Witchita and good morning staff and  good morning to all of you. Thank you   for joining us for this week's city  council meeting and workshop. We will   call this meeting to order. We will begin  with the pledge of allegiance. Please stand. I aliance to the flag of the United  States of America and to the republic   for which it stands. One nation under God,  indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Madame clerk, please call the first item. Approve the minutes of regular meeting March 3rd,  2026 and the minutes of the regular meeting March   10th, 20. Council members, any items to be  edited from those meeting minutes? I see   none. I move to approve the minutes for  March 3rd and March 10th. Second. Motion   second. Discussion. See none. All those  in favor say I. I. All those opposed,   same sign. Motion passes 70. Madame  clerk, please call the next item. Public agenda. We now come to public agenda. The public  agenda allows for up to five speakers to   have five minutes each to address the council.  Please bear in mind that this is not a period of   dialogue with council or a question and answer  period. This is your opportunity to address   the city council with your concerns. 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 the   public agenda other than referral to the city  manager for information as necessary. Speakers   will please speak into the microphone.  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 Andrew Crane. Sidewalks and accessibility. Mr. Crane, I don't see that he is present.   That allows for five individuals who would like  to address the council to do so. At this moment,   I see none. We will close public agenda.  Madame clerk, please call the next item. Consent agenda items 1 through 28. Council  members, are there items to be pulled? Council member Tuttle, I am going to Pull an item  from your district. Consent agenda item number 14. I see no other items to be pulled. I move  to approve consent agenda items 1 through   28 without consent agenda item number 14. Motion  second. Discussion. See none. All those in favor   say I. I. All those opposed, same sign. Motion  passes 70. The item consent agenda number 14 is an   overestimate bid and funding for 143rd Street East  from Kellogg to Harry Street. The overestimate is   $3 million. Um I would like to ask questions  regarding that over bid. Um can you please   uh public works address the over bid? Yeah,  this Paul Gman, public works and utilities.   Um part of this uh over bid was we had one  one only one contractor bid on the project   um and we had reached out to other contractors  asking why they had not bid on the project.   As you're aware, KO has the East Gallup  project that is has started work or will   soon part of their concern was coordination  between the East Kell project and this 143rd   Street project. Um that was raised during  some of the preid meetings that we had.   We had to we addressed those uh questions or  concerns through an addendum. So we thought   we had to leave some of those concerns.  However, there was still concerns with As I mentioned before, we reached out to multiple  contractors after the bid. One of them mentioned   the coordination as well as they had recently was  awarded another city project that they thought   would be more efficient. They spent their time on  that project both of these. And then one of the   large costs of the project was excavation cost.  The currently 143rd Street is a two-lane roadway.   We will maintain one lane of traffic southbound  during the construction of the project. There   is also a grade change. We will be lowering  the roadway approximately three feet in some   areas which will contract will put up a safety  barrier or barrier wall for safety purposes which   logistically the uh as they excavate they will  have to enter back in from area to the north and   then pull out. So those were some of the reasons  that we were provided for the cost that they Paul   I'm concerned because the engineers estimate was  8.4 million it is now going to increase to 14.2   2 million. Um, again, can you explain how the  engineers estimate of 8.4 came about and how a   $3 million discrepancy I understand that only one  bidder came through. However, the discrepancy is   $3 million. Again, some of as we look through the  bid tab, um some of the items that um you know,   we had looked at uh excavation cost um we  had they were the bid that we received was   $400,000 over estimate due to the logistics of  that. Um concrete and asphalt pavement were,   you know, about There was a $300,000 difference  um increase more for concrete pavement than we had   estimated. Um as well as 9 in reinforced. It was  another $200,000. Um there were some other costs,   signalization cost and we added some um not  originally uh in the estimate in the project   but we added some it related um conduit for future  communications with the signals. So, you know, as   you kind of go through all of these items, it very  quickly. Paul, um, again, another concern besides   the 3 million is that there was only one bidder.  Um, what would it take to go back to bidding and   how long would it um, defer this item? We had  discussed that as well. um you know and even   the contractors that we had reached out to even if  we delayed it a year so to speak they would still   not be interested in it with the coordination of  Kellogg. Um the pavement is in poor condition.   We have received complaints about the pavement  so we still think it was better to move forward   with the project and even if we delayed it  we could receive the same cost of of the bid. Is it typical uh for items like this? Again,  this is now a revised budget of 14 million.   What we approved back in November of 2025 was  8.97 million. Is this typical now moving forward   with our projects when it comes to streets? We  we're going to track it. I think this might be a   little bit of anomaly. We have another project  135th Street bidding here in a couple weeks.   We'll track that. You know, we had recently  bid 17th Street as well as West Douglas and   those came in near the engineer estimate. So,  um I think this one truly is the coordination   efforts with the East Kellog project. Um we had  heard from we even had changed the detour route   um as far as you know working with KOT they as  they work on the East Kellogg project they had   a detour route going to the south as they uh  have to close Kellogg for a period of time to   as he work on the bridges. We revised that to go  to the north. I think that's a better route, but   um there was a lot of coordination and I think  that's what had kind of had concerns with this   bid with other contractors. And lastly, uh this  item will be paid for by local sales tax. Um this   is the 1% Cedric County tax. Is that accurate?  Yes. So, um, again, the reason why I pulled   this and the reason why I will not be voting in  favor of this is because there's only one bidder   and the cost is now $3 million over budget. Um,  so I appreciate uh the information, but I would   encourage more people to know that these are the  challenges we're facing when there's only one   bidder. Um, and there's there's choice of whether  or not to bid on a project by contractors. Um,   but I don't like seeing just one bidder. And Josh  can add some more to it, but I think there's,   you know, this goes out to 12,000 contacts, which  you know, vendors have multiple contacts, so there   is a large outreach um to that. So, I think you'll  want some more. Sorry, Josh. Yep. Thank you,   mayor. Thank you for the questions. and council  Josh Loggery manager. Um so for your knowledge um   and process what the purchasing staff does is we  work with our departments to say who do you want   to be notified of this project? We have a roster  of what's called commodity codes that allows us   to identify who can do these types of services.  Specifically, we notified through commodities   91350 construction street major and residential  including reconstruction and 91360 construction   water system plants main and service lines. Uh  12,878 uh contacts were notified. Um I would be   more than happy to reach out to large vendors. Um,  part of in what I was going to speak to in board   of bids is this bid actually represents two large  firms because of the sheer labor constrictions and   difficulties we're having. Wildcat Construction  Company Incorporated is actually subcontracted   with Doner. So, those are the two largest  corporations that does these types of services   um in the South Central region. Um, if there  are other larger vendors that do this services,   I want to hear from them. I want to reach out to  them. I want to get plugged into the system. Um   the challenge is is from conversations with our  city engineers we the city the city's doing very   very large projects and we're competing with K  dot we're competing with the state we're competing   with feds so those are the challenges that we're  facing. Um the only other thing I would say and   I'll let um our city engineer speak to it. The  only thing I could think of is breaking the   project apart possibly but I understand that was  not feasible or something that we could easily do. I wanted to add we have um reached out to  some of our contractors to let them know of   forthcoming projects that we will have any you  know later this year so they can kind of look   at that look at the schedule as well. So, we are  trying to be proactive, get the word out of what   projects will be for. Council members, I see no  further questions. Uh, thank you, Josh. Thank you,   Paul. We will now open it up for public comment  regarding this item. I see none. I'll bring   it back again. I will not be voting in favor of  this because it is $3.92 million over budget. Um,   and so I will not be moving this item. I will be  happy to. Um, thank you to Paul and Gary. I had   lots of questions for you regarding this. This  is a unique project. This is a big project. Um,   timing with East Kellogg is challenging. As  um, our city engineer, Paul Gunzman, mentioned,   there are so many infrastructure projects  happening in our community right now. I'm I'm not   concerned that there was only one vendor that um  put in a bid because of the nature of this project   and it being unique. So with that, I will move  to approve the revised budgets overestimate bid,   adopt the amending resolution, and authorize  the necessary signatures. Second motion, second.   Any discussion? I see none. All those in favor  say I. I. All those opposed, same sign. I nay.   Same thing. Two against, five in favor. Motion  passes. Madame clerk, please call the next item. Bids and contracts dated March 23rd, 2026.  Good morning, mayor, city council. Josh Lober,   Department of Finance. Uh the board of  bids and contracts convened yesterday,   March 23rd, 2026 for the following items. Um  we have the 143rd Street East Harry Street   to Kellogg for Wildcat Construction  Company Incorporated for 11,611,98.50 subject to your approval of a new engineer's  estimate and budget authorization. Today   uh we have LW Clap Memorial Park cross country   course improvements for Versa Sport of  Kansas Incorporated for $150,700.60. Uh we have the water distribution  system storm water drain number 551   sanitary sewer paving improvements  for Sharice Point edition for me   construction incorporated for an  aggregate bid total of $489,934.36. We had the paving improvements for  Cottonwood Creek Estates Edition   phase 2 for Pearson Construction  LLC in the amount of $577,775. For purchasing, we have the generator  maintenance contract for Central Power   Systems and Services LLC for an  estimated annual usage of $51,350. We have the one 1,200galon water  tank truck for Rush Truck Center   for an aggregate bid total of 170,762.82. We have the ground maintenance services for  sewage treatment plants and lift stations   for Vernon Stoalt doing business as Kansas Turf  Works for an estimated annual usage of $48,480 per year. We have Pebble Quick Lime  Rebid for US Lime Company St. Clair   for an estimated annual usage of 3,619,329.99. We have the DC batteries for valve actuators for   Hess and Cheni pump stations for  Alpine power systems for $59,625. We have the courtroom A through D  furniture delivery, installation,   and trash removal for Galaxy Business Equipment  Incorporated in the amount of $60,996. We have the Adobe Creative Cloud renewal for  SHI International Corporation for $64,824. We have the firewall support renewal for  Optive Security Incorporated for $108,7298. We have the upgrade to managed relay  interactive voice response change order   for selectron technologies incorporated for  an estimated 5-year total of $555,599.15. We have the calcium chloride pellets 93% to 97%  change order for Veneira Chemicals LLC requesting   your authorization to extend the contract 60 days  ending May 31st. and we'll be bringing that back   out to you as we're actively rebidding it. Uh this  is our procurement portal website of how to become   a vendor with the city. This is our purchasing  calendar of small business resource partner   events the city's hosting or participating in. And  this is our list of open public opportunities out   on the street today. And I'd be happy to try  to answer your questions and recommend your   approval. Thank you, Josh. Questions for staff?  Again, uh item number three was the item that   um passed 5 to2. So I will be voting not in favor  of this um to stay consistent with my vote. Um so   someone else can do that. Mayor, if I may, um  would you possibly be interested in in making   a vote for all items with exception to this and  then bringing it back to this item? Sure. Thank   you. Any other questions? I will move to approve  the board of bids without con item number on the   screen number three. Second motion second. All  those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed   same sign. Motion passes. 70. Now this item. Do  a roll call move. Would someone like to move this   item? Sure. I'll be happy to. Um, I would I've  never done a board of bids. I would uh move that   we receive and file the report and contracts and  authorize the necessary signatures for the item   of 143rd Street East Harry Street to Kellogg.  Second motion second. All those in favor say I.   I. All those opposed same. Nay. Motion passes 5  to two. Madame clerk, please call the next item. Petitions for public improvements. Paul Gunsman, public works and utilities.  For the record, I have one location for   your consideration this morning. The  signatures on the petitions represent   100% of the improvement districts and the valid  and the petitions are valid per Kansas statute.   Corno East second edition located in district two.  The project will provide water, sanitary sewer,   and paving improvements required for a new  commercial development and to cover the cost   of a private bid. It is recommended that the city  council approve the new petitions and new budgets,   adopt the new resolutions, and authorize  the newer signatures. And I will stand for   questions. Thank you, Paul. Questions for staff?  I see none. I move to approve the petitions for   public improvements. Second motion. Second.  Discussion. All those in favor say I. I. All   those opposing sign. Motion passes. 70.  Madame clerk, please call the next item. Council member agenda approved  that pursuant to section 32.04.090. Mayor Lily Woos travel to attend the League of  Kansas Municipalities Board meeting on March 27th,   2026 in Manhattan, Kansas for the purpose of  representing the city consistent with AR 3.1   be approved. She will utilize a city vehicle and  there will not be no other expense to the city.   Motion to approve the travel. Second. Motion  second. Discussion. All those in favor say I.   I. All those opposed same sign. Motion passes  70. Madame clerk please call the next item. approved to exceed the gift limit established   by the ethics ordinance for Mayor  Lily to accept travel and expense to attend the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership  Initiative. Mayoral Capstone convening is hosted   by the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership  Initiative for the purpose of completing the   Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative  flagship program which focuses on making   progress on personal leadership progress on  a key priority challenge and strengthening   organizational capabilities. The estimated gift  amount for travel, hotel, and meals is 16,350. Motion to approve the travel. Second. Motion  second. Discussion. I will just add a quick   um portion to this. I want to say thank you  uh to the city of Witchah team including   uh city manager, assistant city managers and  department leaders who have been part of the   Bloomberg Harvard city leadership initiative.  Um our key priority was downtown perception   of safety. Um we will have a report after I  attend Harvard University. Um and I am happy to   uh share that Chief Sullivan was uh one of  the cohorts along with um our communications   director Jim Jonas. And so uh I'm very grateful  for the opportunity to be selected amongst one of   the group of mayors from around the world. and  looking forward to convening with these mayors   uh at Harvard next month. Motion second. Um  all those in favor say I. I. All those opposed,   same sign. Motion passes. 70. Madame  clerk, please call the next item. Council member appointments. Council  member appointments and comments.   Council members, we'll start with appointments.  Mayor, I'll go first because we're going to have   probably a lot of appointments up here from a lot  of people. So, uh, first off, I will go to let's   start on, uh, I'll appoint Miranda Pinter to the  Affordable Housing Review Board, Nancy Bradley to   the Animal Control Advisory Board, Kelly Wentz  to Bike Head, Nina Lawson to the Parks Board,   Dallas Grimes to the Food and Farm Council, Dallas  Grimes to CSBG, Susan Decker to CSBG, Alan Oliver   to CSBG, Tabitha Layman to the uh diversity  inclusion board, Janice Bomb Dixon to the   Historic Preservation Board, uh Nate Schweedall to  the Police and Fire Retirement Board, Nick O'Hisel   to the Transit Advisory Board, Matt Blashley to  the Citizen Review Board, and Tony Zimbleman to   um the uh zoning appeals and also MAPC. Council  member His quick question for the city manager.   Um, are we making appointments to die or the land  bank? No, not today. Thank you. All right. Well,   I got a I got a nice list. I think I'm going to  outdo council member Glascock here or vice mayor.   I did half mine last time. Okay. Well, appre I  appreciate that. Um, Cole Schneers to affordable   housing review board. George the O'Hara to  Animal Services, Garrett Foster to BIPED,   Philip Simon to parks board. um block uh grant  review committee John Buck, Cindy Miles, and Janet   Johnson. District Advisory Board, Jerry McRoup,  Vanessa Kristofferson, Rick Lindseay, Tim McCory,   uh John Buck, Daniel Baitman, Ariel Kirk, uh  Geneva Chambers, Noie Ibara, uh and Jerry Mcgru,   Deb Stevens to historic preservation,  Kurt Olswald and Lauren Hirs to library,   um Cindy Miles to the block grant review board,  uh Mike Casings to police and fire retirement.   Diana Edmonston to transit. Tam McQuary to CRB.  Robert Decker to retirement employees retirement.   Ibrahim Abdullah to sustainability.  And Jared Hulcom to access advisory. Any other council members? Yes. Member Tuttle.  I'll go next for district two um to reappoint   to the affordable housing review board. Braden  McCertie to appoint to the animal service advisory   board. Stephanie Mccertie reappoint to the bicycle  pedestrian advisory board. Monty Shaw for the   district advisory board. The reappoints will be  Chris Broadick, Stephanie McCertie, Tracy Adams,   Aaron Miller, John Baker, Timothy Johnson,  James Gra, Michaela Burrell, Faith Martin,   Bruce Gas, to appoint to the district  advisory board, Judah Craig, to reappoint   to the Food and Farm Council, Amy Drought, to  reappoint to the Historic Preservation Board,   Barbara Meyers. to appoint to the library board  Tony Porter. To reappoint to the library board,   Chuck Schmidt, to reappoint to the  Metropolitan Area Planning Commission,   and the Witchah Sedick County Board of Zoning  and Appeals, John McCay, to reappoint to the   Transit Transit Advisory Board, Chris Stan, to  reappoint to the Witchaw Airport Advisory Board,   Alicia Sanchez. to reappoint to the Witchaw  Citizen Review Board Brandy Willlet and to   reappoint to the Witchaw Employees Retirement  System board of directors Sean Seamster. Council member Berg. Thank you, Mayor. For  district 1, I would like to appoint Kate   Webb to the park board. Like to reappoint to  the library board to Donna Neil and would like   to reappoint to the district 1 advisory board the  following individuals. Rachel Mio, Twilight Perie,   L Bo Bman, Chelsea Jackson, Natalie Mertton,  Michaela Pack, Joseph Doer, and that's it. Johnston. Okay, I have a long list. Um, and I did  send it via email to all of you, but there will be   a couple of corrections. So, I'll start off with  recognizing that one of my appointees is here in   person. Um, I am going to appoint for the CSBG  Northwest Low Income Board seat, Rosa Cisneros.   I will reappoint the following individuals for  board of park commissioners Brandon Coline,   Food and Farm Council, Thomas Montiel, police and  fire retirement board of trustees, Joseph Bickl. I   will have an opening for the library board. Um,  I want to thank Sarah Beldderas for her service   these last two years. I am taking applications for  anyone who is interested on serving on the library   board. I will continue with these reappointments.  Cedric County Community Corrections Advisory   Board, Christopher Haney, Sustainability  Integration Board, Dylan Theson, Self-Supported   Municipal Improvement District Advisory Board,  Chad Hansen, AJ Bleski, Deborah Frasier, Joe   Johnson, Mark Schmusley, Joe Surmeer, Don Sherman,  and for the Witchah Cedric County Access Advisory   Board, Courtney Wages. Since we are not appointing  uh to the land bank or the diversity board, I will   abstain from that name that was shared to all.  I will have more appointments next week. Council   member Ho Heisel. Thank you, Mayor. Uh just uh  Jerry Mcgru to Food and Farm Council. I didn't   have it on my sheet, but I heard your appointment.  So, thank you. We have all appointments uh for   districts. I move to approve the board of appoint  uh the appointments for district four, district   three, district two, district 1, and the mayor's  appointments. Um motion second. Second. Any   further discussion? I see none. All those in favor  say I. I. I. All those opposed, same sign. Motion   passes 70. Mayor, I will point out that I made all  of mine last week, so I'm done. Procrastinated.   Yeah. Thank you. All right, council member  comments. Mayor, if I may, I just want to uh   first of all thank um the Witchaw firefighters.  I know there was a situation where two children   were involved in fire and our firefighters were  able to go in and resuscitate those two children.   I think oftent times we we hear a lot of the  things that may not be working well in the city.   I think it's important to uplift the great things  that are happening and the remarkable people who   are doing great things in our city, too. So,  I wanted to give them a shout out today. Um,   I know they do great things every day along with  several other public safety entities within our   city, but that one made the news and wanted to  share that. Also wanted to share that I've been   in conversation with the city manager. There's  no action to be taken at this time. Uh but as it   relates to zip code 67203, 67213, 67202, 67211,  67218, 214, 208, and 216, which makes up council   member Tuttles's area, Council Member Hohisel's  area, Vice Mayor Glascox's area, as well as   Council Member Ballard's area and uh District 1 as  well. Those are the poorest zip codes in our city.   And so I've been speaking with the city manager  about what does it look like to truly look at   the social determinance of health as it relates to  all of these areas and bring together a task force   to look at how we can improve education access,  quality, health care, neighborhood, environment,   social and community contexts as well as economic  mobility. And so that will be up for discussion at   a later time, but I did want to share that with  both my colleagues and the public. Thank you. I appreciate the council member Shephard's  thoughts there. Um both accounts, the two   children, the last I heard were doing well.  So that's always a positive sign. Um also,   we do have our speaker who uh was a little  late for the um public agenda. I don't know   if you guys will be okay with waving the rules  and allowing him uh his time to speak today.   I would be in favor of that with a motion to  return to public comment. Yes. Can we finish   out council member comments first and then we'll  go to another item. Any other comments, council   members? Um I just have one. I wanted to thank  uh the council members who attended the National   League of Cities last week. Uh Council Member  Johnson and I uh were not able to attend last   week. Um but I know that you all represented the  city of Witchaw well. Um, I also heard that you   guys advocated for the federal agenda uh and the  federal priorities for the city of Witchaw. So,   thank you for doing that. In addition, um I  looked uh and saw that the National League   of Cities will have a is encouraging leaders to  have a resolution to lead with civility, dignity,   and respect. And I will be talking with fellow  council members and bringing this back up as a   council member agenda item. I would like to see  a resolution that talks about civility, dignity,   and respect that the city of Witchaw can adopt.  And I know council member Tuttle has been in   talks as well with staff. But I would like to see  us um as a city uh make a statement regarding uh   that statement by the National League of Cities.  So uh with that, I ask that um staff work with us   uh regarding a resolution. I'd just like to add  on to that. I've had communication with a city   manager last week when we were at the League  of uh the conference and then also yesterday   and thank you to council member um Shepard. It's  something that we would like to champion. It was   um a really interesting session. There's already  a great templates from other communities who   have done that and they really focus on  not only civility among council members,   but encouraging civility from the community  when talking to council members, but then   also civility of council and to staff. And so  I think it's just a great opportunity for us   to make a statement. I look forward to working  with you. I see no further comments. With that,   I move that we reopen public agenda to allow our  speaker to have his five minutes. Second. Motion   second. Discussion. None. All those in favor say  I. I. All those opposed, same sign. Motion passes.   70. Mr. Andrew Crane. Uh, you have your five  minutes to talk about sidewalks and accessibility. Well, good morning. Um, I uh wanted to uh talk  to you guys. Um, I know that you guys are going   to be talking about uh sidewalks and uh making  it more uh accessible um to the disability and   blind community. Um and uh and that and uh once  again um I I just encourage you guys to be be   thinking about the downtown area, be thinking  about the disability community and folks in   wheelchairs and folks that have uh walkers,  too. Um, and uh, I've been walking these these   uh, sidewalks for a number of years. Um, and  tripped over them number number of times. Um,   and I want to see our sidewalks smooth as smooth  can be. Um, and and that and even our uh, uh,   crosswalks too. um that need to be re repainted  and uh looking a lot better so folks in vehicles   can stop at the correct uh stop and so folks can  walk in the crosswalk comfortably and get across   the street comfortably. Um I almost got hit by a  car uh walking in the crosswalk um coming down at   the St. Patty's Day parade did did not see me and  uh and that. So that's that's another thing that   needs to bring up to your guys's attention. Um and  that needs to be addressed and needs to be worked   out. Um and uh I am speaking on behalf of the  disability community and the blind community in in   Witchah. And we are tired of seeing sidewalks beat  up and we are tired of seeing uh different things   that need to be upgraded. Now, thank you very  very much. And any questions that I can answer? Thank you very much, Andrew. You're welcome. With that, we close public agenda. Again,  um we already have had our comments from the   council. However, we cannot adjourn this meeting  because we will have two executive sessions. So,   at this moment, um I will pass  this on to city manager Marcel. Thank you, Mayor and Council members. We have  uh workshop items before we get to the executive   session. Um so we did have five items we want to  highlight today on the screen. Um our first one   going to have a presentation for the waterworks  update which is the new water treatment plant. Um   we've committed to open transparency on the  status of that with monthly updates at each   uh workshop going forward. And so we have  director Jansen to speak with us and share   some of the updates with our contractor. Mr. J.  