January 27, 2026 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening, everyone. We are here for our 7 o'clock meeting. It's Tuesday, January 27th. If the city clerk could call the roll.

Council Member Buse? Here. Council Member Patel? Here. Council member Gary Feder? Here. Council members Waldman? Here. Mayor McAndrew? Here. City Manager David Gipson?

Council Member Buse? Here. Council Member Patel? Here. Council member Fader? Here. Council members Waldman? Here. Mayor McAndrew? Here. City Manager Gibson?

Here.

City Attorney O'Keefe?

Here.

Thank you.

The first portion of our meeting is an open forum where people can address us about an item that's not on their agenda. I don't know if there's anybody in the audience that would like to do that or anybody online. If you're online and you want to address us, feel free to raise your hand. Seeing no hands raised or anybody coming up, we will start the regular portion of our meeting. The first item is a conditional use permit for the new MAC. I will open the public hearing and request proof of publication.

Thank you, Mayor. Sorry, my computer was updating that whole time there. So I don't have this item pulled up just yet, but this is the conditional use permit for Missouri Athletic Club. at 7701 Forsyth Boulevard, which is the Pierre Laclede building. This did go through the plan commission and received a favorable recommendation, and we recommend approval as well. Thanks for handing this over. So it is a private club. They'll have a dining space, lounge bar, meeting rooms, and a cigar lounge. And again, this will be the third location for Missouri Athletic Club at that Forsyth location. The proposed hours of operation are 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. Deliveries will be 7 a.m.-5 p.m. through the freight elevator, and they'll use the building's existing trash and recycling services. In total, it's 44,000 square feet with 295 seats, and they do have parking that will be managed within the garage at the building They've noted that 30 spaces are provided for employees and then 50 spaces for patrons. Again, the plan commission did review this request and gave it a favorable recommendation, and we recommend approval of the conditional use permit with the conditions outlined in the resolution.

Thank you. I'll open the discussion. Are there any questions or comments from the council?

Yeah, I would just ask... at the plan commission, you all were kind enough to share a little bit about your green dining commitments and practices. And I think it'd be great for everybody to hear that. Yeah. If you

want to come up to the microphone, just the button at the bottom is probably red right now. So if you'll push it, it's green. And then there we go. There we go. And just let us know your name. Greg

Gerber. I'll be the director of operations for Missouri athletic club.

Chip Mish, I'm the Chief Operating Officer for all three clubs. Great.

Thank you. Yes, to answer the question, we are very excited to be able to be joining you all. And as far as the Green Alliance Initiative and other sustainable practices, we actually are very fortunate to have a chef who he was on the Romanian show Zero Waste Chef, which talks about carbon zero, zero carbon emissions for the restaurant, the operations. And so Our approach to that is going to be, continue to be as, you know, as thoughtful as possible and to make sure we're not putting any extra, you know, issues into the land stream. We've talked about using agave straws and metal straws, and no styrofoam, using plastic as much as possible, and fewer times using it for single-use reasons, and also using craft bags and other things like that to make sure that we can be as sustainable as possible.

Thank you. We appreciate that. Does anybody in the council have a question as long as they're up here? Yep, go ahead. A

couple of questions. The outdoor space that's talked about here, is this at the corner, at the ground level? Is this the same space that St. Louis Club had permission to use previously? Yes, it is. Okay. And the other thing is, this is mostly from my wife who always is concerned about cigar smoke. I'm sure that's an issue for you, but how do you deal? Are you comfortable that this will not be a problem for people who don't like cigar smoke?

Yes, we're very comfortable with it. In fact, we have used with Gerald its own HVAC system in the corner. And previously as a member before, it would be in the founder's room, as you remember before. This would be an HVAC system that actually would gain fresh air from the maintenance room below to allow it to have up to seven exchanges per hour in the space to make sure there's negative airspace. In addition to that, there is going to be a vest fuel that's being built right now, a set of double doors working our way into the room with a smoke eater in between. So we really want to make sure there is separation. For those who can enjoy, they can enjoy that. But for those who don't want to, certainly can be left away from it. Thank you.

Great. Welcome to Clayton. We're glad you're here. A couple of quick questions. I'm not familiar with how you intend to use the club with regard to any large events potentially, whether they might be receptions in the evenings or weekends or who knows what it might be during the day. And so I'm just wondering how that might work and any potential impact on parking given that a large event might be a lot more than 50 spaces.

And what's nice is that those potential events would be at nighttime, which would be away from when most offices will be using those parking spaces. So that's one reasoning. The other is that there aren't as many large banquet spaces. We are not taking over the 16th floor where the ballroom and the other large space is, so that would be potentially where you could see something like that. And that really is during the daytime. So we're not concerned with that impacting us. In a private event over 50,

we're going to require valet and hospitality side of it as well.

