County Council - Regular Meeting

I should just give you that. You're good at giving that.

What did you want to do?

She's going to be very public here.

So it'll be these two.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hey, Joe, can you make sure you pull your mic? Thank you.

Oh, man. Were you at your right? Okay. yeah we've got some we got rain the slowest minute of the day

Good evening everyone welcome to the Monday July 13th Saint Charles County Council meeting we will start off tonight with our invocation chaplain bill Shockley from the Saint Charles County Police Department is here with us tonight always good to see you chaplain and our pledge of allegiance led by councilman Terry Hollander please stand and remove your caps.

Jeremy father we're glad to be here today we just hope that you will guide this group thoughts or ideas and decisions abundantly blessed who all are present. Come be with us, inspire us, lead us in this time as we're together and help us to make decisions that are right for you and right for everyone in this county. We pray for these things in the precious name of Jesus Lord, our savior. Amen.

thank you may be seated please call the roll councilman swanson here ma'am councilman brazel yes councilman hammond here councilman elam here councilman hollander here councilwoman york Here Councilman you're here here.

Councilman York as you can hear is at the meeting she is virtual so be patient with us tonight, there's a little bit of a delay so Patty we heard you there. So we're all good we'll start off with continue to use permits. This is bill for introduction and it is bill 5506.

Bill number 5, 5, 0, 6, requested by Michael Herbert sponsored by Joe brazel. An ordinance granting conditional use permit CUP 26-03 for buildings, structures, or open spaces for conducting weddings and or wedding receptions or other private parties to Dan Lauderdale and Kelly Lauderdale, property owners, and Bax Engineering Charles Wardle, applicant. Do solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.

I do. Hello Robert, hi, my name is Robert Myers on the planning zoning division director for Saint Charles County want to make just a very brief presentation about this case this application. On highway DD just south of highway D may know a lot of real estate subdivision you may know that there's a new outdoor storage lot just north of Lauderdale state subdivision for our views and trailers. between lauderdale state subdivision and highway. There are 7 acres and proposed at that location is an outdoor event venue it sounds like it's mostly for weddings and wedding receptions. Again at 7 acres it fronts on a large pond that shared you know backs up to this pond that's next to the subdivision or in this residential subdivision. This differs a little bit because it's an outdoor venue. There's not really any indoor space other than I think there's a bride suite. What is proposed is it shows on the concept plan what is labeled as an outdoor or a concrete dance floor. And then additionally, there's a large tent. It's covered. It's a permanent tent. It's not a temporary. It's more of a permanent type. So again, the proposal is for Events for up to 150 attendees. There's a parking area on an adjacent lot that's also under common ownership outlaw be. And this would serve. The proposed wedding venue. Access will come off of highway D D 2 inferences the the driveway is somewhat narrow so I think it have one way the one way in one way out. The Planning Zoning Commission held a public hearing on June 17th, and there was one speaker in support and none expressed opposition. We have three letters of opposition on file. And following the close of the public hearing, the Planning Zoning Commission recommended approval with certain conditions to address land use impacts. County staff recommends denial based on the fact that this is an outdoor event venue including wedding receptions and the nearest residents will be 300 feet away across this open pond. So there's not really a break in between the residents and the proposed outdoor wedding venue other than there's a landscape buffer that's proposed right along the edge of the lake. Tonight we have Dan Lauderdale who is the applicant, and he can present details on his proposal. And I see that he has a concept plan that he can show you that illustrates the layout of this proposed venue.

Any questions for Robert? Seeing none, if you'd introduce the applicant.

Sure. Dan Lauderdale.

and I will swear you in do solemnly swear that you will tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God I do go ahead sir okay so if we look at the concept plan we'll see the seven acres depicted there in color we'll see the lake which is the three acre lake and We talked about there not being a buffer between the development and the subdivision, but in fact there's a 12 acres between us and Waterdale Estates. I own the 12 acres on the other side of that lake. So there has been question about the parking lot. There's a gravel drive that comes off of it. Currently it does connect to Lauderdale Lane, but it's not in use for this development. It was put in place by my dad who uses the parking lot for farm implements and things of that matter. So the proposal is to enter the venue there to the north side. It will be entry only. I spoke with Paul Graham from MoDOT. He has approved my site distance for entry only there. We're just going to come one way into the venue and then once people are dropped off at the venue, People will park in the parking lot and then they'll be able to pull in and out of the south entrance. There's gates that will close off once the event starts. Both the gates on the north end will close and the gates on the south end will close. There will be no access to the subdivision and there'll be entry and exit from the south.

Any questions for the applicant? Seeing none, thank you. We'll open it up for a public hearing if anybody has any questions if you have a seat will call you back up after the public hearing. Our first speaker is Charles Wardle. Sorry to catch off guard there Charles you get to kick us off.

I was actually supposed to give the presentation. But you called them up and said so I just got to sit back and relax.

Yeah, what are your comments.

do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you god i do my name is charles wardle i'm with backs engineering 221 point west boulevard st charles missouri 63301 i'm here to answer any engineering questions for this development all right any questions for the engineer seeing none thank you sir that was quick next speaker bill florence

Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you God.

My name is Bill Florence. I reside at 3 Lauderdale Lane, directly across the pond from the proposed venue. Our home is approximately 500 feet from the venue. We have an unobstructed view of all sights and sounds and anything that comes from the venue. The sleeping quarters for our house are on the venue side of our home. We have witnessed parties there before, and we can hear everything. We can see everything. My wife and I wish to ask that you deny this conditional use permit based on the fact that this is being billed as a nighttime venue. My wife and I do not in principle have a problem with it being used during the daytime But when it comes to nighttime, we want to enjoy our right to peace and quiet Reason we bought the property in the first place. And so that is why I'm up here today asking for that very well any questions Seeing none.

Thank you next speaker John Vogel

You solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help you God.

Good evening council members. My name is John Vogel. I live at 49 Marlin Drive, which is just to the northwest of this project location. I have two major concerns with the project. One is there's already substantial noise in this part of ST Charles County from traffic on D and double D. The August a bush shooting range is nearby. We hear gunfire from that. 6 or 7 days a week. The August a Bush brewing company and polo fields off of any road when they have events they have a loudspeaker that projects amplified noise. You can hear clear as bell it's approximately 3,400 feet from our property this venue is less than that at 3,000 feet from our property. There's just a lot of noise already we feel that this is just going to add to the noise pollution in this part of the county. The other concern I have is from a safety standpoint. As you saw on the the entrance and exit on the to this venue. If you're familiar with that part of highway double the there's a severe dip in highway double be there. The North entrance is at the top of the dip on the North side of the South entrance to this venue is the top of the dip on the South side. It basically creates a blind spot when you're coming up the Hill for people that are that are out there that live in the area, they're familiar with that, but attracting people that may be coming to a wedding venue, it creates a potential safety hazard on the highway. Magnify that with the potential for alcohol consumption, magnify that with the potential for nighttime lighting that may distract drivers on Highway D. I think it's just the wrong place for a venue like this from a safety standpoint. So thank you. Thank you.

Yvonne Dale.

Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you that.

My name is Yvonne deal I'm at 49 Marlin drive close to this facility. And my comments are brief I'm not in favor of the facility due to the excess noise that will occur from operating a facility like this. and negative impact on the role character of the area due to this noise.

Thank you thank you.

Leonard Wilson.

Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you that I do.

I live on 97 Marlin drive. And I think John took a couple of my talking points away. I've lived there since probably older than most you guys have been out there for 76 years. Shooting range put up with that. Billy Bush. Now this dog kennel they're talking about. It's just way too much noise. Oh and one other thing. Back in the 70's, they used to play horseshoes at D&DD. And where I live at, I can sit in my yard at night, I can hear the shoes banging off the pegs and guys talking. So what's it going to be like with dogs? It's just too much. Thank you.

Arne Deanoff.

you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you guys i do thank you mr chairman members of the council my name is arnie c a c deanoff i am the lone speaker that attended the planning zoning commission meeting back in june i was in high favor of this sought out property i first want to talk about the developer The developers been before the planning and zoning Commission through this process and through the Council on several occasions during the last decade. The developers a man of his word. He says what he's what he says he's going to do. There have been no violations that I know of from the county against the owner or this property. He builds a high quality construction of residential development. Those homes go for a pretty penny and continue to increase in value. I believe that this lake aesthetically pleasing. This property belongs to the developer and I think that we cannot hamper or impede a private property owner from enjoying their rights. And I believe that there's enough conditions and restrictions. If you read the packet that were placed by cleaning and zoning, there were a lot of them that were amended. And I think for constitutional and humane reasons, which were too restrictive, like the number of hours, the number of months during the year, I don't think that we could tell property owners what to do with their property. If they're not competing or hurting others I think that they need to enjoy their own property as they see fit and as they please. The first issue I think that instead of limiting this applicant to I believe less than 6 months out of the year that we allow this applicant to operate 12 months out of the year if he sees fit. The hours of operation I think should be can to our consistent with other defiance in Augusta type wedding venues and entertainment venues and I think that when people go to a wedding they have expectations that they're at least going to be there till 11 o'clock p.m. So I would ask to that the events not mature where that ended with the planning zoning Commission I forgot my notes, but we need to make sure that that wedding venue is till 11 o'clock. I believe that there's enough restrictions in the conditions that no amplified music will stop, I believe, at 1030 or 1045. There's a condition in there that no fireworks, and I'm in agreement with that, and no fireworks shall take place. The parking spaces parking is an issue, and I think the developer has admitted that I think the developer as he's testified before the planning zoning Commission is looking to add additional parking spaces meet the Americans with Disabilities ADA requirements, both the federal code in the county code. The limited the gas is a condition and I believe the limited guess is the 150 it's because of the parking issues. I think that it's going to be a small event in terms of most wedding most weddings I've been to start at 200 and go to 400 people. Let's go through the restrictions in the application. Number one is the site plan substantially conforming to the C U P concept plan be approved by St. Charles County Community Development Department. The second condition is the applicant shall obtain all applicable permits from St. Charles County Community Development Department and any other agency is required. 3 all stirred lighting for the conditional use permit to utilize full cutoff light fixtures and no way from exterior late picture show seed 0.5 foot candles as measured at the property lines for the applicant show furnish approval from Missouri Department of Transportation allowing 2 entrances off of Missouri highway double D. 5 outdoor events show Kirk shall be limited to a April 15th through October 15th and I would encourage and ask the council to lift that and give that to the discretion of the applicant number six no amplified music shall be allowed on monday tuesday wednesday or thursday i hate to tell you this folks you can ask your county counselor that it's unconstitutional to limit a number of days out of the week for amplified music I think that the person needs to have it under certain decibels we have an ordinance on file that the county police they have them the patrol cars a decibel meter, but I think that we need to treat this property owners and adult and I think that he's going to use his best judgment and so I would ask you live that that there be amplified sound 7 days a week if the owner chooses And I think there needs to be a cap of that time for inside music. The doors need to be shut and there shouldn't be amplified outdoor music. Number seven, amplified sound should only be allowed between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Amplified sound shall only be allowed between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Sunday. Again, that's an unconstitutional requirement of the property owner. If they want to have a wedding at let's say 11 a.m. which the weddings that are 11 noon, I think it's highly restricting the property owner to see fit with it on how to run its business and I would ask that the Council amend that to be 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday and amplified sound should be allowed 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sunday. Number 8, events on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday shall be limited to 35 attendees. Events on Friday, Saturday and Sunday shall be limited to 150 attendees. Again, I think that it should be carte blanche, 150 attendees, 7 days a week. I don't think that we should be limiting or having unfit restrictions. We don't do that to other businesses that have come before you in the past. And we're setting a bad, illegal precedent in my opinion. Number 9, any outdoor lighting associated with entertainment acts including but not limited to G J's bands or other entertainers shall be allowed only during hours permitted via condition number 7. Number 10, there should be no firework displays of this location. I think that that's a given because of the closeness of the residences number 11, no conditional use for mentally in active use until such times as the above conditions have been been met. So I would ask that you unanimously approve of this conditional use permit with the recommended conditions that I put forward. I think this Council needs to treat everybody on the same even keel playing field. I think sometimes we're becoming to prohibitive to intrusive in the private property owner right people getting ourselves into a lot of legal issues and unconstitutional issues of treating one property differently than another property. This is one point one 7 acres I think it might be one point 7, 3 acres at the look at the application again, but he's only taking up approximately 3,000 acres when you add up all the buildings and 10 space. And I would ask for unanimous approval of the Council. Thank you Mister chairman.

