October 13, 2026 — Meeting Transcript
Full transcript
Speaker labels are inferred from the recording; proper names are corrected against the public record. How this works ↗
Bye.
Good evening, everyone. We are here for October 13th Clayton City Council meeting. If the city clerk could call the roll.
Council Member Buse. Here. Council Member Patel. Council Member Gary Feder.
Council Member Buse. Here. Council Member Patel. Council Member Fader.
Here.
Council member Jeffery Yorg.
Council member York.
Here.
Councilmember Waldman. Here. Councilmember Betsy Meyland-Smith. Here. Mayor McAndrew. Here. City Manager David Gipson.
Councilmember Waldman. Here. Councilmember Malin Smith. Here. Mayor McAndrew. Here. City Manager Gibson.
Here.
City Attorney O'Keefe.
Here.
Thank you.
The first part of our agenda is public requests and petitions. So if there is anybody in the audience that would like to talk to us about an item that is not on our agenda, you're welcome to do that at this time. We'd request that if you do want to do that, there are public comment cards out in the hallway that you can fill out and give to our city clerk. And if during the meeting you want to speak on an agenda item, if you could fill out a card, that would be great. We do have one card that's been turned in. So Natalie Dowd, you're welcome to come up to the microphone and then just make sure that the green light is on at the bottom. And there is a, for everyone in the audience too, there is a three minute time limit for speakers.
My name is Natalie Dowd. I'm in Ward 2. And regarding the subject of the flock cameras and AI surveillance, I thought it would be helpful to talk about the physical custody of data and how all that physical hardware works. So basically, from everything I've read in from technical sources is telling me that flock cameras are not special. They're just regular cameras. They take a picture every three seconds, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every camera, every three seconds. They don't know the camera itself doesn't know if a car is passing because they don't have sensors of that kind. What they do is that data all then goes from the camera to the data center or the servers, which are physical computers that host the data. When it is physically there, the AI looks at the data and analyzes it. And that's where we get the information that then goes back to our police department. Those servers are owned by the AI surveillance company. So we're in this situation where a lot of Police departments claim they don't own their data until they search for it, until they physically see it. And Flock claims they don't own the data. But they do have custody of those servers. They not only own them, they control them. They do their IT setup from them. They manage them. They do the quality control from that information. There's no possible way that they can't view that data. it doesn't make logistical sense that they wouldn't be able to do that view that data because they are the uh technical custodian of that data um so once it's physically there we can request certain things they go to our chief or whoever in our police department that does not mean they get delayed deleted from the servers they go to the chief he might carry things down, and I suppose it saves to his local computer if something's relevant to a case. It would have to be saved off somewhere. That does not mean it gets deleted from other places. It stays there so that the other tens of thousands of searches regularly occurring on our cameras are using that main server. From that server, Flock also sells the data. We know for a fact they sell the data. I've covered this before in one of my other comments, but they sell the data and we know that because of investigative journalism and extensive FOIA requests. They've stopped, I think, selling it to the federal government directly. Now they sell it to data brokers and those data brokers can sell it to anyone. There's no federal legislation that clearly controls the sale of this data. So the sale of this could be to China, the government or the AI companies. And that's it. I'm out of time. Thank you.
All right, we are moving on to the first item on our agenda, which is a resolution, a conditional use permit for Citadel Prime. I will open the public hearing and request proof of publication.
Thank you, Mayor. This is a request for a conditional use permit for the proposed operation of a restaurant to be known as Citadel Prime. The subject property is located at 105 Carondelet Plaza, which is at the northeast corner of the intersection of South Hanley Road and Carondelet Plaza. The property has a zoning designation of Special Development District, or STD, and is developed with a mixed-use retail and office building. The tenant space was previously occupied by Tony's, which closed in February of 2025. The tenant space includes 8,778 square feet of interior space and 898 square feet of outdoor dining space. The restaurant would include approximately 116 interior seats, including private dining rooms and 37 exterior seats. The proposed hours of operation for dinner are 4.30 to 10, that's from Sunday through Thursday, and 4.30 to 11 on Friday and Saturday. Lunch could possibly be introduced in the future, and if so, the hours for lunch would be 11.30 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily. The Planning Commission considered this request at their October 5th meeting and voted unanimously to recommend approval of the conditional use permit to the City Council. Staff recommends that the City Council hold a public hearing and approve the resolution with the conditions contained herein.
Thank you. I will open the discussion. Is the applicant here? Would you like to come up? If you want to just state your name for the record.
Yes, my name is Peter Ganji, representing DHG STL Corp, which is Citadel Prime. I don't have much to comment on, but I'm just very excited to be bringing the Delmonico's brand and connection and legacy to Clayton. I've been coming here for the past six, five, six years or so, and we... Speaking on behalf of the whole team, we're super excited to open up and kind of bring this concept to the community. Our executive chef also happens to be from the St. Louis greater area. So it's a little coming home story for him. His mother still lives here and just really excited to be part of the community. You know, I've seen having gone out in Clayton for dinner and it's just such a bustling gastronomical city and we're excited to be contributing to it. um and yeah
thank you um does anybody on the city council have any questions about the restaurant or have any questions for peter just
just a couple things we're excited that you're here too and i love hearing the local ties and everything else and um we look forward to you opening i just wanted to stress again that the city council the city does uh support sustainability efforts with green dining alliance um with skip the stuff, not handing out unnecessary silverware and things like that. And I know with restaurants, especially one of your, one like this, one of the issues too is wine bottles. And I have nothing in particular that I'd ask of you, but I would ask that you do stay aware of best practices with responsibility for sustainability as you bring this wonderful business to our community. Of course.
I don't have any questions. Thanks.
