Ep #1: Chalkboards to City Hall - A Historic Renovation in Progress

City Hall Renovation Project

February 20, 2025

Whitney: Yeah, we uh, we found these and we thought, ooh, we're gonna, we're gonna start tiny desk interviews, and I feel like I already regret doing this in these chairs.    

Whitney: Welcome to the Hall Monitors podcast. This is our first episode, and because the entire podcast pays homage or homage to City Hall, as it used to be a schoolhouse building, we wanted the first podcast episode to be over the history of city hall a little bit, and [00:01:00] then the upcoming renovation project.

Whitney: And today we have with us somebody who' ' s been through the stages of this building more than many people our Mayor, Rick Walker - so, welcome. 

Rick: Thank you. 

The History

Whitney: Okay, first, we'll go over a little bit of the history of the building. It was built in 1919 as a high school and then over the years, it just grew with the community and transitioned into a junior high building.

Whitney: When did you go - am I allowed to ask that? Sure. Go to school year, and then was it high school or junior high? 

Rick: Junior high. I came here in junior high in, let's see, that would have been '74? 1974? No, '73. 

Whitney: Okay. 

Rick: As a 7th grader. 7th grader. 12 years old. 

Whitney: It was 7th to 9th. 

Whitney: 7th, 8th, 9th. Yeah. 

Do you think that you ever sat in these desks?

Whitney: We found these desks in the dungeon, from the music department. 

Rick: Yeah, without a doubt. these were either in the [00:02:00] music trailer, music used to be in a trailer where the pool house, the pool bathhouse is, there was a portable trailer that was the music room or they were in the band room, which is where the Chamber of Commerce office is. 

Whitney: So this is actually a trick question, I thought, you told me the other day that you were a drummer, and I thought drummers never sat. 

Rick: We were waiting on the other parts of the band to practice, so we could sit down. 

Whitney: Oh, okay, is that how that works? 

Whitney: Yeah, we uh, we found these and we thought, ooh, we're gonna, we're gonna start tiny desk interviews, and I feel like I already regret doing this in t hese chairs. 

Whitney: And then the dungeon, is it always called the dungeon? I know it was right next to the student lounge, 

Rick: It was yeah, I think it was called the dungeon. It was the old basketball court, I think in the original construction. And then with a remodel, they um, split that room and made a library above it.

Rick: So the little piece of it that was more finished was a student lounge. It's also a civil defense shelter. So that's why it was built below, but um, [00:03:00] yeah, for, I mean, when we would go in there for tornado drills, I remember there wasn't even enough flooring on the part beyond the door in that dungeon, so it was just like

Rick: dirt and they would raise up clouds of dust when you're under there. So they'd yell at you to stand still so you didn't stir up the dust. 

Whitney: Can you remember a favorite teacher or call out your favorite teacher that you 

Whitney: had? 

We had some interesting teachers then. One of my favorites was um, his name is Ron Marsh. He was a professional boxer. He's taught PE, taught uh, science. I think I had him for both. But Mr. Marsh uh, played football with Gale Sayers at KU. He was a professional boxer, like I said. He just had a lot of interesting stories. Probably some P. E. stuff that you wouldn't do now. He brought in boxing gloves and let a bunch of 8th graders just wail on each other in the gym, you know. Well, with some instruction, 

Whitney: it's so funny that you bring this up because we actually reached out to Monica to see if there are any [00:04:00] Junior high gossip to share with us that we would have you tell a story on.

Whitney: And she said, have him tell you about the boxing teacher. 

Whitney: Mr.

Rick: Marsh in the boxing. It's, it was an interesting segment and in the junior high PE curriculum that year. 

Rick: Your wife, Monica, you went to school the same time, right? You're in the same grade, same 

Rick: grade. 

Whitney: Who was a better student? 

Rick: Oh, I probably, I probably was, you know. 

Whitney: You know, this is going to be public. I'm sure- she'll see this. We will tell her immediately after this, we're going to text her. 

Rick: Oh yeah, no, I, Monica was definitely um, more quiet than me, but um, she, she got good grades too... less trouble. 

Whitney: Okay. So after serving the community as a school building for about 75 plus years, in the late nineties, it was sold to the City. 

Rick: Ten dollars. 

Whitney: That was my pop quiz. How much was it? Ten dollars.

Whitney: Ten [00:05:00] dollars. Now, why was it so cheap? 

Rick: It was uh, essentially uh, when you transfer a property, there has to be some value assigned to it. It essentially was given away, but ten dollars was put in the deed. And I don't know if the school board ever got the ten dollars, but, uh. I assume the transfer of $10 actually happened. 

Whitney: That's good. Was it just costly to renovate too, right? 

Rick: Yeah, the school sat empty for a few years after it was no longer needed by the school district, so you know, there was some roof issues. Just there was a lot of ongoing maintenance stuff that needed to be taken care of and probably gave the Council that made the decision to accept it and head down that path. Gave 'em some questions as they were starting down there - when one of your first projects is replacing the expensive roof and then you're looking at a million dollar renovation and thinking, man, that's a big project.

Rick: This thing's going to take a lot of money. 

Whitney: It's a lot of money, and what were the biggest pieces of that? What did what was the biggest pieces, and what [00:06:00] was not renovated? 

Rick: Well, The renovation was, I mean, the initial money was just spent to make it weather tight and fix a roof that was leaking and update some heating.

Rick: This was all steam heat with boilers in different parts of the building. So it was, 70 years old and with a couple of building additions. So very expensive mechanical upgrades and then um, the windows uh, were all old wooden, double hung windows no air conditioning, just, just a lot of stuff.

Rick: But the renovation really was only to get one floor um, you know, available for offices for the City staff to occupy. 

Whitney: So just the main level or first level, was there anything done in the basement at that 

Rick: time? 

Rick: Sprinkler system and elevator, but more or less just knocking holes in the wall to let piping go through for the sprinkler system and plumbing stuff that was happening upstairs. 

Whitney: So expensive, but not, not a whole, not a whole building renovation. Certainly 

Rick: not. 

The Renovation

Whitney: Now 25 [00:07:00] years later, we're getting our first big renovation again, something that is covering the entire building. So why is this needed now? 

Rick: In 25 years, you know, our staff has grown from basically a City Clerk and a Utility Billing Clerk to adding the City Engineer and a City Planner and a Director of Communications,City Attorney, a Building Codes Official.

Rick: So our staff is growing as our community grows and it's just the need for more space to meet the needs of the community. Also, look at what could fall down on us, right? 

Whitney: We're risking our lives right 

Rick: now. 

Whitney: The lead pipe is right behind me. 

Rick: Yeah, I mean, and it's, you know, this has been an ongoing process, you know, if you were to see this room, you'd see that all the old tile that was asbestos flooring tile, those were abated and removed.

Rick: We've checked for asbestos and other abatement issues over the years in the past and kind of setting this space up for a renovation at [00:08:00] some point and now it's time to take it on. 

Whitney: While we're up here, so the second floor is the heart of this renovation since it was never done before. Can you walk us through some of the biggest changes happening on the second floor?

Rick: Sure. So right now we're in Mr Zimmerman's science room. I think this I'm pretty sure this was where Mr. Zimmerman held court with Earth Science. And

Rick: essentially what we're going to do upstairs is, refinish the space to create finished offices for our, our staff and allow us to spread stuff out downstairs where we're we're compressed into the space that we have 

Rick: so that we can put the administrative functions all together in one area and our financial group together in an area and our utility billing group together.

Rick: And then upstairs, likewise, we can do the same and create working pods for our building codes and building inspections and our um, planning group and communications and then have another big conference room where we can all get together directly above the Council [00:09:00] Chambers. 

