February 13, 2024 — Meeting Transcript

Okay, well hello everybody and welcome to those who are online or in the audience to our first February board meeting. And I think that without further ado we'll just launch into our discussion about the livable community master plan. Looks like Matt is going to start us off.

Yes, thank you, Meryl. The intro, I'll let the team introduce. Let's see, we've got everybody moved over there. Yeah. So we're here to give you an update on the livable community master plan. We are running parallel with the comprehensive plan that's taking place. We're a little bit behind them. So the update tonight will take us through where we've been on the project so far and through our engagement and kind of just find the next steps. So with that, I am going to turn it over to Liz Cormack with agency and their team to provide the update.

Liz, we're having trouble hearing you. I'll let you know when I hear you. Okay, we'll work through that on our end, but I think in the meantime, we'll go ahead and pull up slides. Awesome. Okay hi everyone Hello, my name is Rhiannon Sinclair I think I remember many of you from a conversation we had early this past summer when we were introducing this plan and we were sending it to a vote to ensure that we could start this project off. So we'll just give us one moment to work through our own technical difficulties that have less to do with seating and more to do with screen sharing. Okay. All right, so just to dive right in for today, really just want to reinforce how grateful we are for the opportunity to have this conversation with you all and to get your insights and your questions about this very important project. So for today, our agenda is threefold. It's going to be to share a little bit of the plan context and what we've done as it relates to community engagement so far. We want to communicate a little bit more about what it's meant for the vision. I think as we stated early this summer when we first introduced the project, we see this as an important community-driven plan. And so we're excited to share with you all of the ways that the community has informed and is really leading the way or leading the charge in terms of what this plan will include. And then also we want to give you a little bit of an inkling into what the next steps are and what it means for the plan's initial goals, strategies, and objectives. So as I just shared, my name is Rhiannon Sinclair. I'm a principal and planner for a firm called Agency Landscape and Planning. We do plans like this all over the country and we are a landscape and planning firm. So we are really excited to be able to work directly with the City of Clayton to work with Matt and Tony on their ideals for parks and recreation and connectivity. We're joined by Recreation Results, Bobbie is on the line as well. And she is really digging into the recreation and programming side of things. And then also Tool Design based out of Kansas City, they're leading the charge on connectivity and mobility. And then also ETC Institute developed a statistically valid survey. I think you're all familiar with ETC Institute's work as they've done a number of surveys for the city. And so they continue to join us and inform community priorities with this plan. Before I move to the next slide, Liz Cormack is our project manager extraordinaire. She navigates all of the virtual and in-person meetings without any sweat And Maria Nogueira from our team is an urban designer and planner who is behind a lot of the graphics on this project. So they'll also have a role in presenting. Okay, so as I mentioned earlier, we really kicked this off with a conversation with you all to communicate what our goals are for this plan. Since then, we've been hard at work really understanding the city, how it operates, how people use your park spaces, how people engage with sidewalks and how they get around. You've likely seen us out and about in workshops or in pop-ups together with Tony and Matt spreading the word and also getting valuable feedback to inform some of the objectives that we'll share with you tonight. At the end of the year, we shifted into a conversation about what the vision for this plan should be. And we're excited to share a little bit more about that with you. And then at the end of February moving into March for the spring, we are going to start pulling together the plan draft, sharing that together with the steering committee and then moving things along from there. So the plan, is really organized around, as I said earlier, a vision which is emboldened or made possible by a series of goals, which are the outcomes that we wanna see in the city and the places that we wanna go. And then each of those goals has a number of strategies and those strategies are more strategic in nature, hence the word strategy, but also measurable and meant to be realistic or achievable in their nature. Within the strategies and this isn't something that we're ready to share quite yet, but it's something that we're going to be workshopping together with the steering committee. This Thursday and into into the month of March are a series of policies and projects that can help to to set a roadmap for how to get to those goals that you've identified and ultimately your vision. And then lastly, but certainly not least, will be to put pen to paper, develop a plan together with the city and to develop a financial plan and an implementation plan. Again, that roadmap that will help to move you all forward. So we'll start just by sharing a little bit more about what we've learned from the plan and our outreach to date. All of these plans should be very familiar to you all because you've helped to implement and guide their implementation forward. All of these plans are continuing to guide our work as well. We don't do this work in a vacuum. It's extremely important that the policies and goals that were shared five or 10 years ago continue to inform our own work. And it's also a chance for us to acknowledge the amazing strengths of the city and of its public spaces. The investments that the city has made over even the past five years have been really incredible and show just how valuable, how much value you all place on your open spaces, on your indoor facilities, and on all the ways that you connect between those important destinations. So we're really excited to share a lot of the engagement we've been doing over the past several months, so we started reaching out to folks building awareness of the plan over this past summer. We did that through a series of pop ups, you can see on the On the left-hand side, there's an image of a few wonderful men who shared their thoughts on how they get to all of the destinations, whether it be Shaw Park, Daman, or any of the parks in between. What are the different ways that they access those places? And they also identified barriers to getting to those places. So in all of those conversations, we outlined using different colored threads to acknowledge the ways people go to those spaces and over 80 routes. And that happened through a series of pop-ups all across the summer. We also have been taking advantage of your Engage platform, which has yielded a lot of awareness as well and a lot of chances for the community to get to know about this plan and to weigh in and to share their ideas and their aspirations or priorities as well. And that's been almost a thousand visits. It might actually be a thousand at this point. I think the slide deck might be outdated by now. And then also a tool has created a really wonderful online map that is yielded over 330 comments. But we can't stop there, we also had etc engage in a statistically valid survey which reached we expected to reach 300 respondents we reached 309. And then also at the behest of Tony and Matt, we know that a lot of folks who live outside of the city of Clayton also take advantage of your facilities. And so we sent the survey out to those people as well and a few other residents who didn't have a chance to take the statistically valid survey. And we've gotten almost 200 responses there. We have regular committee meetings. We've had over five meetings and workshops already, and we'll add a sixth when we meet with the steering committee on Thursday. And those include the project steering committee, the Citizens Advisory Task Force, which is specific to this project as well, as well as the Parks and Recreation Commission. They've all engaged at key milestones and have helped to build awareness and to advocate for and to help guide the plans. And then we've also participated in workshops together with the comprehensive plan, which has been an amazing way to engage with a variety of people who either are passionate about their parks, but otherwise wouldn't come to a comprehensive plan meeting or people who really love to talk about land use and who don't necessarily often think about parks to get them all in the same room. And we had, I think almost just over 100 people who all weighed in on their ideas and their needs for our workshops as well. And I would be remiss not to mention how valuable the mayor has been in all of this. We've had multiple conversations with her through this process, as well as her attendance in the public workshops to really inform and reinforce how important this plan is to the city. So all that to say, we've gotten such an immense kind of outpouring of of ideas and an outpouring of challenges and opportunities that have really activated this plan and reinforce some of the strategies that we'll share.

Can I ask a quick question? Of course. I don't remember hearing about the difference between the Steering Committee and the Citizens Advisory Task Force. Can you talk about that?

Of course, so the Steering Committee is made up of a variety of folks that represent a mix of internal, I think primarily internal leadership roles as well as a few kind of key partners as it relates to the management or programming of spaces. And the Citizens Advisory Task Force is made up of people who volunteered or were nominated to engage from their role or their perspective as people who engage with your parks, who use your facilities or who have a vested interest or advocacy role in those spaces? Thanks. That's a great question. So we're going to share three priorities that came out of those conversations together with community members and committees. The first is that your residents want to walk or bike for shorter trips and desire safer and more comfortable routes. So it's not just about the quantity of walkable or bikeable connections, it's also the quality of those connections. Are they tree-lined? Are they separated from fast moving traffic? All of those pieces enable or inhibit folks from being able to get to destinations throughout the city. The second priority is that your residents unsurprisingly want more diverse programming. They want to be able to participate in a wide range of experiences, big and small events, cultural and arts programs, and also for those events and programs to happen in your parks and more public spaces. And the last priority is that people are much more willing to travel longer distances to get to some of those bigger experiences or those destinations like Shaw Park. But they do really enjoy having kind of quieter, more relaxing moments in the parks that are closest to them. And so I'll change gears and share a little bit about what that means for the vision. So those three priorities have really informed what we're thinking about as our guiding principles. And our guiding principles ask the question, what does it mean to be livable? How do we create a livable Clayton? And so those three priorities are really about having a safe and connected Clayton, having an activated and adaptable Clayton, thinking not just about today and what your city looks like now, but also thinking to the future and how your city adapts to future change. And then last but certainly not least that, and you probably heard this from the comprehensive plan as well, that we want a livable Clayton to be vibrant and inclusive. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to our good friend Bobby who's going to share a little bit more about guiding principle number one.

Thanks thanks three thanks everyone, so the first guiding principle in trying to achieve kind of those three pieces, it is related to vibrant and inclusive programming. One of the first things that we took a look at obviously when we're thinking about programming isn't just the programs themselves themselves, but the spaces that they take place in plays a huge role in that experience as well. Both from what we heard from the Community and also the team witnessed when going around and viewing the parks and facilities found that they were all in good or excellent condition. You can see just a quick overview or snapshot of the different types of facilities that are available within the Community. Digging a little bit deeper into the programs, we also found that the programs that are currently being offered by the park and rec department are also high quality also. Have that same level of performance and success when we evaluated the programs we took a look at the programs and their performance from a couple different angles. First, looking at registration data and transaction data to have a better understanding of what was being offered. was coming to it and how many people were signing up for programs. And we also gave an opportunity for the staff to give feedback about the programs as well, just to have a better understanding from their point of view about how well the programs are performing, both from the mission or service side of what recreation programs are meant to achieve, but also from that operational or business side as well. So you can see on this screen that there is a variety of programs that are currently being offered by the department. All of them were performing well or kind of meeting the standards we would hope to see them meet. The group that rated the highest overall by staff based on their responses were racquet sports, which The fact that I know pickleball is growing not only here, but also across the country kind of speaks to that well as well. As we were evaluating the programs, we did recognize that there were some gaps though in what was being offered. Some of those, we took a look at the programs from a lot of different angles and saw, for example, that There was a heavy emphasis of programming that was taking place kind of in those mid-morning hours and a little bit in the kind of after school, early evening hours. But there were some timeframes, especially that we may see in other locations around fitness hours or hours for adults or working families that were a little more underserved. We also, of course, saw and was evidenced on the previous side as well that based off the type of offerings that the department is offering in the moment, the biggest benefits or outcomes of programming offered by the department really is emphasizing things like physical activity, health and wellness, sort of those more active type of pursuits. And while that's definitely really important and the department is doing it well, we do see that there are other areas that then aren't being served as well, especially nature and environmental type of programs, creativity or personal expression type of programs and programs kind of related towards cultural exploration or learning. We also know too that there are some potential gaps with target audiences overall. I think that youth and teens a little bit as a spillover into youth programs are being served really well, especially with athletic programs and martial arts and day camps. There is also a good mix of fitness programs offered for adults, but that in kind of other categories, we definitely see that there may be some options for additional programming to serve or reach additional target audiences. We do know and want to recognize, though, that there are some partnerships in place, for example, with Oasis programs that take place at the center of Clayton where there are other groups within the community that are offering some recreation programming for some of these target audiences that aren't currently being reached by the department. One other thing that is notable is just that because of the, I think both the quality and the amenities and the size of the center of Clayton and Shaw Park itself, 90% of programming currently is being based out of those two locations, which obviously they're a great hub for recreation in the community, but it may also result in a bit of a limitation on who is able to get to those programs if access to those locations are hard for anyone, and definitely maybe making it so that less people have access to recreation programs from walking or potentially other means of transportation in the community. Now some of these gaps do align a bit with some of the results that came from the statistically valid survey filled out by community members. Some of those areas where the department is doing a good job and is serving some of those program areas as well, like youth athletic programs, sports leagues, those sorts of programs. We did see in the survey that those needs generally are being met within the community. But some of those areas where there was the highest priority for needs or where people's needs were not met included things like cultural special events. nature programming, and adult continuing education. We did take a little bit of an opportunity just to see how other park and rec organizations, especially here in the Midwest, are solving some of those gaps that we saw here in Clayton as well. Two examples are on the screen right now, including how the city of Indianapolis Parks and Recreation worked with the University of Indianapolis to host fall and spring break camps, especially related towards STEAM programming, partnering with university students to run those camps. And then in Central Illinois and Urbana Park District, they host Art and Music Walk where they take advantage of some of the artwork that is already located in the community and in a park and have musicians perform next to those public art pieces as a way to both get people that may not normally come out to take a walk in that park to both engage with the art, engage with the park, and engage with their fellow community members in new ways around a new cultural experience.

