August 11, 2026

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

good evening we're here for our august 11th clayton city council meeting um it is 6 30. we are going to have a presentation um on the fiscal year 2025 audit welcome victoria daly um hi everyone thank you so much for having me tonight and giving me the opportunity to present on a few reports that we issued for this city And it's for fiscal year September 30, 2025. So we issued three reports. The first is the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report.

The second is Auditor's Communication to the Mayor, Board of Aldermen and Management. And within that report there's a few different communications within that there's the required communication with those charged with governance. That we have at the end of the audit also any adjusting journal entries or past adjustments and then finally the management letter. The last report is a single audit report.

So I'll go over each of these this evening. The first is the annual comprehensive financial report. So within this report, the first part is an independent auditor's report. And so this is a report on the financial statements as of September 30, 2025.

The city did receive an unmodified opinion report. which means that the financial statements are materially correct, that the numbers are correct, that the financial statements fairly presented and that's meaning the disclosures and presentation. And finally, that the financial statements conform with GAAP. What it does not mean.

So an audit is not designed to provide assurance about internal controls. It is not designed to detect immaterial errors or fraud. And it is designed to obtain reasonable but not absolute assurance about whether the financial statements are free from material misstatement. So within this report, there is a new paragraph this year on emphasis of matter, which discloses that the city adopted GASB statement number 101 compensated absences, which decreased beginning net position and increased liabilities of the governmental activities.

So Gatsby puts out pronouncements at least yearly now, and the city adopted this one in fiscal year 25. So this required municipalities and other governments to accrue time that was not accrued previously for any time that accumulates from year to year and it doesn't have to be paid out, but it can be used in lieu of time off. That included an additional accrual for sick time. And then the next part of that report is management's responsibility for the fair presentation on the financial statements.

And then our responsibility as auditors to audit the financial statements. The next part of that report is the independent auditor's report on internal control over financial reporting and on compliance. So this is in accordance with government auditing standards. And this is a special report that the city needed to have.

It's also known as a yellow book report, if you've previously heard that. And it's required due to the level of grant expenditures during the fiscal year. Since there was over $750,000 of grant expenditures, the city required a single audit and then it had to also be in accordance with government auditing standards, which is also known as yellow books. So this is an additional report and it's a report on internal control over financial reporting.

So it is good to know that the city had no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies identified within this report. We also test for the city's compliance with certain regulations laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements, and there were no instances of noncompliance noted. The next section of this report is management's discussion analysis. And this presents a good summary of the government's financial performance for fiscal year 25.

It analyzes overall financial position and results of the previous year's operations to assess whether the city's finances have improved or deteriorated. And it's to be read in conjunction with the city's financial statement. So we'll go over some of the numbers first and then some of the reasons for the changes. So the first is the financial results on the government-wide basis.

So this combines all the funds and it's on the full accrual basis that includes debt and capital assets. So on the governmental activities as of year end, there was 194 million in total assets and deferred outflows. There were 67.2 million in total liabilities and deferred inflows, leaving ending net position of 126.8 million. Within that net position amount, 27 million was unrestricted.

So that was the amount that was left to be spent that was not restricted or invested in capital assets. and net position increased 5.8 million. In capital assets, there was 93.9 million in total capital assets. Capital assets decreased slightly, $533,000.

And that's mainly because there was depreciation expense of $5.6 million over the increase in the capital asset additions of $5.2 million. So some of the notable additions include the improvements at the Municipal Garage, the Central Business District resurfacing, Maryland Park improvements, Shaw Park Fields 1 and 2, and number one Oak Knoll Park Roof. With a long-term debt, long-term debt increased $11.7 million or 51.9%, and this was due to the new bond issuance, the special obligation bonds series 2025 that were issued during the fiscal year, and this included a bond premium. The total amount was $14.3 million.

So next we'll go over some changes from last year. So total revenues increased approximately 2 million or 4.9%. So there's a large increase in operating grants of 2.3 million or 101.1%. And that's due to the FEMA money that was received in the current year.

There was also a decrease in investment income of $644,000 or 18.3%, and that was due to a decrease in interest rates and the market condition. There was an increase in total expenses of $5.2 million or 14.9%, and this was also due to FEMA, so the FEMA repairs were included in that, and an increase in total wages and related costs. Next, we'll look at the funds. So we'll go over some of the numbers and the fund financial statements.

So the first is the general fund. The general fund ended the year with $24.1 million in unassigned fund balance. There was an increase in fund balance of $1.3 million, and all the major funds that we'll go over all increased in fund balance. The next is the Capital Improvement Fund, so that increased $1.5 million in fund balance and left $8.8 million in restricted fund balance.

Next is the Equipment Replacement Fund, and that increased $874,000. And as of the end of the year, there was $4.8 million in Restricted Fund Balance and $7.5 million in Assigned Fund Balance. Next is the Capital Projects Fund. And that fund increased $13.2 million and ended the year with $15.8 million in restricted fund balance.

And that's where the bond issuance was recorded too. So that explains the increase in that fund. So total governmental funds had an increase of $17.2 million, and there was ending fund balance of $69.4 million within all the funds. Next, we'll go over the fiduciary fund financial statements.

So in these financial statements includes any pension trust funds and the custodial funds. So the city's pension trust funds are the non-uniformed and the uniform plans. As of the end of the year, there was 92 million in restricted net position and net position increased 5.5 million. There was 7.7 million in net investment income and net investment income, while it is positive, it did decrease 5.6 million or 41% from last year just due to the economy, the decreased interest rates and the market conditions.

And the custodial funds, there's two custodial funds. So there's Central Corps Fire Training Center Commission and Clayton Recreation Sports and Wellness Commission. And those both have no ending net position. And that's just kind of the nature of the funds.

What comes in goes out. The next part is is the notes to the financial statements. So within these, the first part of the notes is a summary of significant accounting policies. So these don't usually change much from year to year.

Usually municipalities don't really change their accounting policies too much. So those stayed relatively comparable to last year. There were detailed disclosures that I'd like to go over. So the first is cash and investments.

It's important to note that cash was entirely secured or collateralized at year end. So that's really good to know and that's really important. There's also $42 million in investments in the governmental activities and $91 million in investments in pension funds. Capital assets, we touched on about how those decreased $533,000 and that's just mainly due to a depreciation expense over the amount of capital additions.

And then with the same with the long-term debt, that increased $13.7 million for the new debt and then $609,000 in bond premiums. So those new special obligation bonds were issued, which increased the debt. The next part is pension. So within the two plans, the non-uniform plan we'll go over first.

So this had 231 members as of year end, and there was a decrease in the net pension liability. So it went from $1.7 million to $2,877. And that's mainly due to net investment income of $2.4 million over the interest and service costs. There are also no benefit plan changes or changes in assumptions in either plan.

The next one is a uniform plan. So the uniform plan ended the year with 191 members, and there was an increase in the net pension assets. So there's an increase in the asset in this plan, which is good. So it went from 3.2 million assets to 3.4 million assets.

So there was a net investment income of $5.3 million over interest and service costs. The next part we'll go over is OPEB. So the city's OPEB plan provides health care benefits to city retirees until they reach Medicare eligibility age. As of the end of the year, there was 187 members and the total OPEB liability increased from $1.3 million to $1.6 million, which is also on trend with other governments as well.

Also, there was an update to initial per capita costs and health care cost trends, which increased the liability. The next disclosure we'll go over is the joint venture. And within that disclosure, it notes that the city contributed $150,000 to CRSWC for its annual operating subsidy, $100,000 for its capital subsidy, an ERF subsidy of $50,000, and $51,000 for its share of the commission's deficit. The next note is on the tax abatements.

So there was $268,000 of city property taxes abated in 2025, which is relatively comparable to last year as well. There was a restatement, so that's required to be disclosed as well. And that just notes that the city implemented GASB Statement 101 on compensated absences. And the city now recognizes an estimated amount of sick leave that's earned as of year end that will be used in lieu of time off in future years.

So that's required to be included as part of the liability for compensated absences, whereas in the previous standards, it was only required if it was paid out. So this decreased beginning net position and increased liabilities $437,000. And then we also disclosed that on March 10th, 2026, the city authorized the issuance of the taxable industrial revenue bonds in the amount of $60 million. The next section of the report includes required supplementary information, which includes budget to actual schedules.

And the most important part of these schedules to go over is that expenditures were under budget. So the city is not allowed to expend more than appropriated. So it's good to note that the expenditures were under budget There's also 10-year trend information on pension and OPEB. And then the next part shows the budget to actual schedules on the non-major funds and also the debt service and capital projects.

And those funds were also, the expenditures were under budget. And the last part of the report is a statistical section, which has a lot of 10-year trend information. on net position, on revenue, on debt, on operating indicators, capital assets. So there's just a lot of information back there if you would like to see how the city was doing years ago compared to now.

Any questions before I go on to the next report? Does anybody have any questions at this point? I guess this would be the time to ask a bunch of questions. I mean, I think on what she's already presented, I think if there's stuff, yeah.

And some of it, you know, let me hold off. We're going to for me to finish first. Yeah, that's fine. Why don't you just finish and then we'll ask questions at the end.

Okay. The second report is the auditor's communication to the mayor board of Alderman and management. So in this report, we're required to have communications with Ward at the end of the audit. And we go over any new GASBs that were adopted.

So we disclose that the city adopted GASB 101 on compensated absences. We also disclose the most sensitive estimates, which are depreciation, pension and OPEB liability assumptions, investment fair values, and allowance accounts. We would also disclose if there were any difficulties in performing the audit or any disagreements with management. I'm happy to say that there were none.

We also disclosed any corrected and uncorrected misstatements. And so there were two corrected misstatements, so two journal entries. And then there was also an uncorrected statement similar to last year, which was immaterial and inaccurate to the financial statements and therefore wasn't made. And then finally, within that report is a management letter.

And I'm happy to say that there were no comments in the current year and the prior year comment related to the recording of the custodial funds was not repeated. The last report is a single audit report. So this is required when the city expends more than a certain amount in federal funds. And the major program in 2025 was FEMA.

So within that major program, 94% of the city's federal funding was federal funds works tested. And then it's also noted that the city received an unmodified audit opinion. So that's the best opinion. And city was not a low risk auditing and there were no findings.

So that's all good to know. Finally, any questions on any of the reports now that I went over? Beth, you want to, I mean, you can go ahead and pick. My only question might be directed as well to David, but where it talks about tax abatements, $268,000.

Of city property taxes abated in FY25, I assume that's Centene and that that's the last year of the abatement. Is that correct? The first Centene building. Yes.

That didn't turn off when the other phases did. So everything east of Hanley shut off at the end of fiscal year 24. So that's still the abatement that is ongoing at the original Centene building. And then we also have some abatement at 212 still as well.

Thank you. With the FEMA money, I see you've booked it. You're talking about the revenues and the operating grants coming in and the expenses coming out. How are we booking the rest of the FEMA money?

Is it an expected revenue? I assume there's still some out there that isn't. Yeah, so as we get into fiscal year 27 budget, we'll talk about this at the work session on the 21st. The FEMA money that comes in will hit the capital fund if that expenditure is made through the capital fund.

