September 30, 2025 — Meeting Transcript

right, good evening. It's our Tuesday, September 30th Board of Aldermen meeting. We are going to start with our discussion session and I believe Gary Carter from our staff is going to lead a discussion on the Taste of St. Louis.

Good evening. Gary Carter, Director of Economic Development. You have before you a summary that David laid out earlier tonight for you about the taste of Clayton. So we are here tonight because when we initially entered into this agreement, it was a one-year contract that could be extended not more than two additional terms up to five years each based on mutual agreement with both parties. And we just wanted to provide you with a recap from this year's event so you could have that as you evaluate whether you would like to proceed with future events or not. We'll start with operational concerns. The required permit and information required of those permits was not timely. Now, from doing other special events and working with other vendors, there is always a first year learning process. And I would attribute some percentage to of the difficulties we had this year with that. But I do think that the event producer does have some responsibility in that also. So I think it was a learning experience on both our parts, but certainly their part could have been a little bit more efficient than we did experience. We did have ever evolving footprint. If you remember when we initially spoke about that, it was a much larger footprint. I think due to some internal issues, both with sponsorships and potential vendors for the event, we did wind up shrinking that footprint, but it was I don't know, Matt, probably within two weeks before the event that we are closer to a week before the actual event that it was actually finalized. So that was a challenge and something to address in the future if we do proceed with future events. We did have some complications with communications with staff on the permitting side. On the footprint side, on the operational from traffic control and right-of-way permits, but also communication within the communication department, we didn't receive good information to help promote the event either. So that's something that will need to be addressed if we move forward too. Trash was collected in the areas, but unfortunately, the vendor that the event producer used did not get everything cleared out Sunday night. In fact, he himself had to come Monday and clear the remaining trash piles out. They were done, I think, by noon on Monday, but the expectation was the streets were to be completely cleared by Monday morning. And then the same issue with the traffic control. They use third-party traffic control in a lot of the... equipment used for that was pushed to the sidewalk or on against buildings and wasn't picked up until midday monday so that's another issue we would have to address so basically the overarching statement from that is there was some learning um opportunities in there but there was also something if we do move forward that we would probably want to address more structurally in the revised contract in order to ensure a little bit better performance in those areas We did receive his feedback. I won't necessarily read it word for word to you, but he thought the event was relatively decent given the heat, which was the major challenge of the weekend. And we'll come to that in a few minutes again when we talk about weather. fire and police response. The online reviews were positive. He would like to address moving the date to May or June to avoid the summertime heat and any running too close to art fair. So that's something to discuss. He also would like to consider being open for lunch on Friday. He felt that opening so late Friday was not a benefit to him. He did acknowledge that the event was not profitable this year. And one of the lacking components of the event was the entertainment component. It just simply wasn't enough. It was on a small stage, kind of separated from the main area. So that's something he would also like to address. He did think that the traffic control went well. He himself was not exceptionally happy with the trash vendor. And on the, I don't know if it's on your backside or your second page, but we kind of go into the public safety issues. There was the typical lost keys. As you can imagine, there was some heat-related responses. And I think there's two or three instances of quote-unquote fights, but really turned out to be verbal fights. disagreements between some people. Officers were involved, but there was, I don't think anything that actually come of the two. So probably nothing out of the normal given 100 plus heat index. And there were no calls Sunday. We did have limited feedback from Clayton businesses. There was a restaurant outside of the footprint that said that his business was hurt. Their business was hurt all three days because of the event. And we did have one retailer, non-restaurant within the footprint that was very pleased with the event, increased their sales there. Yeah. So the point of this being, this is kind of something for you to contemplate so we can decide whether we would like to move forward. And if we do want to move forward, I think David and I would both suggest that we address reopening the contract to address some of these issues that we did experience this year so we could have a little bit cleaner version. Happy to answer any questions.

We can just start, Susan, if you have any questions or comments.

Yeah, I'm kind of curious what your take and our Clayton staff's take was on the success of the event.

I don't think it was successful. I unfortunately wasn't able to attend personally, but from discussion with the staff that was here and the event producer, he lost money. I think he was fairly upfront about that or just barely broke even. I don't know what the difference is, but You know, I think a lot of it, like even the events we do ourselves, if you went to Jazz Fest over the weekend, wildly successful. Anything in 70 degree temperature usually is. That's why California has a lock on outdoor events. Not so much Arizona. But so I think the weather played a huge part. of the poor attendance, it was just clearly too hot to be eating fried food on a city street. So, you know, if you move at the June and you have 75 degree temperature and you're not butting up against a huge event in St. Charles like it was this year also, then you might stand a better chance.

You know, if historically he's been profitable with this or...

Well, so he's only had it a limited number of years. And this is kind of bounced around from different locations. It was in the city, it was in Chesterfield, and it was back at Ballpark Village. You know, from working for events for a long time now, most are not as profitable as you would think. um you know i think you can see that from our own art fair the mayor sits on that board also and it's very very much sponsor dependent and i think that was where this event came up short this year in which necessitated some of the pullback

yeah we went and it was the heat you're right in that heat you're not hungry um so all right thank you

I just want to clarify a couple things on the feedback about entertainment needed to hold attendees at the event. My expectation is that that's the producer's responsibility to secure entertainment. That's correct. And so, but sounds like they're just acknowledging that that was a weakness. Yeah.

They are acknowledging their own weakness.

Yeah. And one thing I was curious about, so they secured the vendors for trash collection and traffic control. And do we have any kind of like preferred vendors? Are they vendors that have worked in the city of Clayton before? Like what's...

Well, Matt is here. We don't necessarily have, we have the same trash vendor that they used is the same trash vendor. That we use. And unfortunately I mean, as far as cleanup goes, I think they did use, did they. Yeah. So, and that's the cleanup crew. I mean, the containers are not an issue. It's the crew going around. And from my own experience, it's, That is something that needs to be actively managed from our own personal experience. And I think if you do actively manage it, you get a better response. So that may have been a learning opportunity for Chuck also, is the active management. And I think him having to pick it up Monday morning himself, he's probably learned that lesson the hard way.

Okay. Or even it would be something where we would specify that they need to be aware that we expect them to do actively.

Yeah, and I made the statement earlier, David and I both believe if this body decides to give another chance, we would like to crack open that agreement one more time to put in things that we've learned from this year.

Yeah. Um, most of the incidents appear to be heat related, which is not at all surprising given, I mean, I didn't come because it was missed. I mean, I What can you say, if anything, about that? Like I would assume that we have some incidents at the art fair or at the Jazz Fest or at anything else, whether it's lost keys or I don't know.

Yeah, I mean there's always lost keys, lost phones. One year during the Jazz Fest, we had a lady drop her phone in the restroom. So, I mean, there's always something that happens like that. There's always... I think he handed her the glove. He

did, really?

There's always heat incidents at Art Fair in past years when it is hot, you know, some years. I mean, this event, had it been 70 degrees, would have been a different event, I think. And this past Art Fair would be a different Art Fair had it been 95 plus, too. So, you know, anything outside is weather-dependent. And I think I try to make a point of that when we do our event presentation in the spring is that, you know, recognize that any amount of money that you authorize for this is gone the moment you do, because unless we pull the event before we spend the money, there isn't a rescheduled date available because you've already entered into certain contracts. Not everything is gone and some can be transferred to future dates, but yeah. Anyway, I hope that answers your question.

Yeah, it does. I think based on what you've said, shared and thinking about this. I mean, I'm certainly open to giving it another chance. I don't know what else we do in May and June and if that would be, you know, if we have room on the calendar and our staff and

stuff. Now, something that wasn't on here that I do want to, and it just came to me, and I apologize to interrupt, but we did have one Clayton restaurant participate, and he was very clear to me that he probably was not going to participate in the future. So, just recognize that I don't, you know, and that may change, and we have restaurants opening up here pretty soon, and different coffee shops and so forth, so they may want to participate, but

Thanks.

I think like 10 days before the event, I think Bridget and I, Bridget was still in the third ward, still is. But in any event, from a restaurateur who said, I don't know whether this event is going to be on my block or not. And actually, when I contacted Gary, I think the response was, we're not absolutely certain either. Now, maybe my timing's a little off, but in any event, it was clear that communication about the map and where people were going to be was definitely not great. I won't name the restaurateur, but I think it's probably who Gary is referring to, who basically, after we told him it wasn't going to be in his block, he later said, let's have coffee. And when we did, he said, hey, I love the art fair. I love Gary Carter. I love everything about the city of Clayton. But don't do this event again because it's not good for restaurants, because it's only about food. And so the only people who come to it, this is generalizing, are people who are going to eat there. Don't come to the restaurants. And everybody else who might normally come to our restaurant, he did say he spoke for some others. They don't come to the restaurants because they know parking is going to be worse than usual, et cetera, et cetera. So he said it was a very bad weekend for them. I went three times just because I was curious. I got my wife to go once. She promised she would not go again. But that was mostly because it was very hot. I thought the event was generally underwhelming. It's hard not to compare it with the art fair or with Jazz Fest. Yeah, I thought the various food offerings were fine. There was like one block that was kind of like everything else. Other booths and some of that, you know, I thought was, I think it's a legal term, kind of schlocky. A lot of T-shirts and beads and other stuff that I thought was just not terribly great. Um, Having said all that, I do think the idea that it is an attempt to make Clayton more accessible, inclusive, all that, I would probably give it another shot. Again, since Kerry has a long list of things that he, I know, would tell him you're going to have to do a lot better job on if you're ever going to make it to year three of this event. So I'd be inclined to give him another shot, but it was definitely underwhelming in many respects.

