All right.

Well, good evening and welcome to uh the Monday, August 18th, 2025, Columbia City Council meeting.

I am glad to see so many people here at this the end of summer.

Um Sheila, will you please call roll?

Oh, wait.

Please I invite all the all those who are able to please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Sorry, I follow this.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

My apologies.

I was trying to remember the thing that I always forget.

Sheila, we please call roll.

Mr.

Foster, Mr.

Waterman.

Here.

Miss Peters.

Here.

Miss Buffalo.

Here.

Miss Carroll.

Miss Elwood.

Here.

And Miss Sample.

Here.

All right.

Well, welcome.

Uh, good evening.

The public have multiple opportunities to speak at Columbia City Council meetings.

There will be options under the public hearing, old business and new business portions of the agenda.

I do remind people to keep your comments regarding uh limited to the legislation being discussed, because at the end of the meeting, you can talk about anything you want to talk about.

Uh individuals will be given three minutes.

Uh if you're representing an organization uh that is affected by the legislation, you can request five.

I do ask for you to let me acknowledge that so that I can give our fellows a chance to change the clock here that it gives you your countdown.

Um excuse me.

I do ask for people to respect the time limits out of fairness so that everyone has an opportunity to speak.

I also request um, unless we're doing something like swearing somebody in or receiving a big check, uh, please try to avoid things like applause and booze.

I don't think anyone would boo a big check, but in case they were, um, we don't want demonstration demonstrations that intimidate people from speaking.

Um, I ask that people address uh in they address our issues and not individuals and refrain from personal attacks that includes on city staff.

Um if we do have disruptions, they'll be given a warning, and if it continues, we might do a short recess and removal might be happening.

So up next on our agenda, the first thing we have is for the minutes.

So I'll make a motion to approve the August 4th, 2025 regular meeting minutes.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Betsy Peters.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Um are there any changes to the agenda?

Seeing none, I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as posted.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Seconded by Don Waterman.

All those in favor as the agenda is posted, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

All right, so we have two special items before we get into the rest of the meet of the the council meeting.

So I'd now like to ask uh Vera Elwood to join me at the podium out front.

I, Vera Elwood, do you solemnly swear to solemnly swear that I possess all qualifications that I possess all qualifications for the office of ward two council member.

For the office of ward two council member.

For the city of Columbia, Missouri.

For the City of Columbia, Missouri.

That I am not subject.

That I am not subject to any of the disqualifications to any of the disqualifications.

Set forth in the charter.

Set forth in the charter of the City of Columbia.

Of the City of Columbia.

That I will support the Constitution.

That I will support the Constitution.

And laws of the United States.

And laws of the United States.

And of the State of Missouri.

And of the state of Missouri.

And the charter and ordinances.

And the charter and ordinances of the City of Columbia.

Of the City of Columbia.

And that I will faithfully discharge.

And that I will faithfully discharge the duties of my office.

The duties of my office.

So help me God.

Congratulations.

So I have your commission, your official commission.

So it reads to all who shall see these presents' greetings.

Know ye that it having been certified that Vera Elwood was on the fifth day of August 2025, duly elected second ward council member within and for the City of Columbia in the County of Boone in the state of Missouri.

Now, therefore, in the name and on behalf of said City of Columbia, County, and State Force, that said Verawood is hereby commissioned to serve as second ward council member for the term ending April 2027, as specified by law and is authorized to discourage the discharge the duties of said office according to law.

So this isn't testimony whereof by myself, Mayor Barbara Buffalo, and attested by Sheila Men City Clerk.

So congratulations, Vera.

Vera.

Vera, before we move on to our next special Adam, would you like to make some remarks while you still have family and friends in the audience?

Absolutely.

Thank you all so much for an incredible packed room.

I am absolutely honored to be in a city council meeting, sitting on the dais as a ward two council member.

Growing up as a kid, I was always told by adults that I was going to likely run for office one day.

I think that's mostly something they tell kids who annoy adults too often.

I did not imagine that I would actually be sitting in a chair like this one day.

So it is an absolute honor.

I would not have gotten here without so many people, many of whom are in the room right now.

I want to first and foremost thank my family.

And also my family that is watching from uh Florida, from North Carolina, and from London right now on live stream, uh, who have supported me my entire life and childhood as an annoying kid who was told they would go into politics.

Um I also want to thank everyone who showed up and showed out for this election.

From the moment I decided to run, I was told in a special election for city council where there's only one item at the city level on the ballot, I should expect that there would be very few votes in the election.

I should expect no more than eight percent voters turnout at the very highest estimates.

I should plan my entire campaign around only expecting 8% of people to turn out.

And from the very beginning, I said I simply didn't accept that of the incredible voters of ward two.

We are too engaged to only show out 8%.

And I wouldn't run a campaign assuming that no one would show up to vote.

I also said repeatedly and loudly that I wanted this to be a campaign, an election that would break records.

And we absolutely did.

We saw 20% voter turnout in ward two.

12% overall for Boone County, but it was 20% for ward two.

That is something that could not have happened without an engaged ward that would not have happened without a ward that cared deeply about their representation.

And also would not have happened with only one name on the ballot.

I was not alone in pulling out turnout to the polls.

I was not alone in engaging our ward and engaging our citizens.

So I also want to thank Kin Rice.

It is not a record I could have set alone.

We did incredible things to get ward two to care about this election.

And I look forward to working with you in the future.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Vera.

Well, thank you, and and welcome to the team.

We now have a supermajority of women on council.

Sorry, Don.

Or you're welcome.

All right, our next special item.

Um, I'd like to invite members from the Cosmo uh Luncheon Club to please come up and make remarks at the dais, and then I will come down and join you and parks director Gabe Huffington.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the council, Phil Hanson, 801 Canterbury Drive, Columbia Mall.

Um it's um my pleasure to be able to uh talk to you tonight, along with John Hubert here.

Uh one to just give you a little bit of deep information as far as the uh club is concerned, the cosmopolitan club.

It uh in the early 70s, middle 70s, uh, you know, I had the pleasure of uh representing the third board uh at that time.

It uh about in the early 70s, middle 70s, uh you know, I had the pleasure of uh representing the third board uh at that time uh uh for uh your uh nice growth period as far as the uh city of Columbia was concerned.

It uh it is an honor to be able to speak to you again today and let you know that the Cosmopolitan Club, when I was a member of the of the council, the cosmopolitan club was up almost monthly, telling the members what they were doing.

At that point in time, they were actually involved in the uh building of the uh cosmopolitan park.

Uh at one time uh I was uh listening to them and they were uh digging uh dirt in the uh park uh to uh put in the first sewer system for the uh first uh restroom out there.

I mean they hands-on dirt, you know.

And a lot of it uh, but a lot of it was building uh you know shelters uh for the people to enjoy the Cosmopolitan Park at that time.

And as uh, you know in the 80s, unfortunately, we uh you know, because of liability concerns, we no longer do hands-on work.

So it's up to us to try to sponsor as many programs as we can that we uh uh enjoy working with.

Uh our club wants to help the youth of the community.

So was that or turn it over to John Hubert?

Well, since 1949, our club has worked been working diligently with the parks since the formation of Cosmo Park.

We've been partnering with the parks and recreation.

I don't think there's a major part in Columbia that we don't have an influence, either a building of structure or name or something there, so that we do partnership with the parks.

We do that to make Columbia a better place to live, a better place to raise your family, and a better place to raise your kids.

We're gonna continue that commitment tonight.

Phil, what are you going to give them?

150,000?

150.

Our commitment's another 150.

If you saw the leisure time, uh Friday or whatever, you see that soldier.

About a million point seven fives in that neighborhood.

We are committed to the City of Columbia and to the youth of Columbia.

Yeah.

Okay.

And also uh, were you with that 49 when they built Cosmo Park?

I wasn't there quite uh when you broke uh ground on the original park.

Anyway, I'm just extremely proud of what the Cosmo Public does for the City of Columbia and for the parks.

I'm really proud to work with the parks, especially Gabe.

He went that way.

He's holding the big check.

He's our check.

You support our club, he's been a great, great member.

Yeah.

Well, we want to thank you for your partnership with us.

And I'll calm down.

Did you want to do a photo with your really big check there, Gabe?

One thing I like to say too, work with job point.

And really appreciative that you guys are to get job point in there.

Really appreciative that you guys are building a park for with a playground for kids with disabilities.

Welcome over here with a question.

Well, it is a big check.

Thankful to be part of uh engaged and involved and supportive community, so thank you all for that.

Um I'm sure they'll tell you that you can come out for a Cosmo and join at any time.

I'm sure they would tell you that.

So all right, moving on.

The there are multiple opportunities to serve uh the City of Columbia.

We have over 40 boards and commissions.

Uh and so if you're interested, I encourage you to check out on the website uh the vacancies when they're posted later this week for our next round.

Um this evening we have a few applicants um and uh we have a few vacancies and a few applicants to them.

So we'll go through from the ones that we have and I'll ask for Sheila.

I think we'll start with Board of Health.

For Board of Health at our Group, we have one applicant um uh who qualifies for the nurse designation on the Board of Health.

So if there's no objection, we can put um appoint Roseanne Geyser to that one.

Any objection?

Seeing none?

All right, so then that moves on to our um level of interest.

So we'll need a roll call.

So Sheila, will you call a role on the general interest position for the Board of Health since we have multiple applicants?

Mr.

Waterman.

Samantha Joyner.

Ms.

Peters.

Samantha Joyner.

Miss Buffalo, Samantha Joyner.

Ms.

Elwood.

Samantha Joyner.

Ms.

Sample.

Samantha Joyner.

Samantha's been appointed.

All right.

Up next, we have five vacancies for the Building Construction Codes Commission.

For the ones that we have applicants, if agreeable for the role of alternate professional engineer experience and electrical and mechanical position, there's no objection, we can appoint Fred Malico to that position.

No objection.

No objection.

And then similarly, um Kyle Saunders to the alternate major contractor.

If there's no objection.

No objections.

All right.

And encourage if you're interested in the building trains or have a knowledge to look at those.

We do have some vacancies, and we're reviewing building codes right now, so it's a good time to get in on it.

Up next, we have Citizens Police Review Board.

We have uh two vacancies.

We'll need to do a roll call because we had three applicants.

The first though, we'll start with the term.

We have a term that ends November 1st, 2025.

Uh, and we have one that ends November 1st, 2027.

So I'll go ahead and have us up um appoint for the term that ends November 1st, 2027.

Excuse me, and ask Sheila to call roll for that one.

Okay, this is the 2027 one, Mr.

Waterman.

Lynn Bergen.

Ms.

Peters.

Lynn Bergen.

Miss Buffalo.

Lynn Bergen.

Miss Elwood?

Lynn Bergen.

Ms.

Sample.

Lynn Bergen.

Okay.

And appointed.

And then for um the term ending in November 1st, 2025.

And you'll work, they can easily reapply.

You can just react to the case.

I will ask them if they want to reactivate their application.

If they don't have to do another one.

Okay, correct.

All right.

Sheila, we please call roll for that one.

Mr.

Waterman.

Mike.

Excuse me.

Mike Keen Powell.

Miss Peters.

Matthew Persley.

Miss Buffalo.

Mike Keen Powell.

Miss Elwood.

Mikeen Powell.

Miss Sample.

Mike Keen Powell.

Mike Keen's been appointed.

Okay.

Thank you.

Moving on for Historic Preservation Commission.

We have one applicant that for historic preservation for the interest in historic preservation.

So if there's no objection, we can appoint Jennifer Leptow to that one.

Is there any objection?

Can I ask you?

Oh, what term?

So we have two terms September 1st, 2027.

I would say the September 1st, 2028.

That's the term the longer term.

Is there any objection to that?

Okay.

And then we'll advertise for for the other vacancies.

And then also we have one applicant, Melissa Hagen, that can be avoided as the expertise in real estate investor position if there's no objection.

No objection.

Okay.

Moving on, we have one applicant for the public transit advisory commission.

So if there's no objection, uh Hanukkah Hannah Carico Carrico can be appointed to that one.

No objection.

And then we'll need roll call vote for we have two applicants for one vacancy for the St.

Charles Transportation Development District Board.

Mr.

Waterman.

Austin Bevins.

Ms.

Peters.

Aaron Thomas.

Miss Buffalo.

Austin Bevins.

Miss Elwood.

Austin Bevins.

Ms.

Sample.

Austin Bevins.

Austin's been appointed.

Okay.

All right.

Moving on.

There are members of the public can contact the city manager's office by noon on a Wednesday prior to the city council meeting to be part of scheduled public comment.

Members of the public are given five minutes to speak at the beginning of the meeting.

But it cannot be on anything that's on that evening's agenda.

Of note, it's been typical practice for the city council to ask for additional follow-up or questions of tonight from staff at the end of the meeting if it is warranted.

So tonight we have three scheduled public comments.

Good evening.

Jim Windsor, 200 Manor Drive.

What I wanted to talk to you about.

I have come to City Council meetings multiple times over the last several years.

And I and also have heard citizens' comments and heard them either through social media or local talk radio.

And I wanted to talk a little bit about transparency and going beyond legally required transparency to provide accountability and build trust.

And I think that will benefit everyone to do that.

It was easy to find the minutes for council meetings are not available for the citizens to review.

While I've known the city clerk for quite some time and worked with her professionally and certainly trust her, I don't necessarily know if all citizens would do that.

It's a matter of perception to be allowed to review things, particularly if you speak to the city council to ensure that it is what you actually said.

This is an example of the Board of Health.

Many uh other boards and commissions put the minutes of uh make it available to citizens.

Um the Water and Light Board has a calendar of topics that they discuss over a 12-month period.

I think that would encourage citizens to be more interested in uh what boards and commissions may be doing.

And while there's always things that come up at any particular time, uh I think it's a good practice.

And and so I just wanted to show you that as an example.

Now, one thing I disagree with what the Water and Light Board does, and I'm not commenting on an ordinance tonight.

I'm talking about process.

Um they do not allow citizens to comment when they vote on recommendations that is then sent to you.

Uh and that's really uh, in my view, undemocratic.

That it is all boards and commissions, if they are doing something where they're going to take a vote.

Citizens should have the opportunity to make a statement prior to that vote.

So here are, and I'm only one person.

I mean, there may be other citizens that have ideas, and this is just my view.

Uh, if whenever possible, have a 12-month uh listing of what what boards and commissions do on a on a monthly basis uh typically, and some some will be able to do that and some may not.

Uh provide links to all documents so that citizens can review them uh before the meeting, and then allow citizens to comment if there is going to be a vote that results in something being sent to you or results in some kind of modification of operational policies.

That should be part of a democracy in my view.

Uh Capital Projects.

Over 10 years ago, I was still working and as assistant director of utilities, and the other assistant director, we were trying to get project management started so that everyone could see what was being done.

I think that's now under the city manager.

It is possible to uh using this Power BI to have citizen dashboards.

Uh this is something that I just took off of YouTube, but you can go in and see those kind of things.

For the city council, uh let people see the minutes if they can speak because if they comment, they should be able to review what they say and allow them to correct it.

And also I think staff should have to say, right now you get memos that say all the wonderful things that are going to occur because of what's being proposed, but citizens have concerns.

Allow them, allow or ask staff to list what citizens' concerns are.

It gives you an opportunity to then ask them additional questions before the vote is going to occur and before you get citizen input.

So we all should be treated as adults, and citizens should treat you, should be adult about how they go about it.

And so they shouldn't yell at you, and they they should actually say what the issue is.

So thank you.

Thank you.

I now like to ask uh Jack Dobbs to come forward to speak.

You're tall.

Can you raise your microphone, please?

Thank you.

How's that?

Perfect.

Good.

Hello.

My name is Jack Dobbs.

I'm a recent graduate from Mizzou, and I am here with Columbia Tenants Union, a new citywide organization made for and by tenants to ensure all renters in Columbia have safe, affordable, and accessible housing.

We seek to unite all tenants in Colombia who are fed up with the current writ rental housing situation and want to see meaningful change in the current balance of power.

Alone, we have been ignored for far too long, so now we must come together.

In the last five years that I've lived in Colombia, I have seen a wide range of ways in which tenants are taken advantage of.

For students at Missoo, being ripped off for your lack of housing options has become an annual tradition more certain and recognizable than the homecoming parade.

We know the rent is too high.

The monthly rent for a one bedroom apartment costs on average more than 50% what it was when I got here five years ago.

And we know expenses haven't risen by that amount.

This is profit seeking behavior by corporations that do not care about Columbia or the people that live here.

And this is what happens when a home is viewed as a commodity and not a home.

When profits are valued more than people, and what do these companies go on to do?

Most are collecting an astronomical payday from a business model that exploits and extracts as much wealth as possible from our student population, pushing everyone else's rents higher in the process before selling out and then moving on to the next town.

I could spend hours on the affordability crisis, but unfortunately, that's far from the only issue we have here.

While canvassing, I have seen many units with mold, bugs, rodents, broken windows, broken doors, faulty locks, no AC, roofs caving in, and serious concerns in regard to tenant rights violations, such as entry without prior notification.

I have met young people with no prior health conditions who have developed asthma and struggled to breathe, who struggle to walk to class from East Campus because they are being poisoned by the mold infested air in their home.

I've had a female friend wake up to property managers creeping on her bedroom door to tell her something while she was home alone.

Another tenant, his property manager, demanded a 250 dollar on the spot cleaning fee following an unannounced unit inspection.

Straight up extortion.

Much of this goes unreported because students, oftentimes first-time renters, do not know where to go to report what their rights are to begin with, or so when the landlord says no or ignores them, most students just let it go.

Fueled by the simple fact that our opinion that our options on where to go are extremely limited, many students learn helplessness to cope and try not to think about it.

Is that what we want young people moving here to learn?

Every summer, leases for many large properties end arbitrarily in July, and refuse to allow returning tenants back in until mid-August, leaving many students unhoused for up to six to eight weeks.

