August 13, 2024 — Meeting Transcript

Maybe that's next.

She is. She's

in town. So she's late.

I don't know that she'll be here. Is

she sick, you

say?

Oh, so I didn't know

that.

Got it. I guess we could go ahead and start then. That's where I'm at. started it didn't say recording progress it did and i didn't hear it okay wow it's usually blasting okay well welcome to our our meeting of august 13th and um we're gonna just start with our discussion session and i think alderman Gary Feder has requested that we take a look at some of our our requirements on boards of commissions and i'll just give one little piece of history which is 2007 or so or eight probably andrea maddox dallas and i did the same thing remember and that's when you created your original chart because okay i'm sorry i was off a few years but anyway we kind of went at it um but it's a good idea to dig into it every few years and see if things are as we want them so thanks for bringing it up

Got it. I guess we could go ahead and start then. That's where I'm at. started it didn't say recording progress it did and i didn't hear it okay wow it's usually blasting okay well welcome to our our meeting of august 13th and um we're gonna just start with our discussion session and i think alderman fader has requested that we take a look at some of our our requirements on boards of commissions and i'll just give one little piece of history which is 2007 or so or eight probably andrea maddox dallas and i did the same thing remember and that's when you created your original chart because okay i'm sorry i was off a few years but anyway we kind of went at it um but it's a good idea to dig into it every few years and see if things are as we want them so thanks for bringing it up

I brought it up because I personally found it confusing on a couple of issues that relate to the commissions. I looked at our website and there's actually a section that deals with plans and commissions, which is somewhat helpful. but not terribly helpful. And so I think the mayor alluded to the fact there may have been a document similar to the one that June recently prepared and distributed, but I think this is... extremely helpful and and we're certainly clarified a lot of things for me um that the issues that i was particularly interested in that i found confusing in the past was to determine among our various commissions and boards which of those have term limits and which don't and also which are ward uh specific that is we have some commissions where it says you basically have to have representation from each one of the three wards and there are others where it doesn't say that and so i just thought it would be helpful to um and this chart really does spell it out um But my thoughts that I just wanted to bring to the commission, to the board, to see if we can get further for clarification. I might say there were a couple of small issues that I also noted. One was the actual terms of office that people have on the commission. The only one that I thought was sort of an oddball As you'll see, the Board of Adjustment, the term is five years, which I thought, well, that seems kind of ridiculous. Who would want to join if it was five years, even though you could quit early? But I think when I talked to David today, it is a matter of state law. So it is what it is. So I moved off of that one on the question of. being divided between the various wards. It seems to me, in theory, since we have three wards, if you have a group, it would be nice always to have two people from each ward. The question is, is it a requirement or is it just discretionary? And from what I saw in terms of this having to have two people That's a requirement of the Community Equity Commission, the Economic Development Commission and Sustainability. I'm not entirely sure why it's important for those three to actually have the split between the three wards, but I think it's fine if that's the way it works out. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I did question if that's the case. Why is Parks and Rec not similarly distributed that way? We do have parks, obviously, in each one of the three wards. So if we're going to do it for those three, I just raised the question, why not from Parks and Rec? And then on the plan commission ARB, there's also no requirement. I guess my thought on that is that's probably not one worth pushing that point because it seems to me it's hard enough to find qualified people to serve on the plan commission, ARB and if you sort of limit yourself to having two people from each ward. You've got to have an architect among other things. I mean, the requirements are much higher. So I'm not sure how hard I would push that, although there is certainly argument that if you want to have more of a representative sort of government at that level, it would be nice to have two people from each ward. But again, and that, by the way, might some of these things may take charter amendments or. And so that may be a little more challenging. So anyway, that was my thought on that issue. On term limits, I kind of feel like if the Board of Aldermen has term limits, which we do, and that seems to work reasonably well, and we have term limits on some committees, economic development, public art, and sustainability, we have term limits. I'm not entirely sure why we do, but if we do, which is fine, then why not on the Community Equity Commission? And why not on parks and rec? So those are really my questions. It seems to me maybe it doesn't need to be answered tonight, but it seems to me there ought to be some logic to why we have either this kind of split between the wards or the term limits and that we ought to try to make our ordinances where we can more specific on that. And then the final comment I had, which and then I'll shut up, is it was a little bit different. And that's the issue, which I did talk to David about today, about the fact that on the plan commission that our city manager is a voting member of the plan commission. When We just conked out. So when I was on the Charter Review Committee a few years ago, which was mostly based looking, Kevin was there, mostly focused on the referendum that was the big issue at the time and should we change the charter? but an issue that came up at the time, and we did discuss with Craig as well, is whether if we were going to have a charter amendment anyway to deal with that issue, should we do something to make the city manager, of course, attend meetings because he's a very valuable part of that discussion at plan and plan commission and ARB. But then it's awkward to have the city manager being a voting member. It's preceded by a staff report, which the city manager is generally a part of. Then the city manager comes to the meeting and it's not just a resource, but he's a voting member. That means we have one less member of the community who can be a voting member. So I think there are a number of reasons that if we are going to consider a charter amendment, we should consider trying to do what I think most communities do. I guess Kevin can speak to that. He's familiar with many of them is a generally, I think the city manager is not a voting member of the park commission of the, of the plan commission ARB. And there's really no great rationale for why that's the case in Clayton, other than it's been that way for many decades. So yeah, Anyway, those are all my issues. But anyway, I thought again this chart was extremely helpful. It's helpful actually maybe in some ways to try to convey this to the community. Part of the reason again that I would like to see more term limits on some of the committees is to get more people involved. And particularly if there's a certain air of certainty, because you know when someone's term is going to be up a year hence, then you can start looking for people to join. So anyway, those are my issues that I hope we could resolve, not necessarily tonight, but look at a little bit further to try to get more consistency in how we deal with these various boards. That's it for me. Thank you.

Well, maybe what we can do is just go around and take some comments, first of all, and then see where we land.

Well, I mean, it's my understanding. And obviously, I guess, you know, the city manager is required to sit on the planning commission. Right. So it would take, as you mentioned.

It would take a charter amendment.

Yeah. So and I think that's a difficult I mean, obviously, it's a whole separate. topic to amend the charter. I think it's, if we were to mention the charter, I think that would be one of the things I'd probably advocate for because I think it puts our city manager in a sticky position at times. However, I mean, I think it's important, you know, that we certainly that we look at this. I'm not sure. I'm not it's somewhat unclear to me like, you know, some have term limits. I know it's It's not always clear why some have term limits and some don't. I kind of wonder that. I don't know if that's, is that on here? Oh, term duration, right.

Well, term limits is on here too. It's the second thing from the bottom. Oh, second thing from the top. So there's only three things that have term limits in those three things. I just, I don't know. Sustainability is one thing, but the PAC and EDA... but why they would have term limits, I'm not too sure.

Right. So it's kind of unclear. Yeah. I mean, like I don't, when, you know, other than the ones that are set by charter, you know, the ones that we've decided, I mean, I remember the, our CEC just cause that's, we just established that not too long ago. So that's kind of an easy one to remember. Yeah. But, you know, I don't know, thinking about term limits. I mean, I think it's good. I think it's that we have term limits just or even like a term because it helps us sort of, you know, enables us to check in with citizens to just see if they still want to be involved. And I think I think it also allows us, you know, if they're they seem somewhat disinterested and They don't come to meetings a lot. It's a way for us to kind of suggest, you know, that, you know, perhaps thank you so much for your service. So, you know, I'm kind of curious if there's, I'm not sure what ways we can improve this. But, you know, it's good to look at it.

Susan, do you have some comments on any of this?

