April 8, 2025 — Meeting Transcript

Okay, well welcome everybody, especially my mayor's youth advisory Council welcome all of you and parents that are here. we're very excited about this group they've done such an amazing job so i'm going to just move on with this presentation correct and then we'll start our other meeting at seven called roll them correct. June, we don't call the roll now. Okay. Okay. Very good. I wanted to make sure. Okay. And is that mic over there is workable, right? All

right. So what I'm going to do is I didn't notice.

is call out your name and then it'll be time to give your presentation. And then, and here's your mic. After you've finished, I will give you your certificate and we'll take a picture. Okay? Sound good? Everybody's ready. Okay. All right. The first person at the top of my list here is Henry Rosenzweig. Henry. Thank

you. As you all just heard, my name is Henry Rosenzweig. I'm a senior at Clayton High School. I'm going to be attending Wash U for pre-law, an undecided official major. Over the year at MIAC, I followed the Board of Aldermen. I was here for, you know, meeting once a month. That was a lot of fun. So I'm going to go over a few of the major events and topics, but you all, of course, already know these because you were here. So ones that I found the most interesting were there are a couple of the diversity and cultural inclusion initiatives that were approved. The Osage tribe marker in Okinawa Park and in other parks. The plaque for the historical black church. I thought those were very interesting. And then also, when the municipal judge came in and spoke, I found that really, really interesting because I'm personally interested in law, pre-law, and general government, regional and federal. On top of that, I think it was really, really very interesting to see how you handled kind of a more pressing issue. I think the Wash U land plan where they were looking into utilizing some land for new athletic fields is really interesting how that was handled when there were a lot more people here to speak and there was more of a direct presentation and like a, a very immediate issue because there was the short timeframe and there was all the light, not licensing, all of the, like what the land could be used for, the issues of that. So I think that's super interesting. I don't really have a ton that you all could like improve on or recommendations. I think that overall it went very well. It was generally very smooth. A lot of the procedure, kind of just went through nicely. So, I mean, I think it was a lot of good discussion, but maybe in the case there were more people outside, maybe a touch more discussion sometimes. But I think it was overall a really wonderful experience. I want to thank all the people in the Board of Aldermen, Madam Mayor, everyone else who is here for all the meetings, and then, of course, the sponsors from my end. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, here we are.

Okay. Thank

you. Thank you. You did a great job. Thank you so much. Okay, next will be Spencer Pompeon.

Thanks, Derek.

Hi, I'm Spencer Pompey and I'm a senior at Clayton High School. I'm going to be attending St. Lawrence University in Canton, New Jeffery Yorg, playing tennis there. And my idea, I mean, I've been doing studying Parks and Rec in Clayton and my idea is that we should propose a new hydration system in Shaw Park's field five and six and over where the new softball fields are being created because I feel like when I was playing sports I was playing soccer freshman fields like five and six I didn't feel like I had a easier access to water when I was playing. And I think now that we have a lot more emphasis on youth sports and shop park, I think that now that would be a greater focus for the years ahead and for much longer. So,

Hi, I'm Spencer Pompey and I'm a senior at Clayton High School. I'm going to be attending St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, playing tennis there. And my idea, I mean, I've been doing studying Parks and Rec in Clayton and my idea is that we should propose a new hydration system in Shaw Park's field five and six and over where the new softball fields are being created because I feel like when I was playing sports I was playing soccer freshman fields like five and six I didn't feel like I had a easier access to water when I was playing. And I think now that we have a lot more emphasis on youth sports and shop park, I think that now that would be a greater focus for the years ahead and for much longer. So,

yeah. Here we go. All right.

Thank you very much. Okay, next one is Dasha Arnold. And Dasha, I understand that you are going to give Violet's presentation too. So Dasha Arnold, and then she's going to give Violett Edmondson's presentation. Do you

want me to get Violet's then, just so it's like up here already?

Yeah, yeah, that sounds like a great idea.