Whitney: And then what's happening on the first floor? 

Rick: The first floor, we're going to convert that finished space that we already have and make it more usable for the functions that we have going on.

Rick: Move an office pod together for the administrative group, so the city administrator and assistant and city attorney will all be clustered together because their functions overlap and they work together -- group like functions and departments so that there's more, collaboration and more efficient workspace.

Rick: So the four quadrants of that floor, then where the office spaces are now will be divided up and reconfigured. So they allow that kind of departmental functions to happen. Some additional conference room to make sure we have space for the court so that the attorneys have space to meet 

Rick: and we have conference space during the day when we're using it for City functions. 

Whitney: What is going into the basement, also known as the garden level?   

Rick: So the terrace or garden level which is largely unfinished where we have the arts council has a room down there. We have one of the old classrooms is [00:10:00] storage and then part of it's been chopped out for an ADA ramp. 

We're going to rework that ramp so that we can get the office space or the open space adjacent to the windows and create some creative space there that is usable. R efinish all the floors, refinish the floors in the Arts Council room, get a uniform look on that floor. Add restrooms to that area so that those rooms and those functions will have restrooms available. And then finish the ceiling and give that a finished look that it's been lacking for the last 25 years 

Rick: And there's not just inside the building. What's going on the outside?

Rick: The outside, we're gonna add some landscaping in the front uh, uh, sprinkled areas. We started adding some art, so we're gonna enhance the landscaping to accent the art pieces that we've got going up.

Rick: Replace some of the sidewalk and just, a facelift to the landscaping on the front to make things more attractive. 

Whitney: I think I'm most excited about apparently, we get new lights that'll shine on City Hall and they're color [00:11:00] changing lights.

Whitney: And that way, if there's something we want to celebrate, we can change the colors. 

Rick: Yeah, that is a nice feature. We'll have those up light programmable LED lights. 

Whitney: Yep. You have high school graduation. 

Rick: Green. 

Whitney: Now when people actually walk into City Hall, what is it going to look like? What's the difference that people will see?

Rick: I think that's a good question Whitney. That's one of the things I'm excited about. we're going to be able to open City Hall back up to the public. We've had some security upgrades during the COVID time, to make the people that work here a little safer, 

Rick: but we're going to revamp that security so that those office suites will be secure and the public spaces, the hallways, will be open to the public.

Rick: So we can display art like we used to and have City Hall open to the public. They still have the walk up counter for utility billing questions and the like, but the entire common areas of the hallways will be available for public access. And that will, that will be a theme that's continued from the main floor up to the second floor.

Historical Preservation

Whitney: [00:12:00] A big part of this project is making sure we honor what the city hall building was prior and making sure we respect the historical pieces of it. So how important was it for City Council, you, and staff to make sure that we brought those pieces out of this renovation? 

Rick: For me, I, it was, um, important to maintain the historic look of the building um, wanted to preserve as much as we could of the, the way the building that the old bricks would work with the newer windows and that we um, you know, maintain the architectural integrity of that look as much as we could. So, uh, I was excited to see some of the elements in the architect's plans were to repurpose the old blackboards that are throughout all these rooms up on the um, second floor into accents in the new office suites that are going to be [00:13:00] created here.

Rick: I don't know that they'll- nobody probably will use them as a chalkboard anymore but they are there to pay homage to the school history of the facility. 

Whitney: Can you imagine in a just very professional meeting pulling out the chalk. 

Whitney: What part of this renovation plan are you most excited about? 

Rick: Maybe that, you know, that um, there's two folds. I like the idea that we're opening it back up to the public, that we're going to have more public space available throughout City Hall, and then I like that we're putting the nod in there to history, that we're going try and showcase the old blackboards and maintain the historical look of the building. 

Whitney: And then I heard a rumor that you uh, you'll actually get an office space in City Hall that is above 

Rick: 50 degrees. that's what I should be most excited about today because it's about, it is about 50, 60 degrees in that office that we've created for the mayor down there. 

Whitney: Which was the old...

Rick: teacher's lounge.

Rick: If you remember the building, [00:14:00] that's where I'm sitting now is in the old teacher's lounge and the heat's not working very good in there. 

Whitney: It's a concrete block. Yeah, it's 

Rick: block wall. I think that's a forties or fifth, early fifties edition that was built with the, the shop garage down there. 

The Budget

Whitney: So let's talk about costs. Approximately how much is this going to cost? Where are we getting the money from? 

Rick: So the city hall renovation has been in our CIP, our capital improvement program for, you know, been our five year CIP kind of planning it. And the money will come from bonds that we'll sell the to finance the construction. There will be no tax increase associated with the bonds because they've been planned into our spending program. The city hall project is going to cost about $3.3 million dollars, take about a year to complete, and yeah. 

Whitney: So we're looking to have this finished by maybe the end of the year.

Rick: I think so they'll be starting mid february and complete by mid [00:15:00] November. 

Whitney: Is there anything else you want to share with us? 

Rick: Now you have to do it out of order.

Rick: We're so 

Whitney: fancy with listeners. Yeah, 

Rick: with our listeners. Yeah, I do want to share I guess that for, like I said, this project's been in the CIP for five years. We've been talking about this particular renovation for at least two years. So this has been before the City Council at half a dozen meetings I'd guess.

Rick: There's been a uh, a very long design process with the architect to get us to this point. And I'm looking forward to the project getting started and more excited about seeing it finished. 

Where are you headed?

Whitney: Well, thank you for taking the time to chat today. Since the hall monitors job is basically to know where everyone's going. And honestly, it's the perfect job for people who like to be a little bit nosy. Where are you headed next? What are big projects that you're working on? And what are you headed to? 

Rick: A fun project that we've been working on and be excited to see it open this spring is our disc golf course. Been uh, working [00:16:00] to secure funds for that. We've had a number of donations to help make that possible. I'm very thankful for the support we've got from our business community to help us out with that.

Rick: And when do you think we'll see that open, Whitney? 

Whitney: I'm hoping by May. 

Rick: Yeah. Yeah, 

Whitney: You have worked your butt off getting sponsors on that project, so it is a fully sponsored course, , and we're building it ourselves as well. 

Rick: Yeah, self performed, donated labor for the concrete work from our local construction companies. Just a community effort to make this possible. 

Whitney: Okay, thank you for tuning in to the Hall Monitors first ever podcast. If you want to see the layout of the new City Hall renovation, those are available on our website. Stay tuned for more stories coming up. 

Ep #2: Extra Credit - Contain the Rain & Property Tax Relief Programs

Community Resources

March 31, 2025

I think we need a first address the elephant in the room. How do you feel about these desks? So I have to say I was pretty hesitant to come on this podcast just because there's no left-handed desk and I don't feel seen. I'm just letting you know. But as a good City employee, I'm gonna bear with it and I'm gonna power through this podcast, so I appreciate you inviting me.

You're very welcome. 

Intro

Welcome [00:01:00] back to the Hall Monitors. I'm Libby Johnson and we're joined today by Brandon Mills, who's our assistant City Administrator and City Clerk.

In this episode, we are talking about two City resource programs designed to help the community. One that supports sustainable landscaping and the other that just helps make home ownership more affordable. 

Roll Call: Mills, B.

Whitney told me that you have a highly specific skill in explaining government to seventh graders. so, Okay. Very interesting. Let's put that to the test though. Okay. You explain your two roles for the City and can you explain them like, we're in a middle school building like, I'm a seventh grader.

Okay. Um, Alright. So. Um, I'll start with the City Clerk role. So if you're talking about like a seventh grader, I guess the easiest way to explain it is I am the document keeper for the City, so anything that the mayor signs, any ordinances, resolutions, which are our laws for the City, I'm in charge of making sure that those copies are maintained and accessible.