I do. And I did hear the conversation. I just had logged into audience versus panel. So thanks, June, for getting me over. The main one that I think resonates is the conflict of the city manager being on the planning commission because that was something that came up when I first got on the board. And that was just being held until we do go out for a charter amendment. I don't know where we are on that. the different issues so we get to that point. Maybe we should review that at some meeting about what in the charter we would change if we got to that point so that we know better when we get to the point of going out to the community on that. Term limits, what Bridget said and what Gary said makes sense. If we have them, that's great. It is a chance for us to reach out and it is a chance for more people to get involved, but it can also be Susan Peterson, advantageous to keep somebody who's a really strong Member on a committee so. Susan Peterson, I could I could go either way on that the main the main part of the main part of this that struck me again was the city manager position, the position that he is put in. Susan Peterson, The way the Charter is written.

Okay. Yeah, thank you. Okay, Becky.

Yeah, I do. I actually, I appreciate the opportunity to try to look at this like somewhat holistically and think about like what it means to have boards and commissions and what are our goals with them and are we setting ourselves up for success in that. And I think I actually have kind of a different perspective in terms of the ward requirement. I think it is really valuable for us to be conscious of the ward affiliation of the folks that are on these boards and commissions, and I think it can be really limiting to have it be a requirement. And I am actually really open to thinking about changing that way, particularly in areas where we're looking for people either with a certain type of expertise or like lived experience to contribute to us. And that might be harder to find at any given time someone who is qualified and willing and able to serve because these are all, as we all know, fully volunteer positions. Um, I'm also kind of like, uh, you know, the, I think pointing out that the plan commission ARB actually doesn't require that ward distribution. However, when I nominated someone from a different ward earlier this year, I was kind of rebuked in that because they weren't in the ward of the person coming off. And so, um, I'm trying to think about how to feel about that is kind of annoying. So I think there's value in actually evaluating folks for their ability to contribute, to the board or commission based on its current composition. I also think like there are very distinct differences between the wards in Clayton. I would not suggest that there isn't. And it's a relatively small community. So I think it's not, I don't think it's to a huge detriment if we only have one person from each ward and then some other ward that's represented with three people because that's where we can get the best person who can contribute their time and talent to serving the city. So I would actually be open to revisiting that restriction that I think can be holding us back in a couple cases, in terms of bringing qualified people interested in service onto our boards. I mean, I know people right now I would nominate for boards and we're not doing it because of that restriction. And we are either have like vacancies or people who've served for a long time and are interested in rolling off. So that's my feedback there. I'm also really interested in considering doing a charter review and understanding more about what that entails. I know it's a big deal. But I think certainly the municipal judge, we talked about it as potentially an area we might wanna change when we talked about that topic a year or two ago. We've talked about it with plan commission and I have no doubt that there are a number of archaic things in that document that we might benefit from reviewing and updating. So my two cents.

Good, thank you. You've had your two cents. How about you, Rick? Thank you.

I think it's great that we're talking about this. I think Gary has raised some really good questions and comments as he's gone through all of this. My suggestion overall is that, well, first, I find this helpful. That said, I still have some questions which I'll ask about. They're simple questions, I'm sure. But what I'd like to see us do is actually spend a few minutes on this and actually assess The necessity of each of these commissions, I'm sure they are or they're required. But that said, you know, are they composed the way that we want them composed or comprised? Are they executing in the direction we want them to in light of the master plan and the livable conditions? Community plan, is there anything we might do differently or we might try to give them a new charge? There might not be any changes, but I think it's important to at least assess sort of overall with each one of these, the strengths and weaknesses of what our experiences have been. And then I think it'll help answer questions like should we have ward specific seats? Should we have different terms or staggered terms or whatever they might be. Um, so that would be what I'd like to see as I spend some time that said, um, I find it interesting that there's apparently a few positions where the board of aldermen are supposed to appoint the chair and some, they aren't, and I don't know what odd seat rotates means. Um, so I find that interesting. Um, so those are my thoughts.

Yeah. So, um, kind of aligns with what Becky was saying. I think the arbitrary two per ward, I think makes it hard in some cases to find the right person and or there may be the right person in the ward that the two aldermen may not know. But I understand that there's a part of you don't want everybody on the committee all from ward one because each of the wards are so different and each neighborhood in the ward is so different. So- I wonder if there's somewhere in the middle where we could be more of, you're not tied down to the ward, but there is some sort of max where like you can't have more than a majority of the board from any particular ward. So it still gives a little bit of the balance, but yet it's not so have to have two, have to have two have to kind of whatever the numbers are. And I think it does a couple of things. It allows it, I think, a bit easier to solve the, I need an architect or I need a finance person on the committees. But it also then eliminates or reduces part of my concern on the term limits pieces. I like the idea of term limits for the same reasons that have already been talked about. My concern though is finding enough people that actually want to do the roles when other people get term limited off. But I'd be less concerned about that if we have more flexibility in who we can put on the roles. So, and then with the charter review, I don't know the last time the city did a full-fledged charter review, but I think to what other people have said, I think there's...

It was roughly five years ago, but it was limited to primarily issues relating to referendum initiative petitions and recalls, and specifically because referendums was a very hot issue whenever that was five or six years ago. That's pretty much all that charter review commission looked at, although the issue of the city manager serving on the plan commission was raised and I think was actually in the report. But those were the only issues. Part of the scope was not to go beyond those issues. at that time. And then when it was submitted, it was held at the time at the Board of Aldermen because it was in the midst of the Better Together movement. And so it basically got tabled to a future date, which is probably still a few years hence. Well, and part of the reason why I ask

is I don't. You should read though. I mean, if people are interested, the report was very well done. I remember, you know, so I encourage you to read it. Yeah. I mean the commission, it was a great group of people that did it. So I encourage you to the report because it was, I mean, it just ultimately some of the suggestions by the committee related to referendums was kind of antagonist to like, you know, It was kind of making, I just would suggest you read the report. And then we can maybe have a conversation as to why we didn't want to pursue it.

Okay. And all I was going with that is I don't, you know, I think it's good every so often to sit down and look at all your bylaws or all your whatever. So if we haven't done like a full fledged search, and again, I didn't quite know the length and involvement it takes to get that done. But I think if we're going to be thinking about these and we've got the planning commission piece and you've got the municipal judge piece, like there may be some argument within the next couple of years to do just a full fledged like soup to nuts review the whole thing. And not just focus just on the referendum piece or just focus on this. So that was my only other comment. I was instead of piecemealing along the way, like at some point, just a holistic review probably would make some sense.

I think that's a good idea. I think, just to comment on a few of the comments, I do think it would be a worthy cause to go way up and take a look at our boards and commissions and what their ordinance, what they say they're supposed to be tasked with, and look at that in comparison to our comprehensive plan outcomes and our livable community outcomes and see if We're covering everything that we need to cover. I'll just give a wacky example. Do we need somebody to just concentrate, a group to concentrate on mobility? You know, cars, bikes, walking, whatever else. Do we need that? Or do we need to repurpose the Sustainability Commission to have that as a real strong bullet point under their charge? So I think that would be great. I think it would be a pretty big undertaking. It would be like a couple of Friday sessions or something, but I think it'd be worth doing once we get our livable communities planned in place. and we move past some of the urgent issues that are coming out of those plans. That's my take on that. I think, you know, it would be great to, and maybe what we need at that time or at some point is a sort of a subset of us as a little task force to really dig into this and make some recommendations to the board because I do think, you know that's what happened before and it helped but I think we could go at it again because I just feel the need for more consistency. So it'd be better to me to be consistent in how we treat all the volunteers. You know, if we're not going to have term limits, we have terms. That's great. I think that's pretty consistent unless it's ordained by some other external body of three years. Perfect. But are we going to limit people to three, three-year terms or whatever it is? And then I would love to see consistency across the board there. maybe the rule will be, no, we're not gonna limit it because we do have some boards like the plan commission where consistency or longevity can be good because you have that institutional memory of what you approved five years ago that might be relevant now. So there are those kinds of things to discuss. And I agree that the ward practice is, can be limiting. I think that, you know, and I'm speaking just kind of based on historical experience that I've had, the wards are very important. And especially on the plan commission, there can be projects in a ward. So, um, a tear down in ward two, and I know that everybody cares about the whole city, but nobody cares about ward two, like ward two. alderman or ward two plan commission members. And so, because they're there, they have to answer to those constituents. And so they're by human nature, there's going to be more intently focused and trying to get it right. So I think there is that need, but like we've always done that I know about with, with the plan commission, it's been, it isn't stated as a requirement, but it's been our practice to try to get to per ward. If we can't, well then we go outside the wards. But we try until the last minute to find someone from that ward if there's a hole there. So that's kind of my perspective on that and that's why we do it that way. So what are the other things that I would say? We We do, let's see, we do have, we do on CEC, do we have term limits? No. Do

not.

