The Shawnee city council, which saw three new members sworn in for the current term is apparently on the right track to do positive things for the city.
For the heck of it, I will mention, right now, just three of those items:
1. Sundance Apartment complex: It's location did not appear to be right for Shawnee. It appears that it would have been an abomination to be located in the single family residential area. The plans were nice, but it just didn't belong there. Some of what came out of that meeting was reported by the Shawnee Mission Post and is quoted below:
Councilmember Tammy Thomas compared the project to Lenexa’s City Center, which has retail and entertainment surrounded by apartments. City Center is far more attractive to young professionals, she said. But no such options exist near the Sundance project, she said.“What you’re offering and looking for young professionals don’t match. They simply do not match,” Thomas said. Thomas and others referenced Shawnee’s history and ranking as a hot market for single-family homes.“I’m not saying this is a bad development. What you’ve designed, I’m not saying that’s bad. This is a single-family residential area. And there’s a lot of history right here we’re about Shawnee. We’re about history. We’re about moving and maintaining and appreciating what other people did before us,” she said.
Council President Eric Jenkins said the project was just too dense for him. “This destroys the character and neighborhood,” he said. “I think this council really feels strongly about protecting our community and our citizens and doing what’s best. Something we hear every meeting we go to is they love the hometown feel. Okay, well, I love the hometown feel, too. That’s kind of what puts Shawnee on the map.”
Some of these infill projects just don't make sense.
2. Purchase of land for the parks department: Just prior to his retirement city Parks Department director Neil Holman tried to convince the council to authorize the purchase of two parcels. Rounding off the numbers one was for $600,000 and the other one was for $1,000,000. The smaller item was approved, especially since the money for it was coming from a fund that could only be used for items such as that for the Parks Department. The larger parcel would have been paid for out of the general fund. Smart move by the council as this is not the time to be spending money out of the general fund that is not needed to be spent.
3. No more whispering on the dais: This si something that has bugged me for many years. The city manager and the city attorney used to sit on the dais on either side of the mayor. Shawnee was the only city that had this set up. In other cities those individuals either sat in the gallery with the rest of the staff or at a separate table in the well. If comments were needed from either one of them they could speak from the podium, or if at a separate table, with a mic hookup. That gets their comments on the record. Many times, one or both would make comments to the mayor in such a manner that those comments were not heard by those of the public attending, other members of the governing body, the stenographer, who could then not make them a part of the public record. Our mayor was asked numerous times to change that. She didn't (actually she wouldn't). It did not require an ordinance, a resolution or anything else, except for the mayor to say "Go sit somewhere else, the dais is for the elected governing body." The new council did. Now comments from all of the city staff will become part of the record.
The make up of the council has been a positive change. With regards to new development they are not against it. They just want it to be appropriate for the city at the location that is being considered. (Unlike IMHO what I have dubbed the Starship Nieman. Personally I think it looks out of place. The previous council that approved it thought otherwise) Also, the new council probably would like to see more effective and equitable means of using incentives so that they have a positive effect on the city. And are not one sided. Example: The project that the previous council approved for 75th and Quivira is not what the developer originally presented in his song and dance routine to the council. Lofty and grandiose concepts that got cut way back. And for this, the city gave up an alphabet soup of incentives to include even giving up our sales tax. Don't even ask about Belmont Promenade. Fortunately that issue is now dead. Basically in both of these cases the developers' mouths wrote checks that their tail ends couldn't cover.
