September 8, 2026 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening. We're here for our September 8th City Council meeting. We're going to start with a presentation by Deb Grossman, who is the wonderful chairperson of our Sustainability Committee.

All right, we're going to make this pretty quick because my understanding is Grace Worley-Bross, who has been our intern from WashU for the past I guess since January, you were with us in the spring and all through the summer is going to do the proposal on the waste, compost waste grant. But for my part, I'd like to just run through most of it and we're gonna kind of treat this like speed dating. Many of you already know a lot of what we've done because we've come in and asked for your help, assistance, and past resolutions during the course of the months since I last was here. All of you should have in front of you something that looks kind of like this. And you're thinking, why did Deb give me her highlighted homework? The reason for that is because if you want to take this and have something that's quick and easy when you go out and meet with your ward constituents, you The yellow things are what we've done since last year. OK, so it doesn't make any sense if it's not in the framework of why we do what we do. So this kind of puts it in the framework and the things that are highlighted are what's new for this year. If you want a clean one because you want to do your own highlighting. I have those two. So let me know. All right. So let's tick through this real fast. And since June already passed these out, I won't have to do that. This really overall is our report card. for the city of Clayton. It is not the sustainability report card. It's the work that's been done by everybody. So this is trying to, if you will, just look at what's been accomplished. And so much of it has come from some of the other committees and commissions. So I think this will work if I click. It will not work if I click, can you click me forward? There we go. Okay. And again, on the charts, I used the same mechanism of trying to highlight what was different last year to this year. So we've had some change in our representation. It used to be that we wanted to go ward by ward. Now we have a preference for that. That's been super helpful to us, I think, especially to set out there the expectation of attendance. We can't get minutes passed if we don't have everybody present. So thank you very much for tackling that and getting us the updated revision. The MIAC system is changing. My understanding, we're going to have a different situation than we did last year in that we've got something like 25 MIAC students this year, including a couple that are Three already. So that's terrific. And we've had a different way of approaching our WashU interns. And also, we had an intern from St. Louis Community College Forestry who you've seen present as well. Our living strategic direction document is one we set up in 2023 when I was new on this committee or a few months into that where we really sort of decided what was the most important thing for us to work on. The decision was that it was to reduce our carbon footprint. You can see that in the third bullet, the second subsection of that. But we're going to work on, I think, updating that either in this fall or early next year. But I'm hoping it will be either October or November. Our main focus is on projects that... address our footprint, but also things that we can kind of knock out pretty quickly. And by that, pretty quickly sometimes equals a few months. But we need to keep that momentum going and addressing the things that are more easily done. So our challenge, if I could go to the next slide, please. clicking away and nothing's happening. On the reducing greenhouse gas, primarily through stationary buildings, they emit about 26% of our greenhouse gas emissions. So we're trying to tackle those even though residential buildings are a little bit more. The big change in this year is that we had done a whole toolkit for rolling out the big buildings, the 100,000 square foot or more. And their first benchmarking report is going to be due in January of 27. So that's coming up. So far, what I'm hearing is we haven't had a lot of comments, concerns, other than maybe some people thinking that it wasn't them. It's not me. I'm not 100,000 square feet. So that's that's coming along pretty well. Next slide. We don't have any changes so much in our soul smart. We have just been I asked on earlier today how many students applications we'd had for solar panels on rooftops. In 23, we had six and 24, we had two and 25, we had 11. So far this year, we don't have any. So how much of that is tornado repair related? I don't know, but that seems to be the cause of a lot of things to be just slightly different this year. On to the next one. The next slide is going to be about transportation and what that does to our carbon footprint. This is trying to reduce vehicle contribution to our greenhouse gas emissions. We have in place a vehicle electrification assessment for our fleet in Clayton. But we're going to get after that as our vehicles come to their natural life. So that's not a this year thing, but we continue to check in on that. One thing that we were able to successfully, and I will say finally get done, is the school district has placed signs at all of the schools, including the family center, all three grade schools, Whiteown Middle and Clayton High, as well as distributing information about why idling is so bad, especially for our littlest children. I know you've heard me preach that before, so I'm going to save you that. But if you are dying to hear me say that one more time, call me up, text me, whatever. Love to talk about why I know idling is a good thing. In fact, I just want to give a shout out. We had MIAC students. Two years ago, working on this project and it just now is finished so. If you know when you're working with our group which I know it's gonna be different this year but you're going to do some real work that gets good things done. So you can read about the articles that got printed etc, we also in the transportation area we approached Washington University and Jim Dwyer in particular. to talk about the extent expansion of the route for the circulator. So it comes out as far as West campus, which we all know is the old famous bar building, at least if you're of a certain age and trying to get it to come just a little bit further West so that all those students who are living in the downtown apartments, maybe they would do that instead of jumping in their cars, just pick up the circulator. It reduces the parking issue. on campus, which is very real. Okay, next slide real quick. You can see a picture of our no idling signs. Next slide we're turning over to green spaces. I love this chart because in one simple chart you can see all the reasons why urban tree canopies are so very important. So I'm going to flip to the next one because you've seen that before. This is something you are all intimately familiar with. The whole chart should be yellow because it's pretty much everything that you worked on last year. Tree removal, pruning, stump grinding, starting to plant new trees and working on the Y down median. So much of that is underway already or will be soon. We're excited to see some of that come through. Let's go to the next slide. In the tree canopy, I think you're all familiar that we just got level one arboretum designation from ArbNet, which is part of the Morton Arboretum up in Chicago. They are the international standard for arboretum. So getting that level one is our first step. Probably won't have heard the last of this because I'd be really easy for us to get to level two and have some other things I want. That is largely due to Tony Searing and her whole team, Justin Whipple and Andrew Whitaker took real big lead roles on that together with Thomas Gordon. And I think Rachel Gable worked on that. Probably others I don't even know about. But I'm delighted because instead of everybody looking around thinking there's just this big green haze over them, over me by identifying what those trees are and labeling them including with the indigenous names is is a great thing for everybody that walks through the park not just our littles but everybody um our tree ordinances were reviewed against best practices this is something brad goss did i know he presented it to all of you so i'm not going to go into detail on that anna and her team are working that up right now i think yes Yeah, I think so. Okay. Our first Honeysuckle Hack was hosted in Oak Knoll Park earlier this year. That is Amy Jennings who came up with that idea and ran with it. So big shout out to Amy. Talked with her earlier today. We are going to do it again this fall, probably in November. so that we can get listed in with the Missouri Botanical Garden, several of others that they do. I'm going to skip the last two things. We've had those ongoing for a long time. I think you already know about it. Landscaping and parks. I just finished talking about invasive species with the honeysuckle hack, but a lot of times the invasive species that come into Clayton come from other places. seed pods travel. They're devoured by birds and whatever, and the droppings end up planting a new invasive species. So there was a group that I think a couple of you, at least Cami and I think Susan, you were at the Missouri stewardship event where they proposed this resolution encouraging the control of invasive plant species on state public rights of way. So thank you all for passing that. I know that was done not so long ago. Let's go to the next slide. Night Sky continues to be an important issue for us. We are a building partner with them. This is, I think, I don't know how many years we've done it now. doing this since 22. We've sent out letters again to some of our largest building owners. Centene has joined us in turning off their lights in September and May. The county also turns off their lights. We've reached out to a few other folks, and I don't know, I think next week I'll take a drive around when it's dark and see who's on and who's off. just to do a reality check. Yeah, so we've made some good progress there. We're installing new light fixtures that are dark sky lighting compliant in Oak Knoll Park, and that is in support of our application to be an urban night sky location. That certification comes out of London, and they are really picky. So our first application went over a year ago. Grace worked on updating it this summer, and that's pretty well in place. We're going to have to do some additional sky quality measurements get that ready to go. And then we'll file that. We've also hosted, again, thanks to Parks and Rec, a couple of star parties. Our first one was modestly attended. Our second one, we had nearly 100 people and about five telescopes. And I went and it was a whole lot of fun. If you turn to the next page, you'll see what the people who came out for it. I would encourage you to come out for it. It's a great time to shake hands of your your constituents, come join us. It's amazing what you can see. And I hope you all didn't miss the lunar eclipse that was last week. Next slide. We did a lot of work to receive the Bird City designation. Myron wrote up the application. Thank you to Myron. Our MIAC students organized and held the World Migratory Bird Day, which kind of clinched us clinched the designation for us. It was one of the things that they had that was mandatory. We continue to work with the Audubon Society where they go around 14 different buildings and track how many fatal bird collisions we've had. Unfortunately, in the spring, they haven't produced or published their numbers yet, but Matt tells me we had over 100. in the spring and that's just on the buildings we're measuring so we know we still have a problem um which is disappointing but we are doing a little bit better uh we had an application proposed the application of bird safe glass on city hall on our arch windows grace brought that to you earlier this year um and the last thing is you passed the resolution supporting the mayors for monarch pledge so for that we thank susan and bridget that's going to go up in uh December, I think, is when that opens again. And September 1st was Monarch Day. And you should be seeing a lot more of them now. Peak migration is the 20th of September. So start looking. I saw a bunch of them up north when I was in Chicago this weekend. That's a picture of Bird City. You can see Susan's there. Kylie Wolfold, who was in the bottom. She was our main liaison. Myron was there. Jeffrey, you were there. And then Lucinda Lloyd and Jaron were our two MIAC students that were there when the picture was taken. Next slide is just showing you what those archway windows are. Let's flip over to waste. It matters because methane is created when food waste is put into landfills, and it's more toxic and more potent than carbon dioxide. So if we could get rid of one thing, it would be Great for us to do that. To that end, you're going to hear in a few minutes Grace's presentation on composting grant that we are proposing. And even though we offer composting to Clayton residents, they don't all pick up on it. And a lot of people, I know even in our neighborhood, they could do that and they go, Oh, I didn't know that. So we're hoping to get that word out a little bit more through the grant that she'll spend more time talking to you about. You guys passed the Skip the Stuff resolution. If you weren't here, the Skip the Stuff is really trying to encourage restaurants not to pass out things their patrons don't want, like straws and extra plastic utensils and condiment packs, etc., etc., etc. So we've got a little, we've got a lot more follow-up work to really make that live and make sure people are aware of it. That's coming. E-cycling event took place, campaign sign recycling, that took place. Let's go on to the next slide. That's what the compost banner looks like. And you'll see more of that and hear more about it. Next slide. It's always important for us to keep up our communications and working with other groups. Most of the things you see on the top have been ongoing. The one pager that you have in front of you has been updated and the Climate Herald reaching out to them to make sure they know all the things that Clayton has been doing has happened. Grace also was involved with both of those, took a laboring ore. Next slide. The scorecards you've seen before are building footprints. I think one of the key things here is just that Clayton as a whole, our city hall greenhouse gas emissions are down 60% since 2018. And our cost of energy is down 15% since about the same time. Most everything else that's in these charts, I've already talked to you. These charts are available if you want them. It's just like single pieces. If you just wanted to show it to somebody and say, here it is, if you want to see it visually versus hearing the words. Same thing on the next page where we talk about waste collection. I think our waste collection numbers are somewhat skewed because we had all the big, huge containers for the waste. leaf litter, the tree debris, everything else that got sucked up after the tornado. So that's a little off, but you can still see that number is up. The green spaces, the three main bullets there are things I've already talked about, the arboretum, the dark sky designation, and the tree ordinance best practice. The last thing that I would say, next slide. It's sort of like the partners and who we work with. We work with a lot of people to make this happen. So I just wanted to call some of them out, like Ameren, Audubon, and Bring Conservation Home. That's Matt Barton, the Clayton School District. Jim Burnell worked with us actively. as does Jenny Ables. Cool Cities, Susan and Kami are like huge on that. You are our representations for that event. WashU, we work with a lot of different people at WashU. And that's a long list. I'm not going to take the time for it. We work with all of you. And I'm very thankful for the support of the council. I'm thankful for the staff that continually helps us. I'm thankful It's a lot of work and it's all volunteer work. And I especially want to thank Matt, who just like every time I go, Matt, what do you think about this? He doesn't shoot me down. And I love that. Thank you, Matt. He's over there. Yeah, I'm almost done. I'm late. Okay, so I'm going to just close with this piece I reached out to Matt Cupcake who's the he's in charge of enterprise, all their environmental and sustainability stuff. And they're headquartered here in Clayton so I think they should turn off their lights for Lights Out Heartland so I figured I would and Matt reached out to their facilities people. So we're trying to get in as many places as we can. But he wrote up something on his LinkedIn that I just want to leave you with. And I'm making it shorter because it went on for like a page and a half, and I don't want to take that time. But he said, sustainability's next challenge is transformation. Defining what needs to change and changing it are not the same thing. Many organizations have announced ambitious commitments only to later revise timelines and adjust goals. And that's rarely a failure of intent. More often, it's an underestimation of the transformation that's needed because reducing emissions isn't primarily a reporting challenge. It's a governance challenge. It's It's an operational challenge. Organizations that are making the most progress aren't doing it because they're the most ambitious. Rather, they're doing it because they learn, they adapt, they engage, they solve problems at the source, they establish accountability, and most important, They build cultures that are capable of turning strategy into action. And I think that's what we're doing here. So transformation doesn't happen to people. It happens through people. So all those people I just thanked, they're really critical to the work that Clayton's doing. That, I'm done. Thank you. If you have questions, see me because I know we're already into seven o'clock, which is your-

