Presentations

Small Business Saturday proclamation

Mayor Mikkelson read the proclamation found on page 3 of the Council packet declaring November 27th as Small Business Saturday in the City of Prairie Village, Kansas. This is a recognition that began in 2010 to help small businesses gain exposure and to inspire consumers to shop within their own communities during the holiday season. We have many small businesses here in Prairie Village! Here is a short list:

• Cafe Provence / French Market / Verbena
• Caffetteria
• RSVP in the Village
• Bijin Salon & Spa
• Made in KC
• Tavern in the Village
• The Learning Tree
• Dancerz Unlimited
• Golden & Pine
• Nicki Griffith KC Photography
• Village Music Academy
• and more…

Take your holiday shopping lists to these small business to kick of your gift-giving! 😁

Dynamhex presentation

Sunny Sanwar, Dynamhex CEO, gave Council and attendees an overview of the City dashboard they created. Prairie Village city properties have 2,314 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Community-wide, with commercial and residential properties, we release 51,513 metric tons.

The dashboard is designed to show our carbon footprints by household and give residents steps they can take to reduce their footprint. The dashboard has a few bugs yet, so while it is currently available on the city website, we’re not officially rolling out to residents until those bugs are fixed. I tried to enter my address and couldn’t get it to report out, so I’ll keep you posted.

Watch for more info on this helpful tool!

As a side note: are you curious if your home would be a good candidate for solar panels? Check out this website: https://sunroof.withgoogle.com/! Note: my address still shows a tree we removed 3+ years ago, so keep the current status of your tree canopy in mind when reviewing. 🤔

Committee Reports

Parks & Recreation Committee

Councilperson Poling thanked staff and committee members for the marathon meeting last week as they kicked off planning for the next 5 year parks master plan project. The plan may include goals such as inclusivity, community garden program expansion, pool and recreation fees and features, and more.

Meadowbrook Public Art Committee

Councilperson Ron Nelson updated Council on the final selected artwork for the new JCPRD Art in the Park program. The final selection is artist Amie J. Jacobsen’s “Gateway”:

There will be a June 2, 2022 ribbon-cutting and party. Watch for more information.

Prairie Village Municipal Foundation

Upcoming Foundation events & FUNDRAISERS (donate HERE):

• December 2nd – Mayor’s Holiday Tree Lighting, 6-8pm, Corinth Square
• December 5th – Gingerbread House Decorating event, 1:30-3:00pm, Briarwood Elementary

Mayor’s report

• Election Results – PV voters delivered decisive verdicts in all three contested races. Our new council people are Cole Robinson, Dave Robinson, and Greg Shelton who will be sworn in at the first meeting of December. Thank you to ALL the candidates that ran.
• Volunteer for a City Committee HERE!
• COVID update
  • Pfizer vaccine is now widely available for children 5+
  • Johnson County is BACK in the bottom section of the high transmission category – this is not a good thing.
  • 78.6 % of JoCo residents 12+ are vaccinated
  • 66.3% of JoCo residents 5+ are vaccinated
  • Please consider continuing to wear masks indoors (whether they’re required or not!)
• Diversity Equity and Inclusion training continues internally.
• It’s MOvember, and the PVPD is raising money for St. Jude’s by growing their mustaches and beards for the month of November (Sworn officers are not normally allowed to have facial hair by PVPD regulation.)
• $700,000 savings still expected for the refinancing of our Meadowbrook project bonds.
• The JoCo Charter Commission meets again Nov. 17th to continue considering charter amendments.
• Codes Department is closed Nov. 18-19th for their move to the Public Works building

Staff Reports

Police Department

Chief Roberson gave more info on the No-shave MOvember. PVPD isn’t a “beard in uniform” department, but found this to be a valuable and important event in which to participate. So far, they have raised $1,245 for St. Jude’s cancer research. If you’d like to donate too, click HERE.

Consider property tax rebate program

We had another good discussion about this proposed program since we had three additional councilmembers in attendance tonight (who were just absent at the last meeting). Good points were brought up by those members and others, and we had a robust and helpful conversation. There were three proposed amendments to the motion as suggested in the packet. One was successful (to change the cap from median home value to average home value) and the other two were unsuccessful.

Ultimately the will of the Council was to implement this program as suggested by City staff (with initial Council input) and see how it works and where tweaks might be made in subsequent years. Council voted 9-3 for this program to help our residents stay in their homes and reduce teardowns. Some of the nay votes were in favor of the program in general, but wanted more or fewer restrictions for them to feel comfortable voting for it. These ideas that were proposed could be some of the ways we tweak the program in the future if we find faults.

Here are the details:

• $20,000 budget in 2020
• Goal: to offer financial assistance in the form of a property tax relief grant to low income residents in need and thereby help them stay in their homes and curb as many teardowns of our “middle-housing” properties as possible
• property must be owner-occupied and owner must be current on property taxes
• homeowner(s) must meet income guideline of “very low income” as defined by the U.S. Dept. of Housing & Urban Development
• The property value cap will be the previous year’s average PV home price as published by the JoCo Appraiser.
• We hope to help 23 or more homeowners with this program.

Note: the idea for this program was included in the Village Voice 2.0 that Council approved in the last year after public input.

Agenda Packet for your reference

Closing

So that’s it for last week.

Some things I’ve been up to:

• Attended a couple election night watch parties. Some friends across the county won their seats, and some unfortunately lost. All of the candidates did a great job getting out and engaging their communities. I look forward to working with our new council members: Cole Robinson, Dave Robinson, Greg Shelton, and Lauren Wolf!
• Participated in a location committee kickoff meeting for the Parade of Hearts.
• Attended the LWV JoCo November meeting (virtually): The Pivotal Role of Water.
• Attended the Forever the Free State Gala (virtually).
• Went to the Van Gogh Alive! exhibit at Starlight Theater:

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• Had book club: I highly recommend The House in the Cerulean Sea for a heart-warming read. 😊
• Attended (virtually) UMKC’s 15th Annual Pride Lecture with Garrard Conley, author of Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith, and Family. (Launched in 2007, this annual lecture series brings thought leaders from the LGBTQIA+ community to our campus. Sponsored by the Division of Diversity and Inclusion, past guests have included Staceyann Chin, Janaya Khan, Laverne Cox, Dustin Lance Black, and many other incredible individuals.)
• Met (virtually) with our lovely Prairie Village Arts Council for the final time in 2021. Next year is going to be so exciting. Check out our calendar!
• Picked up plant cuttings from a kind Prairie Village neighbor through the FB Buy Nothing PV group. If you’re not a member, I highly recommend it. Buy Nothing groups are a forum for “gifting” items to your neighbors. No buying or selling allowed; literally all just gifts. 😊 It’s a great space for cleaning out your own house of things you don’t use or need anymore.
• Had coffee with Mayor Mikkelson at French Market to catch up and talk about 2022.
• Visited ScrapsKC for the very first time! How had I never been there before!?!?!?! They have pretty much anything you’d ever need to craft, sew, knit, crochet, and more. They also do small batch recycling. In a similar vein to Buy Nothing groups, all the items here are used or partially used and were donated. At ScrapsKC you do pay a nominal price for these items, but always a tiny fraction of what they’d be brand new. Check out just a few areas of the store:

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Some timely posts you may have missed for signing up for upcoming events and opportunities:

That’s it for November. We have a three-week break now before our next meeting, where I do believe our newly elected and re-elected councilmembers will be sworn in. In the meantime:

Be well and have a great few weeks.

🙂