MINUTES OF THE REGULAR BOARD OF ALDERMEN MEETING
City Hall April 5, 2004
Council Chambers
7:00 p.m.
The Mayor led with the Pledge of
Allegiance.
ROLL CALL
Present: Alderman
Moreno, Alderman Marshall, Alderman Leahy, Alderman Golfin, Alderman Kramer,
Alderman Robertson, Alderman Wynn, Alderman Cross.
City Attorney
Murphy, City Clerk/Administrator Seemayer and Treasurer Reynders.
Absent: Zoning
Administrator Wolf, Economic Development Director Shelton and Executive
Secretary Williams.
CONSIDERATION AND APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA OF THE REGULAR
BOARD OF ALDERMEN MEETING OF APRIL 5, 2004
Motion was made by Alderman Golfin, second by Alderman
Wynn to approve and adopt the Agenda of the Regular Board of Aldermen meeting
of April 5, 2004. Roll call: Alderman Moreno, yes; Alderman Marshall,
yes; Alderman Leahy, yes; Alderman Golfin, yes; Alderman Kramer, yes; Alderman
Robertson, yes; Alderman Wynn, yes; Alderman Cross, yes.
CONSIDERATION AND APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF THE REGULAR
BOARD OF ALDERMEN MEETING OF MARCH 15, 2004
Motion was made by Alderman
Cross, second by Alderman Leahy to approve and adopt the Minutes of the Regular
Board of Aldermen Meeting of March 15, 2004.
Roll call: Alderman Moreno, yes;
Alderman Marshall, yes; Alderman Leahy, yes; Alderman Golfin, yes; Alderman
Kramer, yes; Alderman Robertson, yes; Alderman Wynn, yes; Alderman Cross, yes.
PROCLAMATION – Arbor Day
Motion was made by Alderman
Cross, second by Alderman Marshall to approve the proclamation for Arbor Day on
April 28, 2004 by acclamation. All in
favor none opposed.
BIDS – Ice
Resurfacer
City Administrator Seemayer
stated that bids were opened on March 26th for the purpose of
soliciting bids for a new ice resurfacer.
Two bids were received from the following vendors:
Becker Arena Products, Inc. $68,200.00
Frank J. Zamboni & Co., Inc. $61,918.25
The bids will be referred to the
Public Works Committee for review.
HEARING OF ANY MATTER OF PUBLIC INTEREST UPON REQUEST OF
ANY PERSON PRESENT
Maureen Saunders – 2326 Parkridge Avenue came before the
Board and stated that she had written a letter to Mayor Kelly and the members
of the Board of Aldermen. It was
emailed last week, and she followed up by delivering copies. She asked that the letter be entered into
the record. The first issue in the
letter was the Comprehensive Plan and not letting cost dictate the plan. Their goal is to get a vision that the
community can get behind and get extensive public input with the process. They
need to include an objective for the school district alone, for maintaining the
schools as an independent district and their excellent reputation.
Mayor Kelly stated that he met with Mrs. Saunders and
agrees with her 100%. Long range
planning for the Brentwood School District is something he has asked about for
a number of years. The school district
need to play an active role in the planning of the Comprehensive Plan, even to
the point of being a financial partner to ensure that they want to be more
active in that process. It is crucial
to make a good plan. The public input
process as they go through the Comprehensive Plan is the only thing that will
make a good Comprehensive Plan. The
cost should not dictate it. Obviously
the City has to have some limits but they need to allocate those funds even if
it is over a two-year period.
Mayor Kelly asked for a show of hands from the members of
the Board. The members indicated that they support the Comprehensive Plan and
the Brentwood School District involvement.
John Kraska – President of the Hanley Industrial Court
Association came before the Board and stated that any data that he signed off
on as President of the Hanley Industrial Court Association relative to TDD and
recommending certain Aldermen personnel was reviewed and approved by six of the
seven Hanley Industrial Court Association members. Their opinions are not shared by one of the members who have
moved most of his businesses out to other cities. Mayor Kelly’s statement to not use eminent domain for the owner
occupied businesses in the Court has very little merit. There is only one building out of the
thirteen in RPA 1 and 3 that fall into that category and only fifteen out of
the other 68 in the entire Court.