So for instance, items like street lighting. I guess I'm asking where on the balance sheet, if anywhere, is the expected money coming in? Do we have it booked as an expected asset coming in? No, not until we get to the point where we're making those expenditures.

Okay. They knew it was coming, but I get from an accounting standpoint you could book it, I guess. Those are true reimbursements. Okay.

You could. Go ahead. Or if you can – sorry. Fiscal 25, we did book a receivable for the two, the debris removal and emergency operations because we knew the amount and we knew it was coming and it was obligated.

The other revenue, we're just booking as we get it. So like in this fiscal year, when we get it, we book it to federal grants. If we are, again, obligated, something's complete, we're aware of it, we'll book a receivable at the end of the fiscal year. But I really don't anticipate anything at this point.

One other question on the, it says corrected misstatements to AGEs. What were those? What were the misstatements? It didn't sound like they were material, but what were they?

Yeah, they weren't material. So the first one was to record one month of ambulance accounts receivable for Washington University. So that was $38,000. And then the other one is to adjust net position for CRSWC for the deficit.

And so that is really in the custodial fund. Okay, thanks. I just had a quick question just because this is kind of new to me. The OPEB, 187 members, is that all people that have retired and we are now paying until they retire?

reach eligibility age of Medicare? Yes. So those are all the members on the plan for the other post-employment benefit plan. So that's what OPEB stands for.

And that's all the people that have elected that coverage that have retired. Okay. And does that include fire and police? I believe so.

Karen, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think so. Okay. It does. Uniformed and non-uniformed employees.

That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else have any questions about the audit?

No. um seeing no other questions uh victoria thank you uh for the presentation we appreciate it yeah it was very clear and um it was easy to read in the packet so thanks so much great yep thank you so much for your time and i hope you all have a great evening you too thank you um I think we're going to briefly go into executive session. So Council Member Betsy Meyland-Smith. I move 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 issues.

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. Second. Council Member Buse?

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

Aye. Councilmember Jeffery Yorg. Aye. Councilmember Waldman.

Aye. Council member Betsy Meyland-Smith. Aye. Mayor McAndrew.

Thank you. So we will pause the recording and we should be back shortly. Thank you. Good evening.

We're here for our 7 o'clock Clayton City Council August 11th meeting if the city clerk could call the roll. Councilmember Buse. Here. Councilmember here council member Gary Feder here council member Jeffery Yorg here council member waldman here house member Betsy Meyland-Smith here mayor mcandrew here city manager David Gipson here city attorney o'keefe here thank you um the first item on our agenda is the open forum part of our meeting um so if anybody wanted to talk to us about something that's not on the agenda you're welcome to do so There's nobody in chambers that's not staff.

I'm not sure if there's anyone online. If there's somebody online that wishes to speak, you can raise your hand. um i was just stating the first portion of our meeting is our open forum where if you have something to talk to us about um within the city um this would be a item that's not on the agenda um you're welcome to talk to us now there is a three minute limit and then if you speak to us um there's a form out there that you can fill out if there's something on the agenda that you wish to speak about um just wait until that agenda item comes before us. I don't see anybody approaching us.

So we will go ahead and start the first item on our agenda. It is a public hearing, a conditional use permit for 42 North Central for Trey Quarry Gelateria. Yes, this is a public hearing to consider an application for a conditional use permit submitted by Trey Corey to allow for the operation of a gelato restaurant. The subject property is located at the southeast corner of the intersection between Maryland Avenue and North Central Avenue, has a zoning designation of planned unit development or PUD, and the site is developed with a six-story mixed-use building.

The restaurant measures 1,565 square feet and is proposed to have 45 seats. There will be parking via street parking and nearby garages. Proposed hours of operation are 10 a.m. to 9.30 p.m.

Sunday through Thursday and 10 a.m.-10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Plan Commission considered this request at its meeting on July 20, 2026, and they voted unanimously to recommend approval as requested. Staff recommends approval of the conditional use permit for the operation of Trey Quarry located at 42 North Central Avenue, per the conditions outlined in the resolution.

Thank you. The public hearing is open just in case I wasn't clear before, but I'll open the discussion. Are there any questions or comments from the city council? Yeah.

And I think that we're very excited to. You are welcome to come up here. If you want to just state your name for the record and just make sure the button at the bottom is on if it's green. So just make sure it's green.

Hi, good evening. My name is Tassia. I am the chef and owner together with my husband, Rafael. We have one location in Ellisville.

We've been in business for about five years now, and we're very, very happy to be to the possibility of opening a Trecori Gelateria here in Clayton. I think we have a lot to contribute, and our gelatos are all natural. We make it in small batches. We use fresh ingredients, and that's what we want to bring to Clayton as well.

Yep. Good evening. Some of you already met in a previous meeting, so nice to be back. Rafael Rezende, TASA's husband, part of Tricori team.

Very happy with the opportunity to extend our store operations to the city of Clayton. I mentioned as well, because of that, we also moved to Richmond Heights, which is very close by, so we can oversee the construction, plus also be in the day-to-day of the business as well. And we're here to any questions or any other subjects we can address related to this. Thank you.

Well, I'll just say and other people might have questions or comments, but we are so excited to have you. So I'm just I mean, I can't tell you how many people are, you know, just excited to have gelato or just some sort of like easy dessert, you know. And I will say my daughter loves acai bowls. And so, yes, I think everybody is just very, very excited.

So we We welcome you with open arms and are certainly very excited. I'll go around if anybody's any questions or comments. Good to see you again. And as you know, I join in welcoming you to the community.

Very excited to have you here. And something that we discussed before as well, I hope that you take advantage. The city supports the Green Dining Alliance and looking at it seems to fit with your small batch natural ingredients and everything else with that. The other part that the city is supporting as well is a Skip the Stuff campaign, which hopefully, especially with your product, versus giving packages of napkins and things, it reduces consumption by just people taking a spoon if they need it and things like that.

And you can get a sticker and participate again in the green efforts of the city. And almost definitely, I did mention to Tassim after the meeting as well. We're excited about the opportunity to maybe offer and expand that from a green perspective too. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Welcome. Thanks.

When my kids were little, which was a very long time ago, there was a place called Oliver's, which was an ice cream place. I think very close to your current location. Anyway, we've missed it for a long time. My kids are now not kids anymore.

Anyway, we're very, very excited to have you in the community. Thank you. Thank you. We are excited to maybe pass through another generation.

Maybe your grandchildren create memories. That's what we wanted. Like a very welcome space that families, friends can get together. We don't want to just grab and go.

You know, we want to create a very nice environment to Clayton and the family can create memories there. That's very special to us. Just two questions. One on here talks about the proposed IRS operations, which is perfectly fine with me.

What I'm curious is that is the plan to really be open from like 10 to 930? Or is that just the window that you want to get approval for and function somewhere in between there? Great question. The decision for the hours was for one or two reasons, actually.

One is to be close to the hours of operation from Sushi Eye, which is the very close restaurant across actually almost the wall, yeah, side by side. And the other one, when we were working with the landlord as well, he did wanted us to have something not only in the afternoon, because in the Ellisville store, we open around 1230 or 1 p.m., depending on the day, and we close at 9 o'clock. But he wanted something a little earlier, Like from a lunchtime perspective, in case someone wants to grab something just before lunch, like a coffee or some other savors. Yes, for breakfast.

And also we serve acai bowls. Some people like it to have it in the morning. In Brazil, it's very common to have during the day, even at night as a dessert. like a healthy dessert.

But the landlord also, since they have the apartment buildings on top, he wanted to have probably coffee, we will have some espresso, coffee and cappuccino so he wanted to offer a more authentic italian breakfast too so we are thinking about having some little bites uh as well and um that will complement the area as well thinking about the buildings around that and you'd answer my other question which was besides gelato what was on the menu but you've already covered that piece so thank you good luck oh thank you Yeah, very excited to have you guys here. I'm so happy to hear all the things that you're saying about building the community there and wanting people to stay there. And that's really something that we're striving for here in Clayton, but especially in downtown at your location. I just had one quick question is, and I don't even know if there's room for it, but any outdoor seating plan for the future or- Yeah, so good question.

There is already plenty of outdoor right in front of a sushi eye. In our current design, there is like a very little space in front of the door that could maybe fit one or two tables. To begin with, we decided to not approach that because one, we got enough seats inside and we also have the sushi eye with plenty of seats. And that will become a little bit cumbersome with the entrance of the door as well.

So we didn't have anything on our plans from outside for this point in time. Yeah. Thank you. But we do want it.

We're just going to start only indoor seatings for now, and then we will ask for approval once spring summer next year starts, and then we'll get approval. It will not have a lot of space, but I think it's a great area and the weather and having a table outside is great. So we do want to ask for approval beginning after we open so since we're probably aiming to open in january it will be cold but after the cold passes we are thinking about having the approval great thank you very excited to have you guys Yeah. Speaking of the inside of the space, it just looks beautiful from the renderings.

So I think you guys did a really lovely job. And I think you're right around the corner from Remembrance Park, right? But right next to the library. So there's outdoor tables over there too.

So that will be great like spillover space for you. So congratulations and welcome to Clayton. Yeah. I mean, as you know, the Sushi AI is doing very well, you know, that so many people, but while the sushi is awesome, there's not a lot of dessert offerings.

So I think you will provide a very welcome post-dinner treat for everyone. So. That'll be great. So if there are no other questions or comments, I will close the public hearing.

Council Member Buse? I move to approve Resolution No. 2026-24, granting a conditional use permit for 42 North Central Avenue for Trey Corey Gelateria. Okay.

Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

The vote passes seven to zero. You're on your way. Thank you. We're excited.

Thank you. The next item on our agenda is our consent agenda. No comments on the minutes. Council Member Buse?

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

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

Council member Jeffery Yorg. Aye. Council members Waldman. Aye.

Councilmember Betsy Meyland-Smith. Aye. Mayor McAndrew. Aye.

Moving into new business, and I will say you guys are more than welcome to stay but if you don't want to you don't have to stay for the rest of the meeting. Just wanted to make sure you were aware of that. So the first item on our new business is our financial report. Yes, so our finance director, Karen Dilber, will come up and give the financial report and talk about the budget amendment.

I would just state two things. One, we're back on track as far as timing, so you're getting the third quarter budget amendment at the time you normally would. We had that lag earlier in the year with staffing shortages, and Karen's department has done a great job of getting everything back on schedule. So audit's complete.

You're looking at the third quarter budget and we'll get into budget discussions for fiscal year 27 in the next couple of weeks the one thing i would point out and it's in the budget amendment that we'll get to in just a minute um is there is a purchase of flock safety cameras it's listed that way on here i want to be very clear that that purchase that was what the council had authorized I think three or four months ago, that's where we get the Blue Shield grant from the state of Missouri. These are standard surveillance type cameras that will be in the downtown area. They're not license plate readers. So Flock as a company does a whole lot more than just the LPRs that have been the subject of our conversations lately.

