Economic Development Committee - Regular Meeting

guys. I guess not just Mr. Farmer. So, I just I didn't know if that I mean because like I know I see they're going to put like that wrapper or whatever around. Oh, I know. I got it like a paper topic. I'm starting to get used to this. Yeah, Mr. Chair, we're all set to go. This is usually a short one. All right. Yeah, that's looking short. Is it exactly 5:30? Uh, we've got about 30 seconds.

30 seconds. Start here again. Business, you know. All right. Welcome to the economic development committee meeting for Monday, October 20th, 2025, 5:30 p.m. here at city hall. So, uh, all right, Mr. Lee, please take role. Uh, Chair Scott Oddenberg here.

Vice Chair Preston. Council member Trotier here. Council member Farmer here. Council member McCutchen here. Council member Bucker, Council Member Cray here, member Alers here. We have four. All right. Very good. Thank you. So, moving on to approval of minutes from the uh August 19th meeting. Does anybody have any questions on the minutes from that meeting? In that case, I would entertain a motion to approve from Mr. Farmer. Yep.

Would somebody else like to second? Alers, thank you very much. All those in favor of approval of the minutes from the 8/19 meeting, please signify by saying I opposed. And one abstension since I wasn't here for that meeting. Two. I wasn't here either. All right. Two, including Mr. McCutchen. I wasn't here either, I don't believe. Oh, if someone else abstains, we'll we won't have uh it will not pass. So, I thought you can approve them. Yes, sir. I can approve them if you weren't here. You like the notes and and they look good. That's why

Yeah. An important distinction with within the minutes is that it notes that you were not there. So you can approve a set of minutes without being at the previous meeting. It's not you endorsing the action of that board at that meeting. Your votes are still recorded in that regard. Oh, all right. Well, then I would um like to change my bill if that's permissible. Can we do that? That Let's go ahead. Actually, that's that's the one that I participated in from um offshore. So, I actually did. All right. So, I'm chang and I was there 15 minutes. Let's go ahead. If you don't mind, could we do another roll another uh voice vote real quick? Not not a roll call, but just a voice. All right. So, all those in favor of approval of the minutes from the 8/19 meeting, please signify by saying I. I.

Opposed? Abstensions. All right. Minutes approved. Thank you. So, we move along to public comment. Uh, doesn't look like we have anybody here for public comment. Do we have anyone online for public comment? Oh, sir. And it looks like Mr. Preston just joined us. Okay. So, then no one available for public comment. We move on to discussion items. Uh, for information, we move to an update on business changes and cond business news. So, Mr. Lee, would you like to handle that for us, please?

Certainly. Thank you, chair. Uh, just quick couple updates today. Uh, first and foremost, wanted to call out kind of have this bolded in the supporting documentation was the business forums coming up on Thursday. It's this Thursday, October 23rd. It's taking place right here in the community room uh from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. So, we have gotten some promo promotions out to the business community. We're hoping to have quite a few people here. We'll be talking about some of the sign changes being discussed tonight that are being proposed and some of the drive-thru items um along with some of the development trends we're seeing and obviously the holiday tree lighting. So, wanted to quickly call out that this Thursday, October 23rd for those that are listening online. Uh also just quick note uh that obviously you've you noticed that there is construction activity starting on the uh four-story building down the street, the mixeduse. Um quick note there and they are full steam ahead. um our communications manager role that is something that now we are and in the budgeting process we'll be looking to uh go ahead and get that published to fill the position. So note there but we have been without communications economic development manager for the last about 30 days. Um we have few new opening restaurants we wanted to note Chula Indian hearth and bar they uh at 16721 Main Street they are now open. um their business is wanting to get a little bit more established, have some uh customers that have gone a little bit more frequently, but then they're going to want to have a ribbon cutting ceremony. They are not part of the chamber, so we'll be hosting that for them. We'll be sending out some details through the weekly CA report here shortly. Uh that said, they are open. Just wanted to pick make a quick note in case any residents are listening. They do uh open each day 6 to 10. So, just in case you see that they might have a closed sign up a little earlier in the day, uh they're typically open for dinner hours at this time. Um just two real quick other ones. The community feedback survey has been launched. Uh we're currently keeping that open. We had the poster board out. It did get rained on at the Celebrate Wildwood event. Uh so, we did take that

down during the rain, but overall it's uh it's coming along. We've got about 20 responses thus far. We're going to be doing a social media push here soon. And then just one really quick note too is that you know obviously everyone's heard that the local house beastro has closed but within one month of that closure actually two weeks uh the city got confirmation that Tableau Kitchen and Bar was moving in and taking over that spot. Used to have a place in Costa Mesa, California. Um they went ahead and they're moving out here now and the uh the chef and not the chef but the owner of the business is a seems very professional. The city's looking forward to working with them. He's trying to open here within the next couple weeks. So, we should be seeing some activity at that spot. Uh, one last quick note is just to recap. This was already mentioned at the Celebrate Wildwood event, but just wanted to congratulate again uh Mr. Thomasson from Premier Martial Arts regarding his uh the Chini Hood Achievement Award. He is our 2025 recipient. Other than that, department's available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Super. Uh, how many businesses have uh responded to the announcement of the forum? Is there we have any commitments? We have about 13 this fall. 13. Okay. We usually get a number that show up on that morning. Yep. Okay. That's correct. Very good. Just as a reminder to the rest of council members, I think some of you have come there before uh to those meetings and everyone is welcome uh and I always try to make it a point to recognize everybody that's there. Council member Albert, I just in your updates, Thomas, I this is a little broken record. is the the brothers fish. Is that an is that a recent update or is that going back?

That's that's going back about 3 weeks or so, but yeah, they're the only update they have is they had some work going on in there. Uh they had to tear down the supposedly the water that burst through that pipe. Uh but when they got the inspections done, they had to tear down the wall interior walls because it got up there and it caused some some damage. So, it's it's pretty extensive uh what they're repairing in there. I guess all those greasy tacos messed up the place. You know,

supposedly what had happened, at least from what the department's heard, is that over uh the time where it was vacant, there was somebody, I guess, not keeping the heat on or something. Something happened where the a uh pipe burst and it got everywhere. The water got everywhere and it wasn't cleaned up properly, I assume. I I got a question on that. Tab Tablo. Um he had a restaurant out in in California, Costa Mesa. Is that gonna remain open? No, that's closed. Okay. Yeah, he's I think he's moved out here. Where's I I went and checked out the menu out there. Uh it's on the website. It's pretty pricey, but that's California, but pretty fancy stuff.

Yeah, the idea is to have uh some pretty upscale wine tastings on Fridays and then having on Sundays like some upscale brunches. So, it is going to be a little bit of a classier menu, but that said, it'll also uh those maybe it has different pricing for the the weekday, but California prices. Yeah. Are there any other questions for Mr. Lee? So, Mr. Lee, um question on the uh open position. Realistically, once the position is posted, that's probably going to be around November 1st at the earliest. That would be posting it or actually having someone in that role. Uh posting it. Oh yeah, that that seems realistic.

Okay. So then you know considering uh the process of interviews and that sort of thing. I mean uh realistically earliest we would probably be looking at is like a January first start. That's that's almost what we're looking at too just because when Thanksgiving holiday picks picks in and then you the job market typically just starts we see a declining return if you will from job applications when we post it near the holidays. Typically they'll they'll shoot up right at the kind of the end of the year. We're going to try to get it out at that front end of November, but that's said the goal is to have someone at the start of the year. All right, perfect. Thank you. Okay, so then I guess we move along then to status of the Wildwood window decal program. And I guess Mr. Lee, I'll turn it back over to you.

Thank you, Chair Utenberg. Just want to make a quick note here and uh kind of give a check in, Charlie, on a program that was approved since we have some new committee members. But um there's a picture of this in the supporting documentation, but the um proud local business uh stickers, those were they've actually been quite a bit of success. We have 30 different businesses currently showcasing the sticker. It doesn't take up any of the real estate that they're allowed to put in their own windows. Um that said, we just wanted to almost set a goal for the upcoming year. We still have about a hundred stickers left. So the goal is to get rid of all those stickers and have about 130 businesses uh by the end of 2026. But we're available to answer any questions, but the idea today was just to set that goal for 26. It's been a very popular, you know, mo most of the bigger businesses here in Town Center. Um, they've actually reached out to us to get them. So, we have them at Shnooks U at Premier Martial Arts obviously has one, too. We got the trophy over to them. Um, really, it's been a pretty successful program. We've been able to the shop local campaign that the shop local Saturday that's coming up. We're going to try to tie that in with the stickers and then hopefully kind of get a a buzz, if you will, for folks that are shopping at local business.

So, what type of um how do we gauge how successful this program has been? I would say just based off the fact it was it only cost us about it. It's this is a thing. It cost $200 to get all these stickers. We still have them. Uh that said, each time Paula would go out and meet with a different business owner, she would bring some stickers with them and then ask them at the end if you if you'd want the sticker there. And that would typically be the time where you'd cover also our new resident packets and all of that good stuff. So I mean our business community each time that she's she's attempted 30 giveaways and she's given it 30 times and they put it up. So I'd say that's pretty successful, but we have not gotten anybody to come up here at city hall and actually knock on the door and say, "Can I get that sticker?" So we should probably have a reminder about that program this coming Thursday. That's correct.

So it's it's a minimal investment. Yeah, it's 200 $200 to get enough stickers to cover almost the We have still enough stickers to cover all the commercial businesses in. Very good, Deb.

Yeah. So, um I was in another meeting a couple times. So, what is the driving factor behind these stickers? Uh the idea is that like a shop local like having the sticker up is a signifying factor that you're in Wildwood that and we try to tie that from the city side that when you spend those dollars locally that that dollar gets reinvested back in infrastructure parks etc sales tax purposes. The idea is to almost create you know almost an invisible boundary where folks feel you know excited about shopping. if they see the sticker, the idea would be we'd share it online. Every time we've had uh one of these businesses, put it up in their window. We've shared it on social media. Uh just a thing for folks to look out for. And then the other thing you could tie it to different programs in the in the future, hey, you know, shop with 30 of these different businesses. If you see the sticker, take a picture with it. We can give them a prize or something like that to try to galvanize support for shop local campaigns. But the idea is to hopefully educate residents and keep the business community engaged. So, is it working?

I mean, I I think the business owners appreciate it. It's just another one of It's just like the the new resident packets. I mean, even though that, you know, that program isn't something that, you know, not everybody does, other cities do. All the businesses that come in and provide their materials, they they show up, you know, every time to refill up their uh the promotions they give. I mean, it's it's one of those things we do for our businesses that it's it's nice and for 200 bucks, it was a decent investment to kind of show, you know, hey, we do care and we're trying to kind of happy with those stickers. That's some So, how are you going to gauge if that's actually driving economic development? I mean,

well, that's that's the idea with the social campaign. So, like if someone were to tag the business owner, I mean, we don't have 30 businesses so far have it. So, we're trying to get it up to 130. So at that point, I think there would be a good argument that we could start running a campaign on just social media says take a picture with, you know, the purchase you just made at one of our local businesses. I mean, we're not going to know exactly what that economic impact was, but if we see a bunch of people posting with photos and they have a coffee in their hand or they have, you know, a Dearbird's grocery list, you know, in their hand, um, I think that in of itself is it it it's more of like a gesture to the business community to start trying to brand. And it is something that our the businesses of Wildwood organizations ask for. It's something that's been kind of brought up is you know trying to unify all the businesses here locally to

but that doesn't bring anybody outside of Wildwood. Not necessarily. No. This is more so focused in on having our residents stay here. Okay. Not to put water on the flame, but we tried this sticker thing a couple times before and it it really wasn't successful. Now, it wasn't followed up by social media or or anything like that. So, um I you know, if that's the business or asking for it, then but you know, I think maybe time would be better spent trying to get people into the city instead of, you know, people who live in the city are already shopping here.