I'm also the main [00:02:00] point of contact for a lot of external organizations such as Johnson County or the school district. I'm the main point of contact statutorilyas the assistant City administrator, My job is really catchall. We have an administrator who is in charge of maintaining all the City functions.

He's over all of our departments and really my job is to back him up and do anything. He doesn't have time to do. So part of my jobs are, like this morning I was talking with our fleet management coordinator.going through our next year's budget process of which vehicles we're gonna work through.

And then about an hour later I was talking with our public works director about hiring someone. So my job spans lots of different departments and jurisdictions and different things and so different every day. That's it's, it's fun to, it's also hard to explain to someone, I feel like when you're like I did this and I also do that, 

Yeah. It's different every day. I think that's the thing I like about it. 

 along those lines, we actually have a listener question. Okay. Okay. And by that we definitely mean we reached out to your wife [00:03:00] and asked her if she has anything that we could surprise you with.

That's, yeah. Um, And get some insider information. Okay. So this question is from Russell, your best friend from high school. Okay. Can you share your favorite coach memory from track or explain what your track coaches mean to you? Because I honestly don't know what this means, but I know it has something to do with maybe how your career is going and how you approached your role.

Okay. Maybe let's, that's what, do you know what these people have some explaining to do? First of all, you guys did your homework. That's very nice. Um, um, I think, I think one of the things I learned about in track, and I'll back up. Russell and I were really good friends from high school where we started becoming friends running cross country.

I think one of the things you learn when running for hours is endurance and the grit to get through things. this job changes every day, right? you have adversities every day. whether that be running up a hill when you're two miles deep into a three mile cross country race or running into a roadblock due to some kind of [00:04:00] administrative red tape it's something that I've learned to develop and worked through as I've gone through my career.

Yeah. So in school when it came to class projects mm-hmm. were you more of a let's carefully follow the instructions or let's see what happens.

We'll figure it out as a go kind of person. Definitely. We'll figure it out as we go. I've made my career on saying we're building the plane as we're in the air. Um, Usually works out. But I'm definitely more of a go with the flow than a rigid strict rules person.

And I think having that tie into your career and like your role that is, it's kind of necessary to have that ability 'cause you don't know what's gonna happen. Yeah. Russel and I are gonna have a very long conversation about this sneaky guy anyway. Well, The good news is, is whether you like guidelines or you're the type where you just want, wanna go with the flow type of person Contain the Rain is one of those programs that makes that kind of easy.

Can you explain the program what it is and tell me about the history of how it got started? 

Contain the Rain

So the Contain the Rain Grant isadministered by [00:05:00] Johnson Countythe grant encourages property owners to put in sustainable landscaping whether that be rain barrels or whether that be planning native plants.

The goal is that we are reducing our runoff and improving our overall streamway health in the community. 

How long have we been doing Contain the Rain? To the best of my knowledge Johnson County has been having this program for well over 10 years. But we are on program year three, starting in March. 

How much of the projects cost does, the program help with?

So generally speaking it's about 50% of the overall program costs. So if you put in a rain barrel, those are about 150 bucks. The county would reimburse you and the City would reimburse you so your total reimbursement is 50%. Okay. Okay. Gotcha. So like, if I wanted to get a rain barrel, you would split that cost with me. Yep. that's a good deal. Especially we see a lot of people that are really interested in that. Or they want to plant a tree. And trees aren't cheap, so if you can get 50% off of it, it's not bad. And is Contain the Rain, a program that's open to De Soto businesses as [00:06:00] well?

Yes. So it's open not only to residential property owners, but it's also open to businesses. We haven't seen any yet. I'm hoping that this next program year we'll see some businesses apply, but the point is not just to reduce runoff in neighborhoods, but it's throughout the entire community.

Yeah. So if you are a business, please apply. What is the environmental impact of having these projects in place? 

When we talk about native plants um, plants that are native to Johnson County, generally speaking, have less watering requirements. So not only are we reducing

 the need to water which is good for the environment, but it also, by creating rain gardens and rain barrels, that allows you to reuse some of the water that's naturally occurring in the community. So, Yeah. Um, Overall it's great for the environment.

Yeah. I also saw something like,when the, the water ends up in those storm drains and it ends up in the ditch or whatever. Mm-hmm. There's, you know, there's bacteria, there's chemicals, there's debris. Yeah. And then it goes straight into the river or the stream or the lake. So there's a lot of benefits to it and also these projects are really pretty. Yeah, some of them are really [00:07:00] cool. Yeah. Some of the, some of the rain gardens that we've seen, we've had a couple come through in De Soto and they're fascinating. I'm not an engineer, but we have a couple people in De Soto that have done rain gardens the diagrams they have and how it flows off the properties and everything is really interesting.

Oh, I'll have to look into those. What are some of the projects that fall into those guidelines? 

 Yeah, some of the more obvious ones are native grasses or native bushes. Again, we're trying to encourage people to build sustainable landscaping so they don't need to water them as much.

But also what we're seeing isseveral businesses in the area that have kind of put together their own programs. It's a plug and play situation um, where people are putting in native trees. I mean, there are several businesses that understand the program and say, you know, this tree is native and this tree will get you the full reimbursement for the grant.

I would say talk to your local landscape company or your local um, nursery and they should be able to walk you through the steps of how to get the grant. 

What does the application process look like? So the application process is pretty simple. You can go to the City website and just type [00:08:00] in, Contain the Rain and search for that.

And it'll bring you up to our program page, and then you just click a link and it'll take you to the County page, which is where you apply. And it has pretty simple explanation of, you need to have your name, your address, where you live and then it'll have a list of all the top proper plans that are allowed. And then you just fill out the thing. So you could say, you know, I um, planted, type A tree. And then you basically submit your receipts and click submit it goes to the County. the County will vet it and send it to me. And then we will approve that and cut you a check.

Okay. So I saw somewhere that you have to apply before you start the project. Mm-hmm. Is that true in De Soto? Yes. Yeah. So you apply before and then afterwards they make sure that you planted the, the tree.

So it does take a little to get it, you start the program in March, but realistically we're not seeing applications until May or June. Okay. Is there a timeframe for a project like this? Yeah. So our program year starts in March and we accept our last applications in November. the idea is in March, really you're starting to see the ground [00:09:00] start to thaw, and then by November we don't really want you planning anything because we're not sure it's gonna make it through the year.

Part of the grant is that there's a commitment that you would keep whatever you plant for three years. And so we wanna make sure it's gonna survive the winter. Okay. That makes sense. How can people find more information, you said on the website, mm-hmm and then are you an available contact for people who have questions? Yeah. So on the website, at the very bottom, it has my contact information and you can feel free to reach out to me.

Also, if you have more detailed questions, especially if you're talking about rain garden design, I would refer you to the Johnson County Stormwater Management Program. They can give you all kinds of templates and tell you the best way to put those. I'm not an engineer, so I don't want to touch that with a 10-foot poll.

You're like, don't ask me about where to place it. Yeah. Don't ask me how to place it. I can walk you through the application process, tell you what to plant, but how to do the rain gardens. No clue. No clue. All right. At least you know your boundaries, you know your strengths, so that's important.

Property Tax Relief Program

All right. So now that we've covered how Contain the Rain can help with outside property improvements, let's shift gears into a program that can [00:10:00] help with relief inside the home. can you walk us through the Property Tax Relief Program and how it works?

 Yeah, so the Property Tax Relief program is a rebate program for certain targeted populations in De Soto. So, um, the first being low-income households, which is set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

It's basically low income and it's done through Johnson County. they take an overview of the whole community and basically assign incomes based on the median household income in the county. And then also we were looking at veterans. The City Council just changed the policy and we're now looking at disabled veterans at 50% disability and then also we're looking at seniors as a targeted group.