These are the standard surveillance cameras that were approved again three or four months and now they're showing up in the budget amendment. So we can talk more about that if you'd like to when we get to that particular item. But I wanted to let you know what that item is It just happens to be the same company that's, you know, in these other conversations. So with that, I'll turn it over to Karen.

Good evening. So I'm going to kind of go out of order. I know the financial report is listed first on the agenda, but the budget amendment is shorter. So I thought I'd just cover that.

It's not terrible. The net change is an increase to fund balance of $120,900. David already talked about the flat cameras. We had a decrease in, we have an overall increase in general fund revenue.

There's a decrease due to the closure of the center pools. And then the dog park passes were prorated. So you're seeing a decrease in revenue there. There's an overall decrease in expenditures.

We are increasing the amount of the bailiff overtime. The amount that was originally budgeted was not enough to cover the overtime that was there. The big item is the removal of the tornado tree pruning expenses. They've been budgeted elsewhere.

We're moving some expenses to the capital improvement fund, which you'll see when we talk about the fiscal 27 budget a week from Friday. And then the Parks Water Utility, there's a correction there of $115,000. The Energage Employee Survey we addressed in the second quarter budget amendment, but it was actually appropriately budgeted in the IT department and that's where it was expensed. So I'm removing, this is a reversal of one of the things we had in the second quarter.

And then you'll notice over here on the second page in the Capital Improvement Fund, Those are those two other corrections that we talked about in the second quarter budget amendment for the 10 South Brentwood signage and the council chamber security. So that those are, those are the highlights. Any questions about that? Do you want us to, does anybody have any questions about the budget amendment or do you want Karen to maybe go into it?

I mean, very, very minor bailiff over time. That's what mine was. How much time? It's just for evenings.

For whatever reason, when the fiscal 26 budget was done, it wasn't calculated appropriately. And so we have to increase the amount of what was that $11,000 to cover the expense. Okay. Yeah, so I think what I'm curious about is whether, like, is it that we actually did something wrong or we're just running more court hours than we expected?

Which either thing is okay. No, it was an error in the projection. Okay. Mr.

Gary Feder? I'm good, thanks. On the park water utility accounting correction, did we just budget for that in the wrong fund? I'm just trying to, since it's $115,000, I was trying to figure out whether we had it someplace and we needed to move it to general fund or whether we didn't budget for it or kind of what happened there.

Let me see if I can find it. The description says that it was previously charged to the SPAC account, and this is correcting it, moving it away from that. What account? Shaw Park Aquatic Center.

Sorry. So the park's budget is broken down into different components. So within Shaw Park, there's some various components there. SPAC or the aquatic facility has its own budget.

So we track its revenue. We track its expenditures. There was a water leak and we were trying to find the source of this water leak that ended up obviously coming with a lot of expense. We thought that the leak was attributed to SPAC.

We found out later that it's actually a leak that's closer to the north shelter building. So that wouldn't be charged to the aquatic center account. It'd be charged to the general park account. And that's why the corrections.

It's already been paid. We budgeted for it or took it out of something. We're moving where that's at. Yes.

Okay. Thanks. Questions? Why don't we then, before you move into the financial report, why don't we go ahead and we'll take care of the budget amendment.

Council Member Buse? I introduce Bill Number 7168, approving the fiscal year 2026 third quarter budget amendment to be read for the first time by title only. Second. Any discussion?

Mr. City Attorney? Bill number 7168, first reading, an ordinance amending the fiscal year 2026 budget and appropriating funds pursuant thereto. All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? I move that the council give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7168 on the day of its introduction. Second.

All those in favour? Aye. Any opposed? The vote passes seven to zero.

Let the minutes reflect that the council has given unanimous consent. I introduce bill number 7168, approving the fiscal year 2026 third quarter budget amendment to be read for the second time by title only. Second. Any discussion?

Mr. City Attorney. Bill number 7168 second reading in consideration for adoption an ordinance amending the fiscal year 2027 budget and appropriating funds pursuant thereto. Council Member Buse.

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

Aye. Council member Yorg. Aye. Council members Waldman.

Aye. Councilmember Betsy Meyland-Smith. Aye. Mayor McAndrew.

Aye. Thank you. I would also like to point out that the fourth quarter budget amendment, you'll see it usually around January because we have a lot of adjusting entries that we do at the end of the fiscal year. So you won't see it immediately after the end of the fiscal year because we want to make sure that it accurately reflects the activity with the adjusting entries.

We're not running behind time. Okay, so moving on to the third quarter financial report. There's really nothing super exciting in this report, except that we are running on trend. So by the end of the third quarter, you want to see your revenues and expenses to be about 75%, because if you think about it, that's three quarters in.

And overall... We're doing that. The revenues overall were at 76.9% of total budget. The expenditures were a little low at 57.6%, and that really is a reflection of the equipment replacement fund, and I'm going to assume that's due to timing issues.

I don't have any major encumbrances outstanding, but it's equipment replacement. Okay. John Potter, yeah in our my understanding is our ladder trucks been delayed again so that's the big one that's really hanging out there, and I think that's pushed back to October, I believe, chief till tiller truck yeah so we're going to wait a little bit longer. You love to move stuff around.

You love to move around. I present budget and then it's explaining why we're moving stuff around. Absolutely love it. So generally, the property taxes, they're at 90.7% of the budget.

We have most all of them by this time. We even got our big one May, June. Licenses, permits, and fees, they were a little low, 60.9%. But as of June 30th, license renewal season was still going on.

So that's your liquor licenses, your business licenses, things like that. So that makes sense. Otherwise, everything else is pretty much on target with the exception of fines, which was just a little bit low. Expenditures, they were at about 66% personnel.

That's at 74%. We're a little bit, so normally we run about 6% higher year over year. This quarter we're a little bit low, but we had some turnover, some vacancies and things like that. So that's reflected in that number.

Contractual services, you know, we're about 50%. Commodities, about 76%. And capital outlay, again, that was low. Sales taxes are doing good.

Overall, 13.7% up year over year. General fund, 18.7% up, year over year. That's driven by the fire sales tax increase. And if you look at, I'm not sure what page it's on, but there is a comparison of the different sales taxes that we collect by type.

fire sales tax versus you know local option and all of that you can see the difference year over year and then we also have a chart we break it down by sales tax type the way they report it so and one of the big things that we focused on historically is hotels and they're up 11.4 percent year over year and we do have the column where we're comparing fiscal 23 to 26 and we we started doing that to kind of see how we were trending coming out of the pandemic i'm not sure if that number is still relevant We'll keep reporting it until you tell us not to, but that's where that came from. We have a lot of new elected officials, so I just wanted to let you know why we're comparing random years to each other. Do you have any questions about this report? I have one.

Are we seeing, this is 25-26, are we seeing any impact of the senior tax freeze in what we're receiving? But, you know, we have had new you know, businesses, new properties come online. And so, you know, they may kind of cross each other out. Really the biggest issue that we're seeing is delinquent taxes, you know, where they...

dispute that we don't know what that number is. And so sometimes that number's really big. And I think we were, what were we at? Like probably look at this report and find it like 200 some odd thousand.

And so we, we never know what that's going to be. That's all that's consistent every year. We run into that. Don't some years were positive.

Some years were negative. It's been in that. Yeah. Yes.

We consistently. It's going to be hard to determine the impact of the senior property tax freeze until we have a couple of years where we can of see what the trend is or see what that impact is so hopefully december 31st you know when we get to collection season and we start to get those receipts from the county first part of the next calendar year which is going to be fiscal 27 of course uh we'll really start to be able to develop where we're headed with it so thanks but ultimately it's it's going to stagnate the property tax increase you would otherwise see without new big projects coming online So can you just remind us, or at least me, how that works? So a homeowner who qualifies, and it's not means tested, right? It's age.

It's strictly age. Yeah. And so what is it frozen at a particular year's rate? Like, is it a bast year or is that like the year they apply?

Yeah, it's the year. It's the year it's approved, I believe, not just the year of eligibility, but most people will apply their year of eligibility. So it will freeze at that year. So what happens is.

know it's going to compound over time so early on it doesn't hurt much because it doesn't really move much until you get that next reassessment well when you're four or five reassessments down the road that's where you really start to see that impact where somebody's tax rate is frozen at 15 years ago. So it's going to be a while before we really start to see the impact here. I would think in the meantime, we may be able to parse some kind of trend out of it. It may stagnate things a little bit, but really it's the long-term impact when somebody that's had the freeze for 15 years is still paying it that old rate.

Is it right to assume that when a property changes ownership, it is reassessed and reset? That's correct. Regardless of the age? That's, that's correct.

The new owners. Yes. They don't like inherit a frozen. Well, and I think that's why they have to, I think they have to reapply every year.

I don't think it's something that once you do it, it sticks. Refreeze the new property. Yeah. Okay.

But it'd be able to be assessed at like current. That's correct. The first year. The first year and then it would freeze in place and then hold there in the future.

And at this point, we're not aware of any way that I guess I don't know if it would be the county or the state is going to make available to us like information on what properties have been subject to this. Well, we can get that information. Now, it will be a snapshot because as you said, properties change hands and other things. So there's going to be some churn within that number.

But yeah, that information can be made available. Like it'd be information about which properties are frozen. That's correct. And you would know...

Wouldn't have to like look up each property. You would know what the rate was frozen at as well. But there's, like I said, going to be a whole lot of churn here with this. So it's going to be a very difficult thing to predict.

And what's the age of eligibility? Is it 65? Do you know? It's okay if you don't know.

I thought it was 65, but I don't know. Okay. Thank you. Can I ask one follow-up on that before you're...

We've used the term rate. We've used the word assessed value. I just want to make sure we're all on the same page. Are they freezing the rate or are they freezing the valuation of property?

That's a great point. Yeah, they're freezing the valuation. That's what I thought. I just wanted to make sure.

So if there's rate fluctuation, if you charge a higher tax rate, that higher tax rate is going to hit the frozen assessed value. Gotcha. So if a municipality raises their property tax, we will get more money from the property. It's a devaluation.

Oh, but to that point, if the valuation stays the same, of the property, the valuation of the property stays the same. We actually tend to adjust our rate down year over year, depending on the economy and what's happening. And so folks could actually see their property taxes go down. we dropped the rate based on the aggregate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Assessed valuation. So you're gonna have some people whose assessed valuations are still going way up. That rate rollback is still, I mean, you're still capturing CPI.

I don't think it's gonna be that big of a... I don't think that's that big of a factor. It's not a $50,000 amount. Now you're getting into why recorders are trying to figure out how to do all this because it's a mess.

It's an interesting point. If the valuation changes and we roll it back every year on a per-house basis, it's possible that somebody is going to pay less. You're rolling the rate back, but your rate rollback is going to be at a slower rate than most people are seeing with their property value increase this year over year. Sorry, Gary, for jumping ahead.

I just wanted to clarify that. No, that's okay. It's all good stuff. Kerry, do you have any questions?

I don't. Thank you. I'm good. No questions?

All right. Great. Thank you very much, Karen. All right.