I was thinking that we did, so that's irrelevant. But, you know, and maybe it doesn't have to be consistent all the way across the board. Maybe, you know, we have some commissions where we think term limits are important because we may have a plethora of people in the community who really want to serve on that commission, I think. Sustainability and CEC are two of those where we have a lot of people in our community that are interested in this. So we may want to have the ability to say, hey, you've had three terms. Rules are you're off and we're going to bring somebody new. That makes it easier for us. So I think from my perspective right now, to change anything right now, I'm not like hell-bent on it. but if any of you are, I think speak up. If you wanna look at changing something immediately or waiting until we really take a broad scale look at all of these boards and their functions and whether we need them all or whether we need more or we need to change the functions or what. So does anybody have something that they just really want changed right away? Oh, okay, okay.

Michelle, can I add something? Yes,

and then Kathleen, I'll get to you. Sorry. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead, Susan.

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense to look at these more individually. And this exercise has been really, really helpful just seeing it laid out on this sheet. So thank you. Because there is a lot of value to broad ward representation. And sometimes it pushes us to dig a little deeper in a ward to find somebody. So whether we do that by... It depends on the committee or commission as we go along. So that makes a lot of sense. The other part is that it does tie into, especially when you mentioned the plan commission or something, it does again tie into the charter. So the charter review would be tied to that as well. And if we do that, both those things would probably be timely. It hasn't been done for a long time. So I hope we can pursue those and Friday sessions would be a good time to do that.

So it looks like what we have is at some point, and I don't know if it would be like this coming spring or someplace when we've gotten set our priorities on some of the zoning priorities that are coming out of our plans. And we've got some of that laid out. We know what we're doing and we have the time available to work through some of this. Then we would set up, you know, some of that. Oh, thank you. And Kathleen, please speak. Sorry about that. Sorry about making you wait.

Oh, thank you, Mayor. This is Kathleen Gund. I live at 329 North Beamiston Avenue. And regarding something that I think Gary said about planning ARB has to be someone out of like the development community or an architect or a designer. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that is a requirement of the charter. But that has become a norm. Um, so one of my, I, something, whether or not I agree with that norm, um, some of these things could be done before there's a charter review by sort of developing norms as far as like, well, it's not written in the law, but this is the way Clayton does it. So I just wanted to kind of put that out there. But what I would like to see done very like immediately would be when a term is coming up, you know, John Smith is on some commission or, committee and um the term is over at the end of june um in march or april there's something that goes out in the clayton connect or in other kinds of things that say um there is a potential opening for this commission if you are interested please apply that doesn't necessarily mean that john smith is not doing a really good idea but i think that in the past or historically it's been um the alderman and the mayor kind of going and trying to find people. And I think that it should be more of a systematic approach. Hey, all these people are rolling off commissions. If anyone else is interested, then please put an application in. And I don't see that that has been done in the past. And I think I think that's a system that we should put in place so that people are aware that these commissions are out there and that they are welcome. And I think that that has not been felt in the past. Thank you.

Kathleen, I mean, I think that's a really good point. And I think that was definitely the case when I first started. I think it was like word of mouth. And like you said, if there was an opening on Parks and Rec and we needed a Ward 3 person, then oftentimes it was... you know, something where I'm like, oh, that person's always at the center or that person's always using the parks, you know, that he or she would be great. But I do think, I mean, just in terms of so you understand, I guess, the process, I guess, that Gary and I use, you know, we June will send out the spreadsheet, which will show, you know, what expirations of terms there are. And then Gary and I kind of mutually reach out to those people and say, hey, thank you for your service. Please let us know if you want to continue, you know, if they're able to. I mean, sustainability has a, you know, you can only serve three three-year terms. And then if they respond and they, you know, we've kind of heard that they're interested and they go to meetings, then if they responded and said, yeah, I really enjoy it, I want to stay on, then we usually recommend for reappointment. We usually give June... I don't know, I think by May or something. You know, once we've heard from everybody whether or not they want to stay on, let's say Gary and I have like two openings on different committees. We say, hey, June, these people want to be reappointed. They've done a good job. They keep going to meetings. They're excited. But we have two openings and these are the two openings that that we see from ward three members. So and then we have been posting them in Clayton Connect, it'll go out and say, hey, you know, there's openings in these different committees. I mean, that's so I do agree with you that I think that was the case four or five, six years ago. But I think in the last couple of years, we've really tried to make it clear to the public where there are openings on and on what committees. So

June, why don't you chime in just for a second. Where do you do all the

postings? Our marketing person would post them on... We posted last year in CityViews. We posted on our webpage. We posted in the weekly e-blast page. And I think that's it. And it was a word of mouth.

And yeah,

all the aldermen tried to spread the word.

Yeah. So I think we've kind of addressed your issue on that one, Kathleen.

So I would just like to say that picking up on your comments, Mayor, I would prefer that we try to make this a priority before the spring, something more like the fall. And I like the idea of a subset of people working on this to consider it, to bring proposals forward, to have a meaningful discussion about it and go back and forth. I think we received a lot of good suggestions or topics that we should consider tonight. Another one that occurred to me would be, do we want to have any other ad hoc committees, something that's a temporary need. And as an example that comes to mind, we've talked about, or at least I have, but I think others have, about like a finance committee of citizens to talk about it so they understand things. And so there may be a variety of ideas and it may be a short-lived committee and that's fine. But I think having that, considering the overall strategies and goals of what we're trying to put in place, have it in context and establishing the norms, looking at doing it the way we want to do it. Just don't want us to wait because the term for next spring, we should have had that all figured out already. So I think doing it sooner rather than later would be best.

Well, I think you just volunteered to be on that. I'm happy to do that. And I don't know if anybody else wants to. Maybe we should have two different wards represented. So, yeah, anybody that wants to work on this is welcome, too. So I think we're going to leave it to you to set up your time frame then, but let us know. And then what we'll do is I still do believe we have a lot of important stuff to focus on as a board and as a staff first. But you guys can be working, and then when you're ready, we can take a look. Maybe that'll work out just great. Yeah. Okay. Can I

follow up one thing? On Kathleen's question, we were talking about the postings, but do we actually spell out what board seats are opening? So it's not just a generic, hey, we need board seats? Okay.

Correct. We'll list what's available.

Okay.

Very good. I mean, I think that's just in keeping with our general kind of push to be more communicative about openings for the judge, the prosecutor, and all the boards and commissions, et cetera. I mean, we've just made a push for the last few years about trying to really make that more accessible, that information. Okay, great. It is a little after seven, so we should start our regular meeting. Will the city clerk call the roll?

Alderman McAndrew. Here. Alderman Buse.

Here.

Alderwoman Patel. Here. Aldeman Gary Feder.

Alderwoman Patel. Here. Aldeman Fader.

Here.

Aldermen Rick Hummell.

Aldermen Hummel.

Here.

Aldemann Jeffery Yorg.

Aldemann York.

Here.

Mayor Harris. City Manager David Gipson.

Mayor Harris. City Manager Gibson.

Here.

City Attorney O'Keefe. Here. Thank you.

Okay. It's time for public requests and petitions. Anybody who's here or online with a question or comment for us about something not on our agenda tonight, now's your chance. Seeing none, we can move on to our first public hearing, our only public hearing for the night on Bland Drive. So I will open the public hearing and request proof of publication.

