October 26, 2021 — Meeting Transcript

David, do you want to kick this off at all?

Sure. So this is a conversation about parklets and tents. And as everybody knows, last year under the emergency ordinance, we allowed tents here in the city. We've always had a parklet policy or an ordinance that allowed them. And so the question is, there are definitely some lessons learned over the last year and whether or not we need some modifications going forward and whether or not tents, which is something we allowed last year just on a temporary basis, is something we want to consider as a permanent fixture during the winter months here in Clayton. We have Gary Carter here, our Director of Economic Development, and we've got a presentation as well. I'll turn it over to Gary.

Can I add one thing?

Yes.

This kind of came up recently. I think Rich brought it up to me, but we you know, we, we have the regulation that all the outside, um, you know, tents, heaters, tables, whatever. Uh, I'm sorry. The parklets, the parklets have to come down by October one. And, um, all this good weather has been going on. It seemed a shame. So we asked David about it. And, you know, so we may want to consider just simply extending the season on either end or not. But anyway, that's kind of how this ball got rolling.

All right. Gary, do you want me to share the presentation on my screen?

Yeah, that'd be great.

Okay.

Now that the mayor has ruined the ending of my presentation. I'm sorry. We can skip to the end. Oh, okay. It's quite all right. So tonight, as mayors pointed out, it did come from conversations revolving around the Board of Aldermen. But we have background on the emergency ordinance for tent regulations. We have the current policy on... parklets in the zoning regulations regarding tents. And then we'll come to some decision points, one of which will be extending the season for parklets, obviously. So the emergency ordinance for tents was put in last year and it ran from October 15th of 2020 to March 15th of this current year. All the tents were application-based. They were reviewed by the building official and the fire marshal. They were not to be over 1,600 square feet. Neutral in color without advertising was the requirement. They were to provide insurance that covered the city, and the tents were subject to inspection, and that really had to do with the wind load to make sure that they were properly secured and then also a lot of them had space heaters or outdoor patio heaters underneath to make sure we had the proper clearance from the top of the heater to the tent roof. And then any tent in the right-of-way required a special outdoor dining permit also. Here's a couple examples. The one on the left is from a car on Wydown, the one on the right obviously is from Herbie's. But those were kind of a good representation of what was out there. I didn't have a photo of the little space pods that Napoli had up. out front in the courtyard across from City Hall, but I think you've all seen those. Those were kind of the only real deviation that we had. Pepe over at Pino's had a tent, but instead of clear walls, I believe he had the white of non-see-through walls like the roof there. So one of the points we wanted to cover tonight is, should we look at a permanent tent ordinance? Because no tents are allowed in the current zoning. So we'd have to amend that to be allowed or the other question would be, do we wanna allow it on a temporary basis just this year? But if we did allow it on a permanent basis, what would be an appropriate start date and end date? Would we allow them citywide or only on private property? Is there aesthetics considerations? I think both David and I received some concerns about color of tents. And then would we want those to be approved by the ARB? Or would we also want to add the layer of a conditional use permit?

Gary, what are you hearing from restaurant owners? Do they find this? I mean, I think we should be doing all we can to help our restaurants for sure, at least into this year.

Well, we did have one restaurant that already made what they thought was an application for a tent this year. I don't know if he is online with us tonight or not. And, you know, he was informed that we don't have that emergency measure anymore so I do also know of

one. Yeah. He's got his hands up. Yeah.

Okay. And then Bernie at a car had also previously requested one too. And Bernie said he may be on tonight with us too. So I do know of those two.

I will say, too, the reason we did this initially and did it under the emergency ordinance was that last year during the winter, restaurants were operating with a reduced occupancy through the county health order that set it at 25%. So in an effort to get more seating for those restaurants and get them back closer to what they would have enjoyed prior to the pandemic, we started to allow the tents. So now any tents that would go out would be in addition to the 100% occupancy that they're currently afforded. So I just wanted to point out the original intent and allowing these tents to pop up last year. And Mayor, did you want to hear from Erin with the hand up? It's probably best if we talk about tents for a minute and then transition to Parkland and really separate the two discussions.

I think that's great. I would love to hear from Erin.

Good evening, everybody. Thank you for taking time to discuss this and get this going quickly, by the way. Gary's been awesome at helping us with this. So, you know, obviously all of the points that you guys have already brought up in the PowerPoint presentation is something that we're interested in. The reason that we wanted to do a tent this year was we still find that 40 to 50% of our guests don't want to be inside. If you drive by Herbie's on a chilly day today, we have people of all ages, but maybe a little bit older or people with kids that aren't vaccinated yet. PB, Peter Vitale & huddled around heaters still if it's a cool day, but you know our patio seeing a lot of action, so that is, you know that's one reason that we want to have it, we get a lot of requests for it already if it was to become a permanent part of. PB, Peter Vitrale & Of the plan, we would be definitely interested in participating in that and going through any needed needed permits that are that are applicable.

Can I just ask Aaron a question?

Yeah, go

ahead. Aaron. Yeah. So I, I was trying to figure out the reasoning for if you, if they, if the people want to be outside, does the tent serve to be an outside dining for them? It just, you know what I mean? It doesn't sound, it doesn't seem to me like that would be a outside COVID thing, you know, being in a tent. So

totally. And, you know, for thank you for that question, because we raised that question. I was part of the, I am part of the health department board. um, the advisory board and, you know, uh, conversation and response to that for us is, you know, we only put up three sides of our tent. We don't put up four, um, because we do believe that you're just creating a COVID bubble if you do that. Um, and we have forced air heaters that keep the air circulating. So they're not, um, we're doing this in the West end and our Kingside location as well. They aren't, um, they aren't the stagnant heat that allows it just to sit. So we keep air circulating in our tents. Now, I'm not saying that that should be required. I'm just saying that's what we do.

Right. No, I hear that. No, it's fine. Yeah.

Aaron, I have a question. It's just a related thing. Basically, what you're going to be doing if you do it this year is adding capacity to your normal capacity that's inside, which is great. And you've been kind of doing that all summer, too. I've just heard so much about restaurants having such a hard time finding servers and other workers. And I mean, I guess if you didn't think you could serve the people, you wouldn't be here asking for the tent. But is that going to be an issue? Or do you think, you know, just the added capacity? I know you guys, everybody's still trying to make up the losses from last year. So added capacity is good.

so good question you know we're super fortunate our company you know between all three restaurants is about 200 employees and we are 85 to 90 staffed at any given time on normal times we're 95 98 staff um but we have a really good retention rate um so for us personally we're doing okay um I don't know how other Clayton restaurants, if they're suffering as much. I know when I speak with Ann Gallardo, they're doing fine. And when I speak with Napoli, they're doing pretty well. That's really the people that I speak to. But we would be fine.

Okay. All right. All right.

Can I ask a question? And this is really to Gary. Have there been any concerns or any applications that were denied or any aside from concerns about color?

No, not that I'm aware of Alderman. I think last year, most everyone went through a professional tent company and I think white was your, as long as you wanted white, you could have a tent that any color.

Are you asking us to consider whether we make this a permanent ordinance? It sounds like that's what one of your slides is about. Gary?

Well, I think that's the, you know, I think you have two options. One is to create some kind of emergency measure again for this year and and postpone a more permanent decision or we can proceed with implementing a permanent tent policy and ordinance going forward until it's withdrawn at some point in time if it ever is.