The next item on our agenda is a intergovernmental agreement with the city of Webster Groves for our fire training facility. Yes. So we had Shrewsbury join us just a couple of months ago. Now Webster Groves wants to continue with the fire training division, but the contract has changed a little bit now that we have the fire training center.

So we have the central core cities, which are Brentwood, Clayton, Richmond Heights and Maplewood. We operate the central core fire training division, which is a collaborative effort to provide consistent fire service training across our jurisdictions. The city of Shrewsbury, as I said, is also a participating member now of the training division. and for 2026, Webster-Groves has requested inclusion as an active participant.

The program costs within the CCTD, we call it our Central Core Fire Training Division, are assessed on a per firefighter basis and reflect the instructional services training time and administrative report required to deliver the plan and curriculum for that individual city. For 2026, participation costs for Webster-Growes is $1,460 per firefighter For a total program amount of $55,480. This total does include the established fee associated with use of the training tower, and I will note they pay a higher rate than the owner cities do for the fire training center so we do try to capture the fact that we had a capital outlay up front, and they did not. So, this intergovernmental intergovernmental agreement is a three-year renewable agreement and we have a five percent annual cost increase built into it that's to keep pace with the salary increase that's projected mainly for the training super or the training officer who in this case is a clayton battalion chief staff recommends approval of the 2026 intergovernmental agreement authorizing the webster gross fire department's participation in the central core fire training division Thank you.

I'll open the discussion. Are there any questions or comments from the council? Once again, I'll just repeat our appreciation for the intergovernmental cooperation. And so do we expect, we operate at this with Brentwood, Richmond Heights and Maplewood and Shrewsbury and Webster also utilize it.

And so we allocate costs and is the expectation that what Webster Groves pays in equals the expenses? Yes, so the way this works is we have the Central Corps Training Division or CCTD. That's just the training component. So that's the battalion chief or the training officer that goes out and does the actual training.

It's all the materials that are used for the curriculum in that training. And they essentially have a cost associated with all of those various education components. Webster Groves has gone through that menu, as I'll put it, and they've selected what training components they'd like to participate in so we've assessed a cost based on that and then we've added to that cctt cost the central core training division cost the cost for them to access the fire training center which is another partnership between those core cities so what you're seeing at that 1460 per firefighter that's the training cost plus the tower cost for each one of those firefighters but they basically looked at a menu and selected what they wanted just like shrewsbury did for their contract We don't expect a net increase or decrease. We don't expect to net revenue or expense as a result.

No, we're breaking even on this and recapturing some of that capital outlay through the fire training center portion. Right. Okay. Thank you.

No questions. Thank you. David, for perspective or chief, either one, how much are we paying? So if they're going to pay $1,460,000, presumably our cost is less because you built in some of the usage of the facility.

I'm just trying to kind of put it in perspective. Usage of the facility is actually a smaller portion than the cost for the personnel, so the battalion chiefs who we're paying and then all the various training components. The four core member cities utilize everything on that venue. So our cost is actually higher because we have a lot of training that Webster Groves isn't actually purchasing from our cooperative.

they're just coming in for certain little pieces of it um we're using the we're using the full system so they are doing other types of training within their department this is where they want to come and partner with these other with our communities so chief i don't know if you want to add anything to that but okay how did we come up with the um let's call it the gross up for the building did we just kind of look at the useful life of the building and kind of like back into that or is it kind of a Yes. And also trying to anticipate, which is really hard to do additional lease revenue that might come in. So if we're leasing it to another agency, say for a day for training, you know, what will they end up paying? So really looking at what does it cost to operate and maintain the facility and then trying to back out anticipated leases, back out fire training from these other communities.

and then trying to limit our operational expenses as much as possible. So it's a little bit of a moving target early on until we get all these leases established with other agencies. But right now, that's the math that the chiefs have been trying to do on this. But they have taken a lot of care to try to put this together in a way that we're recovering those costs through the fire training center.

So it's not just through the Webster contract or the Shrewsbury contract, but also those leases and other... That'll make sense. I'm just thinking through since all of us, those people put the capital in the bill that I'm trying to get a sense of just how we're... We don't want to hit these new leases with the whole cost of it.

They're only going to be there potentially three years. So I want to make sure we're figuring out kind of how they're covering... The capital cost piece for the three years they're in it or whatever. Our cost overall to train is higher than these other agencies because we're doing more training.

Our cost to use the fire training center is less than what Webster's paying because of that capital outlay. Cool. Thanks. Yeah, I mean, I think this is, again, it's great for everyone just working together with us.

Are you anticipating any other people joining or have we kind of capped out on that? Or the chief? I don't know of any outside of these two at the moment. I know we have other agencies that want to use the fire training center, but that's a separate thing than the training division.

Good evening. We are always looking to expand and we're always open to find more partners to train with, to improve our interoperability, which means better service to the whole community. So we're always willing and ready to listen and see who's interested. And so have you seen like other ones, you know, through the menu, just pick the training tower?

And using just that? So some of the programs, you know, require the use of the training tire. So, I mean, they can go through a menu if they want, but usually like let's say rapid intervention team training is part of the scenarios that we have to use the training tire to light the live fires, create the high heat in the smoky environments to locate trapped people. So it's part of that.

Okay. Thank you. It's kind of hard to break out. Yeah.

Okay. Just because I was curious, and I would, I mean, you would think you would anticipate more people, you know, because one of the reasons we really wanted to do this is because you guys had to travel so far to use the training facility that was, where is it? It's in West County. Yeah, and then, I mean, so it's, you know, far to travel there, plus it was really, really busy.

So you would think more of our municipalities who are closer by would take advantage, you know, maybe once lease terms are done at other places or so. Yeah, we're hopeful, you know, at the end of the day, it ultimately rests on the individual fire departments. And, you know, there's other training facilities too. There's Fenton has a big training facility, West County, Monarch does.

And so there's other departments that also have that ability to do that. We had to go to West County, which was really a burden to us for the travel, as you stated. So maybe the closer municipalities or fire districts will join us. But, you know, we've only been in operation for, what, less than a year or so.

So it's still an unfolding project. Chief, one other question. Sorry. Not that we need to be, but are we competitive with what those other ones are charging?

Yes. Okay. Yes. Thank you.

That was just sort of to piggyback on what the mayor was asking too. Are we, like, how are you tracking capacity and like available? You know, I mean, if we're not maxed out, how much more capacity do we have at the, I guess in the programming? and at the facility.

Does that make sense? We develop an annual training plan every year. That is, the planning starts probably three months before the first of the year. And so we actually schedule the time in there for the actual evolutions that would be at the training facility.

And based on our training plan, then that opens up what other opportunity time is in the calendar to allow other people or organizations to utilize that. And then do we, assuming we don't anticipate, I think the last time we did this maybe the other municipalities had already had their council meetings and there were signatures on this. We don't anticipate any issues with it. No, it's already been approved at several other munis.

I can't remember which ones. The other frustrating thing that we're trying to balance here is just the fact that our overhead in this building, it's new, right? And so our cost of construction was a lot higher on this facility than what Some of these legacy buildings, they may not have overhead costs at this point. So trying to price ourselves with them is a little bit difficult just because we have a lot higher overhead in our building as it stands right now.

So we're trying to factor that in as well and try to recover some of that cost. But we also recognize it's pretty cheap to go downtown and use the city's facility. Now, it's not nearly as nice. It's not new.

It was bought and paid for years and years and years ago, and there's very little overhead over there. So it's how do you balance all that and not price yourself out of that opportunity to gain some of that revenue back. So we're going to keep working on that, but as Chief said, it's still pretty fresh. So we'll get it figured out.

Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Buse? Yes.

introduce bill number 7169 approving an intergovernmental agreement for the central core fire training division authorizing the webster gross fire department's participation to be read for the first time by title only second any discussion mr city attorney Bill number 7169, first reading and ordinance authorizing the mayor to execute an intergovernmental agreement on behalf of the city of Clayton, Missouri, with the cities of Brentwood, Richmond Heights, Maplewood, and Webster Groves, for a battalion chief training officer to provide coordinated fire training services. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Councilmember Buse. I move that the council give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7169 on the day of its introduction. Second. All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? The vote passes 7-0. Let the minutes reflect that the council has given unanimous consent.

I introduce bill number 7169, approving an intergovernmental agreement for the Central Core Fire Training Division authorizing the Webster-Groves Fire Department's participation to be read for the second time by title only. Second. Any discussion? Mr.

City Attorney. Bill number 7169, the second reading and consideration for adoption, an ordinance authorizing the mayor to execute an intergovernmental agreement on behalf of the city of Clayton, Missouri, with the cities of Brentwood, Richmond Heights, Maplewood, and Webster Groves, for a battalion chief training officer to provide coordinated fire training services. Council Member Buse? Aye.

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

Councilmember Yorg? Aye. Councilmember Waldman? Aye.

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

Thank you. All right, the next item on our agenda is an amendment to our boards and commissions requirements. Yes, this ordinance would amend the city code section pertaining to boards and commissions, appointments and removals by adding two provisions related to attendance and potential council action up to and including removal. The standards are written broadly to align with similar provisions that are contained within Missouri statutes related to removal of appointed members of municipal boards and commissions.

In summary, the additions require two things, that members of city boards, commissions, committees, and advisory bodies, that they are expected to attend all meetings. Repeated absences are considered neglect of duty and could lead to removal. Secondly, anyone appointed to these bodies can be removed by a majority vote of the city council. Removal for cause requires written notice and a public hearing before the city council.

Staff recommends that the city council approve the attached ordinance. There is before you tonight a slight amendment to the ordinance. So the word discipline has been removed and replaced with action on page two of the handout. And so that's a concern that came up earlier today and has been reflected in the change here.

Great, thank you. I'll open the discussion. Are there any questions or comments from the council? I hope this addresses...

We rarely have problems, so when people don't come, it's nice for chairs to have this in hand, and I very much like the slight amendment that was made. Thank you. I have a question, because I think the way I read the actual change to the ordinance, I believe... has the potential to actually make it unclear who initiates a removal like the prior thing was like the mayor appoints and the council votes and needs to be a majority now it just says um that like there needs to be written notice of grounds for removal, but who's going to be initiating that and providing that?

And do you know what I mean? Like, is that a concern or is it not? I mean, I don't know. Yeah, it's just like any other legislative action of the city council.

Any member of the city council can propose a subject, and if it finds the favor of a majority of the council, action will be taken. So it's just like every other matter that comes before you. Okay. And so, like in practice, it would likely happen by a chair letting one of us know or a liaison who sits on the council, letting us know and informing the mayor and the city manager so it can come onto an agenda.

I don't have any plans to do this. I want to make sure it's clear. I would imagine there's a lot of conversation before we actually get to this. Can you talk to the person and find out if they actually want to step down before, if they're not able to make it?

Correct. Okay. Thank you. I'm definitely supportive of the ordinance.

One of the reasons I thought we needed something like this is because I think it's been unclear since I've been on commissions or boards that if a particular member is not showing up on a regular basis, what happens then? And I think to some extent our chairs need to be encouraged to reach out to the person who is not showing up. And as I think we've all done in other organizations, you call the person up and you say, hey, I noticed you haven't been here lately. I'm sure you're very busy.