Uh thank you Mr. Manager. Uh Gary Jansen public   works and utility manager said uh we're planning  to be here each month um to provide an update on   Walt Waterworks where we're at on repair of the  clarifiers in particular. Ron Coker of Waw Water   Partners is here and he'll provide details here  in just a moment. So uh we have made they with   saltwater partners made some temporary repairs  to one of the six clarifiers so that we could   uh bring the plant back online. Uh another repairs  were made to sim simulate what the permanent   repair will do. So that clarifier has been  operational. One of the things that's done value   to us is to start getting our staff accustomed to  operating the plant. So they've been able to be at   the controls more than in the past which is real  value to us. So we can start seeing what how this   new how the repair clarifier is going to work.  So we do have water running through the plant.   Um permanent repairs are underway. Ron will talk  about details. That's all going to start moving   forward a lot more here in the coming months. Um  and hopefully sometime by this summer and he can   talk about that timeline too. Sometime this summer  we expect to have all the permanent repairs done.   Um start looking at performance testing again and  seeing what we can do. get to the point of having   the plant fully online. As of now, as I mentioned  before, the plan is still a responsibility of   WTO Water Partners um until such time that we get  through all these repairs, all of the testing, and   agree that it's time for the city to take it over.  So, with that, I'm going to return it over to Ron. Thank you, Gary. Uh mayor, members of the  council, uh Ron Coker with Burns McDonald   and Witchaw Water Partners, project executive for  Witchaw Water Partners. I'm going to give you a   quick update again. Uh just like last month, we'll  u we'll walk you through uh the status of each of   the clarifiers. Uh easier to do it by clarifier  now than by activity. So uh you're going to see   a lot of slides that that work through this same  progression uh as we go forward in the next couple   of months. Uh for the first uh for SEC 1 uh we've  completed washdown activities on that clarifier   uh wash the old lime scale out from previous  activities. Uh mixture inspection is complete. Uh   no repairs required. Let me make a clarification  on that. There's a we have a standard repair   procedure uh from Westech the clarifier vendor  that when looking at the that the mixers remember   when we talked about the failure part of it  was interference of the mixer with the upper   draft tube. So there was a concern that had  we done any damage to the bottom of the mixer   uh where that interference occurred. We got  a repair uh process and observation process   or determination process from Westech uh that  indicates if there's uh any more than a 16th of   an inch of material loss, it requires a repair. Uh  that process is still being considered by the city   uh as to whether that's adequate or not uh or  that amount of material loss is adequate or not.   So when I say on these slides no repairs required,  I'm simply saying that there is not any uh there's   not any material loss greater than a 16th of an  inch in line with the repair procedure that we've   been given by the vendor. Uh city will continue to  look at that. Uh and I'm sure if there's changes,   we'll uh next month when that occurs. Uh coding  identifications are complete. Codings repairs are   ongoing. I will also just uh uh for a point of  clarification on the coatings, there are a lot   of individual coding repairs uh on some of these  clarifiers. Uh the the team continues to look at   are there better ways to handle the coding uh to  speed the process up. Uh very weather dependent   uh as you might imagine trying to do coatings uh  in place. Uh so uh so if we have any optimization   on that likewise we'll give you update next month  uh on that process as it occurs. Uh SEC number two   washdown is is ongoing uh m mixture inspections  are complete again no uh requires identified   uh and coding identifications uh will start after  washdown. SEC number three uh we've completed the   washdown. This will be the first SEC put back into  actual operation uh for uh testing which should uh   repairs uh I'll give you an update on on that here  on the last slide related to the upper draft tube.   Uh coding identific identifications are complete  and we're ongoing with coding repairs and then   we're also looking at at the regular modifications  on this clarifier right now since it's the first   to or will be the first to complete. Here we  are with SEC 4. Uh again, washdown's complete,   no requires repairs required on the mixer  inspection. Uh coatings identifications are   complete and coding repairs begin this week.  Uh here's the clarifier that Gary mentioned   that we put in an operation with temporary  repairs. I think I misspoke last time. Gary   actually said it correctly this time. Uh SEC 5 was  temporarily repaired to simulate uh what the new   upper draft tubes uh would uh would look like uh  for this operation. Uh it's been operation since   uh late February. Uh as Gary mentioned, city  staff has been part of the operations team,   which is a great opportunity for them to train  and something that would have had to be done   uh quite frankly at at some point in the process.  The city staff has to to train and and learn this   system. So this is a great opportunity to get  ahead of that. Uh about 15 different city of   Witchaw staff have rotated through activities uh  covering both day and night shifts. Uh and then   um our team and the city staff meets about  three times a week to talk about operations.   Um while we're running this temporary clarifier,  it's more than just learning how to run it. Um,   part of what we're doing is looking at other  treatment options uh or different ways to uh   to operate the facility so that uh so that both  our team and city staff are learning uh through   the process as well. Uh which is something we're  better able to do when we're not in the middle   of a PTA or a test period. Uh so that's been  going on as well. Uh clarifier speed was one   uh one of the items that's been looked at for  the last couple of weeks. uh they'll start   looking at chemical optimization as early as  next week or maybe even this uh later this week   uh as well uh to answer some of the questions  on what we observed previously when we're in the   testing process. So uh gaining some value there  as well. Uh because this clarifier is uh the   one that was temporarily modified, it will be the  last one to have the permanent modification. So,   it will stay in operation until we get up and  operating with one of the other clarifiers. And   then this one will come down for repairs. And the  final repair will be similar to all the other five   repairs. Uh and then here's the last clarifier. Uh  again, inspection complete, no repairs identified,   uh coding identifications begin this week. Here is  the the status of the upper draft tube material.   You'll remember that we required Westech to  provide new upper draft tubes. Uh that was   the piece that experienced the most damage in in  the previous uh structural failures uh associated   with the clarifiers. Uh SEC 3 is on site. Uh the  material for that solids contact clarifier showed   up uh um as as this schedule indicates. Uh we are  doing uh inspections. I can't guarantee you that   those dates are exactly right. I gave them to you  middle of last week. So they might flex just a day   or two uh depending on when the inspections occur.  Uh but we should be seeing the second set of   materials show up soon uh if they haven't already.  And then uh and then SEC4 uh inspections are   scheduled or were scheduled for late last week.  So uh we continue to progress. We told you they're   going to come sequentially. They'll come in about  pairs or estimated to come in pairs to the site uh   for repair uh for installation of those repairs.  Here's a couple just so you can get a sense of   uh uh the manufacturing process. On the left you  see a uh uh one of the upper draft hoops uh that   has been uh that has been put in place or put  together fitted up to make sure that all of the   pieces fit together. You can see that it's done in  pieces that are that are then connected together.   And then on the right, you'll see some of the uh  uh these are actually baffles uh that will go in   uh inside the clarifier uh that are in the coding  process as part of it. So this is part of what's   uh inspected as as our team's going up for final  inspections that you see in the other uh in the   other slides. And then uh this material then will  be once it's coded approved it will be shipped to   site for installation. Any questions on that?  Yes. Uh just a few here. So can you explain a   little more on the codings and what the issues are  here? Is that something that affects the how does   that affect the process? Well, it doesn't affect  the process per se. And when you say process,   do you mean the repair process or the the  operations process? Doesn't coatings don't affect   the the process or I wouldn't say uh any any kind  of significant effect to the process. Um really   what the coatings are about is ensuring because  these are submerged uh in trying to ensure that   the the material uh will stand the test of time  uh in that kind of environment. As part of it,   there are a variety of different kinds of repairs  being looked at. Uh it might be uh let's let's say   maybe in some of those previous pictures you saw  areas of collision, right? That's an obvious uh   point of repair that needs to be addressed uh as  part of it. But there are also uh areas of repair   that might address uh coating thickness or uh or  pitting that occurred that's not yet indicating or   showing corrosion. uh uh but is something that  should be repaired while we're doing it to to   try and uh make sure that coding uh meets its  design life or specification. Uh I do have our   our startup project manager Dan Baker uh in the  room. Dan, wave your hand if you would. Um Dan,   any other kinds of coding repairs that would be  significant to the council, do you think? Yeah,   just to reinforce what Rod said. There's while  we're in there, while we're gray, while we're   committing, we're doing holistic review and just  making sure that no stone is left unturned. So,   that's part of Okay. And just just to so everybody  can hear if uh online if they couldn't hear, Dan,   uh it's really just a holistic review of  of the of the clarifiers and then fix any   repairs identified. Council, does that answer your  question? Yeah. Um, so are some of the areas of   erosion is that to be expected in certain  areas or is it corrosion that we're seeing   that eroded? Yeah. Well, it's actually so it's  uh there's there's uh there's corrosion, not not   erosion, but corrosion on the material. That's  going to be something that you're going to see   uh throughout the life of these clarifiers.  I believe these clarifiers uh um in the in   the operations uh expectations have an annual  inspection and if you see any areas of corrosion   uh you repair that uh that area of corrosion uh as  part of the identification. So it's not uncommon,   it's not unexpected. Um I think uh I think part  of what we saw when we took these downs are   probably more areas than uh we expected to see  uh this early into the operational life of the   clarifiers. That's I think one reason that the  codings are more significant or the repairs are   more significant uh through this process. But in  the end, hopefully that uh that puts the city in   a much better position uh operationally with these  clarifiers moving forward. Okay. The uh 16th of an   inch of material um is that expected to have is it  just a 16th of an inch of the material that gets   eroded I guess? Yeah. So really it's uh these  are quarter inch plate uh clarifiers. So these   are made out of quarter inch uh steel plates uh  or yeah steel plates. Um this is and when I say   16th of an inch it's uh the the specification  from Westech says if it's below 16 of an inch   it's allowable. So really what we're talking  about is just not uniform material degradation   but instead a scrape or a gouge where you had  interference. So yes. So, WestTech has provided   uh the justification on why that uh that amount is  acceptable uh in the in the design. Essentially,   uh it's it's overdesigned according to Westech.  So, you can have some allowable material loss uh   as part of it. If it if it's more than that, it's  repaired per their specification so that you don't   have that uh that exposure or loss of material  that could shorten the life of the clarifiers.   Uh but again, that's part of what the city's  asked for additional clarification on uh and was   provided I believe late last week, Yuri, as well.  Do you have anything you'd like to add to that?   No, appreciate you getting that point, Ron, and  thank you for the question, Council Member Hall.   We still have some concerns about that based on  the information that we've seen. Uh Ron mentioned   that there was interference between Everdraft tube  and the mixer. That's not supposed to happen. Uh   so it's not in our eyes, it's not necessarily  just the concern with the material laws, but what   have happened to any concerns with the mechanism  itself while that interference was happening. So,   we have asked for additional information.  We aren't at the point yet of saying that   we believe that that's necessarily acceptable.  We've seen the initial information from West Tech,   but we're waiting on more detail. Okay. When  and when we do ongoing maintenance, how often,   if ever, do we do we take like a clarifier off  at a time to do to go on back and look at like   the coatings or We will and especially in  this case what we're working through with   uh warranties and things like that before we wrap  this project up is we will have these inspected   on a regular basis initially during the warranty  period uh depending on what we see there. that   even if we had not had these issues uh over the  course of time and one of the values of having   six clarifiers and the built-in redundancy of this  plant that we've talked about for some time is we   would take a clarifier down at a time if not two  for standard maintenance to check the coatings   um tighten bolts everything else that we need to  do. Okay, appreciate that. Quick question, Gary.   How long is our warranty after we take possession?  We'll have a two-year warranty on the clarifiers   unless we take possession of the plant. Okay.  Thank you. And Ron, I have a question for you,   too. Uh, when do you expect the first upper  draft to placement to be completed? Uh, well,   it's going to occur, it's going to be close in  the month of April. Um, so we had planned in April   and it's being ready for the first PTA as early as  April. Uh I believe the latest schedule shows that   in early to mid May at this point, but there's  still a little bit of flex in that schedule.   So I would say that uh it will be installed or  the installation process will be occurring in   April. And I think it's safe to say that in May um  barring nothing that unforeseen that we don't uh   have in the schedule today, uh we'll be ready to  to start operation of that uh of that SEC. Okay.   Did I hear correctly that you're doing two at a  time? Yeah. They they were manufactured. There's   been some discre there's been some changes in that  with the manufacturer. Originally it was going to   be they were manufactured in pairs and shipped  to the site in pairs. Then at one point the SEC,   excuse me, Westech had indicated no, they were  going to go ahead and proceed with all six   uh simultaneously and they would be shipped  as they become available. Uh right now our   installation process is built upon two at  a time so that the crew can bounce back and   forth between SEC's depending on where they  are in the installation process uh or the   repair process. It's trying to optimize uh it's  trying to optimize that downtime or repair time   uh across all six. Uh but yes, we're we're our  approach is SEC 3 and one will be the first two   uh complete uh the first PTAs. Remember we talked  about having three PTAs we needed to complete for   rerun. Uh the first of those uh will be on uh SEC  3. So that will be the first clarifier up. Uh as   soon as it's up and operational then those PTAs  could begin. Some of the the PTAs require more   than one clarifier. I think uh I forget the P uh  the PTA number, but one requires three clarifier.   So, we won't be able to do that clarify obviously  until later in the process. Clarifiers online.   Just for clarification, PTA stands for performance  testing and acceptance. Thank you. Sorry about   that. Didn't know. Yes. Other questions? Uh  thanks Council Member Johnston for uh asking that   question because I think that's really important  for people to understand. Just two questions for   you. Thanks for being here. Yes. Um this one  might be for Gary, but what is the timeline   for staff to be trained on the technology side of  things? So I think you know getting getting the   water treatment plant operational is one side  of it, but the technology is another side. So   where are we at in that process? Well, it all  happens at the same time. Nothing that we're   doing here is necessarily out of the realm of the  experience of the staff that we have. Obviously,   this plant operates different differently than  our current plant, but um there's not really a   big learning curve for staff on the technology.  That's all part of what's happening with the   training on the operations. At the same time, um  we've had time obviously now for staff to also get   more engaged with what's happening to see what was  happening during the previous performance tests.   uh what was happening with chemical dosing and  everything else. I think we're in a good place   technology-wise, but the time frame once we take  over the plant, still don't know when that's going   to be. We still have some things to discuss and  work through on exactly what's going to happen   with performance testing um because we had we  don't have that part resolved yet because these   are pretty significant changes or modifications  been made. So, we've got to figure out what makes   sense once we take over the plant. My hope is,  our estimate is that we're going to need to run   this plan for about six months um to bring it to  the point of where we need to be to make sure we   understand fully what's happening operationally  so that we can get to a point, especially with   chemicals, types of chemicals, dosing, exactly  how we're going to run this plant. That's going   to take a little bit of time, make sure we keep  our old plant operational, all that same time,   too, before we come fully online. So, there's  still time here uh to make sure we've got staff   fully educated on the processes. Thank you  so much, Gary. Um and then you mentioned that   we have a two-year warranty on the clarifiers  just and this may be a question out of my own   ignorance. Will beyond that point, will we build  into the budget um some finances to ensure that   if there is an issue with the infrastructure or  repairs required that we're building that in as   we continue to budget every fiscal year? We will  uh it's part of our rate structure. Now the future   operating costs are already included in that.  As we get into operations of the plant fulltime,   we'll have a better understanding what those  costs look like, especially from the chemical   side. We'll no longer have the costs obviously  of our current plant. But like anything else,   um you know, you saw in the last year or two here  that there's funding now to start making upgrades   to the airport. It's 8 to 10 years in. Same thing  happens here just with any of our facilities like   we do with our other facilities on the utility  side. We've got funding in there for upgrades   to our plants uh for uh upgrades, clarifiers,  all of the equipment uh filters that included   in these plans. We we certainly will have those  included in the CIP going forward. Thank you. I see no further questions from council members.  Gary, I just have one final question for you. Uh,   this is again to remind the community.  Um, we're doing these monthly updates. Uh,   they started last February. Um, so last month.  Can you just address, uh, what we are doing as   a city to make sure that we are not going to take  ownership of this water treatment plant and that   we're still pursuing all legal action regarding  delays. So, as far as the ownership part,   um that's per the contract based on where we get  to operational status and uh it's all contingent   on the PTA, the performance testing. There's  parameters that have to be met for water quality.   Uh once we agree where we're going to go with  performance testing with the repaired clarifiers,   uh the primary trigger for us taking over the plan  is for all that performance testing acceptance   uh by both parties. Don't know when that's going  to be yet. Uh in the meantime, we are still   continuing our discussions on the claim side. Uh  we actually have some scheduled meetings coming   up starting in the first week of April and we'll  be meeting on a regular basis to work through that   part of it in parallel at the same time so that  hopefully we can wrap all of this up together. Can you just give the community confidence  that number one uh the water treatment plant   will not be taken into possession by the city  of Witchaw until it is fully functional uh and   has passed testing. In addition that late fees  will still are being discussed uh in a different   way. Correct. On the functional side and as far as  when we're going to take possession of the plan,   we will not do so until we have met all the  contract requirements have been met for the   performance testing. So that part is per the  original contract and effectively hasn't changed.   We still have some things. Again, I'll say  it one more time to work through on what   that testing looks like now because we're in  a little bit different place than we were. So,   so we won't take the plant over until we get to  that point. Uh from a cost perspective, everything   that you see that's happening here with repairs  of these clarifiers is no cost responsibility   to the city to the right to the taxpayer. We  won't even see how much that cost is. That is   the responsibility of Waw Water Partners to make  all of those repairs. What we're working through   now during our claims discussion is recovering  our other costs associated with extending past   the original completion date of April 1. Those  discussions are ongoing. They will continue   uh what I talked about being in parallel  having those discussions at the same time   um as we get to the point of taking over the  plant. We hope to be wrapping that up at the   same time probably once we're able to start having  our or have our next discussion in early April   with both sides somewhere within that month.  Uh I would hope and expect to be able to meet   with the council and provide a briefing on where  we're at directly related to those discussions. Thank you, Ron. Thank you, Gary. Our next  item, Mayor, thank you and council. If you   have any other questions, uh, need some  followup, please let us know. We do have   another agenda item for you. As you've known  from your past action and budget decisions,   we've made significant investment in technology  in the police department. And so, not just police,   but across the organization, we continue to see  how we can work uh smarter using technology. And   we have a lot of great examples from the police  department. I'd like to ask the police chief to   come forward and outline some of our strategies  in using technology for our police scene. Chief   Dolvin. Yes, sir. Thank you. Good morning. So, I  was asked to give a presentation on 21st century   policing. So we assume that you were referring to  the uh the report in 2014 which uh Charles Ramsey   led that discussion and the drafting of that  report and that of course as I've always bragged   as my mentor back in Philadelphia. So these  are the pillars trust and legitimacy policy and   oversight technology and social media community  policing training and education officer wellness   and safety. It pushes the guardian mindset and  prioritizes procedural justice. I think that um   we will you will see in this presentation how we  have met all of those. But on top of that, we have   our own city of Witchah strategic plan that we are  also complying with. Um and I'm just going to let   you read those and then we can talk more about  how we are achieving those. Uh on top of that,   our 2026 goals are strengthen employee wellness  and retention, a coordinated approach to violent   crime and homelessness and optimizing personal  personnel assignments and operational efficiency, building trust. So first thing I did when I  came here was restructured the professional   standards bureau. I elevated that to a bureau.  I promoted the lieutenant captain. our words,   our key words are comprehensive investigations  that are fair and consistent discipline. And I   think that I've demonstrated that we we've put  that together and we've gained the trust of the   community as well as our officers to know that  they will feel they will feel they've been treated   fairly and everyone is treated in a consistent  way. One of the important uh things that we've   done is created a PSP public dashboard so that you  can any member of the public can go online on our   transparency dashboard and track a complaint that  they file or or just look in general at what we're   working working at. We've decreased the amount  of time it takes to complete investigations. Um,   and that is a part of our larger WBPD transparency  page where we continue to do our my 90 citizen   satisfaction surveys which gives us a great a lot  of great impact uh feedback on where citizens are   and what they're happy with, what they're not.  Our drone dashboard that is rather unique but is   becoming less unique. This was an initiative  that the Witchaw Police Department, myself,   um, insisting that Scotty go create this dashboard  so that every time a a drone went up in real time,   that flight was posted to the public facing  dashboard so anybody could go online and   see why there was a drone in the air, what  was the flight path, what was the reason,   what was the case number, and if they would like  to, they can they can file a court request and   and get more information. Um, that is now sold.  Other police departments are now buying this   uh because it has been so popular that SkyO  is now selling this as an option. Um, but this   really did a lot when we did our community uh  outreach uh to uh address any concerns, privacy   concerns the community might have. Our two prime  primary reduction program is risk strain modeling   uh as well as uh our top involved model and these  were put together by our analytical section. These   are non-commissioned um rather young men and women  um from Witchah that drive this and make sure   that our approach to crime is evidence-based and  data driven. gunshot detection dashboard. Again,   uh our analysts created that that detection  dashboard, gunshot detection dashboard,   and I will compare it to any other city's gunshot  detection dashboard anywhere in the country,   as well as our flock transparency dashboard  where you can pretty much get any questions   you have regarding Flock answered. And  that includes who we share our data with. And one thing I I want to add to that is our  traffic enforcement is data driven as well.   