March 12, 2024 — Meeting Transcript

Welcome, everybody, to our first March meeting of 24. And I think we have some guests, which is exciting, from the CEC and also from the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council. Glad you're here. And so if you want to call the roll, we'll get started.

Alderman Berkowitz, Alderwoman McAndrew, Alderwoman Buse, Alderwoman Patel, Alderman Gary Feder, Alderman Rick Hummell, Mayor Harris, City Manager David Gipson, City Attorney O'Keefe. Thank you.

Alderman Berkowitz, Alderwoman McAndrew, Alderwoman Buse, Alderwoman Patel, Alderman Fader, Alderman Hummel, Mayor Harris, City Manager Gibson, City Attorney O'Keefe. Thank you.

Now's the time on our agenda for public requests and petitions. So if anybody has something to talk to us about that is not on our agenda tonight, now is your chance. We have a couple of people online. And Mayor, you should tell.

Thank you. One minute to reflect on the fact that just yesterday it was announced, sadly, that Fon Fon is closing down. And with that was the announcement that Washington University apparently was acquiring. I'm sure you all know more about this perhaps than I do, but this is certainly an opportunity for the city, for the school district, for Washington University to think perhaps even out of the box what can be done with this Good opportunity. So I'll say no more, but I urge you to reflect on it and your meetings and the like. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Good thoughts. Right. We are, you know, we're sad about that. I know we all know people that graduated and our daughter Carson graduated from Fontbonne. It's just a special place. And it's also, you know, when a small school like this goes away, we lose some accessibility to higher education. It was a place where you could go if maybe you financially or otherwise couldn't swing a bigger university. And so I'm sad to lose that for our community. But I'm sure WashU will be collaborative in their approach. And luckily, the school will have time to process everybody out of there over the next year so. At any rate. Okay, so next on our agenda would be. A very exciting report from the Community equity Commission welcome you.

I have laryngitis, so lucky for you. Stuart's going to do most of this, but I just wanted to start off saying that we appreciate the support from the board that we've enjoyed over the past year. And we'll let Stuart take you through what his group's been doing, and then I'll come back. Thanks.

Thank you. My name is Stu Berkowitz. I think most of you know me. I was not anticipating to take over from Chris, but hopefully I can adequately represent a report to this board, basically a summarize of activities for the past year. And I'm not going to go over every word in our report. It's part of your agenda, but I will go over Some of the things, a lot of which had to do with things I was directly involved in as chair of the law enforcement subcommittee. First of all, we now have a process for picking our municipal judge. Now, that is something that normally flies under the radar. Nobody actually knows exactly how miserable judges are appointed. There are something like 85 or 90 in St. Louis County alone. We do know following the reforms from Ferguson that there were serious problems with regard to the miserable courts. Supreme Court tried to issue some reforms, but they really didn't deal with the issue of who's going to be the judge. And we now have a process, a process which includes all the stakeholders, people who are interested in not only the city's interest, but from our perspective, equity interests, and even the interests of defendants. who are not represented in the selection of a judge. So we now have that process in place, and I think that that's unique. It's something that can be copied elsewhere, and it's something that we ought to be proud of. Let me move to... Next item, which had to do with the ordinance that deals with failure to appear. Now we've had an ordinance which basically criminalizes the failure to appear. That's something that we've asked for quite a while that the city repeal that ordinance. The reason why is that following the reforms from the Missouri Supreme Court, which took some control over what the court can and cannot do, the issuance of bench warrants was to be very tightly controlled with regard to minor traffic charges. Minor traffic charges are defined in statutes. However, the ordinance did not make any exception. And so we met with Chris, and I know Chris and Kevin worked to find a replacement that would comply with those standards from the Missouri Supreme Court. I'm pleased to report that, I think it was a couple of weeks ago, Dave forwarded to me that replacement. I ran it by my subcommittee. We believe it does comply with the Supreme Court standards. It carves out minor traffic violations. It actually tracks the wording at statute word by word. It makes it clear that the discretion of the municipal judge is not impaired at all. And so in our meeting Thursday, our subcommittee will recommend that the ordinance be repealed, but the draft proposed be replaced. I guess it's called a repeal and replace process, which... The way it's done, I'm not familiar with this, but I think Dave knows more about this and Keith knows more about this. But that would be our recommendation. Hopefully we can lay that to bed. I might point out that a municipal court is basically a traffic court. So most of the cases do not rise to the level of seriousness that would require an escalation of failure to appear. It's a very small number of cases that might. In our research, we could not find a single case where the prosecutor had actually issued a misdemeanor charge for failure to appear. Apparently it's never happened. I'm not sure it will happen going forward, but at least we would have our ordinance consistent with the standards from the Supreme Court. Skipping over to police ride along. That's something which every member of the subcommittee has done. I think most of the commission has been involved in a police ride along. I highly recommend that all of you do it. It's really a way of seeing from the ground exactly what's going on in Clayton with the police and stopping and how they have to deal with those issues. In my particular ride-along, which was at night, we had to deal with some of the street people or in-house people that Clayton has to deal with, which leads to the item that right before that, dealing with whether or not we ought to provide social services to the people who need them but are unhoused but live in Clayton, basically. We've met with the deans at Wash U Social Work School, George Warren Brown. Lauren has met with I think two adjacent municipalities. I think Maplewood and Brentwood have a social worker on staff. So we're looking at whether that would make sense for us to do it. That's an issue we're still right now taking a look at. With regard to The traffic stopped up, track stopped data. We have regularly meet with Chief Smith. We have met with him quarterly over the past, at least I think two or three years. I have the data, the traffic data is going back 10 years. We're not gonna keep doing that as we found it. It doesn't make sense to keep going over this. We see the same data year after year and the traffic stopping, as we all know, is a flashpoint for a lot of policing. In the city of Clayton, the data has been pretty consistent. A little over 90% of the stops are people who don't live in Clayton. Of those stops, I think roughly a third, something over 30%, are Black people. predominantly low income, they bleed over into the municipal courts. So we have to be very careful about how we treat people who use, you know, it's clean as a transit municipality, people come and going and the majority of them are stopped. So we have these super careful how we treat those people. And I think we are. Yeah. I think the next one has to do with multilingual signage. Do you want to do that, Chris? Okay. By the way, before I sit down, are there any questions or comments? People want to throw things at me? Thank you.

