Planning and Parks Committee - Regular Meeting

probably Jim. What? I see you. Yeah. All right. Hi. You good? Awful quiet here. All right, everybody. Welcome to the City of Wildwood Planning and Parks Committee meeting for today, Tuesday, September 16th, 2025. And uh at this point, we'll do a roll call. Miss Ripto, Chair Galani, here. Uh council member Robleski here. Uh, council member Traier here. Council member McCutchen here. Council member Dodwell here. Council member Rambo here. Council member Crayons here. Council member Attenburg here. And we have a quorum.

Excellent. Awesome. At this point, I will take a motion for the approval of the minutes from the committee's meeting for Monday, August 18th, 2025. Council member McCutchen. You got a second. Council member Bliski. Uh, any discussion on the motion? Seeing none. All in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? I'll abstain since I wasn't here. Abstension. One abstension. No opposed. One abstension. All right. That takes us next to our public participation. Do we have anybody online? See council member Marshall in here. Were you here to participate? Just the watershed.

Okay. Um, anybody online then? If anyone online would like to participate in the um public input session, please use the raise hand feature and we'll promote you. Thank you.

Okay. No public participation which will take us straight into our action items and at the beginning we've got planning matters. We have five items ready for consideration and we will start off with the storm water management master plan and we have a presentation by Phil Ban. And uh I'll first talk uh director Vich. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thanks for being here tonight. We always do appreciate it. As I often say, we can't do it without you. So, your attendance is great. So, thank you. We are honored tonight to have two representatives with us that have been working with the city for probably now almost 18 months. And I say 18 months because we held interviews back in March of 2024 to consider the consultant team that would ultimately provide us a storm water management master plan that was consistent with the US Environmental Protection AY's template. Bill and Paula. Bill is from HR Green. Paula is from M3 Engineering and they have continued to work with the city primarily the Department of Public Works and the Department of Planning on alternatives to that original plan concept because as you know that original plan concept had a price tag of almost $1.5 million. It be a difficult process to say we're going to spend that amount of money when people are struggling with day-to-day problems with storm water erosion, loss of private public property, etc. The engineering team understood and they came back with a proposal for what I would call the storm water management master plan light and that cost was approximately 300,000.

So tonight the presentation is twofold. One on the storm water management master plan the new version and the components the success that they've had doing this for other communities and that success is identified or represented by grants they've received for work in the creeks. So it's not necessarily have to do that expensive plan like HR Green and M3 engineering are saying you can do a less expensive plan and still tap into the funding to help your problems. And then secondly and I think equally important is Bill's been talking with the Metropolitan St. to a sur district at length about Proposition S, the tax that is going to be dispersed to municipalities and their jurisdiction and we've heard rumors that we'll get somewhere around $300,000 a year. So, Phil's been kind of digging in there with them and I'll have some more information on that. And then it is the intent of the department to have someone from the sewer district here at a October meeting if the budget process allows. But regardless, since the availability of the revenue is scheduled, I think for 2026, if not in October, we'll certainly try for November. I'm going to let the two of them kind of do the brief introductions and then with the chair's permission, I think they're ready to go.

Thank you.

Awesome. Thank you. I'm Phil Blonde. Um I'm a civil engineer. I've been working on storm water and other civil infrastructure projects uh for about 25 years um and including in our stormwater master plans uh throughout St. Louis County. HR Green's been working for a number of other communities uh do Kirkwood on a country and and a few others. Um and and I've done this other parts of the country and and even on some US military bases and other countries. Uh so the uh streamline approaches I'll let Paul introduce herself too. So go ahead and then I can then I can jump into the the project.

I'll be quick. Um I'm Paul Lavalsski. I'm also a civil engineer with M3 engineering group. I've been working with storm water for maybe about more than 10 years, less than 15. Um, and a variety of different projects, roadways or waterheds or dams. And I can let you continue.

So, uh, Joe had mentioned the, you know, streamlined approach that we suggested and it's it's similar to what we've done for the other communities in St. Louisis County um that have uh either had issues in the past that that drove their need to do a plan. Quite a few communities, it's the Proposition S money that's uh they they feel like they ought to have a plan to figure out how how to best utilize that source of revenue and some of the other sources of revenue that they have for storm water projects. Uh so if we follow a similar approach that we have for the other communities, we can do it much more efficiently than the original approach that had developing the nine nine element water quality plans which is a little bit different. Um that and plus some of the analysis that was in the original scope that really throw up the costs. But we we found we can gain a good understanding of what's going on with the storm water problems uh based on information that you have and fortunately Wildwood has a lot of information that we can build from uh you know and public outreach would be a big um component of the U stormwater master plan. So between the uh information you have from your past erosion task force efforts and some of the other studies that have been done from USGS and others and then we'll give the public an opportunity through a couple of open houses and perhaps some other ways to um you know tell us about their issues. Uh and then pulling all that together along with just our knowledge of uh rainfall and runoff and and other um factors that drive storm water and drainage in St. Louis County based on our experience with other communities in the area. we we can get a good understanding of what's going on

and conceptualize some projects and create some accurate uh cost, you know, opinions of cost that you can then use to budget prioritize. So that can all be done without the extent of modeling that was in the original scope. And you know, we've done projects like that before, but usually the the clients for that are um are much larger. um uh clients in much you know different types of places um that so you don't need the type of scope that you know the Army Corps of Engineers had when I was working on uh milit you know Marine Corps Air Station in Japan you guys can use something that's a little more right sized um the and the thing about the 319 grants um which is kind of what drove uh Wildwood's original desire to pull together these the water quality plan. Stop me if you have questions. I'm kind of using some terms that I'm assuming maybe you're familiar with from past uh uh discussions, but you can still um qualify for 319 grants without spending Wildwood's money developing the plans that are necessary. Um so in order to get a 319 Yeah, go ahead. So, I'm going to be the guinea pig here. What is 319?

So, it's section 319 of the Clean Water Act, and that allows you to get grant funding um federal money that's dispersed to the Missouri DNR that the DNR um then uh they implement and run the program. And their whole budget for the state of Missouri is about $1.5 million a year in grants. They usually do award about five or six projects a year. the life cycle of a project is about three years. Um and so if you have a um nine element watershed plan for a watershed you know that already exists then if you have a erosion problem and a lot of your storm water problems are erosion problems uh it could potentially qualify for that for that funding. Is this um does this is this similar to satisfying a storm water master plan requirement for the EPA? Is it one and the same or is that something different?

Uh I think that when you've describing that you're describing the same thing. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah. EPA sets standards for how this is done that comes out of the implementing the Clean Water Act and then it's delegated to states to actually administer it. Okay. Is this plan exclusive to Wildwood? Because I know there was some talk in the past like especially when it pertains to the EPA that they would prefer that all communities along a watershed sort of be included.

Yes. they they prefer to do it by a larger watershed and have all the communities within that watershed and other entities um involved. Um for example uh you know if there's a there's a state park you know the DNR the other another part of the DNR that runs the state parks would be involved as a stakeholder. Okay. So, if we're looking at Cox Creek, which runs starts its headwaters, yeah,

up here over here somewhere. Um, so actually that way. Um, but it runs down into Chesterfield. So, if we're looking at gaining funds for that, we would need to coordinate with the city of Chesterfield to have a better potential for a grant or I may be skipping ahead here. Well, this is what I'm trying to trying to tell you. The strategy I see for this for for at least to start off, okay, is that uh you have two waterershed. You have one watershed where there already is a plan. It's a Kefir Creek wershed.

You have another watershed where others are developing the plan and Wildwood is participating. the Open Space Council um received a grant to develop a plan for the um Hamilton car wershed. So that right? Yeah. Okay. So that um so so if the whole budget for the state is $1.5 million, that that's all the projects they have. So, and they're they're not going to give any one city more than one project at a time. No.

And I said I mentioned earlier that the life cycle of the project is three years, but it takes about two years to apply for it. So, you have about five years where you have a shot at getting one project. All right. So if there's enough issues within Hamilton Car Creek or Kefir Creek that you could just apply for projects in those watersheds for 319 because they have existing plants

and that won't if you get a project I if if you apply for this and get one of the projects funded that's a success and you'll have you know some funding towards project, you know, somewhat significant amount of funding that $350,000 or so towards a project um that will allow your, you know, Wildwood's money to go further because you're getting this funding, but you don't have to have uh in order to successfully get a grant, you don't have to have watershed plans for your whole city, you know. Uh, so it could be a longer term goal to try to partner with others to do that, but I don't know that it would necessarily be a wise use of Wildwood's money to go alone developing those plans because you'd spend about as much money as you'd get back in the grant just developing the plan. So, it wouldn't it wouldn't make any sense, especially when

other people or other organizations do that. you just have to wait or try to participate, try to move it along. But it's kind of a longer term thing to try to figure out how you could uh strategize to get some more plans implemented without spending a lot of wildwood money doing it. Um they one more thing I was is that they in the past um you could get a section 319 grant to develop a plan. They've stopped doing that, but I think it's only temporarily. I think what they've decided is that they they they've got a they've recently got a bunch of plans up and they want to kind of steer some more money towards implementing the plans before they get even more plants going. So So some sometime in the future you may be able to get a grant to do a plan again too.

Got a question. So you've already investigated this uh problem for Wildwood um or wershed problem. We have been talking to the city for the past year and a half or so, you know, as to figure out how to help this. So, we have some understanding of what your issues are.

What What has caused all this erosion in Wildwood in your opinion? Why do we have such a I I heard it's going to be like $30 million to fix. What What was the cause of this problem? So you have development that sends more water to your creeks faster than they can handle. And

developments, it's development and the developers would do their storm water plans for their development, but then what you're you don't have the infrastructure downstream to receive it. You have creeks that were natural creeks that uh you know receive the water slowly and now it runs off really fast and they get gets there all at once and then the forces are much greater. Is this like something that developed over 30 years or 40 years? Yeah.

