City Council - Regular Meeting

Let us pray. Dear God, as we approach 9-11, we remember God of the history and remembrance.

We remember when the towers fell and the lives were lost. We remember the dust and the smoke, the despair and the grief. We remember that sense of vulnerability and shock. We remember the numbness that overwhelmed us as we watched our screens for hours and hours waiting for an explanation and understanding that never came. We remember. We remember God of hope and presence. We remember the heroes, those who rushed to help, who guided the wounded down innumerable flights of stairs, who rose to overwhelm those who held death in their hands. We remember the hours and the days of binding wounds and healing hurts, giving comfort and drawing tears. We remember words of support and compassion from nations far and wide. We remember. We remember in part because we see the ripples of that tragic day continue to impact our world 25 years later. We grieve with allies today as our allies grieved with us 25 years ago and together we wonder if there will ever be an end to violence and to war and hatred and death we remember and we grieve our world's quest to learn the things that lead to peace we call on you now in remembrance god of justice and of peace give us a will to truly pray that your kingdom may come on earth as it is in heaven amen amen

under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Good evening and welcome. We'll call this meeting to order and do a roll call.

Tollers?

Here.

Allen? Here. Dooley?

Here.

Holt?

Here.

Bosleton?

Here.

Joe? Here. Camp Peter?

Present.

Lester?

Here.

Michael? Here. Yeah. We have a quorum.

All right. Item 3, adoption of the agenda.

So moved.

Second. Motion is second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Item 4A, presentation of the State Day Proclamation. Is Holly here? There she is.

Can we bring up a crew?

I'm sorry? Can I bring up a crew? You can bring whoever you would like.

Let the crowd get past me. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you.

If you'd just like to make a few comments and introduce all your friends.

We're all twinning, right? Yeah, so Proclamation of Stay Day, September 10th is National Suicide Prevention Day. There's a lot of people standing up here that have lost loved ones to suicide here and everywhere else in our community. had the idea to to proclaim um stay day at september 10th for the city of jefferson so we can take care of each other and continue to raise money for for the cause and our kathy classic is a foundation that we created to raise money to give money to local students for educational scholarships so started there three years ago and continue to build upon that so thank you for for doing this for us and for our community okay sure

Do you want to identify your guests?

Yes, I'm sorry. Holly Nunn, just Holly Nunn, community resident, long time. Tricia Orishlin, she's a therapist. She owns Tree of Hope in our community and so provides a lot of resources to our community and to us personally. Brody Wood, Brian Ninichuk, Jill Wood. gloria hansen claire thank you you're welcome and kyle thank you and tyler stacy calla and clara brown so just a community of people trying to support each other um and while we're grieving

So great to see the students here. We appreciate the work you've done. Probably not a family in this room that has not been touched by it in some ways. So we appreciate that. Any comments from council? If not, I'll read the proclamation and then I'll come around front and we'll get a picture and everybody can be a part of it. Proclamation claims whereas September 10th is recognized as World Suicide Prevention Day with the purpose to raise awareness around the globe that suicide can be prevented, and whereas our community has experienced profound loss due to suicide, inspiring the creation of Stay Day as a reminder that every life has value and that those who are struggling should know they are not alone, and whereas Stay Day seeks to encourage open and honest conversations about mental health, provide support to individuals and families navigating the impact of suicide, and remind those who are struggling that there is hope and a reason to stay. And whereas our community is committed to supporting the children and families whose lives have been forever impacted by suicide and to providing resources, education, and opportunity that helps survivors move forward, and whereas recognizing September 10th as Stay Day provides an opportunity for our city to unite in honoring those who we have lost, supporting those left behind and encouraging every person who may be struggling to choose to stay. Therefore, I, Ron Fitzwater, Mayor of Jefferson City, Missouri, do hereby proclaim September 10th, 2026 as Stay Day in the City of Jefferson in conjunction with World Suicide Prevention Day and that all citizens are encouraged to join together to spread hope, foster connection, support one another, and remind those who are struggling to stay because the world is a better place with you in it. And we thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Thank you.

I'll come around front.

Council will kind of gather together behind us and we'll do a couple pictures.

One 2, 3.

Thanks.

All right, again, thanks for coming in, for sharing that with us. Item B, Patriot's Day presentation, a good friend of mine, Mr. Steve Serlock. The microphone is yours if you would just reintroduce yourself for our friends at home. Thanks for being with us.

All right. My name is Steve Serluck. I'm Captain PIO of the Coal County Fire Protection District and with the Missouri Patriot Day Committee. With the week coming up, just a few days away, we have the 25th anniversary of 9-11. Can everybody remember what they were doing 25 years ago on 9-11? I sure can. And I was working at MoDOT and all of a sudden everybody disappeared. And so I started looking and looking and looking and finally found everybody around the TV set, small, real small TV set. And that was the whole day. No work got done, but we were all entranced into what was going on in New York City and the Pentagon in Pennsylvania. So this week we're going to commemorate 25th anniversary of 9-11 We're very very fortunate to have a piece of history in Jefferson City for four days And that being the tunnel the towers 9-11 never forget mobile exhibit That will be at the Capitol from Thursday through Sunday so And the tour guides will be six New York City firefighters that were at Ground Zero at the time. So it's a very historic occasion. We're going to start the week off tomorrow evening. We're going to meet the mobile exhibit in Kingdom City. And Colt County first responders are going to meet the exhibit at Kingdom City and escort it to Jefferson City. That being Highway Patrol, Capitol Police, Jeff City Police, EMS, Fire, Emergency Management, it's going to be a quiet escort. And all the overpasses on the way in Fulton and Kingdom City, or Holt Summit, they will have people lining the bridges and overpasses as we come through. And hopefully the rain will hold off that we can get this done and be a memorable event. So we'll exit off of the Missouri Bridge onto Main Street and come down Main Street to the Capitol. And then Thursday will be students day. We have schools coming in all day long till three o'clock and then it'd be open to the public after that. And then Friday, is the 25th anniversary of 9-11. We'll have the exhibit will be open starting at 5 o'clock that evening. We'll have static displays around the Capitol of first responder vehicles and first responders themselves taking questions or whatever. Then at 7 o'clock, we have a commemoration of 9-11 with, I'll just go through a little bit of it, Pledge of Allegiance, TAPS, helicopter flyover, guest speakers, going to be Battalion Chief with New York City Fire Department, which will be pretty interesting to hear, Missouri Task Force One, our mayor will speak and then after that about an hour at 8 o'clock we'll start reading the 2,977 names that passed away that day. That includes first responders and civilian personnel or civilians that were in the tower and just applying in the streets. Saturday, we start out Saturday morning with the Tunnels and Towers 5K, which will start at the exhibit and go down High Street and then come back to the Capitol. And then the exhibit will also be open that day. And Sunday the exhibit will be open from basically 11 to 5 and then it will leave Jeff City on Monday morning. But this is a very unique, very historic I do have in Jeff City on the 25th anniversary of 9-11. I mean, they could have easily went. I've been talking with them for four years. But they can easily went to New York, to the Pentagon, or Pennsylvania, because that's where all the planes hit. I got a call maybe eight weeks ago and they said, we're coming. I said, what do you mean you're coming? And they said, we're coming to Jeff City. I go, oh my gosh, we got a lot of work to do. But I like for the people, also when the exhibit comes in tomorrow evening, central bank is going to line the main street with flags people waving flags and stuff and we encourage everybody come out with flag and stuff and and wave the new york city firefighters and the exhibit on and that would be a good welcoming for them to come into jeff city and see you know a welcome ceremony like that So I was with the New York City Fire five years ago, and believe me, it's a treat to just talk to somebody from New York that was on the fire department, because I've been a firefighter for over 50 years, so we get along pretty good. But the hats in front of you depict It has the Pentagon on it, it has the towers on it, and on the brim, on the bill, it has Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania. So we encourage everybody to come out, participate. If there's a line or anything, be patient. We take about 25 to 30 people at a time through the exhibit, and there's three tour guides at a time going through the exhibit. It expands out to, it's 83 feet long, expands out to 38 feet, and it's 1,100 square feet on the inside of Memorial's memorabilia from ground zero. So also task force is going to be there Friday too, so they were all at ground zero. But anyway, is there any questions or anything that you'd like to ask or if I can answer or anything?

Uh, Steve, knowing you as long as I have, uh, I'm very grateful and humbled that you worked as hard as you have to help get this to Jefferson city. Cause it's going to be a special day.

It is going to be a special week almost, but, uh, it's a golden opportunity for people to come out and see a part of history. And we hope. that the school kids coming in Thursday, most of them weren't barned yet. And so, you know, they can see what's going on and hear stories from the New York City firefighters. So that is precious.

I can attest, Steve put together quite a committee that worked very hard. This guy is organized. He has it right down to the minute. So I compliment you on all the work that you've done on this project.