Okay,

thank you. So kind of on that, thinking of just any given day, right? You have more than 50 people there. Like how is that going to work? Like if all 50 spots are used on a random Tuesday, which is possible depending on – because given the way you guys have laid this out, you add in some meetings, you had people hang out for lunch, kind of whatever. Like what's the plan for that?

And if we find ourselves where we would need to have that, we would employ the use of valet to help with this. And regarding the spaces, in the previous iteration, there were more open spaces for more private events. But now that we've added a co-working area, which would be actually a lot less density, the cigar lounge itself tends to be more evening driven. And that's only 20 seats versus the space used to be able to fit 40 or 50 in there. And then I mentioned about not taking on the 16th floor. The amount of the capacity would be something that would be, it would have to be very special for it to be, you know, that are things like valet just give you a since I was assistant general manager at St. Louis club prior and so Even when the club was running it both full tilt in December. were only two two times up to two times a year where that would be an issue and that would be during when we're when when the uh when the offices were completely busy and when we had the 16th floor with over 400 people there so that was just a scenario where it would slightly trigger something where we have to do valet that was seven eight years ago nowadays it just wouldn't be

So you basically have access to more than 50 spots if you need them. 50 is just generally what you've contracted for or whatever, plus overflow. Especially at night. Yeah. And that makes sense. I'm just thinking more like lunchtime during the day and things like that. Okay.

Well, great. Well, thank you for being here. Yes, welcome to Clayton. I'm sure it sounds like people are very excited to have you here. So we look forward. We certainly look forward to seeing the space. If there's no other comments up here, I will close the public hearing. Council Member Buse.

I move to approve resolution number 2026-01, granting an additional use permit for 7701 Forsyth Boulevard, Missouri Athletic Club.

Second. Any other discussion? All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? The vote passes 7-0. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is our consent agenda. There's a number of items on the consent agenda. I'll open the discussion. Are there any questions or comments from the audience or from the board related to any item on the consent agenda?

I see the appointment of the chairperson for the Economic Development Committee. Do we have one for the downtown committee?

Yes, it was done, I think, at the last meeting. Anybody

else?

Council Member Buse. I move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

Any discussion?

Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel? Aye. Council member Gary Feder?

Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel? Aye. Council member Fader?

Aye.

Councilmember Rick Hummell?

Councilmember Hummel?

Aye.

Councilmember Jeffery Yorg?

Councilmember York?

Aye.

CouncilMember Waldman? Aye. Mayor McAndrew?

Aye. Now we'll get into some old business. We're going to look at the second reading for our stormwater control text amendments. I'll open the discussion. Okay,

so this is a continuation of an item where we had the public hearing which we closed on January 13th and there were a number of amendments that were made at the time of first reading. The first one was we adjusted the minimum green space for the R3 district from 50% down to 45%. So that changes in the version before you this evening. We also have the delayed effective date to February 12th noted in this ordinance as well. We did one more review of the shells and maize and musks and those things within the ordinance, and we found one that we ended up changing. So that's reflected in the version of the ordinance before you this evening as well. With that, we can open it up to any questions you may have. We continue to recommend approval of the ordinance.

Council members have any questions or comments?

My only comment is I think it's a good example of where people from the community who have opinions about our ordinances and express them and express them well as happened with reference to the R3 district. I think it's It matters when people speak up from the community. So I'm all in favor of it.

Anyone else?

No, I mean, the only thing I would say is what I've already mentioned to you and David. For the record, I'll abstain from the vote because we've got – Catherine and I will probably have a proposal coming through related to building on the house that may or may not conflict with green space issues in here.

Thank you. If there are no other comments and no one online, Council Member Buse.

I introduce Bill number 7123.1, approving text amendments to Chapter 405, Chapter 410, and Chapter 430 related to stormwater control to be read for the second time by title only. Second.

Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7123.1, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance amending chapter 405, chapter 410, and chapter 430 to adopt revised green space and stormwater management regulations.

Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel? Aye. Council member Gary Feder? Aye. Council members Waldman? Aye. Mayor McAndrew?

Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel? Aye. Council member Fader? Aye. Council members Waldman? Aye. Mayor McAndrew?

Aye.

Thank you.

The vote passes six to zero. The next item on our agenda is a SRO agreement with the school district.

Yes, we have an existing agreement with the school and the terms of this agreement are unchanged, but we realized in the school district realized that the previous agreement had expired on August 31st. So this would, this new agreement would go through August 31st of 2027 just So everybody knows we have three SROs, one that's deployed at the high school, one at Wydown Middle School, and then we have one that bounces between the elementary schools. And the school district pays 80% of those salaries and benefits for each of the SROs. They pay 50%. The costs have mutually agreed upon training for the SROs, and then they pick up a number of smaller items dealing with vehicles and other equipment that they're issued. So we recommend approval. That program's worked really, really well for us and for the school district, and we recommend approval of the ordinance in front of you.

Thank you. I'll open the discussion. Are there any questions or comments from the council or online? Okay. Again, please feel free to raise your hand online if you have a question. I

just want to confirm that this is you said substantially the same. Is that mean it's not exactly the same?

