Good morning, Wichita, and good morning to all of you.

Thank you for joining us for this week's city council meeting.

We call this meeting to order.

With us this morning is Pastor Ryan Emmons of Friendship Baptist Church to provide our invocation.

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

And even as we're entering, we see the precious children and the different things that are going to be taking place today.

And we recognize the decisions that are being made here are important for our future, not only for the children's sake, but even for our current citizens of this wonderful city that you've given us to be to live in and to be a part of.

I think of what uh John Adams said that a nation without a moral compass and a biblical guide, our democracy is not fit for it.

And so we're so grateful that our nation was founded on biblical principles.

We're thankful for the opportunities we have to still look to the future and try to provide a guide that would be helpful for the citizens.

But mostly we are thankful for Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross for our sins, so that we could have our sins forgiven and his resurrection that proved that there is an eternal relationship with you.

And we're grateful for the city council behind us.

And I ask that you would give them wisdom and direction.

And I ask that the things would go very smoothly today, and that as they get done, they would be refreshed and not just overwhelmed and discouraged, and that we would be citizens of this wonderful city that look to have an established foundation in a good way for the future for the younger generations and for the others that are around us.

We love you, Father, and we give all these things to you in the name of your son, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America for Ricky, our nation, under God, indivisible liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Pastor Edmonds, and thank you to our young leaders who were also reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

We can hear you and our hearts smile very big.

So thank you very, very much.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the first item?

Approve the minutes of the regular meeting, April 28th, 2026.

Council members, are there any items to be edited?

I see none.

With that, I move to approve the minutes of regular meeting, April 28th, 2026.

Second.

Motion second.

Any discussion?

See none, Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Aye.

Motion passes 7-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Awards and proclamations.

Today's proclamations are National Small Business Week, Goodwill Week, Wichita Heights, Women's Basketball Day, and Provider Appreciation Day.

Please ask the U.S.

Small Business Administration and Wayne Bell to come forward at this time.

Whereas small businesses are the engine of the American economy and the foundation of a free and prosperous nation built by men and women who work hard, take risks, and believe in the power of the American dream.

Whereas small businesses make up more than 99% of all private sector employers and create nearly two out of every three new jobs in America, fueling opportunity and driving local economies across every corner of our country.

Whereas the city of Wichita shares this administration's commitment to cutting red tape, keeping taxes low, and fighting for the hardworking entrepreneurs who work and power our economy from the ground up.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Wichita City Council does hereby proclaim May 3rd through May 9th, 2026 as National Small Business Week.

Good morning.

So good to see the young people in the audience.

Just wish you all all the best.

And you're in for a treat this morning because you're going to hear a little bit about one of our great small businesses in this area.

I am Wayne Bell, the district director with the U.S.

Small Business Administration here in Wichita, and it's my honor to be with you this morning.

I want to also um send regards on behalf of Brad Zon, who is our regional administrator for SBA Region 7.

Brad covers Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, and he also is covering some other states in the upper Midwest, so he couldn't be with us here this morning.

So we are honored to receive the proclamation from the City of Wichita to recognize National Small Business Week.

Every year since 1963, the president proclaims National Small Business Week, which recognizes the critical contributions of our nation's entrepreneurs and small business owners.

More than half of Americans either own or work for a small business.

And they create about two out of every three new jobs in the country annually.

Today I'm joined by our SBA resource partners with score counselors to America Small Businesses.

I'm joined by Dennis Bleck, who is the chapter chair.

Anne Patterson, who is the vice chair.

We're also joined by Brandy Willett, who is the regional director for the Kansas Small Business Development Center, and also representatives with Textron Aviation Defense, including Mark Winter, Joseph Stralitz, Lerma, Portia Melendez, and LaCelle Brown.

And we're certainly joined by the stars of this morning for us, SBA's 2026, Kansas Small Business Persons of the Year with Harlow Aeral Structures LLC.

They're the winners, and they're based right here in Wichita.

So now let me introduce you to the winners.

I want to recognize CEO Philip Freeman, President Matt Augustine, Engineering Director Dale Sparks, and Vice President of Operations, David Hunter.

Again, they are SBA's 2026 Kansas Small Business Persons of the Year.

For this award, the business was evaluated on sales growth and employment, staying power, response to adversity, and contributions to the community.

The nomination was submitted by Textron Aviation Defense, and Harlow Aerostructures executives were selected among a very competitive field of nominations.

Here's a quick summary of the company.

Harlow Aerostructures LLC has grown into a leading provider of electro, mechanical, and mechanical and structural assemblies for the commercial, military space, and missile industries.

Do a lot of defense work as well.

The company manufactures a range of products from cockpit pedestals and motion controls to cargo doors and avionics racks.

The company's in-house engineers can execute the redesign and modification work on its assemblies and prototypes when needed.

They're a very agile company.

They can they can really own a dime pretty quickly turn out customized parts and unique parts for the aircraft industry.

The company has been steadily growing year over year with annual sales of 35 million dollars in excess of 35 million dollars.

The company's diversified customer base has allowed it to withstand several downturns in the aerospace market, typically with little to no layoffs.

Harlow currently has 120 employees at the Wichita facility and 375 employees corporate-wide.

And so they utilized SBA along the way by basically leveraging one of our loan programs, the PPP loan program.

Also uh they became Hubzone certified, which is a certification for those that are seeking federal contracts.

So now please join me in congratulating the executive team at Harlow Aeral Structures LLC, the Kansas 2026 Small Business Persons of the Year.

Well, thank you, Wayne, uh, for that introduction.

Um, my name is Matt Augustine.

I'm the president of Harlow Aero Structures, and I would just like to take a minute to thank the SBA for this recognition and for the pivotal support that the SBA provides small businesses like ours to small businesses across the country.

And I'd also like to say thank you to our customer, Textron Aviation Defense for their trust, their confidence, and the partnership that we've that we've had over the years.

And ultimately, I would like to just thank our employees.

This award belongs to them.

They are the ones that come in day in and day out, and uh without their um their hard work every day, we wouldn't be here.

So thank you.

All right, ready.

One more.

Congratulations.

Again, congratulations to the small business winners for Kansas this year, our own Wichita's Harlow Aero Structures.

I would like to invite now the Goodwill Industries of Kansas and Aaron Youncin to the front.

The proclamation reads the city of Wichita, Kansas, founded in 1870, whereas Goodwill Industries of Kansas, founded in 1957, is a nonprofit social enterprise working to transform lives and communities through the power of education, training, and employment.

Whereas Goodwill Industries of Kansas provided 18,000 services to Kansans in 2025 through its adult education and workforce development programs, as well as their opportunity centers.

Whereas Goodwill Industries of Kansas is one of the largest employers of people with disabilities, operates the second largest adult education program in Kansas, and diverted 10.2 million pounds of materials out of landfills in 2025.

Whereas more than set for more than 70 years, local Goodwill organizations across the United States of America have been celebrating Goodwill Week to raise awareness of the Goodwill mission and its vital impact on the people and the community.

Now, therefore be it resolved that the Wichita City Council does hereby proclaim May 3rd through May 9th as Goodwill Week.

Thank you, Mayor Wu and Council members for this proclamation and for recognizing Goodwill Week here in Wichita.

We are truly honored by your support and partnership.

At Goodwill Industries of Kansas, our mission is simple but powerful to provide opportunities through education, training, and employment so individuals can achieve their fullest potential.

And while that mission is carried out in classrooms, opportunity centers, and workplaces across our community, it really begins somewhere much more familiar, right in our local goodwill stores.

Every time someone in Wichita donates a bag of clothing, household goods, or gently used items, and every time a neighbor shops our aisles, they are doing far more than thrifting.

They're investing directly in people.

And as an added benefit, this community helped divert more than 10 million pounds of materials from our landfills last year, demonstrating that doing good for people can also mean doing good for the environment.

Because of this community's generosity, just last year, Goodwill Industries of Kansas was able to provide more than 18,000 services to Kansas.

We help individuals earn diplomas, gain job skills, explore new careers, and overcome barriers to employment.

We are also proud to be one of the largest employers of people with disabilities in the state and to operate the second largest adult education program in Kansas.

Wichita residents like Brianna are an incredible example of our mission in action.

After being involved with the justice system, Bree wanted to make a change and entered our Goodwill reentry program.

She earned her high school diploma, a work ready certification, and is now working at Textdrawn Aviation.

Our program provides a path to a brighter future for Kansas while also developing skilled talent for local industry.

Goodwill Week is a celebration of those successes.

But more importantly, it's a heartfelt thank you.

A thank you to the donors and shoppers, our nonprofit partners, our business supporters, and our sponsors, along with our civic leaders who understand that communities thrive when opportunity is accessible to all.

On behalf of our team and the thousands of individuals whose lives are changed through Goodwill's mission each year, thank you for believing the power of second chances and for helping us transform donations into opportunities across Wichita and throughout Kansas.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

This is the proclamation of the city of Wichita, Kansas, founded in 1870.

Whereas the Wichita Heights High School Girls Basketball team achieved an extraordinary undefeated regular season and rose to the number one ranking in Kansas class 6A, demonstrating excellence, discipline, and competitive dominance.

And whereas under the leadership of head coach Jim Pillage, the program experienced a transformational culture shift that fostered confidence, accountability, and a renewed sense of purpose amongst student athletes.

And whereas the team cultivated a culture of connection and empowerment, both on and off the court, uplifting student athletes to grow as leaders, teammates, and individuals within the Wichita community.

And whereas the program's historic success reflects not only athletic achievement, but also the impact of representation and leadership, including an all-female coaching staff, plus one, and a renewed commitment to mentoring young women through sport.

And now, therefore, be a resolve that the Wichita City Council does hereby proclaim May 5th, 2026 as the Wichita Heights Women's Basketball Day, signed by Mayor Lily Wu.

I'll make it extremely quick.

I am so grateful.

First of all, thank you all for being here.

Thank you as well for making this moment uh matter.

Thank you to my assistant coaches.

Yes, all female staff, as well as that plus one being my son.

He puts up with me, so I also want to thank my athletic director, Tracy Neg, as well as my principal Eric Philippi, and also another assistant principal who helped to get us all here today.

And none of this would have truly happened, not only with the uh city of Wichita, but with these young ladies that are behind me.

I'm grateful for them allowing me to be their leader.

I'm grateful for just the opportunity in the stewardship of as we prayed earlier of Jesus Christ as my guide.

So thank you guys.

I keep this short and uh continue to keep watching Wichita Heights, Hollywood Heights girls basketball.

Thank you.

I know.

We're looking this way.

Yeah, look over here.

Are we all ready?

One, two.

One more.

May I please ask Councilmember Becky Tuttle and the Child Start providers to come forward at the start.

This stage.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you very much.

I am going to take a point of personal privilege.

I am so excited to be able to read this proclamation today.

I say almost every day, child care providers are not in the babysitting business, they are in the brain development business.

So with that in mind, this is a proclamation of the City of Wichita, Kansas, founded in 1870.

Whereas Child Start, and I'm a proud board member, and the City of Wichita Childcare Licensing Team and partner organizations across the nation join together to recognize licensed child care providers, acknowledging that young children thrive when supported by skilled, educated, and dedicated and fairly compensated early care and education professionals who provide consistent high quality care.

And whereas more than half of the children under the age of six across the nation spend a significant portion of their week in care of an early learning educational professional where they receive essential enrichment that supports healthy development for children of all backgrounds and contributes to the strength and stability of our economy.

And whereas access to high quality early care and education plays a critical role in reducing the impacts of poverty, identifying developmental delays at an earlier stage, and preventing child neglect by providing stable, supportive, and nurturing environments for young children and their families.

And whereas young children benefit from early care and education settings that are developmentally appropriate, accessible, and readily available, which in turn support working families who depend on strong regulatory framework to ensure that their children are safe.

And now, therefore, be it resolved that the City of Wichita does recognize and proclaim May eighth, twenty twenty-six as prior provider appreciation day.

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to recognize a group of professionals whose work is essential to the well-being of children, families, and our local economy, our licensed child care providers.

As we recognize May 8th as Provider Appreciation Day, we honor the dedicated early care and education professionals who show up every day to nurture, teach, and support our youngest learners during some of the most important years of development.

They create safe, enriching environments where children build the social, emotional, and cognitive foundations that prepare them for lifelong success.

For many families, child care providers make it possible for parents to work, pursue education, and contribute to our community.

Their dedication strengthens not only individual families, but also the workforce and economy of Wichita as a whole.

These professionals are often the first to identify developmental needs, provide stability during challenging times, and partner with families to ensure children receive the support they need to thrive.

At Child Start, alongside the City of Wichita Childcare Licensing and our many community partners, we are proud to stand and support these providers and recognize the incredible impact they make each and every day.

Today we ask the community to join us in expressing gratitude for their commitment, advocacy, and care.

Please join me in celebrating and thanking all licensed child care providers for their invaluable role and that they play in building a stronger future for Wichita's children and families.

Thank you.

Thank you to our four recipients of proclamations.

Something special that we will start doing is showcasing some of the award videos that have been shown throughout our community at special events, and one of those uh is from the Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce.

So we would like to share the first video honoring empower.

Then put your little hand in my Noah weekend by UA bombs you know overhead.

Hi, I'm Ariel.

It's my first week.

I have a nonprofit.

I have a vision.

I also have absolutely no idea where to put my coffee.

Everyone says, start with a plan.

Great.

Love plans.

Huge fan.

Anyway, here's the thing about the Northern.

The plan, it isn't on the screen.

It's outside.

Because if you're gonna do something real in Nomar, you don't guess.

You listen.

Six days in, this building comes up for auction.

And I'm staring at it like this is either brilliant or I need a nap.

Gene, meet me at the corner of 21st and Market.

I'm on my way.

We pull the board together fast.

Not because we're impulsive, because opportunity doesn't RSVD.

From day one, we didn't want to renovate a structure.

We wanted to build something transformational.

This had to elevate the mission and strengthen the identity of the neighborhood.

Bold, for word thinking, but rooted because this is a predominantly Latino community.

And the design should feel like pride.

We went hunting for inspiration.

Mexico City lit the map.

Exterior textures, materials, finishes.

It breathesway block exterior that catches light and attention.

And instead of normal landscaping, we chose something sculptural.

Beautiful, intentional, and built for this corridor.

The Camarina Adelante Center is a hub, meetings, workforce training, educational classes, community events.

It flexes, it adapts, it even turns into a pop-up retail space because small businesses need real doors to walk through.

And at the heart of it, a 24-7 commercial kitchen with seven stations.

So multiple vood entrepreneurs can cook, test, grow, and scale.

When I found this place, the place gave me hope that I really can start my business.

Our community is stronger.

To see something new and attractive within the neighborhood is allowing new vendors to come in and see improvement within the whole neighborhood and our community.

This place is a brick and mortar commitment to NOMAR.

And a signal that the future here is bright.

And the best part, we're just getting started.

Again, Empower was the recipient of the keeper of the Plains Awards at the Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce's honors night a few weeks ago, and they have wonderful videos that we will be again showcasing during the awards part of our meeting.

Um, and again, want to say thank you to every single staff member and volunteer this past Saturday uh Sunday for Open Streets ICT Nomar, where you actually got to see empower and you got to interact.

And I want to recognize Councilmember Ballard for her leadership in that as well.

With that, Madam Clerk, can you 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 question and answer period.

This is your opportunity to address the city council with your concerns.

I ask that you address your remarks to the city council as a body and not to any individual council member.

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

Speakers will please speak into the microphone.

Please state their name and address for the record.

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

Order and rules of decorum will be observed.

The first speaker today is Lola Eastwood with Engineer Enzo Luan.

Hi, my name is Lola.

We appreciate you allowing us to share our vision of our future with you today.

Some people think the best inventions are things like phones or cars, but actually, the brightest idea ever literally is using something we get for free every single day sunlight.

Solar energy is fueled on the sun.

Why should we use solar?

We should use solar because solar will provide us a better future.

A reason people do not want solar is because solar panels take over acres of land.

However, for major cities, solar panels could be placed on top of buildings and our homes.

However, our government has stopped tax credits for renewable energies.

McKibben wrote that in a 2025 PV magazine.

They shared a story titled U.S.

Residential Solar on the Brink of Collapse, which states Sunrun, the country's biggest residential solar provider stock fell 40%.

Why can't our city provide tax credits to homeowners for solar panels?

This would help solve the land usage issue because people would have solar roof shingles or panels.

Also, the sun has an endless supply to share.

So that means endless energy that we could harvest.

Since Wichita has many sunny days, solar will work better than using fossil fuels.

According to the National Weather Service, 65% of the year is in Wichita is sunny.

Therefore, it does not make sense why we aren't using this clean energy source.

In addition, solar does not create air pollution.

According to Nature Communications researchers, solar power protects nature, whereas fossil fuels pollute our air, water, and land.

This means that we have to use solar energy.

In conclusion, I want you to make a change and switch to solar and help save the earth, our home.

I'm taught taking action by talking to people about solar.

You can help by switching to solar and saving our earth.

Please help save our home.

Thank you.

Your diorama or your model there.

Thank you, Lola and Enzo.

Madam Clerk, please call the next individual.

Hazel Nordine with Engineer Giata Peniche.

Do I see?

But now sometimes the air doesn't seem so fresh.

We could have have cleaner air if we switch to using wind power.

We don't own the world, but we can choose what happens to it.

We could use coal and oil, kill the world, and run out of fossil fuels, or we could use wind power, save the world, and never run out.

According to the U.S.

Energy Information Administration, some people say that wind turbines kill too many birds and bats.

But some scientists and environmentalists are working on identifying their migratory paths and building wind farms away from these areas.

Also, in an analysis by the center of research published by REA Global, 150,000 birds die each year from wind turbines.

However, interestingly, domestic and feral cats kill about one billion birds each year in the United States in comparison.

If people were to keep their cats inside, we can decrease the deaths of birds per year.

Kansas is known as the windy state, and yet other places with way less wind have wind power and way less pollution than we do.

Plus, wind power is the most cost effective with places with constant strong winds, and we have exactly that.

Wichita, Kansas would be the perfect place to use wind energy.

According to Britannica, one small wind turbine can power a whole house.

If businesses had rooftop with mills and homeowners installed one small wind turbine, everyone could help us have healthy clean energy.

Something that might change people's minds about using wind is that most big wind harms aren't your large population centers, but they could be if we made them.

And just on the perimeter of Wichita.

And it's more important to have healthy, clean, renewable energy so the environment is not harmed and that no further damage is done to the point where we cannot live on Earth.

Our environment is dying, and we have a way to help.

We just needed to use more renewable energy sources.

We've had this solution for a year, and now is the time to use these inventions.

We're breaking our environment, and we know it's time for a change.

We all need to stop using coal and oil and switch to wind energy or other renewable resources.

I will continue to advocate for wind energy and encourage people to stop using coal and oil.

I hope you will too.

Thank you.

A house with a street lamp and a wind turbine.

Once it uses the wind turbine uses kinetic energy to power the street lamp.

Once wind blows the wind turbine, the street lamp will turn on.

Thank you, Hazel and Giada.

Madam Clerk, please call the next individual.

Sadal Suvani with Engineer Owen Kaufman.

Good morning, dear city council.

My name is Charks of the Souvenir, and I will be presenting about the benefits of hydropower and Wichita's future.

The argument against hydropower is that dams are killing fish since fish can't swim fish ladders.

However, some dams have fish elevators.

As in an article published by the U.S.

Energy Administration, the safe harbor dam in Pennsylvania has fish elevators.

If we were to build a hydropower plant, we would need fish elevators so fish can go up and down the Arkansas River.

We can build a reservoir at the junction of the Mitch Mitchell floodway and the Arkansas River.

The world is mostly made of water.

Research from Britannica says 71% of the world is water.

My reasoning is if we have so much water, we should implement more hydropower.

Hydropower also does not pollute the air or the land.

According to the 2020 Hydropower Status Report as cited in POPA and peer-reviewed article, using hydropower over coal can prevent 150 million tons of air polluting par air polluting particles getting into our air.

If we use more hydropower in the future, we can prevent inedible foods, undrinkable waters, and unbreathable airs.

If a water current is too strong, there's a slight chance a dam can break.

So in result, dams can be inspected by structural engineers because they provide humans and wildlife, fresh drinking water, and outdoor activities, such as fishing and swimming.

I'm fighting for hydropower and Wichita to harness clean energy.

However, I can't do that myself.

So you need to help me by telling your friends and colleagues about clean energy.

If you want a better life for your children and grandchildren, if you help me, we can renovate the world together.

When I grow up, I want to see green energy everywhere.

I say this for the future of Wichita because fossil fuels is slowly killing our city.

Thank you for listening to my concern about Wichita's future and energy.

This is a model of hydropower.

This is the water flowing down, hitting the turbine and lighting up the house.

Thank you, Sharak and Owen.

Madam Clerk, please call the next individual.

Mia Cabrera Beltran with Engineer Evelyn Persona deck.

Hello.

I hope you're having a good day.

I'm here today to tell you we need to become better Earth citizens.

If we don't start taking care of our planet, it will die.

We live on planet Earth, and if our home is not a safe environment for us, we would have to leave.

But to where?

We should add more wind energy because it could potentially reduce global climate change.

Wind energy does not pollute the air.

According to Britannica, no pollution is produced from wind turbines.

Therefore, it's better for our Earth in the long run.

Wind energy can help slow down global climate change.

In an article by the U.S.

Energy Information Administration, Faith Byrle, the executive director of the International Energy Agency clarified in 2024 that fossil fuel consumption makes climate change, air and water pollution, and public health worse.

We all need to help slow down global climate change.

And since wind energy doesn't cause air pollution, we should build more winter turbines.

Some people do not want to use wind turbines because they say it is too expensive.

On the contrary, it makes enough energy to power a whole community.

Plus, wind turbines provide cheap energy after building.

According to Britannica, a single modern, a single modern utility scale wind turbine can power approximately 1,500 homes annually.

In addition, Oklahoma University's extension states in an article by Demona Doy and fellow researchers that property owners earned as much as $22 million just from leasing the property for wind turbines in 2014.

I think Wichitans should consider this because Oklahomans are making much more money.

After studying wind energy, I have realized one thing.

Kids are talking about how they are worried about their future, and that's not something they should be worried about.

We should not have to be worried about things that are not in our control.

The city council and the people of Wichita should start to realize that kids know more than you think.

And if you do not start helping our planet, we could end up living in the world in a world like the movie Wally.

And that'd be horrible.

Please consider adding more renewable energy resources.

Thank you for your time.

This is my model about wind energy.

I have two houses and a wind turbine.

The kinetic energy flows through the wires through the wind turbine and goes into the batteries, which then powers the LED lights.

Thank you, Mia and Evelyn.

Madam Clerk, please call the next individual.

Maya Gerstein with Engineer Nora Advice.

Good morning.

Thank you for allowing me to speak to you today.

As humans, we live in such a beautiful world, and we have created such one so many wonderful things.

However, unfortunately, for many years, we have been destroying our world by polluting it with fossil fuels.

If everyone could be open-minded to solar energy, we could possibly save our world from these harmful things.

Encyclopedia Britannica states that if we use solar energy, each day the Earth will receive about 200,000 times the total world's electrical generating capacity.

