April 28, 2026 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening, everyone. It's Tuesday, April 28th. We are here for our 630 discussion, our city council meeting. We're going to have a discussion session first to start off our meeting. Mr. Brad Goss is going to talk to us about best practices on tree regulation.

Mayor Mrakas, And okay i'm live yep this is good Thank you mayor and members of the Council for giving me the opportunity to speak to you, I really appreciate it. Mayor Mrakas , I was an intern. last fall with you and had the opportunity to work through looking at your tree preservation ordinance and compare that with other tree preservation ordinances in the area, as well as with the Morton Arboretum's model ordinance, to try and get some idea of best practices and that sort of thing, which was really illuminating. And so as I did that, I came to a realization that These ordinances all have a similar kind of approach, and it's what I would call picking the drapes. They're all aesthetic. They all look at trees and say, well, we should have a certain percentage. We should have a certain number of trees. We should have certain types of trees. And there's a lot of calculation that goes with that. But the environmental focus of what the trees can accomplish isn't something that really informs tree preservation ordinances that I've reviewed. It's something that the Morton Arboretum recommends, but it's not something that I see in tree preservation ordinances. So I want to go through that just briefly and explain what I mean by that. So one of the commonalities of tree preservation ordinances is that they require developers to preserve a certain percentage of trees. And they may do that by individual trees in a lot. That's the approach that Creve Coeur takes. Or they may do it by tree canopy, which is the approach you folks take and also City of Kirkwood takes. And the trees have to be in fair and good condition. If they're a certain size, they get special consideration. Those would be landmark trees and the developer get a little extra credit for preserving those. And then trees under six inch diameter breast height, those generally would be ignored. The tree lists are commonality of all of these tree preservation ordinances. And so in the case of Clayton, what you do is you divide your trees into different groupings. You have large deciduous trees, medium deciduous trees, small columnar deciduous trees, ornamental deciduous trees, and then different kinds of evergreens, which makes sense because you want those trees to be put in different applications, different places. And so that division by size does make some sense and you give a spread of the heights that are associated with those. And then there'll be examples of those as part of that. Now I've listed an example of native species that would fit within those categories. Some tree preservation ordinances call out native species Others do not necessarily. It's not a focus of theirs. All tree preservation ordinances that I've reviewed prohibit invasives, and they do that generally by reference to the Missouri Invasive Plant Council or by referencing the Department of Conservation. Kirkwood does something different. They kind of try and define it, which is kind of unusual. Making a reference to the Department of Conservation is what I've seen is more consistent. One of the things that I don't think people realize is that the Department of Conservation actually adopted the Missouri Invasive Plant Council as their invasive species list. And so when you say we're going to follow the Department of Conservation, what you're actually saying is we're going to the Missouri Invasive Plant Council's list of invasive species. And what that ends up doing oftentimes is that your tree preservation ordinance will have invasive species on the approved tree list. That is a commonality I found in Clayton, Kirkwood, and Creve Coeur. Chinese elm, Japanese Selkova, those are on your approved list. Those are invasive under the Missouri Invasive Plant Council. Amur maple, the golden rain tree, that's one of your street trees. Norway maple, those are invasive. Kirkwood and Creve Coeur, same thing. They've have the Amer Maples approved or the Chinese Almond Zelkova, Japanese Zelkova as approved trees. And actually they're in conflict with their own ordinance because their ordinance says those are invasive and they're not supposed to be approving them. Tree preservation ordinances generally require a tree plan, some kind of landscape plan. And so with that, again, you'd go through this kind of calculation where you list the trees and The quantity of the trees are on the site. You identify the trees to be preserved. You identify the replacement trees. And then there's a math formula. What's the number that you have to preserve? And that will vary by city. In your case, you do it by canopy, but you vary depending on what zoning district you're in. as to what that tree canopy preservation has to be. Kirkwood, it's a straight, it's 35%, if I remember right, that has to be preserved in the tree canopy. Again, Creek Courts individuals. Morton Arboretum recommends the canopy approach. Their approach is pick a percentage, 35%, 45% as your percentage and be uniform across the board. It does make it simpler to apply. I am sure there's a lot of discussion that went into the adoption of what you folks did coming up with the different percentages in your different zoning districts. I don't know the history of that, but it is a different approach and that's how you do that. So when I spoke earlier, I said, what do these tree preservation ordinances lack? I think they lack an environmental purpose or strategy. And so what do I mean by that? Doug Tallamy, I'm kind of a big believer in Doug Tallamy, a kind of disciple of his. He got me inspired to study horticulture many years ago. And in his book, Nature's Best Hope, he lays out how you can achieve an environmental purpose and strategy for trees in your communities. And I did provide copies of that. Hopefully some of you had an opportunity to look through it or read it. It's a great book. It's really readable. But he goes into keystone species. That's what's important to Talamy. And he's trying with keystone species to save insects. And why do we want to save insects? Because quite frankly, if we don't have insects on this planet, we don't survive. It's just that simple. Insects pollinate 87.5% of all plants and 90% of all flowering plants. And so without insects, most plants would not be pollinated and they would die. Plants take energy from the sun. They convert that into food, which humans and animals depend upon. So if we don't have plants, we are not surviving as a species. We'd last only a few months on this planet if all the insects were to disappear from the earth. So one of the things that we also know about insects and pollinators is that they are in decline. They're really threatened. There are three North American species of bumblebees that are now extinct. Flying insects in Germany have declined by 79%. since 1989. And the number of insects globally since 1974 has been reduced by 45%. So those are some really dramatic numbers for something that we depend upon for survival. They are definitely threatened. So a keystone species How do we save insects? We grow plants that are keystone species. Robert Payne came up with this idea. He's a scientist. He was studying tidal pools and he discovered that if he took the starfish out of the tidal pool that he was studying, the whole tidal pool collapsed. the the environment couldn't sustain itself and he came up with the idea well that's the keystone if i don't have that starfish then my environmental my environment doesn't work and so for doug talamy professor talamy uh his criteria for keystone species are twofold how well do plants support caterpillars and do they support pollinators those are his criteria and um how do they support pollination? And why do we care about supporting pollinators? I'm sorry, is pollinators enable us to live, what I spoke about earlier. They enable 80% of all plants, 90% of all flowering plants to reproduce. So that's why that's a criteria. How do they support pollinators? We need that. The caterpillar supporting is a little less intuitive. Why do we care about plants supporting caterpillars? So caterpillars, And Doug Tallamy is an entomologist. That's his specialty. And caterpillars are what he would call a superfood for birds. They are providing carbohydrates through photosynthesis and various kinds of nutrients that are essential for birds' health and birds' reproduction. And they do that better than other kinds of insects. Like there are more beetles than caterpillars. There's lots of beetles, but they're hard to digest. And caterpillars are not. They're fat, they're soft, and they have a lot of carbohydrates, much more than beetles. So they are a better food source for pollinators. So Talamy focuses on that and says, we want keystone species that are going to be attracting caterpillars. There are numerous species, but their large size makes it, you know, allows birds to go capture them and take them back to the nest and feed their fledglings. The number of caterpillars, which I know you know this because we've talked about this before, is astounding. The number of caterpillars that are required to sustain a nest of fledglings, it's about a 10 day, 10 to 14 day period that they have to bring these