June 11, 2024

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

All right. Welcome to our June 11th meeting. Will you please call the roll? Alderwoman McAndrew.

Here. Alderwoman Buse. Here. Alderman Gary Feder.

Here. Aldermen Rick Hummell. Here. Aldern Yorg.

Here. Mayor Harris. Here. City Manager David Gipson.

Here. City Attorney O'Keefe. Here. Thank you.

Now's the time on our agenda for public requests and petitions. I do see one member of the public in our audience, Lichtenfeld, and there's no one else here, but I don't see any hands raised, so I'm going to assume there's nothing there, and we can move on to the consent agenda. We just have minutes and boards and commission appointments both for general commissioners and for the Board of Aldermen. Is there anybody that would like to discuss any of the appointments, either aldermanic appointments or citizen appointments?

Okay, very good. So then I will take a motion for approval. I will move to approve the consent agenda. Seconds?

Discussion? Aye. Aye. Aye.

Alderman Gary Feder? Aye. Alderman Rick Hummell. Aye.

Alderman Jeffery Yorg. Aye. Mayor Harris. Thank you.

Okay. The city manager report with the events up first. Mayor, I'll turn it over to Mr. Gary Carter, our director of economic development, to talk about fiscal year 25 events.

Good evening. So I have a slightly altered presentation from what was in your board packet. I have highlighted the changes so they should be relatively easy to identify as we go through. But as we've done in past years, as we prepare the budget for consideration later this year, we we go through the special event plan, what we propose for next year to make sure we're all in alignment before we go to the EDAC and the Special Business District budget that typically funds a lot of these events.

And then with their recommendation on to you for inclusion in the final budget. So with that, we'll go ahead and get started. This was our event calendar for this year, starting back in October. So we do different parts of the city, whether it be the fire department, the police department, Parks and Rec, or the event staff here in City Hall.

These are all the events that we've been part of. And sometimes they're partnerships like the Shakespeare in Shaw Park and others. We did have two cancellations so far this year. If you remember back in January, we decided to cancel the soccer home opener because of the timing of the year.

But their season change, it became a February opening date, and we just didn't have a good facility to accommodate that. So we made that decision to cancel that. And then unfortunately... It seems like it always happens at least once a year parties in the park, the first parties in the park this year was canceled due to the.

threat of weather at the time there is another one tomorrow night just like. We go ahead and move to the next slide as long assuming there's no other questions. these are the ones that the special business district funded. And these are the ones at the event staff here in city hall, um, produced.

Uh, so we start back in October. We did the blues home opener. Next one was restaurant week in the winter. And then again, that home opener that we just talked about, then the Cardinals home opener, which is probably one of the most heavily attended of the openers that we do have.

And then, um, the we do sponsor uh and a cash donation sponsorship parties in the park five thousand dollars annually and we had uh open streets in may we just had this past weekend music and wine at the new location on brentwood and i think that was a it was a good move for us uh still well attended but some breathing room um and then again parties in the park um And then we will have the Clayton Restaurant Week this week. I mean, next month, sorry. And then another party's in the park, St. Louis Art Fair.

And these are probably some numbers you may or may not have seen in the past. We do do a $15,000 sponsorship, but that's really kind of the only one that we usually talk about. But on top of that, we have overtime events. For the staffing that we cover internally, and then we do make calculations on on-duty staff time for everyone that's taking time out of their regular work to do the, whether it's mapping down in the public works department or emergency plan staffing with the police department and fire department and so on.

So that typically hovers around $100,000 a year. all in for the art fair. Gary, just very generally, you put all the detail there for the art fair, I'm just curious, can you just give a general comment on what we're spending money on in these things, whether it's for marketing or staffing or supplies or whatever on these events? In most all the other events, it is materials and supplies, whether it be renting tables and chairs, stages with music and wine.

One of the larger categories is entertainment. Actually, very little of it is marketing nowadays. I'm going to look back to Gabby just because she's the person that actually does this stuff. But with the advent of social media, most of our ads are through that.

So it's really hard materials or vendors such as musicians. Then just specifically on the restaurant week, I'm wondering what do we spend money on in each of those cases? I assumed marketing. And then why is the jazz festival such a big difference in terms of the wine festival?

Um, the, on the restaurant week it is primarily, uh, marketing materials. Um, we do a promotion on TV the week before, um, And then we print flyers, table tents, and posters for the restaurants. The difference between Music and Wine and Clayton Jazz Festival is the Clayton Jazz Festival has really a partnership with the Silverman Brothers, who are the jazz entertainers. And we don't pay for musicians.

And they are responsible for audio also. Okay, thank you. um i think this is the first time i've noticed it doesn't mean it's the first time you've shown to us the five thousand dollar sponsorship parties in the park so is that just like a cash payment we make to the chamber in support of parties in the park and we show up as a sponsor yes of the season okay question on the the special business district which because i i can't remember so All of this money that we're seeing here is all being spent out of the special business district tax. That's correct.

So what happens when we have our meeting on Thursday, if they, and this may be a question for later too, if they decide that they don't want to pay for part of this, like, well, how does that work for our budget? Do they, like, can they veto the choice? They're an advisory group to this board so they can make a recommendation and this board can either accept it or alternate. Just to be clear how it works too.

We don't, make the expenditures out of that that particular account so the special business district fund that you see that that tax revenue that we receive goes basically into the general fund we transfer it over to the general fund and then we expend the money out of economic development in various departments to put these things on so if edac said we don't want to do events anymore the city could still do the events we would just pay for it out of the general fund but that special business district tax money that's collected we would want EDAC to make some sort of recommendation as to how that money should be spent. Nearly $500,000 a year, I think, for high fours. But ultimately, it's up to the Board of Aldermen to allocate that money or appropriate that money when you approve the annual budget. The Board has ultimate say in what happens with it, but when you have a special business district set up with a dedicated tax, it's generally recommended that you take their recommendation and i only asked because i remember i remember the meeting from last year that i know some of the comments were about additional events and new events and i'm sure there'll be the conversation on thursday at our meeting and so i was just thinking like trying to get clear my own head kind of where their advisory stopped for where they could dictate it and how that fit into the budget so okay there's questions hey No question, but um I still think if you look at the event goals this may not be the time for this, but it would be great to have some type of a matrix or a grid showing what the attendance is did we you know what what were our projections.

Did we meet them, what was the audience we targeted what audience showed up something so babies after each event. there would be something more concrete to kind of analyze the events. Gary usually does provide that. I just didn't think about it this time myself.

We've changed the format up a little bit this year, but in the past years we try to estimate, but at the end of the day, that's exactly what it is. is an estimate um some things are easier than others one could stand in the middle of the wine and music or the jazz festival and know that it's successful and some other events are not as well attended but are new perhaps and in room for for growth or for it to catch on um we're going to come to some in later slides staff is going to have some recommendations about what events or things we're spending on that we might want to transition away from because of reasons like not well attended you know much of a point to it or we're trying to make the same point multiple times a year so forth yeah and i Just over time, if they're not realizing there's a huge fudge factor in that and it is standing in the middle of it knowing successful and but if we could you'd start to see trends if we maybe you may keep all that information and it'd be. I don't quite know how to respond to was this in listening to what staff says, is this a good event or not? Is it meeting goals?

And that just sounds as some kind. We've done that in the past and we can certainly add that back in to future presentations is to ride that matrix because we have gone into greater detail with each event. I just knew that there was some discussion that the board wanted to have about potentially maintaining certain events, creating new events and I really didn't want to bog everyone down with, you know, we went into the details of not detailed categories, but general categories. And, you know, I didn't see the need to tell you how much we were spending on portable toilets or, I mean, it's a supply factor.

