October 22, 2024 — Meeting Transcript

good evening everybody and to this big crowd that's gathered here welcome to our tuesday night meeting um

guys

so we may have minions online i don't know but uh anyway we're we're gonna have a discussion session tonight really just solely about open streets and whether or not we want to do that event again try that event again so um mr carter you're gonna present to us All right. Oh, you're

waiting on your... I'm waiting on the presentation. But just to remind everyone how we got here tonight was that we had last year did an open street event. It was included in this year's budget with the caveat that we would try to revise the plan in hopes of garnering more participation and patrons to the event. And that we would run that plan by this body here for consent to go ahead and move forward with the event. So that's how we arrived here tonight. So again, this is the open street concept. We've discussed this now for a couple of years. It dates back to the early 2010s, I believe it is. Its principal purpose is to close the streets to vehicular traffic and encourage pedestrian and bicycle use. So, like I said, we did this earlier in the year. We've made some modifications and we'll cover those modifications or the variances later on in the presentation. But what we are proposing for this fiscal year is Saturday, May 3rd. with a time change later in the afternoon and early evening. We are also proposing a change to location, going to the North Brentwood between Maryland and Forsyth, where we now host parties, not parties in the park, excuse me, the Jazz Festival and Music and Wine. And this Saturday, the Day of the Dead event that we're also doing Saturday night. So hope to see everyone there. We are shooting for an attendance of 350, which probably would be about 345 more than we had earlier this year.

That is not true,

Carrie. 340. It was sparsely attended, but I exaggerate the sparseness. Thank you for the correction. And we are changing the target audience to local families more from what we had it before earlier this year. So we are trying to make streets for people first, still trying to promote healthy living and active living and foster a social engagement within the community. This has potential partnerships, but for all intents and purposes, all of them have been locked down. So again, we will be participating with S&T for the bike obstacle course, Big Shark for bike maintenance, the Sustainability Advisory Committee, which was involved previously. Earlier this year, again, we'll be involved next May with a little bit more broadened role. We've added a component and we'll talk about it in just a minute, but they will be having a child's activity to try to get a little bit more engagement at that their activity and then We debuted it at the jazz festival not too long ago, and it'll make a return this Saturday to the Day of the Dead event. But we have purchased a water monster to eliminate the water bottles as much as possible. So... That will also be there. And then the Center of Clayton, again, will be there assisting with our outdoor family games. We have moved, shifted away from the group classes, although some were well attended. It was more people that took the class at the center simply came to the street that day. We didn't necessarily have a lot of participation from just festival goers itself. So we're trying to change in the change of targeting families There'll be more outdoor games and we'll cover that in just a minute. But we'll have the bike helmet fitting station, the obstacle course again, and the bike checks from Big Shark, just like we did earlier this year. So some of the activities that we're adding is the giant board games, like a Giant Connect Four, Giant Jenga, and Cornhole. We're going to have outdoor bowling, mini golf and basketball shot. And then the sustainability committee will help engage the children on the craft station to learn about sustainability. And then we'll have professional. I had help with this. So we're not having amateur face painters, professional face painters. They're helping with the children also. And then to try to drive a little bit more attendance, having a live band and DJ. And then like with our music and wine and jazz festivals, there'll be an area for dance too with that band. Again, along with the time change, just trying to drive more attendance to the event and get the word out. If you remember back in May, we were early in the morning, earlier in the morning through mid-afternoon. I think this time change, we have a little bit better likelihood of getting better attendance with that. We will have food trucks and beverages again this year. One of the nuances is that since it's later in the afternoon, we will be offering We'll have a vendor be offering more adult beverages. Again, just trying to drive the attendance up a little bit more. So as far as the community engagement goes, we've talked about the sustainability booth. The Clayton PD will also have their booth there with Jade, which is always a big hit. And then we will have inclusion Clayton with the culture city and the camp sensory bags for those that could use that. This is the event budget, like I said, this is what's been approved already so this isn't an addition to or and just kind of a breakdown of the entertainment and going through the different logistic categories there. And then this kind of the general breakdown, it's not all inclusive. It's not meant to highlight one aspect over the other or anything like that. But again, changing the location, South Brentwood was a little sloped, which I think kind of made it difficult from producing an event. We've proven that the North Brentwood works very well for our event setups. The live music, in the games as far as the entertainment goes. And then, like I said, the adult beverages for the food and drink is kind of the principal changes that we're making there. So that's kind of the changes. Basically, it's location time and adding some features that we didn't have before the live music, the beverages, and then changing up from the group classes to more interactive games that participants could do themselves. It's not necessarily scheduled, so they don't have to be there at a particular time, but just trying to drive some more engagement.

Yeah, Gary, thank you so much for just, you know, looking at how we can change the event to increase the attendance from what I think was at least 75 people to something greater than what, what there was in the spring. I think it's a great idea to have all the different games. I think the music's a great idea. I think people not only the live band, but I mean, kids love there's some DJs that are just incredible out there to get kids to dance. And I think that is great. You know, I think it's kind of nice, you know, I think as we saw in our comprehensive plan people want to see more events. So I think it's great this. And while I love our wine and music and our jazz festival I mean that's definitely catered more towards adults, I mean kids come so it's nice that this event is, you know, that four to eight time period that I think we will capture more families. I think we can make more of a concerted effort to reach out, especially to the local elementary schools and the principals can put it in their newsletters to alert families to it. So I think that's all a great idea. I did look at the school calendar And there is the Glenridge Strawberry Festival that morning. It is in the morning, though, so it doesn't conflict time-wise. I just hope all the Glenridge families aren't too tuckered out from their time at the Strawberry Festival to come to this. But overall, I think all the changes certainly make it special. I think would, will definitely increase attendance. And I think also just making sure that we're mindful of, you know, why we're, why we're doing this, you know, to encourage bike use. So make sure, making sure that's prominent. But I think all the additions certainly will improve attendance and I think just make it appear more lively and exciting. And I mean, I think families will really, families with young children will really enjoy coming to this so um i am i'm still um i would still like to see us do this again i think it's worth trying again on a different level i don't think that i know that we have some stuff that we do in the park but there's nothing that's specifically geared on a closed street, which again, everybody wants to see that's kind of geared just for like for families. Again, I know families can go to the winding music and jazz festivals, but it's just, it's a different, you know, I think it's generally a different audience. So So thanks again for all the suggestions. And I will say, I hope, I mean, I think like volunteers, especially Clayton high school kids that need volunteer hours, I think would be great helping sustainability, helping with crafts, helping with games, you know? So I think that would be great. I know that there were student volunteers at the event in the spring too. So maybe just enlisting more of them would,

We do plan to reach out to the school district and have those parts. Just to address your other concern, in the marketing material, we will be promoting, like we did last year, the different various routes from different neighborhoods for biking purposes. That is something that didn't change, so it wasn't highlighted as a change, but just to remind everyone, we did try to promote that bike riding program.

Yeah. And I think especially that time of year, it's still going to be light out, you know, for sure at seven o'clock. So people might feel comfortable, you know, biking to and from the event. And yeah. So, yeah. Thank you.

