Planning and Parks Committee - Regular Meeting

The lights up here. Actually, it's just your headlights at night without street lights so that you can see what's up. We're good. All right. Thank you for everyone being here tonight. Tonight is the uh council planning and parks committee meeting for Tuesday, October 21st, 2025. Thank you for being here. And Miss Rivetto, would you please do roll call? Chair Galani here. Uh Council Member Robuski here. Council member Tradier, Council Member McCutchen here, Council Member Dava here,

Council Member Rambo, Council Member Cray here, Council Member Attenburg, and we have a quorum and council member Rambo and Council Rottenberg both contact me and they're in so be here within minutes. Um, with that being said, do we have any public input? I don't see anybody here. If anyone online would like to speak, please use the raise hand feature and we'll promote you to a panelist. We are good to go. All right. That being said, it takes us to our first matter which I hear coming down the stairs. Mr. Chair, if I may, we have the minutes if you don't mind.

Oh, that's a good call. Um, I'll take a motion now for the approval of the minutes from the meeting on September 16th. So moved. Council member Dodwell. Do we have a second? grants. Uh, any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Any abstain? All right. Thank you. Minutes are Sorry about that. I skipped right over it. That'll take us into the first item under action items, which under planning and parks ready for consideration, is the department's operating capital budget for planning and parks for fiscal year 2026. And we've got city administrator Tom Hoy.

Yes. And we are going to get some copies down here too. But really I want to call you to your attention. Typically what's being proposed tonight is pretty drastic cuts and what we've typically provided over the last couple years. Um we have copies. I have two available here and go through the cuts for the entire budget but what was like what we needed to maintain. We're getting more down. Um, that said, to give a quick overview, when we were doing our revenue analysis for fiscal year 2026, we had indicated two pretty major drivers of really stagnant revenues. We're expecting about $59,500 increase, a net increase to our overall general operating revenue. And we're seeing a $160,000 increase from the police service contract alone. Um that said other items are also increasing sub uh simultaneously contractor rates etc and also just generally you know things for insurance general liability the day-to-day operations postage actually just went up in July that said uh we identified really two major drivers of this revenue stagnation one spending habits have somewhat flattened over the last couple of months uh a couple years in 2022 we saw a spike in 23 three, it carried over um where that adjustment for inflation, we were obviously seeing that when getting vendors set up as well. We were having to pay a little extra, but at the same time, we were seeing those costs being spread out to the whole county, which then was producing more revenue through uh the pool tax. That said, since 2024, we actually saw that somewhat stay it's where we want it to be. It's not below projections, but it's just hitting where we had projected it to be. Um so really for the operating that is the one of the primary drivers makes up right around $6 million of the $12,925

that we have. Uh so that said if spending it stays relatively stagnant then overall our budget and our revenue does the same. It copies those those ways and same goes for our public safety sales tax as well. that goes along with u spending habits and we're actually projecting that to be similar and we we don't expect a decrease but we did not want to increase it any further because we've seen it just return exactly what we expected this year and really we haven't seen any indications that's going to change. Um, a couple positive things I'll add before kind of jumping into it is that we do have developments that are currently being constructed. And once those individuals uh have made it and built their out built out their living quarters, we should see approximately 300 new households or units in Wildwood, which will in turn produce more revenue within our half cent improvement sales tax fund. um if those residents are moving from outside the county into the county and then shopping then that's going to also you know help increase. So I do think overall in the next couple years we should see it start creeping back up but as of right now it's staying relatively stagnant meaning we have to keep up with all of our operating expenses uh that we have daytoday that are coming in for the next year while also accounting for you know really relatively flat revenue sources. So, two other things to point out with revenue. Uh, one, we have two different sources that have decreased in approximately about its height. We've lost about $200,000 annually from these two sources. One, um, being the, uh, cable franchise fee and the other being the telephone utility tax. So, I'll I'll explain both of those in a little bit more detail. So, the telephone utility tax, that is something that is charged. It's a gross receipts tax. We charge 5% for folks that are have a landline at their homes. Um or if they have a cellular plan that actually charges for the minutes. If it's based off a data

package, we see that not that that portion of the bill doesn't get taxed. U the other side of it is we're seeing more and more folks go from having, you know, a landline service at their home to not having that service. So that said, we've seen that revenue source by itself over the last 5 years uh decrease at its height of about $400,000 a year and we're seeing it come in around like 220,000 for the next fiscal year. So that is obviously, you know, on top of only growing by 59,05 on top of having to offset a police expenditure increase as well. Um that's practically losing $200,000 a year is is how I kind of look at it. The other side of it is the cable franchise fee, which this one wasn't necessarily our fault or anything along those lines. It was more so the state legislature. Uh back in 2021, uh the state legislature passed a bill that took the 5% gross receipts we could charge onto cable and that utility service and they slowly cranked it down over the years past. So in 2023, it started and we did see a notable decrease and we've seen that decrease by 0.25% 25% each year over a 5year period which is supposed to end in 2027. Um we've seen that decrease year-over-year and now it's a similar situation where at its height we were seeing approximately 400 thou a little less than $400,000 a year. That said, now we're seeing that come in more at the 220 range. And I can get the the exact numbers are in there, but just wanted to give some numbers for reference, but really it's almost cut that revenue source in half. Uh so those two combined then you add in some of our supplemental taxes that we do file um like a cigarette tax. It's statewide we get a distribution uh based off of per capita. Uh and that said too you know less people are smoking cigarettes which is a good thing overall but that does return just less less money into the pool. So really we have a few revenue sources

that have remained either stagnant or they are slightly decreasing. One uh note of positivity would be we do see that the electric utility does seem like it it's kind of taken a bounce at the end of this, but they did just raise the rates. So that ties in hand in hand. Um so that's that's a little disappointing on the front end, too. But all the other sources I would say, thank you, Ra. um all the other sources have we're not really projecting all too much growth and that makes it so we have to really account for um you know what we're currently operating maintaining our current level of service uh while also trying to not operate at a deficit uh and that includes personnel includes keeping up with our police contract uh there are a lot of different options so this kind of ties in to what was presented at the provided at the for the meeting agenda but also provided um when the budget with the project materials were distributed at the front end um both of those things one u was option A which is a balanced budget which includes some pretty severe cuts which I would if we have the time with the chair's permission it would I think it would behoo us to maybe go through those and really kind of realize that operational day-to-day impact of those cuts um and I actually have an interactive cell sheet that if we want we can share it and uh actually post it live so we can kind see what it does when we add some things back in. But really in the balanced version of the budget, we're operating at about a $13,595 uh non- deficit at a positive balance at the end of the year. But the when accounting for where you know maintaining all of our events and keeping up with all inflationary sources without making any cuts, we were expecting about $483,000 in the deficit. So that the document that was just passed out to you shows