Well, but first, Deb, I think we certainly owe you a debt of thanks. I mean, talk about turning strategy into action, like the way you've really taken this committee and you've just done unbelievable things. So- Thank you so much for all the work that you do on a monthly basis. I mean, on a daily basis, but for all the meetings like month after month. And I know you go to more than just one meeting a month for our sustainability committee. So thank you so much for your efforts. Thank you for the presentation. I love getting handouts. It's just so great to see everything that's accomplished in a year. And that is, that is a credit to you. It is certainly a credit to Matt and many others and many other volunteers that, but I think your leadership on the committee and really inspiring people to do the work and get it done is, is where we thank you very much for it. I'm so glad you

feel that way because we'll be back with more things.

Matt will be

thrilled.

Hello. So as Deb said, I'm going to do this. Yeah. Oh, is this? Yeah. I don't. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Um, I can find my way home. Yeah. Yeah. No, I can transport

myself. Okay.

Yeah, no,

that's...

Yes, it is on the agenda. Okay. Yeah. That sounds good to me. I'm not sure the mouse is hooked up to... That would do it. Yeah, okay. Yes. Yeah. So as Deb said, as we've discussed, I am presenting on the grant application that the Sustainability Advisory Committee has worked on drafting over the summer while I was interning there. And it would be to the St. Louis County Department of Public Health in order to support a composting awareness campaign. So as I said, our goal is for the campaign would be to increase the use of the existing curbside composting program that we have in Clayton. Now, that's available to all single-family homes alongside their yard waste and also any multifamily homes where the landowner is paying for that service. The grant structure, it's rolling applications. We would probably apply in 2027 just because we're getting late in the year. And they can have up to $25,000 reimbursed through this grant. So we do have some flexibility if more budget items were added or something. It would take around 12 weeks to turn around and fund the material cost of any programs. And then the important thing is that it requires a resolution from the city council in support of the application, which is on your agenda for the meeting today. And then it also requires quarterly reporting from the city with photos, educational materials, the number of residents reached and a survey at the end of the program. So this is what the text of the resolution looks like. It basically just says that the city council endorses this grant application, that we commit to providing this data and then authorizes the director of public works to accept the grant funds if it was awarded to us. Our project plan is a composting education campaign. So in the current draft of the application, we have allotted $4,000 for the overall budget. And that would include 125 stainless steel kitchen scrap pails, which we've tied to a concrete number because that's around 5% of single family homes in Clayton. We... after much discussion with the Sustainability Advisory Committee, decided to go with these bins. That's not an exact photo, but it would be something like that because they are very durable and recyclable. And so we think that it reinforces our message of sustainability. The implementation of this plan would involve collecting residents' names and contact information through SAC event tabling, as well as hopefully online signups. And then residents who are interested in this program could pick up the bins, perhaps a limited number at tabling, but mostly at a centralized location like City Hall or the center of Clayton. We've also, in that budget, included money for educational components. So a composting talk from Jean Ponzi, who does the Green to Go talks with the Missouri Botanical Gardens, and she's very willing and able to work with us about figuring out the best format for that. as well as supporting those educational materials that could also include stickers and flyers and things like that, but supporting that with a communications campaign from the city, such as materials on our website, articles in the Clayton Connections or social media posts, as well as the banner that Deb showed already that I've designed to hang outside of City Hall. And so that will hopefully go up around the same time as we would be getting these and distributing these bins. And then, as I said, one of the county's requirements is a follow-up survey from the city, which they have some supports to provide to the city to produce that survey as well. So there's the banner again. I'm sure you all wanted to see it some more. It just has a very simple message about how residents can compost their kitchen scraps in their yard waste. Yeah, so that is my overview of this grant application, and I hope you all will consider passing the resolution in support of it.

um grace thank you so much so then would there be a definitive amount that you would ask for in the grant is that

yes so the um i was just noting that there is uh room for some flexibility as we continue planning um as city staff is is planning uh before the grant application is submitted but um right now the number on the application is four thousand dollars

All right. Thank you. Does anybody else have any questions for Grace related to the resolution that we will vote on later?

