Council - Regular Meeting

And Evan, if you'll lead us in the pledge of prayer, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us together to serve our community, grant us wisdom in our decisions, humility in our discussions, and courage to always do what is right. Help us to listen with respect, lead with integrity, and work together for the good of all those we represent. May our actions tonight reflect compassion, fairness, and a genuine desire to make our city stronger. Amen.

Amen.

Great use of AI. That was a nice burn. Are you kidding? I mean, I spent all day writing it. Roll call.

Mel Chriswin.

Here.

Coward.

Here.

Horrible.

Here.

Elbert.

Here.

Venable. Davis? Here. Bechtel? Here. Thompson? Here.

Okay. Hearing of citizens' comments.

First comment I want to make to Henry here in regards to the suggestion made at the last meeting or one of the meetings I was here before about the revenue from the vote going over that function again with all the communities that were served. I thought that was a good idea. I really think that needs to be next budget time when it comes time to come around that. That somebody carries that out and reassess that situation.

Can you state your name please?

Bill Lang. William Lang for Bill Lang.

Okay. Thank you.

I'm sorry everybody forget about me. I've been around a long time. My major comment I want to make and it has to do with sidewalks and streets. And I know this time of the year when it's raining, everything's growing really good. Everything seems to be bulging out. But driving around, I see we've got, I don't know who owns the sidewalks or who's responsible for them, whether it's the landowners or if the city has a part to do with it. But there's places where you can't even walk. Grass is overtaking the sidewalks. Leaves are still there from last year. I know I'm down on 8th Street, there's some cases of that. Up on 7th Street where the bushes are out so far you can't walk on the sidewalk. And there's places going out towards Walmart, out that direction out there that I felt sorry for some of them old people had to bend over to get underneath some of the things they're walking on, trying to walk the best they can. And then I believe that, I know the city's got more than it can do right at the moment. Everything's growing as fast as it's growing. But the tree limbs are getting pretty low when they start hitting cars. And I think if you take a dump truck and stand up in it and you clip off what you've reached, that would be a big help within the street area that you drive in. I don't mean to get back on the land's property or anything like that. But I think that we need to follow up on it. It has to be a homeowner, a landowner situation. Then maybe I made a letter of suggestion what they should do would be a thing we need to start working on because the trees are old. doing their part. And I think we have to kind of nip back on a little bit of it. And especially where vehicles travel quite a bit. And the trucks are taking off some of it on their own. But at least I think we can start nibbling on them a little bit. Maybe have to wait until fall to get it done. But anyway, that's something I thought I'd bring up. I'm sure somebody, I don't know who's in charge of that area, or somebody needs to walk the area. But if you just take one street at a time, Until they get them all worked out across town, it might take a while to do it, but at least they get that much done. So that's my comment I want to make on the streets and the trees and things and thinking out over our streets where we drive and where we walk. And I notice when you get my age and you don't walk no more much, it's a problem where you walk. you think about those things, you know, when you think about it, you see somebody going along and they can't hardly find a place to put his feet or where to put them, then you think about, you know, the hard times. So anyway, thank you.

Thank you, Bill.

Thank you, Bill. Thanks, Bill.

Okay, and I think other citizens' comments? I guess I was kind of negligent in saying please put your name and address before you address so that we have that, although I think we know all of you. And there's kind of a five-minute session. Oh, sorry. It's okay. I know who you are. In that case, never mind.

I am Mary Pat Obley, and I live at 510 4th Street. And do you need my phone number? No.

Oh, no. Your social would be nice. Your social. My social. Can't have that. I'm sorry.