Right, do we want some kind of seasonal window in the code where we allow these things during the late fall and winter months? Well,

if we decide, if we said we wanted to do a permanent ordinance, would that really significantly delay restaurateurs from getting their tents up for this season?

You're probably looking at December before we would have an approval.

And if we did a temporary one, would that be sooner?

So we have the emergency authority that was granted to me, to the city manager, at the onset of the pandemic. However, when we evaluated it this year, circumstances have certainly changed. So under the emergency order, I was certainly reluctant to just say, hey, this is an emergency measure. to do it again this year. Again, occupancy in these restaurants is back to 100%. And while Herbie's may be three-sided with the tent at their location, a lot of these tents around town did have four sides on their tents. And I think Alderman Berkowitz was making the point that there's really no difference between inside and outside. If we're looking at it strictly from a health standpoint, you're probably actually better off inside a restaurant that has HVAC running than outside if you're in a four-sided tent that's just stagnant. So that's kind of where we were at with it. And if the board feels that this is something that's truly an emergency, I think we could still proceed with it this year with that emergency authority that's already out there. But I do think if this is something that we want to consider long term, we should start to have the discussion about some kind of permanent ordinance.

Right. If I may, my feeling is that there is still a reticence to be inside. And I think there's still a lot of restaurants that have reduced their occupancy. I don't have any figures, but I'm just going by observation that they haven't put all the tables back in that they had before. So from that point of view and given the residency, reticence of people in general to, COVID is still out there and no one knows what it's gonna do this fall. I'd be inclined to agree on an emergency measure, but I do think to Ira's point, it can't be simply an extension of their indoor space. It has to show that it is in some way there because of COVID, whether it's air circulating three sides, whatever. I don't know exactly how to define that. But just putting up a four-sided tent with... those basic heaters in it. It just doesn't seem like an emergency solution to me.

I agree. I think that's kind of the perfect solution, that we would use our emergency measure so that these tents can go up sooner to capture more of this season and you know, in the meanwhile, we can work toward, we can learn what happens this year, learn more, and we can work toward a permanent ordinance unless there's some disasters this year, like Aaron's tent blows away and smashes cars on Brentwood. I can't, you know, I think the county has some guidelines about tents. I don't remember what they are, but I don't, would it be possible for us to require one side be open?

Absolutely. In the packet, and I think it's behind the slides on this PDF, we actually provided that tent policy that we put together last year, and it would be really easy to just add a line in there that talks about air circulation and having one open side.

That would be great. That would be really good.

I just think that's the way to go. Anybody have anything else to add or object to that?

Sounds

good. Just to answer Susan's question, the only thing that happened last year that I recall, Gary, and you know, and I can't remember whether this came to the board or not, but the Planning Commission denied a car a permanent fixture, a permanent awning tent enclosure. And there was a number of conversations about it. I don't know if we all remember that or if it came to the board or not, but it was a little different than a tent because he was trying to make it permanent.

And it was messing with the aesthetics of the front of that building such as they are.

Correct.

Okay. So do we need anything further from the board on?

I don't think so. It looks like there's consensus there to do it. We still have the emergency authority that's out there. So we'll go ahead and adjust that tent policy. We spent a lot of time on it last year. I thought it served us well. We'll just add the provision in there for three sides and air circulation, and we should be good to go on tents.

Can I ask one other thing? Is that the only... COVID accommodation that we want to consider. If there's space seating or something else, do we want to have other ways of qualifying to put up a tent? Or do we want it simply to be the moving air and the open side? I don't know the health department standards on those things, but just wondering if there's options.

For the interior of regular restaurants, that six-foot requirement between diners has gone away. So they're back at 100% occupancy. Last year, we did have the six-foot spacing requirement, but that was because of the county health order, not necessarily because of a Clayton regulation.

Right. So I just wondered if someone's doing a tent, is... If they choose to have the open side and the moving air, that could be one way to continue the emergency authorization. Or do we want to offer that option of the spaced seating or something else as an accommodation for current times? I'm okay either way. I don't know. Do we just want to give one way to do it or not?

I think we should stick with the county's health guidelines, whatever they put out, which could change in the winter. But I think it makes it simpler for us. And then, because moving air is really the key here.

Well, the tent isn't under the county's health line. I mean, health guidance as far as I know.

They

allow tents. Right, but not the open air accommodation we're making. Isn't that something?

That would be a problem beyond.

Right,

okay. And I'm in agreement that I don't think we want to speak to the PB, Harmon Zuckerman, occupancy within the tent. PB, Harmon Zuckerberg, I don't think because that can PB, Harmon Zuckleberg, I think I'd rather leave it as open air. PB, Lupita D Montoya,

Yeah, I agree. I think it just gets too messy if we start trying to PB, Lupita Д Montoya, Try to space out, you know, because I just think that's a little. I think that's going to be hard for the restaurants.

PB, Lupata D Montoya, Okay, I think we've done tense We can move

on. Thank you all for your time.

Thanks, Aaron.

Have a great day, everybody.

You too.

Thanks, Aaron All right, so moving on to Parklet's here.

Sure, so if Some of you may remember that back in 2018 we implemented a parklet policy because we did have some interest expressed by restaurants to build their own and that was really based on the parklet the city built back in 2016. Just generally the requirements were that they were on speed limited roads or It could be above 25 miles an hour based on a case by case analysis of the vehicle and pedestrian interaction. We did set the season from April 1 to October 1 and we had similar requirements to those of the 10s with ARB approval. insurance and permits. We did only have one taker so far, and that was Sasha's. And basically he took the city's plans and replicated it. So it looks identical to ours, but that's the only one out there to date. We did ask Alan at Sasha's to take his up this year by October 1. He did make a very good case that the weather was still excellent for outdoor dining, even as of today. So I think the question coming up on the next slide. Oh, here's some examples of it. So the can you go back to the pictures?

Absolutely. Yeah.

So the one on the left is Sasha's. And then in the left of that picture, you can see Louie's. And those were the orange barricades that we set out for them last year. And he's covered those in wood for a little bit more aesthetically pleasing than orange plastic barricades. traffic barricades. But the one on the right of the photo is Allen's at Sasha's. And then the right photo is, again, the orange barricades at Five Star, but Steve put the teal colored floor in there. So those are the two examples. Thanks, David. So we did, along with the emergency tent ordinance, we did do the emergency parklet regulations. That's where we provided those traffic barricades. And we allowed restaurants to use up to two on-street parking spaces. In some cases, like Five Star, we did expand beyond that. We excluded the South Brentwood to Clayton Road and Hanley Road for obvious reasons. reasons and tried to mitigate vehicle and pedestrian interaction there. It did require outdoor dining permit and the insurance requirement too. So the decision points here are should the parklet ordinance be amended and extend the season. Are there any other aesthetic concerns or considerations that you wanted to consider while we are opening the policy? Or should we also extend the use of the city-owned barricades for restaurants too?

Gary, you just mentioned The reason for the timing?

Yeah, so the timing on the parklets was based obviously for consideration of leaf and snow plowing. It is, I think we would all agree on this end that it was highly conservative and at least from my own point of view, believe that it could be this season could be extended some. You know, I think certainly November one for end date would be a more reasonable time period.

But by any means we would not want parklets out during snow season.

No, it just makes it impossible for the snowplows to get around them without potential damage or conflict with the snowplow. I think there's just too much issue associated with that. I think I haven't spoke. I don't think David and I have specifically spoke about a day, but I think November 1. I think December 1 may be stretching it, but it's probably safe. But we definitely do not want those out in the heart of the winter.