So it's okay. So it's development created this. Yeah, I love well first you have the terrain right compared to maybe southern Illinois right here it's very hilly secondly he says you increase uh trying to use some terms that it's easier to understand you add asphalt concrete the development the water before used to infiltrate uh runoff would go slow down the creek now it goes way faster and Mr. Matt the asphalt through uh you know steep slopes and

you know the creek wants to meander and erodess you know and so kind of so when we okay developments now we better make sure it's all being done right I think we are right

I think so and the good news is is that what Paula and Phil are referencing was a standard that was used by St. Louisis County that MSD promulgated that was very poor in my opinion. And so that's why a lot of the older basins were designed not to accommodate a range of storms and intensities of storms. So they don't function very well. And that's why part of what the watershed erosion task force is doing is looking at going back upstream retrofitting them to the new standard so they actually work. We're also we're blessed and cursed in one way. We're on the northeast edge of the Ozark uplift, which means we have the the great topography, the hills and the valleys, but we also got a lot of clay and church soil. And it doesn't hold well when it's exposed due to development. And then obviously the developers don't come back and do the steps they need to to stabilize it as well as I'd like to think like to think they would.

I had something still one question I just wanted to verify. Have you looked at the past uh sets of information that our watershed committee has put together or are we working here to enlist your help to do that review? I just want to make sure I'm on the same page with everybody. Sorry. U the the latter, you know, we're that's what we'll be contracted to do. But Steve, um we have looked initially at that. So we have some familiarity with with what you're doing. No, it's that much.

And we also HR Green did some couple separate projects for MSD that happen to be in Wildwood. Yeah. That um MSD has two projects that are going through their process that we help study during the preliminary phase.

Okay. And then one one last question. um based upon the information we have on the proposal that you're putting together um what's what's your timeline on that? So timeline what usually drives it is once we get started planning a public outreach at the beginning and usually two public outreach sessions to give people a chance to go to one or the other

and then gathering that information and then planning then going through the master plan process. Okay. So the um if you if you add that public outreach step to it, it it it goes to about nine months, but there's about six months of really just ranking on developing the plan. Um after we get that gather all that information, have those outreach sessions Rodberg. Um just a quick question. I believe typically when you're developing some type of storm water master plan, part of the plan incorporates the concept that whatever you fix doesn't create a problem downstream. Is that correct? That's correct.

Okay. All right. The reason I ask that is because for example on Calks Creek when it crosses into Clarkson Valley, it passes right by the end of a lake that is bordered by an earththen dam that is starting to uh experience pretty significant erosion. Very good. Thank you. Good.

All right. Anybody else? Council McCussen. Yeah, I um I saw in the um preparation documents that um it said Bonum Creek and then in parenthesis it said Cox Creek. Can you explain that to me? Uh so the way the watersheds are grouped by um uh let's see who did the huck stuffed um who they they consider that one larger watershed you know um they're they're grouped together by EPA um and you know they're two different wersheds but if you're going into the um the 319 grants and how those are organized. They'd be those two articles would be grouped together viewed as one.

Director. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of quick questions. So, again, just so I understand, the funding that's available from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources per year is about one and a half million dollars. Yes. It's usually divided between four or five different communities. Correct. It's not a lot of money for the type of problems we're dealing with. That's that's correct. But it's better than nothing. So not get farce in the mouth.

So that's why we talk about prioritizing projects and the benefit costs. You might have a location that wasn't identified to to have some problem, but maybe you don't need a project at this moment, you know, and we can help to prioritize which project actually needs attention right now. And we do talk about it uh up to 10 concepts of projects in the new scope. uh and with the help of you guys analyzing also not only the tools that we have about uh let's say uh a erosion tool that we have that can per time that can detect how much erosion will become and all the effects like you have a creek it's eroding and you have a house a shed and utility in five years everything's going to go to the creek and the cost is 1 million but fixing the bank is $500 00,000 and the benefit costs should we fix fix now or wait five years and you know spend more money all categories to prioritize we included uh and yes so we don't have all the money in the world so that's kind of how we focus on prioritizing

and so Phil you mentioned that if you apply that starts the clock right right and then it takes two years to work through the grant process and then you have a three-year window. Correct. So the best I would could expect is every five years we might be eligible and receive a grant. Correct.

So so it wouldn't make sense to spend almost as much as one grant to develop a plan. um you know, but you can try to coordinate with others to see if there's opportunities to develop more plans, you know, as a longer term thing. But you can draw from the two plans you have, the Keer Creek or Hamilton Car Creek once that one's finished, you know, to be kind of the pool that of areas that are eligible for for that grant. and your MSD funding can go towards anywhere that's within the MSD boundary. Um, so not all of Wildwood is within MSD's jurisdiction, but the portions of Wildwood that are more developed are in MSD's area. So the $300,000 that you will start getting from MSD, um, you have to apply for it, but it's it's not competitive. that money will continue to just acrue, but to actually get it, you do go through a a formal application process so that you can show MSD what you're doing with the money and that it meets the goals of their program and then they'll release that to you. So, but but if you don't apply, you don't lose it. It'll just continue to acrew there um year after year retention.

Do we have to the city have to use any matching funds or is it a straight grant? It's a that's a straight grant. You know, there there's sometimes some things that are not eligible for it, but if it's purely storm water project, everything will be eligible for it. If you add some other components to the project that are more of a a parks component or a roadway component that's added to it that isn't isn't part of the project strictly for correcting storm water, then then that that type of you'd have to pay for that. but strictly fixing storm water problem that that's 100% eligible. I throw a shot here.

The uh 319 grant, not to dwell on it, are they you mentioned that they were issued by community or is it by watershed? It's the Well, it's issued to uh you know, if you're applying to the municipality. Yeah. So, if Wildwood has seven different wersheds, they can apply seven times. Um you could, but they're but they're not going to um award more than one grant to the same city at the same time. So you pick your worst one. Yeah.

So with the 319, what does is there anything that comes attached to that? Um dealing with, you know, it's EPA's money. Are are there any enhancements that the project would require uh long-term monitoring or something above and beyond that we wouldn't normally do because we're accepting their money? No, the the only the way it's done is that there's it's formatted to have one or those three years. One year for engineering and design, a year two is construction and then year three is a post construction monitoring period. I guess my my question but nothing beyond that third year.

So re rephrasing the question um the money does not seem substantial given the problem we have. So I'm curious if we accepted if we were awarded the money and we accepted it. Are there project enhancements because it is EPA under the Clean Water Act that we would have to build the project um you know to a greater extent than we normally would just to fix the problem. Um not not necessarily. Um if you uh apply to fix an erosion problem and we put in the application that fixing the erosion problem will improve water quality because chunks of the creek aren't, you know, aren't, you know, if sediment is a problem that is identified in there as implementing the plan is is meant to fix. uh then you know just fixing your erosion problems would qualify. Uh you just have to make sure be careful in the grant application that you're applying to fix the erosion problem and improve and therefore improve water quality. Uh what what the 319 grants are not for is fixing flooding problems. They're fixing erosion problems. But it's right it's a good thing for wild would to look at because you have a lot of erosion problems. Uh so right now we we are working on a project for town and country um that is uh that received a 319 grant and it was a two small creeks uh go through each of them go through about five or six yards but large yards in town of country kind of similar to some of your neighborhoods here. Um and each of those projects the is about $180,000 and so the grant was for both of them together about $360,000

and that that funded those projects. Um they're pretty small projects but they are fixing some problems that town of country had and they were able to um get you know a majority of the project is funded by by the grant

Joe um looking at what the our watershed committee has already identified. Um, am I correct to possibly assume that we would have projects uh for specific properties along Fox Creek that would meet what he had just spoken about um in that process? Certainly Cox Creek of the six priority projects, yeah, Fiverr and Cox Creek are one in bottom.

And so um from from perspective of what Phil just described, I think any of those would be eligible. Okay. Just Yeah. You just don't have a plan yet. So I'd use the MSD money towards those. Okay. At least initially. Yeah. Mr. Chair. Yeah. So strategically following the Phil since we're getting MSD money primarily for the east half of the city would apply for 319 for the west half which isn't funded by MSD because they don't provide

perhaps but the 319 again would have to stay within Kefir which is in the east half or Hamilton car at least initially until there's more plans developed

more plans developed and Your proposal is to develop plan, let's say, for either Fox Creek or Bottom Creek that would allow for us to do a 319 application. No, our our wershed plan, our new streamline scope is a stormwater plan that will help you plan and prioritize uh your projects, understand what the fixes would be, what they would cost, how to prioritize some projects or the other. Uh, a key benefit of it is that we'd study the whole of the city of Wildwood. Some of your past studies have focused on where you've had some of the most problems, but if if people want to feel like you took a, you know, wider look at everything just to make sure you don't miss anything. Um, and everyone treated fairly, um, that'd be another advantage of doing the storm water plan. You'd end up with a prioritized list of projects, an understanding what they cost, and an understanding of how best to fund them, where to pull MSD funds to attack some problems, where to pull 319 funds to do some problems, and what other avenues of funding that that could be applied to this, you know, so you'd have a kind of a a bigger picture of storm water as a whole, you know, what the problems are and what their solutions are.

Yeah. So, Phil, so what you're saying right now is even if we were to do the streamline plan, the 319 is only eligible in Kefir Creek and at some point in the future, Hamilton Car Creek, correct?

And the plan you're preparing doesn't address, let's say, the the other four wersheds west of Route 109 that are not in MSD. It doesn't develop a a nine element watershed plan for 319 eligibility. It doesn't do that. But it will cover all the watersheds and it will understand get you'll get an understanding of what the problems are, what the solutions are and what they cost and how to fund them. But because you have the the 319 funding eligible for Kefir Creek and then coming soon Hamilton Car Creek, that's enough to get enough bites at the apple uh without having plans everywhere. Um that was kind of one of the key points I'm making is if you're that that um because you'll only the the budget's only $1.8 $.8 million for the whole state or $ 1.5 million for the whole state, you know, and you you can just pick a good project from one of those wersheds where there's a plan existing and that'll be your shot at trying to get a grant there.

And I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, not certainly to say anything negative, the open space council didn't necessarily consult the city before they applied. It was after the application had been awarded that we were told that oh yeah the open space council is doing it 319 plan

I would probably have argued that Fox Creek Bottom Creek and certainly Cox Creek were more deserving of that effort than let's say Hamilton car. So I guess my next question would be with the permission of the chair instead of doing an overall watershed plant the nine that are wildwood can you do a 319 plan for a single watershed um you could but that may not be the best use of your limited money because you'd be spending a a good amount of money just developing the plan when you have a couple plans in development and you have, you know, uh I would suggest that make it a longer term plan to try to coordinate with communities to get get more plans and and in the future the MDNR will likely start awarding 319 grants again to fund the plans.

So, so isn't that what I just described? Is that what for the most part the open space council did? They b picked one watershed and got 319 funding to do the plan. Yes.