what that 483,000 is. Um I thought it would be a really good idea to go through those kind of one at a time. I know um it does have a major impact on the events we run and I'd love to give Mr. Bunich an opportunity if the chair's permission to go through these as well. But overall um if we're wanting to operate with a balanced budget, this is we're going to have to make some pretty severe cuts to our bottom line. um including you know there's just the the top item here personnel you know we have originally we were looking once we got our recommendations comparing to some other cities we were wanting to shoot for around a 4% increase with a 2.5% um adjustment for colas and then the 1.5 for a merit-based that said when working those numbers in we were not able to accommodate the full 4% so it was reduced in the option A so that's the first thing included that affects various accounts we can kind to show how that impacts the bottom line as well. But this is uh with the stagnant revenues that we have, we're getting to a point and I wanted to call this out as well where police operating and our contract with police, it makes up 42.55% of our total operating budget. When comparing to other cities of similar SC size, I mean, not all cities represent Wildwood in any nature. I think we have a pretty unique mix of rural and suburban, but when looking at other cities that are somewhat comparable, we're typically seeing that number around 30%, a little bit over 30%. So, we're around 10% higher. Um, that said, when you look at some of these other cities as well, uh, just for example, one that was included in the report, u not the report, but the actual budget materials was Baldwin. I mean, they are operating, I think it's 32% is the exact amount that they spend on their police budget. At the same time though, they're bringing in $25 million in operating revenue. So, it's it it's a pretty large difference. And just for and I added this in there as well, but it's a good comparison just for maintenance concerns

for roads. For instance, I know we're planning parks, but wanted to note this. You know, we maintain 350 lane miles of roads, which includes snow removal. Um, includes a whole host of different services we have to do to make sure those stay clear and safe. U and the same could be said, let's go to Baldwin. It's 121 uh lane miles of pavement and their their budgets almost twice as much as what the city can spend on our roads. So we are operating extremely efficient when you compare to other cities when you see the net cost for what we do maintain. Um overall it our model works. The problem is right now is that we've quite frankly we've added a lot of services and to maintain them with growing costs all around us. It's come to a point where quite frankly we have to make these cuts if we want to keep operating with a with a positive net balance. Um so wanted to kind of give an introduction here but we can go through these as well. Mr. Bunish if you want to add anything too but I think when we go through these it might be a good opportunity to kind of add in some sediment. Okay. So first thing that was is everyone got their documents open? Okay. Uh so first item to look at personnel we discussed that briefly uh but the difference in between you know the four and the two uh for all employees would be about $64,311. So, um, overall, if you added that in to our bottom line, that would add up to be we would we would if we added that increase in, we would be about $61,000 deficit for fiscal year 2026. So, that that's just to kind of add in here. We have about $13,595 to wiggle here to be above the deficit line. But, um, I just wanted to kind of make that note. We do have I have a spreadsheet here that can be shared as well. But the other side u I guess we can kind of go through these one at a one one at a time and then revisit some uh for parks. We have service contracts

uh for the portable it really where the cuts coming from here is the portable restroom facilities that we currently have over at all foster. We have some at Old Pond School. We have them at Fluffy Park. We have some at the north side of community park. Um the way that we are able to see some cost efficiencies here would be either removing the current affordable restrooms or potentially lowering the frequency of cleaning that lowering the frequency of cleaning could lead to you know potentially not having a great so removing it would be the better option of the two. That said, I there is still money available to be able to have both restrooms, post restrooms u at our city events and to have them at uh maybe a lesser so amount with the same amount of frequencies at some of our parks that are currently there. So, I mean I Joe, do you want to add anything to that specific line item?

Ask a question. I know we're trying to just get through this and then ask questions, but this is what I think. Yeah. Um the um nobody wants dirty restrooms at our parks, but nobody wants to look over in the weeds and see somebody doing their business over there either. Um there were we have those great um I know Joe is sold on them. Those um you bring them in on a flatbed, hoist them into place and the the the you know the permanent concrete structures you love them, sound great. Once you buy them, you're done. It seems to me they were in the range of, you know, $150,000 a piece, which would be, I guess, times four for the four um parks that we're talking about. So, if we could budget for one every four years, then we would, you know, or no, my suggestion in the admin public works meeting was to buy them out of our surplus and then get rid of that line item of 150 grand a year for forever. That seems like a reasonable solution and a good a good use of our of our permanent surplus funds. What's that?

That's for events though. So you can't

well some of it is but but to event I don't know um I don't know how much but still if it's $157,000 that pays for a restroom and if it takes us five years to get all of them AC you know get all of them into place we're eventually going to have all of our event spaces are going to have restrooms like in in Village Green and so on and so forth. So, I think we can work ourselves out of this, but I just I guess I wanted to throw out that we have an option. It would take some expenditure from our surplus, but we're looking for ways to meaningfully apply that surplus. And this would save us money in the long run and be a better solution than we currently have because nobody likes to look at those billious green blue portable.

What's our surplus? 18 million something like that. Oh, the reserve. Yeah. Yeah. The reserve. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All it just it just seems like a very cost effective. We should be increasing things right now. That's just my opinion. Yeah. I'm sorry. It's worth throwing out there. Two of the four locations we don't have water. So, we can't do permanent restroom facilities, but we can do those ones that you that are that are off the kind of off the grid restrooms.

Yes, we sure could. The the concrete ones that basically have the stack that faces south. So the stack gets heated and it for the most part is to neutralize the odor of the the the pit. It's just an alternative to pee in the bushes. It sure is. And we have it at Glen Co City Park. We've had it since its inception, but we don't have water to bell Buff Park nor Al Foster. Okay. Well, it was it was worth throwing out there and I'm I'm kind of trying I know we have problems. We're not going to work ourselves out of those unless we increase access required to have a restroom at a park. Not legally, but

because Anniversary Park did not have restrooms for close to 18 years. So, I'm I'm kind of of the thought if we need to remove a few dollars from this. I mean, in the overall budget, this is a small amount, but Bluffview Park, how many people go to Bluff View Park? And do we have to provide restrooms in that facility at this time? I mean, we can I mean, we can remove them. It It's going to be an impact. We got a customer. Yep. I mean, that's that's kind of where we're at. That's And how much does it cost to remove them?

There's no charge to have them come to them. The charge is renting them and having them free. So Tom and I first talked about it was on the most part we don't have to provide that service. It's a nice service. We got the pump track and all those kinds. I mean there's a lot of people over there, younger folks. They're just going to go in the woods. Bluffy Park is very busy now. Yeah. With all the gork riders. Oh, is it okay? Yeah. I I just think it's a because I've been over there several times. It's been about usually eight or nine months. So even they'll go in the in the woods regardless. Yeah. Well, they're I think

I I know some out of the John McCave trail head. They've been gone for quite some time. Um I get down there quite frequently. I do on occasion see people um using alternative um well there's a field next door. I'll just leave it at that. Mhm. But occasionally I didn't mean to start a big discussion, guys, but I I need to be creative by, you know, we can spend a little and save a lot.