Thank you. This is a public hearing and subsequent resolution to consider granting a conditional use permit to Don Cotva, owner of 7451 Bland Drive to allow for a 1,195 square foot accessory dwelling unit. The property has its owning designation of R2, single family dwelling district. The plan commission and architectural review board considered the applications and associated architectural and site plans for the project on August 5th, 2024. and recommended approval of the CUP and approved the architectural and site plans. An accessory dwelling unit or ADU is a type of accessory structure either attached or detached, which provides complete independent living facilities for one or more persons located on the same site as a principal residence. This particular ADU will be contained within an attached building addition. ADUs are permitted subject to the approval of a conditional use permit per the city's zoning regulations. The plan commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of the CUP with two conditions. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen conduct a public hearing and consider approving the resolution granting a conditional use permit for 1,195 square foot attached ADU for 7451 Bland Drive. Is the applicant here? Yes.

Okay, I don't know if we have questions for you, but I just wanted to check. So we'll open the discussion. Are there any comments or questions from the audience? I see none. Any comments or questions from The Board will go around in order of seniority? No. Susan, anything?

No. And the applicant had also reached out with an email ahead of time to several of us just stating that This does seem to very much meet the requirements of what we have for an ad you with family members and things like that, so I have no other comments

okay. All the woman. So I guess I actually have a question about that because the. Report. From. The city manager here on the agenda says that in an R2, the maximum square footage is 1,000, and this is requested at 1,195 square feet. So what am I

missing? I was going to mention that, but I was like, oh, I wonder if somebody, and I knew one of you would have caught it. They went to the Board of Adjustment and asked for an increase, which was approved. Okay. so they are allowed to build a larger accessory accessory dwelling strip unit that matches um what's in the r1 i mean it's just it is the point is they were granted the variance i guess to build a larger unit

um just to make sure i remember like what board does what and what that means um the board of adjustment operates outside of our authority and process right and typically requires that there's a hardship demonstrated in order to approve a waiver some unique situation we know what that

is um you wanna would you like to come forward please and state your name and your address and then you can hopefully answer that question Oh, is your microphone green, lit up green? Okay.

Okay, should I say that again? Okay, sorry about that. My name is Dee Joyner, and I am the mother of Dawn Cotville, who is the applicant in this case, and she is out of town on a business trip and was hoping to be able to Zoom in, but her flight got delayed, so I am here representing. And my address is currently 6340 Clayton Road.

Are you the mother? I

am the mother who is planning to move in.

Do you know about why the Board of Adjustment granted the variance?

Well, I believe there were sort of two reasons why. One of them had to do with the configuration of the unit on the particular site because it's kind of an odd thing. if you looked at the site plan. And we wanted a little bit extra space that I could use for some exercise equipment and office that would not take away from the opportunity to have two bedrooms, so if I ever need a live-in caregiver, we've got the option to do that. So that's basically my remembrance of why they approved the variance.

Thank you. I appreciate you being here to answer questions.

Happy

to be here. Yes, I don't have any other questions. Thanks. Alderman Gary Feder.

to be here. Yes, I don't have any other questions. Thanks. Alderman Fader.

I have no questions, no

comments. Just a curiosity question. It seemed to me that we approved, maybe it was a plant subdivision or something else on Bland. Is it the same lot? And what is it that we approved

before? Consolidation.

So this was put the two lots together.

This addition to the structure actually goes over that former lot line. Okay. Consolidated into one lot, making it larger.

Yep.

That's all. Thanks.

I'm assuming this is the case when it goes through the planning commission. I assume it'll look just like the other house or is, or I couldn't tell from the plans, whether it's going to look similar or different.

Yeah, it was, I mean, it went through architectural review. Yeah. So it was, it's brick. It looks very nice. It's similar to the other. I mean, it's, it will look like a new structure, but yes, I mean, they have similar features.

Cause it looks like it goes right up to the lot, right up to the setback line. So it was. And I

don't know if you've been over there. I mean, It's kind of an unusual lot. So

I looked at it from zoom and I hadn't actually driven by it. So, okay. That was all I had.

All right. Okay, great. Thank you. All right, D, you can resume your sit. Thank you very much. All right. So I will now, without further discussion, I'll close the public hearing.

Alderman McAndrew. I move to approve a conditional use permit for 7451 Bland Drive to allow for an accessory dwelling unit.

Second.

Any discussion? All right.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. There you go. Thank you very much. You are welcome. All right. Next on our agenda is approval of the consent agenda. Does anyone want to discuss anything that's in there? Appointments or minutes or whatever? All right.

Alderman McAndrew. I will move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

I'm sorry, it's a roll call. It's a roll call? Alderwoman McAndrew? Aye. Alderwoman Buse? Aye. Aldermen Gary Feder?

I'm sorry, it's a roll call. It's a roll call? Alderwoman McAndrew? Aye. Alderwoman Buse? Aye. Aldermen Fader?

Aye.

Alderman Rick Hummell?

Alderman Hummel?

Aye.

Aldeman Jeffery Yorg? Aye. Mayor

Aldeman York? Aye. Mayor

Harris? Aye. Thank you. All right. Now it's time for the city manager report. The first thing is the condominium plat for Oxford Drive.

Yes, this is an ordinance approving a condominium plat at 7527 Oxford Drive. The subject property comprises one multifamily structure with six units. The applicant wishes to convert the building to a condominium and submitted a condominium flat bylaws and declaration. Staff are of the opinion that the requested plat is in compliance with applicable codes, ordinances, and standards of the city code related to condominiums and condominium building conversions. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve with two conditions. First, the applicant shall provide a mylar for the appropriate city signatures after Board of Aldermens approval. And second, that the applicant shall file the plat with the St. Louis County Recorder of Deeds Office and submit proof of filing to the city within 45 days of Board of Alderments approval.

Okay, very good. I will open the discussion and ask if the applicant is here. You might as well come forward. I'm sure that someone will have a question and you could make sure the mic is on green and introduce yourself in your dress.

Larry Lipsitz, and I'm the owner of the building on 7527 Oxford.

Larry, I'm glad to finally meet you in person. I've seen many, many emails coming through with your name on it. So thanks for being here. All right. Does anybody have any questions for Mr. Lipsitz about this?

I was just going to ask you, I'm curious what makes you decide to have a building become a condominium versus...

That was our intention originally back in 06 when we did it. But then the market came to a halt in 08. So we just kept them as rentals. And now the market's... improve. Plus, you can get traditional loans on them. So it's the time to do it. So we already did everything back in 08. So it was really just redoing again what we had before the bylaws, the indentures and the plot. Yes.

The only question I had was, I was curious what the rents are now versus what you're going to list them at. Just trying to keep in mind the whole affordable housing question that we have around Clayton. So if you can give me a feel for that. Well, the

rents are 3,500 now. They're what, sorry? 3,500 now and to make it like somewhat attractive, we get to be 4,000 plus. and it's just not possible. The rents are so high. So, um, we put a lot of money in the building back in 08 planning to sell them as condos. Okay. Yeah. So it took us a while to get back up to that, to, to that level. Okay. The Clayton rental markets, I have two other buildings on Parkdale. So the rental market's pretty good, you know, in Clayton. Um, lot of new apartments, but you know, but you really hit a wall when you go over $3,000. It's at least in the Morelands. Okay. You know, for and for small guys like us where we don't have the big pool. So yeah, so we're gonna sell those office condos and I still have the two buildings on Parkdale. There's an 18 family and a 24 family and those are just perfect.

Larry actually runs to my dad. Sorry. Oh, is that right? Who is that? Patrick Kenny.

All right. That's right. He

loves the building.

Yes, he's a great guy. And

can I ask, I think you asked this, but I'm not sure it came out. The purchase, like the price per unit, what's the rate?

There'll be 600 a unit. And we have actually 500 into each unit, and that was 15 years ago. So if you're looking for investment advice, don't come to me.

I was one of those who bought a condo right as the market was tanking, and it took me years to ever get it back. So I can appreciate it in a very small way.

