May 21, 2021 — Meeting Transcript

All the women that make Andrew

here.

All the women views

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All the woman Patel here. Mayor Harris here. City manager, David Gipson and city attorney O'Keefe, but I believe he stepped away.

All the woman Patel here. Mayor Harris here. City manager, Gibson and city attorney O'Keefe, but I believe he stepped away.

I'm here. I just watching. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Um, well, we've got the property tax bill first on the agenda. So Mr. City manager.

Thank you, mayor. The city's general fund provides most of the revenue necessary to provide the services. The citizens of Clayton rely on to sustain their health safety and welfare. Create and maintain critical public infrastructure and offer unique and valued enhancements to the quality of life available to every Clayton resident. The city's property tax rate dedicated to general purposes has not been increased since 1991. While the cost of providing the high quality services Clayton residents enjoy has risen steadily to the point that the city's general fund cannot be counted on to sustain current levels of service without additional revenue. Approval of this ordinance will place the following proposition on the ballot for consideration by the voters of Clayton. at the election to be held on August 3rd, 2021, reads as follows. Proposition A, shall the city of Clayton be authorized to increase its property tax upon all subjects and objects of taxation within the city by 18 cents on the $100 assessed valuation for general municipal purposes, including paying increased costs associated with the provision of public safety services, parks and recreation facilities and programs, public works and infrastructure, maintenance and improvement, solid waste collection, and other services for the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of Clayton. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen consider the proposed ordinance to submit a general property tax increase to the voters of Clayton on August 3rd, 2021. Okay,

very good. I'm going to ask, since we have a few people in the audience, if there are any comments or questions from the audience at this time on this item. Okay, we have two. Dr. Gallicatos, you can go first. Go ahead, doctor.

Thank you, Mara. We're really talking about roughly increasing the property tax by about 30%. And the citizens might perceive this as really the board ramrodding another accent. Within the last couple of years, the citizens of Clayton really have approved an increase. They actually had an increase in property tax as well as the massive increase in the school tax. There are a lot of changes taking place that's gonna be affecting our tax base an example here. We talked about seeing in the business journal where Centene and then also the Calaris are making major physical changes in their presence here in Clayton. We had mentioned last Tuesday that the foresight point again in the business journal showed that two companies come on to, will actually have on the, in that building. But those two companies are coming from offices that are already in Clayton. But my point is so many things are taking place and are about to take place that definitely can affect not only the individual property tax, but the commercial property tax and so on. So I would really strongly suggest that time be taken to properly inform the citizens of Clayton what really needs to happen and Just because there's a special election coming up in August, the St. Louis County Board of Elections has shown that there's greater voter turnout in November, greater than in the spring in April and greater than in the summer like in August. So I would like to suggest that this tax increase be deferred to a November election rather than August election. And I think the citizens will be much more informed and we'll be talking about full disclosure where I have a larger number of voters actively participating in this process.

I appreciate it. Have a good weekend too.

Was I audible or was I not?

I think we heard you. And we now have, let's go ahead and let Anne Martin make a comment and then we can address your comments.

I think we heard you. And we now have, let's go ahead and let Ann Martin make a comment and then we can address your comments.

Hi, I'd like to echo Mr. Gallicato's comment. There's maybe two or three of us in the city who are still middle class. And I'm looking at $1,000 out of my pocket for the schools last year and a total of maybe three grand for all this with the police department. It's it's like a huge property tax thing. And it's not like we didn't just have that thanks to Mr. Zimmerman. And I'm just like, how far off are we on our police budget? Like what portion of it is part of the Clayton budget? Like when we were talking about the schools, it's the most expensive district in the whole state by a lot. Highest paid teachers, even over Ladue, And as a former teacher for 44 years, I kind of know the salary stuff. But I was a little shocked that there was a lot of threatening about the school tax and we just can't survive without it. And I'm not sure. I don't need, as I told, filling out that questionnaire, I don't feel I need all these fancy services, I can do great with a little less. And is the amount we're... proposing to spend on the police department. Is that in line with other cities? What is the percentage of our total budget for police? How much of an increase would it be? And haven't they gotten incredible increases when I've had unbelievable increases from Jake Zimmerman?

Okay, thank you, Ann. I will just say a couple of things. And then there are a lot of points of information in there that I will let our city manager address, such as the timing and how we rank among other cities for expenditures and so on. First of all, I think Dr. Galacados, you mentioned that this was a 30% increase in our property tax. I don't think that's right, but I'm waiting, I'll wait for the city manager to confirm that or not. I think that's too high of an, of a percent. But you know, the timing, I guess, you know, if people, first of all, we don't, we are not taking a tax increase for our police. This is a general increase meant to really enable us to provide the services we are known for and that people demand over the long haul and also maintain our facilities over the long haul. So this is meant to shore up our general funds so that we do not have to rob from our capital improvements fund to keep the city operating as you see it now. This is not for anything extra. So That being said, and then in terms of the timing, again, I'll let the city manager address it, but getting relief for the capital fund earlier is much better in terms of the long run over the course of the city's finances. I mean, these things are cumulative and we want to... We want to build up that capital fund over time. And the earlier we start, just like a savings account, the more it'll grow. So I'm going to leave that there for a minute and let David Gipson address some of the more specifics if he wants to.

Okay, thank you, Ann. I will just say a couple of things. And then there are a lot of points of information in there that I will let our city manager address, such as the timing and how we rank among other cities for expenditures and so on. First of all, I think Dr. Galacados, you mentioned that this was a 30% increase in our property tax. I don't think that's right, but I'm waiting, I'll wait for the city manager to confirm that or not. I think that's too high of an, of a percent. But you know, the timing, I guess, you know, if people, first of all, we don't, we are not taking a tax increase for our police. This is a general increase meant to really enable us to provide the services we are known for and that people demand over the long haul and also maintain our facilities over the long haul. So this is meant to shore up our general funds so that we do not have to rob from our capital improvements fund to keep the city operating as you see it now. This is not for anything extra. So That being said, and then in terms of the timing, again, I'll let the city manager address it, but getting relief for the capital fund earlier is much better in terms of the long run over the course of the city's finances. I mean, these things are cumulative and we want to... We want to build up that capital fund over time. And the earlier we start, just like a savings account, the more it'll grow. So I'm going to leave that there for a minute and let David Gibson address some of the more specifics if he wants to.

Thank you, Mayor. Just to answer a couple of questions real quick. As far as the increase itself, this would be a 34% increase of the general levy that we currently have, which is at $0.52, or a 25.8% increase in the total levy when you include any debt levy that we have. It was mentioned the school district tax and some other taxes out there. The police was mentioned, although while we had some debt that was issued for the police building, that impact Actually, there was only a 10 cent tax. So it wasn't a significant amount. But I will say that the total tax bill for a resident here in Clayton, the city of Clayton's portion of that tax bill right now is at nine and a half percent of the total bill. So we represent currently less than 10% of what you're paying every year when you submit your taxes. The question was raised about the police department, what percentage of our budget they account for. It's about 25%. But as the mayor had stated, this is a general purpose levy, so it doesn't go all to one department. This is used for general purposes. So we'll go into our general fund and be used to pay for really all of our various services we provide here. as well as the commodities that we have. Some may be used for some capital, but it's a general tax. And then finally, as far as the timing is concerned, we will already be mobilizing as was mentioned for the special election in August. So there is some value to doing two items on that same ballot. But if we waited until November, we would actually be asking the voters to increase the taxes just a month into our fiscal year, which starts on October 1st. So from a financial planning standpoint, there's a major advantage to passing a tax in August versus doing that in November because we can prepare for that as we go through the budgeting season and be ready on October 1 with good numbers for the entire fiscal year that's upcoming. If we wait until November, we would have to do a massive budget amendment, assuming it were to pass at that point, that would then influence the rest of the year. There are also multiple major projects that we need to budget for, and knowing what type of revenue we have for those is important to us to have at this time. And then, of course, you could defer this to next year, the following year, but if you do that, you miss out on the potential revenue you would have if it were to pass this year. And that's estimated to be around $2 million if we were to get this 18 cent increase. So just wanted to point some of those items out. Looks like the city attorney.