Yeah, for sure. Uh, and I think, you know, in the big picture, um, we do have that $18 million surplus that I've been here for six years and we've been talking about the fact that it's a lot more than it should be and ways to look at auditing, figuring out what we actually need it to be, and then taking the difference and making meaningful applications to different things that we can offset long-term expenses by making short-term investments with extra monies we have. Right. U, but what I was going to say is appreciate that bringing that up. That was a great point. Um, for the purposes of this, why don't we go through and let let's have Tom go through all these items and then we'll start having otherwise we'll get stuck on a 20 minute discussion for each line item. Bring it up. But

um, let's just go through each thing and then we'll let him do it and then we'll come in and and talk about the things that he wants to talk about after.

Okay. Uh, thank you chair and with your permission chair if Mr. Bunich has anything to add to just want to keep that open. Okay. Um, all right. So, the other ones we have maintenance for vehicles in the parks department. This was we we looked at the 5-year historical average. This seems pretty consistent with what we've spent in the past. It does what we have currently budgeted. Option A and just a big difference. Option A is the budget that was presented, but option B was requested by the administration public works committee. We had a very similar discussion about TUTs. Um and overall there was a direction similar to what here had said here that hey we do have a massive reserve and we don't want to have you like a whiplash system with our residents where they notice you know quite a few services are no longer provided in next fiscal year. So that was something they provided to us hey what was the amount that we need to be at if we wanted to maintain all levels of service. That's where that option B came from. Um just to make sure we could show that difference. Wanted to add that note in there as well. Um, so maintenance of the vehicle. We did just get a new van. Uh, that does help a little bit. Still provides for being able to service it. Uh, but if a major issue comes up with one of our vehicles that would make it a little bit more costly and difficult to to do it in that fiscal year ended up happening, we could come back to the council. Um, the maintenance of the building is really more so the next one is maintenance for the building is really all for the old pond school and it's money that's been put away in the past for pest control. Um there is still some monies budgeted there, not as much as there was previously. Uh and it is not it was nice to have that 4,500 as a contingency, the additional $2,500. Um just because you know if there's you don't want pests running around that area. We've got kids that work uh that go over that playground and we don't really necessarily have too many people utilizing the facility, but just with the amount of people that go over there, it's not the bests. Uh, this option A also would reduce the hometown heroes uh, banners, not being able to purchase the banners. We'd have

to reutilize ones that we have or have individuals fund the entirety of it. That doesn't include just buying the banner itself. That would include buying the banner and installation, which would be a very big change to the program. Um, and wanted to circle that one to have a little bit of more discussion so we can come back. But the other one was for the computer systems. Uh we do still have a slight contingency placing there at $500. Um that said, we do plan on having this year was budgeted to replace the devices for our current park staff. So we should be able to take care of the major uh computer expense, which is typically the one driving the cost and 500 would still allow for a monitor that gets broken or something that would go down. Um special events, this is money that's set aside as a contingency fund, if you will. It does get used quite a bit um for some of our city sponsored events. And quite frankly, this is, you know, pretty decent cut into what we've what we've had in the past. And really, this is going to require us to kind of take a look at our event schedule um to see what changes need to be made, whether it be should we provide free things during the events or do we charge for them? Do we eliminate them as a whole? Um not necessarily want there's in budget a there is still money set aside for events. it's just not to the grand scale that the city has been used to and that our residents have come to expect. U so that said, these are events that you know some of the popups that we do. uh some of the smaller events that we're able to put together uh kind of when they when all the good example I mean during spring break we were able to have a a home g I forget the slang term for it but the homeation the vacation at home deal where we had that at community park had a ton of different visitors come out uh this also helps fund things for some of our our smaller events that we have and helps some of our bigger events if needed um that I think we definitely want to circle back on that one as Well, just to have the discussion

part of the event schedule, too. Um, then supplies, there's a decent cut there as well. Um, one portion of this that does somewhat help that was already kind of incorporated was the frozen feet uh that we would purchase the large jackets that would go with us uh for frozen feet each year. And we are no longer doing frozen feet. Last year, we had a we had a pretty small amount of people that registered. Typically we'd see a lot of day day of registrations but the event had kind of shrunk over time. Uh that said we also had some very severe weather conditions last year where it rendered the the trails inhabitable for for that said that should actually save a good chunk of change here. that on the other flip side of that is that the cost for the t-shirts we provide and all the the stuff that we do. I mean the haunted train ride we just did, we had to get supplies, you know, different decorations for the to give it the hunted feel. Um all of those small things, they do add up over time when you do an event. It's a bunch of people working extremely hard and this will kind of stretch them a little thinner there. Uh quite bit thinner. But the frozen feet not being there will actually free up some of those funds because we will not have to make the purchase of the uh the large jackets which were pretty expensive just given the material and that they are they're jackets are not t-shirts. Um wanted to circle that one as well. But then the two big ones too and I'll just kind of do these in tandem. So for music on Maine, option A be clear, option B would still include it. Option A would eliminate May Music on Main concert unless we were able to make enough savings through the hot dogs or making sales at for concessions or something like that. Uh that would then allow us to pretty much cover that fourth concert. So May has been the one that you know we get a little bit of rain. I think it's an open discussion here. It just means one of them. I don't I back to school is by far the most popular event that we have. So I would not

recommend I mean I would love to hear from the department on this but if we had to choose one you know the department administration at least would be pointing towards the May one just because of the attendance but maybe it's maybe it's a different approach from the committee but that's where that cut comes from. Um the way to make that up would be potentially looking at uh how can we we could potentially with the hot dogs with the kettle corn ice cream those things maybe we just provide water. Um I think it does change the nature of the event and I think it just it would require further discussion if we got rid of that the May or one of the other ones June or July. Um that would allow us to continue offering the the same concert level at at you providing the hot dogs and the other amenities that they get when we go there. Um then going down contractual services for 4350 the major um expenditure that's eliminated in option A which is the proposed budget because uh for a balance budget would be the pool passes for the Ellisville Aquatic Center. So, we currently offer we cover the pool passes for residents that want to uh you know, we don't have a pool here in Wildwood. So, if folks want to sign up there, they're able to go. Um we've actually seen quite a few residents sign up and utilize those services. Those residents would see a change in service delivery for

you saying quite a few. How many's quite a few did you check those figures? Last night I was asked a question about numbers. There's 40 at all. I wasn't able to get for Ellisville. I'll have that Monday night for Okay. So, we're talking about maybe a hundred people or 100 families there. There wasn't a school. You said there was a whole class though that was there for the uh for BW, right? The whole swim team was made up of wild residents. Besides the school passes, our residents participate in the swim team. It's the LSO Wildwood Gators. 75% of the team with residents. So

lose that or is this just passes for residents? Would so this team would they if we eliminated this would they not be able to certainly they just wouldn't get the subsidized rate. Yeah. And we also participate. We usually buy the t-shirts for the team because while Ellisville does everything else in terms of the equipment, the management, travel cost, etc. Can I make one comment? That's the only comment I want to make. Yeah.

