Current standings:
- Numbers are going in the wrong direction based on JCDHE: our 14-day moving average for new cases is 12.3%.
- New cases per day have gone up to about 105 per day.
- New hospitalization are at 1.3 per day.
- Mission Chateau (long term care facility) reported some cases, but zero deaths.
- KC Metro Chief Medical Officers hosted a webinar for the public, and the crux is that their hospitals and capacities are not overwhelmed, yet, but they ARE stressed and the CMOs are concerned about the near future.
- Also, worth noting, is that COVID-19 is NOT spreading within the hospital environments, proving that MASKS AND HANDWASHING WORKS.
- SO, AS ALWAYS, KEEP FOLLOWING THE GUIDELINES
  - wear masks
  - wash hands
  - socially distance
  - stay home when you’re not feeling well
- The Diversity Task Force’s first meeting is Tuesday, September 22nd, and will be available to view online.
- The United Community Services Johnson County Housing Summit REPORT will be coming in December, and multiple developers have reached out to the Mayor with innovative ideas for new types of housing.
- We took a moment of silence for the unexpected death of Olathe Mayor Michael Copeland recently.
- Arby’s and Urban Table are out; Taco Republic is in.

Staff Reports

Wes Jordan, City Administrator, updated us that all of our CAREs funding requests to the County have been approved.

Jamie Robichaud, Deputy City Administrator, reminded Council about the Village Vision 2.0 community webinar being live-streamed Wednesday, September 9th.

Adam Geffert, ,City Clerk, let us know that our electronic Municipal Code system is now live. Check it out! It’s so cool: https://library.municode.com/ks/prairie_village/codes/code_of_ordinances.

If you can’t see these images very well, hover over them, right click, and then “Open in New Tab” and look at it and zoom over on that new tab.

Try searching for something you’ve wondered about the City laws. For example, “is it legal to shoot a bb -gun/air rifle in your backyard?” I put “gun” in the search bar, and it found all terms related or synonymous to “gun”:

I selected the first one, 11-107, and it took me to the best match, which I changed the language for to Portuguese to show that you can choose your language:

You can also click the little link symbol (circled in red above), and you can copy the link to share with someone else or bookmark for easy reference.

And, yes, bb-guns/air rifles ARE considered firearms. I asked. 😉

This is SOOOOO much easier to use than the old PDF version. You may not have as much reason to search the Muni. Code as I do, but trust me, if you do have something to look up, you will be thankful for this system. Thank you, Adam, for this update!!

New Business

Consider Amendments to the Municipal Code pertaining to allowable hours for private property construction

Council voted 10-1 to approve the new hours. Councilwoman Selders presented a motion to not allow any construction on federal holidays, but that motion failed. It’s a nice idea, but I know our family did a lot of work in our backyard over the Labor Day weekend, including on Monday, with rented power tools, and we would not want to be limited on that as personal DIYers on our own property. So here are the new hours:

Summer Months (May 15 through September 15):
- Monday through Friday (excluding Federal holidays): 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m.
- Saturday and Sunday: 8:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m.
- Federal Holidays: 8:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m.
Non-Summer Months (September 16 through May 14):
- Monday through Sunday: 8:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m.

Consider Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) with Compost Collective KC and Food Cycle KC for curbside compost collection in Prairie Village

Council voted unanimously to approve these MOUs. Jamie Robichaud noted that she had been contacted by another local company, and the City would work with other interested parties for further MOUs.

These MOUs just provide negotiated rates to PV residents should they choose to sign up for one of these services on their own. The City is not paying for these services, nor do they administer or service your contract. Please contact Compost Collective KC or Food Cycle KC directly to sign up.

Consider Project DRAIN-19X – 71st Street RCB replacement contract with Infrastructure Solutions, LLC

Council voted to unanimously to approve this contract.

⚠️⚠️⚠️

FYI – especially my Ward 3 neighbors!! 71st Street will be closed to thru-traffic from Mission Road to at least the fork at Cherokee for 60 days starting in a couple of weeks for this project. There will be NO pedestrian access either. Keep your little ones clear of the area for their safety, and reroute your walking trail to the north or the south to reach Mission Rd.

Council Committee of the Whole

Discussion related to participation in the Climate Mayors Network, purchase of Dynamhex carbon emissions tracking software, and adoption of a Climate Action Plan

These were three different issues, but all from the Environmental Committee and therefore loosely related.

Climate Mayor’s Network

Council voted 8-3 to join the Climate Mayor’s Network and the Paris Climate Agreement. Unfortunately, climate change is a partisan issue (it shouldn’t be), and this same/similar motion wasn’t passed several years ago under different mayoral leadership with a different council make-up. In my opinion, Prairie Village should have been part of these two agreements/efforts all along.

Dynamhex Software

Council voted 10-1 to purchase the Dynamhex software to get accurate model info on our city buildings and residential properties to use for analyzing our energy efficiency as a city and identifying where we can make improvements on our carbon emissions.

Note: when I asked, regarding the cost of this software, if we needed to take this to bid, one of the responses was (at $12k) “this is only .00001% of our budget” intimating that this was just a drop in the bucket, and it shouldn’t matter. I disagree. Every dollar we spend is important; even .0001% of expenses add up to our overall $24m, budget, and it’s our job as councilors to be fiscally responsible and fair when awarding city contracts.

Ultimately, my real question was answered, and that is that the threshold for going out to a formal bid is $20k. I am thankful that City staff had that answer at their fingertips, so I could remove that concern. There are probably no other companies doing what Dynamhex is doing at this stage, but the City will do that due diligence behind the scenes with informal price comparisons and market studies.

Climate Action Plan

Council opted to schedule this discussion at a later date when we have the data and models from the Dynamhex software.

That’s all for now, folks.
Thanks for hanging in with me!
I hope you found this engaging.

Just a Couple Reminders:

Residents and visitors are STILL required to wear masks or cloth face coverings in Prairie Village and ALL of Johnson County as well as most of Kansas and the KC Metro on the Missouri side.

Sign up for Coronavirus Daily Updates by clicking the image below:

Upcoming Events

September 21st – 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.
September 22nd – Diversity Task Force Meeting on Zoom via Facebook Live which is accessible to ALL residents even if you don’t have a Facebook account.
September 23rd – Environmental Committee Meeting via Zoom, 7:00 p.m.

👋

STAY WELL & enjoy the week!