>> jennifer, would you please call roll?
>> thank you, mayor. Council member handley. >> here. >> council member iterish?
>> here. >> council member charlton? >> here. >> council member nix. >> here.
>> council member arroyo? >> here. >> council member williamson is absent.
council member denny is absent. Council member harran? >> present.
>> mayor sayers is present and presiding. >> thank you, jennifer. Any corrections to the draft minutes of the august 5 city council meeting?
hearing none, I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes. Motion by courtney. Second by john michael. All in favor.
>> aye. >> those opposed. Minutes are approved. Jennifer, any modifications to the agenda?
>> none this evening. >> thank you. >> we have one proclamation this evening and is
national fentanyl prevention and awareness day. We're going to have a group come down to join me at the podium here.
kathy moffatt, paul davis from johnson county med act, chief vaughn,
chief lehman, jason hingle from the police department, and council member nix.
>> hello. We'll take the picture all right here after I read it.
whereas fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid taking lives every day,
often without warning, and can affect anyone, family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers, and whereas one fake pill,
often disguised as a legitimate medication, can kill, making fentanyl poisoning
one of the most urgent public health threats of our time. Whereas the victims of fentanyl poisoning include children,
teens, young adults, and seniors, leaving lasting heartbreak in families and communities,
and whereas education, awareness, and access to lifesaving tools like narcan say it for me.
narcan are critical for preventing deaths and empowering bystanders to save lives.
whereas august 21 is a day to honor those we have lost, support the fighting to prevent further tragedy,
and to unite our community in the fight against the fentanyl epidemic. Now, therefore, I, julie sayers,
mayor of lenexa, kansas, to hereby proclaim august 21, 2025,
in the city of lenexa to be national fentanyl prevention and awareness day.
>> thank you. >> you're welcome. You have a few remarks?
>> this is fun. [laughter] in our youth,
we've all done something stupid, and I think we can all remember that moment,
and somehow we managed to survive it. We just want our kids to survive, stupid.
we've had over 149 drug deaths in johnson county,
and that's only between 2018 and 2022.
we can do so much more. Narcan availability and communication are our best friends.
signs in the drug stores, just on the front door, saying,
we have narcan would be a wonderful thing, just as a reminder to people.
making it readily available to our youth.
they're the ones that are going to be our heroes, unfortunately,
and to give them a chance to embrace narcan, carrie kool is going to be a big deal.
they need to become our heroes and support one another.
the dea has a faces of fentanyl wall in arlington,
virginia, and it has 7,000 faces on it.
I wonder what would happen if we had posters here for
our faces of fentanyl and put them in all the high schools.
I wonder if it would make a difference to just one.
I'd like to see tougher laws and particularly for repeated offenders.
if somebody is selling illegal drug and one person dies,
and they keep selling it, and another dies, and they keep selling another dies.
I'd like to see them charged as a serial killer because that's what they are.
we do have examples of that, but the laws don't support charging them as a serial killer.
I think if we make our laws tougher, it will make a difference.
thank you so much for your support, and we live in a great community that can do so much more for our community. [applause]
>> mayor, council members, members of the community. Thank you for your leadership here in raising awareness about the dangers of fentanyl.
on behalf of johnson county med act and our ems system partners, including the lenexa fire department,
I want to reaffirm our commitment to responding quickly to opioid overdoses,
engaging our community in prevention, and expanding access to life-saving naloxone,
including leave behind kits for families. Earlier this year, med act helped advance house bill 2579,
which was signed into law, which now allows emts and paramedics to distribute naloxone directly to those in need.
to our community paramedicine program, we are also ensuring patients receive follow-up care,
connections to resources, and compassion outreach to reduce repeated overdoses.
johnson county is leading the way regionally with youth focus campaigns,
freedom naloxone access libraries, and by aligning with national best practices to stay ahead of this crisis.
together with our partners, the lenexa fire department, and our other ems system partners,
we will continue working to ensure our patients have the best possible outcomes and that
our community remains safe and healthy. Thank you. [applause] [background]
>> next, we have the consent agenda. There are three items on tonight's consent agenda.
matters listed in the consent agenda are considered to be routine, will be acted on collectively with no separate discussion.
an item can be removed from the consent agenda for separate discussion by a member of the governing body,
city manager, or a member of the public in attendance at the meeting. In the event an item is removed from the consent agenda,
it can be placed on the regular agenda. Does anyone wish to remove an item for discussion?
hearing none, I'll entertain a motion to approve items 1-3 on the consent agenda. Motion by bill.
