ShawneeDispatch.com

The Shawnee City Council Monday approved changes that would reduce the cost for the city’s newsletter and parks and recreation guide.

Council members also brought up two nonagenda item discussions concerning Council member conduct and interactions with city staff.

The Council first approved a change to the CityLine and Parks and Recreation brochure that would reduce the annual cost from $46,018 to $31,072. The combined guide and brochure will be sent out three times a year: winter, spring/summer and fall. It will have 32 pages with a reduced paper quality.

Improvements to data regarding zip codes and mail carrier routes also helped the city determine more exact delivery areas within the city, so it will need to print and mail about 2,800 fewer guides.

Council member Dan Pflumm said he would prefer to send a post card reminding residents that they could sign up for classes and find information online. Council member Kevin Straub said he would have preferred printing the guide through the newspaper, which would have cost about $17,000 annually.

But Tonya Lecuru, deputy director of parks and recreation, said when the matter was discussed at two previous Finance and Administration Committee meetings, Council members on the committee had agreed that the online enrollment was too low to do away with the guides. She said the magazine-like quality of the guides also had a longer shelf-life than newsprint, and there were concerns that people wouldn’t know to find the guide in the paper if they don’t read the paper.

Discussions of Council member conduct and interactions with city staff arose during a time set aside for miscellaneous Council items.

The first was from Pflumm, who brought up the recent concerns about fellow Ward I Council member Cheryl Scott, who may be considering a move to Arizona. He insinuated that city staff knew of her impending possible move last summer, when the city was considering slight changes to the ordinance that lays out the process of voting for replacements on the Council when a Council member or the mayor resigns.

“You guys are going to try to tell me that you didn’t know at that time, and I don’t believe that in a day,” Pflumm said.

Other Council members argued, and the city attorney agreed, that the slight changes made to the ordinance were rewordings that did not in any way change how the Council votes on a replacement, saying it has been the same method of voting since the 1970s.

The second matter came from Straub, who asked why he was being charged for information gathered for him in response to an Kansas Open Records Act request he filed late last year.

Straub said he didn’t think it was appropriate that he be charged, as no other Council member he has heard of has been charged for asking for information, and he had asked for the same information previously via e-mail.

Carol Gonzales, city manager, said that she received his question relating to employee benefit information for past employees via e-mail Nov. 22.

She said she sent him some information Nov. 23 and 25, but not all the answers he was requesting because she was not sure the answers were considered open records. She asked that he allow her time to run the information by the city attorney.

She said Straub then filed the open records request Dec. 4. At that point, she determined he would rather pursue the information through the open records process and was charged just under $100 for the legal time and research necessary to create a report with the information he requested, just as anyone who submitted an open records request would be charged.

In other business, the Council:

• Adopted a resolution authorizing the construction and improvement of Silverheel Street from the 6600 block of Clear Creek Parkway at a total cost of $6.4 million, funded through an improvement district with the city share of $856,320.

• Approved the appointment of Denise Shannon to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board with a term expiring Dec. 31, 2012.

• Approved a license for the sale of cereal malt beverages for Fast Gas and Snax, 23000 W. 83rd St.

• Approved a contract with Larkin Group Inc. for design and construction services for the 50th Terrace and Neiman Road storm drainage improvements.

• Ratified semi-monthly claims totaling $1,916,780.

All Council votes were unanimous.

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