May 26, 2026 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening, everybody. It's our Tuesday, May 26, our Clayton City Council meeting. We are having a discussion session first to talk about our boards and commissions. I just really felt like it was a good idea to get a process down in place with respect to, I think, attendance, with respect to term limits. So I guess, David, are you going to lead us in this?

Yeah, so I'll walk through this here. So we made a bunch of changes about a year ago or so to boards and commissions. Some of that we haven't fully implemented as we were looking at this. As far as standardizing boards and commissions, we still need to go back and address a couple things on sustainability and the equity commission. But we'll talk about that a little bit further tonight before we go in and make any changes. There are four items that are on this list. So these are things I've talked about with various members of the city council and with the mayor to go over this evening. So the first one is the application or reapplication process that we have. We really just have a practice in place, no set policies for how we go about that. Attendance requirements is another thing that's come up. We have some boards and commissions that have some members that haven't shown up a whole lot over the past few years or over the duration of their term. and it's led to issues with quorums and other things. Term limits is something we discussed about a year ago when we were talking about boards and commissions, a couple of questions related to that. And then ex officio members specifically as it relates to or pertains to the sustainability committee, the language in that particular ordinance is different than the rest of them. So I wanna talk about that for a minute as well. But the first topic for discussion this evening is that application process. Right now, as I said, there's no real policy in place for boards and commissions that application process and practice existing members have just expressed interest verbally to extend their terms. I know historically there've been phone calls from maybe the elected officials in those words or the mayor. hey, are you interested in serving anymore? But there really hasn't been much of a formal process. So the question this evening is, should we standardize this across the board where all positions are advertised and existing members would be required to reapply basically for reappointment on those boards and commissions? And when I say reapply, I don't mean submit all your application materials again, but at least submit the application that we would then consider along with all the new applications for that particular upcoming term, uh, on the boards or on the, on that border commission. So, uh, that's the first item and we'll, we'll kind of take these one at a time. So I'll leave that there for any questions or discussion. Um, but again, I think this is something that comes up every year, every May and June, we start talking about this is who's going to call who and try to figure out whether or not they want to be on this. And then, um, we just need to put a policy in place as it relates to this. So take it away.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think just, and I don't know, you know, for obviously our newer members or newer council members, I would say, you know, in practice, I think everybody gets this sheet that June prints out. You know, we know who, I think pretty much every commission is on a three-year term cycle of So we look at this and see who is either expiring completely and we have to reappoint somebody. I mean, we only have term limits for, I believe, sustainability and the Equity Commission. And then but and then every three years, you know, people up for their term, at which point, you know, at least I in practice have what Gary and I would email people and say, do you want to continue serving? And as long as they weren't termed up, like if they were on sustainability or equity, they could. And equity, nobody is termed up yet because we haven't reached the nine-year point yet. But that's kind of how we've done it in the past. We've never really talked about attendance. I mean, I continue to be a little concerned about establishing term limits for... I mean, I think their term limits would be great. I think pretty much across the board, my only concern would be making sure that there's enough qualified people to serve on the plan commission ARB, which I know we've all expressed in the past since we do actually have to have an architect, a licensed architect on the plan commission. So... I just, I don't know how I feel. And I'd be curious what everybody else feels about having people reapply. I only worry that people wouldn't reapply and we wouldn't have as many people who are interested in serving. I mean, I think it would be a little cumbersome to ask people to reapply every three years. So that concerns me a little bit, but yeah. Making sure that we are advertising across the board and getting good qualified people who really want to serve and be there is important. So I don't know how people think or what people think about that reapplication process every year or every three years, I should say. If anybody has any initial thoughts, just jump in.

I mean, I think it's a good idea. But I think maybe that if you are an existing committee member, that when you're three-year terms up, you might not have to do that full application. You can just be like, I'd like to renew. But then you also put it out to everybody and then they apply. And then, I mean, you know what that person has done already. And so I don't think they need another application. But then you do compare applications. you know, maybe their original and then what they've done thus far compared to new applicants. But I do think it's smart to open it up. Yeah.

I think the, to follow on Kami's comment, I don't know that we necessarily need to ask someone to fill out the form again. I'd like to see just some sort of basic letter or whether it goes out from June or from the mayor, but basically says that Your current term is up. If you'd like to continue to serve or be considered for continued service, you know, please acknowledge below and you do a checkmark. But something that also says for your understanding, it's now our current practice to advertise all vacancies or something so that at least the person knows that. You know, we recognize their service. We want to know if they want to continue. But just letting them know that it's just now and it's not now our current practice, but it's now going forward, our current practice to let people know that a position is open and then we'll see who we get. And we'll go from there. And I think to ask someone to actually fill out the form again as to why they want to serve or what they've done, that's probably not necessary. But we should find out. And it shouldn't be just one of the council members calling them up and saying, hey, you want to do this again? I mean, there ought to be a little bit more formality to it, I think, so that we can... Also, just so we have better record keeping in terms of how this process works. It's not just done by phone calls or emails.

Right. And I think then at least we're not waiting because sometimes people don't respond right away. So at least then in practice, we would know that we could advertise throughout the month of May or from mid-May to mid-June and for pretty much all commissions saying this is where we have openings. I

mean, my only question practically is... if somebody is on a commission and asked to be renewed, are we going to tell them no? Because if we're not going to tell them, no, then I think you're asking your advertising for a role that we're never going to take the people that are applying. And that just sort of seems disingenuous. So I'm all for the formality of having them documented. But if the answer is truly in almost no case, if we're going to turn somebody down who's on one, I'd almost rather say no, You got a couple of weeks. If you're interested, send this in. If not, we're going to start advertising it. And that way we give them the chance to re-up and we're not asking people to do a bunch of work that we're not actually going to do anything with if the other person says yes. But I agree, generally speaking, there should be some process to at least document and formalize the, if nothing else, for our records. And I'm not opposed to opening up to everybody either. I'm just asking the question, like, if we truly don't think we're going to turn somebody down, I don't want to put people through a bunch of work that's just paperwork if it's not going to matter.

I think we might turn someone down sometimes. Right. I mean, I can think of examples. Agreed.

Yeah. And I think when you look at attendance at these meetings and people aren't showing up or they're like signed up for this and then they decided six months and I don't like this. And then they're like, oh wait, but I do want to be part of this. It looks good on, I don't know, whatever resume or whatever. But I do think that people hang on to things a little bit when they aren't actually productive.

Okay. Yeah. And I know we've had some of those over the years where there's, well, we've had some come up. So I'm not opposed to opening up. I just wanted to ask the question because to me, that kind of is one of the fundamental ways of how we approach it. But

I agree with all that, the concerns as well as opening it up. Because my first thought is I'm always just hopeful that good people will stay on, anything to get them to stay on, easy as possible, recognition as much as possible. But opening up, if it were a set system and we were then able to always advertise at the same time every year and appoint at the same time ever year, I think that type of communication could be helpful in getting the applications in. The other part of this conversation that I've heard is involving committee chairs if somebody wants to stay on, involving them in that discussion. Because if somebody's not participating in a productive way or not attending, that's a good thing for us to know as well.

Also, to your point, Susan, it gives us a pool. You and I obviously have to deal with a couple right now. if we keep doing it the way we've doing it, we may be six or seven years before we get award to, in our case, applicant. And then we're like, well, who are those? At least if you open it up every year, even if you're putting the people back on, at least every year or two, getting some pot of people, hopefully that we could pull from later.

That was part of what I was going to ask about. I mean, what is the process right now, just quickly? And then are we getting inundated with applications for, you know... But what is the process as it stands right now?

Related. Well,

like where do applications come? Who selects the people who reviews them? Who has input?

Um, so, so I would say, um, yeah, so every, I feel like every June, you know, we get this list of people who are expiring or who's three-year term. Um, depending on which ward they're in, um, that particular, the council members decide, you know, so you and Becky would reach out to anybody from ward one on this list and say, do you want to serve? Um, if you don't, that's fine. And then you would let June know, and she would advertise in our Friday email. Um, um there's a um application online that they fill out and submit via email to june the applications are reviewed usually again by whichever ward the person perhaps expired from because the idea is to keep it balanced throughout the city so it doesn't always work out that way but the goal is always to have somewhat uniform representation across the city. So that's usually how and usually the particular council members will decide, you know, if there's a couple people like they would pick somebody recommend somebody and then we approve it, the new members in a meeting and usually mid June. So but that is another question too, in terms of you know, if the advertisement goes out and, you know, for Parks and Rec, so there's, you know, two openings on Parks and Rec. What if we only, what if we get four people from Ward 1 and four people from Ward 3? You know, like I don't, you know, then who decides? You know, even if the person leaving is from Ward 2, like let's say we don't get any applications from Ward 2. I

mean, when we had all the discussion about boards and commissions last year, It felt like we had some consensus around the idea of really examining which boards and commissions should require board representation, and in which cases we should consider it desirable. And I don't think that we've codified any of that but um but I really think that we should open up the like um Just the idea of like many of our boards and commissions. I think it actually is not particularly relevant that people are from different words. And so, um, so I, I would be in favor of removing that and then therefore like reconsidering how. How we've kind of like crowdsource or provide feedback and recommendations are like nominations or something like that. Right. And so, I mean, just, you know, I'm going to always tell you about how there's nobody from Ward 1 on plan commission ARB. And part of it's because we don't get a lot of applicants, but I wish there was someone in Ward 1 who wanted to do it, who was qualified as we see it. But we have had a couple people... interested who I would recommend and support that weren't supported by the board. So like, or by others that I talked to. And so, you know, then the question becomes like, are we like, what is this like, you know, interest in ward representation? And if, and if it's not on plan commission ARB, like where is it? It's,

Just to clarify, so the only two that we haven't updated are the Equity Commission and Sustainability. Oh, it is? All of those new committees that were established, they all say representation from each ward is preferred but essentially not required. So the only ones that

require ward representation are Equity and Sustainability.

And I think those are two that when Rick and I looked at, it really doesn't make any difference if you're interested in the Sustainability Committee Citywide equity. Same thing makes no difference. The others, there's at least an argument parks and rec. We have parks in different parts of the town. You might definitely want that as a preference. And plan commission and ARB is its own sort of unique animal because we're looking for some unique talents there, but So I think after the

conversation this evening, we are going to go back and then update Sustainability and Equity Commission and bring those forward. But it is a preference but not required.

Thank you for that clarification.

I do think that, again, depending on who's applying, look at the qualifications of the applicant. But there is something about having the entire city have representation when we can have it. I still see an advantage both to each of us as we represent our neighbors and to the people that we appoint who then talk with their neighbors. To be spread across the city in general, I think is a very, very good thing. Obviously, if you've got... The candidates are all coming from different... Not from that spread. That's a different story. But for us to consider and have a preference for that, I very much think is in all of our interest.

Yeah, I think it just becomes... I would just say, like, from a practical standpoint, in my mind, I think it's a question of... If you have a preference without a requirement and we get four applications in and that one's from Ward 2, if we prefer Ward 2, we don't get an applicant. Do we just go ahead with the four we have and be done with it? Or do we still feel the need to go like hunt and find somebody? And to me, that's where the line is. It's like the preference is if we get Ward 2 folks that come in and we think they're qualified, then great. But if not, then I'm just going to go with whoever actually applied wants to do it. I don't know if that's

going to be looking to pack the court. I mean, like if I like I talk to people all the time about joining these committees and frankly, like there just isn't a ton of interest in many of them. And so but I mean, I think that's something we certainly can do. I think it's a you know, like an important thing for us to do to help people know that how they can be involved and influence their government and their community. And

I don't mean, I don't mean to imply that we couldn't do that. I'm saying like, if we're sitting there making a decision, it's

up to you.

I'm just saying if we get – if we've done all that and people don't apply, to me the preference is when – is where do we say we just didn't get anybody? Susan and I tried. Nobody applied. Do we keep trying and leave the seat open or not? Well, there could be like an

application due date. That's what I mean. Yeah, if we make it more established and we always advertise in May and we have it on this date, we would know what applications came in in time to – decide if we should you know shake more bushes so

well and just talking like you said Susan talking to your neighbors oh like I see that you're really excited in sustainability or you seem to be really interested in parks you should apply to our committees you know so yeah So I guess, so does it sound like? Yeah,

I feel like the answer here is that yes, we'll advertise every position as it comes up.

Every three years as the,

okay. But I like the idea of sending something to the quote unquote incumbents and saying, just asking about their interest and including a message to the effect that this will be, it is an open position and we will be reviewing all all applications and, you know.

So I will get together with June and we'll put together some, some language that

will work like that. Did we have consensus that the incumbent to use your term is going to have to fill out a little less application or it's going to have everybody fill out the same application?

Oh, I my what I was trying to communicate is that I think the incumbents should be solicited because they do not know their term is up unless we tell them. Right. And so we have to I think we should have a process whereby we say your term will be up this year. Please let us know, like respond with this or here's a survey or whatever. If you're interested in being considered for another term.

They

don't have to fill out the

application. Just like a record that they said yes? I

think that is when we're then comparing all these people who have applied for a position and all they have is yes, they want renewed. Maybe what we do is we send them the application that got them appointed and say, is there anything on here you want to add to this? Otherwise, we'll use this one going forward. plus your term of service and

giving recognition. Well, I think we can talk to the commission or board itself, right? And see how... You know, I think that's an important piece of the process. Like, have they been showing up? Are they interested? Are they invested? Are they contributing? I think that's more valuable than whatever they put on their application, actually, when they're an incumbent.

