November 19, 2021 — Meeting Transcript

Alderman Berkowitz. Here. Alderman McAndrew.

Here.

Alderwoman Buse.

Here.

Aldermen Gary Feder.

Aldermen Fader.

Here.

Mayor Harris. Here. City Manager David Gipson.

Mayor Harris. Here. City Manager Gibson.

Here.

Thank you.

Okay, well, let's just jump right in. I think the first thing on here is something we've all been kind of interested in, which is a vaccine testing and vaccine and testing mandate so David you want to talk about it.

Yes, that's exactly what this is. It's a resolution supporting the adoption and implementation of a COVID-19 vaccination and testing policy. So I do want to make it clear out of the gate, this is not an all-out vaccine mandate. There is a testing option. I do intend to adopt a COVID-19 vaccine and testing policy. The RFPA had stated November 19th, which is today. It would actually be Monday, which is November 22nd. So I just wanted to provide that update. The policy would become a section of the City of Clayton personnel policies and procedures. That document is an administrative document, which means that it's developed, approved, and updated by the city manager. The attached resolution would affirm the Board of Aldermen's support and endorsement of the adoption and implementation of the policy. And we do recommend approval of the resolution showing that support. So that's what we're here to discuss today. So as I said, this is a vaccination and testing policy where there is an or there. Employees will be required on January 4th, 2022 to either have current vaccination that includes any boosters that would be CDC recommended at that particular point in time. or submit to weekly testing, and that would be the requirement. So we don't have exemptions or anything like that built into this policy at this point in time. There is one minor change. If you look on page two under testing requirements, there is a provision in there right now that says every four days for fire department personnel, we are going to switch that or actually just strike that all together. It's going to be every seven days for every employee of the city. So as long as they have a If they go with the testing option, as long as they have a negative test every seven days, then they can continue on that cycle. So we want to make it even and the same for all of our employees. So that change will be made here. The other thing that I would mention is obviously we've received quite a few comments about this from staff. Everybody's aware that it's being considered at this point and that it's going to be adopted. A lot of those concerns had to do with the testing itself. We do have time between now and January 4th in order to look at testing a little bit more. I don't know that anything will change, but we will at least take a look to see if there's any way to make it any more convenient without having a big financial or administrative burden on the city side. So the big thing about getting this in place now is it gives those that want to choose the vaccine option that aren't vaccinated at this point in time, enough time to go and get both doses if required for a Pfizer or Moderna shot, get both of those in time for that January 4th, 2022 deadline. So that's where it stands today. This policy is something we've been working on for quite some time. And of course, when you put a policy like this in place, it really does two things. One is to protect our staff and those that come here to do business. But we also think it's important that as an organization, as a local government organization, that we reflect the community in which we serve. And if you look around this community, the major corporations in the city, you know, the commercial entities, the institutions, Washington University, the School District of Clayton, all of them have testing and vaccine mandates. So it is important, I think that we align with that. I know that if you look at our residents, the level of vaccination rate is high. And so when we're doing business with them and interacting on a regular basis, I do think it's important that we reflect that as well and that when we're going into their space, be it for an inspection to work on something, to meet with someone or they're coming in here, that we provide the same level of protection that they're providing their staff. and their workers. So anyhow, that's the policy in a nutshell. I'm happy to answer any questions. Again, I intend to adopt this or approve this on Monday and then roll it out to employees for acknowledgement. And I would certainly like to have the board support and endorsement.

David, what about the booster shot? for, I guess, all adults. I think that should also be included as part of the mandate.

It is a requirement in here. When the CDC recommends a booster and you become eligible for that particular booster that's intended to provide the longevity of that particular vaccine, you are required to do that under this provision. So if anybody that has maybe two doses and needs to get a booster, they have until January 4th, 2022 to get that done.

David, I'm certainly supportive, but I'm just curious. Have you heard indirectly or directly from any staff who have said, hey, if you impose this kind of policy, I'm probably going to have to leave the city's employ?

I've heard that indirectly, not directly to me. I don't know what Number of staff would take that position, but I would imagine and looking at other cities that have implemented this or something similar, they've had some turnover related to it. Those cities that have seen the most turnover are those that have a strict vaccine mandate. The only time you can test is if you have a medical or religious exemption. And our policy doesn't go quite that far. We do allow the choice there. So I don't know that we would see the turnover that some of those other cities have.

Thanks.

And for that matter, if most of the corporations have adopted a similar policy, where are those people going to go?

And as have many cities and more talking about it, you see more and more when you look in the paper, I guess, that at communities that are looking at putting this in place. Richmond Heights has a policy very similar to ours in place. Brentwood has a vaccine mandate. Webster-Groves has a vaccine mandate, Maryland Heights has the same, Frontenac has a policy. We're really seeing this pick up steam now and I would imagine most of these entities in St. Louis County will be there shortly if they aren't already.

I think St. Louis County has one too, similar to this. Yes. I'm, I'm wondering, um, so for those, I mean, I'm guessing, do you want to see the negative test, you know, on Monday morning or you want to see it just anytime or, uh, especially for, uh, you know, like people who do shifts, do you want proof of negative tests like the day they come back on their shift or is there anything? Yes, they're

going to have to provide this to their direct supervisor. Most employees are going to turn these in on Mondays. We are going to have some that are rolling a little bit differently and that's probably going to be something like the fire department where your shifts vary. But that's going to be the bottom line is you can't have a negative test more than seven days old. So that should be fairly easy for us to track. We know our vaccination rate is somewhere north of two thirds. So while this is going to we're going to have quite a few individuals that will be testing, it won't be a huge number that's that's too difficult to manage.

OK, well, I think most of us were saying, hey, it's about time. So you I guess you want to somebody want to make do we need to make a motion or just all nod?

It's a resolution. We'll need a motion and a vote.

Okay. Alderman Lentz, you want to make the motion?

I'll make a move to adopt the resolution for mandatory vaccine or testing policy.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay. There you go. Thanks, David.

Thank you, everyone. Okay, so the second item on the agenda here is a discussion on traffic calming and Matt Malik, our director of public works, I believe is in the attendee list. Here we go. He has his hand up. So June, if you could move him over, Matt will give a presentation on traffic calming and we'll have a discussion about that particular policy. And just so everyone knows, we had a discussion, I guess it was probably two months ago now, where we talked about kind of the parameters for a traffic calming policy. We talked a little bit about what other communities have, and we've certainly looked at how they've implemented it. So today it's more in a policy form, kind of a regulatory form, but Matt is going to walk through what this program would look like for Clayton. And we'll take your questions along the way, really focusing today on the process itself and some of those eligible traffic calming measures. So with that, I'll turn it over to Matt for a presentation.

Thank you, David. I'll share my screen here. Get the document up. No boring PowerPoint to go through today, but a boring wall of text. I'll try to keep it somewhat entertaining. Anyway. The as David mentioned last time we were in front of you discussing this topic, we had just some rough general outline some framework from that we went back.

Matt very quickly i'm sorry to interrupt is there any way you could show this with a single page layout and zoom in just a little bit it might be a little little tough to see on some of our screens

okay. Mark Warren, hopefully that helps

anyone need it zoomed in a little bit more I just want to make sure everybody can follow here

that's good

all right perfect. Mark Warren, All right, sorry man. Mark

Warren, This is the same document is in the agenda. Mark Warren, It is okay. TAB, Mark McIntyre,

