June 24, 2025 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening, everybody. It's Tuesday, June 24th. This is our 630 discussion session. I believe Gary Carter is going to give us a presentation on our fiscal year 2026 event plan.

Hey, good evening. Gary Carter, Director of Economic Development. As usual, we usually do this event presentation prior to any budget conversations for the upcoming next fiscal year so we can make any adjustments necessary before those adoptions take place. So this was the event calendar this year. This is all inclusive of all city events, so whether it's fire departments or parks or Century Foundation or all of them all together. So this is what our calendar looks like, and the attempt here is to show you everything that is going on because we will only talk about a handful of events tonight that myself and Kristen are responsible for producing. Okay. These are the ones that were, excuse me, funded by the Special Business District. So we did early in October, we did the Day of the Dead. Mayor Harris was kind of the driver behind that one, helped putting that together. And then we launched into Restaurant Week, Cardinals Home Opener. And we started in April with our series of block series events, which are funded out of the general fund because they are taking place outside of the special business district. And then in June, we move on to the music and wine festival, which we just had that was able to be pulled off, even though with the spotty rain. And then another block party, which is this Thursday, uh, in the mine park. And then next month, uh, in July we'll have restaurant week and another block party. And then we'll end with the, uh, jazz festival. And in between there is the St. Louis art fair that you can see that we do fund to a substantial amount, but do not, um, produce ourselves. And then in the past, uh, I think this dates back to when the Blues won the Stanley Cup and we didn't have any funds available to throw a block party. We decided we would put this line item in each year just in case those or the cards or the soccer team wound up winning at the end of the season. We could commemorate that. We haven't spent it since we've started budgeting, but it's there. These are the goals that we discussed late last year. We revised our event goals, develop civic pride, spotlight local businesses in the business district, celebrate vibrancy, promote diversity and encourage activity, accessibility and a healthy environment. So these are what we try to incorporate into all of the events that we've proposed. This is the proposed event calendar for next year. The ones in blue are the ones we'll be talking about tonight, but again, just as busy as it was this year. These are the efforts that we make to market the events. I know this question has come up in the past, so we use digital marketing, the newsletter, social media, online community calendars, print in some fashion, the banners out front, Shaw Park and Oak Knoll, sometimes yard signs for the neighborhood events. They go out to the immediate neighborhood, and we do do posters in the restaurants prior to the two different restaurant weeks. This is a scorecard that we developed several years ago. It's a little hard to see at this scale, so hopefully you can see it. But what we're trying to track here is the event goals and then also the attendance and the cost per attendee. The attendance is estimated. We've not found a good accurate measure for actual attendance, but with several eyes on it, I think we're reasonably close to those. And then it's just a simple calculation of the budget divided by that attendee number. And I think this came up a while back. Someone asked us about the cost per attendee. This is a fancy chart that says it's all over the place. It just really depends on if you're closing streets. If we close a street, as opposed to if we had a facility in Shaw Park, for example... we wouldn't need to close the street, we wouldn't have to rent generators, and we wouldn't have rent restrooms. So it just depends on the location, whether you're getting national acts or local acts and so forth. And that's just what I talked about, the factors influencing that. I think a couple of the obvious events to evaluate as we go through this presentation are what I've labeled the more cultural events, the Day of the Dead event, and then we also did a Black History Month speaker series last year also. And I do have the detailed budgets for each of the events, if you'd like to go through those. But nothing has really changed from this year that we're currently in. I have kept the Day of the Dead schedule. event in the, in the funding also. And I think that may be something you want to talk about. I didn't know if there were other events that you wanted to see. We've generally been operating off of this is kind of the calendar of events so far. We have tried to open streets in the past. We did, did the day of the dead last year. Um, We really are at the point with our staffing levels that I think there's an attempt to transition into more of the taste of St. Louis events. If you remember, we talked about that earlier this year where they will basically be coming in and taking over the streets, but they will be reimbursing us for our staff time and there will be minimal staff involvement because we are at the... I don't know if Matt... Matt's here. He may be able to speak to this, but we are, I think, at the capacity of our public works staff using them for events. So I'm happy to entertain any questions or give more explanation, and I do have the detailed budgets for each event that we could also discuss. And I also tried to put together some sheets on how each event is kind of hitting the marks of both the clayton tomorrow and the sustainability plan that we are the livable communities plan that we just created also

thanks gary um i mean we don't have to go in order so if anybody wants to chime in um if anybody has any specific questions feel free to go ahead for gary i i

have questions on the um you highlighted a couple events and I'm guessing you highlighted them maybe because they were kind of, I think they were newer this year that you, I think you mentioned the Dia de los Muertos and the Black History Month speakers. Is that the reason that you highlighted those or what can you say about that?

Sure. The Day of the Dead was kind of a culmination of a long time period that we spent with the former Mayor, Mayor Harris, about creating a new cultural event in downtown. And we worked with a couple different groups that just kind of didn't come to fruition for us working with them. And then the Hispanic Festival Foundation we found and kind of was able to put one together. I don't want to say at last minute, but there wasn't a long lead time for it. So the attendance was not great. I actually do think it is a good event. It does promote that diversity and inclusion that we're looking for. And I think with a substantially longer run period up to the event, I think it could be successful. But since it was new and from a prior administration, that's why I highlighted it as something we wanted to discuss. The speaker series was really tied to a specific event um from the theater group that was hosting them so that may not be replicable but if this group wanted to do something more along that lines in the future for the month of black history month that's something certainly we could put together also

Yeah, that's what I was wondering. It occurred to me that we had outside organizations that really did a lot of the planning and setting the vision for what the events were going to be on those. Do we know if the folks who worked with us on Dia de los Muertos would like to continue it?

Yes, we've had that conversation with them. We do have a tentative date and they are currently in a holding pattern waiting for the results of this meeting.

Okay.

So they are on board. They were actually very satisfied with the beginning of the process with the first event last year. So they are willing and ready to go should you decide you want to do that.

Cool. Then I would support continuing that then. And then the... The speaker series, I went to one of the two and it was incredibly well attended by folks from around the region. I thought it was an excellent program. And so I think when I think about that type of event, What I think is that there are organizations that are trying to have events like that and are looking for a convenient space to do it, and maybe a free or low-cost space to do it in. And so I would love the idea that we... prioritize sort of like enabling that or reaching out and trying to do it so I guess the question for staff is like do we have you know those exact same events aren't going to happen because they were related to specific programming but opera theater is always going to have something that they're going to want to talk about and so let's find out what that might be um and you know and what who else can we talk to and it could be something that we find out whether there are folks on the equity commission that are interested in like outreach to different organizations or you know other ways to do that if we don't have like the staff resources or connections to

in the library was also a they yeah in the end they didn't weren't a partner but they were in the discussions with the opera also. So that's potential. And they have quite a few events for the Black History Month celebration.

Great. That's all I had.

I would just say logistically seeking out partners isn't that difficult compared to trying to figure out how to shut down streets yeah right rooms and electricity and all those other things here so um being that those are fully contained within buildings it's just a matter of finding someone that wants to to help host the event so i think that's something we could definitely work through

and those are some i i don't know know the number off the head but i think it was like around 500

great thanks

hey um i appreciate those comments uh i was uh Do you think it will be structured the same as last year, or are there some things that you all are thinking of? I think

generally it'll be structured the same. The difference will be a longer lead time to promotion. Again, I don't want to use the phrase last minute, but it was approaching last minute to pull it off. So I think with a longer lead time, I think attendance could be better. Caveat weather. Yeah.

Right, right. And with Black History Month, the other speakers I thought were pretty quite successful and with the black rep just right in our backyard. working with them. I don't know what the interest is this year. Have you already talked with them or not?

What we learned last year was that timing is very important with that. So if that's something this group would like to get behind, we would start immediately with those partnerships to give it a little bit longer lead time because we were really, I think November, December last year and calendars were full.

Yeah, and the longer lead time probably gets more active participation from partners as well and what they might want to do.

Exactly, because more people are locked in the later in the year. Opera was very generous with their time and their speakers to help us out on that. Most other organizations just don't have that kind of flexibility.

And is anything being planned? When you mentioned the library, I really thought about this with Remembrance Park. with our new park and we talked about activating it working with the library given the location and things like that has that come up at all or something that I think that we should probably consider we talked about that's I mean the name came from there and everything else is a very small venue but I

mean I think it's a definite location for one of the neighborhood event series in the future but it we haven't had those conversations with the like the library or the I know Tony may have had conversations about programming activity there, but we have not had those initial conversations other than identifying it as a potential location for a neighborhood

event. Given the conversations and how the name came, I look forward to you all kind of brainstorming ways that we could activate that space in a positive way. And the other question I had is especially, well, especially the events funded with the that the EDAC approves for funding and activating the business district. When we were looking for people as well to fill those positions, the observations often come up that that group might be, we might be able to leverage it more to get some input and what types of events they might want to have in having somebody on there, having somebody's voice from the business community and not just residents and things like that so i'm kind of saying that to our entire group if we want to think how to structure that in a way to get more input to help with the planning of events and the input of the people who are are you know essentially funding it i think that would be helpful

i agree i i think the current uh edac ordinance uh as written allows that flexibility for business owners and representatives to be on there so i you know i don't i haven't fully thought it through, but I think, you know, representative from the restaurant or retail community along with the real estate community that has vested interest in occupying space in downtown on that board. They

may have some

great, give you a different little bit different voice than, than exclusively all residential area residents.

