District 5 Advisory Board

Page |1 District V Advisory Board Minutes August 5, 2019 www.wichita.gov The District V Advisory Board meeting was held at 6:30 p.m. at Fire Station #21, located at 2110 N. 135th St. W., Wichita, KS 67235. ATTENDANCE Members Present Staff Present Nancy Duling Capt. Ken Ast, Wichita Fire Department Jose Gutierrez Officer Robyn Douty, Wichita Police Rachel Murphy-Thomas Department Roman Rodriguez David McGuire, Park & Recreation Department Jill Kerschen Tracie Partridge, Senior Librarian Alissa Unruh Mike Armour, Public Works and Utilities Council Member Bryan Frye Mark Manning, City Treasurer Cory Buchta, Community Services Members Absent Representative JV Johnston Angela Breer Guests Trevor Kurth Dr. Chad Higgins Ben Kittrell Phil Meyer Troy Palmer Trey Rios, Youth Member ORDER OF BUSINESS Call to Order: The meeting was called to order by Bryan Frye Approval of August 5, 2019 Agenda: 6-0-0 Approval of July 1, 2019 Agenda: 6-0-0 PUBLIC AGENDA This portion of the agenda provides an opportunity for citizens to present issues that are not part of the regular agenda for the meeting. There is a five minute time limit for each speaker. 1. Scheduled Items Dr. Chad Higgins, USD 266 Superintendent of Schools, presented an update on the on the August 27th special bond issue election for Maize Schools. We have 8,000 students in the district. Northwest Wichita. Halstead road to 9th diagonally to the zoo. The densest school district in state. 2nd fasting growing in the state. Built a career academy. Our students build an airplane. Just finished Bond issue from 2015. Growing 200-250 students every year. Hope to open two intermediate schools in the next two years. Over 90% capacity in elementary and middle schools. Solution to build two intermediate schools. Intend to take 5th out of elementary and 6th out of middle. Intend to expand one of our high schools and improve oldest high school. Second question is for combination pool and auditorium. Think it will be ideal for fine arts program. Pool will address competition and special needs. Now we use the Y. Not ideal. Having our own facility will be a good thing for our kids. 108 million for both issues can do it without a tax increase. Been able to refinance bonds to save a few million dollars. People have said this seems like a no brainer, but this is still an 1  Page |2 election issue on August 27th. Safety and security is a big piece of this. Bond issue adds tornado shelter, improves camera system and scan in system. Classroom door security isn’t ideal, this would address that. Check out the video on the Facebook page. CM Frye: Location in mind for auditorium and pool? A: Not decided yet. Between both high schools. Building intermediate schools with flexibility in mind. We know where those will likely go. Maybe on south campus. Maybe west property. 119th and academy is potential. We have a board meeting a week from today to discuss. CM Frye: If someone wanted to tour the career academy, who would they contact? A: Either one of us. They have future fire rescue, future teachers, all sorts of things. And connect program. Experiential learning is a big initiative. We invite businesses to come in and talk to kids. It’s a great space. We had some students intern with City of Wichita tech dept. CM Frye: Want to congratulate you and your staff. Great district and great leadership out there. 2. Off-agenda Items NONE Recommended Action: Receive and file Pass 6-0 BOARD AGENDA 3. Updates, Issues and Reports CM Frye: Last week we launched ICT 1 – Integrated Care Team. Collaborating with Sedgwick County and com care. Pilot program. Paramedic, police officer, social worker. Mostly mental health related calls. This team will be answering calls that are more mental health related in core area. Fire station 1 in downtown. Early results very encouraging. Doing with existing staff resources, so not adding any costs. Tue, Wed, Thur. Fri for 10 hours. After 90 days we’ll see if the program has merit to continue. Idea is to cut down on man hours for law enforcement and fire. Mental health one of top calls we get. Tomorrow is next council meeting on budget and CIP. Approve August 13. Tomorrow is another public forum for people to comment and give feedback. Talked about adding additional police officers. Will talk about that tomorrow. Will discuss tomorrow and any other comments from public. Same with CIP. STAFF REPORTS 4. Fire Department Report Capt. Ken Ast reported:  Last month, 7 fire alarms, 26 service, 279 alarms total.  West 20th street circle. Fire damage in front of garage. Excessive storage house, made it hard for us to get in and determine cause.  ICT – First 2 days, 14 patients. 11 times, law enforcement was freed up. 5 times fire was turned around. 6 times EMS was turned around. Helps keep public service back out.  Between November of last year and last week, collected 37,000 dollars for Salvation Army. 5. Community Police Report Officer Robyn Douty reported:  Beat 199 –  No current crime trends we are focusing on other than cars getting broken into. We keep seeing this happen. Car had 4,000 in cash stolen from unlocked car. Spouses car keys stolen from that vehicle. Really trying to educate people. They are learning a hard lesson. Getting people to tell their neighbors. Don’t leave anything in yours. 2  Page |3  Next Tuesday is NNO. We’ll be attending parties. Today is the last day to register if you want police or fire to attend your parties.  DAB: Saw a notice you put out to NA about several guns stolen out of cars  A: Don’t’ have numbers on that but last year there were several hundred guns stolen in city of Wichita. Over 300. We’re not seeing that go down. People like to leave guns in their cars and bad guys know this. It’s a matter of teaching people and hoping they remember.  