The St. James City Council convened Monday, July 13 for its monthly meeting. Several resolutions, ordinances and presentations were scheduled for consideration.

Following the call to order, approval of the June 8 meeting minutes and payment of invoices, the council opened the floor for citizen comments. Two St. James citizens spoke. Ty Copeland shared his recent concern with the library leadership and book collection. He said, “I have felt like the leadership of the library is not where it needs to be and is failing in multiple aspects doing the job that the public library should do.”

Mayor Rick Krawiecki urged other council members to speak with Copeland and educate themselves on the matter.

The second speaker, Kimberly Murphy, shared her opposition to any potential data center being built in St. James.

In response, Mayor Krawiecki said, “It (a moratorium on data centers) still has to go through Planning and Zoning. It will be voted on next month. We will do a first and second reading. I know there are a lot of concerns about data centers and the impact they have on the environment.” 

A special proclamation was presented to city staff member Bryanna Hash. While Hash was working on June 14 cleaning the concession stand, another employee was injured putting trash in a dumpster. Hash quickly provided first-aid and transportation to Phelps Health for medical treatment.

“Basically this young lady and her cool head and knowledge of what to do probably saved his life,” said Parks & Recreation Director Kristy Rich. Rich went on to say the other employee is doing great and surgeons expect a full recovery.

The council received the Fiscal Year 2024 final audit presentation from Michael Keenan, CPA, of Hood & Associates, Inc.

Among the action items on the agenda was authorizing the purchase of a 2026 Freightliner refuse truck from Pac-Tech and securing funding from Town & Country Bank. This new truck would replace a 2004 truck that is often in need of repairs, according to City Administrator Leeann DeMouche.

“The expense of that truck is really, really high and it needs to be replaced,” said DeMouche. “We knew that one of the things that we wanted to use the increase (in solid waste rates) for was to purchase this truck.”

The council approved the purchase and the truck, which is a much larger truck than the previous one and will therefore need to make less trips to Rolla for dumping, is expected to be on the streets of St. James within a few weeks. The city will attempt to sell the retiring truck.

Council members approved a lease agreement with The Village Education Foundation for the use of 320 S. Bourbeuse Street. Forest City School, a Montessori Forest school for ages 3-9, has been occupying the space without a rent obligation. The new lease agreement is set to charge fair market price. The Council also approved the execution of a quitclaim deed from the Industrial Development Authority.

Kim Lingle, President and Owner of MBL Development Co. in Kansas City, spoke to the Council about a potential affordable housing complex for seniors 55+. The development, which would include 38-40 units, does not yet have a proposed site, but Lingle assured the Council they would be alerted very soon with location updates. Each 903 square foot unit would be two bedrooms, one bathroom and include patios and carports. In addition, a 3,000 square foot community building would be erected offering residents a full-scale kitchen, exercise facility, business center and employ a full-time manager and maintenance employee.  Lingle requested for the Council to waive city permit fees for the project, which they did following discussion.

Two additional ordinances related to property development were brought to the Council. One would vacate portions of undeveloped Missouri Avenue and Illinois Avenue at the request of Tiger Apartments LLC. While Missouri Ave is partially developed and can be seen on a street map (i.e. Google Maps), Illinois Ave is not developed and is only visible on county GIS maps.

Public Works Director Lyle Thomas stated, “Those streets were platted years ago and have never been developed. They really have no purpose to the city. Their (Tiger Apartments LLC) intent is to build an apartment complex on that property.”

Mayor Krawiecki said, “This is another opportunity. We’ve talked about housing for so long. We have plenty of jobs it seems like in the St. James area, but the housing has been something that we’ve been lacking for quite a while. It’s great to see we’re getting some interest from some developers.”

Both the first and second readings saw one Council member’s disapproval given uncertainty regarding other MoDOT projects in the immediate area. The second ordinance authorized a zoning change for property owned by Finn's 66 Motel, LLC.

The meeting concluded with department reports from Public Works Director Lyle Thomas, City Administrator Leeann DeMouche, Parks and Recreation Director Kristy Rich, and Mayor Rick Krawiecki. Thomas’ report highlighted the impact on Public Works from the recent storm on Friday, July 10.

“As far as addresses affected there were 1,349,” said Thomas. “There were 10 secondary service lines that got ripped down from trees. One primary line suffered a failure and while the guys were working on it, that line was struck by lightning. They were safe, but if they had not been doing things appropriately, it would have been far worse.”

DeMouche announced that she will be hosting a meeting for the public on July 28 to review the city’s fiscal year 2027 budget.

Rich highlighted information regarding the upcoming Grape & Fall Festival. “It’s going to be fun,” said Rich. “The Chamber (of Commerce) started a few years ago raising money to give our school-aged kids up to eighth grade free wristbands for the rides. Just the other day, the Sports Club donated $2,500 towards the $20,000 the Chamber is trying to help us raise.”

Updates from the Mayor included that Amazon is set to go live on August 13, a slightly later date than originally planned due to the amount of rain the area has received and that Kelly Money has resigned from her position as Chamber Director.

The next regular meeting is scheduled for Monday, Aug. 10 at 5 p.m.