Don't say me now because there's a lot of people in that committee. The whole thing. It takes leadership. Yes. But we have a list of volunteers minute by minute flow. of who's going to be where and what's going to happen and stuff like that. That's the only way to do anything big as this. So everybody knows their part, everybody knows what to do, and if something fails or a hiccup comes up, we can all respond to it.

The other thing I was going to indicate is it's quite a financial commitment to bring this exhibit. And when you first read the number, everybody looked and said, this community can do it. Your team did that. You went out and raised the dollars. Yeah.

So, yeah, and we not only have the expensive exhibit, but I always like to say porta potties and hotel rooms, rental cars. meals, just a lot of stuff. And we're going to try to use Jeff City restaurants. And we're going to see what the guys want to do, if they want to go out and eat with everybody or if they want time alone. So it's going to be a lot of stuff for them. But we're here to help them. Anything they want, we'll get for them.

I know our police department and fire department and EMS, everybody stepped up and said whatever you need.

Yeah, they all did and we're going to be a great week. We appreciate it and it's a lot of hard work, but we're going to have good memories of it. Good. Councilman Nutt.

Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. It is going to be something worth seeing and spending some time on. I just wanted to also thank many people in this room. Sometimes you don't realize that some of our people in this room actually responded to 911 and were in New York City. Some of our individuals here have went overseas and fought in some of the wars since then. And so I want to say thank you to everybody. Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right. All right. I'd like to get a picture for you to take off. Okay. Brian will, in violation of our rules, if you'd wear your hat, I think it'd be a cool picture.

No, you wear it.

You wear it. for our chief police chief in the ms come on let's get them up here come on up guys you're all part of this

One, two, three.

Thank you.

forward to a great few days and kind of honoring people that gave it all.

Thank you guys.

All right next item it's a distinct pleasure to welcome president of our hometown university Dr. John Mosley. We talked a few weeks ago at a meeting and I asked us it's about time to get an update on what our blue tigers are up to.

So thanks for being with us. Well, thank you for the opportunity. As everybody knows, I'm very shy, so it took a lot for him to talk me into doing this. No, but thank you. First of all, commend you guys in the first two groups that have spoken tonight. It's two that are near and dear to all of our hearts in this room. And before I even begin with the Lincoln update, I just think back to certainly September the 11th, but what if we all maintain the sense of pride that we had on September 12th? But if we could get back to that as a country and think about who we are, maybe how far we've gotten away from that day. I get to represent a great university right here in Jefferson City. We've had a tremendous start to the school year. Far beyond anything that I could imagine, number one, that I get to do this every day. And so I'm very thankful for a number of people that have worked really hard. to continue to move the university forward, beginning with a sense of pride for all of us in Jefferson City, not just at Lincoln, and that's the new building, the HSSI facility right on Highway 50, which has become basically an unofficial welcome to Lincoln University for our community and for people passing through. The facility is open now. We still have some minor things going on. to get the Emergency Operating Training Center completely operational, but we anticipate that to be completed this fall. We are getting a number of requests to use the facility, and I believe the Chamber will kick off the State of Education in Jefferson City there on October the 8th. And so if you haven't seen that yet, you should be receiving some information from Gary Plummer and his group at the Chamber very soon. In addition to the HSSI, which is certainly, again, the beacon of, there was a lot of renovations on our campus this summer. Our facilities team and outside contractors were able to make adjustments at MLK. Frank Hall, Lorenzo Green, that's where our police department is housed. Sherman Hall is a residence hall. In addition, with our partnership with JC Parks, we are in the process of replacing the bleachers at Vivian. We have resurfaced the tennis courts right there on the corner of Dunklin and Lafayette. And soon we'll be adding branded windscreens to represent both of our entities there at that, again, beautiful location right on the corner of campus. We have broken ground and construction is completely underway out at Freeman Farm, which is down Highway 54 for our meat processing research facility. We expect that that facility will be completed in the spring of 27. And then we'll be operational for farmers in mid Missouri to bring their their livestock there to harvest. On an athletic note, our men's soccer team is number 11 in the country after last week's poll. They are still undefeated, though they're 1-0-2, which as a former coach, I still don't understand how we lead with the tie. But they do that in soccer, and they get one point for a tie, three points for a win. And so they do have their first home match tomorrow night. Men and women's soccer play double headers in conference play, which begins tomorrow. Our matches will be played at Capitol City High School. And you may say why? Because our football stadium, Reed Stadium, the field is too narrow. So our opponents, it's more narrow than a traditional college field. So we have to notify our opponents. of that and then they get to make a decision whether or not they want to play you there. Because we've gotten very competitive, nobody wants to play us there. So they force us to play out at, we choose to play at Capital City again. I'm grateful for the partnership with Superintendent Brian McGraw and our friends, Robert and really Brian Harriman, all the ADs here in the county or in the city work very well together with us and as do we with them. But we are gonna compete out there. It's partly superstitious because our men's soccer team has not lost. at Capital City High School. And so we'll continue that beginning tomorrow and Sunday. Football is home on Saturday night. We're playing another HBCU Langston University. It's the Battle of the LU, 6 p.m. kickoff. Hopefully that gives us a break from some of the heat that we've been experiencing. There will be a Battle of the Bands on Friday night at 7.30 at Reed Stadium. I would say that we were notified by Langston that they're bringing three buses with their football team, but six buses with their band. So I don't know if there's gonna be four on a bus or there's 300 people coming, but it's gonna be a pretty fun night on Friday night and then again Saturday at the game. And we appreciate that. It's great for us to compete against another HBCU. A reminder that homecoming at Lincoln is September the 26th. It's only two weeks away. You may say, why is it earlier? We typically have one of the first two Saturdays off, but we have to find an opponent for those Saturdays, and we struggle to do that. in athletics this year, and so we were forced to turn a conference game into a homecoming game. So I am one of many of us praying for a break from the heat for many reasons, but certainly because I don't want to welcome our guests back to Jefferson City with these 97 degree days. So hopefully they'll break before late September. And then casino night. Normally that would have been held by now. Our Blue Tiger Athletic Club hosts that event typically the second Saturday in August this year. It got put off And because of the new date, we have granted them permission to use the new HSSI facility. And so if you have not been to one of those events, it's a very fun fundraiser. I like to say they put the fun in fundraising. And it's a fun evening. It'll begin, I believe, about 5.30 or 6 p.m. But it's a great opportunity to support all of Lincoln athletics and a good night and to have fun while you're doing it with an opportunity to win great prizes at the end of the night. I would be happy to answer any questions that you have at this time.

I know it was reported that the east side meeting on Friday. They were bringing 242 members of their base has about right. I think we've got about 65 small but might. The marching music store that Mister graph that I don't that issue that parks meeting a little while ago is.

well i think that to someone else this time yeah before i sneak out i want to commend these gentlemen over here and their teams the partnership that we have with gary hill is our police chief and jeff city pd and jc fire is tremendous the response to our campus in fact they got to come see me one time this summer and i was i was happy to see her spring and i was happy to see him show up but i am i am extremely appreciative of what we have here in jefferson city

thanks for all you do we are proud of our hometown university all right well thanks and item 4d another update from a great friend of ours and backs she's going to talk about the cole county community organizations active and diseases coed welcome