We're not going to raise the taxes of the citizens. I think we need to require them to see that and up some money for the stuff because the taxpayers are paying it and then you're not have a deficit coming. you know, the hot dogs maybe $2 or something, but I'm for Yeah. not giving all these freebies out because we're talking about increasing taxes. That's I know I know it's I know we're eager to jump in and have I know I can't. No, you're good. But I'm saying there's a lot of We can have a debate. We can have a conversation on all these things, but I say let's just get through it first. I don't think we will.

I know. We got it because we got several pages here. Um and then we can come back and um you know and obviously Tom we've got a pretty good we can see here what it says just do a quick overview on these things then we can circle back and do the discussion on on some of these things just to what you just said. I think as we hear all of these things and look at all these things, that's the general mindset we're gonna have to come up with as far as like,

you know, the city should spend money on things that affect everybody in the city. And if there's things that just certain people are using or that certain people like to do, they should pay to do it versus the city covering that cost, right? So anyway, like music on Maine or whatever, like the the back to school, thousands of people do that. clear. The only thing we don't charge for are the concerts, right? And we've talked about that over the years. We'd have to create a system where we basically put up a fence so we have people coming. No, not that. I'm saying the pool passes though, like we shouldn't be paying residents and and Yeah.

I may Ellisville for 2024. I don't have them for this year, but it was 191 Wildwood families that had memberships that year and 39 out of 100 of their swimmers on the swim team are from Wildwood. Just how much I don't want to get into this too deep. You're getting dragged up. I'm getting dragged in against my own will. Uh but I was just since we this one thing though is you know 191 families but once again whether we subsidize any cost of that pass they still have the ability to do the pass and pay for it themselves. Yeah. So I think they still have the ability through Wildwood setting that up with Ellville

but you know they don't need us right if I want to go join the Y Wildwood's not paying for my pass over there. We used to do that. But I think things like that though is if we have extra money, great. But that's the difference. Yeah. Let's move on. Let's go back to the go all the way through here. All right. So, I'm going to run through these so we can get to the questions portion discussion. Okay. Quick overview and then we'll talk.

Yeah. The next one and I and we can just say it and then we can get past it. But this one's pretty big. I mean, it's we're moving Celebrate Wildwood to uh Village Green next year. Uh there is going to be some cost savings there in the sense that we're not going to have to pay the the entire bill for electricity cost. We still will need to have an electricity source for the vendors, but it won't be as high because we have electricity running through that site. That said, uh the other side of it, this option A red does not have the um sorry the parade the parade would not be able to continue if option A was adopted. We can add that back in, but that would be a pretty major change in the event. So, just wanted to add that we could move some other things around, but it would be

Yeah, we'll mark it. Um, so then park maintenance. Uh, honestly, it could go even a little higher with add adding, uh, Village Green. That said, we're trying to keep those cost. So, I just wanted to point that out. Um, and we will be moving to the flat rate bid process that we look to have in in January that we'll be identifying all of our parks properties, all of our uh trail properties to be able to bid it out. is a full amount, not necessarily an hourly rate for these folks, but then coming in and saying, "Well, here's the total square footage. Here's each site. You can investigate." Then coming back and having them give us a total amount, which will be reviewed independently by the council and will be held separately from our rightway maintenance bids. Um, the same goes for

This gas is going down. Uh, it was going up. Oh, pardon me. So, I thought gas was going up.

No, it's going down. That's been dangerous. Um, okay. And then, uh, this still does maintain the current farmers market. It would keep our far market manager. The idea was to add a little bit of additional funds to help spruce up some of the some of the smaller events we had there and also accounting for um, our market manager hasn't made, you know, very many increases to their compensation over the last to 15 years, Joe. Um, and then this usually we were able to give, you know, a little bit of funding there to be able to add some things to the event to make it a little bit more um, interactive, have little really just promotional stuff that makes the event on a certain weekend different than the one before. So, it kind of adds some variety. Uh but it would still maintain a farmers market and obviously with the village green being constructed it's very important the department's found it very important to keep that because that's where we're going to be popular. Yes, I think that would be we'd get a we'd have a line of folks out the front door. Um mini garden it does maintain uh some funding there. We've had some additional, you know, like work days with them and we were able to kind of create a little sense of community back there, but we're kept we're keeping the funding to maintain the area and really just keep it keep it up. Uh, but it's not really anything extra, any bells and whistles, if you will. Uh, under option A. U, going through here, Pond Athletic Association, this would eliminate the donation of $5,000 to that organization. We've done that for quite a few years at this point. And that would sum it up for parks. We can move on to planning if uh if we want to break them up or we want to go to planning.

Um I mean I don't I there so we can just jump. Yeah. Just keep going through and let's get done with all this part and then

All right. So maintenance of vehicles. Um this one we would be able it's goes from 9500 to 7500 is the last page. Uh this would allow for us to really just service the vehicles. But if you have a major breakdown or something along those lines, we will need to bring that to the council just for review. um that just because we don't have it budgeted, if we have a breakdown, we we need to be able to have a vehicle there. This is more so what we typically anticipate and the 7500 is traditionally what we've seen. We've seen it, you know, vary a little bit, but I think there there's still enough there to service. It's just it's nice to have a little bit of that u contingency, if you will, training. U there is a cut there as well. This would pretty much limit the ability to do a an AI training for one of our employees, but one would still be able to go. We'd have to render the others side of that training um and some other supplemental training to the following fiscal year when we and hopefully start realizing some of the revenue growth from some of our developments. So, we move it in. Um there's also special events under planning that helps, you know, throw on some of the events that we have. Uh this one is a little bit tough because we have Route 66 anniversary, 100th anniversary next year and this was going to help a lot of those special little events, open houses and things along those lines. M making sure that we were able to, you know, accommodate all of those different activities that we plan to do for the the centennial for the uh for Route 66. So that a little bit particular a hit, but um travel uh typically that's associated with the training. So that was able to see a decrease. No one that's that won't have to be looked at are online. So we were able to eliminate that. It's not too big. Um abatement consistent with previous years the 16,000 shows pretty similar to what we've had. Uh I do understand wanting to maybe pick that up a little bit so we'd be able to attack some of the other issues that we've seen. Um you know abancements is really the money we use to be able to track an issue if the resident won't do it themsel