So my first observation is thank you for putting this together. I think this is great feedback, and I'd like to see the fact that we're seeing your assessment of what's occurred. And I understand the reason for doing that is because you're looking for specific feedback about moving forward. But I would love to see this kind of feedback for all of our events, even if you don't want our feedback on it or don't need it, just so that we're aware of what we're doing in order to improve things. And so that's sort of my first comment. My second is that I'd love to see us continue to do things that bring vibrancy to our downtown. And while I recognize Gary's comment that this may be more of a competition than a benefit to many of our downtown merchants, our expenditures in this were significantly less competitive. if not non-existent, especially compared to all the other major events that we do promote for our downtown. So in the spirit of vibrancy, I'd like to see us continue to do that. I certainly would like to see much better execution. So I like the approach that you're going to take in order to move forward. I'm making an assumption that there wasn't anything that occurred that really poses us, poses any kind of reputational risk to the city with this event. Was there anything that was a concern that, you know, like Gary's comment about maybe some of the wares that were being sold? Is there anything that isn't considered to be a good fit or somehow really tarnishes the city?

Well, I mean, I... My understanding of the event in the past, they've always had booth vendors. The t-shirts, the beads, the other stuff that Alderman Gary Feder was referencing. But even at our own art fair over the past years, we've had sponsors with booths such as window replacement. We had a... Several years ago, we had a... I think it was Colgate toothpaste truck in the, uh, what used to be, or what, what is now the Forsyth point building parking lot. So I don't necessarily think that's uncommon. That is their part of their financing structure, like selling beer and running.

Well, I mean, I... My understanding of the event in the past, they've always had booth vendors. The t-shirts, the beads, the other stuff that Alderman Fader was referencing. But even at our own art fair over the past years, we've had sponsors with booths such as window replacement. We had a... Several years ago, we had a... I think it was Colgate toothpaste truck in the, uh, what used to be, or what, what is now the Forsyth point building parking lot. So I don't necessarily think that's uncommon. That is their part of their financing structure, like selling beer and running.

My concern would be more along the lines of recent controversy, like a vape shop has a booth or something like that. Um, Just something that our citizens might find to be objectionable. I

think that is certainly something that we could put in a revised contract is approval of vendors.

Okay. So, and then I just want to echo Becky's comment regarding calendar. I'm remembering about the pressure on city staff regarding all the various events we have and then bunching them together. But as you know, when I'm remembering we've, I know the timing is way off on this, but Cardinal opening day we weren't so keen on. It would be great if it was something that would tie into that in that area. Now, I know that's probably way too soon for what he's trying to do, but if it can fit in that calendar time, then that would be terrific.

Yeah. Choosing a date's not a, I mean, he's proposed May or June. I mean, obviously we would need to coordinate with him and the public works and police that, you know, have the presence there. So that choosing a new date would be a coordinated effort. Yeah.

So that's all I. So that answers one question. So I assume he wants to come back. He wants to come back and host it again. The

knowledge that I have as of now.

Um, I think I'm generally good with what other folks said. I think it's worth trying again. I know we can renew up to five years. There's no point in doing that. I think we just do one year at a time and see how this goes. I was thinking similar to Rick, phrased a little differently, but getting to the same place, which is we didn't spend a lot of time putting it on. I think it could be benefit to the city, but not to the point where it goes below Clayton standards or Clayton benefits. And I define standards any number of ways, but like, you know, Chi Chi shops or bong shop, like whatever, like there is a base level that like our citizens expect to have at events. And I want to make sure that he can meet that. I'll be at a subjective, subjective standard and we still find benefits out of it. And it sounds like, We didn't find a lot this year. So I don't want to keep doing it year over year if we all look at each other and like, well, there's no benefit here. But I also think 102 degrees or 110 degrees in the middle of August isn't really going to give us a good...

Yeah, I mean, I don't want anyone with the impression that I think this sheet represents a staff statement that it was totally not worth it or it was the event producer's fault as to why this happened this way. I mean, I would lay a lot... of the quote unquote blame on the heat, the extreme heat. And the other stuff I think was that we encountered is an opportunity to address in a future, in a revised contract such as, you know, the footprint, the requirement for certain dates for communication submissions, for permit submissions, right-of-way permits being pulled. And now having seen the amount of vendors, some kind of supervisory clause on, allowing or not allowing certain types

and i'm good with all that that was those were generally my thoughts it's like it's it's worth trying again it's worth trying in a better weather as long as we make sure it's kind of living up to kind of the the standards that we've community kind of tend to accept for events so

any thoughts

yeah i guess i just you know like kind of going off of um what Alderman Gorg was saying, is what are the benefits for Clayton? Is it just for the vibrancy, for something for people to do, or is there like a financial benefit for us for hosting these types of things?

Well, I mean, I think that the goal is the vibrancy. This body has a stated goal of special events. I can get to you. You may not have been included in that initially since you weren't here. But I think if you go to the 2040 document to go to the Sasaki plan of 2013, and from my conversations with realtors and property owners of retail spaces, they want more people not on the sidewalk, but on the street in Clayton on a regular basis. And so I think by doing these events... until we get a density of entertainment spaces that are, people are going to naturally, we are artificially creating that with, with special events.

Okay. Did like, did you hear back from any of the retail people? Cause I know, I guess restaurants were probably not ideal to go to if you're going to this event to eat, but did

you hear from retail? Yeah. I mean, I heard from, from one retailer in the footprint of the

area, um, And, I mean, he was, he had really good sales from it. Okay. But, I mean, that's a specific case. It was Gerard at John's Pipe Shop. You know, and I have heard from some other restauranteurs that in the past about these type of things. Some are not necessarily concerned about competing against a food vendor on a street festival, but some rightfully might be so. I don't want to project my thoughts into their operation when they live and breathe it.

So I guess to better understand this event is just to help with vibrancy,

is to get people out of the houses downtown. To bring people that may or may not come to Clayton on a regular basis exposure to

Clayton. Thanks.

Thanks, Gary. It was my understanding that they were really going to supply all the, did we have people from Public Works that had to do something? I just thought they were going to do everything.

They did do everything. We did have supervisory roles from Public Works represented there just to maintain Clayton standards. So Matt and his supervisors were there on site just to make sure that... Nothing weird was happening with the street and the food vendors. That traffic control was set up. They did use private security, but our officers were also there to enforce Clayton's standards.

And they paid for our

officers? Yeah, we have submitted that bill to them, and they are in the process.

Sounds good. I'll just say for everybody on the board, I did see the vendor whose name is escaping me at this chuck at the art fair reveal um and this was in advance and he was very in advance he was apologetic i think just because i think it was a struggle like changing the place um changing how things were going to go was i think harder than he anticipated so um you know he kept saying i promise next year will be better next year will be be better so um he was definitely well aware that there were some going to be some deficiencies this year I'd certainly support doing it, you know, another year, giving him another chance, you know, just doing just that one-year contract. And, you know, if we can find a way to have it be a different time of year, which everyone has already suggested and which he has suggested, I think it's a good idea. So, yeah, thank you.

All right. So you, just to be clear, you'd like, this body's okay if we can renegotiate a contract that addresses these issues tonight and bring forth?

Yeah. I mean, I think based on everybody's comments, it looks like definitely, I think it sounded like all of us were at least willing to support looking at it for another year. So thank you. Thank you. All right. Good evening, everybody. Well, is it quite not quite seven o'clock, but, um, Thank you, everybody, for coming this evening. We were just having a discussion on Taste of St. Louis, just getting some feedback from our staff and from the vendor to hear how it went. So we have, just for the benefit of everybody on the board, we have our MIAC students in the back. It's good to see all of you. Cole Craig's on the left, then Carly Selig. And then Harper Sweeney, right? Harper. And then Luke Jeans. And I think Asher Stitzel. or is Asher trying to remember if Asher's, but I know at least Jack Letman couldn't come because I think he's in Perryville playing soccer. So, but welcome all of you. And I'll reiterate, you know, if you guys have questions, please feel free to follow up with any of us on particular questions after the meeting, follow up with me or, you know, for a particular board member, I'm sure anybody would be open to answering any questions you have. So we're happy to have you here. Claire, right? Claire Linen, yes. So Claire Linenbringer is also here. Claire, I was just mentioning that if you have any questions afterwards, please feel free to reach out, but we're happy to have you guys here.

Welcome.

All right, so we have reached our seven o'clock hour. If the city clerk could call the roll.

Alderwoman Buse. Here. Alderwoman Patel. Here. Bader.

Alderman Rick Hummell.

Alderman Hummel.

Aldermen Yorg.

Aldewoman Waldman. Here. Mayor McAndrew. Here. City Manager David Gipson.

Aldewoman Waldman. Here. Mayor McAndrew. Here. City Manager Gibson.

City Attorney Carr.

Here. Thank you. Prior to starting our meeting, if there's any person in the audience that has any public requests or comments or petitions that they would like to address the board about that does not have to do with any subject on the agenda, they're welcome to come up now. Good evening, Ann. Good. Ann, is that light still on the microphone? I think it is. Is it still green? Is it green?

Perfect. Actually, I'm not bitching and complaining. I have some thank yous. And June, you'll have to help me with the names. Some just recent things that came up kind of about keeping up standards of Clayton, and it had to do with advertising through the city. And in my neighborhood, we've had some complaints about advertising benches, which are popping up all over. And I have, because it's me, visual aids everywhere. but there's only that to share.

Thanks, Sam.

And I had called talking with some neighbors about some concern about advertising in Clayton. Actually, in the whole area of the county. It seems to be kind of taking over right now. And I called June to ask about the issue and it turns out our city officials, and I'm sorry, I forgot already who.

Our public works has been notified and our building department has been notified. Tom O'Mara and Tom Lard.

