The Wichita City Council met in regular session on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, at 9:00 AM. The meeting included public testimony on four topics, unanimous approval of a 15-item consent agenda, re-approval of travel expenses for the National Civic League's All-America City Conference due to date corrections, and an appointment to the Affordable Housing Review Board. The meeting adjourned at 9:31 AM.
Thank you for joining us for this week's city council meeting and workshop on May 26th. I call this meeting to order. Can we please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Madam Clerk, please call the first item. Public agenda. And I apologize, I don't have my public agenda that I read usually, but we allow five minutes for public agenda, and you're not allowed to address the council at the time. Anything that you say, you must um you're not allowed to ask questions, but you can leave questions for the city manager if you have questions, and you have five minutes. And our first speaker is Brian Clark with the Wichita Public Library. Good morning, Brian. How are you? Hello. My name's Brian Clark. I'm here this morning. I'm not with the public library, but I'm here to talk about the Wichita Public Library, what it means to me and the community both. I retired after working at the Wichita Eagle for 25 years in the marketing department. There I learned the importance of access to all information. I learned the importance of the role that literacy plays in our community, and the need to have trusted sources of information and truth. And a changing environment because newspaper business changed a lot while I was there. So today I want to share some thoughts about the library and what it means to me. First, I would some things I won't be talking about. I'm not going to talk about how libraries make economic sense. So that's a good thing. There's a lot of ways that they make the community healthier. But there are more actually more public libraries in the U.S. than there are Starbucks. So finally, uh, I'm not going to talk about how libraries provide skilled assistance to people that need to navigate vast amounts of information. Our librarians are information experts, and they do a great job. But I want to talk today about more granular thoughts about the library. It's been instrumental instrumental to me. The library system in general, the advanced learning library in particular. It's helped me uh in traditional and non-traditional ways, continue uh to be a learner in three different ways. One's just reading. I've always been a reader, but I read more now that I'm retired than I ever have before. Last year uh in 2025, I checked out and read 42 books at the library. Uh and I often grab a book off the shelf and go out on the second floor and enjoy the sun shine when the weather's nice. I'm also a big movie fan, so I've used the library to watch movies. I've checked out classics and looked at uh independent films. Uh checked out more than a hundred DVDs last year. I hope I've gone to a lot of the documentaries and that kind of thing. I hope the library continues to support Tallgrass Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Oscar Schwartz, etc. Finally, I've I've just learned about uh things I didn't know anything about. I've taken lots of classes, I've done 3D printing, I've done sewing machine basics, strengthened computer skills. I've learned about Canva and Cricket and Audacity and TinkerCAD. I've gone to Witch Dodd Genealogical Society events, I've done Tuesday topics, senior Wednesdays, author events, book club activities, learning circles, book swaps, community writing workshops, art for self-care, all of those free. I got my eye on dinosaur trivia night on July 16th. Please share my enthusiasm for the library and do what you can to support the important work done there. And from a personal standpoint, they keep Brian Clark entertained, learning, growing, and having fun. Thanks again for the opportunity to present to you today.