Yeah, I I get you. So, this is not something where we're like going out knocking doortodoor to give them a sticker. This is something where at least when our economic development manager is here full-time when they would go make a visitation with one of our businesses and kind of just do the standard, you know, going through all the feedback that they can provide to us. This would be something kind of added at the back end to say, "Hey, you know, I also have these stickers almost kept in a portfolio kit. If you'd like one, you can take one. If not, you know, they don't have to put it up, but most of the time it's 30 out of 30 chances they did put it up and they pose for like a welcome to Wildwood sticker.

It It's It's almost like a It's a nice little thing to add to the business presentation. It's They I I think the business owner thinks they got a little bit more out of it, too. They're like, "Okay, well, you know, I know about the A lot of the folks did not know about the new resident packets. We're supposed to vote on this." No, it's information. Just information. Yeah. But that said, if the committee wants to go a different direction and I mean, we have the stickers. The stickers. We have the stickers and the stickers out. Yeah. Thursday. Thursday. That's okay. We do have the stickers already. Thursday have them available right with We have them already. Yes. Oh, good. Is there some Thursday? Have them available Thursday. It'll be a whole slide.

Parents, you mentioned that this uh program has been tried a time or two in the family. What type of followup was done? How the program was introduced and promoted? I I do not. I just remember we had the stickers. It was said it wasn't very successful and we stopped. That was we that happened twice. But I don't know any about the followup. No, it's it's the same thing like you know Loo News and stuff like that. They have like a platinum awards thing that you I think West magazine has a similar deal. Joe or Mayor Garana won it. So

I mean it's just something you put in the window and people it's like a oh look I'm part of the club kind of a thing which is great. Um but it doesn't actually and it's not designed to actually stem any kind of economic anything. It's just a thing. one of those things where it does I will say it does kind of add some value to that business visitation but will it actually attract folks coming certain marketing things yeah I mean it's a it is a thing that does help to bond some people into the community I mean I think

conceptually you know we had the Wildwood Business Association which kind of crashed and burned for lack of a better way of saying Um, you know, you have a very kind of desperate business community. So, anything that can bring people together is great. Um, but you know, even with the new even with the new resident packets, like I think it's a cool thing. I also know that it takes a significant amount of energy to get those things put together. And so, you know, without an ability for us to gauge what if anything that is if that's successful in any way, like they're nice things that we're doing. They're not we're not doing anything with them. They're just things that we have. And so, um, like I don't I don't want to monopolize the thing. I know we got other stuff to talk about like but one of the things I was looking at with the budget and everything else is like you know we don't have any you said it earlier like we don't really have any metrics that measure any level of anything and I don't know how or why we would do that anyways because we're not going to have like some huge economic boom here even when we have stuff happening. So I just think we want to I would just suggest we kind of try to assess some of these things like they're cool things. $200 for stickers is no big deal. People like them. We should all have stacks of them and anytime we go in and don't see it on the door, go, "Hey, by the way, here's a sticker. Let's put it on your door." And then, you know, it's it's good to leave behind stuff, but I think for the most part, you know, the things we got to try to do to help people, a sticker is not going to do it. You know, very few of the things that we in the capacity that we have right now with the budget that we have right now are going to do anything. So, I mean, other than having informationational meetings every month, this is kind of like spinning our wheels a little bit.

All right. Um, do we have any uh the signs that say, you know, on the street lights that say what the decals say? Like like a like copy and like a copy and paste job there. Like having the same same exact logo, if you will. Yeah. for some of the right now. You know, the banners that are on the street lights, maybe a few of those once in a while. They have I think Manchester's got I think I saw those on Manchester. They swap them out when they don't when they take the veteran ones down, right? That would be I mean that could be something that's more of like a like when we don't have any other signs up it that's just like the standard sign.

I mean it could be mixed in with other things. It doesn't have to be the you know I don't know how many banners are up all together. 20 something or Yeah, probably now 50 or so. Yeah, they're going all the way down there. So, there's quite a bit of them now. That's pretty nice. Okay. Now, we don't need 50 of them, but you know, just Yeah, the Hometown Heroes program has been very successful, right? Okay.

We could think about a way to incorporate it and and that was kind of the idea really with social media, too, is just to kind of have that when folks see that insignia, they almost think, okay, I'm I am supporting a wolf. it's they're registered, they have a license in the city. So, I I wouldn't think that's a once again, it would be difficult to track the impact of putting that sign up, but if we could add that decal to, you know, something we're already making, then I think that would be a pretty good move. It's hard to measure anything advertising. You know,

Mr. Vichberg, thank you. We advertised the sticker program in the e newsletter each week and with Paula's help and Tom's we basically concluded by saying next time you see a sticker in the window or on a door step inside you'll be supporting a business that invest in Wildwood's future. Ene goes out to about 2,000 households. So we are trying to promote those businesses that are showing loyalty.

Thank you. All right, moving on to the next topic. Update on the planning and zoning commission's review of the city's signed regulations. And Mr. Boon, am I turning this one over to you? Mr. Here I I mean he's honestly I I can take it if you like, but I'm more Okay. All right. That said, uh Joe, you delegated up.

I did. It worked. overall the uh this comes from a recent discussion actually taking place a little bit earlier this year at the EDC meeting uh and now it's getting to a point where the uh the actual recommendation itself will be coming in front of council for seat and file item u that said the changes really stemmed from kind of a look at this electronic message board sign uh the use of them in the city there currently as of right now

can you put this PDF up on the screen Guys, did not have this one. You got the other. [Music] Okay, perfect. All right. So, I guess we can just go through the timeline here. Uh, first and foremost, we had this discussion back at the EDC meeting. This doesn't have it in the the overall uh timeline, but as it got to the uh planning and zoning commission back in January, there was initial mentioning and discussion of it. Really, this all stemmed from electronic message centers, the electronic message board signs um being a part of discussion and specifically having a couple different we do not allow them currently and the way we were looking at it is do we want to allow taxing districts but also businesses to allow the use of these electronic message signs. It's something that the technology has advanced since the last time it was reviewed by the planning and zoning commission. So, it was thought that maybe there was some advancements there. it could be dominated in some some way. Um that is one half of it. The other half of the review included a look at the city's current sign regulations in a couple different other departments as in the sign the sign size temporary signage the escrow that's taken just other really cleanup items of the current sign code. Some things we've heard feedback on um this has gone through the planning and zoning commission process and we actually had Randy Burquette come out and do quite a few presentations and work sessions. is pretty interactive process uh with the public but also with the commission. That said, the idea the conclusion that was brought up about electronic message center signs was that they would be

allowed for taxing authorities which would include entities like city of Wildwood. I mean, we're not planning on putting one up as of right now, but uh also school districts and fire districts, anybody that has taxing authority within the city of Wildwood, they would be allowed to put these signs out there. That said, there would also be um there was also a calling for potentially having two different lighting standards included with it. One being um in the more rural portions of Wildwood where it would be a little bit more stringent and then some areas that would be really town center focused and it would allow a little bit more brighter signs. That said, uh this is now going to the city council. The other side of it is more of the general sign regulations since it doesn't have any businesses getting permission. It's where the committee could provide feedback tonight if they'd like. But overall the big changes being made when it comes to the other sign regulations include the uh change. This is actually a pretty pretty large change for the city is that the way we calculate the the how large a wall sign can be. Uh before this change was made, it was one square foot for every linear foot of square of footage of your frontage. And then it was capped at 50 square feet with a height maximum of 24 in. And now the new standard is actually up to 5% of the total wall area. That's not just the business facade. That's the entire frontage of the building itself. Um still capped at 50 square feet as a max size and but the letter height was increased to 30 in. The idea behind this is that for those businesses that have shorter um have shorter names, maybe there's two, three letters or it's just a shorter in general. Um it doesn't spell out the whole word Starbucks. that just says SB or something like that. It would accommodate them to be able to have a taller sign but not have it be um really unnecessarily. There's been some that have come up that just don't fit

the facade if they only have a couple letters. So, that said, that should address that. It seems like that going back at some of the uh some of the signs that were not necessarily approved, it seems to fit pretty well. Um and I know a couple different businesses will actually be able to take advantage of this. That's one. I can let Mr. Hunich expand on that a little bit more if he'd like. But the other big ones I would say is the simplified rules for temporary banners. We're allowing more days that you can actually have those up under these current the proposed regulations. And then the sign escrow requirement. This is a big one that we wanted to make sure we noted because this was something our business community had brought up. But uh that before we used to have a $50 $500 escrow uh that we would require when they would put up the sign in case someone you know went out of business and they didn't clean it up. So that said, now that would actually go towards the property owner if they didn't clean it up and it wouldn't require somebody to put $500 down. So that should help new businesses coming in. Um some of these are some pretty nice changes to be able to allow some a little bit more flexibility on the front end. Um other than that, the other thing was that we took a step out of the the process and correct me if I'm wrong, but for board of adjustment, you no longer have to go to ARB and the board of adjustment. you can just go to board of adjustment for your request which is a pretty it saves about a month of time. So all those changes you know kind of add up one after another. Um right now it's been the letter of recommendations been accepted by the planning and zoning commission is the idea is to have it go to the city council for consideration as a receipt and file item. So

uh available to answer any questions though. This is more of an update, informationational update today, but if there's any changes before I mean it's going to go to council's receipt and file, but if there's anything we you want us to look into before that time, we would be happy to apply. So, just to clarify a couple of points here. I know I've discussed them, Tom, with you and I think Joe as well, but some of the rest of the group may not have been privy to some of those conversations, but over the years, how many times has the signed escrow actually been an issue where we've had to take advantage of that $500? Twice. In how many years is that? 2006.

Okay. And when we did the two removals, it was very early on after we had adopted the requirements and we found it to be very ownorous and the owner of the property, not necessarily the tenant was very concerned about damage to the building and it just became too great of a liability risk for the city. We still collected it for the most part because the code required it, but now we'll be refunding those if city council concurs with its removal. So for 19 years, it's basically been a non-issue.

It's been a most of the owners of buildings are pretty good about getting out addressing any of the pop marks or drill holes and then repainting them. So we have a good business community. This was a recommendation from Robert Gibbs, our retail consultant, and he covers the country and I think he sees a variety. We don't have that variety here. Most people take care of their properties. Very good. And then um the other issue uh pertains to um um the simplify or the the temporary sign.