And I was so delighted that they're already on top of this. And I don't know if you knew what, not what's going on, but what some of the complaints might be. But that's why I included some pictures here. And what this is, it's just showing particularly benches that are popping up everywhere. advertising benches all over the place, all up and down Big Bend, all over. They're already in the county. Well, we're the county, but I mean, they're just everywhere. And I think they're pretty unsightly and kind of cheap looking. And I don't think the kind of thing that we should have. And I also believe they're not permitted. And I wanted to show you some details of some of what these look like. These are just pictures of a few on Clayton Road, at the bank, at Schnucks, all over Hanley Road. So I called the number and got the owner who was fairly defensive and I just mentioned, so I wouldn't be surprised that there've been some complaints about what they look like. So in driving around some of these, almost looked like they'd be sheltered, like at a bus stop or a shelter. And I just included our neighbors in Richmond Heights have wonderful shelters without ads. On Dale, there's particularly beautiful sitting areas. There's no advertising there. There's nice cutaways that people can sit. And I do sympathize. Particularly if you're taking a bus, it'd be nice to be able to sit. It'd be nice to have covering. But these benches are going up all over the place about in the middle. And I think what brought it home literally was this picture of. Big bend, and there's a bench right in front of Tuscany Park. And I wanted to show you some details about it. It went up a few weeks ago, and then not long after that, the advertising went on it. And if you saw it up, it's hanging over the sidewalk. This is already, as you know, a pretty dangerous street, and the sidewalk is already damaged. too narrow to, and this is the safer end of it. And it also, I mean, if you look at the picture of the one close up of the bench in front of Tuscany, It looks kind of trashy, but if you look closer, the thing is chained. There's a picture of the chain and padlock that's holding the thing down. And apparently none of this is permitted, but I think it would be nice to not have any of it. And the one reason is, oh, they also, this one in front of Tuscany, they even tied it to a resident's fence. And I don't know if it's cable tied. It just looks like cord. But that's pretty unsightly and disgusting. Not nice enough, but I do sympathize with having obviously a place to sit if you're waiting for something. But there's not even room. We requested a trash can there because it's right about the right time when you get away from White Castle and there's always blue and white bags there. And we used to have a trash can, but there's not enough width even on that sidewalk for a trash can again. So certainly not for Ben's bench as well. And there's a picture toward the end of the bank on Clayton Road. I can't even remember the name of it, but it's kind of in disrepair. There's a picture of a little fence brick wall that's falling down. It's not well-maintained, but in that same, there's a white arrow pointing to one of those advertising benches. And I don't know, these things seem to accumulate if you're not keeping track of them. After that, there's a tiny little sign that I just labeled it. It's a typical ad, junk wisely. And people are sticking these H signs wire things all over the place with their ads, things like, uh, Christmas tree lights, um, and stuff that they never take down. Um, and the only reason it's worrisome to me is once you have a little junk wisely sign there, it doesn't take long for more signs to appear, um, on little corners and the shop owners say, if I was seeing some on, um, Big Bend at, I can't remember the street, but before you get to Dale, there were some signs that Christmas tree or Christmas house lighting and some more ads came in. There was for masonry, just brand new ones on Big Bend for roof repair, of course. But the people putting them there, it's sort of in no man's land. Can they do it? I don't know. I guess if they can put it there, I guess I can pull them up. So on the last page, I wanted to show you what, I don't know if you remember these signs, those yellow and black ones that were all over Clayton Road and Big Bend. So this is the trunk of my car. This is one pickup and you're welcome. But that was 25. It's usually 24, 25 at a time. They were all along. Well, my work route went along Clayton Road. They were all up and down Big Ben, as far as the opera theater. But it was a take like that anytime I'd go out. And I tried to recycle the little metal things. Kinko's doesn't want them. but nobody's really in charge of that. So, which I get we're plenty busy enough, but I don't like looking at them and certainly don't like looking gun show signs, but anything where somebody is just plopping it in the ground, ignoring it, they never pick it up. My suggestion is we don't, I don't think anyone ever applies for these, but I would certainly like to see them discouraged, especially cheap bench advertising. So thank you to the public works people and all that. It was very, what I called, they were already on it the day before, so thanks.

And thank you for your comments and thank you for the pictures. Um, and thank you for keeping our neighborhoods clean. We appreciate it.

Yeah.

Thank you. All right. Um, we will get to the first, uh, matter on our agenda, which is our consent agenda. Um, Mr. City manager, there's any,

I'll open the discussion. Does anybody have any questions or comments related to anything on the consent agenda? Alderwoman Buse?

I move that the board approve the consent agenda.

I have two quick questions, sorry.

Oh, sure.

Go ahead. Just on the... Changing the parking ambassadors, do we have a cost of generally what that's going to be? I know he said it was going to be relatively minor, but do we have a sense, David, of what that would be?

I mean, the only other question I had, and this is maybe just what we've always phrased it and never looked at it. But on the liquor license, it says we're going to grant to sell all kinds of intoxicating liquor at retail by package. Is that retail by package? Does that mean that they can sell like a case of beer or like? You can carry it out. That's

actually want to

That was all I had. I just wanted clarifications. I understood. Okay.

I just wanted to add, it's probably unnecessary, but since if the community doesn't think we do actually look at who gets appointed to our boards. I know the mayor talked to Mr. Van Hoft and since I'm a zoning junkie, I did really want to meet him before I voted for him. So he's an impressive guy with good development experience. So I think he'll be a very good addition. Wanted to add that.

Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Alderman Buse, maybe try that motion again. I move that the board approve the consent agenda. Second. Any discussion?

Alderman Buse. Aye. Alderman Patel. Aye. Aldermen Gary Feder.

Alderman Buse. Aye. Alderman Patel. Aye. Aldermen Fader.

Aye.

Aldernan Rick Hummell.

Aldernan Hummel.

Aye.

Aldeman Jeffery Yorg. Aye. Alderwoman Waldman. Aye. Mayor McAndrew.

Aldeman York. Aye. Alderwoman Waldman. Aye. Mayor McAndrew.

Aye. Thank

you.

The next item on our agenda is related to next year's property tax levies. Mr. City Manager?

All right, I'll open to the discussion. Does anybody have any questions or comments from the audience? From up on the board?

Just a curiosity question. I noticed that while all of the numbers were reduced a little bit, the Clayton Special Business District was reduced by over 50%. I'm guessing that as I looked into the document further, there was a reduction, a significant reduction in, I think, the residential rate in the Special Business District. Anyway, I just wondered what drove such a big change compared to all the other categories.

I'm going to pull her over.

Good evening. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. So to answer your question, we really don't get an explanation. All we get are lump sum numbers of this is your residential, this is your commercial, and this is your personal property. We can ask, but I can't guarantee that they'll provide us with anything.

It was more just, Karen, the aspect that when you broke out the categories, which were very helpful on, it's on page 19 of our document, where it shows the impact on city general revenue, the police building, debt service, and special business district. It just struck me as odd that one was affected on a percentage basis significantly more than the other's. And I just didn't know if because it's a special business district, perhaps there was something unique about the special business district assessed values that made that occur.

Not that I'm aware of. I can look into it further if you'd like, but they're really, it's just the, yeah, just the assessed value. A lot of times in a given year, new construction will come in different than we expected to, but that was not the case this year.

Okay. Did anything come online that would have thrown that off, like Foresight Point or any of that that would have just thrown the... No, because this is just

The spirit isn't necessarily, it isn't that big of a number overall. It's just more the soundness of all of our calculations and how we assess these things and, and just not being surprised by things. That's all.

And as far as the calculations go, it's really, it's very error proof unless we type in the wrong number. We take the numbers that St. Louis County provides us and then we put them into the template that I don't know if you looked at the email that I sent out after the last meeting and we drop it in and it auto calculates everything for us.

Thanks, Karen. Does anybody else have any other questions? Comments? I believe Alderman Buse, you'll read something as amended.

Not for this, no?

introduce bill

number, I think, as amended. Okay.

I introduce Bill No. 7090.1 as amended, approving the property tax levies for tax year 2025 to be read for the second time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Ms. City Attorneys, excuse me.

An ordinance levying and establishing the rate of annual taxes for the general municipal purposes, police building debt service, general obligation debt service, and special business district purposes to be collected by the City of Clayton, Missouri for the year 2025. Alderwoman Buse.

Aye. Alderwoman Patel. Aye. Alderman Gary Feder.

Aye. Alderwoman Patel. Aye. Alderman Fader.

Aldermen Rick Hummell.

Aldermen Hummel.

Aye.

Aldeman Jeffery Yorg.

Aldeman York.

Aye.

Aldewoman Waldman. Aye. Mayor McAndrew.

Aye. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is a second reading of our fiscal year 2026 budget, our operating and capital improvements budget. Just for people online and people in the audience, we spend a lot of time reviewing the budget throughout August. We have multiple meetings about it. So this is just kind of the final part of it. So this has not obviously the first time that all of us have looked at the budget. So but in that vein, does anybody in the audience or anybody on the board have any other further questions about our budget? And, you know, and again, for people in the audience, if you're looking at the budget, we will have some deficit spending at the beginning because of the tornado. But hopefully we will recoup most of that in about a year. So if there's no comments or questions from up here, Alderwoman Buse. Yes.

I would like to introduce bill number 7091, approving the fiscal year 2026 operating and capital improvement budget to be read for the second time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Ms. City Attorney?

An ordinance adopting an annual budget for fiscal year 2026 commencing on October 1st, 2025 and appropriating funds pursuant thereto.

Alderman Buse? Aye. Alderman Patel?

Aye.

Aldeman Gary Feder? Aye. Alderman Rick Hummell. Aye. Alderman Jeffery Yorg. Aye. Alderwoman Waldman. Aye. Mayor McAndrew.

Aldeman Fader? Aye. Alderman Hummel. Aye. Alderman York. Aye. Alderwoman Waldman. Aye. Mayor McAndrew.

Aye. The next item on our agenda is a change order with respect to some repairs that we're doing at the parking garage at 10 South Brentwood.

Thank you. I'll open the discussion. Does anybody have any questions up here? I'll

just, yeah, I mean, it's the third changeover. It's certainly not fun. And to do an additional one just to make sure you don't have to do it again is, it's still, yeah, I think for everybody, it's not a good situation. I do worry about one and two. They're covered, but they're not. Watertight so I worried that it's just a matter of time, even if when that work begins if things look like they're okay. If we're concerned I don't know anything about post tension cables but. You know let's just go in with our eyes open what what costs may be there, so that I don't really have any questions it's just an unfortunate situation, so thank you.