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for having us tonight. As Mayor said, I'm Anne Bax, formerly with the United Way of Central Missouri. But now the hat I wear is I'm one of the community members that's working on community organizations active in disaster or Cole County Co-Ed. So with me is Angela Hirsch. She's our vice chair. And Angela's handing out, it's a little description of the Co-Ed, but also a flyer about an event I'll talk about here in a bit. But also I want to recognize two other committee members with us. Kyle Renick in the back is a fairly new member, so with his new role. So we're excited to have Kyle. And then Matt Kennedy who is actually our boss. So Matt's the one that calls us when something happens in the community that the COAD is needed, we don't just self-activate. Matt and his team and his is the one that calls us to action. I want to also thank Chief Hoy for his support of what we're doing. So letting those guys be so active and we really do appreciate it. So I think we'd all agree our lives changed, our community changed May 22, 2019. Hard to believe it's been over seven years ago. But my role with the United Way at the time really gave me a vantage point to see our community in action. And I saw, you know, a lot of heartbreaking things but heartwarming things the way our community came together. But what I knew that night when Zach Paul confirmed that the tornado had touched down, I knew that we did not have a community plan. We, United Way, knew kind of what we thought our role should be. We had met with other United Ways, volunteer mobilization and really just mobilizing funding and donation management was really our strength and we kind of knew that should be our role but we had not met with other health and human service agencies or people in the field of disaster recovery and rebuilding to know that what everyone else thought their role should be. So we did not have a playbook and so We had no formal conversations, but about 10 days after the tornado hit, we had a meeting in the United Way boardroom. We had about 60 members there. Angela was there, of course. Susan was there. There were a lot of people in our community that were there, mostly health and human service agencies and a lot of faith-based groups that came together. We had poster boards all over the walls and said which organization can help with transportation in the short term, the long term, who can help with feeding, all of the things that are critical to disaster survivors after a disaster of the magnitude of what we experienced. So, from that, we established a short-term, really it was a short-term recovery committee, and then we morphed into the long-term recovery committee. And we really leaned heavily on the experts of disaster. SEMA, since they're local, they were right by our sides. They held our hands, they attended our meetings, they showed us what it means and what our role should be. in recovery and so we really they helped us to build a playbook but again we didn't have that and so the other you know again we had Missouri VOAD was another organization that helped us we were fortunate Catholic Charities had a case manager for disaster on staff some things just really came together that could have posed a really difficult situation for us if we didn't have a case manager. So that short-term, then intermediate-term, long-term recovery committee morphed into the, as I said, into the long-term. And the experts told us it would take three to five years to get the disaster survivors back to their new normal. And of course, we mean probably the most glass half full was like we're going to do it sooner our community is so strong we could do this faster but they knew what they were talking about again and exactly four almost four years and a couple a couple days later we closed our last disaster survivor case And so United Way had raised about $659,000. I'm sorry, $359,000. That money just came pouring in. It wasn't like United Way had to do. We just established a fund. And those were the monies that the Long-Term Recovery vetted and gave to those disaster survivors. So that was all money that was given to United Way as a fiscal agent for the Long-Term Recovery Committee. So I say all that, and Bill, you know, to kind of... help us remember what happened and what it looked like. And I can't say enough how proud I was of our community even though we didn't have an established playbook. We came together beautifully. I got to sit in on the meetings that happened every morning with law enforcement, fire, all the city staff. and I was got to represent the charitable organizations and I think that was about three weeks at that group that those people met at first it was twice twice a day and just talking about the immediate needs and it was an amazing thing to watch and I still talk a lot about that but now we know our role is to get prepared and so that's what a co-ed is and in communities best practices you have a co-ed before a disaster but our community is not very different most communities build one after and so really what the co-ed is about is just number one establishing relationships and keeping those relationships strong so you know Seven years ago, there was a different Salvation Army leader, there was a different mayor, there was a different American Red Cross leader, a different United Way leader. All of the agencies that took the lead in disaster response for our survivors has different leaders. So again, it's getting those people together, keeping them around the table, making sure we all know what our rules are. And who's going to feed? Where are we going to have our short-term shelters? Where are we going to have our long-term shelters if we need them? All the things that we had to figure out on the fly seven years ago. And again, it came together great, but really the goal is to get the playbook and be able to flip a switch when things happen. We had a little bit of a trial run several weeks ago when we had those straight line wins and unfortunately I was out of town but Matt called and Angela stepped in and we had for it was Where was that, Mac? Osage City. Thank you, Osage City. I keep wanting to say Osage County. Osage City had the most damage and so they needed some water. They needed potentially some short-term shelter that didn't end up needing to happen. But again, Mac and his team do not need to worry about some of those things and that's what the co-ed does. We provide that safety net and that really the man and women power to get the work done that needs to be done so that they can tend to what they really need to do. That's kind of what the COAD is all about. And we've got about two and a half years under our belts. We've got bylaws. We have a strategic plan. We have an executive committee that meets monthly and is doing a great job of implementation of that strategic plan. We've got about 137 people in the community that have come to one or more meetings. We have quarterly meetings. Those meetings are starting to be more educational now. Our last meeting was about volunteer management. The one before that was donation management. So it's just about not teaching them down in the weeds, but high level. And then we have four standing committees that are really doing the grassroots efforts of getting mous between um you know schools that possibly could be a shelter and and things that we're going to need mous for so things are happening it's slow during blue skies you know a lot of people will say why are we doing this now but we're doing it now so that when when gray skies come along we are prepared we're resilient and we can really spring into action for our disaster survivors in our community So that's really, that's kind of what the co-ed is about and this is the second year that we as a co-ed have kind of hit pause on the work that we're doing to implement the strategic plan and all those things so that we can put a running festival together. So you have in front of you, the council members have in front of them, On September 19th, we have the second annual Cole County Ready Festival. We were really excited last year. Red Cross gave us the seed money to do it, and Boone County does this, and so we kind of borrowed some of their ideas. But we had over 30 vendors last year. Again, law enforcement brings all their cool vehicles that the kids go through. We make it very family friendly. And we have a bounce house, we have some refreshment trucks, and then we have Missouri Baptist, who is known for feeding in disaster. They give out hot dogs and chips and water to the first 300 people that come through. And we have many, many health and human service agencies that are either inside or outside. But we really want people to come and understand how important it is for them as individuals and families to be ready. And it's not only a disaster, but it could be a pandemic. What we learned after the tornado and flooding and what we put into action as a long-term recovery committee, we really rolled right into the pandemic and were able to use those partnerships and the knowledge that we had gained to really respond to our people who needed us most during the pandemic as well. So anyway, if you can help us spread the word, last year we had 400 people come. And again, that was the first effort. So we're hoping to do even better than that this year and really educate our community on what it looks like to be responsive. I'm sorry, to be prepared because I can even speak for my family. We don't have a go bag like we should. We don't have a lot of the things that we talk about, and it really is important and something that we're hoping that we can help to educate our community about. So that's what I have, but certainly would take any questions if anybody has any.

Thanks for being here. Any comments or questions? Thanks again for all your work.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

All right. Item five, opportunity for public comment. We do not have anybody signed up. Item six, public hearings. There are none. Item seven, you have five names in front of you for recommended appointments. All right, that takes us to item eight, presentation from staff consultants and invited guests. And they're indeed fortunate to have a housing strategy presentation from Mr. Lavelle, Housing Innovations Group. Thanks for coming to Jefferson City. It's a little trip from Vermont, correct? Indeed. But we invite you to the microphone if you identify yourself and you can bring along whoever you'd like to bring with you.

Great.

You told me that right before the meeting and I forgot it, Mr. Helms.

No problem, Mayor. So tonight we do have Jeff LaBelle here as well as Susan Cook to present on the housing strategy. Due to the location of the screens, we did include the presentation also in the packet so you can watch it on your iPad instead of having to try to find a screen to look at. And then we will be taking this up as a resolution also. So I believe Susan's going to start out. and then we'll go from there. You're welcome. I did not mean to sidestep you.

We appreciate you being here. Sure.

So good evening. I want to take just a couple minutes before Jeff begins to talk about how we got to this point because the strategy really was a community and collaborative effort from the very beginning. As Anne just spoke, the long-term recovery committee that I was a part of, that's how the capital city task force evolved. We were kind of a spin-off from that long-term recovery committee to really focus on housing. And when that 2022 housing needs assessment came out, it really became increasingly clear that we needed to do more than move beyond just simply identifying the challenges. We needed a strategy that could help us determine what actions were realistic for Jeff City, where the opportunities were, and how the city and community partners could work together. So over the last two years, the Housing Task Force and city staff have worked very closely throughout the process. Task Force members including, started out with Ann and Angela that were just here, Gary Plummer, Mike Lester, Curtis Groban, Logan Gratz, I'm name dropping all I can here guys, like it was a big community effort, right? But we were involved in determining the need for the strategy. We were involved in writing and reviewing the RFP. We helped select the consultant. And then we've been working with Jeff throughout the development of the plan. Along the way, Jeff also met with stakeholders from across the community and incorporated all of that public feedback. also want to especially thank the city staff um everybody that worked on this project including rachel cinzi who's not here tonight was instrumental in getting this through to the finish line so what you have in front of you tonight is the result of a lot of people and a lot of different perspectives that came to the table to make sure that we had a common goal of moving something realistic forward I also want to be clear that this strategy is not a magic wand. It doesn't just get put down on paper and then solve all of our housing challenges. It's going to require us to pick up where the strategy ends and starts in a better sense and really do the work to move it forward. It means that we're going to have to continue to collaborate, follow through, and then bring back these specific recommendations to the council for approval. So this is really the beginning of the next phase of the work, not the end of it. So with that, I'm pleased to turn it over to Jeff LaBelle to walk you through the strategy.