So they so and like I said the DNR stepped back from awarding grants to do plans. Um but I believe that's only temporary. Uh, I think what they're thinking is they um want to spend money implementing plans for a while and then they'll get back to towarding grants to uh develop new plants. But I I I'm trying to encourage you to not get lost into the the just developing these watershed plans just to be eligible for 319 grant funding because it's a big investment and the reward you would reap is not does not quite merit that level of investment. Um, you know, I I think it's a better strategy to uh uh look at the wersheds where you have plans already in place or in in progress and projects in there that meet the 319 grant eligibility. I'd say they identify those as, hey, that 319 grant could fund that project. And if you get a 319 grant, you may not, but if you do get one, that's a success. and you don't need wershed plans across your whole community right now to um have a good shot at getting that grant. Um I think the other thing that the the Prop S money, the pass for MSD, that's a good source of money. Again, it's only $300,000 a year and the extent of your projects um are much larger, but that's money that that is dedicated to fixing storm water problems. So, you need to make sure that you're using it um uh most efficiently and and wisely and and the wershed plan, the streamlined watershed, the storm water master plan uh for the whole city would help you do that because you'd have an understanding

of where your problems are, what they are relative to each other, and what potential fixes would cost, and it's all consistent with each other. So, you have an understanding of that. And when people ask, why are you doing this problem? and you're not fixing my problem. You you have you can direct an answer to them. Well, hey, we studied it. We prioritized the projects. This is how methodology we used. These are the projects that ranked to be the biggest problems. So, we're working on them. And you know, so you have a whole plan and you have a strategy.

Okay. So, you're providing us with a long-term plan based on the current environment that we have. Um, there are some spots in the city along these um waterheds where we have homes that were built way too close to the edge of the creek to begin with. Um, those people are coming to us going, "Help, help." um with these long-term plans, how do we then take that information and support those residents? Or should that be the resident's responsibility? uh since they made the decision to purchase a house, build a house along an already compromised watershed. Although in fairness to residents, not everybody knows what a compromised watershed looks like. Um so how do we as a city provide support but balance that with the overall long-term plan? Does that make sense as a question?

That's a good that's a good question. But what what you'll have from the from the storm water master plan, we'll have all your problems identified and ranked and prioritized and with with fixes with dollar amounts and then the obviously you can't implement every project immediately.

No. So there, you know, may be some difficult decisions as of what what's done first and what comes later, but you have um, you know, you have MSD doing their own projects, too. And on top of this on, you know, besides the Prop S funding, MSD has their own projects that that they're doing. And so, um, you know, it's, you know, there it's not not hopeless. You you guys have a plan and you're moving through it. Um but yeah, not not everyone problem can be solved on day one.

So So the goal of what you all are proposing and that we're paying for is that you would pull together all of what you see today um and provide us with recommendations. You know, I know we could have a heavy duty rainstorm and the evaluation along one hillside that goes into this creek. um could be dramatically changed. How do we what steps do we need to have in place to take this master plan, but then continually refresh it to look at? We thought this was a number six, but guess what? With that rainstorm, it now became a number three.

You follow what I'm saying? It's possible. Yeah, it is possible. Water does what water does. So I'm I'm trying to figure out how this plan will remain germanine for a 10-year period of time. I'm just arbitrarily picking a 10-year time frame. Uh how do we make sure that we are working effectively to address as many things as we can? Yeah. Especially since we don't have anybody in water specialty on staff. So

it's hard to predict the unknown. We could have a tornado and changes everything or earthquake, right? But we can develop right now with the current conditions and forecasting uh with a high amount of rain and come up with a ranking for that. Um any other way of predicting like that Phil I'm thinking you know we we've done updates to watershed plan master stormwater master plans usually about five years out okay

um but what'll happen is when when we've completed the study at the end of nine months you'll have some projects that have risen to the top that and then it's just implementation mode as far as how to fund it how get get a design project together and then it goes into engineering design and construction and you have you know some you'll start getting some things built some shovels in the ground

and some problem some of these problems fixed and so you'll start seeing some results you know and it'll be directed at where you see the greatest need. Sometimes what we find is the projects with the greatest need are the most expensive so they might take longer. So sometimes communities will like to do have some quick wins, have some smaller projects that are implemented faster so that people see results. You know, you sometimes communities find that hey, we we don't we've been studying this and we studied this and we don't want to only pursue a big capital improvement project that's going to be another three years before there's actually anything built. is let's pair that with three or four smaller projects that people can see some results even though those smaller projects might not be the most important. So some some communities choose that path but sometimes it depending on how it comes out that you do just jump right into the the the most needed project.

One more question. Um how do we improve our communications with MSD because that's been a sticking point. uh for the city staff and even for some of us council members trying to get answers. Yeah. Uh I can help you with that. Okay.

The uh you know I so I've worked with you know a lot of people at MSD for a long time. So, I think part of it is, you know, I can let your staff and and and or even the council members know a little bit more. It give you a little more insight as to what MSD is thinking and why they're doing what they're doing. And, you know, and and the opposite where they're at. Yeah.

In their overall plan, when are they going to hit Wildwood? And how does that change our implementation plan? because they're going to bring in their funding to take care of this issue that we know is an issue here so we can move some funds on down the road. um those kind of communications have been very very limited from MSD as far as what they're doing where when um and so if if we're going to engage you it'd be nice to have that kind of you had one and then I got council ra so I guess the answer is you can help us with that correct

um so I think the the focus of this is to authorize the watershed management master plan for 300,000. You mentioned that there are two wersheds in Wildwood that either currently have plans or have plans in development.

They're different. They're different animals. The the those plants are are specifically um wershed plants specifically meant for the 319 program. Uh so the uh to to improve water quality, the storm water master plan looks at flooding and water flooding and erosion problems and we'll cover the whole community and we will where there are nine element wershed plans, we'll look at those and incorporate information so we're not like like you know redoing any rework that's already been done. But it it it it's a different it's a different thing.

That's what I was getting at. So this 300,000 takes that into consideration that some work although not entirely applicable Yeah. has been done you will incorporate to the extent that you can

correct and and and all that study all those studies that have been done in Cox Creek will will will incorporate. We're, you know, we're we're not uh the the $ 1.5 million approach involved, you know, doing an exhaustive uh uh data collection and modeling for the whole city and developing those watershed plans on top of it. That was everything that that was in the original um scope. And so we put together what you know what was in there and and put the cost of that and that's that's what it came to. And so this um more streamlined approach is you know more what we typically do for communities in in the uh um in St. Louis County and sometimes they do a little bit more. you know, we've been working for University City for a long time and and we've done a little bit more for them than than a typical community with their problems on river to pair. Um, but for the most part, the the St. Louis County municipalities are interested in um where are worse problems and how can we implement solutions to them that we can or fund.

Thank you, Beth Mormo. Yeah, this is more for my own edification, so you don't have to spend a lot of time on it, but Mike, you seem to be taking the reasonable approach of um identifying and prioritizing the areas of greatest need citywide without without regard to which watershed they're in. And you also mentioned that um uh for example Bonum Creek and Cox Creek are combined by some government folks and um it's considered a single watershed. So my questions really are do we have other watersheds that sometimes are combined together like I'm thinking August Tavern Creek and Fox Creek. Are there anything are there any other places like that? And um regardless of what your answer is, do you do you anticipate creating your plan just on the basis of the areas of need or are you going to do a individual plan for each individual watershed and then just say, "Oh, there's no problems in August Tavern Creek because they're probably not because there's not a lot of development that we've done out there." And so, um, we have this new rain regime. So, we're getting more intense

rainfalls, 6 ines in two hours kind of thing that'll erode anywhere. But, um, it's not it's not developmentbased. And I think the problems that we're identifying as the worst are the ones that are developmentbased, like the triple me, the famous triple meander in Cox Creek and so forth. And so, um, can you speak to that just a little bit like how you're going to structure your plan and, um, answer my own personal question of do we have other wersheds that that are combined, um, by the government? Uh, well, Hamilton Car Creek is combined and I other than that, I think the waterersheds you're familiar with are all

separate that you would recognize. Yeah. Yeah. So the um the stormwater plan would be for the whole community. We would identify what wersheds are in. So we'll we'll have that wershed map. That'll be part of what we do. Um you know certainly it's you know inherently it's integral to to what we do. But the the plan is for the whole city of Wildwood. Um and but what watershed it's in is important because uh you know what it can determine um funding eligibility for different types of funds. You know really why why is that?

Well because those watershed plans that we've been talking about you know they ex one exists. Oh, sure. If it other communities involved and maybe Franklin County in the case of the western ones and and those and then Yeah. potentially partnering with other communities. Yeah. Or um and then being within MSD's jurisdiction, you know, is is what should qualify for the Prop S funding. Sure.

Okay. Yeah. So, so we have um there will be jealousy involved. Oh, you're spending all this time and effort and money in Cox Creek and what about Fox Creek because there are people that are really really suffering in Fox Creek, but there's only a handful of them, right? And so we have to, you know, that that's that makes our job harder because we have to, you know, we have to say, "Okay, folks, you're going to have to wait because this is a a worse problem in terms of number of people affected." So, we got those things to worry about, but but you you'll have the storm water plan that was studied and you can point to and say, "Well, this is the approach that was taken. Sure.

Here are here's the results of it." And and then the other thing it could be used potentially could be used for down the road would be hey this identifies um you know some x million dollars of projects but it would take the city 25 years to get down the list. Yeah. Based piecing together some MSD funding some other grant funding and some revenue from the city. But if you wanted to get the same projects done in 10 years, well then, you know, this would be, you know, something you could potentially bring to the voters and say, "Hey voters,

is this important? Make a decision. Do you want to have a tax to get these problems fixed faster or do you just want to wait 30 years?" That's your voter, your voting, public's decision as to how they want to do that. Yeah. Council Cran. So we have two plans for the 319, right? And and how long will it take if we qualify for this plan? For the for a 319 grant. Yeah. Yeah. So if you have a project, one of your smaller projects um in one of those watersheds, you you you put together an application. That application process takes about a year.

A year. and then and to to put the application together and get it in there and then find out. Then the second year you find out if you're awarded or not. And then the third year is when you get started design. Okay. It's it's the federal government. Yeah. So

and then so but so in in 2023 I put together an application for that those projects in town and country and then in 2024 they were selected and funded and now in 2025 we're working on the design and then in 2026 they will be constructed and and then 2027 there's a monitoring period to make sure everything's good the first year and then then they'll be finished. So, you know, and I've done this so for also for Brentwood um for the Brentwood bound project that part of that project got some 319 funding. So, I was I was working for a different civil engineering firm at the time, but five years ago I was managing the Brentwood bound improvements on on Deer Creek.

