The Health and Human Development Committee of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen met on February 5, 2026, at 9:01 AM. Chair Boyd presided with Vice Chair Oldenberg, and Aldermen Sonier, Cox Antwi, and Thais present. The committee considered two board bills: BB134, clarifying overgrowth abatement notification procedures, and BB133, accepting a FEMA crisis counseling grant for tornado recovery. Both bills were passed out of committee with do pass recommendations.
Good morning. Welcome everyone to the Health and Human Development Committee meeting for February the 5th at 901 8M. And Ms. Clerk, could you please call the role? Auto Woman Time. Vice Chair Odenberg. Auto Woman Sonier. Present. Auto Woman Cox Anthony. Present. Chair Boy. Present. Auto Woman's highest. Vice Chair Odenberg. We have three chairs and we have a quorum. Thank you very much. Committee meetings. So moved. Second. Thank you. Could uh you do roll call, please. Audible science. Vice Chair Odenberg. Auto Woman Sonier. Aye. Auto Woman Cox Antwing. Aye. Chair Boy. Aye. Auto Woman Thais. Vice Chair Odenberg. We have three I votes. Okay. So now we have up for boys for review. And I'm going to skip me to uh let our guest uh Auto Woman Ann Sweitzer present her board bill 134. Thank you, uh Madam Chairwoman and members of the committee for hearing this bill today. Uh this bill, if it looks familiar, that's because we did pass it a few months ago. Uh now that we have um some clarification uh on occupied and non-occupied parcels for how that would move through the process and what the abatement process would look like, what the notification process would look like. This is all in our efforts to make sure that um that the city, the forestry division is able to properly both abate uh issues with overgrowth on these parcels as well as uh put on appropriate fines and fees for these parcels. So that is the only change in this bill from the version that was passed out of this committee uh a few months ago and did pass at the full board uh with almost um but I think there were two present votes perhaps, but everyone else was in favor of it. So this is just further clarification to make sure that the the bill is um is as as good as possible for the ability to enforce uh the law. Um and Caitlin Smith, who was really the mastermind behind uh working with forestry on this bill, is here to speak on behalf of the mayor's office uh and any other questions um we can answer as well. So, madam chair, up to you if you are if you're ready to hear from Ms. Smith from the mayor's office. Yes, uh Ms. Smith, did you have you wanted to add to that? Uh yeah. Uh do I need to be sworn in? Yes. So okay, you're on point.