City Council - workshop

Do you think so? Is that a solid yes? It's a solid maybe. No.

Jessica. Sorry.

I like.

Just did on the way. Open your game all over the place. Like. When they get to his. That way, when we're out there, we'll know which one we're watching. I don't have that answer for you. Sorry. I told her she's upped her game. I said, now we know which one we're watching when we're on YouTube. Because for a while, I was like, which one are we?

Okay, I'm gonna call the meeting to order, please. Before we get started though, I really would like to recognize, are we okay?

We're good.

recognize former council member Nancy Letzow. It's so good to see you tonight. And you look wonderful. And you really do.

And thanks.

And I know you're here because of the train station. And we appreciate all that you've done on that as well. But before we get to train station, we need to approve some minutes. The first set of minutes is from July 9th and 10th. Planning session, may I have a motion?

So moved. Second.

Thank you. Is there, I know there's discussion. We do have two of our members are on by phone. Council Member Justin Arnold and Council Member Gina Jasetic. And I know that Gina had a couple of, I think just one thing on the July 9th. Four. I'm sorry, four things on the July 9th that she would like to amend.

Yeah, so like I said, I have four. different bullet points to amend and I'll do them one at a time. So the first is I move to amend the planning session minutes for July 9th and July 10th, 2026 under number one, financial management, first bullet point and change that statement to read numbers are due to change because all journal entries have not been recorded yet. Second.

Second. Okay. Is there any discussion about that? Actually, I think.

I did it to be, I would more accurately reflect at the time we got the information. The annual audit had not started yet. So it was really tied to the general entries had not all been completed.

In process. Okay. All right. Good. Thank you. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed nay. Okay. That motion carries.

The same. I move to amend. I don't have to repeat that, do I, Lori? Well, you should if you could.

Okay.

I move to amend the planning session minutes for July 9th and July 10th, 2026 under financial management, the fifth bullet point to read General Fund has ended fiscal year 26 with approximately $2 million in unrestricted cash reserves.

Second that.

And changing that because the bullet point ahead indicated electric lost money, so it didn't, I mean, we didn't talk about electric cash reserves since they had none. That was a conversation around the General Fund cash reserves.

Any other additional comments? All in favor say aye.

Aye.

The motion carries.

And then I move to amend the planning session minutes for July 9th and July 10th, 2026 under financial management. The seventh bullet point to read transfers from the enterprise funds to the capital fund were stopped in fiscal year 26. transfer from the electric fund to the general fund continued second that okay and that one um the the the minutes reflected they both were stopped that was not true the the general fund still received a transfer from the electric fund okay all right any other comments all in favor say aye aye opposed me it carries And then the last one on this minute, I move to amend the planning session minutes for July 9th and July 10th, 2026 under financial management, the eighth bullet point. Finance director, and this is to replace the statement in there, finance director presented a year-to-date budget report in lieu of the monthly plus year-to-date budget. Council members to have a chance to review and let Director know if also want monthly information included.

Second.

And the reason that conversation, the way it was written was a little confusing, but we had been getting a budget report that included monthly information and year-to-date, and what we were shown at this meeting was just the year-to-date. I know I had asked, can I kind of look at it to see, compare it to what we would get on a monthly basis. So again, I just was kind of clarifying the minutes to reflect that.

Okay. Any additional conversation?

And just to clarify, we only received April of 26, which would have been the first month of this year, correct? That's the report you're referring to?

Yes. And what the intent would be is that I'm sure she was moving it towards a quarterly. Like normally we would get in April, we wouldn't have done it, but in April, that includes the April specifics and then the year to date. So the monthly part, you know, it depends on how long we get. I like the monthly information, and it wasn't clear that we were going to get it every month still. But I do like monthly as well as the year to date.

Darren, what did you say?

I said that she's correct. That's what was conveyed. But, I mean, I understand what she's asking for.

Okay. Okay. Anything additional? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. The motion carries.

I already have a motion and a second. And that's it. Then it's just an all in favor, all opposed, as amended.

Yeah. So now we need to vote on the minutes as amended. So is there any more? They've already been motioned. So any more conversation? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Okay. The minutes have passed.

May I interrupt? Justin, are you participating in the vote? I'm not hearing your voice.

Yeah, that was an aye.

okay thank you it's long distance okay um now we will move to the july 16th minutes may i have a motion and a second please motion second okay is there and then i have one amendment for that one okay

So I move to amend the minutes for July 16th, 2026 work session under full discussion bullet point 22, if you can count that many, and replace that to read as the city has not historically reached a 1.5% replacement rate. Staff demand will not be major as project management will be contracted out. And if there's a second, I will explain. Second.

Sorry. Go ahead.

Great. Thank you. And then what's in there indicated that we had two capital project manager staff positions to be added. That was not any positions the city council in the budget approved. I mean, any outliers. So I think... given the second statement is that they may have put money into that line item to contract those out. But as far as an FTE, we did not approve any additional staff. So I just removed that.

I think I see Chris over there nodding. Is that...

I think he's nodding off.