Hello, I am Dasha Arnold and I'm a junior in high school. I was part of the equity committee. I think that they did a really good job with being engaged in our community and inspired me to learn more about our community as well. There was one meeting that I went to that stood out to me and stuck with me. In the meeting, they talked about bench warrants and about the court system and how to make things as fair as possible. For example, if a cop pulls someone over for speeding and then tells them they have a court date in a few days, they may not show up for certain understandable reasons. At the meeting, the judge who had been talking said that if that happens, he likes to give the person the benefit of the doubt and give them another chance to show up. If they continue to not show up, then he'd want to learn why and maybe and why if maybe they aren't able to attend because of a valid reason and they aren't just skipping the court dates on purpose. So I found that very interesting to learn about. It isn't easy to try and meet everyone's needs because each person is different and has different needs. But the Equity Committee has shown that they try to understand the needs and challenges of each individual and those individuals interact with the government, including the police. Another thing we talked about in the meeting was community service. The judge might order someone to do a certain amount of hours and prove that they did the required service by getting a supervisor signature. But then comes the actual time for the community service, and some people can't easily complete the hours because they have work and have kids and can't step out for an hour or two to complete that. In comparison, missing a bit of community service in the grand scheme of things isn't as bad as missing work and losing your job that you need to support your family with. The judge also talked about how he tries to help the people and see what can work for them. I think the Equity Committee is doing a very good job with everything, and the only recommendation I would have is just to keep thinking on behalf of the people and think of what's fair and best for the community As the equity committee already does. I loved getting to learn more about the equity committee and what they do and how they help our community. I think that equity is very important part in any society and plays a big role in having good community. I think that our equity committee is focused on helping the people of Clayton and is making a big difference for everyone and trying to do their best. I also found the meetings to be very interesting, and it was interesting to learn more about my own community and how people help our community every day. Thank you for all the work and guidance you have done. Yeah. I'm Violet. I'm a junior and I followed the Parks and Rec Committee. I was most surprised how much effort and research went into every decision. One thing that was discussed at almost every meeting was community matter planning. There's a plan that the committee was organizing for the space that used to be the ice rink. There were many proposed designs, including a variety of elements. These plans were explained and discussed at nearly every meeting. This surprised me as it seemed like such a simple decision to make. But as we talked more about the different benefits and problems with the designs, I realized how complicated it truly was. It took months of planning to decide on which plan they will go with. And there were even more work to do with getting all the different parts and permits approved. I found this really interesting, and it made me realize how complicated the decisions committees make are. They not only have to consider the people's opinions, but also practical issues such as buildings and maintenance costs. Coming to these meetings and seeing the decisions, making an action and given has given me a greater appreciation. For the effort that has gone into the Community projects I can't say I have many recommendations for the committee and it runs really smoothly and they work together really well. but I think that having more meetings in person would encourage the public to share their ideas and issues, which would be helpful to consider when planning big projects such as livable community master plan. Since the Parks and Rec Committee in general is geared towards creating nice, comfortable spaces for residents. I think it would be nice to see residents get more involved. I also would like to simply thank everyone involving with MIAC, Jenny Abels and Ms. Clearly have been so great about planning meetings and helping us learn. And having the mayor herself there was really amazing since she was so willing to answer questions and explain the process that occurs behind the scenes. I also, of course, would like to thank everyone on the Parks and Recreation Committee for being so welcoming and helpful towards me and all the work they do to make Clayton such a nice place to live. MYAC was truly a great experience that has helped me understand the way our city government works and the amount of work and effort these amazing people put in. Thank you so much.

this is you let's take our picture okay there we go doing that and do you want to give this to violet until we send it to her maybe all right next will be david lynn hi david

Hello, everybody. I'm David Lin. I'm a junior at Clayton High School and throughout the year I followed the sustainability action or sustainability advisory committee. And I think one of the big impressions or something that I was impressed by in this committee is how significant and how big their plans are for Clayton as a whole, because it's not just putting more recycling bins everywhere in order to save the environment. It's things like having a more walkable community. And so they brought in a graduate student from WashU named Dylan Colbert, who talked about plans for maybe increasing biking and making it more accessible and making Clayton and WashU more biking permeable that would allow for like a more livable community and a more eco-friendly community. And another thing that I was impressed by is because of this big vision that they had for the future, they had a lot in their work. And so that meant that they assigned a lot of real life work to me and the other member from MIAC, Oliver Mayher, that also served in this committee. And so they actually assigned me and Oliver um to work on an anti-idling project and essentially this consisted of doing some background research on the harms of idling and then we're currently preparing a presentation that we're eventually going to try to present at the school board that would allow for um anti-idling signage to be posted on school district property in order to stop this just from happening and affecting small children and the students and making the community a better place overall. And so my recommendation, not for this committee specifically, but maybe for other committees is to use their MIAC interns in a similar way and give them like real world projects that they could use to actually make positive change within their community and also to be more involved in their committees besides just watching the entire meetings every single month. And of course, just to end, I'd like to thank Mayor Harris, Ms. Abels, and Ms. Cheerley for running and sponsoring MIAC, and then the chairman of the SAC, Ms. Grossman from Ward 1, for allowing Oliver and I to make real-world positive impacts in our community.

Thank you. Okay, next, Nicholas. Well, I've never been able to pronounce it right. Vindini.

Vindini? Yeah.