So, as we were in front of you last time with the. TAB, The rough framework, we went back had some internal staff meetings. and put this, as David mentioned, more into a policy format. So while things may have changed some order here, I'll briefly go through the process, what a typical project might look like as it steps through this, and just kind of share what we've put together. TAB, Mark McIntyre:" So the purpose over all of this is to know is to establish this process we have something we can follow whenever we get the concerns brought to us regarding speed or volume of traffic in neighborhoods. TAB, Mark MCIntyre:" There are certain criteria where roadways would not apply, you know these need to be primarily residential two lane streets 25 miles per hour less. within a certain traffic volume, which also goes to those classifications. Usually if you've got those higher volumes, you're gonna be an arterial collector, what have you. The speed study when performed would show the 85th percentile speed is greater than five miles per hour above the posted speed limit. And it's not a emergency route, which most of these emergency routes are those arterials or downtown streets. So with that, each circumstance is unique. And so we tried to develop a program that we could step through looking at those, each situation on an independent level. The purpose of this program is to address traffic calming concerns or traffic concerns initiated by the public. The city decided it was going to do some form of traffic calming along with another project. We may still follow some of these same processes just through our normal course of doing business, but this is really meant for fielding resident concerns. So the process has three stages. Typically we see concerns enter on the stage one process if you were to draw a parallel to what we do today. somebody contacts, whether it be public works, police, has a concern about a particular area in their neighborhood. So that would be just the individual resident concern, maybe from one person or from a small group. This mimics closely what we do today with some additions. Increased enforcement of that particular area could take place. We might install our speed trailer signs that the police department have to notify people of the speeds as they go through an area. As many times speeding in a neighborhood is associated with the residents that live in that neighborhood, we would utilize different outreach that we have to just notify people, whether it be a next door or something like that, kind of a public service announcement piece. We'd let that Michael Prast- individual that contacted us know that there is a traffic calming program so that they could refer to these these other stages, and then we would suggest. Michael Prast- That they notify their hoa. Michael Prast– Really, a theme of this is getting the neighborhood on board to make sure we're not going too far down a road with one person as complaint and there's not support of the surrounding area. So hopefully they can get that in front of the HOA, get on an agenda for discussion and come as a group to work with the city. Stage two, some prop programs or excuse me, projects may initiate here but I think we'll typically see them go through in numerical order. But this would be initiated by a group of residents in an area utilizing a form that we've attached to this program so that we can collect the information. And then also a petition form that we've added to this program that they can utilize for the households within the 500-foot radius of the area in question. So we would ask the residents get a petition of at least 51%. of the household within 500 foot and a HOA support letter applicable. When we have that information, we would evaluate the data we've collected. We would ask the police department to look at enhanced enforcements. We'd review the site conditions and concerns with the HOA or the residents and get their feedback. This is where we would come and collect our data, our speed and our volume for the neighborhood that would be used in comparing against the criteria and to inform decisions of what we would potentially install at a future phase. We would look at the crash data. We would share that information back once we've collected it, whether it be in person or memo with the HOA and the residents. And then we would look also at, is this a situation where a temporary measure may be beneficial? Something that's low cost could be put in place for a period of time and see if we're getting a positive reaction. This could be something that is kind of a stepping stone to stage three, or it could also just serve as something that's occasionally installed at different times of year to remind residents to slow down. So it's maybe not as a permanent installation. So with those, we could collect data following the installation of those temporary measures and determine what the next appropriate process might be, appropriate steps, excuse me. Beyond stage two, if the residents, based on the information we provided back, any trials we've done, if they would want to proceed with a permanent installation of some form, we would request a resident petition that involves 67% in support within 1,000 foot or an affected area. At this, probably in stage two when we're talking to the residents, we would inform them about this affected area as each individual location will probably have this unique affected area. It's the homes that would be impacted This may be their primary access route, or it may be a neighboring street where if something was installed at this location, it pushes traffic to that neighboring street. So the impacted area could, in some cases, all fit within that 1,000 foot. In many cases, it may expand beyond that 1,000 feet. Staff would look at that and develop what we believe to be the affected area and share that with the residents so that they knew in collecting their petitions, where the area they should focus on is at. Also, if applicable, an HOA support letter at this phase. With the movement into stage three and the determination of the affected area, Excuse me, I lost my spot there. So we would again meet with the residents and discuss potential traffic calming measures, get a little feedback from them, and utilize the data from stage two. If for some reason we would enter this way out of the gate, a resident started with 67% of the signatures, we would have to collect the TAB, Mark McIntyre:" The speed data at this point, but again I picture these going in numerical order. TAB, Mark MCIntyre:" We consider those appropriate measures we would get the input from the police and fire departments and any other departments that may be impacted by the measures we're considering. TAB, We would do a preliminary design on those measures and a cost estimate and then. HAB-Jacques Juilland, A survey of the measures we would recommend would be conducted of that affected area that was previously defined. HAB-Jacque Juilland, If a 67% vote of that affected area was in favor of a particular traffic calming measure, then we call this a neighborhood preferred project would be developed. HAB-Judy Nogg, And then we would need to identify a source of funding and then that traffic calming measure would be brought to the Board of Aldermen for approval to move on to identifying that source of funding. That kind of the implementation kind of steps through the same things there. It does note that the funding is subject to budget appropriation and available resources, and there may be a waiting list until that happens. The evaluation of any installation that takes place, a permanent installation, we would conduct six to 18 months after its installation in an attempt to hit the same time of year so that when school's in session, you're basically the same weather, you're getting the same conditions to compare the data. And that will show the impact that it's having. And then during this time, we would also review any new accident data. This information is pretty similar. If there's a request to remove this traffic calming installation, it would be at least two years after its installation and it would require ultimately the same vote of 67% of the affected area. At the end, we go through, we've attached here some traffic calming measures that we feel might be appropriate in Clayton. There are some like large roundabouts or full street closures or diverters we didn't include that FHWA does recognize. Generally, I would say that the street closures, we've got a pretty good grid system here in Clayton and it helps distribute the traffic in most locations. So we would want to, I feel we would want to not encourage or go down the road of intersection closures that would push traffic into pinch points rather than allow it to distribute across the network. um so yeah beyond that i've included in the document if you had a chance to look some of the permanent installations uh some descriptions from fhwa and some estimated costs there are also temporary measures as we mentioned in stage two that we could look at um and one location we were looking at rather than moving curbs and installing the hardscape that's got some design and higher construction costs associated, we would look at maybe some planters or some pylons, if nothing else to be a temporary measure, or maybe it is a permanent measure that's just a lower cost option. So the following pages under exhibit A, we've included the things that we've identified as potential steps we may take in stages one through three, which involve this targeted speed limit enforcement, radar trailer and sign placement, and then public service announcements. As we get into the traffic calming measures, they're usually identified by whether it's a horizontal deflection, sending cars left or right to slow them down, or vertical deflections. A lateral shift is just, again, a car having to move left or right. Hopefully most of the time to the right. I know I'm saying left or right, but we don't want them swerving into each other. But right then left to stay on alignment but reduce their speeds. A chicane is just a serious kind of lateral shift. So those are very, very similar. Traffic circles and roundabouts, these They're probably limited in locations that would work in Clayton. We have very limited right of way as is, but these are potential options. We do have a traffic circle, not for this purpose, but we have a larger one on Carondelet Plaza just for point of reference. Vertical deflection speed table is something that's a gradual a gradual ramp up that is designed to meet certain speeds. If you're coming in over those speeds is when you start getting the uncomfortable ride associated with it. These are the installations that the Hillcrest subdivision have installed on the St. Louis City Street portion of their neighborhood. There's two of those installed on Aberdeen and Arundel, in case you're in that area. Street width reduction is another option. Corner bump outs, we've Matt Kallroos- This is similar like the bump outs we've got in the downtown area. Matt Kallrooste, choker is just a way to neck down a certain area to make it feel a little uncomfortable to reduce speeds as vehicles go through median island similarly does the same thing it just utilizes something in the middle of the road. On street parking is one that we utilize already throughout the city. Not sure there's many places actually we could add where we don't already have it. Signals, a rectangular rapid flash beacon is something we have installed on Parkside across from Shaw Park. That's one installation we've got there that seems to be getting positive reviews from the neighborhood. These are usually for higher volume pedestrian locations, typos, excuse me. And then we've also added some things that we've seen in other programs that they've called attention to since the residents may be looking at this. It's just to share the information on items that are not traffic control measures. And I think the formatting of this, we could maybe move out, but into whether it be the document or its own section, but stop signs, the children at play signs, speed limit signs, and rumble strips are items that are not recognized as traffic calming devices. And we've had discussion on these. I'm not going to cover those in detail, but we thought inclusion of those for an education purpose would be

good.

And then, I'm sorry, I didn't scroll far enough, speed bumps as well, which should be Noted those are very different than speed tables. Those are the small bumps you might encounter in parking lots. But those are just not something we would want to install in the city. And then beyond that is just a form that, again, this formatting may change a little bit. This has probably got the least amount of work over the last week put into it. But it's just a way to normalize these. um give the residents uh they're submitting form of something to follow and go up in the city getting a similar um with that i hope that in too much time i can answer for uh trying to answer questions you might have or really interested in the feedback if there's something we need to look at this is noted a draft um and be interested in feedback you have

Man, I just had a question. You know, my street has always been interested because people speed down our street, which I know everybody in Clayton feels like that on their street. But, you know, we really run up to University City. So that 1,000 or 500 foot square, like foot requirement, would that, would you then question people like in your city, like on the other side of Jackson, or would it stay within Clayton? I was just curious. Yeah.

Good point. I hadn't got that. And I know there's

probably, I mean, I know there's other communities that come up against the city of St. Louis, but it just might be something to consider whether or not we would reach out to our adjacent cities or just maybe from an informational perspective.

Yeah, I think at the least contacting the city to make them aware of it. I think that we would initially thought thinking is not having vote in it, but making them aware of it and see if there's any substantial concerns that we could share whenever this is brought back to the board. So that could be considered.

Right, yeah, I think that's a good idea.

Yeah, I agree. Good point though.

Matt, looking at this, it's great and thank you very much. I'm wondering though, in the purpose, you explained very well that this is, that the city will go on and do its overall planning anyway and this is when there is a specific neighborhood concern and I wonder if you want to make that more clear in the purpose so that as this carries forward and people look at it, they understand exactly its limited purpose.

Yeah, I could probably take this from down here and put it up there. So that I thought about that as I was reading it. Yeah, since those people that maybe just skimmed that first paragraph out of the gate, I was thinking that as well. Good point.

Well, so that begs the question, where does the residential area stop? Because we now have residences in our downtown. And I'm thinking just as an example, you know, I've seen a lot of people speeding down Maryland when I'm having dinner at almonds or something and Maryland walk is right there on Maryland. You know, we may end up with, I mean, if we go further down, you've got the Barton. How, how would would a community like that, would they be able to initiate a process to look at, for example, some kind of traffic calming, which we don't need now in Maryland. That's probably a bad example, but there's the 212 over there on that side of downtown. There are gonna be other, I'm sure there'll be other residential that'll come in. You know, when the Bemis and Place comes in, that's a whole bunch more residents. How would the downtown residential areas be affected or be able to utilize something like this? Or would they?