Just quick appreciation, just noting, I don't think people are, it doesn't catch their attention yet that the impact of composting, that really does matter. And this was really an awareness campaign. Even the survey at the end reinforces to people that, oh, maybe someone will think, oh, I missed getting my bin or It's just the awareness out there. So it's beyond just providing these in some kitchen counters. It's a, you know, again, transformational. It's putting that into the culture that this is something that we should be doing. So thank you very much for your work on this.

Thank you, Susan.

What happens if more than 125 homes would like these?

Yeah, so we did have some discussion about what amount of bins we should order. And we landed on 125 because we wanted to make sure that we didn't overcommit ourselves and end up with a bunch of bins in storage spaces. But we really don't have a great way to assess interest until we begin ordering. collecting people's names and handing out the bins. And so we decided to go with that lower number and then possibly reapply for the grant next year if there's a lot of interest. But yeah, I definitely think that that is...

That's kind of what I was curious about. You described it as a rolling application and said we would do the application in 27. And I'm wondering if the rolling aspect of it would mean like If they're all taken or claimed by May, could we submit again for additional or something like that? Do we know? I mean, some...

Yeah, so we definitely were trying to be in communication with the county about the details on how the financial stuff rolls out. But I don't know that we ever got a response on that question. So that's probably something that we'll need to follow up about. Because if we can get an additional amount later in the year, if we have a lot of interest, then that would be... I think the ideal way to roll out this program.

Absolutely. I mean, I know we have a grant at my workplace where like if we use it all up, we can ask for more for the particular item. And so that would be awesome. And if you need help getting hold of people at St. Louis County, we can try to do that through staff or elected officials or something to get attention.

Yeah, we definitely. I think in our talks, we decided to err on the side of fewer rather than more. Yeah,

I don't have a reason to suggest a higher number. Like, I don't know. I have one of those bins already. So I won't take another because they do last forever, practically. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Deb, will you just come up? Sorry. I don't know if people are online or not, but I think I have such a loud voice. If

they will not allow us to reapply later this year, it's really just a few months before we would reapply for the next year. So I think it's okay. And it also is sort of reinforcing for the people that took them the first time when they see another person second edition of the campaign come out. So we struggled with this. We wrote to them, but I think they all took vacations around the time of Labor Day and I don't have a hard answer.

Thanks. Anybody else have any questions? Well, great. Of course. Thank you again for all your hard work with us.

Well, and I just want to do a quick thank you, Grace. For those of you that don't know, I know we went through a whole bunch of all the things that we've done on the Sustainability Committee, but Grace, who, you know, through spring and summer, was with us. She had her hand in almost all of the things that we've done over these past few months. And I know, Deb, you mentioned this, but she helped work on the Bird Save class for City Hall. The food waste grant that we're doing right now, that was the main driver in the creation of this really great banner. She helped research and support for the mayors of Monarchs. She actually helped us finally get over the finish line with the idling program, skip the stuff, research and propose resolutions to encourage food vendors by disposable plastic or not to provide them unless on request. And then just really updated our communication, including a review of the Climate Herald's coverage of plate and sustainability efforts. and then helped, again, finish up the application for the Oak Mill Park. So I just want to thank you, you know, from the City Council, just of all your hard work and dedication and time. I know you were a busy student at WashU, of all places, Junior. And so thank you very much. And we just have a small token of gratitude for you.

Thank you. It really has been a pleasure to work with you all. So thank you. Thank you very

much, Grace. Good luck. Thank you.

All

right. So I think, thank you, Deb, again. We have come, we've actually a little bit past seven. We've come to our seven o'clock meeting for our city council, September 8th. If the city clerk could call the roll.

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

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

Here.

Councilmember Waldman? Here. CouncilMember Betsy Meyland-Smith? Here. Mayor McAndrew? Here. City Manager David Gipson?

Councilmember Waldman? Here. CouncilMember Malin Smith? Here. Mayor McAndrew? Here. City Manager Gibson?

He stepped out just a moment.

Thank you.

City Attorney O'Keefe?

Here.

Thank you. Thank you. So the first part of our meeting is the open forum portion of our meeting where somebody is welcome to address us. You just come up to the microphone and make sure that the light is green on a matter that is not on our agenda. If there's something on the agenda you wish to speak about, you would just wait till that agenda item comes up. Each person that comes up has a three minute time limit for speaking. I do have two speaker cards up here. I think first, And I would also like to say three of our MIAC members are here tonight. MIAC members MyEC members, as Deb mentioned, are going to do things a little bit different. They're all required to come to at least one city council meeting and then also go to one parks and rec meeting, one sustainability, one I'm going to forget, one plan commission meeting, one equity commission meeting. So everybody has to go to one. So there are over 30 students. There might be 33 students. So we will see. rotating students throughout the next eight months, seven months, eight months. So you guys are a year ahead of the game. You're here tonight. So good job. I think two of you have marked off your attendance white t-shirt. Will you remind us what your first name is? Luciana. Okay, great. Thank you. But with respect to our open forum portion, it looks like Adam, would you like to talk to us? Oh, great. All right. Okay. And then Natalie down. You're welcome to come up and just Natalie, just make sure that that microphone is on.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

I'm Natalie Dowd and I live in Ward 2. Flock cameras invite the chaos and violence of ICE to our community. On Monday, July 13th of this year, I shot and killed a father in Bidford, Maine on his way to work. The news outlets will tell you he had a social security card and was in the country lawfully. ICE will tell you they got the wrong guy by mistake. None of that matters. undocumented immigration status. If you want to Natalie, if you want to, it's fine.

Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Undocumented immigration status is not a crime punishable by death. Law enforcement of any kind cannot act as the judge, jury and executioner in any just society. ICE operates with racist violence and without accountability. The chaos and violence of ICE intrude on communities without regard for human life or due process. When I first heard about this murder, I got on a group text with my twin cousins, Mike and Matt. They live in New Hampshire and were raised about 45 minutes from Biddeford, Maine. Yes, they tell me. They know Biddeford. They've been there. My cousin Mike talked about what a tragedy this was and discussed the social and political context leading up to this needless loss of life. And yes, of course I agree. My cousin Matt, however, only had one simple point to add. He said, Biddeford is a nice community. Lock cameras invite the chaos and violence of ICE to our community. If anyone is quietly telling themselves that ICE violence would never happen here, please know that Biddeford, Maine is a nice community And Clayton, Missouri is a nice community. Blood in the streets is just as likely here as it ever was in Biddeford. Each day that we allow AI surveillance to remain in our community is a day that we are inviting the chaos and violence of ICE and making our community less safe. You, the City Council, can make our community safer by canceling our flock contract and rejecting all other AI surveillance possibilities. Thank you.

Thank

you.

And just a reminder for anybody that is online, if you wish to speak during our open forum portion of our meeting or alternatively, if you wish speak on any agenda item, feel free to raise your hand and we can move you over so that you can speak. Seeing no other speakers, I will start our regular agenda. The first agenda item is a conditional use permit for 6369 Clayton Road.

Yes, Mayor, thank you. And I will go ahead and go through the description here this evening. Tonight we will not vote on this matter, so we still have to hold the public hearing for it. There was an error in the notice for this particular item, so this will be on the agenda again on the 22nd with the full public hearing. But just for anybody that... may know that this item was coming forward this evening, I will walk through the description and at the next meeting probably do an abbreviated version. This is a request for a conditional use permit for the proposed operation of a drive-through banking lane on the north side of the subject building. The property is located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Clayton Road and DeMond Avenue and is zoned M2 general mixed use. It is in the Clayton Road Urban Design District. The site is developed to the one-story retail bank, and it formerly housed Commerce Bank. The new occupant would be State Bank. Drive-through facilities for financial institutions require a conditional use permit or CUP, and any enlargement, alteration, or extension of the use requires a CUP to be approved by the City Council. The current owners propose building alterations including a reduction in the drive-through capacity from three lanes down to two lanes. The Plan Commission considered this request at their meeting on August 17, 2026 and voted unanimously to recommend approval of a conditional use permit to the City Council. The CUP requires the City Council to conduct a public hearing prior to acting on the request. The notice requirements for a public hearing, again, were not met for September 8th, which is tonight, and therefore we recommend that the Council hear anyone present to speak on the matter this evening and then continue the request until September 22nd.

Is there anyone present in the audience or online that would like to speak about this matter? Nobody in chambers and nobody online. If I could ask for a motion to continue this to September 22nd?

I move that this matter be continued to September 22nd. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

All right.

The next item on our agenda is a conditional use permit for 6349 Ellenwood for an accessory dwelling unit.