Thank you. Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, it's a great pleasure to be here and to present to you this housing strategy. Just quickly on a word of earlier discussion of 9-11. 9-11, I was working at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, and I could see the Pentagon on fire from my office. So that was quite a scary time. I mean, a scary time for everybody. So here we are 25 years later and we are trying to move forward and really address the housing challenges that you have here in Jefferson City and I'm here today to give you an update on the progress. It's been about 10 months since I started work and as Susan mentioned there have been a lot of cooks in the kitchen. It's been a collaborative effort, but we now have a complete housing strategy that we are pleased to share with you. I'm going to give you an update on that strategy, and this will help to inform a resolution later this evening. So this is, we're calling it the Jefferson City Housing Supply Strategy, and it's really meant to be not a report, but an action plan. These are concrete steps that you can take to address housing challenges in the city. As you will remember, there was a housing study earlier, housing needs assessment, and I did not duplicate that work. Instead, we tried to build on it. So we took the findings from the housing needs assessment and we moved forward. But I did look at a few statistics just to get a sense of whether things have gotten better or worse or where things stood. Found that home prices have gone up by about 73% since the end of 2019. Your rents have gone up between 30 and 60% depending on bedroom size since 2000. And it's quite obviously a large increase in costs. And that's one of the things really motivating the strategy, right? How do we help to bring housing costs under control so that people can afford their housing? Also, more than half of the homes in Jefferson City were built before 1980. So as homes get older, obviously they experience housing challenges. So that's another part of the landscape that we're trying to address. now there has been some progress recently you know you have your five thousand dollars a unit uh for completed homes and uh in 2025 there was an increase in permits to 110 units that's uh I think triple what had been the prior few years, so that's good progress, but it's still only about half the average rate of growth of U.S. cities. So just to give you sort of a benchmark, my discussions indicated really a shortage at all price points. you know you have households that met needs who are hourly wage earners who are professional employees older adults people with disabilities um very low income households really the spectrum um but at the same time the city is really well positioned i think to address your housing challenges um other cities that i've examined and worked in um really lack the solid base of demand that we see here in jefferson city i mean you are the state capital um you have uh you know people are working in the city and they want to work more and you've got employers who would add more staff right if there were places to put them and you have you know legislative staff who would love to uh you know walk over to their flat if there was an apartment here in downtown right rather than driving 30 40 miles so you really have a lot of the core elements you have so many uh non-profits and um and and sort of mission driven professionals um so i really feel like that there's a the core base is there what you really need is a strategy right like you need a set of actions like what are you going to do tomorrow to kind of move forward and that's really the goal here was to identify concrete set of actions so um The housing needs assessment was in 2022. I was brought in about 10 months ago and conducted a series of stakeholder interviews about 20 stakeholders did some of my own analysis and research partnered with the individuals on the capital city housing task force and the city staff. We had two public hearings, an initial fact finding hearing in the beginning and a subsequent hearing to get feedback. And the result is an actual blueprint that's in your packet tonight. And it lists specific steps organized into three phases. things that you could do to really move forward and address your housing challenges so I'm going to give you just a brief overview and you can read more in your packet and so just in one slide what is this about well the goals of the strategy are threefold you see them at the bottom grow the housing stock improve the quality of existing homes and strengthen your historic neighborhoods Very simple, three goals. And to do that, you really need to build more, repair more, and ensure you have the capacity to administer the plan. So in terms of building more, the goal is to increase housing supply at a range of price points. So a well-functioning housing market, as you know, has housing at a range of price points, right? A lot of different kinds of housing to meet different needs, and that's really the goal here. So part of it is, how do we unlock housing in the downtown How do we expand the market rate workforce and affordable housing stock? There are specific proposals in here to do that and they involve a lot of them. The goal here was not to come to you with a large bill for costs, but really to try to leverage existing federal and state incentives and found quite a few incentives that are available to the city but are not being taken advantage of. The other piece here is to think about building new housing types, accessory dwelling units like granny flats, right? And thinking about more multifamily, more townhomes, more of a diverse mix of housing. The second piece is around repair. So you have an old housing stock, and it has come up again and again. People say, OK, it's great to build new housing. What do we do about existing homes? How do we ensure that existing homes are still there to help the next family? So there are a series of actions here recommended for coordinating the actions of home repair providers, developing scalable financing models where people can get loans to repair their homes that they might not be able to get today. and also steps to really improve the quality of your existing rental stock. and then the final piece around capacity you know this isn't going to happen on its own and we have to you know ensure that they're uh both between the city and their community partners they're people who have the time uh and the uh and the resources really to kind of move this forward so there's uh some proposals in here for developing the the infrastructure the organizational infrastructure outside of the city to actually implement the proposal so What we need are full-time staff who wake up in the morning and say, how am I going to move this forward? Rather than, it's great. Volunteer's amazing. But everyone has a full-time job. Everyone's busy. Somebody needs to have as a job to wake up and say, how am I going to move this forward? So the plan has recommendations about that. This is just a little bit of the early emphasis. So the first piece is around really developing capacity to tap federal and state resources. I mentioned that there are resources that are available to Jefferson City that you're not tapping. So there's something called new markets tax credits. uh which is a federal tax credit for uh primarily for mixed use so for you know it would cover commercial and mixed use um but it would also you could also use it for home ownership so if you wanted to create a home ownership uh program it would it would cover essentially 20 of the costs of of those homes uh and it's free money right i mean it's not easy program to work with right but it's it's free money there's a program called opportunity zones which is a this administration has recently passed a set of improvements for opportunity zones that were specifically intended to help places like jefferson city they um what they did basically is make these opportunity zone credits much more useful in rural communities, which they define as any community under 50,000 people. And so because you're at the high end of that, you're actually much more, you have much more of the infrastructure needed to really attract investors than a smaller community would. There are, you know, you know about historic tax credits already, but you've large parts of your downtown and adjacent areas that would qualify for very generous federal and state historic tax credits. And finally, there's something called a you remember the low-income housing tax credit you've approved two low-income housing tax credit projects right so those are um nine percent credits and there's another kind called four percent that are only worth about half as much but they're automatic you don't really need to compete for them so um and there's the part of town the downtown and south side that qualifies for what they call a Increased basis, basically, they're worth the credits are worth more. So the bottom line is these 4 credits are all available in the downtown and in the census tract to the South, which is kind of a South side writ large. And so a big part of the strategy is how do we train developers to help them understand how to access these credits? How do we create partnerships between them and developers with more experience in other places, joint ventures to really help them access and bring money into your city? At the same time, there are things that the city can do to complement that to help unlock development. For example, the city could change the zoning here in the downtown to allow residential only buildings. Like right now you have to only build residential on top of retail. And while that makes sense for like the two blocks of high street where there's a lot of high end retail, there's a lot of this area where people might be very interested in building or taking existing uh uh buildings and transforming them into residential but they can't do it under current zoning right so that's an example of a zoning change and you're not being asked today to approve these things we're trying to give you a road map to some of the things that might be coming to the council in the next few years looking at your parking making sure that you you know you All the parking you require is absolutely necessary. You've already reduced it somewhat, but potentially in the downtown might be another area to look at. Expanding the types of housing, allowing duplexes, triplexes, townhomes. These are housing types that are naturally lower cost. so uh um that's a piece of this looking at accessory dwelling units where you take a structure and put in your backyard um and finally thinking about uh could you know could there be some incentives that you offer to people who are building affordable housing such as a targeted chapter 100 framework uh to provide tax abatements So those are some of the tools that are discussed in the strategy. I'll try to go really quickly. It's a three-phase strategy. The phases are not meant to be strictly sequential, but basically trying to just group all of the ideas into kind of first phase focuses on some early successes and laying the foundation for future work. So proposing to focus on expanding housing in the downtown, through the zoning incentives, through tapping these federal credits, through partnering with the state to identify land that the state owns that potentially you could develop, focusing on affordable and mixed income rental housing, and then starting to coordinate your home repair efforts and really sync up and identify plans and doing what we call innovation pilots. So looking at some of the more innovative housing types, like modular manufactured housing and accessory dwelling units, really trying to pilot some initiatives to see what works. Then phase 2 is about scaling. Scaling any of those pilots that were successful, scaling your home repair efforts, focusing on coordinating efforts in the South side. So many stakeholders in the South side area, but you know, Lincoln University was here. I'm thinking kind of old Munich bird, but it kind of expanded and, you know, who really share a mission, right? Of trying to make that neighborhood as strong as possible, but they're not really working together perhaps as much as they could. So how could we coordinate their efforts if there was a staff person Who could do that? That would be really, really helpful. And then also thinking about city wide, are there places where we can expand workforce housing? So, for example, some 1 thing that's being done in a lot of communities. Is looking at some of your, your light commercial zones and allowing multi family housing there more easily. And right now you do allow apartment buildings of eight or more in your C2 zone, but you don't allow any residential in C1 or C0, right, or C3. So really just thinking about trying to be more liberal with the zoning. And then the final phase is looking at kind of longer term things that you could decide to do those earlier, but things that take more effort. expanding water and wastewater so that there are more sites to develop. Thinking about annexation. Really, if you want to reach that goal of 50,000 residents at some point, you're really going to need to look to annexation. Taking some of the ideas pioneered in Southside and expanding them to other neighborhoods. And then finally, you know, We will have gone after federal and state funding. And actually, there is a new federal law that just passed in July. You might have seen it, the 21st Century Road to Housing Act. And that includes funding something called an innovation fund that rewards communities that expand their housing stock. So they're at $200 million a year as the proposed level hasn't been. Appropriated yet, but there might be some new money part of what I'm saying, and there's some additional money in that act. So something that kind of pay attention to and kind of sync up and make sure that you're positioning yourself really to compete for those funds. But at some point we might need to say, okay, do we need any more local money? But the strategy tries to identify all other sources first and then come to you later, right? So we're not coming right away. Okay, so that's a lot. I know I apologized long and the strategy you probably saw is quite long. It's organized by the way, you know, there's like a short executive summary and then there's a part A that kind of, you know, and then the long strategy is part B. So you can just read little bits of it. But really what we're doing now is developing an implementation plan. So a kind of a phased set of very concrete actions that the city and its partners can take over the next four years really. And it starts in the first six months with really organizing and coordinating and convening key stakeholders and beginning some training and setting up a tracking system. And then in the second six months really identifying specific policy options in each of these areas that can be that can be refined uh designing approaches to repairing existing homes and selecting your pilot priority so within a year you've kind of planned out really the the uh the next steps and and then the third six months is really where you come in sort of from september 27 to february 28 that uh you know if this plan moves hopefully moves forward you'll be uh uh asked to look at some zoning recommendations for changes to the zoning. There will be some pilots that will be structured and funded. Hopefully that south side coordination capacity will be set up. And then in the later stages, as things in the pilots, for example, take place, there will be actions based on what happens in those pilots. And so there are certain actions that are more contingent on the existing Initial steps, so, uh, it's a lot, but you're, uh, I think what you're being asked to do, and this is something that the city can talk more about it really at this point, acknowledge. That this strategy is is complete that the city staff would like to use it to organize their actions as a guide for their. For their plans, and then as things become right for city council action, they'll be bringing them back before you. For more official action. So now there's a resolution later on about the specific zoning incentive and funding recommendations. And then to the extent that you have ideas about ways to improve the process, things you want to accelerate, please let the staff know. Eager to work with you to make sure that we meet the housing needs of the city. Any questions?