So most of our downtown streets, whether it be Maryland, Merrimack, Bonham, fall into this category of being a collector or an arterial of some form or identified as a primary emergency route. Um, so normally if I would want to check the entire map, but as a general statement, I think the, the downtown area, even though you might have a street with a couple of residential units, that's not primarily residential and due to these restrictions, it wouldn't qualify for traffic calming. It'd be, I had to phrase it into a statement. I would think, uh, lower heights residential areas, not the high rise areas. But really it'll be driven by the type of route it's on. A lot of those routes see more than 2000 vehicles per day. So as you get into more vehicles per day and you're introduced to traffic calming, you start looking at having impacts on the ability of of vehicles and the impacts it'll have beyond just that one area, how it could compound out into another area. Similarly like when we looked at traffic impact studies and the queue lengths.

Okay. Any other questions guys or comments?

I've got a few. All right. So I'm looking at this thing about the resident petition that you have it that is 500 feet, but I can't seem to visualize or conceptualize what 500 feet is. Is 500 feet from where? Because if you're talking about, I mean, your traffic calming remedies don't have a specific pinpoint. And so if you're looking at an intersection, I can see maybe you could figure out a way of figuring out, well, where's 500 feet worth? But your criteria doesn't seem to really define the 500 feet from where. You know what

I'm saying? Right. And that's going to partially, we can further define that. It's going to partially depend on what the concern is. So if, for instance, from here, I've just drawn a line on Davis and Merrimack. This would show roughly a 500-foot area of a circle if it was just something at the intersection. Right, if it was just the intersection, that's...

So I think we have to probably define a little bit, because the speeding is not necessarily at the intersection. The speeding that we're concerned about would be over maybe a two or three block area of the street, right?

Well, and I think if you see... The 500 foot I've drawn to the south here, that covers one block to the south and one block to the north in this case, so it might capture it. If we're getting concerns of a couple points, what I would envision we would do is we would go from that point, like from Daytona-Merrimack, 500 foot south, and if it was from Davis and Merrimack, 500 feet north, and then capture the area in between. But it's hard to, I think, Until we know the concern that we're seeing, it may be hard to write a policy that captures everything out of the gate. It may have to get input from staff, work with the resident to figure this out. And I imagine this being our first attempt at this, I'm sure we'll probably have to modify this policy as we learn things along the way too.

suggestion or a question or just add to it if we never have a particular point in our session.

David,

you're

sounding like Darth Vader.

You've been attacked by a frog. Give it an unmute change.

No, still Darth Vader.

More like the Godfather.

Or yeah, something like that.

Okay,

I'm at Andrea's desk really quick here. TAB, Mark McIntyre, yeah Okay, so what I was going to suggest is if it's not a particular point or an intersection that could could we then default over to an affected area. TAB, Mark MCIntyre, and determine it at that point.

TAB, Ryan Schuchard, Oh, we could we could. TAB, Yeah, I just would want to be, I guess, and ultimately that's what's going to matter is that affected area potentially so that's probably a good direction to move in. so long as the resident, I guess, just trying to be conscientious of they weren't thinking we were just expanding the area to try to get no votes or something like that. You know what I mean? Right,

right. You've got different criteria for different petition percentages and all that, and all that gets complicated and then challenged. And it's like, you know, we probably should be a little more specific.

Yeah, it's a tough thing to... be real specific with and capture all instances, because the idea would be to eliminate that potential of, oh, you're just saying that because it's this area. I'd want to avoid that, but I find a challenge with maybe capturing something that fits all situations. But I think something where we look at the entire scope and within 500 foot of what they identify as the scope or moving to that affected area is... somewhere in between there is probably the best reasonable place to land.

Okay, I'm going to go restart my computer, see if that helps.

Okay, any other questions on this or comments? I think you've done a really great job, Matt. I think it's a really good process.

I had a question. I know I came in late on the whole discussion with Audubon because when I joined the board, it had already been going on for a while, but where does that kind of leave that specific request? I know we were trying to come up with a broader policy instead of dealing with things ad hoc, but I'm wondering where does that leave those folks and their request while this is going on?

I would have to go back and look at the petition they've submitted and see. I honestly did not even look to see the addresses of how far they stretch coming into this meeting. I would need to compare that, see if they meet the 500 foot, then they would enter in stage two there. I think we've already got a lot of discussion going on. So we've collected the data and those things. So it's either entering a stage two or three, probably really defining that area and then moving on from that point, from that defined area to meet the petition criteria and then looking at develop options. That's what I would kind of picture. But again, I need to check that petition and kind of map those out.

So I know David is still getting on his computer probably, but maybe Andrea or Matt, you may know, do we need an ordinance then to establish this process or can it just be a

process? I'm not sure if we need an ordinance, but I think the intention today was to provide our first draft of this program. before we would bring it to a Tuesday meeting. At that Tuesday meeting, I'm not sure if it would just be a resolution or not. I would defer to David or Andrea on that.

And the other thing is, I think at some point in this process, I know we have a couple, we probably have a couple of the neighbors from Audubon listening, but we would wanna get some public input from various neighborhoods just to, see what they think. I mean, that neighborhood, but also maybe Bridget, you've said you've had other requests and maybe we can make sure some people are aware and can give us some comment when we do consider it at a Tuesday meeting.

I just have something pondering, really. The 85% with the five miles over the speed limit, and this does not address the streets that have become cut-through streets. And I imagine all of us have experienced at certain times of day, most of the traffic is fine, and then you get those cars that speed right through. And that's why I think it's important to remember that this policy is addressing a specific issue. It's not precluding other issues because there's a lot of danger with cut-through traffic because it tends to be when people are in a hurry to get home or to work. And it might not fall within those criteria.

Yeah, and when you look at traffic calming measures, there's generally the speed measures, the address speed as well as volume. But In whichever measure you're really selecting, they do have the ability to basically affect both. If you're affecting speeds, you will sometimes be affecting the volume to some degree as well as people will take alternative routes. What we would want to avoid is you affect it to the certain degree like a speed bump could affect it to a certain degree that people are just never going to drive down that street and they always take alternate routes and that pushes the problem out of block. to another street. Just trying to find a balance.

Just to kind of add on to that, is 85% something that you've noticed that's been the hurdle in other cities? Because I'm just wondering.

Five miles per hour beyond that seems to be a common theme on when it's looked at.

Yeah, but what you're saying is 85% of the cars that travel are going at least five miles per hour beyond those posted speed limit. And what I'm wondering is, is 85% too high of a threshold? I mean, that would be almost all the cars. What if it was like, if it's like half the cars going through, it's still not a good situation. I just wondered where you came up with the 85%. Yeah, the 85th

percentile is... Just a, it's kind of what we've seen with a lot of other policies. I think we've covered before how 85th percentile is used to establish a safe people speed that people feel safe traveling on a roadway. When you see 85th percentile speeds at two miles per hour over, what we were wanting to do is, you know, you don't want to, I see what you're saying.

No, I get it. I think I was misunderstanding this so that, um, Five miles per hour, the excess speed has to be in the 85th percentile. It's not the number of cars, it's the speed. Is that correct?

Well, it's 85th percentile speed. If somebody says an 85th percentile on a roadway is 22 miles per hour, that means 85% of cars are going that speed or slower.

Okay, 85% is cars. I was right the first time. So I guess I just questioned whether that's too high. So

it means 15% of cars would be going five miles per hour or more of the speed limit.

Oh, okay. Nevermind. That's kind of tough for the remedial to understand. I guess it is. So you're only saying that the criteria is that only 15% of the cars are exceeding the extra five miles per hour.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll reword that. I see what you're saying now. Um, I thought it

meant the opposite.

Yeah. 85th response. I'll see. Yeah. I get, I get that now that I'm seeing the way that's written. I will revise that. That's

good. All right. Hey, do we need any further discussion on this? David, while you were gone, we wondered whether we would need to have a resolution at some point or whether we would need an ordinance or how we would, what would the process for putting this in place as well as of course, we would have more public discussion with the public about it first.

I've seen this done both ways. I think it's typically done as a resolution though, as just a policy that's put in place It's a lot to codify, and I can see a program like this kind of changing over time. And each time you would do that, you would need to modify the ordinance. So being that there's nothing here to really regulate, you're more providing guidance through a process. I think a resolution as a policy document would probably be more appropriate here.

Okay, and when would we expect? I don't think there have been too many suggested changes today. So when do we expect to be looking at this, do you think? On a regular meeting.

We could get it together in the next couple of meetings here. Potentially as soon as December 14th, which is the next regular meeting. If not, it would be that first meeting in January.

Okay. Mayor, I think we may have people who are listening in.

Yeah, I think we do.

Is it your intention to listen to any of them or have them speak at all?

Well, I'm happy to do that. I'm looking here and I don't see some of the usual people that are interested, but is anybody... Does anybody want to, no hands have been up throughout this entire thing, but does anybody in the audience want to ask any questions or make any comments?

