good morning staff good morning Witchita  and good morning to all of you thank you   for joining us for our Tuesday November  26th meeting I call this meeting to order   at this time I would like to ask if you  could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance iedge Al to the flag of the  United States of America to the for stands indivisible andice thank you very much Madame  clerk can you please call the first item Tony Zavala opposition to the  gentleman's club opening in East Witchita uh thank you everybody for your time uh I just  had a couple questions about uh how many people in   this room get to have a say in these kind of clubs  opening up in wiah or the expansion of existing   clubs I've noticed a one sandwiched in in between  a couple of my favorite restaurants downtown that   just moved in there and expanded uh we got this  big one going on up at a 10,1 East kog that's had   some problems with crime before and I'm definitely  not a person with without sin but I have been   working to get some of these people out of these  types of clubs as they destroy families and spread   a lot of the this the party doesn't stop when the  Club closes they take the stuff home and it's uh   and it's just a tragedy to watch and I didn't  think that the kind of moral compass that wiah   was going towards so if anybody could elaborate  on any of those questions then I can take my seat thank you Mr Tony go ahead uh council member  Johnson thanks mayor um when it comes to   businesses like that it all depends on the zoning  so if it is a rezone to allow a business you   have an opportunity at your District Advisory  board meeting for the district it is as well   as at the metropolit Metropolitan Area Planning  Commission meeting mapc those are your two public   opportunities before it comes to the council for  a vote unfortunately and I don't know in the case   of this business but sometimes there are um zoning  that allows that type of thing and it just happens   at that point um in this case I think I remember  it had to go through a rezone but the opportunity   is to um do that at the district Advisory Board  as well as mapc and you can reach out to your   council member with your thoughts on that as  well and also oh sorry mayor council member hois   thank you mayor um we have a gentleman I don't  want to point him out but I'm going to uh right   over there um he can answer a lot more or your  questions a lot better than we can as far as the   zoning process get into it a little deeper with  you so I'd recommend at least grabbing his card   here real quick or maybe chatting with him real  quick so all right thank you Tony appreciate it thank you again uh that was the first  time we've had public agenda I think um   for folks who've been coming to workshops  um after got passed at the city council   level there is now public agenda that is allowed  during a workshop meeting so it is an opportunity   for community members again to sign up or come to  the council meeting and asked to speak so at this   time since we have four spots left are there  any individuals from the community who would   like to address the council if you would please  state your name and your address and you have 5 minutes Richard Harris former civil rights   commissioner for the city of  witcha 3031 West Bon number 200 my concern is that the city has taken  way too long to develop a solution to the   homeless problem it has kicked the can  down the road with one bureaucratic   excuse after another it has known now for at  least three years that somewhere between 30   and 50 homeless people die on the streets of  wiah every winter from neglect by the people   of the city of wiah the city has talked over  and over about how it's got one grand solution   after another but it is ignored the fact that the  first killing freezes happen in late October all   the shelters talk about opening in late November  and there were promises that the current shelter   development was going to open in late November  and that promise hasn't been met and the city   is now talking it seems about the idea of taking  away the only shelter that some of these people   have from the cold that will kill them otherwise  that choice amounts to premeditated murder and   there is no excuse for it there is no no moral  defense for it there's no developer there is   no landlord whose life is so precious that  we should kill the people who are homeless good morning mayor city council my name is  Vince hanock I'm the president of the deleno   neighborhood association our association is  composed of anyone who lays their head in   deleno that would be landlords renters homeowners  and the unhoused and I have friends amongst all   of them so I'm here to speak for some that maybe  wouldn't feel comfortable speaking our homeless   Outreach team holds so much promise yet so much  disappointment you'll see later in a presentation   I was told that we won't get a chance to speak on  per agenda item so this is for that agenda item   while our entire department alongs with Parks  and Rec and Public Works have the authority to   enforce the law no one will do it they all just  say oh that's a hot team problem and 99% of our   police force just says that deals with homeless  I'm not going to touch it with a 10 poll so if   we're going to say in the policy you have the  authority to enforce that then maybe we should   work on some training to work with that they  just don't have the desire to deal with it and   yet when they do the stories that I've heard that  would just make you ashamed of the mistreatment   and the humiliation that someone has not because  they're breaking a law but because of how they're   dressed how they look if I have one Mission when  it comes to this topic it's to to eliminate from   the vocabulary the term suspicious character there  is no such thing it is suspicious activity if   someone is doing something wrong but not because  of how they look or how long the hair is on their   face it's inappropriate in our neighborhood  I frequently monitor a tool that our city has   called C click fix it's a way for citizens to  say this doesn't seem right and I think it may   be something that the city can help me with our  three most common topics are broken limbs potholes   and encampments and to a ticket when these are  created the homeless Outreach team opens at the   ticket and looks at it and says yeah we'll  work on that and they immediately close it   the only Department in the city to do so when it  comes to a poth hole they leave the ticket open   they get to it as fast as they can and once the  problem is resolved then they close the ticket   this is inconsistent with the training by the  Communications Department that set up the tool   yet they're the department that routinely says  yeah we'll get to it when we get to it there's   no recordkeeping there's no accountability for  that department we can do better and lastly on   that subtopic I do want to ask that we have  compassionate enforcement we've had a mix of   non- enforcement through this travesty that  the courts created called uh discretionary   enforcement uh it's also known as bias if it's  against the law we need to enforce it if it's   not against the law we need to leave people alone  moving into the next topic of this is a statute   that we're considering putting into our our city  ordinance that we're putting together how are we   going to know that that's ever going to make it  onto the city's web page on August 20th this body   approved some changes to the elements of public  comment to this day those changes are not on our   City website we have citizens we have law enfor  officers who routinely use that website as a this   is the city's law but it's not updated there have  been not one but two Kansas Supreme Court losses   for the city in the last five years where we  were told as a city this is not lawful it is   unconstitutional it needs to be taken off the  books guess what's still on the books Gabriel   gord's case on uh disorderly conduct we were  told that a certain phrase is inappropriate   to have in our city code it's still on the  website and I've had the other details I've   been emailing this to some council members as  early as April still hasn't been changed we   need to fix this and I'm glad I do want to say I  am in support of the draft uh statute as it sits   in front of you I think it's a move in the right  direction I think we've got to get it codified   get it on the city website and work together on  implementation any questions thank you for your time my name is Patrick Murphy  I um reside at 1786 South cica uh this particular issue I really wasn't  planning on speaking on it today but I didn't   realize there were spots open um this particular  issue strikes home for me I have a 30-year-old   daughter that is living on the street right  now and having programs available for her is   obviously very important to me um I don't know  if this man's gentle if this gentleman's numbers   are accurate I I would assume that they are um  her name is Mariah she has mental health issues   and I think that when we talk about about the  homeless we need to address that first that is   our number one problem in the homeless situation  we can build as many shelters as we want we can   put uh you know any ordinances in place that  we want but until we address what's going on   in their minds and fix that we are you we're  we're we're not going to achieve the goal that   we want to achieve I'm a person that is a a um  fiscal conservative but I'm a social liberal I   I believe in in Social programs that need to be  in place for people that um you know people that   need it because it is needed and we are one of the  greatest countries in the world when it comes to   taking care of our own if you look at the world  across you know many other cultures that we have   a lot of things in place that that they don't  generally do so um I wanted to come here today   and listen to the potential Solutions and I wanted  to offer some uh you know some advice in that area   I I too suffered from mental health issues and  um through certain practices and through the   compassion of of my community and my church and  uh the grace of God have been able to overcome   that and um I want that opportunity to be there  for anyone else that's suffering in that way so   I I ask this Council to be open-minded to any and  every solution out there uh anything that anybody   offers I ask that you hear them all and then let's  work together to make sure that we can effectively   um combat this serious issue um  one of the potential solutions that that I I I don't know I'm not sure what it even  looks like right now but but one of the potential   Solutions is a is a housing program that requires  participation from them in mental health uh areas   um I don't know how effective that would be or  exactly how to go about that there are people   that need that work in these fields that would be  much more qualified to answer those questions but   it seems to me that um it would be in the  best interest of all of us to address the   mental health issue first and and and um make it  as easy as possible for them to come in as easy   as possible for them to to take these steps um I  don't believe in the criminalization of anything   that they are doing just because without a doubt  I have never met a person that lives on the street   that that that has chosen that I think that  they've fallen into a world that is very um   very dark and very confusing they're trapped  in a Labyrinth of their mind and they have and   uh they're lost and it's not their fault that  they're lost so we shouldn't be criminalizing   anyone for what they're doing but we should make  it as easy as possible for them to come and be uh   a part of our community in all these different  ways anyway I that's all I want to say thank you uh thank you sir for coming out today it  takes a lot to get up in front of people and   express the the experiences you've had um I have  a close family member as well who's constantly in   and out of homelessness and shelters so I I take  everything you say to Heart sir so thank you and   I do believe the numbers are pretty close to  being correct I think last year 47 47 people   maybe it was on the streets who did die during  the year of on the streets so that's a number   that is on on our radar as well and definitely  something we're trying to address with the Mac   opening here um we do plan on having calm care  and other Mental Health Services in there have   having office space to help where we can try  and get people diagnosed um get them medicated   where we can and stabilized and uh we are  currently working on the housing piece as   well um that's definitely um a goal of ours  having something that if you go through the   programs if you're doing the things that you  need to do to be stabilized and to get back   on your feet eventually you can end up in  um some affordable housing hopefully on the   campus or nearby the Mac so we can continue  with the services until we're they're ready   to go and fully get integrated back into society  so again thank you sir for coming up and talking today I to Mr Murphy I'd like to just say that  you and Mariah your daughter in my prayers U   difficult situation I I don't want people's hopes  to get up too high that this Mac is going to solve   everything um it's not uh the Mac is part  of the solution to your point mental health   uh substance abuse are big parts of this problem  too so the idea is to it we have a comprehensive   plan that the providers have come up with over  the period of last really almost two years now   um come up with um in in conjunction with with  housing and mental health and substance abuse   this plan will not be implemented in one day  one month it's going to take two or three years   to implement this plan and there's going to be  mistakes there's going to be missteps and we're   going to learn from it but we are going to get  it right so for people like your daughter who   need the help so and I think there's a balance  between do you force someone going into into   treatment or do you let them live on the street  and die I mean it's not Humane to let somebody   live on the street in the cold with no bathrooms  and allow them to be one of 47 to to die so what   what's that balance to to give them the nudge  to get help they need so it's a very difficult   situation equation and uh we we are going  to get there so thank you for coming up and speaking thank you again to to our four  individuals who wanted to speak during   public agenda again um this is going to be  a robust conversation unfortunately during   Workshop it's for the council to receive  the information but I highly encourage   you all to always contact all your council  members and you can do so um by emailing   all of us at DL uh City uh sorry DL council  members plural at wi.gov and that will go to   all seven of us um and again I appreciate that  there are many conversations regarding um our   individuals in our community who are unhoused  and facing homelessness um I just came back   from Union Rescue Mission this morning and  I can tell you that there are opportunities   for individuals to um have Sheltering even right  now and so I highly encourage people to connect   uh to the organizations that are currently  still providing that Sheltering including   Union Rescue Mission and humankind Ministries um  and again the multi-agency center and emergency   winter shelter uh will open up next week on  December 2nd um and we are wanting to be part   of the solution and you can see that these seven  individuals on this Council are trying our best   every single day to move forward uh together  um but it does take a lot of collaboration   I know you mentioned mental health and the health  department belongs to Sedwick County calmare   belongs to Sedrick County we are two different  uh governments but we are collaborating and   that should give this community hope because  this Council along with the commission are   working together towards a a solution with the  providers in the community and all stakeholders   in the community um so we're trying our best and  this today will be another step towards that so   thank you again for the public agenda portion  uh Madame clerk can you please call the next   item consent agenda items 1 through 11 council  members are there any items to be pulled for discussion I have two items  to pull item 4 a and 6A I see no other so I will move to approve all  consent agenda items without 4 a and 6A second   motion and a second any further discussion  I see none uh all those in favor say I I I   all those oppose same sign motion passes  60 I will start with agenda item number 4A good morning Gary I emailed this to you so  you're prepared for this question um I wanted   to know uh this analysis will now cost twice the  amount of the initial analysis can you talk about   is this reasonable and what do we expect to  receive uh sure good morning mayor and council   members Gary Jansen Public Works and utilities  so our initial analysis was at a time uh when   we were looking at options uh for what we might do  for water restrictions this was prior to actually   moving into stage two the water restrictions we  wanted to see if there might be other options   to help incourage conservation so we actually  didn't even we only used not even quite half   of that $20,000 at the time it was a high level  analysis that was done over a couple of months uh   so that we could evaluate uh the highest level  of conservation while being Revenue neutral at   the time which is what we talked to to the council  out at the time this uh next effort uh is a is I   think is the right price we knew it would be more  uh we're going to work with them over probably   over the almost the next 12 months to uh look at a  lot of historical data uh and see what might make   sense Within These tier two and three levels that  we've previously talked about for the same thing   to try to incentivize and encourage conservation  try to figure out where we can uh end up at a   place that's most Revenue neutral one of the big  parts of that that we didn't have an opportunity   to look at the first time was the impact to  commercial customers so um you know we've got   15,000 commercial customers there are many of  them that by necessity by the nature of their   business they have non-discretionary water use  that increases during the summer months so they   would see a significant impact if we raise the  tier two and three rates we want to see what that   looks like see if there's another way to go about  that uh you know some examples we talked about   was whether the commercial customers would be on  separate irrigation meters whether we could find   a different way to apply rates to those customers  we don't know what that looks like yet but that's   why we need this bigger effort I think the cost  looks good one additional um question I had was   Will customers also be engaged in that