I'm excited to have you come to Clayton. I just had one question. The description includes private dining rooms. Yes. And there was a rumor, there were many rumors about why Tony's failed. And one of those rumors, and may have had no truth to it, was that they felt they didn't have enough space for private dining. And in fact, asked the landlord to expand the lobby space lease more space to them so they could have more room for those kinds of events. I'm just wondering, I'm not asking you about Tony's, but for your own purposes, do you feel like you have enough dining, private
dining space? Yes. As you might've seen in the submission, we are making some changes to the space to kind of connect the upstairs and the downstairs. And I can't speak for why Tony's might not have worked in the space, but one thing I can suspect is it's almost like two different spaces in one. right? The top doesn't feed off the bottom and the bottom doesn't feed off top. So, you know, we're taking efforts to combine that energy in a way. But then additionally on the private dining, we have developed these flexible private dining rooms where if you want it to be private, these doors can shut and now you have a private dining room. Or if you don't want it, it can stay open. And there's two different sizes and they can also be combined into one. Be super flexible in terms of whatever a customer's needs may be.
Thank
you. Look forward to having you here. Excited to be here.
I have no problem with kind of the timing. I think my pause is, and I've expressed to some of the folks here, is the outdoor space. And we had gotten official and unofficial kind of complaints over the years that Tony would sometimes have music that was too loud for the residents who were trying to sleep, both like right above it and across the street. So maybe you could talk a little bit as to how you envision using that space and how you would feel about an additional restriction on the music in terms of when it would have to be shut off on the outside port. Yeah, I
think we are very conscious of being a good neighbor, especially in a new city. And we don't suspect that. We have no plans for doing live music or anything like that. If anything, it would be background ambient music just to fill in the gaps. And the idea would not be anything you could hear from 10 feet outside that premise.
Because, yeah, I think a couple of places that had come up is that there were private parties that decided to have it louder. Right. And I want to be thoughtful of the residents who were there first before the building.
Yeah.
So, you know, that's why, like in my case, I mean, ideally we would just have it. We have an extra condition on it just as music needs to shut off at nine so we can go to bed. And I hear you. It's not that I don't trust what you're saying. It's much easier if you're not here and it's two years down the line and there's somebody else to be able to have that ability to come in and say, look, it's time to shut it down as opposed to come and say, hey, could you kind of turn it down? Right. That kind of thing. Yeah. That's just kind of my point. I don't know how other people feel about it, but that's kind of where I would be at. Are you just
talking about the outside space? Yeah,
just the outside space. I mean, you guys can rock out as long as you want inside. I just want to be thoughtful of all the people in the Crescent and the people in the other condos right over there. If music would be too loud, let's say somebody decided to come in and rent that whole outdoor space for a private party and wanted to have a small DJ, which I had seen happen at Tony's, and then you have the residents trying to sleep upstairs, and they can't. that's
what the outdoor dining permit would be separate that they would have to apply for um
if you were going to limit something like that i would do it under the cup
i guess i'm i mean well i don't know kimmy i mean or
Well, I guess I would want to see what people do at Hanley and Wieda on those restaurants because I'm very excited for you guys to have outdoor space. I'm very excited to bring some vibrancy to that corner. I like the idea of it being kind of lively a little bit later also. I mean, clearly I don't want to disrupt any residents, but yeah. I like the idea of live music and people being able to walk up and see what's going on and just kind of, you know, be an overall gathering space just a little bit later into the night. So I pushed back a little bit, but I just don't know what other restaurants... Well, look, it's 10
o'clock. I mean, because you're just doing, I guess, Friday and Saturday. You're open until 11. 11, yeah. So...
But what do we do for a car and stuff that's on?
There wouldn't be any specific conditions for it. We don't have any specific conditions related to outdoor music, even in that neighborhood. So we went back and reviewed the CUPs. While there are outdoor dining permits with 10 p.m. maximums, those typically aren't listed in the CUP. Here, this CUP, if I recall, does have a 10 p.m., 10 o'clock limit on it for outdoor dining.
10 o'clock comes from our noise ordinance, which actually prohibits outdoor music at 10 o'clock adjacent residential. So if there was a restriction that was placed on this restaurant, it would be different from what we've put in our noise ordinances for an app.
So no live music after 10?
Right. So that's what our noise ordinance says. So right now, the conditional use permit is proposed to reflect that. So we have a reference to the noise ordinance as well as 10 p.m. Under our current outdoor dining regulations, all outdoor dining that's only on private property no longer requires an outdoor dining permit. So we've been transferring those restrictions to the actual conditional use permit. Got
it. Okay. Yeah, I feel like nine's early. I'm just saying.
Yeah, I mean, I feel like 10 o'clock's not particularly late.
And again, I'm excited to have the vibrancy of that corner and welcome to Clayton. Thank you. Thank you very much.
I agree, too, about nine being early, particularly in that spot, which is pretty urban. So, you know, I mean, we have on demand Sasha's has outdoor space and there's music until 10 o'clock there. And I think that that should be sort of like baked into the expectation of living next to a restaurant like that.
Although, in fairness, they were there first. The residents were there long before the building was there. that's the thing
well and i don't think it's not a very large outdoor space either i mean yeah i know
yeah i'm not based on what we learned about like the reports of um like who was you know official complaints i feel i feel okay with 10 o'clock and also excited thank you
um any other thoughts
Question. So because I Kevin and I were talking was the ordinance has some carve outs in terms of no outdoor music or audio permitted without written approval for the city. So I missed on a little bit what you were saying. So it's 10 o'clock all the days or it's 10 o'. And then 11 o'clock on the weekends. I apologize if you said that. And I was.
So the conditional use permit hour shows the hours of operation and includes a 10 p.m. provision for that outdoor dining. But then in chapter 215, there's a provision that talks about outdoor music within 500 feet of a residential district stopping at 10 p.m., so that applies overall as an ordinance. So if they were playing their music at 1030, the police could come and they could enforce chapter 215 and or the conditional use permit.
