July 12, 2022 — Meeting Transcript

All right, I'll just do a repeat of that. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to our July 12th Board of Aldermen meeting. I see we have Ira on a Zoom. Hi, Ira.

Hi,

everyone. So without any other delays, we'll just get started and our city clerk will call the roll.

Alderman Lentz. Here. Alderman Berkowitz.

Here.

Alderwoman McAndrew. Here. Aldermwoman Buse. Alderman Patel. Here. Alderman Gary Feder. Here. Mayor Harris. Here. City Manager David Gipson. Here. City Attorney O'Keefe.

Alderwoman McAndrew. Here. Aldermwoman Buse. Alderman Patel. Here. Alderman Fader. Here. Mayor Harris. Here. City Manager Gibson. Here. City Attorney O'Keefe.

All right, and with that, let's try to get our June 28 minutes approved. If we can have a motion for that.

I will move to approve the minutes from June 28th.

Second.

Okay, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, terrific. Now's the time in our meeting when we do public requests and petitions. So if there's anyone in our audience or listening online that has a question or comment that is not gonna be covered on our agenda tonight, now's your opportunity to speak up. I'm looking at the online list. I don't see any hands. Okay, so we'll move on. So the first thing on our agenda is a fun thing. It is an award. We know that, I think all of you here know that we have a Mayor's Youth Advisory Council and for several years now, well, it was a brainchild of Linda Goldstein, a former mayor, and it's been continued ever since. It's been a great program. I've done it for the past three years and every year has been really fun. And I've always been really impressed by the work and the interests of the students and just what they can accomplish. This year, we had a record number of students sign up, 22 students, I think. And I'm not sure what we'll do next year, but that might be about the max that we can deal with. But anyway, and so their project this year was to create, to design and raise the money for and put together two free little libraries. And those little libraries will be installed, if they're not already, I'm not sure, one in front of City Hall and one in Taylor Park. So- We're very excited about those. And I will, and tonight we have a sort of a delayed award to present. We did a big ceremony a few weeks ago, but we were not able to give out the mayor's award, which we do every year. And this tonight, we have the mayor's award ready to give. And so one of our recipients is not here. No, I'm not on a microphone. So I don't know if they'll be able to hear me. Okay i'm on now. One of the recipients is not here lily client hands and she did a great job, she must be on vacation or something like that and that's true of so many people tonight so. But yeah, she did a great job helping to recruit and contact donors and help keep us organized. But the other recipient is here. And I'd like him to come up right now. Larry Kwan. Oh, you're not here yet. You guys with your mask on. I thought maybe that was him. So this is where it is in our agenda. So I'm just going to say he's supposed to be here. And we will save this for him when he arrives, but he did a great job too. And I have to say, even though he's not here to hear it, he did a great last year as well. He was a repeat. That would be great. And do you want to take Lily's on her behalf as well? All right. I have a box up here for her too. Thank you, Kate, as a great advisor and Jenny as a great parent advisor. And thanks to all you kids who did come tonight and who participated all along. Just really love working with you and I'm looking forward to next year's group. So, all right. Have a good rest of your summer.

I guess when Larry shows up we'll.

Okay, thank you everybody. The next thing on our agenda is to begin the report from the city manager.

Thank you, Mayor. And the first item on there is the mayor's commemorative landscape task force

report.

And

so then it's back to me.

We'll bring up the presentation.

Okay, very good. I mentioned that A lot of people are on vacation right now, and this is no exception. So all of my amazing task force members are not available to come tonight, but they'll get another chance because as you know, we always review this twice. So I'm going to do my best to take you through this presentation. I think some of this you've heard before, so I won't go into great detail on it, but the first slide would be to just It reviews our guiding principles. And if you remember when we started this task force in the very beginning, the group worked really hard to benchmark and then research and create these guiding principles, which we are aligning things with our community's aspirations. We are trying to honestly and productively engage history. We're not erasing history. We're adding to what we know. And in so many cases, we're adding to what has been commemorated. And we're considering both the past and the present in terms of what we're looking at and the recommendations that are made. The evaluation criteria, really the important one here, I think always is what is the principal legacy of the namesake? And so you've seen in the press, I know so many examples of different people that have been commemorated or events and things have been, statues have been taken down. And we had a very good, I don't know if you've been to the History Museum lately, but they did a very nice job of recontextualizing Thomas Jefferson. They have a giant Thomas Jefferson statue in the middle of their rotunda. And I don't know how they would, I don't what they would do with that. And so they did a really nice job of portraying Thomas Jefferson in his full light to say his principal legacy was, of course, helping to found our country. But there were a lot of other things about him that needed to come to the light of day. What's the context around it in terms of the time? Is this a part of history that we think is fundamental to who we are in Clayton? And how do we think about that? Does the name or the commemorative object make make the history accessible to the public and provide an opportunity to educate the public. And this is one of the great things that we hope to do as time goes by with this task force, because we're really just getting started. We have, as you know, done some work around the Ralph Clayton's portrait. And at the beginning of the school year, I believe that will be on display in the center with a much more robust history about his life And I think that's a great opportunity to educate our public. And so we'll be doing more and more every time we actually install a commemoration, that'll be a great opportunity for education. And so, yeah, so that's that. So to move on to this particular recommendation, this recommendation is really about the African-American history of Clayton and in particular, the black community that once existed in Clayton and was thriving. Between the 1880s and 1960s, Clayton was home to a substantial and thriving black community. And eventually with development and all kinds, you know, the other trends that we are all sort of aware of, this community was gradually dispersed. It was really... sort of the, what do I want to call it? The core of it was right around where at Bonham and Hanley and then expanded from there. But it really was about 250 people. And that's a sizable group. It had all kinds of people living there, homeowners, renters, various types of employment and careers, laborers, educators, city workers, two of the very first churches in Clayton were established by this community. And so it really was a real thriving part of the community and I think somewhat more integrated than we would find ourselves today. Okay. Now I may have covered some of this. Let's see the summary and this is summary number two. Yeah, so it was established in an integrated old Clayton and it grew there because housing discrimination and restrictive covenants prohibited residents elsewhere and was uprooted with other residents of that area by urban renewal projects really in the 50s. And so as Clayton grew, these residents were displaced by a combination of residential restrictions and rising housing costs. And today, old Clayton is the downtown business district and its African-American community has largely been forgotten. And so we would like to bring that back for everyone to learn about. And as we've all talked many times, Clayton, you know, we seek to become more welcoming, to be recognized as welcoming. And We want to be inclusive, and this is why we've done so many things, not only this, but in terms of our Community Equity Commission. We've changed our mission statement. We've examined our own internal policies and are looking at everything from affordable housing to other types of programs that we can use to educate our community. So I think this will be a real, I think, value add, for lack of a better term, to that effort as we recognize this Black history of Clayton. And so the group, I have to say, this task force and I, I'm always impressed with these members. We have, again, Gwen Moore from the History Museum and she has done so much work in terms of neighborhoods in St. Louis. She's working on the, oh gosh, milling. Donna, what is the neighborhood that Gwen is working on right now? It's called- Mill Creek, thank you. She's working on that and she's done so much in terms of Black history in St. Louis in terms of exhibits at the museum. And then, of course, we have Jeff Ward, who unfortunately could not be here to present tonight. He was the guy that was going to do it. But he is a professor of African American history and sociology at WashU, is very active in in all of these kinds of efforts and certainly a huge contributor to our group. We also have a representative from the history section of Clayton Community Foundation, a person who's an art consultant, Meredith McKinley. We have a member from our CEC which is And so we just have a wonderful, wonderful group. On this particular project, we had a resident expert that has retired from Clayton School District, Donna Rogers Beard, who's here with us tonight, who really did the lion's share of the research on this and has been working on this for, I don't know how many years, many years. And I think this is a great way to bring all her work together and bring it to be commemorated and recognized by the community. So there's a rich, rich and robust list at the end of this document of all the research and sources that have been looked at to go into this recommendation. So the group has recommended a multidimensional phased approach. So one would be the installation of a marker in some key places, maybe one marker, maybe more than one marker. I think we, as you know, the group is recommending things to us, but in the end, when and if we finally approve this recommendation, it will be up to us as to how we do commemorate it. And so they're just making suggestions. Um, and then the creation of virtual or physical tours, which would be great. And I think honestly, you know, thinking ahead, Donna, you would be awesome to, um, to sort of help us create those tours. Uh, and, uh, then maybe some public art or more interpretive content, um, that really explains, the history in our, you know, all around Clayton, in our library, in our center of Clayton, in the park, maybe even at a location where we have a marker. So that is their recommendation there. They would also like to recommend that the history on the website be amended to include this. As it currently stands, there's no mention of it on our website. And I think that would be You know, that would be great because it'd be a resource for everyone. And it could be, it would have to be sort of a dynamic thing because I think we'll continually keep adding to the information here. I will say that the Clayton Community Foundation History Society does have this information posted on their website. So that is a good thing. So at this time we would just, I think the group is seeking approval of moving to implement this commemoration. And again, once it's approved, it will be up to us to work it into our schedule and our budget and exactly how we see that being manifested. I'll remind us of the approval process that we're going through here for all of these recommendations, the task force identifies an opportunity. They present, they research it and work on it and get it to sort of a point and they present it to some interested stakeholders and people who can help us with it, which would be the community, the History Society of the Community Foundation and also the Community Equity Commission. And then, and those are all public meetings. And again, an opportunity for the public to give input. And then if it's an art related item, we go to the PAC, Public Art Advisory Commission, which we did with Ralph Clayton's portrait, and we will compile, the group compiles all of the input, makes any changes they feel like they should, and then it comes to this body. So, This is our first hearing of it. And again, this is here for you to mull over, think over, read, and of course ask questions tonight if you would like. Hope I can answer them. And then when we meet again, we will decide. So that is it. We have a number of evaluation criteria here that we have. that we've included for you, but I think rather than going through every single bit of it, I'm sure you've had a chance to look at it. I'm just gonna ask you if you have any, these are the same criteria we use for everything. I'll just ask you if you any questions or wanna discuss it at all and I'll try to field the questions and I may ask Donna to help with that. Any questions? So we'll go in order. Thank you, Becky. Rich, any questions? Any comments? Yeah, yeah, that's fine.