Yeah. Yeah, Chris is over there nodding. So, okay. Any more discussion about that item? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. That amendment carries. And now we will vote on the July 16th. Minutes, are there, is there any other, as amended, any other discussion? No. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Opposed, nay. The minutes carry.

Okay. Okay.

And now I will turn the meeting over to our chief administrative officer for introduction of our new human resources manager.

Absolutely. So thank you very much. We do have with us our human resource manager, Tamarius Prince. And so if you'd like to come up to the podium a little bit. Yeah, right over there. That's fine.

Hello, hello. Hi. I feel my back should be turned to them.

You're good. You're doing good. Face them.

Okay. Hello. Yes, yes. Well, hello, everyone. I am Samaria Curran, the head of HR here now. I'm very, very happy to be here. I received a very warm welcome from the city. It's been like five days so far, but I'm learning a lot, enjoying the opportunity. I have a background, everything spanning from tech to healthcare on to local government. So I bring forth a wealth of knowledge and really look forward to adding value and serving the city of Kirkwood. So happy to meet you all. Should I share anything else?

I think that sounds good.

Yes. And I know, I'm not sure who all knows, but you know, Molly LeBlanc is who I will be replacing. I know she will be moving, moving on to retirement soon. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for joining us. Very exciting to have such a wonderful person added to our staff. Next, we're going to have a discussion about murals in the Kirkwood train station. And I believe Art and Art McDonald and Zoe Perkins are the ones that are going to be doing okay.

Hello, I'm Zoe Perkins. I'm the chair of the Kirkwood Arts Commission. And today I will present a potential mural project for the Kirkwood train station. This is a major public art project, and it has the full support of the Kirkwood Arts Commission, who has been working with members of the Kirkwood Train Foundation, as well as the commitment for financial support from the Kirkwood Arts Foundation. Where'd you, don't always hear. So in order to proceed with this project, we need the approval of city council. So today I'm going to put this project in context by starting with a brief history of the city of Kirkwood and the train station. As you know, Kirkwood was founded in 1853, as it says above the mayor's head. And at that time, there was a small wooden train station built. Now that train station lasted until 1892. I'm in the wrong direction.

Oops, I forgot one. No, no, no.

Okay. Here we have some wonderful historic photographs. But this is the train station as it was built in 1893. And you notice it has that large overhang on the right side of the screen. Another view of it. It was a very busy train station at that time. And this architectural style is known as the Richardsonian Romanesque style, and it was a very similar, very popular style at the time, and it actually has connections to the St. Louis City train station. In 1941, the train station was renovated. As you see, we lost the overhang there on the right. This was an interesting project because, in fact, Mopac wanted to do a renovation and the citizens of Kirkwood did not like the renovation they proposed. And so it was the first citizen led major architectural development or renovation project noted. So there was a lot of care taken in 1941 to maintain the outside of the building beyond removing the overhang. Interior photos, it shows the look, and of course by this time they had taken down the walls that separated the men's from the women's waiting rooms, as well as the furnaces or the heating systems that were in the middle of the room.

Zoe, can I point something out?

Yes.

This is only one of three places in the entire country that intersected passenger rail with Route 66.

I want more information on that.

If I may just mention to Gina and Justin, I just emailed you guys the presentation that Zoe has up on the screen. So check your emails.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks. And I also love the telephone booth there. Yeah. So in 20 1985, the train station was put on the natural National Register of Historic Places. And in 2002, the train station was purchased by the city of Kirkwood. Now, here we're looking at a photo of the renovation project, which actually started in 2014. So this has been a long going project. And as we noted in the earlier building and renovations, each renovation leaves a stamp on its project. So each one time you have a renovation, there's something unique, either technologically or design wise. And now the station serves multiple purposes. It serves as the second busiest train station in the state. It serves as a tourist information place. It serves as an event space. And it also serves as a small museum of train history and the city of Kirkwood. And with this project, we want to emphasize the history. It's an opportunity for us to tell more of the history of Kirkwood to strengthen our museum component. Why would I do that?

I worked at the art museum.

