City Council - Regular Meeting

I call this meeting to order.

Would everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Roll call, please.

Mayor Gibbons?

Here.

Councilmember Arnold? Here. Councilmember Burkett?

Here.

Here Councilmember jack static here Councilmember lavender Councilmember McLean your Councilmember Schaefer here.

Thank you. Before we get started, I would like to recognize and I and I did it last meeting that our new CEO was in the audience. He's now on the dais and I just want to welcome you as part of our team. Yes. We'll move into public comments.

The public comments portion of the meeting is an opportunity for the city council to listen to comments from citizens. It is not a question and answer session, and the city council will not respond to comments or answer questions during this period. The mayor may refer any matter brought up to the city council, to the chief administrative officer, or city clerk if action is needed.

Thank you. Do we have any comments tonight, David?

Council, we have a few comments. The first is from Elizabeth Sparks Holmes.

Good evening, and thank you for allowing me to be here tonight. My name is Elizabeth Sparks Holmes, and I'm very honored to be standing here talking about, can you hear me? Yes. Okay. To be talking about my candidacy for Missouri's second district in the United States House of Representatives. Some people know me as the walking lady along Doherty Ferry and Forest Road in Manchester. This is really exciting because now I am walking on a new trail, the campaign trail. And the reason is this, I know that, I can do a better job serving the good people who live and work and call this district home. We need a representative who is responsive to her constituents and allows access to her office at any time. Many, many individuals have taken time to express to me their true feelings about the incumbent currently in office. I've heard about it on social media from my neighbors, business owners, and yes, from donors. They tell me they feel taken for granted, and I get that. I really do. In fact, my own husband and son don't even know who Representative Wagner is, literally, because she does not attend town halls, forums, or meetings like this. I understand that raising money is important, and I know that. I don't discount anyone's amazing ability to raise large sums of cash for the Missouri GOP, which is great, as long as you show up here, right? And as long as you allow access to your office and your staff at all times here, Because public service isn't just about money, it's about people. And people want to know where their money's going and how it's being spent. So instead of having our voices be ignored and taken for granted, it's time for a new voice and a new tone and a new presence representing this district in Washington. So please don't ever hesitate to call me, email me, ask me anything. Let me know what matters to you. because you are what's important. And most importantly, please know that I'm here for you no matter what because people feel alone today. They see vitriol and hatred in Washington. They're looking for a fresh start and a new message. So here's my message. Let's build something better, and let's do it together. I love Missouri, and I love history, and I love Harry Truman, and I'll end with this. One of my favorite quotes of Harry Truman is, we've been very fortunate in this country up to now because we've had men like Jefferson who were reasonable and responsible and understood our past and they were concerned with our future. There's always been such men and women when we needed them. And I see no reason why there won't be in the future. So that's why I'm an optimist. And that's why I'm an optimist too. So thank you. Thank you.

Elizabeth Shands.

I am here on a happy note, I am a member of the meacham park neighborhood improvement association and I don't know if you all got my letters. Because I sent them to everybody. We have a summer back to school rally and it's on August 8 so eight eight. They said no placards or anything, so. But we need supplies for the backpacks. And so I am just putting it out there for anybody who would like to donate. I don't know where you would put the supplies if it was something for City Hall, so I know you can't answer questions. If somebody wants to let me know, we put a box somewhere, or call me and I'll come get supplies if there are supplies here. Most of the churches have been... have gotten letters requesting supplies. And if you have a church, you can drop it off at your church. My church is Grace Church Episcopal Church, and you may drop it off there if you'd like to. And you don't have, can't answer questions. Okay. But if you did, I'm here.

Thank you, Elizabeth.

Ellen Smith.

Welcome to the new folks. My name's Ellen Smith and my family and I have lived at 801 North Taylor for over 20 years. I'm part of this loosely formed Citizens for Historic Kirkwood group. You've probably seen our red signs popping up around town. The last time I was here was actually about 12 years ago when we were establishing North Taylor as a historic district. We thought at the time that that would preserve the street and the charm and the history of the district. But as you know, 751 was demolished a couple of months ago, and I think a lot of people were surprised by that. There was a lot of comment that, Shouldn't Kirkwood have been able to do something? Couldn't landmarks prevent this? And I heard a lot of that. And so we started this group to sort of address that. Kirkwood's desirable in part because of our historic homes. That's one of the reasons folks love moving to our community. And unfortunately, that causes increasing pressure from developers to try to monetize that charm. The loss of these homes will make the city much less desirable and also, I think importantly, less affordable for young families and older folks who want to be in our community. So our group is seeking to try to get the Landmarks Commission more power to prevent the demolition of these historic homes, and also to encourage the Council to take actions that might help as well. For example, the new tree rules that came into effect I think might be beneficial in terms of preventing some of the clear-cutting of trees. So there's things that can be done to help encourage preservation of these historic areas. We should have at least, I think, as strong rules as Webster Groves, and we don't. We're one of the weakest communities, I think, in the area, and that's a shame. So I think that's something we should look at and ask ourselves, do we want to continue to be a doormat for these developers that are coming in and raising these old, beautiful homes in our community? Or do we want to be a vibrant, growing community with young families for the future? So I know you guys have a lot of big fish to fry in the next few months, but I'm asking you to also make this a priority because it's what really makes Kirkwood special to all of us. And I'm asking the mayor to put this on the agenda so the city council can address this and we can try to do something about it. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Ellen. Tom Moser.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, staff. Our Water Department has made the news quite a bit lately. We've lost quite a few members of the Water Department employees, part working people. I've watched them work. The ones that are left need to know whether we are going to stay, keep the water department or sell it. They deserve to know as soon as possible We've kicked the can around. I know we're still trying to do things, but right now it looks like we're just gonna let them all leave and then we'll say, well, we have no choice but to sell now. I don't want that to happen. We've got the train station over there that is part of Kirkwood. It's done nothing for Kirkwood, really. We've got a water department that's been around longer than the train station, longer than the railroad. And it's part of Kirkwood. Our founding fathers thought it was important to have the water system. And we've got a good system. We've got good people running it. I think we should keep it. I hope we keep it. I hope we can find a way to keep it. But I think the employees need to know if we want to keep it, let them know so they stay. Yeah. We've only got one chance to keep it. We can sell it any time. We can sell it next year. We can sell it five years. We can sell it 10 years from now. Missouri American will always want to buy it. And with water main replacement the way it is, we might get a higher price for it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Tom.

My name is Janelle Crescione, and I just recently moved to Kirkwood, and I read the article in the Post-Dispatch about the water system here, and I had a question. No one seems to know how much did American Water offer us, how much if they offer us cash for it? How much is it going to take to improve our water system? And is this very practical? And I didn't know where to find these answers. Mayor, that how much did they actually offer to buy the system from us for? And I know you can't answer that back with me right now, but I'm very interested in it because I think we right now buy water from American water, if I'm not correct. And we have a lot of infrastructure that is very... bad and needs to be improved and can we afford to do that and that's all my questions and I'd like to know where you find these answers because I am concerned because I'm a new taxpayer here and I'd like to know where my dollar is going and it's being well spent so thank you for your time Janelle if you would please put your contact information with our clerk okay great thank you

There are no additional requests for comment at this time.

Thank you very much. We will move to the consent agenda. May I have a motion to accept the consent agenda?