>> second. >> second by melani. All those in favor. >> aye. >> those opposed. Consent agenda is approved.
item number 4 is a consideration of
tax abatement and issuance of industrial revenue bonds for lenexa logistics center east, building 1, located at the southeast corner of 116th and rener boulevard.
item 4a is a public hearing to consider the exemption from valorm taxes for the property financed with irbs.
item 4b is a resolution determining the intent of the city to issue approximately $9 million in
irbs and approving a 10-year tax abatement with the payment in lieu of taxes agreement. Sean.
>> good evening, mayor and council, sean mclaughlin, city attorney. I'm here to present on
the proposed tax abatement and bond issues for lenexa logistics center east, building 1.
as was stated in the packet memo, this is the final building in lex logistics east business park development,
so I thought I would start by giving a little background on how we got here. This was done all under a master resolution that was approved in
2019 to develop the 80 acres east of rener boulevard.
the master resolution terms included four buildings and infrastructure,
a 10-year fixed abatement, as well as an effective abatement of 71% for each building as they came in.
including tonight's building, the total capital investment at this point was approximately 72.5 million.
specifically, on lenexa logistics center east building 1,
it's an approximately 50,000 square foot commercial office warehouse facility.
they're proposing nine million in irbs. The fixed abatement is based off $1.20 square foot
with a 71% effective abatement over the 10-year term, which would equate to approximately
191,000 in total pilot payments over that 10-year term.
this was staff for you only. It did not come to you for a while, so I am providing just a picture looks generally like
the other buildings and similar contractors and consultants who we are used in that.
with that, I am happy to answer questions, but staff does recommend approval of the resolution, as well as the abatement.
there are representative for the applicant as well. Should you have questions for them?
>> any questions or discussion before we open the public hearing? I will open the public hearing.
if anyone present would like to speak on this item, please come forward to the podium, sign in, state your name and address for the record.
seeing none, I will entertain a motion to close the public hearing.
motion by john michael. Second by courtney. All in favor? >> aye.
those opposed, public hearing is closed. Any additional questions or anything from
the applicant before we start voting on the items? No, you guys are good. Any comments from the council?
entertain a motion to adopt the resolution determining the intent of the city to issue
approximately $9 million in irbs and approving a 10-year tax abatement with payment in lieu of taxes agreement.
motion by chris, second by bill. All those in favor. >> aye. >> those opposed. Motion passes.
does that cover all parts? Thank you very much.
>> item five is consideration of an ordinance vacating two sidewalk easements located between lots 51 and
52 of canyon creek forest subdivision and within tract a of the wheatley point west subdivision.
item 5a is a public hearing to consider vacating the two sidewalk easements.
item 5b is an ordinance vacating the sidewalk easements. Stephanie.
>> good evening, mayor and council. Stephanie sulvan, with the community development department.
as mentioned, item number 5 is a vacation request for a sidewalk easement.
[noise] I'll just really use this graphic from our packet to explain the request.
basically, what happened with the sidewalk is that in canyon creek forest,
which is the subdivision here on the lower left part of the screen,
a sidewalk easement was platted on private property for lot 51 and lot 52,
so it is not what we would typically see, like in a tract that's controlled by the hoa.
it was actually platted on these two private properties, split through what that property line would be right in the middle of lot 51 and lot 52.
later on, wheatley point west here along clare road came along and staff opted
to have them plat a sidewalk easement within an hoa tract because that's our typical practice,
and basically, this tract a sidewalk was going to connect through
lot 51 and lot 52 of canyon creek forest to provide access from canyon creek forest over to clare road,
and you can't see it on this area here, but there's a sidewalk there now.
the prospective buyers of lot 51 and lot 52,
in conjunction with the developer of wheatley point west, have petitioned to vacate the sidewalk easement.
the potential owners of lot 51 and lot 52 have some concerns about having that sidewalk for public access on their private property,
and from this experience, ford staff has not been putting sidewalk easements on private property like this,
instead, we've been putting them within tracks that are maintained by hoas. It's a little bit of a private property type situation with the sidewalk easement here,
and so they are looking to vacate that, and staff is supportive of that vacation request.
as mentioned in the memo, it has met all four of the criteria for a vacation,
as you see on the screen. Staff did provide responses for each of those criteria.
for a vacation request, we do have to conduct a public hearing. I do want to note that,
as per any easement or vacation request, we have contacted all of the utilities that serve lenexa.
we have not received any issues from utilities with this sidewalk vacation request,
and because of that, and the reasons within the application and your memo, staff does recommend approval of vacating the sidewalk easement.
that concludes my presentation. >> any questions before we open public hearing? Go ahead.