My question is trying to remember and I have the utmost respect for you and Mr. Malik, but I believe when we approved change order two, we were told it was the last and we knew it and we'd uncovered everything and nothing else was going to be, there was nothing else that could potentially be uncovered. And so I'm trying to figure out whether I misunderstood that or like what is the Like, what is it about this area? Was it like partially covered so we thought it would be okay and it wasn't or...

It was the ramp that actually leads down to the alley and they were separate post-tension cables that went through this ramp area because of the grade change. So the portions we had uncovered before and it exposed were on the deck. This was the ramp that connects that's kind of almost a separate structure but goes down to the alley. They found some delaminated concrete and as they began to remove it, it was... really in that area, I believe it was worse than what was on the deck. So part of this cost was just putting scaffolding to secure it while they repaired it. So when we were talking about it before, it was the full deck on the third level where this is a small section of ramp that's, I'm recalling from memory maybe 30 by 30 or so as an entry point to that third level deck.

Bye. Right. I'm just trying to, like, yeah. So I just don't, I mean, I don't know if it's, I'm trying to figure out, like, is this the contractor? Is this us? Like, is this a contractor we've worked with before? Like, are there, I mean, water flows down. So the water will have flowed down the ramps to the second level. So why would we think this isn't actually going to be on the second level based on, you know, like, or what's our level of confidence that it won't be? I don't know.

I guess a couple of things there. The ramp drains to the alley, which then drains away. It's not an internal ramp structure on this building, so it doesn't flow down to the next level. The concrete will have those additives in it that will cause some of that degradation. As we get to the lower levels, as David mentioned, there's less permeation from the rainwater and it's been protected. The lower level actually has partially an asphalt surface, so they're not dealing with as much concrete. When the contractor's out now, we are planning to, they call the process for it as you chain drag the area. We're going to be doing more of that with the upcoming project so that we can get a renewed number for that from when we last scoped it. Okay. From speaking with the structural engineer, on the project that helped us with the inspections. They were pretty surprised just by the number of cables too. So those are things that can make or break projects. They have an anticipation going into them sometimes, but you never know. And doing destructive testing to check each one, you could miss the cables and not even really know if they're deteriorated in select locations. We did a project similar to this I think it was about 15 years ago that replaced some concrete on the top level and we didn't run into as many cables. So just, it wasn't anticipated to, to your question about the contractor at Western specialty contractors is reputable company. We've used many times for these types of work. I think it's, Not an answer, but I think it's one of those things that is not quite foreseeable and we don't have a lot of options to move forward in another direction.

Thank you. I appreciate it. And one thing you said that I think sounds like a potential improvement, it's this chain dragging thing that you'll be able to do earlier in the process to get a better idea of whether it's

much

bigger than we thought. We've

done that before on this project when we were originally scoping it a few years ago and we did it for the third level as well. So I don't want it to give too much soap, but we're going to renew it. No, thank you.

Yeah. That's all I have. While you're up there, Dex 1 and 2, where are they slated? I mean, is it next fiscal year that we're looking into them? Okay.

We're going to give a break. We're wearing out our welcome over there right now, so we're going to probably target, we'll wait a few months.

alderman Gary Feder do you have any

alderman fader do you have any

i have no uh no questions

This project reminds me of the proverbial old house that turns into a money pit. And so if I recall correctly, you have, David, you have let us know in the past that if you could get out of the parking garage business, you would. And so I think we still have some other parking garages. And so to the extent that you can facilitate our exit from the parking garage business I would be supportive of that. We'd love to.

As a guy who owns and bought a money pit of a house, I completely get that. My only question is just for my recollection sake, what was the original budget and what are we actually thinking we're going to be sinking in all in? So how much over budget are we expecting to be when this is all said and done?

the original budget was 175 000 executed in the contract and we think will be approximately assuming the cables come in like we we think they're going to 430 000. okay so that's what that column is there so the

437 98 okay so we're 300 and 300 000 over Mayor Mrakas, With this change the late. Mayor Mrakas , yeah 5060 something like that okay

as assuming not the contingency that you don't go into the additional and that's correct yeah

okay that's all Thank you.

City Council Chambers, yeah no questions. City Council ChamBERS, Anybody in the audience. Their hands up.

No. Alderwoman Buse? I'll introduce bill number 7096, approving change order number three for the 10 South Brentmore Boulevard parking garage to be read for the first time by title only. Second.

Any discussion? Madam City Attorney?

An ordinance approving a change order to the contract with Western Waterproofing Company Incorporated doing business as Western specialty contractors for the eastern phase of the 10 South Brentwood third level parking garage repair project. All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed?

I move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7096 on the day of its introduction. Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Let the minutes reflect that the board has given unanimous consent.

I introduce bill number 7096, approving change order number three for the 10 South Brentmore Boulevard parking garage to be read for the second time by title only.

Second. Discussion? Any attorney? An ordinance approving a change order to the contract with Western Waterproofing Company Incorporated doing business as Western specialty contractors for the eastern phase of the 10 South Brentwood third level parking garage repair project.

Alderman Buse. Alderman Patel. Aye. Alderman Gary Feder.

Alderman Buse. Alderman Patel. Aye. Alderman Fader.

Aye.

Aldeman Rick Hummell.

Aldeman Hummel.

Aye.

Aldman Jeffery Yorg. Aye. Alderwoman Waldman. Aye. Mayor McAndrew. Aye. Thank you.

Aldman York. Aye. Alderwoman Waldman. Aye. Mayor McAndrew. Aye. Thank you.

The next item on our agenda is in intergovernmental agreement with mst to help alleviate some areas of the city that are prone to flooding.

just want to make sure that that was the case

Thank you i'll open the discussion does anybody have any questions or comments from the board, I

just have one question we've identified three projects here are there any other recurrent nuisance flooding areas in the city that are. needed to be addressed at a later date, or is this the three things. I mean obviously the three most critical and, but are there any other areas.

The areas we see for this type of flooding are very localized and not as widespread as you might see through other parts of the MSD district. Traditionally, we haven't utilized these funds, but when these projects became aware to us that there were issues, we started looking at what we could do to address them using this program. One other location that we're aware of that's a reoccurrence is on Topton, but MSD has a project that they're carrying out themselves using funds from another OMCI. It's called the OMCI Central District Fund that was collected many years ago and still sitting in reserve that they're, I believe, going to be able to utilize for that project. And they're administering that project. And the schedule right now is 2028. So

this is the first time that we've accessed funds for something like this. Is that right?

This is the first time we've utilized the OMCI funds that I'm aware of. They've only been, it's a variable tax rate that they turned back up a few years ago. Whenever we were having this discussion previously, the board had made a decision at that time that the regional issues where the money would go back to were probably a larger priority than maybe some of the more localized things we saw here.

Thanks for identifying those through and getting this for us. Okay. Thanks. No comments or questions.

Just a question since Polo Drive's having its annual meeting in about a month, they're usually well attended and very inquisitive. I just wanted to make sure whether the trustees of Polo have been made aware or are going to be made aware sometime soon that this improvement is being made.

We haven't reached out to anybody on these projects. I think some people are aware of them. We carried out some survey design last year ourselves with some internal designed to see what was possible, but we will have more work ongoing for the engineering design and probably a bit more survey to see what the possible solutions are. Right now we don't have anything to share as what the work and improvement is going to be, but I anticipate that'll change over the next few months once we execute a task order for the engineering.

I ask that in part because I suspect if we tell them what we're doing in Polo, they will find some other spot within Polo that they think is equally in need of some kind of enhancement. So I just wanted to make sure we're prepared for whatever questions might come our way. And we can say, you know, we'll ask Mr. Mallick and get back to you. But I was hoping for something more that we could have substance provide them.

We made these selections based off of issues we were aware of that have been recurrent for a number of years. So if someone comes up with another location, that'll start hitting the ticker and be a future project, it sounds like. All right. We'll cover it. Thanks.

Matt, but just to follow up on Gary, but it looks like, I mean, you've identified what in that will get replaced. fixed or like because on the drawings it had a specific area that is where it's prone to flooding so you mean they just haven't engineering the engineered the drawings for what will change or

we did some very um very minor surveying and in-house design. We have a stormwater expert on staff from their past career that carried out a potential option, but it wasn't a full design with a full survey, which we will have carried out that may come up with some different alternatives.

But it will probably identify that particular area. It's just then figuring out how that will happen, whether it's enlarging the drain or... Because it just seems like whenever pavement gets put down, right now the inlet is very narrow. So I mean...

It'll probably be a reconstruction of that inlet, for instance. Yeah, it'll be a combination of factors and they'll analyze the flow, not just in that inlet, but how it has an impact downstream. There's MSD has different requirements when you're modifying their structures of what you have to show for an analysis that we don't necessarily have that capability to do. But we have some ideas of what we thought would be potential solutions on those plans, but there'll be a more solidly developed plan from an engineer that That

we would contract out with?

Then we'd put that out to bid. Got it.

Thank you.

No comments. The only thing I had in the memo, it mentioned that MSD had already approved it, so we can't make any modifications. I don't see why we would, but I'm just curious. Is there anything we should be aware of in the contract that we'll be living with when we approve this?

we've proved these intergovernmental agreements before and our council reviews them i think msd has always made that statement from the back and forth perspective um i'm not aware of any uh but i know i sent him for kevin's review okay

thanks that's all i had i just wanted to make sure we weren't walking into something that we at least need to be aware of

no comments um any comments from the audience or online

I would like to introduce bill number 7097, approving an agreement with Metropolitan Sewer District for the Operations Maintenance and Capital Improvement Program. They'll be read for the first time by title only. Second.

Any discussion? The city attorney.