For those students who need to be here to work for in-state tuition, take summer classes, international students, or any student without a nearby safety net to fall back on, these people are put under a tremendous amount of stress and in some cases are pressured into dangerous living situations.

Many tenants I've known have been forced to cram too many people into a small apartment or move back in with abusive exes to be able to go to school during this time.

Bottom line, this isn't sustainable.

It's catching up to us.

How much longer will student will parents send their kids here when so many of them come back with these horror stories?

What will our community do without that revenue?

This will affect all of us.

We must do something about this as a community.

Today I spoke mainly on issues facing student renters because that is my background and experience.

But recently I have come to see that these issues are all across the board for all tenants, regardless of background.

As tenants, we will be here to ensure our interests are safeguarded and to ensure that your efforts to build a livable and sustainable community includes the people that will actually live here.

I know that neighborhood services does amazing work, but having canvassed several neighborhoods, it's apparent that incidents are vastly underreported.

Additionally, if anywhere near the number of instances were to be reported, neighborhood services would not have the ability to investigate them as they would be swamped beyond their capabilities.

Inspections are only required every five years, but it can take mold less than a month to cause serious health issues within a home.

Sixty months between inspections is too long.

We need more inspections to keep landlords accountable and homes safe.

In the meantime, we will be out here, empowering tenants to exercise their rights, to utilize already existing city resources, to come together and to speak up against injustices we face together, regardless of age, status, race, or class.

We will be back with more of our stories from all over our community.

As tenants, we make up 51% of the population here in Columbia.

If you don't hear us now, you will hear us soon.

We are the Columbia Tenants Union.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Jack.

Moving on in the agenda to our public hearings.

Sheila, will you read public hearing 2525 and then company Bill 1825?

Public hearing 2525 is setting property tax rates for 2025 for the City of Columbia.

And Council Bill 1825 is an ordinance fixing the rate of taxation on all taxable property in the City of Columbia, Missouri for the year 2025, directing the city clerk and finance director to give notice of the property tax rate and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective second reading.

Do we have a staff report?

Yes.

What you have before you is an annual setting of the sales tax levy for the City of Columbia.

This year's uh rate is a decrease from last year's.

Uh and this is because of the Hancock Amendments limit on growth for the yearly property tax income.

Uh the allowable growth is limited by the CPI or the consumer price index or 5%, whichever of the lesser, whichever is lesser of the two.

Uh since our assessed valuation growth was over 8% this year, the growth limitation, I'm sorry.

The growth limitation factor kicked in, and we have uh to decrease basically our our sales tax rate for fiscal year, well, for calendar year uh 25.

Are there any questions from council to staff?

See none, I'll go ahead and open up the public hearing.

Does anybody from the public wish to speak?

Seeing none, I'll close.

Oh, if you have yeah, if you can come up to the podium here.

Oh no, this is comments about the proposed uh reduction in property tax rate.

Okay.

No, if it's at the end that you can talk about anything you want.

Yeah.

Renee Carter Ward 2.

I just wanted to clarify, because he said sales tax.

Did he mean property taxes?

Property tax.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else have a question?

All right, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing.

Anything coming to council on that?

No.

All right.

Sheila, will you please call roll on bill 18225?

Council Bill 1825, Mr.

Waterman?

Yes.

Ms.

Peters?

Yes.

Ms.

Buffalo?

Yes.

Ms.

Elwood?

Yes.

Ms.

Sample?

Yes.

All right.

Uh up next, Sheila, will you please read Public Hearing 2625 and the accompanying Bill 18325?

Public hearing 2625 is the FY 2026 annual budget for the City of Columbia.

Council Bill 183-25 is an ordinance adopting a budget for the City of Columbia, Missouri for the fiscal year October 1, 2025 through September 30th, 2026.

FY 2026, providing that certain amounts shown in the budget document are appropriated for the various departments specified in said budget and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective.

Second reading.

Do we have a staff report?

Yes, we do.

So I just have a few slides.

So let us know if you have any questions or comments as we go through these.

So here's the current proposed fiscal year 26 budget.

Brings us to total expenditures of 598 million.

So citywide expenditures look something like this.

We have operating expenses of $477 million.

Then you add in your capital outlay.

Capital outlay is actually different from capital projects.

Capital outlay are things that costs uh $10,000 or more, but not necessarily more than a year.

So things that are $10,000 but can be purchased or projects that can be completed within a year.

That's different from capital projects with which all take more than a year to complete.

So the operating expenses plus your capital outlay plus debt service equal your expenditures list the capital projects.

And I do have uh basically a handout uh that that explains the budgeting for capital improvement projects a little bit.

So I will pass that down.

I think I have one for everybody, so Sheila, you should get one at the end too.

Okay.

And this is something that we we want to get out there because there is a lot of talk about there potentially being a uh deficit spending in the overall budget, which is not necessarily the truth for the overall budget.

Do you want to expand upon what's on the document you just handed out to us?

So what's on the document that's handed out is basically uh explanation of capital improvement projects and how they're handled.

Uh because a capital improvement project, uh basically the revenue for capital improvement project is collected over multiple years, but the expense all hits in one year.

And so there are timing differences versus uh revenue spending.

Um use of fund balances for many of the the capital items as well uh comes into play where you are not matching up current revenues with current expenses, and that is basically the the gist of what it what was sent around to you all.

So here we have the the total revenue by category and fees and service charges make up 57 percent of all expenses.

Um the majority of that, 82 percent of all that revenue comes from uh utilities.

So our next highest uh revenue category is sales tax and then transfers after that.

Again, we want to reiterate that uh we will not be putting the the two percent of the one percent uh for public improvement funds into the public improvement fund this year.

Uh that fund will basically be ran on the uh the development fees, uh which which are close to development fees and interest uh accrual basically somewhere but close to a million dollars that will still be allocated to that public improvement fund, but we will not move over the two percent from the one percent general fund sales tax.

So citywide expenditures look like this.

Uh we've seen uh uh there was an effort for staff.

You have a question?

Yeah.

Um I do have a question, actually.

If you go back to the last slide.

Yes.

Can you tell me the public improvement fund that that 2% of 1% that's now zero?

How much are money are we talking about?

Uh it's around six to seven hundred thousand dollars.

Okay, so a little over half a million.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

So here are expenditures uh broken down by category.

Uh as you can see, we've had a a decrease in many of these areas uh for fiscal year 26, and that was a concerted effort uh by department directors to uh bring down the cost to allow for other expenditures uh mainly personnel uh and to be able to uh provide increases to our employees, which is something that uh we have been doing in the past the past few years uh when we had that class and comp study to actually get our wages uh to a place where they are comparable to those other wages within the city.

Another increase you see there is uh that one of the other biggest increases you see is services and miscellaneous.

Uh most of that is due to inflation, uh, but there are some uh categories in there that are new as well.

Here is uh expenditures by function, and just like with the revenue, the majority of the majority of the expenses in our overall budget are attributed to utilities.

And second is transportation, and next is public safety.

Uh public safety is two departments and one fund, and they make up that big of an amount compared to the uh complete budget.

So here's a uh breakdown by category again, just so you can kind of see the the percentages.

Uh because we are a service organization, you can see 29 percent of all our expense expenditures are personnel related, and then the services another 21, so it makes up a little bit over half of all of our uh citywide expenses.

Here's some of the key changes from fiscal year 25 to fiscal year 26.

Uh we've increased personnel services about 5.9 percent.

Uh that has to do with increases to uh wages as well as a few new personnel.

Uh capital has increased as well, which in turn increases your transfers because most of your capital improvement items are transferred from one fund to another.

We have seen a decrease of uh 9 percent in materials and supplies and then almost a 5 percent decrease in training and travel.

And so um there was a question asked about uh uh why some training to travel or materials and supplies may have increased versus others uh decreasing, and a lot of that is due to mandatory training when it comes to training and travel.

Uh some departments have uh travel related expenses that have increased, but uh they may have had a small budget in the beginning, and so a small increase to that budget will make it look like a a larger uh percentage increase.

So you sometimes you have to look at the actual numbers.

I know there one of them was uh uh public works admin had a had an increase of like 12 percent or something like that, but it in all actuality it was a thousand dollars.

So Betsy.

Can you expand a little bit?

You said that capital is going up 18 percent.

Can you expand a little bit on what is included in that and what is going up 18 percent?

And then how that affects the transfers?

The spending for capital improvements or capital items.

So uh most of your capital improvement items are funded through either capital improvement sales tax, transportation sales tax, um.

What's the um well anyway?

Most of them are done in those two.

Those those in turn have to be transferred to the departments that are actually doing the work or transferred to a capital improvement project fund.

And so what does the transfer involve?

I mean, that sounds like super work, but apparently not.

It so if this were transfers are are really an accounting thing that that has to be done uh when we're talking about fund accounting.

And so uh if we were looking at this as the uh audit, like at the end of the year, transfers would not fall within revenues or expenses.

It will fall below the line.

And it's it's it's sort of an afterthought.

But because this is a budget, we have to include those in our revenues and our expenditures in order for it to balance, in order for the the move of money between funds to actually balance and make sense.

Okay, so when you had so if I go back to the capital and it says you're going up 18 percent, or not you, but the capital budget is going up in 18 per expenditures are going eighteen percent, that means that we've been gathering that money for the last three to five years or whatever.

Yeah, it could be low.

And the plan is that we're expected to spend it in this next budget year?

No, we so even though it is all expensed in this year does not mean it will all be spent in this year.

Capital projects are a life-to-date activity, so they can spend over multiple fiscal years, but they still have to have that allowable budget to be able to do whatever project needs to be done.

So we could allocate 10 million dollars to a project this year, but in all actuality, we could do $5 million of that project this year, and then maybe two the next year, and then finish it off in year three.

Okay.

Thanks.

Matthew, would it be correct to say that's done because most likely you are going out to bid and you have to make sure that you have the money in the account in order for them to go out to bid for that.

So you could you budget for the whole project so that then you're not you're not in any offense with us.

That's correct.

Thanks.

Any other questions on this one?

You can go forward.

So here's our general fund overview.

The proposed general fund budget does have a deficit.

We're looking at $132 million in revenue and $136 million in expenditures for a deficit of about uh $3,500,000.

Uh this is due to ongoing expenditures.

And so majority of this is due to the raises that were asked uh that the staff was asked to put in for departments.

Uh and here is a look of a look at the some of the new decision items that would also fall into that category.

We have a retail feasibility study of about $50,000, uh fire services and equip equipment and repair of about $134,000, police equipment $25, uh plotter and scanner of $14.5, and then uh core cuts all for concrete cutting at $32,000, uh, which equals $256,000 for one-time new decision items that that make up some of this $3.5.

The rest of that is due to increases to uh salaries for uh people within the general fund.

Yeah, Betsy.

So um is this coming out of then the general fund on the $3.5 million?

So where do we put that in the budget so that it's clear that we have a balanced budget as opposed to being a deficit?

I mean, when do when does that come out of the reserve and and where is that listed in your book?

It wouldn't come out of the reserve until it was actually spent.

Right now it is just a budgeted item.

Right.

And uh but would we not budget then that it's gonna come out of reserves?

Right now we are budgeting in deficit, right?

We could if you all wanted to see it that way.

But it could result then at the end of the year that we if you don't spend it, that we then are putting it back into reserves?

Either way it goes, that will be the case.

So if it if it was uh listed as a revenue or if it was not, it would still go back into reserves if that money was not spent.

Okay.

Thanks.

Can you remind us um how you do the cal well first off, I don't know if you have a slide that's showing us what we currently have in reserves.

Um, I do not.

I could.

I could give I could pull one up if you want to see it.

I think that would be useful.

I know this is all only the first, you know, presentation or the first public hearing on this one will continue at the September 2nd meeting and then still the September 15th meeting.

So I think having the information, because I believe we we have over what we are required from reserves, and I don't know if we have a estimate of what that is or the percentages.

That's correct.

We're estimating that we'll have around $9 to $10 million over the required reserve.

The required reserve is somewhere uh $20 to $21 million.

And so we're we're estimating that we'll have somewhere between $9 and $10 million above that required reserve.

So even though we are spending in to we are deficit spending, uh we have some funding over the required reserve available uh to base basically float us until we can figure out uh what either to do with expenses or revenues moving forward.

Sorry, are you saying that nine to ten million would be before or after spending this deficit?

Before.

Okay.

So we would be looking at spending about a third of what we have.

Over the required 20 percent.

Over the required reserve, that's correct.

Or 20 million, sorry.

What do you say for 20 percent?

We have more slides, too.

I don't know.

Yes.

Okay.

So here's a breakdown in uh uh general fund expenses for fiscal year 26.

Um here I think it it's pretty clear.

Oh, I'm sorry, this is revenue, I'm sorry.

Um the big the big change in with revenue uh a lot a lot had to do with grants.

As you can see in 25, we have budgeted about 13 million in grant revenue.

Uh and there that is under the revenue from other governmental sources.

And this year we're down to about uh around 9 million.

So kind of close to that actual.

But uh one thing to keep in mind when you when you're looking at the grant revenue, uh there's an expense side to that as well.

And so if we do not receive the revenue from the grants, we won't have the expenses either.

Uh there's a couple cases where they may not be true, but for the most part, uh that is true with all grant revenue.

Um when you say the original FY25, that's what was budgeted in 25.

That's correct.

That's well, we won't know for sure exactly how much we got until the end of September and then a couple months to do the numbers, right?

Yes.

Uh we could probably get you um uh pretty good rough estimate by the next council meeting of where we look to land.

Well, that'd be nice.

But I'm just trying to make sure I understand your numbers columns.

So thanks.

But that that's true.

Um we do and so later on tonight we will short share the thrird quarter FMIS or financial management supplement.

Uh and it shows a number, it shows a number there that says uh we're six million under, but the issue with that is that that account it does not account for that ARPA the ARPA funding that we have.

Uh so that ARPA funding is basically sitting in a pot and it's already been accounted for.

So, but when we go to we'll I won't go down that that rebut right now.

We'll talk about that a little later.

And remind me, my uh Matthew, on the the dashboard online that we have for finance shows our estimated tax revenue as well as the actual when it comes in.

And you can go back to, I think and see for previous fiscal years, am I correct?

Like you could go back and see what did we originally think was going to come in in 24 compared to the actual to kind of see that if I if I'm remembering correctly.

That's correct.

So it's kind of a good to see whether or not I feel like for the most part, except for the weird sales tax of earlier this year, we've been kind of on par with what we what staff estimated it to be.

Yes.

So here are the expenditures for the general fund for fiscal year 26.

Uh there again, there was a concerted effort to bring down expenses from 25 in order to make way for uh council what the council wanted to do.

And so uh you can see a decrease in almost every category uh outside of personnel services for the fiscal year 26 general fund budget.

And just to clarify, because this was a a request basically from what we were hearing a lot from employee groups and the community about continuing the cost of living increases for employees in order to maintain retention and recruitment.

That's correct.

And I assume we have not we don't have um updated contracts with our representative.

So you can't speak to what percentages were estimated in here.

I don't know.

Um I'm I'm just wondering what we can say to as far as what we're looking at for the employee wage increases.

Yeah, we could talk about what we've because we have actually met with our general employees.

So we are still negotiating contracts with our labor groups, but for the general employees we've we have budgeted in this let me make sure I get this correct.

So it's two and a half percent at fiscal year.

2 percent.

2 percent in fiscal year, and then 1.5 percent in January.

So a total of 3.5 percent.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

So here is a uh breakdown of our general fund expenses.

As you can see, again, that trend shows uh 29 million, almost 26 uh million of our general fund.

So general fund uh expenses go to fund personnel services.

Um then the next, just like in in the overall budget is services and miscellaneous.

Here's another breakdown of those expenses.

Um, and you can see uh very clearly that uh majority of our money uh goes to public safety.

Um then secondly you will look at public works and then help.

That is basically it for tonight.

Great.

Uh questions from counsel for Matthew Liu.

And I'll just remind this is the first of two public hearings involving the budget, and we'll have discussions also at the September 2nd, 2025 meeting, and then official vote and more discussion at the September 15th, 2025 meeting.

So any questions right now for Matthew clarifications.

I think we asked you during that as well.

Yeah.

Um, so I'll remind uh so we've got before as I open up the public hearing.

We have a few um chairs of city boards and commissions uh that we invite to speak first because they help allocate funds within the budget.

So it's nice for them to tell us what they put in the budget to answer those questions.

Um I'll go ahead and open up the public hearing and invite um Stacy Ford with the Human Services Commission to come forward and then Diana followed by Diana Markson with the Commission on Cultural Affairs and Tom Rose with the Housing and Community Development Commission.

So, Stacy, if you want to come forward first.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Stacey Ford, and I am the chair of the Human Service Commission.

This evening I'd like to speak on behalf of our commission and support of the city's investment in our community's social infrastructure through the social service funding process.

Um the Human Service Commission and the Department of Public Health and Human Services are charged with making annual recommendations for the purchase of social services through professional service agreements with community-based organizations.

Utilizing the city's social services funding that you give to us.

We appreciate that.

Um, the goal of the city's purchase of social services is to ensure our basic needs are met and we all have the opportunity to achieve our full potential.

Detailed information about the social service funding process and the issues we address were provided in our report to the council, which was included as an attachment to the budget document.

The Human Service Commission has asked for the social service funding to be restored or increased in each budget since the funding was cut back in 2010.

After an increase in the last three budgets, we were very pleased to see that the city's manager's proposed budget doesn't include any cuts in social service funding.

This feels important now more than ever with the state and federal budget cuts to many of our grant programs locally.

The members of the Human Service Commission would like to thank the City Council for its long-standing support of the social infrastructure in our community.

We look forward to presenting our 2026 social service contract recommendations to you in December.

Thank you.

Thank you, Stacy.

Now I invite Diana Moxon from the Commission on Cultural Affairs to come forward.

