This will be a super brief recap. I wasn’t at the meeting because I was meant to be traveling out of town that evening. However, I ended up being sick and still couldn’t attend… the meeting OR Thanksgiving festivities in general. 😢 I’m still recuperating after about 11 days, and I have a lot of other catching up to do also. Thank you for understanding. 🙂

Presentations

Small Business Saturday proclamation

Citizens Police Academy graduation

Congratulations to my friend and PV Tree Board member, Pam Gagel, for being in this year’s Citizens Police Academy graduation class!! Reminder: the CPA is a 10-week fall program, and I highly recommend it!

Here is a list of the 2022 graduates, so you can see if anyone you know graduated this year and can tell you all about it 😊:

Nickie Lee, Deputy City Administrator
Barb Fisher, City Clerk’s Office Administrative Support
Scott Higgins
Jeremy Korn
Cassie Bahr
Elizabeth Sellers
Elena Vassilevsky
Pamela Gagel
Paul Douthat
Mary Chris Blickhan

Legislative updates from Senator Ethan Corson and Representatives Jerry Stogsdill, Rui Xu, and Stephanie Clayton

These remarks start at about 38:00 and end at about 1:12:00. Since these are already recaps and previews themselves, I’ll let you watch yourself so I don’t truncate them any further.

Public

Public Participation

Mayor Mikkelson called the residents to the podium one-by-one who had signed up to speak for three minutes. As I’ve been doing the last several meetings, here are some speakers who I don’t believe we have heard from before:

Madelyn Samuel – in support of policies in favor of housing attainability
Clayton Harper – in support of policies in favor of housing attainability

Committee Reports

Environmental Committee

Councilmember Greg Shelton reported that the co-recycling event with Overland Park was well-attended and something that the PV Environmental Committee will continue to participate in in the future.

Diversity Committee

Councilmember Inga Selders shared that the 2023 MLK celebration planning is underway along with planning for 2023 committee which will be led by Councilmember Cole Robinson.

Teen Council

Councilmember Piper Reimer invited the Teen Council members that were able to attend the National League of Cities summit in KC last week to speak to Council, and David, Ava, and Sneha all shared their takeaways from the event. Piper then shared her extremely positive impressions of the youth delegate program at NLC which is youth-designed and youth-led. Piper thanked the City for the opportunity for all of them, and other staff and council, to attend and learn.

Mayor’s report

Mayor reported on his recent activities, including continued small group meetings with residents about the housing issue.
Upcoming event: Dec. 1st Mayor’s Tree Lighting (proceeds to local PV foundation 501(c)(3))
Upcoming event: Dec. 2nd UCS Annual Meeting
Upcoming event: Dec. 4th Gingerbread House Decorating (proceeds to local PV foundation 501(c)(3))
Upcoming event: Dec. 6th – Next Planning Commission session which will include further workshopping on the Ad Hoc Housing Committee recommendations.
Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Prairie Village Foundation to support Shop with a Cop, Back to School with a Firefighter, utility assistance, minor home repairs/maintenance, food assistance, and other vital needs of our community members in PV.
Also, consider volunteering for one of our many City committees HERE for 2023.

Consider approval of the agreement with Swartz Consulting, LLC for telecommunications systems consulting and project management for the new telecommunications project

Approved unanimously.

Consider construction manager contract for pool repairs to the adult and lap pools

This was the work that previously received no bids, so this is a revised and reduced scope to meet budget and schedule constraints (to complete before the 2023 pool season). The total price for this work is now $1.85M. Approved unanimously after a short question and answer session.

Consider small cell facility deployment and master right-of-way license agreement

In an additional effort to limit municipal authority [local control], in 2019 the wireless industry pushed the Kansas Legislature to pass legislation that prohibits cities from requiring franchise agreements (of the kind previously entered into with such providers as Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile—typical “carriers” of wireless services) or requiring franchise fees. This new agreement with ExteNet replaces a franchise agreement and follows the new deployment agreement process the City utilized in 2021 for AT&T. Approved unanimously.

Legislative Platform 2023

I’ll write more about this in the next recap when we take this up again. Since I wasn’t at this meeting BUT I had the most recommendations for the 2023 platform, I want to give it a good chunk of time.

Potential adjustments to PV Property Tax Rebate program

City Clerk Adam Geffert reported out on the 2022 results of this first-year program, and made recommendations for changes for 2023 to increase participation and impact on the community*. This, too, was just the first part of this discussion, so I’ll get more in depth when we discuss at a meeting where I am able to attend and participate.

* Expanding this program is one of the Ad Hoc Housing Committee recommendations to help existing PV residents stay in their home.

Agenda Packet for your reference

Closing

Thank you for reading, and please feel free to share this newsletter/post with your PV neighbors!

Please try to stay well and have a great week! I recommend masking up in pubic or in groups. Even just a minor cold can get out of control quickly this year.

🙂