caterpillars in. They have to bring in 300 to 525 caterpillars a day. And so in the span of about 10 days to get these You know, baby birds to the point where they can leave the nest. It's anywhere from 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars that this mama and papa bird have to go and bring back to this nest. Now, what does that mean? It means that their food source has to be really close. They're not taking a long car trip to Schnucks and Dierbergs. They got to get right to that tree and get back. And so if you don't have keystone species, they're not going to be able to survive. And what does that mean? They won't stay in your community. And Tallamy gives a good example of this. He talks about downtown Portland. He went and visited Portland. And, you know, I would think Portland, that's Oregon, that's environmentally friendly. It's a green city. You know, that's going to be cutting edge for environmental protection. And what Tallamy found as he walked around downtown Portland, it was green all right, but there was no bird life. It was really quiet. And then he started looking at the species of trees that were around him. And they're all exotics. There was no native tree canopy in downtown Portland. And as a result, the bird life, not being able to sustain itself, left. And so if we're going to support bird life and diversity of species, it's important that we have keystone species close to where they need them to be. Otherwise, they will go elsewhere. You know, and Ptolemy makes the point that you could have a canopy of 95% native plants, huge number of native plants. You'd think, boy, I'm doing really well. But if you don't have keystone species in that native planting group, you will have 70 to 75% fewer caterpillar species. And if you lack that caterpillar species, you're not gonna be able to sustain the bird population that you need to sustain. So as I mentioned, They've got to be close. You've got 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars in a 10-day period. You've got to feed, and it's got to be concentrated. So to maximize caterpillar populations, we need to be selecting keystone species for our community. And that's not hard to do. It's incredibly easy to do. You can go either to the National Wildlife Federation's website or to the Audubon's website. Put in your zip code. and boom, up will come your keystone species. Because the keystone species in Phoenix, Arizona are not the same as the keystone species and Clayton. They differ, not surprisingly. So you can find that out and then you can tailor your approved tree list to emphasize keystone species, thereby encouraging pollinators and thereby enhancing your environmental conditions in your community. So I would recommend you do that. I think your strategic focus of your tree preservation ordinances should be to planting Keystone generic, keystone species. I've given you some definitions of what keystone generic, key stone species would be. You can put that in your code. Those are not my definitions. Those are Doug Tallamy's definitions. I think he's a lot smarter than I am. So I'm deferring to him in that regard. And then I'm making reference to the Audubon Society's website and the National Wildlife Federation's website. So that this idea when you see keystone species, you don't go, oh, well, I don't know what that means. I'm not going to be able to find that. Just go to that website, put in your zip code, boom, you will know what those are. I would recommend that you require at least 75% of the replacement trees be from keystone species and that you also ensure a diversity of planting. The reason I chose 75% as opposed to, say, 100% keystone species is really twofold. If you tell people, in my experience, that they can only do one thing, they don't like it. So if you give them some options, you're likely to have a lot more success because somebody may want to plant a ginkgo tree. That was Aunt Matilda's favorite tree. And by gosh, I want to plant a then I say let them plant the ginkgo. The other reason, which is a little more serious, is that Missouri only has two species of evergreens that are native and that's the shortleaf pine and junipers. Any other evergreen is not a native species in Missouri. You can expand that footprint by planting juniper cultivars of one sort or another and depending how close they are to the native juniper they'll work well in supporting pollinators. But as a consequence, if you want evergreens and you want to be able to plant an evergreen screen, you need to loosen up the requirement because otherwise people are not going to be able really to accomplish that. Or you'll just end up with a monoculture of junipers and that's not a good thing either. With respect to the tree replacement requirements, I've you know, set out what they are in this slide. The 75% requirement. I also think it's important that you have a diversity of tree species and Davy Tree did a tree survey for you folks a couple years ago, I believe is updated as well. This is one of their recommendations. It has never been implemented that I could see in the city's ordinances, and I might have missed it, but I just didn't see it. What they recommend and what most biologists would recommend is that, and arborists, is that you have no more than 30% of a family, of one family, no more than 20% of a particular genus and no more than 10% of particular species in your plantings. And the idea behind that is we can look at Dutch elm disease and how that wiped out all the elms because we had a monoculture. And so you want to avoid that monoculture if you want to keep your urban forests healthy. If you look at pin oaks right now, we have an overabundance of pin oaks. Clayton has an overabundancy. Webster grows as an overabundant. That was kind of the go-to tree in the 60s and 70s. And now they're coming really to the end of their useful life and they are being predated upon by various galls and really suffering. And so you're going to lose a big part of your canopy as a consequence. So What I've said out here in terms of the tree list and your approved tree list, I think it'd be pretty easy to list the botanical name, the common name, whether it's native or not, and whether it's a keystone species. Just add that to your criteria and then somebody looking at it from the list would be able to pick that up very easily. And it's kind of a one size fits all, you're not mystified or guessing. There's something that Creve Coeur does, which I think is really nifty. They tie their approved list to the Missouri Botanical Garden. So if you click on the name of the tree or the flower, what have you, that will take you to Mobot's website. And then Mobot's website will bring up the cultural requirements of that plant. So, you know, again, most people aren't. you know, kind of plant nerds, you know, like I am. And so they look at a name of a plant and they're going to go, well, is that a right plant? Should I plant that plant? This will help them. And I think that's a really good thing that Creepore did. That's something that they have a committee that is a Horticulture Environmental Beautification Committee, I think is the name of it, of citizens that they've created. And they make recommendations to the planning department and to the city council on various kinds of tree and plant issues. And this was one of the recommendations they had. And again, looking for citizen involvement, I know your sustainability committee is really active. And I think that could be a component of your sustainability committee. And I encourage you to look at that and see if there's interest and if it would fit within what your city wants to accomplish. I think the scope of your ordinance needs to be broad, and your ordinance is broad. It's just broad in a way that's a little bit different. The way Kirkwood and Creve Coeur work, you know if you're removing a tree, you've got to get a permit. The way you folks do this, thank you, Susan, is that you have to go to your plan. If you're doing a site plan, then this is triggered. You require a site plan in a lot of different ways that a lot of cities wouldn't. So you're pretty granular on that. So you are triggering this when people are removing trees and if they're putting in a new home or an addition and affecting a certain amount of the canopy, you're requiring that. I think you... You might want to consider whether you can make that a little more less opaque. But anyway, you get there. I think you need to have a definition of native plants. That's really important. And I think it's important to have some kind of provision in your ordinance that authorizes the planting of native plants with criteria so that people know that I can plant these native plants They have to be maintained. They have to look intentional. They can't just be a weed patch and say, well, gee, it's native. That doesn't work. And you can work with your city inspectors to educate them on how you enforce this and what really is an intentional native planting area. I would encourage you to do that because obviously native plants are good for the environment. They're very good for pollinators. Again, I think public engagement is important. And again, I would ask you if you would want to consider some kind of augmenting of the sustainability committee or a separate committee to look at engagement for horticulture issues. So with that said, I'm happy to answer any questions and I made it in time. This is good.

