job for the Israeli please it stuck with me. >> okay. So is the agenda approval of the men? It's not only doesn't include the minutes of the regular meeting, but also the long meeting from April 4th just wanted turn attention. Couple I'm 4 individuals scheduled to speak during public agenda. >> Page 3 Council business item number >> This is a transfer of tax exemption from to Y R B again. That function virtually identical to each other. There's no ownership. continuation of the 80% tax and 3 years that 80% tax exemption for the following 5 years maintains consistency with Utx approval that was granted by City Council. Again, this is just sort of tax exemption time, but it doesn't change any of the incentives to re have any other history of going the words to IR is like this. >> That's a great I'm not familiar with any. We may have to kind of dig back for records and see if there's any other example. But it >> Generally ADX version of this tool is years when a business organization come kind of manage that with sand internally. Usually irp function is handing for monster ball down So this one as the new ownership has changed right make appointments years. And I are model. Well, that tool of terms and conditions all around sure will more into Item number 2 and item number 3 are both letter of a town from U.S. to rely Cesar. >> For sales tax exemption on land just does not include property tax abatement for sales tax both of these applicants or simply in the process applying for low income housing tax credits. So this is just as part of their application to care to our city for those tax credits being able to provide approval of the sales tax exemption. Item number 4 is the renewal of business service agreement with us, which type business association part 2 last year was a one-year agreement. This is the renewal for another one here. It's $100,000. They offer a 3 specific programs to their membership. In addition to that, there are in 2024 going to start building a database of small business metrics that we can then use to evaluate small business performance. So we're really excited about. That. Wasn't all I don't. Number 5 is an amendment to Chapter 11.5 of the city code of ordinances pertaining to electric assistance, critters. We are removing this. This amendment proposes. The program, prohibition of use of the vehicles after dark. And introduces the requirement that they can use the scooters after dark. But they have the courts with. >> And this is one of my before cancel it when it first got in council I'm very supportive of this is past administrator past leadership within the Wpd wanted to have the curfew. But the current police actually fine with not having a curfew where to my knowledge from our vendors, the only city in the state in the nation that does And so it's incredibly burdensome for them and confusing for writers because they have to always pick up the bikes or make the bikes inoperable. Depending when dusk happens. And so just having us that time makes it a whole lot easier for everyone. So. Just a little bit of background, questions, let me know. obviously any can answer anything. I do have one quick questions of the operators will be required to quit. The mcplant reflectors. >> They so it's not changing. No bird, not >> Page for item number will simply be to receive file. Those actuarial reports for which time your retirement and police and fire retirement systems. ♪ And 7 on the consent items. 4 B is an extension janitorial service contracts. This is sort of a one-month extension. There's appear that already gone out. But in order to avoid any delays and are requesting to extend existing contracts by one had to bringing the new contracts. Back to you all. Probably myself. 4, see better selection for public works and utilities uniforms O vender selections proxmire $135,000 annually. Item This is for lighting improvements. Robert Herman Fielding the county's park. So $235,000 Project for feel a lighting. Page Pate item number 5, obligates approximately $16,000 for wpd to participate in U.S. Marshals. Violent offenders task force. Item 6, 7, our couple community events. 8, 9, our the disposition of city-owned property. 11 authorizes the application for a probation program. Credit call policing development Grant could award up to $250,000 to complete the process of accreditation. 12 is there parking related expenses reimbursement of eligible expenses up to $239,700. That. Reimbursement will then be reimbursed to the city through Cip revenues. And then down the rest of the consent items. answer questions. >> That's a lot of reimburse. have fun again. want turn stand. >> Right. So this was part of as we were negotiating for the availability of parking lot for the bio-medical sonar. There were certain parking lot improvements that were made by the previous talk. so as we have negotiated. Those and the renegotiation of parking agreements associated with a closed market development. This allows them to get reimbursed for their investment in that parking lot. But then again, the city will get reimbursed see ad revenues here in the Thank you. So >> videos, honey. >> I just want to clarify a few The last meeting I did make some remarks about some people well, essentially what I said was slandering people's I just want to clarify has nothing to do with fellow council members, people in the public people in