June 10, 2025 — Meeting Transcript

All right. Good evening, everybody. It is our June 10th Board of Aldermen meeting. It's the six o'clock hour, which means it's a discussion session. So we are going to have a discussion on lock coverage and stormwater regulations. And I think you're probably in charge.

Okay, so we have some stormwater regulations to go over. So just a refresher of where we are. So the stormwater regulations, this was one of the most discussed or heard about topics through the Clayton Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan process last year. So there are a lot of elements within that plan, within the implementation objectives and key results that relate somewhat to stormwater or other conditions within residential neighborhoods. But specifically, the one that we're tackling right now is developing a lot coverage reduction program that identifies innovative ways to reduce the amount of impervious coverage and promotes green infrastructure. So lot coverage principles with our existing conditions and how we regulate lot coverage is really targeting three primary aspects of neighborhoods. One to preserve open spaces, so it comes in with our residential areas about recreational areas, the yards, the open character to enhance neighborhood character and well-being. The second one is managed stormwater runoff by allowing greater opportunities for water to infiltrate into the soil. And then three, to reduce the urban heat island effect, whereby concentrations of urban building materials such as a roof or pavement, patio, etc., can increase the average ambient temperature. So that's a big one when we talk about residential that I think is often overshadowed by the stormwater element, but a lot of the reasons why our neighborhoods are cooler, I can speak specifically when I take the pedestrian bridge across the over Forest Park Parkway and enter the Polo neighborhood, you can immediately feel the change in temperature. And part of that's our tree canopy and part of that's also that change from a lot of pavement to some green space. So staff began approaching this objective with a lot of internal review. So we looked back through comments and analysis, everything that went on during the actual comprehensive plan process. And then we started to complete our own investigations that dug a little bit deeper. into some of the existing conditions. And what we found is our existing lot coverage, our impervious coverage maximum that we have in the code has historically been used to target those three principles. So we're trying to address the character of the areas in green space and the impacts of stormwater management with one regulation within our code. And so the success now looking at our existing conditions of using that maximum impervious coverage to address both of those concerns is really varying across the city, and it is not very successful in the neighborhoods that have the higher concentration of redevelopment. New technology and materials are allowing us to address the stormwater aspect in some manner, but without that requirement of natural vegetation. We might be able to address just stormwater, but we're going to do so by also reducing our green space ratio. The sizes of house that are being constructed, just the overall square feet, that's increasing over time. And this is resulting in the actual footprint of homes taking up more percentage of the lot than they have before. So even on a lot that has a home that was constructed in maybe the 1960s, those house, the actual footprint of that house in our typical single family neighborhood is less, but we might have more driveway area or patio space. And so what we're coming up against now is people are moving into these larger footprint homes and then they want to add on the extra driveway parking area or the patio or the fire pit, et cetera. Existing lot sizes, structure sizes and the layout varies across the city. We've been doing some analysis to compare neighborhoods, and this results in some neighborhoods being more vulnerable to the changes and trends that are happening today that I just listed above compared to other neighborhoods. So some of the neighborhoods such as, you know, Carswold, Big Carswold or Southmoor that have larger lots, even when the homes are being expanded, there's still a large area of green space or a lot of separation from one home to the next that allows some of that natural mitigation of impacts. And then the character and frequency of storms is shifting. So we're seeing more of those high intensity short duration events that overwhelm our stormwater systems a lot quicker than when we have kind of a slower amount of rainfall over an extended period of time. So to look into this, we've enlisted the help of Intuition and Logic, who is one of our on-call engineering consultants. Currently, Intuition and Logic performs all of our stormwater pollution protection, or SWIP, reviews that are required for various site plan review projects. From the perspective of my department, the Planned Development Department, We interact with them mostly on SWPs for single-family houses. They also do some reviews for the larger over-an-acre sites working with Public Works, but primarily what I work with them on is the new single-family homes and looking at that stormwater pollution protection. The SWPPP plans are looking at mitigating the impacts of contamination on stormwater during construction periods, so it's not really focused on the end result. Intuition Law does provide some comments, though, when they're looking at the engineering reports to help us with the post-construction conditions, but currently that is not something that we use their services for with our existing regulations. So we have enlisted them to really help us with the the more engineering, the technical side of stormwater review. And staff is focusing more on that green space ratio and neighborhood character because we're able to analyze some of those elements that are less technical within the actual quantification of stormwater runoff. Intuition Logic, after meeting with staff multiple times, they had a discussion session with you all at the board level. They reviewed all of our materials from... the comprehensive plan, they reviewed best practices or regulations from other communities in the St. Louis region and kind of national standards. And they came up with some recommendations for us that really tackle or attempt to tackle that stormwater management. So that's what I wanted to go through here. One of the biggest pieces is recommended to increase the differential detention requirement from a 15-year 20-minute storm to a 100-year 60-minute event that actually lasts 60 minutes. So that calculation... is something that most of our engineers provide typically they'll provide that 15 year 20 minute and they might also provide a 100 year 20 minute event for us so that calculation isn't going to be very new to them but actually requiring the detention for that 60 minute storm based on the one year 60 minute event is what is going to increase what we require on site And I'll go into that a little bit more in a slide to show you an example. But the biggest piece to think about here with the 15 year versus the 100 year storm event is a 100 year storm is something that has a probability of 1% chance of happening in a given year versus a 15 year storm, which in a given year has a 6.6% probability of happening. So that's just how you might compare those two. The second recommendation is to increase the differential detention requirement for sites disturbing over five acres from the impervious conditions on January 1st, 2000, which is an MSD standard, to using a pre-development condition of all grass. So this is one where we're kind of trying to raise the bar a little bit from what MSD is looking at. There are examples of where MSD already requires this. A lot of times when there are larger projects located within a watershed that already has issues, they will already require development to upgrade to that level. But it is not always the case, so we wanted to kind of raise the bar. One thing that the plan commission during the discussion we had with them last month requested is that we show them a comparison of the five projects acre requirement versus a two acre and identify what sites potentially would qualify under those two conditions. The reason that we did not require or recommend IntuitionLogic, we discussed with them recommending that pre-development condition for any site. We went through and did some example calculations and they found that the 100 year 60 minute lasting 60 minute actually would be a larger detention volume in many cases. than just the pre-development all grass condition for a 15-year, 20-minute storm. And then another reason is for the public perception, a lot of the majority of the lots that we have, especially for our single family residential, are redevelopment of the lot that has a home. There's a handful of lots across the community right now that are vacant grass lots and would get a new house. But in those cases, those lots have majority of time been vacant for long enough that that grass condition is already what's going to be used within their redevelopment. So we wanted to try and create a situation where people are used to it. So we wanted the detention requirement, but also not get people who are used to seeing a house trying to convince them that they should be using a condition of a vacant lot that that lot hasn't had for 100 years or something. Another area that Intuition Logic is helping us with is the follow through. So we have had recently, we see a dry well or some form of BMP used on pretty much every single new single family house that we have. And one of the aspects that we do is we require a deed restriction, but it's more of just a best practice that we do that. It's not written in the code. And part of that deed restriction, we require that they record with it some element of ongoing maintenance requirements, but there isn't any kind of back check accountability that's created within the city by reviewing those. Right now, with our discussions with Intuition and Logic, they've recommended that we create a form, a fillable form that the resident or the property owner could use. It would tell them what the inspection is on probably a two-year basis, and they would submit that completed form back to us so that we could track and monitor. At this point, given the number of BMPs that we have and the frequency that they're installed moving forward, I don't think it's feasible for us at a staff level to be responsible for actually performing those inspections. That would require additional personnel training and just additional people, which I think would be a big task for us. But we can start with... receiving the forms in and tracking which ones those have. And then that will give us another level if we do find two years down the road that there are stormwater runoff issues coming from a property that has a dry well or another BMP that's recorded. If we find that there are issues with the inspections that they're providing us, then we have another layer of enforcement to have those investigated further. Another one that is slightly different from what we have above, which are direct code requirements, is that we want to develop some site design guidelines. So currently we utilize design guidelines for architectural features a lot with Architecture Review Board. So it provides some flexibility when you go into a design guideline area because sites are a little bit different each time. But this will give us a better starting place for the beginning of when sites are designed. I think about a conversation Dave and I had the other week What we want to do is try to have stormwater management become part of the initial planning of sites. When they think about how the site is going to be laid out, how home is going to be built, where the driveway is going to go, we want that stormwater management to be a part of that process from the beginning. Whereas right now, we feel it's not proven because we're not a part of the site design, but we feel like a lot of times we're getting stormwater management practices are placed in whatever portion of the site is left over. after they've figured out how to fill the site up. And so it's kind of a little bit of that afterthought of here's the house and the driveway we can fit on the lot per the setback regulations. Now let's figure out how to manage the stormwater instead of integrating those two at the beginning of the process. So these site design guidelines are geared towards helping guide that path so that from the beginning, they understand what we want them to manage from a stormwater runoff. So the big one is that we don't want any additional runoff to be increased when we look at different areas of the lot. The only area that we would consider allowing for a small increase would be if it went to the street. The majority of the runoff that eventually leaves properties is going to get into the sewer system. And so if there's going to be an increase somewhere, then we're more likely to accept that increase going directly into MSD's sewer system faster as opposed to going into somebody's basement faster. Where possible, we want discharge to be directed to the street or an adjacent collection system. So again, the storm sewers. Pop-up emitters shall be 10 feet from the property lines or any downslope impervious surface. So right now we do enforce that 10 foot, but that's actually something that comes out of MSD's regulations. And sometimes we're finding that engineers are providing letters from MSD that says that they're supportive of waiving those requirements and And since it's not something that's hard coded within our own individual codes, it then becomes a little bit harder for us to uphold that when they're getting the waiver from the other group. So there are a few elements here that we want to bring into our code, such as this one, so that we can enforce them on our own manner. Introducing guidelines for sump pumps is another really big one. So intuition logic kind of helped us think through some of the nuisance complaints that we're seeing a lot of. And a lot of times there are pop-up emitters that are located in front yards and there's just a continuous trickle of water that comes out of them. So we hear a lot of complaints related to sidewalks in that area having algae in the summer and spring months, and having ice in the winter months, because there's that constant trickle. What we learned is that that is most likely the case when that pop-up emitter is connected to a sump pump that may be pulling groundwater. So if that's pulling groundwater, then it's going to get water that flows through the system regardless of whether or not there's been a recent storm. And so that's what we want to start prohibiting. So right now we have some basic requirements about pop-up emitters and sump pumps, but we don't have that additional inspection check. So we want to add in a piece here that would require an inspection to verify when the sump is dug. that there isn't any standing water, that groundwater table, that would be impacted. We discuss this one a lot with Intuition and Logic because there are ways to drill test pits to try and identify the level of that groundwater table, but that can really delay a lot of projects and can be pretty expensive. So we expect that we would get a lot of pushback from people, especially engineers, existing homes that are installing sump pumps now with that. And so how we wanted to address it instead is if there is going to be potential that there's a groundwater impact, then that's when we would start to require a BMP on the other end of that sump pump. So right now, if they wanted to install a sump pump and they'll connect it to a pipe and there will be an overflow pop up emitter in the yard, that's OK. But if you're going to impact the groundwater, then you're going to have to introduce a drywall into that system that we'll start getting that groundwater, again, underground so that it's not just flowing over ground and creating a constant trickle. Then we also have our impervious coverage calculation. So here's going back to kind of what I started with. Right now we have one regulation that addresses green space and stormwater. We're going to kind of separate those two moving forward and more clearly identify where and how they might overlap. So a big part of that is revising how we actually calculate impervious coverage to specify how we're going to handle or treat some of these more sustainable technologies, such as permeable pavers to identify that those are not going to be considered pervious in the calculations as it relates to stormwater and as well. eliminating the discount that we currently provide people for pool areas. So that was a recommendation from Intuition and Logic, and then we will have separately a green space calculation. For dry wells, something that we have been doing in the last few months is requiring an infiltration rate test for the location of a dry well. This will make sure that the soils that are around that dry well are the rating type that will actually allow the water to infiltrate. And depending on the results of that infiltration rate, then there will be requirements to actually expand the capacity or the footprint of the dry well so that the infiltration of that water is spread across a larger area. so that it will actually go in to the underground system and infiltrate as opposed to just constantly coming out of the pop-up emitter and flowing across the surface. We're also similar to what we kind of talked about above with drywalls, implementing some inspection and tracking requirements, and then also setback requirements. So the goal with all the intuition and logic recommendations that are covered here is really to create a more prescriptive manner for reviewing impervious coverage and stormwater regulations, as well as introducing a better system for actually tracking and increasing the accountability of the sites post-construction to ensure that those tools are working as they should be designed. So to give you guys an example, I pulled a couple of information. Intuition Logic is going to get us some more specific data as it relates to St. Louis and the weather trends. But just from NOAA and the National Weather Service, we pulled a few things. So you can see in the chart included here. that there's a precipitation, annual precipitation in inches. And the 30-year running mean, if we zoom into the area here more recently, this trend, the overall annual percentage trend is going up. But we're also seeing a higher frequency of those storms. So we're getting overall, we're getting some more water, but the intensity of the storms or the frequency of those intense storms is increasing. That element of the actual frequency increase is something that we'll get for you later from intuition logic. But a couple of notes, too. So in spring of 2025, this is the 11th wettest spring, according to NOAA, since they've been counting this data. So, basically in the last month of April, we're breaking a lot of records as it relates to water. So just thinking about the storms that we've had in those last few months that will kind of show the bigger picture of where we're headed. So I wanted to take you through a little bit of an example to help understand the recommendation for changing from a 15-year, 20-minute storm to a 100-year, 60-minute storm. So on the screen on the right side, this is information. These are the site plan of the existing conditions and the proposed site plan for the new house that was just approved by the plan commission at 515 South Central. So this is a very typical size lot that we have. It's just over 8,000 square feet. It's a very typical Davis Place lot. There was an existing home that's being torn down and replaced by a much larger house. So on the left-hand side, this table shows you how we calculate the differential runoff, stormwater runoff. I've highlighted the portion at the bottom because that's the most impactful element of how you calculate this. So based on our current requirements for a 15-year, 20-minute storm event, they're increasing the amount of runoff that's coming from this site, but they would only need to capture 68 cubic feet. And they propose capturing 72 cubic feet with their drywall system. If we switch to the 100 year 60 minute event as recommended by intuition logic, then we would at a minimum be requiring them to capture 149 square feet or cubic feet sorry. So there is quite the jump in the actual differential runoff calculation. What we found in a lot of projects, this is not one of them, but in many projects, especially in Clayton Gardens, where we've seen the highest density of new development, a lot of the engineers, because we have the same couple engineers come before us for most projects, they've already started just doubling the capacity of their dry wells in the last year because they know these questions are going to keep coming up. But in areas where we don't have, we have a different engineer or we don't have people that just want to increase the capacity, we're getting what is this example of just a little bit over what that minimum capture is. Increasing the capacity of a drywall, which is the most common feature that we see, is not really cost prohibitive because a lot of that comes from just digging out the larger hole and putting in more rock. So the dry well itself, the cistern is pretty much one size. You can get a few different sizes, but they come in pretty typical sizes. You could go to a Home Depot and get one. But the way that you increase the capacity of that overall system is with the larger hole and rock. So that's something that we think would be not super impactful in terms of the budget for a new family, but would do a good job of handling more stormwater runoff. So our next steps, the green space ratio, as I mentioned, this is something that staff is taking on the majority of the analysis for. So we're going to come back. We're going to set our green space definition and calculation. Right now, we have an impervious coverage definition that tries to kind of capture both the green space And the stormwater in one definition. So we'll have our green space definition that will identify how materials are covered. The way it will pretty much run is vegetation is green space and hardscape is not. And then we're going to set that minimum percent. So a little bit different from what we have right now. Our codes right now say the maximum lot coverage is... 55% for our single-family residential areas. We want to flip it a little bit and say you have a minimum green space requirement because, again, we're trying to promote that green space. That's the piece that we really want to protect and enhance, and so we're going to write the regulation to directly relate to the green space minimum. And then in terms of impervious coverage, our goal here is again mitigating and minimizing our stormwater runoff impacts. And so we want to set clear definitions and regulations for how we're going to calculate stormwater. And this again will address those materials and the lot coverage conditions. And then one element, so we saw in the objective that I put on the screen on the first page, the objective that we heard from the community is that they want to minimize stormwater, but we also had a good number of people in the community that wanted us to do a better job of promoting the sustainability impacts. So what staff is proposing is using a sustainability bonus where we would outline specific conditions under which somebody might qualify for reducing that green space ratio and providing a little bit more coverage when they're managing their stormwater. And we want to be really controlled and prescriptive on the stormwater bonus so that we're not trying to sit there at the planning commission level and evaluate the different permeable pavers and why somebody feels that they should be given a credit that's different from their neighbor, etc. So we want to make that a really straightforward element. During discussions with the Planning Commission, this is one that I think is going to be really important moving forward when we actually come back with the percentages that we're recommending because there is, understandably so, a lot of concern that our biggest issue is addressing stormwater management. and how we might be able to do that without or promote sustainability without sacrificing the overall goal of reducing stormwater runoff. So today, this is our next steps. We'll come back in July. But today, really, the focus for this discussion is to get feedback, maybe something you want additional information on, et cetera, related to the recommendations from Intuition Logic that were provided in the memo. With that, I'll open it up for any questions.