Any other comments?

I am just curious, are there any transition issues from renters to owners? Is there anybody that's going to be displaced, or do you have a plan, or do you any concerns about that?

So we have two units ready to go now, and then we have another one, a renter coming up next year, and then the rest of the following year. So in the bylaws, they cannot renew the lease. So they'll stay there until their lease is up. And it'll be interesting to see if anyone want to buy their unit. But if not, then the building will not have any renters. It'll be all condos.

Thank

you.

Are you giving them the option to purchase like a right of first?

We'd love them for, you know, we'll find out tomorrow when I announced it, when the for sale sign goes up, hopefully. But yeah.

Thanks. And Larry, I just have one comment, which is really thanks for investing in our community. The building looks really nice and I look forward to seeing this be a success.

Thank you. Are you Susan?

I'm Susan. Okay. That's right.

Okay, very good. Thank you so much.

I have one question. So when it says the condition was to get a mylar, that's something I just worked through my attorney. I mean, I'm not familiar with that.

Actually, the engineer or whoever prepared your plat will be able to print that. That refers to the material that is printed on so that it can be recorded. Okay. Perfect.

Very good.

All right. Alderman McAndrew. I will introduce bill number 7034, approving a condominium plan for 7527 Oxford Drive to be read for the first time by title only.

Second.

Any further discussion?

All right, Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7034, first reading. An ordinance providing for the approval of a plan for the Oxford Place condominiums. A condominium located at 7527 Oxford Drive in the city of Clayton, Missouri.

All

those in favor?

Aye.

The opposed? All right. I'll move that the board gives unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7034 on the day of its introduction.

Second.

Let the minutes reflect the board has given unanimous consent. We didn't vote, though, first. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? I knew it would pass. Sorry,

guys. I'll introduce bill number 7034, approving a condominium plan for 7527 Oxford Drive to be read for the second time by title only.

Second.

Any discussion?

Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7034, second reading in consideration for adoption. An ordinance providing for the approval of a plat for the Oxford Place condominiums, a condominium located at 7527 Oxford Drive in the city of Clayton, Missouri. Madam Mayor, I believe the applicant has a question.

I was just, I had seen that now. Yes.

Well, the realtor needs a letter or something approved from Clayton to put it on the MLS. Will that just be on your website or how do I?

So with this particular ordinance, we can give you a certified copy of the ordinance that the city clerk can seal showing that the Board of Aldermen has approved it. I think, though, the most important item is going to be bringing that mylar in so you can get signatures on that. You're going to have to get that recorded at the county because the units won't be legally established until that document has been recorded. So where that happens relative to MLS, I couldn't tell you. I'm not familiar with that portion of it. But you do need to complete that entire process to legally split that building into those individual units. So I would advise you as quickly as you can to get that MILR in here so that we can review it and sign it. And then as soon as the mayor signs the ordinance, the city clerk can arrange to get you a certified copy. Okay. Next couple of days or something.

Thank you.

Okay, great. Yes. Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Alderwoman Buse.

Aye.

Alderman Patel. Aye. Aldermen Gary Feder.

Alderman Patel. Aye. Aldermen Fader.

Aye.

Aldeman Rick Hummell.

Aldeman Hummel.

Aye.

Aldemann Jeffery Yorg.

Aldemann York.

Aye.

Mayor Harris. Aye. Thank you.

Okay, next. The long-awaited fire department agreement.

Yes, so this is an extension. This is an intergovernmental agreement between the cities of Brentwood, Clayton, Maplewood and Richmond Heights to continue collaborative fire department training that began in 2017. The agreement includes the training chief responsibilities, member city criteria and program cost sharing between member cities. The cities of Brentwood and Richmond Heights have approved the agreement, and the IGA will be considered for approval at the next city council meeting in the city of Maplewood. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve the attached ordinance authorizing the city manager to renew the revised intergovernmental agreement with the cities of Brentwood, Maplewood, and Richmond Heights to continue the current multi-agency fire training program.

Great. I will open the discussion. Any comments or questions from the audience? No.

Any

discussion up here?

David, I was just, I wasn't, I guess, so this isn't necessarily an agreement where we, you know, because we share fire trucks and stuff. So this isn't that. This is just related to fire training. And this is not related to our fire training program. what we're building. That is

correct. So the fire training center is set up as a separate commission. However, the member cities of that commission are also the member cities in this fire training cooperative. This is separate from mutual aid completely. And so we do respond to calls in each other's cities on a regular basis. And that's why we established this in the first place. We spend so much time in neighboring communities and they spend so much time here. The city started important enough in 2017 to establish... joint training so that everybody's speaking the same language. They know where all the equipment is on all of the trucks that could be responding to anything that pops up. So it's an arrangement that's worked really, really well. One of our battalion chiefs has been detached for years as the training chief. He'll continue in that particular role, but it's served the four communities really, really well, and our response time has been really greatly enhanced. If you look at our numbers through this training cooperative, it's really impressive if you look at the before and after performance-wise.

So the joint training, so before we would go together with these agencies to train the external training facility. Would we train together at those external facilities then?

Not as much as it is now. Now it is all tightly coordinated. So if you go to any sort of training that's going on. You'll see trucks from every community. There are firefighters from each one of these communities, again, working together as a group because in real-life situations, that's what happens on a regular basis. Before that, it was kind of haphazard, and everybody had within their own departments a captain or somebody that was assigned to training within their departments, but the training priorities were different within each department, and this has coordinated all of that.

Thank you.

I'll introduce bill number 7035, approving an intergovernmental agreement with the cities of Brentwood, Maplewood and Richmond Heights for fire department training services to be read for the first time by title only.

Second.

Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7035, first reading, an ordinance authorizing an intergovernmental agreement between the cities of Brentwood, Clayton, Maplewood, and Richmond Heights for fire department training services.

All

those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? I'll move that the board give us consent to consideration adoption of bill number 7035 on the day of its introduction.

Second.

All those in Opposed? Let the minutes reflect. The board has given unanimous consent. I'll introduce bill number 7035, approving an intergovernmental agreement with the cities of Brentwood, Maplewood, and Richmond Heights for fire department training services to be read for the second time by title only. Sorry. Any discussion?

Okay. Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7035, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance authorizing an intergovernmental agreement between the cities of Brentwood, Clayton, Maplewood, and Richmond Heights for fire department training services.

Alderman McAndrew? Aye. Alderman Buse?

Aye.

Alderwoman Patel? Aye. Aldermen Gary Feder?

Alderwoman Patel? Aye. Aldermen Fader?

Aye.

Aldeman Rick Hummell?

Aldeman Hummel?

Aye.

Aldemann Jeffery Yorg? Aye.

Aldemann York? Aye.

Mayor Harris? Aye. Thank you. all right the professional design services for the municipal garage

yes this is an exciting one for us on may 15 2024 an rfq was issued for professional design services related to the clayton municipal garage renovation project 14 proposals were received and evaluated based on team structure relevant experience project approach client references proximity experience in sustainable design and minority and women-owned business participation After a thorough review and interview process, H Design Group LLC was selected due to their strong qualifications and relevant experience. The city's owner representative Navigate Building Solutions managed the selection process to ensure alignment with the city's project goals and budget. Services provided by each design group team under this contract include confirmation of the condition and needs assessment, site design, architectural design, structural design, equipment design, interior design, MEP design, which is mechanical electric plumbing and low voltage, cost estimation and construction phase services. The fee negotiated by Navigate and the city for this contract is $903,850. The Capital Improvement Fund has sufficient funding allocated for this portion of the project. Design is planned to take place over the next 11 to 12 months, with construction bidding planned immediately following in June-July of 2025. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve the ordinance authorizing the contract with H Design Group LLC in the amount of $903,850 plus a 5% contingency of $45,192 for the Clayton Municipal Garage renovation project. And I would just say that a couple of things. First of all, 14 proposals is a really big number, way more than we thought we would get. So the response to this project was, again, much greater than we anticipated. And we felt like we got some really good firms that we had a choice or we got to choose from. So I wanted to point that out. As far as the cost is concerned, this is under what we had put into our program budget. So we were encouraged to see that. We know as... John Potter, With every construction project we have we're going to need that money along the way, so there were some savings on the design side which was really excellent to see and then finally. John Potter, And while we note in here that the capital improvement fund can can fund this portion of the project we've allocated those funds. John Potter, I did just want to remind the board of aldermen that when we go out and borrow for this particular project. that money is basically reimbursable through the bond proceeds. So as far as that debt issuance is concerned, we're going to have a conversation with the financial advisors and figure out our timing for this. We had talked about doing something in the fall looks like that was probably a good strategy because we are anticipating some sort of rate cut what that might look like in the municipal bond market not quite sure yet but we are going to talk to them a little bit about scheduling so more to come on that particular item but i did want you to know that anything spent on design is going to be reimbursable once those those bonds have been issued so with that we can answer any questions we have matt malik our director of public works here and joe switzer from navigate building solutions who's been our owner's rep as well to answer any questions you might have

