City Council - Regular Meeting

Here,

here, here, here, here, here,

please rise for the pledge of allegiance. And at its conclusion, and in particular, uh, the Marines, today is their 250th birthday. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Please be seated.

Starting to think we're boring. We used to have a bigger crowd here. Uh spoke with the mayor of Calvertton Park a couple weeks ago and he's like, "What what do your council meetings look like?" I was like, "Oh, we have about 20 regular folks and then occasionally some some extras." And he said, "Well, we haven't had a guest in two years." So, I'm glad glad you guys are more active than the the residents up north. Um All right. Uh nothing in the way of community announcements this evening. Uh so we'll go right into uh presentation. We have Miss Leslie Gregory here from FEWCPA's to talk about our audit for the last fiscal year.

Hi everyone. Welcome back. Everyone should have a copy of the audit that was provided.

So I will start with page one of the audit which is issuing a opinion. Those don't come lightly this year. So, good job on that. Um, if you'll go to page four, this is going to be your statement of net position, also known as a balance sheet. Um some major changes that happened from this year to last year is you'll see in the non-current liabil non-current liability section there is no deferred income which was related to the ARPA funds that you guys uh spent down this year and we'll talk about that later on um your fixed asset note. Um, flip to the next page, page five. Bottom right corner, you'll see three lines up that your change in your net position is an increase of $3 million, which is actually pretty consistent to the prior year. Um, so honestly, no major concerns when I'm looking at either of these reports. Uh, page five or sorry, page eight. So, this is another profit and loss statement, but this is just by funds. Um, there is a little bit of difference from the one that we just looked at. Your increase in your um net position bottom right three lines up is 1.7 million. Part of that is just like changes in rules um from the um governmentwide to the fund financials. But again, I'm seeing a positive. No major red flags or concerns there. if you'll flip to page 12. So, this is the start of your guys's notes. Um, pretty consistent from year to year. Nothing major to honestly point out in your note one. Um, but if you'll flip to page 15, things I like to point out. Uh, note two, deposits and

investments. Um, we always disclose regardless if you are over or not, if you guys are covered by FDIC, Civic or pledged securities. Um, everything was covered that was required to be covered at year end. So, good job there. Um, if you'll flip to page 19, this is uh note nine, capital assets. So, you'll see a huge increase. um that second column you'll see an increase in construction progress and then you'll see an increase in total assets being depreciated of 2.2 million. That is primarily due to your ARPA funds being spent down. So and to my knowledge those were all spent by year end. Um page 20 next page note 10. So some major change that happened as of 6:30 is that you guys um closed down your old retirement plans to new entrance and you guys switched to loggers. So this note one or the very beginning where it says plan status that is a new note disclosure in there just describing kind of what happened and what the anticipation is moving forward. Um everything else in that note is pretty consistent from last year. And then page 27, this is called your schedule of expenditures of federal awards. Um, also you guys had a single audit this year where we're auditing your federal expenditures. This is something also that you had last year. We audited the same program as a major program as we did last year. No red flags, no concerns, nothing to report on that, just in a clean opinion. Um, everything else is pretty similar from year to year. No concerns there. So, that's what I like to hear. Um, and then also your guys's audit has to be

submitted to the state. That has been done. They have accepted it. They have issued a report on that. And then also your single audit needs to be issued to the federal clearing house. That has been done as well. Any questions on the audits or anything that you're seeing? Seeing no questions. Okay, quick one here. So, I'm going back to the first page. So, we're So, we're basically we're sitting on 22.3 million. Um, as of 6:30. Okay.

When I joined the council, I believe we had about 15 million. So, we're doing pretty good. and we've made some major improvements. I think it was six. Yeah, when I started somewhere around there. Think we're doing a good job, guys. And we're not seeing that everywhere. We're also not issuing clean opinions on the majority of our jobs. So, um things are slipping through the cracks, compliance issues and things like that. And I saw Melissa when I was here that we're seeing it all over the place in our school districts and our cities. So, they don't this clean opinion does not come. So, good job. Perfect. Nice. Good to hear. Yeah. Yep. Thanks.