But we can certainly get back to those matrix. Yeah, and the best quantitative metric we can come up with in most cases is the feedback we get from vendors. And sometimes we'll get numbers from vendors. So like for home openers, Really easy we just find out how many how many tickets that people actually pick up and get a hot dog or a hamburger with, and then we can get some sense of what that attendance is.

vendors are usually pretty quick to point out whether or not an event was successful for them as far as sales are concerned and larger events like art fair like things like they typically track the success of the event through beer sales. When they talk about parties in the park, they're always talking about what was our alcohol sales and they compare that to previous events and use that as a metric. So we can talk a little bit about metrics and what we may be able to put in there because the head count gets to be very difficult for a lot of these. Yeah, I haven't been around events for a long time.

It's kind of like economic impact studies of sports teams. That was going to be my next question. How do we measure the economic impact? Well, I'm going to follow up with you.

I mean, basically Art Fair tracks beer sales and then they do a survey of their artists on sales. And we do something similar with Restaurant Week because this goes back to when I first started here. We all wanted to know how much impact we got from Art Fair. Well, I mean, through several...

finance directors, you know, you just can't see the bump in sales tax the way it is reported from the state. But with restaurant week, you know, we go, they go, Gabby and Kristen go immediately back to the restaurants and, you know, how was it for you? And that's, you know, and we're going to come to that in a little bit because I prematurely made a mistake on one of the restaurant weeks and we'll talk about that in a few minutes. But I will add that note that we...

Gary, I was just wondering, I've been to a bunch of the wine and music festivals and the jazz festivals, and maybe I'm unsophisticated about the music, but they seem like very similar events. Basically, you've got music, you've got wine, you've got food trucks. So I guess my question is, is the reason we have sort of two different kinds of events because we want to offer different kinds of music? So I guess what I'm really getting is as opposed to having a jazz festival in the spring and a jazz festival in fall, is there a reason why we want to have these two very similar events with the difference being music?

And if it's because we're trying to be more inclusive and we want to provide some different musical choices, other than that, to me, the events seem extremely similar. Yeah, I mean, they are. I mean, there's no way around it. They are very similar events, different times of the year.

And I would argue that they're highly successful events. I mean, those type of events are what we do well, I think, and are well attended and promote. I'll let someone else speak about the origin of the jazz festival and how it came about. The music and wine was, was a iteration of one of the boards and trying to come up with new events.

And that's the one we came up with. And then let someone else follow up with the creation of the jazz festival well yeah that that was just uh i i went to the uh festival that the silverman brothers were putting on in webster it was during the day though and it was it was very successful and they've been doing it for years and i said god why don't why don't we do this uh and that's that's really how it came about and then it turns out i mean i learned that you probably know all this michael silverman is like one of the number one jazz pianists in the world, streaming-wise. I mean, and the guy provides musicians from all over the country. And it's such a good cost benefit for us.

I mean, he doesn't charge us for a lot of this stuff. And very importantly, he has a following, right? And so he brings an audience with him, and then we supply our own. But I think as we get to talking about formulas for good events, to me, that's a very critical factor for us.

So that was it. Thank you for giving me the kudo there or whatever. So yeah, they're different. I'm kind of thinking what I like about the Wine and Music Festival is I honestly think there's something about wine.

And when you say wine, it does bring a sort of a different group out, I believe. So I looked around the other night, it was very diverse, but it was kind of maybe a different group. But I'm open to changing it, Gary. That's my thought.

I guess in part, I was thinking, one is conceivably $10,000 cheaper to put on than the others. So if you have very popular jazz, And people love coming to hear jazz. If you have come twice and we've got this association with a group who basically don't charge for the musicians, it seems like you could probably have two very successful events and also save $10,000. But it's not worth it if there are other reasons it's not worth for 10.

There's a large set of reasons why we can't. I mean, basically October is what fits into the Silverman Brothers schedule. And so I don't want to do it every month. i mean no because i mean they are i mean either the i mean these are all grammy award-winning um yeah artists that are performing at our little clayton jazz festival um not a genre i could go into depth about but i have googled them and you can find there they are award-winning they may not make the television on the grammy night but you know, they have one of them and they were flying in at their own expense or the Silverman brothers are flying them in and putting them up at their expense.

So, I mean, it's a, it's a great leverage partnership. Right. Yeah. Don't push our luck.

Yeah. It's, it's wonderful. Okay. So these are the, uh, just to remind everyone before we head into the next section of the presentation, these are kind of the event goals that we came up with here not too long ago.

I think it was November, um, And we kind of crafted those that evening, I think it was. And everyone seemed reasonably happy with them. So as long as we're still happy with those, that's how we're trying to approach next year's budget. So this is next year's events without the ones that Gabby and Kristen are putting together for us.

These are the Parks and Rec, Fire, Police, Excuse me, CCF is in there and so on. The two highlights I wanted to change is the fire is adding the fire prevention week in October and I had missed that originally when this went out and then they are not doing the firehouse movie nights anymore. So those are the two changes from what went out last week. Other than that, I think everything is mostly accurate.

And then these are the potentials for 2025. Basically, the same ones we continue to do. There's a couple additions. The longest table, we talked about that, I think, back in October, January.

It kind of bled together for me there. But basically, this board decided that they would support it in resolution but not financially. And I think that the mayor's taken on the role of garnering those funds. I think you're completely- It's completely funded, so.

So that'll be October. And then the next one that's in addition, excuse me, is the Day of the Dead, which is that cultural festival that we've been working on with the International Institute. Come up with a game plan for us have that prepared if this board so funds that. And then the rest of them are kind of really what we've already done just as potential.

Andrew, if you'd like to. And Gary, just to be clear on that list, that's for the fiscal year, October 25. So that's October of 2024, that event would take place, right? Yes, yes, yes.

Gary, one clarification for me. So I see the St. Louis Arts Fair sponsorship is under the SBC funded events. But then I thought one of the earlier slides had all the breakdown of overtime and everything else.

Is that, I just want to get clarity. What is SBC? Yeah, that was an oversimplification. That would be the whole.

All of it to the overtime. Yeah, the whole, I'm sorry, Jeff. Yeah, it is the whole St. Louis Art Fair package.

Okay. I think that was a cut and paste from the parties in the park, which is just a sponsorship. And parties in the park does pay starting this year, pays staff time involved with closing the street down. I'm sorry I didn't notice this earlier, but we do have the city SC home opener on here.

Yeah, we do. And that's the potential part. And then we'll go into what we're advising. Yeah.

So these are the staff recommendations. You know, we're proposing eliminating the Blues home opener. You know, the attendance is not as strong as the Cardinals home opener. You iffy at best.

Same with the soccer home opener. The weather's even worse in February. And then I had prematurely said that we wanted to eliminate Clayton Restaurant Week because of declining participation. Well, turns out after we extended the deadline for the restaurants to sign up, we now have more this Summer, we have 15 this summer.

We had 14 in the winter and 15 is one of the high marks for a long time. So I've kind of changed my tune on that. It's, you know, I can't remember the exact number. We'll come up to it here in a minute.

I think it's seven or $8,000, but that is, I, in my mind, cheap marketing for Clayton restaurants for an entire week. So I do want to make that change on the fly here with us tonight. Yeah. And then some of the events that we feel are obviously worth keeping, again, are the restaurant weeks we just talked about.

Cardinal's Home Opener, I think for the expense that is very popular among downtown employees and helps build that engagement of not necessarily restaurants, I mean residents, but we do get a lot of residents at that surprisingly too. But, you know, I think it is goodwill with the downtown workforce. And then the music and wine and the jazz festival, certainly. Gary, I'm curious on the restaurant week, are there any restaurants that we would otherwise think would be likely to participate but choose not to?