Thank you next week.

The final speaker. Go ahead, Robert.

I apologize. But I wanted to state for the record that the recommended conditions that were read by Mr. Deanoff were not the conditions that are in the bill before you. Those were drafted and suggested by county staff for the review of the Planning and Zoning Commission. But the Planning and Zoning Commission went over the conditions. They made a recommendation for approval with the many conditions that are in your bill. For instance, there's nothing in the bill that has limitation on the number of or the the months that can operate for example.

And the just to be clear. The acreage is how big so 7.1 acres for 2 lots of 1.7 acres right. Thank you sure. I asked Mister water so yeah, we can ask you to come back up have the applicant come back up.

So The slaughter you had you had to 2 billions on the corner D and double day. There were 2 billings are purchased and what were the conditions of those bill.

I've been on this property since 1983. And since 1983, the buildings on the corner looked pretty rough. You know, at times we wondered if there was somebody in there or not. They were vacated. They were abandoned. They were a lot of deferred maintenance. The property owner, once I'd created the development of Lauderdale Estates, had asked if I was interested in the corner. For the preservation of the community, not knowing what could go there, I did purchase those properties from the property owner. I renovated those to Class A space. I mean, they're beautiful pieces of property. They're made the same. They looked almost the same as what they used to look like, only they're brand new. I mean, they're the best you can get, really. You know, I want to bring that up, you know, my my whole goal is always to stand up for the community and do the best for the people in the area. The development that I had created, Lauderdale Estates, was done really to honor my family. You know, I I just I just couldn't imagine doing something to the property that would affect the community negatively. I still own 10. Well, 11 properties that can be sold as lots. I'm the majority property owner and to do anything that I think would negatively affect values would be bad interest for me and my family. When it comes to the location of the venue, I specifically did a boundary adjustment over the last year to separate these two lots. I combined three lots instead of instead of letting each of these parcels remain small. I have basically two three and a half acre lots adjusted everything so that there is a buffer 12 acres between me and Lauderdale Estates. that there is a lake but there's for separate lots that are better there there is a tree buffer between my property, the venue and and the community there is one open lot and you know I I had proposed to put Arbor by these down the water to Elaine to at a buffer, but it's not on the actual development site so I don't know that it's something that matters, you know. That lot is the lot that I have plans to build a really nice home. That would create a huge buffer also. I don't feel as though I have any intent to have noise out later than 10. I expect that my contract will state that it's required for amplified music to be turned off at 10 p.m., earlier if possible. People may still be there getting ready to leave, but again, no amplified music. There is a restriction under condition number five that says that I shouldn't start amplified music until 12. But I do have a best friend whose dad is a scout leader who does from time to time bring his people out fishing and does have a microphone that he speaks to the children because they may be in different parts of the lake. You know, I would hate to be restricted to not allow him to be able to do that because, in a sense, it is amplified sound. You know, I imagine 10 a.m. is fine. I don't know that he's been there at 7 or anything, but, you know. For the most part, my goal is to make sure the community stays top niche. I don't have any intent on making anything negative in a sense. I was an advocate against the parking lot, but as some of these people had said, there is noise in the area. There is a gun range. There is a dog park. There is Billy Bush's community. There is loud roadways coming down. Highway DD and to help. So often that I've added fountains so at the venue, I've started installing fountain, there's a big fountain in the lake, there's a fountain at the stop of this cascading staircase. There's there's a lot of offers to keep not only noise down that could happen in my facility, but also noise down in the surrounding area from the cars racing down the highway and such so you know that I do think that this is the best for the community. I think that this is a great asset to the community. I think that from highway D and highway DD go heading south on highway DD. I've done a lot for the community bettering the landscape from the 2 buildings that I developed on the corner from the entrance to water bill states to the manicuring of the lot that sets on the front of the of the subdivision which we don't intend on ever having a someone build know that that's all my buy and hold so that I can help the community stay top notch and this venue just the next step there was another neighboring property that I purchased to help give me the entry and exit, the second, the south entry and exit, so that we can access that back parking lot.

So the properties he's talking about, they were pretty rundown. He fixed them up. They look really nice now. And so those are two commercial. And then you've got the storage lot behind it that's commercial. So basically, he's got three contiguous properties that are commercial. So I think this use is the last of any kind of evil you might want to consider. And he cleaned it up really nice. It looks park-like setting. So yeah.

Any other questions. Yes.

Have you had any events there. Well, my son is my son is 17 and so my I own the property on the lake and so we have had not not events like like weddings, you know, but I have had birthday parties.

Because looking at the images that were provided within the packet looks like I'll call it the outside dance floor looks pretty finished.

It is nice.

So you've had no events there whatsoever?

No.

No paid events?

No.

No. Okay.

Any other questions? So it's going to be a tent, a permanent tent that's there?

Well there is a, it's actually a temporary tent. We had talked with the staff about taking it down every six months for cleaning and I I believe that they had requested that I have a temporary structure permit applied for every six months. So rather than a permanent tent like you'll find at some of the wineries that are of aluminum structure and fastened to the concrete, this is not. This is a very nice top of the line wetting tent that is held down by concrete balusters and strapped. So it can be removed. I can replace the vinyl. add to the underneath of the tent you know to beautify it there's skirting or tenting around the sides of it so that we can enclose it and have uh air condition but again it is a removable tent it's it's you could you could sell you could put on the corner and sell fireworks under it too okay thank you very much yes sir

So that will close the public hearing on conditional use 5506. We'll move on to Bill 5507.

Bill number 5507, requested by Michael Hurlburt, sponsored by Joe Brazel. An ordinance granting a conditional use permit, CUP 26-04, for a private school to Glenna McCreary, property owner, and K-9 Consulting and Training LLC applicant.

I need to be sworn in. What's that? Do I need to be sworn in? No, you've already been sworn in. You're good. You've been sworn in, now you can be sworn out.

Okay, thank you. Just kidding. My name is Robert Myers. I'm the Planning and Zoning Division Director for St. Charles County, and this is a conditional use permit proposal not too far from where we just talked about. We were just talking about just south of of the intersection of highway D and D D and instead we're talking about just west of the intersection of highway D and D D. This is a 3049 highway D and what's proposed is a private school technically, but specifically it's a proposed dog training academy. You may remember that several months ago, a similar proposal came before you as a conditional use permit It was classified at that time as a kennel. And the reason is that under the county zoning, a kennel includes dog boarding and breeding. And at that time, it was viewed as fitting within that use category. But after going through the process, which it was denied by the county council for that conditional use permit, And after speaking with the applicant further, we got really a better understanding of what's proposed. And so what's actually taking place is that dogs are being trained, and also the dog owners are being trained. After the denial of that conditional use permit, the applicant has been training the dogs at people's homes, and the dogs and the dog owners. And according to the applicant, half the work is getting the dog owners trained as well as the dogs. The applicant would like to take that work that he's doing now at people's homes and bring it together at this location on three acres again at 3849 Highway D. A private school such as a dog training academy or dance academy or there's all sorts of similar uses anything from hairdressing school, etc. That's a condition use permit in the a cultural zoning district where this is located. The proposal is to operate on the property for up to 22 dogs and the dog owners to be trained. Unlike the last proposal that we were just talking about this would be in work indoor facility where dogs would be yes, dogs would be bored overnight, but the primary activity would be the training There will also be an outdoor dog run. But it would include a climate control building with sound muffling, as I understand it, in the design of the building. So just to be clear, this is not a kennel. So it would not allow for, it would not authorize dog breeding. And the dogs will only be kept indoors while they're being trained. excuse me, kept indoors overnight while they're being trained. The Planning and Zoning Commission at their June 17th meeting, there were two speakers in favor of this and there were none opposed. We do have 21 letters of support on file and two letters of opposition on file. The Planning and Zoning Commission recommended in favor with a vote of 9 approval and 0 against with specific conditions that are before you in the bill. The Planning and Zoning Commission, excuse me, Planning and Zoning Division staff likewise recommends approval as complying with the Conditional Use Permit criteria that we always use as our standard for review and recommendations. Thank you.

Any questions for Robert? Would you introduce the applicant, please?

Sure. Glennon McCreery, Is the applicant and property owner. You be sworn in.

Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God. I do.