We would be making so much more energy and would never run out of this renewable resource.

Britannica states that one of the main problems is storage.

Therefore, we should build larger power grids.

This means that solar power can be used ideally to better our world as a whole.

Another benefit that solar energy provides is that it is the cheapest available energy source.

I found in a new scientist an article published by Madeline Cuff that initially the cost of solar energy may be expensive.

However, in the long term, people would save a ton of money.

That is money you could be saving for something else.

So although there's a cost up front for this renewable energy in the future, solar energy will you will save you hundreds or thousands of dollars.

According to Cuff, Kingsmill Bond writes in the 2020 run report from the United Kingdom, think tank carbon tracker.

By the end of this century, it is pretty clear that we'll be getting all of our electricity from this renewable resources, of which the vast majority will be solar.

So what are we waiting for?

As a result, solar energy is ideally a must for our future.

So we can save money for ourselves for other things and our families.

When wind power uses kinetic energy to make power.

When the wind turbine blows, it makes energy and it goes to the LED light.

Thank you, Maya and Nora.

And I want to say thank you to the teachers at Independent School for bringing your students here and presenting to the city council this morning.

Again, good job to all the kiddos that spoke in front of the council this morning.

I have a board of uh council members that want to speak, so I'll start with Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Well, first off, thank you for your incredible and articulate advocacy.

And I also want to thank the parents for raising such fine citizens of our community as well.

I used to do solar and wind work, so I agree with a lot of what you all said, and I appreciate you protecting our shared space and our earth.

I'll also say that you can currently get involved.

The Board of County Commissioners and the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission are currently hearing solar applications in that process right now.

And so if you care deeply about this, there are decision makers looking at certain applications, and they meet Wednesdays at 9 a.m.

And I'm sure they would love to hear from you and uh hear your advocacy.

So keep it up and keep holding us accountable from this bench, and hopefully uh someday all of you replace us as well.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, thank you, kids, for showing up.

Anytime you guys come, I think about what I was doing when I was your age.

And you guys are light years ahead of where I was.

So I do appreciate that.

And also um, our director of public works, Gary's back there.

We might get some of their numbers and get them in the pipeline now for uh future employment opportunities.

Uh, thank you for advocating this as our earth, this is our shared space.

Um, don't lose that advocacy.

Make sure you keep that throughout the rest of your lives and keep pushing people like us on these issues to make it cleaner and more accessible.

So thank you guys again for showing up.

Councilmember Shepard.

Thank you, Mayor, and I want to echo the sentiments of Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you all for showing up, but more importantly than that, never ever let anyone tell you that you can't lead because of your age.

You are already a leader.

You proved that right here.

I believe that young people do know more than we often give them credit for.

And so it's critically important that we not just say, good job, but we create space for you to have a seat at the table.

Um, I think that we need to do a science fair here in City Hall.

Would you all like that?

I see some really good eyes, yeah.

So my commitment to you is making sure that I work with your administration to figure out how we can make that happen.

Maybe next year we can have a science fair so we can invite the community out to see your intelligence and your advocacy.

Um, this is your building, it belongs to you, it's the people's house, and that includes you.

Um, many of you live in my district, and so I look forward to engaging with you all further.

And we brought you some Wichita lapel pins for each of you, and I want you to wear it as a reminder that this is your community, and that everything you do and say and how you show up impacts the future of Wichita.

So there's plenty to go around, but I hope you'll wear it with pride.

Thank you for being here.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next item?

Consent agenda items one through 20.

Council members, items to be pulled.

I will be pulling consent agenda item number five A supplemental design agreement number one and funding for Douglas from Washington to Grove in District One.

Any other items to be pulled from consent?

I see none.

With that, I move to approve consent agenda items one through 20 without 5A.

Second.

Motion second discussion.

See none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 70.

We're at consent agenda item number 5A, and we have Paul Gunzelman with public works.

Can you please uh share with share with us uh this funding for Douglas from Washington to Grove the amount and can you talk about this pilot program?

Yes, thank you, Mayor Paul Gunsman Public Works and Utilities for the record.

Um the item before you is um in December of 2025, the city council had approved um doing a pilot program along Douglas from Washington to Grove, and as part of that pilot program, we would uh temporarily restripe Douglas from those limits.

Um parking would remain the same as it is now with diagonal parking on the south side of the road with parallel parking on the north side of the road, and we would also uh include on street bike lanes that would be adjacent to the curb.

The supplemental agreement for that work to complete the design and prepare plans is uh approximately 105,000, and the remainder of the budget that we are asking for is for construction of the pilot program, installing the temporary markers, the tubular delineators to protect the bike bike lanes adjacent to the curb, as well as the consultant will be performing data data collection or collecting data such as pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicle counts.

Um intersections will be monitored to see if any signal timings need to be modified, as well as we will collect travel speeds and speed data through the pilot period.

So can you um address?

I know that this passed uh not unanimously when this came before the council.

Can you share again um what the original um ask was in terms of the amount of money for the redesign versus this pilot program?

Mayor, I let's see.

I think the ask we have um including with the the 1.4 million dollars we are asking for today, there still remains 3.3 million dollars left in the CIP for the remainder of the project.

Um again, we will um we anticipate the pilot program once we uh put this out for bid and get the uh hire to contractor.

We will anticipate the markings going down early July, and then we would leave those, you know, probably down six months to collect the data, and then I would return back to city council to present that data to you for final concept approval.

Can you also address um the parking that you mentioned?

It will remain the same.

Um right now, paid parking is only in downtown Wichita, it is not anywhere else.

Can you just address some of the things regarding parking?

We would not um extend the paid parking plan um east of Washington at this time.

Um again, as parking is now on Douglas.

There is angle parking on the south side of the roadway, which will remain, and then parallel parking on the north side of the roadway, which we um it will remain during this pilot program.

Thank you, Paul.

We continue with questions with Vice Mayor Glascock.

Hey, Ball, I just have a few questions about the green packet.

So the existing budget initiated when we're looking at under the projected budget, the projected budget at the bottom.

Is that the projected budget for the pilot, or is that the projected budget for the entire redesign?

That would be for the design for of the pilot, which is the part payment markings for the plans, and then to implement the pilot.

We are anticipating construction costs to be about $300,000.

So it looks like the budget initiated request.

Are we saying the there's an additional request of 415,000, or that's just as part of the existing budget initiated?

Because it looks like it's an addition.

That is in addition to what has been initiated.

So why has the pilot increased 415,000 dollars since February 6th?

February 6th, I lost you there.

Okay, so it says the existing budget initiated was on February 6, 2024.

Why is the pilot increased 415,000 since that time?

Sorry, that we were not anticipating doing a pilot project.

So during the but my first question said that the existing budget initiated was just for the pilot at one million.

Or is that the total budget McClose?

The addition the February 6th, I believe, was initiated to complete design of the overall project.

Full design.

Full design, or at least through concept to this time, yes.

Okay, because the council had approved the pilot later on as on December 16th.

So correct.

And it in order to implement the pilot to have Boffman create plans for the pilot project and to collect data during the pilot project.

They're asking for $105,000 to complete that work.

Okay.

Above and beyond the original design.

Okay.

And then we are anticipating $300,000 for construction and implementation of the pilot as well as collecting that data.

Yeah.

And then the last question, well, maybe a two quote two questions.

So the $15,000 in Geo Art were implementing art as with a non-permanent pilot, or will that be permanent art installations as part of the pilot?

I'm thank you for bringing that up.

We are and we had discussions amongst staff.

We we would like to initiate the $15,000 of the art budget at this time so that we can go through the selection process of hiring a an artist for the overall project completion.

If council moves forward with this pilot and the three-lane roadway, um thought is that the art would probably be placed at the curb extensions.

So I think we we don't want to we want to keep them concurrently kind of on board so they know what's going on.

Um if you know, when next year after the pilot program, I I present the data.

Um, you know, if the project um I think we can still I think there will still be a project depending on lane configuration to do curb extensions at the intersections for pedestrian safety, et cetera.

So I don't believe we're you know the money is still, I think it'll still be um we can still implement part.

So let's say we decide not to move forward after the pilot, because the pilot means let's see if it works or not.

See if we decide not to move forward after the pilot, we'll still expend that 15,000 regardless.

Right, and I I think and it'd be a decision of the council at that time whether or not we still move forward with you know keeping Douglas as it is now, however, you know, do some curb extensions, etc.

MIP block crossings to make it safer for pedestrians and to kind of control speech through the area.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Shepard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Appreciate you being here, and I appreciate all the conversations that you and your team have had throughout the community.

I was a part of several of those conversations prior to my time on council, and I know that you all have gone to extreme lengths to hear from both the business community, the residential community, folks who drop their kids off at East High.

Uh, we have also been working concurrently with uh USD 259 because I know the buses being on the street was a very uh big ordeal, and in that conversation, I can now share this publicly that part of the USD 259 bond is going to be to remove those buses off of the street.

And so I appreciate the work that often goes on in the background.

I really wish I would have had the opportunity to engage to provide some context before today.

But with that being said, I would like to make a motion to approve the supplemental design agreement number one, revise the budget and adopt the amending resolution.

Second uh we can't do that.

We have to open it up for public comment when an item has been pulled.

Okay.

Well, I'll be ready for a motion when you do that.

Uh council members, any further questions for staff?

I see none.

With that, we will now open it up for public comment.

Howdy, Council Text Dozier, um dab one chair.

I was gonna briefly mention this uh during the discussion on the backup policy.

Um, but it seems very germane here because I fear it may be like the last chance to get some perspective from the DAB one level um for the this design concept.

Um when this came forward to DAB, we were told we were choosing between basically bike lanes um and parking.

Uh and and we were basically approving a design concept.

One of the things that came up though is if um, and and I brought up bec uh especially is if we're going to be doing all making all this investment, we should not be looking at having a half modernized solution.

And if we are talking about safety, then the greatest thing with safety when it comes to our angle parking spots on Douglas would be to allow for backup, because when you see that, you actually see a reduction dramatically in accidents when you have a front departure.

Uh reduction so dramatic that the city of Tucson saw zero accidents where they did that from parallel parking to backup angle parking for four years straight.

Moreover, one of the complaints, we think of the stakeholders who showed up.

You had business owners on Douglas.

I office off Douglas, uh, and my landlord was there testifying uh where he wanted to see the traffic slower.

He was in favor of the road digest.

You have other business owners who want to have more front store front access.

You had bike walk Wichita who want to have the bike lanes there as well.

And then there was a fourth contingent, which is all the folks you heard from after the fact saying they didn't want to see Douglas Narrowed because, and I and it's all fairness to them, we had this problem on DAB.

You can't envision really um traffic flow until you test it out.

And one of the biggest concerns is uh at certain points of the day, you probably feel like you have more than 20,000 ADT on Douglas.

Uh, but the reality is with having with passengers not having to wait on left-hand turns anymore with the center lane, that's gonna help a lot.

But um the other reality is we can add up to 70% additional parking on a block theoretically with backup angled in parking, replacing parallel parking.

Uh the city of Potstown, Pennsylvania, uh, Nelson Negard, the uh transportation consultants used this as a as a model where they they were able to add 21% gain in parking and the storefronts with parallel and bike on one side and backup angled on the other.

When we brought that up at the dab level, public works said that um twofold.

One, uh, Wichitons won't know how to back up, but I think that those who have issues with parallel parking and those who have issues would also have issues with backing up, can use and do use, and we've seen this, uh, the streets on the sides there.

Um, I also think that um council member Johnson at the time, I can't speak for him, but I know he was just wanting to get the road diet in place, hoping there were votes for the traffic flow, um, and wasn't probably sure if he had the votes, but even if you don't think you have the votes, it's important to sometimes look forward for a vision long term of what's best for the city and see if there's maybe other folks that can buy in.

We looked at mixed use all along the Douglas corridor continually in our zoning cases as uh as we go forward.

And Wichita is unique in that many cities develop along their highways or in their downtown areas.

We have a Douglas corridor where we can use actually and maybe envision as a main street alternative that emphasizes walking and pedestrians with backup angled spots on both sides.

Um that is an option that hasn't been considered, and I think y'all y'all should consider it.

Unlike Potstown, uh, we also have a unique situation with first and second street bike lanes already in place, where those can become then enclosed and protected, and then the short-term short distance bike lanes are put on Douglas.

Um, then also then Central could be used as an in-city thoroughfare, and then De Kellogg is the outcity thoroughfare.

So then Douglas becomes more a destination than a pass-through over the next few decades, where you could envision College Hill 2 through Delano as our core beautiful main street.

Um, I think that's uh a vision that we should consider.

It's uh their success.

I'm a little surprised that staff did not include a budget of a pilot program as a part of this to y'all originally, um, because I think that's important to know because concrete before consensus, uh, that ain't good for community and that ain't good for change.

Um so I think uh if moving forward, we also need um to be clear about uh um traffic flow and maybe there should be a transit emergency and a loading ops memo because one of the confusions was if there's a if we move forward with this current proposal, Wichitans need to understand that they can use the center lane for passing and for traffic flow.

I think it's uh important we um don't put the cart before the horse and that we continue having these discussions, and so if we're going to have a road digest, I can't think how um exciting it could be potentially to then go back to Wichitons and say, but we're gonna increase your parking by anywhere from 20% to 70%.

So you don't even have to park as far away as you need want to, and you can focus on walking more down Douglas.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tex Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

I appreciate you coming up here, Tex.

Um, you actually kind of jumped the gun on me a little bit as far as the parking situation goes.

Uh was in Tulsa this last week, and I observed their uh many areas where they had back in only.

Um, it seemed to work pretty well.

So I guess I have two questions um regarding Douglas here.

One is the design locked in, or is there still room for public input as far as maybe some of the adjustments they'd like to see?

And then two, speaking to the backing in parking issue as a whole, and this might be part of another discussion.

But is there room to have designated back end spaces where it would be easy for car park to still see if it's like a single lane or maybe a section somewhere that it would be easier um for people to be able to still back in and for us to be able to read the license plates.

Let me start with first question.

Councilmember Ho High Soul.

I I believe we should move forward with the pilot as it is designed.

We went through, as Tex mentioned, and Councilmember Shepherd mentioned we went through a lot of public engagement to get to where we are now, um, and further direction of the council in 2025 to do the pilot program.

So I believe we need to move forward with that, collect the data, collect input from area, you know, adjacent property owners, folks who travel through the area.

Um so I would recommend that we move forward with the pilot as it is um how we have it designed.

We have um met with um some property owners as we've gone through uh the design of the pilot regarding some of the parking that some areas have.

So we've been working with the property owners along the project already.

We do have in response to diagonal back end diagonal parking.

We do have, and we had installed it up um on 17th Street near the park.

Um it's supposed to be reversed back in parking.

However, I think people pull in forward facing, so we've we've tried it um not along a corridor such as Douglas, but um we have used it in some places, and as you know, down at Clapp Park near the school as well.

Okay, so if we go ahead with the trial, there will still be room for public feedback moving forward.

That doesn't mean it's uh it's a six-month trial, I believe.

Yeah, that's we we feel we probably need to do it at least six months just to collect some good data.

Um, as I mentioned, I'm sure we will hear from the public as we roll it out, and we'll we'll stay engage with those property owners.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Councilmember Tuttle.

Thank you.

Thank you, Paul, for your work in this.

I truly appreciate it.

And and especially being adaptive and and being nimble.

Um, I'm gonna talk about that in a second.

I also want to thank Tex.

Thank you for coming today.

Um, I did want to just address the rationale for the pilot.

Um, I can't even remember how many months ago when this first came up, but I was meeting council member Johnson and I were meeting with some of the business owners along this corridor, and it was a Friday afternoon, then ended up turning into a Friday evening because we were lucky we called uh public works director Jansen and asked if he was in the building and could come down.

And so you know, the the business owners were upset, they had concerns, they had questions, and by the time we left the meeting, they were thrilled that we were going to move forward in this direction with a pilot project.

So I think it makes a lot of sense.

The other thing that I just wanted to mention is last week I was invited by the Greater Wichita Partnership to attend a bio med business development strategy meeting, and a national consultant came in, and one of the things that we talked about is how wide Douglas is, and what that the implications that it could bring as we're revitalizing downtown again with the Biomed Center.

And many people have the misconception that the Bio Med Center is just going to be the educational institution of KU School of Med, WCU, and W Shoe Tech.

But the vision of many for this that's the first seed of many.

We hope that more business, more industry will come because of the Biomed Center.

So it's an exciting time for our downtown, and this is the perfect time to implement this pilot project with that project in mind.

So again, I'm gonna be very supportive.

I seconded the motion.

Thank you for all your work on this poll.

Is there anyone else in the public who would like to speak on this item?

I see none.

I close public comment and bring it back to the bench.

Councilmember Shepard.

Thank you, Mayor.

As I mentioned before, uh I've seen all the work that's gone into this prior to my time on council.

I too was also on the district advisory board along with Tex, who is the current chair of the district advisory board, really appreciate that.

I just want to remind all of my colleagues.

Anytime you have any questions in regards to anything that's happening in District One, please open door policy, give me a call.

I'm happy to share perspective.

Not that you can't change or advocate things that you believe strongly from from the bench, but always happy to take any questions or concerns.

And I appreciate the folks who reached out yesterday about things on the agenda that they had questions about.

I would offer you to do the same consistently with all items.

With that being said, I motion to approve the supplemental design agreement number one, revised budget, and adopt the amending resolution.

Second motion, second discussion.

I will just uh again state my reason why I will be voting against on December 16th, 2025.

I voted against the design concept for Douglas from Washington to Grove.

That motion passed six to one with the mayor choosing to vote no, and I will be consistent with that vote.

And so today I will be voting no.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes six to one.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Board of Bids and Contracts dated May 4th, 2026.

Morning.

Mayor, City Council, Josh Laubert, Department of Finance.

Board of Bids and Contracts on May 4th, 2026.

Convened for the following items.

For engineering, we have the water distribution system, sanitary sewer improvements to serve our Veda second edition for MES Construction Incorporated for an aggregate bid total of 371,608 dollars.

For purchasing, we have the Pipeline Cleaning North Industrial Corridor and Gilbert Mosley for Mayor Specialty Services LLC for an aggregate total of 133,628.30 cents.

We have 66,000 gross vehicle weight requirements, hydro evacu evacuate excavation truck, excuse me, for key equipment and supply company for an aggregate bid total of 476,4752.50 cents.

We have the Dell three-tier data center infrastructure hardware for Logicalis Incorporated for 1,895,762 and 19 cents.

We have the security and video surveillance system for the multimodal facility for Santa Fe Engineering and Controls Incorporated for 134,267.82 cents.

And for the Wichita Sedwick County Adiction Intervention Coalition, we have the opioid abatement support and evaluation services for Ruleau Strategies Incorporated for a five-year aggregate total of 294,299.

For airport, we have the airfield traffic line paint, reject all bids.

And we have the airfield lighting maintenance agreement for 2026 through 2029 for Cooper Krauss Hens LLC for an aggregate three-year total of 137,900.

This is our purchasing website of how to become a small business with the city.

This is our purchasing calendar of small business resource partners we saw from earlier that we're hosting or participating with in our calendar.

And these are open public opportunities for May 8th, May 15th, May 22nd.

And I'll be happy to try to answer your questions and recommend your approval.

Thank you.

Any questions for staff?

I just have one on slide number 15.

Can you explain why all bids were rejected?

Um so specifically on the airport project, there were questions of the vendors.

Um let me get into my notes.

So there was no vendor that met all the specs.

So we're going to have work with our requesting department, make sure the specs are uh built correctly, make sure we get all the information we want and put it back out.

Thank you, Josh.

Any further questions for staff?

I see none.

I move to approve the board of bids and contracts dated May 4th, 2026.

Second.

Motion second discussion.

See none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 70.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Petitions for public improvements.

Good morning again, Mayor, City Council members, Paul Gunsman, Public Works and Utilities for the record.

I have some new petitions for your consideration this morning.

The signatures on the petitions represent 100% of the improvement districts, and the petitions are valid per Kansas statute.

Clear ridge edition, phase three, located in district two.

The project will provide water, sanitary sewer, and paving improvements required for an existing residential development.

First furlong addition located in district two.

The project will provide water and sanitary sewer improvements for a new commercial development.

And Stoney Point edition again located in District 2.

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

Stand for questions.

Thanks, Paul.

Questions for staff?

See none.

I move to approve the petitions for public improvements.

Second.

Motion second discussion.

See none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 6-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Public hearing and request by Knox Court LLC for approval of a letter of intent to issue multifamily res housing revenue bonds for Knox Court East.

Good morning, Mayor and City Council.

Just want to say this my uh first time up at the podium.

So what a better way to kick it off than by doing three presentations back to back.

So this item before you is a public hearing by uh for like uh for uh for uh uh Knox Court East.

They are looking to do a sales tax uh a sales tax uh yeah, uh sales tax uh sorry my stutters acting up a little bit, a sales tax up uh sales tax uh uh sales attacks uh uh yeah, thank you.

Sorry about that.

So Knox Court East is seeking to convert a church into a in to a into a apartment complex for senior citizens.

This project is located in district two at 831 East Gilbert and will consist of 27 units, you know, and the layouts would be a one to two bedroom.

Uh the project will be financed with the low income housing tax credits at the 9%.

As we know, this um, you know, these credits are very competitive.

And so of the competitiveness, uh, you know, like a lot of you know uh developers want to achieve the maximum points possible for these projects.

Uh KHRC, you know, gives uh uh gives like additional 10 points to these projects, you know, who get a sales tax uh uh who get a sales tax.

Yeah, thank you.

Sorry.

So with that, Knox Court is asking for 7.5 million dollars uh for the project and the sales tax exemption uh you know uh valuation is there on your screen.

This is our standard uh you know disclaimer for the uh bonds, uh high-level pictures that no taxpayer dollars are at risk for this project.

Uh so the bond documents will be prepared by the outside uh bond council and the cities uh you know uh and the uh and the uh and the uh and the uh law department will approve all final form of these documents.

And as with that, I uh recommend that city council close the public hearing, adopt the uh adopt the adopt the uh resolution and uh and uh and and uh authorize the necessary uh you know signatures.

I will stand for questions and we have the the like developer here today to uh uh you know for uh any uh project specific questions.

Thank you very much, Corey.

The applicant, I believe is it Byron who is here today.

Um I believe we may have some questions.

Uh we will now start with Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor, and I'll have this question for the next one as well.

Um is this with the is this conflicting with any other LITEC applications that we have being within the was it a half mile radius of another LITEC project, I believe it is.

So I'm trying to look for Sally, um, but I do not believe so.

Uh I do not believe there are uh other uh you know projects within this one.

Okay.

Um Byron Adrian with Mennonite Housing.

And that um issue really only comes up on the four percent.

This would be a nine percent, so that doesn't factor in on this application.

Okay, appreciate it.

Byron, can you just uh share again this project?

This is something that um has come up before uh regarding church property and revitalizing it to provide housing, which is something that we critically need all across the city.

Can you talk about this project and what you hope to accomplish?

Yeah, we are very excited to be able to partner with the Presbyteria Southern Kansas.

They've got several properties, these two uh for this year.

There may be more in the future, and um so um it's just uh really good opportunity for two organizations here in the community to come together.