Okay, got it. Thank

you. My name is Nico Vindini, and I'm a senior at Clayton High School. And my plans for next year are to study neuroscience at WashU. I followed the equity committee throughout the year. And the thing that impressed me the most from the commission this year was that they wanted to include a bunch of different groups into the community and caring about every, like caring about every people, group of people that lived in the community, both historically and right now. An example of this was the recognition of the Osage community that, and they wanted to pay respects to the Osage committee or Osage nation that I'm pretty at Oak Park. And it just impressed me that the committee wanted to respect every group living Clayton and that has a history here. I think that the top recommendation for the community would be to try to advertise their efforts and achievements to the claim community more. Because if I wasn't in this community, or in the if I wasn't doing my I wouldn't really know other thing. And I talked to a lot of my peers and parents about this, and they didn't really know about this. So my top recommendation would be to advertise what they're doing more. Thank you to all the advisors for their work and guidance in making this MIREC program a very meaningful one, and that has taught me a lot.

Okay, now we have the other Nicholas.

Thank you.

Hello everyone, I'm also Nicholas and I'm a junior at Clayton High School right now and as you know I've followed you guys, the Board of Aldermen, and I've seen several interesting things. For example, I saw Five Iron Golf come here and get a business permit and I thought that was just interesting because you guys basically approve everything that happens in Clayton or most things. And I also saw a lot of building projects and the main thing that I saw was WashU. When WashU came in, a lot of the community members were really engaged and they wanted to come. There are about 50 people here. And what really stood out to me is that people care about their community. But my recommendation for you guys is that some of us students, like me and like my peers, don't know about the Board of Aldermen and don't know what they do. So if we could advertise with the high school about what you guys do, then we could have a more engaged and more effective community that comes to these meetings and really goes through and shows the community what they want. So I'd just like to thank the mayor, I'd like to thank the committee, and I'd like to

All right, now we've got cameras on both sides. Here we go. We're over here now. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. Oliver.

Hi, my name is Oliver. I'm also a junior from Clayton High School and I with David Lynn looked over the SAC or sustainability advisory committee. So my impression of the committee was that it was super detail oriented. I didn't realize all the little things that they worked on, the things that might have gone unnoticed, like an idling sign or another EV truck that was added to Clayton's fleet. But all of these little things have so much paperwork and so much effort that goes behind them. And I was really impressed by all of that. I didn't realise before entering the Sustainability Advisory Committee that so much work went into these little things. And it really amazed me. They worked on things like Project Dark Sky and the GDA or Green Dining Alliance. But these different things actually incentivize a lot more activity regarding climate change. And I think that was really impressive. Unfortunately, there was a lot of paperwork behind it, which happens, but there was so much effort and so much happened throughout every meeting. We went over like 20 different things every meeting. It was so fun to learn about all of those things. And as David already explained, we're working on a project to install anti-idling signage at El Capitan Elementary School to make sure that people idle less and less emissions are produced. So if I were to come up with a recommendation My recommendation would probably be to just use more mediums to inform people about all these different things that are going on. I feel like, for example, with the Green Dining Alliance, maybe some social media awareness could help with the Green Dine Alliance. What they do is ask people to connect to the owners, but I feel like social media posts could really, for example, or just any sort of media could help bring more light to all the action that's going into helping climate change. Lastly, I would like to thank everybody. I'd like to thank Ms. Abelies, Ms. Keerly and Mayor Harris along with the Sustainability Advisory Committee for letting me and David watch. Thank

you.

Andrea, can all of these guys follow us on Facebook, on Instagram and whatever? They can, right? So in order for them to find those links, they would just go to the Platon website and connect. And you can follow everything that we do. And you can spread the word among your friends, people who follow you. They might start following it too. So that would help, right? All right, Lance Sheets.

Everyone, my name is Lance. I'm a senior at Clayton. And I've actually elected to not go to college in favor of doing flight training on my own and then hopefully getting an online degree in something just a little more useful for future plans. I've been following the Parks and Recreation Committee for the last half a year or so. And I'm really surprised by how thorough they are with everything. lot goes into the meetings it's kind of i feel like unnoticed um there's so much planning that people do as well as after the meetings to come up with decisions and to go through what it actually takes to get these things done and to connect with the people that can help get it done so my recommendation for the committee is to update the volleyball courts that we have they're I think we all know that they're there, but there's a lot of things that could be improved on so that the community actually wants to use them as opposed to not so. There's not many lights there. As soon as it gets dark in the fall or early spring, nobody really wants to go in the middle of Shaw Park. It's just a little dark. So with that, I'd like to thank everybody, Ms. Harris, Ms. Ables, and the entire Parks and Recreation Committee. Thank you.

Yes, paid. Paid.