Awesome. Thank you, Bobby. Moment of truth. Can you all hear me? Excellent. Awesome. Thank you so much. So I'm really excited to talk through guiding principle number two here. I don't think that we included this kind of in the introduction. So as you may know, this is a joint plan that is sort of replacing the Parks and Recreation Master Plan, as well as the Bikeable Walkable Communities Plan. And so active transportation is a really big part of of the conversation and of the work that we've been doing. And the guiding principle that I'll be talking through is safe and thoughtful connections. This is a theme that we've heard again and again in our conversations with the community as well as in our conversations with steering committee and the community advisory task force, but this is a real priority for folks as we had introduced. So I'll be sharing work here that is largely done by a tool design group in Kansas City. But the first thing to call out is that your city has excellent sidewalk infrastructure and has and is in many ways already a very walkable community. Sidewalks exist on most streets, and while some do need ADA improvements, A lot of that work is underway and ongoing, and the sidewalks are available. There's excellent coverage throughout the community. We're really excited about the potential here because Clayton is a very compact city with a lot of the sort of raw material that you would need, excellent places to go, destinations. It is a compact place. And a lot of neighborhoods have sort of low volume, lower speed streets in the more residential areas, which means that they are already ideal for walking and biking in some ways. And we're hearing a lot and seeing a lot of opportunity to sort of improve those connections, enhance those connections, especially in terms of safety and comfort at intersections. And as I said, really, this is coming from a community interest in walking and biking, potentially in other modes of sort of micromobility transit. People talked a lot about a number of different walking and biking sort of desires that may be unmet in Clayton today. Folks mentioned consistently certain intersections or roads where you do see that higher volume traffic, those additional lanes, much higher speeds. where choices may have been made that are optimal for cars and for folks who are in cars, but potentially at the sort of sacrifice of some comfort and safety for pedestrians. So you can see some of these quotes and there's a lot more where these came from. At the November public meeting, when we asked folks from this list of options to identify what was most important, if you look at the results across both the public in the community meeting, the steering committee meeting, and the citizen advisory task force, making streets safer for cyclists and cars was number one. Improving the safety of intersection was very close in number three. So these are really emerging as priorities for folks. When asked what matters most between making it safer and easier to cross major roads versus more trails for longer walks and bike rides, we saw 67% of people vote for making it safer and easy to cross major roads. we're definitely hearing interests in things like trails, but I, you know, recognizing all of the sort of raw material of Clayton as a really compact, mockable place already, there's real interest in sort of getting to where people need to go more comfortably. So far community concerns that we've identified, which have been compiled primarily through that online Wikimap that we mentioned, which tool led, we got over 300 comments on that. And we use that to sort of identify where there were these density of concern. So if you see the darker red, the circles identify intersections that were mentioned frequently and the corridors are the lines. The orange here are county owned or not city owned streets. And so we recognize that there's this added layer of complexity, which is that the city of Clayton does not have full control over a lot of the roads where we're hearing the most concern. But you can see here that both the orange and red hubs of sort of concern from the community really match pedestrian and cyclist crash data, which you see on the right hand map here, as well as bicycle level of stress data, which is sort of a a number that is generated based on things like how fast cars are going, what type of bike infrastructure exists on that road. And so you can see that there's sort of a density on certain roads in the community where we're starting to investigate how with the tools that are in your toolbox, some improvements could be made in the future. And this is just to say again, we recognize that many of these major roadways are outside of the city's control, but there are still lots of opportunities to advocate for the community's interests here. To conclude on the connectivity piece, this is a case study of Austin. Austin has really been focusing on really sort of cost-effective pedestrian crossing improvements in recent years. So from signalized crossings as you can see at the top right here, as well as not signal crossings without traffic signals in the bottom, There's a lot of really great research, a lot of really case studies, Austin included, that we're looking to for inspiration as we enter the next phase of the plan. And I will hand it off to Maria

for public space. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much, Liz. I'm here to talk about our third guiding principle, activated and adaptable public spaces. This principle is really focused on looking at parks as a location for activities, for people to congregate, to form social connections. And our very first step in all of that was trying to assess Clayton in respect to peers. These are cities that are similar in size, similar in population, similar in density, to get a feel on how you are comparing. When we started to do this assessment, we noticed that Clayton has an abundance of parks in terms of quantity. But once you start looking at the amount of acreage that each park offers, Clayton actually is slightly lower in comparison to all of those other national peers that we pulled. This would suggest that even though you're doing well in the amount of parks you're offering residents, you could probably account for more land. The struggle with that also comes with the fact that Clayton is a landlocked city. And finding additional land to acquire is both costly and difficult, just with the size of parcels that are available. And so this has pushed us to start thinking about opportunities for having more activation within the public realm, whether that is streets or through additional public private partnerships. Once we started to look at additionally where these parks are located and how they relate to residents and where they lived, we found that the majority of Clayton residents actually live within a 10 minute walk of a park. That's 65%, which is really great. TPL is Trust for Public Land. They actually push for cities to hit a minimum of 50 just for equity and for having accessible walkways and accessible park routes. The majority of roadways and private communities do limit the full walkability of all residents though, just with how difficult crossing some of those major intersections can be. In addition to that, when looking at parks specifically, we saw that Shaw Park is really a heavy hitter both in size as well as the amount of amenities offered. We saw that Shaw Park had significantly more amenities and just because of the size and the number of entrances, there's also a large demographic of residents that live within that five-minute walk shed. When you start to look at other park locations though, it might be surprising to see some of these smaller locations like Concordia Park, DeMunn Park, Henry Wright Park actually are clustered within neighborhoods. And so they have a huge amount of residents that could get there within a five minute walk. But they do have limited amenities which might dissuade residents from going to those locations or might just push residents to, like we mentioned earlier, travel longer distances to go to Shaw Park for programming and for recreation amenities. Through our statistically valid survey, as well as the November workshops, we found that residents do desire a wide variety of experiences, but they regularly stated that they would like to maintain what currently exists in terms of infrastructure rather than creating new amenities. Our statistically valid survey highlighted that there is a large desire for amenities like a pickleball court, performing arts venue, as well as smaller neighborhood parks. We also saw a hot topic of the outdoor ice rink. A lot of residents who were in favor of the creation of an outdoor ice rink, and then also many residents who said that they would rather see amenities be invested in existing park locations and improving those locations. As you can see on the pie chart on the right, when we asked residents if they had $100, how they would like to distribute the funds, we found that most residents had the clear choice of improving and maintaining existing parks, trails, and facilities as opposed to developing new indoor as well as outdoor facilities. We also recognize that park space is a huge opportunity for cities to invest in sustainable infrastructure as well as create open air green spaces that are going to be the biggest benefit when it comes to climate change and due to new upcoming challenges that cities faces through stormwater mitigation and rising temperatures, and many other of those topics that you've probably heard a lot about in the news recently. Clayton is already doing a huge push with the amount of on-street trees that we've seen when we were onsite. And that shows through the awards that you've won with an award-winning forestry division in the Department of Public Works. But residents still want to see the city invest in more sustainable infrastructure. When we asked residents what they would like to see achieved through this plan, one of the top choices was putting more street plants or more street trees and increasing the tree canopy within those parks as well. Lastly, we started to look like I mentioned earlier at additional initiatives to try to increase the amount of quantity in terms of land that Clayton could potentially offer residents. This is a really interesting opportunity that was done in Tacoma Washington with the trust for public lands like I mentioned earlier. And their whole initiative was through joint partnerships with schoolyards to try to open those park spaces for residents outside of typical school hours. That way, residents over the summertime or over a winter break on weekends and other times that the school isn't regularly open could go and use those additional amenities and have it bolster the current infrastructure that's already available. And with that, I'm going to pass it back to Rhi to talk about next steps.

Thank you, Maria. All right. So thank you for sitting through what was meant to be a summary of everything that's been done over the past several months. But hopefully really looking forward to your questions and discussion. But just to revisit where we've landed with the guiding principles and really this vision of creating a livable Clayton, it means... Again, as Bobbi shared as part of her presentation, the community is asking for diverse programming. They're asking for more events. So how do we think about responding there? And what are some of the examples that we can look to from other places to help inform that guiding principle? As Liz communicated, it's not just about the destinations. It's also about the journey to those destinations. So how do we make those both safe, but also wonderful experiences for people going between different parks and their homes or work? And then to round things out, Maria shared, what does it mean to really program or invest in the existing parks we have because that's such a priority for residents? And how do we think Or how do we get creative about land acquisition, knowing that it's not just about fee simple anymore. It's really about partnerships. So with that, our shift after tonight's conversation and our steering committee meeting this Thursday is to begin to land that vision and to begin to land some of those pieces that we've learned from residents from the various task forces and committees, as well as from our discussion tonight, will be what are the strategies that are realistic? What are the objectives and projects and policies that are implementable? And how do we get to our desired goal of a livable Clayton? So in March, we'll also be going back to the steering committee to do some of that implementation workshopping. Thursday, we're going to be brainstorming with those folks what those strategies are. In March, we'll return to set about understanding partners' key funding strategies and priorities. And we'll also be joining the comprehensive plan again for another workshop. So we're excited and hopeful that we see some of your faces there as well. and then that we'll be releasing a draft of the plan in May or late spring. So please help us spread the word about the public workshops. We're advertising in all the ways that we know how, including in this recording, including in this meeting. So we hope to see you there. With that, I'll open it up for questions or discussion.

Does anybody, I can't see the room now. So I can't tell. I can see you all, Maria, Liz, and Rhiannon. We're

matching in

our

turtlenecks.

Yes, we are. Oh, we got the memo. We did. Well, Maria did not get the memo.

Maria did not get

I still cannot see the room. So there it is. Okay. I need to get focused on that somehow. So, all right. So I'm just going to, because it's hard for me to see you all in the chambers there, let's just go in order of seniority if we could and just see if anybody has comments or questions. You guys, this is a great, great presentation. Great job. Thank you so much. We can start with our Senior Alderman Ira.

Right. The Senior Alderman Ira who cannot possibly sit in your chair. That's right. Yeah. So I have a few questions. So I read a very interesting article in the Washington Post. It was about two weeks ago, in fact, and they had it. It talked about painting, actually painting streets as a way of calming major thoroughfares. And we're talking about major streets. We're not talking about, you know, a street going through a neighborhood. But using very colorful designs artistic, creative designs on streets to slow that. Have you guys read about that? And have you seen the success they've had with that?

We have. And I believe if I'm remembering the right article, Barkha Patel, who's with Jersey City is a former client of ours. And she has been leading a lot of that work, which was an action that came out of our plan too. So Jersey City had one of the worst pedestrian vehicle accident rates in the country. It's right outside of New Jeffery Yorg City. People in New Jersey, we all know, love to drive fast. And so it was identified as a really easily implementable and very inexpensive way to help control some of those traffic challenges. But Jersey City was experiencing and it is on tools radar. It's something that the tool team is really excited to explore are the range of different ways that we can calm traffic and a range of different costs to get there. And so excited to hear that that's something that you're excited about too, and that you feel might be worthwhile for us to explore.

We have. And I believe if I'm remembering the right article, Barkha Patel, who's with Jersey City is a former client of ours. And she has been leading a lot of that work, which was an action that came out of our plan too. So Jersey City had one of the worst pedestrian vehicle accident rates in the country. It's right outside of New York City. People in New Jersey, we all know, love to drive fast. And so it was identified as a really easily implementable and very inexpensive way to help control some of those traffic challenges. But Jersey City was experiencing and it is on tools radar. It's something that the tool team is really excited to explore are the range of different ways that we can calm traffic and a range of different costs to get there. And so excited to hear that that's something that you're excited about too, and that you feel might be worthwhile for us to explore.