They uh are looking for a way to better utilize these church properties that uh really no longer have uh ongoing congregations uh um worshiping there.

So they've approached Mennonite Housing uh for affordable housing uh opportunity, especially with seniors.

So we are um putting in this application here in a couple weeks, and um we we really do appreciate the support that the um council has provided already in um uh approving the zoning change that makes this flow a lot better if it is approved, and then also the approval of home funds that uh helps in the uh application.

So those two things, along with if you do approve the sales tax exemption, and then also uh the the fee waiver that was on the consent agenda that provides a lot of strong support for uh applicant for these uh uh this application here uh for Knox Court.

Thank you, Byron.

And I know that this is in district two, council member Tuttle's district.

Will this church building be renovated into those 27 units and any additional in the front?

Yeah, the church building on the uh district two site will be used.

Yeah, so oftentimes on a senior project, we uh construct a uh clubhouse that has some really nice amenities for the seniors and their families, and so we're gonna use the existing church building on the east site for that, and then we also have the opportunity to include three uh units, a couple one bedrooms, and then one two-bedroom unit um in part of the church building.

So it's situated on the property very well that allows us to do that.

It's not the case for the one in um in District 4.

Uh so that one um it's all gonna be new construction there.

And again, thank you, Byron and your entire team for thinking of housing in areas where it is within walking distance to several um amenities, um, and then knowing that you'll be renovating the building itself for also housing and then new housing as well.

Um I'm very appreciative of that, and I know that this council is appreciative of housing of all types in all areas of our community.

So thank you, Byron.

And thank you, Corey.

I see no further questions from the council.

We will now open it up for public comment.

I see no one from the public who would like to speak.

We'll bring it back to the bench.

This resides in council member Tuttle's district.

Thank you.

Um first of all, thank you, Corey.

Um, great job.

And I think you're just doing wonderful, and I think you're cool.

Um also I want to thank uh Knox Court LLC.

Thank you, Byron.

You and I, it seems like we've met four or five times about this project, and and I just appreciate your tenacity.

I appreciate you navigating through complicated processes both here and at the state.

So really in appreciate you, Mennonite Housing, everything that you're doing to invest in Wichita.

Um, it's been said here, I think it comes up every single week.

We need housing in Wichita.

We need all types of housing in Wichita, but especially having elder parents um having housing for seniors that's lower cost, but also provides the amenities that you mentioned.

I I think is just a fantastic idea and something that's easy to support.

So with that, I will enthusiastically move that we cloud the city of Wichita close the public hearing, adopt the resolution, and also authorize the necessary signatures.

Second.

Motion second discussion.

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 70.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Public hearing and request by Knox Court LLC for approval of a letter of intent to issue issue multi-family rent housing revenue bonds for Knox Court South.

So for my second presentation, uh, this is for uh, you know, this is the same uh public hearing, but this is for uh Knox Court South.

So uh just again Knox Court South is uh seeking to convert a church into an apartment complex for senior citizens.

This project, however, is uh located in district four at 1522 west uh you know uh 27 uh 27th Street South, you know, and will consist of 20 uh you know uh units uh with uh one to two bedrooms.

So uh just like the previous project, this uh will be financed uh uh uh uh you know this would be financed with those uh uh credits at the nine percent uh and with this sales tax abatement it will uh make the project more uh uh you know uh more competitive.

And so Knox is uh asking for uh six point five uh million dollars in bonds for the project and the sales tax uh uh you know uh valuation is there on your screen below.

This is our uh also our standard disclaimer.

Uh you know, again, uh this project uh has no taxpayer dollars at risk.

Uh bond documents will be uh prepared by the outside bond council and the cities uh you know uh uh you know and the uh law department will have uh you know approval on all final forms of those bond documents and as well uh and it is with that that I uh recommend that city council close a public hearing, adopt the uh resolution and authorize the necessary signatures.

And I stand for questions.

Thank you, Corey.

Questions for staff or the applicant.

I have one question.

Um I know this resides in council member um vice mayor Glasscock's district.

Uh Byron, can you talk about uh where you're seeing uh more potential to provide more housing?

These two properties that uh come before us are about senior housing.

Are there more opportunities throughout our community to either convert or build new uh of this type of affordable housing?

Yes, um, the answer is yes to that question.

There's a lot of opportunity in the uh community for both new construction or for doing you know, possibly like an adaptive reuse project where there's buildings that might be used currently for something other than housing that can be um adapted into housing.

We haven't done that in the past at Minnonite Housing.

We focused on new construction, but over the last couple years we become exposed to more opportunities that uh that might be an opportunity for us in the future to take a look at some uh rehab ties to programs or adaptive reuse to make better use of existing buildings, similar to what um you know to what uh Presbyteria Southern Kansas is looking to do with their properties to uh to use those uh for for affordable housing.

Sure.

Thank you again, Byron.

I see no questions from the council.

We'll now open it up for public comment.

I see no one from the public who would like to address the council on this item.

We'll bring it back to the bench.

This resides in Vice Mayor Glasscock's district.

Mayor with a motion to close the public hearing, adopt the resolution and authorize the necessary signatures.

Second motion second discussion.

See none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 7-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Public hearing and request by Vicino Bond Group LLC for approval of a letter of intent to issue multifamily housing revenue bonds.

So for my uh final uh presentation today is a public hearing uh, you know, uh from uh Vasino Bond Group asking for that sales tax abatement, uh, you know, and a property tax abatement.

Uh so getting into the presentation, you know, uh Fasino Bond Group is uh uh you know is uh looking to uh redevelop and construct a multifamily complex.

Uh it is located in in District 3 and at 1130 South Broadway and will consist of 50 uh uh you know uh multifamily units back in uh December of 2025.

This project was also approved for project choice, you know, uh vouchers as well.

Uh so I mean uh once again this project will be uh financed with the uh credits at the 9%, and the sales tax abatement will uh make this project more competitive uh uh during that process.

And so Vicino is uh you know is uh asking for bonds in 20, you know, uh million dollars uh you know for the project cost and the sales tax uh uh you know like abatement is on your screen there below.

Uh the project is also uh uh per out guidelines qualifies for a 95% property tax abatement uh you know, with the uh uh uh you know with the with the investment uh you know above the 10, you know, uh uh with the capital uh just above that 10 uh you know uh million dollar mark uh you know using state incentives and the uh uh you know and the project you know uh being located within a uh redevelopment area.

Uh you know, the estimated property tax abatement at the 95% level for the first full years year is about 443,000 dollars, you know, with the city, county, state, and the school district below.

Our friends at CEDBR uh you know conducted the property tax abatement.

Uh sorry, uh the cost benefit for us uh and pro guidelines, these numbers are above the you know the like uh you know the the uh you know the like uh the uh one to one.

Uh as you may see the state is not on there, and so this was a so for the cost benefit.

This is mostly a new um part of the model that is developed, and so the model doesn't really you know, like uh accurately um show what those state values are because uh uh you know because it is before the state is like awarded those tax credits, and so the state is giving up those tax credits, yes.

So then the numbers presented in the CBA are gonna be you know uh highly deflated, and so that's why those numbers are not shown because it's not uh uh uh you know because uh those numbers are deflated, and so we didn't want to show that here just because it's not true.

So this is our standard uh you know disclaimer, and so um uh yes, so once again, the no taxpayer dollars are at risk for this project.

Uh bond documents uh uh uh you know will be uh drafted and prepared by the city's uh bond council and the law department will approve all final uh you know documents.

And so with that, it is uh uh uh that I asked the city council to close the public hearing, adopt the adopt the adopt the uh adopt the uh adopt the uh resolution and uh you know and and uh authorize the necessary signatures and I stand for questions and we have uh you know you know uh we have uh members from the basino bond group here to uh uh if for some of those project specific questions as well.

Thanks, Corey.

Thank you.

Heather with Vasino Groups Online too, so she's available for any questions that you may have.

Thank you, Corey, and thank you to the applicants.

Questions for staff for the applicant, beginning with council member Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you again for choosing to invest in uh my district, my community, our community.

Um, just take a second, and I see Amy back there as well.

Uh, maybe just talk about the whole scope of this plan and this project and what you guys want to see moving forward because this is a property that's been kind of a burr in the in the in the boot here lately.

So um I'm hopeful that this will get going and that we'll see some housing and development going up here shortly.

Yeah, we're really excited about this project for a lot of different reasons.

One is to kind of continue to you know uh add 15 new units to uh Wichita's stock of affordable housing.

We're gonna be set having some set asides for our our psychosocial um therapy group uh individuals.

It's a club clubhouse model, and we'll have 10 that we already have vouchers for.

So uh but we'll also be adding programming and a case manager and a peer support specialist on sites in the apartment complex to be able to help uh mitigate any kind of uh barriers that people have to staying housed and continue to be housed.

But I'd like Amy to talk a little bit about the overall vision of the neighboring movement.

Good morning, everybody.

Um, the neighboring movement is a is in support of this project as well.

As part of this deal, we would be purchasing back a portion of the property that is currently the Christian Faith Center.

Our dreams and vision for that are to put in a co-op grocery and laundromat with some additional smaller retail opportunities for small business owners and entrepreneurs, really creating kind of a hub on the South Broadway corridor to um encourage people to come and be a part of our community, get outside, and really support several services that are missing in SOC currently.

All right, you guys are doing incredible work there, and again, uh 10 units set aside for people exiting homelessness, so and support services up for it as well.

So again, thank you guys for your work, and I'm real hopeful on this one.

Councilmember Shepard.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just want to say congratulations on the great work that you all are doing in that community.

I don't represent this outside, but I think a win for any of our communities is a win for all of us.

And so um I invite you all to take that step and learn and then bring it on over to District One so we can learn and grow together because that's how it should work.

We are neighbors, and when we work together, there the power is stronger, and all of Wichita wins.

So thank you.

Councilmember Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just want to say thank you for investing in an area town that's often forgotten.

Uh it's a wonderful project, and uh thank you for taking a chance on it, and uh very much thanks for your work on it.

Yeah, that's what we were excited about the site because of the vision and having the grocery co-op right next door will be super helpful for the folks who are serving.

So I know that you have also Heather on the line, so uh without uh omitting her, I wanted to see if Heather could just talk about uh the Vicino group.

We had the opportunity, I think several council members and I, as we traveled to Kansas City, we got to see some of the product that they've provided uh in terms of affordable housing uh in those areas, and they were of great quality, and I just wanted to see if Heather wanted to speak about that.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Um, and thanks for having me.

I apologize I can't be there in person.

Uh, but Vicino Group is uh we are a national supportive housing developer, so we develop housing uh throughout the country.

I actually am a Cansan though, so I live in Olatha, Kansas.

Uh so uh Bodie will be our second community in Kansas.

Uh but we have 30 supportive housing communities in 10 states, and really uh believe very, very strongly that permanent housing is the way in which we end homelessness for folks.

Uh we look at um all the people that we're serving across the country.

So in 2025, we were able to end homelessness for 621 households.

Um, and we know that if someone stays in a permanent housing unit for more than two years, their likelihood of going back into homelessness is only five percent.

Uh so last year's 621 households remained permanently housed in a vicino community for more than two years.

So we're really proud of that and really excited to work in Wichita and of course really excited to work with Andy and his team at breakthrough.

Um, they will be the majority owner on this community, so really just excited to work with them and and get started.

And just a huge shout out to the city.

You all have been really welcoming and um very supportive of this, so thank you so much.

Thank you, Heather, and thank you, Andy, and the entire team.

Uh we appreciate again all types of housing in all areas of our community.

So thank you for making that investment into Wichita and into housing.

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

We will now open it up for public comment.

I see no one from the public who would like to address the council on this item.

We will bring it back to the bench.

This is in council member Hoheisel's district.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I move to close the public hearing, adopt the resolution and authorize the necessary signatures.

Second.

Motion, second discussion.

See none, Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 70.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Public hearing on proposed assessments for 28 paving projects, 24 water projects, 24 sewer projects, and 15 storm sewer projects in the September 2026 bond sales series 838.

Morning, Mayor.

City Council members, Paul Gunsman, public works and utilities for the record.

The item before you this morning is a public hearing on proposed assessments for 91 projects.

As with mentioned, 28 paving projects, 24 water projects, 24 sanitary sewer projects, and 15 storm sewer projects for a total of 41,547,578 dollars.

Notice of hearing letters were published February 27, 2026 for all 91 projects.

All affected property owners have been notified in writing.

The Department of Finance and Public Work staff held a virtual informal hearing on March 16th, 2026.

There were residents that had called in with questions, as well as some expressed frustration of not being aware of the special assessments as they were not disclosed to them by the realtor or developer.

A few residents also knew they were had been paying on water and sanitary sewer assessments.

However, paving assessments are now being done in some areas, which caught a few of them by surprise.

Statements of special assessments will be mailed to the property owners on May 15th, 2026, pending city council approval today.

The property owners have 30 days from the date of the statement to pay the assessment and avoid paying interest.

The assessments not paid during this period will be in the September 2026 bond sale.

The interest added to the principal amount will be determined by the rate at which the bonds sell, and the principal and interest will then be spread in place on the 2027 tax rule.

With that, I recommended City Council close the public hearing.

Approve the proposed assessments in place of ordinances on first reading, and I will stand for questions.

Thank you, Paul.

Questions for staff, beginning with Vice Mayor Glascock.

Thank you, Paul.

I know you've been getting a lot of emails from me from constituents that have been concerned, and I I know that you expressed some of that as well.

In particular, one of theirs, and again, just clarification of our process and whether we need to refine our process, or is this the process that works in really every community that some of the improvements were completed in 2022, yet they did not receive notice until 2026.

During that time, the interest rates increased from 0.26 to 2% or to 2.25%, should be more than a 2% increase, which added additional cost to them.

That even they purchased their property in 2024, about however the original cost were at the 2020 level.

Can we just talk about maybe how we ensure that gap does not escalate later on?

I know that when they purchased the property in 2024, they're not a made aware of these obligations, so there's that problem.

Then the other problem is the length of when the first approval was made to the second approval and the increase in interest, which then increased the total cost of it as well.

So can you maybe address how we can mitigate that in the future when people have concerns, or maybe what tools we might have to ensure the residents are made aware at the time of purchase?

Sure.

Yes.

Um to address your question.

I believe it was uh a few of the calls we had received was from the Auburn Lakes Edition.

Um that uh correct, yes.

Unfortunately, that project did take a while to close out from um pavement being done, negotiating a final change order.

Um fortunately, we had some staff changes, so um that one did take longer to um process than what typically is, unfortunately.

Um shouldn't be an excuse, but that's what happened.

Um we are you know working with staff to prevent that from happening again in the future.

So what normally is the gap?

Because this would be four years for this project.

Yeah, usually it's probably I would say 18 months to you know to get it closed out, and then when we can get it immediately on the next bond sale, and do we normally see similar increases are in those 18 months, or this be maybe outside of that margin of what is typical?

That might be a question for Mark as far as temporary interest percent.

I'm sorry, council member, can you repeat your question?

Of course.

So one of the constituents, there was multiple that had reached out, the increase of our interest rate of 0.2 to 2.2.25, which is about a two percent increase over the course of the life of the project from 2022 to 2026.

Given that this project took four years, or a typical project might take 18 months.

Did we put an undue burden on these neighbors that saw a larger increase opposed to our typical process?

Well, I wouldn't characterize it as a unfair burden.

I would tell you that my responsibility is to provide financing for special assessment projects until they're bonded.

Uh, you know, the fact that it took a little longer than usual is regrettable.

Uh but again, in order to avoid uh using property tax revenue to subsidize our special assessment program, we do temp note any outstanding costs before we bond them, and that's the uh procedure that we took in this case.

So it didn't, in fact, add interest rate interest cost to that, uh which will get rolled into their assessment after we approve the bonding.

But you're right, it's regrettable that interest cost increase, but again, it's a function of the time in which it took to uh complete the project.

Do we ever have the reverse where residents actually see a benefit from the length, or does that rarely happen?

I think that would be pretty doubtful.

I mean cost probably incur in terms of just construction material, everything else.

Yeah, okay.

I saw Maggie had a comment or council member ballard had a comment, so I will pull council member ballard.

She removed any further questions for staff.

I see none.

We'll open it up for public comment.

I see none.

Oh, we do have one.

Good morning, thank you.

My name is Gabe Schultz.

I love it at 633 North Wheatland Place in the affected rainbow lakes district for this uh specific conversation that was happening.

Um I think our main concern is as citizens is we put trust that that something's gonna be done according to a process.

Um that can take longer.

We we've found that here, but we're we're looking at almost double the time.

Uh, and then all of that work that got completed, we get assessed on the increased cost of it.

Um we're I mean, significant.

I think there's uh about a 200,000 dollar increase in the project um for this piece.

So uh our main concern is we know that that part of our responsibility is to pay these assessments, and we agreed to it as a as an addition and as a a group, um, and are happy to do that because it benefits us and inside of our neighborhood.

Um the problem we I think all run into as a group is that when processes get extended and people get moved on, we're still gonna get stuck with that increase, and we're hoping that's not the case in this situation.

Um the original amounts that were sent out are um significantly higher than what was presented.

Um so I I hope that as this process plays out, there's gonna be some consideration in the process in which the city moved was a direct effect.

So I I understand the financing point of it where there is changes over time, uh, but when it's a deficiency in process or the ball was dropped by somebody within the city as they moved on from a position, not pointing blame at them, but just part of the process uh caused a significant delay in that.

Uh having some sort of uh not reciprocity necessarily, but just some sort of accounting for that where we're not stuck with that entire increase is I think our main concern as a group.

There's only 27 houses that are in there that we're covering the entire amount for.

Um so we're we're happy to take care of our share.

Um, but if there was there was something that has been identified as a deficiency in the process in the city, having some accounting for that would be very much appreciated.

So thank you.

Councilmember Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

Paul and this case is the city gonna cover some of that cost.

We are so that that project, I think the original um petition amount was around 430,000 dollars.

Um we opened bids on the project, it was over the estimate.

Um, but we do we are covering part of that cost as well per the agenda item back when that was over the estimate.

So, yes, we are covering part of that cost.

Okay, that's good.

I appreciate that.

Council member Vice Mayor Glascoff.

Paul, quick question.

Are we also covering the cost for the Auburn Lake special assessment?

No, not that one.

I'm sorry, when the when the um the Wheatland place, when that was over the estimate, um again, we had we had the original petition amount was 430,000.

There was action taken.

I believe that was in June.

Hang on.

Yeah, June of 2019.

Thank you.

And then we opened bids on the project, and then um we had another uh council agenda item going back to council in November that increased that petition amount as well as added some 2020 neighborhood improvement project funding to that project.

So is it because of the process that process started in 2019 versus the other process starting 2020?

Part of that was that we were funding some of the intersection improvements with neighborhood improvement project.

Okay, yes.

Thank you, Paul.

We'll continue with public comment.

Good morning.

Uh my name is Jeff Roberts.

I'm in the Wheatland Place uh improvement district that Paul was just speaking about.

Uh one concern on that.

So our petition was approved in 19.

Uh the project was completed in 20.

And then we just got the it took five years for that final cost to be sent to us.

So everything's gonna cost more five years from from 2020 to now.

Um that's just a concerning process.

I know Paul said he's trying to address that.

Maybe it won't happen again in the future.

Um the other issue he had spoken about the uh there was a soding portion to that project that was done by the uh paving contractor himself, who is not a licensed professional landscape professional.

Um it was done very poorly.

They did no fine grading, uh, they didn't match the grass, they left the mesh on the backside of the sod, they rolled it in with an asphalt roller.

Um, all the repairs and improvements to that were done by the home homeowners themselves.

Um, no one from the city's ever attempted to fix any of that.

Um, I would kind of request for that cost to be diminished a little bit as well as to try and reduce um that overall cost from when that was approved in 20 to right now in 2026.

Thank you.

Councilmember Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor Jeff.

Thank you for coming to speak.

Dave also.

Um I'm I'm happy that the city is covering most of that additional cost.

Um I'm sorry about the sodding.

Uh, I'm sure that contractors already been paid, so there's probably not much we could do about that other than look at that in future contracts for that contractor uh for doing a poor job, uh, maybe not give them as many many contracts.

So again, thank you for coming today.

Um I'm glad there is uh the city at admitted some from fault in this and covering the cost of that.

So uh again, I appreciate you coming and and hopefully that's a good resolution for your neighborhood.

So would anyone else from the public like to speak on this matter?

I see none.

I'll bring it back to the bench.

Vice Mayor Glascott.

Thank you.

Just based on comments from staff and based on some concerns.

I think we have to reform policy in terms of not letting this happen again in the future four years, and that additional burden, especially when a lot of families are at the margins already, could be make or break to keep in their home, and we talk about affordability a lot from here.

But when government casts a larger burden than people expect, affordability becomes a real issue.

I don't know what the solution is, but I think we can find something.

I don't know if that's exploring relief options for homeowners who may be purchased after project completion and before assessment, or maybe there's a standardized policy that passed the certain date.

If the project is not approved, then there's gonna be a remedy from the city or us to make some contribution, like we are at Wheatland Place.

But I think we have to reform the process.

I also don't want to delay the process further and have cost a continued increase as well.

I don't know if that's something my colleagues would want to talk about in a uh workshop, but obviously there needs to be some reform, so I'd be interested in that coming back for the council to make sure that this doesn't happen again and put an undue burden on a lot of our residents.

So I found it concerning uh knowing, especially from two residents speaking about their projects being done for multiple years and just now getting that assessment.

I'm sure it shocked you.

And um, it was uh a great outlet that you were able to reach out to your council members and also coming to city council.

This is how we again address um process issues.

And so my direction to the city manager, I think from uh Vice Mayor Glasscock is if we can explore ways to not delay um items like this for multiple years in this situation, five, even six years.

Um, I think I am in support of seeing that in a workshop.

I would like to see if any other council members would be interested.

Councilmember Johnston, Council, Vice Mayor Glasscock, I need a fourth.

So uh city manager, you have a majority uh that would like to see that.

Um, so that will be the reform.

Um sorry that this has happened to you, but again, we want to correct processes that are again undue uh causing an undue burden onto residents uh and property owners.

So, with that, um, there are more individuals who would like to speak.

So, Councilmember Shepard.

Thanks, Mayor.

And prior to committing to that, I was actually gonna say I do believe that we should go back and undo harms that have been done, whether it was intentional or unintentional.

I continue to bring up redlining from the bench, continue to bring up disparities that exist in communities from the bench, continue to bring up other communities on the margins that we have not talked about, and or showed interest in.

So while it may give some folks consternation, if we're gonna talk about folks on the margins, I just hope that we do it inclusively and holistically.

So I'll be supportive of this and doing it in a workshop.

I hope my colleagues will look at folks on the margins holistically and not just when it impacts someone's pockets.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

I concur.

I was gonna buzz in and say that as well.

There's plenty of opportunities to go back and look at how the city through neglect or negligence or other reasons have harmed certain communities within our city.

So I'd be supportive of that, and also to council member Shepard's point and overall discussion regarding uh past actions and how we can make it right.

Thank you.

With that, I see no further council members who would like to speak.

I will move to close the public hearing, approve the proposed assessments, and place the ordinances on first reading.

Second.

Motion second discussion.