the press asking good solid questions. That has to do a very small group, too, essentially do want to try slander attack people without even knowing all the facts. First make aspirations or make allegations about what people's true intentions are. I'm also offering just a lot of negative attention to certain groups trying to do good in the community. Something I've learned over the last 2 years there's a lot of fear from a lot of groups who are in the community doing work now about partnering with the city about trying to I'm applying for grants or some of our arpa funding to do the things that we're wanting them to do to address violence in our community to help with affordable housing, a number of other things that are the benefit of the city. A lot of the groups are afraid to actually come forward and work with us because they're afraid of the spotlight, getting pointed at them and getting tested in a bit of light, unfair. With It just always bothers me. When again, it's a handful of people out there. It's not people making comments on social media. It's not the press. It's not council members but a group that's just dedicated to just. Really going after some good programs that we have right now. There's always room for discussion. We don't have to agree on everything, but I just I'm really hesitant about giving. Life and attention to people who they have a conclusion before they look at the evidence and a lot of times it's the public that pays for that. So I just wanted to clarify some of my comments from the last meeting. Just make sure that everybody knows my true feelings. Sometimes when you're up there on the bench and get frustrated, a certain they're kind of in the heat of the moment and you don't stay things as clearly and eloquently as you would hope he would. So just wanted to offer some clarifying comments regarding that. So that's all I have. Madam Vice Mayor >> And we can. It's it's going >> there's a lot there so it's scene. >> so Vice-chair counselors, chance public works and utilities. know we want to hear this. They saw the really Want to give you an update on our 2 major utility projects which waterworks the water treatment plant and are being are improvements for our main wastewater facility. >> We've seen a lot of this before. It's all go through it quickly. Our new water treatment plants can be able to do things that are current plant can do, especially with being able to treat just groundwater currently. No, we have to treat and make sure of ground and surface so it doesn't give us nears butts, flexibility and reliability, especially during drought conditions. Our new plant has a capacity for 120 million gallons a day, which effectively the same as the plant. Now. But it's a state-of-the-art facilities can have full redone. The treatment systems, which is not what we have now, it will meet exceed all current water quality standards. There's some emerging things. Contaminants probably heard talk about the FAA's. We don't know what's going to happen with that. You know, the rules are still coming up. We're doing everything we can to help try to accommodate that. A run quickly through some budget things you've all seen these big numbers, total project costs in excess of 570 million dollars. Construction is 93% completes are getting really close to having the facility completely build out to show you video in just a minute that you'll see shows some of the roads being built and they were really coming along. >> Before you get too far, dairy you talked about the new regulations that might come down and I believe they're somewhat microplastics as well. If that does come down and we are forced by the bid to address those as our plans set up to. Easily address that. Or is that something that's going to require possible? Major renovation and changes to the >> It could be a little bit of We are doing everything we can to accommodate which Solomon the P Foss to talk about microplastics to forever chemical. It is evolving Some of the initial. Information actually came out this week. Well, what the limits are for drinking water What we've been testing, our water sources were fined, but those limits keep changing right in keeping lowered. So we're doing what we can to he set up to have space to accommodate it. That doesn't mean that we will have the infrastructure in place to do it. So it would be an added cost later, but we're going to do everything we can to limit mice that cost to the best of our ability. There's just a lot of things that are happening. Henry's in the middle of this to go to other people because this is going to impact us with wastewater treatment or landfill. Lot of other areas could impact what we saw Is there some things that the airport? So we're keeping a very close eye on it. We've got a lot of of resources and folks that were staying in contact with them on a more the future. But right now we're going to everything we can to to be ready to accommodate it. What happens you end up with this waste stream what you do, what you need to do, take it out of the water. Got to figure out what to do without also. That's just as challenging. What we've seen. Last thing I'll say. And and that will move on from that. You've got other questions. The challenges from. Municipalities in particular across the country has been the cost just astronomical to be able to deal with this. I saw something