Right. And, and you know, the way it's been structured for many years is it, This is presented, it's not a rubber stamp, but it kind of is. And getting that input ahead of time as events are planned would probably help you a lot in determining the types of things that you might want to present to us. So that's a going forward thing. Nothing in particular, obviously for this year, because time is running out, except that we need to work on making that voice stronger in that committee. Otherwise, it looks good. Thank you. Oh, I had one more question too. Then the Hanley Park slide, I was just trying to pull up on my phone too. Why was the cost per attendance there? I think the cost per attending was pretty high for a small event on that one. It's not very big. Is that why? How many people come to that?

75.

Pardon

me? 75 it says on here.

I need my chart right. Oh, I see it. Yeah.

Okay. That was part of the neighborhood. That was the neighborhood event.

That was the neighborhood of it. And I haven't seen what one looks like yet. Like how much infrastructure and stuff did we bring into it?

It was also rescheduled due to weather.

Yeah, right. A lot of things. Okay. All right.

Thursday night. Yeah, I know. I'm going to be there. I'll get to

see. Okay, thank you. Gary, do you have any questions?

With reference to Black history, I certainly think that's something we ought to be pursuing. It seems to me what we had this past year was kind of unique because opera theater had this world premiere of This house and we had a mother and daughter who were wrote the libretto, etc. So I'm not sure that could be replicated. On the other hand, we have sort of a possible relationship with opera theater going forward, which would make anything we could do with them probably a positive. I'm also wondering, I agree with the comment about the Black Rep that that would be a nice resource if there's nothing with opera theater. I know over the years, the school district makes a very serious effort to treat Black History Month with a lot of emphasis, usually, I think, with choir concerts. are doing a speaker series, of course, it'd be something very different. But nonetheless, I think to the extent we could kind of coordinate with what the district is doing for Black History Month would make a lot of sense. So I certainly think we ought to do that. With A Day of the Dead, I attended it. Robin and I went. The attendance was slim. On the other hand, it was the first time out. It was done kind of at the last minute. And so and it does clearly promote diversity. So I would certainly be inclined to give it a second chance. I'm wondering a little bit about the proposed date. I actually had to look up again on my friend AI what actually the Day of the Dead is about. And I saw that it's normally or most typically celebrated on November 1st, occasionally on October 31st or November 6th. I'm guessing that that date that's in their calendar is because that was kind of when the group was available to help sponsor it.

They do their larger production in Forest Park at the History Museum, I believe it is. Okay.

I mean, what I was wondering about, and I didn't mean to be distasteful about it, was I obviously thought, what's the connection between the Day of the Dead and Halloween? And again, my Google search indicated, which I sort of forgotten that Halloween is actually to some extent about death in an odd sort of way. If we could somehow combine the Day of the which would actually be possible in theory, I think you would have a much, much bigger draw. I just am concerned that as a standalone event a week before Halloween, I'm not sure that we're still going to draw many people to it. I frankly may be naive, but when I see the masks that they wear that are associated with the Day of the Dead, they're pretty darn scary. I'm just not sure it has a lot of appeal to kids. And so I'm concerned about its ability to draw well, especially if it's that date, if there's any way to move it closer and somehow in combination with Halloween without diminishing either. I think there's a way to actually really promote this event and actually get a good crowd. I think week before it's going to be tough. And just looking at the cost, of course, it's the result of having small numbers, but it's a very expensive event compared to a lot of other things we do. So I'd be willing to give it one more shot, but I'd also like to think about if there's some way we could calendar it and somehow combine it with Halloween, I think we'd have a much better event.

It's certainly something we can have a discussion with Hispanic festivals about and encourage them to reevaluate that date. Recognizing that they have committed to the

history. Day before, day after, anything. I think we could actually make this thing you know, kind of exciting for kids.

I think there is some appeal to the children, although my youngest son just graduated college, so I'm a little removed from that, but I think there is a Disney movie about

the Day of the

Dead.

The other thing I would add is like... I mean, I am just beyond this too as a parent, but Halloween has seemed to morph into this thing that happens for like a whole week with like trunk or treats on different nights at different places. So I think, I don't know. That's just what I've like observed. So I think if we get advertising out and it's on a weekend and certainly on the 31st, people aren't gonna come do it because they're gonna trick or treat. So- I'm

suggesting

the day before,

day

after. And I was just throwing out like I know that we also have the party in the patch. There's something to be said for could you have this tied to that where you've got things in Shell Park but you also have this Day of the Dead event like on Brentwood. Like I wonder if the events really need to be separate or whether they could all kind of be run at the same time and attract groups of people. I don't know. Just thinking through a scheduling standpoint, whether they really need to be two standalone Halloween type events. Yeah,

Tony and I haven't had those conversations. I mean, something we can talk about. We just need to understand the target audience for each one. Just an idea.

Well, on the Day of the Dead, what is the timing on that? Is it usually like late afternoon?

Very late afternoon, evening. Like 4 to 7 or something like that. Yeah, past 7 o'clock, I believe.

Yeah, and Party in the Patch is usually a Friday evening after school event.

It's kind of a, well, in the Day of the Dead is, there's adult beverages served too.

Great. I have three things that, and to focus on something different. First, the Cars Home Opener you mentioned on here, I've attended that several times. My observation is that maybe it's time to do something different. What I'd like to see is some kind of a downtown commerce focused event of some sort. We've got a lot of these open storefronts. I don't know what that event is. I know we have this emerging chamber that's out there. The chamber used to do events that catered to the Clayton businesses and they did something at the center of Clayton. But I'd like to see us focus on something event oriented that the downtown businesses broadly support. I don't know what that means exactly. but we've fallen into a routine with the Cards Home Opener, and it's like come, go, and eat free food, but there's not a whole lot of mingling going on. I just wonder either that or we need to rethink if we can achieve greater goals in what we're achieving, I think. The second thing, these block parties, I like the idea of that, but I really have no idea what it means and what we do, and maybe at another time we can, We have a discussion about how they're working, what we're learning, and I hope that we continue to do those. I like the idea of bringing events to the neighborhoods. So the concept I like, I just don't have any idea how well it's working or not. And then the third thing is these big downtown events, the Music and Wine Festival, the Jazz Festival, those kinds of events. I see that our marketing plan of what we're doing clearly people are coming from around the area. So they're learning about it somehow. So I know some of our marketing is working well. That said, I can't tell you how many, um, residents still tell me they had no idea that this was even going on. And so I just wonder if we can't do, um, more frequent signage in different parts of town on major thoroughfares, whether it's Brentwood or Forsyth, um, um, you know, Big Bend, some other parts of the community in order to drive more resident participation in those events. That's all I've got.

Jeff, do you have anything?

Yeah, a couple. So I get a little confused on the presentation. Maybe it's just the way you've laid it out, Gary. So the BOA discussion page that we're looking at for page 11, it's got all these estimated costs, but that's actually just a special business district cost, correct? That's not including the cost for the neighborhood events.

The neighborhood events are funded out of the general fund.

Correct. I'm just making sure because there's certain spots where they're included, certain spots in presentation they're not. And I'm trying to get a handle on in terms of total event costs, what are we spending for the year? Because this 208-548 is just a special business district. So do I just add the $15,000 to that?

Yeah, 208-219.

Okay. Again, and I think you've got it listed somewhere on another slide, but then it says like events, special business district events, but then we've got certain things marked out for certain mark for general fund expenses. So I was getting confused a bit. So 219. Okay. I agree with Alderman Patel that the extent that we can focus on cultural events that aren't just like Black History Month, but if there's a way that we can become the – maybe it's wishful thinking, but become kind of the cultural center for events for the region – when it comes to like speaker series, when it comes to things like that, that I mean, clearly we can't compete against it, like the Maryville speaker series and things like that. But the idea that we could be a place that could host it at the center hosted at, at remembrance park, or, I mean, it doesn't sound, it's all that expensive and it sounds like ways that we could enhance that cultural appeal and however you define culture that could make you know whether it's once a month or if it's once once every other month i think it could add vibrancy and other um round out kind of the events we put on which tend to be the bigger events all in all um so i would agree kind of with that and it sounds like it's that's probably a more doable way to enhance our event list because it seems to be a little less time and money hopefully like if you can find folks do that um i like the neighborhood events i do sometimes wonder i know we get in the calendar issues but doing them the end of all end of july early august which is when war two is it's going to be hot i wonder if there's a way that we could somehow do them like earlier in spring or early fall but i know that competes against the calendar so it may not be doable but i just wonder if it's if you'd get better attendance if we did them outside of the the summer months or at least late summer months.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's an option. I we've only had one. Okay. So this one next week is our second one. And then we will have another one to the third going about, you know, developing some kind of history with them. We've only had one as David mentioned earlier, it was a rain date. So we got moved. I don't, I want to think that it got moved relatively with short notice last time. When we talk about this $219,000, it is subject to the weather at all because as the closer we get to an event, whether we cancel it or don't cancel it, there's a certain amount of money that's

It's

gone.

So I'm okay pausing on that. I was thinking about the word two on one because I'm not going to be here, but two, I was just thinking about late July and how many people may be around. No, and I think

you brought that up last year when we talked about this. And I

know it's hard because once you get to September, October, you've got a lot of other things going on. Just

to back up to – to alderman Rick Hummell's point about how we got to the neighborhood events it came out of the i think the third or fourth discussion about open streets in our last presentation about that instead of doing it on brentwood the consensus of the group at the time was to move it into the neighborhoods for three so my whole point of saying that was that after these three events this summer we'll have a better idea of attendance we did pick this summer just because the the The overall calendar schedule plus the school district's calendar, too. But it's certainly something we could evaluate. I mean, the dates aren't necessarily locked in. We have a handful of dates that are locked in our jazz festival that we partner with the Silverman Brothers, which is promoted online. above and beyond what we do because they have connections to radio. So that's part driving that attendance there, but we don't do it, so I didn't include it on the list. But the date selection with that and the Day of the Dead is something we can evaluate.

to back up to – to alderman hummel's point about how we got to the neighborhood events it came out of the i think the third or fourth discussion about open streets in our last presentation about that instead of doing it on brentwood the consensus of the group at the time was to move it into the neighborhoods for three so my whole point of saying that was that after these three events this summer we'll have a better idea of attendance we did pick this summer just because the the The overall calendar schedule plus the school district's calendar, too. But it's certainly something we could evaluate. I mean, the dates aren't necessarily locked in. We have a handful of dates that are locked in our jazz festival that we partner with the Silverman Brothers, which is promoted online. above and beyond what we do because they have connections to radio. So that's part driving that attendance there, but we don't do it, so I didn't include it on the list. But the date selection with that and the Day of the Dead is something we can evaluate.

