Board of Aldermen - Regular Meeting

Everyone rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Roll call, Pam.

Mayor Kine. Alderman Steiger?

Here.

Alderman Prince?

Yeah, yeah, here.

Alderman Ross?

Here.

Alderman Eidman? Yeah. Alderman Donovan?

Here.

Alderman Fahey?

Here.

Alderman Dobbs? Here. Alderman Buey?

Here. It's another $5.25.

We have a quorum.

We have a quorum.

Thank you. Entertain a motion for approval of the agenda?

Motion to approve.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Move on to presentations and award and I don't think we have any presentations and awards. Personal appearances, I don't think we have any for personal appearances. And we'll move on to a city administrators report. I'll just interrupt you. Mayor Kime is not here tonight, if you guys haven't noticed. So I'm filling in as president of the board. I'm filling in for Mayor Pro Tem. So you're stuck with me again today.

Sorry, Dave, go ahead. No, that's right. Good evening, everyone. You have my report in front of you. I do want to go through a few of those. The budget's sitting in front of you, so you'll each have a budget book at your seat. It does have a few minor changes, but they don't affect any of the ending numbers. We had planned to receive $150,000 in the additional Prop S bond sales and FY27 in the spreadsheet that I provided you previously, but those bonds obviously sold quickly, so they were deposited this year, so that's moved from next year to this year. And then instead of transferring $50,000 out of debt service for the potential splash pad, we just budgeted to direct expense $50,000 to the debt service fund, which is where the capital improvement sales tax revenue goes. If you have any questions on that, it doesn't change the numbers for parks. It doesn't change the numbers for general revenue. It's just a change of coding for one and then a shift of revenue from one year to the other. McBride has shared that the grand opening event is planned for October 24th. I don't have any details like time of day or exactly where on the property, but I did want to give you that date so that you can put it in your calendar. If you've driven by, they have started moving some, I'm going to say significant amounts of dirt, not across the entire property, but mostly on the south side of Near Progress Parkway. Jokers began work on Oakwood Street last week. They actually have the entire water main ran. They'll work on service line installations next week, probably into the following week. They'll do a hot tap and then they'll switch the line over to the new water line. I would imagine their subcontractor bales will come in the week after that, so probably the last full week of September to get the street laid and be done end of September, first week, second week of October.

Bowman's... Who's the subcontractor?

Bales.

Oh, okay.

Bowman's will be back in town to begin work on the remaining asphalt street repairs at the end of this month, so around September 28th. They may be back slightly a few days before that prior week to do some street cuts, things like that. But the end of this week, beginning of, I'm sorry, end of this month, beginning of October, I've actually posted a schedule on the city website on Monday. So some of that will carry into November. There's a couple of complete street rebuilds. LaCroix is one. and Sycamore. I'm going to skip down to number seven. I just wanted to inform you Valley Catholic turned in an application for permission to discharge fireworks within the city limits for their homecoming. They provided a certificate of insurance with the city listed as additionally insured and a letter of approval from the St. Genevieve Fire District. The police department has also approved of the event. This will be their homecoming event. It would be October 1st. 14th or if they have a weather event the 15th. I just wanted to notify you because we don't typically allow that within the city. When we do, they seek permission and they have done that unless you have any qualms with that.

We just did that for the 250th for the militia down at the Trudefett property, so...

There were some concerns with that, because there are fireworks and there are fireworks. Do we have any limitations on the style, the height, the depth, if they're projectiles? There were concerns with the militia and the kind of fireworks that were going off in that park.

There were.

And so do we have any control over that or is this whatever the event puts together?

What we have is that they, not unlike the 250th anniversary celebration, the Valley Catholic provided a certificate of insurance with the city listed as additionally insured. The fire department will be present, but we don't have any restraints on length, height, number of rockets or whatever they're firing. This is at the athletic field? It'll be somewhere near there. I don't know exactly where it is.

No, on the football field on Missouri. They've had it the last couple years.

Right. Okay. Down to number eight, the right-of-way and temporary construction easement offer letters were sent to the property owners along South 4th for the TAP grant this week. So I just wanted to put that in there in case any of you get any phone calls or questions. There is a contact information or contact individual and then information listed on the letter that they got. It's a pretty lengthy packet. It has the offer letter. If they want to donate instead of get paid, there's a donation letter. There's images of what's going to be either temporary construction or right-of-way. It's eight temporary construction easements and one right-of-way purchase. And the right-of-way purchase is fairly small. And then I just want to remind you I'll be out of the office beginning next Wednesday through the following Tuesday. My youngest daughter is getting married.

Congratulations. Thank you. My daughter is getting married.

Any questions? Dave, do we have an upgrade on our water? plant repairs and stuff. I know you had said the last meeting you were revising the contract and any update on that?

So I worked with Mark on that, Mr. Bishop, and They are still adapting their contract to what we need. There was no warranty included. There was no real scope of work. It listed it, but it didn't have details. So it had a little bit of a high penalty for not paying the bill. I mean, we're going to pay the bills, but just in case. So they are making all those adjustments. He promises me that he'll have me that contract by the 24th.

They also mentioned in there, in one part, they said there would be disinfection going on. And then in the end of the contract, they said no disinfection would be included in the contract.