Good evening.

First and foremost, thank you to the City Council for considering the Commission on Cultural Affairs recommendation last year to increase annual arts funding from 100,000 to 200,000.

I know the 27 arts agencies which received city funding in FY 2025 join me in expressing their thanks for your recognition and support of the cultural work they do to make Columbia the best place for everyone to live, work, learn, and play.

For perspective, the 200,000 that the city allocates to its annual arts funding program represents just 0.15% of the city's general fund expenditure.

These funds are not only crucial to the culture and vitality of our city, but are also an economic engine.

The findings of the 2022 arts and economic prosperity study showed that the direct economic impact of Colombia's non-profit arts and culture organizations and their audiences was over 18 million dollars, of which over 420,000 went to local tax revenue.

So we can see from this that the nonprofits, arts organizations in Colombia, are not only a vibrant cultural force, but are also an economic asset with a return on investment for the city.

During the annual grant application process, Colombia's nonprofit arts agencies submit requests to the Office of Cultural Affairs for project specific funding.

This year, OCA received 24 applications, and we estimate that more than 125,000 residents and visitors will participate in city-funded arts activities and events in the upcoming fiscal year.

If funding is approved for the OCA budget, contracts will be authorized in October to support arts projects.

What I have shared is the good news.

In Colombia, city arts funding is making so much possible.

However, at a national level, the recommended 35 percent cuts in federal funding of the national endowment for the arts is being felt by many arts organizations, including two here in Columbia.

Many of Columbia's arts nonprofits receive additional funding from the Missouri Arts Council, which itself is a recipient of federal funding.

At this point, we do not know how the national cuts will affect the state agencies across the country, which makes local support of the arts even more crucial at this time.

As you well know, the arts power the communities where people want to live and work.

Shared artistic and cultural experiences strengthen a sense of belonging and community pride.

So please know that we do deeply appreciate the council's recognition of the importance of actively supporting the arts.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Diane.

Now I'd like to invite Tom Rose from our housing and community development commission to come forward.

We also received um written communication from our um convention of visors and sports commission, um, but they will not be here this evening.

Again, my name is Tom Rose, uh chair of the Housing Community Development Commission, and we present to you again this year our recommendations for funding.

Remember that this is a grant-funded program, so money in, money out.

It doesn't cost the city really anything with that uh for our expectations.

Um we have a new consolidated plan, five-year plan that started in 2025.

So we've uh based our uh recommendations on that plan, a lot of community input surveys that go through and um uh uh rankings by the different commissioners to uh make this proposal for the for that funding.

This year I think we were able to add a couple of agencies that are newer agencies that try to fund.

We're always looking to be able to do that with groups that might be able to uh meet all the rec the requirements for the funding.

So consideration.

Thank you, Tom, appreciate it.

All right, now open up to just general comments from the public.

Would anyone from the public wish to speak on the proposed um fiscal year budget for fiscal year 26?

Please come forward.

See none or okay.

I was like, What are you all doing?

What are you doing here?

Come on up, Steve.

I think it's because they know they can talk at the next meeting and the next meeting, so they're saving it up.

One way or the other.

Uh appreciate the discussion here this evening and some of the comments earlier.

Um I just, you know, as being a concerned citizen and trying to keep track of things.

Um, you know, I I will uh commend the city staff for the uh public town hall meetings that were brought uh forward.

The last there were four of them uh this spring and summer, uh, just in the conference room over here.

Um I'll say as a citizen, I really appreciate that outreach.

Um, as Councilman Peters had some questions, you know, the budget's really complicated and there's a lot in there.

And even somebody's been looking at this for years, it's like, okay, what's behind that?

And and this sort of thing.

And so the public education about the general fund and the enterprise funds, that's always good to uh to look over and so forth.

Um, a few things, I guess, observations, the other slide decks that were uh presented, I I found those quite helpful.

Uh being a numbers person, some of the projections from history, I think is helpful.

You know, where are we going?

Where have we been?

Um this sort of thing.

Um, one observation is you'll certainly that's been pointed out earlier is the general fund in particular uh planning for deficit spending.

And I think one of the things that uh the budget director and his professional opinion, I think, and maybe communicated earlier to this group, uh previous sessions that you know, just as a best practice, you know, if you got some one-time things uh, you know, like five years ago, the pandemic, 15 years ago or so, of financial crisis, you have something come up.

Um, okay, deficit spending, well, that's a thing.

But to make ongoing commitments that put that over into deficit into the red that's going to be ongoing.

Um, and I think something if I I'm no expert in the budget and so forth, but uh one thing that I took away was that you know, if you've got ongoing commitments, you're not going to fix that until you fix your revenue problem, I think was the takeaway that I gathered.

And you know, one of the things that um I guess there's several things I could say about that.

But um, you know, what I've been hearing, I guess, from some of the um election cycle and previous uh from some of the council members um specifically is you know, we don't get a lot in property tax for the city.

You know, the the the public schools does, a library sum.

And I've heard several uh pieces of rhetoric that are kind of making me wonder if a tax increase proposal is coming down the line.

And if we're gonna make ongoing uh you know future promises for more uh spending, well, then that's gonna have a shortage.

So gosh, I guess we need some more money.

And I've heard that from a number of different people around the community.

I think people that have this concern.

And so I I would encourage you the general fund, you really need to have a balanced budget.

And there's needs and there's wants, and it's not fun, but $3.5 million, that's gotta be trimmed from somewhere another.

And we gotta at least have a balanced budget to start with.

If things come up, you know, that happens.

But I want to thank you for your consideration of your time this evening.

Thank you, Steve.

Anyone else from the public wish to speak?

On the proposed budget.

Ken Rice 209 reads Port Ridge.

Um I'm gonna just say a couple of things this time around.

I'll have more to say on the following uh public comment, but uh we have two gentlemen that we hire, uh the Carlin Seawood and Matthew Lou that have said time and time again that we shouldn't be uh deficit spending and it's a dangerous course to do.

I think we should listen to the people that we hire and we should follow their advice.

I think that we are going down a dangerous path when the council, and I heard it tonight, the council made the decision to deficit spend, not the staff.

The council made the decision.

It is a poor decision.

Make better decisions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else from the public wish to speak about the proposed budget?

Okay, seeing none, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing.

Again, reminder, we have uh multiple opportunities to continue this discussion.

Oh, wait, I banged the gavel, but I'm not ending the public hearing, right, Sheila?

Correct.

I just banged it because I wanted to.

Um but the public hearing will continue until the September 2nd uh 2025 Columbia City Council meeting.

But I will pause it right now while we continue council conversation and discussion.

Um questions for I I think DeCarlin.

Um, one of the the comments that we have heard over the last so two years ago, council, the s the staff did a classification and compensation study because we were having struggles with recruitment and retention in especially a lot of areas like police uh and some of our public works like transit and others, and so to help raise those wages so that we could be the employer of choice and fill up some of those gaps so we could provide services.

Absolutely.

At that time, when projecting forward, can you remind us the conversations about you know we got to this point, you know, we I feel like we felt confident with the projected um revenues coming into the city that we would be able to continue to provide the support for our employees?

Because as you said, that's the major part of this conversation.

And I, for one, find it interesting when people have these comments that they're the same people who were telling me I need to pay my police officers more, and I can't believe you're not giving them a raise this year.

So I don't I don't know uh can you take us back two years ago?

Well were we thinking there would be more revenues coming in?

I absolutely I think when we we looked at progress, uh what we looked at is how the city growth is occurring financially and our revenues we've we've we've always had a concern that our revenues are on keeping pace with expenditures, but we really believe that our revenues were keeping pace with our ability to grow as we gave raises.

Uh no, was it last year that we um what was it 10 million dollars that we actually committed to two years ago?

Yeah.

And so two to two two years ago we committed to 10 million dollars for salary increases.

And if we remember, so if we we go with the way back machine, so when I became city manager in 2022, we were down 50 police officers.

Uh we were down firefighters, we couldn't hire public work staff, we were down park staff.

And so what we saw was that there's this demand for more services.

We did not have the ability to provide that services because we didn't have the staff.

And so we recognized that there was a need for us to really look at our salaries.

And when we looked at our salaries, what we realized is that we weren't keeping pace with not just the state, we weren't keeping pace with the region.

We were chasing behind other organizations to try to keep up, and we weren't able to hire people.

When we made the commitment to actually increase our salaries, we saw a process that occurred that now we can actually full fully, we can see ourselves become fully staffed.

We're still struggling with transit drivers, and it's not because we can't hire people, it's hard to retain.

So that's something we got to figure out how can we be how can we work better at retaining.

And so it's this process where we looked at is that we're now at this point where we can actually hire and retain people.

How do we keep that momentum going?

And so in January, when we when we had our labor groups come speak, even the ones that are critical of the city said, you've been doing the right thing.

Don't stop.

And so from that perspective, I think that was the direction from council is okay, we've been doing the right thing, let's not stop.

And so our charge as city staff is we have to figure out a plan on how can we grow our revenues and what does that look like?

And so it's looking at a cost of service to all our services to make sure that we aren't we have kept pace.

I mean, one of the things that we realize is that as Columbia has continued to grow.

We as a government organization hasn't gro haven grown.

We haven't increased our staff levels to account for the growth that we have had in the city.

We haven't taken a look at some of our fees.

And it's it's no, it's interesting because you go on social media and you hear people complain and say that, well, the city is raising these fees, but if you actually look at our costs versus some of our neighboring communities, we are low, we're dangerously low because it's been 10, 15 years since we've actually made that look.

And so that's what we have done.

And so we actually believe that we were gonna that we're gonna keep pace.

Uh I think was it January or um February where we really looked at that our revenues for sales tax was it wasn't keeping pace as well as we thought it was going to be.

That's correct.

It was around February.

Kathy, can you bring up this slide that has fiscal year 26 expenditures and actual 25 expenditures in fiscal year 24 or estimate, yeah, this one.

Um DeCarlen, can you speak to because I think the direction that I felt that was given was yes, give raises, but also find ways to cut.

Absolutely.

And I and I know obviously personnel services is our biggest expense in general fund.

Um can you speak to some of the things that we're seeing the these decreases?

What was the task that you gave the department heads to reduce these things?

So I actually, so we actually started with this current fiscal year, and the thought was okay, let's look at our current fiscal year and let's cut by three percent.

If if possible.

And my my my charge was let's cut three percent without affecting service or staff.

And so we're not talking about we weren't talking about giving lay look doing layoffs, we weren't talking about reducing services, but let's find the cuts in savings that we can.

Uh going into 26, no, we've we reduced material and supplies, we reduced traveling training, uh, we reduce intergovernmental charges.

Utilities have gone up because of the cost of utilities have gone up.

Uh we even reduce a little bit of our service uh line.

Um capital expenditures have gone up.

I think the biggest that I want to say that capital expense, is that the RMS system?

No, that is uh Exxon and Flop.

Exxon and Flock, so that's for public safety.

Uh and so we made a conservative effort to make sure that we can cut where we could cut.

The biggest cost is our personnel services.

And if you go to back to the line that actually shows that bar graph that actually shows our 95 million of this budget is people.

No, service and miscellaneous is 16 million, intergovernmental charge is seven, but the bulk of our cost is people.

We are a service organization.

We put people in in vehicles, we put them in buildings to provide a service for our community.

I mean, that's who we are.

And so it's hard to say, you know, what can you cut without that point.

Council comments before we move on.

Any other council comments before we move on?

Again, continuing the public hearing until September 2nd.

Uh yeah.

Um could you go back to the slide you had up previous to this with the expenditures there we are?

So budget proposed 2526.

I'm only seeing about a $700,000 increase.

I'm assuming where it says total revenues, that's should say expenditures.

That is correct.

Okay.

So on expenditures, we're all this is only projecting about $700,000 more.

Yes.

And yet the overall is we're like three million.

Yes.

So where is and on our and I realize on our enterprise funds where our enterprise funds, those are in pretty good shape.

It's a general fund is the one that's that's causing causing us concern.

A lot of it has to do with the revenues that are coming in.

They're not coming in as they had in the past.

If you see that the actual line for 24 and then the proposed line for 26 for use and sales tax, that growth.

I mean, we over the past four years, we were seeing around 5 percent growth in our uh sales and youth use tax line.

And we because of how they are coming in this year, we we could not consciously say we're gonna see another five to six percent increase in use and sales tax.

Okay.

And then but also on this slide, the original F projected revenues 133.

Um okay, so that was the original and then proposed 132.

We're down about 900,000 from this.

That's correct.

So again, 900, 700, 1.6.

Still doesn't add up to the three.

So if you go back to the uh expenditure line.

So you look at the um the budget of ninety-two million for personnel service versus 95 million?

Right.

But I'm saying, but the bottom line, and that's the one you got one of the slides you led off with, bottom line is we're three point where in the deficit spending 3.5 million, roughly.

Okay.

Um, but so far between shortage in revenues and increase in spending, I'm still not getting to 3.5.

Right there.

Okay.

You follow me?

Not I mean our So our our revenue revenue is $132.

Decreased expenditures increased in uh go ahead.

Uh so Matthew, if you'll go back to the revenue slide for general fund.

Um like Betsy had mentioned earlier in 25, we budgeted a revenue, which is that last line appropriated fund balance.

That's not an actual revenue that we bought in.

That was our planned spend down of the general fund reserves.

And in 25, we budgeted that line because it was spent on one-time items.

Um we don't have that in the budget for 26, but if you were to remove that 1.6 plus 1.6 is a lot closer to 3 and a half than you were getting before.

Okay.

So 132.

And then go to the sl the next slide that shows the expenditures.

Yeah, one thirty-six.

Okay.

All right.

I I see I see that I see I see it there, but when you look at it the other way, it just to me it wasn't quite adding up.

So there will be more questions, I'm sure going forward.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Any other comments you want to make before we move on on this one?

I don't have anything else.

Okay.

I I'll just I I would like to, though, echo um Steve's point about the additional outreach and community engagement, starting with January's town halls, and then throughout the spring and into the summer.

Um I've heard a lot of good feedback from that, similarly on the Be Heard website for trying to walk through.

So thank you to to staff for hosting those.

All right.

Moving on to old business.

Um, Sheila, will you please read Bill 1225 and resolution 9125?

Council Bill 1225 is an ordinance rezoning property located on the south side of Clark Lane and west of St.

Charles Road, 5320 Clark Lane from District MN, neighborhood to District MC mixed use corridor, repealing all conflicting ordinances apart subordinates and fixing the time on this ordinance shall become effective, fourth reading.

And Council Bill 9125 is a resolution approving the preliminary plat of Armstrong subdivision, plat number one located on the south side of Clark Lane and west of St.

Charles Road, 5320 Clark Lane.

Do we have a staff report?

Yes, we do, Madam Mayor and Councilmembers.

So we will start with B 1225.

These are two related cases.

However, 122 25 is not contingent on 91 resolution 9125.

So this is a rezoning request for roughly a 2.5 acre piece of property on the southern portion of an overall 9-point, just a little bit over 9-acre tract of land.

It's the two MN pieces that you see here on the slide in front of you.

The requested 2.5 acres is sought to be zoned MC, which is our corridor commercial zoning classification.

And this item is coming back after being tabled on July 7th for consideration.

This is the general larger view aerial.

Again, that two and a half acre tract of land along I-70 drive just to the west of the St.

Charles interchange with I-70.

So this recent this request was submitted with the 9.1 acre subdivision action, which is the subject of resolution 9125, case 155-2025.

The parcel has been zoned MN, mixed use neighborhood since 2019, and it is presently undeveloped.

The applicant is desiring the rezoning request on the 2.56 acres in order to build a hotel.

Hotels are not an allowed use in the MN zoning district.

And as a part of a concept review, the hotel proposal was originally further to the north on this parcel on the overall tract of land.

After discussion in the concept review process, staff recommended that the hotel be moved more toward the interstate to act as more of a buffer between the residential development that is along the western side of this property and the R2 density to the north of Clark Lane.

The site is surrounded on the east by MC zoning, which is where the Schnooks grocery store is in Battle Crossing subdivision.

Mn to the north on the balance of the property, the 6.8 acres that is left, and then I-70 along the south, of course, and PD zoning, which is Plan District Zoning to the west, which is the Lynx apartment.

A two-family zoning is indicated as north of Clark Lane.

However, would not be directly impacted by the MC zoning given that it is along the southern portion of the subject site.

The planned development immediately to the west is developed with multifamily structures.

It's surrounded by the Lynx Golf Course.

The nearest structures to the proposed rezoned area, the 2.56 acres, is about 80 feet between the two parcels along the property line, as is illustrated here.

So the MC zoning would be an increase in the intensity of this property.

As a result of that increase of intensity of use, there is a higher level of buffering and screening that would be required along the adjoining property line with the PD zoning.

It is a level three buffer, pursuant to the UDC, which is a 10-foot-wide landscape buffer, and then an eight-foot-tall screening device.

That eight-foot-tall screening device can be either a fence, a combination of fence and landscaping, or landscaping that achieves an 80% opacity within four growing seasons.

Maximum height in the MC district is 45 feet, whereas the maximum height in the PD is 35 at this point.

And this particular subject site, the 2.56 acres, is uphill from the multifamily, roughly about a 10-foot elevation change.

When the planning and zoning commission considered all of the relevant factors associated with the rezoning request, they did recommend approval as a majority six to two to rezone the 2.56 acres.

This was partially by the fact that the property is located along the interstate.

The MC zoning was going to be isolated from generally the other surrounding residential development, with the exception of that immediately adjoining.

I have questions I can take those now, or we can move in to 9125.

You want to go ahead and read resolution 91?

Okay.

So our other old business item is 91-2025.

This is the Armstrong subdivision as Ms.

Min read.

This is a seven-lot uh preliminary plat.

Um it also was tabled on June 16th and June 7th.

And I will get into why that tabling occurred.

9.18 total acres here, and again, the red area on the slide is our subject site.