Second.

OK, great.

Discussion? Yes. I apologize. I don't know the perfect timing. No, that's right. I'd like to take both C and D off the consent agenda. C and D, okay.

They will be moved to the end of the meeting. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. So we will be voting on A, B, and E in the consent agenda. Any more discussion? All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. It carries. And in the consent agenda, excuse me, We're some appointments to some various boards and commissions, and we have a couple of the folks here that have joined us that were appointed. The first one is to the local housing authority, Monica MacArthur. Monica, would you come up and just introduce yourself to the rest of the council, please? And thank you so much for serving.

Hello. My name is Monica MacArthur. Thank you for having me.

And Monica works in research for Washington University. So we're very excited about you working with our local advocacy authority. Thank you, Monica.

I'm very happy to serve my community. Thank you. Thank you.

And then the other person that's here is Dan Hunsinger. Dan, would you come up? Dan has been appointed to the Aquatic Advisory Council.

Hello, thank you for your time and consideration. My name is Dan Hunsaker. I grew up here in South County in Sunset Hills. I went to Biani and Mizzou. I work just down in Valley Park and I live over by the Kirkwood Park. I was a swimmer all through up until college and I've helped maintain my parents' pool and I'm looking forward to serving the community on the Aquatic Advisory Committee.

Thank you, Dan. Very good. Okay. Now we are unfinished business. Bill 11128.

Is the ordinance appropriating 6,010? Nope.

You have to push the button. Oh, thank you. Rookie mistake.

Okay.

This is an ordinance appropriating 6,010 from the equitable sharing fund balance to the police department machinery and equipment account, accepting the single source quote of elastic ink in the amount of 6,010 for the purchase of a drug terminator machine for the police department and authorizing and directing the director of procurement to issue a purchase order.

Thank you. Is there any further discussion on this bill?

Mayor, just that we shared last time that this money comes to us from seizures, so it was not necessarily previously budgeted, but it is not from our budget either, and that our police department has significant return of used or invalid drugs. And they were making multiple trips. I think he said it filled up multiple times a week and that in the long run, this will help save us money for not having to take it to the place where they were incinerated or destroyed in whatever capacity. So I think this is a good purchase for the police department and glad that we have the opportunity to do this.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the explanation. Anything else? Roll call, please.

Mayor Gibbons. Yes. Council Member Arnold. Yes. Council Member Burkett. Yes. Council Member Jack Sedeck. Yes. Council Member Lavender.

Yes.

Council Member McLean.

Yes.

Council Member Schaefer.

Yes.

Thank you. The bill carries. Bill 11129.

This is an ordinance amending the Kirkwood Code of Ordinances, Chapter 14, Article 8, Section 14-396, Schedule F, Speed Limit Designation, Subsection F, 15 miles per hour.

Are there any comments on this bill? No? OK. Roll call, please.

Mayor Gibbons?

Yes.

Councilmember Arnold? Yes. Council Member Burkett. Yes. Council Member Jack Sedeck. Yes. Council Member Lavender. Yes. Council Member McLean. Yes. Council Member Schaefer.

Yes.

Thank you. We move to new business. Bill 11130.

This is an ordinance amending Article 3, offenses concerning administration of justice of Chapter 17, offenses miscellaneous of the City of Kirkwood. Code of ordinance is to add a new Section 17-43 to prohibit interfering with a first responder.

Thank you. May I have a motion, please?

Motion.

Second. Second.

Darren, would you please explain this to us that we are following state ordinances by adding this and the next two bills?

So the next three ordinances are state legislature that passed that would enable us to go ahead and do citations easier through the city of Kirkwood. There is some delay sometimes if you have to go ahead and prosecute that, I guess, under the

state offense i would i would defer that to jackie if she has any other comments on that just that um under the state law it's only prosecutable through the st louis county prosecuting attorney's office if we place these in our code of ordinances it means it can be enforced through our municipal court as well are there any comments or questions just a question were these just recently passed after this legislative session they went into effect in august

August of 2025.

Okay, so we're a little behind on that, but the governor signed them last year. Yes. Okay, thank you.

Council Member Burkett.

Yes, I move we continue Bill 11130 to the July 23rd, 2026 council meeting to allow Kirkwood Human Rights Commission to review and provide feedback on this bill and to discuss in the July 16th work session. First, there's a technical error in, I need to wait, sorry.

July 16th is that formal council meeting night. We don't have a meeting on July 23rd.

okay you'd want to probably motion correct that motion to be july 16th instead of july 23rd and i'm sorry you said there's an error in the is a technical error in the draft where it reference oh we have to second it first oh is there a second well i'll just second it for discussion yeah okay yeah So in what we presented in this bill, it references an inaccurate Missouri statute of 569.207, which doesn't exist. It should have the correct status of 574.207. So that'll have to be fixed. And what really has me concerned, I'd like to have some discussion, is that this language in the bill is that it has broad, what we would consider a broader with regards to serious concern, sorry. I absolutely support the first responder. I just wanna keep everybody safe, but I also am concerned about our citizens and making sure that if an offense, to step within 20 feet of a responder for conduct that serves no legitimate purpose is far very too subjective. So what this does is it presents an opportunity where it's very subjective on who could be arrested. And even though with the First Amendment protection written into the bill, it's operationally ambiguous with the risk of chilling a citizen's right to simply observe or record a police officer's stop. And it gives too much unchecked discretion to the very officers being observed, creating a risk for disparate enforcement.

okay i just have a question for jackie jackie can that section update do you have an um do you have is that wrong and that we can just make that it's just that's right it was just a typo so um i believe the clerk was going to consider that a scrivener's error and so we don't have to make any action on that okay correct thank you okay yes um lavender

I'm happy to push this off to a work session also. As we all know, we've seen over our last decades multiple examples of what it looks like when violations of First Amendments occur. What I don't know in the city of Kirkwood is what training our officers receive. Section A-3, if somebody comes within 20 feet of a first responder with the intent to impede or interfere, threatens the first responder, engages in conduct directed which serves no legitimate purpose, how is that different than Section C, that somebody has the right to observe or record? So what training do our officers first responders receive to be able to differentiate those two different behaviors inside of that 20 feet. I think this is also very much the instrument of. our local control being stripped from us from legislators in Jefferson City. And so this is just another example of how state statute is forcing us to alter our statute. I don't know what the answers are from our police department. I haven't had the chance to have that conversation with our chief. but to know what kind of training our first responders receive, and perhaps the same for our fire, which also are inclusive in these first responders. So I would agree with moving this to a work session. Let us flush this out a little bit more so we understand what this is for the citizens of Kirkwood.

council member i don't have a problem with this bill 20 feet stay away 20 feet give these guys room to operate if you want to come and film do it from 20 feet and one inch you want to come and object do it from 20 feet and one inch but give these first responders a chance to do their job and not get in their face like you've seen it like you see on tv and i i'm happy the way it is the bill did come from our police

I mean, well, to be able to apply state statute on top of city of Kirkwood ordinances. So federal trumps state, state trumps local. So this is only taking what the state has imposed and forced it onto Kirkwood.

First responders are misbehaving. You can film it just as easily from 21 feet as you can from 20 feet.