Hi, everyone. My name is . I'm a senior at Clayton High School, and I'll be attending Harvard University in the fall. You might recognize me because this is my second year following the Community Equity Commission. And I would say my largest impression was the sheer amount of collaboration that's necessary for everything they do. Almost every single meeting we had a guest speaker, whether it was someone related to the local office for immigrant access or it was someone who worked in the court system or some other equity related effort. It was very interesting to hear from all these different people and really see the committee trying to reach out to them and listen to their input to guide their actions. In terms of recommendations, I have two major ones. The first one would be to continue to make city resources more accessible. I know in the committee we talked about making bilingual signs and things along those lines, But I think the Board of Aldermen could also consider maybe revamping the website and making other things like that more accessible to a wider array of people. And then my second recommendation would be to look into more recognition regarding the Wydown area and the Philippine exhibit in the 1904 World's Fair. I think that would be a great opportunity to do something similar to recognizing the historically black church or the Osage Nation and just pay some remembrance to sort of what happened there. And so lastly, I'd like to thank Ms. Abley, Ms. Kearley, Mayor Harris, and the entire Equity Commission for everything over these past two years.

Yeah.

Now that we are recognizing the Philippine Village, we're doing a sign just like the Osage or the Black Church and all that. We've got that going on. There will be a dedication sometime in April. We have the date. 18th, okay, 18th at 10 a.m. at the site.

I'll be

there. Yeah. Okay. So they're in Borg. They're not here yet. And, okay, and Ben Koster are not here yet, but they are coming towards, which is all good. So we, that's it for all of you guys. And so what we'll do now is we'll just... We'll put them there. Okay, great.

You guys can come up here. Yeah, what's a good thing with telecoordination? All right.

I just want to say, like, I would like to say, you know, that you guys are really the heart and soul of the organization of this group. Without you, I'm sure it wouldn't be nearly as much fun or nearly as effective. I just can't say how important it is, your follow-up and follow through with getting the kids organized, but also, you know, I'm sure encouraging them and sometimes a little bit of discipline is required, but not much, not much. And so we're glad that you guys have given so much time to this effort. I think it's really important. And when I hear all of the ideas that you guys came up with and just see you while participating all throughout the year, you know, it just gives me hope. And I think hope is it's scarce these days. And you guys really have shown what the next generation can really do. And I think that's great. I'm glad. I hope you are always interested in local government. As we've just said, that's the best place. That's the best government, the local government, right? Yes, the best. All right. And so if you guys could give a round of applause to your advisors. Also give a round of applause to June Frazier, our city clerk, because she also was so integral to the organization of all of our tours and provided the snacks. Go

ahead. Yeah. All right. And thank you for everything that you've done in past years for all of this and continuing it. It's been great. All of the kids have just learned so much. been really good kids you've been a great mentor to them so thank you for everything you've done for them and thank you for everything okay so now these

are very heavy but you know we hold

them and take pictures

I'm so sorry. You want to be in the center? Okay, great. Okay, I'm going to let you guys take this. Can I make one comment?

Michelle? Michelle? Yeah,

yeah. I could do all.

If anybody else wants to make comments. or ask any of these guys questions, you know, we have extra time if you'd like.

Since we have time and so many of you brought it up, you know, one of the things that I think anybody who's ever done anything struggles with is communication and getting the word out. And so I know we shared with you that you can follow Clayton on Facebook, but I wonder how many of you are on Facebook now? Right, not. So I didn't think so. Okay. I'm just saying it's, you know. So I'm curious, like what, once you started to pay attention to city government, did you notice things anywhere like signs or anything else as you would go about your daily life? Are there other things, what other ways might you recommend that we consider things To get the word out about events or issues. we're always trying to figure this out, so I don't really expect you to have like a magic bullet but i'm curious like what you. The.

Yeah,

Henry,

I will say, um, since I was came and sat on the board of all my meetings, I started noticing some of the like larger event like signs for the, um, dead dead and Halloween events for the, uh, was it the music art festival events? So like that just, I started seeing the like signs more. And I think there was a really good job putting them by the corner of the statue and up by the plaza and so on. Getting them in very high traffic areas was good. But honestly, I think they could just more of them because as good as social media is and as good as digital is for spreading the word, I think the earliest thing to be said is just like, in people's faces a little bit. So I think that is one thing, just like, One or two extra like high-flow traffic, high car traffic areas might even a few more people. Thank

you.

Specifically for high schoolers or kids already required to take class. So I don't know if it would be possible for you to connect with them. But if you were able to come in for a day and teach a lesson about what you guys do, I think that would be a pretty great way.

Great idea. That's awesome. Yes, and maybe we could just disseminate information through that classroom as well, what's going on in Clayton. Yeah, great. Thanks so much. Anybody else have any comments or questions for these guys?

What about, I mean, just in terms of getting communication out, the city sends out a Friday email that talks about events. I mean, would you guys subscribe to that? Would you think it would be something you would read? I'm just curious how effective... Like emails are. Right.