All right, great. Well, thanks for that. Appreciate that. It's very encouraging. And of course, I'm concerned about Hanley Road, which is where we have a lot of residents living on Hanley Road. And probably if you ask them what their number one concern is, it's the speed of cars on Hanley Road, but I know it happens in other parts of Clayton as well. I've been a concern on other neighborhood streets as well. So that would be interesting to look at. My second point, a question has to do with when you're talking about public-private partnerships in order for us to accumulate more land for parks, Would you elaborate on that? I'm trying to think of how that, I know that the school district probably has some land we could easily use. I know Whiteown Middle School, they've got a huge, huge amount of acreage of land that is totally fenced off and not used by anyone. Although I think they promised about two years ago they would open it up, and they have not. But other than that, I'm not sure, did you have any ideas or were you...

I think that, and I am curious what Liz has to share here as well. There's something to be said about the success of the partnership around the Center of Clayton and what is a often non-existent relationship between a school district and a city and the Parks Department. We think that that's... that is something that is exciting to us and that it means that because there is a precedent for a relationship around a facility, that there could be a continued relationship around other facilities or around other outdoor spaces. Schools use their park spaces or use their schoolyards at very specific times of day And oftentimes our parks and our open spaces are activated all the times a day that school yards are not. And so it feels like a really nice moment to collaborate with schools and to enable some of that use to occur more frequently. Liz, is there anything you would add?

I think that was great. I would just say that we're very early in terms of developing, like landing that in terms of specific ideas or proposals. But it's good to hear that maybe there's a piece about that that resonated.

My last question has to do with the issue of connectivity. I've been looking at hoping that we could get some kind of a real model and a real, just some, some real plan for, you know, what we could do maybe in the next 50 years even but for bypass throughout the city. Is that something you're all going to work on and that we can expect to see or is that not in your purview?

Liz, do you want to answer that?

Yeah, I guess so. Our one teammate missing is Tool Design Group, who can give you a little bit more detail. To a degree, yes. You may like to see a proposal for sort of enhanced connections and sort of a proposal for how the city could start to increase some of that bike connectivity, to develop better bike routes. And what we're debating right now is how that could look and how that might actually show up in the plan. But I think we are hesitant to be too prescriptive, but recognize that that is a need. And so, yes, we're definitely thinking about sort of what that toolkit could look like and how that could actually land in a plan.

And it's work that Matt has, who's in the room, we can see the back of his head, has been championing for some time and so excited to continue to have his leadership there.

Great. Thank you. I have no further questions. Thanks.

Okay, great.

Bridget, how about you?

Yeah, thank you so much for the presentation. It's exciting to see. I've been real involved in the other plans, so it's really neat to see what has come out of this plan. So thank you for such a great presentation. I had a little bit more of a question related to the public-private partnership. I think it's really interesting to think about partnering with the school district. I do think a lot of the playgrounds are actively used by the surrounding community, so I'm kind of curious what more needs to be done there because I think there are kids that well into the Kids Zone, which is after school care, goes home. I'm sure I know there's neighborhood kids that frequent Merrimack and Glenridge and Captain. So I think they are used. So I'm kind of curious to hear beyond. And I know we're kind of short on time, but hearing more about what that means. Um, and then I'm just also curious, I think you said, or it looks like at the beginning, a lot, part of this would come out with kind of what the financial impact of some of your recommendations would be. So I'm kind of curious how, like what, I guess what, um, like how that will be presented, like what the, so.

It's both very good questions. Uh, the schoolyards I can answer quickly. is tied to a lot of work that the Trust for Public Land has been doing around the relationship between schools and schoolyards and cities. Oftentimes, it just comes down to that informal use is not a replacement for kind of formal agreements or agreements together with cities to ensure that The use of those school yards doesn't create any unnecessary liabilities and so oftentimes it's just good to kind of clarify or communicator or come to terms with through mo us and through formal agreements, you know what is the expectation there. oftentimes and I can't remember if this is true in the city of clayton. But oftentimes, if you go to a school and you see the fence around a school, it states that it's private property. It states that it's owned by a school district. And so it isn't technically, oftentimes they will rely on that as a way of communicating that you aren't actually allowed to be here on off hours. And so I think we'd love to just make sure that if it is a priority and if there is agreement by all parties involved, that it's something that we want to clarify and change. And then To your other question about the financial side of things, we want to identify funding mechanisms and where possible, identify what the costs, the order of magnitude costs will be for some of the policies or projects we recommend. So it won't be a CIP. It won't be a capital investment plan or improvement plan, but it will inform the CIP.

Great. Thanks so much.

Okay, great. Susan?

Thanks very much. A good presentation and continue to be impressed by both the community and people who come out and contributed to the information that you all have as well as your ability to get those people to come out and do it. And I'm anxious to see what the final result of all that is and how well it does integrate with the comprehensive planning that's going on at the same time, which I think is a challenge, but I think it's a good one and it seems like we're in a good place on that. I'll add on the school issue with the property. I am curious where that will go. I think a lot of the concern really is with the schools, the wear on the various surfaces, not so much on the playgrounds themselves, but whether if there's different types of turf and things like that, but they are something that should be used to serve the whole city to the extent that that can happen. And that's all I have. It's It's an impressive job and I'm really excited about it. And the connectivity, I think is really important too. So we'll see where all that goes. Thank you.

Great.

Thanks. Becky. Thanks mayor. I would just like add or ask you to consider that the idea of a public private partnership or the partnerships that we might prioritize coming out of this wouldn't just be with the school district, but there are a number of other entities in Clayton that have open space that we could encourage or advertise or support as available to our residents. And so Obviously, that's like our universities, Centene, Enterprise, rooftops of buildings, all kinds of stuff. So the Early Childhood Center and the Oak Knoll Park. So just to think beyond the Clayton School District itself, but to those other places. And, um, I'll just add, I don't know if, uh, you all are, have heard of this idea. I don't know. I learned about it in San Francisco and I don't know privately owned public open space. And it's actually like, you can go to like, poposf.com or I mean, it's not that you can Google it if you want to find it. But and it lists all of these places in San Francisco that are privately owned, but are available to the public. And sometimes it's open to the public, like it's just a courtyard. Sometimes it's a rooftop. It's all different. And sometimes the hours are specific. And other times it's 24-7, but to think about what that looks like. It's a fun way to explore and I think gets at that idea of vibrancy and activation across the city.

It's a really good point and absolutely something that we've been digging into together with the comprehensive plan team are the, you know, they are thinking critically about land uses and experiences and the policies that drive those we're thinking specifically about the open spaces and about the experience in those open spaces and the ways you get to those places. And so we have had conversations about all of the ways that partnerships around land could occur. Schools is just such an easy example because they have such an aligned mission to parks and recreation. But thank you for bringing that up. In the East Coast, we call them POPs. or privately owned public spaces. And it's a very similar strategy and something that we know Clayton's already doing and has some of those, but there isn't, it isn't communicated consistently. And so a nice chance to think about that too. Thank you.

Great. Thanks. Gary.

Well, thank you for your presentation. One of your slides addressed, I think, cycling and how it impacts on accidents or risks associated with it. I think we always get, probably a little less than we did three years ago, constant comments about how cycling relates to pedestrians and automobiles and you know, always hear it's an accident waiting to happen. And I think we tell people, well, it hasn't happened. So that's a positive. But I think people's expectations out of this study will still be that we address this whole issue about, particularly as we emphasize more opportunities for cyclists, how we're going to address these concerns about safety. And so I'm just wondering to what extent your report will sort of address that issue.

Liz, do you want to? Yeah, definitely. Thank you for that. We're definitely aware that that's an ongoing conversation in Clayton and an important one. It's definitely something that's central in our conversations is sort of safety. I think that we're trying to ensure that the conversation includes pedestrians, cyclists, wheelchair users, et cetera. But I think we're trying to, we're still sort of, I think, verifying to a degree the appetite for centering cycling as opposed to pedestrian concerns. But the conversation that we're having is really about a high quality network, enhanced safety at intersections and really comfort no matter how you want to get to a park or a school or to work. If you're trying to choose something other than driving for a short time journey in clayton you should feel comfortable doing so and we want to make that accessible regardless of age um you know regardless of ability uh that families feel comfortable cycling in clayton um so that is it's definitely it's central to the to the we hope it will be central to the plan and that's that's how it's looking right now

thank you hey rick

That is a very good question. So it's something that we haven't discussed logistically in detail together with Matt and Tony and Anna, but I imagine the public input website that we shared with you all at the beginning of the presentation and the visits that we've gotten through that feels like a really nice, one really nice place to be sharing the draft plan together with the public because we do wanna make sure that people, that we drive engagement with the Engage platform. something that the city has invested in and it's something that the city wants to continue to use for all of its projects so that feels like a natural space um to be sharing that information more broadly um it's going to ultimately be a document too so um it's it will be available virtually in all the same ways that the city historically and traditionally shares information um and so that i think that delivery will we want to make sure that we're reaching people and handing it to people in the way that precedent has been set while also taking advantage of public input, taking advantage of social media. The communications team has done a wonderful job of promoting a lot of that material together with us and so engaging with that. And then I think the second part of your question was about the how are we engaging folks and the community more broadly to Maybe I might've just heard it, but it sounded like what you were asking is how do we make ourselves accountable to its implementation of the plan? Is that correct?

Yes, absolutely. And that's partly why we shared a multitude of ways that we've reached out to the public to try and engage folks where they are and in all of the ways that they receive information because we know that not everyone goes to the city's website on a regular basis. And the statistically valid survey is meant to also capture that of it as well. But ultimately, The goal is to both balance the quantity of feedback and the building of awareness of this project and giving folks the choice to engage or not to engage if they decide that they don't have time, which we heard by and large from the statistically valid survey is why people don't engage in your parks or your programs because they just don't have the time. They have busy lives. But we want to make sure that all of the ways that we engage with them give people the choice to do so. And that the information, the feedback that we receive from them and what they learn from this plan are of high quality and are aligned with their and their neighbor's goals. And so I completely hear you in a perfect world, every single household would say, yes, let me tell you more. It's just not always possible because everyone is torn in so many different ways. um but we are working to make sure that all of that engagement is happening that we're reaching people in all of the modes that they that they engage in content um and it is absolutely our plan to share this plan as widely and as broadly as we can so that people can continue to have the choice to engage um and to to share feedback and to review the plan

the one thing i would add is that um We are, engagement is still ongoing. So March, really March and April is when we will start to present to the community the draft strategies so that sort of the outcome of the next few months and our work with the steering committee this week So that'll be sort of another big push to, you know, you'll see those numbers increase in terms of who's participating and engaging. And that's when we're going to sort of stress test our initial findings from this first round of engagement at things like the open house. And like we said, the sort of full suite of other opportunities to engage around the draft strategies. So we are, we're not, not at the end quite yet.

Okay. I think we are kind of at the end of our discussion session time. I just want to add, and I can follow up with you guys, have a few detailed questions, but a couple of things really quickly. Are you going to get us a copy of your presentation, but also some of the data behind it? I know I've been curious for a long time to look at the survey data and some of the tabulations of other input that you've gotten. So is that something you're going to be forwarding to us today?

Yeah, we'll work with Matt and Tony to share the presentation and the data for this. And of course, want to make sure that you all have a chance to look at it because we only spent 30 seconds on each slide and there was so much more detail.

Yeah, I agree. And then just something to consider as you're thinking about this, there's some, you know, these crossover areas with the comprehensive plan. I think there's a couple of key ones that that maybe weren't mentioned specifically, but when we're talking about connectivity, you know, we talk a lot on the comprehensive plan side about retail nodes and, you know, there are retail nodes, there are programming nodes, there are different little clusters of things that people can, you know, people can go there and they can do a number of different things. And so when you're considering the connectivity piece, with biking and walking. I hope you'll kind of think about those nodes. And also, the other thing that's an overlap is that we're adding a lot of residential in our downtown. And I know one particular person on our ARB has mentioned this idea a few times, but there's Shaw Park, right? But is there something that's needed sort of in the middle of downtown or in a different location of downtown for families or for people with dogs or whatever it is, what is the need? And is there a place for that either via partnership or something that we need to do as a city? So just the thought to leave you with. Okay, great. Great job, you guys. Thank you so much again. And it's exciting to get all this. And I also want to just say, I love the benchmarking. The more ideas you can give us of how other cities have been successful doing various things would be so great and appreciate that research. Okay, I think that has to bring our discussion to a close. So thanks again. And we'll go ahead and move into our regular meeting for the 7pm.