Again, general context slide showing the existing commercial development to the east, and then the residential development of the links to the west with the northern portion of this property zoned R2 north of Clark Lane.

So seven-lot subdivision is what is being proposed.

This is a preliminary plat, meaning that the layout that you see here is uh still required to be final platted, and as indicated previously, the rezoning of the 2.56 acres to the southwest corner is not a contingency of approving this plat.

This plat could stay zoned MN if chosen by council, and the development would still be functional.

Um we are looking at having the property accessed off of Clark Lane via a new public street.

Ticaro Court, which is proposed as a 60-foot wide, 36-foot pavement uh public street, terminating in a traditional 96-foot diameter cul-de-sac.

This is classified as a non-residential street and is consistent with our development standards in the UDC.

There was a traffic study performed on this property.

Uh that traffic study indicated that there would be a dedicated inbound left turn lane heading westbound on Clark Lane, uh, and it would have a restricted three-quarter access coming out of the property, meaning that it is uh no left outs.

Uh it is all left ins right out.

Uh, and that was again a recommendation of the traffic study.

Unique to this particular property, there is uh a full access immediately to the east as part of the battle crossing subdivision.

There is a cross-access easement proposed internally within these uh within the lots to allow uh users of this site the ability to cross between lot six and five and six to be able to get to an existing ingress-egress easement, which would get them to the full access to allow left-and-outs, but far enough away from other intersection conflicts, and that is uh supported again by the traffic study as well as by our UDC's requirements.

Um this project, as I indicated, was tabled on June 16th and June and July 7th.

It was tabled at the request of the adjoining property owner to the southeast, uh, who was asking that Ticaro Court be extended to their property in order to provide access to that land.

Um it is in the Logan Acre subdivision, it is just to the very uh lower right-hand corner of this graphic.

Um at the July 16th meeting uh when this item was originally tabled, an amendment was prepared by our city councilor.

Uh, and if you recall that meeting was broken up, you had a discussion on both projects, and then basically we came back.

Uh and that amendment sheet basically was to allow for uh the plat to potentially be approved if council chose to approve it without it being amended.

At July 16th, the item was tabled in belief that we would have a revised plat and a negotiated solution between the two property owners.

That did not happen prior to the July 7th meeting, um, and the item was tabled again on July 7th to this date.

We still have not received that revised plat.

The applicant's engineer as well as uh legal counsel are here.

There is a desire to have this item approved as has been submitted and as recommended by the Planning and Zoning Commission without making any amendments to the document.

Um this site again, very similar, uh surrounded by MC, uh the R2 to the north and the PD to the west, which aligns most closely with our RMF zoning districts.

And again, we have about 80 feet of separation between the proposed lots and the of this subdivision and the existing residential development.

Um level three screening again is going to be required on the MC portion.

So if MC is approved per Bill 122-25, there would be a higher buffer along that 2.5 acre parcel, which is the blue box that you see here.

That is the MC area and an approximate location of where the hotel would be constructed or improvements on the site being constructed, and then the red box that you see forward closest to Clark Lane.

And maximum building height in the MC and the MN are 45 and 35 feet, respectively.

As indicated, there were uh discussions amongst the applicant and the adjoining property owner.

Unfortunately, no acceptable terms were negotiated for the easement, which was what was prepared in the amendment, amendment sheet number two that is part of your packet.

Uh in reviewing uh and preparing for this meeting, uh, as well as discussing with the applicant's uh design professional about where and if a modified preliminary plat would be submitted.

Uh it was discussed that Section 29-5.1c3H of our unified development code requires that stub streets be provided to unplatted or undeveloped land unless it is deemed unnecessary or inappropriate due to existing and proposed traffic generation or designation of sensitive areas.

Um as part of the original staff reporting.

Uh, this was something that was identified as we discussed some of the issues associated with this.

The property that is immediately to the southeast is part of a platted subdivision, knowingly was platted and split off from its frontage uh on St.

Charles Road.

And the process of doing so, uh, a cross-access easement was provided to the parcel that is adjoining the subject tract of land that we're talking about for rezoning as well as platting.

Access is provided.

However, the undeveloped nature of our provisions in the UDC could potentially trigger the necessity for the extension of Takaro to this particular property.

Staff's review of this particular project as it went through the review cycle, uh, which is comprised of about seven to ten different departments, did not identify the necessity for Takaro to go to this property.

It had access.

Uh while it is not developed, it was viewed on as an unnecessary extension of the street.

And therefore, our staff in preparing for our planning and zoning commission's recommendation on this did not identify the necessity for the roadway to be carried to the property line.

And we still stand behind that recommendation.

We do not believe it is necessary.

There is addic there is access provided to the property.

It was created in the late 1970s with the Logan subdivision.

The adjoining property owner knew what they had when they purchased that property.

This is an opportunity, of course, to maybe improve access.

And again, it is a discretion of council should you want to require this, and it would be in council's discretion anappropriate if you so chose.

The ordinance does provide an opportunity for this.

Staff's evaluation, however, did not find that as a necessity.

The amendment sheet number two that you have in your packet would allow for the plat to be approved.

It does have the condition that prior to final platting, we would have to have the final plat submitted showing an access, either being an extension of Takaro Court or an easement agreed to between the parties.

And it can be either the right-of-way or the access easement, providing access to the lot in the Logan subdivision.

The Planning Commission, after reviewing all of the facts associated with this case, did make a recommendation seven to one, more than the majority to approve the seven lot development as it has been presented to you this evening with no connection to the Southwest.

It is worth further noting that there was no adjacent property owner commentary or other commentary on the platting action made at the planning commission meeting.

We did have comment as it related to concerns about the rezoning action by adjoining property owners in the links just because of the scale of the building and the potential of an unknown being built commercially next to them.

But no commentary made on the actual plating action itself.

Again, the plat is the plat's approval is not dependent on the zoning, so the two issues can be separated, and you could approve the plat without approving or accepting the amendment sheet number two as well.

If you have any questions, I will be more than happy to answer them.

Questions from counsel for staff on this.

You mentioned on a maybe it's just that last slide around something about flow and access improvements for for this when what is happening here.

I think it was when you were talking about this as far as the traffic proposed traffic generation.

How is that conversation happening at the staff level?

You know, with this cul-de-sac, and then you mentioned, I think 96 size.

Is that a commercial-sized cul de sac or is that I don't know what the sizing area is?

I don't know how big our cul-de-sacs are.

All right.

They're big.

Um yes, the the public streets, so our public street size uh on our terminal streets, i.e.

a cul-de-sac street, 96-foot diameter cul-de-sac.

So that's the paved portion of the actual cul-de-sac itself.

So the street that's being installed, the public street is a compliant public street terminated in a compliant turnaround.

If we came off of this compliant turnaround with an easement between basically lots four, which is the MC lot, and lot five, which is to the northeast, an easement would potentially be shared across that common lot line and gain access to the lot in the Logan Acres subdivision.

Um traffic volume perspective, uh, due to the traffic study that was performed for the seven-lot subdivision, where it intersects Clark Lane likely would not be negatively impacted.

That intersection is already controlled to only allow right outbound movements in essence, and then the left-bound turn lane will allow us the ability to be able to channelize traffic as it's heading west.

So what leaves the site that is to the southwest of this that's off-site, probably will not impact it.

It is zoned commercially as well.

And so in considering that impact, it's probably negligible.

Uh though again, the extension of the street, if it was a street extension, providing full public street access to the property.

You're looking at extending that 60-foot right-of-way, the utility easements, uh, as well as your impacting probably some grade in this particular area, because as we go to the southwest, uh we're going down into a valley.

It's a drainage uh uh area as it leads out to the interstate.

Uh so there may be some challenging issues that need to be addressed.

Again, the subject site in Logan Acres has a dedicated access to it.

It was created purposefully through the funeral home, the former funeral home's property, in order to gain access to this site.

It may be inferior to what could be gained from Takaro Court, because it is only a 20-foot wide easement, but nonetheless, it is still an existing access point.

And that was evaluated and identified as a staff analysis of this request.

And so those are the types of things that we're looking at.

If it was something that we knew it was a landlocked parcel, that may have been a different scenario.

However, that was not the case as a as a review occurred.

So you confirmed that there is access to the site and it's not landlocked?

There is a 20-foot wide, it may not it's a 20-foot-wide plated ingress-egress easement to the lot that is off-site.

What could use a 20-foot uh a typical drive aisle for a commercial parking lot is generally anywhere between 20 to 20, 22 to 24 feet wide.

So this is just it's a it's a small driveway.

Um, because this is a single if you were to subdivide the property to the to the southwest off-site from this or to the southeast, I apologize.

That's off-site from the subject parcel.

If you attempted to subdivide that acreage to create additional lots, the access that is currently provided to it would be substandard.

Uh we would probably require as a part of the development process a public street to be put in, or an upgraded ingress-egress easement as an alternative, but it would still be larger than what is there.

And that is, but that's it's unknown what will be developed on the undeveloped tract in the Logan Acres development at this point because we have not seen uh plans as to how that may be developed.

Yeah, Betsy.

Isn't the Logan's acres a gully?

Uh there is, I mean, it's impacted, uh, yes, but there is some developable land within that acreage.

How much again, because we're not studying, we didn't study that site.

I just remembered it being pretty much a gully.

It's it it's impacted.

Of a ravine, maybe I should say.

That may be a better term for it, but yeah, yeah, I mean, dirt work can always correct ravines as long as it doesn't displace too much water and isn't otherwise impacted.

But again, uh we weren't studying that site specifically.

Okay, but right now it in theory could be access from the funeral homes land that comes off of St.

Charles Road that used to be that same that same the the subject parcel that is to the to the west of the funeral home was all part of the same tract of land at one point, then subdivided on, subdivided purposefully, but they had to provide the ingress egress easement in order to do that.

So they already sorted that out at one point in the past.

That's as we understand it.

All right, thanks.

Right.

But I and what's it currently zoned back there?

Uh if I am not incorrect, I believe we are zoned M C.

Uh yes, zoned.

Would a 20-foot driveway serve uh commercial development?

As a uh depending on the seems like you'll you're going to be coming back to me when something happens, being like we're going to require them to get additional thing.

And so try to figure out if we can solve two birds with one stone.

The MC zoning, depending on the scale of the development area, the ability for it to be fully developed, the acreage, uh there may be an issue, but again, it is that the access today that's provided to that property is a it would be otherwise a private matter to resolve with the funeral homeowner.

If they needed to acquire a larger access to be able to get a slightly wider travel way to get back to a larger development, that would be between those property owners.

Um with respect to the plat at hand, again, we looked at is the plat, the seven-lot subdivision, consistent with the UDC's requirements, and we found that that was the case.

Thank you.

That that somewhat answered my question, but just for clarification.

So the 20-foot driveway, that's a private driveway owned by the funeral home.

It is it traverses the funeral home's property and is provided by platted record access to the subject to the track that is seeking to be connected to car to Takaro cohort.

So there's an existing understanding that that would be.

That is their sole point of ingress and egress.

Thank you.

No questions.

All right, I'll go ahead and open this up for public comment.

Would anybody from the public wish to speak on either bills 122-25 or resolution 9125?

And I believe you are bringing up your slides and they will magically show up on our slides.

I hope so.

The magic has happened.

Well, Mayor, members of the Council, Tim Crockett, Crockett Engineering 1000 West Niphong.

Uh Mayor, to answer your first question uh with regard to with regards to 20 foot wide, yes, that's enough to serve a C and MC tract of land.

That's enough to provide fire access to a piece of property.

So that would be uh that would be enough.

Um so uh with me tonight, uh I have a couple other speakers that would like to go after me.

So I'm just gonna slide through my presentation briefly that I talked about uh a couple months ago just to kind of update you.

I think the Mr.

Zinner did a pretty good job on their overview.

Again, it's 9.18 acres, uh about 2.56 being rezoned, being requested to be rezoned to MC.

Um course the preliminary plat and the rezoning are consistent with the neighboring properties.

Um again, you've seen the uh location map that we're talking about here.

Um this gives a little better idea of what the surrounding zonings are.

So when you look at the MC zoning, uh much of that intersection on the other quadrants are already MC.

Uh we have MN, we have some multifamily further to the west.

Uh we have some lower scale residential to the north.

I think it's some duplexes, maybe some single family.

Our original, there was some discussion about why didn't we move the the hotel site up next to the grocery store?

And quite honestly, that was our original proposal.

Uh that what's what we wanted to do.

And then after uh some discussion with Steph, uh they believed that it was best.

Uh and after some discussion, we did too, that slide it back down adjacent to the highway.

And so that's where we are proposing to put the MC is adjacent to I-70.

Uh as indicated, uh there was a there was one speaker, I believe, at the Planning Zoning Commission that had some concern with regards to commercial zoning up against the residential.

I don't think he was aware that much of this is already zoned commercial, so uh all we're asking for is the MC over the MN.

But the good thing about the UDC is that we have neighborhood protection standards in there, and I love that portion because it allows us to do open zoning districts adjacent to residential and then provide those neighborhood protections with regards to setbacks and screening and the different screening types.

And so um whereas before we'd stand up here and we discuss and we negotiate on PD and what kind of zoning is appropriate, what kind of screening do we need?

It's all embedded in the UDC, and we're very thankful for that.

Again, here's the preliminary plat uh that's in question.

Again, all the access going back to the north onto Clark Lane.

We did have a traffic impact study completed on it that the traffic uh traffic engineers of the city reviewed and they approved.

So they were they were good with that.

Um again, uh our proposed rezoning is up against I-70, it's going from MC, MN to MC.

Uh the UDC specifically addresses additional protections.

We've talked about that, and then uh this comment per staff.

The proposed plat has been reviewed uh by both internal and external uh by both internal and external staff and is found to be compliant with the provisions of the UDC.

That's what we present our projects to you.

We want them to be uh consistent with the UDC, and that's what we brought before you tonight.

Um with regards to the extension to the street, as Pat has indicated, it's unnecessary extension to the street.

Uh the request comes before you uh with both support from all the staff as well as the planning zoning commission.

And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that the council may have.

They might come up after the rest of the public comment, Tim.

Thank you.

Would anybody else from the public wish to speak on Bill 1225 or resolution 9125?

Mayor members of the council, my name is David Bandray.

I'm an attorney from Jefferson City, Missouri.

I represent the individual who's going hopefully to buy this property and actually construct the hotel on it and develop this area.

We are asking the board to adopt the ordinance that is before you without the amendment that's added to it.

We have made good faith efforts over the last 60 days to try to work out a way to get an easement in through the what would be the southeast corner of this property, and those have failed.

Ultimately, um the property that lies to the southeast in the Logan Acres was split off intentionally at one point in time.

They arrived at their easement, and uh Councilman Elwood says so you know we say it's an easement, there's not actually the driveway there, it's legal right to get through what is a paved parking lot.

I don't want you to think that there's actually a a street, as it were, but there is legal access, and that is what was required is legal access.

Um you can't landlock a piece of property, but when they bought that piece of property and when it was severed off, they made arrangements for it.

The efforts to tie in to our client's development would be, we feel at an extremely large cost to our client, perhaps to the point that it might make this project not workable.

Um we would like to come in, we'd like to get this hotel built, we'd like to get this developed.

But if we've got to give up a substantial portion of this piece of property to allow for another roadway to come through, it's going to throw off a lot of these original plans.

But ultimately, we should not be funding what is the development of the property to the southeast.

That is their responsibility to do.

And frankly, if there were a plat pending on that piece of property right now, I think the board would have a lot more information to deal with in making this determination.

But ultimately, it is speculation as to how that other piece of property is going to be used.

We really want to be able to control the destiny of buying this property and making a development that's beneficial for the city.

We've tried to work with staff on where things are going to go, issues that I don't pretend to understand, but I'm sure very well intentioned and thought out and beyond what I can comprehend.

But ultimately, we don't want to be responsible for having this easement through.

It is unnecessary under the law.

It's unnecessary under the facts of this situation, and it puts far too great of a burden on the situation of my client who wants to buy this property and move ahead.

So afterwards, if there are questions, I'm happy to try to address them, but thank you for your time.

Thank you, David.

I saved you 12 seconds.

I'll take it.

Would anyone else from the public wish to speak on Bill 1225 or resolution 9125?

Elton Fay, I represent the seller.

And the seller is deceased.

And this has been quite some time that this has gone on because I moved east of there 50 years ago.

And like Dr.

Peters, I have watched that be a goalie for a long time.

They built the uh nurse or the funeral home, and then you know, little did I know until Donna Armstrong, who owned where Schnooks is all of it.

That whole that whole development where she lived for many years.

Ron Small represented her, and unfortunately, he died about 2010, and she came in about 2011, and we started working on you know how was she going to end with this valuable piece of property?

I have given you a handout, and I just want to give it.

We looked up the certified copy of the plat from 197.

The Logans put it in there, you know, it was a lot different.

I lived out there, I went by there.

Uh then the current owners bought it in uh 2011, and their deed, a special warranty deed clearly sets out that they have access.

And then this morning, I thought I'll just go by there and see what that goally looks like.

Well, now the uh parking lot of Nelson Funeral Home, now Millard, uh, has a concrete drive from the from the uh road all the way down to what uh upper left-hand corner there is the gate into the buyer or the McGee uh property.

And that has been filled up, and when I called Dennis Nelson today, he said, Oh yeah, they tore up the parking lot, and then they agreed to put in the concrete.

That concrete is a nice drive that goes all the way from uh Lake of the Woods Road right down to where they filled in, and now it's almost level.

Our position is we have a contract.

Thank you.

We don't want to queer that contract, and we would appreciate if you would approve it.

Appreciate your time.

The amendment would anybody else from the public wish to speak.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, uh, members of the council, Caleb Colbert, attorney at 827 East Broadway.

I'm here tonight on behalf of MM2 LLC, which is the property owner to the Southeast.

And I want to respond to a couple of comments.