Any questions for Mr. Lubell? We do have the resolution coming up later in the meeting, but any specific questions at this time?

Yeah, I've got a few for now. So we've talked about affordable housing and everybody gives a different definition. So for this strategy, what do you consider an affordable housing?

So, just to be clear, that strategy covers market rate housing and affordable housing and workforce housing, like the full spectrum. So, but I'm going to... Affordable and workforce housing, what's the difference? So... Just bear with me for a second. I have a somewhat different approach. I don't usually use very rigid definitions. Rather, I think about a well-functioning housing market has housing at a range of price points to meet the needs of everybody. Workforce housing, some people would say, you know, like if you looked, you know, in various ordinances around the country, they might say that it's housing affordable to people between 80 and 120% of the median income. So that's like a very common thing. And the reason they picked that is that there are a range of federal programs that are targeted on families with incomes below 80% of the median income. And so sometimes people would say that affordable housing is housing between zero, affordable to the very lowest income people up to about 80% of median or 60% of median, depending on the program. And then workforce would be above that. But a lot of people in that affordable range are working, right? And so it's a misnomer to think that someone at 60% of AMI is not working. That's $50,000, $60,000 a year those people are working. The way I look at it is we need housing for everybody in the community and there are a range of federal programs called affordable programs that serve very specific populations between zero and 80 percent of the median income. There is another group above that, that cannot afford market rate housing. And that's what I think of as workforce housing, making sure that anybody, essentially, who can't afford market rate housing has access to a housing they need. The other thing I would just mention, in my view, is we want to push the cost, rents and home prices and market rate housing lower. So even without subsidy, can we use lower cost housing construction techniques, right? Can we build duplexes and triplexes and townhomes that are naturally lower in cost without subsidy, right? And that's now reaching down into the workforce. So I don't know if that helps, but that's how I think about it rather than a rigid definition, more just kind of trying to chunk out the population of people who cannot afford market rate housing and making sure their needs are met.

Okay. And then one other question. So I've read yours and the 2022. Who do you look to, and I mean, it's in here a little bit, but who do you look to to implement guess this the 2026 one so right now 2022 is all pretty well the city our staff doesn't have enough time to implement even the whole 2022. um 2026 to me is pretty well the same with just you know there's the factory built housing is new the adu's new the home sharing model stuff i mean i've got lists but i'm just trying to figure out how like in this plan and maybe i missed it is there somewhere that says hey this is how you can implement this without I mean, it looks to me like we're gonna have to hire staff to implement this new plan. And so that's what I'm just trying to figure out when we have a discussion later.

Yeah, that's a great question. So first of all, the 2022 study was just a needs assessment. It had a set of recommendations at the end, but it wasn't a plan, just to be super clear. The city's not implementing, as I understand it, the 2022 plan. It was a study that identified the needs of the community, and it had some boilerplate recommendations at the end, some of which were useful, some of which were less useful, but it wasn't a strategy. It wasn't a plan, right? So now this is a plan that does call for specific implementation, and the proposal is to split the implementation between the city staff and people outside the city. So we have proposed raising money to hire outside the city from philanthropic sources to fund a staff person who would coordinate a committee. Like, let's say you take the existing task force and turn it into an ongoing organization. That person's job would be when they wake up in the morning to try to actually move the housing strategy forward. And so they would be coordinating the efforts of a lot of existing people in the community. Right? You've got groups like habitat, you have private developers, right? You have, um. Lenders, right? So there's a whole series of people who are actually going to build housing. The city's not going to build the housing. It's developers are going to build the housing. Right? So, but somebody needs to kind of arrange for the training that people need to learn how to access these resources. Um, and I've been able to identify quite a few resources to provide that training and provide, uh, um. You know, so that we can, you know, empower our developers here in Jefferson city to really, you know, have priority. So, I just was into meetings today with city staff where they were laying out a set of actions that they could take to support the strategy that would not require a new staff. They may come to you at some later point and say they need to hire more staff. But the idea is not to have everything fall on the city. The idea is for there to be a partnership where the city does what it can do, right? And the other actions are being done by others throughout the community. it's going to take a village to make this work you're going to need all of the capacity that you have i wish i could say it was one thing you could do you could pass some some magic wand but even if you gave you know a million dollars or whatever it's not going to solve the problem and so we need to figure out how do we um how we get the housing that you need here and that's going to take a lot of different action by a lot of different people and so the plan invitation calls for um outside coordinator to help facilitate the action that's needed from a range of different actors thank you councilman in the presentation i noticed uh

In the presentation I noticed a good emphasis on the uptown area or downtown. Is there any particular reason why that area is the focus of the analysis?

Yeah, there is. So first of all, the plan itself calls for action throughout Jefferson City, but it's phased. And there's a reason why it starts with downtown and with the adjoining area to the south and south side, which is that these two, the two census tracts in that area qualify for special federal incentives that the rest of Jefferson City does not. So there is the, as I mentioned, the opportunity zones, the new markets tax credits, store tax credits, and also the basis boost for the low-income housing tax credit. So this is federal money that could be accessed and brought into Jefferson City that would only be available in those places. And to be clear, most of these are not tied to affordable housing. It would apply to market rate housing. It would apply to retail, commercial. So new markets is not for housing particularly. I mean, you can use it for mixed-use housing, but a lot of it's for commercial and retail and opportunity zones. You have to have a market component to make it work. So just to be clear, it's not about dumping affordable housing in a particular place. It's about accessing underutilized resources. And so we were looking for, like, what can we do right away to, like, get things going? And downtown seemed like a very compelling place because number one, it qualifies for these federal tax credits. Number two, you've got the state capital here. You've got a ready source of people coming in who might be interested in living here. Right? And number three, you've got the convention center coming in. Number four, you've got the river market coming in, right? So you've got a cluster of other actions that are bringing people in. And so what I think what we're saying is, hey, there's a lot going on here. If the city kind of makes the zoning compatible, with new development and new redevelopment, and if we train developers to access these resources, we can really start building some housing pretty quickly here in the downtown, and then extend that into the Southside area, which also qualifies, and really start to get some early wins. In the meantime, we can be thinking about what do we need to do to activate housing in other parts of Jefferson City, and that's where things like allowing multi-family housing in light commercial areas comes in. That's throughout the city, not just in this area. That's where things like accessory dwelling units come in. That's throughout the city. Duplexes, triplexes, quadruplexes, townhomes, using factory-built housing. There's a lot of strategies that are intended for the rest of the city, but we started with those two areas because of the federal incentives.

Yeah, I'm not sure if this is now or later, so if it's for later, let me know. But since you brought the downtown part up, a lot of it was, I mean, phase one is the downtown area.

The first four actions in phase one, and the first one is downtown, and the other three. But it's a big part. It's one of 16 items in the plan.