Yeah, it may be that versus going strictly by ward, whoever on this board who is liaison to that commission has input on that. Yeah, that's a good point.

And I do feel like if they are reapplying and then they are doing a great job and they're, you know, doing all the things we're supposed to do. I do think that they should be given like a little bit of a priority for that, you know, cause

that, yeah. Especially if it's only like their second or third. I mean, we were, I've, we'll probably going to talk about whether to have term limits, but I don't think we should, I think we should be in the practice of giving people a second term if they like generally met our expectations in the first, cause they're just figuring it out too. Right. okay

good um the next one on here is attendance requirements so again no policy exists for board member attendance non-attendance is typically addressed through resignation or at the term expiration so we've had people that just haven't shown up and you know the mayor or somebody one of the liaisons or even the chair would call and say hey you haven't been to a meeting in six months are you interested in still serving we've had people go ahead and resign at that point uh or we've had cases where people don't show up and then when their term is expired then we can just go ahead and replace them on that board or commission. The question here is, should there be an actual attendance requirement that has a process to remove a member that's based on that non-participation? And I mean, to be clear right now, you could remove anyone from a board or commission. You have that ability or that authority. But having something in writing that they can see kind of sets that expectation that they will attend rather than they cross some line that they don't know really exists. So that's, that's the whole idea here. And again, we are struggling with a few boards and commissions as far as members not showing up and struggling to get quorums at times. So I was,

I've seen this written where I'll say better language, but someone who is once you've missed three meetings, then the council, then the council shall consider, you know, your interest in continuing something like that versus automatic dismissal because there's all those times that somebody calls in has a standing conflict but you still want the input they're giving elsewhere that may be rare but versus a mandatory three times and you're out there there could be something where it's a where you know like you said david that it's in writing that you're supposed to be there and if you miss three times we're going to talk about you

yeah and i'm not suggesting that it be automatic you would still need to take action to remove that person so it's exactly what you said which is considered the removable based on the non-participation. That way they can explain it too. Hey, I have whatever conflict and that's over now and I definitely want to participate. But at least they have that expectation up front.

I was going to ask Gary because I can't remember. Do you remember why we didn't talk about this or why we talked about it and dropped it and we were overhauling the boards and commissions?

Attendance.

The attendance. It's hard pressed to think that you, Rick, and I didn't talk about a part, but I don't remember. Yeah,

I don't remember

either. I don't know if we talked about it here. Even the three of us sitting around, I can't remember why either we didn't talk about it or we just didn't cover it. I just don't know if you can remember.

Do you remember at all, Gary, if you guys talked about it? No. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I know, and there have been times, I know this year's WC, there was an individual who had a, you know, a health emergency and it was really important for him to stay on. And so obviously that, you know, there's cases that where there's an absence for a while, but, you know, I remember him being very upfront about wanting to stay on, but yeah.

I think on some of our commissions, we've sort of let it up to the chair. to sort of call so-and-so, you know, you sort of observed, you know, whoever it is hasn't been here for the last three meetings, but there's nothing really behind that. And I think sometimes the chairs have felt like, well, I don't know, it's not exactly policy, but it is frustrating. I think, um, like on the equity commission, which I've been on since the beginning. I mean, there's some people who basically show up one out of every four meetings, um, And I think there are other good people out there who could serve. But I'm not sure when people join the commissions or boards, it would be helpful if they're told a strong expectation of service is that you come. It's always hard to know what the percentage should be. But, you know, three out of every four meetings or something. And there are excuses and people travel. But I think there are too many of these. And I think it's also true of the ex officio, especially like on something like equity where we've had seven or eight ex officios. And, you know, like two of them will show up regularly and the other we never hear from them. And I'm never quite sure why they don't show up, but it's again, it's, it's just, we're too loosey goosey about it. We need to say, I think, I think toughen it up a little bit because we could get a lot of these organizations, I think would actually send somebody else instead of the person who doesn't show up, except we're not really dealing with the problem.

Well, so if we had, you know, three or more missed meetings in a, a six month period. I'm not, I don't know if anybody, you know, and I think as Susan mentioned that language where, you know, I mean, it's very discretionary, but again, at least as Gary mentioned, there is this expectation given like you can't miss, you know, we're just, there's an expectation that you are at meetings. And if you miss more than three meetings in a six month period or

I'm fine with that, although I would change it to percentage because some of the groups only meet once a quarter. So to me, if you miss 50% of your meetings in a given year or however it went there, then if you miss more than 50% of the meetings in a year, then we should reconsider you come June when we reconsider everybody else. I mean, I'm not wedded to either of those numbers. I just think it needs to be a percentage for the obvious reasons. It's something monthly, something whatever.

Yeah. So I just hate to set the expectation of 50%. Yeah. I don't know what it should be, but oh, darn.

I think there's two things like, you know, attendance is important, but your participation is what is really important. So when you're not there and your voice is not added to the conversation, it's a less rich conversation. So when we write the policy or whatever it is, the guideline, I think that and when you're communicating with commission members, I think trying to integrate them like and and orient them to the bigger picture is maybe helpful too. I just wonder who's keeping track of, you know, how are we monitoring who's there and whose responsibility is it to make sure like, oh, this person has missed three in a row. Like who is- I think

there's every commission has minutes that are taken. So there is always- We'll just have

the staff liaison for, I mean, we have staff that's on each one of these. We'll make sure that staff is tracking when they do the minutes, just an easy spreadsheet. track that

but i agree i think setting an expectation is a reasonable expectation is fair and everybody knows what they're signing up for that way

yeah and i think it's good to say you know then we'll you know we can we'll consider whether you will be reappointed in june okay

okay

I'm just making a note here. So we'll draft something up that you all can review, and we'll go from there. All right, good. Next one, term limits. So we talked about this for a minute. We do have some boards and commissions with term limits, and you can see those here. If they have term limits, it's three terms. We don't specify whether or not that's a partial term or a full term in the code, and we fix that with the charter. So it's something that we probably want to go back and address with the boards and commissions. But you can see here term limits are Parks and Rec, the Special Business District Advisory Board, Sustainability, Economic Development Committee, and Citizen Finance. Those all have term limits. We do have some boards and commissions without term limits. So that's Public Art Advisory Committee, which meets very, very infrequently. The Community Equity Commission, the Plan Commission does not have term limits and the Board of Adjustment does not have term Limits. So the question is, should we standardize term limits or should we apply term limits to any of the boards that are listed down here that do not currently have them? I would recommend that at a minimum, the Equity Commission be added to the list above again, just to make the standard or to make the the provisions, the committee composition and everything else consistent with all of these non-statutory boards, I'll call

them. Are all of these three-year terms?

They are.

None of them have a shorter term?

I mean, I think I'd be in favor of term limits. I think that with the sidebar that I still have concerns about playing commission ARB, but I think nine years is a long time to serve. I think having rotations, people moving on and off, I think is helpful for everyone and obviously allows for more people to serve. Yeah.

Is there like a place where someone that, you know, may have served like nine years on a board that still wants to contribute but might not be able to be like a voting member or something? Because, you know, like that expertise and that experience I think is important.

Totally. You could add them as an ex officio.

Okay.

And then they'd be a non-voting member that we'll talk a little bit about sustainability, how it's different than the others, but under any of these others with the exception of sustainability and it wouldn't work on the plan commission or board of adjustment, but you could have these ex officio members that are non-voting basically like almost like an emeritus position on the commission.

And then if you have like your three terms to do chairs also, is that different? Yeah. Or is that like part of your three? It would

get three full terms, just like everyone else. Oh,

okay.

Yes. It's also typically worded that the term expires on this date or until somebody else is appointed, right? In order to keep that type of language, yeah.

Well, we would certainly try to avoid a vacancy.

Right. Okay.

Okay. I think with a more robust system that we're talking about and really evaluating people, having these three term limits is okay. Otherwise, I think in the old system, it's just sort of people just stay on because nobody ever really bothers them. And that's not always the best. I mean, we have new committees and I think they're going to be a fair amount of interest in, you know, economic development, finance. And so I think as long as we have a more robust system, even though someone has the ability to serve nine years doesn't mean they will. And I agree, I guess, with Becky's point particularly that after the first term, you're not necessarily anxious to move someone. But after two, six years, it'd be nice to say, hey, it wouldn't hurt to move someone on there. And if we really advertise this well and let people know, I think we'll get more turnover, and I think that'd be a good thing. It doesn't have to be nine years. I

mean, I guess my only thing with the Public Arts Advisory Committee, and definitely with planning commissions, like of all the rest of them, those are the two that seem to be the most you have a technical competency to do them. And my only fear with term limits are based upon, I mean, I don't sit on planning commission, but enough of you have, and you all kind of talk about the same thing. The first couple of years, the world's sort of swimming until you figure it out. I'm just a little concerned about putting term limits on that one and then run the risk of you just can't find people. And then we're kind of left with non-technical experts making architectural review and planning decisions. Because we still have every three years to be able to remove somebody if we need to or feel like we need to. Everything else, it's fine. And public art commission, I could go either way. But that's my only concern with planning commission is just how technical it sounds like it is and how important the city relies on that to run the risk of losing the history of it and the technical skills on a commission like that.

I think David's suggestion of the Equity Commission moving up to the term limit list makes a lot of sense. The other ones, Public Art Advisory rarely meets at Board of Adjustment. I'm not sure the remaining three need the term limits.

I mean, I could go either way with, I mean, I think as Susan mentioned, public art advisory committee hardly ever meets, but there are definitely people on that committee that have very specialized knowledge related to art. I mean, it's when I was there because the person who's on ARB is the, or the council member that's the liaison is automatically part of that committee because it's usually you're evaluating art as part of a PUD committee. Um, so I met a couple of times during my couple of years and yeah, I mean, it was impressive the knowledge that they have and it is, it is very meaningful to have people who are knowledgeable. So, um, I, I just don't want to get stuck in a place with the plan commission ARB, um, where we have people, and again, great people on that commission. I just, I think it's just we, maybe it's just us being cognizant as a council that after a certain number of years, it would be time, you know, but I don't know. I do worry about finding qualified people. I will say that we had a lot of people apply in the last year. So we did get a big turnover. I think it's also important on that board to make sure we have people who stick around for a few years, because I do think that institutional knowledge, even just being there two, three, four years is important. Yeah.

Yeah, I am always going to push back on the idea that I believe we do need people with specific training on Plan Commission ARB. I don't believe everyone on it needs to be. I mean, I know statutorily they don't need to be. And personally, I don't think they need to be. I think I also think the idea of either actual term limits or the idea that we are not going to expect people to serve like indefinitely, but help create incentive because the best people to find other people are. are people who like been on the commission, and they know people who have similar interests or skills and experience. And they like know the position in order to like try to sell it. And so I would love to know that like the chairs of our Boards and commissions are actually working on succession planning and thinking about who can do this after them so that they're not like a irreplaceable piece of our system. I mean, that's like the worst thing an organization can have.

I generally agree with what Becky said, with the exception of the fact that I think of all of these committees, the plan commission, ARB, is the only board slash commission that makes final decisions. I mean, all these other... boards, they all give advice and make recommendations ultimately to the city council. A lot of zoning matters stop at the plan commission and ARB. So I think that creates a greater necessity to make sure that we have truly qualified people on fairly technical stuff. So So that would be still my hesitation that I think that this particular commission and board, you have to be very careful with in terms of who sits on it. I

was going to say, I agree with Gary on that. But then to Becky's point, I do think if we are opening it up to every term limit, that you will get that ability to say, like, if you've been on here for 12 years, the council can say, all right, we probably think it's about time that so-and-so moves on. So I do think that that will help. for that predicament by allowing us to do that.

Yeah, and maybe that opens it up enough. So if we don't have term limits on, I mean, if we move equity up and provide the term limits on equity and we don't have terms limits for the other three, But at least every three years, there is kind of this reevaluation. Like we really appreciate your service. I think it might, you know, we got a lot of qualified applicants. You've been on for a long time. So I'm happy to do it that way. If everybody would prefer to just keep the other three is.

Yeah. I mean, one of the reasons you don't get applicants is because you don't open up spots. You know, we want those applicants who express interest to be. And that's true. We want to catch them while they're interested if we think that they would make a good contribution to the city.

How does everybody feel about sticking?

I support just moving equity up for now and like working on what we're talking about. Yeah, I'm comfortable with that.

Makes a lot of sense. That sounds good.

Just supplement what I said, because I realize I should include the Board of Adjustment as a final decision-making body, because the Board of Adjustments, unless you go to court, you're pretty much, once the Board of Adjustmen rules, that's also not going to the city council. So I think that along with the plan commission, ARB are boards that really are decision makers as opposed to recommending bodies, and that's a distinction we should recognize.

You can't even appeal a Board of Adjustment decision, right? Go

to court.

It's the strongest.

That's what

I mean.

The hardest.

And there has been a lot of movement, I think, at the Board of Adjustment in the last couple of years. We've gotten some new members. But I know that they've had trouble with a quorum at times.