Yes, thank you, Mr. David Gipson. I would just add, not only is it a November election out of sync with the budget year, but the tax rate for 2021 has to be submitted to the county by October 1st. which means an increase authorized in November could not be effectuated in the year in which the voters approved it and it would be delayed a year. So you could not have, you would lose a year of revenue automatically just by reason of when the election was held. And one other comment with respect to process issues and the references to Mr. Zimmerman who is of course the assessor for St. Louis County, state law requires the tax entities like the city, when the assessor increases the value, the assessed value of property, taxing districts like the city are required to reduce the rate of their tax in order to only generate the same amount of revenue that they would have gotten had the value of property not been more highly assessed. And in fact, if I'm not mistaken, the last time 30 years ago, the voters of Clayton approved a tax increase, it was to increase the tax rate to 81 cents. And because of the rollback requirement as property values have increased, the maximum rate now is around 42 cents. So you would see that we lost about half of that taxing capacity because the rate has been rolled back each time the assessor has increased the assessed value of property. So the increased assessment does not result in a higher tax bill to property owners. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Gibson. I would just add, not only is it a November election out of sync with the budget year, but the tax rate for 2021 has to be submitted to the county by October 1st. which means an increase authorized in November could not be effectuated in the year in which the voters approved it and it would be delayed a year. So you could not have, you would lose a year of revenue automatically just by reason of when the election was held. And one other comment with respect to process issues and the references to Mr. Zimmerman who is of course the assessor for St. Louis County, state law requires the tax entities like the city, when the assessor increases the value, the assessed value of property, taxing districts like the city are required to reduce the rate of their tax in order to only generate the same amount of revenue that they would have gotten had the value of property not been more highly assessed. And in fact, if I'm not mistaken, the last time 30 years ago, the voters of Clayton approved a tax increase, it was to increase the tax rate to 81 cents. And because of the rollback requirement as property values have increased, the maximum rate now is around 42 cents. So you would see that we lost about half of that taxing capacity because the rate has been rolled back each time the assessor has increased the assessed value of property. So the increased assessment does not result in a higher tax bill to property owners. Thank you.

That is a great point, too, that I could never have explained. So I think Dr. Gallicatos and Ann, we will take one more comment from each of you, but then we do kind of have to move on. If you have something different to add than what you've already mentioned, we'd appreciate it. Go ahead, Dr. Gallicados.

Yeah, the only thing I want to emphasize is that we'll have greater citizen participation on the action of this tax increase by not having it for our convenience, meaning the government's convenience because there is a special election in August. But again, for full disclosure, for full knowledge, the citizens of Clayton, you as the representative will have that behind you where the citizens are acting fully informed and voting for the property increase.

Could I just observe that this November is not a general election? The state will not be holding an election this November. And if we are on the ballot, we may well be the only thing on the ballot in November. Whereas in August, we will be on the ballot for folks electing a member of the Board of Aldermen. But there's no general election in the odd numbered year.

Okay. Ms. Martin, do you have an additional comment? Something you hadn't mentioned already?

Yes, I'm wondering, it's been explained to me how when you're reassessed and never goes down, it only goes up. I've not seen the tax rate balance out that. I mean, if you compare the assessments at the actual tax paid in the last 30 years, I'd have to look it up, but it's at least tripled. I mean, I've never had the experience when my assessment went up That my tax bill doesn't also go up. It just, it never works that way. I mean, in reality, and this one represents an extra three grand right out of my pocket.

If I may, every fall we submit to the state auditor a computation that justifies to the state auditor that the city has in fact rolled back its rates sufficiently to not benefit from an increased assessment. There is inflationary growth allowed to occur. So that over the past 30 years, I wouldn't be surprised that assessed value has tripled, but there has also been inflation and that inflation is allowed so that the revenue keeps pace with Kevin Mohrman- Generally, the cost of living, but it's still Kevin Mohrman– Is a reduced ratio of the value. Kevin Mohrman – And just back to week we go through that exercise every year file it with the state auditor and that is all public

But Kevin just just to clarify for and say the calculation is done at the macro level. HAB-Jacques Juilland, it's not done on an individual property level that that kind of. HAB-Jacque Juilland, effort would be really very, very time consuming and difficult, so there are individuals who individual properties that will have some increase individual properties will have decreases but it's the city. HAB-Judy Nogg, In in total that many. that calculates the rates.

That's correct. And then there's the actions of other taxing district, new taxes approved by other taxing districts, the inflationary factor on other taxing districts et cetera could impact individual owners disparately. And I believe Mr. David Gipson.

That's correct. And then there's the actions of other taxing district, new taxes approved by other taxing districts, the inflationary factor on other taxing districts et cetera could impact individual owners disparately. And I believe Mr. Gibson.

Just one final point. $3,000 has been raised a few times as far as the amount of this increase. I just wanted to point out on a single family residential property with a valuation of $700,000, our estimate at this point is that the increase would be $133 a year. There's a $3,000 increase that we had used in our estimates, but that would be on a commercial property with a valuation of $10 million. So I just wanted to point out that difference and that clarification that on your typical residential property, you're looking at an increase at probably $200 or less.

Okay, thank you. I was running my calculator and I thought that sounded a bit high. Okay, so I think we do need to move on with our meeting now. Have we lost Mr. Berkowitz? Alderman Berkowitz, are you with us? Great. Okay, I think we need to go on with our agenda. So thank you all for listening in and we appreciate your comments very much and take them to heart. Okay, are we ready? Is everyone else, is everyone ready for a vote? Yes. Okay.

I just want to add one comment, Michelle, I just want to express appreciation, especially to Mr. Berkowitz for showing up for the vote today. This is a big issue and I, we, I think we all appreciate the concerns raised. There's the economic efficiencies and effectiveness of being able to plan well as a city and proceeding now, but it is a it is a, it is a big, it is a decision. And I appreciate that we have as full board as possible. to vote and make that decision on behalf of the city.

Very good. Thank you.

Mayor.

Okay. Yeah, go ahead, Bridget.

I was just going to add to Dr. Calacatos had mentioned about some of the development in town. And I just want to make sure that the people in the audience know that our Janet Watson, who's our director of finance, and of course, David Gipson, our city manager, can pretty accurately predict the future in terms of how much money the city is going to gain from those projects, you know, Centene, a lot of what we've gained from Centene will come on soon. And then of course, when Foresight Point is built and when the Resonance Inn is built, these are all things that managers will be able to... Sorry, I don't know if this can echo. I'm trying to turn

I was just going to add to Dr. Calacatos had mentioned about some of the development in town. And I just want to make sure that the people in the audience know that our Janet Watson, who's our director of finance, and of course, David Gibson, our city manager, can pretty accurately predict the future in terms of how much money the city is going to gain from those projects, you know, Centene, a lot of what we've gained from Centene will come on soon. And then of course, when Foresight Point is built and when the Resonance Inn is built, these are all things that managers will be able to... Sorry, I don't know if this can echo. I'm trying to turn

this off, my

bad. Guess

how do I get this off?

Problem. HAB-Masyn Moyer- And you know, and then really having kind of one Tuesday night that was certainly taken into consideration. I think by all of us because again staff is able to predict pretty accurately how much money we are going to gain in the general fund as a result of those developments so HAB-Judy Nogg-

Good point. HAB-Jude Minnichol- All right, I think Susan is gonna have to Susan. Are you there.

HAB-Sylvain Perrier- We lost her.

Okay.

Can I say something then

while we're waiting on Susan?

Sure.

June, she's in the attendee list.

Okay.

Thank you.

Who said they would like to say something? Was that you,

Amber? Mr. Berkowitz, yes. Yeah,

okay.

Yeah, no, and I just want to echo what Bridget just said, which I think is important. But I think that the people who are going to take a look at this really do need to understand that when they see the development, you know, that we have in our city, and they think, oh, gee, you know, we're making millions of dollars on all of that development. It's just not the case. And, you know, if people want to, you know, tear into some of the numbers, I think Mr. David Gipson's report, I believe is accessible. And it would be easy to see that the development, although it's good, we really don't get the sizable amounts that people think we're getting from those developments. That money is distributed throughout the area. The school district, of course, gets a fair share. So we had a bad sign last year. Sales tax has been way down, and that really made it much more clear to us the need for us to do something to come back to the community and race and ask for a raise. You know, it's been a very tough year for us. And we're not sure. I think there's been some good extrapolations and good prognosis of how things will come back over the next three to four years, you know, but we're still struggling. So this is very necessary.

Yeah, no, and I just want to echo what Bridget just said, which I think is important. But I think that the people who are going to take a look at this really do need to understand that when they see the development, you know, that we have in our city, and they think, oh, gee, you know, we're making millions of dollars on all of that development. It's just not the case. And, you know, if people want to, you know, tear into some of the numbers, I think Mr. Gibson's report, I believe is accessible. And it would be easy to see that the development, although it's good, we really don't get the sizable amounts that people think we're getting from those developments. That money is distributed throughout the area. The school district, of course, gets a fair share. So we had a bad sign last year. Sales tax has been way down, and that really made it much more clear to us the need for us to do something to come back to the community and race and ask for a raise. You know, it's been a very tough year for us. And we're not sure. I think there's been some good extrapolations and good prognosis of how things will come back over the next three to four years, you know, but we're still struggling. So this is very necessary.

