February 24, 2026 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening, everyone. It's Tuesday, February 24th, and it's 615. And we're going to start our meeting tonight with somebody giving a presentation, I'm sure we'll learn your name, a presentation on the Sababa Festival. If you could just make sure that the microphone, the green light is on at the bottom, we one of our council members is online. So He can't hear unless that microphone's on. So if anybody would like to talk, just come up to the front and speak into the microphone. Wonderful.

Great. Welcome. Well, thank you all so much for having us here today. I am Stephen Rosenzweig. I am the president and CEO for the Jewish Community Center here in St. Louis. I'm accompanied by members of Federation and Contemporary Productions and the co-chairs of Sababa, as well as Scott Biondo, who heads up the Jewish Communities Security Task Force. Just some information about who we are. The J is, we consider ourselves the town square for the Jewish community and we provide educational, cultural, social, Jewish identity building and recreational programming on our three campuses in Creve Coeur, Chesterfield, and a resident camp, Lake of the Ozarks. And Jewish Federation of St. Louis mobilizes the Jewish community and its people, financial resources to grow and enhance Jewish life in St. Louis and around the world, and contemporary productions we've hired to produce Sababa. So Sababa is the Jewish premiere arts and cultural festival that spotlights contemporary Jewish culture through food, music, art, and community. This event welcomes the entire St. Louis region, not just the Jewish community, to experience and learn about Jewish life and culture in St. Louis in an inclusive and family-friendly environment. Sababa means awesome or cool, kind of in a slang colloquial way. And this year, Sababa is special. This happens every other year. We host it every other year with the help and support of Jewish Federation. But this year marks the Jewish Federation's 125th year in celebration. And as part of their 125 years of celebration, we're aiming to make Sababa a bigger, more inclusive place than ever before, and that is the reason why we are approaching all of you so that we can have this wonderful cultural family event here in Clayton where so many of our members of our community live, reside, work, play. The event is October 18th, and we're looking at the South Central between Carondelet and Forsyth and the South Central parking lot. I already talked about Contemporary Productions, who's going to walk through the full presentation and logistical details with all of you. We estimate a total of about 4,000 people attending over the six-hour time frame that it's open between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. We have a video. I don't know if you guys have that video queued up or not. Not in that one. Well, if you saw the video, you would see a lot of happy faces from young to old, singing and dancing, food and family fun activities. Our website, which is... https backslash sababa stl.com we can certainly send you lots of pictures and videos from prior festivals that would really demonstrate what we're talking about but i think if you've been to the greek festival or other festivals you can kind of picture what we envision for the entire community I guess in the absence of a video, maybe I'll just turn it over to you. And later, if you have questions about what Sababa is and what we're doing, I'm happy to answer them.

Great. Thank you.

So my name is Eric Bittner. I'm the senior production manager at Contemporary Productions. As stated, we have been hired to help produce the Sababa Festival this year, and we'd want to continue to collaborate with the city of Clayton to execute that. The document that you have is our tentative event operations and emergency preparedness plan. It's currently at 50 pages. I know that we don't have time to hit all of that tonight. So brief overview, and then we'll do questions to hit it as hopefully everybody got a chance to see it before tonight. Click here. Here are the different sections. So the main thing I want to discuss is first is the road closures and the site map, because I think that impacts the most folks. Road closures would be on Forsyth and Carondelet on South Central Avenue. We want to retain Forsyth and carondelet being open to less impact on the city. We would add a barrier closure to the parking lot as well. And we would reserve those parking spaces on the north side of carondelet. The overall site map, again, tentative, subject to change, but this shows the approximation of what could be if we were able to collaborate with the city and have the festival here. The event footprint would be encompassed by a fence perimeter along with bike rack enclosures and jersey barriers where necessary for vehicle mitigation. Again, we will collaborate with all emergency personnel. The most important thing with that is that we will have a unified command structure way down here. that will be implemented during incidents that trigger that as noted in here. Otherwise, there will be a command structure of event producers that will lead event operations and Scott Biondo who is here will be the festival security director. There we go. So our command structure has three levels to make sure communication flows directly to who it needs to and it can be efficient. The festival producers would be a group, and this is again subject to change and grow, including myself, Steven, Rabbi Brad, and Sierra Pierce, the director of security, Scott Biondo, and a to-be-determined public safety liaison. That public safety liaison would be the person in direct contact with law enforcement and emergency services throughout the event. And that way, whenever something is triggered, we are already in contact and we have that communication flowing. This level one group is responsible for communicating down to level two, level three. And again, we won't get into all of the codes here, but I did want to go back up to this map to show the approximation of when we would occupy the lot in the street. The east half of the lot would be occupied starting on Friday the 16th. We would load in all necessary materials to be staged there. It would be encompassed and fenced and secure on Saturday during the night. We would secure the street and the road closure using a third-party traffic control company, again, to reduce strain on the city. With the street secured on Saturday morning, we would start building the rest of the event site that you see here in blue. We would have the event day where vendors would come in, they would load in and then we would have our event from 11 to five. After 5 p.m., when security clears all guests, vendors would then load out. When security deems it safe to do so, festival operations would then begin to break down the event site, collapsing everything back down to the east half of the lot in the green. So that way, Carondelet to Forsyth on South Central would be open and the west side of the parking lot would be open by Monday morning. All pickups for materials would happen that Monday morning as well in the east half of that lot. That's detailed in this schedule. And again, this was subject to grow. We will be continuing to elaborate on all movements in this schedule. So that will be shared and again, collaborative throughout. Security, we have planned security entry screening. This is a RSVP event, but it is open to the public. So that way we are capturing some data. There's a QR code that will have signage available. So even if you don't RSVP beforehand, you can scan your QR code RSVP onsite, walk through screening and head in and enjoy the event. I believe that covers the footprint and security. The last page here shows key contacts of, and again, this will grow. So with that, I would like to turn it over to questions just to be mindful of time. There's a lot in here. So if any is directed to me or Steven, we're happy to take any questions you have at this time.

Okay. Well, let me first say, I think it's wonderful. It sounds like a wonderful cultural event. Thank you for coming to Clayton. I think it's our residents are always looking for more cultural events to go to. So I want to thank you for coming to us and proposing this year. I do have a couple of questions and I'm sure our council members do as well. Just in terms of, I'm wondering too, Of talking to the county, it looks like that parking lot on Monday won't be available at all or part of the parking lot won't be available. Is that correct? It looks like everything it's like the west side is available starting Monday morning. I'm just you know, I just want to be mindful. That's a very, you know, well used lot. Absolutely. You know, so I'm just kind of curious. So you anticipate that part of that lot won't be

Until about 3 p.m. on Monday.

On Monday.

Yeah, and that's subject to change if we need to adjust plans to suit that or to suit the needs of the lot being open. We can definitely look into that. This meets some budgetary requirements on our side. Trucking is cheaper on a Monday than it is on a Sunday night. Right. So that's where that comes into play. Okay. But we are happy to collaborate and change schedules to accommodate.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, that might be something, you know, I know that we've had, I mean, I don't, we don't really put on the art fair. I mean, we help with it a lot, but that's something where the art fair is done by midnight Sunday in order to kind of open things up again. So that might be something that might need to change change depending on what the needs of the county are which again it's a lot that's very busy and it's probably a little busier on monday morning than it is um so i mean that would be my primary concern is just thinking through those details um the point of context security wise you had like a liaison would that be somebody in our police department that would be the

We would have a liaison on our team dedicated to communicating with the police.

Okay. Got it. Okay. I might have some additional questions, but we can go around. I just want to be mindful of time. So, Susan, do you have questions to begin?

Yeah, I'll probably come back to something. So through Monday at 3, Friday... The streets are closed as well? The

streets would only be closed from midnight going into Saturday. So Friday night into Saturday. And then we would release those streets again Sunday night. As soon as the tenting and all of the event operation materials are out of the street and it's safe, we'll then reopen the streets. So they'll be open Sunday night going into Monday.

Okay. And perhaps it's in the materials that were submitted, but, you know, the cost of the city of putting on something like this, is there a compensation or covering costs? discussion or

yeah so we've we've had discussions about you know paying for meters paying for right-of-way permits all of that um again ongoing for the road closures and the lot so we've already started those conversations so we are not we're expecting to have to compensate the city for the footprint

okay and as far as any um you know public services that our police and things like that. I don't even know what all would be entailed from our staff.

So if we decide to proceed with considering an agreement on an upcoming agenda, that agreement will lay out all of those things. So we would expect them just like other things to reimburse us for any kind of staff costs, really any logistical costs that we might incur during the festival.

Okay. in that vein with the security and whatnot. So like we are planning to employ like third party security as well, off duty police officers. And then we would again, reimburse any services that are needed, but we want to make that strain as light as possible on you.

Yeah, and I think that's, I mean, you know, we just don't have a big staff. So, you know, there are things there, we just, we do small events and, you know, it's just a big strain on our staff in the fall. So when we've had other entities, like when Taste of St. Louis came, they really incurred 100% of the cost. So it's not something, you know, again, events that we put on ourselves, we incur that cost. But when other entities have come to us, like Taste of St.

And I am curious, I don't know if we have any ordinance or other regulations on the types of events that can close our streets and things. And I think the festival sounds phenomenal. I am cautious when we open the door for people to come and watch events that we have to do that. equally across different groups of people and wondering what restrictions we have in the city, what safeguards we have as a city to make sure that those things are equitable and go well for everybody. So I'm wrestling with here, but the event itself sounds wonderful.

Thanks for being here. I just have some more questions generally about the event. I know you were trying to be brief in the interest of time, but we do have 27 minutes or something. So I would like a better understanding of, like, how this has been celebrated in the past. I think you said you do it every two years. So if you could share a little bit about that. And then I just want to clarify my understanding. It's basically, like, Saturday and Sunday afternoon? Or just...

No, it's just Sunday.