And if so, why? Everyone's in, I mean most everyone is invited I mean the fast food restaurants, although I think we had smoothie king last year wanted to participate for some reason. But, you know, there are just some most of them in the wide end area like um a car if you're familiar with that restaurant he's a small restaurant and uh him and matt uh at wright's tavern or don't need help don't need help they're very appreciative of all our efforts but they're good and i think that goes the same with jimmy at the crossing um You know, and Brian Carr at Avenue kind of goes back and forth from year to year or season to season. He's in this year.

He is in this year. So, um, yeah, they have their own reasons. I think most of them, some of them get weddings, a lot of weddings this time of year, like a car hasn't done it sometimes because they, the restaurants booked a couple of days for weddings. So, but everyone's invited and, um, a couple of times and then we extend the deadlines because, uh, uh, they have follow through issues sometimes and then, but they all came in real strong.

So, gabby sent out a a second chance email a couple weeks ago after i prepared this and they all came flooding in so uh some of the new events the day of the dead we just talked about and i think that checks that box that cultural event that the mayor had been pushing for the longest table i think we already decided to do that and then sponsorships to continue, and I think this follows up to your point, Jeff, is the whole package for the St. Louis Art Fair. And then events to discuss would be the Open Streets and Cultural Event on a long-term basis past the excuse me past the day of the dead event i can't remember what's on the next slide andrea is the um the only thing that i thought might be svd funded that isn't on your recommendation page to eliminate or continue is parties in the park sponsorship did i miss that no you haven't missed that i mean that's that's on this uh things to discuss here um is is the sponsorships um you know i i think the parties in the park has a long history um i think attendance uh they would self-admit uh has been dwindling since so i don't know if they you know they will and this year may change um so we could look at it you know kind of monitor it this year um but you know, it's an event that needs to evolve. And I think they are trying to evolve it this year.

They're doing a lot of partnerships with Perina and the Pets and a couple other leverage partnerships, co-labs as they would call them now, to try to spice things up. And much like our jazz festival or international festivals, partnering with them, kind of leveraging groups that already have big bases to draw in new people. But I think it's something to think about. We want to make sure we're investing our event dollars wisely.

Right, I think just from my conversations with them, I think this is going to be sort of a telltale summer. And if it keeps going downhill like it's been, I think they're going to try to really rethink it, which is good. I think we kind of have to sponsor it this time. Yeah, I mean, I'm not advocating that we not sponsor it.

I know you're not. I just don't want everything to always be on automatic renewal. No, I think it's good. I appreciate that.

Yeah. Gary, two things. The special occasion event for 10 grand. That is if the Blues win the Stanley Cup, Cardinals win the World Series.

No, that makes sense. I just wasn't sure what it was. It hasn't necessarily been in recent... We haven't needed it in the last couple of years.

But it does occasionally come up. Or there have been things in the past over different boards where there came an opportunity to... do a special event or something and that, you know, this just makes it a little easier for budgeting purposes. Yeah, like if they were in, like, we could all watch Game 5 on a big screen in Shaw Park.

You know what I mean? Yeah. During, like, the blues. I mean, we budgeted.

People said, oh, wouldn't it be funny if the city closed a street and we all could watch it together on a big screen? You know? That makes sense. Yeah.

It would be great. We budgeted for the last, I don't know, five or seven years now. We haven't used it. because I think it was the Stanley Cup was the last thing.

That's what inspired it. Unfortunately, we've been on a little drive. Oh, we had a battle hawks party. oh yeah there you go yeah yeah so maybe we should so gary i'm um i don't remain remind remember our frame of reference for this discussion is this are we trying to focus on events that are funded by the special business district or are focused on downtown or are we also discussing events that could be somewhere else in the city Tonight, we are discussing special events produced within City Hall.

I mean- I was asking downtown or other places. So for example, under our livable communities, there was the discussion of other events and pop-ups in parks. And so- Yeah, I mean, that's certainly- Is that a different discussion or is that part of this discussion? Well, I think this could be part of that discussion, but those funds would need to come from the general fund and not necessarily special business history because the funds have to remain- outside of marketing purposes have to remain within the district yeah so i guess where i was coming from was if we're going to have a discussion on what other ideas you might have then i have some ideas but if you want to talk about things in your order i'm certainly want to be respectful of that i want to talk about both i can't wait to hear your ideas Me either.

Are we, are we, are we at the point? I was hoping I'd say no. Let's hear about it. I've got one more question.

Are we at the point for an idea for downtown or are we still? We're at any point you want to ask. Can I ask one more question? Oh yeah, go ahead.

I had not seen the numbers on the art fair and I liked the way that you broke those out. And is that the best way to, obviously you want to find national support. Is that the best way of structuring that? I know that the I don't know what they call it.

It's a separate organization. Cultural Festival. Cultural Festival, thank you, which we're affiliated. And are we comfortable with that?

I mean, $100,000 is a big... That is a large amount of money. You know, both the mayor and I are on as ex officio to the board there. So we do have those discussions.

We are within those discussions of the art fair. I think not funding that would pose a problem this year for sure. And not funding that next year, they might need a little bit more notice for us to have a St. Louis Art Fair.

Right. And so I do think that it, and I'm not challenging it continuing, but wondering if that's the appropriate allocation of expenses. If there are, I don't know how they get all their funding or what their finances are. And if we're comfortable with continuing to do that, that's fine, but I had not seen that number before.

And I think it's something to watch and to see if there's a better structure for it. So are you suggesting, Susan, I feel like what you might be saying is like, would they actually prefer a cash donation in that amount as opposed to these in-kind services that we're offering? Or is that what What are you saying? You mean like giving them $100,000 for them to go out and get people to set up the street?

I just think that we shouldn't assume this is the way we're doing it. That if there are other ways, if the cultural... Although that seems like a lot, they could not function without our staff. Some of that is police and fire too, which obviously would not be contracted out but even having our public work staff um you know i just the efficiencies that have been gained over the years we would be closing down the streets a lot earlier than we do now i mean a lot of these streets we have open until it's not here but um you know like the day of You know, they closed down Friday morning or something like that.

And I know that you're not suggesting we stop that, but I still think like, again, throughout the comprehensive plan, everybody kept saying, oh, I wish we just had more events like the art fair. Do you know what I mean? Everybody was like, could we just close the streets more often like the art fair? So I feel like it's something that our community really values.

I mean, I can- Yeah, I'm not saying- I know you're not. We have to make sure it happens. I just think whenever you're budgeting, however you budget, especially when you're working with a close affiliate, you look at the best ways to make it happen all the time. No, and I don't want to assume that either, but I can have that conversation with Sarah, but I'm, you know, a hundred percent sure she's going to say she prefers it this way.

Yeah, because I think 70, what, I don't have the slide in front of me, but 80% is just staffing. And so special business district is just, it's just reimbursing the general fund for that, that staff time. Do we have as very little actual cash being I'm wondering, I know Sarah has appeared in front of the board or has on occasion. I mean, from my past working with them, I mean, Centene was a very major sponsor for a few years.

I think a lot of that was really to create sort of a reserve fund or rainy day fund. It wasn't so much operational, but if the weather was terrible and they were blown away, would they have to go out of business? I've never heard, I don't think they've come ever close to matching what they had from Centene. And so...

I mean, I think part of what we're sort of, at least I'm curious, where do they stand now in terms of sponsors? And I mean, I love the art fair. I think it's the best thing we do in Clayton, so I wouldn't do anything to impair it. But I do think I'd like to know more about where they stand now.