Yes, this is a public hearing and subsequent resolution to consider granting a conditional use permit to the owners of 6349 Ellen Wood Avenue to allow for the construction of a 415 square foot pool house containing an accessory dwelling unit or ADU. The property has a zoning designation of R1 Large Lot Single Family Dwelling District. an adu is a type of accessory structure either attached or detached which provides complete independent living facilities on the same site as the principal residence the plan commission and architectural review board considered the cup application and the architectural plans for the project on august 17th and approved the architectural plans and recommended approval of the cup with two conditions first that the applicant shall record a deed restriction prohibiting the sale or rental of the adu separately from the primary residence and submit proof of the required deed restriction to the city prior to the issuance of a building permit secondly the pop-up emitter in the front yard shall be moved to the north to the mulched area Staff recommends that the City Council conduct a public hearing and consider approving the resolution granting a conditional use permit for a 415-square-foot detached structure containing an ADU at 6349 Ellenwood Avenue.

Thank you. So the public hearing is open. I'll open the discussion. I see somebody at the podium. Would you like to just state your name for the record and let us know who you

are? Sorry, so I may have jumped the gun, but my name is Elle Knoll. I work with Barley Design. We're the architecture firm that's working for the Dreyfus. They are unfortunately stuck at a Clayton school curriculum night, so they asked me to come in instead. No problem. Do you want to talk to us about the project at all or...? Just very briefly, they are very excited to have a pool and they intend only to use the success restructure for, you know, pool related activities and occasionally when a family member comes to visit. They have no interest in renting it or inviting other people to stay there.

Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from the city council members? Great. And I don't see any questions or comments online or in the audience. As such, I will close the public hearing. Council Member Buse?

I move to approve resolution number 2026-26, granting a conditional use permit for 6349 Ellenwood to allow for an accessory dwelling unit. Second. Any

discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The vote passes six to zero. Thank you. You're welcome. Have a good night. The next item on our agenda are the property tax levies for 2026 fiscal year 2027. I will open the public hearing and request proof of publication.

Yes, each year the city must approve property tax levies, which are then submitted to St. Louis County for billing. Calendar year 2026 is not a reassessment year. Therefore, there's little change in previously assessed properties. The city experienced new construction growth, increasing residential assessed values by nearly $2 million. And subject to the maximum voter approved rate of tax levy, the city is allowed to receive additional revenue up to the lower 5% or CPI, which was 2.7% for this year, as well as the value of new construction. Per fiscal year 2027 proposed budget, we are submitting the maximum allowable rates for your review. As part of the property tax levy process, the council will hold a public hearing, which we're doing right now to seek public input on the proposed tax rates. The levies provided are subject to change due to the County Board of Equalization process and the Missouri State Auditor's certification process. Therefore, there is the potential for the rates to change slightly before the meeting on September 22nd. There are a number of schedules and tables within the document. The one thing I would point out is on the total tax levies on residential, we are looking at an overall increase of four-tenths of one cent and eight-tenths one cent on commercial, but no change to personal property tax. So again, nominal changes to any of these categories. For a home valued at $700,000, it is expected that the homeowner would pay approximately $814 in annual property taxes for just the city of Clayton portion. Based on last year's rate, the same owner would pay $5 more than last year to the city based on this increase, assuming that value remains the same. There is also a nominal increase for the special business district. We do recommend that the city council conduct the public hearing and have a first reading of an ordinance setting the annual property tax rates for calendar year 2026, which actually hits our fiscal year 2027 at the rates referenced in the memo. that was contained within the packet. And Karen Dilber, our finance director, 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? Questions or comments? Any questions or comments from audience or online? Seeing none, Council Member

Buse. I introduce bill number 7172, approving the property tax levies for tax year 2026 to be read for the first time by title only. Second.

Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7172 first reading. an ordinance levying and establishing the rate of annual tax for general municipal purposes, police building debt service, general obligation debt service, and special business district purposes to be collected by the city of Clayton, Missouri for the year 2026. I'm

going to close the public hearing. Are there any, I guess, all those in favor? Aye. Um, any opposed the vote passes six to zero. Um, and that is cause we will just read it for the first time and then we will get it again in two weeks. Um, the next item on our agenda is the fiscal year, 2027, uh, operating and capital improvement budget. Um, I will open the public hearing and request proof of publication.