Yeah, that makes sense. I'll be curious kind of what the event attendance are for the neighborhood. I do like that we continue to do those. I think the Day of the dead, I think a similar lot of folks, like it's a lot of money, but I want to give – I want to give them a true year to get it advertised. If there's dates that make more sense in this way, it's a combined events. Great. But I think having at least one, if not two more years or just build a little bit of momentum and again, give them time. I think we all remember it was replacement for something else. And like, to your point, it was a relatively last minute. They came in to kind of save what we were trying to do. So the only other thing I would say is I agree with Rick. Like I, I don't get the Cardinal home opener anymore. Like, I went this year... If it was a couple thousand dollars, I wouldn't so much care. But I felt like, at least when I was there, it was... It was a few folks that popped over. We were there. There was a couple busloads of people that came over from wherever they came over for lunch, not to at all disparage that, but I'm just thinking if the goal of it is to attract a bunch of folks and businesses to come together and mingle and get to know each other, I don't think it did that. Now, it could have been the weather. It could have been work from home of businesses now. I'm just wondering if it's worth spending the $8,000 on that or rather just take the money back and either don't spend it or allocate it at some of these... It may not be cultural events because you may not have them downtown, but allocate them to other things.

I think when it initially started, it was – and it was pre-COVID, so a different time era, if you would. It was – the attendance was – and I don't remember – Who exactly was on the board when it first started, but it was heavily attended by downtown office employees. And over the course of the years, it is appeared to have transitioned not so much from that anymore.

Yeah, I like Alderman Rick Hummell suggestion to try to rethink that event.

Yeah, I like Alderman Hummel suggestion to try to rethink that event.

I mean, for me, I'd either rethink it or just cut it and save the money for something else. Only because since it's coming out of the special business district, like I want to make sure the businesses are getting something out of it. And to your point, Gary, at least when I've been there a couple times, I don't see the business community getting anything out of that anymore. And I wonder if there's a – and again, I don't know what the option is, but I'd almost rather save the money – And, and spend the next year's it's a camera for Susan or Becky talked about having the EDAC maybe rethink some of the events they may went downtown. And then we have a little bit of a cushion for 2026 or an event that comes to light midway through the year and use that, you know, eight or nine grand there, then have it again. But yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that's certainly, I mean, not producing it is easier on everyone. But, you know, I would encourage us to maybe line item that for something to be brought back later, maybe. Let us ruminate on Alderman Rick Hummell's suggestion of, I can't remember what they called that either,

Yeah, I mean, that's certainly, I mean, not producing it is easier on everyone. But, you know, I would encourage us to maybe line item that for something to be brought back later, maybe. Let us ruminate on Alderman Hummel's suggestion of, I can't remember what they called that either,

Rick.

It was at the Crown for a long time. Right. Unfortunately, it kind of evolved into window sales and banks.

Yeah, it totally puzzled.

I love windows and I love banks, but... But yeah, I mean, that's something where if we evolve the EDAC or even potentially a new committee coming online where we have some involvement with restaurateurs and retailers and property managers, we might get a little bit mix of where we get 100% business involvement. So I would just encourage the group if you... I'm really not a big fan of Cardinals Home Open or either anymore. I think this year was kind of obvious in my mind anyway. But I would suggest that we maybe mark that amount of money for a future event to be approved by this board once we have time to think about that other event. If we do, if not, it just won't be spent.

I think that's like, I think that's a great idea. I think it gives you guys a chance to at least add that to the budget. And if something comes up as we form these new committees, I think it'll be great. You know, something in April when it normally would have been. So I think that's great idea. We're over time, but I think I just wanted to mention too, it sounds like in terms of moving forward with Dia de los Muertos, it sounds like the board is generally in favor of giving that another try. I, like you said, Gary, I don't think it was advertised very well. I'm hoping the school district will do a better job with that as well. I mean, I know that's something that they all look at and all the schools. So, so it sounds like that's at least something to move forward. Absolutely. In favor of, you know, another black history month event, I would just say we should try to, communicate with the school district because it was on a big night. They also had a, which I know you know, and so we've learned from that. So yeah, I just wanted to make sure it was known. I think that is a great idea that Alderman Rick Hummell talked about. I would also say, which I think Alderman Rick Hummell mentioned, if there's, we have this awesome banner that's in front of City Hall, and I don't know if We have the ability to put a banner like that at a more like a more central place in town, whether it's Y down in Hanley. And I don't know if that's possible, but somewhere that is really visible, like, hey, the jazz festival is this weekend, something that really highlights a place.

I think that's like, I think that's a great idea. I think it gives you guys a chance to at least add that to the budget. And if something comes up as we form these new committees, I think it'll be great. You know, something in April when it normally would have been. So I think that's great idea. We're over time, but I think I just wanted to mention too, it sounds like in terms of moving forward with Dia de los Muertos, it sounds like the board is generally in favor of giving that another try. I, like you said, Gary, I don't think it was advertised very well. I'm hoping the school district will do a better job with that as well. I mean, I know that's something that they all look at and all the schools. So, so it sounds like that's at least something to move forward. Absolutely. In favor of, you know, another black history month event, I would just say we should try to, communicate with the school district because it was on a big night. They also had a, which I know you know, and so we've learned from that. So yeah, I just wanted to make sure it was known. I think that is a great idea that Alderman Hummel talked about. I would also say, which I think Alderman Hummel mentioned, if there's, we have this awesome banner that's in front of City Hall, and I don't know if We have the ability to put a banner like that at a more like a more central place in town, whether it's Y down in Hanley. And I don't know if that's possible, but somewhere that is really visible, like, hey, the jazz festival is this weekend, something that really highlights a place.

Well, I'm willing to put a banner up anywhere as long as you don't tell Anna where it is.

Okay, great. She's not even listening. So no. Yeah, but I just think where there's a little bit more self promotion and advertising for our events, I think would be great. And I think so do you feel like you've gotten everything you need from the board in terms of

Yeah, so I just took a couple notes. We'll try to do more to activate Remembrance Park. We'll certainly reach out to a lot of community partners about potential Black history coordinating with the school district. We'll work on more signage for the promotion of our events to communicate to our residents specifically. And we'll work on, I don't want to say a revision of Cards Home Opener because I think it kind of abandons the cards, but something that works on the special business district businesses.

Right. I do like the optimism of the special occasion event fund. A national championship might be coming our way.

Well, you learn the hard way sometimes. And that was a hard

way. You're going to work on the day of the dead date. Yes. Yes.

I mean, I actually I don't think that that date is so bad. But yes, I mean, I'm very happy to defer a few. I just think a Sunday afternoon event is not so bad. And again, I'm hoping that more with more promotion and that it will be better attended.

And we will also take a look at the neighborhood block series event.

Yeah, but I think as you said, we've only had one. And I think it's great to be able to bring it to the different neighborhoods. Yeah, we'll need to

get through all three this year and see how it is. I mean, if they're all 50 to 75, then we need to look at it and move it. I think

it was a great idea to take them to different neighborhoods because I think things are always downtown. So isn't it great to be able

If I can have one minute, one idea I had on neighborhoods and it's totally half-baked, but I would throw it out to Gary. I think one of the great things we have about our various subdivisions is they all take a lot of pride in the subdivision and some of the special events they do, whether it's Davis Place or any of the others, there's a lot of pride and the subdivisions and those tend to be very successful events when the subdivisions put on their own event. I'm just thinking, is there some way that we could try to create an event that brings the various subdivisions as subdivisions together at an event whether it would be a big parade that's going to go through downtown and you encourage each subdivision to somehow participate as a subdivision some way not not really in a competitive sort of way but some way to bring these subdivisions together in a way that's a city event because otherwise i think we tend to be very insular I think I would just comment like one of the problems with having an event at Hanley Park is that for a lot of people in Davis Place, that might as well be on the other side of the world. I mean, we tend to be very much focused on our own neighborhoods. And so any way we could try to sort of involve each subdivision in an event that brings us all together, I think that would actually be very successful. I know not every subdivision has its own trustees. Organization can be more difficult, but I still think it's possible. And I just throw that out as something to work on because I think that would in many ways be a better event than some of the things we've talked about if we could make it work.

Thanks. Yeah. I

wonder if Earth Day would be something to do something. giving up native plantings, can't give up these trees and it wouldn't take any way that some information might be very good to do that. Yeah, and

that might be something that we talk about as we move into the fall in terms of what's going to happen on Y down. So but Arbor Day, which is, you know, so. Okay. Yep. Thanks, Carrie. All right. Thank you everybody for your patience. We went over, we had a discussion session at 630 where we talked about our events for the upcoming year. So we will get started with our seven o'clock meeting. June, if you could call the roll.

Alderman Buse. Here. Alderman Patel. Here. Aldman Gary Feder.

Alderman Buse. Here. Alderman Patel. Here. Aldman Fader.