We did have the city-owned barricades out there last year, and we left them out during the winter. Nobody had tables or chairs in those areas. They just sat there. We weren't as concerned pushing snow up against those or throwing salt against them because they're thick plastic city traffic barricades. We would be concerned if year-round or into the winter season We had privately owned parklets sitting in those parking spaces, pushing snow onto those and throwing salt all over them. So I don't know if you walked by any of the barricade parklets that were up last winter, but they typically held water. They held leaves. There were just months where they were unusable and really aesthetically weren't good. So we definitely need an end date. It's just a question of when we would want that to be.

I mean, I would certainly go to November 1st. I mean, there's just too many nice days in October, but I, you know, I feel like once November hits, it seems like, yeah, I mean, I, yeah, I would certainly I agree. I don't know if there's an option, you know, if, you know, I know this isn't really analogous, but, you know, Patty will extend the swim season when she looks at the weather. So at some point you guys, you know, you know, an end date's coming in November and it's, wow, it's going to be 60 degrees through November 10th. Maybe it could be extended, but I don't know that much flexibility with that.

We typically prefer to, we prefer a hard end date. rather than having to make the judgment call on it. It's a little bit different with our own operations, but just to be consistent in our messaging with the entities that put them out, enforcement, everything else, it's better to have a set end date for it.

Yep. David, you mentioned the leaf collection as well as the snow plowing. So at what point do we really need to be doing and what point does the leaf's accumulation become an issue on the streets?

November is where it starts getting really heavy for us. So that November 1st, November 15 time, that's a good one for us. That also means we've got probably two passes left before the end of leaf collection season. which is enough time for us to get everything that might fall later than that or that period. So November 1 or 15, to me, one of those two would be the target.

I vote for November 1. Gary Feder, did you have something to say there?

I vote for November 1. Gary Fader, did you have something to say there?

No, I'd go with November 1. I think that's a good date. I think November 1.

And what about on the back end, you guys? Do you think

it's

March? Well, is that the front end? Yeah, that's the front end. Oh, Rich, you're such a stickler. The other end, the spring, do we think that March, you know, we ought to let them put them out in March. Rich, did you talk to Alan about that timeframe at all?

I mean- Sometimes it's really nice on St. Patrick's Day. Yeah, March can be nice.

If we do March, we'll want to go at least the 15th or later. We tend to get a big snowfall every March, early March. I mean, it's almost inevitable we're going to get slammed at least once with it.

Okay. Well, it's just two weeks. It doesn't buy us a whole lot, but what does everyone else want to do? Just leave it?

April 1 and November

1. Okay. So I have a question about which streets we are going to allow this on. It says, I think you said in here, you wouldn't allow it on Clayton, Hanley, and South Brentwood. Go ahead.

Our ordinance actually caps it at 25 miles an hour.

Yeah. So are, is Forsyth, the speed limit on Forsyth over 25 miles an hour?

It is. And there was a parklet that was out there that a private entity had put out. And we saw, I think the reason why we wouldn't want one on a street with that, that speed limit, it was actually hit at one point by somebody that was doing an illegal U-turn. That damage was significant. We were just lucky there weren't any diners out there. The speed and was a concern of ours, uh, all along with that and 25 miles an hour. I think probably as high as we want to go.

So that parklet was built by Centene. I don't know if it was completely totaled or not, but

it

was, was it okay. So it was like demolished. All right. um okay

and they had one that was still okay after that that impact and decided to pick that one up too uh based on the damage and the speed of those cars there

yeah i just thought maybe some other restaurant not on forsyth could you know have it if it still exists um we can explore that what about maryland avenue now now that we'll have the bike lanes etc um

It's 30 miles an hour on Maryland, though.

Yeah, I don't think there's any way for that. And there's

no way to put it in.

Yeah, okay. I'm just asking. I know that Steve at Five Star is going to be wanting

that. Yeah, there'd be no way to open a car door. Well, I don't know. You still could, I guess, but it'd be tough. And the reason that we did allow it there was that you have, you know, the parklets weren't on corners. They were at the mid block. So typically you've got other cars that are parked there before you would even get to a parklet. So we definitely took that into account, allowing them on Maryland. But with the bike lanes, I'm not sure. Yeah.

The bike lane would be totally blocked, though. I don't know how you would... You

would need to cover both sides so you wouldn't end up squeezing that space in to fit it between the travel lane and the bike lane. You wouldn't have any width left.

You'd have to leave the bike lane open. Okay. Well, I think that's great. I think probably... those restaurants have figured that out for themselves already, but. I

talked to

Steve.

Yeah. He's his neighbors have allowed him to expand in front of them. So he, I actually talked to him about tonight specifically and he said he really didn't need one at this point because he was allowed to expand in front. Of his neighbors. Great. Okay.

I know we had one other question on there. Going forward, the ordinance really contemplates privately owned parklets that would be set within the right-of-way. Under the emergency ordinance, we allowed those barricades to be put out. I know that there were aesthetic concerns, certainly with the orange utilitarian look of those. Everything looked like it was actually under construction. Do we want to continue to have this just be a a private enterprise as far as putting these parklets together and then putting them in the street? Or do you want the city to consider being involved again and providing the barricades?

Hmm. I think it should be a private enterprise, but allow them their own form of barricades so they don't have to build a parklet. They could use some kind of aesthetic barricades in the street, but not the city-owned ones. Okay.

Like planters or something? It has to be

substantial enough to... have offered some protection from a car hitting them, but.

Right. Somebody sent, I just thought maybe Rich, it was you sent us pictures from Colorado of some different ones that were fashioned. So.

And Gary found some good examples too from other parts of the country where they had a diagram set up for what these parklets might look like. They had reflective tape or other things that had to be on the outside of it. There were some good considerations there. So we can certainly incorporate that.

I would support it being privately done, especially just so the city is equal in supporting restaurants. And also because do we want to be responsible for the safety of them? That also leads to the question, if it's privately done, are there safety standards that we would put into any type of ordinance?

Again, with that diagram, I know that there were some. reflective striping, I guess, that was required on these things. But it also talked about the barricade that needed to be on the traffic flow side of the parklet. I think we need to incorporate more of that. We have the insurance requirement, but we need to do more as far as a buffer for

cars. The buffer exists in the current policy now, but we can certainly tighten that up. and then modify the, there are guidelines on construction, but obviously what David's talking about from the other examples from across the country, we'll have to modify that too, but certainly achievable.

By the way, you don't have to go across the country. I think I was down in the Central West End the other night, last night as a matter of fact. And I can't remember, I think it's, what's the Cajun place on Euclid? Anyway, they've got a whole row of concrete barriers that they've got right there, all beautifully painted. I mean, they've got basically a mural HAB-Jacques Juilland, On these concrete dividers which really looks look look terrific. HAB-Michael

Leccese, Just as a point of clarification, we would still currently the policy requires a RB approval, we you would still want to maintain that yes.

HAB-Masyn

Moyer, yeah.

So are you saying, David, that you would put some additional language in our ordinance about the safety requirements?

I think we're going to take a look at what else is out there. These have evolved a little bit since the city initially put one in place, especially on the safety side. So we're going to look at that. And if there's anything that we need to enhance when we bring this back with the other dates, then we're going to do that from a safety standpoint.

So, yeah. While

we have it open, we might as well look at the safety considerations.

