The Warrenton Board of Aldermen unanimously approved a donation of $8,000 to AGAPE during their meeting Nov. 18.

The donation followed a previous request, made at the Nov. 4 meeting by AGAPE Executive Director Michelle Bernth for $5,000 for the purpose of helping to offset the needs of AGAPE, specifically the organization’s food pantry. The $5,000 request had originally been tabled from the Nov. 4 meeting so that city officials could determine if there were funds available to fulfill the request. The board voted 5-0 to approve the request. Alderman Jack Crump was not present.

The $8,000 donation is in addition to $25,000 the city provided to AGAPE effective Jan. 1, 2025.

The board also approved, by a 4-1 vote, with Alderman Brandon Lang voting against, an amendment to manufactured housing and mobile home parks.

Director of planning and development Tim Burks said the amendment would return language to the appendix that had been inadvertently removed during changes to the code executed in August. The amendment would also remove manufactured housing and mobile home parks from the agriculture zone and place it in R-3 zoning.

During a discussion on the amendment, Lang said he would like to see portable tiny homes classified alongside manufactured homes.

Mayor Eric Schleuter said any discussion regarding tiny homes would be a long discussion and recommended that any such discussion be done in a board workshop. Lang then asked if the amendment should be tabled until the tiny homes issue could be resolved. Schleuter said they could amend the code to include tiny homes if they later decided to do so.

In response to a question from Alderman Roger Romaker regarding the city pool, Director of Operations Jon Struckhoff said the pool experienced a catastrophic failure of the boiler. He said the city would be getting two new boilers installed at a cost of approximately $15,000.

The board also approved, by a 5-0 vote, a change order in the amount of $74,787 for the Booneslick sidewalk improvement project. Struckhoff said the change order included changes to stormwater work and a few additional railings.

During the Nov. 18 meeting there was also a discussion about speeds along the construction corridor on Interstate 70. Police Chief Larry Ellard said that his officers have been working night shifts along the interstate. Ellard also noted though that the main issue is speed and that the only way to slow down drivers is to physically slow them down, for instance by having two police cars driving through the area side by side at slower speeds.