Brad, thank you so much. Does anybody have any questions or comments?

I'll just do a quick comment. Just that every time I hear it, I learn something more or something else sticks. So I appreciate it very much. And I'm anxious to see how the recommendations mesh with what we want to do and where that all comes out in the end.

Thank you. I mean, I'm very excited by this. To me, no other community in St. Louis is doing this. I'm not aware of other communities doing this elsewhere. This is a huge deal. And I think Clayton's a leader. I look at what you do in sustainability and you're a leader. And I think to me, it's like, it's a natural, but... I'm not a city official. So thank you again for letting me speak and talk.

Can I ask you a question? Sure. I went to one of the websites to look for keystone species by my zip code, and it lists native plants. It doesn't use the term keystone. Can you say a little bit more about how... Like, is everything it's showing me fall under that category? How does the Keystone?

Yes. And which were you on the Audubon website or the National? I

was the NWF.

Okay. Their websites could be a little clearer. I know, it's fine. But when you put that zip code in, those species that are coming up are the keystone species. And if you click further, you should see the pollinators that those support as well. It

actually gives you like a count of how many it supports. Yeah. And then you can see what they are.

Right. And so you can drill down. Yeah. So all of those. They

range from like hundreds to like 30 in terms of how many pollinators that they're supporting.

Absolutely right. If you want, if you want to help the environment and you don't have a lot of time, plant an oak tree.

Yeah.

It'll support more. The white oak will support 545 different species of pollinators. It supports the most species of polliners, any kind of plant. So, and tell him he's got a book on oaks. It's really charming. He takes you through the life of an oak tree in a year. And so, you know, if you're like me, you like that sort of thing.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

I was going to say, Brad, I appreciate your report. I guess my question is really more for our staff is, you know, I think you've suggested a lot of things we could do. And so the question really is, I'd be interested, not tonight, I wouldn't think, but to hear from Matt, Ana, David, you know, how close are we to some of the things you've suggested today? Or is moving from that to something else a good idea in the opinion of our staff? And assuming it is, then what's the best procedure? Because I think, as you know, we have our staff over the last couple of years have undertaken a lot of different studies of different issues relating to land use. And they do a great job. And so to me, the question is, is this another item we should put on their agenda of things to get back to us on to sort of tell us, OK, we heard this. Brad's report, here's where we are. Here's where we need to go. Should we turn to our sustainability committee to look at this? I mean, what's the process from here? And again, I think that's more a question I have for staff going forward.

Yeah, so this is on our implementation list following up on the Clayton Tomorrow 2040 plan. So it is part of our comprehensive planning implementation. I know that Ryan in planning, this is going to be one of his upcoming tasks. He's already had conversations with Brad, and I think we're going to continue to do so as we revamp that. When we were looking at the WashU overlays that were proposed, one of the things that we were discussing was using that canopy requirement rather than caliber inch. So we've already started to talk about how we're going to change this regulatory framework. We do need to update that plant list. I think having more of an eye on keystone species and these other things, this is something through this work that is really important. come to the forefront of what we're looking at. So we do look to incorporate that going forward. So there's going to be more discussions to come on the zoning side of things. But I will also say with the tornado recovery, we were really careful to pick out the species that we're going to replant in those particular areas. So on that tree list of 600 trees, you're going to see a good number of keystone species. And actually when we were inventorying what's already here, We already have a good number here within the city, but we want to make sure that we support that along with the diversity of native plants and supplemental trees as Brad had discussed. So we're very much thinking about this and you're going to see more things coming forward here in the near future.

More important now than ever, obviously.

Thank you. Absolutely. And Brad's been a great resource. So thank you, Brad.

Well, thank you. And I'm happy to help in any way I can. It's a lot of fun for me. Don't go away yet. No, you

can't run away yet,

Brad.

Sorry. This side likes to talk too. So I just want to applaud you. I thought it was very thoughtful, very logical presentation and very compelling. So I appreciate how you put it all together. It was very concise and well done. So thank you for that.

Thank you.

I had a very basic question. So if we're thinking about keystone insects, so your caterpillar is your example. I think I'm a little confused still on the need for native versus – if the goal is to have keystone species of insects, let's say, does it really matter whether they're native trees, non-native trees, as long as they produce the insects we want? I know it's an overly basic question. I'm just trying to understand.

It's a great question. Yes, you have to have native species. That is a baseline because the native species are what the pollinators are going to recognize. OK, if you have an exotic species, they're not they oftentimes don't know it's food. And so they ignore it. It's why when you go to a nursery and it says this is pest free. Well, it's pest free because they don't know it's a plant. And that's why it's pest free, because they don't see the leaves give them nothing. They don't eat the leaves. And so that's the first thing. The second thing, the keystone species part is or keystone generic one is those are plants that support a disproportionate number of pollinators compared to other plants. So like the white oak that I mentioned, 545 different species of pollinators are supported by that. Whereas a birch tree, it's like 225 species of polliners, which isn't shabby. It's good. Whereas if you looked at a ginkgo, it's like zero. But if you looked at... Oh, you can look at some of the fruit trees. They support a very limited number of pollinators, but they're really crucial ones. You know, a swallowtail butterfly lays its eggs on one tree. That's it. You don't have that tree. You're not getting swallowtail butterflies. So they need they have to be native. And Ptolemy in his book talks about that is it really important that they be native and you know he says yeah it really is uh but beyond that he's refined it to say we really want to hone in on keystone species amongst those natives because they support a disproportionate number of pollinators when you do that the bird life that's depending upon those pollinators for food will be there and and be able to be fed

gotcha okay

okay thank you yeah

Wonderful. Brad, thank you so much again. We really appreciate it. And we are looking at incorporating some native plant discussions in our sustainability committee. So we're just trying to figure out how to do that. But that is something else that we're considering. Great. Yeah.

All right. Well, thank you so

All right. It is 7 o'clock, so we will start our 7 o'clock meeting, our first meeting, if the city clerk could call the roll.

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

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

Here.

Council Members Rick Hummell? Here. Council members Waldman? Mayor McAndrew? Here. City Manager David Gipson?

Council Members Hummel? Here. Council members Waldman? Mayor McAndrew? Here. City Manager Gibson?

Here.

City Attorney O'Keefe?

Here.

Thank you. The first part of our meeting is called an open forum, so anyone is welcome to address us about a matter that is not on the agenda. If you want to speak about something that's on the agenda, just wait for that item to come up. But if you would like to talk to us, you're welcome to address us now. There is a three-minute limit. I think I have gotten a few speaker cards. Mr. May Lombardo, would you like to address us first?