Got it. I think, you know, Sasha's already has one that they invested in. We have two. And so, you know, I guess we would just need to either bring those up to snuff if there's additional safety considerations or grandfather them somehow. That's

a good point.

Yeah. And talk to me about insurance just a little bit. So the situation that happened on Forsyth was really, it was unfortunate, but also it is a huge liability for whoever's parklet it is. And also for the city, if somebody were to get really injured and what, I know we require the business owner to have insurance, but You know, I'm just curious as to whether or not we are as covered as we need to be by just that or by our existing insurance policy. Do we need an additional rider for something like this if it happened and someone was hurt?

I would probably need the city attorney to weigh in on that. Here are the requirements that are in there right now as it relates to insurance. I don't know if everybody can see that or not. We do require the $2 million in coverage. City of Clayton must be named as additional insured. We've got the identification, the hold harmless that's required on that insurance as well. And then, of course, the city carries its own liability on top of this. But this, I believe, should cover us if a parklet's hit within our right-of-way. But again, if the city attorney has anything to add, I would invite you to let us know about it.

No, I'm comfortable with that.

Great. Okay. Good. Just checking. Okay. Well, it looks like we've done parklets.

Yeah, we've got, I think we have all the direction we need there for both parklets and tents.

Cool. All right. I know that we have about 15 minutes left and I know that we want to go into an executive session. So how do we want to do that?

Mayor, that's actually set up to go after the regular meeting.

Oh, I thought you were going to do it now. Okay.

No, we allowed an hour for this. We weren't sure how long that conversation would go, but we do have a separate link that we'll use at the conclusion of the regular meeting.

Okay. Could the topics be covered in 15-20 minutes or do you think we really need to wait and do it at the end?

I know we've unfortunately, I can't advertise the clothes for the end. Okay. We've already broadcast this one.

Yes.

All right. Fine. Fine.

It was worth asking. Absolutely. Wasn't it? Okay. It was, it was.

All right. Well then I guess we can have a giant break. And it looks

like we all have about 15 minutes.

Okay. See you guys in 15.

All

right. Thank you.

Thank you.

Are we still broadcasting? Yes, we are. Okay. Well, it looks like one, two, three, four, five. Okay. I think everyone is here that needs to be. All right. Shall we start then? Yes. Okay. Okay. Well, welcome to our meeting of October 26th. Ms. City Clerk, will you please call the roll? Yes.

Alderman Lentz.

Here.

Alderman Berkowitz. Here. Alderwoman McAndrew.

Here.

Alderwoman Buse.

Here.

Alderman Patel. Alderman Gary Feder.

Alderman Patel. Alderman Fader.

Unmute yourself. Here.

Thank you.

Mayor

Harris. Here. City Manager David Gipson.

Harris. Here. City Manager Gibson.

Here.

City Attorney O'Keefe.

Here. Thank You. Hey. Now's the time in our meeting when we ask for public requests and petitions. So if anyone in our attendee list has something they'd like to bring to our attention that is not on our agenda tonight, if they would raise their hand, that would be great. And I see one. Mr. Baxter.

Thank you, Mayor and Council members. I'm talking with you today about solar power in Clayton. We are in a climate emergency and it's incumbent upon all of us to do what we can to reduce our contribution to global warming. One of the ways to do that is to reduce the carbon footprint of the things we use, our houses, our utilities, and solar power is one of the best ways to do that in a carbon neutral way. So I was really disappointed when I started looking into this issue and found out that the ordinances on Clayton's website say that only a subset of Clayton households are eligible to have solar because you're not allowed to have your solar panels face the street. As you may know, south facing roofs are the place to put put your panels and there are a lot of south facing streets in Clayton. So I was hoping that the board would take a look at this and reevaluate this decision to go for a much more climate focused policy that will allow all homeowners in Clayton to get solar if they so choose.

And Mr. Baxter, could you for the record state your address?

Oh, sure. Ivan Baxter, 7401 Somerset Avenue.

Thank you.

Rich? Just a comment. Actually, on Friday, we have a sustainability committee meeting. If Mr. Baxter, you would like to become part of that, we would certainly be happy to have you. One of the things that we're trying to do, even on, I think it's Friday. Is that right, David? Do I have that date right? Thursday. I'm sorry. Thursday afternoon. We're trying to set an agenda for that sustainability committee to come up with those things that are the couple things that would go a long way to making an impact with the city. One of the things that was thrown out as an idea was to look at the solar panel ordinance and other ways that the city might encourage solar energy. We haven't done anything about it yet, but it's on the list of things for the sustainability committee And if you'd like to be part of that, we could certainly happy to have you participate.

That sounds great. Should I just email you, Mr.

Lentz? Sure. You can email me or David Gipson and we'll make sure you get the notification or June. We'll make sure you have the notification for the committee Zoom call.

Lentz? Sure. You can email me or David Gibson and we'll make sure you get the notification or June. We'll make sure you have the notification for the committee Zoom call.

Sounds great. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you. All right. Anyone else from the attendee list that would like to address us? Okay. I do not see anybody. So with that, we will go on to our public hearing.

We need the minutes.

Oh, I forgot.

Sorry.

I'm so sorry. Yes. We would like to approve the minutes from October 12th. I need a motion.

I will move to approve the minutes for October 12th.

Second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Sorry about that, guys. I actually skipped over that and went to public requests and petitions too. So now we can open the public hearing for bill number 6865, the lot consolidation for 9 North Beamiston. So I've opened it and will request proof of publication.

Thank you, Mayor. This is a public hearing and subsequent ordinance to consider approving of subdivision plat for the consolidation of portions of block 11 of the city of Clayton to create one 66,787 square foot lot. The proposed lot has a zoning designation of PUD, which is Plan Unit Development District. The subject property is located west of Bemiston Avenue, south of Maryland Avenue, and east of Central Avenue, and the north half block, bounded by an east-west alley to the south. The proposed plat will consolidate the existing lots into one lot to allow for the development of the mixed use residential apartment building with street level commercial space and an internal parking structure to be known as Bemis in place. Development and design of the mixed use structure were previously approved in December of 2020. The plat depicts dedications and easements that will be approved by separate ordinance in the near future. The plan commission considered this request at its September 20th, 2021 meeting in unanimously recommended approval with two conditions. The newly created lot meets all zoning requirements for the PUD planned unit development district. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve the plat subject to the conditions set forth in the ordinance for adoption.

Okay. I can open the discussion. Anyone from the attendee list have a comment on this? Okay, I do not see one. Discussion from the board. I believe we have updated documents to approve along with this. Is that correct?

Yes, Your Honor. If I may, the city manager referenced Judge Frederick Aguirre-Easemans and plat dedication to be approved at a later time, in fact, we have folded all these into one while the documents, so we are approving easements and the plat all at the same time on the by the ordinance as drafted. There are updated documents, I believe. Judge Frederick Aguirres- June circulated. the latest draft of the easement document to you. And for purposes of the record, that is a word document entitled 01R08 Air Rights and Sidewalk Easement Agreement, DOCX is the last version. And that was circulated to you this afternoon. And that is Exhibit B. And that will be the Exhibit B to the bill as introduced when and if it is introduced to the Board of Aldermen. Likewise, Exhibit A is the plat and there has been a revision to that as late as somewhere around four o'clock this afternoon. To clean up some language in the dedication of the alley widening dedication, the four feet additional alley. And the version of that document, which will be attached as exhibit A is 6791-lot consolidation plat dash 10.26.21 parents final v2.pdf. And the difference there is that there is only three paragraphs in the dedication for the alley right of way instead of four. The fourth paragraph, which had provided for a restriction on the city's ability to close the access to the additional right-of-way limited only to construction and maintenance activities. That has been removed in recognition of the fact that we control the other 20 feet and we close roadways for a variety of reasons, traffic problems, weather, et cetera, police incidents. Those are the versions of Exhibit A plat, Exhibit D easement document which are attached to the official version of bill number 6865 and will be considered by the board when and if the bill is introduced. There are also representatives of the developer here in attendance if they wish to be heard.

