District 6 Advisory Board Meeting
Documenter name: Susan Miner
Agency: Wichita City - District Advisory Board 6
Date: June 10, 2024
See more about this meeting at Documenters.org
June 10, 2024, DAB 6 Meeting, 6:30 pm, Evergreen Community Center and Library, 2601 N Arkansas
[The public has the option to participate in DAB meetings virtually via the Zoom platform or to watch the meetings live on the District 6 Facebook page. Zoom meeting details are provided in each meeting agenda packet, including a link and the meeting ID and passcode.
The primary purpose of District Advisory Boards is to provide the City Council, City Staff and the District Council member advice and recommendations on matters of public policy, citizen involvement, and problems or issues specific to the district served. District Advisory Board members are volunteers appointed by the district’s City Council member and are charged with hearing and commenting on reports by City departments, public comments by residents, zoning cases, and other matters related to the district.]
Call to Order
The meeting began at 6:30 pm with Community Service Representative Ana Lopez presiding in the absence of Council member Maggie Ballard. DAB 6 members present were: Angelina Martinez, Mark Baker, Tom Jones, Bill Washburn, Joshua Siebenaler, and Zach Gingrich-Gaylord. Brian Irwin and Sergio Devora-Najera joined the meeting shortly. DAB 6 member Lisa Tatum joined the meeting at 7:15 pm. DAB 6 members Emy Rogers and Scott Lucas were absent. 6 presenters and 3 citizens were present. There were no virtual attendees. One citizen entered the meeting at 7:00 pm.
A motion to approve the current meeting agenda and the minutes of the April 8 and May 13 meetings was made, seconded, and unanimously approved.
Fire Department Report
[The Fire Department routinely provides an online report detailing response to calls, including photos, information on injuries, and damage estimates.]
Wichita Fire Department Lieutenant Michael Ring reported on the department’s rapid response to a submersion incident at Watson Park Lake on May 19, resulting in the victim being transferred to a local hospital under a Code Blue. This accident and the recent drowning at Lake Afton prompt the department to urge public awareness of water safety guidelines as they participate in more water activities during the summer months.
In referencing department response to recent fires in the district, he noted that unoccupied structure fires continue to be a problem within the City of Wichita and for the Wichita Fire Department.
With students out of school in the summer, the department emphasizes the need for families to review recreation safety rules, make sure children have parents’ emergency phone numbers, remain aware of the risk of heat exposure, maintain hydration and take breaks, as well as never leaving pets or children in vehicles.
Citizens are encouraged to sign up to receive public emergency alerts from the Wichita Fire Department, as well as severe weather warnings.
With the 4th of July coming up, Lt. Ring announced that fireworks can be on sale in the city from June 27 through July 5 and can be used between 10 am and midnight. Aerial fireworks are allowed to be sold and used in the city from July 3 through 5. Commercial grade aerial fireworks still require a license.
The Fire Department Kids Summer Camp, providing fire education for students 8 to 12 years old from June 20 to 21, 9 am to Noon, is fully enrolled and proving quite popular.
The Fire Investigation Unit has examined 14 recent fire scenes, finding fires set by vagrants to be a continuing concern.
The online Fire Department report included information on three fires reported in District 6 in April and May, one accidental and two arson. One arson case was in a vacant school, as fires in abandoned buildings remain an ongoing problem across the city. Also noted were the number of hours and types of training conducted in April and May, including Lieutenant & Captain’s Promotional Assessment, graduation of 14 probationary firefighters, and EMT written credentialing.
The Community Risk Reduction Division provides recommendations for keeping families safe during the summer months when more students are at home. Informing all children about how to detect and report a fire, practicing evacuation of the home with an emergency escape plan, testing smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors monthly, and replacing batteries every 6 months are among the steps to take. Further information is available at 316-268-4441 or the Wichita Fire Department website.
Wichita Police Department Report
Officer Kimrey from Patrol West reported that the department is still catching up on the backlog from the cyber breach the city encountered in early May, now gradually able to access records that were inaccessible and updating files that had to be handled manually.
She announced the department’s Second Chance Thursday on July 11 at Colvin Elementary School, 2820 S Roosevelt, from 9 am to 4 pm. Citizens can access help from the Department of Motor Vehicles in handling suspended licenses, the Wichita Municipal Court with payment plans and court dates, the Wichita Police Department with traffic citation orders and court dates, Kansas International Driver License School with help obtaining a license, and Nexstep with education and job opportunities for citizens on parole. More information is available at.
