Board of Aldermen - workshop

by the United States of America.

And to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Alderman Star? Here. Blacktee? Here. Finch?

Here.

Holson? Here. Wren?

Here.

Palmer? Here. Marowitz? Here. We have a quorum.

Welcome to all of our visitors and those online and on YouTube. I have a motion to accept the consent agenda.

I'll make a motion to accept the consent agenda.

I have a second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor?

Who's second?

I did. I have five in favor and one abstention. Thank you. Mayor's Report. When Sean and I have had several meetings going over the variety of consultants the last couple of weeks, one of which was an after-action report over the VFF in Haiti, along with Troy, to go over how to make the process easier next year. I love that project. The banners look wonderful going down. down the road and hopefully we can get more banners up and make the process much smoother next year and have a lot more banners up. I have identified a planning and zoning committee that will happen at the next Warren-Vaulner meeting. I'm planning to appoint Tony Easter for planning and zoning and

The Board of Adjustment.

Board of Adjustments.

Marty.

Marty. Thank you. Marty McDermott. I'm planning to ask for your approval at the next meeting for the Board of Adjustment position. I'm looking forward to Puddle Jumper days, and this year I don't know if it's Happened in the past, but I've invited the city administrator to ride in the parade with me. So I'm looking forward to that. Have you ever ridden in Huck the Jumper's parade before?

No. For Rotary, yes, technically. I might have walked.

Well, I have thoroughly enjoyed the last three and a half months being the mayor. It was shot at a city administrator. And I think you deserve the recognition to ride it. I'm looking forward to it. I looked up this month the state statutes for the different days of the month that the state asked us to recognize. August 31st is Random Acts of Kindness Day for the state of Missouri. One small act of kindness has the power to change the course of a person's life and the potential to impact countless lives as random and Do we have any baseball fans? No. Yeah, that's what I said. Who's Teddy Geidel?

What?

Teddy Geidel. Teddy Geidel was 3'7", weighed 60 pounds, and played for the St. Louis Braves.

I said St. Louis, but I wouldn't have said Braves.

Shortest player in the major league. Christopher Day is August the 6th. He's recognized to appreciate the hard-working public servants of the state. Chris Sifford passed away with Mel Carnegie in a plane crash.

I was in Tennessee.

August is Minority Organ Donor Awareness Month for the state of Missouri. August 19th is Honor Guard Appreciation Day. Those people stand there for, what, 12 hours a day, and they work longer than that, getting prepared for the election, and then taking the ballots to Fordham afterwards. And hardly anyone thanks them for their service. So the next time you see an election worker, please thank them.

I would like to thank the water department for fixing all our water main breaks that we've had lately. And the electric department for getting downtown going. And the nice cool weather that we've been having.

I don't have anything to report. Nothing tonight, Mr. Mayor?

The work pre-time homie is on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. in this building. I keep looking for a camera to look at.

Got off anywhere.

I'm proud to have that too.

I want to congratulate Adam Couch on his first MR340. And I'm glad he's done, because you can't believe the sleep I lost watching him on my phone all night. Congratulations.

Thank you. This has been a long presentation on the 1912 building.

Would you like me to give my report?

Sorry.