No one has got their hand up thus far. So let me ask if the board, if there's discussion, if we have questions for the developers since they're here.

Michelle, I have a question. Yes. This is actually on the easement, so I'm not sure I'm looking at the right one. But if the air rights easement is for the purpose of a canopy, that makes sense. But when you read it, it says for any and all folding garage doors, similar building fixtures, et cetera. Is there a reason that it needs to be that broad and in perpetuity?

The restaurant space, and the developer can speak for themselves, but as I understand it, the restaurant space, the north end of the Central Avenue frontage, has a a lifting door so that it opens the interior of the restaurant to the exterior seating completely and it's a it is a type of garage door that lifts vertically so it will extend out over that area but is not itself a canopy it's structural and that was the reason for that description

that is that is correct thank you kevin and in addition there's also some awnings that will go out in addition to the canopy so we did that broad description um to cover anything and we just limited it to similar features in case it might change over the years of time but obviously we'd have to get city approval to change things anyway so we're only planning on doing today what's been approved

Okay, so that language does require city approval because we're including but now.

No, you've already approved it. The design's already been approved.

All those features are on the ARB-approved design of the building.

Okay, the version I'm looking at says including but not limited to enlist those features. So if the final version, if we're comfortable... HAB-Terry Palmos- With limited

changes any changes to the facade of the building would have to go back to a or b. HAB-Masyn Moyer-

Correct Thank you. HAB-Tery Palmos-

That is, Miss miss bagel the Attorney for the development.

Thanks. HAB-Judy Nogg- Thank you any other questions or discussion about this. Okay, all right, very good. I will now close the public hearing and ask for the bill to be introduced.

Okay, I'll take a shot at this. I'll introduce bill number 6865 to approve subdivision plot consolidation and related easements for 9 North Bemiston Avenue, which are detailed in the Dave Kuntz, A revised exhibit a I need to give the whole title.

Dave Kuntz , Now so it's in the record from the public here. Dave

KuntZ, Okay revised exhibit a and revised exhibit be describing those easements and sidewalk and air rights. Dave Kuntzt, So i'm making a motion to be read for the first time by title only. Karen Hollweg,

Very good second. Karen Hollweg , That was the tough job. I

know.

All right, any further discussion? Okay,

Mr.

City

Attorney. Bill number 6865, first reading and orders providing for the approval of a plan to consolidate certain property located on Central Avenue, Maryland Avenue, and Beamiston Avenue in the city of Clayton, Missouri, and approving easements related thereto. All those in

favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, Alderman Lentz.

I'll move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 6865 on the day of its introduction.

Second. All those in favor? Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Let the minutes reflect the board has given unanimous consent.

Then I'll introduce Bill No. 6865 to approve a subdivision plot consolidation and related easements for 9 North Beamiston Avenue, including the revised Exhibit A and Exhibit B, to be read for the second time by title owner.

Second. Any discussion? Okay. Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 6865, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance providing for the approval of a plan to consolidate certain property located on Central Avenue, Maryland Avenue, and Beamiston Avenue in the city of Clayton, Missouri, and approving easements related thereto. Alderman Lentz? Aye.

Alderman Berkowitz? Aye. Alderwoman McAndrew? Aye. Aldermen Gary Feder? Aye.

Alderman Berkowitz? Aye. Alderwoman McAndrew? Aye. Aldermen Fader? Aye.

Aye.

And Mayor Harris?

Aye. Thank you. Okay, we're ready now for the city manager's report.

Thank you, Mayor. The first item on here is a liquor license for the Clarendale. So Clayton Operations doing business as Clarendale Clayton is requesting a liquor license to sell all kinds of intoxicating liquor at retail by the drink, including Sundays at 7651 Clayton Road. The Police Department and Planning and Development Services Department have completed the reviews of the application and support issuance of the requested license. The applicant has chosen not to submit a petition from surrounding property owners and first floor tenants. As a result, they are aware that this application must have a supermajority vote of five board members in order to be approved. Staff has requested that a representative attend the meeting. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve the liquor license to sell all kinds of intoxicating liquor at retail by the drink, including Sundays.

Okay, any discussion? I did look in the attendee list and I don't see anyone from Clarendale on it.

I had gotten an email saying that they were going to attend, but I do not see their name.

Yeah, right. That's okay. Do you guys, is there any talk, you know, any discussion about this? Those

seniors need their drinks.

Well, are they just going to be selling them in like a gift shop kind of thing? Or I mean, that's what I don't understand where they're selling it.

This will be required for them to sell it on the premises. So to residents that they have a restaurant where they've got a bar or something like that in it and residents are buying it, then it'll be in there. Or if they have at the front counter, you know, six packs and bottles of wine for sale, then they would need the liquor license to cover that as well.

This is going to be someplace. It

is. I

was hoping they had leased out the space in the front, but then I really, yeah.

I'm guessing it's not unlike where my mother is, where she goes into the dining room and if she orders a glass of wine, they charge her for it.

Ira, were you going to speak?

Oh, no, I just I know it's probably for their cake parties, you know, and they're

right. Oh, now, you know, no, it could be.

It could be.

Oh, OK. All right. So any other questions or discussion? All righty.

Alderman Lentz. I'll move to approve a liquor license for Clayton Operations doing businesses Clarendale Clayton located at 7651 Clayton Road. Second.

Second. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? All right. That's a done deal, Mr. City Manager.

Thank you, Mayor. The attached bill amends Title III traffic code by adding a section of DeMunn Avenue to Table 3-1, two-hour parking areas. Specifically, the section proposed to be included is both sides of the northbound lane from the north corner of Southwood Avenue to the south corner of Northwood Avenue. The purpose of this bill is to match legislation with current demands. The adoption of this bill will not alter any existing signs on this section of Devon Avenue. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve the ordinance.

So we have

Mr. Gary Carter here that can answer any questions. Oh,

okay. Yeah. So yeah, any questions from you all?

I'm just curious because I actually hadn't heard anything about this and I didn't know how it came up or was it all the signs are already there, but we just are updating the ordinance?

That's correct.

Okay. Have there

been issues or is this just truly housekeeping?

This is truly housekeeping.

Okay, all right then. All right, if there's no further discussion, Alderman Lentz.

I'll introduce Bill 6866 to approve an amendment to Table 3-1, Parking Regulations, by adding a section of DeMunn Avenue to our parking areas to be read for the first time by title. Second.

Any discussion?

Mr. City Attorney. Bill number 6866, first reading and ordinance amending table three I of title three of the Clayton City Code.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Alderman Lentz.

I'll move to the board give unanimous consent consideration for adoption of bill number 6866 on the day of its introduction.

Second.

All those in favour say aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye

Any opposed? Let the minutes reflect the board's given unanimous consent.

And I'll introduce bill number 6866 to approve an amendment to table 3i parking regulations by adding a section of the Munn Avenue two-hour parking areas to be read for the second time by a title element.