Okay. So Saturday is still all set up and staging or okay. I'll try and paint a picture

again. I'm sorry. We had some photos and a video, but to kind of try and paint a we'll bring in food, you know, not too dissimilar from like the clean art fair where there's food on that street. And then a stage where very similar, we'll have artists who will come in and have different type of, you know, Jewish themed art. And then we'll have music so we'll have a stage and we'll have different performers from kids in town to people that we bring in to celebrate different parts of Jewish music culture and then we'll have family friendly things from could be like bubble things or you know tossing things or like you know those ball pits coloring arts and crafts different organizations within the Jewish community will come and they'll have their own kind of tables with their own activities, making you know, Sudaka boxes, which are little boxes for charity that kids make and, you know, stickers and all sorts of other types of family friendly things. We haven't actually figured out all the things for this, but I hope that gives you kind of some picture of people wandering, you know, between food and art and family friendly things and a lot of schmoozing people, you know, talking and gathering just like a very fun, family friendly atmosphere, just, you know, celebrating being together.

Yeah, that's great. And I gather because I haven't heard of this and I think this is the first time you've come to Clayton for it. And it sounds like because it's kind of this hundred and twenty fifth, you're trying to do it maybe like bigger and, you know, like on a bigger stage than you have in the past. Is that and so if you could say a little bit about how it's been in the past and then what you imagine going forward, like would you ideally if this if we come to agreement on this and it goes well, would you potentially want to do it every two years or just to have an idea of?

If it goes well, I can absolutely see that we'd want to do it again in Clayton. As I said earlier, we have so many people affiliated with our community who live and work and reside here in Clayton. We've done it before at the J. We've done at Wash U because of everything going on with higher ed. Wash U wasn't able to commit at this time to having us at WashU. So that's part of the reason that we were looking for another location. But this is really a nice central location between Creve Coeur and Clayton Ledoux, where a lot of our community members live.

Yeah, that's great.

And if it's successful, let's keep a good thing going.

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think what we're talking about is, you know, closing down part of the lot on Friday. And then more on Saturday and Sunday. And then potentially Monday, but you'd be open to us asking you to reopen it sooner. Right. And Friday

at midnight. So after business. So

Friday, you wouldn't be bringing stuff in Friday during the day. It'll be coming in on Saturday to the right side of the lot.

It would be coming in on Friday. Again, the goal would be to save on delivery costs and trucking.

Yeah, I understand.

That would be our preferred course of action would be that green section of the lot there.

Your ideal would be that you have that space on Friday and Monday to stage to reduce your costs. I get that

totally. The blue section we would take over at 12 a.m. Saturday.

All day Saturday and Sunday. Yeah. Okay. I think I understand the ask. I think, I think the main thing that I would want us to consider is, you know, kind of validating the impact on the staff and that, and whether there's any other staff concerns that we may not think of tonight. And then, you know, figuring out the Friday, Monday thing, like what do we think about having parking, not available on a Friday and a Monday or one or the other. I think, though, in spirit, we know from our comprehensive plan that our residents want more events and we are not event planners. And so if we can provide space, frankly, space that is underutilized over the weekend and quite Vacant? I think that would be amazing. So, I mean, I would love to have the problem of every organization in town coming to us and wanting to use some space in Clayton over the weekend. Like how great would that be if we could be like a central hub for people to come together and like celebrate with each other and share with the broader community? Like that, I would love that problem. So thanks for asking.

Thank you so much. Great. Excuse me, I'm going to share the sentiments expressed by my colleagues about welcoming you to Clayton. We're excited to have events. This sounds like a terrific event and a celebration and festival to have. I also appreciate, you know, we want to make sure that it's well run. And so the fact that you've gotten together with contemporary, I think is a huge plus, obviously very experienced. And so I'm appreciative of that. I am curious. We've had a number of our festivals over the last year or so on Brentwood and you've chosen a street that's different. I don't have a problem with that. I'm just curious about the thinking behind that.

Yeah, the thinking behind it was just the overall event experience for the guests on Brentwood to accommodate the number of vendor booths and artist booths that Sababa is looking to host. We would need several blocks and the event footprint would be very long and skinny. So from a guest perspective, a more square rectangular footprint here is easier for them to wander and experience all of the vendors as opposed to just seeing the top half or the bottom half. The other side was impact on the city. We thought this would be lesser impact on traffic and the city than Brentwood.

Okay, so the parking lot then is obviously key to what is you just identified. Okay. One of the things that I hope that you would include in your promotion is to help your guests with parking and perhaps working with the our economic development team, just to make sure that we welcome people into this draw attention to where that parking is available because oftentimes that's a struggle for participants.

I pulled up a parking map from your website showing where Sababa is in relation to these parking lots. The Metrolink, it's a little cut off on the bottom, but I think it's not even a 10 minute walk to the Metrolink station. So we would definitely be implementing this in our communications and social media to make sure people know how to come and enjoy the festival. And that starts with where you park.

So one of the things that I'm not saying you need to do this, but one of the things I've noticed is that our signage for parking tends to be incredibly subtle. And so, you know, any kind of even simple banners that welcome people to park there, if you can get the building owners to agree to something like that, I think it just makes it so much easier to get people in and out and it makes their experience better. So something for you to think about. I'd share Becky's concerns just regarding the parking lot and same as Bridget identified, just the logistics surrounding that in terms of working that out as the agent, I guess, for the county to make sure that we've communicated with them and whatever the revenue or logistical issues are that we have good response to that. So that's all I've got. Thank you.

Jeff, are you?

Yeah, I've got it. One, I mean, I won't repeat what everybody else has kind of said, but I echo all that. The one question, and maybe we can follow up with this later. It's more of an internal question. To follow up with what Susan was saying, like I'm curious what our policy and rules are related to hosting third-party events just generally. And I want to make sure I get a better handle on that so this is fitting into – what, if any policy we have. But otherwise, I mean, I'm always welcoming more events that are here. So otherwise everything else looks fine by me. So I just want to get clarification on that one piece. Otherwise, I'm good. Thanks, Mayor.

Yeah, I'm happy to answer that question about policies or regulations that we have. We really don't have any. Typically, we've got a process to approve special events, but we approve small neighborhood type events that might be on a street, might be on right of way. on a regular basis. This is really just that on a larger scale. So depending on the event itself, how intensive it is for staff, whatever their needs might be, that really dictates what this process looks like. So something like this or Taste of St. Louis, we're actually shutting down streets and doing other things. That's what puts it into that realm where we're going to bring an agreement to the city council, there's gonna be staff costs that's incurred where if it's a small like ice cream neighborhood type event that's in the street, it's really not a big deal and we handle that administratively as staff. But as far as our ordinances are concerned or adopted policies by the city council, we don't have a lot that guides this other than the need for a permit if they're going to use the city's right-of-way or a need to, in this case, rent parking meters. So if those meters are gonna be taken out of commission in that green area, um for days where the meters would be active then they would be required to rent those out so i mean there are ordinances that kind of get at the edges of this but as far as really tight guidelines or really clear guidelines for events you're not going to find that within our code of ordinances

thank you david

Council Member Waldman, any questions?

Yeah, it just sounds like a really great festival. And I do think it really does align with what our residents are seeking and wanting over the weekend. So that's great. I guess just one quick question is just since this is going to be a bigger event than you guys have done in the past, how many people have you had in the one two years ago? You said about 4,000. Yeah, I think

it was closer to 2,500. Okay.

Yeah, 2,500 to 3,000 is what we heard was the cumulative attendance two years ago.

Okay. And so how does like your previous spaces kind of, you know, when you look at this area, like how does that, you know, compare? Like, I guess I'm asking, are we prepared for like the 4,000 and any influx of people, um,

So it's going from 2,500 or 3,000 to 4,000 over a six-hour period is not a huge incremental piece. And I will say that both the JN Federation, having done this as the two largest Jewish agencies, we work really well together for large events. And there are a lot of large events throughout the community. And of course, having Scott Biondo, who does all the security for the Jewish community, This is obviously something that we take very seriously. So the infrastructure, not only hiring contemporary, but having the personnel and the infrastructure between the J and Federation makes us really confident that we can pull this off. And certainly the Federation has invested more money in honor of their 125th that gives us these resources to not only do this event as we always do, but to do it in a really special way and on, you know, on the streets of Clayton. I think it will be wonderful for your residents and wonderful for the community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Great, thank you. Does anybody else have

anything? Just to follow up, I don't know that it's not necessarily germane to this particular event, but when I think about what we have done or said in the past around events, like we do have documented event goals that we use to inform the events that we fund as a city that we actually budget for and dedicate city staff to. And so it might be interesting, like if we... And Taste of St. Louis obviously just kind of was this similar thing. So... It might be something we want to think about in terms of, is this something that we might anticipate a little more often? And is there any way to take what we already have and just kind of review and clarify it to make sure? I mean, my sense is that this is really consistent with what our event goals are. And then the fact that we're not paying for it, aside from some of the impact to our businesses who might use that parking, I think it'd just be good for us to think about. And I did have one other question. So it sounds like if folks are RSVPing and checking in, the entire space is going to be fenced? Yes. Yeah. Is it going to be like the fencing that surrounded Wash U? Like what kind of fencing is it going to look like? Is it going to

look temporary fence? So it'd be chain link that would be wrapped in black Eagle cloth scrim. Yeah. So we would then also add signage to certain points near the entrances, emergency exits and all of that to brand the event. Okay. So any highly visible areas would also have that branding aspect to it.

The fencing can just be really the kind of like, Stark, like when WashU was fenced one time for the commencement, what was it? It was really like off-putting. And then presumably you are going to be like actually checking IDs that people RSVP'd or when they come in, like at the entrances.

So they would scan a QR code and be able to show that on their phone. Show their

QR code, okay. Because I was thinking about like young people who might not have IDs but probably have phones. So you would take care of that, I

guess. The secondary goal of that is data capture, right? You get the names of the email addresses and whatnot. I

understand. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from any council members?

The only thing I want to say is this event sounds phenomenal. I'm very supportive of the event. I'm cautious that we have our legal ducks in the row of what might come in the future if we start doing events, private events in our streets and everything else. I think the event sounds phenomenal. And I just want us to go into it with our eyes open. Yep.

So, David, in terms of it sounds like we're all universally supportive of doing the event. What do you think are the next steps in terms of talking to the county about having the parking lot partially open? Yeah,

so a conversation with the counties. So we're really going to let them dictate most of that. They're the primary use of that parking during the week. So we'll have a conversation with the county. We had sent a number of comments over to their team and a lot of those things have been addressed through this resubmittal. So we want to take one more look at that, see if there are any additional comments. In the meantime, we'll send the event goals back out to the City Council just so you can see those again before the next meeting. I think that's a good idea, but we'll continue to work with them on the agreement as well and get that prepped and ready for the March 10th meeting. We should be able to get all of these questions wrapped up by that particular date. So be on schedule.