Any questions come up later, just let me know. Perfect. Thank you. All right. And we have uh two sets of minutes to approve hopefully. First up, the council meeting for October 27th, 2025. Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor? Any opposed? That is approved. on to the work session meeting uh minutes from October 27th, 2025. Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. And on to approval of the bills. Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor? I.

Any opposed? Bills are approved. And Melissa, your report, please. We want to hear from all resource. Nice. Thank you. Joe, on to your report, please.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have the following uh legislations you offered tonight. The first is resolution 202562 acknowledging receipt of the fiscal year 2024 2025 audit report. Make a motion to approve. Second. Second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Audit is approved. Thank you, Miss Gregory. The next is resolution 202563, notice of records scheduled for destruction. Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries.

The next is resolution 202564, resolution authorizing a contract with Applied Concepts, Inc. for the purchase of one radar trailer for use by the Overland Police Department using contracts under the Missouri Cooperative Purchasing Program. Hold on. I got one question on this. Is this a new one or are we replacing one? Are we just going up to one? We buy a brand new one or going to three or Well, uh, if you remember, two of them were struck by vehicles and totaled out. We have one that works but does not record data any longer. So, this one would data.

I was looking at the pictures of that. If we could put some reflective tape or maybe put some cones out in front of it, something to distract anyone from hitting it. Looking at it. There's nothing reflective on it besides numbers coming back to you, but even some tape or some cones I think would help. Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. The next is resolution 202565 amending resolution 202471 related to the contract with Delta Dental to provide employee group dental insurance coverage and stating the compensation to be paid therefore motion to approve. Second.

All those in favor. Any opposed? Motion carries. This is first reading of bill number 52 20225. An ordinance of the city of Overland, Missouri, approving the lot consolidation plat titled lot consolidation plat burn square located in the city of Overland, St. Louis County, Missouri, and directing that the same be recorded uh with the St. Louis County Recorder of Deeds. Seek a motion for second reading by title only. Second. And starting tonight for these ordinance readings, we can vote without a roll call for this portion and then the approval will be roll call. So we have a motion and a second. All those in favor. Any opposed? A little bit faster here. On to the second reading.

This is second reading of bill number 52 2025. An ordinance of the city of Overland, Missouri, approving the lot consolidation plat titled Lock Consolidation Plat Burns Square located in the city of Overland, St. Louis County, Missouri. Directing that the same be recorded with St. Louis County Recorder of Deeds. If passed, bill number 52,2025 will become ordinance number 202550. Motion to approve. Second. and pull that vote, please. Yes. Yes.

Yes. All right. Motion is approved. Thank you. Great. Thanks. Uh on to staff reports. Uh Rick, anything for us tonight?

Perfect. Thanks, Mr. Crowder. Members of the council, in this room, Thursday evening at 6 PM, we will select our 13th Oakland home of the year. We started in 2010. It took a year to get organized. We use Maryland Heights as an example. And then we didn't do it during COVID. So, it'll be our 13th home of the year. And we build in high drama on that phone right there. We call the recipients. We leave it on speaker. where members of the commission can clap and talk and interact back and forth. And then when the meeting's over with a flashlight, I go to their house and put that sign in the yard and invite them out, you know, to shake their hand and so forth. That's all going to happen this Thursday evening at 6 PM. Uh you're going to every time I get a chance, I'm going to talk about this year's concert. Number one, the mayor is going to sit in with them. And this is not, you know, three guys from Nashville. This is a symphonic orchestra with as many as 80 pieces. And it's at the Rittner Auditorium. It's free with a donation to the pantry. And it's the evening of December the 6th at 700 p.m. And this year they're even even adding dancers. They're going to have dancers to the Nutcracker Suite. So, it's it's a big deal. And the last time we did it last December, I was sitting with the superintendent. He got to looking around. He said it's the largest crowd that had ever been in that new auditorium. Let's do it again. Friday evening, December the 6, 7 p.m. And that follows that dinner that you all are invited to. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Crowder, is it Friday, December 5th, or Saturday, December 6th? What did I say? You said Friday, December 6th. It's Saturday, December 6th. Thank you, sir. Yeah. First Always the first Saturday in December. Thank you, Leslie. All right. Thank you, Chief. I just wanted to say we are uh once again hosting our uh food drive to benefit uh the Rittner Co Pantry. Um, people can bring stuff up to the lobby 247 or they can just take it directly to the pantry. Perfect. Thanks.

