City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. We will call the Olivet City Council meeting to order on September 8th, 2026. Can we please have roll call?

Mayor Lewis?

Here.

Chairman Pro Tem Shashan Hellman? Here. Council Member Clark?

Here.

Council Member Solomanov? Here. Council Member Jogel?

Here. All right. Wonderful. Move on to item two, communications. Are there any communications to share?

I do not have any written communications.

But we do have an introduction, I believe.

We do. So... this is betty pendleton she is our new court administrator she's been with us a month a little over a month so she came to us from normandy's court where she was managing six courts so um she's enjoying just the one just the one um so we would like to welcome her and her son tristan yes

mostly for you, Tristan. Sorry. We're so excited to have you. Welcome to all of that and the staff and so as counsel, we're happy to have you here and hopefully it's quite enjoyable and less crazy. Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, thank you for coming. And thanks for the support. We appreciate you coming. So welcome. Welcome aboard. Thank you very much. Alrighty, we will move on to item number three, city manager's report, please.

Good evening. Good evening. all right a couple of things um first and foremost a couple of updates on olive crossing So again, lot three, as far as I know, the tenants are doing well. And now that the first rush of everybody going to visit the new tenants has sort of subsided, it appears that a lot of the parking has also gotten better. So we encourage everybody to go visit all those tenants in lot three. They have just had one vacant tenant space left that I'm aware of. And then they are continuing to do work on the fountain. So as far as we know, they have gotten their permits through St. Louis County and they're continuing to do that plumbing through St. Louis County. Lot five, the developer is going to be dividing lot five in half. And the northern half of that is going to be Texas Roadhouse. The southern half is an as of yet unnamed tenant. But before the Planning and Development Commission is a preliminary plat, to divide the two parcels as well as an update to the overall master plan for the site because the master plan did not envision lot five being divided. So we just want to do some housekeeping and get it all cleaned up. And so that will be in front of the PCDC on September 1st. 17th the next the next PCDC meeting in September Mr. Trejo is going to kind of bring that forward as a educational item and kind of talk through the PCDC as far as what the next steps will be for that minor update to the master plan as well as the preliminary plat and then lot six is the hotel and we don't have any updates for that There are a few things that are going to be happening here in Olivette. So this coming Friday, September 11th, the Great Rivers Greenway is hosting a walking tour along the Centennial Greenway from 12 to 2 p.m. It is free. They do ask individuals to register just so they kind of have an idea of of who is coming, and so you can certainly scan the QR code to register, but you'll be walking with an expert, talking about nature and the trail, and it's about two miles, so bring your walking shoes. It is relatively flat, so there are no big hills or anything along the Greenway, so we encourage everybody to join the Great Rivers Greenway on the Centennial Greenway. And then this is last call for Olivet Night Out. We would encourage any neighborhood that is looking to host a block party to sign up with Lieutenant Seltzer and the police department for Olivet Night Out, which is Tuesday, September 15th, so a week from today. Groups of both the elected officials, the fire department and the police department are We'll be making the rounds of the various neighborhood groups. So we encourage everybody to sign up and come and join your neighbors. And then that following Friday, September 18th, is Trivia Night at Five Oaks. And as I checked earlier today, there are four tables left. So grab your friends, get a table. It's 90s and 2000s sitcoms. So I think it'll be a fun time with fun questions. And then the Great Olivet Cleanout is September 30th. From 3 to 6 p.m., it is at Five Oaks on Warson, just like it was last year. They'll have the dedicated route to come up the driveway and then through and then exit. And so you can bring your electronics, so almost anything with a cord, and then your documents for shredding. This is for residential shredding materials only, so not for businesses that have a lot of files that need to be shredded. But if you are at home and you have materials to be shredded, please bring them out. And then we do have the results of the Battle of the Badges, which was last week, last Thursday. So we had 29 total donors, including not only members of the police and the fire department, but members of staff, as well as the mayor, came out. There were nine first-time donors and then five power red donors. So they got an actual... 34 units of blood out of those 29 donors and the fire department won by one vote. So every vote counts. And we appreciate everybody coming out and donating that very valuable blood. And then just a reminder, it is also turkey trot season. You may register for the annual Thanksgiving morning run. We are starting at 8 o'clock this morning. The last couple of years we've had to be delayed a little bit, but we got a lot of feedback that it's very important that we start at 8 o'clock. And so we are going to be doing that. But we encourage everybody to come out for Turkey Trot. And all of the proceeds go to the Harvey Kornblum Jewish Food Pantry. Last year, we gave more than $30,000 to the food pantry. And so we are hoping that we can meet or exceed that donation again this year. And then I just encourage everybody to sign up for the Olivet Weekly, which is our weekly e-newsletter with all kinds of news and events going on in the city of Olivet. And then just a couple general updates. First and foremost, we are very excited that Carlos is getting a new person on his team. We are getting a new building inspector. They are in the pre-employment process now, so we expect that they'll be coming on shortly. And then just a reminder to the council that we are having a work session tomorrow. at 6.30 on September 22nd, so right before your next council meeting. This is the continuation of those departments in depth, and the next department up will be parks. And with that, I can answer any questions, and then here are the upcoming meeting dates.

Thank you very much. Anyone on the council have questions for City Manager? Okay, appreciate it. Thank you very much. All right, we'll move on to item four, city council liaison reports, where the council members will give updates on kind of activities or meetings they've attended. Council member Solomano.

No update for me this evening.

Mayor Pro Tem.

I attended the PCDC meeting on September 3rd, and there were two text amendments that passed, one allowing for coin-operated laundry. And the other allowing for garage condos. And both of those will be coming before the council probably in October. I think so. And then the PCDC also was able to elect officers. So Sam Wallach is the chair and... I'm not going to remember. Petrie is the vice chair. And now I'm blanking on secretary. My apologies. Laura Ragsdale. Thank you. Thank you. And then I also attended on September 4th, an ADAPT STL conference put on by St. Louis University. And this was a day long conference that brought in, uh, representatives from municipalities, as well as representatives from, um, AMRIN and local nonprofits and organizations that work in the sustainability fields. And the idea was to work with SLU's research team as they create, um, modeling tools for both extreme heat and flooding. And they wanted to make sure that as they were developing their modeling tools, they were developing tools that actively respond to the needs of municipalities, utilities, and nonprofits who work in this space. So it was really great to just have these conversations with other people who are considering these issues and to really be thinking forward about the science and the research that we need especially as a municipality in order to make the decisions that we need to make for future flooding and heat events.

Great. All right.

I have nothing to report today.

I have nothing to report as well.

The only thing I have to report is on last Friday, the 4th, I got to attend the Rick's Ace Hardware Grand Opening, which was very exciting. I'm a little sad I didn't get to use the scissors because they used a chainsaw to cut a board as their opening, but that was quite unique. But honestly, the customer service was quite incredible. I think they had tons of people there, and they were just really excited to have people there. And the community was already showing up before 9 o'clock trying to get in. um you know for the grand opening sales and specials and so i think it's going to be a great addition and uh had a lot of great vendors outside you know like big green egg trigger um you know and tools and things like that and our department was well there represented as well so And a lot of staff. So that was exciting. Good community. Welcome. All right. We'll move on to item number five, items from council members, topics they want to bring up for future discussion, but not going into depth on the council today. Any topics from anyone they want to bring up that aren't on the agenda or that we need to discuss for a future agenda? Okay. All right. We're going to move on to item number six, hearing from citizens. This is the portion of the agenda where anyone present in person or virtually may address the city council regarding any topic, including those later in the agenda. Each speaker is allowed up to three minutes to address the mayor and city council. Hearing from citizens is designed for council to receive feedback rather than for direct dialogue, so we do not respond. We will take speakers in person first, followed by any online. If you're in person, you can complete a speaker card and give it to the clerk. If you have already given your card to the clerk, we'll take you an order in which you submitted your card. If you're online and wish to speak, please use your raise your hand feature and you'll be added as a speaker. For those speakers, when you come forward, please make sure the mic is on, that you state your name and address with the record prior to delivering your remarks. And then there will be a second session of this later in the evening as well if you didn't get in this first one or you want to speak twice. So I'll open it up. Is there anyone who wants to come forward and speak?