Okay, yes, this is our public hearing for the fiscal year 2027 operating budget and capital improvement plan. We did hold a work session on August 21st, and anybody that may be watching this that wants more detail on the budget, I would refer you to that particular meeting where we really go in depth. So this evening, I'm going to give an abbreviated summary. uh version of the presentation that was given on the 21st i will note there was some some changes some reconciliation um between the budget work session and what you actually have in front of you this evening that was contained within the packet on page 39. the big change to note there is the fire trucks that we've been waiting three and a half years for We know that those have been pushed to a date that will be after October 1st. So it looks like there's this big $3.5 million change from our last discussion. It is a big $3. 5 million change, but it's two trucks that make up that entire amount. The other changes were very small. This was adding the bird safe glass. and some marketing for the special business district. So I just wanted to point out that we did have that slight adjustment since the last conversation that we had. So going through these slides here, we always start with the general fund and just kind of that trend line over time. The green line is our revenue over time. The blue line is our expenditures over time. You can see expenditures have been going up at a steady clip right about 6% a year. The only outlier would be 2024, where you see a dip. The change there was the fact that the city turned over waste billing to residents that particular year, and that's why you see that drop. It wasn't that our expenses went down for any other reason or some sort of sustainable reason. The revenue that you see here, this green line, you can see kind of a peak here in 2025 and really kind of flattened out on us. We're seeing really stagnant growth in property tax and in sales tax. We just talked about our tax rate and the changes that we're going to see there. It's a nominal change. Sales tax, we're seeing growth right around 1.5% or so, so nothing too substantial there. So we are in a situation where revenue is relatively flat. And again, our expenditures are going up at a rate about 6% a year. Our sources of revenue that we receive every year, you can see them on this pie chart. Our property tax makes up 25%. Utilities at 17%. Sales tax at 22%. Licenses, permits, and fees at 11%, which is primarily the building permit fees that we collect every year. Parking at 6%. Parks and Rec programming. So various leagues that are held outside, this is all of their activities aside from the Center of Clayton. Very small amount there. Fines only make up 2% of our overall revenue. And then we have some intergovernmental that has been increasing In recent years, mainly due to more collaborative efforts with other communities or expanded collaborative efforts where Clayton has been kind of the lead driver and then we're reimbursed for those services. So you'll see an uptick in revenue, but also some associated increases in expenditures there. So that's the makeup really well diversified through our biggest tax drivers here. The problem is they're just not increasing at a fast enough rate. But this is the mix you want to see because we do have the diversification. We do have that steady property tax base, steady utility tax base for the most part. And then your volatility you really see within that sales tax area. And of course, that's what we witnessed during the pandemic where we had a significant drop off there. So that's revenue. And on the expenditure side of things, we have three primary categories that we like to talk about, the first being personnel, the second being contractual services. So all the utility bills we pay, all of our software licenses, dispatching, which we do with a number of other cities, lifeguards, insurance, those types of things. commodities this is what people tend to think of when you talk about a budget people go straight to these items that you might buy uniform supplies fuel salt that we throw out on the road construction materials but as you'll see on this chart commodities makes up a very small portion of our overall budget usually hovers right around four percent or so we're actually showing our expenditure categories two different ways this year so here's our expenditures by category um And this includes a bunch of expenses that are related to the tornado. So what you'll see is the contractual services at 20%, personnel at just about 69% there, but this other financing uses at 6%. And that's a transfer over to the capital funds so we can make some of those tornado damage repairs. And then on the right, This gives you a better picture of the operating revenue that's coming in versus the operating expenditures. So on the expenditure side, 73% of what we spend actually goes towards personnel on an ongoing basis, 22% or so for contractual services, just 4.3% for commodities. And then you can see modest capital outlays and transfers out to other funds. Primarily, that's going to be to equipment replacement when we're talking about the general funds. So Uh, personnel, not a big change there over past years where we're always right around 70% or a little bit higher on the personnel side. So relatively flat in the numbers that you see there. Um, but still a situation that's really difficult when overall they're, they're increasing at a pretty good rate. Um, Here's the budget in a little more detail. This shows with the tornado expenses in, we anticipate, and I'll just kind of jump to the big numbers here, about $34 million worth of revenue, 34.3 to be exact, $37.5 million in expenses. And as you can tell, expenses are more than the revenues. Down below in red, you'll see a $3.2 million roughly deficit. when we count for that tornado expense that we're going to have. That money is going to be coming out of our general fund balance or the city's reserves. Think of it like the city's savings account. So we're going to pull money from that savings account and use it to make those particular repairs. To give us an idea, though, of what we have kind of on an ongoing basis, again, that standard operating revenue versus expenditures, again, revenue at $34.3 million, but our ongoing expenses right around 35.3, so right at a million-dollar deficit. We've known that this was coming. We've talked about this for several years. It's not a huge surprise. A little bit of a deficit at the end of 2026 at $220,000. you can see that with that 6% increase overall in annual expenditures that's pointed out right here in the bottom right, that 6% number really makes that jump. So you're going to go from 220 to a million and then next year without significant changes, you're going to see a number that's going to be higher than that. So probably in that 1.8 range, if not higher. So it's a compounding issue when you start to get into those deficits when structurally, your expenditures are outpacing revenues to this extent. And that is something that our Citizen Finance Committee is working on at the moment. Fund balance are those reserves that I was talking about. Again, look at it like the city savings account. We do have a minimum fund balance, so a certain amount that we need to keep in the bank. That's 25% of our annual expenditures. Our goal is to have at least 50% in the bank. And if we ever drop to 40%, then we'll take action right away to make sure that we don't get down to that 25% number. You can see at the end of 2027, we anticipate, and this is with those tornado expenses included, that we're going to be at about a 68% fund balance. So we're still above that 50% goal. We still got a little bit of room there. The tornado expenses should be done at that point. But again, we're in a deficit spend situation. So that number will erode over time. without changes. But at this point in time, we're still in a really healthy situation at 68% in the fund balance. And we saw the value, of course, and having the fund balance above 50% when we had the tornado, we were able to go after that aggressively and then make all the subsequent repairs that we need to. So that's the general fund. On the sewer lateral fund, this is a special assessment that's levied and paid At the same time, you pay for your annual property taxes. It's $28 a year. If your sewer lateral breaks, you can call the city and get a reimbursement of $2,500 to help go towards the repair of that line. We do carry a balance within... that particular fund. You can see over time, we were at $2,000 per reimbursement. And so you can see that the revenue is much higher than the expenditures. When we go to 2,500, it starts to flatten out. We would recommend keeping it at 2,500 for now. If you go to 3,000, it's going to tip the other way and you're going to deplete those reserves pretty quickly. It's really important that you have some reserves in the sewer lateral fund because the last thing you want is a resident that's been paying that assessment for years go to finally collect on their $2,500 and you don't have it in the bank. So we're in a good position as far as the sewer lateral fund is concerned today. The special business district fund, this is a tax that's levied just within downtown Clayton. The funds that are derived from that are used to pay for advertising, special events, economic development purposes, things that go to promote that district overall. You can see this year, our other financing uses which is essentially the transfer from the special business district fund to the general fund is higher than the revenue that's coming in there was a little bit of a balance there. We're going to use all of that money this year, and the majority of that balance is really going to help pay for the lit parking signs that will be outside of parking garages and public parking areas in downtown Clayton. So great use of that money. We think it's going to be very productive. And so we're excited to get that going on the equipment replacement fund. Again, there was an adjustment here since the last time you saw this number last time it was up over 5 million. Now it's down to 1.8. Um, Actually, that number should go back up. I think we need to revise that. I used the earlier slide. So that number is going to be inflated by the 3.2. My mistake for not having that on there. That's going to be closer to 5 million because we move the fire trucks over. So that number has jumped since the last time. But the equipment replacement fund for the MIAC students in the room, what we do is we save money every time we buy a vehicle for the replacement of that vehicle. So 10 years from now when we need to buy a truck to replace the truck we have, that money's already there. We don't have to go find it. So we do that with all of our vehicles here in the city and then a lot of major building components and facilities type equipment. So Just a smart way to do it rather than, oh my gosh, the truck's broken. Where are we going to get the money to do it? We save a little bit over time so we can make that purchase responsibly and that it's all predictable in the end. So that's that particular fund. The five-year capital improvement fund. You can see here what we've got planned over the coming years. Really big number in 2027. So we're finishing up the municipal garage. So we're going to have some expenses over there. We've got a number of tornado projects and the number that's still kind of driving that up at the moment is the roof at 10 South Brentwood, which is unknown how much that will cost at the moment. But our early estimates and what we plugged into here was about $4 million for that. So 27 appears to be a big year. A lot of that is due to that. you know, those tornado related expenses, the whiteout improvements, the street lighting that's going in across the city, that sort of thing. But you can see the fluctuation year over year. But what I always point out with the capital improvement fund, when you look at this pie chart, while tornado right now is about 40% of what we're spending out of the capital fund, the rest are all maintenance type activities. So the city is really not going out and building new things and spending our capital money on that. We're really trying to maintain what we have in good condition. So you can see how much is going towards improvements within the parks, keeping up shelters and ball fields and lighting, microsurfacing, keeping up the health of our streets, and then facility improvements. So all the work is really being done to maintain our existing infrastructure. And then finally, debt service. We do have just over $30 million in total outstanding debt. You can see on the far right the years that those, the debts, the various debts we paid off. So in 2019, we borrowed money to buy what is now the police station. In 2021, we borrowed more money to renovate that building and do some parks work as well. You may remember the city or the center of Clayton work that went on years ago. Just a few years ago, a lot of that expense came out of this bond issue here. Got about $3.2 million left on it. In 2022, we refunded or refinanced the general obligation bonds that paid for all the road reconstructions in 2014. That'll be paid off in 2034. And then last year we issued brand new debt, just under $14 million to redo our public works and parks facility that we call the municipal maintenance facility or used to be called the municipal garage, lots of names. But that's underway and should be done hopefully by the end of the year. And it looks like it's on track to do that. But if you drive by right now, it's a mess, but it's really coming along. So we're excited to get that facility done. It's been a long time coming. And we'll have that debt paid off in 2044. So that's where we're at as of today with our debt service. And as far as the budget approval schedule, today is September 8th. So you can see we are currently doing the public hearing and first reading on the annual budget. We've got the center Clayton budget that's on the consent agenda tonight. We just had that meeting with the school district last week. And then September 22nd, we'll have the second reading and final approval of both the tax levy and this budget. And then it will go into effect on October 1st. At that point, we'll turn things over to citizen finance to really go to work to figure out how to cut this deficit down over time. And I'm sure we'll have a lot more discussions within this room and at the board or the city council's retreat next summer as well as we start to prepare fiscal year 28. So with that, I'll take any questions you might have related to the budget.

Thank you so much, David. I will open the discussion. Are there any questions or comments from the audience or online? No, I don't see. Do you want to come up to the microphone? Yep. And you just have to state your name for the record and just make sure the light is green.

Okay, I'm Adam Watson. My question is about the revenue. So why is revenue stagnant and like the expenditures are increasing? Because I'd assume that property taxes would be increasing by some set amount to keep up with things like inflation or something like that.

So as we were talking about on the property tax levy, the state of Missouri limits how much we can actually collect on property taxes every year as an increased amount. So with that cap being CPI or 2.7%, we're not seeing big jumps year to year on the property tax side. Um, so that's why that's, that's relatively flat on the sales tax side. Um, we've seen some increases over years. So you can see here, this starts in 2025. Uh, here's what we anticipated we would get in fiscal year 26. So we thought we'd taken about 7.5 million, but in the end took in about 7.3. So we came in under our target. Um, We saw some annual increases due to inflation. So the goods people were buying were getting more expensive. It's getting more expensive to go out to eat or go to a hotel. We're starting to see that flatten out a little bit. We're starting activity really kind of stagnant. So it picked up since the pandemic, but day-to-day just seeing the people on the street and what's going on around town. um there just isn't a whole lot of additional activity uh the other thing that that we haven't had in a while is is a new sales tax driver here so like on olive they just got this new costco and a new deerbergs and these other things if you think about clayton we're really hotels and restaurants it's about 50 of our sales tax revenue um outside of that we've got you know walgreens we've got strobs we've got a cbs but we don't have supermarkets or targets or anything like that so um Until we get some bigger sales tax drivers, I think that's a number that's also going to stay relatively flat. So that's what's holding those numbers in place. And then down below, when we're talking about expenditures, the big increases that you're seeing, a lot of that's due to personnel costs. So things like health insurance, just the salary, just the market generally for employees is going up at a faster rate than that revenue that's only going up one and a half percent or so. But that's what's going on here is we're really limited into how much we can take in an additional property tax year to year. We're not capturing that whole property value increase that homeowners might have. And then sales tax, it's just stagnant activity that we're seeing. All right. Thank you. Sorry for the long explanation. No, thank you. I appreciate it.

And we will discuss it more. And in our next few meetings, we'll have more discussions about David will present to you guys to talk a little bit more about finances and the budget. So there'll be an opportunity for more questions.

Great question. Thank you for engaging

that. Are there any comments from the council or questions? Seeing none, and I don't see any questions online. Council Member Buse. I introduce bill number 7172. I'm sorry, one second. I will close the public hearing. Sorry. Go ahead.

I introduce bill 7172, approving the property tax levies for tax year 2026 to be read for the first time by title only. Wait, am I wrong?

I believe we're at the next item, Council Member. All

right.

Oh, yep.

I know. And I just start reading it without paying attention. So find this on the agenda here.

Bill 7173. Okay. I move to introduce

bill number 7173 to be read for the first time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7173, first reading an ordinance adopting an annual budget for fiscal year 2027 commencing on October 1, 2026 and appropriating funds pursuant thereto.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The vote passes 6-0. And then the second reading for this bill is scheduled for our next meeting on September 22nd. The next item on our agenda is our consent agenda. Are there any questions or comments on any of the items in the consent agenda? Council Member Buse. I move to approve the consent agenda. Second. Any discussion?