process  during this analysis I think we will need to yes   uh especially some of the larger well maybe  not larger but the commercial customers that   would be the most impacted I think we can  probably look at a sample set across that   and try to have a better understanding  what those impacts would be so I would   say yes thank you Gary any further questions  for Gary I see none I'll move to item number uh 68 I wanted to know about this Pro program  itself so this is a change order that will   now increase the budget by $530,000 and this is  Street uh pavement repair uh can you share over   the last two years how much we've been spending  on Street Maintenance SL repair sure in uh 2023   we spent just over $12 million about 12.1 million  overall in Street repairs through our Outsource   pavement preservation program right now our  projection through the end of 2024 is pretty   close to the same just around 12 million maybe a  little bit over we have a few projects that are   yet to bid some concrete Street repairs uh once  we roll in staff costs any potential changes to   those I suppose it could be a little bit more  but we're projecting about the same $12 million   each year is that roughly the same for 2025 so  the budget for 20125 we will be presenting the   proposed 2025 outsourc payement preservation  program to the Council on December 10th um the   budget that's included in the CIP is 13.5 million  for the program itself well what we would look   at is historically the program this year there's  an additional $2 million for additional Concrete   Street repairs uh so we've got a total of $55  million now keep in mind that's got some costs   in it for contingencies for staff costs over  the course of a year what it takes to manage   all of these projects um we probably end up being  about a million dollars of that in there for for   some of the soft costs associated with project  management and again this project um specifically   will now be 2.6 million and it's for residential  streets at har near haran Rock Central in Ma and   29th in amidan is that correct correct all  residential streets generally in those areas   thank you very much Gary I see no questions for  Gary um I move to approve consent agenda items 4   a and 6A second motion and a second any further  discussion I see none Madame clerk please open   the RO I guess sorry uh all those in favor  say I I I all those oppose same sign motion   passes 60 Madame clerk please call the next item  Board of bids and contract dated November 25th 2024 good morning mayor council Josh laber  Department of Finance uh the board of bids   and contracts convened yesterday November 25th  for the following items for engineering we   have our storm water sewer number project  number 804 storm water sewer repairs for   York and Ma for Wildcat Construction  Company Incorporated in the amount of $7,350 for purchasing we have the telescoping  steel sign post systems for Center Line supply   for an estimated annual use of $ 36,5 for  one year with two one years we have contract   change order for janitorial services for various  buildings for Lamar Crowder DBA Crowder Cleaning   Service LLC for an amended price increase of  $50 to cover the murphin dog park and we have   Wilson Building Maintenance Incorporated  for an amended price of 1,28 $4 a week to   include the witto Waterworks um Maintenance  building and also the old water treatment   plant we have the contract change order for  manhole and Inlet frames and covers for dcnb   Supply Incorporated estimated annual usage of  $ 41,48 this is to include a sanitary sewer   um manhole cover that originally wasn't bided  we have the utility line locate notification   system through December 24th through November  25th 5 for Kansas one call System Incorporated   the estimated apartment usage of $200,000 in  that period we have the Etsy Library shelving   and installation for the May Angelou library  for h2i Group Incorporated for $93,500 and for   airport we have the solid de iser for runways for  Nature's allpine Solutions LLC in the amount of $ 98,6 this is how to become a vender with the city  if you'll see on your tables I put some marketing   materials if you could help us um anytime you're  out in the community hand out a business card   there's a QR code of how to register with the  city um we very much appreciate your help and   the community's help of registering to do business  with the city these are the purchasing calendar   events we have going on if you're a small business  if you're a business that's new to the city that   wants to do business with us we'll be at these  events and these in times and these locations   you could also look on our calendar uh these are  open public opportunities out on the street today   and I'd be happy to try to answer any questions  and I recommend your approval any questions for   staff uh can you go back to this one slide over  I think it said uh stump removal and tree one   more is there one more there it is train stump  removal um can you explain that one for me sure um   Reggie can you help me out with that for  or sorry Gary um it's for Parks our parks   department and Forestry um it's for the removal  and identified trees throughout the city thanks Gary thank J Gary Ferris Park and Recreation uh  I think Josh pretty well summed it up it's for   uh dead tree removal and dead tree and stump  removal so the tree and including the stump   would be removed is a part of that contract uh  it covers uh nine square miles that have been   identified as having the highest concentration  of known work orders and those are not contiguous   square miles they are just random square miles  where we know that those um work orders exist so hey Gary um I appreciate it so appreciate  all the work on this this is a good way to   get caught up I think we're going to get  caught up on the third somewhere around   the third of the dead tree removal that  we have yes that that contract represents   about a third of what we have on the  books okay um and so they are doing   the St stump removal at the same time with  the Tre okay yes I had some constituents   reach out and ask about that yes so okay  appreciate just wanted to make sure that's clear thank you any further questions for  staff I I see none I move to approve the   board of bids and contracts for November  25th 2024 second Motion in a second any   further discussion I see none all those in  favor say I I I all those oppose same sign   motion passes 60 Madame clerk please call the  next item petitions for public improvements good morning mayor city council memb Paul  gunzan Public Works and utilities this   morning I have some new petitions for your  consideration signatures on the petitions   represent 100% of the improvement district and  the petitions are valid per Kansas statute Clear   Ridge second edition located in District 2  the project will provide water improvements   storm water drain improvements sanitary  sewer improvements and Paving improvements   required for a new residential development it  is recommend recommended that the city council   approve the new petitions and budgets adopt  a new resolutions and authorize the necessary   signatures I will stand for questions questions  for staff I see none um I motion to approve the   new petitions and budgets and adopt the new  resolutions as well as authorized necessary   signatures second motion and a second any  further discussion I see none all those in   favor say I I all those oppose same sign  motion passes 60 Madame clerk please call   the next item council member appointments and  comments council members any appointments or comments okay I see none I motion to adjourn  okay hold on excuse me we are going to have   an executive session after Workshop so if  you would wait to adjourn until that time   we can just go directly to workshop at this point  thank you Jennifer we will now pass the mic over   to city manager Leighton to start the workshop for  November thank you mayor um we have three items uh   for discussion actually four items for discussion  today um the first item is uh has already been   referenced U and has to do with encampments and  also solicitation in the city uh this is part of   a uh overall strategy now that uh we have taken  steps to create the mid uh the multi- agency uh   Center excuse me uh the council has said what can  we do to address the encampment issue now that   we have a resource uh available to us so staff  has been spending a significant amount of time   uh trying to work through all of the issues how do  we um uh eliminate some of the problems created by   encampments but in a humane way and I I think we  found a good balance in that regard so with that   I'm going to turn it over to Sharon dick graph  uh to present the ordinances for your review and comment good morning Sharon deckra City Law  Department little bit about the history of   our camp ordinances um they were passed in 2013  at that time the witch toop Police Department   started what is known as the hot team um the  team focuses on homelessness and their goal is   to connect people who are homeless with the  necessary services and housing the hot team   and WPD officers have been the primary point  of contact for enforcement of illegal camping   ordinances WPD policy currently um is based on  federal case law that limits um charging illegal   camping to situations where there is a shelter  bed available and then the person refuses to go   to shelter WPD policy also currently requires that  illegal campsites be posted for 72 hours prior   to cleanup up until recently the witow police  department had a private contractor to assist   with cleanups park has also been responsible for  illegal encampment cleanups on Park and other Park   other public property uh a little bit about costs  um these are costs for for witw Police Department   um so far in 2024 approximately $165,000 has  been uh charged to the contractor fees these   cost do not include WPD staff time hours to post  and assist the contractor with any cleanups parks   has also been heavily involved in these cleanups  um in 2024 Park cleaned up approximately 1,700   campsites um utilizing 1300 hours of Staff  time and $33,000 in additional cost um park   has really detailed information on their website  about the cost and their efforts uh to clean up   these campsites so I wanted to give a couple  examples of uh illegal camping and I chose   these for a purpose um this first group is an a  more less dense area as far as a population um   not something that the public would have a lot of  use for this property these properties are going   to be treated differently in the ordinances that  is proposed um versus this which is a Street in   downtown Witchita um clearly uh the street and  sidewalk is impeded traffic is impeded people   could not walk along those sidewalks um you will  see in this picture uh actually both pictures   the bright green notice and that is currently the  process that PD is using is that it is posted uh   then 72 hours later uh it can be cleaned up since  early 2023 members from a number of departments   have been working together um as I think has been  stated early this is not a one one way to fix   homelessness um it's going to take a group effort  of uh internal staff working with our partners in   the community WPD uh Public Works Park Housing  Services M ABCD and law were our part were all   part of the working group a lot has been said  about Grant Pass Grant Pat was a Supreme Court   decision which was uh decided recently um that  clarified what cities can do regarding illegal   camping um the opinion held that uh sentencing  Provisions in this particular ordinance did not   violate the eth amendment um the court also  held that there was no legal requirement   that a shelter bed be available to enforce illegal  camping activities um this case came from the N   circuit which tends to be a pretty liberal um  and many cases from the night circuit limit   what municipalities can do regarding these types  of activities number of ordinances amendments are   being proposed illegal camping camping in Parks  um aggressive and harassing conduct and pedestrian   conduct um illegal legal camping the revisions  that you have um the definitions are refined   and expanded um to provide clarification as to  what it is that we are trying to prohibit um the   ordinance Is Res is revised to allow clicker  quicker cleanup at certain public visible no   locations which is similar to the photographs that  I presented doorways sidewalks areas near Bridges   bus shelters playgrounds um and the Mac these  locations could be cleaned up without a waiting   period or posted notice for locations that are  less visible individuals will be given 48 hours   notice to leave or clean up the property if no one  is present at those locations the location will   be posted with 48 hours to vacate uh the notice  will provide information on homeless services and   the process to retrieve any property of value  or identification information if the person is   present and refuses to leave and clean up the  property or has been told previously that they   cannot Camp there the individual may be cited  with a violation of the camping ordinance the   ordinance also outlines a process and procedure  for the items that are seized or impounded um they   require that staff if we find any identification  documents any nons soiled workable items that   those be maintained for a period of at least 30  days um items that are soiled mildewed broken   or inoperable do not have to be maintained um  Parks will be responsible for storage and return   of these items um currently I think the plan is  to use a portion of rounds and Porter to store   these items for the 30 days the ordinances also  deal with in illegal camping on private property   um mabcd deals with issues of squatters um quite  frequently um this is to clarify where you can and   can't camp on private property um is prohibited  unless you are the owner or you have written   permission of the owner to Camp there um it allows  for temporary camping which means if my parents   come from Texas to see my son they want to camp in  their RV for 72 hours they could do that with my   permission um camping is not allowed in accessory  structures um we deal with individuals who live   in vacant garages vacant sheds um and then  attempt to run electricity from other locations   those types activities would be prohibited by the  ordinance camping in RVs and trailers and cars is   also prohibited um we do have some exceptions um  one is if the parking lot is marked for overnight   overnight parking if the vehicle is in a licensed  RV park or they have a license to park um under   the city's ordinances you can get a permit to  park an RV for up to 30 days through uh title 26   uh the ordinance does allow for a more robust  enforcement WPD Parks Public Works and mabcd   city managers also authorized to designate  other individuals to enforce the provisions um   the penalties have been reduced somewhat um they  were previously $500 in are 30 days in custody we   are releasing recommending that we reduce that  to $200 um the court can also order community   service we have recommended amendments to that  portion as well um the old version required the   court to order a minimum of 10 hours and and some  of these people it would be questionable based   on their mental health and other issues that they  could do 10 hours of community service the amount   of community service would be left up to the  court um amendments are also proposed to clean   up um ordinances Title Nine is amended um that all  uh illegal camping will be regulated under Title 5   uh section 93240 is amended that overnight camping  of RVs is not allowed um unless the park director   approves we are recommending that the aggressive  conduct um ordinance be repealed in 2017 the   ordinance was passed to prohibit um aggressive  conduct by individuals seeking to obtain an item   from another person um many of the actions in the  ordinance are are duplicative of other existing   ordinances such as assault battery disorderly  conduct um the ordinance has been rarely used   by law enforcement and we are recommending that it  be repealed as part of this package lastly we have   a pedestrian safety ordinance um they are amended  to address a certain case law that allows people   to stand in medians um the ordinance prohibits  individuals from approaching cars in the roadway   it also prohibits conduct by pedestrians which  impedes the flow of traffic um other cities have   uh indicated that they have had problems with um  Tick Tock challenges um that people will go and   just stand and lay in the roadway to see how long  it will take law enforcement to come um Provisions   are also added to make parents responsible for  children violating these ordinances um based   on safety concerns is recommended that the city  council review the recom recommended amendments   and provide guidance to the city staff for next  steps um I believe a member from each team that   helped with the ordinances is here so uh if I  can't answer the question I will refer to my experts thank you mayor um just a couple  of questions and then I'll Circle back   with comments a little later um do we know how  many times we have used the aggressive conduct ordinance about 20 20s and six years actually from I have I have stats from 2020  from 2020 to the present it's about 70 times 70   times um and I and I can say that many of those  cases were dismissed because the facts did not   fit the conduct um the conduct in that particular  ordinance has to be that I am exchanging something   or asking you to exchange something with me um  simply because I'm harassing you or following   you or asking you a number of questions is not a  violation of the ordinance so we wanted to make   sure that the facts fit the ordinance okay and  WPD you guys are comfortable with this change okay um how many have been charged for our camping  ordinance you said it's been pretty rare So since   2020 there have been five cases five cases uh  could you do you have any background on any   of those cases is it strictly homeless people  or I do not um my assumption and I'm going to   speak for PD and Aaron can tell me if I'm wrong  um generally they have not um charged camping   unless the person has had multiple warnings  have been given multiple opportunities to go   to other places um they were hampered by there  had to be a bed in order to charge the illegal   camping under their policy um so it would  be my instinct that these are going to be   Europe repeat offenders that we have told what  the rules are we have offered the services and   they're still saying we don't want to go and I'll  let eron come up and all right appreciate it I'm not M Miss di is correct um the the limitations  in the ordinance kind of hold back back our   enforcement efforts Additionally the complexity  of the current ordinance has led us to really   lean on the homeless Outreach team to be the ones  to sort