If you're too busy to do this, feel free to step off. If not, we'd really like to see you come more often. That should be the first step. But I think sometimes our chairs have sort of thought, well, I don't know if that's up to me to do that.

So I hope we will encourage that. And this is really the next step, I would think. It's really sort of Someone says, OK, I'll show up more often and they still don't show up. At some point, you may need to do a follow up, in which case this would then be elevated to the mayor and the council.

But I hope this wouldn't happen very often. And I did suggest the word change just because I thought it was a little harsh or draconian for people who are volunteers to be disciplined. seemed a little harsh to me so i understand there was a legal basis for that but i think this still gives us enough flexibility so i think it works well so i mean my only question is it was sort of picking on stepping on my back rewind picking up on what becky was saying is i i won't die on this still but i'm curious for other people like there's a part of me that says who wouldn't be better if we entrusted the chairs of the committee to be the one whose formal duty it is to bring it to the mayor or bring it to somebody? I feel like it's a little open-ended as to, or wishy-washy or whatever phrase you want to use, of how it gets from people aren't showing up to in front of us.

I get in practice, that's probably how it would work now, but I'm just thinking ahead, like we're not all going to be here. And I'm just wondering what others think about the idea of putting it in there that the chair has the responsibility or the right and I won't look at it to bring somebody's attention to the council to be considered as opposed to leaving it like right now it's kind of just vague one of us would hear about it and then we would decide to put it on the agenda but I think that's asking a lot of a chair some would be very comfortable with that um my take is it's a console responsibility And certainly happy to hear what other people think. Well, and I think it might be a chair communicating, whether a chair communicating to me or communicating to the council person who's the liaison on whatever committee it is. I think it could happen in different ways.

It may be the chair, like as Susan mentioned, it might be a strong chair who says, hey, we are struggling to get a quorum, or I really want somebody who's actually going to engage and participate. um so i think it could be again a communication where the chair says something to me or or to the mayor whoever or you know again to whichever liaison is on the committee right i agree with that i think it often will come and say both i agree with both what you're both saying it will come from the chair most likely to the liaison in most in most circumstances but the actual action initiating it i would think would fall on council shoulders Yeah, because I feel like then it would be the council saying, you know, or the council member saying, I would like, you know, we can't get any we can't get a quorum. We're having repeated problems with this particular person. They're unwilling to resign for whatever reason.

So, I mean, because you would think at that point, then the person's going to say, you're right, I'll just resign. You know, they'll send a letter and say, I don't have time to do this. I think this I think this is relatively unusual because I think people will just say I resign rather than go through this process of like having it come before us and we have to formally remove somebody. I think that would happen if there's something, you know, some sort of improper thing happening potentially, you know, whatever.

I don't exactly know what that would be, but it would be that, or you just have a, I don't know, maybe a persistent problem with somebody who's problematic. Like if someone goes to us and like, Right, won't communicate. Doesn't resign also, then that would be a reason I guess we'd have to officially take this action. It's not.

And I guess it makes sense. Again, that's not a hell I'll necessarily die on, but I wanted to raise it. The other question I do have though is maybe it's in a different ordinance or what happens if there's another reason we want to remove somebody? Like why are we calling this out as opposed to incompetence?

If I may, this was prompted by the consideration of appointees who may not be attending meetings. That's addressed in subsection C, which establishes the expectation that people appointed to office will perform the duties of the office. Subsection D is an attempt to codify the removal process in general. Non-feasance is not performing the job.

That's a failure to attend. But this is a process to codify so we know that it Essentially, this is an impeachment process. And it says for whatever reason, whatever is the cause. So someone who is trading on their role on an advisory body for their own profit or asking inappropriate questions of people before the body or any number of things.

That may lead you to say that their continued presence on the body of this city is inappropriate and it is cause for considering their removal. So subsection D is a broad structure to give the council that process. Expectation to attend and participate is in subsection C. So while we're brought up at the same time, they really should think about them as two separate things.

Got it, okay, thanks. It deals with more than just attendance. And as in terms of relying on the board chair or something to bring it, I would caution against the council tying its own hands by putting a cork in the bottle from the commission itself. These are your appointees to these bodies and you would be the body to adjudge their continued service.

I don't have any more, any questions? There are no other questions. Council member abuse. I introduced bill number 7170, approving an amendment to section 105.050 boards and commissions related to attendance requirements to be read for the first time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7170, first reading and ordinance amending section 105.050 of the Clayton City Code relating to appointive boards and commissions. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Councilmember Buse? I move that the council give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7170 on the day of its introduction. Second. All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? The vote passes 7-0. Let the minutes reflect that the council has given unanimous consent.

I introduce bill number 7170, approving an amendment to section 105.050, boards and commissions related to attendance requirements to be read for the second time by title only. Second. Any discussion? Mr.

City Attorney. Bill number 7170, second reading and consideration for adoption and ordinance amending section 105.0 50 of the Clayton City Code relating to appointive boards and commissions. Council Member Buse. Aye.

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

Councilmember Yorg. Aye. Councilmember Waldman. Aye.

CouncilMember Betsy Meyland-Smith. Aye. Mayor McAndrew. Aye.

Thank you. The last item on our agenda is an ordinance related to a pilot program for food trucks in downtown Clayton. This item this evening will be presented by Thomas Morgan. He's a planning technician within our Department of Planning and Development Services.

We also have our director, Anna Krane, here this evening. I'll turn it over to Thomas. I have a brief presentation for you guys. Thank you for taking your time.

So here today we have the food truck pilot program in its kind of final form, as we have proposed it is there. I see. There we go. Thank you.

So just today we're going to go over what the goals of the pilot program are and why we are bringing it forth in this way, what the pilot program will actually consist of operationally and on the permitting side, and then move into questions. So when we went through the Clean Tomorrow 2040 plan and that process, a big issue we sought to address was foot traffic and how that had diminished since COVID and post-pandemic. So food trucks kind of emerged as a potential solution that residents and workers were interested in. So through the pilot program, we want to see what expanded food truck access could look like for Clayton long-term.

Um, we think that a pilot program is the best way to kind of give us some control over the program and make tweaks as we need to. Um, we're wanting to assess the interest in food trucks, uh, from residents and workers and those, uh, in the area. We want to see what sustainability regulations are feasible in terms of emissions, um, and noise pollution and things like that. Uh, And then we want to see if it is a practical idea to have mobile food vending downtown.

As you may imagine, there's a lot of complications that can arise by having food trucks operate in the public right-of-way. So just looking at the administrative side to see if that's something that's feasible long-term, looking at where food truck vending would be most strategic and most successful and what does not make sense, and any other issues that may arise unforeseen in downtown Clayton with this new program. This is a general overview of what the program will look like. We're proposing a pilot program for lunchtime mobile food vending sessions from 11 a.m.

to 11.30 p.m. on Thursdays biweekly with the ability to increase to a weekly food vending session should we have a lot of success and a lot of demand for that. Vendors will be given 60 minutes before and after this lunch vending session to kind of do a setup and takedown. We have various locations which we're proposing looking at over the span of this two-year pilot program.

Three trucks per session, so every other Thursday at first there would be three trucks, and vendors, food trucks, would reserve these slots for operation after completing our permitting process and getting their mobile food vendor license. So how does a food truck get that mobile food vendor license, which would then give them access to reserve slots for our program? So they're going to need to get a business license. The finance department has created a new set fee license type with a $50 per year fee and a 12-month renewal cycle based on the calendar year, July to June.

Fire safety operational permit. So we are requesting that... Food trucks get their fire inspection done through the city of St. Louis.

This is pretty common for most trucks in the region that they would have their inspection through the city of st. Louis for Clayton events. We have previously offered, um, that Clayton fire would actually do the inspections, but for this program, we're just going to require that they have that, uh, inspection through the city and then a health inspection, which is also consistent, uh, and it's done through St. Louis County.

And then this generator specs approval, one of the issues we're working through is previously for Clayton Events, we have provided green generator plugins to vendors, which is not something we're going to be doing. So we have a We have some stipulations for what generator types are going to be allowed, which I'll go into more detail here shortly. So they'll just submit the type of generator that their food truck uses, and then we'll review that and make sure it's compliant. Once they get that mobile food vendor license, it will be valid for a year, and there's no fee associated as we do this pilot program.

which is something that may change going forward. Once vendors have gotten their mobile food vending license, then after they have gotten access to this reservation system, reserved a slot, they'll need to submit a certificate of insurance, which is just that kind of single-day coverage up to the Missouri sovereign immunity limits. And once we receive that, then they'll be confirmed for that slot going forward. Also, I'm going to proceed, but if anybody has questions as I go, feel free to shout them out.

uh... reservation and scheduling process so We're going to create an online reservation platform that only approved mobile food vendors have access to. This will be like a link of some sorts to a calendar. Once they get this link, they can reserve a slot on that calendar.

We get that insurance coverage and then they get confirmed. And we can create that schedule of trucks to kind of move into our marketing and communication section of this where we'll promote that schedule to customers. to the public so that it can be publicized. We will have space for one to two trucks reserved as backup in the case that a vendor pulls out or no-shows.

This section right here, this is something that we anticipate being later on in the program. But initially, for the first one to three events, we are actually going to select trucks in advance instead of awaiting a reservation so that we can have some quality options for inaugural lunches. And then moving forward from that, that's when we'll begin a reservation system. But as we start, we'll pick the trucks ourselves and then proceed from there.

So we have now two locations we're looking at as our biggest contenders for where we would have the food vending sessions. The first location is along Memorial Park on Merrimack, north of Carondelet, which you can see pictured in the bottom left there, and are also considering operation on Central Ave, as you can see on the right, where there's that vacant kind of retail space. We're looking at wanting to activate that kind of underutilized area and really go back to, you know, wanting to get that street activation. And so we're trying to look for areas where there's not other options currently and also wanted to make sure that we're not having one, any safety issue, but two, we don't want to have any kind of operation directly across from a brick and mortar downtown business.

And then potential alternative locations that may emerge should we discover issues with these two locations or should we find another location that we view would be more successful as well? So safety considerations has been a primary goal for us as we've gone through this process. So food trucks are going to park in locations that have 100 feet where three trucks can comfortably park in a row while maintaining that 10-foot distance in between themselves, which is mandated through the fire code. And then whenever necessary, Public Works will redirect traffic lanes to adjacent vendors.

to maintain that 10-foot wide traffic lane. So we are allowing food trucks up to 8 1⁄2 feet wide. Our parking lanes are about 7 feet. I've spoke with Public Works, and that kind of extra space where a truck may jut out into the traffic lane may result in that lane being brought down to a one lane.

But depending on the truck and the day, we may be able to just use cones and kind of redirect the traffic lane just over a bit as long as we can maintain 10 feet. ADA compliance will always be maintained. They're on the sidewalks where food truck vendors are operating, and that's what our point of contact person will be there to maintain and make sure that's not being interfered with. And then, of course, having those fire and health inspections and insurance coverage.

uh, sustainability considerations. And this goes back to our generators. Um, we have kind of written into the pilot program, a sound rating level of 20 or sorry, 75 decibels, 75 DBA, um, at 23 feet, which is a kind of a common rating for generators. And that is also consistent with some other generator sound regulations we have elsewhere in our code.