Councilman, Councilmember, Section C of this ordinance, this section shall have no impact on the First Amendment rights and shall not restrict the ability to observe or record, and that is not inside of or outside of 20 feet. So this would give, well, yes, A, A, right, but,

Yes, but that... All three of those things have to happen.

Right, but C then says it will have no impact on an individual's First Amendment rights, and that is not limited by a foot barrier, a 20-foot barrier.

I'll make a couple, again, I don't have a, I think that aligning it with a state makes sense. I think the training is a different issue. You know, we can, I don't know that, regardless of where we land, How the training is is a different conversation. That's not what's a part of this. I mean, I think it's incumbent on us to support our first responders, which are police and fire, EMS. And I do think if there's some sidebar concerns, we can deal with that in just an information gathering. I don't see any reason to hold this up.

A conversation. Yes. This is first reading. It will require a second reading to pass. Okay.

Thank you. Yeah. Okay. So we will vote on the amendment, on the motion to continue. Is that roll call?

Yep.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Nay.

All right.

Can I have those who say to nay, raise your hand so I can see. McLean, Csikszentmihalyi, Arnold, Schaefer. Okay. Hold on one second, McLean.

Okay.

So the motion to continue has failed. So now we're back on.

On to the motion. Is there any more discussion on the bill?

Just to state that I think it's very possible to respect and support our first responders and our citizens at the same time.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay, first reading, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay.

Nay. Lavender and briquette.

Okay, first reading approval has been approved. First reading has been approved. Bill 11131.

This is an ordinance amending Article 7, Offenses Concerning Motor Vehicles of Chapter 14, Motor Vehicles and Traffic of the City of Kirkwood. Code of Ordinances to add a new section 14-368 to prohibit vision-reducing material applied to windshield or windows without permits.

Any discussion? Motion, please.

Motion.

Thank you. Second. Very good. Thank you. Discussion? Council Member Schaffer.

Who oversees the permit, I guess is my question. Is that state law? And so our police department has the ability to go up and figure out whether they have the right tinting or not with a particular machine that they might have.

So are you talking about with respect to the permit or just generally speaking? Just generally. Yeah, it would be the officers that would be trained on determining whether or not they're in violation of this code and how they're doing that. I will defer to the police chief. Unfortunately, he's not here. But there are, as I understand it, meters that can be used, for example. Sometimes it's just so dark that a meter is not necessarily required. That's right.

you're welcome as a pedestrian it scares me to death when i'm at a corner and there's a car that's got this dark and i can't tell whether they see me or not so typically you just have to wait further discussion

i had did discuss this uh with uh the captain who put this together and my understanding is um really when they do this and they're looking at it they do have a tent machine but also my understanding during is that they had very few um arrest with regards to this but it was more if there was an accident that that that is when they typically see and use this is if that's a cause that's exactly what i heard from the same response back so it was more of um helping substantiate when there's an accident related to them so very good thank you any further discussion

All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. First reading approval is passed. Bill 11132.

This is an ordinance amending Article 7, offenses concerning property of Chapter 17, offenses miscellaneous of the City of Kirkwood. Code of ordinances to add a new section, 17-128, for the purpose of adding a new offense called unlawfully gaining entry into a motor vehicle.

Thank you. May I have a motion and a second? Second. Thank you. Discussion?

Yeah. One of the things that we discussed with this one, Darren, was with regards to Currently, because it has to go to county, there was holding periods that would take much longer. And my understanding is if it's a part of the municipal code, that within an hour, the citation could happen and someone would be released. So one of the reasons, my understanding, and just asking for clarity, Darren, that the reason we're doing this is so that we can actually expedite the citizens if necessary. someone is caught doing this and there's an issue that they would be cited and the release would happen faster because they wouldn't be waiting for county it's my understanding within 24 hours of the arrest any other discussion all in favor say aye aye aye

Opposed, nay. The bill carries with restricting approval. Resolution 56-2026.

This is a resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into a contract with St. Louis County Health Department for vector control services at the rate set forth in the contract, a copy of which is attached here too and incorporated by reference herein, for our initial term of 12 months with the option to renew for up to four additional 12 month terms contingent upon budgetary approval and not to exceed budgeted funds.

May I have a motion and a second, please? Motion.

Second.

Discussion. I'll start. I want to ask Darren I don't know how often do we use this, and can we get them to go spray those darn puddles over there next to the railroad tracks? And they're not even puddles, they're ponds.

I do not know the answer to that. I think you could, from what I understand... I don't know if that's part of that. I don't think that that's the same thing. Okay.

And I know we've gotten a response back from UP, and I haven't had a chance to read it yet. So maybe they'll take care of it. Okay.

Any other? I have a question. Up until now, all of the resolutions that have been presented since I've been on council include the dollar value in this original paragraph. And a couple of our resolutions tonight don't. And I don't know if we have a reason why it's different than in the past.

We could easily, I think probably go ahead and incorporate that. I mean, I don't know, but I don't know what past practice. David might have something to chime in.

So a couple of these resolutions are rate based agreements where there are two budgetary funds and that's, or, you know, if it's a fixed dollar amount, but that's normally to a budgeted fund amount. So they are being able to use within their budget, this contract up to those amounts. so it doesn't have a specified full contract amount. It has a per-use rate.

Because the original cost may be less than what's been budgeted, and we're approving them to go forth with a contract, but then does that still... So this one, I think, is relatively simple. The budgeted amount is $4,700,000, And then the cost of this, I believe, is $4,700. It's just my experience so far, it's not been long, that that number is included on this first page of the resolution. So I just didn't know if there was a reason why... It was different than previous ones, and if it's only part of it, I believe there's another two that are coming up tonight, waste management and water, that it is not the full amount budgeted. How does that tie into we need to approve every $15,000?

So $15,000 and the way that that's tied into is it's on a per project basis. So if the per project expenditure exceeds a $15,000 threshold, that's when it comes to the city council or when the overarching contract has the potential to exceed $15,000. And then it would be within the budget amounts that's approved by the city council.

All right, I'm going to ask more about that later when the budget amount is much more than the intended amount of the specific resolution. All right, thank you.

A quick question, maybe not quick, but this falls under the oversight of the police department. And so do they manage the contract and the access to the services and all of that? Is that part of Sean's role or is that a...

it's actually over on the code enforcement side when they would call out um nuisances and essentially these services are handled by st louis county since it's a health matter and then is this out of a police account i know you don't have them off the top of your head but i'm assuming i believe so yeah

Mayor, if no one else?

Yeah, I'm fine. He thought so.

So what's included in this is surveillance and monitoring. The county apparently has like 8,000 different places they monitor around the county. and that they set something out and they come back the next day and they're able to count how many mosquitoes they have at that location. And it may be done on a complaint basis. They also have a spray that I'm sure we're all familiar with the vehicles that drive around and spray our neighborhoods, public education, and then a code enforcement, which maybe we need to turn them onto the UPS ponds.

And one of the benefits of them collecting them in those traps as well as so that they can actually monitor to make sure they're not carrying any form of diseases or things along those lines and that to then further inform the health department.

Any further discussion.

Roll call, please. Mayor Gibbons.

Yes.

Council Member Arnold.

Yes.

Council Member Burkett. Yes. Council Member Jack Sedeck. Yes. Council Member Lavender.

Yes.

Council Member McLean.

Yes.

Council Member Schaffer.

Yes.

The resolution has passed. Resolution 57-2026.

