Budget, Campaign, City Services, Fundraising, Informational, Infrastructure, Volunteers

Council Meeting Recap

June 7, 2019

These meeting recaps are indicative of how I will update residents twice monthly in my efforts to increase transparency and communication as your Ward 3 Councilwoman so you always know what’s happening at City Hall. I make an effort to pull together references from previous meetings, topics, and issues that are relevant in hopes of making some of the ongoing issues more clear.

This is the Prairie Village City Council recap for Monday, June 3rd, 2019. You can see the full agenda and board packet HERE.

Council members present at roll call: J. Nelson, Schermoly, R. Nelson, Poling, Myers, Morehead, Runion, McFadden, and Odell.

June 3rd, in addition to being Council meeting day, was also the deadline to file for public office with the Johnson County Election Office. Three sitting Councilors refiled as incumbents: Herring, Schermoly, and McFadden. And three chose not to file for the session beginning January 2020: Wang, Morehead, and Odell. Three seats will be contested, and three seats will not (barring any write-in candidates). I guess three is the number of the season.

The seat that I am running for, Ward 3 Seat 2, is one that has no incumbent, but that WILL be contested. So I need your help early and often to make sure I can reach all of the Ward 3 voters to introduce myself, remind them who I am, and get out the vote for November 5th.

Please consider contributing to and volunteering for my campaign. It doesn’t take millions to run a local campaign like this, but it does take money to print literature, mailers, and yard signs, and I will need all three. I also need volunteers to help me get the word and the materials out. If you work one short shift or every shift, you will be helping me greatly!

Thank you in advance for your participation!

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Here are some highlights from this meeting:

Public Participation

Two non-PV residents addressed Council in regards to a recent rejection of a season pool pass for an individual to the Prairie Village Pool Complex. A long-time season pass holder, the individual was denied a pass for 2019 by pool management due to alleged violation of pool rules. You can read the pool rules HERE.

Presentations

Tracy Hennig, with Moms Demand Action – KS, introduced the background behind National Gun Violence Awareness Day. Here is an excerpt I found:

Wear Orange started in 2015, two years after 15-year-old high school honor student and drum majorette Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed on Jan. 29, 2013, in Chicago — just one week after she performed with her high school marching band at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration.
An accidental casualty of gang violence, Pendleton was shot in a South Side park where she and friends had taken shelter from the rain.

Refusing to stay silent about her death, and the gun deaths of so many others, Pendelton’s friends decided to wear orange to commemorate her life and raise awareness.
People.com, By KC Baker June 02, 2017 09:00 AM

Representatives from Moms Demand Action, Representative Clayton, Representative Xu, Mayor Mikkelson, 9 members of the Prairie Village City Council, State Senator Bollier, and Representative Stogsdill were all in attendance for the Proclamation.

Mayor Mikkelson read the proclamation (page 3 of the council packet linked above), and then Council and guests posed for a photo.

Local elected officials were in attendance to give end-of-session legislative updates. We heard from Senator Barbara Bollier District 7, House Representative Stephanie Clayton District 19, House Representative Jerry Stogsdill District 21, House Representative Riu Xu District 25, all of whom represent a portion of Prairie Village.

We heard about the effort to expand Medicaid, the state budget, a bill (HB2345) to return local control to cities, a proposed amendment to a gun bill, and much, much more. I encourage you to watch the recorded stream of the Council meeting (select the June 4th Council Meeting) from 10:00 to 38:23.

Staff Reports

Chief Schwartzkopf let us know that our Leawood-shared Johnson County Mental Health Co-Responder will be on staff soon, and that Deputy Chief Roberson participated in a panel with the NAACP on reaching out to young adults.

Kieth Bredehoeft, Public Works Director, shared that Leavenworth County has reached out to PV for help with tornado debris clean-up, so we will be sending a staff member in charge of urban forestry out there. He also noted that they’ve hired two new maintenance staff members.

Tucker Poling, Ward 3, asked Kieth if he was aware of the crumbling bricks at Mission and Tomahawk Roads, and Brook Morehead, Ward 4, asked about the new sidewalk to existing sidewalk connection at 82nd-ish and Nall. Kieth said that he was aware of both, and would look into further for plan of action.

Jamie Robichaud, Deputy City Administrator, noted that the Administrator’s office acquired a new employee, but took him from the police department. Sorry, Chief! She also updated Council on the Planning Commission schedule to present on zoning and regulation modifications.

Wes Jordan, City Administrator, was hoping to give a good update on the chamber audio streaming, but unfortunately it was still acting up, so he will be getting the vendor out ASAP to continue tweaking until it’s right.

Council Committee of the Whole

CP001 – Alley Porter, Asst. City Administrator, presented proposed changes to Council Policy 001 regarding City Committees. Overall, the proposal recommends more oversight of the committees by Council members and less administrative work from city staff so they can use their time more wisely and not have so many evening meetings. Council did not vote on this, yet, but asked Alley to make a couple of tweaks for a vote, presumably, next time.

Note: This council policy was updated (and improved immensely) in 2018 for the first time in many years as I understand the history. But I have a few suggestions myself that I’d like to propose to the policy to increase transparency of, and open lines of communication to, the city committees. If you have thoughts or ideas, as well, please let me know. I’d like to hear them!

Mill Levy Reduction – The mill level reduction decision package portion of the proposed 2020 budget was removed at last month’s meeting, and this month Council voted on where to allocate that $439,247.00. Ultimately, Council voted to put it in the General Fund to be available for future projects or specific allocation.

If you haven’t been following along with the online ripple this discussion has made, here are a couple of resources that will bring you up to speed:

Concerns About Tax Lid Bill…, by Shawnee Mission Post
Council Meeting Recap, by Bonnie for PV
PV Mayor Pushes Back…, by Shawnee Mission Post
Fact Checking…, by Tucker Poling

*Note: please be sure to read the comments on these where applicable. It’s worth noting that the “ripple” I mentioned above, has indeed been only a very tiny ripple.

Actions

The City Council took the following actions:

Approved the regular City Council meeting minutes – May 20, 2019
Approved the city planning consultant contract renewal (there was discussion about whether this would be better served as an in-house staff person, but staff responded that it would likely cost more and we’d lose the expertise of the whole firm supporting the person we contract.)
Ratified the Mayor’s reappointment of Tim Schwartzkopf to serve as Chief of Police
Swore in Tim Schwartzkopf as Chief of Police
Ratified the Mayor’s reappointment of Keith Bredehoeft to serve as Director of Public Works
Swore in Keith Bredehoeft as Director of Public Works
Approved a contract with Kansas Heavy Construction for the 2019 Concrete Repair Program
Approved a contract with Advanced Asphalt Paving and Concrete for the 2019 Street Repair Program