And I'll do my best to stay in three minutes. I can talk. Madam Mayor, mayors of the council, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you tonight. My name is Nathan Milombardo. I am a resident of Clayton over on Westwood Drive. And I'm here tonight just to say hello and introduce myself. I'm a candidate for State House here in District 99. Your current rep is Ian Mackey, and he has termed out. He has endorsed my campaign and is helping me out. And I've also received the endorsement of your local firefighters union, 2665. Very briefly, I'm a St. Louis County native. I grew up in Ferguson. As I said, I live in Clayton. I currently work for the city of Ferguson. I'm not here just advertising the city of Ferguson tonight arbitrarily. I do planning, zoning and economic development for them. And I'm formerly the city manager of Berkeley. So I have a tremendous amount of experience in local government. Most of my career has been spent working local government either as a city manager or doing planning, zoning and economic development for municipalities here and in and around Atlanta where I live for a good period of time. I simply want to say to you tonight, having worked in and around local government, I am very familiar with the functioning of local government, with your needs and opportunities, with the importance of local government, and in those relationships that you have with other municipal bodies and with your state rep. And I want to assure you that you will have someone who is an advocate for the importance of municipalities and is always there to help as much as I possibly can. And I'll be here hanging out tonight and I have some information for you. But yeah, I just wanted to come and say hello and I look forward to representing all of you in Jefferson City.

Thank you, Nathan. Natalie Dowd.

My name is Natalie Dowd, and I live in Ward 2. I'm here to share my concerns about flock cameras. The city of Clayton has a contract with a surveillance company called Flock Safety, which uses AI to take pictures of cars. This isn't just the cars of those who run red lights. Every license plate is recorded with the date, time, and location for every car that passes in view of these cameras. Every car, every time. Clayton also participates in flock data sharing, which allows the police departments of other cities in Missouri to quickly and easily access our images without a warrant, including cities that have contracts to work with ICE. Some of these other police departments use facial recognition, and Clayton has no control over how other cities use our images and locations. during the april fourteenth council meeting police chief mark smith stated that out-of-state sharing and federal sharing are both turned off in clayton's flock system i thank chief smith for his open communication on this matter for me this raises new concerns He states that federal sharing is on a toggle switch, but there is nothing in the policy and procedure manual about what the system setting should be or who has access to those settings. Also, it is not uncommon for software companies to reset preferences to a default setting as part of a software update. Is anyone tasked with maintaining these settings? If the federal sharing setting is switched off, does this prevent only case-by-case sharing requests by agents, or does it also prevent the sale of our data by flock to the federal government? What about data sales to other companies who themselves can turn around and sell our information? It is a known fact that the federal government does buy data from private companies. NPR has reported on this matter. Chief Smith also says that he can't see faces in the photos, but with thousands of pictures taken every day, he can't possibly know if or when faces are visible. We should assume that as long as Flock has these cameras in our community, they are selling our analyzed images without our knowledge or consent and also sharing our information with ICE. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Mountain View, California turned off its Flock system after learning about unauthorized federal use. Flock also does not notify customers of data breaches caused by hackers and has lied about the existence of this problem in front of the Dunwoody, Georgia City Council. I ask that the council consider urgently pausing all interagency sharing of flock data in order to protect our residents while further evaluating the integrity of the flock system. What kind of community and what kind of country do we want to live in? We should all do our part to make that happen. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Fisher?

Hi, my name's Edward Fisher. I live in Ward 1 in the Clayshire neighborhood, a neighborhood with a large immigrant population, possibly the largest such population in Clayton. There is currently a flock camera pointed directly at the entrance to this neighborhood looking at the intersection of Francis Place and Brentwood. I find it horrendous that the city has spent our tax dollars to install a spy camera in this particular location. I noticed heading into this meeting how the city is darkening its lights for migrant birds. And my question to the council is, do they have more respect for the lives of birds than they do for our neighbors? Why are we protecting migrant birds and installing cameras to help the federal government deport human beings? Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else? All right. With that, we will start our agenda. The first item on our agenda is a conditional use permit for 7645 Y Down Boulevard. I will open the public hearing and request proof of publication.

thank you mayor this is a public hearing to consider an application for a conditional use permit submitted by tom mcgraw on behalf of box hill group hanley for the operation of a cafe known as gigi's cafe the subject property is located at the northeast corner of the intersection of white on boulevard and south hanley road has the zoning designation of m1 neighborhood mixed use and is developed with a two-story mixed-use building The subject tenant space is currently empty and was most recently occupied by Starbucks. The proposed hours of operation are 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Saturday. The business would be closed on Sundays. During the plan commission meeting, a discussion occurred supporting the restaurant being open on Sundays as well. The proposed CUP would allow Sunday operations should the owner choose to do so in the future. The proposed restaurant measures 2,200 square feet in size and would include roughly 45 interior seats and 12 outdoor seats. There are five employee parking spaces and deliveries will be made in the morning via the adjacent alley. The plan commission considered this request at its meeting on April 20th, 2026 and voted unanimously to recommend approval as requested. Staff recommends approval of the conditional use permit per the conditions outlined in the resolution.

Thank you, I will open the discussion, do we know if Mr mcgraw or if matt matt is on yeah no don't know who. doesn't look like either of them are online or in chambers. Regardless, I guess, are there any questions or comments from anyone on the Council.

Yeah, it was approved by the plan commission and part of the conversation at that point in time was making sure that concern with the alley, you know, the deliveries and blocking traffic and making sure that the alley was in fact respected. Also, making sure that there was adequate trash recycling pickup to avoid problems that have been seen elsewhere and Mr. McGraw was responsive to that, so hopefully that is what we will see. Another concern, we've gotten several comments, Jeff and I both have, since that time with the request that the establishments stay open until 1 a.m. There are residents living above in the same building and right around the area, and I'm concerned that if it closes at 1 a.m., there's going to be additional noise even after that as people are trying to go on with their neighborhood sleeping and getting kids up and all that. I thank staff for gathering kind of a look at what other establishments in the area have. This particular site, to my knowledge, was once a drugstore and then was a coffee shop and things like that. So 1 a.m. is a big jump in the time frame. And You know, I'll throw it out there. If we could consider limiting the operations to 11 p.m., that might be something that fits better in the neighborhood under the criteria of the application.

Thank you. I don't know, Jeff, because obviously you are the other Ward 2 council member. Do you have any other similar comments? No,

I mean, Susan and I talked about this kind of before the meeting, and I concur with what she said. Like, I think, David, thank you and staff for providing the updates. If I remember correctly, because I don't have it right in front of me, none of the other establishments go to 1 a.m., so... this would be an outlier for that. And to me, I'd rather start at a time that seems to be more aligned with the folks there. And if there becomes a point where they want to come back and say, look, we'd like to go till midnight or 1am, then I'm fine kind of having that conversation then. But I'd like to start at 1am when it's longer than any place else around there. And we've had enough folks that are I've expressed some trepidation, especially given that there's people that live upstairs, let alone the people who live right across the street, albeit Hanley. You're still living in Polo. And we just don't know how loud this may or may not be because we haven't, to Susan's point, a drugstore and then a coffee shop. We don't know what kind of volume would come out of that location that time of night. So I agree with Susan on kind of the 11 o'clock is kind of a condition of kind of allowing it to go forward.

Does anybody else have any other thoughts? It would be helpful to have the applicant here. So I mean, just because sometimes I think people ask for more than they ever intend to use. So it'd be helpful.

I had some questions and I frankly think if the applicant is not, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

No, yeah. I mean, I was just going to say, it seems to me like there's a couple of places in that block that are open till midnight, have seven days till midnight. So I don't know what you think about that versus the 11 block. Yeah, in the absence of the applicant. Did this come up at the plan commission ARB at all, this topic?