An ordinance approving intergovernmental cooperation agreements with the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, MSD, for the funding of three drainage projects located in the city of Clayton, Missouri and actions related thereto. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

I move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7097 on the day of its introduction. Second. All those in favor?

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

I'd like to introduce bill number 7097, approving an agreement with Metropolitan Sewer District for the Operations, Maintenance, and Capital Improvement Program to be read for the second time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? City Attorney. An ordinance approving intergovernmental cooperation agreements with the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, MSD, for the funding of three drainage projects located in the city of Clayton, Missouri and actions related thereto.

Alderwoman Buse. Aye. Alderwoman Patel. Aye. Alderman Gary Feder.

Alderwoman Buse. Aye. Alderwoman Patel. Aye. Alderman Fader.

Aye.

Aldermen Rick Hummell. Aye. Aldeman Jeffery Yorg.

Aldermen Hummel. Aye. Aldeman York.

Aye.

Aldewoman Waldman. Aye. Mayor McAndrew.

Aye.

Thank you.

The next item on our agenda is looking at standards for addressing the Board of Aldermen and the Plan Commission. Mr. City Manager?

Thank you. So I'll open the discussion. There might be people in the audience that want to reflect on this or comment on this, but maybe if we could just go around the board and we can just kind of hear what people's thoughts are, I think that might be helpful in framing any comments that people in the audience might have as well.

Sure. I think this is a good move forward for our board if we adopt this. In my experience, this kind of a structure around public comment can actually allow more people to be heard and also keep our attention spans to actually hear what people are saying versus having one speaker drone on for a long period of time over some similar points. Also, it's helpful that I think every one of us on this board is accessible to hearing to people who want to comment on something that's coming before the board or happening in the city. So, you know, again, I think it is best practices at this point in time, and I would support us adopting it. Something else that some boards do that is not here, one of the things is putting a time limit on how long there can be public speaking at the beginning of a meeting. And I don't see the need for that at this point in the structure that we need to ensure that we actually get as much comment and input from our cities as possible.

Thank you. Alderman Patel?

Yeah, thanks. I have some concerns about this. I think that the way that we have run our meetings since I've been paying attention to the Board of Aldermen has overwhelmingly been very effective. I came to a lot of Board of Aldermens meetings before I was an elected official because that's... what I was interested in doing. And I spoke and I appreciated the opportunity when I did. And so I'm really thinking of it that way, as well as thinking about experiences I've had speaking in front of other boards that have different kinds of guidelines. So I support establishing improvements to identifying speakers. I'd like to see us ensure that we have the ability for people to specify, that people can notify us in advance that they intend to speak. through an online form or a speaker card in person, as well as like at the podium if they choose to come up. We can't always predict like what topics we'll be discussing on and I don't think, or like where the discussion will go and I don't we should limit, like prevent speakers from coming up when that happens if they might not have planned to talk previously. So I support limiting the amount of time folks can speak and ensuring that their comments are germane to the topic under consideration. But I am concerned that some of what's in here, it just feels like it feels to me like an overreaction to our lack of guidelines. And A little bit like a solution in search of a problem. So to that point, I would like to eliminate or rework if you think I'm just misunderstanding this. The comments that say elected officials and staff will not respond. I believe that we have had lots of examples of us being able to answer questions that people ask. Certainly, if we can't answer them, we won't and we'll follow up and you have done that mayor in the past. And there have even been times where I feel like where I have been able to ask someone a question to make sure I understand the point they're trying to make as I try to think about ways that we could address their concerns. And I don't want to be prevented from doing that. So I would like to see that reworked. I think we could say something like elected officials and city staff may not and are not required to respond to questions or something like that. That's just, you know, I'm not a lawyer. Y'all can think about that. I do think that we should state that business matters will be, like will allow speakers um we have always done that you did it tonight our entire uh agenda has been business matters not public hearing and you're inviting folks to speak and um i think the fact that it isn't officially a public hearing by that legal definition doesn't mean that we don't get value from hearing from the public on it so i would want to see that um specified um I think that where we use the word rebuttal, we should replace it with something like response or follow up because I don't think that when people are answering or commenting on each other's things it's like a rebuttal like that implies a conflict or attention that isn't necessarily there. And I would like to see us allow some follow up, potentially, like that someone could come up, maybe only for a second time, and maybe for a shorter period of time. But I know there have been times where someone has come up with like a new question or something to consider that hadn't been brought up before. And I wouldn't want to preclude that, although I wouldn't want it to be like infinite um so those are my thoughts and some of the changes i'd like to see i'll be happy to offer amendments or have this come up back to us at another time depending on how we want to present that once we hear from everybody else

uh becky or alderman patel thank you i mean i think those are some great comments um I'm wondering, there is language here under addressing individual members. It says in general, board members and city staff will not respond to questions, but I think in general, at least as qualifying language, but do you think it should go stronger than that? You know, so I think it at least allows that ability. But then I think if there's somebody like, for instance, the way Anna addressed us tonight, she might have had a question for us that we couldn't necessarily answer. You know, I

think we can say my my preference would be that we just make that that we don't say that if we feel like we want. I think if people come up and ask a question and we aren't in a position to answer it, then I'm really comfortable with you saying like we can follow up with you or just not saying anything. I mean, we don't have to. You don't have to answer every question you're asked as like a person, right? But I think very often we can and it allows our residents to feel like it was worth their time to come here and talk to us because there's like simple questions that we can answer really easily. And so, and that's been my experience much more than us. Like I don't see us very often getting badgered with questions that we completely can't answer or are like, I just, that isn't what the experience has been. So I wouldn't want to like write something that is imagining that.

yeah and I think, in my view, I wouldn't want that to change like I wouldn't necessarily want to not answer a simple question that somebody might have so I. I mean, I agree with you that I don't want it to be where we are all stone faced up here and nobody's answering any questions in response to something that. could be easily answered, you know I want like you said, I want, I want to be able to help our residents and feel like they got something out of the meeting, so I agree with you so.

Um, so I think when we started this discussion a couple of weeks ago, the, the rules that were going to be promulgated just related to the board of aldermen and, you know, I'm, I'm happy to see them extend to the plan commission in the ARB. Um, From my experience, most of the meetings that involve a lot of discussion between the public and the board are actually at the Plan Commission and the ARB level, notwithstanding Washington University and Concordia, which obviously most of the discussion was. was at the Board of Aldermen, but I think generally it's at the Plan Commission and the ARB. And I think David, when I talked to him, I think also mentioned the idea that in addition to whatever else we're doing, it would be very helpful to have sort of at least guidelines for the Plan Commission and ARB in terms of the order in which presentations are made, comments are made from the audience, at least my perception. going to those meetings fairly often that there's, it isn't always done in the same way. That is the order of presentations or comments or comments from the board. And I think it would definitely help the public if they understood exactly at each meeting, it's going to follow the same order. I think I had three residents from Ward 3 contact me about these, Mr. Illebrecht who's here and two others. And I think there were initial concerns that somehow we're trying to repress comment at meetings because that seems to be what people are doing. I certainly think that's not the case here. My experience from my prior life, having gone to, I'm sure probably 30 different communities in St. Louis County, is that this process of people filling out cards, having time limits, this is really standard stuff. Now, that's not the reason to do it. We shouldn't just do it because other people do it. But One of my observations also is that when you don't have any sort of guidelines or rules, what happens is that you actually limit public discussion rather than enhance it because invariably meetings that drag on for two or three hours cause a lot of people to decide at some point that they really didn't plan to skip dinner and so they go home and they never speak at all. So I don't have any problems with the time limits. I think there should be a distinction between an applicant and a resident. I think that will all work. I think whatever we come up with, the thing to do is to put these guidelines in place and see how it works. And to the extent we find that it doesn't work well It's very easy. Within two weeks, we could probably change the ordinance or change how we operate. So on balance, I think it's a good idea. I think it is important that everyone obviously be given an opportunity to speak. I actually think the time limits are very helpful as one who sometimes goes on at length. I will say that just from my own times in making presentations, that what happens when you have a time limit and you know you have a time limited, you first of all tend to write your remarks down as opposed to simply getting up and saying whatever comes to mind. I think it makes you get to your points a lot sooner. So I don't think there's a problem with time limits. I don't think in any event three minutes is not enough for an applicant. I think 10 minutes is enough. It's trickier at planned commission and the ARB because there's more give and take between the members of the commission and the applicants. There tends to be more questions, and I think we'd have to be aware of that, that sometimes those time limits don't work as well. But again, I think that could be worked out. I'm happy to see this done. I agree with the comment that simply to say we're never going to answer questions. I don't think we need that. But I think the whole point is to try to make this, this is not an interrogation of the board by the public. This is an effort to get information and And that should be our goal. And by the same token, people come to participate, should feel like they could get an answer when it's possible to get one. So I think that goes both ways. It's just we don't want to make this into an absolute, this is not high school debate.

And Gary, just because you remarked on the plan commission, you know, I think it's important too, because in the plan commission you have, you know, somebody coming up who's perhaps talking about they're building a house and there are neighbors in the audience who then come up and make a statement or have questions and they're you know, to have that and then they clarify. So I am a little concerned about the not allowing people to come up more than once because there might be that, you know, somebody might have a follow-up question or they might come up and say, hey, that all sounds great. I support now that this house is going to go up next to me. You know, I think that's important for, you know, commission members to hear. So I will say that our city attorney, Kevin O'Keefe, you know – I liked the idea of perhaps allowing some discretion, whether that's Steve Lichtenfeld, who's our chair of the plan commission, or if it's me or if it's Susan, if I'm not here, that discretion. There is some concern about allowing discretion because then if you allow it once, so he's a little bit more concerned about allowing that discretion in the ordinance, which Stephanie, I don't know if you want to speak to that or- But so, I mean, I don't know if then we eliminate potentially B where there's, we just eliminate the limit and there is that ability for somebody to come back up. And as Becky, you suggested about having somebody come up a second time, they'd be more limited in their time. I don't know. So.