See none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

How am I missing motion?

There's someone missing.

Oh.

Motion passes 7-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Operating agreement for Pinnacle Wellness Facility.

Good morning, Mayor Wu, members of the Wichita City Council, Dante Martin, Assistant City Manager.

Um, here with you today to present an operating agreement for the Pinnacle Wellness Facility.

Uh, pinnacle is a joint initiative between City of Wichita, Sedgwick County, and the Wichita Metropolitan Area Crime Commission, which Metro Crime Commission, excuse me.

In the way of background, as we know, first responders routinely face high levels of trauma, injury risk, and ongoing mental health challenges.

At the same time, existing wellness services are decentralized and do not adequately meet the needs of our first responders.

Locally, uh Wichita PD's wellness efforts are limited and underutilized.

Uh, there's challenges, concerns related to access as well as confidentiality.

Um, these concerns uh discourage use, and also services are not well coordinated, which impacts the continuity of care.

When we compare ourselves to our peer communities, many have implemented program-based wellness efforts.

We see this in Kansas City, Kansas, we see it in Kansas City, Missouri.

We also see it with the Cedric County Sheriff's Office.

However, nationally, there seems to be a shift toward a more centralized integrated model.

Um, facilities such as Pinnacle, which represent the next step and the progression towards a first responder wellness.

We see this in Louisville, Kentucky, as well as Fairfax, Virginia.

Public safety agencies are increasingly prioritizing wellness as a core function.

Integrated models improve access to care, improve coordination and long-term outcomes, and are linked to stronger retention performance and overall workforce health.

A little bit more background on Pinnacle.

Pinnacle is a joint effort between the City County and Wichita Metro Crime Commission.

The facility would be located at Third and Broadway and is expected to open in 2027.

It would provide a centralized location for therapy, rehabilitation, fitness training, and confidential consultation services.

It emphasizes early intervention and resilience, with the city and county each providing programming for their personnel under a seven, uh a shared seven member governments board.

The board would consist of a representative appointed by the Wichita Metro Crime Commission, two representatives each appointed by the city and county managers, as well as a representative appointed by the uh Cedric County Sheriff and the Wichita Police Chief.

Financial considerations.

The annual estimated operating cost for Pinnacle would be 188,000 each year.

Uh split evenly, that's 94,000 per jurisdiction, 94,000 to the Cedric County, uh, 94,000 to the City of Wichita.

Um working with finance and the police department, our plan is to, if approved today, 47,000 would be added in 2026 in the revised 26 budget with $94,000 in ongoing annual costs added to the 27 budget and thereafter.

Uh legal considerations.

The law department has reviewed the agreement and approved uh as to form.

I want to make a correction to your agenda report.

Uh staff was working closely with Cedro County and the crime commission late last week.

The agenda report was submitted on Thursday.

The document you have says there's a five-year uh initial term with three one-year options.

Uh, the final draft of the contract is a five-year term with the option for the crime commission to convey or transfer the facility to the county at the end of the five years.

So sorry for that mistake.

Uh staff's recommended action is to approve the operating agreement and authorize necessary signatures, allowing the project to move forward with development and opening.

Uh, with us today is board chair Alan Banta with the Wichita Metro Crime Commission.

I believe I saw Captain Moses, Chief Snow, maybe even Chief Sullivan floating around back there somewhere behind me.

So if you have any questions, we're available.

I believe board chair Alan Banda is prepared to make comments there.

Good morning.

I'm uh Alan Banton, 9005 East Crestwood.

I'm chair of the crime commission.

We've got several of our board members here.

Also, we have our president Ed Pavey and our executive director, uh, Sharon Van Horn.

I appreciate your consideration of this consequential action that we're we've been working on for over 18 months.

Sharon and I met with the uh sheriff, the chief, and the DA about 18 months ago to ask them what their dream need would be, something that would help them recruit and retain and field the best uh law enforcement professionals possible.

They noted a health and wellness facility would would be the big ask, and and that was a pretty big ask.

Um the definition of the facility, the the cost to to to build it or renovate it, significant, but crime commission took it on.

So we did locate a property.

It was a um a property that is owned by the First United Methodist Church, and uh the Reverend Amy is actually here today too, and they've been great partners in working with us to try to bring this to reality.

Uh it was an underused north end of their uh complex that has a full gym and three stories, so it was a perfect fit.

Our plan is to purchase and repurpose that existing building.

Um it's 27,000 square feet.

There's an adjacent parking lot for about 40 cars, which will secure for the law enforcement vehicles.

And this won't only be for law enforcement.

This will be for as we as we got into this and began to dig a little deeper.

Clearly, all first responders can use this, especially on the mental health and wellness side.

You know, in our lifetime, even so uh we call this the pinnacle.

Um we have been through the property multiple times, as the Reverend can attest, with uh Sheriff Easter and his staff, Brad Crisp with County Fire, uh Laura Forcey with 911, Angela Fuller and Kevin Lennerman with the MS, the district attorney, Chief Sullivan and his staff have been through multiple times, and Chief Snow and Chief Cole with the Fire Um Fire have been through it, and they all have been extremely supportive and extremely complimentary of the design and the and the concept.

So Schaefer Architecture has donated um a lot of hours uh working on the property.

They've got a space plan that they have um submitted to uh the sheriff and the chief for input and approval.

Um they have also done a property assessment uh with engineers going through the building and and arrived at a renovation budget, and they've done that all at no cost.

We've been working on funding for this uh over the last six to eight months.

Um we've got a number of um folks that are are generous with our city in many ways, and when you when you talk about supporting first responders, it's it's really an easy sell.

And so um, you know, our cornerstone donor, first person we went to, Colby Sandlin, um, in 10 minutes of me explaining what we're doing, he said, I'll give you a million dollars to get us started.

So we've got some great people here that uh in Wichita, and they understand the need and they want to support this.

Um so just briefly, the facility will have physical training and diagnostics, full gym with equipment, basketball, pickleball court, uh, male, female locker room shower, screening and assessment area, separate entrance on the mental health side.

There'll be an entrance so that it's anonymous as you go into the mental health part versus going into the gym.

Um it's access for all first responders, city and county, um, 24-hour access to the gym.

It'll be card secured on the parking and entering into the facility.

Um we're gonna have a a grab and go kitchen where you'll be able to get healthier food options and there'll be microwave and some appliances in there to uh so it you know if you're on third shift or something, you google work out, there'll be something you can grab.

There's also on the third floor, um, there's going to be five training rooms that will be available for city county under we understand from the first responders, law enforcement in particular.

Training space is uh scarce at times.

Uh one of the rooms will hold up to a hundred people in a training situation.

So we have plenty of room.

Our plan is to start the renovation as soon as possible, hopefully the first of August.

We've got uh a bid letter out ready to go out to GCs right now.

Um, and we've got a number of our members who are general contractors that really want to lean into this.

We've got other vendors that want to lean into this to help us try to get our budget down uh as low as possible, obviously.

But um as it sits, we're looking at five million dollar budget, and I just want to urge you uh to support this.

This is a five million dollar gift to our city that will really impact us for generations.

So happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Alan, and thank you to assistant city manager Dante for the presentations.

We'll start with Councilmember Tuttle.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here today.

First, I have a question for the city manager, if that's okay.

Um manager, I just have a question on slide 73, and and we don't need to go back.

But when you and I talked and several times about this project, and I should preface by saying I'm incredibly supportive of work site wellness initiatives, especially those that support our police and fire.

I've worked extensively with fire.

I see Chief Snow in the back.

Thank you for being here today with firefighter cancer screenings.

Now we're gonna create a culture of wellness.

We have funding to hire a consultant to be able to do that, and working with police as well.

So thank you for bringing this forward.

But one of the questions that we you and I talked about significantly was the 188,000 operating budget, and it was my understanding that it was going to be divided 6040 with the county, not 5050.

Correct.

Council member, we'd originally talked about a different split on that, but when the um crime commission agreed to be the backstop for no more than 94,000, then we changed the um proposal to do the 50-50 split going forward because the $94,000 backstop is for all five years.

So that changed the dynamic a little bit.

So I think in the end, when you had the 60% split, now with the backstop, we're actually going to be paying potentially less than what we originally thinking over the five years.

Okay.

Thank you for explaining that.

And then the 94,000 that would come from the city's portion.

Correct.

Is that split equally between fire and police?

As of now, we haven't, as of now, it'll be mostly police, but we're looking at doing it all in non-departmental because it'll be multi-department sharing the expenses.

So when you see in the budget, the non-departmental line item is potentially where we're looking to house that funding.

Okay.

Um and Alan, I do have one more question for you if that's okay.

Thank you so much.

And thank you for being here and sitting through all of this to get to this point.

Um when it talks about the governing committee, the seven member board, and it says the city, the county, the crime commission, and public safety leadership.

Um, I just wonder from the city's perspective, because we have police, we have fire, we have there's lots of entities that I think should be at the table.

I wonder if seven member board is enough to have representation from police and fire and all of the entities within the county.

You know, I think that was um you know, seven seem to be a workable number, and recognizing that there are a lot of voices that probably need to be at the table.

Yeah, um, you know, from the crime commission standpoint, we want to buy it, renovate it, turn it over to you guys, and our only voice on the board would be with regard to um significant capital improvements or repairs, which by the way, in our budget, we're raising uh uh five hundred thousand dollars as a capital reserve.

And so if there is a significant uh, you know, the elevator breaks down or something like that, we've got the money to backstop that anything over $7500.

At the end of the five year five years, if we indeed do turn this over to the to the county, then along with that, we will give them our the remaining reserve funds.

So um, so you know, from the city standpoint, you know, you really your costs are fairly defined and limited for the first five years.

And I I but I certainly as far as governance, we would have one say, you know, and that would really be with regard to these capital expenditures.

And if you all wanted to expand that to a bigger board, certainly no problem with that.

And they think we've all been on boards that are too big, right?

So I totally understand.

Um, I do just have concerns from um working, as I mentioned, with police and fire unwellness, and it's really different perspectives, really different needs and really different interests.

And so to um optimize the highest utilization from all the entities, it might just be an interesting concept to have more people at the table to make sure that you know voices are heard.

Like I said, trying to work with wellness with fire is much different than working with felt with wellness with police, and then I can't even imagine you know, EMS and and all the other entities.

So don't want to get too big because then you get groupthink, but also don't want to limit it so that you're not hearing every perspective.

But I'll have more accolades and kudos at the end.

But thank you for answering my questions.

All right.

Council Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm glad to see that the county uh plans to provide on-site security uh during the duration of it, and that the city's responsibility looks like the specific wellness programs for city personnel, and so I appreciate the delineation there under the duties of the Woodstraw Metro Crime Commission.

I see number C sure viable working security offense around the facility parking lot is installed, which I think is a good step forward, also for the security of officers and anybody that's there at the facility.

The only fear I have is a wrought iron, unattractive fence right at third and Broadway.

Can you calm my fears regarding the level of attractiveness of the fence right on the intersection?

Yes.

So obviously, this is a um changing area with the activities of Chase Coke and his group, and um we have been in contact with them, and we certainly I'm a downtown property owner since 1997, and uh I have a high level of concern about what is built and how it advances our downtown community.

I was chair of downtown Witchtop.

Um we will build something that will be aesthetically pleasing, I can tell you.

And the renderings that we have, I think maybe you have seen some of the renderings of the exterior of the building.

And incidentally, the church's plan is to tear down the uh two-story older uh preschool building between their main complex and uh the building we're purchasing.

They're gonna turn that into a green space and maintain the little chapel that sits there the very picturesque and beautiful inside chapel, and uh so it will create a visual there that is um far better than than it is today.

I imagine if it wasn't visually impuling Heather would be uh having some comments about it.

So uh thank you for calming my fears on that.

Yeah, I see no further comments from city council members.

Thank you again, Alan and Dante for the presentation, and again, thank you to the Wichita Crime Commission for making a five million dollar investment into our first responders and their wellness.

Uh we appreciate that.

With that, we will open it up for public comment.

I see no one from the public who would like to address up, Mayor, oh sorry, council members.

Ed Pavey, president of the Wichita Metro Crime Commission.

Thanks for the opportunity to spend a few minutes here with you and uh echo what Alan has said about uh the crime commission's support of this project.

I retired from uh the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center.

I was the director there for 24 years out of my 28 years career, and the health and wellness need has come to the forefront uh all across the country.

It's an investment in the health and well-being of our law enforcement officers and our first responders.

Sedby County uh district attorney Mark Bennett uh could not join us today, and he's in support of this project.

And I'd like just to take a minute to share his comments about uh his support.

He writes, I want to express my unequivocal support for the proposed Boilda Center for first responders.

Our police officers and sheriff's deputies have to be in top physical shape to do their jobs and to overcome injury sustained on the job.

The stress associated with seeing immediate and ongoing impact of fires and car wrecks, compounds over time that they bear witness to violence, abuse, sexual, and physical is unavoidable.

There are others in the community in the criminal justice system impacted in less obvious ways.

911 operators who are literally the first on scene often listen to the violence as it occurs.

Children hiding in closets while domestic violence rages in the next room, sexual assault victims moments after their attacks end, homicide victims breathing their last breath, devastating moments during which the operators expected to get the right information and share it in real time to officers in route, and then go on and just be as sharp as I can for the next caller.

We demand a great deal from these dedicated professionals.

For prosecutors in my office, the issues are less obvious.

Hundreds of hours of body camera images of everything every officer witnesses witnessed at a crime scene, every witness interview, crime scene photos, and worst of all, child pornography.

Victims of domestic violence who refuse to testify against their abusers, and outcomes the disappointment all wear down on a person's resolve.

On several occasions, I've had to move attorneys to new assignments to give them a break from the litany of ugliness that they see every day.

Having a committed, experienced attorney stand in your office with tears in their eyes asking for a break is a reminder that the weight of the job compounds.

Finally, having wellness center where people can go and exercise, speak to a counselor, and to do so in a place that understands the unique rigors of your tourism profession is a gift.

To live in a community that has made the commitment to support a health and wellness center, sends a strong message that the work we do is valued.

I recognize there will be cost in your jobs is to be good stewards today of our tax dollars.

I believe this center is a physically responsible investment in the first responders who work tirelessly every day to protect public safety here in our community.

I want to thank you.

Mark Bennett, Subway County District Attorney.

Council members, again, thank you for the opportunity to speak before you and uh we urge you to support this project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Would anyone else from the public like to address the council?

I see none.

I also want to recognize again that Chief Sullivan and Chief Snow are both here in the audience.

If they would like to speak, um, they are more than welcome to.

Uh Vice Mayor Glasscock.

I'll leave it for comments after public comment.

I see no one else from the public who would like to speak.

We will bring it back to the bench.

I do want to recognize that this does reside in council member Ballard's district.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just have some final comments.

Um, incredibly supportive of this today, not just for commissioned police officers, but also for everybody else that serves our community as well.

And that includes the crime scene investigators, the victim advocates, community service officers and support officers, and also firefighters.

This is a holistic approach and hopefully has a space of camaraderie for all those that serve in public service.

They see things that I won't see every day, and I'm thankful I don't, but they have a space that they can uh separate from the world and be able to talk about these things, especially the difficult things that they see every day.

I think this is a great solution, and it's a true definition, I think, of what a public-private partnership should look like, and something that advances uh holistically our entire community when it comes to public safety and addressing the increased needs we see, especially the holistic needs uh regarding mental health for officers.

So incredibly supportive this day, and I look forward to uh robust discussion because I see all my colleagues on here.

Councilmember John Stun.

Thank you, Mayor.

At first, I was hesitant to support this project because I don't want taxpayers to have another building to maintain.

Uh, however, I see a tremendous benefit, especially in the mental health uh for officers, um, attorneys, like uh district attorney uh Bennett said, Um, it's really a tough job, so I see a tremendous benefit to that.

And so I think it could be help the wellness of uh all the officers, uh 911 dispatchers, sheriffs, um, everyone.

So I will be supporting it.

And uh, I want to thank the uh crime commission for backstopping it, uh, alleviate some of my fears of runaway cost.

So I appreciate that very much.

So thanks for all the work you do.

Councilmember Tuttle, thank you.

All pile on.

Um, thank you to the crime commission.

I really truly appreciate your interest um in this topic and and your you know working so hard to get to this place.

I also want to thank um Chief Snow, um, Chief Sullivan for your support for your input.

I've talked to you both about this project, and and you are supportive, and and so therefore I obviously will be supportive too.

Um, working with police and fire wellness as I have and somebody mentioned it in their comments.

I think Mr.

Banta that you know, if I call 911, and I've had to, unfortunately, in police or fire show it quickly at my home.

But you know, for business for us as residents, we we not only want them to show up, but we want them to show up at their best, and we want them to be healthy and to be of you know, mental health and also physical health, so that they can protect our persons and our property in our community.

So I just applaud the Wichita Metro Crime Commission for your efforts on this, and I will be very supportive.

Councilmember Shepard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, I want to thank the Wichita Crime Commission for the work that they're doing.

When you all reached out, as I mentioned in writing, this is a no-brainer for me.

Kind of, I think I told you all you don't have to waste your time trying to convince me, but this is something that I could get behind 100%, because I believe that mental health should be available and accessible to everyone.

And um, our police, our firefighters, those who are on the front lines every single day are not exempt from that for me.

Um, I had the opportunity to chair leadership Wichita through the Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce, and one of the things that we do is we do ride-alongs with police, we do ride-alongs with fire, and we actually go in and sit in with our 911 dispatch and hear live phone calls.

And so to know that they are not just on the front lines, but they are being exposed to that traumatic experience.

Um, we know what education says about ACES scores, and that doesn't stop as we go throughout life.

And so I'm really glad we're providing wraparound services to make sure those who are protecting and defending us every single day are also being taken care of in addition to their families, their loved ones, their partners, because when they go home, they have to carry that burden as well.

And it's really important that we take care of the whole family, the whole person.

So thank you for seeing this vision, and thank you for bringing it forward today.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you to the commission for the work that you're doing.

Uh, thank you to all our first responders.

It's difficult enough sitting up here and seeing the cases that come before your you guys, and I can't even imagine being the first one on the scene to uh child who's not responsive or some of the other um just terrible situations I took picture cells in.

Um healthy first responders, mentally healthy first responders are healthy first responders, and they'll be better able to actually come out and deal with a number of the issues that we do rely on them for.

So um, I think this is a great thing.

I appreciate your work on it, and um it it's really a great thing.

So thank you all for your work.

Councilmember Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Also like to thank the crime commission.

Um, I think we are first responders are obviously very reactive in most of their situations all day, every day, and so I like that this uh will provide some prevention before a situation happens.

You will have the resources uh at your fingertips, among all the other amazing things that it's going to offer.

I'm also really excited about revitalizing and rejuvenating a building that has a lot more life to offer an organization such as such as what you guys are working on.

So also I have one more thing.

Um I think that's it.

Thank you.

With that, I also wanted to add my uh gratitude to the Wichita Crime Commission, but also more importantly, to the collaboration between city and county.

For the past two and a half years, we've been consistently meeting as a body, both a city council body and a Cedric County Commission body.

And together we have been coming up with ways where we can better serve not just the employees that work for city and county, but also the residents who live in Wichita and Sedgwick County.

And I believe that this really looks at it holistically from call to court, and that includes anyone who is a 911 responder that does take that call from a resident to the court system that has to see justice come to fruition.

And you're talking about that whole spectrum of individuals who serve residents, and I again am so grateful to see that collaboration, seeing that we're not just talking about our police and firefighters, but that whole spectrum of when an individual in our community needs help to finally getting justice and the individuals who actually serve uh that call and that um call to help.

And so thank you again to the crime commission for helping us see this holistically and focusing on wellness for those who serve us in our community.

So, with that, um, I know that this resides in council member Ballard's district, so I will give her the honor.

Thank you, Mayor.

I move to approve the operating agreement and authorize the necessary signatures.

Second.

Motion second discussion, see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Aye.

Motion passes 7-0.

Madam.

You can clap for this one.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

General obligation note sale.

Good morning, mayor, members of city council, Mark Manning with the Department of Finance.

Uh, today I am here to present the results of our most recent note sale.

So, as you know, when we are completing capital improvement projects, uh, we issue temporary notes to finance those construction costs.

And I I thought I'd elaborate just slightly on this uh slide, reflective of our discussion 30 minutes or so ago, and kind of give you a little bit more color on how we do that.

Uh, my function is basically I'm the banker for the projects that public works is completing.

My job is to finance those projects while they're being completed.

Now, in regard to special assessment projects, as you know, the initial step in that is a petition, and then that turns into a resolution which specifies the uh projects to be completed and the amount uh uh authorized uh for those projects.

Then in finance, we monitor those projects, and when we see costs coming in based on whenever public works uh uh initiates the construction phase, my job is to then finance those costs with temporary notes.

We typically do that every six months, we see how much has been spent, and then we're gonna finance those costs.

Uh we have nothing to do with the project management side, and you probably don't want me to have anything to do with the project management side because that certainly is not my area of expertise.

Again, we're just a financer.

As you may know, we can finance projects with temporary notes up to four years based on state statute, and after that we have to either take them out with cash or bond them.

But as I was sitting there talking, it does occur to me the one thing that we can do in finance that might assist public works in this process and to address some of the concerns raised earlier today is we are well aware of how many times we've issued temp notes on special assessment projects.

I should also point out we cannot do anything until public works gives us a final statement of cost.

In other words, they drive the process.

But I think uh in finance we can do a little bit more communication with public works and let them know how long notes have been outstanding on the various projects.

Again, that may or may not mean that they can accelerate the pace of the construction, but at least we can raise their awareness as to how long the notes have been outstanding.

So hopefully something like that could at least increase awareness and maybe hopefully try to head off another situation like what we had uh recently on this.

So uh this sale you approved on March 3rd.

Uh we actually had sale on April 23rd.

Uh you may know that we initially had scheduled the sale a little bit earlier than that, but due to some of the challenges coming out of Topeka, we actually deferred it a couple weeks because there's a significant degree of market turmoil, but we did have a successful sale on March uh 20 or on April 23rd.

Uh this the uh sale results uh today will be ratified by you, consistent with our policy, and then we'll actually close the sale on May 21st.

Uh so we sold about 43.4 million dollars worth of notes.

Uh notes are by definition short term.

In this case, they mature in five months or in October of this year.

We fund a variety of projects.

In this case, there's 232 projects.

Vast majority of those are special assessment projects, so exactly what we were talking about earlier today.

A much smaller portion is for geo at large projects.

That's how you get to the 40 million dollars or so.

Again, we have three bids.

Uh there's a little bit of turmoil in the markets, that's a little bit less than what we normally get, but our spread was very tight, which shows uh a lot of uh good market uh participation.

Uh we awarded the bid to Jeffries LLC, and the interest rate was about 2.59%.

Again, we like to compare that to other issuers of similar quality, and that is right in line with what other issuers were issuing at whenever we sold.

So we thought that was a very successful sale.

So the recommended action is to approve the uh ratification of the award of the bid that the city manager made, uh, adopt the note resolution, and to authorize the necessary signatures.

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

Thank you, Mark.

Questions for staff.

I just had a follow-up question to your uh comment regarding temp notes.

Will this um be helpful with our centralization that is being under uh gone here in finance?