hopefully pay us back some time. Uh then also this this is probably the biggest one here is the contractual. We have a plan for a consultant to take a look at some of uh our lighting code and also having some in some monies for some Route 66 items that saw a pretty significant reduction. That said, we still do have monies put aside in there to much maintain asis. U consultant costs, there's still money set aside uh and this this monies these monies are spent on when we have particular requests. One example, this year we had electronic message centers come in and be a big part of the discussions pretty much the entire year for planning and zoning and now it'll be going in front of the whole city council. Uh part of that is you know obviously we do have experts in house but sometimes when it gets something very peculiar very specific as in like electronic message and how to regulate them we typically rely on a consultant. This is the the fund that we would use to do that and assist with planning and zoning council. And it's important to have some money set aside there in order to be able to carry out. You know, there's plenty of things that we could we could end up doing with it, especially with strains on staff sometimes with heightened permit reviews specifically at this time. Uh it helps when we can bring those consultants in. Um still does keep some monies there, but does reduce the total amount. And then for commissions, we have do have some money set aside for being able to set up events and events for having different workshops and be able to provide accommodations here. So we'd have to just be cost conscious and cut back on some other services as well, which includes like coffee and donuts.

That includes inclusive, but I I know we went through quite a few. So

yeah, so I know we can have some good discussion here. Um, in the interest of how to approach it so we're not just all over the place, what I was going to suggest is, um, well, number one, I think this is an issue that is not going to be for fiscal year 26 and then go away. Like, we're in a situation where we've got to take a serious look at what we're spending and how we're spending. And like, this isn't like how do we cut some costs for next year because the year after we'll be fine. And you know, if we come in here and say the deficit here we're looking at 483,000. If we just took 483,000 out of our surplus and kept everything as is, we'll run out of money in like 10 years or whatever, get down to a dangerous level, you know. So, and the thing is the costs on all these things are only going to continue to go up year over year with inflation and and other things. So, I think we're at a point where we need to look at these things instead of just looking at it for next year. maybe take a look and see like what things are mission critical that we have to maintain and what things can we potentially put on a chopping block and what things can we cut back on because what I'm looking at here in all these different things is option A and option B is pretty much everything staying at a reduced level in option B right and I think when you're making hard decisions when it comes to budgetary purposes sometimes you just have to take things down to zero versus just cutting back. And so we've done a lot of really good things for our residents for a lot of years and we we've been able to provide but you know at certain point like we have to say like we can't continue to do everything we've been doing just at a lesser level. We've got to figure out what are things that, you know, we can get rid of completely or maybe on some of these things where we've got, you know, oh well, we've these contingencies in place in case we have to fix the

vehicle or whatever it is, maybe we just set up a miscellaneous emergency fund that's really not in the in the budget expected to be spent, but has, you know, we move that kind of stuff around all the time,

right? And so we've got but we've got it there to where it's just if we don't expect to use it and if we have to for certain emergency purposes we can but we're we don't right and then and then it doesn't get spent. But I'm just saying I'm looking at this from a macro perspective as far as how do we get this number down to where we're talking about 150 grand a year instead of 500 grand a year because this problem's only going to stay there and get worse. And so if we're just making minimal adjustments we're going to be in trouble. So that's all I got. Ottawa,

just real quickly, I wanted to bring up the subject because we haven't talked about it in the last couple of years, but um we have a lot of parks. We have a lot of parks that the residents really love and enjoy. Um other cities have a park tax, if you want to call it that, or some kind of park funding source. um as well as maintenance source. And the maintenance cost for our parks is a big chunk of the bill right here. And so I'm wondering, we don't have to do it for 2026, but we need to start figuring out how we can go back to our voters and say, "Guys, that wonderful park that you get to play in with your kids, we need you to pay something upfront on that

annually." After looking, I just note on the storm. I got a comment on that. And you're gonna say no on tax increases. Oh, but what I'm going to say is let me let let Tom respond and then we'll go to Rambo and you.

I was just going to mention a quick note. Wanted to be prepared for that that type of statement here tonight. But looking into it, there was a couple items if that is the direction. There's a few different ways to do it. I mean the stormwater parks tax is one and it would produce it could produce upwards of anywhere you know if you look at the range it's 0.25 to 0.5% added to tax. So, it's the same. It would practically be the same or half um or anywhere between there of our capital improvement sales tax funds. That would be expected to generate anywhere from, you know, one to $3 million depending on what we put the amount at. So, how it's listed in the ballot would be for parks or storm water or both. That's how you have to mention it. And then you have to give the split in the actual ballot itself. So if you say 50/50 or 7525, you can do whatever as a council, but you have to list it out in the actual ballot so folks know what they're uh where the money is going and you have to keep keep a separate account, which wouldn't be a problem. Um the other two items that were reviewed just as part of this process were uh I know we had did an indefinite postponement on the use tax for digital purchases um online purchases and there was also uh and then there was gross receipts. We and I didn't mention this during the revenue uh discussion but one component of the revenue discussion is that we had it at 5% for the gas tax fire um and we reduced it down to four. We reduced it down so our residents didn't see a net increase to their tax uh to the amount they're paying in their bill from the city's perspective anyway. So right now when someone pays their gas bill you'll see a 4.86% charge that reflects that reduction. So reflects the previous amount that was charged. So, just wanted to add those little tidbits, if you will. We currently charge a 5% gross receipts. Voters can approve um adjustments there as well, but that would tie additional tax to utility, which I know is that would be a little bit more dicey. So, just wanted to bring up a couple of those avenues uh if that was and we have more information if anybody wants to discuss it, but just to

lay a basis. Okay. Uh Rambo.

Yeah, we um Mike is exactly right. We need to do triage now and figure this out, but the problem's not going to go away. And so we need to set oursel up self set ourselves up for success in the future. Katie is exactly right. The the parks and the the the parks are what people recognize and acknowledge and love about Wildwood. I think it would be um a reasonably straightforward sale to say, folks, we don't have a parks tax. We're the only community around here that doesn't. And the same message needs to be delivered on folks. We also don't the that you're always complaining about your taxes and so on and so forth. We have the lowest taxes, you know, in the surround any any of the surrounding communities. We need to get that message out and I don't like taxes any more than anybody else. But I love living in wild and we get more for our money. And so we need to figure out how to bridge the the next few years to get to a, you know, more stable revenue sources that help us pro provide some of the things that we need to provide. And I I don't have any problem whatsoever with cutting out the parade or cutting out music on Maine and so on and so forth and cutting out swim passes. I could I would support all of those if I could, but um um I was I just just now did the math. I you know I get like two to five bucks an hour from Wildwood for my time. $400 a month is not going to break me whatsoever. And if you add that up times all of the other folks that get it, you're getting you're talking about nearly 100K. That's a big chunk of change. I would be happy to I I feel like I mean I don't need that money and I feel like this is kind of a volunteer role and I it it we should if we're