I would prefer you not throw things at me. So starting with affordable housing, you know, since we have started having credits for that in the PD, what? We have made small, very small gains. But we also took some time to get the data for what affordable housing really means in Clayton. And we shared that with our committee. So for your information, the AMI in Clayton is $100,000. So that means if you're at 80% AMI, which would qualify you for affordable housing, you would be making $80,640 a year. Just the latest data from 2023, the average one-bedroom apartment in Clayton rents for $18.23. I know we all think it's higher than that, but it's because we don't drive around Des Moines enough. An average teacher in Clayton, by the way, makes $81,000 a year. The average police, 82. Firefighters, 103. Point being that... the average of people who work here would not qualify for what they call affordable housing. So I think we do, a beginning teacher in Clayton, according to the data, makes $46,000 a year, so they may. But just to give you a perspective, what we're advocating for and continue to advocate is to have find a word to say it, but to have a broader range of housing so that more people at different income levels can live in Clayton. So that's what we're working on with that. And to that end, as you know, the CEC participates in the strategic plan committee and tirelessly we raised that issue. You can attest to that. We're doing a collaboration with the business community. We sent out a survey to 500 people, and five answered. So I kind of think they're not really into answering our surveys, and we're going to be regrouping and decide what to do with that. The school district, though, great news there. Our Voices for Change essay program has been launched. So the note went out to kids and students. We want to hear from the board how you would like to participate or if you would in judging the essays. Heads up, if you've not ever judged a student essay program, I have. And I can tell you it's a time suck. So don't sign up if you don't really want to read a lot of essays, just to be clear on that. But we would love to have that participation. And the award will be given out on awards night in May. And we do this for two reasons. First of all, to elevate this among the student conversation, but also so that the parent community understands there is an equity commission in Clayton. And so it's a way to get our word out. It's hard to get people to respond. Michelle pointed out that I missed a few things in our annual report, and I want to rectify that. In addition to being a member of the Strategic Plan Steering Committee, we also work with the Mayor's Commemorative Landscape Task Force. Over its time, we've written and worked for getting several signs, important signs placed in Clayton and I personally, and I'm sure all of you share my pride on that. Every time I walk down the street and I read where the former community was and where the school was, former black community and where edX school was, I have a little twinge of pride that we're at least acknowledging our past. And until we speak the truth, nothing's going to change. So we are part of that as well. I've also been working with the mayor on the longest table program, doing some writing for that, helping to frame the mission of that and the understanding of what is the value of coming together with our neighbors. You know, we always say we want to be a more welcoming community. I have an idea about that. Let's be more welcoming. Let's invite people to dinner. When people stop us on the street and ask for directions, let's smile and tell them. It's so funny that the people of Clayton would just be more welcoming. We'd be a more welcoming community. It's so simple. So we meet regularly with, David's with us on this, where we meet with other communities. We meet with Webster Groves and Kirkwood. Hopefully in the next year, we'll enlarge that. to some more surrounding communities. Lauren has met with Richmond Heights and Maplewood about the social services, but we should do that on a more formal basis. You know, the issues we share don't stop at the Clayton sign. Speaking of which, wouldn't it be nice if that was multilingual? Just saying. So that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Very good. yeah excellent report um i might make a couple comments but then we can go around um um when we started this i don't know is it four years four years ago um we really we really thoughtfully toiled through what the ordinance would say, what were the responsibilities, who could we recruit that would really take this to heart and put their teeth into it, so to speak. And I just feel like we're all, I'm sure I speak for everyone, we're so pleased with the outcome It takes a while to build something like this and to build momentum. And I think that's really there now. I also, I know we've done a lot of work. You guys have done a lot of in terms of looking at the internal workings of our city. And that's great. I want to applaud the work that you are now kind of getting more into, which is educating the community and bringing the community along with some of these of these concepts and values that we want to project and so appreciate your help with these other little task forces and whatnot but also just the programs and things that you are reaching out to the business community reaching out to the school district and doing all that i think it's it's really really important and really commendable um so just you know wanted to say so thank you very much for all the work that you were doing and i'll just go around and see if anyone else has comments

Right. I echo all of your thoughts, Mayor. The Equity Commission, when we started it, and it was a concept way back when Mayor came in and having to consider how or what it was, we brought in some. It was an Equity Commission, I believe, from Maplewood. Kirkwood. Kirkwood, okay. There you go. And they described what they did, and it was not quite what you all have done. What they did was basically sit back and wait for somebody to complain. I didn't think that was really a very active way of dealing with how to deal with equity in your community. You all have taken it to a very much higher level than I ever anticipated. And I'm proud to say that the commission is really starting to come together and really starting to see what it needs to do to make Clayton what it needs to be and what it needs to known for more than anything else. So I applaud all of it, all that you've all done. thank you for coming in today and letting us have a peek at the status of your report and uh i'm sorry that uh we had a little laryngitis in the way but uh we got it we got the point so thank you all for all of your incredibly hard and long work

i wanted let me add a couple one thing to my so first of all you reminded me i just want to recognize you should tell because uh before I was mayor, I was on the board and Ben relentlessly came to our meetings and suggested that we do something like this. And we really appreciate your championing the idea and not giving up on it. And so it was great to start it up when we did. And we thank you very much. The other thing is that you have some things in here about unhoused and separately from you. I've been kind of working on that along with Chief Smith. Now you have met with Chief, but I'd like to get together with that group at some point here, whoever's working on that, and just share information because I might have some information that would be helpful. There are things going on around the region about it, and so just to make sure we all know.

Go

ahead.

