Proceed to the podium, state your name and address, and you will be given five minutes to speak.

A timer can be viewed on the podium screen.

You may speak one time per agenda item.

Please refrain from clapping after other speakers.

Thank you again for joining us today.

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

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

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

We are grateful for the freedom we enjoy for the diversity of our community and for those who have accepted the responsibility of public service.

Give them a b the ability to listen carefully, to speak respectfully, and work together despite differences.

Strengthen our community with mutual respect, compassion, and a shared commitment to the welfare of one another.

May all this be done here, may all that is done this here this morning be guided by integrity, wisdom, and a sincere desire to serve.

In your precious and holy name we pray.

Amen.

Madam Clerk, please call the first item.

Approved the minutes of the regular meeting, June 2nd, 2026.

Council members.

Council members, are there any items to be pulled or edited?

I see none.

With that, I move to approve the minutes.

Second.

Motion, second discussion.

See none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 6-0.

I will point out that um Councilmember Ballard is currently biking across Kansas, so she will not be able to join us.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Awards and proclamations.

Today's proclamation is Special Olympics Airlift Month.

May I please ask Textron Aviation to come forward.

If you didn't know, Wichita was the leader in the law enforcement torch run, which celebrated 45 years this year.

It all started right outside of City Hall at the law enforcement memorial, thanks to the chief uh Crenshaw back then.

And we really appreciate uh his leadership as well as all those who helped out this past weekend.

With that, this proclamation reads the City of Wichita, Kansas, founded in 1870, whereas the Special Olympics Airlift is a unique aviation initiative that brings together aircraft owners, operators, and volunteer pilots flying Cessna, beachcraft, and hawker aircraft to provide efficient and reliable transportation for Special Olympics athletes and coaches to the Special Olympics USA Games every four years.

Whereas founded by Cessna in 1987 and later strengthened through the combined heritage of the beechcraft and hawker brands, the Special Olympics Airlift has enabled thousands of athletes to travel to the Games by removing transportation barriers and ensuring athletes can fully participate in this life-changing event.

Whereas the 2026 Special Olympics Airlift marks the ninth coordinated airlift mission and will support athletes traveling to the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games in Minnesota's Twin Cities.

Whereas the success of the Special Olympics airlift reflects the generosity, dedication, and shared values of aircraft owners, operators, flight crews, volunteers, and supporters who donate their time, aircraft, and resources in service of Special Olympics athletes.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Wichita City Council does hereby proclaim June 2026 as Special Olympics Airlift Month.

Hello, I'm John Lair, the CEO and President of Special Olympics Kansas.

I'm honored to be here today to speak on behalf of our organization.

I'm joined today by three Special Olympics athletes.

Hope Baker, Wyatt Higgins, and Gary Correll.

And also their coach Brian Walters.

They will be representing our team Kansas on the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games journey.

Hope will be competing in powerlifting.

And Wyatt and Gary are on the flag football team.

All our Kansas athletes have been training hard, preparing for the competition at the USA Games.

Sixty-two athletes along with coaches, unified partners, and Special Olympics staff will head to Minnesota this month to represent our state.

For many of our athletes, this journey marks a series of firsts.

It's their first time traveling on this scale, their first time representing their state, and their first time seeing just how big the Special Olympics movement really is.

They can meet athletes from different states, make new friends and memories, and build unbreakable bonds with their team.

For many, it's a dream come true.

A meaningful part of the journey begins with the Special Olympics airlift, led by Cessna and Beechcraft and organized by TexDron Aviation employees by bringing together Cessna, Beechcraft, and Hawker owners and operators who generously donate their aircraft, fuel, and time.

The airlift helps remove barriers to travel and ensures athletes can arrive ready to compete.

More than transportation, the airlift is a moment where athletes are celebrated.

It sets the tone for the experience ahead, reinforcing that they belong on this stage and that they are part of their communities and their communities are behind them.

Mayor and the City Council members, we hope that you have some time to join us on our departure date of June 19th.

And for others in attendance today, please consider following Text Drawn Aviation's social channels to experience these incredible athletes' journeys to the Games.

To everyone who makes this possible, thank you for your continued support and generosity.

You're helping create an experience our athletes will carry with them for a lifetime.

From everybody at Special Olympics Kansas, we truly thank you and everybody that's here today.

I want to make a quick correction.

I said the wrong name, so I want to again recognize Chief Lamunyan, who started the law enforcement torch run back in 1981, where the Torch Run started right here at City Hall and went to South High School.

This past Friday, we did the law enforcement torch run again, and this time it was from City Hall to Mays South High School.

So again, thank you to all of our law enforcement volunteers and all of our Special Olympics volunteers and athletes.

May I please ask Betty Schrader with Mini MPA certificates to come forward at this time and all of the recipients of the mini MPA.

Today we're pleased to recognize graduates of the Wichita State University Mini Master of Public Administration or Mini MPA program.

This program provides city employees with valuable opportunities to strengthen their leadership, public service, and management skills while deepening their understanding of local government.

We're grateful for our partnership with Wichita State University and for the commitment these employees have made to their professional development and to serving the residents of Wichita.

At this time, we would like to invite Dr.

Mercy O'Mary from Wichita State University to share a few remarks about the mini MPA program and this year's graduating class.

Thank you, Mayor Wu.

Before I say anything, I would um like my boss, Dr.

Newbold, to make some remarks.

Thank you, Mayor Wu.

Thank you to the Wichita City Council.

Thank you, City Manager Marstall, who came to our capstone presentation and offered some really valuable insight into the research that our students presented.

We are delighted here.

We are delighted to be here, and we are really appreciative of our partnership with the City of Wichita.

Thank you.

Yes, you can clap.

Beyond all the things that they learn about h budgeting, how to become, you know, better at delivering services, they also have the opportunity to create lifetime relationships with other city and counties around Kansas.

So it's been a mutually beneficial experience for everyone.

And it's interesting that I have one of my former classmates as a council member here, Joseph Shepherd.

So really glad to have you to be here.

So mayor woo.

Okay, sure.

Alejandra Cosill.

Ben Zamzo.

Becca Johnson.

Chris Dodson.

Travis Easter.

Glenda Soblet.

Ryan Godbury.

Kyle Tate.

Barbara Rodriguez.

Mumita Kundu.

And please would like to take pictures with the council members, please, if you don't mind.

Again, congratulations to the many MPA recipients this year.

They put in a lot of hard work, so want to congratulate each of the ten individuals who earned that certificate.

At this time, we would like to invite Wichita Fire Chief Tammy Snow and all of our citizens' fire academy participants to come forward at this time.

Good morning again.

I want to start by recognizing each of the participants for your commitment and enthusiasm throughout this year's Citizens Fire Academy.

This program was created to help our community better understand fire and emergency medical operations and to build stronger connections with firefighters who serve us every day.

Um, because like I said, um they'll go out and um actually spread the word within the community and uh within their um uh family members and so forth and help us become a safer community, hopefully.

Um, with that, um, I would also like to invite to the stand one of our new ambassadors, which is also one of Wichita's finest, a witch tell police officer to come up and say a few words.

Um, Officer Rick Panilla.

Good morning, everyone.

Maybe wondering why I'm at Witch Shaw police officers standing here speaking at a fire department graduation ceremony.

Let me share a little insight into how that became about.

As much as we like to give each other a hard time, police officers and firefighters are truly brothers and sisters in public service.

We work side by side on accident scenes, shootings, emergencies, and countless other calls were teamwork and essential accomplishing the mission and providing the highest level of service to our community.

I have personally experienced the fear and uncertainty that comes when fire threatens something you care about deeply.

There was a time when I feared my home and livestock were in danger.

In that moment, I realized I was completely out of my element.

This was not my profession, and there was nothing I could do except trust those firefighters who responded.

They quickly took control of the situation, reassured me that everything would be fine, and prove through their actions that they had done and had everything under control.

That experience gave me an even greater respect for my brother and sisters into fire service.

That respect eventually turned into a friendship in my current position.

Every Thursday morning, I see Lieutenant Morgan and Lieutenant Johnson during the mayor's meeting.

One day I heard about the Citizens Fire Academy, and I mentioned to my wife that I wanted to apply so I could learn more about what firefighters do and challenges they face and tools and equipment they use.

When I told Kathy and Lieutenant Morgan that I had applied for the Citizens Fire Academy, they laughed and giggled because they thought I was joking.

Nine weeks ago, we began this journey together.

Many of us started as strangers.

Some were looking for an opportunity to get their foot in the door, while others simply wanted to learn more about the fire department and the important work that its members perform each day.

Of course, throughout the process, there was plenty of good natured teasing about the police officer in the class who wanted to be a firefighter.

But along the way, something special happened.

We became friends, we encouraged one another, supported one another, and push each other to try things that we would never have attempted on our own.

To our primary instructors, Lieutenant Morgan, Lieutenant Johnson, and Kathy, thank you for your leadership, patience, and dedication throughout this experience.

To Chief Snow, as we are your final Citizens Fire Academy class, we are honored to be a part of your legacy.

Thank you for your years of service, leadership, and commitment to this department and community.

We wish you all the best in your well-earned retirement.

To Battalion Chiefs Jose Acaitis and to all the firefighters and department personnel who took time away from their responsibilities to teach us to demonstrate their skills, answer our questions, and to share their profession their passion for their profession.

Thank you.

Your dedication serving others is evident in everything you do.

And finally, to my fellow graduates, graduates, congratulations.

Over the past nine weeks, we have gained a greater appreciation for the men and women who serve in the fire service.

More importantly, we have gained friendships, experiences, and memories that will stay with us long after today.

Thank you for allowing us this opportunity.

We leave here with a deeper understanding of your profession and a greater appreciation for your sacrifice and tremendous respect for the work you do every day.

Congratulations to the Citizens Fire Academy of 2025.

Any other younger actually, right?

Actually, everybody take two big steps forward.

Sorry.

Thank you, guys.

Yeah, you guys gotta find a window or another window.

All right, you guys ready?

Three and two, one.

Stay there.

Who will be reading a certificate?

Um certificates.

Okay, very good.

Again, congratulations to the Citizens Fire Academy for completing this program.

Madam Clerk, please call the next award.

Over the years, Cosine Memorial Group.

Right around Christmas time in uh twenty twenty when my husband had his heart attack.

I made a phone call to Carolyn just saying I didn't think I was gonna make this phone call, and she was um just beyond um just so endearing and just made me feel so comfortable and um how they loved me really through that whole process was amazing.

He passed away on December twenty-third.

Our families lived here for over a hundred years.

This is what the mortuary would have looked like when I was born.

South Broadway has had a terrible knock through the years.

We were here before South Broadway had the reputation, and then through that time, it would have been easy to just pull the plug and leave.

But we're actually gonna, you know, stay.

We're committed to South Wichita with this location, we're committed to the city with this location.

And I believe that you know, we can play a part in that role by helping to improve South Broadway.

Um we doing this for Ashley went to England to get his uh master's degree.

And while he was there, their building burned.

On Broadway.

And their perseverance.

And the record they've established in terms of citizenship and neighborliness.

But they represent the very best that Witch Tower has to offer.

My grandfather bought the business with Dick Morris's partner in 1952, and then my dad came into the business in 1964.

Family's super important.

We get to serve families that we've known generationally.

Yeah, dad was a great mentor and role model for me.

And um, he loved this city so much.

The really cool thing was I got to build the Life Event Center, you know, and he got to see that.

And I think uh it was special to him because he knew that was three generations of family blood, sweat, and tears.

I think people needed a place that they felt comfortable and they felt like they could just be themselves and that it wasn't too formal or too oh I can't sit here or I shouldn't wrinkle anything.

That we wanted it to feel like a home away from home.

Natural and welcoming.

Take a deep breath, sit down, relax for all the seasons of life.

Celebrating a graduation, a retirement party, a reunion, and they're not in a hurry, they don't have to leave.

They can just sit down and relax.

And it's like being in a home.

I wanted to know we're here because sometimes people find out about it.

I didn't know you were here, and this is such a perfect place to be together and gather, and you know, I want them to know we're we're here for them.

It just felt like there was a real opportunity that we come back here and join the family business.

As funeral service evolves and as the wants and needs of families change.

I hope our business can always be forward thinking.

This space is pretty particular, was sort of that leap, and we're hoping to keep building on that.

Wichita is definitely home, and it has a special place in my heart.

Thanks.

You can clap.

Again, thank you, City Manager, for helping us highlight the Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce recipients of these annual awards.

And uh, we have one last video next week.

And so again, we want to say thank you to all these small businesses and large businesses that make Wichita truly the best place to live, work, and raise a family.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I just want to give out a shout out to Ashley and the Cousine family.

Um, again, longtime stalwarts of uh South Broadway.

They are actually helping with investment along South Broadway as well.

So they're not just talk, they're working with the neighboring movement and some other people that are uh doing some good work around there.

So um I just wanted to uh just relay my appreciation for that family and everything they've done for my district.

Thank you.

Councilmember John Ston.

Thank you, Mayor.

I want to recognize uh Russ Meyer Jr., who we lost earlier this year.

Uh he's the one who started Special Olympics Airlift, and he was a wonderful, wonderful man.

Uh he didn't have to, but he cared about the poor, and he cared about underserved communities, and I think that's why he started the airlift with an underserved community.

So just recognize him.

It's a great loss.

I I said it before, and I don't think anybody in the history of Wichita has given as much to our community in both business and philanthropy as he did.

Thank you, council members.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Public agenda.

We now come to public agenda.

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

Please bear in mind that this is not a period of dialogue with council or question and answer period.

This is your opportunity to address the 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 speaker's remaining time to speak.

Order and rules of decorum will be observed.

The first speaker is Victor Harding, Teen Library Resources.

I am a student at Northeast Magnet High School and a member of the Achievers 4 H Club.

And I have come to talk about how the library has helped me win the 4-H State Reading Award.

The libraries in our city provide so much for Wichita's youth.

They are a great place to build community, to get resources you may otherwise not have, and a quiet place to be when you just need a quiet place.

One of the things.

One of the things at the library that has helped me immensely was the library's book bus.

At multiple different events, I was given the opportunity to dress up as Webster at the library owl.

Now don't tell anyone, kids need to keep it a secret.

As Webster, I can see how much the library helps people.

So many children just love seeing the owl.

There was once this little girl who she couldn't have been older than two was just shouting, owl.

And ran up and gave me so many hugs and so many high-fives.

And also help plan other events outside of the library.

Overall, I think the library is a great thing for our city and deserves all the funding you can give it.

Now, come see me at the library between two and four p.m.

on Mondays and Fridays, because I'll be volunteering there all summer.

Thank you.

Thank you, Victor, and thank you for volunteering.

Madam Clerk, please call the next individual.

Mason Grimmitt, Flock Safety Cameras.

Good morning.

I'm Mason Grimmt, representing the Sunflower Privacy Alliance to oppose WPD's use of Flock license plate cameras.

First request.

We are requesting user access logs, search logs, audit reports from the Flock Insights and Analytics Mules.

Records of permission and account changes and records of any cross-agency access to Wichita Police Department managed flock devices from January 1st, 2024 to today.

We are requesting this information to be provided to verify to the public that these flock safety access controls and audit functions are being used correctly and legally to determine whether or not outside agencies are accessing WPD's camera network and under what authority.

We are seeking administrative records only.

No investigative reports or license plate images are sought.

This should not be a problem for the city, considering to provide this information, considering that the city affirmed on public record that it owns this data, and the WPD has publicly stated that all Flock OS searches require a documented law enforcement purpose.

However, that statement does not align with the incident in 2022 where Keychai Lieutenant Victor Ayer used the WPD flocked safety network to stalk his estranged wife.

What was the documented law enforcement purpose that granted him access to this database and how will it be enforced in the future to prevent something like this happening again?

That is what we were searching.

And we are still waiting on that request.

Uh I'm bringing in another argument from uh the Supreme Court ruling at United States versus Jones in 2012.

Uh the mosaic theory.

Uh several justices were concerned about not just a single observation, but about long-term tracking of a person's movements.

The court held that using a GPS tracker without a warrant violated the Fourth Amendment, emphasizing that prolonged monitoring reveals intimate private details about a citizen's life.

Hundreds, even thousands of cameras creating a historical record of every trip is different.

The Wichita Police Department and others can reconstruct where you sleep, work, worship, seek medical treatment, protest, who you associate with, currently all without a warrant.

Another example I would like to bring up is United States versus Carpenter in 2018.

A major theme in Carpenter was that modern tech allows government to collect information on everyone, not just people suspected of a crime.

Flock cameras record, store, and analyze innocent people, suspects, and anyone and everyone in between, all using AI.

My constitutional argument is that the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent generalized searches and broad and drag net surveillance.

One reason the Fourth Amendment exists at all was to oppose British general warrants and writs of assistance.

This allowed the government agents to search broadly without reasonable or articulate suspicion directed at somebody.

One of the abuses that helped fuel the American Revolution, these flock cameras, in my opinion, create a digital equivalent.