talking about you know cuts here and cuts there including to staff um salaries and stuff. We should be thinking about you know cuts to our stipend because all it does is pay for gas anyway. And so it's it's it's worth bringing that up. It's not going to be popular. It's going go over like a lead balloon, but I think we should discuss that and maybe even vote on. Council crayons. Yeah. I'm I'm not against the park tax first of all, Katie. Okay. But but what will concern me right now,

and we discussed it last night, we got $10 million we can spend plus we'll have our reserve. So we have $10 million. So, that's money that's been taxed and that that's money the residents paid in for these services. I'm saying the timing has to be right because if you're setting on $10 million and you're going to tell the public we need to tax you, I think it'll be an issue there. I certainly would have one. Yeah, I don't disagree at all because we could set aside even a couple hundred grand a year to offset some of these park expenditures which would take us 10 years to spend 2 million rather than one of the residents to say we want to tax you more while we're sitting on a surplus that's double what we need. So I got council hotberg and then council. So, um it's a little bit off topic talking about a um potential tax proposition to put before the voters, but I think if No, it's uh not going to be sorry about I'm glad you brought that up, but the thing that we need to I think um remember is that we need to maintain our transparency with the voters. I I know that there was some talk floating around here for a while of calling it a parks and storm water tax in order to better sell that to the voters. If you take a look at the website for the city of Ellisville or any of the other cities that have these types of taxes in place right now, what they've done is spelled out exactly on their website the percentage of tax that's going to storm water, the percentage of tax going to parks. Uh they've either when they put these before the voters, they've put a separate proposal for storm water and a separate proposal for parks and spelled out the percentages. Or if they did call it a parks and storm water tax, what they did in the verbiage, they said parks and storm water tax, I'll just pick a number here, one half of a

percent with a quarter percent being used for parks, a quarter percent being used for storm water. I think it's very important that we mean that maintain that transparency if that's the decision that's made

because the original premise that that was brought up initially was for storm water. It was for erosion brought it up. Let's call it parks and storm water because people will like it but we're really going to use it for storm water. So it I agree 100%. If you're going to go you got to let people understand exactly what it is or what it's for if you're going to. But going back to what Councilman Cran said, uh I think before you go to the taxpayer and say we need to raise your taxes in a tough environment to generate more revenue so that we can do things, but we're sitting on 19 million and we only need seven. Like why why are we sitting on that much? Like it doesn't make any sense. We don't need their money right now. Yeah, we can set up a way to take two, three, 400,000 of the 10 million extra we have, which would take us 15 years to go through or 12 years. And then at that point, we can go to them for a tax increase if necessary to offset whatever. Council member recussion.

Um, yeah. Every, well, a lot of people in Wildwood seem to think that we have a municipal tax. And I don't care how many times you knock on the doors and how many times you explain it, they still think we have a municipal tax. So, that would be a good thing for the website. We don't have one of those. Um, and and we've been talking about this account at council and I've been an advocate from this since day one. Wildwood fund should be used for Wildwood. Let's stop using it for Highway 109 and 100. I mean, residents have a complaint about that. Why Why should we fix that? It doesn't belong to Wildwood. Um, yes, I know we drive down it, but again, we're not responsible for state and county roads. Um, and the stipen thing was a huge, huge deal at council. Um there was a committee, they did all of these research, all this research. Um and it was really looked at and Wildwood is paid way less than any of the other cities. Way less. Um so that would I you know for whatever that's worth.

I ran for the money. Know you got paid when I ran. I'm just saying that was a huge deal. That was a huge deal. Then we need to have my money. I don't hear you. I think that I think the discussion back then was to um increase the payment to $800 or something and the argument was people that can't afford to give donate their time would be more likely to run like a a single parent that kind of thing and it was voted down. Um, you know, I I I I sympathize with that argument, but I think I I agree with what you said, Council Rambo, too, that I mean, 400 bucks a month or whatever it is. I don't even know what it is, but like I don't think anybody on council is here for that.

I didn't know you got paid. Yeah. So, I'm just saying we're 64,000 deficit here on the salaries and payroll, and that includes council getting a 4%, too. No. Okay, good. We just get established by but if if if what is it that's established like that would have to be but I'm saying it's basically five grand a year per council member times 16 council members times the mayor gets twice that. So it's like you're talking let's just cut the mayor's salary.

So but I'm just saying at the very least what you could do is just take the between the the council and the mayor whatever and just offset that 64,000. So then whatever the difference is, the council could still get as a stipen, but now you let the staff and everybody that deserves it get paid what should get paid and we'll take the hit. Wish they did that again. So So it's like it's like wish they did that in Congress this up completely. with that. Well, if we took it off completely, but I'm saying if we just at the very least, I don't disagree. We could cut it out completely if we want, but I was saying at the least cut it enough to offset that 64,000 deficit.

Yeah. It's 768 plus the mayor's 10. Yep. So, it's 868. Yeah. Yeah. We're supposed to cut their salaries, not ours. So you could cut it, you could cut it to to 64 and and you know, we get $100 a month. Give the mayor five and give council, you know, two or 100 whatever. I think we finish. Yeah, go ahead. Finish.

Um, so I think if and I totally agree, we need to take this we need to cut it down. I'm not saying that, but I think we need to be really positive of what we'll take out because, you know, again, we we spend money for state roads. We're doing million-doll roundabouts. We just gave away a chapter 100. And so, the residents are going to say, "Oh, you can do all that, but you're going to take away events and things that we're used to, and it's our money, basically." So, I think we have to be really careful how much we take out and what we take out. Richard, the one thing I'll say to that though is that what residents are going to say that you're right, but at the end of the day, it's our job to help them understand that it's not your money because we've been spending it. If if we're in the red,

it's not your money because there's no money there. Like, we can't we can't say we've been doing all these things. We have to keep doing them because it's their money. But if we we have to make cuts if we don't have it. But I will say

we have to decide what we're going to spend it on and what we're not. I would say my my advice on this and I'm coming to you council try here in a second but I was just going to say hearing what we're talking about and what I mentioned from the beginning and the fact that we know we've got this massive surplus in the reserve that like I said we've been talking about this for six years that I've been here and I know it was discussed prior to that and council member Bros previously had brought up multiple times for us to take a look at it and every year when we're having this conversation we say the same thing but we've never once done exactly that. So, I think what we need to do, we're so we're $483,000 off of full scale, right?