And again, what we're going to be doing on the interior, and some of these things are old, so I don't know what's up to date now. But we're going to have some didactic panels and some of the historic photos that also will tell the history. And additionally, Bill Burkhalter will be having, and I'll point this out later, Some new just exhibition cases for train Objects and things so again. It's a great way to you know make More more of the history of the station in the city known Okay, so when I went to the muse or a few weeks ago. I went to the station This is pretty much what it looked like Okay. Okay. So we're seeing that, you know, obviously a lot of HV and expensive things that don't show up front. And here we have the east wall. And here we have the west wall. Now, again, when we walked in and we thought, oh, this is really a great opportunity for a mural. And of course, the choice of an artist was obvious. Brian Haynes is a widely recognized artist from Kirkwood. He works in the American regionalism style, which was a style that was very big in the 1930s and 40s. So this period of art fits very well within the interior of this building. You might be familiar with the leaders of the early American regionalism movement, which were Grant Wood, John Stewart Curry, and of course Thomas Hart Benton. Thomas Hart Benton was known as a muralist, and he in fact did what he thought was his best work in the state capital of Missouri. It's entitled A Social History of Missouri. Our approach will be different, His was a little controversial at the time. Okay, but Bryan is known for his accurate depiction of 19th century Missouri landscapes and daily life. And through his paintings, he tells stories. Bryan has, here's an example of his work. Bryan has a piece, at the Danforth Plant Science Center, the Museum of Westward Expansion at the Gateway Arch, the Kauffman Center in Kansas City, and this work that's in the St. Louis Club As you can see, he works a lot with landscapes, which again makes him an ideal person for this project. So we've been working with him for several weeks. And so, of course, as a good artist, he says, what do you want? And we said, hmm, don't know. Next thing we thought of was trees. But then as we kind of work through some of the didactic materials that we want to present in the historical photographs, we thought the theme of industrialization as it came from the east. The trains came from the east and industrialization. And once they got to Kirkwood, they went westward through westward expansion through undiscovered areas by most people. So that whole sense of adventure. So here we see the West Wall. I'm doing the West Wall first because I'm going to show you some examples. And I want you to understand that these are just concepts. These are very early in the stage of design. We've gone through things. We said we like this. We don't like this. The colors are not real because he has not spent the time to do the actual colors. Again, we are working on basic concepts. Do you want a train here? Do you want this? So we're not voting on anything tonight. We are just looking at concepts and looking to see if we can proceed with the project. So this is something for the west wall. I'm starting with it because it's a little more refined or further along than the east wall. And here you're getting the sense of a train moving westward. And again, those colors are not right. and going by the Missouri River, going to parts west, again with trees, because we wanted trees. I'm showing this because what you'll see on either side of those three windows will be where Bill's train information and objects will be. This is a bit of a tricky wall. So we're working on some things there. We like the trains on the side because they lead the eye down. There's other things we don't like. But you get the general sense what a mural might look like there. And I just want to go back to this one because, again, it's a little more refined. But I'm hoping that the Kirkwood Arts Center Commission could develop this to a full design that we could present at some point. Again, I think this is a project where the painter, the timing, and the opportunity to use the east wall to show the trains coming from the east and the west wall showing the trains moving westward is a very fortunate juxtaposition of the train station that we're able to utilize. So, Art, do you have anything you'd like to say about? Oh, I have a book here. Oh, I forgot, sorry.

Thank you. Thank you. So you can stay up here if you want. Anyway, I said when this we started talking about this, I was very excited. I know Brian Haynes and I and I do and I have been to his gallery in Washington, Missouri, which Darren and Darren knows him well. And anyway, I'm. We thought this was a really wonderful opportunity and chance for Kirkwood to have something really unique and exciting. We have a train station which is going to draw people from all over to come and see it and to enjoy it and to glorify in what Kirkwood has done. And these murals will even enhance that experience for the people who come here. We have the money to pay for all this, just like the train station itself. There's no taxpayer dollars needed. We have all the money that we think we need to pay for Brian's work and for it to be installed. And I talked to Jake Manton, who's the head architect for Mackie Mitchell, and he's very excited about this also. So I think, you know, Kirkwood really has a... tremendous opportunity here to to enhance the walls of the Kirkwood train station and to tell a story that will excite people and and will give them joy to see and so anyway that's that's sort of what I had to say and the Kirkwood Arts Foundation and the Kirkwood Arts Commission are They're totally behind this project. And so, of course, as Zoe said, we have to do some more refining, but we need your permission to go ahead with this project.

So if you have any questions. I have one and then we'll open. Everybody else probably has something. Are these going to be painted on the wall or is it a piece of canvas that's going to be attached to the wall?

Both. Actually, that's an interesting question because we're kind of resolving this. Initially, a lot of times what Brian does is paint something and then it's reproduced on a larger scale. We don't think we're going to like that concept. And so we're looking into him actually painting on canvas and then literally wallpapering it. But he will not be up there and scaffold Michelangelo. Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. But actually what that does, that makes it an original painting versus a copy of something. So in that sense, it's more valuable.

Yes. And how long would something like that take? Or do you have any idea?

Well, we keep asking him to do drafts and things. So let me just say that he's very excited about this project. He's very generous with his time. I know it'll be a priority. It will not be done by September 15th. And, you know, assuming the station is open, we realized we had to work around it, but.

He was, he was relieved. He was actually relieved when we told him September 15th was not a deadline and that what we wanted was, perfect yeah wonderful murals and and to take his time and to get it right and we're excited about the fact that he's going to paint it on his on canvas install it because it's going to that will make it last for almost ever yeah so we're we think it's going to be and the paint has a very different look it doesn't have that slick look which I don't like it'll be a very warm feeling what other questions

Will it come back to us for a final review before it goes up?

Yes.

Okay. That's my question.

Okay. So do we need to take a vote then?

I don't need to vote. I think you just need a consensus of the council for them to move forward. I think we're all in agreement.

What about Justin and Gina?

Hold on. Thank you. I do have a question.

Gina has a question. Hi, Gina.

Hi. Is Bill Burkhalter on board with this?

Yes. He's here and he said yes, Gina. Is that a train pun?