Yeah, the timing did not. It just went right by us. I think people are very excited, including the people who contacted us. Yeah, everybody's... About 1 a.m., they're really excited it's coming, but wait a minute, can we do it within trying to keep the neighborhood a neighborhood? Yeah, I

was going to say, I don't think I've talked to anybody who's not excited about that place being filled and what's coming. I think it's a question about... frankly, in my opinion, where the start time is. Not start opening, but like where do we start the ability to stay open late as opposed and kind of fluctuate depending on what we see what the reality is.

Yeah. And the only thing that planning commission really was concerned, they already have a lot of issues with the deliveries and blocked and trash and people can't get out of their driveways as well. That's happening. So as long as there's a sensitivity to that and this is done well, it seemed to be And it could go forward.

Yeah, I'll just I did have a conversation with the applicant prior to actually submitting for their conditional use permit request. We didn't hear anything from anybody else regarding times up until now. So he is the operator and owner of Wright's Tavern across the street, which currently is open till 11. They run on a reservation service, as you probably are all well aware, is very popular. And so they feel a lot of pressure up against that 11 p.m. time. Before he applied, he actually also requested the same list that I provided you all that identified all of the operating hours for the businesses around him. And so he did see the list, had a couple that are currently allowed to operate until midnight. We're not sure if they do or not. There's a few others that have shorter operating times that we believe may operate longer than what their CUP is, but it all fits within the neighborhood within that range of a lot of these restaurants being open around 10, 11, and maybe a little after that. So I can't speak to exactly why he requested 1 a.m. as opposed to midnight after that list, but his goal was trying to have the CUP so he's not breaking the rules as the business continues to operate, but is still trying to be around other businesses. So that's given that context and given the similar context to DeMunn where the other business that he owns and operates is, Louis, it felt reasonable to have a 1A in time from a staff perspective. So that's where we did not call attention to that as a potential issue within our report.

Well, and Ana, Louie's only open until midnight. So there wasn't – he didn't really necessarily give a reason for why

he – No, he was just – he mentioned running up against the 11 p.m. time at Wright's. Louie's open until midnight. The restaurant Sasha's next door as well as some of the other restaurants in – Sasha's is open until 1, yeah. Is open until 1. And then a few of the restaurants on the Y down end are allowed to be open until midnight. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I don't know. I mean, I must, I mean, I'm sure they knew about this. So I don't know if anybody is, you know, I think we could probably modify the CUP or if we would rather wait to actually hear from the applicant. I think it's, I'm open to either.

Yeah. I don't know how, I'm not going to, I don't At midnight, should everybody be out the door? Is that what we see typically in a restaurant like this?

I think it really varies. So in addition to the conditional use permit, we have our general noise regulations and other disturbances that are enforced by the police. So when somebody is walking within the public right-of-way, they're going to fall under that. enforcement and regulation. So we don't have anything that says you need to make sure all of your patrons are out of your restaurant and in their vehicles or somewhere else, but the restaurant should no longer be operating at that time period. Now, obviously with these later times, we would rely more on enforcement issues. So if there were repeated calls to that business due to noise complaints or other issues after hours, or we were aware of them from neighbors, then we could start to pursue enforcement of the conditional use permit. And so with that permit, then that allows you all to call the permittee of a conditional use permit in and they can essentially address you and defend some of the violations that they've had. So that allows a slightly different enforcement tool for the city under our municipal code than just going straight to municipal court or going through the police department for their enforcement.

Okay, and then the other concern, when talking to some of the neighbors, again, very supportive of it happening, but whatever time it closes, you're going to have another hour, hour and a half of clanging glass and everything else as things are cleaned up and closed. Is that something that you run into too, and that should be expected after restaurant closing or?

I don't know if I would be able to say if it's expected or not. Really, we don't have, at least through the conditional use permit for the planning department, we have not received significant or any noise complaints from the businesses in this area related to that. We have received some related to the trash or deliveries aspects with that enforcement, but I'm not aware of any repetitive noise complaints for businesses. Okay.

I did have one more question on the CEP. We need to come back to the hour, but I noticed in reading it, again, I missed it, planned commission time, that there's approval for plastic furniture outside. I thought we didn't do that. I thought we required metal or something else besides plastic

chairs. So we allow various materials. It could be that the plastic... I would have to pull up that specific provision. It could be that that was a carryover from the previous conditional use permit to Starbucks. We try also when we get conditional use permits for locations that have been previously occupied to carry over some of the requirements that were on the previous business, unless we see a need to remove those. So I'd have to pull that specific provision up to see.

Because that'd be my second concern too, because this is not a coffee shop. This is a more established business and I would hope that we standard that we're putting at other businesses as

well yeah I'd have to pull it up does it reference the outdoor dining regulations requiring an outdoor dining permit it is on

page oh I just had it up one yeah it's with the outdoor dining

It says that the description of furniture in outdoor dining will be metal tables and metal and plastic chairs. Page

14. So you could revise that to just reference after dining regulations, since those are being updated.

That's a

coming meeting.

Yeah, that's actually on his application. The resolution itself, where we have all the conditions listed, we talk about needing to get the outdoor dining permit,

which means we go through

that process.

Under an outdoor dining permit, we have the more specific regulations for the furniture and materials. So when that permit is issued to them, that will govern what materials.

It would

preempt...

This language here that says metal tables, metal and plastic chairs. That's

correct. That's just language in this application. The important language is the language and the resolution itself that has the conditions for the CUP, which references that outdoor dining permit that he'll need to get later.

Yeah,

that's on page 10, number four.

Does anybody else have any comments or questions? Yep.

take it to three names on the screen, we don't have a representative.

I don't. I mean, because I think it would be either Matt McGuire or Tom McGraw. So unless... I

mean, my general family, I'm very excited about having this establishment. I... I think it's highly inappropriate for us to rule on a CUP when the applicant isn't here. I mean, my feeling, at least on one of the issues, which is how late they're going to be open, was sort of that I wanted to get a better feeling of what they're doing there. Is it more food? Is it more alcohol? What... Who are they planning to have as their attendees? The applicant isn't here to ask, and Ana can't know those answers either. So, I mean, my gut feeling is all of us, regardless of what ward we're in, care about these things. I care about it maybe even more because Ward 3 is only separated by Hanley from this location, so... It has some interest. So I would not vote on this or take any action without the applicant being there. I think there is a serious issue about how late it should stay open. The list that they sent us in this particular corridor of restaurants, nobody has a 1 a.m. opening, including his own restaurant, Bar Morrow Restaurant. which I think is mostly a restaurant despite the name. I mean, they don't have 1 a.m., but I could be convinced otherwise, I guess, if the applicant was here to talk about it, but the applicant's not here. So much as I hate to delay it, and just the other issue, by the way, which I know I wouldn't take a position on because I don't think we can, I think the decision not to be open on Sunday afternoon is is not a great idea i did hear at the plan commission the applicant who was present then uh said that it was because he personally doesn't like to work on sundays didn't want his staff to work there i get that on the other hand i think as a neighborhood facility not being open at least on sunday morning i think it's not very neighborly and so but again i'd like to talk to the applicant about that so Maybe when the applicant chooses to be here, we should talk about this further. So that's my thoughts.

