under selection for the S of course  irrigation project uh we have another   travel on page four we have another  travel for a council member and then on page uh six we have an expand we have a project  associated with the for Creek digestor Expansion   Project the council's order of succession  uh would be approved after you select a vice mayor and then we have accepting the grant the   Voca Grant also the burn Grant uh  Crisis Intervention Grant on page seven just have a revised budget  for the geny pump station um project   and I believe that is it in terms of items  thank you thank you city manager thank you   um any notes of worth from districts through6  uh no notes but tomorrow's our district one   breakfast at 9:30 over that water we'll  have some good food we'll have Scott L   ask him lots of questions he has lots  of answers to see a lot of people there if people get up Saturday  shouldn't have to go through that we do have a pres staff presentation today as   well so with that I'm gonna  turn over to Nathan Emory well good morning this mayor councel uh I'm going  to present to you the uh wichat area restoration   program I brought uh my team with me uh this  is both uh the court leadership team and two   uh of my clerks who work in the warp office uh  so they're they're the ones who are out there   doing uh the work for this program so road map I  want to share the the kind of inspiration for the   program local data that informed the creation of  the program and then go over the program itself   so at the beginning we looked at the deer  program the Durham expunction and restoration   program out of Durham North Carolina that  provided a lot of con uh context and idea   to proceed with a program a similar program  here in witto they focused on working on uh   driver's license restoration and expungements in  their Community but they have really different   laws than we do and have very different Court  structures so we looked to tailor something   to meet the needs of Witchita to meet the needs  of of our citizens so we first looked at at our   local data so this is what we were looking at it  back in in 2022 uh there are 227,000 suspended   drivers in Kansas and something that's really  interesting is that number had doubled from   2027 uh with a population that had only gone up  by 3% so it's a problem that was accelerated we   were seeing more and more suspended drivers 25%  of those suspensions were in Cedric County with   only 19% of the population and 70% of of those  uh suspended drivers were suspended for failing   to meet financial obligations and so those are  the the numbers specifically uh coming out of   our court so we looked at our court data and and  saw that we had a lot of suspensions going back   a long time so up the left hand side of the  screen got 2022 and you see we got you know   2,000 suspensions hanging out from from 1997 so  folks are are getting suspended and and staying   suspended for a very long time um breaking  that down by a pie chart you see that 54%   of the suspensions of the individuals suspended  in 2022 uh had been suspended for more than 10 years those fees kind of they do uh there there  are fees that get added there are fees that   um you know there's collections fees no no no  problem at all feel free to to ask questions so   uh typically what the the real snowballing process  is that once you're suspended you get more charg   and so then you've got another case and another  case and it more than you know doubles uh or it   adds on each time you have another police  interaction and so that's where the real   snowballing and the real compounding happens  uh I've talked to drivers who've had you know   they've said I've been pulled over and I've  gotten charged 67 times for driving on a   suspended license um that's one of a person  I interviewed so I mean that's that's a a   lot of of snowballing after an initial police  interaction that wasn't taken care of and and   created a financial suspension but here you can  see at least in 2022 uh the majority of people   owed between $500 and $1,000 uh interestingly  uh and I don't have the slide up uh for that   one and I can I can provide it later uh because  the colors didn't match up and made it confusing   uh these programs have have shifted Ed this  so that the majority now own between 0 and   $500 so really a substantial change where that  big orange part that's for 500 to a th000 has   shifted to the zero to 500 uh through the through  the work of the court and through the work of   of warp so um but that's what we were looking  at when we were creating the program so we we   put together a steering committee of people who  work in this environment and and put forward the   the issue and had four meetings to kind of to  develop an idea of how we could approach this   in Witchita and create something that would work  uh for Kansas and work for Witchita specifically   and out of that we identified that it should  operate under existing law be data driven we used   a steering committee and focus on best practices  so we created the witcha restoration program we   can contracted with Kansas Legal Services they  provided limited representation legal services and we found a lot of information to iterate  from uh it the relationship didn't work out as   well as we had hoped uh and a big part of that is  because it's legal services and because of their   portfolio of work in our community they had to  conflict check everything and it made the intake   process very long and so the people people who  were coming in who wanted help weren't getting   it on the day they needed help and so uh we ended  up mutually parting way say this isn't this isn't   going to work we stepped back we looked at the  information that uh we learned and we identified   that the assistance needed to be accessible when  sought the majority don't necessarily need legal   assistance and that the service must reduce rather  than create barriers to the reinstatement