This is a resolution adopting the 2026 Kirkwood Parks and Recreation Master Plan to establish a framework for long-term planning investment and system-wide priorities for the City of Kirkwood Parks and Recreation System.

Thank you. We are very proud of our... Oh, sorry.

Motion?

Okay, we're so proud of our park department and we're particularly proud of the department head. Kyle, is there any, would you like to come up and say anything about the master plan to us?

I would like to publicly thank the working group and the park board by name who worked on this for almost two years. So I just want to thank Bill Rupert, Sarah Zier, Priscilla Utley, Kathy Paulson, Kevin Miller, Ellen Edmond, Angie Bernardi, Carrie Wertz, and Alan Hopeful. as well as Park Board members Steve Ostrowski, Lauren Neiman, Becky Jones, Jordan Wienke, and Mark Adams.

And it's- That's a lot of work.

It was a lot of work. And hopefully it passes this evening.

Just a quick question, don't leave. So this is, as it says up there on the resolution, it's a framework for long-term planning. You still are doing all your other projects and work operationally day to day. But this is your planning tool. And you're not going to hit all those goals, but it does give you something to strive for. If you just talk a little bit about how you use this tool.

So we didn't have, so the 2005 master plan was the last one that was done and a lot of it was accomplished. So when I took over this role in 2020, there really was no direction on what we were supposed to be working on. So we decided that we would probably benefit from a master plan. And so this allows us or gives us that guidance that we're looking for. And we're gonna take this 20 year plan And we're going to break it down into potentially three to five year chunks using a strategic plan to come up with the different things that we're going to get done.

Mayor, I went to a couple of these planning the last couple of planning minutes. The tediousness of review that the people he mentioned went through was just outstanding, that they truly wrestled over each paragraph and should it be here, should it be there. And I only saw their last two meetings. This was a project for two years. It's extraordinary the amount of work that they put into this. Great.

Thank you. Any additional comments? Roll call, please.

Mayor Gibbons? Yes. Councilmember Arnold? Yes. Councilmember Burkett? Yes. Councilmember Jack Sedeck? Yes. Councilmember Lavender? Yes. Councilmember McLean? Yes. Councilmember Schaefer? Yes.

The resolution has passed, Kyle. Resolution 80, sorry, 58-2026.

This is a resolution accepting the bid of Laird's contracting in the amount not to exceed $71,389.57, which includes a 10% contingency in the amount of $6,490 for the East Jefferson parking lot project and authorizing and directing the mayor to enter into a contract.

May I have a motion and a second, please? Motion. Thank you. This is pretty exciting because we know a lot of our parking lots need the help. And this is TDD funds, Transportation Development District funds. And the amount of the contract fits the amount that they had budgeted. Is that correct? Okay. All right. Any other questions?

And this is coming from the special business district portion of the funds, correct? Correct.

Council Member Burkett?

Can we talk about how we chose this parking lot over others and why was this one chosen? Anyone want to? I think Chris. Chris, do you want to just remind us of why that one was the one?

So as you're aware, we've got two parking lots on Jefferson, one on East Jefferson, one on West Jefferson. This East Jefferson parking lot is, in my opinion, far worse shape than the West Jefferson parking lot. There's significant spider cracking throughout the entire parking lot, the West Jefferson parking lot. There's we actually replace the portion of it or moment overlay the portion of it about two years ago and recently as this Early or late winter. We had some known overlay areas with the street department. So that's why this one is a full known overlay for the prep for this for the East Jefferson parking lot.

Thank you. Additional comments or questions? Council Member Schaffer?

Good job on the five bids. Thank you.

Okay.

Roll call, please.

Mayor Gibbons? Yes. Council Member Arnold? Yes. Council Member Burkhead? Yes. Council Member Jack Sedeck? Yes. Council Member Lavender? Yes. Council Member McLean? Yes. Council Member Schaffer?

Yes.

resolution 5820 26 passes resolution 5920 26.

This is a resolution accepting the bid of St. Louis Composting Inc. at the rates provided in the memo, a copy of which is attached here too and incorporated by reference herein for yard waste disposal for the sanitation division for an initial term of 12 months with the option to renew for up to four additional 12-month terms contingent upon budgetary approval and not to exceed budgeted funds and authorizing and directing the mayor to enter into a contract.

Thank you. May I have a motion, please? Motion.

Second.

Thank you. Any comments on this resolution? Council Member Lavender?

Mayor, thank you. This goes back to what I started to have a conversation with. There's no dollar amount in the front page of this resolution. And I believe I understood most of what David told me before, but this is where the total amount budgeted is $420,000. I believe the amount for this right now is $65,000. But in the first paragraph that we just read, it says, and not to exceed budgeted funds. So for me, we're approving $65,000 today, but that the rest of the $420,000 could be spent without needing to come back to us for approval again. Is that correct?

That is correct.

And was this not, and I might need to go to remedial training, but is this not part of what we wanted to make sure wasn't happening with us spending money that hadn't been authorized to spend, that we approve contracts of $15,000 and more?

So also in this account number, which has the $420,000 is our trash account. And so between trash and yard waste makes up the $420,000.

Okay. So the most, and I understand we pay based off of tonnage that we don't know until it's picked up. Right. You don't know how much tonnage.

This one's for yard waste. Right. The tonnage of yard waste.

Yes. So we don't know how much yard waste there is until we pick it up and actually take it and have it weighed. Right.

It's technically by the cubic yard for yard waste, but yes. Okay, thank you.

So how do I know not to exceed budgeted funds? Is that $65,000 or is that $420,000?

So it is $420,000, but I've got a trash contract that also takes from that $420,000.

I understand that. So how much do I know you're going to spend on yard waste? if this doesn't ever come back to me again, up to, well, I understand you're balancing two things.

So it would be between my, so the former council authorized the trash contract not to exceed that. So I can't exceed the budget between those two contracts between $420,000.

So with approving this without any number on the front page, pardon me, something got loud, without having a number on the front page of this resolution, I just will know that your budgeted amount between compost and your sanitation is a total of 420,000 and you will manage that as you need to go along. If you get where you need any more than $420,000 by February, you're going to come back and say, hey, I need $10,000 more.

Yes, that's correct.

All right. I still am not quite sure why the 60, well, maybe I am.

65 is an estimated amount based on our five-year usage.

Okay. All right. Thank you. I do understand between both of what you just shared. All right. Thank you, Mayor. Sure.

Council Member McLean. I want to follow up on that. 65,000 is a five-year estimate. I like where Deb's going on this. I'm going to propose an amendment that we authorize an amount not to exceed 75 80 000 pick a number um for this particular land for this particular um yard waste and that way if it's above the number i'll say i'll say 85 000 that gives you 20 then you have to come back in front of us and explain it to us i'm It might be, is that a reasonable amount, an extra $20,000 in this case? I don't want to make it so all of a sudden.

Yes. Looking at our yearly average over the last five years, it's not exceeded 8,500 cubic yards. So it's $10 per cubic yard. So I would be comfortable with the 85.

Did I make an amendment? I make a motion that we amend.

resolution not to exceed eighty five thousand dollars i'll second that can i make a request that you do that on an annual basis since this is a every year contract up to five years absolutely all right okay we have an amendment and a second so discussion so your 65 that you have on here is your five year total

No, my $65,000 is an annual cost.