Very good. Okay. Hello? Susan is back. So I think we're ready for our motion. Alderman Lentz.

I'll make a motion to approve an ordinance calling for the election on August 3rd, 2021 for the purpose of submitting to the qualified voters of the city of Clayton. The question of increasing the city's property tax to fund essential city services. Second.

Any further discussion on the board? Okay. Mr. City attorney.

Uh-oh. Bill number 6839, first reading, an ordinance calling for an election on August 3, 2021, for the purpose of submitting to the qualified voters of the city of Clayton a question of increasing the city's property tax to fund essential city services.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? None. Okay. Alderman Lentz.

I move that the board give unanimous approval for, I'm doing this by memory now, give unanimous approval to, for a second reading of the bill 6839 on the day of its introduction.

Very good.

Did I say that right?

Pretty good. Pretty good. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay. Let the minutes reflect. The board has, oh, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. HAB-Juliette Boone, Any opposed.

HAB-Julie Peters, Okay.

HAB-Judy Nogg, Any opposed. Okay. HAB–Julie Peters, Let the minutes reflect the board has given unanimous consent alderman lens.

HAB-Danny Teodoru, I would. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Make a motion to approve norton's collection of shooting and start again. Prove Bill 6839, an ordinance calling for the election on August 3rd, 2021, for the purpose of submitting to the qualified voters in the City of Clayton a question of increasing the city's property tax to fund essential city services to be read for the second time by title only. Second.

Very good. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 6839, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance calling for an election on August 3, 2021, for the purpose of submitting to the qualified voters of the city of Clayton a question of increasing the city's property tax to fund essential city service.

Alderman Lynch? Aye. Alderman Berkowitz? Aye. Alderwoman McAndrew?

Aye.

Aldowoman Buse? Aye. Aldewoman Patel? Aye. Mayor Harris. Aye. And the bill passes. Thank you.

OK, very good. All right. Thank you all. And Ira?

Thank you all. See you later. Yes.

Enjoy the rest of your vacation. Congratulations, Ira. I think he's frozen. Goodbye, Ira. OK, we'll continue on. Okay, Mr. City Manager, the Municipal Garage.

I'll turn it over to our Public Works Director, Matt Malek.

Thank you. We're here today to give an update on the study that we started late last year about the public works facility, A300 Shaw Park Drive. We contracted with one of our on-call consultants, Oculus, to do a needs and condition assessment of the facility, which was the main building was constructed in 1959. So... What they spent a lot of time doing, and okay, we're starting to populate here. We've got from Oculus, we've got Jim Stotler and Morgan Perry, and then John Wolfe's city staff is here as well. So they spent a lot time looking through the existing facility, seeing what we had there, looking at code issues, and then developing what the needs of the facility are now in 2021 and options and costs for those along with the recommendations. So this was kind of that first step of looking at the site, seeing what we have before we had moved into any kind of design. So while we went as far as we could trying to figure out certain aspects of it, there would be a design that would follow this. We're working to finalizing that report. I think we sent over the comments on the final report as well as this presentation at the same time. So we prioritize this given the nature of the CIP and the budget process. So with that, you know, we can try to take questions along the way. But I'll turn that over to Morgan and Jim to give us an update.

Thank you. Thank you everyone for your time. Thanks for the introduction, Matt. We're going to try to share a PowerPoint presentation with you that will go over kind of what our methodology was and what our findings were.

me get set up real quick.

While you are transitioning to that, I am going to take my leave. I don't think you need me for the rest of these discussions. Have a good weekend, everyone. Good to be with you. Take care.

Thank you. Thanks, Kevin. Have a good

Let's see.

Is anyone able to see that? No.

Don't have anything yet, Morgan.

OK. I apologize, should have run through this part a few more times.

Okay.

It's not allowing me to share. I can

pull up maybe PDFs of this and go through it.

I think I can do screen share, and that might do it.

I've got it. If it looks like, at least on PDF, I know you might have notes or something, but I could share my screen if need be.

Okay. Yeah, it's not even, let's see. It's not letting me share. Sorry. So I'm going to have to go. Go your route. In the interest of time,

why don't you go ahead and if you can't share your screen, we apologize for the technical difficulties. But to kind of reiterate, we were tasked with doing a facilities condition assessment of the city's municipal garage. We worked with a team of architecture engineers And engineering consultants, if you can go to the next slide, Matt. So we work with Rossenberry Zini on HVAC mechanical plumbing, electrical and fire protection. And we worked with Oates Engineering on structural and we worked with SCI on environmental and hazardous materials. So the purpose of the condition assessment was to evaluate the overall condition of the building to create preliminary programming and planning efforts with the building user groups. address seismic issues, remediate hazardous materials and kind of do an assessment of what was there and that needed to be remediated. And then provide this all into a report for the city and to explore options to either renovate the building or provide new construction on the same site.

So, Jim, I can speak to this. Part of our process was where we began our walkthrough of the site and observed the existing conditions. Took a lot of notes, then moved to interviews and questionnaires with the staff. to understand what was working for them, what was not working for them, mostly program-wise and needs for what they need to get done at the facility. From that, we took a look at what those questionnaires were stating and read through through those answers and came up with some programming items that the group required. And then finally, we looked at a few options for remedying the problems that we found in the space as well as the program, and then took that to the next level of a cost estimate to help us steer a recommendation.

And as you know, we've kind of sprinkled photographs of areas that visually that we felt kind of needed to be shown just to give you all a general flavor of what's in the building, what it looks like, and maybe some of the deficiencies as we go through.

So anyway, just to... I'm not sure how familiar the group is with this particular building, but this building is used for maintenance and storage of many fleet vehicles and does offer support for both parks as well as public works. So this building is interesting where it has a lot of additions. So you can see in this yellow area, that was the original building that was built in 1959. And then in green there is the first edition, which is from 1973 and then finally to the south end in 2002 they added a maintenance bay for work. All three of these buildings are masonry and still frame construction with a white membrane roof.

Yeah. So as you can kind of see, we're dealing with buildings that already have or parts of these buildings that already have a lot of age to it, with the newest being, you know, 20 years old. So coming out of the gate, you know, there's a lot of effort in bringing up the utilities and infrastructure up to current standards.

So again, during our walkthrough observation, these were the main points that our team of ourselves and engineers look through. We look through, I won't read the list, but we focused on all the major building components, the building envelope, the existing systems. We also looked at ADA and accessibility, fire protection egress, all of those things that we typically look at and judge a building upon. Next slide, please.

Can I just add a little bit, Morgan? Yeah. Two things that we kind of found additionally as we were beginning this process, one is that the city is using this to store a lot of very valuable vehicle assets. A lot of the fleet vehicles and utility vehicles are being stored in the building overnight or long-term to kind of protect them from the elements. So that was a key factor, is can this building sustain itself in the event that something happens and protect those assets that the city has? And then two, with that being said, is do we need to look at seismic upgrades that might improve the building and get a lot more longevity out of that and what the building is used for?

Absolutely. And to Jim's point, looking at the large items that were deficient structurally, the original 1959 building as well as the first edition of the 1973 building, they're both We're not up to current seismic standards which again does does put the staff, as well as the vehicle. capital for in in. In. In danger of being lost um so most of the plumbing electrical mechanical systems that are existing our original. to the 1959. And of course, that means that they are not up to code, not efficient. You can see there's some photos here showing the exterior building with the cracking and the movement that this building has. It didn't have any expansion joints in it. So that, of course, is causing leaking into the building. There is overflow of hazardous storage materials. That was a concern to the group. Next slide, please. And then on this slide, there is some more photos showing in-wall conditioners, non-updated electrical, storage is not accessible. The roof has about a few more years of life on that, but that's also coming to an end. Admin spaces and offices are not working to its fullest potential for the group.

And what may not be readily visible to the group is what Morgan touched on earlier, is accessibility. It's kind of hard to show those in slides, but the user groups are using a second story and a partial mezzanine for a lot of storage and admin and office space in a lot of staff amenities areas that isn't accessible. And to be quite honest, a lot of it isn't even code compliant. So that was one thing that we saw and were able to address and quantify in our report as well.