It had some strange... It also had a part in there that said we would, if there was extra travel involved, that we would pay for any food, travel, and entertainment. So I said, that needs to be taken out. So they're working on it. They promised to get it to us by the 24th. They have told us the price will remain the same. So there's a subcontractor who does the steel, the roof, and then they do the work. They have commitments that those prices will remain through the end of this month. And so I will bring it to you on it. The 24th.

Yeah, I'm just concerned with as dry as it is and the amount of water we've got to be pumping a lot of water out of there and that plant going online 24-7. You know, it's a little bit of a concern.

When that work happens. Pardon me? It'll be 24-7 when that, is that what you're talking about? Yes. When we take the on-site tank. Taking offline, right.

Speaking of that, the water plant in the house that was recently destroyed, um, I saw lots of comments about that. Was the city in the proper position of a historic house being destroyed?

That house was outside the historic district. So it had no historic value? Not according to the surveys that were done that went into determining the National Register Historic District. It's listed as no historic value.

Really?

appeared to be just a conventionally framed I mean it is certainly an older house probably built in the 40s but it is not within the National Register of Historic District and unlike many of the homes down here is not listed individually on the National Register

It was also pretty termite infested. So there's another concern that anybody that was going to try to salvage pieces from it could be potentially taking termites back to their domicile. So something else to be thinking about. So I think the city was well prepared and well researched and made sure we did everything that we could properly as best we could.

I did have one individual call and ask if the city tore it down. I just want to clarify, we did not tear it down, though we did ask for it to be teared down before we purchased it. And was it permitted? Yes. Like any demolition, it was permitted.

In our demolition permits and stuff, I know one of the things I got a couple calls about was the dust. pretty measurable down there. Of course, what was airborne in it? Do we have any requirements? I mean, in most houses, you have to be spraying them down when you take them down and stuff, but do we require that?

I don't know that it's necessarily required. Robert, would you?

It all depends on situational. Definitely, if there's asbestos-containing materials, that's part of the asbestos removal requirement. when we did receive the complaints about dust and debris.

that location we went down and visited with them and actually got them water to spray that down and take care of that situation so I think it's something we need to look at in the future of requiring you know something to do that because that was a pretty big dust cloud there a couple times when that thing came crashing down it was you couldn't see through Market Street that's Not much worse than the truck entrance just right up the road, though. That's a problem there, too.

Anything else for city administrator? Okay, move on to staff reports. Robert Sullivan, our assistant CA.

Good evening, Alderwoman and Alderman. Before you unite is my report for August. We'll start with Historic Preservation and Heritage Commission. We actually had an oddity. We had two meetings that month. We had a special meeting to address a home that was destroyed by a fire in Washington Street. We're trying to get that gentleman a place to live back there on his property as soon as possible. So we had a special meeting for that and that was approved. So he'll be able to build his house back there. The one held before that was also related to new homes on South Main Street. That's still in process with the Commission, so they'll be meeting again this month and discussing those two homes. And then there was a request for a vinyl window replacement on North 4th Street. That's also still in process with the Commission until that person can be at one of the Commission meetings. As far as permits, we've issued quite a few permits this month. You can see the totals there. So that's a good sign. It's always a good sign to see permits coming out. That means there's things happening in our community. Planning and zoning, we had a meeting about approving a special use permit for an Airbnb or a guest lodging establishment at 6 Herzog Lane. So that was approved. So that will be coming before you all on the 24th. Also, Progress Point Subdivision Platte for McBride will be coming to you all for approval on the 24th as well and a public hearing for those. Board of Adjustment, no meeting during the month of August. However, I think we will have one in September. It will be the first one I've had here since I've been employed here. So you know, we'll let you know the results of that if we do end up having one of those. Floodplain, obviously it's been pretty dry up until last night and today, but even with that rain, flood stage really hasn't changed. By the 20th of this month, it's expected to be flood stage is one foot, so it's down quite a bit. Ferries continue to run as normal. Property maintenance. These numbers have probably doubled since I typed this. We've had a lot of issues come about and that's fine. We're dealing with all those with the assistance from the police department and we provide the same assistance to them. We're handling those on a case by case basis as they come in. And I'll go in my other report here in just a minute that you have in front of you as well. additional items, several meetings this month. A lot of them having to do with the new subdivision and McBride over several things. And as the administrator mentioned, they are working out there diligently getting the land prepared. So they're going hot and heavy with that and doing a great job out there. And you mentioned Dust, Alderman Donovan, you mentioned dust. They have a water truck out there in which if it starts getting dusty out there, they have a water truck on site with its staff where they're spraying that down with the dust. So they're well aware of the situation when it comes to that on their site. If there's no other questions for that, I'll go on to the nuisance property list in front of you. The highlighted portions are the newest items. So the first one there, the property on South A Street, there's a possible sale of that property. So with that being said, I'm kind of halting all the actions right now until I'm going to give them until October 1st to see if that sale goes through. If that doesn't happen, it'll be before you all at the next meeting to decide how you wish to proceed with that action. So that would be picking back up on the dangerous building notification. uh the house at market street both of those there that are next to each other one was damaged by the fire the other one is just deteriorated really knows no change in that it's still the office or offer to purchase the property's been accepted and the new owner plans to uh to take care of those and demo those following all of our demo requirements some of that was mentioned earlier with historic houses and things like that which are checked and verified when somebody applies for a demo permit that's one of our first steps is to just make sure that it's not in the historic district if it is it's got to go before the commission before anything can be done the foreclosure property on Market Street. Really no change there. Haven't heard, been able to contact anybody really on it. So now I'm going to get a certified letter out to the lending institution that's listed on the foreclosure next week to try and get a response from them and hopefully get something settled there so that we can quit mowing the property. Nothing wrong with the house, at least exterior. I haven't been inside. But Hopefully we can get that resolved so we can quit mowing it. We don't need to keep mowing it. Main Street. They're taking care of that on a roof issue, so they'll get that addressed. The burnout on Walnut Drive, we spoke with ServPro, actually talked to them again today to get some verification. And just to let you guys know why that's taking so long, ServPro informed us that they are having to do basically a piece-by-piece search of that property. They've got to identify every little piece of material in that property. for insurance purposes. It's something that the insurance company is having them do for whatever reason. So it's taken, they're still in the garage. So it's taken a significant time to make that happen. Kind of not used to that, but it is what it is. They are, they have it taped off and they will, once they get the garage gone, they're going to, you know, garage won't be there. So we don't have to worry about the garage falling and then the house will be secured. until they can rebuild the house. But the garage is going to go away and that'll probably be built back new when they go back to that. Property on Maple Drive that's currently listed is not available for occupancy. Just to let you know, the water is off of there at that location. It's been locked to prevent somebody from turning it back on. There's been several reports that the people are probably living there. We've been unable to prove that uh apparently it's a lot of times seen there on the weekends but just let everybody know they are working we we actually talked to the owner today they are working there on the weekends we did let them know though you can't stay there but you can work there So they're working on the property, and we're going to continue to keep an eye on that to make sure that they're not doing something they're not supposed to. So I would like to ask, though, if we know of places like that where things are going on, especially if it's the weekend or when you see it happening, and contact me anytime. But if it's during my hours and I'm here, contact me. If not, get a hold of the police department so they can go up while the action's taking place. It's a whole lot better for us to deal with it while they're there on any situation than it is the next week. Sometimes those things aren't present anymore, and it's hard for us to do something about it after the fact. So if we can get help doing that, and that's for everybody out there, don't feel like you're complaining. It's just helping us help the situation. Um, then we got one on on lay. Hey, the property did sell if you move by their property looks a lot better exterior than it did. So they're well on their way to get that one back to being occupied. Um, and that's all I have. If anybody has any questions.

