Council delays vote on water division issues

A lengthy hearing and discussion during Tuesday's city council meeting led council members to delay voting on a proposed wage issue involving Topeka's water division until next week.

The motion to delay passed on a 7-2 vote with Councilmen Michael Lesser and Mike Padilla voting no.

The three resolutions up for discussion and a vote included implementing a proposed 2 to 10 p.m. second shift for the water division, pay raises over a three-year period totaling 11.5 percent and arranging for those raises to occur retroactively as part of their first pay period for 2019.

The proposed second shifts would only take place during the months of January, February, June, July, August and September, which typically see a lot of water main breaks.

The city and the collective bargaining unit, Local 1274 AFSCME, tried to negotiate in late 2017 and early 2018 to reach an agreement on several items.

Several members of the collective bargaining unit attended the meeting Tuesday.

During the negotiations, 20 items were agreed upon but 11 were not, and an impasse was declared.

Kim Seten, counsel for the city, said a second shift is necessary to handle the number of water main breaks the city of Topeka sees each year.

In 2018, Topeka had over 800 water main breaks.

"Employees use heavy equipment to fix breaks," Seten said. "Tired employees can lead to serious accidents. Second shift would help stagger start time so fresh crews can come in on afternoon."

Attorney Matthew Bergman spoke on behalf of the collective bargaining unit.

Bergmann said the council's duty is to identify objective facts and apply those facts in the best interest of the public.

"I think it's a breach of public trust to ignore facts on any policy matter," Bergmann. "The most important asset of an organization is its people. That's what we are here on tonight. These folks need to be treated fairly. I want to ask for your approval because we could be asking for a whole lot more. We are asking for what's fair and reasonable as of today."

Bergmann requested that the city vote to approve a 17 percent wage increase along with raises retroactively occurring starting at the beginning of 2018.

Bergmann said funds for the requested wage increase can be found in the budget for the water division.

Deputy Mayor Sandra Clear expressed an issue with where exactly the funding would come from.

Council members voted 10-0 to pass the 2020 transient guest tax allocation in the amount of $2,854,458. The money is to be divided among several organizations: $1,565,555 to Visit Topeka Inc.; $195,694 to Visit Topeka Bid Fund; $368,576 to Sunflower Soccer Special Assessments; $54,982 for admin fees and other; $195,694 to Topeka Zoo; $265,412 to the downtown plaza; $23,183 to Evel Knievel Museum; $52,559 to Jayhawk Theater; $27,422 to Constitution Hall; and $105,381 in contingency funds.

Before voting, Councilwoman Sylvia Ortiz said if she was going to vote to give money to Visit Topeka, she wants to see it do more advertising and that she was disappointed in the organization's commercial showing things to do in Topeka limited to only a few things, such as the Topeka Zoo and the Capitol.

"If I'm going to vote, I want to see a better commercial," Ortiz said. "We have a lot of things to do in Topeka."

Padilla agreed, saying the reason for the money staying with advertising is so Visit Topeka can show all that is available in Topeka.

Several other issues were voted on during the meeting:

• 10-0 voted to pass a resolution to approve the issuance of a special event retailer's permit for Hy-Vee for the Kicker Country Stampede taking place June 20-22 at Heartland Motorsports Park.

• 10-0 voted to pass an ordinance for changes in zoning for property located at 2715 S.E. Indiana Ave. from an office and institutional district to a two-family dwelling district.

• 10-0 voted to pass an ordinance to apportion and levy a special assessment on certain lots and pieces of ground in Topeka.

• 10-0 voted to pass a resolution to initiate condemnation proceedings to acquire fee title for construction of the Grant-Jefferson Pump Station project.