tools   that our legislators has has given us because  there's been substantial legislation over the   last four years to give access to tools where  there were no tools before tools for fee and   cost forgiveness uh tools that give people  relief where the only relief before was just   to to pay fully and and satisfy everything so uh  we iterated we created what we kind of call Warp   2.0 and that's what we're operating in right now  and that Focus focuses on information assistance   and clerical assistance and so we stepped away  from the legal assistance recognizing that   there's a community that that can do that and we  tried to fit a niche where we're rapidly helping   people understand what's holding their license and  providing them clerical assistance to utilize the   tools to access relief so Warp 2.0 is up on the  third floor of City Hall in this building uh we've   got one customer service clerk uh in there the  hours are as stated uh and so we moved away from   a contract that was about $156,000 uh to a program  that just utilizes the staff that we have so this   is uh a very inexpensive program for the city uh  because we we took it out of staff and and we put   a person up there to to work uh with individuals  every uh day uh except during lunches of course um   uh but we open for sorry what was that so um date  we started we had kind of a soft opening early   this year I think in January uh and then we ended  up having to close down for the Cyber attack uh   as we recovered from the Cyber attack it remained  closed for about two two and a half months uh and   then uh reopened so if you look at full operation  we really consider it to have been open about six   months of this year uh so still a relatively  new program and we're still evaluating how it   performs uh it offers three services clerical  Staff first poll a driver's license record   highlight what's holding a license so someone  can understand it if anyone's ever looked at a   dri's license record uh from driver Solutions  it's not really understandable on its face   you actually have to refer to a three-page coded  document to understand the codes that with are   within the driving record and know what kind of  suspension what's being hold is it a sanction is   it something else and so this team helps folks  understand that public record uh so that folks   know what is holding their license then if they  have an articul B articulable manifest hardship   they help uh these individuals fill out em motion  for Fe finding cost forgiveness in municipal court   and in Sedwick County traffic court if it's within  the municipal court it's filed upon signature if   it's in the traffic court they give it to them  they take it across the street file it themselves   additionally staff members will look at the  record and see just on the face of it whether they   believe them to qualify for a hardship license  a restricted license help them fill out that   application to get that license so the results in  the sixish months that we've been operating we've   had 234 participants with 776 cases so 210 people  have received relief uh along with 600 on on 653   cases interestingly um of all of the cases that  have moved through Municipal Court that's received   relief this is granted this has only been open 6  months 36% % of those moved through this office uh   which I think is pretty pretty astounding uh we've  gotten tremendous feedback from practitioners um   from some of our uh activists in the community  that that uh they they really like uh what we're   doing and are trying to move people to our office  um so and we've seen uh you know a lot of uh   people with suspens you know out of the 234 we've  got 2011 that have had a suspension lifted uh and   564 cases with suspensions lifted and uh 66 people  28% of the people who came through the office uh   can now legally drive now that's a moving Target  because that includes restricted licenses and some   people I can tell you I've talked to people who  have gone through the office gotten their license   back and then gotten revoked and so you know  things are still happening uh if someone pleads to   three major violations within a three-year period  now you can get your license back you can satisfy   all of the suspensions but you're still going to  get revoked and that was the circumstance for that   individual so a lot of lot of really positive  things uh I I'm personally very impressed with   the percentage of people moving through that  office I know that our judges are sending a lot   of people out of the courtroom uh we got a lot  of positive feedback through the multi you know   the the social media posts to attract folks uh  We've helped as many as 120 people in a month uh   that was our high now we're back down to probably  an average of about 70 and we're looking to still   work to get more people coming through that office  because they have a very positive experience and   positive outcomes uh through that experience so  where do we look to go we look to grow utilization   uh through advertising and more partnership  with the county court getting their folks to   walk across the street and come come in and get  some uh assistance uh we're looking at how we use   substantial compliance under SB 500 that's a last  year one of last years laws that pass um and how   we can incorporate that to help people understand  how they can come into substantial compliance and   so we're still developing those definitions uh  because it's not really laid out within the law   uh we plan to re-engage the steering committee you  know because we've we've changed our format and   we want to make sure that we're still serving the  needs of the community and get feedback from those   who who operate in that space and have insights  that we could benefit from and also explore   additional Services it may be a possibility that  we could look at uh expanding into expungements   and assist people there so looking at what fits  