Yeah.

Yeah, I gotcha. Yeah. Go ahead, Bridget.

No, I just mean, of course, I think it's, I mean, thank you, Donna, for all I mean, I can't believe all the resources that were available. All the references and. Of course i'm supportive of it, I just wonder how we decide what to do you know I wonder takes charge of that effort so. I mean just in thinking about videos i'm not sure where CCF is in terms of it'd be nice to have some sort of. You know, CCF has talked about the Hanley House having videos throughout the Hanley House. I have no idea where they are in that process, but certainly having one of the rooms or one of the videos where you're listening. I mean, I think that'd be a great place in addition to a marker. But yeah, I just wonder what the next step is in terms of deciding what to do.

I think that's a great question. And it's pretty easy to just say, we'll put in a historic marker. But then when you go beyond that, you want to do that thoughtfully. But I think we have some people, particularly Meredith McKinley on the task force who's done a lot of this kind of work and can make some really strong recommendations to us on what kinds of options there would be there that we would like to do. And I'm sure she would be happy to do that as a sort of ad hoc member of this group. And the members themselves have ideas, it's not that they don't, it's just that really as defined in the ordinance, it's not really their role to tell us do this or do that. And I did kind of skip over Ira since I'm going in chronological order. Ira, do you have any questions or comments about any of this right now?

Well, I like Bridget's comments, you know, because it is kind of difficult to consider what to do and where to go. You know, I'm really grateful to the committee for the commission for this criteria. I think it's excellent. You know, and I hope that we can stay focused and stay with it. And I'm glad to hear that we're going to have Ralph Clayton, and he will be talked about, and there'll be some kind of narration on his life and what he meant to the city. I'm also, you know, I just think there's so much we can do. It's almost, to me, just like mind boggling. um so i i really hope we do stay focused i hope we stay attentive to this issue on on this this area my question one of my questions is aren't there some people that were survivors who are still surviving who who actually lived in this neighborhood

there are and there's some descendants also yeah donna is in touch with a number of those people and And so clearly part of the plan, if and when we can get to actually putting up a plaque or some other type of commemoration, we would definitely want to include them and have them help us celebrate the neighborhood. But Donna has done a lot of talking with these people too to get a lot of this history.

That's great. We do have a park that doesn't have a name. So I wonder if we want to consider that as a first step, so. That

has been batted around to a degree. I can answer the problem, not the problem, the difficulty there is that this neighborhood didn't really have a name. And so there's no obvious thing to use for the name someone came up with the name Remembrance Park, which would be interesting for everyone to consider because it could apply to all kinds of things that we are remembering here. So not just this, but other things. So I don't know, honestly, I do not know where the naming of that park stands at the moment. I don't know if anyone here does.

So we had some initial recommendations and they went to the plan commission, but the plan commission put that on hold when we fell short on the funding. And I know there was an additional fundraising effort, so it'll be determined.

Well, who gets to determine that? The plan commission determines that?

Oh, I think the Parks and Rec Commission does, or they make a, right?

PB John Gerstle, I would think they'd have a lot to say yeah

I think parks and REC makes a fine they they'll they're considering other Commission's recommendations and then they make a kind of a final recommendation to the board

that's correct. PB

John Gerstel, But yeah I mean as David mentioned, we don't really have a park there yet there's not really a way we haven't been able to build it yet so it's kind of you know. PB

Harmon Zuckerman, understood.

Okay. All right, great. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah, I appreciate this. I am really glad to see the work of the task force continue. I was incredibly impressed with what they put together initially in terms of the guidelines and evaluation criteria and it's great to see that. continue to be used. Special thanks to everyone on the task force and especially Donna, I've seen you present multiple times on the history and all the work that you've done in this area. And it's just we're so fortunate to have you and your expertise. dedicated to this. So I want to make sure everybody remembers that CCF had a project, maybe a couple of years ago now, it rolled out during the pandemic, the neighborhoods of Clayton videos. And one of them was on this neighborhood. And I know Donna, you participated in that And as part of the kickoff for that, or like a rollout sort of of that video, Cordell hosted webinars on Zoom that included, I don't know if the, I'm not sure the woman had lived in the neighborhood or was a descendant of folks who had, but she was there to talk about it. And so that was great. The, Only, so I support, I definitely support us moving forward and like commemorating, acknowledging this history. And in any way that we can, I particularly appreciate the call out on the website and the fact that we have a website page that talks about the history of Clayton and doesn't say a word about this. It had never occurred to me that that was the case. I probably have never actually read that page of our website. But it seems very clear to me that that would be a change that we could make quite quickly, right? We don't have to fundraise to put up a plaque or anything like that. We would simply need to decide what language goes in there. And So then the question becomes, how does that happen, right? Because I don't believe it's the purview of the Board of Aldermen to write our website content, right? Or even approve our website content. And so I would hope, I would love to hear about ideas about how that can be, how that if we agree that that's appropriate, that this is, like a real part of our history that should not be hidden and should be shared. And that frankly, the city had a role in this, right? Like we rezoned that area and that is why those folks had to leave. And so like, it seems to me very important for us to do that. And so I would love to know like, who we think has ownership of that and the ability to just actually do it, you know, and could they do it like in the next month? And like, what, you know, what are we waiting for? And so I would love to see that happen.

I think that's a great question. And so one of the things that happens when you have a new and different task force is you kind of, you evolve as you go along. And that's kind of what we're doing too. But I think We should talk about it. I think we should let our staff take a look at, now that we're getting some concrete things, how would they recommend we proceed? The idea that comes to mind immediately is for Andrea, who's been our staff liaison on this, to work closely with the communications team at the city and see if that can be a way to organize this. There's certainly been, I mean, The info is here. Yeah. And some of the writing is here. So it's not like starting from scratch, but it does take time. So I think we need to let our staff figure that out. And if you have ideas, maybe by the next time we meet, we can talk about them or not.

Yeah. And I would just add that previously, that page was maintained by Sarah. So part of CCF history. So I think that whatever we can update it, we just need to agree on what that text is, and then maybe work with CCF history and the task force and then we can update the website.

Thank you. Yeah, and I think it goes without saying sort of, but CCF history is playing a very important role in all this and we are keeping connected with them through these task forces, but they also have a commemorative marker program. It takes a little bit of a different strategy, but they are commemorating things like the school, the black school And so that's already been done. And so they're gonna do other things too. So I think they're very interested in helping and they are also writing the interpretive materials for the Ralph Clayton portrait that'll be in the center. So I think we've got some good resources, we just haven't really solidified how it's all gonna play out yeah well i support that error yeah it's great thank you yeah yeah thank you um mr Gary Feder

Thank you. Yeah, and I think it goes without saying sort of, but CCF history is playing a very important role in all this and we are keeping connected with them through these task forces, but they also have a commemorative marker program. It takes a little bit of a different strategy, but they are commemorating things like the school, the black school And so that's already been done. And so they're gonna do other things too. So I think they're very interested in helping and they are also writing the interpretive materials for the Ralph Clayton portrait that'll be in the center. So I think we've got some good resources, we just haven't really solidified how it's all gonna play out yeah well i support that error yeah it's great thank you yeah yeah thank you um mr fader

i just wanted to observe that dr beard was the teacher of one or both of my daughters at clayton high school and one of their favorites so really appreciate all of her efforts and the task force um A question about the work on the Ralph Clayton portrait, the more robust narrative. Is that going to be a joint effort of CCF history and the task force? Or does that also remain to be seen what the process will be in preparing that fuller narrative?

Well, you can correct me if I'm wrong about this. The task force has done their work on that. They did the research. They made the recommendation. They suggested ways of commemorating that and recontextualizing the portrait and the person. So I think they've kind of done, they've played their role. They are always available as resources for us in terms of what we want to write or what we want to provide for the community. So that's true. But I think now it's right now it's CCF is preparing the display essentially.

And I'll get you an updated timeline when Alex is back. He's actually out of the office. So we had talked about that yesterday during our call, but I can't get an update right now, but when he returns, I'll send that out to the entire board to get an idea of when that exhibit may be ready over at the center.

I just had one other observation I found particularly interesting and actually fascinating the year by year history that's in the appendix. And what I found most interesting was since I'm one of the reps on on the equity commission. I think, as you know, we've been working on deed restrictions or restrictive covenants And in particular, just the last week or two, I've been helping trying to get Davis Place resolved and actually looked at the 1925 language that is restrictive to only purchasing or leasing by Caucasians. And I was thinking as I looked at it, I wonder if this thing has ever really come up. Has anyone ever really had an issue with that where it actually was litigated? And lo and behold, in the chronology, there is a discussion that There was an effort by a person who's identified as Chinese who apparently wanted to operate at the very edge of Davis Place. And apparently the exact language that we're dealing with was used by people who protested this proposed use of the property. So anyway, it was really sort of startling to see that. That language actually was the subject of a lawsuit. It never actually said how the lawsuit came out, but that was amazingly in 1945 that people wanted to use that deed restriction language to keep this operation. So anyway, it was one of many fascinating things in the history. So it was very useful.

Well, and just to add on to the timeline, my understanding that the plan is to have this installed at the beginning of the school year, more or less. So let's say September one or something. So I don't know if they've gone off of the rails on that, but that is the estimate. That's the plan.

Thank you.

Rich is ready.

