I am all for the disability and blind community.

I've been standing with them for a number of years, and I will be standing with them for a long time.

Um so um I I want to ask each and every one of you to look and uh think about your family members, think about you know the disability community, how hard it is for them to get housing in this city and that.

So what are you guys gonna do about that and address that?

Mr.

Crane, would you like to finish up your five minutes and then the council will respond?

You guys can go ahead.

I'm done.

Thank you, Mr.

Crane.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um we had the groundbreaking of 75 new units last week outside the multi-agency center.

I believe 10 of those are all access, um, built for accessibility.

Also in January, we'll we'll be having a workshop on uh potential affordable housing fund and requirements like that could be built in in order for people to get some of the um economic benefits as far as affordable housing goes.

So that is something that is very much on our radar.

Um just trying to make sure that these units are set up because you're right, there's a lack of affordable housing.

Um, especially for people who have disabilities.

We can't force people to do that, but if they are taking part in our incentives or some of our programs, that's where we have the ability to uh make certain ask and requirements of them.

Good.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Crane.

Yeah, Madam Clerk, can you please call the next individual?

Bridget E.

B Supreme Court case.

You guys ready?

Am I good?

Can I drop these off to you guys?

Oh, sorry.

Sorry.

Hold on.

Okay.

I've never done this before, so bear with me.

Can I drop one of these off to you guys?

December 21st, 2023.

My ex used WP in Kansas Segal Services, as well as I don't want to.

As well as a few corrupt judges.

I was taking my ex to court for his abuse.

Our court date in Salina was December 18th.

December 1st, he filed a PFA.

Detective Pyramid helped him.

Then I was served before I had the PFA hearing in Wichita.

I had um before I had the PFA hearing in Wichita, I had court in Salina, and the judge in Selena, my ex went down there and he's like, haha, I filed a PFA, PFA's override family law.

The whole case is being transferred.

Before I even got the PFA served to me, Kelly Hogan says, must change the venue, must change the venue.

So I hired Vincent Garcia, December 21st, 2023.

And I'm ambushed.

Kansas Legal Services and Randy Hubert, they take me out to the hallway and they tell me if I don't sign temporary orders, then I will never see my child again.

I still don't sign those temporary orders because I refuse.

So my lawyer did it for me, but I didn't do it.

I filed PFA after PFA after PFA after PFA, and every single one of them, 40 to be exact was denied.

So I told myself, it was my God-given right to be my son's mother.

In the Bible, it says the words of King Limo, the prophecy that his mother taught him.

How can I teach my son biblical principles if he's being ripped for me to protect abuse?

So here's where you guys come in.

I promised myself, my son is his dad is Vietnamese, and as you can see in those packets, he pretty much owns WPD.

I recorded, so I have documentation in police reports that my son was begging for help.

He was begging for therapy.

Okay.

That's why I was taking my ex to quit the right way.

Lying about abuse in the PFA is abuse.

Okay, so here's what I got.

I hired a family law lawyer.

Every PFA was denied.

Um the judge took away my two-hour supervised visits.

Judge Uwe Doy is what I call him.

Because I was fighting the PFA, and because I refused to conform.

I promised myself in the PFA, it says that the only thing I have to do to get my kid back is not call the police on my ex.

The problem is not me calling the police on my ex, the problem is his behavior.

And it is crazy that the law will write in a PFA, change the venue and don't call the cops.

That's crazy.

So that should be your sign one.

There's a crap ton of corruption.

But here's the thing, Kay.

You cannot legally keep somebody's kid for over 700 days off of a lie without it all being corrupt.

I I was at the courthouse.

I didn't even get a single in-person or court hearing for 17 months.

The only thing I got is a nine-minute video of the CCI at the CCI investigators.

The Aaron Newman, I recorded it because after one full year separated from my kid and 10,000 in legal fees, Aaron Newman told me that she lied because the judge assigned to her case told her to lie.

That is criminal.

That is criminal.

I recorded it all.

Also, I've already had the Topeka down here.

I am in the first person in Kansas to get a judge as a defendant.

So I promised myself that if the evil that took my son kept my son for the full two years till he turned 18, hell hath no fury like a scorned woman.

And honestly, Lily, he's Vietnamese.

He bragged to me that he owns Wichita.

I have police reports.

Also, I set everybody up too.

I filed 40 PFAs.

You see all those photos of my ex with Judge Phil Journey.

Okay, I have videos of all of this.

I recorded everything.

Everything.

You guys think that police officer getting kicked in the balls is funny?

Wait till people know the lengths that you guys will go to protect abuse and rob people of their God-given right to be a parent.

Nobody has done this before.

There's five family law judges.

Journey, after he saw all those photos with my ex after he signed three PFAs, he said, and I recorded the advocate coming out, telling me yourself.

He said, Oh, I guess I have to recount myself now, huh?

I recorded it all.

I recorded it all.

Now here's the biggest thing.

I only got 20 seconds.

In the Bible, it says, Behold, I show you a mystery.

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment in a twinkling of an eye at the last drug for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with the Lord to meet him in the air.

You guys might find this funny.

Okay, but I have prayed my whole life for God to use me.

And the only way I know how is to take all the corruption and all the lack of and shove it back in Wichita police.

I was arrested twice.

Why why was there no investigations?

Huh?

I have literally the cops telling me it doesn't matter how many police reports you file, they will all be turned into miscellaneous.

Yes.

What are we doing about all of this?

You got hot lines.

Your five minutes is up.

What are we doing about it?

You may have a seat.

What are we doing about it?

I may have a seat.

I really wanted you guys to know that God comes back as a thief in the night to those that are not ready.

The signs of the times are here, you guys.

The only thing that I will just say is um asking law.

When individuals have complaints regarding any city employee, what is the procedure that they're supposed to go through?

They didn't follow it.

You're supposed to be when you're making a professional standards.

Miss E B.

Miss E B.

Why do we recognize E B process?

I I asked if you continue with decorum in this boardroom.

Madam Law.

Mayor Woods.

Um, I don't believe this is a municipal court case.

I don't believe we have jurisdiction if there is a complaint against Wichita Police Department.

Any citizen may fail a complaint with the professional standards bureau.

I did, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next individual?

Ronald Negle, the proposed sales tax Mayor and Council members, I'm Ron Nagel.

And I'm here to address the um recently disclosed sales tax proposal.

And I'm kind of wondering what is the rush?

It seems to me.

Well, let me just read my remarks.

I liken the Wichita Forward proposal to a child's wish list sent to Can Santa.

In my analogy, though, we the citizens of Wichita are being asked to swipe our credit card before entry into the store or any decisions to make about the specificity of the things we might purchase.

As a parent, which many of you I'm sure are, would you prepay for a future unknown expenditure?

Then why would we make the same mistake as citizens?

Why would you make that decision to put it on the ballot with the possibility that it would pass?

And then we have ultimately $840 million, and then we decide how to spend the money.

Almost all of them are divisible by $25 million.

Seriously?

Is that really a proposal?

I doubt if Fidelity Bank, one of the principals, if someone walked into their institution and slapped down that, that they would accept that as a proposal for an $840 million loan.

The only real benefactors to this plan are the banks, the builders, and the developers.

They would receive $600 million plus a future capital improvement construction dollars, and sizable property tax deductions.

Why the rush?

The three principals of Wichita Ford are Fidelity Bank with $3.2 billion in assets.

The Builder Hutton, which is completing a $6 million apartment building, and also owns a $24,000 square foot headquarters, a 10,000 square foot building for its own support services, the former American Legion building, the former Crawley's Office Furniture Building, and many additional properties.

The third principal and developer is Thrive Restaurant Group, which owns the local franchises of Carlos O'Call's, Homegrown, Qdoba, and Applebee's.

One can only speculate about how much of the property relief the principals of Wichita Ford will reap.

The Wichita Ego estimates commercial taxpayers will save $100 per $100K in value.

The Wichita Eagle also estimates that a residential citizen will save $46 per $100K in residential savings, with an average household spending of additional $352 in sales tax.

Thus, if your house is worth $765,000, you will break even as far as the taxes go.

If it's worth less, you actually lose money on the tax burden transfer.

And that's what it is a tax transfer.

This proposal, though, would simply transfer tax dollars from the more affluent to the less affluent.

I consider that personally unethical and would hope that our councilpersons would share similar values.

What's the rush?

Many of us have gone shopping for used vehicles.

Typically, a salesperson guides one to a vehicle.

You describe and quote surprise.

If interested, you make a lower offer.

Then the salesperson confers with the manager, and together they pressure you to purchase the lemon of a car.

They tell you if you leave, their offer is off the table.

The whole timing of this proposal seems engineered similarly to the used car scenario.

It was presented to councilpersons just a few weeks prior to last week's first public unveiling.

If this is a good plan in March, it will still be a good plan in August.

I would hope saving the 150,000 by not having a March election would be a consideration.

It is our money.

Thank you, Ron.

I appreciate it.

What is the rush?

Five minutes.

What is the rush to even have me quiet now?

Thank you, Ron.

Thank you, Ms.

Will.

I have noted your dissent on the item, which is a new business item coming up next.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next item?

Joseph Tex Dozier, a few thoughts on recent happenings and hypocrisy.

Howdy, y'all, Joseph Tex Dozier.

Um, first off, uh, want to thank you all for the opportunity to speak.

I signed up today after what I heard uh during the council meeting last week, thinking that this was going to be on the consent agenda.

And uh tis the season, I last week I didn't want to be at the council meeting.

I would love to have been on the road to see my uh meet my wife and see my sister and niece in a Christmas play, but similar to feeling like I had to show up on October 21st when we had the landlord tenant issue, feeling like it was being rushed through.

I saw this happening yet again with an issue that really culminated in a pattern I've seen continually over the years serving on the district one advisory board and as a citizen.

And I say these remarks as I mentioned last week, as someone who began their political career working with the Sam Adams Alliance, which is a state policy network think tank that specialized in ballot initiatives.

So the site ballotpedia, a lot of the the things you saw on there I wrote, um I contributed to, and so I've seen a lot of sales tax proposals, and this I've never seen anything quite go through like this.

Um there's a few issues here that really bother me, and in large part I believe that community the community should drive political will.

And as much as I respect the intentions of probably many in Wichita Ford, and obviously the intentions of everyone here wants to see Wichita grow.

I have some grave concerns.

Um, and I will use uh probably the time during the the new business item to go through specific language that we is since y'all are pulling it, we have a chance to update today to ensure that future councils and future mayors can have then the guidelines and guardrails that we've seen so successfully proven in places like Oklahoma City.

Because as much as Wichita Ford says they followed maps, and they even mentioned that in their survey, their survey didn't even do the things that maps did, which is looking at prioritizations of funds, and there's a number of things that is includ are included in the maps programs that we can learn from that are drastic for some reason missing in our proposal that we will be voting on.

One of the more fascinating things is I pulled up this morning the primary docs looking at the actual last maps for that passed with 71% in Oklahoma City.

The voters voted on one single sentence, and it was ratifying the proposition that the council and mayor voted on an ordinance, a detailed ordinance, and I brought it today because it has a number of things that our ordinance doesn't have, and I also brought the language um from uh what will be on our ballot, which misses a lot, which does not include mention of the ordinance and does not mention a number of other things, and I understand why a lot of Wichitans are frustrated because there's the optics of 17 over 17,000 widgets from diverse political backgrounds, sign a petition to save century two and are slow walked and sued by the city, and then the optics of a banker, a businessman, and a builder walking into city hall and having a proposal they put forward fast-tracked and moved forward, that doesn't look so good.

And in maps, you have a 30-year history of a mayor with their city council, but really a mayor leading an initiative with vision and over a multi-year process to get feedback from a community on what they want to see before the language even goes on to the ballot.

And one of the things that really bothered me last week was there was mention, um, there's mention last year of we're gonna have a deficit, and so some on the council pushed for an increase in the mill levy of the property tax, and instead the council decided to reduce our mill levy for the first time in decades.

And by reducing our mill levy, they took 2.7 million minimum out of the budget each year.

And last week, may I respect you, but you you mentioned on record that because of the looming deficit of a few million in a few years, we need to, it was one of the reasons we need to address this now.

And it also was mentioned is the second light funding, which will ARPA funding ends in September.

But the idea that we just then cut tax, we just then cut property tax and are pushing at 2.7 million a year to, and then using that as a reason to push a billion dollar tax increase is a reality.

And I'll I'll continue my remarks during the other other portion of the session, other new business.

But the other thing that really stood out to me and bothered me the most was when I came here on October 21st, there was a clear understanding that we needed to wait and pause and not rush something that quote affects so many people in the community.

As the mayor said, the idea is not to have closed door meetings and create ordinances that affect everyone in our community.

When I learned that it was only the six district advisory boards engaged in this process before it came to us at the council, I know I could not support this.

I am a big component of getting all stakeholders at the table.

I'll finish my remarks during the new section, new business.

Thank you.

Thank you, Texas.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next individual?

David Braddock, non-discrimination ordinance.

Good morning.

I think my address is already on file.

If you need it, please let me know.

First of all, mayor, congratulations again.

This is the first time I've seen you at that chair.

I met you before at Wichita State this morning.

Uh represent or Miss Bryce helped me get all my documentation to all of you this morning, so you should all have it in an email box from me.

I'm not gonna read it all because it's quite lengthy.

And I do want to let you know, um, I'm very used to litigation.

I don't like litigation, I hate litigation.

God tells me not to take people to court, but I've had to in the past.

And if for any of the things I've disclosed in that document seem to be offensive to any of the council members, or I miss state anything, and you feel it's appropriate to file charges of slander against me or anything like that, please go forward because as I said this morning in our prayer, we want integrity and transparency.

And so if I misstated anything, the correspondence that went to you, there's currently on news embargo to the media until five o'clock on Friday, but we'll be released with them along with a multitude of other documents provided by our city attorney and dictator mayor, I'm sorry, our law director when she handled my case previously.

Last time I was here, I was suing Walgreens Boots Alliance.

Uh, the mayor was extremely hostile, and I apologize for any disrespect I gave to that chair.

I respect the offices all behold greatly.

I don't vote for most of you honestly, but I pray for each one of you because that's what I'm called to do.

So I will cite one small thing regarding the discrimination ordinance.

The primary purpose of my email is to revisit the ordinance we had regarding, and I was the first case ever filed under that ordinance.

My case involved Walgreens Boots Alliance, revealed critical flaws in both the litigation framework established by the city council and the procedures implemented by the law office, who of which I CC'd on the original email.

The arbitration process collapsed without any agreement.

What followed was an unexplained delay appearing to stem from ex parte communications between her and opposing counsel, which resulted in the statute of limitation somehow mysteriously expiring and preventing me from filing a civil case.

There was an attorney, there was a pastor, Pastor Dion Gates, who voted against the amendment ever going into place, and he explained why that we shouldn't bring a judicial matter into the executive branch.

He says if we really want to do this to protect anti-discrimination, we should hire paralegals.

To the best of my knowledge, there's not been a single case litigated through that process that resulted anything meaningful in terms of a settlement.

But instead, we've grant standard continuously and added additional things to put out a wonderful new anti-discrimination ordinance.

If you want a PR stunt, that's great.

But instead, I'm asking for financial accountability.

I'm asking for transparency.

I really hoped I could put all this behind me, and for some reason, this came up again this year.

Uh, someone once said, when can we finally put this behind me?

I said, Well, let's see.

The CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance resigned mysteriously and never announced another job she was pursuing because an outside board member talked to her about this.

Our mayor, who's expected to be re elected, somehow didn't get elected.

All the other parties documenting this piece, their things have come up.

They've either confessed what they did and said was wrong and tried to make amends for it, which is why I hope this is all about.

I really don't want any of you to requit and resign at all.

But as things come to light, they need to come to light.

So if there's any misgivings about why this ordinance was ever introduced, possibly for financial windfall of a council member, or if the city attorney really did have ex parti communications because she was thought she wasn't sure what hat she was wearing.

Am I sitting as a city attorney?

Am I saying it's the judge, and am I saying it's a prosecutor?

That can't work.

Judges can barely handle all that.

An executive branch procedure.

We attempted to create a whole new court system in the law office.

Can't work.

I would hate to know how much you spent on my case alone.

I know it was a lot.

Nothing happened from that.

Somehow they interviewed Walgreens Boots Alliance with the attorney that she appointed to address my case, had a complete interview with her, and then somehow, after all that discussions just with them, decide my case had no merits and threw it out.

And never talked to me personally.

That seems a bit odd.

But there's a lot of things for a bit odd.

So my only reason for coming here today was to bring things to light.

I recognize in the email my thanks to Maggie Ballard.

She really did step up, and I really appreciate it.

We don't agree on many things politically here.

But she stepped up and said, you know, I don't know why we're concealing this.

Why we can't show you these things.

And that's what I'd like to do.

Let's try and bring this more to transparency.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, David.

Um, as a point of clarification, the NDO was passed in October of 2021.

Um, and I just want to know.

I think you emailed all of us this morning.

Yes.

This is Rice Resecral to make sure we've got it.

Every council member received your uh email, so thank you.

I appreciate it.

Um law.

Is there anything that um Mr.

Braddock can do?

Um mayor counsel.

Um, you know that anybody can continue to file a complaint under the non-discrimination ordinance.

It is in effect.

I don't have um any other um comments at this time about his particular case.

Mayor Wu, could I respond to her statement?

Can you email?

I will be glad to there will be certain responses.

Thank you very much, Mayor Wu.

Have a great day, you guys.

Thank you to the five speakers.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next item?

Consent agenda items one through 28.

Council members, any items to be pulled from the consent agenda.

I see none.

I go, I will go ahead and move the consent agenda items one through 28.

Second.

Motion and a second.

Any further discussion.

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 70.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Board of Bids and Contracts dated December 15th, 2025.

Morning, Mayor, City Council, Josh Lauber, Department of Finance.

The Board of Bids and Contracts convened yesterday, December 15th, for the following items.

For engineering, we have Douglas Avenue, Seneca Street to Meridian Avenue for Conspec Incorporated doing business as Kansas Paving for 10 million, 629,347 and 16 cents.

We have pump station three, six through nine repairs for JMG Ventures doing business as Hoosier Engineering LLC for 172,760, subject to your approval of the new engine new engineers estimate and budget authorization you just approved.

We have the 2025 Sanitary Sewer Reconstruction Phase 1, Dunham edition and Dunham Second Edition for Dutton Construction Services, LLC for 158,520, subject to the new engineer estimate and budget authorization on consent today.

We have the Red Bud Multi-Use Path Woodlawn to K96 phase one for Preto Construction LLC for an aggregate bid total of 3,480,278 and six cents.

We have the sidewalk improvements to serve Brookfield South Phase 6 and Phase 7 for Roston Construction LLC for 146,240 and 45 cents.

We have the water distribution system, sanitary sewer paving and incidental drainage improvements for Swainy Farm Edition Phase 2 for NOAC Construction Company Incorporated for 1,534,272 and five cents.

We have the water distribution system sanitary sewer improvements for Cottonwood Creek Estates Phase Two for Apex Excavating LLC for an aggregate bid of 277,119.

We have the water distribution system Oak Tree Edition for PSC contractors LLC for 219,730.

We have the water main improvements for Betson Edition for Apex Excavating LLC for 127,965.

We have the stormwater drain number 547 improvements to serve Clear Cleek Creek 3rd and 4th edition phase 8 for PSC contractors LLC for 452,760.

And for purchasing, we have the interior and exterior modifications of single family home at 1601 East Delmar for Rost and Construction LLC for 115,000.

We have the tree and stump removal of SEM Golf Course for Wichita Tree Service LLC for 63,000, 810.

We have trained stump removal citywide, groups one through six for Wichita Tree Service LLC for 205,000 562 dollars.

We have the construction of Wichita Police Department West Patrol Station for Donlinger and Sons Construction Incorporated for an aggregate bid total with the alternate selected of $8,366,500.

We have the self-propelled tricycle type street sweeper for Barry Tractor and Equipment Company for an aggregate bid total of 422,901 dollars.

This is how to become a vendor with the city.

This is a purchasing calendar of small business resource partner events the city's hosting or participating in.

And these are open public opportunities.

I don't think I've seen it this brief in a while.

So I'll be happy to try to answer your questions.

We are in full end year swing, and I'll be happy to answer your questions.

Thank you, Josh.

Questions for staff beginning with council member Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Actually, mine's not a question.

I just need to pull item on page 18.

And I also have a question actually on Douglas Street, Seneca to Meridian.

I think it's the first item.

There we go.

Um is this the total for the entire project or just the street improvements?

I'm gonna need the city engineer on that one.

Paul Gonzelman Public Works and Utilities.

This is for the entire construction of that project, includes street, sidewalk, etc.

And can you remind us this stretch of the street will be how many lanes?