No?

All right. Anyone online wish to speak? Okay. So I believe Council Member Clark has, they want to speak and address the council as well. So we'll have them. If he doesn't turn the mic on, I'm going to feel very sad. I was hoping that you asked me this.

Sydney Clark, 1118 Basswood Lane.

Steve Iola, 1505 Missouri.

The reason why I'm up here today is many of you may or may not know that I am a kidney transplant survivor. About two and a half years ago, I underwent a kidney transplant and I'm one of the fortunate few to have a live donor. Um, The day that I went under surgery to have my kidney was my birthday. And I remember praying to God just before surgery. I said, Father, if you just let me live, I'll do my best to serve my man, the better man and be a better person. And I'll do all that I can to be the man that you want me to be. And I remember the nurse tapping me on my shoulder saying, OK, I need you to move over to this other table. And I asked, how long is the surgery going to take? And she said, it's surgery's already done. That in itself was my miracle. After that, I realized how important, how very important life is and how precious it is. After surgery, food tasted better. Colors were brighter. Sunsets were better. Hugs from my friends were better. Everything was better. And I appreciated life so much better. And I decided I'm going to do that. And service to your mankind, your constituents and the people in your world and your neighbors, service to them is your payment for your space here on Earth. And so I'm doing my part by joining with this gentleman here with the National Kidney Foundation to help raise money. We're having a golf tournament that's coming up in November. Would you please tell us?

about them. So it's actually our 45th year for the golf tournament. Um, it's one of our larger fundraisers. Uh, we generally get about 120 golfers, uh, at the event. Uh, we're doing some new things this year, um, with the golf tournament, we're honoring individuals at different holes and doing some more peer to peer fundraising opportunities because not everyone can do a foursome, not everyone golfs. Uh, so we're looking at new opportunities in that. And that's one of the things that Sydney's kind of helping us with, uh, is spreading the word about some of these additional types of opportunities and everything. I'd also add to what Sydney was talking about too, is we are making a much larger push here locally in the St. Louis area to do more community outreach type programs, screening type of programs. That's been something that's been a little bit lacking here at the local level. So we're doing some community outreach programs currently now in North City, but I know we've been talking about the possibility of moving on this side uh and doing some things in the county and everything too so um so stay tuned on on those things uh we've got a couple of screening programs going next month um in the city so but um it's time to expand some of that stuff a little bit westward too so so tell them how we want to raise some money on this um so we have some opportunities for um on the golf tournaments um We'll become more of a peer-to-peer type program and stuff. So we're honoring different individuals at the different holes and everything. Sydney is one of our honorees this year and everything. So I do have some flyers and some information that I can share with you with QR codes and information like that.

And we'll share that with you. And if you'd like to donate, you can just scan the QR code. Yes, we have a QR code where you can scan the QR code so that you can donate to the cause. And we will gladly accept any amount so that this can go to a good cause. And, you know, thank you very much for listening. And again, I'm one of the fortunate few. that was able to get the kidney. There are millions of people every day that are suffering and won't see another year. So again, any help that you can give would be greatly appreciated. And I am an ambassador now for the National Kidney Foundation and I will be one until I'm no longer here. So thank you very much for listening.

Thank you. Thank you for coming. Anyone else wish to speak? I wouldn't want to follow it either. So, all right. Thank you. Appreciate it. We're going to move on to item seven, bill 3070. Can we please have the title be read?

Bill 3070, an ordinance authorizing a special permit use for A.C. Richardson, LLC, owners of the property grounds addressed as 1215 Dealman Industrial Court to permit SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Pediatric Therapy to operate a 4,566 square foot medical clinic within the tenant space addressed as 9375 Dealman Industrial Drive. Second reading.

Good evening, Mayor, members of City Council. My name is Carlos Trejo. I'm the Director of Planning and Community Development with the City of Olivet. I'm here tonight requesting or the Council would consider action on Bill 3070. This grants a special permit, of course, to SSM Cardinal Glennon Pediatric Therapy to operate a 4,566 square foot medical clinic. On the premises at 1215 Duman industrial drive more specifically, the tenant space addresses 9375. We held a public hearing at our last council meeting in there. There was some comments and questions from the council regarding some landscaping and some proposed exterior modifications in there. The petition and also a general layout of what the interior would look like. The interior plans are located within your packet in there. But today we did receive an email that had the proposed landscaping. Again, putting three trees on the site grounds and then some shrubbery. Those are not in the packet in there. And City Manager Yackey is going to have those up for me. Thank you, ma'am. But they would utilize that green space in between the two parking areas at the corner, put up some trees, and then there would be some additional landscaping along the curbside of the parking facing west. That kind of creates a boundary along that area. And then two additional ornamental trees within the perimeter of the building. On the next slide.

Can I clarify? Sorry to interrupt. Absolutely. Go ahead, Mark. Option planting. Does that mean it's unclear we're going to do that or? Like it's not optional. I guess I'm not sure what I mean by option planting.

I think we're looking to put, have those as part of the condition.

Yeah, I think that'd be great. And I guess I always will push from Missouri native if possible. That's just a question I would ask why. And we'll go through those. We were talking with. So they're not set final like this point. Okay.

Thank you. The next slide will show the type of light replacements that they would place on the building. And those will be facing downward. And fully cut off. And then the next slide will kind of show the purpose of this is kind of show the exterior lighting as it would under the new light fixtures. And then also kind of show it's the upper part of the building, not the brick that was going to get painted. But the other part, the upper part, they have a darker tone as compared to what the original building had. That just kind of makes it less looking weather. So. So that mayor that concludes. The follow up regarding the council's request, and there'll be glad to answer any specific questions. I know you guys just got to see these 3 diagrams. We do have representatives here. There are questions.

Yeah, my push would just be as many plantings as possible as native as possible. But I know that's something staff will work with the group on. So, um, other questions from council.

No, no, no.

No, I appreciate having the layout and seeing, you know, a clear sense of how the space is going to be used. Also the signage and it just really helps to get a bigger picture of what this space will look like and how it will be used. And I appreciate the extra time and effort to take those steps. Thank you.

Okay, then I'll ask if anyone wants to make a motion.

As soon as the motion comes up, I'll be happy to.

There's a lot of minutes. Otherwise, I'll say, yeah.

I'll make a motion to approve Bill 3070 in ordinance authorizing a special permit use for A.C. Richardson LLC. Owners of the property grounds addressed at 1215 Dealman Industrial Court to permit SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Pediatric Therapy to operate a 4,566 square foot medical clinic within the tenant space addressed as 9375 Dealman Industrial Drive. The property grounds are zoned as LID Light Industrial District.

Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. Can we please call, poll the council?

Council Member Jurgel.

Yes.

Council Member Solomanov. Yes. Council Member Clark. Yes. Chairman Pro Tem Sean Hellman. Yes. Mayor Lewis.

Yes.

The motion is passed. Bill 3070 becomes Ordinance 2840. Great.

Glad to have you here. And welcome. Thanks for coming in. Appreciate it. So you're welcome to stay for the entire thing if you want. All right. Item number eight. Bill 3071, please.

Bill 3071, an ordinance authorizing a special permit use for new Blueprint Partners LLC owners of the property grounds addressed as 1220 North Price Road to permit AIM Field Hockey to operate a 6,614 square foot enclosed recreational use within the tenant space addressed as 1220 North Price Road, Suite 4. Second reading.

Good evening, Mayor. Again, my name is Carlos Trejo. We're not on the record, so I'll leave it at that. This is a request for the council to consider action on Bill 3071, and that's to authorize a special permit use to infield hockey to operate a 6,614-square-foot enclosed indoor infield hockey facility at the property address is 1220 North Price Road, Suite 4. This was before you, under a... public hearing at our last meeting. There were some general comments and questions more specifically about trying to expedite and assist the petitioners with the permitting process and that. We did meet with them today in there. We had discussions. My goal is to get the The 1st round of comments to the applicant by tomorrow, and they're confident that they can get a quick turnover and then I'll make sure we work to get that permit out for them. Depending on the council's consideration, we did look at the parking areas and all that. Everything seemed to be appropriate. Kind of look, use Google to look at the peak times and kind of scope out how the layout the general layout was. I think it works pretty well in there. I mean, there were. There are spaces you just, you know, they're not right in the front door, but there are spaces that were available throughout the day in there. So, I, I like what I saw and there, and then we'll continue to work with the property owner regarding the addressing some of the, the fencing along the perimeter of the property.