Here.

Aldeman Hummels. Here. Aldaban Jeffery Yorg.

Aldeman Hummels. Here. Aldaban York.

Here.

Mayor McAndrew. Here. City Manager David Gipson. City Attorney Jones.

Mayor McAndrew. Here. City Manager Gibson. City Attorney Jones.

Great. So at this time of the meeting, it's kind of the time for public requests and petitions. So if there's anybody that would like to talk to us about a matter that is not on the agenda, you're welcome to come up. But if it is on the agenda, just wait till the particular item is called. Great. So the first item on our agenda is related to short term rentals. I'm going to open the public hearing and continue it to July 8. We are just waiting, the plan commission is evaluating that item again. So we'll wait until we get their recommendation before acting on the item. The next item on our agenda is a public hearing. I'll open the public hearing. It is a resolution, a conditional use permit for 7923 Forsyth known as Nate's Deli Restaurant.

Yes, this is a public hearing to consider an application for a conditional use permit submitted by Nate's Deli LLC for the operation of a 1600 square foot restaurant. The proposal will first operate as a ghost kitchen focusing on catering and takeout orders. No changes are proposed to the kitchen area. Ghost kitchens operate as restaurants but without onsite dining options. Prior to renovations, there would be no customer seating. The owner has stated an intent to expand in the future with plans provided as part of the occupancy and building permit applications. The expansion would accommodate a seating area at the front of the building and an existing retail bay. The ghost kitchen would start at approximately 900 square feet, but would expand to approximately 1900 square feet following the renovation. The renovation would result in the addition of 28 seats. Off street parking is not required for restaurants located in the Central Business District measuring less than 3,000 square feet. The proposed hours of operation are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. To 2 p.m. On Friday and it'll be closed on Saturday and Sunday. The plan commission considered this request at its meeting on June 2nd and voted unanimously to recommend approval as requested. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve a conditional use permit for the operation of a restaurant located at 7923 Forsyth Boulevard, per the conditions outlined in the resolution.

All right, great. Thank you. I'm going to open the discussion. Is there anybody in the audience? I don't know if the applicants here sometimes, if you'd like to come up, you're welcome to come up and address us. If you don't, that's fine. It's up to you if you want to come. It's up if you want to tell us about the deli, that's fine? Okay, come on up. You just have to come up and tell us your name for the record. Great.

Here we go.

Great.

Avi Rosenberg, uh, is my name. I actually took over. So there was only one kosher establishment here. It was, uh, called cones, uh, which was out in Krivkor. So, um, well, the original owner, he kind of sold it off. It didn't really do well. So I bought them out, kind of took it over and now I'm kind of transitioning. I would like to transition it to over here. Um, it's closer to the Jewish community, which is, you know, actually over here, Clayton and city is primarily, um, where you have a lot of Jews as well as Krivkor. But yeah, so essentially that's what it is. It's going to be a deli slash butcher. We do a ton of catering. So for like hotels, hospitals, schools, people who need kosher food, this will be an outlet for them to finally get over here for it. Yeah. I'm going to change that. The hours are going to be kind of a little bit changed, but other than that, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think you'll want to talk to the planning department about that as we move forward. Are you the cook?

The owner, my partner is over there. He's also a cook over there.

Well, thanks. I don't know if there might be members of our board that have some questions for you. Yeah,

I've got a couple things. First, thanks very much. And thanks for the letters that came in and support. It sounds like this has a lot to offer our community with religious, cultural richness coming to everything else we have. And that's a great thing to have. I did notice in the application, though, the little checkbox that said no to recycling. And recycling is one of many.

So we do recycle. We do? Yeah. So like back in Creepcore, we have two dumpsters. So we have a smaller dumpster for like all the boxes and stuff like that. And then we have a larger dumpster for the trash.

Okay, great, because maybe I read it wrong. I

thought that I made a mistake. That's

fine. That makes me very happy because it seems like a business that will have a lot of integrity, and I think that's something that also we should be standing for in this community. We don't have an ordinance requiring it. I wish we did. But we also recently passed the Green Dining Alliance support, and I meant to have this card on the diocese as you came up, but we didn't have a break. So I'm just going to give you the green dining thing because we'll help you if you decide to pursue that.

Yeah.

Great.

Yeah, we also have for

like,

also for the grease, we also have a separate dumpster for the grease where they take in, they recycle that as well. So it's not like dumped in the sinks or anything like that.

Yeah, I think we all need that awareness just as a basic operating thing. So I appreciate

that. But I think I put that also in there. I might

have read it wrong, you know, for getting all these papers for the board. But I'm glad that we had the opportunity to have the conversation about

it. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Okay, thanks. I just have one question about the space. So it sounds like originally you're going to be in that footprint that was the Kitchen Clayton. Can you talk about, like, do you already have – a space next door that you're expanding into? What's

the... So, yeah. So the kitchen Clayton was operating as a ghost kitchen. Everything's kind of all there. They have, and I think we put it in the drawings. So busy bee. So I'm not sure if she's retiring or she's moving someplace else. I'm not 100% sure, but... So her space over there, it's narrow, but it's very long. So that we're going to break like a wall from that kitchen. So that goes into Busy B's space over there where we will have like, you know, your counter with your registers. You'll have like seating. We're going to have like a grab and go case for the fresh cuts of like meat, chicken, things like that, as well as like grab and go food. um and that will all be yeah in her space over there

okay so that space is being uh you'll be able to utilize that space and it'll just take you a little while to build it out probably yeah

yeah from when permits get approved and when she leaves the timing and everything yeah so

great thanks a lot yeah you got tons of support you had a lot of people emailed us

yeah and then i have them

yeah

the only kosher establishment i guess it's yeah

great

Well, I'm excited to see you. I grew up in a kosher household. I fell off the wagon 50 years ago, but... Now you can come back. Nonetheless, I still have a great appreciation for kosher food. I guess my question I wanted to ask maybe either for... David or Ana, to the extent that plans are still kind of in the works as far as expansion, are we by granting the conditional use permit, are we going to have another look at the expansion? Is that going to just be done by staff? What happens when this goes from ghost kitchen to

full build out? Yeah, it wouldn't come back to the Board of Aldermen because it's incorporated into the conditional use permit now. Okay, so this allows them that

it's sort of a

conditional use. Yeah, I would just mention if we're going to change the hours of operation if you have any idea what those might be we can incorporate that into an approval tonight if that would be helpful. I just want to make sure it's not a huge change that would necessitate us coming back and having another

No, it's not a huge change. Sundays – hold on. I had it actually over here. Thursdays, I do plan on being open later until like 6 on Thursdays. Fridays until 2. I'm not sure if I put that down or not. And Wednesdays until – Until five and then the other days right now for right now, it will stay the same. So

what I would suggest, I think in the resolution right now, we have it listed where you can operate on the weekdays no later than four. It says 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. If we change that from 9 a.m to 6 p.m., it would give you flexibility within those weekdays to operate at 6 o'clock if that helps.

Yeah.

And then no weekend hours?

As of right now, no.

Okay. All right. Yeah, I would just suggest whoever makes a motion on that, if we could change the hours of operation to 6 o'clock on Monday through Friday, that would be helpful.

On the hours and the days, I assume you're closing at two. Is that in part just to be respectful of the Sabbath?

Yeah, for the Sabbath, yeah.

And the Sunday, I thought strange that you weren't open on Sunday, but do I understand that's something you would likely do?

Yeah, we're going to eventually open back up on Sundays. I mean, in the beginning, I'm just going to stay closed. We also do a lot of catering and stuff like that. So instead of being open for the public, if I can be able to utilize the space. I

would hope we would make this hours more flexible. So what you're authorized to do doesn't necessarily require a change if you already know basically what you're going to do. I don't think that would be offensive to the issuance of a conditional use permit. Other than that, I wish you well.

Thank

you.

I'm very supportive, and the questions I had regarding expansion have already been asked. So I'm fine. Thanks.

The only question I've got, you talked about... Eventually expanding. Do you have some sense of timing on that? Are we talking a year? Are we talking six months? Are we talking in a month and a half?

You're saying for the, for the build out of the seating six months. Okay. I'm hoping for, I mean, I'm yeah.

I'm not going to hold you to it. I'm just, yeah, no, no, no. I couldn't, I don't want it to be

easier from now. Correct.

Yeah. I just couldn't tell from the write-up whether it was something like you hoped at some point a few years from now when you got settled, open it up or whether this was a building permit build out or, Well, she's

still in the tenant currently right now is still in the space. And so it will take a little bit to get her moved out. Then you have to obviously put bids in for contractors. And so it'll take a little bit, but the goal is to move as, you know, as fast as possible. Yeah. Great. Thanks. Yeah. Is

there anybody in the audience or online? Great. All right, I will close the public hearing.

Alderman Buse? I move to approve resolution number 2025-12 with amendments to the hours of operation along operations to continue until 6 p.m., granting a continual use permit for 7923 Forsyth Boulevard doing business as Nate's Deli.

Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great. You're on your way. We're excited to see what happens. Thanks. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is our consent agenda, which contains a number of different things. Alderman Gary Feder, it sounds like there's something that you want to move off the consent agenda to discuss.

Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great. You're on your way. We're excited to see what happens. Thanks. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is our consent agenda, which contains a number of different things. Alderman Fader, it sounds like there's something that you want to move off the consent agenda to discuss.