Great. Thanks. It, you know, I first looked at it as trying to figure out, it sounds great. I love, I love the concept of the open streets. I think that sometimes it takes a while for things to catch on. We were out of town last year, so I wasn't able to see the 75 or 80 people that were there. And so I guess I was looking at this, and so what's going to better serve our purposes of bringing the community together? And I think the games with the kids and everything else appealing to families is great. I would suggest that not only younger children like to play games, that you can get some pretty good cornhole with older people or things like that if we have that kind of whatever I'm glad you mentioned the school district. I checked Strawberry Festival as well to see what's on the calendar, because especially with the location, as things end on the field on Saturday afternoon and people come over, that might be helpful too. I assume there's games on that time of May in the afternoons over there. So whether the school district is partnering with us or just somehow otherwise supportive in helping people know about it would really help The Water Monster is wonderful. I hope we restrict the vendors in selling the plastic bottled water.

Like we did with Jazz Festival, we didn't allow any plastic bottle sales. Now, I don't know That happened or not. Right, right, right. Yeah, we were very upfront with them and with their registration that we discouraged plastic water bottles. Now I think some sold soda maybe, but... Right. Okay. Yeah, if we continue on that theme. And it's new, so we're just going to have to continue to market that it's there and the reminder to bring bottles. I think we do have biodegradable cups this time to help spur that, but

Okay, that's great. And the Green Dining Alliance, hopefully we'll be taking off then, so I don't know if we can do something with that, that the food's provided, but putting these different efforts together that the city is working on can be helpful. And I just came from the sustainability meeting downstairs right before here, so it's really on my mind. They also talked about in the past, the Boy Scouts have helped people as they sort their things to throw away, and that's another way. Not only does it help with recycling and trash, but If the Boy Scouts are here, their families are coming probably. So any involvement like that that we can do in other areas, running a game, whatever it might be, can get people here. And I think once people experience it, you know, better every single year. They're all those

to list to contact as potential partners.

Yeah. And I'm trying to think of anything else as I read through this. Yeah. The big thing was to make sure that we get the word out and get that interest in what is it. And I do think games can expand just beyond the younger kids. And they

are large scale games. So they will appeal to adults just as much as they will. Right. So

I also had the thought and I'll just throw it out here. Why not? Is that with the bicycle routes and big shark being there and everything and get it in with a livable communities plan. I don't know if it's possible or not, but if there's different if different staff or our police chief wants to, you know, do a do a route with kids coming over to or people coming over to Hey, what about our fire chief? And our fire chief, right? They'll want to ride his truck though. But something like that where it's a fun way to actually use the bike routes that we've outlined and so people experience with somebody that they admire and think is really cool. So just a thought.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Yeah, go ahead.

Well, I would say on the positive side, Gary, I think you did exactly what we asked you to do, which was to try to figure out how to make this more positive. And I think all the changes, the day, the time, the availability of alcohol, I think those are all good things. And I'm all in favor of basically the idea of having programs in the streets. I will admit I'm somewhat skeptical because the last time around, I mean, to say it was poorly attended is probably, it doesn't quite do justice to it. I mean, it was extremely poorly attended. And I am concerned when we do these events, if they don't draw well, that it hurts us in terms of future events. So, and thematically, you know, what I liked about the Day of the Dead is it sort of brings something totally new and something that's a strong theme. I'm not sure I totally get the theme. It's sort of mushy here. You know, people bring their bikes and it's something, it's sort of about sustainability, but it's also about having a band and and having alcoholic beverages. It seems to me it's just, thematically, it doesn't strike me as particularly strong. It's in the budget. And so I guess it's probably something we ought to proceed with. And if we don't, then people will say, well, you never gave it a second chance. but I think in the world of events that we could do that involve our, our open streets, which I think is important. I think it's great to get people out there. I still, I'm skeptical how successful this is going to be. And it seems to me if it's, if it's taking something that was unsuccessful and making it somewhat more successful, that still doesn't translate into success. So while I'm skeptical, um, I have to admit, I'd kind of like to see how the Day of the Dead goes, just to see how that event goes. But I suppose we can't wait. So I am sort of half-heartedly saying let's do it. But I will admit some skepticism that I still don't think this event, exactly based on its past history, is going to be all that more successful this time around. But hopefully I'm wrong. But I'm skeptical.

Ted Baker?

Gary summarize my thoughts quite well, so I agree with those observations, I think there are some good things here that are improvements from before, so I think that's a positive, but I am unclear really what is our goal. other than to have essentially an event and some kind of a theme that makes it compelling. You know, what is the pitch to somebody? And so the pitch seems to be to local families. And so if it's local families, what is it that's there that's compelling? And so... It seems to me if it's local families, we should have the schools somehow intricately involved, whether it's promoting something from within. Maybe it's they have their sports teams do something or there's a contest or there's amongst the schools or with the schools or whatever it is, but something that gives it a compelling reason for the family to be there. You know, I think it's part of our purpose here. especially when we have the police and the sustainability committee there to talk about city initiatives. And so if there's an educational aspect, you know, the sustainability committee, for example, I thought it was great that the Is it called the Water Monster? That was at the jazz festival. But frankly, I practically had to walk right over it before I even knew it was there. And literally, it was right there. It was so huge, but it was so big, I didn't see it kind of a thing. And then there really was no material with it. And so, well, I had a chance to visit and kind of figure it out. I think we could even do more, whether it's Talking about our other initiatives, whether it's solar panels or recycling or green dining, as Susan said, or our LEED certification or building efficiencies or whatever it is, something to say these are things that are important we want to help with. Or maybe there's something in elements of our master plan or the livable communities and it might be the future of bike paths or here we want some feedback from you. something that's highly engaging, as well as a little bit of advertising or education in terms of what we're doing. These are good things. I just think we could even do more things.

Go ahead. Well, first, I appreciate bringing up Strawberry Festival as being married to the co-chair of that event. I appreciate that. Again, I'll be brief because I echo what gary and rick just said like i i love the idea of having more events but i'm not and maybe this is the way it was last time it was before my time i don't exactly know what the event is to kind of rick to your point like any chance we can have to bring people together in a slightly different event. And this case is more kid focused than adult focus. I like it, but to Rick's point, whatever the goal is, let's try to like lean all the way into that. Or let's just like not call it an open streets event and just call it, I don't know, family night in downtown, whatever it is like, just, just brand it in a way that makes sense because people know what they're getting. But I like the changes and, And the other thing was just what Susan's marketing plan. I saw, I think I asked the same question back when we did the budget. $750 doesn't really seem like much to actually market the event. And if we're going to spend 17 grand, I just want to make sure that we've got the... the different ways to make sure we get it out so that people know it's there, especially that time of year when like sports are wrapping up at the park, family's got stuff going on. Obviously all the Glenridge families have just spent all day at a, at a rides and stuff till like one or two in the afternoon. So that's my only other thing is making sure we've got enough in the budget and enough of the plan laid out for marketing between now and then to make sure we can get to it. But otherwise I like what we're doing. I like the changes. I just don't know if it makes sense to still be called an open streets event. let's call it something else, but have all the stuff that Rick's talking about, you may actually get more people to show up and it may better encapsulate what it is we're trying to do. That was all.