With summer use of recreational vehicles increasing, more citizens are concerned with RVs and trailers being parked on residential streets. Officer Kimrey provided copies of a list of Top 10 Residential Parking Violations, which includes a sketch indicating the distances required between parked vehicles and fire hydrants, traffic signs, private drives, curbs, and sidewalks, as well as the amount of time a vehicle can be parked on the street before being subject to towing.
Public Library Report
Anne Ethen, Branch Manager of Evergreen Branch Library, reported that the summer reading program is well underway and highlighted the bilingual storytimes at Evergreen on Thursdays at 10:30 am and Welcome to the Symphony at Evergreen on Monday, June 24 at 1030 am, when symphony members will read a book about the symphony and introduce children to their instruments. She provided copies of a handout calendar of events and programs across the library system.
Ethen reported that some services are still not available due to the cyber breach on the city’s website:
The following services are available:
· Public internet on public computers
· Public wifi at the Alford, Angelou and Rockwell locations
· Libby (eBooks, audiobooks, digital magazines)
· Staff can check out and check in materials in offline mode. (Unable to process hold requests and renewals.)
· Phone systems and staff emails
· Meeting room rentals (accepting cash, check or money order payments at this time)
The following services are NOT available:
· Customer account information (can’t access borrowed items or fees, change passwords, etc.)
· Public wifi at the Advanced Learning Library, Evergreen and Walters locations
· Most databases, including Kanopy and LinkedIn Learning
· Online catalog
· Library website
· Self-service print release stations
· Self-check station
· Product sales (flash drives, headphones, etc.)
· Automated materials handler at the Advanced Learning Library
Public Agenda
There being no scheduled items on the public agenda and no persons present wishing to speak on any off-agenda items, the meeting proceeded to new business.
New Business
Chief Deputy City Attorney Sharon Dickgrafe presented slides explaining the background and current steps on a proposed charter ordinance to designate the City of Wichita website as the official city newspaper for publication of legal notices.
K.S.A. 64-101 provides that Cities of the First Class are required to designate, by resolution, a newspaper as the “official city newspaper” for publication of ordinances, resolutions, and city notices. State statutes and city ordinances require that certain actions of the City Council be published in a newspaper or in its “official newspaper.”
Currently, The Wichita Eagle is designated as the City’s official newspaper. The contract for publication services with The Wichita Eagle was entered into in 2019 at a current cost of $150,000 and is due to be rebid in August 2024.
Charter ordinance allows the city to designate, by resolution, the City of Wichita’s website as the official city newspaper. The charter ordinance must be approved by a vote of at least five of seven Council members and would go into effect 61 days after publication of the second reading of the ordinance. Citizens have a period of 60 days to initiate a petition which would require a public vote on the charter ordinance, potentially delaying its implementation until after the current contract with The Wichita Eagle ends.
Terms of the charter ordinance require that the City’s website be made available to citizens at no charge; that for documents requiring publication, the City Clerk must also execute an affidavit verifying that the document was properly published on the City’s website; that paper copies not exceeding 20 pages must be provided to citizens upon request free of charge at public libraries and neighborhood resource centers; and that notices will be maintained on the City’s website for at least five years.
Tyler Schiffelbein with City Communications explained that the City has already made these required notifications readily accessible on its website and stated that even in the recent cyber breach when some services were inoperable, the website was never down. He specified numerous points of access to legal notices on the City’s website, as well as which City staff would have access to the files, and various means of promoting and receiving feedback on legal notice availability. A marketing campaign to encourage citizens to sign up for notifications from the City is also planned.
The draft resolution and ordinance were shown at the conclusion of the presentation and can be found at the end of the online meeting agenda.
DAB 6 members present had numerous questions and comments on the plan:
Brian Irwin: Does data support the claim that publishing legal notices solely on the City website will in fact increase access?
Tyler Schiffelbein (TS): The City was planning this website access anyway. We already have this access built into the website.
Sharon Dickgrafe (SD): Specific budget and tax notices will still require newspaper publication.
Irwin: How will citizens know to request a paper copy of a notice?
Joshua Siebenaler: Could a list of notices be posted at libraries?
TS: I assume so.
Siebenaler: Does the state law require that the designated newspaper have a certain size distribution?
SD: No. The Wichita Eagle and the Derby Informer have been the designated newspapers in the past.