You said that these properties, there's no historical value in any of these?

No, there is a couple listed in there that there are. One of them specifically on the roof is downtown. But the ones that are going to be tore down, there's some historic there that they're going to have to go through the commission if they want to tear those down. well people have an opportunity to maybe go in or that that's up to the owner you don't want them in there right well i can't you know i can't prevent somebody from saying hey you know we're going to tear let's say the commission approves to tear it down because they got to approve to tear it down so if they get approval to tear it down and they want to let somebody come and get materials from there, that's up to them. The city's not going to prevent that from happening if the owner so chooses to allow somebody to do that.

We're also not going to force the owners to do that either.

That's correct, yeah. So recycle if you can recycle it. We're all for that, but we're not here to force somebody to do that.

Robert, you're talking about the house on 8th, not the two on Market, correct?

That's correct, yeah. The house on 8th Street is the one that's actually historic. But again, all those are checked when they get permitted to be for any work to be done or demolish. That stuff is checked to make sure that somebody's not doing work in a historic district and that's effective without going through the proper procedure. Thank you.

Thanks, Robert. Next up, Tourism Director Aaron Smith.

Hey, everyone. Got some pretty exciting news. We have had two videos on our social media over the past three weeks that have gone over a million views. One of them has close to 60,000 likes. These were produced in-house by our content producer, Neve Johnson, so huge value in that. I mean, for, you know... what we employ need for, uh, to be able to do something like that in house and to be able to replicate it. So, you know, she posted one, we get a million views. The next one we get a million views. We're at 400,000 with the real, she posted, uh, this week. Um, and we're getting followers kind of hand over fist. Uh, I have a, a goal to reach 20,000 followers on Instagram by 2029. This is kind of communicated that to her. And, uh, Something kicked in. She cracked the code. So just over the past three weeks, we've gotten 4,600 new followers across Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. And it's all based on our history, and people are really interested in the way that we're kind of putting that out there. So I'm very excited about that. On November 7th and November 14th, we are going to roll out – Trolley rides that will kind of run all day on a loop between downtown the Dew Drop Inn and then from Dew Drop Inn to Chateau St. Gen to the Terrace Winery and then back. We're hoping that'll help circulate people from downtown out to the county wineries and then people who are out in the county staying specifically at the postcard cabins out there, which that's our biggest county lodging entity, to circulate those folks into downtown. This is something that we're going to do with the transient tax money that we're administering for the county. And in that... I've had some conversations with the manager at Postcard Cabins. They're going to be a great partner for us because their branding is very aligned with our new brand, and I think that's going to pay dividends. So we've got a lot of entities working together between the county and the city now, and that's also very exciting.

Is this going to be a free service?

No, we're going to charge for it.

You have to buy a ticket?