You know, I've been working on this project with the library for 10 years. And here I am, just sweaty and dressed in the... This is a t-shirt for the library volunteers that have helped us move. And I know a number of you are going to be wearing those. But it gives me great pleasure to let you know that we are ahead of schedule on the library move. Everything that we are moving from the building on Main Street has been moved to the Kemper Library. The boxes are being unpacked right now by staff and organizing. We said the library would be closed for a month, but we're hoping to beat that deadline. And we have planned something that's kind of ceremonial. Kind of a tribute to history. It's going to be a bookworm relay. for the last books that are in the library, and there are about a couple hundred of them, that will be relayed from person to person to person from the Main Street building across Main Street down Center Street sidewalk to the front door of the new library on July 30th. I've talked with Kate about this, and she's approved that. I've talked to Randy Ayers, police chief. We've worked it out. We may not be able to do hand-to-hand across Main Street, but we're going to probably do things up to a point with a book cart and then move it across. But he's assured me that we have officers at each of the streets, and we will have volunteers, wonderful volunteers. who will help us get everything together. We encourage all of you to join us. Our thought is, since it's sort of the passing of the baton, that it would be best to have those who represent the city to be at the library on Main Street. to sort of start that procession. And then others who were board members or staff at the library on the Kemper campus. However, you can be wherever you want to be. And afterwards, we're going to just have a quick little ice cream social. We're going to do this. We're going to gather at 530 on the 30th. It's a Thursday. And we'll start at 6 o'clock. I'm sure we'll have, from the great media attention that we've had in the last couple weeks, we'll have probably live media there. And I think the best exposure for all of you will be at the building on Main Street when we start. Just a little thought. There'll be another release that we'll all be finishing tonight for the Boonville Daily News and will be released on Thursday to everybody. But we're looking at a week ahead. We encourage everyone, families especially with children, not just in Boonville but in Cooper County, to come and join the fun and have everybody feel part of this new wonderful building that we have. I guess we goosebumps. I've had some wonderful volunteers there helping to do just little things, cleaning, but I had a great group on Thursday of 28 volunteers. that helped us get so much done that the staff didn't have to deal with. And they all want to know what else they can do. I mean, it's great. I have probably a list of about 100. Many of them are friends in the library that have been so instrumental in getting this done. But we have had so many people in the community that just want to help. And it is enriching. And when they were there Thursday, part of the group went to the building on Main Street to get books ready for the relay. And part of them were cleaning some things at the other building, at the new building. Those that came from the Main Street building back to our current library could not stop talking about the vision and the light and how wonderful it was. It was like a place to come And just be comfortable. Have a cup of coffee. Read a book. Visit with your friends. So we really see it as a community health. And I cannot thank all of you and those that preceded you for believing in this project. I know when I first started talking to Earl about it, and Kate was the assistant, there were lots of ideas. And it's taken a long time, but I feel like we kind of broke some ground to do new things with the city. And we are so appreciative of everything that the city has done for us. Not just you, but all of the services. So I invite you to join us. on the 30th, if you can. And if you can't, it's going to be kind of a soft opening because we still have furniture that hasn't been delivered. We have things that are not going to be done until the end of August. We have a bignum that's being restored wonderfully that won't be here. So the grand opening probably won't be until fall. But we want to get that library open as soon as we possibly can. So keep your fingers crossed that all the technological things that we've been working on today work out. And we can open sooner than we thought. But thank you again for your support and your help. And I hope you'll excuse me if I leave before the rest of the meeting. But I have a news release that has a deadline in about two hours.

Thanks for your perseverance on this, Mary Pat.

I appreciate it. This is a joint effort by a lot of people.

I just want to say that we appreciate that. As an extremely frequent visitor to the library when I was little, it is an extremely important part of keeping accessible learning open to our entire community. And I love the fact that we care about it. I love the fact that we spend time and money making sure that everybody else from here on out has a place to go as well. So thank you, and thank you to everybody who's been part of it. Thank you. Appreciate it.

And I will assure you that the bathtub that has been there for ages. It has its place. With special flowers in it.

You're going to find me in that bathtub.

Thank you all so very much. Take care. If you have any questions, feel free to call any time. Thank you.