DAB: Why did they have 4,000 cash?  A: I think it was a legitimate business, but I can’t reveal their identity.  DAB: Are most cars broken into unlocked or breaking windows?  A: If criminals see something they want, they’ll break a window for it, but many are unlocked. 6. Park & Recreation Department Report David McGuire reported:  NNO is coming and there will be parties in about 20 parks. We’re getting those mowed up and looking good.  In a transition where ending al summer programs then a few weeks off before fall sessions start in September. Had a good summer. Well attended camps. 8 tech camps had 20-30 camps.  Summer concert series, still have august and September at McAdams.  Open Streets next month already. September 22. Doubled the number of vendors that want to be a part of it.  Spray parks. Buffalo will end at the end of September. Will only come on in weekends.  August 19. College hill swimming pool take your dog for a swim.  Pracht Wetlands. Couple of meetings with Westar. They will help us build the trail on the east side of their park. Visited with those neighbors. Most are pretty excited about it. No one had any objections. 7. Wichita Public Library Report Tracie Partridge reported:  Summer reading program ended July 26. o Registered over 10,000 children and teens. o Over 15,000 prizes o 40% at Westlink o Over 900 teens registered for Library cards o Checked out over 160,000 children and teen materials. o Over 9,000 children and adults attended activities planned for kids.  August month of rest for us. Prepped for fall season in September. You can come to fall gardening series. Lawn care will be last Thursday in August. Each week master gardeners will offer programs for people who need help. Next one is on attracting beneficial insects. Soil, Zero- scaping, lawn care.  ALL author talk and book signing. o Overall fastest known time on Appalachian Trail. She’ll talk about her experience. Will be selling books she will sign.  Local Author Day. August 24th at ALL. Gives local authors chance to promote their works. More than 50 local authors. 2 activities. At 10:30 authors will talk about what it takes to write publish and market their works. Then a chance to purchase their work.  Sunday, September 1st and Monday, September 2 we will be closed. 8. Public Works & Utilities Report 3  Page |4 Mike Armour shared the following:  Update on projects in district. o 13th street pavement prep work o 119th and Maize, curing out and fixing unrelated patches o 2019 OPP starting prep work this fall. Overlays in Spring o Projects in design. Ridge road sidewalk 29th to 33rd. Bid already. Construction underway in September o 13th Maize to 135th – pending easement. o 34th and ridge signal request. Doing analysis on that. o Hoover Sanitary Sewer bid in a couple of weeks. DAB: Overlay looks beautiful. Action Taken: Motion to receive and file. Motion PASSED 6-0-0. NEW BUSINESS 9. Public Art Funding Proposal Phil Meyer, Landscape Architect, presented a proposal for public arts funding. Manager asked 2.5 years ago to put together a committee for a formal structure for public arts program. Several members of design council and members of arts council and concerned citizens that have a passion for arts. 10-12 active members for last 2 years. Formalized structure for how we fund these programs in future. We are spread thin tonight. Presenting to all DABs and asking for suggestions and thoughts to take back to our group. Help from committee and City Staff. What is public art? Not just a sculpture out on the sidewalk. Design council has been in place in some form since 86/87. One of the first projects was Kellogg and West Street, when they made it an overpass. Since then they’ve had a committee make recommendations on aesthetics. Art is not just plot art. Art that ends up in public places draws people. Economic benefit to aesthetically please projects. Businesses want to know there’s stuff in town that will keep employees happy working here. Public art comes in a lot of different forms. West Street Douglas Park. Integration of how you do architecture, how you do the art, and how you put the two together. NOMAR is great example of art that is aesthetically pleasing and added into the architecture. East Kellogg is great example. Bridge over Little Ark River at Central and McLean. Was supposed to be a water pipe going over river. Integrated bridge into it. Tried to include aesthetics into airport. First impression when people show up. Allows you to create neighborhood identity. Little details in way you set things up. Example the troll by keeper. Encourages people to walk down and find it. Adds character. 350 communities in US that have official public arts programs. Peer cities – Oklahoma City, Nashville, etc, all have public art programs. Range anywhere from 1-2% typically. All a little bit different. This is done a lot across country. We’ve visited and looked at their programs. Have had artists on design team for last 20 years. We go through CIP and pick what we call special projects. We suggest which ones need artist on the team. Artist not part of design team. We have been doing beautification efforts for projects, just never had an ordinance in place. Establishes guidelines for Design Council and for staff. Ordinance and process set in place. Not looking for all funding just to go to aesthetics of project. 80% to new projects. 