Second. Further discussion?

Okay,

Mr. City

Attorney. Bill number 6866, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance amending table three I of title three of the Clayton City Code.

Alderman Lentz.

Aye.

Alderman Berkowitz.

Aye.

Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Aldermen Gary Feder.

Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Aldermen Fader.

Aye.

And Mayor Harris. Aye. Thank you. Okay.

Mr. City Manager. Aye.

On June 9th, 2015, the City of Clayton created the 25 North Central Community Improvement District for the property located at 25 North Central Avenue now operating as Ceylon. The CID or Community Improvement District imposes an additional 1% sales tax on restaurant and other retail sales. The CID uses the revenues from the sales tax and special assessment to reimburse the developer for certain eligible redevelopment costs that total $1.5 million. The CID is governed by a five-member board of directors appointed by the mayor with the consent of the Board of Aldermen. Only registered voters residing within the CID and the authorized representatives of property owners within the CID may be appointed to the board of directors. In this case, the building owner is the sole property owner within the CID. Staff recommends that the Board of Alderman approve the appointments as submitted.

Okay, open the discussion. Any questions or comments? This probably doesn't really matter, but I noted in the RFBA, it says that it's now operating as the 212 and not Ceylon.

That's correct. That's why I corrected it in my report here. It is Ceylon at 25

North Central. Okay, good. All right. No discussion?

All right. Alderman Lentz. I'll introduce bill 6867 to approve the appointments and reappointments of board members for the 25 North Central Avenue Community Improvement District to be read for the first time by title only.

Second.

Any discussion? All right, Mr. City Attorney.

Sorry about that. Bill number 6867, first reading. An ordinance of the city of Clayton, Missouri approving the appointment of certain successor directors to the board of directors for the 25 North Central Community Improvement District.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? All right. Alderman Lentz.

I'll move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of Bill 6867 on the day of its introduction.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Let the minutes reflect. The board has given unanimous consent.

I'll

introduce Bill 6867.

What happened? Wait, Kevin, what did I do?

No, no, you didn't do anything. But somewhere in the circulation of documents, we lost a version of the bill. And if I may ask that the board consider amending Section 1 of the bill to add in addition to the appointment of Amanda Middow, reappoint Clint Bridges to a term expiring July 8, 2025, and Eugene Norbert to a term expiry July 8, 2025. And strike those names from the text of Section 1 where they are listed. Those should have been moved down to reappointments as opposed to listed up there since those terms have expired.

So do we need to amend the original?

A motion to amend the bill as stated would be fine.

And then I'll make a motion to amend the bill as stated with the reappointments, appointments and reappointments as our city attorney stated.

Okay. All right. All those in favor? Wait, do we have a second? Second. Second. All those in favour?

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay.

So now I can move to for the second reading as amended.

Correct.

Then I'll introduce bill 6, 8, 6, 7. As amended to approve the appointments and reappointments of board members for the 25 North central avenue community improvement district to be read for the second time by title.

Second

discussion. Okay, Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 6867, second reading and consideration for adoption and ordinance of the city of Clayton, Missouri, approving the appointment of certain successor directors to the board of directors for the 25 North Central Community Improvement District. Alderman

Lentz.

Aye.

Alderman Berkowitz.

Aye.

Alderwoman McAndrew.

Aye.

Aldermen Buse.

Aye.

Aldeman Gary Feder.

Aldeman Fader.

Aye.

Mayor Harris. Aye. Thank you. Okay,

Mr. City Manager.

This is an ordinance to incorporate recent state legislative changes pertaining to liquor regulations into the city's code. The primary drive of the 2021 legislative changes is to a expand Sunday sales hours for all classes of licenses and be authorized a process whereby restaurants can sell takeout alcoholic beverages to customers taking out

food.

In addition, there were some changes to regulations governing transactions between manufacturers, wholesalers, retail licensee, and reinforcement of other changes in state law to not automatically disqualify anyone ever convicted of a felony from being licensed or working at a licensed premises. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve the ordinance, and this is a housekeeping bill here to keep us consistent with state law.

Very good. Any discussion about this? Rich?

I just have a question on the whole section that's added about selling liquor that is put into containers by the employees. I understand what they're saying in that situation, but if they are selling previously canned and bottled liquor, does that come under a different section of the ordinance?

Yes, sir. Holders of a buy the drink license are authorized to sell packaged liquor.

So this just changes that?

This allows buy the drink licensees to sell self-packaged drinks that are not packaged liquor. to

customers. And whose responsibility is it to make sure that there's only two beverages per meal being sold?

Generally, the Board of Aldermen could be asked to monitor that.

We'll just take turns going to restaurants and sitting there and watching.

That's certainly one way to do it. These are identical to the state regulations.

I understand. I thought maybe the state might assign somebody from Jefferson City to come check it.

The city clerk has volunteered.

so just a question you know as regarding like some kind of event like the art fair where a lot of the restaurants are open people walking around and buying uh drinks does this have anything to do with that or do we have separate set of regulations for that type of thing

So I'll yield to the city manager.

It's a separate set. So there's, there's a liquor license that's issued to the art fair for their specific event. But if somebody were to go into a restaurant and order a mixed drink that had a tamper proof cap or seal and met all the criteria here, then, then yes, they could, they could leave the premises with that, that drink in hand.

And could they then drink it at the art fair?

Yes. Yes. Yes, ma'am.

Okay. I'm just wondering for next year's purposes. Okay, so let's see. I think we've had discussion. Any other comments or questions? Okay.

Alderman Lentz. I'll introduce Bill 6868 to approve the proposed amendments to Chapter 600, Alcoholic Beverages, to be read for the first time by a title only.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, Alderman Lentz. Bill number 686- Oh, we need,

yes.

Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. City Attorney, I didn't mean to leave you out. That's

okay. So sorry. Bill number 6668, first reading an ordinance amending chapter 600 of the Clayton City Code relating to alcoholic beverages.

All those in favor?

Aye. Aye,

any opposed? Okay,

now- Now move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of Bill 6866 on the day of its introduction.

All those in favor?

Aye. I didn't second it.

Oh, I've got to slow down. Okay. Go for it, Ira. Second. Okay. All those in favour? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Let the minutes reflect. The board has given unanimous consent.

I'll introduce Bill 6868 to approve the proposed amendments to Chapter 600, Alcoholic Beverages, to be read for the second time by a title owner. Second.

Any discussion?

All right, Mr. City Attorney. Bill number 6868, second reading and consideration for adoption and ordinance amending Chapter 600 of the Clayton City Code relating to alcoholic beverages. Alderman Lentz. Aye.

Alderman Berkowitz. Aye.

Aye.

Alderwoman McAndrew? Aye. Alder Woman Buse? Aye. Alderman Gary Feder?

Alderwoman McAndrew? Aye. Alder Woman Buse? Aye. Alderman Fader?

Aye.

Mayor Harris? Aye. Thank you.

Okay, I think that concludes our business meeting. HAB-Juliette Boone, I know that we're going to have an executive session, but I wanted to see if anybody if we want to go ahead and go around first during the public meeting for anyone to share any things that have been going on for the past couple of weeks with them. HAB-Julie Petersen, Rich your first of course

um yeah as I mentioned earlier. we had a call with the chair of the sustainability committee, trying to get that committee moving. And I think we came up with a plan. David was very good at explaining how the CEC has been successful in its approach. And so we're sort of taking a similar tact and that's why it was very apropos that Mr. Baxter was on because that was one of the issues that we thought might be in the, you know, one of the one or two things. Plus, we talked about needing ad hoc members just like CDC does to round out the committees and such. So it was very timely that he came on and spoke. So that meeting's tomorrow. Trying to think if I had,

I

think we had a,

I

think

that's it. Alderman Lentz, I just want to mention that meeting is Thursday.