So the example I sent out with the formal complaint to the police department, that was essentially the conversation the manager had with the officer was that we're going to shut it down at 10 o'clock, which is the ordinance limit.
Any other thoughts? I will just say too, I'm very excited to have the space filled again. It's very exciting. And as Susan mentioned, the local connection is wonderful and we're just thrilled to have you in Clayton. So thank you for choosing Clayton as a place to have a new restaurant outside of New Jeffery Yorg. Thank
Any other thoughts? I will just say too, I'm very excited to have the space filled again. It's very exciting. And as Susan mentioned, the local connection is wonderful and we're just thrilled to have you in Clayton. So thank you for choosing Clayton as a place to have a new restaurant outside of New York. Thank
you. Happy to be here. Like I said, it's very exciting. It's been a process, but couldn't be happier to finally have it moving forward.
Great. Any other questions, comments? Council Member Buse. I move to approve
resolution number 2026. First, I will close the book hearing. Sorry. Apologize. I move to prove resolution number 202631, granting a conditional use permit for Citadel crime located at 105 Carondelet Plaza to allow for a restaurant.
Second. Any other discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The vote passes 7-0. The next item on our agenda is our consent agenda. I will open the discussion. Are there any questions or comments from the council?
I knew that we removed from the consent agenda the proposed schedule for the upcoming year.
Second. All those in favor, we are we're just removing. There's some questions about the dates for our meetings going forward. So we're just going to take that off the consent agenda. So council member abuse if you want to move to approve the rest of the consent agenda.
I moved to approve the remaining consent agenda. Second.
Any discussion or comments?
Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel? Aye. Council member Gary Feder? Aye. Councilmember Yorg?
Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel? Aye. Council member Fader? Aye. Councilmember Yorg?
Aye.
Councilmember Waldman? Aye. CouncilMember Betsy Meyland-Smith? Aye. Mayor McAndrew?
Councilmember Waldman? Aye. CouncilMember Malin Smith? Aye. Mayor McAndrew?
Aye. Um, so there was some questions about, um, moving, um, currently in the staff report, it has our strategic planning session on June 18th, which is not June 19th, but June 18th will be a holiday for, um, city employees as a substitute. So the idea was to move the planning session to June 11th. I move
that we modify. Does anybody, I guess, does
anybody have any issues with that? Okay. I mean, I know it's far in advance, but just so that we have something on the calendar. In concept. Yes.
Yeah. So I just move that we reschedule the June 18th session to June 11th.
Second.
All those in favor? Aye. And then I don't think there were any other Does anybody have any other concerns about the dates as proposed? Um, seeing none of you look up, I will assume not. Um, and then we were just going to also bring up, we currently have city council meetings in the week of Thanksgiving and also the week of Christmas. So, um, does anybody have any strong feelings about potentially canceling the November 24th meeting, which is two days before Thanksgiving and then the December 22nd meeting? um it would potentially make our other city council meetings longer um but
i don't Like, I'm okay leaving the 23rd and seeing how much we have. The 22nd in December? It's November's the 23rd. No, I'm talking about this year. Oh, this year. You're confusing me. We are looking. Do we need to actually approve the motion as amended? Did we, like we amended it, but we didn't approve it. You've
amended it, but you haven't approved the date yet.
Right. Yeah. Okay. So can we close down?
Correct. 2026.
Yeah. Sorry. We will. Yes. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have jumped the gun. So why don't we just approve the dates? I move
to approve year 2027 city council meeting schedule as amended.
Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All right. Now moving on to the.
This year.
this year's dates. So next month and December. We
did check. We don't have any plans, public hearings on either of those dates at this point. I'm
open to not having meetings in those states.
I mean, I think especially the November date. I think the Tuesday before Thanksgiving can be kind of hairy for a lot of people. I mean,
I mean, I'm fine canceling both. And if we have to all get together, we can all Zoom together. I mean,
it's better to leave the meeting if we think we might and cancel it like the week before, two weeks before, right?
The other thing I would say is if we need to take care of an item, we still have that Friday session where if we need to throw one quick business item on there, we can do it.
On December
18th. The Friday session, both of those months.
And is there any on the flip side to Becky's point? Is there a reason why we need to cancel it now? I'm gonna let people the
only thing that I don't want to do is fall into a trap where we do publish a public hearing for one of those dates and then decide I would rather not meet for the one item and we've got it all locked loaded to come in and do a CEP or whatever it might be. Can you
move a public hearing to a Friday? session we
could advertise it for any any day i'm just asking like we could advertise it yeah
so it doesn't preclude us being able to like allow our residents to move business forward and stuff because we could we could repurpose the friday
right something were to come up but if it it would if we wouldn't be able to undo it if we did have a public hearing that came up and you decided you didn't want to meet
So particularly the Thanksgiving one, if we have an idea at this point that we may be okay without it, I think it will be problematic for our family and perhaps others. Yeah.
And I can tell you in our weekly staff meeting where we discuss upcoming items, November looks light, at least at this point. So we think we can get everything done with one meeting and not hurt any of our business that needs to be done.
Any other thoughts? I have no problem with it. Okay.
I mean, I'd rather... I'm happy to cancel November because we have some pretty good visibility into what is happening that month. I'd rather hold December. I just don't want to have like a four-hour session if things start to pile up. So if... I mean, I personally don't have any conflicts. It is a busy time, but that's just sort of the nature of the entire month of November and December and September and October actually. So I'm good canceling November for now and leaving December until we have better eyes on it maybe.
We'll monitor it. We'll put it in the weekly update so you can see those items as they start to develop if that's helpful.
sounds good do you need a motion or you'll just
if we could get a motion to cancel that meeting since we published it we'll take it down
and in no
just
November November yes
I move that we cancel Council City Council meeting on November 24th 2026. second
all those in favor aye opposed all right so one meeting in November All right, so moving on to new business. Contract with CenturyLink and the Clayton School District. Mr. City Manager.