I'll go around. Go ahead. I think the big question I have is, I just want to, and I know we have Navigate here to help us. You know, we tried to design an ice rink that became a, you know, we ended up getting a design that was way, way over budget. So I'm just, you know, and I know Navigate's here to help us, I just want is going to design for us that it will you know come under what we bond out for so i mean that's and again i just want to make sure that that's clear and then

understood and we've made that clear and that's that's our expectation as well so we'll make sure that that happens through the process and you know if prices get inflated uh for for some particular reason that we're gonna have to take a look at uh you know potential cuts on the project or other things to make it happen but I think we all realize that the budget that's been laid out in those financial parameters, that those are hard numbers.

Okay. Susan, comments, questions? Becky, comments, questions.

Yeah, I was thinking back to the multipurpose facility project and curious about what, if anything, you can share about how this compares to that because what I remember about that was it was kind of like a new format or structure for the city and working with this, you know, organization that would be like acting on our behalf and managing it all. I'm not sure if, you know, can you talk a little bit about that? Do you know what I'm

asking? I think it was

different. It was a different

arrangement than what we have here. So Navigate Building Solutions, the owner's representative, what we had was a construction management contract for the other project. And in that particular project, the construction management contract allowed them to pick a general contractor and do other things. It's a totally different role. And for this particular project, we thought it more appropriate to go the owner's rep route. And I can just tell you through the advertising process, being able to get $14 and then go through this interview process and then negotiate an amount that's below what we had programmed into the budget, I feel like it's paying off. It's feeling good. We're off to a good start.

Yeah, that's great. And I just want to be clear that this contract with Age Design Group is from... Like now until post-construction. That's correct. The whole project. And, you know, I know we mentioned like experience in sustainable design as an aspect of the project. RFQ and evaluation. And so I, it makes me think about like what the process is going to look like for the design and how the specific details are going to be worked out in terms of like, you know, trying to get solar panels or what other features might be. Can you talk about like who will be representing, like who from the city and or like the sustainability commission or anyone else parks and rec would be involved in the process?

I think that will be later in the process but we will have those particular conversations. I know sustainability is already asked about what might be going into this building And some of the things that we talked about when we did the needs analysis were the fact that we wanted this to at least be ready for solar panels, whether or not we put those on. So looking at the roof structure to make sure it could potentially handle that. Another thing we talked about was how we build the electrical infrastructure, knowing that at some point there'll be some electrification of our of our fleet. So those are all things that we're thinking about going into this project. We do have sustainability standards that we're going to need to meet targets. So we'll have those conversations as this moves along. The first phase of this, though, is going to be going back and confirming that everything we had in that needs assessment is still valid. and things that we want to put into this hard design. So we're going to start there, and I think there's probably opportunity towards the end of that confirmation process just to check in and say, hey, this is where we're at with these particular items and keep those particular groups updated.

Great. Thank you.

No questions. Thank you. Can you share with us what the range on the dollar bids were and where this, the winning bid or proposal fits within that range? So

on a design contract like this, you actually do a request for qualifications rather than a request for proposals. The difference is they don't submit actual costs. Everything has to be based on the qualifications of the firm as far as the selection is concerned. And that's set out in Missouri state law. Anytime you procure an architect or an engineer for a project, you have to base your decision on qualifications. So that's the difference between a request for qualifications, which this was, and a request for proposals. Once you've selected the firm that has the best qualifications for your particular project, then you negotiate a price for their particular services. So we had a number built into our budget. We wanted to make sure that we hit that number or came in underneath it, use that as kind of the basis of our negotiations. And again, we're successful in coming in within that range with what we felt was the best firm that responded to our request. Great. Thank you.

One is just a language question and one is a More subsequent. It's written here as Clayton Municipal Garage Renovation Project, but it's a teardown rebuild, correct? It's not really a renovation? It is not. It is a

renovation, and then there's a secondary structure that would be placed on the site. So there will be some components of this that may have to be demoed, but we're going to work through a phasing plan where parts of the building are still operational as this goes on. So we're not leveling the whole building. We're going to utilize a large portion of it, but we do have to build a secondary building for some of our fleet functions, fleet storage at least.

And then with Becky's question related to going through the construction, if for some reason the project gets delayed or let's say the financial markets take a right turn and we decide to delay this a year or two, what does that do as it relates to the contract? Is there an extra cost we take on? Is there a termination fee? Like how do

There's a termination clause within the contract. We would be responsible for paying for any work that was performed up until that termination date. Okay. That was all

I had. One question that I have is, as we go through this design process, what will be, will there be opportunities for board updates?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So we'll go through the needs assessment. I don't know that we'll come back after the confirmation of the needs assessment. But once we get further along in that design, there will be some decision points for the board. I'm sure there are going to be particular items or features that are going to pop up that are going to have varying expenses and we'll be checking in for feedback at times.

Okay, great and then I just wanted to say one thing about the commons estimate um so you guys talked each talked about the the. Multi use multi year round multi you Center. And then you're talking about two different versions of it, I think, because Becky's talking about the historical version, which was that design build contract that our former director of parks arranged. And then you talked about the more recent design that you talked about the commons that came in way over budget. We didn't really have a budget for it. So I just want to clarify that the recent design, the most recent one of the year round center Was based on a starting number of 15 million, which was the historical number or 1415 and then to go out and get a new design whatever five years later. And post coven costs going up it was. That became a new budget so there wasn't really something that we. didn't meet or we didn't have anything to compare to because the numbers were so old and because there had been such a change in materials and labor after COVID. So I just wanted to clarify that. We did not have a budget.

When I was more talking about, we had a design firm that we engaged that's in Brentwood. I can't remember the name of it.

And so we had a designer for the, we had two things. We had a construction manager for the overall project.

The older one?

Yes, yes. We're talking about the original. You're

talking about the architectural fees that we're still paying off. That materialized, like created a building that we couldn't afford to build. That's what I don't want to happen.

Yeah, so we... That's what

I'm talking about. I'm talking about the

old... We've had lots of versions of that facility. So I was staking no claims on anything. I just wanted to understand how this arranged.

No, I just want to make sure that the design firm creates a building that we...

We have a budget for this. I know,

and I don't want to go... I don't want it to become... I don't

I'm a little defensive. I admit it. Okay. So if there are no further questions or discussion, Alderwoman McAndrew.

I'll introduce bill number 7036, approving a contract with H Design Group LLC for the Clayton Municipal Garage Project to be read for the first time by title only. Second.

Discussion. city attorney

bill number 7036 first reading an ordinance approving a contract with h design group llc for professional design services related to the clayton municipal garage renovation project

okay all those in favor

aye

opposed

i'll move that the board gives unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7036 on the day of its introduction second

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

I'll introduce bill number 7036, approving a contract with each design group LLC for the Clayton Municipal Garage project to be read for the second time by title only.

Second.