With respect to negotiating for the purchase of a private access easement, my clients made several phone calls and sent emails and has not received any response from the actual the contract purchaser in the situation.

Um it's my understanding the contract purchaser is not here this evening.

My client is because they're they're very concerned about this proposed development and access to their property.

I wouldn't respectfully direct uh your attention to the supplemental council memo.

As you might be aware, there are basically a couple of ways for the city to acquire public street right away.

One is through a voluntary plating action such as this, right?

You you say to the applicant, we're gonna require you to dedicate a public street right away in exchange for your right to develop here in the city limits.

Or if you have to come back after the fact, you're required to file what's known as a condemnation lawsuit.

And when you look at the long-term impact that's noted, if the council does not ask the applicant to extend Tarchio Court or create a private access easement, the long-term impact, there is the potential a condemnation action might need to be brought in the future to acquire the right-of-way.

So respectfully, if the council doesn't act tonight, at some point in the future, I'll be standing at this very podium asking you to initiate a condemnation action against the contract buyer to acquire the very easement that you could get at no cost tonight in order to provide a superior access to the Logan Acres property.

Um with respect to the 20-foot access, the sufficiency of that.

20 feet is not sufficiently wide for public safety or fire access.

It's not sufficiently wide to serve an MC property.

If it was, why are they asking for why did they provide a 60-foot access for their development?

If 20 feet is good enough, why does the city require 60?

The reality is Logan Acres was subdivided in the 70s.

At that point in time, there is a note on a plat that says that there is a private access easement.

That doesn't benefit the public.

Ultimately, a 20-foot-wide private access easement that doesn't have a separate document over that describes who can use that easement or how that easement will be paid for is inferior to what you can create right now.

I think city staff noted that extending Tarqueo Court to the southeast is a superior access from a safety and usage perspective.

With respect to the interpretation of the subdivision standards.

Thank you.

Happy to answer any questions if you have any.

You might come out then, Caleb.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Would anybody else from the public wish to speak on resolution?

I've like lost on all these handouts.

Resolution 9125 or Bill 1225.

Hi, I'm Travis McGee with MM2308 South Mine Street.

Couple things.

You know, we are the property owners at MM2 on the three three-acre tract of zone MC property.

It's MC open zone.

It's our widest open zone zoning in the City of Columbia.

Most likely it's going to be a hotel site, restaurant site.

And so our whole vision for this site is as we bought this property and brought in all the dirt and earthwork and material for this property was for a site like that for a hotel site.

I've made numerous uh numerous attempts to work with this new contract holder, property holder, offered easements, offered money.

Um, you know, and I just I haven't had any response.

So I know the gentleman tonight that's representing them, the attorney said that he reached out to me multiple times.

It's just simply not true.

I've never heard from him since our last council meeting.

Um we're here tonight.

We've we reached out multiple times.

Um lastly, the 1977 easement is just a 20-foot access easement.

It's a private access easement.

You know, the city driveways, when you pull into a parking lot here in Columbia, the minimum is 24 feet.

So when you drive through down uh an aisle at a grocery store, it's 24 feet as the minimum.

This is only a 20-footer.

Um so for us, you know, we definitely want to have access to the public right-of-way on Tarquillo Court, and we're just concerned that that you know our development at a later date is gonna be big enough in a what in an MC open zone property uh that is zoned for you know, hotels and restaurants that the uh access that we have to St.

Charles Road is just not sufficient enough uh for that type of development for public safety fire, um, et cetera.

You know, I 70 is being extended, being widened, uh just gonna generate more traffic, and you know, we're here tonight.

We think it makes a lot of sense to get access to the to the public right away.

Happy to answer your questions.

Okay, thanks, Travis.

Yep.

Anyone else from the public wish to speak on bills 122, 25 or resolution 9125?

See, none will come to council comments or council questions.

Percolating.

Yeah, Vera, did you?

Yes.

Um so on the screen we are currently looking at.

Um the lot that is marked lot one.

It seems like that is that a dirt patch.

It is there actual cement access between the funeral home and the land where the hotel is being built, or am I looking at that wrong and is that where the hotel would go?

Lot one is Logan Logan.

I'm gonna call it.

Okay, okay.

Yeah.

So 12 and 44 are the ones that we are discussing rezoning.

Yeah.

But then this is development locality.

No, not um.

There's no current plans for one.

What is I identified a one on here if I'm correct?

There's no current.

So the road would get you to one, but then you're in a dirt field.

So I think it's probably important to point out, and the legislation we're discussing is what's in red here.

Uh so the hotel that they're discussing is going to be at the lower of twelve.

That's correct.

Yep.

That lower there.

Um the potential uh other hotel that we know nothing about until tonight um would yeah, be that one on that one part, if I'm understanding Travis correctly.

But they're saying they don't have adequate access.

Access.

Right.

And they want it through the red area.

Okay.

But originally one and I can't tell what the two were one parcel.

Okay.

And they broke that up and sold the two parcel to the funeral home with a 20-foot easement to the inaccessible one spot otherwise.

Okay.

And now they want to use some of the land, the land to the west to get access to their space, which I guess isn't a ravine anymore, because they put a bunch of dirt in there.

But both 1225 and 9125 relate to 12.

Or what's colored in red?

Correct.

And and and to be fair, Bill 122 is the zoning in the resolution is the replat or preliminary plat, sorry.

I was going to ask if you wouldn't mind bringing that up.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Additional council questions or comments on this.

So we have before us, which we'll do as separate.

We have both the bill and the resolutions.

There are two amendment sheets.

The first amendment sheet is correcting the date, which is required regardless of what we do.

So we have a correct date for that one.

And then the second amendment sheet is requesting that when a final plat comes back to us, it has an easement for access easement as that showed on amendment two.

Any questions about what you have before you or additional follow-ups for staff?

Yeah, Jackie.

So in the long-term impact, um, can and I'm assuming this is a um Nancy question.

Can you explain um what a condemnate condemnation?

I'm not saying that right, action is and what is a responsibility of the city in that case, or the response of the city in that case.

Um yes.

I'm gonna I'm gonna step back though, and I I want to talk just a little bit because I know we do have new council members, right?

So I want to talk a little bit about zoning and platting, and then we'll talk about condemnation.

Um zoning is um all really governed as to what you believe the appropriate land use is for the underlying piece of property.

So that's that's your zoning action, and whether or not the proposed change in the existing land use to the new land use is appropriate given the development patterns that have been occurring in that area.

So that's the zoning action.

The platting action and the preliminary plat is what guides the layout of the lots on that particular parcel of land and the public improvements that get installed to support those the lots that are created as a part of the platting process.

So that's the plat.

And when it comes to a preliminary plat, the council has a great deal of discretion in determining whether or not the layout that's presented by the applicant has meets the um overall goals of your subdivision regulations, whether it provides that uh that the connectivity that you believe it needs to have within and the layouts appropriate given where the particular subdivision is oriented.

So that's the platting piece that's that's approved by the preliminary plat.

Once this council approves a preliminary plat, then all development is in accordance with that preliminary plat.

And when they come forward with a final plat, you lose that discretion to determine whether or not that street should be extended.

So it is an important decision at this point in time whether or not that street gets extended, and I wanted to make sure that you're aware of that, you know, as we're moving forward.

When it comes to condemnation, umce development occurs on tracks, and it really depends upon how development patterns occur.

Once development occurs, you may or may be precluded from even seeking um to use condemnation to extend a street um off of this new, I think it's called Tarchio Court.

You might be uh prohibited from likely be prohibited from doing that in the future just because once the development happens, you just don't have enough space to go back in on the back end and condemn 60 foot of right-of-way.

Kind of the same way on this other piece of property, whether or not there even exists, given the existing development pattern on an we don't have that up there, but I think it's lot two, which is where the millard uh where you see that uh private access, that 20-foot private access is there, whether or not you even have the ability to condemn a 60-foot-wide access at that particular point in time in the future.

So there are constraints.

As far as the process itself when it comes to condemnation, um that process is statutorily driven.

What the city does is it uh decides where the rights need to be acquired and what rights need to be acquired.

Um we make a we we obtain an appraisal to acquire those rights and how what that cost would be.

Um we make a good faith offer to the property owner and try to negotiate with them to acquire the property based upon the appraisal.

If that fails, then we have the ability if this council authorizes, we have the ability to file a condemnation action in the Boone County Circuit Court.

And then the value is determined by uh appraisers that are actually appointed by the judge who gets assigned to the case.

And then once that happens, we go we kind of go through a process and it it's it's about a 90-day process at its quickest in order to get an order and condemnation and a um appraisal in order to and we pay that those monies into the court to acquire the property.

That's the abbreviated version of what I could do.

But it is considering that it can end up to be a 90-day to six-month process.

Yeah.

Okay.

Any other questions or comments?

Yeah, Don.

Just clarification, Mr.

Zinner.

Um I've heard two things and I've kind of gotten lost.

Mr.

Crockett has asserted that the 20-foot easement is adequate.

And Mr.

McGee asserted that it needs to be 24 feet.

What is from planning and development?

What is the minimum?

What is adequate or what's minimum?

Fire code requires a minimum of a 20-foot travel way by which to utilize for fire access purposes.

A standard parking lot drive aisle is 24 feet wide.

Okay.

So the 20 20-foot existing 20-foot is adequate for fire safety purposes.

That's correct.

That is the minimum right-of-way width that we will allow for fire apparatus to that is required for fire apparatus.

Okay.

Thank you.

Can I see a clarification on the pictures that were sent to us by or that provided to us by Elton?

And they showed the um that that's a the parking lot for the funeral home.

Um is it possible to use a parking lot?

You know, I mean I guess I'm kind of wondering like, well, what if there's a bunch of cars parked there?

How can that still be a uh drive access?

So I would something have to change if this lot was developed.

Well, we're talking about lot one subject lot.

So I understand I usually get really strict about just talk about the legislation we're discussing, but since this is part of this legislation, I'm not sure.

This is a confusing situation.

So the lighter color that you have in the graphic here, that private driveway, that's the new concrete.

And so it is to the northwest, that's bounded by the old parking lot.

Um so parking isn't going to occur generally in your drive aisle.

Because your drive aisle is what's going forward between the interstate and the funeral home front door.

That's getting to lot number one.

And there in So I don't think you're going to get conflict with vehicles parking in the driveway to access the lot.

However, the issue at hand is is this is a it's a 20-foot-wide access that leads to uh an approximate three-acre tract of commercially zoned land.

Now, again, while it meets the fire code requirements.

Adequate access is something that is in the eye of the beholder, the user, what's the what's the user of that land going to want or an individual coming to that land?

What are they going to like to see?

Um technically speaking, the 20-feet will work.

There are probably other options as it relates to how to access lot one, which may be an expense to the owner of lot one, and that is to potentially there's probably enough space the funeral home, depending on how that grade is, in order to put in an adequately width regular 20 or 24-foot-wide drive aisle to get back to that back lot and put the parking out towards the intersection or where the right-of-way is for the interstate.

I mean, there are a variety of other things that could occur with lot one and lot two if lot one were to come in for development and access were not to be granted through the Armstrong subdivision plat.

Okay.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Any other council comments or questions?

Yeah, Vera.

So I'm not I'm not sure who specifically to direct this at, so I'll just kind of look generally over there.

I understand the argument of 20 feet not being sufficient for a commercial property.

My question is, what is the precedent for picking which of the neighboring lots needs to add the access?

Like why have we decided that it is this lot that needs to offer road access rather than road access through the schnooks or requiring the funeral home to provide road access through an extended road?

So if you with the Schnooks development, when battle crossing was developed, the circulation pattern and the plating action for battle crossing obviously had a service access to the Schnooks, which is the large building on the screen here.

At that point, again, an existing access was being provided to lot one of Logan acres.

So when we platted uh battle crossing, uh that was not a consideration.

The property now that is before us, the Armstrong plat, um, is the one that is most directly a butting, what is left undeveloped, um, abutting lot one, and therefore that is how the choice is arrived at.

It's what's left.

Um, you know, different circumstances may have required Ms.

Elwood for an access to be dropped all the way from Clark Lane to the middle of lot one.

That that opportunity is gone now.

Um so by selecting the location that Ms.

Thompson has selected or identified within the amendment sheet, that is probably the most practical location.

It splits potentially equally two lots within the Armstrong subdivision to provide the right of way to be able to gain access to lot one of Logan.

Um again, uh that is an option that exists and potentially would provide uh a greater uh assurance that adequate commercial access via a public street is being provided, not through a private access.

But the private access is from all intents and purposes the way we viewed this as being accessible.

Development intensity may need to be constrained in order to have that access work effectively.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other council comments?

Council questions?

All right.

So I'm gonna um first start with the amendment sheets and then go into uh voting on bill and resolution 91 as amended.

Um so I'll make a motion to amend R 9125 per amendment sheet number one, which will correct the preliminary plat date.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Seconded by Don.

All those in favor of amendment sheet one say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Um for amendment sheet two.

This adds the additional text regarding uh the need to include an access when the final plat comes forward.

So I'll make that motion to amend resolution 9125 per amendment sheet number two.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Second by Jackie.

Uh uh all those in favor of uh adopting amendment sheet number two say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Nay.

Okay, so three nays, two ayes.

So amendment two fails.

All right.

So now um Sheila, will you call roll on bill one twenty-two twenty-five?

This is the rezoning.

Yes.

Council Bill 1225, Mr.

Waterman?

Yes.

Ms.

Peters?

Yes.

Ms.

Buffalo?

Yes.

Ms.

Elwood?

Yes.

Ms.

Sample?

Yes.

And then Sheila, will you call roll resorte resolution R9125 as amended?

With amendment sheet one, not two.

Council 9125 as amended with only the plat date change.

Um, Mr.

Waterman?

Yes.

Ms.

Peters?

Yes.

Ms.

Buffalo.

Um.

No.

Miss Elwood?

Yes.

Ms.

Sample.

Yes.

It passes.

All right.

Thank you.

Moving on.

She will you read Bill 17025?

Council Bill 170 25 is an ordinance amending chapter 27 of the city code as it relates to water services and rates and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective.

Third reading.

Do we have a staff reporting?

Good evening, Aaron Keys, Utilities Director.

I have with me, Sarah Talbert, the assistant director for utilities rates and fiscal planning.

We provided a supplemental memo from the last meeting.

So we provided a memo about that.

I've got a few slides.

Talking about the bond proposal that was approved by voters in 2018, what that water bond sale and authority looked like, what water projects have been funded with the bond money, and then a construction status report.

So as you can see, the original bond proposal approved by voters, had 5 million, a little over 5 million for replacement of existing infrastructure, 27 million for system modernization, 6 million for system reliability, some contingency and financing and bond expenses.

This is what actually occurred when we sold the bonds.

We had two different bond sales, one in 2018 and one in 2023.

So wasn't quite 4 million.

So the additional money we were able to use to go towards projects.

And you'll see there's a variety of different projects.

We've got annual projects that include some of the reliability projects, replacement of existing infrastructure.

The two largest projects in here are West Ash Pump Station upgrades and the water treatment plant phase one upgrades.

This is also clarifier three, the launders and reaction well.

This basin is currently operational.

It is startup mode, and we are currently treating water in this basin.

And they have started on primary clarifier basin four.

This is a new filter blower.

And some of the new HVAC that was installed in the operations building.

Phase one.

So again, filters one and two backwash piping.

Uh what's currently ongoing is the primary clarifier four, uh finishing up work on the chemical building and some work in the administration building.

Uh for the West Ash Pump Station project, uh the equipment delivery and mobilization are expected uh October 25th, October 2025.

Sorry.

And uh again, staff is requesting approval of legislation amending chapter 27 of the code as it relates to water services and rates.

Uh if you have any additional questions about the water revenue increase, I'm happy to attempt to answer those.

Questions from council to staff.

I know we've had lots of public meetings on this topic, so yeah, Don.

Actually, I'll save it for comment because it's more of a comment.

Okay.

Any other all right?

Uh I'll go ahead and open this up for the public.

Would anyone from the public wish to speak on bill 17025?

See none, I'll come back to council comments.

Now is your time, Don.

I just wanted to say thank you for providing the status update that I asked for at the last meeting.

So kind of provide some clarity that yes, we're moving forward with as I said, one exception.

So yeah, Vera.

Just very brief comment to say uh also thank you for the let's talk local that you led, which covered a lot of these water improvements as well.

I think this was the first time I've seen a piece of water filtration infrastructure and thought, oh yeah, I know what that thing does.

Um from the Let's Talk Local.

Um, so I really appreciate the education that you did there before these rates came down.

Yeah, Jackie.

I was wondering, since we're talking about the water rates, if we could revisit some of the comments from the last meeting regarding the condo associations.

Um you provided some more input to us over email, and I was just wondering if you could share that same information here.

Sure.

Specifically related to the Spencer's Crest Condo Association.

Uh I looked into it a little bit.

Um, and they do have nine water meters that serve their irrigation needs.

Uh I did discover they have one more water meter that also serves like their pool and um shelter house or whatever.

Uh so that wasn't included in my in my comments, but um looking at that use at that facility, they've also reduced their use.

Um well, let me talk about what I said in my uh comments to staff.

Um so there's not a difference in cost between residential and commercial meters.

All meter costs are based on uh size or the demand that they place on the system.

Um currently uh irrigation contractors provide staff with the gallons per minute that the irrigation system needs to support the irrigation.

Um so then staff then uh provides what the appropriate meter needs to be for that.

So it's not that staff dictated you have to have this many meters, their irrigation system and the um uh the flow and the pressure requirements are what dictated what meters and how many were required.

Um that's how we do it now.

I I'm guessing that's how they did it back in the early 2000s when this was developed.

Um so uh there again, there's nine one-inch water meters for irrigation on that particular property.

Um the one-inch water meter base charge is changing from 21 dollars and eighty-four cents per month to twenty-seven dollars and forty-six cents per month.

