City Council - Regular Meeting

Hey Kate, can you hear us? Yep. Wonderful. Are we ready? Okay. We'll call the city council uh meeting on May 12th, 2026 to order, please. Uh item one, can we please have a roll call? Mayor Lewis here. Chairman Prom Pashan Helman here. Council member Clark here. Council member Solomonov here. Council member Juel here. All right. Thank you very much. Uh, item two, communications. Are there any communications? I have no written communications. Item three, city manager report, please.

All right. Good evening. All right. Okay. Um, a couple of things. Um, I don't have any real updates to Olive Crossing, uh, except Paris Spaghette did open. Uh they have opened to great fanfare. Almost all the comments online have been positive. Uh lines have been long. Uh but um all accounts the food is delicious and people are happy. So if you have not um gone, uh I would encourage everyone to go. Uh Tropical C tropical smoothie cafe is open. They are doing a ribbon cutting. We just were told this uh this morning uh that they're doing a ribbon cutting on Friday, this coming Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. So, we would encourage everyone to go out um and support them at their ribbon cutting. So, for this particular strip center, there is only one vacant tenant space left. Uh everybody else is open. So, Brass Tap, Paris Baguette, Tropical Smoothie Cafe, uh and Verizon uh are all open. And then uh lot five uh in the words of the developer uh big companies take a long time. So they are still waiting for uh the actual you know signed lease to to come back. I can confirm that um Carlos's team are getting a lot of sort of what we would call due diligence requests uh from uh from a third party that relates specifically to lot 5. So, uh

that is typically a positive sign. Somebody is checking on uh what is the zoning, what are the building requirements. Um, so that's usually progress and and a positive sign that we'll be able to announce something shortly. Uh, lot six, I don't have any um updates. Bomber is still taking dirt uh off of that lot. And then again, lots one and two are complete and lot four is also complete. upcoming events. This weekend is the citywide yard sale. Um so if you would like to register and be put on the map, um you can do that. There is a QR code down there at the bottom. Um feel free to scan that uh and register. You can register for one day, you can register for both days. It's both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Uh Camp Five Oaks. Again, we would encourage everyone to um send their kids to summer camp here with us. It's going to be at Five Oaks. Uh it starts June 8th. There are eight weeks. They go from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Um and afterare is available. And then Price Road, just a brief update on what's going on on Price Road. Um Amron is doing their project. This is their uh electrical upgrade to accommodate the Avenue apartments that are in University City. They need to build a more robust uh electrical infrastructure in this area. And so what they have been working on now is they have been digging large pits to put uh

very large vaults in and then they are putting the uh conduits between the vaults. And so you will see them working um in one section. They'll put the vault in, they'll move uh northward, they'll dig another section, put the conduit in. Um so they they have been pretty diligent. We've been pretty impressed with um how they have been working. And then once all the vaults are in and the conduits are in, then you'll see crews installing the electrical wires through the conduit and then making the connections um into the vaults. So they expect the work to continue uh until the end of June, assuming that um they don't have any significant weather delays or they don't run into any um difficulty. They're going to be doing some work probably potentially under the the bridge there on North Price. And so that could be um you know they could run into some complications there as well as they're going to be setting a vault uh near Old Bottom and Price in the city water transmission lines also run through there. So, uh hopefully they don't hit those um and they don't run into uh any complications. But

what apartment complex is this for? And what's that located? Avenue. It's in U City on Delmare. So, right right here. No, it's the big ones at 170. The big ones at 170 in Delmare. Oh, those big Yeah. Which is interesting that they need it now because it's been lot it's been open forever. But I Maybe it's running. Maybe they're shorting is also a follow-up question because we discussed this. The expectation is that Amarind will repave that entire not both sides but just the one side. Correct. I was wrong about that. Oh.

So, um typically we would come back through and and repave the entire width, but because we have done the the grant um it doesn't make sense for us to repave that and then tear it all up to repave it with a grant. So the expectation is Amarind will pave the trench and a foot on either side and then when we get hopefully the STP grant then the whole street will be redone. So and the timing for that I guess could be there's no way to time all of that together.