This can become a slippery slope where instead of we suspect you of committing a crime, so let's get a search warrant and continue our due process.

It becomes we have records on everyone, let's search the database, see what we can find, and see who we can arrest.

All without a warrant.

Suppose the city can determine that a vehicle regularly visits a political rally, a labor union office, a church, or a journalist's home.

Using AI, it can store that data.

An example, NAACP versus Alabama, protected member information because disclosure could chill a constitutionally protected activity, your freedom to assemble.

I conclude my time by saying that this technology can transform otherwise normal observations into something constitutionally significant when collected at a massive scale.

I urge everyone in this room to independently research this flock safety company and their morals, how they operate, who's invested, and why, and to think about what these systems could do to our city, our country, and our future.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mason.

I just want to point out that you can go to Witchtop Police.com and there's a transparency tab, and it will go to the flock transparency portal.

Oh, can I okay?

Madam Clerk, please call the next individual.

Sibyl Strum, destroying home without permission.

My name is Sybil Strome.

I recite at 326 Northwalnut.

I am very angry that my house was destroyed.

I did not get anything.

I did not get a letter.

Nobody called me.

They knew my number, they had no right to destroy my house.

I have been there for the community.

I have helped runaways, I've helped kids that were in drug-infested places, an alcoholic.

They did not have the right.

The central did not have the right to come in my yard without my permission.

I was at 2909 North Richmond.

I told Maggie Ballard what my phone number was, but she never called me.

And the central didn't do their job neither.

And the central was run by Mark Stanberry and Mike Henson.

I I am very angry.

I ended up being homeless.

Uh I was devastated.

I told Glasgow about it.

I said, I was very worried.

I went down my old neighborhood, and my house is destroyed.

They had no right to destroy their house.

But you know what?

I didn't even know.

I was clueless.

When we got down to the neighborhood, my daughter, who was born in a house, went on one knee and said, Why?

Why did they tear our house down?

Because my house was a safe haven for teenagers to live like they should.

I tried to tell the people, habitat humanity didn't want to help me.

And they had, like I said, they had no right.

Because when Robert Leighton was city manager, he let that go.

He did not call me.

I had to go to Dave Unrue of the SET Accounting Commission.

I said, somebody is in my yard because my neighbor told me.

And I've been there for I want restitution.

I was trying building my house.

My house, it was not that bad, like they're saying.

Like I said, I had my kids, other people's kids, and if it was so bad, why did the parents give me their kids?

I don't like that.

I do not think there's justice in the world.

Because Maggie Ballard, the city council member, should have called me, but she didn't.

Are you you want to know how it is to be homeless?

Ask me.

I sat there over and over again trying to get things done.

I'm so I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, I'm just very upset.

And I've got a couple of minutes.

Please don't let this happen to anybody else.

Don't you have the protocol is you call the homeowner.

Evergy trash my yard.

My neighbors trashed my yard because of this.

This was bad.

I know my daughter says just let it go, but I can't.

I can't let it go.

I'm sorry, I'm gonna cry.

It was bad.

And the house they gave me, they said it was historical landmark, but then they said they made me pay a mortgage.

$20,000.

I can't do this anymore.

I don't want to be treated like dirt.

I want to be treated like a person.

Thank you.

Goodbye.

Thank you, Sybil.

Uh, Councilmember Ballard has been responding to you and will continue to do so.

Thank you, Sybil.

Madam Clerk, please call the next individual.

Martin Mork, property violations for 716 North Elder.

Martin.

I see that he's not here.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the next individual?

Uh Madam Mayor, the last individual withdrew this morning due to illness.

Thank you.

Uh, we have two opportunities if anyone would like to address the council.

If not, Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Consent agenda items one through 22.

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

I see none.

With that, I will move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

Motion, second discussion.

See none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 6-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Board of Bids and Contracts, dated June 8th, 2026.

Morning.

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

A board of bids and contracts convened yesterday, June 8th, 2026, for the following items.

For engineering, we have the sanitary sewer improvements, Lift Station 10 for Wildcat Construction Company Incorporated, and the amount of 551,835.

This is subject to your new engineer's estimate and budget authorization.

We have the Ike Street to serve Abilene Place Edition for Pearson Construction LLC in the amount of 275,972.98 cents.

For purchasing, we have the Rock Salt for Snow and Ice Control awarding two firms in the amounts of 465,000 and 527,400 estimated annually.

We have Citrix Universal Hybrid Multi-Cloud Renewal for CDW government LLC in the amount of $54,852.50.

We have the multimodal transit facility, the hub furniture for John A.

Marshall Company in the amount of $76,381.44 cents.

We have the online legal research subscription service for Lexus Nexus, a division of Relics Incorporated for three-year aggregate total of $58,944.

We have the scrap metal change order contract for all metal recycling LLC requesting your authorization to extend the contract seven months ending September 30th.

We have the two-inch custom setters change order contract for Wichita Wind Waterworks Company for an amended amount of 106,377.

Annually we have the water work supplies, groups two, three, four, five, and six change order for core and main LP for an estimated annual usage of 795, 832.62 cents.

We have the 20-inch monitor covers, group two and 21 and 30-inch meter boxes, group three change order for Mountainland Supply Company LLC for an amended amount of 150,540.

And we have the tree trimming, pruning, and removal services contract change order for Shawnee Mission Tree Service Incorporated doing business as Arbor Masters Tree.

Requesting your authorization to extend the contract 60 days.

For airport, we have the Colonel James Jabbar Airport Taxi Lane A2 relocation for Wildcat Construction Company Incorporated for $1,784,525.31 cents.

This was subject to your approval of the new engineers estimate and budget authorization.

This is how to become a vendor with the city.

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

And these are open public opportunities out on the street today, closing June 26th.

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

Thank you, Josh.

Questions for staff?

See none.

With that, I will move to approve the Board of Bids and Contracts Dated June 8, 2026.

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 from Air Capital Flight Line LLC for approval of a letter of intent to issue industrial revenue bonds.

So getting into the presentation.

This building will be at least to this building will be leased to NIAR.

And they're asking for just about five, you know, uh million dollars in bonds, and the sales tax exemption is on your screen there below.

The project uh, you know, qualifies for a five plus five.

Uh, you know, uh uh, you know, uh 100% property tax abatement based upon uh policy guidelines.

Uh you know, uh NIAR predicts that they will create at least 30 uh you know uh net new jobs uh you know with uh the average salary of at least 70k of the uh you know and the property tax abatement for the first full year is on your screen there below.

As you may see that there is no city on this, that is because uh the project is outside of the city boundaries.

Uh CBA was done uh by our friends at CEDBR uh with the uh uh you know with the 10-year and the 20-year period above the uh uh you know above our policy of the one to one.

This is our standard uh disclaimer that we have on all you know for uh uh you know for uh you know for our all of our presentations, no taxpayer dollars are at risk.

And it is with that that I uh ask the the city council close a public hearing.

Uh uh uh uh you know close the public hearing.

Uh uh, you know, like adopt the uh documents uh uh uh you know and uh authorize the necessary uh signatures.

I have uh Charlie Stevens here today to uh help answer any project uh different uh questions and I sank for any questions.

Thank you, Corey.

Questions for staff beginning with council member Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you, Corey.

I appreciate the presentation and all your work here.

Um couple of quick questions, and this also pertains to the next item as well.

Um we we don't have a I guess a dog in this fight as far as the property tax goes.

What are what is the process for, for example, the county?

I know they're going to be hearing the Boeing tomorrow, I believe.

Um what is the process for IRB approval with the county?

They they have the ability to protest these as well.

Is that correct?

Uh yes, so I may defer that to uh Sarah Steele or Mark Manning, um, but I know that for uh projects that are uh outside of our city boundaries, the county has at least uh seven days to uh uh uh uh uh yeah to uh to like approve it.

And then after those seven days, if it doesn't uh uh uh you know, if no you know, like uh action is taken, then it just uh is approved.

So uh I believe Mark can explain that just a little bit better than I could.

I think actually I think Corey explained it perfectly.

I will point out also that we do two other things for transparency.

We also provide public notice uh both in the newspaper and on our website.

In addition, we also provide notification to the school district that is affected, which in this case is USD 260, which is a Derby School District.

Now, do the school district uh have any sort of recourse or ability to protest?

Based on state statute, they do not.

Is that something that we could include in future IRBs?

I know we're talking about reorganizing our Eco Devo department a little bit here, and I think after we're done with that, it would be appropriate to look at some of our um some of the the things that we look at, some of the exemptions and economic tools that we have as far as retooling them to kind of make them make a little more sense for the direction we want to see.

So is that something that would be allowable under the um the state statute?

Again, it would not be required.

Uh it is not required for them to have approval of any IRBs based on state statute.

They are free to provide feedback to us, which is the whole purpose behind us providing them notification.

And to my knowledge, in the years that I've worked for the city, I have never had a single instance of a school district providing any feedback, positive or negative for any of our IRB issuances.

Okay, how do we contact them?

Uh we send them a letter.

Send them a letter.

Our bond council does takes care of that notification requirement for us.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Councilmember Glasscock.

Thank you, Mayor.

I believe Mark probably answered all my questions just to reiterate that the city is not exempting any property tax abatement for the municipality because we can't.

Correct?

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

And then all beyond the record, I haven't had anybody from uh the district reach out in opposition to this as well.

So can you just go to slide number 29?

Can you again reiterate um this is not the city lending money?

Can you talk about that portion?

Yeah, so uh for this uh for a uh for a uh for a uh for a uh revenue bond.

This is for future uh uh you know um taxes.

And so for um uh so as of now currently uh you know we only do this for for our uh uh uh yeah for like new construction.

And so then for that new construction, um that is uh subject to the uh property tax uh you know just abatement.

Uh you know, and then after the 10-year period, then all of the taxing uh jurisdiction uh you know will see that benefit from that new uh you know construction.

Thank you, Corey.

I see no further questions for staff.

Uh actually, Vice Mayor Goscope.

I see no further questions for staff.

We will now open it up for public comment on this item.

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

I'm gonna bring it back to the bench.

Um, before I hand it over to Councilmember Hoheisel because this is the closest to his district.

Um, I just want to point out again that this abatement, uh, while this it is outside of the city boundaries, will create 30 net new jobs with average wages of 70,000 dollars.

Um, and this is also a regional growth plan sector.

Um, and again, um this does not affect Wichita public schools, but rather Wichita Derby.

Oh, sorry, it will affect Derby schools, um, and we have not heard of any opposition.

So, with that, um, I will pass it to Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

I move that we 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 6-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Public hearing and request from Boeing Wichita for approval of a letter of intent to industrial issue industrial revenue bonds.

Good morning, Mayor.

Members of the city council.

I'm Mark Manning with the Department of Finance.

Uh, I'm here today to present the request for industrial revenue bonds from Boeing Wichita.

So, as you know, uh Boeing, the Boeing company reacquired Spirit Aero Systems in the uh last quarter of 2025, I believe it was November.

Uh that entity is now referred to as Boeing Wichita, and that's how I'll refer to them this morning.

In May, Boeing Wichita announced a one billion dollar investment in Wichita, and that's primarily to uh invest in their facilities here to ensure their competitiveness in the aerospace industry.

Boeing Wichita is requesting today the issuance of IRBs up to 450 million dollars to help finance improvements to their local facilities.

Now just a reminder, IRBs are authorized under state statute for economic development purposes, and they can include both property tax and sales tax exemptions for up to 10 years.

Now, today Boeing is only seeking Boeing Wichita is only seeking a property tax exemption for these IRBs.

As you know, economic development is a collaborative process with many partners, and one of our partners in this endeavor is the state of Kansas, and my understanding is that Boeing has applied for a high performance.

If I check my notes, I always get the acronym wrong.

It's a state program ran by the Department of Commerce that incentivizes uh investment in uh manufacturing facilities for the purpose of maintaining high paying jobs.

That program is the high performance incentive program.

That program also has an additional advantage from the state level of granting a sales tax exemption.

Our economic development guidelines provide for a 10-year exemption based on the level of capital investment and level of IRBs that uh Boeing has requested.

Having said that, I would also point out that uh Boeing Wichita obviously meets a number of other criteria in our policy.

It's in a sector in which we uh invest heavily uh in IRBs, which is the aviation sector.

They have very high paying jobs, again, which is very attractive based on our policy, and uh several other items they also are partnering with the state, all of which are uh very attractive for us based on our current policy.

So uh mayor to your question a little bit earlier again.

Uh in when we issue industrial revenue bonds, there is absolutely no credit risk to the city of Wichita.

No taxpayer dollars are at risk at all.

I can say that unequivocally, there is no risk to the city when we uh issue IRBs.

The owner, which in this case would be Boeing Wichita, uh, is required to obtain financing to purchase the bonds.

Uh finally, Boeing which taw is also committed to reimburse all our issuance costs and also to pay our annual administrative fee.

So I wanted to address the question about property taxes, as Corey pointed out.

Uh, this is very close to the previous item, and it is not within the taxing jurisdiction of the city of Wichita, it's not in the city limits.

It is, however, in taxing jurisdictions of Sedgwick County, USD 260, which is the Derby School District, and the state of Kansas, of course.

The estimated annual property taxes that would be generated from the new improvements that would be financed with these IRBs is up to 9.4 million dollars a year.

In other words, these improvements that Boeing Wichita is proposing and that would be financed with this IRB issuance when they're completed would generate nearly 10.

I use round numbers, nearly 10 million dollars in additional in new property tax revenue for the taxing jurisdictions shown on this page here.

Now that new cash flow, that new annual cash flow obviously would not be available to those taxing jurisdictions until the end of the 10 year exemption period.

Another thing I would like to point out is Boeing Wichita is a currently pays property taxes to these jurisdictions, and I think that amount is very significant.

So those can those jurisdictions are receiving currently a fairly sizable annual property tax payment from Boeing Wichita.

That would be completely unaffected by the issuances of IRBs.

In other words, what this does is it creates incremental revenue for these jurisdictions.

It just creates that revenue at the end of the exemption period, which in this case is 10 years.

So we had uh our friends at WSU also do a uh ROI analysis on this project.

Uh you can see the ratios there, and they're well above the 1.1 to 1 ratio in which we prefer.

I will point out you'll notice that the state of Kansas is not on this chart, and that is because uh our friends at WSU had some significant challenges calculating the state ratio uh due to a variety of factors, uh, primarily because the corporate income taxes that Boeing Wichita would pay and the increased uh taxable benefits from any wage growth which are likely to accrue are just a challenge for uh WSU to accurately estimate.

Uh so for that reason it's it's difficult for them to provide a reliable uh ROI measure for the state of Kansas.

And with that, we have representatives today from Boeing Wichita, as well as our bond council too, for that matter.

If you have any detailed questions later, uh but at this point, I'd like to uh invite our uh representatives from Boeing uh to prepare to address a few slides for you.

Good morning, Mayor Wu.

Good morning, council members.

Um I'm Adam Pogue, leader of manufacturing site services for the Boeing Wichita Division.

I've got two of my peers with me.

Sam Sackett, who is our leader for government affairs, and my good friend Jill Wills, who is our finance leader.

I uh really appreciate the opportunity to be in front of you today and present a couple of slides.

I uh been in front of you many times as a representative of Spirit Aero Systems, so after a 20-year departure, it feels good to stand in front of you as a leader in the Boeing company.

If we could go to the first slide.

So on the subject of facilities upgrades, um, and for just that purpose to strengthen our production system.

I uh hope many of you heard about and thank you for the city leaders that were able to attend our May 11th capital investment announcement where uh Kelly Ortberg and many others came and proclaimed their commitment to what we're trying to achieve here at uh the Wichita plant.

And it really is about investing for the future.

Um higher production rates have been announced across all of our major commercial programs, and uh for the most obvious reasons.

Our goal is to deliver safe high-quality airplanes to our customers and the flying public.

Nothing is more important to us.

And to do that, it requires investment, sound investment.

Um, all in the name of our commitment to safety and quality, quality of our facilities and quality of the products that we build.

And to achieve that, we need a truly healthy and stable production system, as you expect, it's a very complex and gets more complex with with higher rate increases, but but that's all a good thing.

Uh, just a little bit about what that capital investment includes, but clearly is not limited to safety upgrades across the facility.

We've got a great 13 million square foot site, but it is aging, and um, you know, to care for our product and our workforce.

We have a number of safety upgrades that are imperative as we go forward.

There will be new buildings, there will be expansions to existing buildings, and a number of upgrades and renovations of our existing facility, both within our production systems, our warehouses, and our office complexes.

Our site infrastructure as well needs a number of upgrades and additions, everything from parking lots and roadways to cooling towers and HVAC systems, all of the things that our production processes are dependent on, as well as our employees in terms of a great work environment, etc.

Um a number of our products, primarily our 737 fuse lodges shipped to Renton and Everett by rail.

So we do have a number of necessary rail replacements and extensions in support of these rate increases on the site as well.