You have to buy a ticket, so every time you step on, it'll be $5, or you can buy a $25 wristband for all day passes.

Are you talking about subsidy, though, that will not cover the cost?

So... So the transient tax money is going to be used to subsidize it. Basically, we're going to pay the trolley a flat rate to run on those days. We have enough funding allocated to run for only 10 weekends, 10 Saturdays. So whatever we make on top of that will help us continue to run it for longer. So we're going to start in spring and then hopefully be able to continue that through the fall.

So our measures of success will be what?

Ridership? Yeah, I would say, you know, if we can extend, let's say, I would say even for the first year, if we could extend it five weekends, I think that would be a good measure of success.

So what if it was mostly St. Genevieve people spending all their time outside of town? We're all for it.

Spending their time outside of town?

Yeah, they get on the trolley and they want to go out along my road to those different vineyards.

Well, I think there's a couple ways to look at this, right? Yes, we're doing it as a tourism service, but again, it's a service as well. So if it's something that's used by our county residents and it benefits their quality of life and they enjoy it, I think that's a huge win too. I'm hoping, you know, just kind of testing from what the postcard cabins is talking about, that their ridership, their membership, the people that go out there are very excited about this opportunity. So we also would like this to be, people can park at the Dew Drop Inn, people can park at the Terrace, and also use this to get into town. So people, hopefully from the county, will be using this to circulate to downtown as well.

That's what I think as a city council that we should be most concerned about is how many people are coming into town, not that we're subsidizing people to go out.

Well, this will be paid for with...

Still being subsidized. It doesn't cover the cost. Remember, the subsidy is also part of the transient tax that is a county tax.

Yeah. I would like to see that, how that breaks down and comes in, as who's paying it, what percentage comes from the county, versus what percentage of that tax comes from the city, and how much of those resources are sent to send people back into the county. I think there should be, we should just watch which way the flow is going.

I agree, and I understand the concern there, but generally speaking, you know, when something is just a, you know, provides some sort of popular thing for people to do and gives them some mobility, I think it'll be a net gain. I mean, that's, but we'll take, we'll,

getting that uh information i'll try to put some measurements on on all of that make sure that we're paying attention to all that we have any mechanism to kind of see what the ridership is going to look like do we have a way to track Sure.

Well, I think this will mostly be, like, we're going to be running the tickets, you know, so that's another fun part of it. But it also gives us a data point, right? So who's buying it, where are they from, capturing emails for our email marketing, that sort of thing. So there's a lot of great things that will come of this through that. But, yeah, we'll definitely be able to track where people are from and how they're How they're using it, that'll be a little bit more tricky. Right now we're just trying to make sure that we can put a good product out there, you know, and then figuring out, you know, I don't know if it'll be more anecdotal or if we can get some sort of, you know, what I'd like to see and what I think would be useful for people. We're going to try to run this through the app. that we have for the city as well. You know, is there a thing with Visit Widget where you can see where the trolley is in real time, that sort of thing? And with that same sort of technology, I feel like we can see, are we getting more people coming from the counties into downtown? Is it a wash? Is it a net loss for the city? So we'll try to figure that out.

Are there any ideas? go ahead i too you know kind of concerned about you know taking people out of town uh i mean are we gonna these different venues we're going to in the county will there be information available to people out there to see that this trolley is available to come back into town not just yeah absolutely so i think what's what's great so what uh what's been and i guess i haven't didn't talk about this with postcard cabins but um

you know they're really much they're pretty much booked up for the weekend they have 40 of these um cabin units um and they're booked out from friday to sunday they're looking but you know this is a marriott owned um deal so they're also looking at uh you know i met with uh their group coordinator So they're looking at how do we get people midweek? How do we, um, you know, they don't have the facilities there that they want to take corporate groups, but they don't have like the indoor facilities. So they went and met with, uh, some people in our downtown, uh, earlier this week on Tuesday of, you know, what are the facilities like downtown that we can get corporate groups to rent out? So they're really looking at a bunch of different things. But one of the main things is this is going to be like an add-on to their rooms. So, you know, when you book with them, here's the trolley package. This is where it goes. So, again, I think there's – Wage for that. With our other entities, Chateau Saint-Jean might be able to do the same thing, but I know for a fact postcard cabins, that's where people are going to be staying overnight. So, yeah, I do see where they're going to be able to kind of help us market this as well.

I do want to point out this ran through the TTC, the Tourism Tax Commission, so that they approved these routes and had a committee, and that you can get on anywhere, but it starts here in town. So you can get on Sarah's Garden, go out to, help me here.

Dew Drop.

Dew Drop, and then you go on if you want. And then when you come back, which the latest would be 630, you're dropped off in town. And one of the goals was to bring folks back so they could have a meal, something like that.

I was going to say, I feel like I have handles on them. Numbers. So numbers, looking at that. Yeah. I'm all in favor of subsidizing the Marriott Corporation, but I think we have to make sure we get something back in return.

I just wanted to reiterate that it's city-focused and county-focused.

Right, yeah. Exactly. No, I'm not, yeah.

It was my understanding that the spots you pick are pick-up and drop-off spots. So that just means the trolley is going to go from here to Dew Drop and then to the next pick-up place?