Good afternoon. And thank you for consideration, my name is Glennon McCreery and I'm here today to respectfully request your support for my conditional use permit to operate a private canine education and training facility on my property in Defiance. At the planning and zoning meeting on June 17th, the committee proposed conditions detailed in section 4 of bill number 5507. I'm in full alignment with those conditions and prepared to comply with them. I'm a professional dog trainer and the sole owner and operator of Northwinds Retrievers and STL Canine Consulting and Training. My work focuses on one-on-one training and education for family pet dogs as well as advanced retriever training and owner education. I've been in the canine industry for more than 10 years and I've learned every level of operations from sanitation and daily care to managing and training large groups of dogs. I understand record keeping animal health standards proper waste management and the importance of clear communication. Today my business operates primarily through in-home services. I travel to clients homes and provide individualized education in their natural environment. My long-term goal is to establish a dedicated training facility that allows me to better serve clients while maintaining the high standards of care, safety, and professionalism that have built my reputation. I have helped countless families through every stage of training, from navigating the transition of bringing a new puppy home and creating a strong foundation, to competition retrievers, where together we have earned field trial placements and wins in qualified dogs to compete at the national level, achieved AKC junior, senior, and master hunt test titles, This requires hard work, consistency, and adherence to strict standards, which reflects how I manage dogs and operate my business. My work is deeply personal. I am proud to say that my business has grown entirely through referrals from satisfied clients. In addition to training services, I am committed to improving canine education within our local community through individualized instruction, owner coaching, and structured training programs. I take pride in helping dogs and their owners build successful, long-lasting relationships. I've consulted with numerous professionals throughout the canine industry. This includes both local and nationally recognized trainers, as well as local veterinary professionals, Those conversations have helped shape my operational plans and reinforce my commitment to responsible animal care. Facility management and noise mitigation. I believe this application demonstrates the proper use cannot operate responsibly while meeting the standards established by Saint Charles County. This facility is not intended to be a dog daycare or large-scale operation. It is a canine education and training facility focused on individualized training programs. Dogs on the property will be actively enrolled in current training programs or returning for refresher training with an emphasis on owner education. Overnight stays will include dogs participating in those training programs or those that meet strict health and behavioral clearances. Canine education, animal safety, sanitation and noise mitigation are my focus. I plan to use insulated walls, sealed doors and windows in addition to noise dampening materials such as acoustic panels and sound baffles. Dogs will be dogs in training will be housed indoors overnight in a fully climate control building. There will be no indoor outdoor dog door style kennel runs. Activity will be structured and supervised rather than free roaming group play. Dogs will be worked individually or in small groups as part of organized training sessions. Advanced retriever field work will be conducted off site. Neighboring property should not expect to hear gunfire or gunfire simulation. Noise mitigation has been a significant consideration throughout this process. By housing dogs indoors, utilizing sound reduction materials, supervising outdoor activities, and conducting structured training rather than daycare-style operations, I believe impacts to neighboring properties should not be a concern. I live on the property and will be able to address any questions in real time. Motion sensor lights and cameras will be installed on the east, west, and north side of the building. Lights will be angled to minimize disruption in neighboring properties and will turn off before 10 PM unless triggered by an emergency. At this time, there is no proposed lighting on the south side of the building in order to reduce driving distractions on Highway D. Waste will be managed in accordance with all environmental and health standards. Solid waste will be collected daily and stored in sealed containers. Liquid waste inside the building will be directed through floor drains into a sanitary septic system. I would like to emphasize that this property was specifically selected because it meets the requirements established by Saint Charles County. Over the course of this process I have worked with your staff to understand counties requirements and expectations before purchasing this property I intentionally search for land that would comply with those standards including agricultural zoning adequate acreage and appropriate setbacks. This is not a situation where I'm asking the county to make an exception for a property that is unsuitable suitable for the proper use rather I identified a property that meets the established zoning requirements and then follow the process outlined by the county for obtaining a conditional use permit. I worked diligently to address every requirement comment and recommendation provided by County staff throughout this process. Canine and horse training activities are already a well-established part of the defiance community that have successfully coexisted with neighboring properties for many years. The first national field trial ever held at Bush Conservation Area was held in 1950. Since that national event, Bush Conservation Area hosts more national retriever events than any public or private grounds in North America. Between Bush Conservation Area, Weldon Springs, there's a total of 15,385 acres of public land. Today, Bush conservation area in Weldon Springs hold a variety of sporting dog events, including NABDA events, beagle events, retriever events, hunt tests. For 76 years, these activities have demonstrated that responsible animal training and education are already a recognized and accepted components of the local community and rural character of the area. I'm not seeking to change the character of defiance. I'm seeking to operate a professional can education facility that complements the agricultural and outdoor traditions that already exist throughout this community. I'm open to any reasonable recommendations from the Council to ensure this project aligns with County standards. I will fully cooperate with all departments regarding inspections licensing requirements record keeping and animal welfare standards. I welcome that oversight as part of operating responsibly and transparently. In addition to Mike conditional use permit application I provided supporting documentation including more than 20 letters of support a sample client and take form an example building designs. You will see that the building will resemble the barn style structures already common throughout the area and will not stand out as a commercial space. Thank you for your time and consideration I respectfully request your support for my personal American dream and welcome any questions.

Questions for the app.

Do you want to ask now or do you want to wait?

On this particular instance, I never spoke. There was a communication breakdown. I never spoke to Mr. McCurry. And you spoke to me, Michael, and I listened to you this time, believe it or not. No, you had some good points. And so you and I spoke. And I asked Robert, I called Robert and we had multiple conversations. I was like, why would this be a kennel? It's not even a kennel. It's what they're applying for now because the way he explained it to me, basically I told him, I said, McCurry, you can just, you could do this without a permit. What he's doing is having dogs come to his house and he's trained them and then they leave. You could do that, I'd explain. Could you just do it? People bring horses over, train horses. And so then he said, no, we wanted to do it right. And I said, fine. And I misunderstood. And I apologize, because I didn't know exactly what it was you were doing. And so I'm in favor of this. Yes.

Any other questions for the applicant? All right. If you'll have a seat, we'll open up our public comment at this point. First that first speaker John Vogel.

Hello again welcome back. My same comments on the noise issues that noise inputs out in this part of the county, I believe you know housing up to 22 dogs in the kennel type facility and the associated dog training will add to that that noise inputs that we already have in the area. There is one condition that I would like to bring up though. In the original conditional use permit 2507, the Planning and Zoning Commission added a condition which prohibited the discharge of firearms or simulated firearms as part of dog training activities. However, in this conditional use permit 2604, that same stipulation is not included in the permit and there's no restrictions which would prohibit that type of activity. Personally I'm very familiar with the field retriever type training activities that Mister McCurry mentioned I spent 26 years of my career working on the Bush conservation areas, the area manager managing and working with field trial communities. There's loud vocal commands whistle simulated gunfire or live gunfire and I know Mister McCurry mentioned that nearby neighbors should not expect to hear that but expect to hear and a prohibition that's actually in there that prohibits it are two different things. So thank you. Thank you.

Yvonne Dale.

Hello. So on page one of the staff recommendation document for this conditional use permit, county staff define other private school as personal instruction and rehearsal which must include people. That's the definition stated. However, the applicant is proposing a facility for housing up to 20 dogs at a time overnight. It is assumed that the dogs would also be held in this facility whenever their owners are not on site, which might exceed overnight hours, sometimes during the day, if the owners aren't there. So since the official county definition of a school involves personal instruction, which must include people, the purpose of the facility to house the dogs overnight or overnight plus additional hours during the day is unknown. It doesn't sound like that facility is a school. It sounds like it's facility for housing dogs. In the applicant's previous application, CUP 2507, a conditional use request for a kennel was being sought. This application was denied by the county. The county defines a kennel as an establishment where dogs, cats, or other small animals are boarded for compensation, bred or raised on a commercial scale. Since boarding refers to a paid service where an animal is temporarily housed and cared for at a dedicated facility, I believe the facility proposed in CUP 2604 does not solely consist of a school, but also includes a kennel for boarding of dogs, which was previously denied by the county. The previous application and current application appear to be nearly identical, except for changing the kennel and boarding terminology to a private school. The overall use of the proposed facility appears to be unchanged. I provided comments related to the previous application and recommended denial due to concerns about noise from up to 20 dogs being housed on this property and other concerns related to siting the facility on the property while still maintaining county setbacks. There's poor site distance along Highway D when leaving the property due to vegetation. These concerns remain and I still recommend denial of the application.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Leonard Wilson.

I didn't have too much to say, I just wanted to find out if all the gentleman had one of these.

I don't know what one of these is.

It's the nose that oppose it.

Yes, those are in our packet.

Everybody's got one? Yes, sir. Okay. One other question I had about the other one. I watched it on YouTube, your last meeting you had. They were talking about their dance floor for Lauderdale.

We're done with that one. We're moving on to this one.

I missed it then. Okay, thank you.

All right, thank you.

Arne Deanoff.

You're already sworn in, Arne. We're good.

Thank you very much for the night. I guess we change up the rules right good. Thank you very much, Mister chairman members of the County Council, my name is Arnie see a CD off County public advocate. I am highly in favor of the cup 20604 the applicant Mister McQuarrie has demonstrated beyond the reasonable doubt that he deserves this application. As a matter of fact. You know this case broke my heart about a year ago or less than a year ago. How we treated this applicant over other applicants should have never been denied if elected officials and appointed officials of County government would have listened would have asked the appropriate questions. Treating this property owner in my opinion we treated the him badly harshly and wrongly And I would like to publicly apologize on behalf of our County of how this applicant was treated in my opinion discriminated or thrown out to the pasture which was totally wrong County government. And so it's quite clear that we need to make sure that this applicant is treated wholly and we need to make a wrong make it right. Just look at the well-thought-out plan and the professional written plan that is in your packet. That just doesn't come from left field or AI. It was written by the individual himself. And I believe every word in that statement. And I believe every word in his heart. He is a dedicated, very professional person who is highly accountable in the field of dog training, has ethics beyond belief. follows laws and regulations because I checked with what the U.S. Department of Agriculture, our State Department of Agriculture, to see if there's any violations against this individual. And there have been zero or zero lodge complaints. And that says a lot to me. This facility and this property that this individual had bought is three acres in size. It's a perfect business and a facility that we want to attract to our rural district of Saint Charles County. If you do by chance tonight. This applicant which I believe he has been wrongly treated in illegally denied an application. I would as I testified the planning zoning Commission, I would help and ask the owner to file and write a petition for rid of me game is in judicial review and file it with our circuit court right down on the corner. Because I think that the circuit court would overrule and overturn any denial because he has met every each and every benchmark and check mark and has gone beyond What any other applicant that I've seen in the last 20 years of my testifying before planning and zoning County Council he is gone way beyond any other requirements to any other applicant. When it comes to the conditions number one is the site plan must be submitted to the Department of community development prior to the construction of the school to all our door lighting on the property should utilize full cut off like pictures. 3, the private schools shall not begin operating until the above stated conditions have been met. 4, the private schools shall be closed to customers outside the hours of 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. I would ask that the council revise that and amend that requirement from 5 a.m. until dusk, which could be anywhere from In the summertime and in the 8 o'clock 9 o'clock whatever dusk is at the longest period of the year. You did that for horse farm not too far from this property in the flying area and I think it's also appropriate in this case. We want to limit private property owner rights. Number 5, the private school should be operated by appointment only. You know I I believe the man was word. I think he's going to run a tip top type facility. I would almost bet and guarantee that you will get 0 complaints for this facility. And so again, I think it's restrictive because what if you have a customer that drops by to check on their dog or has a question and then I have an appointment they're going to be in trouble or the county police going to run down there and issue a citation I would hope that. Number 6 all dogs kept overnight must be housed indoors, I mean that's common sense, you know we have elements here in this area over a 100 degree temperatures during the day and 80 degrees at night on sometimes in the summers and could get down to 0 in the winter and I know that this person is humane and involved all the rules and regulations of the Missouri Department of Agriculture and United States Department of Agriculture and he will keep these dogs how any excellent condition. Number 7, no amplified sound shall be audible outside the structures on the property. That's audible. When you train dogs, we all know and it's a given, you train dogs with whistles. And guess what? If I brought the whistle in here, you probably would barely be able to hear it from this podium to that dais in terms of me blowing a dog whistle. It's very minute. It's very non-intrusive before that dog understands that whistle. And there are going to be in terms of you do train. Hunting dog there are going to be a type of gunfire that's going to happen from time to time but guess what this is rural Saint Charles County where you can any property owner can have a target practice can discharge a shotgun a rifle or a handgun on their property because it's not an urban type setting. Number 8, in any case where a conditional use permit is not in place and active use for 2 years from the date of granting in accordance with the terms and conditions that his conditional use permit shall be null and voided. You know we made a huge error and we treated this property owner very badly. I would ask that this council apologize to this property owner, to this applicant and make a wrong a right. You cost this person a great financial hardship. I'm surprised he's been very patient and was rooted out as long as he can because you would financially provided him a liability and cost him a lot of money which in my opinion he can come back and sue each and every elected official in each and every member of the community cleaning zoning division. Because he was treated wrongly. So I would ask that you unanimously approve this application.