Siebenaler: How would the citizen protest of this ordinance work? Would it require a certain percentage of residents to protest?
SD: 10 percent of voters in the last general election would be required for a valid protest.
Siebenaler: There have been concerns with legal notification of zoning cases, so what are the community partnerships you plan to use to make these legal notifications more widely available?
TS: Community partnerships with local influencers, people who are actively involved in their communities, neighborhood associations, etc.
Bill Washburn: Is this change largely a financial consideration? Saving the City the $150,000 contract fee with The Wichita Eagle?
SD: The contract could be rebid with The Wichita Eagle or we could use the Derby Recorder. It would save around $120,000 if the ordinance passes.
Washburn: Just an idea, but could the notices be filtered geographically to target them to people most likely to need them?
TS: I will look into that.
Mark Baker: Have other cities used their websites as their official publication for these notices?
SD: 20 to 25 Kansas cities have, mostly smaller cities.
Siebenaler: I think there are other places to save this amount of money.
Zach Gingrich-Gaylord: What is this process for? What is the problem it is trying to solve? It seems that $150,000 is not a large amount for the City, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it cost $500,000 to inform citizens of these legal notifications. How much are we spending on this process to promote this change?
SD: The majority of these legal notices do not need to be in a published newspaper.
Gingrich-Gaylord: Would engaging a third party publisher like a newspaper increase transparency?
Irwin: Since the information in these notices originates with the City, does it increase transparency if it is simply printed by a third party? Is there a longer archival time frame in which the information is saved elsewhere?
SD: While the ordinance states that it will be saved on the website for at least five years, it will be retained by the City Clerk’s office indefinitely.
TS: Yes, after a period of five years, it makes sense to remove it from the website and keep it in paper files.
Gingrich-Gaylord: There must be some purpose in the state law prescribing publication of these notices in a newspaper. I don’t understand the need to change the ordinance.
Irwin: Maybe the law was written before the advance of technology we see today.
Baker: Perhaps a smaller newspaper could do more for the same cost.
There being no further questions or comments from DAB 6 members, the public present was offered the opportunity to comment. There being none, the meeting proceeded to updates from DAB 6 members.
Board Agenda
DAB 6 members had these updates:
Tom Jones: Minisa shelter is available for summer activities.
Irwin: A Town Hall is scheduled for Midtown on June 20 regarding the proposed use of the recently closed Park Elementary School,, for the Multi-Agency Center for homeless residents being planned by the City.. Midtown residents are seeking more support from the City to clean up the Midtown areas on Broadway as the neighborhood continues to deal with the impact of homelessness.
[During the USD 259 Board of Education meeting Monday evening, June 10, the BOE voted to delay the sale of the Park Elementary School. During the City Council meeting Tuesday morning, June 11, Council voted to delay its action to purchase the Park Elementary School until it's July 2 meeting or sooner, pending further action by the BOE on the matter.] l
Washburn: With Cheney Lake down 5.7 feet, I am concerned why there is no water restriction order issued by the City and would like to know Council member Ballard’s thinking on this.
Ana Lopez offered to ask Council member Ballard about this.
Siebenaler: I would like to know about the budget process and next steps for the Fire Department budget.
Ms Lopez agreed to follow up with Council member Ballard on this as well.
Adjournment
There being no further business, a motion to adjourn was made, seconded, and passed unanimously at 7:30 pm.
The next DAB 6 meeting is scheduled to be held at 6:30 pm on Monday, July 8, 2024, at the Evergreen Community Center & Library, 2601 N. Arkansas. Residents are invited to participate in person or watch live on the District 6 Facebook page. Up-to-date meeting information is available on the District 6 webpage, where the meeting agenda and supplemental documents are posted on the Wednesday prior to the upcoming meeting.
Summary:
Citizens are doubtful about the need for discontinuing publication of legal notices in The Wichita Eagle. There is concern that having them available only on the City website will limit rather than increase citizen access and that the potential saving of $120,000 does not justify this risk.
Midtown residents are concerned about the impact of homelessness in their neighborhood and are seeking more support from the City in providing adequate housing services to those in need, cleaning up the areas where people are sheltering inappropriately, and enforcing traffic laws and other safeguards for citizens.
As the City budget planning process is underway, residents want to see adequate funding for both the Fire Department and the Police Department and want these deliberations to be open to public comment.
If you believe anything in these notes is inaccurate, please email us at documenters@citybureau.org with "Correction Request" in the subject line.