Yeah, thank you so much for the report. I think it's so helpful. You know, for you to come in and just kind of a summary of what's happened the year. I just I can't thank you enough for all the hard work. I mean, this is obviously a volunteer position and I think it's certainly a testament to our community that we have members that are so knowledgeable and willing to, you know, put in so much time to make Clayton a better place. So I thank you for that. And I also, Chris, you and I have served on the steering committee. So I just want, I want to give you a special thanks. I know that was just more time spent. So, but I'm grateful for your perspective and I want to thank you too, for being a part of that since we only have a couple more months left. So thank you all so much.

Hey, what all do I say? I had the privilege, and I mean privilege, when I first got on this board of being part of the launching of this commission. And even when we were interviewing you all, the professionalism and the dedication and the perspective was just really, really impressive. And then to watch your work truly as a voice, even without laryngitis, And hands and feet, I mean, you all really do it and you process it and you bring it here in a very professional, thorough, dedicated manner. And what an attribute to our city, to this board that the commission has been and will continue to be. And yeah, Ben, thanks so much for persisting and helping us all get this launched and then continue to each one of you. You've really given so much to it. It's not easy. And you've identified issues where Clayton can grow and move forward. And you've put us to the task of making that happen. We all need that. So you really strengthen the city and everybody sitting up here to our awareness and what we've been able to get done.

Thanks. I think we all know that this is one of the hardest working and most, I would say, most effective boards and commissions that we have in the city, and that's because of the people that are on it and the time and effort that they dedicate to it. So thank you for that. I want to highlight a few things from the report. The first I want to highlight is the practice of land acknowledgement and reflections. And I wanna do that for the purpose of my fellow aldermen and the mayor, considering what it would look like for us to do that at our meetings. So before this land was the city of Clayton and before it was owned by Ralph Clayton and given in that way, there were native folks who lived here. And it would be potentially interesting to acknowledge that more regularly. So I would encourage us to think about that. And then the municipal judge shared with us just today some of the results of a review that appear to have significantly reduced a number of bench warrants that we had outstanding. So I thought that was interesting. And then I also just really want to highlight the work that this commission does in collaboration with our neighboring communities, because geographically we are small. And I know I'm like my, I imagine like many of you, I am in many of our neighboring communities every single day. And so, you know, just acknowledging that we really function as a region and the ways that we can work work together, whether it's partnering to support social services or other types of collaboration. I think it's really important for our future. So thank you.

So I've been on the board for two and a half years. And from day one, I was on the equity commission. So it's been a good experience. I used to always come to board meetings and sit on the other side of this room. And frequently when topics were what's not on the agenda, Ben would get up and say, essentially, what we really need is an equity commission. And this goes back a long time. And I heard Ben say this many times. And so I think it is truly to really to Ben's credit that this finally got done. And of course, to the mayor's who helped get this thing started. So, um, the remarkable thing about, I think the commission is not only that the people who are on the voting members are very dedicated, but very successful in getting people to be on subcommittees. Um, and so, um, That's really a plus. In addition, just in terms of leadership, Ben did a great job. I think Chris is now a terrific leader. She has a lot of fervor. She knows she and I don't always agree on things and probably will not in the future as well. But, you know, she is really dedicated to the causes and she's a very articulate and intelligent leader in this organization. So that makes a big difference. So it's been a pleasure serving on it.

I'm the newest member of the board, and I don't have any of the history that the rest of you have in terms of the development of the commission. But it's been enlightening to hear how it was put together. I'm impressed by the outline of the objectives and the responsibilities of the group, but more so just the success that you've had in making a meaningful change. I do have a question. So there's some things I'm confident are just ongoing and like promoted community awareness, but I'm wondering if in as you look to your work going forward. Are there some issues that you have deemed to be of a higher priority than another and if you could, could you share those.

Thank you for asking that. As a matter of fact, at the beginning of every year, we look at what our tasks are. What do we have on our calendar? And we have quite a few initiatives going. We're going to do something with the business community. We're working with the faith community again. But mainly we decided to focus, we decided that in law enforcement, that we had done all of the work of combing through all of the data and background. And that pretty much functions on its own now. And we know the best practices and we'll follow that. So for the next year, what we're going to do is we're going to be focusing on the changes that will be opening up to us as the new strategic plan is adopted. Housing is, you know, our number one concern in this community, especially because as the data came in, as you probably know, Clayton is not what we think it is. You know, 80% of the households here are in multifamily dwellings. Only 20% are in single-family homes. The average home is two bedrooms. The average household size is 2.2 apartments. which is shocking, right? So we have to come to grips to the fact that in municipal government, the loudest voices are typically old people like me. Maybe Ben will come with me on this, but it's older people who have the time and often single family home dwellers, but the people who live here and make the community thrive are different. And so we haven't done a great job of serving them, in our opinion. So a lot of exciting things are going to happen. We now have data. We now have a plan and a vision, or we will shortly. And so we'll be revisiting ordinances and zoning. And we intend to, once that plan is released, to divide ourselves into special subgroups to work on things like housing ordinances. What do we need to change about that? Because a lot of what happens in Clayton that makes it so expensive are some of those rules about materials. right you know there's some communities where i say you have to have a concrete driveway that's a lot more expensive than asphalt things like that so that's our next year is going to be joining with the board um and focusing on how clayton comes out of this as a more warm and encompassing community separately as far as getting the word out and educating the community for a while in the beginning before you were here, I was writing articles and there would be links to them in all the newsletters. And we had, I don't know, Andrea might recall like five people click on them. So I thought I could just call those five people instead of going into trouble of writing these things. Those mediums are just not the right medium. So that's the reason we're doing things like the school project. You know, that's the best way. We could put a little blurb in the Clayton School newsletter, but parents are in a mindset there when they want to know when the games are and what the teachers say. So things like that is how we're working to get the word out. And we're still grappling with how to do that with the business community, quite honestly. Ellen Gales told us that when they do surveys, they get no response as well. People are just busy. It doesn't matter what the topic of the survey is. It's not that they're done with DEI. It's that nobody gets too much mail. They don't care. You probably don't answer all your business mail either. I mean, who does? You'd be up all night. So that's what our plan is to be really involved and to be hopefully your partners as a DEI and lens going forward on that.