Council Member Buce. Aye. Council Member Patel.

Aye.

Council member Yorg. Aye. Council Member Waldman. Aye. Council Member Betsy Meyland-Smith.

Council member Yorg. Aye. Council Member Waldman. Aye. Council Member Malin Smith.

Aye.

Mayor McAndrew.

Aye. The first item under our new business is the grant program that we already talked about that Grace presented to us. So we've already heard about it. So I will open the discussion. Are there any other further questions or comments about the program?

I have a comment that is maybe not totally germane, but one of the things that I'm really interested in and would like staff to consider what options we have to set ourselves up for success is I think, I personally think composting as a form of waste diversion is critical to happen. And so I love that we're doing more to make it more well understood by our residents to take advantage of the program we have. And I want to be thinking about what we can do to position ourselves well, to have it as an option when we go back out for the next bid. I'm concerned that I think, I think we're still the only municipality doing it. I don't know if that for sure, but I know it's not widespread and I would love to make sure that we're doing everything we can to create an environment where it's like still an option. Or if we have any reason like to find out that it might not be to, start working on considering how it could be, right? Whether that's like meeting with the other, starting to work with other, like the businesses that specifically do composting and they do, it's very like sort of, um ad hoc residential right as far as i know but um i would just really like to see us work on that because i'm afraid it'll go away just like we think like rear yard might go away but um i don't think that would have as detrimental impact on our planet

Yeah, I mean, I think we are one of the few. I have had municipalities reach out and ask about our program. So I think we are in the minority for sure.

Well, and maybe it's something we like work through sustainability or regionally to try to get more people to do it. So there's more of a demand so that the suppliers... are more interested in offering it. I mean, I just would love us to figure out how we think of ways to approach that. I don't have the answer.

We're happy to, I don't have an answer at the moment either. I can tell you that I haven't heard any indication that may go away. One of the difficult things for us though, is, is, is to track the effectiveness because it's just put into yard waste. We get the general yard waste numbers, but we don't know what percent of the yard waste is actual compost. So that is the tough thing when it's mixed in like that. We really don't have good, information on the usage. I think this grant will be nice because we'll see how many people come in to pick up a bin and may be able to gauge some sort of interest that way. But the way we currently do it, it's really difficult to measure. So even to try to measure improvement to see if we had some big campaign, if it's actually being effective. But in the end, yeah, we can see what's out there. And I think it's something that's of value to our residents and we'll try to preserve it.

I think yeah I think that's a really, really good point and part of it is, I think, hopefully, as we raise. More awareness, even though we've had for a long time raise awareness in our Community and that's one of the issues to that working with the school district. Like with the no idling their articles in the globe and everything else that takes it to a lot more families in a broader audience. And if there's more demand within our community for it, more usage, which again is hard to measure, but hopefully the bins will help. It should be hopefully something that we can push more. It's also something that does come up as you said, Bridget, that you get or David, that you get inquiries from other cities, cool cities, the other cities involved in that are interested that we have this because people don't have it. So again, that the awareness within our community and beyond, and hopefully that transfers into what the services provide. So that's a great point. I'm glad you brought that up.

Well, and real quick, I was wondering if we look at like the winter months, I know we're gathering then and to see if that's increased just because most people don't have a lot of yard waste in the winter months, if we could kind of like get a window there and see if this increases that at all. I don't know if that's... That is a thing, but I know we don't have like hardly any yard waste, you know, in the

winter. We can take a look at it like that. See what the trend looks like.

Great. Thanks. Any other thoughts or comments? Council Member

Buse. I move to approve resolution number 2026-28 endorsing submittal of an application to the St. Louis County grant program

Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The vote passes six to zero. The next item on our agenda is public art for 211 North Merrimack.

This is exciting. So we have a project at completion here. The subject property is located at the intersection of Merrimack Avenue and Pershing Avenue and has a zoning designation of planned unit development or PUD. The development is known as the Vivian. It's currently under construction, as I said, for the most part complete over there. CONSIST OF A MIXED USE RESIDENTIAL BUILDING. THE DEVELOPMENT WAS APPROVED THROUGH THE PUD PROCESS ON JUNE 27, 2023 AND WAS LATER AMENDED ON NOVEMBER 28, 2020. THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN 2025. 2026 WOULD BE IN THE FUTURE. SORRY. ALL RIGHT. AS PART OF THE APPROVED PUD, THE APPLICANT COMMITTED TO PROVIDING PUBLIC ART AS A PUBLIC BENEFIT. A MAXIMUM OF FIVE PUBLIC BENFEIT POINTS MAY BE AWARDED FOR PUBLIC ARTS. This particular PUD was approved with a tentative three points for public art pending a final recommendation from the Public Art Advisory Committee in confirmation by the City Council. applicant proposes a public art installation titled sampaguita and is designed by space design and construction the installation consists of three stylized sampaguita flowers which is the national flower of the philippines rising from the public sidewalk at the intersection of merrimack merrimack avenue and pershing avenue an interpretive plaque describing the significance of the flowers also proposed as a part of the installation The installation is, again, proposed to be located on a sidewalk bump out. It's located at the corner of Merrimack and Pershing, so it will require a right-of-way permit and will need a use and maintenance agreement along with that right-of- way permit. As we look at it and do the review, it's possible that we may have to change the location slightly once Public Works gets in there, but if it moves, it shouldn't move a too far from that location. The Public Art Advisory Committee met with representatives of the development on July 30th of this year and August 24th to discuss the concept. They unanimously recommend approval of the art to the city council submitted at their meeting on August 24th, 2026. That's the same drawings that you have in your packet or renderings. Staff note that at the time of drafting the report, the QR code links to Wikipedia rather than a page described by the applicant. Staff is of the opinion that this QR code should link to a page managed by the property owner or the Vivian Apartments. And with that, we

recommend... Thank you. I'll open the discussion. Are there... I don't see any representatives in the audience here in person. Are there any... Looks like there is somebody online, Shelly Niemeyer. So we will promote you. I see that your hand is up. Yes. Great. Shelly, would you like to talk to us a little bit about the project and obviously state your name and what your position is for the record?

Oh, sure. I'm Shelly Niemeier, principal at Space Architecture and Design. And I'm also here with my husband, Tom, and he's the architect of the project. as well. So and just to address the concern about the QR code, that was just a dummy QR code that we put in there until the developer provides us with a web page on their website to put content on it for it. Yeah, so I'm sorry. I didn't make that clear in the in the PDF that I sent out last week.

Yeah, I was kind of curious, like there is some attachments in our agenda. Is that the language that you anticipate that would be attached to Vivian's website? I mean, there's some language that was in our packet. I don't know that I'm assuming you guys submitted to us. Is that somewhat similar to the language that you think will be there? Actually, so... What you

are seeing in the packet, that was just the packet that was sent to the Art Advisory Board. For what will be on the website that would be linked by the QR code, we intend to actually do more of a historical analysis that includes links to primary sources and things of that nature for somebody, something that's a little more scholarly written than what you have in your packet.

Got it. And maybe if you could just kind of talk about how or if you're talking to somebody about what you're, you know, that sort of language or how you're going about that. I'm sorry. I know you mentioned I was present at the Public Art Advisory Committee, as you know. So you talked a little bit about, I think you spoke to Rhea Sharon in the past. Will you be talking to her about this language? Or I'm just curious. I think we might just be curious as to if you're talking to anyone locally about it.

Sure.

Oh, you may have accidentally muted yourself.

Yeah. No, I did because the dog was yelling. I'm sorry. No, no, it's fine. Yeah. So, you know, that's been very important to us every step of this process to make sure that we get buy in from especially, you know, Filipino customers. descendants to make sure that we are approaching this properly. And just to give some context that, you know, we were hired by the developer to produce some art that would sit on this corner. And we didn't want to, we didn't just want to put some random sculpture here. We wanted there to be a reason for it. We started doing some research into Pershing And then we found this interesting connection between Pershing and the Philippines, which typically is not taught very much in school. And we felt like, you know, considering the Philippine village that's, you know, over in the Daman neighborhood, we thought it could be kind of a lovely visual to commemorate that. So that's where all this came from. And Yeah. And so when we start doing, you know, more of this content, this more historical content, we do want to make sure that we're being careful about how it is presented on this website. So yes, we will continue to contact, you know, if you have anybody else from who was a part of the the Philippine Village Memorial, we are happy to talk to them as well as anybody else. But yes, we have found kind of a core group of Filipino descendants that we have been consulting with up to this

point. Thank you so much. I think Mark Rubin, you look like you have your hand up. Go ahead. Mark, can you hear us?

Yeah. Can you hear me?

Yep. We can hear you now. Yep.