I just wondered, with reference to the appointments to our commissions, I had asked June earlier today, and I think she circulated a pretty lengthy list of people from different wards who have expressed interest in serving on our commissions. And I don't think it impacts what we do tonight, but I do think it's important for us to recognize there are a lot of people out there who now would like to serve on boards and commissions. I think as a result of our discussion at the retreat, we're going to evolve into perhaps a couple of new boards or commissions, which might be a place to place some of these people, but... just wanted to make sure that all of us around the table are aware that there are people in our respective neighborhoods who are interested in serving, and so we don't have to necessarily search around for people. We've got a pretty good start just on people, and so I just wanted to add that comment before we acted on these appointments, and I see we still do have a few vacancies, and I hope that, you know, that'll help us to the extent there are you know, four or five, six people who need to be appointed right now that that'll help us do that. And then we can look down the road at these other group of people But some of them have expressed interest a long time ago, and we keep telling them we don't have anything. And hopefully also as we get into our new, I think, sort of revised ordinances and we sort of back off some of the requirements for necessarily an equal split between wards, maybe that will also facilitate us being able to place some of these people. So I just wanted to make that comment to help us as we go forward.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good point. So I think in terms of a process we'll advertise for the open spots, you know, in city views and, you know, I think on the website. and Clayton Connections. I don't know if there's, do we normally put a deadline for? No. So if we keep the advertising open for a couple of weeks and then, you know, I would certainly encourage each older person to reach out to the people that are on the list, see if they're still interested, you know, indicate maybe you know, send an email to myself and, you know, just to let us know that they're still interested. That might be a good way to start, you know, find out who might be still interested in the, I can't remember the exact list, like who is interested in what, but if that's sounds all right with everybody, is there anything different?

Okay.

So we'll just kind of give it a couple of weeks, advertise, and then kind of try to make some decisions for what are we at? know hopefully certainly by the early to mid part of july get the appointments that um are outstanding sound good yep okay

yes

yeah and i'll just uh make a note that there is a revised list of appointments um that was not um in the published packet Um, given that, um, is there any other discussion about any items in the consent agenda? Um,

there was somebody was missed. You want to do a next, next step, the next board meeting, Sally Picard. It's on the

back. There's it says back in front. There we go. Gotcha. Okay. There was one name misspelled. Karen Schutte is actually K-A-R-I-N.

Great. If there's

nothing else, I move to approve the consent agenda. I get it.

Alderman Buse? Aye. Alderman Patel? Aye. Aldeman Gary Feder?

Alderman Buse? Aye. Alderman Patel? Aye. Aldeman Fader?

Aye.

Alderman Rick Hummell?

Alderman Hummel?

Aye.

Aldermen Jeffery Yorg?

Aldermen York?

Aye.

Mayor McAndrew? Aye. Thank you.

All right, now we'll move on to the city manager's report. The first item is related to a new stop sign.

Yes, Mayor. The Public Works Department has received requests to replace the existing yield signs on University Drive at the intersection of Crandon Drive with stop signs. Upon staff review, it was determined that this intersection is currently the only four-way intersection within the city that utilizes yield control. And very low volume situations, yield signs or no signs are acceptable, provided sufficient sight distance exists. Converting this intersection from yield controlled to stop controlled provides uniformity to roadway users and is similar to nearby intersections that utilize stop signs. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve the ordinance to modify the traffic code to convert the yield signs to stop signs on University Drive, both eastbound and westbound at Crandon Drive.

Thank you i'll open the discussion does anybody have any questions or comments from appear from the board.

Just a curiosity question. How did it come to be that we had yield signs rather than stop signs, to begin with.

I have no idea. I don't know that anybody in public works has any idea either.

I've just gotten a lot of complaints over the years that people were really unsure what to do, you know, and there were some close calls. I don't think, I think there was maybe one accident. So there hasn't been, it's not like there've been, but I've gotten multiple emails through the years.

I think it's a good idea and I'm supportive. I just can't understand why we didn't do it that way the first time.

There's different treatments that can be utilized at intersections, as I mentioned in the staff report. There are some intersections that don't have any control. They're very low volume and sight distances exist. Yield is just kind of that interim step to stop sign, but all can be applicable, and this is just consistent with the area.

So, Matt, I won't let you go yet. Just for, if nothing else, for the record's sake. The memo says in very low volume situations, yield signs are acceptable. I assume this is not a low volume street. I'm probably less familiar than I should be with the street.

Yes, it's very low volume. And we did check accident data. There's been one accident in five years relating to stop or yield through this intersection. So nothing significant. It's just more about consistency with neighboring intersections for drivers know what to expect as they approach.

Gotcha. So based on the memo, we could still include the yield signs. Given it's low traffic, we could still leave them. We're just doing it for more uniformity's sake. Correct. And I assume that neighbors are okay with that?

I mean, I think the neighbors are who have contacted me multiple times over the years. Yeah. And I think it was, it is because every other intersection nearby, it's stop signs. So I think it is just kind of confusion more than anything

else. And that makes sense. I'm always, I mean, given the war two conversations about stop signs a few years ago, I always want to at least ask the question about whether the stop signs needed or not needed before we kind of put them in. Yeah.

It's already controlled because it's a four-way intersection. There's some control, but now it's just changing. That makes sense.

And that makes sense that it's a different case. I just wanted to kind of clarify. Thank you, sir.

Anybody else?

Okay. I'm in Buse. I introduce Bill No. 7074, approving an amendment to Table 2A and Table 2B of the Stop and Yield Intersections Regulations in Title III by modifying the traffic code to convert the yield signs to stop signs on University Drive east and westbound at Crandon Drive to be read for the first time by title only. Second. Discussion?

Mr. City Attorney?

Bill number 7074, an ordinance amending table 2A and table 2B of title 3 of the municipal code to designate the intersection of University Drive and Crandon Drive as a stop intersection instead of a yield intersection.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Alderman Buse? I move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7074 on the day of its introduction. Second.

All those in favor. Aye. Opposed? Let the minutes reflect that the board has given unanimous consent.

I introduce bill number 7074 approving an amendment to table to a and table to be of the stop in yield intersections regulations entitled three. By modifying the traffic code to convert the yield signs to stop signs on university drive east and westbound at Crandon drive to be read for the second time by title only.

Second discussion, Mr city attorney.

Bill 7074, an ordinance amending Table 2A and Table 2B of Title III of the Municipal Code to designate the intersection of University Drive and Crandon Drive as a stop intersection instead of a yield intersection. Second reading.

Alderman Buse. Aye. Alderman Patel. Aye. Aldermen Gary Feder.

Alderman Buse. Aye. Alderman Patel. Aye. Aldermen Fader.

Aye.

Aldeman Rick Hummell. Aye. Aldman Jeffery Yorg. Aye. Mayor McAndrew. Aye. Thank you.

Aldeman Hummel. Aye. Aldman York. Aye. Mayor McAndrew. Aye. Thank you.

Great, thank you. And then the next item on the agenda is a contract for some Brentwood deck repairs.

Yes, the city is currently under contract with Western Specialty Contractors to replace the waterproof coating on the third level of 10 South Brentwood Parking Garage. The original scope of work for the project including replacing the aging coating with an allowance for 1,830 square feet of partial depth Concrete deck repair. The project was split into two phases, both west and east, to accommodate parking. Western Specialty Contractors has completed removing the old coating and removing delaminated concrete on the western phase. They've encountered 11 post-tension cables requiring repair on the western phase Post-tension cable repairs were not anticipated and not included in the contract. Addressing this issue now is important to prevent more costly repairs and operational disruptions in the future. Staff is requesting additional funding in the sum of $148,000 to complete the entire project which includes the east portion of the project and will submit a proposed budget amendment to the Board of Aldermen to address this issue at a later time. Staff recommends that the Board of Alderman approve the ordinance.

Thank you. I'll open the discussion. Does anybody have any questions?

david the only question i've got is i assume this is just going to come out of the general fund it's all said and done or is it coming out of some capital fund or this should come out of the capital

fund at that amount okay

i just want to make sure it's clear so um we had hoped to do the whole project and it came in high so then we explored some alternates And the request from staff is to go ahead with the full scope of the project at the higher cost than what we anticipated? We'd hoped that we

could just replace the coating on it. And when we opened it up and took the coating off and started to do some of those partial depth repairs, that's when we found the more intensive structural damage. So then we talked to the contractor about an alternate to complete the portion that was underway, which is that western portion. but also got pricing to do the eastern portion with that added work as well um to us being that this is a structural issue potentially and that the cost for this is just going to we know that cost is going to be encouraged no reason to defer it right um but we're just changing it based on what we saw once that coding was was stripped off there was much more work that needed to be done than was originally apparent And you

may have said this and I missed

it. Unless there's something else, Matt. Sorry. Sorry about the

steps. The net new dollars that we need to approve is what? Like

what? $148,000 is

the additional expense. That's correct. The total project. I knew it

was somewhere and I just wasn't

seeing it. $322,984. Okay. $1,000.

Anybody else? Alderman Buse? I introduce Bill No. 7075, approving the change orders for the 10 South Brentwood Deck Repairers Project to be read for the first time by title only. Second. Any discussion? Mr.

City Attorney?

Bill No. 70 75, an ordinance approving a change order to the contract with Western Waterproofing Company Inc., DBA Western Specialty Contractors, for the eastern phase of 10 South Brentwood Third Level Parking Garage Repair Project. First reading.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Opposed?

All the women abuse. I move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7075 on the day of its introduction. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Let the minutes reflect that the board has given unanimous consent.

I introduce bill number 7075, approving the change orders for the 10 South Brentwood Deck Repairs Project to be read for the second time by title only. Second. Any

discussion? Mr. City Attorney?

Bill number 7075, an ordinance approving a change order to the contract with Western Waterproofing Company, Inc., DBA Western Specialty Contractors for the eastern phase of the 10 South Brent with third level parking garage repair project. Second reading.