And then, of course, it's imperative that we uh maintain a stable infrastructure as it relates to our electrical to keep the plant safe and effective and running.

So a number of electrical substation upgrades within the facility as well.

So, what economic impact does this have in the state of Kansas?

Um a lot.

When you look at the greater Boeing and their current commercial backlog, it currently sits at 6,100 airplanes.

And for those that are familiar with the build processes between Boeing and Renton and Everton Charleston, the Boeing company does not deliver a commercial airplane without the output from Boeing, Wichita.

Um, Wichita teammates have delivered thousands of fuselages and other end items, as you know, and we support every Boeing commercial program that they build today, um, as well as our spirit defense company that remains here at Boeing, Wichita.

Um we have a lot of independent suppliers to the defense industry as well, and it's still a big part of what we do here.

Again, we're a large site, 178 buildings, 650 acres, just under 13 million square feet, and growing.

Um our annual average wage base is almost 85,000, and the overall Kansas payroll approximately 1.2 billion.

Um, what's most exciting, quite frankly, these days is what we can do and continue to do for Kansas suppliers and vendors, of which there are approximately 250.

As Spirit Aero Systems, our Kansas supply chain spin was roughly 900 million.

Now, when you look at the Boeing spend and us as part of Boeing, that's approximately five billion within the state of Kansas.

And then, of course, as Boeing, Wichita and our people, um, we love our charitable contributions to the tune of almost 2.5 million dollars annually.

And great picture here, just a simple thank you for the continued support and the support of the announcement and the celebration for 250 years and our continued stay, and just glad to be Boeing again and and glad to be here in Wichita.

I uh in my 40-year career, I'm glad to end it this way someday.

And um thank you for your support.

Happy to take any questions.

Thank you very much to the Boeing Wichita team and Mark.

Are there any final slides before we go to QA from the council?

Uh just one more mayor, which is the recommended action.

We would recommend that the city council close the public hearing, adopt the resolution, authorize the necessary signatures.

Thank you again.

We will begin with council member Hohheisen.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um to the applicant, um, can you talk a little bit about some of the the past IRB performances through both Boeing and Spear?

I know you guys received some throughout the whole essentially since IRBs came about.

Uh, can you talk about again uh maybe Sam?

Yeah, unless Sam talked to this.

Thank you.

Good morning, council members.

Um, yeah, happy to talk about those just in terms of past performance.

Um, like Adam said, we appreciate uh this city council, uh, both the current council and and prior who have supported uh our employees and our operations here in Wichita.

Um we have been the recipient of prior uh industrial revenue bonds uh that the city has approved, and that includes uh both directly to us as a company, but also through our collaboration with Air Capital Flight Line through some of the facilities that we lease from them.

If you look at all of the commitments that we have made to the city of Wichita and to Sedgwick County collectively, uh we have exceeded um our employment commitments uh by more than 600 jobs as of to date.

So, in other words, if you look at all the IRBs and all the commitments that were made with those and you stack them up, not double dip, we've exceeded by 600 new jobs our commitments to the city of Wichita.

In addition to that, if you look at our capital commitments from prior um IRBs and like the Project Eclipse um uh contract with the city, uh we have exceeded our capital um investment commitment to the city by more than 200 million dollars, um, and that was I will say uh three years early.

So both on the jobs side as well as on the capital investment side as we stand today, uh, we've exceeded that.

And I do want to acknowledge as we've been before council before and talked about our performance to incentive agreement incentive agreements and IRBs.

Uh, there was a time obviously when we dropped in employment uh from the pandemic and the downturn in production, our numbers did decrease.

But in and if you look at the trend line, it went up and down, but overall um it's climbed rapidly, and that's where we are today, and that's why I can stand before you and say that our current performance is um I think uh above the mark.

Well, that leads me to my next question.

Um it did come, and are you including spirit in in those numbers as well?

Yes, okay, because it when it came back, um we learned that there are exemptions for economic downturns as far as the jobs go, and that's what um allowed an extension of um certain IRBs that came before us a couple of years ago.

Now, with this, there's no jobs attached to this.

Is there any particular reason that there are no jobs attached with this one?

So uh council member, uh, it's a great question.

Thank you for asking that.

Um, as we had communicated uh to I think uh each of you uh individually and as well as in some uh communication to the to the city, uh we did have 150 jobs that were associated, uh, new jobs that were associated with this project.

Yeah, um, but just not part of the requirement.

Is that because you don't have to with the investment that you're doing?

I think I would defer probably to the city staff to talk about the requirements of that.

I think as we were uh as we communicated with you, and we're we're sticking by what we communicated with you that were uh those 150 new jobs is what we're is what we're going forward with.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Mark I think most of the rest of the questions will be for you anyways.

Uh yes, sir.

Based on our current economic development guidelines, uh again, based on the size of the capital investment, uh Boeing is eligible for a 10-year exemption without any job requirements.

Uh as I noted, and as Corey noted earlier, we have a matrix that uh provides a scoring mechanism for issuers of much smaller size, and I would tell you using that matrix.

If Boeing did not, Boeing Wichita did not create a single job, they would still qualify for a 90% exemption if their capex was 10 million dollars.

In other words, going from 10 million to 450 million, uh, what that does in our matrix is it moves them from 90 percent to 100 percent, but that's the reason that there is no job requirement specifically.

But as they indicated, they expect to create new jobs, expect to create 150 is my understanding.

Uh it just isn't required as a commitment based on our current policy.

And 25 million is that border from going from 90 percent to 100 percent abatement.

I think I caught that 25 million, I think was yeah.

I think uh like I said, if they were at 90 without any CapEx, uh I believe the range is zero to five million for an extra 10 percent.

So they literally could issue an IRB for five million dollars and get a hundred percent exemption based on our current matrix with it with the job requirement of creating five jobs, uh if I remember the matrix, correct?

Okay, yeah, it says here 10 years based upon committing a five-year capital investment of at least 25 million.

20 is a 20.

You have a better memory than I do.

I'm just reading for me.

Um the IRBs, these now, these are for going back to the presentation, new builds and improvements to current buildings.

Uh that's my understanding, yes, based on their presentation.

So if there's an improvement to a building, does that mean that building is exempt to the property taxes, or is that the additional revenue, the improvements kind of sort of how we do with TIFFs?

I think the way the county appraiser operates, uh they categorize the base building, they categorize improvements to buildings.

So I'm those improvements would be what would be exempted from the uh taxation.

Okay, so everything else would be the same as before.

Should be, yes.

Okay.

Um, I also see that they're not going for a sales tax exemption as part of that because the state does allow for like machinery purchases and whatnot, they do allow tax exemptions for that already.

Uh they are participating in a state program ran by the Department of Commerce, uh, the high performance uh jobs program.

I again I don't have the acronym right, but that state program grants them a sales tax exemption.

Would that also include the one percent county sales tax?

Uh the state exempts the entire sales tax, they collect the entire entire sales tax as you know, so they exempt the entire sales tax, yes, sir.

Okay, is there any sort of rebate to the county for that one percent?

I do not believe there's any provision of state statute for that.

Okay.

Um that's all I have for now.

I'll probably have a few more here in a minute, but I'll let my other colleagues um have some questions as well.

Councilmember Shepper.

Thank you, Mayor.

And I just want to go back to the slide that talks about the payroll piece.

I want to make sure that I saw this correctly.

Perfect.

Um, so I just want to also ask about, and I believe this will be to Boeing.

Of the 250 Kansas suppliers and vendors, is there a plan or a commitment that a certain percentage will be small and or minority vendors.

Thank you, council member, for the question.

I appreciate it.

Um I'm not aware of any current um requirement for um the size of our vendors and suppliers, but I but I can tell you that we have a range of businesses that are uh what would be considered small.

Um I call them mom and pop shops, uh, right, where they have a few employees providing services or um some sort of uh uh manufacturing and fabrication of parts to very large businesses right here in in Kansas.

And uh we we're we're honored to uh have those contracts with our suppliers and vendors, but they do range in size.

Thank you so much.

I um I acknowledge that we don't have a requirement.

I do personally have a preference that there is an opportunity for those mom and pop businesses to be supported as uh I believe it supports our economy when we support our small businesses, and so I appreciate knowing that.

The next question that I have, and we talked about this as well, and thanks so much for being proactive and coming and engage with us.

But of those jobs, I believe it was 150 jobs that would be created.

I think salary of 84,000.

Um what are the requirements for somebody who would be able to qualify for that job?

So that's a that's a great question.

So that number that 84,500 is the uh is the average base wage from 2025, so our most recent data, and so as we look to uh grow jobs as part of this um or part of our growth period right now, uh that that would continue.

And in terms of the the types of skill sets that are needed, it's a range.

Uh we need um uh a wide range of employees to fulfill different needs at the site.

As Adam talked about with rate increases that have previously been announced, um, that includes uh machinists who are skilled at working with metal, it also includes technicians who are skilled at working on composite materials, it includes quality inspectors, it includes um supply chain management uh people, it includes um you know, on the logistics side being able to transport things back and forth.

So uh we are uh honored to have um many jobs posted right now that are open and available for qualified applicants, and we um are eager to bring those new teammates on to be part of the Boeing team, and so it really is a wide range of of skills, and I know that uh we pull from many graduates of area schools and technical colleges and universities, and so we appreciate our collaboration and our partnership with those community partners to help create that pipeline of talent.

You answered my second and last question, but I just want to quali uh clarify here.

So some of those jobs do not require a college degree.

That is correct.

Okay, and that's one of the that's one of the things where uh depending on the applicant and the job, uh we we bring in those new hires, they go through a rigorous training process, and then uh they come out, uh of course they're paid their wages, their benefits, and now they have um all of the skills necessary to start on the production line and being part of the Boeing family and creating uh the greatest aircraft.

And I know that we talked about this, but can you speak to maybe the conversations that may be happening in the future about particularly those who were impacted by the justice system, maybe being able to potentially have an opportunity to work at Boeing.

Yeah, thank you for that question.

It's it's an important one, and we've had that conversation with you and many others in the community over the years as a as a site that is also does defense work.

There are certain requirements that we have for employees that we bring on that they have to pass certain background checks in order to be part of part of the workforce at that site given the type of work that is done there.

And so as long as the employee meets those qualifications and they're eligible, right?

Then we can bring them on.

For employees who may have or potential employees who who may not meet those requirements, we talked about the the around 250 suppliers and vendors that we have.

There are opportunities within the supply chain where those same types of standards may not exist.

And we we do have several uh suppliers and vendors who are able to employ people where that's a kind of a challenge getting onto our campus, but they can still be part of that overall aerospace ecosystem.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Uh I think it's really important that we look at when we talk about uh building a strong economy for everybody, those who have been touched by the criminal justice system.

I want them to be able to reintegrate back into society, have a livable job, livable wage, uh, to be able to take care of their families as well.

So I'm glad that Boeing is being a convener and connecting them to the resources.

Final question for you, because I know that there's some consternation surrounding what if this approves uh if is approved, would we be uh potentially missing out on?

And I want you to just maybe speak to the charitable contributions or the charitable work you all do so that we can be informed about ways in which you reinvest back into the community.

Yeah, another great question.

Thank you for asking.

I think as Adam uh mentioned, and it's on the slide there, in 2025, our employees not just they didn't just give two 2.5 million dollars in charitable contributions together with the company, but they also volunteered, I think close to 10,000 hours in terms of the number of volunteer hours.

Um they are our employees are passionate.

Uh they were passionate as employees of spirit, and now they're passionate as uh Boeing employees to be out in the community community to be visible and engaged working with our community partners.

Um, and I think just recently, uh here about a month or so ago, we made another announcement of I believe it was 380,000 in charitable contributions to several organizations here in the Greater Wichita area doing doing wonderful work.

And so those are the ones we've made, and uh we're excited about uh about what's to come.

You're welcome.

Sam, I'm going to ask you a question as a follow-up to council member Shepard.

Um, I want to point out that we have a large group of youth who are present in our audience today.

And when it comes to jobs and job opportunities in our community, I know that Boeing is always hiring.

Um, can you talk about again the type of um you talked about the skill set?

Can you talk about the things that you're looking for?

Because I know that these are future employees in our community, whether in your industry or others, what are you looking for and why is it so important that while this investment is about buildings and improvements to capital uh or to um the structures, it is for employees.

Uh that's one of your stakeholders as well as the stakeholder of customers.

Um, but I'm gonna talk about the employee in this question.

Can you talk about them?

Thank you, Mayor.

What a wonderful question, and uh it's great to see so many young people here at the council meeting today.

Um I one of the one of the groups of employees that we have that I failed to mention uh are our engineers.

And so um if you are if you are a student currently who excels in math or who loves math, uh loves numbers, loves science, uh there are there are wonderful career opportunities as an engineer within the company, but math may not be your specialty, and that may not be uh where your passion is, and that's what the one of the great things about the Boeing company is that there are so many jobs for different skills uh for different skill sets that people have.

Um maybe you're good at working with your hands and building things, maybe you've worked on uh vehicles and you've you like kind of repairing things.

You may you may find your passion and you may find a great career at Boeing helping to fabricate and build these amazing aircraft structures that become part of these uh beautiful uh beautiful airplanes.

Um you may be good at organizing organizing with lists and logistics, and you might want to think about a career in supply chain management or in logistics, because we have to move a lot of product and machinery and equipment, and we have to have an incredibly talented team to move those products around and to make sure that they get to our customers.

And so really it's across the board.

Um, if when you think about the types of jobs that we have and the opportunities, if you have um it's important that you show up for work, right?

That you're that you're committed to coming to work every day, that you have a great attitude, and that you're willing to learn Boeing is a wonderful place uh to be employed and to uh find a long-term career.

Thank you, Sam, for helping address some of the uh things that could be helpful for our youth who are here in the audience or also watching.

Um I mentioned that there are two stakeholders, your employees and also your customers.

I'm now gonna talk about your third stakeholder, and that is the citizens of communities where you have employment opportunities.

Um I know that the commitment regarding jobs is not a spelled out number, but can you talk about um the projection in terms of will you be hiring and are you hiring right now?

Yes, thank you, thank you, Mayor.

We are hiring now.

Uh, as I mentioned earlier, we have a number of job openings.

And if you if you go on to Boeing's website and you apply it, you can search for job openings in Wichita or at any other place, but we we encourage our folks here to look at the jobs right here in Wichita.

Um, you'll see a number of job openings.

And with each one of those job requisitions, we may be looking for dozens and dozens of workers for every single post.

So just because you might see, let's say, 20 posts, um, we could be looking for hundreds of employees at any given time just because those job requisitions uh represent the type of job that we need, but not the number of employees that we need.

Um, and then you know, I would say, mayor, that of the 13,000 employees that uh that we have at the Boeing site, you know, these are employees who are uh passionate about uh not only building aircraft, uh, but they but they love this community and they're invested in different ways that don't get publicized and don't get talked about.

Um we talk about the volunteering, we talk about the community giving, but so many of our employees are engaged in ways that don't get talked about, and they're just quietly um engaged as we would want citizens to be engaged doing good in our community.

And um I'm happy to talk about any anything else, but we are actively hiring, and we have been hiring this year, and as we have need for more employees, we will continue that trend.

We can't can't build aircraft as you see uh on on the slide in the in the in one of our plants without people, and as rates increase as have been previously announced, we have to have more people to meet those rates.

Uh post about volunteering at Special Olympics this past weekend, and I appreciate seeing them around our community.

They're part of Wichita.

Um, and the donation you mentioned uh was backed last month, 380,000 to support STEM programs, veterans, and food access programs.

Um, and so again, the contributions are appreciated, and I hope that there's more investment into our wonderful nonprofits that help with youth, um, but also our veterans and uh basic needs.

With that, council member Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, a couple of questions for you again, Sam, and uh few for Mark after that.

Um average um base of wages for the jobs that will be included in this, and also does that include administrative jobs as well, and if so, what is that outside of just administration?

Thank you, thank you, councilman, for the for the question.

I think the hotline's ready for Washington here.

It does include it, uh we haven't parsed that out by job code or by the individual type of job, but I what I will say is uh you know we we have a number of current job openings today, and we will continue to uh work to fulfill to fill those job requisitions with qualified employees because we have to have the employees in order to meet the needs of of our customers as as rates increase.

Um as we think about um like again the types of jobs that I've described.

There are there are dozens of other jobs, both in terms of office jobs as well as on the factory floor jobs, and those range in in annual wages, but as we look at uh across the board, what we're talking about are those average annual base wages uh, which are reflected on the chart of the of the 84,000 plus per year as part of a base wage.

Would you expect that 84,000 to be essentially the average for the 150 new jobs as well?

That is correct.

Okay, um and are those 150 new jobs that you're looking to, those are due directly to the buildings, the new buildings and the improvements.

So as you think about the as Adam talked earlier about the range of uh improvements in terms of the real property capital improvements that are being made across campus, um, it's touching many, many buildings.