Mike's not on, but you know, it's not important that was recorded. You guys heard it. Okay. All right. So we're going to move on with our agenda. You can stay or leave. escape that was your shot yeah um so uh we the next thing here is just the consent agenda um which is the you know minutes and the hazardous moving and the liquor license for the strat bar is that the rooftop bar

yes that's correct

hey

it's not i apologize no it's not

darn

i thought it was sorry

okay

there will be one

there will be one okay yeah so um does anybody have any discussion about any of those items okay would you like to call the roll do we need to follow up i need a motion sorry and we need a second then

i move to approve the consent agenda

second

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

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

Aye.

Aldemann Rick Hummell.

Aldemann Hummel.

Aye.

Mayor Harris. Aye. Thank you. Okay,

now the city manager report.

Yes, we have our finance director Karen Dilber here this evening to go over the fourth quarter financial report. I would just say, you know, we'll go over questions. This is basically the same information that we went through just the other day when we did the fourth quarter financial budget amendment for fiscal year 23. So I'm just going to touch on a couple things real quick, and then we'll see if you have questions and if we need to dive into more detail. Karen's got her laptop with everything in it, and we can go through that. But what you really need to know on the general fund, and I'm just going focus on that on the revenue side, property tax overall, and we talked about this was 3% lower than fiscal year 22. So that came in a little bit below our target. The general fund sales tax revenue was nine and a half percent higher than what we had in fiscal year 22. So we saw a lot of strength there. That increase was really led by hotel receipts, which were up by over $750,000 or 137% if you look back to 2020. And 2021 was even a worse year for hotels. So they've rebounded in a big way where occupancy is back where we'd like to see it. Hotels, retail and restaurants all increased 10% year over year. from 22 to 23. So that's where we saw strength in sales tax, and that's really not surprising. Historically, that's where the strength has been in Clayton overall. As far as the utility tax, that increased by 17.8%. Looks like a big number. And it did go up year over year, but a lot of that was the one-time settlement with Charter that added about $623,000 to that particular account. So while it looks like a huge increase, it's not something we bank on year to year. So if you look at what we project for fiscal year 24, we're not building off of that increase like we do with a lot of other things year over year. And then on the expense side, personnel costs, we saw about a 6% increase from 20 from the end of 22 to the end of 23 which isn't surprising with salaries going up the areas where we struggled with retention. We're really, you know, things like police and fire. We did have some fire turnover for the first time. The issue with that, of course, is you have minimum staffing levels, so you end up paying overtime for people to cover those shifts where you have openings on crews. So, you know, we did see an increase there. Contractual services and commodities, that's where we've really been taking it on the chin the last few years. That continued this year. Contractual services are up 15% commodities were up 16% year over year so we just keep seeing the price of goods and services continue to go up and it's not just households where you're seeing this it's anybody that's making purchases city included. So overall, the sales tax and utility tax revenue led us to a slight surplus in the general fund. So if we just look at the money that's coming in through those revenue streams and then the expenses that are made in the general fund, the surplus is about $400,000. The surplus at the bottom line was about 1.58 million just about $1.6 million and that includes asset sales that were made during the year. So when we sell older equipment in those things that's that's booked there, but then also inter fund transfers so that money that comes over from the capital fund, for instance. to support the general fund. We actually were able to balance without that, but since it went to the general fund stays there, that's why that number is at 1.58 million for the surplus overall. So, you know, real tight with a $400,000 surplus when we're just looking at pure revenue coming into the general fund versus what's being expended. That was going to tip over this year. And as we know, we've turned, waste billing over to residents. So in fiscal year 24, uh, you know, we're going to see a surplus. We projected that all along and, um, I think it's definitely going to play out that way. Uh, the general fund balanced the conclusion of fiscal year 23. And we talked about this with the municipal garage a little bit, uh, was $23.9 million, which is about 79%. So very strong in that area. 50% is where we want to be. 40% is kind of that, um, you know, 35 to 40% is where we start taking some action. 25% is the absolute floor on the general fund. So we've got quite a bit of cushion there, which is a good thing. On the tail end of those projections, we'll see expenses creep up on revenue again and overtake it at some point. So you do have some money down the road, you know, if we need to draw in order to balance things going forward. So All in all, it was a strong year. Those areas where we wanted to see sales tax rebound, we finally got it, which was good. I remember in the middle of pandemic, we were trying to figure out when does this flip back and when do hotels and restaurants start coming back? And 23 was kind of the year we were eyeing and it happened. So it's good to see but That's general fund in a nutshell. The others really follow as far as trends are concerned. The capital fund, for instance, is mostly sales tax driven. So when you see the sales tax increases in the general fund, you're going to see it in the capital fund as well. So overall across the board, it was a strong year for us. Over any questions you might have? And again, Karen's here with the laptop and the details.

Would you say that sales tax rebound in real dollars is back i mean i'm just because i i do feel like um we still have offices that are a lot more empty than before the pandemic people aren't going to lunch a lot of restaurants that used to serve lunch aren't anymore at all um i just you know wondering in real dollars how does that look or do you did you look at that

um When you say real dollars, are

you... Like adjusted for inflation.

Adjusted for inflation. It's inflation that was driving a lot of that. So if you look at the hotel rate, it's much higher than what it was in 2020 and years before that. Um, restaurants change the menus all the time and keep increasing price. Prices have gone up. So I think a lot of that driven by inflation, as far as actual activity, um, you know, occupancy is really strong in the, uh, in the hotels at this point offices, not so much. So that daytime traffic, uh, you know, people going to restaurants during the day that still hasn't completely recovered. And like you said, there's a lot of restaurants that just don't open for lunch at this point. So I think activities down as far as the office driven activity, we're trying to figure out, you know, especially with the comp plan where we were with office occupancy and it's somewhere probably around 65 to 70%. So while everything's leased up only 65 to 70% of individuals are actually coming in. And again, On certain days, it really fluctuates. So for instance, Monday and Friday, if you drive into downtown Clayton, there's not much traffic on the road. Midweek tends to be when people are in the office and we're really seeing the effects of the work from home.