So people over the age of 65 and those property owners are now eligible for a rebate of just the City portion of their property tax. Gotcha. And you said that it was recently updated to include a wider range of veterans. Can you explain what that difference was, [00:11:00] why it didn't work like that before?

Yeah last year was our first year, I probably should have said that. Last year was our first year as our pilot program. And we were still trying to figure out our guidelines we set it based on some peer communities. So we looked at Merriam, Roeland Park and Johnson County to set our guidelines.

And their programs were set at a hundred percent disabled veterans, basically. So what happens is the VA determines your disability based on certain criteria, so your mobility, other things. And so we set at a hundred percent, which was the standard throughout the county. However, when we went back to the Council, 

the Council actually asked us to reduce that amount to 50% to basically widen the amount of people that were eligible for the program because the goal is to expend the full $25,000. Mm-hmm. Well, And I think that's, I think that's awesome. Yeah. It's helping more people.

Yeah, exactly. I think the goal is to spend down, so at the end of the year, we have $0 left in the program. So the more people that are eligible, means the more people will be able to use the funds, and that's our goal. Yeah. And yeah, more people to help. 

the interesting thing about it, and I [00:12:00] want to give kudos to our governing body. Our mayor um, in the, what was this, in the fall of 2023 had an idea to start this program. and his thought process was not only just De Soto, but throughout Johnson County, we're seeing property values skyrocket. we have not only just low income, but senior um, residents who are experiencing just, you know, multiple uh, double digit increases in their property taxes because their home values are increasingthrough no fault of their own.

And what we're seeing is that their increases in property taxes are not being captured by their income. Most people aren't getting 10, 15% increases, not only in social security benefits, but just as a raise at work. Mm-hmm. And so, um, the governing body decided that they would like to offer a program to relieve them from those, double digit increases.

One of the peer communities we looked at, had um, a resident who was, well in their eighties, they purchased a house in the late seventies, and they purchased it for, we'll say [00:13:00] $50,000.

That house has now appreciated and it's well over $400,000. Oh my gosh. Um, And so it's kinda one of those things where their income can't keep up with the appreciation. They didn't do anything to it, they just lived in the house. And over that period of time, the home values have increased. Wow. these are things I haven't thankfully had to figure out yet.

I haven't bought my first home, but it's an awesome program to have. Yeah. So you said the program is $25,000? Mm-hmm. Yep. so that's for the 2025 year? Yeah. the Council allocated $25,000 in 2024 for the first year of the program, and we kept the program amount flat for this year. Where does the fund come from? Those dollars are coming directly from development fees or franchise fees that we're seeing as a result of the development in the south end of town.

So if we're thinking about Panasonic and Flint development, those those fees that the City's receiving is being directly put into the Property Tax Relief Fund. Hmm, That's awesome. It's, it's cool. It's one of those things where the City administrator always talks about, you know, development pays for development. This is development, paying to [00:14:00] relieve taxes. Yeah. On our residents. Yeah. Okay. How many people did it help last year and how much money was alleviated in 2024?

Yeah the total program was $25,000 for last year. And we awarded 55 total grants with an average award of about $452. Um, And so we allocated 98% of it, which don't, I'm not great at math, but it was somewhere around $600 left over in the fund at the end of the year.

We were really proud and happy how successful this program was to allocate those funds throughout the community. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's awesome. 

 And then you said it would cover the City's portion of a resident's taxes. 

So first let's talk about the City's portion of property taxes and what that is. Yeah. So the City uh, if you think about your overall property tax bill, the City is approximately 13% of the entire bill.

Okay. Um, So , now that gets you streets, bridges, [00:15:00] roads, but also it gets you law enforcement and all other City services.

On an average home in De Soto, which in 2024 was about $370,000, that was $850 of property taxes paid to the City in 2024. Our rebate program is based off $500 as a cap why is it the $500 number? Yeah, so this kind of goes into some IRS regulations, so forgive me if this gets a little boring, but um, the IRS would consider this rebate income. 

And so the threshold for the IRS to account it as income to be reported as $600. So our thought process was we didn't want to tax a tax rebate. And so our threshold is $500. And that would give you some room in case there was a refund on a water bill or something like that, that you wouldn't be taxed on that full amount.

So let's say this is something that I'm interested in. Where can I find more information? So our City website, we just got our policy approved 

 We should have it up before the program starts on April 22nd. [00:16:00] Um, But you can always find my contact information on the City website and give me a call. I'm happy to walk people through the process. I know you said we can talk to you on the phone. Is there any way to talk to you in person? I know residents like that. I personally like that stuff. 

Yeah. So, when we start the program and we do hold open houses, we're not quite ready to announce those dates yet, but um, within the first two weeks of the program, we're gonna hold three open houses at the Senior Center. And so you'll have opportunities to come in and I'm more than happy to help make sure you have the required documentation and kind of walk you through the process.

So what usually does the timeline look like for this application process? How it works is we'll open the program and then the public will turn their applications. There's some documentation that we need. We're gonna need your tax documentation.

That's how we prove your income. We look at your adjusted gross income or your AGI. And thenwe make sure you paid your property taxes as one of the requirements. Takes us about 30 to 45 days to process the applications, just because they typically come in waves.

Last year we did 55 [00:17:00] applications and we saw somewhere around 40 of those in the first two weeks. Oh, wow. Yeah. So, Yeah, which was it, it showed how popular the program was. But um, it does take us a little bit of time to do that processing of applications. And then our goal this year is to get those applications and checks cut within 60 days.

So why were there so many applications in the first two weeks?

So the program is first come, first serve and people were very eager to do it. I wasn't here early that morning. I had an appointment on the first day of the application window last year, but I was told there was a line outside the door at 8:00 AM with people applying.

It was a flurry of applications that came in. 

 just briefly explain, 'cause I know it can get complicated how the rounds work and what do you mean by having rounds of the program? Yeah. So our program is set up um, in two different phases. So our first phase is for low income seniors, and disabled veterans.

Okay. Um, And that runs from April 22nd, which is the beginning date of the program year through August 1st. And then we have a second phase, which is open [00:18:00] to all residents under the age of 65, who meet the income qualifications and anyone else who would meet the qualifications in phase one.

That runs from August 4th, through December 1st, which is the end of the program year. when it opens up to the rest of the community, that's with the leftover the remaining amount, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so any funds that are left over through phase one would then roll over into phase two.

I would note there's a special cutout of 20% just to make sure that we do have some funding for anyone under the age of 65. Okay. Um, To be able to apply for phase two. 

Yeah. Yeah. So can you share why a top reason might be that someone would be declined property tax relief in their application?

Yeah, for this next year one of the things we might see for people being um, denied the, their application being denied is we do have a one year residency requirement now. 

 So essentially what we're saying is you need to live in the community for one year, because we are rebating property taxes, so this is a rebate on taxes paid in 2024. Yeah. [00:19:00] Um, And so I think that might be one of, one of the main reasons we see any rejections is they just haven't been in the community for one year.

Another one is, we did see a couple people who just missed that income threshold. They were just slightly above it. And that income threshold is set by HUD as we mentioned before, but it also is based on how many people are in your household. And so we did, we did see the one application, they just missed that income threshold by, a couple thousand dollars.

I think it's interesting and it, it, it does make sense why you say you have to be in the community for a year. 'cause then at that point you'd be rebating property taxes that aren't from De Soto. Yeah. Yeah. They're, yeah. And it would be from a previous homeowner, right? Yeah. So if you, if you just moved in the community, the person you sold, you the house, you'd be getting their money back.