Okay, but it's an annual renewal automatically. And again, we've had conversations about the contract. You know, at some point, do we keep looking at these differently? But no matter what happens over the five years, you're going to be putting that in your budget. So you've got a line item that includes that. your sanitation pickup and your yard waste. And at any point right now, you're anticipating 65,000. You've got your other one. I mean, you're not gonna overshoot your budget. So again, I don't know. you know, why we would add more, because he can move that around. I'm not quite sure, unless you feel like you need to go to 85.

It's just accounting for if we have a large year of yard waste that I don't come back, some type of buffer, because it's an average. So, and it's an estimate. So it could be above. So I could have some years that go above the 65,000 or even below it.

But if we tie up your $420,000, now we're going to take $85,000 instead of $65,000. And then you have an overage on your trash. Then you're going to have to come back to us and ask to rebalance in there. So, you know, depending on how much push you already have in there, you know, I don't want to put him in managing the department that all of a sudden he's taking money out that he anticipates for trash. and then ties it up with this and then has to come back and readjust. I mean, is that gonna be a harder management position to put you in? Yeah, but he's already allocated what he thinks, what the rest of the 420 is. He's already spent, he's budgeting to spend that rest of it.

Well, I don't think I would. like say encumber the full 8,500 from the beginning, I would start with the 65,000. And then at the very end of the year, I'm going to evaluate what I need, but ultimately I'm authorized by council to spend up to the 85,000 per year. Okay.

But it doesn't tie up. I mean, if you don't, then you need more for your, your sanitation side. That's not going to.

I'm coming back to you regardless.

I guess part of my thinking is kind of micromanaging in a way, but there's 420 in this. Do you have a sense as a council member, how much is sanitation, how much is leafs?

you know this kind of gives this kind of helps us i think going forward right but i also think it's a bigger um discussion for us to have it gets into the line item budgeting and again he's got his total number in that and we don't really know all of the things that he charges to that and so i mean yes i agree but i don't know that now's the time for us to start learning this steep learning curve by tying up what he feels most comfortable i mean you're being very nice to say we could go ahead and do it but again i'd like to know how because we have a line item prop issue understanding but then within that line item you have several things that you put in there um like sanitation and yard waste and um so you know it might be to me just a little cumbersome until we all have a better handle on it but i could go either way i mean if chris is okay with it that's fine but I don't want to make it harder for him.

Okay. I think this may be where Deb and where Mark were trying to go, but what I don't understand is why if we're approving a contract and you come and say the cost of that contract, $65,000 on the paperwork you sent to us, Why that isn't what we're approving like i'm struggling to understand that, and I believe that Councilman mcclain's trying to say we're are we approving a contract. that's tied to the budget line item so that we can say they're tied together and that we are saying that contract was tied to this amount we approved versus we're just approving a contract and not the amount necessarily I think that's where the the the sticky wicket is.

So the original request is to approve a contract that the rates provided. So it's not the total ceiling of the contract. It's just the rate at which it is provided, which is $10 a cubic yard. That's what we're asking.

Lavender. Okay. So it is a contract. No, this is a resolution to approve a contract without a specific amount attached to it.

Well, not to exceed budgeted funds.

Correct.

Is the ceiling.

And then to go back to something you said earlier, previously you had approved the sanitation contract. So is your sanitation plan, You've got $420,000 overall. This is $65,000. So is your sanitation about $355,000? Is that part of how you divided that? Is Council Member Jacetic right that you have other things that come out of that same $420,000 balance? on that line there's only a yard waste it's these two trash so and so inside of that councilman mclean i it i'm not sure we need to limit the 80 we just need to make sure it doesn't exceed that 420 and know that there are two contracts out of the same line i don't disagree but part of it gets back to yes how much fluff is in in these accounts

And that's something that I think we've struggled with. Yeah. Good point. And I'm not putting any, it's not anything out there. Just we as a council and we all know how tough times are right now in Kirkwood. Not as bad as maybe you see on the front page of the paper, but I'm not sure, was it Ferguson? on the front page today, thankfully, and other municipalities. And so if we're looking for places where we could cut next year, well, this year, if we end up spending 70,000 on this and sanitation's only 300, then maybe there's room for a $20,000 cut next year. That's kind of my 30,000 foot thinking on it.

And again, this is a conversation we've had a lot over the last year, but I do think if we just stay with the line item and we get actual numbers to date, we'll know against this. Again, I don't want to tie up his process now, but it goes to having trued up numbers financially year to year, and then whether or not we go into the nuance of what all's in that line item. I'd just like to shore up knowledge around the line items and still...

make sure we know what actual is happening and then the department heads can kind of work within those parameters but i can resend my my motion well when we go through you know if that might be one of the line items that we look at right end of the budget i i don't know i i think it's a good i think it's a good A good amendment. So, OK, are there any? Just rescind. Wait, what are you doing, Mark?

He's rescinding something.

I'm rescinding my motion.

Withdrawing my motion. OK. All right. Any other comments?

OK, roll call, please. Mayor Gibbons? Yes. Council Member Arnold? Yes. Council Member Burkett? Yes. Council Member Jack Sedeck? Yes. Council Member Lavender? Yes. Council Member McLean?

Yes.

Council Member Schaefer?

Yes. The resolution passes. Resolution 60-2026.

So resolution accepting the proposal of JL contracting at the rates provided in the line item pricing and labor rates sheets, a copy of which is attached here too and incorporated by reference herein, for on-call water system services for the water division for an initial term of 12 months with the option to renew for up to four additional 12-month terms contingent upon budgetary approval and not to exceed budgeted funds and authorizing and directing the mayor to enter into a contract.

May I have a motion, please? motion second thank you um i i have a couple questions about this this is a company that we've used for a few years or how how does that yeah jo contracting has provided water main services for us both replacement of water mains and then

We've contacted them on an emergency basis prior to this. And then, so they're very qualified to do the work.

They've always been on contract with us pretty much.

Well, this is our first time to have an on-call contract for the water department. Okay. But they've had, they've held prior contracts to replace water mains for us.

Did they help on the flood of getting or whatever we're calling the May flood?

The May 8th event. Yes.

They were one of the, I think we had three contractors that helped us our water department with that. Correct. Okay. Um, council member Lavender.

Thank you, mayor. What brings about the need for an on-call, um, contract? Why are we doing that? This for this first year?

Um, yeah. So, uh, number one is that we're low. of employees and staff. And so this is a way to bring the services that we provide to the city of Kirkwood in both our time, and to repair water mains in a timely manner.

Right. So because of a decrease in staff right now, we do want to be able to maintain the same level of service that we have. So we will enter into an on-call contract with an organization that has provided services for us to help respond to certainly emergency circumstances, but as well as any break that our current staff is not capable of managing on their own.

Yes, and we will still have our on-call person come and oversee this contractor. They know our system.

And that's a person that's been with us for a while in that capacity?

Yes.

Okay, all right. My next question is there's $650,000 fully budgeted and the cost that is also broken down is $150,000. This is not to exceed budgeted funds, which I believe is at $650,000. Do you know why on the legislative request it's broken down to $150,000 cost versus the amount budgeted $650,000? $650,000. And was this already budgeted? If this is the first time we've had on call, how was that money budgeted for this item?