Yeah, I don't think this one would be applicable to that uh mayor because there's a pretty clear delineation between us in finance doing the financial side of it, and public works really doesn't participate on the financial side, they're focused more on the construction side.

So I mean we'll explore it, uh, but this may not have an applicability to our centralization initiative.

I wanted to recognize uh thank you, Mark, because you raised uh that topic and said it's really about raising awareness.

There are 16 departments in the city of Wichita, and uh sometimes we're working so hard uh to get the job done that again we may work in silos, and so that uh collaboration of communication within departments and raising awareness might be that key to unlocking making sure that people know from other departments.

Hey, this project is taking four five years, um, and that again shouldn't happen.

And so, with more raising of awareness, I do believe uh we can resolve that.

So thank you for raising that.

I see no further comments from council members with that.

We will open it up for public comment.

I see none.

I'll bring it back to the bench.

With that, I will go ahead and move to ratify the award of the bid, adopt the note resolution, and authorize the necessary signatures.

Second.

Motion second discussion.

See none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Aye.

Motion passes 7-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Ordinance authorizing the issuance of the sales tax special obligation revenue bonds.

K96 Greenwood Star Bond bond project phase three.

Uh good morning again, Mark Manning with the Department of Finance.

Uh, my next item is I want to present to you the K96 and Greenwich Star Bond issuance.

So just a little background on the district out there.

The K96 and Greenwich Star Bond District was actually created back in 2012.

We issued star bonds in 2013 originally for phase one of the project.

And then in 2017, we issued more star bonds.

We actually retired the original star bonds, and then we funded phase uh two uh star bond eligible costs for that uh district.

All of those bonds I'm happy to report were paid off as of March 1st of 2025.

So there is no star bond debt on the district now and has not been for over a year.

So relative to phase three, and I won't go into a lot of detail because you've heard a lot of this detail over the last several months.

Uh but the city council approved the project plan for phase three back in December of 2025.

Uh after that, uh, you approved a development agreement with the developer, which in this case is family destinations LLC for phase three of the project.

I'm just briefly going to summarize it.

Uh, my understanding is we have uh representatives from family destinations here today.

If you have any detailed questions, and I again I don't want to be redundant, so I'll just give you the super high level overview.

But phase three includes an estimated 191 million dollars in investment, and essentially it's for an athletic complex and a resort hotel, and there's a variety of athletic uh facilities out there that will be built, tennis center, ice rink, go-kart facility, baseball, golf, surf.

I think I may have missed one.

Uh very large project, uh, a lot of investment out there.

So the next step is to go to the Kansas Secretary of Commerce and uh get uh their authorization for us to issue star bonds, which they have done.

They provided us authorization to issue up to 79.5 million on a net basis in star bonds.

And I say net because there's always a few ancillary costs every time we issue cost of issuance and things of that nature.

Uh but essentially, let's call it 80 million dollars in star bonds, is what we have authorization to issue.

Then we came back to you on March 10th of this year, and you authorized us to issue uh star bonds for this project.

Again, pursuant to your action in March.

You also authorized crews and associates to serve as the underwriter.

We've had a very productive relationship with them over the years.

They actually were underwrote the previous uh star bonds on this project, so they're very familiar with the area and we're very familiar with them.

So the initial offering uh that we created is about $53 million worth of star bonds.

As I noted before, we have authorization up to close to 80 million.

Uh so it's certainly possible that there could be a second issuance a little bit later, uh perhaps later on this year.

But again, the initial issuance that we're contemplating today is about 53 million dollars.

So the next step in this process of underwriting them is to price them, uh which Cruz does for us, and we uh conducted that on April 28th of 2026.

Now, just a little clarification on star bonds.

Star bonds are not general obligations of the city of Wichita.

Uh they do not increase taxes.

Basically, they're payable from incremental revenue generated from new development that doesn't exist today.

Now I will point out that that incremental state and local tax revenue does include some transient guest tax uh in the district.

Uh as I mentioned before, I think there's a resort hotel contemplated in phase three, which will generate incremental tax uh guest tax revenue, which will be uh collected uh for the retirement of these uh star bonds as well.

So all of our material has been uh drafted by our bond council and approved uh by our law department.

And I also point out something a little unusual uh to expedite this sale if uh expeditiously.

We're recommending that in addition to approving the ordinance, you do it with a declaration of emergency.

Again, that's commonplace in our bond sales because our bond uh buyers and our underwriters like to conclude uh the transaction as quickly as possible.

Uh so basically that just uh obviates the need for a second reading, is all that does, but it's very beneficial for our friends in the capital markets.

Uh so our recommendation today is to approve the bond ordinance with a declaration of uh emergency and authorize necessary signatures, and I should also point out that our underwriter is also available today.

I believe he is available with us electronically, and bond council as well is with us today.

So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mark.

Questions for staff.

I do have one.

Um I know that this has three phases.

Can you tell us, or maybe the applicant, when construction will commence and when completion uh is projected for phase one, phase two, and phase three.

I will point out first of all, uh, this is only phase three.

Phase one and two are mostly completed, so he's gonna focus on phase three.

I mayor council Morgan can for the developer.

Um, so construction actually commences with infrastructure pursuant to the development agreement, June of 2026.

Um the end construction, I believe I'd have to go back and look and see what exact date that we agreed to, but I want to say it's somewhere around 2032, 2033, with the final construction done at that particular point in time.

So it will be phased.

There will be construction, like I said, beginning in 26, and then it will commence in certain increments in 27, 28, 29.

And I believe the final issue of it is 2031 to 2033, somewhere in the neighborhood.

Follow-up question to that.

Construction commences this June.

Um, how many phases are you expecting?

Um I I guess in the simplistic terms, there will be the phase of the infrastructure work, there will be the phase of W shoe tennis, there will be the phase of the uh entertainment and attraction side of the uh complex.

Then there will be the phase for the resort hotel.

Um, there will be certain pad sites that will be available to be to be developed as well, whether that be retail or restaurant.

Um not gonna, I would classify those in one phase, but I don't know exactly that it wouldn't overlap some of the other phases.

So four major phases with the retail restaurant component um sprinkled in amongst those phases as they fit with the phasing and the development as a whole.

Appreciate that.

So the very first one will be the WSU tennis.

Uh so that would be starting June of 2026.

When do you expect that one to be completed?

So the infrastructure begins June of 2026.

WSU tennis is going to begin, I believe, in 26 as well.

I do not want to steal WSU's Thunder with their announcement.

So I will plead the fifth, albeit we are not in a courtroom.

Um, but I'm pleading the fifth because I do not want to steal WSU Thunder on that announcement.

Appreciate that, and thank you uh for explaining that there are four phases to this 191.7 million dollar investment.

So it does take time.

Um, but I'm looking forward to seeing construction begin as soon as possible.

So thank you very much for answering that question.

I imagine you will see equipment out there on May 21st or 22nd wind the bonds itself.

Thank you very much.

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

We will now open it up for public comment.

I see none.

I'll bring it back to the bench, and this resides in Council Member Tuttle's district.

Thank you.

Um Mark, thank you for all your work in this.

Truly appreciated.

Appreciate your presentation today.

Thank you to Family Destination.

Always appreciate your investment in the city of Wichita.

I just wanted to highlight Mark made the comment about the star bonds being paid off in this area in this sector of our community.

There is also a CID that was paid off in seven years and not 22.

Um, so what this shows you is this is a very vibrant area in our community.

It's certainly helping to attract and retain talent.

One of the things that bothers me is when I hear my friends or colleagues or neighbors saying that they're gonna go to one of our peer cities for an attraction.

And now our residents are gonna be staying in Wichita for these attractions, but then they are these attractions are also going to recruit people from other cities.

So instead of us going to Pier Cities, no pure cities are gonna be coming to us, and there's nothing better than that.

So with that, I will enthusiastically move that the Wichita City Council approved the star bond ordinance on a declaration of emergency basis which authorizes the issuance of a series of 2026 A star bonds.

Second motion second discussion, see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 7-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Wichita Public Library integrated library system.

Hello, council.

Jamie Nix, director of libraries for Wichita Public Library.

Our online presence functions as a full access digital branch with an integrated library system, the ILS that serves as the backbone for all functions, staff and public to be able to access customer information and materials.

Our digital use is growing, and it accounts for more than 50% of all material circulation, but access to those digital materials needs a strong backbone.

With an aging contract, we haven't been able to upgrade our catalog and software features, and some of which are at the end of their support.

This last summer, Wichita Public Library issued an RFP for an integrated library system to ensure that we have a quality qualified supported functional system that includes customer notifications, a mobile app, and in integration with our third-party products like Libby, where we access our e-content.

Um, the selection committee unanimously approved contracting with a business called Innovative, who actually offers our existing software system.

Service would include a one-time implementation fee of 39,550 with an annual subscription cost of 124,603.

MFP device costs are financed in the ITIS internal fund, and the contract for the ILS has been reviewed and approved to law by as to form.

The recommendation today is to approve the contract and authorize the necessary signatures.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jamie.

Questions for staff.

I see Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just one real quick one.

I see Cindy Miles sitting in the crowd with us today.

We have had uh some discussion about potentially doing a and I think I've discussed it with you as well, um, like a nonprofit directory that we could put on the library website, perhaps.

Would any of this help with that, or is this outside of that?

This is outside of that scope.

Okay, so that's something we'd have to work with comms on.

Okay.

Thank you.

I see no further questions from council members.

Thank you, Jamie.

We will open it up for public comment.

I see none.

I'll bring it back to the bench.

With that, um, I wanted to congratulate the Wichita Public Library for their big anniversary this year during America's 250th anniversary, and Jamie has been uh attending regularly the America 250 Wichita uh committee meetings, and we appreciate everything you're doing to provide services to the community when it comes to library services.

And uh we just launched uh the civic engagement uh passport um and there are plenty of passports still left.

Uh you can also print out those passports uh from the website.

So again, thank you, Jamie, for your leadership.

With that, I will move to approve the contract with innovative, authorized and necessary signatures and authorize the payments to begin implementation of the project.

I will gladly second.

Motion second discussion.

See none, madam clerk.

Please open the roll.

Motion passes 7-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Safe haven baby box.

Good morning, Mayor Wu, City Council, Senior Manager Marstall, City Staff, Jose O'Kady's battalion chief with the Wichita Fire Department.

Here for the presentation of Safe Haven Baby Box.

I'd like to begin with a brief history of the Safe Haven Baby Box, which was founded by Monica Kelsey in 2015.

She wanted to provide a legal, anonymous and safe alternative to illegal newborn abandonment.

Here, under the state code in the state of Kansas, Kansas has a state statute, KSA 3822-22-82, Kansas Newborn Infant Protection Act, which allows a parent or persons with lawful custody to anonymously and legally surrender an unharmed infant six days old or younger.

Infants can be left at fire stations, police stations, hospitals, or with staff at other designated staff and approved facilities.

A safe haven baby box is a climate-controlled alarm and secure boxes installed at fire stations and hospitals inspired by Monica's personal history, which who was abandoned as an infant herself, and a similar system in South Africa in South Africa during her visit.

This simply this simple device allowed mothers in crisis and to safely and anonymously surrender their newborns rather than abandoning them in unsafe conditions.

How did we get here today?

I was initially contacted in April 2025 by Samantha Oates.

Oaks.

She was a she's a an employee at the St.

Joseph Emergency Room that contacted Wichita Fire Department.

During that time, I got permission through my chain of command to meet and discuss the possibility of a partnership with the Safe Haven Baby Box with the St.

Joseph Hospital.

During the meetings, we were able to acquire additional stakeholders from a session via Christine Medical Group, Wesley Hospital, McCown Gordon Construction, SPT Architecture, Cedric County EMS 911, and City Wichita departments from police, legal, public works, and communications.

Safe haven baby box location had to be determined an ideal spot for the installation and privacy of that the purpose of the safe haven baby box.

City staff recommended the old Wichita Police Department Patrol East substation, which is also attached to Station 9 as the location.

Wichita police vacated their that location for their new E substation located on East Lincoln.

Fire Station 9 is located at District 1, 350 South Edgemore.

Apologize for the North Edgemore.

So the correct address is 350 South Edgemore.

Station 9 was selected for from other fire stations within the area for the reasoning of ease of accessibility and privacy.

Station 9 is located both between St.

Joseph and Wesley Hospitals.

Other safe haven baby box locations in the state of Kansas, Hutchison, Salina, and Garden City.

Each of those cities, their safe haven baby box is located at a fire station.

Financial considerations.

Also part of this agreement with Via Christie Foundation is Richport Ridge Point Church, which is which is also donating a $5,000 donation with via Christie for the Safe Haven Baby Box.

An agreement includes a five-year annual membership with Safe Haven Baby Box.

It is recommended that the City Council approve Safe Haven Baby Box Lease and Service Agreement in partnership with the session via Christie Medical Group.

I'd like to thank you, Mayorwoo, City Council, City Staff for your time.

Also like to thank everyone involved with this process for the past year.

Vice Mayor Glasscock, City Legal Miss Magana, Session Via Christie Medical Group, Wesley Medical, Cedric County EMS 911, and City Departments, Police, Public Works, and Communications.

Here with me also is uh Vice President or excuse me, the president of a session via Christie St.

Joseph, Claudio Ferrero, Mr.

Alexander with the Via Christie Foundation, and we are also available for comments and stand for questions.

Thank you, Jose.

Questions for staff, beginning with Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um thank you, Chief.

I appreciate everybody's work on this one.

Uh just a couple of questions.

What happens if the child is harmed?

So if their child, if the child is surrendered inside the safe haven baby box, um, that baby box is as I said, it's going to be climate control.

It's going to be has an alarm detection system.

There's a three-phase alarm system that's going to be associated with it from the time the door opens and the time that the baby, the sensors detect, wait on inside the box.

Those uh there will be a signal sent to the fire station and uh 911 for alerting police, fire, and EMS to respond.

Okay, I appreciate that.

What I was talking was more um, this is legally surrendered and unharmed infant.

So if there is bruises or whatnot on the child before it's dropped off, and we think maybe there's some sort of abuse.

Uh, what does that look like?

Um, that would be left uh, I believe Captain Moses.

Thank you for saying uh Captain Aaron Moses with Wichita Police Department.

So the way we envision this is the primary concern is obviously the welfare of the infant uh from the box, getting the infant from the box to the hospital.

Uh, we envision that the hospital will likely notify us that an infant has been surrendered and will respond to the hospital to do a police productive custody investigation and any investigation into abuse.

Um so just surrendering the baby into the box does not uh eliminate any culpability if the child has been harmed.

We will still investigate that and take appropriate action through the district attorney's office if that's the case.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Uh, and back to the sensors and whatnot.

Just paranoid mic over here.

Uh, what redundancies are built in just to make sure in case there is a failure.

It's tested at least once a year.

I think yes, it will be it is required to be tested, and prior to going live, um, there's a still a much longer process um from you after your approval today if you do approve this.

Um, there's a the testing of a seven-day um process along in the with the fire alarm system.

So the long uh ongoing process would be continuance of of uh testing and inspections of that alarm system that's going to be connected to the fire alarm panel and send that signal out just like a normal fire alarm.

Okay, and will somebody be on call at the station 24-7, such as if they're away at a call at that time, where there'll still be somebody at the station?

No, nobody has to be specifically.

There's a there's a time frame that we need to respond um from EMS, PD, and um EM uh fire to respond to that location of the alarm activation.

There might be an uh uh possibility that station nine is empty at that time.

We have other stations from station 15, station five, station eleven that would also be dispatched to that area along with the closest um police officer and uh EMS unit.

Okay, so it's uh region wide or uh across the department alarm that'll be.

Yes, this is it's going to be connected to Cedric County 911 system, so they will be able to dispatch the closest uh public safety uh agencies to that alarm system.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Tuttle.

Thank you.

I really appreciate your work on this.

Um, thank you to all the partners involved.

Um, it certainly isn't lost on me that this is a need, right?

Um, something that we wish we didn't have to have in our community.

Um, with that, I do have a question.

How are we going to let folks in the community know that this new resource exists?

I mean, it's something that we don't want to encourage, right?

But in in rare, extremely rare cases, there's a need.

Um, so I'm just curious how how that will happen.

And then I'm gonna say this again when I make comments at the end, but until this is in place, and if people are in crisis and potentially don't have transportation to get to station nine, there is a 24-hour seven-day a week national hotline available for parents or caregivers in crisis.

It's one eight six six nine nine baby one.

So one eight six six nine nine baby one.

I hope that when we are in some way, and you're gonna explain um letting the folks know about this, that can also be incorporated.

I'm gonna say it one more time.

One eight six six nine nine baby one.

But how will we let our most vulnerable residents in our community who are in crisis know about this?

Thank you.

So um, with that, uh thank you for that number.

Um, but for right now, even all fire stations right now are a safe haven drop-off right now.

So at any time um, in a time of um difficulty of caring for an infant child or just a child itself, um, they can be dropped off at a fire station.

Um, specifically, an example occurred just last year at station one in April 2025.

A child was dropped off, and the proper connect uh connections with uh police and EMS was contacted and was able to address that situation and be able to care for that child at that time.

Um, so from the standpoint of promoting the safe haven baby box, again, this is still a white a ways away before it gets installed and it's really uh go live and in some service.

Um, we will have a large outreach and public service announcements on the safe haven baby box, and they will have the news media involved and also recognition of the location and the abilities of uh the capabilities of the safe haven baby box.

Thank you for that.

And and I did notice too when I was preparing for this and and doing a little research, and then you had it in the slide that Garden City Hutchinson and Selena also have already have taken these measures, so might be some interesting conversations with some of our colleagues across the state just to see what they've done and and you know if they've had um successes, if you will, uh, or or challenges.

So again, thank you for all you do to protect Wichita's most vulnerable.

Yes, ma'am.

Councilmember Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm just curious what happens after after the baby box, it goes to hospital, the baby goes to hospital, it gets inspecting stuff.

What happens after that?

How is it adopted or does the baby go?

So I would like to see if Mr.

Ferraro or somebody from Samantha might be able to assist with that.

Good morning, Mayor.

Good morning, council members.

Uh, we would take our normal uh measures whenever there is a baby surrendered, or if there's adoptive measures that need to be done, we would work with you know local law enforcement as well as you know, our legal counsel and making sure that we're doing all the right things for the baby to be placed and adopted and taking all those measures.

Local attorneys and with our own legal counsel as well as um you know our case case managers social work to take all the appropriate steps.

Okay, okay, thank you.

I'll have Captain Moses follow up on that because currently you can drop off a child through any of our fire stations.

There's no box, but firefighters are available if you are in that unfortunate situation where you want to surrender a child.

Can you talk about the next steps after a child is surrendered, whether at our fire stations currently or in the future through the safe haven box?

Yes, Mayor, Captain Aaron Moses again.

So we have a uh detailed process to take a child, any child into police protective custody if necessary currently, and that's the process we would follow in these situations.

So if we're notified that a baby was surrendered into the box, uh we would respond either to the box or to the hospital.

Uh, we'll have to flesh that out for process, and then we would likely place the child into police protective custody.

That then triggers additional processes, including involvement from DCF, potentially the Wichita Children's Home, to assist with ensuring that that child is placed into a safe environment, both short term and long term.

And thank you, Captain Moses, for highlighting that uh the Wichita Children's Home is where most of the children surrendered uh through police protective custody go.

Is that accurate?

Uh yes.

So primarily if we run into a child uh or take a child into our custody that does need care and is placed into police protective custody, they will go to the Wichita Children's Home.

Uh in this case, there may be uh a need for additional medical treatment.

Uh, and so if a child is admitted into the hospital we for medical treatment, we can still place that child in police protective custody.

Uh we work with the hospital then at that point, and the hospital will let us know when that child is ready to be released and can go to the Wichita Children's Home.

Um, throughout my career, I've taken many uh children under the age of 17 and even even uh small infants to the children's home, and they have a great network that they work with of people who will respond 24 hours a day to their facility uh to take those children to a safe and welcoming home to care for them again in the short term, and then work with the appropriate uh parties to ensure that that child is placed somewhere safe in the long term, which could very well be back in back in the home that they were surrendered from if they can work with that family.

Obviously, our goal is always to get a child back with their family if it's safe for them to be there.

Thank you, Captain Moses.

With that, I see no further questions from this bench.

I just want to recognize uh Captain Moses and uh Jose O'Caddy's in this effort.

I remember having my first sit-down meeting with both of you in 2024 when residents uh were reaching out to us about these uh safe haven baby boxes, and two years later, we're at this position where we have a community partner willing to provide the funds to provide this service.

However, all of the fire stations are currently available if there is anyone in need of help right now, so we don't have to wait.

However, the box will be another uh added service that uh fire station number nine will have.

And I want to recognize that fire station number nine is so uh located at a great location because it is off of Kellogg.

Therefore, um part of the communication in the future will be this is the location, it's easily accessible.

Um, and I am glad to hear that there are now processes in place where if a fire um station is empty at that time, other firehouses nearby will be able to immediately respond and get the child out of the box to the appropriate hospital.

So again, thank you for this collaborative effort, community coming together with city government uh to provide a service for those who are most in need.

So, again, kudos to all um present today and part of this partnership.

With that, we will open it up for public comment.

Good morning.

I think it's still morning, council members.

So my name is Cindy Miles.

I'm I'm not here, what didn't come here today to speak on behalf of the safe the box, but I I did feel like because of my involvement with the Wichita Coalition for Child Abuse Prevention for the last 14 years, and actually my involvement with launching the initiative here locally to bring awareness to Safe Haven as well as making sure that we had signs distributed at all the hospitals, all the fire departments, all the police police stations.

I did feel like that I needed to get up and speak in support of the safe haven baby box.

So you ask about what happens if a baby is harmed.

They the baby will go to the hospital for exploration.

The difference is when a child is when a baby is dropped off at one of these places, a parent can walk away anonymously and not give any information on this child to whoever they're dropping it off.

That is not the case if you have a child that's harmed because it does not relinquish them the re relinquish the liability that they've harmed this child.

So you needed to know that.

Next during that time, that child will go to an emergency foster care placement.

The children's home does not take many small babies because they can accommodate those babies.

I know a few years ago when I got involved with launching this initiative, I did so because of losing my own grandchild.

And so, you know, this I'm very passionate about this initiative.

But one of the things with the box is that the fact that and the the whole anonymous factor, so some people won't go and relinquish a child if they have to hand it or a baby if they have to hand it to somebody because there's no anonymity associated with that.

And so that's really important to have these to have these boxes and to encourage and create awareness of the fact that the safe haven laws exist.

And I had somebody ask me several years ago, well, how many babies have these boxes saved, or how many babies have been relinquished?

It doesn't matter.

If we save one baby, everything that we've done has been worth it.

Thank you.

Amen.

Thank you, Cindy.

Would anyone good morning?

My name is Samantha Oaks.

I serve as a patient care tech at Via Christi St.

Joseph.

I am here to voice my support for the city to approve this contract with Safe Haven Baby Box.

In my role, I see people in their most difficult and vulnerable moments.

A little over a year ago, I met a young woman who came into the ED when she was 28 weeks pregnant.

No one in her life knew she was about this pregnancy.

She was alone, scared, and felt like she had nowhere to turn.