>> can you remind us when the canyon creek forest was developed?
>> I do not know that off the top of my head, but I can look that up for you.
>> thank you so much. >> I will now open the public hearing.
if anyone present would like to speak on this item, please come forward to the podium, sign in, state your name and address for the record.
seeing none, I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing.
motion by courtney, second by melani. All in favor. >> aye.
>> those opposed. Public hearing is closed. Any other questions or comments? Well, go ahead.
>> I was just going to respond to council member arroyo's question. Canyon creek forest was rezoned in 2020 and the first plat approved in 2021,
a second plat approved in 2024, so it's been roughly the last five years and still under development.
>> something down there? >> not a question, more of a comment.
I think it absolutely makes sense. It's outside of our standard practice.
it is disappointing that then everyone who lives on that cul-de-sac,
and everyone further south on 98th place, has to go all the way around to get to clare.
it's unfortunate, but it's the right thing to do so as long as that's something that we're paying attention to in the future,
I'm absolutely in support. >> thank you, john michael. Anything else?
I entertain a motion to pass the ordinance vacating the sidewalk easements.
motion by mark. Second by bill. All those in favor? >> aye.
>> any opposed? Motion passes. Item number 6,
we have old business. We'll hear from staff regarding fiscal year 2026 recommended budget.
>> good evening, mayor and council [inaudible] with the finance department.
>> I have a few slides for you with an update on the fiscal year '26 recommended budget.
just briefly talk about the update, few comments on sales tax revenue,
and then briefly talk about next steps as well. As always, any time we're discussing the budget,
I'd like to bring up the budget principles. I'm not going to go through these. As you've seen them several times before.
I will note that the first one that we fund ongoing operating expenses with ongoing revenue sources,
and then we use a conservative approach revenue estimating, second from the bottom,
are directly related to some of the topics we'll cover tonight.
as far as the update for fiscal year '26 recommended budget,
if you remember back on june 24th, our preliminary recommended budget, budget overview presentation,
we included a 26.459 mill recommended mill levy.
that's a half mill reduction, which is our initial target in the budget year.
then on july 15th, after human resources and lockton got done with our mini compensation plan.
it was adopted by council. It did come in under budget for fiscal year '25.
that is an ongoing expense paid for with ongoing revenue, so it will impact 2026.
as staff has stated, if the market does not justify using the funds for compensation,
we'll bring back a recommendation for you all. The savings are equivalent to approximately a quarter mill in 2026.
as of tonight, we're proposing an additional quarter mill rollback for 2026,
and the recommended mill would be 26.209 mills three quarter mill reduction.
this is what staff is planning on bringing back to you all on september 2nd.
this does not hold you to anything. It can still be adjusted at that date during the public hearing.
I did want to point out a couple of direct impacts we've had this year that have directly impacted the mill levy reduction.
I just talked about personnel cost savings of the quarter mill. We also had three abated properties that returning to the tax rules.
they are generating about $450,000 to the city.
just the city portions, 450,000, again, it's about a quarter mill in 2026.
like looking at other revenue and new growth throughout the city, additional 0.25 mills is recommended for the three quarter mill reduction.
we are keeping an eye on some impacts potentially to
the budget over the past the state legislation,
negatively impacting revenues over the past few legislature sessions.
there's been several bills that would have impacted our ability to raise revenue,
whether it be property taxes investment income. There were some sales tax impacts a couple of years ago.
we do anticipate some of those being brought forward in the next session. Federal tax and trade policies, trade.
we haven't really seen anything with the tariffs yet. We haven't built anything into the 2026 budget.
if that were to impact us later on, we would make adjustments within the budget, but it could potentially have an impact.
as far as federal tax law, every so often, the mini bonds tax exemption gets brought up,
and that would severely impact us and some of the capital projects that we're able to do if that passed.
looking at debt financing for required capital projects. If you remember in our recommended budget,
the debt service fund expenditures are exceeding revenue for the full five years,
and that reverts where revenue exceeds expenditures in the out years.
