Council Workshop Meeting 7/3/2007

The Overland City Council met for a workshop meeting on July 3rd 2007. They covered a host of topics at this meeting. The following video is this meeting in it's entirety:

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July 3rd Workshop Meeting
2 Hours 15 Minutes

The Council discussed an investment policy for the City. The City Auditors have recommended that we develop a policy that would allow the city to purchase CDs and other secure investments to allow the city to earn better interest rates on the money in our accounts. Currently the City's funds are in savings accounts earning minimal interest. It was made clear that the Investment Policy specifically forbids riskier investments such as the stock market and the like.

A local resident spoke of the need for a stop sign at Meadowbrook and S. Milton near Wyland Elementary School. The entire Council seemed to agree that this was necessary for the safety of local children. There was also discussion of adding a street light on Flora Ave. The Council seemed to be in agreement that a light could be installed on the closest utility pole to the area in question.

There was an issue raised about the Council holding events on City property. The idea was to allow Council people to hold "non-political" events that would benefit their wards without having to pay to rent the space. While it would be great if all on the Council would hold regular "ward meetings" to better communicate with the constituents I have to agree with Councilman Owensby on this one. Where do you draw the line and how do you determine what is or is not political here? In light of the recent Ice Cream Social event and all the concerns raised as a result, it seems clear that this would be a recipe for disaster.

There was discussion of inviting local groups and businesses to provide food and drink at the Community Center during our successful Volleyball tournaments, as well as possibly bringing in some vending machines to sell water and sports drinks as a service to visitors as well as a possible revenue source for the city.

The Council was asked to consider donating money to the Ritenour German Band to help with the annual exchange program where Ritenour sends their German band to Germany and their German counterparts visit here. Having had siblings-in-law in the German band in the past my opinion on this issue would be clearly biased. However, one concern I have is that not all of Overland attends Ritenour. Residents south of Page Avenue attend University City public schools. If we do something like this for Ritenour, shouldn't we so the same for U-City as well?

About halfway through the meeting President Pro-Tem May called for a short break. I paused the recording so I could change the batteries on the microphone (which worked fantastically as you can hear in the video above). Unfortunately, the Council chose to continue as Councilperson Keller raised an issue about trash service. I believe I caught the bulk of the discussion on the video but if someone thinks something was missed please let us know in the comments.

The issue raised about trash was that a resident told Councilperson Keller that she was told by Allied Waste that she was limited to 2 bags of trash. To the best of my knowledge our contract is for unlimited trash service. When I cleaned out my garage and basement last year I put out somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 contractor bags of trash an Allied picked it all up without issue. Based on that I have to assume that we do have unlimited pickup. If someone is being told they cannot put all their trash out they should contact Allied Waste with the specific date, time and any identifying information on the truck. If Allied Waste does not satisfactorily address the issue then the resident should contact their Councilperson who could attempt to resolve the issue through the City, and the added weight of City Hall.

Councilman Owensby once again raised the issue that St. Ann residents pay 1/2 of what we do for trash service. We have covered this before. The bottom line is that this is not an apples to apples comparison. St. Ann residents pay a bit under 30 dollars for trash pick up only. If they want recycling it is an additional 15 dollars (which will soon be mandatory in St Louis County so they'll all have to pay it soon) and the remaining 10 dollars or so difference is due to St. Ann picking up the yard waste via their Public Works department rather than having Allied Waste do it. We could start picking up the yard waste ourselves though we would likely have to hire a few more people to handle this and possibly might need another truck as well.

The Council discussed appointing people to the Redevelopment Corporation we are creating to deal with the redevelopment projects on Page and future projects as well. They discussed different ways to approach the appointments though no consensus was found at this meeting.

There was a discussion about the growing rat problem in several areas of Overland. In my own area we do not suffer this problem which is likely due to the small army of stray cats in our area. However, this is a significant problem in several neighborhoods. The Council discussed sending out a letter to all residents to inform them of ways they can combat the issue as well as going out for bids to contract an outside company to come and address the problem and possibly holding a town hall meeting on this and other public health issues as well. The City has rat poison "bait stations" that they freely issue to residents who ask for it. However, a key problem for most residents is that they have outside pets and don't want to use poison for fear of harming their own animals.

Another issue raised was a possible "Responsible Bidder" policy that would require that contractors wishing to do business with Overland have a clean business record, be fully insured and bonded, have a professional training program, and have medical benefits as well as meet the prevailing wage for their employees.

Acting Public Works Director Chuck Boone suggested at the end of the meeting that he would like to move the Health and Rabies officer from the Public Works Department to the Police Department. He explained that the Police Department receives calls about animal issues and the like all the time and this would allow them to contact / dispatch the health and rabies officer. I'm not sure this is necessary. Why can't dispatch contact the Health and Rabies officer regardless of what department he works for? I am concerned and mudding the waters between code enforcement and law enforcement could create issues for our community and residents alike.

Lastly, Chuck Boone asked for the Council to allow him to require a signed contract or a materials purchase receipt before issuing building permits. Currently, if you want to improve your home, the cost of the permit is generally based on the cost of the project. As a result, people tend to "low ball" the figures when applying for the permit. What I don't understand is why the department needs to charge more for the same projects based solely on the cost of that project? If I want to build a 10' x 10' deck out of plastic "lumber" it would cost significantly more that the same deck in pressure treated lumber. The plastic "lumber" deck would be better looking and would remain safe for a much longer time, but the permit would cost more. I don't understand why we would want to penalize people for doing more or better work on their homes. The city to consider a flat rate cost for home improvement building, electrical, plumbing, etc permits. We should be celebrating when people want to put more money into their homes, not penalizing them for it.

Overall the meeting went well, some issues where resolved, others seem to be on their way to being so. Thankfully, professional behavior at these meetings is once again common place, so much so that I won't be mentioning what should be the norm in future articles.