Right. Um, so as I was saying the next step in our process was to get involvement from parks and rec public works and fleet maintenance is part of public works and get their Their understanding of the space, understanding of their needs, what's existing. Um, some of the main items that we were able to pull from, um, this data was, um, the building has exceeded its capacity in many cases. Um, there's, there's need for more office space. There's need for staff support spaces. Um, right now we have staff, um, support spaces right next to where, um, vehicles are being maintenance. Um, There's, you know, same scenario where, you know, someone is working on a vehicle and there's an office right on the other side. There's no sound privacy. There's also, let's see, one of the largest items was the maintenance bay. The current maintenance bay is not large enough to handle the fire apparatus and the plow, both in width and height. We're lacking that room. So they are now needing to pull those vehicles out into the elements to service them, which we found as a large problem. Another item was public waiting space. While people are waiting for their vehicle to be serviced, they're almost hovering over the mechanics, which is one, not safe, and two, is not a great way to perform those tasks. Yeah,

there really is no public face for the building. If someone is visiting the building, they're going directly into work or storage spaces.

Absolutely.

Sorry to interrupt in that part, but I was going to add that these questionnaires were done in the middle of COVID too, where that was a concern of keeping people separated, which I know there's vaccines and everything now, but we thought there might be another incident where we'd need to keep who we're servicing versus the fleet workers separated.

Yeah. Not bad to keep that in the back of our minds, for sure. Next slide, please. So after the questionnaires, then we started to sharpen our pencils and take a look at what needs and wants of the groups actually looked like. Jim and I are both great planners. We can rework things. But after having a session with the group, we found that there was the need for an additional 3,700 to 4,000 square footage in order to help encapsulate the required efforts of the group as well as the admin.

Yeah. We had a really good working session. And I think what the driving factor to the additional square footage was what Morgan mentioned earlier is that they just can't service the larger vehicles in their current bay. So we were really kind of bouncing around strategies as how to get them a larger bay area and also satisfy some of the deficiencies and some of the compliance issues that they were having. And that's kind of as a group, we determined that that 3,700, 4,000 kind of sweet spot for an addition was what we needed to target for this report.

Next page, please. So after we finished that step, then we started putting on our designing hats and trying to figure out, well, how could this be accomplished? As a group, we came up with three options, the first being a renovation, the second being an addition, and then thirdly, a new construction. And I believe the next slide goes into that information. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So essentially all of our work upfront and into the report kind of led us to how we felt we might present some options to alleviate some of the staff concerns as well as some of the existing condition deficiencies. Originally, our scope of work looked at One option for renovation and one option for a new building. But as we were kind of going through, we kind of developed an in-between option, a true second option, which was a building addition option. And I think you kind of read that in our discussion about the planning and the programming efforts. So we looked at just a bare bones option one renovation without an addition and what that would look like to the city. So what we would do is we would completely renovate the building to bring it up into code compliance and to modernize the building. And also kind of bring those seismic requirements into play that would protect those vehicles. What we found was is that the pros to that were, we could reutilize a lot of the building elements and what we had was a really good start to work with. We felt that we could upgrade the infrastructure and we could upgrade the structure and the building envelope relatively easy and that would address the issues. And we felt that we could do it in a relatively economical way. what we found as cons were is it really wasn't addressing the additional square footage needs and it did not address the needs of having that larger vehicle bay. So, It's a viable option to meet a lot of the needs of the deficiencies of the existing building, but it does not meet all of the needs of of the user groups. As far as lifespan, really what's driving the lifespan discussion is the building envelope itself. infrastructure, mechanical systems, electrical systems, plumbing systems, those are all going to be upgraded across all three options. So you're looking at anywhere from a 25 to 30 plus lifespan on those systems to kind of keep them into current standards. But you're looking at more of like a 50 to 75 year additional lifespan out of the building envelope and the structure. So if you could move on to the next slide. Our second option, as we discussed, would be a building addition. So we also looked at this as a single standalone option. So this would be just a building addition. Renovation would be option one. And again, we talked about the 4,000 square foot addition. It would meet all of the programming needs of the user groups. It would get us that nice larger vehicle bay that we really need. It would address some of the deficiencies in the building, but not all. And it really kind of minimizes what we would need from a civil insight impact on the existing site. And again, the pros of that were we can re-utilize a lot of what we have there already onsite and with the building elements that are currently there. And it allows for what I'll call continuity of operations. It allows everyone that's there now to function within the space with minimal disruptions. Now we'll have to phase, we'll have to think about how we may have to move some folks here and there. But by and large, we could do that with a relatively kind of clean environment. phasing and construction plan that will allow all of the operations to kind of stay operating. The cons would be is that it doesn't address all of the deficiencies that we're looking at. It does address some, but not all. An additional renovation work would be required to kind of meet the whole scope of what we're trying to do here. And then again, lifespan wise, it's the same 20 to 30 years of infrastructure improvements with about 75 to 100 year. We'll give it a little bit more additional lifespan with newer construction and newer structural systems.

May I interrupt with a question?

Absolutely.

Thanks. You've used this term envelope, and I'm not really familiar with that. I mean, I can make guesses about what it means, but I wonder if you could explain it to make sure I'm not assuming. Thank you.

No, no worries. And I appreciate you for bringing that up. What I consider the building envelope to be is that wall, that exterior wall system and that exterior roof system. Instead of calling it a wall, I'm saying envelope because it addresses more than just the structure. So it would be all of the waterproofing systems that would go with it. It would include doors, walls, those kinds of things. So it's kind of a catch-all for the exterior envelope of the building. And we think that the bones there are good enough to reuse. So moving on, actually in the past week we kind of put our heads together to maybe see what pushing it a little bit further through design, what that would look like. Could we reasonably get an addition on there? What that would look like and then maybe just kind of just some high level space planning on how we could utilize the site. And I think this kind of reinforces the fact that yeah, a building addition definitely is in play. And then finally, last but not least is option three where we would raise the existing building or race portions of the existing building to make way for a brand new building. This would be an apples to apples. So we would be getting about the same square footage of new building as the existing building. And again, this would also require a lot of demolition work and a lot of site prep work. So the pros would be you would get a brand new building that meets all of the needs. It checks all of the boxes. It's compliant. It meets your structural needs. And it's also designed for complete code compliance. The cons are is that you're essentially wiping away a lot of what you have there now and building completely new. The site utilization gets difficult because obviously you saw from the earlier slide, there's a lot of things to work with. You're fitting another building potentially in another location on the site. So there's a lot unknowns and a lot of challenges that would really have to be vetted out in the design and construction process. And again, same here. We've really tried to standardize this with the same infrastructure and the same building components that gets you to about a 25 to 30 year lifespan for mechanical electrical plumbing systems and a 75 to 100 year lifespan for your walls and your structure. Same as option two, we really started exploring how we might lay out a new site just to kind of see if it was in the cards to be able to phase this. I think the answer is yes. But next steps of design would really dictate how well we can make a new building work on this existing site. And then, of course, where the rubber meets the road, the cost summary here. So we were also tasked with taking all of these options, kind of remedying all of the deficiencies, adding the new scope and the new spaces that came from the programming meeting and assigning a dollar amount to them. We designed this as best we could for current market standards. As you all know, the market is kind of in flux right now with things. The construction industry is kind of going crazy. We think it will normalize here in the next year or so. But we have somewhat taken that into consideration in our estimates with some comments from Matt and John about that and trying to capture that. We also, again, like I said earlier, tried to standardize everything across the board. We really wanted to give an apples-to-apples comparison. So we're using masonry. We're using steel framing. We're using the same mechanical systems, all of the same plumbing systems, all of same security systems. So that allows us to kind of say, yeah, that building is comparable to that renovation. So option one, we would be looking at a $5.7 million investment a total construction cost, 1.7 for the addition, 15 for the new building. And then as we will touch on in the next slide or the next couple of slides is a combined option of one and two that meets all of the needs. We were also presented with some information about future budgeting and future maintenance. It looks like the city has about $1.4 million for the fiscal year of 2022. You guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but that I think is for maintenance. So that would be money that's already kind of being introduced to address repairs of the building. And I think that number increases to 1.6%. through to fiscal year of 2026. Yeah, I

was going to add there a quick, Jim, that, you know, familiar with like the IRF we have for vehicles, we did not always have that for buildings. Going back, I don't know, John, six, seven years is when we started looking at our facilities rather than just waiting for them to break and repairing them, trying to plan and schedule the repair, the replacement of those systems. So that's been online a bit of process that's continuing to evolve and, you know, doing investigations and inspections of these systems and things that were programmed into the earth or first, pardon me, the facility replacement fund we've got coming in the next five years, some bigger ticket life safety items. That was kind of what prompted this study really. And so it was like, well, we don't want to go looking to spend these big dollars We need to decide whether or not it's worth it to rehab this facility or start new. So this is effectively money that if a decision was made at some point to build this facility, we would be able to potentially hold on maybe a significant portion of these dollars to put towards the facility in some capacity. Just wanted to add that.