Director Village. So, Mr. Chair, Mr. Traier mentioned um looking at an expenditure of $300,000 tonight. The department's intent was to give you background on that. As you know, in October and early November, we'll be going into the capital improvements program. So, this was just kind of a precursor so you'd have information as we talk about storm water management. My the department was not act asking for an action because we're just a few weeks away from having that discussion relative to all the other um priorities the city has. Did you have anything to add? Sounds great. I learned a lot.

Thank you. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you very much for coming to and presenting and thank you. Thank you, Chair. Uh I just have one really quick question before uh we let him go tonight. Um and just going about the process. It takes about a year to submit the application. If you have a 319 um 9 element plan in place, how much I mean does the city uh would it need to elicit the help of a engineering firm like yourselves to submit the application itself? And if not, do you have any background you could share with us about how much like staff time or if a professional would be required to get it over the finish line with that year-long submission process?

Yeah, I I would recommend having having a consulting firm help you do that because that would um you know, you you wouldn't be doing it for the first time, you know, so you'd have some experience behind it. But it's not saying you physically couldn't do it, but it's it's uh um you know filling out the forms and getting the information in in the format that they want to see it.

And real quick, if your with your permission, chair, the So that said, even when you have the 39 the nine element plan put together for a given watershed, um there's still a decent cost that's going to be attached to just submitting it. So that that 1.5 if we did all nine of our wersheds originally um that was more so the basis but then there would be additional costs associated with the submission itself. Just making sure confirming that. Correct. But it's not it's not a whole lot to do that. I I want to say we we charge Town of Country 12 or $15,000 to apply for the plans. Thank you. That's Thank you. the grant in

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One last question I promise. So Paula and Phil, can we start applying to MSD for that prop pass money now or do we have to wait till the first of the year or February March 26 is when you apply for the first year's money? Thank you. So everybody good? Ju just to clarify when you can apply for that money because uh I was at a presentation that MSD made down in U City here a couple of weeks ago and they said they were going to have the application process open this fall. Is that

Yeah, I guess it's taken it's you know it may have changed. I got an email today from someone I know at at MSD who confirmed actually yesterday. Yesterday I got the email um that that confirmed that latest timeline because I'm keeping in touch with them, but I'm going to see him tomorrow night um at Well, you would have your finger on the pulse better than I would. So, yeah. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Great discussion everybody. Very informative. Thank you. Thank you for meeting.

Awesome. All right, guys. Well, that takes us to our next item under planning matters, which is the main street extension in Ward 8. And I've got director or is city min? Mary briefly for you, Mr. Chair. Okay, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. This particular item was first discussed at the administration public works committee at the beginning of this month. Mr. Lee and the department of planning thought it appropriate to kind of forward it on to you because there are some ramifications um relative to Billy's green phase one and two the new luxury villas at latitude and R38. So with that I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Lee. Okay.

Thank you Mr. Chair Galani. I just wanted to give a quick update on the Main Street extension and kind of where we're at. So tonight uh what you see attached to the screen here is the preliminary plan that is really ready to go in all forms in the sense that it would be ready to proceed to the right ofway acquisition phase where our engineering firm would be able to go in identify exactly what amount of land we would need on the northern edge which is typically ranging from about 10 to 15 feet depending on where that bow is in the road. Um that does include a larger uh sidewalk on the northern end that is consistent with Main Street on the the western side. Um the southern side is contingent. We do have that 37 foot um easement that would be necessary rightway dedication necessary from the property that there's been a development proposal submitted to the city. But really tonight, the department wanted to present, you know, the preliminary um drawings that came with it to kind of touch upon what was discussed when that development did come through. There was originally a discussion of having a 24 foot um inch wide slab thrown adjacent to Crestview Drive, which would create a five leg intersection on that side of Ma where Main Street crossing ends with the Crest View. What this plan is presenting is the the full scale main street that I think we've all discussed in the past, which would account for that same space, uh, but would actually create a nice buffer in between. And then if you can zoom in on the the plan itself, it does create kind of a a perfect turnaround for folks. One thing that was a concern when, you know, first looking at the the concept is that folks that are going to be coming in uh from Taylor Road down to get to the park and possibly park on the parking spaces that are right adjacent to the future playground, they're going to need a place to turn around and we do not want them going all the way into the

neighborhood or finding another avenue. So that uh little crossover section that's on the kind of the the about 50% through that would allow for not only um residents to be able to turn around and then get to the parking that they need. Uh but it also would allow u for a future location that if there were developments proposed on the southern or northern end that would be the the premier location to be able to access Main Street. So that that's where the ramifications really come with here is that there is easement necessary from seven property owners on the northern end. Um there is a 37 foot land dedications that's needed on the southern end. Um so we do not have the land currently but right now we are in a position to start getting the really the engineering set forth to start doing appraisals and proceed. So tonight we had this discussion initially with the economic development committee u where we wanted to kind of re-engage Main Street get moving on it especially with the playground u going to be built and also the village green coming close to its completion itself. Uh we're going to be seeing more folks here in town center. So, we wanted to kind of do a check-in with the council and the committee uh to really see um get feedback on this this preliminary plan you're seeing today and also uh to kind of set the stage for what's to come, which is going to be a lot of easement acquisition and really getting rights to Crest View from all the property owners that are adjacent to the street. So, available to answer any questions. I know the Department of Planning is more than welcome as well. Uh but just wanted to provide really a general update and kind of show what's to come. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, city administrator Lee. Questions? Council Dodwell, just real quickly, Thomas, uh where's the or um Mr. Vunish? Um where's the western edge of city green build on the on the plan on the this drawing that we're looking at right now? Is it where we see that what looks to be a driveway? Um, and the two medians are separated so that you can make a right or lefthand turn out of

right uh where you can see in kind of the it's a little bit right of center where you see that white cross across the uh the street itself next to where the parking begins. That was originally planned to be the entryway because there was going to be a natural surface trail directly adjacent to it that leads into the park that would would kind of serve as a secondary access point. That said, that component of the plan will somewhat need to be redesigned along with the all-inclusive playground engineering because we're going to have to ensure that pretty much the area where the parking spaces are, those are ADA compliant and even, you know, going above and beyond considering the the overall mission of the playground. So, just a note that where that uh current crosswalk is scheduled on the on the sheet itself, that will be most likely where we build off of um to help access to the the playground. That's that's directly adjacent to where the playground will be going.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Um you mentioned one of my comments um Mr. Lee, we've talked about it on the phone, but which was the disabled parking. So, I'm glad you added that because that's one of the things that's really important with the playground that we have parking on both sides for access because we're building a a playground that a lot of people are going to need closer parking to get to. And then the second one is really one from history of talking about um private streets. But the comment um that I mentioned to Mr. Lee is that um the ordinance um or the the policy on the dedication of private streets and alleys with um we're looking at expanding Main Street. great need, great addition, but we continue to not look at the policy which continues to um be treated differently for different types of requests. So, this is a private street, Crest View, and we're saying we're going to go ahead and do Main Street extension. Yet, Windsor Crest brought forward the petition to based on the ordinance that was passed saying that all um all in the town center update saying that all alleys with present and future would be made public. and for that we're being told and we're told um that cannot move forward based on condition and I continue to see again and again that things are brought forward and are approved without following the same process. So, it's really just a comment that once again um this is another thing that um I had mentioned before as a future event that would happen that's not polic following the policy in place which we said would dictate and wording was added by council to say the policy would be followed in the future. No exceptions would be made

sure to

I can answer a little bit of that. I mean, the way that you could we could address this within the policy itself is would be to add a provision and this I I will uh acknowledge that the the current policy doesn't have this listed out, but stating that almost if the city is putting something within its capital project or it's acquiring territory as in a a former road, privately owned road as part of its own capital plans but also an economic development initiative. It's inquiring it to make those public improvements. then that would almost override that that policy. That would be the best way to approach it. U I know that was something that uh Mr. Robinsky and I had discussed. But u overall the only way that if that policy were strictly applied to this street, the residents from not only the north side but the south side too, those two parcels, they would have to directly come to the city, request for the city to take it over prior and then they would actually have to make improvements to the street. they would pretty much have to build out Main Street uh the way we would like it and it would be put entirely the burden the financial burden would be put entirely on the uh nine the eight owners but nine properties that are adjacent to the the parcel itself. We would be a contributor of it but the way that the Crest View parcel is laid out it does have equal rights to each individual property owner that sits adjacent to it instead of it being halfway through the the center median line. So that is right now. If we wanted to make a change to the policy, the department could most definitely bring that back and have it for consideration at the next meeting. It's a pretty quick change to make. Um but if we were to strictly follow the policy in that regard, we would be waiting for the the property owners to come to us to go through that process. More than happy to answer any questions on that though.

You have a question. Um yeah, a couple of them. But Mr. I don't I I can't pronounce your last name. So, I'm with Vicki. We need to if we're going to have policies and ordinances and guidelines and such, then I think we should stick to them. And and to me, this sounds like an end endound that that we're doing. Um, I I understand ever since I've been on council there it's been a discussion to have Main Street extended, but it is a private street and I know the city now owns part of it, but it hasn't been designated as a public speak uh street. The part that the Oh, maybe it has been. I don't know.

Oh, no. Um but um I I we we can't keep telling our residents no and then we turn around and we do what we just told them no for. And I understand how how much the city fathers or whatever you want to call administration whatever want this to go through. But then my other question is has has the um N38 have they actually brought a proposal forward? Have is it in fruition? Is it going to happen? I mean I haven't seen anything on it. I mean you would see it first Joe but I director V.

Yes actually the development and zoning review committee has been presented the revised plan. It's a 44 lot plan and it is attached villas and it is a rental project again. Okay. And um but this is a little off the subject but who's but are they developing it with the partners that they originally came with? Have they added partners to it? Same two entities Bob Sworth development reality and Benton Home.

Okay. Yeah. I you know and 3 point what 5 million that that's a lot of money. I mean, when we started talking about this, it was like a million and now and I get I get costs go up and all that, but you know, I'm with Vicki. We can't we can't say, "Oh, we can do it, but you can't do it." And you're resident of the city and you were really the ones that own the city and then we're going to turn around. And I and I think if you know N38 develops a puts a development in there, they should be responsible for putting in that portion of Main Street. That's that's why we've lost one of the other developments is because we said you got to put in Main Street and they couldn't afford that and then we're going to turn around and say oh no in 38 you you don't have to contribute.