Thank you

so much. I appreciate it. I'm going

to go ahead and call roll. Alderman Berkowitz. Here. Alderwoman McAndrew. Here. Alderwomen Buse. Here. Aldermen Gary Feder.

to go ahead and call roll. Alderman Berkowitz. Here. Alderwoman McAndrew. Here. Alderwomen Buse. Here. Aldermen Fader.

Here.

Alderman Rick Hummell.

Alderman Hummel.

Mayor Harris. Here. City Manager David Gipson.

Mayor Harris. Here. City Manager Gibson.

City Attorney O'Keefe. Here.

Great. So now's the time on our agenda for public requests and petitions. If anyone is in our listening audience or in our chambers there that has a topic or question for us that is not on our agenda tonight, now's your opportunity. And attendees. So I don't see anybody on the attendees list raising their hand and or in the chamber. So we will move on into the consent agenda. Mr. City Manager, any comments there?

The only item on the consent agenda this evening are the minutes from January 23rd.

Okay, anybody want to discuss those additions, corrections? Okay, great. Alderman Berkowitz?

I move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

Any discussion? Want to call the roll?

Alderman Berkowitz. Aye. Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Alderman Buse. Aye. Aldermen Patel. Aye. Aldeman Gary Feder.

Alderman Berkowitz. Aye. Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Alderman Buse. Aye. Aldermen Patel. Aye. Aldeman Fader.

Aye.

Aldemann Rick Hummell.

Aldemann Hummel.

Aye.

Mayor Harris.

Aye. Okay. And now I think we have a presentation by the Police and Fire Foundation, something we've been hearing a lot about.

Yes, we have several members this evening here in the audience. It looks like we have Steve Burrows online as well. Doug Murdoch is going to give a brief presentation at the board and answer questions related to the foundation. So I'll turn it over to Mr. Murdoch.

Great. I cannot hear him. We can't. Do you have your mic on?

No, I do.

Oh, very good. Thank you.

Hello. I'll be brief. Only take about five minutes of your time. If you have any questions for me afterwards, please feel free to ask. Let's get started. So Mayor Harris, City Manager David Gipson, and members of the Board of Aldermen, thank you for the opportunity tonight to explain the development and the mission of the newly formed Clayton Fire and Police Foundation. My name is Doug Murdoch, and I serve as president of the foundation. So how'd we get here? A couple of years ago, I learned that the police department didn't have a bike transporter for the department's new patrol bikes. At the time I was president of the Clayton lacrosse club and thought it might be nice to have the club donate a bike transporter to the department. So working with corporal Jenny Schwartz and lieutenant Jeff DeVos, we made this happen. It was at that time that I had the opportunity to meet chief. I mentioned him my desire to potentially start a foundation. And after multiple discussions, both with chief Smith, and Chief Rhodes with the Fire Department. I learned more about their department's needs and issues with recruitment and retention, which, as you know, is not only a regional but a national issue. Thus, the foundation was born. We recruited several residents who shared a passion for supporting our Clayton first responders, and we were off to the races. We developed bylaws, articles of incorporation, and in February of 23 received formal 5013 status from the state of Missouri and the Internal Revenue Service. Our mission is simple. We're an organization established to provide financial support to the Clayton Fire and Police Departments to assist them in providing, and this is important, the highest level of excellence and service to the residents and businesses in the city of Clayton. Our purpose, we serve as advocates for public safety. The Clayton Fire Police Foundation's goal is not only to enhance the morale of both departments, but improve the technology, equipment, and specialized training used by our first responders. Simply put, we don't want our fire and police departments to meet the accepted standard of service to the community and the region at large. We want the City of Clayton's fire and police departments This nonprofit foundation will solicit financial donations from the Clayton residential and business community that will enable our fire and police departments to move beyond the understood constraints of municipal budgets. So what have we done so far? Here are just a few of the accomplishments the foundation has achieved in our short existence. Following the passing of Clayton police officer Tom Bosch, the foundation provided meals for the officers who stood guard over Tom's casket at the funeral home. We also funded the cost of the plaque, which will be presented to his family in honor of his 28 years of service to our community. Recently, Clayton Police Sergeant Rob Woods retired after 25 years of service. Foundation provided him with a gift of a ping golf club so he could enjoy his retirement and acknowledge his service not only to the residents of the city of Clayton, but also for his service as a school resource officer to our kids. I'm also very proud and pleased to announce that the foundation has fully funded the purchase of 32 Omega ballistic plate inserts for all patrol officers. These inserts will supplement the outstanding equipment already provided to our officers by the city, and will provide an additional level of protection against deadly high velocity rounds. The department is scheduled to take delivery of these vests insert vest inserts in April. And important, this will make Clayton one of the first municipalities in the St. Louis area to provide this next level of protection to their officers. A special note of thanks to Foundation Board Member Charlie Brannan, who spearheaded the fundraising effort for this project. We have many more projects slated for funding for both departments and allow me to highlight just a few right now. We're currently working with Chief Rhodes to evaluate the cost of decontamination of the living quarters and apparatus bays of our 20-year-old fire station, thus reducing our firefighters' exposure to cancer-causing agents. We're also working with Chief Rhodes, to evaluate the replacement of the current Zoll chest compressions devices with new Lucas compression systems for use in cardiac arrest situations. It's state-of-the-art equipment like this, combined with the dedication and training of our firefighters and paramedics that give the Clayton Fire Department survival rates for witnessed cardiac arrest events to hospital admission of 55% over the past four years. This is compared to a national average survival rate of between 5% to 10%. Pretty dramatic. With statistics like that, it's no surprise that the Clayton Fire Department received recognition as the state of Missouri's top EMS service for 2023. We will also work with both departments to fund the popular retirees barbecue and expand the event to become a fire and police families event, making it more inclusive to both current and retired employees to grow camaraderie and make it a family tradition. Lastly, the foundation's biggest single financial project will be the establishment of a scholarship fund, which will award yearly college scholarships to a dependent member of the fire and police departments each year. Needless to say, we got a lot of work ahead of us. At this time, I'd like to recognize the board of directors of the Clayton Fire and Police Foundation, Vice President Jim Schultz, who joins us this evening, Treasurer Alan Palmquist, Secretary Dr. Kristen Stahl, and Directors Steve Burrows and Charlie Brennan. I would like to take a moment to recognize and thank Steve Burrows, who is out of town and couldn't join us in person this evening, but I think is virtually here. Steve funded the substantial legal expenses associated with establishing the foundation, and without his generosity, this endeavor would not be possible. So before I finish, I'd like to say that I've had the opportunity to get to know not only Chief Smith and Chief Rhodes on a professional level, but personally as well. I'm honored to call them my friends. I've spent time in ride-alongs with both departments and have gotten to speak at length with many of our first responders. These are truly special people and they're professionals who are committed to risking their lives in the service to our community and deserving of our highest level of support. My thanks to all of you for your service and leadership to the city of Clayton and for your time this evening. That's all I got for you.

Hello. I'll be brief. Only take about five minutes of your time. If you have any questions for me afterwards, please feel free to ask. Let's get started. So Mayor Harris, City Manager Gibson, and members of the Board of Aldermen, thank you for the opportunity tonight to explain the development and the mission of the newly formed Clayton Fire and Police Foundation. My name is Doug Murdoch, and I serve as president of the foundation. So how'd we get here? A couple of years ago, I learned that the police department didn't have a bike transporter for the department's new patrol bikes. At the time I was president of the Clayton lacrosse club and thought it might be nice to have the club donate a bike transporter to the department. So working with corporal Jenny Schwartz and lieutenant Jeff DeVos, we made this happen. It was at that time that I had the opportunity to meet chief. I mentioned him my desire to potentially start a foundation. And after multiple discussions, both with chief Smith, and Chief Rhodes with the Fire Department. I learned more about their department's needs and issues with recruitment and retention, which, as you know, is not only a regional but a national issue. Thus, the foundation was born. We recruited several residents who shared a passion for supporting our Clayton first responders, and we were off to the races. We developed bylaws, articles of incorporation, and in February of 23 received formal 5013 status from the state of Missouri and the Internal Revenue Service. Our mission is simple. We're an organization established to provide financial support to the Clayton Fire and Police Departments to assist them in providing, and this is important, the highest level of excellence and service to the residents and businesses in the city of Clayton. Our purpose, we serve as advocates for public safety. The Clayton Fire Police Foundation's goal is not only to enhance the morale of both departments, but improve the technology, equipment, and specialized training used by our first responders. Simply put, we don't want our fire and police departments to meet the accepted standard of service to the community and the region at large. We want the City of Clayton's fire and police departments This nonprofit foundation will solicit financial donations from the Clayton residential and business community that will enable our fire and police departments to move beyond the understood constraints of municipal budgets. So what have we done so far? Here are just a few of the accomplishments the foundation has achieved in our short existence. Following the passing of Clayton police officer Tom Bosch, the foundation provided meals for the officers who stood guard over Tom's casket at the funeral home. We also funded the cost of the plaque, which will be presented to his family in honor of his 28 years of service to our community. Recently, Clayton Police Sergeant Rob Woods retired after 25 years of service. Foundation provided him with a gift of a ping golf club so he could enjoy his retirement and acknowledge his service not only to the residents of the city of Clayton, but also for his service as a school resource officer to our kids. I'm also very proud and pleased to announce that the foundation has fully funded the purchase of 32 Omega ballistic plate inserts for all patrol officers. These inserts will supplement the outstanding equipment already provided to our officers by the city, and will provide an additional level of protection against deadly high velocity rounds. The department is scheduled to take delivery of these vests insert vest inserts in April. And important, this will make Clayton one of the first municipalities in the St. Louis area to provide this next level of protection to their officers. A special note of thanks to Foundation Board Member Charlie Brannan, who spearheaded the fundraising effort for this project. We have many more projects slated for funding for both departments and allow me to highlight just a few right now. We're currently working with Chief Rhodes to evaluate the cost of decontamination of the living quarters and apparatus bays of our 20-year-old fire station, thus reducing our firefighters' exposure to cancer-causing agents. We're also working with Chief Rhodes, to evaluate the replacement of the current Zoll chest compressions devices with new Lucas compression systems for use in cardiac arrest situations. It's state-of-the-art equipment like this, combined with the dedication and training of our firefighters and paramedics that give the Clayton Fire Department survival rates for witnessed cardiac arrest events to hospital admission of 55% over the past four years. This is compared to a national average survival rate of between 5% to 10%. Pretty dramatic. With statistics like that, it's no surprise that the Clayton Fire Department received recognition as the state of Missouri's top EMS service for 2023. We will also work with both departments to fund the popular retirees barbecue and expand the event to become a fire and police families event, making it more inclusive to both current and retired employees to grow camaraderie and make it a family tradition. Lastly, the foundation's biggest single financial project will be the establishment of a scholarship fund, which will award yearly college scholarships to a dependent member of the fire and police departments each year. Needless to say, we got a lot of work ahead of us. At this time, I'd like to recognize the board of directors of the Clayton Fire and Police Foundation, Vice President Jim Schultz, who joins us this evening, Treasurer Alan Palmquist, Secretary Dr. Kristen Stahl, and Directors Steve Burrows and Charlie Brennan. I would like to take a moment to recognize and thank Steve Burrows, who is out of town and couldn't join us in person this evening, but I think is virtually here. Steve funded the substantial legal expenses associated with establishing the foundation, and without his generosity, this endeavor would not be possible. So before I finish, I'd like to say that I've had the opportunity to get to know not only Chief Smith and Chief Rhodes on a professional level, but personally as well. I'm honored to call them my friends. I've spent time in ride-alongs with both departments and have gotten to speak at length with many of our first responders. These are truly special people and they're professionals who are committed to risking their lives in the service to our community and deserving of our highest level of support. My thanks to all of you for your service and leadership to the city of Clayton and for your time this evening. That's all I got for you.

Great. Thank you, Doug.

You're welcome. Thank you.