No, so one trolley is going to run on a loop between downtown and Dew Drop. So you have basically like a 45-minute loop. And then the other one's going to go from dew drop, pick up a dew drop, and then take people out as far as Terrace Winery and run on a loop. That would be more like 50 minutes, 55 minutes on a loop there.

So why did we pick dew drop?

Just because, so we did, we ran a, so I had a committee get together and we ran a bunch of different possibilities, possible routes. And We tried to connect every county entity that we could, and it just makes for, one, if we did... This was the only way that made it, one, fast enough, quick enough service to where I don't think we're going to lose people, but also you run the risk when you have... a longer route, um, one to have people stranded at a place for a long time. And, uh, the way we were doing it, um, it limited the amount of people that we could have, you know, pretty much, you know, you have a 25 person capacity on each bus. We got to a point where it's like, well, we can only sell 50 tickets if we did it in most of these scenarios. Uh, because, uh, these people are going to get stranded at one location and another. So, you know, the last bus comes in to pick up 25 people and there's 35 people at this one location. Well, you know, let's take the 25 and then have to run back out to some far flung area at Charlottesville or something like that. And, you know, you've got basically an hour round trip. So we want to make this as easy as possible. have unlimited tickets so that we can, you know, not recoup, but be able to do this, you know, extend it beyond the 10 weekends. And so, yeah, I mean, it was a pretty tough process trying to figure this out.

We went through a lot on this. I mean, looking at how much ridership we can have, how many amenities that you can get to, the geography, how many trolleys we had available. Yeah. So this is just a trial run. We think we made the very best choices that we could. There was 16 other different options that we could have, but we felt like this was the best one to kind of keep this moving and to try it for this year to kind of get it going.

So there was a lot of thought put into this, and I think... That's the first time I've heard of this, and I know you guys worked hard to get here, but with questions like postcard cabins, you said there's 48 units?

Well, it's not just to serve that, you know, like I was saying. It's just a great amenity that we can add for those folks because, you know, basically what people are doing out there, you know, and what I love about this area and what we're trying to promote is... you know, not using their car, being able to go from winery to a winery, and then come downtown and have this nice walkable experience downtown. So really, it'd be nice if people, you know, not just, yes, in our downtown, can come and park their cars and not use their car for the whole weekend, but... I also think we can do that for some other entities out in the county. And people can park at Terrace and get at the Terrace and come into downtown. People can park at Dew Drop and come into downtown. So again, I think that it just wanted to show that there's not just one point of entry. You don't have to just park downtown to get out. But I think it's also going to bring people from the county into town.

If I'm on the postcard with my family, the wife and I and two kids, when they come downtown, we have a 20-box, right?

25. If you want to get the wristband to ride all day. But yeah, it'd probably be like $20. $20 for the van.

You got $20 to get back. Mm-hmm. Every time you get off, you got $10 on the file.

Mm-hmm. Unless you get the wristband all day.

Yeah. And I mean, you pick those points as basically as a point where they might spend some money. You know, that's what it seems like, and that's what we want them to do.

Well, yeah, I mean, I guess we, of course we want to, they're strategic points, first of all, you know, we're trying to connect as many points as quickly as possible. But yes, I think, I don't know, it provides some variety to their stay. I can see how you get here. You walk around, you can get landlocked for a little bit. But if you have the ability to jump on a trolley for a few hours and then come back downtown and eat and stuff like that, it just makes for a fuller trip. And I think it will extend stays as well. So maybe somebody will do all of the trolley riding on Saturday and then on Sunday they walk around and shop downtown.

This is a great success. I would point out the biggest county lodging entity which wants to brand itself and get aligned with St. Genevieve calls itself the Postcard Cabin's Safe Plan Swap.

They're aligned with another county by their name. They're going to change it to St. Genevieve. It was a different company beforehand. It was a getaway. um, for a while. And they started under like a completely different premise. And then Marriott bought them this year. Um, and that's, I couldn't even, I've been trying to make contact with them this entire time that I've been here. And, uh, when they were the getaways. So the idea was, um, You didn't even know where it was when it was the getaway. It was called the St. Louis property. And basically you would book it based on the photos, but you wouldn't get the address to this place until you basically landed the day of. And then you had to rent your car and drive out. So it was really about having this unique experience that was about just keeping people at the getaway. Now that it's Marriott, they're really expanding it to, you know, now they have basically a community liaison who is...

I'm going to ask you, can we carry this over to the work session if we have some more questions for Aaron? I want more questions to be asked, but we have a lot more to get to on our agenda. So can we carry this over maybe to the work session and ask some more questions on Aaron?

Sounds good.

Anything else you've got on your report, Aaron, that you want to...

No, we can spend, I could carry something over next month if need be. Well, okay, let me just go through the rest of it real quick. I did re-put my rake method piece in there so you guys could kind of keep familiar with that. I think that's a really easy way to break down how I'm approaching building out the tourism infrastructure. One of those things for 2027 that I'm Adding as a point to that rake, as a time to that rake, is branded merchandise. There's a reason why every city or every big tourism outpost in the world has branded merchandise. It's because you get brand ambassadors for that. You get people walking around. It's like a walking billboard. I've been working with Lemon Theory. I've also asked a couple of other vendors to help me build out this catalog. Basically, not only do we want to sell it at the Welcome Center, possibly at the Antique Mall, but through ourselves and online, through an online shop, we'd like to give our customers Merchants a chance to buy it as well. So what we want to do is build this catalog this wholesale catalog that people can you know pick and choose from and what we would probably do is lock them into a Contract where they would have to sell it at a certain price point so that we didn't have a bunch of different price points going along but

Thank you, Aaron. I'm glad one of my ideas caught on. Thank you. No more staff reports. We'll move to public comments. So if there's anyone here that would like to make a couple of public comments, come forward. State your name and your address in one of the five minutes. Moving on to consent agenda.