I don't think we said that. So no, not exactly. City M Lee,

thank you chair and thank you Mr. McC for the and that's why we were wanting to bring this back. So we haven't proceeded with the right-of-way engineering component of this to actually establish exactly how much land would be needed on the northern and southern end. Um tonight the department was just giving an update and trying to get a little bit of a a thermometer check from the council on whether or not we should proceed. There are those questions. We can obviously go back and edit the policy and review the policy. Um, but if not, then we could also have the discussion today or through the capital improvement program that we're going to be discussing in the upcoming month. Um, whether or not Main Street is something the city still wants to do. But overall, this is we're we're really trying to give an understanding of if we wanted to proceed, here is what it would look like. Uh, minus the accommodations that are going to be built out for the playground. But I know that in previous discussions, Main Street has been uh top list. It's in the master plan. So, it's something that the department obviously was working off of. Um but I guess

I would Yeah.

Yeah. I would say I'll get to your question in a second, Council General. I mean, we can go because we can go on for two hours having this conversation tonight that I don't think is necessary or really has any relevance to where we're at today. this is a potential proposition that maybe I think if we're going to have a conversation I think it should be done with the council and the capital improvements because that the council is going to be discussing and debating on what to include in the capital expenditures for 2026 and so I think collectively everyone will decide is this something that would need to go in there or not and then if we were to decide to put it in there then we could figure out like what that looks like but I think right now we're going to have like I said we could be here till 10 o'clock talk just giving our opinions on latitude and the street and the private and this and that. So there's not really I don't think we I don't think we could get anywhere with with a ongoing conversation about this tonight. I mean we could take a couple questions or comments.

I just have aical question not a not a political No no no good. Um the um length of off-white above the new street that we're proposing, is that a sidewalk or is that the existing Crest View Drive? I'm looking at on the northern end there, Miss Dodwell. Northern side. That's the ex is that the existing drive or is that a sidewalk? that looks than the one on the south side. So that's

yes. So that is a that would be a constructed sidewalk. And the reason for it being larger in width uh to the southern the north sorry the southern end is if you go and it's not shown in this drawing a little bit if you actually look at the the sidewalk within Main Street crossing you have a wider sidewalk on the northern end than you do the southern end. So that would just be pretty much stretching that sidewalk out east and it would make it consistent with what's on the main street crossing side. Same with the road width as well.

Okay. And then my other question is there was comment made about um individual land owners along this strip um being willing to dedicate rightway to the city. Is that correct or is that incorrect? That is uh correct. We would need seven uh dedications. So actual land we would need about 10 to 15 ft depending on where it is in the in the roadway. And I kind of point them out if you went to parcel by parcel. But they would also have to dedicate their rights to Crest View, which would allow for the removal of that pavement and then reapplying it with the newly reconstructed road. So

I'm sorry. totally different than what we had originally um put together which was leaving Crest View in place and building a single lane or a single two-lane road to the south of Crest View.

Yes. And that was originally proposed by the developer um to get a connection point in there. And that would have like you had just mentioned that would have left Crest View in place, but would have had a a road pretty much caddy corner to it. And the only way that they were able to kind of engineer around that was to almost close off that end on the old Crest View and to create some type of crossover that would almost connect directly to that parcel which is called Crest View Drive. Um, this would be completely different and it would it the best way to explain it is it's almost identical and consistent with the version of Main Street that's within Main Street crossing. Um, it's practically taking that and then allowing for it, you know, going eastward to connect, but it's not going to be the road will be as wide as what it is on the east side, but won't have those vertical the kind of cross-hatched parking that's available currently on next to city hall.

Okay, Rambo. Yeah, I'm not going to appine. Everybody's been doing that. We need to move on, but I I I want to ask if it's appropriate to make a motion for uh Mr. Lee and company to rework the policy and bring it to the next meeting as he suggested. Is that Tom? Is that something that that's Yeah, that would be that would be uh is as the chair obliges, that would be most appropriate. We could have that added in. It would it would be a very small change to the policy, but it would just be adding in an item that's pretty much outlining that if a a project is getting called for for, you know, we could create some criteria, too, but that could be added and brought back at the next meeting.

Sure. Okay. And it makes it it it makes us consistent with our in our policy, and we're not, you know, we're not doing anything to the residents that we wouldn't I mean, we're we're not taking any special privileges or anything like that. So, I think that's a good thing. So, I will make that motion. Uh, second motion by council Rambo and a second to bring that to the next council meeting.

Oh, any discuss further discussion on the motion? Yeah, just to clarify, I actually before I came on council was the one that suggested by email to multiple parties that um the policy be revised to add that economic development projects should be excluded from the policy because they come forward from a different direction like this um and what came forward with the change that you know that was brought forward instead. So, I do agree that, you know, Main Street's something that needs to happen. So, I'm not saying it want to make the motion. I mean, I'm happy to have you make the motion.

I That was what you did was fine. I just wanted to clarify. You know, I had suggested it. So, I think it's appropriate we look at it again except we keep looking at it after the fact, not prior. It's always when there's an issue, change it. But, I made my point. Um, I told Mr. Certainly I would be bringing it up at some point so it seems appropriate today. Okay. Very good. Well, all in favor of the motion, please say I. I. Any oppose? Opposed.

Any abstension? All right. Thank you very much for that gentlemen. Um that brings us to the next item on the agenda which is mitigation for outdoor venues, the current regulations and other considerations. All wars. Director Vich.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, members of the committee, over the last month, Mayor Garatano and Mr. Lee have been receiving calls from certain residents in the vicinity of Wildwood Pub and Grill about their outdoor music. Certainly, it's an issue that has been discussed in past years as well, and steps have been made by the business to address those concerns. Earlier this year when Good News Brewing Company opened their first night, there was first weekend I should say, they had music at their venue and there were again calls regarding the noise associated with the music at and concerns about the time of night that it included. These concerns are recent, but over the years we've had similar ones regarding Big Chief Roadhouse, Table Three, Blue Allen, Big Bear Restaurant, etc. Generally speaking, the businesses have tried very hard, I think, to address the concerns that have been voiced by the city to them after the complaints were received. Many of them conclude the music at 900 p.m. and don't go beyond that time frame. The situation at Wildwood Public Grill, they generally limit the size of the bands to one or two people. Their locations are strategic in that they try to have the speakers pointing toward businesses themselves or not toward the residential areas. And even some of them over the time installed some dam clean efforts. Typically the departments public works planning along with the department of administration defer to what's available in in our set of codes already and those are identified in the memorandum the

noise code the offenses code the nuisance code and then we have a group of sight specific ordinance where ordinances where we've tried to tackle individual situations like good news brewing and big chief restaurant saying all of that there seems to be just some desire to try to address this on a collective basis. So tonight, the department is seeking direction from the committee. Is what we have sufficient in terms of addressing these outdoor venues that have been losing meaning the three codes reference plus the sight specific ordinances approved by city council for each of the locations or is a more general overall approach more appropriate? Again, the department would emphasize that many of the businesses respond positively to contacts from the city about this and try to address them on a case-byase basis. So, it's not an it's not an omission on the part of the businesses. I believe it's just again is there a better approach to it and that's what the D direction is seeking from all of you. Thank you.

Yeah, I have one comment then I got council crayons. Um um

I was I say one thing first. Um, so my question real quick, uh, before we get on this is we've got the disturbance and penalties in place that are already there and obviously the number of venues in the city of Wildwood are rather limited that fall into this category of state because Big Bear is not even there anymore. And um but in your perview because you're the one dealing with them and the police, have these proprietors of these establishments that are, you know, in question of, you know, being in a situation to cause the the problems for the residents, have they been accommodating to the city's approach to, you know, alleviate the concerns or address the concerns of people that have complained? Um, the reason I bring that up is because in my opinion is if if if they're partners with the city and they're accommodating and they work with us and they say, "Hey, okay, someone's complaining. We don't want to cause a problem. We're going to make some adjustments or put some landscaping, whatever we can do to try to alleviate it." Um, is totally different, you know, than someone that's just saying, "No, screw off. I don't care. This is our business. We're going to do what we want." Which I can't imagine that they're doing. Um, so I would imagine if if if a is the case, then I don't know why we we would need to enhance our our code and penalties and all that if if the people we're dealing with are working with us and we're working with them. That's all I wanted to say. Council Grant,

um, you know, even the concerts, it's pretty loud. Can they just turn the the volume down a little bit? And uh Good News was going to go with acoustic guitars and I can't understand why that would be loud. Um so I I know you're going to have people complaining regard regardless, but what kind of a decibel level do you set? I don't know. Uh um you have to gauge the noise somehow, right? Uh

yes. you know, adjust your volume. Uh, is it a volume thing? Apparently, it is, but turn it down and and and and we I mean, if it's reasonable, I mean, I can't understand Good News. If they said we're going to go with acoustic guitars, they must have them amped up then. Uh, well, I think in the case of Good News Brewing Company, they did have amplification, but it was for the singer, not necessarily for the music. itself. And again, that's just been one instance and that was opening weekend. Since then, so it's gone away. Not received any complaint. Well, that's I can't speak Mr. Lee.

We don't want to look for problems. No. And certainly, that's what I was going to say is how many how many tickets have we issued that are on our code already for this particular purpose to these particular venues? Mr. Lee and I met with the manager of Wildwood Pub and Grill yesterday. Uh the police responded to two complaints. Um they were generated from calls to Mayor Garano and Mr. Lee. Uh the police found no justification to issue sevens or any of those. So again, to answer your question, they are a cooperative group. I I cannot say that

I'm just saying if we're not even exhausting what we already have on the books as far as violations, why would we enhance them? Well,

so I will give you one instance with regards to Big Chief Roadhouse. The issue arose with their music. Um, we did address it and it was a partnership between the owner, um, Miss Holland and the city, but at the end of the day, it became so ownorous what we required that it just for the most part needed to be lessened, not increased. So, I guess part of this may be maybe what we have out there really is too much and we're overregulating something that doesn't need to be as regulated. So, it's not necessarily the direction would be we want to regulate more. It's maybe there's a reasonable set of requirements and they're they're less than what we have.