Uh if we went everything balanced as is, uh or with everything we we want to keep doing. So, I think two things need to happen right out of the gate before we get into the weeds on the details is a what is the dollar amount annually moving forward that we're willing to take out of the reserve to offset this half million dollars? Is it 250? Like if we took 300,000 a year for the next 10 years, that's three million that we would spend and that would cut our deficit from 500,000 to 200,000. Then out of that 200,000 that's left over that were in the red, what can we cut permanently, right? And make adjustments to so I'm just saying if we come at it from that approach, I think we can get ourselves to a happy place versus diving into the weeds on line by line each thing. because we'll talk about this till we're blue in the face and we'll shade 20 grand.

Council actually I got coun you you said exactly what I was thinking is let's um let's pump the brakes a little bit. Let's not go through this and nickel and dime it. Sure, there needs to be cuts. Let's take buckets out of the reserve where we can to ease into this and then create a narrative and you know honest narrative of where we need money whether it's from taxes or however we get it or what we need to cut so we can you know create the reality that this is where we're going based on revenue and surplus reserve whatever we have ease into it. There's no knee-jerk like we need to cut this this this. I think you can balance this over a three-year period using the reserve that we have in place to kind of soften the blow. And in that time though, we need to be very uh strategic.

Yeah. And delivering a message to the residents on what the future will look like. So we're not going to flip a tax proposal for, you know, the next voting cycle, but you can ease into it. Council and then I sorry I did I did like what uh Council Member Rottenberg said about being very discreetly clear on if tax is proposed what it is and how it's allocated. Yeah, I thought there were some leg I thought there were some legalities but you would know better than I don't know anything about Yeah, I agree. municipal legal. Uh,

I agree with Scott completely, but my points were we're low tax environment and and residents don't know that. We need to get that message out. But I I would suggest as Matt did that we be strategic. If we can buy things that will save us money like the restrooms is that might be a silly example, might be a stupid idea, but if we spend a 100k and we put a restroom down, then we don't have people getting in the weeds and people It's a longterm solution.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's Yeah. Right. and we and that is that is a very easy way to apply the um the the um the excess funds that we have um to save short-term pain and get us on a better that's kind of my point. Just to be clear, we're not contributing to the reserve but it's invested so it's growing. So we're out of the budget nothing not with what's well presented I mean what will be returned is about 13,595 as what was presented in option A but option B would show that deficit which would not be so I think that's a small number but we probably should end any contributions to the reserve.

Let me ask you this real quick and then I got you the heat up. What annually over the past year, let's talk specifically or the past three years, what has been our annual return on the It's been about Well, in the height of it, it was over it was almost 5% in some cases, but it's gone down to about 3.5%. 3.5% of the 1920 like right now it's like 3.5 treasuries. So that anyway, so even if we if we if we spent 5%, we would only be reducing it by one and a half percent per year. um which would be insignificant and go ahead.

Okay. My uh just a couple things really it was you know we're looking at this and trying to reduce when we have this huge reserve in place. To me it's mindboggling to me to think we have these reserves we haven't touched and we're going to say we're going to reduce or not give increases in salary at the level we should be. Um, one of the things that I've noticed in the time I've been involved in council is that we have a core group of people that are very committed to the city and the last thing we want to do is lose them by not giving them appropriate increases and they work many hours over what the normal workday is and I think most of you have noticed that they seem to be here all the time doing something. Um, so I think you know my thought is whatever we can do to say we look at the reserves and try and um budget it appropriately for what we need to meet the needs makes much more sense than for us saying

okay do we want to take $64,000 away on the reserve right what I'm saying is we should we have to real quick the reserve oh sorry not I agree with that that point you just mentioned there I think that from least the department's perspective I as a city administrator, that would be the first thing to try to add back into this pie. Um, the one thing I wanted to make quick a note of is that the interest income is added in each year as part of our revenue model. So, we interest we're projecting because we we are only able to invest in securities really paid out and then it goes right. Okay. So, it's part of the deficit.

It right now we're accounting for what we will earn in 26. What I'm saying is what we should do is what you've said. I've heard this from everybody here's pretty much said the same thing more or less. But so let's get to this point then is obviously I think we need to look at option B as far as not making drastic cuts across the board. But using the reserve to offset the shortfall and moving forward. But with that being said doesn't mean we go option B on every single thing. So we don't have to pick one or the other for everything, right? We can go in and say,

for instance, for option B on the personnel salary, let's give all the city staff their full increase. And then if it's agreeable, then we can look at offsetting that 64,000 with the council and the mayor, which that buys us 64K back right there. If I'm not saying we have to do that, but if we did that and then we can look at some of these other things and say, "Okay, well,

let's whittle it down on some levels and let's get that 483 down to 350 and then we take the 350 and take it out of the reserve." And now we're fully balanced and we're in a good place. And once again, if you took 350k out of the reserve for the next three or 10 years, that's $3.5 million. That's not even a that's a a third of what we know that's there in excess today. Um so that's just my opinion. Well, that's a good plan.

And a quick note and quick note on that too. That's for this document that was passed out. That's the idea here too is and especially when we get into the full council work session and taking any feedback I know we're talking about tonight. We'll look into the legality. I know there will be probably need a code change for the salary adjust if there's folks that you know are supportive of council not uh pulling it pulling a compensation and I think it does. So that's one side of it could be done quickly if needed. That said that that was the idea is have this document almost go through this here but also as a full council. Um and if we want we can pull up other items as well, you know, more specific counts to show what was kept. One thing I just had top of mind, we do have a legislative consultant that's 31,000 bucks a year. Um, I know we utilize that individual to try to haven't gotten our, you kind of on the fence about. I wanted to make sure I noted it because it is about $31,000. That might be something to where moving forward instead of just having that every year. Like there's maybe we when there's years where there's a hot topic that's going to the state legislature that we're interested in, maybe we do her DM consultant feed for that year knowing that hey, they're going to be discussing this thing that could be a big deal for us versus just having it as an ongoing thing all the time.

So what's the lawyer's budget in litigation? Currently, there's $160,000 budgeted for all attorney fees. So, are we giving the lawyer a raise? No. Okay. We haven't given the lawyer a raise for in their firm a raise for the last like four years. All right.

It's remained at 160. We actually did remove the legit litigation contingency account, which is typically hel It was kind of strange. It was it was kind of a holdover but was kept there for instances where the city were to be sued for a item that's not covered by our general liability insurance which typically would be something that's dealt in planning and zoning or board of adjustment. Uh we haven't had those can pop up but that expenditure could easily be passed into the council could be brought up into the discussion if something came up like that. We don't have any litigation going on now do we? There's a few things but it's all covered under our I could catch you up. That's it's not there there's the one big case and then there's few like very small things that are being handled by insurance

chair. Yeah, that's a wrap. So I think if um if um I understand what you were suggesting is to go with uh start off with option B then look for savings going down and taking a look at the items individually. If we can get that 480 down to like 325 or 350.