What what are we doing there? So, it's really just, and correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that we're allowing it to go from 30-day a 30-day limit that you can have the sign the temporary banner in place up to 75 days per calendar. So, just extend extending the amount of time it can be up. So, would that be 75 days at one time possibly or would it be

that's the max over time? The maximum a banner can be in place is up to 15 days and that's within a 70 75 day period but we took away the number of occurrences and for the most part we took out those unnecessary steps. So what we like to think is they'll have the ability to have the banner up more often for a longer period of time but within reason. So it is truly temporary and not becoming permanent. Right. Perfect. All right. Super. Um, so those are just a couple of questions I had rest committee. Any questions, Mr. Farmer?

Yeah, I I mean I was just curious. So the new or the redone car place over by the big chief have those big flags up and our friends at that mattress store have their weighted noodle guy up every weekend. Are those anything. Do we I don't I I don't care one way or the other. I've just had a few people ask what the deal is with that.

They're not authorized. And so I'll tell you that even if property is governed by an old St. Louis County ordinance, the old St. Louis County ordinances used to prohibit temporary landing signs, business sites. Um, ours does, but those penants we actually call out now. This is problematic because they put them right at the edge of right of way. We're often times arguing about where the jail is. Now, so with the banners being more flexible, the temporary banners, we felt like defendants, you have an opportunity here to work within the confines of the law, do it, and those others not. And yes, those we have all kinds of regulations that basically says you can't have an animated sign, right? Or something like that if those noodle or whatever that guy's doing.

Yeah. I mean, the way I I just it's every I usually drive by and I see it generally in the times when the city is not open for business, the noodle guy comes back out. But I mean the the flags that are at the car dealership, they're seem to be there. Yeah. I'll have those addressed tomorrow for you, sir. I mean, like I said, it doesn't it I don't I it doesn't really bother me one way or the other. I just want to make sure whatever we're doing, we're doing it consistently. Yeah. Because that that's where we'll wind up in some trouble.

Well, and here's the analogy I try to use with business owners. I understand why you want to do it, but what if there if yet there's eight businesses in a row and they all put out two of these? All of a sudden, our beautiful roads don't look very beautiful anymore because they have all these different colors, all these things. The problem with the pendant signs, they end up leaning over because the wind gets and we're getting to the time of year when they'll get knocked over by a flower or something. Not that we're seeking perfection. It's just city councils have said roads are we're supposed to keep our roads looking nice and free of distractions if we can because distraction cause the driver not to pay attention but they should

well those in those two cases I mean they're relatively new to the city so they just may not I assume they probably don't even realize they're not supposed to be doing it now the the the pond motors or whatever the gentleman now calls it our big thing was just making sure that's a non-conforming legal So, we worked a lot on just number of cars didn't exceed what was allowed. And then at dogs, they're just enthusiastic and you can't blame me for that. Sure. So, you're going to allow those, right? No. The pendant signs were basically saying you can't have temporary banners under the premise of how they're constructed. Yes. Okay.

Just one note on electronic message centers. We the planning and zeal commission for the most part followed what came out of economic development committee. Okay, very good. Um Deb

Yeah. Well, again I don't I wasn't prepared to that discussion. So um I do have a couple questions. Um why the why the difference between west and east? because there's going to be more light disturbance on the east side than there's going to be on the west side. So again, being consistent, I think we'd want to do the same thing across the board. Um, and then how many message boards are going to be in one contiguous area like Lafayette, Babler are right there together and other subdivisions, how many signs are close together?

Well, to answer the question, if I may, Mr. Absolutely. So Brandy Burrhead, our lady, excuse me,

for the most part acknowledge something I think we all realize that west of Route 109 is a dark environment. There's not a lot of street lights. There's not a lot of business lights. Parking lot lighting is limited. So a bright sign out there is going to be magnified. Magnified to the point where it could be almost a nuisance or glary. Whereas east of Route 109, we have street lights, we have business lighting, we have parking lot lighting, we have lighting on homes that's visible from the road. So there's a lighting zone one and a lighting zone two. And the illuminations levels will be tailored to the environment where they're placed. And since some of our schools are west of Route 109, they'll have a a limitation on the brightness. But in a dark environment, according to Mr. Burrett, they'll be almost equal, so to speak. They'll be equally visible because the light is less in one and the light is more in the other.

And then I know on Lafayette and Babler and Green Pines, there's backlighting. So, if this ordinance or whatever resolution, whatever goes forward, how much brighter is the light going to be after this would pass than before?

I would argue it's probably going to be less quite frankly. Uh there's all the provisions that um that we that Mr. Bquette recommended relative to Kelvin illuminance levels and they can't animate. there's a certain period. Um, so there's all these things that we try to think through to ensure that yes, in an environment like you've described cream pines, it it should be equal or less. How's that? Well, and if we're still think they still have to turn off at a certain time, right? Yes. Yeah. So, the ones there now are just on all night long, right?

Yeah. But I don't understand that either. I mean, the period that you're turning them off, there's really not that many people out. It's more so for folks that are trying to sleep and maybe live in the direct proximity to it. Yeah, because Green Pines is going to be surrounded by households and I'm not sure.

It's just enough for night sky. The less illumination you have, the the less that goes up into the atmosphere. So, it's not a perfect set of ordinances, but I think economic development committee did a very good job. You've limited it to government entities and you solved two immediate problems. the fire district Monarch on Wild Horse Creek Road and Lafayette High School on Clayton Road. Two which have over the course of the last few years have asked for multiple occas. Yeah. But you don't think it's going to be brighter than what exists now because really it's kind it's not all that noticeable right now.

I can tell you that I don't know the illumination level of the Kelvin of any of the school signs right now for the most particularly the older ones. This way we'll be able to gauge it from the start and we have what I think is a good set of regulations. Some may feel they're too restrictive. I rather start there and not restrictive enough and try to ratchet it down. It's always easier to go up if we boost it a bit. And if we do get a lot of complaints in an area, then can we ratchet it down? That's a decision for this committee and then ultimately city council.

And then I have a couple other questions. Um, when we talk about the signs on the buildings, are they going to have the same type of font across the city or are they going to have various different fonts? Various different fonts. They're allowed to have various different fonts at this point, too. I'm just asking. Yeah. So, this is more so just a size. And then, um, it in the listing of who could have a lighted message board, it was, um, St. Louis County and federal government. Could somebody explain that to me?

The postal service. We have two post offices in Wildwood and then on Ruck Road by Route 100. St. Louis County has their maintenance garage there as their what? Maintenance garage. Oh, okay. Could you enforce that though on the higher higher level of government? Yeah. Supremacy. They they can the Ruck Road is that that's not in Wildwood though, is it? Yeah, that part is. Yes. Okay. And we have the the Holy Cross Cemetery and then their maintenance garage.

You know, I think when you mentioned tax taxable entities, we're pro probably primarily thinking of well, like you said, police, fire, and then the schools in Rockwood School District. And I guess just to clarify, St. Alburn's school would not be eligible for sign. Is that correct? Yes. They don't they do not permit it. They are not able to be part of the tax. So they cannot. Very good. Public schools. Yes. But nonpublic schools. So quick. Oh, did you have a question? Well, they they can have a sign, but it can't be. Yeah. Yes, of course. Sign they've got currently. That's not Wildwood, is it? Yeah. I know. That's Wildwood.

Yeah. Stand St. Albert's school. We're talking row of the church by that's in Wildwood. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Somebody asked me that the other day. I I didn't know what the answer to that was. Well, no. I mean that you know something at the golf course between St. Alvin's school subdivision. Yeah. Golf course. Alvin's Row is a church. It's on St. Alvin's Row. Right across from under the water tower right next to Oh, right next to the nursery. In the subdivision. Parts of it I think are Franklin. Franklin and parts of it are us. Yeah, it's kind of weird. Okay. It's like a It's like a street rock. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. I'd like to make the motion that if the message board and an area, especially residential area, um residents are complaining that it's too bright that there's ability to ratchet down. We got to pass the first thing first. Yeah. So Tom, I was just going to ask that in your time with that. I was going to ask the question, what action were you looking for from

So tonight it was for information item. The idea would be that if there was something you wanted to look us to look into to bring to that council meeting that's coming up that it'll have be a receipt and file item like if there was some additional information that you needed before Yeah. the public sorry public hearing u that we would be able to bring that into it. So if there's a request I mean we can't do too much research into because it hasn't been passed yet. If it gets referred to a committee at that point, we could we could easily look into but it would have to be passed and built. Yes. And worked on and tested. So, it's a ways away. Yes, that's correct. But I think being prepared is better than

Yeah. Yeah, but the I would say like we've done with some of these other things like I think putting in like how long of a period of time you know a sign would have to be up and running before you know like if you turn a sign on and all of a sudden you get 100 complaints the day the sign turns on that's not really a legitimate thing because they haven't had any time to see what the sign is doing. So, it's sort of like what we did with the Green Pines turn thing where, you know, it was like a provisional. They went in and we looked at it for or we were looking at it for 90 days or however that works and then can go back in. I mean, I I think I would we can certainly put a framework together, I think, to figure out how to make that work, but I think we need to do that before we start assigning.

So, quick question. Is there a way you know um Miss McCutchen has made a motion, but is there a way to accommodate her concern? It sounds like you already have a way of doing that. Correct. Yes. Each electronic message center requires a conditional use permit granted by the planning and zoning commission reviewed by city council. in the cup, we can put in that after an x amount of days or months, we do a test and if it's too bright or not compliance, you have to step it down. So, I'm okay with that. Thank you. That addresses your concern. All right. Perfect. So, is that you're you're you're no long Well, basically

what I'm saying and what Joe is saying is basically the same thing. Yeah. Sorry. All right. Perfect. Good. Any other comments, questions on the changes to the south? All right. Thank you. Yes. Just out of curiosity, how many elementary schools are in a subdivision close to residents? Do you guys know? Ridge, Green Pines, Fairway, uh, Lel Springs isn't. No. No. Wildwood Middle is not I guess technically Lafayette is like close to one but not in one. Same thing with Babler. It really should just be like

two or maybe three subdivisions or inside or like are actually Bablers across the school from or across the school. Sorry about that. Across the street from that one particular subdivision. Yeah. So So people complain about the signs and we can we can address that complaint to see if it's legit legitimate or not. I mean, we we always do that when residents complain, you know, hey, let's check it out and uh hear them and then see if it is legit. If not, you I'm okay. Well, that's good. Um Deb, anything else? No, I that was my list. Thank you, Joe.

I just had one thing and I can't remember if it's in there or not, but if not, might be something we want to look at down the road. Um if If somebody puts in a sign and then that sign becomes damaged or broken or pixelated or like whatever it is, do we have can we create something that would like like if you have the sign, the sign has to be in working order. It can't just be like flickering pixels and whatever. So in this conditional use permit, we can add a specific language or we already have property maintenance which is inclusive of the cool. You can't be missing any letters is you know

I think there there was one I think it might have been interested to you which is like really super bright and flashes a lot but there was a time when like several of the panels were like doing something completely different from the rest of the sign. Yeah. So then it was like a real like you felt like you were driving into the matrix of something. All right. Any other questions regarding the sign code? Moving along then to the status of the Main Street extension project.