Motion to approve.

Second. All in favor of approving the consent agenda? Aye. Opposed? Mission passes. On to old business. Bill number 4736, an ordinance providing for the annexation of certain real estate owned by Debra K. Downey and James R. Hendrickson into the city of St. Genevieve's existing corporate limits. Second reading.

Motion to approve. Second.

Motion... To any opposed, or I'm sorry, it's a second reading. So Pam, can we do a roll call vote?

Alderman Dobbs. Yes. Alderman Fahey.

Yes.

Alderman Donovan. Yes. Alderman Huey.

Yes.

Alderman Einman. Yes. Alderman Ross.

Yes.

Alderman Prince.

Yes.

Alderman Steiger.

Yes.

Eight yes, zero no's. Bill number 4736 now becomes ordinance 4657.

Excellent. Second, bill number 4737, an ordinance approving a budget amendment to the city of St. Genevieve for the fiscal year 2026 budget relating to the various revenue and expenditure increases. Second reading.

Motion to approve.

Second. All those in favor, we'll do a roll call vote on this one as well. Second reading, I'm sorry.

Alderman Steiger.

Yes.

Alderman Prince.

Yes.

Alderman Eichmann. Yes. Alderman Ross.

Yes.

Alderman Huey.

Yes.

Alderman Fahey? Yes. Alderman Donovan?

Yes.

Alderman Dobbs? Yes. Eight yes, zero no's. Bill number 4737 now becomes ordinance 4658.

That looks like an end of old business. Move on to new business. Bill number 4739. An ordinance authorizing the mayor to enter and execute a professional operating service and management agreement with Alliance Water Resources, Inc., a Missouri corporation. First reading. I want to approve. Hold on, we've got one little discussion here, Bob, I think.

I'm going to take a moment to point out that this is a new contract. past years we've basically renewed the old contract. This contract removes the repair budget and the chemical purchase that Alliance used to take care of, but it also adds they are now the primary insurer of the vehicles that they use. It adds specific language covering park equipment maintenance. This contract has the same cost as last year. There is no increase and it has an annual option to renew for the next four years. at a two to four percent increase unless otherwise negotiated by us, which we have done over the past four years.

Dave, if I remember right, the reason for the chemicals and stuff was to save the sales tax? Correct.

Do we still have a motion to approve, Bob?

One other question. The liability on the vehicles and stuff, what was the general idea behind that? They are the drivers of the vehicles, so they should insure the vehicles. So we can still give requirements like CODs that are required, license to drive that particular type of vehicle, we can still have those required?

We still have to have proper CDLs, licenses, things of that nature, yes, absolutely. Motion to approve? Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Second item, bill number 4740, an ordinance of the Board of Aldermen of the City of St. Genevieve, Missouri, adopting the annual budget for fiscal year 2027 and approving an effective date.

Motion to approve.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Third item, bill number 4741, an ordinance authorizing the mayor to enter an agreement between the city of St. Genevieve and the St. Genevieve Community Access Television Board, channel 99991. First read.

I do want to point out that the cable television board provided their annual report, which is available to you. I think there are more copies out in the audience if needed. And the 1, 2, 3, 4th whereas there points out something we're going to discuss in work session as far as the budget. But the contract still is fine for tonight. Motion to approve. Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. And any other business or mayor and board communication?

Okay.

If we're hearing nothing else, then we will adjourn and take a short pause before we go to work session.

Order the work session for Thursday, September 10th.

We've got three items on the business items, so can I get approval of the agenda? Motion to approve. Second. I got a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, agenda passes. First item, St. John's TV annual contract.

So I sent this to you in email. The city's been collecting cable access fees, which are now usually called video service provider fees, since at least 2007. Those fees were initially meant to be collected to cover the cost of maintaining the public right-of-ways and infrastructure that the cable access companies use. Since at least 2012, the city has provided payments from those fees. to the St. Jane Cable Access TV to help provide financial support to Channel 990 and 91 and rightfully so. In 2021, however, the state legislature passed an amendment to Revised State Statute 67.2689 that significantly lowers the amount of fees collected In addition to many people have stepped away from cable and now get their viewing through streaming services, which do not pay these fees, the state used to collect a video service provider fee of 5%, but the 2021 bill lowered that by a half percent every year for five years, starting in 23. So what used to be a 5% collection rate is currently a 5%. 3% collection rate and next August will go to a two and a half percent collection rate which has significantly impacted the fees that we collect that used to be in the 45 to 55 thousand amount this year I mean which fiscally ends in about two and a half weeks we're going to collect twenty one thousand three hundred and seventy five dollars from that fee and The contract says we're going to pay the TV station $28,500 this year, which obviously is more than we're going to collect. But the contract also has a stipulation that we either pay, we lowered that in this year's contract to $28,250 or 75% of what we collect. My recommendation, because the TV station operates on minimal funds, is to go ahead and make that payment this year, the final payment, which is about $7,125. It's in their budget. They've accounted for it. They're counting on it. But that in the next fiscal year, we need to lower that to either the 75%. 75% is the minimum. 75% of what we collect, or at least the amount we collect, which Depending on the amount of people who step away from cable, that could go down to as low as $15,000 to $17,000. And two of the board members, I believe, are in the audience if you have any questions for them.