What I can do is I did let the neighborhood know that this conversation was going to happen. When I say the neighborhood, I'm talking about the residents on Audubon that had requested a stop sign. They've been tracking this conversation as it moves along, but I'm going to, and I already provided the YouTube channel link that this will be uploaded to. I'll go ahead and reinforce that with them again. If I receive any comments or feedback from the neighborhood, I will certainly pass that along to the board prior to the next meeting.

I think that's good. Yeah, I don't think there's anybody from that neighborhood in our audience. So okay. All right. So on to the next topic.

Okay. We'll take just a second here. I had to restart everything. Oh. Although the Darth Vader voice might have made the fund balance discussion a little more interesting, or at least the presentation itself. Let's see here. Okay, so I'm going to share here. I do have a PowerPoint and this was included in the packet, so some of you might have taken a look already at this information. So I'm just going to jump right in. We started this conversation At the retreat, we talked a little bit about fund balance there and there were questions as to what's the appropriate level, what do other cities do? What's the fund balance? What's the significance of that number? How is that derived? So we're going to talk about some of those things today and show where we're at, where we're headed, and answer some of those questions that have been brought up. So I guess the first thing where you need to start, though, is just the definition itself. your fund balance in the end is the difference between your assets and liabilities. So if you look at that comprehensive annual financial report, you'll see those terms over and over and over again. But when you look at that balance, that balance that's remaining after the assets are used to satisfy the liabilities, that is your fund balance. So this is the leftover money, so to speak, that sits in that account. And then of course, that amount carries over from one fiscal year to the next, hopefully your assets are higher than your liabilities and that amount grows year over year. And we'll kind of show how that has trended for the city of Clayton here in the past. So we do have a fund balance policy in place, and our reserves is another way to put it. People call it reserves in some organizations. The technical term and the accounting term for it is fund balance. But our policy is that we have at least 25% of our projected annual expenditures in our general fund fund balance. And then we have a goal, a stated goal or target, which is 33% of the annual expenditures. So that is the policy that's in place right now. That's not an ordinance. That's something that was passed by resolution by a past board. It really hasn't been taken up in some time as far as I'm aware. And you'll see in a little while that that number is fairly typical and in line with GFOA standards, but When we're talking about this, I want to make clear that we're talking about the unassigned fund balance. And I'll talk about that in just a minute or at least show what that unassigned fund balances for the city. The unassigned fund balanced is the amount remaining in a single fund, in this case the general fund, at the end of the fiscal year less commitments and restrictions and I'll show you what those look like. So how are these reserves used? We use those when expenditures exceed revenues on an annual basis. We're using them this year. So we're anticipating a deficit of about $750,000. Our expenditures are going to be higher than the revenues we think we'll take in. So we're going to draw from that fund balance or from those reserves in order to balance that amount because we have to prepare a balanced budget. So that's how the reserves are currently being used. We're trying to maintain an adequate level of financial resources to guard against disruption. So the pandemic's a perfect example. The shortfall that we're seeing, while we were trending towards having a shortfall, we certainly got it sooner because of the pandemic and we're having to reach into that into that pot, so to speak. So that's what it's there for is to help with times like this. Allows for cash flow because we do have seasonality. We do have big bills that come up certain times of the year. So you want to make sure you have enough cash in the bank to cover any big payments that may come up while you're waiting for revenue to come in. Just like property tax comes in at one point during the year. And so you're going to get a bunch of money at one time and you may need to float portions of the year with some of that money in your fund balance. and then allows time to evaluate and plan substantial changes, and that's exactly where we are today as we're projecting out in the future. It's really buying us time to make those decisions as far as revenue generation and deficit reduction so that we can balance going forward. The GFOA minimum standard, that's the Government Finance Officers Association, So when we look at accounting standards for local governments, we get an annual award every year for our annual financial report for basically our audit results, the popular annual financial report, those types of things. GFOA is really the guiding body there and this is their standard. Their recommendation for unrestricted which is similar to unassigned per GFOA is equal to two months of expenditures. So for Clayton, two months of expenditures is about $4.7 million and the unassigned fund balance at the end of fiscal year 20 was 17.1 million. So that 4.7 million represents 27.8% of the last reported unassigned fund balanced. So again, our standard, our minimum is 25%. If we just looked at the end of 2020 and look at where our expenditures are, you know, that's 27.8%. So our standard is just a little bit below where the GFOA minimum standard would be for that period of time. So looking at unassigned fund balance, again, this is where I was talking about you have some items that aren't counted towards your fund balance because they're basically assigned to other expenses. In this case, you can see here our total fund balance and we'll talk about total fund balance in a minute and show where that's at. is $18.8 million. This is the amount of money that's sitting there in that account. However, there's about 1.7 million that's already spoken for. And this was at the end of fiscal year 20. So this was in our last annual financial report. There's $1.4 million in prepaid items. So we actually fund a pension one year in advance. So that money is set aside for pension payments. So that money we can't touch for any other purpose. it's been assigned for a particular expenditure. And then down below, we've got the same or non-spendable is what they call it, but you see the other assigned amounts down here. There's $103,000. Those are legal expenses. So that's money we're gonna have to spend. It doesn't count towards our fund balance when we're talking about an unassigned fund balance and 141,000 in public works. And that's for the trash contracts. So that's one of the payments that kind of holds over from one fiscal year to the next. So while the total fund balance is 18.8, the unassigned is 17.1. This is the number that matters when we're talking about our fund balance policy because this money is going to be spent. It's already spoken for, so it doesn't count towards that total. Any questions about unassigned versus your total? Okay, not seeing any. Here's that trend and we've shown this I think over and over again as far as the fund balance and how things have trended over time starting back in 13. You can see where we were at 69% and here's where the city did some deficit reduction. We've had some fluctuations here and in certain times they were because of big annual payments we might've had for whatever particular reason. But what I really want to show here is going forward, we're on this downward trend now. And when you carry this across and you look at this graph, this orange line are expenditures. And you can see those are moving away from the unassigned fund balance. And that's because we're using the fund balance in order to pay for that difference between our expenditures and where our revenues are actually at. So these lines are becoming further and further apart as we move forward, which means we're just going to accelerate the spin down that we're seeing in our fund balance. At the end of 21... estimate that that unassigned fund balance will be at 63%. So our audit and our comprehensive annual financial report, those will basically verify where this number is at. So that number I showed you on this last page here, this was at the end of fiscal year 2020. So you always have payments at the end of the fiscal year, you have different things, you have some dust that has to settle with our accrual based accounting. And so once we get that number back, we estimate it's going to be about 63%. At the end of the current fiscal year that just started fiscal year 22, we anticipate that when the year is done, we're going to be down around 57% for our unassigned fund balance. And then when you see the projections, I want to make very clear here, we're looking at the total fund balance. So this is the unassigned fund balance plus those other amounts that we have to account for, those prepaid pension items. trash and sometimes things like legal expenses might carry over from one year to the next. So these numbers are going to look higher. And typically the difference between our total fund balance and our unassigned fund balance is somewhere between five and 7%. So like I said at the end of 2021, we anticipate that the unassigned numbers somewhere around 63%. And if you go out into the future, that extra 5% to 7% really doesn't make a whole lot of difference about when we hit the floor because we know that's coming right here at the end of fiscal year 2024 is where we're going to get to the point where we're going fall below our target of 33%. And beyond that, we're going to below that minimum amount of 25% without some adjustments to either revenue generation or figuring out how to reduce expenditures. And then I know the question was asked at the retreat, where are we relative to other cities? And so you can see some of our neighbors on this particular chart here. We have four cities with a 25% minimum, three here that are in Mid-County and then Baldwin. Creek Court has a 33% minimum, which is our target amount. There's some other cities that run higher balances Definitely the highest by far is Olivet has a 75% target. And then you can see over here on this far end, the last full year of each of these cities, you can see what their actual fund balance amount was. The average is 69%. We're at 63%, just a hair below. But you can see we're really kind of in the ballpark here with everybody else. I wouldn't say that our policy, the way it is right now at 25 as a minimum and 33% as a target is in any way unusual or different than what you would see. I would also say that at that last rating call that we had our AAA rating was was reaffirmed. We have another ratings call for our next refunding here at the end of December, we anticipate the same thing will happen because this 63% amount, along with the, you know, our reputation for being able to pay to pay our debt, to pay our bills on time, to pay our bonds back. And also our ability to manage these situations continues to keep us at that AAA level. As long as we're above, I think this targeted amount, we're not gonna have any trouble keeping that rating the way it is. So even though we've shown them the projections, they're aware that going forward, this is our situation. But they know that we have the financial management in place and having the retreat, having discussions like this. They know that we are all well aware of the Board of Aldermen is well aware of this particular situation. And we got the fund balance to again allow us to have those conversations and make some adjustments so As I look at this, I don't see anything that's, again, really unusual or would stand out. So I will open this up and just see, you know, is there any other information that the board would want to see on this particular topic? Is there anything that concerns you? And in the end, is there any thought about having a conversation about adjusting that fund balance policy? So with that, I'll open it up, and I'm happy to go to any slide that you may want to see in more detail.

Questions, comments, guys?