Anna, thank you so much. That was a great presentation. Maybe we can just go around. I'm sure everybody has some questions. Susan, if you want to go first. Sure.

That was a lot. And it's great. I'm sure I missed something I want to ask about, but I'm really impressed. And even the flipping from not how much coverage, but to how much minimum green space, the language I think speaks really loudly and approaching it that way. So appreciate that very much. The other, I am kind of taking away from this, maybe I'm wrong, that when you look at all this and as the development keeps happening and having been on planning commission only a couple of meetings, but there seem to be spec homes coming in and everyone wanting to push it just a little bit further and getting a little more exception. And looking at all the lots individually in a neighborhood, I just wonder how that really works because it really is an area where you have to control the stormwater going on to everyone else. And if you're looking at, maybe you capture that in the differential. If you're catching how a new development is impacting the saturation of the soil, it's going to be affected by who's around them. So do you think that these regulations are going to capture the isolated lot that really is a much bigger part of a neighborhood so that you can control the stormwater between houses and everything else?

Yeah, that's a good question. I think it's going to be hard to give that a definite yes no matter what we do because it's one, you know, when we think about how subdivisions are developed, one of the benefits of the new subdivisions is that they're thinking about that all at one time. They're building all their houses at one time. And they have shared stormwater basins that are located within shared green spaces and the water is all directed to that part, you know, that area and it infiltrates. We don't have the luxury of having a bunch of areas within every neighborhood where we can just direct the stormwater into one pond and let it work from there. So it's a little bit different because we're in a built-out community to try and come back in and say, where are we and how do we fix every single lot? But the goal here is to really try and reduce the overbuilding of lots and make our requirements a lot more transparent to the community. That's part of separating the green space and the impervious coverage. And the idea, as you mentioned, we have a lot of spec homes that are built. The idea is that people who are utilizing the sustainable features such as permeable pavers or rain gardens are doing that because they really believe in that element of sustainability rather than doing that because that's how they get their pool and their patio, et cetera. So the hard part is that with some of our projects that are being done without a homeowner involved, there is a little less follow through. We don't know for sure if the future homeowner actually cares that their pavement remains or maintains its permeability. And is actually maintaining it that way. So by adding in the inspection requirements, adding in the more specific design up front, our hope is that lots are going to be designed much more intentionally and then utilized in that manner moving forward. So we'll have to keep an eye out on it as we go through and get more information. of an idea of where the groundwater levels are as projects happen that will help us understand the impacts moving forward. One of the analysis that Ryan is doing, he's been doing all of our spatial analysis for these and so that's big with the green space ratio piece. He's looking at neighborhoods as a whole and how much coverage there is today, how much coverage there could be if homes were redeveloped under our current regulations, and how much coverage they could be if they were developed under some of these recommended changes, and then what the resulting overall runoff would be. So we're going to try and have a little bit more of an idea of what's happening with the neighborhoods, but we don't have a permeability test for every individual lot. So it's a little bit of trying to estimate how it would be applied to the whole

neighborhood. I think that's good. I'm encouraged by that response because I do think that that's where the problems will come and that, uh, that we need to build into here, whether we're doing a hundred years or whatever, a 60 minute, the cushion that I assume the trends may not decrease. If anything, they're going to go up and whatever we do today, we want to last us in the future because whatever's built is going to be there.