Right. Yeah. Right.

Instagram. Yeah. I mean, Instagram is probably the best. Yeah. Yep. Thanks.

Keep in mind that most high schoolers have like 5,000 emails.

Right. Yeah. I get

emails every day for my future. So I think most people are kind of desensitized.

Yeah.

Yeah. Our brain, right? Right. Yeah. Good.

I was going to ask to follow up, you know, I think we all rely so much on email now and other kinds of social media to communicate. And I still think the best means of communication is what we're doing right here. We're all together in the same room and we're all talking to each other. And I know we have, I think, a meeting coming up with the school board, the Board of Aldermen and the school board. And, you know, we are two totally separate bodies. And To some extent, we try to stay out of each other's business. But in many ways, we are what Clayton's about, city government and the school districts, why people live here. So I'm curious whether you think just in terms of some live conversation opportunity. I think it's great, this notion, if you have a local government class for people to come talk to you, but that still leaves the vast amount of the population at the school district are not in that class. So any ideas you have, and this probably shows my age, but if you had an event and you invited everyone from the school to attend in the auditorium and hear from members of the school board, from the Board of Aldermen what we do, you know, we'd like to think that everybody would be excited to come to hear that. And many of people would go, hey, that's boring. Why would I do that? So I just wonder about you, any thought about sort of a broader opportunity for us to sort of get with a lot of students and at least explain what we do, because then maybe you'd be more interested in what we do. Yes.

I think that especially with some younger kids, because the applied school is already more and more like a class-based way to get information, it will generally be learning more on their own might be good. I don't know how it's different now from when I was there. Information presentations and . Something like that at the older elementary schoolers, into the middle school, into White Art and all that would be a good time to really get, to explain the kind of premise of local government to these kids when they're old enough to understand but young enough I don't want to sound young enough to not be bored. And also for those kind of younger groups and even for some high schoolers, it might be good to like not just play the function of like the Board of Aldermen subcommittees, but also to point to like direct like projects you've worked on, like the new park coming up down by like the post office and stuff. It's like what is changing the community now because of the work we do would be potentially a way to get more younger people interested. from like a face-to-face kind of. All

right, thank you. Appreciate it.

Very good. It's nice that we had a little extra time. All right, so we still have a presentation.

Hello,

I'm Ben Koster. I'm a senior at Clayton High School. And next year, I plan on attending Wash U to study mechanical engineering.

And then I'm Baron Borich. I'm also a senior. And I'm most likely attending the University of Wisconsin in Madison to study biochemistry. And we are both part of the Planning Commission and Architectural Review Board Committee.

So as Barron said, we were both part of the planning commission. I really loved it to see how you guys work through these processes of you find details of housing. And I thought what was most interesting was the amount of time you took thinking about runoff and water and things like that. I was here for a meeting when you guys were talking about the new development on Wash U campus that's moving into that area, that Concordia area, and so many people were concerned about runoff and just the way you guys handled it and talked about, talked through with all the people that were here. I thought it was really amazing. So it just really felt like Clayton community was set well. And yeah.

Yeah, so I thought it was super fascinating. Like the architectural review board and also planning commission too. I mean, I think there's definitely some overlap, but the differences were really cool. Like, especially for the architectural review board, there's so many tedious details and, you know, things that they consider that get flagged that I just would never even guess would be, you know, something that people pay attention to. And I just thought that it was something that... I don't know. It's just something new to learn. And even some of those meetings would get pretty intense, which was really, really funny to see. So yeah, I think it was really interesting. And then for the planning commission part, hearing about the Clayton tomorrow 2040 plan was super cool. And I think that thinking that far ahead and just all the future planning that we have for the city It was just so cool like we saw some graphs about like height density in the city and all this data that like I couldn't imagine how they compiled and put it, you know, for display and I thought it was just super cool. So yeah, I thought our committee was, you know, very cool in particular.

So at the beginning of the year, I heard about like this meeting or whatever, and I had to like come bring an idea. And I've always been passionate about like solar panels and things like that. And I heard that you changed that zoning code about solar panels facing out to the street or whatever. And I'm sure you guys know a lot about solar panels, things like that. Solar panels usually to be optimized have to face south. So for a lot of houses, including our house, that wasn't possible because of the code. So that was what I originally wanted to talk about. But- we're still trying to stick to that topic as we're both really interested in STEM and, uh, sustainable solutions. So that kind of transitions into what Baron is going to talk about.