This will be three-lane roadway with on street parking with shared lane use markings for cyclists.

And you said sidewalks on both sides.

Yes, there is sidewalk exists, and we would be replacing it with uh wider sidewalk.

And does this include the public art?

It does, yes.

Thank you very much.

Council member Ballard.

Do you want to just pull that item?

I will go ahead and move to approve the board of bids and contracts dated December 15th, 2025 without the item regarding patrol west.

Second.

Motion and a second, any further discussion.

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 70.

Councilmember Ballard.

Due to a conflict of interest, I'd like to abstain from this item.

I will go ahead and move and approve the Board of Bids and Contracts that includes the Patrol West item.

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.

Petitions for public improvements.

Morning, Mayor.

City Council members Paul Gunsleman Public Works and Utilities for the record.

I have one location for your consideration this morning.

The signature on the petition represents 100% of the improvement districts.

And the petition is valid per Kansas statute.

Greenwich Legacy Edition located in District 2.

On April 8th, 2025, the City Council approves sewer required for a new residential development.

The developer has submitted revised sewer petition to remove the acquisition fee.

The budget remains as previously approved.

And it's recommended that the city council approve the revised petition adopt the amending resolution and authorizing the necessary signatures.

And I will stand for questions.

Thank you, Paul.

Questions for staff.

I see none.

I move to approve the petitions for public improvements.

Second.

Motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 70.

Madam Clerk, please call the first new item.

Ordinance calling for special election question to impose 1% sales tax.

Mayor, members of the council, uh Bob Leighton City Manager.

I believe this is my last presentation formally.

I'm here to speak on the second reading of the ordinance calling for a special election to impose a one percent sales tax.

Council gave first reading to this at its last meeting.

Just a reminder that Wichita Forward community coalition uh brought to you a proposal for a 1% sales tax referendum.

It had five items that were included in the uh plan, included uh funding for public safety improvements, homeless and housing services, century two and convention center improvements, property tax relief, and the development construction of a new downtown public performing arts center.

Um as I mentioned, the council considered this at its December 9th meeting, gave it uh gave the ordinance first reading, and uh uh if this council were to approve the second reading today, the uh sales tax assessment would begin on July 1st, 2026, terminate no later than June 30, 2020 or 2033.

Excuse me.

Based on Wichita Forward's financial analysis, it's predicted that a 1% sales tax for seven years would generate revenue streams uh in the amounts that are shown on the screen.

I won't read through each of those.

Um we have discussed this at length at the last council meeting.

Additionally, the ordinance calls for the creation of an oversight committee within 90 days after the passage of the sales tax.

Uh this is a citizen committee that would be comprised of 15 members appointed by the city council.

Committee would meet at least two times a year and would provide an uh annual financial audit of the sales tax expenditures to be prepared by an independent auditor.

Oversight committee cannot make any funding determinations but can make recommendations to the city council.

Scope of the committee's role is to verify projects funded with sales tax revenue as consistent with the purposes and uses that were approved by the voters, similar to what was done with uh the oversight committee for intrust uh bank arena.

One percent sales tax is estimated to generate about 850 million dollars over the seven-year period.

Um, during your uh debate at the last council meeting, uh, you asked staff to look at the possibility of providing some kind of sales tax uh relief for low-income residents in the community.

Um until recently, Kansas uh offered a sales tax credit program, and it would have been if that program had been in existence, it would have been easy for us to piggyback with that, uh, which would have uh uh really uh reduced any kind of administrative burden with uh rebate or uh payment program.

However, we have come up with uh one uh possibility for the council to consider if you wanted to move forward with some kind of relief program, and that would be an annual payment of approximately $50 or of $50 to Wichita residents who qualify for the low income energy assistance program.

There are about uh over there a little over uh 24,000 households in Cedric County that receive uh leap assistance.

Our census data indicates that uh over 27,000 households in the county are below the poverty rate, and that about 94 percent of those households actually are located in the city of Wichita.

Uh more than 23,000 households would be eligible for the proposed rebate at a cost of approximately 1.15 million dollars, depending on the number of applications that are received.

But as you can tell, uh LEAP uh has been a popular program uh to provide some kind of utility assistance for our low-income families.

If uh the council were to move forward with the ordinance today, uh the special election would have a cost of 150 approximately 150,000 dollars.

Um sufficient funds are uh available in the city manager's uh office city manager's office budget of to cover this cost.

And so with that, um bringing to you second reading of the ordinance uh to call a special election on the and also to approve the proposed notice of special question and election.

With that, I'd be glad to answer any questions.

Questions for staff beginning with council member Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um Bob.

Do we have any idea how many people are currently signed up for LEAP in Wichita?

Yeah, I'm gonna ask Sally staying to come forward.

I figured there would be some questions on LEAP, so uh maybe if you can take advantage of Sally Bean at the appreciate it.

Councilmember Halseizel, Council members Sally staying with the housing and community services direct uh department for the record.

I reached out to uh DCF who runs the LEAP program because we only have the 2024 numbers.

I was quite surprised when they emailed yesterday afternoon to say there were under 10,000 applications from City of Wichita residents for 2025.

So I can't explain the the big jump down from the year before.

I would hope that's because people are in a better financial situation, but they did not provide any background as to why it would have dropped so significantly.

Okay, so it would fall on us to make sure to get the word out, get people signed up.

What is the funding source from the state for LEAP?

Is it through DCF?

Is it it comes through the yes?

The DCF manages that program.

That program comes through federal funds related to energy efficiencies that comes to D to the state who then awards it through DCF.

About how much does the state put into the state?

That I don't know off the top of my head, but I can get it for you.

Okay, I'd appreciate that.

Yeah.

Um, this is a start, you know, and we can look some at some other programs um over the course of the next couple of months to help alleviate some of the burden of this on the lower end of the economic spectrum here.

Um mayor, if I may um jump in, we're not recommending that LEAP funding pro be the funding source here.

They that would not be eligible.

Uh instead, this would come from uh the property tax or yeah, for yeah, for the funding of this program right we'll take it out of the funds from the CIP probably.

Right.

I just exactly I just want to make sure that that was clear.

Okay, yeah, yes, sir.

Appreciate that.

Um that's all I have for you, Sally.

Um are there any um agents for the uh Ford Wichita that'd like to come up and um have anything to say?

Can we go through more questions and then which forward?

Yeah, uh Vice Mayor John Sten.

Thank you, Mayor.

Sally, can you come back up, please?

We want to get your steps in today.

I would just like to know is this concerns me too for poor citizens.

Uh, what what's the process?

How hard is it to go through this process to get this $50?

Yeah, we've been contemplating that too.

So um we were able to re get a copy of the eligibility notice that DCF provides.

Um, and we would be able to use that notice as the verification.

Um, and our staff actually logged in and was able to uh obtain that verification from DCF's website within a couple of minutes, just logging into their account.

So our discussions internally would be that there would be an online application where someone could fill it out, submit the DCF verification of LIHEAP, and then we'd be working on the back side to be able to issue payments.

The biggest challenge is gonna be getting through the process to issue checks.

Yeah, so online, how long do would that take someone to do?

It depends on their skill side to be honest with you.

Uh less than two minutes for most.

Um, but of course, we have um self-sur kiosks at all the neighborhood resource centers.

We figured that application would be something that we could put on those kiesks there.

We have the kiosk here at City Hall as well as staff at all of those locations that could assist people in completing that application.

Okay, what documentation did it need to show?

That it would be the award letter from DECF showing their LIE benefit, and it would need to match the name and address of the person who's applying.

Okay, so if they don't have an award letter, they wouldn't be able to get this.

Correct.

Okay.

Is it only for documented assistance or undocumented systems?

You know, I would have to find out from DCF whether a LIEP is limited to um documented whether they have a process and go through the the verification or not.

That I do not know, but we can find out.

Okay, okay, thank you.

Councilmember Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Paul, this is a question for you.

Can you explain the food tax in why Wichita, why we can't just exclude it from Wichita?

Or is that a signal?

I think we're gonna turn it over to Sharon Dick Graff.

And I'm also gonna look at Mark.

Um, when we contacted the Dep Department of Revenue, or actually when Mark contacted the Department of Revenue, um, the state is part of an interstate compact on taxes, and the Department of Revenue, and I think some legislatures have also provided information that that to single out what it's not something that they maybe aren't willing to do, um, but it would have effect of multiple cities if we wanted to have just food tax overall um exempted from any local sales tax.

So it's a matter of if if they went in and changed it, that it would have consequences on other uh sales taxes that had been approved, and I don't think that there was uh enough buy-in to have that happen, but I'm gonna look at Mark and see if I did anything.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

Councilmember Glascock.

Just a quick question for um Sharon for clarification.

Wichita is the only first class city in the state that doesn't collect a full one percent for municipal sales tax.

Is that correct?

I believe that is correct.

Okay, thank you.

Questions for city manager Leighton now.

Um can you go back to the slide regarding the various amounts that would be allocated?

First question is can those be changed?

Uh Mayor, at this point, uh any changes in those amounts would require uh a new first reading on the ordinance.

Second question um regarding the new performing arts center.

Is there a mention on there that this is a one-to-one match?

If not, how do you add that in?

In other words, um, according to the presentation from this group, there you would have to uh find private dollars to fund this, and the public dollars would be a match.

Um is there anything that could be written in there that they have to find those private dollars first before public dollars would come in?

Mayor, that's a good point, and that was the intent from the very beginning that our dollars would not be committed until there was a match from private sector.

I don't know if that is an allowable change in the ordinance or whether that would be considered significant enough to push this into first reading again.

I I believe that under the ordinance we we are on second reading today and only minor amendments can be made today from the bench.

I would consider that more than a minor clarification.

I don't think it's minor.

I think we we're not able to make a significant I'm not comfortable with this if it does not first mean that the public dollars come into play next, not first.

Private dollars need to be raised first, then public dollars can come in.

However, if it doesn't allow that to be written in, and I don't think it's a significant change, it's rather this is up to 75 million, but the wording would say you have to build those private dollars first.

Council member Glascock.

This would be a question for legal.

While that may not be able to be changed in the ballot initiative, that can that be changed in the ordinance that is attached to the ballot initiative.

Yeah, the ordinance is the ballot question, so I'm sorry, we can't we could do something separately as a statement as a resolution of intent.

Um outside of the ballot question, I think if that's of interest.

Okay, thank you.

I would need that in order to approve again allowing the community to vote because I don't want the city to be on the hook on of these dollars if they cannot raise the funds privately first.

So I'm hearing that you can accomplish that through a resolution when you uh if you approve the ordinance, the ballot question, you can also do a separate resolution indicating your intent on administration of these funds if once it if this is adopted.

Okay.

I would want that wording available.

Uh council member Ballard.

Thank you.

Uh Bob, I know there's been a lot of chatter about the potential performing arts being on city land.

Is there I mean, is that still part of the conversation?

Uh I understand there's a conversation like that in the community.

No, it says downtown public performing arts, but I assume that that's because it would be our our facility, but I want to talk about the actual land.

I know we have some stuff, but no site has been identified.

I do know that the downtown master plan draft has, I think has some language.

But no, that this the ordinance does not talk about it being located on city land, it just in downtown.

Okay, that's gonna be incredibly important to me, and I think it is to many of my constituents that have mentioned that as well.

Okay.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, along the same uh route.

If we wanted to split this vote up and vote on the just the different items, uh the different pots of money spread split into four different votes.

Is that something we could do from the bench today, or would that require no?

That would require a new ordinance.

Okay, so if we did that and we still wanted to get it published by the 19th, would that mean we could have a could we emergency that today?

I'd advise against doing an emergency ordinance.

You'd have to have a second meeting for a second reading.

So we could have a special meeting scheduled in the next two days.

I'm gonna have to call on Sharon.

She's been working with the election commissioner, and we're on a special exception right now in terms of her timetable.

Laura's here.

Oh, Laura.

I saw her in the audience.

I thought she she was she was gone.

So thank you, Laura.

I wasn't here just for you.

Although, good morning, mayor and council members.

First, I want to say congratulations on a remarkable career.

Incredible.

I was pleased and honored to work for you.

So you aka ballots go out January 17th if this election is called.

There can be no changes today.

It's an all or none.

I originally gave Sharon a deadline of the 15th of December.

She asked if we could extend it to the end of the week, and we graciously did.

We are down to the wire, guys.

So I'm sorry that it's a rush rush rush, but if you aka, which is overseas ballots, go out the 17th of January.

We have to have time to do programming and all of our logic and accuracy testing on all the equipment for over 70 sites.

That's a lot of work.

And you got the holidays in there too.

So anyway, I'm sorry.

Don't have better news for you.

So the the deadline is the 19th.

We have to have the ordinance in our possession by this Friday.

By this with the wording of the language.

So if we did have an emergency meeting tomorrow for the second reading, we could still have that language to you by Friday.

No, we have to have the language by Friday.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

We could still have the language to you by Friday if we had an emergency tomorrow.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Appreciate that.

Councilmember Glascock.

I have a couple questions for the election commissioner.

Um we just got clear clarity regarding Friday being the true deadline.

So I know that this would require this is right now on second reading, which usually is in consent agenda.

However, we wanted to make sure that the public had an opportunity to speak, so we pulled it and made it into new business.

If this had any significant changes in terms of its wording, it would become a first reading again.

And if we asked for an emergency second reading tomorrow, um, maybe that's not really an election question, it's more a city manager question.

Is that allowed?

You can call a meeting, a special meeting under city ordinance with reasonable notice.

Again, I have concerns regarding the performing arts.

I want to make sure that private dollars are raised first before public dollars come into play.

That's a concern of mine.

I've also heard from multiple individuals regarding some of these funding sources.

So I wanted to know.

Um grocery taxes right now are not exempt, and so one of the criteria as it reads, it does still require us to charge for groceries.

Would there be anything in our ordinance that could exempt groceries?

No, Mayor.

Under state law, you cannot with the local option sales tax.

That's why um there was some discussion of the last council meeting about asking the legislature to make a change so that um that could it's not exempted, it would take it down to zero.

I think that's a technical language for the state law.

Um again, because of the interstate compact of the that Kansas belongs to, but there's nothing you can do locally to exempt at this time under Kansas law.

Now this question is for the election commissioner.

Um there has been some confusion regarding the cost of a special election.

Can you address the cost of a special election?

Okay, yes, I can, and thank you for allowing me to do so.

An in-person election on March 3rd will cost the city about 150,000.

An all-mail ballot where every eligible voter receives a mail ballot in their mailbox would be about 450,000.

If you wait and hold this election in either August or November of next year, it costs the city of Wichita nothing because it is a countywide election for both the primary and general elections next year.

There was also some confusion last week.

If you have an in-person election, everybody that makes application for a mail ballot still will get a mail ballot.

And we do have people that are on the permanent list that always get a mail ballot, they will still get a mail ballot.

It's not doing away, it's not saying you have to vote in person, that's just the type of election that's what we call it.

So the cost is 150,000.

This question now is for the city manager.

Can you address again where these dollars will come from?

Yes, Mayor, it comes out of a contingency fund that's in the uh city manager's budget.

There's about 288,000 dollars that's in that fund, and 150,000 of that amount would be used for the election.

And can you address what contingency fund usually um addresses annually?

Uh it's really for unexpected um program expenses.

Uh there are many years that we don't use any of the contingency, but it allows us to do uh special projects or special initiatives, usually uh uh initiated by the city council or from city council action, but uh also it can be for special studies uh or consistent something to that nature.

Can you give some examples of most recent years?

Um I'm gonna ask Mark for help on that.

Good morning, Mayor Mark Manning, Department of Finance.

Uh yes, ma'am, I understand your question, and I actually uh did a little research a couple weeks ago.

Last time we spent any out of the city manager's contingency was many many years ago, and I cannot answer your question because I couldn't even find the last time we spent any money out of it.

It's probably been eight or ten years ago.

But like the major said, typically we'd have it available for uh special purposes, typically those are designated by the city council.

But I'll have to go back and look more, Mayor, to answer your question better.

Thank you, Mark.

The other question I have, maybe Mark, please don't leave.

Uh property tax relief.

Can you talk about the amount of mill levy that will be reduced if this passes?

Uh yes, ma'am.

I can't answer that precisely because as you know, the city does not control the mill levy, the county does.

We control the amount of taxes that we choose to levy, which is uh converted into the mill levy by the county in November each year.

However, we can come up with a pretty good uh estimate based on our cessed valuation, and generally speaking, uh each mill uh for the city of Wichita generates a little bit north of five million dollars.

So, for example, I think the sales tax that's being proposed uh would uh throw off somewhere north of 20 million dollars annually for uh property tax relief.

So, you know, doing the uh quick estimate based on what I've told you, that's approximately four mills that would likely be reduced each year.

Thank you, Mark.

And one more question for you, Mark.

Um, regarding public safety, that's the other um major bucket.

Can you address again cash funding versus debt funding?

Uh yes, ma'am.

Uh our capital improvement program uh for all the categories that we fund, but including public safety.

Uh, we typically cash finance roughly 50 percent of what we spend, and then we typically debt finance the other 50 percent.

That's gonna vary by a number of things, but generally speaking, that's what our target ratio is.

What would happen to those dollars that are freed up then?

Well, uh, they would be available for other purposes within the capital improvement program, or they would be available for us to drastically reduce future debt in other areas, not including public safety, uh, or I would suppose at some point they would be available to uh further reduce our city mill levy.

I would point out, however, our debt, you know, it it's issued over time, so the relief would not be immediate, but it would occur over time and it would uh be fairly dramatic as as time went on.

Thank you, Mark.

And then this question is about homelessness, so maybe Staly.

Um the city the city has utilized federal temporary ARPA dollars to operate what is known as second light.

Is there a plan for operating dollars moving forward after those ARPA dollars uh cease to exist?

Um well, I I'm not aware of a significant plan other than uh you know, looking at philanthropy and and the community coming together to be able to fund the operations.

And can you remind us again the operating cost of the second light shelter?

Sure.

Uh, in conversations with uh the the opera or with second light executive director Dan Clifford, he stated it's about four million dollars at this time.

Thank you.

Councilmember Glascock.

Sally, quick follow-up to that.

So if we were not to secure another funding stream, a few options.

Let me know if there's any options outside of this, the city would have to look at reducing services.

You'd have to allocate from other services in housing or the city budget as a whole, or the city would have to look at increasing the mill levy to support um the infrastructure second line.

Would that be correct?

That's what I would be aware of, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

And the last question is now bullet point number three, which is century two, City Manager Leighton.

How much is in the CIP to currently um revitalize century two?

Um, and what are the still needed uh improvements for century two?

We're double checking there.

I think it's 11 million over a 10-year period.

I'm 12 12.1, thank you.

12.1 over a 10-year period.

And this proposal is more than the 12.1 is actually yes, that is correct.

Maybe now it's the right time to ask questions for which top over, but I see council member Johnson.

Mayor.

Thanks, Mayor.

Uh, just real quick technical follow-up on something the mayor asked about if um if this were to pass and there was a suggested resolution or vote to get private funds before the tax dollars are spent on performant arts.

How does that work with the citizen approved money?

Like, so say 75 million is now sitting there, but the private sector does not raise money, and we've passed something that says that they have to have that first.

What happens to that 75 million?

If they do not raise the funding, is that what you're saying?

Uh, first of all, it could uh re it could backfill for any shortfall in any of the other categories until you reach that not to exceed amount, I believe.

And then at that point uh you would have uh you'd be able to terminate the sales tax early if uh the 75 wasn't used and you didn't need it for backfill.

Wow, okay.

So then that would just be a resolution, or would that be a new ordinance that the council would have to vote on in subsequent weeks?

Oh, in terms of the which now in terms of the if they did not raise the funds, yeah.

So we voted today to put this on the ballot and the voters did say yes to it.

Would an ordinance be drafted maybe January, February that would then say if this does, if it is successful, then the private sector dollars would have to be raised before any public dollars.

Um I know that's super in the weeds, but I was just yes, I'll have to turn that over to an attorney if we're gonna have a by resolution, you could have a resolution that would come back either next week, and I'm gonna get some evil evil looks um next week or the first part of January.

I also know that there's a discussion going on that we may make some sausage from the bench of the ballot.

Um, and if we do that, then it could be included, although I know Jennifer and my comfort level is not great on completely re-revamping this, but we will do whatever the council wants us to do.

Okay, I'm more supportive of a resolution to what the mayor said, not necessarily today, but to define that whole thing.

Councilmember Glascom.

Thank you.

I want to correct the it's on page 24 of the CIP, it's 12.66 million over 10 years to century two.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Along those lines, uh, if we were to act on the leap funding today, is that something that we would do by resolution of intent as well?

I'm I don't know if you even need resolution, but if you've comfortable more comfortable doing that, I think you could do that through resolution asking, but what you're doing is asking staff to put a program together that utilizes leap criteria to be able to provide a rebate or a payment program for low-income residents.