All right. And nothing in the way of residents comments this evening. Uh, council members with any comments tonight. Okay. I just want I do everybody have a good Thanksgiving.

Yeah, enjoy your Thanksgiving. Um, for my report, couple event reminders here. Um, again, this Thursday, 4 to 6, MDOT's going to be at the community center. So, feel free to stop by, nothing formal, there's no presentation, but if you stop, you can maybe develop a relationship with these folks. And, uh, one of the problems that I have in my seat is sometimes you don't know who to call. And, uh, showing up to these things helps you with that, and you know who to get a hold of if somebody's calling you with a problem at uh, 10 o'clock at night. And then following that on Saturday at the community center in the same uh building there, we're going to have the craft fair in the morning. So if crafts are your thing, uh they'll be there all day. I think we might have a food truck there in the morning as well if you're hungry. And um last reminder for the holiday season here, we're doing a Christmas display contest just like we did in years prior. Uh there are a lot of houses that have great displays that don't get entered into the contest. So, if you see somebody driving down the road, might even give, you know, somebody from each ward some homework and give us a handful of addresses. That way, we can put them in the pool and they'll be part of the trolley rides to to view and grade and see who wins that contest for this year. Uh, so give that some thought and then we'll be uh back here for a meeting in a couple weeks. So, with that, I'll seek a motion to adjourn into a work session.

I'll make a motion. Second. All those in favor?

Any opposed? All right. 617. So, we're going to go straight into the work session here. And if anybody wants to hang out, we're talking about um animal registration, uh some new legislation on on dangerous dogs, and uh most exciting topic uh medical insurance renewals. So we have a couple of issues this evening um related to animals. One is more involved than the other. Um so the first one is the um annual ann annual animal registration. So a couple of you have mentioned kind of maybe possibly doing away with this. So, I wanted to get the full council to weigh in on eliminating this requirement. Um, so, um, really the question is, do we want to continue with the annual registration required for animals or do we want to essentially do this where when you move into the city or when you bring an animal into the city, you have to register it. Other than that, you're done. My question is is how many registers do we actually get yearly? I know I've been guilty of being behind on

many years. I've done it every year, but sometimes I've been six months late doing it. I'll defer to Melissa.

Yeah, I have the same issue. You know, it's one of those things that I know I need to do and I don't know when it expires. And I know it's okay because

Sorry. I'm not I'm assuming all up here have pets are all of I've never been late. Jessica, well, I love that for you. Suck up. Try running a bar and then and then tell me that it's not late. I think the one time makes sense. Um or if there were a digital way to renew so you didn't have to come into the office because that's the reason I forget. I'm just lazy.

I mean if you have a digital way though then that then you're not getting your tags and then that means we have to mail them to them or you have to come pick them up. There's I don't think a digital way is going to help and I don't think people are going to do it even if it is digital. Does the registration of animals give us an idea of population in our in our community? I highly doubt it, but I don't know that for

Yeah, it would be hard with the one time registration. It's just so that the city knows that this person has an animal there. If the animal passes away, obviously we won't be notified most likely. So, it's hard to gauge. But again, my sense is why do we have something on the books if few people follow it anyways? Um, and if we just have people just say, "Hey, I have a dog. Here's and even, you know, is it currently a $5?" It's a dollar. Yeah. I I wouldn't even care if it's a dollar or zero even just to have the registration. Okay. Yeah, you're up

here. So we have so for the last year when the tag expired tag expires May 31st of every year that's the same time expires. Um the dog tag we registered 295 last year. It's $1 for males or altered females unaltered and we verify that the dogs in it but I highly doubt that I have that many on my street. I have two right now.

So, what's the purpose? I'd say the purpose of the change is to make it easier so people don't have to come in every year just to register their dog right now for this year. And I'm asking what's the purpose of the registration itself?