We analyze what are the high accident  areas and then at compat we compare our   enforcement against those areas. So it's it's it  wasn't simple to create uh by Captain Stevens,   but it's simple to follow. Red shows the  enforcement. Uh red shows the the high accident   areas. Blue shows the enforcement. And the goal  is always to make sure that the two are the two   um are on top of one another. These are  just an example of some of our dashboards policy and oversight implementing policies that  protect civil rights and emphasize deescalation.   I've talked to all of you about our emphasis on  dees deescalation. Um and we'll talk more about   that. Um we are currently pursuing accreditation  will be the largest uh department in the state of   Kansas to achieve that which is obvious since  we are the largest department. Um and that is   a large large task as being led by Captain Moses  and that is why I came to you and asked you for   the funding for Lexipol. It literally would be  impossible to do without Lexipole. We are in the   in the process of rewriting reviewing our all  of our policies and our procedural manual. Um   this began in January of 2026 and we believe we  will have achieved accreditation by 2027. This   will be will be state accreditation when once we  have state accreditation we'll look at national   accreditation. I do have some concerns there. It's  extremely expensive and I don't know that it would   bring me more than state accreditation does. So,  we'll look at that when we get there. Deescalation   and accountability. Um, we reach we looked at what  the police executive research forum was doing. Uh,   and we became an IAT department. Integrated  communications and and what's the last one?   Tactics. Tactics. Tactics. Um, an active  bystandership for law enforcement. Um,   IAT is a deescalation principle. It teaches  officers skills in how to communicate,   how to maintain distance, how to utilize time and  and how to utilize when necessary less lethals.   I think we have implemented that extremely  successful um active bystandership for law   enforcement. One of the things that we we achieved  also uh working with the FOP is now it is in our   policy that officers have a duty to report,  a duty to intervene and a duty to report. Um,   this last project is something we're especially  proud of. Building on IAT enable, we have done an   extensive, this is Captain Jason Bartell from our  professional standards bureau. He has put together   an extensive training curriculum where we took the  15 principles to reduce restraint related death   that were put out by the police executive research  forum and working with county EMS, working with   our law department and working with county  911, we have put together an extensive training   curriculum that I think we're about threequarters  of the way through right now with our department   um in how we can as bill about reducing uh that  risk. Um, and I' I've talked to Chuck Wexler   and there literally is no other department  in the country right now that is doing what   we are doing to to implement these principles  in each and every member of our department. Community policing, I know that's a topic of  interest to all of you as it is with me. But   the one one thing that I will go on to say is that  community policing is everyone's responsibility.   We have community policing officers. They're  doing a fantastic job. We don't have as many as   we always had, but they're doing the exact  same amount of work, if not more. To me,   that's good management and that's good use  of resources. But there's always a danger   when you create specialized uh titles for police  officers because you don't want the rest of the   department to think that they don't have community  policing responsibilities and that will continue   to be my priority. Everyone in this department is  responsible for community policing and that begins   with me. So we will always have community policing  officers but we will never change our philosophy   that it is everyone's job to conduct community  policing. It is a departmentwide philosophy. We   we we recently brought in an expert to do some uh  media relations training for our department and   she has worked with some of the biggest chiefs  in the in the country and that is one of the   things that she also said in her training that is  critically important that every officer knows that   that community policing is their responsibility.  Wrist train modeling falls in perfectly with   community policing because it gives our officers  an opportunity to go out of service for even a   small period of time for community interaction  where they're able to do some proactive work.   We're able to get out of their car um talk to  business owners, walk around the community.   Recently, we had one of our crime an analysts  doing a ride along with an officer and that   and that was what she brought back to us that  she was really impressed to see that RTM was   creating those opportunities for officers and  we're going to continue to increase that. Now,   for it to be completely successful, it require  requires a whole government approach. So we have   our monthly cow meetings with all the other city  city departments and our city manager attended the   last meeting and which was really appreciated and  it's an opportunity for us to problem solve with   all of our partner agencies including MABCD to see  what we can do based upon philosophy of wristrain   modeling to address the environmental conditions  that are contributing to crime. And right now   we're seeing very early very positive results  with this um enhanced social media content. Well,   I think all of you know our social media  is is pretty pretty much on on the cutting   edge right now and and we're going to continue  with that. We get a lot of new feedback from   our good feedback from our new hires about our  how our social media influenced their decision   to join our department because it highlights  uh the philosophy of the department and our   use of technology. And of course, we continue  with our community meetings as we always will. Training has been a huge part of my focus here  and we have accomplished so much in terms of   training. We talked about IAT able what we're  doing with to prevent restraint related deaths uh   in executive development training. Uh we're we've  been invited by KHP to participate in their West   Point leadership program where we did a six-month  internship with the FBI. That was Captain Levens.   Uh we participate in the pelvic program, the FBI  National Academy, the senior management institute   for policing that's put on by Perf at Harvard,  the University of Chicago policing institute,   naval postgraduate masters program. We have the  first law enforcement officer in the state of   Kansas. U we are big proponents of the DC Metro  Police leadership institute as well as continuing   north with Northwestern and FBI leader. But we've  we've exceeded our expectations for our senior   staff. Now we're going to focus on sergeants and  lieutenants, frontline supervisors. And we are in   we are right now Captain Moses again is working  with KLEC uh to bring in first line supervision   training uh to the Witchaw Police Department. But  we hope to take it a step further based on on how   much we are impressed with the DC Metro program  where our officers get to sit with us their peers   from around the country and international peers  and be lectured by not just law enforcement but a   wide array of of persons involved in leadership  from the military, private industry. Um,   it just exposes our our commanders to things  that they haven't been exposed before and we   want to replicate that here. We want to work with  our partners in to Tulsa, Oklahoma City, KC Mo   to create the Great Plains Leadership, Police  Leadership Academy. And that's something that   is currently in development. And again, that's  being led by Captain Moses. Um, and we're very   much excited by that officer Wellness. So, when I  took over, there's a lot of things to do and this   is one of the things that we really need to catch  up with and and and we are getting there this year   uh with our wellness program. We we just began a  shield um u newsletter for our employees. We are   going to be involved in in a in a a peer wellness  program called Power in Peers. We are have people   in training to do that. Uh Deputy East is working  with Asensa, Ascension with help from Counciloman   Tuttle uh so that we can set up early screening  for cardiac and cancer concerns. Uh but the big   project that is being spearheaded with by the what  you met crime commission is the pinnacle wellness   facility that we'll be discussing in detail at  this will be a joint venture for all employees   of first responder agencies city and county um  not just commission professional staff as well.   You know, we can't we can't can't forget the  that 911 dispatchers go through very similar   stress that police officers do. Uh and so we want  to make sure that it's for all of our employees.   All right. Technology and I've come to all of  you and I've come to the council before um for   money for technology and I think that everyone  would have to agree we spend it extremely well.   Taser 10 has been a complete game changer in terms  of deescalation. Um we used it twice yesterday. Uh   it prevents us from causing serious injury when  we're in a situation where we're meeting active   resistance. Uh but in order to keep up our skills,  we're we bought the virtual reality training kits   which are very cost-effective and allow us  to do regular training without having to take   an officer out of service for their entire tour  tour of duty. We have the best body warn cameras   uh that are currently available and that's a  transparency issue. So, we're get we're getting   the best possible picture, the widest possible um  lens, but we're we're continuing to look for even   better products. And we look we are hoping in  the future to be testing a 360 shoulder mount   um body worn camera mount that I think will be  an improvement. Drones, I can't say enough about   what how drones have changed everything. When I  came here, you all know I was upset to find out   we didn't have a helicopter, but I was even more  upset to find out we didn't even have drones. Um,   so we created a drone program and now  other cities around the country are   looking to us to see what we are doing. We  have our tactical drones. When I say that,   they're the drones that are in our cars and  officers pull out and can launch within a   minute or less. And then our DFR drones. The first  the first hive was put on uh the fire station on   South Broadway and the second drone was should  go operational April across um from the Quick   Trip at 1010 East Douglas. That was that that's  a donation from Quick Trip and Deputy Duff has   uh f has submitted the paperwork for an appro for  hopefully for an appropriate federal appropriation   for additional hives throughout the city. Um  Mayor, we know what your your vision is for   this and that's why those additional drones are  important. So this will not just be a police tool.   This will be a whole government city tool for all  of our departments and they'll be able to request   work orders through Captain Hutchkins up in the  real time information center. Talked about risk   and terrain modeling and the top involved model  and of course spot who we'll get to and the real   time information center which I'll give you more  details on that. I'm my my budget request. We   tested the translation uh on on our body one  cameras and to say that was success would be   uh an understatement. It was an incredible tool in  a tactical tool, a community engagement tool. It   just represented the department so well. It's  it's something that I want to purchase that   as as a permanent option for all of our bodyorn  cameras. dash and incar cameras. I saw the look on   the manager's face when I told him we didn't have  that now. Um, we tested that. We know it works.   It works in concert with our body one cameras. It  works in concert with the real-time information   centers. I saw an article recently about the  number of times that officers body warn cameras   are knocked off during a struggle. It's a real  problem. Um, so having them in the cars gives an   additional level of protection for the community  as well as our officers. And in the test we had an   we had incidents where persons were doing things  in the car. In one instant gentleman was banging   his head against the the cage so that he could  make a claim that he was he was assaulted by   police until he saw until he was shown the video.  Um, so it offers officers liability protection.   It's something that we we desperately need for  our mark patrol fleet. Um and additional bodywork   cameras. We want to get body warning cameras  for um all of our uniform personnel including   our animal control officers because they find  themselves in uh not surprisingly they find   themselves in conflict often. Um and of course  staff and we'll talk about staff concerns later. Just to give you an idea, blood hive 308 calls  September to December on scene first. 28 of those   times. 50 of those calls we were able to clear  without a physical officer response. And that is   the goal. And other cities are having incredible  success. Josh recently went out to Las Vegas. They   are the leader of the pack in this technology. Um  their investment in it is absolutely incredible.   Um, and they have serious protocols about how they  don't the where they'll deploy a drone before they   even even deploy police officers. Right now,  we have 43 trained pilots and we are we are   increasing that number and we're increasing that  number from our professional staff as well. Yes,   sir. Thank you, Chief. I'm just curious.  The 50 calls cleared without a response.   What kind of calls would those be? is  disturbance flights on the highway. Um,   low priority, lower priority, okay,  not emergencies. I mean, obviously,   or or in some of those situations, it it it  well could have been a higher priority call   and there was nobody to send. So, at least  the drone went, so we started getting some   information in and found out there was nothing  happening. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. What started out as a burglary investigation  quickly turned into something more. Officers   were already on scene investigating reported  burglary when dispatch broadcasted another call.   Someone spotted a suspicious person moving  through the nearby neighborhood, checking doors   and slipping into backyards. The description  of the suspect sounded familiar. Taking off. Within moments, one officer spotted the  suspect. But the suspect had other plans.   With a sudden burst, he took off from him,  disappearing into the darkness of the night.   I lost. That's when technology joined the See if  we can get assistance from Maze. Anybody else?   Head up that way. Let's get the drone up. Set  up a prayer and she's hands on the way there. Within minutes, the drone was airborne, giving  officers a bird's eyee view of the area. Everything just maintain your  position on any further scan the   darkness and then movement.  He's running. He's running. He's at the front of the house.  The drone located the suspect,   tracking his every move as officers on the  ground closed in. Jumped into a backyard. Now our backyard in the front of the house has  three drive three vehicles in the driveway   trying to get the back door. We just slept on some He just opened up something. He's gone. He  just opened right there. Officer right there.   Guided by real-time support, officers moved in and   took the suspect into custody. Get  on the ground. Get on the ground. The more information we have like information to all the officers involved in the history of  the United States just yesterday for this drone.   So this could potentially become a problem for us  because we have additional drones in the pipeline.   Uh and that could be true for other technology.  So I'm very concerned how offense overseas could   affect the availability of technology um being  purchased by domestic law enforcement. But I   can't say enough about these drones. And we are  getting interior drones for SWAT that are coming   in the summer. These drones are not good indoors.  Um the blades are not protected. And it'll be for   the same thing. If we can get eyes on you, we  don't need to go in. If we don't need to go in,   that means we're safer and and the bad guys  safer or a person in a mental health crisis   that we're trying not not to make the  situation worse uh by our presence, but   we need to get eyes on the person. So um and and  those drones will work in coordination with spot gunshot detection. We went live in 2025,  four square miles. Uh so as of March 18,   300 verifi verified alerts uh where we found 54  shooting victims. led or assisted in 14 arrest   and led to the recovery of 1,313 cartridge casings  which then go into our NY system so that we can   achieve correlations and connect one incident  to another and give which gives us investigative   leads and recover 28 firearms. Again, gunshot  detection is on our transparency dashboard. Hands up. Hands up. Hands up everybody.  Hands up. I do. Hands up. I didn't do   nothing. Show me your hands.  On the ground. On the ground. Officers were dispatched after a gunshot  detection alert and report of a drive by shooting.   Lost six. Two responding units to the drive  by call. Looks like we have a couple occupants   standing outside of 914 North Minnesota. Uh  they're next to a vehicle. It appears that   they have a look like a shotgun or a long gun.  While officers were still in re Kansas Highway   Patrol air support was already overhead  scanning the area from above. From the air,   KHP was able to track the suspects and  watch their movements in real time. Yeah,   responding units. We just had one individual fire  a pistol multiple times. As officers closed in,   KHP air witness the suspects  actively firing off the air. Yeah, they're going to be  about five houses north of   you guys. They immediately relay crucial  updates, locations, direction of travel,   and what officers were walking. Yeah,  they're about two houses down from you guys. This video shows how all this technology  work together responded like quickly. Hands ups. This was a high-risisk  situation with weapons and no stop controlling just like Milwaukee. There's nobody available to respond here this now  responding gunshots even with no radio calling on   doors and people are are really appreciating the  fact that we're gunshots in their neighborhood   officers face in real time under unpredictable  conditions and it shows the impact of strong   coordination between agencies working together to  protect protect the community. To all the officers   involved, well done. Officers were standing in  a parking lot of patrol east one night and they   heard gunshots and all they knew is that it came  from the south and then they immediately got the   gunshot detection alarm which gave them the  exact coordinates and they arrived there and   found a shooting victim. Our first homicide  of the year, the victim laid out in buried   in the snow for the entire night. If we had had  gunshot detection, we would have been out there.   Um, a question about that. Um, I I know when we  were looking at the the Raven gunshot detection   at the beginning, it was something incredibly  high like 80 80% of gunshots were not reported.   Something crazy high like that. Has that number  um changed at all over the last couple of months?   Response times are going down as well as that  number as well. Do you I don't have those exact   figures. We got them for you. Okay. Yeah. I was  just curious how much it is encouraging people   to start to reach back out and and report those. I  know I hear them. I'm just seeing the appreciation   um and surprise when we knock on their door.  We are weekly we track uh the percentage of   verified alerts. So alerts that correspond to 911  calls. So we do track that. It's it hovers right   around 43%. Okay. All this technology is discussed  every week at Compstat. Our analysts bring those   figures to see whether or not, you know, the money  we're spending is bringing us the return that we   hope for. So, we can get you any of those figures.  Okay. I appreciate it. And one more quick question   about the drones. Have to your knowledge, have  we used those in any fire responses yet? Not yet,   but that's where we're hoping to go. That's why we  want to build that network. Okay. And do we have   a like a standard operating procedure with fire  if they want to request uh the drones? How does   that work? Do we have that figured out? They would  they would just make the request through 911 same   way they do if they need us for traffic or crowd  control. They could just request a drone through   us and and we would respond immediately. Okay. And  and if you know if there was a DF the DFR drones   could even be launched from the street. So if it  was in that it was in the coverage area of the   DFR drone, a pilot on the street could launch it  even if they weren't in the real time information   center. Um and now we we're preparing for  Riverfest where you know the real time information   center will be will be occupied and operating um  and working together with radio and Josh can give   you more of the timeline on that. But eventually,  you know, we've talked to Allora and we once we're   at the point where we're fully operational,  we'll have a dispatcher in embedded with us in   the real time information centers. But right now,  we're doing the we're doing the heavy lifting.   We're connecting everything. Fus is our operating  system. We're connecting all of our cameras. We're   putting up the additional cameras, connecting  the gunshot detection, connecting the flock,   connecting the gentech so that it's all operated  on the diffus system. Okay. Thank you. Can I add   something quickly? Um, Chief Sullivan has been a  good partner. Um, you all came back from NLC and   I want to say thank you to Vice Mayor Glasco who  represented me on the aviation task force and so   uh NLC is always thinking forefront regarding  technology and aviation being the air capital   of the world. uh we need to continue not just  traditional aviation but uh new technology like   drones. And so Chief Sullivan and I have sat on  multiple panels regarding our drone integration   into um public safety. And one of the things  that uh we learned from other communities that   have utilized drones as first responders is what  uh Chief was alluding to. The vision really is so   that other departments within the city of Witchah  can utilize the drones. One of those examples is   the fire department. If a drone gets sent out in  the middle of the night, they know where the hot   spot is. So because of the technology in that  drone, you can immediately focus your energy on   the actual location. The other uh opportunity with  departments is public works. uh they can survey uh   uh bridges and we have many bridges around even  the city of Witchah. They can do surveying. Um so   other departments can utilize these drones  eventually. But again, the drones as first   responders model just came online uh the second  half of last year. So, it's still in its pilot um   phase and it has proven to have good results, but  the idea and the goal is to really utilize it um   citywide and that's within those other departments  that could utilize it like fire and public works.   So, as you all know, we have our daily  morning citywide coordination call and that is   supplemented by our weekly FIG call, our firearms  investigation group that we work with ATF. Uh we   have we have our also have our Wednesday  shoot and our Thursday weekly compat. So,   it sounds like duplication, but it's relentless  pursuit of the people that are firing guns in the   city of Witchah. And I'm and I'm proud to say  we're seeing very good very good very hopeful   results this year. Um we don't celebrate success,  we acknowledge it and then we move on. Um and   that is in addition to our monthly now citywide  meeting which again is when we come together as   a city and we bring our problems to the table and  other departments can do the same and we try to   work cooperatively to see how problem hotels. The  fire department was extremely helpful at the last   meeting. They offered us some partnerships  on how we can address some of the problem.   Hotels on Kellogg, East West, Broadway,  North South, MABCD. If we work as a team,   we can be much more effective. Sometimes it's  not criminal. We don't have a criminal solution   to the problem, but there's administrative  solution to the problem. And that's why   it's very important that we work together. Um,  but our goal with restraint model is precision   policing. And that means we're we want to make  sure we're at the right place at the right time,   dealing with the right people, addressing the  problem behaviors as opposed to taking a wide   birth. That's what disenfranchises communities  and makes them feel overpoliced. We're using   data. We're using mathematical algorithms that  I don't even begin to understand. That's why I'm   glad I have my analysts. Uh but they work. so that  we focus on the people, the very small amount of   people that are responsible for a large amount  of crime in our community, our repeat offenders,   those people that are willing to pick up a  firearm. And that's what risk terrain model   modeling helps us do. It's g it's geographic  based. Uh but when we combine that with our   top offender model, it allows us to deal with  problem people, problem places, problem behaviors. When I arrived in Witchaw, I learned by speaking  with community members, members of the department,   and reading the Jensen news. And one thing that  they was common from all three sources was this   department did not have a single unified  crime strategy. And I realized that it was   my job to do just that. I wanted a strategy  that was that was proactive and involved the   community. Most importantly, it was data driven  and research validated. I tked my analytical team   to determine what would be the best strategy for  our department. strategy that was constitutionally   defensible meaning strategy without alienating  the community. They came back to me and with   their screen modeling they felt that it met all  the parameters that I was looking for and their   research taught them that it was something that  would the community. So respiratory modeling was   developed by university and the professors there.  What it is at its very core is a diagnostic tool   and an analytical technique that allows us to  see what types of locations correlate with crime.   One of the big advantages to restraint modeling  is that it utilizes objective data and it cuts out   biases that people may have in the subjectivity of  opinions of certain places. The models that we're   running right now are for each individual bureau  because we recognize that uh different types of   locations are different in different parts of the  city. Uh they operate differently and so we want   to make sure that we customize these models as  well as possible. So that's why we're building   out individual risk train models for each bureau  of the city. So there's four of them and then from   there each bureau will have their own risk factors  and their own set of violent crime data that the   model can be based off of and plus it just focuses  on places and it doesn't focus on people. So a   good example of this would be uh that hotels or  motel would show up as a high risk factor in the   model and maybe the model shows that a crime is  nine times more likely to occur within 300 ft of   a hotel than anywhere else within the bureau or  the city. So at that point that would give us a   good indication that it's a very high risk factor  for crime to occur there. And then we also design   a strategy to help mitigate against the crimes  happening there in the future. Another way that we   Okay, so say we have hotels in a certain spot,  but then we also have convenience stores that   are right next to it. And say a convenience store  is two times more likely to have a crime happen   within 300 ft of it than anywhere else in the  city. At that point, we have the motel and the   convenience store right next to each other, then  the chances of a gun crime happening with those   two locations overlapping with each other will  be 11 times more likely than anywhere else in   the city. And so when we have more risk factors or  more high-risisk location types overlapping with   each other, that increases the amount of risk  that a crime will happen in that area based off   the model. And then from there, we can funnel  resources to that area to help make sure that   the environment is not right for violent crime  to be occurring there. And so when it comes to   building buyin from officers or other departments  that are helping us in their crime prevention   in these areas, the data goes a long way in  building up trust and building up confidence that   when someone allocates resources to this area,  they're actually going to be making a difference.   