And as you can imagine, the the the products that we're building in terms of um where we do a lot of fabrication work, and those parts move a lot across campus, and then we assemble those fabricated parts that we are producing on campus as well as bringing in in from our supply chain.

And so the the products themselves and the people who are supporting the manufacturing of those products are in multiple buildings, you know, dozens of buildings across campus.

And so I think the answer to your question is yes.

Um, we can't identify here where each of those 150 you know new jobs are going to be located, but it's across campus, and the employees again uh sometimes are working in multiple buildings.

How many new buildings are you guys looking at?

I don't think we're prepared today to talk about like the number of new buildings, but we just did want to disclose that it it does include new buildings as well as building improvements.

Okay.

Um those volunteers is um do they get any sort of incentives for volunteering, or is it just kind of out of the goodness of their heart?

Uh that's a that's a great question.

So I can speak to the since we're talking about 2025 numbers um before we were acquired uh by by Boeing.

Uh those were those were volunteer hours that were given that because the employees were invested in those uh opportunities in the community, uh, but they weren't uh they weren't um we don't like pay the employees to to go volunteer.

They're they are they are volunteering for those opportunities.

Okay.

Um last question I have for you.

Um I hear some consternation from the public about Boeing leaving the first time and um their concern about leaving again, and I know you guys have options out there.

Um what would you say to people with those concerns?

Yeah, I I think that um obviously we've had a we've had a a history here in Wichita, but as you have seen, and many of you were there when our CEO Kelly Ortberg came and uh made the made the presentation about the commitment to spend a billion dollars over the next three years.

I think that that alone says a lot about Boeing's commitment to this community.

Um no business will invest a sum of that money in an operation uh with any any ill intent, right?

Adam mentioned how critical all of the production that happens in Wichita is to the commercial products uh made by Boeing, and it's important that this site uh be healthy for the long term because we have a lot of work ahead of us.

You talk Adam talked about the backlog of over 6,000 aircraft for for customers.

That backlog has to be fulfilled in part by the great work that's done at the Boeing Wichita site, and so that that production is needed, and um the investment is being made um and we're making it in a very public way.

All right, thank you.

Um Mark, just a couple questions for you, sir.

Are they um if this does not pass, do they still get the sales tax exemption from the state, or is that tied to the IRB being passed?

Uh again, I think the state action is independent of your action here today.

All right, last question I have for you.

Um this is a 10-year, five year, and then a five-year look back.

Um is that it after 10 years according to the current methods that would would any additional exemptions from then also require additional investment through the IRB?

Uh this is pretty simple.

If uh it is simply a 10-year tax exemption based on the level of their capital investment.

Yes.

All right, thank you.

I see no further questions from the council.

We will now open it up for public comment on this item.

If you would like to speak, you can just come to the podium.

Please state your name, your address, and which district you reside.

Good morning, I'm Brecken Morale, the interim president and CEO of the Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce.

On behalf of the chamber, thank you for the opportunity to speak today in support of these industrial revenue bonds for Boeing.

At the chamber, we spend a lot of time talking about what creates a strong business climate.

And it starts with companies willing to invest in people, invest in communities, and invest in the future of Wichita.

Boeing has continued to demonstrate that commitment time and time again.

For generations, aerospace has helped define Wichita's identity and economy.

It is part of who we are.

When people across the country hear Wichita, they think aviation.

They think manufacturing, they think skilled workers building products that impact the world.

Boeing plays a major role in that story.

As the state's largest private sector employer, Boeing employs 13,000 people in Wichita alone, alongside hundreds of vendors and contractors supporting operations every day.

Beyond Wichita, Boeing partners with more than 250 Kansas suppliers, creating an economic impact that reaches communities across the entire state.

But Boeing's impact goes beyond jobs and manufacturing.

At the chamber, we see Boeing employees volunteering in the community and supporting nonprofits.

Last year alone, Boeing and its employees contributed 2.5 million to charitable organizations across our community.

Earlier this spring, Boeing announced another 380,000 in grants to five Wichita organizations.

That is why Boeing's announcements to invest another billion dollars in Wichita over the next three years matters so much.

This is not a company pulling back.

This is a company dumbling down on Wichita's future through facility upgrades, workforce training, and long-term production growth.

From the chamber's perspective, this is exactly the type of investment Wichita should support.

It protects jobs, it strengthens our aviation ecosystem and reinforces Wichita position as the air capital of the world.

Most importantly, it sends a mission, a message that Wichita remains a place where major employers can grow and invest with confidence.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Brecon.

Would anyone else from the public like to speak?

Hello.

Uh Faith Martin, 608 South Jury.

Um, I I don't think that uh Boeing or Council or uh Spirit should be held accountable to uh criteria and requirements.

They are fulfilling those requirements, and I know the public has been very unhappy with this over the last few days, but they're fulfilling the requirements that were laid out before them.

So, like Mike said earlier, or councilman Holheisel said earlier, I think it's important that we look at those requirements.

If so many people are upset about this, uh it's like zoning.

When we look at a zoning case on the DAB, we can't fault people people for following the requirements put forth in the zoning code.

If we don't like it, then we need to change the code.

So if the requirements are giving people so much pause and they're upset, uh one of the biggest comments I saw was uh after 10 years, do they just get to apply for another one?

How long do they get taxes abated for?

That's about that's a valid question.

And will there ever be taxes?

And I I think Boeing is a great company.

I thought Spirit was a great company.

I think staff and council are doing a good job uh supporting them, but I think those kind of concerns have to be measured and they have to be weighed against not having that tax income come in ever.

So I don't know if they get back to back abatements or not, but that should be something that's looked at if the public is that concerned about it.

As for today, obviously you would support this and pass this because they're following the requirements uh laid out.

But as councilman said, I think it's something to look forward in the future.

That if for some reason uh would it be you can apply for 10 years, but then you don't get to apply for the next five years or 10 years or whatever.

But look at those requirements, because I think that's where the pain point is with the public that they see their taxes going up and up and up, and their appraised values going up, and they can't apply for those same source of abatements.

I think that's where the pain is coming from.

And if that's addressed in a future staff meeting where it's at least talked about where the public can understand, it would make decisions like today a lot more palatable.

Thank you.

Thank you, Faith.

My name is June Martinez.

I am from the east side of Wichita, and I'm here on behalf of Camp Destination Innovation.

I'm here as a perspective of a citizen wanting to get a job at a airplane manufacturing place, more as a painter.

I have a question for the man in the back.

Um say I were to get a job at like your place.

What would be different than getting a job like at Beach?

What would you like provide me?

Would I be like have benefits?

Would I eventually move up?

Would I like would the work environment be better?

Would they be more friendly, more kind to young people?

I that's all I want to really know.

Mr.

Martin, I I will let you finish your remarks and then I will ask.

Okay, yeah, I'm done.

You're done.

You may have a seat.

I will ask that question on behalf of the council.

Uh it's really about benefits.

So not just salary.

Um, there's an hourly wage.

Um, every company, including the city of Wichita, has benefits.

Can you just quickly address some of the things that go beyond just your hourly rate?

What are some things that uh Boeing Wichita provides?

Well, thank you, young man, for your comments and thank all of you for being here.

Um again, I've been a part of this a long time, so proud to see the interest and proud to be up here in front of you.

I I think a couple things.

One, you know, across aerospace in Wichita, where they are capital of the world, and we're just fortunate that not just Boeing, but so many others, you know, Text drawn and the like, and all of our suppliers in aerospace offer opportunities like this.

And in your example, you know, a lot of the similar opportunities.

So one of the best things, you know, that we have to offer is if you come in and your interest is being a painter, great, but maybe your interests change over time.

You know, one of the questions I get asked all the time is Adam, how could you work at one place for 40 years?

And my answer is it's easy because every three or four years I get to do something different.

And with different people in different groups and different parts of the world, you know, so the ability to do that is great.

But specific to your question, you know, we offer similar benefits for all of our employees.

So if you came in as a painter, you get great benefits, you get great pay, you get great time off, you get great facilities to work in, and you great get great opportunities to learn and advance and grow going forward if if things change in terms of what you want to do and how your future looks to you.

So appreciate you, young man.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Could you at least wait till the till we get down here to start the clock?

Mayor, members of the council, and or Dave with the Great Wichita Partnership.

Thank you for letting me speak very briefly.

And I'll just echo Brecken's comments on behalf of the partnership in the business community.

We're so uh encouraged and excited and encourage your support uh for what Boeing is doing here today.

And thank you, Boeing team, uh, for continuing to invest uh in Wichita.

Uh as your economic developer, I might kind of take a point just to kind of uh remind and then maybe address a couple of the the comments and questions that were brought up about um uh kind of economic impact and economic development, how these things work together.

Um, and and also a subtle reminder of scale.

I think sometimes it's easy for us to forget just the scale of what was spirit and and now is Boeing with more than 12,000 employees in our community.

I think it's easy for a lot of us to always uh remember that Boeing is the largest private sector employer in our state, but also one of the largest private sector employers in the Midwest.

There isn't another private sector single site employer larger than Boeing Wichita in all of Nebraska and all of Oklahoma and all of Iowa.

Like this is a major, major corporation that has one of the largest manufacturing campuses in America right here in our backyard, and we're so used to it.

We drive by and we almost can take it for granted that it's a significant um investment, but it's a significant stake in what makes us the air capital of the world.

And so uh I just wanted to remind that uh the investment this this team is making and that they announced about uh a month ago, it's one of the largest economic development projects in America this year of over a billion dollars of investment.

Certainly one of the largest we've had in Wichita here in many years.

And so we should be very proud that this corporation continues to see the value of our business community, of our environment, but especially of our workforce and how they continue to um to to invest and to lean in uh to that.

I will also tell you over the last month, uh the economic development team of the partnership has seen the role that Boeing has played in a catalytic way, uh, just as you would expect their supply chain is very robust.

We have already seen multiple inquiries, multiple companies that have said, good, now that Boeing is making that investment, it makes me more secure to make my investment, and which either that's an existing company that's already here, or we've received uh initial inquiries of new opportunities, a traction of supply chain companies because Boeing told the world that they're wanting to make that investment here, and again, so I just reiterate the impact in the role that they have.

I would also speak to the kind of the time nature of the tax abatements and the kind of the 10-year cycle, and the there's absolute legitimate questions in the public.

These are complex transactions, and so it's easy to under misunderstand it.

But when they make this investment today and across these assets and these properties, and the end of that 10-year cycle, that doesn't get reabated, that doesn't get redone or retaken off the tax rolls.

In fact, I don't have the number off the top of my head, but I know looking previously of their massive campus, Boeing is paying tens more than 10 million dollars a year in property taxes to all the jurisdictions today.

More than the 10 year value of this tax abatement you're considering today, they pay that annually in property taxes because that's previous tax abatements, previous projects have rolled off that 10-year cycle, and now they're they're fully taxable by the community.

We want this company to continue to invest in their facility.

I hope that they come forward and come to us in future years with another opportunity, another expansion, and potentially then might need another conversation of a public-private partnership like a tax abatement.

But uh I implore you to continue to support this corporation.

We are very fortunate to have them in our city and and to be uh the largest employer uh here in Wichita, the state, and and one of the one of the largest in the region.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Andrew.

I see no one else from the does anyone else from the community want to address the council on this item.

Okay.

Um I see none.

I will now close public comment with Adam bringing it back to the bench, beginning with council member Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I just want to make a couple points here to the young man earlier, Martin, who uh came to speak.

Um I appreciate him getting up and speaking in front of a crowd like this.

It's always good to hear that engagement.

Um I'd also like to point them in the direction.

Uh there's unions out there that will go to bat for him.

So um that's definitely an avenue to look at and um include some of those concerns of his in the negotiations.

Uh to faith, um, it's Mike, not councilman, not council member, just Mike is perfectly fine.

Um, I do struggle with this at times um because of the taxes that come off the the rolls.

I again I want to point out that this does not have to do with us this time.

Um, we are not losing out on anything if this passes.

It is um county and the Derby School District and County will be hearing this tomorrow, I believe.

So if they have concerns, that is definitely something uh county can express and say we're be the ones who will be most directly impacted by the loss of potential tax revenue.

Um it's also again to the speaker's point.

You know, we have precedence of being of doing these things.

Um my granddad always said fair and consistent.

Um, so I will be supporting this motion.

I do appreciate the jobs that are being brought into this community, and that's one of the things that I take into consideration when parsing through some of these issues is looking somebody in the eye that could potentially have a job to be able to put food on their families' table, and how we interact and work with businesses to make sure to keep those jobs around.

So again, I just um again some of the consternation I have, but I think this is the the proper avenue, at least for my perspective.

Councilmember Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um Boeing has options, they can invest in other communities Seattle, South Carolina, Alabama, Oklahoma, and host of others.

They'd probably be lined up to have their investment.

Um privilege that they're gonna invest in Wichita.

We have we appreciate that.

Sometimes news media always tells half the story, and I think that's the case here.

Um there are tens of millions of dollars that they're paying now in taxes.

Also, all the households that work at Boeing are paying taxes.

They're paying property tax, they're paying sales tax.

They are paying taxes.

So without Boeing here, they would not be here.

And we would not have the benefit of those taxes.

We'd also have a collapse in our housing market.

So maybe people would be happy with that for property tax value waste went down, but uh that would be the only benefit.

So very much appreciate having uh Boeing here.

Um I do appreciate the 150 jobs.

I kind of wish it was mentioned in the Green S requirement.

I have no doubt that you will do that, and uh I will enthusiastically support this.

So thank you for being here.

Councilmember Todd.

Thank you.

Just a few comments to me from me.

Um thank you to Corey and our economic development team for all you're done to work on this.

Appreciate your efforts.

Again, I'm just gonna pile on, but thank you to Boeing.

Um thank you for investing in Wichita, as council member Johnston said very well.

You could invest anywhere.

So we're certainly glad that you are here and and part of the Wichita community.

Um you are one of our anchor industries, and it is not lost on me that it's fantastic to have a Fortune 100 company in Wichita, Kansas.

So again, thank you.

And then it was noted by um Councilmember Shepard about your charitable contributions.

Again, the impact that we feel in Wichita, not only because of the jobs that you provide, but also what you do for philanthropic initiatives are certainly invaluable.

Um just want to highlight again to the community.

There is no risk to the city if this were to pass today.

I think that's something that people often think is that we're opening up a checkbook and writing a check to Boeing, and we are not.

There's absolutely no risk to the city to the city, and I think only reward.

Um thank you also for exceeding your job growth, and I'm sure you will meet your new targets.

But um just want to provide my enthusiastic support and continued partnership with Boeing.

I see no one else on the board.

Um, so I will be happy to move this item.

Again, this is not within the city limits of Wichita, but we know many of your employees work in the city, live in the city of Wichita, and we are the air capital of the world, and we will not lose that moniker as much as other cities and states want it.

I can tell you that I will be fighting to make sure that the air capital of the world remains Wichita, Kansas.

With that, I will 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 6-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Public hearing and request for letter of intent to issue industrial revenue bonds for Macase Investments, Wichita Machine Products.

Uh nicely with uh uh uh you know, with uh development services.

I have uh two more presentations for you today.

This one is for a public hearing for uh four uh for uh McCasey.

Uh you know, for McCasey, uh for McCasey, uh, you know, like investments.

So uh getting into the presentation, uh, you know, you know, uh McCasey owns and uh uh you know owns and uh owns and uh leases property at 3801 uh West 45 uh you know like west 47th Street South 2 uh to sorry about this to uh two uh to uh Wichita uh you know uh Wichita you know uh machine products they are looking to uh they are looking to uh they are looking to you know like expand their facility and the expansion is about 26,000 square feet, you know, with construction uh you know anticipated to start during the summer of 2026, you know, with that to help with some of the costs of the projects they are asking for for just about two million dollars uh you know for the uh construction of the project uh you know with the sales tax uh uh uh you know with the sales tax uh uh with the sales tax uh uh you know evaluation on your screen there uh below uh the project uh qualifies for a five plus five uh 90% property tax abatement based upon guidelines.

Uh you know, uh, you know, uh you know, uh, you know, uh you know uh uh uh you know uh Wichita Machine Products predicts that they will create 10 uh you know uh net new jobs with uh uh you know with uh average wages of about 70 K.

And uh the estimated property tax abatement for the first full year is on your screen there below.

You know, the school district uh uh you know is uh uh 261, which is the Haysville uh, you know, school district.

Our friends at CEDBR uh performed the uh cost benefit, you know, with the 10 and 20 year above our uh policy guidelines.

This is our standard uh uh you know disclaimer.

There's no tax uh there's no risk to the taxpayer, you know, for this project.

And as with that, I uh ask the city council close the public hearing.

Uh uh adopt the uh documentation and uh and uh and uh and uh and uh authorize the necessary signatures today.

I have uh Jeremy here to uh to help uh you know with some of those uh project uh you know uh specific questions, but I stand for uh questions.

Thank you, Corey.

Questions for staff or the applicant?

Uh Jeremy, I I have a couple questions really quick.