Yeah, I mean, we certainly could invite Sarah to come in and talk about it. I mean, they do still have a reserve fund. I wouldn't say that if it rains every day this week, they would not be tapped. I mean, every day at this festival, you know, they've gone through the pandemic just like everyone else.

And I, you know, losing benefactors like Michael Neidorf and, and some of the others, they, you know, their, I think their sponsorships are okay this year, but they certainly haven't achieved that level of reserve where they could go a whole year and still function. I mean, they basically produce one event, and it's a very large event and a very expensive event. Unfortunately, it consumes all their staff time all year. Well, I can just tell you, I'm pretty sure they've never gotten back up to the level of annual funding that they had when Centene was their major sponsor.

So it's better this year than last year, but they're still really pushing to get back to that level. Do we have a sense, and I know it's probably going to be hard because so much of that $104,000 is like staff time and overtime, but what percentage of their budget we're paying for directly or indirectly? Like are we, in essence, subsidizing 60% of their operation, 80%, 20%? I think it's between 20 and 25, Jeff, but I'd have to double-check the numbers.

Good question, but yeah, it's not nearly that much. No, in the larger – one, I was curious, but the larger just question – I don't know if Susan was getting at this directly, but I was like, at some point is it basically just a city event that somebody else runs if we were funding like 90 of it or is it just city subsidizing parts of it so that's kind of why i was trying i think we are subsidizing part of it and the previous boards have looked at it as you know every every hotel room in town is booked those restaurant for whatever amount of turn st louis gets per table How many times you turn over a table at a restaurant? Sorry, I get lingo sometimes and forget. You know, is that max capacity?

At least that's how previous boards has looked at the investment. I've talked to them recently about some of this funding stuff. And one of the things I mentioned to them, and they're going to try to do it, is to get an economic impact study done because they really need that to go to donors, you know, so. And again, I wasn't necessarily questioning one or the other.

I think from a mental standpoint, for me, it helps me kind of think about how we want to view the event. Are we helping with the event? Or are we actually basically... putting on the event and that's why i was kind of oh i would definitely say you know it's kind of like the impact of restaurant week or music and wine you can i think sit in the center of the event and definitely tell okay that uh it makes a difference as as far as marketing clayton goes but from the numbers alone we are certainly not producing events certainly not a city event we're helping yeah got it i mean they have full-time year-long staff yeah i mean they i mean we are showing up in closing streets and and and stuff like that they are certainly you know organizing the tents the chairs the beer booths that are just so on the roving entertainment they started adding several years back and so forth um so i mean we are sponsors okay so unless there's other questions i do have one idea i'd like to float to you guys um since we are eliminating perhaps our uh sc the event that was in february we have february kind of open and february is black history month and i would love to see us do something it doesn't have to be i mean it can't be like a festival or with all that you know outside so it's not going to be that kind of an expensive thing because it's February, but some kind of partnership with, you know, it could be with the school district.

It could be with the county library system. They do an amazing job on Black History Month already, the libraries. And so we have a branch right here in Clayton. So I'm thinking, you know, again, this is an idea.

I haven't done anything about it other than bring it up to you, but I'd love to see us try to do something and maybe allocate, you know, a few thousand dollars for banners or something. Will Remembrance Park be open by February? Oh, I don't know. That would be good.

That would be a great thing to do with the library. I would say my only thing is the school district does a lot in February. And I just mean like each school, I feel like Miramac has a huge Black History Night that I know is you know, they do different themes each year um and i know the high school puts on something from a school age family people are scheduled yeah i think from school i don't i don't know how much involvement you're going to get from school age yeah also but if we could figure out something i think that's a great idea at remembrance park some sort of event again it's february but yeah maybe you could So I did take the liberty of calling Kristen, the head of the county libraries today, to just see if she'd be open to collaborating with us. And she said, absolutely.

I said, well, what would be an idea that pops into your mind? She said, well, you know, we've done it before, but one really cool thing we could do is do an event in conjunction with the black rep. And I said, oh, well, you've done it before. Yes, yes, we've done it before, and I said, well, how much do you have to pay him?

She said, nothing. So I think that, to me, would be really cool, and I don't know where we would do it or how we would do it. That'd all be worked out, but if we could just carve out a few thousand dollars for whatever little necessities we would need for that, that would be nice. So trying to build on your idea, not trying to deflect it in any way, but...

when you mentioned the library, they have one of the most prominent author series in the country. And so maybe another idea would be to bring in a more prominent black author and have a session at the Clayton Library, for example. So that would be one. And then just maybe you were thinking this already, but if the schools are doing a lot of activities collaborating with them, so maybe it's your black rep event at the high school kind of a thing.

Maybe we have the event and then they go on over to the high school and talk to the students, the theater students there. I mean, maybe it's more than one thing, but it's all sort of coordinated if that's possible. Yeah, so just putting that out there. I would support that, yeah, looking into those options.

Do we have, I'm just looking at a number standpoint, Given the day-to-day has been added, open streets is still on there. We're already removing the one SC home opener and maybe blues. Is there enough from a budgetary standpoint to add events? Like my quick math was like 380 or so on the numbers.

We set the budget. I was thinking about it. If we're trying to fit it. We set the priorities.

I was thinking if we were trying to fit it into the downtown. hacks whether there's enough room in that for a downtown event but it can pay for so many other things and so i think the bigger constraint we've heard from gary in the past is um manpower how much can they actually um support so the whole other conversation we'll have when we get to budget time because we are going to seek an additional staff member um in our communications department so um to help with both the events that we put on we have a staff of two uh you know gary of course helps but we have a communication staff at two that does all of the city communication all of the center marketing and communication and all of the events um so i mean we are really over capacity at the present time especially with the new marketing plan that we have at the center So we're looking at a split between the city and center for an additional person that would help with the marketing, but also give us more capacity for general communications and events. So we are already at that capacity. And certainly if we were to add more events, then I don't see how we get that done without additional staff.

It's just too much stuff. So that said, can I come up with my ideas too? You can. I just want to understand events to discuss.

I threw out my Black History Month thing, but what about, do we need to decide whether we're going to, I mean, on your recommendations, you didn't have these open streets or an additional cultural event. And so do we need to discuss that? Are we just going to let those go for this coming time? I would advocate that we continue open streets, especially in light of the talk around trying to build downtown as a neighborhood and establish a neighborhood identity there.

I think that there were a lot of aspects of the event that seemed successful. The people that were there that went to it had like really positive feedback. And so my suggestion would be that we owe it at least another year, if not two, to see like how we like build it. I mean, I'd be interested in staff feedback on that too.

I think there needs to be some tweaks to it if we're going to do it again next year. And maybe I'm trying to come up with a term that we just need to maybe add some stuff to it to draw a larger crowd. Yeah. and maybe hook them into the more true open streets part of it.

But certainly going the strict, health and open streets part of it we i think we missed a lot of audience yeah um so you know i don't know what that is necessarily usually adding music helps events no matter what they are um but i mean we could if the board so wishes to continue it you know i would certainly advocate that we as staff would come up with some tweaks um to it to to try to boost yeah Well, I know there were a number of people from the Sustainability Committee who were there because they had a table. And I'm confident they would be interested in offering feedback. Their general feedback was positive, like I shared. Yeah.

I think it goes back to the, you know, we tried to engage certain groups this year and that was a little not hurtful. I think we need to, if we're going to do it again, we need to reach out to groups that we can leverage their audience with. I don't know if that will be successful or not, but that would at least... It would be good to try.