Thursday.

Two days from now, it's at 4.30 in the afternoon and that Zoom link will be posted on the city's calendar.

Great. I think I had a CCF executive committee meeting, but I don't think there was anything earth shattering on that. Or maybe I missed that one. I got

to cover it, okay. Okay, next, Ira. So ARB meeting.

I do want to raise what I consider, what I think has become a serious issue for the city. It's the third time since I've been on that committee, we've had people come before us that actually went ahead and did projects before getting their permits to do the project. If it's a one-time deal or it's the first time I've ever seen it, that's fine. But this is now the third times and I haven't been on this commission for very long. I don't know how many times it happened for you, Rich. It was a handful. Yeah. I've already got a handful. I've only been on it for a couple of months. Ira,

what kind of projects are they?

This project last week was actually, they redid a whole bunch of a house. They put windows in. They did a whole lot of repair. Last week it was a, I mean, the week before that, they demolished an entire garage without a permit. The time before that, it was a retaining wall that was put in. It was a pretty sizable project though. It wasn't just a little bit of a retaining wall. It took the entire length of their house, front of the house. We ended up not even knowing that they had done that. I ended up finding out a couple of days later when I walked by the house I saw the wall was completely, you know, constructed and was, you know, it was just brand new. We had asked that they, we tried to do a little setback on those retaining walls that come up to the sidewalk. And that's been, since I've been on it, that's been what they've been asking for and requiring. And they required that of this particular project. And it turns out there was no setback on this retaining wall at all, despite what was required by the permit. So, I mean, my concern is that, and especially in the case this past week, there were things done to this house that would not have been passed. It would not have been permitted. The windows were clad, vinyl clad. They weren't up to snuff. And, you know, the commission was hard pressed to say, you know, you got to tear everything out. And so I get that part. But I'm just wondering if maybe we ought to be taking a look at what we do about letting people know or at least something that we have as a consequence of some sort. Because the idea of asking for forgiveness instead of permission, if it's easier and you can get away with it more easily, I think that's not in the city's best interest. Just to

I'll agree with you on that. As I said, we did have a handful of them. And in one particular case, there was a retaining wall required again with that setback. And they did come before us before they did it. And we said, you need to do a setback. And their argument was, well, the house next door does not have a setback. Well, the house next store never came for the permit. And so now you've got almost, I don't know what you want to call it, a precedent or at least somebody saying, well, why am I coming for the permit if they didn't? And there was no consequence. So there needs to be, I agree with you, there needs to be some, I don't if you can do a fine or something, if you don't tear it out, there has to be something for the builders really are the ones responsible.

and the architects who were involved. And in this case, you know, I could understand a retaining wall, not having an architect, but he, but, but last week there was an architect who was involved. He had done stuff for the city, you know, in front of the city before he knows he knew, but you know what? There it was, they, you know, they put it in. So I just think, and I know David and I talked about it after the meeting this week and I, I just think there has to be some consequence. It can't be just, oh, OK, well, it's already in, so OK. And Rich, you're right. What happens in even those cases, then the next person comes and says, well, they don't have wood clad windows, OK? And we ended up giving them a permit for it. So now suddenly you've got precedent. Well, they've got an asphalt driveway they put in. Well, they didn't get permission for that, but afterwards they did because nobody had the nerve to make them tear it out. And now we're stuck with an asphalt driveway that we didn't want. So I take it to everyone here that that's as an issue for us to look at. I think it's something to consider.

Sounds like a discussion session item. for the future and also, you know, the idea of asphalt driveways has, it's gone up and down over the years, David. It's been enforced or not. And I mean, you know, it's been inconsistent. And so we should probably just revisit it to see if it still suits our needs or what we really want there. What's reasonable.

Vinyl fences is another one.

Which, what is?

B. G. vinyl fences

vinyl fences okay yeah well we'll start keeping a list. B. G. How about those heaters on demand. B. G。 The giant lamps okay i'm Bridget.

I was just going to mention to everyone that the mayor and Gary and I and Gary Carter, both Gary's, and I met with business owners on Maryland Avenue, you know, just to kind of discuss their concerns with the bike lanes and just talk to them a little bit. And then I also just wanted to let everybody know who doesn't live over in our neck of the woods in case you haven't made it. They did stripe a good portion of Maryland Avenue today. I hope that the pylon pipes go in soon because I just think it's really confusing. Cause you've got these, I mean, there were bikers that were like, there were cars parked where they were supposed to be parked. And then you, I saw, I did see several bikers today trying to use the new bike lanes, which was great. But then there were a few cars that were still parked on the curb. I mean, understandably, cause it's confusing. It's a new, you know, it's going to take some adjustment, but hopefully the pylons will go in soon because it is confusing the way it is right now.

We're already discussing how to clarify some of these things and then ultimately enforce the parking in the bike lanes. We're checking to see if we have a mechanism in place for that at this point and not sure that we do so. Some items we'll have to work through, but it does look good.

Yeah.

Get everybody to park in the right spot. We'll be in great shape.

Yeah, but once you have those posts up, it's going to help a lot. Yeah.

Okay, Susan.

Yes, there was a CCF executive meeting this last week, and they were doing their manuals. It's pretty impressive, their organizational things. They have some new board members, and they tried to get somebody with the sustainability expertise. They were not successful, but that also came up later in their conversations that they would like to start having sustainability as a through item, a through line. with the different projects and always be looking at that. Then there was planning, talking about meeting with the board of aldermen and planning for that and talking about things like the commons, the parks and rec master plan and electric cars came up as well. So a lot of those same themes swirling around. Chapman's concert series will be two next year. And I think What else was there? Yeah, Bob Costas is coming on November 9th through the CCF at home series. There was also a equity commission meeting and our city manager gave a nice presentation on potential or looking at points with PUDs and affordable housing and how that might look. There's a lot of interest on the commission. on how to get a more, keep a diversity in housing stock and what things we might be able to do on that. One thing that was, you'll remember when Jeff Ward came to us and came and presented on the city marker, on the county marker that's in the city of Clayton on the county police station. which starts with the county was first visited by white colonialists. And the, um, commission does have a recommendation that will come to this board that we request and support the county in either taking it down or changing the language on that sign. Um, and there's anything else from the equity commission? Though they're also looking at capturing some of the recommendations and things that this board said with judge selection. And I don't know, I don't know if that's right. That's not in a recommendation form yet, but have we just, have we moved on the provisional judge

yeah there's a meeting in place for i think it's later this week i think it might be thursday i can't remember but it's either this week or next week and we will our panel and uh we'll go through the applications yeah so i think what

they're going to present is very similar to i mean it's what's already being done is just capturing it to carry it forward and so that will probably be after this next election is made but um it's pretty much taken from what we approved before so

Okay, great. Mr. Gary Feder, do you have anything for us?

Okay, great. Mr. Fader, do you have anything for us?