So. So, yeah, anyway, I just wanted to add and I know Shelly Bridget, you were you were at that art commission hearing. So I think you've got more context. I know Shelly made some outreach with some people, the Filipino community. And I think they want to maintain some of the people that she's she's had some outreach to. I think at this point in time, I don't know that they want public acknowledgment. So that might be why Shelley is, you know, being a little vague in that. I know, as you heard, she's done quite a bit of historical research so far. So I think it's, you know, it's an ode to the community, some of the history. You know, I think it tells a great story and that kind of you know, presents, you know, I think not just an attractive piece of art, but something that has some historical foundation as well.

Thank you. I'm just going to go around and see if any of the council members have any questions.

Yeah, I pretty much addressed my one concern that there was. whenever we're doing something historical like that, and it was a complicated relationship with Pershing, the fact that you are going to continue to get input from the Filipino community seems pretty critical. At one point, at the first time this was presented, I was at that meeting and had suggested that we had had as City of Clayton a commemorative landscape task force that's no longer active right now. So if you're reaching out otherwise and Keeping that sensitivity, I think that's really wonderful. The way this concept came up and everything else, I'm very impressed with as well. So again, the sensitivity and making sure we get this right or you get this right is, I think, pretty good. And you've already addressed that. So thank you.

Appreciate the feedback.

I just have a question. My ability to imagine space is... not strong and i was looking at the dimensions and some of the renderings and it looks like these are quite tall like nine or ten feet so taller than people um and i was trying to figure out whether people will be able to like walk among them like you want to talk or will it be something you stay on the outside of

no i mean i mean at the human scale this will be right in that streetscape so yeah i mean it's going to be right in the right away so you'll be right next to them um it's it's an interactive experience so to speak thanks i mean

i don't have much it sounds like the art review board was comfortable with it i frankly think it's too tall and it needs more color but um

we talked about color but

yeah i mean i mean especially the scale at least in the pictures it looks like it i think color would help fill the space and i think nine feet it seems a bit tall for a piece of art but i am not an art person so i will with that said if if our art group is okay with that then i'm fine with it

yeah i i will say that yeah as i mean as was mentioned in the staff report pack was um they were unanimous and we did talk about color and um uh you know shelley um talked about color they just decided that at this point it's better to go all white just to match the building better so

Yeah, I had similar concerns about the color just because I feel like it kind of gets lost in, like, the sea of concrete. Like, when you're kind of walking up the street, like, you know, there's just so much concrete, whether it's on the street or the sidewalk. I would be fearful, like, the visual would get lost a little bit. So... I'm glad that it was brought up and thought about. Cause that was my, I guess my big concern. And then also I know like we're describing three of these, but then in every rendering there's four, which one are we?

I think Shelly, I don't know if you want to talk. I mean, you can maybe address the color concerns and then maybe just clarify their four flowers or how many there are. Yeah,

absolutely. Yeah. There are four flowers to be clear. And we did. We went with white because the Sampuguita is a jasmine flower, and it's traditionally white. And we did entertain some other colors. And in the end, I think collectively, us at Space and with Mark and his team and the art community, Committee committee. I'm sorry. We collectively decided that, you know, having this pure, clean white against the backdrop of the building made the nicest statement.

Yeah, I mean, counsel, to your point, we actually challenged Shelley and Tom pretty hard on. wanting something with a little more pop, they really debated us pretty hard. A, about the native color of the flower in order to maintain its authenticity. They wanted to really kind of stay true to that color. We actually kind of kept going back to them and introducing, well, what if we do red? What if we do just one out of red? What if do black? The challenge with black is black has a tendency to just kind of go away. So to your point about white conceivably going away amongst the backdrop, I think it's the conclusion was it'll actually be more recognizable than black. I mean, obviously black is very classic in tone, very, you know, compatible, not polarizing. The concern there is that it really would go away though. Yeah. So that's how they kind of kept pushing back and said, you know, we really want to leave it clean. We really want to preserve the authenticity of this flower, which is a white flower. That's how we landed there.

Yeah, thank you. I'm just kind of curious like how you guys kind of like thought around that. So thank you for that explanation.

Yep.

I just have two questions. One is just to sort of piggyback on Council Member Patel's question. I know these are quite tall, and I can see that they appear to be fairly substantial being four to six inches wide, but I know that we have some very nimble members of our community, I imagine. And will they be able to sustain climbing or other adventuring people? You want to?

Tom, do you want to speak to the integrity as well as maybe the scale relative to especially our 85th building?

Yes. This is Tom Niemeyer. I'm the architect of space. And So a couple of things. One, the height of them. I just wanted to address that. The flowers, the whole sculpture itself is made of steel that'll be powder coated white. And so the leaves and the flower is made up of thin steel. It's 16 gauge steel. So Um, uh, we didn't really want people to be able to reach it. So that's one of the reasons why it's up at 10 feet, uh, to just kind of discourage people from trying to handle it, uh, yank on it. Now they will be welded very securely up there. So it's not like, um, you know, they could be ripped off, but they could be possibly bent, um, uh, Or, you know, people just pull on them and, you know, they could hurt themselves. So we wanted to elevate them out of people's reach. And then as far as the stem is made up, and again, this is art and we're going to fabricate a sample first and test it, obviously. But the first prototype is going to be made up of The bottom four to five feet is going to be a thick-walled steel pipe that's an inch and a quarter in diameter. There'll be a seven-eighths solid steel rod that'll be inserted into that pipe to continue the stem upwards, and that'll be all welded together. When we do the install, we will be core drilling into the concrete and inserting the stem into a slightly oversized hole. And then we'll fill that with a grout that's an expanding grout so that as it cures, it'll really seize up on that steel pipe, making it impossible to move or pull out. As far as someone being able to climb it, I think it'd be very difficult. I couldn't. rule out the possibility uh someone very nimble um could maybe try to shimmy up that pole um uh but i'm not you know the most that it would do potentially would be uh the top part of that stem if they if they were able to shimmy all the way up to the top um i suppose um that top steel rod might bend But again, I think it would be, you know, on that public of a corner, I think it'd be pretty difficult for someone to do that.

Okay, thank you. Can I ask one more thing? Are you done? One more question. No, sorry. Just in looking at the renderings, I'm wondering if there are any other plans for landscaping or like large pots or something that could maybe soften the starkness I know that's not what we're talking about but no no

I know but I can very much so address that um actually um artelope to the landscaping design. And, you know, we have pretty conventional streetscape on pavers as well as street trees, obviously. We do have some landscaping decorative grasses around our townhome porches. The back, you should see if you've not been by there, Poke your head in the Western Muse. The landscaping is tremendous. It's absolutely fantastic, as well as that southwest corner on the pool deck as well. More than happy to give anybody a tour, by the way. And if you're looking for a nice urban place as a good counterpart to your suburban house in Clayton, we're more than happy to lease a unit to you as well. But the answer is we have Arbeloke doing some now that the building's up. We are going to be doing quite a few planners up on that front. Furthermore, we'll be doing some patio seating too. We're working with a restaurant right now. So we'll have some patio seating out there. So we're going to want to make sure that there's consistency and continuity. But the long and short is we absolutely are going to, that's going to be very planted out in the front. We're big believers in color and character and that type of stuff, for sure.

Thanks, Mark. Are there any other questions or comments from the council?

Oh, I'm sorry. Mine was on landscaping as well. And it It actually fit into the whole conversation about color and everything else, especially with the fire hydrant sitting right there. Yes. That's something that if there were grass or plantings around the street there, I know part of it is right away and part of it is not, something to give some color versus just the starkness of what's shown here. Sure. I think would help and would address the comments about the white and just on that black concrete as well. From what you just said, my understanding is that you're looking at adding a lot of that.

Oh, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, you know, like I said, we put this back and Artelope does, they do a lot of big institutional work too. They're super creative. So we've thrown this back at them and asked for some architectural scaled, you know, appropriate planners on that front. So, and we do, we want to make, we've got a water vault, we've got the fire hydrant, We've got some things over there that we definitely, we want to mask and we want those to go away very much so.

Okay, great. Thanks.

Yep.

Thank you. And Mark and Shelley, I'll just, and Tom too, I'll just thank you. You know, I think I really, I do like the art and I think I appreciate, I appreciate the fact that you guys tried to kind of think outside the box. It's always wonderful when we can educate our residents, our visitors, anybody that's going to hopefully go to this wonderful restaurant that Mark is going to open. just about our community and members of our community. I think it's great that you've taken the opportunity to do that. So if there are no other questions or comments here and online, I will counsel member Buse.