All right. Thank you, chair. Just wanted to give a quick update. This was shared and we didn't have our meeting last month. We wanted to bring it up this month, but we had at the other two committees, the planning and parks and the administration and public works committee. Just an update on the uh current design efforts for the main street extension. This is the preliminary design that was posed, but there are some changes that are going to be made. I wanted to make note of them. One being the current pathway here that you see that's going to connect into the like what would have been a trail system. This is now going to be the uh the actual playground, the all-inclusive playground itself. Uh the idea would be to make this some ADA parking along this area here. So that's being incorporated as we speak. But the really one of the main things reason why we wanted to bring this up was one, it's included in the 2026 capital improvement program for right-of-way acquisition. It's we currently have 200,000 budgeted in 2025. We did that because we were reviewing a plan sheet that was going to lead to the donation of the rightway necessary to build out the main street and then we would have to go to the seven property owners on the north side here and get easement. That said, uh that project was rejected. So right now the idea would be to it is back for discussion and if there's any chance it does get passed we do want to have money set aside uh to proceed with the actual right-of-way engineering and then also going after the right of way if it were to be passed and we were able to get this southern portion if we're not um then I do not see this project being able to proceed the way it is. It's we just don't have we need 37 feet on the southern side um and we need about 10 to 15 on the northern side. Uh, real quick too, um, a big component that's very important here is this this cut in the curb here, the median. The reason why this is there is that folks that are heading westbound on Main Street, the hope is that they're going to be able to make a U-turn at this location if they're trying to park at our park. They're coming down that way if they didn't want to go into the garage, especially those folks that might need the ADA access to the

all-inclusive playground. So thinking of those folks in mind, um wanted to get just general feedback if there's anything glaringly wrong. I know there are some uh cuts here on the northern side that need to be filled in and then also this is going to be somewhat redesigned on the southern side here that to accommodate the playground and then also include the engineered designs for it. Uh but just wanted to see if it's heading on the right track. There are any major changes more than happy to oblige. Thank you. on in that DZRC meeting or whatever. Wasn't this first coming from Etherton? Wasn't if you're going on Main Street, wasn't that first entrance coming in latitude an issue there?

Uh the first what do you mean the first entrance coming off Main Street or coming off Etheertton directly? They wanted to do that like diagonal thing on the corner. Yes. Yes. That is within our current plan that you're seeing in front of you today. Put the screen here. Uh that is a little bit of a problem because what this is almost requiring and requesting of that development if I thought Rick brought that up, right?

Yep. And it's something that both department all all departments have kind of discussed is that they're wanting to propose kind of going back to what was proposed earlier that 24 foot width half street that would create a five leg if you can think about it like right here is where Crest View is currently. You don't see it because it has the drawing on top now. But that said, it would almost create pavement just right caddy corner to it. And that would lead to if you're driving on this side of Main Street, if you're driving down Etheertton, you would have two roadways that are connected to Etheertton, which can create cause confusion, can lead to accidents. It's never great to have a five-legged U intersection. So the idea behind having the real main street built out and having them if anything uh reconfigure their own plan I mean they're got this has to be discussed further but the way that they're currently proposing it we can't get too far into it here but is that they're going to connect in have their 24 foot width and it's just going to connect them into the subdivision themselves and then at that point it would have to be almost torn up if the city were to go forward with its own project. Um the idea to incorporate both plans would be to have it hooked up to this little section here where the the turn well near the turnaround not at that junction exactly but this would allow uh it to connect in problem would be timing of both projects they're developing out. Uh the issue with that would be that you would potentially have ballards which I know we we have a current policy up there that you would be waiting for us to approach that end to be able to enter that street. Uh other than that though it it becomes more and more difficult to see how this project becomes feasible without that easement but also without them working together with us to incorporate one design. Um at least from the department of administration's perspective

question. So you got to obtain the easements on the north Yep. Are we have are we going to have to pay for those? Yes. Even though we're upgrading the streets that that'll be part of the negotiation because it will be the idea is that we'll be improving the

even we make an assessment on that property or anything like that to to motivate them not to to work with us. I you know last time we we were involved in ema we had to go to court on it. Uh, and if we're going to enhance that roadway for those residents, I'd be a little upset if they they there's push back on it and there's a greed factor. So So how many residents do we have here? Seven on the north side. Okay. And Joe, do you know those residents? There's been discussions with them that when we

are they are they reasonable people? Uh there's most definitely could say five of them are reasonable, right? So we don't know what that's going to be yet until we talk to them. No, I think that if you were to get if there was and there was serious momentum when that was being discussed that you know there I would say that the discussions we've had with them is pretty positive. I mean, they see the value in making the improvements, not having to maintain the street anymore, and then when they sell the property or they sell the property collectively to a future use, it's going to increase the value. I think most folks under that argument were seeing it. But aren't they obligated to if we put a street in to pay something toward it just like sewers? No. No.

No. No. Okay. Now my other question is are our friends latitude in 38 and apparently they're they're kind of skirting out on on doing their portion of Maine that they were in their first proposal is my understanding their preliminary development plan only show so they want they want to go down the other den they only show a small segment of constructed main street so is that something is that something you're backing I've advised them that under our code. They're responsible for one half of a 70 foot ride ofway and constructed road along their frontage. That's how we do everybody. Okay.

And as we've talked tonight, you treat everybody the same, whether it's bad or good. Are they agreeable to that? No. Okay. Um, how much money would they owe us? Uh, well, we could do an escrow for that cost. And at one time, I think that cost was about 300,000. Yeah. 300 300,000 something like that. They they'd hold this deal up for 300,000. Huh. I don't know.

Okay. I think he I think with the way the residents are, I think they need to be told not to make that an issue if they want to move forward. Um just, you know, in a nice way. Hey, there's some people on council concerned about that. Uh I want them to pay their fair share. That's that's all I'm asking. Pay your fair share. It's it's coming up in planning and zoning November 30. I'm I'll be there. But yeah, but that's reasonable, right? We're just being reasonable. I'm not asking them to pay anything more than they they owe.

Mr. Department, we required half of the right of way for Deerberg's Town Center. We required half of the rideway for Wildwood Town Center. We do it all the time. Now, is that $300,000 included in this what $3.4 million? Uh, no. That would be so that Yes, it would. So, we would subtract the total down from the amount that they would give us. Would you take 300 off 3.4? Yes. So, that the amount we're looking at 3.1 then if Okay. If Yeah. All right. That does not include though the undergrounding of the utility lines on the northern side. Just wanted to point that out. We got the quote back for that. We haven't even got a revised quote because the initial quote was $2 million on top just to underground the power lines. Another two million.

Yeah. So that that said, you can still build the street. They will move the lines back for us. Uh right now I pay for the lines to move though now, right? No, not for amines. There's no parking if they're underground. Yes. Any parking Joe? So um I I've seen this image for a while and I think it's great, but See, I would suggest that this specific part of road we maybe need to look at in a different way slightly than we have in roads in years past. Like, you know, we as a city should determine whether this road needs to go through or not.

And I think it's wonderful if we can work with the residents and the developer and all those kinds of things. That's all great if we can do that. But as we found out with the trail, sometimes we can't. And so this is a project for a lot of different reasons that, you know, waiting to be held up on a developer in some fashion or another doesn't seem like to me the best use of the city's time or money. This is a mega deficient road.

It needs to connect into our town center to our main thoroughfare throughout the city. And so I think I said it in the previous meeting. I'm happy to say it again. I don't know if this is the way that we want this road to work or this is the way we think the road can work. I would suggest that we should design this the way we want it to work and not back into this thing the way that we have on a lot of stuff. If it requires if it requires N38 to spend 300 grand or whatever it is that it costs everybody else to do it, great. If we have five of seven residents that are willing to have us allow us to pay the fair share that we would normally with our um assessments on their property and what it takes. Great. If there's two other people, we we've just done this. It's like the kind of constant waiting to get this done. It's not going to get any less expensive or any easier to do. And I would just implore whoever is designing this thing to design it the way that we as a city want it to actually be, not well, we don't know that this guy in the corner is going to like it, so we're going to try this other thing. And maybe if we do this U-turn over here, that might work. This is a major city road. It is called Main Street into our town center in front of our very nice new park and our city hall and into our main business structure. like this is I can't fathom anybody outside of the city that would think that this is somehow some kind of elaborate city hash grab or whatever we want to call it. We got to put the road through. So these guys do an N38. They can come to every meeting they want and propose all the things they want to propose. There's a specific amount of money that it requires to do it that can go into escrow. If they don't want to do it, fine. Their project doesn't have to move forward. We have residents over here that don't feel like we're offering them a fair share and everybody else does. That's great. I'm happy to go to court and negotiate the way we just did.

That's how this works. But it is well past time that we keep gently trying to figure this thing out. Let it Let's get this road done. I agree. There'll be roadblocks. I can see. Yeah. But I mean, we'll work through them. Yeah. You can't you can't you got to get to a roadblock. You can't just go, "Well, I think the roadblock's going to happen down this way, so let's keep not doing this. That's a I will make a quick note. This is this is getting way closer to we had to make the changes for to accommodate the new playground and ADA parking. But this this is this in general is what we want this to look like. Okay. Uh so that said, you know that there is an endorsement of that approach and we can proceed.

Jim, did you just going back to our friends? Um there's a lot of work out here. Uh there's no parking for one thing. I don't know how long these driveways are. I know uh the average car may not completely fit in the driveway. It might be out in the street. Um so I'm a little concerned that that they haven't learned their lesson yet, but uh parking but but it's a start. That's how they they present it. You know, here's what we want and and we work through it. We talked about parking and there was nothing added. That's horing. That's horrible.

Yeah, but I think that's what I'm saying. We can't That should not determine what we're doing. No. No. I just But No, but it might have something to do with getting their money. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. But if we What I mean is if we can't get their if we can't get their money that that that vacant property can sit there forever if that's what they want to have it happen. Somebody will come in and buy that property if that. So, hey, that's interesting. you say that one I'm sorry let me say one thought we sort of discussed somewhere along the line is to get maybe take money out of the reserve to get this road done before it gets into a legal situation right just get the road done right

and however that pro like my my concern when we get and you know we've Joe you and I have done these kinds of things with the watershed stuff like every time and this is perhaps a lack of experience on my part I know, but every time it's like we're ready to go. Then all of a sudden it's like, well, just kidding. We got this other thing we got to do now. So, whatever all the things are, let's just do them. Let's like why we aren't doing assessments on these properties and figuring out how much these ements cost like two years ago. I don't understand. But you're you're now looking at $5 million. So, we're not I guess the at least what's been budgeted, we're not planning to do the undergrounding. Yeah. And okay, if the undergroundings happen, I would think it would happen later.

If if we put that road in and just like we had before, make or somebody comes in and wants to build something else over there, that's part of their development cost. That's ours. That's exactly right. Um, okay. What specific action? This isn't for information. This was more so just to give an update, but we definitely hear the feedback and we can critique. But when you talk about latitude, it always blows up. Yeah. But are you happy with what he just said in terms of

Yeah, I mean it's a for it's a for action item which I think is great. It's been a for action item in my committee. I'm sure it's been a for action item in parks and planning. And if you haven't heard the same thing from enough people, I'm happy to say it louder. Start figuring this thing out for real and get this train out of the station. Yeah. So right now it's a p it's a private road and in other areas when there's a private road they have to bring it up to code before the city will accept it and make it a public road. So what's the story with this?