I've got a few. So I see this thing about you've got the minimum and then you've got the goal or the target. And it seems to me when you're looking at a minimum percent, and you're looking at 25% minimum. So does that mean that, I mean, so what happens if we go below 25? I mean, if we go below our minimum, Does that mean that now we're in a panic state that we've got to do something real fast? I'm trying to figure out how to work

this. That's why most cities run a target amount. This is when you basically pull the ripcord on your chute, so to speak, if you want an analogy there. If you get to this point, you know you've got to take some kind of drastic measure very quickly to avoid hitting this. Right. Once you hit below this and where this really comes into play more than ratings calls, more than anything else, is that fluctuation in cash flow. Now you're in a situation where the amount in the bank is small. And if you've got some large payment that comes up and you can't wait on revenue, all of a sudden you're going to find yourself in a bad spot. The alarm bells really go off when you hit this number here and you've still got time to make adjustments to stop you from hitting this floor.

So

that's why it was structured the way it is. And that's why, you know, we keep showing these projections because we're trying to sound a little bit of an alarm here that, hey, our projections are showing that this number is going to come where the drastic measures hit. So you really want to do something between this 63 and this 33, you know, so you don't have to hit that panic button because those are the things you're really going to feel.

Okay, that's what I was wondering. Baldwin says the target price is the same as the minimum. No, I don't know why they said

that, but that's how

they have it. That would

seem to

not make much sense.

It's a little late at that point, yeah.

Right, exactly. All right, so if we're getting down to 33%, that's when we have to decide we got to make some serious changes. But if we're headed in that direction, we already know we're headed in as we tried to do last year, then we need to go ahead and do something I wonder if the target price should be maybe a little higher to give us a little more leeway between that and our

minimum. We could, I will say. If we hit this number, this is where we'll go into a mode here where we're going to start recommending some major changes. So we can move that number higher, but just know that if that happens, we view that target amount as our floor from an administrative standpoint. And if we move that up to 45 and we hit 45 two years from now, you're going to see us recommend things in the budget that are going to be significant. Just bear that in mind with it. You can buy yourself a little bit more time by keeping this number a little bit tighter to the minimum.

But you say that. But it's a

philosophical thing, so we can move it wherever. Go ahead.

Well, you say that. Yet it seems that the pace of decline that's projected is pretty fast. So the other part of it is that we should be acting so that we don't hit the target, because otherwise it is pulling the ripcord or whatever it's called, because we're already in a crisis place by the time we get to our target.

That's exactly right. These next two years for us are crucial. This is where we really have to figure it out.

Right. I mean, I'm seeing like 10% and even 12% reductions on an annual basis. So if you're hitting a 33% and you're looking to avoid getting to 25%, you don't have a

whole lot of time there, David. No, we really don't. So that's certainly why we looked at Prop A and we looked at that extra revenue source. And we're going to have to talk in 20, especially for the 23 and 24 budget. And those are the discussions we're going to be having the remainder of this year is, we're going to have to do something pretty major in here. When you look at our expenditures, I've talked about this before, 77% is personnel. The rest is really contract services and the bulk of the contract services are the trash contracts. So we're going to look at service levels and different things, but something big is going to have to happen here from either a service level standpoint, or we're going to That's really just the situation in a nutshell. It's really that simple, although the solutions are, those are major, so.

I think it bears pointing out on your graphs, especially the one on the left, that although our dollar amount of the fund balance keeps growing pretty dramatically, you know, it takes growth in that to maintain the percentage, I guess is what I'm trying to say. So even though, you know, we're sitting there with 17 million in fiscal 20, we're at a lower percent of a fund balance than we were back in fiscal 13 with 15 million. So it's kind of an exponential acceleration of the problem. And you know, we have such an uncertain sales tax income stream with the impact of the pandemic. We don't really know what's going to come down the pike this, you know, next year or the year after. So we just, and having lived through the recession back in 28, 9, 10 years, this graph doesn't show that, but our reserves before that happened were close to a hundred percent and look where they ended up. And so I think that was, you know, essentially many millions of dollars that went out the door just to get us through that recession. We could have another recession following this pandemic. I've been reading about it actually. So I'm, I think to, I just wanna underscore David's comments that we need to do something. We need to do something fairly soon. And we are hamstrung by our contracts in a way. Nothing in government happens very fast, unfortunately. So we have to make some decisions early so that we can meet our target, whatever that target happens to be. I just wanted to kind of underscore that because we're not going to wait until 2024 to do something significant. We're going to have to do it before that, at least make the decision. So, yeah, I'm okay with leaving things kind of the way they are. I think we're always shooting for a higher fund balance. At one point, I considered maybe 40% would be kind of a threshold that actually I wouldn't really feel comfortable going below it personally. But, you know, I think you have the what's on the paper and then you have what you, what your operating practice is. And I think we can see from that chart of other cities, everybody's got an operating practice that's way higher than their target. So I don't know. I don't know what message that sends to the public when you have a target like that. And you're, you know, saying we, we've got problems, but yet we're way above our target. Um, And I don't know, maybe we should think about raising the target a little bit.

Yeah, I don't. I'm sorry. That's my concern too. If we're transparency, if truly what's triggering us to want to act is higher than that percentage, that 33%, then just to be clear, anyone looking at this so they understand what we're doing, maybe it should be higher. Yeah.

Well, and I think it's deciding who we're trying to speak to. Like, I'm not concerned that David and the rest of the staff is really concerned about. And I think the rest of us know that we have to make some pretty drastic decisions in the you know but i mean just like you said susan what is the target for are we trying to speak more to the public or is this because i'm again i don't clearly staff is very aware of our problems and david is but you know is this target something we want more as a message to the public saying you know once we get below this target it's it's really problematic because then we can't even pay you know make sure our pension you know our pension money is you know covered for the next couple years so You know, I just I'm not sure whether the target is something that's more of a public perception versus something again that's, you know, something it's not like staff is all of a sudden going to say okay we're at 38% now we got to figure it out. I mean, we're obviously David and everybody else is very well aware of that already. So,

Without being too arbitrary, it seems to me, for example, tweaking it to 35% might at least suggest the basis for pulling the ripcord a little sooner rather than later. And there's certainly reason to have concerns on the revenue side. the pandemic, expenses going up, can't discount the fact that the property tax request was turned down. So I think something that accelerates perhaps the timing a bit of taking some action, I realize this may seem somewhat arbitrary, but I think tweaking it somewhat upward to let's say 35% would not be unreasonable for a target.

Right. I think my concern would be that we call it a target. I

mean,

it's almost like we're looking to – that's what we look to have. That's what we want to get to. You know, that's a comfortable place. And I don't see that as that 33 is not a comfortable place if we end up there, because especially if it's by virtue of a trend that we got there, that would be worrisome to me. Because like the mayor said, government, we don't work fast. It's not like we can go out and find revenue right away and say, okay, well, we'll take care of that in the next six months. So when we call it target, I get very concerned that the public is, as you guys have all talked about, the public is important. It's important for the public to understand what these things are. And I think we need to identify them properly. I consider 33 to be somewhat of a warning number for the city rather than a target number. so that's that's my that's how i see it so and i'm with gary i think if we we can adjust it up i think not you know in some way or another i think it would make sense

rich do you have any thoughts

well i think there's um there's we're really in a uh a little bit of a um quandary here I think we're all in agreement that if we were to get down to 33, we'd be getting pretty nervous. And yet we want to raise it so that we're transparent with our constituents. My fear is that if we raise it and then say we need to do something, they're all going to say, well, you raised it because you didn't get your tax. So now you're just making it more of more critical to get the tax that you want to pass. So I can see that being one of the arguments if we were to go ahead and raise the target and then go back and say, well, we need to do something. I'm not sure that's a reason not to, but it's a difficult, just like all of this finance stuff, it's very difficult to communicate the real the nuances of it um to the general public and i mean we're sitting here ourselves trying to grapple with the target versus the minimum versus what's the actual what's the right level um and it's going to be hard to get that across uh So I guess I'm saying I don't have an answer. I mean, I agree with you, Michelle, that I would feel more comfortable at 40 percent and that we should be working towards that. I just don't know that we can go out to the public and say we need to do a tax increase because we want to get our target. We want to get it to 40 percent or at least stay at 40 percent. I think that's going to be a hard sell.

Right. And I hear that totally. I'm thinking of this more in terms of our decision-making about significant changes. So I think the case to be made for increased revenue, we're going to have to make that based on just our trend lines and our costs. But I think... I would like to have, the more I think about it, the more I want to bring it up because I would like to a threshold that when we approach it, we say, okay, we need to act and something that kind of protects us from waiting too long. so that we make the changes. Changes that are that significant are going to be really tough for us to decide to make because it's going to be, people won't like it. And so I think having something that's a little bit more of a warning bell earlier is better given our ability to move quickly. I don't know. I'm kind of getting now myself talked up to 40%. I'm sorry. I would just say as background, I don't remember who was around and who wasn't, but once upon a time, a board of a different composition also talked about 40%, just to say. We're not crazy for considering it.

I'm in on 40%. I just think that's where we have to take real notice, I mean, for sure. And I think that's a reasonable period. I mean, the pair has got 40 to 60, Olivet 75. I mean, there are other cities that are looking at something very similar and I think that's worth taking note of.