Yeah. No, I was just going to say though, I think to council transer, somebody said that like there's always going to be somebody complaining no matter what's going on, right? And so, but if if the number of complaints we're having, you can count on one hand and the number of summones or tickets that are issued are less than that and when you engage with the proprietors or the owners of these establishments, they're willing to have conversation or work with us on alleviating it. I don't think nine o'clock. I mean, we got a time on it, so that's reasonable. That's more voluntary. I got Council Rambo and then Council Raalki. Oh, that's voluntary. Yeah. It's 11 p.m. for the Yeah.

So, um yeah, this is um I have actually have some experience in this because I live um within earshot of Stovalls and uh they played both kinds of music, country and western. I'm not a huge fan of either one of them, right? Um but um it does my heart good to to have the windows open or be sitting on the porch and so on and so forth and hearing people having a good time, you know, doing line dancing down at Stovos because they've been doing it forever and so forth. I don't think there's been any you didn't even mention it, so there haven't been any complaints and they are much louder than the the um the the

the concerts that No, the concerts are miserable. They're they're so loud and you are exactly right. We should dial them down about three or four notches because it's awful. But the other places

Yeah. It's it's miserable. And you know, being close to it, it's awful. But the other venues, you know, I've been to, you know, Wildwood Pub and Grill and and you know, all those places that you mentioned and it's just kind of ambiance and I get the feeling that people are going out in their backyard and they're listening and trying to hear something so they can call and complain to the mayor and folks are just like that. But I don't think we need I think we do overregulate to some extent. you know, nobody wants to um have have a one of our concerts every night or anything like that, but this is mostly acoustic music. They're hundreds of feet away and um we keep a good handle on it. And I my final that's that's my that's my opinion, but my final thought is we weren't we going to invest in a DB meter? Um, and you know, we could we could just make that judgment, go to the person's house that's complaining and see if it's over our threshold, and if they haven't shut down at their voluntary 9:00 9:00 p.m. thing or something, then we, you know, issue a summon or, you know, give them a warning. That seems like a reasonable way to handle that.

Is there a decel threshold? No. Well, I think there is. Yeah. in our noise in our noise code uh between 7 PM and 7 am it's 45 dB at the property line not at the source and then during the day 7 am to 7 p.m. It's 55 dB. So, can we measure that? Do you have devices? We purchased two sound meters. One for the police department and one for code enforcement and that's pretty low sound pressure level. It is, but it is at the property line. And we used it at the first set of complaints that came out of Wildwood Pub and Grill at the start of the spring when they began playing music. And police officers said that it was below the the

Etsy five. Yeah. ordinances, especially since the people that live there are acres and acres or across 100 or 109 and it's ordinance is 11 and they're agreeing to nine. Yeah. And there and there and it's very I mean that's a very low standard. I mean I I mean I would say a high standard. You have to I don't know it's high or low but it's a very low noise level. Yeah. Brain whistle 93. Council member Blisski.

Um my comment I totally agree with Council Member Rambo um about it's kind of entertaining to hear some of the music the 100 foot. If I wanted to complain I'd say I hear Lafayette's band which is more than 100 feet away in the football games that are down the street. That's a I mean these things happen on the weekend. There are people trying to enjoy life. We have businesses that are trying to attract customers and we're not going to let them play music to bring people in to have a good time. I just think we are getting a little Come on down and join the party. Made the made loud noise disturbances if

I mean if it's after a certain time and and they call and say it's too noisy then deal with it. But I don't think we should be restricting them anymore when we're trying to get people to come here. It tells either I concur and I just spent three weeks ago lying in bed in the hotel room in uh Victoria, British Columbia um listening to a heavy metal band play until 2 am in the morning in close quarters and somehow I survived. Oh, so unbelievable. 247. That's so rotten.

So, it sounds like the the appropriate action here is one of two things. Either to do nothing or maybe even to review our current code and see if it should be publicized a little bit or ease up on some of the regulations uh slightly. So, let me get council had his hand up then we'll ask I agree with everything that's been said. I don't think we can make a decision without having the data of how many complaints there are. So if there's five complaints in a year, I don't think this is even worth discussion. Yeah, I have 35,000. We got a decibel meter. So what what else can you do?

Well, again, Mr. There's been a rash of them the last few weeks. They prompted the mayor to contact the city administrator over the weekend. City administrator had to contact the police. So, it's just an issue that seems right now to be in the front the front window of the car for the mayor and some others. So, the department again was seeking direction. It's in this instance it doesn't feel like the leaves are starting to fall. It's getting loud. Yeah. Outside

this and partial Mr. Joe, partially the reason to have it discussed is if there was an inclination on the part of the committee to move forward, we could have the enough time to basically talk to the businesses, see what they think. Is it overregulated? Is it underregulated? Or we'll somewhere in between and then be prepared for the spring season. This would not be anything that would occur this year. council member or profession.

Yeah, I think it's I think it's seasonal and it's, you know, it's like at the moment like there was a a line and it happens. How many complaints have we had? The only serious one I remember is big chief and there was that one person that was complaining all the time.

Yeah, but she she was allowing it to go on, wasn't she? She was violating what we had told her not to do. Well, Director Vunish, would it be appropriate for the committee to just uh provide direct? I don't know if you motion for this or not, but to say, "Hey, why don't you why does the department just have a conversation with the with the business owners that are of that small group that we're talking about and just get their feedback on what their thoughts are relating to our ordinances, the current environment? Do they feel like there's a problem with our ordinances? is do they feel like there's a problem with residents in the area that are being overzealous or just what's their general thoughts and perspective especially good news brewing I'm interested to hear after basically one full season in an operation how what are their I mean I don't once again I don't think we're looking for things to do so there's no sense in going down a rabbit hole of having multiple meetings of conversations and discussions and motions to address something that nobody really has a problem with except five to 10 people out of 35,000 in the city.

I think Mr. Lee and I could certainly do that. Mr. Lee, do you have anything to add? Because you're the one getting the call on the weekend.

Yeah. So, I mean, it's it's really been just the last couple weeks it's picked up a little bit on the weekends. There was a a noise complaint that came in on a Thursday. Uh they do respectfully stop at 900 pm, which is which is suffice. But I I would say the only note that I'd add is just within our current sound code, it's about not only the decibel reading, but also the amount of time that that decibel reading is sustained. Um I don't know if that the only question I would have just looking at that from an enforcement perspective. I I guess that there maybe could and I'll defer to you Mr. Vish on this, but maybe that would be the one thing for enforcement. It it is difficult. it's easier just to defer to like a disturbance of the the piece instead of actually citing the sound code itself since it has that that variable table that pretty much says if you are at this noise level for 2 seconds versus 30 minutes of sustained volume. Um that would be the one note here but we can definitely have that discussion. We've spoken with the business owner too and it does seem like some mitigation uh efforts are going to be taking place which are going to be good.

Awesome. Thank you. I think that's helpful. If you guys have any feedback, and if you don't, we're good with that, too. We can certainly u over the course of winter, early spring, we can certainly contact them and talk it through and see what we got. Awesome. Thank you very much, gentlemen. All right. The next item under planning matters is utility vehicles and golf carts on public streets and town center. Uh, Director Vinnich.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, members of the committee, Mr. Galani and I had a conversation via email regarding this particular item. The department did do some brief research prior to tonight's meeting and found in 2019, the Board of Public Safety took this matter up as well, decided not to authorize any changes to a current prohibition. Tonight, the department is presenting it back to you. Things have changed in the last six years. Golf courts and ATVs have gotten better and more safe. Certainly, Town Center is an area where a lot of people ask if they could bring a golf cart to an event such as our concerts. And for all intents and purposes, the department is saying that if there is an inclination to move forward in this direction, there's a group of agencies, other providers that need to be brought in, can receive comments from. So tonight, the intent is to basically see if there's an interest in moving forward with the research. If not, certainly we won't. is all of those entities from the police department here at the city of Wildwood to our Metro West Fire Protection District because of service to town center and many others that have crossed this bridge before certainly would be be to our benefit to have their valuable input. There any questions? I would defer to the chair and certainly Mr. Lee.

Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to say I actually brought this up and discussed it with Joe and was had this added to the agenda and the reason why is because obviously here in W 8 specifically I'm approached constantly with this question. Um and you know I know in the past we've looked at it. Um I know there's other municipalities around uh specifically more St. Charles Countyville to be specific that has has had it going on for a long time and they've done it pretty successfully. I do the one thing and I'm not taking a specific stance on it more or less yet outside of I feel like we lump UTVs and golf carts in one category as in they're being the same and I don't think that that part is fair because I know UTVs these days, you know, number one, they can travel at the speed of of a car, so they wouldn't hamper any other traffic on the roadways if they were on the roadways. They most of them are caged and have roofs and are enclosed and have doors and seat belts and all of that kind of stuff. And so I think that's totally different than potentially golf carts, right, that typically don't have seat belts, may not travel at a speed to where they could, you know, bring uh an issue on the road if there. My thought was like if we did something like that, it would literally be like old Manchester and Town Center like you no major thorough affairs and the neighborhoods surrounding neighborhoods. Um, and then the other thought process I had was that like they've done in other areas where the owner of the vehicle would have to get a specific permit with the city, pay a nominal fee and get a sticker to where we would have knowledge of who they were and what they own and then only drivers that were licensed by the state of Missouri and over 16 years older would be allowed to to drive that vehicle um, regardless. So, you couldn't have teenagers or kids or anything like that. And honestly,

the other thing about it too is I, you know, if you're up in town center on the weekend, there's people driving these things around anyway. I mean, the UTVs especially. I know somebody that lives out in St. Almonds that regularly comes to Dearberg's in their UTV and doesn't have a thought in the world about it. So, um, you know, so, so that's the one piece of it, too. Um, and I think if we manage it and created um, something around maybe that part of it, maybe we looked at the UTV piece of it now because of the safety and everything else attached to them and maybe, you know, a separate conversation for the golf cart side of it if if that was the case. So, that's where the where that came from. Like I said, I I I get this brought up to me constantly by people um in and this board specifically. And I do think it does to a certain degree foster more community because it makes it eas easier for people to get around from their neighborhood in close proximity to to town center uh and that type of thing. So, Council Member Kutchen.

Yeah. Um this is kind of parallel to this discussion. I know over in Ward five, we've got kids on motorized scooters and motorized vehicles that are small and then some of them are large. I mean, they're out in the street. I mean, I don't those things go 30 miles an hour. Yeah.