She told me she wished there was a place where she could leave the baby anonymously.

Somewhere she could be certain the baby would be safe, but where she could remain invisible.

The conversation stayed with me.

So I started researching and I found the safe haven baby box.

Stay safe.

My hope is that no one ever feels alone as that young woman did, and that the project gives our community a way to ensure every newborn is met with safety medical in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you, Samantha.

Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council.

And it is afternoon now, by the way.

My name is David Alexander.

I serve as president of the Via Christi Foundation.

And I'm here on behalf of the foundation just to inform you and formally express our commitment to fund the installation and the first year maintenance for the safety baby box.

Via Christie's history is rooted in providing care for those in our community who feel that they have nowhere else to turn.

That's a big part of our mission.

And this project lines up perfectly with our mission.

So much, in fact, that our original plan was to put it at our St.

Joseph Hospital.

But because of our advanced security there, we ran into a concern, and it's that concern for an enemy, making sure that we had total privacy.

We could not do that at the hospital setting to justify putting it there.

So then we turned to, of course, the city.

The partnership with the city and the Wichita Fire Department ensures the privacy and safety that this program absolutely demands.

While we hope that the parents in our community will feel empowered to use the many adoption and family resources available in Wichita, we know that for some this will not seem to be an option.

So this box will exist when a parent in crisis faces an impossible situation that there is a safe, dignified, and legal path forward.

I do need to mention that our involvement is possible only because of our generous donors who believe as we do that every life is a gift deserving of a safe beginning.

We view this as a vital community investment, and the Via Christi Foundation is proud to do our part to ensure that the resources, this resource is available to our community and will come at no capital expense to the city.

I'd be glad to entertain any questions related to financing, but we're committed to making this happen.

There's other community partners that have stepped up as well that will be partnering with us and helping us share that load, but we will make sure that it will happen with no cost, no capital cost to the city.

Thank you.

Thank you, David, for that financial investment by the Via Christie Foundation.

Good morning again, Mayor, members of the council.

My name is Claudio Ferraro, and I serve as the president of St.

Joseph Hospital.

So for 137 years, our facilities, our ministry has been serving not only Wichita, but the state of Kansas with a special emphasis on those who are most vulnerable and really supporting this initiative as an extension of that.

Well, the physical box is going to be located at Station 9 as has been presented.

You know, Via Christie St.

Joseph stands ready as one of the clinical partners to provide our clinical and continuum of care.

So because we believe that this is really a community initiative, we really we asked our friends at Wesley to participate as well.

And so should a surrender occur, our collective medical teams are fully prepared to provide immediate high-quality care for the baby.

We see this as a collaborative effort between health care philanthropy and public safety to ensure that no doors ever really truly closed for a child in need.

And so we urge approval of this contract to help us provide this essential safety valve for our city and our citizens.

Thank you.

My name is Brent Workington, and I am pastor of Ridgepoint Church here in Wichita.

And I too want to speak in favor of this initiative.

So grateful that you're entertaining it.

So thank you for your time and I urge uh the approval of this recommendation.

I see no other individuals who would like to speak.

I want to say thank you to the five individuals who spoke during public comment regarding this item.

And I just want to highlight one more time how critical it is to have collaboration, and that key word right there is being unfolded right here in front of us.

And this is truly a great community, and it makes my heart so full right now seeing collaboration between providers, between law enforcement and fire and EMS as well, but also community advocating for this.

This is how things work in a community that cares for our youngest to our oldest.

And you saw that even from the beginning of this council meeting when we both had young people speaking in front of us to also the first agenda item, which was senior housing in our community.

So I'm so proud of our community right now, and I just want to say thank you again for the five individuals who spoke.

With that, I'm closing public comment and bringing it back to the bench.

Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Thank you, Mayor.

What stands out to me most about this is two organizations in our community independently.

We're approaching the city at the same time to do the exact same thing, which I think is shows the need in our community and shows how much we value life as well.

And so I want to thank Ascension from one side for approaching our community.

I also want to thank uh Ridgepoint Church for also coming in that conversation.

And I think I had set probably through a dozen of these conference calls and trying to get us to this place.

And I'd seen a lot of collaboration between the healthcare industry, philanthropy, church, and also city staff as well.

And thank you to uh Chief O'Cadies as well for your leadership on this and leading the city towards getting to this point.

For me, if we truly believe that every life matters, we should make it as easy as possible to choose life, even the hardest moments.

And I'm pro-life and I am pro-life because and it shouldn't just stop at birth.

We should make it real safe options to be able to take care of mothers and babies when they arrive as well.

And I think this is one step toward that.

And so truly thank you for your partnership on this.

Hopefully, this is never used.

But as uh Cindy Miles said, if just for one child, we save one life, it's worth it and that worth this investment.

So thank you all for the time that you've taken to get this across the finish line as well.

Councilmember Tuttle, thank you.

Um, just a few comments for me again.

Thank you to the V Christie Foundation.

Thank you to everyone involved in this project.

Um, also thank you for the speakers who came today.

And to be redundant, Cindy, your comment about if if it's one, it's there's no there's no cost, right?

So um thank you to everyone.

Again, I'm gonna be incredibly redundant.

One eight six six nine nine baby one, eight six six nine nine baby one.

If anyone is in crisis or needs information about what to do, please share that number far and wide, right?

And you can certainly always call 911, but um that is a specific resource just for families and caregivers in crisis.

Um, as with uh my friend Cindy Miles, I my I'm also a member of the Wichita Coalition for Child Abuse Prevention, and I'm a past um child abuse mandatory reporter.

Um, so this is near and dear to my heart.

So thank you for everyone involved.

Um, I hope this is never used, but I'm glad we're gonna have it.

Councilmember Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

I also want to thank via Christie, uh, Claudio Ferrara and David for the great work you do in our community, both on the hospital side and the foundation side.

Uh very generous, so thank you.

And also Ridge Point Church, one of the great churches in our city, uh, proudly in Northwest Wichita.

Um, I don't know if people know, but they have a day of giving where they dedicate a Sunday and all the money that goes to uh to uh community.

And so this year I think it was at least a half a dozen partners that you gave money to.

It was hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So great work you're doing, and uh thank you very much.

Councilmember Shepard.

Thank you, Mayor Samantha.

I just want to say thank you.

Uh, what resonates with me is the fact that you were taking your professional experiences, and you said I've got to do something about this.

You didn't sit back and just leave it into somebody else's hands to solve, and I think that is the power of democracy, but most importantly, just a person who cares.

Um, this particularly for me is about giving resources to the community.

It's not about where you fall politically in regards to uh your choices and what choices you decide to make, it's making sure that the resources are there so that when you make that choice that you are taking care of and you know that that choice is in good hands.

Um, I talked earlier about district one having the highest infant mortality rate, even as it compares to the state of Kansas.

So if we care about our children, right, the votes need to be consistent with how we are voting.

So I'm voting yes because I want to do something about the infant mortality rate, and I also believe in giving those resources and providing those resources from the city.

So thank you, and thank you to everyone who was involved in this.

Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Thank you.

Seeing that none of my colleagues were on the board.

I'd like to make a motion that the city approve the Safe Haven Baby Box Lease and Service Agreement in partnership with AMG and authorize the necessary signatures.

Second motion, second discussion, see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 7-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Police vehicle storage building improvements.

Could we do a quick five minute break?

I've been asked.

Is it okay?

We'll take a quick five-minute break.

Afternoon, Mayor, City Council, Captain Cooley, Wichita Police Department.

Today I bring before you police vehicle storage facilities.

The background on this is the uh Wichita Police Department operates several high-valued specialized vehicles to provide emergency response during critical incidents.

And as you know, maintaining a secure facility for that equipment is important for security purposes and to prolong the life of the equipment.

In 2019, a portion of the west side of Rounds and Porters, located just to the west of City Hall here, was evaluated for the vehicle storage, and funding for that project was adopted in the CIP at that time.

As the Rounds and Porter expansion plans progressed, it was identified that the vehicles would be stored more effectively and efficiently at the respective bureaus instead of one downtown central location.

It's important to store the vehicles in a strategic location to enhance responsiveness.

Storage buildings are expected to be even more critical in the future as equipment is being modernized and replaced.

The structures are to be built on the portions of the site immediately adjacent to the existing parking lot.

That I'm referring to each of the four patrol bureaus.

In 2024, the new Patrol East building was finished and was identified as the first best option for the four planned storage facilities.

And in 27, the new Patrol West building is scheduled to be completed and subsequently is identified as the second location for those four facilities.

Uh was round and porters adjacent to City Hall.

That funding was initially approved by City Council on July 23rd, 2019.

Progress on the project was postponed due to the pandemic period occurring at that time.

During that time, an evaluation of rounds and porters was also conducted.

That evaluation determined that there was some constructional considerations for the building.

Parking lot infrastructure concerns, space, and then proximity to critical infrastructures, mainly city hall.

Storing these vehicles next to City Hall is a critical infrastructure makes it hard for us to get those vehicles out safely if we're having to respond to City Hall or the core area.

After additional studies and concurrently with the plans to construct the new police stations, funding was allocated to align the plans with the construction of the three new police stations, west, south, and north.

In the 2025 to 34 adopted CIP, an additional 250,000 was allocated for a storage facility for the new patrol east location.

And in the 26 to 35 adopted CIP, 600,000 was allocated for the storage facility at the new 26 Patrol West, again the 28 Patrol South, and the 2030 Patrol North station.

To give kind of a an overall of what we're looking at here, this is the new Patrol East building at Lincoln and Edgemore.

And with the the I guess the bottom white squares, the projected location, that is within the just short of the five acres of fenced in property we already have.

So everything with this building is already secured, it's already within the fenced-in property, and that is vacant land that's already owned by the city of Wichita at the Patrol East location.

This is uh a construction photo.

The building is up and operational now, but I put this in here to show you kind of the uh plan of the color and uh material that is planned for the storage facility.

We plan to mirror or match uh each of the substations.

So this happens to be the Patrol East building.

Um the architect called it police blue.

That wasn't my doing.

Um, and then the uh stone color that's used in there.

And then the stone color that's used in there.

This is the initial rendering, the preliminary rendering of Patrol East storage building.

This is after the building was completed.

We had them actually give us a rendering of where the building would sit and what it would look like.

On the right side of your photo, that is the entrance from Pinecrest there.

So as you enter into that secure gate, the building sits right there in that parking lot.

The idea behind the building is it has three bays to house these vehicles.

Much like the plans with the bureaus, the fire department, EMS, our bureaus and everything are placed strategically within the city based on response times.

Each bureau is ultimately responsible for 25% of the calls within the city.

So some of these vehicles that we have purchased will move to each of the patrol bureaus and be stored inside these facilities.

Some landscape, there will be a bottom portion of the building that has some type of architectural work to it.

That way it's it doesn't look like an auto shop garage or something on the property.

This will be the outside of it, so it's hard to look at in that other rendering.

But the conceptual design is that it will have some type of architectural structure to it, both inside and outside.

Again, this is a side angle.

That way it looks more like a uh an office structure than a garage.

Um but essentially one of the concepts is the bottom will look like that, or we may go with a different brick to match the uh patrol bureaus.

Uh the patrol west location.

Uh, this is the uh rough plot of what was purchased for Patrol West.

That's actually going up now.

Um we are just starting the foundation work of that, the grading and things are done.

Foundation will start to go up, and then shortly after that, you'll start to see some structural work out there on that property.

Um this is the plot of land essentially that was purchased for Patrol West, again, just roughly five acres.

Um back on November 21st, 2023, when um I presented the Patrol West plans to City Council.

I also presented this conceptual plot map over on the bottom left of the Patrol West parking lot of the idea of how we thought the parking lot was going to be laid out and where the storage uh building would be placed.

It's not too far off.

We did have to change uh the public parking to come in off of one drive.

Basically, there was some ordinance things of where you can put uh vehicle access.

This is probably a more accurate view of what the Patrol S parking lot will look like.

And on the bottom left corner, uh you'll see that's where the facility will go back off of 13th there, and this is a more accurate drawing of what the parking lot and the building will actually look like when done.

This is just one with some uh landscape, so that way I wanted to give you guys a view of of the there'll be some trees, some foliage and stuff going on in that parking lot as well.

Uh financial considerations, funding for the Patrol East Vehicle Storage Facility is available for repurposing, and the amount originally designated for the storage at Rounds and Porter building and a subsequent amount included in the 25 to 34 adopted CIP.

Funding for the Patrol West Vehicle Storage Facility is available in the 26 to 35 adopted CIP.

We recommend you approve the initiation of the project fund, adopt the bonding resolutions, and authorize the necessary signatures.

And with that, I'll stand for questions.

Thank you, Captain Cooley.

Questions for staff, beginning with Council Member Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, thank you, Captain.

Um, do we expect the same stable of vehicles at every station?

Yeah, so the idea is like one of our armored vehicles at each station.

Um that way, like we're working a SWAT call right now, for example.

Um, that is out west, so that vehicle could have responded quicker, and then the other vehicles will respond as support vehicles.

So, yeah, pretty much every bureau will have the same assets parked in it.

Are there any that we're gonna be continuing or looking at storing downtown if it's like a specialized piece, the bear cat or whatever?

Yeah, um is that gonna be downtown or is that nope?

So the Bearcat is uh one of those armored vehicles.

We have three different brands, so but we just armored armored rescue vehicles.

Um, but the rook, for example, is too big for these type of properties.

So uh the facility um that we purchased on Harry, uh, that's where the rook and these larger vehicles will they'll have to be stored at that location.

Okay, so every storage unit will be essentially the same design at every yeah, um, same design, same concept.

The outside may look a little bit different.

Patrol West, I didn't uh design the outside really any different than Patrol West.

Almost the same colors, even so, thank you.

Captain Cooley, um, can you talk about just the four substations and the vision of having those storage units uh within that footprint?

Um was that always part of the plan and talk about um are there opportunities maybe to make them bigger so that therefore you won't need as many, or you want the four?

Um bigger, yes, and sure.

Um so we bought roughly just under five acres for patrol east, and then a little bit more at patrol west.

Um we realized we didn't uh have enough acreage at Patrol East by the time you add runoffs and various things.

Um for the amount of money that's allocated in the CIP, um, we're building them as big as we can on the footprint for that amount of money that's allocated.

Um strategically, yes, we want them in every one of the bureaus.

Um at could they be in a different location?

Sure.

Financially, we already own the land, and those bureaus we've already plotted out for response times as well.

So I'm working on where is south gonna go and where is north gonna go, and and uh there's a lot of planning that goes into that, so we get them you know, response time to each one of their areas.

Um so it is important to have them at each of the four locations uh for response times.

Thank you.

Councilmember Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation.

Is this consistent with other jurisdictions having these types of buildings outside their patrol or whatever their whatever that looks like?

Um I don't know that I would say consistent.

Every in policing, every jurisdiction seems to kind of do their own thing when it comes to do they have a headquarters, how many bureaus do they operate?

Do they break it up into beads?

How many watches?

It there's really no consistency in that.

Um a lot of large agencies have a massive storage facility where they will buy replacement fleet vehicles in the masses and uplift them and have them parking and waiting in there.

Um we don't do that here.

We buy them as needed and then uplift them and then rotate them out.

Um so I don't know that every you know, is it common that other agencies have um storage facilities at their substations?

I don't know that.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Captain Aaron Moses again for the police department.

Uh, along those lines, Chief Sol and I actually just visited Kansas City, Missouri about two weeks ago, and I had the opportunity to tour some of their stations and their facilities.

Uh they have in their patrol south uh building and complex, they actually have two of these buildings at one of their stations that they use for this exact purpose.

Uh so we were actually able to see how another one of our neighboring jurisdictions, a major city's chief organization just like us, is using buildings just like this uh in the same way that we're proposing here.

Thank you.

Councilmember Shepard.

Thank you so much, Mayor.

I just wanted to, I know you mentioned this, but I think it's really important for the public to hear this as well that the funding for the vehicle storage facility, 500,000 is available by repurposing, correct?

Uh yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Um, and then you mentioned when the mayor asked about um, I believe it was space.

I think that's a really important question as it relates to building for the future.

Are you able to account for that in the building of the space?

So that way you don't have to come back and two, three years from now and ask for more space to build on.

Um at Patrol West, probably.

Um that I looked at removing during construction, and unbeknownst to me, I guess tennis courts are made out of different structure than normal, and that's pretty costly to take them out.

So could we build bigger if we had the finances?

We could.

Would that help for growth?

Yes.

I don't know the cost of that at Patrol East because I stopped short of the tennis court.

Okay.

I just know that some of the projects that are either completed or are coming before us, we continue to ask about building for the future so that way we can be proactive in it and really accounting for the additional needs.

And again, as we continue to grow as a city, unfortunately, suburban sprawl is a thing, right?

But people don't realize that as we continue to go outward, that's more fire, that's more police, that's more services that we have to account for, which then trickles back to more equipment, more space.

And so I'm just trying to think through this holistically as well.

The final question that I want to make sure one of the things that I've learned as I was orientating on was uh that there's a particular uh depth of like concrete and different things of that nature that you need to consider as you are building for housing, the equipment and the apparatus.

Is that being taken into consideration with this storage facility?

Yep.

Um when we uh built uh Patrol East through some value engineering, we reduced the asphalt thickness, um, but we only did that in certain areas that we knew our armors or the trash truck and the uh fuel truck would not drive on.

Um we left those at the upgraded thickness.

Um we will have to go back and probably reinforce some of the edging as we pour the foundation for these facilities.

Um but yes, the short answer is is yes.

We feel pretty confident we've taken those into account and left them at the appropriate thickness.

I really appreciate that, and even monitoring that as you move along because everything has a shelf life, including the equipment that you know you all are using, the vehicles, and so as long as we're doing everything that we can to mitigate having to replace it consistently.

Um, I I think that's you know, using taxpayer dollars wisely.

So I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Lastly, Captain Cooley, um, according to our green sheet, back in July of 2019 is when the initial conversation started, and that was at Rounds and Porter, just across this parking lot for storage purposes, but since then it has changed to again the hairy location, and then eventually the four storage facilities.

Can you tell me if there's been any um deferred maintenance that needs to be addressed at rounds and porter?

Uh anything that this would be a trade-off.

I'm not sure I understand your question.

Is there any deferred maintenance at Rounds and Porter that we won't be doing to do this?

Um, the the money that was allocated in the CIP was uh um just to repurpose some of that building for these.

Um I believe I don't want to speak for uh public works or um you know engineering or MAB CD when they evaluated the building, but um I don't think there's any structural considerations uh if we don't put our vehicles there.

I think our vehicles were what was causing the issues.

Thank you, Captain Cooley.

I see no further questions from the council.

We will now open it up for public comment.

I see no one from the public who would like to address the council.

I see that these two storage locations will be in council member Hoheisel's district near Kellogg, and Councilmember Johnston's district near I 235 make the motion.

I would like to make the motion, I have it ready.

Recommended action, approve the project initiation, adopt the bonding resolution and authorize the necessary signatures.

Second motion second discussion.

See none, madam clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 7-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Community events, Wichita River Festival.

Good good afternoon, Mary and City Council Iskunner Haskins, Department of Park and Recreation.

Today we'll be presenting the uh Wichita River Festival item, which is basically a reiteration of their MOU.

So for some background, since 1972, Wichita Festivals has produced the Wichita River Festival.

This year, the multi-day celebration is scheduled for May 29th through June 6th.

It attracts local restaurant or local residents, tourists from within Kansas and surrounding areas.

Approval of the license reports will be in lieu of the issuance of individual permits and authorizations.

Per the MOU, the city can provide up to $80,000 as a cash sponsorship.

And that is a budgeted expenditure of the tourism convention fund.

In-kind contributions include public safety, use of park property, use of Century 2 facilities, and other similar services that have been provided to festivals.

The city's total financial contribution to the Wichita River Festival will be that $80,000 in cash sponsorship and an estimated $350,000 in in-kind services.

And as with any other applicant, Wichita Festivals is required to cover any of their application and permitting fees.

So with that, it is recommended that the city council approve the licensing report, street closures, and request for permit for the 2026 River Festival per the MOU between the City of Wichita and Wichita Festivals.

With that, I'll stand for questions.

Thank you, Isaac.

Questions for staff, beginning with Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Isaac, thank you for this.

This is an easy yes for me.

I do have a couple questions though.

Is the in-kind it also include overtime for officers?

Is that paid separately?

So about 250,000 of that is public safety.

How much of that is overtime?

I don't have that directly in the case.

So 250 out of the 350.

Okay.

Uh so that was question number one.

Question number two, in terms of included in sign assess safety related expenditures.

Does that also include the barricades that were city barricades that we're letting them use, or is that an added cost or so they get all their barricades through a traffic control company here locally?

The city doesn't provide them.

Okay.

So what would be maybe some of the examples of other 100,000 and in-kind services?

Uh about half of that would be downtown paid parking if we were to charge them for use of the parking stalls that they're using.

Um the rest of that is going to be primarily Century 2 and then park property.

So is that going out of the so it says in-kinded, so is that being in-kinded through the parking fund, or is that being in-kinded as in we're taking money from the general fund to then make the parking fund more whole?

We're just waiving the parking fees.

Yeah, for everything that's within the footprint of the festival.

So I know Councilmember Shepherd and I have specifically maybe had some concerns about sometimes charging for parking when there's community events.

And so, what is the practice of doing this for other community events as well?

If we're gonna do it for this community event versus other community events, what is our level of when we do this and when we don't do this?

So that's there's still been a discussion with that.

I actually spoke to the downtown parking manager yesterday, and uh at this time they're not currently charging for special events, uh, but we're going to be looking into doing so potentially next year or at least visiting the subject.

Okay, so I'm thinking of some large-scale events like the well, St.

Patrick's Day Parade would be different because that's on the Delano side, but I'm thinking of when we do either Riverfest parade, which we included this or automobilia or events at NASCAR where you have to shut down uh the street or St.

Francis, shut down St.

Francis.

And so I just want to make sure whatever policy we're doing for certain entities when it comes to community events, because we want to encourage community events, that it's more of a holistic approach, and it's not just us picking random ones to be okay with and not okay with in the future as well.

Agreed.

Thank you.

Councilmember Shepard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just want to echo the sentiments and thank you for all the work that you're doing on this.

By the way, I know Riverfest is a major event.

It uh draws a lot of tourism into our community.

We know that that's critically important to enhance our quality of life.

Um, I would also just offer the sentiment that um I'm really pushing for if there's a CID.

Um, I do not believe that you should have to pay those hooding fees, and I know that previous assistant city manager Choi Anderson did hear that from me.

I would argue St.

Patty's Day is a part of District 1, and so that would include uh Natzborough Park as well, all the way down to Delano, and um again for Riverfest.

I think that that would align with the standard of they're having it in an area that hopefully soon will have a central business district as well.

Parts of it will be in the CID area, and so maybe that's the rationale that we can consider using when looking at events, but very supportive of this.

Um, every time I turn around, I see Riverfest working extremely hard, and so I want to make sure that we honor being a good neighbor and also honor the entities that are bringing in large quantities of people and generating revenue for our economic success.

And so I want to make sure that we honor being a good neighbor and also honor the entities that are bringing in large quantities of people and generating revenue for our economic success.