That's aside from the dates changing. I'm unaware of any other change.

Okay.

All

right. And they're all the

same. Yeah, the percentages and the splits are all the

same. And then obviously what they reimburse us for adjusts as the salary and benefit costs adjust. And then the reimbursement for equipment in the vehicle is just set.

Those are fixed. We

don't feel like that needs to change.

No, we should be good there.

Is it right to assume that each SRO has a marked police vehicle assigned to them?

They do.

Right. Okay. Thanks.

Yeah, I was just curious if the chief, if you could weigh in and talk a little bit about how this is, how officers respond to this and working there. I remember when we looked at this discussion before, it seemed to me that there may have been, I don't know what the issues were, whether we had to hire somebody in order to fill this or whether it, I think there were positives, but maybe some negatives and just your feedback on that. Yeah,

if you remember, it was two years ago, no, 2023. They were looking to expand it, have somebody cover the elementary schools. And in fact, they were discussing with us actually having an officer for each elementary school, which would have been a strain on our staffing levels at the time. And still, it's still difficult to hire police officers right now. And I told them, we want to put experienced officers in the schools. And that would take away three more officers, experienced officers from our community and put them in the schools. We'd have a hard time replacing that experience. Um, so we, um, we, through discussions, we just limited to one, one additional officer. So we went from two, two SROs to three at the time. Um, and it's been, I think very beneficial. I mean, every, every week, it seems like that third officer who bounces around the elementary schools and the early childhood center, it seems like he's diffusing some type of situation, whether it's with parents or staff, or even the minor things that young kids get into. He's been really helpful to the staff and helping guide them, um, with, with the problems.

How does it work for you or for the department in terms of either training, growing, rotating them? I mean, is this something generally people want to do for a long time? Are they anxious to move on? How does your staff look at this?

Yeah, so we want to put people who are able to relate to children, who understand the concerns of the parents and also make the staff feel safe. So we typically use our experienced people. All three of our SROs are very experienced and they do a great job. So, yeah, it is actually a highly sought position within the department. Right now, I know the school district has expressed that they want to keep the three that we have in there. So we probably won't rotate them anytime soon. But, yeah, it's it is a highly sought after position.

And is it, Chief, is it a full-time job for them? Like, are they doing, forgive me, normal police work along with school police work? Or

is this like their job? It's pretty much full-time school resource officer. Now there is... So in the summer months, there is summer school. So they're assigned to the school for the summer school activities. But there are a few weeks where they're... they're using that summer vacation time to burn off their own personal vacation and holiday. So there's not a whole lot of time when they're on the street with us, but there are times when things come up, um, the tornado, for instance, uh, that tornado happened on a Friday at around three o'clock and school was letting out. So we, we held those guys over for an additional 12 hours and they came back every weekend. So having these positions that are paid for significantly by the school district benefits the community as well we have additional officers we can use for emergency circumstances and the vehicles as well the vehicles there's three additional vehicles and they pay a big portion of that we use those vehicles on patrol sometimes as well so we need them

and these guys are Subject to obviously their vacation time. They're working like on like Christmas holiday or when the schools are out? Yeah, typically

they're taking their vacation time. It mirrors the school schedule. And they're also working the extracurricular events, the sporting events at the schools as well.

It's my only other question, and I don't think it's – it's not a huge deal, but I assume they're just going to cut us a check for the period that this agreement didn't cover, that they probably haven't paid us? Or were they paying us just without a legal agreement? Yeah, they were paying and didn't realize it either. Got it. There shouldn't be any –

Yeah, if you recall, back in July of 2023, we initially approved a contract for potentially five SROs. We told them, okay, we're going to fill three. In the future, if things change, we'll consider doing five. And then a couple weeks later, they pulled it back and said, hey, let's just go with three. And for some reason, I don't recall why, the date changed, the expiration changed from the initial contract to 2026. It changed to 2025. I'm not sure. But we do have it on our Outlook calendar now. We won't miss it next time. Exactly.

It's not a big deal. It sounds like everybody was just doing what they do. We just didn't have it documented. Yeah, everybody was cool. In good faith while we clean this

up.

Our finance department sends them invoices. Thank you, Chief.

You're welcome. Appreciate all that. Yeah, I certainly remember the discussions around the additional SROs a few years ago. Can I just add one thing?

I just want to say, you were listing all the things that the officers do in resolving tensions, but something else that's always been a great benefit of this is I think it's wonderful for our families and our kids to have really positive role models with our police and a trusting relationship like that. So it's important, and thanks very much for doing it.

you're absolutely right so when things of like sensitive nature come up they have they have somebody they can trust they can talk to and we can use those sros to um you know help us

thank you

that's my reviews

i introduced bill number 7127 approving an agreement with the school district of clayton for school resource officers to be read for the first time by title only

Second.

Any discussion?

Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7127, first reading and ordinance approving a school resource officer agreement with the School District of Clayton.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Council Member Buse. I move that the council give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7127 on the day of its introduction. Second.

