Residents will need to start paying a new fee for credit and debit card payments after the City Commission approved a new master fee schedule at its Monday night meeting.
Until now, the city has absorbed credit card and debit card processing fees when residents pay utilities and other charges. City Clerk Kelly Delay said the city has been paying over $150,000 annually in just transaction fees, which is not the standard for other municipalities, she said.
Residents will now have a 2% fee each time they use a credit card to pay. The city crunched numbers to come up with the lowest fee to customers so that the city would not be losing or gaining any money off the transactions, Delay said. The fees will apply to payments for municipal court, utilities, licenses, permits and codes violations.
The city will also have new options for payments, though, like Discover and Apple Pay, she said.
The commission approved the action, but Delay said it will not be immediately implemented as the city wants to give residents time to change their autopay or sign up to pay other ways.
“We want to do a campaign to give people options to do ACH payments if they want to sign up for the automatic payments, which would not have a fee to it. And we also don’t want to surprise people who are auto pay and things like that,” Delay said.
Commissioner Alex Curnes asked what percentage of residents are using credit cards.
Delay said about 65% are paying with cards, compared to only about 40% in other cities.
Curnes said he appreciated the city would not lose or make money with the fee.
Delay also noted anyone on level pay uses a bank account, which would not be impacted by the new fee.
The processing fee was the only change to the approved fee schedule.
The City Commission also went into executive session for about 30 minutes related to a contract for Interim City Manager Zack Daniel. The commission approved a contract with backpay dated to start June 27 for a period of six months. If no permanent manager has been selected by then, the commission and Daniel will revisit the contract and review terms for an extension.
Compensation will be $2,859.60 per week, which is roughly a 23% increase on the current assistant city manager rate. This is the equivalent of a $148,700 annual salary. Former City Manager Kevyn Gero was paid about $155,000 per year.
Daniel will also receive a $400 monthly vehicle allowance as well as existing accommodations Daniel had like phone service, health benefits, training/professional membership dues, etc. Daniel also agreed to a formal review within the first three months of the agreement. The evaluations will be to ensure that areas of concern are being communicated by the whole group more regularly. Those sessions are scheduled to begin in August.
Mayor Tim Reazin said he hopes to have someone in the city manager position permanently within the next six months.
Reazin said HR Director Susie Yuran is going to work on drafting something saying the city is actively searching for a city manager that will be approved at the next commission meeting.
Reazin said he wants to be ahead of the process and make sure the city is doing its due diligence to begin the search even while they expect Daniel to do a great job in the interim position.
In other business, the commission approved a safety plan for transportation in partnership with the Lawrence-Douglas County Metropolitan Planning Organization.
Jessica Mortinger presented data to commissioners and said the project was in collaboration with Lawrence, Eudora and Baldwin City. It identified safety concerns determined by crash log information. The goal is to reach zero serious injuries related to transportation, and continue to keep the city at zero fatal injuries.
Between 2013 and 2022, Eudora reported 46 injury crashes. Numbers of injury crashes increased each year before dropping in 2021.
The most common risk locations were along Church Street and at intersections like Church Street and Locust. Church Street has a higher number of head-on collisions and roadway departures on the higher speed corridor. Frequent pedestrian crashes at 10th and Locust were discussed in the findings.
Mortinger said they collected information from residents about safety during the farmers markets and CPA Picnic and overall residents were concerned about distracted driving and seeing solutions that focused on engineering and design.
Mortinger said the city’s support helps future grant applications to show clear understanding of needs in town and areas where the city needs additional safety. She also said the federal government likes to see that cities are consistent with regional planning so plans like this one, safe routes to schools and transportation 2050 all help show need-driven processes with community engagement.
Reazin agreed and hopes conversations continue to keep Eudora in mind and have projects not stop at county lines.
“That’s kind of my hope as we do these kinds of plans for us, is that we have grant-ready material for those top-tier things,” Reazin said.
The commission also approved a five-year contract with Subsurface Technologies for well maintenance. The updates include CO2 treatment at $178,212 for 2025, $48,212 for the water tower maintenance contract and the conversion of well No. 10 to CO2 treatment. For 2026, the annual treatment for the wells and water towers will increase from $92,000 to $124,812 and will increase approximately 5% every subsequent year.
The City Commission also approved making July 18 Parks and Rec Professionals’ Day.
During staff updates, Parks and Rec Director Sally Pennington said the first dive-in movie of the summer will be at 8:30 p.m. Friday. The department is asking that people pre-register for the free showing of “Moana 2” since space is limited for pool safety reasons, she said. Over 100 have already pre-registered. Another dive-in movie will be Aug. 8, she said.
People can pre-register by reaching out to the Community Center or going online here and then clicking on Aquatics.
Pennington also said Great Kaw Adventure Race registration is open. Fall sports registration is also open, which includes a girls flag football team, she said. The city’s first season running softball and baseball is also now over, she said.