Okay. Well, sort of a mix of input here, but so I, I guess, you know, I wish that the, that open streets or bicycles and walking and all of the things that games and stuff, I wish that was going to pull a big crowd. I I'm very skeptical that it will. I mean, those are kinds of all the kinds of things you can just do on your own. And it's, and it's not, I don't know if it's compelling me. I think this is way better. Absolutely. And if we talk about our formula that we think is successful, right. That we've experienced, which is, you know, music, food, alcohol, um, You know, this has those things. The thing that it doesn't have that our other successful events have had, at least the ones I'm thinking of, is a strong partner that co-promotes with us. And I really don't think that we have the stuff to pull off a really decent-sized event without that. We're small. We're Clayton. We don't have... Gary, the reason the budget is small, I think, is advertising is because it's really all social media. I mean, that's what we do. And that's what we've done for all of our events that have had thousands of people there. So I think that does work. But we have a limited audience to social media communicate with because we don't even have, I don't even know how many emails we have, Andrea could say that are maybe that are even Clayton residents, and we just don't have it. And so it's really hard for us to get the message out to a big, big crowd. So we're missing the key partner. If I look at our goals, and we have event goals that we've established that we measure all of our events against, you know, this hits a couple of them, encouraging activity accessibility. But, you know... How much does it promote diversity? How much does it really create a really festive environment? I mean, it does if people show up to witness it. The other thing is, I feel like, I mean, I'm mercenary, but I'm looking at sort of bang for the buck. And if we're ever looking at measuring, we used to measure our events on a scorecard that also looked at spending per capita, if you will. And so, you know, are we really getting what we want from an event when we spend the thousands of dollars? And with a tight budget, you know, this is, you know, budgeted at 17.6. At 350 people, that's $50 a person. The jazz festival is budgeted at 26,000. but it draws 3000 people, that's $8 a person. So I can confidently say, yeah, that's really good bang for the buck. So I just feel like to me, I love some of the elements of this and what I've said to at least one or two of you at some point is sustainability and the fact that we do events in the streets and, you know, some of the healthy lifestyle stuff that those, honestly, whether we do this event or not, I hope those will be threads in all of our events. I really think they should be, you know, like you have the water station at the jazz fest, we could put some educational materials out around it. I think that is a great idea. But do we need an event that just focuses on that? And is that sort of event worthy? If you would question that i'm saying all this i'm letting you know all my thoughts um i'm not gonna i mean i wouldn't stand in the way or try to stand in the way if all of you want to do this again i'm just very skeptical that it would really generate the 350 people and even if it did I do question the bang for the buck equation there. So there you have it. So we can discuss it some more. We can actually vote on it. Andrea, what – or Gary, what do you – I think we have a mixed audience here in terms of views of it. So I'm not really sure if everybody wants to proceed, even though they're skeptical, or if people – don't want to proceed or want to further amend it to see if it can be even better. I don't know where everybody, I couldn't really tell what everybody's

saying. I'll just weigh in and say, what I heard was a lot of reluctant agreement, but what I'd love to see is let's see if we could figure out a way to make this more compelling. And so to your point about a partnership, If the school saw some reason to engage in this and be the partner and a driver because they had something they wanted to communicate or they had something that said this would be great. We were just at a meeting today, and they're really conscious about an outreach to the community after COVID. the whole, well, yeah, the Claris, but saying it positively, they want to make some changes going forward and they've got a message and they need an audience. And so if we reached out to them and said, we've got this idea and we'd love to develop it further, could we align with you in some way? You know, if they got behind it in any kind of numbers, I think our numbers would go up by a multiple of 350.

Yeah, I mean, that could really help. I mean, I thought, like, why not try to find a partner in the school district? Does MIAC have a project yet?

They don't do projects anymore. Oh, right, because they just go to the committees. They just go

to the communities. Yeah, and I guess I would disagree. It seemed like – I mean, I think Gary's presented a lot of different – ways for us to, I think for kids to understand better about how they can be more sustainable citizens, you know, through this. I mean, I, you know, and so, I mean, I sounded like there was going to be multiple tents. I'm not saying we can't drive home the theme better, but But I think that, again, I think our citizens want to see more events. And I would, I mean, I think in that event that we do parties, it's not called Parties in the Park, but you know, in Shaw Park, no, that's the Halloween event. But I mean, I listen to music, play games, have food trucks. This just happens to be in a different place. So, I mean, I agree it has to be marketed better and maybe we can find a way to partner with the school district. So there is this like, you know, common goal around sustainability or just better walking, better biking in Clayton, you know, and maybe that's, you know, here that I think could be successful. And I would just, our residents want to see more events and I don't want to have events just for people. I mean, I love to see people from around the region coming here, but I also want to see our own residents coming to downtown Clayton and enjoying an event without having you know, the biggest jazz bands in the region, which again is wonderful. But I think that there's, I think there's a, there are other events that we can plan that could be successful. I do too.

I'm huge on events. I hope it's geared toward families. And so I hope that that will do that. Yeah.

And I think the, again, it's up to the school district. I would say if we're really going to do something with school district, we need to look at a different date because again, you would hope that they'd be a little paused because you've got Star Bright Festival that day.

That's a reasonable... Yeah, I mean,

I say that putting Catherine aside. If you want the district to participate in the event, I think, to my point earlier, I think you could... take everything Gary's done, repackage it from a naming standpoint. And it becomes like an end of the school year party that the school district and the city puts on for the family that has all this same stuff. But it's packaged differently. And then to Rick's point about communication, you'll either have the strategic plan done or almost done for the school district. And then it becomes this end of the year bash kind of idea that still again still gets all this open street safety stuff around and we would do the legwork so school doesn't have to do a lot other than help us market it and maybe have a couple you know whatever they want to do from a sales standpoint selling standpoint so i think you still achieve the goal regardless of what we name it um

I think that's really an interesting idea.

Yeah, I would only say the end of the year bash. I don't because there was supposed to be a start of the school bash. Yeah. That's not by the PTOs that got canceled because there was like torrential weather coming. So I'm not like and I don't think but then but then it becomes very school driven. I would rather find I would rather find something that I

don't care about the name. It was just, I was just trying to think of like

a, yeah. Cause then I feel like, why are we doing it? Why does the school district just do it?

It's like a mid May school year is wrapping up. The city is going to put something, put something on with the school district. Again, I don't know. I don't know what you'd wind up naming it, but it's a way of maybe talking to the school district about how it makes sense for them as well. Now it may wind up being more of a PTO team than a school district thing. And maybe that's not a bad thing either. Yeah. Yeah, I

just don't want to lose the focus that I think as a city we want to promote sustainability. So I just don't, you know, I mean, we have a committee that's very devoted to that and passionate about that. So I just want to make sure we don't lose that focus.

Yeah, I'm not saying I want to be a school district event. I guess my point is if the goal is promoting sustainability, I don't so much care whether the city gets credit for that or that doesn't so much matter. I'm just trying to think of how do you get people there at a family event that Gary's kind of structured that we're able to get the message out, right? Because it doesn't sound like for the 70 or 80 or 100 people, it keeps going up. So if we keep talking longer, maybe we'll be at 150. If they didn't show up, they're not going to get it anyway. So that's just kind of what I'm trying to – I was thinking about.

Can I – I would think – What if we still focus on the city? We involve the school district at least as far as helping us publicize this. But it could be really, we just completed all of our planning. Maybe this is livable streets versus open streets. We take the livable communities plan. We talk about our bike routes and the biking. We talk about sustainability. We talk about how we're working on the crosswalks, what we're doing, and everything else you've said in here. And that kind of brings it, you know, the livable streets. Because bringing people out together in our streets and having that be a comfortable place to be and something that happens more than once is a really good thing for the community. And the district weaves in there however they may think appropriate with their planning that's going on now and all that. They have... The schools tend to have their end of year bashes and all that in May is a crazy time for the school district, so I think it may be. A more feasible route for us to do this with their support and publicizing

than

trying to make it into something bigger in school driven

right I like what you said um. So here's a thought, just trying to summarize and bring... Oh, go ahead, Gary.