Makes sense any questions from council on this item that we just last time.

Sorry, sorry to interrupt, but we do have representatives that are here both for the building and with it. So.

It was pretty thorough last time. I think it was good to get our questions answered. So not to say I'm being rude, not inviting you up, but if we don't have questions, unless you really want to say, okay, yeah. All right. No questions for anyone?

I don't necessarily have a question. Just a kind of a concern that I'll be interested to just see if this ever becomes something that could be changed or adjusted in the future. That would be a larger issue for all tenants of this building and that's the the odd section that's in front of the building that has the oval shaped grass and then you've got these two entrances from the side um i can just foresee that potentially being confusing with additional car traffic in there the different ways to come in and out. And if it's possible in the future, as this building is more occupied and used, and if it does become a problem, maybe it won't, I would love to see that traffic flow improved somehow, just so that it's a little bit cleaner, just one entrance and exit, just for safety, for ease of use. But I don't have any issues with this particular use and the the item that's before us.

I appreciate your concerns and we'll take a look at that. We did look at some of the history. I won't go over like how we got to that point in there, but they're valid. But I think we'll work with them and then over time, something we can take a look at.

Yeah.

All right. No other questions. Do I hear a motion?

I'd like to make a motion. Sorry. To approve Bill 3071, an ordinance authorizing a special permit use for new Blueprint Partners LLC owners of the property grounds addressed as 1220 North Price Road to permit AIM Field Hockey to operate a 6,614 square foot enclosed recreational use within the tenant space addressed as 1220 North Price Road, Suite 4.

Motion be made. Do I hear a second? Second. All right. Motion and second. Could we please poll the council?

Council Member Jurgel. Yes. Council Member Solomanov. Yes. Council Member Clark. Yes. Chairman Pro Tem Pashaun Hellman. Yes. Mayor Lewis.

Yes.

The motion is passed. Bill 3071 becomes Ordinance 2841.

Welcome as well. I'm very excited. Thank you. I think you're going to do quite well because I constantly see the great pictures in the training sessions and things like that.

So good luck. And we don't have anything like it on all of that. So exciting to have a new business.

We got it now.

Yeah. All right, we'll move on to Bill 3072. If we can have the title be read, please.

Bill 3072, an ordinance to amend Section 405.460 condominiums, flats, and additional requirements being part of the Subdivision Code of the City of Olivet, Chapter 405 Subdivision Regulations of Title IV Land Use of the Olivet Municipal Code to allow for both residential and non-residential condominium flats and additional requirements. Second reading.

Good evening, Mayor. Again, Carlos Trejo, City of Olivet. I'm requesting that the Council will consider action on Bill 3072. This would amend our subdivision regulations, more specifically to ensure that our condominium planning procedures are consistent with state statute. I'd be glad to answer any specific questions. We had a public hearing on this matter at our last meeting.

No, this was an interesting one to allow certain businesses, so it makes sense. And we're also complying with what needs to be done, it sounds like. Any questions from council? No. Any concerns? No.

Okay.

Then anyone want to make a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve Bill 3072, an ordinance to amend sections 405.460 condominiums, plats, and additional requirements being part of the subdivision code of the city of Olivet. Chapter 405 subdivision regulations of Title IV land use of the Olivet Municipal Code to allow both residential and non-residential condominium plats and additional requirements.

Second. All right. Motion and second. Please pull the council.

Council Member Jurgel.

Yes.

Council Member Solomonov.

Yes.

Council Member Clark.

Yes.

Chairman Pro Tem Pashaun Hellman. Yes. Mayor Lewis.

Yes.

The motion is passed. Bill 3072 becomes Ordinance 2842.

Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Moving right along. Ooh, first big presentation. Item 10, Bill 3073. Can we please have the title read?

Bill 3073, an ordinance fixing the annual rate of tax levy for 2026 on all property within the city of Olivet, providing for the extension of said taxes on the books of the collector by the county clerk and providing for the collection thereof. First reading.

So today I have a treat for you. I'm going to go over the process for the municipal tax rate setting, what we do for a few months of the year while we prepare the tax rate for you. So I believe that it wasn't in your packet, but this will be part of the minutes, correct? So they'll have an hour. an opportunity to have a copy of this we can post it oh okay so we'll post it so um if you miss any of part of it you're welcome to ask questions at the end and then you'll get a copy of this for your reference in the future so i'll start by going over our annual property and real estate tax rate setting for the city so the topics in this presentation are going to be the purpose of the real and property tax rates the property appraisal process and the assessment cycle, the equation to convert appraisal to assessed value, and some examples, the limits to tax growth, new construction, an example of a real estate tax bill with the all of it percentage of the total tax, personal property and that tax process, an example of a personal property tax bill, and the all of it percentage, calculating and setting the rate, what happens after that, and then our proposed 2026 rates with an estimated bill using the 2026 rate for one sample of a residential property. I have a conclusion and then time for questions and answers. Just for your reference, I know you're used to seeing a financial report and we'll have that for you at the next meeting. So, you won't miss that at all. So the purpose of real and property tax rates for Missouri municipalities and other tax rate setting entities is to have a voter approved and reliable revenue source that helps fund essential services. And in the city of Olivet, these essential services include our police and fire and parks, planning services, as well as administrative functions that support the city in these important services. The city also has a separate rate for its city pension and debt service, and all three of these rates have been voter approved. The real property appraisals are, they occur in odd years. Missouri law requires an assessment, a reassessment every odd year or every two years, an odd number of years, numbered years. No general reassessment occurs in even years unless there is a significant change that would prompt a reassessment such as new construction, demolition, major renovation. And then once a reassessment occurs, property owners receive a notice of that in May. There are inspections that are required every six years for every parcel that has to be inspected once every six years. And then any property that increases significantly by more than 15% is also required to be inspected. And you can also have an owner request an inspection. Commercial inspections occur as needed, and those are also often tied to significant changes. The valuation method is fair market value, and it's determined as of January 1. So your property is appraised as it was on January 1.

And it said odd years. Is that because we're in our fiscal 2027 year now? Is that why it's for us now?

Well, we're actually setting the rate for 2026. So we didn't have a reassessment this year. So I'm just mentioning that We are basically just mentioning the process that they follow. So you'll be aware of that. And then in 2020, well, 2026 is not a reassessment year in 2027. It will be a reassessment year. It's just the process that they follow. It's not specific to all of it.

Yeah, but it said reassessment. So this isn't a reassessment year. It's in odd years they reassess.

Correct. We don't do this every year, obviously. You set property taxes every year.