To understand how many dogs we have in town. I mean, I think that's essentially the answer. Um, and if you have, you know, we have some people maybe they have more dogs. So, people come in and say they got five dogs, three dogs. But, I mean, I think that's generally the answer is just to keep an idea of how many dogs that we have. I mean, I would still say I mean, when you talk about the dog park, I think we would still want people if they want a membership at the dog park, obviously they have to go through all of that. The dangerous animal, we'll talk about that here in a little bit, but that would be an annual registration as well. Um, so that wouldn't change. Um, so I mean it's really up to you all. Um, wouldn't we want to know?

Well, I I think in a perfect world, sure. But I I think as everybody has kind of mentioned, I think there's probably more than 200 some odd dogs in the city of Oakland. I mean, would you all agree? Yes. Yeah, our registration numbers have gone up system. They busted me.

Previously, we just tracked it on a spreadsheet. I figured out how to track our compliance officers. registered or not. I'm not sure how we could track that one registration.

I see the importance of it, but unfortunately there you're not. We can't force people to do it even if it's a code thing, which I also have been spoken to by Robert that I forgot to do it two years ago. It just seems like a wasted process that if it's not being done anyway,

if the code enforcement is being enforced and we're seeing evidence of that by the growing numbers of registrations and we're going to be um and the purpose is to know how many animals animals are in the community. uh it tends me to think that we should support that registration process even though people are not participating. We enforce it. I mean we support it enforcers enforce it and um and I think that puts us on the right side of of that issue. I

think a one-time registration makes more sense than yearly. I mean, even a onetime registration though, imagine how many people here are renting. Like, cool. You have a onetime registry, but then they're gone in a year, six months, short-term lease. It's to me just as frivolous as making somebody come to pay me a dollar every year. We'll have documentation. Maybe we could give that information out when, you know, we give them their welcome packet with all the info. you need to register your dog when we get a new res. Okay.

It's my two cents. I think the other problem is is that you're also asking people to be responsible and vaccinate their pets, which is another thing that I know people are probably letting go by the wayside. Now that people are struggling more for money, I I don't think you're going to get any more out of it. Okay, three choices. One, keep it annual. Two, do a one-time registration. Or three, I guess we can NYX annual registration. I really don't care. I mean, it's not rocket science.

Two or three, not annual. Either one time or no, would be my recommendation. I'll be uh one annual registration, one registration. The way they're going, I guess. Would you would you also require pet owners to notify the city when a pet has diseased or I would only Okay. I think we had it.

If we do it one time, um, like if your dog gets out and you don't have current Overland registration on it, what happens to tags that get worn out? Can we make it easy and let it be done online?

Okay. You're just you're just confirming that when they registered they were current tag still.

Okay. I think there are some folks here wanting the one time thing. So if that's what we want to do, need a motion on the floor to move that or if we take no action that it stays annual registration. I'll make a motion for a one-time registration. Second. Uh all those in favor? I I All those opposed. Okay. Pull that vote, please. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Motion carries. Okay. And now we're going to dig into the harder topic here on animals on the dangerous animal legislation.

Okay. So, the first thing I didn't currently does have a dangerous think. That's kind of what this is really about. Um so the first one and I I broke these down for everyone there in the packet is there under 215 that we would repeal because they're no longer controlled and then severe injury is also potentially dangerous animal. We also have a different definition of severe injury. So that's what the following definition will domestic animals. We're proposing to modify definitions for um adequate food um just because we thought there was some these were a little better. Um, nothing really wrong with the ones we have. We just thought while we were doing this, we would make some of these changes. So, adequate housing, we changed to adequate shelter and kind of laid out what the requirements are there. Um, that's adequate shelter continued.