I I guess is right now it's I drove there today and it was paved but it's bumpy. I would say it wasn't leveled. I don't Is that what we're expecting or No, they'll often um in order to like keep the road open and moving forward um they may, you know, just throw something on there, right? And then, you know, Bruce will come back through and kind of inspect and make sure that it is it's good. But otherwise, it's all every every place that they have dug would be a big uh steel plate. And I know there are several of those. So, okay. Um, yeah. Are they also going to be going down Delmare or I'm

No, they're um it's my understanding. So, they go past Delmare, which is into U city, and then they're going to be going um kind of westward through that residential area that's not in all of that to connect up with whatever electrical infrastructure they have back there. Okay. Okay. Well, yeah, that's I'm as long as we'll be able to kind of level it out at least. It's fine. I understand. But it's um Yes, the paving they're in there is still a little pumpky. It's still a little little little little fun. It is similar like uh water

the water company came to fix a leak underground on my street and we just paved that entire area. And when they came in and fixed that whatever it was underneath when they repaved it, it was crap. I mean, it was bumpy and they left the chat rock uneven. And when they laid it out, it was a mess. And so, we're still arguing with them to come and fix it. Fix it. You know, cuz it it's terrible. Yeah. It's the asphalt is still warm, you know, and they just came and messed up all that hard work. Yeah. They um they seem to find the newly paved roads.

Yeah. They look for it. Yes. So hopefully now that this is done and if we get the STP project and when we finish it and we put the new asphalt down on price through the STP project, they won't need to dig in it. Sure. Okay. At least for a while. All righty. They keep that dream alive.

I know. Um and then of course we do have commission seats uh open and we are taking applications for interested residents. Uh we have openings on the parks and rec commission planning and community design the zoning board of adjustment and the economic development commission. So those who are interested please scan the QR code. And again we're taking applications uh till about midJune. So, if you have friends or neighbors uh who are interested in serving on any of these commissions, please send them our way. And for PCDC, it's a specific role if I'm correct. Right. And uh

um it's a preferred uh engineer. Yeah. Um, but I think we would also take I think there are enough specific positions like in the code it says we have to have at least four and I think we have okay at least four but I did confirm that on the P last PCD meeting and they don't have to but it's preference. Yeah, gotcha. Do we have any interest so far? I haven't seen anything I haven't seen anything come in. Jennifer Conrad says two have come in. We've had two applications. I think one was just for parks and the other one was for everything that's open. Y Okay. She is the official keeper of all applications.

So, we need at least two more. Yeah. Everyone put your feelers out there. Yeah. Something on Facebook. Maybe like personal Facebook. Oh, okay.

Yeah. We put it out on Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then they are we're doing the annual kind of spring early summer blood drive um here at city center on May 28th from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. So, we would encourage everybody um who is able to come out and uh donate to the American Red Cross. And then this is my plug for all of that weekly um which comes out on Mondays and has good information about things that are uh upcoming in the next week.

Jennifer, real quick, um the date for the blood drive said Wednesday, May 28th. Is it on the Wednesday or that it's Thursday is the 28th? So it's the was curious on the actual date of the blood drive, but it's it's the 28th. It's the 28th. The date is correct. The date Thursday. Yeah. Okay. Thank you for catching up.

Um and then here's your upcoming meeting schedule. And then uh the last thing I have is we have two staff um two staff members who have left us. Uh Amina, our court administrator, her last day was Monday. She um took a new position for the city of Webster Groves. It's closer to her home, probably significantly closer to her home. Um, and then Jack Carswwell uh is is leaving us. He is uh he's going to go work for his dad, his his dad's business. Um, so he uh he wants to go work for his dad. So,

what kind of business is that? Uh, it's a dispatching like a trucking dispatching business down in South County. So, um, his dad, his dad, I guess, has had, uh, some turnover. Um, and so Jack is is gonna go work for his dad. Yeah. Okay. That's admirable. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's all I have unless you have any questions. Anyone have any questions, the council? Had none.

All right. Okay. We will move on to um item four, city council liaison reports. So obviously each council member uh just give an update on what you if they attended any sessions or they have anything else to report. So start with council member Solomonov. I have not attended any sessions since the last time we met but um I know we're for EDC we're trying to figure out a new date to reschedu from the previous meeting that was cancelled due to the story. Okay. Uh Council Member Clark, I have nothing to report at this time. All right.