Those two changes would be what I'd recommend if we're going yeah i mean with more planning and commitment in advance yeah i mean i would certainly advocate trying to do it and like you said gary i think there's some tweaks that can be made um you know i think people that came were people that were in the area there weren't necessarily a lot of people from ward one and ward two you know people biked over walked over But like you said, I feel like the, you know, our different planning efforts have come up with some new ideas, like from other communities that might be helpful, you know, things to do, things that people want to see. So, but I would certainly, I think it's worth, I thought it was a very nice event. It wasn't very well attended. But I, again, like Becky, I heard a lot of positive things like, wow, this was a really neat thing.

I'm surprised more people didn't come. And so, yeah. So I'll be the outlier to say, I think pursuing sustainability and connectivity are obviously things people in our community want. And I think there are things we ought to pursue.

I'm just not sure this is the right vehicle. I mean, I went there, it was a perfectly nice day. And to say it was poorly attended is not even accurate. I mean, there were very few people there.

It seems to be what we've seen makes these event works is usually, you know, it's a weekend, it's nighttime, there's alcohol and there's music. That's how all of our events have been, the events that are truly successful. And then I'm walking around and I'm seeing all of our staff people who are taking Sundays off to man booths. I'm just not convinced.

I mean, if it really feels like we need to give it a shot, so be it. But I think we should recognize that this was not a successful event. And it would take some major stuff, I think, to make it because it doesn't have the elements of those events. types of things that have been successful for us.

It just wasn't successful and it wasn't even close. And so I think to do it again, to spend $20,000 and again, to impose on our staff on a weekend, on a Sunday that all show up and to do this, I think it's gotta be pretty compelling. And I think there are, I'd be interested if there are other things, again, from the sustainability committee, other things that we can do that promotes sustainability and connectivity. I mean, I think people do care how people get around on bicycles and pedestrians, all that.

I'm just not sure this vehicle works or that you can fix it. But if the sense of the board is we should give it another try, fine. But I certainly have some reservations that this is because if this is the path we go down, then there's not that 20,000 to spend on something else that promotes sustainability. sustainability and connectivity.

So I'm just not convinced this is the way to go. Yeah, I think it was not a sustainability event. The sustainability went there with the table and was giving out information. Just to clarify that.

And I agree, give it a second year because it's an idea that people have liked. They like the idea of the open streets. It's something that we do have to figure out what the draw is and what the audience is. And it may be a very different audience from where we have all our success with alcohol and music and everything else.

But It's probably seeing what staff comes up with and the type of input you all have on how to make it something. People have to learn in Clayton. The first time you do something around here, I learned that very soon after moving here, it takes a while for things to become the thing that you do. So I would certainly support giving it a second year.

Well, I mean, I'm not suggesting that alcohol is the key to our success at events, but perhaps changing it from a Sunday morning to a three to five or four to six. You know, everybody loves Francis Park where we have like the beer option. So, you know, whether or not we change it to an afternoon might be better. It might be better for people.

Sunday morning might have been difficult. I don't know. Yeah, I think just thinking outside the box and how again I'm not saying that we have to have alcohol but making it a late afternoon even one to three versus a lot. I think we have to evolve the concept open streets from what it initially was back in the early 20 teens, and, and, and make it attempt to make it more.

modern right and maybe even slightly deviate i'm not suggesting we have the silverman brothers in jazz but we could add some components that you know right in the crowd yeah potentially they could learn about other things while they're there too right Right, I think we I mean we had a lot of suggestion, I mean the sustainability committee also suggested. Like in the interest of tying it to other stuff like looking at whether it could be scheduled around the kids triathlon. which is a draw for families into Clayton on an annual basis. So I think it's important that we're not saying, that was great, we're going to do it exactly the same way.

We're going to say there were parts of it that were good, we had some goals that we didn't accomplish, and we're going to revisit all of it to see if we can make an improvement next year. Let's hear what the other side of the room says too, a little bit more. So I did not attend the event, but my observation based on the discussion that I'm hearing would be if we had spent something that would be considered a nominal amount of money, I'd say, you know, just go on. But if we're going to spend a significant amount of money, and I deem this to be a significant amount of then if we believe that this is something that's important, I'm fine moving forward.

However, I would really like to see a critical assessment of here are the things that we either weren't successful with or were criticisms or goals that weren't achieved and then come back and say, in order to address these goals or criticisms, here are the things we're going to do. So what I'm getting at is being more thoughtful, deliberate, and committed to making this a much better event rather than sort of a let's give it a stab and kind of give it our best. And I'm not suggesting you wouldn't go at it 100%. What I'm saying is, is it's helpful to get resources really committed.

And if we can't get them, then why are we doing this? I have a thought, but go ahead, Jeff, let you. Ditto. So, you know, I understand the desire to try things more than once.

I mean, anybody that's ever done marketing, which I've done a lot of, you know, a lot of times, you know, you say it, you say it again, finally you say it again. Finally, somebody gets it and they show up. But on this particular event, I think what we do know is we have a formula that works for events. And it's proven by the art fair, the jazz festival and wine and music thus far.

And so I think if we can, and part of the factors have been talked about, you know, alcohol, food, some kind of entertainment, you know, like music or some other kind of entertainment, something to come and see essentially. I think those are important. The other really important factor is having a good partner. So I know that for a number of years, this goes historically back to all kinds of different things we've tried.

You know, we think the logical partners for something like this would be the bike shops or would be TrailNet or whatever and Great Rivers Greenway. And they have a following, but they didn't perform and they've never really been willing to help us in terms of real help. which would be money. I would suggest we did not invite them until a few months before the event, like my awareness of inviting the nonprofits to participate with us was like a quarter, maybe two in advance.

And for a small nonprofit organization, taking on an event with that much notice may not be reasonable. So and the bike shop was there and giving out free bikes. OK, so they were there. So they didn't bring their people, though.

So they weren't able to bring a crowd. And so all I'm saying is that that of finding a that can promote an event, you know, and bring people to it is really an important part of us creating a lot of attendance. We can't create it on our own, I don't think. I really don't think we can.

And so I think I'm kind of in agreement with Rick. If we can come back and say, and maybe we don't even call it open streets. I don't know. Maybe that just wasn't appealing.

But if we can come back now, we've got a really strong partner now. here's a way we can improve it to include the elements that we know we have a formula that works for. And we can do that and you're happy with that kind of an event, then I would be for doing it. But otherwise, I would not be in favor of just repeating this event at all.

Because I just don't see it happening. I don't think anyone's in favor of just competing. Nothing similar, really. I mean, I just don't think it works.

You could approve it tentatively based upon the acceptance of a new plan and Yeah, let's do that. And then we'll check back in whatever we have time because, yeah, we could use that money for something else. Yeah, and the identification of partners. I think that's reasonable.

I think we're generally all saying the same thing. I think it may be a little bit on how formal or informal it is, but I think we're all at the same point. Don't repeat the same thing. Let us know kind of what some of the changes are.

Yeah, I mean, we won't execute on anything until we come together as a group again and talk about it. I certainly... would hesitate to go down the path of all our events like that, but certainly with one that is important for other strategic goals. I think that's more than appropriate.

All right. And now, Rick, what would you like to talk about? Well, so I'm looking at the event goals. And so my idea does not achieve two of the event goals.

So I'm sympathetic that it may not be an appropriate topic for this time. So and it had to do with spotlighting special business district and creating a festive environment downtown. And so one of the things that we heard from the Louisville community's master plan feedback were these neighborhood or pop-up events. And so everything we've been talking about is involving something to do with essentially downtown and or Shaw Park, and that's great.