Hi, Bill. Just want to make sure he's on board with it as well.

Nothing for me. Gina, if you didn't hear Bill, he's repeated multiple times. Yes, he's okay. Great.

All right. Well, we've got consensus. Thank you both for being here. And this is an exciting project that I think Missourians will be excited to get to see. I mean, everybody knows who Brian Haynes is. Yeah. So, exciting.

Thank you. Thank you for all your work.

Okay. Now we will move to Kyle. Parks and Rec financial update and an ice rink update that's what i had

Hello. Hi. Good afternoon, evening. I don't usually get to ask you guys a question, but I'm going to start this with a question for council. What do playgrounds, a fitness class, a senior volleyball league, and a green tree festival have in common?

I don't know. You looked at Paul. Does it have to do with Paul? Those are all things Paul does.

Yeah.

No guesses, huh? All right. Well, these are all parks and recreation programs and activities and things that people enjoy in our community. However, they are not all funded the same way. And I've talked to the CFC about this for a long time, but I've never had the chance to talk to city council about this. And so I'm really excited to explain to you how the funding works and to the citizens how this works. So I'm going to use a couple graphics today. And the first one is one that you got in your handout. And basically, this outlines the three ways that Parks and Recreation is funded. It's a three-leg stool, if you will. There's the first one, and I'm going to try to use this pointer here. The Park Capital... Fund which is the 302 fund that's the half cent Parks and Recreation sales tax and that's controlled by Council The second one is the recreation 101 account that's where we collect fees and charges for the pool the ice rink camps programs sports, etc, and then there's the 201 fund which is the park account Which is controlled by the park board And that's mainly supported by a property tax and a transfer from the 302 fund. So as you can see, this just outlines how these three accounts work together. You take a look at the first part of this one here. The beginning fund balance, for example, in the 302 fund at the beginning of the year is $6,617,000. We have an estimated revenue, which includes that half-cent sales tax and some other items in there, like grants and payments from other cities for use of our facilities. And then we have a total. So you add those two amounts up, and that's our total. And then our expenses this year are right around $8,784,000, which include the major expenses for the ice rink renovation. That's why that's so high. And then there's going to be in that number also are the two transfers. One, $550,000 goes all the way over. And into the park fund and then you have a $604,000 transfer that is estimated to cover the operating loss for the recreation side. So recreation has always operated with a loss so that's that's a normal transfer that has taken place. And then on the. And then we'll move over to the recreation fund again. So again, we have estimated revenue of $3.6 million, and that is through fees and charges and programs that we offer. And then we don't have a fund balance there, so that's just what we take in, our expenses, and then our loss. And again, that loss is covered by the half-cent Parks and Recreation sales tax, okay? Then we move over to the parks. And again, we have a, that it's supported by property tax and that's about 1.4 million. And then you also have the addition of that $550,000. So our starting balance was 2.7. We're going to add in the revenue that we get, and then we're going to have a total here. And then we're going to have the expenses that we had planned for this year with an ending balance of two and a half million dollars. The thing that I need to bring to your attention is how this looks out into the future. And so I'm going to pull up the next document here. And Jessica is actually going to be able to help me, hopefully. We're going to try this out. We didn't get time to practice. But there's this Excel document that I'm going to share. And it's going to have a five-year projection of these two funds. Remember, recreation doesn't have a fund balance. The other ones do. So the top one here, is going to be, that's right. The top one here is the park fund. And the bottom one is the recreation, the half cent parks and recreation sales tax fund balance. And so we'll take this top one, for example. Right now there's a transfer that comes from that half cent parks and recreation sales tax that goes into this one. Along with the park capital that's used and i'm going to use i'm going to manipulate these numbers in a minute that show you how we can can kind of. work with these these fund balances over the next five years, but what I want to point out is that you can see right now we're in this year. and using the current numbers that we had projected over the next five years, you can see where our fund balance goes. to there. So from $2.5 million down to $1.7 million over five years. And that's using the current numbers that we had in for transfers and for capital projects. So the same thing is true for the half cent sales tax fund. This is where the $3.1 million a year comes in. and the ice rink project comes out of, and then the transfers that cover the loss and that transfer there. The recreation fund balance you can see here is also using the current projections or the current numbers. It's going down from 2.1 million to 1.9 million over five years. We have a couple of ways that we can deal with this. We can improve operating performance on the recreation side, whether that's improving our efficiency with expenses or increasing our fees and charges to help improve that. We can also invest our capital strategically on both the recreation side and the park side, so we can manipulate these numbers And we can align long-term revenue with long-term service expectations together with council and the park board. We can work on it together to find a way to make this work. One of the things I want to point out is that we can manipulate this now. I mean, this is just a projection using the current needs that we have. Obviously, we're going to have to adjust that. So if I could have Jessica help. If you were able to click on... For example, the park capital for 2028, and I'll click on it here for you. Can you see, yep, right there, that one. You can change that to $100,000. You were in it, yep. And then hit enter. All right, so you can see that helped year five. And because this would take a while to do, you can see that if we manipulate those numbers, we can maintain that fund balance. But what that ultimately does is that that defers some of the maintenance things that we're gonna have to do. So I just wanted to bring that to your attention. And you can see that even in year three, yeah, year three, 2029, I'm only budgeting $59,000 for park maintenance, capital improvements. So I just want to bring that to your attention that we're going to have to really work together to make this work. Does anybody have any questions?

