Jul 14, 2025

SHAWNEE CITY COUNCIL MEETING

July 14, 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. 

The item that garnered the most discussion tonight was staff’s request for $55,000 to begin preparing for the city’s Americana and Ales music festival during next year’s World Cup. Tara Stratton, a local musician and Shawnee resident, questioned if artists would be limited to just bluegrass or if it would include all Americana musicians (since Americana is a broader category) and also asked if street safety improvements were being considered for the residential streets around downtown that still lack sidewalks, curb & gutter, etc. Stratton also encouraged that local performers be included in the festival and not just larger out-of-town acts. 

Councilmembers Kemmling and Walters expressed that they did not want to use city funds for this event (despite the increased foot traffic and exposure for all the downtown businesses in Kemmling’s ward.) Councilmember Burchfield mentioned that this event has already garnered positive media attention and felt this was a great opportunity to put Shawnee on the map. Councilmember Gillette urged staff to find grants and corporate sponsorships whenever possible, but favored funding the event since it’s just a one-time expense. Councilmember Knappen questioned whether Shawnee will actually see a lot of out-of-town visitors coming for this festival, but still favored funding the event as a giveback for residents similar to Moonlight Market. The funding for this event passed 6-2 with Kemmling and Walters in dissent. Below is the full quote of Kemmling’s opposition to funding this event; if you’re interested in listening yourself, you can find it around the 1-hour timestamp. 

Councilmember Kemmling: “I’m not opposed to this event or it being held here, although I am opposed to using city funds for this. Um, you know, if it comes in at budget, which is $110,000 or hoping to get $30,000 in sponsorship, I don’t know what happens if they fall short there. Um, the packet here says the city funding request is $80,000, although only $55,000 tonight, so once again this 55 isn’t the total ask at this point. And as we saw from the cost analysis of Old Shawnee Days, the cost of an event is more than just what we hand out as well. And so I’m for the event if they want to find a way to fund it themselves, but I’m against the city giving money for it.”

The governing body also formally expressed their intent to exceed the Revenue Neutral Rate (RNR) and set August 25 as the public hearing for that. As a reminder, the state of Kansas requires cities to state this intent and hold a public hearing if they intend to bring in more money than last year - even if the mill levy is not increasing. For a growing city like Shawnee, this is pretty much always going to be the case. "Revenue neutral," for us, would be a steep decrease to the mill levy - so even in years with a 1-2 mill reduction, we still exceed that RNR just because of growth. This state requirement is pretty unpopular with the council but it's what they have to work with. There wasn’t much discussion on this agenda item, but Councilmembers Kemmling and Gillette wanted to leave the door open to push for another mill levy reduction during budget discussion at a future meeting (July 28, if I had to guess.) This is still an option even if the city has expressed their intent to exceed the RNR, so the conversation is certainly not over. The quote below illustrates Councilmember Gillette’s comments about the mill levy but if you’re interested in hearing his comments for yourself, you can listen to the live stream around the 54-minute time stamp.

Councilmember Gillette: “We did not do a, um, mill levy rate reduction on this budget last year, um, and we still took in over $1.3 million dollars to the city coffers. So, uh, just, uh, as a tee-up for our budget sessions, uh, I will be proposing a mill levy decrease. I know that’s not the issue in front of us, but just to keep this in mind as this starts and kicks off the process on the budget side.”

Additionally, the Council considered the following:

• Passed consent agenda (unanimous)

• Approved rezoning for Canyon Lakes West single-family neighborhood (unanimous)

• Approved updates to PS-56, the user fee schedule, to become compliant with new state legislation (unanimous)

• Approved contract for the 7070 Renner Road Pipe Repair Project (unanimous)

• Approved Professional Engineering Services Agreement for the Windsor Neighborhood and Quivira Drive and Albervan CMP Replacement Project (unanimous)

• Approved contracts for the inspection and testing services for the Goddard Street and Shawnee Mission Parkway & 61st Street and Melrose Lane CMP Replacement Projects (unanimous)

• Ratified semimonthly claims (unanimous)

At Council Committee, city staff presented a few wrap-up items for the budget. The city manager started with an overview of all the fund balances, both the general fund and all the special funds with statutory limits on how they can be used. He also gave an update on the Reserve Reduction Plan - the goal for 2025 was to have the general fund reserves reduced to 45%, and we are on target to reach 45.2%, so we did pretty well. That's a 5-6% reduction for this year, achieved by funding additional stormwater projects & also balancing the budget.

Staff proposed a 1% increase to the Transient Guest Tax on stays at hotels and short-term rentals (from 8% to 9%, bringing Shawnee in line with neighboring communities.) Councilmember Gillette opposed it due to an ideological opposition to raising taxes, and his belief that raising the rate by 1% would drive people away from Shawnee hotels. Councilmember Walters opposed raising the tax as well, on ideological grounds. Councilmembers Murphy pointed out that a 1% raise on would only come out to about $2/night which she and others felt was not particularly burdensome. Councilmember Knappen stated that while he is opposed to raising taxes, this tax is levied on guests to Shawnee rather than passing costs onto residents. Councilmembers Stiens and Whitted felt that with the World Cup coming up, this is a one-time opportunity to bring in more revenue by raising the guest tax. Ultimately, the committee came to a 5-3 consensus in support (Gillette, Kemmling, and Walters in dissent,) though it won’t be finalized until they approve the 2026 budget. 

Next steps for the budget are the city manager’s proposed budget presentation at the July 28 council committee meeting (where I’d anticipate some discussion on any changes to the mill levy,) the public budget open house on August 6 at Shawnee Town 1929, and the public hearing/adoption of the budget on August 25.

City Council Meeting: 

https://cityofshawnee.civicweb.net/document/311302/?splitscreen=true&media=true 

Council Committee Meeting:

https://cityofshawnee.civicweb.net/document/311305/?splitscreen=true&media=true 

Recap by: Alex Welch Blattner