Right.

Um, the other part is, um, Yeah, the encouraging, the permeable pavers who probably have no way right now of enforcing that they stay permeable and don't fill in. But giving some incentive to do those is great. And the urban heat island, making people aware of that, I'm happy that you brought that up too. That's important. Yeah. I think I may have more questions for you as we go on, but the separating it out and the native plant coverage, because again, that's going to be absorbing a lot of the water. So maybe that, I don't know, I don't have, I don't, I don't anything about this, but does that absorb then? Does that change? Does that help them meet their ratios? It

really can. The hard part with that, and we've talked about this at the planning commission is with the way that you engineer a system like a dry well, it's easy to figure out a quantified number to attach that dry well. We can say that it has the capacity for 10 cubic feet and we can do the calculations. It's a lot harder to find an exact calculation and attach it to a plant. There's a lot of estimates, there's ways to do it, but it's a little bit more difficult if somebody is going to build a rain garden. And a lot of times the plant species kind of change or something might die and then they plant something else in its place. And so that's a, that's a bigger variable for us to be able to address. One thing that we have discussed internally as staff is when we go back and, um, reevaluate some of our tree regulations and our tree canopy regulations in the tree canopy coverage, we do have, um, a tree, the list of different tree species and what we would recommend being used from a canopy coverage perspective. One thing that we've discussed is creating some guidelines that would do a similar, create a similar recommendation as it relates to water. But I don't know that we're at a place where we can really incorporate it into our code regulations the same way that we can for something like drywall that we can quantify.

Is there a discussion of playing with the lot coverage percentages or anything?

Yes. So we're doing that analysis right now, but we are likely going to recommend a reduction. So right now we're at 55% maximum. We're likely going to recommend something around 50% as the maximum for that lot coverage or switching it to be in a 50% minimum for green space. So we are looking at that because a lot of times we can make perfect regulations that say, this is how everything's going to be designed perfectly. And we're going to follow up and it's going to be maintained, but inevitably things happen. And it's harder for us with stormwater, you know, hopefully all the movement is happening underground. So we don't really see it. So it can be harder from an enforcement mechanism. So really the best way is to just reduce the amount of block coverage. So that's where we want to play around with that percentage, but it likely will go down.

And not to be mixing the things that you've separated, but Are you also looking at the percentage of native plants that are required? It's 50?

Right. So yeah, one of the items that we've identified as a priority for our fiscal year 26 is the tree canopy regulations. And so that's where we would be looking at that percentage in our code right now.

That sounds great. Again, just the caution that We have to have enough cushion versus drafting it for today. We have to protect our homes and our neighborhoods for the future as well. Thank you. Excellent.

So the new regulations, once you're done with them, if I understand correctly, still have to be triggered by new construction or an addition, for example, an addition of a dry well or some pump. And what I was sort of getting at was we hear, I guess in part because Ward 3 includes Clayton Gardens, which is... had a lot of new construction, is that we hear from people who have existing homes who are complaining in some cases not even about new construction but that their neighbor installed a sump pump two years ago or a dry well and they think that's having a negative impact on water on their property. And I gather that that's not really going to change. We're not in a position of going in to say to someone, okay, your sump pump was fine, but now that we've changed the regulations, even though it's the same sump pump, you're still going to have to do something about it.

Right. We can't go back and tell people that they have to change those. But what we are doing is incorporating some regulations that would be triggered under other permits. So right now, if somebody comes in to install a sump pump, that's just triggering a plumbing permit. And a condition of that plumbing permit is that if they have a pop-up emitter on the end of that sump pump, it needs to be 10 feet from the property line. What we find is the majority of the time plumbers say, well, we don't know where the property line is. We don't have a site survey, et cetera, et cetera. When we adopt these regulations, some of the sump pump recommendations would be within our code. And so we would be able to enforce them with additional inspection or analysis with that sump pump beyond what we're doing today. But typically, the site plan review is what would trigger the requirements for the differential runoff calculations and that sort of thing.

um so right now with the 55 i know just at the plan commission this week we had folks who wanted to put an addition on and it was good if they did their addition it was going to come out to 57 or 58 percent um And as I understand, on our current regulation, the plan commission had the discretion, has some flexibility to take it from like 55% to 60% under certain circumstances, which the commission opted not to do. And the owner was complaining, well, the people across the street As far as I know, they got the same thing that you're turning me down. And I think you pointed out that that was actually through a variance through the Board of Adjustment. So I guess I'm wondering generally in these new regulations, do you see continued discretion on whatever the regulations are? If it goes from 55 to 50 percent green space, is there still going to be the opportunity for the plan commission to make an adjustment or should that go away as well?

Yeah, I think one of the pieces we want to, one of the reasons that we're proposing to maintain that flexibility for the plan commission is the plan commission sees these types of projects and improvement projects twice a month. So they are really in tune with the patterns of what's happening. Our board of adjustments only meeting for variance requests when they occur. And so sometimes the, I think we'll get, much more consistent application of our code and understanding of how it applies to long-term goals through the plan commission level, as opposed to the board of adjustment, which is supposed to be used to hear cases that are unique because there's a hardship related to that lot. One of the elements that we're trying to address within our code right now though, is that this discretion is granted with just the general term of just cause. And when we have one regulation that's addressing two different elements of our goals with the green space and the stormwater. it can be hard sometimes to pinpoint what just cause is for these different cases. And so part of another piece of what we're doing is by clearly identifying in our code those goals and how they would be applied to different properties, we're giving the plan commission more teeth and we're also giving our residents who might ask for that waiver better understanding of our goals and what they would need to address for it moving forward. So the hope is that we would be able to provide It will be easier for the Planning Commission to hear these cases, but it will also be easier for residents to understand why we have them as opposed to just using the just cause term that's in our code today.

Okay, final question. It seems to me like right now if someone came in this week with our existing regs, wanted to tear down a house in Clayton Gardens, they could build a bigger house with a bigger footprint than they would be able to a year from now once these new regulations are in place or is that too simplistic to think that these regulations will will actually create smaller houses because of the footprint has to be smaller to accommodate the pervious impervious ratio is that

Yeah. I mean, there's many ways within a lot that you will decrease the coverage. So I don't think it's as simple as saying they're all going to be smaller houses. It's likely that there will be some reduction in the square footage of homes, depending on how people lay out the site. But we do find that homes are substantially larger than they used to be on our smaller lots. And I think one of the elements of our existing conditions in our neighborhood is that we have very valuable homes. So I'm not concerned that it's necessarily going to decrease the value of anything just by saying that you have to develop your lot slightly differently, but it could impact how somebody chooses to lay out their site.

Right.

Thank you.

Okay, that was very thorough. Anna, thank you. I have a few clarifying questions. So one, this is pertaining to individual lots less than one acre. So a development that might occur, say in my ward on a very large parcel, this wouldn't apply. MSD rules or other rules for stormwater retention would apply in that case. Is that right?

This would still apply. So there's going to be slightly different elements that are triggered if it's over an acre, especially as it relates to land disturbance or permits for during the activities. And then MSD could potentially have additional or probably would have additional requirements in terms of stormwater activities. for holding it on the site or cleaning it before it enters their system so a lot of times we those regulations would be in msd's hands but these would all still apply under our zoning

so so my question really is um the unique situation where perhaps very large detention basins can be created And then we have these regulations that might, I want to make sure it doesn't create a redundancy where there's a large detention that's being addressed and then they have to actually add another detention on their individual lot as well. So I want to make that we don't have an inconsistency there. Is that a concern or not?

I don't think it's that much of a concern right now. We'll go over with intuition and logic if they have any issues with that. But the biggest piece that in some of like the sites that you're probably thinking of. So that's, um, that's a site where MSD is going to be involved because the overall runoff that might be created from that volume of the area, but we would still be involved as they, as they designed the individual lots themselves. And so it would be treated just like any other lot or subdivision, as it was built, they might be able to through the platting and say plan review process. show how this subdivision would address stormwater with those larger detention basins, but that wouldn't necessarily give a property owner the ability to have pop-up emitters or downspout extenders that go beyond their property lines, especially where it's adjacent to other existing neighborhoods. So if there's some element of channels or other collection basins that are established through the plat, then that's something that we would accept as it's set up moving forward. But we wouldn't waive all of these regulations as every individual house is built.

