St. Louis County Council approves HUD grant, several ordinances and prepared orders; executive outlines RFP approach to food-insecurity work after veto

The St. Louis County Council on Tuesday adopted a substitute ordinance to accept up to $9,603,903.17 in HUD funds and approved several final ordinances and county prepared orders, votes that council members recorded by roll call as unanimous where noted.

The substitute for Bill 70 — described to the council as authorization for the county executive to accept HUD grant funds and appropriate them for Department of Human Services programs — was adopted and then taken up for final passage after the council suspended rules. The final passage vote on substitute Bill 1 for Bill 70 was announced as seven ayes by the clerk.

The vote came the same evening County Executive Sam Page outlined a separate path he intends to pursue to address food insecurity. Page told the council he met with three farmers who had withdrawn from an earlier urban-farming plan and said they argued the county should use a competitive, countywide request-for-proposals process rather than the earlier approach. Page asked the council to allow the Department of Human Services to house a new food-insecurity project and requested that…