Yeah. So building onto that, um, kind of a perspective or a concept that we have, we've been building on throughout the year, as Ben said, is, um, kind just integrating more solar energy into Clayton, like in and around. And, um, yeah, I think we just believe it's, it's a gift that we can figure out a way to take just all this energy from the sun and turn it into things we can use for our everyday, um, You know activities that makes makes it clean and so you know help us in the future. And so kind of when we were presented the Clayton tomorrow, 2040 plan, we thought that, you know, there's a lot of things there that kind of could really use that solar energy implementation. And so like some of the examples that we had first was kind of, I think that a lot of people agree in Clayton about how, you know, we need more clean energy, but it's also not the easiest thing to kind of implement. And some, you know, it's hard to learn about how the process and how to, you know, install solar panels, for example. So. At Clayton partnership with like a company who kind of makes that accessible and easy and affordable for people who, you know, want to make the transition but don't really have the time or, you know, have the knowledge to really know what I need to be doing to switch to clean energy because I mean personally I think it's it's not you know it's really not an easy process but And kind of how this can really help Clayton besides the fact that, you know, we use clean energy is I think some of the ways we can buffer problems that we've had with like power outages living Clayton my whole life. I think there's definitely been times where some of those power outages we've had can take a whole night or even, you know, a whole day to Get back and it kind of just disrupts the equilibrium that people have and kind of just the flow of everything in the city. So I think that can be just one way to, you know, buffer out the problems and serve as protection to things while also maintaining some sustainability and being clean.

yeah so along with like a residential solar program we have a lot of big commercial buildings at downtown clayton and um a few years ago i worked on this project talking about solar windows which i don't know if you know those exist but it's pretty much a solar panel that is as effective as a solar panel but a window so um i did this project specifically looking at that um All glass centene building. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but pretty much if one were to cover the entire side of that building, the south facing side of solar windows, they would have a 17, they would only need 17% of their energy from the grid. And they pay off those solar panels in five years. So an idea would be, so how can we make that happen? I was thinking, I don't know if it's possible, but like a subsidized property tax, if you're going solar, green energy. And as Baron was saying, I think that fits with the Clayton tomorrow, 2024 or 2040. So I think having the use of solar windows and maybe subsidizing some property tax to let that happen. I don't know um definitely that could be a great idea um just in general we wanted to thank all you guys especially people in our commission for allowing us to come learn and um hear how clayton works it was really fun opportunity and um also i wanted to thank like all the people that um when we went on our site visits allowing us to come in and things like that

Yeah, and finally, we also want to thank our Mayor's Youth Advisory Council advisors, Ms. Abley, Ms. Kearley, and then Mayor Harris as well, of course, for all the work you guys do in keeping this organized and just such a fascinating opportunity we have to be out here and see how everything works. So thank you guys. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

Let's

take each one individually, okay? And then... Okay, and

so

we have one last thing to award,

which is each

year

we

Among all the certificates that we give out, we like to give out a Mayor's Award for someone on the MIAC Council that has done sort of over and above, has participated really consistently and shown a lot of energy and engagement at every meeting. and at the tours that we have, and also within their committee that they worked with. And so this year's Mayor's Award will go to Ben Koster. Now, we have a little glitch, Ben, in that we don't have the award, but we're getting it. It's going to come, but we just didn't get it done in time. So we'll just say. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

So, you guys, we are going to take a quick break and then go into our 7 o'clock, which will be very, very short because it's election night. And so I'm going to say thank you, thank you, thankyou to all of your participation. It really was so enriching for all of us grownups who participated. And we hope that you carry it with you and use it somewhere someday toward your own local government wherever you end up. Thank you. Oh, that would be great. Let's get a picture with the whole group. Yes.

More closely with the school district. So kids in the school would have a

better appreciation for local government to get more people interested.

These kids,

because they did this program, found it really worthwhile, but most kids don't know what local government does and they don't get it. It's not enough of an effort to sort of give them that opportunity.

Wasn't it a good decision? We were able to have

a little give and take because we got done

early. how's things

going it's a big day busy day started at five o'clock this morning so yes um you know it's um i tell people it is energizing and exhausting it's a series of contradictions um

you

know it every time you see somebody who feels like their message resonated and they uh you know they And then you don't connect with everybody. And so there are some people that they just have to surround the lines to bridge it or whatever the reasons are. And so then in terms of how are you going to do this, I think this is going to be really hard. So it's like riding a wave. There's crests and valleys and so on. Do you get any sense of turnout today? Yeah, so on the PSNL, so that the Board of Elections website has turnout in every voting precinct throughout the county. So I looked at 4 o'clock voter turnout at the Library, Glen Ridge,

Y-Down, and the Center. And they edited

all of it. It's not 1,800 votes. that's just people that have voted that are necessarily Clinton voters. And a lot of us are worried our voters are all different. Exactly. So at this point, you don't know what's there for the Clinton voters. They don't give you that. So we'll get the early vote after seven. I suspect in the past, so I would think by seven. So

do you have any sense of how many we typically

get? So the stats are that we have fewer registered voters, actually, than we did in the 2000s. In

the 2000s,

we had 25

registered

voters. And then the last formal election, we had 19,000 voters.