Alderman Buse. Aye. Alderman Patel. Aye. Aldeman Gary Feder.

Alderman Buse. Aye. Alderman Patel. Aye. Aldeman Fader.

Aye.

Aldman Rick Hummell.

Aldman Hummel.

Aye.

Aldaman Jeffery Yorg. Aye. Mayor McAndrew. Aye. Thank you.

Aldaman York. Aye. Mayor McAndrew. Aye. Thank you.

Great. The next item on the agenda is a final payment for Remembrance Park, Mr. City Manager.

Yes, Remembrance Park opened to the public on June 18th, 2025. As that project neared completion, Vernon Jones, the contractor on the project, submitted the final pay application, bringing the total of the project to $595,460. In reviewing the invoice, it has been determined that the final amount due is over the approved budget by $3,710 due to an error in tracking the change orders within the approved contingency amount. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen approve the ordinance allowing final payment in the amount of $29,773 to Bernard Jones, which includes the additional $3,720 not previously approved for completion of Remembrance Park.

Great. Thank you. I'll open the discussion. Does anybody have any questions?

I just want to comment how much I appreciate the word final in this ordinance. Yeah.

Good point.

I've got one, and it's probably because I wasn't here when it started, but how much of this was city money and how much of it was grant-funded money? I don't want to necessarily call Tony all the way up. I'm just kind of curious.

Hold

on. We

got the

email. Oh, I saw the email recently. Yep.

Clearly it was already been approved. I'm not questioning paying the bill. I'm just curious what the...

There was about, so about 900 and the total cost, we got about, the total cost of the project was about $970,000. About half of that was municipal park grants, $455,000. So the 591 is all us? The five. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

That's, I guess what I was trying to clarify. No.

Well, no, that wasn't because yeah, go ahead, David, if you want.

No, that's because I'm

reading the same. Okay.

The total, the total cost of construction of the park was 591,000 and some change. We paid 340,000 to acquire the property. And we also had demolition costs for taking the house down. So the total cost for the project to do all of those things was $970,220. Okay. Of that $970,000, $220,000, the city contribution is $392,220. $445,000 was municipal park grant and $123,000 were CCF donations. So the city paid less than half of the total cost of the total project, including the land acquisition. Gotcha. Thank you.

Anybody else? Other women, Buse? I introduce bill number 7076, approving the final payment to Byrne and Jones Construction for the Remembrance Park project to be read for the first time by title only. Second.

Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney?

Bill number 7076, an ordinance approving final payment to Byron Jones Construction for construction at Remembrance Park. First reading.

all those in favor aye

aye aye

the opposed of imbues

i move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7076 on the day of its introduction second

all those in favor all right opposed let the minutes reflect that the board has given unanimous consent

I introduce bill number 7076, approving final payment to Byrne and Jones Construction for the Remembrance Park project to be read for the second time by title only. Second.

Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney?

Bill number 7076, an ordinance approving the final payment to Byron and Jones Construction for construction at Remembrance Park. Second reading.

Alderman Buse? Aye. Alderman Patel? Aye. Aldeman Gary Feder?

Alderman Buse? Aye. Alderman Patel? Aye. Aldeman Fader?

Aye.

Alderman Rick Hummell?

Alderman Hummel?

Aye.

Aldermen Jeffery Yorg?

Aldermen York?

Aye.

Mayor

McAndrew. Aye. Thank you. The last item on the agenda is a municipal judge selection of our panel appointments for the municipal judge interviews.

Yes, in accordance with the resolution the board passed back in 2023 regarding the selection process. We do put together a municipal judge selection panel and the board's task this night is to make the appointments to that panel.

I'll open the discussion. I'll just, because I'm acquainted with one of the people that is potentially on the panel, I'm not going to involve myself in any discussion or vote. But if you all would like to talk amongst yourselves about the motion, please go ahead.

There's a question, and I might have missed this somewhere. When is this going to happen? I think that will be scheduling. Talking once people are appointed? Yeah. Okay. Okay.

The end goal is to have the appointment of the judge on the board's agenda for July 8th.

Okay, thank you.

So tonight, though, we do need to identify who will sit on the panel. And is that like, are we actually going to make a motion that includes a member of the Board of Aldermen, the member of the CEC and the because I don't think we have any of that written down.

Yeah, I think that was an, yeah, so that Alderman Gary Feder had indicated that he was interested.

Yeah, I think that was an, yeah, so that Alderman Fader had indicated that he was interested.

Because this didn't say, and so I wasn't, because I felt like I gave feedback. And so I assume most people did, whether everyone did or not. And so Susan actually has the details of what the result of that feedback is. And perhaps, Susan, you're interested in sharing that with us to find out if anyone wants to talk about it.

People have other comments. Do you want me to share that now?

Well, I

think knowing the great mystery, so please share.

We're moving to approve the appointments of William Waller, Patrick Kenney and Alderman Gary Feder and Karen Schuette and Karen Schuett. Thank you very much.

We're moving to approve the appointments of William Waller, Patrick Kenney and Alderman Fader and Karen Schuette and Karen Schuett. Thank you very much.

I have no comments. I support the motion as I expect it to be offered.

I don't have any comments.

I I think Mr. Kenney could meet the definition of indirect or direct conflict of interest. So the other one, I think is fine. I remember two of the, two of the folks, one of them had recommended the current judge before they were here to apply for the panel. And the other one, Obviously, it has some relation to one of us that I think both... If part of our job is to... None of the panel members will have in the judgment of the Board of Alderman and Mayor either bias or a direct or indirect conflict of interest in serving an interview panel. So for those two, I felt they were. But the third one, I was fine with. So...

Can you explain what you think the conflict is? I can't remember if I am familiar with it.

So... Um, so the one is that I think I'd represent the judge. And if I remember correctly, either the other one was either related.

I don't know. I just couldn't actually understand the words you said.

Sorry. So one of the panelists had recommended the current judge or

William Waller was on the panel last time. So he is familiar with our current judge because he was on the panel that recommended him. Yes.

But I believe on the application, it also said that they were, the person was going to, um, was going to be recommending the judge again before they decided to apply for the panel.

I don't know what that means, and I didn't get that. That's not what I read. In my mind, what I read in William Waller's application was like, of course he has this familiarity with the judge. He was part of the process before. I don't have any reason to think it's a... something that would like bias him in an inappropriate way. But I actually thought that you were suggesting that Patrick Kenney had a conflict of interest. Did I misunderstand? I'm very confused right now on what you're trying to

say. I may have misunderstood, but my understanding was Mr. Kenney had some relation to somebody on the board.

Yes. Oh, he's Bridget's father. Okay. Yeah.

So in my mind, because of that situation, I would view that as an indirect conflict of interest for purposes of voting.

Okay. I don't.

If I can respond to that, those things caught my attention as well. William Waller, because it was merely an involvement with the process in the past and his qualifications That's something with which I'm comfortable. And Mr. Kenney, because it's not a bias in relation to the applicants for the judgeship. And the main thing being that this is simply... The selection panel can sound made misleading. It's a recommendation made to the board. It's not a binding. They're choosing the judge for the city, as I recall. So given that... I'm comfortable that they meet the qualifications.

I would just add, I don't see it as a conflict either. We appoint a member of the Board of Aldermen. We could easily appoint Bridget just as we appoint Gary. And so I don't see that that poses a conflict that I'm concerned with at all.

Well, I guess I'll weigh in. I have no problem with Bridget's father. I think you'd have to go very far to find that to be a conflict, that seems to me. irrelevant here. I will say, just so I'm not jumping on the bandwagon here, I did express to both Bridget and David a little bit of concern about Mr. Weller. He's clearly very qualified in terms of his background, and he has a very strong equity emphasis, so he's sort of the perfect candidate. I'm a little concerned that in all fairness to, since we have multiple candidates, and we know that the vote last time was unanimous, for Judge Strom. That, of course, means that Mr. Weller voted for Judge or recommended Judge Strom. So I'm a little concerned. Can he truly objectively view these three candidates and now have some degree of bias? It doesn't bother me a lot. It bothers me a little bit. I'll put it that way. In that respect, he's not the perfect candidate. He is otherwise certainly very well suited, but So I've expressed that previously, and I still have a little bit of reservation. and it may seem silly, I guess in some ways I would feel better if someone went to Mr. Weller and said, hey, we're thinking about putting you on here, but you were on the panel last time. Do you feel like you can objectively evaluate all three candidates? It's kind of rhetorical, but I would at least feel better if we broached it with Mr. Weller ahead of time and just said, do you have any concern about being open-minded? It's a little bit like asking a juror about what they can do or can't do. So that would make me feel a little better about it, but I wouldn't insist on it. Just a thought.

I mean, I would hope that since he applied that he was, he would be, you know, he would be able to be open-minded. And I'll just say that I had concerns because we had only gotten one applicant. My father's been a prosecutor. He was a prosecutor in Milwaukee County for 40 years and appeared before probably thousands of judges. So when I and he's been trying to find ways to give back to a community that he really enjoys living in. So when I broached it with them, I said, you're actually probably uniquely qualified to judge a judge. So that's, you know, how it happened. So

My other comment regarding Gary's comment would be my recollection is that we receive written documentation regarding the recommendation. I don't know if it was a transcript or a summary document of some form. Whatever it was, so long as we get that again and get the context of the recommendation, we can read for bias or anything else ourselves. And so I'm not concerned about that.

I do appreciate that we had the conversation, though. I think that's good. It's a newer process for the city, and to bring the concerns up, I think, is really healthy.

