Council Meeting Recap

April 2, 2019April 2, 2019

This is the Prairie Village City Council recap for Monday, April 1st, 2019. You can see the full agenda and board packet HERE.

Council members present: Herring, J. Nelson, Schermoly, R. Nelson, Poling, Wang, Myers, Morehead, Runion, McFadden, Odell, and Gallagher.

The City Council took the following actions:

Approved the regular City Council meeting minutes – March 18, 2019
Approved appointment to the Parks and Recreation Committee (see below for more info)
Approved the 2019-2020 insurance renewals
Approved Ordinance 2399 amending Section 1-804 of the Code of the City of Prairie Village, entitled “Council Committee of the Whole; Membership, Duties and Meetings.”
Approved a contract with Vance Brothers, Inc., for the 2019 Crack Seal/Micro Surfacing Program
Approved a construction contract for the 2019 Residential Street Rehabilitation Program

Here are some highlights from this meeting:

Presentations

Mindy Corporon, who lost her son and father in the April 14, 2014 hate-driven shooting at the Jewish Community Center, presented about the upcoming event: “SevenDays: Make a Ripple, Change the World”. This will be its fifth year bringing the community together to remind us that kindness and respect can win the day. Mayor Mikkelson signed the SevenDays proclamation designating the week of April 9 through 15, 2019 as “SevenDays 2019” in The City of Prairie Village, and called upon all citizens and civic organizations to support the pillars of The Faith Always Wins Foundation – Kindness, Faith, and Healing and participate in SevenDays events. You can learn more about SevenDays and upcoming events HERE.

Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Update on Meadowbrook by the developer, VanTrust, and Prairie Village’s financial adviser, Columbia Capital.

Members of the national, regional, and local First Washington team were on hand to provide an update on Corinth Square South. Along with local architectural firm Hoefer Wysocki, they showed a preliminary site plan and a preliminary rendering of a courtyard area and indicated the materials and quality would coordinate with recent updates at Corinth Square such as in the Hattie’s strip. The project is now a single story with surface parking as directed by community input, and Council asked them to add back in more green-space for aesthetics as well as water management. The Panera building would also get a face-lift in a future phase. Council also confirmed that EV (Electric Vehicle) charging stations would be going in sometime this year at both Village Shops and Corinth Square. You can read more about Corinth Square South and see images at the Shawnee Mission Post.

Sergeant Eric McCullough gave the 2018 Traffic Unit summary. As you may imagine a lot of what the Traffic Unit deals with is Citizen complaints. If you’ve never interacted with Sgt. McCullough or his Unit, I can assure you that they are super -responsive, super-helpful, and amazingly pro-active. We are so lucky to have this specialized Unit here in PV. Besides traffic complaints and monitoring, some of the many services they provide are:

free car seat installation to residents
seatbelt education and enforcement
teaching the Explorer’s program to students about the dangers of impaired driving

Public Participation

Ward 2 resident, Inga Selders, presented on behalf of her neighbors surrounding Porter Park who were surprised recently about the location of the new restrooms. She thanked city administrator, Wes Jordan, for his time and Ward 1 Councilmember/Parks & Rec Committee Chair, Chad Herring, for his time and responsiveness to their concerns. Since the location can not be changed at this time, residents asked that some greenery screening be planted to help it blend in and on future projects around the various parks city staff reach out personally to citizens affected by proximity to make sure they’ve seen announcements and fully understand the intent and implications, much the same as independent developers are required to do.

Ward 3 resident, Nathan Kovac, explained to Council that EV chargers come in all pricepoints with varying features and that it is not only an investment in our environment, but it’s also an investment in our economy. He shared an anecdotal breakdown of the amount of spending his family has taken to surrounding municipalities that had charging stations at their shopping centers for their family electric vehicle that they could have spent in PV if the charging stations existed, thus providing additional sales tax revenue to the city.

Consent Agenda Item – Volunteer Appointment Transparency

Ward 3 Councilmember Tucker Poling removed the Parks & Recreation Committee appointment from the consent agenda in order to address a citizen’s (yours truly) questions regarding process and transparency of committee appointments. I had emailed him and the Mayor with these questions following the second appointment of a newer resident to the City over volunteers who have lived here considerably longer and were just as qualified. They looped in Wes Jordan, City Administrator, who updated me on the city process which did go pretty far in easing my mind. I’d still like more transparency of the selection process as appointments are presented in the future, but I very much appreciated Tucker taking the time to address this publicly so all residents can be aware. My takeaways are these:

the Public Committee Policy is online HERE and it is newly revamped (Nov. 2018) to be much more clear and transparent than it was previously
the City and Council are still open to ideas to make it better
the committee appointees should be listed (IMHO) on the City website to make it easier to see who represents your Ward (for those committees with that requirement), what their terms are, and what positions might be coming open.
it is up to every councilmember and engaged citizen to actively encourage citizens to apply for these positions so that the committee chairs have a large pool of candidates to select from. Despite all of the methods of communications the City uses, word of mouth is still one of the best recruiting methods, since people are more inclined to say yes when personally asked by someone they know.

Mayor Update

The Prairie Village Foundation (another City Committee with appointed members) will be undergoing some reorganization, particularly on the financial and audit side. Mayor asked citizens to consider giving to the Foundation because those funds stay right here in Prairie Village to help our own citizens in need. You can learn a little about what the Foundation does HERE.

Chief Schwartzkopf’s Staff Update

Consider attending Coffee with a Cop THIS Friday at Starbucks in the Village Shops from 7am to 9am. There is another upcoming Coffee with a Cop in May at Great Harvest in Corinth Square.

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month and PV officers will be participating in Pursuit to End Child Abuse, an event along with several other municipal police departments and Sunflower House at the Kansas Speedway, Friday, April 12th at 9:30 am.

Keith Bredehoeft’s Public Works Update

Public Works has staff openings and are actively working to fill those positions, including attending job fairs for the first time. If you’re interested or know someone who may be, please share their opening descriptions found HERE.

And, hey, don’t forget from last time: if you know of or come across potholes, please let Public Works know. They really do rely on citizens to keep them posted on these types of things, so don’t hesitate to call or fill out their online form.

Administrator Updates

Alley Porter, Asst. City Administrator, announced that pool passes went on sale this week! Purchase your membership ASAP to receive $10 off. More info HERE.

PV is also taking applications for summer positions at the pool. Click HERE for opportunities. Prairie Village pays very competitively for these jobs!

Jamie Robichaud, Deputy City Administrator, gave a reminder that Large Item Pickup is coming up quickly and that the boundaries between the two weekends have been modified. Postcards were sent out this year to be extra sure that every resident was aware. If you would like to see the map again, please click HERE. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Republic directly at 913-281-4343.

Whew! Another long one post – sorry – but I hope it was informative. Thank you so much for the positive feedback on these recaps on Facebook and NextDoor. I’ll keep ’em coming! ☺️