that's purposeful. We are spending down reserves for the next five years.
but that does take up a lot of our debt financing capacity and we have several major road projects in the tens of millions of dollars,
83rd street, 91st and canon creek boulevard. We also have some public safety needs as well,
and leading into the county sales tax renewal, we generate about $2 million annually that we receive our share of that sales tax.
obviously, there's going to be election this fall, that was moved to next spring, pending some litigation.
if that does not pass or does not go through,
that would impact our budget next year, and then going forward as well.
obviously, the sales tax ends in 2027, march. But then as far as planning for future years, that would impact us.
we have to look at other revenues to pay for some of the public safety projects or possibly even delay them after next year.
looking at our property tax rate since 2018,
we were at in 2018, we're at 31.832 mills.
the original 2026 proposal had us at 26.459 mills,
and then the additional 0.25 mills proposed tonight would bring us to 26.209 mills.
cumulative mill levy reduction since 2019 would bring us to with the additional quarter mill would bring us to 5.623 mills,
so significant decrease since 2019, with the value of 1 mill being approximately 1.89 million,
that value of deferred revenue that we've given back taxpayers is 10.6 million.
that is not one time, it is annually. As our assess valuation grows with new growth,
and a lot of new development, that number continues to increase.
each year, becky and I meet with our peers across johnson county,
discuss some of the proposals for each of the cities in johnson county for the next budget year.
we did that in july, so the mill levy shown here or as of july 2025.
obviously, we've adjusted ours. Again. You'll see 26.209,
is a full 0.75 mill rollback we're proposing tonight places us about median in johnson county.
far as mill levy. Several of these cities do not have a fire department,
but they do use a consolidated fire district, which has a mill levy.
we have added the city mill levy and the district mill levy where applicable.
well, next is one of four jurisdictions in johnson county planning to lower to the mill levy in 2026.
I believe there's two cities that are increasing it for 2026.
we have the largest rollback aside from desoto. Obviously, there are some structural changes there with the panasonic plant.
aside from desoto, we have the largest mill levy rollback for 2026 in johnson county.
I will note that all jurisdictions, even desoto, with the larger mill rollback are
exceeding the revenue neutral property tax rate for 2026.
just a quick snapshot. There's a lot going on on this slide.
the left hand tax value illustration is a snapshot from our budget book as posts line from last year.
the average lenexa of home value is 467,000.
the one on the right is a tax value illustration for 2026 estimate.
the average lenexa of home value about 493,000. That includes new and existing homes as well.
typically the newer homes skew that average up a little bit. But the average lenexa taxpayer will see an impact with the 0.75 mill
rollback of about $2.98 or 2.46% over last year.
what that does to our property tax revenue. The original projection was about a little over 5% increase to about 50 million.
it lowers it, we're about 4.2% increase over last year, including new growth,
which was about 30% of total assess valuation increase, and we're at 49.5 million,
almost exactly 2 million over last year, in addition to last year.
the property tax revenue is split between the general fund and debt service fund,
40.9 million going to the general fund, and then 8.6 million going for the debt service fund.
here's a general fund breakout. Since this mill levy rollback,
additional 0.25 mills is tied to cost savings in the personnel line item.
it's coming from the general fund. You can see that personnel services are going up just over 4%.
that includes the 6% compensation pool allocated for next year.
it also includes estimated vacancy savings. It also includes the budget savings that we
experienced this year carried forward into 2026.
just over a 4% increase. I think it's gotten lost in a lot of the discussions we've
had over the budget process over the last couple of months, total expenditures and transfers,
that's the amount where we expect to spend and transfer out of the general fund next year going up 1.14%,
so a very marginal increase over last year. As you know, the state requires us to budget reserves as we're expending them.
if you add those in there, it would be 2.42% increase over last year,
still below current inflation rate.
>> nate, there was a question at one of the meetings about that vacancy rate.
can you clarify that point, please? >> the vacancy estimate? We look at some of our major departments that have
quite a few employees or fte within the departments. We're looking at pd.
we're looking at fire parks, municipal services and comdev.
we're essentially estimating a 3% vacancy rate for the year.
we take that out of their budget. The total dollar value of that estimated vacancy savings is about 1.7 million.
the reason we do that is so that it doesn't fall to fund balance at the end of the year,
because we can't really control our vacancy rate too much,
especially in public safety. Since we don't have a whole lot of control,
we're trying to estimate that and reduce the amount that falls to fund balance at the end of the year.