Those are wonderful things, and they're great assets, and I'm happy with the things we're promoting. But what I'd like to see, and maybe it's a parks plan rather than an economic development plan. And so that's fine if it's a conversation for another day. But we have these other parks and I'd love to see us try to put some kind of an event there and especially one that maybe doesn't cost a lot of money or take a lot of staff time.

So I'm thinking of as an example, Concordia Park, Oak Knoll Park and Anderson Dog Park. So, you know, like the dog park maybe you can do something where you work with Purina, and they will do pet adoption or they'll do some contest for pets or whatever they do they put it on so it's not a staff thing but it promotes our park. And maybe in Concordia. It's more of a, like some kind of a music event in the late summer.

So it's not during when we have all these other events and you get some food trucks there. So it's, it's, we don't have, and you get the symphony or some other group. But anyway, the idea is we're going to talk about that at some point, maybe it's years from now, but at some point through the livable communities plan, I'd love to see that integrated here. Maybe it's not your job to do that, but anyway, that's my idea.

That's a good idea. We've had sort of like, I'll call them neighborhood events at times. We had a fall festival at Wydown Park a couple of years, and that went over well, at Wydown and Hanley. And I mean...

you know, I think people will come out for those things. And I think they'll appreciate that. You're aware of that. I am aware of that.

And so, and I didn't see that on here. So I wasn't sure who's sponsoring. Is that a parks thing or is that a CCF thing? Okay.

Yeah. But I think some of the, you know, some of the neighborhood parks and I, you know, I have thrown up food truck and music and entertainment, but, you know, also there's a, There's a large demand in the region for entertainment, and you get pop-up beer gardens too. It seems like Concordia would be a nice place for the symphony, just the landscape. I don't know.

We've looked at this several years ago. They're super expensive. Well, but it's the lead time to get them. With enough money, anything is possible.

Right, sure. And really my gist is to create some kind of events for different parts of our community. And so most of our events are in the third ward and nothing wrong with that. But I think our residents have said, be nice to have something in their neighborhood too.

And there's a. Pretty well-known band in Ward 1, isn't there? John Wallach and his group. Yeah, he performs on our street frequently.

I mean, a lot of people know about him. And I mean, you could build something with a neighborhood entertainer. We could. I think it'd be great to act on that Liverpool community's interest in what you're saying and do some pop-up things around and do it sooner than later.

It can't be expensive. You could leverage what's going on in the neighborhoods already. Like I think Davis Place and some other, your neighborhood mayor have already submitted for like parades for 4th of July and stuff like that. We've had the symphony in Davis Place as well as food trucks.

Band that comes to the end of Maryland sometimes or we've had somebody who's paid for a band to come to Hanley Park. Yeah, so we can leverage those things to do them but also manage costs I think too. How do we move forward on that? Is it a Friday discussion or something staff looks at?

I think we could come up with some ideas and then maybe it's more appropriate to do it like at a Friday discussion or Something like that. Right. But anybody can think about it and come up with ideas, right? Yeah.

Which would be preferable. Just don't hang a wreath around the Botero statue like I did at the Fall Festival one year. Oh, I got so many phone calls. That was inappropriate.

It probably was. Don't touch the art. Okay. So Gary, do you have what you need?

So we do want to continue the partnership with the Parties in the Park for next year. I think we have to. Okay. And we're good with canceling the blues home opener and the soccer home opener.

Yes. Okay. And then we'll revisit, we'll put open streets or whatever the new name might be as a placeholder with the recognition that we'll come back with a plan and you'll either bless or not. Okay.

Okay. Yes. Great. Thank you very much.

And just to say again, what a fabulous event. The wine and music festival was I know everybody here staff wise had something to do with it, and it was just incredible I did. I went to oceano not that night, but was it Sunday night. And the management there was just raving about it and said one of the best nights they've ever had sales-wise.

They love, love, love that. There's a really high metrics. So just again, I can't go without saying again how great it was. Good job.

Okay. I guess the only thing left on our agenda is the endorsement, potential endorsement of the comprehensive plan. That's correct. So there's a resolution on the agenda tonight for the board to consider that would endorse and affirm the Clayton Tomorrow 2040 comprehensive plan.

So this was approved by the plan commission at their meeting on June 3rd. We held the public hearing at that meeting, and then it was approved unanimously. State laws, as we've talked about, requires that the plan commission actually approve and adopt the document. We do have some charter language here locally that talks about the Board of Aldermen adopting it as well.

So the language you see in the resolution is similar to what we've done in the past when we've adopted plans and amendments to the plan, such as the downtown master plan. So tonight we would ask that the Board of Alderman do the same, pass the resolution that essentially endorses the comprehensive plan that was approved by the plan commission. Okay. Any discussion from our audience?

I don't see any hands up. Any discussion up here? No, I'll just, I mean, from the perception, I think of the plan commission, I think, again, I think all members of the plan commission were very complimentary of the consultants. They thought overall it was a great plan.

I think everybody was a little bit still weary or wary, I should say, of the implementation matrix. Oh, yeah, just because I think they're concerned with just how it's going to go forward. But I think, you know, certainly confidence and staff will be able to take it on, but that it's a big, you know, a big job. And I think one of the great recommendations in the plan, which I hope that we will always do is every year, certainly come back to it and figure out what we have accomplished in the preceding 12 months, just so we make sure that we're moving forward, because Everybody knows we don't do this very often so just understanding that will continue to work through it it's going to take a long time to get through many aspects of it, but just make sure we're kind of.

touching base about it every year on an annual basis so. yeah that all sounds great the end in the caution that I just have with it when it's implementation metrics a lot of these they're not standalone values or standalone. actions and so i worry like with the sustainability and it's a red well if you don't do it now as we do everything else in the plan it doesn't happen or a good example of that is uh giving giving the looking at our ordinances and our codes to allow existing buildings to become more you know up to date in certain ways and that's put as a as something to be delayed well if we don't do it then it's then time passes so just, and I think staff will do this, and hopefully boards will do this as well, that as we implement the different parts of the plan, we're aware of all the plans, all of the different elements, and even the things that are to be delayed in that implementation matrix for up to 10 years, that they are relevant to the decisions being made today because so much of it is so winter-woven. Very good point.

I don't have anything else to say about it. Alderman Gary Feder, any comments or questions? I have expressed some concern to David about some of the language that we use both in the request for board action and in the resolution itself in terms of endorsing and reaffirming and adopting. But it is my understanding that based on the way the statute is written, as well as the charter, that this is essentially where we need to come out.

So so I'm okay with the language as it's written. Any questions? I guess my thoughts are maybe a combination of Bridget's and Susan's. I'm not, I don't want to overdo this, but my fear is the opposite, which is we won't look at it enough.

And so rather than maybe an annual update, I would like to see perhaps about the implementation, about the progress, about the priorities, maybe some kind of a more frequent, maybe just a summary statement of some sort that can be delivered to the board at most quarterly, but maybe semi-annually Anyway, I would like to do that because I just know in practice when you have something that's so overwhelming like this, it's easy to all of a sudden scramble at the, it's like, oh, we got a board meeting in two months. We better do something. And so if we do it every quarter, then we're making more consistent progress. I like that idea.

Yeah, maybe it could be something part of the weekly update. I would expect a planning item on just about every Friday session from here on out as we start to implement this. So we're going to break it down into components. And I think a lot of those Friday strategy sessions will be focused on this and the livable community plan.

I don't have anything else other than what folks have said on it. So I think that's the benefit of being the last one to speak sometimes. I can be quiet. Okay.

um so agree, and I guess I love the idea of quarterly updates just in general, even though we are talking at Friday sessions more informally. And I still would love to see, and I know we you're going to do it a timeline now of here's we're going to break out affordable housing and talk about that and here's where we're going to breakout. You know vibrancy in downtown and talk about that, and because we're going to need in a lot of cases to become more informed. So what falls under that we're going to be doing, we're going to have an expert to come in and talk about affordable housing.