So would inflation affect utility tax very much, or is it mostly just sales? We

have seen rate increases. That actually fluctuates more with weather than anything else. So if you have really hot summers, people are going to run their air conditioners more and make more receipts with that. And we had a hot summer this past one. This winter wasn't as cold as previous winters, so you're probably going to see those utility tax receipts related to natural gas be a little bit lower than what it has been some years.

I just think it's important when we're talking about all this to our public that we take note of the idea that when we say, you know, we have this big increase in sales tax or whatever, that we know that we communicate why. Because otherwise, I think it can be sort of misleading in terms of what's really going on in the community and what people can expect from us in terms of budgeting and things like that. In other words, if you have all this surplus, why aren't you doing this or why aren't you're doing that? And how about paying for my trash again or whatever? So I just think it's important to kind of always recognize that somehow when we do our reporting. Yeah, okay.

You know, I was drawn to the idea of the utilities as well and I was just, my question is that Is there really a way to determine whether or not those offices are actually being occupied and being filled and people are actually going to their offices, more so than a year ago. and i wondered if the utilities sales tax would be a way of determining just whether or not we are moving in that direction you know i i've actually had i find more places open for lunch now than there were a year ago um in the city and that may be anecdotal but i i just it seems like i you know it's like somebody says to me well i just had lunch at so and so they go oh i didn't know they were open you know so there seems to be more of that happening But as far as the offices and people actually occupying and coming in, is there a way to trace that or really determine what's happening with that?

There's technology where you can trace it really through phones. So we use a lot of that placer data, they call it, as we put together those plans. So we can pull information from that and look at this year versus past year and patterns and that sort of thing. So that's where you come up with those estimates about where occupancy might be. How that correlates to utility tax is a little bit trickier. You know, even if you have four people on that floor, if it's the open concept that a lot of these places use now, they're still going to be running the power and the type of, you know. It's really hard to figure out within each building and within each configuration how much energy is being used. Now, I will say we've been talking with sustainability about tracking energy through benchmarking. That's something going forward where I think we're going to have a lot more insight on these bigger buildings as to how they're being utilized.

Well, I can tell you since my bathroom window is a beautiful shot of the office building in Carondelet where Gary used to office. And those lights are on 24-7. They never go off. So I can see where that might be difficult to trace actual participation at the offices by using it but i do know it went down quite a bit though if i recall at the time of the pandemic

oh absolutely right absolutely we had entire floors that were dark and building

right exactly so thanks

No comments other than, Karen, I just want to thank you for the presentation. It was just easy to understand and appreciate all the different graphs. And that's great. Thank you.

My comment also is with utilities. And you talked about the benchmarking and that a lot of this was due to the settlement. And I have to wonder, as we budget forward, If we're looking at benchmarking, if we're looking at sustainability and those shifts in how we act sustainably going forward, that's really – it's an important line item right now in our budget, and I don't know what the long-term projections are on it. This, again, because it has the one-off, it has the big settlement, and it looks like it's really healthy. I don't know, just to think about that. Where is that going? We'll know better when the benchmarking and everything else is giving more data to us. So it's really just a comment. Thanks.

I just have a comment or question for your consideration as we... I mean, it's still early, but it won't be too long until you'll be planning the budget for next year. It's already here. I'm sure you've decided on internally. And so... one of the things that I'd be interested in seeing, cause I think most of the data here goes back to 2020, but not before. And one of the things we're doing in my business is going back like seven, 10 years to look at like a longer term trend line. Cause so like, The company that I work for, we actually had a bump in revenue, like a COVID bubble in revenue. And we've like leveled back down. So looking at that trend line to see, you know, almost like if you just cut out the COVID years, how does it fit together? I'm sure you understand the concept. And I would just appreciate seeing something like that as we move forward, if you would keep that in mind. So thanks. Great,

can do that. On this question about office occupancy just sort of anecdotally when I go to Chamber of Commerce meetings pretty legislative committee it's usually interesting to ask people kind of some of my former colleagues and others like in the law field, you know, to what extent are people coming back and It seems to me it's still probably consistent with the number that David presented. People are definitely coming back more than they used to, but I think Hush, for example, its biggest office of 1,000 attorneys nationwide are those attorneys who don't have an office at all. They all basically operate... either their homes or when they go skiing, they still do their work. But so when you think about that, it still suggests this tremendous difference that we now have in terms of future occupancy. And it is a concern because I hear a lot of people saying that even some of the newer buildings that have leases, there'll come a time where if things don't turn around, where they won't renew those leases. So even though we have buildings in Clayton that are now pretty full, it still, I think, is a concern going forward what that environment's going to look like.

I've got a couple of questions and a comment. So a more specific question on page 19 of the report that talks about the sales tax revenue. So my general question is, are all sales tax revenues essentially equal? And what I mean by that is, for example, the Coney one cent tax looks like it's significantly higher in terms of the uptick than the others. So I'm wondering, is it geographically limited to Clayton for all of these taxes? Or are some of these taxes shared through a Coney pool? So that's one question in terms of where do they come from? And the other question is, is where can they be spent? Are they all general fund or are any of them dedicated sales taxes?

Okay, so I'll take the second one first. The fire fund that you see there, the fire sales tax, that all goes into the general fund but has to be used for fire purposes. Parks and storm water sales tax goes into the capital fund and it's used for parks purposes. And then the capital improvement sales tax also goes to the capital fund. The public safety tax that you see there where it is a larger increase than some of the others That one is collected at the County level and then divided up as far as the County one cent. Do you know which items are, are there items that are exempted in that one as well? You know? Okay. So yeah, it's just a general tax.

Right. Correct. So that's collected by the County throughout the County or only on Clayton businesses.