I see no further questions from this bench.

Uh thank you, Isaac, and thank you to Wichita River Fest for uh hosting this year's festival, May 29th through June 6th.

We will now open it up for public comment.

I see no one from the public who would like to address the council with that.

Um River Festival is everyone's festival, uh, but it does reside in districts one, four, and six.

Uh so with that, I will go ahead and move that the city council approved the licensing report, street closures, and request for permit for the 2026 Wichita River Festival per the MOU between the city and Wichita Festivals Inc.

Motion second discussion.

See none, Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 70.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

2026 to 2027, third program year HUD annual action plan.

Good afternoon, mayor and city council.

Uh, my name is Andrew Tyree.

I'm a management analyst with the housing and community services department, and today I'm here to present on the 26, 27 third year annual action plan.

Before we get uh too deep in the woods, just some background here.

Uh the city receives an annual allocation of funds for community development activities from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, otherwise known as HUD.

Uh the funding activities align to the city's goal of creating a livable and sustainable community, and these funds are used to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and affordable housing.

So we operate off of a couple different planning documents.

Um, the first being the consolidated plan.

Um every five years we are to produce a five-year strategic plan to HUD.

Basically, what that does is identifies community development needs, affordable housing needs, homelessness needs, and other priorities of the city.

Um, like I said, that's every every five years.

Um, annually, we have to uh submit to HUD what's called the annual action plan.

Um, the annual action plan has to um align with the consolidated plan.

Um, so we can't um propose any activities or projects that don't meet the strategic needs and goals of that consolidated plan.

Um the action plan also serves as an application uh for funding for uh federal entitlement grants, community development block grant or the or CDBG, which I'll be referring to throughout the rest of this presentation.

Uh but CDBG is a very flexible uh funding source, it's used for a wide range of community development needs.

Home investment partnerships, otherwise known as home, um, is used to create uh affordable housing for low-income households, and then the emergency solutions grants or ESG.

Oh, sorry, whoa, I will not touch that again.

Um is used to address homelessness.

Wow, is everybody awake now?

I think so.

Um so the planning process um public comment period on the action plan began on March 27th of 2026 and ran through uh May 4th of 26.

Um, this was to solicit public comments.

Um staff, uh myself, Steve, we tag team the April DAB meetings, went out to those and presented on the action plan to solicit comment there.

Um, and then the third program year action plan is due to HUD.

We're looking to have this submitted um by May the 15th, um, 45 days before the next program year starts.

Our program year runs from uh July 1 through June 30th.

So when you hear me say program year, that's what that's what I'm referring to.

So for 26-27 uh program year, um, and it's an attempt to ease the burden of tracking and meeting expenditure deadlines.

Any funding that was previously allocated but not under contract, um that those funds were swept back and reallocated into the current program year.

So again, any funds that weren't under contract, we we push it all into this program year.

Um, award amounts for 26, 27, HUD has released those.

We got those a while back, but um, they are as follows: um CDBG um 2,982,354.

Um, CDBG 2,982,354.

Home, 1,410,408.95, and ESG $260,932.

And so we'll start with CDBG again.

This is used for a wide range of community development needs.

Uh, you'll see total funding amount going into CDBG this year is that $6,365,224 and 68 cents.

Um, before I get to uh into the activities, uh just some background on CDBG.

Um, in order for a project or an activity to be CDBG eligible, it must meet one of three national objectives, and those are on the screen there.

Um, it must be used for eligible spending activities.

At least 70% of spending must benefit low to moderate income persons and public services, which I will get into more here in a minute.

But the city of Wichita is traditionally public services heavy.

Um, approximately 30% of our award goes towards public services nationally, however, there is a 15% cap.

So we are actually grandfathered in at that um that $1.1 million total.

So we're able to put more funding towards public services activities here.

And so we'll start with public C D BG public facilities and infrastructure projects.

Um total allocated is that three million number there, um, and that's going towards infrastructure projects under that category.

We're that's we're carrying over some some funding for the midtown lighting projects.

Um we're setting aside the 95,978 for demolition and clearance.

Um, historically, we worked with um MABCD under contract, they identify properties that are um blighted structures, and so that funding goes towards the demolition and clearance for those.

Uh public facilities again there's a little over 2.4 million got dollars going into that.

Uh one million is going towards the construction of the new community center in the Plainview neighborhood.

Um, we have set aside that $414,327 for a 2B determined acquisition and rehab project, and then another million is going into the um to build non-congregant shelter on the second light site.

And there's how the public facilities and infrastructure improvements um total out on the on the far right hand side there.

Next, we have CDBG housing activities that just under 1.6 million dollars there.

So home repair, um, 1,260,000 is going towards the home repair program, and you kind of see how that breaks down there between project funds and program delivery.

And then again, we're setting aside um some money there that $334,078 and 68 cents for um for a to be determined rehab project under the housing activities category there.

And as far as housing activities, you see how um that all totals up CDBG administration and planning um total allocated is at $596,471, and that's going for um program administration costs, and then we also have $2,000 going towards fair housing training.

Um that'll take place at our annual housing conference this fall.

So and you'll see on the far right hand side how the admin and planning totals up.

Next, we have uh CDBG public services.

I touched on this a little bit already, but we're at that.

We have that public services cap of $1,163 and or 100 1,163,310, and we're right up on that cap there with the um $1,160 allocated.

Um that funding breaks down $385,000 is going towards the Office of Community Services at Atwater Colvin and Evergreen, that's your neighborhood resource centers.

Uh 77,500 is going for housing first project coordination.

Um 222,500 is going for the way to work program, and that's the summer youth employment program, which will actually be kicking off here pretty soon.

And so that brings us to the competitive application that was released for uh CDBG public services funding.

Um in December of 2025, the housing and community services department, we released a competitive application for CDBG public services funding in the amount of 475,000.

And also there was ESG homeless prevention funding for $50,000, which I will talk more about ESG here when we get to those slides.

But we'll focus on the $475,000.

We had a total of 10 agencies submit applications for that funding.

And so 10 10 applications.

Total funding request amongst those 10 uh 10 agencies was $885,355.

And so again, we had $475,000 to go around.

And so that's where the grants review committee uh comes in.

Um also in December of 25, um, the city council appointed a grants review committee or GRC.

And so um the establishment of the GRC is a component of the city's citizen participation plan.

Um this committee is responsible for reviewing proposals for CDBG and ESG.

Um they're tasked to review agency proposals to utilize the CDBG funds to deliver public uh public services uh programming.

Um and so again this year they were responsible for um reviewing 10 applications um different different agencies.

Um they um reviewed those applications and made their request or recommendations for funding, and those are as follows that are being brought to you guys today as part of this annual action plan.

So again, you'll see 475,000 available.

Um we had um they're recommending three uh domestic violence um services, um Catholic Charities Harbor House, Wichita Family Crisis Center, and Stepstone all at $50,000.

Um we had one homeless services provider, United Methodists open door for 50,000, and then the other four were youth programming.

Um Colvin Kids Club at 50,000, Kansas Big Brothers Big Sisters 50,000, Prime Fit Youth Foundation, $60,629, uh Masters and Mentors, $55,625, and the Wichita Children's Home, $58,746.

And as far as CDBG public services go, you see how all of that uh totals up there.

Moving along to the home program again as a reminder, home program funds can only be used for the creation of affordable housing for low to moderate income households.

Um this year we're um that 10 million number you see on the screen, that's how that's the amount we're allocating towards home activities.

And those activities break out as follows.

Um we have the home program administration 255,914 and 57 cents.

Um, and then we have the home ownership uh program $986,000.

That's for home ownership, uh down payment assistance.

Uh we have the home ARP, the $4,477,900 or $99.55.

Uh that's also going for the development of 25 units of non-congregate shelter and supportive services, and then also the tenant-based rental assistance or TBRA, $1.6 million.

Um that's for security deposits or rent for low to moderate households with a preference for those coming from homelessness.

And lastly, uh part of part of home, we have the home development loan program.

Uh that $2.9 million number there that's going towards HDLP program.

Uh, these funds are used uh by nonprofit and for-profit developers for the development of affordable housing, rental, or home buyer units, and that can be um rehabilitation and new construction.

Um, there is a fit minimum of 15% of the total annual home allocation that needs to be set aside for CODOS, and so those are your community housing development organizations that set aside requirement that's managed within the HDLP to ensure that that 15% is being met.

Um all HDLP applications are reviewed by the Affordable Housing Review Board.

And just some CHOTO requirements uh there on the screen as well.

And you see how the home on the again on the far right hand side, how the home allocations add up.

Lastly, we have the emergency solutions grants.

Is for homeless services, homeless prevention, and rapid rehousing.

And so we'll start with homeless prevention.

I touched on it a few minutes ago when we were talking about the competitive application, but that was also released for the ESG homeless prevention funding in the amount of $50,000.

During that process, we had one organization that applied for that funding.

After reviewing the application was reviewed by the continuum of care staff, our team, and then housing staff as well.

After reviewing that application, it was deemed as not being eligible for the home prevention homeless prevention program.

And so that the department will use these funds along with uh 10,000 from the prior year, so a total of 60,000 is going towards it's going to target previously homeless individuals, households that are receiving rental assistance who are at risk of returning to homelessness.

And so this program is designed to address uh the community's return to homelessness rate, which is around 25%.

Next we have homeless assistance, um three total of 313,378.

Um, this is for encampment and unsheltered coordination services that includes program year funding from 2025 along with the program year funding for 26 for that total of 313,000 there.

Um, and then the rapid rehousing program uh that's funding that's made available for rent and utility assistance for literally uh homeless persons.

Um, this enables them to move into permanent housing.

And then, as with CDBG and home ESG, there's also program administration uh amounts there as well.

You see how that breaks down and total for ESG on that far right hand side again.

Uh we had a public comment period for this plan that ran through uh March 27th through May 4th.

Um we attended all the April DAB meetings.

Um, some of the feedback that we received uh you know from the dab meetings is on the screen listed there.

Um we had some feedback from Sedwick County Department of Aging and Disabilities wanting to, you know, maybe some more homeless programming with older adults in mind.

Um Sedgwood County Department of Emergency Management inquire about the use of C D BG C D BG funds for hazard mitigation projects, and then since about Friday afternoon, this is after I'd already submitted the the presentation here.

Uh my inbox has been pretty pretty busy.

Um gotten about 57 emails from the Justice Together group stating their support for affordable housing that is in the plan.

So had some voicemails from them as well.

So and then we also had some citizen feedback just regarding um just endorsing uh more affordable housing options, and then also with how our homeless data and reporting is put out there.

We had some feedback on that as well.

So financial and legal considerations, uh, there's no impact on the general fund.

All funding agreements will be approved as to form by the law department.

And it is recommended that the city council close the public hearing, approve the funding allocations, staff and grants review committee recommendations, and authorized submission of the 26-27 annual action plan to the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development and authorize the funding agreements and necessary necessary signatures.

And at this time, I will stand for any questions you may have about the plan.

I we have backup in the audience in case I can't answer those questions.

We'll work as a team to get those taken care of for you.

And then also we have uh Miss Cindy Miles in attendance today.

She was actually a member of our GRC this year, so she graciously volunteered to come down in case you all wanted to hear from an actual GRC member today.

So that's all I have.

So I'm turning it over to y'all.

So thank you, Andrew, for that presentation.

Uh, we will now open it up for council member comments first, um, and I'll start.

Uh I have specific questions uh on the presentation.

Can you go back to slide number 164?

Um, right here, I find something very concerning.

Um, and that is big uh that is the YMCA's middle school after school program uh with zero dollars being allocated to them.

Uh this is a critical uh youth initiative that has been around for decades, and one person who has been a major champion of that is former council member Levante Williams.

Um, and this was brought to my attention.

Um this is a service that is again for those.

I believe the term for CDBG funding was for low to moderate income individuals, and a lot of our youth in this specific areas that this program services are those individuals.

Can you please explain why YMCA middle school after school program was not funded?

Um so again, it was this was part of the public services dollars that went out via the competitive application.

Um the GRC was tasked with making those uh recommendations.

So I don't know if if Miss Cindy would want to come up and speak to that or not.

Um she's welcome to do that because it was um like I said they're they were the ones that were deciding factors on these things.

So turn it over.

Thank you, Sydney, for serving on that board.

Absolutely.

Um thank you for giving me time to respond to some of the questions.

As you all know, funding is hard.

You know, I work with have worked with nonprofits for many years.

Um I I see the challenges that they're faced, and just to give you a little bit of information that you may or may not know, Wichita, the city of Wichita has 1,325 nonprofit organizations.

Of those 1,325 organizations, we have 305 of those are churches, so that leaves us a net of 1,020 nonprofit organizations.

It's a challenge.

We have new programs that are coming up to be funded.

I've sat on this committee more than once over the years, and I I can remember back when you know Minn and Night Housing used to receive funding, they received funding for a number of years.

Uh Jacobs, I think it's Jacob's ladder, received funding for a number of years.

And we always have new things that are going on.

One of the things that we see is uh youth are struggling with violence.

We have we have a youth violence problem, and we've seen that.

So, in our considerations, as we had a discussion uh about what to fund, because number one, we're limited, we we can't give less than $50,000 to any one single organization.

So that limits us because we can't choose say masters and mentors was a new applicant.

Masters and mentors works through the gift, uh works through chess to teach youth how to play chess and change their cognitive thinking and redirects their past from a path where they may be involved in the juvenile justice system, or you know, they're they're just going down the the wrong road.

Um and so I I feel like the conversation was at some point in time we have to look at what are the new things that can be funded.

So two organizations we looked at that had been funded by this funding for 30 years was the YMCA and the uh Wichita Family Crisis Center.

None of us felt like that.

This funding should be something that's sustained year after year after year, and we never open up for new organizations to be funding.

Big Brothers and Sisters hasn't been funded for a lot of years.

I sat on the committee when Big Brothers and Sisters was funded by some of this funding.

So it is very challenging.

The other thing that came into play is of those nonprofit organizations, YMCA is number six in the amount of revenue that's brought in by those organizations, and they have the opportunity to generate earned revenue, which a lot of nonprofits don't have the opportunity to do.

They provide Wichita Family Crisis, they provide services for free.

Not a lot of opportunities to generate earned revenue.

YMCA also has a foundation that had three million four hundred and ten dollars, four hundred and ten eight five income in 2024, an increase of more than a million dollars from the prior year.

They are a big organization.

Total assets for their foundation in 2024 was more than 73 million, an 8 million increase from the prior year.

They are a strong firm organization in this community.

They are not going away.

They have a lot of resources that are available to them.

Not all of these organizations have that.

Not all these organizations can have a membership or whatever.

And so we were kind of looking at overall, how do we give some other organizations that are smaller organizations that are doing unique work the opportunity to also be funded by this funding?

That's my response.

As a follow-up.

I think just serving number of kiddos or serving number of individuals is not the ultimate goal.

The ultimate goal is in this situation when we talk we're talking about youth.

I think it's youth crime prevention and youth opportunities.

And this is a proven model for over 30 years.

And I don't understand, I guess, I understand new and the shiny new object needs to be taken taken a look at, but a proven model should also be rewarded because it's an investment by community.

Community has said, we believe that this certain organization is doing a good job.

We will keep investing.

And the city of Wichita has an opportunity to be a partner, and this is a partnership.

These are dollars that come from the federal government that then the city of Wichita has the opportunity to reallocate.

And in this situation, being a small partner is still better than not being a partner.

And so I'm very concerned again when a proven model has shown to work in our community.

Now they're not getting rewarded because they're a good model.

I think that this is, I don't know, um a system that we should be rewarding outcomes, and they have proven to provide outcomes.

So I am very concerned about this.

So I would like to know can you provide outcomes to each of these uh nonprofits that have asked for dollars over the years and provide actual outcomes in what they've been able to provide to the community?

Uh YMCA again, this middle school after school program is exactly that.

It's providing services that in some of these middle schools, they don't have the opportunity to pay for other activities, and it's already located within their schools, so the kids don't have to go to other locations.

Um can you please tell me about outcomes and specifically YMCA outcomes?

Um when it comes to YMCA, as of as of March of this year, um, they had served with in their with their CDPG funding, they're reporting 1,400 youth um that have been served in this program year so far.

Um last year it was the same because their funding amount was the same.

It was $50,000 last year.

Um, in prior years when they've had more funding available, it's been like double that.

So it's been close to like $300,000 for that.

Um, but I have, I mean, did you want um some other other programs as well?

Or is that specifically um outcomes?

So if you have any other outcomes within these sub-recipients, uh one of the things that you mentioned that I want to correct is there were other organizations on this list that do provide homeless services, and I know that there's a new one on the list right now, which is Cha Children's Home.

They've been a really good partner in providing homelessness services to youth under the age of 24.

Sure.

And we want to make sure that that is another subgroup that is being supported.

Um I guess my question is what are the outcomes for some of these established uh nonprofits that are here?

So as of right now, um, like uh Colvin Kids, um, that's the uh program that operates um in the Plan View neighborhood, they're they're uh reporting 65 as of right now.

Their program is with 65 kids.

Um Catholic Charities Harper House, um they've reached 145 as of right now, individuals that are in their shelter, and these are unduplicated numbers, by the way.

Um, Kansas Big Brothers, Big Sisters, they're reporting again as of March, 35 matches.

Um their um match program.

Um Prime Fit Youth Foundation, uh 117 as of March youth that they've reached.

Umited Methodist Open Door over 1,1,144.

Again, that was as of March that I'm seeing.

Um, Stepstone 142 individuals as of March that they've reported to us.

And then to touch on like you mentioned the homeless, which children's home.

I I agree.

Like I was lumping them in with the youth um services.

So that's I did miss that that they do work with homeless youth.

So now I have a question regarding United Methodist Open Door.

For how long have we been providing services or funding to this organization and will this organization be partnering with Second Light?

One of the missing pieces of United Methodist Open Door is that they don't have overnight sheltering.

Second light provides overnight sheltering plus day services to those who want to be part of that program.

Can you please explain to me uh what the outcomes have been for United Methodist open door.

So as far as CDBG goes this is their second program year um receiving CDBG funds.

They spent out their their grant this year and last year.

Again those numbers um for this year is over 1100 that they reported to me and it was uh I have last year's here too my phone it was over 1500 last year that they reported um and then prior to that they received ESG funding for years um I think it was close to 30 years that they received ESG funding but that two years ago that stop we we used our started using our ESG homeless assistance money we didn't put that out for for a bit anymore so they they applied for CDBG two years ago and got that so one of the concerns that I'm hearing from community and also observing as an actual resident of Wichita is um second and Topeka is where United Methodist open door is located we keep having individuals calling in encampments loitering can you please address how um a $500 investment through these funds will alleviate any of what we're seeing when it comes to a lot of services that need to be um reoccurring in terms of encampments loitering etc I can't probably totally speak on all of their um services but with um what they report to us is that you know they they have their their day shelter where there's different um activities that are going on there there's laundry services there's um you know all the um I'm I'm leaving the stuff out I know I think we have someone here from United Methodists open door today that can speak more intelligently about that than I can so um but um so yeah that's I mean that's what I would say that they they use their their money for their day their day um shelter services so I will actually ask housing to please come forward and explain to us how this is um duplicating some services that Second Light is providing day center services are an essential component of our homelessness services ecosystem that being said we're looking for housing focused and you know I think that we probably would ask Deanne to come up and speak to how many people open door has housed with their day center services as we are currently attempting to stand up as you all know the housing focused services surrounding second light if that's your will that is my will I would appreciate someone from United Methodists open door to address that afternoon I'm Deanne Smith executive director at United Methodist Open Door to answer your question directly we are first and foremost a basic service getting people in for the basics of showers laundry um noon meal a place to have their mail brought um mailed to them all those kind of basic services and then that is a draw for us to then engage them in helping them make the next steps into more productive so we have partner agencies Hunter Health Grace Med IC2 Street team that work on the medical health co-located in our building is Comcare Center City we also have co-located uh substance use center Kansas to engage um and try to get people who are very very ill to get into the next step of treatment um we have other partners as well that are on site in order to engage in benefits and those kinds of things to answer your question directly about housing we have a housing navigator that has been uh with us for two years now it's the first year we had a little bit of um upstart to get her going but just in this grant year program year um she's um done 33 housed directly

We have other partners as well that are on site in order to engage in benefits and those kinds of things.

To answer your question directly about housing, we have a housing navigator that has been with us for two years now.

But just in this grant year, program year, she's done 33 housed directly.

And this is these are folks that are very high barrier, high needs individuals, chronically homeless in some cases, are ones that need an extra level of care.

So it's not only just about housing, but also she helps in maintaining housing for those that have gotten housed for some of those.

Thank you, Deanne.

I appreciate the services that you provide.

However, you guys are not open 24-7.

As you mentioned, you're not open on Saturdays, you're not open on Sundays, and you're not open from 4 01 p.m.

to 7 29 a.m.

Can you please help me understand what have been the conversations about possibly moving your services or providing those services at Second Light where there is a 24-7 shelter available where food is being donated by one of our partners, the Lord's Diner is providing food services.

Can you please tell me how you're working in that ecosystem of coordinated services?

Sure.

And I would have been happy to have that conversation with you earlier, as I have with several of your colleagues.

Now probably two at least two years, about ways in which we could be supportive, ways in which we could be participating in that.

We are unique in that we were being asked to move our program to second light.

That comes with risk, financial risk to us.

Unfortunately, the sales tax did not go through, so there's financial uncertainty with Second Light and what that would look like.

Also, the space because of the need to accommodate many different aspects.

The space that we would be using for at Second Light is a FEMA shelter without any sunlight or ventilation, natural ventilation.

We were looking at what would that look like for doing courtyards and those kinds of things.

Though that would still be available somewhat, but again the setup would be which would have to have more funding than what we currently do operating in order to function out of that space.

No space is perfect.

I understand that, and reason why we work so closely in trying to figure out ways to mitigate that and overcome that.

In addition, uh because the sales tax has did not go through and found funding is uncertain.

Are folks I believe that Second Light's using the term will and skill, be willing and able to engage with staff and case managers and those kinds of things, and the skill to be able to achieve outcomes into housing.

But the ones that we deal with, a good majority of those are often folks who are so sick that they cannot will not able are able to engage to the level to be able to have that will and skill.

So looking at all of those things, our board of directors said at this point we're not able to move in.

That does not mean our board of directors will never consider that.

It's just at this point with financial uncertainty, with the space not being and the population being different, that we at this point decided not to move in.

Thank you, Deanne.

And I appreciate um what you just mentioned, which um skill and will is one of the things that Second Light has talked about.

However, you said um again, quote, dealing with um your most sick, but you're only able to serve them again from a very limited time.

7 30 a.m.

to um sorry, 7 30 a.m.

until 4 p.m.

each day, weekdays only.

So where do where do they go after that then?

Unfortunately, um we wish they would be able to have someplace to go.

We would love to be open more often if we had the funding, which had been the decision that we were going to when we moved at Second Topeka through the task force didn't chronic homeless, the city county uh task force that chose us to open the housing and homeless resource center, that we would be hopefully be able to have the funding to be open more hours and more days.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen, and so that's where do they go?

I would love to say that I know 30 uh beds plus will be at second light for those who are overnight, and then they will leave it during the day, and we will probably see them.