Yeah. I'm just totally confused because there's absolutely no land downtown to build. So we'd have to tear something down to build any of this phase or housing or anything. I'm confused. It might be a good strategy. Sure, I can talk about that. But if there's no land to build,

It's certainly true that you wouldn't be doing new construction on vacant land. But there's there are quite a few structures that are not optimized for. You know, maximum, I mean, you know, there are places here where you have dry cleaners where in other cities there would be a 4 or 5 story apartment building there. Right there are places where there are parking lots that there would be, you know, apartment buildings. So my hypothesis is that if you made it easier for people to reimagine existing spaces as residential housing, without having to have retail on the 1st floor that people would convert existing uses, they would build new. Floors on top, some of the buildings would be torn down and that there would be activity. And just to be clear, I'm not, I wouldn't limit it to. You know, just like the 3 block area, right? I mean, I would look certainly over to McCarty. I would look at some of the joining residential areas. The idea is like, where can you. you know, walk to the Capitol within five, 10 minutes, right? It's that area. And so some of those parcels, there are, the city, there's even a city-owned parcel that has some development potential that I've talked to the city about. So I think there is some land. It's not, I agree it's not vacant land, but there's some underutilized land that could be repurposed for hazard.

Mr. Miller? Thank you for being here. So some of the places that maybe that are vacant and all that lay in flood zones and all that. How do we get the federal government to ease or whatever restrictions there? Because I know 1 gentleman that has would like to maybe update or something along that line also. were billed but the the requirements from the building in a flood zone are just outrageous and they tend to say no right off the bat and how so how do you uh convince them to say you know hey you got land here we'll just wave this and let the owner assume responsibility for as far as any insurance and all that yeah

it's a good question i don't have the answer i apologize i you know i think uh i think you would want to just be really sure right that it's safe to build there and that would be you know having experienced a disaster here right you know we don't want to have another one and and and uh so i would you know be double triple sure because uh um there's been a lot of building in flood zones around the country and People have suffered as a result. So, um, but, you know, there are, there's land, you know, there's an old school building right in right next door to here. That's up on a hill. It's not presumably not in a flood zone and that could be redeveloped. uh just to give you an example of a underutilized structure it's close by right so um i think we need to be looking at you know whatever we do let's build in a way that is uh sensible and resilient and and and uh uh ensures the housing is there for many decades come from now

First of all, thanks for everybody's work. I appreciate it. And I do like the idea of doing different pilots. I do think it may require us to suspend some of our traditional ideas. Like you said, some of it's even retail, so we might could use it for some of the revitalization work that we're doing along with reimagining what is a, you know, what is a what is the dwelling and looking to drive down the cost with some of the types of dwellings that we do. And I especially appreciate your thoughts on the resources because I do think having someone to spearhead this will be really crucial. And you have the city where we're pretty lean on our staff. So. I think that will be something we will have to pay special attention to and also in reading the report. I especially appreciate the metrics and measurements. You know, that's part of my bread and butter in some of my background. And if we don't have metrics and measurements, we won't really know where we need to get to.

nor where we have gotten to so i think that's really important so i just wanted to say thanks and point those couple things out appreciate it thank you are there any models studies that have got this right that we could point to and look at and say you know there's an idea or some place that's getting things right

I would say that there are individual communities that are doing really positive, constructive things that are worth emulating. I'm not sure I would say a single community has done all of the pieces. But just to give you an example, um talk here about trying to coordinate home repair efforts and scaling up efforts to repair existing homes so there have been a number of cities that have have implemented programs like that two of them are louisville kentucky and philadelphia pennsylvania just so i think their models are really worth looking at and emulating in preparing this strategy i was looking at them there are quite a few cities that have successfully enabled housing in light commercial areas and that's been a strategy that's very popular at this point so again not one community that's doing all of these things i did look to see what other communities are doing and have found to be effective. I did talk with developers in Kansas City that are successfully using New Markets tax credits. There are quite a few nonprofits around the country that have used New Markets tax credits for home ownership. And that can be done, by the way, not just with new construction, but it can be done with substantial rehab. So to the point about being built out, you can take 15 or 20 existing homes that are substandard and invest in them as a package, and the credit will cover 20% of the net costs of that. You have to bring in a consultant and they make a lot of money, but the net effect, it's not me, it's somebody else who does that work, is a 20 percent subsidy. Again, I can point to dozens of places that have implemented that strategy. Not one city, but each of these ideas has been done somewhere.

Okay, well, we appreciate you being here. We do have the resolution coming up a little while that may generate some additional questions, but thank you very much. Appreciate your work on this project and we'll see where we go from here. Thank you. All right, this takes us to item 9. Announcements by Mayor, Council, and staff. Administration Committee, Councilman Allers.

It's scheduled for October 7th if there's things on the agendas.

If finance, Councilman Weigel.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Our next meeting will be this Thursday. Same time, same place. Is that meeting still on?

Okay. That's budget. Finance Committee was canceled, wasn't it? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Yeah, the budget meeting. Correct. Okay. Thanks. And Public Safety, Council Member Mallow.

Thank you, Mayor. The next Public Safety meeting is on September 24th, Thursday at 3.30 in the Bancroft.

Public Works, Council Member Campiter.

Yeah, our next meeting is Wednesday, or this Wednesday, 7.30 here in Council Chambers.

Under other announcements, I would just remind everybody we do have our show me air show me state air show on Saturday and Sunday. So it is a busy time in the capital city and there's a regatta going on this weekend. So there's a lot going on in the capital city. Any other announcements?

Yeah, I said that.

All right, seeing none other. Item 10, consent agenda. Three items in front of you. Motion to approve. Second. Motion. The second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Item 11, bills introduced 2026-033.

An ordinance of the City of Jefferson, Missouri authorizing the Mayor and City Clerk to amend a lease agreement with New Singular Wireless LLC authorizing City switch Dubco 1 LLC to build a cell tower at 1675 Cavalier Drive.

Chief Scocca.

Yes, you may remember that this original agreement came before the City Council and was approved June 1st of this year. subsequent sublease agreement modifies the original agreement to allow for city switch to also utilize the same site which is originally contemplated in the agreement first so this is following that process bringing it before you for that sublease agreement happy to answer any questions

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to move that we suspend the rules for 20-26-033. Seconded.

There's been a request to suspend the rules. Any opposition to that? We'll ask the Clerk to read the bill again.

An ordinance of the City of Jefferson, Missouri authorizing the Mayor and City Clerk to amend a lease agreement with New Singular Wireless, PCS, LLC authorizing CitySwitch, Defco 1, LLC to build a cell tower at 1675 Cavalier Drive.

Okay. You have Bill 2026-033 in front of you. Any other comments? I'll do a roll call vote.

All those? Allen? Aye. Dooley?

Aye.

Holt? Aye. Hoselton?

Aye.

Joe? Aye. Campeter?

Aye.

Lester? Aye. Michael? Aye. Young? Bill passes.

All right item B2026-034.

An ordinance renewing an existing franchise and granting for a period of 20 years to Union Electric Company, DBA of Merritt, Missouri, a corporation of successors and assigns a non-exclusive franchise right, permission, and authority to construct, reconstruct, excavate for place maintain operate and use all equipment facilities devices materials apparatus or media including but not limited to ducts lines pipes hoses cables culverts tubes poles towers wires conduits conductors manholes transformers underground vaults switch gear capacitors receivers and transmitters with all necessary or appropriate Uh, per tenses and appliances and connection there with and along across over and under the streets, roads, alleys, sidewalks, squares, bridges and other public places. And city of Jefferson city and areas dedicated to the city for public utility use for the purpose of transmitting, furnishing and distributing electricity and gas within and through said city. Prescribe prescribing the terms and conditions of such grant opposing certain obligations upon the grantee, its successors and assigned successfully in connection there with.

Let's turn that close 1st, I would like to say I did not write that title.

Can we read that?

So every 20 years we need to renew our franchise agreement with Namrin for gas and electricity, and that is what this is. It is the same as it has always been. However, as you may know, the Missouri legislature has been talking about changing the law currently When we need to have people using our right of way, we're going to say expand the street, move their utilities. That is at their cost. And this new law get passed would make that at our cost. Obviously, it's a lot more expensive. Mr. Brimmer suggested that we add language to this. We're hammer hammer and would agree that they would always pay the cost for that. They were agreeable to that. Thank you. Kyle for making that suggestion. That's going to save the city.

potentially a lot of money if that law were to ever pass other than that it's the same as you may remember it from 20. councilman powers thank you mr mayor i would ask to put a check mark on this to have it finalized for the whole council for tonight's meeting this bill you're requesting to suspend the rules yes sir is there any opposition to suspending the rules

We will ask our clerk to read the bill again.