So first off, the $150,000 is an estimated amount based on an average repair. For example, it's a $3,000 repair that went on a six-inch main and happening at nighttime. And so that's our average. And we're estimating that this contractor would come in approximately once every two weeks. And it depends on, you know, how many breaks we have. And so we, so that's where the $150,000 comes in. Now, There's a total amount in the line item of $650,000. Additionally, in this line item, there is other funds that includes restoration for the streets, water utility locating services, and our meter reading services. So there are a total of... five different things that encompass that come out of this account.

So then the challenge, if we think about yard waste and sanitation for $420,000 is you are still juggling those five different categories out of that $650,000 of which you anticipate on-call water to be $150,000 of that. This one concerns me slightly more. If we go back to councilman McLean, councilman member McLean, the concern of budgeting and appropriate amount, it occurs to me that this one might be able to surpass that $650,000 relatively easily or more easily than the sanitation situation. Am I just being.

It very well can be, but. the estimate and the budget that I've put together is that it will not on an average year for the water department.

Okay. I would like to see some type of cautionary measure if $150,000 is spent for on-call water, that we're aware of that before we go into the $650,000 for the other four items on this. And I don't know what you might think, Mayor, or if that's really something... I'm looking at... Yes, Chief Administrator might.

Yeah. Yeah. If you wanted to cap that on there, I mean, just like we had discussed in the previous one, you could certainly go ahead and do that, and then that way you'd know... he does get close to the over the 150 or he's getting close he can come back to you hopefully it depends on we all just don't know how many water main breaks we're going to have in a year right i understand his need to estimate right yeah agreed yeah and not every water main break we're going to give it to jl so we're going to do most of them in-house this is just a on-call when necessary

Darren, couldn't you just direct Chris to report to you on a regular basis where he is on water mains?

I mean, I would think that's something we need to stay on top of anyway rather than... And as long as there's some type of report, it just occurs to me that that's one of a topic. I mean, we talk about water, that that could eat up this budgeted amount fairly easily.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, good.

Thank you. Okay. Council Member Burkett.

I have just a couple of questions on this. So in previous work that they have done, which is the projects, the money has split out between a 301 street account, which was a street improvement account and a 505 water account, which is out of the water distribution. So I'm looking at old legislation from last year where they did a project. So when they came in and actually did work, and again, this isn't the on-call, but they came in and did work, it was a shared expense between street and water, from what I can see. And in this proposal to us, It's coming out of your professional service account, which is that's a water account, correct? Yes. And then do you anticipate that the actual work that they may have to do is going to come out of now this professional service account and not a separate street charge and a separate water charge? This account is going to absorb the cost of any of their work?

Yes, they would all be in this. The prior project was a very specific project on a specific street in Kirkwood.

Right. So now just come out of your professional services account. Is that an engineering account?

It's a water account.

It's a water account. Okay. All right.

Chris, what makes it possible for this company to be able to provide us 24-7 support? Have they the resources and the people available to do that? Is that a concern at all?

It's not a concern. To be totally transparent, some of our employees now work for jail contracting. So they have the resources to respond. They have the appropriate staffing levels.

Thank you. Council Member Schaffer.

Yes, I'd like to read something into the record if I could, Mayor. This resolution in front of us tonight was predictable this started 14 years ago when our CEO suggested transferring 720,000 from the water to our general revenue, as he called it a dividend the city for the citizens for the ability. To fund more street repairs deferring the maintenance of our water system. You transfer the money if the enterprise fund is healthy and repairs and upgrades are continued. They did not. We leveraged our future at that point. And so for 12 years and millions of dollars, they were diverted to the general fund, leaving our water mains to continue to age and fail. Out of sight, out of mind. We the council in 2024 voted unanimously to stop these transfers. Then we hired a firm to do a study on our operations. Part of their findings, we were way behind in replacement of our mains and upgrades. They also said we were going to have to raise our rates to try and catch up. We had three different subcommittees to evaluate what our next steps should be moving forward. Since our last subcommittee concluded, we have lost nine water department employees. Many were our key employees who knew our operations daily and our emergency calls. many leaving their families for their life events just to maintain our systems in bad weather and when needed. Thank you if you're listening. Which brings me back to the resolution this evening. And now we have to hire an outside contractor who I like, I just want you to know that, no dig, who hired our guys for stable work, for a stable work environment. for our weekends after hours in emergency situations because we lost our crews. Again, this was a predictable outcome when we didn't finish the job we started. Thank you for your time.

Any further discussion? I just want to follow up a little bit. Thank you, Mr. Schaefer, for that statement. And as far as just kind of the tag team off of it, the what about water discussion really has been going on for many years. And it's been off and on through our citizen finance committee, through budget meetings, through discussion with consultants. We've had a lot of information over the years. And then as we, a couple years ago or just recently, I think had an opportunity to really begin to look at that, we kind of went sideways because now we have a what about electric discussion. So we've been facing some really challenges and we still have to answer both of those questions. When we're gonna get to those, I know it's in the works and I hope that we can talk both about what about water and what about electric and come up with a plan that we either agree to or not but I'm hopeful that we will. But looking at this, regardless of where we are in our challenge world, I do have a strong sense that our residents and businesses will continue to turn the lights on in Kirkwood and they'll continue to get a Missouri American water through the Kirkwood pipes. And hopefully we'll have a chance to answer some pretty critical questions going forward.

Thank you. Council Member Arnold.

This whole water thing has exhausted me. Exhausted everybody. But this council, I think, made a decision a few months ago to go forward with existing water and give Chris and his water department and now Darren and his whole team the ability to correct the infrastructure, fix the infrastructure and do what they need to do in the short term to hopefully get more staff and to keep the water department at the same standard it is. And why were there still discussions about what are we going to do with it? I'm not sure, because I think we agreed on the short term. We agreed that here's what we're going to do. We raised the rates. Water Department is doing their 0.8 or 0.9% infrastructure improvements this year. Hopefully, we get up to speed for next year. I think it's in the works to do close to 1.5%, if not 1.5%. That was all proposed. That was in the rates that Chris did. So I think we're on the path to seeing what we can do and not on any other path. And I just want to put all this behind us and move forward.

Thank you. Council Member Arnold.

Excuse me. I'll be brief. I appreciate Council Member Schaffer's comments, who was on the subcommittee. This resolution, I think, is a tough one because we really don't have a choice. We don't have the employees to keep up with it at the time, so we have to vote for it. Otherwise, we won't have a system that our residents need. But I do think that this cannot be the last of this discussion. I wish the subcommittee would have But build its original charge, I would like to revisit that because I don't think that the future of. The water department has been settled when we're currently this year going to replace pipes at a point 89% rate that continues to put a spine, and so I vote for the resolution tonight, because I know that our infrastructure has to have it going forward, but. I don't think that this conversation has been settled. And I would like to have all of our options on the table because our financial position does not give us the luxury to only consider a couple options with tunnel vision.

councilman arnold it's if it's not everything's not shovel ready and so it takes some time to build up yeah so that's why it's only 0.8 or 0.9 in the first year second year it's closer to 1.5 and then after that it's going to be the 1.5 and that's that's the reason why it's only 0.89

Right. And I'm looking forward to that discussion because I followed the water subcommittee closely and the proposal given by city staff would not have us have lower rates until fiscal year 2037. And so I'm looking forward to this council having that full discussion.