Right. But we reassess every odd year unless there's something unusual like new construction that finishes and is ready for occupancy or is occupied. A residential property has to be occupied in order for it to be considered eligible for assessment. So unless something like that happens, major renovation, they won't have a reassessment in an even year. So I'm just giving you a part of the process of what happens. So the appraised value gets converted to the assessed value using some ratios. For residential, it's a 19% ratio. You multiply that times the appraised market value to get the assessed value. And for commercial, it's 32%. And then for agriculture, it's 12, but we don't have agricultural property in the city of Olivet. And the appraisers use comparable sales. They'll sometimes provide that information either with a property record or in your form that you receive in May. They'll use property data and market analysis to determine the appraised value. An example of a home's appraised value and its assessment value would be in 2025, we had a 1600 square foot all of it residence. It was appraised near $325,000. If you multiply that by 19%, you come up with $61,750 and that equals the assessed value. And that is the amount that the tax will be assessed on. And an example of commercial property assessment and the correlating percentage of 32%. I have three examples here that I pulled off of the county website. This is with 2025 information. So you have one appraisal. It's close to $1,070,000. If you multiply that by 32%, you get an assessment value of $342,000. So it's less than one third of the appraised value. There are limits to what we can yield in odd and in even years. And that is limited by the John Hancock Amendment of 1980 and it limits any new tax revenue that can occur without a vote. So this whole process is limited either by CPI actual growth in property assessments or 5%, and it's whichever is least. So the lesser of those. So normally it is CPI. What does CPI stand for? Consumer Price Index. And I don't know which they use, but I would assume it's probably CPI-U or CPI-W. I'd say probably U, but I can find that out. It is set by the Missouri State Auditor's Office and then it is certified by the State Tax Commission. And this year it is 2.7% that they're utilizing. What happens is that when the assessments go up or the appraisals and therefore the assessments go up, that's considered growth. So if you have an assessment, city's assessment that goes up, usually their rate will go down to keep the city revenue neutral except for that CPI or 5% or growth, whichever is least. And I can show an example of that at the next meeting. New construction is handled a little bit differently, the first year only. New residential construction is considered eligible for assessment upon occupancy, as I mentioned, For commercial property, the standard is when it's available for occupancy. So obviously you can have property that is eligible to be rented out, still can be assessed by the assessor. They still owe the tax based on that date. New construction values are excluded in the tax calculation the first year. And you've probably seen this on the tax rate presentation where they mention what amount is due to tax. new construction. The past two years, it's been around $20,000. We get the new construction free the first year, and then subsequent years, it's rolled into the equation. So that's nice to allow a one-year bump in revenue for new construction. We also receive TIF increment values, incremental values, and they are also handled differently The increment values are deducted from the property tax values. So the city does not receive any tax for those properties. They are not factored into the equations. So let's show you an example of a residential bill. This is a sample all of that percentage of the total tax too. So you can see that assessed valuation in the middle says total valuation is $64,380. If you were to divide that by 19%, you'd get the appraised value $338,000, almost $339,000. So this property had a tax bill of $4,412 in 2025. It was actually $4,362 plus the serolateral fee of $50 that's assessed on every property for that program. You can see on the right side, the city of Olivet, the amount that pertained to the city of Olivet for our property tax rate that we set is $652.81. And you'll see on the next page that that amount totals 15% of the total tax that was assessed on this property. You can see the number of other taxing entities and the school district up at the top. So 15% is what was assessed for this property's residential property tax by the City of Olivet. next is personal property that includes cars trucks boats motorcycles recreational vehicles and businesses equipment large equipment every year the county assessor sends us a form we fill it out after what we owned as of january 1st that has to be turned in by April 1st of each year. And then the St. Louis County Assessor's Office uses the true value or trade-in value to determine the appraised value of that equipment or those vehicles, the personal property. And they use an assessed valuation percentage of 33 and a third. So one third of the trade-in value for your vehicle or vehicles. The next page shows what a property tax would be for a year 2000 passenger car worth $300. I had a hard time finding one property that had just one car, so I could give the example. So this vehicle's trade-in value is $300, and the assessed value is one-third or $100. And you can see that, um, the third item down is our city of Olivet property tax rate or tax fee. Property tax of $1 and 42 cents. It's equal to about 10.6% of the total bill. You'll also see a flat fee on there for five 50. That's because the city does charge a flat $5 and 50 cent fee for every, every vehicle that we have, uh, that owners have in the city. So for property tax, all of it receives about 11% of the tax bill we did in 2025. You'll also see the road and bridge, all of it, and that's less than 1%, and that's just the road and bridge tax that every city receives, and we use that for our capital projects and our roads. Calculating and setting the rate follows a specific process. I'm going to show you the process we follow, should follow every year, and it follows a specific timeline. Initially, St. Louis County publicizes their preliminary assessment rules. So that happens in early to mid July. and that's for residential, commercial, and personal property, new construction, and TIF incremental values. The City of Olivet and other taxing entities download those roles, and they enter the data, and they also download the Missouri State Auditor Calculator We input the values into the calculator and we upload the data to the Missouri State Auditor's portal for review. They respond usually within three days and we receive an email notification as well that our review is ready and we can download their pro forma or form for our records. And this is them basically approving the rate or giving us the rate based on the inputs. And that matches our information from our use of the calculator. It's a check, a way to check the information. Next, the city prepares their preliminary real and property tax rates for information given to the city officials and the public. And that is from the preliminary assessment reports. Then St. Louis County residents and property owners can appeal their property appraisals. to the Board of Equalization by the second Monday in July, when these hearings are held from July until the last Saturday in August. And once that is complete, the county has final assessments to provide to taxing entities, and that's usually mid-September, and they post those to their website. The City of Olivet and other taxing entities download those final post Board of Equalization assessment roles. And again, you utilize the Missouri Auditor's calculator, set final numbers, upload it to the auditor portal. We do the whole process again and obtain the auditor's performance. This year, the post-BOE rates were miraculously set on September 4th. So I was able to quickly incorporate those into our presentation, into our book packet. So here are the final rates, and they have been reviewed by the state auditor. They actually were working yesterday and sent it yesterday. So that is done. The next step will be for us to publish a public notice and then hold a public hearing to review and then ask the council to approve the rates. So after the rates are set and approved by the council, we certify the rates with our clerk, filling out paperwork and we send a copy of the ordinance to this St. Louis County Revenue office St. Louis County prepares the tax bills, those are delivered to homeowners in November and they charge us 1.5% for the preparation and delivery of those bills and then that fee is deducted from from our payments. Usually there's a one month lag in the receipts that we receive from. So if they receive payments in November, we'll receive them usually in December. Sometimes there are multiple payments during busy, busy months. But the majority of the payments are received by February. So December through February. The 2026 real and property tax rates, as I mentioned, were posted on September 4th. I told you about the process that we went through. You can see the rates are here for you, and they should be also in the ordinance that we prepared for you. And then you can see the St. Louis County assessment. how they present that on their website, what we download from that, from that website.

So how does this compare to the previous year?

Right. I did that calculation and I have it ready for you. It's about a little more than 2.7% for the residential and personal property tax. And then there's also an increase for debt. The total increase or total change is about 4%. So I can show you that at the next meeting. 4%. But that so that's more than CPI, but that is based on when we provide the information to do the calculation for debt service that doesn't have the john hancock limit it's basically we indicate what we need for debt service what we need for reserve and what our payments are coming up and it's based on. the assessments and the correlating amount is what we need to pay the debt service. So that's a little bit of an outlier, but the the tax the ceiling limited property tax and real estate tax is a little bit more than 2.7 percent and that would make sense because we're able to have that new construction bump of one year but i'll show all of that in great detail for you on the 22nd and i can go ahead well to clarify when you say four percent and i'm forgetting the term for annoying me all night but

When we say if the tax rate was 6% last time, and you're going at 4%, you're saying it's like 6.24 now, or are you saying it's, you're not saying it's 10, is what I'm, like.

Oh, no.

Yeah, that's what I thought. It had only 4% increase from what it was last time.

Correct.

Okay, what's the term when you just increase the total? Incremental.

Incremental. No. No.

That's okay. It'll come in sleep, so.

Yeah, mainly, you know, if constituents ask us how come the rate is higher than CPI, we should have a good answer at the council. Yeah.

New construction, it'll be new construction. If you're taking a look at real and property tax, it's the new construction. Debt service is a little bit different the way that it is calculated. And again, that's just based on what we need for debt service, what we project our fund balance is going to be, and having a reasonable reserve. So I can show you those calculations as well.

Basis points.

Oh basis. Yeah. So here's an example of a $325,000 home with the 2026 tax rate, it would be $665 So in conclusion, this tax rate setting process is guided by the Missouri State Statute, the Missouri State Auditor's Office, there are procedures and calculators, as well as the Hancock Amendment, which limits the amount of tax increase. Again, to actual growth, CPI or 5%, whichever is the least. And state statute requires public notification and engagement through public notice and a public hearing process, which will occur again at your next meeting on September 22nd. And then the tax rates are approved by the highest authority in our city, which is our city council, all of you, of course, and then certified and sent to the county for tax bill preparation. And this tax process and correlating revenue provides not only for necessary essential services, but also for our debt service and our pension. So those are the three components. And you can see the three components on the next page, which is just Q&A and if you'd like just to have those for your reference. I'm sorry. Do you have any questions or comments other than you've already brought up or.

Yep. Just for the presentation on the 22nd, it'd be good to see side by side what it was in 25 versus 26.

Yeah.

I've got that ready for you.