Again, I think in practice, When you look at the actuals, nobody's hovering around 33%. Nobody, even Baldwin. So I think probably if push came to shove and we had to ask everybody what are they comfortable with, it wouldn't be 33%. It

wouldn't actually be 40% either.

Maybe not. Well, we could do 50%. Do I hear 50%?

I think if we're looking at a target, maybe we need another column that talks about red light alarm level. The target's more like 50%. The alarm level is 40%. or something like that. I don't

know. I like that. Well, that's what, I mean, that's what I was thinking. Cause I feel like the minimum, you know, that's what we almost should be raising because we're all so uncomfortable with that minimum, which I, you know, I understand why the minimum is set, but I think we would all love to see the minimum be higher because I want the alarm bells to go off before, you know, we hit that target. I mean, I think the alarm bells all went out for us last summer when David showed us those projections, which is why we put Prop A on the ballot. But, um, Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I agree with Rich. I think the public perception isn't great. But, you know, I think realistically, I mean, I'm happy to have the target be raised to 40% if everybody else wants to.

What we're doing is we're adjusting these numbers closer to what reality is. You have this 2533, and it doesn't really mean anything to us because we know it doesn't really support what we need. So we should start moving it closer to what really operationally matters to us.

I just want to remind everybody too, these numbers here again are 5% to 7% higher than the unassigned number. So if you go to 40, that line ends up getting drawn here. The trash contract, just so you all know, John Pimentel, You know, when we go to look at waste services again that expires on September 30 2023 so that falls right on the last day of this particular fiscal year, the day before this one starts so. John Pimentel , yeah you go to 40 you it's it's really decision time hard line right here but.

Right. And I appreciate the fact that we are looking at this sort of in a very micro level. But I think we need to look at this in the macro, which is, you know, boards, not just ours, but the next generation of boards. I mean, I think we want to set a policy that's good for, you know, maybe the next 25 years kind of thing and say, you know, this is where we believe is the appropriate place to go. and you know almost not in rich i you know in deference to your point uh i think we need to look at this in in terms of a real policy that makes sense rather than a policy that we're afraid of what it might look like to anybody because of some particular year so i think we need well

also i do like the idea of kind of labeling a bit different we have the Red light, yellow light, green light. I mean, I think when we say we've got a target, in other words, let's say for argument's sake, we all feel comfortable at 50%. And then if we get to 40%, that's the trigger for doing some significant changes. If we get to 30% or 25%, you know, we're going to jump out of the plane without a parachute at all. I mean, we just, you know, it would be terrible. So we'll start having volunteers run the city. So I think a thing to keep in mind is if we say we're comfortable at 50%, then to be transparent and to be true to that, we need to then manage our reserves unless money is just coming through the door at a rapid rate to that level and have the rest of that money used for public purposes. This is why sometimes people have said to me, I want a tax refund. That was back when it was 100%. Like, I want a tax refund because you're not spending this money for my benefit. So give it back. So, yeah. So I think that's just something to keep in mind. So that if we say, I think we should have A target is really the target. That's the ideal, that's where we wanna be. And the target shouldn't be as much as possible. It should be a reasonable amount. And so therefore everything below that gets increasingly uncomfortable. But what that also means is if we have 80% reserves, we're gonna try to find purposes for the public good to use that money for. Okay, does that make sense?

Yeah, I mean, Mayor, I think that's a really good point. Because I think when we talk about this in terms of our policy, you know, like I said before, you know, our staff already knows we're an emergency, you know, so changing, like fluctuating this number doesn't really affect how staff and the rest of us are approaching this issue. But, you know, changing the number from a, you know, again, like, and I, you know, kind of what Rich said, it's not changing the policy out of fear, but it's like we already know there's an issue. So changing the number doesn't really change it as much for us. But if we just saw the mayor said in talking about it in terms of if we get, you know, having some sort of policy where we have like an excessive amount of reserves using that money for the public and finding public ways to spend it, I think is, you know, I think that's I think that's at least a better way to talk about this to the public.

What we're really talking about then is a minimum percentage, which is your floor, really an action percentage, right? That's the percentage you would hit when you would take action to prevent to get into this point and then setting some kind of operating goal and putting a number there.

Absolutely. I think that's a good way

to put it. Is that the mindset?

Yeah.

So a minimum, an action, and an operating goal?

Yeah.

I think that was good.

But is this a language used by everybody around us?

No, I'm making that up. Oh, okay. So this is minimum. This is either called target or goal percentage and then actual. And I think in our policy, we actually call this our goal percentage. But target or goal is what you always see here. It's always everybody's goal percentage, but everybody runs higher than their goal. Their goal is really, again, mostly utilized like that ripcord. That's your action percentage.

I like those terms in terms of, I mean, because, you know, I don't think other cities care what we call it, but I think our public can better understand, you know, what drives our decision-making if we do talk about it that way. And I think it would help us not to get confused, talk about it that ways ourselves. I seem to remember a conversation with one of our financial advisors I can't remember when this was, but I think just out of the blue, since they were with us anyway, I asked them, what is a threshold reserve level where you go beyond that and you start affecting your rating? I know our rating is impacted by our reputation and our financial acumen and our staff and all that good stuff. But it's also impacted by our reserve level. And I thought that the person said 40%. Does anyone remember that? David, do you remember that conversation at all?

Not necessarily.

Maybe I made it up.

No, I remember the conversation. I don't remember the number, but I remember the conversation, and I think you

asked that question during our last refunding of Todd, and I just don't have an answer for you because I don't remember exactly what he said as far as a number, but

I think what he said was that there were a lot of factors that go into it, and it's hard to pick one to say that that one factor one number will make um that much of a difference so

yeah i know he did say that too okay cya there um okay well i like what david has proposed

um let me ask this then if if we're going to go into a three-tiered system we would bring a policy back to the board it would be adopted by resolution um is is TAB, Mark McIntyre, or where did you want to set those numbers, I mean we got the minimum at 25 where would you want to set the action and then the operating goal.

TAB, 40 and 50. TAB,

Mark MCIntyre, I

think

we both said.

We did. TAB,

Is that the general consensus. Yes.

Sounds

reasonable. I'll ask the question really quick. Kayla, our assistant finance director right now, interim finance director, Kayla Pakinowski. Kayla, do you have any concerns or anything to add to this conversation before we wrap this one up?

I'm not sure if she's on there a second ago.

We boarded a team. Her

phone is muted.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Okay she's called in on a phone number two.

PB, Harmon Zuckerberg,

Yes, can you move that phone number over that 8443. PB, Lupita D Montoya,

it's

moved over either. PB, Lupina

D Montoya, star six Can you hear me. PB, HarmonZuckerman,

Yes, yes, yes sorry Kayla to put you on the spot, I just wanted to make sure you didn't have any questions or concerns about where this is where we're headed with it.

PB, Lupia D Montoya, No um I had one thought while you were talking that maybe we could do something like. call the target a minimum target. Maybe we're not always trying to hit that 50%, but whatever we're trying to hit, maybe. I don't know. That was just one thought. But one other thing is if we are amending the policy, the GFOA best practice talks about some of the things you were talking about early on about if you do get to those lower numbers. And it talks about if you do dip into your reserves that the policy really needs to have a solid plan to replenish it. So I can share that language with you or the thoughts that are in the best practice and then make sure that we incorporate that into any amended policy.

Excellent. Great. Great. Thank you, Kayla. So I will work on that with Kayla and I'll also work with Karen Dilber as well, our incoming finance director. She'll start on November 29th. So the three of us will sit down and talk through this, come up with the terminology. We'll use the 25, 40, and 50 and put together a nice reserve policy for the board to consider either in December or in January. Any other questions or thoughts on that? Sounds good. Great. Thank you all very much. Thank you, Kayla. Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right, there's one more item on the agenda here, Mayor, and that is a discussion on the wall and the chambers. So this would be the area where we remove the portrait of Ralph Clayton and a little bit of a discussion about what to put there in its place. We just got an update again from our vendor on the AV equipment. It's been on back order forever. It's pushed back at least another month. So I'm not sure that we're going to get it this calendar year. We are now scouring... the used market looking for components to see if that's a possibility. But I just wanted to let you know, timeline-wise, it looks like we won't be back into that room until 2022. So we've got a little bit of time to figure something out if we want something in that spot when we get back to the chambers in person. But I'll open it up for discussion. And Mayor, I know you've been giving it some thoughts, so I'll turn it over.

Well, I'm open to anything. um, I, ideas that have been floated by people are a, our logo, a giant logo, also our mission statement. Uh, also another idea was, uh, using a piece of art from that year's art fair, maybe not changing it every year, but using art from the art fair. Um, And one person, Sarah Umloff, who I have a lot of respect for would prefer to have nothing there. So she thinks it should be left blank. So I don't know why, by the way, it didn't get that far. So I'd be interested in what everyone else has envisioned there.