And then we

made some, like Michelle ran, unopposed 950. So by

then, we should get unopposed with Harold and

Alex? Alex, I think you were. Oh, so just to get an idea. So here's, when we have a contested race, I would think

if we have

20% turnout, that would be 1,700 voters. That would be representative of its age to

be. And, you know, when

I see the kind of activity we've had through the day, you know, I talked to people in the polls, and many of them were not quite voters. And so it's like, oh, sorry, I don't know how to get a feel for this. So I don't know. So anyway, I'm thinking that the winner of the Roe v. Wade job would have to go to the House of Representatives.

what we had in 2021 when we had the tax increase of course that was covered also so it's curious because there at least you've got something that's controversial and you think people will turn out more so than they will on anything else because they care more about that

taxes than anything yeah i wonder if i hope i have that on my computer at home

he has his daughters he has some daughter he is an event for her his daughter

um are we are we on okay okay well welcome to our seven o'clock meeting for april 8th election day in clayton um we have a very short agenda but for now we will start with calling the roll Alderman

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

McAndrew? Here. Alderman Buse? Here. Alderwoman Patel? Here. Aldeman Fader?

Here.

Aldermen Rick Hummell?

Aldermen Hummel?

Here.

Aldemann Jeffery Yorg? Mayor Harris? Here. City Manager David Gipson? Here. City Attorney O'Keefe? Here. Thank you.

Aldemann York? Mayor Harris? Here. City Manager Gibson? Here. City Attorney O'Keefe? Here. Thank you.

Okay, next on the agenda would be public requests and petitions. So if there's anybody in our audience or online that wants to talk to us about something not on our agenda tonight, now's your chance. Nobody's online. So I want you guys to know that we always have great turnouts like this. People love to come to our meetings. All right, so next we have the consent agenda. Does anybody want to discuss anything that was in that, our minutes and whatever? No comment, no question? All right. All the women, McAndrew.

I'll move to approve the consent agenda. Second.

Any discussion?

Okay. Alderwoman McAndrew? Aye. Alderwoman Buse? Aye. Alderman Patel? Aye. Alderon Gary Feder? Aye. Aldermen Rick Hummell? Aye. Mayor Harris?

Okay. Alderwoman McAndrew? Aye. Alderwoman Buse? Aye. Alderman Patel? Aye. Alderon Fader? Aye. Aldermen Hummel? Aye. Mayor Harris?

Aye. Okay. The next and only thing on our agenda tonight is the deed restrictions on the Calaris property. And so I know we have some guests here that are very interested in this. And I might just ask, I know you're going to report, but I might just ask if... you all would introduce yourselves for people, those members of our board who have never met the opera theater team and also the team from Calaris. Do you mind just stand up shout or don't have to come up just to, just so they know. Very good. And opera

theater.

Very good. Thank you guys for doing that. All right. And Mr. Senior Manager, do you have a report?

Yes. So tonight we are talking about the Brown Shoe, the former Brown Shoe Company headquarters, which is now Calaris. I was constructed on the property back in 1951 that property was actually acquired from the city of clayton so the city previously owned it, this is 8384 hundred Maryland avenue. So the the campus was constructed there on the property, but there were a number of deed restrictions that were put in place by the city at the time of sale. The property at 8,400 was actually sold in 2000 to Campbell Taggart Incorporated. And at that point in time, there were a number of restrictions that were released to facilitate that transaction. So here tonight, you just met the teams from both Opera Theater St. Louis and Calaris. We do have a pending transaction and they have requested that the remaining restrictions on the property at 8,300 Maryland be released similar to those at 8,400 that were previously released 25 years ago. So there are eight remaining restrictions. Staff has reviewed all of the restrictions from 1951. We don't find that releasing any of those would cause any harm to the community in any way. Many of these are outdated and would no longer apply with future development on the property. Two really worth pointing out here is a restriction from the sale of alcohol on the property, which would be a heavy burden for Opera Theater St. Louis, especially in a performance facility. and so the other one that I would point out on here is number seven, which basically says that the city can go in if we were ever to widen Topton Way or Gay Avenue and take 20 feet of property for that particular purpose without compensation. Again, this was in 1951, so I imagine since that time that roadway has already been expanded. We don't have any plans to do anything like that, and if Topton or Gay were to be expanded in the future, it would probably be as a result of development on the adjacent property, the actual Calera site, and that's something we would require anyhow. So I don't see any reason that we would keep these restrictions in place, and therefore staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve the ordinance releasing the deed restrictions.

Thank you. Any comments or questions from the board? We'll just go in order. No comments.