So we have um implemented kind of like an  automated dispatch um where officers at a specific   time will go to a specific location within RTM and  they will stay in that location for a set period   of time. Um they will do proactive policing.  Uh they can get out citizens um and just be a   presence in that area to kind of help the crime  that's going on in that area. All right. Thanks. Just walk around, make sure everything's  good, man. So, no problems today. Okay,   good enough. I used to be a primary  beat officer in that area. So,   I'm very familiar with the RTM location,  uh, it was an area I patrolled for many,   many years. Anytime we can have a reduction in  crime in an area, it just helps the community. Um,   it helps people feel safe. Um, they see our  presence out there making a difference. I   mean the overall reduction in crime um is  probably the number one reason we solve. Hi I was just I noticed you sleeping. I just wanted  to make sure you were okay. Okay. I just driven by   you a couple times and I wanted to make sure there  wasn't anything wrong. before we we we started   um patrolling the arts area. We went out and we  contacted businesses. Um we disseminated flyers,   let them know kind of what we're going to be  doing. It was received very well. Um they welcomed   uh our presence um and and so further on um we  we attended our district advisory board meetings   um and and disseminated that to our our community  leaders um or the district advisory board. Um,   and it was received very very well. Um, they liked  the initiative that we were doing. Um, and it,   you know, it was received very very well by the  public. So, I I think part of being a police   officer is is wanting to make the community safer  and having that dispatch called to that specific   location. it it sends them to the area where  we know crime is occurring and being a presence   uh contacting citizens and being a contributor of  of crime reduction I think makes us feel good when   you think about success in the community what is  that for you it's two things obviously I want to   be able to demonstrate that that we have driven  crime down that the statistics bear that Now,   so right now we're evaluating our early results  after the first 120 days. We're very encouraged   by what we see, especially in the East Patrol  Bureau, but also in the other areas. But of   course, we're looking at the data and we're  making adjustments in the areas that we are   covering and when we're there and how long we're  there, what we're doing while we're there. But my   ultimate goal is to take this department strategy  and make it a citywide strategy to use a whole   government approach. And one of the ways we would  do that in addition to our internal weekly competi or monthly citystate meeting and that is where  in a similar format we meet with the heads of   all the different city departments that have  a role in making restraint modeling work.   But equally important for representatives of the  communities where we are utilizing this strategy   so we can get their evaluation, their input,  their suggestions, their ideas. Together we can   identify what those drivers of crime are and  what is the best way to go about addressing   them. So we do it in a way that impacts  the community in a positive manner and it   doesn't drive the community away. That's very  important. New York a new crime strategy. You   want to be extremely focused. You want to use  data and limit the number of people that are 25% stand this year% behind it. So they closed their serving 42  shooting victims year to date for 2026 and   that is my top priority and this is the top  involved model and I want to keep moving but   again no no back up I'm sorry I just want  to say that the most important thing here   is that personal characteristics are not  used in this analysis these are behaviors   and this is done through that three-part  algorithm that is done by our analytical   So we can identify the people that are most likely  to pick up a gun and people that are most likely   to be the victim of somebody picking up a gun and  try to intervene before that happens. All right.   All right. Spot 21st century policing requires  21st century technology. You have had robotics   in the city of Witto since at least the 1990s. And  you have increasingly you have you have purchased   increasingly more sophisticated robotics since  that time. And that is the only thing that we're   doing here now. We are just doing what you've  always done. Now we have an opportunity to   improve upon what we have. We would not be selling  the existing robots. If you do this kind of work,   you know that you need a variety u in  your toolbox. Um different situations   uh require uh different capabilities. Um but  this gives us a whole new um level of capability,   level of maneuverability. And again, there are  two reasons we would use these particular robots.   One is the deescalate situations. It could be a  hostage situation. It could be a barricaded felon   or it could be a person in crisis. It could  be a veteran having a crisis and we need to   be able to talk to them and negotiate with them  just as just as you saw in one of our videos.   We negotiated with a person in crisis on the roof  of a building because without the drone, we would   have had no way to speak to him other than to  allow hail him. And that's the worst way to   negotiate with someone in crisis. The best way is  to do it privately and quietly. And the this gives   us the ability to reach that person to navigate  stairs we wouldn't be able to navigate with our   present robots to open doors which our our current  robots do not have that capability. And it gives   us the ability to have eyes on the situation to  know don't go in. There's somebody in there and   they're armed. Don't go in. don't go in because  we have somebody in the crisis our entry might   cause them to do something to harm themselves or  drag them into potential police suicide situation.   Um so that is those are the reasons we are so  passionate about investing in this technology fiscal deescalation um just can't  say it enough it follows the IAT   philosophy the guardian mindset this is about  procedural justice meaning we want to we want   to resolve things without utilizing  force so that they be we can so that   ultimately we will address the problem through  prosecution or through treatment or might be   neither. Uh but IAT has a saying that in  policing we used to say we go home. Now   in IAT we say we all go home. The purpose of  spot is exactly that. so that we all go home. That is the New York City Police Department who  currently uses spot along with 70 other police   departments across the country. They did a test  of spot right after uh the George Floyd incident   and they they suspended the test uh but and they  made but they purchased spot in 2023 and they use   it for the same exact very successfully the same  exact things uh for for the same exact purposes   that we want to use it. I just spoke to a member  of our bomb squad on uh at the St. Patty's Day   festival in he was telling me took Bontex from  New York and uh they absolutely love the unit. Finally, the real time information center. It  was grant funded. Deputy Duff did a great job   and thank you Senator Moran. um that all costs  were grant funded and we decided to locate it   here in city hall so we' be convenient for all  of you as well well as all of you in the event   that we have a a large incident or that you want  to have something done out of there first phase   of construction was completed in September  of 25 we're going to begin a second phase   of construction in summer of 2026 we will be  requesting full-time employees and they will   be not they will be four professional staff and on  commission supervisor. The real time information   center will not impact street staffing. It  has never impacted street staffing and it   never will as long as I'm the chief. Uh we are,  as I said, we're completing the operation system   implementation of fuchious. That is no small  task. Um and yes, spot can easily be accessed   from the Arctic. we'll be able to hear hear  the audio, watch the video as well as all the   other technology that I talked about and it's  going to be a great way for us to connect with   the community as well when it's not being when  it's not on the tactical assignment. Hey Chief,   y um currently what does the staffing look like at  the real time information center? So uh explain.   Yeah. So, right now we have um the chief has has  allowed his admin aid Zack Kester to be part of   the staffing. He's given up that position for  that. and then to get you on the record. My Captain Josh Hutchkins. Uh like I  like I was saying, Chief Sullivan   uh when he assigned me there, he  told me he was giving me his admin   um assistant, Zack. So, Zach works with me  consistently while still helping out the chief   um on on projects that he has.  We're also using officers that are   uh on light duty status that have been injured.  We need a place for them to to assist. So,   we give them the opportunity to come up to to  the real-time information center to assist. Uh   if we have a major event that we need to monitor,  um we look at using potential overtime positions,   uh professional staff to do some of those. Um  same thing. So, that's that's currently what the   staffing is looking like. As we continue to build  this out, we'll continue to do that. We'll start   adding in additional support like interns from Waw  State to support the staff that we're using there.   Continue to implement our professional staff um  to expand our capabilities. Thank you. Captain just have a quick question on that. So, sorry. So,  right now currently we don't have like assigned   staff. It's just um borrowing like there's not  there's not four people there 24/7 now. It's just   borrowed or fill. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Correct.  Right now it's myself and um there is one officer   up there who was on um light duty. We've extended  him beyond that as a temporary thing because he's   really big on getting fuses going. Um but he will  be returning to the street shortly. So right now,   yeah, we don't have 247 staff and director  MA has given us uh someone to help us with   the technology background that we need to complete  that connection. So now we staff it as as needed.   Like we'll usually staff it on Friday or Saturday  night to monitor Oldtown. Um or if we're running   an initiative with another agency, we'll we'll  put people up there. But the four positions   are so that we can at least be about 12 to  16 hours Okay, that was going to be one of   my questions if it would be around. And that's  the other reason uh I'm sorry, council woman,   I didn't mean to interrupt, you're fine. That's  the other reason that we're going to train more   professional staff uh to be drone pilots including  DFR so that we'll be able to utilize them easy on   overtime. Um and again like we can we'll be able  to serve days. have that flexibility within the   department by by making that professional staff  more economical, but it gives them professional   growth opportunities and it just allows us to  kind of expand can contract as needed. Awesome.   Thank you. And of course, we we're going to  have a dispatch help eventually from 911,   and that will be huge. So, I would assume that I  mean, it would be great to have somebody there all   the time, but I would assume evenings or weekends  is not the likely time that anybody loves to work,   but probably the most important times for somebody  to be watching. More professional staff when it's   overtime, they're they're very eager to work.  And again, you know, that rate is is is pretty   economical to consider the important job that  you're doing up there. Of course. Thank you   so much, Chief. Um, there was a request that  you all speak directly into the mic. I guess   some folks who are trying to follow virtually  are having a hard time hearing. So, thank you. Six for possible stolen vehicle in area  216 calling for the advice that they think   they found their friend stolen vehicle reported  windows 28 information on the driver at this time. The Arctic is a state-of-the-art multissource  information center that integrates all of our   technology into one location and it puts our  city and our department at the very forefront   of policing. The number one goal in launching  a center such as the Arctic is to respond   accordingly and leverage technology to improve  public safety and the safety of our officers.   We can see the entire picture of almost any  scenario with more options to support our   officers and personnel who are responding to  the emergencies and better serve the public.   Modern day pleasing is multifaceted and utilizes  numerous technologies with independent platforms.   The real time information center will streamline  information sources to one central location. We're   unifying everyday investigative databases and  technological resources into one central hub.   And we can push information to our officers and  emergency personnel as they respond to crimes in   progress or calls of service throughout the city  of Witchaw. By leveraging our technology, we can   relay vital information before officers arrive at  an active crime scene, allowing our officers to   respond more efficiently and potentially clear  calls and redirect officers to other priority   calls. Inside the Arctic, we utilize several  technology to help our response and improve   public and officer safety. Our license plate  reader system captures vehicle license plates   as they pass through cameras throughout the city.  Our officers bodywn camera systems show us what is   happening in real time. Our video camera includes  public cameras owned by government partners as   well as third party video integration program that  allows us to connect to live video streams and   private businesses that choose to participate. We  can only access those cameras as private business   owners install a device that grants us permission  to their cameras. Our drone platform includes   drones as first responders which streams live  video to the Arctic. These information streams   give us a comprehensive overview of any critical  situation which saves time. It allows our officers   to make better decisions and improves the safety  of our officers and the public. WTO Police   Department prioritizes transparency and the real  time information center was designed with this in   mind. Every single step, whether it's writing  policy, developing procedures, or implementing   new technology has been thoughtfully planned  out with the community input very foreground,   including design and development of public  facing dashboards. Our goal is simple to   keep WTO safe while ensuring residents remain  informed and involved every step of the way. So something that we really need to talk about  and this is why technology is so important. This   is I'm sorry. Yeah. This is the population  that we've tracked uh since 2017. You can   see the steady upward increase in in population.  Um, unfortunately, authorized staffing has not   kept pace with that. Currently authorized for  700 commissioned officers and we do have four   officers that are grant funded through the ICT  mental health grant and 209 professional staff.   The other thing important to note is uh last  year we responded to 235,724 radio calls. The   year before it was 219,289 radio calls. At the  beginning of March of this year, we were 4,000   radio calls ahead of this time last year. So, this  is something else that I I just need you to keep   in mind because, you know, you get the complaints  about response times. I get the complaints about   response times, especially to those lower level  calls. We're doing good with emergency calls,   but we still struggle during peak hours with  the lower level crime uh lower level incidents   like minor accidents and things like that. And  that's why we will also be requesting funding   for online reporting in in the next budget. That  is something I've been hoping for for quite some   time. So that would give citizens the opportunity  to file these reports online when what they really   want is a case number. Yes, sir. Chief, I have  a few questions. I've ridden with South Patrol,   North Patrol, hot specifically with North Patrol.  Last time I was there, we were backto-back calls.   There's no break. There is a line of calls that we  are not able to take. Some of which that I would   considered a priority if I would have called  in and obviously the people that called them   in would consider them a priority as well. When  is the last So, I have a few maybe follow-up   questions to that. When is the last time that  we had an independent staffing study? Is there a   recommendation to have one? What would the cost be  to be able to have one? I know you and I have also   talked about the possibility of a fifth bureau in  downtown that would help alleviate especially the   growing bureaus on the side. Can you talk more  about that at Tire Vision? When's the last time   we had staffing? How much? Great line. To the best  of my knowledge, I just looked up. So, there was   a staffing study done in 2017. Obviously, I was  still in Philly rooting for the Eagles that it was   never implemented. Uh I haven't seen it. Um you  have not seen the staffing study from 2017? No,   I've not. Um so that is why because here's and  here's why I am a proponent for a staffing study.   If we would if we would utilize the recommended  uh FBI um ratio of three officers per thousand   residents, theoretically we should have 1,200  officers. If we looked at our peer cities,   which we did and where they are closer to two  officers per 10,000, um that would say that   we need 100 more officers. And a lot of that has  to do with what expectations are. Our detectives   work, steady day work, all of them. So, is there  an expectation to have detectives work 16 hours a   day, um, seven days a week? Like, there's a lot of  questions that have to be answered by all of you,   by the community as to what what are expectations.  What do we consider acce acceptable response time   to different levels of of calls? Um and and that's  how I would just like to have an out independent   objective outside person make that determination  so that the public could feel more confident in in   the recommendation is one that you know what  what was done fairly and objectively. Well,   I know later in today's conversation we're  talking about the 2027 budget allocations.   I'd be very interested about staffing studies for  all of public safety. This is something I've heard   from officers. So, I heard from the public when we  talk about uh response times and I think there's   probably a fear that a staffing stud is going to  come back and say that we need more officers than   we have, which obviously is an added cost to it,  but I think we need to be able to see where we're   at in the future and how do we move toward that  direction because we're not going to be able to   get there overnight, but we're not going to  be able to get there at all unless we know   at least what direction we're headed. So, I'd be  very interested that some budget recommendation.   I really appreciate you bringing that up. So yes,  um, you know, we do have some limitations with the   police academy, which we share with WSU and the  sheriff's department. We we can work around that,   but it also requires staff to put on police staff  to put on additional classes when we're already   short, and that will require me to take more  officers off the street, which I can't do for   the reasons that you so eloquently explained. Um,  I'm going to have Aaron can explain a little. He   does a little bit more knowledge obviously than  I do and that the reports that were implemented. Mayor and Council, Captain Aaron Moses for the  police department. You'll see on the graph there,   there's a bump between 2019 and 2021. uh  they did implement imp implement phase one   of the three-phase staffing study from 2017 and  portions of phase two but phase three was never   never discussed or implemented. So I just wanted  to clarify that for the record that portions of   that previous staffing stud were implemented and  that's the bump you see there on the graph in the   blue from 2019 to 2021. What's phase three entail?  Uh I'd have to go back and and read through it   again. Uh but it focused on additional supervisors  to uh consolidate specific spe specialty teams   uh like our central bureau currently houses our  traffic unit that was a part of that staffing   study to centralize those units and add additional  supervisors. Uh there were also recommendations   recommendations to add supervisors to  investigations uh and to add detectives   as well. So that was some of what was recommended.  I'd have to look specifically at the report to see   what was in phase three, but again, that was from  2017. Okay. Does do staff and studies also include   suggestions such as um reporting encampments or um  some of these other things that we're asking PD to   do, ICT 2 through 5, um going out on mental health  calls like that. Do they give suggestions for   those circumstances as well? Uh they they could  uh but that's more of like a strategic planning   type of conversation where we would talk about  what is the vision from the community for the   police department. What is the vision of the city  council for the police department and the issues   that everybody believes the police department  should be handling and then you roll that into   a staffing study and you determine these are the  goals we want to meet and this is what we need   to get there if that makes sense. So there's  sort of two things in tandem I would say. No,   I can appreciate that. Um and one other thing  just kind of in the area of um staffing here,   Axios has um a program that helps uh officers  file reports. Um so it takes away some of the um   the stuff that they don't necessarily enjoy that  can be timeconuming as well. Have we looked into   uh using any of these programs? I think you mean  Axon. facts on uh it's an artificial intelligence   plat uh product called draft one. At this point  it's not something we're looking at. Uh that's   through conversations with the district attorney's  office, the city prosecutors. There are concerns   about the use of artificial intelligence to draft  police reports. I don't think that's something   that I'll let the chief speak for himself, but  what I've heard is I don't think that's something   that we want to be on the front line of. We'd  like to see some more case law from across the   country from other agencies that are using it. uh  we have looked at it. We've seen how it works, but   at this point it's not something we're comfortable  uh bringing online. Okay. I could appreciate that.   An addendum to that. I'm Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am.  There was just an article in the perf clips this   morning where San Diego is no longer utilizing  AI and I don't know which program it was, but   because of flaws that were discovered. So, I don't  believe the technology is there. What I can tell   you is converting from niche to XNRMS, I am very  confident because of the way that we're doing it,   the thoughtful way that we're doing it. And that's  why it's taking so long, but it's taking that   long for a reason because we're doing the data  conversion right, we're testing it, right? We're   making sure all the proper validations will will  be in place. And and the captain is overseeing   that project as well with with one of our crime  analysts. um that will be huge in terms of what   you're talking about. It will take officers  a lot less time to do very, you know, simple   or even complex reports, but right now they both  take an incredible amount of time. Yes, ma'am. I   I just wanted to say you and I have talked about  this every time we have our meetings that I I'm   supportive of a staff and staffing study if it's  done with a strategic plan at the same time. I   mean, I think they have to go hand in hand like  you said, I like the word tandem. So, thank you   for saying that. And one of the things that I  think too that maybe should be emphasized that   you mentioned early on is we are doing a great  job using technology. This was so helpful today.   Thank you. I really appreciate the extra time that  you and your team put into providing us with this   information and the community being able to see  why this specific request a couple weeks ago was   made and how it's going to augment and enhance  what we're already doing. But I think the other   part that as I mentioned you said early on is all  of this technology is fantastic but it doesn't   mean we need less police officers. Absolutely.  Right. We need different types of positions to   be able to implement and utilize the technology  most efficiently. So again thank you for this   fantastic presentation. I learned a great deal.  I'm sure my colleagues and the community members   who are watching did as well. So thank you for all  you do. Thank you. and and Councilman Glascock,   you know, you brought up um Center City. You know,  we have a lot of construction going on. We got   the medical college coming in with at least 6,000  students. And I do think that some consideration   should be given to at least in some part um you  know, having central bureau have a patrol aspect   to it so that we have that presence whether it be  bike officers, which would be my preference. Um,   so we have that visibility uh in in Center City  and there's a cost. There's a trade-off for   everything. You know, the Oldtown detail cost a  lot of money that we run every Friday and Saturday   night, but if we had permanent staffing, we we  wouldn't be able to eliminate it, but we'd be   able to reduce it. There' be cost savings there.  Um, and and again, ma'am, as you as you said,   it's not a replacement. Even though it cost money  to hire more police officers, we'd also be saving   on overtime. We are very dependent on overtime  right now. What do you think of South Patrol being   pulled to Oldtown on the weekend? 100%. And then  they spacing side of Well, what we do now is Yes.   South bears the brunt of it. But under the new  new deployment plan that that they've developed   for me, we we we try to pull from throughout the  city. But again, what hap what may happen is that   one one patrol bureau may already be at zero. So  now somebody else has to pick up the slack for   that because we don't have designated manpower and  they're supplemented by the by the mounting unit   which does an incredible job there assisting but  it's there's always a give and take and right now   it's expensive. All our detectives work, they  work, they have weekends off. So when we have   a major incident at night on the weekends, it's a  major we have to call in our detectives, sometimes   crime scene unit folks, our our community  relations off uh our CRT teams um so that   we and that's why we have the clearance rate that  we have. We have 100% clearance rate so far this   year for homicide. We had 95% last year. I mean  that's among the top in the country. So it's what   we have to do to to maintain that. It's not cheap,  especially when we're so short of manpower. Well,   this ties into kind of all your presentation. Uh  we talked about you do well done Wednesday. Talked   about the city doing witchah wins and figure  out positive things that are happening. Can you   talk about how this all holistically affected  St. Patty's Day and maybe the success of St.   Patty's Day from Deleno to Oldtown to Nasser and  all the activity where you have more than 40,000   people on the downtown core. Can you talk about  and virtually no problems? Um and I give I give   the credit to the 40,000 people to that first  of all. Um you know it's amazing that we can   have celebrations like multiple celebrations  of that size in the city and not have any   problems. Uh but it but this type of technology  is crucial. We'll have a large march on Saturday.   