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Wichita City Council Meetings/Workshops - City Council Workshop 11/25/2025
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City Council Workshop

Documenter name: Judy Winters

Agency: Wichita City Council Meetings/Workshops

Date: Nov. 25, 2025

See more about this meeting at Documenters.org

 

 

Summary

Notes

The Nov. 25, 2025 city council meeting was held in the first-floor board room at City Hall. Mayor Lily Wu and six council members were present: Brandon Johnson, Becky Tuttle, Mike Hoheisal, JV Johnston, Dalton Glasscock and Maggie Ballard.

PUBLIC COMMENTS

Several residents took advantage of the public comment portion of the meeting. Diane Albert, USD 259’s Board of Education President, was asked to give the same speech she gave at the 31st Annual JROTC Veterans Day Assembly at WSU’s Koch Arena. It was an inspirational speech that encouraged the young cadets to look for ways to serve others. It was also an emotional tribute to her father, former Fire Captain Steven Atkinson, who passed away unexpectedly earlier this year.

Arthur Stokes highlighted unsafe conditions such as black mold in some of the city’s low-income housing units. He urged the mayor to do more to make living conditions safer, saying “if people don’t have safety, we don’t have anything.” Councilmember Johnston responded saying that the city’s property board will be addressing these issues on Dec. 9.

Barb Myers, founder of Friends of the Wichita Pioneers, gave an update on their work with the historic Highland Cemetery. This year, they partnered with Old Cowtown to host tours of Wichita’s first cemetery. The tours are done for the season but Myers will open the mausoleum on Christmas Day for anyone who wants to visit. Fundraising and publicity for future work days is ongoing. She is working with WSU on grant research to create an interactive website for Highland Cemetery. Visitors to the site will be able to click on any of the Wichita pioneers who are buried there to read about their stories. They would like to use drones to add aerial videos of the cemetery that will point out historic gravesite locations. Myers said more funding is needed for regular maintenance and security, as well as gravestone preservation.

COUNCIL BUSINESS

The council also approved the consent agenda and the petitions for public improvements by a vote of 7-0. There was some discussion during the bids and contracts portion of the meeting, with council members questioning why IdeaTek was hired to lay internet fiber without opening the job up for bids. The city’s Finance Department said that they had requested an exemption for open bids which is allowed for high-tech projects. Because this company was already working on other jobs around Wichita, their prices were significantly lower than if the city had to request bids from other providers.

Council members then appointed Andrea Scarpelli to the Library Board and Barb Myers to the Cemetery Preservation Board.

Council member Johnson also announced that Wichita was recognized at the 2025 Digital Cities Survey Awards held in Salt Lake City, UT. Wichita placed 2nd after Long Beach, CA, in the 250,000-499,999-population category. Wichita’s IT department has particularly excelled in cybersecurity and other digital government services.

CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP

Much of the meeting was devoted to discussing the city’s homelessness crisis. Matt Lowe, Director of Community Impact at United Way of the Plains, began with a detailed PowerPoint presentation on homeless services to council members. In it, he mentioned that the Coalition to End Homelessness is Sedgwick County’s Continuum of Care (CoC) organization. It is one of five CoC counties in Kansas and consists of 24 local partners who assist with the rapid and permanent rehousing of individuals. There are many more grassroots organizations that work separately with the homeless.

Coalition members and volunteers work in groups to canvas the county and identify unsheltered individuals. Their most recent Point-in-Time (PIT) counted 541 people in shelters and transitional housing and 195 unsheltered people for a total of 736 individuals. There are about 140 people who are classified as chronically unhoused, which means they have been documented as being unhoused for more than a year and have a disabling condition. About 25% of individuals who receive assistance return to homelessness within 2 years. A more detailed breakdown of these demographics may be found on the United Way of the Plains website.

Lowe described the types of services and housing available in Wichita. Shelters are used for shorter 30-90 day stays and work to move individuals quickly through the system. Transitional housing is typically 12-48 months and used by individuals who are waiting for services that take longer or might be needing medical care. There are around 425 shelter beds and 100 transitional housing beds available with various organizations that help groups such as families with minor children, single men and women, youth, veterans, victims of domestic violence and post-incarcerated individuals which make up about 2% of the unhoused. The United Way is in the process of developing an interactive app using SpectrumWare that will show the location of available beds. Second Light has served around 400 unduplicated clients since August 18 and a new men’s sleeping space will open on Dec. 5, 2025. Second Light and Union Rescue Mission have switched to their winter emergency shelter status until Mar. 2026. On the coldest night last winter, around 275 people stayed at Second Light.