before last that said 4 treatment plant of our size. 120 million gallons a day. It talked potential cost operations and maintenance costs to deal with the false and almost 100 million dollars year. Because of what it takes to do include upfront infrastructure costs the cost or just. Ridiculous. And so how do you come that list is going to be a large influx of federal funding. Still a lot of questions out there. We're doing everything we can to stay on top of it. shouldn't. Were working at all. Talk about this more in just a moment. But their owners Garver in which a lot of partners to develop commissioning and start-up plans going to depend on water availability. That's really our biggest focus right now. No, come back to that. I miss the council previously. Even if the size of this project right now are less than one percent on total change orders, which is really has a lot to do with how this project was developed. But progressive design build and and the collaboration that went into the project. It's come to this point. We one of the major or larger cost for this electrical service to the facility Evergy building new substation south of Cedric County Park latest cost estimate is around 12 million dollars. Castro's more improvements are underway. There's a lot of things that are still happening. We're still sending finished water to pass. You know, the current water treatment plant that will send the majority water to our system. There's some things going on there that will continue over the next year, too. Public had a budget of 1.0, 2 5 million dollars is 3 pieces. The first one is been said the water droplet at the administration building. You can see here. The other 2 are coming this spring trees and landscaping are going in. really started to take shape and look like something up there. And we're also developing an additional treat plan throughout the side streets, a large site so that will help. I mentioned Garver zoom representative. It's been really critical having them as an extension of our staff throughout this their overall contract is around 16 million dollars. So want to talk a little bit more about Operation Staffing Plan. This has really a big focus right now. We've got all hands deck and a lot of people involved in this. As we start, we started functional testing effectively make sure all the parts and pieces work the way they're supposed to. The next big component is going to performance testing, making it all work together to be able to provide treated water, make sure that we can meet regulatory requirements that is going to be dependent on water availability right? As we head into the summer and the peak demand months, have to be able to accommodate that as well as the water needed to do this testing and making sure that we're meeting compliance standards. So everything we're looking at. I talked to the council last items we had about budget. Was that may have to delay till the fall, most likely so that we have water availability to be able to get that done. But we're working through multiple scenarios now trying to find a way that we can limit the risk but fun ways we can limit the cost, be able to get moving. We've got looking at a lot of different what we're going to have to do. parade both plans for some period of time, which may require a combination of hiring staff and temporary contract operations. We've been working closely with SEIU on several factors related trying to get to a place where we can be more competitive in the market. We are getting some people hired the we found a real look at the plant manager that is except offer that I don't know that we were expecting, but it's it's really good to have them on board. The plan expected to be in service in February of 2025. But in the meantime, we've we're contracting for services for developing peas maintenance, planned safety planning, everything that goes into brand of like this online. So one of the things we've done is shuffled our own staff we've got Mike Jacobs who is from where production prom pumping superintendent. He is now full time of the new plan. He took a small team of staff with him. He's the one that's really leading the way to bring this plant online. So we move some other people around which created some opportunities. For folks to be able to to do more things that they've done in the past. We had one of our staff members our city and sneers office. used to be the superintendent at the plant. We moved her out there in support of this, too. So we've had to change our priorities. What we do in a lot of different areas to be able to make all this happen. I think we're a pretty good spot. Says lot more to come. Through next February, but I think we're moving in the right direction. Current water treatment plant. We are scenarios for what we do with this facility. Once the new plan salon. And so I mentioned Waterworks will be expect to be in service and making water in February of next year will be running both plants for 69 lawns so that we can put the new through the season's make sure everything's going well. We'll be providing water for both plans for some period of time. Once we we feel comfortable or shut, plant down. Leading up to we're trying to figure out what to do with that plan. So right now we're evaluating several options to accommodate. Emergency response and future capacity. Those really the 2 we need to