This is just really a commendable effort and I know we're all really grateful as our public safety personnel staff. I'd like to go ahead and see if any of the board members have questions or comments and I can start with Ira.

uh i really i all i can say is that my deepest appreciation for the work you're doing i think it's phenomenal it's amazing and uh thank you so much it's an honor yeah

yeah bridget

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I don't have any other comments then, you know, thank you so much for taking all the time that you and the rest of the board members are taking to, you know, again, support and enhance our departments, you know, as you said municipal budgets can only do so much. So, yeah, I think it's just wonderful that you're able to give an added level of protection, even just I think it's wonderful to enhance the lunch to. So for, you know, for retirees so that families can come because as you said I think that just improves the camaraderie of both departments and as you said also encourages, you know, so we continue so we don't have a hiring problem you know so that people here Wow, you know, it really is a great environment over there so. again, thank you very much.

Thanks. Yeah. Susan?

All I can do is echo all of that. It's wonderful. And people not only live in a wonderful community, but appreciate that they live in a wonderful connection and invest of their time and their resources to make it always better. So it's really inspiring and

And it's kind of important to let the guys know, guys and gals know who drive by every day and you just look at them driving by or you happen to see them with their lights on going somewhere. Let them know that they're not only appreciated but people care about them. Yes.

Yeah, Becky. Yeah, thank you. I hadn't heard about the Police and Fire Foundation, so I appreciate the information and the work you're doing to support our officers. That's great. I do have a question about whether we have any kind of MOU with the foundation. Can you talk about... I'm thinking about how it might be similar or different from CCF, which we do have an MOU with. And we review together projects that we agree are priorities. And so I'm curious about the idea of an MOU in the first place, but then also of how projects get identified and prioritized.

we, it's a little bit different than CCF in that we have some involvement in CCF. So we assist with administrative functions. We have a working relationship where this is a standalone 501. So that's the distinction there. We don't have anything to do with governance or funding the Police and Fire Foundation. It's completely separate, completely citizen-run. As far as the priorities, though, when we're looking at expenditures, a lot of the things that were mentioned this evening are those items where we've got this big list of wants and needs when we put every annual budget together, and those items that didn't quite make it this year Last time around, we had a new CBA, so we had increased wages. We had a bunch of items that we added, but some of the things that we weren't able to do for the fiscal year 24 budget, those are the types of items that they've picked up. And so if we want to have those conversations going forward, I think we can certainly figure out a way to do that. I don't know that we need to go as far as having an MOU, but if we do want to build some sort of informal process for that, we could certainly do so. So if I could for a second, I want to

just comment on what David had mentioned. And I will be forwarding to each of you this evening, tomorrow, and just some more information, documentation about the foundation. So you have it for your own personal notification. I want to be super clear that the foundation doesn't exist to supplement the budget efforts. It exists to enhance, to take to another level. So what do I mean by that? If the city was planning on replacing a piece of equipment and they just couldn't quite get to it, We're probably not going to be writing a million-dollar check for a piece of equipment, if that makes sense. However, if there are certain training things, smaller pieces of equipment, things that are necessary in a different way, certainly we'll take a look at taking that on. But don't want to be viewed as, hey, if the city can't afford it, the foundation can't, right?

Yeah.

Although that would be nice. And I'll be glad to accept checks at any point in time. But if that makes it a little more clear, that's all.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm just thinking about like the differences, like when you talked about what you're supporting, it's really a wide range of activities and programs, which is, which is great, you know? And I don't think there's any way or reason even that like cities, any city staff would be involved in, um, you know the scholarship fund or um gifts you might give to a retiree i don't know but um but when it comes obviously to like buying equipment for the department the city is involved in that process in terms of identifying what would work for us and like you know i mean i i trust that you're not going to try to give the department equipment it doesn't want And like that is a thing that happens sometimes in places. And so just thinking about how we're, how like how that communication is going back and forth in terms of like opportunities and all of that. So I don't think I have a specific like request or recommendation. I just wanted to know what we've thought about that, how we have and bring it up. So thank you. Good question.

Gary, you

have? Well, I actually had, I think Alderman Patel raises a good point. Maybe both of us have been involved with CCF in the past. And so they are entirely different. But what does strike me is that When I used to go to folks and try to encourage funding for CCF, part of it always was, look, there are things the city's just never going to get to. They're very desirable. They'd make us a great city, but it's not going to be in the budget. It's sort of over and beyond. It's not supplementing it. It's things that we aren't going to get to, so... at least it does seem to me that some kind of, you know, connection with CCF, at least talking to CCF and understanding what they're doing would be a good idea. It's not just because they both have, they both finished with the name foundation, but they're both Clayton foundations. And to some extent as different as they are, I think we just want to make sure that there's some connection between the two, or at least you were talking with one another. So I will tell you that prior to the formation

of this foundation, we had the opportunity as a, a small board at the time, to meet with my friend Sarah Mellinger, who you all know, and discuss how we form what we do and things of that nature. But yes, I think they're distinctly different functions that operate towards the benefit of the city in general in improving the environment, just in different ways.

Great. Rick, anything?

Excellent points, Rick. So we're actually in the process of developing a website now. And now that we've done our best way to term it, small friends and family fundraising portion of this webinar, endeavor, then we'll be able to move forward with a broader fundraising effort. We wanted to get some accomplishments under our belt first. When some people say, I've heard of something about this, but I really don't know a lot about it. I think the worst thing you can do is come and say, hey, we have this idea and it would be really neat if we did blank and then have no track record, no no tangible evidence of success. And now we've reached that point of certain eligible or certain tangible elements of success that we can move forward with and say, Hey, we'd love your support by the way, here's what we've already done. So there will be communication forthcoming. I think it would have been premature without an introduction to you all first. And there'll be more to come and you all will learn as we go.

Doug, to that end, it might be helpful for us. Most of our commissions report back every year just to hear so that we keep the communication going. I mean, it's, of course, not something you have to do, but I think it would be helpful to come back every February or every March and say, hey, board, this is what we've done. It just would be, you know, I think it's helpful. I would not agree more.

Yes.

So Doug, thank you very much. And thanks to everybody, all the volunteers. I had some involvement in starting up the Clayton Community Foundation. So I know how it is to kind of start from scratch. I do want to echo, though, both Becky's comments because I think what I'm searching for here, and again, you've outlined a lot of what you've accomplished already, but it's just some clarity around what your goals are going to be, what your priorities are going to be. What kinds of things, categories of things you really are focused on providing. for our officers and our firefighters. You know, I think every organization needs to kind of put some guardrails out there and some guidelines around what they're doing. I mean, you know, I even, we started a little task force a few, a couple of years ago to do some historic commemorations. And even that we had a really well-defined, you know, guiding principles and goals and what kinds of things we were going to do and, you know, what kinds of things aren't going to do. And I think that would be really helpful. I think you'll find that's really helpful in fundraising, but also I think it would help us And our staff and even the chiefs in terms of what they what they suggest to you. It seems like right now it's just, well, here's the laundry list. And will you guys you know, what do you guys want to do? And that that just doesn't feel so comfortable to me.

I think you'll feel more comfortable once I forward you some information. I didn't want to go on ad nauseum here this evening and describe to you each and every program that we've gone through with both chiefs who have been instrumental in us doing this without their input and direction. We don't really exist. So we work to serve at their discretion to some extent, take their advice and vote on it independently on our own and determine what we're going to fund and what we're not going to fund. But I think it'll be a little bit more clear once I send you some information. All that documentation exists.

Okay, great. I think that that would be really good. Okay. Well, thank you once again. And thanks to all of your volunteers. And I see Steve Burrows on the line. Steve has his hand up now. Okay, Steve.

Hi, Michelle. Greetings, everyone. Just to take your point, Michelle, which is on target. When we formed the foundation, which is a 501c3, it has all the legal criteria and paperwork filed with the federal government and the state. There are detailed bylaws, et cetera, et cetera, that exist within that documentation. So I'm sure Doug we'd be able to send that along with the, I'll call it the non-legal communication that we send to people about what we're about and what we're trying to do. So I think when you see that, you'll be a bit more comfortable. And of course, if you're not, please let us know. Very good. Thank you. That's

great. Okay. Well, in that case, I think we're... Doug, you may be released from the podium.

Thank you

all. Thank you. Have a good night. And then we can move on with our agenda. Okay. The next thing would be the city manager's report and the first thing there is the Oak Knoll Park roof replacement.

Thank you, Mayor. The city of Clayton entered into a lease agreement with the Clayton Early Childhood Center for the property at number one Oak Knoll Park effective January 1st, 2023 for a term of 10 years plus an option period for an additional 10 years. That lease agreement specified that the city is required to replace the roof at number one Oak Knoll Park prior to January 1st, 2025. To that end, bed documents for the number one Oak Knull Park roof replacement project were issued on December 1st, 2023. The scope of work includes removal and replacement of the current roofing system, removal and replacement of current gutters and downspouts as well as the repair of defective underlayment as necessary. The city received three responsive bids for this work on January 25th, 2024. Staff recommends awarding the contract to Vince Gray Slate and Tile Roofing Company Incorporated as they are the low bid, have extensive experience in slate roof replacement and have highly rated references. John Potter, funding of $500,000 for the project was included in the fiscal year 24 capital budget and although three bids are all over budget, the city is obligated to complete the work. John Potter, By the end of 2024 do the age of the roof and the unknown condition of the decking underneath we are recommending a contingency of 10% or $65,000 for the Project. While it is significant with the 100-year-old roof system, we do anticipate some unknown issues to arise during the project. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve the ordinance authorizing execution of a contract with Vince Gray Slate and Tile Roofing Company Incorporated in the amount of $653,494 plus a contingency of $65,000 for one Oak Knoll roof park replacement project. And Tony Searing is here this evening if you have any questions about the work to be done.

Okay, great. All right, I'll open the discussion. I'll ask first if there are any questions or comments from the audience, either online or in person. Okay, I don't see any so I'll just go in order once again around the room. Alderman Berkowitz, any comments or questions about this?

Dave Kuntz, It although it's eye popping and i'm obviously not a slate expert. Dave Kuntz , does seem high, but if we're required and we're committed I get it, so I don't have any questions though

hey great moving on Bridget.

um i yeah i mean it was kind of eye-popping too is there because i don't i've not owned a home or anything that has slate is it it's not possible to remove slate and put a less expensive roof on is that or is that just i mean i was just curious i mean i don't it is possible to do that yeah

many many people in clayton have done that yeah

composite

sorry go ahead that's right yeah yeah i think I think it is possible, but previously the board has indicated that they wanted to replace like materials with like materials, which is why we, the bid called out for the slate roof and for the copper gutters and downspouts as well too. So I know that's been a requirement, not a requirement, a condition, I guess, that they want the buildings that are owned by the city to look like the buildings in the park and in the surrounding neighborhoods. But yes, it is quite expensive.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It might be worth reconsidering what that... I don't know if that was a mission or what. I don't know what. But I guess I'd be curious. How long did this... I mean, do we anticipate this lasting another 100 years? Yes, they are supposed to last

significantly longer than a regular shingled roof. Yes. Okay. Mm-hmm. And we did replace the roof at number two with also with slate.

Yeah, that was the other part of this. Number two was done this way. And so number one's been in the CIP with a slate roof and the copper to match the building at number two. Correct.

Yeah. I mean, they are in close proximity to one another too. So that, you know, appearance wise, it makes it difficult, but I would certainly suggest that we, we rethink in the future ways to, you know, like replacing things, you know, A

hundred years and a hundred years. Yeah. We can reevaluate it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Susan.

I would echo that. It is a lot of money. I know that when the school district was replacing the roofs on the schools, they did, at least for some of them, and check me in all this, go for an alternative that looked like slate, which I know there's a mixed history on that. So I don't know the maintenance costs over time. Slate roofs do need maintenance every year, certainly not the cost of a replacement. If this was something budgeted, we're still significantly over budgeted. I'm not going to object to doing it this time, but I don't know that there should be an assumption that we always want copper and slate. That does make me uncomfortable. We should be looking at our current budgets when these projects come up and look at the alternatives, the pros and cons of each. Again, I think with the school district, I don't know how they did with the alternative, but it was significantly cheaper at the time. I don't know the longevity of it. but it's a big number.

Oh, yes. I think it'll be interesting to see what the maintenance ends up to be on the pavilion roof that we did. If you recall, we did do that roof with a slate-like shingle tile or shingle for that roof. It'll be interesting to say, A, how that holds up, and B, what type of maintenance it requires.

