Police Chief Paul Williams will share his regularly scheduled report to Springfield City Council. It’s typically a recap of criminal justice statistics and efforts to recruit more officers.
Council is expected to vote on a bill accepting $3.5 million in state funding for Hammons baseball field downtown.
Council will hear, and likely vote, on a resolution to apply for up to $5 million in federal taxpayer money to help develop a permanent housing project for people facing chronic homelessness.
Council is expected to vote on a slate of legislative priorities in hopes of influencing decisions by state-level and federal lawmakers. Springfield’s proposed priorities include trying to convince lawmakers to limit payday loans and to define video lottery terminals as illegal gambling devices.
Bills up for public hearing, with votes to come in future
Council also has several high-profile bills for public hearing, with votes expected at a future meeting. One bill would make some changes to the Urban Conservation District covering the Rountree neighborhood allowing office conversions in part of the neighborhood.
Another pair of bills would change regulations on food permits. Mobile food permits for food trucks currently last 6 months; they could change to 12 months, like permits for brick-and-mortar restaurants. And a limited food permit category could be created. It would permit “food service operators who want to serve food on a limited basis from a short-term structure.”
Council will also hear a bill on accepting a $700,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, to be divvied up between the city police department and the Greene County Prosecutor’s Office. Part of the funding is for the City of Springfield to set up a new Crime Gun Intelligence Center that would “develop investigative leads from recovered firearms and shell casings.”
With city controversy about disruptive noise from vehicles like motorcycles, a new bill would create a section in city code that would allow a $100 civil penalty against the owner of a vehicle found to be violating the city’s noise ordinance.
Council appears to be set to hear a bill overhauling Springfield’s ordinance for short-term rentals like Airbnb. In recent years many short-term rentals haven’t registered with the city as required by the ordinance, passed back in 2019. According to the latest information available Friday afternoon, the new bill, if adopted, would make platforms like Airbnb responsible for collecting city taxes, rather than the short-term rental owner.
But the text of the ordinance wasn’t posted on the city meeting agenda website as of deadline for this report. The timing does not appear to be an issue with Missouri’s open-records statute, dubbed the Sunshine Law. The state law requires a “tentative agenda” that’s “reasonably calculated to advise the public of the matters to be considered” be posted 24 hours before a public government meeting. A city spokesperson texted KSMU late Friday that the noise ordinance proposal will be uploaded "as soon as it’s ready.”
Finally, Council will have a public hearing on a bill to modify historic Commercial Street Redevelopment Plan Tax Increment Financing, or TIF. Local developer Titus Williams proposed a redevelopment plan dubbed the Commercial-Pacific Street Redevelopment Plan earlier this year.
This new bill would adjust TIF district boundaries so the Commercial-Pacific project, which includes the old Missouri Hotel, can benefit from property tax breaks. A buyout by the developer worth some $212,000 would be deposited into a special allocation fund for public C-Street projects like parking lot improvements and public art.
Springfield City Council meets at 6:30 p.m. Monday, November 4 at the Police-Fire Training Center off Battlefield Road.