Yes. Right. That's correct. There's a,

Right, so I'm still unclear though what happens for us. And the reason I'm asking is just the disparity of the growth looks bigger there, like maybe we're sharing in a pool on that one, whereas we might be, we are, that's what I wanted to know. Okay, thank you. So the overall health of the county helps us. That's what I'm trying to get at. Okay, then there is my question here. So on Michelle's comment about the fact that inflation rather than volume might be driving some of our increase in sales tax, I guess perhaps I'm wondering if this is an accurate statement. The fact that property taxes actually declined. There's a variety of reasons I recognize for that, but isn't part of the reason the fact that we have a limit on our ability to increase the tax rate. So the Hancock Amendment element of it. So back to the talking points about the illustration of where our revenues are going. Well, we have a lot more property development. The fact that we and we've all had inflation, we're not able to reap the benefit and you can see it in the graphs on the property tax rather than in the sales tax. So just a point of reference. And then my last one, I'm just wondering. if there's either something we can do or something that we can modify in our ordinance, or maybe there's nothing to be done. But when we have businesses where the buildings, now we see lots of vacancy like the canopy hotel project world news and others, or maybe it isn't a project, but it's a Cantina Laredo and it's just sitting there bacon. Is there anything that we can do to either be proactive to help the businesses or, you know, Maybe saying it differently, is there anything in our ordinances that would somehow restrict them from having like a temporary business in there? Like on Brentwood, we know where they were going to develop the site across from the Galleria. You saw a number of temporary business, seasonal businesses. Is there anything in our

That's something we could certainly accommodate. We haven't had much interest in that in the past, and a lot of that's just due to that, again, the crisis. You know, the landlord has to be willing to take a little bit lower rent in order to get that type of use in. You know, space being utilized, you're making some revenue off of it. But unfortunately, they're looking for full-rate long-term tenants in most of those vacant spaces. But it isn't something that our ordinance would prohibit. That's

all I want to make sure. If I get why a landlord would do what they would do, I just want to make sure we aren't doing something that gets in the way. It's

more than anything on the regulatory side.

Very good. Any other comments or questions? great report i too i'm a graph person so i do really appreciate all those so thanks um all right so i think that's the end of our real agenda so we can do a round table and we'll just start with our senior alderman mr berkowitz um what have you been up to if you'd like or not

I love it.

We're checking our calendar to see what did we do in the last two weeks. Yeah,

there you go. There was a Parks and Rec Commission meeting that was back on March the 4th, actually. I guess it was last week. Let's see. There was an update on the Remembrance Park construction, which is that they are proceeding with footings. um the the uh apparently they had done some excavating and they found some kind of lines that they couldn't identify and they apparently they still can't identify but at the same time they are looking to see whose lines they are but they're proceeding with the construction nevertheless Let's see, Tony went over, she went over some of the funded capital projects for 2024. One of them, of course, is the roof replacement, which number one, which we've talked about here. The tennis center lighting, HVAC replacement at the Shore Park pool. Shore Park fields one and two for reseeding and grading in the Shore Park lighting. The capital projects that are being recommended for the next several years would be replacing flooring on the first floor of the pool in the locker room area, which people have complained about. Oak Knoll Park lighting upgrades, fields three and four, reef side and grading. And then the projects which they consider to be also recommended but not funded. The Hanley House outdoor building repairs, fire suppression system at the Hanley House, Anderson Park shade, Shaw Park ball field shade, Oak Knoll windows. So those were items talked about. the there was an item that was considered acquisition which i thought was interesting the um about i guess about five or six years ago there was a discussion about the fact that we need to make some more acquisitions of land in order to provide more part more park space within the city um and they've decided to put that entirely on a back burner for now um so That's about it. That was the meeting.

Thank you. Very thorough. We had a plan commission meeting that was pretty short. There's going to be a new home on Forsyth, almost to the U-City border. And there was unfortunately, and I say this because I think the entire plan commission hated doing it, but a gentleman who was nicer than nice came in. He lives in Clayshire and he built a parking pad in his front yard that he didn't um ask there was no permit um and it really it really it comes very close to his neighbors so we unfortunately told him that we he's got a he's going to end up probably having to rip it out. So it was really unfortunate, but there was really no way around it. But you could tell the entire commission was feeling terrible about it. But yeah, so that was the biggest part of our meeting. We also had a big steering committee meeting. The consultants kind of reached out. There's going to be They've kind of identified 11 different kind of planning districts in the city. So that was kind of interesting to hear about. Yeah. I'm pretty sure the presentations online if anybody wants to see it something I just wanted to mention I met I reached out to Eric grunfelder he's the parks and REC. head of parks and REC for Brentwood because I was seeing all these great partnerships, we have with Brentwood and unfortunately unfortunately our clayton high school hockey team is driving all the way to Kirkwood for practice. which I hate for our kids so he was very nice he met with us and just, it was really interesting because yes we talked about hockey ice and I think they're going to accommodate us starting next year which will be great at Brentwood. Probably once before school and then once after school so it was. Great from that sense but it was also just really interesting hearing from him about, you know, just revenues and Brentwood and, you know, locking up contracts and talking to other ice rinks it was just it was kind of refreshing to hear about other another municipality that of course has to worry all about revenue and expenses as well but Eric was great so it was, it was a really great meeting. Um, so yeah, so that was really nice. They're definitely really worried about the grocery, um, the grocery issue in Jefferson city. Um, so, but yeah, I want to thank Eric for that. It was, it was a great meeting. Um, Gary and I had a ward three coffee where I, I think that there were like what 18, 20 people there. It was crazy how busy it was, but the highlight Deb Grossman came from sustainability and kind of gave a update on what they're doing um which was great it really generated a nice discussion um so i want to thank her for that and um uh yeah so i think i think that's about it

a lot

thank you yeah i'll pick up quickly on what bridget just said about deb grossman from sustainability going to the ward coffee that's been a discussion how to make people more aware and get attention, very similar to what the Equity Commission was saying too. And so maybe that is something to think about with our award coffees, maybe one time a year or something, including important issues going on like that and making sure that the community is aware and involved. And it also gets more people to volunteer and contribute their expertise. So that's a good thing. Ira, great report on Parks and Rec. Thank you. And I don't have anything else.

Okay.

Becky.