Thank you thank you Mister you know that the final speaker speaker invite the applicant to come back up. Anyone have any questions for this. I would just do a couple of clarifying points here. You would said that there wouldn't be any gunshots or anything because it's my understanding when you do the hunting dog training you do it off site not at the 3 acres so that would be presumably it's somewhere like a Bush wildlife where that would happen.

Offsite whether it's a farm field.

So the other part talking about people that need to be there you said from time to time you may have the dogs trainer or the dogs owners may be with you so they could qualify as people at a school with that not be true.

Yes, absolutely.

Anything else. Seeing none. Thank you for coming and that will close the public hearing on bill 5507 that will get us to our public hearing. No, we're not there yet we've got to get a public hearing for because party is going to want to speak one more time this is the 20 to 2026 to 2030 consolidated plan and the 2026 CDBG annual action plan.

Samara Mitchell.

Robert first okay, I got some air.

I just want to explain really quickly what this is all about because you may be people in the audience may be wondering but st charles county is the lead for what's called the st charles urban county which is recognized by hud to receive community development block grant dollars each year through an annual appropriation appropriation of the u.s congress so currently it's not just st charles county unincorporated All of the jurisdictions in the central corridor for St. Charles County, except for Flint Hill, is not part of it, and O'Fallon's not part of it. But all of the other jurisdictions are joined together in cooperative agreements so that their residents can potentially qualify. The amount of money that's received every year, it's about $1.1 million. And there's obviously lots of limitations and strings that are attached to that. One is that admin funds can be no more than 20%. Public services can be no more than 15%. So that leaves the other, what is that, 65% for programs. So what do we do right now for programs? Currently, it's primarily about neighborhood stabilization. So when people have person whose income qualified they need repairs to their homes. These funds can be used for a low interest loan for those homeowners and if they live there long enough and stay there long enough it could be a no interest loan. That's an example of kind of a bread and butter program for the community development block grant funds. Another popular program is our transportation program. Again public services can exceed that 15% cap. Our transportation programs provides with a van pool for people who need essential trips. What I mean by essential is that right now with this cap on the amount of funding that we have available through CBG, we're providing trips for lots of people with medical needs who don't have transportation. For instance, if they have needs for chemotherapy, but don't have, you know, they need to go two times a week, but they don't have transportation. We help those people and others in need, again, for essential transportation trips. So those are the two bread and butter programs. But having said that, right now we're in what's called the five-year plan, consolidated plan. So we're looking out for the next five years. We're asking the question, what are our community strengths? What are our needs? in terms of housing and some other programs that potentially these funds could go for. We'd like to hear from the community, not only tonight, but also at the next County Council meeting as well. We're holding a second public hearing at that time. What you have before you now is a consolidated plan for the five-year big picture plus how we were proposed to spend the programs that we're proposing for 2027 and and specifically specifically in 2027. So if if you have any questions, I'd love love to answer. Any questions for Robert.

Seeing none. Okay, we've got that now Samara Mitchell. Hi, you don't have to be sworn in.

Okay, I was just. We're all good. First time here, so just wanted to check.

Welcome.

So my name is Samira Mitchell, and I'm the Executive Director for Community Council, which is the lead agency for the Tri-County Continuum of Care. We support St. Charles, Lincoln, and Warren County. And I appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak to you tonight as you are setting out to set priorities for the county's next community development block grant consolidation plan. Every day, our team works with individuals and families that are experiencing housing instability. Through coordinated entry, we partner with more than 100 nonprofits, faith communities, health care providers, schools, municipalities, and government agencies to help connect people to the right resources at the right time. Together, this coordinated approach has helped hundreds of households move into permanent housing each year, while also strengthening our community's ability to respond to housing crisis. While homelessness also often gets and receives the most attention, I encourage us to look at this even broader about housing stability. I encourage us to think about those working families, the seniors on fixed incomes, veterans, young adults aging out of foster care, and individuals experiencing a medical crisis who simply cannot keep pace with today's housing cost. For many, one unexpected expense is all it's going to take to disrupt their stable housing. While we've also seen growing demand for services, while the resources available to meet the demand have not kept pace, Our region services, we approximately serve 25% of the area's homeless population. So that's 25 for the region and then 36% of the unhoused. So for the area that we support, the continuum of care, there's an even broader group and we have a pool of money from HUD that we receive. Unfortunately, while we see and serve more of the unhoused, we're only receiving 4% of the area's funds that's coming into our community right now. So at the same time, we have housing crisis and costs that are rising. Our community is faced with an unprecedented situation that we don't have an emergency shelter in Saint Charles County. So right now, when there's a family that's experiencing a crisis, we have nowhere to send them in our county. Those realities place a lot of pressure on local government and on these agencies that are serving our community. As you're establishing the priorities for the next five years, I encourage you to continue to invest affordable housing homelessness prevention and emergency shelter and the coordinated systems that we have in place to help residents access services quickly and efficiently these investments not only improve the outcome for the individual families they strengthen our workforce support economic stability and improve public health they also make our community more resilient I also want to recognize that there is an amazing collaboration that exists within St. Charles County already. I'm new within my role. I've been here for a year and I am every day completely amazed by what this community comes together to do. The reality is that it's built a strong network of partners that are committed to solving these complex problems together. opportunity for us and that's in front of us in in you individually is that we can strengthen and build the capacity our community needs to meet today's challenges and tomorrow's growth i thank you for your leadership and your partnership and your commitment to planning a stronger future for all that call st charles county home thank you next speaker arnie deanoff

Thank you Mister chairman members of the Council, my name is Arnie C. AC Deenoff County public advocate. You know I've talked to you year after year and it's throwing away money year after year. We have a duplication of services, especially administrative services and staff members. The city of O'Fallon refuses because of political turmoil between Saint Charles County and the executive's office and the mayor's office in O'Fallon. They refused to join The solid urban County community development block grant bond or program. It's besides one city, the city of Flint Hill which is by coincidence on your agenda tonight for first reading ordinance number 5510 Flint Hill after 2 weeks the end of the month will be part of the unified urban community development plan. But O'Fallon is stubborn our County stubborn we have a lot of duplication of services when it comes to public safety facility. The law enforcement training center we've got 2 different training centers going we've got 2 different drone operations going between County police and O'Fallon and again we have a community development program which in my opinion if O'Fallon would join the urban County program It would save $150,000 of administrative employee cost, benefits, and pension contributions. That $150,000 can go to help and assist and up our hand to people who need a hand in our community. And I think that it's sacrilegious. It's immoral. for a following in the county to be so stubborn and I don't know why we can't get over these political infighting every month on some issue whether it's wrong or right. But it's about people that need to be served. The program administration is a huge number of this program it entitles 1,000,088,014 dollars which includes employee funds benefits and loggers pension contributions. We're forgetting other municipalities in this plan we're forgetting a lot of our villages towns in unincorporated pockets of our County. If you break down the percentage breakdown of the current funds being spent in the community development block grant appropriations the city of Saint Charles get the bulk of the funds at 44%. The city of Saint Peter's gets 20%. St. Charles County gets 36%, which I would imagine is divided with Wentzville, Cattleville, Lake St. Louis, other villages and towns for our community in our county. When it comes to the homelessness, it depends who you talk to or what data that you read. But our homeless population could be anywhere from 700 to 1,041 human beings who are out in the hot steam and out in the coldness during the winters, living in our woods, living in vacant lots, living on sidewalks. Of that population, 200 are children. 200 are children. And that's a sad fact. We need to be in cooperation and visit with the city of Saint Charles who's taking under an initiative currently the city of Saint Charles has appropriated $20,000 to Eden village which has villages in Arizona, California and Washington state. And they want to build a village type facility at in French town near or by Missouri. Interstate 3 70. We need to keep people in the residents rather than being forced out to the sidewalk. Currently we spend a $125,000 in that realm every year. Rehabilitation of existing homes, whether it's seniors or disabled who might not have air conditioning proper plumbing proper heating or windows roofing falling apart housing. we're spending 2 million 886,046 dollars. Rental assistance is part of this program. I'm not exactly sure how much we're spending this year. Down payment closing costs. We're spending something in the Saint Louis consortium that's being run by Saint Louis County and I couldn't find those costs in the plan. Housing is about $300,000. Broadband Why are we spending money on a brand bar broadband initiative to bring Internet to people when our state of Missouri is accepted. I believe it's close to a billion dollars of broadband across our state and we have programs that are being done by the Department of economic development today and so I'm not sure why we're duplicating services and we're not utilizing that type of money. Meals on wheels in the city of Saint Peter's $10,000 I'm a big proponent and big supporter of meals on wheels. Natural hazard mitigation. I'm not sure exactly how much we're spending there. The city of Saint Charles has code enforcement issues $350,000 hopefully we're not taking people to court or trying to help them out of their predicament and make a better life for those residents who are struggling on a daily basis. Transportation connection $458,511 We need to step up and even give some of our general funds to senior transportation is that is a growing need in our County as the baby boomer population generation is increasing day after day. People are coming to the utilization. They can't drive anymore. And if they have relatives in another state, they don't have transportation to get to doctors to the grocery store needs on a daily basis. And we need to step up our game plan on offering transportation needs to our residents we have elderly living in every neighborhood across our County. Acquisition there's $30,000 and I like to see a definition of exactly what active acquisition actually actually entails of that buying property or what that exactly definition is I read it, but it's very difficult to understand. The total appropriation of the entire plan is 4,352,056 dollars And I'll tell you what the percentages are kind of lopsided and they need to be more prepared more of a clarity to our population of 444,000 residents and we need to make sure that every town and village that every neighborhood of unincorporated County is being afforded opportunities. Nobody is being left behind in the dust or nobody is being forgotten. Sometimes elected officials and appointed officials think that they're great and successful and they forget about the people who are struggling on a daily basis, the people that we see that are begging for food at the corner of our interstate at the major corners of our downtown in our streets and we need to make sure that those people are getting the proper services, whether it's mental health, whether it's other issues. The matter factor. Response of our County Police Department and County police agency deals with you 2% is mental health related and I think we need to step our game up in terms of providing mental health services across our County to our residents. Those are my comments.

Mister chairman and I appreciate thank you for staying up that final speaker final speaker to wrap up our first public comment public hearing is Robert said we will do this again at the next meeting that will get us to public comments so public comment you have 3 minutes in which to speak normally we do 3, 4, 3 against on each you have the clock right in front of Mister Swanson when that gets down to 0, I will thank you for speaking will move on to the next speaker first speaker tonight is.

Erica Bridges regarding bill number 5501.

Good evening Mr. Chairman and members of the council. My name is Erica Bridges and I'm a candidate for Collector of Revenue. I'm here tonight to express my support for the bill number 5501 which eliminates the annual renewal requirement for the senior tax relief program. I've been advocating to eliminate the annual renewal requirement because I believe it's a simple common sense improvement. Now that we're in the third year of the senior tax relief program, I'm glad to see that the current collector is looking for ways to make the program more accessible for our seniors. Eliminating the annual renewal requirement alleviates unnecessary burdens on our seniors and county staff. When someone's eligibility changes, I believe there are more efficient ways to verify that information and using existing data rather than, excuse me, rather than requiring thousands of seniors to come to the county offices or to renew online. Removing the annual renewal requirement would make the program easier to manage, reducing administrative costs and helping prevent technology issues if future failures were to occur again. Most importantly, our seniors won't have to worry every year about missing a deadline or filling out another application to receive a benefit they've already qualified for.

