On Tuesday, January 14th, 2025 the Liberal City Commission addressed the following items during their regularly scheduled meeting:
The meeting opened with the annual reorganization of the Commission. Jose Lara was voted to continue serving as Mayor and Matt Landry was selected to serve as Vice-Mayor.
Consent Agenda items (Planning & Zoning Board minutes, airport leases and CMB license renewals) were approved by the Commission.
Following discovery of an error in the parcel numbers for the sale of city property, Commissioners voted to approve a corrected purchase and sale agreement with Air Products, a producer of industrial gas products. The vote also approved the commitment of approximately $1.1 million dollars from the 1-cent sales tax fund to provide the necessary streets, drainage, and capital improvement needs to support the economic development project. The motion to approve was made contingent upon final FAA approval. The Air Products project is expected to bring 45 new manufacturing jobs at an average salary of $52,933. The first phase of their new facility is expected to open in 2027. The property sold is located inside the Airport Industrial Park near Luck Road in Liberal.
The Commission voted 4-0 (Commissioner Warren abstaining) to approve Ordinance No. 4628, which rezones a property located at 441 S. Washington Ave. from a C-2 commercial property to an R-3 multiple-family residential property type.
Commissioners voted to approve the purchase of the slide structure for the custom “Ruby Red Slipper Slide” attraction to be located near the Tourism Information Center along U.S. Highway 54. The project was awarded 40% of total project costs from the Kansas Tourism Attraction Development grant with the remaining 60% of the project coming from transient guest tax funds.
The Commission voted to approve the 2025 Fiscal Year Finance Policies & Procedures Manual with updates to the financial calendar dates for the new year.
The Commission voted to approve the designation of Sunflower Bank as the City’s official depository of funds. Commissioners also voted to approve the High Plains Daily Leader & Times to be the newspaper of record for official publications.
Staff presented an engineering estimate for infrastructure costs of the Larry & Hickory Street housing development by G&G Developments. The development, which was previously approved under an RHID (Rural Housing Incentive District) funded by the developer, has been under consideration to be redrafted with the City of Liberal funding the infrastructure costs and recouping expenses under the RHID. The cash balance and projected needs of the 1-cent sales tax fund for streets, drainage, and capital improvements was discussed. Commissioners gave consensus for staff to bring a series of ordinances and resolutions forward for consideration at the next regularly scheduled Commission meeting to make potential changes to the RHID arrangement.
The next regularly scheduled Liberal City Commission meeting will take place January 28th, 2025 at 5:30 p.m.