I would, I mean, I guess when I envisioned it, I think simple is probably better behind you. So I would suggest probably what Sarah said, nothing, or I think the seal or our emblem, you know, I mean, simple is better. I think changing out in our piece might be a lot every year. While I really respect our mission statement, I'm just not sure we want to put words behind you. So, um, I think, something simple or you know again nothing or just our simple seal i

would i'd agree i think the logo seal whatever we call it it's not controversial and uh you could keep it up there for a while

right it's not controversial yeah um do we have a we have a logo obviously do we have a seal Like, you know, that thing you stamp on

things? We do have a seal, but it's going to be a very generic seal that the city clerk uses to affix to documents when they're signed. So it's nothing that's going to be indicative of the city the way a logo would.

Okay.

Here's my thought. I agree that simple is best. And when you said logo, I had this picture of this bright green and white picture hanging there and i thought that's not very simple even though it's just our logo what if we could do find somebody artist whatever to do um The outline of our logo, the skylight, the sky whatever. So it's just the outline. And maybe, I mean, I'm even thinking about a brass, just a brass line that outlines it on the wall and the wall itself, you still get the wood paneling behind it. I thought that would be really cool.

I like that. I've been thinking about that too, actually. I will want to remind everyone that there is no wood behind there. It's like wallpaper and it could be wood though. It could be wood. I think that would look nice.

Can we advocate that we take the wallpaper down? I'm sure it can. No, I mean, that was, but I think that's kind of what I thought. Like in my head, I was imagining it would be our logo, but in the color of what a seal would be so like bronze. So that's kind of.

Yeah, I think that would be cool. Any other thoughts?

Put it on the CCF list. Right. The only thing I thought of was maybe a landscape of the city.

Like a photograph or a...

Photograph of the landscape of the city. I mean, it's just an idea and I'm not saying anything. Yeah,

the cityscape.

The cityscape.

Yeah, that's kind of what our logo is in a way, stylized version of it, but...

A little outdated, but yeah.

The hard part about that one, and there's no bad idea right now, but the hard part about it that I see is we've got two different cityscapes. We've got the tall buildings, Manhattan... And then we've got, you know, the picturesque historic neighborhoods view. And they don't all, it's hard to get them all in one shot. But that is what our logo does. But I mean, yeah. Susan, were you going to say anything? Did I interrupt you? No? Okay.

No, something simple. I'd like something besides the blank wall. But you're a non-controversial something. Rich's vision is beautiful.

Rich, could you give that a little more thought for us, please? And get back to us.

How about a blues banner? Go blues.

Well, there you go. There you go.

That could be changed out. Oh, depending on the season. I like the logo idea and Andrea is probably laughing in her office because she was going down the road of just doing a logo somehow. And I kind of interrupted her and said, you know, wait, let's have the board, you know, talk about it, make sure this is something they like. And I kind of figured it might end up here, but anyway, I think it's good. We will have to do a lot of research probably to find the person to do that brass or, you know, brass looking logo. But I think that's the right thing.

Well, if any of you ever get up to New Jeffery Yorg, there's a Calder exhibit at the moment That is just unbelievable. His wire sculptures,

Well, if any of you ever get up to New York, there's a Calder exhibit at the moment That is just unbelievable. His wire sculptures,

I don't

know if you've ever seen those. They are just incredible. Anyway, that's a complete tangent. But it made me think of it just bending wire or whatever to get there.

Well, now you're taking me back to the art fair. We can get the guy who does those amazing marbles. The marble's always coming down and going up.

Now that would be distracting. That'd be distracting. Well, I think Mr. Calder is cast on, but we can look for other artists that can do something good. So, okay. Well, I I think it would be neat, David, if we could put wood paneling back there. We have some wood paneling in the chambers already, but it would really look nice on wood. I don't know how much that costs.

Not sure. We'll look into all this. We obviously don't have anything budgeted for any of it. But we'll take a look at what we have to possibly spend on this and then price out our options there.

Okay.

But I agree. We probably need to do something if we're going to do an outline on that wall. because it's just the same color as the rest of the wallpaper in the room. We'd probably want that to stand out a little bit. So we'll start taking a look at it.

Okay, yeah. And it's not like we have a big rush. We're not even in the chambers right now. And when we go back, it's not like it has to be done. It could be done at the beginning of next fiscal year for all it matters. I mean, it'd be fine. um although is there is there a mark where the portrait was yeah there is i bet there's a giant hole in the wall right but we can fix that up quickly yeah we do have that really nice painting of george washington in our conference room

Was that sarcasm? Was that for real?

No, it was a little bit sarcastic.

We have to go back into his historical past as well. Not

that

I

have

strong feelings about this.

We don't have time to do that. All right. I was just kind of joking around. I knew we wouldn't really want to do that. Okay. Is that the last business from you, David?

Yes, it is. That's the last item on the agenda here.

Okay, if everybody doesn't mind, I just have a few things I wanted to update you all on. I normally don't have that much to update at these sessions and then I'm happy to actually go around and see if anybody else has anything they wanna share with us all but I do have a few items. So first of all, I just wanna give you a brief update on the ice rink or the commons fundraising effort So I am working directly with Sarah Mellinger from CCF. the big group is not really, they're not really focused on this yet because what Sarah and I are doing at, at the really following some advice from one of our bigger donor possible donors is we're kind of going to kind of socialize this concept with some mid tier donors. So I'm going to give the example of Carrollton bank, you know, a mid tier donor that we're going to go see, we've got a list of about 10 or 12 and we will just, be going to talk about the city's financial status and what is the project itself? And do they think there's support in the community to fund it, to help fund it, especially from their peers, people they know. And we won't be asking We're just talking about it, explaining it, and just going to see what the reaction is. And that is information, depending on the outcome, that we can take to a much bigger funder to reassure that there is a community interest at that level. I mean, I think we know, or at least I've been, people have told me there's grassroots interest, but that's not going to amount to much money. So then we've got to kind of diversify the ask here eventually. So we want to see if that has legs. So that's what's going on. As far as our bigger funders, we're just kind of holding off on that a little bit until we get a little bit more information. I mean, not a long time. I'm talking about a couple of months or so, whatever it takes us to get this done. Any questions about that? Comments? Okay. Eventually, by the way, they will all get turned over to CCF. I'm just doing the very upfront work and maybe some of the meetings with the bigger players, and then they'll take over like they should. So next topic, the Centene Garage Art Walls. Did have a meeting with the art consultant with Centene. The outcome of that meeting was not good. Mr. Neidorf did not like what was proposed and furthermore expressed concern his really lack of interest, to put it mildly, in doing anything at all on those walls. So as much as I thought we were on a good track, we are not. And I don't really have a move here at this point. Later, individually, if you have ideas later about how we might move forward with that, I just don't have an option that I see It's one of those things that we would love to see. There's no real... David, correct me if I'm wrong. You researched this and I've kind of forgotten. There's no language anywhere that says they must do it. In the original presentations on the west facing wall, they did show art, but I don't remember seeing any language that specifies it or what it would be. I think they would have loved to do originally that, extend that wind curtain. But for reasons that I really don't know, they've decided that that's not feasible. So also I think they feel that those walls will get covered up in the not that distant future in a few years. So they're just not, they don't feel it's a good investment to spend a lot of money on it now just to have it covered up. And I do get that. So that for all intents and purposes in my mind is a dead issue right now.

Mayor, can I just ask, was Tobias Raphael just not at all aware of Mr. Nidor's concerns in that area? Because he said multiple times on the record that we are doing this and that it'll be in from what I gather this fall or at the end of the summer. Right.

Yep. Yep. Yes, that is right. And that is what he would say if you ask him. He was totally taken off guard.

Why do we call it a dead

issue? I don't know where to go with it. I don't have a next step. That's all. I've done my best.

Yeah, no, I believe that mayor. I just didn't know. So they have no, I mean, do they think the Eastern wall will get covered up as well? Yeah. Okay. I mean,

yeah. And I hope that's true. Honestly, I hope that's

Yeah, I hope so too. I just, you know, I mean, I just, it's frustrating to me that we, I mean, you especially, I mean, we spent a lot of time and I don't know how many times Tobias said like at our meetings, yep, we're moving forward. This'll be great. Yep. We're excited. We're excited, blah, blah, blah. So I just, I find that, I mean, then maybe Mr. Neidorf should come to our meetings because I'm not sure I can then appreciate and believe what Tobias is saying when he talks to us. So I just find that really frustrating. Mayor,

can I ask, because again, maybe I've missed this, but what does that mean that they're going to be covered up? What does that mean?

Development will happen.

His development or somebody's development?

To be determined.

I'm not sure why you would have any optimism about that. There's absolutely no movement on that on either of the walls. He doesn't own anything next to the west-facing wall. So I'm not sure why we would feel somehow, well, accepting of that proposition. It doesn't make

any sense. I mean, if I had another...

I'm not

looking at you. I would do it, but I just don't see one. And I do think our prime spots in downtown Clayton are getting... developed over time here and there doesn't there's no slow down in the proposals that keep coming so I'm just um I feel certain that spot will eventually get developed I don't know when well at

least he didn't put a fence up around that grassy area so maybe there's a better possibility than the one across the street so because there's not a big fence around that one

Well, you know what I mean? Oh,

wait, what area are you talking about, Bridget? I'm talking about the west-facing wall is the one that overhangs Lola and Penelope's. Right. No, and I'm

sorry. I was talking about the eastern wall. Oh, that's right. Right. Whereas the area across the street has a big fence. This one does not. So I don't.