And I will say Board of Adjustment also has alternates, which is helpful. We've got a pool of other people we can call if the primary members can't be there. All right, and then finally ex-officio members. So for most of our boards and commissions, this is the language that's in the ordinance. So for citizen finance, the newer ones, as well as the equity commission, At their discretion, the city council may add additional ex officio or non-voting positions as it deems necessary. However, under sustainability, and we've recently had some conversations with the chair who's interested in adding some ex officios, the language for sustainability is currently different. It says the city council may also appoint one member each of such other citizen boards, committees, or commissions as the council believes appropriate to serve as ex officio or not voting representatives to the sustainability committee. but it doesn't say that you can apply or you can appoint someone that isn't a member of another board or commission. So if you just had a citizen that was interested in one specific topic and maybe wanted to join to be on a subcommittee or something, the council couldn't make that appointment unless they were on another board or commission, so the question here, though, is just very simply, should we add the same ex officio language that we have everywhere else to sustainability and open that process up?

I'm going to complicate it just a little bit more with sustainability. That's the question. With equity, the whole idea was to get somebody from the school district, somebody from the city and all these different organizations. With sustainability, it comes down to like when Pam presented wanting to do the native plants thing. If we want to do a subcommittee that then goes through the sustainability committee before the board to have that kind of consistency about it, do... I agree. It should not have to be somebody who is on a different committee. I just wonder, though, if that's something we want to keep as an actual appointment of an ex-officio member or if we want to be more relaxed in having subcommittees on our boards. And maybe it's just a matter of language. But if you have a subcommittee, it's... Does everybody on that subcommittee, do we want them to have to go through the appointment and appointment process?

I mean, I think about,

oh, go ahead.

What was the technical definition of an ex officio member? Because all of our meetings are open to the public and allow even public comment as far as I've been aware. So

I'd like to be clear. The biggest difference is they're a member. So they don't, The difference is if somebody walks up to the mic and says something, you know, the chair has to recognize them. You may have situations where they can't speak, although we always allow them to. But the biggest difference is it's vetted. It's an appointment that's made by the city council. So you're giving what that person says a little more weight because you've put them in that spot for whatever kind of expertise or interest they might have. where somebody coming in on an individual topic, sure, they're making a comment, but an ex-official member, typically when they speak, it has more weight to it. But it is a non-voting position. It doesn't count towards a quorum or anything like that. It's really somebody that's there to assist the folks that are making recommendations or decisions on that commission.

So- So I just don't want to make it too cumbersome if one of the committees wants a subcommittee. So perhaps the chair of that subcommittee would be the ex officio, but whoever they wanted to bring in to help them do it, I don't know how we want to apply it to keep it fairly straightforward.

I always think a subcommittee is just a group of the members that are The group of existing committee members. Like, so, you know, like a group of people from sustainability could decide that they want to talk about migratory birds. So three members who are interested in that get together and talk separately from sustainability. That's how I've just always... Right.

And that's where I think in that particular example that sometimes there are people who want to be involved with migratory birds who aren't... interested in being on the sustainability committee and you want their expertise to pull in on this one particular topic. And it would be great if we had the structure that would allow us to do that. And maybe we don't need an official structure. Maybe they can do that and have somebody on the committee be that ex-official or actual member to organize it. But it's not clear how we want that done.

I mean, my only question by looking at the language is it seems like the Sustainability Commission ordinance is actually more selective than the other boards' ordinances. Because the other ones say we could add any ex officio position as deemed necessary, whereas sustainability says that we can appoint them, but only from other boards' commissions of the city council. Am I reading that right? That's correct. So why would we want something more narrow in sustainability than we would have for everything else?

That's the question. I think that's, in speaking with the chair of sustainability and the conversation that we had, I don't know when that was, before our last meeting, I think that was the concern raised. Why is sustainability more restrictive than the others? Why can't we just loosen this up where anyone can be an ex-officio so long as they're appointed by the city council?

Is it true that we have, like, is it a written policy or rule that folks can only serve on one board or commission?

Oh, there was that specific language that was written into some of the boards and commissions. I don't believe that that exists for any of these anymore. It wasn't Parks and Rec, I think, was one of the places where we found that. I'd have to go back and look, but that's not common language.

Okay. I know we've talked about, I mean, we've actually often talked about if someone wants to be on something, they can't be on something else. And obviously we don't want all the same people on all the boards and commissions like as a matter of, but I'm just wondering if this plays into that. I'm just trying to think about the angles of it. I don't know.

I mean, I don't know why you wouldn't broaden the ex officio language up for sustainability. Yeah. Seems silly. Oh yeah. Go ahead, June.

I believe at one point the question was, I believe somebody from CCF wanted to be on the sustainability committee. They wanted somebody to represent from CCF. That's true. So I think it was George. I can't remember his last name. And so, and that's the reason why the language was included in here. And then he left and they didn't, you know. We couldn't

get anybody else to join.

Yeah, CCF had to choose a member to be an ex officio for this committee, so.

Yeah,

good

memory.

So, I mean, I, I don't. I certainly want to make it easy. I mean, I don't want to necessarily, it seems like if somebody wants to be part of a subcommittee who isn't necessarily that they would maybe reach out to other members of the subcommittee and say, Hey, I'd love to provide some input, but I don't know that we need to make it formal.

Good. I think that changing it to match the language is perfect. And then committees can figure out how they want to use it. Yeah. That's great.

Like you said, I don't want to not have an expertise of somebody that wants to get involved in a particular subject.

That's all I have unless there are other

considerations

or topics related to boards and commissions.

I feel like I'm talking about our current political landscape, but when is this going into effect? People who are currently serving with the term expiring, who wants to stay on, are we publicizing everything right away?

Yeah, so we can have these on the next agenda. These are easy changes to make. As far as the policy for attendance, that's not something that has to be approved right away. So I think if we can get the term limit language changed in there, get this ex officio language cleaned up for sustainability, some of these other things, we can turn that around really quickly. So June 9th, I believe is the next regular meeting.

So would, I guess, yeah. So would you want to be reaching out to people? I mean, cause I don't know unless June, you want to send out an email or how, so should we rely on June to send out an e-mail or do you want people to reach out to people on this? saying your term is up just so you know we're going to advertise let us know if you want to still be involved or you know what I mean just until you're able to get

it's still good to make contact with these individuals but let them know we are going to advertise all positions and so let us know in writing an email will suffice if you're interested in serving again

That makes sense. And then I guess we'll have a more standardized email that, but I just, I don't want to, you know, because we are coming up on the end of May. We need to

advertise right away. We have a plan commission member who's, you know, we need to decide on promptly. All

right.

Okay. Gary, what did you say? Did you have a question?

No, I was just saying, just in terms of timing, I know we've received some emails about the plan commission and someone who's coming due and kind of wants to know their status. So we need to- Yeah, so

I mean, the status is if they're on this list, then their term is expiring. So just reach out and say, are you still interested? But just understand that we're advertising for all the different positions, but let us know if you're interested and we'll consider you as part of the pool.

Great. Thank you.

So

wait, are we supposed to reach out or is June going to send a letter?

Go ahead and reach out just so that you can get the, so we can get the ball rolling. And then I feel like a year from now, we'll have a more standardized email that everybody can send out. Okay. All right. Is

that great? That's it.

Okay. So we will take a break until seven o'clock. Thank you. We are back for our Tuesday, May 26th, seven o'clock meeting. If the city clerk could call the roll.

Council member abuse here. Council member Patel here. Council member Gary Feder here. Council member Jeffery Yorg

Council member abuse here. Council member Patel here. Council member Fader here. Council member York

here.

Council member Waldman here. Council member Betsy Meyland-Smith here. Mayor McAndrew here. City manager David Gipson

Council member Waldman here. Council member Malin Smith here. Mayor McAndrew here. City manager Gibson

here.

City attorney O'Keefe

here.

Thank you. The first item on our agenda is the open forum where someone's welcome to address us who on any item that's not already on the agenda. I don't see anyone in chambers. Is there anyone online? I will say that if you're online and you wish to speak on an item, just raise your hand. Seeing that there's nobody here to speak during our open forum, we will start our regular agenda. The first item on the agenda is to amend part of our code related to plan unit developments. I will open the public hearing and request proof of publication.

Yes, Mayor, this is a public hearing and ordinance to consider approving an amendment to Section 405.390, which is plan unit developments to add new definitions and establish new regulations. And we have Ana Cray and our Director of Planning and Development Services here this evening to give a brief presentation and an overview of the proposed changes.

Okay. I'm just going to go through a quick reminder for everybody. So the PUD projects, our review of this key result started quite a while ago when we first started talking about our commercial and mixed-use zoning. So the purpose of this review is to better align the point system for PUDs with the objectives identified in the comprehensive plan and other just larger goals. So when we looked through the PUD process, we had decided that the first place to start is adjusting our base qualifications. We're really doing that for two reasons. One, better shape that existing zoning districts so that the modifications that are required under a PUD are for more unique circumstances rather than just regular development. And then to better identify that threshold that we're going to use to measure the impact or the weight of a modification. This was really completed with the adoption of our new non-residential and mixed-use zoning districts that created the new platform. And then the second part is adjusting the benefit structure. A big piece here is really to try and increase the predictability of the process overall that, for you all as the ones who have have the actual authority to approve a PUD for developers that might pursue that as a way to get a project approved. And then also for residents trying to understand how this process works and how we uphold our zoning guidelines. So goals with that benefit structure were also to maintain some flexibility and discretion for the council. That's really important with a PUD process like this because the whole idea is that we're trying to allow for more creative solutions to address unique circumstances created by a certain project. And then we're also shifting from the point system, which we used previously, to a tiered system. So it takes away a little bit of that balance discussion about one or two points that you were having over every single project and tries to identify some of the categories ahead of time. So really quickly, I'll just touch on what the proposed changes include for the types. So we already have a PUD can either be a residential or a mixed use in type. This is really mostly unchanged when we talk about that base qualifications. One change of note is for the residential type. So under our M3, which is our highest density zoning for mixed use, which covers most of downtown, we did add a provision that would allow for high density residential use. So right now, to be a residential PUD, you cannot be in a mixed-use zoning district to start with. But we added this one exception. So if in the M3 district they qualify based on that density that they're proposing the new development to have, that they could ask for just a straight residential project under a PUD. Minimum project standards, a lot of this includes points that are already required under the PUDs as the regulation stands today. We just shifted it a little bit into a baseline requirement for all PUDs moving forward. So that establishes the need for lead silver design. It identifies high-quality materials. So we pulled some of that out of actually assigning it points and just made it a requirement for the PUDs. materials. And then if the project is going to use our consumer emphasis area retail requirements through their public benefits, then we have some definition of what makes that retail ready, including that minimum ceiling height. And then we've also identified that through this project and outlining the PUD, they need to clearly connect what uses are going to be allowed in that project moving forward. The procedures to get a PUD approved and reviewed are unchanged. The really, the only thing we did is that we tried to reduce the wording, the language, the same thing that we've been doing with all of our updates in the unified development code format. And we added this summary table so people much quicker will be able to identify. which boards they might have to go to, how many applications, what that actual review process is. So this identifies the PUD application and what the process would be for an amendment. And it also identifies the likely parallel or concurrent applications for the PUD process, such as site plan review, architecture review, a subdivision plat that you might be doing at the same time as a PUD. The proposed framework uses a three-tiered system. This really begins with our modification qualifier. So when we look at that modification qualifier, the first or the third technically row of the table, that's how we determine what a project falls into in terms of the tiers. Tier one is our lowest impact, so that's the projects that are requesting smaller modifications to our code. So that's how we've identified and then we weight that with public benefits that again are easier to incorporate within a project. And then as you move up to tier three, this is when you're starting to incorporate modifications that are either greater deviation from the requirements of the zoning code or they're a deviation that's likely to have a larger impact on that development. So increasing your density by more than 90 percent or just having a large number of modifications. And then again, because those are the modifications that together are going to have a larger impact, then we require more public benefits. So we're trying to weight those two together. Once you've identified which type of tier project you are, then we have another table that identifies all of our public benefits that the council, you all if you adopt this, have already determined fall under the tier one, tier two, or tier three, as well as identifying those priority benefits. So under Tier 1, there's only one proposed priority benefit. These should be the benefits that are potentially more easily incorporated into a development project to offset that lower ask for the modifications. In tier two, we move up to a little bit more in terms of the need of actually incorporating these into a project, whether that would require real integration within the design or they might just cost a lot more to actually implement. So that's how we get into tier two. Here we've identified two priority benefits. The first one, architectural distinction at street level and at roofline. We also include a definition which will be shown on a future slide of what architectural distinction is. This one really is going to fall under a lot of the discretion of the ARB and of this council, but we tried to at least get a starting point of what we're looking for when we say architectural distinction because that is a little bit more nebulous of a topic than saying that you have five publicly accessible EV chargers. That's very yes or no, do you meet that? And then tier three is where the larger benefits are all. And we have a significant number of priority benefits identified here. So when we go back to the framework category, it's up to the developer or the applicant to identify which public benefits they are proposing are incorporated. But it's the discretion of the city council and actually approving a public benefit or PUD whether or not you believe that they've met the intent of that public benefit. So there is some discretion still to you, even though we've tried to under each tier have a list of some really obvious yes or no. Do you have this public benefit? And then others that will require a little bit more of an evaluation by you all. And so then at the end for public benefits, just a couple of notes or definitions. So we clearly identify what we mean when we use the term affordable housing and when we use the word workforce housing, as well as that kind of architectural distinction description. Um, and then we have the, at the very bottom, if they're using, um, if they're providing a consumer emphasis area use as part of their public benefit package, then we also identify that they will need to get occupancy for that use. within six months of occupying the rest of the structure. So that was a very quick overview of the PUD and happy to answer any specific questions.