Okay, good evening, Mayor and Board of Aldermen. Just to kick things off with the Parks Department, the pool closes this Sunday for the season. Yeah, summer went by very quickly. And then we have full soccer practice starts next week. So our equipment and all the ball fields are ready to go. And then youth volleyball and men's softball sign-ups continue until next Sunday, the 16th, and we're still down, or we're about to be down a part-time maintenance worker, and we're trying to hire someone for the remainder of the season. And we do, as a reminder, the fundraiser for the Puddle Jumpers, sorry, I'm blanking on the name, Samantha, Thompson's fundraiser pool party will be this Friday. So that's a part of the Funnel Jumpers programming. For wastewater normal operations, so the two inflow pump drives that we recently mentioned, both of those are completed and installed at the Southeast plant. And we'll be land applying solids next week. So that's a big portion of the process for their annual kind of cycle things. They'll start that next week. um for finance um sidewalk project you'll see there's a lot of uh more pay applications that were on the consent agenda so we are moving very quickly through the sidewalk project and working through some of the hiccups that we've seen so far and trying to resolve those as best that we can the eca checks will be issued this week which is kind of a final stage of the process right now, which will open up quite a bit more time for the finance staff to be able to get some other things accomplished besides the ECA credits. For social media and Lesley, we have tomorrow City Hall selfie day. So if anyone wants to go to City Hall, post a selfie of themselves outside of City Hall or inside of City Hall and tag it, hashtag City Hall Selfie Day, or else the day to do so. And then we also have some street plan communication coming out soon regarding the micro seal program that we're doing this year. So just a little bit more information on what that means and how it'll look different to our residents. And for water, like Mike said, we've had six water repairs in the last two weeks. So That's primarily due to weather conditions. The dry temperature creates shifting and things like that in underground where the pipes are. So normal for any city to experience that. We're just grateful to have the crew that we have that are very capable of getting the circuit for us. The street plan prep is ready to go and they'll be moving on to filling the street cuts now through August. that you might have noticed. There's quite a few street cuts that's from work that's been done within the right-of-way where repairs needed to be done for private sewer lines or whatever the repair may be after the rock is settled in those street cuts and our crew comes in and fills them. So we take care of those. And then just general mowing and maintenance through the ladder part of summer. For the police department, we did have a code enforcement claim of code enforcement case, which requires teaming with the street department where they mowed a property that was in need of some serious maintenance. So that was a good collaboration with those two departments. The CERT program will be starting soon, or at least some information and maybe an informational meeting on that. That's the community emergency response team. So that's if there's an emergency, there'd be this group of people that's trained and has had different trainings to assist the first responders during the extended emergency. So we'll get that program rolled out over the next probably year or so if We'll have some informational meetings just to see who of the community would be interested in participating. So that'll be coming up very soon. We have municipal court tomorrow. This year's police vehicle, we have, it is arriving this week. It is a police truck. So we're happy to add that to our fleet to allow for additional types of accommodations that the department may need. So that is here and was budgeted as part of the CIP. The animal control facility, which you'll see on the agenda tonight, so pending board approval, they're planning to start work within the next 30 days with that. And then also different recycled, which we'll probably talk about this during the agenda item, but different recycled material from the existing animal shelter will be used in the new one, like the kennels and things like that. For the electric department, again, props to the electric department for getting everything set up and ready to go for pedal jumpers by today. That was their goal and they accomplished it. The ballards were on this morning. They'll be on after the meeting, too, if you want to drive through downtown on your way home so you can see what they look like on. Obviously, it won't be dark enough quite yet to get the full effect, but they're beautiful already. in daylight at least. So very grateful for the work that they did. We also have the transformer that was down at the substation. We'll be getting some testing done on that transformer. That requires bringing the company out to check for a few different things and conditions of that before we can have work done to it. So we're trying to get that accomplished as soon as possible. For community development, community development and our communications position are the teaming up they're both a part of our economic development team and they are teaming up to start a business retention program and so far to kick that program off they're going to be doing introductions with each of the businesses inside city limits so so far based on business licenses we have about 110 businesses inside city limits that they'll be making those introductions to as just a preliminary first step to building a business retention program. So we're excited about that. For city clerk and HR, we have the work comp audit continues. They'll be on site this week to finalize any remaining things they have. CARE has a few NPR meetings. And then we're also working with the timekeeping company We've selected one that we feel is the best fit, and we think that there might be an opportunity to include their HR programming in the bid to get a little bit more bang for our buck, more than just timekeeping. So we'll bring that to you guys in a proposal and a contract. So we'll have further discussions on that, but we're excited about that opportunity to make even further efficiency improvements. And then we also have the tax levy. You'll see that come out this week in the newspaper. It's advertised for two weeks. And then at our next meeting, we'll have a public hearing on the tax levy. So this is what we do annually. The data is provided by the county. And then we are annually the Board of Aldermen votes to set that tax levy. So that documentation will be coming out very soon. We do have the preliminary plot for the Hill and the final plot for the Hill or revised final plot for the Hill will be coming out soon. We're working towards that, working towards potentially an August deadline for P&Z, but possibly September deadline for P&Z. And then we went out for bid for the UDO, the Unified Development Ordinance or Unified Development Code. And this is for consulting services to develop a UDO. And that bid closes on Thursday of this week. So we'll know more about who is the best fit bid for us. And we'll be bringing in contract to you to get that started. So that's all I have.