Any other citizens' comments? Okay, if not, we're going to move on. I think approval of minutes, the July 6, 2026 minutes should be... What's in your packet? Are there any additions or corrections? Seeing none, the minutes will stand as presented. No consent items. The presentation of accounts and claims, appropriations.

Be it ordained by the Council of the City of Boomville as follows. Section 1, for the purpose of paying salaries and various accounts against the City of Boomville, which have been allowed by the Council at the regular meeting thereof on 7-20-2026. The sum of $586,099.65. General Fund, $187,711.99. Sanitation, $121,580.77. CIP tax, $26,577.69. Waterworks, $50,494.91. Capital projects, $0.00. Wastewater, $89,507.23. Tourism, $17,156.20. Gaming, $44,593.56. Parks and Water, $32,477.30. Kemper Sales Tax, $22,000.00. Section 2, the accountant is hereby authorized and instructed to draw checks on their respective Citibank accounts in favor of the persons whose salaries and accounts have been allowed as above amounting to $586,099.65, being the total amount of money being appropriated. Section 3, this ordinance will take effect and be enforced from an after-its-passage first reading on 7-20-2026, read for the second time this 7-20-2026, since a copy was made available prior to the meeting.

Second reading title. That was perfect. No joke.

Okay, Tanner, I got you. Ordinance appropriating money.

I'll make a motion to approve the ordinance. I will second that.

Okay. I have a motion and a second to approve the appropriations ordinance. Is there any questions?

Just a point of clarification, Amber, on the wastewater. I think you said 89%. It's 83, though. Oh, okay. Who knows what I said?

As is written. That's totally fine with me.

I just wanted to make sure. Any other questions or discussion? Roll call.

Milkersman?

Yes.

Coward? Yes. Harville? Yes. Elbert? Yes. Davis? Yes. Bechtel? Yes. Thompson? Yes. Okay.

Unfinished business second reading of bill number two zero two six zero one two amending chapter 17 and proving a comprehensive plan I believe there's been Some information snapped to you from Kate in an email, which I asked you to refer to, but then kind of moved forward on that.

Mr. Mayor, if I could, I would like to make a motion to go ahead and table this ordinance. So a public hearing held by PNC is required prior to the adoption of this plan, so I would like to go ahead and make a motion to table this discussion until after the PNC meeting. I would second that.

Can I clarify?

Yes, please.

We actually just want to table the motion because in our research, you guys are not actually the approvers, which is really odd. Planning and zoning has all the power on the comprehensive plan, and your role is simply to endorse it in a resolution, so it will come back as a resolution.

Well, I'll still stand by my table of this until we update the agenda properly for a later time.

Okay. The... So we have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on the...

So there's no approval on the city side for totally planning and zoning?

So Chapter 89, the reason you have a comprehensive plan, as we found out going to this wonderful webinar with Missouri Municipal League, it's under Chapter 89. It's really under the... And the only reason you have to have a comprehensive plan is if you have planning and zoning, okay? And so it's really the planning and zoning's comprehensive plan. And we end up just passing a resolution supporting that. However, even for planning and zoning to pass the comprehensive plan, there were some statutory requirements as far as notice hearings and things like that. So part of the problem we'll have is The ordinance is never going to come back, because we're not going to do an ordinance when the time comes. We'll do a resolution supporting the comprehensive plan.

So is the current plan in its current state larger than, at a bigger scale than it needs to be? Because it covers a lot of stuff in there that I don't feel like is specifically planning and zoning, is it?

No, I mean, it's adequate. It has what you would need. You still touch on amenities and strengths, and they kind of highlighted it. Ours has basically the minimum of maybe plus one.

Yeah, it's fairly broad in the language of the statute, I believe. And they do want you to get into a lot of the things that are directly in that comprehensive plan. But it's really focused mainly on the future of the city and land use and how those things would happen.