Actually I know what you're referring to in the case of the city that's for roads that the city if someone's making a request to the city. So let's say the you know nine the seven residents plus the oh it would be one that owns the two spots the properties on the southern side though eight property owners wanted the city to take over that road that process would be enforced. But if the city is wanting to build a road for a public improvement that is not part of the petition process that would be done for the acquisition of the public dedication of private streets and that policy doesn't apply. It applies if if those

this is not these residents saying, "Hey, would you guys please take this on and put Main Street through?" If that were the case, they would have to foot the bill to get it up to Yep. code. In this case, we're saying we are putting this road through and we own a pretty significant chunk of it already. That's correct. The big difference is who instigates it. So, it's

I I had to make sure we get the money from the the property owner for his portion of the of the road because if he put it in there, it's already there and he's he's not obligated to to pony up any money then, right? If we if we build the road uh and take care of his portion, right, then it's it's built. So, why would he feel obligated? You know, he he come in, well, I got a nice road here now. You don't have to worry about we can the city council can authorize the ordinance to be written so as the obligation continues forward. Oh so we can we could get the money.

Well and also we would we would then control how that intersection looks not the other way around. Right. Well that's okay. That's what I just remember traffic generation assessment fees. I I I I agree we need to move forward on it since we got our parked there. uh if I I I feel if it's time to get the road in regardless of N 38 because if I think most of us realize if this gets shot down again they're going to bring they'll bring legal action. I mean I mean look it for all we know it could get approved and still take a bill doesn't make any difference.

But I think they def I think they definitely will if it doesn't go through. I'm sure they will. We're asking them to comply with our zoning. That's all we're doing. We know. But, you know, I would just say moves moving forward is better than sitting around waiting. Yeah. Well, yeah. This has been waiting for how long I came on 2011. It was waiting there. Yeah. I agree. You got a nice part. Let's get the Let's clean it up. Got to go, man. Yeah, let's clean it up. Yeah. Hurt that reserve. But we don't even know that N38 or whatever they're calling it is going to go forward, do we? I mean, has it?

No, that's what I'm saying. Like, we we have to stop. I I would suggest in a lot of the plan is we just Yeah, we can't wait. We can't we shouldn't be waiting because McBride thought that they were going to come in and build something and Okay, well, now they're going to take it, so we'll just wait. Now, these guys might. It's like, let's just do it. It's I agree. If they come in and build stuff, awesome. will figure out how their traffic generation assessment happens that way because it will go through the same process. If planning and zoning denies it, they can appeal it again, right? Then it like they did and that's where I came in and during that process and that that took a year to get through that, you know. Yeah. So yeah, I mean it's all it's all a process and I think I I think it's best if whenever possible in most cases

if we have an issue like that that is sort of adjacent to other issues we have as a city have a tendency to connect those two things very quickly and they're two different things. We're putting a road together and the road abuts a private property that is currently not doing anything. So let's go. Deb, did you have a chance to make all of your comments? Um, I thought maybe we would cut about the road. Yeah,

you guys are all going to throw things at me, but I I think I don't know where we're getting the money. I mean, that's a big ticket item. So, where is that money coming from to be able to do that? Yeah. Well, right now it's budgeted 3 million's budgeted over two years to build it right away in 2026. and then 1.5 and 27 halfway through building. It's going to take two years to build and then um another 1.5 and 28. So it is budgeted currently in the 2026 capital improvement program. I don't have how much we have in reserves. Do you know how much? I know how much we have. Are we taking this money out of reserves?

Absolutely. We have 19 mill we have $19 million. We have way too much. We should be giving that money back to the taxpayers. That's how what we should be doing. And what we tal we talked about this at our not to we talked about this at admin that you know we do need to have a conversation about what we're doing with that extra money but a lot of that money is there because it wasn't it was spent it wasn't spent on maintenance. So we have deferred maintenance we have deferred projects that we don't have that much do we it's a lot I mean it's a lot again if you had to write a check out on your reserves how much money could you write that check out for? How much could we actually spend in cash this city? Like how much could we write today? Yeah. Without well

because we didn't change with all the all our future obligations we have. Supposed to keep 125%. Yeah. You're supposed to keep 25% operating contingency. There's a public safety reserve fund that's uh that's used to help offset. But I mean you could pro you could easily write a $10 million check. So we got $10 million to spend that that but don't hold me through that job. Not not saying go spend that but in theory that you got the wall tax and save you tax to spend. You got water shed, you got this building. That's that's the key. I'm not saying you got the road. We can do this for a couple million dollars. Well, we can we can do it because I think it's it's not Thank

we're not taking all that 10 million for the for the uh the main but we have that money to use and we should use it. That's all I'm saying. I don't know that we've ever used it. Have we? That's reserve. No, just kept random. I only have so much. It looks pretty bad though. So, what would you say to those who would have a concern that once we open the door and tap into the reserve fund once we're going to have a line of people out the door asking for help? As long as we have our contingency money for emergencies and things like that, uh that money is there to spend. It's not it's not there to not spend it. It's taxpayers money to to build. We've been working and I'm just playing devil's advocate.

Working through the idea like we've done with a bunch of stuff that says but you don't

the math works to fix pick out which which projects are necessary to tap into just like we've done with some of the capital improvement stuff where it's like here's you know these are the scores and this is where it goes and this is what it is. And so if there's another $25 million that shows up cool we can do these things. But in these cases um that's how it works. So, as an example, like I've had some conversations about like the watershed thing. We've got what is it like a half million right in the budget for 2026 for watershed. We also think we have around $300,000 in theory coming from MSD. And so to me, we could take uh money out of the reserve to handle some of the retrofit projects we have for these retention detention basins. That shows that this either is either going to work or isn't going to work. And our sincere hope obviously is that it does. Then we can take that half million dollars and use that towards specific projects because we have to balance between what MSD will only fund certain parts of our city. So we have to cover the other side. But then we can go to the state and the federal government and say we have invested in this. This is a thing you guys are doing. Here's how we can do it. So that money instead of having a half a million dollars every year that we are locking in, we are balancing those levers, but we have a working project where we have completed what is necessary. And so we can do that with other things. With Main Street, I don't know that we write a check for the entire amount, but maybe we write a check for a chunk of it because we have other stuff programmed in and now that expedites the process. It should be same thing with the building. You know, if as I told Tom, like if we have to put a new roof on the building, you got it's just like your house, man. you got to put a new roof on the building. That's how it works,

right?

So, I think I think it's not a matter of kind of raiding the piggy bank, so to speak. It's really setting up very specific stuff. And I think maybe a good uh example of how we've done that is the deer program where we had that kind of like million-doll windfall or whatever it was. We allocated that over a period of years. That project has been super successful and it's fitting exactly in budget. And now probably next year we need to start figuring out okay that money's got another I think two years left. So now we need to figure out how is the city going to maintain that moving forward. And if that comes as a you know well we're going to take another million dollars we'll take it out of the reserve and fund it for the next five years. Cool. Or whatever it is. It it gives us the freedom to make choices that we aren't currently making. I think I also suggested to Tom that we figure out how many staff people we actually need to have and maybe

figure that out accordingly before we start putting any other reserve money anywhere else. Yeah. You talking about a reduction? No. Yeah. Get rid of Yeah. Let's get left. No. Yeah. We're way over staffed, right? Because I'm joking. I I just think like with all of our budget, we learned this lesson I think in a real way this year. Like the budget process that we've gone through is sort of just for lack of a better way of saying it. It's just taking a carbon copy of the year we did before and just going like it's going to kind of be like that, which is fine, but we have a lot of things that are out of whack. Like, you know, we're proposing in our big budget giving the staff an enhancement that's under the cost of living adjustment still, right? No, the under the option B that would be in line with the cost of living adjustment,

but originally it was going to be 2% under the cost of living adjustment and option what made the budget work and that's what we've done a lot. So we just have to make sure we got to figure out like what are our priorities. It probably should be the staff and then these other items and move forward. Good definitely discussing that here. Definitely. Good comments. All right. Anyone else? We didn't need we we hear everyone left. All right. Um, so moving on to ready for action review of recent meeting with the Zachbies in request for committee guidance on promoting undeveloped properties for quick service restaurant.

Right. And Mr. Don is going to go we have a HOA that is having some issues setting up. So Zach, are they coming? No. Uh, they're thinking about coming, but tonight was the idea. It goes along with something Mr. Bush can speak up to when he gets back, but I'll share my screen here. I wanted to go over our recent discussion with Sax. Yeah. Uh let me share my screen. I'm interrupting, but please tell me it's not going to look like it does in the pictures. It's not coming. It's not coming. Below on the priority list. Yeah.

This is more the the the reason that we kind of encouraged Paula to have this one. The gentleman that is doing this happens to be from Wildwood, so he's familiar with it. Part of the conversation that we were hoping for was to understand, you know, how do fast food places look at picking a location and how do how would might we score and what might we not? And so, you know, one of the things they answered, I hope I'm not cutting you off on all this stuff, Tom, but like one of the things they answered that was always kind of curious to me is like, why do you have a why do you have like three fast food places directly next to each other? Because it conceptually never made any sense to me. These guys have the math that says this is how we want this to work. So what they're looking for is like are there other places that are there? Are there is there an amount of cars that are driving through not just in this exact spot? So I think like I think what we're seeing is they could do a lot of different stuff and we can figure those things out. But this is more just in general what would make Wildwood appealing or not when we changed the rules to say in theory you can you could put one here. We just now need to figure out what that looks like and why. So these guys have been, I think, really great in really informing us and stuff we didn't understand even how they figured that stuff out before. So now we know.

Plus, they had some frank comments for us regarding impressions they gained on the city of Wildwood as they talked to other people in the community and that was useful information as well. And Tom, I'm sure we'll address that when he provides the review. And this comes on the heels of a sub subsequent discussion that's taken place at the uh at the planning and zoning commission as well. It's the use of drive-throughs along 100 and 109. And the real reason why I wanted to bring this up obviously this fees you know was it was a good learning practice too and we are you know kind of vying for we've submitted some do additional documentation to them about the traffic counts that we have um about just the general demographic data that we have here in Wildwood. That said, we it has been confirmed we are kind of on the back burner. That said, they plan on opening, you know, possibly up to, you know, 15 locations in the long run in St. the St. Louis market. So, we're going to probably arrive kind of towards the back end if ever. Uh that said, the idea tonight is to say, you know, kind of defining these areas. I'll show the we'll actually start here. These are the properties and then these two would be repurposed. This includes the bank building over there, Bank of Houston. Uh and then these properties here along 109, these are the properties that the current planning and zoning commission are discussing of creating a subdist of the workplace district which would be SR 100 109. And what would be allowed in these these parcels that are identified here and for parcel 4? That's the reserve. There's a little cut of the reserve that has a parcel remaining.