Thanks. I generally agree with Gary's comments regarding getting better information with the applicant here. I am curious though, is there, has the applicant expressed any urgency in getting this done or would a delay of two weeks cause any consequence to them?

I don't think – I mean, I think there's construction happening, but I don't think it's not like it's going to delay an impending start from what I know.

So it seems certainly getting more information would be a good thing. The other things I guess I wonder about, my major concern, irrespective of whatever the closing hours are, would be the outdoor dining. And so, again, trying to understand our process. My concern is just voices at night become much louder when they're outside. And so that's really where I think the noise would be. So I don't know if it can we restrict how long outdoor dining and or services provided? How does our ordinance work?

We can restrict that if we just reasonably have to tie it to a reasonable expectation for some sort of nuisance. Noise would qualify for something like that. So you get it.

Yeah, right now outdoor dining can't be any hours extended beyond what the CUP allows. So the majority of our CUPs for restaurants don't specify outdoor dining with a different hour than the indoor dining, but you could. We do have a lot of conditions that limit the playing of music or other amplified noise outside after certain hours.

Yeah, so I would certainly... Had I been in a position to do this, I'd be open-minded to hearing what the applicant had to say regarding noise mitigation, just like we were doing with the new music site in downtown Clayton. And so I think having them here to respond is an important part of all of this. So anyway, those are my thoughts.

I mean, I think the best action will be to just continue this Go ahead, David. Yes, I would

just say if we're going to postpone this, I would postpone it to a date certain, which would be May 12th, which is the next regular meeting. But close the public hearing tonight. If we leave the public hearing open, we're going to have to re-advertise it. And then you're looking at May 26th. So he'll lose a full month. And I do think that that would potentially cause some issues. So if the plan is to postpone it, I would just ask that you consider closing the hearing this evening.

The only thing I would say is, and I'm generally fine with that. I kind of was going back and forth. I'm like, he knew when the meeting was, he applied for it. If he didn't show up, like stop my problem. But I also want to be fair that it sounds like on it from the way you kind of just, just talk to him. He probably assumed everything was going to go back and there wasn't gonna be a ton of questions based on discussion with staff and discussion planning commission. So I want to be respectful of, of, of what he may or may or may not have thought. And, and I do think he's, he's a, quote-unquote good corporate citizen in that corner, if you will. So I want to do that as well. The only thing I would say is I don't know if I want to keep continuing it. So like if we continue it to like the 12th and they don't show up again, then I would like to make a decision on it just so we can move on. But otherwise, I'm fine with that as well.

Right to presume that they would be notified and informed that it got continued because the council would like to ask questions of the applicant. Cool. All

right, great. So I will close the public hearing and then Council Member Buse if you could continue it too.

I'd like to move that we continue resolution number 2026-10, grant concerning conditional use permit for Box Hill Group Hanley LLC for the operation of Gigi's Cafe at 7645 Wydown Boulevard until May 12, 2026.

Second. Any discussion? All those in favor?

Aye.

So we will continue it to May 12th. If anybody was online listening to the discussion, we're happy to hear any comments. We'll be talking about this again May 12th. The next item on our agenda is the consent agenda. Are there any questions or comments on anything on the consent agenda? Council Member Buse?

One clarification. When Washington University was here, they did talk about making the dark sky compliance for the entire campus. for their work there. I'm not sure if it made it into the minutes or otherwise, but that was part of the conversation. So I hope that actually happens. With that, I move that we approve the consent agenda.

Second. Any discussion?

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

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

Aye.

Councilmember Rick Hummell? Aye. Councilmember Jeffery Yorg?

Councilmember Hummel? Aye. Councilmember York?

Aye.

Mayor McAndrew?

Aye. All right, the next item of new business on our agenda is related to the Wydown Median Restoration Project. Mr. City Manager.

Yes, the Public Works Department is requesting approval of a professional services agreement with LJC Design and Engineering to provide professional design services for the Wydown Media and Restoration Project. The city issued a request for qualifications or RFQ for professional design services for Nine firms submitted statements of qualifications. A selection committee reviewed and evaluated the submittals and then interviewed three firms. LJC received the highest overall ranking and was identified as the preferred firm to provide professional services for the project. City staff has negotiated a professional services agreement with LJC to provide design service, including survey, design, bidding, construction assistance, and soil testing. In addition to advance key infrastructure improvements and maintain flexibility for seasonal planting, the project may eventually be bid in two phases. Phase one would focus on the infrastructure and lighting improvements within the medians, and phase two would include the landscape planting and irrigation improvements. The current project schedule anticipates completion of phase one design in July and phase two design in August. The city will be seeking reimbursement from FEMA and SEMA, which is the State Emergency Management Agency, for up to 85% of eligible items during construction. Staff recommends approval of the ordinance authorizing a professional services agreement with LJC Design and Engineering in the amount of $220,100 plus a contingency of $25,000 for a total amount of $245,100 for design services associated with the Wydown Median Restoration Project. We do have our Public Works Director Matt Malek here this evening if you have any questions regarding the project or the contract.

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

The only thing I hear is the sooner the better.

Yeah, Matt, I'm going to ask you a question. So I really appreciate breaking out the project into two phases to focus on hopefully as quickly as possible getting the lighting design completed. That continues to be a major safety concern of residents and people that are driving and walking and other things on Y down there. And So what I want to know is if we're expecting the design to be complete in July, when can we expect actual new operational streetlights?

The schedule put together by the consultant identified by the end of October. Now that's all subject to lead times for lights. And as soon as we begin design, we'll start looking at those lead times and what we need to do to procure things to not have that be a delay.

Yeah. Is it the light themselves that have the long lead time? Because we know we're going to need... 10 or 20 or some number of lights, even if we don't know the precise number. I'm curious if we can like get, like, can we place an initial order or some number?

I would say that's something we evaluate with a consultant once we begin that schematic and the design development phase. There are contractual and bidding things that would come into play if we purchased the lights and having somebody else install them. There could be warranty issues. Contractors would say, hey, you gave us a defective light. It's not our fault. We'd want to make sure we'd work through those things if we were to go down that route.

Because the way that this would actually be executed is that we wouldn't purchase the lights, the contractor would.

Whenever we put this out to bid, the contractor procures the equipment to construct the project.

And that would be after the design. And

that's like a ways away. Yeah, that's not July. I mean, July is design documents are done. Then you need to put together bid packages. I mean, obviously they're still getting us to October, they say, but.

Yeah, that's assuming that bid package is in July. So we would put it out to bid. I mean, that's usually a six to eight week period for that. It's something we can evaluate along the way. Generally, we do not do that for some of those reasons, but for the contractor provided item.

Yeah. I wonder if we could like Order the lights and acknowledge that the contractor will take over. I mean, I would just really encourage us to think about is the point, obviously. Anything we can do to shorten, like bring in lead times, even for some number of lights. And so could the bid package be written that says like the city has already initiated the purchase, but the contractor will take pay and take ownership and have like control, you know, um, something that would reduce like a liability concern. Um,

Yeah, there could be. I've not done that myself to explore what those options might be. We'd be locking a contractor into a particular vendor would seem to be the challenge there, which maybe is depending on the material, it's maybe not who they work with or get their bid price and best price from.