And as the mayor points out, in 100 years. Are there any other buildings that are on the horizon for these types of replacements? Not that we own.

No, we don't own anything else with

the building

you're in, but that's not coming up anytime soon.

The replacement for the little picnic area is not slate.

No, yeah, right. It's slate-like.

Slate-like. So we'll see over the coming years, less than 100 years, the coming 10 or 20 years, what kind of maintenance that requires. And that'll be important information to see. Yes. Okay. Alderwoman Patel.

Thanks. I guess I would just question whether it isn't the right time to like pause. I understand we are obligated to do this by the end of the year. I don't know how long the project takes and if there's seasonality and when it can be performed um but i think that there could be value in understanding what the options are and how they compare in price and are they you know um Less than six figure savings? Are they $500,000 in cost difference? Like what are we talking about in terms of look, performance and cost? You know, I have a slate roof. And so, you know, I spend X amount of money every year with the individual clients. like repairs that need to be done. But it's the same roof that was on the house 103 years ago when it was built, as far as I know. So I get that. And I know overwhelmingly the people I know who've gotten new roofs go from slate or tile to something else because it just makes a lot of sense these days. So I would be in favor of understanding our ability to get other bids and consider other options before proceeding with this, not saying I wouldn't eventually actually support this, but I'd like to understand that. the options?

Sure. There certainly is a seasonality to when the work can be performed. I would say the main driving force here is how long it takes to get those slate tiles. It will take us months to get those on site. We're hoping to get them by the beginning of June, but again, they all come from a specific quarry in Vermont. So that is really the driving force is the amount of time it takes for the materials to arrive in the St. Louis Metro. And it will take months. So then I'd be afraid if we didn't, if we decided to do that later, that we wouldn't get them in enough time to have the work completed by December 31st.

And

then there wasn't any weather related seasonality.

Yeah. Do we have any idea how long it would take to get bids for a roof other than like, is that something we could turn around in weeks or a month or two or 45

days? Yeah.

Yeah.

We'd have to put together a scope and then advertise it and say about 45 days.

And if we, you know, talked to the folks leasing the building, they might understand. If we would end up in a situation where we are delayed, they are probably not going to take us to court or leave the building. I mean, I don't know what our penalty is for not completing by December 31st, But if we are making good faith efforts and in stewardship of public funds and all of that, and good performance of a roof over their heads like I mean they're not having issues right now. Yes.

And

so are we delaying routine maintenance because we're doing the replacement probably? We've done

routine maintenance over the last two years. And then we've done what we had to do to get by until we got the roof replaced, but we are doing routine maintenance to the tune. I know last year we spent at least $14,000, maybe more.

I would expect so based on the size of the room. I mean, yeah. Okay. Well, that's just what I think. Yeah. Yeah.

So this may be rhetorical, but the document we have says that the lease requires us to replace the roof. I'm not sure does it say we have to replace the roof using the same material that's there right now?

No, it does not.

So at least legally, we would have the opportunity as long as we're going to replace the roof, we're not bound to do that. Yeah. It does seem to me that's a valid question. The other thing is just as a practical matter, no matter what you replace it with, I'm wondering when you replace a roof, what does that do to the functionality of the building while you're doing the work? That sounds like something that's going to put them out of action somehow.

Nope, they will be able to remain in the facility while they're doing the work. And we verified that with both the child care center and the contractor.

Well, I just, I would agree with earlier comments that given the very high price involved, you know, we can't change the fact that we're obligated to replace the roof. But if it doesn't say the same material, then it seems to me that gives us some flexibility. Thank you.

All right, last but not least.

I don't know about cheeks or dormers. So that is not my area of expertise. So I cannot speak to that. I can't speak. We at Parks and Recreation, we do not have any in the future. We wouldn't have any intended use of that facility. So I think it works well as as the child care center. It brings a lot of people to the park. It activates people into our parks and rec system. We at this current moment in time do not have another need or use for that building. So then we may be in the lease game, I would say for, well, 10 years. And if they want to choose to exercise their right to renew another 10 years. So, and again, in 20 years, I don't know if we'll feel the same. And that building, I guess, would likely then involve extensive renovation on our part, depending on what we want to do with it. If we wanted to make it I'm just throwing out ideas, classrooms for fitness or things like that. If we wanted to get into the childcare business, you know, maybe not as many renovations, but it would require work on our part if we were going to do something different with it, which I do not have an intent to do that as of now.

Okay. Nor

did we hear about that when we are doing the master plan either, so...

Yeah. So I'll just say, make a couple of comments, a lot of great comments around the board. And I do understand, you know, it's a hefty price tag. I have a slate roof too, and I guess we've been lucky. We haven't had really any issues with it, and it's approaching 100 years old. But I will be the lone person here to speak for the historical significance of those buildings and keeping that in mind when we replace things, especially things that are highly visible on the outside. I'm for making at least a good try at keeping with the original materials wherever possible. So, you know, I don't know if we would save a whole bunch. I would love to see the, I mean, if we want to look at the differences, I'd want to make sure that we include the longevity piece first. Because, you know, if you find yourself replacing your roof every 25 years or doing some significant work every 25 years versus 100, it makes an impact on the cost as Alderman Rick Hummell was saying over the long haul. So, you know, I'm for going ahead with this project. You know, it's outside of our budget because you know, with the onset of COVID and subsequent costs of construction materials, everything went up 30%. And that's pretty much almost what happened here. So, you know, anyway, that's my two cents. I would vote for moving forward with it now. And if we want to reevaluate how we approach all of our buildings, that would be the police station, the center, everything else, and using the least expensive materials, then I think that'd be a a facilities project that we could look into. My opinion. I'm just one vote. Yeah, I

Yeah. So I'll just say, make a couple of comments, a lot of great comments around the board. And I do understand, you know, it's a hefty price tag. I have a slate roof too, and I guess we've been lucky. We haven't had really any issues with it, and it's approaching 100 years old. But I will be the lone person here to speak for the historical significance of those buildings and keeping that in mind when we replace things, especially things that are highly visible on the outside. I'm for making at least a good try at keeping with the original materials wherever possible. So, you know, I don't know if we would save a whole bunch. I would love to see the, I mean, if we want to look at the differences, I'd want to make sure that we include the longevity piece first. Because, you know, if you find yourself replacing your roof every 25 years or doing some significant work every 25 years versus 100, it makes an impact on the cost as Alderman Hummel was saying over the long haul. So, you know, I'm for going ahead with this project. You know, it's outside of our budget because you know, with the onset of COVID and subsequent costs of construction materials, everything went up 30%. And that's pretty much almost what happened here. So, you know, anyway, that's my two cents. I would vote for moving forward with it now. And if we want to reevaluate how we approach all of our buildings, that would be the police station, the center, everything else, and using the least expensive materials, then I think that'd be a a facilities project that we could look into. My opinion. I'm just one vote. Yeah, I

just want to point out, I'm not advocating for the least expensive material. I'm advocating for an alternative to a proposal that's $200,000 over our budget. So I just think I will personally advocate not vote in favor of this tonight in light of that. If everyone else votes for it and it passes, I'm not going to freak out about it. But my preference would be to explore alternatives and make sure that we are making an informed decision about spending that much outside of what was budgeted, what we anticipated, and what we're doing. I'd

like to say something, though. I had... 2008, we had some renovations on our house and we have a slate roof as well. And we put the composite, which was a fake slate roof. We brought it into ARB for them to consider it. I remember Steve looking at it and going, this is really good stuff. Yeah. Oh yeah. We're all about it. You know, we approve of this. This is no problem. We put it on and seven years later, it was flaking apart like nobody's business. And it was supposed to be a 60-year slate or slate like Slate. My concern is that we might be able to find something cheaper for sure that might even look somewhat like Slate. But I don't know how much to trust when they say that it will last like Slate when Slate has a pretty good track record right now in our city. for longevity, and there's a lot to be said for that longevity. And so that's why I don't like this price. I don't like paying this price, but I think it's something that we should do.

If I can just add, I think that the question really is if we get additional – it's really making an informed decision. It may be that we'll come back and say that Slate is what we need to do, but right now – we're guessing. We're guessing what the difference might be, we're guessing what the quality of the product is right now, and if it's possible to go out and make, and vote when we have that information, I think it would be more comfortable for all of us. And I do think that in asking the school district, finding out what kind of experience they had, but that was, I don't know, at least 10, that may have been 10 years ago, it may be a different product, but going into this informed that yes, we really should spend this kind of money, or we can get almost the same thing for a significantly less would really help in knowing how to best serve the community with this

vote. That's fine with me. I mean, I think doing the analysis is fine. I question, you know, we'll be able to find something almost the same for a lot less. We'll see. So Tony, you mentioned timing. So Is it possible to, we need 45 days for a bid process because of the notifications and the whole process, correct?

Yes.

And so, I mean, would you be able to do the project in time or close to it if we do this, get these alternative bids done?

Mayor, I would recommend if we were going to go that route and explore that other option that we just postponed it this evening, Tony and Justin Whipple and Parks and myself, we can get together and talk about how we might want to approach an additional bid. We also want to do some research with this particular contractor to make sure that if we go through that process that's going to take another 45 days, that they'll still honor this price. And if they will, see how it may affect the timeline in the end and how far it might push that project back. So I think that we need to have a conversation and do a little research before we could Speak accurately on what the impact may be of delaying

Can there be like an informal investigation even just by Justin in terms of like costs so maybe we're not going out for bids but if like there's some sort of. I mean I was trying to do some very casual Google research but there are, I mean it's a 7300 square foot roof so understanding that, I mean, you know, I don't know, just seems like there might be people on staff that would have some knowledge to be able to. just inform us a little bit. We would

do our best to try to figure that out in the next couple of weeks or get as close as we could. Um, the way I would go about it is introduce the bill this evening, then postpone it. And then we'll just go ahead and postpone the second reading or consideration to February 27th. In the meantime, we'll do the research and then we decide we want to proceed. Then we can go ahead and vote that evening on, on passing it. And if we want to hold up, then we'll go ahead and terminate the bill at that point and go a different route or, uh, We just don't know what the impact is with this contract or what this may do to our process overall.

Okay.

A couple of weeks would be great.

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so we can introduce the bill and will we need to have the first reading? It

would just be the first reading of the bill and then we would end it there. Just introduce it and we wouldn't even need a motion to postpone at that point.

Okay, very good. All right, Alderman Berkowitz.

I'd like to introduce bill number 7010, approving a contract with Vince Gray Slate and Tile Roofing for the number one Oak Knoll park roof replacement project to be read for the first time by title only.

Okay. I need a second.

Are we seconding? Or should I second? Oh, I'm seconding the fact that it's been opened, I guess. So second. Just to introduce bill. Okay.

Okay. And then I assume there's no discussion. So Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7012 first reading in order to approve your contract with Vince Gray Slade and Tile Roofing Company Incorporated for the number one Oak Knoll Park roof replacement project.

Okay, so I think we've agreed to go ahead and postpone and we can at our next meeting in February, we'll hear the results of your analysis team.

Correct. It'll be on the agenda just so everyone knows there's a second reading and final passage, but we will have discussion before we get to that point.

Yes. Okay, very

good.

All right. Contract for Shaw Park Aquatic Center.

Yes. As part of routine maintenance at Shell Park Aquatic Center, expansion joints should be replaced approximately every seven to 10 years to prevent problems such as cracking and settling of the concrete. The expansion joints were last replaced in 2015 and are beginning to show signs of wear. Replacing the expansion joints on the pool deck now will provide protection against water while still allowing the concrete to move as it expands and contracts. To that end, bid documents for the project were issued on January 11th, 2024. The scope of work includes the removal and replacement of expansion joint caulk and installation of backer rod replacement as needed on the pool deck, as well as in the three pools within the Shaw Park Aquatic Center. The city received two responsive bids for the work on February 1st, 2024. Staff recommends awarding the contract to Western specialty contractors. The full project is expected to take approximately two to three weeks and will be completed prior to the opening on May 25th. Funding for the project is included in the city's capital budget for fiscal year 24 and the amount of $132,374. Total cost of the project is $105,235.63. And staff is asking for a 5% contingency of $5,200 on the project. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve the ordinance executing a contract with Western Specialty Contractors and an amount of $105,235.63 plus a $5,200 contingency to replace the expansion joints at Shaw Park Aquatic Center.