I'm sorry. I just want to back us up and let us know how we got here. So this body charged us with producing an Open Streets event this past year. And staff came up with a plan. We obviously missed the mark. And then during the budgeting process for this year, the question came up whether we wanted to do another open streets event. And this body decided that they might want to do it based upon a plan for open streets. So it was never really staff initiated. We simply came up with a plan that didn't work. Now we learn from our mistakes and now have a, a plan that we think at least hits the mark of open streets. But if the objective is now to have a more family event with a sustainability component, we can certainly look at that and revise that plan if that's what you want to do. I just wanted to remind everyone that we were given the objective of an open streets event, not necessarily a family event or school district event right that's

fair

well that's very fair and you know open streets traditionally it has a a framework that that everybody kind of knows you know it's bicycles and walking and all that stuff in the street um but i um i think it needs it need it still needs that strong partner So if we can find that the school district can be that partner to help us promote it, I think that would be good. I don't know how much you worked with the school district a year ago on that Open Streets

event. They were a partner. They had a presence there at

D. I mean, I think one of the things is what's in it for them. you know, when they partner with us. Like the Mexican, Hispanic Festivals, Inc., what's in it for them when they partner with it? Well, they get to spread the word about Hispanic heritage and whatever else, and that's their mission. And they get to do that in Clayton. So I'm just trying to think, you know, what would get the school district to really promote it, you know what I mean? And... I do like this kind of moniker of livable streets. I don't know where, you know, to kind of take it out of the framework of just biking and walking and exercising. I mean, I think, I just, I don't know if anybody wants to come to the street to see all that demonstrated. So now maybe we can give you the objective of taking some of this input and kind of reforging this event and to be, you know, family driven with a strong partner of the school district if they're willing. And I think a lot of the elements you got are great, but we don't have to focus so much on, you know, riding your bicycle in the street or whatever. It's not a traditional open streets event then. It's a little bit different. But it still has all those sustainability elements that can be educational and promotional and all that and games and stuff. I don't know. I'm just making this up, but I'm making it up based on everything. I wanted to add,

Rick already alluded, but three of us were at this event with the school district, which was basically for Board of Education alumni. And there's a new board president. And, you know, I think there's a different leadership now of the board.

Stacey?

Stacey. And so I think in the themes, they really did push hard on this idea of outreach to the community, not only to the school-based community, but to people who are a little bit older and don't have kids in school. Yes, the

gray-haired.

So I genuinely think that there will be interest if we approach the district, that this exactly is the kind of thing they'd like to do. And so I be good for them, be good for us. And they also did mention just more generally, just relationship with the city as being one of the things they're working on and some of the different groups in the city. And so, so I think the timing is right to reach out and I think we'd get a good result.

No. And with, as you're doing their planning, even if it's, you talk about biking, well, this is very close to the high school and how do the kids get back and forth? And, and I kind of look at it as maybe a possibility to get them to buy into our livable communities. goals as well, you know, because if they're experiencing it and bringing similar themes coming from their planning to this event could be helpful for all of us. All

right. So I think what we're saying is we want to look at another revision and see how that looks to us.

But I do think a lot of what you, I mean, I agree though. I think Susan's comment about having it be more livable streets is a great idea, because I agree with you mayor it's not really a traditional complete streets, because if we were doing that we would close why down or something and kids would bike up and down why down or something so it's a different. You know, so it's different than just I think what I think maybe trail nets would trail net would call a complete streets event. So I think maybe refashioning a little bit but I think all the games and music and you know sustainability elements like educational elements I think is are really a great thing to hold on to Gary.

Yeah, absolutely. And it was a really good, good effort as we've said to ramp this up so I think we're

we'll take a look at it. We'll reach out to the school district and, and revise and come back relatively soon just because, you know, yeah, yeah, we do have a very small staff and we've got logistics that we need to tie down. So it will probably be within the next month or so.

Then I don't know. And I, again, I know the logistics and calendar are hard, but if looking at like May 10th or something, and again, I don't know if there's, yeah, I mean with more

school district involvement, I think, uh, uh, Alderman Jeffery Yorg is right that the timing may need to be adjusted. We'll have to go back and look at the rest of the calendars and see if it's in the chaos map. There wasn't anything on May

school district involvement, I think, uh, uh, Alderman York is right that the timing may need to be adjusted. We'll have to go back and look at the rest of the calendars and see if it's in the chaos map. There wasn't anything on May

10th that was amazing. Not that I'm saying there wouldn't be, but there's not another Strawberry Festival

on May 10th. I'm in the weeds, but it would be good to be able to understand exactly how they would promote it, how they would partner with us to really try to get people there You know, not just saying, oh yeah, we'll send it out. No, what?

Yeah, no, I'm not going to come back with any open.

You know. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Gary. Say thanks to Kristen. Yeah. Okay. Good. Good discussion. I think. All right. So we are now ready for our seven o'clock meeting. It's two minutes till, but should we go ahead? By the time we call the roll, it'll be seven. All right, so yes, will you please call?

Alderman McAndrew?

Here.

Alderman Buse? Here. Alderwoman Patel? Alderman Gary Feder?

Alderman Buse? Here. Alderwoman Patel? Alderman Fader?

Here.

Aldermen Rick Hummell?

Aldermen Hummel?

Here.

Aldeman Yorg?

Here.

Mayor Harris? Here. Assistant City Manager Muscoff? Here. City Attorney Kyle Cronin? Here. Welcome.

All right, so now would be the time for public requests and petitions. So anybody from the public is here to talk to us about anything not on our agenda tonight or online. Is anyone online? Oh, Kathleen, okay, yeah. If anybody wants to talk to us anything that's not on our agenda, now's your chance. Okay, and then just to remind everybody that we had a public hearing scheduled for tonight Regarding the. seminary place rezoning and text amendments we. have postponed that until November 12 and we had put that information out, so we will not be discussing or voting on any of those items tonight. Again they've been. Posted but we're putting those off till November 12. If there's anybody that would like to make a comment about that, however, since we said we're going to do it tonight you're welcome to it, so we will listen if you're here to do that and online no hands right okay okay okay very good. All right, then moving on. Our next item is our consent agenda. And does anybody have any questions about that agenda or anything they'd like to discuss? Okay, and we'll take a motion.

I will move to approve the consent agenda.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Oh, wait. Zero call. Sorry. I just saw that. I was going to figure that out

myself. I was. Okay. Alderwoman McAndrew? Aye. Alderwoman Buse? Aye. Alderman Gary Feder? Aye.

myself. I was. Okay. Alderwoman McAndrew? Aye. Alderwoman Buse? Aye. Alderman Fader? Aye.

Aye.

Alderman Rick Hummell. Aye. Alderman Jeffery Yorg. Aye. And Mayor Harris. Aye. Thank you.

Alderman Hummel. Aye. Alderman York. Aye. And Mayor Harris. Aye. Thank you.

All right. Now we are ready for the city manager report with the traffic code for stops on demand.