Eminent domain is presently being used by the City of Brentwood relative
to the two buildings on Hanley Road in RPA 2.
Based on the poor showing of occupancy in the Promenade, the lack of
progress with completion and occupancy of the new Villa Apartment Complex,
along with the added retail on Hanley Road with Sam’s Club, Walmart and Lowe’s,
any further retail in the area seems to be a very risky endeavor. The extension of West Bruno into Hanley
Industrial Court is desirable but not essential to the businesses in the
Court. Mayor Kelly has committed Brentwood
funding to accomplish this extension.
If a development is truly worthwhile a developer can and will come up
with the necessary funding without such assistance.
Mayor Kelly stated that the City is not using eminent
domain for the MLP project on Hanley Road.
They just received notice of acquisition from the developer. One of the property owners is a partner in
the project. The other property owner
has been offered a contract to purchase the property. If eminent domain was being used it would have to be approved by
the Board of Aldermen and that has not been done. They may be using an eminent domain working with the two property
owners under our friendly condemnation for their own tax purposes. The owners of the Walsh Property are
partners in the project.
City Administrator Seemayer stated that both sides filed
for a friendly condemnation for strictly tax purposes only.
Mayor Kelly stated the issue of eminent domain obviously
is one that has been coming up and taken out of context with respect to City
uses. It is not the intention of this
Board to use eminent domain for any owner occupied properties for this project
or any other project. There are three owner
occupied properties within this redevelopment area, one of which is the City,
Missouri Boiler and Southside Roofing. In any of the redevelopments in the
past, the redevelopment agreements set forth that a developer is given the
right of eminent domain. In all of the
redevelopment agreements the developers have that right but they have to come
back to the Board of Aldermen for approval, so the Board has some control in
making sure they are not misusing that eminent domain. Mayor Kelly asked for a show of hands from
the Board members that would not use eminent domain to take owner occupied
properties in Hanley Industrial Court or any place else in the City. Mayor Kelly stated that he wanted to clarify
that the City has no intention of doing that.
INTRODUCTIONS, READINGS, AND PASSAGE OF BILLS AND
RESOLUTIONS – NONE
ACCOUNTS AGAINST THE CITY
Motion was made by Alderman Marshall, second by Alderman
Robertson to approve the warrant list dated April 5th. All in favor none opposed.
REPORTS OF COMMITTEES AND DEPARTMENT HEADS:
Mayor’s Report
Circulation of Literature
Mayor Kelly stated that he received literature that had
been sent out by the Hanley Industrial Court Association and it seems that
there are some unethical things in the way the information was sent out. He also received some information on the
bylaws of the Hanley Industrial Court Association. Article Six of the bylaws points out what they are supposed to be
about. The mayor read as follows,
“Article Six gives our purpose as, “. . . enhance the development of Hanley
Industrial Court; to improve its infrastructure, including but not limited to
roads, sewers, outdoor lighting, landscaping, ingress and egress”. It goes on to point out some inconsistencies
that went out by the Hanley Industrial Court Association. This was forwarded to him by one of the
Board members of the Association.
Article Seven states “no substantial part of the activities of the
corporation shall be the carrying on of propaganda, or otherwise attempting to
influence legislation, and the corporation shall not participate in, or
intervene in (including the publishing or distribution of statements) any
political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office.” “Both the
brochures urging voters to defeat a means of financing these public
improvements in the Court and the letter urging voters to vote for a certain
candidate are clearly direct violation of this article”. That article goes on to say, “Not
withstanding any other provision of these articles, the corporation shall not
carry on any other activities not permitted to be carried on by the
organization exempt from Federal income tax under Section 501 (c) (4) of the
Internal Revenue Code”. “This is an
aspect of the actions that has the most serious repercussions for the
Association. The code strictly
prohibits organizations from supporting candidates for public office . .
.”
Mayor Kelly stated that he is forwarding the information,
along with the literature to Brentwood’s City Prosecutor and if there is any
action to be taken.
Mayor Kelly stated that he has been getting many phone
calls about the negative campaigning and the amount of literature being sent
out in the neighborhoods in the last couple of weeks. Today was another example of one being handed out by the Vox
Populi group. The inaccuracies and
misquotes of things being put into the literature misrepresents the City and is
slanted towards the goals of this group.