For the last 30 years, the city has had an agreement in place with CenturyLink to provide fiber optic connections between city buildings and facilities at no annual cost. The most recent 10-year agreement was entered into in 2016 and will expire later this month. In exchange for the connection, the city provides CenturyLink a license to use the city's right-of-way at no annual cost In addition, the city has a written agreement with the school district of Clayton for their facilities to participate in the arrangement. All parties are satisfied with the current arrangements and believe them to be mutually beneficial. Therefore, staff are requesting the city renew the agreement with CenturyLink for the rights and the connections to renew the agreement with the school We recommend approval of the ordinance, approving license and agreement with CenturyLink and an agreement with the school district of Clayton to share in the fiber optic connections. And Larry Covey, our director of technology services is here if you have any questions about the agreement itself.
Thank you. I'll open the discussion. Are there any questions or comments from the council? Questions or comments? Any questions or comments from
Council Member Buse. I introduce bill number 7179, approving an agreement with CenturyLinked and the Clayton School District to be read for the first time by title only.
Second. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.
Bill number 7179. First reading an ordinance approving an agreement granting to CenturyLinked Communications LLC a license to construct, operate, maintain, and replace communication transmission lines in in and upon public roads and rights-of-way in the City of Clayton, Missouri, providing for the regulation of the license so granted, and providing for compensation to the City of Claydon for the grant thereof, and approving an agreement between the City and the School District of Clayton relative to the use of certain communication transmission lines provided to the City by Century League Communications LLC and located within the City's rights-of-ways.
All those in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Council Member Buse.
I move that the council give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of Bill Number 7179 on the day of its introduction. Second.
All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed. The vote passes seven to zero. Let the minutes reflect that the council has given unanimous consent.
I introduce bill number 7179, approving an agreement with CenturyLink and the Clayton School District to be read for the second time by title only. Second.
Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.
Bill number 7179, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance approving an agreement granting to CenturyLink Communications LLC a license to construct, operate, maintain, and replace communication transmission lines in and upon public roads and rights-of-way in the city of Clayton, Missouri. Providing for the regulation of the license so granted. and providing for compensation to the city of Clayton for the grant thereof, and approving an agreement between the city and the school district of Clayton relative to the use of certain communication transmission lines provided to the city by CenturyLink Communications LLC and located within the city's rights of way.
Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel? Aye. Council member Gary Feder? Aye. Councilmember Yorg?
Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel? Aye. Council member Fader? Aye. Councilmember Yorg?
Aye.
Councilmember Waldman. Aye. Councilmember Betsy Meyland-Smith. Aye. Mayor McAndrew. Aye. Thank you.
Councilmember Waldman. Aye. Councilmember Malin-Smith. Aye. Mayor McAndrew. Aye. Thank you.
The last item on our agenda is a motion with respect to authorizing temporary lighting in tornado areas for Halloween.
Yes, so staff received a request from Ward 1 to look into what it would cost or how it might be done to light up Y-Down on October 31st for Halloween trick-or-treating. Y-Down, as you know, from University East to the city limits is still without operating streetlight circuits. The same is also true for a large portion of the Moorlands. We see that on Byron, on Parkdale, and also on Audubon. So what we did was we expanded the scope a little bit. We thought if we're going to light up Y down for trick-or-treating, We should probably look at lighting the areas in the Morelands as well where the circuits are out. If you've seen Audubon on Halloween, I mean, it is a kid highway. It's a heavy, heavy trick-or-treating street within the city. So we were sure to include all of that in our initial analysis. What we found was it's going to take 30 to 35 portable lights that we would have to bring in. We would have to rent those for the evening. Each one of those lights lights up about a half acre on its own. There are two types of lights. One is powered by propane. which are really quiet, really quiet power generation. They provide good coverage. The other is the gas powered generators that we're all familiar with. They're definitely louder. Typically, the light fixtures themselves are a little bit bigger than what you see on the propane type lights. Think closer to what you might see like with highway construction at night or on the top of the fire truck when they're at a scene, that sort of thing. So what we're still trying to figure out from the contractor because we're doing this as quickly as we can and we're trying to get from them more information about how quickly they can get these various materials to us. We don't know the makeup of the propane versus the gas powered lights at this point. Initially, we knew we could get at least 10 propane lights. The final number we still don't have from the contractor. And we still don't have a final cost for the 30 to 35 portable lights it would take to light up everything. Um, we're basically extrapolating off of, uh, this first analysis we did that was like 10 lights, uh, that was, you know, somewhere in that $3,500 range, uh, to bring those out. And those were all going to be again, the propane type. Uh, so what you have in front of you is, is, um, and what was in the packet is, um, Basically, our approximation of what it costs to put out at these 30 to 35 lights in those particular areas and light it up basically for about five hours. They would go on at five. We could turn them off at 10. We shut them down earlier than that. You're not going to save a whole lot on fuel usage or anything. And we can talk about what time you would want that to shut down. But to bring those lights in and set them up for that trick-or-treat period. Um, again, we're somewhere between like 13,500, maybe as high as 15,000. We don't have the final number yet. Um, but we wanted to talk about this with the council for a couple of reasons. Uh, one, you know, it's largely a policy decision whether or not we want to do this. It is an unbudgeted expense. Uh, so we would either have to find money within the budget that just started. So we don't really know where savings are at at this point or do a budget amendment later to pay for this. Um, The other thing we want to find out is do we need this much coverage? Are we okay just doing intersections or maybe a couple of these key streets? Or if we do it in one area, would you like to do it across the entire area? So we're really looking for direction. We realize time is short because this is 18 days away. We know we can get this stuff here if we need to, but just know that it's going to be expensive and it may be a mix and match of the types of lights that we bring in. If you tell us, go ahead and light up everything and bring in 35 of them. So that's the discussion this evening. I wish I had more direction for you or more clarity as to what this final bill would be or what the makeup or the composition of the lights would ultimately be. But again, we're still working with that with a vendor that we've used for all of this sustainable type power stuff to figure out what that looks like. So as soon as we have more information, we'll send it along. if necessary. Otherwise, we'll take our direction from the meeting tonight. So with that, I'll open it up for any questions that you might have and not sure how you want to structure the talk here.