That sounds good. Does anybody else have any questions or comments?

I should also mention, Council Member Buse, we can look into any kind of legal considerations as well.

Wonderful. Thank you so

much for your time. We really appreciate

it.

Thanks for coming. Thanks. Thanks. All right. So we've got about 10 minutes before the start of our 7 o'clock meeting.

Yes.

Myron's muted. Councilmember Jeffery Yorg, we're doing roll call, sorry.

Myron's muted. Councilmember York, we're doing roll call, sorry.

I'm

here. Aye. Councilmember Waldman? Here. Mayor McAndrew?

Here.

City Manager David Gipson? Here. City Attorney O'Keefe?

City Manager Gibson? Here. City Attorney O'Keefe?

Here.

Thank you, this is the time in our meeting where if anybody has something to talk to us about an agenda an item that's not on our agenda tonight, you are welcome to approach the microphone and talk to us. i'm not sure if there's any buddy online. All right. I will, the first item on our agenda is a public hearing for subdivision plat for 50510 South Hanley Road. I will open the public hearing and request proof of publication.

Yes, mayor. This is a public hearing and subsequent ordinance to consider approving a subdivision plat for the consolidation of two lots to create one lot. Both lots are zoned M1 neighborhood mixed use district. The newly created lot will meet all zoning requirements for the M1 neighborhood mixed used district. On October 14th, 2025, the city council considered and approved a lot consolidation plat for the subject property. The applicant did not fulfill the recording requirements for the approved plat in a timely manner. and is now seeking re-approval of the consolidation plot. The plan commission considered and recommended approval of the lot consolidation at their meeting on February 2nd, 2026, and staff recommends approval of the ordinance.

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

Can I just ask, is it, do we know if it, like, did it lapse because they weren't really ready to do the work and now they're ready? Or I don't know if the applicant is here.

The applicant is here. If you could just make sure. Just kind of vary it on the

status, if you don't mind. Push the button there.

This is Morgan. Yeah. Hi, Gordon Spring at 510. It lapsed because there was a MILR submission and we weren't able to get it back with signatures from the lender in time. Okay. Yeah. But it wasn't of urgent need because of the project status, which is now moving ahead.

Great. Thanks.

Thank you.

Perfect. Thank you. Anybody else? I will close the public hearing. Council Member Buse.

I introduced bill number 7, 1, 3, 2, approving a law consolidation plat for 500 and 510 North Bemiston Avenue to be read for the first time by title only. Second. Any discussion?

Mr. City attorney.

Bill number 7, 1 3, 2. First reading an ordinance providing for the approval of a plat to consolidate certain property known as 500 and 5 10 South Anley road in the city of Clayton, Missouri.

council member abuse will you did you say south did you say north beemiston we think that you might have i think it's wrong on this

correct on the script it should be south oh

sorry that's all right that's not but it's incorrect on the script so maybe if you could just read again

yeah okay so south hanley correct yes

yeah

we're

good

we're good so yeah can you read it again No, I think the bill, I think the initial one was read correctly. So, Kevin is saying no. So, all those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? The vote passes 7-0. Council Member Buse.

I move the Board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of Bill number 7132 on the day of its introduction.

Second. All those in favor? Any opposed? Let the minutes reflect that the board has given unanimous consent. Council Member Buse.

I introduce bill number 7132, approving a law consolidation plat for 500 and 510 South Hanley. 500 and 510, South Hanley Avenue to be read for the second time by title only. Second. Any discussion?

Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7132, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance providing for the approval of a plan to consolidate certain property known as 500 and 510 South Hanley Road in the city of Clayton, Missouri.

Council Member Buse.

Aye.

Council Member Patel.

Aye.

Council member Gary Feder. Council Member Rick Hummell. Aye. Councilmember Yorg. Aye. Councilmember Waldman?

Council member Fader. Council Member Hummel. Aye. Councilmember Yorg. Aye. Councilmember Waldman?

Aye.

Mayor McAndrew?

Aye. Vote passes 7-0. The next item on our agenda is our consent agenda, which only contains the minutes from February 10th. I'll open the discussion. Are there any questions or comments about the minutes? Councilmember 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 Rick Hummell? Aye. Councilmember Jeffery Yorg? Aye. Councilmember Waldman?

Council member Fader? Council member Hummel? Aye. Councilmember Yorden? Aye. Councilmember Waldman?

Aye.

Mayor McAndrew?

Aye. All right. The next item on our agenda is Melissa Pillow is going to update us on what she's been doing as part of the University of Missouri Extension. Remind me, Melissa, I think you became our I guess designee or I can't remember what, was it two years ago now? Exactly. Great. Yep. So I did not know what this was before you came a couple of years ago. So you might be able to educate some of us that weren't on the board a couple of years so I look forward to your update. We can share. The

annual report of the Extension Office is And here in the county, St. Louis County, every county in the state of Missouri has an MU Extension office, every office has a council. The purpose of that council is to make sure that each of the counties is acting in good faith and representing the university and using community funds properly and just make sure that we are acting with integrity in the ways that we represent our community and the ways that we the information coming to us from the University of Missouri, Columbia, University of Missouri, St. Louis, University of Missouri Kansas City and Missouri S&T are all really part of the MU system. So in terms of extension, I am an extension child. I did not grow up doing 4-H. That's the way that most people understand what extension is. They might have heard of 4-H as young people or in rural areas. I assure you that extension is live and well in our urban areas as well. So my purpose here is really just informational. I am Clayton's designated appointed representative on the county council. Any city in the county with a population above a certain amount is eligible to designate someone to serve on the council, and other members are appointed or elected from the greater community. So it really is made up of a very interesting mix across north, south, east, west of our county. The offices exist now on Page Boulevard. And I'm going to go into the slideshow if there aren't any questions before I get started. All right. So just see if I don't, I have like, I'm in my, I'm in the, my cheaters don't work and my eyes don't work properly. So Mr. Berg, can you tell me the easiest way to tab forward? If I just click, there we go. The roller, the roller, there you go. Extension is one of the only organizations in St. Louis region that supports you with well-researched, informed, continuous programming from the moment you're born through your old age. So I'm going to sort of flip through. Many of the programs are for younger people, older people, community leaders. I'm not going to talk deeply about all of them, but I wanted you to know the full breadth of what Extension does in terms of how it shares information and research generated through our publicly funded universities with the greater community in our state. So Parent link is something I've been able to hear a presentation on. Anyone in the state of Missouri can call parent link for any questions unattached to their name anonymously. So whether it's how do I mix this formula? Is this safe for my child? It is tracked by zip code, so we know who is using it. St. Louis County is in fact using it quite a bit, but it just meant to be a support For, for parents and other caregivers. We know there's a lot of grandparent caregivers extended family who are responsible for small children who may not have the most up to date information from their child rearing years, things have changed quite a bit. number of child care programs that are supported through research from MU Extension as well. And you may have heard of 4-H. You may have seen things about 4-H. One of the most exciting things to watch is 4-H in St. Louis County as a the inclusion of STEM and robotics into the scientific learning that kids are doing through 4-H. And you'll see as you drive around, more and more places are understanding that this is a way to get really, really good science information. And we know that hands-on learning is so important for young people in afterschool programs. The Youth Empowerment Program is another after-school program that's done. The MU Career Accelerator, what I want to really invite people to do is to consider something like MSU. MSU, I showed my true colors, my green and white, my child from Michigan State, but for MU, to be something that you think of like a library. It's a resource. It's a toolkit. It's something that you can go and there's probably something there for you, but you're not going to type that into chat GPT and say who at MU Accent. Well, actually, you might be able to do that. But what I value more about this is the opportunity for real people behind the answers that you're looking for. The real research from from University of Missouri the real research on the gardening hotlines those are staffed by master gardeners who are trained and certified through an extension program you might see it offered through our Missouri Botanical Garden but that certification comes from this organization so Just kind of to run through from there, a lot of business incubator work going on through that as well. So I do invite people to explore the website, explore the opportunities that are available to connect with resources. People are really happy to help once they know what you're doing and guide you in the right direction. So as I mentioned that personal growth, one of the coolest things you'll see in your annual report also is healthy eating programs specifically targeted to diabetes and how to work through that idea. Extension has always been food safety, has always been nutrition, how to make the most with what you have, how to eat healthy, how to support that information coming from our universities about even crops and farming and all of that jazz, but the nutrition and cooking classes specifically targeting vulnerable groups of people who might not have that information readily available to them. The Heroes to Hives, we've been learning a lot about through the program, and that is a way of veterans are supporting bee colonies up at UMSL and and selling the honey to make money, but also to feel a sense of purpose and understanding how those economies work together. So that's just kind of a really neat way to run through that. So lots of health and nutrition. And I want to make sure I missed one. I missed one because it's one of the best ones. The Neighborhood Leadership Academy, Neighborhood Leadership Fellows. We have watched time and time again, people giving credit to MU Extension through the Neighborhood Leadership Academy for opportunities they have had through their fellowship program, through their micro grant program to really do, sometimes it's small projects. It might start out with, I have this idea and I just need someone to give me a chance. And it's building community right where they are. Many of these people have been doing this work long before the Neighborhood Leadership Academy came along. The Neighborhood Leadership Academy gives a framework for people to work within the systems, within their government resources with finding opportunities for funding beyond just the micro grants that are offered. And so we are really, like I say, I don't want to take credit for people who've been doing really hard work this whole time, but it's just been a very successful way that Extension has brought those resources to people. and has brought people together to work with each other and see what else is going on in the community. So I keep going to events and hearing people say something really awesome about Neighborhood Leadership Academy. Anyone can apply to participate. The academy is a little bit shorter. The fellows is a longer commitment, but I really think if that's something you know, a community leader or a community organizer knows, who could really benefit from some grassroots connections. Reach out to me, reach out to Rebecca. There's a sort of a cycling through. It's offered I think twice a year and then the fellows is one longer one. Rebecca would have more information on that. But I just, I really wanna put it out there. And our own David Gipson has appeared at a forum for community dialogue. So those are held maybe quarterly up at UMSL to bring those people, a lot of the community leaders around and give them a chance to learn from city management and from other areas to have it be less intimidating and more approachable to be able to reach out to your own city council. So I think I want to make sure that you know that Rebecca Penniman is the engagement specialist for community development, and she sort of oversees our board and its operations. Many of the things that we do is we vote on budgets and we vote on things, and that's where that financial integrity comes in. A chunk of our budget comes from the county appropriations, a chunk of our Staffing comes from the university itself, but the hard facilities that are there waiting to get your soil samples here in our community, answering the phone for your Master Gardener questions, those are all done here in St. Louis County. And we just really appreciate your support when it comes to things where someone says, I don't really know what that organization does. I don't really no. I know that they do things. I kind of think of it as the it's doing a lot of things that you might not even realize that it's doing and always has been for a really long time. And as we support things, they then the need for you to know is really just to know if you have questions. There's full transparency and a willingness to to teach anyone who's interested in finding out more. Any questions?