I was going to say, it seems to me that you're trying to focus when it gets to the council, it becomes more of a yes or no sort of evaluation of the adequacy of the benefits versus the exceptions that are being sought, which I think is somewhat coming full circle. Cause I think that's the way the PUD used to be. And then it was moved to the number system to make it more objective. And now we're coming back to that, uh, So I guess I'm wondering what that discussion is going to look like. We did have, I think, some over the past, at least people on this side of the table have been through some of these before where we'd come, okay, how about architectural significance? And we'd go around the table and I'll give it a three and I'll give a four. I mean, stuff that didn't seem to make a lot of sense. But I guess your general thought is that this is a more reasonable way of approaching it from the council's standpoint. That wasn't totally rhetorical, but I guess it was.

Yeah, was there a question in there? I'm not sure.

All right.

Yes, that is the goal, is to try and narrow it down. I think I used the term when we first started talking about the PUD, but the idea here is that we want the flashy neon sign. That's the whole concept behind identifying priority benefits. So we really wanted to narrow the focus of developers and try and better weight the things that we truly want them to incorporate in their projects against the benefits. We still provide the opportunity for an applicant to propose a benefit that is not on the list for you guys to consider. It just wouldn't replace a requirement of a priority benefit. So we are still trying to keep a little bit of that door open for some special features or creativity that comes with a project. But the idea here is that by adopting these regulations, the council has spoken at that moment in time, these are very clearly what your targets are for elevating projects. If

I may, it's really... impressive work in incorporating what came from our community on the things that people wanted to see happen and to put it into standards that can be actually used by developers and yet leaving some discretion with a console, what something might actually look like. I'm curious what kind of feedback you got from the developers and people that you shop this to?

Yeah, so it's been available for public comment in general. We haven't gotten too much engagement just from the everyday citizen, just a couple of more curiosity questions about it. But we did send a direct invite to review and have a conversation and provide feedback for any questions Previous PUD applicant, developer, design professionals, property owners who have inquired about the possibility of a PUD at their property, those that have actually successfully done a PUD, all of the above. We received responses from a couple of people, not a ton of response. So I guess I'll take this as a positive of potential issues or red flags. I think that they like the concept of knowing a little bit more clearly what you guys want, because at the end of the day, it's so much easier to design a project upfront if you can try and predict better what's going to be approved. So a couple of things that came out that were direct changes reflecting on that. One was the idea of allowing for the exception for the M3 zoning for residential That one came, there were a couple of developers who read the regulations and said, you know, I could see these being really helpful to facilitate development on a few properties. But in this era, we might want to use that exception of just residential. So that was something that we added there as a potential avenue. Again, they would still have to meet everything for the PUD from you. So that one was changed. And then we also had... Another developer asked for a little bit more direction on the affordable housing and workforce housing piece. And that's where we kind of separated those two and use that standard definition. One element that's interesting under that, that we had a conversation with that we're still not exactly sure how it will work, but is the ongoing maintenance of those. So the way that it is right now, we've talked to some developers and, it will be at the discretion that they'll have to maintain whatever documentation. So we could at any time request or verify the documentation that they have, the number of units, and that they are stabilized at a certain rent rather than them turning in forms to us every year. So that came out of a discussion that we had as well.

And with that, the workforce or the affordable housing, as well as I think you said, you called it missing housing. Is there going to be a requirement in there for different, you know, one bedroom, two bedroom studio? Yes. Yeah, so we actually

used...

You say qualifying units shall be a mix of type reflecting the total unit type distribution for the project. Right, so that's in the... They can't all be stupid, right? Who's moving it? Okay.

Yeah, so that's in the notes that we have there. So when they apply for a PUD, we get a breakdown of the unit type. A lot of that helps also with the parking analysis that we do. So they'll identify the breakdown between the different units from studio up, and then we'll ask that they reflect that same breakdown with the units that they reserve.

Okay. A couple other questions, just kind of in particular wording on PUDs Page 8, under minimum project requirements, proposed development shall be constructed with high-quality materials that add significant value to the property. Does that include our ability to require quality infrastructure, HVAC, things like that? When it says high quality materials?

That was really speaking to the exterior construction of the property. So the requirements for the HVAC system, we do have one benefit that they could choose where they could show that their HVAC system is provides a higher level of efficiency and that sort of thing, so that could qualify for a benefit. If they do not select that benefit, then they would just be under our regular requirements for the codes that we've adopted, so our ICC, International Code Council codes.

I guess what my concern is, we want our buildings all to be high quality and sustainable both environmentally and lasting into the future. We want quality construction in Clayton. And if any of our current requirements in our codes have to be or can't be enforced, I want to make sure that we can still enforce having high quality buildings in every way in our in our city. Right. So can we require high quality infrastructure or some other language aside just from the exterior materials?

Well, and I'm sorry, I don't mean to, I mean, are you, I mean, you're talking about if state law were to... If state law changes that... Yeah, like, I mean, I don't... Some

of

our requirements, right?

Right. So, I mean, right now, I know it's kind of kicking the can down the road, but we'd probably... We'd probably want to wait and see if they actually did that. And then we'd be able to write code better to reflect it with the exterior materials. Part of this will also be reviewed and approved by the architecture review board. So we have kind of. Some standards, some criteria for review that are used by our ARB members to evaluate the high quality materials. Um, if we add in some other requirements about reviewing the quality of construction, when it comes to mechanical equipment and other things under this process, that's bringing a whole other level of code analysis into play. That isn't usually under the purview of either the planning commission, ARB or this council. you kind of set those standards when you adopt the codes that we have for building codes. And so then they're reviewed at that time. So I would be hesitant right now without having a real hurdle where we know we're trying to get over to try and write something and then have you all become the reviewers of mechanical systems. So I know it's probably not the answer, but I would say at this point, I don't know that I would recommend putting that in this code.

Because it should really be in the building code that you all are handling in that.

Yeah, other than requiring LEED, which right now we are allowed to do. So we, again, would have, they would have very specific elements that they supply to us. Otherwise, we don't have their full mechanical, electrical, plumbing, the MEP sets when they apply for zoning review.

Right now that LEED Silver certificate, not necessarily they have to be certified, but meeting the LEED Silver requirements, that's what's forcing them to put in that quality equipment right now. So if something were to change at the state level, then I think we dive into the code and figure out how to adjust it from there.

Okay, it makes me a little bit nervous to wait to be reactive versus proactive.

It's just that it's really tricky, as Ana said, to figure out what high-quality HVAC means. If they're going to meet and leave silver, we know that all that stuff they put in is going to have to be to a certain standard. Coming up with our own standard for it, and still, if the energy code thing were to happen, how do you skirt that?

As

long as we I must tell you, I'm not sure how we would articulate standards that would pass constitutional muster. We have safety codes for standards for this equipment, which we are obviously allowed to adopt for safety purposes. And we have an architectural review because of the impact of architecture on the value of adjoining property and the value of the community overall. But the internal equipment is outside the scope of that aesthetic impact on value. And it is a public safety concern, which we adopt through the building code. So I'm not sure how we would articulate a higher standard beyond the public safety measures that the building codes already established.

Hey, you all just taught me something. That's great. I'd like As we look at our building code, then I just hope we can keep that in mind. Yeah. Proactive

as possible. And I, I can assure you there's a lot of people, a lot of staff members in city hall that are closely paying attention to the considerations at the state level related to that on a few levels. So we're definitely certainly goes to the

quality of our building stack. Yeah. Um, okay. A couple other things. Um, On page two, and we talked about, well, on page eight, I'm sorry, nine. On ownership, the track alarm should be as a single unit. Again, I hope that we can somewhat figure out the ability to control lot consolidations. We've talked about that with our neighborhoods, which I guess includes our building, our downtown neighborhoods as well. And right now, do we have any control over any lot consolidations yet?

No, we have minimum lot area and building size requirements to qualify for a PUD. So in many ways, we need the lot consolidation under that. And the reason that we differentiate and require it all to be done under one is because if people are doing multiple parcels over time in a phase development, then that falls under our special development districts, which has different provisions to lay it out than a PUD. Yeah. I think right now, again, with that, I don't know that we would want to limit consolidation under a PUD because that kind of goes back to the whole point of what a PUD zoning does. Got it.

Okay. Very helpful. Thank you. This is great.

Well, some questions. One related to, I think maybe kind of related to what Susan was bringing up is I know we've specified, I believe we've historically specified LEED silver, but there are four levels of LEED certification and silver is the second lowest and there are two above it. And so I'm curious what you would think of considering saying it should be LEED gold.

I mean, I think that would leave that a lot up to the discretion of this council. Um, I think lead silver touches on a lot of the, um, kind of basic requirements that we want to elevate a development project. So that's where I think it was a good starting point to make it required across the board and then elevating beyond that. So gold or higher would be a public benefit that we have identified. So that could lift you up to a tier three. So that's kind of the way I outlined it is that if somebody wants to go higher, then we will recognize that as a public benefit for that project itself. But that lead silver is kind of an attainable, above average project level that we can require across the board.

I mean, is it so according to the point system that I found online, lead silver requires 50 to 59 points and lead gold is 60 to 79. So it's a wide range and not really. I mean, people could be in the bottom end of it and not much higher than silver. And I guess what I'm I'd be interested in the rest of the council's consideration is, you know, if we're really serious about. sustainability, which I believe is what LEED is attempting to address. And LEED Silver has kind of been out there, like, I mean, we've been requiring that for a really long time, I think. And it's kind of, I guess I'm thinking it feels kind of like baseline for somebody developing here. And so I'd be interested in considering like changing it from being a public benefit to a standard that then could be relieved by a different public benefit. I don't know, something to think about. And then as it relates to the particular public benefits. The ones that are somewhat vague, well, the one that I really highlighted that you didn't is the already explained to us. And I really appreciate the way you wrote everything out and defined so much. In tier one, there's like green infrastructure and open spaces and And so on, you know, vegetation, stormwater runoff. And then there's one underneath that's extraordinary landscaping and green space provisions. And that one gets credit as a priority. And so I'm just kind of curious, like how, if you could say a little bit more about the difference between those. Sure.

Yeah, so the difference is a little bit of the focus. So the first one, provisions for protection of green infrastructure, is focused specifically on stormwater management provisions. The second one with extraordinary landscape and green space opens it up a little bit more to support the planting type that might not be stormwater. So that's why I put the, the priority benefit on number two. Now this is an example of one where there could be a little bit of an argument that it has to be made by the applicant and then evaluated by you all as to whether or not you would identify it as a priority benefit or just as regular landscaping. But the, the, I personally chose to identify the priority because it provided a little bit more, based on our conversations we've been having recently, that puts weight on pollinators, keystone species, and habitat diversity rather than just stormwater mitigation.

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. I'm also a little bit, I was kind of like looking for other ones that I think could be considered to be priorities. And I'm interested in... Thinking about rooftop active activation because I think that's a pretty like. impactful thing to do at a location. And then i'm very interested in prioritizing the preservation of existing buildings so i'd be interested in other. Your thoughts on that if there's any concerns, we should think about and then the thoughts of everyone else in the Council.

Yeah, the rooftop activation is an interesting one because I also was debating if I thought that was a priority. But then I had a very interesting conversation with a couple of developers when they were looking at it and they actually thought that by putting too much emphasis on rooftop activation that it might be a missed opportunity for us in certain areas of downtown. The example that they gave was the AC Hotel We see that there is a lot of business there. But when you're just walking down the street, you don't notice any of it. So the rooftop has been successful, but it's not really directly enhancing the street life activation there. You actually see a lot of cars coming and going from the hotel, but a random person who might not know there's a rooftop might not realize that. I thought that was a great point that there might be certain areas or locations where it makes sense that the rooftop activation is a successful means, but other projects like a project on Central Avenue, I don't know if I would say if they only provided rooftop activation and they really didn't have street level activation if we would see that as a benefit. So that's where I decided to remove it as a priority. But I do think it's a good topic for you guys to also consider.

Oh, that's a good lens to see it through. Thanks. So somewhat generally, I want to bring up the topic of evaluating the like qualification of the public benefit. Because I believe, as you have explicitly stated in the footnote for architectural distinction, like technically we have the ability to evaluate and accept or reject any of these. in practice by the time a project gets to us the developer has spent a ton of time talking to the staff to the community and community conferences to the plan commission and architectural review board and like already gotten this stuff approved and so I really like I wrestle with that a lot this idea like how How can we think about that? And I do think, obviously, we can still take the position we want to take. But it's a lot harder. And it's way more frustrating for the applicants or developers. And so I don't know if there's anything you can say about that in terms of how we could I don't know, like be involved earlier or, you know, I mean, the point obviously in everything you're doing is to make it somewhat less subjective so that that is less likely to happen, which I believe, I believe there's a ton of improvement here that feels like it might

work.

Yeah.

I mean, that's a really good point though, because it would come to us. And I am hoping that, like you said, the notes at the bottom, hopefully that that expands, like that's enough of a, enough of like some sort of description to a developer or, you know, like again, education of the plan commission ARB that like a pretty building isn't going to do it, you know, that it's got to be something that is distinctive and You know, so but I mean, I understand what you said, though. But I also want to be able to give developers value because if they bring us this beautiful building that is architecturally distinct. Oh, yeah. Like, you know, but making sure that, you know, making sure that that is part of the POD. But what if it's just, wow, that's really great. But do we think it's distinctive? And then we all are like, wow, it's really great. And I guess because ARB thought it was really great, we better say, you know, somewhat subjective.