All those in Let the minutes reflect that the council has given unanimous consent.

I introduce bill number 7127, approving an agreement with the school districts of Clayton for school resource officers to be read for the second time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7127. Second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance approving a school resource officer agreement with the school district of Clayton.

Council Member Buse. Aye. Council Member Patel. Aye. Council Members Gary Feder.

Council Member Buse. Aye. Council Member Patel. Aye. Council Members Fader.

Aye.

Council member Rick Hummell.

Council member Hummel.

Aye.

Council members Jeffery Yorg.

Council members York.

Aye.

Councilmember Waldman. Aye. Mayor McAndrew.

Aye. The last item on our agenda is a contract for the Shaw Park Tennis Center lighting project that is not quite ready yet. So we will

like to withdraw that item for now. We're going to circle back with the contractor and then put this on a future agenda. So they want to do one more field inspection. And I think they would have tried to do something quickly, but everything's snow covered right now. So this has to do with the basis of the poles and the post tension concrete that we use for the tennis courts. So we don't anticipate a major change to the contract amount, but we wanted to make sure that it was clean when the council actually considers it for approval. So it'll be back before you, hopefully in February. It could push to that first meeting in March, but we'll see. We'll try to get it done as quickly as possible.

Do you need a motion or anything? Or you're just withdrawing? Okay, that's correct. great well that was very quick um if since it seems like we do have some time do we want to go around and we could just talk a little bit about if there were any highlights in the last couple weeks

uh i don't have much the plan commission it was the missouri athletic club was probably the one of the primary things with support and um they were they gave it was it was a very smooth presentation with a lot of approval the only other um part came you can help me with this too we had a steering committee meeting with the cool cities group which is again is the group of um elected officials and other you know gene ponzi and other uh people involved in sustainability in the area and part of what um I think we all need to be aware of, even though when I touched base with David, a lot of this is still in committee. At the state level, there continues to be a lot of concern, not only talking about wanting to take our building code compliances back to the 2009 international standards, where most people are, I'm going to get my dates wrong, 2000, what are we, David? We're 2019 or 21 and some are 24, but they want to take everybody back. And the main push for that apparently is our builders, because you can build quickly and sell quickly. But architects, engineers, other professional organizations are opposed to it, but it does apparently have a lot of support in our state legislature. Yeah, so I think we need to be aware of that as it gets closer to being developed. Our state legislature certainly does not have I mean, part of it in that push too is health, affordable housing and all that. Certainly you can get a house on the market a lot quicker if you're not doing state-of-the-art building, but over time it doesn't do anybody any good. Whatever your touch point is, whether it's affordability, whether it's healthy living, whatever it is, it's not good for the community long term. So I hope that we can rein in some of these behaviors.

Can I ask a clarifying question? Were you saying that the state is actually trying to mandate that across all municipalities in the state?

Yes, make it so that cities

cannot pick our own.

Right, same with a lot of the green stuff, that we do not require compliance with LEED certifications or anything else because, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying.

And I believe that's House Bill 2384. There we go. Thank you.

Just a couple things I want to comment on. There is, I don't know if everybody got it or just folks like in Ward 1, but WashU is having a neighborhood meeting, which is a thing that I have heard about but never personally experienced. And we had a lot of communication with WashU asking them, to do this or something like it again um so I was super pleased to see they're doing that unfortunately I'm traveling for work which I almost never do on the day that they're having it so I will personally miss it but I look forward to hearing about it and just again just glad that they're um making that step um the lights we do have some light on Y down so um i know matt got tonight off or he's he's on vacation it seems like our traveling but the um temporary lighting that the city was able to coordinate with the utilities is on and while it's not the same as the other lighting it is an improvement so just really appreciate the staff's work to follow up on that and keep looking for options I think we had a parks and rec meeting, but I don't have my notes. So I'll let Kami take those if there were any. We got the pool. We got a pool report, right? We got a report on Jean Parc Aquatic Center. Yeah.

And I brought it to the last meeting to not bring it this time.

Yeah, of course. Right.

Well, the pool usually does well. So yeah. Oh, just a little. Okay. All

right. The problem is it was cold at the beginning of the summer. That's true. Yeah. Like there's the thing. The season passes weren't sold in... How they usually are. The first hot weekend is always when CSP shuts down the pool. So anyways, and then we had the inaugural meeting of the Economic Development Committee, which was a really good group. like a diverse set of experiences and perspectives, it seemed like, and people who seem pretty invested in the project, the effort. So that was exciting. The main takeaways were, I mean, we didn't like do anything except recommend a chair and ask for data. There were a lot of requests for different types of data that I know Gary's working on. We talked about the fact that we want to focus on all of the city, not just downtown. It's hard not to think about downtown a lot. So as someone in Ward 1, you can trust I'll be remembering that. And then... I think that's it on that. And then-

Becky, just on that, how often do you think this committee will meet? Did you get a feel for that?