the portfolio of work there and how we can best   help people using the resources that we have and  that we've allocated to this program so uh I just   I wanted to bring the staff that uh that comes  and works in the program they've done such great   work I've seen I've gotten tremendous feedback  from attorneys and the individuals that uh have   gone through the program I've interviewed a few  of them and they're just shocked that the city   is out there caring for them and helping them be  successful in something that they find incredibly   difficult and navigating suspensions is incredibly  difficult so um they are doing Yan's work and I   just wanted to recognize them uh for the great  work they're doing for the city of wichon and   if you have any questions I'll stand for those  yeah I'll jump in real quick thank you Dr Emory   I'm always gonna say Dr appreciate the work that  you all do um this is one of the programs I've   been really excited about I remember when we  were talking about it now seeing the results   of it um as you look into expanded additional  opportunities as you I think I was bugging you   it was either you or Dante about it but are you  maybe considering an annual or biannual amnesty   type opportunity where you can do ins spung Ms  and maybe some other services to maybe address   some of those other issues that people have so  we're always looking so what we are looking at   is like a war an annual warrant outdate where  we look back at our cases that we think are um   unprosecuted uh where time has has um made it so  they aren't going to proceed um uh and one of the   things that s sp500 does is that it allows people  to get their suspensions lifted for substantial   compliance well if you look at the law relative  to suspensions if you have your case dismissed   or even if you win and are acquitted if you got  suspended for failure to come to court or failure   to pay that reinstatement fee survives dismissal  and survives acquittal as does the suspension um   what uh judge Jones is going to do and is allowing  us to do is for those cases that don't have a   balance so those cases that go through a warrant  outdate or those cases that have an acquittal   she's going to find that they are in substantial  compliance and so that's actually going to relieve   um it has the possibility I need to double take  another look at the cases so uh last last time   I checked it it looked like there was roughly  2,000 plus people uh in that circumstance with   roughly 5,000 cases wow and we haven't done an  outdate in a while so we're planning on doing   an outdate so there is the opportunity to have  substantial relief I know we've talked about hey   what are the mass relief opportunities because  that's what North Carolina did we didn't have   any Mass relief opportuni so this is really the  first opportunity that kind of falls into a Mass   relief opportunity and so uh we we plan on uh  executing on that that would be awesome thank you a lot of people about Li you get out you know it's one thing to talk about the  numbers do you have any stories that you want   to talk about in terms of what the impact it's  made on people anything that stands out actually um process and when I run their report I'm like  hey cheesing smiling it's not so bad and they're   kind of are you sure yeah because here's your  situation I'm when I break everything down for   them and then when they come back done and they're  paid off then they have to do a happy dance for me and it's I'll say you know it's a really  intimate absolutely experience it's really you   like they are uh working with people going through  really hard things cross the table talking about   hard life experiences uh and and trying to help  them and uh you know it I'm I'm so happy every   time I walk by that office and see folks in there  and they're in there a lot um seeing that they're   working through those issues uh because it's it's  not easy work it's really hard to understand uh   for for a lay person those driving records  and you know even if if even if we've got   great relief tools if you don't understand what  you have to do or how to access them then they   aren't there and so this team is providing access  to the tools in a way that uh wasn't there before andbody oh no we people can walk in you know  come in City Hall you know they we they have   full access and we we really hope we get more  walk-in traffic we get a lot of traffic through   court involved people we've seen some traffic uh  from people who are walk-ins and we look to get   more traffic from the County traffic court and  get people walking acoss the street how do you   find out or what have you heard from those who  just walk in how they found out about work right   now it's social media okay so I know that one of  the mentions was advertising as well as I think   it was CED County was the other yeah partnership  but it seems like it's is it just a big it's not   even paid social media right it's just people  are just talking amongst themselves and we're   also I think also engaging the steering committee  provides that opportunity to more access um folks   who are operating and working in this space uh  to give them a better understanding of what it is   to to refer people you I've I've worked with the  racial profiling uh committee and I've given them   a bunch of flyers and information I know they've  come by several times now to get more flyers to   be able to hand out to people to get people in  the in the door uh so we're always excited to   to see people wanting to advertise for us wanting  to help people access these services do you work   with second CH oh yeah yeah so we we have staff  members there every day we actually we take a a   register we allow people to make payments there  um so we we work extensively with st second chance   so the city of Witchita does have a Tik Tock  you could do a Tik Tock and those happy dances absolutely well thank you so much than you than