Um I know this is in council member uh vice mayor Glasscock's district number four.

Um I know that you provide products uh for local aerospace and defense.

Um what are some of the major organizations that you provide products to?

We currently provide products to Boeing, Boeing Defense, Lockheed, Textron Aviation, Gulfst uh Gulfstream, Beta Technologies, General Dynamics Defense is a new customer of ours.

Um a lot of our growth we've seen over the past uh year is all defense, um which is mostly outside of the city of Wichita.

Textron was our was our main customer at this point.

They're about 35% of our revenues, so um quite a bit going in outside of Wichita.

Thank you for being part of that ecosystem for the Air Capital of the world.

Um my other question for you is this is something that's gonna be pretty quick.

Uh construction will begin the summer and it will be commencing by November.

Um how will people know about these 10 new jobs that you will be able to provide?

We will continue.

We have posts now, and we will continue to hire.

We're hiring right now.

Um we took a recent uh big assembly project, so we're looking for people um three people actively.

We just we have person starting next week.

I mean, it's just ongoing.

Our website has all of our postings we post on Indeed.

Uh people walk in.

I mean, people seen us in the newspaper yesterday tied to the Boeing um RB.

So I mean it's just there's a lot of a lot of good things going on.

So people walk in the door and all kinds of advertisements.

So thank you very much, Jeremy.

I see no further questions for you or for Corey.

You may have a seat, and we will now open it up for public comment.

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

I'm gonna bring it back to the bench.

This is a council member vice mayor, Glascox District.

Thank you, Jeremy.

Thank you for hosting me at your facility as well.

As the mayor said, this ties to the complete ecosystem of aviation.

I'm proud of represent the aviation core of the Air Capitol.

And the last agenda item and this agenda item go hand in hand.

So thank you for your investment.

You're also a great neighbor.

I haven't heard opposition from any of the neighbors about this expansion, and you have properties close to you, and so that shows that you're being a good steward of that part of our community as well.

So thank you for that.

I also wanted to highlight over the 20-year period the return on investment to the state of Kansas is one of the highest that I had seen, 13.85 to 1, uh, which is a sizable investment in our community and a return not only to uh the city of Wichita, but also the entire state.

So thank you for your investment.

And with that, I would make the motion that we close the public hearing, adopt the resolution of intent and authorize the necessary signatures.

Second motion, second discussion, see none, madam clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 6-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Request to set a public hearing for assistance for 3109 East Douglas.

So switching gears just a little bit from a property tax abatement day to more of a CID now.

So this presentation is for a uh asked to set a public uh uh you know uh hearing for a potential new CID at 3109 East Douglas in District One.

So the uh so the uh Maple Ridge Poemries owns the former uh you know uh Margaritas Cantina and the former College Hill uh you know barbershop at 3109 and 311 East uh Douglas.

They are looking to um fix up the building just a little bit and um uh you know once the project is complete to you know to like lease it for like commercial use, you know, the project will consist of some like facade work, um uh, you know, and like fixing up some of the uh uh you know like interior uh parts of the building.

Uh you know, and Maple has uh submitted a petition uh uh you know to ask to use CID.

So the project will cost around 1.5 uh, you know, uh 1.5, you know, uh million dollars with the uh uh uh you know with the maximum uh you know uh with the maximum, you know, uh with the maximum, you know, uh you know, uh you know uh reimbursement of being uh 23 233,250.

There would be a uh you know, there would be uh there would be a 1% special CID sales tax that is just within the district.

And so people that would come to this district uh uh you know will have a uh you know have a 1% sales tax and that 1% sales tax uh uh uh uh uh uh you know that 1% sales tax and the money that is uh collected from that 1% uh you know will be used uh to uh pay back the like developer uh for a pay uh uh for a pay as you go basis for up to 22 years or until that like dollar uh uh you know or until the 233,250 uh you know is reached.

There is no risk to the taxpayer for this project.

The uh public hearing is uh currently slated for like July 7th of 2026.

You know, during that time we will uh come back for a formal uh uh for a more detailed uh presentation and a uh development uh you know and a DA to be uh uh you know uh considered during that time.

Uh the developer will pay all of the construction costs, and I mean, as I said before, that the uh payments will be on a pay as you go basis, and the city will not have debt for this project.

And is with that that I uh ask the the city council, you know, I ask that the city council uh you know, like accept the petition, uh, you know, like adopt the uh documents, uh, you know, setting a public hearing for the consideration of the establishment of the CID and uh authorize the necessary uh you know signatures.

I have uh Brian here today, uh you know, that's part of the uh development team to uh help uh answer any questions, and with that I stand for any questions.

Thank you, Corey.

Questions for staff beginning with Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Thank you.

I will be supporting this today, especially to set a public hearing.

Um, but I did have one quick question that I would hope could get answered by the public hearing date as well.

Is the entire investment in public amenities just the facade improvement, or are they also going to improve other aspects?

Or is this just the mechanism we're using because there's not a facade improvement um mechanism anymore?

So is this the tool that we're using?

And is this codified because I know CID has to have some public amenity?

So I just want to know is the public amenity just the facade, or is there another component to that as well?

Yeah, so for our uh guidelines, um, there is a portion of it to where a certain uh you know just amount goes to a public uh you know a benefit for previous CIDs, uh, you know, for instance for the SOC CID, you know, the like developer has like worked with uh council to determine that that would maybe uh you know uh just a park that is close by.

But I mean that basically is up to the council to what they want to put their uh dollars towards.

And so uh in practice we have uh uh uh you know worked with the light developer as those funds start to grow just to see what kind of uh public benefits or it could be uh streets that's close by, could be a sidewalk.

Um, you know, but it has to be uh uh you know within uh nexus of the CID.

Uh before those uh different project costs, I will have to defer it to the like developer for that to kind of uh go in more in depth about what the project has for those costs.

So because we're just setting a request for hearing, I'd want the developer to come prepared uh for that on whatever July 7th.

Yeah, for that question.

Thank you.

Councilmember Johnston.

Thank you.

Uh I have a question for the developer if I could.

Brian.

First of all, thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Um question the 1.55 million.

Does that include the purchase of the building and improvements?

Or is that just the improvements?

That includes the purchase and the improvements.

Purchase the price of the building and improvements.

Correct.

Okay.

Okay.

Would you do this project anyway without the CID?

We would obviously have to make some improvements to the project.

I think the CID allows us to take the project to another level.

Um, you know, just in in the way that the property looks now versus what we could do with and without the CID is probably two different things.

Okay, okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Shepper.

Thank you so much, Corey.

This is for you.

I'm I'm wondering as I review the College Hill neighborhood plan and some of the things that the neighborhood has been very clear about within that plan as it relates to uh commercial business or business in general.

Um is there any way that the CID could be contingent upon you know making sure that uh there's a stipulation on the prohibition of particular uses like a drive-through?

Uh I think I would may have to defer to uh Scott on that.

Um as for the could you say your question again?

I'm sorry.

No, you're okay.

Um could the CID language stipulate a prohibition on specific land uses uh particularly like a drive-thru.

I know the College Hill neighborhood plan speaks to that specifically, and the neighbors not wanting any more drive-throughs in that area.

Um I don't think that the statute prohibits that, uh, but I would have to uh double check the statute just to see you know what uh CIDs could be uh uh you know uh used for.

Okay.

I have a question for the applicant, and uh we we talked uh a couple of months ago, you all came in and met with me, and I appreciate that.

I am curious again, going back to the College Hill neighborhood plan.

I'm going to reference that because that community has worked extremely hard to uh develop this plan.

Um the if this were to be approved, you mentioned facade improvement, um, and I'm curious if you are going to ensure that it's in alignment with the character of the neighborhood as you look at the facade improvement.

Yeah, so just to uh I guess to clarify, our property is technically not in the College Hill neighborhood plan, and so we weren't really aware of any technical requirements.

Um I think that we're willing to, you know, we're willing to do.

I mean, look, we've we've done several projects around this town.

Um we're local, I mean, we love Wichita and we want to make this place better.

So you know, we're happy to share our concepts and our drawings and our renderings with uh with the College Hill neighborhood plan, but I think that they will be very happy with what we are you know going to do.

Cool.

Yeah, no, I know that it's it's not in College Hill proper.

It's a few steps away though, right?

Yes, oh yeah, very good.

The walkability of the neighborhood.

It is yes, in my mind, a part of the College Hill neighborhood plan, and thank you for your commitment of making sure that it aligns with the work that those residents have put into that.

Sure.

Yeah, and if we can get information on who to you know who to interact with, we would be happy to do that.

Yep.

If staff can provide that, I think it would be uh beneficial whether it's their next neighborhood meeting or uh in collaboration with one of their events, um, just having that communication.

I know it's not in College Hill, uh, but again, they have a vested interest, and uh you shared with us some renderings.

Yes.

Um, and I think it would be helpful for them to see that too.

Yeah, yeah, and we just want to continue the the growth and the development and improvement of that area.

So thank you.

Thank you for investing in Wichita.

My question is now for Corey.

Um, I want to make sure that the city's website is actually updated and accurate.

Um, so I'm looking at our community improvement district CID page.

Um, and I know that you mentioned one of them, uh, the one on South Broadway, the SOC neighborhood.

I feel like we've just passed one recently that may not be on here.

Yes, so there are at least two that are not uh, you know, uh uh uh you know that are not published yet because the CID sales tax has not started yet.

Um, those are the uh Mammoth Club House, you know, which was approved this year, and then the other one is uh is the uh hotel project, a hotel uh indigo that was approved uh last fall.

Thank you, Corey.

Um I appreciate that it is getting updated once that sales tax rolls on or even before, just so that uh you currently have completed, which is the K96 star, and then you have these current CIDs.

If one could be pre start so that people know which CIDs are in effect, I think it would be helpful.

Um I do like uh sharing this information with individuals because again, these CIDs are an added tax, so while everyone pays 7.5% in Wichita, in these areas you may pay 8.5 or 9.5.

Um, so again, it's only for individuals who utilize that specific area or that specific district, and it's good helpful information for uh community members.

You know, that can definitely be done.

Thank you.

Councilmember Shepard.

Thank you, Mayor.

I don't know if this question is for Scott or for Jennifer, but uh if I wanted to add an amendment to prohibit drive-throughs tied to this, is that possible or would that violate?

I will answer is for today we're just setting public hearing.

Cool.

Um we'd have to research whether that is allowed by the CID statute.

It's really probably not contemplated, but we'll look into it.

But for today, we will just set the public hearing if that's the will of the body.

I see no further questions from my colleagues.

We will now open it up for public comment.

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

I'm gonna bring it back to the bench.

Councilmember Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

I talked to the applicant about this, and uh the name of the corporation is uh Maple Ridge, and I presume that's because one of their developments is that Maple and Ridge where I live.

Um he has lots of pro he has properties up and down ridge, I know.

So it does a really good job with those properties.

So I appreciate that.

Um, however, in this case, I do not think it is appropriate for a CID.

I think this property will be developed anyway.

And so, and I realize there is no cost to taxpayers if you don't go there.

However, uh City of Wichita has just uh turned down a one percent sales tax by 82 percent.

And if they say that that one percent is gonna go 233,000 is gonna go into the pocket of a developer.

I don't know if I can answer that question of why.

So for that reason, I will be voting against this.

With that, uh, this is in council member Shepard's district.

Thank you so much, and I want to thank my colleague for coming in and sharing concerns prior to today.

I really appreciate that.

Um, I move that we accept the petition and adopt the resolution setting a public hearing for consideration of the establishment of a community improvement district CID and authorize the necessary signatures.

Second motion second, any further discussion.

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 5-1.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Quarterly financial reports for the period ended March 31st, 2026.

Good morning.

Uh Mark Manning with the Department of Finance.

Uh today I'd like to present to you the first quarter report for two uh for 2026.

So just a reminder the quarterly reports that I present to you are always unaudited activity.

Uh we're gonna use the quarterly report uh for a variety of reasons.

We're gonna compare it to what is budgeted, uh, which in this case was the budget that was approved last year.

But probably more importantly, uh, we're gonna use our experience through the first quarter to kind of check in and see if we're on track with the guidance that we've been providing you through the uh 2027 budget process.

So a lot of this should should sound very familiar to you because as you know, we've had several workshops and several budget discussions, but again, we'll officially tell you what our results were and tell you if we're on track and everything that we've told you previously.

So the general fund uh performed about as expected in the first quarters, which is to say we pretty much are on track with all the guidance that we provided you previously.

Uh we're seeing a lot of growth in police and fire wages, again, as expected, particularly on the fire side based on the implementation of their new contract.

Uh there is one good thing that I can report to you today.

Uh sales tax continues to overperform, which is a good thing.

So we might look at whether we can revise that a little bit.

Now, sales tax is tricky, the way the state collects the money, it has a lot of volatility, so we don't get too excited when we see a few months of overperformance, uh, but it is performing well.

So we'll take a look at that and see if there's any room to increase our estimates there.

I mentioned uh wage uh expenditures and police and particularly fire are increasing as we expected.

Uh we talked a lot about this last year.

There is one area where we are still not seeing growth in wage expenditures, which indicates to me that we're still having challenges filling positions and that areas in public works.

Uh they actually spent less in the first quarter this year than they did last year.

Great from a financial results standpoint, not so great from a standpoint of employing workers so that we can provide outcomes that are desired desirable.

Another thing I'd point out is our interest earnings did decline $1 million from the first quarter of last year.

Again, very consistent with the guidance that we've been providing you previously.

So I thought I'd drill down just briefly on interest earnings.

This is a nice graphic that we put in every single quarter report.

I think it's towards the back, I think it might be page 85 or something like that.

But we were always gonna have a graphic like this.

And so the takeaway on this one is the light blue line is basically our yield to maturity last year.

And you can see for the most part it was over four percent most of the year, but you can see I kind of crept down and was pretty much at 4% at the end of the year.

Uh and you can see from the uh I think it's the yellow line there, the the middle line.

Uh you can see in the first couple months of this year it has fallen below four percent.

In other words, this is confirmation what I've been uh uh providing guidance on now for a year or two, and that is that our interest rates are our yield to maturity on our pool is declining.

Now, if there's any good news is that the decline is pretty slow and likely to continue to be very slow, we believe in 2027 based on the current actions of the Fed.

But anyway, just uh point is interest earnings are declining, declining is just a matter of how fast and and when let me touch on a couple other areas real quick.

Uh I love to deliver good news, and I've mentioned golf, I don't know, maybe every quarter for the last couple years.

Golf just continues to outperform.

Their revenues in the first quarter are up 23%.

That's a lot of weather-related issues, uh, but golf is in very, very good shape.

Now their expenditures are increasing too, uh, again, based on activity.

But point is the golf fund is in very, very good shape and is extraordinarily well managed.

The parking fund, on the other hand, uh their revenues were up considerably in the first quarter.

Their expenditures were also significantly up.

Again, as you know, we're implementing a new parking program.

Uh but the parking fund did have significantly higher expenditures and revenues compared to last year.

Uh finally, I point out special alcohol fund.

That's important because it funds a variety of drug treatment programs and things of that nature.

Those revenues are very volatile typically, uh, but they were down in the first quarter of this year compared to last year.

Again, nothing to be too concerned about at this point.

We'll keep an eye on it, uh, but I wanted to report to you that those revenues were down.

Finally, I'll finish up uh talking about our my normal slide on our city debt.

Uh, this slide is really kind of boring because if you look at the one I did last quarter, it's gonna be virtually identical to this.

In other words, we don't issue any debt uh typically in the first quarter, and our principal payments primarily are not in the first quarter.

So this will look very similar to what I showed you last year, and that is that our GO at-large debt, which was paid with property tax revenues is about 4% of our total portfolio or somewhere in the neighborhood, about 68 million dollars.

We do have a large balance of bonded debt and loans, 1.6 billion dollars.

Uh but as I point out on the bullet there, the vast majority of that is associated with our utility operations, which are very capital-intensive, which is primarily the water and sewer utility.

In summary, uh the general fund is basically performing very consistent with the guidance we've been providing you throughout the budget process, which is a good thing.

And finally, I'd report, I would uh note that not only is our quarterly report, but also our ARPA report uh for the uh first quarters are both available online.

I should have touched on ARPRAP very briefly.

72 million dollars was our ARPA amount, as you may recall.

Uh, we are down to I think about 3.9 million dollars left to spend.

So as you know, we uh we need to uh get that spent by the end of the year, but we're should be well on track to get that done.

So that's the last slide I have.

Uh so my recommendation is that you receive and file the quarterly report for the period ending March 31st of 2026.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mark.

Beginning with Council Member Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I appreciate that, Mark.

Um two questions here.

One I heard recently, some chatter that they might actually be looking at increasing the interest rate.

Um, I'm curious your your thoughts on that and how it potentially figures into some of our projections here.

I have read probably the same articles that you've had, and yes, I think the Fed is some members of the Fed I think are becoming concerned about inflation.

Uh if you ask me my opinion, I would tell you that that is highly unlikely.