Because these are all CobraHuds and they can be purchased from a variety of places?

They could if they meet the specifications, right?

Versus like the well, so like the light that we chose when we chose new street lights, that is only for like residential streets where there's not Cobra heads. Right. And so Wiedown, I think, is going to be all Cobra heads. The

project we're talking about is Cobra heads.

OK, so that would be why it might be more flexible. All right. Well, I mean, if you can think about

that. Sorry, I think the flip side of that is they are Cobra heads. There's multiple vendors, so a lead time. You're not relying on one specific vendor.

Yeah. Okay, cool. Thank you. That's the only question I had.

I have no questions. Thank you.

I share Becky's concern regarding getting lights there sooner than later. I'm trying to remember, though, we do have the separate light contract that we were pursuing. And so this is just for the Whiteown median, right? So aren't there other lights, streetlights? When is it possible for the other streetlights on Whiteown to be installed? Or are there other ones? Median. There are only well, so

exception of one or two at the very end of the city limits there. It's median in this location.

Yeah, I know we've got some on the monuments for some of the subdivisions. And I know that they're on. I think we have some in Clabrak along there, but we don't through this area. So I didn't know if that was a mitigating circumstance. So in any event, I just share Becky's concerns about finding a path.

I just triple that. I mean, I don't drive there that often, but we can't go into another winter and not have lights on White Island. So whatever we need to do to make that expedite the process so at least there's lights on White Island, that's the only – I mean, we all kind of agree. I'm just reinforcing that, like, let's figure something out so at least folks don't have another winter of not having lights.

One complexity that we have with this is making sure we're following things in a procurement way that meets with FEMA reimbursement. So it'll be another question we ask ourselves along the way, but it's just another layer.

Yeah, no, understood. We've got governmental procurement processes and then FEMA procurement processes, which are not always known to go fast, but to the extent we can try, like we all think so.

I understand it's a concern and an issue.

I won't let you forget. Thank you very much for what you've done.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Council Member Buse? I'm sorry, are there any questions or comments from the audience or online? And I should have mentioned already, if anybody online wanted to make a comment, you're welcome to raise your hand and we'll permit you to speak. Seeing no hands raised, Council Member Buse.

I introduce Bill number 7150, approving a contract with LJC Design Services for the Y-Down Median Restoration Project to be read for the first time by title only. Second.

Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7150, first reading, an ordinance approving a professional services agreement with LJC Design and Engineering Incorporated for design services related to the Wydown Median Restoration Project.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Council Member

Buse. I move that the council give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7105. 7150 on the day of its introduction.

Second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? The vote passes 6-0. Let the minutes reflect that the Council has given unanimous consent.

I introduce Bill No. 7150, approving a contract with LJC Design Services for the Wydon Media and Restoration Project to be read for the second time by title only. Second.

Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7150, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance approving a professional services agreement with LJC Design and Engineering Incorporated for design services related to the Wydown Median Restoration Project.

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

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

Aye.

Councilmember Rick Hummell. Aye. Councilmember Jeffery Yorg.

Councilmember Hummel. Aye. Councilmember York.

Aye.

Mayor McAndrew.

Aye. So that brings us to the end of our first meeting. Does anybody have any, maybe right now, if anybody has any updates, anything, meetings or anything that happened in the last couple of weeks that you want to update us on? Susan, do you have

any? Yeah, there's actually a lot. I'll be really quick. We

can just be brief.

Bird Migration Day is coming up with our MIAC high school kids leading that, or students leading that, and Jeff and I are having a war two coffee the hour beforehand, hoping to strengthen both of them. And at our We had a sustainability meeting and one of the big discussion items when i'll pull out tonight was that we looked at. Bird bird safe windows and the different ways that we can do that, starting with our city buildings and then information out to our Community on that looking at number of deaths that we've documented in those that which we don't know. The idling we've been we're still trying to work with the school district to get some signs up where the biggest problems are in the most susceptible population. There was a Cool Cities event, which again is municipal, those involved with municipalities coming together, trying to get regional sustainability actions. And one of the interesting things, there were a lot of things that they suggested that some municipalities around us are doing. An interesting topic was Switch Together, which is a communal purchase idea for solar panels that Webster's doing, I think several other communities and there's no cost to the municipality. They just give information out to the city who gives it to the residents, and anybody interested in getting a bid on solar then signs up, and then they bid it out as a larger package to get better pricing, which is probably something that we might want to consider for our residents. And I'll

leave it with that. Thanks. The only thing I would mention is Bridget and I met with some folks from the Wydown United Church at the corner of University and Wydown because a couple neighbors have expressed concern about their new sign, which is the first electric electronic I don't know the right thing to call it, signed in Clayton. So the church has done a lot of things to reduce the impact on neighbors and folks going by. So we were pleased to hear that. We have brainstormed a few other things that they might think about, keeping in mind they're trying to build up their congregation. So, yeah.

Last week, I attended a half-day program at Washington University, and Myron was there as well. The two of us were there. It was generally on development topics and was sponsored by the Missouri Growth Association and the commercial realtors of St. Louis. There were a number of programs. One was a program on crime, just to see how that affects the image of the region and what's happening with it. So They had the county prosecutor, they had the chief of police, a very interesting program. There was a program on data centers from someone who represents a national data center organization. No question, a very one-sided program about how great data centers were. But nonetheless, that's, I suspect, what you're going to get at a development-oriented program like this. There was also a program about federal legislation, how it affects affordable housing, a variety of issues of things that are pending. in Washington and then a similar program about things that are pending in Jeff City, since we're two or three weeks away from the end of the session and I'm sure there will be a number of things that impact cities. The CCF executive committee met this morning. And we'll have a meeting, a regular meeting in May and seem to be very busy with a number of things. And finally, the Economic Development Committee, which is fairly new, as you may recall, has now some three subcommittees. One of them is on small business, small business development in Clayton. So we met for the first time for an hour this afternoon. So we will meet again. And then the big committee, which is also looking at tax incentives. and parking, our favorite topic. We'll all be getting together later in May to try to bring some of these initial thoughts together. So thanks.

Thank you.

As we know, we had extreme weather yesterday. And so I appreciate the fact that David and many of the leaders in our city government stayed late in order to try to address any potential concerns. And thankfully, we didn't have any concerns, at least any significant ones. So I'm certainly thankful for that. Unfortunately, a number of things were canceled. including one in our ward, which was the celebration of Concordia's 100th anniversary of being in Clayton. So certainly want to recognize one of our major institutions in our ward. So that's all.

