September 10, 2024 — Meeting Transcript

Hi, everybody. Welcome to our meeting tonight. We want to get started and dive right in. So our discussion session will be a couple of things. But first off, we'll start with the report or the presentation for our livable communities master plan.

Sure.

be able

via Zoom, everybody.

Hi, Tony. Hi, can everybody hear me?

Great. So tonight we have Agency Planning and Landscape who is going to talk over the Livable Communities Master Plan. We have Liz Cormack and Reece and Claire, who are leading up the team. And we also have Bobby from Recreation Results and Tammy from Tool Design Group. And they obviously Bobby will talk a little bit about the recreation component, and then Tammy will speak on the bike lane. So I will turn it over to Liz and her team, and we will have them hit the ground running here.

Wonderful. Thank you, Tony. Can you all hear me okay? Okay. Yes. Yes, we can. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. We'll do brief introductions. We will be joining us momentarily and I'll let Tammy start. Hi,

everybody. Thanks for having us. I'm Tammy Sufi with Tool Design, part of the team, obviously here. And we worked on the bicycle and pedestrian component and it was a great project. Great fun. So thanks for letting us wrap it up here with you today.

Awesome. Bobby, if you want to go next.

Sure. I'll echo Tammy's thoughts and say thanks. It's been a great experience working with your community and organization on this project. I'm Bobby Nance, the president of Recreation Results, and we played a role in managing the recreation programs and operations portion of the project.

Thank you both. And I am Liz Cormack. I'm a senior urban planner here at Agency. And I had the honor of serving as the project manager for this plan. Very excited to walk you through it today. So I know that we are tight on time and wanna wrap up sooner than later today. So we will keep it brief and look forward to holding questions at the end. We are gonna talk through the plan process and engagement, then dive into how to use this plan, including an introduction to the four goals that really serve as the foundation for the plan. And finally, we'll talk about what's next, diving into implementation and a few priority actions that we really wanna put a spotlight on today. In addition to the wonderful group that I'm joined by here today, we're also joined by ETC Institute. They conducted a statistically valid survey to support this project. They're also the folks who do your annual citizen satisfaction survey. And of course, we were led here by the wonderful leadership at your departments of Public Works and Parks and Recreation. This was a really wonderful opportunity to really talk about the intersection between the mission of those two departments at the City of Clayton and how they both can really advance your goals of a livable community. We kicked off this project in June of 2023, and we submitted an initial draft of the report in June of this year. You can see three different rounds of public engagement really supported the three big picture phases of the plan. And we'll start by diving into that. Before I do, if I can put you on the spot where you just wanna give you an opportunity to say hello.

Hello, everyone. Apologies for being late. I was an attendee, but I'm happily promoted to a panelist. Again, my name is Rhiannon. I think I've met you all before, but excited to be here again. I'm a principal and planner with Agency Landscape and Planning and here to support Liz and Tammy and Bobby in this final presentation.