That's my personal opinion.

I'm not an economist, but I'll just I'll just lay it out there.

That's that's my opinion.

Uh, but from our perspective, I think what is important is if they do cut rates, I think they're gonna be a lot more deliberate about that process in the future.

Now, obviously, the president's putting a lot of pressure on the head of the Fed to cut interest rates, but there's a lot of other members on the open market committee besides just the chairman.

So uh I think we're gonna still see rates decline, but I think it'll be a rather slow process.

Ultimately, that's gonna be beneficial to our interest earnings.

Okay, second question is um can we get an update on the performance of the TIFF and all the other incentives around the ballpark?

I know some of them were overperforming.

Are they still overperforming?

Um how's that looking outside of the star bar that comes due?

I think late next year.

Yeah, I I should have addressed that.

I guess uh we we get we get incremental payments from the county typically in January and June.

Uh I can tell you that the January payments for a lot of our TIFFs were much better than then in the past, which means that the valuation is increasing, which means the TIFF TIFFs are creating the increment which we need.

But particularly the West Bank performed very well in the first quarter.

Center City did too for that matter, uh, and East Bank as well.

Those are three of our largest ones, and they all actually generated significant increases in their increment.

So that's good news.

But I'll try to provide an update in the second quarter.

I can I can do that.

Uh it's it's and we reported in our uh report here.

So I just I haven't done the past, but I'm happy to do that.

So I'll include a couple of slides in the in the next one.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Thank you, Mark.

Yeah, thank you.

I will just point out that on page 24 of our um report book, it specifically talks about the TIFF debt for the various TIFF projects.

But uh, I think it would be helpful to have a slide during our next quarterly, in particular at the baseball stadium.

Uh that we'd be happy to do that, and you're right, page 24 is a very good uh page to get a view of how our TIFFs are performing.

Uh we measure the performance of the TIFF basically two ways.

Uh, whether the annual increment covers the annual debt service, often that does not occur in the early years, but it occurs uh it overperforms in the out years, but we monitor that.

But probably the most important metric to us is does the TIFF reimburse the debt service fund for all the debt service that it has incurred, and that's what uh page 24 is showing you in the column to the uh right is showing you how far ahead or behind some of the TIFFs are are in reimbursing the debt service fund.

That cumulative total in the first quarter was about four and a half million dollars.

Uh the really good news is the East Bank TIFF is by end of the year is probably gonna uh eliminate most of their uh amount and arrears, they'll probably pay the debt service fund two million dollars this year, so that number is shrinking as our debt as our TIFFs mature.

So, but yeah, I'll I'll definitely provide a couple of slides on TIFS at our next uh quarterly report.

Thank you.

Councilmember Shepard.

Thank you so much, Mark.

I'm curious.

You mentioned the golf department and how they're doing really well.

How do we determine which departments need to be revenue generating departments?

Well, uh to avoid boring you with a bunch of accounting standards.

I would tell you that the golf uh it's actually a division, it's a division within the park department.

But the golf fund is what we call utility fund, and that's because it is operated as a business basically, and that's why it's a separate entity, just like the water utilities, a separate entity.

But like I said, without going into a lot of accounting talk, that's generally the reason why golf is a standalone operation as a division of the park department.

So that's not the only division to my understanding that's expected to be revenue generating.

So how do we determine which departments need to be revenue generating?

Well, again, the utility funds, let me go back to funds, not uh departments.

All our utility funds are intended to be self-supporting.

That's Waters who are airport, uh, landfill, stormwater, and golf.

There is one utility operation transit, which does not is not self-sustaining, as you know, and then we do supplement it uh uh with the uh general fund.

But as a department, what departments are supposed to be uh self-supporting or what departments are supposed to be generating revenue, that's really more of a function that of the services that they provide and whether they provide services for which we can collect revenue, and that's gonna align to our uh cost recovery policy that we've talked about previously.

So, you know, some departments don't provide services that are that are provided to a unique set of individuals.

Police department's a good example.

They provide services to the entire community for the most part.

Uh, so they're probably not going to be expected to recover much of their costs in a general sense.

Other departments have more activities that do serve more narrow customer groups, and those are the ones, again, based on our cost pyramid model that we'll probably seek to get additional cost recovery from.

So kind of a long answer.

I don't know if I answered your question or not.

Can you help me understand the logic behind that?

Particularly why we would seek to get cost recovery from folks who are serving a smaller population or demographic.

Yeah, the concept is that uh the entire community pays property tax, and should the city utilize property taxes to pay for a function that only benefits a very narrow group of people.

Uh that's generally the policy discussion.

And how is equity considered in that decision making process?

Well, again, it's a subjective process.

Our cost pyramid will provide a framework, some of what we talked about on economic development policy, we'll provide a framework of what uh we might consider four ranges of cost recovery, but ultimately it's gonna be a decision determined by you, whether there's other factors that uh interject into that.

So how do we determine the fees and permit cost?

Again, a similar model, uh, some are set by ordinance, some are set uh administratively, but generally what we do is we look at what our cost structure is and we want to ensure uh particularly for permits that we have cost recovery.

Again, fees we may not strive for 100% cost recovery.

Again, it's gonna depend on on who is receiving the benefit and whether that benefit is considered community-wide or whether it's considered very narrow.

Uh I'll give you an example, uh, maybe an example relevant to today.

We charge developers application fees.

Uh, should a property tax payer subsidize the uh the work that we have to do on economic development projects when the benefit basically accrues to the developer?

That's just kind of the type of questions that we will ask.

And I'm not gonna suggest what the answer is, but you know, that's kind of things that uh we look at.

Should and again, do we have an equitable standard in our process of how much we're charging a smaller business versus a larger business in fees?

Or um how are we measuring the impact of who it's benefiting?

I guess I'm really concerned by this idea that if it's supporting a narrow group or a smaller population, then that means that we need to look at the expectation of cost recovery versus someone who we are from a subjective lens, um their work is impacting more people community-wide.

I'm just trying to figure out how we measure that.

Yeah.

Uh great feedback.

I will tell you that we will uh probably bring to you at some point a cost recovery policy, so that will be your opportunity to uh help help us ship.

Currently right now, how are you all assessing equity?

Again, that's done maybe not as systematically as it's done as it should be, but it's generally done on a departmental basis, and we leave the determination of fees to them.

Again, we encourage them to consider cost recovery.

Uh, but it's really a discretionary decision for the most part for most departments.

Do we assess what people are paying versus what they're getting in return from the city when we're charging them fees?

I don't know that we look at it through that lens.

Again, typically what they look at is what does it cost us to provide that service and how much of that cost do we want to recover?

That's typically the model which most departments use when they set fees.

So thank you.

I'm very I'm very uneasy about this.

Uh it's it's unsettling.

Uh it's it's unsettling because when we have an expectation that certain departments or division need to be cost, you know, or revenue generating, what that does is it puts the pressure on them to charge the end user.

And so in my district, I don't want kids or anyone who's coming into our recreation centers to feel like they can't access it because cost is a barrier.

And so I think when we look at this through an equity and equity lens, and when we think about our mission as a city, I just hope that we can have those conversations.

And I think any city manager that's running a city that is looking at the data can also start having those conversations too.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Excellent point, sir.

Like I said, when we get into the cost recovery uh policy, we'll definitely engage and totally understand what you're saying.

Thank you, Councilmember Shepard.

I'm just gonna point out that pages 97 in our book talk about the various funds.

Um you were specifically talking about golf and others, but there's the water utility fund, the sewer utility fund, the airport authority fund, the stormwater utility fund, the golf course system, the transit fund, the landfill fund, information technology fund, the fleet fund, and the self-insurance fund.

Right.

Um so there are more details.

I know that not everyone gets this, but this is available online.

Is that yes, ma'am?

Certainly is.

Thank you.

Councilmember Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

Mark, I'm sure you saw the jobs report came out better than expected.

So maybe interest rates will not go down, hopefully.

So for you anyway.

Yeah.

Um and to speak to Councilmember Shepherd's uh point.

Um I know our golf fund is one of the best values, maybe in the United States.

Um it's a great value for people.

Um we have great plans for uh for members and and a senior members.

I know as a senior member I pay 88 dollars a month.

Um I take my grandkids out and and the grandkids through a grant from a donor.

Uh all the kids play free.

So, which is wonderful.

Um I just think that's an example of where it works really well, the golf fund, and also point out that first T at Mac Park is a wonderful program for people maybe who can't afford uh golf clubs and golf balls, and those are all donated.

So that's that's one fund it works really well with.

Um, a fund that does not support itself is transit.

And I think we know that transit cannot charge the fund, the amount they need to cover their cost.

So, as a community, I think we decide that we want to supplement that uh with transit so that people can't afford to get around the city.

So thank you, Mark, for your work.

Yes, sir.

Councilmember Shepherd.

Thank you so much, and I appreciate my colleague mentioning uh Greater Prestige in District One, they do phenomenal work, volunteered for them.

They were just at the district breakfast this past month as well.

Um, I guess the concern that I have is that when I asked how are we looking at this through an equitable lens, I couldn't get an answer.

So golf is great.

Just a lot of kids in my district who don't play golf.

There's a lot of kids who want access to certain things that they can't always afford.

And so when we're looking at cost recovery, thinking about the impact that it has on families when someone's child wants to go and utilize our amenities but can't take advantage of the amenities because of the costs, because the policy barriers, or because we're not thinking about it, quite frankly, in City Hall.

And so I'm gonna elevate that because I really do want to make sure that we are thinking about the detrimental impact it has when we're thinking about the economic incentive of being able to balance a budget versus the impact it has on the family who is really struggling on finding those free opportunities or opportunities in general to keep their community or children within their community having access to things that keep them productive.

Um we can have a discussion about this more, but I think even when we talk about this through a public health lens, the data is clear.

Uh the hot spots that we see in terms of where crime is happening, in terms of where uh the social determinants of health are lacking.

I I think we can even be utilizing that data to see where we need to be focusing in on who are we, what areas are we requiring cost recovery versus maybe scaling back a little bit.

Maybe this would be a good opportunity to ask city manager.

Uh, maybe one of our council workshops can go over more specifically.

I think uh Councilmember Shepard talked about park and rec.

I had the opportunity to attend the park board meeting yesterday, and they had really good reports, very detailed.

Um, and one of the things that I really enjoyed, uh, Brewer Center was activated, fully activated, and I loved seeing all the youth uh utilizing this new space.

Um Angela Buckner, who is the superintendent of Rec does an amazing amazing job, and she told me, please keep reminding people that Monday through Friday, especially for our youth, brewer center is open until 10 p.m.

Um, so that will obviously increase some of our staffing because we need to have staff there in order for the kids to be safe or the youth to be safe.

Um, if we could maybe have a workshop that talks specifically about park and rec, uh, what are some of the ways that um property taxes are paying for all of these services and why there may be a need for additional staff in particular in areas where we are seeing more uh usage and how we can really explain, I guess, what is the cost because uh the evolve magazine that the city of Wichita provides shows a price for Wichita residents and a price for non-Wichita residents.

So if someone wants to take a class at any of our rec centers, there's a price that's different and is subsidized for those who live here in Wichita versus those who don't.

So if those aspects can be included in that workshop, that would be very helpful.

Councilmember Shepherd.

Thank you, Mayor.

I appreciate that.

I would also clarify that I don't I I'm not interested in a workshop as it pertains to just park and rec.

I would love to see an under, I would like to gain a better understanding of how we are even doing this for small businesses as it pertains to licensing.

I just had a Vice Mayor Glasscock and I just met with a group of small business owners who uh quite frankly feel that they're being priced out of being able to do things in the city because the permit costs and the fee cost, and so uh this is not just a park and rec thing.

Um, and as it relates to the city manager, anybody doing any workshop on this.

I've just again, as I always say, get out of the ivory tower, come walk in my district, come and see the concerns and talk to the residents.

I think they would love to hear directly from the folks who are willing to be boots on the ground and actually understand the historical context behind how some of them feel about the way in which the city may be meeting their needs and the opportunities for growth in ways in which we can do better.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I know this isn't the place for it, um, but I'll go ahead and just piggyback on since this is a discussion.

I know we do look at some things to try and provide some equity.

For example, the water rates is segregated by um water usage and whatnot, but I concur with councilmember Shepard.

We need to continue to look for opportunities to take the burden off of those who can afford it the least, and those who are facing uh challenges economic and other barriers, and try and see how we can operate within the within our duties to provide these services as best as we can.

Thank you.

I will add one more point uh for the city manager.

I would also like to see I think council member Shepherd mentioned permit fees.

Uh that rolls into park and recreation, I believe, um, holistically some of these fees, whether it's businesses or individuals, and I think even council member JV Johnston mentioned uh there are ways that individuals can receive a service for free, but it's being subsidized by a donor, a donor that allows youth to to play golf for free.

It's free for them, but there was a cost.

So again, I think it would be helpful in that workshop to also uh share with us any of these subsidies that have happened because either donors stepped up or property taxes have stepped up to provide this service, and then how many uh individuals receive uh free or reduced rates because I know that if if the barrier is the cost of whether it's attending a summer camp or one of these classes, I think that there is an application for individuals who need assistance and can still get in for free.

So I would like to see that holistically, um, and I would appreciate a workshop item on it.

Thank you.

I see no further questions for Mark.

We will now open it up for public comment on this item.

I see none.

I'll bring it back to the bench, and with that, I will move to receive and file the quarterly financial reports.

Second motion second discussion, see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes six zero.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Wichita Art Museum Baron Room upgrade donation.

Hello, good morning still.

Lindsay Banaca, Director of Arts and Cultural Services with the City Manager's Office.

I'm here to talk about a prospective donation from the Wichita Art Museum.

A little bit of background.

The Art Museum is actually owned completely by the City of Wichita, but it's operated through a collaborative partnership with Wichita Art Museum Inc.

or WAM Inc., a nonprofit organization.

It's both the intent, uh the intent of both parties to operate the facility in a manner that's well maintained, open, accessible, and secure for public use and benefit.

In general terms, the city is responsible for major systems maintenance.

We talked about the building envelope, HVAC generator, roof, and WAM Inc.

The nonprofit operators are responsible for minor systems improvement, which in this case is really cosmetic improvements.

Some additional background is part of our ongoing planning and care for the facility.

We work directly with the operator to identify needs.

This space in particular is used for a variety of functions, and it's a premier meeting and special event rental space for the museum, so hence they want to make sure it's looking top notch.

The designs presented today were approved by the design council as all designs for permanent modifications to city approval city facilities go through the design council, and that was approved last month.

Some general analysis, and I don't know if it's a good or bad thing that this photo doesn't really showcase the dirty laundry we're showing right now.

Of uh the carpets in pretty uh rough condition with uh some significant stains and um pooling uh uh of the carpet itself, but really looking at uh redoing the flooring, window treatments, lighting, uh, AV equipment improvements, paint and new ceiling tiles.

Uh the proposed concept design can be seen here.

Some of the different fixtures again.

I apologize for on my screen, it's not looking great, but on the other screens, it's looking okay.

So hopefully you can see this okay.

So some the design schematics.

Um, in terms of financial consideration, WAM Inc.

our nonprofit operator will cover all costs associated with the project.

The estimated value is about a hundred thousand dollars.

Uh, there are no ongoing maintenance costs associated with this project.

And I recommend that city council approve the project, accept the donation, and authorize the necessary signatures, and I stand for questions as well as a representative from the art museum as well.

Thank you, Lindsay.

Questions for staff beginning with Vice Mayor Glascock.

Thank you.

I would just like Molly to come up here real fast.

Molly, while you're on your way up, I'll just uh praise you and the work the art museum is doing.

Um, it's incredible.

And the conversation we just had, talking about uh services for our community.

Can you talk about how the art museum is free every day?

I would be delighted to thank you.

I'm Molly McPherson, director and CEO of the Wichita Art Museum.

We do offer free general admission to the public, which is um almost the entire um museum collection, everything that's permanently in our collection.

Um we're open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m.

until 5 p.m.

And we stay open late every Friday night until 9 p.m.

to extend our hours of access.

We're committed to being here for our community.

We have an interactive family space, a variety of public programs that are free and really value and work hard to make the Wichita Art Museum a place for everyone.

Um I do want to add if it's okay that this um these upgrades that we're making will make this a more attractive venue rental space.

It is a revenue generator for the museum.

So particularly excited to implement these changes.

Great.

I know that we just had a conversation uh through Councilmember Shepard about equity in spaces too.

Can you talk about the diverse programming you have in the facility as well?

How you're trying to include new voices in art and maybe some of the highlights from that this past year.

I would be delighted to.

Um, we really value working with partners in the community and are always expanding that list of what that looks like.

Um, I will say we recently opened an exhibition called Kaleidoscope, um, work by um glass artists who were from Mexico originally and are Mexican American, um, live and work on both sides of the border.

And we had a big celebration last Saturday that featured several community groups.

We had Montechina's dancers, ballet folklorico, uh, really working with our community to be a venue and a gathering space for everybody.

