Wichita City Council Meeting - March 24, 2026: Overbid, Appointments, and Public Comment
Wichita City Council Meeting - March 24, 2026
The Wichita City Council met on March 24, 2026, to approve minutes, consider consent agenda items, board appointments, and hear public comments. Key actions included approval of a contentious street project overbudget by $3 million, approval of council travel, and an executive session.
Consent Calendar
- Approved meeting minutes from March 3, 2025 and March 10, 2026 (7-0).
Public Comments & Testimony
- One late speaker, Andrew Crane, addressed the council about sidewalk accessibility for the disabled and blind community, citing trip hazards and unsafe crosswalks.
Discussion Items
- 143rd Street East Project Overbid: Public Works Director Paul Gunsman explained that the project received only one bid due to coordination challenges with the East Kellogg project. The engineer's estimate was $8.4 million, but the sole bid from Wildcat Construction came in at $11.6 million, requiring a revised budget of $14.2 million (including additional scope). Councilmember expressed concern about the $3 million overrun and single bidder. City Manager Josh Lauber noted outreach to 12,878 contacts and that the bidder is subcontracting with Dodlinger, a major firm. The project will be funded by local sales tax.
- Council Travel: Approved Mayor Lily Woo's travel to the League of Kansas Municipalities board meeting (7-0).
- Gift Acceptance: Approved Mayor Woo to accept travel and expenses valued at $16,350 from the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative (7-0).
- Council Appointments: Approved numerous appointments to boards including Affordable Housing Review Board, Parks Board, Library Board, and others (7-0).
- Council Comments: Councilmember Shepard praised firefighters for rescuing two children and proposed a task force on social determinants of health in poor zip codes. Councilmember Johnson suggested a resolution on civility, dignity, and respect.
Key Outcomes
- 143rd Street Project: Motion to approve revised budgets and authorize signatures passed 5-2, with two councilmembers voting against due to cost overrun and single bidder.
- Board of Bids & Contracts: Approved all items except the 143rd Street project separately (7-0 for most, then 5-2 for 143rd Street).
- Petitions for Public Improvements: Approved Cornejo East, second edition (7-0).
- Executive Session: Council recessed for 30 minutes for legal consultation. No action taken upon return.
- Workshop Items: Introduced monthly updates on the water treatment plant and the 2025 Polco community survey (presentation deferred to another meeting).
Meeting Transcript
And good morning staff and good morning to all of you. Thank you for joining us for this week's city council meeting and workshop. We will call this meeting to order. We will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Madam Clerk, please call the first item. Approved the minutes of regular meeting March 3rd, 2025, and the minutes of the regular meeting, March 10th, 2026. Council members, any items to be edited from those meeting minutes. I see none. Second. Motion second discussion. See none. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion passes, seven zero. Madam Clerk, please call the next item. Public agenda. We now come to public agenda. The public agenda allows for up to five speakers to have five minutes each to address the council. Please bear in mind that this is not a period of dialogue with council or a question and answer period. This is your opportunity to address the city council with your concerns. Speakers will please speak into the microphone. Please state their name and address for the record. A time clock will display the speaker's remaining time to speak. Order and rules of decorum will be observed. That allows for five individuals who would like to address the council to do so at this moment. Second. Motion second discussion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Motion passes. The item consent agenda number 14 is an overestimate bid and funding for 143rd Street East from Kellogg to Harry Street. The overestimate is three million dollars. Can you please uh public works address the overbid? Yeah, this is Paul Gunsman, Public Works and Utilities. Part of this overbid was we had one only one contract bid on the project. And we had reached out to other contractors asking why they had not bid on the project. As you're aware, K DOT has the East Cal Out project that is started work or will soon. Part of their concern was coordination between the East Callop project and this 143rd Street project. That was raised during some of the pre-bid meetings that we had. We had to we had addressed those questions or concerns through an addendum. So we thought we had to believe some of those concerns. However, there was still concerns with the coordination. As I mentioned before, we reached out to multiple contractors after the bid. One of them mentioned the coordination as well as they had recently was awarded in another city project that they thought would be more efficient if they spent their time on that project, and not both of these. The contractor will put up a safety barrier or barrier wall for safety purposes, which then would be logistically the uh as it excavate, they will have to enter back in from 100 or Harry to the north and then pull out. So those were some of the reasons that we were provided for the costs that they had bid.
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