Okay.

I see no further questions for staff.

I will now ask questions for which shop forward.

Um which shop forward the question was regarding century two.

Can you address um again?

I know several of the numbers.

The CIP has a lower amount versus what which shop forward is projecting.

Can you address why there was such um there was a difference?

Yep.

Uh Mapper Chat would show forward.

Uh we had recommended 25 million be allocated to revitalization of century two alongside the city's 12.1 million uh in an effort to address all deferred maintenance and revitalization projects.

And when it came to public safety, I think the dollars were 197 million or so, but public safety here shows at 225.

Can you address why there was that discrepancy also?

In our conversations with uh Wichita Fire and Wichita Police, the recommendation to uh give a little bit of extra to 197.5 is currently in the CIP, which was determined about a year ago, and that knowing these projects happen over seven years, we anticipated both increasing cost associated with construction or uh uh the purchase of various um items associated with their safety and efficiency, as well as um dollars built in to do revitalization of current assets.

Thank you.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thanks, Mayor.

Uh, just real quick.

I know that there's some folks in the public that feel the public safety numbers nebulous, and I know that you based it off of CIP.

Did you have a list of specific items in the CIP?

Because not everybody reads that document that you were looking at based upon what we approved already.

Yeah.

Now we looked at all the specific items in the CIP, which can it came up to the 197.5 over a 10-year window.

And this proposal, the resources to revitalize current assets, purchase the new assets, do the current and new builds associated with the public safety initiative.

Um again in conversations with the Wichita Fire Department and the police department, um, we believe that number accomplishes those objectives to its fullest.

And then I think you had I've been at I think two other presentations, not the one last night.

Well, there was also a maintenance item in there, so that we wouldn't just make these new purchases and not maintain them, but also maintain those as well.

What has been shared to us by the uh Wichita Fire and Wishtaw Police is that there are currently needs to both maintain current facilities and build new ones, as well as maintain current assets and and purchase new assets for their safety and well-being.

Okay, we heard a complete presentation last night of wish to fire, uh, which is particularly compelling uh that aligned with uh that.

But we do want a point of clarification in that um the 225 does not address any personnel needs.

Okay, council member hohisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um appreciate you coming up here.

Did you work on these projections with our city finance team?

We did not work directly with the city finance team.

We did utilize the numbers that were made publicly available.

Okay, so you feel has it been vetted through our finance department?

So these numbers we can we feel are achievable with the sales tax.

Right.

Now, if there's a grocery exemption in there, um, how does that impact the overall uh numbers that we have here?

I'm gonna ask Mark to come up.

I think he had a step out.

Oh, he's got a way downtown.

Good morning, council member.

Uh he is correct.

I have not worked with them on their revenue estimates.

Uh we obviously provided revenue estimates like that in the past, uh, particularly last year.

Uh I would tell you that they are pretty consistent with the numbers that we have uh previously developed.

Okay, and um again, if sales tax taken out of the equation, how does that impact the overall revenue estimates?

Uh that's an excellent question.

Uh I've tried to determine that.

It's very difficult for us.

We just don't have that granular level of detail.

Uh I've looked at what the state estimated whenever they exempted the uh food and grocery from the state-wide sales tax.

Uh, even that's a little bit nebulous.

I think it would be relatively minimal, uh, maybe in the several percent range.

Uh, but I I can't tell you with any level of precision what it would be.

I don't think it would be hugely material, but it it would be a you know several millions of dollars.

Okay, I appreciate it.

Uh question for the uh representative here.

So we've had discussions where you guys have talked about the first pot of money that's going to be filled with this would be homelessness and affordable housing, uh making sure that that is the first pot of money.

So could you tell me uh ranking an order, and then also I don't know if this is another resolution we would have to do from the bench as far as making sure what pots of money are filled first in what order.

Um, but could you talk tell me a little bit about that?

Yeah, uh in our recommendation, we recognize there are a number of budget items that have urgency, um, including a investments in public safety, which that CIP takes in effect in 2026 budget, and then obviously the uh expiration of the current ARPA funding in October of 2026 for second light or homeless related services.

And so in our recommendation, we had fretloaded those two investments, knowing that those are two uh immediate budget impacts that will go into play, and knowing also or but the belief that uh any of the uh construction projects or big capital project projects would be further down the line after community engagement and opportunity for the oversight committee to have a voice in those processes, and so the belief that we can front load those two projects and then uh free up dollars later on in the seven years for the major construction feels like a reasonable approach to us.

Uh Matt also property tax relief to sorry, property tax relief as well, would be a more media effect.

Okay, so follow-up question really quick on the property tax relief.

Would that take into effect in the new 2027 budget that would be discussed in the summer of 2026?

Uh yes, ma'am, mayor.

I think it would, as you know, this August you will set the taxes levied for the 2027 budget.

But if this uh referendum is successful, we would know by then uh what would be available.

So, yes, we would uh be able to incorporate it in the 2027 mill levy rates.

So it would be a four mil levy reduction in the 2027 budget.

Is that accurate?

Well, I don't want to speak in absolute terms, but yes, it would be very close to an estimated four mil levy reduction in 2027.

Okay, Mark.

Yeah, since I got you up here, uh that's also open to interpretation, right?

So council says the policy for the reduction because it's just an overall property tax.

So if there are certain property tax um items or avenues that we have that we would want to, such as the homestead tax that I keep harping on, that could be included in property tax relief as well.

Uh again, you're gonna set the taxes levied for the 2027 budget, so whatever policy direction you provide for the amount of taxes levied will ultimately drive the amount of mill levy reduction that's available in 2027.

Okay, well, I'll just say from the bench right now that that is something we could call them the Hoheisel tax cuts at this point, but um the mill levy or the um homestead tax rebates is something that I would definitely push for because that has a direct impact on seniors making under 41,000 a year.

So I would fully encourage my colleagues to consider that when we are talking property taxes in the future.

Um you guys, it does not appear that uh you will be releasing the polling after all.

Is there what's that you have a question or a no, no, no?

I just wanted just confirmation.

Yeah, um I just a warning.

Uh it's something I think the public does want to see.

Um, transparency.

There's issues that everybody has with the speed of this thing right now and just kind of the unclarity of it.

Um I really think that um dampens the prospects of this more than anything else.

I can't force you to uh release anything.

Um but I I it's just not a good look.

I will say that.

So just wanted to put that out there.

Thank you.

Councilmember Todd.

Thank you.

Um, thank you for being here today.

You mentioned it briefly, but I just want to confirm and want to make sure that I go on record.

The public safety portion of this is just for capital expenses.

You said no personnel, but no operations at all.

No operations, no, no ongoing expenses.

Thank you.

And that's something that I've said consistently for the seven years I've been on this bench that I do not support a sales tax for anything operational because sales tax can fluctuate depending on the the you know the economy at the time.

So just want to go on record, it is for capital projects only.

Thank you.

Councilmember Glascock.

Thank you.

Uh just for um colleagues and also the general public when we're talking about the specific items.

Page 72 and 73 of the CIP talk about the detailed project listings for uh fire and police or for fire, page 74 and page 75.

Uh talk about the detailed project listings for police.

In addition, um page 72 uh offers the preview for that.

Um if we look at page 108 to talks about C2, that's in the general fund.

We look at page 24 of the CIP, it talks about the amount allocated towards entry two.

Page 17 talks about the 400 million allocated towards a new convention center in parentheses, which it says for which funding is not yet identified.

And then I think for my colleague um as well about where the I think the data came from in terms of projections.

That was in a report on May 27th, 2025, presented to the city council.

It's an eight-page document.

It's titled 2025-2026 proposed budget, consideration of a city which doll local sales tax, which particularly talks about the property tax component, and then also uh talks about the funding or the public safety aspect on August 7th, 2025.

We did um we again had that information October 20 or October 14th, 2025, and then on June 30th as well.

So that's just data points for anybody looking for information about when we've publicly talked about this from the bench or the data points and maybe uh proposals and how which top forward came forward with the recommendations.

Councilmember Johnson.

Oh, she came up.

Um, just for discussion with what council member Hoheisel said, if we were looking at rebates, um leap is great, but I think it misses a few people, and I would wonder if staff could look at multiple programs because you also have uh other folks who are lower income and the Kansas property tax relief for low-income seniors, the Kansas Homestead Refund Program, the Kansas Disability or Disabled Veteran Relief Programs, SNAP, can care, free and reduced lunch, like trying to catch as many people who are paying into the sales tax as possible at that lower income rate, so it's not everybody, but I think you get more of the folks who would need that rebate in multiple programs and not just maybe one standard.

Council member, the more programs you add to the list, the harder the administration will be because you what you you're gonna need to cross-reference to make sure that you don't duplicate payments.

So we can and I think that's you will have a lot of duplication on that list.

I just want to make sure that we don't create an expectation that would be difficult to meet.

Maybe it's um maybe I didn't phrase it right.

Maybe it's looking at the standards that make you qualify for each of those, and then seeing if there's a way to set the standard based on those programs that reaches the the most amount of people.

So it's not saying that if you qualify for each of these, but if we look at you know, if there's a certain income requirement for two of those, that's a little better and far reaching than the rest, then maybe that sets the income requirement if there's some other basis in those programs.

So trying to put together a formula that will reach about as many people as all of those programs without necessarily saying you have to be a part of each program.

I don't know if that would make sense.

Like what is the base income that we're looking to help in that sense?

We we picked LEAP because it seemed to be the most inclusive, but um and we if I remember right when we did the property tax rebate program, we had a smaller number of people that participated in that versus what we think would happen with the leap eligibility.

Okay, I'm I'm just concerned with hearing that there might be 10,000 we can identify, like I know that it would be more than that impacted, and that that rebate going to more of the folks who are lower income would be more helpful.

Well, and we don't know what the final numbers what the numbers would be.

I mean, because that's a significant drop from where it had been in 2024, and we're again we have to figure out what caused that.

But if we were back up at that 24, 25,000 number, 27,000, that's pretty significant in terms of the families touch.

Okay.

Councilmember Tuttle.

Thank you.

I just wanted it more of a statement.

Um I just wanted to correct myself, something I said before.

I've gone on record saying no operation funds from a sales tax for police and fire and public safety.

I do understand that we would utilize these funds for operation for second light, which I know is is very important to the community.

So just wanted to I as soon as I said it, I knew I needed to correct myself.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Any further questions for Wichita Forward?

Um I have one question.

Um you've had two public hearings regarding uh Wichita Forward.

Um can you summise what happened yesterday and has that changed any of the viewpoints from hearing the community?

Yeah.

So yesterday we hosted a meeting uh where you presented the plan as we've been presenting over the last uh month or so.

Uh uh what we had heard from the community that we they want additional details related to some of the major projects, and so we had presentations from Second Light and presentations from the Wichita Firefighters Union um relating to specifics to those two projects.

Um what we had hoped for is that in greater detail an understanding of the impact of uh either not having those resources ongoing or not having these resources at all would it have on the operations of those two very significant public services would help to clarify any uh um uh uh concern they would have about those specific investments.

One more question, and it's a dual question, it's also for the election commissioner or maybe law.

Um there has been questions from this community asking why can't Wichita forward pay for these this special election.

Uh, can law address why or why not?

Sorry, it's not uh state statute.

State statute for this.

Sorry, can you repeat that into a microphone, please?

Yep, mayor state statute prohibits the contribution of uh election funds uh from a private entity or corporation for an election.

Thank you.

And again, um the 150,000 comes from the city manager's contingency fund.

Um this election would be simply to let the community make the decision.

Is that accurate?

That is accurate, yes.

Thank you.

Anything else from Wichita Forward?

No, thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Okay, no questions from this bench, which now means we will open it up for public comment.

Please state your name and you will have five minutes to address the council.

I promise not to take five minutes.

Good morning, Mayor Wu, Council members.

I'm Tony Porter, Vice President of Government Relations and Military Affairs at the Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Thank you again for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the business community and the chamber.

I'm here to today to reaffirm our support for giving voters the opportunity to decide on the Wichita Forward Initiative.

However, we again urge the city council to allocate a larger share of sales tax to property tax relief and to pursue additional sustainable strategies that provide meaningful relief.

Property tax burdens remain a significant challenge impacting affordability, competitiveness, and our ability to attract and retain a strong workforce.

We also believe that clear details on the oversight committee structure and accountability are essential to ensure transparency.

Thank you for your leadership.

The Chamber of Values being a trusted community partner looks forward to working together to ensure this initiative reflects the priorities of both residents and businesses.

Thank you.

We know each other.

I'm here as a private citizen and not in any other capacity.

First thing I want to thank you for your service.

Thank you for your work and wish you a merry Christmas.

Um I have significant concerns.

First and foremost, the rushed nature of this ordinance.

Let's look back, if we can a banker, a businessman, and a developer come to the city council for a billion dollar tax increase.

It sounds like a bad joke.

And frankly, it is there are no details to this plan.

If you think back to 2010, the speaker of the U.S.

If you think back to 2010, the speaker of the US House famously said, we have to pass the bill to know what's in it.

And that's what we have here today.

We don't know what's in this plan.

Where are the details?

Where are the schematics?

You're asking Wichita voters to commit to a seven-year plan that by the time inflation factors in will be over a billion dollars.

We don't know what the design looks like.

We don't know what the new performing arts center looks like.

We don't know what the renovations will look like.

We've not seen a design.

Even here today.

You asked a very good question.

Where are they gonna build the new performing arts center?

Which by the way, if it was a standalone plan, I'd vote for.

We don't know if it's gonna be on a piece of property where a church is currently located that's owned by a private businessman here in town.

We don't know anything.

And yet you want to commit a billion dollars in taxpayer money.

There's just too many unknowns, and yet we're gonna commit seven years, and don't let anybody fool you.

This will be a permanent tax increase.

Because at the end of the seven years, if they don't renew it, and you won't, because most of you won't be here, but in seven years, if they don't renew it, that's a massive property tax increase.

Do we really want to create a massive slush fund for new spending?

This is a 30% increase in spending.

It's a doubling of the sales tax on food.

Why?

Put each one of these issues, Councilmember Hoheisel's right.

Let's vote on each one of these separately.

I voted for the intrust bank arena because it was in, out, and done in three years.

If you put the performing arts center on the ballot as a single issue, I'd vote for it.

If you put century two on as a century as a single issue, I'd vote for it.

You put a couple of these up for there, I'll vote for it.

Why do we have to do this all at once?

Rushed like this.

Here today, you all have asked questions about each individual elements of this.

Why rush it?

From an entity that is cloistered, from an entity that at their first public meeting told the voters, we don't want to hear from you.

We don't care what you want to say.

At last night's meeting, they said we're not even gonna hear from you at a public meeting.

They took no questions last night.

They don't want to hear from us, they just want us to shut up and vote.

That's not democracy.

That's not the process.

It's easier to find the Epstein files than it is to find the details to this plan.

This is not democracy.

This is not how this is supposed to work.

Heck, they can't tell you if it's one cent or one percent because they don't want to tell you.

This is not democracy, and it doesn't need to be rushed.

And it's because they don't trust us.

If they trusted us, they'd give us the time to actually look into this, but they don't want us to look into this.

So I'm asking you to wait.

Let's have some discourse.

Let's look under the covers and let us look at it and think on it and analyze on it and strategize.

I sit on a dab.

The dabs have never even looked at this plan.

It doesn't need to be rushed.

Merry Christmas, here's a billion-dollar tax increase.

It doesn't work that way.

Give us some time.

The devil is in the details, and this devil bites.

Thank you, and Merry Christmas.

Thank you, John.

Councilman for Glascott.

Thank you, Mayor.

I don't have any comments for the speaker.

I do have just confirmation from the city staff.

Um, I think the speaker had said that this could balloon larger than what is currently the ballot initiative.

Can we explain to the general public and the speaker what an amount not to exceed means in plain language?

Are you asking for me or law?

Bob, you'd be great.

I'd love to hear from you on your last meeting.

Thank you.

Um that language is clear.

That is that for each of those categories, you cannot spend more than the targeted amount.

And that if we were short revenue, there would be a proportional reduction in the amount of money that went to each of those categories.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Manager.

Councilmember Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh I would just like to ask somebody from Wichita Forward.

Did you guys accept questions last night?

Or maybe that's a little concerning to me, and I just curious why.

In the presentation last night, we allocated time for Wichita Fire and for Second Light to do presentations, which took us beyond the hour, and we agreed to stay up front, including those representatives in those areas to take questions.

And so we are there for another hour and a half to eight o'clock answering questions of citizens.

Thank you.

Councilmember with last copy.

Thank you, Mayor.

I will just say to my colleague as well.

I know that there's a few representatives of the council.

I know Councilman Hohaisel is there, Councilman Johnston, and myself.

I personally stay till 7:42 to answer questions from constituents.

And when I left representatives of Wichita 4 were still present answering questions from everybody that wanted questions answered in good faith.

We'll continue with public comment.

Hello, uh Faith Martin, District 2.

Um besides the comments I made last week, I received innumerable messages, emails, and phone calls, and I don't even sit on the bench.

So I imagine many of you received the same type of phone calls, emails, and messages.

And not one single person said, this is a great idea.

We should go ahead and do this.

Everyone was concerned.

Concerned with the opposition online, concerned with the opposition in the media, concerned with the opposition from trusted activists that care about this community.

Public perception matters.

Four of you don't have to worry about three re-election.

Three of you do.

I want you to think about passing an unpopular ordinance that has had so much pushback could have on the future on your future at this council.

When we sit on dabs, we ask really detailed questions about drawings and plans and uh how this land will be used and all these other things.

I haven't seen any of that.

I see more to get an accessory dwelling unit in someone's backyard than I have any of the plans for this.

Um I also am really concerned that public safety is being used as a reason why we have to do this when not all of you, some of you are fairly new, but since 2009, we haven't met fire's needs.

And we've irresponsibly, in my opinion, allocated lots and lots and lots of money to Wichita Police Department every time they ask, but we can't build a new fire station.

That's not the taxpayers' fault that the money hasn't been allocated appropriately.

So using that as a reason to have a sales tax, it feels irresponsible.

Um, second light.

I've worked at many nonprofits.

We don't call the government and say, hey, we don't have a plan for how we're gonna fund our organization.

Can you put a sales tax one?

It's up to the nonprofits to build a plan and to work with donors and to work with grants to fund their organization.

I care very much about homelessness, but this is not the way.

Um bundling, just like uh John said earlier.

If this went up for a vote tomorrow and it was only about second light, I think you get a much greater, you get much greater support than you will putting all of these things together.

Um I'm concerned about the proposed rebate uh because nothing for the working people of Wichita that are not eligible for LEAP, but still work sometimes multiple jobs with no insurance that live paycheck to paycheck, they won't qualify, but the sales tax will impact them greatly instead of cart before the horse, we need to focus on the horse, and that horse is in Topeka, and it's a law that we need to change before we even consider doing something like this.

The questions that you have are all great.

I really appreciate a lot of the questions.

These are questions that should have been thought out before we're on second reading.

I strongly oppose this.

I don't know why it's rushed.

I said last time good ideas don't require force, and this feels forced upon me.

It feels forced upon everyone that I've talked to.

If this is such a great idea, why can't we get plans?

Why can't we look at survey data?

Um, I just I strongly oppose this, and I hope that you think about the average Wichita that doesn't own 37 restaurants, that doesn't run a bank.

Uh we need our sales tax dollars to be spent wisely.

Forty percent of Wichitans are renters.

Do you think they're gonna see lower rents because we give property tax relief?

I doubt it.

I doubt a single renter is gonna see any impact except to their wallet when they're paying a higher sales tax.

Please think about who you represent and make a good decision today.

Halt this, put some more thought into it, get some data, and let the city of Wichita be partners in this decision and tell you what works best instead of you telling us how you're gonna govern.

Because that's not how government works.

You lead for the people and by the people.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Faith.

I agree with most of what you said there.

Um I would just say one thing about um fire services.

Um we have made it a point to support them over the last couple of years.

We did take the money from the Crystal Lake project and put that directly into fire, um fire houses, fire stations in our CIP.

So it's it's it's still, you know, it's a couple of years out.

That's how the CIP works.

It's unfortunate, but um we have been making that a priority.

So I just wanted to say that.

But I thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Thank you.

Good morning, Luana D.

Shazer, longtime resident of Wichita, and most famously, of District One.

So, John Whitman, where you go?

You stole my line.

A banker, a builder, and a developer walking to a city council meeting, boom boom boom, right?

The boom boom is on the taxpayers because they want us to pay almost a billion dollars in taxes.

That has to be a joke, right?

So we talk about a rebate for maybe 27,000 people.

Maybe, but like Faith said, my friend said that there are so many other people that are living like right above the part uh the poverty line.