Do we have any numbers on viewership?

We have no way of determining that.

So do people complain to the City Hall if it goes off? Do you get feedback of people being happy or unhappy?

I don't receive any feedback, no. We may get a call.

We do get a call or two if they are off the air and they ask if we know what's going on. There are people out there that do ask us.

And you can go, I mean, I know the videos are able to be watched afterward, but if you go online nearly right after the meeting onto their YouTube channel, it'll tell you how many people view a meeting.

So we do know that.

Yeah, I mean, I would say depending on the topic at a Board of Aldermen meeting, it's going to range from, and please correct me if I'm wrong, maybe from 30 to 100 if it's a really popular topic.

Depends on who's sitting at this seat right here.

So how did this 75% number ever come into? That was part of the original contract that was probably negotiated back in 2012. Because, again, those fees, they go to a great service, but the fees were meant to cover our costs for the infrastructure and the damage to the infrastructure when cable lines go alongside the roads, public rights of way. so it's part of the problem more people are using internet tv and not capable that's part of the problem but a larger portion is that the amount of fees collected over the past four years including 2028 have been cut by 50 percent and that's a state Mandate. Mandate, right.

So viewership has went, or people paying for cable has went way down. And the amount that they can charge for that cable tax has significantly changed.

Which is interesting. Most of your internet comes over that same cable. Correct.

I think it'd be tough to cut it this year. I think we need to stay with what we have been doing and keep the service the same. I don't know if there's any type of grant money we can look for or something in the future because it's only going to continue to go down. I don't know that because I have a knowledge for those grants. All indications are.

I'd entertain a motion to continue funding for this year.

Just the workstation. We don't make motions.

Well, I guess we do a straw.

To pay the remaining $7,100.

Do we need an ordinance for that?

No. It's in the budget.

Oh, it's already in the budget.

You looking for a motion? Well, I don't think I asked. It's already in the budget. Is everyone in favor of that? Yes.

Yes. I'm okay with it.

And then... We can bring this back to you, but we're here, so my intention would be to pay the 75% of what we collect next year, unless you want me to tell, you know, pay the entire amount. I mean, we don't have a way of knowing what that is. We don't know the entire amount, though, but you have to know the entire amount is like 75%. Correct. So what would happen is as the fees come in next year, so let's say we receive $6,000, we would either make a payment of 75% of that or that total, correct.

How do they continue operating as they have less and less money every year?

I don't know that answer.

Something's going to happen. Have you guys looked at long-term planning for the station?

I have a proposed budget that's in the book there for 2027. But what I do whenever I propose a budget for the coming year, I look at what we have spent in each category previous years and I have numbers back to 2014. And so I try to

They do have a reserve of approximately, I want to say, $70,000.

No. No? That only comes up to that amount whenever the carryover from the previous year and the city amount that they give us in a year.

But your carryover is your reserve.

The carryover is $40,000.

Was there any change in funding for next year or is it still based on 26 funding?

It's based on your funding and everything. Whenever you lowered the amount a few years back, I cut new equipment from 15,000 to 10,000. And we have talked about what kind of equipment we need for next year and We're kind of going to hold our own because we purchased a new computer. We purchased a new camera in this year.

What does 2028 look like then when you're to that point?

I haven't got there yet. I do one year at a time because 2028 is based on how good we do in 2027 and how good did we end 2026 because i've got a surprise right now in 2026 i had budgeted its amount of money and looking at communications it's going to cost another five six hundred dollars but you kind of got to have communications if you're going to use spectrum you got to pay their fees what they charge you each month or you're out of business

You were talking about something that's basically done by volunteers, and we're talking about equipment, and I think we provide utilities or something to them?

We provide downstairs and utilities at no charge.

Right. Because I film the Muni band during the summer, and I do... things at the museum, because the first time that I went to the museum, they said, you're not Charlie. I said, I know. Charlie is a good guy, but he has not mastered split personalities to where he can be in two different places at the same time. That's why I'm filling in more. I tried that. And then we have Ed that films Saints with the historical community and Jody films City of St. Mary's and that's all. Thank you, you did a good job. That's basically the thanks that we get as far as there is no money for those spots.

So we don't have any idea what the dealership is, say, for the municipal bank? Do you know how many people turn that on?

No. I mean, I've been a municipal man, and I... I have two spots that I check. I check at Valley Desert. Are they setting up? If they're not setting up, then we're at the Performing Arts Center. Depending on the weather, you can kind of predict if it's hot and humid. You're going to be inside where it's cool. Did you get paid to do that? No. I do that just so that you have the program.

Charlie does get paid a small amount. Very small. He's the only one that does get a payment.

Dave, so if we vote on this 75% figure and stuff, that doesn't mean we can't come back. In which fiscal year are we talking about? Were we talking about the 7,025 or 26? I mean 26 or 27.