Um, adequate water, again, this is a little more robust definition uh than the one we currently have. Uh, animal control officer, we've modified that. um impound. Again, we've just kind of changed the the definitions uh secured pen. Uh really, we changed we removed the phrase dangerous or potentially dangerous uh and just put in dangerous. And then we have some new terms. So, owner and custodian, um veterinarian, animal shelter, uh chief of police, and uh impounding facility are the new kind of definitions that weren't there before. Um, so again, kind of the nuts and bolts of this um really are what animals would be what what the criteria are for classifying an animal as dangerous. Um, so the first one we have is any animal that inflicts a severe or fatal injury on a human. The term severe injury means any physical injury resulting directly from the animals bite or attack which results in broken broken bones or laceration requiring stitches or hospitalization. Um we have asked and as part of this requirement the victim would need to provide a signed physician statement to the city declaring that these um injuries are severe. Um there are a couple of different standards out there for um dog bites. Um but there there's nothing that's kind of commonly accepted. So what we have said is we need the physician to tell us whether or not these were severe or not. Um and I don't I don't think that's unreasonable. A lot of these came from u other cities in St. Louis. Uh specifically Chesterfield was one of the cities that I used uh for this. Um, so the second one is any animal that's bitten that's attacked or bitten a human or domestic animal without provocation on public or

private property other than the property of the owner or the custodian of the animal. Um, any animal which uh while on the owner or custodian's property is attacked or bitten without provocation. human being other than the owner or custodian or a member of the owner or custodian's family who normally resides at the place where the animal is kept um is kept should not say or domestic animal. Um the next one is any animal that while off the owner of custodian's property has killed a domestic animal, livestock or poultry without provocation. Um, any animal owned or harbored primarily or in part for the purpose of fighting or other animal training or any animal trained for fighting. Um, so any animal which when unprovoked chases or approaches a person on the street, sidewalk, or other public grounds or private property other than the property of the owner or custodian in a menacing fashion or apparent attitude of attack regardless of whether or not a person is injured by said animal. And then the last one is any animal with a known propensity, tendency or disposition to attack unprovoked, cause injury or otherwise threaten the safety of human beings or domestic animals. So those are essentially or not those are essentially those are the criteria that we would use to evaluate the circumstance um that we find with respect to the animal. Um so those are a little more robust than the ones we had before. Again we also eliminate the difference between potentially dangerous and dangerous. We kind of combine all of that together and it's either dangerous or it isn't.

Um so that's the criteria that we would use. So the next the next element of this is the process that we would use to investigate and potentially declare the animals dangerous. So under the new ordinance, the police department or the chief of police or his design um would be responsible for conducting the investigation. So they're taking the police report, they're doing all the the investigative aspects of the of the of of the related to the issue. um should they make a proposed classification uh that the animal should be declared dangerous, uh the city will then hold a hearing um just like kind of like we do with nuisance stuff. Um and the hearing will be before me or my designate um in my absence. Uh we will give them 10 days 10 days notice. uh during the pendency of that hearing, they must keep the animal quarantined on their property or at a veterinarian's office. Um or if the animal is is taken, you know, during as a result of the incident is taken to an animal shelter, they can leave the animal there. That's up to them, but they have to keep the dog contained. Um we'll hold the hearing. Uh once the hearing is over, the hearing officer will issue findings and facts related to the uh proposed um determination by the police department. Here's where we get um we have a question that I think the council should should consider here. The next step would be is that they can appeal my determination or the hearing officer's determination to you all. It would essentially again kind of go through the same process 10day notice blah blah. they would come and and appeal the decision to you all and then once you

all render a decision they can appeal to the circuit court. We can eliminate the step that they appeal to you all. Um, which is up to you all frankly. Um, you know, I would recommend it. Um, and have I mean, if they want to appeal that they can go to the circuit court um and and appeal the decision as opposed to coming to you. Um, not only does it kind of drag out the kind of continues this delays something that's potentially inevitable. Meanwhile, their dog's being helped somewhere or

well could be or that they're not doing the things that they're supposed to be doing in terms of getting, you know, the dog getting insurance, getting the signage up, doing all the other stuff that we'll talk about here in a minute in terms of what they have to do. Also puts us in the position of we're voting against our constituent. So, I would also like to get rid of that. also would they would be in the going through the court process anyway if their dog potentially body. Yeah. So be like a mini trial that we'd have here, right? Only to then likely have another trial. Yeah.