>> thank you. >> that's all I had on the quarter additional quarter mill rollbacks.
is there any other questions related to that? I can answer at this point before I talked about sales tax.
>> yeah. >> nate, you said we have some abated properties returning.
is it typical that we have properties returning every year?
>> it depends on the year. We're going to be starting to see more of those because typically they're anywhere 5-10 year abatements, I believe.
we're going to start seeing a lot more of those. The properties that we invested in
a decade ago are now going to be coming back on the tax roll. We should start to see quite a few more coming on in the near future.
>> thank you. >> other questions? Oh, mark.
>> nate, are you still going to be continuing to evaluate, tariffs and stuff to see if sales tax projections are going to be increasing,
and when is a deadline where can we do anything further with any reduction because of that?
>> I'll actually get to that here in a second. If you don't mind, I'll go through a couple of
slides and I'll try to answer your question. That'll you're fine. Any other questions?
just a reminder, when we talk about sales tax and
our conservative estimates for the fiscal year '26 budget, we get sales tax revenue from three revenue sources.
the city's general sales tax, we also have the city's 3/8 cent sales tax that was recently renewed by voters,
and then we have our share of the county wide sales tax.
those all go into the budget estimate that you've seen on our slide and in our budget documents and budget presentations.
as you know, the city's 3/8 cent sales tax is dedicated solely to parks and pavement.
literally, it comes into the general fund, and it goes right back out, doesn't stay in the general fund.
it's not used for general fund expenditures. It's used for parks and pavement.
same with the county's public safety sales tax three.
it's dedicated to the justice center project. Again, it comes through as a revenue and sent our projections for the general fund,
but then immediately gets transferred to those projects.
we also have the city share of the county wide sales tax, and that's based on a state formula that uses population for one portion of it,
roughly half, and then property taxes levied for the other half.
it's basically our population compared as a percentage of the total johnson county population.
as cities fluctuate, it can change a little bit. Same as property taxes levied,
it's basically our percent of property taxes levied compared to all of johnson county,
and we get a certain percentage. That's how we get our sales tax allocated to us. Population has been fairly static.
we've been growing over the last couple of years, along with most of johnson county.
property taxes, on the other hand, you saw the 5.63 mill reduction since 2019, including 2019.
what that's done is it has lowered our percentage as
far as our total percentage compared to all of johnson county.
a couple of years ago, we were over 9%, so we had received approximately 9% of the county wide sales tax.
through the end of 2024, we were down to 7.2%.
as we continue to lower our mill levy, we obviously reduced our property tax revenue,
but it has impacted us from a sales tax perspective too.
at the end of 2024, both the counties, our share of the counties, sales tax, and use tax did not come in year over year,
so it was actually down at the end of 2024, and that was mainly due to our reduction
as far as our property taxes levied compared to everybody else. I'm looking ahead to 2026.
if you look at your property tax estimate that you've received in the mail,
you'll see that johnson county is showing a 6.5% increase and taxes levied next year.
there'll probably be some fluctuations with appeals and everything when we get to november.
we're showing the 5.2%, which is a half mill rollback,
since we're rolling back another quarter mill, that'll be in the low fours.
we're losing ground as far as a percent of total property taxes levied in johnson county compared to other jurisdictions.
obviously, the county is the largest. They get about 50% of that. Where we are compared to them.
that is before any increases or fluctuation with sales tax in general,
but it did affect us quite a bit in 2024. It's one reason, a little cautious about we do show
an increase in the county sales tax for 2026, but it is a little bit less than what johnson county
is projecting for their sales tax, and that's the reason why.
>> just a couple other points. I just wanted to highlight why we use conservative sales,
and use tax estimates. Obviously, we've had our budget principles for over two decades.
weathered a lot of storms. We've got a really good financial position right now.
a lot of it is due to our conservative revenue estimating.