The poverty line is based on the federal level, so no matter what program you look at, the same people will be impacted.

And so many more people than that have to buy groceries.

And to be honest, a $50 rebate is a slap in the face.

That that won't do anything.

So I'm not sure about that idea.

And then we looked at the numbers were gotten from the CIP project.

That's what we were told.

But then we see public safety numbers were padded by 27 million dollars.

Either the numbers come from the CIP that have been identified as needs by the city, or they were not.

So a padding of 27 million dollars is another red flag for me.

And then we talk about intent versus what would actually happen.

So earlier this year, Councilman Johnson said Middle League football would be free for 415 kids or something like that.

Well, my organization paid $4,125 for something that we were told would be free.

So actual versus intent are two different things.

So that's why we have to have a ranking order.

If we move forward, we have to have a ranking order of what projects will be funded and in what order will they be funded.

And then also um, I just want to say that this was rushed, and the question of the day is why is it being rushed?

Uh Fay said it uh perfectly well.

Most of us are not developers, we don't own 30-some businesses, we don't have uh a bank that we reside in.

We're regular, we're regular, everyday working class people, and this feels rushed.

The burden will be on our back, and even when you talk about property tax rebates, the business owners will get a bigger rebate than the homeowners.

That doesn't make sense to me.

So again, slow down, maybe do something different, like we vote on each item individually, and or go back to the table and let's get the public involved before we present something like this again.

Loany D.S.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mayor.

Uh, since my name was brought up.

Uh, two things, Reggie, you might correct me.

When it came to youth football, and I don't have any questions for you.

When it came to youth football, just everybody for the record.

We talked about paying for uh you football and it being free.

What was also mentioned, and if you go back and look, was there was a $25 deposit that was for every player that would be in there.

Talked about that, we talked about that at the coaches meeting.

The number that was shared was a little north of 400.

I believe we had over 700 players.

So it would depend on when you got into that, whether or not your things were paid for.

But again, that information's out there.

It's still out there.

You can go look for yourself.

For the padding conversation, I believe Wichita Ford has talked about this, but what you're looking at in the CIP is today's cost.

And over time, there's things of inflation, some of those costs go up.

There's a padding that was added to that.

You heard that during the presentation earlier.

Believe that number was 197.

They added additional dollars to that because costs can go up.

One great example is some of our CIP projects over the last several years.

Inflation made those costs go up.

So there's a padding in there to help make sure those projects can still get done, and it won't be 2025's rate if that project happens in 2028.

It may cost a little bit more.

So that's why that was in there.

Wichita Ford has been very um transparent and talking about that padding and the presentations I've been in.

I would encourage everyone again to continue to engage, ask those questions, you'll hear those specific answers.

But again, all the information about youth football, it's out there.

You can look it up right now.

You'll see about deposits, you'll see what was paid, and you'll see what the council allocated.

Councilman Hoh has a Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um I agree, Lawanda.

Um the leap is a start, but it's not enough to really take the burden off of people.

Uh, Councilmember Johnson had talked about other programs of ways to look at addressing it, and that is something we will continue to push on over the next couple of months.

I wish we had the time to have it outlined here.

I've expressed my uh angst over the timeline, but it is something we will continue to define over the next couple of months.

Hopefully, we will get the support of the state to actually uh be able to bring our sales tax on food down to zero.

So that's the hope.

That's what we'll keep working for, but we'll also keep looking at these other programs as well to take the burden off as best as we can.

Thank you.

We will continue with public comment.

Good morning, Mayor and City Council members, city leadership.

My name is Dr.

Donna Castillo Garcia, and I'm the executive director of Grassroots Bridge Builders, a local nonprofit that provides peer-based homelessness navigation, trauma-informed outreach, and community stabilizer services here in Wichita.

As the city continues its second reading on the proposed sales tax, which may be considered for public vote in the upcoming year, I want to share an example of the type of programming that could be developed under the portion that's designated for homelessness and affordable housing.

That's it's not a request for adoption today, nor is it a finalized plan or proposal.

It's an offer as a community-informed example of what might be possible if Wichita chooses to address these issues in different ways.

Wichita is facing a housing reality that many residents know firsthand.

Um there's not enough affordable housing, and for many working families, seniors, and let me find my spot, um, and individuals rebuilding after homelessness, homeownership through traditional means is simply out of reach.

People can work full-time, contribute to their communities, and still find that rising housing costs, credit barriers, and limit inventory uh leave them with no realistic path to owning a home.

For those exiting homelessness, these options are even narrower, often limited to short-term rental assistance or long-term subsidized housing with no clear path to independence.

Programs like the one I'm just gonna describing today matter because it's an attempt to address a gap that currently has no solution.

How to uh move people from instability into long-term unsubsidized housing security while also strengthening neighborhoods and that have been impacted by vacancy and disinvestment.

Grassroots bridge builders has developed a preliminary framework called the Community Housing Restoration and Ownership Pathways Program, or CROP.

This concept uses the Kansas Abandoned Housing Act, which allows cities and qualified nonprofits to acquire abandoned or unsafe properties and restore them for productive use.

CROP is designed to connect two challenges Wichita continues to face.

First, abandoned residential properties that weaken neighborhoods and place ongoing strain on public safety, code enforcement in nearby homeowners.

And second, individuals exiting homelessness who have no access to permanent unsubsidized housing, despite having reached stabilization, secured income pathways, and demonstrated re um path uh availability to move forward.

CROP is an example of how these issues could be addressed together in restoring abandoned homes, converting them to affordable entry-level ownership opportunities paired with supportive services to help ensure long-term success.

It's also important that we acknowledge the concerns that many community members have raised about the sales tax proposal more broadly.

There's a real mistrust in our community, often rooted in past experiences where deals between city hall and developers may not have delivered on the promises to everyday residents.

Some people are concerned about the rust nature of the proposal or the perception that special interest may benefit more than neighborhoods that are carrying the greatest burdens.

Others are worrying rightfully so about the low-income residents who will shoulder disproportionate shares of the cost while greater benefits may flow to the city's highest earners or to large scale projects that feel distant from our everyday struggles.

These concerns deserve to be named and taken seriously.

Ignoring them now only deepens this division.

What makes concepts like crop different is not just what they do, it's about how they're built.

They're grounded in lived experience.

They prioritize local contracts and small businesses.

They reinvest resources back into our neighborhoods, and they're designed with transparency, accountability, and long-term stability in mind.

Grassroots Bridge Builders has developed this framework as a starting point, not as a finished deal.

We're actively circulating it among community stakeholders and would be happy to share with council, city staff, and other nonprofit partners, business leaders, and any interested resident.

This is an invitation to refine, challenge, and strengthen ideas together rather than receiving them after decisions have already been made.

As Wichita considers the broader implications of the sales tax, I encourage all of us, from city leaders and nonprofits to businesses and residents to remain active participants in sharing what comes next.

The strength of this community will not come from perfect plans or unanimous agreement.

It will come from our willingness to be honest about what is not working, to listen to the concerns without dismissing them, and to build solutions that are rooted in trust, equity, and a shared responsibility.

Our community is strongest when we're not passive recipients of initiatives, but engaged contributors to the future that we are collectively investing in.

So I thank you for the opportunity to be here to speak today and for your continued efforts to serve Wichita's long-term well-being and our resilience.

Thank you.

Thanks, Donna, Councilmember Glasgow.

Thank you, Mayor.

First off, Doctor, I want to be the first to congratulate you on achieving your doctorate, and thank you for bringing and elevating the stories of people with lived experiences to the bench.

I think the work that you've done over the past year.

I know what tomorrow's your year anniversary, I think, of speaking to us the first time.

So thank you for engaging the process.

I really enjoyed my conversation with you and Sarah yesterday, and uh look forward to continued conversations in the future and elevating your guys' voices in the process too.

So thank you for being here.

Absolutely.

Councilmember Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor.

You stole my I just haven't seen you since I wanted to tell you congratulations, Doctor.

Thank you.

We'll continue with public comment.

Good morning.

I'm Heather Schroeder, Executive Director of Downtown Wichita.

Downtown Wichita is committed to a strong, vibrant city center.

At our annual meeting on December 11th, the downtown Wichita Board of Directors voted to support the 1% sales tax and join the Wichita Forward Coalition.

The downtown board is made up of downtown property owners and business leaders who recognize that Wichita's future growth depends on a strong urban core where residents, workers, students, and visitors can thrive.

The 1% sales tax would provide revenue that supports several priorities of direct concern to downtown.

First, it would permanently fund homeless and housing services, helping our most vulnerable neighbors.

We have seen an uptick in people needing not just shelter, but the services that address root causes of homelessness, including addiction, mental illness, and access to affordable housing.

We're encouraged by the 125 million dollar commitment the sales tax would make to Second Light's shelter plus services model, which would provide permanent funding of four to five million dollars annually to operate this key community resource.

Second Light is just getting started, but with the federal ARPA funding set to run out in October, it's the community's turn to step up and address a community-wide issue.

Providing sustainable long-term funding through the sales tax can help stabilize the system of care and ensure consistent support for housing, mental health, and wraparound services.

Second, the sales tax initiative would provide the performance and event facilities that our community deserves.

Our current performing arts and convention facilities are functionally obsolete.

I'll never forget hearing the story that when Yo-Yo Ma performed in Wichita, he had to take his break on a stair landing of Century Two because our current performing arts facility lacks a green room where our talented performers can relax and prepare.

Quite frankly, it's embarrassing, especially for a top 50 U.S.

city.

While our peer cities have invested in soaring performing arts centers in separate convention centers to meet modern demands for shows and meetings, Wichita has settled for the status quo, costing our community tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue each year.

Over the past year, downtown Wichita has hosted conversations with more than 1,000 community members to learn their vision for downtown's growth over the next 10 years.

By 2035, Wichitans told us they want to see a new performing arts center in their downtown.

They want our local actors, singers, dancers, and musicians to have a performance venue that matches the incredible talent we're fortunate to have here in Wichita.

We have explored sites downtown and are pleased to report that numerous public and private sites can accommodate the footprint of a modern performing arts center based on actual performing arts centers built in Salt Lake City, the ECL Center, and in Fort Worth, the Bass Center.

The 1% sales tax provides half the funding required to build that new performing arts center, with the understanding that philanthropic contributions will provide the rest.

It provides funding for a separate convention center that meets modern trade show and meeting needs, a timely upgrade as we look to the potential for biomedical conferences and innovation right here in Wichita, and it preserves the iconic Century 2 building for adaptive reuse, meeting local community priorities.

If the March referendum passes, it's our understanding that revenue collection would begin in July, providing much needed investment in our community by Wichitans and visitors alike.

Thank you for voting to give Wichitans a say this March in how we can invest in our future.

Thank you, Heather.

I have a follow-up question to that.

Um I know that we will be receiving the master plan proposal next month.

You have it in your hands.

Can you address?

You mentioned numerous private and public sites, and that goes into the question that Councilmember Ballard had regarding where should performing arts, a new performing arts center, be located.

Can you address that, please?

Sure.

So this is a conversation that you know needs much more exploration, but we wanted to see first can downtown Wichita sites that are already assembled accommodate the needs of a new performing arts center.

Um we worked with Fisher Dax Associates, um, who is a consultant that works, I think, solely on performing arts centers, and they shared with us um the footprint from the Eccles Center, uh, which was an urban infill uh performing arts center in downtown Salt Lake City.

We were interested in urban infill because that is the most kind of efficient use of sites.

Um, in order to accommodate a hundred forty thousand square foot performing arts center, um, you know, it's it's kind of a tricky configuration.

And so the question we posed is can we fit this in our downtown?

Um they showed us no fewer than eight sites in our current configuration where this could fit.

Um, some were public property, including City of Wichita and Sedgwick County land, and some were private property with the expectation that that would likely be donated.

Will you be able to address where those eight sites were generally would be located in downtown Wichita?

East of the river.

Um, I can I can tell you the sites that we looked at, sure.

So, and again, this is not an exhaustive list.

This was just to get the ideas flowing.

I can't tell you how exciting it is to see the footprint of a new performing arts center actually doable in our downtown.

Um, so the sites that we looked at are let's see.

We looked at first in Waco, um, which is a city-owned site.

It's currently under contract.

Um, the developers have not executed that agreement, and I believe their agreement expires in two years, um, which would kind of renew the opportunity for the city to explore redevelopment of that site.

Um, Broadway and Waterman, which is a privately owned site uh near the arena.

Waterwalk, we already know a lot about that site.

Uh the Coleman lot, which is a uh county-owned site.

Um there's been a lot of discussion about you know whether future development is feasible on that site.

I'm I'm pleased to share that based on conversations I've had with the design community, um, they have not ruled that out.

Those are the four sites, and they're all east of the river, correct?

Yes, in downtown.

Thank you.

I see no further questions.

We'll continue with public comment.

Thank you.

Good morning, City Council.

Celeste Rossette, former bank examiner and from former fraud investigator.

I'm a Wichita native.

I was raised in Wichita at a time when city council and mayor were business people.

They made thoughtful decisions across the political aisle for the betterment of Wichita.

They listened to opinions for and against their proposals and then brought those vetted ideas forward.

Developers has obviously hijacked this decision-making progress.

They have poured millions into local political campaigns for mayor and city council, and now they are pushing forward their own agenda of my 53 questions.

I only had 10 answered, though I was promised to get complete answers.

In talking about the performing arts center, it's so interesting that Waterwalk was one of the uh East Riverbank areas mentioned because Waterwalk is tied up right now with Jim Corks.

He is the estateholder for Jack Debore.

We were foolishly signed a contract, 99 years for a dollar a year.

That was supposed to generate 70 million a year.

We're getting a dollar a year.

We supported Jim Cork's Fairfield Inn.

We still have the debt on the books.

So it's so ironic to hear someone talk about Waterwalk being a site for the new performing arts center.

It won't work.

This reminds me, um, actually, Becky Tuttle was on city council when we passed the new ball stadium in a rush, emergency ordinance, and we had blank exhibits, and I brought those forward to Mayor Longwell and said, Why are you rushing this with blank exhibits?

This might as well be the exhibit for the new performing arts center because there's no blueprints, there's no plans, there's just a lot of people coming up here.

And as a matter of fact, I played on Century 2 stage when I was concert mistress at East High with the Wichita Area Orchestra, and I know for a fact that we could rehab Century 2 for 10 cents on the dollar and get a green room, upgrade the rehearsal spaces, and also upgrade the bathrooms in exhibition hall for a lot less than what I'm seeing in the blank exhibits for this proposal.

Developers have mislaid us over the past few years, so there's a lot of distrust.

So I am absolutely stunned because I have supported you new members of the city council in particular, and I've served on the bipartisan committee that was formed to look at finances, efficiencies, and savings, and we worked really hard on that.

John Whitmer was on that group, Deb Lucia was on that group, and we have yet to have a meeting established by City Manager Leighton for those savings and efficiencies.

And yet here we are, barely into the process.

Wichita Forward was formed in October.

Two months later, here we are, you're rushing a vote.

In another two months, the voting begins.

I am absolutely stunned that I have put so much faith into things being different.

And here we are again, doing the same things we did.

I'm wearing the same shirt from the ball stadium, facing the same people, and we still have blank exhibits that we are supposed to vote on.

I'm just so disappointed.

I I'll just repeat that.

I am extremely disappointed that in the amount of time I have spent to talk before you all to hold up documents.

These are a third of the folders I have in my office where I have talked about failed development deals.

I'm again talking about something I have no idea what the blueprints are.

I don't know where it's going, but I must trust you all to do the right thing.

So in the time remaining, I'm gonna list the failed development deals that I have folders on, and I can substantiate anything I say.

Wichita Water Partners failed in the construction of the water plant.

It's not even gonna go live next year.

Water rates have skyrocketed 26%, and we are 20 million over budget and counting.

This contract was rigged over a free golf trip.

Shame on you.

Ball Stadium, revenue projections were grossly overstated by city manager Leighton, even above the consultants' numbers.

You allowed him to ignore those projections, and now we have 42 million in Starbond debt that will pull out of the general fund.

We have 13 million in CID debt that is also escalating, so we are not meeting revenue projections that you all allowed to be overstated.

Wichita Riverfront LP was released from their obligation to develop land around the ball stadium, and this was given to EPC.

EPC was given an additional 11 million in incentives to build.

We are still waiting on that development to go forward.

Town Street Partners, George Leahham was one of those, quietly bought up 18 homes in the Delano neighborhoods before news of the ball stadium reached taxpayers.

Then he flipped those properties back to the city and made three million dollars off of that development.

Riverfront Village is another projection that we are still on the hook for.

It was supposed to have restaurants, apartments, and that land on the West Bank development has been sitting vacant for six years.

I'm I'm out of time.

I have a complete list of failed development deals, and I cannot believe you're asking us to trust you, but not verify.

So we've started a group.

Thank you.

Thank you, Celeste.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Celeste.

As always, I appreciate you even when they're kicking us in the rear.

Bob, you had talked about potentially meeting further down the line.

Could you just expand on that just a minute?

So staff has prepared a majority of its responses that were still waiting for a few.

What I uh intended to do was uh either, I think probably at this point what I wanted uh what I was gonna offer is to meet with that with her group along with the incoming manager because he'll be responsible for implementation of some of the things that I'll be outlining in my response.

So um we're uh we'll probably wind up doing it towards the you know, sometime in January when it fits into his schedule, but I've offered my time so that we have a smooth transition on that.

Okay, thank you.

As a follow-up to that, can I make sure that that gets on the new city manager's schedule for uh Celeste and her group along with the new city manager, and you will volunteer your time to come back uh to provide perspective.

Um I'm looking forward to seeing all the recommendations from staff on how the um recommendations from the group can be implemented in the city of Wichita to again be more efficient, and I believe that there were several recommendations from the group.

Councilmember Valley.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Celeste, would you mind uh sharing your list, either emailing it to us or making a copy?

Of the questions that weren't answered or of the failed development deals that I was trying to present today.

Both if you're off I'd be glad to.

Thank you.

Yep.

Thank you, Celeste.

We'll continue with public comment.

Hello, my name is Benny Bowman.

I uh have been a resident of Wichita for 68 years, and I'm not sure I'm gonna survive this uh the duration of this tax.

But one of the I guess the first speaker was John Whitmer, he and I both have served in the state legislature, and we both tried to vo what would motivate our votes were to make sure the people at least as far as we could keep the money in the hands of the people because the people knew better how to spend their own money, and this I still believe that this should be done in this area, and it this appears to be just sort of a slush fund to uh cover about anything and everything.

But uh aside from that, you you uh excuse me.

You have to realize that when you take this money, uh I mean there's only a certain amount of money in the economy in Wichita, and you can't take this amount of money out of the economy without affecting it.

So when you shift money from the public's arena to the government, then that unbalances things many times, and it can have disastrous consequences.

Uh there's um I take the Epic Times newspaper, and they have an opinion section in the last paper I got that says the anti-social act at the heart of socialism, and that's what a lot of people don't understand what socialism is.

Socialism is where you give the money to the government, and the government will somewhat in some ways give it back to the people with uh taking most of the money, and then the people get only a very small push and back.

But anyway, he's he's talking about how that the uh in philosophy wise is uh especially Ludwig von Meisers, he's uh famous philosopher on the economy, and he mentioned in this article how that uh people like to have free things, you know, like to get everything free.

Well, you can get free things sometimes, but then uh most people don't want to give away things for free.

They have some investment in it in their own.

Of course, there's another way to get things free, and that's go out and steal it.

But then we've uh decided that unstabilizes society, so we make laws against it.

But then there's another way, and I'm gonna read just one paragraph.

He says, however, human societies have allowed for one giant loophole in their prohibition of citizens taking wealth from fellow citizens.

We call it government taxation.

Prosperity can continue to grow both in terms of overall wealth production and an increasing number of individuals partaking of the growing prosperity.

When government taxation remains limited, think of the United States for 150 years or history and is not weaponized by one class of citizens against another.

I hope you realize what you're doing, and I hope it you would rec reconsider this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dean.

We'll continue with public comment.

I guess that's the problem with getting older.

I have to keep putting glasses on.

I hate that.

Mayor Wu, members of the city council, uh, good morning or good afternoon, I think we are almost.

Uh my name is Greg Kite.

I'm a local attorney.

I'm president of the Historic Preservation Alliance of Wichita and Cedric County.

I am treasurer of the Save Century 2 Committee.

Uh my law office address is 129 East 2nd Street North.

I've recently moved after 40 years of practice at 230 North Market.

Uh thank you for this opportunity to follow up my comments from your last prior meeting.

Um last week uh at the first informational meeting, Matt Burchett of Wichita Forward stated, quote, we only want your questions.

We don't want your comments, end of quote.

That's from the Wichita Eagle, December 12, 2025.