So this is very fascinating and it's obviously been a lot of work. And I think the idea, as Becky mentioned, of getting this on the website as quickly as possible is a good idea. I guess I'm also curious to know about the whole history of Clayton at this point. If we've had Chinese discriminated against, were there other groups that were out there? When you talk about that whole history, what else is there that we need to know? That's what I'm curious whether the Landscape Task Force has looked into any of those.

Well, we do have some other things on our list. I think we've got, in terms of the entire history of the city of Clayton, we've got two different history books that were written and the earlier one is probably left out a lot of stuff. The later one is more short and sweet but recognizes some things. We've got some history in our archives, and we haven't explored all of it by any means. We do know that there was a Filipino community, and they were here during the World's Fair. And so they're on our list. That is on our list to work on. Actually, we're working on it now. We're in touch with them now. And coordinating with White Owl Middle School and various neighborhoods, Concordia, where they lived, the Osage. predated anyone else in this area. And we are in touch with the Osage Nation, a national cultural director. And we are planning to pursue that. And so there are other things. We haven't come across any, quote, the Asian community issues. One of the things that occurs to me that we probably will be looking into is the Jewish community and have there been, is there history there? I'm sure there is, I'm just not aware of it. And so there are lots of rocks we haven't turned over for

sure. Thank you. I think that's all, it's all fascinating.

All right. Okay, well, I think that's what we need to do. We don't need to make any decisions tonight and we will again, we'll take it up in two weeks and you pointed at the screen. Okay, I thought maybe something was going on. So yeah, and we can decide then what we would like to do and what we decide if we want to pursue it. And then after that, we can have some discussions later on about how it will be organized. I just think that all of these things are great opportunities for us to tell the world once these installations would go in to tell the world that we are trying to be more welcoming, we are trying to recognize our true history and really represent Clayton honestly in the way it should be. And great educational opportunities that I hope the Equity Commission will take advantage of by doing some programs and the History Commission and all of these, this can really be very impactful once it really gets rolling, so. Okay, okay, that's great. If there's nothing further, we can move on. I've talked enough. Now we have a discussion on local historic districts that I've asked David to prepare. So this

is something the mayor had brought to the attention of the board probably two or three months ago now. And this was a good opportunity on this agenda where it's a little bit lighter to start this discussion on local historic district. So- going okay so what

can I interrupt you yes

absolutely

so I feel like Columbo I forgot one thing to mention and the one thing I want to mention is to give some kudos to Andrea because she has done a great job of taking this sort of ambiguous sort of nebulous group project whatever you want to say and she has created our process she keeps everything organized and and she follows through with the people. And I know that, I mean, I can tell by her participation that she's really keenly interested in everything that we're working on. And so I just want to say that she's done a great job so far. Okay, sorry. No, that's great. Thank you,

Mayor. So we'll start by talking about National Register in the districts and landmarks that you would see there versus a local district. So there's a lot of misconceptions when you're talking about historic districts. Because it always just said generally people just say that's a historic district. But it's important to realize that there are really two different types. So the first one would be a national registered district, and this could be a district or can be an individual property and we do have a few of those here in Clayton. If it's on the national register it actually goes through the state historic preservation office for review and then on the federal government. But what the National Register does is identifies and designates significant properties or districts using uniform criteria. So anything that's going, that's being applied for National Register status, there's the same set that they're going to look for. How is it historically significant? Is the structure itself significant? Is somebody that lived there significant? Is the neighborhood that it's located in significant to the history of that exact location, that city or the region? So there's a number of things that they will look at at both the state and federal level when you make that sort of application. What the national district doesn't do, and I'm kind of skipping to the third bullet here, it does not restrict the use or disposition of property. So a lot of times people think if something's on the national register, then, oh no, I won't be able to sell my house or redevelop my property or whatever it is. because there's going to be all these restrictions. And that's not the case with the National Register. What the National Register really does, and it's on the second bullet under National Register, is it makes properties eligible for federal and state tax incentives. So that's the biggest benefit of being on the register. So those historic tax credits that you hear about, in order to be eligible, you have to be on the National Register. And then also, of course, from a tourism standpoint, from an interest standpoint, If it's on the register, you have people that travel across the country and if they see that there are landmarks on their path, they might go and check them out and that sort of thing. So that's what the National Register seeks to do. But you also have a local historic district designation that's out there. And we have neighboring communities that utilize this pretty extensively. St. Louis City certainly has large landmark districts. The city of St. Charles is the second largest in the state. They've got everything on Main Street and then blocks and blocks and blocks after that, square miles of historic districts there that are both federally designated and locally designated. And what that local designation does is what a lot of people believe all historic districts do, where the overlay district protects the character and the quality that you would have in that specific area. So you establish criteria and restrictions, and you do that at the local level, and then you provide for the review process for demolitions, new construction, alterations to those buildings. So when you're really talking about putting in restrictions or regulations to preserve properties or preserve neighborhoods, that all happens at the local level. So both of these, whether you're on the National Register or local, they require a detailed survey of all structures in the district. And that's part of that application process that I'd mentioned when it goes to the State Historic Preservation Office. You have to take pictures of the structure on different sides. You have to talk about when it was built, if the architect is known, the style of the building. There's a whole list of things that need to be submitted with each structure that you're submitting an application for. And so that needs to be done, whether you have a National Register of Buildings or if you want to do just a local designation without the register, you would still want to go through that process to establish what exactly is there on the ground. So that's kind of a starting place for the conversation. We do have currently a historic preservation ordinance here in the city of Clayton, so it hasn't been utilized. There's an H district, which is a historic district overlay that the code provides for, but we've not actually utilized anywhere. So Just some criteria so that everyone is aware in the zoning code, and I'm summarizing because it actually goes on for pages and pages. All areas, residential areas, and it's important to point out this is residential only, that are listed on the National Register are eligible for local designation. So any area that we have right now on the Federal Register that the Board of Aldermen wanted, there is a process in place where you can establish a local district there. Procedures exist for, again, the establishment of those districts. The ARB has a big role to play here. So if you pay attention to the city of St. Louis, you'll see the landmarks board referenced quite a bit. They're basically ARB here would be playing that role as well. So it's an architectural review board. They would also be our landmarks board that are really the, you know, that safeguard our historic areas. So they would have the authority to issue certificates of appropriateness for essentially construction activity or demolition on those properties. And that's triggered by a building permit. So if somebody is just changing out one shutter on the property or something like that, they don't have to go before ARB for approval. But if you were doing some kind of serious alteration that required a building permit, that would trigger the entire review process. The standards for review are established in our code already. So that's already written and done. But again, to date, the city has not established any local historic districts. And to give you an idea of what we have on the National Register, I went and took a look at it. This is the list. So you'll see, again, you've got some larger neighborhoods, some larger areas here, but then some individual standalone properties as well. So Hanley House is a great example, Seven Gables. The Shanley building on the corner here where Bemis in place, all that work is being done. Because it's on the National Register, that developer had a right to demolish that building had they wanted to. In this particular case, they chose to preserve it, which is great. the register doesn't provide that protection and there was no local protection on that particular building. But here's just a list here that gives you an idea of what we have currently. And so the discussion here today, and this is what the mayor had mentioned a few months ago, a couple months ago, when this was first brought up is, you know, first, again, the historic district overlay that we have established in our code right now only applies to residential areas. This is something we may want to expand into commercial areas as well and try to identify different areas and potentially protect them. And then secondly, are there any specific areas that you might want to look at for local historic designation? The one thing that I would add before I open this up is I think it's really, really important the provision that we have in there that the National Register is required before we do a local designation. One of the reasons for that, especially if you start to get into commercial areas, is there's certainly a perception that, hey, I own this building. You've put a set of restrictions on me. You've limited the use of this. And it really gives you a lot of backing. And it's a totally legitimate zoning power of a city to put a local designation in place. But it really gives you justification if that building has also cleared the federal process to land on the federal register because that is a you know, just that's the gold standard as far as criteria for properties and for districts. So I do think it's really important to point out that we require for any local district that it be on the register. And if we were to talk about expanding this potentially to commercial, I think it's really that particular provision remain in place. So that's all I have. If there are any questions, I can certainly answer those, but otherwise I think the mayor would

like to open it up for discussion.

Mike, I'd like to know what y'all think. I think that we've got a few places left in Clayton that are really charming and I think possibly deserving of protecting and the sort of the poster child that I will keep referring to are the Williamsburg shops, which are on Maryland, you know, where the Poshnosh is, et cetera. There are other areas, I'm sure. And I look at this list and I think, oh, the Seven Gables building. Oh my gosh, I would hate for that to ever come down. It's sandwiched between, you know, two huge buildings. And so more development is happening all around it. So I feel like we should maybe consider trying to protect some of these areas. At least we could explore, take a test case and see what it would involve. I know that there are issues with property rights. I mean, really not property rights in this case, but property owners may not be a fan of this kind of thing, obviously, that might prevent them from tearing down their building. So... But on the other hand, other communities have done this quite often and they've preserved some of their character. So I'd just like to entertain your thoughts and see if you'd like to pursue it some or not interested or whatever. I'll start with Rich, he looks ready this time.

I do agree with you that it would be nice to have the Williamsburg shops kept intact. But I don't think cute and charming necessarily meets federal national historic guidelines. I don't know that, I'm guessing. I don't if those are, if they would qualify at the national level. So we may end up doing, needing to do local something local in addition to, or even if they don't get a national register thing. I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud here as we're talking about it. Have you looked into those? Are they that old and historic?