Um, another significant partner of ours is Ponder This.

We have recently had a community conversation a few months ago with the panel and really inviting everyone to be at WAM with us and our partners to have these conversations together.

We're also working on diversifying our collection, and we'll have more news after our board meeting today, where we will be announcing some major acquisitions, diversifying the artists who are represented in our collection.

And full disclosure, I sat on the board of the art museum proudly, and I'm continually impressed by the work that's happening there.

Last pitch, because I'm just giving you the opportunity to pitch the art museum for a minute.

Can you talk about the new restaurant there as well?

I would love to.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Glasscock.

We are in partnership with Blue Moon Caterers, have opened a restaurant called EAT that opened in late November.

It is open from 11 until 3, 11 a.m.

until 3 p.m.

every day, open late on Friday nights.

Accessible, family friendly.

We really prioritize that.

Just like the rest of the museum, that's a place for everyone to gather.

You can, you know, show up for a cup of coffee, a drink, a lunch, um, or dinner on Friday nights.

Awesome.

Thank you.

That's uh enough of the plug from my perspective.

So I'll like to ask questions.

Council Member Shepard.

Thank you so much, Mayor.

And uh Vice Mayor Glasscock once again just alluded to exactly what I was speaking to earlier.

I think Wichita Art Museum does an amazing job of showcasing what equity looks like in practice, not just in terms of opening up the facility for free.

It's one thing to say, you can come to the dance.

It's a whole completely different story to say.

Come and dance with me once you're there.

And by making sure that the venue is free and accessible to the public, that's saying you can come.

But when you're inviting entities like Ponder This, the Wichita Asian Association, Camp Destination Innovation, the YBG Small Business Fashion Show that you did, that's saying you can also dance with me in this facility, and it's yours too.

And so I just hope that as we apply this logic and the great work that you're doing.

I hope we can take that and apply it across the board and be consistent.

Uh, but also I'm gonna be very supportive of this because of that work that you've been doing.

Um, and I've been really grateful to watch the work from afar along before I've been on council and to be a part of the great work you're doing at the Wichita Art Museum.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember John Stunn.

Thank you, Mayor.

I always like to highlight uh philanthropy in our country, you know, in our uh our city and our community.

And uh there's a great uh example of philanthropy with the art museum.

I think Carl Choosy still the reason for free is because he gives it a large donation.

Um Colby Sandlian supports our free days on uh that we offered for our special exhibitions that are ticketed.

Yes, my mistake is Colby.

Yes, Colby St.

Lynn.

Yes, yes.

I appreciate that.

He gives millions away every year in our community, and just like to highlight that and thank him for that.

So it's a great thing that it is free.

So thank you.

Thank you.

I will tag along and um talk about this because I know that council member Hoheisel serves on the board of Old Caltown Museum, and that is another reason why we have uh community members who want to allow equity and access and that invitation to the dance.

Um, I maybe we'll ask that to Lindsay.

Can you talk about maybe some of the individuals in our community that are allowing for these cultural facilities to have uh free price or free admission for the community while it's still a cost for us?

Sure.

Um, I'll attempt to at least.

So the Colby Sandlin donation to the Wichita Art Museum and to the old Caltown Museum is a fund through the Wichita Foundation itself with dedicated uh support towards those two specific organizations.

So I'm not aware of additional funds that exist for city facilities.

Um however, we do have some private funds, like in City Arts, we have a scholarship fund that's completely private, uh private dollars have generated that.

We have a series of funds, so specifically anyone who's listening that's interested in glass blowing or glass fusing.

We have a fund just for prospective students in in that area.

Um I would like to plug our museums for all program as well as the Blue Star museums that provide free or reduced uh admission rates to a variety of cultural attractions.

Uh those are federal programs that organizations opt into.

They're not subsidized, it's the generosity of the organization themselves and their board and staff leadership recognizing the importance of making sure that uh our public assets, in this case the art museum or old Cowtown Museum, these are public collections that belong to the community, uh and the community at large should have access to them.

So uh leadership across all of our organizations are working really closely in in that area.

Our cultural funding program in particular, where the city provides support to uh operational support to local arts nonprofits.

We have very uh specific performance measures related to community impact, equity of services, and um providing access.

That's the mission of the Division of Arts and Cultural Services is ensuring access for all of our residents and visitors.

Hopefully that touches on your question.

Thank you, Lindsay, and thank you, Molly, both of you for your leadership in both of the different organizations.

And I think it goes back to our community is great because people in our community invest in our community, and that includes uh the generosity of some individuals like Colby, um, who helps set up a fund through the Wichita Foundation that then will allow access for free admission to old Caltown Museum and to the Wichita Art Museum.

And so I'm grateful for that um donation.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, while we're on the subject here, um Lindsay, um, I know there was a request that kind of came out of the Caltown Board a couple of years ago about looking about how we can include uh more of a diverse experience from various groups who, for example, uh 25% of cowboys were black, and a large number of them were also Latino.

Um, so they were wanting to include that into their displays but work across the museum system.

We were starting to move on that, and then the DEI requirements came down and kind of slowed that process down.

Is that something we can look into again?

And can you just briefly talk about kind of the ideas that we had surrounding that?

Sure, happy to um I think that conversation in particular was looking at board leadership and diversifying uh board membership for that organization, but I think the context or the conversation extends much larger larger than that.

Um, one which is how our different museums working together, um, and they do in many different ways.

Um, that has to be mutually beneficial or has to make sense for both of them to do.

In particular, just because the item today is the Wichita Art Museum, does an incredible job of partnering with neighbor uh neighboring museums for collection sharing.

So uh if there's a specific exhibit that's coming up that's related that one museum has something related to that exhibit, uh, they share collections.

So it's not uncommon for works of that are owned by the historical museum or the Mid-American All Indian Museum or Cowtown to be featured on displays at the art museum or vice versa.

So there is a really great cohort amongst our museum industry here in Wichita that is very collaborative in nature on the the equity and diversity lens.

Uh, you're right that the conversation at the federal level over the last few years, uh last year plus has provided a unique challenge to the sector that we are navigating on a daily basis, trying to figure out how to rewards of our of our assets and the communities that we serve, uh, but also maintaining our federal rec regulations that a lot of organizations receive some sort of federal funding that we need to make sure that we retain compliance.

So it's a delicate time right now in the industry, but we're navigating it the best we can.

Um I would say that there's an open invitation from most of our boards.

I can't speak for all of them, um, that they want to diversify their their board membership itself to make sure it's not just an old Cowtown's uh experience, uh not just Wild West enthusiasts on the board, they want to make sure that they have a diverse range of professions represented.

Having an accountant or an attorney on a board is really helpful, regardless if they're an expert in Wild West, like that's not really what the they need.

So I think many of our boards have open uh open doors that they're trying to recruit board members to help steer the ship in those directions.

All of our boards are um volunteer-based, so we know that it's uh a gift of generosity of time and professional services that are given to these boards.

So it's an ongoing topic across all the boards that I have the privilege of working with that the need for more board members uh to roll up the their sleeves and help do the work is there.

Hopefully, that addresses a little bit.

Happy to go into further details needed.

A little bit.

I I would like to pick up that conversation as to how do we again the conversation that we were having before, um, continue to include some that way everybody's stories told across all of our museums.

So I'd love to continue that conversation.

Me too.

Right.

Thanks, Lindsay.

I see no further questions from the council.

We will now open it up for public comment.

Good afternoon.

I'm Kevin Harris in uh 1562 North Kinmore.

I think I'm supposed to get my address.

I'm a member of the board as well, have been since 2000.

Um, that's the Wichita R Museum board.

I just wanted to say this um just kind of from my perspective.

I believe that local government has two primary responsibilities.

I think there's a lot of complexities within those responsibilities, but I think if you put them in simple form, one of them is the uh functional responsibilities, and the other is cultural, functional, being um clean water, public safety, police fire, whatnot.

Um, but the cultural piece, I believe, is equally important.

And sometimes it's easy to overlook those things because they don't really reflect directly on income statements, balance sheets, and things of that nature.

And so I just wanted to say, and I didn't even really plan on saying anything today, but uh after listening to all of you speak and how supportive you are of the Wichita Museum, that it it brings me joy to know that you understand the importance of local and uh local government to invest in in culture when you think of things like shared identity and sense of belonging, and then you think about the stories that take place in our community and curating and preserving those stories, they do reflect financially when you think about retaining talent, when you think about attracting new talent, and when you think about things that just move our community forward.

So I just wanted to say I embrace I'm glad that you embrace those uh those values, and that I want to encourage you to continue doing so and uh clearly support um everything that's going on with the Wichita Museum.

So thank you.

Thank you, Kevin, for serving on the board alongside Vice Mayor Glasscott.

Anyone else from the community?

I see none.

I'll bring it back to the bench.

And this is in council member Ballard's district, but she's not here, so I will uh pass it to Vice Mayor Glasscock since he's on the board.

Perfect.

I move that we accept the donation and authorize the necessary signatures.

I will second motion second discussion.

See none, madam clerk.

Please open the roll.

Motion passes 60.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

DER 2025-15 amendment to the Wichita Cedric County Unified Zoning Code regarding public notification in the city.

Hello and good afternoon.

Scott Wedd from the planning department here to present this item.

So uh the recommended action is to override the planning commission and to adopt the amendments to the unified zoning code that were adopted by Cedric County.

And I have a correction on the staff report.

It indicates that it requires four votes, but in fact, because it's an override of the planning commission, it requires five votes.

So a couple more notes about this one is that it does not impact the city of Wichita.

The recommended action is simply for you to adopt the same text that Cedric County adopted.

The county approved amendments that are the same as what the city of Wichita adopted back in April, but in addition, they adopted the changes for the unincorporated county as well.

So it's coming to you so that we have a unified zoning code so that the text for both the city of Wichita and for Cedric County are the same.

In terms of background, um, again, this comes back to the conversations that were taking place at the DAB and from members of the public about uh notifications.

There's been um an extensive process uh to deliberate on what's the right fit for the community.

A few things that I would point out to you.

Oh, unfortunately, it looks like that one's not in there.

Is in March uh the MAPC voted to recommend approval of changes regarding notifications for city zoning cases.

In April, the city council, you all adopted those amendments, and then in May, that's when the county commission considered it, and again, they adopted the same text as what the city had, but with the addition of it applying also to the unincorporated Cedric County.

And this is regarding notifications going to the property as well as the property owner when the addresses are different.

So again, uh the emphasis here is that this is simply an item to make sure that we have a unified zoning code that the tax for both the city and the county are the same.

And again, just an emphasis that um the code changes that are before you today do not impact the city.

This is really just to make sure that it aligns with what the county has done.

And so the recommended action is to override the planning commission, adopt the amendments to the zoning code as adopted by Cedric County, place the ordinance on the first reading, authorize the necessary signatures, and instruct the city clerk to publish the ordinance after approval on the second reading, and again requires five of seven votes because it's an override.

And with that, I'll stand for any questions.

Thank you, Scott.

Questions for staff.

I see none other than you said it has to have five votes rather than four, correct?

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

We will now open it up for public comment.

Hi, Faith Martin again.

Um, I've spoken in favor of this every time it's come up before city council and county commission.

Uh District 2 DAB has been talking about this since 2020.

Um, I think this is wonderful, and I would encourage you this one time to override the MAPC.

Um, I think it's important that the code is is uh unified for uh city and county and includes all unincorporated areas.

Thank you.

Thank you, Faith.

Anyone else from our community?

I see none.

I'll bring it back to the bench.

With that, I will read the long recommendation.

I move to override the Wichita Cedric County Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, adopt the amendments to the unified zoning code as adopted by Cedric County, place the ordinance on first reading, authorize necessary signatures, and instruct the city clerk to publish the ordinance after approval on second reading.

Second.

Motion second further discussion, see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 60.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Amendment to ordinance 261020 of the code of the city of Wichita regarding the composition of district advisory boards.

Good morning, good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Jennifer Magania, city attorney.

The item before you would amend the city ordinance that sets forth the requirements for district advisory board rosters.

Currently, the code says that the roster should reflect the demographics of the citizens in the district, including geography, gender, ethnic, and racial diversity, neighborhood business, and community interests.

Currently, appointments shall be submitted by the council member for that respective district.

It is an 11 member board set by code, and the code requires that members shall be residents of the city.

The proposed amendment to the ordinance would provide for an option for one of those 11 members to be age 16 through 18.

And that option would be discretionary by the appointing council member.

As always, the appointments to any board are voted on by city council, as you know.

Um, under the current proposed amendment, the roster would me remain at 11 members.

Um the amendment also includes just some cleanup to language that's outdated and um does not have a substantive impact.

Um that's just in there since we're working on this.

Um the recommendation is to place the ordinance on first reading and authorize the necessary signatures.

I would like to recognize that council member shepherd has been integral in this process, and I understand that there are items for further discussion in mind, and I will therefore turn it over to council for discussion.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Questions for staff.

Um, I do have one before council member Shepherd.

Um, just for community who's watching right now, can you just talk about how many district advisory boards do we currently have?

How many members are they and they're appointed by their respective council members?

Can you kind of just uh high level so that people understand um and if there are any vacancies where people can go and uh apply?

Sure.

Our district advisory boards are governed by your city ordinance.

Each district, each council district has one district advisory board.

They are set um by ordinance as having 11 members, and they provide an advisory function to each council member.

They meet once a month generally in each district.

Appointments are made by U.S.

council members who have a district and then voted on by the council as a whole for those terms.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Shepard.

Thank you so much, Mayor.

I really appreciate it.

And um have had having had the opportunity to engage with the colleagues who came and spoke with me.

Um, I know that there are some amendments that would like to be considered to include expanding the district advisory board from 11 to 13 members, changing the language in this proposed ordinance to uh reflect will be required instead of may be required, and then also having worked with colleagues expanding the age from 16 to 18 to 14 to 18, and I believe that that just reflects the ages that are present in our high schools.

Thank you, Mayor, for discussion.

I'm supportive of all three of those changes.

Um, as a former youth member of District 4 advisor or district five advisory board as the previous chair of district four advisory board, and now setting this.

I think an expansion would warrant all of our districts are uh approximately 65 to 70,000 people, and I think 13 members uh warrants the expansion was seen really across the district as well.

I also like the expansion of the 14 to 18.

I think that's a wider range.

So if I need a 16 to 18 year old because you age out pretty quick when you're in high school, and it'd be good to have some continuity in it.

And so I'm supportive of all these changes, and I think this would be a great step forward to engaging youth perspective in our community as well.

I would concur with that.

Um and I see no questions or comments from the bench at the current moment.

And this is an item for public comment, is it Jennifer?

It is.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just want to say that this change was prompted by uh conversations that I've had with several youth over the past six months.

Um, I also want to remind the public that this is actually something that um the council was notified of in 2025 when former youth mayor Elizabeth Timsaw came forward during her mayor youth council review and shared that she had an interest in expanding the mayor's youth council because they were turning away so many young people because of all the the slots that they had available uh were limited in comparison to the amount of actual applicants, and I believe that happened again this year.

And so we know that young people want to serve, they have an appetite to serve, and I think we should be creating space for them.

When we look at the district advisory board and the purpose, as attorney Magania mentioned earlier, they are a part of our community.

The decisions that we make here, the policy decisions that we make here impact them and it impacts their quality of life.

We heard today conversations about IRBs, and we talked about uh potential concern in regards to how that IRB process may limit how much money goes into our public schools.

Well, we're not in the public schools, but the young people are, and they would be able to provide some perspective on how they feel about that.

In addition, I've spoken with USD 259.

We've had several young people come through, uh, including from the Andover community to shadow many of us and talked about the college credit or credit that they can receive by way of serving on some of our boards, which again, as we look at our tri-governmental meetings and the commitment to work across the aisle with our neighbors on the in the school district and county.

This aligns with that.

Um, and it encourages youth civic engagement.

We already have the youth civic engagement academy, we have Mayor's Youth Council.

Uh and finally, I'll just say we also invest over 200,000 in the way to work program.

And Mayor, you and I have the opportunity to go and speak to all of those young people.

Again, we had more applicants than we had actual spots for those young people, which once again, per the data is showing us that we have young people who want to be engaged in our community, they want to be productive members of our society.

So I I leave the floor open for any of my colleagues who want to express any concerns that they have had about this.

If they want to share that with the public at this time, I welcome them to do that.

I just want to be supportive of the three changes uh that were proposed by Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Uh, knowing that he started off on a district advisory board, then led a district advisory board and continued through that process.

I just want to encourage our community members.

Um, whether your youth or an older adult, there are opportunities to serve on these district advisory boards as well as city boards, and you can find all the vacancies at Wichita.gov and then click on government and then boards, and we always encourage people to serve uh faith.

You're one of the uh district advisory board members, and so again, thank you for that engagement.

Uh but we need more individuals in our community to serve, and this is a great opportunity to allow young people to have a voice at the table and have it codified so that there will be a youth on those district advisory boards uh moving forward, and I'm in favor of this and the changes.