Yeah, I mean, I'll open the discussion. I think we have questions or obviously comments.
Since I originated this request, is that okay for me to just offer a quick comment? Yeah, go for it. I appreciate all of this and I did not necessarily intend for us to light up every inch of the street when we did it. So, um, I know that I've, that the feedback, I mean, I think that price tag is substantial. Um, and I would like to, if there's no objection from the group, or I guess get the temperature from everybody for doing what you just suggested, which is reducing it to both Like, you know, there are crosswalks on Y down that don't have stop signs or other like intersections where there is not already some light there. I would obviously prefer, I think the neighbors would prefer the parking. quieter option. So if at 10 lights, if we can distribute that and make sure that they're all propane, I think that would be my preference. And yes, I mean, that's I solicited some feedback from some neighbors who have kids on either side of Y down in the area. And I think that that solution feels adequate to folks in the neighborhood, at least in Ward 1.
I would just add, I mean, I'm interested in thinking about the locations perhaps more in line with what we're talking about in terms of like intersections and common crossings. You know, I mean, Is that actually like Aberdeen and University is an intersection that doesn't have any working lights. And so every evening that I come home, like making the turn from either one of those streets onto the other feels incredibly precarious. I mean, I... slow down so much. And I sometimes open my window and move my glasses so I don't have any glare because I don't know, I can't tell if there's someone like are in or near the intersection, like until my headlights turn on. And so, um, So I think it's really important to focus potentially on like intersections and those common crossings where we have either actual delineated crosswalks or we know there are those cut throughs that people treat like they have a crosswalk between them and stuff like that. I think, you know, I mean, I just described what literally feels like an unsafe situation every night for some of us living there. And so, you know, thinking about what makes Halloween any different, I think the fact that it is a night when we know that a lot of people are out and moving around on foot and by car, um, and high on sugar and whatever else. Right. And I think in Halloween this year is a Saturday. So I think we can expect it to be particularly like lively and active. I would imagine. I mean, I guess weather depending a bit too. So, um, you know, I think safety, um, comes first, it's our, it's a primary responsibility that we have. And it's just such a bummer that it's been so hard to get the lights replaced. And this feels like something we can do to provide a little extra safety with a focus on intersections. And so
that all makes sense. And I get it when I first saw an estimated cost just over 3000. It was, you know, But, of course, then when it jumped up and the amount of lighting, it's a little more challenging. I agree that safety of the kids and our families comes first. I think that if we can identify the intersections where the lighting is needed, I'm just looking at my email, not because I'm using my phone during a meeting, but because we get these light concerns all the time. And this is from Wydown Forest talking about lights out on Oakley, Shirley, Walinka. So it's not just the ones that we're identifying here. If we're looking at the best places to put, I would say crosswalk lighting, we need to treat all the entire city or neighborhoods equally because that's another big trick-or-treating area. So it's an easy problem. There's not a lot of time. Propane definitely having lived through a lot of calls and And a neighbor with a big generator going. I'm not sure that our neighborhood, especially having their kids out late trick-or-treating and they try to go to bed and the propane or the generators are still running. That's an issue too. So if we can do this for a more reasonable cost with treating each of the neighborhoods equitably and strong, strong preference for having the more sustainable lighting, I think that would be great. Another question I had, when I picture these lighting and you said the construction lighting, it's just glares, like glares into windows, glares everywhere. Is that the same between the two different types of?
These won't be as bright, but they're going to be bright. They're not shielded. They're going to be angled out. So this light is going to penetrate people's windows. There's no doubt about it.
Okay. And the other thing I think that we're going
to have to angle it because we need to cover that area. So it's going to light everything up.
The other factor to consider if the city is figuring out where to place a smaller number of lights is that my experience is our phenomenal police department and city staff has been very good at taking care of our kids and families on Halloween, and especially these areas without lighting. I think last year perhaps there was an awareness of that, and combining those two efforts together, hopefully we can come up with a solution that meets the safety concerns and still allows people to have a lot of fun and then go to sleep without – a lot of generator noise.
When I saw the written proposal or description with 30 to 35 lights and a $15,000 budget, my reaction was, oh my God, and that was not a positive one. That said, I'm certainly pleased the way the discussion has gone because I think in some ways it's helpful that we started with A proposal that I think was much more than we should be doing or can justify doing, but I think we've sort of drilled down and gotten to a point where it makes sense. I think probably financially and also from a safety standpoint, we're hitting the key spots. So if we can do this modified version, sounds good to me.