Uh and it'll be a peaceful march. It'll be a  permanent march. We'll have a uh a much larger   demonstration than we do every Saturday, which we  have with no problems, with great communication   uh between demonstrators and the police. Um but  technology is a large part of that because we   are in a time of an elevated threat level due to  what's occurring overseas. So, we have to be very   concerned anytime we have a large gathering, we  have to make sure that we keep demonstrators safe.   Um because anytime we have a large gathering, it's  a potential target. I mean, you know, I have just   like in the last meeting I have, I mean, these are  these are all new and we're getting them for the   federal government every single day telling us to  be extremely v vigilant every anytime you have a   large gathering. Um and this technology enables  us to do that. Um so yes, the technologies in   crucial. Uh if we're going to be a 21st century  police department, we have to have 21st century   technology, but in no way does it replace manpower  because it takes manpower to operate it. Chief,   um I wanted to know which cities did you compare  when it came to peer cities? Um Arlington, Texas,   De Mo, De Moine in Kansas City, Oklahoma  City, Omaha, Nebraska, Tulsa, Oklahoma.   I can't read that one. Thank you for that. Um, I  had the opportunity through Bloomberg Harvard um   to work with the mayor, former mayor of Tulsa, and  he reminded me that every city um has a different   uh structure when it comes to how staffing is paid  um or how capital investments are paid as well.   And I believe in Tulsa, I think their sales tax  pays for staffing. Um, so I was curious because   we get compared a lot to Tulsa. What have you  seen when it comes to technology and staffing   uh with their department because we go to  Greenwood uh rising uh with the recruits? Well,   I mean, we saw their real-time information  center, which uh uh the chief is a partner   of mine at Major Cities and Dennis has been a  great partner to us um sharing everything. I mean,   he talked about I believe they had just purchased  a new helicopter and a new facility, new training   facilities. You know, one of the things that  we didn't talk about in this presentation, what   we've talked about, you know, personally, and I've  talked to other other members of council about it,   is the training we're doing. You know, we have  a beautiful police academy but there's no room   to do reality based training which is extremely  important for 21st century policing when you know   you can take the IAT class you can do the online  training for the 15 principles but it's very   important that that be followed up with reality  based training with scenariobased training where   we put you under pressure and we force you to  make decisions and then we're able to give you a   a a healthy critique and recommendations Hey, you  can do better. So, um, that's just something that,   you know, I would love to see and other partner  agencies that, you know, that I meet with at Major   City Chiefs have those. Many of them get great  deal of support from their police foundation. Um,   but I just think it's it's something that should  be in the back of our mind. We talked about P&   um, I don't want to get out ahead of myself,  but it's just something to to think about.   Chief, I just want to say thank you for bringing  the element that I think has been missing from   this conversation, uh, which is the people. And I  think oftentimes we forget that, you know, police   are one faction of the solution. But I believe or  at least I adopt the philosophy that we make we   make our community safer and we take the strain  off of police officers when we uh get proximate   to the people and help them understand that they  are part of the solution as well. Know that you've   made comments that this is a community issue and  I agree with you. Um and so to me the answer is   not always more police. Uh sometimes it's how  do we make sure that we're building trust with   community alongside the police. And so, um, that's  a philosophy that I think Greenwood has adopted,   especially when you look at the historical context  of Greenwood. Let's not forget that it's a black   community that faced a lot of economic despair  and a lot of safety issues. But, uh, looking to   them as the model, they built relationships with  that community, their elected leaders, police,   etc. Um, I'm curious, uh, as it relates to the  technology, do we do vendor background checks?   Yes, Captain Moses, can you share kind  of what that process entails, please? Mayor and Council Captain Aaron Moses,  again, I want to make sure I understand   exactly what you're asking. So, what what  is vendor background check mean to you? So,   it means the vendors that we utilize to purchase  our drones. Have we done any background checks to   ensure that there have not been any issues with  other cities? So, the chief mentioned San Diego,   I know that while we were at the National League  of Cities, myself, council member Hohheisle, and   Council Member Ballard had an opportunity to hear  um about how this technology is being utilized in   general from other government agencies. Um and  so I'm I'm curious if we have encountered any   background checks that other cities have learned  lessons from. Yeah. So certainly through our city   purchasing process anytime we go out for RFP that  includes uh soliciting feedback from people who   are current customers. Additionally, we are part  of the major city major city major cities chief   association uh which is a a group of the largest  police departments across the country. I routinely   send out requests for information to major cities  chiefs associations on behalf of the chief. Uh and   they all reply with feedback on vendors, feedback  on processes, policies, so on and so forth. Uh   we also just uh through our case sigious use and  use of uh federal information and law enforcement   information that also requires additional what  you would maybe think of traditional background   checks to make sure that people can have access  to our information. So there's multiple layers   of background checks for vendors that we go  through. Thank you, Captain. Uh just want to   reiterate that again. We had the opportunity to  attend the National League of Cities. I attended   a session particularly on technology and how it's  being integrated within public safety agencies and   government. Um I would also say that Witchaw  Police Department is far ahead of the game as   it relates to where we are and I think that  that is something that we should celebrate.   you are to be applauded. But with that being said,  there is risk. And so I'm curious, what is the the   cyber security response plan uh as it relates to  the technology that we're utilizing? Um and does   it align with the vendors that we are utilizing  for the drones and other technology that we use   for the 21st century technology? Well, the reality  is that we know we're using the best technology   out there with the best possible protections.  Nothing's 100% in today's world. I can't tell   you that something's not going to get hacked. 911  centers have been hacked across the country. What   I know is that we have the technical um support  that we need and one of the things we look at is   the responsiveness of those companies. We had a  problem with Taser 10 when it first came and the   president of the company because of major city  chiefs was on the phone with us, the president   the next day and told we told him what we wanted  done and he directed his people to do it and it   was fixed immediately. So we look at companies  that are responsive to us. Um, we were we were   doing an officer involved shooting investigation  for the county and our drone was attacked by a   uh falcon. One of our like literally was attacked  by a falcon and and and destroyed the drone. That   drone that drone was replaced in 48 hours. So  we look for companies that we can depend upon.   That is why we are a big Axon customer uh because  they are at the forefront of technology and and   and addressing the concerns. Axios is a vendor of  theirs. So we know that even though these things   are expensive, we know that they work. We know  that we can depend upon the company u if there's a   problem. And the same thing goes with spot. I mean  we have done extensive investigation. I'm a member   of major city chiefs. I don't buy anything. The  reason I go to those conferences whenever I can   and because I rarely do travel for that because  I just kind of I'm kind of paranoid when I'm out   of town. Uh but those are the most valuable use  of my time because I get to meet with my fellow   chiefs from the largest police departments in  America who are utilizing that techn technology   and we talk to them before we move forward. And  that's why we did that with our Arctic technology,   um, our body warn camera technology,  everything that's in our Axon. And, uh, oh, Paul, you want to jump in here? I was just going to add from an IT perspective,  obviously, we work very closely with director Ma   and his team on anything that touches the  city network. And on spot specifically,   I know there there were questions about  encryption. uh there is multiple layer   encryption uh included with with spot to to keep  from any sort of interference. Thank you. Just one   more comment and I have several more but I'll  give my colleagues an opportunity to engage.   I I would just like to see um a clear outline  of as we look at investing in this technology,   who owns the risk, what is the risk and who  owns that risk? Um and I that's not just for   Witchaw Police Department. I think that should  be for the entire city of Witchaw. Uh because   as we invest in the technology as you mentioned  there's never a 100% guarantee and we have to be   honest with about that but again who owns the  risk what is the risk and who is the point of   contact and or the standard operating procedure  in the case that um that risk is reached. So I can talk a little bit about the drones and  SkyO specifically. Uh the chief mentioned earlier,   sorry pulled off, deputy chief, uh was part  of the process and making sure that we chose   the American drones over the Chinese DJI drones  specifically. Uh the chief is 100% right, Sky,   the best drones in the world right now. And  the reason that the US military chose them   was because of their cyber security capabilities  and their ability not to get hacked by foreign   habits. So uh so where we are with SkyO, they are  literally the best uh in the world right now what   they do. So um in terms of who owns the risk uh  specifically are we talking cyber security side or   are we talking like on the cyber security side um  well I think everything is cloud-based uh there's   nothing server based so everything and like I  said in terms of scio and axon they are the the   top of the game across the world period when it  comes to policing when it comes to cyber security   uh and we are uh very much axon police department  and a scio police department as well so I don't   know if that helps you but certainly eases your  risk So we're we're at the top of the game now.   Thank you. The other thing I'd like to say that  we're just not about technology. There's a lot of   cities that their me their provide mental health  programs are going away where ours is growing. U   we we run those team dragon. Our officers love  them. Um they asked us to utilize the grant to   hire police officers because they felt better  with a police officer with them. But we let them   take the lead. Uh and we're just there. So, and  we feel very strongly about that. That's why we   went to the uh Witsto Police and Fire Foundation  and got them to provide ballistic protection   uh for our mental health professionals. Also, I'm  really happy to say that uh HOT is out right now   working with uh outreach workers from housing,  new outreach workers um and also people from   Comare addressing that you email that I sent  you, manager. So um we are big proponents of   combined teams to do a variety of things including  me mental health and homelessness. I've said that   from the beginning. I do not hot is not the answer  to homelessness, but we play a very important role   in it and we have great officers that are very  empathetic towards that community have built a   great deal of trust, but but we we we need that  support from people with that specialization. Yes, sir. Go ahead, Maggie. Thank you. Uh thank  you chief uh council member Hohheisle and Shepard   and I had the pleasure of meeting the police  chief from Minneapolis and he's a big fan of yours   uh and he shared many many of the same things  that you tell us um about you know the community   and and modernized policing especially about  immigration stuff. Um I know I am supportive of   a staff study. Um, I think it's important, but we  also need to know that we need to act on whatever   it potentially says. So, um, I think Minneapolis  is fairly similar in size to Witchaw and they have   hundreds more officers and they're even down,  um, from what the police chief was saying. So,   definitely something that we need to be prepared  for, um, whatever it says. So, I I also think   maybe a public safety study. I know that has been  um commented, you know, overall. Um I certainly   hope it wouldn't take years um to to do this study  and then have to figure out, you know, how how   to make it work. But um so hopefully we can we  can continue that conversation. But when you're   talking about workforce and technology, and I just  want to make sure that this is simplified to where   everybody understands. So the technology is not  replacing officers. Absolutely not. It's just an   additional tool in the tool box. So, you're still  going to send the same amount of officers to a   homicide or something like that. This is just an  additional tool. It's not am I even if I send the   dog in, I still have to have the same team ready  to go in case that dog in case Spot sees someone   in imminent danger. So, it doesn't it it just  saves me from sending them in first. I just want   to make sure that people the community understands  that you're not replacing officers with spot. I   was told I was I was told my job was to come here  and get us to our authorized strength and we have   39 in the academy now and we hope to put 40 in  in July and that will almost have us there. But   I can tell you after spending three years here and  they will tell you I listen to the radio a lot and   ride around a lot that that number is not going  to solve the problem. when I get you there, it's   not going to solve the problem because you have to  remember four bureaus four tours of duty when you   start spreading people out and we still although  we've driven attrition down to very low levels   that we're we're very proud of officers still need  to retire and they still want to go on to second   careers and sometimes I have to take action uh  so you know attrition is always going to be there   um it's it's at a very good Um, but we currently  have 31 open police officer positions and I will   fill them with the next class. And that number  is 48 at all ranks. That's a far cry from where   we were when I arrived. Um, but again, I don't  want there to be an expectation that when we're   at that authorized strength that everything's  going to be fine because it won't. I mean,   we'll they're out there doing an incredible job  with less than they need, but the concern I have   is that's not a sustainable strategy. Thank you.  Yes, sir. All right. Yeah, back to me. I'm sorry,   Chief. Um, just a couple of questions. Um, one  of the things I'm hearing from the public a lot   is is the concerns over privacy, um, reporting the  the portals. So I just a few questions along those   um flock contracts. That's another one that I  hear quite a bit. I've talked to Duff quite a   bit about that specifically around working with  government um federal government organizations   um the security concerns that council member  Shepard brought up. Um what does our portal   show? Is it active now? The flock is active. You  can see every everyone that we share data with   in it is no one in the federal government. Okay.  And all data is is destroyed in 30 days. Not 31,   30 days. We can no longer access it. We have  strict controls in place that you have to have   a criminal investigation at a case number  in order to access access the portal and   we do regular audits to determine whether anyone  has improperly accessed the portal. We may find   some minor transgressions but nothing major. Our  people know how important this is to us. We do not   have a 100% clearance rate for homicide and we're  somewhere around 70% for non-fatal this year. We   do not have that without flock. The first homicide  of the year we were able to trace we have nothing   and we were able to trace the shooter back to his  home out of state. Um it's an incredible tool.   We know how credible it is and how important it is  to our to our investigations and we protect it and   uh if anyone violates any terms of the agreement,  they're they're immediately removed from the   system. Uh and those people that we have removed  have not been given access back and and never   will want chief. Well, I appreciate that. I think  our internal policies are good and solid. That's   something else again we do through major city  chiefs when we put together our drone policy.   You know, we uh we looked at a California  department was among the best. You know,   their their policy had been drafted and approved  by the ACLU and we we modeled our policy after   that. And it brought up important things like we  cannot use the drones for immigration. We don't   do immigration investigations. First of all, we  can't use the drone and we did. We don't use it to   monitor abortion clinics. As far as demonstrations  go, you know, we have a great relationship with   the community here and they asked for protection.  So, if we utilize technology at a demonstration,   we communicate that beforehand. There are no  surprises and if there's any objections, then we   have that discussion. But all we have ever gotten  is thank you. No, I I think again uh our internal   policies are solid. I appreciate you bringing up  that we based it on a lot of discussions with the   ACLE especially around the drones. Um again the  one thing I do hear is just ensuring that our   information is secure within us. Um there has been  concerns about some of the vendors. Um so I I just   want far as secure information block specifically.  Well that's if we that depends on who we grant it   to. So we have heard the community loudly and  that dictates our decision and that is why we   did not share that information with the federal  government. Okay. And and there are guarantees   within our contract with block that they cannot  share. I think that's kind of where I'm trying   to circle back to is more the concern with the  the company the vendor as opposed to us. Captain   Aaron Moses again. Yes. The Flock agreement very  clearly states that license plate data, the the   photos that are taken belong to the Witchah  Police Department, not Flock. And we actually   went in and strengthened that language about a  year and a half ago to make it very clear that   Flock cannot sell that data, cannot share that  data with anybody. That's our decision to make,   not theirs. Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you. Me  again, uh just again want to say thank you because   uh just demonstrates how we are going the extra  step. There were plenty of cities at the National   League of Cities who unfortunately did not do that  vetting. Um and so I appreciate hearing that we   are um and I hope that we maintain that we would  not give that data to anyone else outside of our   police department. The listening sessions that we  we've done in all of your districts was so that   Colonel Duff could hear that as well as Aaron and  Josh and then we incorporated that in the drafting   of our policies and then placed our policies  uh open to the public so there could be further   comment even comment through the citiz board and  we haven't gotten that because I think that we we   did a very good job. We utilize Lexi pole as Aaron  said we look at other cities that have successful   policies through our major city chief network.  um so that once we post it, it represents best   practices within policing. Um and then other  cities are looking at our policy and copying   our policy to be honest with you. Thank you. Two  quick things. Um I know that today we've talked   about a staffing study and I think that there is  a way um one I think we need to be clear about our   definition of what public safety is because public  safety though, police and fire play a major role   in that. that is that is not the only definition  of public safety. I think we need to look at   public safety holistically and I think if we're  talking about prevention, right? How do we make   life um easier for our police officers and and get  to the root of the challenges prior to it becoming   a violent situation or a criminal situation? That  means that we also have to invest in those other   things that serve as preventative um causes  for people. The second thing is um also on the   conversations about a substation in center city  um the district that I represent, the district   that I live in downtown Witchah, Council Member  Ballot as well. I would love to be looped in in   any of those conversations be very transparent  that um as it stands right now um reserve the   right to be wrong. I don't have an interest of  of seeing a substation in in the urban core or   in the center of of the city of Witchaw. Uh but  again I could be wrong and perhaps data will   showcase that there is a need for that. Um again  I would like to see instead data that supports a   need for that. I would love to be looped in that  conversation as a resident of downtown Witchaw   and someone who represents that area as well as  looking at um what other alternatives to invest   in in regards to public safety outside of just  police. Sure. And when when we say that it's an   there is an existing central bureau station just  a couple blocks from here where our traffic op our   traffic unit operates out of. Absolutely. Our hot  team operates out of our combined mental health   teams operate. So it would just be an addendum to  that. We already own the building. I think that   um you know I understand your concern well because  I would not support doing it if it took resources   from any other area. I could not support it  because I don't as I've said I don't not happy   with the staffing of those areas now but the PCO  surveys that were done just as one example there   is a perception of center city as being unsafe  that's not indicated by the crime. Um, you know,   I pulled the the old time town crime statistics  and of course I forgot to to mention them, but you   know, crime is significantly down in Oldtown.  Um, it was last year and it is this year. Um,   but the perception is not there and perception is  reality because if people don't feel safe, they're   not coming to center city. And uh, crime was down  uh, total park crime was down 16% last year in   Oldtown, but all co surveys would make you think  otherwise. And And I have to address perception   uh as well as reality because we do want to see  you know the center city of any city is the heart   of the city and we have to make sure the heart  is healthy because that brings in that generates   funds that then benefit all of the city. Um and  as far as uh this the study being public safety   I couldn't agree with you more because it might  show where increased civilianization can free   up more police officers. We have community service  officers out there and I'd love to have 25 or more   of them tomorrow because the amount of time they  free up for my police officers is staggering. I   want more mental health teams. I want more  homeless outreach workers. So um we're in   we're in total agreement there that there are are  there are you know public safety center city could   be a special services district where we have they  call them ambassadors in other city where they're   uniform persons walking the street but they just  give a sense of order part of that study should   be increased better lighting graffiti removal all  of that should be part of it because all of that   is fighting crime absolutely and that's what RTM  is all about and I encourage encourage all of you,   it's okay to feel free to always come to these  count meetings and and and listen and to see how   they're developing and we're beginning to work  together to address those issues. Thank you,   Chief. And I think that it's our responsibility  to help with that perception as well. Perception   is reality. Um what we say and what we do and the  policies that we enact also contribute to that.   Um, as a former student at Witchaw State, there  were lots of comments of don't go into Fairmount,   don't walk home at night. Um, and and the data did  not support that that neighborhood was not safe.   And so when we talk about downtown as if um our  unhoused neighbors are are causing violent crimes   to other people or when we talk about downtown  in a way where we need more traditional policing,   it does create a a perception that is not  accurate. And again, as a resident of downtown   who lives and sees it every single day, um I'm not  saying we're perfect. Um that nothing is wrong,   but I walk downtown all the time. Um and I'm  not saying that that's going to be the reality   for someone else. Uh but I hope that we can do  a better job of sharing what the reality is,   not just in the downtown, but all of the areas of  our city because public safety again is not just   investing in police. It's investing in recreation.  It's investing in our libraries. is investing   in the things that help make the lives of our  police officers a little bit easier. Thank you. Uh Chief, before you go and we move on to the next  topic, two things I want to make sure we leave the   audience and council members with. A lot of our  technology and a lot of our 21st century is grant   funded. Yes, sir. the entire real-time information  center and then we are using technology that is   having an impact on our clearance rates. So if  you do the crime in Witchah you'll do the time   our clearance rates are demonstrate that. Thank  you manager. Next mayor if you're good still move   on to the next topic that we have for you today  is talking about speaking of downtown talk about   parking. And so we'll ask Troy to come forward  as assistant city manager to give an overview of   where we are with our downtown parking and city  hall uh parking implementation for paid parking. Honorable mayor, members of council, uh Troy Anderson, assistant city manager. So,  want to give a little bit of an overview. We're   going to kind of frame this around kind of a  past, present, future, uh, particularly as it   relates to implementation of the 2019 parking and  multimmoal plan. So, you may recall you may recall   just to set the stage a little bit that back in  May of 2025, city council approved the amended   and restated operation and management agreement  with the car park. So, prior to this, it was   adoption of that 20 time 2019 um multimmoto plan.  Uh the next iteration of that was implementation.   So, as part of the implementation strategy, it  was um approving an uh operation and management   agreement in 2025 following the conversations  about things like removing Oldtown temporarily   and removing Deleno. We had to come back and  amend the operation and management agreement   with car park. So May 2025 uh we have sort of  the latest and greatest amended and restated   operations and management agreement with car park.  