Um, We are, of course, wanting those electric power generators. However, they are quite rare. So we're also allowing propane and gas powered inverter style generators, which is a style generator, which typically will have less emissions, both in noise and in, you know, kind of like gas emissions. So Diesel power generators, however, will not be permitted because those are quite loud and quite an exhaust smell.

And then there are also going to be an EPA-certified generator requirement, which is just another thing that will go along kind of with that sound rating. The generators will have that. Hey, Thomas. Yes.

There were some food trucks at Wine and Music. Yes. Did they have... They were electric?

Do you know? I think they were great. I mean, I just remember they were really quiet. Yes.

And I remember Kristen and Brian, you know, specifically, it was said, aren't these generators great? And... Yeah, absolutely. So at Clayton events like, you know, the one you're mentioning, we have these green to go generators, which is basically where a food truck can have an electric plug into into a portable electric power source.

And that is why, you know, if you've gone to a food truck event, maybe it was not in Clayton, you kind of have that loud noise and smell, which is not present at Clayton events. And so we are not, you know, initially for the pilot program, we're not planning on providing those because it's a bit cost prohibitive. So we were looking at ways to kind of maintain a quieter level and to prevent that kind of distinct exhaust smell from protruding. So that's why we've number one rolled out diesel power generators just because that's kind of an atmosphere thing.

It's not something we really want. We want to keep in line with those sustainability guidelines. And then propane and gas, we are looking at the inverter generators, which are a little bit quieter. Obviously, if we had any electric food trucks that wanted to come, that would be amazing.

I think those are quite rare. I don't know how many we have in the region, but we would love those. Do you think that, I mean, have you found that popular food trucks, I just wonder, do you think this will dissuade a lot of people from applying if they can't use a diesel power generator? I don't know how many in the food truck world.

I just don't know how From the vendors that I've spoken to and just also from working with Kristen and working with a couple other organizations in the region, just bouncing ideas around, it is my perception that a large percentage are propane or gas-powered. I think the inverter-style generator... I believe there's also combustion generators, and I think that those may be more common even than just kind of like a diesel as a power source. But we do not know, so we do not know how prohibitive this will be or to what extent that will dissuade people.

But I think that by still allowing propane and gas, I think that's going to prevent this from being too rigid of a restriction. So marketing and promotion, and this kind of ties back into our desire to make sure this is a successful program. We are going to have this monthly schedule which will be available vendors will be preserving these slots in advance as far in advance as we can. We'll be using our Clayton social media to promote, you know, not exactly specific trucks, but rather the events and letting residents know and workers know what trucks are going to be there on which day, using flyers throughout downtown, A-frame signs.

So on the day of putting up signs around downtown so that people know, you know. The food trucks are going to be here today. Obviously, you know, social media has a limited reach. Not everybody who works in Clayton is going to be engaged with Clayton on social media.

So having those signs out and also potentially doing outreach to large office buildings is definitely a way that we're hoping to raise awareness. And then you'll see that at the bottom, the sign is directing diners to nearby restaurants. This is an idea we've also developed. heard used as a way to kind of give support to our downtown Clayton business owners.

You know, we'll have three food trucks coming to a vending session. You know, maybe it's tacos, pizza and burgers, and maybe you don't like tacos, pizza and hamburgers and you want to go get French food. So we'll have a sign saying there's French food down the road. And that's just a potential way that we can, you know, market and promote the food trucks while also making sure that we're, you know, showing up for our business owners downtown.

staff needs this just kind of speaks to our administrative burden um before a food truck event so in the build up to it their planning and development will be reviewing those permit applications selecting confirming the vendors and then working with public works to bag off the parking meters to make sure those areas are available before vending session the morning of going out and placing those a-frame signs and then cones and then also putting cones into the street As trucks arrive to ensure those, you know, 10 feet gaps and maintaining that 100 feet of space. And then traffic lane adjustments as needed during a staff member will be on site as a point of contact. You know, issues may arise, things might pop up and we want to have someone on staff at all times. you know during these sessions especially initially to make sure that everything's uh you know going over safely and then after taking those a-frame signs down unbagging the parking meters getting rid of the cones and making sure that uh you know there hasn't become a trash issue or litter and things like that and make sure everything's clean we anticipate that as the program rolls out this burden will decrease so that's all i have for you Thank you, Thomas, very much.

I'll just start over here, see if there are any questions or comments. And just some general questions. It sounds great and very consistent with what we're trying to do with adding energy to downtown. Have you heard – I imagine this is modeled on programs elsewhere that handle – food trucks and is, is, you know, Thursday for every Thursday for limited hours, something that you, that you feel will garner the interest for people to be coming here.

Yeah, so something that I, you know, I think initially when we presented it, we had a much larger window that we were wanting to do. But a feedback that I got actually from vendors themselves was that it's quite hard to find a truck that wants to, you know, sit in one place for eight hours. You know, they prefer kind of a condensed period because that kind of guides people to go in and have, you know, you have two hours to go in and get out and make the sales and things like that. And also concentrating it around, you know, just that lunchtime meal, um, I think, you know, is, is an ideal way to go.

We also wanted to avoid days that were popular work from home days. So Monday, Friday, um, we're off the table, like from the jump, um, just because we, you know, those are kind of the days when less people are in the, in downtown. So, uh, definitely wanted to stick to that weekday, um, and that lunch hour, that condensed period. And I, and I saw your note that staff, um, staff will be busier and then it'll become more manageable over time.

Do you feel that it is, that we have adequate staff to roll this out well? That everybody's able to As of now, yes, I do believe that. I guess that's what the pilot program is to see, is to say, you know, is it feasible to have, you know, I think traffic lanes are a great example. If Public Works is having to go out and, you know, kind of readjust traffic or close the lane down or whatever it may be, they may determine that it's too much or, you know, but I don't anticipate at this time that being an issue.

And then budgetary, if you're doing different signs to restaurants and things, is that something you see will be minor as well or something that you've set aside before? you've got a number in mind that you think you all need or where are you with that that i do not have uh that that i'm unsure about we'll be able to accommodate that within the existing budget okay it'll be nominal cost and my last question have you heard any feedback from um residents or downtown businesses or anybody else Yeah, I've mostly been positive from what I've heard. I haven't heard a lot. At least I haven't gotten a lot of phone calls.

I believe that Economic Development may have gotten a few calls in just with comments. Mostly positive. I think there's maybe a little bit of concern from some restaurant owners, but we have definitely done our best to make sure that this program is not damaging, but in fact is complementing to those businesses. Right.

And anecdotally, that's certainly what I've always understood, that bringing more people down kind of benefits everybody. So I look forward to see how this all goes. Thank you. Of course.

I'm hopeful we have somebody in the audience who might have personal experience with this, who wants to talk to us at some point. So, but I have two questions. It looks to me like you're planning to start bi-weekly, but what we're approving authorizes every Thursday. So like you'll have flexibility to adjust that as based on what we're doing.

Yeah, absolutely. That's one of the reasons we've set it up like that, is to have that flexibility. Seasonally is something that's a consideration as well. So we have this two-year period, and part of that is looking at, is it feasible to have this program going on in January?

Is anybody going to want to come down when it's very cold and get lunch from a food truck? Maybe it may be such that they do and we want to keep doing that and we want to do it every Thursday. It may be such that we want to take that down, you know, maybe weeks where we can't operate and things like that. And then also coordinating with, you know, for instance, the county has a food truck series that they do.

I believe it's Wednesdays. And you're just looking at we may not want to do our own food truck event if there was a food truck event the day before. Just having that flexibility of initially wanting to start out biweekly, but with some room to edit that and increase that if the success and if the response is positive. That's great.

And I did note, like it's set to expire in two years if we don't take action. So presumably obviously you'll come back to us if you need something before that, but by then we'll be have, we'll have some kind of report and recommendation of what to do next. I'm curious there. You talked about the after being like surveying for trash kind of, or whatever.

Yeah. I didn't see explicitly that we'll put extra trash cans out. Yes, and so that's also... That will happen.

What was that, sorry? Can you confirm that we can do that and will? Right now, we don't plan on doing that. So that's part of what we're evaluating.

Part of the responsibility that's identified for vendors is that they also are responsible for the area in front of their station. So they would be able to put out trash and recycling as well. We're really trying to evaluate the the potential burden on our city staff. So if it rises to a level of a full event of us bringing in our own extra trash recycling, that's going to become a much more significant burden that we would.

So it could be that we see that to make this successful, that would be a requirement. That'd be something that we would have to then bring back to the council to decide if we really want to go that avenue. So we're hopeful that we can set it up in a way that limits those. Yeah.

I don't spend enough time walking downtown Clayton to know how full our trash cans get. But I know like on Daman, where we have a lot of activity and people doing things, the trash cans really get overflowing. And so I guess I don't know that we have to change anything in what we approve today. But like, I would really like to know that we're paying a lot of attention to that and making an adjustment quickly if we need to.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And those kind of quick adjustments is definitely why we want to do the pilot program going forward. And then locationally, like, you know, for example...

The Merrimack location, which is right now I think the location we're eyeing is that will likely be the most successful. There's kind of like almost like a lunch eating infrastructure there. So there's benches, there's shade, there is, I believe, a number of trash cans in that area. So that's definitely been something we considered as we were rolling this out.

But it's also something we want to have the ability to kind of respond to if it gets out of hand. That's great. Thanks. And then I'm a little bit curious about, it sounds like it'll be like a different option in the permit application process.

And I'm just curious how easy it is for us to implement a new online permit application in our IT systems. Yeah, so that's going to be conducted through the CitizenServe program that we use. And so that's something that is kind of our next step. But it takes communication with the company, but it's not very challenging at all.

No, it'll be fine for that. Yeah, it's just setting up a new one and we can model it off of other permits and licenses that we already have in the system. Thanks. Of course.

I think with reference to trash, we do hear fairly frequently, particularly on South Central, some of our establishments are not very good about dealing with trash. And I know we've now got somebody on staff who's looking at that more often. So it's improving, but it still is something we need to be concerned about because you do hear from residents who live nearby, especially in the evening, they walk, they take a walk and they still see a bunch of stuff lying on the ground. And so- We don't want to exacerbate that problem.

My only other comment is I could see where starting the program, you might want to be biweekly in the beginning. But I think if you don't do it like every Thursday during good weather seasons, people are going to start thinking about the fact, oh, Thursday, it's Food truck day. Oh, no, it's not this Thursday. That was last.

I think there's part of that is just the regularity of having it be every Thursday. And if the program doesn't work, you know. We'll stop it, but I think if we're going to give it a serious effort, for the most part, it ought to be every Wednesday. Obviously, in winter, that's a different story, but in good weather, we ought to just do it every Thursday and make sure that we give people that sense of familiarity with it.