In January of 2017, a stop sign was installed along southbound DeMunn Avenue at Southwood Avenue to address safety concerns for motorists turning from Southwood Avenue onto DeMunn Avenue. Parking along the center median made seeing some southbound vehicles on DeMunn Avenue difficult. During recent communications with residents and feedback from the Livable Community Plan engagement, we heard concerns about southbound users assuming the northbound users also have a stop sign, which can lead to confusion at the intersections. Additionally, proposed enhancements for this area within the livable community plan identify the installation of a stop sign at this location. Passage of this ordinance is necessary to modify the traffic code to install a stop sign on northbound DeMunn Avenue at Southwood Avenue. The recommendation is to approve the ordinance to modify the traffic

all right i'll open discussion um did the ward one alders want to give any explanations here

we do okay so we'd be pleased to do that although my other alder isn't here so um there you go um so um it's become apparent through a lot of uh neighbor engagement that um The citizens that live in the High Point Daman neighborhood really value the neighborhood and have high expectations in terms of pedestrian safety, traffic safety, enjoy letting their kids walk to school. There's a nice little, actually two parks on either side of the road. And so what became apparent is that there is, we've reviewed a number of issues about safety concerns, largely traffic oriented, looking at police accident history, damaged cars from cars driving faster. And the fact that this is a, I guess, I don't know about thriving, but it's certainly a very strong commercial district. We wanna see it continue. And we had approved the new hotel And whether it happens or not, I don't know. But what I know is that if we're going to continue to have it being thriving, we need to make sure that it's safe as well. So the stop sign, what we learned through this, the residents thought, what's so hard about putting a stop sign up? And there's nothing hard about it. But in order to enforce it, we actually have to pass an ordinance to make it against the law to run it. So that's where the spirit of this comes from. And I didn't realize that. And then... The other thing that we're considering that isn't before the board tonight are some traffic calming measures on demand, which is either a raised crosswalk or a couple of speed ramps in both one each in the north and southbound lanes. So we're waiting for neighborhood feedback if they have a preference on one of those two plans. But this is the first element. It's right by a park. something that's sincerely wanted by the neighbors, and they see it as a significant step towards greater safety for all.

Thank you. Anybody have questions or comments about this? I do.

No, just that I'm all for pedestrian safety, obviously. So it's great. I mean, we talked about it a little bit, and so obviously certainly supportive.

Thank you. I am not opposed to this at all. We had a similar situation on Audubon in Ward 2, and the neighbors wanted a stop sign just off of Clayton Road coming down Audubon to slow down the traffic. And a procedure was adopted by the city on how that should be processed, traffic calming. The thought at that point in time as the traffic analysis was done is that a stop sign at that spot actually could produce more harm than good because it wasn't expected there and stopping. They went through full analysis. and suggested other traffic calming measures. So I just want to be clear that this is distinguishable from that situation where a stop sign was not put into place despite neighbor demand. They did not get the number of signatures they needed under the established procedure, but if this is consistent with our traffic analysis, that a stop sign is the right measure at that spot, then it is different and I fully support it. I just haven't heard that yet, that it's gone through the full analysis.

Right. So we have approached this outside of the traffic calming program. The reason for that is that it's really a safety issue. And the fact that demand through the track, we did do several months of traffic analysis and the volume and speed was analyzed and And this is one of the busiest city-owned streets as opposed to county-owned streets. And so the traffic count exceeds 1,400 cars a day on average. And so that's a big issue. So it's really approaching it from a safety issue is the key issue that we're trying to address.

And I would, I would argue though that I'm sure the people on Audubon, for them it was also a safety issue. So I just want to make sure because I also think like there's also confusion here because there's a stop sign on the other side so I don't think it's again I think we just want to make expert Matt's not here tonight, but you know stop signs don't stop speeding, you know, so I think that's understanding that this is a very different situation than what was on Audubon right

and that's what if our staff is telling us that this is the appropriate traffic calming. Remedy, then it's got my full support. Having gone through the other experience, I just want to make sure it's.

So I would address that the true traffic calming is going to come from the speed ramps or the race crosswalk that's been analyzed. The stop sign is. will help as well. But to your point about stop signs aren't traditionally looked at as a traffic calming device. And in this case, we took the initiative to put a stop sign in the southbound lane to try to help traffic exiting off of the southbound southward to go south. But that causes confusion and potential accidents. And so we did a half a step and we should have done a full step. And that's I think rectifying that situation.

Can I also add something that I think would be helpful? So in the livable community plan, the consultants reviewed the crash data and identified priority areas and intersections. And this was one of those. And so they reviewed the data from the police department records

as well. But where I'm stumped is because of that procedure, in that point, they said it seemed to me logically as a lay person that a stop sign would help there. And they said, well, actually, no, because- We know all these reasons. This is a better approach. We're not going to do it. I guess before we put a stop sign there, I would like to hear that this is the stop sign is the appropriate remedy for this particular spot and not just a neighbor demand. And yes, it's all for safety. So I'm just stumped because we went through this before and it was very clear we had to follow clear procedure to do it. And it had to be based upon our experts with traffic safety.

So so what's kind of partly at stake here is that all neighborhoods are treated equally in terms of the criteria and all that, and you may have I think you indicated this but i'm not sure it really came out, you know on audubon the reason. That our staff was reluctant to put a stop sign is because people wouldn't be expecting it, as you said, but pedestrians would think it was there and it would be safe for them to just walk out into the street. And I don't know. I'm assuming you all have had that conversation about this particular additional stop sign, because when you put it here. People think people are going to stop and if it's at a weird place where people are not used to stopping or they wouldn't traditionally expect to see a stop sign. then that sets up a risky environment you know one of the differences between this and audubon is i think well maybe not no audwin was at an intersection also it was right it was

literally in front of my house is where they wanted to put it

yeah

feel like i'm involved in everything today

i mean everybody supports more safety so but can you tell us if or Can you tell us which best practices?

Well, the compelling element, these are all factors. But the compelling element is the fact that there are two stop signs out of the three points. And so this is a very unusual intersection. that doesn't have a stop sign at each one of those points. And so it's missing it in the south or the northbound lane. And so the dilemma is that you have erratic behavior by drivers. Some stop there even though there isn't a stop sign. A pedestrian isn't sure whether to cross or not cross because sometimes they stop even though they don't have a stop line. And so and there's a stop sign that's visible on the other two points of the intersection. So the compelling aspect here is that I would say is it rectifies a situation that wasn't properly addressed before.

Well, and I don't think you're not necessarily stopping speeding. You're again, rectifying us. I mean, of course we hope that that's, you know, residual effect, but I think the important thing is on Autobahn, they wanted a stop sign to stop speeding, but we're not putting a stop sign here to stop speeding. We're putting a stop sign to prevent accidents and confusion at the intersection. Yeah. So I just think it's a different, it would be helpful to have Matt here, but I know he's out of town.

This is the appropriate traffic. Cause I don't know. I agree. What you say makes total sense. I'm not opposed to it.

Are you here for this purpose? Okay. Make yourself known. Yeah. Oh, good. Wow. Thank you. So

essentially we are talking about two entirely different services. This is not a traffic problem. We're evaluating traffic

problems. We're looking at raised speed tables or a raised crosswalk on Daman in that block between, it's between Alamo and San Benito is where we're looking at putting those. And that is, those options are, even though again, technically according to our criteria for the traffic calming program the speeds we're not seeing the excessive speed numbers at that 85th percentile and we're not seeing and we're seeing traffic volume that's over and above what would normally be applied or The traffic calming program, but that's completely different than what we're talking about tonight So this doesn't this doesn't go through the traffic calming program. It's not evaluated in the same way This is strictly a situation where we have as the alderman has mentioned we have three-way intersection the three-way t intersection where right now the only people that stop are the people on the southbound side they have two stop signs that as they mentioned you can see the backs of you have southwood with a stop sign and then for what would seem like no real reason we don't have a stop sign on the northbound section of demand right at that same location so if someone is trying to come out of southwood they have confidence, theoretically, that the people in the northbound, when they're trying to make left sweep to go That again, I always talk with my hands. If they don't hit that or they can miss the people with the stop sign on the southbound side, problem is if they pull out there and they're expecting that northbound traffic to have a stop sign too, they could pull out immediately in front of them. And on Autobahn, when we were talking about putting a stop sign in, as we've said, stop signs are not considered successful traffic control measures. If we wanted to look at speed tables or other things there, those would be more palatable or likely very much more effective uh circumstances than a stop sign would be in that case but this is completely not to slow people down this is to bring people to a stop at what is right now potentially a dangerous three-way two-way controlled intersection so

So it's your professional opinion. Yes. This is the appropriate

treatment. For a stop sign, this is not a traffic control measure. This is a safety correction that we're making.