That's so long as we've got flexibility to address it. That's really my, my concern. You probably answered this already, but I want to make sure Gary, I think asked the question, but what triggers getting a permit that would cause this to go into effect? Obviously new construction does, but what other examples would,

Sure. So right now, one of the chapters or sections of the code that we would be amending to accommodate a lot of these text amendments proposed would be our site plan review. And site plan review is triggered for when you're disturbing an area of... I think it's $5,000. Or if you're adding 50% more or at least 50% of the footprint of the existing. So if you're adding an addition that is over 50% of the size of the existing house, then that would require site point review. If you have what they call excessive, the code references excessive grading or site work, that requires site point review. There's a little bit of... leniency, I would say, that's granted to the director to trigger site point review for projects that don't necessarily meet that because if my evaluation leads me to believe that there would be impacts to adjacent property or changes in the stormwater pattern. So there's a little bit of I could look at the site and decide if it needs to go to the planning commission or not. But that site point review is what's going to trigger the majority of it when it comes to the differential calculations. Now, if they're doing a sump pump or they're installing a dry well, or they're just putting in extensions on their downspouts, all of those elements would still need to comply with what we have here. The piece that would be different is that they wouldn't be required to go through site plan review necessarily. But if they were putting that in, they got the Dry well, then if they got a plumbing permit for it based on us adding requirements for a dry well. So there's adding in the dry well not because they're expanding their home, they're just adding one in, then we would be able to review against the setback or percolation requirements that are outlined here.

That's where my question is heading. So in your example, there's a positive thing where somebody is trying to put in a dry well, but these downspout extensions are redirecting the water flow. So that's the dilemma that we have where it's redirected to their backyard, which is our backyard and it's we're downhill. So we get all the water. So I'm not suggesting that we need a permit, but I want to make sure there isn't a trigger if somebody is just changing their downspout flow there's no way for you to really know that because nobody has to come and get a permit for that.

Right, there isn't a permit. We do have what's called an administrative architecture review, an AAR permit, and that captures all the projects that are technically available for administrative review. So under the way our code is set up right now, our architecture review actually should happen for any change to the exterior appearance of your property. So there are many times when that occurs where we can provide administrative approval. So this would be what you're describing would be something that could be covered under that administrative review permit type that we have. So when we update the regulations to include all of this, that's something that we would look for. The other piece that comes into play, though, is If our inspectors are going to the property for something else or there's a nuisance complaint and we see that the downspouts have been extended and are now discharging within 10 feet of the property, that's something that we can require them to change even though they didn't go through a permit process because it is violating our codes as they were written. Okay.

And then in our neighborhood, as you know, we gave back the easement that's between Whiteown Terrace and Hillcrest that was deeded to the city. But Whiteown Terrace still retains their easement as it runs between the two neighborhoods. And it appears that there are neighbors that are interested in still trying to figure out how to resolve drainage issues. So whether or not it's to use that portion in some way, or each neighbor does it for themselves individually. My question really is, it sounds to me like if the solution involves a dry well or some other redirection of water, that would require some kind of coordination with your office. So that's my question. Is that right?

Right. When we adopt the new regulations, it would currently right now is our regulation stand. If you don't trigger a site plan review, we don't have specific regulations for how you design or maintain your drywall. Those are happening through site plan review. So that's something that we are with the, with adopting some of these guidelines and requirements in the future, it would require review by our department.

Okay. All right. I'm changing gears a little bit. I want to make sure I understand the correlation, if any, between green space and the stormwater detention requirements. I clearly understand the stormwater detention and I get the benefit that having more green space is certainly helpful, but is the green space requirement really more an aesthetic issue or is it more of a stormwater issue?

Well, it's a little bit of both. So it's going green space is definitely an aesthetic portion. A lot of the feedback that we've heard through the comprehensive plan process about why people like to live in Clayton or what they love most about their neighborhood is often reference the trees. the tree canopy, the front yards, all that. So there's definitely an aesthetic element of it related to character. But then, as I mentioned, there's also this urban heat island effect element. And so what we see in a lot of already urbanized areas, so you think about downtown Clayton, or if we go to some of the other cities that have really high density residential areas, they're trying to figure out ways to reintroduce green space to lower that urban heat island effect. What we want to do is try not to get to a place in our single family and lower density residential neighborhoods where we're trying to reintroduce greenspace. We really want to protect and enhance that element of it so we understand that there are people that will say i just don't want to maintain a yard or i would prefer a patio and so we want to provide some flexibility that allows people to enhance the properties the way that they want to but we also recognize that we need to you know do what what is best from a city's perspective to also protect some of those larger neighborhood impacts of what's happening on each individual lot so Green space is definitely the way we're going to try to address the character of the aesthetics, as well as that urban heat island effect. And in some ways that relates to stormwater directly, but we're also kind of pulling a little bit of that direct stormwater impact out and trying to address that specifically with stormwater regulations.

My suggestion there is I don't know the right place to put this. It's probably not in the code, but if it's in a description of regulations or however you communicate this to make sure that when we talk about the green space requirement that we incorporate those things you just described about the compelling general benefits for whether it's stormwater detention or urban heat islands, just to make sure it's descriptive there so it isn't thought of as just an aesthetic issue. Okay. One or two other quick things. With regard to the water being redirected to the street, something to think about in our subdivision, water was frequently redirected to the Street, but the grade of the street or how it's crowned made a big difference. And so when we had it repaved, we had a bigger crown created so that the water wouldn't go across the street. And that was an issue in winter when it would create ice patches all the way across. So in addition to the algae and other things you're identifying, the crown of our streets in general, I'm not saying we need to redo them, but just understand that that could have an impact by redirecting it to the street. Yeah. And then these BMPs, if somebody is required to provide one, any idea what that costs or what the cost range might be?

Oh, the cost range can be very greatly. I don't know the specific number for a dry well, but I do. I know it's not a significant impact based on our discussions with most builders and developers. So it's, it's going to be a couple of thousand dollars maybe when in the scheme of building a full new house that doesn't really impact their budget much. But if you go into more of the planting elements for BMP spring gardens, those can increase a little bit. So it can vary, but from our discussions, I think, A lot of people are willing to utilize those BMPs when they have to in order to get the size of the home that they want.

Okay. All right. I've got other little questions, but that's enough. Thank you.

Thank you so much. It was a great presentation. Just a couple questions. So as Rick had asked, this is something that would be implemented throughout the city. But I do think, you know, as we've talked about that, you know, there are areas of the city that are impacted. I mean, including, you know, Rick Street, you know, especially I think when you're down downhill, like when you're down when the incline changes. Is there any is there any thought to really identifying certain areas where there is just, you know, for instance, like if you're if your neighbors are downhill from you? Like some sort of requirement that the pop-up emitter would have to be 15 feet from your backyard neighbor. You know, something that really, because that's where even though Clayton Gardens, we are seeing a persistent issue, it's persistently on the streets that are downhill. So, you know, I'm not suggesting, I think all of these requirements are good throughout the city, but there are just very clear problems. problem areas. You know, we're learning, I mean, at which I learned in talking to residents last night on Stratford, which has, you know, backs up to Lafon, which Lafon is a university city neighborhood. They are struggling because we've done so much building on Stratford new buildings. So I, you know, I don't want that to occur either, but that's another instance where we are, we have people who are downhill from Stratford. So I, Um, I just don't know if there's other ways to just, because there are just certain very clear problem areas where I just don't Know if there's a way to make the requirements stricter given topography areas.

There is, that's a good point. That's something that we've been discussing with intuition logic. And what I put up on here was the pop-ups, um, and away from downslope impervious surfaces, but something that we have been discussing with them is the appropriate slope for a pop-up to be on because similarly we would you're going to get more erosion and other impacts when it's on a really severe slope because the water is going to take the easiest path, which is going to be the same. And then you're going to a little bit of a divot and then that's gone forever. So we were discussing with them if a pop-up is on a certain slope that we would then require some sort of either rock pit or something else that you would reduce the slope of where the pop-up actually outflows to try and get the water to disperse a little bit more across that slope. So we hadn't put a, they hadn't provided a percent or actual slope, but I think I will follow up with them before we draft the regulations. Cause I think that is a good point.

Okay, great. And then any thought about where there are slopes or topography changes where, like, did you find in looking at that tuck under garages were causing more of a problem again in certain areas? Like in Old Town, where there's a lot of tuck under garages, I don't hear a lot of problems. But again, tuck under garages in certain areas, it seems to perpetuate the water issues. And

that's something we've been talking about as well. So One of the initial gut reactions about those issues from pop-up emitters is that they're probably attached to sump pumps, and there's probably some element of groundwater that's being pulled from them. So that's one that's a little bit harder. If you talk to engineers, it's hard when you're putting in a sump pump to be able to tell you exactly how much water that sump pump's going to pull, especially when we don't know where the groundwater flows. um a level is so that's a little bit of what we've kind of tried to address with identifying when you dig the sump that that level um the easy way we've talked about before if Without going into additional analysis, you could just say that tuck under garages aren't allowed in an area anymore. I mean, especially in Clayton Gardens, we already have an overlay district so we can adjust that overlay district to accommodate those issues. The other element that we kind of a lot of our back and forth with intuition logic has been these are the nuisances that we hear about. And then they kind of say their gut reactions or how other communities have addressed it. They also brought up the point that at a certain time it might be worthwhile for us to do an actual watershed analysis of different areas and that's where they would, or anyone who we would hire through that process would actually do some more analysis about our overall place within the larger regional watersheds in different neighborhoods, groundwater, stormwater, other things like that to address more neighborhood scale issues rather than this because some of those larger neighborhood issues as you were bringing up earlier Those are going to be hard to address on individual lots as they're redeveloped. And so that would be a larger picture for the board to take a look at and see what recommendations on a watershed level would be recommended. Yeah.

And then just lastly, just in terms of I don't, I don't know how you like, how do you come up with 50% versus 45% or, you know what I mean? Like, I don't, and of course I know there's a delicate balancing act because we don't want to devalue properties. But is that kind of where you're just trying to look at that balancing act versus reducing it, but not reducing it too much. So

exactly what we're doing. So where we pulled Ryan's running that spatial analysis. So we're able to see what the patterns are in different areas across the community. And again, then attach those back to the runoff overall volumes that would be potentially there. And we can even, we've even kind of broken it down based on when homes were built. So we can look at it in a bunch of different layers, but what we're trying to really do is get to a place that doesn't shrink everything so much that it really hamstrings the way that people enjoy or improve their properties, but we want to try and address the stormwater. So it's a little bit of these regulations for the design, a little bit of the lot coverage, but a big part of our lot coverage recommendation is looking at the existing characteristics, the size of lots, the footprint of the homes compared to the overall lot coverage, et cetera, to find that balance.