to to look at, you know, of time I talked to city manager about this. He was telling me, I think when he was in Des Moines about having their plan gets flooded and not being able to provide water to the community for some period of time. So his focus was really on the emergency response part right? Even though our new plan says fully read and the more so than this one meeting of some part of that plan goes down. We can still meet average demands. We can still provide water as necessary. you know, we still get tornadoes. We still get weather if something happens at that new facility. We want to see what it would take to be able to keep our current plan available to come back online within 24 hours. So it's one of the scenarios we're looking at. We'll be bringing that information to the council sometime this summer for further consideration. I've got if I can make it work on the show, you video here of the ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> you can ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> this the dad. 5 meetings are there now. We had job fair. There are a couple Saturdays ago. Great place to do That really helped contribute to who are hiring efforts, trying to get stuff on board. but it's a spin good, I think for a service community meeting for area. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> It was awesome. >> One of the of the >> we're looking at, if you so this question came up and vice mayor isn't United talked about. If you look how much more spread out, this is a darker campus, if you will. Well, things were looking at security measures. So we've got cameras that are going to be out there. We've done a lot of fencing that's more robust. And we have now that we're still looking what we can do for security. It's I don't know 20 acres. 16 acres full site. You can see it's kind of spread out from operation standpoint. You know, this was designed tour. can be just as efficient, effective with the plans that we have now. But one of the things we're keeping security and looking ahead to what we might need to do moving on to be in this map shows quite a bit of stuff focuses on the big green arrows plant. One plan to. But one was originally treatment plant Footer is now it's a pump station, basically regulating and pumps on the plan to. But 2 were a lot of the DNR is happening. is a constructed in the 50's and then we have some work going on collection system that also feeds into plant to from the West overall project does it is. Almost 400 million dollars. So I know you all know this, but just keep in mind between these 2 projects 900 million dollars. Which is obviously I think the most invested in infrastructure ever, even just with one of those projects, even if you look at what we've done on highway projects over over the years, doesn't approach what's happening here. So legacy projects and precedent. What's happening going help us a long term. focus of being our is regulatory right to remove phosphorus and nitrogen is required from the way stream so or provide a higher quality water downstream are other plants already set up to accommodate this? Those because they're smaller was easier to do when those plants are being built. This is the big one we've had to get to. So we've got multiple projects happening in this area. What are big focuses been odor control? You've heard us talk very aware of and even we had the groundbreaking win was ball. And very obvious that need for odor control. This is the plant one We haven't started the work. Yeah. We're hoping to open bids in May. There will be control components as part of the plant. One improvements. This is a site layout a plan there's multiple construction packages here. We'll talk about just a minute strategically so that we could some of them are from a timing perspective. We did it or we try to optimize the costs overall cost heartbreaking news in 2 pieces that make sense. And keeping in mind, we still have to run this facility. Well, as construction is being done. that all of this being a plant to package once the demolition of some old filters is done. Package to, which is primarily focused on older controls, was awarded to a joint venture down while CA notice proceeds will be issued May first 2026 completion. The other big package, those together, the biggest part of the cost here was a also the same team council set to award the packets or consider order that package on May 14th Sun 2027 completions. lot of work to be done. Still have several years to get to it. It started about We have mentioned we had 6 packages here, local packets force for the solids to watering that would be getting May 10th packets. 