Okay, I'll open discussion. Any questions or comments from the audience? I don't see anybody. So we'll just go ahead. Alderman Berkowitz, comments or questions?

I don't have any comments or questions.

I was just going to say it's just such a big separation between the two PIDs, but I was glad that in the staff report it said that we do have familiarity with Western specialty contractors and that we've had a favorable experience with them in the past. I just get a little nervous when there's a big gap.

Agreed. Yes, we've worked with Western before and we've been happy with their work. The other company that bid was out of state also. Got it. Okay. All

right. Great. Thanks.

Uh, all the woman abuse.

Nothing. No comment. No comment. Nothing

Okay. All right. Mr. City attorney or whoops. Alderman Berkowitz.

I'd like to introduce a bill number 7 0 1 1 approving a contract with Western specialty contractors for the expansion joint project at the show park aquatic center to be read for the first time by title only.

Second. Okay, any discussion? All right, now Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7011, first reading, an ordinance approving a contract with Western Specialty Contractors for the expansion joint project at Shaw Park Aquatic Center.

All right, all those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Alden Berkowitz.

I move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7011 on the day of its introduction.

Second. Okay, all those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Let the minutes reflect. The board has given unanimous consent. I'd

like to introduce bill number 7011, approving a contract with Western Specialty Contractors for the European Joint Project at the Shore Park Aquatic Center. It will be read for the second time by title only.

Second. Second.

Any discussion? Okay, Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 70112, second reading and consideration for adoption, an ordinance approving a contract with Western Specialty Contractors for the expansion joint project at Shaw Park Aquatic Center.

All right. Andrea?

Alderman Berkowitz? Aye. Alderman McAndrew? Aye. Alderwoman Buse? Aye. Alderon Patel? Aye. Aldermen Gary Feder?

Alderman Berkowitz? Aye. Alderman McAndrew? Aye. Alderwoman Buse? Aye. Alderon Patel? Aye. Aldermen Fader?

Aye.

Alderen Rick Hummell?

Alderen Hummel?

Aye.

Mayor Harris?

Aye. Okay. Last but not least, the fourth quarter budget amendment.

Yes. We have our director of finance, Karen Dilber here this evening to go over the fourth quarter budget.

Good evening. Um, Because you all have the fourth quarter budget amendment, and I did my best to go through the different items and explain the discrepancy between the original budget and what we ended up with. I'm just going to ask you if you have any questions.

Okay. We'll go around the room. Alderman Berkowitz, any questions for Karen?

I don't, Karen. Thanks.

Yeah, just in terms of, can you just talk a little bit as to the amount, why so much the real estate taxes were so much less?

I can do my best. So when I compared this year to last year, it looks like we received some sort of additional payment. My guess would be a settlement of disputed amounts last year that we didn't receive this year.

Well, do you think we would get more eventually or, I mean- I guess of all the disputed amounts, has everything been resolved, I guess? Like the protests, have they all been?

Well, we wouldn't receive it in fiscal 23. If we were going to receive it, we would receive it in fiscal 24. So I don't really know at this point. I'm assuming that everything that's been disputed as of December of 23, we usually don't see a big cut of that until like May or June. So we won't know how that's resolved until then.

And I think that was, I think that was my big question. I also noticed that there was a huge increase in like parking meter usage. Was it just kind of unexpected? I guess there was just a lot more. And would you say that as we go into the next budget year, you know, because I feel like these numbers show that maybe we were more conservative in our, you know, what we anticipated? Like, would you anticipate, I don't know, would you anticipate being more conservative projecting more growth or projecting bigger increases in certain areas. I mean, I know we got a one-time payment from Spectrum, which obviously we're not going to get, but it just seemed like there were a lot of big increases here, which shows that there's obviously more activity in downtown. And so maybe the numbers will start to plateau a little bit more as compared to

It's possible. As a finance person, I hate to go crazy on the revenues and then have to come back to you and say, sorry, we didn't get the money. So generally speaking, when I look at the different revenues, I go on usually five-year trends. Although I did kind of, you have to take into consideration the COVID years because they were strange. They were an anomaly. And then the post-COVID years kind of, we saw another anomaly in large revenue increases. So I think they're finally starting to stabilize. So, you know, when I do my analysis, I may be a little more aggressive. It's just, you know, just going to have to depend how it looks, you know, through that point.

The other thing we'll monitor too is, so we're booking that overage now for fiscal year 23. But as we went through fiscal year 23 and saw that these things were increasing and put together the fiscal year 24 budget, we took those kind of more immediate trends into consideration. So... If those still hold true when we're through the first couple of quarters and sales tax receipts are coming in, for instance, or parking revenues coming in, that's going to inform what we do in fiscal year 25 as well. So while we're booking a lot of these things that you're seeing here for the entire fiscal year, some of these trends were apparent as we put together the 24 budget. So I don't know that you'll see as much deviation, especially in areas like interest income, where it looks like we were way, way off on interest income, and we were. because we didn't anticipate when we put together fiscal year 23 budget and August of 22 that that would be the case. However, in August of 23, when we were putting together fiscal year 24, we knew, okay, interest is up. So I think we're going to be a lot closer with that number when we do this exercise this time next year.

Thanks.

Okay. Alderman Buse?

The real estate property taxes caught my eye, too, because it seemed to be consistent. And I thought also the disputed amount was down as well. So the assessments and everything else as you budget are steady, and this was just what was actually coming in? Yes.

I ran the calculations based upon our assessed valuation and our property tax rate for fiscal 22. And when we did our projections for fiscal 23, we considered fiscal 22 and increased it a little bit because, like David explained, we're doing it ahead of time. So we don't have our actual assessed valuation. We don't get that number till September when we set the rate. in 22, fiscal 22, we received some sort of large amount. I don't have the ability, aside from going through every single property in the city of Clayton, you know, one by one through St. Louis County's website to try to figure out who paid what and what the assessed valuation is. And I don't receive that information from St. Louis County when I receive the reports. We just receive, this is your blanket assessed valuation. We do the property tax rate, the real estate tax rate based upon that. And then we estimate what we think we're going to receive. And from what I can tell, based upon the preliminary calculation versus what we received, we received some sort of large settlement in there. But I don't have the ability to break it down to tell you who it was.

One other thing I do want to take a look at too, and we can do this and report back, is to take a look and see if we had any misses on the bigger projects. So again, when we put together this budget, it still looked like Forsyth Point might open before January 1st of 23, that Residence Inn may open before January 1 of 23. And then those... projects of course like residents in just made it to i guess it was february or whatever it was and so they won't be assessed for a full year as an open building until this year fiscal year 24. so we'll take a look at a few of those projects and see if some of those delayed openings impacted this at all

that's what i was going to ask yes

And then the only other question I had is with Concordia, with fire and things like that. We have no agreement with Concordia. I just didn't remember.

They're within our city limits, so we do not.

They give us lots of good park space. All right. Thank you.

Okay. I have just kind of, I think, a general question how I'm thinking about this. So we overall had a pretty significant increase in revenue over what we expected and decrease in expenditures. And so what I'm curious about is it appears to me that much of the decrease in expenditures is due to project delays, which tells me that isn't actual savings. It is simply deferred costs, right? There are heads nodding. Yes. Okay. That's all I wanted to be clear about, that much of that money will still be spent, needs to be spent. Yes. So

what you'll see is when we do the first quarter and second quarter budget amendments for fiscal year 24, a lot of these expenses that were decreased here will be increased and those budget amendments going forward.

Thank you. Okay, very good. Gary, anything?

No questions. Thank you.

Rick?

The only major grant that I'm aware of is the central business district grant, but I'm confident that Matt has it under control.

That grant's locked in, and we just had the contract that the board approved. So it didn't make it in fiscal year 23, but it will be here in 24. The biggest risk is just the increase in, like we just saw with the slate roof, is just project costs continue to go up, vehicle costs continue to go so the deferred or delayed capital items in a lot of cases is where you're going to see your increases, but no threat of losing any grant money at this point. Yeah, great. Thank you.

That project has already been bid as well, so those costs are locked in. And some of the projects we did have push into the year, they are wrapping up now, but again, locked-in costs.

Thank you. And Alderman Rick Hummell, one of the questions you asked earlier, and I didn't have the answer when we were on the phone, you had asked about some vehicles in there. A big portion of that was leaf facts, which we weren't able to take delivery of in fiscal year 23. That's about 160,000. We also had some staff vehicles for fire department and also police public works vehicles. It was another 90,000. So we're trying to get those. We're still going to have to buy those, but you know, unfortunately they're, they're delayed with supply chain issues with the manufacturers and Hopefully we can get those things and the cost doesn't go up too much on them. Another big part of the equipment replacement fund was the deferral of the city hall carpet and paint project that will happen in 24. That was about 320,000 in deferred expenditures. Right. Well, thank you.

Thank you. And Alderman Hummel, one of the questions you asked earlier, and I didn't have the answer when we were on the phone, you had asked about some vehicles in there. A big portion of that was leaf facts, which we weren't able to take delivery of in fiscal year 23. That's about 160,000. We also had some staff vehicles for fire department and also police public works vehicles. It was another 90,000. So we're trying to get those. We're still going to have to buy those, but you know, unfortunately they're, they're delayed with supply chain issues with the manufacturers and Hopefully we can get those things and the cost doesn't go up too much on them. Another big part of the equipment replacement fund was the deferral of the city hall carpet and paint project that will happen in 24. That was about 320,000 in deferred expenditures. Right. Well, thank you.

Okay. All right. If there are no further questions. Thank you, Karen, for all that. Alderman Berkowitz.

I'd like to introduce Bill number 7012, approving the fiscal year 2023 fourth quarter budget amendment to be read for the first time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? All right. Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7012 first reading in ordinance amending the fiscal year 2023 budget and appropriating funds pursuant thereto.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Alderman Berkowitz?

Move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7012 on the day of its introduction.

Second. All those in favor. Aye. Any opposed. Okay, let the minutes reflect the board has given unanimous consent.

Let's introduce bill number FY2023, fourth quarter budget amendment to be read for the second time by title only.

Second. Any further discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7012, second reading in consideration for adoption in ordinance amending the fiscal year 2023 budget and appropriating funds pursuant thereto.

Okay, Andrea. Alderman Berkowitz.

Aye.

Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Alderman Buse. Aye. Alderon Patel. Aye. Aldermen Gary Feder.

Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Alderman Buse. Aye. Alderon Patel. Aye. Aldermen Fader.

Aye.

Aldeman Rick Hummell.

Aldeman Hummel.

Aye.

Mayor Harris.

Aye. Okay, guys, that's our business. Mr. City Manager, no further business, correct?

That is

correct. We can go around starting with Alderman Berkowicz for a roundtable.

Thanks, Your Honor. Thank you, Judge. Thank you, Mayor. I'll

answer to anything. And by the

way,

go ahead and move into my chair now.