Yeah, I would just echo whatever we said. And Dave and I talked about it today. Like, I appreciate going through and think about it and expanding it to the larger city. I think, I mean, the cost was an issue for me. I think I want to be thinking about, you know, we spend a lot of time talking about emissions and fumes and kids and we're going to have a bunch of gas generators all over the city on the night when all the kids are out which i know we can't fully control we're trying on the propane but that was kind of an initial concern and then again the lights in people's windows it's one thing if you've got these set up in the middle of like the whiteout median it's another thing if you've 15 feet out of somebody's window on like parkdale so i guess i would say is I agree with where we're at. You know, I think less of them for the big lights are important. Even if you're thinking of like Parkdale, if you want to put one on each end and then one in the middle that just provides a little light, I don't want a little too much because frankly, kids don't want to trick or treat when it's a bunch of little, like a Christmas tree, like they kind of want it sort of dark, but my bigger, my bigger request would be, and I'm curious where the folks thing is. I, I feel like We should shut them down by nine. And it's not about saving money. It's just about like, I know my kids are going to start. Most of them, my kids are in bed by nine or 915. And if there's a generator running, they're not going to get the bed and they're not going lights. So I would say to me, instead of 10, even though we can. I'd prefer them to be shut off at like 9, whatever we decide to go with. But, you know, I'm curious where other people kind of fall on that. Oh, one question. Who's shutting them off? Are they going to come do it or do we need to have city staff to do that? They'll come and operate the lights. Okay. So then I would just say like for me, 9 makes more sense. And I think if done well, I think it's really good. I think if we don't do it well, we may have more complaints than we get thank yous with the noise and with the lights. So that's my thing.
Yeah, I'm in agreement. I think that we need to be strategic about where we put these. And I mean, if these are like the construction lights, a half an acre is a big amount of space to be covered and it's going to be bright.
They're bright.
Yeah. And so then when you drive down the highway and you have these bright lights, that doesn't really give a Halloween feel to it. So if we have too many of them, I think it will detract. But I 100% think that safety is clearly the number one priority here. So maybe being strategic about crosswalks and things, because I do think people will complain about how bright these are if we have 30 to 35 of them. And then, Jeff, your 9 o'clock cutoff, I kind of agree with it. It's not like you
spoke on 9 o'clock for everything tonight.
Yeah. No, what? No, I'm going to say.
Well, and Ward, too, go to bed early. Yeah, I just think it's a
Saturday
night.
No,
I know. School and
high
schoolers are going to be, like,
walking around.
I do think most trick-or-treating is done by 9, like, really? And so then you're thinking, like, who's running around at that time probably not doing the best things, possibly? So maybe get more light on them? I don't know. Maybe we don't want
them
to get
hit. I do think that keeping... I can, I'm in war too. I support the nine o'clock idea, but probably partially too, because I've had, you know, my kids are older now, but that will be licensed for them to stay out later. Look, we're supposed to still be out trick-or-treating, whatever. And it does, most of the trick-or- treating is over well before that. So I would support the nine o´clock and I would request that we really push for the propane, not the generators. I do think that Jeff, you make a great point too, after all the research we did on the damage to our kids with all the fumes and everything. It's something that I don't know if we can just tell them that's all we want or what we can do, but that does make a difference. It'll make a huge difference to my neighbors. I'll tell you that.
I will probably never say this again, but I'm willing to pay more if we can get the propane as opposed to saving money and getting the gas powered ones. I don't know if that's an option, but in terms of just, I think it'll go over well. I think the lights will be good, but I think if you have generators, I think, especially in our ward, I don't want to speak for one, people will just have like PTSD from when are they going to shut off? Why are they still?
And I guess what is the safety of these getting knocked over by kids running around them? Is that what it's like? Any thoughts on that?
They shouldn't. They're okay. They're pretty sturdy. Okay.
We could. One, one, one second. One second. Hold
on.
You are welcome to come up the microphone. No, come on up. We just need because of we have a zoom option. So they can't. It's okay. No, no, no. So they can. They cannot. They can't hear you unless you're at all. So is the light at the bottom. Green.
Mayor, does she need to fill out a note card now? Because now I don't want to enforce that. So make sure she's got records. I want
to say something about what you guys were talking about. Could you also state your name? Yeah, my name is Isabella. Okay. Sorry, it's the first time. The reason I wanted to come up here is while you guys were talking, have you guys thought of motionless lights? that is also a reference where you can do there's also solar power power lights you guys can use which will also save you guys money as well you know there's even halogen ones that you can actually grab order them before halloween and stuff that give you a big amount of light um i recommend tiktok not gonna lie to you tiktok and amazon are probably the best ones and they give you a whole bunch of coverage I use them at my yard, at my lot over there where I have in South County. And they cover a good acre, like amazing acre. And it saves you guys a whole bunch of money on my side. So I just wanted to point that out, that you guys can try to use motionless solar and also halogen type of lights. That's all I want to say. Thank you.
That's okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any other additional thoughts?
What's the nine o'clock club?
I mean, I don't know what I don't David do you have. I don't know with the contractor if it's like a four hour time period or if you've been given. I don't if they're I don't I don't know if we get them for a certain time.
It's probably not that we're going to have them that night. It's not really going to affect much.
Right. I mean, my only... I don't... 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock. I think the idea is safety. I think on a Saturday night, I think you're still going to have people running around at 9.30. So having things lit up to me is not a problem. So, I mean, I think because it's a Saturday night, there would be more people around. And if we're trying to encourage safety, I'm... I mean, I'm not going to fall on my sword over 10 o'clock, it just seems like... If it's not going to cost us more, it seems like having them on a little bit longer, again, to encourage safe crossings would be my preference. But if the 9 o'clock is the majority, that's fine.
We can kind of split it. In the sense of generators with propane, depending on where the lights are, we could dig down. But just to make it easier on the staff, I don't know. I just don't want to get the call being like, why are my generators so running? I'm trying to put my kids to bed. And we have a lot of young kids in that sort of work.
Like one of the things to think about is like, are there other, are there any other ways to get light? Like one idea is that we could ask, Y down United Church to brighten their sign at Y down in university and then literally not have to put one at that intersection. I mean, you know, I mean, I don't know what you think about that, David, but like it would. light the intersection
decently.
And it would save us the light, you know? And so, I mean, I think to the extent we can identify any other like creative options like that, that's great. But I have to imagine going like just going from like the attempt to light the the entire stretch of darkness to the intersections is going to be a relatively significant, like, like would you estimate it's going to take us from 30 to 20 or 15?