So that's the idea for That Makes sense rebating, 

Where's Your Hall Pass?

Thank you for taking the time to chat with me today. Since this is the Hall Monitors podcast we have to know where you're headed to next.

can you share some big projects or things you're working on next? Yeah. So some of the big projects I'm working on, they just. All happen to be parks related right now, but um, we're working on getting a contract [00:20:00] signed and going to Council with um, a river for a riverfest master plan project.

So we're looking at redeveloping that park. And we're gonna have lots of public engagement opportunities for the public to, ask what they want and let us know what kinda amenities they'd like to see out there. Another project that's gonna be starting soon is we're building soccer fields out at Riverfest Park as well.

And so we're gonna have parking and soccer fields and it's gonna be a really good project 'cause that is our most popular parks program. And then the other one that you guys may have heard of is we're asking the public if they'd like to see a community center. Oh yes. So I'm gonna go meet with our consultant and talk about some of the findings from that survey.

Alright. And we'll present that to Council in April. So lots of things to keep an eye out for the Parks department. Yeah. Very exciting stuff. All righty. That concludes episode two. Got it. Class dismiss. Class dismiss. 

Bloopers

Nice. It feels so uncomfortable. Close, but it looks right. Oh, the last time. 30 seconds. Does it look awkward that I'm wearing a vest? Is it like, is you're like, why is she wearing a [00:21:00] vest?

 how are they doing it at? So like how can you be that loud? Those are two floors above us. They're banging on. That's the wild thing about it. I was just thinking about that. Do we have you complaining on tape? Yeah, I'll bring donuts.

 I'll bring donuts. I don't care. Yes. Okay, okay, Lemme start that over. Now that we've can. A good all right. Third time's a charm. 

that? I think I just smeared a bug wing across my paper. Okay, good. When did you contact my wife? Do you feel like we're like, I feel betrayed in infiltrated. I feel betrayed. How did she uh, okay. That's okay. 

 It's complicated. Property taxes are complicated. It's so complicated. You've already I have juice on my paper now 

 into another change we didn't mention. That's a, yeah. Yeah. So you said miss Ma'am, you good? Tell that cough to Yeah. Calm down.

Like, okay, wait, so what do we, how do we explain this? Because it Yeah. It just goes, it really does go to show like, you are not an idiot if you don't understand some of these things.

Like even I try to ask you something [00:22:00] simple like, can you tie, explain the mill levy? Please don't right now, by the way. Don't.     

The New Kid on the Block (...is 20,000 sq. ft.): Sunflower Fire Station

Intro

Chief Maxton: [00:00:00]

Whitney: Welcome back to the hall monitors. We are on a field trip today, not so we're not filming in our, oh.

Firefighter: Welcome back to the Hall Monitors. We are on a field trip today. We're not filming in our normal City Hall location, we are filming in what used to be the City Hall, but for decades now, it has been the downtown fire station

Whitney: We are interviewing today Fire Chief Chief Maxton Maxton. He started with a fire service in De Soto [00:01:00] when you were 18, and then worked up to fire Chief in 2018?

Chief Maxton: Yes.

Whitney: I have a question. So what does a fire chief do? Compare. So when I think about firefighter, I didn't. I didn't ask her, she,

Chief Maxton: What's the question?

Whitney: Like what does the fire chief do? A little different, but what, what do you even do? What do you

Libby: even do?

Chief Maxton: My fires are a little bit different.

Chief Maxton: I'm one of two eight-to-five employees because firefighters have an amazing schedule. They do work 24-hour shifts. It could be rigorous, sometimes not so rigorous, right. But the beauty of my job is, if we have a fire, I still get to go. If the meeting's not too important,

Chief Maxton: So, but you,

Whitney: Like recently, you, we, there was a grass fire on K-10. You went on site for that, didn't you?

Chief Maxton: Yeah. So that was the crazy Texas dust storm day where we had a high wind. That day I had to turn into the acting battalion chief because our fire [00:02:00] came out on K 10, we were in four different counties on fires at the time. We were in Douglas County, Leavenworth County, and on a mutual aid deployment request down to Gate Center on the fire that they had. So the, our Johnson County Fire, we had that come out. We responded to that. We still had a full complement of personnel because we prepared for the high fire danger that day.

Chief Maxton: Mm-hmm. And we brought in extra personnel. So yeah, sometimes I do get forced into action. Forced. You love it. I still am a firefighter.

Whitney: Let it be clear you do not just sit behind a desk

Chief Maxton: There, there is some proof out there that that is correct? Yes.

Whitney: Okay. So in preparation for this, we obviously wanted a little intel, so we asked some of your staff if they had any stories from you about you when you were in elementary school or in your school days. However, you've worked here so long that no one has those stories, but they have stories from when they were in elementary school, something [00:03:00] about a very tall firefighter, very heroic firefighter, doing a show and tell of a firetruck in elementary school. Does that ring any... fire bells for you? Uh,

Chief Maxton: That might ring a bell. Yes. That might be. That's it. That was probably it was probably Battalion Chief Shipman telling stories. Mm-hmm.

Chief Maxton: I can't remember what grade he was in at Countryside, but he wanted to see big red, not that one, but the red truck at the time. And then, years years went by, whatever equaled him turning 18 or 19 then probably because of that experience is why definitely he wanted to join the fire service.

Chief Maxton: Definitely. So, it actually is a cool story. It's a little corny, but yeah -he started as a volunteer firefighter. We were firefighters together down at our South Station. Mm-hmm. Now station 12 at 127th and Gardner and here we are all grown up and I'm in this role.

Chief Maxton: Brandon is a battalion chief. Yes.

Whitney: So thank you to him for giving us that story.

Chief Maxton: We've decided to rename our podcast, the Chief ToddCast, so welcome to the [00:04:00] ToddCast and Chief Maxton's stories. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.

The Station That's Served Us Well

Whitney: So when you started,

Whitney: What was the building like? What do you remember from the building? This building in particular.

Chief Maxton: I wasn't assigned to this building, this was the De Soto Fire Department up until 2010. I began with Fire District 3, which we ran dual response areas, so we were kind of integrated with everybody.

Chief Maxton: But none of the stations even that we currently have today, were designed to be lived in. They were built to store apparatus. And then this station is very unique too, because apparatus wasn't even thought of that much because the building needed to serve so many different purposes for the city's base point.

Chief Maxton: The City Administrator was based here, City Council meetings were on the second floor. Mm-hmm. The senior center and items like that.

Whitney: We're sitting in the part of the building that was added, I believe, in the 1970s. Okay. The main part of the building is over 80 years old. Okay. If you look at the [00:05:00] main part of the building under the Memorial Hall sign mm-hmm.

Chief Maxton: The, the bay window at the bottom, was the firetruck bay, which is nowone of the bunk rooms in the building. through all the different purposes this building has served, we've made it work over time.

Whitney: When I startedat district three, we only had one full-time person on duty at the time.

Chief Maxton: Mm-hmm.De Soto was similar as well. De Soto did not have a full-time employee in the fire service until about 2001.

Whitney: Oh, geez.

Chief Maxton: Yeah.

Chief Maxton: It's really, I say that's really not that long ago, but you remind me of when I started.

Whitney: I'm so sorry.

Chief Maxton: That's okay. But no, that was probably our biggest challenge though, going from the living conditions and, okay, we're protecting and sheltering the fire trucks. And then we started adding personnel. We were that predominantly volunteer fire department, which it was invigorating for all the members here, and there were so many members in this community that are still here, that were part of this volunteer [00:06:00] department.