Right. And the eastern wall would have been the Performing Arts Center that he's made no movements towards building. And if you're saying there's going to be development or it's anticipated there might be development covering that up in the near future, well, then that means either he's planning on the PAC or he's planning on selling the land. And I don't see either one of those things happening in the near future. So... Well,

I don't have that crystal ball, Ira. I don't know what.

It's a matter of looking at what's on the table and there's nothing there. And so it's zero. So, you know, I'm just saying, I don't time soon well

okay i don't know um that's really kind of an aside to the conversation in a way um i just think that there's there's no willingness there right now to do anything and i don't have any um way of of forcing that i don't i don't know how to how to how to go forward from here So that's that. You can think about it. If you think of other thoughts, please communicate them to me. I'm totally open to throw myself on many swords. I've already done so, but that's not an active project right now. So, also, I went to a Municipal League board meeting yesterday and we had some really interesting updates and I wanted to share a few tidbits with you. There's, there's a lot of a huge uptick in car thefts, and I don't mean stealing the car. I mean, stealing stuff out of cars that was reported by the county. And they're like noticing that, you know, in their unincorporated areas, which they watch, but I'm sure this is true everywhere. Catalytic converters, for sure, a big item. And what they've noted and what they're reporting is that there are groups that go around through neighborhoods and they fan out in a group and they try door handles and they do whatever, get what they can. They're using these emergency punch mechanisms that... If you like, if you drive your car into a river and you've got to get out, you use this. And apparently it doesn't make much noise. And so it's become a favorite tool of people who are breaking into cars. They are proposing two new ordinances. They haven't met on these yet, but they're proposed. One is to make it a misdemeanor to go around and pull door handles. And according to their current way they're approaching it, if you pull one door handle, you can be stopped for that and ticketed. The city of St. Louis has this in place apparently, but you've got to pull at least, I'm chuckling, but I shouldn't. Got to pull at least three door handles in order to get stopped down there. Um, also they want to go after the scrap yards that are processing these, uh, converters and they want to make it a misdemeanor to process those. And so that that's happening or they're going to be discussing that. I thought it was interesting, uh, stuff. Those, those ordinances won't affect us. They just will affect the unincorporated areas. So I don't know if we ever want to consider something in that realm, but, but it's, it's an idea. Those are ideas that they've had. Um, We were visited by the Realtors Organization. What is the organization's name, David? It's the Missouri Association of Realtors or the- Just the association. I know they're the

Realtors Association. I think they're at St. Louis, but anyhow.

Anyway, David and I met with them. They've met with other cities. And then we had a big discussion about this at this board meeting yesterday. And what they're proposing is putting a charter amendment to a vote. of the county voters that would shift all inspections to the county from the municipalities. David, do you have the document that you could send everybody later still?

I'll see if I can find it here.

They did

leave a document with me. The thing I'd point out about it that's pretty unusual, they haven't come to talk to the city manager's group yet. I'm sure we're probably pretty far down on the list because we'll have a lot of questions and concerns. The one thing about it is they say it'll be easier for the cities. They won't have to have as many inspectors on staff and that sort of thing. But they're only talking about taking over the commercial inspections at the county. So you would still have residential to do. It still doesn't address property maintenance codes, and it doesn't address the fire codes whatsoever. You know, it's really, I would say, a loosely formed you know, initiative at this point. So they are trying to get support for it. However, there are more, certainly more questions than answers. And I think they're still pretty early, although they have a really aggressive timeline to try to get this on the ballot next year and passed. And so I don't know how much concern was expressed at that Municipal League meeting, but we're certainly tracking this. We'll see how it develops, but it is an effort that's out there. And at this point, looks like it would be potentially detrimental to municipalities in its current form, certainly.

There was no support for it at our meeting. Everybody is riled up about it. And so, because as David said, it would take away some of our control of some of this stuff, but mainly it would take away our revenue where we get it on the commercial side and leave us with the cost of all these sort of small little inspections on the residential side. And that would not be good. It had They said they wanted to streamline it for developers and builders, et cetera. But when you look at their charts and numbers, which maybe you'll see if we can find a document for you, all the cities are already using the same codes with the exception of I think 13 cities. So everybody's already lined up with the county and each other on inspections, on electrical plumbing, et cetera. they don't really gain anything it had a really better togetherish feel and everybody said that in the meeting yesterday so just fyi i don't know why they're really doing it but we'll see um let's see the there's some information that has come out on um the infrastructure um The infrastructure, federal infrastructure bill, and I don't, I can't really go over it that well right now, but it's going to, I think a lot of the money will go to MoDOT, according to what I heard. And we do have a chart, which I'll get the electronic version to show you of where that, how that money is going to be divided up among different uses. And that's all that's known so far, but it's something that the Muni League is watching really closely. And so we'll get updates from them and I'm sure the city managers are watching it really closely too. So the last, oh, and the other thing is another thing is I did have a meeting with the County about the monument in front of the County police station that is inaccurate and needs to be the story there about the settling of a The county needs to be rewritten to be more accurate. And so they're gonna get back to me with what their next steps might be. There's something to do with the Missouri State Historical Society and it's on that plaque. So they're gonna have to research that too, but I offered our help. And so I think it'll move slowly, but I think something will be happening. Last two things are fun. um you may have seen um social media posts from me and if you've gotten your friday connections you might have seen that the turkey trot the clayton turkey trot is on it was off for a year or two because of covid um and so a bunch of residents have gotten together and decided to reinstitute it it's very fun 8 30 a.m thanksgiving morning meet at the old starbucks and uh trot down wide down to Skinker and back, and families, dogs, everybody is welcome. I'm going to go. We have a couple of notables. Jeff Hockman and Amy Marks Kors are going to be there. And Akar, bless their hearts, are going to serve free coffee to everybody. It'll be Bernie himself from Akar doing it. So if you do show up, be sure to thank him profusely. Because he's just doing this out of the goodness of his heart. Starbucks always provided coffee for purchase, but now there's nothing there. So he's doing it, which is great. Mayor,

are they closing Y-Down to do that?

No, they won't. But our police are totally on top of this. Well, our chief knew about it before I did. I

just want to... When they ran the marathon down Y-Down a few years ago and they closed it, there was some... upset. So I just wanted to make sure we were communicating with people. Yeah,

no, it's my information from Chief is that they are not going to need to close it, but they will be monitoring it closely.

Correct. We'll have travel lanes

open. The other thing that is fun is I wondered if you all would like to reinstitute our holiday party. We used to have one. It was staff, you know, at the director level and us and spouses and It's been in various locations. I think the last one I attended was at Craig's house, but it need not be there. We've had them others a lot of in fact over the years it's mostly been somewhere else at a restaurant or something so I don't know I've asked David to if he would mind if we did it. I think he's okay with it. Or, David speak now if you're not. um and so i wanted to get you clear we

didn't talk about my house for it so

no no not your house i don't think your house is a good spot for it your house is wonderful but that that just isn't there are better places

i'm in i'm i'm in favor of it that's really why i ran for the board of aldermen

um okay rich you you were talking but i didn't you were muted or something You're still muted, oh.

I was saying that we should just have it at Harold's house. he's probably, he's probably going to be in Florida. We'll just go to his house.

Oh, there you go. There you go. Well, we, you know, like Avenue has that great little side room or we can find a good place for it. I'm not worried about that. We can have it at my house, but my house isn't conducive to it so much. But if you guys are in favor of doing it, I didn't want to, we can do it like after the Friday session in December or something, we do it right after that, or we can pick a different time. I didn't want and have you guys go well i don't think that's too much fun so i'm just not going to be there

it's only a question of whether our time of austerity should play a role that's all so otherwise are you

talking about the cost of doing it right

right

we can make it a cash bar

Gary, is

that okay with you? Cash bar? Gary volunteered

to buy. I would

eliminate any premium brands. Keep it down there.

Does anybody not want to do this? Because otherwise we'll ask June to help us schedule it.

I think it's fine. I miss it. I think it was something that I always look forward to. The only ones I remember were at Craig's house, in fact. I don't know that I remember him being anywhere else.

Yeah, we've had them different places.

Probably, yeah. But I just don't know. They're nice and warm. It's a holiday season thing, and it's great to get together with everybody. So I would love to do it. I think it's something we should do. And I

was thinking, we have so many new directors, or we will, and we have so many elected officials. It might be good.

I think it'd be good for us. It'd be fun. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. And I, I mean, I am not, but I'd be happy to discuss mayor if we can't find a room or if the cost or two, I, we, we can have it at my house too. So I don't mind. I mean, it's not like I have, but I don't, you know, I don't, I don't want, you know, if the Avenue rooms booked or we can't find anything for that night, the 17th, like I, you know, we can have a discussion and I can convince Chris to, you know, yeah.

Yeah. Okay, cool. Now that I

volunteer as well, as long as my wife's on board.

Okay. All right, guys. Well, I think that's all my update. So and it's right at five o'clock. Imagine that. Okay, I think we're done. But since we had to take roll, we'll have to have a motion to adjourn.

Move to adjourn. Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

No.

Okay.

Great.

TGIF.

Well, thank you. Happy Thanksgiving. Have a good weekend.

Bye. Happy Thanksgiving.

Yeah.

Okay. Bye.