Yeah. So here's, here's what I would suggest based on what I've heard so far. Um, I would, if, if we're going to put this in a motion form, authorize us to enter into an agreement with a vendor up to 15 lights. We think we can, I was just looking, I think we can probably cover all the key areas with up to 15. We would take a look if we could, well, let me finish. Up to 15 lights, propane powered, not to exceed contract of 7,000. I don't think we'll hit that number, but it gives us a little bit of room knowing that we were bumping up on 4,000 with 10 at intersections with outages with a cutoff time of 9 p.m., is what I've heard so far. You can continue to talk about time if you'd like, but I think if we had it up to 15 lights with a not to exceed 7,000, they have to be propane powered, then we're covering a lot of the a lot of the things that we've heard here. And then Matt, who couldn't be here this evening, I know he'll watch the video. Matt will go to his maps, try to figure out his coverage areas. I think with 15 lights or fewer, we should be able to light all the key areas. And if we need to get creative with some, then we can. We're fortunate that we've got the lights that are at University and Y-Down on some of those other areas that lessen the burden, so to speak. So I think we can get it done for that.
I mean, if we're going to definitely do propane, then I guess I would ask those advocating for nine. Are you comfortable with 10? If it's propane, is propane no noise or just quiet?
They're going to be pretty quiet. Yeah. I mean, it's not going to be that loud. We all know the gas power generators and propane is going to be much, much quieter.
I would still be at nine, but I'll compromise at 930. I do wonder the shining lights in the windows. We don't, you know,
I mean, that's the thing for
me. Halloween.
That intersection is on a stat about Halloween night. Yeah. Let me say it. So, David, when you said intersections, we're talking key intersections, right? And we'll trust the staff to pick the type of lighting to be used. Sounds like you're leaning toward propane. type of lighting at key intersections it wouldn't be every intersection just to clarify
that's correct yeah yes
any
intersection that doesn't
have intersections intersections that have total outages that's those are the ones we would target
yeah yeah
okay so on audubon you're looking at most cross streets would have a light there and i guess my pause is down at each stop sign basically along audubon and then um You wouldn't have them up and down Byron at that point because you don't have any north-south intersections through there. So Matt would have to take a look. He's got a map that shows every light in the city that's on or off at this point, so that's what we're going to use as a basis.
And no noise is great. I think I'm still concerned because, again, that part of Ward 2 just happens to be younger. I mean, I shouldn't say younger. It's a young group. I don't want to compare it to Ward 1. And I'm just concerned about lights shining in a bunch of houses. If there's a way that they can be set up where it's, like, not shining in people's houses, great. I just don't know if that's practical. And I know on a normal trick-or-treating night, which, again, is not a Saturday night, we're pretty much done by, like, 830. So that's where the nine kind of comes from, but... If we can do propane and people really want to go back to 10, I could probably get comfortable with that. But I don't want the light and the noise because I don't want to hear from neighbors about the lights and the noise. I'd still prefer it. There will be light, a lot of light.
Yeah.
We need to make a decision on the 9 or 10 tonight. Like I don't want – I know we need to give you the authority to like go get that. We just need to know by how. Okay.
But we need to heal the entire body, so it's either tonight or the
27th. Who wants it to be 9 o'clock? Show of hands. I would love that, but I'll compromise at 9.30. 9.30.
Or conveniently Ward 2 just gets their shutdown first. That's
true. I was going to say the same thing. They can start here, shut down. We'll take the... I
don't think we should put that on whoever is taking... Why don't we do 930? It's a compromise. Right? Is that sufficient? Okay. So 930 and then propane. I think propane tanks... Up
to 15 lights, propane powered, not to exceed $7,000 located at intersections with outages, cutoff time of 9.30
p.m. I'm just wondering if there's not enough, if there is not 15 propane, like are we just not, will we only have that? We'll cut it
off at the number that we can get that are propane. Yeah,
so there will be only propane, so we may only end up with 12 lights.
or if they now reserve some others while we're...
Deliberating?
Yeah, deliberating, then it could be seven lights. And we'll just try to optimize where those are at. Unless you're okay with some gas locations.
I don't think we are. I mean, also, we could light Ward 1 and not Ward 2 if Ward 2 is really opposed to this. We wanted to make it equitable and safe across the city, and I think that's the right thing to do at intersections. I think we got there. Yeah.
And, I mean, I don't want the gas ones because of just the way they'd be spent. But if there are spots like in Ward 1 that are far enough away from homes that if we need some gas ones there, that's fine.
Just because they could be in the median or something. Correct.
They could be in the medium and the kids aren't walking by fumes and it's a little bit farther away from homes. Like, we don't really have that in Ward 2. There's really no easy way to do
that.
Right. Okay. Great.
Okay. Here, I'll try. All right. I move to authorize... The use of temporary lighting is to be determined by staff to be provided in tornado-impacted areas for safe trick-or-treating on a Halloween night with the conditions of up to 15 propane-powered lights with a total cost not to exceed $7,000 and with lighting to be placed at intersections with outages and termination of the lighting at 9.30 p.m.
Second. Any other further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right. We have come to the end of our agenda. We didn't really have a chance to do a roundtable last time, so if anybody wants to kind of briefly talk about anything they've been doing in the last couple of weeks that they think the rest of us should know about that we wouldn't already know about
as prepared last time um but i will tell you we just had uh clayton hosted the cool cities presentation on uh what was it critical trees and trees is critical infrastructure and matt and tony and justin presented along with someone from the county and the tree canopy initiative and then someone on um more information on trees but I just have to brag about our staff because it, once again, uh, the presentations, you know, held everybody's attention. They were, um, really informed and, um, you know, really pushing what can be done. And I think that we, uh, are planting seeds in other communities as well to kind of meet the standards that we're setting and continue to set. And I, and I, and you don't feel from our staff that they're satisfied with where we are. It's always moving forward and always being better. So, um, It was really impressive to be part of our community and to be at that event.