Tom, where's 109 on there? I can't Oh, it's it's coming up here. So 109, think of it. This is Main Street here and then this is 109. Okay. So, it's all along 109, right? Yeah. Well, there's two there's two that are re This would be repurposed. Say that the I don't expect this, but say NTP or U the bank building over there, Bank of Houston ever had any issues? Plaza. Is that the plaza? Yeah, that's the that just two buildings within the building that has the the current driver. I think Culver's at one time looked over there. Yeah. So that that the idea is if we needed to be it's almost thinking out loud. There's a good we looked at the numbers the traffic count up there.

So this would be the first drive-thru on 109, right? This if this is approved and then we would be a hot property. Yeah, that's exactly right. That it would be the first technical drive-through along 109. Um and the idea is, you know, with this review that's going by planning and zoning, they've actually, you know, went ahead and accepted the letter of recommendation which would solidify this. This is go to council now. Um the idea is how do we want to sell this information? How do we want to brand it? Do we this is where the Zachbies comes in. These are a little blunt. I will say this is not necessarily what we, you know, as a city always look for for fast food. But that said, there are some other Zachb locations that we wanted to share with the group. Hey, are they looking for some incentives?

That was something that was mentioned, but they didn't get we didn't even get that far. What's our We don't don't have any. Yeah, we don't have any. They would want that. There's a couple things that were mentioned we can go over it real quick. They wanted they wanted to confirm expedited review. They wanted the presence of other uh fast food locations or QSR locations nearby. Uh and they wanted the discussion of incentives to be on the table. It depends on what it could be, but there's a lot that they tell them about Jack in the Box. Okay. So that said, so they wanted other fast food locations nearby. I call it sort of the auto dealer. Yeah. Drive down bad.

Yeah. I wanted to pull up here real quick another look and feel of what Zachby's looks like and this was a a version of it. It is closed. So I should come back. Um it is closed since but Tom not to steal your thunder. You're probably going to mention this but two important things in determining a location. One is visibility from the highway which some of these lots we just took a look at can provide. But another thing was a certain number of vehicles per day vehicular traffic and we were following a little bit below where they wanted to see those numbers. Yep. 109. Yeah. 109 you're seeing.

So what they want is the highest visibility with the highest number of vehicles per day that they can possibly get in a location because these first few locations are sort of they feel are the key to their success in this area. Is that by the community college? Yes. Oh, it's kind of of the community college. Yeah. As you're heading up towards 100 near the gas stations, it's kind of those properties right below the gas station. So, these aren't outs. These are these are not outs. No. So, I mean these are right these are right along 10 109. All these properties are except right on each side of Main Street at 109. Yep. Then on the other side directly. That's correct. And of Main Street on 109

on either. No. So like when you turn on the main street off 109, there's obviously two parcels on either side of the road. Those are two of the barcels. And then there's on the other side. Yeah. On the other side of So if you drive north on 109 and you cross Old Manchester, you're going to see the lots on either on the right or lefth hand side. If you turn into Main Street, then they're on each side of Main Street.

That would be correct. So if that and that's the idea behind it. If we're blowing Main Street through and we're connecting to 109 that overall looks like if we're going to have this is and that's the idea tonight is does the committee and this is going back to Zach's the sign is a little different here. We wouldn't necessarily allow that but this is a design they actually have in Columbia, Missouri. They closed this location but this is a little bit more in line with the architecture of Wildwood I would say. Um this is this is like the copy and paste version that they had prior to their new design. So that said, I think it could be easy to fall back on something like that and still have it be consistent u with Wildwood's architecture. So just want to point that out. I'll reshare my screen here on the something I would Sorry, Scott. No, go ahead.

Something I was looking into was um you know, back not that long ago, you could tell that if something had been a McDonald's or a Pizza Hut or whatever because they all look they had a specific thing that they did. Well, now many of these places want a super semi- generic look. So they can kind of plug and play whatever it is. So we might as a city want to look at that kind of a concept that might say hey in general like this is what we're looking for a certain amount of brick facade and a certain amount of this and these are the building materials that are are cool with us and you know we can figure the pallet stuff out later but you know like I'm trying to think like the new Wendy's for examp like all all of these places look real generic because the idea is they can just put a different sign on it because they have all the same stuff on the inside. So, we might want to as part of this process, especially since we know we're a little like deficient in the traffic numbers and things like that, we might want to say, "Hey, these are the kinds of things that are kind of like not rubber stamped per se, but like the we don't have to have a lot of conversation about this." Um, I think that might be the way to do it because we are going to be particular, I think, from an architectural review standpoint, which I think is great, but we should be able to pretty easily spell that out for whoever wants to come in and look at it well in advance.

So, that's I'm sorry. So, why aren't we focus focusing more on lots closer to the community college if these are quick?

Well, there's just not really that much available over there. I mean, it the traffic numbers aren't there either. Uh, and this is actually as folks would come down to the community college where the majority of traffic's heading, they would pass these, which if they're heading home or they're coming back down that way to get to the school, the idea would be hopefully they would stop off and and that would be the that's kind of the leverage that we do have to say, hey, there's new students that are going to be signing up down there. They just finished this new building that's going to bring new teachers. And it's not necessarily happening overnight, but that's kind of the idea is that we should see additional uh vehicular traffic along 109, which in turn should help make this more attractive for the the businesses that are potentially going to look at this

vehicular traffic on 100 was closer to the number that they were looking for vehicles per day. And like he explained to us at one point towards the end of the discussion, we can talk all we want to about new playgrounds and things of that nature. They don't care. They have certain metrics they go by and that's what they go by when they make their decisions.

So what so one question I have I mean I think that these the parcels you guys picked out are fine and they make a lot of sense. If we're going to do a thing where we're going to include in this like an expedited review or whatever we want to however we want to call it all those other caveats, wouldn't it make sense to include some of those other things that like where the the bros theoretically is going to open up or some of these other spots because um you know there might be parcels along like they may not have the traffic numbers and things like that either but it seems if the if the bros were to sell and somebody else wanted to go in there, but they have a whole different set of things than the place up the road.

So, that said, that makes sense. But I think for this that is already zoned to allow that drive-thru use, but for promotion reasons of where do we allow that's the then that's the kind of the flip side of what we're doing tonight. I wanted to get feedback obviously on the on this new subdist. It's going to be going to council, so getting a little early access to it, if you will. But the other side of it is promoting these new parcels as what they can be. And I think including that property, including all properties that have an existing, I mean, it could even include the Bank of America. That's what I'm saying. Anything with the driver,

like if we're going to say this is the this is the part of this that we're going to do or help with or whatever it is, then I would apply that to not just to these ones that don't have them, but apply it to the ones that do. And then I mean these part I mean the parcels are what they that's the parcels that are available. So there's not like that's what it is. And on a few of these, I think six and seven we've had, I mean, Lion's Choice wanted to go on one of those. I think Dunkin Donuts wanted to go on one of those. Um, so I I think opportunities,

the better we write the kind of design standards that would be easily approved by the city, I think is probably what goes a very long way with those kinds of items. Well, does it make sense as a as a city to almost put together a like this is what they consider a uh you know an intro packet if you will that kind of shows their three designs. I mean would it be something the city if we're going to promote these areas to something that the residents always respond to is they want more quick service options when they go home at night? U would it be beneficial to get out ahead of it? We're allowing this in a subd district to almost say here's what the design looks like. Maybe there's three options. Uh obviously we already have a pallet for town center that could be reapplied, but almost designing it up front and having that be the marketing brochure.

Yeah. I mean I I would reach out to the I mean I would reach out to the Ellisville because they do this so frequently. Not that we want to model that exactly, but like they know how to they know the problems that you're going to run into. So, it's going to be traffic flow and what whatever it is and take all of the good things that they do and then apply they like all that stuff in there. They actually have three chicken places, you know. Yeah. Right. They don't need another one here. um and they should know that they they probably studied elements.

But I'm just saying from a process standpoint for us like you know it's always the the entrance and exit to the road and you know we so however we do it where we can say hey these things if you want this this makes sense if it's this amount of brick and the brick is one of these colors and it's this other thing great this is like come in you can have your permit tomorrow if that what you want. So Joe, if you look at that building, their franchise building, is there any problems with that coming to Wildwood? Alver's got chased out of here because they had a blue roof. Then the upper left hand corner, that's the problematic one. Tom and I looked at the other two and we think those would work. They would work.

Color. There's some color modifications. Well, potentially, Mr. Bberg would. Yes. If you'd like, there's an option. we could pre-zone the 10 lots. I just think whatever we can do to I I don't personally have a problem with like how developers perceive our city being pnicity or whatever you want to call it. But if we're going to be particular, let's be particular in advance and just say, "Hey, if this is what if you're if you want this, this is what it is. And if you don't Yeah. Well, that's why we lost a lot of businesses." Well, but that was them coming in and going, "We can't have this because we don't because we aren't going to let you have a blue roof or a drive-through or a drive-through, whatever it is."

You set the bar and you tell them does help on the so no one gets surprised after they've spent, you know, wasting time going through the effort to want them to come. So,

and that's what I'm saying. We changed the conversation that we do want we do want them to come and we do understand that this is how like that top right one that looks basically like a box. That's what all of I mean that's literally what this fast food guy said. Every fast that's why they're tearing down these things and putting these boxes in because a Taco Bell can be a McDonald's can be a whatever. They don't they don't care what it looks like anymore. It's just colors. Uh so that said, you know, in that case, the idea tonight would be, you know, first of all, do you want us to start working on maybe we we do look into pre-zoning some of these properties and then putting strict criteria and like if you're going to go down the route of wanting a drive-thru, this is the bar you have to meet here, the color palette. I mean, we can put all that together.

I would think of it I would think of it more as an invitation than a challenge to these people. We we want you to come and do this and we're going to help you get through all this approval process by telling you in advance. We want 75% brick and it can be one of these three colors. Yes, sir. What if the existing homeowners don't or property owners don't don't want to put a fast food drive-thru there? They might want to sell it to a subdivision or they can buy it. Yeah. However, but not if we prezone it. No, not limiting it. We're just Yeah. opening it for the potential for fast food restaurants.

You could prezone it and still have other uses be allowed. Well, we I think we need to do that and move forward. Would you like to make a motion? I know, Joe, you were going to say something. I was just going to say when Andre Dwani did the original town center plan, he wanted to reszone all 300 properties right away. He said, "You pre-zone them. The developer will come in, they'll make some adjustments, but you've saved them months and months of time. Let's do that everywhere. That didn't go over too well. And I'd give them a sticker, too, when you present that. Honestly, they would get live, laugh, local. So, does somebody want to make a motion for that motion?

I'll make a motion to uh whatever you guys need to do to pre to explore the the prezoning and how we should lay out um properties that are listed in the sub district.

I I mean I I think I'm fine if you want to do just these. I mean I'm of the I'm personally of the opinion that a number of our properties that are currently zone in town center are probably not going to become medical buildings or whatever it is they're zoned for anymore. So we should look at that very specifically and because you know I think I think very often we get people that are coming in with an idea and and to Matt's point like they have to go through this process to even figure out that they can't do this. So why why not just help them understand from the beginning? Give it to them up front so they know it's either yes or no. Yeah. So right now your motion is just for the properties over long 109. Correct.