I'm thinking even, because you put a lot there about architectural distinction. It can't be a square or a rectangle. That's pretty straightforward, I think, now. Even the green space one, I don't know what other ones feel slightly more. Maybe that's really kind of it. Maybe the rest, it really is that much more specific that those might be the only ones where it really becomes questionable.

I mean, you're always going to be a little bit at a chicken or an egg because you don't want to see it before all of the public input because then you're going to be saying, well, I really want to know what the community thinks about this. At the end of the day, I think it's very important to uphold the basis of our zoning regulations with you guys having the end say, because that is an important part of your legislative decision because a PUD is also essentially rezoning a property into a very specific zoning district for that specific property. And that's, That rezoning is something that you all have the ability and the say to do. Nobody else does. So that's going to, the way it's always going to be protected. Now there could be some more opportunities in the informal process. We have the conceptual review, the non-binding with the plan commission. So there could be something that we outside of this, you know, invite the, if that happens for a PUD, invite the city council to kind of have attend that meeting together or something of that nature. Yeah. But ultimately the decisions and comments that you make on a project are then going to be some of the best way of a future developer learning about what you care about. Yeah. So.

Well, and it might really only be those that are even so I think. This is a huge improvement, I think, from where I sit in terms of thinking about making the decisions. What happens if a CEA space is not occupied within six months?

Yes, then they would be in violation of the ordinance that approved their project.

And we would like put them to court, municipal court. We would

enforce our,

yes. Understood. I think that is all I had. I am definitely interested. I'm most interested in the, after what you said about rooftops, the preservation of existing buildings. I would really like to see us do everything we can to incentivize that. Yeah,

yeah. Gary, do you have any other comments or questions?

I do. So I think to the point that was raised about the city council or the board's role in this process, it occurs to me that maybe I think we all need to be, as Mrs. already alluded to, a little more proactive early on in the PUD process because I think What we've done in the past is kind of let it work all its way through. And by the time it got to the Port of Alderman, then I think as the point was made, it was to some extent the horses left the barn. And it seemed strange for us at the very last minute after the staff and architecture review board to then say, well, we're not that crazy about the project. I think it's sort of incumbent on us. We have a representative on the plan commission and I'm guilty of this as anybody, but I think we ought to look at these projects as they come along. And right now, if we have some concerns, we ought to express those to Susan. So she knows that so she can, in a sense, to some extent, represent us at the plan commission. And it's the same way with, you know, some of the other meetings that are held. We ought to show up at those. I know in the past when I've gone, I've always thought, well, I'm not going to say anything because that's not right. It's going to come to me eventually anyway. Well, a lot of times by the time it gets there, it's really too late to make a meaningful difference. So I think we need to think about having a more proactive role for us in the whole process so that it does become meaningful by the time we get there and nobody can say, where you guys been? So I did want to ask you about enforcement a little bit. It's already been addressed, but I'm still wondering about, you know, our model example is probably like the Clarendale where we insisted that the Clarendal put retail on the first floor. I think assuming that if they couldn't use it for anybody else, surely they would rent it to somebody. Well, so we've had years go by. We finally, I think are going to get here a tenant in there, but it's still, I think was part of the frustration is that even though we said whatever it was, 1500 square feet on the first floor have to be retail. They didn't do it. And I think their reason was just couldn't find anybody. And, but again, And I think on our more recent projects, we've tried to put time limits in. But I just wonder, should there be any generalized language about what happens? And again, going to our municipal court doesn't seem to ever be a good answer.

So beyond municipal court, we also have the ability because they would be in violation of their ordinance. So if they're in violation, we have the ability to not issue other permits to them. So that would really come up. as a much larger hammer than municipal court, probably in most of these cases. For an example, Bemis in place that was not done with a requirement that their commercial was occupied within six months. Had that requirement been in their ordinance, we could say we're not going to issue them any more residential occupancy permits, which would really impact their bottom line in their business, so then they would be motivated. So I would say having the six-month provision and the other provisions about how the CEA spaces are actually developed within the ordinance will allow us to use some of those other mechanisms that will be more impactful moving forward.

One final one is I usually, when I see a typo, I call June, but I forgot to. But I would point out on, let's see, on page 10, section D, public benefits, the first sentence uses a word which I wish I could use in a sentence, commiserate. But I'm sure that's not what we meant there. I'm sure it's supposed to be commensurate.

Yes.

Thank you. I'll be here all

week.

That's it for me.

You didn't catch the center of Clayton correction. Who caught that? We don't

have commissary. It's

like a little bit of my pet peeve. It drives me crazy when people say the Clayton Center. I was like, can we please change that?

I got a couple of questions and a comment. And with the comment, I know I missed some meetings, so you guys may have covered this, but given how detailed and how important each of these tiers would be, it would be nice to probably have them in like a work session on a Friday to kind of sit down and just talk about whether we all agreed with them before we got to the ordinance stage. And again, if you guys did that, then I will pull that back, which is just a... comment a couple things on the flow so if I'm in tier 2 I don't need nothing's available to me under tier 1 other than the priority

No, things are available to you. So we'll go to the framework page. So if you're a Tier 2, you have to get a total of three public benefits. One of those three needs to be a priority benefit. That priority benefit could come from any tier. At least two of the three have to be a Tier 2 or higher. So theoretically, you could have... A tier one public benefit. That's also your priority benefit. So if you have a native pollinator garden and then you could select a tier two and a tier three, so you could have one from each tier. You could have two tier twos.

Okay. That's helpful. Yep. I'm really thoughtful about, again, kind of going off this green space thing, about trees and shade, which we don't have enough of downtown. And we're never going to have the shades like we have neighborhoods. But one of the things that was... Part of it's listed in Tier 1, and I appreciate the explanation, but more of it meaning, you know, like keystone plants and the other one being kind of water retention. But I'm wondering... Where would be the requirement to have any sort of like trees and shade and ground cover in Tier 2 or Tier 3? Is that not – I didn't see it in here. And I just – I really want to be thoughtful that we don't have a downtown that has no shade and no trees, especially in a brand new – well, any development.

That

would just be part of our streets game.

Yeah, well, the streetscape will always be there. I would say that's a little bit of a bigger, so it's a little bit bigger question because when we redid the base zoning, the idea is that we don't have a lot of PUDs moving forward. So I wouldn't really rely on the PUD as the way to get trees introduced into your downtown because it should. If everything goes perfect as planned, because it always does, we'll just have one or two over the next five years or so. So if introducing trees and canopy coverage to our commercial districts is really a goal that we want to see on a larger scale, then that would be something that we would need to address elsewhere, not in the PUD. If just the concept of supporting some trees as a one-off is something that you want to value, then you could add that into the tiers.

Gotcha. Well, I will speak for me that it's something I generally would value with development in the city. I can't speak obviously for the other six of us, but – I just think every time I go to the art fair and I'm like roasting under the sun, we're never going to have full canopy cover. But the idea of like having more of that, I think would make it more welcoming. But I hear your point for this. Like it's this would be a one off. Hey, give it to us. We'll give you points as opposed to this more general discussion point. And because Becky asked for opinions, I wouldn't be opposed to going to silver gold from silver. But I really want to I don't know enough about them to know what you get from going from one to the other. So I'd want to see that first before I would want to change what you're already recommending.

Yeah, yeah, we could look into it a little bit more. I mean, there is kind of as there is a bit of a range under the different ones and there's different ways for you to get the points. So it's hard for me to say this would be the exact impact of how people would choose to meet the lead qualifications under different projects. But we can definitely provide a little bit more explanation or information on the various levels of lead if that would be helpful.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Yeah, just to piggyback on that, I am also interested in the gold lead certification, just because it's been a minute since I reviewed all that stuff. I do think it's just based a lot on percentages, right? Of like post-consumer, pre-consumer material in your building materials and things, right? Like one has to be higher. So it might be good just to better understand like what that next step is. And because I do think it is kind of hard to do gold if it's a ground up building, if I remember that

right. Right. There are definitely types of projects and sizes of projects that can vary the different levels can have a greater impact depending on the type of project. So that's where I would probably want to do a little bit more research about the typical type of PUD we would get and how that might be impacted because most of the time we're getting a PUD because they want to build more than what we allow, and we allow a pretty large amount of building in most of our commercial zoning districts. So we would want to understand with that in mind what we might look at.

Yeah, because I do think a lot of it has to do with your site too. So again, there's a lot of that I think we need to look at, but it might be smart to look at, you know, to Susan's point of doing like maybe gold certification from your HVAC, you know, rules and stuff like that, that could help us. Yeah. But then I just had a quick question with the consumer emphasis area. Is there a possible way for us to, like, require them to, like, at least white box the space so that – Build out the space now. It's not as cost effective, but could we require that?

We can. So I've identified that as a public benefit so they could offer to do it. But that is something that you could just make as a requirement. I mean, it does... I think if that's really important, then we should just make it a requirement. It will impact the way that they really... set up and develop their projects just because do they white box it as a retailer, do they white box that as a restaurant? What are the impacts if they choose one and then get a tenant interest from another? Those types of things we would want to consider.

I guess I'm looking more like drywalling the finished ceiling, like have your electrical in there, just things that could help. get that next step, like just a more viable option for people when they move

in. You have some specifications around requirements for a CEA. It doesn't use the term white box and I don't really know what white box is, except does it mean you have white drywall? So it looks like a white box.

Yeah. Like you don't have studs. It usually requires like a finished ceiling, like your electrical, like, you know, every like 12 feet or like whatever. It just makes it easier for people to like move in rather than having like metal studs and an exposed ceiling and things like that. I don't know. I think when, you know, hearing all the issues of getting retail in, this might be something we should require because again, when you're looking at a huge building, that's not that much of an additional cost to these developers that I think that might be something that's important. And then really everything else was answered. Oh, the rooftop activation. Actually, I had that underlined as well. You know, you gave the example of the AC hotel. Is that for public use or is it like private because like the hotels

using that? There's a public, the bar and restaurant on the roof is public.

Open to the public. Yeah. So it just has to be open to the public.

Right.

I remember some PUDs, it was like our bar is private, but then there's a public space just adjacent to it. Is that the same thing? For the existing hotel? Or just like for this use, when you're saying like for public use?

No, if the area would have to be publicly accessible, it wouldn't be restricted.

Okay. But like you have to at least pretend like you're going to buy something.

Right, like... So does that qualify?

Right, that's, yeah.

Does the existing hotel qualify?

No, just, like, the idea of, like, a public space. I know we went through, like, one, like, hotel. They were like, we're going to have green space up on the roof and anyone's welcome. And then we're like...

At the World News, remember the World News site had, like, they had that base above the garage that they were going to make public.

Right, and then we're like, do you want middle schoolers going up there? You know what I mean? And so they were like, probably not. So just,

like, how do we... I mean, those are the questions that you asked. But if it's publicly accessible, then if they built the project and I walked over there one day and I randomly tried to go to that space and they said no, but in their ordinance it's a publicly accessible space, then... Okay.

Seems tricky. I don't think everything else was answered, but thank you.

Thanks. I just have a couple of questions. I think you answered like how often this process is utilized and you said one to two times, hopefully over the next five years?

Yeah. Well, that would be the goal. Off the top of my head, there's a lot of sites, especially in downtown, that we would say are all ready for development. But our hope is that a lot of them can be developed under the base zoning now rather than going through the PUD process.

Okay. And then my other question, not having had any experience with the point system And hearing that maybe it wasn't the most effective as I'm sure it was intended when it was designed to be super streamlined and effective. Is this what we have here modeled off of a standard or something that other cities are using? And has it been proven to have eased the process? Or is this something that we have designed? I mean, I'm not arguing that it's very lovely and succinct and clear, but... Like, is this a proven process or are we piloting it ourselves?

I mean, if you look across the nation, people do it all sorts of ways. So it's very much a hybrid. I would say in a lot of the research, most, a lot of cities go even further away from what we have. There's a lot of planned developments or planning to development zoning across the city that is established in an even much more vague discretionary purpose where the Council or the board, whoever has control there says, does it meet these five. You know, goals for a development and it doesn't meet the size. And so that's kind of going back to where we were pre point system. So there isn't a specific community that we completely modeled off of. It was looking a little bit more at communities that I've seen. similar types of development to us that have planned development zoning, and then trying to provide a little bit of this balance of there's a desire from our council and our community to understand the regulations a little bit more, but also providing that flexibility and discretion.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. Thanks. And then my last question was about the gold versus silver issue. LEED certification and wondering if there is an example of a city or cities that have switched to a minimum standard of gold and how that is working and, you know, does it stymie development and what is the feedback on that? So for me to really consider shifting, I don't have a real understanding of what the difference is, but I think it would be helpful to know how it plays out in other places too.

Yeah, I mean, I agree. I worry a little bit. Like you said, not stymieing development. I mean, I would be in favor of maybe going forward unless there's some opposition to that. I mean, if the council wants to wait and get more information about legal versus silver, otherwise we can... move forward. Becky, I don't know if you have strong feelings about just because I yeah, I just I don't understand really the difference very well between LEED Gold and LEED Solar without having that expertise. I like the idea of being able, I guess people being able to take the extra step on their own. But I think you do raise a good point about why not just raising the level here in general.