So that's a change of about five dollars and sixty-two cents per month per one-inch meter.

So for all nine-inch for all nine one-inch meters, that's a monthly increase of about fifty dollars and fifty-eight cents just in the base charge.

Now, I would like to commend Spencer's Crest.

Uh, as they mentioned, they've done an excellent job of using our water conservation programs, uh, installing rain sensors, specialized water saver sprinkler heads, and evaluating um what was actually being irrigated and briefly reviewing all those irrigation meters.

It looks like they've significantly reduced their usage over the summer, where they were using, you know, anywhere between 30 and 60 CCF per month.

Now they're using one to two CCF per month.

So that will significantly reduce that's already significantly reduced their bill between 2024 and this year.

You know, just a real rough calculation, that's about $1,800 a month that they've reduced their bill.

So with these water rate changes, the irrigation piece will increase some, but it won't increase to the tune of $1,800 a month.

So I think overall, compared to previous years, 2024, 2023, and that their bills will be less than those years if they keep on the same track of what whatever they're doing this year.

So which I assume is their their different water conservation methods.

That's why we have the multiple tiers.

And that is what uh came out in the cost of service.

Uh the peak day and peak hour users put a greater demand on our system, and that is where we need to recover those costs are the users that put that demand on the system.

Thank you very much.

I'll just add I I want to um commend you for doing that research for us because I know we were hearing from some of the residents there, and I appreciate you going into the detail on it.

I also want to thank staff for the calculator.

I had multiple people telling me that they were worried about their water bills going up.

And then when I encourage them to go to the calculator and put it in, they saw that their bills are actually going down because they have consistent use in the winter and in the summer, um, including one of the residents uh at those condos who I think expected the opposite.

So I just want to thank you for for looking into that for them and responding back.

All right.

Sheila, will you please call roll on bill 170 25?

Council Bill 170 25, Mr.

Waterman.

Yes.

Ms.

Peters?

Yes.

Ms.

Buffalo?

Yes.

Ms.

Elwood?

Yes.

Yes.

Moving on.

Sheila, will you please read?

Excuse me.

Bill 18425.

Council Bill 18425 is an ordinance amending chapter 27 of the City Code as it relates to electric rates and fixing the ordinary fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective second reading.

And as a reminder, we'll be discussing this tonight, but we'll not be voting on it tonight.

We're carrying it forward to the next meeting.

All right.

So staff is requesting approval of legislation amending chapter 27 of the city code as it relates to electric utility rates.

Again, councils communicated their interest in seeing small incremental increases instead of single large increases that can dramatically impact our customers.

We discussed, staff discussed a 2% increase for fiscal year 2026 so that it would become effective October 1st with the water and light advisory board at one of our previous board meetings.

The 2% increase is comparable to the current consumer price index for the last 12 months percentage of 2.4%.

So that's we kind of use that as a benchmark that it was a reasonable rate increase.

So the 2% increase generates about $2.8 million in revenue.

There are three criteria that we as staff use and that our cost of service consultant used in 2023 when we're looking at revenue increases.

One is covering our regular operation and maintenance costs.

And we have seen 1.1.5% increase in compensation expenses, and that's only the salary piece.

That doesn't even include the benefits.

So you could see the difference in the day ahead LMP pricing is from $28 a megawatt to $36 a megawatt.

That has an impact on our expenses as well as just inflationary impacts on supplies of materials.

So that's one of our evaluation criteria is covering those those expenses.

And the third one is ensuring adequate debt coverage.

So this slide shows the electric forecast for the next five years.

If there were no increase in fiscal year 2026, as you can see, starting in fiscal year 2027, our expenses are more than revenues.

And in fiscal year 29 and 30, we fall well below our cash reserve target.

So if we did a rate increase or yeah, rate increase 2% in fiscal 2026 only.

And a high user 534 and 496.

We also included some electric residential apartments that have electric heat.

And their winter bill will go up about $1.87.

Summer bill, $4.39 cents.

And $5.

So anywhere from $1.50 to, I think $7 was the highest we saw for most residential users.

Obviously, there will be some higher and lower than that.

2.4 percent would generate $3.4 million in revenue.

Staff is requesting approval of the legislation, amending chapter 27 of the city code as it relates to electric utility rates.

But uh with that, I'll attempt to answer any questions.

Questions from council for staff.

Yeah, Jackie.

Can you um expand on why the staff is asking for a 2% increase when the water and light board um suggested 2.4 up to 2.4 percent?

Right.

Well, 2% was the original one that that we had recommended.

And um again, we evaluate uh budgets every year.

Uh we do a forecast every year.

Um, and we felt like two percent was a conservative amount to to keep us headed in the right direction, and that it's something we can evaluate again next year if we need to, uh, if we need to do a little more than two percent, you know, if we need to do three percent or something like that, that that that can be evaluated next year again.

Um, but that it uh at this time we just felt like two percent was adequate.

Okay.

I think I think my brain is just thinking about, you know, we're already in the in the grand scheme.

This is not necessary directed at you, but in the grand scheme of budgeting, when we're talking about finding new sources of revenue and already looking at, you know, a couple years, how are we gonna make up make up that money?

And then by 2030, we're saying that the two percent is going to cause an issue with our um rate, our utilities money.

So I'm just this is all kind of I'm worried, um, I guess is a word.

And it again, that's not reflected to you specifically, but it's something that's in my mind.

If if the suggestion from the advisory board was two point four, um why it's not two point four, and not that I'm in favor of raising everybody's rates, but on this on the historically we've had lots of conversations about um previous councils not taking action when action needed to be taken regarding utilities, and I don't want to be that person.

Right.

So that's where I'm at right now.

Additional council questions.

Yeah, done.

Going back to the slides, any of the slides showing the rates, that that'll be fine.

Um this one, PCA 1165 for summer 1517 for the winter.

Is that per month or cumulative?

Like all summer or per month.

So whatever whatever your kilowatt hours is for the month, uh the PCA rate is charged per kilowatt hour.

So that so the two, so for example, the one eighty-seven uh for the summer, that would be your monthly bill.

For electric, yes.

For electric, yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Additional questions from council.

I I think can you just remind us um uh you know, we just had the conversation around water rates based on the cost of service study.

Um we did a cost of service study in 2023.

Is that correct?

Or 2023.

When it was kind of finalized, yeah.

When how often do we do cost of service studies to then because you know part of that influenced this rate discussion?

And we did, we followed the direction of the cost of service study that also suggested doing a two and a half percent increase in twenty-five and twenty-six.

So when's the next time we'll do the next cost of service thing?

We usually do them about every five years, so probably in a couple more years.

We'll do that again.

All right.

Additional council questions.

All right.

Would anybody from the public wish to speak on bill 18425?

And a reminder, we will not be voting on this tonight.

It will be at the next uh council meeting.

Good evening, Mayor.

Good evening, counselors.

My name is Peter Schneeberger.

I live at 605 Tilly.

I'm speaking on behalf of the Renewable Energy Coalition.

I request five minutes.

Just want to point out our coalition includes the Sierra Club, Peace Works, Liga Wound voters, and Renew Missouri.

The coalition opposes any increase in the base rate for users of the electric utility.

Users should not be subjected to a further increase this soon after more than a 50 percent hike in the base rate from 14 dollars to 22 dollars in 2024.

While we recognize the electric utilities need for increased revenue, the base rate is not the best place to get revenue.

We recommend you apply the two percent increase solely to consumption rates.

We would even support raising consumption rates by 2.5 percent in lieu of a base rate increase.

Why?

Because targeting targeting the consumption rates will encourage conservation and waste reduction, an essential goal for the city under the climate action and adaptation plan.

So specific points I'd encourage you to consider before hiking.

Number one, hikes to the standard base rate disproportionately hurt the utility's low-income customers.

A base rate hike unfairly burdens these customers who are relatively lower electricity consumers to shoulder proportionally more of the revenue increase.

Number two.

The base rate hike will generate less than a half million dollars of additional revenue.

Number three.

Previously, one of the reasons for hiking, the base rate was a debt reduction.

However, debt and the interest rate payable on the debt is a constant and not subject to inflation.

So a 2 percent hike for inflation is not required for debt reduction.

Number four, the base rate also covers administrative costs for the provision of services.

But unlike the cost of power purchases, administrative costs are under the control of the utility and can be maintained at lower rate through efficiency efforts.

Number five, base rate hikes threaten to drive users off the grid as alternative energy sources mature.

In short, there are valid and compelling reasons to maintain the current base rate.

If the utility needs to generate more revenue to operate, which seems debatable, it should do so solely through a consumption charge rate hike.

The Renewable Energy Coalition requests you to avoid any changes in the base rate at this time in the interest of fairness, the environment, and the long-term future of the utility.

Thank you.

Thank you, Peter.

Would anybody else from the public wish to speak on bill 18425?

See none will come to Council Commons.

And again, reminder we'll be holding this until the September 2nd meeting for a vote.

Council comments.

I think to the question around base rates.

I think it would be interesting to similar to maybe if we can be reminded from the cost of service study about how base rates are calculated and then the discussions around percentage increases for base rates versus the per kilowatt hour.

I think for our next uh meeting, that would be good information to have.

Similarly to the calculation of if if one goes but not the other, what would that look like for revenue?

Okay.

Any other council comments?

All right.

Moving on to Bill 185-25.

So I'm gonna ask uh for the representative.

So the next four are somewhat related.

Um I was gonna ask for permission to read all four together.

We'll still vote individually, but to read all four together.

Is that okay?

Thank you, Caleb.

All right.

So um, Sheila, will you please read bills 185-25, 186-25, 187-25, and 188-25?

Council Bill 18525 is an ordinance granting the issuance of a conditional use permit to one Frisco LLC to allow the operation of a short-term rental on property located at one five for place, providing a severability clause and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective, second reading.

Council Bill 186-25 is an ordinance granting the issuance of a conditional use permit to three Frisco LLC to allow the operation of a short-term rental on property located at three five for place, providing a severability clause and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective, second reading.

Council Bill 18725 is an ordinance granting the issuance of a conditional use permit to five Frisco LLC to allow the operation of a short-term rental on property located at 55 place providing a severability clause and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective second reading.

And Council Bill 18825 is an ordinance granting the issuance of a conditional use permit to seven Frisco LLC to allow the operation of a short-term rental on property located at 7 Pfeiffer Place, providing a severability clause, and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective second reading.

Do we have a staff report?

Yes, we do, Madam Mayor.

So this is a these are four separate cases for conditional use approvals at 135 and 7 FIFA Place.

This presentation will cover all four of the applications as each of the individual units within this four-unit condominium building are identical in size and general area that they cover on the 0.4 acre approximate total site.

This is a single building again with four condo units that each occupy roughly one-tenth of an acre each on their own individual lot.

Each application is seeking a 210-night maximum six guest short-term rental CUP.

This has been a request of council.

This is your general street locator map.

Hopefully, this is what you all were looking for.

So starting on the right-hand side of the slide, that is one FIFA, three, five, and seven, and that is moving from north to south.

You will notice these buildings are they all have two car garages.

They share basically a common driveway approach.

And so the garages that you do not see are on the insides of this photograph three and five FIFA also mirror each of the units.

So the overall parcel is zoned RMF, which is our multifamily residential zoning district, our most intense residential zoning district.

It is surrounded by a mixture of zoning classifications.

MOF to the north is part of the medical complex for Boone Hospital, Boone Hospital immediately, the larger structure in the MOF district.

Yes, all of the owners are family, but each individual unit is owned by a separate LLC, one, three, five, and seven Frisco, Frisco LLC, respectively.

Each of the units contains three bedrooms, two and a half baths, the two-car garage, and the driveway ensure compliance with the required UDC parking standards, which for six individuals requires a minimum of three parking spaces.

That is consistent with our occupancy limitations for short-term rental use and the dwelling units have respectively operated since 2023.

One FIFA January, three FIFA, February, Five FIFA March, and then seven FIFA since September.

And then the bedroom, the nights booked accordingly.

Again, one in 2024, one FIFA was 234 nights, 217 for three FIFA, 245 for 5, and then 220 for 7 in 2024.

The designated agent is here this evening along with legal counsel and is a local Boone County Columbia resident as required by the ordinance.

He lives 10 miles from the project site, 20-minute drive generally, in case there is a need to deal with any type of SDR regulatory violations that need to be resolved.

There is nothing within our Unified Development Code that forbids the same designated agent to represent an application.

So this applicant, the designated agent is also a player in the overall LLC that controls the underlying ground that the four-unit condominium building sits on.

So one Frisco has its own ownership, but it is also but the principal manager of the overall parcel that is here.

They are also it was also representing each of them as the designated agent.

There were no code violations identified with this property.

As we go through and we look at both our neighborhood services violation records, we look at our police report records as it relates to any types of infractions, none were identified as part of our process.

There also were no other licensed short-term rentals within 300 feet of this, except those that are all within the same building.

The building itself is only about 147 feet long, if I'm correct.

So each of the applications is within the 300 foot.

And then surrounding development, as many of you are aware, is a mixture of rental dwelling occupied units, significant multifamily presence to the east along East Broadway, and as we come back down Fiffer, we have some single family development, and then as you get off of Sunrise, which is furthest to the east at the cul-de-sac end, that is duplex development.

So our STR COP process requires that we review short-term rentals by both general conditional use criteria found within our unified development code, and then also site specific or use specific standards related to short-term rental usage, particularly that were designed and adopted as a part of the short-term rental regulations.

And this is where the 300-foot evaluation criterion comes in, and there are other factors, there are five other factors within the STR-specific criteria that the Commission evaluates.

Our general requirements for conditional uses, which apply to any conditional use within the city looks at the broader comprehensive plan objectives.

Is the property adequately served by utility infrastructure?

How does it comport with the land use recommendations of the comprehensive plan?

How does it meet other goals and objectives of our comprehensive plan?

That's the first five five or six criteria that the planning commission evaluates with each short-term rental.

Short-term rentals in the RMF district are permitted subject to the issuance of a conditional use when they are not an owner's primary residence.

They also will require that, if approved, a short-term rental certificate of compliance be obtained from our neighborhood services division of housing and neighborhood services and acquisition of a business license as a part of the acquisition of a business license.

An applicant and operator would be required to pay accommodation taxes on every booked night at an equivalent rate for our hotel years, which is 5% of each booked room night.

After staff completed its evaluation of the specific and general condition of use criteria, there was concern as it related to the concentration of four short-term rentals within one specific location.

As many of you that have been around or have reviewed our ordinances or reviewed the regulations, concentration was a significant concern as we went through the adoption process.

This is the second application in where we have had third, I apologize, third application where we have had multiple short-term rentals within 300 feet of each other.

This, however, is the first where we have had four immediately in the same building.

So this is a unique situation that is not risen prior.

Of the prior two, the first instance that we had were two separated by a single lot, roughly 80 feet off of McBain.

Both short-term rentals were supported by the neighborhood.

After listening to public testimony, testimony of the applicants, the Planning and Zoning Commission approved that set of short-term rentals separated by one parcel.

In contrast, up towards Alpha Heart Elementary, the second case was presented off of Golden Wood, and they were also separated by a single parcel.

There was not neighborhood support.

The first property came in sooner and therefore was approved prior to the second planning and zoning commission and evaluating the facts, listening to the public comment, denied that request, given that they were only separated by a single parcel, roughly again an 80-foot wide span between them.

Then came this particular application.

And so the idea of having four in a single building was a very startling revelation for the Planning Commission.

And there were a significant amount of public discussion amongst the Commission, a number of questions asked and answered by the applicant as well as public testimony.

One comment in support of the actual request because it had improved the quality of the development within the neighborhood.

And this was basically being offered by a rental property owner immediately to the West.

There was other comment made from adjoining neighbors, not maybe directly in the neighborhood, but that the central approval would set a precedent as it relates to allowing more than one within 300 feet.

The Planning Commission asked additional probing questions of the applicant, and I'm sure that the applicant as well as their designated legal counsel will speak to that this evening as to what was asked and presented.

There are adequate utilities to support these four STRs.

These the building does occupy what was previously, if I'm not incorrect, four two duplex buildings.

It was either two duplex buildings or three duplex buildings, I cannot recall.

They were replaced.

We have fenced in rear yard, as many of you maybe have seen here, as well as a well-maintained landscape around this building.

So this is a very modern building in an area that is obviously aged over time, but is still a very functional rental environment.

The bedroom mix is consistent generally, even though the homes in this particular area are older.

The bedroom mix is somewhat consistent.

And this particular property actually has probably enhanced parking capacity in comparison to a lot of what surrounds it, and that is because it's more modern construction.

And the applicant was able to make that work as a part of reconstructing the site.

So as indicated, single letter in support and in opposition.

The concerns noted were the overconcentration and contrary potential contrary outcome to our STR separation requirements, which is a consideration.

There was discussion as the minutes identify a potential inconsistency in the one licensure provision.

And again, what I must explain and reinforce is these dwelling units are owned by individual entities.

They are not owned by the same person, so all four of these dwelling units have separate ownership.

The way that the ordinance is structured is one license per entity or per person.

And so the way that the applications were received, that is how they came in, and staff and the review and the processing of these applications did not see an overlap.

The final consideration and concern that was being expressed was the lost opportunity for a long-term rental or midterm rental within this particular area.

The opportunity to be able to draw off of the hospital, the universities, university, the colleges really were something that was a concern as it related to those that were speaking as well as the Commission in general.

As many of you were aware, our short-term rental regulations contain provisions for enforcement and monitoring that can address the negative impacts that short-term rentals can generate, regardless of their concentration.

But we do have provisions.

We have parking standards, we have a call line, we have a variety of other things that did not exist prior to 2024 when our regulations were adopted.

So the public is not left out without an option to report potential issues.

We are in the process of still closing the contract deal, contract negotiations with our vendor that will help us and augment the enforcement process, and we will hopefully be bringing that to you shortly.