I think that it was 2033 is when we were.

Can you clarify that?

And I respectfully disagree, as you might not be surprised. And again, just this conversation that we're having says that we all have different numbers, different timeframes, different options, which more than anything screams out, we need to sit down and have a conversation and talk from the same page in the same book on the same day. And again, I think, you know, not to, you know, your information, Justin's, mine, Paul, everybody up here, and those in the audience, it's time we all get on the same page. I appreciate that.

And we will. Yes. Okay. Any further discussion? All right. Roll call, please.

Mayor Gibbons.

Yes.

Council Member Arnold. Yes. Council Member Burkett. Yes. Council Member Jack Sedeck. Yes. Council Member Lavender.

Yes.

Council Member McLean. Yes. Council Member Schaefer.

Yes.

The resolution passes. Now we move to the consent agenda items. Oh, my gosh.

Resolution 54.

Okay, consent agenda. I don't even have mine.

54. Yeah.

Okay. Sorry. Resolution 54-2026. Thank you.

Resolution accepting the bid of Concourse Tech Inc. in the amount of $17,219.75 for renewal of the delineate software for the MIS Department and authorizing and directing the Director of Procurement to issue a purchase order.

May I have a motion, please? Motion. Second. Thank you. So typically with something like this, with the MIS, goes on the consent agenda, but Council Member Landender wanted to pull that.

Thank you. My purpose in pulling this out is we have a threshold of $15,000 for bids that need to come to the council, and I just wanted us to be able to have a quick conversation about it. It is $17,000. My email to Kevin Camp today, who's our, I believe our IT specialist, is it allows us to log into services, servers, without entering actual server passwords. We can restrict you on our department or others who log on. So it totally sounds like a security measure that we're putting in place. And I think this is for a year. For one year for that. And so I just wanted to raise the awareness that this is Kirkwood is taking security measures and in a day of I.T. cyber attacks and various things like that for Councilman Schaefer. He'll be thrilled. We got nine bids, 10 bids, 11 bids. He's counting. So that was just my purpose of pulling this one off. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you.

Any other questions, comments? Yes.

She stole my thunder. So there you are. Okay. Kevin did a great job and got 11 different bits. So there we are.

Thank you. All right. Roll call, please. Mayor Gibbons. Yes.

Council Member Arnold. Yes. Council Member Burkett. Yes. Council Member Jack Sedeck. Yes. Council Member Lavender. Yes. Council Member McLean. Yes. Council Member Schaefer. Yes.

resolution 5420 26 passes resolution 5520 26.

A resolution amending and readopting the city of Kirkwood city fee schedules pertaining to the recreation department.

motion.

Thank you, very good, thank you. Comments, questions? Council Member Lavender?

I again ask for this to be pulled off of the consent agenda so we just are very clear with our citizens that rates are going up and if Kyle would be so kind to give us maybe two or three minutes to walk us through how he arrived at these numbers. I think that would be great just for the citizens to know that we're not just increasing fees without having gone through a thorough process of looking, exploring.

And I think this is the rink rental fees. This is, well, it's a couple of different rates here. It's for the rink rental. prime and non-prime time rates per hour. And it also addresses daily fees for open skate or public skate sessions for residents and non-residents. And so the reason why we're coming to you is because we just are getting ready to wrap up the ice rink renovation in about 30 days. And it's going to be a nice new facility that has some newer finishes and an ammonia system that cools the surface of the rink, as well as that entire surface and the dasher boards all the way around have been replaced. It's going to be one of the nicer ones in the area. And we thought that, you know, in addition to looking at the fee structure, we're going to fall in the middle, according to all of our competitors, I guess.

Because you went out and you surveyed all of the other rinks and know what they charge and wanted to be comparable rate as well as to charge for having one of the better ice rinks in the area. Yeah, correct.

So we're going to be matching Queenie Park and Kennedy Rec Center, and then we'll be above Brentwood, Creve Coeur, and Webster, but we're going to be below RP Lumber, McKendree, Maryville, the Shark Tank, Afton, and Centene. So we kind of fall in the middle there with our top rate that we'll charge. What I'm proposing is a $220 to $300 per hour rental rate. And that gives us the ability to go from $220 to $300 depending on the time of day or the demand that we have for a particular rental. And then the resident rate, is going up $1 from $5 to $6, and the non-resident rate is going up $1 from $6 to $7 for the public skate session. And all of this combined is because we are seeing an increase in electric and water, which we use at the ice rink quite a bit, gas, equipment costs, facility maintenance, and minimum wage increases.

Thank you. I appreciate all of the work that you did to put this together, and I just enjoyed having the opportunity to have a two-minute conversation for citizens to know what's going on at the ice rink. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Council Member Burkett.

Thanks, Mayor. I just also, for anybody who looked at the packet, if you were wondering while there's pages and pages of the fees that are there, it's just because that's the way we had to present it, that the only thing changing is the ice rink fees. And it took me a moment to figure that out myself. So it's probably good that we just bring that to everybody's attention that if you're looking at that, there wasn't really anything else that changed in there, just that section. Yeah.

Thank you. Very helpful.

And if I just may chime in just for educational purposes for new council and the public, I think back in 2018, early on 2017, we worked on updating our full code of ordinances. And at the time, we used to have all different fees located throughout the code. And it just became cumbersome that staff, anytime you'd have to even change a simple fee would take two readings. and you'd have to amend the code for it. So staff brought to council, let's put this in a resolution as a one reading. So yeah, that's why it's all the different fees that we have in Kirkwood and it'll be 20 pages that come to you every time, but within that is on the certain sections where we're changing. But yeah, that's why we have it the way we have it.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Roll call, please. Sorry. You had the microphone for a minute.

Mayor Gibbons? Yes. Council Member Arnold? Yes. Council Member Burkett? Yes. Council Member Jack Sedeck? Yes. Council Member Lavender? Yes. Council Member McLean? Yes. Council Member Schaefer?

Yes.