For personal and home and everything. Cause that's, I agree. Not only an example and numbers, cause it's just helpful when people ask why I went up or why I go down next year or Maybe if it's up for new construction this year, next year, it might adjust back. Who knows?

Absolutely. Okay. Well, it's always going to be, always usually going to be up a little bit, hopefully with new construction, with the activity that's happening in the city. We'll have to see.

Other questions from council? All right. We'll have a second reading on September 22nd. Thank you very much. You bet. Appreciate it. All right. We will move on to item 11. Bill 3074.

Bill 3074, an ordinance authorizing the city of Olivet to enter into and execute a contract with St. Louis County, Missouri for vector control services and authorizing and directing the city manager of the city of Olivet to enter into on behalf of said city, a contract with St. Louis County, Missouri for vector control services. First reading.

Ms. Yacker, you're presenting this one, right?

All right. Good evening. So last year, last March, the City Council approved a contract with St. Louis County for vector control, which essentially is spraying for mosquitoes as well as handling any rodent abatement on a as needed basis. And it came to our attention a week ago that St. Louis County didn't have a copy of that contract and they had not been providing the city services this past spring and summer. And so after talking with St. Louis County, they would not accept a copy of last year's ordinance. And so they would like a new ordinance in order to provide services moving forward. The contract, you can see the contract fees right there. The contract is typically for five years and it does larvae siting, adult siting, and rodent abatement. I believe there is additional information for St. Louis County they provided some detailed information about what that means. So St. Louis County does surveillance of all of St. Louis County, tracking and kind of looking to see where mosquitoes are so that they can try and do either targeted larva sighting, so killing the larva, or targeted spraying. And then, of course, the rodent abatement is for the Norway rat, and that is on a... as needed basis so we would call them to say we are having rodent issues please come out and address that for us so this is in front of the council for first reading only i see the rates by hour do we have an estimated total cost um it's about twenty five hundred dollars a year for a year okay um

Do we know where our sites are specifically that they monitor?

Not specifically. They are throughout all of St. Louis County, and I don't know if there are sites specific in Olivet, but I can certainly ask them. Does Bruce know? In Olivet. Would you like to come to the mic?

Yes, you would. That's cool. We go through each one. Well, I'm told.

Bruce McGregor, Public Works. Mosquito expert? Not really. But anyway, according to historical records, of course, some of this is reported by residents to the county. So there's an ebb and flow of locations, but there are 66 different spots. Some of those are combined. Well, we have very few combined storm and sanitary sewers. We have certain ditches around like there's some along I-170 in areas where we have some ponding. in there, but I have a list. We can request it at the end of the season of where they've been out and where they're monitoring, where they place the, you know, the larvicide pods. And then with the mosquito spraying, residents can opt out on streets as well. That's an important note. So if there's a honeybee hive, they do try to go late at night when the hives are a little bit more dormant. But there is an option to opt out of a larva siding or a spraying.

Is it an individual house that's opting out or a street?

A street.

How does that work if I don't want it and my neighbor doesn't?

You would call the county and say, we want to be off the larva siding list. You might not be on there. I don't have that one for the spraying. I just have the one here right now where they place the pellets and they check first if the stagnant water has any evidence that they're going to get some growth. well you're saying i think you're explaining a little further i don't get it okay so there's two different ways that they're treating here okay number one they're trying to prevent water from becoming stagnant and allowing the mosquitoes to breed right so that there are areas that they go around and they check that spots that have historically held water that is stagnant Uh, and then they would look at that water and to say, okay, this is a good spot for us to put one of the treatment pellets in there that wouldn't would kill any of the larvae that are growing. Okay. And then there's the spray, right. That goes out in the middle of the truck. They do that very late at night or early in the morning. They do that because honeybees at that time are aren't active. They're in the nest. So that's to mitigate the risk on our good pollinators and our good insects, uh, around. And that fogging is to get the mosquitoes that are out in the air that are adults. So those are two. To date in mind, we have never used the rodent control. But if we had an area that was a trash-infested hoarding situation, we could ask them to come out and help with baiting and trapping. But we've never done that in the years that I've been here.

Does that help? Yes. So I'm assuming for the services that I can do over the spring and summer, we're not... Paying for that, right?

Well, they bill for services as performed. Oh, okay. Okay. So each year it's a little bit different, right? We have a lot of rain in the spring and that can be right temperatures, right, for the mosquitoes to breed. Or we can have like periods of very dry, like right now, where we're going to have very few ponding areas that the mosquitoes would be growing.

Right. They go through the whole season and then they actually bill us in January for the previous year.

And we can request the information. They're pretty good about getting us the information about when they've been out and so on.

Okay. And the five-year contract, I'm assuming we're locking in the rates. Is that part of the contract?

I don't know if they have a, I'd have to look in the detail on it to see if there's a, like an adjustment, annual adjustment. An escalation clause? I don't recall that there is, but.

Yeah, I don't recall that. These are up slightly from last year. So we may lock them in or it may, I mean, it's only a couple of dollars that it's gone up.

Bruce, I'm a little confused. In the document here, it says that throughout St. Louis County, there's 234 sites that are pre-selected trap sites. We don't have 66 of those pre-selected. Trap site and all of it. I'm assuming.

Well, so I am looking here for, uh, through a list. That goes through, um, various locations that they have either checked or gone through like creek behind BP Amoco gas station, uh, standing water, railroad tracks, um, creek along. 1360 North Price. I'd have to go into more detail to see if they treated the area or not. But it seems like they're really quite active going out and looking at areas like where the River De Pere is, the different branches through the community. Some of these might be resident driven.

So these are what you're seeing on the screen is trap sites. I think what you may be talking about is checks.

Yeah, this is a report from the county that they've gone out and they've looked at in different spots.

Is there anything we can do to minimize the amount of stagnant water?

The best, I mean, at the resident type level, right, it is local things like making sure you don't have standing water on your own property, right? So that could be gutters that don't drain, a old tire in the backyard, a flower pot that is full of leaves on the bottom is sitting out somewhere. Those are the best things owner can do is actively look at your property and make sure you don't have stagnant water, you know, that's growing there. It's a little bit harder for the general homeowner to go out and clear like a ditch that might be in the right away behind their house or in between properties to make sure the flow is going. But, you know, certainly, you know, to look for those items, but that's where the mosquitoes are growing.

Is that something the city could do to help with some of that drainage?

That's a reach for us to have the capacity to go out and be really looking at those things.

I will say one thing, though, that parks did is, well, actually, I don't know if it was parks or if it was all of it in bloom, but there was some citizen education around this mosquito bucket challenge. where you actually put a bucket out to attract mosquitoes, but it has larvicide in it so that the mosquito...

It sterilized the swarm?

Yeah, well, not that. That is some very cool science that is happening, but we're not there yet. But no, this is just, you set a bucket full of water to bring the mosquitoes in, they lay eggs and the eggs die. I... Having a little bit of background in the science of this, I don't have any problem with larviciding. I do have a problem with adulticiding, with the spray that is broadcast into the air and only works if it happens to hit a mosquito that's in its adult phase at that moment when it is being sprayed. It is also very effective at killing any other winged insect. Um, that it might be flying at that time. It's indiscriminate. Um, as opposed to the larva side, which targets specifically the larva. Um, so I am not, and the science also does not demonstrate that adult deciding is effective at controlling mosquito populations where larva sighting is shown to be, um, effective. So I think I would like to know a little bit more information about The counties, it sounds like it's very targeted when they do the adult deciding.

Absolutely.

So I'd like to know a little bit more about that process, what the threshold trigger levels are, and then what additional precautions are taken and in place to minimize any of those kind of fall on effects that that happen from spraying

I know they do look at the climactic conditions right before they go out, you know, making sure that it is the optimal time. And we can get more information from the department about, you know, exactly the, you know, the procedure that they use to decide, OK, this is a good night to send the crew out. And this is why and or and vice versa. You know, this is when we don't send the trucks out for these conditions because we don't want this to happen. to move more or disperse too much.

It's an interesting question of could we target to say we like the larvicide and we want to continue that, but we don't.

I think that's a greater question for discussion in more detail and get more information.

I think it would be helpful to understand if that's an option in the contract. I assume it would be.