20% to maintenance to maintain what we have. One of the issues we’ve had through the years. Then follow same process. Design council sit down with staff. Hoping process will have equitable distribution of funds. Try to look at each district and make sure they are all getting funds. Downtown has gotten more money over time, but they serve more people. Buffalo Park for example had some extra elements above normal park improvement. 4  Page |5 Today, how do we fund this? Conversation we have with council and staff. Ongoing conversation. Manager supporting we use General Obligation bonds. We use sales tax we use guest tax. We use 1.5%. CIP goes up and down. We’ve had conversations about it. Example underground utilities don’t need beautification funding allocated. Recommendation give 1.5% of geo guest tax and sales tax. Design Council asking 2%. Staff did a review over last several years and we average about 1.4% of total CIP. This amount is a minimum. Council has a right to raise that as needed for specific projects. Committee very excited to get something on the books. We think we have a good proposal to present to Council. Goes back to aesthetic improvements. Old keeper – nobody was able to really enjoy it. Now people have access and it’s very active. Century II is a great example. It’s an icon. It’s a landmark. It’s created a great debate in this community what we do with it. Keep that aesthetic quality in all projects. Q (DAB): Economic study on doing this in these other places? A: I’m sure there is, but I don’t know I can give a detailed example. But Oklahoma City in the 80s was a completely different community than it is today. But they created programs like this and invested in their downtown. It has changed immensely. It does have an economic impact. I know there is factual information we can get to Council. Q (DAB): I think that would help because I think this a great idea. A: Look at things like Final Friday. People are gathering places created by things like this. C (DAB): Local artist just emailed things about art. Art promote creative human expressions. Lifts emotions and spirits. Communicated ideas and self-awareness. Increases connectivity in brain. Cannot live without art. Measure pulse of cultures. Illustrates human experience. Q (DAB): Did you find cities that didn’t have dedicated funding source and what they did to promote public art. A: Have to be some out there, but I don’t know many vibrant cities that don’t have an art program. Des Moines, Omaha, Lincoln, Albuquerque they all have one and they are very similar to us. These are cities we are competing with for new businesses and people. Q (DAB): You talked about a fund to maintain. What’s the current process? A (Frye): There isn’t. No budget for it either. C (Frye): I’m also on the arts council. Been working for several years on this. Process not fully transparent right now. There are projects coming up that should have dollars going into it. Kellogg could have been just concrete but there’s wavy design that looks neat. Pracht Wetlands has a good design that fits in. This would allow us to plan for upkeep so we don’t have to scramble to figure out afterwards. Plan in place from get-go allows design council to give their recommendation. Q (DAB): What’s biggest challenge you are facing? A (Frye): Education. People think we are just spending a bunch of money on sculptures. Making sure we are taking care of pieces. Making sure people are aware it’s not just throwing money at an art piece. It’s the design and everything. A: The piece at Central and Zoo that was damaged. WSU art professor adding things as part of class. But next art professor didn’t want to do it. So they found a permanent piece to put up. Q (DAB): What are some art items being incorporated into baseball stadium? A: Work in progress. A (Frye): We’ve identified placeholders for where art will be. Other elements, mural walls dedicated, but haven’t planned what it will be. Entire stadium has been through Design Council a couple of times. Everything from landscape design and how it integrates with pavilions, brick pavers, color of beams, and then other traditional art aspects as well. Been some discussion as to what that will be. A lot of things are still being designed as the project continues. Progressive design build. 5  Page |6 Q (DAB): What’s difference between Design Council and Arts Council? A (Frye): Arts Council does annual awards, sculpture walk about, other things. Design Council is dedicated professionals within design. Design Council more review and recommendation for projects. Arts Council does more programming. Q (DAB): Does anyone do tours of art? A (Frye): Arts Council does sculpture walk in October every year. Douglas Design district has a mural tour. WSU has sculpture walkabout. C (DAB): We don’t always think about where the public art is because we think of just sculptures. We don’t think about things like the entrance of OJ Watson Park. I think that’s one of the challenges as we talk about where the public art is throughout the community. A: Great example. If we do our job right, you don’t even realize it. A (Frye): Great example is aquatics master plan. On the pools, there will be infrastructure improvements to make pools more fun, but we’re also taking time to do some aesthetic improvements. The curb appeal. It will be more attractive and look newer. The water playgrounds will be very integrated from design and aesthetic view. These will all have unique stories from the neighborhoods they sit in. The design team have told a story for each one that fits. There will be times we go beyond that minimum funding level. There will be significant opportunities for aesthetic design and art elements. Meeting was adjourned at 7:43 p.m. The next DAB V meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, September 4, 2019, Fire Station #21, 2110 N. 135th St., Wichita, KS 67235. 6