Yeah. And I mean, it's a standard that they can get out of by doing other things that we've prioritized. I guess, I mean, I would, again, like it's 110 point scale. You need 50 points to get silver and 60 points to get gold and 80 to get platinum. And so like, we're only talking about a 10 point difference. on a 110 point scale. That doesn't seem prohibitive to me necessarily. So, I mean, I'd be, and depending on, I don't know if there's any other things, I don't what, if there are other things that folks wanna consider making priorities, or would be open to that. And was there something else that we wanted to think about? Well, I mean, I thought the white

box idea, I think is a great idea just because

I'm

continuously concerned that everything is just left like totally empty. But I think Ana, it's a good point that, you know, we also don't want to make sure that they white box it so that, oh shoot, we made it for retail and now it's not good for restaurant. You know, and that's where I don't understand why how different white boxing is for one versus the other, like a retail

versus restaurant. Typically we don't really do white boxing. Um, our codes right now so that would be another thing we'd have to run past our building official on how we would handle that because it does when you white box it impacts your how um your fire protections laid out so if you do have a ceiling or not a ceiling and you're occupied or not occupied then that changes your sprinkler head so there's a little bit of a ripple effect on how things are then left in the temporary space so i would i would want to do a little bit more of an evaluation um because i also wonder when you think about the price, it might not be that much. But is that the most impactful way of those extra $30,000 or whatever it might be from a developer to be spent on the project? So that's kind of where I do think it could be really impactful. But I also want us to think about the flip side of where we're asking those dollars to go and if it's really worth it. So that would probably be one that I would if we want to go down a path, I would rather us provide you with some more information to consider And similarly with LEED, I think it would be best if we provided some more information for you guys on the

difference. Figure out the cost implications. I was just looking around and it's somewhere between $2 and $8 a square foot is what it costs. So on a project like Beamer...

Go from silver to gold?

Yes. And so for a project like Bemis in place, that's just under 500,000 square feet. If you split the difference and say it's five, you're looking at about $2.5 million in added costs to go from silver to gold. On the World Trade Center, it would have been just over a million dollars in additional costs. And if you remember, he had a gap And so we ended up doing the Chapter 100. So I think we need to get a handle on the cost because I think the question ultimately will be, as tight as these projects have been here, is that jump from silver to gold something we're willing to incentivize or help with? Because that's what they'll end up

asking

for in the end.

Is it LEED certified for just the building? Because I know you can do mechanical, you can do electrical, you can do site. What is the LEED that we're requiring?

Yeah, it's for the building. So the site... really leads site neighborhood design is not really applicable for us because everybody is in a grid. And so then you get a million points and you're then walking distance of things. So yes, it's the building the way it's written right now. So does that not apply to the HVAC? It's part of that. That would be a component of them certifying their building or getting points.

Yeah. Like the system they use, if it's really efficient or whatever would get them a certain number of points. Right. Yeah. Is the.

I had a couple more thoughts after listening to you all. I think it would be good to look into the gold and understand exactly what that entailed and also look at where gold has been done. I remember this from years ago working on something differently. We were very, very close. I would like to go more informed about that. When we talked about the rooftop and you have on here the more activating the sidewalk space and maybe if we're maybe that's what from your comments maybe that's what we should be prioritizing trying i think right now it's just a uh i don't think it's prioritized right um provision of expanded sidewalk infrastructure in the business district yeah maybe that's something we want to prioritize if we're thinking about the rooftop and you made the good point that doesn't bring people down the street level jeff's comment about the trees even if it's listed, it puts the idea out there to developers to put trees in versus them having to bring it to us. And it would not necessarily need to be something that we prioritize. And seems like there was one other thing. Yeah, I was also curious. So those are things I would think that we need to think about. And the other thing was you've got on here that the shared parking agreement, parking spaces within 500 feet. How did you come up with 500 feet? Is that where people refuse to walk further or?

That's what we currently use. So within our parking code, it requires 500 feet walking distance is what we use to say you would meet that parking requirement. So that's a carryover. Okay,

that's a carry over. It seems that it could be a little bit further, but I don't know if anyone else would agree with me on that.

Yeah.

Any further thoughts? I mean, I don't know how, is this something, Ana, that you would recommend exploring before we move further with this and then give us some information? Yeah, I think it's one to look at jumps.

lead to gold and trees and, and white boxing just in general, we like these things. And it's another to think about it in the context of the scale and type of project that we get under a PUD. So I think that's something that will be really important. So instead of just talking to you about what lead gold means, I want to kind of talk to you about what lean lead gold would mean for a size project that it fits under a PUD, um, and those sorts of things. So, okay. So...

And I heard at least four topics. Preservation of existing buildings, lead gold, trees. And I mean, if you think at first, Jeff, I was like, it's downtown. There's not going to be like a bunch of trees. But I mean, there are some trees already around like the county buildings and we're going to have a lot of property available for development. And if somebody consolidates it and could put in an area with shade... That would be awesome. So I'd be open to that. And then the CEA requirement, right? Those are the things I heard.

Activated sidewalk space if we're talking about the roofs.

so um we'll dive deeper i guess into those topics and we um will i guess keep the public hearing open just for and then you'll just bring it i mean because i'm assuming it'll take a some time to look at that

yeah um yes i mean we might need uh Go ahead. I'm sorry. We might not just leave the public hearing open forever.

Leave it open. How much time do you think we need?

Well,

put me

on the spot here.

June 9th or 23rd if we go to a date certain.

Well, I would like to be able to provide some of this to you guys in advance in your packets because I think it would be helpful for you to be able to sit on it for a little while so that that would probably do the second June for that matter.

And we are going to have a couple council members missing at the first meeting in June.

Okay.

So, right? I mean, you guys are both gone the beginning of June, correct?

Yeah, I mean, you can't turn all this around. Yeah,

let's go to June 23rd and then we'll re-advertise.

Right, yeah, later. We don't need to re-advertize.

Just to be on the safe side. The Brentwood case out there.

You can... We'll figure that part out. We'll do it. Yeah.

Okay. So we'll postpone this to June 23rd.

I move that consideration of bill number 7156 be postponed until June 23, council meeting. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Thank you, Anna. Thanks a lot. The next item on our agenda is our consent agenda. I will open the discussion. Are there any questions or comments on any of the items in the consent agenda?

Except one, and it may be some dismissal. On the... On the minutes, on the back part of the minutes, there's minutes from the 28th of April still, the second meeting. Was that on purpose?

No.

Okay.

That's on my notes. It was included in error. Sorry. It's page, if you see them, it's page 26 and 27 of the packet, and then page 7 and 8 of the minutes.

That's correct. Yep.

Anyone else? Council Member Buse? I move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

Any discussion?

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

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

Aye.

Councilmember Jeffery Yorg?

Councilmember York?

Aye.

Councilmember Waldman? Aye. CouncilMember Betsy Meyland-Smith?

Councilmember Waldman? Aye. CouncilMember Malin-Smith?

Aye.

Mayor McAndrew?

Aye. Thank you. All right, moving on to new business. The next item on our agenda is an intergovernmental agreement with the city of Shrewsbury related to our fire training center.

Yes, the central core cities, which are Brentwood, Clayton, Richmond Heights and Maplewood jointly operate the Central Core Fire Training Division or CCTD. This is a collaborative program designed to deliver consistent high quality fire service training across jurisdictions. For the 2026 training year, the Shrewsbury Fire Department has requested to join the program as an active participant. The CCTD provides a comprehensive suite of multi-agency training opportunities, including live fire evolutions, structured monthly training plans and access to shared instructional resources. CCTD cost structure is based on a per firefighter rate and reflects the specific services provided. Costs are allocated according to the time, instructional resources and administrative support required to deliver the training. For 2026, the cost for Shrewsbury Shrewsbury's participation is $730 per firefighter for a total program amount of $13,870. This total includes the established fee for the use of the training tower. Staff recommends approval of the 2026 Shrewsbury Intergovernmental Agreement for participation in the Central Corps Fire Training Division. And just so everyone is aware, all four cities have to approve this. And I believe we may be the last one. So it's been approved by Maplewood, Richmond Heights and Brentwood as well.

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

The only question I have since it just opened Maplewood, Richmond Heights, us, Brentwood, we all paid for it. But Shrewsbury is going to basically get to use it literally right after it got built and not pay for any of the construction? They're paying

a

premium. Okay.

Yeah, they're paying a higher rate. We had an extensive exercise where we broke down the cost for the four cities and then what we would charge non-member agencies. So when I say non-member, not a core part of that central... core training division so they're signing on to cctd to kind of get some of these services and get access to the tower but they're not a true member or owner

got you so they're in effect going to pay more per month or per quarter than we're paying

they're paying more to use the tower than we pay

so over time based on i assume the

calculations come up expenses that they're going to pay for the instruction uh for the the battalion chief that that puts on that training for those types of resources those are consistent with the what the what the rest of us pay where they're paying the premiums for the tower itself, where they're not in order. Okay. That's all I had. Thank you. We did want to factor that in.

Anyone else? All right. Council Member Buse.

I introduce Bill No. 7157, approving intergovernmental agreement to allow the City of Shrewsbury to join the Central Fire Training Division Program as an active participant to be read for the first time by title only.

Second. Any discussion, Mr. City Attorney?

Bill number 7157, first reading, an ordinance approving an intergovernmental agreement among the cities of Clayton, Brentwood, Richmond Heights, Maplewood, and Shrewsbury for coordinated fire training services.

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 7157 on the day of its introduction. Second.

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

I introduce bill number 7157, approving an intergovernmental agreement to allow the city of Shrewsbury to join the Central Fire Training Division program as an active participant to be read for the second time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7157, second reading and consideration for adoption, an ordinance approving an intergovernmental agreement among the cities of Clayton, Brentwood, Richmond Heights, Maplewood, and Shrewsbury for coordinated fire training services.

Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel? Aye. Council member Gary Feder? Aye. Councilmember Jeffery Yorg?

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

Aye.

Councilmember Waldman? Aye. CouncilMember Betsy Meyland-Smith? Aye. Mayor McAndrew?

Councilmember Waldman? Aye. CouncilMember Malin Smith? Aye. Mayor McAndrew?

Aye.

Thank you.

The next item on our agenda is amending our contract related to the Clayton Municipal Maintenance Facility.

Yes, the City Council previously approved a construction contract with the Lawrence Group doing business as integrate construction partners in the amount of $11,710,000, along with authorization for the use of $200,000 of the project contingency for the municipal maintenance facility. The overall project program budget previously prepared by the city's owner representative Navigate Building Solutions and approved for the project included a total owner contingency of approximately $422,000 within the total project budget of approximately 14.87 million. At the time of the contract award, staff requested authorization for 200,000 of that contingency for construction administration purposes while retaining the remaining contingency capacity within the overall program budget. As construction has progressed, several unforeseen conditions and project coordination items have resulted in additional project costs. Approved change orders currently total approximately $170,385 with additional proposed and anticipated change orders identified and those were included. in the packet. Staff is requesting authorization to utilize the remaining contingency funds already included within the previously approved total project program budget and recommends approval of the ordinance authorizing an additional $277,000 in contingency and project allowance authority for the Clayton Municipal Maintenance Facility project. And Matt Malek, our Director of Public Works, is here this evening if you have any questions.

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

Um, is this I just want to be clear about whether the contingency is going to Lawrence group or navigate?

Lawrence group? Contractor? Yeah.

So it's the construction contract is like there's already, because it's not over, right?

Right. There's kind of two budgets when you think about this. We talk about total program budget, which is the budget for the entire project that Navigate had prepared. And then we had a construction contract we approved just with the general contractor for that, the biggest portion of the project. We are still within the overall total program budget that had a $422,000 assumed contingency. When we approved the general contractor, we said let's put $200,000 of that for this for now and see how we track. Okay. That way we kept it available in the total program budget. Now we're coming back and saying, yeah, we're probably going to come closer to using what was originally planned. So we'll go ahead and try to ask for that now.

And how far would you say they're in construction? Because we're going from 200 in contingency to 370, and we have a total of 422? Correct. Contingency?

So if you look just linearly on a calendar, you're probably 60% of the way in. We are still anticipating to finish construction this December with current change orders. But a lot of the unforeseen conditions were things that were in the ground. As we were progressing out of the ground now and going vertical, a lot more knowns. Poor

surprises. Expected. Yeah. Understood. Knock on wood. Likely. All right. Thank you very much.

Anyone else? I just had a quick question because this is the first project I've really seen through the city. Do we have any review process after these projects are done just so that we can learn from them and say, I know because we had to add so much to the budget and then merge so much into our contingency. Is there a process the city does when evaluating a finished project? We learn from all these unexpected, unforeseen things.

Not a structured process. I mean, I think a lot of it goes to similar departments will manage similar projects. So it kind of becomes institutional knowledge that's passed down really. And Navigate has been a good resource on this project. They work in the industry and see it on a lot of different projects and they bring that expertise as the owner's rep on this project. So not a formal process other than what we learn along the way. Thanks.

Anyone else?

I asked one thing and it's, I'm just, I'm not tracking the numbers and I'm sure I'm just missing something. So in the memo, it talks about the total owner contingency was 422. But if I take 422 minus 200,000 contingency already approved, now you're at 222. but then we're talking 277. And when I add 222 and 227, I don't get 422. That's correct. So I'm trying to understand what I'm missing.