Thanks, Matt. I wanted to touch a little bit on lifecycle cost and return on investment. We were challenged to provide that information for you, but it was honestly very difficult because we are using the same construction type. We are using the same systems. The systems and the construction type we're using are very hardy. And so you're getting a lot of life out of those systems. So it became very hard to kind of extrapolate that out and to say, okay, well, you know, if we invest this capital, what is the return going to be down the road? Because we feel that, you know, all of these things are very comparable. I think really what we were looking at as a good indicator of the value is the initial construction cost. So I just, if that's something that we really need to kind of go back and explore, It may take an initial step of some additional design. We really may need to say, okay, well, we are going to use this building system. We are going to put this building here. I think honestly, we would need a little bit more information, a little bit more scope to kind of give a true return on investment number. And then this is kind of just a slide to kind of show graphically how we came up with the estimate. We use unit costs, we use three typical projects that we've done that had been hard bid to give us an indication of what those true construction numbers are. We used also just kind of standard multipliers and we've kind of gone back and forth vetting those I'm trying to make sure that we're getting at this point in time, the most accurate cost estimate that we can for you. And then finally our recommendation just simply we feel that renovation of the existing building to current compliance. in tandem with an addition is the most economical solution. It maximizes what's there already. It's cost-effective. It eliminates site development and additional building elements. We feel that we can compress the construction time, which would make it uh cheaper to build um it minimizes that disruption that we were talking about earlier and keeping keeping the folks working and and not displacing them and uh the phasing of it can can happen in in different phases you could you could start with the renovation first and then a year or two build the addition you could do them in tandem it gives you a lot of flexibility and freedom to to let the project. And then just simply looking at the cost estimates, it's more cost effective in our opinion. And just thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to work on this project, to present to you. And thank you for having us today.

Thanks, Jim. Any questions that... Chris Wanner, oculus can our staff can answer for you based on presentation. And we can share this information out as well as the report once it's finalized, which should be very soon. Sorry, David, what were you saying?

That's okay. I just want to make one statement too. We're going to be scheduling tours of all of our facilities with the board. So I know that some of you probably haven't been to the municipal garage. It's possible you might not have been to some of the other facilities we have. So We are going to set up a day to just kind of go around and see everything that we have here. So I know that's certainly the case with Alderwoman Patel, Alderwoman Buse. I'm not sure if you've had a chance to tour the municipal garage. But anyhow, we want to make sure that everybody gets out to our facilities to see exactly what we have, especially going into capital planning. So just keep an eye out for that email as we look to schedule that. Just want to make that point. Thanks.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Him and Morgan, have you guys reviewed these kind of projects before I've looked at these public works to garage us.

HAB-Marsyn Moyer- yeah yeah with with various various private and and public entities yeah yeah we've done we've done a lot of condition assessments.

HAB-Charlotte Pitts, So this isn't reviewing this, I mean it, you know I in your impression, it sounds like this one. is not in great shape or do you see this a fair amount with other municipalities?

It's pretty on par with some of the buildings This use, you, the occupancy that you have is essentially maintenance and storage. So a lot of times these buildings get overlooked because they're not office buildings. They're not, you know, they don't have a lot of public view. But they are hardy buildings. I mean, this building was built in 1959. So there's a lot of really good construction there. And I think what they're utilizing it for, they're utilizing it well. And I think that The investment can be made to improve what's there, but in our opinion, it won't be enough. There needs to be something additional that needs to happen to get it into complete compliance and satisfy all of the needs. What we saw was there was a lot of overgrowth. There was a lot of... Folks kind of battling for resources, folks kind of battling for space. And then just general inaccessibility. I mean, there's a pretty steep flight of stairs that takes you up to a pretty old rickety locker room. So it needs some TLC.

And I definitely think to go on Jim's point is our biggest concern is, I mean, think about if there was something that happened in the city and you needed these larger trucks to help. If there was anything that, a potential seismic event or a wind event might pull the building down on top of all of the city's capital. So I think that's important to display that it's not just, not up to code, it's not accessible, but there's also a lot of money inside the building that's being stored.

Yeah, I was quite impressed that they were able to get all those cool vehicles in there and kind of store it away.

It's pretty amazing. It's like a puzzle. Yeah,

definitely.

You hope you don't have to get the first one in.

Or you got to get the last one out, right?

Your impression of the immediacy of needing to do something is more related to a seismic or wind event as compared to like an actual structural problem with the building. Like I understand if there's an earthquake, we're going to have a problem, but like a major earthquake. But as far as like the immediacy of needing to do something, it's not like the building is going to fall in on its own in the next six months or something.

The brick and mortar construction and steel frame will last a long time. It's just the longer you let it linger, the more dire the repairs do become, the more effort you're going to have to put into the renovation. So I think, yes, probably the most important thing is to keep those vehicles safe But there really is a user group need to kind of really improve their space and leave a lot of the pressure that they're kind of under with the basically outgrowing of the building and being able to maintain those vehicles with the larger work bay.

Jim, can I add? Sure. Another key component here is the electrical and the life safety. Yes. is really, if you talk about urgency, these are older systems. There are some newer ones in there, but the majority of it's 1959. The building does have a sprinkler system. However, it doesn't have smoke and fire detection. The sprinklers, if you're like in your office space or whatnot, you look up and you see the sprinklers, there's usually like a little red glass bulb or something. Basically, it's heat. Craig Vaughn, It picks up that heat and then it then it activates the system, but. Craig Vaughn , These are really outdated systems and the big concern here is you got lots of flammable material in there we got fertilizers for parks, we got all the diesel fuel and gas it's in the vehicles so you got a large portion of the city's fleet in this facility that. Craig Vaughan, You know it's more I mean we've taken measures to obviously protect the city's assets, but. It's, we're getting well beyond, you know, a 1959 building. We've done all that we can do with it. That more so, you know, yes, a high wind, you know, tornado type scenario or small seismic events does bring those structural issues, you know, percentages of those start getting, you know, not as great. But I'd say my biggest concern is with, you know,

I don't disagree with you, John. I think that is important. And to kind of jump on the electrical issues as well, what our electrical engineer found was is that if these systems do fail, they're so far out of date that they may not be able to be repaired, that it may be a replacement regardless. So that's an excellent point.

So, Jim, and this goes to the urgency and timing as well. And I'll start with electrical. My understanding is that some things not only have the prices right now, prices have tripled, but a lot of boxes and things aren't even available or the wait time. So how does that fit into the numbers you gave us and how you would propose moving forward on this?

So we talked a little bit about that. And I did increase the escalation costs over what I typically would. I also think that there is, to be honest with you, there is some fat in the numbers that a good design would kind of vet out. We would know what the contingencies are a lot better once we had a solid design. So I think that that helps out. I also do think the market is going to have to correct itself. I think we're going to have to get to a point of normalization to where, in my opinion, it's an issue of accessibility and manufacturing. We're figuring that... By the end of this year and the start of next year, we're going to be back to a normal construction environment. But I would be lying if I completely said that I knew the answer to that. I think, as we all know, it's kind of interesting times.

Yeah.

And for clarification, the escalation that was on those estimates was for 2026, just to make sure we covered out to that window.

Yeah, and hypothetically, if we started now, it would take about a year or so to get a fully completed permitted design. So the numbers would be re-evaluated at that point in time.

The approach and the instruction that I just kind of got from you was don't go inflating it to a number that's not realistic. John Potter, But don't be on the low side, as you know, we would be using this for future planning.

John Potter, I understand the structural issues and the risks that we're living with there um and my concern was with john just kind of alluded to do we have OSHA violations now.

Yes,

yes. John Potter, Okay. ones that can be fixed without the rebuilt rebuilding renovations?

I would say so. And I think that's kind of why we tried to keep the renovation number separate. There are things that you could do to go in and to fix certain things. issues. Like if you wanted to go do a life safety OSHA accessibility renovation, you most certainly could. I don't have that parsed out in the estimate, but yes, you're right. You could choose to go in and- Those

items?

Yes.

I'm just saying from a risk point of view, I'm thinking we should do that immediately and Rich D' Whatever we're going to do whatever decision decision we decide on the building seems like we, we need to do something about the ocean stuff but. Rich D' that's my thought. Rich D' I think listen do. Karen

Hollweg, And that's a good thought rich.

Rich D' But I think before we finalize this report in this presentation as they were coming to that conclusion on the recommendation we don't want to stick. good money into a potentially bad building if it was going to be replaced, but this can lead some designs or some decisions now. Yeah.

