City ordinance for for general obligation bonds for public improvements passes

CAPTION: Hutchinson City Hall, located at 125 East Ave B. CREDIT MICHAEL GLENN/THE HUTCHINSON TRIBUNE

By Michael Glenn

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The Hutchinson City Council voted unanimously to approve an ordinance authorizing general obligation bonds to pay costs of certain improvements for phase II of construction for Woodie Seat Freeway and city hall at Monday night’s city council meeting. 

Phase II construction for Woodie Seat Freeway includes removing the bridge over Ave. B, roundabout construction for Ave. A and pedestrian safety improvements. 

Interim Public Works Director Cecil Weible told the council that the bid letting for phase II of Woodie Seat took place on Nov. 26. He said the city had three bidders come through. The city’s recommended bidder will be announced at the next council meeting. 

“Of the three bids, the engineer estimate was $4.6 million,” Weible said. “We had two bids come in very competitively, around $3.6 and $3.9 million. And then we had another bidder come in considerably higher at $5.7 million.”

Weible said the city plans to start construction for phase II of Woodie Seat in early 2025 and complete construction between the beginning to middle of 2026. He confirmed that construction will not close down the bridge between Hutchinson and South Hutchinson. 

Specific improvements to city hall will include constructing, renovating and installing safety improvements which include bullet-resistant glass and badge entry doors. 

Director of Parks and Facilities Justin Combs told the council that safety updates to city hall will be located by the east entrance. He said safety updates are in the works for essentially two reasons. 

“One to have transactions happen there instead of further back into the building,” Combs said. “Also to limit access into other secure parts of the building. The way the building is now, anybody can just kind of walk through and do whatever they want. There aren’t a lot of checkpoints within the building so there will be three transaction windows… like we have just a more secure window and then we will have a wall that will prevent people from roaming about the building unless they are escorted by a city employee.” 

Director of Finance Angela Richard explained to the council that the IRS requires an ordinance to pass if the city plans on incurring certain costs such as architectural engineering, consulting or construction costs before the city bonds a project. She said total project costs are around $4 million. 

The city will bond over one million for Woodie Seat phase II construction. 

“We are going to subtract about the 600,000 that we have left in ARPA money, then ask to bond with bonding costs of $3.6 million,” Richard said. 

Costs for the city hall safety renovations were budgeted for a lower amount compared to Woodie Seat. 

“For the city hall safety renovations, the budgeted amount was $150,000,” Richard said. “With the contingencies and bonding cost, we are asking to bond about $225,000.” 

The total amount of general obligation bonds for the resolution is not to exceed $3,825,000. Ordinance No. 50. was passed by the city on Oct. 4, 2016, for the purpose of issuing general obligation bonds for paying the costs of public improvements. 

The ordinance will be published in the official City paper, The Hutchinson News. 

CAPTION: Hutchinson City Hall, located at 125 East Ave B. CREDIT MICHAEL GLENN/THE HUTCHINSON TRIBUNE By Michael Glenn The Hutchinson City Council voted unanimously to approve an ordinance authorizing general obligation bonds to pay costs of certain improvements for phase II of construction for Woodie Seat Freeway

Council approves ordinance addition for ‘noise volumes’

Hutchinson Police Chief Brice Burlie addressed the council about the ordinance of section 9.1 regarding the recommendation to add “disturbing the peace provisions to the ordinance.” Council approved the recommendation unanimously at a city council meeting on Monday, Dec. 3, 2024 CREDIT EMMIE BOESE

By Emmi Boese

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The Hutchinson City Council approved an ordinance adding disturbing the peace provisions to the Hutchinson City Code at Monday night’s city council meeting,

Section 9.1 Disorderly Conduct of the Uniform Public Defense Code includes verbiage that states “noisy conduct.” City Attorney Paul Brown wrote a memorandum to City Manager Enrico Villegas recommending an ordinance to amend Article IV from “noisy conduct” to “offenses against the public peace.”

The memorandum from Brown mentions that after the case of City of Wichita vs Griffie 318 Kan. 510 (2024), the Kansas Supreme Court struck down that the language of “noisy conduct” is overly broad and in violation of the First Amendment. The memorandum can be found in the city council’s Dec. 3 agenda packet.

“Disturbing the peace will give law enforcement an opportunity to address some particular situations,” Brown said to the council. “Loud parties, loud stereos, musical instruments. Just some things that are causing a problem that they care about to address. This bridges that gap when the Supreme Court struck down that division of disorderly conduct, and in the past, that’s the part of disorderly conduct that we used to address those, and so it took it away. This will help restore that. It will help with our law enforcement officers being able to address these situations and it also provides some exemptions so that obvious things aren’t a violation. Emergency vehicles, alarm systems, aircraft or railroad…all of that. It’s a very sensible approach and will be very useful to our police department.”

Brown said Hutchinson Police Department (HPD) Chief of Police Brice Burlie brought the city’s attention to the language of “noisy conduct” in the city code.

Burlie told the council he recommended adding “peace provisions” to the ordinance” so officers in the HPD have something lawfully to act upon.

“When we do have individuals that are disturbing the peace, it allows us to enforce if you know we have loud parties, excessive noise such as bands in a garage that are playing at all times of the day,” Burlie said. “It will allow us to take action on those individuals if we can’t resolve it through negotiation between the neighbors and then try to come to a common agreement on what’s excessive and what’s not.”

The addition of the ordinance will not have established operating hours. Instead, it will act as a 24-hour ordinance. Therefore, according to city staff and council, it is more open-ended in addition to the specific verbiage addition.

Villegas said he has full trust in the HPD to carry out the addition of the noise level ordinance respectfully regarding human rights.

“The level of scrutiny they provide to themselves is far better than the level of scrutiny that I can provide,” Villegas said about the HPD.

City resident Quincey Baker expressed concern about the city’s ” open-ended ordinance.” He also stated that the city has done immense work regarding human relations.

“But having that power still allows for (the) historical reality of our law enforcement system that is built on racial profiling situations to be inflicted back in the city of Hutchinson,” Baker said. “We do not need any ordinances that allow open-ended power to our law enforcement system.”

Regarding other agenda items at Monday night’s city council meeting, the council voted unanimously to approve an ordinance authorizing general obligation bonds to pay the costs of certain improvements for City Hall and the Woodie Seat Freeway.

A motion to consider a charter ordinance designating the City of Hutchinson website as the official city newspaper to publish legal notices did not pass. The final vote was 3-2. A motion needs ⅔ votes to pass.

The next city council meeting is on Monday, Dec. 17 at 5:30 p.m. in the council chambers at 125 E. Ave B. City council agendas and minutes are available at hutchgov.com.

Hutchinson Police Chief Brice Burlie addressed the council about the ordinance of section 9.1 regarding the recommendation to add “disturbing the peace provisions to the ordinance.” Council approved the recommendation unanimously at a city council meeting on Monday, Dec. 3, 2024 CREDIT EMMIE BOESE By Emmi