Councilmember Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

I will also be in favor of this.

I do have 11 members on my district advisory board.

Plus, I have a youth member that sits in on it but cannot vote.

And I've always wondered why they cannot vote.

So this will give them an opportunity to vote.

So I I'm happy that that would be the case.

I see no further comments.

Uh councilmember Shepard.

Sorry, I was expecting commentary.

I know that there were some concerns, but they did not come up today.

So with that being said, we'll move forward with placing the ordinance.

I move that we place the ordinance on first reading and authorize the necessary signatures.

Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Councilmember Shepard.

I based on the amendment to the ordinance in front of us, those three changes are not reflected.

So if you would take a friendly amendment that we would uh strike 11 to 13, and that'd be reflective in any other ordinance regarding district advisory boards that we would strike uh May toward the end.

And it'll say and will include, and then strike the ages uh strike 16 to 14.

And that should reflect all the changes that were discussed.

Absolutely.

I think it's a testament to collaboration.

Thank you for coming and speaking with me.

And I want to acknowledge that you actually made this stronger, Vice Mayor Glascock.

So thank you for your willingness to engage.

Well, thank you.

And I will second that motion if you accept those.

Motion second with those friendly amendments.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 6-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Resolution supporting civility pledge.

Hello again, Mayor.

Council Jennifer McGonia, city attorney.

Um, this item arises from a request to consider a pledge that is similar to what the National League of Cities Pledge for Civility that was adopted in March of 26th contains.

Um, this pledge is contained in the body of a resolution, and this resolution is is similar in language to that.

Specifically, the resolution includes the language on the third bullet point here before you this would uh be committing to promote civility within the governing body, and that we as a city council stand united, leading with respect, dignity, and civility to reduce polarization and create an environment that values shared goals, increased empathy, and genuine dialogue.

Again, this arose from discussion at the National League of Cities Board, in which uh in March of this year at a meeting, a civility pledge was adopted, and the city resolution is similarly patterned after that pledge.

Um, this item is before you for your consideration.

Available for questions.

Any questions for staff?

I see none.

We'll now open it up for public comment.

Hello, Faith Martin again.

I would ask that uh would ask to remind people that this does not govern speakers, this governs the council, and that our first amendment rights will not be infringed because sometimes people get really passionate and they might curse, they might yell.

Um, but you know, that's not illegal, that's not against our first amendment rights.

So I support the civility pledge.

I would also like to see the civility pledge replace the invocation as the U five USC 259 has worked with Sedford County elections to put voting in more schools and less churches to remove government away from church.

I would like to see the city council move invocations away from uh religious invocations.

The civility pledge is perfect, that would be an amazing invocation.

Um, and would do um would serve well for those of us that don't fall within that faith community, but absolutely support local government and civic engagement.

Thank you.

Thank you, Faith.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, don't worry, Faith.

Um I think it comes with the job to take the abuse and the cursing and whatnot from the public, and again, that comes with the job.

Certainly, passions get high on a lot of these issues.

Um, but just speaking in general, I would like to see a more civil society, not necessarily directed at us, but in how we interact with one another.

I think that's one thing that we do need to get back to eventually.

Um, I would at least like to see more diversity in who comes up here.

I think maybe that's something we can look at working into different faiths, non-faiths coming up here and um just giving some overall statement or something like that.

So point taken on that one.

So I appreciate you.

Councilmember Shepard.

Thank you, Mayor.

And uh to the previous speaker, I just want to say that I agree with you that passion does not equate to not being civil or unwilling to engage with folks who don't think, look, act, vote like you, as someone who has been described as angry because of my passion.

I certainly take deep offense to that and really think that something like this can hopefully help us unpack why it is some of us show up the way that we do, and um looking at ways in which we can do better to describe folks who may show up in a way in their leadership style that doesn't make us feel comfortable.

Um and I appreciate you naming that.

I'm in favor and support as a man of faith uh to also recognize that that's not everyone's safe place, yet we represent everybody in the city of Wichita.

So replacing it with the civility pledge is also a great idea.

And then finally, I wanted to say though I will be supportive of this.

I want to double down on the fact that civility does not mean avoiding hard questions, lowering the temperature on every single issue, or shying away from problems and not saying how we truly feel from the bench.

Civility means addressing the challenges that we are experiencing directly while recognizing the humanity of every single person involved.

It means holding people accountable, speaking with truth and engaging in disagreement without losing respect for one another, which starts with being transparent with how we feel and not having conversations out in the parking lot, but directly with the individuals who we have an issue with.

We can raise difficult issues.

I truly do believe that, but we can challenge systems as well.

I love the city of Wichita, but the reality is we don't do everything perfect, and there's some history that I want to celebrate, but there's some history that we have to unpack.

We can demand better.

I believe supporting the civility pledge is doing that, and I think that we can do this all with civility.

Thank you.

Councilmember Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, Faith, I might disagree a little bit.

I think speakers should also have civility in this in this council offices.

Um we've had a speaker that refused to leave, had to be carried taken out forcefully.

We've had speakers that have yelled and have been uh reminded that there is a civil place to exchange ideas, and so I think that our speakers should embrace that also.

But uh I will also be supportive of this.

So thank you.

I will make a point of uh clarification, Councilmember Johnston.

Thank you for pointing uh that out.

Uh individuals have five minutes to speak, and five minutes is to respect everyone, not just other speakers, but staff time as well, and that's why there's a uh time limit.

However, I am going to ask city manager if we can have an audible five-minute buzzer so that people understand that that's the reason why we're asking the speaker to please sit down.

Um, in the situation you just mentioned, the individual was not forced to leave.

Um, this is everyone's city hall, and I want people to be at this city hall.

Um they were not uh forced, they were rather encouraged, and they chose to walk out the doors.

Um, and so again, I am going to be in favor of this because this is uh something that as a council we pledge to one another, um, but we just ask uh that individuals, especially in public agenda and public comment, adhere to what is already in the actual packet itself.

It says rules of decorum will be observed and enforced as provided in this code.

So it is already in code.

Um, the level of civility we ask.

We understand that emotions can run high, and sometimes some words uh may be more animated than others, and we're not trying to stifle freedom of speech.

I will be the first to defend freedom of speech as a former journalist.

Um, but I also believe that there's opportunities for individuals to engage civilly and respectfully.

Um, so as a council, we're making this commitment to one another.

Um, but I think your suggestion of also adding that at the beginning is kind of a book from a page from council member uh Shepherd's uh book, which is and I think the invocation has been traditionally open to any faiths.

There has not been an uh uh exclusion from individuals.

Uh I think there's uh the city clerk or one of the individuals at the city council offices helps uh track that, and we've had other faiths other than Christianity come forward and provide a prayer.

As a Christian myself, I appreciate that prayer.

I think it level sets for all of us that uh we are serving uh not just our community members but individuals of multiple different faiths, and in our Christian faith, one of our aspects of Christianity is respect.

And so I appreciate having those prayers, and I know other faith religions also appreciate respect, and so I uh would not be in favor of replacing the invocation, but rather adding a civility pledge or commentary regarding civility at the beginning.

Uh Councilmember Johnston.

Thank you, Mayor.

I maybe use a poor choice of words.

Uh the individual was not forced but was escorted by security out of the council.

So I'll change it to escort it out by security.

Thank you.

With that, we will uh continue with public comment if there's anyone else from the community who would like to speak.

I see none.

I'll bring it back to the bench.

And with that, I want to say thank you to the city manager and also to my colleagues who attended the National League of Cities.

Uh Councilmember Shepard, Councilmember Tuttle, Councilmember Hoheisel, Vice Mayor Glasscock, and Councilmember Ballard.

Uh Councilmember JV Johnston and I could not attend this year.

And we heard you and heard what you learned while you were at NLC, and one of those things that you learned was this civility pledge.

And that's why we asked the city manager to see if this would be something that we could adopt ourselves here in the largest city in Kansas.

And so thank you to our attorney City uh City Attorney Magania for helping with this presentation.

Um so with that, I will move to adopt the resolution.

Second.

Motion second discussion.

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 6-0.

Madam Clerk, please call the next item.

Councilmember appointments and comments.

Council member appointments.

I emailed this to the council as well as the city clerk.

I will now read it into record.

I would like to appoint Nicole Hernandez to the Sedwick County Community Corrections Advisory Board.

And I would like to reappoint the entire design council recommended by Lindsay Banaka.

Many of these names were there prior to me, and I am happy that they want to continue serving.

So I will reappoint Nick Stabe, Chloe Lang, Emma Schlittenhart, Bill Gardner, Steve Vaux, Chad Glenn, Janelle King, Brett Likowski, Armando Minharis, Matt Cortez, and Brent Thomas.

Second.

Motion second.

Any discussion?

I see none.

Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Motion passes 6-0.

Madam Clerk, uh, this is Councilmember Commons now.

Councilmember, are there any comments?

Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I would just like two things for future discussion to be brought up.

And so I just wanted to get maybe the interest of my colleagues.

Uh, Councilmember Shepard and Councilmember Bowler and I have discussed this, but the open-air um ordinance that was passed in 2020 as a result of COVID.

Uh that suspended the sidewalk cafe program, which charged $36 per chair for outside seating.

I know that that uh ordinance or that application expires in August of this year.

Businesses just I think want to have assurance that there is maybe a continuation of that program and what that would look like in the future.

And so I just want to make sure I know that the manager and I have uh discussed it regarding um not sending out letters, but I also know that it would take a motion of the council to be able to extend that beyond just uh sending out uh suspension of letters.

So I'd be interested in the having that discussion, and I would be interested in my colleagues, and then I'll just bring the other one.

The other one uh that I've been getting feedback, and I think all of us have gotten feedback from for district advisory boards and also from uh just people emailing us our design standards for duplexes, um, not giving a particular opinion.

One or the other at this point, but I'd be interested.

I know that other municipalities around us have looked at design standards, and I think it would warrant a discussion here about um what we want those standards to look like in Wichita.

If the standards around us are being elevated, what should ours look like?

So those are two things I'd like to discuss in the future, and just wanted maybe to hear the perception of my colleagues as well.

I'm in favor of both of those uh to come before the council.

Uh council member Johnston.

I am also in favor of uh look at the design standards for duplexes.

I think it's important.

Um got enough ugly ones out there now.

And uh and then we can have some good looking ones, I think.

So I also look forward to in addition to all that.

Um the parking signs for City Hall indicating people uh where they can park for free if they want to.

So if they come and pay a ticket or or a fee, that they have an opportunity to not pay for parking and park in a free lot, which would be uh rounds and portable building.

So thank you.

Councilmember Shepard.

Did you say we got those signs out, Councilmember Johnson?

I look forward to when those signs go out.

We do not we are taking down those signs now say by permit in the Porter and Rounds laws.

We're taking that down, but putting up the free ones in council should have received a map of all the free parking spaces in downtown, basically.

So that maps out.

We will have that on the website, and then we're working on the signage for the Porter and Rounds building um border designated as free for employees or public.

Okay.

Also, to be clear, I'd like signs on our lots entering City Hall that said free parking available at Rounds and Parker.

Just so people when they come in, they know that there is an opportunity for free parking, as well as the free parking signs at Rounds and Porter.

Thank you, Council Member Johnston.

Um you've been asking for that for a while, so very supportive of that.

And I know it's really important for people too.

Just had a constituent come to workshop.

Um, our last workshop who didn't know that we actually have free parking and probably wouldn't be able to find it.

So again, I hope that we can get that done sooner rather than later.

Um, and then I just want to let my colleagues know that um I've been in conversation with Hopenet, and they are someone who um distributes the bridges out of poverty framework for the city of Wichita, and that is to help individuals and communities understand the complexities of poverty, focusing on the root causes and sustainable solutions.

So I just wanted to let you all know that I'll be reaching out to you.

They're willing to come in and provide an hour and a half training for us, feed us even so we can get like a small sample of what they do.

My hope with that is that we can understand how to pair that with our work regarding our unhoused neighbors and the housing uh affordability and affordable housing, uh making sure that we're providing folks with the tools and education that they need to be successful to transition from shelter to transitional housing into permanent housing.

So I just wanted to let you all know about that.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

I just sent an email to Joe Lynn this morning at HopeNet about another program for through Kansas Legal Services that I hope they'll be interested in.

So thank you.

Sorry, a couple more comments to tag along.

Um council member Shepard um brought this idea up and also several emails.

Uh, we've had several emails regarding homelessness and homeless encampments.

Um, and I want to see if staff can find I sent an email to city manager regarding putting up some signs in frequent areas where um officers and park and rec have been going frequently to clean up areas.

Um homeowners would like to see signage posted, which would be our uh illegal encampment ordinance.

Um, and so I would like to see that signage and how much that would cost and where those areas are located.

In addition, um we've had some business owners in the downtown core also um receive some uh threats as well as um just non-welcoming to both uh residents but also guests of businesses, small businesses that is restaurants, and um I would like to have a holistic again look at um what the city of Wichita is doing regarding homelessness.

I know that uh the workshop this June will be about emergency winter sheltering uh and the game plan because we need to start talking about that rather than later, but also I'd like to see uh the conversation more holistically about homeless sheltering.

Um I received a report from the coalition to end homelessness on the number of beds available for sheltering versus what we need, and so I'd like to see again have that conversation and have um where second light fits into that.

Um so I have I guess a two-part portion to that request, and lastly, um I have a request with my colleagues.

Uh the current mission for the city of Wichita states four points, um, and one of them says build dependable infrastructure.

However, um, our palm card, our government palm card says build and maintain dependable infrastructure, and I believe it's important to have the words maintain.

Um I also had another email from an individual asking us about uh being considerate when we build new.

Do you have a maintenance plan?

What are the maintenance considerations?

And uh Lindsay Banaka was great at her presentation talking about the renovations to the Baron room at the Wichita Art Museum, and under there it said no additional maintenance um requirements, although the space in itself will require maintenance.

So I would like to see the mission be modified and changed to say build and maintain dependable infrastructure.

And if uh that could be brought forth, um, I would like to see us vote on that.

I'm supportive.

I'm supportive of that.

Uh we actually had a conversation yesterday about I'm gonna say the word, and I I'm ready for the emails to come flying in century two.

And the reality of difficulty and my thing was if we're going to have it there, which clearly Century 2 is here.

How do we maintain the infrastructure within it so that it accommodates the amazing talent that that performs inside of it?

And so I think you know, looking forward when we build things, ensuring that we also um have the perspective of not just building it but maintaining it is critical.

So I'd be supportive of that, Mayor.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hoheisel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, just one thing to keep in mind when we are talking about the homeless issue.

Um, number one, the goal should always be to try and help the people that are out there.

That's always got to be first and foremost.

And second, we need to tread lightly when we talk about encampment cleanups because one thing that happens is when you displace people, they still go somewhere.

And that's one of the concerns that we've had along the South Broadway corridor here recently is a number of businesses who have been affected by some of the cleanups that have been going along the river.

So it can't just be clear out downtown because that also has impacts elsewhere.

So again, just we just always need to keep in mind the ultimate goal is to make sure that we provide a good way for people who are having these issues to go through the system and get into housing and have the issues addressed.

So I just want to put that out there because I have heard a lot of uh consternation from my district about um people being displaced and then popping up in the middle of neighborhoods and outside of businesses.

So we just need to be mindful as to how to all the unintended consequences as we work through these issues together.

Vice Mayor Glasscock.

Mayor, I would agree with uh everything you said.

My only uh caveat to the mission aspect is just that we don't have to reprint everything, um, that we could just start with where we are now.

Um I think that would probably be uh financially responsible.

I would completely agree with you.

I think that again, uh, if this passes, it would be moving forward, it would have that addition if uh the council so chooses.

Um, however, I'm not asking for everything to be changed.

Um, websites could be easily changed, um, but not obviously printed material.

So thank you uh for a lot of affirmatives uh regarding the comments, and so we look forward to city staff presenting that.

However, we cannot leave because we have three executive sessions and per a memo from our city attorney, we have to uh come back each one of those times.

We can't do it consecutively.

So therefore, um I know it's 1243 right now, and we have not had a a break at all.

Uh, if we can have maybe a quick break and then go into our executive session, would that work?

We have and yes, and so um we will be working uh throughout that.

So I will move that the city council recess into executive session for 15 minutes to receive information on an EEOC complaint pursuant to KSA 75-4319 B2 for legal consultation with the city attorney, which would be deemed privileged in the attorney-client relationship, potential litigation and legal advice.

The exact the executive session is required to protect attorney client privilege and the public interests.

This executive session will begin at 1250 p.m.

and come and end at 105 p.m.

The meeting will resume in council chambers here.

Second again.

Motion second, Madam Clerk, please open the roll.

Aye.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, same sign.

Motion passes 6-0.

We'll be back here at 105.

Josh, whatever.

Whatever's in the bag.

I don't know what's in the bag.

I'm gonna give it to you, Josh, whatever it is.