Thanks, Rhiannon. So first of all, we worked very closely with the comprehensive planning process with Clayton Tomorrow 2040. We, of course, felt it was essential to really be in lockstep with your comprehensive plan. We did joint engagement activities, the two open houses you saw in December and March that I know some of you joined us at were in collaboration with that group. The sort of, you know, there's of course a lot of intersections and we've worked hard to ensure that the strategies put forth by this plan are really advancing and kind of furthering, further expanding on some of the goals of Clayton Tomorrow. This plan in particular is really replacing Parks and Recreation's last master plan which was completed in 2007 as well as the 2009 Bikeable Walkable Communities Plan. Importantly, many communities shaped this plan in terms of community input so far. We've heard from folks in a variety of pop-up activities through multiple rounds of online engagement in addition to public workshops. We also had the opportunity to collaborate closely with a number of stakeholder groups at Clayton Our wonderful steering committee has really stewarded this work, so has really shaped the plan that you're going to see now. And thank you to Susan for joining us on that committee and really lending her leadership there, as well as the Citizens Advisory Task Force, which ensured that resident input was also really central to how this project was stewarded and was represented. in a number of different ways in the plan. We also met a number of times with the Parks and Recreation Commission and with yourselves. So thank you to folks who have engaged in the project and really shaped the report thus far. This is just a quick look at some of the engagement activities and events that we hosted throughout the project, including pop-ups out and about and the open houses. And what we really heard across demographics, across different sort of events, parts of the city, different neighborhoods, were these three big themes. And these really serve as the foundation for the proposals, the goals that you'll see in the plan. The first is vibrant and inclusive programming. The community really expressed an interest in more diverse programming, especially culture and arts programming in Clayton. The second is safe and thoughtful connections. We heard this again and again. Folks are really interested in opting to walk or bike for daily trips under half a mile, for example, and really desire safer and more comfortable routes to do so in the city of Clayton. The third is activated and adaptable public spaces. You have a really fabulous park system, the gems of which are Shaw Park and Oak Newell Park, and folks are opting to travel longer distances to these parks. You'll see kind of how we reflected people's interest in thinking about how to really balance uses and balance programming across Clayton and throughout the city in those parks but also beyond. So you'll see these goals, the themes, a number of themes that we heard from community engagement there on the left really drove the creation of the four goals that are the foundation of this plan. So how to use this plan. Before we jump into the goals, we wanted to kind of ground ourselves in what the plan is and what the plan is not. We see the plan first and foremost, it has been a process through which we've really collaborated with the community and with stakeholders to develop that shared vision that you'll see moving forward and that we wanna put forth as the goals of a livable community. It is, you know, by design not meant to be overly prescriptive so that it can be flexible really to a changing world in the next decade. It is designed to serve really as a strategic framework for the city to use to advance the community's needs. Finally, we see it as a guide for how to meet those needs in the next 10 years. So hopefully you can see this plan as a tool as you prioritize further investments, a tool to ensure that you're doing so in a way that meets the community's stated priorities. So the plan is structured. Hopefully some of you have had a chance to take a look at the document, but we'll want to walk through it here in brief. The plan is structured, really built on that foundation of the community's vision. There's the four goals. Each of the four goals is supported by a collection of strategies and under each strategy is a collection of actions designed to advance that strategy. Finally, there's the implementation plan, which serves as really sort of that ground on which to start to get things done. And we're excited to dive into that a little bit today. This is what you'll see in the plan. On the top left is the strategy, followed by the description. And on the right are those actions to support that. So in building and really continuing to be a top livable community in Clayton, we see four critical goals in the next 10 years. One is to activate, to leverage public space as a platform for gathering and connection. Two is to really focus on accessibility. And here we really need access between places to make it easy for people of all ages and abilities to walk or ride to their destination. Three is to collaborate, to partner with the community to meet Clayton's goals of equity and sustainability in particular now and in the future. And finally, to sustain, to sustain the system you have today and strategically embrace Clayton's role as a recreation hub for both the community and the region. So I'm gonna dive into each of these goals. Of course, we won't have time to go into the detail of every strategy that supports these goals, but we wanna kind of spend a little bit on each one. For goal number one, leveraging public space as a platform. These are some of the sort of big ideas from community engagement that have support, have driven this, the creation of this goal. We heard an interest in really creating more spaces for the community to gather, to get together, to connect. But we also heard that folks were interested in really investing in what you have today generally more than creating new. Some of the examples of how you could measure success against this goal are on the right here. We don't include specific, we don't sort of commit the city to specific metrics as a part of this report, as a part of his plan, but we do include examples of how you can measure success in the next, in the coming years. Here you could look at dollars per capita spent on capital improvements and parks or percent of identified ADA improvement projects completed annually. And some of the strategies, you know, these are sort of a brief summary and you can see the full language in the report. Some of the strategies we think are essential to advancing this goal are things like really embracing year-round use of your park space and being thoughtful about how that can happen in four seasons. Defining flexible space for pop-up programming to support the community's stated interest in additional pop-up programs, festivals, markets. and really kind of starting to build the relationships and infrastructure to partner to activate space. Partner, for example, with local businesses as well as artists in the community a little bit even more than you are today. The second goal is to make it easy for people of all ages and abilities to walk or ride to their destination. Again, we heard this frequently from the community. An improved bike network was the top rated goal by the public in our most recent open house. We heard again and again, feelings that there was a lack of safety in particular at intersections. And the folks are really interested in creating a network that was in particular, for example, safe and comfortable for children and families to use. Some of the ways that a city can measure success against this goal could be number of intersections with improved safety countermeasures in Clayton, as well as the increase in use of walking, cycling or micro mobility for short trips, which is something that you can continue to monitor, for example, through your annual citizen satisfaction survey. Some of the strategies to advance this goal, one is to provide a high quality bike network, which I will share a little bit more about, but also to recognize the sort of critical role that programming and policy also plays in building really a culture and a broader awareness of multiple modes of transport in the city. We see the bike network is really being made up of a number of elements. It's no one thing. The proposal that you see put forth by our wonderful partners at Tool Design and really building on their expertise in this nationally is built in kind of the four parts. So one is a spine network. We recognize that on busier roads, really where you're seeing higher volumes of traffic and faster speeds, those bigger intersections and separated bike lanes and infrastructure really is necessary. The data is very clear that that's critical for cyclist safety on those busier roads. That said, bike boulevards are then a really important piece of this here. This is a critical part of this sort of proposal. You see those in orange. These are sort of spaces where cyclists can share the roadway with vehicular traffic on lower volume, lower speed roadways and where traffic calming infrastructure like raised intersections and clear wayfinding can make that safe on those streets for cyclists to share the road with cars. Safe crossings, as we've mentioned, are a really critical component of this work. We recognize the complexity and that some of the intersections that emerged as priorities across data from many sources are ones that are really under the jurisdiction of the St. Louis of St. Louis County. But we have a couple proposals here in the plan that we think, you know, can support you in the coming years to still address those since they are so important to the network. And finally, there's trails and the role of trails. You don't have a lot of extra space in Clayton to build out an additional and expand the trail network, but you have this amazing resource at the Centennial Greenway. We see a huge opportunity to better connect that to the rest of the network by improving really that connection through the south of Shaw The third goal is to partner with the community to meet Clayton's goals of equity and sustainability now and in the future. We heard a real commitment citywide to sustainability, as well as an interest really in the culture and history of Clayton. We also want to ensure from an equity standpoint that your recreation programs are accessible to all, and that sustainability is really prioritized both in parks and facilities, but also in terms of how you're incentivizing green infrastructure and private development. So those are some of the strategies you see here to advance that goal. The fourth goal here is to strategically embrace Clayton's role as a recreation hub for both the community and the region. You are sort of a really unique space with your vibrant downtown and your vibrant daytime population. So there's a not insignificant number of folks, for example, who are members of the Center of Clayton who are not residents in the city of Clayton. And that actually gives you an opportunity to do some really great things in the city. Our impression right now is that that is allowing you to invest in these incredible amenities and recreation resources that you have at a scale really sort of beyond your population size. We also see in this goal opportunity to advance this goal, opportunity to really lean into that interest in programming and in additional arts and cultural programming in particular. When we did exercises with the community as to what they are interested in from an event standpoint, we found that really folks are interested in additional sort of pop-up events where it's a festival or a market focused on food and dining, for example, that is family friendly. So not a massive flagship event so much as a series of smaller events in the city. We also, here you'll see in the report an interest in expanding joint use agreements. This is something that you're doing today with University City's Ruth Park Golf Course. So Clayton residents have resident rates at the golf course. We see this as a model that can really be expanded on to meet the community's needs in the city without making those major investments in additional resources where your neighbors are already offering a service in that regard. So to conclude, I want to talk about next steps and implementation of the livable community plan. We recognize not everything can be done tomorrow. This is really a plan for the next decade in the city of Clayton. And you'll see that the proposed strategies and actions are broken up into three phases moving forward. The first is near-term implementation. We see these as high priorities for the community and largely within the city's control and capacity, which means that these can be taken on really in the near future. The next is mid-term implementation. These are critical investments, but ones that may require planning or external collaboration and therefore take a bit longer. We see those as happening in the next zero to five years. And finally, longer term efforts. These are bigger, more complex efforts that will take time. That doesn't necessarily mean that they should not be started or planned in the near term, but we recognize that these are going to be ongoing projects. In the top right, you see a photo. Thank you to folks who joined us in the steering committee activity to really move through the prioritization exercise. And so you'll really see that in the plan, that the steering committee has really shaped a lot of the phasing that you see proposed. So in the plan, you'll see the phases broken up this way, the suggested phase for each of the actions, the likely owner of that action. And then on the right key partners, recognizing as we've mentioned, the collaboration is a key part to advancing this plan. There's sort of a number of folks who are likely will need to be involved. And pulling from these, we just wanted to talk about a sort of subset that we think are immediate wins for to advance the goals of a livable community in the near term. The first is to begin to address the stated community desire for safer streets and intersections. We know that this is a priority and we see a couple of ways that the city can start to address this now. One is to develop a safety awareness campaign to increase awareness of cyclists, pedestrians, and all users in the transportation system. This is really, we think, a critical element in really building a culture of walking and biking in the city of Clayton and shared awareness on the road. The second is to consider temporary demonstration projects at priority intersections to test out safety countermeasures. This is really a proven method both to prototype longer term investment, but also to build support amongst the public and stakeholders. The second, which I've alluded to is to expand reciprocal use agreements. There are some sort of unmet needs that are high interest to your residents. But again, we heard from folks a preference to expand or invest in what exists rather than build new. And with that in mind, we see an opportunity to really to build new reciprocal use agreements for example, with the Brentwood Indoor Ice Rink to start to meet that need by really leveraging what some of your surrounding, your neighboring municipalities offer. Finally, is to start to establish the necessary infrastructure to increase events programming. Our understanding is that this was often also a really popular topic in the comprehensive plan. That idea of you have a really vibrant downtown today, thinking about how to continue to build on that and make that more vibrant in the future. There's a couple of things that you can start sort of in the shorter term, including ensuring restaurants are open year round, Engaging residents on proposed locations for road closures. Our understanding is this may already be happening, which is awesome. Working with local businesses to grow event vending support, starting to build those relationships, that network, and studying the feasibility of a new flexible plaza space in Shaw Park. We did wanna take a look here at what that could look like in a little bit more detail. We included, you'll see in the plan a few concept plans in a section called transformative projects. This is one of them and this is really an exploration at a very high level, a very conceptual level that sought to take a look from, you know, measuring spatially what could go into this space. So we did explored five concepts. The first is really looking at flexible uses. The second is really looking at events specifically, so large and small events infrastructure. The third, if you really focused on sports recreation, what would that look like and how much could you fit there? And you'll see that from this test fit, from a conceptual level, I think there's a big opportunity to incorporate. There's an opportunity to incorporate a skate park. You could fit a basketball court and then up to six pickleball courts. Concept four is to go all in on nature. We did hear an interest from the community in additional nature experiences, which your current recreation programming sort of has a gap in today. But if you were going to really lean into that in this space, what could that look like? And then finally, a hybrid approach, which I'll show in a little bit more detail here. At the right is the space as you see it today. And Parks and Recreation has brilliantly incorporated these four pickleball courts to activate the space today. We were surprised that you really can fit quite a few pickleball courts in a lot of these concepts, even more than you have now. On the right, so on the far right here is Brentwood Boulevard. And we the green stripe here is a two way, two way bike lane, which is, you know, Brentwood Boulevard is part of that spine network proposed by the plan. You see there's actually a grade change down to Brentwood Boulevard here, which we see as an opportunity to really treat as a community front porch. An idea you'll see in a couple of the concepts of flexible lawn space could really accommodate a number of different uses throughout the year. A shade structure could serve as sort of a flexible use for a number of different events, but also cover seating for workday lunches. And then a smaller version of the skate park we feel could still meet a need that we heard from young people in Clayton. Shaw Park is, of course, adjacent to Clayton High School. We heard from the mayor's youth council member who represented on the citizen advisory task force. that right now, young people are leaving school in the afternoon and going into Shaw Park and feel like there's nothing in particular for them in Shaw Park today. We feel that there is a sort of an opportunity in this space to also meet the needs of teens and that that can be really designed as a really wonderful place to hang out. And then the six pickleball courts can fit nonetheless. um so that is all we have for now is a quick overview of the plan um we really appreciate your time and look forward to your questions

thank you that's a great presentation really informative and um i'm actually kind of glad we had this i know that we've all taken a look at the plan but in terms of a deep dive i think it's nice to have this sort of introductory sort of uh roadmap put out for us so we can then dive into it and and make some decisions in the near future. So thank you very much. So I think we're going to allow about 10 minutes for questions because we do have an important presentation from sustainability to see. So I'm just going to start in order of seniority and see if you have any comments or questions for now, knowing that we are going to get into this fully soon. you know, at a later meeting.