5 on mention real quick specifically what it's about electrical equipment. There's a long lead times. Still electrical equipment. It's project you're going to build anywhere across the country as well. A long-sleeved times we've got ahead of that and got that the major electrical components of all this were the way out ahead of time. So those could get order and be in time. If we had waited into it, contractors board, these projects would get delayed. A year to out. So this is a very good strategy to make sure we could stay on schedule. The packet 6 as for this cases. And that's our communications between all of our facilities. This helps a lot of cybersecurity. We're focused on working with it. Just the operations. Obviously, the facilities. The groundbreaking ceremony and is held on March 22nd. Very nice calm, Kansas. Stay. Well, we were down there for all of you that made it down. Plant. One is the only PAC. It's still being designed. I talked about one of the things that we're doing is working closely with Councilmember will is wanting to continue outreach to those folks in the media. There was quite a few. If you look all the way around the plant and those that are most impacted, especially by the voter. getting them updated information by door hangers at the QR code on that so they can go to our website and see the information about these projects. But know that help coming. I'm not been this picture right here in the bottom from a very simplistic we look at these Clara fires, right? Were a lot of the primary treatment happens. Most of those are open. You can see this one's effectively got a lid on it. That's one of the things you can do is help with odor control. It's pretty It's hard to that clarifies the way they were. So that's what a lot of this is going to do. treatment process changes that will help with that over control. Also. That was all I had and that's a lot of we all know Bill Perkins left the city. They've been the better things. I would just say. It was. That was a big adjustment for us. We have one person ever seeing to projects like this. And Bill is a unique tale. New of stuff. Everything about what we do. So it's been an adjustment, but we've had some staff really step had the opportunity to 2 take over some of these. I'm confident we're in a great place, but I'll tell you, when you use a guy like Bill. There are days and not entirely sure that we even know what we don't know. That we're doing good. We're doing good. We've got a lot of good people. situations like this, even in the midst which daughter works, it provides the opportunity for people to step up. And we've really seen that happen. So lot of things still happening Moving fast pace, especially on the water side. So we're going to have one last quick comment on water treatment plant. We're looking at a dedication ceremony in October. plant will be fully operational at that time. But we think it probably makes sense to do some of that point. And so hopefully that's make sure that on everybody's calendar >> that will be during that period of time. Those like >> have a comment and a couple questions. If that's okay. First of all, thank you for all you and your team are You stepped up to be the public works. Director in the middle of all of this. And so even though you are involved, you still are jumping on the moving train and this just further demonstrates to mean probably my colleagues why you are absolutely the right choice to be the director of public works for the city. Wichita. So thank you for your service and all you're doing one question that I did have this on May 8th. We have a hold in our calendar for water treatment facility. Annual on-site updates. Yes, that's the same exact time is the groundbreaking for the Bio Med Center. So I know I'm it will be hard to decide because feel like need to be at both. So I didn't know if that's something that could have some discussion. And then my question more related to the actual project. There had been some discussions about it's challenging to hire people right now and especially in fields that are so specialized as this. And with the water treatment plant being state-of-the-art. Are we doing good with hiring? Because we have to keep our current player running. But we're getting trained up. The new staff. How's it going? >> All. >> On the hiring is not We like so we got really lucky on our plant manager. Somebody who's been in the industry a long time. Not currently working there, but has really, really good credentials and wants to get back. And so we're looking to have them. I think we've done pretty good we've had a very robust recruiting program, Penny staffers work with because just been amazing through all of this pushing through this. We have mentioned that we had a hiring fair at the water treatment plant. We do a lot We've got a good number of people We did on site interviews. And got some offers made immense and that we've been working closely with SEIU. Looking at the ability to be more competitive in the market, particularly with this group right now. And I think we're at a place where we might be able to get there so that we can start making better for those coming in. So we're doing a lot of things we're doing pretty good. I think it's still from a timing. Perspective. Could be a matter of. Getting as many people as can hired and still some level of temporary contract operations, which is out there. So so it's probably going to be a combo of the And I appreciate you asking that. I think are doing good. May 8th. It's going to the hard for to change up there. But Megan was talking to partners and for what it's worth had been long quite some time ago. And so with what they've got people coming in from out of state are also not sure that folks could change, but we'll see what we can do. And thank you for your first I do appreciate that. Want to should have qualified when I said. building here, we don't even know what we don't know. What a show set is a short I don't know. but get We know you love child care public works. Yes, yes. >> Thank Thank you. >> And it have a great weekend.