I just want to clarify the topic related to the... Potential widening of the roadway. So, because what I'm just thinking about the fact that I imagine or hope will have a lot of traffic around the site because people will be coming for opera theater and whatever other exciting things might be happening there. So can you... clarify when you the end of your statement david you talked about um like as we learn more about the development and like have tried there would likely be traffic studies for development of this sport we will require traffic

yeah for this

And so based on that, would the city still have the option to adjust the roadway to accommodate what might be needed? Like we'd have the ability to do that if or how does

that? So if the traffic study requires improvements to be made to keep adequate traffic flow, then we are going to require that the developer actually pay to make those improvements in order to keep traffic levels where they should be.

Yeah.

Oh. my statement is that i don't see any situation where the city on our own would want to widen that either captain or gay and go in and make that improvement ourselves and utilize that 20 feet so any expansion would be related to a development if that were the case we would require the developer to pay for those improvements so i don't i can't envision this it doesn't

preclude our ability to require that should the development and subsequent study demon necessary that's correct great yeah that's an answer

thank you Okay, anything over here? Questions, comments?

I think this is going to be the shortest meeting since I've been on the board. But, you know, I'd be tempted to filibuster. I won't. The one thing I found most interesting is I never knew that the city of Clayton owned this property previously. So that was a big revelation for me. But in any event, I think this is an extremely exciting project and wish Calaris and Opera Theater all the best. We'd love to see all this work. And so obviously like to do anything we can to accommodate the project. So I'm certainly supportive. Thanks.

I'm supportive as well. And I don't know that I have really any other substantive questions. I guess the only thing that I'm wondering is we're being asked to release this before the sale actually takes place. So is there, would there be any benefit to us of somehow making it a conditional release that the sale must go through? Or I guess really what I'm wondering is, is are we really conceding anything of substance even if the sale doesn't go through?

I don't believe so. The only thing of substance that we'd be releasing is the ability to get 20 feet without compensating the property owner for it. But again, I don't envision any scenario where we would want 20 feet to expand either top dinner game.

Okay. I don't have any other questions. Thank you.

Very good. All right. Alderwoman McAndrew. I'll introduce bill number 7067, approving the release of deed restrictions for 8300 and 8400 Maryland Avenue to be read for the first time by title only.

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

Bill number 7067, first reading, an ordinance to release deed restrictions for the properties addressed as 8300 and 8400 Maryland Avenue.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Okay.

I'll move that the board give unanimous consent consideration for adoption of bill number 7067 on the day of its introduction.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? All right, let the minutes reflect. The board is giving

unanimous consent.

I'll introduce bill number 7067, approving the release of deed restrictions for 8300 and 8400 Maryland Avenue to be read for the second time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7067, second reading in consideration for adoption. An ordinance to release deed restrictions for the properties addressed as 8300 and 8400 Maryland Avenue.

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

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

Aye.

Aldernman Rick Hummell? Aye. Mayor Harris? Aye. Thank you.

Aldernman Hummel? Aye. Mayor Harris? Aye. Thank you.

That's a wrap. Okay, the restrictions are released. So you guys, we are so excited about what is yet to come. And, you know, whatever we can do to help you, we're, you know, willing to try. So anyway, thank you. And now it's your chance to escape. Yeah. You're welcome. You're welcome, thank you. Okay, that concludes our meeting. And I think because of it being election night, we might forego a round table. Even though this is the second to last round table all over the house.

Just wait till the next one. I

think I know what you've been doing. So, you know, hey. All right, you guys, let's all go and watch the website for the rest of the night.

Watch the results come in. I know,

I know. I'm going to have a motion.

Mayor, if I could quickly, I do want to acknowledge we lost a city employee this week unexpectedly. Kathy Brooks-Manis in our fire department. passed away over the weekend. And it's a pretty tough loss for us. She was here nearly 40 years and served on our non-uniform pension board for almost 25. So a very, very active employee. Everybody here knew Kathy very, very well. We're all going to miss her. It's certainly a big void, both in the personality that we've lost and operationally within our fire department. She was incredibly central to everything they do. So I do want to mention that her services are on this weekend, on Saturday. And so to her family and everyone else affected by it, we're certainly thanking them. So I just wanted to make mention of it.

Thank you, David. I'm sorry that I did not mention that right off the bat.

Yeah. And I just want to echo that sentiment. So Kathy had worked on the non-uniform board with me. And so together for probably 25 years, we've worked together on this all the time and And she was looking forward to her retirement. And the fact that she was looking after this fund for so long and wasn't able to take advantage of it is a sad thing. So it's a sad day for lots of reasons.

Yes, yes. Okay. So on that sad note, we'll take a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. All those in favor?

Aye.

All

right, you guys.