Our goal should be to make this program as straightforward and reliable as possible for the people it was created to serve.

I want to thank Councilman Elam for sponsoring this bill to support St. Charles County seniors. And to the council, I'd also like to thank you for passing the emergency bill during your last session, which extended the deadline for the senior tax relief program. These seniors,

received your support and I hope that you will consider supporting bill number 5501 to eliminate the annual renewal requirement thank you for your time thank you next speaker John Mangels regarding bill number 5505 good evening my name is John Mangels I've been a resident of st. Charles for over 30 years I was under the oppression this data center issue under was under a one-year moratorium as of August 2025 then was informed that this meeting tonight. Pertains to Saint Charles County. I don't understand why people keep trying when we the people have said we don't want data centers in our city or County. I'd like to start by saying I'm not against progress. I'm against a spade not being called a spade. The legalese wording for a special use permit are large scale data centers that can or will be used to get out of an agreement because of a specific word being used is disingenuous or misleading to say the least. We don't care about the size. I feel that our city and our county representatives are just trying to wear we the people down to the point that we don't care anymore and they can do anything they want. that I'm going to happen. What I'm saying is we don't want data centers in our city or County period. Thank you thank you next week.

Karen regarding bill number 55.

Thank you to each and every one of you for allowing me to speak tonight and for each and every one of you for sponsoring the bill on the six month moratorium on data centers. I think that's incredible. This is going to cover all of St. Charles County, not just the unincorporated areas. And this is huge. Personally, I was a leader in fighting for a moratorium and then the ban on data centers within the city of St. Charles. I'm a fierce believer in the right of all citizens to have safe drinking water. Although I love the fight against the data centers in the city, I'm actually a resident of Saint Charles County, so you guys are stuck with me. I live in District 7, Tim Baker's ward. I'm glad to see that the county is taking on this issue. After reading the bill for the moratorium on data centers, it is apparent that Saint Charles County is taking the steps to be proactive before receiving applications for hyperscale data centers. This bill seems to focus on public health and welfare, which needs to be kept at the forefront of this effort. We need a county wide plan for drinking water that is always available, safe and affordable. Having fought against the data center in ST Charles City, one of the biggest things the county needs to bring to this process is transparency. There can be no NDAs in this. You have to gain the public's trust. Also, For the public comment session that's taking place, it needs to be recorded for people that cannot attend. Livestream the meeting, have it in YouTube so everyone knows what's going on. And then once you publish that document, I hope that it's widespread. Also, the Missouri Department of Natural Resource and Environmental Group should be a part of the public hearing. Ameren is often brought to the forefront in conversations about electricity, but Quiver River Electric should also be invited to attend as well. Industry representatives and utility providers are needed in this conversation. But remember, they are making money off data centers and do not live in our community. We need to keep ST Charles County a thriving place where people want to live. Additionally, State Representative Colin Wellecamp has been working on an extensive list of questions municipalities should ask data center developers. Hopefully each one of you will read this information and take it into consideration. In closing, I heard that St. Charles City has some pretty nifty wording for a data center band that you guys could copy. No AI is needed for that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Theresa Linsenick, bill number 5505.

Hello, I'm Theresa Linsenick, resident here in St. Charles City for more than 30 years. in the county for most of my life, and I'm in District 6, Petty Works District. Thank you so much for what you do, all the county council. You listen, listen, listen, and I appreciate your patience. Thank you for considering a study and moratorium on the data center and the effects, a study of the effects on our lives. Just imagine a single building that consumes more electricity than an entire town, a facility that guzzles millions of gallons of water every day while belching out heat and noise that drives families from their homes. This isn't science fiction, it's the modern data center. The engine powering our cloud, our stream, our AI, or our endless scroll. And it's time we say enough. Data centers are exploding across our landscapes, driven by the insatiable hunger for big tech, artificial intelligence, thousands more are planned and under construction. But behind the sleek promises of innovation lies a harsh reality. These facilities are environmental disasters in disguise. They devour enormous amounts of electricity, often from fossil fuels or straining clean energy grids meant for homes and hospitals. In some regions, a single data center can use much more power than 50,000 households. And water usage is equally shocking. Data centers need constant cooling to prevent servers from overheating. Local rivers are stressed, groundwater is depleted, and residents are left wondering why their taps run slower while tech giants get priority. The transom-quiet rural and suburban neighborhoods become industrial zones. Many data centers negotiate massive tax breaks, leaving schools and roads underfunded. We are told this is the price of progress, but progress doesn't mean sacrificing our air, water, land, and communities. We don't need to shut down the internet. We need smarter solutions, stricter regulations on energy and water use, greater transparency from tech companies instead of even larger centralized warehouses. The digital world is here to stay, but it cannot come at the expense of the physical one. Our children deserve clean air, reliable water, and livable neighborhoods, not server farms disguised as the future. It's time for citizens, leaders, and communities to push back. And I appreciate you all doing this so much, pushing back on this. And anyway, thank you very much.

Next speaker.

Greg Betlatch, bill number 5508.

You seem surprised.

I'm just looking, I've got some land out there at 3635 Becker-Jerling that I currently live on. It was purchased back in the 90's by my mom and dad and my sister. They bought a plot of land. It's like 27 acres. My mom and dad had passed away. We've divided the land in the family. I bought six acres and I wanted to give it to each of my kids, three acres each, so they could, that's the amount of land that we had that was left. My brother bought the house and between my brothers and sisters, I bought the six acres. I wanted to give each of my kids 3 acres to build a house on the property that was there was some pushback I tried to go for a permit for my daughter's house they wouldn't allow it so I put it in the 6 6 acre track and I'm just here to see if I could divide it put it into 2, 3 acre tracks to have my son have 3 acres. That's it. Okay, thank you thank you.

James food right. We're going to numbers 5490 and 5504.

Good evening. My name is James Ploudroy and I am a Republican candidate for County Council District 7. We are told that Bill 5490 is an urgent countywide effort to protect quiet neighborhoods from commercial party houses. But when you look past the talking points and follow the politics, a much different story emerges. The sweeping ordinance is not about public safety. It's a localized political favor masquerading as policy. The story is simple. A prominent party official has a short-term rental on a street. He wants it gone, and I would, too. Under Missouri law, HOAs already have the ability to regulate or completely banned short-term rentals for the last 54 years dating right back to the county's 1972 zoning milestone. Pretty much every subdivision and development built in Saint Charles County has been legally required to be tied to a homeowners association. These HOAs exist specifically to handle covenants, restrictions, and residential disputes without government overreach. That area is covered by a self-regulated HOA. This means control rests entirely with his neighbors. If they want a rental ban, they have every legal tool to create one. But because he couldn't convince his HOA to change the private contract, he chose to bypass the system entirely. Institutional muscle and political position were used to persuade Mr. Baker and Mrs. York to weaponize the county code to settle a neighbor dispute. You are over regulating thousands of regular citizens just to bail out one insider who cannot manage an HOA. If a property is causing a legitimate nuisance, we should aggressively enforce our existing ordinances. We do not need intrusive, expensive, brand new licensing pipeline to override a self-managed neighborhood agreement. Government never handles these matters better than private entities. I urge the Council to vote no on this broken bill and stop the favors. Furthermore, in regards to Bill 5504 concerning careful and prudent driving, I request that this Council amend that bill to include steep fine increases for distracted driving. I encourage everyone to take the pledge and put down the phones while driving. You can save a life. Thank you. Thank you.

Bob Eno, regarding bill number 5490.

Let's go.

Hi, my name is Bob Eno. living Council district number 7 and I'm supporting that before 90. I know that there's been some changes. Tim has done a good job of keeping me informed or let me know through text and phone calls and whatever we run into one another and just let you know I do support those I think they're they're pretty good. I think the 600 feet. With a little bit maybe too much and I kind of agree that it should be changed The other thing I like is including the wine country, the defiance in Augusta. I've heard from some people that live down that way. They feel like they're being left out, that some of this regulations need to be applied to them. I want to reiterate, and something that the gentleman before me that did not mention, most HOAs, especially in my neighborhood, We're written it back in the 80's short-term rentals airbnbs were never even thought of who thought of that, you know the person that wrote it is Mister Scheidegger a friend of Mister elements Scheidegger center. He owned all that land and set it up in different subdivisions and and that felt it and those h o a's are all identical they do not address short-term rentals. This is a business being run out of a residential neighborhood, period. There's no other way to describe it. I think that something needed to be done, something needs to be done. Once it's established as a business, then the HOAs have some legal footage to stand on. The other thing that I want to reiterate, it doesn't stop HOAs, or excuse me, it doesn't stop SDRs. short term rentals it doesn't shut them down people can still have them if they live within the HOA boundaries I guess the best way to say it. One of my concerns is that if anybody on this council owns a short term rental, operates a short term rental, I'm not sure they need to be voting on this. I'll be very honest with you. You know we had this issue a few years ago with the broadband fiber optic And somebody on the council, Mr. Elam, you were part of that company and you recused yourself and stepped away from all the conversation, negotiations, and everything else, and I commend you for that. And I think that's what should be taking place here. That's all I have to say. I'm sorry that the gentleman in front of me left. I would have loved to talk to him after this meeting. Thank you all. Next speaker.

Steve Randall, regarding heritage subdivision.

little council members back here again just give you a little bit of an update on the heritage erosion control project that's going on right now actually finishing up right now and so I am again I work for Horner and Schiffer and I'm the design engineer for the project and I do want to point out I did have a meeting with mr. Baker last week and we did have a nice conversation about communication with everyone including you all other county folks and the homeowners in general any stakeholders in a sense right keep an open line of communications and that's why I wanted to come in tonight just kind of update everybody so it'll be a quick one so mr. and mrs. minor aren't here tonight but the property across from them was resorted it has been being watered and it is green still green through all the heat so hopefully that keeps going All major construction, including grading the gabion baskets and stuff like that the storm sewer proper should be done by the end of the week as I've been told by the contractor. Fencing sodding temporary seating things like that what I consider minor construction should be finished up the next week. That is my update for you all. Thank you appreciate it.

Arne Dinoff regarding ordinances tax.

And other is this final speaker.