Thank you. I don't know. We don't have a ton of time, but if there's anybody in the audience that has any brief questions or comments, you're welcome. You'll need to come up to the microphone and you just have to make sure that the light at the bottom is green. It's probably red right now. Yep. Is it green now?

The button you

push

there.

Great. And then you just have to say your name and address for the records.

Sue Harper, 8105 Pershing. I'm very impressed with everything you said. It really makes me happy. So a dry well was recently installed to try to, I've got on the downhill slope. And so he should have pulled a permit. Is that correct? Yes.

So right now, unless you're triggering site plan review, if somebody put in a dry well, they wouldn't have pulled a permit.

And it's right along the fence line. That's okay?

The only piece that wouldn't be okay is if they have a pop-up emitter attached to that dry well, then that, under our current, we could enforce that it cannot be within 10 feet of your property.

No, there's something coming up. Whether it's bringing the water into that or whether it's a pop-up, I don't know. But the problem has gotten even worse since then. And it's every other neighbor around there. I'm cat-a-corner, but they are seeing problems not as much as me. I can't even use half my yard. I... She was there yesterday.

Yes, so that's something that this is a hard piece with enforcement, which is why we're trying to make the regulations a lot more strict and clear because we would have to be able to see this issue meeting our current inspection guidelines, we can't go onto their property. We can't go upstairs in your property and look down into their property to inspect it. So that's what makes it a little bit difficult, but we can try and work with you to see what we can and then contact that other property owner. But if they have collected the water and are discharging that water or daylighting it, it's often called within 10 feet of a property line, that is something that we can request that they change.

But a dry well is disseminates underground

yeah so it's basically it will look it looks kind of like a large can you know a giant basin that has a bunch of holes in it with rocks around it around it so the idea is that that can fills up with water it's typically attached to a pipe from the downspouts or from the sump pump whatever it might be and that can fills and then the water slowly seeps out through the holes into the rock and slowly into the underground

Yeah, it's a big problem. And so very impressed with everything you said. But on top of that, and I think you might have said this, taking into account individual lots, like the impact, you know, coverage in general on a flat lot would be very different than what we're seeing. You know, there's all in the back and we're all downhill. I'm downhill from everybody. So thank you. So there will be further discussions, I guess. Yeah.

So again, this is just a discussion session. So there will be future, I mean, as Ana mentioned, regulations will go to the plan commission first. So they'll have a discussion on it. And then it would, depending on what happened there, they'd be changed or go back to them. Or if they're advanced, then they would go to the Board of Aldermen.

But didn't necessarily have to have a permit? Is that correct?

Correct. Right. If they're just installing a drywall under our current regulations, they would not. If they installed a sump pump, then there would be a plumbing permit requirement. Yeah.

Real quick, just to clarify. So if what you're talking about is all adopted, at that point when you said that you're looking right now at slope and where things might be, and that would address a problem that what's running onto a neighbor's property.

Right, eventually. Yeah. So the speed that the idea is we don't have that soap number. So I couldn't say if this property would fall into that category or not. But the idea would be to try and prevent those erosion lines that create just a direct stream from the pop-up downhill. I just

had a couple of things. And I want to thank you all for meeting about this as well. It's really important. I'm at 8104 Pershing. I'm Sue's neighbor across the street, Cheryl Radel. I wanted to say one thing that kind of concerns me in our neighborhood, I don't know if this is across Clayton, but residents have the option when a tree dies not to replace it. Trees soak up a lot of water, and I think the question should not be if you want to replace it, but what do you want to replace in our easement now that is Clayton's. And I know we're missing a lot of trees anyhow now, but if we can get more trees planted where it's the city's property, it makes the value of our homes go up. It creates... shade for our homes, for our street, for our cars. It's so funny because the people who don't want the trees want to park under the shade trees. So I don't understand that. They don't want the mess, but they want the shade. So I think we need to have if we could just not make that an option. The other thing when you're studying water on the property and I know my husband's talked to you about this. You almost need to look at the property as if it's already soaked. because there are so many sprinkler systems in Clayton. My husband and I walk the dog early in the morning and it's like, it's sort of like waiting for the bomb to go off. It's like, and you have to get out of the way and it can go, those sprinkler systems go on rain or shine. They go on, It seems like every day. We do not need to water our lawns every day. I think the Botanical Garden says a good soaking, a couple hours once a week, and that's fine. But we don't need to do that, and I don't know if there's anything the city can do to encourage people to be more green and not water quite so much. And then I had one last thing. Sorry, my notes keep disappearing. We've also heard... We were in a PCArib meeting, and a developer was coming in and talking about a teardown on Forsyth. And it was the Melman Brothers. And when they were presenting their site plan, they said, well, it's not going to cover any more than what was there before in the teardown. What I don't understand is if we have a teardown, Why don't we go back to the original lot coverage? Because things do get added, patios, driveways, decks, other hard escaping. And I'd like to see it, if there's going to be a new, if there's instead of saying, well, they already had that all covered up. So we'll just build as much as they had before. I just don't understand that. So I think that's all that I had. If I have more, I'll send you an email, but thank you so much for everything.

Thank you. Does anybody have anything else? Great. So it is seven o'clock. So we will start our seven o'clock meeting.

Alderman Buse. Here. Alderman Patel. Alderman Gary Feder.

Alderman Buse. Here. Alderman Patel. Alderman Fader.

Here.

Aldeman Rick Hummell.

Aldeman Hummel.

Here.

Aldman Jeffery Yorg.

Aldman York.

Here. Wonderful.

Alderman Jeffery Yorg. Mayor McAndrew. Here. City Manager David Gipson. Here. City Attorney O'Keefe. Here. Thank you.

Alderman York. Mayor McAndrew. Here. City Manager Gibson. Here. City Attorney O'Keefe. Here. Thank you.

I don't know that this is the time where there, if there's any public requests and petitions. I'm not sure if there's anyone online. I don't see any. The first item on our agenda is our consent agenda. It looks like it's just the minutes. Alderwoman Buse, whenever you're ready.

I move to approve the consent agenda.

Second. All those in favor. Oh, sorry. Nevermind.

Alderwoman Buce. Yes. Alderman Gary Feder.

Alderwoman Buce. Yes. Alderman Fader.

Aye.

Alderman Rick Hummell.

Alderman Hummel.

Aye.

Mayor McAndrew.

Aye. Thank you. The first item on our agenda under the city manager's report is a second quarter fiscal year 2025 budget amendment.

So we'll start with the budget amendment and then we have Karen Dilber here for the second quarter financial report. On the budget amendment, there are a few notable changes in there. There's a big swing on the revenue side, and really that's the bond proceeds that came in for the municipal garage. So as you know, we've closed on that bond issuance, so we've received that money. So now is all the accounting work on the back end, and so that's what you're seeing. shifting around on the revenue side there. On the expenditure side, we do have some municipal garage expenses that correlate to that bond issue. So you'll see some of those changes in this budget amendment. But the biggest change was actually within the equipment replacement fund. And that was all vehicle purchases, most notably the fire apparatus. So the The tiller truck and the pumper truck that we ordered two and a half years ago now are not going to be received during fiscal year 25. So those continue to be delayed. They haven't even started those builds yet. So those will be in 26. And then we did have an ambulance purchase that was going to happen in 24. That ran late. We made that purchase here in 25. That was about $400,000 worth of swing. And then a staff vehicle as well that we weren't able to purchase in 24 and we bought in 25. So Those are the big changes within the budget amendment again it's it's all really bond proceeds on the revenue side and the associated changes with that, and the the fire apparatus on the expense side. So with that we can take any questions on the budget amendment.

Does anybody have any questions, Rick? I don't know.

Well, it's not really substantive. It's more curiosity. Does the deferment of the pumper truck create some other issues? I just remember we had maintenance issues on our existing one. Is that going to cause some issues?

It is. Our maintenance costs right now on the existing equipment is incredibly high. We had originally a 10-year replacement on the engine, I believe, I'm going from memory, and a 15-year replacement on The Ladder truck. We've already exceeded those. So we're seeing an incredible amount of maintenance and it's all specialty work. So for the first portion of 26, and we're actually talking with the fire department about their budget tomorrow, we're going to have to factor some of that in. So we were hoping that we would have replaced that equipment and stopped incurring those charges. But unfortunately, that's not going to be the case.

I'm guessing there isn't really anything we can do about this. Like what I'm thinking is... The cost of maintenance versus going to the supplier and saying, can we pay extra to get advanced in line so that we net end up better

off? There's no way that I'm aware of to actually expedite these things because the line is so long. We put that order in again two and a half years ago now, and we're waiting like everybody else. So we can have that conversation about if there's some way to speed it up, but Unfortunately, there's nothing that you can just go and grab out of a lot. If you could, we would have some time ago for these, but unfortunately they're all a custom build, every one of them. And so just an incredible backlog, but we'll have those discussions. The other issue we're going to run into just on the reserve side is typically your engine would go into a reserve status. And that's what we plan to do with this engine. But again, this engine is now by the time it hits reserve status at about 13 years old and is not holding up well. And the question is whether or not that's even suitable to be a reserve apparatus. You can try to find some sort of reserve apparatus in its place, but to do that is, you know, we're talking six, $700,000 for a reserve vehicle. So that's another conversation that we're having internally is, is what we do when the engine we have has to move into reserve status and it's, it's not holding up. So yeah, it's tough. Then we have to borrow from another department. Lately, you see us in Brentwood trucks and Glendale trucks and everything else. I think when the tornado hit, we were out in the city and nothing but trucks from other communities.