Council member Jigo. Um, I attended uh last week's PCDC meeting and we talked about kind of the open spot. One of the other interesting things that came up was this new luxury car condo that could be a possibility. They uh proposed that and gave a little bit of a presentation on it. It's very interesting building be definitely a new use for the industrial park. Uh how many cars could they host? They have 18 uh spots and then sometimes people will double it up and make two, you know, like you, you know, they're willing to get that close to each other.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's And apparently people really deck these out, you know. Uh so it's a storage facility for luxury cars. It's like a storage facility clubhouse kind of thing. You can hang out there maybe. Yeah. There's like a big kind of reception area or community space around talk about cars. Hey. Yeah. Hey, cool. It's a good business. Works. It's a good looking. It's very similar to um the individuals who came and spoke to Carlos and I I don't know at least a year ago. It's almost like a you almost kind of buy a condo.

Yeah. for your vehicle and then like uh council member Jurgrell says that you get to deck it out um however you want and the concept you bring your kids you spend Saturday there you can you know have food and so it becomes a community yes there would be some issues that they're going to have to deal with because it's a a condo you know type you know setting where we don't have that situation in the industrial setting. So they'd have to work through some special use. I mean, as long as no one's sleeping there, I guess that's the, you know, thing. They would probably just not allowed, you know, no bedrooms or, you know, things like that. No. Okay.

I'm sure somebody could sleep on the couch, but we shall see.

Okay. Um, chairman prom. Um, I just wanted to invite the council to uh cool city's STL meeting that workshop rather that's coming up on Wednesday, May 27th hosted at Five Oaks on Warren. Uh, the topic is show me less plastic. Um and it's about plastic pollution and concrete strategies that municipalities can take to reduce plastics um plastic use in general, but also um reducing plastic pollution for the health and well-being of our communities um and the planet. So that's Wednesday, May 27th from 9 to noon at Five Oaks on Warren. And I think I assume you saw the email from the Amron representative.

Yes.

Okay. Good deal. So, thank you. Uh for myself, uh I attended the pension board meeting, first one. Um no major updates, just kind of normal presentation to understand where we're going and how we're tracking. And the only thing I'll mention is obviously the council was at the party in the park uh this last was that Friday night. Uh well attended. It had to move to Five Oaks because of uh the pending weather, which was a good call cuz it rained the last half hour at Stacy Park. But I would say the number of people came through, had many, many people thank us, loved loved that we were doing this, loved the city did this, a lot of pet rocks were made. Um, you know, learned a lot about how getting the backs off of eyeballs is very difficult and council member Trigal has skills. But, uh, I thought it was great and I'm glad the whole council could come out and do it. So, it was great. I think um Beverly had someone at the front desk with a counter. Um so probably close to 400.

Yeah. Wow. Folks at I mean we shifted it one day before and you know things like that. It was good advertising for Five Oaks too I thought. So I think everyone had a great time and DJ on the spot showing up. That was great. So he was great. Yeah. Especially at last minute. So okay. Anyone have anything else?

All right. Number five hearing from citizens since we do have someone online. Uh this is the portion of the agenda where anyone present or in person may virt 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 the city council. We will take speakers in person first followed by online. Uh if you're in person, please complete a speaker card and give it to the clerk. And if you're online and wish to speak, please use the raise your hand feature and you'll be added as a speaker. For all speakers, we ask that you state your name and address for the record prior to delivering delivering your remarks. And as a reminder, this is for you to speak to the council, but we generally will not engage in conversation. We'll we'll take that um and go from there. So, is no one in person? Is anyone online wish to speak? Please uh click the raise your hand feature. Michael, I think you're the Michael, correct? No, you're not. Okay. All right. Well, there will be a second opportunity if uh anyone wants to speak and we'll we'll address it then. All right. Moving on to item six, Bill 3062. Can we please have uh the title be read and um and yeah,

uh bill 3062, an ordinance approving an intergovernmental agreement with the city of Clayton for a fire authority feasibility study. First reading. And do we have a presentation?