of enforce the encampment ordinance and   that's something we tried to deal with through  the review process was making it easier for all   of our officers to understand uh to where they  could they could look at it in enforcement and   and enforce it on a broader scale if necessary  okay and all these charges they they panned out   in court the judge when it went through Municipal  Court doing know if the judge found them guilty   of this or I would not have that information okay  yeah that would be something I would be interested   in it's just kind of background on that um and  also do we have when we enforce these campsites   are we able to phys are do we physically  remove people if they are refusing to to go or I would say we can yeah yes I mean under the current ordinance  if if we have to physically remove somebody   either for trespassing or violation of the  camping ordinance it it would be then that   we're filing a charge either for trespassing or  a violation of the camping ordinance and right   now most of these situations when you find  the person illegal camping you have to give   them 72 hours to do something so there there is  not an option currently under the ordinance NPD   policy to have that immediate removal you need  to move on or you need to go someplace else   okay um now is this messing are the the RV  changes that we have to the ordinance is that   messing with because we currently have it to  where you you can't park an RV in somebody's   driveway if I'm not mistaken and operate the RV  out of the driveway like during camper season or   people coming to town to visit I'm going to  look at look at mbcd or Jr um there is story   of an RV and then there is utilization of an RV  um currently in title 26 you can C Camp stay in   RV up to four days and it does not have to be uh  parked in a Camp RV parking lot the KOA um this   acknowledges that process but still allows some  flexibility um I think mbcd and Zoning allow the   occas occasional my parents come and they want  to stay in my RV do I want to live permanently   in my RV then the answer is no you can't stay  permanently in the RV either 26 title 26 is   going to make you get a license or under this  ordinance once you've got to that 72 hour limit   then you are no longer temporarily camping  and I will refer to kayin who's my expert thanks for the question Mike um so so the  inclusion of this in this particular updated   ordinance will allow us to address those instances  where um almost by Magic decrepit RVs appear on   vacant Lots or in areas where they should not be  there's obviously no structure around that's habit   that's inhabitable um and people are trying to  live in them or do crime from them so currently we   we don't have a good way to address that this will  allow us to get at those situations a little bit   more quickly um again that that's what this is for  it's not meant to prevent um people from storing   their Aries during use season as Sharon said or  that kind of that we call it the Mother-in-law   use when somebody maybe has a an extend they  have a baby and somebody needs to come in and   stay with them for a couple of weeks they want to  park their RV temporarily there's Provisions for   that more traditional and legal use for that that  this is to get at those other things that are so   not traditional and and involve usage that crime  and problem with properties grow around and in   does that make sense y okay all right thank you um  and then um when we talk about community service   is that a $20 an hour rate it's a $200 fine and  we're saying 10 hours of community service to   pay that off the the current rate of community  service is set at I believe $8 an hour by and   and that's by the court the ordinances and title  one uh give the court the authority to set the   rate for community service um and I know in the  fireworks ordinance it was higher than that um   this particular ordinance it would be based under  the title one uh which would be $8 an hour I guess   if they get a fine of up to $200 that would be 25  hours a community service approximately okay um   so yeah I mean during the presentation uh it was  said 10 hours so I just I just wanted a little   bit of clarification on that one the the prior  ordinance required that if community service was   going to be ordered that it was a minimum of 10  hours which and I'm not sure why that was in the   ordinance that way um certainly if the court wants  to order 5 hours of community service and see if   they can do 5 hours of community service or in in  most inst instances the individual is approved for   community service sometimes they'll do five hours  sometimes they'll do all 20 um and that depends   upon the court and and how that community service  is ordered okay thank you that's all I have for now uh quick question how will this be enforced  if a person just continues to move around the   corner will they allowed to just say okay you've  got to leave then they move to around the corner   then they move another corner and another Corner  we we we tried to address that with if it's posted   within the line of sight it doesn't have to be  reposted now now you are correct that if I'm on   First Street and then I move around to Main Street  um if if I'm a significant distance away from the   first place where it was posted we would probably  post again however in those types of particular   areas we are we are recommending that we don't  have to post those and we can tell the person   they just need to move move along Andor then clean  up whatever is Left Behind if that makes sense   okay so it really doesn't solve that really  it it it does from the standpoint of in your   highly populated areas we're not requiring the  48 hour notice okay so if the police department   saw the person there at on on First Street and  said like the picture with the the the plywood   bed would tell that person you need to get your  things and you need to go so so that's kind of   their warning now are we realistically going to  have a truck behind the officer when they do that   no so there still is going to be some lag time  before we get out there to clean those things   up so it's not an immediate seizure um in most of  these cases because we we're not going to be that   interconnected between the cleanup process C and  the police department we're just not going to have   that mandatory weit to make that call to parks to  say we have a clean up on first in Maine okay okay   and last thing I just point out is there is an  option just to do community service with no fine   yes these people don't have any money yeah yeah  yeah the the court the court can order community   service in lie of the fine so they for if if they  and it's up to $200 it's not $200 so if the court   wanted to order an $80 fine and uh community  service is $8 an hour they would do 10 hours   of community service okay okay yeah we we are  trying not to penalize these folks right which   is why the recommendation is to reduce it from  the $500 maximum to a $200 maximum right okay   okay thank you thank you for the presentation  um just a few questions council member hoisel   must have took my notes so on the uh community  service um hourly rate I know we had talked about   that maybe last year the year before is there any  way to make that like across the board the same   at like $20 an hour and not the $8 an hour you  you could amend section 104 and set that amount   um that would be taking away the discretion of  the judge to set that amount um there are some   state state statutes that do have um amounts set  that are 8 or $10 um I would think under our home   rule if we wanted to give more credit we could um  but that would be an ordinance change that you you   could make or or you could order the community  service be higher in in this ordinance the   problem with that is then from an equal protection  standpoint if I got a DUI and I'm only working for   $8 an hour and he's homeless but he's working  for 20 where's the parody there it would be   better from a legal standpoint to change title one  if the council wanted to raise that amount okay I   just think $8 an hour is a little low and at this  point um on slide 38 so I think your numbers are   different um when you looked at the process for  seized items I know that the soil the mill dude   broken and inoperable things don't need to be  maintained but what if that has a deeper meaning   to to someone who is unhoused it's something that  in many ways keeps them sane whether it's some   toy or some photograph is that something that  will be taken into account to not just get rid of I would say if the person is present  perhaps if the person isn't there I don't   know how the contractor or Parks is going to  know um and and we have to set some sort of as   objectively as we can standard for what we're  going to keep and what we're not going to keep   um you know if the animal wasn't soiled stuffed  animal wasn't soiled wasn't mildewed wasn't wet   um you know we'll take pictures of everything  that we do sees and and we're going to you   know work on guidelines for the people that  are cleaning those up but you're asking the   contractor to to guess what is important to  that person and and we try to have a most much   objectivity as we can um when we when we do these  cleanups so the short answer is can I guarantee   you that those an that that animal will be  maintained I I can't oh aon's going to hop on thank you council member um the the storage  and retention of property was a large focus of   the conversation of the entire group because we  are sensitive to that issue uh one thing we talked   about is the change in the posting sticker itself  to say um your property was taken this is where   it was taken to this is where you can get it uh  we've talked about options of where that's going   to be I don't know that we're settled on that yet  but that was a major topic of discussion as far as   the soiled property obviously we have to there's  a balance there right because we we are going to   have City staff uh as the ones cleaning up this  property and so we need to make sure the city   staff remains safe in that process um but that  was a topic of discussion for the entire group   of what's the best way to manage this and ensuring  that the unhoused population if their property is   Tak know where to go get it okay um while you're  up there the impounded items that must be kept   a minimum of 30 days what if someone does happen  to go to jail or something comes up where it puts   them at the 30 days but we know that they're  in custody is there an exception for that that   they still have an opportunity to get their stuff  yeah so I would say if someone is arrested uh we   would likely handle that property differently  than just a a an encampment cleanup right so   if a person is arrested and they have property on  their person that we can't take to the jail and   book into the jail with them then that is property  that would go to our property in evidence and be   handled through a different function than just  uh properties seized during an an encampment   cleanup does that make sense yep okay um on  the next slide I don't know if that's you were sharing so the uh temporarily Camp being defined  is not more than 70 72 consecutive hours is that   uh is there an ability to rotate so if I stay  there 70 hours and I go to another site across   the city but I then come back to that private  property do I does my clock restart for 72 hours   I would say yes but you have to have permission  of the property owner so if I have a cousin that   lives at 13th and Maze I can do 72 hours there  if I have another cousin that lives at Rock and   Central I can do 72 hours there so so we're we're  trying to limit the amount of time and and and the   real goal of this is to to limit the camping in  the RVs that are in many times inoperable that   get driven or towed to a vacant lot and parked  there um those are that's the really the focus   of this ordinance um we had to recognize so  that we weren't too broad that there are the   Mother-in-law exception or my parents from Texas  exception um for those instances where we want to   allow some temporary camping on on property okay  um my last question at least at the moment is I   I understand I believe what is spurring some  of these revisions from the court decision but   if there's no requirement for some bed for  someone who's unhoused then where will they go I mean and and this is probably an ering  question I mean the the hot team or the officer is   going to contact that person and and advise them  that they're in violation of the ordinance they're   going to be given information about what resources  are available um if there is not a bed and the   person wants to go to a bed um I would think that  the officer or hot or a ICT team would work to   find a location for that person to stay and Sally  may have some other com Sally's shaking her head   um some other comments but but I think the first  goal would be to find that person housing if we   can and if the person wants to go um and then and  then the next step would be those cases where the   person doesn't want to go doesn't want to move  doesn't want to clean up at that point the   this ordinance will give those people that are  out in the field additional tools to deal with   those situations so essentially taking their  stuff and they're left with nothing to go find   somewhere else to go I'd like Sally to address the  number of beds that we're going to have in the Mac   because we do have an increase in inventory in  beds available um of course significantly more   during inclement weather both in the winter and  the Summer with the mac and the ability to flex   into higher capacity and and I believe and I'm  going to ask Sally to talk about this too that   there there are planned areas at the Mac for  them to store their things so so the the goal   is not to take their things the goal is is to get  them hooked up with the services but also allow   businesses and people to use the sidewalk to to  walk down the street so so we're trying to balance   those and and it is a tricky balance and staff  has worked really hard on this these aren't aren't   great you know Ma magical tools but they are tools  to try to improve where we're at now yeah my my   main reason for the question Sally as you come  up though is because the council will see this   before the Mac the full Mac is open so between  now and then what is that solution until then I'm   more comfortable with this in April when it's open  fully right now I have some concerns but it won't   be open fully in April of 2025 for sure um  actually it'll probably have reduced capacity   in April as the construction for buildout of the  Mac happens um we actually expect that that the   the capacity may actually decrease as of of April  1st so for this winter currently um we have space   for up to 230 people in beds um if the numbers  were to increase beyond that I mean we're really   thrilled with uh the work that Macau Gordon has  gotten done to get other areas of the building   sprinkled so there would actually be physical  space if we needed to put down mats at that   point though we would be challenged in operational  um costs because it would increase you know the   number of staff and things in new areas to have to  have more people um last year the highest number   we had was 192 on a single night um if we are you  know my expectation is we're going to see higher   than we saw last year we're seeing more people in  need um uh for all programs to be honest with you   uh as Co resources dried up so I do think we may  see more numbers than we saw last year and is why   we pushed to get 230 beds in the space right now  um and again uh if we have to go to mats we hope   not to but that's going to be a conversation  to the community to say hey demand is more   than anticipated we are going to need more help  to get this done the full build out of the Mac   isn't going to be completed till sometime in Hope  by the end of 2026 truly um working with the uh   uh construction company and our developer partner  it's going to be a challenge to be able to do the   construction of the facility while still serving  people for shelter and so it is going to be very   disjointed at times as we have to move people to  other areas of the building so that Renovations   can occur okay appreciate that I guess my  my concern is slightly alleviated with 230   but until the full buildout if we get to a point  where there is nowhere for someone who's unhoused   to go and get the help that they need because of  a lack of beds and we've now changed enforcement   I just don't know what that looks like but thank  you agree quick question for you stally before   you seated sorry I was just trying to catch her  was there any day last year where the emergency   shelter is beyond capacity no actually last year  we had uh capacity to 230 uh we had that many beds   192 was the max that showed up okay thank you  I appreciate that mayor K continue with other   questions this is for Sharon um process for seized  items all of that is new codified into law If This   Were to pass this is all new ordinances that  we would be held to a higher standard of what   we have to collect correct yes and it and it's  more transparent for the people whose items we   do impound that that they will be told the notice  is going to say contact ABC department at 1 12 345   um to get your things back and we have a more  more detailed process than we do right now for   those items okay and the notice will also provide  information about the location of the emergency   shelter or location of the Mac it it will provide  um uh information on homeless Services the hot   team as well as information about the mac and  how they can get Services okay thank you I don't   have any other comments I just want to say thank  you to all the staff um that prepared this I   think this is comprehensive I think it takes  everything I think it models compassion and   enforcement and so I just want to thank everybody  that worked on this and I think it's um a solid document thank you mayor um  Sally I sorry I tried to catch it too but there's any justice in the world I'd  be the one doing all those steps think I need   it more than most um C Could you um describe  the shelter beds open for uh people under 18   because they're not eligible at the Mac um also  shelter beds open for women's only or family as   well sure so um anybody with miners under the age  of 18 would be referred to other partners in the   community that serve families um that could  be Witchita Children's Home it could be St   Anthony family shelter domestic violence could  be Catholic Charities Harbor House or Witchita   family crisis center there's definitely still  a need for additional uh shelter and services   to families but we had to balance the ability to  serve individuals and the risk that that could   pose to children under 18 when we're not doing  background screening for people to