Thanks um I think the main news and word one is looking forward to all of the meetings that will be happening at the end of March so we've got the plan for. The update on some planning for the wash you and concordia overlays so. anticipating that work. Other than that, I've done a lot in the last couple weeks at the History Museum that I thought I would share. So the Missouri History Museum has a ton of like tours, walking tours and bus tours. So I did one that was like influential women in our city. And then a program that I went to there that I had a friend speaking on the panel that was about Black history and disability rights and what that looks like. So I think it's always good to be reminded to think about how to, like, not just accommodate but be truly, like, welcoming of folks with different abilities and disabilities. Yeah.

That's something that in the past we've done. I mean, I'm not saying we're not doing it well. We're doing it well, but we've won some awards in years past for the things we've done. Our equity commission has focused on some other things, but it wouldn't be bad to remind them about that because that is definitely, I mean, really right now, the lingo is more deia not just dei so

yeah that's what the history museum is doing is using that um language so yeah thanks

um just to echo what bridget said we did have you know very uh a very busy board three uh I think what's neat about our Ward 3 meetings is that although we always do have some regulars, like at the last one, I think we had three people who we had never seen before, all of whom have moved to Clayton from other large cities in the last few years. And just interesting meetings.

people that have followed their adult children because they've settled here and I feel like want to be close to their grandkids.

So all people with interesting perspectives, we don't need to get into it now, but discussion about tax incentives and should we consider tax incentives for some things? And some of these people were talking about their experience in other cities, how it was used to generate certain things that the cities really wanted. So In any event, more than anything else, I thought, boy, these are great people for future commissions because they care a lot. They have some national perspective. And so anyway, it was a great session. The Missouri Growth Association on Thursday is having a program with three speakers, all of whom are dealing with sort of the future of lending in Missouri. over the next year or so, so people from conventional lending and others. So it should be an interesting program. I guess, as we all know, that's a big issue for us now is that we're really impacted by lending limitations and a lot of developers are finding it hard to move forward. And so we have all of our projects approved and then nothing happens. So I'm interested to see what their sense of the future is. And then finally, I probably would have said at the last meeting, but it wasn't here, a month ago, David, Dr. David Berlin passed away, and for those who don't know his name, he did tune in a couple of our meetings, and he is someone, he was a lifetime psychiatrist in the Clayton area, lived in Polo for a long time, as I think his health declined, moved to a condo, but I would always, in the last couple years since I've been on the board, see him walking in Polo, and he would always different projects. And we don't have that many people who seem to be constantly interested about things we do. But the great thing for me about David is that although sometimes he questioned what we did, he was generally very positive. And I know none of us serve on the board to be thanked, but he was one of those rare people who would say, hey, I'm glad you're doing it because I wouldn't want to and I appreciate what you're doing. And so just a quick tribute to David, he will, I think will be greatly missed in a lot of ways.

I still have some of my notes from the fact that we didn't have a roundtable at our last meeting. So I'm going to give voice to a few of those things very quickly. So one, just we had a CWC meeting, Bridget and I were on that. And so just the gist that I got out of that is that lots of active marketing and promotion has been going on. Membership is rising and going up. There's changes in technology and apps and branding, and so lots of positive energy there. So good things to look forward to there. And then this was just sort of a fun thing. At least I thought it was fun. Maybe Becky didn't, but Becky and I met with one of our neighbors, Jan Raglin, and we got a tour of the High Point de Mon neighborhood and its historical significance.

You mean Jan Anglin? Yeah, Jan Anglin. Okay, I just thought maybe it was a new person on the horizon. I didn't know.

Sorry, I brought it

came came along with all the knowledge. If you would like

yet we do need that we need to see that we did pledge that we'd like to look at it so but anyway that the National Register aspect of the neighborhood the significance of Henry right then who's the namesake of one of the parks and and fact that Forest Ridge and Brentwater Park are also similarly recognized. We also, Gary and I had the CCF annual meeting. So they're going to be back in a more active role with regard to their fundraising, doing salons in a variety of neighborhoods throughout the community. And another one of their big issues that's pertinent to our ward is is art on Wydown. So we've got the Botero, did I say that right? On one end. And so now the question is, is what to do on the other. So there seems to be general support to do something. The dilemma, of course, is that it costs a lot of money. And so now, the thought is, at least the suggestion is, is perhaps we could rent something in the same way or borrow it in the same way that we borrow Botero for a long term thing rather than try to raise $400,000 or more to create art many of you were all at the awards dinner for the chamber it's great to see our businesses recognized and so that was a great event I know that we've got the comprehensive plan I know there's another steering committee meeting and then we've got that event as well as our overlay thing at the end of March so lots of things going on Ira is likely successor. Jeff Jeffery Yorg is on our call today. So I had a nice meeting with him and looking forward to him joining the board. So those are my highlights.

yet we do need that we need to see that we did pledge that we'd like to look at it so but anyway that the National Register aspect of the neighborhood the significance of Henry right then who's the namesake of one of the parks and and fact that Forest Ridge and Brentwater Park are also similarly recognized. We also, Gary and I had the CCF annual meeting. So they're going to be back in a more active role with regard to their fundraising, doing salons in a variety of neighborhoods throughout the community. And another one of their big issues that's pertinent to our ward is is art on Wydown. So we've got the Botero, did I say that right? On one end. And so now the question is, is what to do on the other. So there seems to be general support to do something. The dilemma, of course, is that it costs a lot of money. And so now, the thought is, at least the suggestion is, is perhaps we could rent something in the same way or borrow it in the same way that we borrow Botero for a long term thing rather than try to raise $400,000 or more to create art many of you were all at the awards dinner for the chamber it's great to see our businesses recognized and so that was a great event I know that we've got the comprehensive plan I know there's another steering committee meeting and then we've got that event as well as our overlay thing at the end of March so lots of things going on Ira is likely successor. Jeff York is on our call today. So I had a nice meeting with him and looking forward to him joining the board. So those are my highlights.