No, Liz, thank you for the presentation. I really like looking at the plan. I think you guys did a great job of laying it out. It's just really easy to read and easy to look at. I definitely liked, I love seeing the transformative projects. I'm not very good at, I'm not very creative. So I really appreciated you guys giving us ideas on how we can move forward. That was great. And I mean, I have questions about different things that you guys suggested. I'm not sure we really have time for that today, but I just did want to say thank you for all the ideas you guys gave. As we move forward, are you available to staff for, you know, questions as we try to implement the plan? Or is that, I mean, is it? Is it an ongoing kind of – I mean, are you available for ongoing questions or –

I can answer this one, Liz. Hi, everyone. Rhiannon. Finally got my video to work. I would say that we've developed quite a relationship with Tony and Matt. And through that relationship, you know, we've always made ourselves available throughout this plan process and will continue to make ourselves available to them as they lead or champion the plan process. But we do imagine that they will very much lead and direct this plan process and we will be there to support them.

Right. And I, you know, and the only thing I would say too is I loved all the ideas you gave us. You know, so many of our arterials are not in our control, which is frustrating to us. So it's, but I look forward to, you know, again, maybe trying to find ways to work with the county to make um, our intersections safer and, you know, better for pedestrians and bikes. And, um, one of the things I was going to ask you is you guys suggested, um, some sort of awareness campaign. Um, and maybe that would be something that would be easy to do just to remind people who are in cars to, you know, be on the lookout for pedestrians and bikes, like what do you guys, um, what do you envision that, that that would look like?

I can jump in here. Um, Yeah, thanks for that. I do think that especially as communities are looking more at safety, which is happening all over the country, we're really looking at these kind of holistic approach. So not just the infrastructure, but those educational campaigns as well. And I think they're really important. I think maybe the first thing I would recommend is that you make sure that that campaign is really directed at all users so that there are messages that are targeted for motorists, for bicyclists, for pedestrians, and really kind of having a conversation around behavior of everyone, not just one particular user group. Those conversations tend to go a lot better than picking out one group and saying, okay, you need to change. That usually doesn't go all that well. So that would be my first suggestion. And there's lots of great examples out there of educational campaigns. There's a little bit less information on... how effective they are. So we could certainly share with staff, some examples of campaigns that we think are strong and you could look at those as models.

Yeah, that'd be great. I mean, cause even just understanding how you go about that messaging. I mean, you know, not everybody reads our emails or do you put, you know, you know, digital signs up that the police put up, you know, I don't know. It's just understanding how we even get the message out to people. So. Yeah.

We can share some information and, um, Having some information in schools, too, is a great place to start. Just like future, you know, people who walk and bike now in schools are also your future drivers. So the more sensitive they are to the safety issues for all users can be a really effective way to reach people in the long term.

Kids are also the first ones to call out their parents when they do something wrong.

For sure.

Great. Thank you. Thanks for all the work and thanks for the presentation. I think that where I think we find ourselves is that we as a city need to identify, you know, the capital versus the operational, the priorities and the numbers behind it. When we talk about ADA compliance and accessibility, where are the issues? What's our baseline? I don't have a good grasp on that yet. When I delve into the plan, maybe I'll have a better idea. And then in prioritizing it, you know, how we get there. The same thing with intersections and things like that. Where in particular, you know, where is the data telling us where the concerns are and the challenges and what's most feasible for us to start doing education on top of that? And the programming are important. as you look at the budget tonight, are a different category of how we get there. But getting the structures in place, I think, is going to take some more diving into the data that you all collected. And the same thing with reciprocal uses. There's the ice rink is an obvious reciprocal use to pursue. And we have to wonder where we can also offer services and what else is out there that people want to use. Do we build pickleball courts and basketball or Do we work with somebody else to have those things accessible to our community? So I think a lot of it is work on the board now that you've identified kind of a bigger overlay. The improved bicycle network is interesting. It did come up, it seems that came up from the beginning, the walkability and a lot of that will be capital focused and then the education on how to get that done, so. So no real questions, just a lot more, you know, the data behind it all is what I think that we're going to have to get into more. And we may need you for that too. And

also, just as a clarifier, we relied on the reason that a lot of the ADA information is not in the plan is because we relied on past planning by other consultants who are ADA-focused consultants who provided a lot of that work. And so we leaned into their work and referenced their work and did not include it in our own work. Okay, thanks.

Very good.

Thanks. Hi, thanks. Yeah, thanks a lot for the work and the presentation. One that I probably could have just emailed is that the High Point neighborhood has an E at the end of it. And so if we would catch that, I'm sure they would appreciate it. I love the emphasis on connecting to what exists, partnering, amplifying things that are already happening. I think it's really important for us not to imagine that like we can or should replace what other people are doing or, or just try to do it better if we don't really need to. Right. So I love that. I noticed a big fan of traffic circles. I noticed you mentioned those and I think you had some specific recommendations for them along Glenridge as an example. I was wondering if you, if there, and I might've missed like some of the detail in the plan that if there were other specific sites that were recommended or if that's something our staff would just look at going forward. Do

you want me to take that one, Liz? Go for it. Yeah, so we did develop a few example concepts for the bike boulevards. If there are any of you who haven't dug into that part of the plan, a bike boulevard is on a low traffic, low volume neighborhood street. And the idea is that with some traffic calming, you can really create a nice bikeway where bicyclists of all ages can share space with cars safely because you're maintaining slow speeds of motor vehicles with that traffic calming. So we did identify a number of those throughout the community, and we just gave a couple sample concepts. And so that's the one you're referring to with Glen Ridge, where we would have some traffic circles, raised intersections and things like that to maintain those safe speeds around 20, 25 miles per hour through the neighborhoods.

Thanks. I was excited to see the top goal of the Improved Bike Network. I was an early and continued supporter of our first protected bike lane, and I use it. And I think it's been somewhat contentious. And I think one of the biggest things that we haven't done well yet as a city is really make it clear to people that it's a bike lane. By painting it differently or doing the things that I personally, I mean, there's probably evidence on this, but like anecdotally, I know it makes a difference if it's painted green or if the little bicycle figure is like painted on it more often. so that it's very clear what it is to drivers and people who don't know what it is. So I'm excited about the opportunity to increase education and awareness of all of these different things for all the aspects of the community. And the last thing I want to say is I'm a huge fan of the inclusion of the skate park and, in the Shaw Park Plaza concepts. And so I just think that's really exciting. And I won't be here in two weeks, but I support the adoption.

We will help you talk about it in two weeks anyway. So we'll see. We'll see when that happens. Okay, Rick, go on.

Great. Thank you again for your work. I've got a question. My question is based on your work with other communities, I'm wondering if you have any best practices to recommend to us regarding implementation of this plan. And what I'm thinking of maybe as a specific example is, This whole bike network, which is a, I guess, a conglomeration of a lot of different ideas. Are these the kinds of things that it's better to approach comprehensively or more piecemeal and do what you can? So if you can give any general implementation ideas about the plan as in general or about the bike plan specifically.

And then we can have Tammy dive in more on the bike front.