You have to be 50 years old. So I'm sure they're 50 years old, but except for Simons who was, you know, toward his building down in 2010 and built up yeah but luckily he built something that's very compatible with so if if that were the case his building would be non-contributing structure and the rest of them would be um i've i've pretty much written the application for our neighborhood to go on the register so i'm intimately familiar with the kinds of things and um that you know my choice of words probably not the best here um essentially looking at architectural styles which there's a big history in clayton that started with uh the heritage building where a police station is now of this sort of what i would call william and mary style or colonial style um and that that is a significant trend in clayton that has been largely erased but um I feel pretty confident that just that would be a great start to an application. There are people, and I used this person in the end for our neighborhood to make sure we had everything buttoned up. There are consultants who do this. And I know that we could get a free, at least an initial free kind of look at those structures or any other location we'd like and have them say whether or not, yeah this has potential for the register or you know what it has no potential. The heritage building, we did have somebody come in and we talked to them about that. And the structure has been so modified that they didn't think, they thought it would be difficult to get it on the register. So, but that doesn't mean it's not possible, but I think we need to look at, we'd need to have somebody come and kind of evaluate that for us and give us a clue. Yeah. And you're right, Rich, it might not pass muster.

Yeah. I'm just saying in that case, it might mean that we would have to put in place something local. I don't know what that is. or how, I mean, I know, as you say, there's other places. I mean, Aspen just passed something and said no more development at all, anywhere. They did a moratorium, I should say. They put it in a moratorium.

And you can do that citywide because it affects everybody the same. But if you're going to single out individual areas, then we just need to make sure that if we do a local designation only we establish a really good set of criteria. And again, you end up almost mirroring the federal register because you know that one's gonna pass muster every time if it's challenged, so.

But just to be clear, in order to do a local designation of a district, we don't have to be on the register. That's just our ordinance for residential. You

don't have to, you can put your own criteria in place, but again, best practices to really mirror what the national register would be looking for during that review.

Right. So it'd be a similar exercise. It's just that you wouldn't have to pass the test. Essentially. You wouldn't have to be put on the register or that structure, which, which could, like I said, be an issue. So it's a really good point. Moving along to Ira.

Yeah, this is really, I mean, it's a huge issue. I, of course, really like to see architecturally significant buildings in our city. I don't know how many we actually have. But it's one of those things that, you know, what some people say is architecturally significant, the Shanley building, I didn't see it, but some others did. Others were very, very passionate about it. And I don't remember being, I wasn't, but that was okay. It seems a little bit subjective and it's almost like we probably need to have, you know, like we have the art committee there, you know, people who know art maybe better than us, better than lay people or I guess lawyers like me who don't, you know, I don't look at art a whole lot. And maybe we'd need to have people participate on some kind of a committee level who are architects and really understand historical architecture better than we do to see which of our buildings in the city, whether they could be commercial or residential, really deserve it and really need to have that so that we preserve some of the history of the city. And I think it's a very important thing for us to do. I'm totally aware of the fact that it really, in some ways, can be the kiss of death in terms of value for some properties. Sometimes the owner really appreciates it and likes the fact that they have been declared as a significant architectural property. And at the same time, it provides some serious restrictions on the developing that can be done on those properties. Certainly no demolition is going to be awarded if you are in that situation. But this has to be taken very, very carefully, steps carefully taken by us to designate those significant architectural buildings that we really feel strongly about and that the people who really know feel strongly about. So I'm in favor of it, absolutely. I can tell you for a fact, I wouldn't be someone who would be all that good at knowing which one of those properties really fits into that category.

Well, as you're talking, it occurs to me that we do have all kinds of experts around us besides the consultants that I mentioned. We had a few people come out about the Shanley building when another developer was looking at it. And I know that we could count on them to help us understand which buildings we need to protect. So that would be a start.

Yeah, I agree. I think talking about it in the abstract is a very good idea at first, but I think we need to start getting into some basics and what are we really talking about? Rich's comment was perfect, which is cute, doesn't cut it. So I think we really have to be much more educated about this process and about it. how it will affect real homeowners, you know, and business owners. So, but I think we should go down the path of exploring it more. So I'm in favor of that.

Okay, great. Okay. Alderman McAndrew.

Yeah, I mean, I think Ira brings up a really good point. I mean, I know there's a gentleman too that recently moved to Davis Place who talked to us about, you know, the building on the curve, which, you know, the developer couldn't preserve, but I think it is really hard for someone like me to really identify buildings that should be preserved. I think it's definitely worth looking at. You know, I think the Williamsburg shops, as well as those shops on Clayton Road that abut Davis Place, I mean, those are areas where I would never want to see some large development because that abuts the residential area. It's meant to be, you know, a slow rise. But that doesn't mean, I don't know what the exact zoning designation is over there. I don't know how many stories it could be if we did something. But certainly I think it's worth looking at, certainly discussing with people in the area that might know what buildings deserve this protection. You know, but I also too, like taking that next step, I worry about some of our neighborhoods where there are beautiful old homes coming down to build gargantuan houses. So I, you know, and I'm not suggesting we take the next step, but you know, we put these houses on the, or we put these areas on the register and then like nothing happens. Like then like those buildings can still come down. I mean, there's, beautiful old homes in Brentmore Park and Claverac and, you know, all over the city that those homes are coming down. And it's sad to see. So I, you know, I just kind of, I'm not suggesting necessarily, I mean, I'm not saying that the new homes aren't beautiful in their own way too. It's just different, you know? So I would just put that out there, but I'm certainly supportive of, you know, exploring this more.

Well, so just to address one thing that you mentioned, I'm with you on the teardown of some of these older homes. It's sad. And it changes the whole character of the neighborhood when these bigger homes go in. So one thing that I've mentioned before is looking at footprint that we allow. But the other thing is this ordinance that we have, I was actually, I worked on that little project and Alderman Bolton and I worked on it a long time ago. And it's meant to be voluntary. It's meant, the intent was for neighborhoods to know about this and together decide that they want to put themselves into a district. But how do you get that agreement among your whole neighborhood? I don't know. That's a challenge. And there are always people who don't want it because they don't want to... limit themselves in who they sell their home to. If they want to sell it to a tear down enterprise, then they want to be able to do it. So, but that's what that ordinance is for, yeah.

Okay, yeah, thank you. Thanks. I have one question, which is, do we do you know who has the like ability to submit an application for the National Register?

So a community can do that property owner can do that. You don't necessarily have to have the owner's consent or 100% of all the owners in a particular district. That's what I

wanted to understand. Thank you. And then I think I just have two comments. I think in general, I would support the idea of perhaps like advertising our ordinance, particularly to the like communities that are already on the national register to let them know about that so that maybe they don't even realize that they can do that if they are concerned about the character of their neighborhood or community or whatever um and then um i would say i um I definitely would be concerned about us deviating from the path of having the local designation follow the national one. I would like to see us focus on keeping that in place, that we are not getting into the business of like independently deeming the historic value of a building or community that we are trusting, you know, existing experts and processes to establish that and then to follow up As we choose to that I would like to see us maintain that. path as kind of like a prerequisite and I would say that I think we need to. we need to differentiate between a desire to preserve the size, scale and purpose of a development with the desire to actually preserve a building. So I think like what I heard some of my colleagues here talk about was a desire to preserve the scale of development as it abuts residential neighborhoods, not necessarily that we know that there's historical significance to those buildings, that the exact buildings themselves should be retained. And so I'm not saying that isn't true and that I wouldn't end up supporting that, but I think that's a line we need to be very careful about understanding as elected officials is what are we trying to do? Are we trying to influence zoning? and size scale and use, are we trying to actually preserve specific buildings? And do we have a justification to do that? That's appropriate. But I'm definitely interested in exploring it, learning more and seeing what we might do about that.

Alderman Gary Feder, any comments?

Alderman Fader, any comments?

I would be curious procedurally how this would work in terms of whether the ultimate decider would be our existing ARB or would be a separately established board like the preservation board in the city. That would give me some concern because it seemed to me that that basically turns this whole process of potential redevelopment over to an architectural board without ultimate oversight of the Board of Aldermen. It does as Alderman McAndrew referenced, I think when we first heard about the Forsyth curve I think we both got an email from someone in Davis Place who attached a very scholarly article from an architectural digest explaining the significance of mid-century architecture and that the Forsyth Curve building, the current one, is a great example of that. And to allow that to be torn down would be horrible. I think the very first meeting, the conceptual hearing on that project at least one, maybe two people in the audience who were architects with historical backgrounds seconded that same thought that this was a a classic example of 1950s architecture. And I think we even heard afterwards that the developer thought, you know, I think we're never going to do this project because all the architects on the ARB are basically saying we need to preserve it. And that was the thrust of this. You guys need to figure out a way to save that building, rehab it. Some of the comments were it would cost you less to put new infrastructure than to demo it. So I have some fears about a super ARB board made up of architectural historians who would basically say, you need to keep this building. And part of the role, I think, of the Board of Aldermen is to sometimes apply some economics and some degree of realism to go along with architectural preservation. And so I think this path is one that we could go down, but I think we'd have to be very careful that we don't wind up with a building like that sitting for another five years because our new supercharged ARB decided we couldn't tear it down because it was 1950s model architecture. So I think we just need to be careful about balancing these things if we

go forward. And I think that just emphasizes the importance of this decision overall, because it is a legislative act to put that H historic overlay on that particular piece of property. When the Board of Aldermen does that and designates that as historically significant, then you're really handing the keys over to ARB in this case, to safeguard that property in the long term, to really outlast that particular board. You're saying this is important to the community. It has to be here and they will defend that. And typically your ARB or landmarks board is going to be loaded up with architects or people that have some knowledge of preservation. And if we were going to go that step and utilize the ARB like a landmarks board, you would certainly want to add that criteria to people as we're looking to make those selections but yes to put the designation down legislative act after that the certificate of appropriateness is in the hands of the ARB that's I'm glad just

just to add if we follow the guidelines of the national register so if we do that application all of the guidelines and rules for what can be done or should or shouldn't be done to a structure are pretty much defined. I mean, they're, you know, a certain type of architecture and, you know, they don't, I think the ARB, I would think that they wouldn't have a lot of leeway to make up their own rules about what could be done or not. I think it'd have to be conforming to whatever's in that application. That's a good reason to align with that. I think it gives them a foundation upon which to make their decisions, it seems.