An ordinance renewing an existing franchise and granting for a period of 20 years to Union Electric Company, DBA, Ameren, Missouri, a corporation, its successors, and assigns a non-exclusive franchise right, permission, and authority to construct, reconstruct, excavate for, place, maintain, operate, and use all equipment, facilities, devices, materials, apparatus for, media including but not limited to ducts lines pipes hoses cables culverts tubes poles towers wires conduits conductors manholes transformers underground vaults switchgear capacitors receivers and transmitters with all necessary or appropriate appurtenances and appliances and connection therewith in along across over and under the streets roads alleys sidewalks squares bridges and other public places in the city of jefferson city and areas dedicated to the city for public utility use for the purpose of transmitting furnishing and distributing electricity and gas within and through said study prescribing the terms and conditions of such grant imposing certain applications upon the grantee its successors and assigned successfully in connection therewith this title could be short

All right, you now have 2026-034 in front of you for a roll call. Seeing no other comments, we'll do a roll call vote.

Allen? Aye. Zooley?

Aye.

Holt? Aye. Huzzleson? Aye. Joe? Aye. Campiter?

Aye. Lester? Aye. Michael? Aye.

Young? Aye. Bowers?

Aye.

Little-Passos? All right, I didn't see 2026 days 035 in order to the city of Jefferson, Missouri, relating to its finance disclosure policy and conflict of interest.

You must have written out in Mr. Nicholas. It's like a haiku.

So also every two years we have to pass a financial disclosure policy, lest that you all be forced to fill out the long form. You may think that the form you have is long enough. So we do that every year, every two years in September, and that's what this is.

Councilman Owlers. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I ask to suspend the rules and pass this bill on the second reading this evening.

Is there any opposition to suspending the rules? Hearing none, we'll ask the clerk to read 2026-035.

An ordinance of the City of Jefferson, Missouri relating to its finance disclosure policy and conflict of interest.

Any other questions? We'll do a roll call on 2026-035. Julie? Aye.

Aye. Puzzleton? Aye. Joe? Aye. Campeter?

Aye. Lester? Aye.

Michael?

Aye.

Young? Aye. Ahlers? Aye. Allen? Aye. Bill passes.

All right that takes us to item D 2026-036.

An ordinance authorizing the mayor to execute an addendum to the tax increment financing contract with up and up development.

Minister Nicklaus.

Yes, so F&F development currently has a Tiff agreement with the city, and they've asked to amend that tip agreement to allow them to add to issue bonds. Currently, they don't have the authority to issue bond. These would be bonds that they're issuing that bonds from the city's issuing. And the city has read. Do that or poses that we agreed to that and this ordinance would make that effective.

Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to place this in front of the council and suspend the rules.

Second. Is there any opposition to the request to suspend the rules? All right, seeing none, we will have the clerk read 2026-036.

An ordinance authorizing the Mayor to execute an addendum to the tax increment financing contract with up and up development

All right, you have 2026-036. Any comments? Seeing none, we'll do a roll call vote.

Holt? Aye. Hockleton?

Aye.

Joe? Aye. Kanpeter?

Aye.

Lester? Aye. Lichael? Aye. Young? Aye. Ahlers? Aye. Allen? Aye. Dooley?

Aye.

Bill Passos?

All right, item E 2026-037.

An ordinance of the City of Jefferson, Missouri adopting a budget and personal classification plan for the city for the period of November 1, 2026 to October 31, 2027 and appropriating money in the city treasury to pay the cost of operating the city government during that period in accordance with the budget.

Ms. Convery, welcome.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, this is just the 1st reading for the adoption of the 2027 operating budget. The general fund proposal is 45,442,425 dollars with additional funding for other funds, including the capital project fund, bringing the total 2027 city of Jefferson budget to 88,458,204. And as I stated in the Pre meeting at the next meeting, the bill move to the informal calendar until council is ready to cut off the budget.

We will continue with introduction of bills with item F2026-038.

An ordinance of the City of Jefferson, Missouri authorizing the Mayor and City Clerk to execute a $266,022 agreement with the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission for Metropolitan Transportation Planning Services for the period of November 1, 2026 to October 31, 2027, reflecting consolidated planning grant funds as approved in the FY2027 CAMPO Unified Planning Work Program.

Mr. Hall. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First off, I'd like to apologize to the clerk for the long title. But as she stated, this is our consolidated planning grant, the CPG, with the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission. It funds our CAMBO project. This is the same grant that is an annual agreement that we enter into every year since 2003. The grant is an 80-20 So the funding that we would receive is $266,022, and that's the federal contribution. The 20% local matching would come from both the city and the county. The city pays 15% and the county pays 5% of that. That would give us the total amount from this agreement funding for Camp O in the amount of $331,409. Be happy to answer your questions.

You didn't write 035 too, did you? Thank you. All right, seeing no questions, we'll move on to item D 2026-039.

An ordinance of the City of Jefferson, Missouri amending the 2025-2026 annual budget of the City of Jefferson, Missouri by appropriating additional funds within the police department fund.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Early this spring, we had a police vehicle that was involved in an accident, the results of which it was deemed a complete loss. The city has received a check in the amount of $36,870.50 for the replacement of that vehicle. We're requesting to deposit that into our purchase of vehicle line items so that we can utilize that to replace that vehicle. We have to answer any questions. If you want to suspend the rules, that's completely up to you. We're ready. We have to, of course, go out to bid, you know, and get another one in.

But if it's fine, I'd like to suspend the rules. There's no point in just leaving that check in there and waiting on this.

Second. Then a request to suspend the rules on 24 and 6 states, 039. Any opposition? 2026-039.

An ordinance of the City of Jefferson, Missouri amending the 2025-2026 annual budget of the City of Jefferson, Missouri by approving additional funds within the police department fund.

Any other discussion on 2026-039? All right, you have that in front of you for roll call.

Housleton?

Aye.

Jobe? Aye. Can Peter?

Aye.

Lester?

Aye.

Michael? Aye. Young? Ballers? Aye. Allen? Aye. Dooley? Aye. Holt? Aye. Villapazos?

All right that takes us to 2026 days 040.

An ordinance of the City of Jefferson, Missouri authorizing the Mayor and City Clerk to execute an agreement with the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission pertaining to the Transportation Alternative Program for the Jackson Street Side Path and the acceptance of TAP grant funding.

Mr. Brown? Yes, Mr. Mayor. In 2025, last year, the City for a side path on Jackson Street from McCarty up to Capitol. We were successfully selected to receive that grant when funding was available. Funding is now becoming available and we can authorize this agreement so we can begin our design and planning stage of it. So that's what we're asking tonight.

All right, it takes us to item 12A, bills pending 2026-027.

An ordinance of the City of Jefferson, Missouri amending Chapter 19, Motor Vehicles and Traffic, Schedule O, Parking Time Limits, Section B, Parking Time Zone B, by the removal of two spots from the south side of the 1000 block of East High Street.

Mr. Bremmer. Yes, this would remove two short-term parking spaces on the 1000 block of High Street. So back in 2020, they requested those spots. They no longer need those spots. We'd like to see them revert to what the rest of the block is, which is a no time limit space. Any questions?

Seeing none, we will do a roll call vote on 2026-027. Joe? Aye.

Sanpeter?

Aye.

Lester? Aye. Michael? Aye. Young? Allers? Aye. Allen? Aye. Dooley? Aye. Holt? Aye. Hoselton?

Aye.

Bill Passos?

All right item 13 informal calendar there is nothing on that calendar item 14 resolutions resolution 2026-28.

A resolution of the City of Jefferson adopting the Cole County Hazard Mitigation Plan 2026.

Councilman Caputo? Yeah, I'd like to bring Resolution 2026-28 to the table for vote.

I request to bring 2026-28 to the Council. Is there a second to that? Second. We have a second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, you now have resolution 2026-28 in front of you, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Before you is the resolution adopting the 2026 Cole County Hazard Mitigation Plan. Over the last few months, city staff as well as partners from the community and other organizations around Cole County have worked on a hazard mitigation plan. This is one of the requirements according to Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000. We have to adopt this plan every five years to qualify for FEMA funding if there is an emergency or any kind of natural disaster. So this fulfills that requirement. The city successfully participated, met all requirements, and this is included in your packet is the draft section of just what Jefferson said. city's section is going to look like. It is part of a larger plan. It will potentially change once it's submitted to FEMA. It is going to be approved by them, so that's why the wording in the ordinance, or I'm sorry, in the resolution does say that we're asking for adoption as it is, but with the understanding that there could be small changes to it based off what FEMA and the federal government makes us do. The main goal of this is to prepare the city and put us in a good situation where we can apply for grants should we need them in the case of an emergency. Yeah, to answer any questions.

Seeing none, you have resolution 2026-28 in front of you for roll call vote.

Cam Peter? Aye. Lester? Aye. Michael? Aye. Young? Allers? Aye. Allen? Aye. Dooley? Aye. Holt? Aye. Huzzleton? Aye. Joe? Aye. Resolution is adopted.

Alright, item B, resolution 2026-29. This is our housing strategy study. I jumped in front of the clerk.

Let's let the clerk read that resolution of the city of Jefferson, Missouri, adopting the housing supply strategy.

I'd like to bring Resolution 2026-29 in front of the Council for a vote. Second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? You now have Resolution 2026-29 in front of you.