Yep. So I think generally happy to share any best practices for implementation. You know, I think one thing One initial thought that I have is that many of you participated in our early implementation workshops, a few months ago when we all met and we further refine those together with Tony and Matt and Anna just to. clarify who is kind of championing each of those actions, who is meant to be responsible for at least ensuring that that action is guided and who's partnering around that action. And then also just giving a sense for phasing or priorities for each of those actions. And we did that together with them in part because their approach to implementation wants to be kind of focused on bite-sized chunks that gain or that get them to the broader whole rather than trying to do everything all at once. And we support that and we've worked in many communities where that has been a really great method of going about implementation, but it really depends on who it is that's championing the plan and making sure that they are comfortable and support and have accountability to those actions. I think the other piece that I'll mention is related to that accountability. There are metrics in the plan that are celebratory and to identify where you as a city are making progress. And in communities that we've worked in, like Denver, Colorado, or Greensboro, North Carolina. Communicating those wins with the community and celebrating those wins with the together in online newsletters, on social media, and annual reports has been a really great way to go about implementation too because you get community support And it feels good to be part of the team or to be part of a city that is making progress. And it just helps to maintain momentum. And so I'll leave you with those two kind of high level thoughts. And then, Tammy, I'll let you take on the big bucket of biking.

Sure. Well, there are a lot of recommendations in there for bikes. I don't think you're going to be able to do them all at once. And I wouldn't recommend that anyway. I think you learn a lot with each project that you implement. And I think then you can build on that for your future projects, which is really important. I do think that... You know, we have, as we said, divided these into short, mid and long term projects. And so that's a way to approach it. But also, I would say seize the opportunity to build whenever you can. So if you're doing a repaving, if you're doing sewer project that's going to tear up the roadway anyway, now that you have a plan and you have those lines on the map, that's a great opportunity to get something done. That maybe would have been more expensive otherwise. And then I would also say some of these projects are going to take a long time. Those conversations, as somebody mentioned earlier, those conversations with the county in particular, like that's going to take some doing. And so those are longer term ongoing projects. projects and conversations. But I do think that as a community, you know, seize all those opportunities, but then make sure you're choosing one of those big challenging projects that you work on over time. Because if you keep waiting, it'll never happen. So that's the other piece you have to remember. But I do Think it's going to happen in chunks. And it's going to be fantastic and celebrate every one of those wins because they're all important.

I'm going to try to just say we want to speed up a little bit because we want to be fair to sustainability committee. So if we can make our questions and our answers short, that would be great. Sorry, Jeff.

You're asking me to be short. Yeah. So two questions. One's a data question. One's kind of a other question. So you talked about the amount of surveys and the amount of workshop attendees. Can you put that in perspective for us on an absolute number as well as relative to the population of Clayton? Like, is that a good amount of responses, not a good amount of You know, right. Like we're going to use this plan to make a decision for the city. And I want to get a better sense of like how many citizens actually can participate in this and what does that compare it to other cities?

Liz, I imagine you want to take this one on.

Yeah, feel free to add on. Right, I think it's a great question and it is a common question. We feel really good about the engagement being representative of your community as a whole. And there's a couple of reasons for that. One at the end of the day, not everyone has the time or the interest in participating. And so we would never expect to see total participation That's just not reflective of folks' interest in how they want to engage in city life. But the statistically valid survey was designed really to get a representative sample. What that means is that we distribute it so that the respondents are representative of the demographics of Clayton as a whole and meet a threshold of respondents so that we feel confident in the statistical validity of that. We also were able to really access a number of folks through the number of methods that we used. So folks who engaged at pop-ups or online probably didn't come to open houses. And that helped us ensure that, you know, we were not just reaching people who were able to join us for an evening event at the Center of Clayton. You know, we had really amazing conversations and deep engagement at those events. But so I would say that compared to the sort of work that we've done elsewhere, you know, throughout the United States, we feel really good about this being a representative of the community's thoughts and feelings.

The only other quick question then is on the recommendations. And if you have this data, you can send it later. Is, was there any micro recommendations? For example, you know, you talk about neighborhoods wanting, I'm thinking like basketball courts, but was there any data to show that the neighborhoods around open old park would want them there as opposed to people in the shop park? Is there any way to get at that micro level data? So when we're talking about where to put some of this stuff, where it may make sense. If you got to a grade, if you have it behind the scenes and can send it to us later, that'd be fine too.

Rhea, I saw you on mute, but I will say yes and no. I think that you'll see some level of detail in the plan that's more sort of location-specific. And there is, we certainly will share the survey data with you, which can also be broken out sort of more specifically. But there's, so you will see some of that in the plan. We didn't do really sort of a specific engagement neighborhood by neighborhood to kind of focus at that level since we were really looking at the system citywide. But there are some thoughts in the plan that can answer that question.

All right, great. Thank you.

Thanks. Thanks, Jeff, for being short and sweet. So I'm not going to make any comments now, knowing that we're going to talk about this at length later. I think, again, thank you for the work. It's a really great plan. And I am confident we had lots of robust community engagement. So it's a great jumping off spot for us. And we will be talking about it again in a few weeks, devoting like an entire meeting to it. And we will probably need your, we'll have more questions for you at that time. So don't go too far away. All right. So we're going to switch gears now and ask our sustainability. chair to come forward and talk to us about a couple of things that she has for us and deb i just want to say we promised you 20 minutes and you shall have 20 minutes

uh we will make it as quick as we can um i'm going to talk tonight about the green dining alliance but i've also given over some of my time to our intern kate young who's going to talk about our Dark Skies efforts for both Oak Knoll and Shaw Park. So to kick that off, I want to first just go after Green Dining Alliance, which is an overlap of where we have some food and dining issues. We just heard about that and sustainability. So the two come together. Three things I'm going to tell you about tonight is just generally what is Green Dining Alliance? Why we want to support that and have it present here in Clayton. And the last thing is a request. The first time I've ever come to you and asked you for money. All the other presentations we've ever made and things we've asked for have not required money, and this is not gonna ask for a lot, but we're gonna at least wanna put that on the table. Tonight joining us, we have Jillian Garland who's I believe still back there. She's with the Green Dining Alliance program. She has worked on this with us as well as Kate has. Jillian joined Green Dining Alliance this spring She has her undergraduate degree in sustainability from Maryville. She comes out of a restaurant background and experience set, so she knows a lot about what some of our restaurants might want. Why do we care about this? Why is Sustainability Committee even bringing forward Green Dining Alliance? I think you have heard me in presentations before say our North Star is really looking at how do we impact climate change And this is a piece of it. The third largest contributor of human-caused methane gas emissions comes from our landfills, and that comes from rotting food waste. And it's a huge problem. 30% of the food in the United States is wasted, and it is the most abundant material. You can flip that slide, sorry. I guess I didn't tell you that. It's the most abundant material that's sent off to landfills, So what can we do about that? Hopefully, we can get after the composting of that food waste rather than sending it straight up to landfills. Clayton does a really good job. All of us as residents of Clayton have the opportunity to compost in with our yard waste. If you're not doing it, I hope you will. But our restaurants don't have that same easy option. But it is one of the things that Green Dining Alliance focuses on. So if you can flip to the next slide, I really am going to try and... So what is the Green Dining Alliance? It is part of Earth Day 365. It's a restaurant certification program that's been sponsored by a number of different groups, including the St. Louis Jefferson Solid Waste Management District. They have since 2012 certified over 100 different restaurants, breweries, coffee shops worldwide. all kinds of places, many of which are listed up here on the slide. You can take a look at them. Some of them are close to us, some of them a little further out. Right here in Clayton, we have Crushed Red, the Avenue Restaurant, Posteria and Calde's that either currently are right on it or slightly lapsed in my observation. The money comes from the tipping fees when all the trucks go to the landfill. So that's what goes to support the Earth Day 365 and the Green Dining Alliance. Next slide, please. What's their mission? It's first to reduce the carbon, the CO2 footprint through energy emissions, reduce food waste, reduce single-use plastics and ban styrofoam, improve recycling and composting, all of the things that you can see up on the slide right now. They do that by going in and working with each individual restaurant. and telling them what needs to change. And then also, next slide, please. This really was going to be a longer presentation. Helping them by providing, let's skip to the next one, providing support. So they'll help them with grants of up to $240 a year on composting. They'll give them $500 to try and cut over from their current single-use plastics to some reusable products. They have all kinds of support in terms of consulting efforts that come to these individual restaurants to help them make progress in reducing their waste. They also have marketing support that goes forward for each of the restaurants as well. You can see what those are listing in Sauce Magazine and some other social media and newsletters. Next slide. All right, so what do we get out of it as Clayton? Hopefully we're promoting higher recycling and composting. We create awareness and education around waste diversion for not only our residents here in Clayton, but for everybody that comes here to dine. It prevents anybody from saying, oh yeah, we do that when they really don't. It also really attracts people who value sustainability. Once I became more aware of Green Dining Alliance, I know the first question I always ask my servers, are you guys a Green Dining Alliance restaurant? And then it's interesting to see what they have to say. Next slide real quick. We'll show you just some of the statistics where people are saying, yes, indeed, it's really important to me to have a company to implement sustainable environmental practices. You can see that's really 83% at the millennials, Gen Xs, which I wish I was, 66%, and baby boomers at 62%. So more than half of the people in each one of the categories is saying they care about those things. So let's see, I think it's in Nielsen. It's 73% of consumers said they would definitely change consumption habits to reduce environmental impact and it shows up here. So let's flip to the next one. What does it cost? For each individual restaurant, it's $250. The first time they go through, it costs more because there's a lot more hands-on upfront work by the Green Dining Alliance to provide that consulting support. After that annually, it's $200. A lot of cities around us are offering subsidies to the restaurants to become part of GDA. They include Maplewood, Cortex, Brentwood, Webster Groves, and you can see what they are actually offering. In addition, the Cortex group, the Grove, and the Loop also have Green Dining Alliance programs. So Maplewood is doing $100 for certification or recertification. Maplewood was the first Green Dining Alliance organization corridor or district, if you will, across the United States. And they are still very much behind it and supporting it. And I don't know how many of their restaurants. I'm going to look at you, Jillian. 10 restaurants there that are a part of that. Webster Groves has just recently gotten on board with this and they are offering micro grants, you can see about to $1,000 for changes that need to happen around energy efficiency and lighting and then up to $3,000 for restart grants. So the first $1,000 helps baseline for eliminating styrofoam and single stream recycling, and the 3,000 helps cost of energy improvements, lighting, electric ranges, EV charging stations, that sort of thing. Next slide, and this is hopefully my last slide. The GDA costs and what we're asking for, I'm going to just cut to the bottom line. The second yellow banner you see, if we had 100% participation of 55 restaurants in Clayton, which is my best number right now, it would cost us about $1,000 a year. I got to tell you, in my wildest dreams, we will not get 55 restaurants. That would be awesome if we did, but I think it's extremely unlikely. But that's your top number. for a first year out. If we have 50% of them, I think it would be terrific, but that's what we're asking for. And what's coming by way of recommendation from the committee is that 13,750. And so that's, that's really what we're after. I had a lot more other, a lot of other things to talk to you about, but I'm going to ditch those because I want to save some time for Kate. So questions.