No, that's okay. I'll sit here. I'm comfortable here. Yes, we had a Parks and Rec Commission meeting last week, and We had some very good news. Um, it was a nice presentation, um, from the staff and apparently at this point I, and I wasn't, I hadn't followed it till now, but, uh, I guess an individual Clark Taylor is the now has been running the, um, tennis center and we received an end of year report on the, uh, tennis center. I don't have the exact numbers. I left them at home, unfortunately. Um, but the report was that we had actually made some, some money on that, uh, that over the years, uh, the tennis center, I know back 10, 20, 10 or 12 years ago, the tennis center had been losing money. Um, you know, there was no way to really make money on the center. Uh, we had repairs that had to be done, maintenance done, and, uh, and we couldn't keep up. And, And then I think I remember we had Frontenac Tennis Center came in and they ran the show. And I think we managed to, at some point, maybe break a little even. But Clark Taylor has been doing an amazing job apparently and has really upped the game over there. And we are now in the black. We're making money certainly on when it comes to our ongoing expenses. The report also indicated we had replaced a surface of one of the courts, and that had an expense to it as well. And I think about a seven-year period of time is the life of those courts. But even figuring that in, my numbers show that we actually still came out in the black on the tennis center And I think Tony gets a good deal of credit for that. Well, it's good. It's a good job. And it was very pleasant news to see that any of our facilities, if they just break even, we're happy. And the report came in also with a tremendous amount of participation of the community where Clark has been able to bring in quite a few people, whether it be lessons, whether it be uh through through some kind of memberships or whatever uh you know where the community is using the tennis center and uh that's a very good thing for for the city so that's a very

I had a CRSWC finance meeting. We actually also have a general CRSWC meeting this Friday. We have those quarterly, so we haven't had one in a while. But the finance meeting, I will just tell you, we were projected to be at the center about $280,000 in the hole, and it's looking like we're going to be closer to $93,000 in the Much, much better. And just a reminder that our contribution outside of taking care of the deficit is $300,000. So $150,000 goes into the operating, $100,000 goes into capital, and then $50,000 goes into The Earth. So both parent organizations contribute that. I also want to say kudos to Tony and Valerie because they put together a great slide show that I'm going to forward to all of you, but it really talks about capacity and what else we can be doing at the center, like how we can continue to improve the budget. So it was really a great presentation. They looked at kind of the maximum users at one time would be 655 So, you know, Valerie really, I think, did her research and looked at like what target membership could be. And 10 times that would be about 6,550. And we have almost 6,000 members. So we're really close to like what maybe a capacity could be. And definitely at 10 times capacity is very reachable. So it was a great presentation that I'll forward to all of you and feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or maybe even better reach out to Tony and Valerie. But it was a really great meeting to kind of understand what else could be done or what else we could be doing at the center. So, but that was great. I also had a plan commission meeting. It was pretty quick. I feel like there were a few additions. Biggest thing of note was there's going to be a sign at the residence in For that bar, it's going to be called the sidebar. So it's a pretty small sign but yeah the bar on the side of the residence and will be called the side bar so I also think it's important to note that David and I and Tony and Valerie had a meeting with Dr. Patel. And Jason Growe just to kind of continue the communication related to the center so that we don't, you know, they're not surprised come, you know, next summer when we're talking about budget for the center. So it was a great meeting and Tony and Valerie talked about again, the slideshow that I'll forward to you. And I, you know, the school district was very receptive and was appreciative of their efforts.

I had a CRSWC finance meeting. We actually also have a general CRSWC meeting this Friday. We have those quarterly, so we haven't had one in a while. But the finance meeting, I will just tell you, we were projected to be at the center about $280,000 in the hole, and it's looking like we're going to be closer to $93,000 in the Much, much better. And just a reminder that our contribution outside of taking care of the deficit is $300,000. So $150,000 goes into the operating, $100,000 goes into capital, and then $50,000 goes into The Earth. So both parent organizations contribute that. I also want to say kudos to Tony and Valerie because they put together a great slide show that I'm going to forward to all of you, but it really talks about capacity and what else we can be doing at the center, like how we can continue to improve the budget. So it was really a great presentation. They looked at kind of the maximum users at one time would be 655 So, you know, Valerie really, I think, did her research and looked at like what target membership could be. And 10 times that would be about 6,550. And we have almost 6,000 members. So we're really close to like what maybe a capacity could be. And definitely at 10 times capacity is very reachable. So it was a great presentation that I'll forward to all of you and feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or maybe even better reach out to Tony and Valerie. But it was a really great meeting to kind of understand what else could be done or what else we could be doing at the center. So, but that was great. I also had a plan commission meeting. It was pretty quick. I feel like there were a few additions. Biggest thing of note was there's going to be a sign at the residence in For that bar, it's going to be called the sidebar. So it's a pretty small sign but yeah the bar on the side of the residence and will be called the side bar so I also think it's important to note that David and I and Tony and Valerie had a meeting with Dr. Patel. And Jason grow just to kind of continue the communication related to the center so that we don't, you know, they're not surprised come, you know, next summer when we're talking about budget for the center. So it was a great meeting and Tony and Valerie talked about again, the slideshow that I'll forward to you. And I, you know, the school district was very receptive and was appreciative of their efforts.

And I think that's it. Good. Well, we'll look forward to seeing that. Sounds exciting. Alderwoman Buse?

Yeah, I'll add just a little bit to Ira's report on the Parks and Rec meeting. It was a good meeting. And the other part about the tennis center is that it's amazing. What's his name

again?

Clark Taylor. His company, they get 75% of the revenue with 25% coming back to the city, yet still we're doing at least as well as we've done in the past, it sounded like. and a lot more usage the other part of that that really impressed me is there was a there's talk about capacity because apparently there's been some you know interest in people using some other universities around here using some of our spaces but he seemed very cognizant of making sure that there was time for our community this wouldn't become just a profit center and I thought that was important the conversation went to pickleball courts quite a bit of interest in where could we put those pickleball courts and could you make it part of the whole tennis center and again He seemed very attuned to what the community might need and how can you charge for something right now people are getting for free, but certainly it's something that the interest is growing so fast. And his company actually teaches pickleball at some of the private schools around here. But how to handle that? And I guess being at the meeting, there's a lot of confidence that we're in good hands in how to proceed down these areas. the uh remembrance park we're still trying to get those i guess lines buried at this point and so there's a little bit of delay but still hopeful for springtime and um the residents we had to look down and where there was an ask eric was asked to break down a little bit more or eric asked to break down more the the resident versus non-resident use of the various facilities and making sure we get whatever balance feels right for the facility And the other one, the other thing that I actually thought about when we were listening to the livable communities plan earlier tonight was the whole idea that we have a lot of things going on, but they don't always have to be. You know the physical. Things like that and a plan, I guess it's justin's plan keeps coming up of a Community orchard or something like that, and some of our spaces in different opportunities. that are really fun to think about and could have a lot of promise to them. And it's just, it's exciting that people are willing to think outside the box on things that could be of great value to us. Then we had an IRF meeting and that was actually, I found it really interesting. That

was such

a surprise. And also, also it felt good because our numbers are all good. You know, we're above benchmarks. The market is good. Yeah. And the projections are solid. And that's about probably all y'all want to hear about that. But it was all a good report, a good scorecard. BCF board social at Judy Goodman's house was quite enjoyable. We had a good turnout. And people seemed to stay well past the time that we were supposed to have gone home. And that's all I've got. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. That's exciting about the, the, uh, the garden. Keep us posted on that. And also the tennis, uh, this arrangement that we have with Clark is an interesting model to consider for any facility, just the idea of partnering with somebody that gives them a little more incentive to, um, to make the, you know, use the full capacity and make it more financially sustainable for the city.

Right, and the fact that he's doing that and very cognizant of keeping it a community asset. I think it's critical in any of those partnerships, but it seems to be very, very successful.

Yeah. Yeah. Great. Okay. Alderwoman Patel.

Thanks. I'll let Rick talk about the non-uniformed employees retirement fund meeting if he feels like there's anything to highlight from that. It was nice to meet new CCF board members at that social. We had an, I don't think we've done anything like that in probably since before COVID. So that was good. And then really the only other thing I'd say is not city business, but I've been involved in and hosted an open house with other local elected officials for the activity around the Missouri's for Constitutional Freedom effort. So if anyone's interested in learning more about that, I'd be happy to share with you and give you the opportunity to sign the petition.

Okay. Alderman Gary Feder.

Okay. Alderman Fader.

So I attended the uniformed pension board meeting, and even though Alderman Rick Hummell wasn't there, he still probably understood it better than I did being there, but... The neat thing I thought about the CCF social, having been involved with it for a long time, is how many new people have come onto the board in recent days and just a whole new crop of people. So that was a great event. The Community Equity Commission, I think, worked on its agenda for the year. So I think there'll be more to say. uh, in, in the next month or two. Um, I did attend a meeting that was sponsored by the Missouri growth association, uh, which does have a full-time lobbyist and it was very interesting fellow spent an hour talking about how dysfunctional the Missouri Senate is, I guess, similar to the house in Washington. Uh, but it's interesting because it's so dysfunctionally predicts almost nothing will get done. Um, uh, And that did include discussion of this effort to eliminate sales tax on groceries, which I know we've made an effort as our city to get involved with. And the fear there always is, even though it may be that nothing will get passed, is that in the last couple of weeks of the session, things tend to get tacked on the bills at the last minute. And so we do have to be very wary of that. And also, I thought it was interesting, we had at the Chamber of Commerce Legislative Committee, we had Lisa Clancy on the county council who represents Clayton, among other parts of her area. And I thought an interesting discussion about the burdens on St. Louis County, particularly its buildings, its government center, and the police headquarters because of this crisis. deadline that's imposed by the international building code and the fact that their buildings lack fire suppression systems and they are really i think as pointed out in the discussion they're really beginning to be under the gun in terms of being able to meet the deadlines and as i think david pointed out at the meeting it's not as if the city would seek to enforce those codes but that in fact They will have a major probably insurance problem trying to occupy those buildings if they are not in compliance with applicable code. And considering how important those buildings are to Clayton, where they sit, how they might use the parking lot across from the police station in order to build a new building, it has some real significant impact on our city. So really something very interesting to watch. And again, also just discussion of the county's revenue problems. in many ways, which I don't think they have a good solution for and they are seriously in the hole. So certainly something to watch. We are the county seat and our relationship in the county is very significant, I think, to our future.

So I attended the uniformed pension board meeting, and even though Alderman Hummel wasn't there, he still probably understood it better than I did being there, but... The neat thing I thought about the CCF social, having been involved with it for a long time, is how many new people have come onto the board in recent days and just a whole new crop of people. So that was a great event. The Community Equity Commission, I think, worked on its agenda for the year. So I think there'll be more to say. uh, in, in the next month or two. Um, I did attend a meeting that was sponsored by the Missouri growth association, uh, which does have a full-time lobbyist and it was very interesting fellow spent an hour talking about how dysfunctional the Missouri Senate is, I guess, similar to the house in Washington. Uh, but it's interesting because it's so dysfunctionally predicts almost nothing will get done. Um, uh, And that did include discussion of this effort to eliminate sales tax on groceries, which I know we've made an effort as our city to get involved with. And the fear there always is, even though it may be that nothing will get passed, is that in the last couple of weeks of the session, things tend to get tacked on the bills at the last minute. And so we do have to be very wary of that. And also, I thought it was interesting, we had at the Chamber of Commerce Legislative Committee, we had Lisa Clancy on the county council who represents Clayton, among other parts of her area. And I thought an interesting discussion about the burdens on St. Louis County, particularly its buildings, its government center, and the police headquarters because of this crisis. deadline that's imposed by the international building code and the fact that their buildings lack fire suppression systems and they are really i think as pointed out in the discussion they're really beginning to be under the gun in terms of being able to meet the deadlines and as i think david pointed out at the meeting it's not as if the city would seek to enforce those codes but that in fact They will have a major probably insurance problem trying to occupy those buildings if they are not in compliance with applicable code. And considering how important those buildings are to Clayton, where they sit, how they might use the parking lot across from the police station in order to build a new building, it has some real significant impact on our city. So really something very interesting to watch. And again, also just discussion of the county's revenue problems. in many ways, which I don't think they have a good solution for and they are seriously in the hole. So certainly something to watch. We are the county seat and our relationship in the county is very significant, I think, to our future.

Well, I think just to add a little piece of info, sorry, on that topic. I know that at the state of the county, which is Sam Page's presentation, I think I mentioned it last time, but he did announce that they will be pursuing the use tax for the whole county, which really helped them in terms of their shortfall. And then in addition to that, the greater we have been trying to get some feedback from them on their facilities planning, which they've been doing for a while now. And what are they planning to do in our city? So we will keep trying and hope that some of that planning coincides with what we're doing in our planning over the next months. Okay, Alderman Rick Hummell.

Well, I think just to add a little piece of info, sorry, on that topic. I know that at the state of the county, which is Sam Page's presentation, I think I mentioned it last time, but he did announce that they will be pursuing the use tax for the whole county, which really helped them in terms of their shortfall. And then in addition to that, the greater we have been trying to get some feedback from them on their facilities planning, which they've been doing for a while now. And what are they planning to do in our city? So we will keep trying and hope that some of that planning coincides with what we're doing in our planning over the next months. Okay, Alderman Hummel.

All right. Okay, very good. Thank you so much. I really have nothing. I will say I am coming back to attend the Chamber Awards dinner on the 22nd. So I will see you there if you're going. And that's all from me. David, anything else from you?

Not tonight.

Okay. Shall we have a motion to adjourn? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Okay. All right. I'll see you guys next time. Great meeting. Thank you.