Okay. Any discussion?

City

attorney.

Bill number 7036, second reading and consideration for adoption. an ordinance approving a contract with H Design Group LLC for professional design services related to the Clayton Municipal Garage renovation project.

Alderman McAndrew? Aye. Alderman Buse?

Aye.

Alderwoman Patel? Aye. Aldermen Gary Feder?

Alderwoman Patel? Aye. Aldermen Fader?

Aye.

Aldeman Rick Hummell?

Aldeman Hummel?

Aye.

Aldemann Jeffery Yorg?

Aldemann York?

Aye.

Harris? Aye. Thank you. Okay, that concludes our main business. And we can do a round table if, if we're, if we're game. So I could start with Alderwoman McAndrew and what you've been up to. Um,

I look and see in my notes. That's okay. Um, because I feel like we haven't been around here for a little bit. Oh, you've been out of town. So that's understandable. Um, we, I have had, there've been, um, a couple of plan commission meetings, um, most recently um trying to remember um i mean obviously there was a they've been some pretty long planned commission meetings at least the most recent one um just as a update in case anybody knows obviously there was a home that's being um or proposed to be demolished and then um unbeamest in and uh two The lot was subdivided into buildings where to be built. The architectural or ARB plan commission this past Monday voted to approve the site plan, but ultimately continued the architectural aspect of it. Um, I think there were some concerns from a big part of the commission. It wasn't unanimous that it was still, um, a fairly modern building. Um, so that was, um, you know, perhaps the design team will come back to us. So, um, but that's the big update from the plan commission. So, um. We also had a finance, a CRSW finance meeting, um, The bottom line is I think the deficit for the center looks not fantastic in the next budget year, not necessarily because the center's not doing well. There's some big capital projects that have to be done, something related to the roof. It's called a flat roof coating. That's $253,000. And a few different projects that, That add to that, I think we're also trying to implement the marketing plan, which will cost us in the short run, but perhaps will be really great for the center long-term. So we have a, that was just the CRSWC finance meeting. So the full CRSWC meeting is on Friday. So we'll have more discussions about that. And then ultimately, as everybody knows, the budget will come to us. Not sure if the date's been set to the joint board of education and joint B of A meeting. So- But that's all I have.

Anything from your end?

There is a Parks and Rec meeting, and we welcome Jim Craig as the new chair. He did a great job. The issues there, we talked a little bit about dark skies in two of our parks, and then we had a report in the pools with the lifeguards. They're beginning to disappear back to school, whatever they do in the fall. So I think that the director's report said they were half-staffed at this point. Then the Oak Knoll waterproofing is continuing, apparently to the thrill of the preschoolers there who love to watch all the trucks and the digging. And talked some about Remembrance Park. It's finally moving forward. I think the board heard this last time as well, that the living wall is up. And we did miss out on a couple of municipal park grants because these are still outstanding projects. but hopefully it will continue to move forward quickly. And I don't know what the, I don't remember when the projected final date is for that, but I think it's coming up soon. So that's all I've got. And I missed the uniform, the IRF meeting. So I'll leave that to Gary to report on.

Good. Thank you, Becky.

Yeah, thanks. I missed a couple meetings because I was in Alaska. So I did watch the recordings and caught up on all the things that you all discussed and shared. So I appreciate that we do that. And there was a St. Louis Art Fair kickoff party, which was a nice event. I always exciting to get ready for the art fair um rick and i were able to get some updates on the process for the overlay proposals so looking forward to that moving forward i know i am um Really pleased with all the work that the staff put into incorporating resident concerns into those draft documents and I am cautiously optimistic that residents will see that responsiveness and appreciate it. So that we can move forward on that project and. And I'm going to take a stab at talking about some of what we did at the non-uniformed employee retirement fund meeting, knowing that Rick will add or correct any misstatements I make. But I'm going to do that. We had an experience study, which is like a really detailed review of our pension, looking at like our assumptions and expectations and what actually happened. And that leads to some recommendations that can like change some of the factors that go into how we manage the fund or assumptions we make around it. So we reviewed those recommendations and adopted the recommendations that were made in this study. And then we also had some discussion around changing the interest rate assumption. A couple of years ago, we changed the interest rate assumption on the uniform pension from seven to 6.75. And it's still been at seven. on the non-uniform pension um and we decided to keep it there for now too so i'll find out in a minute how i did

yeah okay alderman Gary Feder

yeah okay alderman fader

uh on monday morning uh i attended the pension board meeting for the uniformed staff and the mayor was had tuned in uh And they gave their reports as our investment advisors as of June 30th, which were extremely positive. And even though we've gotten into August and there's been a big swing, the response is still that we are doing very well, stay the course. And so it was all good. There was a brief discussion to the extent that some of our investments are real estate oriented. There was some discussion about the continued uncertainty in the real estate development market, particularly related to interest rates. and to the capacity for various projects, apartments, housing, other kinds of projects. But mostly it was sort of uncertainty. There is expected to be some action by the Fed in September, but that is not likely to have a big impact necessarily on the real estate industry. But anyway, that seemed to be going well. As was mentioned, we had the Art Fair event. A number of us were present at the kickoff and I think that went very well. I think that's it, except there was one item that I mentioned to David today and he thought maybe this would be an appropriate time to mention it. There was an accident that I know the chief is aware of on Maryland a few weeks ago involving a cyclist and someone who got out of a car and then basically walked to get onto the sidewalk but didn't look to the right or the left and ran right into someone who was on a cycle who fell off the bike, had fairly significant injury, I think. Mostly what I wanted to mention is that in seeing some email about that, David mentioned that one possibility to consider again was something that was considered when the lanes were originally put in, and that was the idea of painting the lanes green, that strip right there. Yes,

yes.

Pardon me.

a big fan of that.

Yeah, so as my understanding, I wasn't on the board at the time, that while that was considered and it was done in some other places, the concern was if for some reason this turns out not to be a long-range project, once we implement it, the grain will be extremely hard to get off so that it was kind of viewed as something kind of let's, let's see how it goes. Well, it seems to me now that the lanes are not going anywhere and, um, that safety is paramount. And to the extent that painting those lanes green might be a positive, at least I thought it was something that the board ought to kick around maybe with staff and see now that we're a few years into it, um, whether that's really something we ought to do. I will say anecdotally, Robin and I went to Five Star and I was talking to her in the car about this happening, this accident, and damned if I didn't get out of the car. And I for sure did not look both ways because I never looked both ways because I'm just getting from the car, you know, getting onto the curb. And it made me think how if people actually saw this lane was green, it would emphasize that that's why it's there. I can't say it would have prevented this particular accident, but I don't see a downside at this point other than if for some reason we get rid of them, which we're not likely to. But other than that, if it helps safety situations, I would certainly think we ought to consider it at this point, even if we didn't when they were first implemented. So just wanted to put that out there for whenever the discussion is appropriate, just thought it was worth talking about.

Right. And so thanks for bringing that up. I think I've been kind of waiting for the livable communities plan to be complete, to get a real definitive, you know, yay, nay, whatever else on that bike lane. And so when we finally, when we get that, when we get there, that will be really helpful to give us, you know, a firm foundation for whatever our decisions are, painting it green or whatever else.

Yeah.

Rick go on.