So the Commission conducted public hearings on July 10th on each of the applications as the mayor has indicated you will this evening as well, and that was because these are four separate LLCs.

We consolidated the presentation like I have this evening, but then conducted four separate hearings.

The Commission voted unanimously to approve one FIFA, which is the building or the unit closest to East Broadway.

Questions were asked of me, well, how did we make that decision?

That decision was made generally from a staff perspective that we believed that consistency was attained with the regulatory requirements and that one of at least the four units could be used as a short-term rental.

We wanted to mitigate as best as possible the impact moving back into the neighborhood.

And so our recommendation to the staff uh to the commission was to approve one FIFA because it was closest to the major roadway and furthest from going back into the neighborhood.

The Commission obviously, by their unanimous recommendation, agreed with that logic.

That particular request was conditioned on the uh one space and the two-car garage being provided at a minimum, uh, because two spaces could be provided on the driveway, so that would get you year three, uh, that it was a 210-night maximum on one uh for the occupancy, and then the guest allowance would be a maximum of six.

And so those the last two conditions are general conditions that get applied at most instances when you are dealing with uh a short-term rental.

The first is unique, and that is because the parking needs to be met, and that condition had to be offered.

The Commission then, through the separate public hearings held on 35 and 7 Fiffer, voted to deny each of those by the same recommended denial vote of 7 to 2.

Um, and with that, the hearing was concluded.

If you have questions, I'm more than happy to answer them.

Any questions for staff from council?

No questions.

That was that was a very thorough review.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Would anyone from the public wish to speak on bills 185, 186, 187, and 1882?

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council, Caleb Colbert, attorney at 827 East Broadway, and I'm sorry you have to hear from me twice in one evening, just your lucky day.

Um we are asking for your support of uh all four conditional use permits for their uh short-term rentals.

I think as Mr.

Zinner noted in his application uh or in his staff report, a lot of this comes down to the 300-foot separation issue.

And it it sounds like in the past, if there was neighbor support, the 300-foot separation uh was waived.

If there was not neighbor support, then perhaps the 300-foot separation was enforced.

Hopefully, everyone received the email and the petition that I submitted over the weekend, which includes the signatures of all of the tenants and renters that are adjacent to the proposed short-term rentals.

We did not have this at the Planning and Zoning Commission because we didn't expect the 300 issue to be the 300 foot issue to be front and center the way that it was.

But we believe that if neighbor support is sort of the determining criteria of whether short-term rentals should be allowed to be located within 300 feet of each other, we believe the petition that we submitted justifies a waiver in this situation.

The other thing I think that makes this particular application unique is you know, most of the time when I'm here in front of the council or the commission, we're asking for a change.

We're asking for a zoning map amendment or a new subdivision.

In this case, these are four existing short-term rentals that have been in operation for several years now.

Uh as new construction in 2023.

And in that time frame, there have been no code violations.

There have been no complaints from the neighbors, there's been no suggestion that the use of the property as a short-term rental has created traffic issues.

These are well-run, exceptional short-term rentals, owned by a local family that is connected to the community and is very mindful of the benefit this provides to the community.

They're very responsive.

They're not going to let these create impacts to the neighborhood.

As Mr.

Zinner indicated, there are mechanisms and protections to make sure that that continues to be the case.

But again, considering that these are existing short-term rentals, we're not asking to change the status quote.

We just would like the status quote to be maintained.

Additionally, as Mr.

Zinner indicated, there were a couple of comments that hopefully, if you reviewed the minutes, there were a couple of issues that jumped out.

Um the ownership issue or the sort of the common management.

Respectfully, there is nothing in the UDC that prohibits common management of separate single member LLCs.

The fact that Nick owns one LLC and his wife owns another LLC, that's not prohibited.

In fact, that's, as staff noted, that's uh legally permitted.

Um it is structured the way the UDC was intended.

Otherwise, um, we think, given that the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval of one short-term rental unanimously, that indicates that generally short-term rentals would be appropriate at this location.

And then when you look at sort of the minutes, it it really boils down to this 300-foot issue and the ownership issue.

And I don't want to belabor everything that was in my letter, but I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Caleb.

We might ask you at the end.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Would anybody else from the public wish to speak on bills 18525 through 1882?

Good evening.

My name is Peter Norgaard.

I live at 1602 Hinkson Avenue.

Um I'm not connected to this uh organization at all.

Um I was struck by something I read in the minutes, and I wanted to point it out and bring it to your attention because I think it's uh important that we be clear.

These condos were purpose built for short-term rental.

And how do I know this?

Because the applicant said so at the planning and zoning hearing.

Why is this important?

Because from the very beginning, the first bill that was presented to city council that was rejected, and the second one that was rejected, and the third one that was accepted, all considered short-term rental to be commercial use.

And why is this a big deal?

Because if you allow this to go forward in its entirety, um, then you are basically saying that we're going to allow a commercial use to occupy a residential zoning district.

And this was one of the primary reasons why there were so many people up in arms about short-term rentals coming to neighborhoods in the first place.

So I just want you to keep that in mind.

Um I support the planning and zonings uh decision to support one and to deny the other three.

Thank you.

Thank you, Peter.

Good evening.

Um David Mayer, 714 Ingleside Drive, and also chair of the East Campus Neighborhood Association.

Um, about the issue of placing short-term rentals within 300 feet.

We think this sets a bad precedent.

We think it's fine to have one unit be a short-term rental, but we really think that the council should respect the 300-foot uh limitation as I think the previous speaker added very nicely uh explained.

Thank you.

Thank you, David.

Would anyone else from the public wish to speak on bills 18525 through 18825?

You're good, Cesar.

Hello, I'm Cecile Bentley.

I live in 1863 Cliff Drive in East Campus neighborhood.

I'm here and you already have my letter that expressed my concerns about the 300 feet.

I guess that I'm just sort of surprised that anyone would imply that we would use kind of whether neighbors were for or against an ordinance as to whether we would enforce it.

That seems like an unlikely uh perspective for a city to take.

I mean, if you don't like your stop signs and your neighborhoods don't like your sub signs, you don't have to stop.

I mean, this is an ordinance that says 300 feet.

And now we're saying, oh, but you know, if neighbors I mean, I I don't even know that was really why the Planning and Zoning Commission decided it was okay.

But it's being implied that if neighbors support it, then it's okay to to violate an ordinance to change the way it's being been written, and that seems to me to be a very dangerous precedent to set.

Thank you.

Would anyone else from the public wish to speak?

Um I support the decisions that were made by planning and zoning.

Previously, I sat through an excruciating meeting on this, and also what the staff was recommending at that time, that number one be uh it's appropriate for an STR and four in a row, it's just too many, and it's not because of the neighborhood, it's not because of um nuisance, it's just because we want long and midterm rental to be available and not um because you can make more money on an STR that there be a density of STRs.

Thank you.

Thank you, D.

Would anybody else from the public wish to speak on bills 185 through 18825?

Um thank you for your patience as we go through all three.

And you raise the microphone, you're taller than D US.

Yes, thank you for your patience.

No offense.

As we go through all four of these.

I know it's very unique.

Oh, will you state your name for um Sheila?

Yes, I'm sorry.

Uh Nick Timberlake.

Uh 5605 Abercorn Drive.

Um, I mean these were purpose built uh two years ago or two and a half years ago.

Um we knew at the time that there were short-term rental regulations being discussed, as is very understandable.

It was the wild west.

There had to be some sort of organization to it.

We didn't know exactly what that was going to entail at the time.

Um truthfully, we just I we've been inspired by great architecture across some of our travels, and wanted to inspire people in our city to adopt more uh unique architecture.

That's why the way that's why they're developed this way.

Um and we thought that in unique building like buildings like this, it would be uh a good use to serve the city as a place for people to come and stay and um while they visit, you know.

We know it's a very uh tourist driven college town.

Um the city has a lot to offer when it comes to that.

So that was the that was the intention two and a half years ago.

Um since then we've tried our best to operate it well uh consistently with the neighborhood.

I mean, we actually even gave thought to where we were gonna do this before we did because we didn't want to disrupt a quiet neighborhood.

Um you know, and it the landlords and the tenants have commented that they appreciate us, appreciate us being good neighbors and uh our guests.

We have great rating with our guests as well.

Um you know, we did not know exactly what what was gonna happen in two and a half years being this this regulation.

The re at the time we were it was a fam, it was owned by our family, me and my wife, my mother, my father.

Um we thought why not at least try to abide by abide by the regulation, split up ownership the way the regulation or the regulation requests and kind of just put this issue before all of us and say we've got support.

You know, I personally went and talked to every single one of the renters.

Um I got those signatures.

Uh I've spoken and friends with the l the landlords next to us, and and they enjoy working uh next to us, and we just want to continue to serve the city as short-term rentals because from our perspective, it it appears as though we are serving the neighborhood and our guests in the city and giving them a uh comfortable safe place to stay while they're here.

So uh but I we will fully comply with anything that you guys uh decide to do with this.

So thank you, Nick.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Would anybody else from the public wish to speak on bills 185 through 18825?

Hi, I'm Steve Spellman, I live at 2312.

Katie Lane, I don't think I said that the first time.

I had to tell Sheila who you were.

You probably filled her in or whatever, yeah.

I'm in Columbia's fourth ward.

Um I don't live by this place.

Uh it's a ways from where I live.

I go by every once in a while.

Um you know, I I was here um a few weeks ago when I think it was the first applicant for this new uh short-term rental program.

There was the fellow buying not buying a house over by Columbia uh country club, I think it was.

And there was discussion and so forth.

I remember sitting here, and I saw this guy kind of slinking around the side, and end up he was the guy buying the place.

And he was on pens and needles about, you know, he had an idea to be an entrepreneur and so forth, bought this place, thought he was coming through the front door.

His intention was to abide by the rules.

He went through the process.

He thought he had the approval.

He showed this thing, and I think, oh wait, you know, you have another thing.

And this guy, I think he was uh recent immigrant to the country too.

I think he had language thing.

I think Mr.

Water and welcome to this country here.

A nice, nice sentiment there.

I bet he had no idea he was gonna have to come before the town council to approve his thing.

Now, this is a little different.

I'm no lawyer, I have no uh financial connection to any of the uh the the owners or or anything like that.

But um, you know, this is something that's already occurring.

So some of the other people that applied grandfathered in or something like that, if I if I understand.

So this is already occurring, there's no complaints.

And so this guy might be kind of put out of business by the new ordinances on top of what he's already doing.

Um here they're trying to go through the front door, they're trying to uh behave and so forth.

Um I I can sympathize with the neighbors and so forth.

You know, this is right by Broadway, it's right by Boone Hospital.

Um who's not here is the people who have been running these places from them.

Uh the people might be running them in the future, um, people with somebody at the hospital there, um, traveling nurse, who whoever they happen to be.

I don't know.

I don't know what should be done with this property.

Um is it a reasonable use?

I appreciate the the city counselor's uh quick tutorial on zoning and so forth, which generally is about stopping people from doing stuff.

And is this reasonable?

Does this follow the spirit of what is trying to be done?

And is this another learning moment about what is the nature of this new ordinance that is on the books?

Does this really fit what we want to do?

I don't know how to tell you how to uh vote on this.

Um the neighbors uh approve that.

I, as a community member, don't see this as a threat to our community.

Um it's already occurring, seems to be peaceful.

Um so I appreciate your time and your service to community.

Thanks.

Thanks, T.

Would anybody else from the public wish to speak?

Seeing none, we'll come to council comments or additional questions if there are any.

Yeah, done.

Several things with this.

Um, to address the question about public opinion letting us violate the ordinance, that is incorrect.

The 300-foot spacing is a consideration, but it's not a hard and fast rule.

Um yes, I understand that you know we have um we have the petition, the signatures, surrounding neighbors, they're in favor of it.

Uh so again, something to consider.

Um they met the requirements about separate ownership.

Uh the fact that they're all within one family, frankly, is irrelevant.

Um and if you bothered to to read the minutes, uh, I think city council are planning and zoning spent uh a little bit too much time kind of prying into the back end financing of what gets shared.

I think that frankly was a little out of bounds for them.

Um not their purpose.

Because I don't recall where we're seeing any addressing that in any other thing that's come through planning and zoning.

Um so we've got the support of the immediate neighbors.

It's been run for two years, three years.

Um, full capacity, 200 plus nights for any of the units.

Um the location is great.

It was an upgrade to the neighborhood.

Um yes, I understand the the part of it.

Um I was a little and I can't figure out exactly whether I was puzzled, amused, um, when apparently during part of the discussion, uh the applicant um said that, well, if I don't get the short-term rental, I'll make it long-term rentals and I'll rent to the college students.

And for some reason, planning and zoning perceived that as a threat.

A little puzzled by that.

Um but anyway, they've met all the requirements.

Yes, there is a there is a question and a consideration about the concentration, but given that it's been operating, and again, the location, you're right next to the hospital.

Somebody comes down for a stay, nice place for them to be able to stay for somebody to visit somebody that may be in the hospital.

Football games, whatever.

It's been working, it's working well, no complaints.

Um for that, um quite frankly, I'm gonna I'm in favor of approving all four.

Betsy.

Um, I agree with a lot of what you've said, Don.

Um, and it they haven't been in problem.

The 300-foot um issue is a problem for me, probably because um usually short-term rentals are single-family homes, it seems like, or that's what it's been.

And you know, the concern of a lot of neighborhoods is that we're going to have nothing but short-term rentals, and I think that's happening in Benton Stevens.

And one of the reasons why Peter is so adamant about it is that is that we're losing a lot of housing, whether I'm not sure whether this would be affordable housing, although probably for the college students it would.

Um I uh I sort of think that the 30 300 foot uh issue is is a problem for me to get over.

Um I don't know whether, you know, I know we're sort of talking about changing how we look at the short-term rentals in general, and we might need to look at um you know if we want to change that.

But at this point, I'm I'm gonna go with the rules that we presently have in place and and support the planning and uh zoning commission's recommendations.

Uh very similar to uh what you just said, but I think it's important to note that that 300-foot um consideration is not just about noise levels, is not just about maintaining a quiet neighborhood.

It is also about the larger neighbors and constituents of Columbia being able to find affordable or available rental and owner-occupied housing.

Um I know that from the minutes the applicant said that they were willing and able to serve as a long-term landlord on these units that look like they would be in a in a great location for longer-term rentals.

Um, and so I think it's important to think about um not just the immediate neighbors, but the neighbors in the whole area and how they will be affected by less housing on the market.

Yeah, Jackie.

Uh similar thoughts.

I appreciate the time and energy and money that was placed into this development.

And I drive by it pretty much every day, and it's lovely.

Um, but I do also I I have concerns, and I do go back to the 300-foot um piece.

But I every short-term rental conversation that we have, my mind is constantly going back to our housing study and the thousands of um homes and rental properties that are not available to people who want to be here, want to live here, not just vacation or go to a football game.

And I'm additionally gonna bring up the comments from um was it Jack in our public comment today talking about the Columbia Tenants Union, um, who echoed the same sentiment about how um there's not enough housing to make rent uh uh fees or what's the word I'm looking for fair um lower, there's not competition there to kind of keep those the rent down for people again who are trying to live here.

Um so that's where my concern lays.

So I'm I'm grateful for the development, I'm grateful for the um positive history of this property and how it has served our community, but I'm more concerned about the access to longer-term housing for our citizens.

Thank you.

I'll just add before I'll call have um Sheila call these individually.

Um I will say that um as one who I think to me it's a perfect example of when we talk about gentle density.

So you took a duplex in a one single family home and made it into something that does fall within the the scope of or the slope of the site um and also doesn't look bad.

So I want to appreciate that for that.

Um to me it's all it's it's about the use and the intent of going forward.

When it was being built, I thought it was gonna just be apartments for rental, and I was excited about uh more especially located newer buildings.

Um to me, I do get back to the short-term rental conversation about concentration.

Uh and this is going to have 24, potentially 24 people at a time that to me is almost like a small little hotel or B and B sort of thing.

So to me, I think it is that kind of question um about going forward with short-term rentals.

Um so if there's no other council comments, I'm gonna have Sheila call these individually if you want to start with Bill 18525, which I believe is for one Pfeiffer.

Council Bill 18525, which is um number one, Mr.

Waterman?

Yes.

Ms.

Peters.

Yes.

Ms.

Buffalo?

Yes.

Oh, that was loud.

Sorry.

Miss Elwood, yes.

Ms.

Sample.

Yes.

You want me to go ahead and continue?

Yes, please.

Council Bill 18625, which is number three, Mr.

Waterman.

Yes.

Ms.

Peters.

No.

Ms.

Buffalo?

No.

Ms.

Elwood?

No.

Ms.

Sample?

No.

And then Council Bill 18725, which is number five, Mr.

Waterman.

Yes.

Ms.

Peters?

No.

Ms.

Buffalo?

No.

Ms.

Elwood?

No.

Ms.

Sample?

No.

And then Council Bill 18825, which is number seven, I believe.

Mr.

Waterman.

Yes.

Ms.

Peters?

No.

Miss Buffalo?

No.

Ms.

Elwood?

No.

Miss Sample.

No.

Right.

So the first one passed and the remaining three were defeated.

Similar to planning and zoning.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Moving on to the consent agenda.

Sheila, will you please read items on the consent agenda twice and call the roll?

Items on the consent agenda include bills 18125, 18925, 19025, 1912, 1925, 193, 25, 194, 25, 195, 25, 196, 25, 1972, 1982, 1992, 225, 2012, 2022, 25, 2032, 20425, and resolutions 1145, 11525, 116, 25, and 11725.

Bills 18125, 18925, 190, 25, 191, 25, 192, 25, 193, 25, 194, 25, 195, 25, 196, 25, 197, 25, 198, 25, 199, 25, 225, 2012, 2022, 20325, 20425 and resolutions 1145, 11525, 11625, and 11725.

Mr.

