The 2020 PV Arts Fair has been canceled by the Village Merchants Assn., the proposed civic center work has been put on hold, and some Councilmembers are working on a chickens/hens proposal for Prairie Village. Read on for more!

This is the Prairie Village City Council meeting recap for Monday, April 6, 2020. You can see the full agenda and board packet HERE.

Council members present at roll call: Herring, J. Nelson, Selders, R. Nelson, Limbird, Myers, Reimer, Runion, McFadden, Graves, and Gallagher. Poling joined shortly after.

Here are the highlights of this meeting:

Public Participation

From resident, Dayna L. Peacock of 5212 W. 70th Street:

“I would like to propose a temporary waiver (9 months to one year) for the keeping of chickens in Prairie Village. The link below is the Roeland Park, Kansas, brochure to be perused as an example.  It gives a nice illustration of the chicken ordinance in effect for Roeland Park residents. 
https://www.roelandpark.net/DocumentCenter/View/277/Keeping-Chickens-in-Roeland-Park-Brochure-PDF
The reason for the request for a waiver is due to the Coronavirus concern across the nation.  The keeping of chickens would provide a safety net of free eggs for surrounding neighbors for an unclear path ahead.  I would like to apply for a permit.”

Jori Nelson, Ward 1, notified Council that she and two other councilmembers are currently working on a chicken/hen proposal for consideration by Council. This won’t happen during COVID19, though – staff time is too valuable right now working on issues related to COVID – but look for it after we’re past this curve.

Consent Agenda

These items were considered routine business and were approved as a group for the most part. One item (bolded) was separated out for additional discussion due to Covid19, but was ultimately approved also:

• Approval of regular City Council meeting minutes – March 2, 2020
• Approval of special City Council meeting minutes – March 18, 2020
• Expenditure Ordinance #2988
• Approve Ordinances for Prairie Village Art Fair and Clocktower Concert series (note that these are NOT PV events; they are Village Merchants Association events.)
• Approve interlocal agreement with Johnson County for Project DELN0001: Delmar and Fontana low water crossing removal and drainage project reimbursement
• Approve agreement with Integrity Locating Services for underground line location services related to the streetlight system
• Approve Amendment #1 with McCown Gordon for the demolition of existing structures at the Public Works facility (Project BG700002)
• Several approvals for the interlocal project with the City of Leawood for the Reinhardt and 84th Terrace drainage improvement project
• COU2020-07: Consider 2020-2021 insurance renewals

Committee Reports

All committee meetings have been canceled, and there were no reports for all but one committee.

Civic Center

The proposed Civic Center partners (City of PV, JoCo Library, and the Y) had a fruitful meeting just before the shutdown where the JoCo attorneys were headed off to develop the next MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) for next steps, but all of that is on hold now.

Mayor’s Report

Paraphrased by me. 😏

• City staff has communicated all information, changes, and alerts via all public communication channels available to them.
• In addition, a special edition of the Village Voice should be hitting your mailbox this week

This is the most important part as far as I’m concerned, though, because the Voice took 9 days from “go to print” to hit my mailbox:

SIGN UP FOR THESE ⤴️⤴️ NOTIFICATIONS TO GET CURRENT AND ACCURATE INFORMATION, PARTICULARLY IF YOU’RE NOT ON SOCIAL MEDIA!!!

• Our local PV businesses will NEED our patronage in the coming months and years to recover from the devastating setback of COVID19 to their businesses and employees. Be safe as always, but do what you can to support them now and into the future.
• Some municipalities are having to do furloughs/layoffs during this time, but “PV is Okay”. We’re on a hiring hold, but because we beat our budget in 2019 (revenues higher than budgeted, expenses lower than budgeted) and we are not as dependent on retail sales taxes as other cities, we are in a position to make it through this with just a little tightening of our belts because we entered this crisis already in a position of strength.
• Most in-person events have been canceled through May.

New Business

2021 Committee Budget proposals

Due to our online meeting format for now, there were no in-person presentations of City committee budgets. Council considered each of the four committee budgets individually and voted thus:

• VillageFest – 12-0
• Arts Council – 10-2, Myers & Gallagher voting nay
• Environmental Committee- 12-0
• JazzFest- 12-0

All committees were asked to keep their City contribution asks the same as the previous year (or lower was, of course, an option). There were no discussions or questions on the Arts Council budget, so I’m not sure what the reasoning was for the two no votes.

COVID-19 Status and recommendations report

Wes Jordan, City Administrator, directed our attention to City communication of March 24th (HERE) and his updated Plan of Action (HERE) and opened up for questions.

Meadowbrook Fireworks Display

Council voted unanimously to rescind the prior action to direct City Council to move forward on fireworks. This has been tabled for 2020 and may be proposed again in a future calendar year.

Upcoming Events

• April 7th – Board of Zoning Appeals & Planning Commission Meetings – CANCELED
• April 8th – Arts Council Meeting – CANCELED
• April 10th – Artists’ Reception w/ the PV Arts Council – CANCELED
• April 20th – City Council Meeting, 6:00 p.m. on Zoom via Facebook Live which is accessible to ALL residents even if you don’t have a Facebook account.

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Thanks for reading to the end! 😉 STAY WELL & have a great weekend!