Yesterday evening I attended the second informational meeting sponsored by Wichita Forward.

The format was changed.

There were two expanded presentations, and during the course of the one-hour meeting, no questions were to be taken.

And the reason was they didn't want to have any grandstanding, quote unquote.

Now, I did take the liberty of getting hold of Matt after the meeting, and I visited with him for some extended period of time, and I appreciate that, Matt.

But the key question I had, and I only had one for him was what was the approval rating for a new performing arts?

We certainly had the approval rating for Century 2, 60%.

And we had 77%, I think, for police and fire and uh the homeless.

But what about this wonderful performing arts?

Nothing.

In a recent interview, Aaron Bastion said the arts are what makes life interesting.

If I could, if I thought about my life without music and TV and movies, gosh, it just takes a lot of the fun out of it.

Wichita Eagle, November the 28th, 2025.

Is Mr.

Bastion precluded from attending and enjoying our fabulous Century 2 performing arts facility?

I don't think so.

After all, it's simply across the street from Fidelity Bank.

Let's think about what we have in Century Two.

It's the home for Wichita Symphony Orchestra, Wichita Grand Opera, and Music Theater Wichita.

What's its capacities?

200,000 square feet of contiguous exhibit space as opposed to 140,000, I think it was just mentioned.

20 meeting rooms, concert hall seats 2197 people.

Mary Jean Teal Theatre seats 650 people.

The convention hall seats 4700 people.

Nothing.

What else have I not heard?

What about the performing arts facility?

We don't know what.

What it looks like, no plans, no drawings, how large, how much seating.

It's interesting how you can come up with 75 million times two for 150 million, and you don't even know how big it is or how much it's gonna seat.

Where it would be located, that's amazing.

They don't know where it's to be located.

Wow, that's planning.

If you go to the Wichita Forward website and click on a link, you can finally get to Century Two on a plan that shows it as an empty shell.

The idea, of course, let's not pull punches, is to pull out Wichita Symphony and Music Theater from Century Two and make it irrelevant.

That's where we're going with this.

Mr.

Bastion, like John Rolfe, is one of three self-appointed proponents of this initiative.

John Rolfe, as you remember, was a member of the Riverfront Legacy Master Plan, where four or five five proposals required the demolition of Century Two.

Similarly, Mr.

Bastion does not appear to acknowledge Century Two as a performing arts facility.

What is the common goal?

The eventual divide demise of Century Two.

Let's not forget 17,000 petition signatures will translate into 17,000 votes just for starters.

At its prior meeting, the city council repeatedly stated that it realized there is a mistrust of city government.

If the city council believes that rushing this 1% sales tax initiative through without proper planning will decrease mistrust, it has gravely miscalculated.

It will only increase and confirm that mistrust, including a new performing arts building, which the majority of Wichitans are not in favor of, particularly to the detriment of Century 2, will doom this entire initiative to failure.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Greg.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Mr.

Kite.

I do appreciate you coming up.

Um since I've been here, we invested $18 million born to Century 2, including the new roof.

It's my intent that if this passes that $25 million, we'll go to make sure that Century 2 is modernized and stays an effective place for us to gather, plays, concerts, and whatnot for the foreseeable future.

That's my intent with this.

We'll continue with public comment.

Good morning, Mayor and City Council.

My name is Aaron Bastion, and I'm here today as part of Wichita Forward to advocate in favor of the public being able to vote on the sales tax proposal that you all are considering.

I support the sales tax proposal and the opportunity for it to be put to a public vote because improving Wichita matters.

The issues that the proposal recommends addressing have been discussed across our city by a wide range of residents for at least a decade.

These are not new issues.

They're common pain points voiced by Wichitans.

And this is our chance to make critical investments in Wichita.

We need solutions.

This proposal is a solution.

An investment in us by all of us.

It's an investment in a safer Wichita, helps to fund infrastructure that supports those experiencing homelessness and recommends affordable housing solutions.

It's an investment in jobs and economic growth by modernizing our convention center and constructing a new performing arts center and makes continuing investments in century two.

These aren't just facilities.

They're magnets that studies show could attract more than 50 million per year in new spending, dollars that are currently flowing to other cities.

All this investment can happen while also making it less costly to invest in a home in Wichita.

This plan isn't perfect.

It doesn't meet or address all the needs of our city, but it does set us up to solve many of the challenges before us as identified by Wichitans.

That's one reason why the timing is important for this to go to a vote.

The proposal would be the spotlight on the ballot, and it provides voters, all voters, time to clearly understand the opportunities that come as a result of this decision.

This proposal represents a shared solution with shared investment that will improve Wichita for decades to come.

We appreciate residents raising their voices, asking for greater understanding about the proposal and for caring enough to engage.

Ultimately, Wichita deserves our investment, and I believe that the benefits of this plan would last for decades.

Thank you for your consideration of this proposal.

Wait to reset the clock.

Well, first I want to welcome uh Mr.

Layton to the retired community.

I've been retired for four years, and as I like to say, I have nothing to do, but I don't have enough time to do it all.

So first I would like to say move this to the August primary and break all these areas up into individual votes.

I did support a 1% sales tax, but in order to pay off the baseball diamond debt.

And I want to talk about democracy and the public will.

So what happened?

The county came back and said, we're gonna build it anyway, but if you don't vote for a sales tax, we're gonna tax you on your property tax.

That doesn't seem to be representing the public will.

Then we also had a 17,000 plus petition to support a public vote that if anything's done to Century 2, there'd be a public vote on it.

That was squashed.

In fact, the city even sued Celeste and uh Carl Peter John.

So now we have the Kansas or Wichita Ford is basically a riverfront legacy master plan redo.

This would normally be termed what used to be called a smoke-filled room.

So we're gonna spend 800, we're gonna raise 850 million dollars and a seven year sales tax.

400 million pertains to visit Wichita, basically.

The plan was expressed as I've said before in the November 22 Board of Park Commission special meeting.

They want to move, as Mr.

Kite said, the Symphony Hall, a music theater out of Century 2, so they have a reason to demolish it.

So there's no reason to have Century 2 anymore.

And if you go to Wichita Ford's website, you can look at a link for the Greater Wichita Partnership Downtown Wichita Master Plan.

They remove the roof from Century 2, and inside is a park.

Then if you go and by the way, that downtown Wichita meetings that they had, I was precluded from participating because my zip code is in Butler County.

So if you look at another link, the visit Wichita Master Plan, and I quote there's they're saying space inside existing C2 round building needs to be transformed to appropriately complement new convention center investment.

Yeah, what they want to do is jackhammer the whole interior of the Century 2 and make it a ballroom.

So it's my belief that an assertion that the 59% of their poll, which is not released to the public, does not support gutting the interior of Century 2.

I would also like to mention that the planning for this involves Wilner Auditorium at Wichita State, which is to be demolished for a parking lot because they say the amount of deferred maintenance has made it too expensive to remodel Wilner Auditorium.

Does that sound familiar?

So in I advocate instead of divorcing the symphony and music theater from Century 2, the city should divorce Visit Wichita from Century 2.

And stop requiring the Symph Wichita Symphony to pay rent.

As I mentioned before, the Bartlett's Villic Center is almost identical to Century 2.

It's only a two and a half hour drive to Bartlett'sville.

While you're there, you could look at the price tower, and you could see what Bartlesville did with their community center, and Century 2 could be exactly just like that.

So in the 60s, the Wichita City government, which would be the greatest generation, bequeathed a daring futuristic downtown library in Century 2.

And I believe this legacy is now being squandered.

And now that I have 15 seconds, convention center uh follies, these plans that these guys propose all the time are wildly optimistic and way off target.

For instance, Visit Wichita says if they do what they want, they go from three national conventions to 20.

All right, thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Do you mind saying your name, sir?

Oh, I'm sorry, Carl Dennett.

Thank you.

I'm a resident of uh Butler County, Augusta Township, and I have an apartment in uh Miss Ballard's district.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

We'll continue with public comment.

Hello.

My name is Sarah Callan.

That's loud.

Um, I'm actually the other half of Dr.

Donna, and um I'm in district four now.

And I was just I was I had a couple questions because I'd like with the one percent, I didn't know if it was one percent or one cent taxation, but I just I know like this isn't I'm glad that it's not being like voted on right now because I think it's a really good outline for something like something that can be bigger on that, like just listening to some of these people's ideas, like having that, like I think that like, of course, I think that anything that has to do with helping the homeless and the unhoused is beneficial, but I also think that the performing arts are a huge part of like most of like our children growing up.

Like I moved here in 89, and I remember going to Century 2 to the neck record, and I know that was a huge thing.

And I just think that you know, like with the one percent, I think a lot of people are getting I'm hearing a lot of like resistance about having to have that forced upon them, but a lot of people that I when you're having uh when you have money coming in, I mean, what are you gonna spend it on anyways?

The thing that I would like to see is that if we're maybe have an opportunity to pick, like I think somebody said um just before me that you know, like he wanted he would like to see something on the stadium, you know, have like part of a ballot like on the voting for us to pick which you know what we would like to see that one percent or one cent, whatever it is, um, pushed towards.

I mean, I'd hope that it like we'd have enough through everything to cover because I really, really, really like the idea that everybody is kind of responsible and everybody trying to think.

Um I just I'd like I heard a lot of things.

I came in wanting to say one thing, and then I heard things and I wanted to say another thing.

And I just I don't so I guess I just sorry, um I guess like I I like the transparency in this.

I like the fact that you know I don't think I don't think I've ever like had where we could actually pick and choose, like when since I've I don't speak well, but I I haven't been in government for very long either, and I've never really paid attention to what was going on in here.

And in the last year, we've kind of taken over.

Um, and I've sat in here, I've sat in civic engagement.

I tried to get acclimated to wherever I was, and I think that Wichita is one of the only places that I've ever lived that has had the potential to in like involve like all of the people that are in this town has a right and a voice.

So I just I'm glad that you guys are kind of putting it back, and I hope to see more of this though.

I mean, I know it's feels like it's a forced thing when they say it because I don't know why there's so much resistance to it.

You know, but um there's nicer way to say it, hey, we'd like uh one cent voluntarily to put towards something that makes Wichita better.

I guess that's what I asked for.

Thank you.

Councilmember Glascock.

Thank you, Mayor.

Sarah, hopefully you'll have the chance to vote on this March 3rd.

I appreciate you coming forward again.

I enjoyed our conversation yesterday.

Um, to talk about one percent or one cent, Mark, please let me know if I mess up on anything.

It's one cent of every dollar, which is one percent.

Um, and so for example, if you have a 20 dollar purchase, one percent of that would be one cents for every dollar.

So a 20 dollar purchase would be 2020.

Um so that's the clear math work, Mark.

Anything to add?

So one percent is the same as one cent for every dollar, and so it's really semantics um when we're talking about one cent or uh one percent uh when it comes to this.

So can I ask a follow-up question?

Yeah, okay.

My so this would be on sales tax, right?

Correct.

So this would be something that it wouldn't be proportionate but necessarily to what financial class you are.

It's however much money that you would spend in the city, and it would also bring in a lot of revenue from people that are visiting our city that would be helping pay for our local places.

Correct.

So 20 to 30 percent.

So and that's that's yeah, so I agree with it a little bit more.

Okay, thank you, Sarah.

Appreciate yeah, your advocacy.

Uh good morning.

Um my name is Bob Baewee.

My wife and I own the spice merchant here in Wichita.

And uh I hope nobody goes to sleep because this is not gonna be as vibrant as all the other information you've had this morning.

What I'm concerned about, first thing is that we have the good fortune of caring for a national history historic landmark building at the corner of Cleveland and Douglas, and that's the Methylatum Company building.

And I must say that we sought that designation probably 30 years ago now from the state.

And what's happened recently is a proposal to reunit rework Douglas Avenue from Washington West to Grove, Carpass to East High School.

And we I don't understand why.

The traffic moves fine in the way it is.

We have the stupid angle parking, which is dangerous to anybody who tries to park there or get back onto the street.

And it would be nice to have it repaved.

And no, thank you.

I don't want any flower pots in the middle of Douglas.

We have 27 employees that get paid every week.

We pay 100% of their health insurance for them.

And I don't want to change that.

And if we don't have access to our building, uh that's gonna be imposed upon.

Also, a lot of our deliveries, because we're coffee roasters, and we roast 150,000 pounds of coffee a year.

The trucks that bring us that coffee cannot get off of Douglas depending on where they put the turn lanes.

And I've talked to a couple of the truck drivers, and they just shake their head and they say, we don't know how we're gonna get there.

So uh that should be a consideration somewhere.

I've yet I've talked to a couple other people that have businesses on Douglas today.

They've all received information in the mail about what's the proposal is.

I've yet to see one item in my mailbox about any of the plans, and I I don't know who's doing the planning.

Uh anyway, uh that's my concern.

Uh it's not uh earth shaking, but uh I am concerned about Douglas Avenue and easy access for our customers.

Uh we contribute to this community uh approaching 200,000 a year in gifts and uh uh donations to different organizations in the city.

And that I don't want to say it's gonna go away, but it would be impacted with the lack of access for our customers because all that money essentially comes from our customers.

So thank you very much.

Go shockers, shop at the spice merchant.

Thank you, Bob.

I have noted your opposition to item number two on the agenda.

So um I want to make sure that those comments go along agenda item number two.

Um, but we're still on agenda item number one.

Councilmember Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Shine, could we make sure that um Bob gets the information?

I don't know if it's coming from Gary's office or Paul to make sure that he's getting the information about the pictures or redesign.

If Gary, if somebody wants to talk to him to make sure that we have his address, that'd be awesome.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

Bob, you do such a wonderful job.

Um, spice merchant is uh is a Wichita legacy to one of our great businesses in the city.

I do so much for the community.

Thank you very much.

Um I think your your customers would climb over walls to get to you.

So they love your place.

So uh thank you very much.

Some of our customers are getting a little old.

My wife goes there, so don't tell her that.

We'll continue with public comment on agenda item number one.

Good morning, mayor, vice mayor, city council, Mr.

Manager.

Uh Jeff Fleur, president of the Greywood Stall Partnership 505 East Douglas Avenue.

Uh appreciate this opportunity just to voice the partnership support of uh this proposal for the one percent sales tax.

Uh the organization joined the coalition uh placing this request on a referendum for ballot uh in March.

As I think about what's being proposed, uh the allocations, they they really do address several things in our community needs in our community.

Things that we've already heard about the critical funding for a cycle.

One of the things that we have to do as we're thinking about this proposal is that concurrently we have to grow our community.

We can't keep cannot do that as well.

This is both of these things are really critical.

We've done had a celebration yesterday of NIAR, uh, 40 years, huge investment in our community over four decades.

Because of that type of investment, because what we've been investing with our WSU, WC Tech, it's positioned us to take aerospace because one of the things that we've we heard when the partnership was created was how do we grow?

Well, we take our industry sectors and we create depth within them, but that requires us to make investments in ourselves to do that.

We've been able to see success in defense and space companies now part of our ecosystem that's created jobs.

It's also, I think, added security for our supply chain of companies that support aerospace.

The reason I bring this up is that as I think about the new Wichita Biomedical Campus, there's a connection to the convention center.

One of the things that we've been learning uh as we've been diving deeper into the opportunities that this new campus is going to be able to afford us, we're already seeing benefits of it uh with Heart Spring, ComCare, and other private investment around it.

But as we're diving deeper, there's opportunities to even be in multi-states, national, even global opportunities.

But one of the things we've heard is that the lacking of our convention center is a huge concern because you've got to be able to bring people in for the exposure of what we have underway in our community, and in this particular healthcare industry sector, this is going to be very transformational for our community.

So all these things are connected.

Uh they're not independent of each other.

So that's part of when we think about the sales tax.

Really taking care of second light, that it is not a question into the future, is really big for our community.

And I think so, also too, freeing up the CIP.

I I think that understanding the model where it's 50% cash capital and then bonding.

I mean, there's a lot of capital that could be freed up to hit some other needs in our community, which I think would be incredible for us to be able to do.

This is also an avenue for us to accelerate.

We often talk about pure cities.

Pure cities are investing in themselves heavily.

We don't have to look very far to see that.

OKC, Casey, Des Moines, they're all Omaha, uh, all on the I-35 corridor.

But this is actually a situation where a global city, and there's a lot of opportunities with that.

So again, we appreciate you taking favorable consideration of putting this on the ballot so the community can determine the answer to this question.

But we also see it being very fundamental as far as how it we move forward as a city to be able to realize a lot of opportunities, not only in the private sector, but also the public sector as well.

So thank you for the opportunity to express this support from the partnership.

I have a quick follow-up question, maybe it might not be for Jeff or anyone who might be able to answer the question regarding convention.

Um the space currently, um, which is the rectangle square building next to century two, the round building.

Um, we have heard um anecdotally that that space is not big enough for some of these conventions.

I know that yesterday I met with um Special Olympics Kansas, and the opportunity to possibly um bring the law enforcement torch run convention to Wichita, but the space might not be big enough.

Can someone address the space needs for the convention portion?

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

It's uh it's um actually multiple factors based on the most recent study that's been done of the facility.

Um for some conferences, uh, we do not have enough uh space, especially clear space to meet uh uh current uh needs for conventions.

Uh we also don't have the ability in the in a new or uh a um a modern convention facility to host multiple events, and so that limits our ability.

Uh the plan would be to uh remodel the space that has the highest clearance now and to add approximately 60,000 square feet if I remember correctly to the facility in order for us to be able to meet those needs of today's conventions.

Uh but um uh visit Wichta could speak uh with more clarity regarding the limitations of the facility and the number of events that we have lost out on as a result of our inability to have uh to meet the modern needs of a convention.

So this proposal would be adding on to the current Bob Brown building onto where?

That is correct.

Uh to the east of the building, so that it would still continue to be uh Bob Brown facility, but extended with more space.

It also would have an upstairs ballroom area and some additional meeting rooms added to the space.

And then it would remodel the existing space, both the with the low clearance as well as the uh higher clearance space or uh does that mean the parking lot uh a portion of the parking lot would be sacrificed in order to be able to make this extension.

Thank you.

We'll continue with public comment.

Joseph Text Dozier.

Um I said I I this was unprecedented in how I've seen this process go about.

Uh it is further unprecedented seeing a second reading with so many detailed questions when we're talking about changing the entire structure tax structure of our city with the largest tax increase in the history of our city at the highest level the state legislature allows you to go to.

It is important to not repeat the mistakes of past councils, which is the pattern that I was mentioning before, where I've seen them be, especially the former mayor, tone deaf to the voices of the public, and then also then rushing to try to get something through.

I I can't we can't help it that you know I'd love to seen Wichita Ford build a very large grassroots coalition before launching.

I would love it if we could we we had uh leadership that would have said pump the brakes, let's actually take this as a framework, and and let's come together over the next year if we want to do this as a standalone election and put something together with feedback from the community.

That's why October 21st was such an important meeting.

I felt because I had seen that pattern continue, and it was one of those first times where I said, Oh, we can be different now, where even a issue that had gone to the district advisory boards, council member Glasscock asked to go be pooled and not have a vote on because of concerns that there was language involving it things related to it that we hadn't had a time up for the public, landlords, and others to voice on.

Vice Mayor Johnston, you called for a task force with that that proved very successful, and we heard uh last week the fruits of that.

I think we also need to be clear that there's some problems with the ballot language property tax alone.

If you don't do certain additions today to this ballot language, you have now for a second time approved on record to force a vote of a guaranteed new tax with optional tax relief.

Let me explain.

You need language.

If your pitch is actual property relief, you need languages that will say, quote, city mill mill levy shall be reduced by X mills, or quote, city property tax dollars shall not exceed the revenue neutral rate.

If we don't correct this error before, it opens a door, including that there's not a floor or prioritization of where the when the relief will come and how much will come.

One of the problems with the language here on the ballot is that it only covers ceilings, not minimums.

There's no mentioning of CAP reallocations, there's no mentioning of that for the oversight committee.

And vagueness, the problem with vagueness in something like this is it it breeds more conflict and chaos later.

And I've seen enough distraction and division from lack of leadership and from godship politics and rushing things through that has kept this city from being able to do better.

And Ben Hutton's right, we are a decade behind.

Why are we fumbling the bundle yet again?

We need to get serious.

I I started on a county advisory board, and we talk about exploration place 2.0, we talk about the zoo, we talk about um so many things we could invest in tangibles.

We can look at that in trust vote that failed twice, and on the third time, 52% voted, and it was a 2.5 year term.

Why can't we do something very tangible, very step one for our own unique Wichita way?

Because the Wichita way isn't that division and distraction.

It can't be.

We have to get serious.

Um I think about the fact that the community should drive the political will, and the community has been fully left out.

Also, on the the ballot language, I'm troubled that the ordinance is not referenced here.