actually get   into the shelter or are there any spaces available  I know St Anthony's is full to the gills family C   Center Family Promise has a unique U model  in which they work with churches that um have   sponsoring families that take other families in  so their their capacity really es and flows um   but they are the ones that are usually coming to  the table when the other shelters are full okay   and and that's just to elaborate a little that's  one of the concerns I have as far as doing away   with the um the the beds available to people is  that there might be people who are fling domestic   violence perhaps people who are escaping um the  sex sex trade um and they may not be comfortable   or willing to go to the Mac where it's men and  women there so I'm doing away with that and and   kind of taking away the ability for people to uh  wait until beds are open for what's appropriate   for them that is a concern of mine as far as  the um shelter beds go when someone identifies   that they're fleeing domestic violence or or  are a victim of trafficking we absolutely try   to connect them with those experts that understand  the the challenges associated with that so that is   definitely there's a ranch hope for women you know  Witchita family crisis center Harbor House those   are the better place for folks in those scenarios  to be than a general shelter for sure yeah and   I do appreciate the work they do it's definitely  needed I'm just concerned with the availability of   that's cuz again they're they they're full up  as well um already I know uh we had a case a   couple of months ago where it was a decent sized  family trying to look in vain to find somewhere   you know they had kids along with them so um  I'm just voicing a concern that that I do have   with that that aspect of the ordinance as well  often times people with children won't present   themselves to um to shelters for fear of having  the children taken away by DCF also so yeah we   have to be very cautious of that happening too  okay thank you um I don't know if this would be   a good time for me to go ahead with the rest of my  my thoughts or yeah go for it not a question for   Sally yeah more questions for Sally I think no I  had one question for Sharon actually um this this   is my last question I forgot this note on my page  for um slide oh I should have wrote that number now this was The Pedestrian safety slide uhhuh um  the pro the bottom Point Provisions are added to   make parents responsible for children violating  these ordinances so I was um excited it's not the   word eager to see this happen um just because I  see a lot of kids standing on Corners running out   into the middle of the street trying to get money  from Cars For Youth Sports or whatnot and I think   that's dangerous so if there is a team on a corner  and kids are participating still and running out   in the street to get money from cars and impeding  traffic are the parents of those kids who are not   present going to be cited for those kids out in  the street currently the ordinance is written that   it is knowingly so so we would site the parents  that would be on site okay and certainly if the   miners are running out in the street we can at  least at this point tell the miners you can't   do that tell the other parents that are there you  can't do that because yes I share your concerns   21st of May is a little kid's going to get  hit because they're running out in between   the multiple Lanes um and it's just it's not safe  yeah okay thank you I'm done now Sally I'm really   looking forward to the emergency winter shelter  opening up next week can you give us one more   time so right now how many shelter beds are  currently in the system versus how many will   be next week when an additional 230 beds will  be available for men or women over the age of   18 um I don't have the total across the Spectrum  number I mean we can you know humankind in has 60   beds that are available for men women children  families year round Union Rescue Mission they   say at this point their capacity is 40 but they  are very much known for putting cats down and I   think last I heard they were at 53 people staying  um at at the rescue mission uh Harbor House and   witcho family crisis center they're because they  deal with families and families stay in units   the number of people all the time is is varies  but then adding 230 beds is is going to be huge   absolutely um having beds available for women in  particular because as of right now if it's not a   domestic violence situation and there's no room at  the end um there's really no place for them to go   so uh we saw an average of uh one woman for every  four men last year which is an uptick uh over the   last 10 years really creeping up the number of  women experiencing homelessness um and those   are individual women not families because the  families come through a whole different um path   so now I'd like to ask a couple more questions  really now for Sharon it's uh regarding can   you actually go to the slide so that uh it's  the slide regarding illegal camping section 5.2.1 um so it says publicly visible locations  um I would say that they're Public Safety concern   locations rather than publicly visible um they  are public safety concerns in front of doorways   sidewalks uh underneath Bridges walking paths  biking paths bus shelters play grounds as well   as the Mac can you um address um is this  limiting to just those locations and can   you talk about how those locations will have  immediate uh cleanup the the immediate cleanup   is limited to those locations um there are  different feet ranges between the locations   um restrooms and bus shelters forever for example  have a much shorter radius we don't want people   camping or living in our public restrooms or  in the bus shelters um as you go out um Parks   um playgrounds it gets to be 500 feet um I  think we uh ended up with 500 feet for the   Mac um and and the process or the the thoughts  of that is and you are correct safety concerns   for U people utilizing those facilities safety  concerns trying to get in and out of a building   Property Owners rights and interests in in  having uh free Ingress and egress to their   businesses so so yes I mean those are areas  that there are public cons safety concerns   as well as areas that are more and and publicly  visible probably wasn't the best term but more   more likely to be used by the public than  the the trees behind uh a park for example   I just want that to be made clear that it was not  just being public but rather it's a public safety   concern and these are why those will be immediate  cleanups can you also address how that process   would work if we see a if an individual in our  community a neighbor sees a campsite underneath   a bridge what will the steps now look like if  this ordinance passes they would then call 911   I'm looking at eron they would then call 911 um a  police officer could be dispatched to would take   a report um if there are people there um then they  would be advised that they needed to leave um in a   lot of instances there aren't people there there  are just items there um then at that point they   would reach out to Parks or indicate to parks that  the area should be cleaned up Aon shaking his head   and and the benefit of those areas is that you  don't have to wait the 72 hours um previously   the hot team or whoever would go out post it for  72 hours they would come back you know four or   five days later more stuff was there or less stuff  was there um so so we're trying to expedite these   cleanups although I I would be lying if I said  it's going to be the same day same time we don't   have the resources to clean up what did Parks  clean up 8,000 campsites for the last four years along those lines I think what you're  getting at is is policy versus ordinance   right and ordinance obviously affects policy  and that was another part of the discussion   that we had as the group which is um we  wanted to draft the ordinance get it to   councel get feedback on the ordinance see  where the ordinance landed and then I think   everybody has an understanding uh all of the  parties that were at the table anyway that um   internal policies are going to have to change to  mirror the final ordinance so uh once we get the   ordinance approved and we know what's in that  ordinance then it becomes an internal matter   for us within our departments uh and to work  together to make sure all of our policies are   consistent in how this is going to be enforced  so that has been a part of the conversation as well and this question may be more for Bob if  that's okay um just and I don't want to get   too far in the weeds but you know it was brought  up we had what 8,000 cleanups in the last last   year which was and and I'm glad that it's on the  park and wreck website and and I appreciate that   and I'll make sure I let people know so we would  anticipate if this passes that we will have more   cleanups I would assume I think that's a safe  assumption yeah okay and so if we spent um oh   and I can't find it in 2023 178,000 164,000 so  far what will be the steps that we will take   to increase also the budget for this right cuz we  have more cleanups that means more budget item so   has that been a thought at all and and what would  be the plan for that yes the council approved 2025   budget anticipates a change in our approach and so  we are going to deemphasize the use of contractors   we're using contractors right now on a month  andm Monon basis and on an interim for an interim   period until we get all of the equipment that's  necessary for us to do City staff cleanups but the   Parks Department department will have a crew that  will be designated for the encampment cleanups   and that money is all Incorporated in the budget  we're just waiting I believe for the equipment to   arrive um we already have the staff identified  who will be part of that team and um so I'm I'm   not quite sure Reggie or Gary what the timetable  is on that but um if you remember we had several   pieces of equipment we identified that will  help us do a better job actually of cleaning up yeah uh We've uh designated a crew like Bob  mentioned that we're going to have four people   that's going to manage that process for us  so we're actually posting position this uh   month uh this week for those position with  anticipating have them on board in January   uh we work with Fleet Management Services  looking at getting the equipment that we   needing for that and we're anticipating  having that within the first quarter of   the month of next year and in that transition  and we'll continue to work with a a contractor   who's providing the service on E basis  until we're able to manage that process internally so we're doing this month by  month right the contract for cleanup still   yes that's that's correct so do we have it  up until December of 2024 we'll probably   use that contractor we'll probably use  that contractor into the first quarter   of 2025 we'll have a staff but we're still  waiting on the equipment can you tell us   how much that is um Reggie I don't know  what if you know what the monthly cost is running I'm not mistaken if Gary may be able  to verify right I think we have designated   right now $50,000 that we have that's up  to our budgetary uh spending amount uh   to be able to use for a contractor in the  interal so 50,000 for how many months uh   we're looking at the first quarter until  we get the month place yes roughly three months um last two questions these would probably  be for Sharon they're actually about the language   of the actual ordinance so on page five when  it's talking about it's just talking about   the Mac um and about the distance regarding  playground equipment schools it does list the   Mac as 50 ft of the building and property now  500 um at least my reading of this is It's item   number section four item number seven it looks  like um so when we're having conversations I'm   probably more comfortable with the 500 feet the  50 ft would be pretty close around the perimeter   and I think we've talked to the neighbors  and you know there were concerns about that   process so maybe at 500 feet to match the  playground equipment schools Child Care Facilities that would see one thought um we  we talked about that um and I think the goal   is that we want the people to come inside of the  Mac um and and I think we also need to remember   that this is camping you're still going to have  the option of people with their items wanting   to go in and from the Mac so so the 500 feet and  you're correct it's a huge lot so whether you do   the 500t from the building or whether you do the  50 or 100 feet from the exterior premises and and   that can be cleaned up um we we had multiple  conversations about these distances um and I   can work with Sally to see if if it should be in  her opinion more than the 50 or 100 feet I trust   your guys' recommendations there's five six  departments on this and so whatever you feel   comfortable I just know that was a concern of  Neighbors when they came prior as well and and   that was one of the reasons why it was added okay  um what was one from the public safety standpoint   into just just the neighborhood cohesiveness  of having that in that particular neighborhood   perfect I trust your recommendation um item  I'm on page six this would be section six   item C so it talks about in the event personal  property poses an immediate threat and then it   lists what items might be immediate threats so  blood body fluids feces urine what I don't see   on here and that I have seen at encampment  sites is weapons um just generally I know   that there's like a bow and arrow at one when  I walked by um that was just easily accessible   for anybody to grab when they walked and so if  there's a weapon or a gun obviously an abandoned   gun along the river I think there might be there  probably other laws that protect that too but I   would see that as a classification or C as well  yeah we would certainly if there's if there's a   a weapon um we would at that point especially  if it's a gun we would contact UM PD and they   would impound it so that they can do ballistics  on it to make sure it's not been involved in any   sort of homicides or through the be process  okay those are my only thoughts thank you any further questions for staff I see none  um again thank you so very much to all the   Departments who've been working hard at  this ordinance um this is a revision to   the ordinance that currently is in place and  I think it takes into consideration um both   compassion and enforcement and so I'm really  appreciative of all the staff who worked on   it mayor if I can make a comment oh I want  to address uh councilman Johnson's concerns   about not having enough room there's no way  if we have 700 people is that are homeless   there's no way we're going to do a sweep of  the city in in a month and throw them in jail   or or make them go to the Mac uh I've talked  to providers mean on the homeless task force   providers that's just not feasible it's going  to have to be a phased in approach um to keep   people in the system system get into housing  the big bottleneck is going to be housing that   that's all this other stuff is is something but  the big bottleneck is going to be housing um we   don't have enough affordable housing and and  that's where the emphasis really needs to be   for the council is how we figure out to get  enough housing for these people so um I don't   think we've paid enough attention to that and I  think we're going to uh have to and the sooner the better thanks mayor thank you council member um I  wasn't going to get into the weeds but the again   the challenge when I speak about beds is again  even if they're available we talked about this   earlier this year we had a young lady come speak  to us who work directly with unhoused folks um   not at a high level but on a grassroot level  and we also have to find ways to build trust   to give folks into the Mac so my question again  would have been if someone is unwilling to come   in because they don't trust it or maybe they've  been in the shelter before and some bad things   have happened and they don't come in where they  going to go what's going to happen now that's   something that will um generally be there no  matter when when the full Mac is open or not   but I just look at right now those concerns uh  to me from folks I've talked to and folks I've   seen are a real challenge I definitely agree with  housing we got to find something to do um with   housing and to get folks stable and into housing  but when it comes to too as this can be enforced   differently now um and there is no requirement to  have any space and no real push to that because   that's one of the things you could tell someone  is hey we got a bed for you right now now you   don't have to it's just getting things cleaned  up I mean even to the point of I know the mayor   said this another perspective on publicly visible  is we've heard from people who just don't want to   see it so there's the get this cleaned up now I  don't want to see someone unhoused I don't want   to see some of the challenges this country  faces we want to see everything as beautiful   and clean grass and everybody's got a job and  happy but that's not necessarily the case and   I think that again some of these changes I feel  and I get emails I've sent some to the hot team   recently from a few people in district one I just  think it's going to be more get all this cleaned   up we don't want to see it and then where are  these individuals going to go and I know that   our officers and hot team are compassionate and  park staff and mabcd but at some point with the   demands of people saying get this cleaned up we  don't want to see it what's going to happen it's   just a concern I have and I hope that um it's a  wrongly placed concern but I have a feeling it's not mayor I'll give a brief remarks this is the  number one issue that I hear from constituents   um I get a call about homelessness every single  day um and so as the emergency shelter opens um   I believe we should implement this as soon as  possible in January with an increased capacity   of 230 beds if we don't we're also going to lose  trust to the public and I think support for the   mac and emergency shelter that if we're providing  millions of dollars of resources for individuals   and they don't see a change on the streets we're  going to lose the trust of the public regarding   enforcement and accountability um I think we need  this for the winter months as well those are when   we talk about people dying on streets it's because  they're not in shelter space it's because we're   not in encouraging them to go to shelter space  and so I think that has to be Paramount in this   as well I went to I wrode along with the hot  team once maybe twice I went to um a couple of   the cleanups that they were doing as well and so  I'm very thankful that we're moving the cleanups   from