And I mean, I've seen near misses, you know, from cars coming and these guys you can't and I you can't see them very well. They don't have any kind of lights or anything. There's a couple teenagers that just got hit by cars down at Sulphur Springs in Manchester a couple weeks ago on those electric bikes because they don't realize how those things go 40 45 miles an hour. They don't realize how fast they go and they can't anticipate. So that I mean to me that's dramatically more dangerous than a UTV that's enclosed with doors and seat belts and headlights and tail lights and blinkers, everything else. Maybe that's something we want to look at.

Yeah, Moramo. Yeah, there there's a lot here and we have to separate the um the UTV question from the golf cart question. You're exactly right and Deb's right too. The scooters and ebikes, those are the those are a third aspect of this. Um uh there's a

electric vehicles are good. I'm talking about golf carts right now. Yeah. And um there's a there's a a small L libertarian case to be made for letting people drive vehicles that they own and so on and so forth. Um golf carts are limited to 20 miles an hour. They're, you know, 800 to,200 lb depending on how how tricked out they are and so forth. Um but the the this the um the collision resistance is just abysmal. And if we're talking about town center, we're talking about crossing a major highway, which is regulated against uh for the most part. and um and uh um the the the fact that they're 20 miles an hour. Taylor Road is 25 miles an hour and we reduce that from 35 miles an hour because the the traffic study um traffic engineers will look at the 85 percentile of speed without a speed limit and they will set that's how they set the speed as an appropriate level and it was 35 miles an hour. And then a few years ago we decided this is just too fast and we're going to we wanted to keep kids safe in the crosswalks and whatnot. So, we reduced it to 25 and um if we if we uh say it's okay for golf carts, suddenly we would reduced it to 20 and there's three or four cars backing up as you may have suggested at at the light um that normally wouldn't because they're waiting for a golf cart to tool around and maybe it was um only going 15, maybe it's battery is low and so on and so forth. I think we'd be causing a lot of congestion. But as a practical matter, the re the the um uh enforcement if you stop a 14year-old that looks 18, um uh you know, you're um you it's um uh if you don't stop a 14-year-old that looks 18, it's it's negligence the for the cops. And if you

do stop an 18-year-old that looks 14, it's harassment. And so it would be very difficult to police and um and um I just think a vehicle like that that doesn't have appropriate lights and and you know they've got some lights but it's not it's not right. Yeah. And so forth. I just think it's a really really bad idea um to talk about golf carts. um the um the the the first time the first time it only takes one negligent car driver to cause a a a a a spot on the road, right? And and the the minute we have that kind of a tragedy, um we will be looked at like, you know, idiots for letting this happen because the communities I've been in that are driving golf carts, it's people wanting like Sulard, people wanting to avoid DUIs, right? So they drive to the bar in their golf car. It's that's it's that's literally true. The city of

Yeah. I will say Cot Codleville does it in St. Charles and Codleville is very similar to Wildwood. Yeah. They got it's golf communities. It is. But they've got some roads going through there that are are are like old Manchester and you know 40 miles an hour and stuff and they just But not to say my my perspective on that was not to insinuate that we should do golf carts. I was saying we've always talked about golf carts and UTVs as one and the same. Agree. I think that needs to be two separate conversations. I my personal opinion is that I don't really have a problem with UTVs because they're dramatically more safe. They can operate in the same capacity as a car and they're typically enclosed caged doors. They've got all the things.

Yeah. That that go but we could set parameters on what the specifications would have to be because you would still have to get a permit from city hall. So, I'm I was hoping I I was hoping to finish up with the UTV aspect because I have one I have a Gator and you're right, it'll go as fast as a car, but the suspension is not set up for that. And the tires specifically 12 pounds of air in the tires and their big mushy things and so on and so it's going like this if you get up above, you know, 25 or 30 mph. But that doesn't mean that some 16-year-old kid is not going to drive it to its absolute limit. and the first corner he goes around, he's going to go tumbling because they're very high centered. You're talking about safety. The safety is there in terms of the roll cage. Um the safety is not there in terms of the brakes, the suspension, and particularly the crash uh resistance. They they just do they're not any better. It's I wouldn't I wouldn't be any happier getting hit in a golf cart in in my in my uh gator than I would be in a golf cart because they're just not safe. But they go a whole lot faster. And so I think we would be um doing you know residents a disservice if we opened it up because um and I mean you can't regulate safety to uh to perfect extent but you can um avoid the um the um the unsafe activities by just not allowing UTVs. I wouldn't I wouldn't I I wouldn't think that it's um that it's you know an urgent thing for us to be um to be even considering this at at you know at this time. I mean UTVs are just not that it's most people don't have them and if you do have them you're looking for places to drive them and um you know it would be back to the same thing with the 14 year olds looking 18 and 18 year olds

looking 14. the cops would have a nightmare trying to enforce um you know uh the um regulations that we've established. It just seems like it's a it's a mess. So I I would be against it without a whole lot more information that makes it sound better than it does to me. Yeah. I just wanted to get the appetite and the thought process of everybody because I get questions a lot. Vicki and

just one comment. I agree that there's a difference between the two. I worked for two different companies that had UTVs of some sort, but they were licensed through the state. So, they had to meet certain criteria to be on the road. So, if you look at it, um I don't know how they're getting here from St. Albins's without having a license on it, but I think you have to have a license to be on public streets. Um and that's part of the criteria for them. So just a mention as as you look at it, you might want to consider are they licensed through the state because that helps the police too in their role. Yeah.

I think probably before we um take consideration of this issue much further. It's we should probably do what director alluded to, which is to get the input of uh police,

first responders that would be involved with this. Yeah. fire, the paramedics in particular, you know, with the fire department, uh the police department, you know, what issues do they see with enforcement? Uh you know, we benefit here from um our police coverage being uh from the uh St. Louis County Police Department. So, I'm sure they probably have experience in other areas that they could research. I think at the very least it's just doing our due diligence to say we looked at it to see, you know, that way when residents have questions or bring it up. To your point with with the libertarian approach, like we're not just bringing our fist down and saying you can't do this, but

but we've looked into it. We've done due diligence. We've looked at the most up-to-date statistics and feedback from from the police and and here's what our decision is at that point. Council member B. Yeah. I had a place up in Clear Lake, Iowa, and they allowed golf carts, and u the city did require a permit. You had to just go to the city to get your your license. And as a as a operating a car, most frustrating thing is to have a go golf cart ahead of you when you're trying to go like you got a three mile run to the grocery store or something and he's set there.

Yeah. I don't like them. I'll just be honest. They they belong on the golf course. I'm not saying either. I'm just saying and I like I said I I think there's a difference between golf cart UTVs for sure. Two separate conversations. Not saying either one of them open to driving a golf cart to a concert maybe that you know allow that one night or something but on a regular basis. At least the city council should. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The biggest argument against them is 100 and 109. Yeah. You know, because that's town center. It bisect, you know, bisects town center north, south, and east, west, and people crossing those roads were we're asking for trouble. It's Well, you have to limit it. You couldn't do all of town center. I don't

Well, they'd be on the trail. Yes. On the trail at this point. Why don't we do you want a motion? Do we need a motion or should you just take a direction to go look up that information?

Yeah. I'd make a motion that you contact the various entities that you have listed in your memo and that you bring back their perspectives to our next meeting or whenever it's convenient. We've got budget coming up so this isn't top of the list for something to do. Um and that we then um another thing would be city attorney information. Um, so I'm glad that you reiterated that, but I say we take it, give it back to the department, let them do some more due diligence research, and then bring it back and see whether this is even fiscally responsible for the city of Wildwood to take on regulating these activities.

Yeah. Second. Okay. All in favor of the motion, please say I. I. Any oppose? Any discussion? I had a a modification, but I um Mike, I would suggest that you look at golf carts separately from UTVs, separately from scooters. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yes, please. We are getting a lot more complaints about electric scooters. Oh, scooters. Electric bikes. It's like this. They're little bit sometimes. Yeah, I know. Little kids and and they go 30 miles an hour. I'm I'm I'm a cyclist. I'm a cyclist from way back and I hate ebikes myself, but

I almost got run over by one last time. All right. Uh moving along, we've got the recent development trends within the city of Wildwood. Anybody have any questions, comments, or concerns related to that? Seeing none, we're just now getting into He's feeling the pressure. This is seven minutes. Director, you got nine minutes to get through these things. uh village green phase two the design and engineering component of the all facility director.

Thank you Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair, members of the committee the department received from ideal landscape group which is part of the unlimited play um team that will be providing services for our all-inclusive playground. The information received from Ideal Landscape Group was an estimate for the design and engineering services to the playground and all of its components. The amount is $123,000. You want to put it in perspective that's half the cost of CDI phase one of village green. The department is seeking authorization to proceed forward with legislation that would be presented at the October 13 city council meeting. At that October 13th city council meeting, the department believes that it can reduce the cost of this and for tonight's purposes would like authorization to prepare legislation that would say to exceed $123,000. There any questions? Mr. Lee, Mr. Rip, Mr. Rifto, and I are available. Anybody have anything?

I'll make that motion. Second it. Got a motion, a second. Any discussion on the motion? All right. Seeing none. All in favor of the motion, please say I. I. Yeah. You're going to pull those. And any obstensions? All right. Can I make one comment because I hear it all the time? Yeah. Um, swings. Everywhere I go, every park I go, there's not enough swings. Everybody's asking why there aren't more swings. Is there any way to incorporate that into the village green playground? Another swing. They put a lot in there.

Yeah, there are several sets of swings that are proposed as part of the premier design that was selected by the committee. We also retained the swing set from Anniversary Park and we were going to put it down in Glenco Park. Oh, good. But I'll bring that up during our capital improvement discussion. I just tell my kids it's their chance to learn to wait there. You obviously don't have a three-year-old room six. It's enough. All right. Um, this takes us into the next item, which is the Village Green phase 2 fundraising efforts for W 8. Miss RTO,

not sure I'm going to be able to compete with uh Director Vinnich's last presentation, but I'll try to be brief. Um so the fundraising group met again on August 27th and we've had some shifting of uh members. Um we have two new members and then as you likely know uh Paula Vassan is no longer with the city so she won't be helping out with this project anymore but she did uh leave us with a news flash that we are going to put up um soon. I just wanted to have a landing page on the website which also went up today. So we'll get to that. Um, but Unlimited Play actually created an itemized um, uh, donation page for us and we are the first city to have that because apparently I ask too many questions and so you can go through

guarantee is she asked too many questions. It's true. It's an ongoing problem. That's good that thing. That's a very good thing.