What are you doing in the free time? Walking the sidewalk. Check for sidewalk issues.

Public comment. So if there's a public comment for me, So now we'll move to Mr. Cal.

Good evening. Just here to provide a quick update on the 1912 project. It has been moving. We've been working on putting together our the low income housing tax credits for the plot and order component of the project, as well as the historic tax credits, both federal and state, Low income housing tax credits for the federal and state that will be reviewed and we should hear back on the award. Hopefully. Mid November to early December of this year. On whether or not we get that we did find out also that the property was approved by the National Park Service as historic certified historic site. So that will allow us to obtain the historic tax credits. But all that is going to be contingent upon we get the low income tax and tax credits as well. Right now we're looking at, this is just, so with the historic tax credits, there's a lot of restrictions on what we can do with the building, how we can modify it, how we can set up all the units within the building, the materials that are used. So it does increase the cost, but it, reduce the size of hallways and we can't move interior classroom walls to make bigger spaces. They all pretty much have to stay the same. So essentially, hopefully a little bit less demo work. But with that, we have to use light materials. Everything has to be approved by the State Historic Preservation Office and the National Park Service. There's a lot of additional approvals and hoops to come through when it comes to the design work. We've already started that. Initially, if you remember, we had the quadplexes going around the outside of the property. That's not entirely off the table. They're still reviewing that to see if that will be allowed because the whole property is considered historic. One of the changes that we've made since starting this is that we were originally going to remove the brick building that's being used as the dump kennel and then eventually the police department building. Well, both of those facilities have to stay. They're considered historic along with the property. So we have to keep both of those. And those also have to be renovated, modified to the time period, the period of significance that the National Park Service and the State Historic Preservation Office sets as being the time period where they were utilized. Which is currently, I think it was between 1913 to 1974. So any of those updates have to fall into that short span of time. So our part one, for the historic side of it, the part one application has been approved to certify it as a historic site. So now we move to part two. And we'll move to part two after we find out if we get the low-income housing tax credits. Because if we don't get that, then it's our company point. We do that, then we will start working. The part two application for the historic side of it is the design renovation process, what those planes look like, what the site looks like, upgrades, modifications, and all that. All those components. Those all have to be approved, so that can take a little bit of time to go through that. We've already started they have an idea of what we're looking at with that. So hopefully it won't take too long. I know that with our original set of plans, we've gotten through, I think, the limit and the plan approvals. As far as the site plan goes, we may have to come back with a new site plan, depending on what happens with the quadplexes on the outside. Probably we're looking at 33 units total. 26, one bedroom, seven, two bedroom. Those will be broken down into, based off of the area median income, as far as the target rents. With the tax credits, we're able to reduce rents. And all that has to be approved by the MHTC. So rents roughly could run between $517 up to market rate, which would be around $1,200. And that is broken down. So many units will be 30% of AMI, so many units will be 60% of AMI, and then so many units will be market rate. Part of what we're doing also is setting aside, we're going to set aside roughly five units for veterans housing, veterans and homeless veterans housing. We partnered with We partner with the VFW. We've got a letter of partnership from our local VFW as far as them being a lead referral agency for the 1912. They'll maintain a list of eligible applicants. They'll have a wait list. They'll coordinate with who we use for property management. They'll also coordinate with a service coordinator that we would have on site. And they would basically assist us in providing housing to local veterans that otherwise might not have housing. We've also partnered with the HCC here in Lafayette County. The goal there is to provide transportation for all residents who live there for primary care, behavioral health, substance use, or dental lab services, transportation to their Lexington clinic for appointments. All the services are voluntary. You don't have to. It's not a condition of staying there. It would be free. available for them to use if they decided to. Like I said, we would have an on-site coordinator to kind of spearhead like activities, fitness activities, yoga, events, get together community, community engagement type activities, but also to help facilitate any sort of housing stability assistance they would need, quality of life programming, and then finance coaching services along those lines. We would have somebody there part-time to assist, again, any resident staying there that would want to utilize that. Yeah, so our hope is, I'm sorry, our period of significance was 1913 to 1955. Our hope is to get the preliminary approval, or the approval for the LIHTC in November to December, and then hopefully close by summer of 27th and 28th. begin construction. Once we get the approval from LIHTC, then we'll be hitting the ground running on really hammering home design and getting that going for the national, for the historic side of it to make sure all those dogs turn around. Other than that, right now it's been kind of a sprint and I'm glad we've got this application traded. And I appreciate the support from the board and the mayor offering letters of support for us to send it in HDC to help us with our application. But the support is important. Also, we do have letters of intent as far as funding those for the tax credits. We have those from three different groups, one group for the state tax credits, one group for the federal tax credits, and then bank lined up as far as any bridge loans that would be needed. Right now, they're just letters of intent. A lot of those are contingent, obviously, on the tax credits themselves for equity. So, again, once we get that, then we can button up the agreements with those folks and get the financing wrapped up and and move on. So it's been a process, but there is progress. And like I said, I think I'm most excited about the fact that we've gotten back to you know, the original intent, which was, you know, affordable senior housing with this. And then that partnership with the agency, I think, and the VFW has been, it's been awesome that they're, this fall brought in mind their mission and it'll help, you know, more people here in town than there'll be, it will be helped right now. So I think that's all I have right now.