cities actually enacted something that requires people, that requires restaurants to recycle and do sort of the minimum on green dining?

Well, I'll answer that question for Missouri. There's legislation at the state level, and I'll defer to our great counselor over there. That would be you, Mr. O'Keefe. Missouri does not allow us to ban things like single-use plastic bags or styrofoam or that sort of thing. So it has to be

carrots

rather than sticks.

Okay. That answers it. I should have known that.

Unfortunately, we have room to grow in that area, but

And then if we were to devote budget to it, how would we know that the restaurants were actually following

through? So we would know because they would sign up with Green Dining Alliance. They pay that initial fee. They would get started going through it. They have to continue in order to get recertified every year.

So who checks on that? The Green Dining Alliance?

Green Dining Alliance, okay. So they're our partner in this. We do not have the bandwidth, the people or the support to do this on our own. So we're pulling them in as a partner. Got it. Loosely partner, Mr. O'Keefe.

So what would be the like if I'm a restaurant? And let's say we cover their entire cost of certification. How much cost is it actually them to do the program? I know it's relative to the restaurant, but like is it it's us subsidizing this a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of how much it's going to cost them to implement it or is it actually meaningful?

I think it's meaningful, but I will also say it's going to be restaurant by restaurant in terms of how much change they require. Jillian, you may be able to fill more in on that than I can. But for some, as you see what Webster Groves, if you can go back a couple slides and pull that up where it shows what Webster was doing, their micro grants and their certification piece, it's because some restaurants have huge needs to change. You want

to take that? Yes. Hi. So actually, what I would say is I just went and did Maypop in Webster Groves using those lovely micro grants that we got here. And they had a lot less to change than other restaurants that are currently employing styrofoam because that is a hard line for us. They cannot be using styrofoam. So the cost up front, I can see they can still be using single-use plastics in order to be part of our program. We give them like a tiered approach with a star rating. So the minimum to be a part of the Green Dining Alliance is a two-star rating. All they have to be doing is a single-stream recycling, and they have to give us their waste rate. stream data and they have to promise that they're going to stop using styrofoam. So as long as they cover that, I will work with them to find the most cost effective solutions. And we also have those grants that you were mentioning earlier to help cover that initial cost while they find what works best for them. So right now we have access to a $500 grant from the refed catalytic grant. Sorry, it's quite long through the EPA and that helps cover that. And we're also offering other carrots as well to help get them into composting. And some of that opens up possibly $40 a month in composting if they decide they are happy to give us as much data as possible. Did that answer your

question? It does. Thanks.

Any other questions?

Questions? Just adding to that too, there are several restaurants in Clayton, Deb, you can give the names, at Seeds and whoever, who are part of Green Dining Alliance on their non-Clayton sites. And so some restaurants are really there and they'll probably be the first ones that would sign up because they don't have much at all to do. And it's also a, um, an advertising boost for those restaurants, especially as more and more of our surrounding communities and the restaurants in Clayton do it. There's a little bit of that peer pressure and it's inexpensive advertising. So the cost can vary a lot. And the fact that, uh, So much of it is covered outside of the small investment we're being asked to make is really something that makes it, I think, really take hold. Once the changes are made within the restaurant, I think they're in pretty good shape. Yes.

Yes. Okay, good. That was short and sweet. Anything over here? Question? Okay. I think this is great. And so we will definitely seriously consider that budget number and we'll get back to you. Okay. Good. We hope soon. Yeah, soon. Terrific. And now you have the dark sky.

Yes, I want to just briefly introduce Kate Young, who many of you have met, but many of you have not. She has been our full-time intern over the summer, and she's devoted hundreds of hours to the project she's going to present to you in just a minute, the Urban Night Sky. This comes out of a request that Michelle made to me when I first was appointed to this committee. She said, Deb, I'd really like to have this. And I said, We'll get to it. And this year, because of Kate, we had a chance to get to it. She is working on her environmental analysis degree from Washington University, has honors in every place you can imagine, finished up at Amsterdam last spring, joined us in the summer, and she's staying on. And I could say a lot of other wonderful things, but I'm not going to use any more of your time. Take it over, Kate. Thanks.