So following that May action item uh on June 23,   2025 we started implementing sort of the physical  environment in which we would be able to manage   parking. So, as you can see on the screen here in  front of you, this was phase one. On August 4th,   2025, we began implementing phase two. September  phase three, November phase 4. And we can go   back and look at any one of these if you want more  information, but um okay. So, uh, as part of this,   we're going to continue to just kind of set the  stage, right, that part of the implementation   as directed by the governing body was, um, have  all of the same equipment, right? And that's for   the purpose of improving the user experience,  right? We want to make sure that that as users   of the system are using the system that they're  not having to go to one place and experience a   completely different set of kind of rules, hours,  equipment, etc. So, one of the things we wanted   to do was to uh introduce all the same equipment  AC across the system, have all the same signage,   have all the same enforcement hours. Again, Monday  through Thursday, 8 to 6, Friday and Saturday from   8 to 9 and Sunday, there are no uh enforcement  hours. Um event hours do somewhat trump those   base hours. There may be hours outside of those  where uh as you may recall that within two to   three blocks of event centers, event hours may  apply. Again, all the same parking rates across   the system. Currently, that's set to a dollar an  hour. Um except that event rates may apply even   in outside of uh that dollar per hour. Eventually,  the goal and the recommendation is over the course   of the next year to collect data based on all  of this equipment, knowing and understanding   um who is using parking, when, where, and how, and  then ultimately coming back with recommendations   on how to make adjustments to the system in order  to achieve the desired occupancy and utilization   as set forth in that plan. So right now for 2026,  the plan is to just collect data over the next   year and then probably come back to you about  this time next year with some recommendations   on how to make adjustments to the system. Can  I ask I have a question quickly. Um, is the   $1 covering the expense which is equipment and  manpower? Yep. I've got some slides on that. Yep. Okay. So, um, one of the things I want  to be able to differentiate here is when we implemented the 2019 parking and  multimmoal plan sort of recommendations,   right? It's just a segment. It's just a  part of the city's overall parking fund,   right? So, we have to be able to talk about When  people are asking how is parking performing,   are you talking about the parking fund or are you  talking about the implementation strategies that   we introduced last year? Specifically, we really  kind of looked at it from sort of the Q3, Q4,   July of last year, a lot of the on street meters,  a lot of the surface lot meters, but we already   had parking management in, for example, city hall.  We'll talk about that here in a little bit. But we   also had parking garages, right? So the these are  not the same conversations. I'm going to try to   differentiate between the two, right? But just  when we're talking about the parking fund that   the implementation strategies that we uh began  implementing last year, it's just a part of the   system. So it's been a little bit difficult and we  appreciate the patience with us right to sort of   extract out so that when the general public wants  to know hey how is the parking implementation   going from last year we can extract that out of  the parking fund and be able to better report on   that. So I'm going to kind of go up a level right  and I'm going to start out with the parking fund.   Okay so you probably are familiar with this  table. This was the table that we showed back   um in 2024 when we first uh had the uh amended  and re uh stated agreement with car park. It did   not show the 24 numbers. Uh the last numbers that  we showed you back in 2024 were the 2023 year-end   numbers that showed down there at the bottom. Um  after revenues and expenses in 2023, there was a   surplus of about $53,000. By year end 2024, we  had a negative $232,000 to the parking fund. We   continue to show this in the context of, as you  can see, this is not a sustainable parking fund.   This is not a sustainable business model, which  was one of the biggest reasons why we introduced   parking management strategies that we did. Yes.  Can you please explain some of the expenditures   that have been ongoing for the parking fund and  what types of revenues for the parking fund even   before this downtown paid parking implemented in  2025? Can you talk about revenues and expenses?   Yeah. So on the revenue side, prior to  implementation of the 2019 plan, we had we we   have surface lots and we have garages that we had  staffing uh that was responsible for ongoing sort   of operations and maintenance. We have utility  billing. We had in fact honestly I I keep looking   out in the audience here. I got to tip my cap to  Stephanie Canable who is um the city's parking   manager and who did an amazing job. I'm actually  going to kind of highlight it later on in the   presentation. We think we maybe found $400,000  um that of expenses that were probably not best   associated with the parking fund. There were  maintenance obligations, again, utility billing,   ongoing costs that for all intents and purposes  probably should have been assigned to different   expense accounts throughout the city. But we found  some about $400,000 savings in expenses. Again,   cleanliness, maintenance, operational costs, etc.  On the revenue side, we had parking contracts that   we had employers who uh were paying for employees  to park within our parking garages. We had we have   we had event revenue that uh we were collecting  for events in lots and garages. So again,   comprehensive that was the parking fund before  we started implementing the 2019 plan. And   all of that's available a little bit. This is a  consolidated version. If you look at the previous   budgets for the parking fund, you can begin to  see a little bit more detailed layer uh in some of   those uh revenues and expenses. This is just the  consolidated version uh for overall revenues and   expenditures for the parking fund. Okay. So, let's  talk a little bit about the car park agreement.   There's been some questions about what kind  of uh service are we getting for our contract,   right? So, car park essentially acts as the full  service operator of the Witchaw's parking system.   They are responsible for staffing for daily  management, collecting and reporting, issuing   tickets and compliance, maintaining things  like meters, technology, IT infrastructure,   cleanliness and maintenance of facilities, and I'm  going to put an asterisk on that. Non- capital,   right? So, just general day-to-day routine  cleanliness and maintenance. Capital improvements   are a different conversation, but this is just  general cleanliness, maintenance, and then   customer experience. You'll notice that throughout  all of that, regardless of whether we had hired   the car park or had done this internally, these  are all costs that we would have had to have   absorbed as a city in managing a system. So in  fact we were uh visiting with some folks just   even earlier today right that regardless of  whether the city is taking on these expenses   or whether we're outsourcing those right these  are all costs that are associated with managing   a system like this city retains all ownership  policy control and major capital responsibilities. Okay. So, um, some of the expenses, this is, uh,  something that you're, uh, somewhat familiar with.   This was part of the, uh, green sheet, the agenda  report from back when we approved the amended and   restated agreement with the car park. You can see  there on the left hand side of the first column,   those are that's the management fee. That's the  cost in which we are expending uh to have all of   those staffing, operations, maintenance, so on and  so forth. Again, whether or not we're outsourcing   that or managing that in house, that's same  management fee is going to exist. Advertise cost,   that's the equipment. You'll notice that out  in sort of 2025, by the end of 2025, all of the   equipment that we have installed over the last  six months uh will be paid off. And that why   that's how you no longer see the advertised cost  on the equipment and then obviously the total. Okay. So, this slide I wanted to kind of highlight  something because um the next slide that I show   you is a little misrepresentative of what  we anticipate the system looking like in   the future. And that's because this year we had  one-time expenses. We had almost $540,000. Well,   we had $540,000 in one-time expenses to stand  up the system that we are not going to see in   future years, right? We had to remove old meters.  We had to pour new concrete. We had to run some   electrical. We had to put some cameras in some  of the garage entry. That's separate and distinct   from an RFP for security cameras that is going  to be coming to you here in the next couple of   months. But we had about $540,000 in onetime fees  last year. So one of the things that we started   trying to do was sort of starting to extract  what did this look like last year for just the   implementation plan. Right? So this is just for  the implementation plan Q3 and Q4 because again   we didn't have anything in Q1 or Q2 last year.  You'll notice we between revenues and expenses,   we had a net loss of about $410,000. But  again, keep in mind you had $540,000 in   one-time expenses. So what does that look like  for the entire parking fund? This is unuded,   so take this with a grain of salt, right? But  we have a pretty good idea of what 2025 looked   like last year. And overall the entire parking  fund last year we only had a net loss of about   $3,800. Remember keeping in mind that had we  not had that $540,000 in one-time expenses,   we probably would have had about a $500,000 sort  of net positive showing in our parking fund. kind of shows that. So, we're going to continue to monitor over the  next year. Again, um we'll continue to report.   Um historically, we've been showing the revenues  uh for the implementation of the plan on the Park   Witchah website. Uh we're going to continue to  try and communicate exactly those expenses. It's a   little bit nuanced, but those expenses associated  with the 2019 the plan implementation. So that   on the parkwitchah.com website, you're seeing  sort of a a segment of the overall parking fund   that's directly related to those implementation  strategies. Um, but all of that information should   be available on the parkwood.com. Okay, so where  are we at today? So, right now we are actually in   the process of making some changes here at city  hall. Just trying to continue to set the stage   that this is all the same equipment as downtown.  This is all the same signage as downtown. It's   all the same enforcement hours as downtown. All  the same parking rates. This is nothing new,   right? in the context that paid parking existed at  city hall prior to a couple of months ago when we   started uh removing some of the old equipment. We  wanted to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars and   the equipment that the city just purchased  a couple years ago, some of the control   arms that were out in the parking lot. We have  relocated those to the parking garages downtown.   uh the parking the P arcs parks equipment in the  parking garages downtown were getting outdated.   We had a mix of equipment and so we took all of  that same equipment that was here at city hall and   we put it in the parking garages again trying to  be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. We've also   added some rollup doors to increase uh security  in those parking garages uh and control access.   Uh and so we're trying to continue to demonstrate  not only to the governing body but the community   that we are st starting to see a return on this  investment and we're starting to see investment   back into these assets to create a clean and safe  environment downtown and same goes with city hall. Additionally, in downtown, um we are updating  information on the pay stations to include some   QR codes for Google Pay. Um the Apple Pay option  is a little more difficult. We're continuing to   work with our vendors to try to figure out how  to get Apple Pay incorporated into the system as   well for those that want to use Apple Pay. Google  Pay, we did have a solution. So, as you're if you   wanted to use Google Pay and you wanted to walk  up to a kiosk, there's a QR code that you could   scan and use uh Google Pay to pay at the kiosks.  Um, we're continuing to work with other vendors,   like I said, to try to get Apple Pay Incorporated.  It's been a little more difficult. Uh, but those   are the kind of things we're continually trying to  improve the user experience. Talked a little bit   about the new equipment at the three downtown  garages as well as the new rollout doors. So, uh, want to touch briefly a little bit on  enforcement. So, there's been some questions   on enforcement. And so, I just wanted to kind of  take just a moment. Uh, there's been some really   good information out there on enforcement,  uh, particularly on the Park Witchaw website,   but also through the municipal court website. Uh,  yes, once issued, parking tickets are then managed   by municipal court. Uh payments can be made by  mail, phone, in person, and online. Extensions   may be requested. Uh issues and complaints should  be reported to the car park. Um and then this was   the parking fine schedule that was approved by  city council several years ago. I have a question   regarding that. Um I've had some individuals that  have gotten a ticket regarding um backing into a   spot to address that ordinance. Yeah, there's been  an ordinance on the books for 20 plus years now.   It It's been an ordinance that's been on the books  for years. I can tell you I don't know exactly the   history on the ordinance, but I can tell you just  generally speaking, probably one of the reasons   why is because um in Kansas, you're only required  to have one plate on the back of the vehicle,   right? In other states where you're required to  have a license plate on both the front and the   back of the vehicle, it may not necessarily be  as an issue, but particularly because in Kansas,   you're only required to have a plate on  the back as um enforcement and otherwise   is driving down the road, they can see the plate  on the vehicle. If you're backed into a space,   um it's it's unsure whether or not that vehicle is  licensed and registered. Number one. Number two,   uh especially with angled parking, um backing  into a space can, uh impede traffic and can be   difficult, uh depending on whether it's an angled  space or not. If it's parallel, it's not generally   as much of a deal. Uh but I know that in other  communities, they've had issues with vehicles.   Um there's been a a trend throughout the years  of actually flipping that angle parking so that   as you're driving um down the lane of traffic  as you stop and you back into an angled parking   um it's also a safety measure for doors and kids  that open up. They exit towards the sidewalk and   out not out onto the street. So, there's been  some strategies throughout the years of folks   trying to respond differently to how vehicles  park, but I know there's just been a number   of factors that continue to lead into why backing  into spaces is generally not suggested. I I would   like to piggyback on that one a little bit. I've  had a couple of residents uh reach out with those   complaints as well. Um, is there any way, and  I've talked to Gary about this, I think, or public   works anyways about putting up some signage, um,  relaying this information. They they were ticketed   in Sentry 2 parking lot. So, I I mean, I wouldn't  expect angled parking or side street parking or   anything for there to necessarily be anything for  that, but more um maybe in our lots and parking   garages, just making sure that there some sort of  signage just to give them some more because I was   unaware of that as well. And um so it was kind  of a surprise to me to find out that it's been   um against our ordinances for 20 some odd years  here. So just a thought making sure that we relay   that to the public a little bit. We'll continue  to work on messaging and we'll examine uh some   opportunities to to better sign. Do you mean  just signage saying you can't back invious? Yeah.   Okay. Because I think it was driven by police.  I mean, I obviously wasn't here, but because you   couldn't see their license plate numbers, right?  Right. Yeah. We just haven't been enforcing it   for 20 some odd years. So, so now that it is  being enforced again, my car parked more than   anybody else, it seems, um, it'd be good to just  to relay that info to everybody. Maybe law knows   which ordinance that is. Um, but according to the  parking fine, which would that be the violation?   And then what's the ordinance here's under  11.52 and I don't have the exact sub subsection   but fine I believe is $50. Jennifer, did you  just have that off the top of your head? No. You good? Okay. Okay. So now kind of future,  what are some of those things that we can   anticipate over the uh next several months?  One of the things that we're going to do   is begin to activate event rates. This  was something we started talking about   um as part of the implementation. Last year  we did not activate the new event rates um but   this year we will start activating the new event  rates. So this just gives you kind of a snapshot   of what we are anticipating. The reason behind  this, right, is because these are market rents,   right? Um if you get online today and you want to  go reserve a parking space in a private parking   lot associated with say a small, medium, or  large scale event. These are the rent. In fact,   you're probably going to be paying north of these  numbers to attend an event um at either Interest   Bank Arena or C2 or the convention center. And  so you can begin to kind of see how these are   going to be the new event rates that we're  going to start rolling out later this year. Okay. Additionally, we're gonna probably  come back in the next couple of   uh weeks. We just had some last conversations  with law uh coming back with updating some of   the municipal codes around hooding fees. Um it's  a little bit of a nuance. We we refer to it as   hooding fees because literally you used to go  out and hood put a hood over a meter and that's   uh that's how the term hooding came into  existence. Uh with the new technology,   we don't have a whole lot of sort of individual  meter heads. We do have a few out there,   but we don't have actual hoods that go over meters  anymore. In essence, what's that that's referring   to is if you're blocking off a space, whether that  be for uh a building permit, whether that be for   um a whole host of reasons, special events, right?  you're closing down a street that is parking   um and subsequently sort of revenue for  the city that the city is foregoing. And   so communities charge those business owners who  are petitioning for a building permit to close   off a handful of parking spaces because they're  having a construction uh project going on. Maybe   they need to block off a couple of spaces. We  charge hooding fees. We charge fees associated   with blocking off those spaces. So, uh, we've  got an ordinance coming back to city council in   the next couple weeks around kind of hooding  and hooding fees. Additionally, towing. Um,   we've been working on this one for really about  a year. U, we know, you just heard from police,   right? Police is strained on resources. So rather  than um police being uh involved and responsible   for towing vehicles, this allows our operator  after a certain set of uh protocols, right?   which also involves engaging police uh to obtain  that authority and authorization to tow that then   our operator can tow vehicles particularly for um  emergency situations or really it's sort of that   three strike rule so to speak, right? Uh what  we're setting up is if you've gotten a ticket   several hours later you still haven't moved. You  got a second ticket sort of several hours later   you still haven't moved. sort of third ticket,  several hours later, you still haven't moved.   Right? At some point in time, we we need to  start the process of towing that vehicle. So,   uh we're we're working through the policies and  procedures on that, but this ordinance would   allow our operator to uh commence the towing  process rather than having to burden and rely   on the police department. We're also going to uh  start implementing some of the capital improvement   projects. We told you several years ago, couple  years ago, no, several, a couple years ago,   uh we were going to start looking at some of our  deferred maintenance in our parking garages. Um   and so this year we're going to really start  implementing some of those capital improvement   projects uh that have been identified as a  result of our analysis on some of the deferred   maintenance and some of our parking assets.  So, we'll start implementing some of those   capital improvement projects this year. You'll  also see probably in the next several weeks   um an RFP go out for security cameras in all of  our garages. Again, our goal all along has been   to to take the proceeds from implementation and  invest back into the system, right? Um and so I   think you're already starting to see some of  that. Uh, but we want to continue to showcase   and show the community that we're reinvesting  back into a clean and safe environment downtown,   particularly in our parking assets, that  we're going to take care of our parking assets   uh so that they can be enjoyed by everybody.  Um, and that we're creating that clean,   safe environment. So, you'll see an RFP probably  hit the street in the next several weeks on uh   security cameras going in to all of the garages.  Uh and then also in conjunction with uh the group   that we hired to come in and help us uh sort of  survey our assets and uh determine what some of   the deferred maintenance was on that. Also putting  together that annual maintenance plan. And so   we'll be able to showcase that to you all, share  that with you all here in this next several weeks   and months on what an annual maintenance plan  for these parking garages look like, particularly   after we make these capital investments to bring  these uh parking garages back up to par. Um what   is it going to cost us and what's that schedule  look like for ongoing annual maintenance? So with that said, that's the conclusion of my  report. I'd be more than happy to answer any   questions. Troy, um I'm curious if maybe you can  give some historical context behind um right like   this idea of like when something new is coming  into the city like parking that has not been a   part of the cultural norm. Uh it makes people a  little nervous. I I liken it to like folks feeling   like the parking police is like Dracula popping  up at night and ticketing folks and and it can be   very scary. I was getting coffee today actually  and someone saw um the the parking folks riding   around in a parking lot that's actually not owned  by the city and so they got very nervous about   whether or not we were going to be installing  parking there or or kiosk. Can maybe you speak   to what we have done to u make sure that we are  being educational about why we are doing this and   um the opportunity to give grace as people are  learning to adapt to this new culture and not be   like Dracula. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question.  Um that's been uh that's probably been a four year   long from the first day I got here. Right? That's  been a four-year long process, especially for me,   right? Um, but I can tell you even before I  got here, we go back to we call it the 2019   parking and multimmoal plan because, and we've  been talking about this implementation strategy   since 2019. Um, even before that, we've talked  amongst council and publicly, right, that I mean,   we've had parking plans from 2009. We've had  parking plans from 2000, right? We've been talking   about parking in this community for 20 plus years.  It's really only been within the last three to   four years that we've really started talking about  what is an implementation strategy look like. And   so we've taken that 2019 plan, which there was  robust community engagement. We've we can go   back to kind of some of the the slide decks and  some of the conversations we've had over the last   couple of years. Some of the most robust community  engagement when it came to kind of developing that   plan. 2019 uh 2020 COVID had the hiatus, right?  They they were uh at that point in time uh the   group the steering committee that was pushing  that 2019 plan uh leading up into 2020 and COVID   was on the verge of a final draft and taking it  to the district advisory boards and the planning   commission and city council. But again, COVID  kind of uh sidelined that effort. So then you   fast forward to kind of 21, late 21, city council  wants to reconstitute that steering committee.   They do um they go back out, they engage more  kind of community, they finalize that 2019 plan,   goes through all the district advisory  boards, goes through the planning commission,   ultimately comes to city council, gets approved  by city council. Um we hire an operator,   we begin to start implementing, and then we even  took another time out, right? We stood in front   of city council year and a half uh and we took  a pause, right? I remember me personally, I went   back out to 14 different new community meetings,  right? And we we walked through the entire history   and the entire plan all over again. In fact, we  brought back and I can't even tell you how many   different iterations of a of a rate structure  and hours of operation and how are we going to   normalize this. We had probably 12 different iter  I think we ended up uh I think it was option 1a   is was the option that ultimately city council  agreed to sort of implement and that's what we   did we went to work and we implemented it but  to your point we need to continue to educate   the community and that's why I don't mind standing  up here and having the conversation about parking   um I know it's a little bit of a sore spot  probably in the community right to talk about   it but I don't mind talking about the history and  kind of how we've arrived where we are Okay, this   isn't about just the city trying to make a buck,  right? There there's a whole strategy behind this   and I encourage anybody that's interested. It's  really dry reading and most people don't enjoy it,   but go check out that 2019 parking and multimmoal  plan, even if you just thumb through the first   chapter, right? It gives you this really great  context around why we're doing what we're doing.   Um, I think back to some of the illustrations  that we had during some of those early meetings,   right? And you look at just a uh there's there's  a map that uh I I think about and it shows that   60% I don't remember the exact number, but it's  a large number. 60% of our downtown is surface   parking lots. Right now, we don't control most  of those. The city only actually owns, operates,   and controls only a handful of those parking lots.  But that's not a sustainable business model for a   dense, urban, active, vibrant downtown, right? And  so what are the things that we're doing in order   to uh kind of unlock the development potential,  unlock that dense urban downtown vibrant community   that we all know that Witchaw has deep down and  it all is going to come back and and boil down to   parking management. So thank you Troy for that. I  really appreciate it. Um also just want to commend   you all on speaking about the hooding fees.  I'm really looking forward to that. I know you   and I had a conversation about that. It's it's  definitely something that um I believe impacts   small business owners in downtown, especially  as they're looking at activating downtown doing   events. I was was kind of shocked to see that we  charge them for how many parking spaces they're   taking up when they are in a CD. Uh in addition  to that, they're they're doing something that   I think enhances the quality of life, which is  activating our downtown. So, anytime we can again   remove barriers and make life a little easier  for the folks that we are partnering with to to   do good things in our city, I think we should.  Uh, the the third thing that I would hope that   u we might consider, it's something that uh we  did when we were when I was at Witchaw State,   is there an opportunity right as we look at we're  not trying to make a buck off of this. Is there a   way if someone gets their first parking fine that  instead of paying to the city of Witchaw Municipal   Court, we identify three amazing entities in  the city of Witchaw that they can donate to,   maybe donating X amount to the food bank and  or doing something that will also meet our   mission and helping serve neighbors. So that  way, again, from a communication standpoint,   they realize we want to be educational. We don't  want to be punitive and we're not trying to make   a buck off of you. Uh, but we also have other  needs in our city too that if we can utilize this   opportunity to help fill some of those critical  gaps, I think it's a win-win situation. Not   looking for an answer right now. I just wonder if  there's an opportunity to look at being innovative   in that way. Yeah. So, um, I appreciate the  outside of the box and I would love to continue   to have a conversation about what the anticipation  and the expectation is of the governing body as it   relates to the parking fund. With that being said,  we anticipate that that citation revenue goes back   to the parking fund. That's the way we've set it  up, right? That that this is a userbased system,   right? The people who are using it are paying into  it. The people are using it benefiting from it,   right? And so, uh, we're we're trying to to the  greatest extent possible use the parking fund as   a special revenue fund or or, um, an enterprise  fund where all of the revenues that are coming in   are only being used back to support the system.  