We just took a straw poll to go ahead and pay the last payment in this fiscal year of, I think it's $7,125. And then my question was, do you want us to abide by the 75% or just pay the full amount that we receive to them next fiscal year? We've budgeted $28,250, but it's not going to reach that. And that's what they've budgeted for also. That's why I wanted to get this out there so they can have this information.

I'm okay with doing the full amount.

I am too. Okay. So the full amount.

Okay. Okay.

Thanks, gentlemen. Keep up the good work.

If you hear things that can help us improve, let us know. With your ears and eyes to the community, just like we are, I'm certain that it's also like the man of God.

I didn't know if you wanted to do other business before we go into closing.

We do have potentially two closed session items here, but we've got some time now. Alderman Fahey or Alderman Ross, do you want to ask Aaron Smith a few more questions about the trial or anything else on his report while we've got Aaron here?

Yeah.

Fire away.

Okay. Aaron Joe made that this trolley thing is not going to start until March of next year.

Yeah, March or April.

Okay. When we do this and we run it for a year, we're going to look at what the cost is for our customers.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean... How much is going to cost us for gas? How much will we be paying for this? And how many customers are we getting?

Yeah, we just have a flat rate right now. So like I was saying, this is only one of the different things that we're doing with the county transient tax a lot of what we're going to be doing with that money is just expanding what we're doing with the city because we are already the county's DMO so a lot of the stuff that we do with our state matching grants and things like that we are We represent the county as well. But this was just one of those things that I thought could be like a physical thing that people could see like, oh, this is what our money is going to. It provides a service for people in town. It provides a service for visitors. So I always think it's good to have some sort of physical thing that you can see that's going around. But basically, we've budgeted for $20,000. And for $20,000, we pay the trolley a flat rate. We collect whatever money. So we pay them a flat rate. If we make more on a weekend, that's great. What that'll do is help us run it for more weekends. So we feel like if, you know, we have people going, we're actually making money on this, we can keep providing that service and run it, you know, for longer and provide a better service.

And this be running, like, all week?

No, just Saturdays.

Just on Saturdays?

10.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. Do you have a ticket to get on? Yeah, you either pay every time you get on if you're going to take a short trip or if you want to hit as many spots as possible, you pay $25 and you get a wristband for the day. Okay.

Will anybody be keeping track of how many people get on and get off?

It's all going to be, for the most part, purchased online. So, yeah, I'll have a list of everybody's name, how many... You know, basically every ticket will be a...

But you won't know that the people pay cash.

Yeah, well, I mean, we'll be able to tell by counting the cash, but I don't think we'll get any emails or anything out of that. But basically what our model incentivizes right now is people to buy that $25 ticket, and they have to do that online.

Have you ever been to Riga Springs, Arkansas?

When I was real little, yeah.

They have a trolley that runs around town. It's on a schedule. People use it a lot. It's free. So I'm not really sure.

Well, Herman has one, and it's $30 for a full... you know, days pass, $30 for days pass. We're $5 cheaper than that. It's also super popular. So, yeah, I mean, just, you know, it's unfortunate that we can't provide it for free.

Somebody's got to pay for it.

Somebody's got to pay for it.

Unless we buy our own trolley. Somebody's got to pay for the trolley. Somebody's paying for it. Nothing's free.

I mean,

And like I said, we'd like to provide the service for more. And I think people, you know, there's a weird psychology behind people paying for stuff. People think it's worth more when they pay for it. And so...

Aaron, didn't you talk about a trial period?

Yeah, so we're just running it two weekends in November, 7th and the 14th, just because that's kind of our last window. We wanted far enough away that we can spend a couple months promoting it. So right now I'm putting together the promotions package for it and how are we going to take the money, that sort of thing. So that kind of falls to my lot. uh so we wanted to have a you know at least a couple of weekends that's kind of your last ditch effort before the wineries kind of close up that's also pushing on deer season um so uh yeah we just and also just to run it to run and to get any kinks out uh before we would pick that back up in march or april

You know, there's so many avenues now going to cashless. I mean, there's ways to do that very simply, and then all the statistics are there.

That's it, yeah. Absolutely. Even those one-off, you know, people buying just single tickets, I think we'll have a cash option because there's still people that do carry cash. But, yeah, basically the kind of solution to that is at every trolley stop we'll have a sign mounted, and it'll have a little QR code for tickets. So that's kind of where we're thinking with that.

Any other questions for Aaron? Thank you. Thanks, Aaron. The next item, personnel. The agenda for the meeting includes an optional vote to close for the meeting pursuant to personnel reasons. And the third item on here is real estate, and it also has an option to go into closed session for leasing, purchasing, or the sale of real estate.

Do we need to do two separate closed sessions, or is that just one? Just one. I'm going to make a motion to go into closed session to discuss personnel and real estate. Second. Second.

All those in favor going into closed session? Roll call. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Roll call. Roll call, Pam.

Alderman Dobbs. Keep me honest. Alderman Fahey. Yes. Alderman Donovan. Yes. Alderman Huey. Yes. Alderman Eyman. Yes. Alderman Ross. Yes. Alderman Prince. Yes. Alderman Steiger. Yes. Motion carries 7-0-9.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.