The Coalition’s goal is to reach functional zero homelessness which indicates a community has measurably solved homelessness. This is sometimes called “system equilibrium” when the community has the right number of resources for the number of people entering homelessness. However, this may be undermined by a decision the federal government made in 2025 with respect to funding grants. Now, only 30% of funding can be used to provide permanent housing, down from 86% last year. Participation requirements have been expanded to a 40 hour/week service requirement which may include work, volunteering and treatment programs. This hurts the “housing first” approach that has shown to be more effective when individuals are more successful at finding a job when they have a place to live first.

Kenny Barker then gave an update on the Robert Dole VA Homeless program for veterans, which has partnered with new agencies such as KanVet and Tunnels to Towers to keep veterans in housing. Successful practices include a Veterans Benefit Office, a mobile DMV clinic, and providing Wichita municipal IDs for individuals without personal identification, which is required to receive benefits.

After the presentation, council members discussed the issue of the number of unhoused individuals from outside of Sedgwick County using local services and the costs associated with that. Of the total unhoused population, 81% are from Sedgwick County. Of the remaining individuals, 44% come from other Kansas counties, 54% are from out-of-state, and 2% are from other countries. The cost of one bed per quarter is $5,000. There is an additional $20 million annual cost for police, fire and medical services related to the unhoused community. Council members stated they would never turn away people in emergency situations but would like to explore ways other counties can support their own people or share in the cost of services.

The second prominent item pertained to the K-96 AND GREENWICH STAR BOND DISTRICT. During this section, Troy Anderson, Assistant City Manager, pitched a proposal for a major family entertainment complex near K-96 and Greenwich. This project does not expand the existing boundaries of the STAR Bond district. The project site consists of about 60 acres of land that were partially owned by the Cozine and Cornejo families. The multi-sport facilities will include a synthetic, year-round ice-skating rink, indoor golfing, baseball and surfing and a competitive, high-speed, golf-cart racing course similar to an Andretti's. The centerpiece will be a state-of-the art NCAA tennis facility owned and operated by WSU and a resort hotel.

The Kansas Department of Commerce has confirmed there is no financial risk to the city. Anderson said that the city will see significant return on investment by year nine. A public hearing is scheduled for the Dec. 9 City Council meeting.

 

Finally, Gary Jansen from the city’s Public Works Department provided an update on the STORMWATER UTILITY RATE INCREASE. A healthy balance has been maintained in recent years; however, a large portion of the fund will be used to finance the Bleckley drainage project. Without a rate increase, the fund balance will meet the minimum reserve balance by 2033. Currently, most customers pay $3.50 per month. Jansen offered three rate options for council members to consider:

  1. Maintain status quo – no new neighborhood improvements would be funded.
  2.  Minimum increase – increase the monthly rates by 15 cents starting in 2026.
  3. Combination increase – increase the monthly rate by one dollar in 2026, then reduce the monthly increase to 15 cents starting in 2027. This will fund neighborhood improvements and is the recommended option.

The council will hold an official vote on the rate adjustment by the end of the year.

Wichitans also awaited news about the NEW CITY MANAGER. After several closed-door executive sessions, council members voted 5-2 to enter into contract negotiations with Dennis Marstall for the City Manager position. Marstall has previously worked in city management in Manhattan, KS, and Lancaster, SC.

Council members Johnson and Hoheisal were the two dissenting votes. Johnson had significant concerns about the selection process rather than any specific finalist. After the vote, he spoke of potential undue influence by elected officials and the selection committee as well as problems with the scoring criteria for finalists.

Mark Freitag was the other finalist being considered by council members. Donte Martin, a current Assistant City Manager, unexpectedly dropped out of consideration last Friday. If a contract agreement is reached, an official vote will be held at the Dec. 2 City Council meeting.

 

Follow-Up Questions

 

 

If you believe anything in these notes is inaccurate, please email us at dhaslam@kansasleadershipcenter.org with "Correction Request" in the subject line.