contractors as much as possible to City staff  you know when I was helping out I was given just   latex gloves from a contractor I know that we're  going to be taking care of our staff when they're   out there cleaning the facility so I feel that's  a good move for the safety um you're deal with   with um sometimes things that could be dangerous  in cleanups so I'm thankful for that as well um   again I want to thank wtw Police Department mbcd  Public Works Park uh Parks law and housing I think   this is a collaborative effort and if all of you  are proposing this I trust that this is a solution   to the challenges we face um if we can get  everybody on the same page and propose this I'm   confident that this is a good thing again we're  adding 230 beds and instead of just compassion   and enforcement I think we should be talking about  compassion and accountability as well um allowing   people to live on the streets we're providing  a safe warm space with life-changing resources   is neither compassionate or Equitable for our  community and I think this is the only way to   be compassionate Equitable and see compassion  accountability so thankful for all the work   that's been done on this I appreciate that also  appreciate the the staff's work on this it's not   not an easy task I guarantee you um what I think  is important is to get and we got a 501c3 setup   for the for the mac and is to get that management  of the Mac set up before April 1st so get get the   person in place that's going to be in charge of  to start building those relationships to where   he can help help people like Patrick Murphy's  daughter Mariah um because right now that that's   very a loose a loose help um um to have a more  structured way to help that person whether it's   Navigators that are hired by the by the director  of the Mac to to help that process to move it   along I I think that's extremely important uh  I'm not sure we're going to have much of that   this winter it'll just be a winter shelter again  um the sooner we can get that management set up   uh get that person hired get that person to give  definite rol to all the nonprofits of how they   going to work together and integrate integrate  their services together I think that's going to   be very very important I think it'd be money  well spent to get that set up before April 1st if I could just if I could just respond to  that mayor um next week uh on Tuesday you'll have   an agreement with Mac Inc for operating assistance  the $5 million allocation and that will include uh   funds for administrative uh support to stand up  the the structure necessary to be able to to uh   operate the facility thank you do you want to go  you go back thank you um thank you again to all   the Departments who have been mentioned truly  appreciate it for everybody working on this um   I just just a few thoughts um and it's it's been  alluded to but you know I have people say to me   why would somebody not go to a shelter why would  they choose to sleep on the street when it's   freezing cold and and they don't have their  basic needs and and that's a really difficult   question to answer um because I'm not in their  shoes and people who are suffering from mental   health issues from substance abuse issues from  being a victim may not be able to make the most   rational decisions when they are you know in that  situation so while I appreciate this discussion   and I'll look forward to more and look forward to  hearing more from community members and talking   with my colleagues I just want us to manage  our expectations that adding the emergency   winter shelter with 230 beds doesn't mean that  encampments are just going to go away we're still   going to have it in our community and I think we  need to figure out a way to communicate to the   residents of witchta and our visitors what we are  doing but then also what may not be able to happen   um just another thought too you know we talk about  doing the point in time count and how many people   are identified on the street as being unhoused  but I think we often forget about the people who   are couch surfing or living in cars or those that  we just can't see um and so I hope that when the   Mac opens I I hope it's wildly successful but  not only the people who are actually unhoused   and you know living on the streets but I hope  we're trying to figure out a way to reach out   to all of our community members that the Mac  would be open for everyone um I think that you   know there's lots of different situ situations  regarding homelessness and and I'm proud of us   as a community that we're coming together with  the non-for-profit the for-profit public entity   with the city of witcha and the county hopefully  the state um you know everybody working together   the Private Industry that's how we're going to  address this but um it's a definitely not um an   easy solution and it's certainly an issue  that I think we're going to be addressing   for years to come but thank you to everyone  who's working on it and provided input for us thank you mayor um just a couple of quick comments  here um I appreciate the fact that the hot team   does have some discretion Vincent I love you man  um you are extremely detail oriented and organized   um I I appreciate that but I we can't take uh the  humanity out of government so I I do appreciate   that the hot team does have some discretion  about the proper time and place to enforce   some of these um I I just want to Echo my concerns  about the shelter beds um not every shelter bed   is appropriate for the people and again I keep  thinking of the women fleeing domestic violence   um also um the property concern I do think maybe  if we could come up with another tier for like   the straight personal effects like pictures maybe  that somebody's had for a couple of years maybe   their loved ones or something like that if  we can extend that for maybe six months or   so because we we don't know I think some people  will get swept up in some things maybe they will   get into mental health programs or rehab programs  and then eventually come around to missing some   of those items also birth certificates IDs and  whatnot if we can try and keep a hold of those   as we're keeping those okay yeah I appreciate  that um as far as the the fines and um possible   jail time I I would support that if I honestly  thought that was going to help get people into   the Mac I I have doubts about that that that will  actually force people in there I think for some   in our community that's more what council member  Johnson referred to just maybe a tool to actually   uh get rid of some of the blight they don't see  and I can appreciate people not wanting to see   it but um concern number one is just actually how  can we effectively change these people's lives who   are experiencing homelessness um one thing I would  like to look at I I haven't heard any conversation   I don't know if we looked at this in our meetings  or not but um possibly setting up a homeless Court   the same way we have drug court and mental health  court working with County on some of these um I   know some communities around the country have it  um this way it could be a little more effective   towards the needs of um the people going through  this process maybe there's some good ideas or ways   to actually get people into the programs that  they need through homeless court so um I would   like to kind of see any thoughts and ideas um on  that front and what that might look like going   forward so again I thank you staff um the last  three years I've learned that your jobs are way   more difficult than mine um we we get to be the  the face of everything here but you guys are the   ones doing the work and um I really appreciate  it everything you guys do so thank you just last   question really it's um either for Sharon or the  city manager what are the next steps then if this   is now discussed in workshop and you've gotten  some guidance from this Council what are the   next steps and when can we see this ordinance  come before us for a vote mayor um I think the   suggestions for refinement are minimal so um it  really depends on your wishes we could do it as   early as December 17th or we could do it in early  January so I'll speak for myself only um I believe   that by December 17th we will have two weeks into  the multi well sorry the emergency winter shelter   so it would be an appropriate time to bring this  up before the Council on December 17th the only   concern I have is I don't think you have a full  Council that day so I I'm more comfortable with   January since I I won't be present for the 17th or  I'll be joining remotely um but if that's the only   day that works for the body I'm plan on joining  remotely for that meeting so it's your desire we   we can do it as from 17th on I'll be absent that  first meeting in January my son's getting married   in Vietnam so 17th of I will not be joining  remotely I can make the 17th work or join remotely I would be all right with later  in January as well if that fits   council members glasscock  and Johnson's uh schedule so I think I'm leaning towards B I think  I'm leaning towards into January and and   the rationale for this decision and you know  I haven't had a lot of thought because we just   got asked but um just to see how the shelter  is going to see what lessons were learned um   how cleanup and encampments are going especially  with the new crew um I I think aing on the side   of having a little bit more time to to assess the  situation makes sense to me thank you I would say   January too is there a desire from fellow council  members to run this through our district advisory   boards just to to get comment from them as to  what what their thoughts are I've brought it   before my district Advisory Board in terms of what  they would like to see not the specific language   but these are reflection of what I've uh talked  to my dis revisory board I think people want us   to make decisions from this bench um and we've  talked about this for years at this point about   what people want to see in terms of ordinances  enforcement so I prer for a vote as soon as possible I'm I'm good either way I think  we'll get a lot of feedback at dabs um   maybe some potential additional revisions but but  either way I'm good as long as it's January or after so it looks like only Dalton  or council member Glascock and I and   I would J December would be better and uh  council member JV Johnston are asking for   it to come sooner rather than later  but it looks like we're now split we   need council member or vice mayor Ballard  to chime in because we're split three to three mayor we could always bring it  up on December 17th and the body thinks   there's not information it could be tabled to  a January meeting if anybody would want to do that it's your wishes so again how about this um  a compromise on December 17th can it be brought   up to us as a these are now the new changes to the  small changes to this ordinance I guess that's the   last meeting though right of 2024 right can we  chime in can we get a chime in from vice mayor Ballard we'll come back to this item sure  before the end of a workshop and I'll text uh   vice mayor Ballard to ask her when she wishes to  see this and she'll be the tiebreaker I think the   uh all just so that we understand the  alternative the alternative I think   is January 14th so it's either  December 17th or January 14th okay thank you mayor if you ready to move on  to the next item um Can Bob can I just make   one more question um either way is really like  I said if the will of the body is in December   I I can be flexible with what whatever I just  liked the idea of more data collection but if   it's December I'm fine with that too I  I didn't want it to seem like you know   it was a A House Divided if you will I think  we all know that it's coming and and you know   we we appreciate that so I'll be flexible  whatever is best for staff and for the body okay all right uh mayor the second  item that we have today is to bring   you up to speed and actually to also the  community on uh the current status of   um our water supply talk about where we are  with the drought and some actions that we're   considering to uh position us for uh water  supply resiliency uh as we go forward into   the future so with that I'll turn over  to Gary Jansen thank you Bob sh have this our oh hey again mayor and council members Gary  Janson Public Works and utilities I wanted to   provide an update on where we're currently at on  our drought Outlook uh where we've been recently   especially in in light of the fact we had record  precipitation in November that's brought a lot of   questions from the public and others uh including  are we out of the drought are we are we coming out   of stage two restrictions the answer is no to  both uh but I'll talk about that some more this   presentation you're going to see you've seen quite  a bit of this uh I made the same presentation at   the governor's Water conference a couple weeks ago  as part of a panel to talk about drop or long-term   water supply resiliency Statewide there was a lot  of interest in hearing what's going on in the witw   area in the region because most people don't  understand had not realized what specifically   is going on with us and the impact of the drought  on cheni Reservoir but I want to talk to about uh   some of our thoughts for long-term strategic  planning what the future might look like uh   regardless of when we happen to come out of this  drought you've heard me talk before about we   really need to change our culture of our community  going forward we need to change uh how we look at   water conservation and and probably never go back  to where we were so I'll just show this real quick   you're aware of our our water raw water sources  uh cheny Lake I'll talk about more in a minute   Eis bed's wellfield is still doing good for a lot  of the reasons we've talked about in the past I do   want to mention uh what a long-term strategy is  with ASR which is a big uh component of keeping   our EO beds in great shape and healthy we do have  some improvements to our local well field also um   right now there's some restrictions on how much  ground water we can treat I'll talk about um we've   talked mentioned this again about the value that  a new treatment plant brings we talked a workshop   with the council probably about a month ago about  the future of our current water treatment plant I   do have some information that we've put together  to come back to the council soon as we will be   making a formal presentation sometime in Jan  anuary about the recommendation for the future   of the plant which we talked about before is to  maintain that plant for Emergency Operations to   be able to bring it online within 24 hours we'll  have a more formal presentation on that soon uh   quick reminder we do still provide water even with  the new plant to 11 wholesale customers 500,000   residents that's one in every six canons uh cheny  pool condition in spite of the rain the rain has   helped right we've had some rains over the last  30 days November set a record for precipitation   the lake level come up almost a foot in fact just  a little bit over a foot but we're still 7 and   1 12 ft low so we've got a long long ways to go  um I'll talk about our drought stages in just a   moment and what that means we are still predicting  based on the current levels that we could reach   drought three stage three of the drought response  plan uh late next year but we don't expect to   necessarily see a lot of impact over the winter  but you never know last Thanksgiving we had major   snowstorm probably would have some impact but  we'll see what happens I noticed looking at the   uh cor of Engineers page for cheni even this  time of year we still see fairly considerable   evaporation that's impacting the lake level so  again the rain has helped uh every single day   that it rained we got calls we got media request  we're in better shape are we good are we going to   be lifting restrictions and we're not because we  just have so far to go to really make a dent in   this you've seen this slide before I won't spend  a lot of time on it we still get questions about   why do we don't go in and dredge cheny why don't  we make a bigger hole so that we can put more   water in it uh I heard Tom styles with kdhe  at the governor's Water conference talk about   dredging as a lose lose situation it's expensive  you've got to find someplace to put the material   it just doesn't have much impact the fact of  the matter is uh the city council and staff's   recommended investments in Watershed protection  measures over a lot of years have made a big big   difference in in limiting the sedimentation into  cheni Chen is fourth from the left on the amount   of sedimentation so there's really not a lot  to do picture on the right shows our dam uh I   talked before about one of the Silver Linings of  this drought is being able to make repairs to the   dam we had interviews for construction manager  at risk uh last week we expect to have an item   to ccel in January for approving that contract  moving forward as quick as we can most likely   by the end of January we still are a foot below  where we need to be to start the work so we're   in good shape at this point I know it's not on  here but I want to mention elero real quick too   Alero continues to be a question and just as a  quick reminder we've done numerous studies over   the years aler reservoir uh when when there when  we can get water from the reservoir is not when   we need it so when we get into the point of of  a drought where we really would need uh or could   use additional water Elder Reservoir is just not  available so it's it's not going to work now it's   not going to work in the future um people have  gone way back in time and talked about building   a pipel plane the return of investment is not  there mostly because the water availability is not   there I wanted to show this current Governor's uh  drought emergency declaration map uh in the last   week or two we saw some local meteorologists that  put out the What's called the US drought monitor   map which looks at numerous conditions across  the United States and the local weather uh men   meteorologists made a comment that Witchita is  out of the drought based on the rain that we had   you could maybe say that there's some conditions  with witto itself that are a lot better than they   were based on what they measure we're not out  of the drought comm's team did a good job of   responding saying that's not true this map I think  is very important because it shows that we have a   significant issue still here in this area one that  a lot of people don't recognize um you know I've   said it before through the course of this there's  probably a lot of folks in our community who have   never even been to cheny Reservoir which creates  challenges with messaging and understanding what   our real issue is it's out of sight it's out of  mind it's 