It's come, this has come up before over the years. Um, you know, certainly everybody, you know, the standing water, that's a, that's a really easy low hanging fruit to approach the, um, there's always, you know, two sides on the adult deciding in the spray. Um, you know, some people really, really, you know, believe in it. And then, you know, we really want to watch that collateral damage, um, you know, with our other good insects we'll say. Yeah.

And just to be clear too, this is not the same as like there's term fogging out there where a truck would just come by and just drive through the whole city, just spraying.

That's what it is. It's an atomizer. I don't know the science, the technology behind it. I don't have the exact details of what it is. The city actually used to have a machine for fogger that we used.

But my, my question is if adult deciding were to happen, It would be in the one location where it is. It's or is it?

It's discriminant. It is not like just random driving around everywhere just to do it. And we have the, I have a route and a location from that.

Do they reach out to you ahead of time to say, hey, we're going to do these five areas or no?

No.

Okay. So they decide what area they want to do and they target those and they do specific ones where maybe a resident's called or maybe they've noticed a significant.

Right. Based on historical data, this is one where we've noticed it's at the low of an area and we've noticed exceptional areas.

Is it possible to share with us the areas for each of these?

Yeah, we can get those. That'd be helpful. You know, at least the historical one. And I may even have it in the files here. I just happen to have this one with the larvae siding.

I hear all the different locations. How often were they treated? I don't even know if they go more than once to an area or not. A resident calls multiple times. Are they going to go multiple times? I don't know. Okay, that'd be helpful. Thank you.

Yeah, sure. So for the record, how does someone report...

an area that is infested with he called the same the county, the county office.

Okay. And if you want to opt out of the service, what do you do the same thing you report in? Okay, yeah.

Okay, but I guess it'd be interesting unless they found that they think your area needs adult setting or low setting. You may not ever be serviced anyway.

It's possible. Yeah.

Okay. Okay, so a follow up item is to get clarity on which sites, how many, how often, how they choose, those kind of things.

Okay.

And I do have some further information that I pulled from the Xerces Society, which is on invertebrate conservation, an article from St. Louis Public Radio. I have a few different articles here if council members are interested in learning more about spraying for mosquitoes.

All right. Any other follow-up questions? Yeah, well, we'll have a second reading. And obviously, that other information will be helpful. Thank you very much for stepping up unannounced. Okay, can we please move on to item number 12, consideration of 2026-2027, Missouri qualified vendor list pickup purchase for the Public Works Department.

All right, evening again, Bruce McGregor, Public Works. I am here to you to ask for a new truck to replace another oldest vehicle in the fleet truck at Public Works. And this is... has been predominantly the mechanics pickup. And over the past two years doing snow removal operations with Five Oaks in full service, we've determined the need for a smaller vehicle, a little bit more nimble. And with this truck replacement coming up, we want to outfit this one with a plow. to supplement the rest of the equipment to help fill in the gaps. Really, we had always plowed over at the old Grandview site where the community center was. So now we have that one and we have Five Oaks and parks departments pulled around as well doing the, well, the other city parks. So we want to have an extra vehicle to help fill in and supplement staff. So this is for a 2027 F-250.

Looking at the price that we have here, it looks like the $48,000 and in the capital improvement, there was $68,000. Is this a rare example where it's under budget?

No, we don't have the plow equipment. So that is for the, so whenever we build out a truck, there's the truck that you get from the dealer and then it goes to an equipment builder. So they install like the, if it doesn't come with a backup alarm, a backup beacon, they do the emergency lights. In this case, we'll have a combo electric hydraulic snow plow to go on there. So that's what the difference is in there for the rest of the equipment built.

Did it diesel?

No, this is just a gas engine. Diesel is a whole other discussion.

Do our clouds also serve as salt trucks?

We didn't plan this one to be a salt truck as well. But yes, all of the other trucks have what we call V-box spreaders. And they have saddle tanks to hold liquid calcium chloride that we use to supplement the salt when the weather is below 18 degrees.

Is there a reason why this one wouldn't have the spreader on the back?

We don't know if we have a need for that right now. Really, we have the more of a time that we need to get the lots cleared, and then we can send the other trucks out with the bigger spreaders on there. But certainly it's something we could add in the future, but we didn't plan for it this go around.

But it's possible to add.

Absolutely. It's a regular pickup with the weight class. We could put a small spreader in the back. But we feel like it's getting the snow off. We have capacity with the other trucks to do salting.

all right any other questions from anyone i'll take a motion then please i'd like to make a motion to authorize the city manager to issue a purchase order to joe mackens ford in an amount not to exceed 48 156 dollars for the purchase of one 2027 ford f-250 four-wheel drive as quoted second all right motion and second can we please pull the council

Councilmember Drago.

Yes.

Councilmember Solomon off. Yes. Councilmember Clark. Yes. Chairman. Yes. Mayor Lewis.

Yes.

Motion is passed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, we'll move on item 13 request for approval to repair the air conditioning system on the primary fire truck. It's going to be. Oh, yes.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, City Council, Ms. Yackley. My name is Steve Carman, Fire Chief, City of Olivet Fire Department. During a recent maintenance check, technicians identified severe degradation within the pumpers AC system. The crew came to us and was complaining that the AC was blowing out warm air. So we had them take it down to Sentinel and Sentinel run a test on it and figured out that the compressor was bad. And as they took it apart, they found metal shavings all throughout the hose lines in the truck. So once metallic debris enters into the hose line, it contaminates the entire circuit, the condenser, evaporator line, compressor. So flushing the system is insufficient and doesn't guarantee reliability. As residual, I'm sorry, metal will cause repeated damage. immediate compressor failure. So the fire department is requesting a motion to authorize the repair of the fire truck's air conditioning system at a cost not to exceed $25,100. If you have any questions, I can take questions at this time. it was a rough couple weeks it has been yes yes never happens at a good time no no but something that expensive does it come with a warranty at least with twenty five thousand dollars i have to check that i didn't ask that question this sticker shock was right do they know where the metal shavings are coming from It's the compressor. The compressor basically was falling apart inside and sent the metal shavings throughout the hose lines.

You're a tough ass.

They can handle it.

They're wearing light clothing in there. Very cooling clothing.

It's going to get cold in a few weeks anyway. Let them hang on for a while. All right. Well, then I'll have you vote on that.

Any questions? No, I don't have any. All right. We hear a motion then.

I'll make a motion to authorize the repair of the firetruck's air conditioning system at a cost not to exceed $25,100. I second.

Will you please call the council?

Councilmember Dragal?

Yes.

Councilmember Solomonov?

Yes.

Councilmember Clark? Yes. Chairman Pro Tem Sean Hellman? Yes. Mayor Lewis?

Yes.

The motion is passed.

Thank you.

How soon will it be done?

Originally, he told me two to four weeks, but then I had a conversation with him, and he said it would take probably a week.

Okay. All right. Enjoy the coolness.

Thank you.

All right. We move on to item 14, consideration of 2026-2027 Missouri Qualified Vendor List pickup purchase for the Parks Division.

Everyone gets a truck.

You get a truck. Exactly. You get a truck. Good evening, uh, mayor and city council members. I'm Patrick McGee, the assistant, uh, park and rec director filling in why Beverly is out, uh, on vacation. Uh, but we are here to ask, um, to replace, uh, one of our trucks. This is kind of our do it all truck. It goes around and picks up all the trash from all the dog pots, all the parks, um, halls, waste wheelers to and from special events, kind of a do it all truck for, um, or our parks department. So it is important. We were replacing the oldest truck in our parks fleet, and we asked for your consideration in helping us replace this with something we also did include in the bid. You'll notice that a headache rack, which I didn't know exactly what that was, but to keep things from breaking the back window, if it's in the back of the truck, from sliding forward and hitting a window.

Headache rack as much as possible? Yeah, it's called a headache rack.

I thought it was a great name for it, actually. And the other option was to do a spray and bed liner. We had noticed that when we put a lot of that trash in the bed of the truck, that that stuff was getting under the plastic bed liner and kind of deteriorating the bed a lot quicker. So the spray and bed liner will kind of protect the bed a lot longer. And it's for relatively under $1,000 to do that, too. So we are trying to... Keep our stuff looking nicer. And this is definitely one of the trucks that we could use replaced for sure.