annual report of the Extension Office is And here in the county, St. Louis County, every county in the state of Missouri has an MU Extension office, every office has a council. The purpose of that council is to make sure that each of the counties is acting in good faith and representing the university and using community funds properly and just make sure that we are acting with integrity in the ways that we represent our community and the ways that we the information coming to us from the University of Missouri, Columbia, University of Missouri, St. Louis, University of Missouri Kansas City and Missouri S&T are all really part of the MU system. So in terms of extension, I am an extension child. I did not grow up doing 4-H. That's the way that most people understand what extension is. They might have heard of 4-H as young people or in rural areas. I assure you that extension is live and well in our urban areas as well. So my purpose here is really just informational. I am Clayton's designated appointed representative on the county council. Any city in the county with a population above a certain amount is eligible to designate someone to serve on the council, and other members are appointed or elected from the greater community. So it really is made up of a very interesting mix across north, south, east, west of our county. The offices exist now on Page Boulevard. And I'm going to go into the slideshow if there aren't any questions before I get started. All right. So just see if I don't, I have like, I'm in my, I'm in the, my cheaters don't work and my eyes don't work properly. So Mr. Berg, can you tell me the easiest way to tab forward? If I just click, there we go. The roller, the roller, there you go. Extension is one of the only organizations in St. Louis region that supports you with well-researched, informed, continuous programming from the moment you're born through your old age. So I'm going to sort of flip through. Many of the programs are for younger people, older people, community leaders. I'm not going to talk deeply about all of them, but I wanted you to know the full breadth of what Extension does in terms of how it shares information and research generated through our publicly funded universities with the greater community in our state. So Parent link is something I've been able to hear a presentation on. Anyone in the state of Missouri can call parent link for any questions unattached to their name anonymously. So whether it's how do I mix this formula? Is this safe for my child? It is tracked by zip code, so we know who is using it. St. Louis County is in fact using it quite a bit, but it just meant to be a support For, for parents and other caregivers. We know there's a lot of grandparent caregivers extended family who are responsible for small children who may not have the most up to date information from their child rearing years, things have changed quite a bit. number of child care programs that are supported through research from MU Extension as well. And you may have heard of 4-H. You may have seen things about 4-H. One of the most exciting things to watch is 4-H in St. Louis County as a the inclusion of STEM and robotics into the scientific learning that kids are doing through 4-H. And you'll see as you drive around, more and more places are understanding that this is a way to get really, really good science information. And we know that hands-on learning is so important for young people in afterschool programs. The Youth Empowerment Program is another after-school program that's done. The MU Career Accelerator, what I want to really invite people to do is to consider something like MSU. MSU, I showed my true colors, my green and white, my child from Michigan State, but for MU, to be something that you think of like a library. It's a resource. It's a toolkit. It's something that you can go and there's probably something there for you, but you're not going to type that into chat GPT and say who at MU Accent. Well, actually, you might be able to do that. But what I value more about this is the opportunity for real people behind the answers that you're looking for. The real research from from University of Missouri the real research on the gardening hotlines those are staffed by master gardeners who are trained and certified through an extension program you might see it offered through our Missouri Botanical Garden but that certification comes from this organization so Just kind of to run through from there, a lot of business incubator work going on through that as well. So I do invite people to explore the website, explore the opportunities that are available to connect with resources. People are really happy to help once they know what you're doing and guide you in the right direction. So as I mentioned that personal growth, one of the coolest things you'll see in your annual report also is healthy eating programs specifically targeted to diabetes and how to work through that idea. Extension has always been food safety, has always been nutrition, how to make the most with what you have, how to eat healthy, how to support that information coming from our universities about even crops and farming and all of that jazz, but the nutrition and cooking classes specifically targeting vulnerable groups of people who might not have that information readily available to them. The Heroes to Hives, we've been learning a lot about through the program, and that is a way of veterans are supporting bee colonies up at UMSL and and selling the honey to make money, but also to feel a sense of purpose and understanding how those economies work together. So that's just kind of a really neat way to run through that. So lots of health and nutrition. And I want to make sure I missed one. I missed one because it's one of the best ones. The Neighborhood Leadership Academy, Neighborhood Leadership Fellows. We have watched time and time again, people giving credit to MU Extension through the Neighborhood Leadership Academy for opportunities they have had through their fellowship program, through their micro grant program to really do, sometimes it's small projects. It might start out with, I have this idea and I just need someone to give me a chance. And it's building community right where they are. Many of these people have been doing this work long before the Neighborhood Leadership Academy came along. The Neighborhood Leadership Academy gives a framework for people to work within the systems, within their government resources with finding opportunities for funding beyond just the micro grants that are offered. And so we are really, like I say, I don't want to take credit for people who've been doing really hard work this whole time, but it's just been a very successful way that Extension has brought those resources to people. and has brought people together to work with each other and see what else is going on in the community. So I keep going to events and hearing people say something really awesome about Neighborhood Leadership Academy. Anyone can apply to participate. The academy is a little bit shorter. The fellows is a longer commitment, but I really think if that's something you know, a community leader or a community organizer knows, who could really benefit from some grassroots connections. Reach out to me, reach out to Rebecca. There's a sort of a cycling through. It's offered I think twice a year and then the fellows is one longer one. Rebecca would have more information on that. But I just, I really wanna put it out there. And our own David Gibson has appeared at a forum for community dialogue. So those are held maybe quarterly up at UMSL to bring those people, a lot of the community leaders around and give them a chance to learn from city management and from other areas to have it be less intimidating and more approachable to be able to reach out to your own city council. So I think I want to make sure that you know that Rebecca Penniman is the engagement specialist for community development, and she sort of oversees our board and its operations. Many of the things that we do is we vote on budgets and we vote on things, and that's where that financial integrity comes in. A chunk of our budget comes from the county appropriations, a chunk of our Staffing comes from the university itself, but the hard facilities that are there waiting to get your soil samples here in our community, answering the phone for your Master Gardener questions, those are all done here in St. Louis County. And we just really appreciate your support when it comes to things where someone says, I don't really know what that organization does. I don't really no. I know that they do things. I kind of think of it as the it's doing a lot of things that you might not even realize that it's doing and always has been for a really long time. And as we support things, they then the need for you to know is really just to know if you have questions. There's full transparency and a willingness to to teach anyone who's interested in finding out more. Any questions?

Rebecca, thank you so much. I'm Melissa. I'm sorry. Rebecca is the extension

person. And the

reason I was going to say that, I was going to Melissa, Rebecca talks very highly of you. So thank you so much for being willing to do this. It sounds like you're doing a great job because Rebecca was very hopeful that the reappointment would happen. So yes. But yes, thank you so for your enthusiasm and your presentation. Does anybody have any questions for Melissa?

Disappreciation. I think that it's something that we're all becoming more and more aware of. It's kind of woven into so many things that we do see, but we don't realize where it's coming from. So being Clayton's voice and being out there is really important. Thank you. Anybody else?

Nope. Just thank you.

Thanks so much, Melissa.

I would just say that I have used them multiple occasions, and so far everything has come back very well.

Thanks, Jeff.

I had no idea how to prune my hydrangeas until I called the number, and this nice woman walked me through it for like 20 minutes. And my soil samples get done once a year, so I have used the office.

Wow. All right. Good job, Jeff. All right. Great. Well, thank you. The next item on our agenda is a discussion around our fiscal year 2026 salary range adjustments. David, I guess you'll give us a report.

So the city's salary structure includes annual market adjustments to ensure pay remains competitive with other municipalities in the private sector. With council approval, these adjustments may occur each April. During fiscal year 25, comparator cities had a median increase of 2.5%, and the city council subsequently approved a 2.5% increase that was applied to the non-represented pay ranges at the midyear. When I say non-represented, I'm talking about union representation. The fiscal year 26 budget currently includes a 2% adjustment to non-represented salary ranges. The budgeted 2% range adjustment will cost approximately $95,670 to implement. Based on our annual compensation survey, the average salary range adjustment for our comparators was 2.25%, and the median was 2.5%. Adjusting the non-represented salary ranges by 2.5% rather than the allocated 2% would cost an additional $23,917. If approved, that additional amount would be included in a future budget amendment during fiscal year 26. It should also be noted that represented uniformed employees receive a 2.5% range adjustment each fiscal year per their current collective bargaining agreements. Staff requests the City Council select a non-represented salary range adjustment to go into effect on April 1, 2026. Staff will then prepare an ordinance for formal consideration of the adjusted salary schedule in March. I can take any questions you have. There was included in the packet a list of all those comparator cities, so you can see each of those individual increases that were used to come up with the average and median numbers.

Thank you. Are there any questions, comments from the council? I would just say that I continue to be concerned about making sure that we're keeping up with our comparators, our comparator cities. I know everybody's struggling with being able to retain their employees. I'm also, you know, we fell behind pretty significantly before we did a study a few years ago. I'm not really interested in having that happen again. So I would be supportive of moving to two and a half percent. I also think it's good from a policy standpoint, good to be able to show our employees who are not represented that they're getting the same two and a half Does anybody have any other questions or comments for Dave or comments or questions for David?

I agree with your.