Well, and I'll just pipe in kudos to Council Member Buse and Council Member Waldman because they had a few last-minute cancellations of speakers, and they jumped in and did an awesome job. So thank you to you both for your leadership and organization. What a beautiful welcome by our mayor to everybody.
Thank you. That's great. I would... um shoot i didn't write on my note i totally was gonna say oh i wanted to talk about um thank the police we've had a few incidents in the last um week uh in ward one um and chief sent a really um clear and transparent and helpful information to like the trustees and some of us in the area so that folks could communicate to residents, like what actually happened. So there's not a lot of rumor mill going on. And then also reminder of the things that we can do to try to increase safety. So just thanks always to our police for that.
We had a very successful subcommittee meeting for the Economic Development Committee and look forward to our proposal coming before the council. I guess it still needs to be finalized, but I think there's a lot of exciting work being done at that committee and through the various subcommittees. We had a successful coffee at Starbucks meeting. recently, and Kami and I are going both to Davis Place and Polo for their meetings in the next week or so. And the mayor and I have been attending the meetings of the county municipal league's legislative committee, and their recommendations will actually be finalized by the whole municipal league at a future meeting next week or two. So maybe we can report on them at a future meeting. I think that's it. Thanks.
Two things. We had an overwhelming attendance at the Ward 2 coffee. I think there was three or four people, which is good for those Ward 2 that may be watching video. We are always available.
Ward 3 might have
had
40 people at Starbucks. Yeah.
We had two. But that's fine. You
do have lots of phone calls. We're always willing to talk. Yes,
yeah. And we had it at Oakville Park, which was great. It was an outside. Talked a little bit about flock cameras, talked a little about sustainability, talked a little bit about kind of budget work, answers to questions, a little bit about planning and zoning and what some of the the zoning conversations that are on the signs that are in the medians that people are kind of asking about. So the other thing, because we haven't talked about this a little bit, citizen finance continues to meet. The last meeting we had covered a lot of different city incentives. So the week before that, we'd done a lot more traditional budgeting revenues and expenses, and this one was more incentives and they had a lot of questions to the point where we're basically going to have a whole second meeting just on all of that to better explain what we've offered what we don't offer what's in place why it's in place what some of these things look like as you continue to kind of work through that that step with the with the on next on the agenda or soon thereafter about um what are the different cost centers that the city has that may or may not be able to be cut back depending on kind of what citizen finance and what we want to do, depending on revenues and expenses. So that's kind of going on out
there. We had our parks and rec meeting two weeks ago and they, they had just done a like survey of all their statues. So there's about 13 of them. And they're just basically just figuring out if you know what, needs repair, what can stay, all the things. And so they came to the conclusion they've probably been lacking a little bit on the maintenance of these. And so they put together, again, like I said, this survey to figure out exactly what needs what. And so they now have that kind of figured out over the next couple years which ones will need attention. It was announced that CCF made its matching grant of $110,000 for the Hanley House. So that's great. And so they're moving forward with finding an architect. I know we signed off on that so that they can hopefully get some bids for that. It was announced that we are going to do our fruit orchard in Anderson Park, which is very exciting. And I think it's going to start hopefully this fall. And Justin was really going to try to get the high school students to be part of it. So a real big. community orchard would be great. Update on oak knoll lighting. I know we thought they would be all in by now, but there's a delay in the polls. They haven't come and Apparently there was a catastrophic issue at a third party vendor. So that's, we
just got an update.
Oh, what was it? The
pole factory. So, um, yeah, so they, they had a catastrophic failure with their equipment and they're, we now have a new ship date of January 15th for the lights with install January 29th.
Yay. Awesome. Um, and then what's really exciting is we're, we're hopefully getting goats to Oak Knoll park, um, to eat away at all the honeysuckle. And, um, so that I think hopefully in the next four weeks or so, they're going to figure that out, but, um, it's like 30 to 40 goats that get kind of dropped off and like fenced off. Um, and they go to town, you know, one night and they kind of move them and shuffle them down for another night. Um, So that's just really exciting for that. The
way they make sure they only eat the honeysuckle and not plants we would want.
Yeah, I think because I think there's also some things that might really be dangerous for them to eat like hydrangea or something so I know that they kind of figure all that out but yeah and then I just like we had three ribbon cuttings recently but one of note was like Sylvie D's which is really exciting new ice cream candy shop in Ward 3 that's I know we've been there like four times already, so we're excited about that.
If I do one more thing, the apple orchard, it's already underway because they're restoring the soil. I think it's radishes or something that are planted there now to break it down and make it ready for when they actually plant the trees. It's
fun. I was hoping Kami would leave the goats for me to update on, but she didn't. She stole all the thunder. But we will make sure for the Word 2 folks that they stop bleeding by 9 p.m. I'm teasing. No, I'm excited about that, and I think she hit all the Parks and Rec updates. No, I keep teasing. Okay. Okay.
I'll just mention that I did also, though the Vivian opened officially, we had a ribbon cutting for that, our newest residential building. Very, very exciting. It's a beautiful building. And I'll just say kudos. We also had just kudos to our staff. The Jazz Festival was unbelievable. It was packed. I mean, obviously it was a beautiful night now, a week and a half ago. But our staff did a wonderful job, and it was just incredible to see all the people out. So it was just a very successful event. So I don't think I have anything more to share. So, David, about yourself?
Big weekend, Mayor. A lot of stuff coming up this weekend.
I know. Yeah, homecoming. Homecoming. So very exciting.
Party in the Patch, homecoming, the 5K in Sababa.
Oh, yes. And Sababa.
Very busy. I don't have anything else.
All right. Great. I move we adjourn. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Thanks, everyone.