I do want to talk about, there's been a lot of comments about revenue projections going down.
we're not going down from actual collections in 2024.
the original budget for 25 had 2% increase in 2024,
had 2% increase in 2025, another 2% increase in 2026.
obviously, due to the state formula,
our allocation of county sales tax, and use tax did not come in in 2024.
we also saw some other impacts such as the information services sales tax exemption.
so we reset. We also saw a significant decrease in the city's sales tax all the way through june.
that's based off of our estimates. We're using a lot of that data based off of the conservative estimates that we show here.
even though sales tax was down for the last six months, we have not projected it to go down,
and it's slowly making its way up. In fact, july was a significant increase.
we had a large month, and it brought it slightly positive. But I just wanted to make the point
that even though sales tax was down at the end of '24, for six months of this year,
we have not projected sales tax to go down, we've just lowered our projected increases.
then our conservative estimates impact capital projects,
not necessarily the mill levy in the proposed budget. The reason for that as I mentioned the 38 cent sales tax,
quarter cent sales tax, do not impact the mill levy because it's generally a pass through to those projects.
you can see this is the original general fund breakout that was
presented with the personnel services change that we talked about tonight.
you can see the impact to the transfer line item based off of the conservative sales tax numbers.
we do want to be conservative with our 38 cent sales tax, and quarter cent sales tax.
I know municipal services is already putting together contracts for pavement management next year.
they're using our budget numbers, so I'm trying to be conservative.
if I overshoot that or over promise them, then what we publish next year,
and early in the year may not happen. We can adjust where they can add
new projects or new road to those agreements at a later date,
should the sales tax come in. I've also had conversations with logan,
and some of the projects that we anticipated funding with rates, and sales tax this year.
just even with the first half being down, we've had to look for other funding sources as well.
that's some of the impacts that we see when we see sales tax go down or not meet projections.
>> nate, could you repeat what you said about the roads,
and the contracts for next year? >> I know cody, I spoke with him a couple of weeks ago,
and actually several times this year, about the sales tax revenue, obviously,
the 38 cent sales tax is going to pay for 50% of its going to pay for pavement.
we use it for pavement management. Cody is putting together working with contractors to get the agreements in
place now based off of our projections for next year.
then they can begin work as soon as they can in 2026.
>> that's just a matter of getting out to bid in the winters. [overlapping] >> correct. >> [inaudible] construction spring.
>> did you say something about if the sales tax doesn't come into your estimate. How's that affected?
>> it impacts what they can do next year. If we project say nine million dollars, it comes in at 8.5,
obviously, their budget, and their work is based off a nine million.
I think they use a little bit of contingency, but it's based off of that. We publish those roads,
the roads that are impacted by the pavement management program early in the year.
we may not be able to do those because we do not have another funding source for that project.
then I'll also say
instead of funding some of our high priority projects,
such as pavement reconstruction, 83rd street, second phase, some of the public safety projects.
we've instead chosen to use the mill levy reduction, and not use property tax revenue.
we do anticipate, and we hope that sales tax comes in better.
we can adjust those projections going forward, and our recommendation would be to
fund some of these high priority projects that we do not have funded in the current budget.
then just sales, and use tax revenues remain volatile revenue source.
I know there was discussion about potentially using three month rolling average.
our projections earlier in the year would have had down, even using a rolling average would have been down further
than what we projected for sales tax, would have had used tax high,
and then immediately start coming down. July did impact that.
we did have a really strong july, and if that continues,
and to council member charlton's point,
we will update our sales tax projections in march, april of 2026 again.
we would have basically until the budgets adopted to update any sales tax projections,
which would be september 2nd or whenever it's adopted before september 20th.
>> chris.
>> thank you, nate. To your knowledge, does the state intend to roll back any of
our taxing authorities like they've done with some other taxes?
I know obviously you affect your calculations, and projections.
>> as far as property tax, I know there was several bills that were eliminating
the potential increase, and assess valuation. There was talk at 3 and 4%.
just for reference, we haven't been below 5% for over a decade.
there's also talks about the, I think I've brought this up in the past.
our investment income of course at last year anyway, they were talking about forcing us to go with lower securities,
lower rates, which would impact revenue, which wasn't any tax implications to it.
then sales tax, there was some discussion about a couple of bills a couple of years ago.
I think it was two years ago where they were looking at sales tax reductions would impact the city.
do that answer your question? >> other questions? We have had.
thank you, nate. There's been quite a bit of email traffic since our last discussion on the budget.
we did agree to allow public comment this evening regarding budget.
per our standard procedure, if anyone includes questions in their public comment,
we will collect those, and distribute answers back either via email or a website as we have throughout the budget process.
if anyone would like to speak on this item tonight, please come forward, state your name,
and address for the record and make your comments.
good. >> my name is john geisler. I live at 8339 mullen road.
