Council Recap: Parks and Rec Moves Forward with Maintenance Building

Watch the Excelsior Springs City Council meeting in its entirety on our YouTube Channel.

Points of interest from the Excelsior Springs City council meeting on May 2, 2022, include:

Several proclamations were made recognizing various groups and organizations; National Nurses Day, Older Americans Month, Local Government Week, and National Historic Preservation Month were all recognized.

Two new liquor licenses were considered and unanimously approved. Brittni Blaser requested a Liquor by the Drink license and a Sunday Sales license for Casa Di Vite, Intimate Affairs and International Wines event center, located at 216 Spring Street and Paula L. Wilkinson requested a Liquor by the Drink license for her new retail business, Moments and Memories, LLC located at 201 South Thompson Avenue. Both applicants supplied the required number of signatures to satisfy license requirements and were easily approved.

A Consideration of Golf Cart Lease Agreement – Resolution No. 1344 was tabled until the May 16th City Council Meeting.

A Consideration of Maintenance Building Purchase for Parks & Rec – Resolution No. 1345 which granted permission to the Parks and Rec department to utilize budgeted funds for the construction of a new maintenance building was unanimously approved. Construction is set to begin in July, pending City permitting and engineering requirements. In his presentation Park and Recs Director, Nate Williams conveyed:

The ES Parks Division utilizes a very small maintenance facility at the moment. Currently, the crew cannot park a truck to do maintenance in the small space available. ESPRCC is requesting to purchase a new maintenance building through Sourcewell Cooperative Purchasing. The City is already a member of Sourcewell and has used the purchasing cooperative in past to make purchases. The new maintenance building will be 60’x64’ and in an open area of the gravel lot adjacent to where our current building is. This is already City property and is being used for Parks Maintenance as well as Public Works. On Tuesday, April 26, 2022, the Parks & Recreation Administrative Board approved using Sourcewell to purchase the maintenance building. This was a budgeted expense for the Department (and Board) at the beginning of the year and has been in discussion since 2015.

A Special Use Permit for 300 Milwaukee was revoked by the unanimous vote of the council. In their request to the council the Community Development Department stated:

In May/June 2021, the Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council approved a special use permit for the storage of a bucket truck, flatbed trailer, and a personal recreational vehicle in the C-3 zoning district on the subject property with two stipulations: 1. The storage area shall be screened in accordance with section 400.280 Parking, Loading and Driveways Regulations so that it is not visible from off-site. 2. The storage area parking surface and drive approach shall be a paved hard surface of concrete or asphalt. The expectation was that the stipulations would be satisfied in the following six months (June 2021- January 2022). During that six-month time period, city staff had no contact with the applicants on the status of meeting these stipulations. In February/March 2022, the Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council amended the initial special use permit to establish a period of 30 days for compliance with the adopted stipulations. Concurrent with that amendment, the City approved a zoning text amendment explicitly outlining the process for considering revocation of special use permits. It does not appear that the stipulations of the initial special use permit have been satisfied. City staff does not expect the situation to change. Storage of materials continues to take place on the subject site. The property owner has not responded to City staff communications. Due process has been satisfied according to the approved zoning text amendment on special use permit revocation, including public notice in the newspaper of record and courtesy notices mailed to the initial special use permit applicant and to the surrounding property owners.

Consideration of Readopting the Conflicts of Interest Policy was approved unanimously. This is a standard practice ensuring the full disclosure of personal conflicts by city officials. Read the full statute below:

A previously tabled agreement was reconsidered, the Consideration of Service Agreement for Payment Processing Services – Resolution No. 1343 was unanimously approved. Another basic housekeeping measure, ensuring the smooth transition of external payment processing.

After approval of appropriations, remarks were made by City Manager, Molly McGovern and the meeting was then adjourned and the Council entered into closed session.