Yeah, I'm also just thrilled that he's willing to do it again because I actually think it's great to have someone who has been a part of the process repeat it. So I think it's interesting to think about, like, if that makes it a conflict, like, does that mean you can only ever be on this? Like, you know, like if we would take the position that that would disqualify you, then we'd have to find new people every year, which doesn't seem to me like a great way to do business. So yeah.

Well, I would just say too, the people on the panel don't know who applied so mr waller might not know i mean i guess he did know he

said in his thing that he did and even another person said that they happen to know that someone they know applied so like

i

did see yeah

so

people talk to each other also um very encouraged that we had all the applicants were very qualified um and that's a really good thing for the health of the process

your honor may i comment i um I am aware of Missouri Ethics Commission opinions that state that it really doesn't make any difference whether this is a compensated position or not, that it is and can be a conflict of interest if this board appoints a relation such as your father. and I'm aware in another city of a Missouri ethics commission complaint for the appointment of an alderman's daughter to a recommending committee, which is exactly what this is. So I have a real concern that that would be a conflict of interest.

Yes. When I, I mean, I guess when I had heard, I thought it was normally for compensated positions, but I, I mean I sincerely appreciate your advice. So that might change the recommendation this evening. Should

we continue this or should we, I guess, no, I mean, we had another,

I mean, there was another applicant so you could change the motion and

in my mind, the other applicant actually had a stronger conflict of interest is what I remember thinking. I

ask what that is.

They disclosed it. I didn't make it

up.

Yeah, friends, like actually friends with one of the applicants. And so in my mind, the other two do not have a personal relationship with the applicants, which in my mind made them less conflicted. What

is the wording on the panel selection? I'm trying to remember the required number. four it has to be yeah

yeah

yeah it's on the

that's correct it's for member of the board of aldermen member of cec and two residents at large with some experience in municipal courts and or equity

i mean um can we put jeff on in place of eight or like i mean i don't know Yeah, I don't know if you're putting

any one of us on. I think it's going to be, although Jeff's going to be gone. I mean, not that I'm, but he's also been gone for a good chunk of the time and we're trying to do this. I would be happy to do

it. But do we want to do this off the cuff like this tonight? Or I guess we have to get it in place. If

we can, it'll allow the process to go forward. I

guess the question is, is there a timing we have to meet on June 8th that I'm missing? Or could it be moved and we look at this in two weeks, I guess? To Susan's point, if we need to figure something out, we can figure something out on the fly. But if we don't need to, I just don't understand the

timing. I don't know if there is a specific timing other than moving things along. Because the term was technically a

June term.

Yeah, what's the... Is it...

Yeah, so... right so i'm fine either way

i think it's up to everybody if they want to we've got you know obviously miss alderman Gary Feder um mr waller and aaron shoot yep question about

i think it's up to everybody if they want to we've got you know obviously miss alderman fader um mr waller and aaron shoot yep question about

the legal advice that we just got um like is um Like it would have been great to know that, you know, a week or two ago. I don't know like what the process we have and I might be asking David, are you like, how do we, at what point do you have the opportunity to review these things and provide us advice? Is it just if we think it might be an issue and we ask, you know?

Or it comes up in staff meetings. Right. And we've had, I don't think we got in, well, I can't remember if we got into specifics of who the applicants were, but that's typically where we would have those types of discussions because the attorney's here for that.

Right.

But also Kevin's on vacation. So we've had two fill-in attorneys along the way and that's not an excuse for it. But I think, yeah, we can

tighten that

up. But typically we don't run a list of appointees by the attorneys and yeah probably why we didn't there yeah

i mean i can understand

that

but

yeah and

i could see why we should have asked the question

yeah and i i i guess i wouldn't have necessarily but it you know it was kind of a one-time interview so it was oh i mean i don't have any

advisory so i wasn't yeah i wasn't i wouldn't have known who worried but and it was yes i think it might be cleaner to put this off to the next

I was just going to say the same thing. Unless we have to, it gives us a couple of weeks to get more comfortable with the legal advice. Think about if there's somebody else we all know that fills one of those things. Like I would feel a little weird having a formal board of Alderman one and Gary, and then another one of us serving on it to meet it, even though technically we're all residents that we may get to that. I don't want this to stretch out, but I think if it gives us a anybody we may know that would fit for this. I could fill the form out and say, look, you can help the city commit for two or three meetings in a couple of weeks. I think it's at least worth taking the two weeks and taking a step back and saying, do we know anybody? If the answer is no, then we're in the same spot we are now, but at least we can say we've tried. I

agree. I'm not sure you want to be alderman heavy on this. Um, and Gary's so we have three applicants looking for one more, I guess the way of getting that, are we comfortable, um, Us reaching out for people to apply? I

think we need to advertise it again. You do that in two weeks. Well, but I think if we advertise it and it's due the following Friday, so a week from Friday, open it up, and then I would encourage everyone again to reach out to people who they might know. Do we want... Oh, it's the fourth. So maybe the third then.

We want to confirm what we have with one remaining spot like we do with boards with committees and things, can we go ahead? And so that's clean at least and move forward on the one spot. You're saying advertise that there's still one spot remaining. Well, can we tonight approve?

I don't see the reason though. We might as well just wait.

Can I ask a question first? How did we approve municipal judge before we made this change?

How did we approved? What was

our process? Was it just the board of aldermen?

I honestly don't remember if you've changed this process, but then he would.

So we, I'm just trying to say, this isn't really complicated in my mind. So we, the board of aldermen did this. Then we wanted a more inclusive process because we thought that was important. We had the process. We're going to have a couple of participants, and I don't see this as a major modification. I do think that we need to keep this moving along. I think it's a prudent thing to do. I don't know what two weeks helps us do unless we truly believe that that third outside person is vital to the process. And if it is, I'm supportive of that. It's just not clear to me that that is a compelling feature of this.

So are you suggesting we move forward just with the three panelists?

I am fine with the three panelists. I'm really asking a question. I'm not trying to force the issue. If someone feels that there's a compelling reason to have an outside interest, I'm supportive of that. But I'm also supportive of Gary, Susan, and the Equity Commission person that we nominated. I'm fine with that too. I think what we want is a qualified group of people to make a recommendation to us. I find them qualified.

And just if I'm doing this, I'm one of my volunteer. I don't know. I'm just my expert rep. I have, I was a partner at Armstrong Teasdale. I've worked in various and continue to work in various legal clinics. And that's it. And you all know me otherwise. So yes, I've had legal experience. Yes, I have a JD. Yes, I've been a partner at a law firm. And yes, I've worked

in... My recollection, and it was very early when I was on the board, that this came up about the judge process. And the feeling of the board was that the process historically had pretty much been where the mayor and city manager would get names. The mayor would come forward with a name. Everybody would say, sounds great. And that that process... Really was not consistent with I think what the Charter says in terms of it's essentially a board of aldermen decision. And so there was a feeling that there was not enough process. There wasn't enough opportunity for the board to really weigh in. There weren't interviews actually in the past with the candidates. So all of this that was the first step. And then it morphed into the notion that there also ought to be sort of an equity piece to this. So I think the fairly formal structure that we now have is really an evolution from something that the board three or four years ago wanted because they thought the prior process was too informal. So to that end, I think if we take that process seriously, you know, we have to consider doing this the way it basically is set out in our ordinances now. And so to that end, I would support delaying this a little bit and see if we can't clean it up before we vote.

I would also just add to it, Gary, to the point is if the goal was to make it more inclusive and not just kind of way described it i'd be concerned if one-third of the board was on the selection committee and then was also going to vote on who the actual candidate is because we're obviously one down i mean it it's not that i don't trust any of us i'm just thinking about like optically like what does that look like if if to your description gary was we wanted it to be not just stamp, but we wanted as many outside elected officials kind of commenting on it as possible. So

that's exactly what it was. Yeah. To get it. So there's two different steps to it.

So it sounds like we'll continue the matter. Allow. Yes, go ahead.

I don't know. I mean, I'm just, I'm with Rick a little bit. Like I don't, we advertised it. We actually got a few applicants to have conflicts that we believe are serious enough not to include them. And, but we do have like a highly qualified person who like has expertise in this area, a resident from the equity commission. And we do this as a, recommendation from the Equity Commission. They made the recommendation for us to create this ordinance. And so I don't, yeah, I mean, obviously, and then I don't know if we would do two alders, would you all recuse yourself? And then do we even have a quorum that can vote?

I'm comfortable going with the panelists of the three with one older person. We can do that under the ordinance. I don't

know. But we'd have to delay to do that.

No, but without replacing the setting.

Having three instead of four. Are we allowed to have three instead of four? Is that okay? We can? Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, we were just looking at the constitutional prohibition on nepotism, and that's what I was talking about tonight. And the distinguishing factor seems to be whether or not the elected official actually votes in And if the mayor, she has recused herself from this process, as long as she doesn't vote on this appointment, I think it would not be a conflict of interest.

That's great. Thank you for digging into that. All right, let's hear your

motion. I have written all of my paper. Can I read it? I move to approve the appointments of William Waller and Patrick Kenney as expert reps. Karen Schutte. as the Equity Commission representative and Alderman Gary Feder as the Board of Aldermen representative, as the members of the 2025 Municipal Judge Selection Panel. Second.

motion. I have written all of my paper. Can I read it? I move to approve the appointments of William Waller and Patrick Kenney as expert reps. Karen Schutte. as the Equity Commission representative and Alderman Fader as the Board of Aldermen representative, as the members of the 2025 Municipal Judge Selection Panel. Second.

That would be

good.

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

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

Aye.

Aldermen Rick Hummell?

Aldermen Hummel?

Aye.

Aldeman Jeffery Yorg?

Aldeman York?

No.

Thank you.

Are you going to reflect the abstention on the record?