Thank You mr. mayor before he is the resolution adopting the housing strategy housing supply strategy for the city of Jefferson City this was created in collaboration with the capital city housing task force community stakeholders residents city staff as well as holding multiple hearings this supply housing supply strategy does not By approving this, it does not lock in any guaranteed funding that the city will have to do or guaranteed legislation that's going to have to happen. This is a guide that we will use if approved to come up with implementation plans and action items that we can do within the city and also reach out to the public and other organizations and work with groups like the Capital City Housing Task Force to bring in other stakeholders to have buy-in and ultimately hopefully improve the housing stock and situation that we have within the city. Some of the things that we're currently looking at are the zoning codes and the different things that we can do in the meantime to make this a more developer-friendly city as well as reaching out and speaking with our stakeholders and our other groups to get the buy-in so that they can assist us in making this a success. Be happy to answer any questions.

So this has a question. So why do we have to approve to use a plan that we spent money on? Does that make sense? Like if we spent the money, so if we say no tonight we're just gonna put that plan in the trash.

So the way I understand it is for staff to work on something, we have to be directed by counsel. So by accepting this resolution, it allows staff to look at these suggestions and move forward with attempting to get the buy-in from the stakeholders in the community to assist us with this. That would be what we would have gained by adopting the resolution. is that would give staff directive that it's something that we should proceed with looking into and hopefully moving forward with.

Councilman Michael. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This may be a question for Mr. LaBelle. He said a word that got my attention. Having worked for the federal government for 23 years, I've not heard many things free. When you said free, is there something specifically we can do to drive a free project that I'm not familiar with?

We'll invite you back to the microphone to address that question.

Sure. What I meant by that was that it's an available federal incentive that provides funding to support development in a city that is not being taken advantage of. So it's true that there's transaction costs associated with it, right? You have to put a whole deal together. You have to put a capital stack together. But I guess my perspective would be, if you're going to be doing, if you want to do development anyway, and someone's telling you they'll give you a 20% net subsidy after all that transaction costs. That's what I meant by free money is that it's money that is sitting on the table that is not competitive that you could mobilize to put into a capital stack in order to get development done that you want to get done. And I was focused particularly on kind of an infill strategy that other cities have used to take their downtowns and housing you know where there's kind of lower density housing or parking lots or um you know upper floors that aren't being utilized that kind of thing so number quite a few state capitals actually you know have done that successfully thank you thank you all right see no other questions where oh I'm sorry you can't

the limitation is placed on the height of buildings in the city of Jefferson when it comes to being competitive with or overshadowing the capital building. I noticed you mentioned, you know, capital cities are capable of building these structures in their downtown area. I'm assuming that's something that was taken into consideration.

Yeah, it's not proposing to build any buildings that are taller than the Capitol, yeah. No, no, for sure, for sure. Yeah, you know, I mean, there are, let's put it this way, there are restrictions that you, like that one, that you probably don't want to lift, right? But there are other kinds of restrictions like only being able to build residential over retail that perhaps we should be willing to change, right? And so I guess my suggestion is that the city look carefully at some of the existing restrictions and ask whether they're really strictly necessary. to achieve your goals. I mean, I think the idea of sort of, you know, know if the whole downtown could be like that two blocks of high street that would be wonderful but it's it's not happening it's not likely to happen so you know there have been developments that have come to the city and asked for approval and they couldn't get approval because they didn't have retail on the first floor right so the idea is just to allow that kind of thing to happen but yes obviously i would imagine you would not want to change that it's not up to me but you could you know but i wish we could um to me you know it's up to you i'm just saying that yes there's quite a bit that you could do uh within the existing footprint of buildings and within buildings that are still below well below the height of the county okay understood thank you uh yes thank you mr mayor um there was a mention of having dedicated staff members that you know are iron focused on the

To look at this, what is the task burden on staff and how much additional workload is this on our staff?

So having looked at the plan, really with the phased approach, some of the items that are in this strategy, staff is already currently working on. The zoning code changes, if you remember a while back, we changed setbacks and lot sizes. We're working through the P&Z process to do a lot of those types of things, including accessory dwelling units. Things that we need to do as a city to stay on the level with other cities. anytime that we add new tasks in the beginning it's it's going to add to the workload a lot of the stuff that's in here that says that it's a dedicated person that's you know under the hope that we could work with outside groups to actually have that dedicated person so that would be somebody that would work for either south side and you can correct me if i'm wrong or you know one of these other organizations that would take over this and really steer this going forward the city would facilitate it starting out And in starting out, we have a lot of parts of this process. But as we train developers, we train banks, we train the folks in our city that are gonna be actually the boots on the ground doing this, hopefully at that point we become more just as facilitators and able to make those connections. And then if we're able to get these pilot programs up and then a group, is able to get a full-time staff or a part-time staff position where they would focus just on this, you know, that would be ideal. You know, currently, of course, with the way our staffing is and planning protective services, you know, we couldn't dedicate a full-time person to this without sacrificing other staff duties. We definitely work very much on other duties as assigned kind of thing. And this is something that if we take it in bites and we work with the partner agencies and organizations, we think we can make it work. But it does, as you said, it takes a village. We can't do it all ourselves. We really need the buy-in from outside groups.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a quick question. Is there a way to utilize a grant or to investigate utilization of a grant? Grant funding typically includes FTE costs. Is that something we can leverage in this instance?

Definitely any grants that we get that we're approved for and that we are the group that's administering those, we do get the costs that go, administrative costs and project delivery costs that go along with that. The problem with staffing a full-time city position is if it's a two-year grant, if it's a one-year grant, now we get into where's the funding going to come for a permanent position. So that's where we look at other outside third party organizations to help us with this, other groups that could assist us with those things where we could pay them out of those grant funds to assist us where we wouldn't have to sacrifice a full-time employee when the grant money runs out.

Thank you. City. Councilman Lester.

What have some other cities done to give the funding for such an entity more focused on housing?

I think the thing that I've seen most for that kind of position is local philanthropy. Think about it right here. You are philanthropy and you're funding dozens and dozens of positions across the city to provide direct services to fund a half time position or even a full time position to coordinate. implementation of a housing strategy that could leverage tens of millions of dollars. I mean, it's quite a good investment. So I think that's the easiest is just to look to your, you know, local funders. But there are certainly other, you know, there are national funders, you know, there are banks

Okay. Seeing no other questions, do you have Resolution 2026-29 in front of you for roll call?

Lester?

Aye.

Michael?

Aye.

Young? Aye. Allers? Aye. Allen? Aye. Dooley? Aye. Holt? Aye. Osleson? Aye. Jobe? Aye. Camp Peter?

No.

Resolution is adopted.

Again, Mr. Lavelle, thanks for your work on this project, joining us, and safe travels back home.

Thank you so much.

Resolution 2026-30, item 14C.

A resolution authorizing the City of Jefferson to apply for the FTA Buses and Bus Facilities Infrastructure Grant.

We can't, Peter. Yeah, I would like to put Resolution 2026-30 in front of the Council for vote.

Second.

We've got a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Mr. Brimmer, Resolution 2026-30.

I guess this grant would reimburse 80% of the cost of any bus facility that we rent. Bill right now we have a current bus farm facility over at our East East Miller facility, a new bus facility, you know, whether in conjunction with a street facility or a standalone bus barn would allow us to, you know. repurpose an existing bus barn potentially over at east miller for our street division which we took everybody knows we tore down our east end facility about a year a year ago and we're looking for for storage space over at east miller street so If we can get a new bus facility built over at either Hyde Park or East Miller Street, it would accommodate our street facility as well so we can repurpose an existing building. So, if there's any questions.

All right. Seeing none, you have resolution 2026-30 in front of you for roll call.

Michael yeah, all ours.

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Hi. thousand six hundred twenty five dollars three months on sneakers excavating company incorporated for heart street with the industry and west main street sanitary store collection system yes the final i would like to bring resolution 2026-31 from council for vote okay we have a motion and a second all in favor aye any opposed

All right, you now have Resolution 2026-31 in front of you, Mr. Brown. Yes, the collection system in this area needs to be resolved and this will allow it to happen. With that, are there any questions?

Seeing none, we'll do a roll call vote.

Young? Allers? Aye. Mellon? Aye. Dooley? Aye. Holt? Aye. Ellison?

Aye.

Joe? Aye. Sam Peter?

Aye.

Lester? Aye. Michael? Aye. Resolution is adopted.

All right, that takes us to item 15. We have approval of the closed session minutes. Motion to approve? Second. We're going to get a motion and a second. We'll need a roll call vote on that.

Ullers? Aye. Allen? Aye. Dooley? Aye. Wolse? Aye. Haselton? Aye. Joe? Aye. I can't either, but I like all of our young.

All right, I don't 16 is this was none and I'm 17 and finished business none either. Make a motion to call adjourn the meeting seconded to the motion of second to her. All right, everybody says.

Thank you.