Very good. Yeah, well, I don't really have a lot to report. I can report that you all did the fire department tour last in February, right? And that was great. I heard. Yeah. yeah good um that's always more one of the more fun ones um but then uh this this this coming week i guess it's tomorrow we have the parks department tour and so um we're coming close to the end of the school year and so we'll be looking forward to the groups have been going to various um commission meetings along with our regular meetings and tours and so We'll be looking forward to kind of hearing about the ideas that y'all have developed as the year has gone by. That'll be fun. I do not have a whole lot to report, so I'm going to end my thing there. Yes,

Susan. I had one more thing that conversation over here made me think about. We traveled to California, and while we were out there in the Los Angeles area, the conversation around our table came up and they were talking about, I think it was a New Jeffery Yorg Times discussion. Well, you know what it was. We were in a neighborhood where there were a lot of small little boutiques, and it was how in the world do they make it? And the conversation went to a lot of times the businesses around here are the ones who subsidize the boutiques because they want to set an atmosphere for the neighborhood, and that's how it's done. It went to a New Jeffery Yorg Times article, which was very much when I pulled it up on gentrification. and how that's exactly it, how the businesses are the ones who are making those investments. And it made me think about when we talk about the city subsidizing these smaller businesses or when we put requirements on a development to have something in there, there's a lot of benefits to those business owners as well. And just realizing that on a national level, this is something that is going on. Not that we're looking for gentrification, which is a lot of it, but that it does it is something that is not just a city's responsibility in creating an atmosphere for a neighborhood

Susan. I had one more thing that conversation over here made me think about. We traveled to California, and while we were out there in the Los Angeles area, the conversation around our table came up and they were talking about, I think it was a New York Times discussion. Well, you know what it was. We were in a neighborhood where there were a lot of small little boutiques, and it was how in the world do they make it? And the conversation went to a lot of times the businesses around here are the ones who subsidize the boutiques because they want to set an atmosphere for the neighborhood, and that's how it's done. It went to a New York Times article, which was very much when I pulled it up on gentrification. and how that's exactly it, how the businesses are the ones who are making those investments. And it made me think about when we talk about the city subsidizing these smaller businesses or when we put requirements on a development to have something in there, there's a lot of benefits to those business owners as well. And just realizing that on a national level, this is something that is going on. Not that we're looking for gentrification, which is a lot of it, but that it does it is something that is not just a city's responsibility in creating an atmosphere for a neighborhood

very good i want to add to that the um it's it's been known to me for a while that the loop which is of course a business area and has you know an incredible amount of retail for the area The way that that has grown, especially going east of Skinker, has been Joe Edwards would bring in his tenants for the restaurants and he would charge no dollars at all for rent. So he would bring people in and subsidize them just so that they would open their businesses in those areas that were blighted before that. We obviously don't have blight, but I do think we have a problem with know businesses not being able to afford uh retail not being able to forward the rents and and still provide some profit for them we have to look at that um you know we as we as we talked about at one of the master plan meetings downtown is is now a neighborhood we are building residences more so than anything else And we are going to probably continue to do that, since offices are not going to be something that anybody wants to develop at this point or and maybe you know who knows for how long. So we're looking at residences in the downtown a lot of people coming in to live in our downtown. So we, we need to look at how we can make those communities in the downtown livable communities as well, so i'm sure there'll be recommendations about that I hope from our experts, but some to look at for us.

Any other comments or thoughts anything from you, Sir,

I would just point out one thing we found real quick in the financial report over here talking to Kevin and. He had pointed out as well that the fourth quarter sales is what's listed here on page 19. So when we see the discrepancy between the county one cent and the others, we probably had someone that paid late in 2022 and paid on time in 2023. If you have some folks that do that or the money's distributed late, it misses that quarter because if you look at over three years it's smooth and every sales tax line that the city has had gone up 30%. If you look at just that one quarter year-over-year isolated, that's where we're seeing the difference of 14%, which means you probably had, we probably had somebody that wasn't timely the prior year.

I get the concept. I don't understand somebody paid late. What does that mean? Does this mean a municipality, a business?

Either a business paid late to the state or the state was late distributing it to the city where we would actually book the revenue.

But if this is largely pooled funds, it strikes me that it's probably a whole bunch of people as opposed to a person or a business, isn't it?

This is all of the sales tax that's collected citywide. But all those individual receipts come in and then they're packaged and sent to the city. And if you have a late payer in that stack, then it.

I get it, but the magnitude of any one payer making that swing seems unlikely. It would be

multiple.

That's my point.

That big of a swing. But anyhow, I just wanted to let you know that's probably the situation here because when you look at it over multiple quarters or multiple years, it's a smooth amount and everything lines up. So it was just something going on in the fourth quarter of 2022 with a few payers that skewed that number.

I knew that could affect property tax, but I didn't realize it could affect sales tax. So that's a good point. Yeah. Yeah.

And Michelle, I think it was Bridget had brought it up in her conversation with Eric. Is there anything new to report on the Municipal League and the food sales tax issue?

Nothing new. I think that basically it's just, it's, it's kind of sitting there right now and I don't, we don't know if it's going to really have much action. The

lobbyist did send something to our Senate to us last week. Basically there are six bills that were filed. All of them have been second read. None of them have been sent to committee. So at this point they've had a second reading on the house side, but they're not getting any kind of traction. So, um, Usually when you're this late and it hasn't been to a committee yet, that's a pretty good sign that it's not going to go anywhere. We're not going to celebrate until it's all over, and we're tracking it, but there's no movement at this point.

The scary part is that at the very end of the session, they can always throw it onto another bill, and then it can get through. That's the thing that is worrisome. So the lobby is for the Muni League and the city manager's organization and whoever else. um metro mayors everybody's up there lobbying against it and you know we can just hope everyone's so busy one-upping each other on various campaign uh what do i call it you know items that you know offerings or you know ideas that will get votes it's it's just a lot's not moving forward exactly but a lot of things keep popping up that that are worrisome that's what it is yeah Okay, any other thoughts, comments? Okay, great. We could have a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.

Second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? All right. Thank you guys.