No deferred maintenance. Deferred maintenance just costs us money down the road, long term.

Correct.

So that doesn't...

robin peter to pay paul and paul doesn't get it again okay just saying all right but we can i mean you guys can you know we can answer questions we can talk about it uh we can make it a point to do it at another work session i just wanted to bring this to your attention today does the half cent sales tax have a sunset no no sunset

Hey, Sheila.

So one of the questions for me, and I apologize for not remembering this, from KPAC, how does that fit into all of this?

Good question. So KPAC, could you go back to the other one, Jessica, please? So KPAC would fall under recreation expenses. So it would fall under this number right here.

That's the debt services, isn't it?

That's the total operating cost for the budget, the operations of KPAC. Now, I guess you were talking about where does the debt service get paid from? Yeah. The debt service gets paid from the 302 fund in those expenses. So it's coming out of this number also.

The deficit's coming out of the 302 fund also on the REC. So any operational losses in REC are coming out of the 302. Correct. Correct? Yep. So recreation losses... Is one of the areas and then servicing our debt on the other is two heavy burdens right now. Yes.

Yes.

Plus all the maintenance we need to do and specifically the pool.

Yep. That's another great point.

Yep. So the next big one is the pool and we clearly don't have a fund balance or a mechanism in order to do that.

Correct.

Correct. Yes.

One of the things that you shared with Citizen Finance Committee last fall is you feel that you are pretty premium at cost for various services that you've done comparisons across the area. We're higher than some municipalities in some categories and lower than some in some categories. But for the most part, you think we've hit a sweet spot on how much we can charge truly for the services, camps and lessons and all that you are currently charging.

Yeah, I think there's some room to manipulate those numbers to move it, but it's not going to move the needle much. Right. You know, we're not going to make a million dollars off of charging people for the pool.

That you've already fine-tuned a lot of that where you may have still a little bit more room. We're not talking about, as you just said, a million dollars of room in there.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

But we are, I mean, we're already getting ready to look at the pool fees for next year. So we will be bringing that to you as well soon.

Kyle, so the expenses for KPAC are in this $4 million, $4.2 million. Is that just KPAC? No, that's everything.

That's everything on the recreation side. So it goes administration, community center, ice rink, pool. I actually have the list. I don't know why I'm trying to remember it.

We do that.

Yeah. Community center, rink. pool camps, sports and general recreation programs, tennis, Green Tree Festival, Fourth of July, and Kirkwood Performing Arts Center. So those all fall under that $4.2 million expense in the middle column.

And the revenue includes the KPAC revenue?

Yes, that 3.6 million includes KPAC revenue. and all of those other ones I just mentioned. Yeah, right.

So Kyle, you alluded to us working together. Do you have ideas on that other than deferring maintenance? Because I agree with Paul, we should not use that as a mechanism to, so.

Well, like I said, we can improve operating performance. We can take a deeper dive into those fees and charges and really try to maximize both the revenue and the expenses. We can strategically use that money where we need it the most. We don't have to just willy-nilly say, oh, this might need it. We might have to really wait until it's absolutely needed. Yeah, those are my ideas right now. I mean, this is a really tough situation to be in. It is.

Yes. I don't even see how you can do that.

You also shared with me that your staff is already working at pretty good capacity. Was it three or four staff members that are pretty much responsible? Was it $2 million or $3 million in revenue just working out of the hood that you have at the community center?

Let's see. If you take into account just those... Let's see here. Yeah, we have a sports person, the ice rink person, the KPAC staff and the pool person. And they're generating, well, sorry, if I take KPAC out of that, those people. So you got rink, pool, camp, sports, tennis, green tree, 4th of July. We got about four people working on those things and they're generating $2.7 million a year already.

Your KPAC staff is three people?

Three people at KPAC. They work every weekend. They work almost every weekend, and they are generating roughly $800,000 a year.

And some of their revenue is restricted with when Stages is in that building, correct?

Their ability to generate revenue might be restricted a bit, but Stages is a good partner, and we're trying to work well with them.

They have a pretty strong contract as far as what they pay.

Yeah, there's a contract in place with them.

So I'm gonna ask a question you may or may not, I know Barry's not here and I don't know Darren if you'll know this. So when it comes to other funds that you loaned money to, does that change the equation if you were, so there was money to pay for Leffingwell?

That was my understanding. My understanding was that there was cash available in the 302 fund. And that was used, I guess, to leverage the ability to purchase the building. Along with along with a firetruck, a, the ice rink project, and the building, I think it was those three things in a certificates of participation around

So if that was paid, then you would have, that would change.

And there is a payment in that fund that's coming back to the 302 fund for that use of that cash.

But if all of that was paid back, that would change this equation.

Yes, yeah.