Right, because there is a concern that if you waive the requirements or if you change them for one person, how do you make that decision? And are you exercising your discretion in an arbitrary way? And so that's kind of the concern. But I do think that if you wanted to allow after the response – by the applicant if you wanted to allow members of the public to come up maybe for a very short period of time one minute or two minutes whatever it is and then only address the topics that were brought up in the response or the new topic so they can't just rehash what they already said we could easily write that into it okay

thank you alderman Rick Hummell

thank you alderman hummel

um after gary spoke i was wondering whether we might consider limiting um aldermanic comments to three minutes um

i was i was through dinner and we were all

um so i'm um Well, a question first. This is very specific to say that this applies to the Board of Aldermen, ARB and Plan Commission. My question really is, is would we anticipate, expect that other public forums that we have that we might impose these same rules?

Yeah, I'm thinking more about public forums like when we had Concordia, WashU, when we're going to have Ydown, you know, when we have these other public things. And it is the only reason I bring that up is that this is the context that we're thinking about. This is very specific. If we were thinking about it on a broader basis, I might have other comments. That's all. And then back to, I guess I'm wondering, Stephanie, on your comments about the impact of showing discretion. What if we decided because of, let's say it's a controversial subject, that we simply want to suspend these rules for an entire meeting. So it isn't arbitrarily being applied, it's just we're not going to do it this time. Is there any issue with that?

I don't see any issue with that as long as you make it clear that it's given the nature and the complicity of the particular matter that's in front of you.

Okay.

The complexity, I should say.

Okay, so I would like us to be able to think that there may be an instance where we find that to be appropriate. On balance, I would just say I kind of waffle about this. I'm sympathetic to Becky's comment. I do kind of feel like this is a solution looking for a problem to solve. On the other hand, I think Gary's comments are appropriate too, that it's good to have rules. And so there's no reason not to anticipate that. So I'm okay with it, um, provided we work out the details.

So most of my thoughts have kind of already been said, so I'll save my 2 minutes or 3 minutes or whatever minutes we're gonna allocate. Um, but I would say is. I kind of think about this is kind of the reverse of kind of Gary was laying out, which is instead of saying, let's start here. And if we don't like it, we get with next two weeks, take it back down. I would almost prefer to start here. And if we put speaker limits and speaker cards and just stop, I'm like, is that enough to potentially solve again? I'm still not sure there's a full problem, but I get the idea of trying to get ahead of the next big problem. But I wonder if we can just start as, least rigid and as soft as possible and if it doesn't really solve the problem then we just ratchet it up next time as opposed to starting here and coming down but i i think some of the comments from rick and becky i think i agree with and i think get us closer to that like lower point than i think where it may be like yeah i kind of sit where you are rick like i'm like i i don't I'm okay if we have it. I'm kind of okay if we don't. I can see why we want it. You know, the lawyer in me just says, I don't want to make it so rigid that the first meeting we have, we wind up violating it because we want to respond to somebody who's talking and now we violated our rules. So I want to make sure there's enough flex in there for us to be able to do what we all know we're going to wind up doing. So that's all I got. Under three minutes, I think, which is unusual for me, but I'll take it.

Yeah. I think it's a really great point. I didn't even think about that because I think it is important to have guidelines. I do think these are a little rigid just because I definitely think it's important for residents to be able to come up and speak. I don't ever want to deter anybody from coming up to speak. And, you know, if they do have a rebuttal, I don't want to also not allow them to speak. So I just want to make sure we are doing that. So whether it's you know, after you speak for your three minutes and you come back up, could you have a one minute rebuttal and things like that? Because I definitely think it's very important to always be able to hear our residents speak and we want to hear them. And that to me is like the most important part. separate, you know, being on the ARB and planning commission for like four years, I do think those might need to be tweaked a little bit more because there is a lot of information that does go back and forth. And valid questions, you know, if we have someone's coming to speak about the drainage system and, you know, it's a big issue for a bunch of residents and they say one point and then that changes an idea about something else and they have another question because, you know, That one might just need to be slightly different overall. But again, I think it is important to have guidelines, but I do think it's important to hear the residents.

I agree. Well, I mean, I think everybody made some really good points. I don't know if there's anybody in the audience that would like to talk to us about this or anybody online. Yep. Feel free to come up. And you'll just state your name and address for the record.

I'm Martin Elbrecht by Parkwood.

applicant.

We will know ahead of time.

Thank you. Thank you.

Martin Tuskeny Park. I really appreciate what Becky and Rick were saying, and I think the time limit on responses totally makes you lose a give and take. The Concordia-Washu thing was a great example of all this. And the residents are a lot of scientists, engineers, builders, people who have a lot of knowledge. We're also the ones who live and breathe next door to these decisions you're making. But I think not having a chance to... back and forth exchange is, I don't get the point of that. We're not that big a city to not be able to talk and maybe ask and solve questions. My experience, if I might, with those meetings was they would always start with a city presentation that was usually two hours. And it was always the same thing over and over. And I remember being very limited in my ability time and feelings, especially if somebody brings up a point, as you were saying, to not be able to respond to it. Because I think residents have some insight that you might not have, particularly in very specific areas, you know, residences and subdivisions and all that, different from what you might... aware of just generally as a whole city thing so i'd be really opposed to limiting times to come up and if you bring up something uh we'd like to respond if we bring up something maybe you haven't thought of it works both ways and i really would have trouble with eliminating um an exchange um the card thing yeah i don't know this seems uh In the cities where they do that, do we really? Maybe we need it. I don't know.

It does help our city clerk keep track of everything. That's true.

Yes.

Yeah. Actually.

Fair enough. That makes sense. And not almost speak well enough to make it even heard with the name or residences anyway um i would i don't think we're so big that we can't um do a little more exchanging like we did and i'm sorry you missed dinner but we all missed dinner and um some of these are they seem to be big issues for us

thank you thank you it looks like nobody's raised their hand online

one more thing um the the intent of this in my mind really is to ensure that everybody has a chance to make their points i understand the dialogue there's certain circumstances where it's very very helpful to have dialogue and that probably needs to have a look at so how we can have have that happen and a lot of times it um it lands upon the management of the meeting and how that person is doing it so we need that discretion in there that as long as we still have We're still controlling expectations of the people speaking. But when the circumstance arises, and I do hope we are ahead of it, when you want to make sure everyone sitting out there does have a chance to say something, that's what I see as a purpose of putting the structure around the talking, around the presentations. So however we get there and whatever changes we make, I hope that we can facilitate that.

I don't know, David, do you feel like you've gotten some it sounds like you know people are generally receptive to a time limit generally receptive to the speaker card certainly with the ability to fill it out online ahead of time. You know, adding that there's that ability to talk for business matters without having permission of, you know, I think allowing some sort of response or follow up. You know, maybe just starting, I mean, those might be some of the ways that we can get further along. And then depending on that, you know, what that looks like, you know, we as a board can either continue to think about this, continue to tweak whatever comes back. But, you know, I mean, I feel like we had a good discussion tonight and then we can just see what happens.

Okay. Jeff, did you – you looked like you had – I was just

going to just acknowledge and say thanks to David because I know we had a whole – we had a partial discussion session on a Friday to kind of go through a lot of this. I know a lot of different points came up tonight, so just thank you for going with us as we had multiple kind of dates back and forth. No, we want to get this right.

Mayor, can I add? I do think, again, it's important that we see how we might distinguish the rules relating to the Board of Aldermen from the Plan Commission, ARB, because there's no question the latter is much more flexible the way those meetings are conducted and appropriately so. There is a lot more give and take. The stuff that the Board of Alderman generally deals with, which is like PUDs, CUPs, rezonings, the latter, if there's a rezoning like Wash U Concordia, is different. But for the most part, the things that the Board of Aldermen do, I think, would much more easily follow some more stricter guidelines. Plan Commission ARB, I think, just needs to be more flexible given the nature of the way those matters are handled.

Do we need to leave the

table? If you

Let's

I move that the board postpone consideration of bill number 7098 until... October 28, 2025. Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Great. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is exciting. We're going to hopefully establish some new boards in the city.

Thank you. Yes, and thank you to our aldermen who were very helpful in getting this going. We really, really appreciate it.

Who's back there. Thank you. I think this is just a great – I think we've all talked about for many years that the Economic Development Advisory Committee is – um, you know, kind of a waste, you know, it's a great group of citizens that only meet once a year. So I think this will be a great change, um, to really getting more valuable input. So, um, it'll be great once we, you know, notify this commission, go out to our community. Hopefully some of those people will still apply and be a part of it. Um, but if anybody, does anybody on the board have any comments or questions about.

Yeah, I do. Um, I, I'm a little bit uncomfortable, um, advisory board to consist of the seven members who need not be residents we represent our residents and i i don't know what you see as uh the composition of the board if you have something in mind but um either a material business interest in that in this in the in the business district or resident of the city i think we should at least have a preference for that i mean this is who we represent and this is whose input we want in advising us on how to handle this district

what was the thought in um for those of you that drafted this because um the other thing that we will consider next i think specifically talks about that people are either residents or have a principal office in the city of clayton and that feels like it could be relevant can you talk about if that was an intentional distinction between the two or not

And before you answer that, if I can just add one more thing. If you have certain expertise in mind that you want on that board, the ability to have ex-official members, I think, gives that place for them to come and contribute to what people who have a real contact with Clayton might be able to offer.

I guess as to the question of members not being required, obviously, I think the thought was that the prior committee, like many of our committees, is devoted in part to making sure that it's nothing but residents and that in many cases, the residents reflect different wards. And I think the attitude here was that downtown is a very distinct area and that there should not necessarily be any obligation for everybody on this committee to be a resident certainly doesn't exclude residents for being on the committee. I think the sense was that there are obviously some important and people with a lot of insight who happen not to live in Clayton, but have long-term businesses. They, they work in Clayton every day of the year. Um, Those are people for whom I'd like to see what their thoughts are, how we develop the downtown area, which is what this is about. I think in this case, it's a very focused committee, more so than the other new committee, which is really intended to be citywide. Invariably will involve the three different wards and the different commercial areas in each one of those wards. So I think the distinction was a valid one here to really focus on downtown and people who, again, who aren't necessarily residents, but... but are people with business interests.