Yes. Thank you. All right, everybody. Why don't we go around if anybody has anything to report? Jeff, you want to start and go backwards this time?

Yeah, because actually mine's pretty easy because my committees haven't met yet. Oh, I take that back. EDAC we met yesterday. meeting was fine, lasted about an hour. We obviously talked about the budget and events. There's no reason to go back through that. I do think we've gotten some feedback that Susan and I both have as, well, I give Susan the yeoman work of working on a lot of the committees and getting folks filled in terms of reaching out. But a couple of the EDAC folks we talked to did make the comment about, as we talked about in the retreat, what exactly the committee is going to do going forward. It seems like it's It's not that it's hard to find people to serve on it. It's the question of when it only meets once a year, like what do you actually tell them they're doing for the city? So I think we do need to continue that discussion and that having gone through the EDAC committee this year that nothing is sitting through that committee convinced me otherwise that we need either figure out more to do with that group or just be open and honest about the people on there, but actually what it is and what it isn't. but otherwise that committee went fine in terms of crwc um i've got my paperwork and crswc and that's the new one i've got coming so um that's what i've got and i'll see everybody on zoom for a couple meetings in july so

Like many of you, I attended the Remembrance Park. I was pleased by the community turnout. I thought that was great. It was a nice event. The CCA cocktail party was also a nice event. And again, many of you all attended and so it was great to network with that group of people and I thought that was a productive event. In our neighborhood, I've asked David and staff to work on a problem that exists between Hillcrest and Wydown Terrace in terms of the old right-of-way that we vacated. And it's not that we have a problem, but the residents have reached out regarding There used to be a historical waterway that helped move stormwater, and in places it still exists. In other places it doesn't. And in any event, the point is simply that neighbors are interested in solving their water problem. We're working on it from a planning standpoint, and now we're trying to gather some historical information. So I appreciate the support to say what can we do either individually or collectively. And then the final thing, I had my meeting with Washington University today. I know some of the rest of you did as well. And again, their intent to move forward with housing on the South 40 is going to be occurring sometime here shortly. What surprised me a little bit is that they still stress their interest in Concordia, despite the fact that Concordia seems to be moving on. So I just found that interesting. Not that they're interested, just that they think it's viable. And then I did bring up... The fact that we as a community are exploring how we want to deal with the reforestation and development of Whiteown Boulevard. And I mentioned to them that they frequently bring forward that they like to participate in things where we have mutual alignment. And so they agreed that they had mutual alignment in this and that to the extent that that means. some funding opportunities for the, that white on force. They sound very interested. So I want to make sure that we support

that.

I was in the audience for the last plan commission meeting, and there was a very interesting discussion about short-term rentals, which as you noted earlier, that it was going to come before us tonight, but is not because, uh, The plan commission discussion led to some recommendations. There were some members of the public who were there who made some suggestions, and I think the commission themselves had some thoughts about some things that might be changed in the ordinance. So that will be coming forward, I guess, to the plan commission, and then we'll see if it comes assumedly to us. I have heard from some people in the community that And so that's still an interesting discussion. The Community Equity Commission, I think, had its biggest attendance since I've been a member for almost four years. The principal topic was... the graffiti, the racial slurs and anti-Semitic graffiti at Glen Ridge and how the school district was dealing with it. I think the commission felt that even though essentially it's a school district issue, involved school district property and kids from the school district that An equity commission, certainly to be viable, needs to address issues like this because they're not just school issues. They do have a community wide impact. So there was a good discussion. A few people who are parents expressed their concerns, which I think they have to the school board as well, that they feel not enough has been done. proactively to deal with these issues and what could be done. A representative of the Anti-Defamation League was invited and spoke about programming that could be offered. Some school districts, Ladue and others, I think have taken up those programs. To my knowledge, Clayton School District has not as yet. Dr. Poole was there, Cameron Poole, who's a liaison member or at least a non-voting member, was there. He did talk about things that the school district was looking at. I'm not sure where it goes from here. Dr. Poole said that he would be happy to come back toward the end of the summer as they're working through things and try to put some more meat on the bones in terms of what the school district is planning to do. And so we will see where it goes from there, but obviously there was a lot of interest in that. It was a good discussion. Thank you.

Thanks. I showed up at 520 to Remembrance Park and hung out with the five or six people that were still there. And a number of people came by to check it out and stuff. So I was sorry not to be able to get there in time for your remarks, Mayor. But I'm really glad to hear that it had a good attendance. And the after party was really hot. Hot like cool, like it was great and less hot actually than your 430 remarks, I'm sure. Anyways, we had a Parks and Rec meeting, my first meeting back at Parks and Rec. I started my life in municipal government as a member of the Parks and Rec Commission about... 100 or 12 years ago. So it's cool to be back. The main business that happened is a recommendation to increase day fees to offset. There's always this balance between having day use fees and the memberships and not wanting... like hoping to incentivize people to get memberships by having the day fee rate like just right and stuff so obviously there was comparison to other cities and all those things that our staff always does really well so that um uh is happening um the uh Other topic that we talked about primarily was tornado impacts and recovery. The Commission was really complimentary of staff and all the good staff work that went on during that. One, there was something I hadn't really heard about or realized happened, but that Shaw Park got shut down, like shut down for a period of time. And they said like the way folks who were there when it happened, like at rec sports events with their kids were really complimentary of how the staff handled it. And even like the young umps who are working there, you know, like just the way everybody handled it went really well. And one highlight in spite of the damage we saw at Oak Knoll Park, the site of like honor remembrance of the Osage is intact, like it was not damaged. So I thought that was cool. And I had a question that at the time Tony didn't know the answer, David, but in terms of any damage to our buildings. Do we have insurance that covers that or how

we do we were actually talking about that today so yeah an insurance adjuster that's going to be out taking a look at those, and then we'll. figure it out from there we've got yeah damage to a couple of our buildings and then pavilion and oakland park right other things

yeah okay cool thanks.

Okay, do we actually train the refs the teenagers and everybody who watches those parks and recs games on what to do in emergencies.

I would imagine that's a discussion they have at their onboarding, but I don't know how in-depth that is.

That's pretty awesome. Yeah, I mean, we were prepared in so many ways for this. Okay. Yeah, Jeff kind of touched on the EDAC, the responses we got, and I thought the presentation today kind of showed how helpful it might be to have a business voice and to actually make that committee more aware of what's happening versus just a once-a-month meeting with things being presented. Gary touched on the planning commission. And, yes, the short-term rentals were the hot topic. The change that was being made is the proposal from our staff was for a minimum of 24 hours, and it was suggested by a neighbor that it would be 48 hours, which everybody seemed fine with, and that was what they're going back to look at. Some of the comments we've gotten on that seem to be, but one of the conversations I had was we don't need any more people downtown. We have things, things are great as they are. And so trying to distinguish between that and people who truly don't like the, what's being presented with a short-term rental. But then when we start looking at, you know, what's, I think we really have to have those conversations to find out where people really stand when a lot of the concerns are being addressed. We're not going to have a Washington, you know, Washington Avenue is always brought up. So and then find out where the community is and where we are on that. It was a great retreat. We're all there. Thank you very much to everybody. And let's see, Remembrance Park opening. A lot of this has already been touched on. I have to say it again, though, and I said at the time when the mayor gave her remarks, she was commenting how wonderful it was to finally have our 21st, and I thought she was going to say 21st expected opening date, but instead she was saying 21st park, so It was a nice event. The condo association reception was wonderful, and again, a reminder how nice it is to get out and meet the people that we're actually representing. The noise ordinance with the generators, I'll bring it up again. Jeff and I are still getting emails on that, and I hope we can address that sooner than later prospectively versus, well, hopefully we'll never need it again, but just to look at that. And I think I just touched on everything that I wanted to share. So thank you.

Great. Um, well, um, I would just comment on the things that weren't already mentioned. Um, we had a ribbon cutting downtown, a place called triad sports, um, which was right before the equity commission meeting. Um, it's a new chiropractor. It's at the It's chiropractor plus I think a lot of wellness. So, but it seems like a great addition to that area certainly I'm sure will be a welcome addition to the building from the people that live in the building, but that was great. Our fire department had a big fundraiser for the Red Cross do we know what the total was for that

was 6000

great wonderful. So that was really nice. I think a lot of people, they had to go buy more meat. So they ran out of meat. So they did have to go. They were big.

They were huge. They were

like this size, literally. They were huge, so yes, they were great portions. My husband and I did go. Because we talked about it tonight, we went and saw this house, or the house, sorry, the Upper Theater, St. Louis's kind of... I don't know. I mean, the world premiere of it. But it was great. It was wonderful. I have never been to an opera before and it was a great experience. The opening kind of the opening song, I didn't realize that they actually had the lyrics up on the which I couldn't see at first or maybe I was just so focused on the stage. And I remember thinking, oh, my gosh. I'm not, I'm not going to have any idea what, what they're saying. And I think it was just, you know, maybe just, but then I saw their mind, it was much easier to kind of, you know, understand what was going on but um it was great it was a really really it's gotten me productions yeah it was it was really really neat i'm really glad we went um and then i just wanted to um thank david and the staff for the great retreat and all of you for making the time i know it's a long day um so um i think i just think a retreat i think it's really important for us to do um and then we just have to make sure by like february or march next year that we get it on the calendar So, but thank you to David and the staff for making and June. Thank you for the planning. So yeah, that's all I have, David.

As far as the retreats concerned, we're already working on that implementation. So we've been discussing that internally about getting those commissions up and running and getting a lot of different things in place. So we got a lot of good direction from that and I thought it was a day well spent. So thank you all very much.

Great. Anybody want to make a motion to adjourn? I move we adjourn. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Great. Thanks, everybody. Thank you.