So is there an enforcement structure to it? Like anything that we set in motion, do we enforce it? Does the council back that enforcement up? Or is it just a recommendation and a vision more than it's actually a strategic plan measure? A vision. Wouldn't be the best word for it.

I mean, kind of when they were in the webinar, they kind of talked about the implementation of it occurred through your routine budgeting when you're looking to say, well, are these things matching with what we said we wanted to do in the comprehensive budget?

So it's a guiding document, not an enforceable document, necessarily.

Correct.

If I can interject, though. Please. During the course of planning and zoning, like in private practice when I had to present the planning and zoning, if there were concerns in a development agreement or a preliminary site plan going forward to a final site plan, adjustments would have to be made to appease concerns from planning and zoning, at which point in time planning and zoning would approve a final development plan, then send it back to council. for approval of the final site plan. PNZ was the one that got to dictate some of the concerns, whether it was a traffic study in addition to an extra turning lane water runoff. So a lot of those, a lot of the guts are going to be in Z. And then council has the right to ask questions once a preliminary or final site plan comes before the council.

So then would they seek variance from that? If they wanted to change, let's say they designate specific areas for certain development types, would they seek variance from the council or the councilor?

So they could ask me if I had any questions about implementation of statutes or ordinances as they pertain to a particular development. I can tell you from personal experience when we developed a piece of ground before when I was in private practice, Planning and Zoning recommended a rezoning of that particular track so that they could have some more teeth in the future of that development. So they came back and said, okay, we like it if you're going to consider this type of zoning here, and if you're willing to do that on X, Y, and Z, we can approve this amended final site plan before it goes to council for approval.

I was going to say, but also like in the nuts and bolts of it of planning and zoning, let's say someone comes and we just had a variance. They requested for fewer parking spots than are required by our code. There is a, I'm sorry. there's a that's a variance so planning and zoning reviews that and then they approve the recommendation but you guys still have the final approval on the site plan I can't tell you why planning and zoning has all the power but I think the guy said pretty much it was the only place yeah on the comprehensive plan I think that the other part that it comes kind of a check on check off the box thing on a lot of the funding from the state and federal government they want to know whether or not

if you're applying for funding for a certain project, is that part of your comprehensive plan? So that, a little bit of it too. It is kind of a bizarre scenario. So we were glad we spent $10 and went to the webinar.

Yeah, so we violate state statute. So another question is that it requires a biennial review, right? So is that review done by PNZ? It doesn't require by statute. It doesn't? I think it's in that document. I think they talked about doing that. manual review somewhere inside of it.

Well they probably say but it's not required. They're just saying as general guidance you should do a review and he mentioned in the webinar also that you should review it every two because you can amend your comprehensive plan and like I said we did that when we were considering a TIF at Fox Hollow. It was not in the original comprehensive plan because 20 years ago nobody thought that the Gross Brothers would ever sell that property. Fast forward to that time So we amended the comprehensive plan to include that so a TIF could be considered. We obviously didn't go down that route, but that, it can be amended too.

Okay. And so, Tanner, I found the line that you're referring to, and it said Booneville Planning and Zoning Commission on a biennial basis and amendment as necessary to ensure the document remains current. So it could be ad hoc. Exactly. Like, it's something that they make a big, if we, I assume this means that I probably shouldn't do this, but if we... If we took in a big portion of land into the city that was agricultural and they make it residential or whatever, industrial, they would have to then make sure that the comprehensive plan is up to date at that time. But it's only a recommendation though, it's not really... It just says as necessary. I look for the same thing.

Yeah, it's an odd, I don't mean to be so hard-headed about it, but it seems such an odd thing to go through to require by state statute only to have no enforceable structure and really no structure that would normally enforce those things.

Do we even need it?

Yes. Okay. So if you have planning and zoning, you have to have it. And also you have to have it for... I know the funding thing is what, yeah.