Alderman Leahy stated that he appreciates the Mayor’s
point of view on what is going on with Vox Populi and their literature. He would challenge the Board to refute what
Vox Populi’s intent of educating the public alternative methods instead of
attacking the information that they have presented. He will agree that the negative campaigning is a lousy way to get
information back and forth to the citizens.
It gives the residents a good reason not to trust government. He will agree that alternate opinions do not
always have to agree with each other.
In a civil society the right to disagree with each other is still a
respectable right. As far as Hanley
Industrial Court and the bylaws, he does not see where anybody getting involved
should be penalized for getting into the discussion of what should be done as a
city. He was one of the candidates of
which the Hanley Industrial Court Association came out with an endorsement for
and when he was asked if he would like the endorsement he wholeheartedly loved
it. Anytime that somebody says that
they are doing something good, that ought to be publicized.
Mayor Kelly stated that it is important that people show
the ability to work together instead of shutting the door and not having those
conversations.
Manchester Road
Mayor Kelly stated that there is a conceptual plan and a
Manchester Road redevelopment plan. The
plan for the Manchester Road TDD is to use those funds to go out and acquire
state and federal grants to make repairs such as utility pole relocation,
sidewalks, curbs, gutters, existing roadway, sewers and inlets along that
corridor. Within the past month or so
the highway department has announced that they have now allocated $9.2 million
for the resurfacing of Manchester Road along this corridor from Lindbergh to
Big Bend. If the TDD were in place, it would be a great opportunity to work
with them to do some as the process moves forward.
The initial grant request to study the corridor for
improvements that needed to be done was granted to the City of Brentwood by
East-West Gateway who controls the grant money in the St. Louis region. In the process of working with them and the
ability to get future grants they had to go through the process of what they
called visioning of Manchester Road. In
those visioning meetings, the ideas came from public input. Some of the ideas were very drastic and
some were very good. They took the
input and decided what the major concerns were which was safety on Manchester
Road. One of the key components was the
utility poles and lines. Then they had
to come up with a funding source, which was the TDD. They were not looking for redevelopment and were not going to use
TIF, or make neighborhood improvement district and put the burden on the
businesses by raising property taxes.
The City does not have the money to draw plans for what is actually
going to be done. That would cost
hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions for 6.2 miles.
Naming Ball Field
Mayor Kelly stated that he had a request from Brentwood
Public Schools with respect to naming one of the baseball fields after Jim
Taylor. He will turn the request over
to the Public Works Committee for review.
York Village Streets
Mayor Kelly stated that they have talked about working
with York Village to bring their streets up to City Code, so that they could
turn them over to the City of Brentwood.
They do not want to maintain them any longer. The initial estimate for studying the streets is $12,000. They would contribute half of that money if
the City could accelerate that project and work together to try to get that
evaluation stage done. That will be
forwarded to the Public Works Committee as well.
DCM Management
Mayor Kelly stated that DCM Management is requesting the
release of the remainder of the $2 million from their TIF notes from the first
phase of their project now that they have submitted their notice of substantial
completion. Mayor Kelly requested that
the Ways and Means Committee review that.
Committee Appointment
Mayor Kelly requested the appointment of Mike Morton to
the Planning and Zoning Commission to fill a vacancy that occurred.
Motion was made by Alderman Marshall, second by Alderman
Wynn to appoint Mike Morton to the Planning and Zoning Commission. Roll call:
Alderman Moreno, yes; Alderman Marshall, yes; Alderman Leahy, no;
Alderman Golfin, yes; Alderman Kramer, yes; Alderman Robertson, yes; Alderman
Wynn, yes; Alderman Cross, yes.
Public Safety Committee
Alderman Robertson announced a Public Safety Committee
meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 7, 2004 from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at
the Recreation Center.
Public Works Committee
Alderman Wynn announced a Public Works Committee meeting
will be held on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 at 4:00 p.m. at City Hall.
City Engineer – No report
Parks – No report
Zoning Administrator – No report
Ways and Means Committee – No report
Planning and Zoning – No report
City Attorney – No report
City Clerk/Administrator
City Administrator Seemayer stated that he has three
applications for consideration for special use permits. The first is from Home Depot. They want to erect a tent on their parking
lot on April 7th for a contractor’s sale.