Yeah, I was just thinking the equivalent of the enterprise rent a fire truck, some type of a municipal pool somewhere out there where somebody would have that for a period of time. I wish it existed. Yeah. And then regarding the bond issue and the accounting for the bond issue and reimbursements and all of that, is it all worked out basically the way you had hoped in terms of the budget or is there anything meaningfully different there? I don't believe so.

This all matches up with everything we previously accounted for. Okay, thank you.

Alderman Gary Feder, any questions?

Alderman Fader, any questions?

I don't have any questions. Thank you.

I also don't have any questions. Appreciate the explanation though. And yeah, I mean, it is, I'm glad we ordered it when we did, because I think we ordered it earlier in order to lock in the funding for it because the prices were going up. So glad we ordered it. Had we known this

was going

to happen

or had we known we were going to run up to that 10 year mark and not be able to get one for three years, you know, we would have ordered it much, much sooner back in 2020, but there was no way to see that that was going to happen. And We are where we are. But in the IRF, as we plan to make that next purchase, you know, we're having to put more towards the apparatus because we know we're going to have to order it sooner next time around unless things change. So we are going to incur more expense getting ready to buy that next equipment sooner. going to keep on keep on going

right um

thank you um alderman abuse hey i'll introduce bill number 7072 approving the fiscal year 2025 second quarter budget amendment to be read for the first time by title only

second

any discussion

mr city attorney

bill number 7072 first reading an ordinance amending the fiscal year 2025 budget and appropriating funds pursuant thereto

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

I'll move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7072 on the first day of this introduction.

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

I'll introduce bill number 7072 approving the fiscal year 2025 second quarter budget amendment to be read for the second time by title only.

Second.

Discussion? Mr. City Attorney?

Bill number 7072, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance amending the fiscal year 2025 budget and appropriating funds pursuant thereto.

Alderman Buse? Aye. Alderman Gary Feder?

Alderman Buse? Aye. Alderman Fader?

Aye.

Aldeman Rick Hummell?

Aldeman Hummel?

Aye.

Mayor McAndrew? Aye. Thank you.

The next agenda is our second quarter financial report.

So, Karen, I don't know if you have anything notable that you wanted to point out within the financial report. You know, the one thing that I think is pretty interesting looking at this, especially since we've just been collecting use taxes a few years, is the use tax strength this year. We're way ahead of where we were last year and we're trending towards a year where we're going to exceed what we had budgeted quite a bit. Again, it's a newer tax. And, of course, we had the kind of odd pandemic years in there where it was hard to get a feel for what revenues were going to look like. But we're seeing a lot of strength right now in use tax, which is good. Property tax receipts through this point of the year is higher than where we were last year. I would imagine that's resolved protests. We haven't talked about it much. That's driving a lot of that. We are in a reassessment year this year. So I imagine those tax receipts are going to be, you know, even stronger in 26. Although we are going to see more protests. And I've heard that a lot, you know, out in the community where people have had substantial increases in their bills. And I know a lot of people plan to protest with the county. So how much of that revenue that's collected is actually held back or encumbered in some way while they work through that remains to be seen. But on the revenue side, I think use tax and property tax are probably the most notable here. On the expense side, the big thing for us, and we're going to be talking a lot about this during the retreat on the 20th, is going to be what's the impact of this storm ultimately. The really great news, of course, yesterday was that we got the Federal Disaster Declaration, which means that 87 and a half percent of our expenses 75% coming from FEMA 12 and a half percent coming from the state expenses related to debris removal, the debris monitors that you see out there in the field. The replacement of sidewalks replacements of our street lighting system where it's broken the building damage that we took. Over at the police station where we had a portion of the roof that was severely damaged, we should see reimbursement for those things. At 87 and a half percent so we're still trying to get a handle on what those expenses actually are. We incurred a lot of overtime obviously with it as well, we don't know what those future costs are is they really relate to street lighting systems and irrigation. We had some initial estimates that we gave FEMA, but there's a lot of dust that needs to settle here on the expense side of things, especially as it relates to the tornado. Outside of that, you know, personnel is still the biggest increase year over year. That's not surprising with the way we've seen salaries change over time, but I'll also say that we've been able to retain employees at a higher rate this year than we have in some years past, which is a really good thing and certainly helpful during the tornado that we've knew everybody on staff and everybody had a good working relationship going into this. But at the same time, we've realized a lot of savings on the expense side over the past few years by having that turnover and having those vacant positions. So I wouldn't imagine that we're going to see as much savings by year end in that personnel line because we are spending quite a bit of that with these positions being filled very few struggles uh to hire police officers which is really unusual uh fire you know in the fire department we do really well hiring there i think a lot of this is reputation based there are other cities that pay as much as as as we do but people want to work here especially in those particular fields we've been able to curb a lot of the turnover that we've seen and departments like IT and finance by getting more aggressive after the last compensation study with those salaries trying to get closer to where the private sector is. So we're seeing a lot fewer people leave for the private sector, which has been really, really good for us. Unfortunately, the one position we can't seem to fill that we've really wanted to this year is the maintenance worker position in the business areas. So still very little interest in that position. We posted it over and over and over again. So we're going to have some conversations about what we might need to do that, perhaps raise that salary a little bit to see if we can entice somebody maybe that we already have to move into that spot. So we'll see. But that's one surprising position where we thought we could find somebody kind of like working independently, self-starter type that would want to go out and do that. But we've not been able to fill it. But that's kind of the rare exception this year where we've actually been able to fill spots for the most part, which feels good. So. year over year though it's again going to be a pretty big difference where we've been saving a lot of money on personnel and that's not going to be the case this year outside of that karen i don't know if there's anything else that we'd want to point out at this point in time at the end of the second quarter i'm sorry if you could use the mic really quickly yeah

Because I'm sure Alderman Patel and Alderman Jeffery Yorg will want to come back and they'll, you know, listen. Well, they'll listen. You know, they want to make sure they can hear what you said.

Because I'm sure Alderman Patel and Alderman York will want to come back and they'll, you know, listen. Well, they'll listen. You know, they want to make sure they can hear what you said.

Because the financial report is the best part. It always is. I just wanted to point out that there is an error on page two. where it says that general fund sales tax is higher, 1.5% higher. We had some last minute changes and that number was missed when we were making our last minute updates. So I wanted to apologize for that. It's actually down by 3%. And

again, some of that could be reporting too.

Yes. I'm not saying we're totally down. I'm just saying that for at this cutoff with this time period, we had a last minute entry that we pushed through and we managed to get everything else except that one. I apologize. So does anyone have any questions?

Yeah. Well, anybody?

No questions. Thank

you. Just a few. I guess big picture, is there anything in here that is surprising to you? I understand that the caveat for all of our storms and save that, set that aside. I know it's not in there yet, but just in terms of the trend data, the tax collections, anything like that, especially on the revenue side or anything particularly unusual or striking on the expense side from what you would otherwise anticipate?

Not really. Like David said, our property taxes are up. We had, you know, last year we had that large negative number. It's a smaller negative number this year. So that's helping. Through June, we've collected pretty much everything we're going to get. So you'll see that again the next quarter. And then obviously use taxes are up, which is not surprising considering people's buying habits.

And then will we be, do we anticipate any kind of an impact from this senior property tax freeze? So that's question one. Do we expect any impact from that?

I'm sure we will have an impact, but I don't know what it is until they tell us how they're going to do it because really what's happening is the rate is freezing.

Right. So I guess really what I was wondering is, is there going to be any way for us to try to even estimate that? Will we get sufficient data or will it just be a mystery every year?

I think this one's going to be hard to predict. Yeah. Without

knowing the demographics.

I can tell you within the city management community, there's been a lot of discussion about how you try to predict this thing and no one has a good answer at the moment.

Okay. So that's evolving or may not evolve at all. Okay. I get that. Regarding the FEMA reimbursement, I guess, big picture question. It sounded like we did. We have excellent documentation, but I just wondering, do you need any more resources in order to, make sure that we have a timely and complete application.

I think we're pretty good. We are talking about this. We talked about it this afternoon, whether or not we'd want a third party to manage that public assistance process and enter that information for us. I actually have a counterpart in Perryville. They've had two tornadoes over the past four years where they were kind of as a similar size from a, from a damaged perspective. And so I want to get his thoughts on whether or not it'd be worth it to go out and use a third party. They actually have a smaller staff than we have. So I'm going to contact him tomorrow. We're also going to have some conversations with the state emergency management folks and try to get a handle for this. Karen's done this before with flooding and various things. So, you know, she's very familiar with how this needs to be entered. The big question though is, you know, in the end it's data entry. And if a third party is going to do this for us, do we end up basically just duplicating the work where we have to send them all the information and then they're just entering the stuff that we're sending them and Is it quicker for us to just skip that part and do it? So we're working through that. But the other piece is if you bring in one of these third parties that's really familiar with this process, it's not just the data entry and collection part, but also making sure that your procurement is all compliant with FEMA regulations so that it's eligible for reimbursement. A lot of these third parties will make sure that your contracts are right, that your bid processes were right. not just locally, but to meet that FEMA requirement. So we're talking about whether or not that's worth it or something we could do in-house. So that would be the only resource I can think of that we may potentially need to help us with this, but we're not sure yet if we're going to do it.

Just making sure that we – you'd hate to lose out on something that we didn't know that it wasn't eligible or we didn't know how to make it eligible because we didn't have the resources to get the right information to them. And what is our window on this? You talked about, you know, still learning about some costs as we go along. Do you have any idea when the cutoff is or how the process works?

There is no real cutoff. When SEMA was in town, they were even saying they had a community where they felt like that community was probably out of time. They were two and a half or three years after a flood. So there is no window. I mean, you need to be timely with this stuff. But we recognize that we have some improvements, especially street lighting and irrigation, where these aren't things we're going to be doing in the next six months or so. We're going to have to plan out how the infrastructure goes back in. We're going have to contract for it. It's going to have to be constructed. So we could well be 12 months, 18 months out and still submitting for reimbursement on these particular items. And that's fine with the federal government so long as you're moving on these things. Okay. I

don't have

any other questions.