20 mil away it's raining here we're   good that's got to be part of our messaging  continuing going forward everybody's probably   tired of hearing about cheni at this point but  when I speak about this in other areas including   we had a meeting at Wabba last week that I'll talk  about in just a moment I think there were some   folks that still didn't fully understand that then  our drought response plan I won't spend a lot of   time on this I think you're all aware that there's  four stages we're currently in stage two uh this   is as a reminder an 8-year plan this drought  response plan was put in place on the heels of   coming out of the 2013 drought it's meant to carry  us through eight years of a dust bow type drought   it's doing what we need it to do it's doing what  we expected the stage two restrictions uh have   provided some relief it's not meant to stabilize  cheny Reservoir levels it's meant to stretch our   supply over eight years we're confident it's  going to continue to do that it's working the   way we need it to I want to mention real quick  how do we make a determination of when we come   out of these stages quite simply the way the  ordinance is set up and we think makes sense   is we've got to be out of stage one for a 12-month  average meaning that we've got to be about 90% of   the conservation pool for the 12-month average  before we would come out of any restrictions   especially for the stage 2 reason being I think  you'll recall especially over the last 12 months   and and since last summer uh the lake level can  drop in a hurry it fluctuates a lot I mentioned   evaporation is a big deal even this time of year  even with the rains that we've had um I'm certain   that come next spring we're still going to be  in drought to Stage restrictions and so that   question's been asked a lot too the lake came up  where are we at it's really hard to predict uh   I'm going to spend some more time with staff in  the coming weeks and see what we can look at but   there's so many factors at play uh we've talked  before about the long-term impacts of no rain in   that Basin 600,000 acre Watershed that feeds this  Reservoir was so dry the first rains that we got   even the big rains all it did was start to bring  the moisture content up within the soil and there   was still no runoff USGS said that the runoff into  teeny Reservoir before these last range was the   lowest it's been in 57 years that's not long after  chy Reservoir was built so that's the challenge   we're facing So Many Factors so I can't we can't  stand here today and say when do we expect to   come out of stage two drought restrictions  but I'm confident saying it's not anytime soon um communication is still critical Outreach  is critical especially through the winter months   uh when water use is down water demand is down we  all know that regardless of the drought regardless   of anything the demand we've seen the demand go  back down just like it did last year we've got to   keep the messaging out there we keep referring to  save wistw water.com um usually we have a ribbon   across here that says we're in stage true drought  restrictions we will continue to do that we will   continue this dashboard to show the uh where  we're at with the levels at cheny but we've got   to keep that messaging out there over the course  of the winter we're going to continue uh to refine   what our future plans look like I mentioned a  meeting at Waba which I want to talk about in   just a moment uh as far as Outreach to others so  so what does our planning look like and and this   is where staff's focus is going to continue to be  through the winter we believe there's changes that   need to be made uh in perpetuity going forward uh  that that will not take us back to where we were   I think in 2013 we've talked about this before  that drought was effectively wiped out by two   major rain events I would guess several weeks  later most of the community uh acted as if there   had never been a drought we need to make sure we  don't do that we keep this to the Forefront our   ASR project I think you're all aware of and have  heard a lot about will continue to be um a major   component of our drought resiliency plan and what  it does for the ecos speds wellfield the picture   on the left shows the river intake structure when  the little Arc river is at a high enough level   we take water in we treat it we put it into the  aquifer we did operate this phase of ASR several   times with the rains which was good that helps  keep the aquafer healthy it does a lot of things   to keep the aquafer at higher levels for all users  uh it does a lot of things for water quality with   the nearby chloride plume it also helps us build  up credits for when we get into The Late Late   stages of a drought so it's been great for us  the other thing that we're doing uh especially   and working in coordination with the Bureau of  Reclamation they were here uh probably three   weeks ago to out some additional funding uh for  the recharge Basin Projects most of the water we   put back into the ground with ASR is done through  injection Wells not near as effective as these Big   Basins can be so these recharge basins are fairly  expensive that's why um we've looked for and were   able to receive support financial support from the  bo um they allow to speed up post drout recovery   of the equiped if there's challenges again it  keeps everything a lot Fuller for when we need   the water it also does a lot of good things for  water quality so um we had another opportunity   to talk to BR about something else that I want to  get to in just a moment while they were here which   was really good so this is part of our ongoing uh  resiliency plans always has been always will that   we're protecting our resources and protecting our  long-term water supply you know everything about   the W wit waterw Works Water Treatment Plant we do  have some water going through the plant now still   working on some functional testing getting pretty  close to performance testing working through a   lot of Kinks right now a lot of parts a lot of  things happening at the plant uh getting close   to being where we need to be at Staffing when we  come online sometime in the spring you've heard   us talked before about the flexibility that this  plant provides uh that we can treat more uh and   theoretically up to 100% groundwater you can't  do now it's not going to happen right away that's   going to be a slow process to get to that point  but we will be able to at some time take more   stress off of cheny as the drought continues if  the drought continues and start utilizing more of   our our water raw water supply within the Eis beds  so I going to talk specifically about a couple of   planning efforts that we're really uh pushing  on for the F for now and for the future that we   think can make a big difference uh when looking at  long-term water resiliency response to droughts in   the future we have a reuse feasibility study that  will be underway in early 2025 in fact I think the   RFP for this should be on the street in the coming  weeks it's going to look at direct portable reuse   more industrial reuse it's going to look at ways  that we can uh provide supplemental water for   irrigation into contractors I've got a map on the  next uh slide I'm going to come back to and talk   about that more the second part of this is to look  at Legacy Landscaping development practices uh we   had a meeting with which Builders Association  really good turnout last week development and   building Community there council member Tuttle  was able to join uh Scott W was there so we   talked about several things uh within our zoning  code there are some requirements for landscaping   especially with commercial properties and anytime  you have this similar zoning so whenever you've   got commercial zoning next to residential there's  a required buffer that includes Landscaping it   includes sod trees now while the city doesn't  dictate what type that is I think we all know   most people want to go with Fescue sad um and  things that take more water so one of our efforts   uh going forward is to really promote and find  ways to look at zeroscape type Landscaping we're   drought tolerant type Landscaping one of the we  talk about water use over the year approximately   20% of our total volume of water use is during the  summer months a lot of that is outdoor irrigation   we're not any different than a lot of communities  especially our size the majority of people's Lawns   are Fescue that takes a lot of water regardless  of what we do with future restrictions it still   takes more water than other grass types might  I ask the question of the development Community   if there's anybody that's willing to take on a  new development that they can promote is being   more drought tolerant and don't allow Fescue  s it's a quality of life issue they want they   know it's going to be easier to sell houses with  that but that's something we really want to look   at there's some communities that have done that we  can't go in overnight and change out Fescue yards   to Buffalo or Bermuda but I think we should take  a really hard look at doing something different   going forward there's more to come with that we  agreed to have a smaller group to discuss that   why we were there I'll tell you one thing that  was asked about continues to be asked about is   possible exemptions uh folks call and say I was  planning on putting in a new yard can you give   me two weeks to water it in our answer's been  no our answer is going to continue to be no I   told them I don't mind discussing it and seeing  what our options might be one item I'm going to   look at with you on the next slide may help with  that Community our size the number of people that   are going to ask for exemptions I don't know how  we possibly stay on top of that I'm not sure how   we enforce that without it getting completely out  of hand so right now we're sticking to that that   it's really safe to stay there could I just  make a real quick comment Gary so while it's   still relevant um this conversation between Gary  and Scott and I came when um we were in a council   meeting you know a couple months ago and um you  had done a presentation on the drought and then   you know an hour later we had a zoning change  and we were requiring them to plant just when   we told them that we couldn't and so I just want  to applaud Scott and Gary for spending time with   me and going through all of the zoning codes and  making sure that anytime there's a modification   that we can and then like Gary said last week  at Waba we met with Wabba before um with the   staff and then last week we made the presentation  there and I was pleasantly surprised how willing   they were to cooperate to ask really good and  thoughtful questions I think the idea of having   the small group that we're formulating with  them for early buyin is going to be critical   for this and it just reemphasized that this isn't  just something that the city of witchta can do   in isolation it's not the big CA of the city of  witchta it's going to be the little sea meaning   the community for us to be able to address this so  again just kudos to you and Scott and also future   Partners who are going to be helping with this  initiative thank you for that I wanted to walk you   through this map real quick this is the thing that  excites me the most about the future and where   where what we want to do uh potentially with our  own if we look at it with this reuse feasibility   study so what you're looking at here in the upper  left is our cin Creek wastewater treatment plant   right in the middle or you can see where which  Water Works for is a new water treatment plant   for some perspective right in the middle is our  water Center at Herman Hill Park which treats   groundwater contamination from Gilbert Mosley and  the North Industrial Corridor towards the right is   our Four Mile Creek treatment plant which we  took over from the county sometime back very   bottom center is our wastewater treatment plant  2 at the AR Kansas River takes on most of our uh   uh treatment over for most of the community the  core of the community goes to plant too so that   treated effluent what goes through those plants  collectively is almost 40 million gallons a day   we have the water rights to all 40 million gallons  more or less um we want to look at what we can do   for the future to utilize that better than sending  it to the creeks and and the streams right now   so there are communities in the country that have  gone to direct portable reuse which means they're   finding a way to take that effluent back to their  water treatment plan and treating it and sending   it to the system so I mentioned that we're roughly  40 million gallons a day we may not be able to   capture it all certainly that 26 million gallons  a day at the bottom is something we're keeping a   close eye on over the course of an entire year  we average uh treating and pumping 50 million   gallons a day to the system so you can imagine  the impact we start to have if we create that   supply for ourselves of any portion of this so  what our reuse feasibility studies going to look   at is a variety of things again direct portable  reuse finding a way through advanced treatment   processes uh to be able to take that effluent  that's going to the ark River or wherever else   maybe back to our treatment plant maybe we build  a separate facility down by plant two that treats   it and puts it back into the system it seems like  a long haul I'm just throwing you out the things   we're considering maybe we find a way to take this  W this effluent back to and put it in chy that's   a long ways to take a pipeline but the reason  why it's worth considering is because of the   advanced treatment requirements um it's a little  bit counterintuitive especially to a guy like me   who doesn't understand all the parts of this like  someone like Don Henry does but uh the effluent   the water that comes out of a wastewater treatment  plant is actually considered too clean uh for   portable use and so you have to remineralize it is  what they call it there's things that you have to   do one of the big parts of this is that we would  have to develop regulations with kdhe uh so that   that there are no regulations for direct pable  reuse right now in Kansas because no one has taken   this on we want to be bold in our approach and and  and look at everything that we can so again we're   getting ready to hire a consultant when we talk  to the Bureau of Reclamation I think they really   embraced this and we're excited to hear what we  were looking at they said funding is available for   both programming and for implementation so one of  our efforts with a consultant that we hire is to   help us find and identify potential funding and  what that looks like so uh bottom right we talk   about Spirit reuse you all heard me talk about we  have a contract with them that they can utilize up   to 385 million gallons a year uh million gallons  a day over the course of a year that currently   comes from plant two we will we will look at more  potential industrial reuse for water conservation   probably what will come out of this I hope in  the early stages which has worked well in a lot   of other states as a pilot project to see what  makes sense uh I don't know if this does or not   but you can see again in the upper left that cow  skin Creek plant doesn't have near the capacity   right now that the other facilities do but maybe a  pilot project to try to get some of that effluent   as reuse to which to Water Works maybe that maybe  we try that first I don't know but there's a lot   more to come certainly in the next 6 to 12 months  we're going to really push on this we're going to   be aggressive and try to get to a point where  we can talking about the Water Center in the   middle real quick one of the things that we're  working on there is to try to revise our permit   for that where that water can be used right now  our operations within Public Works and Parks   they use some of that water now for what they do  within their operations including some watering   of trees uh and Landscaping at least prior to the  drought we're trying to revise that at potentially   to where contractors in the community landscapers  nurseries Whatever May Al may also have access to   that water I mentioned that at the Waba meeting  I think there's some interest with that uh it's   not ideal but at least there an opportunity uh  to be able to provide a water source to them   so we're going to keep pushing on that kind of  excited about what's happening there there'll be   more to come on that last two slides I have real  quick is we're going to continue to look and see   what other communities have done city of Hayes has  worked through some drought issues for many years   now they've got permanent restrictions in place um  they they prohibit watering during the the heat of   the day during the summer at all times which is  a really big deal more so than most people would   realize they've got a deal that says you can't  wash down hard surfaces at all um I used to have   a neighbor I think that went out every single day  and hos down a driveway whether it needed it or   not that may not seem like much but I think what  happens with a lot of this is really changing the   mindset getting people to understand and recognize  that we've got to do something different going   forward and having some of these things in place  I think really helps uh we're going to be looking   at recommendations probably come next spring that  we think might ought to be put in place here for   witto City of Oklahoma City has mandatory odd  even watering that's permanently in effect they   had an issue one time with their distribution  system but also working through some drought   Oklahoma City now is watering every other day  probably not a bad idea the city of Denver it's   the last one I'll mentioned where Jim Jonas came  from over the course of a significant drought I   think they're down to you can only water three  days a week some of the enforcement becomes a   challenge but what I've heard from Oklahoma City  is they've done it long enough now it's just   become a part of who they are people abide by it  they do a great job with it uh so we're going to   keep looking at what others have done talking  to them see what's been successful to help us   out thank you that was a lot I think that's  all I've got for now be happy to answer any questions thank you mayor uh thank you Gary um  yeah I've chatted with um our sustainability   board members um specifically my own um regarding  a number of the things i' I'd love to see the gray   water water pipe extended um I think it's  interesting that there are no regulations   I guess towards it or policy as far as what's  a for it's not human consumption right like we   can't use that for human consumption currently  there are no regulations in Kansas for direct   portable reuse for human consumption