Yeah. The enforceable part is really at the end of the year when we go over budgets. I mean, we decided, you know, in part of the plan, you know, do we want to build another fire, you know, station? Well, that's going to have to go through budgetary first. Now, that's a part of our vision as the vision document is, but then at the end of the year, are we going to approve the money or not?

That's really the check. I read it as a very, and this is just me being ignorant and brand new, but I read it as a very generic wanting to be strategic plan that's not really a plan. more of an idea or a snapshot. And if you ever want to learn anything about planning and zoning, that's the document to go to. So do we have any sort of city-wide strategic plan at all?

I always say we sort of annually do work on our, when we do our CIPs, the city staff, do you do, so I always think of CIP as a strategic plan of sorts because if we're expending money, we're going to be doing, whether it's extending sewer, building a park, whatever, we're talking about it, yeah. Staff does five years, so they have five years out. We usually only bring to you guys what we're suggesting for this year, but they do include all of the years. So there's a five-year plan and that's rolling. And to me, I really see the strategic planning happening, again, it's oftentimes during the budget times, because you're setting the priorities for where you guys want to go and how you want to spend your money. But do we have a specific strategic plan? No. And I would say, too, if you wanted sort of more concrete, like, you could have a park strategic plan. I mean, about how you want to develop a park, you can have a strategic plan for almost anything, each section of the system, of the city. That's an option, but it's not really the comprehensive plan. Those are just sort of the plans underneath the plan, I guess.

Yeah, we could plan for weeks.

You could plan all you want.

The one thing I want to highlight that we haven't talked about, you're saying you share a couple of years out when we're doing budget, but you have a five-year plan for staff. I think it would be really helpful for me as a new councilperson and probably as ongoing to see the five-year, or as much as you have, because I think that does help with the connecting strategic goals to those priorities.

I agree. We know where the city is. headed, you know, we can voice our objection or voice our support, but align on it and understand it better for representation's sake and also for just the fluidity and efficiency of council operations, I think would be a good idea.

Okay, I think we have a motion to table for the second. Is there any questions, any other questions or discussion on the motion to table? Roll call.

Melcherson? Yes. Coward? Yes. Tarble? Yes. Elbert? Yes. Davis? Yes. Bechtel?

Yes. Thompson? Yes. Okay, thank you. New business, homecoming parade.

No. No. The date on the event permit is wrong. Mike pointed that out. September 25th is when they're wanting to do this. And it's kind of the same as it is every year.

25th is what's on the thing. That's a Tuesday. That's why.

Oh, it's September. September 25th. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

So do we need to do a motion on this?

Yeah, because they are asking for street closures. Street closures. Okay.

We'll make a motion. We approve the homecoming parade plan. I'll second. September 22nd. September 22nd.

Friday. Do we have a motion? Do we have a second? Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Second from everyone? Evan, got it. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve the permit application for the Boonville Homecoming Parade on September 25th. Any questions or discussion? Roll call.

Melcherson? Yes. Coward? Yes. Harville? Yes. Elbert? Yes. Davis? Yes. Bechtel? Yes. Thompson? Yes. Okay.

Okay, reports of standing committees? Tourism, Hallie?

Well, our next meeting is tomorrow, so this is... Not quite timely, but it was my first time attending, so I learned a lot, and the notes are pretty comprehensive in there. Just to highlight a couple of things, we spent quite a bit of time getting me up to speed, and I think it was really helpful for the rest of the commission as well to engage in that conversation about sort of long-term trends, what we were doing as far as signage, some of our goals, which is part of why with this comprehensive plan I was like, more tourism stuff in it. because we had a great conversation one thing that came up that's maybe a little cross-cutting to other Commission's is the parking was flagged by multiple members of the Commission as potentially an issue when we have like events happening or whatever you know we're having like downtown shared like Sundays over summer going on right now with just having concerns about cars that are parked there overnight, enforceability of moving them, especially during those like peak hours whenever we need it, and then also just thinking about the capacity that we have for parking if we're thinking about increasing people that are coming into town related to tourism goals. It was a good meeting. Excited for the next tomorrow. We've had a lot of good events recently and excited for the work they're doing. Any questions?