Um pay as you go is not referenced actually in what the voters are voting on.

And these buckets are so large.

The language that I'm really worried about, it says, and other purposes related.

There's only uh other purposes related.

What are the other purposes in each of these categories?

And only one of these categories actually puts in operating and maintenance costs.

There's no mention of staff for handling this.

Oklahoma City, they have dedicated staff.

Page one on the ordinance.

Remember, they voted on one sentence.

Pay as you go, citizen advisory board, mandatory subcommittees with each with each area.

Detail the resolution details allocations of certain identified operating funds, and a new trust will be established.

I believe that we can do better.

And I believe when we come together as a community and unite, we can see what the priorities are, and we we can see when there's a rug pull being done.

We have potentially a looming fiscal crisis.

And I'm having seen so much games professionally for so long, I'm tired of seeing suffering under it now personally.

And I know we can do better, and we must do better.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tex Councilmember Glasco.

Thank you, Mayor.

Tex, I have no uh comments.

Thank you for spending 15 minutes offering public conput over the la or public input over the last uh two weeks regarding this.

Um this is a question for city staff, not for the presenter.

Um, when we look at the actual uh city ballot language, I just want to confirm what the um language when it says shall not exceed means when it comes to property taxes, and that each one of these buckets has to be allocated as the ballot language state.

So can Mark legal, somebody prove I will confirm that, council member of Glasgow.

Okay, thank you for the confirmation.

In addition, I want to correct one thing from the speaker's record that this is the most that cities can allocate in terms of municipal sales tax, and the presentation presented to this council on May 27th of this year.

It actually outlines on page two, exhibit one, as well as exhibit two and exhibit three, what each municipality can allocate.

I'll just read a couple of those.

Andover has a two percent uh sales tax currently.

Um Augusta has a two percent sales tax currently, Coffeeville, Kansas actually has a three percent, and I believe that by state statute is the highest that could be levied, but the average for all first class cities in the state of Kansas is actually 1.47% in terms of sales tax.

What's being presented um today on a ballot initiative is one percent.

So just to correct the record.

Thank you.

So we're gonna add in this taxes.

Thank you, staff.

We'll continue with public comment.

Good morning, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Steve Dixon.

I reside at 1430 East 13th Street North here in Wichita, Kansas.

I want to speak a little bit about like a canary in the coal mine to all of you about our homeless situation here in Wichita.

Just last Thursday, we were notified at the coalition and homelessness uh meeting that federal HUD funding under the current NOFO has the potential to be reduced from 2.7 million dollars to under to roughly $900,000 in the next year to two years.

Also, that with that change in funding comes a change in how those funds can be allocated.

At risk is over 200 persons that are currently in housing being supported in permanent supportive housing.

This is a tidal wave that potentially will hit our city that we are not prepared to deal with at this point in time.

If we want what the city needs, and why I advocate as a personal citizen of this Wichita City is a consistent stream of funds to work with our homeless service providers.

Yes, I'm the board chair for Second Light.

Yes, I sit on the board for the coalition to end homelessness in Sedrup County.

However, as a private citizen, my concern is for my fellow citizens that are most vulnerable.

What we see is that our community is pulling together, our provider community is pulling together to address this in a community-wide um system.

We see that with the 16 providers that are currently operating inside of Second Light to provide services to our unhoused population.

What we need and what we have is a clearly defined goal for our city.

Our community has come out and said, our provider community has come out and said we are seeking and striving towards reaching functional zero.

Because as a community, we value all citizens, we value those most vulnerable citizens in our community, and we want to reduce and actually increase the number of people housed while reducing the number of people that are being impacted by homelessness.

I apologize.

I'm a little passionate about this.

Wrote this last night and I'm still trying to work through it.

All I'm asking tonight today is that our community be willing to support the work that's already being done.

Second light has been up and operational now for roughly a year.

We are housing currently 300 persons within the shelter.

Emergency winter shelter, in addition to the 175, 170 persons that are currently in shelter plus service beds.

We saw 97 persons just the other day.

We know it was cold.

It was not a great day, but the shelter was open, the shelter was receiving guests, the shelter housed people.

They fed them, they gave them a place to sleep that was safe and secure.

All I'm asking, and I'm all I'm urging you to do is to give our community the opportunity to lean into this work that is already being done, support our most vulnerable neighbors.

Thank you.

Thank you, Steve.

We'll continue with public comment.

Hi, I'm John Rolfe, uh lifelong citizen of Wichita.

I love the smell of democracy in the morning.

I think the real question we're all wondering is when do you guys eat lunch?

I don't know how you do this.

Um, so I'm in the way of that, aren't I right now?

Um, obviously I'm here in support of this.

And um I was a film major in college and wanted to change the world through story, and so even as I lead our business, I think about stories a lot, and I think about some of the stories that are being told here.

And I think about the environment we're in politically now, right?

It's tough.

You guys have to face it every day.

Um when I was on the board of regents, I uh had some siblings of knowing what it felt like to be a policymaker and a governing body.

Um, even you know, our own businesses already are being harassed uh, you know, by some of the folks in opposition to that, our team members and things like that.

Uh story as I think about it, you got you got three multi-family, multi-generational family businesses in Wichita that are looking at some of the crises that are ahead, some of the opportunities for the city, and uh just inviting the community to have a discussion over the next few months and a vote on whether one cent sales tax is a tool that this community should be using to invest in itself or not.

And if it is, are these the projects that we should be doing?

We live in a political era when even seeing isn't necessarily believing.

Uh I know I've been mentioned by name a few times about wanting to tear down Century Two.

This plan invests in Century Two and not complex.

It also takes steps to try and uh not waste any more time where we lose convention business and visitors to this town year after year.

Um you look at this plan, as we are looking at uh raising money and running a uh positive campaign in favor of this uh sales tax, and as we think about in seven years whether or not the community would trust this process and look at this investment tool again for other projects, it's gonna be important that there's oversight.

It's gonna be important that there is continued community interaction through this, and that's why you have the citizen oversight uh structured how it is, that this body continues to make decisions as it hears from people as it looks at the individual projects.

For instance, when you think about performing arts, it'd be a very similar process to what you saw with the arena.

When the community voted on the arena, we didn't have a site, we didn't have a design, we knew roughly what it would cost, and then we're once we were able to do that.

And uh Wichita Forward is willing to go out and try and raise the other 75 million dollars on this thing.

And mayor, we might hear what you're saying uh about wanting the private dollars first.

If we're not able to raise that money, uh the 75 million public dollars won't be able to build a new performing arts center.

It'll be moot, it'll be uh not be able to done anyway.

So I hope as you're looking at the stories of all this, uh, you're remembering as we heard last night from uh fire representatives as we've talked to police, the bravest individuals in our community coming up and giving them the resources they need to win.

Uh when we uh think about paying with cash instead of debt and being fiscally responsible.

Um, all those are part of this story.

And so when I think about Wichita, I mentioned this just a little bit last week.

But we are a city with the wind at our back right now.

If you think about where we were 15 or 20 years ago, when we lost Boeing, when we were so hard hit during the last financial crisis, we've been able to rally, come together, diversify our economy, track new business, uh, continue to uh accelerate our place on this planet as one of the destinations of advanced manufacturing and pushing forward.

Um, when you think about the Biomed campus going up and all the opportunities that are there.

Um, a friend of mine, when he was speaking about this said it's go time.

And please look at all the people and the organizations that have lent their support to this plan and that believe that now is the right time to put this in front to allow our citizens to make the choice of whether we want to invest in ourselves in this way with this one cent sales X at this time.

So thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you very much for being willing to serve.

And um, I'm done with 48 seconds to spare.

John, I have one question.

You mentioned that some of your staff has been harassed, um, and that is not acceptable being harassed.

I I just want to know I think a lot of people are interested in why you three um families have come forward with trying to move this project, this plan.

And I'm curious also why now.

And and you said right now it's go time.

Why now?

Well, um, so you know, the three of us spoke at the uh I forget what the name of the event was, it was a business journal event.

And uh, you know, we're super involved in the community.

Um we're we're three businesses that give back of our time of our resources of our team members, encouraging them to be involved out there.

And so we're constantly aware of this conversation about how to solve these problems individually, about the opportunities around a sales tax.

I think we've left that time and started engaging with people in the community and saying, you know, it's now the right time.

Uh we knew that you guys were discussing it and were looking at it as we looked at the landscape of what was coming up and some of the priorities that would need to be on this, uh, and speaking to the timing of it as we looked at second line, knowing the funding was going to run out in October, knowing that that's right before the cold months and understanding what a priorities priority uh our attention to the homeless community is.

Uh, something that all three of our organizations give back to.

I think we said, hey, it feels like the right time.

And then we went and tested that idea with the community, went and tested it with different organizations to see if they felt like it was right.

Uh but I think when you see the three of us, you need to know there's several other business leaders that are with us.

Uh you know, they're on the coalition.

We're the three that have been willing to you know stand up and be come into the city council meetings and do all that.

Uh, but there's a great coalition behind this.

There's a great coalition that believes in this town right now, and that would be as far as timing goes, Mayor Wu.

Uh, there's a high amount of belief in Wichita right now.

The highest that I can remember uh since moving back that we can go places that we can do things, and that makes us feel like it's the right time for this community to have a conversation whether or not we want to hit the accelerator, or if we want to continue if we want to uh ease off of that.

And we recommend that we push into the accelerator, if that wasn't clear.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Anything else?

Thank you.

Continue with public comment.

I see no.

Thank you, Mayor.

I don't want to reiterate what I had said last week, and I appreciate everybody engaging publicly.

Some residents have had over 15 minutes to speak to the council uh with their thoughts.

Uh, some residents have sent 56 questions, and I'm thankful for the public engagement that we've had in this process.

Again, I shared my thoughts.

I don't want to repeat all that today.

What I do want to say is that I believe the people of Wichita deserve a choice and deserve a choice for themselves.

This is not a decision that should be made from this dais alone, and whether you support this proposal or oppose it, I think there's justification for both.

The question before us today is about is it larger than one project or any vote, and it's about whether we trust our residents to weigh these facts, ask the questions over the next few months and decide the kind of future that they want for the city.

I know what kind of future I want for this city.

And a vote doesn't force um this vote doesn't force the property or vote the force the public to vote for the first property tax decrease since 1985.

It does not force the public to invest in our firefighters, it does not force the public to help us solve the homeless crisis.

It just gives the public a voice if they want lower property taxes, if they want to help our first responders, and if they want to help solve homelessness in their community, and I believe that voters deserve that choice.

Wichita has always moved forward.

We're unwilling to invest in ourselves and safety and infrastructure and opportunity and places to build community, and we owe it to our residents to let them decide what the path board is.

I'm voting today to let the which people of wish to all be heard because I believe democracy works best when we trust democracy.

So with that, and I know there's gonna be a lot of discussion.

Um I move that we place the ordinance calling for a special election on second reading and approve the notice of special election question.

Second motion and a second, we'll continue with comments from the bench.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thanks, Mayor.

Uh I was gonna reread my speech last week, word for word, but since Councilmember Glasscock didn't, I won't.

Um I do want to clarify uh just a few things that were said earlier.

I've been looking, I think I printed these, so I may not have them in my email.

As we look at one of the items on here around performing art, some names of groups were mentioned.

There was an opportunity back in 2019 as we talked about plans um around performing arts where the groups that were mentioned actually submitted letters to the council in support of having world-class facilities.

It wasn't a knock on um the current round building per se, but just saying that we have world-class performers and talent, we deserve world-class facilities for them.

Those groups that we celebrate wanted a new performing arts facility.

There was also mention that council has ignored a petition and previously.

That petition actually was not just to save one building, it would have impacted 190 structures here in the city of Wichita.

That was why we pushed back on that.

It wasn't around one specific space, all of that's in the public record.

We've talked about that.

So just wanted to clarify those things.

I have seen historically sitting here where some of that misinformation is shared and it becomes a part of a public narrative, and it's not always completely accurate.

Aside from those things, um, as I said last week, and as Councilmember Glasscock said, I too support each of you, each Wichita resident having an opportunity to support or not support this sales tax.

There are some um great things in the plan as far as public safety.

I do think, and I'm hearing public comment.

I do think some of the items that council member Glasscock referenced in the different pages in RCIP.

We maybe should compile that in one area so people can see what those items are.

If you don't want to skim through that whole thing, the CIP is available online right now.

You can look through that, but maybe looking at that so people understand which apparatuses and um stations might be impacted by that.

I think a discussion about all of these opportunities has been happening for a number of years, maybe not packaged in this way, but we have been talking about those things, and I think this gives people an opportunity to say they want to support it or not.

We've heard about some of the uh protections as one of the things the mayor brought up is having private dollars first.

We know that if the private dollars won't be raised, that money won't be spent.

Those things I think we should continue to talk about again to make sure more people know about it, uh, whether that's Wichita Forward or people reaching out to us because we would be voting on this.

But ultimately, I think that folks deserve an opportunity in the public to say yes or no uh to the whole package.

I don't think it's perfect.

I don't think there's ever gonna be a package that just has everything that each of us wants, but there is something in this um that benefits everyone.

And there's also something in this that I think people may disagree with, but I have seen over time as well that when you get to a space like that where some people really love it, some people kind of love it, you're in a I think the right space.

So I will be voting in favor of putting this on the ballot, and that way the residents can say yes or no to if they want it or not.

Councilmember Hohaisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I might need a little help with this.

Um, I'd like to make a substitute motion that would break this ballot up into five separate votes on the same ballot um in March.

Uh, one for public safety not to exceed 225 million, one for homeless and housing services not to uh exceed 150 million, one for revitalization a century two and convention center improvements not to exceed 250 million, one for property tax relief not to exceed 150 million, and one for development and construction of a new downtown public performance arts center not to exceed 75 million.

My reason for this is I am afraid because a lot of these are very much needed in our community, and to Mr.

Dixon's point, um, the safety and security, especially of um our homeless population and people who are interested in seeing a lot of the homeless people end up finding housing.

Um this is my proposal.

I have questions about that.

So is this maybe a question for the election commissioner or uh law, um, how that would show up on a ballot since there are five different initiatives, and the first question really is um the sixth question really is whether or not to have a one percent sales tax and then the allocation.

I think that's what council member Hoheisel is asking.

Mayor, I believe that that is a significant change today, and this would not be within the scope of what a second reading is allowed under city ordinance.

I would advise that any action taken today, stay within a second reading to maintain compliance with our procedures.

Well, I do believe we could have an emergency before the question is due on the 19th.

I would advise that we operate within a second reading today to to maintain consistency with our our ordinance to maintain procedural consistency and make sure that you know the election is called properly and any sales tax complies with state law.

Um I think we are on a tight timeline.

Today's a second reading, and I think that we need to operate within the ordinance, which allows for minor adjustments today.

Vice Mayor Johnson.

With all respect, Councilman Hoheisel.

Um we would need a first reading for a special meeting.

We'd need a second reading for another special meeting, and we have to do this all by Friday.

So I don't think that's doable.

Um I do think we need to follow legal advice and vote this up or down and and let people decide.

Um if we did not get it done by Friday, we could not do it by in March.

And we would have to do it in August.

August, it would be too late to fund second light.

So the timing just doesn't work out, I don't think.

Appreciate that.

Councilmember Todd.

Thank you so much.

I just want to offer a few comments.

Um, same as council member Johnson.

I said most of what I was gonna say last week, but I did want to again thank staff for all of their work on this.

I know many departments have been involved, and also thank you to the community members who have reached out, the folks who sat there through the long meeting last week, they're sitting here through the meeting today.

Um there's been many comments today about trust and the community saying that they don't trust this body who is representing you as your city council and mayor, and I say I trust the community.

They deserve the opportunity to vote.

Um, if we voted this up as a sales tax or we voted it down as a sales tax, people wouldn't be happy.

But this way, we have an opportunity for the community to weigh in and make the decision.

Um, someone, a couple of people made the comment about democracy, and this is people letting people in a representative republic have a say in a vote.

A special election, such as this is also is sometimes called direct democracy.

Direct democracy is the will of the people, and that's what we're voting on today is that we would let the will of the people decide if we should have a one-cent sales tax to fund projects that they think are important.

Um I have said many many times from the bench in the last seven years, widgetons are very smart.

Wichitans make good decisions.

That's how our great city is so great.

Widgets are also incredibly passionate, and I think that they should be allowed to vote on March 3rd of 2026 to share their thoughts and their passion.

And then finally, again, I said it last week, I say it all the time.

Wichita needs to grow.

We have to grow to keep up with our peer cities.

We have to grow to attract and retain talent.

We have to grow to attract and retain businesses, and I think this is the opportunity to let the residents in our community decide if this is how they want us to grow.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

I I too do not think this is perfect.

If I was doing it myself, I would provide more property tax relief.

I think people want that, but it does provide provide some.

So I think that's good.

Uh I admire the leaders who brought this forward.

Um they're putting themselves out for target practice.

Um not easy to do because you're gonna get shot at, uh, especially when your businesses might be affected by people not coming to them.

So I feel bad for them for that.

Um, they just want the best of the city.

Um, this will fund the homeless shelter, which is the reason that I ran for city council was the for the homeless and and now housing also.

So it will fund that.

Um it will help with uh budget deficits, limiting bus deficits in 28 and 29.

The money freed up from cash funding the fire and police for you will free up some money to pay the fire and police.

Um with no clear path to pay for that.

So it will help pay for those raises.

I love century two.

I think we should take care of it.

I am extremely disappointed in the safe century tube group that apparently will be against this.

Um contracts from EPC, baseball stadium, the the dollar for the land, the water plant.

I get all that.

I get all that, but that's not this.

So I will be supporting this.

Uh I admire the people that brought it forward.

I I thank you for that.

It's it's a it's looking forward to the city, you know, which is named which taught forward.

Um, I think that's what we need to do is look forward, and like council member Tuttle said, we need to we need to grow.

So you can't cut your way to prosperity.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I still have a motion on the floor.

I don't know if there's a second or not.

Second motion, substitute motion and a second.

So I have multiple questions.

Uh but council member Ballard, go ahead.

Um, I want to know.

So now we have a substitute motion and a second.

This if this was to um be on the March ballot, how would that work out?

Aaron, I'm gonna ask you to come forward and help me sort this out.

Um, that's something we just haven't haven't contemplated.

I think what the motion would do would be to essentially craft or draft an entirely new ordinance with an entirely new ballot, which would put us back in that realm of are we now having a first reading on what councilman Hoheisel has presented, which would then require a second reading in a special meeting as um Vice Mayor Johnston had outlined.

So if the motion passes, we're essentially redrafting or have staff redraft a new ballot, you would need to figure out what percentages you wanted for each of those.

So if you want.025 percent of one percent.

I mean, the the sales tax doesn't have to be a one percent or two percent.

Um, it has to be in 0.05 percent increments.

So you would have 0.05 percent for property tax, 0.25 for homeless, and I'm just throwing out numbers here.

Um, you would have to provide additional clarifications to what you wanted those breakdowns to be because you would still have to assess an amount, you can't just say we want a sales tax, and it will be up to 250 million for a without some sort of percentage for the department of revenue to collect, and I'm gonna ask Mark for confirmation of that.

Yes, so I mean it would be essentially copying.

Okay, let me it's a it it's a different way to to get to the same place, but you're gonna have to allow staff time to figure out what those percentages are, whether it's a.05 percent of whatever gets you to 250 million, and I am not the math person here.

Um, but it would take staff and some analytics to get you what that new ballot is, which is part of the problem of we're we're essentially starting this process over.

Right.

Couple more questions because I had the concern regarding the um new performing arts center and making sure that there's language that says private dollars must be raised first before public dollars even get kicked in.

And I know that someone had mentioned that if those private dollars were not raised, then that this would be a moot discussion.

Therefore, what would happen with those uh funds that would have been raised?

So how can we craft that into either the substitute motion or the current motion if you want to engraft that onto either that motion or the current motion, you're creating a new ordinance, and I think Jennifer had responded to that that it might be cleaner to have that as part of a resolution, which we could bring back either next week or or the first part of January, that it's the intent of the council in passing the ordinance that the 75 million would not uh public tax money would not be paid until private funds were raised.

And hold on, I'm trying to find I drafted some language kind of in my head here, but I just gotta find it.

Go ahead.

I can maybe answer another question when I'm trying to find the what I sent.

Vice Mayor Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

I I'll speak to your concern about raising the money first.

Um done a lot of fundraising in the last decade.

You do when you fundraise, you always want to raise half of it before you go public.

Uh if you don't, you're gonna fail.

So to raise half of it would be the sales tax.

The people raise going out fundraising, they would already know they've got half of it.

It would help them raise the other half.

I would not be in favor of that.

So if that is truly the case, then I would be not in favor of this because I want to make sure that private dollars need to be raised first before taxpayer dollars come in supplement.