Very good. Thank you. Okay, now we move into... Council reports, and I have a couple of things that I wanted to report out on. I really want to brag on the Kirkwood Historical Society. First of all, they had a very, very successful Strawberry Festival on Thursday evening, Tuesday evening. I know Council Member Lavender was there, Council Member Jasetic was there. I think one of the things that I noticed, there was a good number of people there and a lot of children. lot of children so we had a lot of young families in attendance and it was very very very very good to see so put it on your calendars for the it's always I think the third Tuesday of June so it'll be again next year And then this week, also on Tuesday, PBS was at Spencer's Grill with a gentleman by the name of Peter Greenberg. He is doing a film on Route 66, and they're going all across the country, coming from west to east. So they stopped in Kirkwood. And the producer was in contact with Kerry Paskey at our special business district. And he said he was having trouble getting any information from the St. Louis Historical Society about trains. and she had copied me in on it, so I gave him, I copied Deb Hill Jablonski, the president of the Historical Society, and she wrote back to him, Brian, the Kirkwood Historical Society, an all-volunteer nonprofit, has documented and preserved Kirkwood history since 1961. Most of the 21,000 items are digitized. Recently, we were the recipient of a Library Science and Technology Act grant that specifically asked for the westward movement of trains. The grant required that all images and metadata be posted to the Missouri Digital Heritage website. and she gave him the link to Journeys into Kirkwood History-Trains, which is exactly what he was looking for. So our Kirkwood Historical Society provided this for PBS, and I think we should all be really proud, and I want to encourage everyone to please join the Kirkwood Historical Society. Okay, moving on to a different but similar topic, Amtrak. It is that time of year where we have to start, no, shoot, do I have? Yes. We have to start thinking about our Amtrak amount of money that's going to be asked of the legislature for next year. And the word is coming out that the state's not going to have much money, and they're looking at maybe cutting Amtrak once again. So in two years, In 2020, the state only provided enough funding for one round, one train per day for half a year. And we may end up in that situation again. So I'm starting to go out and work. I've got a meeting with one of the legislators that'll be the incoming Speaker of the House on Monday to start giving him, and I just want you all to hear some of this information. 2025 marked the fifth straight year of ridership increases and was the highest ridership since 2013. The first five months of 2026 marked the strongest ever ridership start to the year. May of 2026 set a record for ridership in that month. March of 2026 increased 13.4%. April 2026 increased 21%, and May increased 21%. The Missouri River Runner ridership growth has outpaced all other Midwest routes. The service is currently experiencing a 10% year-over-year increase. So more and more people are getting on at our Kirkwood train station, and we are now the second busiest station on the Missouri River Runner route. I think we should all be very proud of that. People want to come to Kirkwood, and they want to visit our restaurants and shops and what have you. So if you know any legislators, start talking up how important it is for us to have two round trip trains every day. That's all I have. Okay, anybody else? Yeah.

I have two things now that as chairman of the membership committee for the Kirkwood Historical Society, I appreciate the plug and I encourage all of you in the room and listening to please join so that I look good in that role. The website you can go on, but it's a great, great organization and a lot of activities going on, plus a great resource in their library. But as to the council reports, I am proudly the new liaison to the park board, and since Kyle and Pete are here. I just want to just acknowledge what a great meeting Monday was and Darren had a chance to come. And at some point I'll share with the council about how they handle line item budgeting and moving things around. But they demonstrated a great example for Darren and I on Monday night of how they had budget overrun projection for avery park pete went through how he looked at other line items and where they could make some changes in some of what they anticipated originally moved it around presented it to the board and the board passed it so again it was a great example of how you can as the leadership in these departments can work within their budget, but then report back out in ways that make great sense. They also had a very interesting conversation around something that we all struggle with right now, and they couched it, Kyle found some terminology, of the motorized play vehicles. And so they're getting more and more they have more and more growing concerns in the parks. And the name Motorized Play Vehicles kind of differentiated from medical. So they've talked, they discussed their challenges and are forming and asked a little bit about what the city's doing. So recognizing that within the parks and within across the city, there are definitely challenges. They are, I think, formed a small subcommittee, and they're going to begin to really try to address that, and we hope that we can do something citywide. Obviously, it's a growing concern, and with every new electronic device that shows up on the road. You know, we can hardly keep up with what we know, much less what we don't know. So great discussion on that. And we also had, I did mention to them two years ago, we had the joint meeting with the parks in the city council, which was very helpful for those new on the council and with the park board so that people understand, you know, we kind of got a chance to, to understand their role since they have a kind of a unique role in some of their decisions and what ours are. And I was just going to mention to you, at some point when we have some time on our agendas, and they do too, it would be nice to have the Park Board join us for another joint meeting.

Very good. Thank you. That's Mayor Burkett. Yeah.

If you are at the farmer's market on Saturday, stop by and say hi to the Human Rights Commission. They'll be there. And then our police department, they are starting their hot dog days June 26th from 11 to 1. And if you have not been and you have... young families i encourage you to come out and attend the hot dog days it's a great way to meet our police officers and the chief and the captains are all there and it's really a great way to do that and the human rights commission will be there typically the library is there and uh the kirkwood parks sponsored is so it's all summer long there's every parks

Remind me which park it is on the 26th.

Yes, the 26th is at Walker Park.

Thank you. Council Member Schaffer.

So I'm reporting on Kirkwood House. I think we'll now have a quorum. We didn't have it on the 8th, so we have moved, I'm told, to the 22nd. So for anybody that wants to come and listen about Kirkwood Housing Authority, And then the second one that I have, our farmer council person, Nancy Letso, is going through some health issues right now. So whatever you do, you pray or whatever, please keep her in your thoughts and prayers the next several days. She needs all of it.

So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. I have a couple. Arts Commission, they're next making music in the amphitheater at the park is on June 27th. And then they're having their fall art show opening at KPAC on August 19th. So those are nice events of things that they're doing, and they're certainly working on other items. I also have a report from the library. I appreciate the Strawberry Festival. They had a scavenger hunt in the house. Our library has a scavenger hunt once a month in the children's section, which you just see kids running around and then needing sometimes librarians to give them a hint on where one is they can't find. So that goes great. Specifically, we have a woman named Lynn who has worked on a memory cafe and reminiscent kit for people dealing with dementia. She's been working on this since the pandemic. She actually joined the library, I think the Day before shutdown went into effect, something in those lines. But she's gotten three grants, I believe totaling somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000 for this. She has it once a month at the library. She has people from the entire area that come, Franklin County, Florissant, that come to our library to participate in this memory day and getting some notice from other libraries. The county library is asking maybe to learn what they're doing. They got a call from somebody in Indiana. I think it was Indiana, Ohio, maybe Rice University, wanting to know a little bit about what they're doing as well. So just some extraordinary work that's happening in our library. And PNZ is my last liaison, and they had a full house last night as the zoning of the Offenburg properties on North Kirkwood is coming before us. So thank you.

Very good. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Chief Administrative Officer report, anything to report out?

a busy two weeks so thank you for all of you for taking some time to go ahead and meet with me i appreciated it got some insight with with all of you um like i said look forward to uh keeping up uh david's been uh working out my hinges on my door walking in and out Just one more thing, one more thing. That's always usually a comment. But looking forward to working with the other. I need to meet all of the department heads next and sit down with them. But so far, it's been great. Thank you.

Thank you. City Councilor report? I have nothing to report, Mayor.

Thank you.

Very good. Excuse me.

Yes, Your Honor. I have the report of the June 17, 2026 meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission. The following action was taken. By a vote of 8 to 0, the commission recommended approval of a zoning map amendment from B4, Planned Commercial District, to B2, Central Business District, for the property addressed as 422 South Clay Avenue. A public hearing... is ready to be scheduled before the city council, we will hold that public hearing on July 16th. By a vote of eight to zero, the commission recommended approval of a staff-initiated zoning code text amendment regarding clarifications and revisions to multiple areas of the zoning code. A public hearing is also ready to be scheduled before the city council, which we will hold on July 16th as well. After a presentation by staff on a special use permit application for an indoor amusement facility slash arcade at 118 North Kirkwood Road, a subcommittee was appointed. The subcommittee will meet on site on Friday, June 26th at 8 a.m. After presentation by staff on three applications for zoning map amendments for a total of 12 properties from B3 Highway Business District to R4 Single Residential District, all to r5 multi-family residential district a subcommittee was appointed they will subcommittee will meet on site at 1000 north kirkwood road on monday june 29th at 8 30 a.m that's all i have thank you okay seeing no further business our next meeting regularly scheduled meeting will be on thursday july 2nd this meeting is adjourned thank you