Just one. Did they have a projected need? Did they know what kind of parking they need? I feel like it comes up a lot, but nobody ever quantifies it.

Yeah, so I think it's unclear whose job that is, how that would actually happen. So maybe that's something that we can look into a little bit more. I know it's something I said at the meeting that I was going to, and I haven't had the capacity or chance to do it yet.

Can we look back maybe at Placer? to see what kind of traffic we get for those events or have over time? Yeah. I don't know if that would have a direct correlation, but it would give us some kind of idea based on flow and .

Some of parking can also be better signage. We talked about that a little. an ability for people to walk a little further than you might think. There's compromise. Right. I'm not saying there might not be a parking problem.

I'm agreeing with what you're saying there. No, I agree with you. And I do think it's tough. People don't realize that some lots are city lots and that you can park in places. So maybe signage is an easy way.

Okay. Any other questions for Allie? And we'll move on to police board. Is there anybody assigned to that? Who's yours?

Looks like, who's your council rep, Randy? Oh, you.

Drew.

No, it's Whitney.

Oh, Whitney. Well, he's not here.

Okay. So I hope you enjoyed your minutes. I'm sure Andy can answer any questions. But the minutes were in the packet. I'm sure Andy can answer any questions anybody has. Okay, we'll move on. Reports of city officials, mayor has none.

I just want to want to publicly apologize for the minutes last week that they're not or the meeting isn't on YouTube. We were trying out this note taker thing, but we didn't realize we'd RSVP before the meeting. So we've learned now we're triple duty to note takers and a recorder in the old fashioned way. So this will be on YouTube. And then also, just in case you're wondering, the note taker is actually a piece of the ADA compliance that we had to do. So in order for us to stay compliant, we have until 27 to come in. But your YouTube meetings have to have closed captions. And YouTube does an OK job, but this can recognize your voices, so it identifies who's talking. We're going to see how it goes and if it meets the compliance. Because that way, otherwise, we would have to figure out an alternative way to keep the YouTube channel. And if you can't, then really you shouldn't have it at all. That's kind of the ultimate. So we're giving this a whirl for a little bit and see how it works.

Notetaker is not leader, is it?

It's not what?

Is it leader? No, it's otter. Yeah, leader is amazing. I use that all the time.

We've tried this one in a few other meetings, just like staff meetings as we've been testing it out. It's pretty good. Teresa's the spearheader of this project.

Do we have status on cameras?

Yeah. Teresa also told me that they brought the wrong camera or the incorrect camera for in here, and now we're waiting for it to come back.

Do we have an idea when?

Teresa might, but I don't.

Any other questions? Move on to City Clerk.

I have nothing.

City Councilor. I have nothing, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Looks like we have Public Works Monthly Report 2026 under Miscellaneous. And I think that is more informational. Did anybody have any questions generated out that? Or Jeff would just respond brilliantly.

Yeah.

Then I think the next item is closed session. We'd like to be able to go into a closed session pursuant to 610.0212 on real estate. I'll make an announcement.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

I'm Ms. Lance. I had a call from a lady at 809 Christus. She was complaining about trees falling down in the backyard. And it's owned by the school board. That property is owned by the school board. And she wants to know what kind of direction she should go to to get those trees to move because they're falling constantly.

She should call the school board or call the school office. I think Josh Bird is the facilities manager. I think it's his title. That would be my recommendation.

Yeah, I would agree. Josh Bird is the contact that she'll need. It's on the district website there.

Thank you. Okay. Sorry about that, Barry. I didn't catch we had any other miscellaneous comments. So moving on now, I'll take it no other miscellaneous. Okay. Closed session. Closed session pursuant to 10.02012 real estate.