Thank you very much once again members of Council, my name is Ernie see a CD North County public advocate running for County executive. First of all someone finally got the memo not to move on Council meetings more the grass outside so we don't have to compete with that. I'm highly frustrated at the county board of equalization process and filing a tax valuation appeal. This revolving political patronage position of the county register through Steve Ellman needs to stop to include also the county finance department. Getting through the county register was very frustrating and no one ever answers the phone. They need to come up with better customer service methods. There's a junior there is a generic on the Web site telephone number and a back door number with an extension we need to have that extension on the county Web site and that it be answered by someone in the Department of finance or the county registers office. Taxpayers are now forced to file an online electronic appeal of the county assessor property values. It's in direct violation of Missouri state statute and promulgated rules of the Missouri state tax commission that allows for printed appeal forms. Post office postmarked of the due date as timely filed. There was a computer glitch that prohibited citizens from filing property and personal property tax fields today. I want to make sure that no citizen is disenfranchised. I'm asking that the county council under emergency order open up the tax appeal process for at least 3 business days in light of the situation. We need to fully and come into compliance with the Missouri state statute and rules established by the Missouri state tax commission. The consent agenda replace the entire slate slate roof of the county executive office building at the cost of the insurance carrier let's be smart The following bills should have been done a year ago. Instead, they have become political stunts, a lot of protecting turf to say and show the citizens that we are doing the right thing and protecting you during an election cycle. Bill number 5501, let's have our seniors' backs, and if there are no changes year to year, keep the senior tax freeze in place with no additional hoops for them to jump through. Bill number 5404, we need to crack down on the carelessness and prudent drivers and I propose tripling the fine and I'd actually like to amend section one be the state of $3000 fine. Bill number 5505 I support the moratorium on data centers and a complete all and all but all and all pain like the city of Saint Charles did 2 months ago in the city of O'Fallon has a one-year moratorium that they're currently considering. Bill number 5490 short-term rentals let's be more. There needs to be more thought and additional amendments to protect all parties.

Thank you, Mister Dean, thank you Mister chairman that will close out public comment or report from the county executive.

Chairman could we would would you consider changing the order of the agenda so we could get to the thing that the that the journalists are here to report on. We can do that we do I know we've always wanted to make sure we've already lost one and I'd be glad to be glad to wait a little longer we wanted to make sure that we get public comment and I know you couldn't do it before that they had a chance to come back.

Yes, I'd like to make a motion that we amend the agenda and move up bill number 5501.

The motion to have a second second all those in favor say aye. Any opposed. We move up to bill 5501. Sorry, I told Claire we were going to do the consent agenda first. This is on me.

Bill number 5501. an ordinance amending section 140.120 of the ordinances of St. Charles County, Missouri to remove the annual renewal requirement for senior citizen real estate property tax relief program.

I'd ask the collector to come up, tell us a little bit about this.

Thank you chairman. I want to the bill was introduced 2 weeks ago I reminded everyone that the program the state set the framework the county attorneys wrote the law and the council here approved it so in order to remove that renewal requirement we need to amend their ordinance and that's what the requested bill is all about doing this is our 3rd year of the program and we have seen ways that we can improve the process just as we In year 2 improved with a simple one page renewal, year 3 we can see that we can easily eliminate that renewal requirement and once a senior qualifies for the program they can stay enrolled in the program until they move from that property since it is a credit for a person at a particular address. So that is by state law, so that requirement, if they move, has to start over at a new location, is in place. I thank you for the emergency bill last meeting. We had many people who were able to come in and avail themselves of that and get their application in in spite of the vendor's bug in the update that they provided to our IS department. So thank you very much for that. I'm asking you on behalf of our seniors and the staff to approve the elimination of the renewal requirement I think it would be a great win for everyone in the county and working in the county also.

Anybody have any questions or comments from show. Seeing none thank you very much any other questions or comments before we vote. Seeing none please call the roll.

bill number 5501 an ordinance amending section 140.120 of the ordinances of st charles county missouri to remove the annual renewal requirement for senior citizen real estate property tax relief program councilman swanson yes ma'am councilman brazel yes councilman hammond yes councilman elam yes councilman hollander yes councilwoman york councilman baker yes

Bill 5,501 passes Mister how yes, I'd like to make to amend the agenda to move bill number 5,505 up to next in a second motion in second all those in favor say aye aye any opposed we're up to bill 5,505.

Bill number 5, 5, 0, 5, an ordinance an ordinance establishing a temporary moratorium on the approval construction expansion or operation a certain large scale data centers within Saint Charles County, Missouri for the purpose of allowing the county to study and evaluate potential impacts on public health water resources, electric utility infrastructure, environmental quality noise conditions and the health safety and welfare of county residents.

Mister Baker.

Yes, so we're in the process of Matt Matt Watson and I are on the steering committee for the master plan and we've briefly talked about data centers and I know we're going to be moving on to the you do our uniform development ordinance and I really would like to see that data centers be put on something that make sure that gets in front of the council because what would happen if if we get a data center that meets the current zoning. We want to see it and we'll hear from the public before we know that the data center has been approved so I just correct me if I'm wrong Robert is that the case and we're going to be doing that with the you do looking at data center specifically.

There's a yes from Mike is there.

Yes, okay so that could get that saves us from. Oh it's got grandfathered enemy to zoning there's a data center going and so just and I know we're going to get to it we got a little bit of time with finishing up the master plan with the public comment, but when it comes before us I want to make sure that we're all thinking on the same page that we look at that as an individual permit so the spread.

Yeah, I was wondering if somebody had mentioned that St. Charles City and O'Fallon did a 12-month moratorium, is that correct? And I... St. Charles did a permanent ban, O'Fallon is considering one. Okay, so last meeting I said that this seems more like a political show because it's only six months and it's right after the general election. If we're really to have some teeth, if St. Charles thought it was lawful to do a permanent one, I don't know why we're not doing a permanent one to revisit or at least do a 1 or 2 year make it one or 2 years 6 months is nothing I mean it's really embarrassing it's just a show but if I will make a motion that I like to I would I would prefer for prefer to but I would settle for one but 2 would be better because it gives us more time to think this whole process or we can always change it if someone challenges us and someone says well you you can't do that it's illegal then try and challenge us in court that's what courts are for right. But then we just pull up that we go then we readjusted both 6 months is nothing response.

I want to go back to what a couple of Baker stated going to the U D L we're going to solve all these issues. In 6 months. We're going to have a master plan in front of us in event as Councilman Baker and I have been sitting through this process we're going to make sure we're on top of this I don't think tonight and what the slide by. I don't know why I don't know if you want to add anything on to answer.

No, I I mean but I guess I I thought the same thing why why did the city attorney feel that we could do it they could do it well a permanent ban or and then the city will found looking at the 12 month and we were told we can only do a 6 month, I mean That's fine we can we can revisit again in 5 and a half months, but you know it's going to be tedious.

I cannot to make a motion to adjust it to a 12 month moratorium. I'll second that.

We have a motion in a second discussion.

Chairman last meeting. Rory explained that in Missouri there's case law of the effect that you can only do a moratorium for 6 months at a time. Now after 6 months you can vote to do it another 6 months. But there there's a reason for that or my can we ban them. The city banned it so how to I mean yeah, it well, I don't know what the city did but all of us took an oath to enforce the Constitution and the laws of the state of Missouri and our attorneys tell us that the case law requires allows only a 6 month moratorium.

So are the other attorneys wrong to 12 months of the permanent one. I mean because we're just taking a very weak stance on this by going 6 months. Well what I'm saying is if we're going to do something with teeth we would allow some of the challenges that though they had a case to challenges and we would do what we think is right so 12 months is still kind of week, but I go with 12 months just to have a to have a compromise, but it should be more than that, but it should be at least 12 months. So we have and I agree with what you're saying I appreciate that because but the the master plans been taken you guys know way over time on this thing we were supposed to be done in the spring and it's still dragging out so and it's not your fault, it's not our fault, but it things don't happen fast in government. So I don't know why I there is a motion for 12 months.

We're in discussion right now and that's that's why I think it's important that's what you know to say this was to rather. There is no way I'm voting yes on one and I don't think anybody seen up here right now it's going to say I think data centers are off of let's go for it so you can go out there and put a number on a moratorium. But if it's going to come to us, we're going to go through planning and zoning. We're going to have a public hearing. We're going to have all these other things. I don't see any of us saying, let's bring a big hyper-center come in. Especially in St. Charles County. Because you know where it's going to show up in St. Charles County? Your district or my district. Because we're the only ones that have enough of a footprint to allow it to happen. And I know your constituents and mine they will come after us instantly if we even think about it so i'm not really concerned about this because i'm going to listen to the residents and i'm going to vote with what they want i think their voice has been loud all throughout st charles and all throughout uh eastern uh missouri but in in the in defense we have an election in what three weeks we could have three different people up here that may have may love data centers i doubt that they do but

Yeah, I just wanted to make it clear that the advice that's being provided to the council is in line with the case law that I have reviewed. And I cannot suggest that it would be appropriate for the council to violate what I consider to be the legal principles that are in play right here. And so my advice is not going to change because the council member wants to get the county sued. That is not going to be something I'm going to recommend.

Mr. Hollander, hang on. You know I believe that the 6 month moratorium to someone said well, you know Joe was saying you know we can do it for a year or 2 years that you know not go through this process again, I think it's a very simple process okay 6 months from now somebody says let's extend the moratorium for 6 more months or a year and I think it's going to be a 7 to 0 vote and we move on I don't see the necessity for you know. possibly going against the state statute on on moratoriums according to our our turn response and I'm just going to make this one last point.

I've been up here for about 3 and a half years, the number of closed sessions we've had I can probably count on my 2 hands we'll do anything in the back room. it's not happening the stuff we've happened back then has been dealing with employees has been the majority of our closed sessions what's happened in other municipalities that's not us we don't do that and we have had no one come to us in st charles county asking for a data center of a hyperscale period because if it happens you're not going to see me back there you're going to see me out here and i'm not going to be part of that and i think joe you'd be right there with me 100 yeah so we do have a motion on the floor um

12 months. Going against the advice of attorney so I would ask you to call the roll on that. What he did say I did second.

I want to roll call Councilman Swanson no comes in for us. Councilman Hammond no coming to you know, no. Councilman Hollander no come to New York.

Councilman Baker, yes, all right motion fails so back to the original bill that is a 6 month moratorium any other comments on this. Seeing none please call the roll.

Bill number 5, 5, 0, 5, an ordinance establishing a temporary moratorium on the approval construction expansion or operation of certain large scale data centers within Saint Charles County, Missouri. the purpose of allowing the county to study and evaluate potential impacts on public health water resources electric utility infrastructure environmental quality noise conditions and the health safety and welfare of county residents councilman hammond yeah councilman elam yes councilman hollander yes councilwoman york Councilman Baker, yes. Councilman Swanson, yes ma'am. Councilman Brassel, yes.

Bill 5505 passes. We will get back to our original agenda now and go back to the County Executive Report.