Yeah. Well, because I think probably from uh an agenda standpoint since this is on the agenda, that's what we have to do. But I would encourage whoever on the next agenda or whatever agenda you want to put it on like I would say Joe have that like communicate what was originally suggested because I mean I think some of the conversations I've had with other council people you know there were a lot of good things that were taken out of those original ideas but some of those things that maybe were not necessarily thought of as as important as they might have been have kind of hindered us in other places. So just rehashing that you have a new you have a new group of people. We have a new sort of direction we're going with this stuff in an appropriate way. I think now is the time to have that conversation again.

I'm still not sure where that is. So number four yeah is the reserve right now that house right in front of there. Can you trace just take your finger or something and trace out the other side of Main Street? Yes. Number four is where the reserve is. Yeah. That big station is that whole thing is the reserve. So it's just actually a little different. See, I was tracing out 109 and then Well, then if that's the reserve, then why is it under the new zoning? So there is one parcel that's remaining that is remaining here that would be eligible. So that's that said it just kind of got clumped in because it's all it's not actually that big. So it's an outlot. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah, another entrance to the reserve.

I said it will have that and I don't think the intent is for any of these properties you're going to have to you're not going to have direct access off 109. I don't think that's going to Well, it'd have to be planned out, but I think the idea would be to have them go in some of these side streets and then cut into the actual Well, I I think you'd have to turn on Main Street, then turn to your Exactly. That's That's the idea, right? Either way, it's Main Street on both sides, right? and five and six, just as a heads up, those are already gas stations. So, so we have a motion on the floor. Does everybody understand what the motion is? Okay. So, Joe, you want to repeat that one more time? What about the ones? Let's see if we can get a

No, wait a minute. If If we're resoning, what about these bank? The bank. You said something about the bank. Yeah. So, there's So, we're going to do it in two different if it'll be two different things. So, the first thing is going to be I think that these selected parcels we can look into the the pre-zoning idea that we're talking about because the other ones are already zoned for that. Okay. And then those ones it's more of an like an architectural review kind of a thing that we can figure out. I thought you wanted to reszone all those. I do want to do we will, but just because this is the item that's on the agenda, we'll stick to these specific parcels. Okay. So, we will look into whatever you guys need to do to to pre-zone those appropriately. And some are already zoned for commercial obviously. So, which ones do are we going to pre-zone? Are going to make

one through 10. All of those are listed here. Okay. And just so everyone knows, five, six, nine, and 10 are currently occupied. Y u they're more redevelopment. If something would change, they're already set to be something else. Exactly. What's nine and 10 again? um NTP and I would almost suggest I don't know exactly how this works Joe but I would almost suggest because we have four of those lots that already have something on them

that's how we can apply this to these other places that might have stuff like so that some of these are fresh and because there's nothing there other ones are not but let's kind of pre-zone this ahead of time and say and say you know not you know to Matt's point like not to limit things but to say this it's it it's a yes and kind of a situation four with the existing businesses will just be amending the ordinance to add the drive-thru the fast food restaurant with drive-throughs. The other six will be basically creating a bl a blanket ordinance for them. It sets the general parameters and the allowable use. If somebody wants it, great. If they don't, then it falls back on the rest of the town center uses. Cool. Because I think five that's why Alliance Choice left, right? Because they couldn't get a drive-through in there, right?

Exactly. Yeah. So, we can That's fixing that. Great. That would be my motion. So, we have the motion on the floor. Staff, are you clear what the motion is? The motion I have down in the notes here is to do whatever we need to do, investigate, to pre-zone all the properties included in the memorandum and the workplace SR 100 109 district to accommodate drive-through restaurants and setting clear expectations for future developers. Yep. Okay. Okay. Do we have a second to the motion? Either or. Matt. Okay. We have a second. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed extensions. Thank you.

Passes. One other thing, Tom, I would just suggest um and I'm happy to help maybe making that map just a little bit more clear. People don't really freak out. Right. Well, I mean, when you look especially when you're looking at like four and three are look pretty big parcels, that's a big drive-thru. So, Tom, we were sort of reviewing some of the discussion with the representative of Zach's. Did we cover all the points that you

Yeah, that was the idea is I mean in prezoning it's even, you know, a step further. So, quite frankly, the department's needs have been met in this regard. I mean, it's more so we were coming to the group to say, should we be promoting these properties as potential development opportunities to the to fast food to QSR um with drive-throughs attached as as this district gets worked out. But if we pre-zone it and allow this use and really set the standard for what would go in there, that is that makes it extremely easy from for city staff to make the phone call to get folks interested because they it's literally it'll eventually be our own packet that we send out that that says here's what you can do. Let us

and here's what we're looking I mean I think the the good thing about this is we can like with the main street thing like we can start to set the tone to say this is what we would like to have here. not, you know, somebody comes with whatever weird thing they want to put. This this data is specific for Zach's requirements. Yes. But that's it's pretty similar to what we've found for other larger chains that

you go online and look up information on some of the chains and actually do an AI search and what is what is chain look for you and all has to do with visibility of particular traffic that those are the two top items that they look for. And the other thing, which isn't really on here, but I do think because I heard it again with the uh local house, like we need to try to figure out I think one of the things we could do as a city is try to figure out a transportation situation for some workers because that seems to be the problem. Even if we put even if Zach's wanted to come, we would have a hard time getting people there to work. I think they have the buses.

Yeah, but the bus right now stops at the community college. So, you know, you're still going to have to figure out how to get from the corner of 109 and 100 all the way down to the community college at the time to pick up the bus. And I think the bus stops running at 11 or 10 or something and all of these places would have still be open at that point. Well, we could probably work with them and we could try different stops and water. I mean, there used to be a stop on 100. Well, there's still the one by Westland Farms. Yeah. And then there's the one at town center and then there's now the one at the I I just hope that whatever we put in these parcels are allowed

somebody to put is that it's not a duplicate of what's already in Ellisville cuz what's the point? Why why would we want to have something that's just down the street where there is another shorter distance for who? Well, I think that's self policing because if somebody's got a location in Ellisville, they're probably not going to put one out here already. I would hope not. Yeah, I don't think there there doesn't matter. Put stuff there. If Zach Bees went to Ellisville, he could rename Ellisville Chickenville because that would be for chicken chicken places.

Yeah. My concern is that we're going to end up looking like Ellisville or or Eureka or I mean the whole goal is to is to not do that. It's it's to set on the front end to set the standards so that it can't I understand that we're on the front end of setting the standards. I'm just saying we don't have enough property. It's the same old stuff, right? That's Yeah. Give I mean I think we don't have any of it by the way. Well, I mean, Ellisville is so close, you know. I think we need to give something different and unique if we're going to do this. We're still waiting for them to come. Deb, that's just my opinion. I mean, so where are they?

Please come. That's a valid concern. Please come.

All right. Review of the 2026 economic development expense budget. What's uh So just a quick note, the budget the uh economic development budget is part of the overall administration budget. So it is somewhat smaller than other cities in that regard, but we will through it. Do you apologize? Okay. So, so truly what the economic development budget really is consisting of two major things. Uh, one and this is part of what was able to be carved out to be able to support it was the retaining of an economic development communications manager. Uh, that is covered in both budget versions that were submitted to the council. Then the secondary item that wanted to be pointed out that was retained is the community relations- econ budget. um it is at $20,000. The reason why it's kept at $20,000 is that helps fund both things like the new resident packets, the stickers for 2024, but really it helps fund uh the holiday tree lighting ceremony. So

So are we going to put the uh the job back on? Yeah, that's what the budget's currently showing if we That's the discussion we can have tonight if But are you you're not interviewing for it yet? Not yet. That was the idea was to review the budget prior to publishing the job. Is that a job that could we change the duties of that job to support you more?

The duties? Yeah, the the duties right now are really covering a lot more communication items that are covering and also just kind of day-to-day, you know, things that we need them to look into. There is a component of it for economic development. But I think the communications portion of it, you know, how it it is almost a it is a half at least a half part-time job running our social media and also keeping our website updated, taking, you know, pretty dense and complex reports and then simplifying it down for a web page on the on our website. If we want to have a nicel looking website, have it very easy to read, we need to dedicate a decent chunk of a person's day and have it called out in the communications fashion, if you will, u and have that clearly stated. And that's kind of what that job's become. It's, you know, community relations in the sense that they're talking with business owners, collecting feedback, but the other major component is that they help the city administrator with day-to-day items in a lot of cases, but the website getting uh mailers out, helping get uh writing the actual mailers.

So, so Paula's job was she wasn't that bit. Was she really busy or just she was she was pretty busy when it comes to taking on all the the actual like what the things we were trying to do at the website job could do more functions more duties. Are you saying that it could do if you have it's it's a pretty large job with if you're having that person be kind of the they're the point person for the website. They're the point I don't have a tech guide to the website. It's a different thing. It's not they're writing content. Oh, she's writing the content guide. Okay. So that it's it just takes time. It really does it because you can't

the way we put something on a website is a little bit in a different tone if you will than what's in the reports that we have here. Uh putting together the gazette which has you reassign some of those duties to other personnel. To what person? Some of them I don't know what they are. It would be tough. Right now without that role, we're we're getting stuff out there, but usually it's either myself, Joe, or Travis that's putting stuff on social media at this point. All right,

Joe. So, um, we've had some conversation about this already, Tom, but I was thinking about it over the weekend and, um, I I'm almost of the opinion that while I think this role I'm all forgetting a person, that's not at all what I'm saying. But I think the especially in the way that we fund just economic in development in general like on average a city of our size with our budget would have like a half $400 to $500,000 budget for economic development including you know and that would include personnel and everything else. If you took some of our event stuff and said that that was an economic development thing I guess we could maybe get close to that number but that's not really how we treat that stuff. those are more community event kind of things. So I I'm I'm of the opinion that this role could really be like a n an 8020 or 9010 communication economic development thing. And that communication uh I think if you aren't worrying so much about some of these things that I'm not saying aren't important but they're just not important. focusing on the communication side and then off also as we talked about in admin offloading some of some level of those daily responsibilities that you get hung up on with like kind of putting out every fire everywhere and just constantly trying to spin your wheels. I think we need to try to work in a way to get you guys to more of a very clear kind of executive structure where we're freeing you up to do the real executive thinking, planning, figuring stuff out and less let me get on the phone every second of every day with somebody whose trash can got tipped over by a squirrel or whatever it is that you're dealing with. Not to lessen what you're doing, but I'm just saying I am certain that there's a lot of dumb things that you're dealing with every day. A lot of which is probably talking to me. So we like we can set

right I'm tryingum and I'm probably not too far behind you.