So I would not be in favor if that was to happen.

That's for the record.

Some potential language that I had come up with earlier this morning regarding, and it would be section E of the ballot, and this could be put in in a resolution form.

Public funds shall not be expended until such time a matching amount of private funds have been raised for the development and construction of a new downtown performing public performing arts center, which I think gets where you want that we're not gonna expend any of this money until that that other matching is done regarding the performing arts center.

And then I think the manager had explained that if we don't get those, then that amount would shift into one of these other categories.

I don't have a problem with that, Mayor.

Not at all.

So but it's not a reason to not do the sales tax now.

I want to make sure that that is solidified and a resolution either comes to us next week for sure, uh, not possibly next year.

I want to make sure that it is in something that we can vote on, a resolution that does say private dollars must be raised first.

Councilmember Todd.

Thank you.

I would also be so in support of a resolution.

It's my understanding that I think funds have already been committed.

Um, so I I don't think that that's a probably gonna be an issue.

I think the private dollars will be raised, and then we can utilize public dollars.

I just a logistical two logistical questions for for Jennifer and or Sharon.

Um is your microphone fixed?

Yes, okay.

I let comms know that you needed to have it fixed um so we would have to have a resolution drafted by Thursday because we have a council policy that says anything that goes on the agenda has to be um available to the public by Thursday at five for the Tuesday meeting, and then my second half of that question is next Tuesday is consent only.

So we have to do anything logistically to change that meeting, and then Bob, that means that it won't be your last meeting of a regular meeting.

So, two questions.

Um, can we have a resolution by Thursday at five so we follow our own policy?

Because I don't want to break one policy trying to get something else, and then what do we have to do to change the format of the meeting?

Thank you.

Sure.

Um council member to answer your first question.

Yes, I believe we can draft a resolution by Thursday to answer the second question.

Next week is a consent only agenda.

Um to vote on a resolution would be a typical new business item.

I think you'd need to change that meeting to a regular meeting if you're gonna take up an item of new business.

Somebody can correct me if they are wrong.

Maybe there's another way to do that, but that's the way I see it.

And if that's correct, you would need today to vote on making next week a regular meeting.

That's what I wondered.

Thank you.

I would be in favor of that.

Everyone else seems to agree, so it could change into a regular meeting where we can have a resolution regarding those that new resolution about performing arts.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, first I do believe that we do have something on regular business next week.

Um we do have an item, I believe.

No, the only thing you may be thinking of the municipal judge okay, that's and that's on as showing his consent.

Oh, that's concerned.

Yeah, okay.

Okay, uh, and also to the current motion.

I think if it passes, um, that would mean we could have an emergency tomorrow with cleaner language, an emergency Thursday, and then get it on the ballot to the ballot box by Friday.

Yeah, I definitely think you've heard from law department you can't do it today because we can't put that language together in a way that would be transparent.

All right, so I I I know there could still be issues with that, but in theory, I guess you could have a meeting tomorrow to review a new ordinance and approve the first reading.

But again, that's really varying significantly from your normal process.

Yeah, a lot of varying from the process here lately.

So council member Tuttle.

Thank you.

I just have a quick question to make sure I understand.

For us to need to have an emergency meeting tomorrow and an emergency meeting on Thursday, Councilmember Holheisel's um motion would have to carry.

Is that correct?

We're not gonna have I'm just a little confused.

I'm sorry, got in the the weeds a little bit or the mud or I don't know what, but I'm confused.

I believe that's correct.

If that is the only way that we could accomplish what councilmember Holheisel's motion would ask for, I believe.

If follow-up question for legal, if the motion doesn't pass, then we don't have to have two emergency meetings.

Correct.

Yeah, and I'm not opposed to having special meetings, but um, you know, we're getting hit that we're not being transparent, and having two emergency meetings that people aren't gonna necessarily be aware of brings me some pause.

So we have a substitute motion from council member Hoheisel seconded by council member ballard.

This would allow for an emergency meeting as well tomorrow and Thursday.

Is that accurate?

That wasn't in the wording of the motion, but I think we'd have to have that called council can do that in the motion if that's the will of the motion.

So I'm gonna do a couple of things.

I don't know if this is gonna pass.

This is a substitute motion, but I will say that I do want more opportunities to um fine-tune the language, which is why a resolution regarding the performing arts is something that will for sure come to us on Tuesday.

However, if there's a new draft, I would want that draft to also include this um performing arts uh portion.

Because of that, I will be voting in favor because this would also allow the performing arts question to be on there.

With that, we have a motion substitute motion and a second, Madam Clerk.

Please open the roll.

Mayor, technically, I think that has to be accepted as a friendly amendment because he did not have that in his motion.

So am I right on that?

Thank you.

Yeah, okay.

So your language that was what Sharon had asked at and offered would have to be then accepted in his motion.

Okay, and it's been accepted by council member Hoheisel.

So we have again a substitute motion and a second with the additional language regarding uh private dollars having to be raised first before public dollars would kick in.

Can I have a point of clarification?

I'm sorry, I just want to make sure I completely understand.

So we're voting on councilmember Hohlheisel's motion to break it into five chunks and have two special meetings.

Is that correct?

And then you add it in the resolution.

If his doesn't pass, will you offer the resolution for the original motion?

So if if this I just want to make sure the motion does not pass, we go back to the original motion by Councilmember Glasscock, seconded by Vice Mayor Johnston with Tuesday having a new resolution regarding the performing arts.

I just want to make sure because I don't think the resolution was maybe part of Glass Councilmember Glasscox, but we'll get there.

Let's get through this vote first, I guess.

I just want to make sure we're clean.

So thank you.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion does not carry four to three.

We're back to the original motion from Councilmember Glasscock.

Vice Mayor Johnston.

Any further comments regarding this motion?

So this motion again for clarity is to put it on the ballot in March with the specified language as is, with again on Tuesday, the understanding that there will be a resolution regarding private dollars having to be raised first before public dollars can kick in.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm sure everybody's tired of me talking, but I did want to share my thoughts.

Um I just want to go on record talking about this sales tax vote.

I have many issues with this process, including the timing, the lack of public input, and some of the projects listed to be funded.

I wish we had more time to look at this as a community and gather the buy-in from our community.

Not only does this harm the trust from the community, but it also puts the potential funding for many programs that I care about at risk for not passing.

However, I can't see any other way with the intent of council to come up with funding for the issues that are most pressing to our community, namely homeless services and affordable housing.

I struggle with this decision because inaction on these issues will only exacerbate the problems we face down the line.

Homelessness among seniors is projected to double over the next decade, and this is an opportunity to get out ahead of it.

There is a saying don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, but I don't think that applies here.

I think it's more along the lines of we can't afford to not act on these issues.

I've been racking my mind as to how to get these issues addressed without the sales tax, and with the with the current makeup of council and our diverse opinions on the role of government.

I'm not sure there is one.

As someone who has constantly tried to direct needy people to shelter services, I'll let you know that right now.

Shelter for abused women are full, and family shelters are full.

This is an issue that needs immediate attention.

We've been working hard over the last four years and have laid a great infrastructure for our homeless services, but there is still work to do.

These issues are too important to ignore or to continue to put be put off.

That's why I'll support putting this on the ballot for March.

This doesn't look like what would come out of council if it was a council of one, me being that one, but that is the way our government is set up.

This isn't the popular decision.

I understand that, but that's the burden of the office that we have sought.

I hope we can continue to move this discussion forward over the next couple of months in an open, honest, and serious way.

Thank you.

I will just add a couple more comments.

Um again, thank you to the individuals who have addressed the council and know that I'm taking down notes and highlighting the portions where we will continue to ask for further clarification, and as we fine-tune these discussions over the next few months.

Um, I want to make sure that there will be ample time for community to have a say, especially on the oversight committee.

Tex, thank you for reminding us about the minimums, reminding us to see how we can make this better.

I also understand that this community has asked us to bring vision a vision forward.

While this is not my vision or my plan, I believe in the citizens of Wichita, and I believe that the citizens should have the final say on what should happen to the city of Wichita.

And so my vote will be in favor of letting the community make that decision, and it will be in the hands of the community to make that final decision.

With that, Vice Mayor Johnston.

Mayor, if I may, um before the motion is finally voted on, I would like just for the record the motion to be clarified with the language about the resolution, and then at the same time it would be appropriate for the motion to include changing next week's meeting to a regular meeting.

If that could be done in one motion, um if not, that's okay.

But I just want to have that clear for the record.

Can that be a friendly amendment to the current motion?

As long as it doesn't um mess up the ballot language, I accept all of that.

So okay, thank you.

Vice Mayor Johnstein.

Thank you, Mayor.

One thing I did forget to say, I think something that which the forward did right this time is have the oversight committee.

I think that independent oversight committee to watch over things to make sure to get spent on what it is, it doesn't go over.

I think that that's a very good thing, and I think that's something that uh we should really be proud of if it goes through.

So thank you.

Councilmember Ballard.

Thank Mayor.

I just want to echo some of my colleagues' comments on this plan, is certainly not perfect.

I have a lot of questions myself.

Uh, if it comes up to March and you still have questions that aren't answered, you always you always have the option to say no.

I think this is an option for us to consider.

Um, and like I said, I have lots and lots of questions myself.

I want to see renderings.

Um we still have a lot of work to do, but I do think uh this is not a decision that I want the seven of us to make.

Um, I think it's important to put it in the hands of the public.

So for that, I will be voting yes.

I see no further comments.

We have a motion and a second with some friendly amendments that include a regular meeting next week and a resolution uh regarding the um performing arts.

Madam Clerk, can you please open the roll?

Motion passes 7-0.

We will take a 15-minute break at this time.

Thank you, city staff, and thank you to those who have remained for the city council meeting.

So we have five council members now in the room, so we will resume our council meeting.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next item?

Design concept for Douglas from Washington to Grove.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council members Paul Gunzelman, Public Works and Utilities for the record.

This afternoon, I will be presenting on the design concepts for Douglas from Washington to Grove.

Douglas Street has a lot of history to it.

Um almost 25 years starting back in 2000.

Douglas was improved from Main Street to St.

Francis.

That improvements included repaving Douglas, new sidewalk, curb extensions and landscaping.

Project that is not bulleted on this list is uh improvements to Douglas through Delana completed in 2003.

That project converted the five-lane section of Douglas to a two-lane section with diagonal parking.

It also included curb extensions, landscaping, and new sidewalk.

In 2010, the project downtown had recommended Douglas as a primary corridor of expanded Q line services along with Main Street.

In 2017 and 2018, the Douglas and hydraulic intersection was improved to reduce crashes at the intersection that was funded by highway safety improvement program funding through Kansas Department of Transportation.

And in 2018, Douglas was restriped to its current configuration with diagonal parking on the south side and angle parking and parallel parking on the north side.

Douglas is a major east-west roadway through downtown and could be considered a gateway connecting Delana, downtown, old town, and East Douglas.

And as you approve the contract this morning for Douglas from Seneca to Meridian.

The next phase of Douglas is the project today from Washington to Grove.

As we have held some meetings in the last eight weeks, there has been some confusion regarding the budget for the project, with some folks believing the project is between seven and eight million dollars.

Programmed in 2026 for Douglas, Washington to Grove.

And then there is approximately 7,450,000 programmed for Douglas from Maine to Washington in 2031 and 2032.

I will get back into some more total project budget later in the presentation as I talk about financial considerations.

Slide before you is the project limits, as I mentioned before, Douglas from Washington to Grove.

In the next few slides, I'll go over existing conditions.

This is looking east on Douglas at Ida Street, where it is a five-lane roadway, parallel parking on the north side with diagonal parking on the south side.

And again, that was completed in 2018.

And you can see there is a lot of pavement from building front to building front.

That was changed in 2020 from and reduced from 35 to 30 miles per hour.

Traffic speeds within the corridor collected in November of 2025 show an average speed of 31 miles per hour with an 85th percentile speed of 36 miles per hour.

And again, the 85th percentile speed is defined as a speed below at or below, at which 85% of the drivers are going under favorable road conditions.

Turning around looking east from hydraulic.

This is switches to four-lane roadway with parallel parking on both sides of the street.

And then this is a view looking west from Grove Street or just west of Grove Street, showing the lane configuration in front of East High School.

It is a four-lane roadway with the introduction of the left turn lane, westbound left turn, eastbound left turn lane at Douglas and Grove.

Currently there is no parking on the north side of Douglas between Grove and Spruce.

Parallel parking does exist west of Spruce on the north side.

And the sidewalk is narrower along this block throughout the rest of the corridor.

Accounting for bus parking or staging during arrival and dismissal times.

However, the lane narrows near the intersection of Grove, causing weaving issues, and I'll show that as a picture later in the presentation.

And the proposed design concept will clearly mark a space for buses and will provide a separate travel lane for eastbound traffic.

In the background, there is also a signalized pedestrian crosswalk for students of East High that will be improved with the project.

A bit of background on February 6, 2024, the City Council approved design funding for multiple capital improvement program projects, including Douglas from Washington to Grove.

In July of 2024, the City Council approved an agreement with Boffman to develop design concepts for this project.

On October 30th, 2025, an open house was held to discuss the project.

And on November 3rd, 2025, the proposed design concept was presented to the District One Advisory Board.

The board deferred taking action on the item until gather additional public input.

Subsequent to that meeting on November 10th, the design concept was presented to the bicycle and pedestrian advisory board, and there were two public open houses, one on November 17th and one on November 24th to talk about the project.

Here's a list of concerns that we had heard that were mentioned at the district advisory board as well as previous open houses.

Traffic flow and line configuration.

We believe that three-lane roadways can handle up to 17,000 vehicles per day.

There are some studies showing that that can be from 10,000 up to 20,000 vehicles per day for three-lane section, even up to 25,000 vehicles per day.

Concerns regarding east high school traffic during arrival and dismissal times, bus facilities on Douglas, truck turning movements at specific intersections, as well as median and emergency vehicles.

The traffic volumes are shown on the slide before you traffic volumes in in black are from 2017, and we took some recent traffic counts that are labeled in red.

And we took some recent traffic counts that are labeled in red.

And as you can see, in 2017, there was 13,700 vehicles on the west end of the corridor, decreasing to 12,200 vehicles towards the east end.

New counts showed 13,000 near the west end, 13,300 in the middle as well, and then 13,400 towards the east end.

So traffic counts have been pretty consistent throughout the corridor in the past eight years.

And then the highlighted in blue, I mentioned it before the 85th percentile is 36 miles an hour throughout the corridor.

We had also heard concerns with the future traffic generated by the biomedical center campus.

Folks going to and leaving the biomedical campus have numerous options.

If they're coming from West Wichita, they most likely won't even enter this corridor.

Coming from the east side, I 135 and 1st and 2nd Street might be used to get to and from the campus, in addition to some of the north south streets, as well as traveling down Kellogg to the campus and again using north south streets.

I won't deny that a percentage will use this portion of Douglas to get to the campus.

However, with the data we have now, we believe a three-lane roadway will accommodate future growth downtown.

Even with the 25% growth along Douglas regarding vehicle traffic volumes, if my math is correct, that's another 3,350 vehicles per day.

That is still within the 17,000 vehicles that we feel can be accommodated by a three-lane roadway.

I know there is a lot on this table before you.

Pedestrian safety, three-lane roadway decreases the number of lanes that a pedestrian needs to cross.

It also offers a refuge in the center, allowing pedestrians to focus on crossing one lane direction of traffic at a time.

The proposed concept you will see later also constructs curb extensions at the intersections, thereby shortening the crossing distance.

Pedestrians have to travel to cross Douglas.

Thereby calming traffic.

Specifically, I drive Lincoln Street between Woodlawn and Rock.

It was converted from a four-lane roadway to a three-lane roadway last year, and I've noticed as I drive at more consistent speeds as well as even lower speeds as I travel down the roadway.

Crash reduction is another important of four-lane to three-lane.

A three-lane roadway allows vehicles turning in opposing directions to see past each other as shown in green.

Staff has reviewed crash data in 2024.

10 crashes occurred between I-135 and Grove.

Four rear end collisions, three side swipes, and one eastbound right turn vehicle that turned from the inside lane, striking a out a traveling eastbound vehicle on the outside lane.

In 2025, six crashes occurred within this section.

There was one rear end, one side swipe, and two left turning collisions in which the driver did not see the approaching vehicle in the outside lane.

Many of these may have been avoided with a three-lane roadway.

This is a picture taken in the morning during school arrival time, and you can see that silver car in the front that's turning left into the student parking lot or to the school itself.

You can see a queue of cars behind them.

Again, this kind of functions as a three-lane roadway in the morning.

Creating a dedicated left turn lane for these vehicles turning left will free up the through lane.

Motorists who drive Douglas daily learn to drive in the outside lane as they realize they will most likely get stopped behind a vehicle entering their school property.

And I had witnessed that I'd driven Douglas a few times even before this project, and I quickly learned to drive in the outside lane to come into City Hall.

This is an aerial photo of the school buses staging along the south curb line of Douglas.

I want you to make notice of the white truck in the outside lane as well as this black SUV, I believe, or car in the inside lane.

The eastbound lanes of Douglas shift over to create the eastbound left turn at Grove, making the outside lane impossible to continue east in, as shown in the picture in front of you.

This causes a weaving issue, forcing cars to speed up to merge into the inside through lane, as the truck and or vehicle, you know, in the previous picture had shown that truck would have to speed up and weave over to get into the through lane before that outside lane tapered out.

Again, the concept that you will see in the in soon will provide a dedicated space for bus staging and provide one eastbound through lane, making it safer for all users.

The uh picture to the top is one of the first concepts that we had proposed, and this is in front of East High School.

Some of the issues that were expressed by East High School were the relocation of the driveway.

We were going to line it up with Ash Street.

There was also some queuing of the buses that were moved, and some raised medians put in throughout that corridor.

USD 259 had sent a letter expressing their concerns with the project in front of East High prior to the December District Advisory Board.

Unfortunately, prior to that advisory board, USD 259 had been reviewing a previous concept.

I have met with representatives from USD 259 since that meeting and discussed the latest concept, which shows keeping the drive approach where it is to their parking lot and further south around the school.

Medians were removed in the bottom picture.

We had where this is hatched out.

We had a raised median there and another one back to the east.

We have removed those due to the request that at the request of the school.

There are a lot of trucks that utilize Ash Street, so we had removed that to accommodate as trucks are turning as they do now.

The alternatives looking at the west section from Washington to Grove.

Again, we had made some median modifications, shortened to accommodate movements into the drive approach east of Matthewson.

The median east of Matthewson, shown in the top was a landscape median.

We have revised that to stamp concrete to provide visibility for pedestrians that may be utilizing the proposed race crosswalk.

And between these two concepts, shared lane use markings were added for cyclists.

We did discuss the median placement with Chief O'Cades with Wichita Fire, Captain Miller of the Wichita Police Department, and Director Feist of Transit.

And after reviewing these concepts, they said they could navigate the proposed medians and police and fire.

They've navigated some medians around town that are within the three-lane section.

I want to also point out that the one of the previous concepts or earlier concepts had diagonal parking on both the north and south curb lines of Douglas.

On December 1st, 2025, the district advisory board recommended a three-lane roadway option with on street bicycle lanes and parallel parking on both sides of the street, with the desire to maintain existing diagonal parking on the south side of Douglas east of Washington.

So that brings me to the current concept for your approval today.

After obtaining public info from multiple district advisory board meetings and open houses, the Douglas corridor from Washington to Grove is planned to be converted as a three-lane roadway with on street bicycle lanes, curb extensions to shorten the pedestrian crossing distance and intersections, parking as it is now with parallel parking on the north side of Douglas and diagonal parking on the south side of Douglas, and additional raised crosswalk space throughout the corridor.

Let me back up.

So this is a section from Washington at the top to Cleveland, and then it wraps around from Cleveland to the bottom left to hydraulic on the right.

We had modified, we had shown an extended curb into Cleveland as well.

We have modified that to be a straight curb so that that curb width on Cleveland remains as it is to help accommodate the truck traffic.

Um sometime next week if he's available.

Going in a little bit closer because I know this is hard to see, and some of you might be squinting to see it.

Um we'll get you a better uh close-up view of this.

So I can start me start on the south side.

So we would have a dedicated on-street bike lane on the south side adjacent to the curb, diagonal parking, eastbound through lane, two-way left turn lane, westbound lane, parallel parking with a buffer, and then on-street bike lanes adjacent to the curb.

We also propose curb extensions again to slow traffic, define parking, and to provide a shorter crossing distance for the pedestrians to cross Douglas Street.

Um throughout the project, additional improvements within the corridor will include lighting, landscape beds, bike racks, trash receptacles, and street furniture.