We don't have to keep track of it. We don't have to go through a spreadsheet. And so that is a very good thing. Um, and I think they're going to be offering this in the future. So um but the group also discussed uh we distributed the fundraising cataloges and the uh postcards and and all that discuss uh upcoming opportunities like celebrate wild with to inform people and how to stay organized and such. And the group is going to be meeting once a month moving forward to just kind of um brainstorm new ideas, strategies, discuss who we've talked to and uh upcoming donations. Um, so that being said, uh, the city does now have this on our website for the all-inclusive, um, village green play, uh, playground. Um, so it has a home and when you click into it, uh, there's a story map for the all-inclusive playground. Um, all of this information was taken from the catalog and just put into a different format. And we have the 3D flyth through video here. sponsorship opportunities at the top, but then this goes through um the stories and Twitter doesn't like this on Zoom. It's much better not on Zoom. Um but then this is my favorite part. I'm very excited to show. Um

this is the part she did by herself. So this is Yeah. And I didn't know how to do it, so that was the impressive part.

Good job. So on this map, this is an interactive map and you can go through and click on any one of these little tags and or over here and speaking of swings um here are inclusive swings and we got information from um unlimited play as to you know what these various different components are good for, what disabilities they contribute, you know that they're good for and um may use this as an opportunity for an educational experience. And so all of them have a little description. I don't have all of them up there yet, but they also have a link to the sponsorship page. So with every single one, it says sponsor me for however much you sponsor it for and it takes you straight into there. Make things as easy as possible for people to give us money for our playground. Um, then this also goes into the voices of Wildwood and it has quotes and stuff and photos from our residents and their families. And then down at the bottom it also has uh takes you to uh unlimited plays website, the sponsorship catalog, village green, and um it's available now, but uh it's a work in progress. Um, I still have more equipment and stuff to get up there, but wanted to have a home for it so that we could get the word out there and then we can put the news flash up and direct people here as well. And so that being said, um the group has already uh have three pieces of equipment sponsored. Uh so about $7,000 um thus far and there are a few more that I have heard people are interested in. So, um hopefully, uh this will this will work out well.

Did you put where's your graph that says 25% funded or whatever you said you were going to actually has that on theirs? Um and so we do have a link to that if you go here. I see. Yeah. Yeah. And so, um yeah, I think we're actually at 26% now. So, okay. And are we offering incentives? I'm sorry I'm jumping in here, but are we were we offering any incentives for the people to contribute? Um I mean other than just contributing to a great No, no, I I understand that. But we talked a lot about that.

So people will have recognition um in the park and in the catalog. It goes through the different tiers. I plan on putting that on our story map as well. And then also um have a sponsorship section on the story map so that we can start with that. Thank you there. And then from there, like they'll have in park um recognition as well. We haven't quite landed on the exact Rob. I saw the $25,000 tree still available if you want to do that. I'm thinking about it. I just I just But I need recognition, right? I need maybe I go spray paint my name. I'm sorry. How did you fiberglass

our website one you just developed? How did you get to that? So, um it's under city parks. So, on the city's website, um it's if you go to recreation and go to the city parks, it's here um with all of our other parks. And I might actually move it up to the top. Okay. Uh so, right now it's here, but that link can be anywhere. And so, I plan on plugging it as much as I possibly can. And then we'll do a news flash that will also lead straight to the story map. I just make sure I knew where it was. Yep. Absolutely. And so with that, that

you know anybody who would be interested that may not necessarily know, we're working on a donor list now to send out information and to invite them to come later to um learn more about it. We'd be happy to get that information if you know anybody we should add to the list. Yeah. If you have any suggestions of people that might be willing to sponsor, um we're happy, like the group is happy to uh chat with people about it. So, by all means, send me names or businesses or if you think of anybody, just shoot me an email.

Yeah, I'm just clarifying my comment. Um, it's mostly typical swings that people complain because there aren't enough is are typical swings going to be here in this park? There's both. There's uh some of them and they're on the same swing set, you know, there's some that are all like the one at community park. Yeah. Similar to that. And so there's two sets of swings. Um, one on the smaller kids side, one on the larger kids side. And both of them have both the regular swings as well as the more inclusive swings. Okay. Council.

So um, this is under items ready for consideration. So were you looking for direction from the committee regard on this topic or is this more for information? The heading's more just it's a discussion item instead of not ready for action. Okay. All right. Perfect. This was intended to just be an update and show off a little one last question. You had talked about bricks with that people could sponsor bricks. Um is a page similar to this going up for that?

Maybe. Maybe. Um, so I'm also in the process of trying to find a landing place for this. Uh, Travis and I had looked at the village green page, which I will show you here, is uh it just kind of needed to be revamped. And so we've got all of this information on here and then it goes into the original um input and that and then over oh yeah it's going to freeze up because that's what it does which is part of the reason that I would like it on a story map. So, we were uh essentially going to um Let me find my

We originally wanted to try and link through their site, but it got a little confused. And yeah, yeah, I did. So, I've talked to Melanie about something.

The videos on the Village Green website keep freezing up and such. So, I'm also working on one for the village green that is here and kind of goes through the exact same information that is on our website currently except prettier. And then I also have one for this links into village green phase one like updates and such. Um down at the bottom it has phase one um details and phase 2 details and progress. And so they'll all be linked together. Um and that being said, the bricks are more with the phase one um yeah

part of the phase one. And so yes, ideally I would love to have this hook up into that so that people can just go directly from one to the other um with the sponsorship opportunities there. But as far as the unlimited play, we aren't offering bricks. Uh it was discouraged by unlimited play. Um apparently it's a pain and so uh we have we don't really have there's not much money in it, right? Well, yeah, partly. partly part of the playground. The bricks aren't part of the playground. Exactly. We talked about doing them around Yeah. you know paths and stuff, but we already offer it at Village Green and so it seemed a little redundant. So I have a question.

Yeah, I Well, I'll comment actually. Um this park is important enough, unique enough, and expensive enough that it ought to be its own um you know, it should be separate. Yeah, it should be separate from Village Green in my opinion. You can certainly link to it from the Village Green thing, but the more exposure we get on this park, the more likely we are to sell, you know, people on um you know, sponsoring, you know, sponsorship opportunities and so on and so forth. But I think this park is uh is at least as much a centerpiece of our community are going to be as Village Green itself is.

That was part of the reason that I wanted the two separate little buttons. you know, we have village and then we have the all-inclusive and also so that we could link the all-inclusive to more easily and um in different things rather than having to go through the village green and then find Okay, you're you're thinking that way anyway. So, it was worth mentioning. Thanks. Awesome. You've done a fabulous job. Yes, she is. Yep. It's awesome. So, thank you for all that work. Thank you. Yeah.

All right. All right. Well, that takes us into wilder recreation programming and facility reservations and event registrations. Does anybody have any questions or comments related to either of those two topics? All right, seeing none. No, I do have one quick one. Do we have any word on number of registrations for the tours of wildwood which is coming up here?

I believe we crossed the we have 30 registrants now. Okay. tripled since we last talked about it beginning of this week. And we've did talk to Mike Weiss with Big Shark Cycling and it's a trend. He believes that we'll easily get our 200 that we typically have for the event each year. If you get 200 registrations, is that what you think you need to have in order for this to be Yes. a worthwhile event and break even and so on? Actually, we got very close to breaking even last year and we were at 143. So, we actually think we're going to do better this year. So, we're proceeding forward.

Is the route is the route map published or is it is it on the website? Yes. And it's a it's a new route. Gary Cruz, our former superintendent of parks, prepared it. Mike Weiss reviewed it. Um, you both claim it's a it's a great course. It takes you to all the highlights and it's got about 2,000 feet of climb, which I understand is it makes it it'll make it'll make it a little tough, too. Jump on my ebike. And I told Director Vonage that I'm going to ride this. I told Director Vonage to be sure he has the paramedics ready.

I really want to, but I haven't been on my bike all summer. Awesome. Thank you so much. Um, and then last, I've got the Village Green phase one update. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee. I have the phase one update, and I also included a site visit, but I forgot that the sun goes down pretty early these days now, so please feel free to visit at your leisure. The biggest thing and the thing I want to conclude with is just utility poles and the overhead electric lines are gone. Yes.

Thank you for staying the course. I was the one that stood before you probably several months ago and said, you know, we could get by with holes and lines in place. Yeah, you did great. It changed the Yeah, it was amazing. Looks wonderful. Yeah. So, it's all solded now, guys, and everything and the, you know, once the stones in. So, uh a day to go. Yeah. It's just well like I say and the flat work is supposedly scheduled still this week. Um the flat work is probably the last most intrusive thing now that Emory Missouri is for the most part complete. Um the landscaping's been going in. So thanks for staying the course. You will get a gratitude.

And Joe the cabin passed. Yes. Aren't you happy? Yes he is. that cab that is going to be someday. It's it's going to be the main, you know, distinguishing feature. I understand there's a slew of priorities out there for everything from A to Z. Um, you all took the risk. Um, certainly I've heard other comments about it. For right now, I'm focused on getting Village Green phase one. All right.

All right. Well, thank you very much for that update and yeah, definitely check it out and perhaps on uh Saturday for Celebrate Wild come a little earlier and take a gander out there. Will we allow people to walk over there? Well, you as city council people who are so to speak on the limb because you're funding it certainly, but we're going to try to keep you out. It is construction. So, right. Yeah. So, stay off it. Yes. But tonight I we have to celebrate wildly down in the field that we've always had it. So you would recommend I can't go on. Oh certainly. Yeah. It's just a large group of people and you all

I'm kind of curious. You're covered by our liability just pick a different day to meander up there and we celebrate wild. I was say I was saying in the morning at like 8 o'clock in the morning before we get the golf carts to go to because there's nobody else. ATVs. Yeah, bring your ATV up here. Get your golf course.

All right. Well, thank you very much, guys. Um, we don't have an executive session uh tonight and then the not ready for action items are there for your viewing and other matters for consideration. Does anybody have any miscellaneous? Director Vicher, our superintendent of parks and recreation and Stacy Chansky, our recreation uh supervisor. sent me Melanie a note remind everyone to pick up their celebrate wildpood packets if they haven't yet sitt anybody go back up there our uh let me in

our next meeting is Tuesday October 21st 2025 it's a budget meeting operating and capital components so everybody try to be here if you can and outside of that I'll entertain a motion to adjourn council Rambo second by council Atberg. All in favor of the motion, please say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Thank you. All right, guys. Thank you. Good job, chair. Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Melanie. Yeah.