So we can eliminate that step. Everyone's comfortable with eliminating that. Okay. Um so then you know essentially then they could appeal my decision to or the hearing officer's decision to the circuit court. That would be the the process. Um, so there are some exemptions. Um, so if someone's committing a trespass onto someone's property, obviously, you know, and the dog attacks them, that's an exemption. Um, animals owned by the government or law enforcement agencies, so including our animals. Um, and um, the other thing is the the determination by the police department is not binding. I mean, it's it's not forever. So it's not like once you say no if something else happens that that they can change their determination uh either way. So it can it can if they say yeah we believe it's dangerous and other evidence comes up they can say okay well no now we don't because of this. So, um it's not it's not final until um I guess I you know the hearing officer would rule. Um and I would say that if we got information that contradicted something, we would certainly consider it. So, um so the next is what happens to an animal that's dangerous. So, uh any animal that's responsible for an unprovoked or severe fatal attack shall be humanely destroyed. Um, any animal responsible, and that's an unprovoked, severe, or fatal attack. Any animal responsible for a provoked, severe, or fatal attack shall be maintained as a dangerous animal pursuant to the other provisions of the chapter. And we'll talk about those here in a second. So, if the animal is declared dangerous and and we get to that point, the owner has a number of responsibilities. And I

would point out that a lot of these are already in our ordinance, so they're not really new. Um, but they're all in here. So, they would have to they would have to register the animal as a dangerous animal within five days of the classification. Uh, they'd have to do the annual registration, which again would be $50 per year, and they would have to register the animal every year. Um, if it b or scratch a human, they'd have to have the the animal impounded for 10 days for for rabies quarantine. They'd have to provide the vaccination and licensing records. They'd have to have the animal tattooed, microchipped if it already wasn't. They'd have to wear a bright orange collar with brightly colored tag indicating that the animal was dangerous. Um, if the animal got loose, um, unconfined or was missing, they'd have to notify the police department. Uh, they'd have to spay or new the animal within 30 days. Um, the reporting requirements. So, if the animal passed away or was transferred out of the city, they would have to notify the city. If they moved, u they'd have to notify the city. Or if there had been bodily injury or death caused by the animal, they'd have to notify the city as well. Uh there are certain confinement restrictions that are set set forth in the co in the in the ordinance um that they would have to adhere to. They would have to post certain signage um leash and muzzle. they would have to provide insurance in the amount of $250,000 liability insurance coverage for the animal. Uh that's a current requirement and we do require that they provide either a letter from the insurance company stating that the insurance company's aware of the animal and that the coverage held by the owner is will cover that or they have to provide a separate policy that state that's specifically for the animal. uh so that there's there's no ambiguity as to whether or not the insurance applies

and they have to provide photographs of the um of the animal as well. And again, most of those I think other than like the collar, those are all requirements that we currently have now and the $50 annual fee. Um all of those are all currently requirements that we have. So if we have an animal like that, that's what they have to do. What's that?

Yes. Yeah, we talked about this when we changed these ordinances, seven, eight years, eight years ago. Um, and I really liked that part because, you know,

Yeah. Because you know who gets hurt here is person walking down the street and you know if the dangerous dog attacks them. They have to go to the hospital and the owner's most likely a bum is that you're out of luck. That person's in pretty rough shape there. Um you know I have a kind of a unique viewpoint of this now that I have probably the least dangerous dog in the city and one of the more dangerous dogs in the city too. So, um, it's a lot of work there, but it's a lot of work to keep a dog that could be problematic, which I'm, you know, learning keeping him separate and leashed and collared and all that kind of stuff. I've dealt with one of these in my time. I'm curious as to how many how often do we get a animal deemed dangerous?

Um, I mean,

so just while she's looking that up. So, under the current scenario or Melissa makes the determination um and then they can request a hearing. Um so I think it's the current one is kind of vascalates between dangerous potentially dangerous. Um, I don't know that we've ever had one that has come to us where we have determined that the animal wasn't one or the other. Just so which again is kind of why we we decided to eliminate the whole potentially dangerous versus dangerous and consolidate all the criteria. I think some of these criteria would probably would have been more like potentially dangerous as opposed to dangerous. Um, sometimes it's kind of a gray area and I think I'm trying to think there's been