I would just say, I think the purpose of this was to make sure that we have a competitive compensation program for our employees to make sure it's being updated in a timely fashion. So I think it's working the way it's supposed to, which is a good thing. It's also a little bit distressing that it's also higher than what we had budgeted to be. And so this, in my mind, continues to reinforce the importance of things that we're doing, which are how do we become more efficient as we go forward? So my goal or what my hope would be is that we can continue to pay competitive salaries. We may need to do it with fewer people as we go forward through attrition, retirement, whatever the reasons are. But we've got to figure out how we're going to balance this if it's going to continue escalating at a rate higher than what we might otherwise budget.

Jeff, do you have any questions or comments?

So, I mean, you all have heard my previous comments about my opinion generally about the process we have. But putting those kind of aside, I think within the structure that previous boards have voted on and put into place, I don't think this is out of the norm. And it's within... a number that i'm okay with to um to put in the budget in order to get everybody kind of two and a half i do pause that while it the two and a half percent aligns with our uniform folks this year i don't want to get necessarily in the habit or feel like we're in a bind that we need to match un-uniform adjustments every year to what's being adjusted for in the uniform deal it just so happens this year and i'm fine with that i just wanted to put that on the table as well but otherwise i don't have anything else to add

anyone else i do have a question and maybe i'm just blanking on this um you know when we have the list of cities in the range adjustments i don't recall um where we fall relative in each of our range compensation to Richmond Heights or O'Fallon. And so when we talk about jumping the range to whatever their average is or their median, I don't know why we're choosing between one of the other those either, but are we aiming for an 80-something percent? Isn't that right? But that information's not here if we're- So

when we did our last comprehensive compensation study, we wanted to be at the 85th percentile within the market. Yes. Because we only do those every five years, it's really intensive to go through and look at every one of your grades to see where it lines up and make sure that the midpoint's in the appropriate spot. the philosophy at that time was, let's set it at the 85th percentile. And then let's keep pace with the market increases over that interval to when we get to the next detailed compensation study. And then we can go ahead and reset at that point. And as the mayor pointed out, what we want to do is try to keep pace with the markets so we don't end up where we were last time with the compensation study. When we finally when we suddenly realized that on average, we were like 7% behind with all of our positions somewhere behind as much as like I think the highest was maybe 26% trailing the market. So the idea was let's put everything at the 85th percentile, and then let's keep pace with the market

overall. And then

when we get to the next in-depth study, then we'll take a look. The other thing I will point out with uniformed personnel is we have salary negotiations that will start here, union negotiations for both collective bargaining agreements. That's going to fire up late part of the spring, early summer. to go into effect on october 1st so what will end up happening is because that's going to reset these these ranges for uniform personnel is uh just be aware that the command staff that isn't represented by the union above that there will be likely increases there to keep pace with whatever happened with the uniform personnel so um i don't know where those numbers will end up but But just be aware that the top part of the scale for uniformed personnel, we're going to have to keep that appropriate separation with ranks so we don't end up with compression when we go through and do the CBAs. So I just want to throw that out there that there'll be more conversations to come on that as we start to get into the fiscal year 27 budget.

And then the only other thing that I noticed going through this and then the budgetary stuff later is that salaries and benefits were up. 6.9 percent and i know that we're keeping pace and that's it's not apple it's a tangential but we're talking about it you know 2.5 percent raise here and or adjustment to the scales there um that's how it translates over so okay i support going forward with this

go ahead jeff um david when's the next you said every five years when's the next um full evaluation or whatever the technical phrases that we would be doing it i assume it's coming up soon

uh it is we try to do it every five years just with the cycle of cbas where it's at the collective bargaining agreements we might wait until the next cba comes up so we're probably going to be on a six-year interval closer to a six-year but typically we would do the compensation study leading up to contract negotiations with the unions okay I think we're probably looking at fiscal year 28 to actually perform it, to implement it. Yeah, it'll be 28 or 29. Anyhow, it's around the corner.

Okay,

thanks. Sorry, I'm confused because I think you just said we're doing collective bargaining coming

up. We are, but it was a three-year contract that we had. And so we're going to skip the full scale compensation study for all of our employees at that three-year interval. We'll pick it up at the next one. So it's really going to be five years from the date that the last increases went into effect that we'll do the next study. So every other collective bargaining cycle, we'll go through and do the comprehensive study on all of the employees. What we're going to have to do going into negotiations is take a look. and all of our comparator cities for both police and fire, and make sure that we have all of those salaries, all that salary information kind of dialed in so that we can sit down and go through that. And

do we, so you mentioned that like this CBA was three years. Is that standard or like, will it potentially be a different length?

Three years is standard and that's what we'll continue to do.

Okay.

All

right.

Thanks. So it looks like everybody's okay so two and a half percent I'll be on the next.

Yes, so we'll put together the range adjustments for that and then, as I stated with it going up from 2% to two and a half that the 2% was already appropriated within the budget that extra half percent will be shown in a future budget amendment. Thank you.

Thank you. Next item on our agenda is an ordinance related to the Gateway Regional Criminal Interdiction Task Force.

So the St. Louis Area Police Chiefs Association, or SLAPCA, has established the Gateway Regional Criminal interdiction task force as a collaborative enforcement initiative designed to address organized and violent criminal activity occurring across municipal and county boundaries within greater St. Louis region. The task force operates pursuant to a state law which authorizes certified peace officers to respond to emergency situations outside their primary jurisdiction when approved by the governing bodies of the participating political subdivisions. Participation in the task force does not require the creation of new positions and will not require dedicated budget allocation at this time. The participation will be coordinated within existing staffing and overtime resources as approved by the chief of police. Recent regional enforcement operations conducted under this collaborative model have resulted in numerous arrests and seizures across St. Louis and St. Charles counties, demonstrating the effectiveness of coordinated interdiction efforts. Staff recommends approval of the ordinance supporting participation in the Gateway Regional Criminal Interdiction Task Force and execution of the Memorandum of Understanding. And we do have Chief Smith here this evening to answer any questions you may have.

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

Yes, I have to share my concerns. Thank you so much for having these agreements. I think that the regional recognition and working together is so critical in so many ways, and especially with the work that you do. The purpose of this is criminal emergency response and supports of each other and for public safety. all of which is commendable, and also allowing our officers to act within the scope and the authority of their home jurisdiction. The concern I have with the agreement is that the beginning in Section 1, the purpose and authority, the first sections talk about defining what an emergency situation is and that it should be by ordinance, and it really is for crime and for public safety. the uh and again talking about the response being the the officers exercising power within their own from their own jurisdiction starting with subsection little five it goes on with a lot of superfluous language i think that's from the statute that really does not serve any purpose in this agreement or your authority down to section two and then then it goes back on course and um I wish that language weren't there. I also understand that there are a lot of police chiefs and consuls looking at this and signing and wanting a uniform agreement, so I will let that go, but I did want to share that concern that there's language in here that doesn't need to be, but I appreciate all that you're doing.

I just am curious about the history of this. Is this relatively new? What led to this? And if it's already existing, any experience that you can share?

So it actually started in 2021 with St. Charles County Police Department. They were experiencing a big spike in auto thefts out there. So it actually started off, the title of this task force was the Vehicle Theft Task Force. But along the way, they started realizing, you know, and the times that were during operations are 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. And that's the prime time for car thefts, car break-ins. But doing this type of enforcement, they were also arresting violent fugitives during these stops. They were getting illegal drugs, illegal guns off the street. They were finding robbery suspects and even making DWI arrests. So they changed the title to Criminal Interdiction Task Force so it has more of a broad meaning instead of just auto thefts because that's what they were getting a lot of other crimes in this task force. And so it started in 2022. The problem became worse, the car thefts. They started spiking around the area. But they were seeing a reduced rate out of St. Charles County because of this enforcement. Part of it was the word got out on the street that there was a task force out there. Maybe the criminals, they probably don't know what that really means. They probably think it's omnipresent, it's always happening, but it's only happening a couple times a month. But the word got out apparently that, you know, St. Charles County has this task force, you know, stay away from there. The other thing that we saw was that a lot of the people, the car thieves were entering St. Charles County from St. Louis County across the bridge on 70. And when the St. Charles County Police Department started, you know, forcing them out, they would end up in Bridgeton, Hazelwood, Maryland Heights. There's a device called a spike strip. So these spike strips were strategically placed along entrance ramps to 70, because when the officers would try to pull them over, a lot of times these car thieves would take off from the officers, and there would be officers near the entrance ramps with these spike strips. The tires would flatten after they go over the spike strip. So they could travel a couple miles on flattened tires, but they'd end up somewhere in Hazelwood, Maryland Heights, in those areas, Bridgeton. So they became involved because... Sometimes these cars, the suspects would jump out and start running. So there was a need for these agencies along the river to participate. And so it started growing from there. And so I think the main thing is that we're trying to get it throughout St. Louis County and get the word out that there's a task force throughout most of the county. And it may deter criminals from coming our way. Let them know that we're out there too doing it.

What is the level of participation amongst the various police forces?

So right now, like I said, so in the beginning it was mainly St. Charles County Police Departments, and then you started having Chesterfield, Bridgeton, Hazelwood, Maryland Heights, St. Louis County Police helping out up in North County. Now we have about – right now we just started this – And part of the memo of understanding is to get police departments on board who follow best practices as far as pursuits go, use of force. And to be a member of this, to be able to sign this MOU, you have to be in good standing with SLAPCA, the San Jose Area Police Chiefs Association. To be in good standing, you have to an accredited agency, as we are. And if you're not accredited, you have to follow best practices on certain policies, critical policies like pursuits. and use of force. So to, so as we're building this out, we want to make sure that there's, you know, every agency was doing that. They were credible full-time police departments, well-trained police with well-trained officers. And so that's the reason for the MLU on this.

And in my last question, I don't know exactly how to phrase this, but how would either our citizens, how are citizens safety? How are they going to benefit from this, if at all? Or how will our police force benefit from the participation in this to help our citizens?

Well, as you can see, you remember we had an unfortunate incident in 2023. We had a homicide on Wydown, and that was a result of these individuals, criminals, breaking into cars. They got confronted by one of our residents, and it resulted in the death of one of our residents. So if we can get more of these people, more of these criminals to either face the consequences for their crimes or to deter them because they think there's proactive law enforcement going on, it'll make our community safer.