Waterman.

Yes.

Yes.

Miss Buffalo.

Yes.

Miss Elwood.

Yes.

Ms.

Sample.

Yes.

All right.

And we have no items under uh new business this evening.

Um I'll ask um the clerk to read the items under introduction and first reading.

All bills are introduced by the mayor unless otherwise indicated bills 20525, 20625, 20725, 208-25, 209-25, 210-25, 211-25, 212-25, 213-25, 214, 25, 215, 25, 216, 25, 217, 25, 218, 25, 219, 25, 220, 25, 221, 25, 22, 25, 223, 25, 224, 25, 225, 25, 226, 25, 227, 25, 228, 25, 229, 25, and 230, 25, first reading.

Thank you.

I'll just make a quick note before we move on to the reports.

Under introduction and first reading, when an item has an asterisk, that usually means that it goes on to consent.

We did have a request from uh the community about next time when bill 20525 comes back that it not go on consent and then it go on old business.

So I just want to acknowledge that request from the district.

Um I also might have just received another request for 20625 to also go, but I need to clarify that one with the requester.

So I just want to make that note so that they know that I did hear their request.

So moving on to reports, uh, we had asked for a recycling update, and so I'll kick this over to staff for um talking about this.

Is informational only, but an update to us and let us ask questions.

Yes, Aaron Keyes, Utilities Director with me is Tom Rotterman, the assistant director for solid waste.

Uh this is an update as promised on recycling and the MIRF.

Uh as you know, in mid-July, we started um taking mixed containers from residential recycling to federal recycling in Jefferson City.

Uh mixed containers are plastic and metal containers such as milk bottles, beverage and other bottles.

Uh in the recycling world, they call them with shoulders, you know, things that have lids that screw on, uh, aluminum beverage containers and metal food cans.

Uh federal recycling is bailing those mixed containers and then transporting them to a private sorting facility in normal Illinois.

Um for this service, they're providing Columbia a rebate based on the value of those mixed containers, um, but that is after the fees for the bailing and the transporting to Illinois are deducted.

Um then they're splitting the value of the mixed containers.

That value is based on the commodity market, so there is a significant negative value for glass, trash, and plastic, uh number three through sevens that are mixed in with those mixed containers.

So that's why we've asked residents to um place glass, trash, and number three through sevens in the trash or not in the recycling because they're uh there's a negative value to them when they get shipped off at this point.

Um so that's recycling.

Uh as far as the MERF, um the debris removal is complete at the material recovery facility.

Uh we've tested the equipment and we can operate it with a generator.

Uh however, now we need to make that operation functional uh and safe.

So uh the equipment includes the bailer and the in-floor conveyor, uh the fiber sort line and the container sort line.

So we need to bring electric line power back to the facility.

So part of the tornado at Torah out the electric that went to, you know, went to all the facilities there at the landfill.

So they've got the line that goes back to the administration building, but now we need to get the electric service back to the MERF, which includes a transformer.

And there's some work involved in that.

There's also some work to restore, replace, repair some of the electrical panels to repair railings and other aspects of the equipment to make it uh safe to operate.

And we also need to obtain the proper permits from community development to do some of that work.

We are currently the residential curbside fiber is continuing to go to the landfill.

We believe it's in our interest to be able to have a bailer to bail that up so that we can more effectively recycle it.

So until we can uh have a bailer available to do that, um it's still go the fiber is still going to the landfill.

Um we're looking at a next step of constructing some type of building over the existing equipment.

Um any building we put over should meet both our short-term and our long-term needs and goals.

Um we believe a pre-engineered metal building could go on the existing footprint, and we should be able to design that building so that we could add on to it if we choose to upgrade our sorting equipment in the future.

Uh we have a rest rough estimate of about two and a half million dollars for foundations, the structure, office, and a break room.

Um we think this would be of uh as in the insurance industry they call it like kind and quality.

Um so we hope that that would satisfy the insurance company.

Um I believe uh the money we're getting from the insurance company should cover the majority of of what we think that might cost.

Uh it would take about a year to cut to design and construct and obtain the permits that we need.

So we're starting to talk to local contractors to explore a design build approach.

Um that's a contract that we would bring back to council for approval.

Um we're expecting a report from RRT by October that will outline as we discussed uh previously uh a more detailed capital and operating costs to compare a transfer station and a MERF facility.

So with that, I'll try to answer any questions.

We're here to answer any questions you might have about recycling in the MIRF.

Any questions for staff on this?

No, I appreciate the additional information.

I think I asked a question which you said you will look into, but one of the questions you know we've been talking about is potentially doing a staffed drop-off in our future for recycling drop-off that could potentially also allow additional things.

So I expect I am happy that you're interested in potentially looking at maybe if we were to do like to test that to pilot that idea of like staff drop-offs, especially for the container materials that people want to give to us and that could be recyclable.

I think of like cardboard or fiber materials the good stuff.

Yeah, that's something we can uh look into.

There's you know, obviously a lot of logistics involved.

Yeah.

Um I don't need another e-waste like the Hearn Center with cars backed up to Ashland.

So maybe frequent pop-up things.

Yeah, and my yeah, I'm not sure.

Yeah.

So we'll have to look into what might work best for that.

I appreciate that.

Well, thank you for the update.

Thank you.

Um moving on to report 45.

4525 is our monthly finance report, which includes the uh trend manual.

Manual, did I say that correctly?

I don't have it up in front of me.

Yeah.

Yes, it is.

And so uh this is not the final iteration uh iteration of this report.

Um there were there were a few touches and went through, but we wanted to give this uh in front of you all before we actually posted it.

So you have a staff report.

Yes, we do.

Okay.

So um, like I like Matthew said, this is the community trend manual.

This is uh produced by our economics division every year.

Uh these we have a few slides just kind of highlighting some of the point main major points from the document.

Uh the overview.

So we cover demographic, standard of living, local economy, uh fiscal health, community service, and sustainability.

So just a couple uh uh things to point out about our demographic section.

We are continuing to see our population grow over the from 2020 to 2024.

It's grown uh almost 8,000.

The population is increased by uh about 8,000.

Our demographic pyramid shows kind of what you would expect to see our largest age group is 20 to 24, which is obviously our college uh community.

Uh standards of living.

So you can see um our standards of living uh for the City of Columbia is uh is for our poverty rate is a bit higher than the national average overall, and in every other kind of demographic that we highlight, um kind of the reasons for that is uh that we have a large uh college uh age level, which kind of brings that up.

Uh another area of note is uh child poverty rate, which is a little below the state and national average, but as you can see in the black community, uh the City of Columbia, it does have a higher uh poverty rate than uh the state and uh nation.

Uh local uh local economy.

Um our unemployment rate for the city overall tends to be about the same level as the state and a little better than uh the nation.

Um but then when you go to uh the black community, we do see tend to see we're kind of a little higher in our unemployment rate.

And for medium home prices, we tend Boone County tends to trend higher than the uh state average, and it has continued to increase over the past uh five years.

So fiscal health, so this is kind of a sales uh tax uh look here, and this is looking at sales tax per person, and we chain that to 2020 so you can get comparable levels that kind of removes inflation so you can get kind of a dollar for dollar comparison.

And uh what this is showing is that our sales tax per person is relatively flat.

It's sitting around $400 per person.

And then uh this is kind of an examination of grants.

You could see it's really spike in 2021 and 2022.

That's largely due to ARPA and CARES money, and then it's come down since then.

Um 2024 is looking to be a little higher than 23.

Obviously, this we haven't looked at 25 yet or 26 when we expect to see grant grant money uh decrease.

So uh looking at uh public safety, um this kind of looks at budgeted uh police officers and firefighters.

That's the graph on the the uh left.

And then the graph on the right shows actual um public safety personnel at the end of each fiscal year.

Um fire continues to increase.

Police kind of went down and is now starting to come back up.

This is largely due to the um the changes in our uh class and comp that um DeCarl and Matthew talked about earlier today.

Uh another kind of program that we we highlight here is our utility assistance.

Uh these two graphs kind of show the number of applicants and the number of people that have received um assistance over the last five years.

That number has continued to increase as we've continued to pour more money into our use utility assistance program.

And you can see in 2024 that was the largest amount we've given out over the last uh five years.

Uh and then finally we kind of look at our um our transit system.

This is annual bus rij ridership over the last five years.

It really peaked in 2022 and it's come down, and that is largely due to staffing issues, which I think uh DeCarlin did talk about earlier today during our budget presentation as well.

So that's kind of that was just kind of the highlights.

Uh we uh, you know, um our the economy the the economic staff put a lot of time in this, so and I think there's a lot of good information in there to kind of go over.

Any council comments on this one yet, Don?

Um go back to I think it was either the second or third slide where you showed the poverty rates.

Yeah.

You said that our college population is what skews this.

That's kind of a uh kind of a possible explanation on the because we do have a lot of like if you go one slide before this, you can see our highest age bracket is 2024.

Right, we're a college town.

Yeah.

Okay, I I get that.

Um but I'm just wondering if it would be possible given again.

The large numbers, if if it is in fact skewing it, is there any way to possibly separate that out to show a separate without the college population?

We we've attempted to scrub the data to sort of look to see uh if we could see behind the numbers, and right now there's just not any statistical data that they keep on college students would would be basically what that is we will be looking for.

Okay.

So uh anything that we would do uh would be an assumption, and I'm I'm not sure if we want to get into assumptions with solid numbers.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

And I just want to um the comment that I had made, I appreciated in the in the trends manual that it shows kind of the per 100,000 for like police and fire.

And I think you expressed that maybe in future ones we could also see that with other city departments.

Yes.

Because we talk about things like as the city has grown out, you know, we have more additional roads.

Have we kept up with staffing levels for the streets department who then maintained those, or even something like I think about our trash collection and recycling collection, have we kept up with that?

So I'd be interested to see similar metrics for the other departments that that population number really is impacting.

Yeah, I think that's a very good suggestion.

And anything else that you all would like to see within this trend manual.

This is a growing document.

This is only the fourth year we've put it together.

So as you as you start to think of things that that maybe we should be keeping up with, uh please pass those ideas on to us and and we'll look into it.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think to the mayor's point, the total staffing per thousand is actually in the budget.

I saw it, but not it's not broken down by department.

So are impacted by growth.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Any other council comments?

All right, we appreciate this.

Yeah, thank you all.

We'll now go to general comments by the public.

Would anybody from the public wish to speak?

That guy that was here earlier, he's left.

All right.

Would anybody um we'll start with counsel?

Um I'll I'll just make a quick note tonight.

Uh it was supposed to be Nick voting first, uh, and council member Nick Foster's father uh passed away this evening.

And so he is with his family, uh, rightfully so.

Uh so now we'll go to Don then.

You'll you'll make counsel comments first.

Yeah.

Um condolences to Nick and his family on on the passing of his father.

So regarding tonight, um good discussions, um, you know, respectful discussions, difference of diff differences of opinions, but uh that's what it's all about.

So continue working through the budget process and uh that's all I'm gonna have for tonight.

Betsy.

I don't have anything.

Right.

Uh Vera, if you yeah, do it.

Um first and foremost, also condolences to Nick on the passing of his father.

Um also uh I know I spoke earlier as well.

Um, but again want to say uh how absolutely huge and mind-blowing it was to get 20 percent voter turnout in Ward 2 for a special election.

Um people who are sitting in this room at 11 o'clock at night know the importance of local elections.

Uh but for anyone who might watch later, I mean truly 20 percent in a local election is like in a special, unheard of.

Um so continue showing up and showing out because local elections are really where you see that immediate change and difference and where you can really see huge impact on your neighbors.

Um so I love to see Columbia carrying that deeply at a local level.

Um and then just to say um congratulations and excitement for all of the students and teachers that will be starting bright and early tomorrow morning, and all the students and teachers that started today for jumpstart day.

I know it has been a hectic and emotional week for a lot of families in Columbia and a lot of teachers who are maybe emotional about being surrounded by teenagers again.

So I hope tomorrow is a is a wonderful start for all of our families here in Columbia.

Okay.

Yeah, I just want to echo thinking thinking of Nick.

I know he's had um it's been a rough couple of weeks, and so we're sending him lots of thoughts and prayers for him and his family.

Um I also wanted to offer just a general thank you to city staff.

Um I know I ask lots of questions, and sometimes the patience that you have has have demonstrated and answering my questions to catch me up to speed.

I'm really appreciative, appreciative of of that.

Um appreciate your work because I know it takes a lot of time to do your job, and then when you have somebody asking questions that you feel like you've already answered, um it's appreciated.

I see that.

I recognize it, and I appreciate it.

Um did want to also bring up that was also mentioned in the trends manual as I'm going through the budget was the um the disparity in the poverty rates, unemployment rates when it comes to our black and brown communities.

And so I'm wondering at what point as a as a council do we have um or what are other cities doing to address that?

Are they making differences in the in the gaps?

Um what is a council do we need to be doing?

Also knowing that in the background, there are executive orders regarding programming specific to different minority communities, and so where it's kind of a weird place right now.

But when I was reviewing those numbers, I was very alarmed and concerned when I saw the gap.

And so I don't know.

I don't know if that's really I guess it's kind of a question to Carlin if that's anything given the current executive orders, if we can even really effectively address in this in vi in this legislative climate.

Um have we addressed it previously?

Um, what are other cities doing?

I'm just kind of I I just I was very bothered by it and felt like we should take some action on it in some way.

Absolutely.

And it's one of those things when you look at the numbers is kind of alarming, especially when you look at the town of our caliber, and you try to figure out exactly what's missing.

I think what we can do is continue some of our partnerships.

You know, partner with job uh job point, partner with those organizations that are providing those job skills, providing opportunities for and reaching out to the community to try to help, you know, kind of facilitate what processes we can do in order to make sure that we can provide a better environment.

No, I met with the superintendent last week, and that's one of the things we talked about in our conversation is what are some of the things we could do through education to kind of help a population of students that are kind of miss being being left left aside.

And so it's just really kind of create programs that can be impactful.

So there's a lot of work to do.

And uh I think looking at what some of the other models are from other communities is important.

And so that's something that we're working on.

But is there a plan today?

I think it's just something we really need to continue to conversate on and continue to move on.

Yeah, I think and I agree.

I don't want it to, I don't want to, I never want to mention something and then it just stopped there.

Absolutely.

And so I just I want to make sure that we talk about it and that we continue to be aware of it and see if there's anything from a city perspective.

Again, those partnerships, I think the partnership with the schools are really important.

Um the child poverty rate just breaks my heart.

So um, yeah, I just wanted to draw attention to that.

So thank you.

Anything else, Kidd?

Um, I'll just do um uh a few comments um thinking back to scheduled public comment this morning, or sorry.

It was still this evening, it's just now almost morning.

Um I want to take a moment to speak to the question about transparency, um, because I think it's something that we hear often, and I feel that I hear that is also very important to staff and to council.

Um staff works with council really hard to be as to put everything out there as we can.

Examples during the budget process, I talk about the town halls that we had starting at the beginning of the year that we had people attend through throughout the summer coming as well.

Um, I think about the B herd, which allows those who are not able to come in person to any of those town halls to come to that.

Um, the listening sessions, um, the communication plan that Utilities has put together for all of the potential um increases they were doing and the outreach that they did for that, I think is good.

And I think it brings to the point, and and I I was joking with somebody, I don't want to like quote Hamilton, but like you can't be in every room at every moment for everything.

And so I think sometimes we get stuck in this because I wasn't there.

I must they must be hiding it.

And I just want to say I appreciate, especially DeKarlen over the last two years.

I've seen a real increase in the public engagement, the Let's Talk Locals, the community summit, all of these things for staff trying to get out there and talk about how these things are developed.

So I just want to say I appreciate that.

If people have questions about where records are, Sheila is an amazing resource and can point you to our own website where things like minutes and live recordings from meetings are.

And so she's often working on the weekends before a council meeting to put together our minutes.

So I want to say appreciation to that, and your hard work is not is not overlooked or not seen.

Moving forward, I also want to remind people that uh our next council meeting is going to be a Tuesday.

It's one of those ones where the first Monday of the month is actually a holiday.

So don't come on Labor Day.

Um hold yourself and come on the second, when everything will probably turn off because the air conditioning and stuff will think that nobody's supposed to be in here.

And I will be warm for once in this council room.

Um moving forward, I want to just uh point out for some of the things that have come up.

I think it'd be interesting to know.

I saw Lee Cotwitz here.

One of the other conversations was about uh tenants' rights.

And I know that the ONS does a good job of kind of putting out what those are, but I don't know if there's any plans for educational campaigns about what you can and can't do in Missouri, but then also what we do to try to work with tenants when they have and and I do want to show my appreciation for Lee and her staff because I had a couple of questions over the last week from tenants, and staff did an amazing job reaching out to the tenants, meeting with their landlord about the the issues that they were experiencing and getting resolution.

So I just want to say thank you for that.

It was appreciated.

And I will go to staff comments.

DeCarlin, do you have anything?

Actually, I just wanted to kind of continue on the conversation about engagement.

And so our fifth Civic Academy cohort uh applications are out now.

Uh it is uh the sessions are Thursday evenings from six to nine, beginning on September 25th.

So for those who are interested in learning more about the city, being part of that process, the Civic Academy is a great opportunity to do just that.

And so please fill out your application.

Do you want to mention the MU alert that came out while we were sitting here?

Sure.

Uh so there was a MU alert about shots being fired in a downtown.

What actually happened when there was a car that backfired?

And the because of the loud noise, people thought that there was something going on.

And so MU IPMU put on an alert, uh, it's now been retracted, so it was a car backfire.

Okay.

So we are safe.

Thank you for the quick response from CPD on that.

And and appreciate the MU alerts because it's better to be safe than sorry, but I appreciate them also doing out the what the investigation found.

Yep.

Nancy, anything from you?

Sheila, anything from you?

All right, I'll go ahead and join us.

10 52.