And then we're going to move into some other aspect of it. And just what is the flow of how we're going to get all this done? And I don't really want to micromanage us, but I really feel like that's an important thing for us all to see so we can all feel good that the priorities that we have set in that plan are actually going to happen beforehand. we wake up and go, oh, we were going to do that, remember?

So, yeah. That's exactly what we're going to do. I know you're working on it. We'll break it into chunks so that it's manageable.

But the most important thing to recognize as you implement these is, and this is kind of what everybody's alluding to, is that in planning, most of these things work as a system. So you're not just going after one little piece of the ordinance and... taking care of an issue that way. It's going to be multiple places within the ordinance, so we're going to have to be diligent to make sure that as we make these changes, we're looking at it from the sustainability angle and every other way because all of these things work as a system, and I think attainable housing, affordable housing, whichever we want to call it as we go through this process, is a great example of something that we're not going to solve with just zoning alone, and we've got to take kind of a holistic approach.

So it's breaking this down into components, into manageable chunks, recognizing what the system is that's in play there and then coming up with a strategy for it okay um all right then i think if there's nothing else um we would like to have a motion i will move to approve resolution number 2024-09 endorsement of the clayton tomorrow 2040 comprehensive plan second any other discussion I think I just want to add, great job. Really great job. I know the consultant was great, but you all are really great and we are so lucky to have you with a planning background and you, Anna, really doing this for us. It was just really well put together and executed.

Really thrilled about that. Okay. No other discussion? All those in favor?

Aye. Opposed? Okay. That was a enthusiastic yeah okay um that's it for our agenda so we can do a little round table if you like and we can start off with our mayor pro tem um not too much to report i we had a planned commission meeting last week and i'm thrilled to report that you all haven't driven by first watch is definitely coming back because they're they came to talk to us about their signage so um that's really exciting let's win i mean they it looks pretty good yeah i mean it looks pretty good so that is exciting um but that was pretty much it and then we adopted the comprehensive plan so that's it that's all i have uh jeff and i had um our first war ii coffee together and pretty good turnout there were um i remember what we talked about there were some concerns with republic picking up trash regularly and not missing and not missing there there were there was talk about um some people feeling that we have you know cleanliness and the how well taken care of our streets are uh one neighbor is concerned with how well we keep a specific area that you know in front of the ritz and in there how that stays picked up um and jeff you're gonna have to pick up the rest because i don't have my notes here and i'm not remembering now leaving something for jeff to cover yes instead of just saying ditto over there yeah we had our parks and rec too and again i don't see my notes here i think everything was going um went smoothly there and um that's all i've got Alderwoman Patel.

Thanks. On the topic of Republic services, I had three weeks in a row of no yardways pickup. And I so I reached out to Susan And was quickly connected and got a phone call from the supervisor and all kinds of stuff, and my yard waste was picked up. Becky, did we get a phone call saying that one of our yard waste people were ill or something?

Yes. So Republic actually automatically called us ahead of time saying your yard waste may be delayed or missed for a week because we are short on staff. Oh, that's interesting. Well, so mine was three weeks in a row not picked up and so the owl, who I talked to who's the supervisor here said our normal guy was out on a medical leave, and maybe this person who was filling in didn't know how to look for the signs correctly whatever.

um it got picked up and got picked up the following week um and today my trash didn't get picked up so I don't know like how often this is happening but I feel like if it's happening to me and I know who to contact and I I get a response right away I suspect most people do get responses quickly like that was my experience before I was on the board of aldermen um but I just um uh, I guess I'm curious since you brought it up. I mean, I wasn't even going to talk about it, but then I'm like, and I've heard from other people who've said the same thing though, actually. So I wonder how big of an issue this is like services being missed, but did it take a long time for it to get picked up then? Well, no, once you call, I mean, they come even the same day if it's, if it's before noon, but like, I don't want to have to call.

I'm We had a couple. I'm paying for it now too. I mean, this is what I'm thinking as a resident, right? Like it's one thing if I'm not paying for it.

So anyways. We had some that, one of the things about the war to coffee was that that actually came up is that well, two parts of the conversation. One, we had a couple of neighbors talking about how their stuff wouldn't picked up and I've had the same problem for a couple of yard ways. And then the other point the neighbor made was so many of our neighbors will put their bags out on the street and that she's one as opposed to like even the back of the house.

And, and that neighbor was wondering if the new yard waste person just doesn't understand the signs or just assumes that like, I don't have yard waste because I don't put it out on the street. So, I mean, either way, it's a problem. It's just another antidote as to what she was saying. Cause I sure enough, I drove Monday morning and down, um, what was that?

Um, It was a Jeffery Yorg but then I drove down actually Cromwell, and probably two thirds of the street had all their yard waste in front so if a new driver is expecting that they're not even there's going to assume that it may not be out I don't know Becky if you put yours out or leave it in the back, but. We actually have an ordinance against putting our trash on the curb. So you missed that before you joined the board. We talked about that.

We are actually not supposed to put our stuff out. I would love that to be enforced because it seems to be a Moreland's trend. It's in my neighborhood, too. I think new people moving in.

Where they've come from, they've put it in those Home Depot brown bags and they put it out. We need to do some serious education about this. Because it's confusing to everyone. Our yard waste was missed again yesterday and I called and it has not yet been picked up today.

Typically, they get there 24 hours. We've been missed several times. And maybe that's why people are pulling it out to the front. Yeah, I mean...

Okay, so it's a bigger issue than I thought. We'll check the missed reports and take a look at what we've got. I've not seen a metric here recently, so I'll talk to Public Works and see what we can get on that. And then Gabby's gone, but we'll talk to Gabby about the communication piece on keeping the containers at the back of the house.

Yeah, that's good. I will just say I've never been missed. So far it's working for me. Hopefully whatever gets fixed doesn't mess it up for you, Rick.

So a couple of things. I am not in my role as a member of the Board of Aldermen, but certainly because I am on the Board of Alderman, I will likely be sharing with you all what I learned as a member of school districts. long-range facility master plan i'm on like one of a parent subcommittee um and so looking forward to that it's not going to start till august or september i think um i uh and i also heard from and bridget is similarly serving as a parent on a committee so um just one because i'm getting some question mark eyebrows just that the district reached out to the two of you And to David and invited them to participate as parents and as city manager in the facilities plan and they didn't read it didn't communicate to the rest of us about this, but. that's I asked I specifically asked if I was being asked to participate as a parent or a board member and they said parent and, of course, I am a board member and I will.

So no it's fine i'm just saying yeah that's what that's what is going on. i'm just wondering if they asked somebody to. No, it's David. Like they had just that, even though he's also a parent.

Oh yeah, totally. That's good. That's great. I think.

Um, and, uh, I got just public kudos for Tony and staff. I had a colleague who was in Clayton this morning at Shaw Park Aquatic Center because his son plays water polo. And he was just commenting on like the beauty of Shaw Park and our pool and the setting there. And I think It's kind of easy to take it for granted.

But he sent me this picture and he was like, this is he's like, I've never been here. This is amazing. Like you have such a gem here in your city. And I just thought that was really nice to hear.

And so really great. And Matt and David hosted Rick and I and some residents to talk about traffic safety on demand. So one of the things that was interesting about that Gary, you were probably on the board when we passed the program, like traffic calming program. Do you remember that?