Can I say something there? Sure. Yeah. Gary's point is well made. I'm involved right now in dealing with that very issue in front of the preservation board in the city of St. Louis. It really is a very complicated process. The first step, of course, is to getting the registration of that building. And then after that, the board would then actually have discretion to override that is what the board really ends up doing. They can rubber stamp or say, no, we're not going to do that. And they are often made up of people who really are very sensitive about taking down anything historical. And I don't like the city's process at all. I think we could have a better one that would still put the last word at the board level. And so I think that might provide some protections. The city doesn't have that. If the preservation board says, denies a demo permit, it could go to the planning and then after that is done, you gotta go to circuit court after that. And I think that would speak to it being somewhat controlled by those people who have that kind of sensitivity to historic buildings. The one I'm dealing with is a mid-century one that somehow people are coming out deciding that it can't be demolished. So Gary, I definitely feel for that. And it doesn't make sense, of course, if it's a development And most of this board, from my experience, is very pro-development. And so I think this becomes somewhat of something to deal with. But I think if we make it so that the board still has the last word, I think reason will prevail. So I think that we could write that in as we go with this. Because we don't have, we haven't reused this at all. I mean, according to what David's saying and what I know of, there's no local historic preservation going on. So this would be kind of new for the whole city. And I think we should be careful about how we proceed with it and who ends up having the last word.

in some uh plan commission arb decisions the the applicant can appeal to the board of aldermen about a decision and then we are able to override or whatever i don't know if that would potentially apply here

on a may know off the top of her head but i believe that's the case with this one as well a brief party could could file an appeal

yes yeah but maybe it'd be better to have something even more um integral part of the process where the board is involved. I wouldn't be opposed to that myself at the outset anyway. So, okay. Well, what would be a next step?

I think the next step is we've kind of done a cursory review and a really general broad overview about what local and national registered districts are. I think it'd be important for everybody to review what we already have in place to take a look at that H historic district. So we'll send that out to all the members of the board so that you can take a look at that and review it. I think we should have a little bit more discussion after that review occurs about any potential changes to the existing district, and maybe have a little bit discussion about what we might want to do as far as commercial districts are concerned, and then potentially move that discussion onto the ARB and let them have some preliminary discussion about that as well and get it going that way. That would be my suggestion, but I think it'd be good for everybody to read through that H district and really get an understanding of the regulations that are in place currently.

I'll just add to look specifically at a few pieces. There's a requirement for signatures to petition to start a certain percentage of the area, as well as then a vote of property owners to ultimately establish the district. So those are both important pieces. And then also, City Council Chambers, It specifically references our urban design districts as being an area if you're already under an urban design district or designated to become. City Council Chambers , You know future urban design district that you're not eligible for this residential historic district, and I think that speaks a lot to alderman patel's points with the urban design district that's kind of something that targets, a lot of the same features. CoB, Amy C. Of architectural characteristics size scale those features of development but doesn't prohibit demolition and also you know kind of establishes a way forward to maintain those with new development as opposed to. a historic district where you need that certificate of appropriateness in order to pass a demolition. So right now, if somebody, for example, wanted to move a door, you change your kitchen. Remodel is a really common thing that we have in a lot of the properties here. They often result in moving a window, closing a window, moving a door. Just that would trigger a building permit. So now we're talking about people doing kitchen remodels, bathroom remodels, which we find very common in updating our older houses. Those are what all have to go to the architecture review board for that certificate of appropriateness. So I think it's really important to consider the end goal here. Is it to maintain a certain character, but also allow new development? Or is it really to protect specific architecturally significant buildings themselves?

I agree with that, and I'm glad you brought it. I'm glad you said it much better than I did because I think that's one of the next steps is making sure we understand what it is we're trying to do. Are we trying to maintain neighborhoods, streets, look, feel, or are we trying to recognize architecture? I mean, there's a whole bunch of little one-story ranch houses that to me are the epitome of 50s architecture. I mean, we should keep all those, shouldn't we? I'm just saying, you know.

It could be

argued.

I will just lay out my reason, my motivation here is not to do anything with residential. I'm, you know, that's a whole different ballgame And I actually tried, before I went off the Board of Aldermen a number of years ago, I tried very hard to get my neighborhood and the city to help us do a UDD for Claverac Park because I realized that nobody wanted to restrict the teardown. But we could, with that, restrict the footprint and the architectural styles because we had some real doozies go up. And so I think, but that, you know, It costs money to do that. The city can't do it. It costs about 30 grand or more to hire a consultant. There are certain neighborhoods that have UDDs that the city did pay for years and years ago, but that's not really an option right now. So for neighborhoods, I'm not interested at the moment in dealing with neighborhoods. I'm interested in the few, there's a few places in Clayton that I think are still reflective of sort of our history in architecture. And I would like to just understand if we can find a way to protect them and if not, fine. Or if we don't want to, that's fine. But that's my whole motivation for bringing this up.

I would hope that we would have our Y-down area included in that, Mayor. It just seems like it's an area that needs to be preserved. It has historically served the neighbors very, very well over the years.

I agree that that would be a candidate in my mind, yeah. And, you know, those little shops, that could be a candidate too. I mean... There are several places. But I think for purposes of just trying to understand the process and what we could do, I was kind of focusing on the one area of the Williamsburg shops. But we can focus on any area you want. That's not a problem.

Can I ask one other question if you could it sounds like you're going to send us more information for further review and future discussion, could we get a little more information on the National Register designations that exist. like some of them are quite obvious what they are but others are more broad like high point demand like what's the actual footprint there that's covered by that or why down forsyth i don't think those streets intersect so what does that mean a neighborhood that's

why don't

you say neighborhood okay

they have a

Actually all of Ellenwood and Cecil and is all part of, is on the side of the city. That's correct.

Okay. Yeah. But so to that point, I'm happy to send those things out to

them.

So we know what we're talking about and maybe which, if any, which ones include, which ones are not strictly residential and would therefore be affected by any changes we make to consider commercial zoning.

Happy to

do that. Thank you.

One area might have a UDD on it. I'm not

sure. Only there's one along Clayton Road.

Well, okay. I guess we know what we're doing next then.

Okay, great.

Thank you for looking into it. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Anna.

Yeah.

Input, and I'm sure we'll hear a lot more going forward. All right. So...

Last but not least.

Last but not least, we are going to talk about community engagement a little bit. So I included a memo in the packet. It had that timeline that we had established at the board retreat last year where we were talking about the community engagement process that we wanted to start up this fall. So you can see if you've taken a look at it, we're really tracking that in the summer 2022 conversations about engagement generally and then about the upcoming survey that we want to do in the fall. We'd plan to do that in the summer. We're doing that right now, so we're right on track with that. The mayor will have another update letter. One just hit mailboxes within the last couple of weeks, but there's another one that we want to send out in September that will kind of front run the survey that goes out. The survey itself, we want to do that in October, so we can send that out after the annual budget goes into effect for 22-23. And really what we're trying to do is collect information so that we can have a public forum at the end of the year and use that information, uh, to form, uh, the bid package for the trash contract. That's up for renewal in September of 2023, um, to inform us as we put together our next budget for 2324. Uh, if there are any kinds of service cuts that might come out of those particular discussions, we would, uh, put those in that 24 budget. Uh, and then also if, uh, the desire of the community is to, uh, perhaps seek another property tax increase, then that would inform our timing on that next effort. So that's the timeline that we have established. The whole point of this tonight is just to talk about community engagement a little bit and what we'd like to do, because we don't have the questions established just yet that we wanna ask. And we don't have budget numbers. So, you know, we need to communicate what the gap is to the community. We're still in the process of putting together our operating budget. We're still a few weeks away from having those conversations with the board. But what we wanted to talk about tonight is what this engagement might look like so that we can start building that at this point in time and then start to formulate the questions and add the dollar amount, so to speak, as those become available. So we're really trying to get ourselves set up and ahead so that when we get to this fall, we're well prepared to get this thing out the door. But what I want to talk about tonight is the survey itself. So last time we had our biannual survey and we just tacked some extra questions on the dealt with property tax increase dealt with, waste collection. We asked a lot of questions about waste. We asked the residents to prioritize some different services that we provide and also some potential capital projects or major expenditures. The results that we got, as you might recall, weren't the best. It wasn't the most useful and a lot of it had to do with the structure of the questions. And I think that was one of the root problems. One of the other things is when a survey just hits a resident cold and they haven't been reading city views to keep up with what's happening, or they haven't read the mayor's letter, or they don't attend meetings or go to the website or anything, and all of a sudden they get a survey in the mail, they just start answering some things really without any context. And that's something we want to try to avoid this time around. So we totally understand the desire to have a traditional survey because They are random and they are statistically significant. They yield good information so long as the context is there and the questions are good. What we've been looking at and what some other communities have done with a lot of success is to use these modern engagement tools that are web-based, that are much, much more interactive. And so I put a couple of examples in the packet for everybody to take a look at. And I sent an email out as well. Hopefully you had a chance to click on those links but just to give you an idea of what's out there. And ours doesn't have to mirror that, but if the board wants to go that direction, that's something we would begin to build now so that we could put the questions and we could kind of fill in the blanks with dollar amounts and that sort of thing. But I'm going to go ahead and pull up an example from St. Paul, Minnesota that shows what these newer engagement tools look like and how they kind of operate.