Like, if you had that available. Yeah, it would. It wasn't tied up as restricted. Right. Because that, to me, is probably one of the immediate ideas that I have of, like, how do we get that paid off? Because to free up the money into the park fund. Right. Because right now that's restricted and we can't use it. Right?

What's restricted?

The money that was used as leverage. Leveraged. Right? Right.

Oh, that it was used. Yeah, it's being transferred.

That'll come back.

It's coming back into that fund right now in a yearly payment over the next, I think, 20 years.

My point is, if we accelerated it, and it wasn't over 20 years, it was over two. Yeah, like we figured out how to pay that.

The fund balance would be better. Yes.

So then then that changes the equation that yes, right? Yeah.

So it would have to have a cookie drive or something like that to be able to do that.

I just want to make sure that we all understand one of the biggest restrictions on the PERC capital fund right now, 302, is the fact that we use $7 million to pay on left and left. And that is causing this in a way.

But it is coming back.

I know, but not fast enough to take care of the deferred maintenance.

That's my understanding.

That would be my question, Darren, that I think would be how in this whole equation as we talk about solutions and we find solutions to help us ensure we continue to invest in the number one thing that people talk about all the time, right? This is a big deal. Yeah. So, I mean... I just think it would behoove us if we were able to have that understanding of all of those moving pieces to make sure that we prioritize the park fund to get stronger. because that's very important to our citizens and clearly causing a lot of constraints that are unnecessary. The KPAC situation is the other one I would say I would love to explore. What are our opportunities to not only – are there opportunities to increase revenue in KPAC? And are there opportunities to – do some type of capital fundraising in order to pay that debt off on the that that also okay so like to me we've got a building that we have debt on that you're carrying and we need to figure out what are we going to do to potentially pay that off

And I think, if I'm not mistaken, that Liz Crabtree has started working towards that goal.

Yeah, I think she's working with some partners in town to see if that's a possibility. And there's already, I believe, some donations that have taken place. But it isn't necessarily for the debt service, though, but it is for reducing operating costs, which helps. reduce... It helps reduce that $604,000 loss, which in turn keeps more in the 302 fund.

It helps service the debt. To me, when I'm thinking about solutions, those are two solutions that come to mind immediately. There may be just because I'm new, I don't know all the other things that have gone on over the last two decades that may have put us where we are, but I think... this is an example where we've got to really make sure we're not deferring maintenance especially on a building that's fairly new that could bite us we have to be making sure that we're prepared to take care of all of those things yeah and that you know that's a good point because that also includes the swimming pool and the community center and the ice rink and the rhyme all of those things all of these things that have I mean, you did scare me to death on the pool, so I just want you to know I have nightmares.

And the rhyme. I mean, the rhyme. The rhyme, yeah. So.

Any other questions?

This was really helpful. I know Gina and Justin didn't get to see something. Yeah, Gina, do you have anything? Or Justin?

I do. Just to follow up on some of what Sheila was talking about. So, yeah. Kyle, so the $7 million in cash reserves out of the parks capital went to paying for a MRAZ Act. And then the parks to do the upgrades to the community center, you had to take out $13 million in debt on that to do the upgrades since you lost $7 million of cash over to the sale fund. So you're carrying that, plus you're carrying the debt on KPAC, correct?

I believe that is true. I would have to dig into that a little bit further with Mary to try to understand the exact amounts. But I think the total certificates of participation that round were around $13 million, if I remember correctly.

Is that the 24 series?

Yeah. Okay. I can look into that.

If you can follow up with Mary, cause my looking at this, you know, again, your cash reserves that might've gone towards your upgrade to, um, um, for the community center was used to buy a Moran sack. And then you had to take on additional debt to finish out your projects over there. So if, if you can just get some of that information, you don't need to answer it now, but, um, I think that's all part of the equation. as we've moved money around and debt around, to really understand what load you now have to kind of manage in your parks and rec area. And I know that's going to be paid over time, but over 20, 30 years, it doesn't help you now manage all the multitude of needs you have. So that would be helpful if you could just get clarity on that from Mary.

Okay. I'll do that.

Mayor, just one thing. Kyle, I'm sorry this is hard. It's hard to hear, so you may have already addressed this, but if you know, what year will that $7 million be paid back that went to the Leppingville project?

Did he ask what year?

What year will that be?

I think it's 20 years, yeah.

20 years out.

Did you hear that, Justin?

What year will that be?

Like 20 years plus out.

20 years.

2046, 2045.

Still a ways out from that being paid back. And my understanding was with interest, it's going to end up being about 11 million that goes back to you all?

Yes, I believe so.

Ouija number somewhere in there, yes.

The interest was 4.5% to 5% was what I was told. Similar to the COPs.

But he's paying interest on the debt that he had to take on as well. So it's a wash. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Any other questions? Kyle, thank you very much. Thanks, Kyle. Yeah, you're welcome. It's really helpful and a good project for us to look at on an annual basis. Yep, for sure.

Done your numbers, too. Thank you. And you guys do a great job over there.

Kyle, we didn't get the ice cream. Do you want an ice cream update?

No.