Well, I have a couple of questions if I can go ahead. First of all, Matt, if you would get rid of those snowflakes, you'd have a lot more room for everything else. You guys, the snowflakes that hang downtown, they are up on this very, very high shelf. I guess you have to get a bucket truck to get them down or something. And that's handy because the bucket truck is parked right there under them, so that's good. Well, I wondered, so just back to the materials piece. I mean, do you feel like, I think you're right, as more manufacturing comes online, the material costs will go down. They're super, super high right now. So I would think we would not want to do any renovation too soon because of that. I think we could save money if we waited a little while. And, but I do, um, I think Rich made a really good point. So I guess I would love to see, you know, what it would cost to do what Rich suggested in the shorter term. Um, I'm wondering about the, the equipment or the, the, the, um, resources or the facility that you have that's outside the building, the salt dome and all of the other, those little, uh, huts that hold gravel and whatever else, is all of that needing replacement as well? Or is that part of this?

We really didn't look at those elements outside of how those elements might affect where an addition or a renovation might take place. We were really kind of boxed into the building itself.

Building itself. The

only

avenue.

I would add to that, that was purposeful, Mayor. The salt dome is newer, as well as those material storage bins. Those are all newer. We don't believe we have any immediate issues with those. That's why this study was focused mainly on the main structure due to its age, you know, the 1959 addition to that. Some of these options that you were seeing there was to take this, you know, the addition and put the office space, lunch rooms, locker rooms in those newer spaces to address some of these, you know, occupancy issues. And then they use the benefit of the existing building more storage, material storage and that to address the spatial needs. So we would be getting, you know, staff and critical components into a newer structure that would have, you the structural category protection that we would need for issues with high winds and that, but yet still benefit from having the storage of the existing facility.

I'm sorry if I missed this, but where would you be storing the vehicles in the existing facility?

We would be still using some of that. Part of that structure, if you remember, was built in 2002. And so there's an ability to store some of the vehicles there. You know, we'd be looking at snow piles and stuff like that to be put in there. Some of our more critical pieces in the portions of the structure that are newer and have built the construction type is better than the original 1959 structure.

Yeah, I think some of it could be vetted out in the design that we did, depending on what came down, or I'm sorry, what came down in the design, if it wasn't option one and two, if we built something next to the building which allowed us to move some of our equipment that is getting wear and tear on it that has to be stored outside now, could move to inside.

Yeah, the design is really the next key piece. It'll give clear direction on what a path forward for remediation. And it'll also give you a clear idea of what current market climate says the building's going to cost specifically.

Just one quick question. What's the acreage of the site that's usable?

Oh, my goodness.

You can get back to me on that.

Matt might be able to pick it up here in a second. I

bet you he'll

give me. I count. No, it is.

I was going to see if we can fit anything else over there while we're at it.

While Matt's doing that, I'd love to add one of the thoughts. So what was sort of triggering this? I had mentioned to Matt as I was looking at the facility equipment replacement fund, which Matt mentioned, we hadn't, we hadn't had one of that. We had equipment, we had a vehicle replacement fund for years. But so we got, we got a first established and I was looking at, you know, what our future capital costs were and, Coming up next year alone, we got 1.2 million coming up in replacements, basically scheduled for life safety and electrical. And I'm looking at that building, and I was really concerned about, does this make sense to put this kind of money into this structure? Are we putting good money into bad sort of a situation? So part of the thought is, after this study, if we would be in agreement that yes, we do need to do something with this building, either do an addition or whatever the decision is, is that some of that money that's been set aside for these improvements maybe could be put in there, be used for design and cover those design costs to get the ball rolling if we were wanting to head that direction.

Well, okay. I see that 1.8 acres. Thanks, Matt. 1.8, yep. So my last question would be, Um, have we ever looked at, um, sharing a facility with another community? Like let's say Brentwood or Richmond Heights or somebody. And in other words, we would go in together to build a new facility somewhere where it's accessible to both.

Um, there was a good, no, no, no. Um, there, there was an exercise that we did. It's going back a ways, but we were looking at, um, I think there was a consideration for development of that site. And so they had Public Works look around at other communities. We went to UCity, we went to Ladue. We were all over looking for a site to relocate. And we just didn't come up with one that was feasible. Just nobody wants us as a neighbor. We tended with... I'm sorry, can you still hear me? Okay.

Yeah,

yeah. My screen was jumping around there. Matt was sharing the screen. But anyway, we looked at different sides, but, you know, a public works site, you know, our public works operation, we're a noisy neighbor, you know, can generate some dust and that. Nobody really wants us So to go into another community with it wasn't being looked on very favorably. And then when you take the operation out of the city, the further you go away, you're increasing your operational costs. That's more time and more fuel to get from wherever you're located at back into the city. So that time back and forth, you know, cuts into the time to provide, you know, the street sweeper has to drive farther to get to the city to sweep. The snow piles have to go further back to get another load of salt. So the numbers just weren't adding up and it was sort of abandoned.

Yeah, a couple of things I'd add to that is, you know, it's a lot of public works that goes on here, but there's a lot of parks service that comes out of here as well. And then we do have the school district that utilizes some of our facilities too. And then we've got the Metro link, which goes over the facility so that can restrict, you know, what you could do with that property if we were to vacate it.

Well, I was more of thinking of having somebody share it with us and helping us pay for building it. I

know, Mayor, that Richmond Heights, their facility is only three years old. And it's a smaller facility. Brentwood has theirs on Manchester. And it's pretty small facility as well. I don't think they have any intention of moving at this point in time. I know it serves their purposes, but there wouldn't be room to take on any of our equipment or offices or anything else. So our immediate neighbors, I think they're all you know, right-sized as far as their space is concerned.

Webster's is kind of tucked back behind Brentwood a little bit. I don't know. Webster's facility looks similar to ours, at least from the outside. It looks pretty old.

Okay. Well, I think, you know, in this day and age, if we can ever combine forces and and have a nice facility that we don't all have to have our own individual facilities. It makes sense if it's feasible, but it sounds like it probably isn't. So anyway, thanks for answering the question. Yeah.

Well, if there's no other questions, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you guys. Great presentation.

Yep. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Jim, John, Morgan, feel free to drop off.

We just had the MIAC group over at the Public Works facility and they were quite amazed at all the stuff that's crammed in there and all the stuff that goes on over there. They were truly amazed at the salt dome. I know, but it's pretty impressive. It goes up, you know, it goes up like what, two stories? and you have to drive some kind of a piece of equipment up to the top to get that salt. They're taking selfies

at salt

domos. Heroin, I would say. Okay.

All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks.

So I guess we're, are we ready to move on to our next agenda item? Do you guys want to talk about this further? Okay. So Mr. City Manager. Judges.

Okay, Mayor. Let's see here. Last item for today. So I just want to run through a few things. This was in the packet, but for the benefit of anybody that may be watching, we're going to talk about municipal judge and prosecutor selection. So I just The judge selection process is set out in the charter itself. You can see here, the municipal court shall be presided over by a judge appointed by the Board of Aldermen for a term of two years. That term typically starts on July 1st. So the current judge's term will end on June 30th. The only requirements that are in the charter is that the judge be a resident and elector of the city. a licensed member of the Bar of the State and shall have been in practice for at least three years. So those are the only charter requirements. So there's not a lot of guidance in the charter about how that selection is made, how the determination is made, simply that the Board of Aldermen gets to choose. As for the prosecutor, this is actually a section of our ordinance. So that's where you'll find the office of the prosecutor and it states there that the city attorney shall designate one assistant city attorney, and I'll talk about why that's important in just a second, as prosecutor who shall represent the city and prosecute cases in the municipal court. So under that provision there, the city attorney makes that designation, which of the assistant city attorneys will fulfill the role of prosecutor. However, there's a provision in the charter down below in white, and it talks about assistant city attorneys and special counsel and how they are selected. And it says in here very clearly, the Board of Aldermen shall provide by ordinance for such city attorneys, assistant city attorneys as it deems necessary, who shall be appointed and may be removed by the city attorney with approval of the Board of Alderman. So, The prosecutor per the ordinance is selected by the city attorney from our list of assistant city attorneys. The assistant city attorneys are appointed by the city attorney with approval by the Board of Aldermen. So ultimately, the Board of Alderman is also selecting the prosecutor, at least the pool of prosecutors through the selection of assistant city attorneys, so a little bit complicated, It's important to understand how the interplay between the charter and our code of ordinances here. Any questions about that?

Yeah.

Procedurally?

Yes. So this is confusing. So how do we go about developing our list for the city attorney to choose from?

So whatever process we use for a judge, I would recommend that we use something similar for the selection of a prosecutor. And we could put something out and just say the city is looking for assistant city attorneys. And then ultimately we would work with the actual city attorney, in this case, Kevin O'Keefe, and the Board of Aldermen would approve one city attorney, multiple city attorneys, that's up to the board. And then the city attorney will designate which of those assistant city attorneys will act as the prosecutor. So if you wanted to go out and just select one assistant city attorney, you could do that. And then the city attorney would designate that one assistant city attorney as the prosecutor at that point. But there's no criteria in the ordinance, again, just like with judge about what the board should take under consideration making that selection.