Okay. Thank you.

Council Member Jeffery Yorg, do you have any questions?

Council Member York, do you have any questions?

No, I'm good. Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah, just to kind of piggyback. So when is this just sharing of information or is it like a task force here? One of our officers is going to go out one night a month or how does that? Yeah, so

it could be once. It's usually scheduled once or twice a month. What will happen is that there would be a designated date. The officers that are assigned to the task force from the various police departments will either meet at the St. Charles County Emergency Operations Center or the St. Louis County Emergency Operations Center. We'll meet at the St Louis County one, and there will be a video link between the two emergency operations centers. So what the commander in charge will go over, you know, the critical policies like pursuit policies, use of force, and they'll share intelligence about the cars that are currently out there that we know are, you know, committing car thefts or other crimes, talk about crime trends. And they'll be aware of all the assets that are available to us. There could be an air unit, air helicopter available from the San Luis County Police Department. And then our officer would probably, realistically, probably stay in Clayton for the most part. And if something were to occur as far as this type of criminal activity, we may cross into Richmond Heights, Brentwood, our neighboring jurisdictions to help out. We're not flying out to St. Charles County or even all the way out to Chesterfield. It wouldn't be practical. It would just be when the activity starts occurring somewhere in our neighboring jurisdiction, we would help them out.

But, like, if it happens on a day you guys are not meeting, how does that

work? So there is still mutual aid. You know, we have, you know, in our East Central Dispatch Center area, you know, we're six departments. We can, and there's two frequencies. We can switch back to either frequency. So it makes it seamless to help each other out. And today, I actually helped out Richmond Heights today with some thefts going on in their jurisdiction. We helped take the person into custody. So we hear the activity on the Richmond Heights side because we share a radio frequency with them, and we're able to jump in and help them out there. So that happens on a daily basis. This is really focused on, you know, the nighttime enforcement. And the other thing is we'd have this officer. Our officers, of course, they have other things going on. They could be working an accident report. They could be having to go back and write their reports. So they're handling their patrol duties. This officer would be free of that and just be available to respond to these specific incidents.

Is there a scenario where, like, other officers from other jurisdictions are coming into Clayton? Sure.

And that's happened in the past with, you know, crimes that are happening in progress, more serious crimes. If you recall, we had one of the jurisdictions was bringing a prisoner into Clayton a couple months ago, and that prisoner was able to get out and escape and ran into Davis Place. We must have had 50 cars show up from all over the region. So that happens when you have serious crimes. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, everybody, for all the great questions. So Chief also, so this is really kind of focusing on a particular, like right now, a lot of it's car theft. So it's really, is it more focused on like if there's a particular crime that's happening repeatedly? Is that, I mean, so the task force kind of comes up with goals on what they're trying to do. It's not like we're talking about generalized criminal crimes.

Right. Yeah, we're looking for, you know, crimes that are happening in progress typically and, and you know there's there's different crime patterns you know the car thefts, they are declining the declined year over year, but we'll, we'll see a spike at some point there'll be a new group of a gang of criminals that go together and start breaking into cars, start stealing cars. We might have the smash and grabs. That was a trend, the smash and grabs at businesses a couple years ago happening out throughout the area. Carjackings, we've been impacted by different gangs doing carjackings even in our jurisdiction. So whatever the emerging crime trend is, we'd be looking for that.

Okay, great. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Questions or comments from the audience?

Council Member Buse. I introduce bill number 7133, supporting the Clayton Police Department to participate in the Gateway Regional Criminal Interdiction Task Force to be read for the first time by title only. Second. Any discussion?

Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7133 first reading an ordinance authorizing the City of Clayton Police Department participation in the Gateway Regional criminal interdiction task force and approving a memorandum of understanding with the St. Louis Area Police Chiefs Association.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

I move that the council give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7133 on the day of this introduction. Second.

All those in favour?

Aye.

Any Opposed? The vote passes seven to zero. Let the minutes reflect that the council has given unanimous consent.

I introduce bill number 7133, supporting the Clayton Police Department to participate in the Gateway Regional Criminal Interdiction Task Force to be read for the second time by title only. Second. Any

discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7133. Second reading and consideration for adoption. an ordinance authorizing the City of Clayton Police Department participation in the Gateway Regional Criminal Interdiction Task Force and approving a memorandum of understanding with the St. Louis Area Police Chiefs Association.

Councilmember Buse?

Aye.

Councilmember Patel?

Aye.

Councilmember Gary Feder? Aye. Council member Rick Hummell? Aye. Councilman Yorg? Aye. Council Member Waldman?

Councilmember Fader? Aye. Council member Hummel? Aye. Councilman Yorg? Aye. Council Member Waldman?

Aye.

Mayor McAndrew?

Aye. Thank you. Last couple items on our agenda are related to the budget. So I think we'll have a fourth quarter financial report followed by a budget amendment.

All right. Karen Dilber, our Director of Finance, is making her way up here. And I'll just say again, as you look through here, you'll see some pretty big numbers at the end of the fiscal 25 budget, especially within that fourth quarter. A lot of this is going to be tornado related. So I know the 6.9% personnel increase year over year was mentioned. You know, a lot of that's going to be due to overtime that was incurred during that tornado event. Those contractual cost services went up 46% year over year in the general fund. Again, mostly due to the tornado and our response with that. But We do have some exciting revenue news with the tornado that's factored into this budget amendment, but I'll let Karen take it away with the report.

So David just gave the whole report.

He can't help himself.

The biggest news in the financial report is that we are booking the receivables for the federal and state accrual for the tornado revenue. And that total is $1.9 million for the federal accrual, and that's for debris removal and emergency operations. And the state accrual is about $255,000. That's their share. So that's the big number that you see in the general fund for the change in revenues. We do have a few other changes in revenues, but that's the big one.

What's the timing on collection would be your best guess?

So we already have the state money. We already have the money for emergency operations. It is not, the debris removal is not obligated, but it is in final review under CRC, which I don't remember what CRC stands for, but it's their backroom people who are reviewing everything. already gone back and forth provided the receipts and all the documentation we've come up with a number that we all seem to agree on so now they're just going through their final i

just want to make sure it's going to happen in a timely fashion as opposed to when so it sounds like that's what it's happening so good

our question before everyone no okay i'd like to clarify that the debris removal cost is is that part of the 1.9 it's still under review That is still under review,

correct. So the debris removal is, I don't think I separated that out. Hang on just a second, please. So you broke it as a receivable?

I've got that number here too if you need

it. The federal share of debris removal is $1.6 million. The federal share for the emergency response is $294,000. Okay.

So the 1.9 that is booked as receivable, 1.6 is under final review. Correct. And the additional has already been fully

approved. Correct. And of the debris removal, the state share is $216,000. That is still under final review.

That all represents 85% of our total cost for that.

Correct. The city share of... the emergency response is 58,800 after all the math is done. And the city share of the debris removal costs is 324,900 and some change. Okay, so that's the big news in revenues. We did have an increase in investment earnings You've kind of seen the last few times we've done this, and this is the budget amendment where we reflect the overall change in market value for the investments. So when you see the market value increase, this is the time of year that we have to do that. That's an audit requirement. We did see a few savings in cost reduction in certain areas. They're listed in the request for council action, leaf processing, mowing, true removal of the contracts. The contracted amounts were less, so you are seeing cost savings there. And the CRSWC deficit was less than anticipated, so there was also savings there. We saw a little bit of savings in salaries and benefits, and that was due to vacancies and turnover. So that's the big news there as far as revenues and cost savings go. Now, you do see decreases in expenditures in the budget amendment, and that is due to the shifting of costs to fiscal year 26. And some of the big ones, they're listed out specifically, but specifically the garage reconstruction, we thought we were going to spend more in fiscal year 2025 than we did, and that's a big number. and also the Central Business District resurfacing. They're specifically listed in this amendment, but those are some of the bigger ones that you'll see. So any questions about any of that information?

I will just mention, if you remember when we got to the first quarter budget amendment for fiscal year 25, all of those items that were deferred then showed up at the first budget amendment. It'll be the same thing that happens in the first quarter of fiscal year 26, when Karen brings that next month or several weeks out. It's just, yeah, we're going through audit as well right now. But on page 39 of the packet, you'll see within the equipment replacement fund a $954,000 decrease in expenditures. Those will show up on that first budget amendment because we still need to buy those items. Some of those have actually been ordered, You know, a bucket truck has an incredible lead time right now, for example. And then in the capital improvement fund, you can see the projects listed there with all of the related expenses. So things will be on upcoming agendas like the I know the tennis center lighting project is in there, the Hanley house, the first phase of those exterior improvements. So those are all things that are underway right now in fiscal year 26 that we moved from this 25 budget over. So just wanted to point that out and be ready to see those as increases in expenditures for the 26th.

And there is an entry in here, and I'm trying to find it quickly for you all, where we are, it's a budget, I'm sorry, wrong word. It's an audit entry that we have to do because we had purchased, here it is, 50, 25, 25, 800. It's an adjusting entry. We had purchased the vehicles in fiscal year 25, but at the end of the fiscal year, they were not ready to put in service. So there were still things that were being added in fiscal year 26. So the adjusting entry we have to do is to take that expense out of fiscal 25. We create a prepaid asset, and then we put the expense into fiscal 26. So you'll see that in the first quarter budget amendment as well. I just wanted to point that out in case there are any questions. Okay?

Joe, can I... Are you still going to talk about the report? You're done? Okay. I just wonder if you have an observation or you can share. I'm looking at page 26 of your report where it goes through the sales – or of the agenda, rather – sales tax by category. And so generally it looked like our sales tax – collections continue to increase, which is terrific, and in particular, hotels and restaurants. So I'm pleased by that. I noticed that grocery pharmacy has plateaued or maybe fallen off. I'm wondering if that's a DGX effect, perhaps. In any event, my real question is, this looks pretty good to me, but I'm wondering what are your observations regarding the trend data that we're looking at?

You know, it looks like this. It's kind of blowing down. So during the pandemic, we saw a big drop, right? And then we started to see things kind of slowly increase and now we're just seeing a minimal increase.

Yeah, the rate of increase is certainly slowed, but it's continuing to increase as opposed to reversing. And so I'm just hopeful that we don't go the opposite direction. And it looks like some of our core revenue sources, restaurants and hotels continue to do well. So I just, yeah, okay.