okay well I  appreciate that that's just because no others have   taken it on yet but we're we're ready to do that  okay um yeah I'd love to see like you said uh 30%   I think of what Spirit uses as far as water use is  recycled water from our uh treatment plant too so   I'd love to follow along on the conversation  I think just adding more of the purple pipe   going through the community where it makes  sense um helping you know using that water   for car washes which already has to do recycling  but water our golf courses with it um there's a   number of uses I think that we definitely could  could um follow through with also they they had   pointed out with um new bills probably possibly  doing some tax credits or incentives for the new   builds and new developments uh to to format their  homes for future recycled water use if we ever do   get recycled water lined up to um any of these  new developments so that might be something to   look into is what we can do as far as tax credits  and incentives to um encourage that um two quick   questions um are the projections for the the  drought that we're we're possibly going into   stage three late next year does that in what  does that um look like as far as the what we're   planning with the new water treatment plan if we  ease up on the water coming out of cheny start   using the Equis bz more is that figured into  the the drop plan not necessarily thank thank   you that's a really good question not knowing  just yet when we can start making that shift   um again even if the new plant comes online  at some level this spring we're not instantly   going to we're still going to be running both  plants through 2025 for for a variety of reason   reasons so we're not going to be sending huge  volumes through either plant but it'll take   us some time to get to where we're we're being  able to switch over to more groundwater likely   that won't have an impact right now but as we see  where we get through next year that will start to   become part of our projections okay uh the second  question is do any of our projections um take into   account some of the surrounding communities doing  their own water treatment plants I know it might   be longterm but God looking at it I think Clear  Water maybe or I I can't remember exactly what   communities are so thank you for asking that too  because I actually had a note to mention that and   totally skipped by it right now it doesn't so the  two that are looking at it are that would impact   us that are currently our customers is Derby Derby  has pretty considerable water rights um and they   are working on a treatment facility that would  come online a couple years it would be primarily   for the peak demands during the high months they  they don't have enough water rights to come off of   Witchita but I talked about that's when we see the  most water use right that's the reason why we went   to stage two restrictions because of the seasonal  demands that would help considerably we don't have   that in our projections just yet it's several  years out city of Valley Center is planning   to build a water treatment plant that effectively  would come off of Witchita use we're still working   with them I had a recent meeting with them  they're looking at projections they don't have   enough water rights right now to fully come off of  Witchita uh we still need to figure out because I   think they need water going through their system  from us anyway the those are coming not part of   the projections yet from a conservation standpoint  uh it can only help okay all right thank you Gary   thank you um I didn't have any questions I just  wanted to say I appreciate the direction that   we're going uh looking at Water reuse because  I think witch should be leading on that which   I said at the steering committee meeting so uh I'm  definitely in support of continuing to work toward   that and maybe witch talk can help um design  those guidelines throughout the state and and   show um how it could work here in wiah and then  also um I think I said this at a workshop too but   I think that we should really be looking at just  conservation in general like you said happened in   a couple other cities and that's just kind of  how Witchita operates that way it's not a big   deal when we hit a drought because we're always  working towards conservation whether it's working   with Wabba as you were doing and continuing  to encourage people to use less water and more   natural grasses like I know I have some fescue  in my yard I plan to get rid of all of them like   green yards are great but keeping water supply  in the city is more important so I think it's the   more we can do with that I've sent some pictures  I took in other places to comms like at the Grand   Canyon they had water conservation on the little  buses that we were on so just all of that I think   is a good thing for which thank you I I agree I  would say Echo both my colleagues and the more   that which talk could lead on conservation efforts  the better so thank you for all your work while we   are on the topic of conservation I wanted to  know about the new water treatment plant and   the testing that will happen will there be any  opportunities to conserve that water or reuse   that water we tried and tried and tried and  could not find a safe and effective way to be   able to capture that water a lot of it has to do  with what's happening right now with uh continued   functional testing uh construction of the plant  is done but there's a lot of people on site a lot   of things happening um as we continue through  functional testing and adding some water to   the plant we came to the realization from a safety  standpoint from a security standpoint it would be   really really challenging to get anybody on that  campus on that site even if we could find a way to   capture that water it's also intermittent um so  the timing perspective would be a challenge for   us to be to know necessarily it'd be very short  notice this time of year too there's not a lot of   uses for water from a landscaping perspective  that's probably the last part of it it just   became to a point we couldn't find a way to do  it feasibly certainly without spending quite a   bit of money and getting very little return  so unfortunately we did not find a way to do that I see no further questions thank you  very much Gary thank you I have an update   uh from Council or vice mayor Ballard she did  respond back uh regarding the previous Workshop   item she did say that uh she's good with  either date and then I heard council member   um Becky Tuttle also say she's good with  either date now so may I propose December 17th thank you mayor we have two remaining  items both are planning items   and have been discussed previously  by the council um hopefully we can   push towards some consensus on both  of these and get something formal to you good morning Scott wle from the planning  department um on these two items uh I'll try   and keep it snappy on these so please stop me if  you got questions or would like me to pause so   the first one is on policy number nine uh we're  just here to check in with you see if you have   a preference on this one um the recommended  action right now is of course ask questions   provide feedback as always in terms of how we'll  go through it I'll cover all of these items I'll   talk about the issue the background current  practice and potential changes in terms of   the issue why is this item before you it's  because questions have come up in the past   about why particular items generally what are  considered non-controversial zoning items are   being presented on the non-consent agenda  and uh that has really raised the question   about should there be uh modifications to  policy number nine uh since 2020 there have   been multiple uh cases on the non-consent agenda  and uh in these situations these have occurred   because there's been one protest uh against the  application and in both in a lot of these cases   both the dab and in all these cases both the dab  and the mapc are both recommending approval it's   the same recommendation the sole reason why these  items are showing up on the non-consent agenda is   because of a single protest here's a map that  illustrates one of these situations here's a   single protest it's outside of the protest area  which is the outline in green around the property   uh likewise here's another property uh where  the protest was outside of the protest area   again causing both of these to be non-consent  here's an illustration from another case um   I know the map's a little bit different but  it illustrates the same point which is uh a   protest outside of the protest area so and again  the sole reason why these were presented on the   non-consent agenda so as background uh there are  two things to keep in mind here the first one is   policy policy number nine which is what we're  talking about the second one is practice and um   I'll go through what the difference is on both  of those policy number it's been in place for   quite some time it was initially first adopted  back in 1986 according to our records and it was   updated in 1996 so looks like every 10 years just  about visited but um what it does is it outlines   that it's a council policy uh to not hold a  public hearing considering an item which the   mapc has already heard so that's why the zoning  items there's that always that comment at the   end about Council policies not to accept public  comment at this um in addition it also has some   additional information about specifying uh what  information will be provided to you all at the   council what the appeals process is and it refers  to the cpos which are now dabs so it just goes to   show how long this has been in place now on the  other side though so that's that's policy number   nine it talks about uh that generally there's not  public comments taken at the city council level   the second thing that we have though is practice  um and it is a practice about what gets assigned   to your non-consent agenda and what goes on  consent there's not really a formal policy on   this so at this time anytime that a case receives  a protest or if the dab and mapc recommendations   are different then it shows up on your non-consent  agenda so potential changes uh potential changes   are outlined in the documents that uh were  included as part of this it's a revised and   updated uh policy number nine so first off things  that are being kept the same so uh what's being   kept the same or proposed to be kept the same  is that the public hearings would be at the   mapc and not at city council um given the length  of the mapc meetings I don't know that you want   to go through all that um a second time and then  materials uh the materials that we' be provided   to the city council continue to be outlined as  well as the protest and appeals process which   mirror within the zoning code so all of that would  be kept the same potential changes include the   following that it would be non-consent if any one  of the following was true that protest petitions   were submitted representing more than 20% of the  protest area that the dab and mapc recommendations   are different or if there's an appeal and this is  by the applicant so in these three situations the   case would be put on the non-consent agenda and  with a note that of course city council can always   pull an item off the consent agenda to place it  to to hear it um the another note that I would   make is that we're starting out we present the  20% threshold because that's what matches State   Statute in terms of modifying the vote that's  required for zoning case uh to be approved but   you could certainly that could be changed that  could be 5% of the protest area it could be 10% we   just started out with 20% for the case uh in the  case of discussion so it's very uh very uh just   it's a small PowerPoint um but that's our that's  the discussion at this point I'll stand for any questions uh no questions just a quick thought  um regarding the the single protest I I agree in   principle that I don't need anybody from District  5 weighing in on uh South which just District 5   for example uh weighing in on uh something in my  neighborhood however I do feel like there might be   a reasonable boundary to just to let that single  protest move it from consent just because it you   might be 300 ft away that still impacts your  neighborhood um so I don't know what the will   of the rest of council is on that but I do find  an appropriate that there might be an appropriate   boundary for the the protest and pull it from  consent so again just uh my my two cents on this   um giving people in the neighborhood a little more  opportunity to to bring this in front of council yeah I um I agree with my colleague on that I  I struggle with I think it's happened to me a   few times someone across the river submitting  a valid or a protest against a zoning item but   like council member H Heisel said I do struggle  as well as if somebody is within well you know   I've been pushing for a 500 foot notification  so if somebody is adjacent enough to it I do   think it it should be valid um and I don't know  if there's a way to I guess word that I mean if   it's something across the city I don't think it  should pull it off but I don't know if there's   a way to we can explore that okay I I probably  Echo both of them um if it's close yeah if it's   you know outside of it I don't really uh care as  much but I'm open to more discussion around that   uh dabin MPC recommendations are different yeah I  think that should probably go on there so so thank you and Scott the only time I've ever had  something like that kind of wonky happen   was when the item was in my district  and the person's business was next to   the zoning change but they lived in District  you know whatever so I mean we could go down   a rabbit hole with a million different  kinds of exemptions but um you know I I   just think it's an interesting discussion  to have and I definitely agree when mabc   and dab recommendations are different and then  for appeals so thank you I have a question if   a person's businesses next to it they can submit  a valid protest is that correct uh yes they can   it would be based on the property owner so as  long as they own the property yes sir okay I I   wouldn't mind maybe widening it a little bit EXC  over 200 but I don't think somebody a mile away   should have much say in it so especially when the  neighbors next to it don't have a problem with it mayor U Scott I think this dubils with your second  item too right in terms of the notification area   what council member Johnston just talked about  yes sir very much so yeah well if I may um what   I'm hearing I want to reflect back the what I'm  hearing to make sure I got it correct uh I get   the sense that um uh members are uh comfortable  with a policy like this but but they would like   to see it calibrated better to reflect that if  a protest is received in this within a certain   geography that's considered Near to the site that  then that would trigger it to go non-consent but   recognizing that on the flip side if there's  a protest that's received uh and it's further   away then it should not trigger it automatically  going to the non-consent agenda okay I can even   well speaking for myself more specifically I  would say if it's past 1,000 feet it shouldn't   if it's within 1,000 ft that makes sense  okay thank you all right thank you very much everyone are we ready for the next one okay well I guess that's what we have for  right now um we do have another PowerPoint   but it's quite large and it's not uh it's not  absolutely necessary that it be covered today   it looks like we don't have  that one available right now so okay I I do not I've got one  copy for myself I'm sorry if   there's not another one yeah let's  do it yeah I think we should push through Scott I think they're saying they like  the presentation even if you don't have PowerPoint   slides oh yes sir okay thank you um okay uh very  well so uh what I'd like to speak with you about   today is the zoning notification letters this is  an item that a number of you have seen before but   to others uh you have not thank you sir um so  there are a a number of considerations to be   covered with this uh the first is distance the  second one is recipients who receives it a third   one is the languages uh that are contained in  the letter and then the fourth one is the letter   content or even the letter format um last time  that we were here uh we received feedback to go   out to the dabs and collect uh input we've done  that it it was sometime earlier this year and   so uh I'm here to report back and also to see if  there's a consensus about how to move forward uh   interest in this has been expressed by members  of the witch independent neighborhoods members   of the public at dab meetings and also by council  members at some of the council meetings in terms   of process we've taken it to the mapc advanced  plans uh We've also taken it to the city council   Workshop in July of 2023 and then to the district  Advisory board meetings and the dab meetings were   held uh they were at the dab meetings in February  through April so earlier this year in terms of   our current practice there are multiple ways uh  that we provide notification about cases that's   done through the publication which used to be  in the newspaper but uh now formally online   as well as the note in in the paper um  emails which are a courtesy notice yard   signs which are done by mapc policy and the  letters which are required by State Statute   in addition we also post information  on our website in terms of the agendas   and information that folks can look up on  specific cases about where they are and the details in terms of the notification letter  um again that's required by State Statute per   state statute uh City cases require a 200  foot uh distance uh for those letters to   be sent in a County uh for a County case  it's a th000 feet in the city of witchta   the city of witchta um has a policy  that it varies between 200 and 1,000   feet depending on the size of the subject  site that is being rezoned and that yes sir um unfortunately it doesn't look like we have  the slides so um I'll do the best that I can to   illustrate that for you or at least describe it  okay yeah sorry sir um so for up to one acre it's   200 feet but if you go over 25 acres then it's  1,000 feet and the distances range from 200 to   350 to 500 750 to 1,000 ft in terms of the  letter uh it is sent to the property owner   uh and uh we also send a courtesy copy to any  HOAs or neighborhood associations that are in   the notification area as a courtesy now they  have to be registered with the city of witchta   and so they have to keep their information  up to date in terms of the addresses the   applicants are responsible for purchasing the  addresses from a title company that's done for   a variety of reasons um but is required as part  of