Yeah, we're currently set to meet monthly, right? That's right. Gary, yeah. Gary's not here. Gary Feder's here, but you're also on the meeting. But yeah, that's what we set up was to do it monthly. So we'll see if that continues. I thought it was going to be a two-hour meeting and it wasn't. So it was interesting. But I think we'll get into a lot more meat soon. um i want to also just thank the staff for communication and response to the storm um i know because of the cold temps it was a hard one to clear and everything and um i heard mostly great things from neighbors and residents and stuff so Thank you always for that. And then I learned something today that I appreciate your indulgence in me sharing with you. I went to a public policy luncheon at WashU and Clarissa Hayward, who's a professor in political science at WashU and also a neighbor in Hillcrest, and gave a short presentation on some of the subject of her research, which is I think democratic theory is what they call it. And it's really like the study of democracy. And she talked about like the different components of democracy and like people having power in a democracy. And specifically this one that she called generative power. And the idea is that, that, that is something that the people can do that can actually create like a new idea. So not just like electing or making a choice on a proposition or people, you know, candidates, but actually like creating a new idea. Yeah. for consideration and examples given were the examples she gave were marriage equality and gun rights like 50 years ago those were not like concepts that we gun rights like individual gun rights the way we hear about them today those were not concepts in like political discourse and consideration And so, and the idea that like these new ideas can come from deliberate enclaves of people who like come together and like have some commonalities but also some differences in how they are thinking about a particular issue or problem so slow is really cool it's interesting to see the stuff people work on and um one of our own residents and neighbors thank you thank

Yeah, we're currently set to meet monthly, right? That's right. Gary, yeah. Gary's not here. Gary Fader's here, but you're also on the meeting. But yeah, that's what we set up was to do it monthly. So we'll see if that continues. I thought it was going to be a two-hour meeting and it wasn't. So it was interesting. But I think we'll get into a lot more meat soon. um i want to also just thank the staff for communication and response to the storm um i know because of the cold temps it was a hard one to clear and everything and um i heard mostly great things from neighbors and residents and stuff so Thank you always for that. And then I learned something today that I appreciate your indulgence in me sharing with you. I went to a public policy luncheon at WashU and Clarissa Hayward, who's a professor in political science at WashU and also a neighbor in Hillcrest, and gave a short presentation on some of the subject of her research, which is I think democratic theory is what they call it. And it's really like the study of democracy. And she talked about like the different components of democracy and like people having power in a democracy. And specifically this one that she called generative power. And the idea is that, that, that is something that the people can do that can actually create like a new idea. So not just like electing or making a choice on a proposition or people, you know, candidates, but actually like creating a new idea. Yeah. for consideration and examples given were the examples she gave were marriage equality and gun rights like 50 years ago those were not like concepts that we gun rights like individual gun rights the way we hear about them today those were not concepts in like political discourse and consideration And so, and the idea that like these new ideas can come from deliberate enclaves of people who like come together and like have some commonalities but also some differences in how they are thinking about a particular issue or problem so slow is really cool it's interesting to see the stuff people work on and um one of our own residents and neighbors thank you thank

I don't think we did this last time, so I can't remember whether I mentioned it, but Ian Mackey gave a presentation at the high school, which the Community Equity Commission helped sort of put together along with the school. I thought he did a great job. He's a very fine speaker, and that was an excellent program. Economic Development Committee was short. I think part of it was that the committee felt like it needed more data to sort of look at before it got working, but it's a very distinguished group, I thought, and then And Mike Shadle, who's going to be chairing it, is an excellent choice since he's a former city manager and manages, continues to manage property. And so I think there is a commitment to meet at least once a month until we figure out we don't need to do that. So I thought that was definitely a positive. I know a number of us attended last night the program at the center dealing with the Shaw Park project. It was a small but mighty crowd. Those who were there did ask a lot of questions and had comments and a lot of good ones. And so I thought it was very productive. And I know there was discussion after the meeting that maybe the boards that the consultants prepared might be made available to the center in some fashion so they could be put out in the lobby area so people would have more of an opportunity to see what things look like. So I thought that was a great idea. And finally, I heard a number of compliments about the city's, uh, dealing with the snow. Uh, they were all compliments, a couple of questions which were just asked of me, which I think maybe others have heard. Um, one is, uh, why don't we help the city of St. Louis, uh, deal with some of their snow since we seem to be so efficient at it. I gave my best answer, uh, which, which I think had to do with liability. Uh, but, um, Dave Kuntz, In any event, I think, and David indicated as well that our crew is really staff to deal with our city's needs and and we really need to limit that the other comment that I heard and I can not surprised is. is people complaining about sidewalks being very, in terms of sidewalks in front of people's houses being cleared that some do, others don't. It's very burdensome, at least according to the one person who contacted us. So I think, again, I did my best to suggest that That's almost an impossible task, even though this person thought we don't have an ordinance. I believe we do. But in terms of enforcement, it's virtually impossible to think about how you would ever enforce that. And then also some people have concerns about what happens when they appear to clean their sidewalk and then it refreezes and then someone only lawyers could think of this and that they fall down. And then they blamed the homeowner because they appear to have cleaned the sidewalk when, in fact, they didn't. Anyway, I don't know if anybody else has heard those questions, but overall, the comments were very positive about what the city had done.