Right. So like I think like you know the way that we set this up and it's more of a person thing than anything. Like the communication stuff is important. Paula did a really great job of the communication side of things, but she was coming and I like Paula a lot and I'm sad that she's not here, but she was coming from a place where it was more of this like reporter, let me get the story out, let me do the write this thing on these businesses. And while I think that's all great, having done that creating a magazine at a former company I worked at, it's a lot of fun until you're doing it the sixth time and then you're like, I don't this is eating my life doing this job. So I think whether it's taking, you know, I don't know, I mean, I assume you guys are still doing this stuff like Joe, I know you handle like this weekly newsletter stuff and like whatever it is, we need to have a person that has a that has the specific Wildwood voice that's putting this out across the board. We can simplify some of those communications. We can make them significantly clear and more direct. AI helps a whole bunch. and let those people do that be and and let's put some metrics on top of it because at the moment we're averaging I think six to eight months for an it just happens to be for an employee in this position that is not good that's a transitionary position at best at that point in time and so what winds up happening is as soon as somebody gets their feet underneath them and we think we can sigh a big breath of relief because we got this figured out they're like just kidding I'm going somewhere else and now we get to start all over again. So, while I think I I think that the you know, Jim has a point. We want to look at how we're writing this up because while economic development is important, we are not really developing an economy in the city. That's not what we're doing. We're happy to help facilitate some local business stuff and we can reszone some fast food things or whatever, but like we're not out recruiting Target and you know multinational corporations. That's not what we do and we don't have any desire to do it. So I think

should we change the name of the position to economic communications? I think it should be a communication director or an uh you know associate or deputy or assistant CA whatever I don't really care who does anybody go after any type of business at in this city. I don't know. I mean would you know if someone reached out or we got a lead or something they would reach out to him. We still do. I mean I Well, I mean I did I mean I after she was gone I I went to you on that coffee place and suggest we reached out to him. I mean typically I mean we don't it's nicer when someone like that's around because then I can have her follow up like with phone call if we I would and tell me this could be I may be wrong about this. I picture that that role as more of a point person when someone comes to the city

versus let me go out and try to you know I'm going to the coffee convention and I'm going to recruit

whatever coffee company to come here. like the these are people that can answer questions which is what we want and it can help facilitate the meeting but this I I you know this role and this we can leave it in the economic development budget for all I care it doesn't matter to me but like that needs to be a different kind of a role than what you guys have been hiring because um you know clearly Gina went on to take a pretty significant role in a pretty significant district and Paula would have been here had her husband not been transfer But um you know I think we want to put some real parameters on what we want whoever to take this on does and and coming from some of this space I'm just telling you this amount of money that you're offering is not a lot of money in that world. So we're going to get transitionary people if that's what we're doing.

Well you got to see how they turn out too. Um I mean that I think we should budget something there. I know. No, I think the budget like I I'm fine with the budget being what it is. What you're saying though, but like the role itself and how we broadcast it and thinking through like the things not saying like it's not the thing where it's like just tell us the all the things you don't like to do and let's hire somebody else to do those things. It's let's I I don't want to handicap us by somebody going well I don't have an economic development background so I can't apply for that job. Communications major or somebody. Is that what you look for? Communications. Well, that or some I mean honestly it's it's somebody that

might have a great background on the communication bunch of different I guess backgrounds that would fit the mold and like we would I would person that know everything about communication. So you look for experience you you wouldn't bring a college graduate for this job. No for I mean because you have to train somebody. Yeah. And I need someone to be able to pick it up because the thing is the sec the more and this has happened now twice with the role. the more time I spend training, the less time I'm spending my communication and the director. So, how many years of experience would you be looking at for so um we've got a couple of different conversations going on here at one time. So, okay, it's all good. Does somebody have a specific Joe?

That said, we what we could do is keep this in this budget as presented because then it kind of keeps the at least the math. It's under the administration department still. Uh, but maybe what we could do as a group is maybe we we look at the job description. I mean, I would be bringing that up. I I would suggest that like I I think the but I know you guys have worked very hard on the budget and it's not like we have a magic money tree that we're going to find a bunch more money in. So, like I just want to make sure that we're doing that we're hiring the right for the right spot, not missing the boat. Jim, you were making a couple of comments just a minute ago. No, nothing. Let's continue the that conversation. I just asked Tom a couple questions. I could You didn't want to leave you out?

No, I'm not out, but uh but I do have questions on the operating expenditures just for the information. Ask away. So, uh for for 20 grand on community relations, what's that 20 grand cover? covering the it's covering like a lot of small things like the not the stickers this next coming year but stuff that occurs you know it could be the new resident packets buying new folders those aren't cheap but really it's covering the holiday tree lighting ceremony what the holiday the Christmas tree lighting the business forums bagels we buy at the business forums the the coffee we buy for it's twice a year so 20 seems a lot of money for that is that for the holiday tree lighting I mean it's that's okay

that's practically the I mean it's not the whole that's the budget Okay. That's 80% of the budget. It It is. Yeah. Still 20 grand. Highway. It's close. Yeah. It's it you know, the tree costs, you know, a couple grand. Take your word for it. Um, so for you say maintenance for a vehicle. What's that about? There's a vehicle and we have we have an add Oh, that she could use. Yeah. And Okay, you're right off. Okay, I see

that's it. I will make a note. This we we had already made the change here, but it will be reflected. It's about 500 bucks. But the utility telephone, we have that all under um an admin utility telephone. For some reason, it used to be prrated against against every department, but don't do that for internet. So that said, what you see here is it says 1,000. It really should be 500 for the cell phone. So now position is so this job um do you say hey your budget's 45,000 or 772 or do you

they they come to you? this person comes to me and then we work within really the administration department's budget but they work across departments too. this person really does kind of bounce around a little bit. But the other side of it though is, you know, we kind of figure out, we look at what we paid last year for the holiday tree lighting and that then you take out. I mean, we don't really have an economic development budget. That's the truth of it. This is all like, okay, bare floor operating. It's what like just getting really just the expenses for funding a human to be here and the holiday tree lighting. Sorry. Right. Thanks. What about what about sponsorships for different events like the tree lighting ceremony?

We could talk about that. And I think brought to you by Latitude N38. You bring that up. And I always forget I'm being recorded when I do these things, you know. So, still pretty funny. But, you know, I'm serious about sponsorships.

Oh, we do sponsorships for the thing is, you know, it's how many times can we go back to that trough, if you will. We do we do sponsorships for celebrate Wildwood, right? The question I guess we would want to ask ourselves is you know if it we can offer the sp I don't think it's a bad thing to have sponsorships. What do we offer them? Typically a sponsor is going to include that logo on if there's t-shirts or if there's any promo materials that go with it. If there's any banners that go out or if there's any website, if there's anything that goes out to the act the event itself, the mayor or someone who's speaking on half the city has to mention their names. There's a lot that gets tied in. You have to give that. The only thing I would bring up is not a bad idea. I think it's a great idea to help offset some of the event costs. That said, we have to make sure we're offering something to them to make that financial investment worth. There has to be some promotion that puts their name Y

in there. And we're going to be taking money away from Celebrate Wildwood. It almost seems like that that's I mean that's I you can just from your experience, but that I think is what happens. I mean, most folks know Celebrate Wildwood was the one time of the year where we really elicit those donations and that's why we've been able to hit our goal each year because they know we're not coming 15 times in the year like hey we've got now we're doing the all-inclusive playground we're going out to the business community you know just any of the events shivering shadows sponsored by you know I mean

yeah I was going to mention I mean it might be worth just looking at to try to not say we want stuff like um sponsor 100% or anything, but just to try to set some goals and say, "Hey, if we have an event, you know, like the shivering,

whatever it is, and we we don't get a good response on the sponsorship side, but we do get a good response on response on the community involvement side of it. We should be probably asking ourselves why is that?" Because, you know, people like to sponsor Celebrate Wildwood because it is the most widely known event. Um, I think we could do the same thing with the Christmas tree thing. I think we could do the same thing with a concert or two. And maybe that's how we set our threshold of our working events because in reality they, you know, they are community events, which is true. We're not necessarily looking to attract anybody from outside of the city to come do this stuff. I mean, maybe with some of these concerts.

I think after a while the they keep going to the same sponsors, they get a little tired. Well, I think you get like I mean, I used to do it when I had, you know, the real estate company. We would have we would sponsor specific events all the time. And so if if somebody knows, you know, if there's a uh you know, a real estate company or whatever here in town and this and the Christmas event is sponsored by them um under the city's control, that's that's real good branding for them. I agree. But but you know, you got to pick out a couple for the sponsors. I mean, you can't go to them for every event, right? We we you know, they don't make that much money. I don't think

that's that's that I mean that's there's a fine line. I mean I think maybe we could extend the olive because I know what you're saying too is if you tie that event to one person and I thing is we have to keep that open for everyone. But that said if it's like if everyone starts to realize it's ex businesses tree lighting along with Wildwood that that does change the game a bit

where you offer like a name sponsorship but everybody else is sponsoring into an a fund and it's just the events fund and the department can figure out where that fund goes. I would say that too is almost the other side of it would be that sponsorship goal that we have for Celebrate Wildwood would need to be modified to be just a yearly goal because that would I would just feel like we'd be putting a lot of strain on our staff to like be going after these sponsorships for that event too because they do track that every month and they keep Yeah. This is it wouldn't be to make you guys do it shouldn't be to make you guys do any more work than you're currently doing. It should be to do significantly less. You might get something donate the

the gear that you wear too for those events. The Shnooks or Dearbergs participate uh in kind donations every now and then. Okay. They probably can't do it because they have every comm. They're in every community I guess, right? Yeah. All right. Next does let us they do an ink kind donation for the parking lot. Good. Any other um questions or comments on the budget? Seeing none, I would entertain a motion for its passage by council member Alers, seconded by council member GRs. All those in favor?

I opposed abstain carries. So that brings us to not ready for action. Um and there's nothing listed there. So we couldn't take any action. Anybody miscellaneous? Does anyone have any miscellaneous? Mr. Albert, these will be this will be quick. Two things. Oh, real real quick. Who is Sorry, Mr. Robert. Who had the first and second on the uh last month? I do apologize. I first you were first. Yeah. Thank you. Um I don't know if I missed anything for the business forum this week. Is any is anybody speaking?

Um usually it's Mr. Rottenberg who goes through and I'll touch on some things as well. It's the econom's role as well. But that said, I mean, we can, you know, any businesses any you have any business people lined up to talk? Not at this time. Not at this time. And occasionally, um, you had Laura Jones last year. I know. Well, and sometimes too when we get someone slotted, um, there's cancellation at the last minute and I get things come up. So, sometimes that's somewhat difficult to do.

Okay. Okay. And then the last thing, a few months ago, when we're talking about all the properties that are available still, we talked about engaging a company or whoever does that kind of stuff to tell us what could or possibly go into these things? Did that go anywhere? We've sent that out. The only individual company was that that gentleman that came and spoke to us. Oh, no. He's the one that has responded in formal writing that said that that Oh, I I understand. I'm sorry. The verbal cliff. I got you. I can take it.

The properties were shared with uh the developers that have shown interest in the city in the last couple months. I mean, El's gotten a copy of it. I mean, just a couple that you've been in touch with and it is posted on our website, too, if folks want to give us feedback, but it's really been so we haven't like hired a consultant or anything. sound like a good idea, but it's I think it's a good idea. I think they they got to have some type of return or something tied to it to make it make sense. But did you know didn't you know you guys knew people, right, Matt? You if anybody would like to, we can share that document. Y

All right. Next meeting, Monday, November 17th, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. With that, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn made by Mr. Farmer, seconded by Mr. France non debatable. All those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Well, it doesn't matter any uh