Yeah, Mr. Chairman, I'm going to ask Bob Schnur to go ahead and come up to the podium and give you a little bit of the history of our budget over the last 15, 20 years. You know, we've got this rule, or you all have this rule, that we don't, we can talk about, people can come up during the meeting and talk about policy but not politics. Okay, and of course there's a lot of politics going on. I don't think it's appropriate for us to answer some of the things going on politically but recently a member of the of the government made some comments about the growth in our budget and after reading those i asked asked bob just to take a look at uh how much our budget has actually grown so good evening um finally here welcome back yeah

so the county executive said he asked me to compile some historical information about our budget because you know I'm a CPA and and one of the things that that you learned very early on is numbers without them being in the proper context can be very misleading So what I wanted to do is just give you a I'm going to try to keep this quick because it's been a long night. Yeah, but what you see on the on the board there is actually our 2025 budget so the budget years that have been consummated since the start of the current County administer county executives term. which was the subject of the conversation that you all heard at the last meeting. What I wanted to do is point out in this in this graphic that you see a an appropriated budget for 2025. That's the last fiscal year that's actually completed at this point that's why I cut it off at 2025. But you see the budget there is $581 million. And I did not go to the 601 that you see below there because the other two elements, interfund transfers and the emergency reserve, interfund transfers are just money going between county departments. So that's not an expenditure of ours. It stays in-house. And the emergency reserve is something that we're required to have by state statutes. So 581 is the actual number that was in the 2025 budget. And for just seeing where your budget starts when you all pass the budget each year and where it ends at the end of the year, slide to the left a bit there where you see the budget for 2024 was $574 million and the actual budget came in at around $376 million. We budget in the realm of over budgeting essentially every year because we don't want to run into a situation where by not budgeting enough, we create issues that affect operations. We have to come back to the council to appropriate additional money, that sort of thing. So budgets are always way over what our actual expenditures wind up to be. So I wanted to get that in front of you. But just taking numbers like this don't tell the whole story when we're looking at a 19-year period from 2007 to 2025. So this right here, slide it down a bit for you. This shows some areas, so the yellow items that you see here are items that were not around in 2007 that are in our budget now. And the ones that are in tan there are things that are in our budget but are simply passed through. The money comes in, the money goes out. So we collect the CCRB sales tax each year. The DDRB property tax comes into us and We disperse that to them during the course of the year. And our self-insurance fund, it's already reflected that self-insurance is our health insurance and dental insurance. It's already impacted our, impacts our budget where you see the personnel line item in our budget. This is, self-insurance fund is an in and out. Money comes into the self-insurance fund and then the claims are paid out. All of those items that you see there and I've got I've got the numbers listed between 2007 and 2025. You can see how those numbers changed over the course of time. But the the budgeted numbers that you see on the top line of each of those groups totaled 67 million dollars in in in 2025 and the actual expenditures came in at about $52 million. So these in and out and new items also affect the comparison between 2007 and 2025. So you just can't take the numbers from 2025, compare them to 2020 or 2007. So, last item here. These are some criteria that I looked at to give you an idea as to what's happened in the last 19 years. You can see our population twenty three point seven percent higher consumer price index fifty three point one percent higher than 2007. Our budgeted expenditures went up after I extract the numbers we saw on the previous graphic that come out of the actual and the budgeted numbers, you can see that our budgeted expenditures in 2025 came down to $483 million compared to $190 million. Our actual expenses for 2025 came in at $288 million, and $148 million were the actual expenditures in 2007. Our actual expenses and that's why I have them highlighted here in red. Our actual results to 2007 and 2025 increased by a total of ninety four point five percent. However. That does not give rise to the effects of inflation. And I on the bottom part of this graphic. you can see that when you take the and what I did is I took the actual expenses and broke them down to a per capita calculation so per resident in st. Charles County just to give you a little better view of things the per capita spending in st. Charles County when you adjust the the the numbers for inflation the per capita spending in winds up to be to 2.7% higher than what it was in 2007. So it brings the numbers into the realm of reality that our our budgeting is very consistent from year to year. And when you consider the effects of population growth and inflation our numbers were just about break even. between 2007 and 2025.

Can you go to the first chart you had up there please. So what I'm in 2022 on total expended I don't my eyes aren't that great, but we're at 278 million right and total expand total expenditures is that correct, yeah. I so then we go up to the and we're up to 100% and what 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, years, what 2% of expenditures right that right from number 100, you're at 278,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

and you're looking at budgeted numbers for 2025. And as I mentioned earlier, our budgeted numbers and our actual numbers, there's a lot of difference between them. That's why I put the stars next to the budgeted number for 2024, $574 million, and our actual results of $376 or $78 million there. So it went up $100 grand. Million I'm sorry hundred million. Yes. And one thing I didn't mention before this also a factor in here besides inflation is the fact that we made some very as a county and I know it was a council initiative here. There were some very sweeping changes made a few years ago when the council this at recommended County executive agreed to it that We would move our employees through their pay range remember that yeah that had a dramatic effect on on our cost of personnel from that point forward and that's something to just kind of recently happened here too, but that I think that closes the gap that I had on that other graphic where we want to put like 2.6 2.7% difference between 2007 and 2025. I think that closes the gap. That personnel move was extremely expensive, and we grapple with that.

Can you go back to that second graph that you had? So that's the part that I thought was interesting, because you have things like ARPA money, That is one time money correct. So if it wasn't for covid those dollars wouldn't have shown up correct. So you have things like that and then you have the opioid funds that the opioid funds are funds that are already predesignated but they cannot be moved correct and they were part of the settlement that we want. So but those are in those budgeted numbers.

that show up they are and the reason why I've got those highlighted in yellow there the ones highlighted in yellow again are the ones that did not exist in 2007 right so all of those numbers you see in that right hand column in yellow and the difference between the tan colored columns 7 million to 14 million 10 to 25 that sort of thing the difference between those 10 colored items are additional increases to our 2025 budget for over what happened in 2024 for things that are not really budgetary items these these are all in and out items.

And if you go back and look at that 2025 number there. So one of the things I know is that go back to the other that one. So the 2026 budget. We had a a budget number of 606 million dollars all in but that included 242 million dollars that we carried over from the 2025 can you explain a little bit what carry over is because I know our actual budget when you look at. 2223 you see those numbers are very different, but our budget number that we're working up on this year, meaning the revenue that's actually coming in is 381 million. So what's the difference between that 606 number and 381 for this year. For 26 for 26 like that 242 million dollars what is that carry over. What were you at there, I'm I'm not on that chart. I'm I'm on the budget for this year. Okay. Because I know that's that's a number that gets thrown around a lot publicly so in its height in that when you look at it would be 5.81 compared to 3.76.

So you carry over money from year to year right, yeah, let me show let me go ahead goes on here. So that take for this budget we're going to take finishing out. 2024 the 2024 estimate is where we we thought we were going to be and yet that came down to 295 million that carries forward into the 2025 executive recommend and the far right column there the 2025 appropriated that 295 million dollars are surpluses in the different funds in county government all the funds that are out there but So it makes it sound like we got $295 million in the bank at the end of 2024, right? But the vast majority, 80% or so of that $295 million number are in funds that are designated for specific purposes, like the parks use tax or the capital improvement sales tax. Or road and bridge and dispatch and alarm. Dispatch and alarm. So it's not like we have 295 million dollars left over at the end of the year to spend that money can only be spent that 80% of that number can only be spent on those designated purposes. So the remainder. That that's part of the what you would call discretionary money about 32 million dollars or so which is the general fund surplus. Going into this year 2026. That's the discretionary money. But out of that, out of the general fund, virtually all of the administrative departments in county government have to be funded. And all the public safety departments get paid out of the general fund. So the police, jail, prosecutor, health department, those account for about 65%. of our total general fund budget.

So yeah, keep it simple. You mentioned we part of the the additional spending was what we did for the employees and I think that that's probably correct. But the point is we've been telling everybody we haven't raised taxes right so what where did the additional money come to help those employees if we kept our tax rates steady and did not change them. And I'm asking you a question, but I fell wrong to tell you what I think the answer is, and that is the wayfarer. At Wayfarer, the Supreme Court said that the states and local political subdivisions can tax out-of-state sales. And we didn't have to do anything. We didn't have to raise our rates or do anything. The state legislature basically gave us additional money when they said that we could tax out-of-state sales. So if people say, you know, because we're saying it only went up to, what, 2.7 percent or? whatever it is. Well, we've also been saying we haven't raised the rates, and the fact is we haven't raised the rates, but we have been able to afford an extra 2.7% because the General Assembly gave us the power to go ahead and tax out-of-state sales.

Wayfair was huge as it relates to our sustainability, no doubt about that. That's all I have. Right. So that has been a help to us by far, yes.

Thank you very much I got a comment I it's a lot easier budget discussions were having and then the other side of the river, I'll just say that so yeah, we don't have to fight 80 million dollars, I thought was 40 but 80's even worse.

Yeah, I will say one other thing gets County executive touched on about our tax rates. In this 19 year period we have voluntarily rolled our tax rates back 17 out of the 19 years. In the Dispatch and Alarm, that fund is pretty tight at times, and I think there were two, 17 years out of 19 years on the Road and Bridge Fund, and I think 15 out of 19 years in Dispatch and Alarm. You're talking about tens of millions of dollars. We're not talking about chump change there that's taken place in that time period. So we have been very consistent, even going back to the previous administration with Joe Ortworth. County Executive Ortworth was a proponent of keeping our tax rates as low as possible, and we had sizable rollbacks with dispatch and alarm and the general fund at that point. Our general fund zeroed out about 10 to 13 years ago, something like that. So that no longer exists. That's always zero when you see it. But tens of millions of dollars have been voluntarily rolled back over the years because of those voluntary rollbacks and as you all have done again this year.

Thank you. Sure. Appreciate it. That'll get us to the consent agenda. Any items to be removed from the consent agenda?

I've removed the slate roof.

Good. Facility slate roof. It's already been removed. No he's talking about the of the new one. Second motion is second all those in favor say aye. All right, anything else to be removed. Seeing none entertain a motion to approve as amended motion. Motion in second all those in favor say aye. Joe.

I'd like to just thank you and her people that micro.

I'd like to thank you and like them because we had multiple conversations on this project and the insurance company kind of came around in our favor to do the whole roof so that's why it's been put back on there.

And I really want to thank Councilman Brazel thank you because you took the lead on this one we pulled it off it's been sitting there for quite some time and you don't always get credit credit on this one.

The job to join the job to she worked on pretty hard.

I just want to say ditto on what Mr. Swanson said about Mr. Breslin. There you go.

Motion to approve on that.

Second. Motion to approve and second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed. So that is passed. Claire, help me. The facility slate roof that we had on items removed in the consent agenda, can we just leave that and it goes away? Or do we need to take action on that?

We've actually, on the partial one, we've withdrawn it, so you're just acknowledging that tonight and allowing it to be withdrawn.

It is acknowledged as withdrawn. Good. I love it. All right, bills for final passage. Let's go to 5498.

Bill number 5, 4, 9, 8 ordinance authorizing the professional administrative services and program administration agreement between Saint Charles County in the city of Saint Charles for the city's operation of the urban counties 2026 through 2030 community development block grant program and services.

Questions or comments about this bill. Seeing none, please call the roll.

Bill number 5, 4, 9, 8. an ordinance authorizing the professional administration, it's administrative services and program and administration agreement between Saint Charles County and the city. For the city's operation of the urban counties, 2026 to 2030 community development block grant programs and services. Councilman Hammond.

Yeah.

How many of them? Yes. Councilman Hollander, yes Councilwoman York. Councilman Baker, yes. Councilman Swanson, yes ma'am. Councilman Brass, yes.

Bill 5, 4, 9, 8 passes that gets us to 5, 4, 9, 9.

Bill number 5, 4, 9, 9, an ordinance approving a supplemental agreement with the Missouri Department of Transportation and BNSF Railway Company for highway rail crossing improvements at Dwiggins Road.

Questions or comments? Seeing none, please call the roll.

Bill number 5, 4, 9, 9, an ordinance approving a supplemental agreement with the Missouri Department of Transportation and BNSF Railway Company for highway rail crossing improvements at Dwiggins Road. Councilman Elam?

Yes.

Councilman Hollander? Yes. Councilwoman York? Yes. Councilman Baker? Yes. Councilman Swanson? Yes, ma'am. Councilman Brazel? Yes. Councilman Hammond?

Yes. 5, 4, 9, 9 passes. That gets us to 5, 5, 0, 0.