Yeah. Hi, everyone. It's nice to meet you all or see you again. So yeah, so I'm just going to talk briefly about our application for Oak Knoll Park and Shaw Park. We've heard a lot about why those are such regional destinations in Clayton already, but we're applying for those to become certified as urban night sky places by Dark Sky International. So you can go to the next slide, please. So just to talk a little bit about what Dark Sky International actually is, it's a global lighting authority with the mission of restoring the nighttime environment and protecting communities and wildlife from light pollution. They carry out this mission through four main projects. The first is called International Dark Sky Places. This is where our project falls. And it really works to recognize parks around the entire world for their efforts to limit light pollution and also educate the public on why this is important. And to talk about why this is so a little bit, you can see on the graphic on that slide that in the last 75 years or so, this has become a major issue in the United States. Light pollution is really running wild. And this can be harmful in many different ways for both planetary wildlife and human health. For example, light pollution can be really disorienting for birds when they're migrating. It's September, so it's actually migration season right now. St. Louis is also the fifth deadliest city in the country for birds. So this is a really significant and relevant point for this city in particular. In addition, the Midwest is seeing the largest declines in insect populations in the world, and lights can be really impactful on insects' abilities to engage in typical behaviors, including normal reproduction, which can of course be harmful for population health. And I'll talk a little bit more about human health in a couple slides. Also, light pollution wastes a lot of money and energy from street lamps alone, which are a really small section of all the lights that could produce light pollution in the world. $2.2 billion is wasted from light pollution. So it's significant. And limiting light pollution really does save a lot of different things, and it's a win-win solution. So go to the next slide, please. So as I said, we're applying to be urban night sky places. These are urban sites or parks in this case that promote authentic nighttime experiences while being in dense urban areas that have a lot of light pollution. We have one right next door in Olivet with Stacy Park. We've worked a lot with Stephanie Todd who's the vice chair of Dark Sky Missouri and she really guided that park's kind of certification and ours as well. Go to the next slide please. Now, before I go on, I want to be very clear that this project does not mean we have to turn off our lights at all. Really, it's to make our parks even safer and more accessible at night. Instead, Dark Sky just kind of creates these five parameters that the lights we do have need to follow. They include, and I think they're listed on the handout that you got, but they include being useful so the park should really have a clear purpose. Also, they should be targeted. This means they should be shielded. So they should be pointing directly where they want to go because that means they're more efficient. You can see in the graphic on the bottom left that when they're not shielded, that's when the light pollution happens and that's exactly what we want to avoid. Also, despite common beliefs that the more bright lights there are in an area, the safer it is, this can often not be true, which is shown in that graphic on the slide on the top right. When there's that bright light there, it distorts your vision's ability to see what's going on in the shadow it creates. But when you block that off, it's very clear that there's actually someone in that doorway. Really, when you have bright lights, it can be a safety hazard, in fact. So this project really does make our parks even safer at night. Also, they should be controlled. This could be done through things like a motion sensor or a timer. In Oak Knoll Park, the parking lot already has motion sensors on all of the parking lot lights. They go down to 30% at night, and then if they're activated, they come back up. And then they should also be at a warm color, 3,000 degrees Kelvin or lower, which you can see on that chart. It's more like the yellowy tone. I'll note that this is also recommended by the American Medical Association because really bright white lights can be associated with poor sleep quality, cases of disease and illnesses, including cancer and diabetes. And Clayton is actually already going down this path as well with our outdoor lighting ordinance, outdoor lighting standards ordinance. By 2026, all new and existing lights outside will need to be 3001 degrees Kelvin or lower. So we're heading down this path already, which is great. Next slide please. As I mentioned, we are applying after a lot of discussions on figuring out what would be the best nominees, we're applying Shaw Park and Oak Knoll Park for this designation. Next slide. The reason why we've chosen these parks in particular, Oak Park is pretty small, but it has dense vegetation and really few amenities within it that can be contributing to this light pollution. Of course, Shaw Park is a lot bigger and it's got a lot of different facilities. However, with the athletic facilities, for example, those lights turn off an hour after gameplay, and then also they turn off at night in the pool as well. So it's not really an issue. And as has been said many times, it really is one of the hearts of Clayton, and this would really boost its status as a destination in the region. Next slide. So in terms of how we are eligible for this project, we fall into every category with flying colors. These are, of course, all public parks and we're certainly in an urban area. St. Louis' metro region has a population of over 2.8 million people. So we definitely qualify as an urban night sky place in that way. And across both parks, there are around 1600 shade trees, which are trees about 25 feet and taller. And they do a great job of blocking any light from coming in. You can see in that photo on the top right, that's a picture of Shaw Park at night. And where the trunks are, you know, you can see the pool from behind the trees. But as soon as that leaf cover starts, it's really a wall and it doesn't let any light in. And all the trees in our parks are really successful at doing that. And then of course, we're including the entire area of each park in our application. Next slide. So looking at the application process, it starts with the pre-application. So kind of just introducing ourselves and showing them that we're aligned with what they're looking for in these perks. And then we move on to our application fee and then our full application, which includes things like letters of support. We've already received one from Phil Valko at Washington University, Alex Elmstadt at the Clayton Community Foundation, and also Matt Barnett. Barton, sorry, at the St. Louis Audubon Society. So we're trying to cover a kind of a large range of St. Louis organizations and kind of garner a lot of community support. We've also written a letter for the mayor and different community members in Clayton. We also have to complete a lighting inventory just so that they have an idea of what lights we have in our parks and write and then adopt a lighting management plan, which was really more like a policy. We'll have 10 years to meet certain benchmarks to show that Clayton's parks are following those parameters that I described earlier, those five safety parameters. And then we'll also take two seasons of sky quality measurements. There's no criteria we have to follow. It's just for our own knowledge. We've already done it for the summer. You can see examples of those numbers on the slide. And then we'll do it again in the fall. And we need one year of public outreach and education, which we've also already completed through things like our newsletter, volunteering at musical nights. The list goes on. And once we're certified, we will submit annual reports to DarkSky just to show that we're following all of the requirements that we followed when we first applied. So next slide, please. In terms of why this will benefit Clayton, first of all, it'll really bring attention to all the sustainable action that the city has already been doing and continues to do in terms of protecting our natural and built environment in the face of climate change, but also engaging the community in these processes as well. We've already seen many examples of that in this meeting alone. It'll also give us international recognition. These parks will be put on a list alongside a park in Japan and New Zealand, and also things like Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon, major parks within our country and around the world. We'd be on that list. And so would Stacy Park and all of that. So it kind of goes again to that regional effort to create a more sustainable St. Louis region. We will additionally gain access to the Dark Sky logo, which can just be important in creating educational or promotional materials. And we'll really solidify our partnership with Dark Sky, which goes to adding to our credibility as a truly sustainable American city. You can go to the next slide, please. Okay, so where we are right now in this process we've written the pre application it's been reviewed by multiple different people. And we're making good progress on our full application, we still need a second season of sky quality measurements. To complete that lighting inventory writing and then having the city adopt the lighting management plan and then of course we're going through that process of gaining letters of support and then working with the letter writers to. get those signed. I've also given this presentation to the Sustainability Advisory Committee and the Parks and Recreation Commission. They've both given their full support to move forward with this whole process, so that's really great. Okay, next slide please. Yeah, so that kind of wraps up my presentation. As you can see, there are a lot of benefits that this could bring to Clayton and really just bringing awareness to the work that's already been done and continues to be done in the city. And so what we ask of you now is, again, support moving forward with the submission of the pre-application and the full application and then ongoing in those annual reports. So if I can clarify anything or answer any questions, I'm happy to do so. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That was an excellent presentation. Thanks for all your work. Do we have any major questions about this right now? Okay, so one clarification.

The budget impact.

Yeah, so it's $250 to apply. The pre-application is totally free. You submit it and there's no commitment. And then you submit the fee before you submit the full application. And

ongoing, it can fit in with our current plans to be maintaining and working with the park. So any additional cost is minimal if any, you know, so there's not a, budget asks true to the sustainability committee's

practice. Okay, so thank you again very much. If you think of questions, let's go ahead and just email Toni, and she'll work out the answers through you guys. And anyway, really great. I'm really excited about it, obviously. So thanks so much.

Thank you all.

Thank you so much. All right. So I know we're starting a bit late, but we wanted to give that its due. All right. So we will start our 7 p.m. meeting at 7-11. And will you please call the roll? Alderwoman

McAndrew. Here. Alderwoman Buse. Here. Alderman Gary Feder. Here. Alderman Rick Hummell.

McAndrew. Here. Alderwoman Buse. Here. Alderman Fader. Here. Alderman Hummel.

Alderman Jeffery Yorg.

Alderman York.

Mayor Harris. Here. City Manager David Gipson.

Mayor Harris. Here. City Manager Gibson.

City Attorney O'Keefe. Here. Thank you.

Okay, very good. Now's the time for public requests and petitions, and I don't know if we have anybody here in our personal audience or real audience here or online that has a topic for us that's not on our agenda tonight. Okay, seeing none, we're going to move on. We have unfinished business starting with the modification of hours for motor-driven maintenance equipment.

So would we pass, we would make the motion for the ordinance as amended or do a separate? We need to amend it

Before second reading a motion to amend the bill. Okay.