Right. So I was a big fan of that because it's like a system and a process to follow. And what we're finding, what I'm finding is I believe that there's a compelling interest in traffic calming or something to improve safety in this part of Clayton and like it doesn't qualify under the program and so I think that's just something we've asked Matt and David to like do it and like come back with recommendations and to address some of the concerns as it relates to like pedestrian safety and the line of sites of turns and things like that but I guess I'm partly doing like a mea culpa because I'm like asking for stuff outside of the program in a way and trying to think about how we do that, how we handle that as a board. Like, you know, what does it mean?

Does it mean the program needs to be modified or this is actually a different thing? I don't know. And the Music and Wine Festival was great. Thank you.

Alderman Gary Feder. I think the only thing I'd mention is last Thursday, Robin and I and two grandkids attended the Chapman Plaza event, which was terrific. It's a beautiful site. It did have all of those elements we talked about.

booze, food, great weather, music. And Jeff was there. And what I understood, which was kind of interesting, was that a number of companies really sort of promoted their staff attending. And I think that was particularly Buckingham and Commerce and Barry Waymiller, who was the primary sponsor.

But I mean, it does point out if our corporate citizens really get behind some of these events, and I think that's been a problem with parties in the park is they just have not had the ability to get any of our local companies to really encourage people to come out. But so this was at least an example of how it seemed to me very well attended. It was great. And so- it's, it's, it certainly some indication on some of these events.

If we can somehow get our corporate community to encourage people because they're really nice events. So I think that's all I got. I would just add a little color to that, which is, you know, the Chapman's sponsor, the concert series, and then they got the campers to help sponsor it. And now, so they, you know, then they put it out to the everybody in those buildings.

You should go. Right. So it, they have some equity in the event. So I don't know, maybe that's something we can think about in terms of how to make that happen.

And I think a number of the corporate people who work there also had got wristbands and so got either a discount or free food. So, I mean, it's the way sponsorships really work is encourage people to go there and get the benefit of being an employee, but it helped make it a great event. Yeah. I just want to echo Becky's comments regarding the meeting about the safety on demand.

And so I guess it's more of an opinion that perhaps we tried to fit a traffic calming solution and process into a safety issue, and it was not necessarily in alignment, or at least not in alignment in the sense that it wasn't helpful solving the problem. And so anyway, I'm looking forward to David and Matt getting together and giving us some feedback on that. What I would say is that overall, we've heard that this is not a unique situation to Dumont. We have this issue on Big Bend and Hanley and Brentwood and other streets.

And so it's just what is unique is it's a street we control. And so we might be able to do something about it. So anyway, I am a strong advocate for trying to do something about So I just wanted to weigh in on that. And then the other meeting that Becky and I had, and I presume others had it as well, was David and Ana had spent a lot of time, probably Ana spent a lot of on the overlay proposal for the Concordia and WashU.

And so I'll defer to David and Ana to talk about process and where we're going on that. What I just want to make sure of through all this, let me back up and say, that I think the engagement process, while sometimes maybe a little messy and it's challenging to do this on a complicated topic, I think at the end of the day is producing, I think, a better solution. I like the communication we're having with the community at the end of day. And so I think that's a good thing.

But what I want to make sure of is that we don't try to I guess, reinvent the wheel if it ever gets to us after the plan commission looks at it. So that's where I want to make sure that perhaps, David, you can weigh in on the proposed schedule so that if we all want to have some participation in this or at least hear what the participation is, that we have that importance of hearing it at the plan commission level. So anyway, that's all that I have. A couple of things.

So had Parks and Rec and to follow up on Susan, we spent most of the time talking about the community, the livable communities plan, and they were kind of giving feedback and comments and Tony was kind of working with them to kind of figure out how we, how they would propose kind of tweaking some of the language for that. So I think that was kind of most of that meeting. As for the war to coffee, Susan hit most of it. Yeah.

We had the same complaints we always have about handling traffic and it's too fast and all of that, which is not all that we can do with. There's a couple of interesting ideas in terms of street signs that we may be able to work with the county on that won't cost the county a whole lot of money that may slow some stuff down, but we'll see if that goes anywhere. Susan did present kind of sustainability updates from the sustainability committee for the group. And those are kind of the two big ones that came out on top of kind of what Susan already talked about.

Very good. Thank you. I don't really have much. Um, I do want to, I'll just mention, I was talking about it before the meeting, but I did go to St.

Mary's hospital or, you know, their, their hundredth anniversary, which they're celebrating now. Um, it was a very big deal for them. They had all kinds of, uh, Sam page and, you know, the whole, everybody, everybody was there. Um, everybody had proclamations, which we had as well.

Thank you, June. And, um, and it was a nice little event. Um, And then also just I do want to just say for the record, you know, the article this morning about the or was it yesterday about the homeless situation in the region? It's great that Mayor Jones has brought it to the East West Gateway Council of Governments because that is all the counties, all the color counties ourselves across the river.

It it's it's going to be taken up by East gate East West gateway, they will develop a plan, just like they did for the crime reduction effort and. I think this will really move the ball forward, I know you know we try to do what we can here in our little Community but there really needs to be a comprehensive plan for the region that involves wraparound care. it's called, and ways to keep people off the street once they're off, ways to keep them off. We don't have that in our region right now, and other cities have done it, and they've done it successfully, so we have a template to follow.

So this is going to be, I think, really, really great, and I'm kind of excited about it. That's all from me. Anything else from anyone else here? We just say to Rick's question about the timeline for WashU Concordia and the overlays in that area.

We're targeting August for plan commission on that. And we think that's a realistic target given the amount of work that's been done today. We've made a lot of progress within the last couple of weeks here coming out of the community meetings that were held with both the city and residents and WashU and the residents. everyone took a lot of notes that went to those meetings.

And as we compared those, I think we're all kind of in a similar place as far as the type of additional restrictions or tightening that we think we need within the overlays to mitigate any potential negative impacts that this development may have down the road. So I think we're getting really, really close with that. And again, early August is kind of the, the circled time on the calendar to try to get the formal process going. As far as details for additional meetings and that sort of thing, we're still piecing that together.

We've still got some revision work to be done. We do want to take a look at the traffic study one more time read through it there some questions that came up with some of those neighborhood meetings. To see if there's anything that needs further exploration there, but I think overall we're very close so. Keep it moving i'm I mean from a selfish perspective i'm gone for the first plane Commission meeting in August, but.

I just suggest, I feel like people are a lot, a lot of people might be out of town still for that first meeting in August. So perhaps thinking about having it being the second meeting in August might be That's a great suggestion. I'm just, I mean, I don't also selfishly I'll be gone for the first one, but I just think a lot of people are still, yeah. I mean, I just think a ton of people that don't necessarily have school age children.

It's just, it's, it's a rough time to live here. Early August. It's hot. I think a lot of People leave.

So I don't know. You just might get better attendance from people in the mid August meeting. And we're also looking past that because it's going to get we get into that budget season two at board of alderman you know in september we've got a couple things that we know are going to be coming up around that time so the budget public hearings usually that first meeting in september i'm trying to time this around the conference that andrea and i go to every year uh so that it hits the board while i'm here obviously and not zooming in for that so we'll look at the dates and get dialed in but if we can get it to the plan commission in august and keep this thing moving uh that that would be ideal but we're close I just had one thing, and this is kind of off the cuff, but just listening to everything that's going on in local communities, comprehensive planning, WashU, the events, the stuff going on with Parks and Rec, this is such a vibrant group of people. We talk about wanting vibrancy in the city.

This isn't just a check the box, run a city. This is thinking and pushing boundaries and trying to move forward, and it's just a pleasure to be a part of this. Thank you. It's very enriching.

Yeah. Okay. I think we can take a motion for adjournment. To adjourn.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

All right.