This will open. So

one of the nice things, as I said, from a context standpoint, is you can set this up so that when somebody clicks on this, and you can send a letter out to everybody in the city saying, hey, go to this particular website. We can make some kind of quick link that they can punch in really easily and take this survey. We can see the IP addresses that we get. So if somebody fills it out 50 times to try to skew things, then we can eliminate those. You can also ask for a street address. And even if you don't want to get down to the particular street number, you can at least see the street in the city of Clayton along with the IP address to try to keep out, you know, some, it doesn't do it completely, but you know, somebody in Arizona that just wants to mess with us and potentially mess that up. Although as we've talked to vendors that that doesn't happen so much, but anyway when it starts and people open this up, you get a letter in the mail, you go to connections and you click a link, whatever it is. you can start with a video, which is the best way to do it. And here's the mayor of St. Paul. I'm not going to play it. But, you know, you hit this button and he's laying it out. This is where we're at. This is the situation. This is why we're asking these questions. This is what we're going to do with the information that's gathered. And then after that video is over and you hit continue, you get to this part, which is the budget engagement. And so what St. Paul is communicating to their residents here is that, hey, we've got a $3 million deficit and the residents in our community and different committees and various things are asking for a lot of additional programming in the city. So we have a lot of programmatic needs and we're running a deficit and there are certain things we can do from a revenue standpoint to make that work. So in this particular example, You know, there's fixed costs. We've got a $3 million operating deficit. That's just right out of the gate. That $3 million is plugged in and it's up here. But I'll just go ahead and click on this first one. New investment and new single and multifamily units. If that was really important to somebody, they could click on that and you can see we can do it. It's going to add $2 million to the budget. And you can see the total deficit has now gone to $5 million for the city. You can also leave a comment if you'd like about why you feel strongly about that particular option. But then when you're looking at this, okay, well now I've created a worse situation from a budgetary standpoint to fix that. I'm going to have to figure out a way to get some more revenue for the city. So they're essentially doing what the board is doing when we're having conversations about deficit reduction and that sort of thing. So sure. So they've got it listed where, and they've got theirs listed as across the board reductions. So yeah, you could just tell us, you know, just hack 10% out of the budget and you would save this much money. Take 5% out, you would save this. Here they're just using round amounts. So sure, I just put some more money in. So I think you should do a million dollars in spending cuts. And I think a new sales tax would be appropriate And that would add $2 million to the budget. Now you can see the deficit's 2 million and you got to come up with some more. So permits and fees, there's some more options here. So you would build all this specifically for Clayton. It doesn't have to look exactly like this, but it's a really interactive tool where you're giving them the situation that you've got at the beginning, their kind of preferences or needs that are on the expense side, and then how they would prefer to pay for that on the revenue side. So a lot of cities, like I said, have utilized this and had really great results. And you can use this as a standalone product or you can use this to supplement a traditional paper survey if you still wanted to have that random information that comes back that's statistically significant. But I thought it important to share this with the board so that everybody could take a look at this. From an expense standpoint, it's $5,800 annually to use this type of tool. And it's not just a budget engagement platform like this.

Back out of this real quick. There's some

other things that they put together. So Denver was considering a tax increase. And if you remember when we had the the tax question last year, there was an Excel spreadsheet that was basically embedded into our website that you could utilize. And it was a little bit clunky and some folks struggled with that, but this, you know, ask these, these general questions. So I'm just going to punch in a random number here. Let's me. Nope. Okay. Uh, but you could type in your annual income, your age, uh, how much of the goods and services you buy, do you buy within the city limits? So it's getting at how much are you paying in sales tax as you progress through

this. Here we go. Let me just throw in a random

number. Still not working. Okay. Oh, you can type over there.

Whatever you want. Hopefully their properties work more than $37. Should be in Denver. Then, all right. So we'll view the tax receipt.

And it shows you based on your housing valuation. And then also the sales taxes that it's thinking that you're paying. So you're making $150,000 and you're spending 10% of your money there. it's then throwing the sales tax percentages at what you spend within the city limits and then correlating that amount to the city's actual budget. So if the operating budget is broken up where, you know, an X percentage is public safety and X percent is this, then you can actually show residents this much of the money you're spending in the city is going to public safety. This much is going to these other particular uses. And just like them, we have you know, a capital improvement fund that's a sales tax fund. We've got a parks fund that's a sale tax driven fund so they can get an idea of what they're actually paying. So you don't have to do the receipt product, but I think it's a great example of something that's out there that really helps residents understand where their money goes. And the nice thing about it from a city standpoint is it's this so often happens and it happened again. The mayor and I had this conversation this morning a resident saying, hey, my tax bill's gone up this much over time. What are you doing with all that money? And getting people to separate in their minds and seeing it here that what you're paying to the city is separate from what you're paying these other entities. So that's where something like a tax receipt tool becomes really useful if we were to go down the path at some point of going for another property tax. So this is just something else that's offered in that suite of programs or modules that they have. So I just wanted to throw this out there and kind of get feedback on using this type of tool, again, either to supplement a traditional survey or even replace it if you wanted to go that direction. And we'll certainly come back either on the 26th or the first meeting in August to start talking about questions we want to include and that sort of thing. But this would give us an idea of what direction we're heading and allow us to go ahead and if we wanted to do something like this, get a contract going, get the product, start to play with it and build ultimately our survey. So with that, I'll open it up for discussion or any questions you might have.

How many, what's the percent of responses that we've gotten in the past were online versus paper? You know, just roughly even?

I don't know off the top of my head, but I can tell you it was... lower, but the way that the surveys are sent out, it's in letter form and it has a link to where they would go. Whereas this, we could set it up to where it's a QR code. We could still send it out, but we could send it out in multiple avenues and promote it to more people where the survey it's randomized. So you can't say, please log in and share your information. It's only if you receive it.

We should have that information from ETC though. Yeah, we have it. I just don't have it on the top of my

head. Well, you know, I'm not sure how reliable that difference is going to be because when we ask people to respond to something on our website, we send it out through Clayton Connections or something like that. Well, Clayton Connections email list is, you know, handicapped. It doesn't have all the Clayton residents emails in it. It doesn't even have, I don't even know what percentage it would have. It's very low. So if you were going to do something like this, you'd really have to do a snail mail piece telling people about it to try to get a lot more input. You couldn't do it the way we usually do. So hopefully we'll get a much higher response then.

The other thing I would suggest too is if you're going to do it, ask for an email address when they fill out the survey and you can help build your Clayton connection list and that sort of thing. So cities have utilized this to also build their email list while they're serving the public at the same time.

which that would be huge, yeah.

I think it's a great tool. There's so many different kinds of websites that use interactive approaches that it seems like it's much more commonplace. And I guess I was just interested to know what the... That number of people that are responding is sort of very... vague indication of whether our residents are computer literate or not and would tend to go and want to play with this, given the opportunity. So I mean, and frankly, $5,800 doesn't sound like a whole lot of money for this because we get to use it. That's a year and you get to use it for anything, right? That's correct. So we could send it out next time a big development comes or if there's an historic district.

We're looking at another engagement tool that's more generalized surveying. Balancing Act really does get down to budgeting type decisions and those conversations with the community. There's another one called Bang the Table. Becky gave me an idea for one to take a look at as well that the school district had utilized, but we are looking at Bang the Table or something similar to have ongoing survey discussions with the community center. something we've lacked in the past and we definitely need.

All right, any questions, comments?

Yeah, just a few comments. I mean, so there's two aspects to this. One is basically engagement, which is, I think, helping to inform the public about what's going on. I mean, look at these meetings. We have the same three or four people and there's no offense to those participants who are here. I appreciate that you're here, but we do have an abysmal showing of people interested in hearing what's going on from our point of view or hearing the board operate So I really we really need to beef this up real big time and I and I appreciate the effort to do that. Just want to just want to say I don't know. I think if we look at this tool in terms of survey, and I don't know if you're intending to do that survey meaning that this is something that will educate us in terms of what the folks in Clayton think or how they feel. I think that might be a little maybe dangerous because it's a scientific thing about when you do surveys and you're trying to find out what people are thinking in terms of making policy decisions. I think it would be a little dangerous to think that some of this really would give us the necessary feedback to know what more likely than not people are thinking in this city. But it might be helpful, I don't know. I'd be interested to know if Denver or Minneapolis-St. Paul My guess is they don't have the same situation where they have to go out and get a vote in order to raise taxes. The Hancock Amendment seems, I don't know how prevalent that is in other states, but David, would you know that?

I wouldn't off the top of my head for those other particular areas. In most areas in the country though, in order for a local government to raise taxes, most state legislation, most states have legislation that for taxes specifically, that you would need to go to the voters for that. Where Hancock may be a little bit different is it gets really down to the fee level and that sort of thing. So those, I could certainly look at that, but I can tell you that those particular communities did use this as a survey tool to inform their decision-making Here locally, Webster Groves is the most recent city to use the Balancing Act program. They used that for their ARPA funds that they received. So they received a lot of community feedback about how they should spend that federal money that came in. They weren't like us necessarily. They were better off financially. So rather than just using it strictly for revenue replacement, they had some programmatic need that they could fulfill with that money. So they used Balancing Act to really survey the community and find out how to best spend it. So that's how they chose to do it. And I think they actually used it for their annual budget this year too, where they had a few competing items that they put out there to poll everyone. So cities are definitely using this for input. You're absolutely right. It isn't scientific. It isn't statistically significant, the results that you get, and it isn't random, but it's an interactive tool that these days people, you know, tend to respond to and people like that type of interface or people are just used to interacting with a website the way this is set up.

But the handful of people coming to a meeting and talking isn't random or representative or statistically significant either. That's absolutely correct. So to the extent that you are increasing any input, you're better off, I think. That's absolutely right.

PB Harmon Zuckerman, Right and my point about the people coming was just in terms of people knowing what we're doing. That was kind of a from us to them, not a them to us. It was like, you know, helping to educate inform get them, you know, engaged with what we're doing so. But yeah,

absolutely.

Yeah.