Okay. I move to approve resolution number 2026-29, approving the public art for the Vivian Apartments at 211 North Merrimack Avenue.

second any discussion all those in favor aye aye any opposed the vote passes six to zero we look forward to seeing it

thank you everybody appreciate it

um the last item on our agenda is a contract for a new city of clayton website

I'll take this one, Mayor. Staff requests approval of a contract with GHD Services for professional website design, development, implementation, hosting, maintenance, and support services for the city's official municipal website. The city's current website is 10 years old, and we are in need of an overhaul. The city seeks to create a dynamic user and mobile-friendly website that offers clear user-centered navigation, simplifies content management, presents a unique and creative visual design, promotes the city's image in the community and beyond, integrates with existing municipal systems such as GIS mapping and third-party applications, and most importantly, meets current and impending ADA and WCAG accessibility standards. Website design and development is expected to begin on October 1st, 2026, subject to approval and appropriation from the City Council. Funding for this project is included in the fiscal year 27 budget. The city issued a request for proposals from qualified firms. The submission deadline was July 8th, 2026. 36 proposals were received, opened and evaluated in private by city staff. A list of those proposals is attached to the summary. Seven firms highlighted in the attachment were invited for interviews and live demonstrations. Following analysis and evaluation, staff found the proposal from GHD to best serve the city's needs at the most reasonable price. GHD did not submit the lowest base bid. However, interviews and live demonstrations revealed that the lowest bid excluded several key functions from their proposal that would have required additional costs, eliminating the initial price advantage. The review team determined GHD provided the best overall value to the city based on transparent pricing and functionality, competitive costs, and overall responsiveness. The proposal submitted by GHD calls for a first-year total investment of $55,228. This includes all implementation, hosting, and maintenance. There is an annual cost of $28,629, which includes $24,495 for hosting and $4,134 for Cluedo Search, which is an AI-powered site search solution tailored for government institutions. Staff recommends a 10% contingency of $5,522 to address any adjustments or unforeseen implementation or content migration challenges. Staff recommends approving the ordinance authorizing the contract with GHD Services in the amount of $55,228 plus a contingency of $5522 for website redesign, development, hosting, and support services for a total of $60,750.

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

I certainly don't feel confident to analyze these different proposals. The numbers are all over the place. So I guess my bottom line question, and I trust the staff to have looked at and see what meets the needs going forward. What is the life of this system? If 10 years ago we got something and we're replacing it now, what do you anticipate for this?

That is a good question. Typically these things are have like a seven year lifespan, but I don't want to speak to that right now because I don't know the actual answer to that.

Okay. So the fact that we've been 10 years is actually a good thing.

10 years is pretty old.

Okay. Or a tough thing. Maybe not a good thing. Okay.

Thanks. I, in my day job, I recently participated in an RFP process for our website redesign. And one of the things that I think is really important that we did or are trying to do, and I'm curious how the city thinks about this. is really thinking about the customer or user experience. What are the different personas or types of people that come to our website or come to us looking for information? And do we know what they're trying to do? And are we like making sure that we have mapped a way for them to easily find the thing they want to do, right? Does that, can you talk about

what- That was the purpose of redesigning the website. Make it more user-centered, easy navigation. So this company that we have chosen, we will meet with them over the span of like one or two months and mapping and navigation and content migration will all be handled there.

Yeah. Awesome. That's great. Thank you.

Do we pay for our website now? Like I know it's old, but like are we paying an annual fee for that? It's about $19,000. How much is it? $19,000 annually. You talked about this not necessarily being the cheapest bid when you started adding others, Finn, which makes sense. I guess my bigger question though is – or my bigger concern is what's – if you take Susan's question of seven years, eight years, like what's – Do we have a sense of what the present value of all those annual costs are going to be? And then is it still cheaper or is it more expensive? Because some of these look like they're $5,000 annual, $11,000. I'm concerned about the compound of a seven-year website cost at $28,000 a year. Do you have any sense of – do you guys factor that, again, over the seven-year period for the sake of – discussion what the total cost would be from one site over another

we did say for website re replacement in our earth so some of that to answer your question yes we do calculate that into replacement when we're looking at this particularly though really centered on our ada and pdf remediation that would cost us an astronomical fee to make sure that we're compliant in the amount of pages and PDFs that we have to remediate going forward. So that was kind of the leading factor in choosing GHD versus another company.

No, and that makes sense. I guess my question though is, I get we needed to look at what the total cost this year would be versus other firms. And you completely understand the logic of this one may not have been the cheapest when you started adding all the add-ons. But my question is, it seems to be higher on an annual basis than many of these other ones. So what I'm trying to get a sense of is, are they in line with the total cost? Again, if you use seven years, 10 years, whatever you want to call it. how much over are they? Are they, are they cheaper or are they the same? Because I just look at the numbers and see like some of these, like I'm playing terror for no reason other than coming to mind. It's 54 grand a year. And over the course of let's call it 10 year period, that's a hundred thousand dollars. If my math is right, that we're going to be paying extra. So I'm just trying to get a sense of how you guys thought about the continued costs, not just the, the, the, um,

The

installation costs or whatever the proper term is that I'm blanking on. I don't know

if we took that particular question that you're asking into consideration. We looked at overall costs for the first year, implementation fees, what we had in our budget to cover, and if they were able to meet all of the needs that the city would need to develop the website. So we did interview Planetaria, and they had a lot of add-ons that would run up that price for us.

The only other comment I had is I really wonder why website companies can't just have normal names. But that's just my own personal aside. Thank you.

I don't really have a question, just that I'm excited that our website is getting redone because I think it's long overdue. And, you know, I know the website pretty well and I still struggle to find things. So I think it's going to be really helpful to our residents and any of the contractors that try to find permits, all the things. I just think it's going I'm happy we're doing it.

I do think Jeff's point is a really important and good one because the annual cost being $10,000 more than we're paying now, it sounds like ongoing makes sense to me that that would be figured into our overall assessment of the of each company. But if you're saying that the other companies could not meet our needs to, to create the website in the first place, then that answers that question, I guess. But to me, if it's like, to use his example, Planetaria, which is Um, 54,500 to build and then only 5,400 to maintain versus 29,000. That's a pretty substantial difference. So I guess I would hope that that ongoing cost was a consideration too.

Well, and I feel like it is, it's a huge difference.

Some of the firms listed here, there's a price difference because they're not able to meet what we need. So that is representative. But definitely with the ones that are in yellow, those are the ones that we did interview. I can go back through our notes, the staff's notes, and come back to you at a later

date. The other thing I would point out on this, and we've run into this with our current provider, is when you go back to them to get something adjusted, they charge you for that. So once it's built, the maintenance just keeps the website up. But if you want to reconfigure things, then there's a charge for their people to go in and reconfigure it. I think something that would be interesting to know is whether or not this amount, the higher amount, includes more of those changes without the additional charges down the road. Being a more flexible website, you can make, what we have now is very, very rigid. So the big change where we went from the blue website to the green website, I don't know if you remember the blue Clayton website from maybe seven or eight years ago, just to make that change was a pretty substantial expense to get them to go in and do that. And to reconfigure and move buttons from one spot to the next, there was a charge for that individual change. So I'd be interested to know is whether or not that is still the situation with the proposed vendor.

Yeah, I don't doubt that it's an improvement. I just want to be mindful of like looking at the upfront costs is one thing, but then the ongoing costs. And if it is ultimately a savings because they're not nickel and diming us on any kind of edits, that's a valuable thing for us to understand, I think.

Yeah, so if there's, I mean, I don't know what the process is, but at least for me, it's like, I prefer to just kind of table it and just kind of have you do a little of that and come back. It's not, at the end of the day, to me, it's not a crazy amount of money, but as we're getting into the budget we just looked at, before we accept a seven to 10 year cost, which I assume some sort of inflator in that 28,000 number, because most of these have a 3%, 5%, 8%, whatever the inflator is. I'd like to kind of have a better, at least for me, I want to have a better sense of kind of what the, I'm going to use 10 years cause it's easier. The 10 year cost we'd be taking on for the website.

Okay.

We can do that.

Sounds good. Great. So we will just have a motion to continue.

Yeah, do we have a date to when we want it continued? 22nd. 22nd. I move that we continue bill number 7174 to the council meeting on September 22nd. to allow staff to provide some additional cost and effectiveness analysis. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great. All right, so we have come to the end of our agenda. Given that we, I think perhaps we'll skip the roundtable since we have to do one more thing this evening. So Council Member Buse.

I moved that the council hold a closed meeting with a closed vote and record as authorized by section 610.0211, 2 and 3 revised statutes of Missouri relating to legal issues, real estate and or personnel. negotiation of a contract pursuant to Section 610.02112, RSMO, and or proprietary information pursuant to section 610.0 2115, and or information related to public safety and security measures pursuant to sections 610.0 to 118 and 19 RSMO.

Second.

Councilmember Buse? Aye. Councilmember Patel? Mayor Mrakas, I also remember your.

Mayor

Mrakas , Also remember woman I also remember mailing Smith I mayor McAndrew

I

thank you

right, thank you that ends our regular meeting. yeah. Thank you. Thank you

guys. Thank you.