Yeah, absolutely. And then that's definitely something we have the flexibility to do. And that's why it's posed as a weekly or biweekly thing. And to your last comment as well, that's definitely something that I'd want to point out as well.

We have a section in there about vendor approval in regards to operational history, I believe is what we say. So where their food truck, which is just leaving trash when they leave, we would not be confirming them to return if that's an issue. Because as Ana said, we're making sure and we've put in there that vendors are responsible for cleaning up after their own trash and making sure the areas are clean. But if there's an issue, we would not have that truck be approved to come back.

My only final comment is, I think we've talked about before, is I think why this is important is so many of the newer office buildings provide very elaborate food for the people who work in their facilities. So there's much less of an inclination to get out. On the other hand, people who I know in my old firm do say it would be nice to get out sometimes but then it takes a long time to get served at a restaurant i think they'll get over that too but i think getting people out on the street is going to be a real positive and get people you know just not spending all their time in their office so i think it would really help us out if this works thanks of course um a couple things uh Some, I think, relate to what we're being asked to vote on and some of the stuff is more just suggestions. I think on the second one first, I agree with Gary.

Like at some point, it may make sense administratively to start every biweekly. But if somebody works downtown, if I don't know that it's there every week, I'm going to forget when to go out. So if we want to make it successful, I think we need to really be aiming towards that every week. I do question where the current locations may be because what I get, we want to activate those.

I think the reality is people don't like the walk. And I would suggest giving some thought to maybe having an area where people are. So basically go where the people are as opposed to hope that they get where you're at because I don't know how – much that would work um in this environment neither that is i think actually in the ordinance for approving so that's more just stuff to think about the one the one piece of the ordinance that i would call out is you are correct and i completely agree mondays and fridays make no sense I know a lot of folks that don't come in Thursdays. They come in Tuesday, Wednesdays and some other day.

So I would either suggest changing it from Thursday to Wednesday or taking the Thursday actually out of it and just leave the flexibility up to you all. Because I think right now it actually calls out in the appendix A, in exhibit A, it's going to be Thursdays. I would almost rather just take that out so it's informal and you guys then along with David and all of us can – talk through whether if thursday's not working you can move to wednesdays and not have to come back and have us approve it so um again i'm curious what other folks say about that but to me wednesday's a better day but i'm okay sticking with thursday i just don't know if we want to have it approved in here which requires you to stay on thursday um when we can give you some flexibility on so that was all i had i see um Yeah, I think that's definitely something to consider, to have that flexibility. I think you make a good point about wanting to have that flexibility to move if Thursday or we wanted to do a different day of the week.

Yeah, I think that's a good idea just to give yourself some flexibility. Um, I did have some questions just based kind of on our brick and mortar restaurants. And I did read all the research that you guys had presented, you know, in the in the previous presentation. And I'm just curious, how are you going to be able to track if this does, in fact, affect like our brick and mortar I don't know that we have a system set up to track if there's an impact, but I also don't know that there'd be a way to conclusively prove that having the food trucks there was what may have impacted their change in a restaurant sales.

It's definitely the plan to track the success of the food trucks themselves, but no, there's no setup for... Yeah, and I'll just add, I know it's coming up in our next fiscal year budget that Gary Carter is requesting purchasing the Placer AI contract, which would allow us to track foot traffic. So while it won't be a complete perfect science, we will be able to use that tool to track foot traffic to look at foot traffic to specific restaurants, as well as just general areas. You can geofence off the area that we would use on a food truck day specifically and look at food traffic in that area.

So that tool will help us a lot in looking at what might come from these. And then I'll also mention we can wipe Thursday, but it does allow the city manager or designee to change the day already within the ordinance. Yeah, I might suggest that maybe like you... get a handful of restaurants like 10, 12, whatever, and just kind of get a baseline for what they're, you know, what they see, you know, on a Thursday and just kind of, you know, see how that kind of plays out just because we don't want to affect, you know, our restaurants.

And then to the opposite end of that, I'm just kind of curious about your metrics on what makes this, you know, a success having the food trucks. Is it just like seeing people out and about? Cause I know that's what we want. We want our vibrancy.

We want the foot traffic, but are they really, you know, I'm just curious on what you'll kind of gauge that over this like two year plan. Yeah, absolutely. So kind of Donna's point from earlier, one of the main things we are wanting to gauge is kind of an administrative burden just because I guess to a certain extent, regardless of the success of the program, if it's not feasible for us to continue maintaining what becomes essentially a full size event, then that would be something we'd have to look at as well. And then also looking at potential issues that may arise, you know, if there's any kind of safety issues or anything like that.

From having food trucks operating the right of way, that would be another thing. So I guess looking at that almost from a, you know, potential like negatives, you know, seeking that out. As for how we gauge success, I think that's a lot of it is kind of feedback that we get from vendors. One, you know, do they want to come back?

Do they want to continue operating there? Or is there not really as much demand because there's not as much of demand? you know, clientele. And then also, you know, having that staff person there to monitor, you know, how many people are coming in and out and, you know, is it a big crowd or is it, you know, very few people and how has it changed, you know, over time?

And, you know, if we wanted to do different days, just kind of tracking the success in terms of who's coming and how our vendors are, you know, Yeah, I just think keeping kind of track of brick and mortar, the success of these and all the things you're talking about is going to be really important. Just for us to be able to gauge is this pilot program a success or not. Thank you. I'm excited about the program.

I think it works. I'm hopeful that it will be well received by the community, but also by the food truck vendors. And my only question was really procedural. I know that you said that in the first...

three events that the city would select the vendors. But I'm wondering if ongoing, say this is you know, all the rage for all the food trucks? Are the are the food trucks selected on a first come first served basis? So like, are they vying for, you know, whatever the date is that they have to submit on the platform?

Or If six food trucks submit for the three spots, how are we selecting them? Yeah, so to your point of selecting for those first few events, we also have it in the pilot program that if that ends up being kind of a really seamless and successful way to do it, we will continue having the ability to just select them on our own. But we do want to have that reservation kind of system just because we believe it will bring more potential for more different food trucks and things like that. I don't anticipate there being – six reservation requests for each one, especially not at the beginning, just because there is kind of a laborious process of becoming a food truck vendor approved.

It is a bit of a hike to get there. But I do think that that could become more of an issue down the road. And I think that's something that with more experience with the program, we'll have a better way to go through that. But first come, first serve, you know, and having...

On that system and on that link, we would be able to see, you know, who reserved what. And once it hits three, it's closed. Have you talked to vendors? Like, are we planting the seed already with?

Yes, yes. So I've spoken to some vendors who I have been referred to through events and who has been worked with. And then I know Kristen in events, and she's historically been the one that has worked with food trucks. I know she's received calls, and I know Gary has received calls.

And then I've received a couple calls myself from food trucks. So I think that there is a demand. Now, just off the top of my head, I can think of – I'm thinking of one truck who I know has been interested who would not qualify because their generator type is not with the standards that we're wanting to have. And I think that may be something that also keeps the number of trucks down to a certain extent.

But, yeah, I think there's interest, so. but definitely wanted to plant the seed as we go forward. And once we have it kind of confirmed that it's progressing, then definitely going into that marketing promotion. Thomas, thanks so much.

I think the important part of what you've shown us is that it provides a lot of flexibility for you all to react and change as needed. And I think that's great. I think having a pilot program for two years, like you said, it will give us a lot of time to evaluate the success and whether it accomplishes the goals that we've certainly set out. Is there anyone in the audience that wanted to address us?

You can hand it to, the form goes to our city clerk. Good evening. I was just chomping at the bit down there, jumping out of my seat. My name is Brian Scott.

I am the president of the St. Louis Food Truck Association. First of all, I want to commend and congratulate you all for... realizing and being, uh, understanding that this, uh, pilot program that you're, uh, developing, um, is a, could be a necessity for, uh, re-energizing the city.

Um, and, um, so thank you and congratulations for being, um, you know, uh, progressive and open-minded enough to make something like this happen on your own, which blows my mind. So really, that's all I wanted to say. I wanted to say that as the president of the Food Truck Association, the association is... available and more than willing to work with you guys on any questions you might have and anything you might need.

I do want to point out in particular, some of the some of the logistics that you're going to have to go through. We have programs in place to book trucks, to validate trucks. And we could, that's something that we do that we would love to do. And it gives us, more credibility to your trucks that come to your city, having the stamp of the St.

Louis Food Truck Association as well. So that's available for you as well. And that could save you some money and help with logistics as well. That's all I have.

So if anybody has any questions for me, I would love to answer. Well, I'm just curious what you think about the like generator, like how many people are trucks are going to be might be unable to participate because of some of the restrictions that we're putting in place. Right. That's a very great point.

Yeah. Very few, if any, trucks have diesel power generators. So I don't think that'll be an issue for you at all. The the the decibel level, some of the the cheaper cars.

Generators, they do have a louder that wouldn't qualify. I think that's a great idea. I think we're about 50-50 on where those trucks are that have the inverter generators versus a standard generator. I think most trucks...

Any truck who would want to come here would invest in an inverter to come here. I think this is going to be bigger than you guys think. We book Food Truck Fridays right now, Sauce Magazine. We secured a partnership with them.

We book all of those events. We released a date today, for instance, and we had eight spots available for Food Truck Friday, and they booked in five minutes. So I think that this is going to be more popular than you think. We'll take it, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for your insight. Yeah, of course. Does anybody have any other questions for Mr.

Scott? Can I just ask you, maybe you said this, where is Food Truck Friday? Is it a particular location? Tower Grove Park.

Yeah, Tower Grove Park. And the the spots that I would have to I'll have to map it out now that I know what spots you guys are looking at. I think what you brought up having some food trucks where people go are already there is a great idea. although activating the quieter areas is also a good idea.

So I think that's something that you definitely should consider both options. And I also agree with, it needs to be consistent. Consistency is important. If you're going to do it on Thursdays, if you're going to have it every Wednesday, have it every Thursday.

There are also, um, plenty of trucks that would want to be available throughout the year even in the winter time as well um so consider that and uh and also consider um maybe two days a week one more question are there other other business districts in the metropolitan area as opposed to parks are there other business districts that have what we're proposing here a regular once a week type of thing Well, if you may or may not be familiar, but St. Louis City has a bill on the table right now. We've been working on it for about four years. I've been integral in designing that bill.

Fourth time is a charm. I think it's going to pass this time somewhere around September 11th. So What we designed downtown was a seven-day-a-week option because, let's be honest, St. Louis City needs way more revitalization than Clayton does.

So we want to hold that open seven days a week for trucks to vent. So we created... food truck zones, call them food truck markets. And so they're anywhere from two city blocks to eight city blocks where we're going to allow trucks to vend at.

So as far as I know, just because St. Louis and the Midwest were kind of behind way behind the times as far as food trucks are. Most other cities, large cities, especially in communities allow food trucks way more readily than we do. I think just having specified areas is kind of where we're starting at.

Yeah, no, I don't mind at all. As we were kind of developing the pilot program, I spoke with Greater STL Inc., and they do a lunchtime live series in the summer. Now, the big difference between that is that technically theirs is on – it's in that downtown business area, but it's on their own private property. So that's kind of a big difference just in terms of operating on the street area.