the application form in terms of the protest   area the notification area and the protest area  there are two differences and I'd like to point   that out so there's a protest area which we saw on  a graphic and I think I'll I'll bring that up if I can okay so in this case you can see the protest  area which is outlined in green the notification   area is outlined in purple you can see that  they're different sizes the protest area of   course is required by state and um it can  change the city council vote requirements   so it can require you to have a six out of  seven vote in order to approve a zone change   the notification as you can see here can be  greater by that policy and it does not change   the vote requirements so that's the background  now the question that come up about distances   and how far should these notifications be sent  we checked in with other Kansas communities and   what we found and there's a list of at least  eight of them that we researched uh the major   overwhelming majority all but one of them send it  to 20000 ft they do not send it beyond that uh one   does send it beyond that and that is Lawrence  which goes out 400 feet we also uh did some   research uh to look at communities outside of  Kansas ranging from Kansas City Missouri fville   Bentonville Oklahoma City Tulsa De Moine West  de Mo Denver Broomfield so an assortment and   what we found is that uh the majority of those  cities send them a range of 200 to 300 feet an   outlier was Broomfield which sent them up to  1,000 ft and there are uh nuances to this as   well I won't go into those today but um there  are nuances to how each of those applies those distances so um what we did was we did a review  of possible distances and we took Riverside uh   the area near 27th Meridian and an area near  Central and woodlon to measure what would be   the effect of expanding the notification area  at 200 feet uh in one example 200 foot distance   resulted in 28 addresses that would be notified um  in if we expanded that to 1,000 ft it would be 344   addresses and the reason why is because it's  exponential because you're talking about area   not just a straight linear in terms of doubling  multiplying um likewise a similar thing was found   for the other locations that we looked at so when  it came to the cost implications for an applicant   when they go to a title company to request the  addresses is $175 for 10 addresses for each   additional address it is an additional $18 for  the planning department our costs are about $264   cents for every letter that gets sent out so the  cost implications of increasing the notification   area in these examples are as follows in the  Riverside example with 33 addresses the cost to   the applicant was $594 to secure those addresses  the cost to the planning department was $87   using that same example if we go out to 500 ft  it's 114 addresses it's $2,052 for the applicant   to purchase the addresses from the title company  and it's $31 for the planning department to send   those letters out if we expand that out to 1,000  ft it's 390 addresses at a cost of $7,200 for the   applicant to purchase the addresses and a cost  to the planning department of $1,000 uh to mail   those out and that uh that's just one example we  have three but they follow a similar pattern as   the uh increase in cost as you go further out so  uh on that topic so we took that out to the dabs   to collect feedback uh you can see the attached  uh minutes I think that was included as part of   your packet uh for this item the uh in terms  of the the feedback that we received dab one   uh was interested in seeing if we could and I'm  just summarizing very briefly here dab one was   interested to see if there were opportunities  to reduce the cost of notification dab 2 uh was   interested in increasing the notification area  at least some of the members of the dab uh but   it was a range of 500 to 1,000 feet uh dab 3  uh was interested in exploring opportunities   to set a minimum uh notification of 10 properties  and allowing the applic to provide the list and   then uh dab 4 was interested uh commented that  extending the notification areas are too cost   prohibitive and perhaps looking at a residential  or commercial two-tiered system so one system for   residential one system for commercial dab five  uh indicated uh members indicated they were   opposed to increasing the notification area due  to cost and uh dab 6 uh members commented about uh   increasing the distance to a 500t minimum so the  comments that we received were not very uniform   they were a variety of opinions and so hence why  I'm here before you just checking in to say these   are the comments that we collected and to check  and see if you have any questions or comments or   thoughts on that we also have that's notification  area I do want to note that we have who it goes   to what languages and other things but I want to  pause as we're talking just about distances for   this one so I'm still I'm I'm not supportive like  I said before of the Thousand just due to the cost   but I'm still supportive of the 500 foot CU I  think it reaches um a lot of the folks who have   some concerns that felt like they hadn't been  reached out to before my personal I'll chime in   I'm not interested in expanding the notification  Zone but what I would be interested excuse me   is if there was an increased cost I know we let  Property Owners know um and we offer the courtesy   to HOAs and neighbor associations but like a  courtesy to renters there's some people that   have lived in a rental house for 20 years and  well maybe it doesn't count as a protest maybe   they should still have their opinion made within  that area um so not interested in increasing   notification area but perhaps adding renters as  a part of that just for our curacy okay I'm I'm   the same same as councilman Glascock I think  render should know about it and I think the   posting of the signs allow the neighborhood to  know so I would not be it in favor of increasing it um thank you um I I dab Four's recommendations  is um kind of peing my interest here about doing   uh two different systems one for commercial  because I think that's more the concerns that   the neighborhood has um a quick question if we  went out to 500 feate or something around there   um does that make it more difficult for concern  residents to meet that 20% threshold good question   um the protest area would remain the same as it  is today that's established by State Statute so   we don't have the flexibility of uh modifying that  so just a notification just notifications okay um I also agree with my colleagues about the   renters getting some sort of  notification I guess with it this I think came before dab for um  I think it was looking at maybe the   commercial residential side not necessarily  opposed to that but the price jump is pretty   significant I'm just thinking of a let's  say it's a small business that's trying to   rezone $1,500 is still pretty significant  whether that's just someone trying to re   rezone a residential property or a business  property and honestly some of the Residential   Properties are rezoned by developers that  are looking at doing it opposed to some of   the small business resoning as an individual  looking at doing it so the cost probably Mak   makes me not as likely to do that just because  for small business a $1,500 increase is pretty significant I'll chime in I didn't  think we were talking about it yet   but also support tenants uh being notified  that's another concern I've heard over the years I I agree with my colleagues I don't want to  have anything that makes it harder to do business   in Witchita um I think we want to be welcoming and  inviting and you know anytime we have someone who   wants to invest in our community I want to be  as supportive of that as we can um I understand   you know some of the rationale and oftentimes my  dab has concerns that maybe you know more people   should be notified you and I talked about this a  lot Scott just yesterday A lot of the times it's   people's fear of you know what could happen or  what's going to happen when we really have to be   focusing on what's the most appropriate use  of the land and not all of the other things   that sometimes come into the discussions at my  district advisory board meetings so um you know   a little bit different philosophy myself than what  my district Advisory Board expressed but again I   just want to make sure that we're making it as  easy as we can to do business in the city thank   you for your work on this thank you I'll chime in  real quick um what I'm hearing in summary I think   is standing as is um but having the provision  of allowing renters to also get notified so   that seems like a compromise and I think a cons  possibly a consensus um of not changing the actual   feat but rather adding the renters and I would  also want to know what would that cost be in order   to notify renters that's a great segue into the  next item if if you're okay with that okay just   one more thing just to say it because this was  the main thing I've been pushing for years a lot   of the concern is just that neighborhoods feel  like they should know what's going on in their   neighborhood whether they're 200 ft or really a  th000 in this case I said 500 and the notification   historically until we change it hadn't went to  renters who want to know what's going on and how   their Community will be impacted and also if  there was some form of like a particular car   wash that came on Woodline where the notification  area did not hit any houses just commercial they   want to know cuz 500t would have hit them as well  that um these things are coming and how it imp   acts their Community whether they want to complain  or support it it's just the fact of knowing that   something new is coming and that has been a lot  of the concern and especially when there are some   controversial things if the will of the body  is not to notify more people than that is what   it is I will continue to say it should happen um  but I think we're going to continue to hear from   people who want to know what's going on in their  community and how their neighborhoods will be impacted so um with the topic of sending it  to uh the property the people who are living   at the property not just the property owner so  if the property owner is in Texas or Florida it   goes to them currently interest in sending it  to the property um what we found in doing our   research and cost is that it's an additional $2  for the applicant to pay to get the address of the   property not just where the property owner lives  um and also again uh that each additional letter   is another $2 64 cents we looked at a typical  example uh for for notifications that we send   out of 30 properties so 30 time two is another $60  for the applicant and for the planning department   if you assume that we would look at the addresses  and find out where they don't match and that would   be where we would send out additional letters  it wouldn't be for all 30 if we assume that 20%   of the 30 are renters then we would be looking at  another $15 $16 for distribution so the the costs   are a lot smaller than they are for a greater  increase in distance we uh did take this one out   to the dabs as well uh for comments um the it was  again it was mixed uh dab one uh mostly indicated   that they were in favor dab two had some members  that were in favor there were others that were   opposed uh dab three likewise had some members in  favor others opposed uh dab four did not have any   suggestions on this particular topic um dab five  was not in favor of notifying uh tenants and then   dab six also did not have any uh recommendations  so just so you know how it came back from the   dabs um at this point if there's any additional  questions or comments I think so far it sounds   like uh there's T seems to be some support for  sending it out to to renters as well okay um in   terms of languages uh languages is an interesting  one and it is currently evolving I just got some   information yesterday about this there were some  concerns about due process in terms of if uh we   were going to be providing information in other  languages would we translate it correctly could   that cause harm if we didn't get that right uh I  just want to update you that that conversation is   still ongoing um I will provide you with the  update from the dab but at this time I don't   believe that I have enough information to tell  you um one way or the other whether or not that's   an issue but we'll continue to explore it so I do  want to provide you an update to let you know that   we are working on it but it continues to involve  uh the feedback that we got from the dab is dab   one said uh please do use a translation service  so if someone needs to get the information it   can be translated for them uh dab 2 was in favor  of additional languages at least an informational   sentence to reference people to the correct  location to get more info uh dab three and dab   four had no uh specific uh suggestions dab five  was opposed they said stick stick with the way   that it is now and dab 6 was in favor of other  languages so again AC kind of across the board   on that one could I offer a brief comment on that  I'd probably be in favor maybe a language at the   bottom of how to find this in other languages um  because I know our website translates to whatever   100 languages that might be an interest because we  don't know what 100 languages it's being sent out   to and what home is speaking whatever language  so if we could have a link out I think that's   a way to still keep people informed I don't know  how you do that letting people know in different   languages that it may be available in their  language but that might be one way to do it I am um still in favor of witch to's top three  or four languages being used for the entire notification what would be the cost for  both your department and also for the   applicant um yes so for the applicant  uh unless there's a specific fee under   our current model of how we charge for cases there  would be no additional costs but there would be   additional costs incurred by the department for  that translation and it would depend um How We   Do It Do We rely on a service like Google  translate or something uh like that or is   there a subscription service that we would  uh subscribe to uh that would be something   that I'll have to look more into at this point  again it's it's evolving so we had looked into   it found that there were some issues but  recently have gotten some some different   information it's contrary to what we had before  so we're going to continue to work through this one are you ready for another topic okay this is  the uh last one this is about the letter content   so if you're familiar with the zoning letter  it's about three to four pages it has a whole   list of all of our zoning classifications it's  got a map of the site there's some really handy   information in there but I think uh We've also  gotten some feedback that there's some confusing   information in there so we have looked at  how to streamline that it's again still   work in progress we we're down to uh about two to  three pages uh includes uh content like a map um   information about the subject site and that but  we're trying to present it in a way that's more   easily understood I don't want you to have to  have a doctorate degree in order to be able to   understand what the zoning letter is trying  to communicate to you um we continue to work   on that um we did get some feedback from the dabs  that were generally supportive of it uh but there   was a specific topic that came up at the last city  council Workshop and that was the option of using   a postcard instead of a letter and uh we looked  into that and it took quite a bit of work to get   the finances on that one but um what we found  is that uh by looking at our averages and how   many we send out and also the amount of tax that's  included we discovered that we could only use the   postcard for locations outside of the protest  area for a case and the reason why is because   if you're in the protest area we need to get you  information about how to Pro test and some more   specific information it just simply would not fit  on a postcard so that kind of narrowed where that   postcard could be used then we ran the numbers  on what it would look like to order those and the   cost we came out with an estimated annual Savings  of about $1,600 and I want to caution folks that   that's what it came out with on paper if we were  to implement doing a postcard my concern would be   that those savings would rapidly be eaten up  by staff time trying to switch gears and now   we're doing a postcard over here but we're doing  a letter here so I I just want to caution that I   think the numbers are so close that I don't have  a lot of confidence that we would see ultimately   savings out of that but I do want to let you know  that we we looked into it we explored what other   communities are doing we did not find another  city we found one that was doing postcards and   again that was Broomfield Colorado but it was  only in special circumstances they don't do it   as a standard practice so my wrap up on that is  um we're looking into uh streamlining our letter   making easier to understand we're still working  progress on that and then number two we looked   into the postcard and again some cautions about  what we found out with the numbers uh would that   postcard would that apply to the um the applicant  as well with what they would send out um for them   so for them there would be no change because  it would still be providing us with the with   the addresses um what would change though is our  cost to distribute it because the printing costs   are slightly lower if we're printing in a high  volume of postcards as well as the mailing cost   uh to get it distributed so there's no savings  for the applicant no not for the applicant if   we expanded it to like let's say 500 ft would  there be savings on that for the applicant or   is it strictly inhouse it's strictly inhouse  yes sir okay appreciate it Scott I would defer   to your judgment you're in the trenches every day  so you know how things work so I I would probably   concur that that there won't be any savings and  just harder for your staff to manage it so thank you and that's all so we had those uh topics  so thank you very much for your time and the input mayor that's all we have for  Workshop okay so we have executive   session now so I will read oh excuse  me excuse me once more mayor if we   could um this might be a good time for a brief  recess before so we can get set up um if you   want to give yourself 10 or 15 minutes that'd  be fine to re 10 minutes and then 10 minutes   so to recess and then we'll come back and then  how about we return at noon that's fine you can   make a motion after the recess okay thank  you we'll return at noon after this little break e