Bill number 5, 5, 0, 0, an ordinance approving a supplemental agreement with the Missouri Department of Transportation and the NSF railway company for highway rail crossing improvements at Peru Creek Road.

Questions or comments.

The number 5, 5, 0, 0, an ordinance approving a supplemental agreement with the Missouri Department of Transportation and the NSF railway company for highway rail crossing improvements at Peru Creek Road. Councilman Hollander, yes Councilwoman York. Councilman Baker, yes. And Swanson, yes, ma'am. Councilman Bradson, yes. Councilman Hammond, yes.

Councilman Elam, yes. 5500 passes we have already passed 5501 that gets us to 5502.

Bill number 5, 5, 0, 2, an ordinance authorizing the St. Charles County executive to execute grant award documents with the Missouri Department, with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for participation in the BioWatch program and further by amending ordinance 25-082 of St. Charles County, Missouri by providing a supplemental appropriation to the budget of the police department in the amount of $467,982 and by adding one program manager position and 6 intermittent technical positions within the office of chief of police and authorizing the purchase of vehicles and related expenditures as funded by a grant questions or comments.

Seeing none we call the roll.

Bell number 5502, an ordinance authorizing the St. Charles County Executive to execute grant award documents with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for participation in the BioWatch program and further by amending ordinance 25-082 of St. Charles County, Missouri by providing a supplemental appropriation to the budget of the police department in the amount of 467 982 and by adding one program manager position in six intermittent technical positions within the office of the chief of police and authorizing the purchase of vehicles and related expenditures as funded by a grant councilwoman york Councilman Baker, yes, Councilman Swanson, yes, ma'am. Councilman brass on us come in Hammond, yeah, come in, you know, yes, come on. Yes, 5502 passes that gives us to 5503 bill number 5, 5, 0, 3, an ordinance authorizing the county executive or his designee to execute amendment number 2 of program services contract number. KQ 260058058 with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services for violent death and overdose death surveillance reimbursement.

Any questions or comments on this bill? Seeing none, please call the roll.

Bill number 5, 5, 0, 3, an ordinance authorizing the county executive or its designee to execute amendment number 2 of program services contract number KQ 2, 6, 0, 0, 5, 8, 0, 5, 8, with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services for violent death and overdose death surveillance reimbursement. Councilman Baker. Yes. Councilman Swanson. Yes, ma'am. Councilman Brazel. Yes. Councilman Hammond. Yes. Councilman Elam. Yes. Councilman Hollander. Yes. And Councilwoman York.

5,503 passes were 5,504 this will be a final bill for final passage.

The number 5, 5, 0, 4, an ordinance amending section 3, 0, 4, 0, 1, 2 of the ordinances of Saint Charles County Missouri concerning careful and prudent driving.

Any questions or comments here. Seeing none please call the roll.

Bill number 5, 5, 0, 4, an ordinance amending section 3, 0, 4, 0, 1, 2 of the ordinances of St. Charles County, Missouri concerning careful and prudent driving. Councilman Swanson. Yes, ma'am. Councilman Brazel. Yes. Councilman Hammond. Yeah. Councilman Elam. Yes. Councilman Hollander. Yes. Councilwoman York. Yes. And Councilman Baker. Yes.

Bill 5505 is already been voted on tonight so that gets us to bills for introduction starting with 5508.

Bill number 5508 requested by Michael Hurlburt sponsored by Joe Brazel. An ordinance amending the zoning district map of the county of St. Charles, Missouri by rezoning land from A agricultural district to RR single family residential district per application RZ 26-03.

I know you came up and spoke during public comment. Does anybody have any questions for him about this bill?

Thank you for staying for so long. I think it was unanimously supported at planning and zoning. I just remember that.

Okay, that's very generous to give your kids three acres. I guess I don't love my children as much as you do, but that'll get us to 5509.

Bill number 5509, requested by Mike Herlberg, sponsored by Mike Enlim. In ordinance one, authorizing submittal of a 2026-2023 consolidated plan and 2026 annual action plan for St. Charles County, Missouri, in its capacity as an urban county and participating in the Community Development Block Grant, CDBG program, through the St. Louis Home Consortium, and to authorizing the county executive to execute all related documents and 3 authorizing acceptance of CDBG funds and the amount of 1 million $88.14. Any questions on this bill direction is that 1 million $88,014.

1 million $88,014.

There we go I just want to make sure we're all right. Now any other coming. Seeing none.

Bill number 5510 requested by Michael Herlberg sponsored by Council as a whole in ordinance authorizing execution of a cooperation agreement with the city of Flint Hill to join the Saint Charles urban County as recognized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Any questions or comments about this part. Yes, sir.

I'm going to ask Jo Ann. Flint Hill is a small You lean into that like things when he was a small municipality so they have to go together with the rest of the municipalities to be part of this is that correct. Fallon is the biggest city in the county and the only city in the county that's big enough to do this on their own. So the fact that they're not in it with us is not a reflection on them or us or anybody is just They have the ability, because of their size, to control the money themselves and do what they want to with it. I think we would probably do the same thing if we could. Am I simplifying that too much?

It's called Valens, the seventh biggest city in Missouri, if you're aware of that. And so City Administrator Snowden and I talked a year or so ago about whether or not they wanted to come in. And he said that because of their size and the advantage to them of staying independent, they were going to stay independent. But if they made a decision not to do that, he would call. It's good to know we're all playing well.

In the sandbox.

That's it. All right. Let's go to Bill 5510. Sorry, 11.

The number 55 11 requested by Mike summer sponsored by Mike in an ordinance fixing and establishing the rate and lending of taxes for the general revenue fund and for various special funds of and for which the County of Saint Charles Missouri receives a portion of the revenue for the year 2026.

Any questions or comments about this bill. I think Bob covered part of that in just talking about enrolling back in where our fund rates are going to be. So thanks for covering that. That gets us to 5512.

Bill number 5512 requested by Chief Kurt Frist sponsored by Mike Elam, an ordinance authorizing the St. Charles County Executive to execute the St. Charles County Police Department to expand the School Resource Officer, SRO program to include Emanuel Lutheran, Wentzville and Immaculate Conception, Dardenne parochial schools.

Any questions or comments on this one, yes, I just totally appreciate this coming from the elementary world and education for us to reach out to I C D and the manual through Wentzville this is great. Just it's this is what we should be doing.

I just want to make sure everybody cleared the county is not paying to do security for private schools, it's being reimbursed so there's not. public money going to private schools before somebody takes that ball and runs with it so that's going to wrap up all bills for introduction actions to be taken on table bills, Mister Baker, yes, I would like I would like to amend bill number 5490 was substitute bill number 5490 I second that we've. motion and a second all those in favor say aye aye any opposed sorry it has to be taken off the table for my bad thanks. It's like it's 9.22 and I have a sinus infection or something so.

I make a motion to take 5490 off the table and amend it. I do have to do that again take it off the table second.

Bill number 5, 4, 9, 0, 1.

Motion taken off the table in second all those in favor say aye. Now.

Bill number? No.

Now you have a substitute bill. Now I need to amend it? You make your motion for the substitute. Okay. I make a motion to amend bill number 5490 with substitute bill 5490.

We have a motion. Second. And a second. All those in favor? Aye. Discussion?

Well, I'll just give a summary on what was amended. Let's go. So we had a lot of discussions about the 600 foot restriction. I did wrestle with that after talking to some folks. We have an area in my district where a gentleman is putting a lot of money fixing up a bunch of properties and a lot of properties that really needed it. He's fixing them up and our 600 foot restriction wouldn't allow him to use those as short-term rentals. The other one is we did include all areas of unincorporated St. Charles County, which includes Defiance and the wine area. They may not have problems now, but if I can use my district as a barometer, they will. That's basically the change and I think we also remove the occupancy restriction because if I'm not mistaken we have restrictions that you can have a 2 bedroom house with 20 people living in and now so we also remove that so correct me if I'm wrong and the other changes, but that's that's kind of the summary of the changes to this amended bill.

In the of this route, I'll just say that I'm not for this bill because of additional just government inspections and all that stuff and taxes, however, I will be a stand because I think Bob's probably right. I will abstain from this.

Fair enough any other comments. Seeing none please call the roll.

Substitute bill number 5, 4, 9, 0 ordinance and acting section 6, 6, 0 ordinances of Saint Charles County, Missouri relating to short-term rentals. Councilman Swanson.

No.

Councilman Brazel. Abstain. Councilman Hammond.

Yes.

Councilman Elam.

No.

Councilman Hollander.

Yes.

Councilwoman Newark. Yes. Councilman Baker.

Yes. Bill 5490 passes. No other items to be taken announcements and miscellaneous yes, I have one yes, sir.

Councilman Patty York and I get had the pleasure of touring the National question center. I think was Wednesday or Tuesday and Ryan and his group have really done a fantastic job. I mean they're they're learning learning by fire right now. And when you drive walk around the parking lot you see vehicles from All over the country. The economic development that that they provide is I think a measurable. So I want to thank you thank Ryan and his crew so thank you good job.

I think they had one of their largest shows of the year that was going on this weekend it people literally from all around the country.

And Ryan I want to take a before picture with a drone and in 5 years let's take an after I think there's going to be some big changes and if we didn't own it as an equestrian center, it would be a credit union. Starbucks and apartments so I don't think people from Washington North Dakota come to see that so thank you.

Any other announcements.

I'm not sure yes, sir. So for the last 4 years I've been working with legislators not elected officials on the annexation laws in Saint Charles County had multiple meetings in Jefferson City this year. We hired a consultant we hired a lobbyist personally paid for it with citizens for smart growth and the Avondale subdivision and we prevailed with that a new House bill 2018 it was signed by people today or maybe yesterday was signed. It's only include Saint Charles County where annexation laws are going to be a lot and it's going to be a lot more legal and tougher to get through for developers in different cities. So this is a huge step forward and trying to maintain some of our growth and so it was a huge accomplishment that our senators did a great job or state reps to the good job. They're trying to make a statewide, but we could we just got to go. It just went with Saint Charles County, Jefferson County.

Can you explain the changes? How can you explain the changes.

Yeah, what I meant just text me today or just just an hour before the meeting short, but You cannot have the annexations anymore where they just go to the City Council and vote it through. They can't have those kind of annexations. It has to have more public input. I think it's 18% now, continuity. I'm not certain of all the changes, and we'll have to do a deeper dive because there were some negotiations going on, and I was not involved in those negotiations. So I don't know exactly everything they stuck to, but I do know that it is still going to be a positive for St. Charles County, 100%.

Mr. Swenson. I was going to go just for something funny since I gave Mr. Braz a compliment. Mr. Deanoff, I like your hat.

awesome so before we before we get out of here I want to say thanks to John and the highway department and to Rob there were some folks who were here from Darden Prairie a few weeks ago talking about Waterford crossing and that issue right there I was driving through there earlier this past weekend. The metal plate is gone that first part right there looks fantastic. I know they're working on fixing the rest of that road and the way you guys have moved on that very quickly to make that happen and hopefully we're able to get it all done before school starts. I know that was a big back and forth with a number of different municipalities to try to figure all this out. But you guys just but the bullet got it done so thank you very much for what you guys are doing and thanks for getting it done with that with that I would entertain a motion to adjourn motion that all those in favor. Good night.