Um, but, uh, as far as I know, besides, you know, what he was discussing in that there's, there's very few instances of food trucks operating consistently in, you know, kind of with office buildings and things like that. So, yeah. Thank you. It is rare.

With Greater St. Louis, Inc., it's not their private property, but they have the area leased from the old post office to be able to do that. So, yeah, and that's been working very well down there as well. My question was about the generators, too, because I was just curious how much flexibility REACH would have.

Great. Oh, trash. Definitely trash is one of the big concerns that we have for, you know, it is an extreme expense for municipality. So as food truck owners, I want to assure you that we are very mindful of that and that we would have no problem bringing our own trash can home.

or trash cans, whatever you guys would stipulate to alleviate a lot of that burden for you. Great. I have one more question. We do have an ordinance limiting vendors' use of single-use plastics and styrofoam and things like that.

Would that apply to our food trucks when they come here? That has not been included in the ordinance before you. One thing that we could do as the association with the set up that we already have, we could require trucks to have eco-friendly materials only. And they would only be able to apply if they have certified eco-friendly materials.

Do you think that would be a burden for participation in a It would limit it would start to limit your participation, but To be honest, that's the direction that food trucks are going in anyway. So I think for me, a kick in the pants would be good for a lot of these food trucks to be able to do that because I agree with the environmental concerns of too many plastics and styrofoam especially. Absolutely. As opposed to being able to be composted, it's insane.

Thank you. Very helpful. Are there any other questions or comments from the council? So should we entertain motions to remove the Thursday specification and consider applying the sustainability guidelines the ordinance as written actually gives discretion to the city manager designate to change the day it does it does okay i missed that part so that's fine kevin kevin pointed out to me afterwards i missed it too ah thanks for letting the rest of us know um i would like to amend to either include the language we have from the vendor contract or uh language of requiring eco-friendly products I'll second it.

Yeah, we would pull the information. We can reference the green purchasing policy in that language. Yeah, that'd be great. It's just single-use items.

Yeah, okay. um so the motion as it stands um is amending it to include eco-friendly products or what do you suggest green purchase reference green purchase and becky you have seconded yeah um so who is that all those in favor aye aye any opposed Okay. So then the ordinance stands as amended to include the green purchasing policy. Mr.

Scott, I just want to thank you for coming and spending the time. We certainly appreciate hearing your real life. I mean, you are living this on a daily basis. So thank you very much for taking the time to come and talk to us tonight.

If there are no other questions, comments or modifications related to the program. Council Member Buse. I introduce bill number 7171 as amended to include our green purchasing policy, authorizing a pilot program for mobile food vending to be read for the first time by title only. Second.

Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney. Bill number 7171, first reading.

An ordinance authorizing a pilot program to assess the impacts of increased mobile food vending activity in downtown Clayton. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Council Member Buse. I move that the council give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7171 as amended on the day of its introduction. Second. All those in favour?

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

I introduce bill number 7171 as amended authorizing a pilot program for mobile food vending to be read for the second time by title only. Second. Any discussion? Mr.

City Attorney. Bill number 7171, second reading in the consideration for adoption. An ordinance authorizing a pilot program to assess the impacts of increased mobile food vending activity in downtown Clayton. Council Member Buse.

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

Aye. Councilmember Jeffery Yorg. Aye. Councilmember Waldman.

Aye. CouncilMember Betsy Meyland-Smith. Aye. And Mayor McAndrew.

Aye. Thank you. All right. Thank you.

We've come to the end of our agenda. I was just going to alert everyone to the fact that because we talked about boards and commissions, June did put a list at everybody's dais related to vacancies and vacations. people who have applied in the past. So maybe just take a look at that.

I know we have a list, an opening on Parks and Rec now. We have a new opening on our Economic Development Committee. So just be thinking about who you might think to ask to apply. If anybody has anything they'd like to talk to us about that has happened in the last couple of weeks?

Yeah, I'll start with the plan commission. Stirling Bank was back for the second time to get more advice on development of the site right across from the Justice Center. The first time they had presented to the Planning Commission and ARB, there was concern about the density, the lack of density really, of what they were proposing on that site given its location. And they took the comments and came back.

They're still looking at two plazas, one that might be ideal to them, both of which may be ideal for a food truck, but there's still concern on the council that the direction of our comprehensive planning and everything else desires higher density than they're able to propose and what they think the site would require. what they will really support given its location. So they'll come back with some plans, but it's kind of a, I think a difficult situation. They're looking at it more of what has been described by several members on the commission as a suburban bank with the plaza versus a high rise denser office building or residential.

But that may be what's available for the site. So we'll see what they come back with. also Concordia was before us and they are, they have a several stage plan to actually do their residential development. Um, I think which is, which was may spark the most neighbor concern though.

Nobody commented all neighbors within the 200 feet or whatever the requirement was. I'm glad that Ana is here. We're notified and no comments were received, but quite a number of trees are being taken down, um, on the internal part of the property. to make room for the retention basins currently required by updated MSD standards and by the development that's going in there.

The caliper of the trees will eventually be fully replaced, but over the stages of their development. They'll take them down with stage one. The full replacement will happen over, is it the three or five stages? I'm forgetting now.

Do you remember, Gary or Ana? yeah five stages yeah so um that was probably the the biggest event that night the only other thing to report there was an art commission meeting for the uh mixed use development approved several years ago which was on pershing and merrimack and they're putting they're talking about putting they're required to put up some public art for their points and The commission asked them to come back with it with a little more detail on what's going in there as it is honoring the Filipino national flower that they want to put up. It looks beautiful in the drawing, but again, the Arts Commission has asked for more detail. But it was also suggested that it be run past our CEC or how did the mayor's...

Yeah, what's it called now? commemorative didn't it fold into the cec yeah into that entity if there's anything with the filipino recognition that they're talking about giving just to make sure that we're staying consistent with what we want where you know where we are as a community so thank you um thank you um a couple things i that i participated in Through a national organization, I joined a strategy session for Midwest local elected officials to talk about ALPRs. And so it was a great opportunity to hear like what's happening in other communities and how they're thinking about it. And so if anyone is interested in joining me in those, there's a monthly sessions.

And it's great to actually like talk to other elected officials thinking about these kinds of things, or at least I thought it was. I also attended a vigil that was held in Overland for an Overland couple who was killed in Guatemala after being targeted by ICE here and deported. left three children orphaned and just really, really tragic. There were the mayor and I think it was the superintendent of the Rittner School District all spoke about you know, like standing up for the members of our community and trying to ensure their safety.

And so that was just moving. And August 9th was the 12-year anniversary of Michael Brown's killing. And so I was at an event this weekend remembering that and just to have us all keep that Thank you. The finance committee is meeting, or subcommittee is meeting on Friday.

I think it's Jeff and I'll have an early preview of the budget on Friday. And the only other thing I'd mention, I attended the plan commission meeting, the last one. I usually go when it has downtown projects. And my only observation, I've been to a lot of plan commission and ARB meetings in Clayton, but this is really a very good group of people, very insightful.

And they miss Kami, but That aside, it really is a very good group and both the discussion of the Sterling Bank project as well as the sign or fence at Cafe Napoli. It's a very spirited discussion but very insightful and everyone on the commission Steve Lichtenfeld always does a great job, but everybody on the commission, I think, is very thoughtful and still are polite to the applicants, even while critical. So I think it's really an outstanding group of people. Can we get an update on the Napoli?

Well, go ahead, Susan. I mean, they're coming back. Yes, it was not well received. The fencing was not well received, but they were given the opportunity to come back with another plan and it was not permitted correctly or anything else.

The aesthetics weren't appreciated. But it's still up. It is still up. One panel that's down.

Are they like not able to take it down? Are we not able to ask them to? They're in violation and everything's just kind of pending the outcome of this. Right.

So it'd be very difficult for us to actually take action to force them to take that down, especially when they're in this process. Okay. All right. Thank you.

I don't have much. Obviously, we've got the Citizen Finance Committee. I wasn't able to make the small downtown Economic Development Commission on that one. And then we had my first hearing of IRF.

I think I got the initials right because I was on NIRF and now I'm on IRF. Everything seems good. Investments are going fine. I mean, there's probably some longer-term stuff that we'll probably tackle as we kind of go forward, at least some questions I would have.

But from my initial meeting, everything seemed like it was – line it up and people can retire when they want to retire. So that's good. Um, so that's what I have right now. Yeah.

I don't have too much either. We had a, uh, parks and rec meeting last night. Um, too much happening. Um, We did get a donation through CCF to repair all the stairs at Chapman Plaza.

So that's really exciting. And they chose a limestone to replace the steps, but apparently there's like a 20-week lead time on those. So it'll be a while until we get that. But it's exciting that that'll be taken care of.

um they had a um their first meeting of the newly formed youth sports advisory committee um and gentleman will forgive me i don't have last name said it went really well so that's really great that that's now in action um there was a few leaks i guess at the um oak knoll park number one and number two buildings and so we're trying to fix that. But it seems like we figured out where they're coming from. So there's just a little bit of an issue there, but it's all under control. So just moving forward there.

That's really all I have. Kami took all my updates. So I will have the very minor ones of that we're discussing a little free or free little art gallery, which is like a little library that a community member wants to put over by the Hanley House and they're willing to invest some money to buy the structure and also to do some periodic work monitoring of what is coming and going from the art gallery. But the concept seems fun that, you know, if you are an artist and you want to make art, but you're not quite ready to put it out, you know, more broadly, you can pop in like a thumb drive or something and somebody can listen to your music or whatever.

And so there will be some explanation of how to use the gallery. But anyway, we're still talking about it. So that was a cute idea. The only other thing was that they're starting to repair the Taylor Park gazebo, which is a very laborious piece of structure, I guess, for the city.

And so it is an all-wood Gazebo and requires a lot of maintenance. And so there will be some consideration for an alternative structure in the future. I don't have a lot to report. Remembrance Park, I don't know if you all remember, but we're putting plaques up to remember people.

to remember folks that were impactful in Clayton and in the area. So that's moving forward with the first kind of, there will be, I can't remember how many exactly will eventually go on the wall, but I think we're honoring three at first. So we're kind of finalizing the verbiage They're not going to be bronze because apparently bronze is getting stolen everywhere. Like they're ripping it out of the ground at Forest Park.

So it's, I mean, the person who does all of our designing is at like saying, don't just don't do it. Like, don't do it because he just, I mean, even though it would be beneficial for his business, I guess. So we're using bronze. aluminum myron is that yeah aluminum um but it'll match you know what's already in the park so um but that's good that we're moving along hopefully Maybe by this fall there'll be some plaques up on the wall in Remembrance Park, which is great.

And I am just, you know, I'm happy to provide updates, but I am moving forward with more fundraising with CCF for Shaw Park. So that's moving along. I think I'm hopeful that we'll have a lot of meetings set up in the coming months to talk to corporate donors about the project. So, yeah.

um david got any updates nothing tonight all right great take a motion to adjourn i move we adjourn second all those in favor all right great thanks everybody