Okay.

All right. Questions from the council. Just a frugal part of me has to ask, we have public works with their trucks. You guys have your own trucks. Is there ever an opportunity to share some of the vehicles or are they totally, I guess they're parked in different places?

Bruce likes big trucks and we have to get in small spaces. Often, you know, you see some of the trails throughout our parks. We have to have something that's maybe a little more nimble, smaller, like an F-150 paired to an F-250, just kind of a different animal. This is also, you know, it's not towing large loads, but it is moving. It's got an eight foot bed. So it's a full size truck. So we can use that. Um, a lot of Bruce's vehicles and some of even our other parks vehicles are it's like, um, Overkill, I guess would be the best way to say it. Having the current truck we have now is a Chevy Silverado. So again, a smaller pickup. So we're replacing like with like, because that's what works to get around to all those picnic spots and trails. And it's nice to have something that's smaller as opposed to a big beast of a truck.

Am I correct that I think you'd allocated $55,000? This was a planned and we'd allocated $55,000 for this, but we're going to get it for almost $10,000 less. Is that correct?

That's correct.

So I'm just curious, where does that $10,000 go?

Well, it would stay in the capital improvement fund. Yeah. And just knowing budgets as I know budgets, there's likely going to be something else.

Hypothetically, an air conditioning repair type.

I hope not. But if it does not get spent, then it stays in the capital improvement fund. Okay. Yeah.

But it's nice to have a rainy day if things pop up.

Right.

If something else pops up.

Okay. Good. Other questions from the council?

I noticed this both on the earlier truck thing, but didn't really think to ask the question. The hybrid versus non-hybrid. Was any effort made to look at a hybrid version?

Yeah.

And I have no idea what the price difference would be.

I do know that the electric versions were obviously out of that price range. And we also don't have the capacity for charging stations. And I don't believe there are really available around a lot of spots around all of that. If I'm mistaken on that, I apologize. Hybrid wouldn't be electric necessarily. Yeah, that would be. We did not look into any hybrid trucks for this truck specifically, no.

Perhaps something to think about as we look at when we replace future ones is it doesn't make sense or do they wear down sooner? I don't know.

Yeah, and getting, I think it'd be interesting to get kind of a cost comparison if, you know, you pay more for it up front, but within a few years, you know, does it even out?

Oh, well, all right. Bruce has thoughts.

All right, having experience with hybrid vehicles. the nature of our driving patterns doesn't really suit the recharging of the batteries. It means we stop and go. We have a lot of idle time. We don't ever hit that high roadway highway speed where you can really coast along and generate the battery recharge in there. So it's not a great It's sort of like the same thing with the diesel trucks with us. We never really get up to full operating speed like highway speeds for long duration for these emissions controls to really clean out the filters and regenerate and do the things properly. It's just the nature of our driving that it isn't really suited for some of these things.

It's interesting you say that just because I have a hybrid car that's two years old and I find that I do best when I'm idling and or going slow and stop. It charges more on braking than it does on... Actually, my go is when I go on highways, I get the worst miles per gallon.

And that's the same experience for me. My stop and go is when it's at its best.

Yes. Pretty considerate. I will keep that in mind in there. My experiences on my hybrid, I've gone through with the hybrids.

Yeah, but I do think, you know, I'm fine moving forward now, but I really, you know, it's each of these decisions that we make, right. Whenever there's an opportunity to make a decision that's better for the climate and potentially, hopefully better for us long-term. That's going to be where I'm going to want to move us.

I'd be curious what other cities are doing if they found it on hybrid trucks. Yeah, I...

I think there are certainly some opportunities in the fleet for some of these improvements. I don't know whether we're ready in the heavy trucks yet for those. I know in the emission side of it, like I said, with the diesel trucks that we went through with these almost zero emissions with these, it's called selective catalyst reduction. We went that route and it really was disastrous for us. to the point that we're going back to gasoline vehicles whenever we can, because it's just the way we're operating the vehicles. So I'm very hesitant about jumping into some of those.

Sure. And I think technology will continue to improve and things will be road tested elsewhere.

You know, Petra brought up a great point, you know, for full electric vehicles, you know, there is an opportunity here if we can get the charging infrastructure in. You know, I think that there is there is a use for that. Certainly our cold weather operations are different. you know, use pattern with the batteries. That's something to be wary of with those in our experiences, even with our lighting and the other items that are electric. But there are some opportunities for adding to the fleet and the electric vehicles.

That would be interesting as we redesign parks, buildings, and maintenance areas. Do we put an electric charger in and put that in the budget or something in the future? Because we need the infrastructure before you can buy it.

You could go in parallel, right? That's what you're looking at. You purchase the truck, but you have these associated costs, whether it's the logos, the lamps, or the charging.

And the garage, and then the cable.

Yeah, to do those. As we've moved away from, you know, the trend has gone from full electric back to hybrid, we might see some more efficiencies in the design and the delivery of those trucks, you know, and vehicles having more options for hybrid.

Yeah, and I don't know if the trucks have been focused as primary. It's more maybe more passenger type cars, but good for now. Appreciate it.

But I think maybe the question to our city manager would be for future vehicle requests. If we can get to see what the difference in price, but we can certainly ask us hybrid versus electric, just so we have a better idea of what that looks like. And we can talk about it. Yeah.

All right.

I'll ask if there's a motion.

I'll make a motion to authorize the city manager to issue a purchase order to Joe Mockins Ford in an amount not to exceed $45,168. Second. All right.

Will you please poll the council?

Council Member Dragal? Yes. Council Member Solomanoff?

Yes.

Council Member Clark? Yes. Chairman Pro Tem Sean Hellman? Yes. Mayor Lewis? Yes. Motion is passed.

Where's Joe? I don't know where that is. You're getting good business from us. All right, we'll move on to item 15, authorization of an agreement for the Park Ops Storage Building.

Patrick McGee, Hello again it's Patrick McGee the assistant parks and recreation director. Patrick McGee, For those of you that don't know our parks department, you know we do did get a new park OPS building right around the same time that five oaks had opened and that became a home for you know our trucks a lot of equipment and. one thing that we realized really quickly is that we have a large lot over right behind the former site at the old community center at 9723 grandview and we as we have started to really put everything away in that building we realized that we still had a lot of high value equipment whether it be tool cat attachments uh whether it be tractors that we were trying to squirrel away in other areas like our stacy storage building as well as expensive tools you know other machinery mowers tractors things that we were trying to squeeze in a building that was very difficult for us to do we had Really worked hard to find a solution to that, to see if there was room at Public Works, you know, to see where we could put some of this equipment. Because as you know, leaving anything, especially steel outside all year round, it's, you know, we're dealing with rust, we're dealing with things breaking, just kind of seizing up. And not working when we need them most. And those are some of those attachments for our tool cap, for instance, they just take up a lot of space. We have also kind of repurposed every single inch and I encourage anybody if they ever want to see our park ops building, it is probably one of the most. organized places i've ever been uh we have outlines for tools and tool pegs uh peg boards everywhere for tools but we've repurposed that beyond its use and we are horticulturists just growing plants on a shelf on the side of a garage bay on the side where his truck parks And we're just trying to maximize our efficiency so that we can use that building and also keep the value of these tools that we have spent a lot of money on to to last as long as we need them to. And this building would just be a three sided building. We worked with Gordian, which is a SourceWall provider. And SourceWall allows government nonprofits to buy pre-vetted products and services. And they also help us find a contractor to do this without doing our own independent bidding process. Because we would have had to do concrete. We would have had to do all this piece by piece. And as Parks and Rec people, not necessarily our strong suit to go out and build this building. you know, storage structure for our tools. So we wanted to work with them. So Gordian set us up with a company, construction company called Brown and Root, and they put together a plan, which you'll see in your submission here, that goes through everything that we needed. This building does have three bays, and at the end of those bays, there would be shelves for us to with our tool cats we can actually place things on those shelves inside of those bays so whether it be a mowing attachment a flail cutter a grapple a grappler attachment all these things that we use on a very frequent basis we can actually put on those shelves and if to get stuff out of the area to where you can actually work on projects inside the garage which they currently cannot do and then there would also be a external building just an enclosed building with with one man door that would be where all the horticulturist tools and supplies and things like that they need to keep under lock and key which is things you know whether it be chemicals herbicides things like that so it is does kind of create a safe haven for that stuff too so it is this was a long and thought out project that we've been I think working on for at least two years out of the three years I've been here and I think it is a good direction for for the city and to extend the life of all of our equipment tractors and other things and to keep this stuff covered and out of the elements so happy to answer any questions that you might have questions from Council

Is there a reason we wouldn't do just an enclosed building with garage doors?