Great, thank you. I also attended the art fair kickoff and I want to recognize Gary for doing a wonderful job stepping in for you, Mayor, with his welcoming comments. So he did a nice job with that. And I share Becky's observations regarding the Ward 1 overlay meeting and where we're going forward and certainly look forward to if we've received any feedback from Washington University yet. on our proposal. I do want to talk about the CRSWC that Bridget brought up a little bit, just to note that we did approve. And again, this is at the finance committee. We've got to still approve it at the board level, but we approved a fee increase for the 2025 fiscal year. But one of the things that I want to make sure that we're aware of that when we approved passed the step function for payroll some time ago for city employees. It also had the effect on all CRSWC employees. And so while we're projecting a significant increase in revenue due to the marketing plan and the fee increase, that's about $400,000 of increased revenue. The cost of operations in part, which is personnel, is going up $700,000. And so that's obviously a negative effect. The other effect that's beyond personnel are utility costs. It's very expensive. We're seeing significant increases there. So this I'm sure will be a point of discussion. The other thing I want to point out is the impact is that there will be a negative fund balance projected on this. And you might recall when we had our audit review discussion with our auditor, she pointed out the fact that the city was carrying that even though it's a joint liability of the two. So I guess I would ask our finance people to take a look at the budget when it's passed, and then decide whether we might want to change our practice regarding allowing that fund balance to be fully funded by the city. And then, Becky, I think you did a fine job going through the NERF. What I want to point out, in addition to what Becky said, is just to understand the magnitude of the decisions that were made. So as an aside, if we had chosen to go with a 6.75% assumed interest rate rather than seven, it would have increased our unaccrued actuarial liability by about $700,000. So the point is it's a meaningful number and there were a variety of other assumptions that were in here, and there were two that were really meaningful. Again, the salary increases that we've proposed means that the ending salaries continue to go up, and so that means our cost of our pension plan is going up. So that's a negative in terms of a cost effect. What I found interesting, though, is that the assumptions regarding employee terminations has a more positive effect. We were assuming that we'd have fewer employee terminations. And the impact of that is whether or not we still have a liability or not. And if they terminate before the liability is due, that's a benefit to us. So the long and the short of it is, is we could have approved things that would have cost us somewhere between $545,000 a year and $650,000 a year. So $100,000 difference per year was really the magnitude of the decision. And I found it interesting that while we have employee participants on this, they actually chose the less conservative of the two approaches, meaning the, as it turned out, the less expensive for the city. And so we can always revisit this if we aren't performing there. But I think it was a well-founded conclusion given the outlook that all the experts provided that said we should be able to achieve it going forward. So I thought it's a reasonable conclusion. So those are my comments.

Before I start on mine, Becky and Rick, you may have touched on the very end. What was the thinking besides it would cost us more to not decrease in the discount rate? Because I've seen, as some of you all have seen, like that's how some governments can get in trouble by having these expectation of returns they can't meet. So I saw a lot of governments, I mean, they were at 8% before big crashes like a decade ago. And I saw governments go down. So I'm just curious, like what, Why the decision was made to not drop it from $7,000 to

$6,000? So I've served on this commission for probably close to 25 years. And so when we've been doing this, 7% is always what we've had when everyone else had 7.5%, 8%, 8.5%, or 9%. So the point is we've had it for a long time. We've looked at our 10-year history, and we've achieved 7% in the 10-year history. And we received the outlook from – our asset consulting group, as well as the model that Gallagher, the actuaries put together, which indicated that we should be able to achieve those in the 50 percentile predictability over the next 10 and 20 years. So the thought was we're 97 percent funded at this time, so we don't have a huge actuarial liability. History says that we make it. Future says we're going to make it. We're still at the median relative to all plans in the country of our size. We're just not as conservative as we used to be relative to the others. Okay.

Um, thank you. The only things I had, uh, Susan touched on part of it to fill a little bit more on the park and rec commission. Two of our parks are Oak Knoll and Shaw, if I remember correctly, um, are, are applying for the dark sky certification, which I will not even try to fully explain what all that does other than it's a complicated process. We've got a, I think an intern that's also helping with it, but, um, Everything's going to be going well with that. And it aligns with kind of what we've talked about for dark sky on the overlays and some other things. I would be remiss given that my wife does a bunch of PTO work to not talk about on Thursday, there is to return the school that I think we were invited to along with all the BOE stuff. It's over at Shell Park. So I will tell her I made the plug. If any of you see here on Thursday also tell her I made the couple of main things I want to talk about. Otherwise, Susan kind of covered the parks and rec stuff otherwise.

Very good. So I wasn't planning to bring this up, but since you went over it quite eloquently, one of the things I did not bring up in the uniform pension board meeting, what I thought about is, so a year ago or whatever, we went from 7% to six and a half or whatever it is, 6.75. I kind of pushed the other way on that because it was going to cost the city when we were having budget issues to an extra $80,000, $100,000 a year to do that. We eventually did it. But why don't we just go back to 7% then if we are so sure that that's going to be achievable? And now we're down at six and whatever on the uniform.

So can I weigh in on that? So this is a little bit of art and science. And so generally speaking, there's a couple of factors. You have your actuaries do all this to make sure there's credibility. And then you'd have the experience studies to make sure that when you look back on your actual experience, that the assumptions are valid. What you want to make sure of at the end of the day is that you are, in terms of your long-term plan, that you aren't digging yourself into either a deeper hole or that you're not overfunding it along the way. It's always best to try to make sure that it's as accurate as possible. There's no real reason to change it frequently, but you should. It's totally realistic to reconsider it periodically. So there isn't a right answer to this. It's a choice. Obviously, the dilemma of making it too low is that you then run the risk of overfunding it or costing the payer more. But you can correct that.

No, I mean, that's... And it's... Well, they're both city pension boards. The two pensions aren't identical. So I mean, the assets in both are different. The performance has been different in both. The contributions are different in both as far as what employees are putting in. Everything about them is different. And so when that analysis was done for that particular plan, they had a pretty strong recommendation that know that that we drop it that they didn't have the confidence on the uniform side uh that they seem to have on the non-uniform side that we'd be able to sustain that so that's that's why that recommendation was made and in the short term you know we've still been able to hang in there so the numbers look really really good but they still think that that particular mix that we are going to start to see that that fall off over time and be prepared for that

okay All right, um I don't have a lot, but I do want to say ditto on the Washington university overlay great job you guys are have so much patience, a and also just done such a great job and feeling really good about it and hoping for moving forward. The I am excited about the news we've already heard about getting a five iron golf facility here in clayton which is an entertainment venue. that really is unique for the region. And also now we are going to get something called the Flight Club. If you haven't read about it, it's what I would call really fancy upscale darts. And it's going to be kind of like, you know, like five-iron golf, but darts. It's not going to be You know, I don't have anything against bikers, but it's not going to be by the darts. You know, it's going to be they'll have food and it'll be high tech darts where you can. It tracks your the flight. Yeah. The whole thing. If

you've been to putt shack. I have. It feels like like it just based on the description, like flight club is to darts. What? putt shack is to mini golf, like sort of the same, but really different. Has anyone experienced

it? I participated in flight club up in Chicago. So I would, you're, you're, A wide variety of people were there, which was terrific. Age-wise, all things. And everyone was having a good time. So not inexpensive compared to Blueberry Hill or something like that. But it was a lot of fun.

Great. So I'm just excited that we're finally getting a little traction in the entertainment lane. So we just hope that that continues. We can start getting some more things coming in.

Do we know, not that we would have to, but do we know is the parking garage going to be open to folks that use this? I'm just thinking about the volume of people we would like to see there and the fact that we've got a Centene parking garage that some people use, people can't. Centene's kind of...

You can always go to the public garage. You can always go into Centene,

yeah. They'll be able to accommodate the use.

I'm sure.

Without charge? Do they charge it after a certain...

That depends on the business. Some of the businesses there have an agreement to validate and some might not.

Just open to the public.

There's just a charge for the garage at all

times. I'm hoping to meet with their real estate group here coming up over the next month about a number of things, but I'm going to ask some of these questions too. Okay. Very good. Great meeting. Thank you guys. See you next time. Motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. How about that?

Motion to adjourN.

All those in favor? Aye. I don't think anyone's opposed.

I wasn't going to wait, Susan.

Bye,

Susan. We're all ready to go. That's okay. I just

left all the comments about the art fair opening because it's the only place I can think I might have been exposed to.

Do you have COVID?

Yeah.

Oh, I'm sorry. I had it on the way back from Ireland, you know? Yeah. All

right.

Going around right now. It really is. I'm sorry. Stay

healthy, everybody. See you soon. Okay. Bye.