Can I follow up on one question you had? I meant to ask this. Thanks for doing it. The senior tax rate is easier of your questions. I was assuming that we did have some demographic. It's not, you know, peer-to-peer. But from the surveys, we know the percentage of our population that's a certain age. Again, you can't tie that directly to homeownership and the taxes. But we should have. I hope that we're prospectively looking at what that impact will be because we do have that basic information.

And once we have a little bit more information about how they're going to do it, we'll figure something out.

One other tornado-related question. I hope we get 87%. The other 13%, are there any other potential avenues for reimbursement from any other sources, insurance, otherwise?

We may have some items that are eligible through insurance. We're working with insurance to try to get clarification on what that would be. If we go through insurance, then our reimbursement from FEMA would just be for our deductible for whatever it is that we have that's covered. So we're trying to figure out what that insurance category is. But you're still going to pay the 12.5% of one way or the other whatever that deductible is right right so you're still going to be paying it yeah it could just reduce the overall amount

anybody else thank you karen um all right great um the next item on our agenda is um a contract for the uh damon avenue speed table installation project

Okay. This is a project we talked about several months ago after we did a comprehensive study over in the Daman neighborhood. The public works department tonight is requesting approval of the contract to construct the speed table on Daman. And so E-Meyer contracting is the only response that we got. We actually put this out for bid twice. So we had one contractor respond. They were within the budgeted amount that we had originally laid out. Our engineer's estimate was $15,000 for this work. Their proposal was 13,729. And we are recommending like always to have a contingency amount here, which is $1,271, which brings the total to $15,000. The one thing we don't know at this point, unless Matt got an answer this afternoon, they were not clear on how soon they could mobilize. So I know that's something that the neighbors certainly wanna hear about. Matt was gonna try to get any information this afternoon Any kind of update if they had it? I just wanted

to

come talk.

The contractor, we haven't had our pre-construction meeting yet to get a schedule. It did sound when we were getting the contracts that they were anxious to get going, but I just don't have a date yet. But our plan is we definitely get it in before school would restart.

Great. Thanks. Um, I'll open the discussion. Um,

I just had one other,

since you're the only word one Alderman,

I just had what other question other than timing. And that was, um, um, coordination of how this might have impact on the neighborhood. So since we're essentially going to have to block off both sides of the street, are we gonna do them at the same time or do one and then redirect traffic to the other side? Or how are we gonna coordinate that so it has less impact on the neighborhood?

Yeah, it'll be phased is what we anticipate. The contractor can propose a work schedule, but just internally discussing it, we believe it will be phased. One side will be constructed first with a detour. Overall, this type of project, these dollars, the duration is not very long. We're talking probably a few days here at most. But when the northbound's closed, southbound side would be open and we'll reroute traffic and then try to accommodate for times a day where traffic is moving faster. the heaviest. But there will be some disruption, but it won't be closed totally.

Yeah, I just want to make sure we anticipate with the high density housing and the commercial businesses that we have solutions for people to get in and out. And, you know, however, we're going to do that so that we contemplate that. And then I presume that just like we do with so many other things that will communicate to the neighbors when this is happening so that they can make plans.

Right. Well, we'll figure out what we need to communicate. Obviously there'll be some no parking areas put out there, but overall it'll still be accessible. Nearby driveways will get people in unless we just can't for some reason. It's just, you might have to take a detour to get there, but we're going to try to keep as accessible as possible.

Yeah. Okay. Thanks.

Alderman Gary Feder, Alderman Buse, any questions?

Alderman Fader, Alderman Buse, any questions?

I have no questions. Thank

you. Great.

Alderwoman Muse. I'll introduce bill number 7073, approving a contract with E. Meyer Contracting Incorporated for the fiscal year 2025 Demand Speed Table Installation Project to be read for the first time by title only.

Second.

Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7073, first reading. An ordinance approving a contract with E. Meyer Contracting Incorporated for the fiscal year 2025 DeMond Speed Table Installation Project.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Other

women abuse.

I move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7073 on the day of its introduction.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed to let the minutes reflect that the board has given unanimous consent.

I introduce bill number 7073, approving a contract with Emeyer Contracting Incorporated for the fiscal year 2025 demand speed table installation project to be read for the second time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7073, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance approving a contract with E-Meyer Contracting Incorporated for the fiscal year 2025 DeMond Speed Table Installation Project.

Alderman Buse. Aye. Alderman Gary Feder. Aye. Aldeman Rick Hummell.

Alderman Buse. Aye. Alderman Fader. Aye. Aldeman Hummel.

Aye.

Mayor McAndrew. Aye. Thank you.

That brings us to the end of our meeting. That was pretty quick. If anybody has anything they'd like to report about, I know maybe Alderman Buse wants to tell us about our trip.

It was awesome. You can just say that too. So on Monday, no, I'm kidding. So especially while I was gone and everything else and coming back and seeing everything that had happened, I don't think any of us can say enough how appreciative we are of the effectiveness, the efficiency, the professionalism and the community of our city government and employees and our neighbors in getting this done. It was truly, truly impressive in a very, very difficult time. And I hope as we continue to do this, we are incredibly fortunate with what we have and we have very near neighbors with whom we can also help and be a part of uh you know their community too even if there's a city line around that so i hope we stay aware of that and everything that we're doing um something that has come came up repeatedly in my neighborhood and i don't want us to forget it is our neighbors who had really loud and fuming generators it was you know really insulting injury for a lot of people would they'd come home at night and then this would go on until whatever hour, even 10 p.m. at night was really long. And talking with other neighbors who had a little more expensive generators, that's an option. I don't have one. I don't know. But that is something with noise ordinances that I hope we can address prior to – well, hopefully there won't be another event like this, but I think that that's something that we as a city should address. As we look at leaf blowers and everything else, this is the same type of thing that's disturbing the neighborhood in different ways. Okay. The report today on the stormwater was really impressive. I had listened to the ARB meeting, the Planning Commission, and it was a lot of concern with canopy and rainwater and all those things and the spec homes and everyone pushing a little bit for a little more coverage. So being on top of that and being in front of it is really critical. So thanks very much. We do need to move forward on that. I think last time, Bridget, you mentioned the charging stations and infrastructure that WashU has shared with us and given us those opportunities. So as we look at that, as we look at any of our fleet where we have a delay in our purchases, if we can keep in mind this opportunity is there and act on that, that would be phenomenal. The other issue that came up is I think that Deb Grossman might have brought this up last meeting too, is with all the streetlight damage and things like that, this may be a forced opportunity for us to spend a little bit more and get it done right the first time versus just, and I trust that that's what we're doing, but take advantage of that to move us forward maybe a little bit faster than we could otherwise on that project. That's all I have. Thanks.

Thank you, Alderman Gary Feder.

Thank you, Alderman Fader.

I think I said it in an email earlier today, but not only great news about hopefully what we're doing with FEMA, but again, kudos, I think, to everyone on our staff who, from what I heard, just did a remarkable job documenting our expenses. And hopefully that will really help. accrue to our benefit as a city that everybody did such an incredible job, not just with the cleanup, but then documenting it for FEMA purposes so that we hopefully can maximize our recovery. So I think that's very commendable. I attended a seminar, which was at my old office at HUSH, sponsored by the Missouri Growth Association, which was sort of a year-end program on what happened in Jefferson City. They had their lobbying firm, a couple people there, who gave a terrific presentation about what got enacted, what didn't. And so the projections about the special session. Um, so that was very worthwhile. We had an interesting call of the, uh, the CCF executive committee, which is usually the officers that was expanded in a Zoom call to include the mayor and the city manager to talk about somewhat of the follow-up issues to the tornado in terms of potential donors who might like to contribute in some ways to the efforts to recover from this. And obviously it was pointed out that FEMA, the FEMA resolution was very important to a lot of the things we're going to be doing in the next six months in terms of various projects. But interesting that some folks had already come forward and were suggesting ways in which they could help bring the private sector into our efforts, the restoration efforts. I'm sure we'll talk more about that at the retreat. And I think that was an interesting plan commission meeting of all properties, 515 South Central always keeps popping up again. But we'll see where that goes. And there was, again, an interesting discussion about impervious versus pervious surfaces. And so I already alluded to that in earlier comments. It'll be interesting to see how those kinds of issues are dealt with in the future, given these new potential regulations. Thanks.

Thank

you.

Alderman Rick Hummell?

Alderman Hummel?

Just following up on the storm response, certainly our ward was very heavily hit and greatly impacted. And so almost universally, the response from residents has been showing great appreciation for the crisis response by the city. They're generally very impressed by that. And so that was terrific. That said, there's always ongoing things and we learn new things as we go along. And so there's some utilities like cable companies and others maybe haven't necessarily addressed everybody's issue or they can't get to every issue all at the same time. So these things still come up and people get to their wits end and aren't sure where to turn. And so the city staff has been willing to engage and try to help and be part of the solution on that. So I appreciate that. Yeah. And then there's other folks that, just like Gary was mentioning, want to be part of the solution on how to improve, especially after tree decimation. What can we do? So as we start to formulate ideas on what we're going to do, I think it's important that we communicate. Even if we're communicating, we'd like to have a plan and engage the community. We should just make sure we're telling people because people are always thirsty for more information about those kinds of things. We did have a CRSWC meeting, partly involved the new slate of officers. And so Bridget is transitioning off and I'm transitioning on as the president. What was impressive about the meeting, though, was the detailed marketing plan that the staff has put in place and has in over the next couple of years. It's very thoughtful, all about driving additional membership and making sure member retention is in place as well so that the quality is seen there. We did do some minor fee adjustments as well to increase fees. So I think generally the trends are all positive there. Becky and I did have a meeting with Concordia, and we should anticipate in the next week they'll be making a public announcement that's very general and vague. But just what their intentions are and what they'd like to be doing as they move forward. And so I think it's very consistent with what's in the neighborhood agenda. And then finally, I went to the music and wine event. And I got there maybe eight-ish or so. So it was towards the latter part of it. And rain was threatening. And so I thought that design and layout was good. It seemed like it was a little less well attended, which I think weather was largely the reason for that, which was too bad. But anyway, I certainly like that event and like that we're doing it. So that's all I've got.