we uh plan on hiring this a dog catcher again anytime soon. Maybe I can help out on this. I think that's another question because I think we get to the issue of okay, when we I mean for the dangerous animal stuff, I don't think it's necessary. I think the question is you hire an animal control officer, the bigger question is what do you do with the animals once you get them? U I know St. Louis County right now is in having um all kinds of trouble. In fact, I think there was an article last week where the county council is, you know, not happy and um and I think that's kind of been the issue is, you know, we get the animals, what do we do with them? Because you can't

go over behind Jack in the Box to the animal place. Well, and and a lot a lot of what we found is they require us to like once we catch it, we have to keep the animal for so many days, like 10 days. Um, so it's like we don't I mean, that's been the that was the thing we were running into before is like, you know, they we would we would get an animal and then it's like we'd call somebody and they go, "Well, yeah, we'll take it, but you got to hold it for 10 days." Well, we don't have a facility. We don't have Yeah, we got holding cells, don't we? Um well we I mean one animal we kept in the sallyport for four days and then one of the officers took it. Um took it home in your office three years.

I got that little feel. We could keep it in there. Um I like dogs but I mean I think that's been the issue with the animal control officer is Yeah. I didn't I didn't know it was that what do we do with it? And I again I know the county I I talked to Kelly Milligan this afternoon. and he said, you know, anytime they've taken a dog over there, the county just stares at him and like what do you, you know, what do you want us to do with it?

Yeah. And I've given a lot of thought to that animal control officer spot because we do have these problems all the time and this is one of the problems we need to figure out. But one um you know, we hire somebody full-time that's 40 hours a week. How many hours of animal control is there per week? I would say very small. And two, you know, these issues come up 24/7. So if you had somebody working 9 to5, so to speak, we're still out of luck evenings, weekends, overnights, all that kind of stuff, too. So um you know, if there was somebody local here who could be like an on call person, that'd be great. If we can find somebody like that, I don't know. But uh yeah, the full-time spot, that's my problem with that is you probably don't have full-time amount of work for him. And two, doesn't solve the problem because a dog can be loose at all hours of the day.

I know that St. Anne does have an individual and they work with another municipality and that individual actually lives in Overland. So I was thinking about calling St. An What's that? She does a lot of work and stuff like that. I don't know. No, this is like an individual who lives in Overland, but she's employed by the city of St. An. And she works I think also like works with Charlac. I think it's Charlotte. I don't She's the one that's onology,

I think. So, yeah. So, I it's so I I thought about talking to the to Staint Anne and finding out kind of what they do and you know, if even if we had that I mean it would be something for for some of these. The one thing about this process is and and you know having the police department do it is like they're used to writing the reports and and some of these can get you know um some folks can get testy with this which I certainly understand as a dog owner myself. So um I think having them kind of do this portion of it um the report and the kind of the process I think is beneficial to us especially if we're talking about you know going to court or taking someone's dog. I want to make sure we

Melissa, for these dangerous animals, do people actually come in and and pay the annual $50 fee. And I'm sure Right. Yeah. Right now there's not a fee. Right now they have to produce the insurance. They have the pictures. We've never had to send them to that issues that we're having to improve. We're proposing improving. I think Pat just asked this, but do we know how many we have? Is that what you're generating? Okay. Is that what you're

generating? There's there's not an easy way to run a report, so I'm trying to narrow it down. I've got about five that are active. No, no. This is based on this is based on behavior and action. This is not specific. And I think you'd be surp I think you'd be surprised not all of these are what you would expect. It's based on based on action.

Most of them are. Yeah. I I know of three pretty serious issues we've had in the past three years. People getting attacked. I've you guys see me probably walking the streets all the time. I'm with my dog. We usually walk about an hour a day. We've probably gotten attacked by dogs probably 30 times.