Chief Maxton: We run across those people every day. Mm-hmm. I learned from a lot of those people. Most people acknowledge not being able to go to the fire station and jump on the fire truck to run a call - that's a major change in their life - when we went to more of a career service.

Chief Maxton: There was the sunflower plant. we had to have a contract with their contractor when they started phasing their fire department out. Mm-hmm. We needed to add personnel to provide better coverage in order to respond to the plant. So that's kind of what got things kick started for us.

Chief Maxton: Mm-hmm. And then the full-time numbers kept raising and then we got to the point. Where we needed to evolve and up the ante on the level of service that we were providing. We are an all career service right now supplemented by uh, it depends two to three part-timers

Whitney: Well, that's, so I had no idea. That's really interesting that you increased the level of staffing for the Sunflower Plant in first place, and then that is what is happening now, right? Is that, [00:07:00] is that what

Chief Maxton: in, in a way? Yeah. at least the destination is requiring that. Yeah.

Chief Maxton: When we started adding personnel we had to move things around, find living space. We also shared space at the time with the Chamber of Commerce. Mm-hmm. They were on the lower level. In roughly 2014, 2015 the building became ours. We actually don't own the building. The City of De Soto owns the building and we are a separate entity than the City. We're a fire district. But no, the building has served its purpose. Yeah. But the building's tired. Yeah. It really is between our mechanical engineering and plumbing issues that we try to address, knowing that, the infrastructure that's gonna be needed, especially the funding to put back into this building. We were kind of in uh, a holding pattern for quite a while.

Chief Maxton: So that's when we started looking for a replacement station. Even the footprint of this building this bay cannot accommodate the new aerial firetruck. Mm-hmm. It will not fit, it won't even come [00:08:00] close. Even out on our pad, we can't pull out. And there's also some safety issues with the pedestrian traffic as well.

Chief Maxton: So long story short it's been a great building for us. Mm-hmm.

Whitney: I just realized, I didn't say to the people what this episode is about.

Whitney: I just realized that.

Chief Maxton: I think the firetruck backing in kind of gave it away.

Whitney: there's a new station coming. They're building it. We're talking about that. Okay.

Planning

Whitney: We started this journey knowing roughly three years ago that there was gonna be an industrial focus and probably something mega manufacturing. We knew that. We had no idea what it was gonna be at the time. But uh, between EDC and the City of De Soto we had to do a lot of brainstorming mm-hmm.

Chief Maxton: And doing pretty much a rapid risk assessment because of the limitations that we had,

Whitney: yeah.

Chief Maxton: Resources and funding, we had to be [00:09:00] reactive instead of proactive. For once, at least in my career here, we were able to do something that was super proactive, even though it had to be done super quickly.

Whitney: Mm-hmm.

Chief Maxton: And that was evolving into what is now the Sunflower Fire Station. Mm-hmm. We looked at various models on what we could do. could we add a fourth station? The long answer to that between the infrastructure of this building and the upgrades that it needs, and the lack of a funding mechanism to keep a fourth station turned our model and the way that we were looking at it, and then we started looking at response times and maps. I'm not gonna claim that it's perfect, but we're confident that we're gonna be able to continue to meet our benchmarks running out of the Sunflower Fire Station. So that is a replacement fire station.

Whitney: Okay.

Whitney: So if you're replacing the station, how does that affect response times in the downtown area or does it impact response times?

Chief Maxton: A lot of people don't know this, but. They think [00:10:00] because the fire station's here, it's kind of hard to see. This truck is not always here.

Whitney: Yeah.

Chief Maxton: You guys have already seen it in the short time you've been here today. Uh, They've been on five calls today. Yeah. And the wheels turn on this truck on a slow day, probably 10 times.

Chief Maxton: Not always for calls. Mm-hmm. But they have company inspections, they have trainings they have public relations events whether it's doing a football standby at the high school or we need to be at the Kill Creek station for training.

Chief Maxton: We're always subject to call. We might not always be here. And then if they're at the grocery store or the gas station

Whitney: they

Chief Maxton: always take the truck with 'em because that's their toolbox.

Chief Maxton: They have all the firefighters with them at the time. They're ready to go at any moment. Our computer aided dispatch system, they know where every apparatus is in the county at all times. And we're gonna get there. sometimes we're gonna be close, sometimes not so much.

Chief Maxton: So are

Whitney: you saying that even if there's something downtown or close to the station, it's not always this engine then? [00:11:00] Correct. It's on site, correct?

Chief Maxton: The one thing that I don't like to hear, "man, it took you guys forever to get here." I don't like hearing that because we take pride in that. We're gonna continue to do that because you hear me talk about dorky fire chief things the National Fire Protection Association has, benchmarks.

Chief Maxton: We have to meet certain response standards within 80 seconds. 90% of the time they need to have wheels rolling. That's our turnout time. That's 24 hours per day. And in addition to that, you combine that turnout time and getting to the scene of something, 90% of the time, we need to accomplish that in less than five and a half minutes.

Chief Maxton: So we're a little bit above that now. Mm-hmm. Probably not 90% of the time. But we're also covering 70 square miles.

Whitney: Because you don't just serve De Soto , right? It's a little bit bigger. Correct.

Chief Maxton: Our department name sometimes is kind of confusing. You can still call us the De Soto Fire Department.

Chief Maxton: Technically, we are the Northwest Consolidated Fire District because we are covering approximately 70 square miles. Two thirds of our call [00:12:00] volume is in the city limits of De Soto but we also cover the unincorporated areas. we have the Leavenworth County boundary, which is the river. the Douglas County line, and we go all the way to hundred 43rd Street and, butt up against Lenexa and Olathe city limits.

Chief Maxton: So also the Station 2 station, we say three stations, well, that third station is not really De Soto." That is a very important part of protecting De Soto. Mm-hmm. Because of our simultaneous calls mm-hmm. That we have. Our latest figures have us at about 16% of the time, we have a duplicate call, simultaneous calls occurring at the same time, so we have to move our resources around. That South Station, they'll move their truck up into the area, normally around the Kill Creek station area.

Chief Maxton: So we're better aligned to forecast where the next call might be

Whitney: So the, the, was it bunker? Bunker to Bay time? That is really important. What is a round look like? You get a call, what does it look like [00:13:00] from the bunk rooms to here?

Chief Maxton: What it looks like could be considered chaos.

Chief Maxton: It changes a little bit based off the limited information we get at the time of dispatch. Mm-hmm.

Chief Maxton: There's adrenaline flowing and they go from dead sleep at 3:00 AM to needing to be here within 80 seconds and they could be going on a critical call. Transitioning that into going through doorways, areas that were not designed to be lived in and bunk rooms into the design work that went into the new station.

Chief Maxton: You say that's good terminology from bunker to bay. That is some of the terminology that we use. We try to use straight lines, try to reduce how far the bunk rooms are away. This is Queen Bee. We try not to go too far away from Queen Bee

Chief Maxton: I'm referring to any truck that's in the station. Yeah. And we need to get to it quickly. The fitness areas, we design on how quickly we can get to it, where the classroom component in the new building. The offices are [00:14:00] farther away because there's less of a chance that the personnel need to get on the rig.

Whitney: So that's a good segue into details about the new station. So how does it differ? What are we getting? And first, tell us where it is.

Location

Chief Maxton: Yeah. 102nd Street has been renamed 99th Street at Lexington. Mm-hmm. And for reference a hundred second Street back to the west, that leads to Countryside, which used to be Countryside Elementary.

Chief Maxton: on the east side of that road That's gonna lead you on 99th Street up to the new fire station.

Chief Maxton: Knowing that the city limits were going to change, they're gonna expand the city limits of De Soto. Yeah. Doubled in size. Yeah. Just in the past few years, right?