Yes, a very very brief um presentation. Um so as we talked about the um at the work session, so there are a number of cities in St. Louis County uh who have municipal fire departments who are talking about commissioning a study to look at the creation of a fire authority. So this fire authority would be sort owned and operated by the participating municipalities. So each municipality would pay X amount of money to operate this fire authority. Uh but it would be a way to uh look at combining fire services because the costs of providing fire service are very large. Um for the city of Alvette, it's a third of our budget. Um and that is typical of many cities who provide fire services. It's also a recognition that our fire departments really do work together. There is a extensive unit of mutual aid. Uh if there is a a fire in the city of Alvette, units from Leoo, University City, Clayton, Richmond Heights, uh the Crecore Fire District are all going to come and help our firefighters um tackle that emergency in the same way that we respond to other areas as well. So the study um the cost of the study would be shared by the participating cities. To date I can say that there are five cities who have committed to studying to uh committed to participating in the study. There are uh a number of others who are still considering it just like the city

council um including University City. Brentwood has it on their agenda uh on Monday. uh I think Leoo has it on their agenda as well. So as the number of participating cities goes up then the uh cost per city of course uh would go down. So the study uh would look at a variety of things including uh revenues and expenses uh that all the participating cities have now and then what it would take for this fire authority, staffing and operations for a fire authority, equipment, capital purchasing schedules, benefits including pensions, um and quite frankly whether or not this even makes sense to do. So, it's it's sort of that we have this question, will it work? We need a professional to come in, look at it, and tell us whether or not it it would work, how we should structure it, what it would cost. So, the city of Clayton has agreed to be that point of point of contact city because somebody has to be the one to issue the RFP. Somebody has to be the one that um kind of talks to the consultant. You know, initially there would be a steering committee of uh 10 people uh two elected officials, two city managers, two fire uh people and two finance people and two union folks. So I think that's 10. um who would be this group that really kind of works closely with the the consultant. So what um what's before the council is approving this intergovernmental agreement uh with the city of Clayton

and would um allow the city of Alvette to participate in the study. it does not uh commit all of that to participating in the fire authority. If the study comes back and says this is a good idea, that would still be a separate uh decision by the council. Um but it would provide the city of Alvette a seat at the table as this discussion amongst our uh fellow cities with municipal fire departments is happening. So, this is a first reading. Um, not asking for any action from the council today. It will be back on the agenda um in two weeks for a second reading and a vote. But I can certainly um answer any of your questions. And attached to uh this document on the agenda is both the intergovernmental agreement as well as the draft RFP which would provide the scope of work. What would we be asking the consultant you know to study? What's the total cost of the the study?

So, they're estimating the total cost would be about 150,000. And so, we're estimating 20,000 per city based on um who I know is already in. So, the more cities that come in, the our cost would go down. It could also be that you know with seven six to seven cities it might not be 150,000 total right it might be less. So thought I saw on exhibit A it said something about 40,000

right? So exhibit A says that the maximum would be 40,000 but that is assuming that there were um fewer cities participating. Yeah, I had a similar question where the 20,000 comes in. But yeah. Yeah. So that's how I got to the 20,000. So 40 for the max 40,000 bless you assumes you know four committed cities right at this 150,000 and then I was who do I know that's already in right and so dividing that into the 150. Okay.

Yep. Do you have a sense if we'll know from other cities um if you know if others have committed by the time this comes back around to count council in two weeks? You mean other than the five that I know have committed? That's right. Uh it's possible. It's going to depend on when their meeting schedules align with our meeting schedules. Um but we would the city managers have been talking about it. So, um, we will continue to talk about it as we are all trying to get that information and because our councils are asking all the same questions. Okay. Thank you.

If a city chooses not to participate, are they still going to study that city? Likely not. Okay. unless it would be just something um they likely wouldn't get anything that isn't sort of public data. They might say it would be great if this other city over here joined in because it would be, you know, contiguous or it would make more sense geographically. Um but they would not do any type of indepth analysis on it. But anything kind of public that they could get a hold of or understood.

Yeah.

All right. Uh questions? Anything else? All right. There will be a second bill reading for this on May 26. Okay. Moving on. Item number seven, back to hearing from citizens. So, same uh requests apply. So if you are online and you would like to make a uh statement or you know come before the council, please raise your hand or ask to have your hand raised and we'll promote you. All right, seeing none, we'll move on to item number eight. Uh review and acceptance of minutes. I'll check anyone reviewed them and have any corrections to the minutes. No. Okay. I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes.

I'd like to make a motion to approve the council minutes from April 28th, 2026. A second. All right. Uh, can we please hold council? Council member Dragal. Yes. Council member Solomonov. Yes. Council member Clark. Yes. Chairman Prom Pashan Helman. Yes. Mayor Lewis. Yes. The motion is passed. Excellent. All right. Uh, item nine, city attorney's report. No report this evening. All right. Well, with that being said, then we will adjourn this meeting at 7:28 tonight. Everyone have a good night. Well, I'm going to like you. You was mayor.