So again every day at four o'clock, they will have to go find some sheltering.

They will most we chose that time when we had to scale back because of funding issues.

We chose that time so that they could engage with the Lord's Diner and then hopefully get into shelters.

Unfortunately, there's this challenge with shelter space.

And Deanne, can you help address?

I have many residents that talk about second and Topeka, your location, and multiple um tents that have been popping up, torn down, popping up again, torn down again.

Can you please address um what your organization does to discourage individuals from such an inhumane uh opportunity, which is to live on our sidewalks?

Yeah, we don't want them to have to live on the sidewalks.

We're right with you.

We wish that there are services that would allow that many of those that um are in those tents, um, are not able to go into a shelter, perhaps because of anxiety disorders or those kinds of things.

Some of them we are engaging with to try to get to them that uh we also work very closely with police and whoever else we can get to engage outreach to engage those folks.

Um part of the reason why you see them moving around is because they are asked to leave that spot and then move around a football field area and set again and then asked to leave.

And so, and it's the same in the encampments, and I'm very glad to see that some of the CDBG funding, home funding will be used to um help residents go directly from encampments, and I would hope that that would be the same with those folks who tend to move around, but it's not just at second and Topeka, it's over several places in the city.

I see it too.

Face Mayor Glascott.

Thank you.

This would be a message for Andrew.

Is funding able to be allocated with requirements that the 50,000 be spent offer services at Second Light?

So let's say for one of the applicants, if there's a particular applicant, can there be funding requirements that specific funds be used as a partnership to move or partner with second light?

Um and Sally may want to back me up on this if I misspeak, but uh if if we were to have put that in the competitive application, that that's a requirement, then yeah, but that that was not in are you able to put that to certain sub-recipients, or is there the each recipient have to be held to maybe to different they all offer different services, so that requirement necessarily wouldn't make sense for let's say prime fit foundation, but it could make sense for providers of homeless services to partner with the city's one-stop shop for homeless services.

Can that be added as a requirement for the use of funds?

As of yeah, she's saying, yeah, so we we could do that.

Okay, thank you.

Yep.

Councilmember Johnston.

Thank you.

Dean, I have a couple questions for you, if you don't mind.

Again, thank you for everything you do.

Your organization, uh, really appreciate that.

Um, I did talk to Dan Clifford this morning, director of Second Light.

Um he said he would be more than willing to have uh open conversations with you on where to locate at the facility.

He said that has not really happened so far.

So well, I don't know how that can't be since I was sitting at the table for all those design conversations, and just until recently um when they started to look at the just the hundred, and I we and our board said not at this point that I felt like I could disengage, I stepped away so that they could do some more in-depth conversation about that population in which they were gonna serve.

Right.

So I and those in this room know that open door has been the providers, know that open door has been more than present at all of that for a couple years, two, three.

I don't know how long we've been planning this.

Yeah, yeah.

So and I know I mean the second light probably is not like I would have designed it or managed it exactly, and it's probably not like you designed it or would like to have designed for our discussions yesterday, but since it is designed like it is, um I I think we need to have a conversation on how we can make it work with what we've got now.

I I certainly so and we we want to say yes.

Um we part of the challenge is again the population that we serve are very very ill, and so the space that we would be asked to use is very challenging for that population with no sunlight and and no ventilation.

Again, we could utilize outside some, but that's an additional cost to operations, and regardless, um, if we're asked to there are showers and bathrooms that are shared in one space.

Pop our experience has been because when we moved out of the location and into Second Tobeka, we had space like that, and it was very difficult behavioral issues in that one space.

We would again have to have staff, so it's it's it's just the realistic understanding that we need the additional funding in order to work in that space and do it safely and well and to the extent that we're doing it now, where we are, which with a building that has seven showers separately, our staff can monitor and do several different things at once.

Um you would have to have staff designated in certain areas in order to do that, but again, uh um we were hoping to be able to say yes, and it's not that no forever, right?

Are there ways in which that we can um look at the space that could be changed?

Are there ways in which financially it will be under girded to so that it wouldn't just support an the overnight shelter piece, but also the ongoing needs for services?

Yeah, well, he would like to have those discussions with you.

Oh, and I've told him I've been very open with him.

And he's open to the library space and be a part of it or other spaces, and he said specifically he would be willing to compromise, not just his way or the Iowa, he'd be ready to compromise with you and and work something out, and also on staffing, um, have conversations on how it would be staffed, who would staff it, and different things like that, and even the wages of staffing.

Oh, yes, you know, there's a disparity of there, there is a disparity of there.

We have folks who are making very low wages that dealing with a very difficult population, and we don't have enough staff as it is, and then to take how are we going to increase staffing going into second light?

No, and we don't have the funds to do it.

I think all those conversations need to be had.

Uh just it encouraged you to they have been had, and we are willing to continue to have.

I think the biggest part of this is how will this community undergird and sustain financially what you want it to happen.

Yeah, I understand there's some financial risk and stuff, and I understand running the business, you have to maybe know what those answers are.

Yes.

Um but I also know that some of those conversations have not happened recently.

Okay, well, that's your understanding.

I it was only within the last month that I quit going to these weekly or bi-weekly meetings.

So it was going back to a hundred plus service shelter and what they were doing, and that's not our expertise.

But I have continued to say, and I our board chair said to their board chair and uh in the meeting, we are willing to look at other ways, anyways that we can continue to partner together.

But in the end, we have to look at those that we are serving and the continuum of services in this community and make sure that those that are the um sickest and the most vulnerable have a space, even if they're not having the will or the skill at this point.

But second light is an important continuum in that, and I give thanks that the city council has supported second light wherever they have because we have more shelter space than we ever have.

It's just limited right now, and I know Second Light wants more than what they're able to do at this point.

So it's not that we're in contingent against each other, it's just how do we best serve the people that are on our streets, knowing what realistically what barriers we have in doing that.

Yeah, I I completely agree with everything you said.

Um I think it's really important that you're part of Second Light.

What you have, day services is really important for that population.

And like the mayor said, the other 16 hours of the day, second light can handle work with those people during that time too.

So I think it's really important that that you are a part of that.

I appreciate everything you do.

I would just strongly encourage to reach out again, go back to the meetings again, start having more conversations.

Please understand I have told Second Light, and I I'm saying it very publicly now, that we will be at the table whenever our resources and whenever our expertise can really benefit.

I just had to back away somewhat because I didn't think our expertise and resources could best suit them at this point.

But we have I I personally have been at meetings for hours and hours, even more than some of my staff would probably like because I wasn't at open door, right?

Because I believe in the community working together, I believe in the ways in which we try to strengthen one another.

I believe in all of that.

That's what I've done for the 25 years that I've been executive director.

I've been about trying to find innovative and creative ways, but we also have to be realistic about where we are and what we're able to do at this time.

Yeah, well, to make this work, I think you're important part of that, and we need to figure out a way to make it work.

Happy to have the conversations.

No, I appreciate that.

So thank you.

Any further questions for Deanne so she doesn't have to keep going back and forth.

I get my steps in, so it's just have a comment if council member Tovell's comment wasn't directed towards DNA.

It's not towards I want to say thank you for being here.

Um we've had a conversation.

I went over to open door and we had a very private conversation, but you know that I've shared with you that I was frustrated.

And I share that publicly just because I know that I shared it with my colleagues, and I think it's important to just be consistent and own what we believe in.

I don't want anyone to believe that I don't feel frustrated still, right?

But context matters, nuance matters, and it was a reminder for me, and I told this to you and and some of your staff.

It's a reminder for me to before jumping to conclusions and allowing my emotions to kind of overshadow what I don't know to take the time to reach out and engage.

I agree that second light needs open door, and we got to work together and collaborate.

I also believe in a healthy partnership, and I believe that all parties, if we're gonna solve this issue of homelessness, we all to include the city have to recognize that it's not about us, it's about who we can serve.

I think even here you've shared some real challenges.

I mean, we might be concerned about the unhoused neighbors outside of open door, but as you mentioned, the resources.

I worry about that for our Wichita Police Department.

You want them to move the unhoused neighbors, but where are we moving them to?

And so we have to be mindful and methodical about our approach, and we have to stop putting the car before the horse because when we choose to do that, we put a strain on the system, we put a strain on housing, we put a strain on WPD, we put a strain on our nonprofit agencies that we all need.

So thank you for being here.

Thank you for standing in the heat and me with me and Councilmember Balor when we walked over there and not walked, drove over there and engaged with you.

Um it's not easy doing what you do, but I just want you to know that I appreciate you.

I think we all appreciate you, even if we're asking tough questions today.

And that's okay.

Tough questions are important, but please know that I and we will look at anything that we need to look at.

Ultimately, it's about those that we serve.

And many again, many of those that we serve are the sickest.

And so I would love to be able to change some systems so that we had some resources for people to go into long-term care because they're never going to go into a shelter or into a space.

Um, so it's a both and it's not just about police, it's not just about EMS, it's not just about, it's about a larger system, and how can we best do that?

So we want to be a part of that.

We are, I think a very important part of that, but it's also important for us to be where we have can have access for folks because I believe each one of those individuals are some are the child of God, or somebody's mother and father or sister or aunt or uncle, and they shouldn't have to die on the streets just because we can't get them resources.

I literally stopped in the middle of the street, put my hazards on as a guy who's standing yelling about get this out of me, get this out of me.

So trying to protect him from getting run over, as we have.

So we have to unfortunately we just have to meet them where they are and start where we are and try to get those resources and change the systems so that we complete we have a complete system for everybody, just not those that are unfortunately just needing a little bit of additional help.

Some of them need a whole lot of help, and we'll work and do that.

Thank you for the commentary, uh, Deanne.

Any other council members that have specific questions or comments to Deanne.

Um, I just want to address one more thing.

Um we were not around in 2012 when you opened up at Second and Topeka, and I understand that we are now in these seats and we get a lot of feedback from residents regarding Second and Topeka.

I have toured open door, I have been with you and seeing the services you provide within the building.

I think what people see is what is outside of that building and the visible homelessness in our community, and we know that each individual is facing a different challenge, whether it's a simple hand up because they couldn't pay their rent, or as you've mentioned, our sickest uh individuals who don't want that help inside, they want to be outside and engage in that way.

Um, but we have to have a balance, and that's where we as a council came up with back in 2024 in December, an ordinance against illegal encampments, which had been around for more than a decade, and that's representative of the community that we want.

We don't believe that people should be living in tents in our community, and so the agreed the fines were reduced at that time, and it also said when there's shelter space available, we'll now fast forward to 2026, and we do have a shelter that is available.

Um this is a low-barrier shelter that's available for men and women in our community that want that help.

And what I'm asking is that collaboration of as council member Johnston just said, Second light needs open door.

We know the critical services you provide from 7:30 a.m.

to 4 p.m.

Monday through Friday, but we need those services also on Saturday and Sunday and beyond, and that's why the city has invested in one location at 9th and Main Street, and it is a collaborative effort, and I understand that back in 2012, it was supposed to be a collaborative effort that didn't get followed through.

And it is a collaborative effort.

And I understand that back in 2012, it was supposed to be a collaborative effort that didn't get followed through.

But we're in 2026 now, and everyone is wanting to be part of that solution at 9th and Main Street called Second Light.

And I really urge you and encourage you.

I understand that you've been at the table for more than three years with these conversations, but we need Second Light and Open Door to provide those services to individuals that are facing homelessness.

And when we have one location, 9th and Main Street, where we're providing a lot of those services, but the missing piece is those day services that you're an expert at.

You are an expert at day services.

How do you engage people during the daytime?

And so I encourage you to be back at the table and make sure that again, Second Light with Open Door are able to provide services at 9th and Main Street and really make it a true one-stop location to serve residents that are facing homelessness.

And again, I know that this council has a heart for lives from our young baby lives that we just passed an ordinance to our elderly individuals, which by the way, Second Light is seeing a lot more individuals who are older than age 55 at their doorsteps needing homeless services.

Absolutely.

And so again, my encouragement is to please work with Second Light at 9th and Main Street to provide those services in one location so we can tell people you can get those services over there, and everything's coordinated.

And this is not uh for open door, but it's really for the rest of the community that wants to help out.

We want help at Second Light at 9th and Main Street instead of providing the sandwiches at a random location.

Thanks to the Lord's Diner.

And so, how can we be more collaborative in one location?

Is what I'm asking for in my encouragement.

And I look forward to that, and Key will will be uh funding, funding, funding.

Thank you, Deanne.

Councilmember Tuttle, thank you.

Cindy, could I borrow you for a second up here, please?

I'm I'm gonna ask you a few questions and then I'm gonna editorialize because I am really, really, really uncomfortable with this conversation right now in this process.

Um, I have been a grant maker and a grant seeker for 30 years, and so what we have done in the last bid, while I appreciate this discussion, it should be happening at a workshop or a separate opportunity because we have given one of the 10 applicants preferential treatment by allowing them to have a QA response, in my opinion.

So I'm gonna ask you during this process, there were applications and each each any of the 10 parties or organizations completed an application process that each of the grant review committee members read, we're assuming.

Can you tell me what happened then after that?

You all convened together, presentations were question and answers asked.

Can you just tell us a little bit about the process?

Because today we are creating a new process, and like I said, it's making me very uncomfortable.

I'm hearing for some other folks that they also think that it's uncomfortable.

Can you just confirm to us that the grants review committee did their due diligence?

Please explain.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I certainly can.

And we had more than one, it's three meetings, right?

Four three or four.

I couldn't, there was one online, and I thought there was two or three additional ones.

So we we each received all the the applications, had plenty of time to review those applications.

Uh, and of course, I I think we're all looking at how many how many people that each of the organizations serves, what's their role in their community, what kind of impact are they have are they having, what kind of revenue do the organizations have, what kind of you know, what kind of grants are there they're asking for, and then we did have uh a session where we had each of the organizations come and provide presentations so we could hear a little bit more about what those organizations are doing.

Uh, that gives us some additional insight, and and I like you uh count councilwoman tuckle title.

I can't I'm uh you know, I've been sitting on grant review committees for quite some time, and I've been on both ends, and so it is challenging work.

So we listened to all the presentations, we had conversation about what we thought was most important to the community, again, looking at the different resources that the organizations had access to, looking at the years of funding that organizations had been had been funded.

Uh I think we had pretty good conversation about you know how we could best spend the funds that we had available.

There was certainly conversations about you know the youth issues that we're hearing about in the community and how do we best address that.

And then we came to consensus on how we were gonna fund these organizations.

I know there was some frustration expressed by by a few of us, the fact that we're limited with we have to give an organization a minimum of 50,000.

So we can't break it down and say, okay, we're gonna give the why 25,000, and we're gonna give Prime Fit 25,000.

Um I'm also exploring, like, you know, Prime Fit, they were just funded a couple of years ago.

That's the first time they've ever been funded to address youth, which taught children's home.

They're they're new to this list.

Big brothers and big sisters, I think it's only been in the last six or seven years.

And every time we fund somebody new, not on this grant, on any grant.

Unfortunately, funds have to be reallocated from other some other organization that was funded.

So I felt like it was a pretty fair process.

We had a lot of great conversation on what we should do, and try again trying to make the best decisions we could with the funding that we have, just like all of us do with our personal budgets or our business budgets or whatever every single day.

So thank you.

And and I'll have more comments later, but I just wanted to highlight something that you said.

Every one of these 10 applicants is completely worthy to get full funding.

It isn't that.

It's that just like with everything, we have to allocate funds based on the best information that we have at the time.

The other thing, and and I talked to Sally about this several different times.

I've talked to Andrew, we had some chats, that the grant review committee is tasked with saying this is the application, this is their presentation, that's what you should be looking at.

And that's a that's a very uh model process.

You shouldn't be thinking and it's hard, but you shouldn't be thinking about the good work that they do or the gala that you went to, or the you know, this or that or whatever.

You have to be with the per the information that's presented to you, and and that is really challenging to try and keep that objectivity.

But I talked to my grants review person today, and she also concluded that she felt like the process was followed and the recommendations from the grant review committee were solid.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Ballard.

Thank you, Mayor.

Andrew, I have a quick question for you.

And I am sorry if this has already been covered.

Is 50,000 the minimum?

Okay.

Yep.

So is that just the way that the grant is written?

Or could we give 20 different organizations a lesser amount?

So so we we pivoted to $50,000 as a minimum a couple years ago, um, just because we I I think it was in our ESG funding specifically, we would have some organizations that were getting like $8,000 or $9,000, and it was just administrative burdensome for for both to have us this small amount of of money going towards um our receiving these funds and that small amount of money.

So, in order to kind of try to ease that administrative burden, we went to the minimum of $50,000 just to um have that there as far as you know, because it is it does take a lot um to administer these programs and receive this funding, and so um kind of raising that minimum was something that we discussed internally of doing.

So last question, this is a little redundant.

I mean, nobody asked for less than 50,000.

No agency asked for less than 50,000.

Great, thank you.

Councilmember Shepherd.

Thank you, Mayor, and I really appreciate just the um conversation that's happened um with the previous speaker and a council member uh particular because I think it highlights a major issue that I coming from a nonprofit world, I feel like we are always running up against of fighting for crumbs, is what my nonprofit friends would say.

And um I too have already received emails and conversations about um, you know, some of my colleagues share with me their thoughts of it's hard to pick winners and losers when so many of these agencies are doing critical work, and I agree with that sentiment.

I think it's also hard to to say that when we have decided to invest in a nonprofit agency astronomically, and uh that that I do know is not sending a good message to our nonprofit community, and it's something we need to be honest about.

It doesn't mean we stop funding, it doesn't mean we stop supporting.

It means that we have to look at the precedent that has been set and how do we create an equal and equitable playing field, and we have to, in my opinion, not always rely on the federal funding from housing to to do that.

And so I also feel for housing uh because you all are just receiving the allocation from the federal government and dispersing it to these agencies who are doing hard work.

It is up to us as a council and working with our city manager to figure out how do we provide a level of support for these agencies that are helping fill the gap that we are unable to due to capacity, whatever the case may be.

That being said, um, I did have the opportunity to meet with Sally, as I and many other council members do one-on-one every month.

I was very transparent and saying I had some concerns.

Yesterday I took the time to go physically meet and sit down with um district one's appointment to the board.

That feedback was was shared with me as well as I had the opportunity to review the applications.

I asked for the applications, all of us had the opportunity to ask for the applications.

I reviewed the applications, and so I say that to say I will be making recommendations to amend this, but it is not to disparage the quality or the value of any of these organizations.

I have supported every single one of these organizations, both in my personal time and in a professional manner.

I think I have to look at data.

I have to look at um the application and taking into consideration the recommendations of the committee.

Folks have warned me that opening up this door would maybe create an opportunity for other people to lobby me.

Great.

That's what I signed up for.

I'm in government.

Folks should come and lobby local government and every level of government for what they feel they need in order to have a thriving city that meets their needs.

So I know we're just in discussion now, but I just wanted to share that.

Thank you.

Uh, a couple more questions.

I did ask you about outcomes, and um, I appreciate you giving me outputs.

Outcomes is what I'm really most interested in.

What are we truly solving when it comes to um these various community services?

And it started with the conversation about YMCA, and it really is about youth opportunities and youth programs and youth crime prevention, and then we talk about our homelessness in our community and outcomes there is we want to see functional zero homelessness in Wichita.

And so I'm looking at this in the outcomes uh perspective.

So I'm gonna start off with I did review the applications.

Thank you, Councilmember Shepard, for forwarding the forwarding on those applications.

UMOD, United Methodist Open Door, um, over the past five months, housed 23 people.

My question, maybe it's not to you, but to housing is outcomes.

Uh, can you please provide over the past five months uh how many folks have been housed from second light?

And I know that housing has been present at second light.

Um, and again, I also see that housing is listed as one of the uh providers at open door.

Uh there were 10 providers listed at the homeless resource center, Hunter Health, Grace Med, Sedgwick County ComCare, uh, Substance Abuse Center of Kansas, ICT Street, Department of Children and Families, City of Wichita Housing, United Way of the Plains uh Veterans Administration Hospital Days and Bike Walk Wichita.

So can you please share the outcomes at Second Light?

I will have to provide you follow-up information since the last number I had is about a month old and it was at 43.

So that would have been towards the end of the first quarter was about 43, and that was a combination of all the community partners from about January, uh December 31st.

But I'll provide you updated information.

Thank you, Steve.

And I appreciate that.

And maybe this is another follow-up question regarding outcomes.

Again, um there are only so many dollars, and proving that we're trying to solve the issue is what we want to see.

Uh whatever the challenge is, homelessness, youth crime prevention, really youth opportunities is what I consider what um some of these services provide.

Can you again share um how you look at outcomes versus outputs within housing?

Certainly the greatest outcome would be a reduction in our point in time count of known homeless individuals across our community, right?

So you have to track the differentiation of inflow, then outflow to see a net reduction over the course of the year.

And with the programs that the housing department is implementing currently, including the encampment and direct the housing processes, we are shooting for a net reduction in our point in time count for the January 27 point in time count.

So we're looking to reduce overall homelessness in our community.

Yes, we can count output as housed individuals, but there's also other metrics including keeping them housed, right?

And finding some way to manage inflow in some way.

So we're working with a criminal justice system to somehow divert inflow.

Our homelessness prevention program is entirely intended to divert inflow.

So at the end of the day, we're looking for a net reduction in homelessness in our community over the course of the year as counted by our annual point in time count.

Thank you.

And maybe this is a follow-up question, maybe Captain Moses.

Um this is a question regarding outcomes when it comes to youth crime in our community.

That has been a topic that has been of great interest to this council.

Um and so I wanted to just hear what overall you're seeing when it comes to youth crimes in our community.

Uh I don't have data in front of me right now as far as youth involved crime.

Um across the city.

I do have the most recent data we had uh through the end of April for citywide crime showed reductions in every single category category of violent and property uh part one crime, uh, other than homicide for this year compared to last year, we have seen an increase in 2026 compared to this time in 2025.

Uh, but compared to the five-year average, we are below in homicide, uh, and then every other category has seen decreases.

Thank you for that.

And sorry to put you on the spot.

Um, I know that youth services is something that the police department has a specific juvenile intervention unit, and even that group right there collaborates with multiple partners, and one of those partners is the YMCA.

And so I guess my question again goes back to there has been a proven model that has worked, one that is helping our young people connect to positive uh engagement after school hours.

Can you just address, I guess, um these youth opportunities like YMCA?

How are they critical for youth crime prevention?

Uh we welcome any engagement with youth across our community, regardless of what entity or body is doing that engagement.

Um I say all the time the police department's only real mechanism that we're powered with to intervene is arrest, and it should not be the default mechanism.

Um, we certainly encourage anybody to engage with youth across our community, regardless of what entity or uh personal group, religious group that they represent.

Thank you, Captain Moses.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um Steve?

Just real quick, I have a question or two for you.

Um, do you have any idea what the budget is that second light used to house the 43 individuals in the first quarter?

Well, their current operating budgets related to the services they need to keep the building open.

And a lot of the mechanisms used to house those people were a combination of the senior housing complexes that are operated by Metonite, the RAD complexes like Greenway Manor, McLean Manor.

We used some tenant-based rental assistance.