We had a special meeting of the CRSWC. It's way back in December now. And the reason we had to have that is that it was determined that a joint security camera project with the school district overlooked some network switches that needed to be installed. So we needed to approve that. The overall project was $165,000. This ad was an extra $34,000. So it was a meaningful percentage overall. But anyway, that was resolved. And then we were just put on notice by Sikich that they're getting ready to do their engagement and their statement of work for the regular audit. So it's just all routine. I just want to piggyback on Becky's comments regarding WashU. That event with Chancellor Martin will be on Wednesday, February 4th. So we'll have an opportunity to give you some feedback at our next meeting. What I found interesting is that it really was reaching out, I believe, to neighborhoods all around WashU. So it should be, you know, I'd be curious what other issues from other communities might be with WashU as we go forward. We have a... Non-uniform retirement fund meeting coming up on the 2nd, so that's around the corner. And then most of the things that have been going on for me have been with CCF. We've actually had three meetings in the last couple of weeks with the White Island Restoration Committee. So Debbie Zimmerman is chairing that, and she has engaged Max Hillman as her co-chair, and the two of them are a powerhouse, and they're going to do great things. And coordination and communication are paramount for them. They want to make sure that they aren't perceived as going off on a tangent. They want to be in lockstep with the city. So there's an expectation that the city will include them where appropriate as well. And I see every reason for us to do that. So we spent a lot of time on fact gathering, talking about our processes. David laid the he engaged with Matt as well with with Debbie. And so laying out, you know, our process for retaining the plan design people and then when we hope to engage them. And, you know, maybe we'll be ready to at the earliest start doing some things by late next fall. So the point was laying the foundation for these folks in terms of where they want to spend their time and setting expectations. They do think it's really important that at some point we communicate these things of not only how to raise money, which they're going to spend time on, but why is it taking a while for us to engage in this? And so they would like to, certainly on their own website, talk about things. But perhaps they can be helpful or we can coordinate on Engage Clayton or whatever website you want to do this just to make sure that people know why – the foundation is raising money because FEMA not spending money on certain things. So just to make sure we're all saying the same thing so that things don't get confusing as we go forward. So from a fundraising standpoint, their objective is to go to a handful of families, maybe up to 10, to really see if they can raise about half of the budget that they want to raise. They also want to approach WashU Overall, I think what they'd like to do is raise close to $2 million, which is, to me, probably well in excess of what needs to be spent. But they want to make sure it gets done right. So probably about a half million of that is included for art, some type of sculpture, although what they're looking at may cost significantly less than that. Things that they know they need to coordinate with the city on but would like to pursue are things like naming opportunities, considering whether there are any special bricks as an example, maybe benches or other things, and then maybe even a historic marker just to show the history of all this. In fact, they also would like to see about approaching the city of St. Louis to coordinate plannings with the city of St Louis portion of Y down just offering to pay for that so that it looks coordinated so that we don't run sort of this glaring difference between one city and the other. So very big picture open minded about things. With regarding to art, they certainly want to go through similar processes. They want to engage the Public Art Commission, our committee. So very well organized, I think, as they go forward. And then the last thing I think we're all aware of, or at least I know that we will all become very aware of shortly is the school district moving forward with the April 7th bond issue that they're going to have. So they did reach out to me and I assume Gary and Susan, as well as former board members that they want to have us for a session on the 25th. So they're getting their feedback. And then I want to join Becky in offering my commendation and thanks to David and Matt for those lights. They're especially bright at university with the two of them there, but up and down the street and residents have really noticed that and have given us positive feedback. So I think that's really important. And then I mentioned today, but I went out on the day after the snowfall and Wiedon was easy to navigate. Big Ben and Clayton barely had a lane open. And so the county clearly wasn't doing quite the same thing. So again, our people have really done a good job. So thank you.