Motion was made by Alderman Wynn, second by Alderman
Marshall to approve the special use permit for Home Depot to erect a tent on
their parking lot on April 7th for a contractor’s sale. Roll call:
Alderman Moreno, yes; Alderman Marshall, yes; Alderman Leahy, yes;
Alderman Golfin, yes; Alderman Kramer, yes; Alderman Robertson, yes; Alderman
Wynn, yes; Alderman Cross, yes.
City Administrator Seemayer stated that McCarthy Building
Companies plan to hold their annual charity softball tournament at Brentwood
Park on May 5th and they would like to serve beer.
Alderman Leahy asked if by allowing them to serve beer
does that put the City at liability for anyone’s behavior or action on or off
the playing field.
City Administrator Seemayer stated that they are required
to submit a certificate of insurance for that.
Motion was made by Alderman Kramer, second by Alderman
Moreno to approve the special use permit for McCarthy Building Companies to
serve beer at their annual charity softball tournament on May 5th. Roll call:
Alderman Moreno, yes; Alderman Marshall, yes; Alderman Leahy, yes;
Alderman Golfin, yes; Alderman Kramer, yes; Alderman Robertson, yes; Alderman Wynn,
no; Alderman Cross, yes.
City Administrator Seemayer stated that American Legion
Post 101 would like to hold a tailgate sale on their parking lot on May 15th. They are requesting permission to do that.
Motion was made by Alderman Leahy, second by Alderman
Golfin to approve the special use permit for American Legion Post 101 to hold a
tailgate sale on their parking lot on May 15th. Roll call:
Alderman Moreno, yes; Alderman Marshall, yes; Alderman Leahy, yes;
Alderman Golfin, yes; Alderman Kramer, yes; Alderman Robertson, yes; Alderman
Wynn, yes; Alderman Cross, yes.
Director of Economic Development
Alderman Kramer stated that they had been fortunate to
receive some updates regarding the Comprehensive Plan. He asked the Mayor if he has any updates.
Maureen Saunders stated that they did interview six
planners over the course of the last two months. The next meeting is April 21st at 7:00 p.m. At that time they will review the draft of
the RFP. There were some budget
questions asked. They had plans that
expand over two years by some of the developers. They will have a better idea once they talk about what they want
them to do.
Library – No report
Municipal League – No report
Waste Management Commission
Alderman Golfin stated that the citywide trash services
are in place and it is doing very well.
He has had favorable reports on the first day. He noticed there were a great deal more recycle bins out. The literature, educational material, and
the fact that you can recycle many more items are a great thing for the
environment and costs.
Mayor Kelly stated that Rock Hill has contacted the City
to talk about trash. He is asking for a
letter from Rock Hill Mayor and Board to look into the trash issue again. Maplewood is very excited about it as
well. They have a property tax for
trash collection on the ballot. If
that passes they would like to join the City by the first of next year.
Storm Water Management
Mayor Kelly stated that MSD is moving forward with the
homes on White, Tilles and Parkside that are having problems. MSD is committed to installing one of the
grinder pump system for a resident on Tilles Drive at their full expense. They are starting the evaluation process of
the homes in the White Avenue area.
They started that by sending out a questionnaire, which is their initial
step to see if they qualify. They have
designated that area as a project for the sewer separation, which will
alleviate some of the problems. They
still think that some of the homes sit so low that the sewer separation will
not solve the problem 100%, that they will still need the grinder pump
system. The important thing is that
they have designated it as a project and have a completion date of no later
than 2009. That will be fully funded by
MSD. With the grinder pump program MSD
is going to supply all the materials and Brentwood Public Works crews will
install them, working on a joint effort to relieve the problem on a temporary
basis until the sewer separation takes places.
Communication – No further report
Insurance Committee – No report
Historical Society – No report
UNFINISHED BUSINESS – None
NEW BUSINESS
Ward 3 meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 20th
at City Hall.
Mayor Kelly stated that the executive session scheduled
for tonight will not be held.
ADJOURNMENT
Motion was made by Alderman Wynn, second by Alderman
Golfin to adjourn the meeting at 7:54 p.m.
All in favor none opposed.
Pat
Kelly, Mayor
Attest:
Chris Seemayer, City Clerk