Now keep in mind, we get information in the past. So we're getting information for last month, this month. So we're not like on top of things because that's how the information flows. Sorry.

It is trending the right way. We do wish the pace was faster, you know, the rate of growth here. So when you look at your sales tax and all funds up 1.3% compared to fiscal 24, utility tax up 2.5%, property tax up 1.5%. you know, we spent a lot of time talking about expenditures and just how quickly things are going up there. So I mean, we just did a range adjustment at two and a half percent, which is essentially outpacing anything that I just listed off there. So our expenses across the board are, we're just simply not keeping pace with revenue increases. And it's not a Clayton specific problem. This is happening in every municipality where expenses are just really running away from revenue and We passed a fire sales tax, and you saw when we put together the fiscal year 26 budget, that $900,000 in increased revenue was just used up immediately by expenditure increases. So it's something that I'm excited to talk about with the Citizen Finance Committee when we convened for the first time on Friday and start to go through those meetings. But going into that next budget, that fiscal year 27 budget, It's going to be really interesting to see what this impact is, especially with the new collective bargaining agreements that will be in place. So it's scary to see the rate of slow being on the whole on the revenue side around 2% or so.

Karen, I just wanted to say, I know that you and your department have been shorter staffed. I know there's been some people out. I know that somebody had a baby. So I just want to thank you. I know it's not been an easy few months in your department. I also want to give a shout out. Karen's done an unbelievable job working with FEMA. She's a big reason that we're starting to get some money back. So we appreciate that tremendously. I was trying to give a shout out to Matt and he came, he left and then he came back and I was, but we'll do that again. But, and obviously Ana's done a great job collecting all the data. And so, but Matt and Ana and Karen, thank you for all you've done. So just, you know, we'll continue to get money back from FEMA and SEMA. And a lot of that is because, and I know it's not been easy at times to deal with them. So thank you for all your efforts.

We have an amazing team here in Clayton.

Do you have anything else? And anybody else have any questions related to the fourth quarter, like the budget amendment? Or Jeff, do you have any questions? You've been oddly quiet.

I'm not sure how to take the oddly quiet comment. No, well, it's just because we're

talking about the budget.

No, no, no. It all makes sense to me. Like nothing's in there is unexpected. I mean, I think frankly, some of the growth we're probably getting is based off of inflation numbers. And I agree. I mean, David basically said all the stuff I was thinking, like nothing surprises me. It's going as I expected. So we'll just have to keep watching them as we keep going through budget seasons and stuff.

Great. Thank you.

So I was waiting for the budget amendment to talk about that. Do we want to talk about that too?

Yeah. I mean,

sorry, I've got just a couple of questions there. Um, One, I noticed, I guess it's on page 42. We still have the ice rink and it looks like we finally have satisfied all of the requirements there. So is that we're done reporting the ice rink after this?

Well, you'll probably see it for comparator purposes because we do comparators from year over year. Other than that, it's zeroed out.

Okay, that's fine. So I am interested on your observations, though, on page 43. You've highlighted a number of the – all of the variances are in here. But the ones that jumped out to me were the property taxes. We had some significant lower collections than anticipated. You know, your observation about that and how this might influence us as we look to the next budget year.

So my biggest concern in looking at these numbers, the real property taxes current, you know, 162,000, yes, that looks like a big number, but compared to the overall amount that we get, it's not a whole lot. My biggest concern is the delinquent property taxes. These are disputes that come through and then we end up with a negative number from St. Louis County. So they're saying that this is money you owe us and we don't have control over that and we don't know what that is. So that is my big concern when I see continually year over year I think last year we ended up with like $250,000. This year we have $264,000 in negative delinquent taxes, and that is concerning to me.

Can

you explain

what that is again? I didn't

follow

that

explanation. Kevin is the expert, but basically if someone's disputing their taxes and they go through the whole process and it turns out that they overpaid at some point we have to give that money back.

Yeah, like so they pay, they don't withhold payment and we get the money, but they're disputing it and they win, then we have to actually pay them back?

Right. Anyone who challenges their assessment or challenges the tax when paid, they pay under protest. Those funds are impounded by the county, but they can amount to a hell of a lot of money across the county, across all taxing districts. So then there's a court proceeding every year in May or April, where a court authorizes the county to release those funds to taxing districts. But there is obviously a requirement that those who succeed in their challenges to tax be repaid. And then the county will generally withhold on future payment as a way of recouping from taxing districts that owe refunds, which the county will pay in a timely manner and then recover from the taxing district. Does that make sense?

While that process is playing out, it looks like your taxes are delinquent. So we have some properties here in the city. If you look at it, it looks like they haven't paid their taxes, but they're actually going through this whole process. And that's why it's showing up as a delinquent line item there.

My next question, throughout the report, there are significant positive variances regarding our interest dividends, our investment income, which is terrific. I'm just wondering how much of that is just superior investment performance or how much of that

So the line item that says market adjustment, those are the market adjustments. The investment earnings, the dividends, those are actual earnings.

So is it simply that rates are higher than we anticipated or is that we had more investable funds because of the bond issue, other things? Or what do you attribute that positive variance to?

It's kind of all of it. We took steps once we became aware that interest rates were probably going to decline, because I know you've read our investment policy. We can invest up to a maximum of three years. So we try to stagger our investments for our cash flow needs. And when we became aware that the interest rates were probably gonna decline, we invested as much as we could at staggering times so that we could see increased returns.

Okay. Great. And then my last question, just maybe these numbers aren't relatively big relative to their category, but on the sheet they seem big. I noticed that in the utilities just generally some rather large variances, whether it was cable, phone and gas, then there's a huge surplus on water. Just I'm wondering if that's just something in our budgeting or is there something unusual going on there?

So gas is based upon usage. And if like we've had a few mild, like this one, our winter was relatively mild. Like we had a brief cold snap, but so it's based upon usage. So we're trying to predict in let's say May or June of a given year, what that winter is going to look like into February of the next year. And we don't know. So, so that's like things like that, the usage that that's where that comes in cable franchise fees. That's where we were having the rollback and didn't they, I think they passed another law that reduced who was the use tax. I think it was who would pay those. Because, I mean, they're rolling back all the cable

franchise fees.

And those have been.

Yeah, that total reset should be about over at this point. So that's consistently been lower than anticipated.

Yeah, I just would think cable franchise fees and utility taxes on telephone are going to continue to decline as they go forward.

Yeah.

It was

a hot summer. That's why you see the electric being up. And then there was a period where we didn't have rain for about a month and a half. I would imagine a lot of that water is actual irrigation and lawns and people trying to keep those

alive. Didn't we have to refill the pool this year too?

On our end, we had considerable

leakage

within Shell Park. We actually found that it wasn't the pool had some, but we actually found a water leak at the North shelter that was affecting those bills. So

yeah.

but yeah hot summers are good for for utility bills

anyone else right um any other questions comments from the audience do my do the mayak members have any questions about the budget council member

abuse i i introduced bill number 7134 approving an amendment to the fiscal year 2025 fourth quarter budget to be read for the first time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7134, first reading, an ordinance amending the fiscal year 2025 budget and appropriating funds pursuant thereto.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Council Member Buse. I move that the council give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7134 on the day of its introduction. Second.

All those in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? The vote passes seven to zero. Let the minutes reflect that the council has given unanimous consent.

I introduce bill number 7134, approving an amendment to the fiscal year 2025 fourth quarter budget to be read for the second time by title only. Second.

All those of favor?

Aye.

Sorry. Any opposed? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7134, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance amending the fiscal year 2025 budget and appropriating funds pursuant thereto.

Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel?

Aye.

Council member Gary Feder? Council member Rick Hummell? Aye. Councilmember Jeffery Yorg? Aye. Councilmember Waldman?

Council member Fader? Council member Hummel? Aye. Councilmember Yord? Aye. Councilmember Waldman?

Aye.

Mayor McAndrew?

Aye. I believe we've come to the end of our agenda. Does anybody have anything they'd like to update everyone on?