Did that answer your question?

It doesn't require a primary place of business or a business interest in downtown. This just says that it doesn't say anything. They're just not required to be residents is all it says.

Like, would you be opposed Gary or anyone else who did this? If we actually amended the special business district one to have language like the other one that says they are either residents or no, I'm losing the language, but residents or have a business interest in the district. Like that, feels like that does feel important to me. And I mean, you spent a lot of time thinking about this. If you intentionally made that distinction, I'd be interested in hearing about it. But your follow-on discussion seemed actually to imply that you would be supportive of us specifying that we want people to either have a residential or business interest in the district.

I would not have a problem with modifying the language.

I would just say that from my standpoint, one of the things that we talked about was My concern on the Economic Development Committee is that I wanted to make sure that we had representation of our various commercial areas in the city. And having a seven-member commission may cause us to have a challenge doing that, that I'd like to have a number of experts on here and having a seven- member commission might limit our ability to do that. And so the important thing that we had, and you noted this, was to make sure that we had the flexibility to add additional ex officio members. So the goal really is substantive. We want to make sure that have the right people around the table that can help us either shape policy, create policy, and or react to policy. and appropriate initiatives as we move forward. And so really what I'm most concerned about, and it isn't stated here, is that we do a sufficient job of promoting the applications that we want to have and then having a process on how we're going to decide on that. And so we may not all agree on what those priorities should be, but I'm hoping that we have strong applications to achieve the goals that are stated here.

So would you, but in terms of having somebody who has some sort of business interest or lives in the city, I mean, adding some

language. My preference in the, you know, I don't know that we all had different points of view as we went through this. And so, you know, especially the special business district committee, that there's some vested interest, whether it's having a business interest or a resident there, that makes sense to me. Okay.

Yeah, I mean, I'm fine with it. Maybe for a different reason, but I hear you, Susan, that we represent the residents, but the way I think about this district especially is that we represent all the businesses in downtown too, even if they don't live here. And especially here because they're paying a separate tax, or at least the owners are, into this district. So... Again, I don't think we probably thought that extra step to say let's carve it out to the district. I don't have a problem with that, though, because in some ways it's their money and it's being paid by them in order to create events for them to drive business. So I want them on there.

And that's fine because they have the vested interest.

Yeah. And I don't need them to live in Clayton, but I do want them to be involved. So as to Becky's change or carve out, that's fine for those reasons. As long as it's...

Do you have any? No. Okay.

I mean, I guess I would suggest that it's amended to match the language that we use in others that say that they are residents or have a principal office or business interest in the district. It's

Yeah, that's fine with me. How about significant business interest? I think just business interest is fine, yeah. Do we need to actually make that amendment and have it seconded and voted on? Right.

Yeah. It was just making sure there was a significant. So residents or significant business interests

at the risk of tweaking further, I would prefer the resident be a resident of the district. I really think we were, we're growing downtown areas. We have lots of condominiums, um, I still think those are the people who are most effective, I guess, to follow up on some of the other points that have been made. This is a very narrow district. We have lots of residents in downtown. I'm not sure that necessarily that someone who lives in Davis Place, just because they're interested in business, is great to have on this committee. I'd much rather have them live at the Crescent. Well, I guess that's a little outside the district. Exactly.

PB, Lupita D Montoya, I what's what residences are actually in the district, like be missed in place. And also it's well

it's also. PB, David Ensign he, for down

preference of it on quiet

it's a downtown of our entire city, you know if we all care about. That.

Right. I wouldn't, I would do residents everywhere for that. I wouldn't want to, that's very specific for residents.

Yeah. And I would only say that we, I mean, I hope we get a lot of applicants, Gary, but I don't, you know, we just don't always get a lot of, you know, if we get a resident who lives at Bemis in place or 212 and maybe we'd put them to the top. It would be awfully. Yeah. I just want to make sure we don't narrow our pool

too much. I'm fine with leaving it, but I think as to Rick's point, part of our problem is we don't get a very good job getting applicants because we don't really go after applicants. So that's the reason we don't get them is we don't do a very good job seeking them.

That's great. Okay, so do I first move that the board consider the amendment and then move to consider the bill as amended? Is that how?

That would probably be cleaner, although legally speaking you could do it either way. But it would probably be cleaner to entertain the amendment. And if you want me to, I can read what I've taken down from the discussion. Okay. Okay, so I have... section 140.020 subparagraph b the first sentence is fine the second sentence which did read members need not be residents of the city of clayton that is deleted in full and in lieu thereof we are um incorporating the following sentence members must be a resident of the city of or have a significant business interest within the special business district

So moved. Okay, do we want to require that interest to be in the special ed school? I mean, that's fine. Yeah. Okay. So moved. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Okay, so that's included now.

Okay, I introduce bill number 7099 as amended, approving an ordinance repealing the Economic Development Advisory Committee and establishing the Special Business District Advisory Board to be read for the first time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Attorney?

An ordinance repealing section 140.020 of the Clayton City Code and enacting in lieu thereof a new section 140.010 establishing a new body to be designated as the Special Business District Advisory Board. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? I move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of Bill number 7099 as amended on the day of its introduction. Second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Let the minutes reflect that the board has given

unanimous consent.

I introduce Bill number 7099, as amended, approving an ordinance repealing the Economic Development Committee and establishing the Special Business District Advisory Board To be read for the second time by title only. Second.

Any discussion? City Attorney? An ordinance repealing Section 140.020 of the Clayton City Code and enacting in lieu thereof a new Section 140.010 establishing a new body to be designated as the Special Business District Advisory Board. Alderman Buse? Aye. Alderman

Patel? Aye. Aldeman Gary Feder?

Patel? Aye. Aldeman Fader?

Aye.

Aldman Rick Hummell?

Aldman Hummel?

Aye.

Aldoman Jeffery Yorg?

Aldoman York?

Aye.

Alderwoman Waldman. Aye. Mayor McAndrew. Aye. Thank you. All

right, great. And then the next, we're going to talk about the Economic Development Committee.

Thank you. I'll open the discussion. Does anybody have any questions or comments from the Board?

I'm losing my focus here. Did we want the membership requirement of residency and significant place of business to be the same, just parallel each other?

No. Not I don't, no.

I don't know what the difference is between a principal office and a significant business interest. So I guess I'd be curious if it would be meaningful even.

I just wondered if we wanted some language. I know that's fine. Principal office is fine.

Jerry, do you have any comments or questions?

I think I've had no for a while. that's not three minutes

anybody else over here susan are you fine with the language as stated fine as it is i just wanted to yeah

no

um

okay i'd like to introduce bill number 7100 approving an ordinance establishing the economic development committee to be read for the first time by title only

Second. Any discussion? Ms. City Attorney? An ordinance enacting Section 140.060 of the Clayton City Code and establishing an Economic Development Committee. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any

opposed? I move that the Board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of Bill No. 7100 on the day of its introduction.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye.

Opposed? Let the minutes reflect that the board has given unanimous consent.

I introduce bill number 7100, approving an ordinance establishing the Special Business District Advisory Board to be read for the second time by title only.

Second.

Discussion? Attorney?

Ordinance enacting section 140.060 of the Clayton City Code and establishing an Economic Development Committee.

Alderwoman Buse. Aye. Alderwoman Patel. Aye. Alderman Gary Feder.

Alderwoman Buse. Aye. Alderwoman Patel. Aye. Alderman Fader.

Aye.

Aldermen Rick Hummell.

Aldermen Hummel.

Aye.

Aldemann Jeffery Yorg.

Aldemann York.

Aye.

Aldewoman Waldman. Aye. Mayor McAndrew. Aye. Thank you.

Great. Well, we have come to the end of our agenda. I'm not sure we did it last time, but if we want to each, we haven't kind of been here in three weeks. If anybody wants to update us on anything that they've accomplished or been to in the last few weeks.

I think I've

accomplished. That's

a

challenge. I don't know why I said that. Any boards, anything they've, you know, meetings?

I'll stay within my three minutes. I totally enjoyed participation in the homecoming parade, and thank you again to our fire department for taking us around on that very fun truck and providing us with candy. That might have been you, June. Thank you. And also I attended my first, what's it called? The art advisory. Oh, art advisory. Yeah. Thank you. And I really enjoyed it. It's a fun thing. CCF received an offer of a donation of a pretty expansive bronze statue. I think it's three shepherds and each of them is four and a half feet tall. And they're sitting in a circle to put in at Anderson Park. So right at the entry as you go down toward the dog park, which should be very, give it some vitality around there. So excited about that. I think it comes to the board maybe at our next meeting for approval. But so yeah. That's great. It was kind of a fun event. Exciting. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, we had a Parks and Rec meeting before that where we looked at that art. It was great. The only other things I would mention is there was an open house for Caravus, the business that relocated from Merrimack to Hanley. So that was nice. And I don't think I have anything else. We had a CEC meeting where we talked about one of the main topics was the chief updating us on hate crimes. And it was an interesting discussion of the difference between a hate crime and a hate incident, which might be offensive but not illegal. So it was interesting. Alderman Peter? I

might have to suspend the rules here.