Yeah, don't leave. More good news. Good news. Better news.

Could you give us good news?

All right. So I did send you all an email just kind of giving you an update on the ice rink project. And I just wanted to run that past you here. I had notes somewhere. They are. So we're wrapping up the construction portion of the ice ring project. We do have a couple outstanding change orders that happened at the last minute because I knew there were some funds available for upgrades to the sound system and to some doors that had been bent for a very long time. So we're kind of waiting on those to get done. But it looks like we're going to end that project, the construction portion of that project. So we're excluding design, we're excluding owner's rep, and we're excluding some of the ancillary things like material testing. But we're going to end around $5.277 million. And you had approved a budget with contingency of $5,543,000. And it did open on time on August 1st.

Congratulations. That's great. Great oversight. Wonderful. Wonderful.

Anything else? All right. Thank you.

Okay. Now we are going to go into an idea of Council Member Lavender's about the possibility of adding some parking on Kirkwood Road. And I believe Chris is going to come up and talk about that.

Good evening. So, yeah, what I've been tasked to do is, I guess, look at additional places on Kirkwood road, um, for additional parking. Um, and so just want to make the council aware, um, especially the new members of city council, uh, that we do have, uh, two projects that are upcoming on Kirkwood road that would add parking, um, and locations, um, specifically the North Kirkwood Road project that is at a full design, but we're kind of stalled in the funding portion of it, but it is planned to add place.

Chris, could you move the microphone just a bit closer so that we're sure Justin and Gina are hearing you?

Yes, I can do that. Is that better?

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Um, so yeah, the North Kirkwood road project is planned to add 21 spots. Um, and the South Kirkwood road project is planned to add an additional 37 spots. Um, and so these are in conjunction with road diet, um, on Kirkwood road, road, diet projects. on Kirkwood road that changed to the section of the roadway from a four lane section down to a three lane section, which is two, two through lanes and a two way left turn lane. And so looking at, you know, what, what our current conditions are, and possibly doing some of this ahead of time. There are locations that we have identified where we can do it, but there's other locations where you have left turns into businesses such as Walgreens or Global Foods or going into the Alpine shop. If you would be putting parking in those locations. It forces all the traffic into the left turn a left through lane. And then that left vehicle trying to make a left would back up traffic. So it's not recommended to put additional parking where you've got entrances off of Kirkwood Road.

So the North Kirkwood Road project, we don't have the funding for that currently, correct?

So as of right now, we do not. We are going to be reapplying for that, but we've got shovel-ready plans to reapply for starting February of 2027.

And just so everybody knows that we did get that, we went out to bid, and I think we had one person actually...

We had two bidders on both, but the two times that we went out to bid, it was the same two bidders, and both of those bid opportunities was a million dollars over what we had thought it was going to be bid, or what we thought it was going to cost.

Yeah, and my guess is they're all out on Highway 70, and for them to get little Kirkwood interested, and they just said, sure, we'll do it, but you're going to pay through the nose, so...

Yep, there is a lot of other work going on that MoDOT has a lot of work going on. So we would have been paying for it.

So then, and what about the South Kirkwood Road project?

So the status of the South Kirkwood Road project, we finished design. We've acquired all the parcels that is needed for the project. And we're almost ready to go out to bid for that. We're getting final comments from MoDOT and anticipate to go out to bid within the next month.

Do you think the same thing will happen?

You know, we've looked at it. We've reviewed our cost estimates, and we believe that this one is a little bit different and does have some less scope to it. It's not as long. So we do anticipate it, you know,

i don't have the magic ball of what how it's going to come in but um i surely hope it would come within the budget so i guess what we're talking about this evening would be kind of a temporary temporarily being able to add some parking until such time as these projects are ready to go underway

Yeah, so looking at what we could do is to, for the South Crooked Road project, we've identified some spaces that we could have a jumpstart to include those spaces that does not affect left turn movements. So we could look at that at the direction of council.

And then same with North Kirkwood Road, like from Adams to Washington.

For the North Kirkwood Road, there are not any spaces that is available, any additional spaces that I could add and not affect traffic. So you have, so between Adams and Washington and, I have two entrances to a bank and to, I think there's an orthodontist there or a doctor's office, I'm sorry. And so there's, and so those two entrances, if I take out, one lane of traffic there that does affect traffic quite a bit there. And then going north is the entrances to both Global Foods and Walgreens. So really on the north of Adams, there's no place to put it unless we do the full implementation of the road diet.

How many spaces did you say you could pick up on the south side, the temporary ones?

So what I'm recommending for the south side, we can put 23 spaces in, and that is from Argonne to Monroe. And so those include 10 spaces in front of City Hall, and then 13 spaces on the east side between Monroe and Madison. So in front of the station Plaza Condos, where there's not currently any parking there, and you do have some, quite a bit of storefront there, and they may benefit from the on-street parking.

Yeah, they probably would. Okay, Paul, you have to.

I got my questions answered, thank you.