That's how we keep rates low, right? So, if now   all of a sudden we're taking some of that citation  revenue and we're putting it to something else,   great. That's fine. That's a decision. That's  a policy decision of the governing body.   If now all of a sudden the parking fund isn't  sustainable because of that, right, then we   just kind of have to have that conversation of  does that mean that we have to increase the rate   structure in order to offset that? We're  certainly open to having that conversation again next year after we collect data and we  have a better idea of who's using the system when   where and how. will have really good data around  citations and citation revenue and all those kind   of things. I'd love to have that conversation.  Yeah, absolutely. And I guess I I wouldn't want to   um do that in lie of revenue because I understand  that it it pays to maintain the infrastructure   that it takes to operate this. Um I think  traditionally parking services and I understand   like give out warnings and or there are people  who may be uh not familiar of how this works.   There are folks who I've engaged with who uh they  don't feel comfortable utilizing their phone.   Our elders and our seniors have not, you know,  been comfortable with utilizing technology in   that regard. So, they'll take the ticket the one  time. And so, maybe instead of a warning, we say,   you know, this is your warning, but instead of it  being verbal, we ask that you make a donation to   X. Uh I don't I think we can do both. I'm not sure  that someone doing something one time um should   result in them paying in cash. I think perhaps  it's more so just educational and can benefit   the city in other ways too. Love to have the  conversation for sure. All righty. I got a few as   well. Any other council members? Yep. I do. I'll  wait. Okay. Well, anytime you do that, you get   mad because I ask your questions. So, um go ahead.  Um first I just want to say I think $35 event fees   that's um pretty expensive. Now, this is coming  from somebody who parks across the highway and   walks to the Chiefs game, so I don't have to pay  those parking fees. Um, so I just want to be on   record of saying that. That's kind of steep um by  my eyes. Anyways, um just a couple of questions   other than that. Um I was at a senior um fireside  chat yesterday and they had brought up parking and   one of the questions they asked and one of the  things I had brought up during the process was   um cash payment options and that's something um  one lady there said I don't have a credit card   um she has a flip phone um how am I supposed  to pay for parking so I'm I'm um I guess my   question in this area is what are we doing as far  as to address that? I know we had other machines   that would be coming in for certain areas. Um, do  we just get an update on where we are with that   process? Yeah. So, uh, we do have at the kiosks,  right? The kiosks and even some of the individual   meter heads, the indivual me will accept coins,  right? Uh, some of the kiosks particularly around   some of the higher profile areas also have a bill  pay uh, if you want to use bill. So we have tried   to introduce the coin and bill pay infrastructure  admittedly is really expensive. Um in fact oddly   enough as we started just ga gathering the data  from what and how people are using the system   today I mean it's an astronomical number 30 93  something like that 93% of all users of the system   use a mobile app right and so now you kind of try  to offset that with we want to be good stewards   of taxpayer dollars right and we want to make um  and have options available to the end user so that   if they do want to use cash. So what we've tried  to be is really strategic in again those kind of   those high-profile areas. Century 2 and convention  center. I know the ki they have a bill pay they   have coin acceptance. I don't have the ability to  put it everywhere right. It just becomes really   really expensive and then the return on the  investment begins to kind of question why are   we spending $3,000 on something that only  7% of the population is using so to speak,   right? But in the higher profile higher profile  areas, yes, we have included bill pay and coin   uh acceptance. Okay. I'm in that 7% too. That's  okay. Um so we we do have options at Century 2   and Intra Banker specifically. Okay. Um the other  two, one of the other two um there are some large   events that come and they do take up parking  spaces. Um for example, Riverfest, they'll have   the food court in the parking lot. Um, automobile  is coming up as well. What's the process if there   are events like that that will be taking up paid  parking? Is there a fee that they have to pay? Is   there additional paperwork? Do we have a process  maybe to forgive it for larger events? So, yes,   yes, and yes. Right. Um, yes. The idea is that um  that events such as that such as those who take   up large areas of ride of way and subsequently  on street parking, right? Are there alternative   locations? We went through a conversation with  a group who historically had been uh utilizing   an area down by Waterwalk, right? and they're  thinking about what the next season of their event   is. And through really good conversation, right,  they found an alternative location, they're going   to uh go locate at the ice rink uh on the other  side of the river, which currently doesn't have   paid parking for their morning event that is going  to occupy kind of a parking lot for a couple of   hours, right? So, we'll look for alternatives to  help folks navigate some of that stuff. We're also   having conversations. Yes. How do we address  the river um cleaning the Riverfest event,   automoilia? How do we know that this year there  probably isn't going to be fees assessed with   uh those events, but in out years, yes, we need to  start thinking about the fact that is that event   is that location the most appropriate sort of  location? Do you really need to block off sort of   that much? Are there alternatives? We want to keep  you downtown, right? For all of those reasons,   how do we how do we adjust that rate schedule  in such a way that it complements everybody   involved. We've had some conversations around if  it's an event that generates sales and sales tax,   right? How can that sales tax come back  to the parking fund to help offset that?   We're just trying to keep that parking fund as  whole as possible, knowing and understanding that   your desire as a governing body is that that be  self- sustaining. We're trying to do everything we   can to keep rates low um and still maintain that  that fund in a long-term sustainable way. We're   open to ideas and suggestions. Okay, I appreciate  that. And that also includes like river cleanup or   some of these volunteers. Okay. Uh last question.  Um I'm a believer that nobody should have to pay   for parking to come petition the people in the  people's building. Um but I do see that we are   going with city hall paid parking. That makes  sense after hours. That makes sense during the   weekends. Um I think in some slip cases that makes  sense. and others I have um some real angst about.   So I was just curious if you could walk us through  that process. What does it look like? I know we   have to kind of work within um the confines  of car park and what technologies they have   available to us. Um also other options. I mean  I do the arm was good when we had it here. So,   I'm just curious if you could walk us through that  process and any potential avenues to improve that,   I guess. Yeah. So, I'll kind of come back to this  slide here and um my comment earlier about paid   parking at city hall is nothing new. In fact, the  rate structure at city hall before the last couple   of months when we started trying to move towards  this, it was actually more expensive to park at   city hall than this rate. I think it was 75 cents  for every 30 minutes or something like that,   right? It was actually technically more expensive  to park here than it would be anywhere else within   the system, right? So, one of the things we've  been trying to do is just make sure that from   an end user experience, the technology, the hours,  the rates are the same. Okay. But that being said,   historically, one of the biggest challenges we've  had though is that city's been able to validate,   right? So, departments have been able to  validate for parking so that if a patron   um or a citizen comes to city hall and they  visit you in the council manager's office,   the council manager's office could validate  that parking session and that citizen would   not have to pay for that parking session. That  technology still exists even under this system,   right? We're working with each of the departments  so that they know and understand that if they   truly want to validate somebody's parking session  that they have that ability. Um there's a little   bit of a nuance. I won't get into the detail,  but if you're going to go and use a kiosk,   you're going to need a validation code before you  walk up to the kiosk, right? So that's a little   bit of a nuance. Although again knowing that  93% of users are probably using a mobile app,   there's also a a a validation code that be can  be used on a mobile app to validate that parking   session. Right? So for example, uh if somebody's  coming up and meeting with offices of economic   development or the city manager's office, they've  got an active parking session on a park mobile or   pay by phone, we can validate that session um  as they're coming up. So we can the problem has   been that historically when departments were  validating in essence they were just waving   the fees right there were no funds that were  actually being transferred from those departments   to the parking fund. We ran some numbers a couple  weeks ago last year we waved in essence probably   $200,000 worth of fees just for here at city hall.  So there's $200,000 that now the parking fund is   not receiving. So one of the things that we're  going to do is ultimately now at that point in   time if a department validates that's great. We  want those departments to have that flexibility   to validate those sessions but at the end of the  day then there's going to be an internal transfer   from that department to the parking fund to  offset for that validation. Al also another   concern I've heard from people is that when you do  the validation that there's already this set time   limit. So if it's like two hours for a meeting,  what if the meeting goes longer by half an hour,   then you know you have to run out and uh hit the  kiosk real quick or go ahead and risk getting the   ticket or whatnot. So that's another concern I've  heard. So we can set those validation codes for   whatever you want, right? max daily is uh $5,  right? So if you set that if we just want to   set that max validation to $5, if somebody  uses that code and walks up to the kiosk,   we can validate their entire parking session  for the day, right? Same with using the app,   we can validate the entire session. If you only  want to validate an hour or two hours, we can use   we can create codes that only validate for an hour  or only validate for two hours. The flexibility is   up to each of those departments to go how long  do you want to do you want to validate for that   entire session or do you want to just validate  for an hour or two? And we're leaving that up to   the discretion of the departments to advise us  on how much they want to validate for and then   we can create codes that are appropriately  for them. A quick followup question that is   probably in line with Councilman Hoisel regarding  that. There's going to be staff time associated   with validation codes, figuring out validation  codes. How long? Whether it's an hour or two,   I'm thinking of if somebody visits city hall or  visits council offices and Brandy talks to them,   she's probably sending a validation code prior.  She's probably have to answer questions from about   validation. It's probably go back and forth.  Is there some analysis of how much time we're   going to spend in that validation process?  So yes, the council office could be charged   $5 for let's say two hour and two hour and one or  two hour one minute meeting could be charged $5.   But then on top of that the cost and the email  time that Brandy spends to be able to coordinate   with that individual as well. That would be  an added cost where historically they could   just stick a give them a sticker good to go. So  sometimes flexibility can create time challenges,   right? All of the time is going to be front-loaded  on the front end, right? Again, Stephanie is   already working with all the departments. It's not  a code every time you have a session. You could if   you really wanted to, but our recommendation with  the departments is we're going to give you a code,   right? And you use that code to validate that  session. that code might be good for an entire   year, right? Um, and so we're trying to cut down  on the staff time. I I think on the front end as   folks understand how to validate sessions. Um, we  can certainly look into the time that departments   are spending on this kind of thing. Um, obviously  there's going to be more more departments that   are going to want to validate than others.  We've I don't want to call any department out   specifically, but there have been departments who  have said we're not going to validate, right? That   um the folks who are coming to frequent us  in our department um we don't necessarily   have cause or reason to validate for those  sessions. That's just conducting business. So,   we're trying to leave that up to each of the  departments. But, um hopefully on the front end,   it's all and to answer your question about the $5  payment for a $2, you're only going to validate   for the session, right? So if they're only here  for two hours, you're only going to validate for   $2. Even if you could validate for all five  hours, you're only validating the session.   You're not getting penalized for providing  that same code. That helped answer that. Troy,   just curious, oftent times when we're making  decisions for something new or if we're trying   to update something, we look to our peer cities.  And so I know you came from Omaha. I know you,   you know, communicate with other city management  leaders across, I'm sure, our peer cities,   but across the nation. Can you give us, we're  making it really complex and sometimes that even   makes it harder for people and makes them more  angry because then they have an expectation. They   think it's going to be A and we say, "No, it's B."  What do other cities do and especially if you have   any context for our peer cities, do they what do  they do with their city hall parking? Thank you.   Yeah. So, um I can tell you if anybody's  frequented a city hall across the nation,   um this this happens at every city hall, not every  city hall, this happens at most city halls across   the nation where a city hall is located within a a  paid parking district, right? that if you're going   to conduct business at city hall, you're generally  going to be paying to park. And then hopefully   that city has an opportunity to validate for your  parking session because they do want you to come   and do business at city hall, right? We want to  make it easy and we want to make it friendly and   we want to make it inviting, right? We don't want  to penalize you for wanting to come to city hall.   Um, and so cities, I can tell you specifically  in u my time with the mayor's office up in Omaha,   right, we would validate for people that came up  to the the mayor's office. I remember specifically   um we would ask for their parking ticket card if  they parked in the garage. We said, "Okay, great.   Here's the here's your validation card." And when  they go to leave, they put the validation card in,   the control arm goes up, and they they have no  idea. But the mayor, even the mayor got a bill   from the parking department every month for all  of the validations that that that office val and   it was an internal transfer and it and it just  worked, right? So, this is not uncommon. This is   pretty standard practice across the nation,  particularly larger cities of our size and   demographics who have a city hall within a paid  parking district. I think I will have a follow-up   question to what uh Council Member Tuttle just  mentioned because of what you just said. that's in   a garage and very similar to our previous system.  Uh people got a ticket, they came inside to   council offices and inside council offices there  would be a sticker that then they would be able to   validate as they w or left uh the parking lot. So  is that best practices usually then? Because this   is different. This is a actual kiosk or a cell  phone type of uh system. Um, so I guess what is   truly best practice? Because if best practice is  garages where you get a validation sticker, that's   what we were doing previously. So this is the  technology the cities are moving to, right? Um,   parks equipment has a tendency to break down, has  a tendency to need to be repaired, right? And so   the less sort of mechanical system, the sort of  the virtual technology is where a lot of cities   are moving. Now, sometimes it's just not possible,  right? Sometimes you have old equipment and old   garages and and you're just dealing with what  you're dealing with, right? But there's even some   new technology out there where they don't even  have mobile apps. They don't even have they have   license plate scanners. And we don't have this  in Kansas, right? But the the city is tied to the   state licensing department, right? And so you pull  into a garage, it scans your plate, it captures   your plate information, it knows when you come  in and when you leave and after you leave and you   get a bill in the mail, right? And if you don't  pay your bill in the mail, then all of a sudden   now it's tied to your driver's license and your  ability to renew. Again, we don't have that here   in Kansas. That's not what we're implementing here  in Kansas, but that's just an idea of kind of the   transactional technology that exists throughout  the country right now um that a lot of cities   are starting to employ. Okay, my turn. Uh just  a few questions. Um I don't love the idea of the   hood fees. I don't want to create more barriers  and um while I understand it, I I don't want to   discourage people from doing events downtown. I  just for what that's worth, I don't know. I just   feel feel better saying it out loud. Um have we  um have we fixed the app to where it talk or do   we have any signage downtown um about the hours? I  know that was some feedback that we received that   people some people didn't know and there wasn't  any signage about when parking is free, you know,   and so on. So, we continue to work through that  with our vendors. Um, up until a couple of weeks   ago, we were being led to believe that because of  our rate structure, right, where you might have a   event rates that might be applicable versus the  dollar an hour, we were going down the path of   somewhat of a disclaimer that you recognize that  before you pay that you acknowledge that you know   and understand the hours of operation and if you  proceed and you're outside the hours of operation,   you're kind of proceeding at your own risk.  There was no way to prevent somebody from   paying given our circumstances here with couple  weeks ago and 10 days ago, we may be have led we   may have been led to believe that there might  be a solution that would now at that point in   time outside of the hours operation prevent you  from being able to pay. We're exploring that.   We're having that conversation with some of the  vendors. Um, but until then, our plan is sort of   implement this with some of the next updates of  a disclaimer that basically you acknowledge that,   hey, here's the hours of operation. If you're  trying to pay outside the hours of operation   that um you're kind of proceeding at your own  risk. Yeah, I I can appreciate that. I think   we need to do something like that. Um, and then I  don't know if you answered my question. Is there   signage anywhere in the paint parking areas that  just talk about the hours of the signage on the   parking lots the garages and the garages have and  that could have been updated. I just know that's   feedback that I have received in the past and  just making sure that we answer those calls. Um, and then you answer my question about um, how  much money we did not collect last year. So, yeah,   I kind of share some of Mike's uh, sentiments  about I don't ever want to discourage anybody from   uh, participating in our very minimal um,  crowd um, for our council meetings. But um   I also think you know we need to charge when we  when we are able and and you know if people park   in our parking lots during hours that it's  free I mean that's great but I don't want   to create more barriers but I also realize  that's how we got into this um situation is   by not charging across the board. Thank you. It's  about balance. We're trying to find that balance,   right? So, yeah. I just want to thank you, Troy,  um this morning had a call with a resident who um   had some questions and just following up and you  happen to be at the right place at the right time   and I was able to um have you come and enjoy the  conversation. But one of the things that you said   with the resident that again I think just needs  to be reinforced is this is a user fee, right?   And the user fee then pays for the maintenance,  the security, the upgrades that people want. And   I think we're I love that you said we're trying to  find the balance, right? We don't want to charge   too much. Um but we can't charge too little or  we're not going to give people what they want.   Um and so I really applaud you for all your work  on this. I know this has been a huge labor of love   um getting us to this point. And I said from the  very beginning way back in 2019, this is new and   it's different, but just like everything else,  our city adjusts and you know, communities across   the nation have done this. So, we certainly  can do this as well. But I will continue to   follow your lead and remind people that this is  a user fee. So, thank you for all you've done. Thank you so much, Mayor. I don't know if you want  to uh go back to the executive session and have a   working lunch in the conference room before we  do the final two topics. If that is agreeable   to you and council, please. Uh city manager,  that is agreeable. Uh but before we uh head   into executive session, um there was a change into  uh a council member appointment. So So I want to   reopen appointments real fast because I left off  a few. So my apologies. That's why it was short.   uh library board Karen Sharter Lugene Schneider  sustainability board James Williams employer   retirement board Cindy Bell and access  advisory board Jim Underwood. Thank you   for note those then we have to have a statement  for executive session in a time frame. Do we need   um I move to approve that appointment  or those appointments? So motion second   discussion none. All those in favor say I. I.  All those opposed same sign. Motion passes 70   with those appointments. I will now read the  two executive session motions. They will equal   one hour and 45 minutes. They will equal  45 minutes. One should be 15 and one. Oh,   I'm sorry. There's an error on that first  one. 15 minutes. 45 minutes, rather. Okay.   I move that the city council recess into executive  session for 15 minutes to receive information on   the city's obligation under a memorandum of  understanding for legal consultation with the   city attorney which sorry is that one 30 minutes?  That one's 30. Okay, I will reread that. I move   that the city council recess into executive  session for 30 minutes to receive information   on the city's obligation under a memorandum  of understanding pursuant to KSA75-4319B2 for legal consultation with the city attorney  which would be deemed privileged in the   attorney client relationship for legal advice. The  executive session is required to protect attorney   client privilege and the public interest. This  will also work in con immediately after. So do I   do I read the next motion? You should vote on that  one. Okay, we'll vote on just this motion. The   executive session will begin at 1:55. So everyone  has some time at 12:55. Oh, sorry. 12:55. Um,   so that everyone has time to take a quick  break. Uh and it will end at 1 25 30 minutes. I All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed  same sign. Motion passes 70. Now the second   motion. I move that the city council recess  a executive session for 15 minutes to receive   information on a potential project involving  community services pursuant to KSA 785-4319B2 for the preliminary discussion of the  acquisition of real estate. The executive   session is required to protect the city's right  to confidentiality of its negotiating position   and the public interest. That executive  session will begin at 1:25 and end at 13   uh 40. 1:40. The meeting will resume right here  in the first floor boardroom at 1:40. Second.   Motion second. All those in favor say I. I.  All those opposing sign. Motion passes. 70. from executive session. No legal binding action  was taken. We will now proceed with the last   two of the five uh council workshop items. Thank  you, mayor. We'll ask Jim Jonas to come forward   on our PCO committee survey results and we have a  video for you, but Jim will tee it up. Tee it up.   Good afternoon everybody. Uh here to present  on the 2025 PCO uh citizen community survey,   which I know most of y'all have already  taken a flip through and looked at it,   but uh we typically have a representative from  PCO join us and be the analyst for us for our   survey. we just couldn't get the the calendars  to mesh. So instead of uh uh PCO being here,   we recorded a a quick synopsis of what  our survey is. So I'll I'll let that run. And by the way, I'm starting a couple  minutes in. The first part of this video   is on methodology and and other stuff  that that you can read in your report. There is a ton of information in your report  including cross tabulations by geography and   demographics and we can't cover it all here  but I'm going to point out some main themes   and invite you to dig deeper into the report.  First we'll look at those highle results. In the survey, we have two questions that  ask directly about the facets of community   livability. The first asks residents to  rate the quality of each quality questions   were asked on a four-point scale where the  respondent could choose excellent, good,   fair, or poor. We considered excellent  and good to be positive ratings. And for   ease of presentation and comparison, the  percent excellence or good is shown here   and throughout the presentation. Here we see  that ratings for education, arts and culture   as well as community design are similar to  the national men's art and others are lower. The second question refers to the same 10 facets  of livability, but it is centered on how important   residents think it is for the community to  focus on each facet in the coming two years.   We ask about both the quality and importance of  each of these facets. So we can add context by   creating a quality important comparison which  we'll see on the next slide. Here we see that   Witchah's residents place similar importance  on most facets as did residents nationally. We use this chart, which is  also included in the report,   to help determine which areas are of  relatively high importance and lower   quality to residents. This chart is one of many  ways to interpret your data and can be used to   identify key findings and help a community  determine which areas may need additional   focus or resource allocation in the  coming years and which are performing   well by comparison. Here the largest gaps are  related to economy, safety and utility services. Of the 100 survey items for which residents  provided evaluative ratings, one receives ratings   higher than the national benchmark, 43 received  similar ratings and 50 received lower ratings.   