It was great to follow Rick because we're all on all the same committees. So Rick covers everything way better than I could. Yeah. I would just echo everything everybody else has said related to the snow and everything else. I think the only thing I would say is, as you all know, we approve the members of the finance committee. So Rick and I will kind of put our heads together with David and Karen and kind of kick that off at some hopefully sooner than later date that has not yet been determined to kind of get a feedback. I would just ask you all if there's any thoughts you have on kind of what you want to see out of that committee or get out of it. Just let Rick and I know. um i know we have kind of a general sense of how we may want it to go but again it's it's supposed to kind of be advisory for all of us so to the extent there's um ways you were thinking about it it's brand new so we can kind of craft it however we want to so i would just throw that out to all of you so that's all i got

Not much to add. Yeah, Parks and Rec Committee reviewed the end of the report of the end of the year for the Aquatic Center. I guess the issues that they are having, it was just, you know, the low purchases of season passes. And then I guess there's a leak in the dive tank. And so like that water bill's just causing... them to kind of spend a lot of money that they normally haven't, I guess, in the last three to five years previously. So that's an issue that I think they're working through. We had our first meeting of the Special Business District Advisory Board. That went really well. Susan was also there. Didn't I think we're going to meet once a month. I don't know if we really established that, but lots of great ideas, a lot of local business owners. I think it's going to be great. I'm excited. I know we requested a little bit of information just to kind of help us figure out how to work within the budget we're given and what we can really allocate to things, but overall it seems it'll be great. I

think I need to add one thing to that. I forgot that we hadn't reported on that yet. There were a lot of questions on the the budget because it's about half a million dollars that is generated, but we already use it all towards salaries and toward our events. And so we have a really, really good group of people. And as they come up with ideas, we just have to be ready to hear new ideas that may make us rethink how that money is spent reallocations or what we want to do with it. Cause right now it's a committee that has given a budget that's already been dedicated to other things. So, that will be coming back to us, I'm sure.

Mayor, may I add something? When Gary referenced the event last night, the open house, I was wondering if we've thought about, and I really don't think this was there. I'll be embarrassed if it was. But when we're having events like that at the center, it can sometimes be hard to know where they are or what's going on. And then also we have a captive audience who could potentially just pop in And like, if we would put up signage that would say like, this is happening right now, right there. Like, I wonder, I don't know that we'd get many more people, but we might. I don't know. I just thought of it. I just thought about it when I walked in and I was like, I wonder what room it's in and all that jazz. Thanks.

Thank you, everyone. And, you know, I know with the addition of the committees, we are all busy people. So I do appreciate everybody's taking on a new responsibility, which is more time away from families and jobs. So thank you for that. I know this is, you something to everyone's plate can sometimes be difficult. So I appreciate everybody's time that they're putting towards these new committees. I do think that they will be helpful. So I appreciate everything that all of you are doing for them. I would just report, we had an art fair board meeting, and I think I mentioned this to some of you, but the art fair is moving their headquarters, so they were in like a small building down on merrimack. And I you know I feel like we don't always hear good things that our corporate citizens are doing so apex oil is. providing them some new space in the Energizer building. So one of the triangle buildings, and they are just absolutely over the moon thrilled and providing a rent that is not market rate. So clearly the family behind Apex Oil is really giving them a great space for not a huge cost. So I did Thank Mike Shadle, and he was going to pass on his thanks. But I think the art fair, I think we all value it. And the building where they were in, I think, had some significant power issues, potentially water issues. So they're very glad to be in the new space. I'm also just going to mention what hasn't been mentioned. I was at a Municipal League meeting, and I think all of you have heard a little bit of this, but there was a huge amount of pre-filed bills in the legislative session, 1,571. And Pat Kelly said he has testified in more hearings in the last couple weeks than he did all last year. So it's a very active session. Some big things that just affect us. There's, um, a bill that was going to exempt auctions from sales taxes. So that potentially would, you know, affect us just because of our auction houses. And we've got, um, I can't remember the name of the store that's down the block that has jewelry consignment, which could potentially be affected. So, I mean, big sales tax, um, items. Um, I can't Yeah, auction house. There's Delta 8-9 regulation that I think all of us would love to see that's still going through. There's still the right-of-way bill, which is problematic for municipalities that's moving its way through. One thing that does seem to be on the fast track, which may actually happen, is fixing the juvenile justice scoring system, which a lot of people have been behind. So I think rather than having it the, you know, if a juvenile is arrested, I think there was a lot of discretion. The chief and I have talked a little bit. There was a lot of discussion given to whether they were going to hold them. And I think a lot of what this bill would do would remove that discretion. So there's a statewide scoring system that is somewhat mandated. So that looks like it will go through at least according to Pat Kelly, the grocery sales tax doesn't seem to be moving very fast. So I think Most municipalities are hoping that that will peter out. So, but we'll see. It's still very early. So that is all I think I have to report.

Mayor, I was going to add, Community Equity Commission has asked Pat Kelly to appear before the Equity Commission, this bill dealing with, you know, juvenile justice, however you want to phrase it, plus other things that are of interest, but I think particularly those that more have sort of an equity angle to them. Pat, I don't know if it's this month or next month, but sometime soon pat was going to come to the equity commission

he's great he knows everyone and everything so um anything from you david

would say there was a hearing i think was today on the grocery sales tax wasn't and so the tax exemption in that particular hearing would be just the state tax portion so the local sales tax wasn't actually a part of the proposal they were discussing today Our lobbyist was going to go to make sure that they didn't try to put that back in. And if so, then he was going to testify during that hearing. So I haven't heard anything yet as far as how that went, but I know that there was a preliminary hearing on that today.