And I would, and thank you for this. I sat late winter when we had a parking discussion and everybody's clamoring for downtown parking and it just occurred to me that parking more on Kirkwood Road would be possible. I understand left-hand turns. We don't want to mess with that. You've got right-hand turns at lights and corners. You've got quite a bit of that. There's some parking in front of Honeypot, I believe, It doesn't go all the way up to Whiskers. And so I would still have some questions that if we could add two or three or four between Argonne and Washington, but I think that takes your skill expertise as well as the SCIT committee to really walk through and look at those. appreciating left-hand turns right-hand turns there's a bus stop between Adams and Washington as well as gas stations and all of that but to look and see I would think our downtown business people would be happy with 21 more spots 22 more spots 24 more spots and especially in front of City Hall Station Plaza I appreciate that you've got more spots coming with the South Kirkwood project, but if you're gonna go bid it in two months, we're still talking four or five years before that's reality.

No, we're within a year. That could be-

within a year.

If the numbers come in to the budget, he can go ahead and get that project sooner. The one on the north, yes.

But he could right now add 23 spaces.

And where they may be temporary, I also think it sounds like they fit into the South Kirkwood project. And that's where if North projects longer, and I I don't think there's a way we could temporarily set up your road diet, which is three lanes and then a parking lane on the east side of the street. Was that the anticipated result?

It depends on where you are on Kirkwood Road.

All right. I think the road diet is part of what the overall picture for Safe Streets is to see if we can reduce traffic. Would that reduce the noise corridor for our motorcycles and hot rods that enjoy driving quickly through downtown Kirkwood? And so I would hope, Mayor, you would consider maybe putting a special committee together, temporary, certainly with the SCIT people involved and maybe a council member, too, to make sure that any new spots certainly Chris being the expert in his area would have an idea but to be inclusive to make sure we add I'm going to say as many spots as possible inside of parameters that work for traffic in downtown

Yes. One of the things that I've noted is a lack of handicap parking, especially on the street along Kirkwood. And I would ask us to think about Is that really part of the solution with our parking concerns that having more handicapped parking designated near our businesses, would that actually help our citizens who can't walk from the parking lots that are farther away? So I would ask us to put some thought around that because being more inclusive in order of parking to make sure it's accessible would be, in my view, something we should take advantage of looking at and making sure people who were trying to go to dinner are trying to go somewhere and do something that they had the ability to get the closer spot than me who needs to walk the three blocks because I need to walk the three blocks. I would ask for us to consider that.

We can take that in consideration. Thank you. Yeah.

Can I ask for one more? Monroe, I understand it's a private street between Kirkwood Road and Taylor?

Madison.

Madison. Yes. It's a private street owned by Station Plaza? Yes. And I don't know if we might be able to include them in some of this conversation. One of the thoughts I've always had is the front spots of Station Plaza, we have striped parking that I could probably park two of my cars in each one of those locations. And I don't know if perhaps asking if they would consider removing the stripes and let people park appropriately, parallel parking in that location might still add another one to three spots, depending on which cars are there. If everybody parks in their spot, you truly... are very limited space-wise. You've got no trouble pulling in or pulling out, so no parallel parking skills required. But that may be a way to add some additional spots to, which, of course, would require a conversation with Station Plaza. But maybe that could be considered also. Yeah.

Okay. So Chris, do you, I think we're just talking about South Kirkwood Road now that North really can't be done right now because of the egresses.

Because there's so many egresses there.

That can't be done right now. So we're talking about looking at South Kirkwood Road, adding parking spaces there. And do we need SCIT and you and some council members to come together on this then?

I would say we can add it to the next SCIT agenda.

Okay.

And then if the council member wants to be there, Paul's there. It's always there. It's all good.

Lavender could be there as well.

Right. Because I'm going to push for some north too. He may come back and say no.

I just want to clarify, do you mean honeybees? When you said honeypot.

Oh, I said honeypot. Yeah, honeybees.

And whiskers, whiskers variation.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And of course, with their, you know, not messing with traffic for the left-hand turns, but I think there's still maybe room for two to five more spots up in those areas. Maybe so. Okay.

I would just want to make sure we understood the funding needed to do that.

Oh, I don't think we...

So really what we're talking about as far as funding, it would be a change of signage, which we could do in-house with our street department. And then currently we don't have striped spaces on Kirkwood Road. I would recommend that we stripe spaces on Kirkwood Road because currently between Argonne and Adams, those parking spaces aren't striped. So it's very confusing for drivers. So we can also do that striping in-house. And so It's very, pretty low costs. And also going forward to implement this, we would have to pass an ordinance to amend the no parking areas currently.

Yeah. Thank you for clarifying that for me. Appreciate it.

Sounds good. So you'll get it on the next committee agenda. Very good. Any other questions? Justin?

Dina? No, I'm fine. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Very good. Thank you. All right. With that, we are going to go into closed session. May I have a motion?

Motion. Motion. Second.

Okay. Very good. And we will be moving downstairs.

first and then we'll go downstairs sorry mayor gibbons here councilmember arnold oh sorry i apologize councilmember arnold and councilmember jack sedek are not able to participate in a roll call vote so i'll skip that councilmember burkett yes councilmember lavender yes