And it's a correct method for this? Yes, we

believe so.

Thank you. I wish I had known. what you, you know. Oh, why I was sitting there? Yeah, I wish I had. I

apologize. I probably should have. I was kind of watching. Let me

know first. Let me know.

So no, we're in good shape. If there's any other questions, I'd be happy to take them. And otherwise, I'll go sit down again.

I think the main concern there was just, are we doing something different? Are we being consistent among all of our, you know.

Again, this The demun speed tables, that's a whole other issue. Yeah, sure. But the stop sign here is not a traffic calming measure. It's a safety measure.

Does anybody, and sorry, Gary, if I'm going on a turn, but like, is there anybody who remembers why we didn't put one in to begin with? I just want to make sure we're not just overlooking. Oh. Some good reason that you all didn't put it in. I'm looking at you, Mayor, because you're probably the only one on the board.

Well, I don't even remember. I think these other stop signs even precede me. I don't know. They've always been there as far as I know.

You may know the answer to that. I thought I heard

something.

No, you're going back before me. I'm only about a year and a half into my city term. I was not around for those stop signs either. Okay.

I thought somebody said it was like 2017 or something. That's just what I was thinking. I don't remember. That's fine. I wouldn't have expected you to remember a stop sign six years ago, eight years ago, whatever

that is. It says in 2017 it was installed along southbound at Southwood. Okay.

And Rick, I assume all the neighbors... Yeah, I just don't know why we didn't put the other one in. Rick, I assume that all the neighbors at that intersection are all cool with this. I assume they are. I'm just assuming somebody's talked to them that they're... They were at the

meeting, but in fairness, there's one gentleman owns three of the buildings that are right there. So, I mean, he can represent

several of the... Yeah, no, that's... I'm just trying to make sure there isn't some feedback or some other opinion that we're not hearing that could directly affect folks. Again, as the guy who would have had the Autobahn stop sign in his yard, I was generally okay with it, but I'm cautious of just understanding people getting the stop sign thrown in their front yard they didn't know. Sorry, Gary, for jumping over you.

I agree with you, Jeff.

Did you have a comment, Gary?

No, I thought Jeff said it very well.

I'm

good. Thank you, Gary. For once, I get to say it for you. Oh,

that's good. Good job.

Okay. Thank you. Thanks for speaking up. Appreciate it. All right. Any further comments or questions? We'll take a motion.

Excuse me. I will introduce bill number 7043 to approve the amendment to modify the traffic code to include stop control on Northwood, DeMunn Avenue at Southwood Avenue to be read for the first time by title only.

Second.

Any discussion?

Okay. Now, June, I've got something here that says, oh, this is just for the, yeah, we got to have it read. Okay. Mr. City Attorney, never mind.

Thank you. Bill number 7043 for first rating and ordinance approving changes to the traffic code for a stop control restriction on DeMunn Avenue at Southwood Avenue.

All right, thank you. All those in favor? Aye.

Opposed? I 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?

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay, let the minutes reflect. The board has given unanimous consent.

I'll introduce Bill No. 7043 to approve the amendment to modify the traffic code to include stop control on Northwood-Dumont Avenue at Southwood Avenue to be read for the second time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Okay. Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7043 for second reading, an ordinance approving changes to the traffic code for a stop control restriction on DeMunn Avenue at Southwood Avenue.

Alderman McAndrew? Aye. Alderman Buse? Aye. Aldeman Gary Feder? Aye. Aldman Rick Hummell? Aye. Aldaman Jeffery Yorg?

Alderman McAndrew? Aye. Alderman Buse? Aye. Aldeman Fader? Aye. Aldman Hummel? Aye. Aldaman York?

Aye.

Mayor Harris? Aye. Thank you.

Okay. Well... Maybe this is the shortest meeting we've ever had. I don't know. We should, I should keep track. So I would know, I guess.

Okay.

All right. So we were moved through all that. We can have a little round table. If we want to start over with our senior elder person.

We had a. plan commission meeting yesterday that was also fairly short um we were just looking at um approving a house on crestwood drive it was kind of an interesting discussion on what the city requires in terms of notice and requirements versus what trustees in a neighborhood require so um but ultimately it's a 55 crestwood drive it's changed hands a number of times but um i don't know mr the melman brothers were there last night and opposed to home that did eventually pass oh I know which one so um that was um and then the mayor and I um and June and Gary and was it just the four of us I guess four of us

yeah

We're at the St. Louis area chambers economic outlook breakfast this morning and that was very nice. It was just nice to kind of feel the excitement in the room about how the, some of the

Ellen Gale was there.

Well yes I meant kind of people in this room but yes Ellen Gale was There as well so, but it was very nice. I'm glad I attended and it's always the excitement. it was just kind of infectious to hear um the perception that st louis is doing really well i'm not saying we're not doing well but it's always nice to go to events like that and you're kind of reminded that um everything is in grim here things actually have been looking up pretty significantly uh in the last five six years so yeah good

it was great okay um we had a sustainability Committee meeting right before this. And Deb Grossman covers a lot of material. So I'm looking through here saying, okay, what am I going to share? First, the fleet electrification for the city. As you may recall, we're looking at the Ameren has a program that did an analysis of our fleet. And so we looked at it as the cars, the staff is looking at it as vehicles come up for replacement is when we look at electrifying them Obviously, it's a big capital cost. And then there's savings, some savings over time. And part of it is a lot of the challenge is infrastructure. And there was discussion of talking as we do our municipal garage, making sure the conduit's laid and working with design team on how that's going to look. There are 35 of our, I think, 74 vehicles that would be placed in the next, you know, over a I think we have 74 vehicles, and by the time we'd be ready to replace any of them with electrical would be in two to three years. So it's something that we are looking for with Ameren support, so that's really nice to have. There was also discussion asking is it possible, especially with the charging stations, they're so expensive, are we looking at Maplewood has looked into electrifying, do we partner on those types of things? We also have to change the mechanics. Our mechanic training, is that something that we could partner with our neighboring districts on? Apparently Kirkwood and I think Webster already have part of their fleet electrical. So that was the discussion going on there. Let's see. The benchmarking for our buildings is just about ready for our attorney to review, and then we'll come back to the board, I think, for approval. We talked about the water monster at the jazz festival, the need to help train people. Some people had even turned the knob, but also it was a big success. We do need to have glasses next time for people to use and water bottles. Talked about the need to have recycle bins and other events. Boy Scouts were offered as helping people remember to recycle and not contaminate as much as we've had in the past. The ripple glass presentation, you may remember that they are a company starting Kansas city by a cup by some restaurants who wanted to start recycling more glass and now they're expanding. And there's it's a big bend big purple Ben if you remember the presentation where people can dump glass hopefully we'll start getting our our restaurants do that as well. The city is located the Center of clayton as a possible spot spot to locate that. and needs to talk with the Clayton School District and coordinate. Let's see. The committee was pleased to hear that the Green Dining Alliance support was approved by the board. And what else to bring up? She covers a lot. We had a WashU student present to us. He's got a very formal presentation. It was great talking about how WashU is in such a bubble And that we really have to and he's he's met with wash you and he's met with the county but he identified the same arteries that we talked about big bend and Brentwood and handling how it's difficult. And that clayton would benefit recognizing that wash you is not paying any taxes, but clayton would benefit if there were an easier court or an easier interconnection between the university community. and the city and had a presentation on that and actually was inquiring about possibly presenting to the board on that. And he has, again, talked to all the people that, I was looking down his list and I was impressed. He did cover, he's already talking with WashU and names that we know and things like that. So that's something to talk about too with livable community plans, it would fit right in, but we do need cooperation of other districts or entities for that.