I'm in ward 1, john, and courtney. I've lived here in lexis since 1988.
I have a couple of questions about the budget. I'm sure nate can answer those,
but right now, if I'm not mistaken, we have about 2.5 mills dedicated to servicing our debt, is that right?
>> page 165. >> well, I'm just talking about the meals.
the reason I'm talking about the meals is because it looks to me like we're going to pay the debt off about five years early.
does that mean that the mills dedicated to servicing that debt didn't go away?
>> mayor, let's not get into back, and forth with [overlapping] public comment.
we're happy to answer mr. Geisler's comments later. >> we can take your questions,
and answer them either via email or the public website, I could have been.
>> we don't answer any questions on the budget today. >> you can ask your questions.
we'll collect them, and get in touch with you to answer. >> the other question I have is about,
I didn't see any slides about what the revenue is going to be going forward.
how much of it was going to increase. The reason that I asked that is because the reserve continues to grow every single year,
and it's already over the maximum. I'm just wondering if we're ever going to spend that money on something.
it just continues to grow every single year. At some point, how far above the maximum are we going to go?
>> clarifications on revenue policy, and how it transfers the capital improvement program?
>> right. >> anything else? >> no. Thank you.
>> thank you for coming out. Anyone else?
>> galen vanhorn, 8131 rose hill road,
mary, and council. This is speaking to the budget,
probably into the future, but certainly there is something in the 26 budget that is of great concern to me.
if I recall correctly, dan roe, and coy hunt had a citizen meeting early in 2021 at the 87th in monroe via station,
three of us attended from ward 3. This, by the way, is the only meeting that I've
ever known to have a citizen meeting for our ward. At that time, corey,
and dan told us that they wanted to demolish the building, and build a new fire station because they needed
accommodations for our women firefighters. Page 109 of the 2025 budget under core services, first section,
and first bullet states provide emergency medical services for sick, and injured.
this presents a conundrum for me. The statement along with the meeting in 2021,
which was nearly five years ago, or right at five years ago.
begs the question why didn't the city work with the county when they were
contemplating the lenexa medac location at 8755 long street?
according to director chief paul davis,
medac did leave space from lenexa at the community center.
further, medac was asked to vacate that area. I'm guessing because of the renovation there.
the johnson county board of county commissioners approved the future medac station at 8755 long in december of 2021?
interesting that a new fire station was discussed at ward 3 early on in 2021.
but the city was unable to coordinate with medac to co-locate.
did the city investigate the option of co-locating with medac?
why did the city decide not to co-locate with medac?
our emergency call response times significantly different for medac,
and city fire, and operations. Recently, it has come to my attention that
the department's historic baseline travel times were not acceptable to protect the amount of people,
and property within that area that that station covers.
here to date, the fire engine serving this area of location is the busiest of all fire engines in the city,
which I found phenomenal. Why is it so much busier in that area than it is in a lot of the other areas of lenexa?
how much would it have cost the city to co-locate?
on page 110 of the 2025 budget under future opportunities, and issues,
bullet 6 states continued collaboration, and partnerships with county,
and regional emergency response agencies is important.
why was this option not pursued when the county built lenexa, and medac?
why is this bullet 6 included if the city really doesn't collaborate?
then page 110, future opportunities issues bullet 1,
secure dedicated funding for future construction of a fire department training center.
what is the glacier station number 3? When I look at the website that indicates that it is a training division,
and I have actually visited that location. It's been a couple of years ago,
but certainly they had the state of the art educational facilities at that time.
what are the new additional needs? I look forward to hearing your responses because I know there's a
$400,000 study in the 2025 budget. As a property tax paying constituent,
none of us can afford a $30 million expense for a new fire station at that location.
yes, we want to keep that property at 87th in monrovia.
it does belong to the city, and it would be ideal to have a park there,
and have it a simple park, but not with a bathroom facility that costs $500,000.
this property must not be given to a developer for another tax incentivized mixed use structure.
I ask you, counsel, and mayor, are you leading the city with your highest degree of integrity,
and transparency, and spending our money judiciously? Thank you.
>> thanks galen. Other budget comments.
seeing that, are there any council member reports? Anything from staff?
>> nothing tonight, mayor. >> this does, and the recorded portion of the meeting.