So we went through so many iterations of this building to see. Obviously, we do have the enclosed building already. This building was mainly just to keep stuff out of the elements and keep stuff off of the parking lot and also to kind of bring some sense of organization to that space. It is, you know, a large lot and We knew that we had the building still for things that we really need to keep HVAC controlled, things like that. So that was the reason the three-sided building is we're really just looking for something to cover and cost. Yeah, it'll have a roof. If you look at the last page, there's kind of a... an idea of what of what they're building they're still working on you know before we enter this contract they'll work up shop drawings and and actually kind of give us an idea of what this would look like on the space and then uh brand new soccer goals that we bought last year are they gonna go in are they in a different building uh you said the side by that's soccer goals oh the soccer goals those will go in the back side of that behind the um behind there so they will be covered and our park staff did build a large rack um that we can actually slot those in because before when we had soccer goals they would just get laying basically laid down in a pile and you know water would get inside of them and they would rust and Our park staff did a great job of creating storage for those and really making it easy to put them back together each year too. So cool. Okay, thanks.

So the renderings there's a page just before this one are those the more active or more accurate.

drawings that one yeah so that's that's what it looks like um you know and we just kind of wanted to give you an idea of like a little closer up which would be in those bays and those are things that we we're not we don't we have a mowing contract for instance so our mowers don't need to be you know stuck in the shop or we have to you know kind of move around them it's just we have a lot of ingress and egress problems when we put all that equipment in there and you need to get something to get it out it's just um We also designed that park ops building to have a wash bay and with Brian growing plants along that wall, we can't wash our trucks in there without, you know, damaging or do anything to his plants too. So we're trying to utilize the places the way it was meant to be and also kind of safeguard that stuff.

So the fencing or gates that are in front of that, you anticipate those being part of each of the bays?

So, yeah, I think that that would definitely be something that we would like to do to keep that stuff safe. As you know, that lot is kind of accessible.

There isn't a fence or a gate.

There is.

From the parking lot in, is there?

There is. Our park staff built a gate for that. But there's also, like, if you're walking up the trail on the side of the baseball fields, like, you can sneak around there if you really need to.

So you do plan to have a gate with locks?

Yeah, we plan to do that after the building gets done. We want to put some kind of access area up there. But we do have a gate coming into the parking lot. But for this, this was kind of our iteration. And if we have enough funds to do that, we definitely would like to put some kind of closure on it to keep everything safe.

Have there been any issues with that, with the equipment and items just kind of sitting on the parking lot?

We have had, you know, I think one of the things when you put stuff in a pile, it gets a little tougher to realize when something's gone until you need it. And then you're like, did it get, you know, misplaced? Was it broken? You know, there's things like that. I'm sure anywhere where people are trying to scrap metal, when all of that essentially is metal that people could take for scrap, you know, I... Don't think we've had a huge problem of that back there, but I know that, you know, that trucks have, you know, been gone through in that back lot or in the upper lot of there before too. So, I think it's just something. That we want to make sure we can protect it as much as possible.

And then this will is. If I'm understanding the layout, will this sit perpendicular to like if this is the main storage shed that exists, will this sit perpendicular in the back of the lot?

So that's a great question. So the original idea for us would be for it to be west of where the current one is. So if you walked out the garage bay of the current Park Ops building, you would be looking at it. Now, if any of you have ever been on that lot, it does have a slight downhill slope and then it also slopes to a storm drain over on the right. One thing that we found through this long, long process was that that increased the cost of concrete because then you have to deal with the downhill slope. You also have to have it slope to the drain still because that water that's going to run still has to get to that drain. And we are working with Brown and Root to possibly identify when you walk out the park ops building, a space on the left, which is still in the lot and would still be usable and it's a little flatter. So they're looking at both of those options to find, because what we wouldn't want to do is if we build it straight in front of the current park ops building, And we're dealing with those slopes, then putting shelves in there become unstable. If you want to put a vehicle up on jacks to change a tire, you're doing so on a slight incline that you couldn't fix purely with concrete unless it was very expensive and a lot of foundational work for the floor of the building. Yeah.

So it sounds like the actual location where this is going to go is still somewhat...

It is. We have a site meeting with Ground and Route tomorrow, and they have a full plan to build it on that current site west of the current building. But one of the things that we're trying to realize is that that slope could present problems with shelving. It'll look, you know, but there will be a slope to the sidewalk or to the... concrete. Thank you. The concrete on the ground. And I just, I think that that would be difficult to put shelves up when you have even just a slight, you know, decline. So we just want to make sure that what we're putting up there is safe to do so.

Just kind of in lieu of our most recent conversation. seeing this lovely sloped roof and thinking, ooh, is there a way it could be oriented so that that slope faces south for future potential solar panels?

Yeah.

But that location would make, you know, it'd have to be that, I think that location would probably be pretty tricky because it's right at the entrance where people would be coming in from the main parking lot and potentially could hinder traffic flow. And then it's closer to residential areas. So I don't, I know you're considering all the things, the building seems important, necessary, and I'll just drop that little thing to add into the considerations as well.

Fair. And we have worked with, you know, sat down and talked with Carlos and Bruce as well about this project along the way. And quite a few meetings about how we could do this. I mean, for a three-sided building, it's had a lot of thought put into it. And our parks department is at the forefront of that. They've been a... uh pushing the envelope for this because you know they do a lot of work and they're finally getting the tools to do those things and they really hate to see those tools be left outside doing dirt whatever st louis has to offer weather-wise so all right other questions and if do i hear a motion please i'll make a motion to authorize the city manager to enter an agreement with

Gordian and Brown and Root to complete services outlined in the work order at 9723 Grandview, not to exceed $175,000. Second. All right.

May we please poll the council?

Council Member Durgale?

Yes.

Council Member Solomonov? Yes. Council Member Clark? Yes. Chairman Pro Tem Pashaun Hellman? Yes. Mayor Lewis?

Yes.

Motion is passed.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

We spent some money tonight. Move on to item 16. Hearing from citizens same conditions apply. Is there anyone in the audience who was just to speak? All right, anyone online, please raise your hand or signify that you wish to speak. Okay, we'll move on then can move on to item 17. Review and acceptance of minutes. Does anyone have any corrections of the minutes? Please have a motion.

I'd like to make a motion to accept the minutes, the council minutes from August 25th, 2026, and the work session from September 12th, 2026, or 1st, sorry, September 1st. All right, motion made.

Second? Second. Please call the council.

Council Member Jorgell? Yes. Council Member Solomanoff?

Yes.

Council Member Clark? Yes. Chairman Pro Tem Pashaun Hellman? Yes. Mayor Lewis?

Yes.

The motion is passed.

All right, move on to item 18, city attorney's report.

No report this evening, but we do have a closed session pursuant to subsection one of 61021.

All right, moving on to item 19 then for the closed session. Do I hear a motion to go into closed session?

Oh, and two, I'm sorry. Subsection one and two.

All right.

Could somebody make a motion to move into closed session pursuant to the revised statutes of the state of Missouri to discuss legal confidential or privilege attorney client matters pursuant to section 610.0211 real estate matters pursuant to section 610.0212.

Seconded. Please pull the council.

My choice. Council Member Drago.

Yes.

Council Member Solomanoff. Yes. Council Member Clark. Yes. Chairman Pro Temp, Sean Hellman. Yes. Mayor Lewis.

Yes. All right. Pursuant to that, we will close this regular session and move into closed sessions. We have exited closed session and we are reopening the meeting. No major decisions were made at this point. I'll take a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn. Second.

Second. All right. We're adjourned at 10.06 PM. Good night, everyone.