Any update on Dark Skies for our park, urban park, Dark Skies?

Dark Skies, the original application was put in and got a strong thumbs up, but that's informally, so we're feeling good about that. Also, as part of his presentation, he looked at surface parking in areas that are underutilized in Clayton as a waste of space for us and ways we could put more parking on the perimeter and have more access coming in, which is really interesting. And that's, oh, we also had Susan from Republic was there. And as people were talking about the glass recycling and everything, she mentioned that they do for, I can't remember if it's Kirkwood or where, they do provide, it's Maplewood I think, they do provide a recycling bin for the restaurants that the city pays for. She doesn't know if the city then, because she said it was the same problem as here. Where do you put something? Where's the alley? Where's the room? You make room because we have the recycling and you have one less trash bin and it can be done. And she can talk to somebody there if the city is interested in getting a bid on how they would be able to service recycling for some of our restaurants. And

that was the meeting. Thank you. There's a billboard on 64 that has don't put plastic bags in your garbage. Good. Because that is a problem here. Yeah, so it's great. It was great to see it. Don't put them in your advertisements to the whole region. Don't put your recyclables in a plastic bag. I'm sorry. I don't know how I was saying it, but yeah. And I am sorry, Mayor, I just forgot to mention I did participate too in the third steering committee meeting with the school district since we've been talking about it and Dr. Patel gave a great kind of introductory presentation just about how education is so different than it was 50 years ago. And I love to be there and listen, but I don't feel like I'm adding a lot in terms of I don't know anything about education. But what I did say was great presentation, but you have to make sure you communicate that to the larger community so they understand that. But it was really great. It was just really cool to hear about. Yeah,

right. And the last thing I did was, as already mentioned, it's the school district did invite old board members. As board members. And it was nice to hear and it was an opportunity to remind them that the more that we know what each other's doing, the better we can both support each other.

yeah no that's true um i'm i'm still sort of a proponent of our monthly breakfasts that we i agree and i said that same thing did you because they last time i brought that up at our joint meeting they said oh we just want to do it once a year and and that that so anyway i'm just

saying the conversation i had with um i think two of the board members and i've said before was that um There's something about a big event, but there's something about that comfortable conversation when you have a smaller group together. So I would like to see it happen again too.

All right, Gary.

this Thursday, the County Municipal League is having one of its regular meetings. And I think one of the items will be adoption of the report of the legislative committee, which I've been working on. So that will sort of then spearhead the efforts in Jefferson City in terms of legislation. A couple more comments about the breakfast this morning with the school district. One, as they have this system where to get into the administrative building, you have to And I'm not exactly Mr. High Tech, but you have to put your driver's license in and it takes your picture and then it produces a name tag. It's the first time I ever had one that said Gary Harold Gary Feder because it was taken directly off of my driver's license, which led someone to ask why it said Harold. And I said, well, to distinguish me from the other Gary Feder. Right. But yeah, I guess to Bridget's point, Dr. Patel did again a wonderful presentation this morning with lots of wonderful information, not only about the makeup of the school district, but just about the various generations. I'm once again working on making sure I understand X, Y, and whatever the new one is. The

this Thursday, the County Municipal League is having one of its regular meetings. And I think one of the items will be adoption of the report of the legislative committee, which I've been working on. So that will sort of then spearhead the efforts in Jefferson City in terms of legislation. A couple more comments about the breakfast this morning with the school district. One, as they have this system where to get into the administrative building, you have to And I'm not exactly Mr. High Tech, but you have to put your driver's license in and it takes your picture and then it produces a name tag. It's the first time I ever had one that said Gary Harold Fader because it was taken directly off of my driver's license, which led someone to ask why it said Harold. And I said, well, to distinguish me from the other Gary Fader. Right. But yeah, I guess to Bridget's point, Dr. Patel did again a wonderful presentation this morning with lots of wonderful information, not only about the makeup of the school district, but just about the various generations. I'm once again working on making sure I understand X, Y, and whatever the new one is. The

beta kids come in 2025. Beta is the next generation that starts in 2025.

So, and the other thing I know was they were nice enough to give a little tour of some of the high school. And I think over the years, even though my daughters went there but that was ages ago, the only places I ever go in the high school or the auditorium or the gym, and a lot of the school I just haven't seen at all and it just it's really, it's a really great building and it was it was just very exciting to be there so felt very good about being a former school board member.

So just building on the school event. So the message in Dr. Patel's presentation had to do with, we have new learning priorities and the facilities we have today may not be appropriate for the facilities we need tomorrow. And so as I thought about that theme, I thought about the challenge of trying to communicate that when what so many of the people at the Calaris meeting heard was if your attendance isn't changing and you have all these great facilities, what do you need another facility for? Meaning that there's a disconnect and that you didn't probably do an effective job of communicating this whole change in learning to justify the reason for this. And so I relate to that in our meeting that we had on Friday regarding the overlay districts. I received a lot of resident feedback, Becky and I both did, and I'm curious what Susan and Jeff received, but I heard for the first time far more positive comments about the advocacy the city is taking to look out for the neighbors. And so that was a real positive trend. There's clearly some people that are opposed no matter what, and I don't know that will satisfy them. But many of the neighbors that have been very involved in this feel like we're starting to really address the issues. And I think we've always been addressing the issues, but I don't know it takes a lot of repetition for that message to get delivered. So I'm feeling better about that trend.

Great.

I did not attend the school board breakfast this morning as a experienced school board member. No, I don't have a lot. So Susan and I have our Ward 2 coffee tomorrow at 5. Thank you, June, for the last minute change. We're going to have it in here.

Right, because I know we're moving my ex-students to the conference room. So we

appreciate that. Susan and I had heard Becky and Rick talk about the volume of people that attended their last one, and we wanted to make sure we had enough room just in case to accommodate folks. So we'll have a better feel, Rick. I've heard a little bit back and forth. A few folks I've talked to in the last couple days, they get that something's going to happen there, so they're starting to get it. But I think we'll have a – I will at least have a better feel from the larger community after the coffee tomorrow if people – if nobody shows up, then either they didn't know about it or they've moved on. But I'm guessing it's probably the former more than the latter. But we'll have better feedback at that point, I would think. So otherwise, that's it.