I apologize if you said this. Do you know when you'll find out all the historic tax credits?

Basically, you essentially automatically qualify once you're certified. Thank you.

Yeah.

Any other questions, Fred? Yeah, I can't answer them. I'll get you some answers. I was hoping to have. So we have used a consultant both for the store side and the like tech side because this application is a monstrosity. And I'm not near smart enough to do it on my own. So if there's something that you've asked and I can't answer it, I'll certainly get the answer for you. I have something to answer.

If you don't get the low income tax credits, what's this investment turn into for you?

If we won't be able to do it, it'll be too expensive. Yeah.

Yeah.

We, for this to happen, we will have to have those all for state, federal, low-income state, federal storage. Would you try to sell it or would you use the clawback? I can't answer. I don't know. We'd have to, I'd have to come to you guys and see what works out best. Um, HAB-Masyn Moyer- Even what are the parameters of the original contract, where I think I think it would just be, I think, if I don't mistake me. HAB-Masyn Moyer- It's like 100 K back to the city. Thanks, what we'd sell it for. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Whatever we we pay for it. HAB-Masyn Moyer- I believe so. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Okay, here's a system.

I was thinking longer than that, but I imagine you've already put significant investment into it. So if it ends up not getting above income tax loss, right?

Yeah, there'll be a loss.

What's the likelihood that you don't get it? Are you confident you'll get it?

I'll tell you that. I feel with the market that we're in rural outside of Kansas City, I feel like we have a very strong application and talking with some folks at MHDC about our application. I think they see the value in this, especially with the partnerships and especially with the local support. And I know that most of these applications will have local support, but when we're talking about a small rural community trying to not only preserve a historic structure, but also one that is geared, makes it affordable for 55 and up for veterans. I don't know that there's a lot of that happening in the rural area. And so point-wise, our application appears very competitive. So, but I have been through this process once, not on the developer side, but on your side. And so I It feels a little better this time than the first time. So I'm trying to keep my hopes up. I just have a ton of faith. I just really feel this is going to happen. And I'm trying to pull every string I can to make it happen. that's all where we can tag in yeah well you guys like i said you provided the letter of support and so that's really appreciated so anything else a certain account can ask me any other questions if you appreciate your hard work for the community thanks if you think of something which you need holler um very, very, still very passionate about this and getting this done. You know, it's, this would be a good thing. So I just wanted you to know. So, all right. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

No, we'll need to amend the agenda and postpone to the next meeting.

Our presentation will be at the next meeting. Bill number 2026-29, introduction and readings.

Mayor, real quick, we need to amend the agenda and vote to amend the agenda. Sorry.

We'll take a motion to amend the agenda to postpone

Yes.