Just to comment also on the meeting that Bridget referred to with the mayor and Gary Carter. And I think there were six owners or users of property on that particular block on Maryland. And aside from the bicycle issue and the striping issue, Just again, the unique problems of that particular area and trying to maintain its sort of colonial charming look and just the difficulty of retail in Clayton today and some of the ideas they put forth about trying to assist them. So I think that's obviously a topic for further discussion. And the other thing I would mention which actually Alderman McAndrew initiated was, I think, from a resident in Polo who was concerned about a house that has essentially sit, it appears idle and vacant for a long time. It's one I'm familiar with because I walked my dog over there in Polo and it did raise for me the whole topic of property that is vacant for a long period of time. This one appears to have at least the vestiges of construction, both in the backyard and in the building itself. But as best I can tell, nothing has happened on this property probably in at least a year. And I certainly wouldn't like to live next to this vacant property. Yeah, I realize legally it's difficult to try to deal with vacant property, but it is a concern, I think, when you have something like that and its impact on the rest of the neighborhood. So I don't know if that's, again, a topic for further discussion. I'm sure this happens periodically, but it certainly, I think, becomes somewhat of a nuisance, even though the property itself is probably still maintained, relatively speaking. but the fact that it's vacant and so obviously vacant for such a long period of time is troublesome.

We have a few of those. I'm not sure what, but we could certainly add it to a list of things that we want to discuss.

It's difficult if they're meeting all the property maintenance codes and we don't have any violation in that regard. It's difficult to come up with some violation or even an ordinance regarding vacancy, because you have situations where somebody might have a house on the market that's on there for an extended period of time, but the outside of it is well kept. It's just tough. So we received the concern, obviously, from Alderwoman McAndrew and Alderman Gary Feder talking about the same property. So we're looking into that property specifically to see if anything can be done. But In a broad sense, it's a difficult thing to address if they're meeting all the property maintenance codes and the property is well kept. So in this case, we may have a few things that could be potential violations. So we're looking into it.

It's difficult if they're meeting all the property maintenance codes and we don't have any violation in that regard. It's difficult to come up with some violation or even an ordinance regarding vacancy, because you have situations where somebody might have a house on the market that's on there for an extended period of time, but the outside of it is well kept. It's just tough. So we received the concern, obviously, from Alderwoman McAndrew and Alderman Fader talking about the same property. So we're looking into that property specifically to see if anything can be done. But In a broad sense, it's a difficult thing to address if they're meeting all the property maintenance codes and the property is well kept. So in this case, we may have a few things that could be potential violations. So we're looking into it.

Good. Okay. I really don't have much. It's pretty much been covered. But one thing I will add, which hasn't been covered, is that a couple of us went to the fire department's live burn last week. Yeah, it was last week. And, you know, it was participated. There were four fire departments participating, including us. And it was held in the city of St. Louis at a you know, a demonstration facility. I mean, it's basically a vacant building that they could, you know, set fire to periodically train people.

It

was training. They had classrooms somewhere in there too. But anyway, I thought it was really impressive watching what they do and the detail to which they go to coordinate everything and everybody and I talked to a lot of different firefighters and I'm sure Rich was there as well. I'm sure he did as well. And I've learned a lot about, and even though I've been on a ride along and I've suited up and done all this stuff, I learned so much about what has to happen when they go inside the building. And we actually went inside the building to see kind of what route they would be taking as they walked through to put out this sort of small scale fire. And I just have to compliment our brave city manager because he suited up and went in there too. You

have that picture, Andrea? Not handy.

David has destroyed it probably.

No, it was a great experience going in with them to see what those conditions are actually like and It's a really controlled environment and, you know, obviously if you're going into a building that you're unfamiliar with. We didn't have couches to deal with and, you know we knew what we were getting into, and you can actually see typically in a fire you're going to have a ton of smoke with with low visibility but the conditions that they're in it's it's amazing. It's amazing what they do for us every day. So I have a new understanding and appreciation for it. And I'm glad that you were able to attend. And Chief Rhodes is going to give a presentation to the Board of Aldermen here sometime in the next couple of months to talk about how we work together with those surrounding agencies and how they actually carry out an attack on a live fire. So I think that'd be a good presentation for everybody to get understanding of how that works. So. Thanks for bringing that up, Mayor. Great experience.

The other, I mean, and just to one last comment, which is the collaboration is really a good thing and it's just a good feeling to see it all and to think that all of these County fire departments are collaborating with the city of St. Louis fire department makes me even more happy. So I just think that our firefighters, they know how to collaborate and work together. And a lot of organizations could learn a lot from watching their example. Okay, I think that's the end of our meeting. David, anything else?

Not tonight.

Okay. So

we're leaving this and going to the new link? It's a separate link for the closed session. That is correct. Okay.

Yes, real quick. David, did you want to mention the second meeting in November?

Oh, that's a great point. That was brought up a couple of times in Monday calls. We do, thank you, June. We do have a meeting currently scheduled for November the 23rd, and that is Thanksgiving week. As I look at the agenda items list, we have a few items for November 9. We don't have anything identified yet for the November 23 meeting. So I know that there was some concern expressed with that date and we just wanted to verify that the board wanted to go ahead with that meeting or make the decision to cancel it. And with that I'll turn it over to the board. Cancel it.

Are we still having the planning session on the 19th, the Friday?

That's correct. We have a Tuesday regular meeting on November the 9th, and then we have a Friday strategy session on the 19. So we do have two meetings still, one business meeting, one work session.

Yeah. Okay. I'm good with canceling. Anybody else? Anybody not good? Okay. All right. That's a done deal.

If I may, I think a motion would be in order.

I was going to ask if we need to adjourn.

I'll make a motion. Oh, a motion to cancel the meeting. Okay. Rich? I'll

make a move.

I'll make motion to cancel the November 23rd Board of Aldermen meeting, scheduled meeting.

Ira? Second. Okay.

All those in favor, say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? All right. Do we need to make a motion to adjourn this meeting so we can go into executive session or do we just quit? Yes, you do. Okay.

Yes, you do, okay.

I'll make a motion to a adjourn this meeting and go into executive session.

I think, isn't there statutes or

everything?

Alderman Gary Feder has a script to read. Oh, he has to go into that whole thing. Oh,

Alderman Fader has a script to read. Oh, he has to go into that whole thing. Oh,

right. Oh, that's right. We haven't done it in a while. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead, Alderman Gary Feder.

right. Oh, that's right. We haven't done it in a while. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead, Alderman Fader.

Sorry.

You know what you

do. What's

that on his script?

He just read the bottom of the agenda. It's actually on the bottom, very bottom of the agenda.

If I may suggest a motion would be in order for the board to move that to go into closed session pursuant to section 610.0211 for purposes of attorney-client communication.

So

moved. Quickly, Mr. O'Keefe, do we also need to reference RSMO 610.0213, which is personnel? I believe we do. We have two items for closed session. Thank you. That's okay. I'd

like to move for executive sessions for both items that have been described.

Well said. Okay. All those in favor. It's a roll call vote. I'm all over with my mistakes. Alderman Lentz.

Aye.

Alderman Berkowitz. Aye. Aldeman McAndrew. Aye. Alderwoman Buse. Aye. Aldermen Gary Feder.

Alderman Berkowitz. Aye. Aldeman McAndrew. Aye. Alderwoman Buse. Aye. Aldermen Fader.

Rookie votes

aye. Mayor Harris. Aye. Thank you.

Okay. Motion to adjourn would be in order, ma'am. All right.

I'll make a motion to adjourn.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, so moved. So we're adjourning? Yes. We're adjourned. We're going to click on the other link.