PB, Lupita D Montoya,

Okay yeah Bridget Yeah, I mean, I agree, you know, especially, you know, even at the Davis place meeting last night. It wasn't especially well attended And I really appreciated the people that were there, but it was the same people that come every year. You know, somebody came up to me last night, she's a friend of mine, and she said, you know, I reached out, you know, we were talking about our other friends in Davis Place, and it was kind of like, you need to come and hear some of this, you know? And so I do, I really do appreciate, I think, I mean, I know a lot of work goes into the surveys that we do and stuff but I just, I don't, I don't know how effective they are you know and I think it's really hard to answer some of those questions where it's like agree strongly agree don't agree, you know, I mean it's difficult. And I think doing it in this way, having it be more interactive we can be a little bit more straightforward you know people can say like, I want my trash like I want my trash to stay behind my house, whatever the case may be. I mean I worry a little bit. I mean I think the St. Paul thing seems. I don't know maybe people would geek out and really play with it a lot but I think we have to be careful about keeping what we're doing simple so that you know when we do generate the data from it. It's clear, you know. But I think just to like rich that we just I think just trying to reach more people will be really important, and if this is the way to do that a more effective way which I think will be more effective than some randomized survey. I think that's really important. I do wonder, you know, we talked about having, I mean, so we're still talking about perhaps doing a randomized survey that would go out and would we create that still or would this take the place of that? That's one of the

questions today is do we want to use this as a supplement to a traditional paper survey or do we want to do this as a standalone product or do we not want to use this at all and just stick to paper? We could always go that route. But what we had planned to put in the budget was a survey for the fall to ask these specific questions about service levels and revenues and that sort of thing. But then we're also due to do that biannual survey, and that would go out in the spring. And so we're really not talking about that quite as much right now. We're kind of focused on what we're doing this fall. The nice thing about the spring survey is we've been asking 80% of those questions every two years for who knows how many years. And it's actually a, it's a good way for us to get a feel for how we're doing overall. But

I just like those specific subject questions, which we tried to gather in the last, that other, you know, was just, it wasn't, it was really

clunky. And, and I, again, I think what you lose with a lot of it is, and we keep talking about how few people are plugged into what's going on. when that just hits your mailbox and all of a sudden you're answering questions, but don't really understand the issue. It's, it's difficult. And it, I don't know if that yields the best results when you have some kind of interactive site like this, you know, they're living the problem. They're trying to solve the problem. They've seen what you're seeing. They're seeing that deficit number and they're seeing what the potential options are to fix it. And I think even as, as important as the information that it yields in the end, it's, it's, ACM Conference 29th, teaching them as they play with it, you know what the actual issues are I think it's a learning platform as much as it is a survey tool. ACM Conference 29nd,

And then I guess in doing this so like the staff craft all the content to me it seems like a lot of work for us to do or is that. ACM Conference29th, I mean staff creates the content or is the 5800 really just to build up like the platform is there and that's what you're paying for it so then. staff has to come up with all the content, and then do you also have to generate all the data related to it?

They'll generate the data. They have the templates, so there are lots of templates that they have. We would select what we want it to look like, but the specific questions that would be on there, whether or not you want the deficit slider, that sort of stuff, that's for us to figure out whether or not we want to do it. So that's the part we would need to build. But we'd be working within their templates. And then, of course, they would host everything. And then we would get all of the end data from them. So that's what you're getting for the 5800. And

then you said there is a way for you to kind of figure out if somebody is using the same IP address, so they're not submitting it, the information 10 times. That's correct. There's a way to filter that out?

Yes. Okay.

But yeah, I mean, I do think, I think it's probably, I guess, still a good idea to do. I mean, I don't know the written survey that would go out, would that be still randomized? It

would be. So what we planned for the fall, if we wanted to do the paper survey is exactly that. It would be just like the regular citizen survey that goes out.

Very simple, like a couple of pages. It

would be maybe one page because we don't really have that many questions to ask. What we build ultimately with balancing act, it wouldn't be nearly as, intense as what St. Paul has there. They had a ton of programmatic questions, but we really don't have that many that we'd be asking. So we would have some as it relates to expenses and we would have some, as it relates to revenue and we would have definitely a smaller menu than what they had.

Yeah. I mean, I guess I would still be supportive of that randomized, very simple survey. And then, I mean, I think this is a good idea. I think it's a way to just reach more people like Andrew was saying, like sending out the QR codes, you know, in letter format, like, i'm hoping the school district will help us get the word out, you know you know just things anything to you know reach as many people as

possible. um. So

a couple points of clarification. So the potential, the written survey randomized survey, would we still use the same company that we use?

We

would. Right. And then, and it would be focused, would it be focused on waste collection or service levels? Like what's

So that's the next conversation we need to have. But it would be things

like,

so waste collection is definitely going to be a question and that's going to be broken down into some

parts.

You know, one of the difficult things.

Yeah, I think like we'd want to know even like, whether the people responding, like what kind of building do they, what kind of residents do they live in?

Right.

Right. So that we can, because there might be, I think there's probably people in Clayton who don't know that we have rear yard pickup because they don't live in a house that has rear yard pickup, right? So asking those questions without knowing, like, do people even know what we're talking about? You know, their answer to know which answers are made. I would

imagine we have a lot of renters here that don't realize that the landlord's getting the trash picked up.

Yeah, totally. You know, because I know

that trash fees exist and that sort of thing. So that's one thing that I think will definitely educate some people or will want that feedback.

So I like the idea of the interactive tools. I think anything, I would like us to consider that any communications that we do going forward, like have a link to more information or an action, right? So like the last letter didn't have anything like that, not even like an email address or website or anything, right? And so- Like, but so, and for sure a QR code. Like I think people, I was not comfortable with QR codes a couple of years ago, but like, I think pretty much everyone is now. And I think that's the easiest way to get people to a website, right? So, and it seems like I was trying to, I forgot to check this when I clicked at home, but the, when if folks are working on the, interactive balancing act thing and we would obviously like customize it like we might say, like you have the option to eliminate snow removal residential snow removal, you have option to eliminate you know, whatever variety of things and. Is there a point at which they like click submit and say, this is what I would do. And then, and that's when is, and is that how we get the information? But they could play around with it without, we can't see

what happened before they got to that point.

Okay.

Correct. But we would ask things like you said, with, with snow removal, like leaf collection, we had that conversation about possibly reducing that further. and that would generate some savings and that would be something that's on that menu.

Yeah, okay. And then, and so in that case, I think it is, in my mind, it's very much a tool that like educates anyone who actually uses it as well as potentially informs us. So that seems good.

Thanks, that's all. Yeah, and I... I wanna just concur with your suggestion about communications having linking to something, but there has to be something for it to link to. Yes, I understand. Okay. I do. Just saying. Okay, Alderman Gary Feder.

Thanks, that's all. Yeah, and I... I wanna just concur with your suggestion about communications having linking to something, but there has to be something for it to link to. Yes, I understand. Okay. I do. Just saying. Okay, Alderman Fader.

Well, I think it's potentially a great tool if we do it right. I think a lot of it is how we sort of tee it up and get people interested in it, not to generalize, but we still do have an older population That is still the thought of just having to click on to anything sometimes. It kind of makes you want to, I'll do that later type of thing, and then you never get back to it. But once you get on it, I think it would be great. I think, for example, just having, you know, for example, our mayor being able to introduce this topic and then before people click on. I mean, that's the kind of interactive experience that I think is great. So I think it has a lot of potential. I'm not sure about the mailer. I mean, I think, for example, when we were with CCF with certain kind of events, sometimes when we would do something strictly by email, we wouldn't get a very good response. And then we would spend the money to actually for an invitation for an event, put in an envelope with someone's name on it. And suddenly we had tons of people signing up because our community still is sort of used to getting excited about opening up a piece of mail. they get an awful lot of links every day. So I think you have to deal with that, but I think if it's done right, I'm sort of reflecting on my own experience. Last time I filled out a Clayton survey, I mean like halfway through, I was bored to tears and I'm interested in Clayton, but you know, if I had to see one more question, you know, that, one through five, you know, not interested variant. I always, frankly, when I see those and they're like 10 of them, I just pick one. And then I check Mark eats one of them because I too lazy to go through and it frustrates me. So I just, and so obviously my information isn't even very good because I was just trying to get through it because it was a pain. So you got to avoid somehow we got to avoid that. And the more we can get narrative answers, of course, the better. if you can get people to put down a sentence that says, whatever you do, keep my trash being picked up in the rear, you know, that's, that's what you need. You need narrative because all these things that rate things from one to 10, you know, it's, I think is really very helpful.

All right. Well, um, All good points. Great points. I'm sort of yearning for some expert advice. Now, maybe we have that in-house, but I don't know that we have market research expertise, really strong market research expertise in our house. If we do, let me know. But I would love to get the opinion of somebody who's really... immersed in this and knows about all these different techniques and knows about, you know, randomized surveys. And, you know, the question is, if you're going to ask people to vote on something, then is it important to have the statistical information to give them of what the community has said? Or is it good enough to just have the you know, sort of less randomized piece of the interactive. I see a great potential on the interactive for education. That to me is not a question. The question I have about it is, is it good enough for decision-making, especially if we're gonna ask people to vote on something or if we're gonna make a big decision about a cut in services? I know that you didn't mention this, but I wanted to point out, I think you told me that it is possible with the interactive information to have people put down their address. And so we could map where the responses are coming from, sort of demographically. And we could, I'm sure we could get age information and gender and all that, I assume, so that that could be tabulated. Are there analytics that go with this that we would be able to get with these programs?

Yeah, we can set the requirements, but I would be hesitant on how much we would include because if you require it, then they might not submit all of

it. Gotcha.