I have a motion and a second. Roll call. All in favor. Thank you. I will accept a motion to accept the first reading of Bill No. 2026-29, Introduction and Readings of Bill No. 2026-29, Amending Chapter 2, Article 3, Division 4, Section 2-220,

related to the appointment and tenure of the city clerk so just for a quick background the mayor notice in the code that it says that the city clerk's position is to be reappointed every two years and we have not been doing that since Karen's been here but even her predecessor who was here for like 20 years was also never reappointed every two years so we felt like it was a created additional maintenance unnecessarily, and it's not required by the state statute. So this ordinance is to amend the code of ordinances to remove that renewal.

All in favor?

Discussion. He's on discussion. Then we do discussion. Discussion. Okay.

If there is no discussion, I'll accept the motion to accept the second reading of bill number 2026-189, amending chapter 2, article 3, division 4, section 2-220, term of office of the code of order in the city of Augusta 3, relating to the appointment and tenure of the city clerk.

I move to accept bill number 2026-29, amend tenure of the city clerk.

have a motion and a second roll call i'll remember plaquette yes wren yes polson yes finch yes palmer yes star yes motion carry given ordinance number 3193 thank you thank you now we have resolution number 2026-25

Proposed resolution number 2026-25 authorizes the mayor to execute a construction contract with Goodman Construction LLC for the construction of the city's handling control facility. I do want to point out that Goodman Construction is a business client of mine. I prepared their income taxes historically. Any discussion? There's no discussion.

I was just going to comment. I was glad to see that we had a local contractor bid and we recommended putting more damage to the other bid. It was local as well. I agree.

Do I have a motion to accept

I'll make a motion to accept resolution number 2026-29.

25. It is 25. Yes. There's a typo.

Let me restate. Yes. I make a motion to approve resolution number 2026-25 in control. Do you have a second?

I have a motion and a second. All in favor? 6-0. Thank you. Alderman request for an item. Members of the Board of Aldermen have the opportunity to propose items for consideration to be added to the agenda for the next Regulatory Meeting. Would Alderman like to add an item to the next meeting? Yes, sir. Okay.

I was approached while I was doing this. It's on my request for to be on the next agenda for us to think about is sprinkler systems. The gentleman who approached me asked me about it. And so we have an ordinance on it. You put in a swimming pool. There is a process you go through. You have to give the city hall two months notice. You have to fill out a form. And when you fill your pool, you will not be charged sewer rate for filling the pool. I believe it says up to $3,000. I think that's what it said. So my thought is for people who have a sprinkler system in their yard, this would be a time-consuming process. To have a form that they would fill out which then would, it would take for a year to calculate, to average out their sewer bill. So that when they use their sprinkler system, they're not paying just, they're not, they're not paying, quote unquote, the sewer or the sewer rates to be averaged out. I think one thing to think about is from what I understand, the reason that the sewer and water are added together is have we paid for the treatment plant?

Is that correct? So generally speaking, there's no meters for sewer. So you have to have something to base their usage off of. So what comes in must go out is the theory behind sewer billing.

If you want, if you so choose to do this. It would take a year of calculation. To figure that. But this. We have we have new neighborhoods coming in. A lot of people in the new neighborhoods. This is what they want. My neighborhood. 100 years ago, no one did this. But this is time, the times are changing. So if we want new people and we want new neighborhoods, this might be something to consider.

Yes, I had a resident a while back, it was more of a discussion. But after that, I did A little bit of reading and I've worked for cities to actually average or similar those fall and winter months. Perhaps we can discuss if it if we all go to have it on the agenda discussing maybe irrigation be very different sewer at the gym as part of our discussion, just to explore all options and then if we didn't staff to if there was consensus for staff gathering permission, we can talk about all of those options, perhaps.

If you're interested. I have an opinion on this subject. It's my opinion. There's more than one way to do this. If we don't choose.

Do you want a discussion? We have a motion to add it to the next agenda.

I'll make a motion to add to the next agenda, the discussion of sprinkler system installation and sewer adjustment. Okay.

All in favor? That meeting is August the 24th. We have no closed items this evening, so I will accept the motion to adjourn. I make a motion to adjourn. I make a motion to adjourn. I make a motion to adjourn. I make a motion to adjourn.