Two quick things. So City Finance Committee met last Friday. It was a good discussion. It was a shorter meeting because of the point I'll get to in a second, but we really went through and David did a good job along with Karen kind of explaining what revenue options exist for municipalities and more specifically which ones we have already used and which ones we haven't and kind of what's available to us or lack thereof, depending on how you want to look at it. I also spent a little bit of time talking about kind of expenses and, and started to get into that conversation of where our expenses are going and, and where they've been. And, um, next meeting will be next month. And at that point, we're going to talk some more on the capital budget process and kind of walk them through some of the capital budgeting discussions we will then have as a council before then, um, and continue to get feedback, but so far so good. And I think, you know, it's very, very talkative bunch. Um, As Rich will attest and others on the committee. So we should have some good feedback as we go. The other piece of why the meeting was slightly short is that a few of us were able to make the fire training facility ribbon cutting. Very impressive facility. facility, having never seen one. I will say that the firefighters are all very appreciative and thankful that we were supportive of them to be able to build a facility like that this close to where they are. It was also good to see various communities kind of all there together. Like it is, I mean, we talk about this a lot in terms of working together with other municipalities. And this is a Not an insignificant way of providing this is going to help, I think, the entire, let's call it central quarter region. Because now they don't have to go all the way out to Baldwin or wherever it is out in Manchester. So it was cool. If anybody who wasn't able to make it wants to make a drive over there and just look at it, you can't miss it. Once you turn the corner, it's like the only thing there. It's hard to find, but once you kind of turn the road, you're like, oh, that's what it is. It's a bunch of storage areas.

Shipping containers.

Shipping containers kind of stacked together. But we all kind of got a tour, like David and Bridget and Myron and Kami was there. So that was good Friday. Although it was a little cold and wet, but it was nice to be able to see it all.

Anything, David? Okay. So that brings us to the end of our first meeting. So Council Member Buse, if you could make a motion to adjourn. I make a motion to adjourn what she said. All those in favor? Aye. Great. And then we will move into our second meeting. Thank you, Mr. Rick Hummell.

Anything, David? Okay. So that brings us to the end of our first meeting. So Council Member Buse, if you could make a motion to adjourn. I make a motion to adjourn what she said. All those in favor? Aye. Great. And then we will move into our second meeting. Thank you, Mr. Hummel.

Thank you. Thanks, Rick. Thank you,

Rick. Got it. OK. Ms. Betsy Meyland-Smith?

Rick. Got it. OK. Ms. Malin-Smith?

I got a picture. Definitely need to move down.

Yeah, I wasn't sure when we were doing that. Now? Whenever June tells me to

stop.

Whenever June tells me not to move, I just...

Oh, I was very worried

that people.

goodness. Yeah, that's great.

Mary Gary Feder, solemnly swear that you will support the Constitution of the United States and the State of Missouri, the provisions of all laws affecting cities of this class, and the ordinances in the Charter of the City of Clayton. You will faithfully demean yourself, call on the position of council member, and that you possess all of the qualifications prescribed for said position by the laws of the State of Missouri. So help you God.

Mary Fader, solemnly swear that you will support the Constitution of the United States and the State of Missouri, the provisions of all laws affecting cities of this class, and the ordinances in the Charter of the City of Clayton. You will faithfully demean yourself, call on the position of council member, and that you possess all of the qualifications prescribed for said position by the laws of the State of Missouri. So help you God.

I do. Thank you.

Do

you want to do a family photo? This was a short meeting.

I

only saw the restaurant.

Nice try, Stephanie. Almost. Hi, Mom and

Dad.

Fix your hair.

A thousand members,

all council members.

We

don't have TV. Yes,

let's do it on May 12th. Great.

So now that we've had our swearing in of our of our council members, we will start our second meeting. And if the city clerk could call the roll.

Council member abuse. Council member Patel. Council member Gary Feder. Council member Jeffery Yorg. Council member Waldman. Council member Betsy Meyland-Smith. Mayor McAndrew. City manager David Gipson. City attorney O'Keefe. Thank you.

Council member abuse. Council member Patel. Council member Fader. Council member York. Council member Waldman. Council member Malin Smith. Mayor McAndrew. City manager Gibson. City attorney O'Keefe. Thank you.

Thank you. Again, we have an opportunity, this is an open forum. If anyone would like to talk to us, especially online, if you didn't have an opportunity earlier, you're welcome to address us. If you want to raise your hand, there is a three-minute limit. Seeing no hands raised... The only matter left as part of our second meeting is an ordinance, a contract for 10 North Beamiston Avenue Council Chambers Security Project.

Yes, Mayor. I'll turn this over to Myron Burr, our Assistant City Manager, to present the item.

Thank you. Staff request approval of a contract with Executive Wood Products for the procurement, design, fabrication and installation services of ballistic resistant paneling within City Hall Council Chambers. The purpose of this project is to enhance occupant safety by installing ballistic protection discreetly within the chamber while maintaining a professional appearance, structural integrity and aesthetic consistency with the current chamber furnishings. Funding for this project is not included in the fiscal year 26 budget and will be included in a future budget amendment we have left the details of this off of the public agenda for security reasons the city issued a request for bids for ballistic resistant paneling within city hall council chambers one seal bid was received and open on march 23rd 2026 as listed below the proposal submitted by executive wood price executive wood products includes a base bid and an ad alternate the base bid totals twenty seven thousand two hundred eighty dollars The ad alternate provides extra security measures and totals $11,095. The complete bid package base bid with the ad alternate totals $38,375. Staff recommends choosing the complete bid package plus a 10% contingency of $3,837 to address any unforeseen field conditions, adjustments, or site-specific challenges. Staff recommends approving the ordinance authorizing the contract with Executive Wood Products in the amount of $38,375 plus a 10% contingency of $3,837 for the Council Chamber Security Project for a total of $42,212. Thank you. I'll open the discussion. Are there any questions or comments by anyone up on the City Council?

I just have to say it's a very heavy bill to vote on for your first, for the new council's first vote. Otherwise, no questions.

The only question I've gotten, it may make sense to have it offline for scrutiny reasons, but do we have a sense of when construction and timing will be? And if that's something that's better that we talked about later, we can.

I will follow up with you with that.

Okay. Thanks.

All right. Councilmember Buse. I'm sorry, are there any questions or comments from the audience or online? Seeing none.

I introduce bill number 7153, approving a contract with Executive Wood Products for the 10 North Beemiston Avenue Council Chambers security project to be read for the first time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7153, first reading an ordinance approving a contract with Executive Wood Products for the Council Chambers Security Project.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

I move that the Council give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7153 on the day of its introduction.

Second. All those in The vote passes six to zero. Let the minutes reflect that the council has given unanimous consent.

I introduce bill number 7153, approving a contract with Executive Wood Products for the 10 North Beemiston Avenue Council Chambers Security Project to be read for the second time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7153's second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance approving a contract for the Council Chamber Security Project.

Councilmember Buse. Aye. Councilmember Patel. Aye. Councilmember Gary Feder.

Councilmember Buse. Aye. Councilmember Patel. Aye. Councilmember Fader.

Aye.

Council member Jeffery Yorg.

Council member York.

Aye.

Councilmember Betsy Meyland-Smith. Aye. Mayor McAndrew.

Councilmember Malin-Smith. Aye. Mayor McAndrew.

Aye. Thank you. That brings us to the end of our second meeting. We've already done our roundtable and our next meeting will be Tuesday, May 12th. Welcome Councilmember Malin-Smuth. I'll take a motion. I move we adjourn. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you, everyone.