Pat was hopeful because the speaker is against

the

grocery sales tax. So that's why people are hopeful that since the speaker is against it.

The Shaw Park. So for folks that couldn't attend the meeting, we are going to put the Shaw Park designs up on Engage Clayton. So that's something we're working on. Hopefully that's done within the next few days here. So we'll update the Wydown restoration information that's on there and provide a bit of a timeline for when folks might expect to see some of that moving along. But we are going to add a new page for Shaw Park as well. And then we'll communicate that out through social media and our regular channels when all of that is up and running. And then as far as the lights on Wydown, We appreciate the thanks for that. But at the same time, the council members from that ward and the mayor were really pushing to get light there. And that extra nudge sometimes is really, really helpful when we have the number of things going on that we do. So I don't think all that credit is ours. We appreciate you looking out for what's actually on the street and listening to those neighbors and passing that along. So overall, it worked really well.

Question on the whole Shaw Park process. Was the goal last night to solicit feedback? Is the goal of Engage Clayton to solicit feedback, or is it more to announce and inform? What are we doing?

We're more towards announce and inform at this point. We are taking comments, and last night we took a number of comments. The encouraging thing was a lot of times when you have those meetings, especially with engaged residents, you're going to hear some negative things, or you're at least going to have a few people say, I don't like it. this aspect, or I don't like the whole thing. We didn't get any of that. I mean, we, there were a few, you know, little suggestions and tweaks we could make to different things

from the pickleball experts.

It was, yeah, it was all really helpful. And, um, you know, it was really encouraging to have people in the room that were that engaged in what was happening. And, uh, all of the, the, the feedback really was, was positive. So

the largest group of people were at the park tower and they're, they, I mean, again, like you would think, but they were all very excited. Yeah. So,

mm-hmm.

One thing as a follow-up to that, I mean, one of the things that came up all the time when we've talked about this site in the past and continues to is the difficulty with vehicle traffic and drop-off and parking and stuff. And so, like, what's, I guess... What's our, like I don't think this project is going to solve that problem. Like I don't think it has the budget to solve that problem and I'm curious what You would say about how, like, is it as big of a problem as many people think it is? It kind of seems like it. It's

a problem.

And what would we do to address it?

It's a problem, and when you're at ground level and you're actually walking across there, especially when things are busy, I mean, you can feel it. It's an uncomfortable intersection at Brentwood and Bonham right there at Clayton-on-the-Park where you go across. So we are looking at, through this project, the best we can, at least on the side of the street that we're working on, trying to align things better than they are right now. So the drop-off lane is shifting. We're also looking at where those crosswalks hit, at least on The Shaw Park side of the street, to see if maybe we can add a south leg to that intersection. Because right now everybody goes up to Clayton-on-the-Park and across in enhancing that in some way. It's difficult, though, given the constraints we have with the intersection itself. It is an oblique. intersection when you're looking at the crosswalks, the way things are currently aligned. To change that would cost as much as the Shell Park project itself. There's all kinds of utility corridors and ducts through there. There's major storm sewers that go through there with inlets in certain places. And so if you start to reconfigure that intersection, you have to do a ton of utility relocation. And you probably have to acquire some property to widen some of the corners. It gets very, very expensive quickly. So we're trying to, within the constraints that we have, improve it as best we can using the side of the street we're working on. We would love to fix the whole intersection, but it's just cost prohibitive at this point. So

we'll do our best. How much control do we have to add things like... I'm going to call them safety bump outs on both sides or even putting like almost like you see in some places, like a median in the middle, like a pedestrian median. So people cross halfway through this little protection. Like, do we have any ability to do any of that with it? What is our street?

So we can do whatever you'd like there. Right. Our issue is when anytime we've looked from a traffic study standpoint at any kind of lane reductions or restrictions through there. our peak traffic times to drop lanes or lose anything would really impact us negatively. So if you've ever taken a kid to high school down Brentwood heading, you know, North in the morning, it's every lane is, is completely backed up. And then on the way out of town, it's the same thing in the afternoon. So it's, it's hard to try to.

And to be clear, I don't mean to lose lanes. I'm just thinking about, you know, sometimes you'll see like a crosswalks instead of just being like hey, you're going to wait for the light. Cities will put like that concrete on both sides for like, let's call it five feet that's in the parking, but at least it gives people a little bit more feel safer. I thought you were talking about the safe Haven kind of in the middle, but as far as that'd

be nice too, but

it only really works if you have a turn lane.

We can look at all these things and our civil engineer is as a part of this project, looking at ways to improve that intersection without having the huge price tag that comes with reconfiguration. So we'll see what they come up with gives people a little bit of safer to

cross it to the extent we can build that stuff because it's, it's uncomfortable. Yeah.

We, and we have talked about it a lot at the steering committee meetings, you know, wanting to do more, but yeah. Great. Great. Well, thanks, everybody. Take a motion. I

move we adjourn.

Second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Thank you, everybody.