Great. Okay, well, I'm having sort of a busy time period here. But yesterday, this is in no particular order, including chronologically. This is how I remembered it on my piece of paper. I went to an all-day summit on the homeless. It was a big deal. It was attended by all the players, BJC, all the collar counties had their executives there. I was there kind of taking Sam page's place. He could not attend. Um, of course, mayor Jones as St. Louis city County. Um, and, um, the, the, um, sort of the now well-known consultant that Mandy Semple was there to present her methodology that she's been using in other cities that has been written up, for example, about Houston in the New Jeffery Yorg Times article. And I think I've forwarded that to you at some point. So her methodology was discussed. The data on the homeless nationally regionally and in St. Louis was brought forward, people providers talked, different service providers were there and they had a panel describing different things they do. Funding was discussed and there was the regional representative for HUD and also the city of St. Louis and private entities represented by a private business person who's really adding, he's contributing a lot of money to our effort but also to other efforts that have been going on and also the new head of the st louis community foundation uh kelvin adams former um um what do you call it executive director of president or executive superintendent that's the word i was looking for of the st louise city school district sorry about that um so all of those people were there and then there was a pretty big audience of i don't know probably 110 some people um and a lot of questions were asked and and um i was on a panel at the end of the day with the county other county executives and mayor jones where we sort of recapped what we heard here's what we thought about it you know and people asked us a lot of questions so that that's kind of how it went and and the rest of this week now they're having something called the practicum which is The providers of services, different people like Pat Kelly, Executive Director of the Community League, different people that are really going to be on the ground executing things are there every day kind of hammering out some sort of game plan. And that's exactly the process that was used for the crime reduction plan that is now being started. implemented um and that's you know that process went really well it's very effective and so i i really have hopes that this will too you know we have we we don't have that many homeless at any given time compared to other cities so i think everyone feels very hopeful that this is something we can really impact and so i'm i'm excited about it and i think everybody there came away super excited um economic breakfast was good it was very inspiring jason hall He's like a great speaker, right? So you can't come away feeling bad after you've heard him talk. We did, I attended a staff walkthrough with some residents over on Dartford regarding the overlay and I thought that was super productive and I actually got a lot out of it myself because I haven't walked that whole property and this really gave me a good up close view of kind of how it really looked from their backyard. And so it was helpful, and I think a few changes have probably been included now based on that conversation. So that was great. I think everyone came away. It seemed like everyone came away from that meeting pretty happy. So knock on wood, that doesn't change. We had a successful PR event. We were covered on Channel 4 about our historic plaques that we've been doing. And that was a nice little, it really was a nice piece. They interviewed Donna Rogers Beard. They interviewed me too, but she was the star. And so if you haven't watched it, I think Andrea sent it out. Andrea is doing a great job with that task force and sending out media advisories and doing all this stuff to get the, because really what I'm hoping is we can, that our public will see it so that more people in Clayton will understand what we're doing and why. And so that'll be good. We had a sit-down with staff, and I was invited to go have this sit-down with Republic, our trash folks, Susan Piazza and her boss. And they wanted to talk to us about electric vehicles. So they're getting ready. They're going to be purchasing electric trash trucks, fully electric. And so this is in the future. Maybe they'll start receiving these trucks in a few years. The whole point was to just alert us that, yeah, they are going to be looking at this and they're looking for partners to sign up for electric trash trucks, which means it's a much higher cost to provide the service. And so they're kind of easing us into that conversation. And whether or not we, in the end, decide that this is going to be for us, it will be a big question because our residents will have to pay more, you know, for their pickup. And whether or not it will be able to maintain rear yard pickup is a question mark. Yeah,

Great. Okay, well, I'm having sort of a busy time period here. But yesterday, this is in no particular order, including chronologically. This is how I remembered it on my piece of paper. I went to an all-day summit on the homeless. It was a big deal. It was attended by all the players, BJC, all the collar counties had their executives there. I was there kind of taking Sam page's place. He could not attend. Um, of course, mayor Jones as St. Louis city County. Um, and, um, the, the, um, sort of the now well-known consultant that Mandy Semple was there to present her methodology that she's been using in other cities that has been written up, for example, about Houston in the New York Times article. And I think I've forwarded that to you at some point. So her methodology was discussed. The data on the homeless nationally regionally and in St. Louis was brought forward, people providers talked, different service providers were there and they had a panel describing different things they do. Funding was discussed and there was the regional representative for HUD and also the city of St. Louis and private entities represented by a private business person who's really adding, he's contributing a lot of money to our effort but also to other efforts that have been going on and also the new head of the st louis community foundation uh kelvin adams former um um what do you call it executive director of president or executive superintendent that's the word i was looking for of the st louise city school district sorry about that um so all of those people were there and then there was a pretty big audience of i don't know probably 110 some people um and a lot of questions were asked and and um i was on a panel at the end of the day with the county other county executives and mayor jones where we sort of recapped what we heard here's what we thought about it you know and people asked us a lot of questions so that that's kind of how it went and and the rest of this week now they're having something called the practicum which is The providers of services, different people like Pat Kelly, Executive Director of the Community League, different people that are really going to be on the ground executing things are there every day kind of hammering out some sort of game plan. And that's exactly the process that was used for the crime reduction plan that is now being started. implemented um and that's you know that process went really well it's very effective and so i i really have hopes that this will too you know we have we we don't have that many homeless at any given time compared to other cities so i think everyone feels very hopeful that this is something we can really impact and so i'm i'm excited about it and i think everybody there came away super excited um economic breakfast was good it was very inspiring jason hall He's like a great speaker, right? So you can't come away feeling bad after you've heard him talk. We did, I attended a staff walkthrough with some residents over on Dartford regarding the overlay and I thought that was super productive and I actually got a lot out of it myself because I haven't walked that whole property and this really gave me a good up close view of kind of how it really looked from their backyard. And so it was helpful, and I think a few changes have probably been included now based on that conversation. So that was great. I think everyone came away. It seemed like everyone came away from that meeting pretty happy. So knock on wood, that doesn't change. We had a successful PR event. We were covered on Channel 4 about our historic plaques that we've been doing. And that was a nice little, it really was a nice piece. They interviewed Donna Rogers Beard. They interviewed me too, but she was the star. And so if you haven't watched it, I think Andrea sent it out. Andrea is doing a great job with that task force and sending out media advisories and doing all this stuff to get the, because really what I'm hoping is we can, that our public will see it so that more people in Clayton will understand what we're doing and why. And so that'll be good. We had a sit-down with staff, and I was invited to go have this sit-down with Republic, our trash folks, Susan Piazza and her boss. And they wanted to talk to us about electric vehicles. So they're getting ready. They're going to be purchasing electric trash trucks, fully electric. And so this is in the future. Maybe they'll start receiving these trucks in a few years. The whole point was to just alert us that, yeah, they are going to be looking at this and they're looking for partners to sign up for electric trash trucks, which means it's a much higher cost to provide the service. And so they're kind of easing us into that conversation. And whether or not we, in the end, decide that this is going to be for us, it will be a big question because our residents will have to pay more, you know, for their pickup. And whether or not it will be able to maintain rear yard pickup is a question mark. Yeah,

and that came up at the very end of the meeting. Somebody was asking her about it just right before this meeting. And the impression I got was – Don't hold your breath. It's still a ways away. And, you know, the issue is the rear yard pickup. The trucks aren't made for that because it's not really done in many places. But mainly it was – and it's a big – again, like any electrification, it's a big capital investment in the beginning, and then it's probably – you know, over time you recoup that. But there is the big capital. outlay for a long time yeah

yeah so anyway but it was interesting and you know they clearly view us as a as a as a valued you know customer that they can get feedback from and um probably one of the communities that would be the most interested in something like this so all right that's all that i had and so yeah you guys want to make a motion to adjourn

motion to adjourn

second all in favor

all right all

right Thank you all.