My dog has been attacked and injured on a walk in Overland or I had to take him to the vet. And that's why we've asked for this to be where things so this section here about the owners and custodians responsibility. So, the compliance portion of this um so the animals currently subject to empoundment. Um and as Melissa said, the kind of the rest of these are not they're not currently in the ordinance, but we we're proposing to add them. It would be declared a public nuisance. Um we could also seek a court order from either the municipal court um if the municipal court is not willing to give us the order for whatever reason. Um the way the ordinance is currently drafted, we would come back to you all and request to be able to go to circuit court to get an order to have the dog removed. Um circuit court obviously is a little more involved. Um it's something that that CVR would need, city attorney would need to be involved in. Um so obviously that's, you know, we'd want to come back and say, "Look, here's the issue. Here's the, you know, here's all the circumstances of this case. Is it worth, you know, do you want us to proceed?" Um, and all of this stuff still can be submitted to the municipal court as a as a municipal charge as well. So, in addition to all of these things, they can still be cited for, you know, a municipal charge under the ordinance for, you know, having a dangerous dog, not registering, not doing this, not doing that. That's one of the things the reason we propose to implement the fee is there is a lot of there can be a lot of follow-up with with individuals who don't provide the insurance or uh that seems to be kind of the biggest bugaboo with people is the

insurance which we certainly understand but at the same time I think it was mentioned you know somebody gets hurt they're on their own and that's not really fair. Um so that's why we require the insurance. It looks like we have five right now that are classified as dangerous that are in compiance that insurance process should be going through the process.

Um and so the last thing just that we have in the current ordinance is relocation. So any man any any animal that would have been declared dangerous by another municipality and we've actually had this one time um they're not allowed to come here. So essentially what we do is we go and we get information from the other city um we review it. If it meets the you know our requirements then we tell them no you can't relocate the dog. Um, so now those those individuals actually asked before they brought the dog in. I can't guarantee that there isn't an animal here that isn't brought in from somewhere else that somebody haven't hasn't asked, but those individuals actually asked and we said no and they didn't bring the dog. So that's essentially in a nutshell what the new ordinance would do. So

and one point I did have about the circuit court route as drafted right now, it would be brought by the city clerk before you all because right now Jason is the hearing officer. So, he couldn't bring that case to say, "Hey, they're violating my order. Come, let's go to court." So, there's a division there that we're trying to kind of, you know, police chief does one part, you know, city administrator does one part, city. So,

what are we doing about the people that's out there that don't have them? You're saying you got people that's not in compliance. Because the issue right now I think is all these were going to circuit court and if circuit court or in court and if court couldn't get a resolution we all just kind of stopped. So this is kind of adding in another option similar to the nuisance provisions to kind of try to get our answer questions, comments on animals. Okay,

on to uh medical insurance.

We'll make those changes and we'll have that for you all in the next meeting. Um, so the next thing is the um medical insurance renewals and and this did not come in until Thursday morning, but I wanted to get this to you all so we could talk about it. Um, so kind of in a nutshell, we currently contract with Etna. Um, Anthem has submitted a proposal that represents an average decrease of 12% for each level of coverage compared to the renewal rates from Etna. Um the coverage level is essentially the same if not better with Anthem than it was with Etna. Um so we kind of wanted to bring this all to you. Um obviously the dental issue we fixed tonight. Vision has already been approved. Uh so those things are done. So this just kind of gives you an idea of what uh Etna's current and their renewal rates were. Um so it went up an average of about 9.2% um across the board. U Anthem's renewal rate um is obviously about a 12% on average decline compared to Antna's renewals. Um so that's really that. Um any questions about the rates? Uh and then this is the uh employee contributions for next year. So employees who are not in the bargaining unit will stay at 9010. Employees that are in the bargaining unit will go to 8515 for medical insurance uh pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement. So are there any questions about the health insurance? Um I would ask so we could kind of keep this process moving. Um can we get a motion at least like to proceed with scheduling the employee meetings and arranging all those? This will be on the next agenda. But I don't want

I'll make that motion. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? That's pretty easy call there. Better coverage for lesser cost. Okay. So, that's all I have for the work session. Okay. Great. Thanks. And uh now I'll seek a motion to go into executive session for legal and personnel purposes in accordance with our RSO 61021 subsections 1 and three. I'll make that motion. Second. Pull that vote, please. Uh Councilwoman Ruckman, yes. Councilman Robleski, yes. Councilman Furnus. Yes. Councilwoman Steel. Yes. Uh, Councilwoman Ferguson, yes. Council MO, yes. Counciloman Bernard, Councilman Bennett, we'll go straight into that as well. I'll hit the record button here.