So historically- my first question, what has that looked like historically? And the second one, aside from being the prosecutor, what would be the role of the assistant city attorney or attorneys if we made a list?

So I don't know that we would necessarily make a list. You know, the charter provides that you could if you wanted to. However, in practice, I think it's makes more sense to just have one person because the only time you're really going to use an assistant city attorney is for the prosecutor. Traditionally, if Kevin needs somebody to take his spot, we'll fill that a lot of times with somebody from his firm because they're familiar with what's going on. So I would just recommend if we were to go out and solicit for an assistant city attorney that we would just select one person and then it'd be easy to make that designation for a prosecutor.

David, in the criteria for judge, it said that the judge had to be in active practice for three years. Is that active practice in the last three years? Or is that active practice ever in their career? So could you be retired for 20 years and then apply for this?

That's a great question. It does not say for the last three years. It doesn't even say three consecutive years. It just says at least three years. I don't know what the proper interpretation is, but it's not the best language in the charter.

So I guess it would kind of be up to us to look at the qualifications of whoever retired and decide if it's somebody that has been retired for 20 years or it has practiced recently.

Right. So that's up to the board. I think you have discretion there given the language in the charter, and it's hard for any of us. We don't have the institutional knowledge to tell you when the prosecutor was put in place exactly how that played out according to this charter provision. We've had the same prosecutor now for maybe 30 years. I know we were looking at old invoices, trying to figure out exactly how long. We know it's in excess of 27 years. That's as far back as our electronic invoicing system goes. So we couldn't find any record between before 1994, but we think the current prosecutor was with us before that.

I think it's been about 28 years because I know he was He mentioned to me that he'd love to make the 30 year mark just as a milestone. And so he said, maybe two more years. That was, so I'm guessing

28 years. So to clarify, we currently have one city attorney and Kevin O'Keefe, one assistant city attorney who I don't think has been named that I don't know the name of, I'm sorry. And he also- And he also served as our prosecutor.

Correct. He's never actually served as an assistant city attorney. He's only served in the capacity of a prosecutor. However, per the charter, he's considered an assistant city attorney, but he doesn't deal in any general city business in the way that a city attorney would.

So it sounds like you, do we, um, Like if Kevin is unavailable, does Kevin ever become unavailable? And how do we get the services of a city attorney? You mentioned using other folks from his firm but they're not actually officially designated to serve in that role by us per this charter provision.

We can hire legal counsel, and that's fine. So I don't know, in that case, if somebody's standing in for one meeting that they're necessarily our official city attorney for that night. We hire legal counsel for various things all the time. If they were to, and this is, I would say we have ordinances, we have certain documents that require the signature of a city attorney. Only Kevin O'Keefe will sign those documents or somebody that's an assistant city attorney selected under this process here. So I would see that more as the designation between who would attend the meeting.

Well, we have Stephanie, you know, comes to our meetings that works with Kevin. But again, you're saying that whatever she does, Kevin signs it.

Correct. Kevin O'Keefe would actually sign anything that requires a city attorney signature. But we can receive counsel from anyone that we contract with.

So it looks like we could treat this, as you said just like we treat the appointment of the municipal judge which would be to put out a notice via our vehicles saying we're accepting applications for a new assistant city attorney or a new prosecuting attorney, whatever and evaluate what we get.

I think, yes. And we would be specific. I would recommend that we be very specific and say that the city is soliciting for an assistant city attorney that would serve in the capacity as prosecutor and make that very clear on the document when we send that out, if we were ever to go through that process.

And I wonder too, if I don't see a term in here, like so it's not like every three years, the term will be opening.

That's correct.

So that makes it different from judge and other positions, whether on a commission or committee as well.

That is correct. Any other questions on that? So judge and prosecutor have two very distinct processes here. The prosecutor is definitely a confusing one being that it has the assistant city attorney wrinkle to it. All right, so the current terms, municipal judge, again, that appointment expires on June 30th. The current judge was appointed in 2015 and then reappointed in 2017 and 2019. The prosecutor, as it says here, has been serving 27 plus years. As the mayor indicated, it's 28 to 30, somewhere in that range. Our records go back for 27 here. And then... The Community Equity Commission did discuss this on May 13th and made a recommendation. And the recommendation you can see here is that, I'll just go ahead and jump down to this section, to ensure that the selection process selecting the judge is open and consistent with the current standards of administration of justice in Clayton's Municipal Court, we recommend that the selection process include the following elements. First, that a statement of desired equity qualifications consistent with current best practices and a written policy and procedure be established. And we post the opportunity targeting the legal community. So I will say that C has been done in the past. So I attached an RFQ. It's in your packet. And I know that I share that with the Equity Commission as well. So there is an RFQ out there, which kind of meets the criteria for C. We have targeted the legal community in the past that requests for qualification. It'd go out to Missouri Lawyers Media is where we advertise that. So we've typically checked that box. However, we don't have a statement anywhere of desired equity qualifications. And we do not have a written policy or procedure about the criteria that would be used in the selection of a judge.

David, if I can add with the Equity Commission and on the subcommittee that put this together. A lot of it was, well, I mean, a lot has happened since Ferguson. The Ferguson Commission and the actions by the Missouri Supreme Court with awareness and focus on municipal courts, on the equity part of that. So, and that was the reason for the Equity Commission. you know, to put in some type of equity language in this. What that would be, I don't know. Perhaps what might do it if, you know, looking at the language, the requested information, maybe at that intro we're requesting this information and maybe in that intro we say very briefly these are the types of issues at which an initial judge deals with and historically this is the demographic issue not served by, but asked to appear in our courts. And by putting that in there, that might guide the answers to the questions that come after that, which say, you know, what experience do you have relevant to the position for which you're applying? So maybe it's just a sentence or two saying this is what a municipal judge does. And in Clayton, this is our demographic because the reality is that the demographic in our courts historically, has not mirrored the demographic of our residents. And that's the part I think that a judge, we need to be aware of in choosing a judge, that the judge has experience with that. And maybe that's as far as it goes, because how do you define equity at this point in an application? I don't know. It might be a simple change that gives an applicant the opportunity to address the issue that is such a focus since Ferguson.

I'll just comment that I feel like if I'm understanding the recommendations correctly, Um, I think B and C are kind of no brainers. Like now that we're talking about this, it seems clear to me that we should, um, that we should actually have a process, a procedure, a policy that is clear, um, and transparent and holds us accountable for our responsibility in this matter. Um, the language in that recommendation A about desired equity qualifications is somewhat vague to me, like I'm a little unclear what that means. But I guess what I think as I consider this is that if we go, as we would go through just maybe putting something a little more formal around our process and policy, that we would keep equity in mind and ensure that we're addressing that in whatever ways is appropriate or if people can share more recommendations specific to that, that we would do that consistent with our mission statement and so on. So that's my two cents.

And I'll also add that the Equity Commission team JoAnne Hanrahan- Again, when their subgroup they were intentionally not telling the board what details should be in there, but that saying that these are principles that that would benefit the city to have. JoAnne Hanrana- So, and the and the other issue is that, and I agree with you becky it'd be nice to to work toward those things. JoAnne hanrahan- We have an opening coming up soon if we wanted to get the application out. We could still start that way simply by giving a very brief definition of the population the judge serves. And then the judge can then answer those questions with that in mind.

Yeah, I think that's a nice simple way to move forward. And as we get more variance on this, I guess I would say, I just couldn't figure out, I was looking at this, how would we put a equity, what are equity qualifications and how would we communicate that in an application form? Not really sure. So, I mean, So I think your suggestion is a good one.

I think my thought, I think the suggestion is good. It would be sort of easy or I don't know how easy, but in that introduction to say, here's the just basically give the history or the some snapshot of what cases are coming up. I wouldn't want to put in the introduction any kind of or text, but I think if you just put in and say, here's what we have, here's who we are serving or who comes before the prosecutor, I think that's what you'd want to have. And then certainly either we or our city attorney is going to have a conversation with whoever submits this. And if they haven't submitted the amount of detail that we want, we just ask for it, just like in a job interview. So that's what I would do.

It also occurs to me that we could ask for something like, or emphasize that it is our intention to comply with the best practices and recommendations of, for example, the Ferguson Commission or the Justice Department reports on these topics and things like that, that we could, you know, emphasize our commitment to equity and inclusion by actually referencing that and potentially even asking people to explain how they would ensure that in carrying out this position, that they implement those best practices or how they've done it in other aspects of their career.