Chief Maxton: Mm-hmm. We needed to respond to that and have a strategically located fire station. Mm-hmm. And, and that's it. There's a lot of time and effort that went into the design knowing it was unprecedented on how it came about. And to be able to do that with the least impact, [00:15:00] especially financially on the constituents of our district, was at the forefront of our mind.

Station Details

Chief Maxton: It's gonna be three times the size of this.

Chief Maxton: It's gonna have four double deep drive through bays. This is pretty much two single bays. So just put that into perspective.

Chief Maxton: That's probably gonna be the most visible difference in the station as well.

Chief Maxton: It has a lot of safety aspects. It has a fire suppression system. We lose power in this building a lot, and the folks that live in downtown can relate to that as well. We don't have generator backup. New codes require every new emergency facility has to have generator backup.

Chief Maxton: Space-wise, We also cannot accommodate ten first responders. And those first responder bunk rooms are gonna be private, that's the modern thing in the fire service.

Chief Maxton: That's in a clean environment, that's probably one of the biggest ones as well.

Whitney: So right now they're in just one room and if there is a call coming in, everyone gets alerted.

Whitney: Even if it's in the middle of the night. Not everyone needs to go. Everyone gets alerted and woken [00:16:00] up.

Chief Maxton: Yes.

Whitney: How does a new station differ?

Chief Maxton: Good question. When it first opens, there's not gonna be much of a difference because we refer to it as a single company house. That station

Chief Maxton: is designed to house a second fire company as well.

Chief Maxton: To keep up when the call volume justifies it. Mm-hmm. And we could phase it in, whether that's an EMS squad on our end. And the one thing that we haven't talked about yet, the MED-ACT squad, that's based on Kill Creek. They will be moving to the new station as well.

Chief Maxton: And when budgeting allows, MED-ACT's plan is to place an ambulance there in the near future

Chief Maxton: So, in the bunk, in the bunk rooms, we talked about when, if it's the MED-ACT unit and they're needed on a call, or needed to move up into the system, we don't have to wake the whole firehouse up. Yeah. That specific alert can be directed into that bunk room.

Whitney: We also have some transitional buffers in there. Mm-hmm. As we try to focus on carcinogens and keeping the dirtier areas. Mm-hmm. Which, think about this, it's a garage [00:17:00] and what we might be taking back from a fire.

Chief Maxton: We're trying to leave that as much as we can in the bay. And then our support rooms right off the bay. We have a decontamination room some heavy duty extracting. We have a dirty shower room in case the firefighter can't make it all the way back into the clean part of the building.

Chief Maxton: In addition to that firefighters need to work out. it's actually required that our firefighters work out. So they're getting a, a fitness room. it's able to house the entire company at one time. Mm-hmm. And it's gonna have not only the cardio, but also strength equipment. And that's gonna be all new equipment for them as well.

Whitney: And then there was a training classroom in there?

Chief Maxton: Yeah, so there's an actual classroom and we try to focus on, peer to student, which typically it's not gonna be over 30. So that's what our design was. we got that just under 1000 square feet to accommodate a classroom style of training that could also be used for our board meetings and as a community room. It [00:18:00] does have a training component to the station in one of the mezzanines outside of the bay.

Chief Maxton: We took some ideas from KCK Fire Station 16 and Johnson County Consolidated Fire District 2 with some repelling features and the ability to do some ground ladder drills and propping.

Staffing

Whitney: you mentioned staffing. Is staffing in the future or do you have staffing planned right off the bat?

Chief Maxton: Good question part of the funding that came via the Community Improvement District, allows for six firefighters and our deputy chief position as well. Deputy Chief Mike Baxter, he's been with us for just a little bit over a year now. Yeah. And no. So all of those positions are fulfilled as promised. Even though we're gonna remain with three stations, it's gonna put more firefighters on the trucks in order for us to be able to bring more firefighters to the scene.

Funding

Whitney: You mentioned funding a little bit. How is this being funded, both the construction and these future firefighters you talked about?

Chief Maxton: Okay, so there's a few different components to it. Again,[00:19:00] primary goal, the least burden on our taxpayers, right. So we were able to do this through the City of De Soto's conversations with the State of Kansas and Johnson County Government through American Rescue Plan Act funding.

Chief Maxton: Johnson County allocated $7.5 million of county surplus funds towards this with the Community Improvement District. right now that's just Panasonic picking up the remainder, so $7.5 million from ARPA through Johnson County, and a little over $9 million for the station coming from Panasonic.

Chief Maxton: And then the other funding piece, is for the new aerial platform truck. That's almost fully funded by Panasonic. Their contribution was $1.8 million and the truck's right around $1.9 million plus loose equipment.

Whitney:

Chief Maxton: For the infrastructure development for the hard cost right now, it is [00:20:00] not impacting our taxpayers at all. Moving into a building that's going to be three times the size of this building. Yeah. Our utility costs are gonna be more. Yeah.there's gonna be a little of an impact, but nothing like the impact that would've cost us. The project would've to be bonded.

Chief Maxton: Mm-hmm. And that would have a significant impact on taxpayers raising... it would be another mill levy rate adjustment on a bond. So we have avoided that by taking the avenue taking a lot of work and a lot of parties involvement.

Chief Maxton: The seven positions that you talked about. Mm-hmm. The bulk of that is funded through a dollar amount that starts, at $700,000 per year. Mm-hmm. It has a 2% incremental adjuster each year for the life of the TIF.

Whitney: So workload might increase. Or calls might increase, but we're also getting operational costs to help with that.

Chief Maxton: Yes. And that's the main intent of it too. It's not just for [00:21:00] that area. You look at Flint. That's now the largest building in De Soto just a million square feet, but that's small in comparison to what's down the road at Panasonic, right?

Chief Maxton: Mm-hmm. So there's a lot of attention on that area. We're used to risk management. We talked about rotating our resources, trying to be there at the right time with the right resource. this just puts more emphasis on that. So it's not just for the Panasonic area.

Chief Maxton: Mm-hmm. Um, It also expands us into parts of the city of De Soto that not only have been recently annexed, but existing areas that have been annexed years ago. Now that station actually is closer to them within a five mile range.

Panasonic Specific Training

Chief Maxton: So you said it's not just for the development at Panasonic, But that development is a really important piece of this construction and the preparation that goes into it.

Whitney: So what have you guys done? What has your department done to prepare for this type of work? Is it different? Is it the same? Do you [00:22:00] treat these types of, you know, incidents are the same?

Chief Maxton: Any new development that comes into our district poses a different type of risk. Look at your 1 million square foot warehouse.

Chief Maxton: That adds risk, right? It's gonna add call volume with automatic alarms, what's gonna be stored in that building.

Chief Maxton: And then when we get into a higher risk facility depending on what they're producing, and Panasonic is a good example and we know that is, you know, a talking point in the community. There's a lot of unknowns but we can't lose sight of 75% of what's going to occur in that building is a manufacturing process.

Chief Maxton: That's not discounting the risk that's involved in it. I have learned a lot, especially from the parties involved in the design and construction from our partners in Storey County, Nevada, and Gigafactory One. The safety measures that we have learned about, it's, it's immense.

Chief Maxton: Whether that's fire suppression systems, it's [00:23:00] also a, a new thing in the fire service that we're getting acclimated to: thermal management detection. Mm-hmm. Things that are under automated watch at all times, especially if we're dealing with lithium ion containment. Containment is a big thing as well.

Chief Maxton: If we talk about the mega million square foot factory, it's not full of high risk materials throughout the entire building, so it's already naturally contained a little bit, and as what we learn with the thermal management systems, the suppression systems, what, what are we going to be walking into?