All right. Well, first of all, just let me ask, do we have any further discussion? I'll open for discussion on the bill itself.

I only have, um, I wanted to confirm it got sent to all the trustees and it got communicated out. It has not been

when we pass it, I guess.

No. Yeah. I, my understanding was two weeks ago that we were going to make, we were going to send it out. Part of the reason why we waited two weeks was to send it out so that people would have time to provide comments and concerns before we passed it.

I'm okay proceeding.

I have talked to my lawn guy about it. How's that? I did talk to him. My lawn guy. Okay. What was

your lawn guy's reaction?

The timing is not an issue for him. He's more concerned about the eventual, perhaps, change of equipment requires. So he's really within these hours anyway, he said. Okay, so first we would need a motion to amend the date of adoption.

I will make a motion to amend and the date of adoption to November 1, 2024. The bill is

attached with redlining. It's given a bill number .1, which the title has also changed.

So can I just introduce the bill as the .1? Does that include the

change? It would be, if you wish. Motion to amend Bill 7038 by the Executive, 7038.1.

Oh, perfect. I'll introduce bill number 7038 with the language of bill number 7038.1, approving an amendment to section 215.765 to modify the allowable hours of usage for motor-driven outdoor maintenance equipment to be read for the second time by title only. Second.

So let me clarify. I'm sorry. I thought we're doing this all in one step then rather than two steps. Sure.

Okay. So, okay.

So, all right. So any discussion on the motion to amend?

Doesn't have a second. I'll second it.

Okay. Okay. Okay, but I'm willing to accept that. Second and third. Okay. All right. Will you call the roll? You don't need to read it. It's just the amendment. So will you please call the roll on that?

It's no roll call.

Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Now we introduce the main

thing. Yeah. So I'll introduce bill number 7038.1, approving an amendment to section 215.765, To modify the allowable hours of usage for motor-driven outdoor maintenance equipment to be read for the second time by title only. Second. Any

discussion? All right, Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7038.1, second reading and consideration for adoption and ordinance amending section 215.765 to modify the allowable powers of usage for motor driven outdoor maintenance equipment and setting an effective date for such amendments.

Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Alderwoman Buse. Aye. Alderman Hull. Aye. Aldermen Jeffery Yorg.

Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Alderwoman Buse. Aye. Alderman Hull. Aye. Aldermen York.

Aye.

Mayor Harris.

Aye.

Thank

you. Okay, thanks everyone. Now moving on to the resolution for the tenant bill of rights. Mr. City Manager.

we'll open the discussion anybody have questions or comments okay alderman mcandrew

i move to approve resolution number 2024-13 establishing a tenant bill rights second

Any discussion? You got it, right? Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right, great. We passed the resolution. Now we have a couple of public hearings. First being setting the property tax levies for fiscal 2025.

you need a public notice? Yeah, well, you can go on and I'll do it.

And let me just say that the public hearing is now open and requested proof of publication. I'll open the discussion. Any comments or questions from anyone? Anyone in our audience? Oh yes, okay, very good.

Yeah, I just wanted to, I assume that this is a true statement, but I'll ask it to be sure. Are the numbers that we're looking at here consistent with what we've been shown in the past in terms of the revenue projections?

The only question I have is historically, we've always been at the top. basically tax as high as we could on all different residential commercial hold it

but there's no

all right if there are no other comments questions discussion I will close the public hearing

I'll introduce bill number 7040, an ordinance setting the tax year 2024 property tax levies for the fiscal year 2025 budget to be read for the first time by title only. Second. Any discussion?

Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7040, first reading, an ordinance heavying and establishing the rate of annual taxes. for general municipal purposes, police building debt service, general obligation debt service, and special business district purposes to be collected by the City of Clayton, Missouri for the year 2024.

All right. Call the roll. Oh, I just want to say it says roll call on here. Okay, I'm just following instructions. Okay, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. good so we're doing the first reading

that's it and we'll do the second one next next time yes

yeah leave it open yeah

oh i closed it but i can reopen it or i can just yeah yeah well yes okay anyway now we're moving on to the budget the first reading I'll open the public hearing and request proof of publication.

all right open the discussion any questions or comments yes

i have one thing especially after the livable communities plan we had talked as we looked at the budget last time about no line item for following up on that plan and there was a feeling around the board table that when we knew actual numbers that we would act on it so I can stand behind the decision not to have a line item in there, not have a place marker of $10,000 each for the next five years, as long as we all remember that commitment to actually follow through on the information we've gotten from the public.

I think the idea would be that when we have another, our next budget amendment, if we know at that point we want to do project X and it's going to cost Y, we would then amend our budget as needed. That's really the only way. I mean, that's the way to do it with the right number. Yeah. Okay. Any other comments, questions? Okay. All right. Then I will close the public hearing.

I'll introduce Bill number 7041, an ordinance approving the fiscal year 2025 operating and capital improvement budget to be read for the first time by title only. Second. Any discussion?

City Attorney.

Bill number 7041 first reading, an ordinance adopting an annual budget for fiscal year 2025 commencing on October 1, 2024 and appropriating funds pursuant thereto.

Is this a voice vote or call the roll? Okay. Just again, I want to make sure I follow instructions. Okay. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Good. Next on our agenda is the consent agenda. Does anybody have anything there that they'd like to discuss? Good. Alderman McAndrew, do you want to make a motion?

I will move to approve the consent agenda. Second.

Alderman McAndrew. Aye. Alderman Buse. Aye. Alderwoman Patel. Aye. Aldermen Rick Hummell.

Alderman McAndrew. Aye. Alderman Buse. Aye. Alderwoman Patel. Aye. Aldermen Hummel.

Aye.

Aldemann Jeffery Yorg.

Aldemann York.

Aye.

Mayor Harris. Aye. Thank you.

All right. We will move on now to the city manager's report. The first item is the financial report.

Good evening. I'll start with the financial report, if that's okay. We're on target. I mean, everything looks good through June. Just a couple things I wanted to point out. It does note that utility taxes are down year over year, and I did a history of the climate, and we had fewer extreme temperatures in 2024 than we had in 2023, so that is why those are user-driven. Sales and use taxes are up 5.87%. Parking is down. We had a parking agreement with St. Louis County for the bottom garage that was terminated in fiscal 24. It's reflected in the fiscal 25 budget. I'm not sure if you remember us talking about it, but a portion of that contract affects fiscal 24 and you'll see that there. And then contractual services are down, which is mainly driven by the waste contract. Does anyone have any questions?

yeah um so i'm trying to find where we are on all of this you're referring to the documents i presume here that start on page 89 in our packet is that correct that's correct

or i'm looking at them separately okay all

right um so just a question about um trying to find where i am here on oh There's a graph on page 93. It's the sales and tax revenue. It's a bar chart with blue, yellow, and green on it. And so it appears that from the size of the shaded areas that the use tax is projected to be much lower or is much lower for 2024 than other years by a large margin. I have no idea what the dollar amount is, but I'm wondering what's going on there.

What is page 93?

Well, our packet, it says 93 is the number that's on the page. It's page 89 of the packet. And it's the very first page of your presentation.

That's actually a rolling 12-month period. So that's actual data for... July through June, as opposed to the entire fiscal year. I don't know why they would, why use tax would be down.

just interject one thing? So I understand the question is about use tax. And so I was just kind of looking through here because sometimes we split out our sales tax by actual all these different categories, which you did do on page 95 of this packet. But in that instance, the use tax numbers continue to increase. So fiscal 24 is and this is through quarter three. I mean, fiscal 24 is greater than fiscal 23. So I'm just saying I don't want to split all the hairs. But it doesn't seem to be the same, doesn't correlate with the green

box. And because it's a rolling 12-month period, it could be that the fourth quarter of the previous fiscal year was less, which would make it look smaller because it's a You know, October 1st through the end of June. Okay, so it's a timing thing. Correct. If you do look at the detail, the numbers show that from a use tax standpoint, financially, numerically, we're higher than last fiscal year for this time period.

You know, I've lost track if you're still in the middle of your presentation or if you just are done and not ready for any questions.