Right. I mean, I agree. I don't know why that can't just be one of the numbers in this list. If you go back to that first page, you know, whether it is the first commission or, you know, something related to that, where when you're sending in your information or your qualifications for the job, I think talking about that or just listing your familiarity with it. And I don't know, I think that's important. I don't know why we wouldn't be able to do that.

It strikes me that maybe it wouldn't make that much difference but we probably would benefit by just putting our mission statement on the application forms for any position that we have.

That's a great idea.

And that just kind of sets a tone, you know, if they read it.

We can certainly add that. Alderman McAndrew with something like this under number four, capture that. I can zoom in a little bit if that helps.

I think you've got both the Ferguson Commission and the Supreme Court.

I'll add those various

things. Yes, that would be great.

I'm just using that as kind of a placeholder to capture where we're going with it so we can make that adjustment. What I've done so far is I've added a section. This is what Alderman Lentz and I think Alderman Buse were talking about is a little bit of background. So have an introduction, just what we're seeking, and then give a little background on our municipal court, the types of cases that we have and that sort of thing. And then again, down below on number four, start to get into some of those other issues, Ferguson Commission, so on and so forth. And then if we added at number four, would you also like to see it down below in our selection criteria so that they're aware that that is one of the priorities for us?

Yep.

I'm indifferent. It's going to be in there somehow. You're going to get it, right?

Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you have to restate it underneath. Okay. I don't have any problem if people want to, but I think it's clear people should see above that that is something important to us. So if it doesn't come out on their resume, then maybe they don't get selected for an interview. I don't know.

Right. No, that works for us. We can do that. And then the mayor had added the mission statement and we can put that. We'd like to use that as a footer or somewhere towards the end of our documents so we can include that as well.

Yeah, you might want to have it above the

actually have it. We can actually put it. We'll put it up here.

Yeah, because then people think about it. It makes part of our criteria and selecting. Yeah.

Make sure we include it up here somewhere.

Right. So just overall, are we going to develop a sheet like this for the assistant city attorney slash prosecutor as well.

That's exactly what we would do. I, you know, this, this one, we have a, we have a deadline to go ahead and get this out. So I'll work with the city clerk and then we'll put something together and make sure we get it posted so that the board can make a decision before July 1st. So that that's, that's coming up here. So this one, we need to go ahead and the board directs us, we can certainly put together the same type of qualifications for assistant city attorney and prosecutor if that's your desire.

I think that's what we should do. It really can be almost pretty similar except for the job description.

Correct. Would you like for us to advertise that at the same time or just develop it for now and wait for further instruction?

I don't see why we wouldn't go ahead and advertise it at the same time. We need to notify our current city prosecutor first. What does Kevin think about that? Where is he?

Consensus on that. Kevin has dropped off.

Okay. I wonder if-

Kevin will probably defer to the board though.

Okay. Yeah. I wonder if, and this doesn't really answer your question directly, but as a matter of practice, even if it's not an ordinance that we do request qualifications for that prosecutor every whatever number of years, just so there's something systemic about it versus just have it go on for decades, which maybe the person gets appointed every time, but we should advertise it every five years or something.

I agree. I think it's important for transparency.

David, this is Janet. I did have one suggestion. I'm not sure it's on your form, which is the question as to whether they serve in a prosecutor or judicial position at another city. That was one of the items that kind of came up that some people are performing service as judges and prosecutors rather than a focus on just one.

I'm sorry. Was that question on here?

I don't know that it's on there.

Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I thought you said that it was. I misheard you. I apologize.

Is that important? I'm just curious. It was. Who wants somebody

serving 10 cities? The issue is not really that they're serving other cities, but the issue is that they may be in one position in a certain city, but then in the other position. And so therefore they know other prosecutors, but now they're performing a judicial position. And it was listed in, I can't remember which recommendations, but that was one of the items that was listed that they not perform the opposite service in another city. The opposite service, okay.

Yeah. So that seems like it could fit into four or five as sort of a potential conflict that maybe wouldn't be an automatic disqualifier, but would be something we'd want to understand.

Right. Great suggestion. Yeah.

Thanks,

Janet.

Or number six.

Thank you, Janet.

Okay. Okay, great.

What else? Anything else?

What will be our process then? I guess, will we be discussing the applications in a closed or open session? How's that going to work once we have the applications?

Is June on here? Yes, I am. Okay. June, do you remember how that was done in 2015?

Yes, they had a

panel.

They created a panel of interviewers to review the applications and then interview. I believe they were interviewed, but I know there was a panel that was created, a citizen panel that was created and I believe most of the citizens were judges or attorneys and they came here and reviewed all the applications. I don't remember if they brought in each individual for an interview, but I remember the panel. But I can also look into what was done in the

past. That's interesting. Not knowing any of the people who might have been involved, I would avoid making it a panel of judges simply because part of this and part of the criticisms of the courts are the closed networks. And so the selection process should be as, you know, open and accessible to everybody as possible.

Well, I think you kind of have attorneys. I mean, I don't feel qualified to assess someone. I am fine with that. Yeah.

Okay. And the other thing at some point, if we go back to do that other, I don't see it now on the screen, but the other suggestion from the Equity Commission or recommendation was to develop those policies or something. We'll just have to circle around to that.

A written policy or procedure? Yeah. And a lot of that's captured in this actual form here. But I think what they're getting at is exactly what we're discussing is We're relying on institutional knowledge to figure out how we've done these things in the past. So we do need to formalize all of that at some point.

Yeah, I'm sorry. June, what year was it that they had a panel?

I believe it was 2013 or 15. I'm sorry.

Okay, I'm sorry, I was off the board. That's why I don't remember it, but it sounds like it.

I believe Mayor Sanger at the time requested a panel.

One other question, if you could, June, do you know how that panel was established at that time?

I believe that the board had made recommendations of citizens to be on that panel.

Do you know how many people were on it?

No, I'm sorry. I don't, I can pull all that information and get it available for you.

I think that, you know, that'd be good. We need to know how many people, at least we know what we did before. And we, I don't know how many people we think we need on a panel, but, and then I don't know if we would have a liaison to the panel. I don't know that all works.

Okay.

We have to decide.

I can pull all of that information and get, get it to everyone.

Okay. Thank you.

Typically, you would do three or five. You don't want to go any more than five, certainly, and you always want to have an odd number.

Yes, I was thinking that too. Okay, and so David, can you guys just write up the policy and procedure based on our discussions and then also put together the assistant city attorney application, you know, RFQ?

We can do both of those things. Again, we are short on time. So as far as, I mean, did the board want to see this again before it goes out? Or do you trust that we can make the adjustments and send it? Or we can even amend the agenda for Tuesday night and add this topic one more time for confirmation that we could even select that panel at that time if you'd like. Any preference there?

Well, can you do it? I mean, do you have enough time to do all that for Tuesday?

Turn this around.

Okay. So why don't we, here's my suggestion. Why don't we review the policy, review the documents for Tuesday and then just decide how many people we're going to have on our panel, what the, and I guess we can confirm that they're going to be attorneys or whatever else. And then we're going to having to go away and figure out, you know, who would be good. Unless we want to try to come prepared Tuesday with recommendations, but that's pretty fast. We'd have to reach out to see if people are willing, I think. What does everyone think of that?

That's kind of the question, Mark, is the process for selecting that panel and how you'd like to go about doing it.

PB Harmon Zuckerman, That seems like a quick turnaround for the panel and we PB

Harmon Zuckerton, I mean, we can. How about we do this, let's let's affirm the process. Let's affirm the applications and do all that on Tuesday night will go ahead and advertise it at that second meeting in June, we can select that panel at that point in time. PB Harmon Zuckerson, And then the Friday session in June, we could actually make the selection. We wanted to go about it that way. You got a little time here. Right.

Yeah. Yeah, we wouldn't be able to select the panel on Tuesday. No way.

Right. Sounds good. Good.

Okay. I think that's great. I'm looking at our attendees. I don't see any hands up on this. So if anybody in our listening audience would like to comment or ask a question about this, you can. Don't see anybody. Okay.

Great. Well, we'll get to work on both of the RFQs and we'll put together a policy on Monday and have it ready for Tuesday night.

Okay. Great

Thank you.

All right. Tuesday night is a light agenda. This will be added to it but it's still very, very light so I just like to put it in your hoppers if you'd like to. We have plenty of time to go to mugs after. We could eat enough hors d'oeuvres to make it our dinner. So just putting that in your hopper, you can think about it. We'll see if we want to do it come Tuesday. Okay. I think that that's all we need. I always ask this because I always forget. Do we need any kind of motion to adjourn or should we just say sayonara?

Let's go ahead and do a motion to adjourn because we did take action on a piece of business tonight.

Okay.

I'll make a motion to adjourne.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, guys. TGIF. Thank you. Have a good

weekend. Bye.