Yep. So it was a longer, obviously report there. And we were trying to capture a few things. So one thing we moved into integrates contract is the onsite signage before we had that as a, in the program budget, but not in the contract, the general contractor's contract. Okay. We said for coordination purposes, with all the work that was going on, we said let's wrap that into the project. So we kind of gave them more work, claimed some money from our total program budget and put it into their contract. So that was just kind of a shifting of dollars. That was $10,000 of it. Then the $45,000 to get you up to the 277 was work we had already budgeted in the operating budget for this year for fueling system repairs. The canopy with the gas dispensers was intended to remain in place and just be reconnected. Part of the construction, it came to be realized that the conduits that connect that back to the building had totally rotted and just, they weren't reusable. So in order to make that connection as part of this project, it made sense to say, okay, let's not wait till this project is done. Let's do the fueling system repairs and have it coordinated under this contractor as part of the project. So we took that money that was already in the operating budget and said, let's allocate it to this contractor, have them coordinate it while they're on site doing this work.

Gotcha. So the $45,000 is, I'm going to call it new money in quotes. It wasn't originally part of this, but we've pulled it from someplace else. Yeah, it was

already allocated in the budget, but it wasn't originally part of this total program. By the budget,

do you mean like our CIP city budget, or are you talking about like the budget for the project?

The

operating budget

for

FY26.

The actual city budget. It's already been appropriated. We're just moving it over. Gotcha. We're taking care of it now and putting it under this contract with Integrate.

Okay, so we're approving kind of all the shifting of that along with the contract. Makes sense to do it under one contract. Lots of budgets

there.

Thanks, Matt.

All right. Council Member Buse.

I introduce Bill No. 7158, authorizing an additional $277,000 in contingency in Project Allowance Authority for the Clayton Municipal Maintenance Facility project to be read for the first time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7158, first reading and ordinance authorizing additional contingency funds and expenditures for the Clayton Municipal Maintenance Facility project.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Council Member Buse? I move that the council give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7158 on the day of its introduction.

Second.

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

I introduce bill number 7158, authorizing an additional $277,000 in contingency and project allowance authority for the Clayton Municipal Maintenance Facility project to be read for the second time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7158, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance authorizing additional contingency funds and expenditures for the Clayton Municipal Maintenance Facility 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 Yorg?

Aye.

Councilmember Waldman? Aye. Councilmember Betsy Meyland-Smith? Aye. Mayor McAndrew? Aye. Thank you.

Councilmember Waldman? Aye. Councilmember Malin-Smith? Aye. Mayor McAndrew? Aye. Thank you.

The last item on our agenda is our CIP, a resolution for our five-year capital improvements plan.

Thank you, Mayor. So I will go through a few slides here with the 2026 or the 2027 through 31 CIP. And this is really similar to what we talked about during our retreat. And so we haven't made really any substantial changes to any of the projects on here. So you've seen a lot of this before, but for the public, I'm going to walk through a little of what to expect over the next five years to be very clear about what you're approving tonight with the resolution. It is just approving the plan or adopting the plan. It doesn't actually allocate or appropriate any money. That happens when we adopt the fiscal year 27 budget. You'll allocate the money for all those fiscal year 27 specific items. this is really for planning purposes. So you know what to expect over the next five years, the public knows what to expect and staff knows what to expect. So we know exactly what we're going to be purchasing from a capital standpoint. And we're trying to project what some of those revenues are going to be. So once you get out past the first year in the CIP, you're really dealing with a lot of projections. Things may shift projects may need to move around a little bit. We try to stick to the plan as much as possible. But just again, it's, it's passed by resolution. It isn't binding when you, prove the operating budget, that's when you'll actually allocate funding. So getting into the CIP itself, you can see the fiscal year proposed where we think we're going to end up. Surplus and deficits are typically going to shift based on the size of the projects, very similar to what you see in the IRF a lot of times. So we've got some bigger projects that are putting up bigger numbers in fiscal year 26 through fiscal year 28 here. What I want to point to, though, is down at the bottom, which is the fund balance. So this is how much money you have in the bank after you receive all your revenues and pay everything out. You can see that we're showing some strength here within the capital improvement plan. I'll talk about projects in a minute, but we are really in maintenance mode. So when you look at the CIP, you're not gonna see brand new shiny projects occurring here. What we're really trying to do is maintain what we already have. So we're really heavy into street resurfacing and reconstruction, a lot of parks projects to keep things up in our parks. The good thing is about parks projects is we offset a lot of that with municipal park grants. So we're thoughtful about when we schedule those projects over time so that grant funding is available when we actually go to carry those out. Some of the other things that are skewing the numbers a little bit are like the tornado projects So we are showing the 85% reimbursement for the tornado projects that are within the capital fund. So a lot of that is offset. So it doesn't play as big a role in here as you would think. But what I'll show you in just a second is kind of the future outlook. So while the fund balance looks great through fiscal year 31, as we've talked about for the last few years, we have a lot of very large projects that are looming in fiscal year 32 and beyond. So- There'll be a lot of discussions at Citizen Finance Committee. We're going to go through the CIP with them on Friday morning, and we're going to talk about some of those future expenses and expectations. As far as the recommended projects within this CIP, as I said, very, very heavy and just simple maintenance work. So alley repairs, asphalt overlays, facility improvements. This is replacing mostly components within our buildings, microsurfacing, The big one here, just so you know, when you see the $5.1 million is about a $4 million placeholder for the police building. That's something we're dealing with insurance on right now. But that massive slate roof on that building took a lot of damage during the tornado. So we're trying to figure out exactly what that replacement looks like. But again, on the revenue side, you're going to see that reimbursed either through insurance or through FEMA. Microsurfacing. Parks and Rec projects here, again, offset by municipal grants. Pavement rejuvenators, sidewalks, curb lighting, street lighting. Pretty big expense here. A lot of that, again, has to do with the tornado, but then also some of the neighborhood repairs that we're seeing. And then you can see specific tornado repairs as well. So a lot of projects within fiscal 27 and those future years. But again, we're looking at a lot of maintenance here. Future capital expenses. So when we get beyond the back years of the CIP, you can see where these numbers really start to balloon on us. A lot of the road reconstructions, those mill and overlays start to become due in fiscal year 34. So back in fiscal year 14 was when we issued the general obligation bonds to redo all the streets. So if you look just beyond 34, you're going to see those streets come due again because all of our pavement is on a 21-year life cycle. We may have extended that a little bit through the microsurfacing and that pavement rejuvenator, but just know right off this Right off the edge of this future capital expenses, these numbers really start to balloon, especially when you're looking at the residential mill and overlay. The other big threat right now is the street lighting system. So in Ward 2, I know we got the email today about Wydown Forest and some outages over there. Our system is in pretty bad shape citywide, so we're patching things together wherever we can. But we have some really big street lighting expenditures that are going to come. This is just kind of scratching the surface here. You're looking at another You know, big number. We're looking at an eight-figure number that's on the backside of that total that's going to come due for street lighting. So just to give everybody an idea of what's coming, you know, there's quite a bit in expenses. The municipal garage, I'll also point that out in fiscal year 32, which is right outside the five-year CIP. That's going to be nearly a half a million dollars. We'll see how costs escalate over time. but I would expect to pay about that. We didn't include it in the municipal garage project that you just approved the contingency on because it had some useful life left. So we wanted to go ahead and get the last six years out of that before we replaced the roof. But again, all maintenance stuff, we really don't have big projects programmed in here. In the meantime, before you get there with the fund balance, again, you do have some money that could be made available for new projects, for new things here. But just know that in the future, We're going to get to a place where the projects are really going to balloon on us. The revenue is not going to be able to keep pace. And so we're going to have some conversations about general obligation bonds and what the next one looks like to replace that 2014 issuance when we reconstructed all the streets.

David, I'm assuming all the 3033 and 34, they're all future value adjusted based on where we are now. So that's the $4.9 million is what we expect to pay in 2033? That's correct. Do we know what inflation number we're using for those? I want to

say we use 3% on the inflation number.

Unlike streetlights, I'm just trying to understand when we look at the $4.9 million, is it based off of an expected 3%, 4%, 8% inflation?

For anybody online, that answer was 3% for the inflation number. But we do look at that every year and adjust those numbers as needed. So that's kind of where we're at with the five-year CIP. Again, we're really in maintenance mode here. We're looking good as far as our fund balance in the short term. But as you stretch that out into future years, we're going to have some big expenses come due. So having some money left in the bank to address those when they come up is going to be important for us. So with that, I'll take any questions. I didn't go through all the specific projects. It is all contained within the packet. We do have a few unfunded projects that are listed down at the very bottom there. And so we'll have discussions, I'm sure, with Parks and Rec on things like sand volleyball to figure out a few years from now if we do a project like that. So we do have some items parked in that unfunded list. But for the most part, everything that's been funded is strictly for maintenance. So that'll open it up to any questions.

Any questions or comments?

The only other question I had was on the white-out median restoration. I'm sure you've answered this four or five times already, but I'll ask it again because I can't remember. The white-out median and street lighting restoration we've got for 2027, we're expecting that $4 million in change to be partly covered, or is that all us? So for

the white-out medium

restoration?

The

$2.2 million and the $1.2 million. 1.92 so

on street lighting and on the white on restoration we expect 85 reimbursement for the street lighting and then the irrigation within the white on median what we don't expect any reimbursement for would be any kind of stump grinding that takes place in those medians the tree replanting any type of landscaping they won't pay for any vegetation at this point

okay So the numbers we see here are what we're going to pay out, but somewhere higher up. See the offsetting red? The offsetting red. Okay. That's what I figured. I just wanted to ask. Thanks. That's correct.

Just a quick question. We had talked about adding some like design fees for Gay Avenue for the traffic calming study or whatnot. Is that something we can add?

It is. So the Gay Avenue traffic calming is down in the unfunded projects. Okay. We have it listed for design in fiscal year 30 and construction in fiscal year 31. I've had some discussions with Matt Malik about it. We think the design cost is actually probably quite a bit higher than what's listed on that unfunded. If you wanted to put We would use a figure like 50,000 for design may come in a little bit under that may come in over that. But we're going to have to go to a third party engineer to figure this out because that street is going to be more complicated than just putting in like a speed table. And so the number you see here kind of reflects what it would cost to do a speed table or similar treatment to the street. But on Gay Avenue, it's probably going to be a little bit more complicated than that. And when you start to disturb a lot of curb line and drainage and things, your engineering fees really start to go up. So...

Right. Cause we did do a speed study on that street, right?

We did.

And then everything that we discovered is that there's really is like a speeding issue.

There is an issue that what we need to work with a traffic engineer on is what's the best solution for that type of street. It's not your standard residential street. The volume is much higher. Um, so, you know, putting down speed tables may not make the most sense like we did like on demand. Um, whereas it's really the only area where we have it right now. Um, we're going to have to get probably more creative with it. And again, if you impact the curb lines, which may end up happening, then you have other drainage implications and you really start to see an inflation of the engineering costs. But $50,000 would be the amount we would recommend if you wanted to put it in fiscal year 27, at least for the design portion. And then that design would inform us on what the actual construction costs may be for those various improvements. And then we put that in

I mean, is there a way, like, cause you're saying the design fee or, you know, the 50,000 for design fee, you know, for all the things you talked about, but like, what if that's not needed? It could

be under that. So we're just trying to figure out a placeholder amount. It could be anywhere between 20 and 80. That's what I was going to add is that I

think it's, the design is kind of broken into two pieces of the overall project and three it's analysis of existing conditions, doing a preliminary engineering design to see what might be the right fit of treatment for the area. And then from there you, produce your construction drawing. So I think that 50 gets us well on our way of understanding what might go there to be able to put a cost estimate together for design and construction in a future year.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, I feel like we've been telling the residents over there over and I mean, it's just it's a very unusual street. People drive way, way too fast. You know, there was a small moment there where maybe Gay Field wasn't going to be there anymore. They were going to explore other options. But that's clearly not the case. Like the schools, you know, the high school is moving forward with enhancements at Gay Field. So the traffic problem is definitely not going away. I would think actually it will get worse. Yeah. I would certainly be supportive of some design fees for next year because we've definitely met with people and talked to people from many, many times about that issue. And I wish there was a simpler solution. I'm

supportive of that.

Thanks for bringing it up. Kind of one other question since we're adding stuff or not adding stuff. After the Hanley House opening last week, there's a couple comments here and there about Hanley House maybe opening next year. Do we need to allocate some money to make for the fire suppression or at least fix the wallpaper and plaster if that's actually a plan? Or is that expected to be like, we'll open it up if – and you and I have talked a little bit about this, David – Is all of that contingent on money being raised, whether it actually opens up? And we don't need to think about it.

There's no concrete plan to reopen it or we don't know what that looks like. I know that was stated during all of the event and that sort of thing. But I think there's a lot of work to do to figure out what that looks like Okay, so it's not something we need to put money away for now to try to get it ready. The other thing that we're trying to figure out is what the donations through those events and other things look like. We need to really look at what the fundraising has produced for Hanley House and figure out how much of this is actually offset. And then we'll prioritize projects based on that. and you will see the roof project on the hopefully the next agenda we're trying to get that all finalized

um councilmember waldman do you want to make a motion to add the design piece for the gay avenue traffic calming project to the five-year cip

Yes, I make a motion to add a line item for the design fees for a traffic calming study slash engineering project for Gate Avenue to be added to fiscal year 27 planning.

The amount of $50,000? And

the amount of $50.000.