She said everything was good and then turned it over to us. So

I just want to make sure that my assumptions are valid here. So now I'm looking at the analysis of revenue and expenditure summary of all funds. So sort of the bottom line. And so... Our amended budget shows a negative $4 million, and our actual shows a positive $5 million. So a huge $9 million plus difference. And so I'm guessing that that has to do with the fact that we haven't spent money out of the CapEx, IRF, and the bond funds. And if we added all those up or actually used those, then we would be more online with budget. But that's my question. Is that the right assumption?

Yes and no. I mean, there are things we haven't spent yet. That is true. But the amended budget is a collection of the original budget plus the three budget amendments now that we've done. There are certain things we don't amend in each of these budget amendments. Like we don't amend the overall revenues every quarter because that would be a mess. So there are certain things we say for the final, the fourth quarter budget amendment that are not reflected in this amended budget column because it's just too messy to do it throughout the year, if that makes sense.

So that's fine. I guess what I'm trying to get at is, is what am I supposed to take from the fact that the amended budget shows negative 4 million and the actual shows a positive 5? What am I supposed to conclude from that? I

Is there a way, and I don't want to create a whole lot of work, but is there a way, because I'm looking at the expansion numbers and it looks like it's a $46 million budget and it's $26 million now. Is there any way to just get an easy couple line items as to what that $20 million gap is? Which I think goes to Rick's point. It looks like we're expecting to spend $46 million in the budget and we spent 26. So I'm assuming David, what you said, a lot of that's true, but is there any way to kind of get a brief understanding of what's all still out there that is either going to be spent this year or not going to be spent?

Those adopted budget numbers and amended budget numbers are the full fiscal year when that one that's actual is just through June. So that's three quarters. So there's gap in there for the final quarter.

But so just again, to make sure that I'm not making a bad assumption. So I recognize that the amended budget is for a 12 month period, correct? And the 24 actual through quarters for three quarters, right? So there's an annualization that goes on for both the revenue and the expenditures, with the exception of these large one time items, which are to me are the CapEx and the equipment and the bond fund items. Otherwise, it would seem with personnel as an example. But we're going to get more revenue in the same pro rata that we're going to spend money on recurring expenditures. So but if that's not the right observation, I'd like to understand why. We can take a look

Well, but I mean, coincidentally, it appears that we're running like roughly $11 million a quarter, which is about, I hear what you're saying. And intuitively, that makes sense. I'm just saying these numbers align up where it looks like we're going to get about the same amount of revenue.

That's great. I appreciate that. Again, all I'm really trying to get to is to answer the question, how are we doing relative to plan? Are we doing better? Are we not doing better? And what are our challenges if we're not doing

Great. Thank you.

Good questions. Anything else on this? Anybody? Okay, great. um and i mean have we we haven't really you haven't presented anything on the um amendment to the budget are you do you have something to talk there or no i just wanted to know if you had any questions yeah about that

of work together there on some there's

The expenditure has increased for flood repairs from July 2022. It's more just curiosity, why has it taken so long for us to get flood repair done from 2022 to 2024? They

were having difficulty getting estimates and there were supply chain issues to get the material. And

we do

have.

I just want to say thank you. Great work, but also thank you very much for continuing to split out the sales tax for us. I like to look at each category and how it's been going. So for the last four years, we see those trends by quarter, and we'll see them in total at some point. But I think that really helps us gauge how our businesses are doing and thus how we'll be doing. So thank you.

And to follow up on that, we are working on getting the detail from fiscal year 18-19 so that you can see five years of data that doesn't include COVID.

Perfect.

Yeah. Thank you.

Any other questions? Okay. Okay. Any more discussion? All right. Let's see. So where are we? So great. That was just the report. And then on the budget amendment, we've had that report. So if there's no discussion or questions, we can introduce the bill.

I'll introduce Bill number 7042, approving the fiscal year 2024 third quarter budget amendment to be read for the first time by title only. Second.

Any discussion? City Attorney.

Bill number 7042 first reading, an ordinance amending the fiscal year 2024 budget and appropriating funds pursuant thereto.

All those in favor?

Aye.

opposed i'll move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7042 on the day of its introduction second

good all those in favor aye

aye

opposed let the board reflect uh let the minutes reflect the board is given

unanimous consent i'll introduce bill number 7042 approving the fiscal year 2024 third quarter budget amendment to be read for the second time by title only second Any discussion?

Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7042, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance amending the fiscal year 2024 budget and appropriating funds pursuant thereto.

Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Alderwoman Buse. Aye. Alderman Rick Hummell.

Alderwoman McAndrew. Aye. Alderwoman Buse. Aye. Alderman Hummel.

Aye.

Alderman Jeffery Yorg?

Alderman York?

Aye.

Mayor Harris? Aye.

Okay, next, Bill number 7043, the Notice of Tenant Bill of Rights.

Okay. I will open the discussion. Anybody want to make any comments or have any questions about this?

I was just like practically speaking then, David, will you just send an email out to property owners informing of this? Is that

Oh, and just and then the property owner will provide um a copy um you know to each person that then rents in the building would you imagine are we giving them the ability to do it electronically

If the landlord says, I'm going to show you a copy of the TAN.

Okay. I mean, I just think otherwise it's just going to get thrown in the garbage.

Okay. And we have the opportunity to provide this to tenants who are coming in for an occupancy permit.

Could you consider just dropping a little note in the City View next time it goes out? Absolutely. Like post-November 1st?

Yeah.

Just to be like, hey, look. So that way everybody knows. It'll be this and the contractor hours will be in there.

Right. Cool. So this has to be posted if there are three or more units, but every landlord should be giving it to their tenant even if it's like a duplex. That's correct.

All right. So I think we need to move an amendment to the ordinance first with a different date.

Is it already amended? It's already done.

Then we can just move

I will introduce bill number 7043 and ordinance establishing section 225.095 to require notice of the tenant bill of rights to be read for the first time by title only. Second. Any discussion?

Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7043, first reading and ordinance establishing section 225.095, notice of tenant bill of rights.

All those in favor?

Aye. Opposed? All right. I'll move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7043 on the day of its introduction.

second all those in favor all right any opposed all right

the minutes reflect the board is given unanimous consent i'll introduce bill number 7043 an ordinance establishing section 225.095 to require notice of the tenant bill of rights tenant bill of rights to be read for the second time by title only second

question To the attorney.

Bill number 7043, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance establishing section 225.095, notice of tenant bill of rights.

Alderman McAndrew? Aye. Alderman Buse? Aye. Alderwoman Patel? Aye. Aldermen Rick Hummell?

Alderman McAndrew? Aye. Alderman Buse? Aye. Alderwoman Patel? Aye. Aldermen Hummel?

Aye.

Aldeman Jeffery Yorg?

Aldeman York?

Aye.

Mayor Harris? Aye.

All right. The last thing is our resolution to approve the CRSWC budget. We heard all about it. So, City Manager, do you have a report for us?

All right. Thank you. Any questions, comments?

Just a comment. I just want to thank Tony. Because I think she and Valerie just put a lot of work into putting together the budget this year. And I don't know how many of you go to the center, but I really I have lived here now 14 years I've been going to the center for 14 years I remember when we lived in Seattle. I called there was a woman named Renee. I sat at the front desk who was unbelievable and I just needed to find a soccer team for Anna to be on, but she was awesome. So I've been going to the center for 14 years and I really can say that I don't think it's ever been run as well. It's never looked as good. It's never been so welcoming and just wonderful. just a great environment so i want to thank tony for that and i am very proud to have been the president of this commission the last couple years and um i just i just wanted to say thank you tony because i really do think the center looks great No doubt,

just due to your presidency. Okay. Right. Well, of course. Yeah, that's great. And it does look great. Yeah. Any other comments or questions? All right. If there aren't, we will have a motion.

I will move to approve resolution number 2024-15, the CRSWC fiscal year 2025 budget. Second. Discussion?

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, very good. That is our agenda. We flew through it in good time. And I think at least some of us may want to watch the debate. but I will defer to this group. If you have something earth shattering that you'd like to share in a round table, let us know, but otherwise we can skip that for this week. All right, then I'll take a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, great. Thanks guys.