We will work with the adjacent property owners to discuss planting areas to see if you know this this concept shows is you know, probably the maximum that can be put in there, but we will work with the uh individual property owners to make sure that you know that that they're okay with those, that they're not blocking any signage that if trees were installed, etc.

Moving further to the east.

This is from hydraulic to I 135.

Again, the same concept with the exception of that there would be parallel parking on both sides of the street.

So I want to uh draw your attention to the Kansas Food Bank is uh located here just west of I 135 on the on the south side of Douglas.

I did meet with the Kansas Food Bank as they had also uh provided a letter to folks they were concerned about truck moving traffic.

Um I had discussed that with him.

Um so we might we probably might need to make a few more tweaks to that, but uh I did reach out to him and discuss some of that.

He also talked about having some uh no parking signs put up on Minneapolis so that uh adjacent to his driveway so trucks could get in and out of there as well.

The uh median here, we're proposing a median on the what or a curb extension on the west side of I-135 on the South Curb line to keep motorists from driving in the inside lane and not creating an additional lane as they enter into East High School where the bus parking will be identified.

And then this is a section in front of East High.

The there's not space, you know, as we create this space for the bus staging.

Again, it starts at the east end near that bus stop where they can currently start staging in order to accommodate the cyclists.

They will be able to, we will stripe it as a shared lane use marking that they can use while the buses aren't aren't staging there during bus staging time.

They can either enter and share the lane with the eastbound through traffic or dismount and walk uh the sidewalk uh adjacent to East High.

Again, um we had removed some raised medians at the school's request in front of East High.

However, we are keeping the signalized pedestrian crosswalk, adding a median to provide a refuge for pedestrians crossing the street as well as a curb extension on the north side to make it safer for pedestrians to cross.

Financial considerations.

Um January 8th, 2019, the city council approved $800,000 of general obligation bond funding for the project.

In February of 2024, the city council approved 220,000 of local sales tax funds for total project budget to date of 1,020,000.

The total project budget programmed in the CIP is $4,770,000.

Before I get to the recommended action, I want to mention that I did present the concept, the revised concept that you'd seen today to the Wichita Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board last night, and they approved the revised concept concept unanimously.

And with that, it is recommended that the city council approve the design concept with a six-month pilot project with pavement markings, um, tubular markers or flexible posts to identify the bike lane and parking to begin in the spring of 2026.

And with that, I will stand for questions.

Thank you, Paul.

Questions for staff.

So I asked the community for feedback on this because the website had not been updated.

Um this happened over a weekend right about uh Thanksgiving weekend, and our email boxes started getting inundated with messages of people that didn't even know that the plan was coming before them.

And so I immediately um shared the latest renderings that were on the website, which obviously had been modified since then, but that's all we had in terms of public documents.

What will be done moving forward to make sure that renderings that are up to date are updated on the website so that the community actually knows what is the latest, including the council.

We will work on that, Mayor.

Um, yes, that was our fault.

We um but we will make sure that's completed in the future.

Yes.

Uh, for those that don't know, that website is Wichita.gov slash East Douglas.

There are two options there, and one of those will be this design.

And again, all I wanted was feedback from the community, and I think there was confusion that this was a mayor driven idea, and it was not.

And so again, I feel like community wants to make sure that they get the latest information and it's updated on the website for full transparency.

Thank you.

I see no further questions uh from this bench.

We'll open it up for public comment.

Hello, my name is Rick.

Uh I own property uh in between hydraulic and 135.

And I um recently found out about this, and I have some concerns that I've been following the letters that I've been receiving speaking with uh Sean Mellies.

But and and I've raised some concerns.

One of the concerns is that whenever we we have three buildings down there, and one of them when we remodeled it six years ago for a pet vet, it required an ADA space up front.

Um give these to you.

So ADA required us to put this space for handicap, which is used frequently, and uh that space is now being taken away with parallel parking.

We have about five spots.

If you look in that picture, we have five spots up front that are frequently used for people and wheelchairs or also elderly people, and there's no other practical way for them to be able to access the businesses there.

Um if there was parallel parking, the the plan, which uh let me back up a little bit.

The plan is to take away those five spots and put take away the five spots and replace it with three parallel parking spaces.

Um that that's one of our concerns.

We've also talked to our tenants, and they have the same concerns.

There's also our concern about the impact on the property value with commercial properties.

Parking is the thing that really drives the value for them, and it allows us to rent for higher amounts, and it increases our um our value and uh subsequently how much we pay in taxes.

And we've had many commercial properties, and the ones that don't have parking, they don't rent.

Um in the second picture, you'll see we actually bought a parking strip next to the building at 1815, and that has five spots.

Now that is also being taken away for two parallel spots.

So we're trying very hard to solve this issue as best we can, but it feels like it's being taken away.

And my biggest I wouldn't say my biggest concern, but one of my concerns is that all of a sudden we didn't know that these spots were being taken away until uh one of our neighbors uh here in the audience here sent us a um proposal that shows the parallel parking being put in place of our parking so we'll no longer be able to access the spots that are currently there.

So uh what now we've been making good faith efforts to try to resolve this.

Um and we do have another meeting scheduled for January, but now I'm here and I'm hearing that it's asking for approval, and what I would like to see is some more time so that we can work out some of these issues with the stakeholders who are right along Douglas.

I don't want to decision to be made rashly without getting our input because until I had seen this, I'd received no input.

Uh no one asking me from either the consultant or anyone at the city as far as what would impact us and what would work for us.

So that's uh that's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rick.

Councilmember Johnson.

Thank you, Mayor.

But quick question for you.

Um the recommendation was actually approval with a six-month pilot, so you'd be able to see the markings happen and see what that impact would be.

How do you feel about a pilot and not necessarily just going out and doing it?

Uh I would actually like to see a pilot first, but I think before I get I got to that stage, what I would like to do is to have a meeting uh for someone to have a meeting with us, whether it's the consultant, because whenever I've spoken to Sean Milleys, it seems like he takes it back to the consultant.

Uh and the consultant is making the decision on this.

Um, so what I would like to do is have a meeting with our tenant uh so that we can kind of work through things and see what's possible.

Because as I've spoken with him, he's told me that the front door parking where the elderly and the maybe people who aren't uh they don't have the the hang tag, but still, you know, they're maybe unable to walk, they use that.

He said there's pretty much nothing we can do.

And so I would like to get those things resolved first and then the pilot project.

Okay, I think um Sean goes back to the consultant because they're doing the design wherever, but we can make that happen.

You, the tenant Sean and the consultant.

Yeah.

Um, since he has your information, if you just reach out to him or you can talk to Paul real quick and we can get that set up.

Yeah, but like I said, I'd like to have that worked out before we do the pilot project.

So maybe push this thing back a little bit so we can get some of this stuff worked out.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks.

My notes say uh good morning, but it's good afternoon now.

So uh thank you.

Uh this is Jeff Brough, uh, District 2, I own a lot of business on Douglas.

Um, it's not often that Dion Leffler from the Wichita Eagle and I are in complete agreement, but this is sure one for the edges.

It proves that road diets aren't a Democrat-Republican issue, they're a common sense issue.

Mr.

Leffler wrote an article on this push to restrict traffic on Douglas November the 28th.

The title of the article included the phrase, City Hall's not listening.

I hope and pray that on this one he's wrong, and that you will listen and not continue on this misguided mission to radically change one of Wichita's iconic thoroughfares.

East Douglas is the front porch for downtown Wichita.

A downtown that this body spends a huge amount of money and time trying to draw people to.

We can surely spruce up the look of our porch without cutting down the chairs on it to view.

I and dozens of Douglas business owners have been screaming at the top of our lungs since 2018 that we believe cutting down the lanes from four to two will be hugely detrimental to our business activities.

In fact, July 19th, 2018, I organized a meeting with Councilman Johnson and as many business owners as I could pack into a conference room to express those same views.

Mr.

Johnson, I remember you seeing the crowd and expressing surprise that so many people were against the plan at that time.

Well, we still are.

City staff keep saying that their studies show that this road diet will handle up to 20,000 cars a day, and that everything they're doing is data-driven.

Well, where's the data and whose data uh are you using?

I've got two studies from a couple of flyby nut entities.

One is the Michigan uh Department of Transportation, and one is the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Both of them say unequivocally, that their operational analysis shows that road diet conversions result in significant delay when average daily traffic exceeds 10,000, and peak hour volumes exceed a thousand.

I left an event last week at the arena and headed east on Douglas, just like thousands of others.

And it doesn't take a traffic engineer to know that a 50% reduction in lanes going each way would be a disaster.

And I've repeatedly asked, what's the plan for increased traffic when our new campus opens downtown?

Uh the WSUKU campus.

And no one really knows.

We just why would we restrict the traffic though before that's open?

Uh the city's pointed to Delano as an example of how this road diet works.

Well, unfortunately, Mr.

Jansen even said at a dab meeting that Delana was a desert before the road was constricted.

No one is saying that Delana was not a great place filled with many fun things to do, but respectfully, I think an 80 million dollar ballpark had something to do with that, plus many other housing additions.

The street being so small keeps you from going there unless you want to go to one of those many fine businesses.

And those businesses are completely different than this stretch of Douglas.

And we maintain that Wichitans will alter their driving habits.

They'll find an easier way to go.

Once those traffic pattern changes, the businesses along this stretch will lose out.

Myself and other business owners have met with a couple of you leading up to this meeting.

One of the answers to my comment that we invested in East Douglas because of the ease of travel was did anyone guarantee me that access?

And I said, No, of course, there are no guarantees in any business, but we certainly thought that any city as great as Wichita wouldn't try to fix a problem that doesn't exist.

Well, this plan has been cussed and discussed for many years.

It's still being done on the fly.

We're changing it at every meeting.

Just the other night at the dab meeting, after getting huge pushback from the bike community, the that was changed right then to get rid of some parking that had gotten some uh business uh uh to think it was great, but now his parking is gone.

I think not.

And Mayor Wuru, you put on your Facebook page that you hadn't seen this 17 days ago.

I don't think this is a way to do proper planning.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jack.

We'll continue with public comment.

Uh Adam Styles Superior signs at 2130 East Douglas.

Uh, Jeff, you know, he did uh already talk about a lot of stuff that we've talked about, so I'm not gonna go on and all that.

Uh something that was just brought up earlier today was there was confusion about the budget.

Uh, this is from the advisory board meeting, December 1st, where it says the adopted 26 to 35 capital improvement program includes 6,187,500 for the final design, and the total budget being 7,489,000.

So I there was no confusion.

That's the numbers that were just put out to us December 1st.

So the new numbers that were presented today are completely new numbers.

Uh coming from somebody uh and and talking to a lot of our customers, and it was brought up, uh, it's gonna make it a lot harder.

Uh currently, right now, when people travel down Douglas heading into downtown in front of our business, people usually use the inside lane, reserving the outside lane for people parking that were pulling out into uh getting back into traffic or people turning off the side streets.

Um, our biggest issue, and then talking to a lot of our customers will be the parking when there's only one lane of traffic.

One, let's face it, a lot of people can't parallel park.

Uh what's that gonna do to traffic?

It's going to stall traffic.

You know, what's FedEx gonna do?

What's UPS gonna do?

If there's no parking there for them to parallel park, they're gonna stop in the lane of traffic holding up traffic.

And it was also discussed at the last advisory board meeting towards the end of the meeting, uh, that it was advised that if a vehicle is stalling traffic to just go ahead and use the turn lane to pass them.

Uh, I question that.

And I have talked to quite a few state officials, uh, police officers that are current sheriff's officers, and there is a state statute that forbids driving in the center turn lane except to prepare for a left turn, and that there's no passing straight traffic.

So for a city official to stand up at an advisory board meeting and suggest that people drive illegally is not real, not really good.

Does it happen?

Well, I'm sure it does, but that doesn't mean uh he did make a comment that more than likely, yes, it is illegal or not fond of, but more than likely they won't pull you over for it.

Um, you know, and talking to a lot of people, I and how this got passed.

I don't think the bike in the pedestrian community, I don't care that I don't think they care that it's three lanes versus four lanes or however many lanes, they just want a bike lane.

I think in 2019 there was a plan that was a four-lane road with bike lanes.

Why don't we go back to that?

That appeases the businesses that appeases them.

It's it's it's good for everybody.

Also, we had questions about who is going to take care of all this landscaping and tree wells and anything else that's going to be planted along here.

If you look at the hydraulic intersection right there at Douglas, it's not appealing to anybody that goes into that area.

There's actually one flower bed that is completely dirt and has been for quite some time.

So if they're gonna do this, who's gonna take care of all the landscaping?

What are they gonna plant?

You look downtown, yes, that's privately funded and it looks great.

Native grasses aren't appealing.

So I'm gonna suggest that we stay in at four lane, and I think a lot of the biggest problem with this is the buses that are on East High at East High School.

That is the biggest issue that we have here.

They say we can't move them.

We don't have anywhere to put them.

They do, they just don't want to.

When they did construction uh on the east side and south side of their buildings, uh they moved a lot of that parking to a temporary crushed asphalt parking to the west of the school.

They could currently pave that, make that a permanent parking lot, remove all that parking from over there, and there would be a perfect bus staging lane just on the south side of the school between the vote school.

That gives them easy access.

You get everything off of Douglas, out of there, out of that lot.

You have a left-hand turn lane to go north on the grove, and obviously you can go south on a grove to distribute you know to distribute the buses at the end of the day.

Um, so I think if we are gonna continue this, I think there needs to be a whole lot more thought put into this.

Um, you know, we found out we thought this was dead in 2018 until right before the November dab meeting, where we found out on a Tuesday that there was an information night on a Thursday, and they wanted to vote on it on Monday.

This is very rushed project.

There's been very little input from a lot of the people in the area, and I think we just need to not go through with this concept.

Thank you.

Thank you, Adam.

Uh I do have a follow-up question for staff uh regarding the numbers that he just uh provided at the December 1st meeting, the six million and seven million, which are different from our green sheet.

Can you please address that?

I would have excuse me, Mayor.

I would have to look to see what those were, but I am confident that what I presented today with the three million four hundred and fifty thousand is what is programmed in the adopted capital improvement program for this section of Douglas.

And then if you add the one million twenty thousand that has already been approved, we're at the four million four hundred and seventy thousand dollars for this project.

So the total project is six point five then.

The total project is the three million four hundred and fifty thousand plus the one million twenty thousand that was approved already for the project for a total of four million seven hundred and seventy thousand, which is what's on our green sheet.

However, again, the gentleman just mentioned the numbers that he received at the December 1st meeting being the six or seven million dollars, right?

I'm confident this what is programmed in the Capcom permit program and what has already been allocated is the four million seven hundred and seventy thousand dollars.

There must have been misinformation on the staff report for the district advisory board.

We want to make sure that that information is correct, then whether it's the minutes or what was presented to individuals.

So the total right now is 4.7 million.

Is that accurate?

That is correct.

Thank you.

We'll continue with public comment.

Uh my name's Randy Eaton.

Have been uh property owner since 1990.

Uh starting at 1330s, Douglas, 1328.

We sold that, and we now reside at uh Douglas and uh Walbash.

So I've watched the traffic for 35 years.

Uh the street has not been changed.

Uh where I'm at in my end of the street compared to the uh other end of the street, completely different.

It's a racetrack.

Uh my concerns are uh the motorcycles uh as they have evolved technology, they're on one wheel a lot of the times in big groups.

My tenants, customers, employees are scared, okay.

So I'm in favor of slowing down the traffic at whatever it needs to be done.

So I like the traffic, I like the crosswalks.

Um, I like I like the decorative part.

I think it's another piece to the city compared to the the uh project uh previously uh in this meeting, seems small to me, but uh it's it's another piece to the economic development of Wichita, which I think your uh your city council is uh pretty good at uh developing those projects.

Uh my recommendation is to uh move the project forward.

Uh there's not everything that I agree with on the project.

Uh but uh we've been working on this thing since uh 2009, and uh it seems to slip out from underneath us.

Finally, we're here.

We've got funding approved, we've got a plan in place.

I think the city engineers have done a really good job putting things together, taking every all the input from all the different people, and uh putting a plan together that uh I think will work for everybody.

Thank you, Randy.

We'll continue with public comment.

Good afternoon.

Bruce Rowley, uh reside at 143 North Rock Island in Old Town.

Um I own I've owned a couple pieces of property along uh stretch of Douglas between Washington and Hydraulic right now.

Um I have one that we'll begin development on next year to a boutique hotel.

Um we've been really excited to see the plan here and to follow it along the way.

I think I would echo the previous gentleman.

There's been great communication.

I think there's been a lot of changes made to it, but change is not a problem.

That's the whole point of the process is to get all the input and make changes.

We're excited about slowing things down.

You know, if you've spent any time on that stretch of Douglas east of Washington, it it is crazy.

The motorcycle groups, the cars racing uh up and down that particular stretch.

Now I will say it's interesting to look at this whole stretch because it's really a different street in those different sections.

When you're down uh on that western portion between Washington and hydraulic, it's a very different street than what you're seeing east of hydraulic between hydraulic and grove.

And I I can't really speak to that portion of it, but I will say from our standpoint, from an economic development standpoint, we're very much in favor, and when I say we, I guess me and my partners in our project, of creating much more of a welcoming, pedestrian-friendly, slower, safer, and frankly, more interesting environment in that that stretch, really big, wide stretch of concrete between um hydraulic and and Washington.

Um again, I just go back to safety, economic development, and and and I guess the last thing I would point out is I've spent a lot of time working on historic buildings downtown and involved in in that.

And if you look at this stretch of Douglas 40 years ago, well, okay, not 40 years ago, I'm 50 years ago, maybe 60.

It was exactly like this.

It was built and designed for all those buildings that were built alongs alongside it.

And if you look at all those buildings, we're talking low structures built for retail, because that's how the street was designed to be.

Today, you have a lot of those buildings are not being used for their optimal use because they can't be used for retail, given the current layout of the street.

They can't effectively be there and be used for that.

And I think it's really exciting to look at a design that brings the street back to a purpose that matches the architecture that runs on both sides of it, that entire entire way.

With that, I appreciate your time today.

Thank you, Bruce.

We'll continue with public comment.

Hello, everybody.

Uh, I will keep this brief as I was planning on being out of here this morning.

Um listen, my name's Tim Devlin.

I own Devlin Rodden Customs at 1611 East Douglas Avenue, which is right on the uh southwest corner of Douglas and Hydraulic.

I also have some investment property along Douglas.

Um this has been a frustrating experience from the get-go, and I'll go all the way back to 2009.

Um it seems like every step of the way we've had roadblocks to what should happen, what should this look like.

Um there's never been a good consensus on what this was.

You know, when my corner was rehabbed back in 2017, there were a lot of promises made.

I'm the gentleman that gets to stare at that that pile of dirt in front of my showroom every day.

You know, that was promised to me by the Douglas Design District through the city in a contract that they would maintain that.

None of that stuff happened.

Douglas Design District, I don't even know where the hell they're at anymore.

Excuse my language.

I don't even know where they're at anymore, right?

But I've got a dirt pile sitting there.

I I think my problem with all of this is how we've stepped through this without having any community engagement with the actual stakeholders that are down there, the businesses that have been through there.

You say that everybody wants this.

Let's white, let's take this down from a five-lane road.

It's not a four-lane, it's a five-lane road of traffic down to three lanes of traffic.

I've been down there and seen plenty of problems, but not all that we're talking about.

I six accidents in the stretch of grove, six accidents in one year.

That is very few.

So if we're talking about safety and numbers, we're just not seeing it.

Yeah, there are there some bad figures down there riding motorcycles and whatnot.

There definitely are, but in the end, it's not the dangerous place that we're making this out to be in the sense that we need to have all these safety protocols.

I I'm down there every day, I've been down there for 21 years, and it's just not happening.

Um, do I want to see something happen to our area?

I absolutely do.

I invested in it, and so did these other gentlemen and other business owners that have spoken.

And we want to see things improve, but I don't think we need to have a road diet to make the economy of Douglas be better.

I think we need to allow the convenience that this town loves.

And you got to admit that Wichita loves convenience.

We want to be able to park up front.

We want to be able to get out of games and events as quickly as we can.

If we narrow this down to three lanes of traffic, we're not gonna be able to do this.

All right, it's not gonna flow.

We've talked about the studies, we've looked at them.

I was with the group looking at the Michigan studies and the others that say 10,000 is the actual number that we should have on daily volumes, not 20,000.

So if this is really about statistics, what's the actual statistic to prove this out?

I'd really like to see that.

Um, and so that's really all I have to say today, but I appreciate all your guys' time and your consideration in this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tim.

Howdy, y'all.

Text Dozier, District One board advisory chair.

Um, I'm here today, and I'm sorry you're getting tired of me, but uh unlike uh the the prior two times I spoke, which was about dab not getting a chance to do its due diligence and due process.