I'll second that because I never get to.

All those in favor? Any opposed? Great. Thank you. With that change,

Council Member Buse. I move to approve resolution number 202614 as amended, approving the five-year capital improvement plan for the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget.

Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The vote passes 7-0. We have come to the end of our agenda. We can go around. If anybody has anything of note they'd like to report on in the last couple weeks. If not, feel free to pass.

I'll be quick. I'm not going to totally pass, but I won't say much. We did have a sustainability advisory committee meeting and of course it was jam-packed because Deb was running it. A couple of the things she brought up was she's contacted Washington University and worked with David, I think, about their circulator, their their car circuit, they provide transportation from WashU into part of downtown Clayton. And so looking at the number of WashU students who are in the city, and there's probably a faculty and other people too, there's discussion or she's trying to get there to be a discussion about circulating it down Maryland as well to get to the restaurants and everything else. And several of our restaurants also use the bear books. Is that what they're called? Things like that. So again, the idea being fewer cars, less traffic and more circulation of people in our downtown area. Wonderful. Something else that I was not aware of is Oak Knoll has their Osage Circle Tree Marker Tony here? No. Which I guess it's American Sycamore. I don't know a lot about it, but I can't wait to go up and see what it is. It looked beautiful from the picture. Really cool.

It's huge too. The circle, like the circle area. I never, I thought it would be like, I didn't know what to expect, but it's pretty large.

Yes. It looks like a beautiful commemoration and a wonderful place to be and bring that quiet and that peace and everything else. So that was quite impressive. And that's all I have.

Awesome. Thanks. We had a CEC meeting, equity commission, and you all, I think, saw some of the outcome of that. We had Micah Gabby Eisner from Micah came and talked about reports to their immigration hotline and some recommendations that Micah has for municipalities to follow. I don't remember where I've had which discussions, but I think one of the things that's interesting is that it wasn't that long ago, like three to six months ago, that nobody in our area had one of these 287G agreements signed, and now many do. And so it's just something to be aware of. And there would also involve a fair amount of discussion of flock as a potential tool being used by ICE for enforcement. So, lots of thanks to David during the meeting was like really receptive to, you know, hearing what they said and took the information and Chief Smith reviewed the records, all of our records, and couldn't find anything that cross-referenced with the incidents that had been reported to them. Which I think is good. And then... Really appreciate that Chief Smith made the effort to write and publish a special order clarifying the department expectations of our staff. So I think that was just, I just really appreciate it. Like the lack of defensiveness and willing to just kind of dig in and check stuff and all of that. It was just really great. And so it was just really a tremendously engaging meeting of this issue, which hasn't happened in like a while. So that was exciting. And we are going to transition though to every other month meeting for that committee, just kind of based on ability to bring in topics and generate discussion. So I think that'll be good. And then I have one note I would like to ask be considered to be added to like future topics. When we talked about the neighborhood monuments, I asked the city and council to consider like what are we really doing with all of these different neighborhoods and why do we pay for some and not others and are we happy with that current state or do we want to establish a different or more consistent program um and so i'd love to see that on like future agenda topics or discussion or whatever so thank you very much

thank you uh council member Gary Feder

thank you uh council member fader

I think it was last Thursday I attended the Celebration of Life for Bob Chapman, which was held at their headquarters. Even though I'd been there a bunch of times, I'd never actually realized if you come on the Brentwood side, it's actually like a three- or four-story atrium, so it's really quite a remarkable space. And I think there were probably 300 people there. Almost all of them, I think, were Barry Waymiller people from around the world. But anyway, very... Very impressive ceremony. We had our Ward 3 coffee. We usually go through a variety of issues. I think this was our all-time biggest attendance. But one of the topics we did talk about was flock cameras, and I think there were a number of people who were interested in learning more about this matter, and so... Kami and I have sort of developed in the last six months our own email list of people who attend the coffees. And so it gives us the opportunity to keep people informed, especially those who come to the coffee. So I think once we know when we are going to have a representative here from Flock, I think we'll let our coffee attendees know about it. So some of them may be interested in hearing that session.

Gary, just on that note, I think University City was having a discussion this evening, and I know that their meetings are recorded on YouTube. So just if anybody's interested in learning more, that might be helpful. But it was at like 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock tonight, so I couldn't listen live. But I know that they're recorded.

Great. And finally, we came, and I, before we came here, went to the CCF meeting, which was held at the HUSH offices. They had a presentation from Opera Theater, one that many of us have now seen their basic... It was really a discussion. They didn't really have graphics, but just a discussion of how that's going. They've actually... CCF has arrangements with two organizations that are gonna give them some pro bono assistance on a variety of topics, both fundraising and marketing. One is called New Ground and the other is Mission and Moxie, which many of you didn't see it when it came out. On cable. No, that's actually the name of their company. Mission and Moxie. So those are the two companies they're working with. I think CCF realizes they need to do more marketing. They need to do more fundraising. And I think they're trying to get some professional help to assist in that regard. And then there was a treasurer's report, which again, I think tells a lot of the history of CCF, which is there's a lot of money in restricted projects and not enough money in unrestricted. So they need to figure out a way to really do some fundraising that will allow them more of their traditional operating expenses. So we left before it was over, but I think those were the highlights.

MR. CRSWC had the meeting last Friday, I think, or the Friday before that. A couple of things. We elected new officers. So Leo Human took over as president. I was vice president. I think Ben is now treasurer. Most of that meeting We spent talking about the pool scoreboard and the swimming touchscreens, which basically when you swim into the – when your competitive swimming is like the touchboard. I'm not a swimmer, nor are my kids, but apparently you swim and hit the score and it tells you what times you had. It had been a holdover from last meeting because there was this debate about – it was an unbudgeted capital expense. We had a lot of questions from last meeting to that roll over to this meeting. At the end of the day, we wound up approving it, but I think a larger part of the discussion and more for you all to be aware of is there was a recognition and discussion back and forth about capital needs a school district may need that don't always get communicated for whatever reason through the normal capital and CIP process. So there's a discussion about like, look, how do we make sure that communication works so that things like this, which we all knew needed to be happen or the school district knew needed to happen for a couple of years gets on the normal CIP process. We could have budgeted in and made decisions and what year we need to do it. There's also kind of a discussion about making sure that both sides of the equation fully understand the value and kind of what it brings to the schools, what it brings to city, like how does all that work? And really thinking about if it's a capital need for the center, then it's a capital needs for the center. And in this particular case, the school district ate half the cost or paid half the cost and then CRSWC covered the other half. But there is a discussion about, is that the kind of approach we want to make to all these projects? Or if it's a CRSWC capital expense and we all just need to Basically, CRSWC pays it and then we would backfill as needed. Also, there's a little bit of conversation about the annual contribution that we make and the school district makes to CRSWC and whether that needs to be just increased with inflation and everything else. Is that number enough? or we prefer to just pay the overage. I think that's a question all of us will kind of need to think about is, would you rather pay up front or pay afterwards? And I think that's kind of what we were thinking about. A couple other things. Membership continues to grow. The skylights in the competitive pool are – they were blown out with the most recent storm, so it's a very nicely set of wood lattice works – and the plan is we could replace it. I mean, my date's exactly wrong, but we could get it replaced later this year, but due to the fact that the pool's already going to be closed for a couple months for the summer, they decided to just punt it and basically replace it in 2027 so we're not shutting the pool down right after we just shut it down. Like, it's going to be shut down right mid-half of summer, and then we would have to close it down again in, like, September, October to replace the skylight for some period of time. So... It'll be done in 2027. And just a reminder, the last thing is the indoor pools will be closed for part of the summer, which you guys probably already know, but it's part of the resurfacing of all the pool deck. They'll shut that down, drain everything, do all that, route everybody to the outdoor pool. There was some discussions for all to be aware, I guess, four or five, six, seven years ago, whenever we did it last time, there was valet service provided to people to go park at the outdoor pool that was decided to not do that this time around so if you have residents asking for the valet service that is not a option this year but we are going to route everybody with very good signage hopefully to the city-owned parking garage um and go with it that way so that's all i got

MR. CRSWC had the meeting last Friday, I think, or the Friday before that. A couple of things. We elected new officers. So Leo Heumann took over as president. I was vice president. I think Ben is now treasurer. Most of that meeting We spent talking about the pool scoreboard and the swimming touchscreens, which basically when you swim into the – when your competitive swimming is like the touchboard. I'm not a swimmer, nor are my kids, but apparently you swim and hit the score and it tells you what times you had. It had been a holdover from last meeting because there was this debate about – it was an unbudgeted capital expense. We had a lot of questions from last meeting to that roll over to this meeting. At the end of the day, we wound up approving it, but I think a larger part of the discussion and more for you all to be aware of is there was a recognition and discussion back and forth about capital needs a school district may need that don't always get communicated for whatever reason through the normal capital and CIP process. So there's a discussion about like, look, how do we make sure that communication works so that things like this, which we all knew needed to be happen or the school district knew needed to happen for a couple of years gets on the normal CIP process. We could have budgeted in and made decisions and what year we need to do it. There's also kind of a discussion about making sure that both sides of the equation fully understand the value and kind of what it brings to the schools, what it brings to city, like how does all that work? And really thinking about if it's a capital need for the center, then it's a capital needs for the center. And in this particular case, the school district ate half the cost or paid half the cost and then CRSWC covered the other half. But there is a discussion about, is that the kind of approach we want to make to all these projects? Or if it's a CRSWC capital expense and we all just need to Basically, CRSWC pays it and then we would backfill as needed. Also, there's a little bit of conversation about the annual contribution that we make and the school district makes to CRSWC and whether that needs to be just increased with inflation and everything else. Is that number enough? or we prefer to just pay the overage. I think that's a question all of us will kind of need to think about is, would you rather pay up front or pay afterwards? And I think that's kind of what we were thinking about. A couple other things. Membership continues to grow. The skylights in the competitive pool are – they were blown out with the most recent storm, so it's a very nicely set of wood lattice works – and the plan is we could replace it. I mean, my date's exactly wrong, but we could get it replaced later this year, but due to the fact that the pool's already going to be closed for a couple months for the summer, they decided to just punt it and basically replace it in 2027 so we're not shutting the pool down right after we just shut it down. Like, it's going to be shut down right mid-half of summer, and then we would have to close it down again in, like, September, October to replace the skylight for some period of time. So... It'll be done in 2027. And just a reminder, the last thing is the indoor pools will be closed for part of the summer, which you guys probably already know, but it's part of the resurfacing of all the pool deck. They'll shut that down, drain everything, do all that, route everybody to the outdoor pool. There was some discussions for all to be aware, I guess, four or five, six, seven years ago, whenever we did it last time, there was valet service provided to people to go park at the outdoor pool that was decided to not do that this time around so if you have residents asking for the valet service that is not a option this year but we are going to route everybody with very good signage hopefully to the city-owned parking garage um and go with it that way so that's all i got

Just to add to Susan's sustainability committee, we finally got no idling signs up at the school district, which is great. I know we've been working on that for-

Amy, are they going to do anything? I just wonder how that will work because everybody then just sits in there. I'm just curious. Yes.

you're going to feel really guilty. No, I don't think we can really enforce it. We do have an

ordinance, but I'm not sure that we want officers parking. But they also in the...

There was communication in the school district. I'm

just going to say that they sent that a lot along with like the issues that it causes. So for a sustainability committee, that is a very big win. Also, we had our parking subcommittee, which, you know, we're in talks to hopefully, you know, work with some of the local garages to give, you know, you know, discounted rates to retail and restaurant employees so that they're not taking up like the spots in front of the restaurants and things like that and they'll have a designated you know space to park and you know rough calculations that would get like 200 cars off the street so hopefully that would open up some more parking i know yeah

literally they're moving their cars all the time

yeah so people would be yeah for like two hours and they move to the next spot so hopefully um That all happens, but we're working hard in that parking subcommittee. So that's it.

I mean, to piggyback on the parking conversation and the valet service, the caveat to the valet service is that anybody with accessibility needs can speak to the folks at the center and we will work to accommodate them. The calculation was sort of like how many steps does it take to get in to the center and into the pool area, and how does that compare to the difference? So anyway, that was an interesting conversation. As the newest member of that committee, the other observation that I had was that the marketing piece of the center doesn't really seem to be a shared responsibility between the city and the school district. And so there was some encouragement to make sure that there was a bit more collaborating on how to market the things that happen within the center and opportunities within the, you know, within the school district to utilize the space. And I have seen that come through in some of the district emails too. So that was, that's exciting. That's it for me.

I'll just say we had a mayor's meeting. We had a metro mayor's meeting, but it was out at the St. Charles Community College has bought an old school out in Darden Prairie. And they're converting it into a market where students really do all the cooking and it's really farm to table. So if you find yourself out in Darden prairie, it really, I think will be a really cool space. They brought a chef in, but it was a neat, I just think it's a neat idea. And then thank you to everybody that was able to make it to the Board of Education, hosted that breakfast. So I appreciate everybody. I know it's kind of, it was kind of a hard time for some, but thank you to those who were there. So that's all I have,

David. I would just say on the flock representative, we're hoping to confirm that this week. It looks like it's probably going to be the Friday session in July, but we should have confirmation again by the end of the week. But that's what it looks like at this point. So if you're in town or can make it, certainly do so. That's going to be a good one. So I think that's all I have for now.

I move to adjourn.

Second. All those in favor? Aye.