Apr 28, 2025

SHAWNEE CITY COUNCIL MEETING

April 28, 2025

You can stream the full City Council meeting at the link below! If you don't have time to watch, here's my quick recap. 

Tonight’s meeting was pretty quick and didn’t see much discussion outside of clarifying questions. However, one interesting comment did arise during a discussion about amending a redevelopment agreement to allow a developer to refinance an apartment project that was approved in 2019 and has already been built. The item passed unanimously since it’s just allowing the developer to make a financial transaction, it wasn’t approving a new project or costing the city any money. However, Councilmember Gillette did shoehorn in the below quoted statement indicating his opposition to incentivizing multifamily housing (for context, an infill development is within an already established area; in this case, downtown Shawnee.) If you’re interested in hearing this for yourself, you can listen to the city council live stream around the 1:03:00 mark.

Councilmember Gillette: “To date on this council as a councilmember, I have not voted for any traditional TIF or CID and I really don’t intend to do so as a councilmember. Had I been on the council at this time I would not have supported this TIF for 20 years long for an infill apartment complex at 80%.” 

During Business from the Floor, one resident came to speak for a third time about speeding on his street. He was very upset and claimed he once saw trucks drag racing down his residential street. He said he and his neighbors would shut down the street or install their own speed bumps if the city didn’t do something. Mayor Sandifer and Councilmember Gillette requested that the police department and city staff follow up with the resident. 

Additionally, the Council considered the following:

• Passed consent agenda (unanimous)

• Approved a resolution of intent to issue a $3.1 mil Industrial Revenue Bond to the Metro Air Expansion Project (unanimous)

• Approved contracts for the 5900 Monticello Emergency Stormwater Pipe Repair project (unanimous)

• Approved contracts for the Garrett Park Improvements Project (unanimous)

• Approved Contract for the Facilities and IT Building Remodel (unanimous)

• Approved Final Change Order for the Mid-America West Sports Complex Public Storm Improvements Project (unanimous)

• Approved easement acquisition and resolution to acquire right-of-way and easements for the McAnany Drive Street Improvement Project (unanimous)

• Approved the assumption of lease and transfer of Industrial Revenue Bonds for the ServiceMaster DSI Project (unanimous)

• Approved an amendment to the redevelopment agreement with Stag’s Spring LLC for the redevelopment of Sixty16 at 6016 Roger Road (unanimous)

• Ratified semimonthly claims (unanimous)

At Council Committee, the committee heard several presentations from city staff, but there wasn’t a lot of discussion or action needed. The first presentation from Police Chief Sam Larson with an annual review of the police department’s statistics and operations. There was some discussion about staffing since they saw double the usual number of resignations last year and are anticipating a lot of retirements this year. The police department plans to address this by continuing to work with city staff to ensure salary and benefits are commensurate with surrounding areas; they also said any referrals to their open positions are welcome. There was also some discussion of the county mental health co-responders, who are seeing a high usage rate.

The second item was from Finance Director Sean Rocco with a review of the city’s 2024 financials and a preview of the 2026 budget. There wasn’t a ton of discussing council already worked the budget a bit at their budget retreat this past weekend, which was open to the public but not live streamed. Councilmember Kemmling did make a comment on the city’s fund balance being higher than projected and his apparent belief that this will always be the case. He seemed to be defending his push to reduce the mill levy year after year despite staff concerns about the city’s long-term financial stability; I’d say it is a safe bet that he will advocate for the same this upcoming budget cycle. If you’re interested in hearing this for yourself, you can listen to the council committee live stream around the 1:06:40 mark.

Councilmember Kemmling: “I guess the observation I was gonna make was that we approved a budget for 2024 that was gonna have us with a fund balance of 58.1% and then it revised up to 61.7, and at the end it was 66.2, so higher than we had thought, and I know we went over reasons why, I’m just saying in 12 years there’s always reasons why they revised it up higher. And so I know when we talk about mill levy and reductions, everyone gets scared because that number goes to 0 when they plan it out, but this is just one more example of a time when we went in thinking it was gonna be 58 and we got 66, so, just pointing that out again. And we said our threshold, our minimum was 30, so over double what we say is our policy amount.”

Finally, city staff ran through the 2026-2035 Capital Improvement Program, which is basically the city’s plan for how they will fund major expenditures ($150K+) over the next 10 years. Some of it the city pays for, but staff also looks for external grants and funding to offset costs. The council renewed their calls for KDOT to consider an interchange at 75th and K7. 

City Council Meeting: 

https://cityofshawnee.civicweb.net/document/308866/?splitscreen=true&media=true 

Council Committee Meeting:

https://cityofshawnee.civicweb.net/document/308869/?splitscreen=true&media=true 

Recap by: Alex Welch Blattner