Ratings are considered similar if they are within  10 points of national average and higher or lower   if they differ by more than 10 points. Cost of  living was the rating that was above the national   benchmark. Witchah also elected to compare  their results to a custom set of communities   which aligned with Witchah's characteristics. Of  the 100 survey items for which residents provided   evaluative ratings, two received higher ratings,  68 received similar ratings and 30 received lower   ratings. Better than the benchmark was cost  of living and traffic flow on major streets. When compared to your 2024 survey, in  2025, six received ratings that were   higher than the previous survey iteration.  69 received similar ratings and 25 received   lower ratings. Higher in 2025 were safety  from property, crime, and violent crime,   police services, and crime prevention.  the overall quality of businesses and   services establishments and the overall  quality of new development in Witchah. Moving on now to highlight some of our  findings. We'll dig a little deeper on   a few items that stood out to us,  but again note there's a lot of   additional data in the full report  which I know staff are digging into. Overall residents value living in Witchah. About seven and 10 residents gave excellent  or good ratings to Witchah as a place to   live and also would recommend living  in Witchah to someone who asked. About   eight and 10 residents plan to rema  remain in Witchah for the next 5 years   and these ratings were consistent  with the 2024 results. Governance ratings saw some declines. This slide highlights residents ratings of  Witchah government performance across several   key measures. Percentages reflect the share of  residents rating each as excellent or good. The   highest rating among these items was for Witchah  government treating residents with respect at 42%.   About onethird of residents positively rated  Witchah's local government for treating all   residents fairly, generally acting in  the best interest of the community,   informing residents about issues facing  the community. Around three and 10 gave   excellent or good marks for the overall  confidence in Witchah about government,   the local government being honest. Fewer than  three and 10. Positively rated being open and   transparent to the public. The value of  services for taxpay taxes paid. The job   witchah does welcoming resident input. Ratings for  informing residents, being honest, transparency,   welcoming input, and the value for taxes all  decline compared to 2024. All of these items   scored below the national benchmark, but only two  were lower than the benchmark for similar cities. Witchah was generally viewed as safe with some  improved ratings for 2025. More than 8 to 10   residents felt safe in their neighborhood during  the day, while closer to 810 felt safe from fire,   flood, and natural disaster. About twothirds  of residents felt safe from violent crime and   property crime, both of which improved  from 2024 to 2025. Safety from violent   crime score below the national benchmark  but was similar to that custom benchmark. Regarding safety services, more than eight and  10 residents gave good marks to fire services   in Witchah. About six and 10 residents have  positive ratings for police services with less   than half of residents having satisfaction  with animal control. Police services animal   control and crime prevention were lower than  the national and custom benchmarks. However,   the rating for crime prevention did  show an improvement compared to 2024. The economy is facing challenges for  many communities including Witches. About 2/3 of residents have good ratings for  the overall quality and variety of businesses   and services establishment in Witchah. The city  is a place to work and shopping opportunities   in Witchah. The ratings for overall quality  of business establishments improved compared   to 2024. Like other communities, about half  of residents had good ratings for employment   opportunities. The vibrancy of downtown  and commercial areas and Witchah's place   as a place to visit had good ratings from about 4  and 10 and were lower than the custom benchmark.   However, more than half of  residents were satisfied   with cost of living and this was above  both national and custom benchmarks. While about twothirds of residents said  their neighborhood was excellent or a   good place to live, ratings for other  aspects of community design varied. About half of residents positively rated  overall quality of new development in Witchah,   which increased significantly since 2024.  Wellplanned commercial and residential   growth along with housing options had similar  ratings to 2024 and were also similar to custom   and national benchmarks. Ratings from the overall  design and layouts of residential and commercial   areas and land use, planning, and zoning were  similar to custom and national benchmarks,   but saw a decrease from 2024 results. Items  that were below the benchmark were the overall   appearance of Witchah, public places where  people want to spend time, and code enforcement. Residents think it's easier  to get around Witchah by car.   Threearters of residents gave excellent urban  marks to ease of travel by car in Witchah and   more than half were satisfied with traffic flow on  major streets which was higher than the benchmark   the custom benchmark. About onethird of residents  were satisfied with ease of public parking,   the ease of walking and the ease of travel by  bicycle. All three of these ratings were lower   than the national benchmarks and ratings for  public parking and ease of walking decreased   from 2024. About two in 10 residents rated  ease of travel by public transportation as   excellent or good, lower than the national  benchmark and decreasing from 2024. Only the   rating for ease of public parking was lower  than the benchmark for similar communities. When asked about mobility services, about half of  residents had positive ratings for snow removal,   a decline from 2024. About four and 10  residents approved a traffic enforcement   which was similar to both national and custom  benchmarks and consistent with 2024 results.   Roughly one-third of residents rated street  cleaning and sidewalk maintenance favorably   and one quarter of residents were satisfied  with street repair. The last three ratings   were lower than the national and custom  benchmarks and also decreased from 2024. W asked several questions  to explore downtown safety. Just over half of residents felt that Witchah  was about as safe as it had been 3 years ago,   while about 15% thought it was safer and 30%  thought it would less safe. Those who did not   feel it was safe were asked to describe why in  their own words. These responses were categorized   by our research team. The top concern that  emerged was the presence pres sorry the presence   of unhoused individuals with 33% saying something  related to this theme. Concerns related to violent   crime and specific aspects about personal safety  were second most common. A smaller but notable   share cited c general criminal activity such as  gang violence, drugs or loitering. Parking and   lighting or traffic pedestrian safety were also  key environmental concerns for about 8%. Bars and   nightife were mentioned by 8% as well. Only 4%  specifically brought up lack of police presence. When asked about improvements that would  increase the likelihood of visiting downtown,   just over eight and 10 residents would be more  likely to visit if visible homelessness was   reduced and/or if more events and attractions  were added. Just under eight and 10 residents   would visit downtown more often with more  police and security. Well, a similar share   cited better lighting in streets and parking lots  as the potential motivator to visit more. About   seven and 10 residents would like to see fewer  vacant buildings and cleaner streets. Although   the intensity of the impact leads more to somewhat  likely than very likely as a motivator to visit. In summary, most residents feel Witchah is  a good place to live, specifically enjoying   their neighborhoods, easy car travel, and a  low cost of living. They generally felt safe,   but there were concerns about the economy and some  governance ratings saw declines from past years. If you wish to dig deeper to find out more about  the opinions of residents in Witchah, Witchah   has currently over about 2700 residents who've  subscribed to your PCO profile. They've signed   up to stay connected and provide input. Your Poco  subscription includes several resident feedback   tools, including a large library of customizable  polls and surveys, as well as a prioritization   simulation. These tools can include maps, images,  videos, or links to better form residents. These   were all developed by survey scientists with  local government needs in mind. While these   can be used for DIY, you can also have access to  a dedicated PCO staff for training and assistance. I hope this overview was welcome. I  appreciate you giving me this time. Uh, okay. Uh, that was the video and spoken  with Sonia and we're going to find a couple   of times to make her available for you all  to to speak individually or small groups to   uh quiz her on anything you have in depth  on the survey. Uh I did want to mention that   uh for anyone who's interested uh witchaw.govs  /servey you'll find the video, you'll find the   QI quality importance matrix u the interactive  Tableau uh link so you can do cross tabs if you're   interested and uh uh I can uh walk you through  how to uh use those uh whenever you want. So uh   that's the uh the quick version. Do folks have any  questions before we set up meetings with Sonia?   Jim, I just when we meet with Sonia, I'd be  curious if there's a way to uh synthesize some   of these points down to some of the additional  details as it relates to uh the trust piece. I   mean, that could mean we're doing a better job  informing the public and because they know more,   maybe maybe that impacts trust. Absolutely. And  what you and I should meet uh one-on-one. I can   walk you through. We can do some uh uh try to  see C by cross tabs. We have people on staff who   can help with correlation work that we can try to  figure out by uh by age, by income, by uh gender,   you name it. We can come up with a lot of  different ways of cracking this uh uh the numbers. Okay, thanks y'all. You waited all day for that? Oh, we've been rolling it out little by  little so you can get a whole bunch of   it. We were hoping for at least some singing. Jim, how do I cue to my slides? You might get it  from Elizabeth here as we talk about budget   and do some singing and dancing if you want.  So, Elizabeth will walk us through some of the   information you got at retreat. Um, but some  of our overview for the budget process and key   budget information. Elizabeth, take it away. All  right. Well, thank you for that introduction. Um,   today this workshop presentation is really  just a followup to a lot of information   that Mark Manning provided to you a couple  weeks ago at the retreat. Um, I'm going to   be providing you initial forecast today for the  general fund both for revenue and expenditures,   a resi a revised outlook for the general fund and  then also calendar. So, um, just as Mark mentioned   at the retreat at the retreat, the city of Witchah  general fund balance and the stabilization reserve   are both in good pos positions as of the end  of last year. And additionally, as a reminder,   um, the city of Witchah has had a stable and  low mill levby rate relative to its peers. So, some future challenges that we consider  when we're developing the budget each year,   um those include balancing wage and  benefit growth with revenue growth.   Um as well as incorporating expected declines  in interest earnings as well as policy changes   in economic conditions into the base budget.  So our starting point for updating prov for   providing you this preliminary forecast was  the budget that was adopted last year in   August. Um that budget included a longer  term financial plan through 2029. Um and   that projection the budget was balanced through  2027 but was not balanced in 2028 and 2029. Um,   in 2020, as a reminder, in the first three  years of this projection, a transfer from   the stabilization reserve of three million  each year was included in the financial plan. So, um I today I'm going to be providing a  brief overview um of changes to the forecast for   three types of revenue. Um we have many kinds of  revenue, but today I'll be focusing on just those   three. The first is sales tax revenue. um in 2025  um as a reminder from the Q4 2025 financial report   um performance was strong. So that being the case  um we're using the same revenue growth assumption   that we've used in the past which is 3 to 3.2%  but because the base is um larger than it had   been to start with we're expecting some growth  in revenue from sales tax um starting in 2026. Um and then the next revenue I'll touch on quickly  is interest earnings. Um this is still expected to   decline during the plan budget planning period  but that decrease is anticipated to be slower.   Um so during the planning period the range for  annual revenue for interest earnings will be   probably 22 million to 32 million but it's really  a matter of timing. So in this projection in 2026   there's 31 million budgeted and then it declines  to 22 million in 2028. So that's a $9 million   decrease over that three-year period. That is  something that needs to be accommodated in this   budget. Um and of course we'll be updating all  these projections as we move through the budget   process. And the third is property tax. So the  previous guidance on this one um in the 2026   budget is we were expecting moderate growth in  a in um in assessed valuation um and we modeled   a stable mil levy rate based on last year's mil  levy rate. Um we have increased the AV growth for   2027 in this projection based on the presentation  that was made to the county commission. Uh, one   thing to keep in mind though is that there's been  a lot of discussion about residential valuations,   but commercial valuation is expected to be  flat based on what was communicated to the   county commission. So, here are two tables. One  is a table from the adopted budget and one is the   updated projection. Again, just like all these  other revenue sources, we'll continue to update   this. Um, and as a reminder, so many reminders,  um, June 15th is when we'll get that notice from   the county. So, we won't get that for, I guess,  about two and a half months, but preliminarily,   we're expecting growth of 7.1%. So, that includes  new construction and reappraisal, and previously   we had forecasted 5.6%. So, of course, that could  change. And last year we presented the find that   valuation information to you at a workshop in late  June and we plan on doing that again this year. So   here is the updated revenue projection. So with  all those changes we expect revenue to be about   $4 million higher this year five million higher  next year and then 5.2 million higher in 2028.   So these are comparisons to what was in that  earlier slip slide with the original financial   plan and the adopted budget. So um one thing just  as a reminder the other line there's a whole lot   of different revenues in the other line but  one of the strategies in the strategic plan   is to review charges for services and improve  cost recovery. Um and we are currently working   on that. So a policy related to cost recovery um  is probably and that'll be presented to you soon. Yeah, I I'm I'm just looking at it um what  our updated projections are for um revenue   and 27 exactly matches what we have down here  for preliminary forecast for expenditures. So,   it's like we landed directly on 27.  So, that's I was just making a note.   Okay, you skipped ahead. You skipped  ahead to expend a little bit. Well,   now I guess it's time to move on to expenditures  with that, right? All right, so expenditures. So,   um, as you remember from pie charts about  the general fund, salaries and benefits are   75% of general fund expenditure costs,  and most of those are in public safety,   our police and fire. So our first step every year  when we update the budget is to recalculate wages   and benefits for for all of our positions based  on current employee demographics. That would be   their steps, the health insurance plan they've  picked, etc. Um we incorporate wage agreements,   changes in benefit enrollment and assumptions  about vacant positions. And then the last step   is to um incorporate to update shrinkage estimate  estimates based on current vacancies and typical   turnover rates. So um you'll see so we we go  through and we look for all the vacant positions. So this is our expenditure forecast here.  So, um, what we've done here is we've shown   you the fire department budget itemized  simply because this is the first budget   update following the adopt following the  approval of that contract last December. So,   what happens when um a contract is  approved? Before the contract is approved,   the budget is in non-departmental as employee  compensation. And so this represents two   there's two things here. One is part of the  increase is that movement um out of the wage   pool and then there's also an an addition  on top of that. Um like the revenue budget,   the expenditure budget will continue to be  updated. For example, we monitor jail fees   every month and we will look at vacant positions  during the process to make updates to those too. So, um, here's an updated, um, forecast  for the general fund. So, at this point,   just as a reminder, the asterisks are that there's  a $3 million transfer in budgeted each year. Um,   so mostly due to interest earnings in 2026,  we're expecting and um sales tax growth,   expecting a slight surplus this year,  a balanced budget at this point in   27 and then a deficit in 2028. Um, as  a reminder, this is a base budget. So,   this is based on current staffing levels and  current staffing, current service levels. So,   there are no changes in staffing or  service levels modeled into this forecast. So, if words suit you better  than numbers, in summary,   um this forecast um the Things that really  have changed in it are the sales tax base,   the assumption about AV growth for 27 and  interest earnings that decline happening   slower over a greater period of time. Those all  are favorable on the revenue side. Um the wage   base has been updated and future wage growth  will materially impact the budget. So just as   a reminder, if there's an increase um to the  base wages, those that compounds through the   entire projection and then um employee turnover  really is something that I think I've mentioned,   this is my third time, but it is um a key  assumption when we develop the projection. So other factors, we have a some  may feel that I'm moving quickly,   but we have a lot more workshops in the future  with you. We have one in April, May and June. So,   we'll have plenty of time to talk um during  those workshops as well. Some other factors   that were were um we'll start folding into  our projection. For example, um the financial   services centralization is underway. There are  already costs modeled into the budget for that   um initiative. Um but there could be more savings  available. Um, and then the operating cost for   CIP projects is something that would impact  the budget. Um, going the other direction,   um, just as a general rule of thumb, the  operating cost for a new or additional fire   station is about $2 million a year. And then  later this spring, you will receive an update   from Mark on pension rates. Um so that's in so  things are just continually we're just making   continual updates and changes and we think  preliminary at this point based on investment   earnings last year there's a possibility for  um fa a favorable change to rates in 2027. So on next steps is we're starting to plan um on  resident engagement for this budget process. Um,   we are already scheduled to attend all  the district advisory boards in May. Um,   I've been in discussion with the comm team about  online resident engagement and what that may look   like this year. We've modified that program each  year. And then we also receive invitations from   other boards and commissions like the library  board and the park board throughout the year. So,   as a reminder, we'll be back in a month to  talk to you to visit with you about the CIP.   Um and then the May workshop is generally geared  more toward the operating budget and ideas that   departments have pres presented um to staff or  request budget requests during the budget process.   Then we'll receive that AB notice in mid June and  we'll come back to you in late June with a final   projection for 2027. And then July and August  are obviously very busy. Um the budget will be   presented in mid July with adoption on August  25th. So that's what I have for you today. So   if you have any questions, I am happy to  answer, but you've had long days. So yes,   uh two questions if we could  go back to slide 92. 92 if they match up. Anyways, I 92 is your  uh property tax projection. property tax   projection. Okay, you guys this one? Yeah. Okay.  Okay. I noticed in 28 uh the valuation growth is   4.2% whereas our previous um estimates were 3.9%.  Um yeah, do you have any insight on that? Yeah,   it's timing with the expiration of abatements and  I think the main thing in the model for this one   may be the eastbank tiff end date. Okay, that's  a pretty significant Yeah, I appreciate that.   And then also um updated expenditure forecasts  um yeah right there. Yeah, the shrinkage in 28   is 3.7. Um just a little background about how we  arrived at that. No, we did I we modified that   down a little. I did a little bit in the near term  just because I'm not we you know during this time   when we've had a lot of vacancies first of all  we base when I say we do a vacancy analysis it's   only for non-commission positions so that does  include some positions in the police department   because there are non-commission but it's just  generally non-commission positions um I didn't   make big changes to the assumption in 26 and 27  simply because the direction at this point is   for departments to fill as many positions as they  can. Um and also to that provides flexibility to   them to consider other service delivery models.  So instead of hiring staff to perform work with   contractors which is happening in the heart  department. But then when I looked at 2028   um based on a 10ear look back on shrinkage this is  probably close to the right shrinkage amount for   2028. So, um, that's that's the real scoop. Okay.  Well, I appreciate it. There's a lot of I mean,   there's just a lot of discretion and I think once  you move into a shrinkage amount of that that much   shrinkage, you are starting to kind of encourage  people to consider hiring more strategically. Um,   but over the last few years, that shrinkage has  happened organically. So, it doesn't feel like   a reach. Um, we can just we can consider other  options if that makes you more comfortable. No,   I I No, I appreciate that. I was just making  sure I had the background on that. And then   um you know, I keep telling people in my district,  it's like shooting ski. It's a moving target how   we do our budget. So, um I do appreciate it  and seeing these projections kind of gives us   a clearer picture of how we need to configure  our budget in the next couple of months. Also,   I was wondering maybe if we could get  a slideshow. I do have a breakfast   uh second Saturday of April and I'd love  to talk budget with the people there. fallout from the sales tax and whatnot kind of  where we are and where we're going moving forward.   So yeah, sure. We we go I think we've been to  breakfast in the past. So you'd be happy we'll   figure out whose schedule it fits into. Just send  us an update. Hey, I can I can do it myself as   well. So it's that also starts to happen near the  end of the budget process. So, which is always fun   on those May Dab meetings when there's three in a  row when I walk in and the presentation's already   been complete. So, all right. Thank you. Mayor  had a question. Yes. The next slide. I just want   to point out one. Yes. Okay. So, I just want to  point out one more time that starting this year,   there's going to be a transfer of $3 million  because our revenues actually were not meeting   the expenditure amount. So, we had to put money  in here even though that there's going to be a   surplus. I wanted to make sure because I know um  during the sales tax conversation um the reserve   was talked about and the accurate amount is at  $86.9 million in total for reserves, general fund   reserve and stabilization reserve. The total  is 86.9. So, it would be 51.4 plus 44.5 uh oh on the this slide. So it's 90 because you remember we made there was just a  transfer in in quarter 4 2025 of 6.8 million.   What's the total again for total reserves? Well,  of all well, the for the general fund reserves,   it would be the 51.4 plus the 41. Whoops. It's  in the neighborhood of about $96 million. I   remember correctly. Yeah. And so this is already  planned that we're transferring 3 million each   year starting this year. Yes, ma'am. That is  correct. And that will not affect the credit   rating. Is that accurate? Well, it's never a  good thing to diminish your reserves, but if   you do it in a planned, systematic way, uh, and if  it's consistent with your policy, it's generally   more acceptable. Yeah. And we've disclosed  it to them and it's available in our budget. So, is the plan currently if we do go over  $2 million in this year's budget to transfer   that back to the uh stabilization  fund if in 2026? Yeah. So, in 2026,   if we had an ending balance that were was  greater than 15% of next year's budget,   we would transfer to the stabilization reserve.  And that's what we did last year. So, 6.8 million.   So if it's just a 2 million, will will  that roll over into next year's budget   or it would go if it were less than the if it  were not enough to transfer, it would just go   into the general fund balance. And part of the  trick too is that the general fund is growing   each year. So on a nominal basis, if you look  here on the left side, you do have to increase   your reserve a little bit each year to stay  within the 15%. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions? If not, we'll see you in  April. Okay. And I'll say, mayor, as we wind up   and council members, the U planned expenditures  and the stabilization fund is consistent with   how other local governments, city or county do  that, but I think to the uh finance director's   point about plans is important. Um, so as we talk  about some also more in the one-time expenses is   how you look to use those funds. So as we think  about some other needs or whatever from some of   our recent executive session conversations,  there could be some use of funds from the   stabilization fund as well. if you're looking  for some sources of funding um that would be   I think within the parameters still that wouldn't  jeopardize our AAA rating. But I'll also give the   um staff credit here as you think about that  shrinkage number with um a lot of um jurisdictions   just factor every position funded fully every  year without taking into account some of the   vacancies. So, I appreciate the fact that they do  up update the shrinkage um to consider that. So,   I think we're in good company as you saw um our  message leading today. We started out in a strong   financial position as we've said before from some  of our conversations. We're not broke. And two,   yes, our future revenues um do highlight that  there is revenue um and expenditures diverge.   um we will always address that and you will  always be presented with a balanced budget.   So any questions otherwise we can adjourn  when you're ready. Thank you very much. Need a motion to adjurnn. Sorry. Motion to  adjourn this meeting. Second. Motion second.   All those in favor say I. I. Uh it's 6 without  Maggie. Wish I was going to somewhere overseas.