Did you? I was curious because I was going to go, but Anna was successful. So I was unable to go and we were celebrating with parents. Did the rain, like I kept meaning to ask David too, because when I came out of OB Clark said like 10, 15, it was like torrential. So did our crews get hit when they were cleaning up? Yeah, I mean, I can't

imagine. The rain hit right around 9. It was scheduled to end at 10. It was 8.30, 9 o'clock, somewhere in there. The band was... told, I guess, by whoever was running the music part to stop. But there was a huge group of people that were dancing in the rain and having fun. So they said they were going to play another set until 10. In the meantime, our staff was trying to like run around. They were scurrying, trying to get everything picked up as quickly as they could while these people danced in the rain. And then that's when my wife and I had had enough and we left. I'm assuming that they played more But I know that all of our stuff was soaked, all of our public works staff was soaked. But you know the rain hit late we were really fortunate that we had a window to do it at all. because the weather didn't look like it was going to be good that night. So that was a tough call to even go ahead and do it. I'm glad that we did, because we did have a really strong turnout, especially earlier in the night. It kind of tapered towards when the weather hit, and then the people that had fun in the rain had fun in the rains. So overall, I thought it was successful, but I did feel bad for our staff that they've been putting in all these hours, and then they go and they give up a Saturday to co-work this event, and they got absolutely drenched.

Yeah, I mean, when we were leaving O.B. Clark's at 1015, it was like, oh no, because they're probably

cleaning up. Those poor folks. They had these really thick ponchos on, but I don't think it was

that much. Not in that rain. It was soaked just from running from one door to the car. I know

that all of our stuff is still, we had that conversation too just a little while ago, pretty wet down at the garage and we're going to be using that Friday at the barbecue at the firehouse. Please show up if you can. It's for tornado release stuff. But anyhow, we got to try to air all of it out and get it ready to go for that. Great, great.

Um, well, in addition to that event, we also had the shop park social, which, um, my younger child and I, um, attended. Um, and that was great. Also a really nice event. There was, you know, lots of kids and, um, blowups and, um, a great presence by our police and fire departments. Um, there were crafts, there were games people could play. There was a Stage we borrow kind of a makeshift stage from the city of Brentwood and they kind of roll up in this like vehicle and then open it up and it's a stage, but it was really neat and the music was great so you know kudos to the event staff as well. for doing that. Um, five iron golf is officially open. Um, so that's great. We finally have our entertainment, you know, unit at the bottom of four side points. So that's great. Um, it really is a neat place. I mean, it's, it, I, I think they're really designed for like private events, especially half of it. I mean, people can go, it opens at 6am. So if you really want to go there and practice your swing, like Anna might want to go there early in the morning before she comes to work. Um, but yeah, so that's open. Um, so that's great. I, um, as Rick said, it was my last CRSWC meeting. Um, but I also wanted to mention too, um, kudos Kathleen Dunn really took the reins to try to improve our scholarship policy at the center of Clayton to kind of make it more attractive and also just make it make having a center membership more affordable to more people. So we modified that, um, you know, to increase how much we're providing and CCF actually, um, pays for that. And they were also very excited to, you know, make sure that we're trying to increase participation in that. So that was great as well. And I also wanted, yeah, as David mentioned, there's a barbecue on Friday that the fire department's doing from 11 to two, I think. So it all goes to the Red Cross. And our fire department was also in the city of St. Louis tarping roofs a couple of weeks ago, so we're certainly providing some assistance to the city as much as we can, I think, at this point. And then lastly, David and I have been delivering chainsaws to municipalities who assisted us. So just a chainsaw and a thank you note. But it's been fun to kind of meet other city managers and mayors. And also, you know, David knows where all these places are. And so it's been, you know, directing me to all these neat, you know, it's cool to see all the different city halls and public works buildings around town. So they're all very different.

Who thought of the chainsaws?

Well, we received a very generous donation from Home Depot. And so we don't need quite that many chains. So we thought it would be a great way to say thank you. Very good. Yes.

A question, I'm curious when you mentioned the recovery effort occurred to me, I've noticed in my neighborhood a number of houses that now have what look like had their roofs shrink wrapped. It's like this whole white thing over the top. And so while that sounds like a really good idea to keep the water out, I'm wondering, do we have any kind of issues with that and how long it stays that way? I'm just curious, how do we address that?

Yeah, well, there's obviously a significant demand for roof work at this time across the region. So we're trying to be very open to how people address things. So right now, instead of writing code enforcement cases for different scenarios, if we identify something that's potential hazard and we're making contact where we can and and walking them through the process that we have to either get permits where they're needed or, you know, let them know that these things are happening. So it'll be a few months before we actually go through and really say, hey, you've had this shrink wrap on your roof for too long now. Most of our residents are very actively pursuing the final construction and repair. So we haven't found any issues with people who are resistant to changing that that condition at this point it's more just giving them the opportunity to do so

yeah that sounds great in my in my where i was coming from is just make sure we have good communication on we all want to get to the same point at the end and that we just know help them get there that's all

yep yep we have a lot of information i would say um continue you know to direct people if they want to report so we have a good a good idea of where the damage was occurring Because what we've been doing is through the website, people can report damage to their private property. And that has helped. We still have one of our inspectors who's really dedicated to storm damage. And so he does some inspections on heavy days, but really he's spending the majority of his time in the neighborhoods that have the most damage, trying to check on progress, talking to contractors, talking to homeowners about the next steps in the process and making sure everybody is aware of what needs to happen or other things. Because we do have, you know, he'll find a roof that does require a permit and people are actively working on it. And instead of stopping them like we would typically, and leaving a hole in the roof potentially, um, and the, that homeowner potentially losing that contractor to another job because we delayed them. We're trying to work with them to get the information that we need to make sure that that homeowner has the correct roof repairs being done, et cetera. So he, Rico Hunt is our tornado inspector and he's been really good about just trying to be there as a resource and make sure that everything's getting repaired as, as it should be.

Rick, too, I forgot to mention because you were talking about communication. I think in the retreat next week we'll have a more serious discussion about how we want to approach transforming Y-Down, not transforming Y-Down. But I think we'll have a broader discussion about the communication we plan to do and how we plan to get input from our, you know, especially your neighbors. Yeah. Yep. Lastly, too, I forgot to mention that I did have a great meeting with Chancellor Martin, Joanna and JD Burton yesterday. They came to City Hall. And I thought, I'm happy to talk to anybody individually about what we discussed, but I thought it was a really productive meeting. So that was great.

Mayor, I should mention that at the meeting of the Equity Commission on Thursday, there's going to be a discussion about an incident that occurred at Glenridge Elementary School, which I guess by now is four or five weeks ago, where there was some Some anti-Semitic and also racially offensive language that was basically graffiti put on the school. The chair of the Equity Commission, I think, heard from a couple people saying, who were concerned, wasn't this an issue for the city's equity commission to somehow talk about? I did talk to Laura about it. I said I wasn't certain at the end of the day whether this was something the city would actually get involved with, but it did seem to me if... It's true if it's an equity commission, and that's the kind of thing that maybe is appropriate. So it will be on the agenda. I think Jordan Kadosh, I believe it's pronounced, who's from the ADL, who has met with the school district about programs dealing with educating students. education about anti-Semitic kinds of situations and also racially offensive language. He's going to be attending the program, the meeting. I think there will be a few parents from the school district attending. So at least I want to make people aware that that discussion is happening. I think it's still, I've said to Laura that I think it's not a clear issue as to what the city's role should be with this issue since, to a great extent, it's a school district issue. But on the other hand, it has implications that go beyond schools. So I don't know what will come of that, but I think... I made the mayor aware that was on the agenda for Thursday. So if there are other board members, I know Susan and I, a couple of years ago, this issue came up when we were both the liaisons for the commission. That was prior to October 7th. And so the world has changed a lot since then. And so I don't know exactly where that discussion will go, but we'll see. So it should be interesting. Thank you.

I would just mention that Cameron Poole with the school district is going to be at the meeting as well. So I did inform the school district that this conversation was going to happen. So they're sending a representative.

Yeah, no, we're very happy about that because he has not attended very frequently, but he is attending this meeting. So that will make it, I think, more substantive.

And I am sorry if one other we did get three applications for our municipal judge so and as if everybody remembers the panel, the interview panel. The applications closed this Friday there's only one person that's applied so if there's anybody you know that you think might be interested in applying to be on the panel, the Interview panel. please reach out to them and ask them to apply. Additionally, if any one of you, there needs to be one elected official on the panel, so if any one of are interested, please let me know, and I'll reach out to Becky and Jeff as well to let them know. Who's already on the panel that It's a four-person panel, so it's one elected official, one member of the Equity Commission, and then two at-large members that have some sort of – who have applied, I guess, you know, who are in general interest and hopefully have some sort of background. We're looking for one of those two. Yeah, I mean, and again, one person has applied, but, you know, if we get – Okay.

Really quickly, next Wednesday at four o'clock, the 18th, we're going to have the Remembrance Park grand opening. So put that on your calendars. We will be closed next Thursday, the 19th for Juneteenth. And then the 20th is the retreat. So we've got a lot going on the latter half of the week next week. And then I just want to thank the staff. I know all of our calendars are clogged with tornado related meetings and it's also budget time for us. So I just want to working on so many different things at the same time and getting all that budget information so that it's timely and so we can have some pretty decent numbers for the board to look at on the 20th. So it's been a lot to try to pull together here in the last few weeks, but I really appreciate all the work from everybody and especially the finance department as you put that stuff together. So thank you.

Great. I move to adjourn.

Second. Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Great.