Chief Maxton: We've been working with Panasonic Emergency Management on muster points. How are the doors gonna be labeled? We've been taking tours throughout the construction process, the things that we learned from Gigafactory One, and like, okay, this makes much more sense here. this is what goes on in this area as well.

Chief Maxton: Transportation to and from the facility. [00:24:00] It's not just going to be what's in that facility, it's transportation.

Chief Maxton: We've also noticed that a, I can't say a slight increase, we've noticed a big increase in traffic volumes at certain times of the day. We totally understand the concerns. We're training regularly for it. We have access to one of the nation's subject matter experts on not only lithium ion batteries, but also energy storage.

Whitney: Yeah. Actually recently, I think your entire fire district, all staff. You had trainings at City Hall? Of course, I, my office is right next to so it's very interesting to hear some of the things like the way you respond to a fire is the way you respond to any fire and you get to the site assess the situation and there's always a process and you learn that process and I thought that was interesting.

Whitney: You, you

Chief Maxton: were actually learning. You, you, that's the only thing I heard you learn. Let her in,

Whitney: let her in. Hire me?

Libby: Was there anything else that we haven't talked [00:25:00] about that you want to mention or cover?

Whitney: Libby?

Rapid Fire

Libby: Just making sure that you got everything on your questions.

Whitney: Oh, no, the rest are just questions that Libby wanted to know.

Chief Maxton: We've already done Libby questions. Um,

Whitney: One more fun question. No, here's the question. I'll read it to you. Have you ever tried climbing up the fire pole?

Chief Maxton: Well, we don't have a fire pole.

Whitney: Have you ever tried climbing up? You've had a firefighter for so long, you've got have experience.

Chief Maxton: I've went down a fire pole. I've never tried to climb up a fire pole, unless it was on the jungle gym a "few" years ago.

Whitney: Okay, next one. I'm gonna read you all these words. Have you ever had to free somebody when they got stuck?

Whitney: Libby once got her (she wrote this in third person). Libby once got her head stuck between the railing posts -- of what? I don't know -- and almost had to call for help. "I was [00:26:00] like six."

Libby:

Whitney: She just wants to make sure that she is not. Weird. I Or this happens to other people. Right?

Chief Maxton: You said, I'm clarifying you were six.

Libby: I was younger.

Chief Maxton: This wasn't last year.

Libby: No.

Chief Maxton: I'm gonna have to think about that one a little bit. Some of them obviously, are more serious than others. There are ones that people are more afraid that they don't want to come to the fire station. They get their ring removed. I,

Whitney: I was just thinking that, thanks. I have done that. Yeah. Things like that. Yeah. Oh, oh, so you have gotten something? Yeah, when "I was like, 10."

Chief Maxton: But we, we have, we have had some serious ones with people entrapped in machinery. We train for those calls. It's tough to train for the same incident that happens twice because a lot of special thinking and equipment to free somebody in those situations.

Whitney: Like butter? Have you ever used butter?

Chief Maxton: Uh, We have never used butter. We you, we can use heat. We can use heat and cold, but

Whitney: I would recommend butter, [00:27:00]

Chief Maxton: Not butter, because that would probably lead to a complaint.

Whitney: Oh, well, at least their head was unstuck.

Whitney: Okay. Most useful tool on the truck that isn't actually firefighting gear?

Chief Maxton: Can I say a firefighter? Sure. It's corny, but

Chief Maxton: Okay. Firefighter would be my number one.

Chief Maxton: We carry extrication tools and those, those are getting kind of fancy as well. If you've ever been behind our Kill Creek station, we're not stockpiling a junkyard. Those are, those are training cars that we train regularly on.

Whitney: Okay. So

Whitney: before we wrap this up, where can people stay up to date on the project?

Chief Maxton: So McCown Gordon, our construction contractor, created a landing page. It's updated at least monthly. they try to get drone footage. That's kind of the cooler part.

Chief Maxton: When are you

Whitney: looking to have this thing done?

Chief Maxton: By the end of the year.

Chief Maxton: Occupied by the end of the year. So the timing of that. It's pretty good too because the new aerial platform truck, the plan [00:28:00] is to do a final inspection on that truck. It's being built in Snyder, Nebraska.

Whitney: Mm-hmm.

Chief Maxton: And we're gonna make that trip and do the final inspection on it.

Chief Maxton: And then that truck will be making an appearance in De Soto by Midsummer.

Whitney: Midsummer.

Closing - Hall Monitors

Chief Maxton: Well before we end even though we're in a fire station, this is still the Hall Monitors, so we're really nosy , of course. And we wanna know where you're headed next, what big projects you're doing. Obviously we heard about a huge project today, but is there anything else that uh, you're working on?

Chief Maxton: We have so many things going on and you know, I don't like the word busy.These are milestones. It's monumental to be able to add the firefighters that we're adding.

Chief Maxton: designing and building a new fire station and getting to open it and getting the aerial truck in one year. Don't you think that's enough?

Whitney: Listen, I had to ask, we just wanna know,

Libby: After we stop recording, are you gonna, are you gonna go and do a meeting. [00:29:00]

Chief Maxton: Uh, Yeah, I have a meeting. Yeah. I have a virtual meeting in 20 minutes.

Chief Maxton: Yeah, that's what we do.

Whitney: Virtual meetings become a fire chief

Chief Maxton: about the new fire station.

Whitney: Virtual meetings? Yeah, about the fire station. About the fire station. Big project.

Whitney: Well thank you very much Chief Maxton for sitting with us today.

Whitney: Ah, can't wait to see the new station by the end of the year.

Chief Maxton: You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

Libby: Bye.

Bloopers

 Okay. I can't, I'm gonna ask him questions backwards if, if he doesn't scoot up.. Are you speechless? Yeah. Can you move up a little bit? Your little little baby chair. Can you move this way? How far would you like me to?

Oh, well, so, oh my God, you're gonna break this chair.

Chief Maxton: You need to use a deeper voice.

Libby: You want me to this whole time? Don't use [00:30:00] that make you,

Chief Maxton: that'll make me uncomfortable.

 Beep. I know we need to get, okay. Get Sorry. Beep. Are they, is it gonna start beeping when they No,

But you're also getting some outdoor light. Yeah, because that's nothing beat and I'm not into photography, so I, he's an artist. Okay.

It's gonna wet my whistle. Hold on.

This guy's gonna be, oh, if he's in the video, does he have to buy everyone steak?

Firefighter: What did I, steak? I don't, they never was steak. Don't, yeah, you just got filmed.

Whitney: You just got filmed. you owe us food. It's ice- it's ice cream.

Chief Maxton: They misled you. That's because they wanted steak?

Firefighter: Yes. I wanted you to buy a steak.

Firefighter: Yeah, Chief.

Whitney: I began with Fire District 3.

Whitney: Can I say fire department in De Soto though?

Firefighter: You can say whatever you'd like to say.

Libby (2): Okay, so you started a while back, like we said, God, that's a terrible way to start this,

Whitney: I like how he's sinking lower and lower during this whole [00:31:00] thing. I appreciate you. Sitting in our tiny desk interview chairs. But it is like you falling..

Libby: Yeah. He started out taller than you. Now you guys are about the same height.

Whitney: I love, he's so uncomfortable.

Whitney: This chair just makes me feel smaller.

Chief Maxton: it's not very comfortable. Ugh.

Whitney: Well, we don't do this for comfort.

Chief Maxton: How did your dad get his arms stuck at Wendy's?

Whitney: Why do you look?

Chief Maxton: Because it wasn't a good close.

Whitney: I don't know what else to say.

Chief Maxton: You don't know what else to say.

Whitney: I don't know what, what's that supposed to mean?