Yes, we can

do that. At least we could have some basis. And if we found that one whole half a plate and hadn't responded, maybe we could do something about that. You know, I don't know. So is it possible that we can get sort of an expert? to talk to us about this in general and what's the best way to use all these tools together or separately? Getting a good response. I don't

personally know of any one that we could, personally don't know of anyone we could consult with.

Doesn't do something like this. We could talk with Mac perhaps.

I might know of one other that we've used previously, but I don't... you know, not off the top

the survey company that we use isn't doing online surveys at all? I mean, they must be doing them.

Not quite like this.

Online surveys, but it is the exact reproduction of what the paper survey is. It's

just a regular survey.

And I think they might be somewhat conflicted, you know, because they'll want us to do the paper survey for sure. If we ask

a vendor, they'll certainly pitch their product.

I mean, I don't know. I spent years in the marketing field where surveys were run-of-the-mill, but they were all standardized, of course. We had to have that. But there are market research firms out there, and I think any one of them could be called upon to give us sort of a cursory, yeah, here's what you use this for, here's what use that for, and these are the pros and cons of some of these things. in the hopes of us hiring them you know for something I don't know it's got to be Becky you work in are

you um are you looking for guidance or advice on what tool to use or what questions to ask because both because one of the things that I am always sensitive to is like that I know that they're is like a lot of research or information about you know how you ask questions in order to get the information you're really trying to get and I know that I'm not trained to develop that but and I think You know, what I felt like when I looked at the questions we asked last time was like that we didn't have someone formulating those questions who had that training. Right. And that or expertise and that I don't know where you get that expertise, where you go. But that's I think that's. definitely a piece that if we're going to invest in it and just even our time and ask our residents to put their time into responding to it that we have someone with the expertise to say yes these questions like make sense or will

give you that's part two kind of in my mind

yeah and on part two I Andrea could answer this better, I think. But as far as balancing act, how much support did they offer on that side? As far as looking at your questions and that sort of thing.

It offered quite a bit of help in terms of how we would want to structure it because I told him how complicated it is. And he was very interested in that and helping us structure that. The other positive to using the online platform would be that we could set it up and then look at the questions and then have a greater ability to change things if maybe the wording isn't the most efficient or I guess legible for residents. The other piece that I'll add is that with the online engagement tool, if we were to utilize that, then it could, with the education, with the community, it could improve what they're seeing in terms of if they were asked to vote for something. So for example, they may not realize what the environment is similar to what it was previously when we went out for the increase. And if they get online and they interact with the tool, then it might motivate them to go out and vote or to become more active in the decision-making process. I

think education is kind of a no brainer with these online things, but I would just, um, I know that this is a field that is very robust and there are a lot of companies that do it. So I just wondered, would you be okay with just taking a, you know, taking a stab at trying to find sort of a, I think Mac would be a great place to start actually.

Yeah. I mean, we'll check with him and get his advice on it. I think as a starting point before we just start trying to find a market research, I think it'll be, I'm not sure that we can engage somebody quickly and, for free, but.

I've been getting a lot of free help these days on certain things, so it's possible, but you know, you get what you pay for sometimes. Okay, well, let's all kind of think about that too if we happen to know of something. Yeah, okay. Okay. Great. Because I think in the end, it might be really advantageous to use these two things in tandem. And so... We can explore that. Okay, but it's great that you looked into this yeah we'll look

into it right away, because we really need to try to make a decision on that the 26 as far as

okay

which the type of tool you want

to do is we're going to build it. By Andrew.

I was just going to add that this so David mentioned the bang, the table piece and we actually. have that tool. So we did enter into a contract. It's not live yet because we don't have the content, but this would be an integration into that page. So this would really, knowing whether or not we're moving forward with this would inform the content that we're putting together for the other piece. So it would have to be, you know, it would save us staff a lot of time

So bang the table is, it's not duplicative in any way of this,

the one

we're talking about. No, it is

not. It's a survey module that's offered by our website provider.

Okay.

And it's

actually, and to add to that, we would actually have a separate website, essentially. It could mirror our current website, but we could have a separate URL, which would be the plan. So it's easier to market instead of claytonmoe.gov slash what have you, whatever we decide to call it. But it would be a direct URL to that page. And then we could have it broken out specifically on different projects that we might want input on. The budget piece would be a component of that, but we could also use it in the future for master planning. So there's different components to it. So this would really just focus, this piece that we're talking about tonight focuses on the budget. Okay, this is a budget thing. Okay, very good.

We'll have a conversation with Mac. We'll bring information on bang the table, maybe show how that we'll put that together. Okay. But we'll do it quickly because we need to try to get this. We need to start the building certainly in August. So we have everything ready to go.

Well, we need to actually vote on this or are you just looking for our direction? We're just going to be looking

for direction,

right? Yeah. Okay. I wanted to be clear

about that. Thank you. Okay. Is there any, no other business, right? We're done with our agenda and anything else? Okay. All right. Well, we are at the part of the meeting where we can share what we've been working on. And so we can go around. Go ahead, Rich.

I don't have any, I haven't been to any meetings. We do have a Clayton DeMunn mural opening unveiling party on Saturday. Okay. You were all invited from five to seven. So you're welcome to come. It'd be kind of cool. It's been fun watching them build or paint as they've been doing it. It's kind of been up there a couple of times. Cool. I don't have anything else that I can think of going on in our ward. That's it.

Ira, anything from you?

We had a very short ARB meeting this week. So there's really nothing to talk about. Just a couple of applications. Our neighborhood had the party of the year for July 4th. Charlie Brennan sponsored it or basically put it together. He probably got half the people living in the neighborhood to participate in one way or another. an incredible showing fire department came and fire engines came they sprinkled all the kids it was just it was everything a kid would ever want for july 4th despite it being oh is it like 95 or 96 degrees out there and hot as hell but um i just want to give a shout out in case he's listening, Charlie, for just doing a bang-up job. Again, actually, this is the second year he's done it. But otherwise, nothing more to report. Great.

Bridget? No, nothing really to report. We had our Davis Place neighborhood meeting last night, and it was great. Great to see everybody. Gary and I were obviously there, and it was good to have the mayor there. And of course, David, thank you for coming. We were very grateful to have the chief there as well. I think I really, chief, you really add a lot to these neighborhood meetings and I know that it's time consuming, but I can't tell you how much we appreciate it and how visible you are to the community. So thank you very much. But that's it. That's all I

have. Can I also add that the chief also attended the 4th of July party at Wyoming Forest and he was extremely well received. So again, chief, thanks a lot for that as well.

He wasn't there to take people who were setting off fireworks, was

he? No, but he did put a couple of kids in jail for stealing candy off one of the tables.

All right,

great. Oh, Becky, go ahead.

Thanks. I think that however we have established the technology to clone the chief because he was also at Hillcrest and I know many other neighborhoods on the 4th of July. So it's always appreciated. And the Hillcrest 4th of July celebration has been going on for at least 60 years um and was great as always and i might note that it is probably where charlie brennan learned how to throw a neighborhood party because that's where that's right your neighborhood so um so we'll just take credit for that but um that's really all i have to say um except for um the mural celebration on Saturday. Be there, B-E-E, because you'll see there's a big V there. So it's really exciting to see that happen and huge. kudos to the folks in our ward who really championed it and specifically Jeff Vines, who's been the champion behind it all along and keeping it moving forward. So it's exciting to see it happen.

Very good. Yeah, I can't wait. Alderman Gary Feder.

Very good. Yeah, I can't wait. Alderman Fader.

We went to Yappy Hour, the opening yesterday. And Becky was there and I told her she was about to get a drink and I said right before meeting and I spooked her because I think she thought tonight was the meeting. Then I had a beer also. Anyway, Louie said it was too hot so we didn't stay very long. He's a two and a half year old boy he thought it was warm but it was it's really great to see it open. Davis Place was great. More kudos for the chief. We did, as Bridget said, we see the same people, I think, at Davis Place meetings every year, but I guess that's the way it is. But the one nice thing I will add is that I got an email this morning from someone who was there yesterday who said was very interested to hearing you talk about the Community Equity Commission and I'd really be interested in serving at some point. So I'm going to have coffee with her. And anyway, I thought that was a nice plus of the evening.

Thank you. Well, I think it's all been covered. Thanks for coming to Claverac Park too, Chief. It's a good thing you've got a motor on that bicycle. That's all I can say. Anyway, that was great and everyone loved it and our fire department just, it was awesome. I can say that I went to the Davis Place meeting too and it was great. Lots of great questions and I love going to those. So if anytime you or having one of those neighborhood meetings and you don't mind me coming, let me know. and Yappy Hour as well. The park looks fantastic. I did talk for a few minutes with the Andersons who funded the thing, and they just couldn't be happier and yappier. I had to say that, I'm sorry. And the last thing I will say is that we did get finally the numbers from St. Louis Area Food Bank on mares for meals, and a total of about 9,000 pounds of food was delivered, and that equates to about 7,000 meals provided. So thank you for those of you who helped promote it or donate, appreciate it. And thanks for managing it while I was out of town chief. Thank you. So, all right, that's it for me. Yeah, I guess so. Sorry. Yeah. We need a motion to adjourn.

Second.

I'd like to have the motion and then the second. Okay, that's all right. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, we are done.

Good night, everyone. Sorry, I was not with you.

I didn't know you were on. Were you on this whole time?

I've been listening quietly. Oh, well. I was with someone who tested positive. So the rules suggest that I should limit my contact with folks. I don't have to quarantine because I'm vaxxed, but I ought to limit. And looking at the agenda and talking with Dave, if there was a meeting where I'm probably not critically required, this was it. So I'm just being extremely cautious and making sure I don't share my viri if I have any with anyone else.

Yes, understood. Well, we missed you. And are we still broadcasting? OK, well, we will miss you at any future meetings as well.

Understood. Thank you.

Get well

quick. I'm good. Just be careful. So

yes. All right. Bye. All right, I think we're done. Okay.