I do. So if I can, I'll go quickly through this. We didn't have any updates before. I want to just do a couple quick updates that happened at the beginning of the month. We had our non-uniformed pension fund meeting I've participated on this for a long, long time. This is probably the most active and informed commission I've ever been a part of. So our citizen members are doing a great job. I appreciate that. Very focused on returns, our markets, the investment managers, fees, all these things. So the fund itself hit a record high of $27.4 million, and we're meeting our policy goals over multiple time horizons. So things are going well. So I'm pleased with that. On February 4th, I did attend the neighborhood meeting that Wash U put on. There were over 100 people there. It was at Edison Theater at Knight Hall. um they uh it was essentially listen and learn was the theme and it lasted about an hour a couple of quick highlights um i know they're they mentioned their 600 student dorm that'll be coming to the plan commission here shortly what i found interesting about that discussion was that they don't intend to fill it for many years and the thought is that they'll be coming back to us They want to use the extra beds for transition for the demolition of other dorms on campus as they do this. And so that's a part of the equation I simply wasn't aware of. I found that interesting. The only real construction they said they had going on was the Hirsch Career Center, which is at Forsyth and Big Bend. And so a lot of the other construction has all been tabled. the topic of font bond came up very concerning to all the neighbors that were there in terms of not only font bond but concordia at the end of the day the thing that the university wanted to stress is that while they have no plans for font bonnet this time um they are trying to really pay attention to maintenance and security and to the extent that neighbors have any issues or concerns to make sure to bring it to their attention so they're very sensitive about that And then finally, I had asked them what their plan was for CBC and famous bar buildings. And what I thought that was interesting is they certainly recognize that they're underutilized, that they would be in better hands somewhere else. But they also were clear to say that they're not developers. So if you want something to happen, bring a plan to us and we'll consider it. So I just think our economic development activity might consider contemplating that and so that we could be more proactive as we go forward. We had a CCF executive committee meeting on the 5th and then a follow-up board meeting on the 19th. There's been a change in the number of the officers, and they've been very focused on financial prudence. And we talked about audit investment policy and fundraising. The key thing that was concerning about all this is that they have underperformed on their unrestricted giving. They would like to be in a position where they have reserves of nine to 12 months, and their reserves are actually less than one month. And so that's not a good situation, and they're making it work because they're accruing payables to the city in terms of their share of what's owed. So part of the underperformance is not meeting their giving goals, and part of it is that the city's not reimbursing or funding them to the level that they had in the past. That said, they would like to raise $170,000 to address that issue. So they gave reports from the three major committees, Awareness, Wydown and Hanley at the end of the day where they decided that they really need to be in an alignment on common messaging so that they can work on their fundraising. The Y-Down Group wants to raise over $2 million, and so whether or not any of that money can go towards unrestricted funds or not will be a big question mark as they go forward. But I appreciate the fact that they are very focused. On the other hand, we haven't seen them demonstrate a lot of success in unrestricted giving. They have had some success, for example, with the Hanley family for Hanley House. And so there are good things going on, but they've got some significant challenges. David mentioned the Citizen Finance Committee. Jeff always wants something to talk about, so I'll let him talk about that. And then we just had a CRSWC meeting on the 20th. So we met in person for the first time in years. That was novel. And before us, we had an unbudgeted item come forward for a new competition pool scoreboard and timing system. it isn't so much what it was, it's the fact that when we do our capital planning, we generally think about this well in advance. We have a process for addressing our capital expenditures. This particular item was not on the center's books, but on the school district's books. And so the school district was bringing it to the center asking for reimbursement or for the purchase of this. And so, um, it caused a bit of consternation amongst the group. Um, the, uh, cost was $169,000. So it's not insignificant. And when the center was, when this was last purchased, which was in 2016, it was purchased for $76,000. So this is a significant upgrade. Um, and while that may be a terrific thing we didn't really get any comparison data we didn't understand whether or not any of the things could be actually repaired or fixed and so this was deferred to may seeking more information so just want to make sure that you're aware that that's going on And then finally, I just would say that we made it a priority for our board meetings to have more of a focus on marketing and member cultivation. And so it's been impressive to see the center activities, the marketing, the social marketing, the emails, All of that seems to be working well. Members reached a post-COVID high of 3,200 in January. So membership is strong. And as David, I think, and Karen mentioned before, we had projected a shortfall of $660,000 in the 2025 budget. It's going to end up at about 375. We're finishing up the audit here shortly. So that was a good thing. That said, we're projecting a $700,000 shortfall for 2026. And we're running a little behind on corporate and youth memberships in terms of our plan. But daily revenues are up. Resident adults and senior members are strong. And then the last thing I'd say is that... The recreation pool, we've got a major maintenance issue there with regard to the floor. And while it's structurally sound and functionally fine, the appearance looks like there's mold everywhere when in fact there isn't, but it's sort of a concern. So we're waiting for the analysis and proposals to come back and help us determine what that's really gonna cost to fix. So that's my update.

Good. Good update. I know, Susan, you probably will mention that the dorm was approved. The dorm

was presented at Planning Commission and Architecture Review Board last Monday. It was well received. The occupancy, you're right, it's going to be, while they do additional work, there may be some moving of students here and there. WashU has has no plans for what the future will bring they're living day by day apparently on how all this happens but there's a general people tended to like i think the architecture that was that was presented and washoe does generally do a very nice job as far as the sustainability and quality of what they do there was a little discussion um about how well they would uh gate off their students from the community and how uh you know how how that would be done and I had to contribute that both from comprehensive planning and talking with other people that there's differences of opinion on that, that WashU is a part of our community and being around in our neighborhoods and coming downtown and everything else can also be a benefit. So listen to all those voices as we try to get this right. So that was... That was a presentation but you're right to talk anything about the future of what they're doing with thompson. was not a lot of information there. We also had a special business this district meeting and a lot of the conversation there was about. You know, who are we? What are we going to do? But the conversations really were dominated by restaurants and hotels. How do people find out that we're here? How do we know where to go? Our new coffee shop was mentioned about how do people find it's a great product, but it's kind of hidden. So kind of a wayfaring type conversation. And do we need to have products out there to connect people with where they're going or even transportation between different places? And after that, I did ask Gary, what I'm curious, and I need a better understanding of all the businesses that are actually paying that special business district tax because we certainly are hearing a lot of the restaurants and hotels. And there should probably be clarity on everyone we're trying to serve. And obviously it's vibrancy downtown that will serve everybody. But it's a really impressive group of people. So we'll see where that committee goes. We also had a sustainability advisory committee meeting and a lot going on. There's a honeysuckle removal effort, and I even threw out the agenda, though I know that Kami can add to what I forget. There's a tree preservation ordinance update. Talked a lot about, again, concern with the proposed Missouri state legislation that's out there, Bill 2761, the solid waste management that we've talked about. which typically is given to our local communities to distribute them locally to some of the smaller organizations and i think that's one of the reason that the green dining alliance cost may be going up because i think i think they're one of the ones who may be losing funding with that there's also what we've talked about before the senate's looking at putting in more or senate bills looking at putting a moratorium on construction of solar panels um and one that we're all worried about too with the prohibition on energy efficiency requirements for our cities that's still pending out there. So people watching that and trying to figure out how to be active and get their voices heard. The Clayton High School students that are on the committee are working with Mr. Burr on doing a bird city appreciation event, and that's something that's exciting. It'll be an actual day event. Yeah, it's an impressive community or committee that's working there. That's what I've got.

Thank you. Thanks. In Parks and Rec, we got the annual report on the tennis center, which continues to be a huge success. The partnership we have with the contractor there run by Clark is great. Kids love it. Parents love it. It's mutually financially beneficial. It's great. And then we also got a presentation from deb grossman about things that sustainability is doing that might overlap with parks and rec um so kami's like got everything she needs to know about parks and rec and sustainability yeah um and then this thursday we have our second meeting of the economic development um committee so looking forward to that and definitely the idea of um Taking WashU up on their offer to find more productive uses for properties.

All right. Council Member Yorg, do you have any updates you'd like to provide?

Only because Rick left me one, so I've got one. Citizen Finance Committee, as Karen mentioned, will meet Friday for the first time. We're going to elect a chairman. We've internally think we may meet every other month, but we'll kind of see what the committee wants to do. But like we said, we've had a lot of similar to what we said about the economic development committees. It's a good group of folks that I think we can get a lot out of and can help us all a lot and help the community we live in. So more to come on that. Otherwise, since Rick and I serve in basically all the same committees, he filled in all my stuff. So I'm good.

Thank you. Council Member Waldman,

any other things? I guess not too much to add. I guess with Parks and Rec and sustainability, I know that Parks and Rec are going to take the lead of turning or making Oak Knoll Park into an arboretum. And so that's really exciting. challenge that we were trying to face and that we finally got the go ahead that the lights that we or Okinawa Park are dark sky. So hopefully we can make that, you know, whole park dark sky, which is very exciting. We got our Green City Challenge Award for sustainability. Oh, Uniform Pension Meeting. We had that. I do not have as much information as Rick, but everything's really going well. They're hitting all their target allocations, so that's really great. I think that's my...

Great. Well, I'll just add, we did meet finally to start talking about the plaques that will go in Remembrance Park, a great group. So we're going to come together. We're each going to kind of do a little bit more research and come together, I think maybe the early part of April just because of schedules of everybody. So it was great to get that off the ground. I did go to Jefferson City for the legislative conference last week, which was good. It was informative. I feel like we just heard a lot about the different bills that I feel like we as a group have talked a lot about. And when Myron and I, he and I spent a lot of time together in Jefferson City, when we went to the floor to kind of listen for a little bit, when we went up to the Capitol after having lunch with everybody, we did hear debate about the bill related to juvenile crimes and just trying to really make. application uniform throughout the state. Representative Christ has filed this bill that's definitely moving through the house pretty, you know, they're at least having a lot of hearings on it. So there was questions about it, but it was good to at least hear debate on a bill that I knew something about. So that was interesting. I did have a really nice meeting with Mayor Spencer last week. It was nice to get together. We talked about a lot of different things. Of course, the tornado came up for both of us. They are trying to hire a new economic director. And so we talked about ways that we could potentially partner and really talked about just the importance that we have together as a region to move forward with just better economic development, attracting more people. So we really just talked about how we can be more collaborative. So it was great to get together with her. Lastly, just to remind everybody, there's a Municipal League meeting on Thursday evening. It's out in Chesterfield. But the speaker is the CEO of Great Rivers Greenway. So if you're interested in that, that is Thursday evening. That's all I have. David, do you have anything else?

Just a real quick update on tornado restoration. So we have the White Island Median Restoration. We have a group that's evaluating the design RFQs that came in for that. So hopefully we have a designer selected here shortly, and then on March 10th or 24th, we'll actually enter into an agreement with the designer to design the white-out median so that we can construct it. Hopefully that process takes about six months, the design process, and then we can go out to bid for the reconstruction. We also currently have out there open bids for the tree planting, tree replanting from the affected trees from the storm, so that's the three-year phased approach for tree planting. That's open right now and closes on March 6th, and then we also have the city street lighting replacement related to the tornado. That bit is out there as well. This is for the design portion of it, so we need an electrical engineer to design the replacement system where we lost the nine circuits. That closes in a couple of days here, so February 26th. That design process, like the Y-down process, is probably going to take somewhere three to six months. And then once we get through that, we can go out to bid for the actual installation of the new lighting. But being that the council has selected the lighting fixtures that we're going to use going forward, that's helping speed things up a little bit. But I just want to let you know that we've got three things that are in progress related to that tornado restoration. We're trying to go as quickly as possible on all of this, just with general uncertainty with FEMA funding and that sort of thing. We want to be sure to capture every dollar we can while it's still there. So I really appreciate all the work from our staff because we have a lot going on right now, especially in public works. We're about to start this resurfacing project over here. The municipal garage construction is ongoing and they're all displaced. We're trying to get 500 stumps out of the ground, tree stumps. We've got tree pruning going on everywhere and then all these other projects. So it is a huge lift for Public Works right now in particular and finance trying to keep track of all these different things we're spending money on and then working with FEMA on getting that reimbursement. So great job by our staff to manage all of this. I know it's been stressful, but when you see those reimbursements come in, you see these things happening, it's pretty exciting. So thanks to everybody for holding it together.

Thank you. I will take a motion. I move we adjourn. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Thanks, everyone.