City Council discussed government relations, COVID-19 relief funds, donating to the Prairie Village Municipal Foundation, and more. Read on for details.

This is the Prairie Village City Council meeting recap for Monday, November 2, 2020. You can see the full agenda and board packet HERE.

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

Here are the highlights of this meeting:

Committee Reports

Diversity Task Force

Teen Council

The Teen Council committee introduced our two new Teen Council members for the 2020-21 school year:

• Macy Cherra, St. Theresa’s Academy, Junior
• Sydney Newton, Shawnee Mission East, Junior

Mayor’s Report

• Current standings:
  • Numbers are SKYROCKETING! In just the last two weeks, our 14-day average went from 6.6 to 9.9! Today it’s 11!!!
• Governor Kelly has formed a racial equity committee
• Stand Up for Black Lives+PV, and other diversity advocates are working on strengthening their outreach. They have a new event coming on November 7th at 10 am on Zoom.
  • Stand Up: Dividing Lines Tour Forum
  • If you can, it’s kind of late now for the Forum but (it’s never too late overall), take the Dividing Lines Audio driving tour before the Forum.
• SME girls golf team won State.
• SMSD Foundation Breakfast went virtual this year.
• The next Village Vision 2.0 council work session is November 9th, and will cover two topics:
  • Neighborhood patterns (lot splits would fall under this topic)
  • Civic Center
• Mayor and Jamie Robichaud, Deputy City Administrator, met with a local developer for small attainable housing in Prairie Village. Hope to hear about that soon.
• VaBene, which replaced Urban Table in Corinth Square, will be opening in a few weeks.
• Prairie Village is ahead in the City-to-City Challenge with The Voter Network.
• Prairie Village Municipal Foundation (PVMF) will have a meeting next week.
• The Mayor’s Holiday Tree Lighting will be virtual in 2020 on December 3rd.
  • The need for our PV residents, who the PVMF helps with donations from the Tree Lighting, is even greater this year with COVID-19 and its economic impacts, so please consider donating if you can. 🙂
• **Not in the Mayor’s report, but the Gingerbread House Party that is ALSO a fundraiser for the PVMF has been canceled for 2020. My daughter and I LOVE this event and usually bring a whole crew. Sad to see COVID-19 extending so long to effect this as well. 🥺 You can still donate if you’d like (please note “Gingerbread House Fund” in the fund line) or contact Mely directly if you’d like to purchase gingerbread houses to decorate at home. Her contact information is 913-219-3325 or ballardm79@yahoo.com.

Staff Reports

Wes Jordan, City Administrator, said that the latest Village Voice should be hitting mailboxes soon. I haven’t received my hardcopy, yet, have you?

Wes also said that he and staff are headed into one of their busiest times of the year, where they work on the end-of-year budget and employee evaluations.

Keith Bredehoeft, Public Works Director, gave updates on the Public Works building (it’s finally going vertical!), 71st and Mission street closure (about 3 more weeks as scheduled), the State Line street closure (opening at the end of the week, but there will be more work in 2021 because KCMO didn’t have the budget to complete the overlay this year), and new crosswalks (at Meadowbrook Park by Rosewood and at Franklin Park at the Roe entrance).

*** I also asked Keith to give an update on the traffic study at 71st Ter & Eaton. He said it is underway by our engineering contractor, TranSystems, and they are looking at all of the Eaton intersections from 71st Ter to 74th St (maybe even Ter, too; I didn’t clarify) to study as well. If it is recommended to add the two additional stop signs at 71st Ter & Eaton, as several residents are requesting to make it a 4-way stop, then that decision will come before City Council for a vote.

New Business

Consider a memorandum of agreement with Little Government Relations for government relations and lobbying services in 2021

Jamie Robichaud, Deputy City Administrator, presented the background and staff recommendation to retain LGR’s services in to 2021. They have substantially lightened the load for city staff for keeping on top of fast-moving legislative bills and responding to very last minute requests for testimony in Topeka.

We do contract LGR’s services along with several other local municipalities to share costs in a way, so Councilmember Herring pointed out that we will continue to monitor our priorities compared and contrasted to those other cities.

Mayor Mikkelson pointed out that we will be visiting our legislative platform for 2021 in the month of December, and it will be LGR’s marching orders, so to speak.

This was approved 9 to 2 with councilmembers Runion and J. Nelson voting nay as they did earlier this year when we first voted to approve the 2020 contract. Councilmember Gallagher voted against it for 2020, but voted for it this time around.

Review Johnson County Coronavirus relief fund sub-recipient grant agreement and expenditures to date

Council voted unanimously to approve the expenditures to date and proposed expenditures as outlined, including audiovisual upgrades to the chambers, multipurpose room, PVPD roll call room, and PVPD conference room to continue and improve our virtual meeting opportunities during social distancing, quarantining as necessary, and shelter in place if we have to do that again, too.

Council Committee of the Whole

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before but, Councilmember Myers is our Council President this year, and she presides over the CCOW portion of our meetings. The Mayor appoints a new president each year.

Consider Amendments to City right-of-way regulations

About a year ago the city updated our zoning to incorporate state changes for small cell wireless towers. This amendment is to also capture that, along with some general cleanup in the document. It also adds new design and aesthetic requirements for use, such as landscaping, screening, etc..

Approved.

Consider Amendments to the City fee schedule

This is also in regards to small cell facilities, though it’s important to note that we haven’t actually received any applications for new small cell facilities in PV in the last year. But since the state changes say we can’t use “franchise fees” or “gross receipt fees”, we had to change the terminology and update the fee schedule accordingly.

Our fees are right in line with neighboring municipalities, but some or all of the fees do fall outside the “safe harbor” of a 2018 FCC order that says fees have to be “reasonable”. 😵 So, the new language allows for the lower fees while that FCC order is in effect, but also automatically snaps back to our actual fee schedule if the FCC order is vacated.

I think. That’s how I interpreted it. Let me know if I’ve misunderstood something or if you have questions that I can dig into for you. 👩‍🎓

This amendment was approved as well.

Both of these amendments still have to go before the full Council at a future meeting.

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.

BUT, if you can, please stay home. Stay out of large crowds. Protect the most vulnerable among us. Do your part.

Got Symptoms? Get Tested!

Those who live or work in Johnson County, KS can schedule a free COVID-19 test.

Upcoming Events

• November 11th – Veteran’s Day, City offices closed
• November 16th – City Council Meeting via Zoom, 6:00 p.m.
• November 18th – Arts Council Meeting, 5:30 p.m.
• November 18th – Parks & Rec Meeting, 5:30 p.m.
• November 25th – Environmental Committee Meeting, 5:30 p.m.
• November 26-27th – Thanksgiving Holiday – City Offices Closed

STAY WELL & enjoy the week!