I'll do

it quick. Art Fair was great. The Jazz Fest was great. What I did want to talk about, which I think would be of interest, is the meeting we had today at the Legislative Affairs Committee, which is the county legislative body, which has like eight or ten different cities who are represented at every meeting. And again, the purpose of this committee at this time of the year is to basically tee up the lobbying efforts for of those who represent cities since in Jefferson City, we have a large rural representation who are not always very sympathetic to cities. So it tends to be quite a battle in Jeff City, but a few interesting topics that were brought up. I think the number one priority is to deal with continuing efforts at property tax reform. Those of us who attended the meeting, I think there were like 300 people at the center, It was kind of ironic. It was pointed out that a number of those people, representatives said, essentially, we don't have any plan for doing anything to change property tax. And then three weeks later, virtually the exact same people introduced legislation that would dramatically change property tax in the state. And remarkably, I think the idea is somehow to get rid of, in effect, assessor's offices because you don't have to assess property for fair market value under their plan. You basically just base it on square footage and the year of the property, the age of the property with a few categories, but I think seemed to me at least to be totally nonsensical. The loss of two cities where this property tax reforms to be implemented would be enormous. The other big issue is, is the recurrent one about grocery sales tax, which will be back again, um, And so that, again, the numbers are astronomical. I think they gave, for example, something like the city of Manchester would lose 25% of its revenue if they were to change and eliminate tax on groceries. So obviously we would not be as hard hit. Other topics that are coming up, one is dealing with failure to appear, which is sort of bench warrants, which has been a big topic for the Community Equity Commission recently. And there's some legislation on that, which I think would be of great interest to them. A bunch of stuff on a topic that's coming up for us is dealing with vaping and other facilities that deal in cannabis. So those are maybe the biggest issues. But again, this committee will meet one or two more times, sort of give direction then from the whole county level the entire county municipal league, and that will give direction to Pat Kelly, who's the executive director and their lobbyist in terms of what to fight for between January and May. But a lot of this, again, always has tremendous impact on us and other municipalities. So it was four minutes, but I know it was worth it.

Well, and I think Pat Kelly said when they filed the bill that it was probably his most frustrating day ever as head of the Just because, you know, he had gone to all these meetings around the state and they made clear that they weren't going to do anything. And then after the last one, filed the bill the very next day. I mean, he was just like flabbergasted.

Who were the sponsors?

I can't remember. They were all

out. They were all outstanding as far as I recall. But there were two or three of the people who at the meeting specifically said, we have nothing in mind. Right. Which obviously wasn't so good.

And I think just in the legislative update, I think that will be the next Municipal League meeting, which is on October 23rd, which we can all go to. I think they'll talk a lot about legislation for the upcoming year. So I think that's going to be the focus of that meeting in October.

Great. I wanted to let everyone know I had an exchange with the folks at Opera Theater St. Louis, Nicole and Andrew, letting them know that we're receptive to working out some kind of an arrangement. And then I shared some concerns that came up at our meeting. and then let them know that it's likely to be an iterative process as we go back and forth. And I received a response that they were very grateful for the guidance. They're looking forward to trying to see if they can't work something out. So it was all a very positive exchange. We had a CCF executive committee meeting. They are looking at modifying some of their structure in terms of committee and engagement, which is positive, one of which would include a committee for YDOWN. in part because it's a fundraising effort. And so they'd like to be involved there. They're also looking forward, whether they're in a ex-official position or a liaison or whatever, just continuing their involvement with the Parks and Rec Commission and the Sustainability Advisory Committee as well. And then finally, they will be making a presentation or at least they will be coming before us on December the 9th. I guess what they'd really like is to have a dialogue rather than a presentation. So I know David will be working on that. We, Becky and I are hosting a coffee on Saturday. And so I'm sure that our meeting in late October for the tornado recovery in Wydown will be of paramount interest to the folks that attend. I know that they're all very appreciative of all the work that the city has done, but they're still anxious for more to occur. So I'm trying to see if I've missed anything.

I'll just say October 27th, 630. And David was able to have it at Concordia. So if everybody wants to put that on their calendar, October 27th, six 30.

One more time. What is October? What? Twenty

Twenty seven. Yes. And it's a Monday. It's

Yes, it was. It was very good information. I don't have any more to report, but just a follow-up question on that. So I'm confident some people may wonder, and I'm guessing the answer is we don't know, but is it one and done? We're going to have this meeting and then we'll make a decision. How will we make a decision? Or does it kind of depend on... Let's see what the feedback is, and we'll make a decision after we get the feedback. That's exactly

So a couple of things like we talked about, we did a homecoming and pray was great. Thank you all for letting my kids basically roam around in and out of the fire trucks to hand out candy. Nobody got hurt. It's good to hear about Anderson park. So for those of you who don't know, I have a son who's named Anderson and every time we drive by the park, he thinks this is so I can tell him that we are putting more stuff in his park. Yeah. On the two more serious points, so I was able to go down a little bit during Jazz Fest. And it was the first time I'd gone and been down in downtown during that. And Annalise was – she went with her friends to Clayton Homecoming, so they were taking pictures like everybody and their brother down there. But it was really nice to just see – the city activated and people everywhere. And it really was, it really was one of those moments where I can kind of look down on them like, yeah, like I'm proud of what we're doing. And I just had not because of life and stuff had never been downtown during those events. So I wanted to give credit to everybody who works on that kind of stuff. The other thing I did. So mayor and I in June at various points went to Missouri municipal league conference out in St. Charles and, A couple quick takeaways is it gives me a good perspective just where we are and how well we do stuff. Like, we always talk about that, but when you hear about what a lot of the cities and towns are talking about, like, we're, like, way beyond those conversations. Like, we've already solved all that stuff. So that was interesting to hear. The two big sessions we went to, they talked about economic development, which was great from an academic standpoint. But it was all about, well, you have all these greenfields and you have this open interstate. Like, what do you put there? It didn't really work for pretty much anybody. The mayor of Brentwood and some of the other ones were all like, well, this doesn't really work for any urban environment. The other one was the retail one, and they talked about how to bring more retail in. My takeaway for that, for all of us at a high level, is... A lot of what the retail consultants were talking about was drive throughs, whether they be chain or not chain and chain restaurants. And what got me thinking about for Clayton is we spent so much time talking about we want retail. Continuing to make sure that we understand what retail we want and what retail we don't want and understanding that if we are going to continue to kind of. not search for certain kind of retail, we need to be okay with sitting with open spots until we get what we want. Because the way the consultants were talking about is the kind of retail we as I think historically have gotten is not the I don't say easy retail to get, but there's not really a process for it in the way there is for your standard new Chick-fil-A to throw in somewhere. So I think just for all of us to just keep in mind as we talk about retail, what we're really talking about is there's a certain kind of retail we want, and we may have to wait a lot longer than other cities would that happen. So that was it.

Yeah, homecoming was great. First time I've ever been in a parade, so that was really fun to see everyone out. I feel like this was probably the best turnout for homecoming, you know, a lot of floats and things, so that was Really fun. Just Gary and I hosted the Ward 3 Coffee back in mid-September, and we have our next one on October 11th, so great.

um well i've definitely had a busy few weeks um i went to a metro mayor's lunch where they talked a lot about the weather like somebody from the weather service came and talked to us about like how you can really be like on a live chat with experts like forecasters people from the weather service so i thought this was really cool but. Not surprisingly, I took it back to our fire chief and talked to our event staff and they're already plugged in. So which is not surprising, but the tornado came up. So and Chief Tobin's back there and Charlie's already left. But I did also have dinner at the fire station last week, which was wonderful. But Charlie cooked a wonderful meal. So I wish I would have given him a shout out when he was still standing there. But you'll pass along the kudos. So. um we had our first child park design meeting so that was that's progressing um just a shout out to our chief smith who came to an old town meeting and talked a lot about the crimes that have occurred in old town this past summer and did a wonderful job just answering everybody's concerns questions for like an hour he did a great job jeff thank you so much for your very accurate comments on the mml um They also CCF, we had a Hanley house fall event that was, I think, you know, maybe not hugely attended, but it was also very nice. There was a CCF event at a home across the street beforehand, which was well attended. I went to Regis, which is our, you know, EDAC, like our, I don't know what you even call Regis, but like, you know, host our dispatch thank you dave um because i wasn't able to go to an open house there this summer but it was great to hear more about that um i went to the municipal league meeting where they talked about a new app that would um there's a lot more there's a lot of accidents involving emergency whether it's fire police and there's an app that somebody in missouri has developed that would kind of go inside every police car fire truck that would kind of then send almost like an amber alert out to cars saying watch out like you're about to approach an emergency vehicle in order to lessen accidents um again of course our chief knew about that already but it's you know until it's really widely dispersed through cars but it was really interesting to hear about it was great that municipal league brought it to us to hear about I also went to Karivu. I must have missed you. There's a new company, New Ground International, where I went to a ribbon cutting for it. They've actually moved into the same 101 South Hanley building that Karivu moved into. They were out in Chesterfield, but they actually were founded the same year that Clayton was founded, 1913. And they were the company that built or really was the architect behind Brown Shoe. So they've kind of moved around a little bit, but it's great. They're so excited to be back in Clayton. So that was really fun. So- And they designed the building across the street to those like kind of, I don't know what that architectural style is, but where the real estate company is in. So, but that was fun. And yeah, homecoming was great. So thanks everybody.

Mayor, can I just mention that I've had a number of people compliment the city for On the paper we have now on vacant buildings, a lot of

people said

it's a tremendous change for downtown. Yes,

I agree. And

the other thing I want to mention, since Anne Martin was nice enough to stay here the whole time, is I fully agree with her comment about those metal signs. Because in Davis Place, we have them in the medians for junk and all kinds of stuff. And so it is very annoying. And I wish we could do a better job getting rid of them. I guess Ann has to come over to Davis Place to hold them.

the other thing I want to mention, since Ann Martin was nice enough to stay here the whole time, is I fully agree with her comment about those metal signs. Because in Davis Place, we have them in the medians for junk and all kinds of stuff. And so it is very annoying. And I wish we could do a better job getting rid of them. I guess Ann has to come over to Davis Place to hold them.

Yeah.

All right. I

pull

Yeah.

Yeah. David, do you have any? Uh, I don't think so.

Yeah, that's

Will you adjourn? Second. All those in

favor? Aye. All righty.