I agree with that totally. I guess my my suggestion might be then to take a look at each page and use sort of the 8020 rule. In other words, look at the biggest potential savings on each page, which usually there's like two or three that are at least somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000 to 30,000. Take a look at those first rather than get hung up on each item that only has a potential maybe like 2,000. I don't disagree at all and I let me ask you this and I think there seem to be relative agreement here but regarding the council and mayor salary is everybody here okay with you you may have to go back to the voters we had the voters pass that

oh for the salaries it's it doesn't change here's the other thing to to run uh people have to buy signs And uh there are people I didn't Well, you're in a different category. Uh but it it helped people that didn't have that wanted to be part of government and wanted to run and and that was sort of an incentive as well to get people to run. I just I remember that argument. That's all I'm saying. He's you're okay for the increase in salaries though which has nothing to do with uh city council running.

Well, no. I was saying if we were if we were going to propose to offset that but I was just saying that's a vote argument was used at one time. No, and it was mostly for campaign purposes if that's what I remember. I think right we voted on the but I could care less because council votes the public voted on it. I don't see it. Get 240. We used to get 200 per meeting. 100%. Can we turn to 400 a month? That is correct. You went to one meeting. We used to get 100 meeting. Yes. And if like you didn't show like there was two meetings in a month and if you didn't show up to one, you didn't get paid for that one. Right. Quite frankly, it was kind of a pain. But it was 200 per meeting.

Now, now when I started it was a hundred bucks and you had to be be at the meeting to get paid. I don't remember. All I'm saying is that's back in 2000. So, let's how about we do this to start off before we let's figure out what our number we're looking for. So, we're 483 in the hole. What is a number that we're comfortable proposing to take out of the reserve? Are we good with 350? I have 300. So, this is my personal opinion and I went through and and line item this out and I came out with $175,000 reduction. So, that's 307 from the reserve. That sounds great to me. Um, where is it coming from? You want me to go through each? Can we come in? Yeah.

Do we want to go through each one or is there a possibility that we come up with u So you're saying 175,000 in savings reducing reducing? So with the balance between B and A reducing 175,000 off the current proposed Yeah. And then um so what we would be deficited is 307 which would come from the reserve. Yeah. which I think 3 to 350 out of the reserve is more than amenable. Yeah, I mean I I did some gross cuts here, but I didn't know if we wanted to go through line by line or if we can come up with a aggregate, you know, I don't know what the percentage comes out to be.

Oh, you mean reducing all of them at the same percentage and and not look at it individually but more more um in glo you know. So if we have to reduce it by you're getting some to 50% reductions in expenses here along with taking 50% of the budget out of the but like I think for instance here like you're looking at the concerts I mean I think I think for sure we should stop giving away free things like we don't need to give hot dogs and t-shirts to people.

I got so much Wildwood swag over the six years. I mean, people can come and we're paying for the band and all the other stuff, but any food they should pay for, any other drinks they should pay for. And then getting rid of May's concert, I don't think would kill anybody either. But that's 25 grand right there. And I think those are soft savings. I don't think people are going to really actually, you know, they're not gonna be like, "Oh my god, I had to buy a hot dog. I don't get a free hot dog." I'm like, I don't think people are coming because they're getting a free hot dog or a free t-shirt. It's what makes your Wildwood unique from others in town. The freebies are over. That's all I It just gets expensive quickly.

Can I ask a question? Yeah, go ahead. Um, my understanding is option B is still a dramatic reduction from what we would if we did the same things that we did this year. it still represents reduction. It does, but that's because we had the we had a crazy year when it comes to snow removal. So that said, it it we do not anticipate that kind of level of snow removal.

Okay. So if we do if we take something along the order of what Matt suggests and just come up with a number um you could probably reapply it and rejigger this and come up with something that works without cutting anything. And the only things that we're cut that we should that we owe you is a philosophy like, okay, there's 200 families that are buying a a swim pass. Get rid of that sort of thing and um just be judicious about the cut. But on the salaries, keep the salary. Yeah. Yeah. And pay the pay the numbers didn't touch I didn't look at the the 64,000 difference in salaries. So yeah, I'm cool. Where can you go without B and make cuts to get to like 325?

So that's it. Could we maybe get that? That would be helpful if we could get the like that number and we could What if we just made it a round number like 325 instead of 307? Authorize it. Tom, are you asking for us to go line item by line item and tell me where? No, he's going to do that. We can do that. I can put that together. So, yeah, I think I I'd like that. We're basically tell we're telling him that you can use 325 out of the reserve to get to your plan B number. That's a solution. Which budget are we using, A or B? We're going to use B, which is the full. We're going to give him 325 towards that 483 deficit, and he's going to cut the difference to get to take care of the staff with that money. I thought A was a balanced budget. So, we're not going with

A is balanced with major major cuts. 500,000 in cuts. A is balanced and um B is a deficit. That's why I was asking what are So, B is the full amount. 500 grand in the whole. we're going to give him 325 of that 500 grand out of the reserve adding money

and he's got to cut the other 160 grand difference. So practically it's saying like what what what this is it's using option B as the starting point instead of option A and then going from there saying hey you know we're going to bring back into the fold about 350 but then 158 and $61 those are cuts that got to go like we that is it's like setting an acceptable limit of that amount just no can't happen can't go over this amount which we can definitely we will maximize the use of that um and get rid of the things that are just fluff fluff. and then we can stay in our budget next year. Right. Yeah.

Well, the other thing I just want to bring up too, and this is just something to keep on the radar. It was part of the discussion and the police originally had an increase scheduled for a higher amount. It was at 5% which would have really kicked us. Uh it really was uh we were working from a whole another perspective. And then the police did come back, they reduced their increase from 5% to 3%. uh which was you know quite frankly the contract does allow them to go up to 5% so just from the city's perspective we do appreciate that because it it did help um that said with just in general there was a increase to a different uh collective bargaining agreements that took place we should be anticipating and what the s what I did with the with the finance team was we looked at okay you know we're being told that 5% would have happened this year but we were very much in favor of not having that they were helpful we can't expect that going forward. That said, if revenues stay relatively consistent, the one trend that I found alarming long term was that by 2031, we would be spending over 50% of operating on police services, just the uh that amount. So,

can I ask a question? Yeah. Yeah. And I love the police, but the has that ever been audited uh contract? with a contract. Have we ever had somebody look at that independently that that can tell us that?

Not to my knowledge, but I will say I've looked at and this has been I will say to the police's credit, we I've looked at uh you know our neighboring municipalities and I've taken a look at some of the cities that kind of resemble Wildwood uh rural suburban balance. Truly, we're we're it seems like we're on par with other other cities. We're not getting charged any more than what typically is done because when you account for the cost per officer, we in in the crime and the the level of police work involved. I don't think ours is as high as that. See, that's the discussion to have too. We have not had that. I for my knowledge not so that's more than an audit. It's a evaluation of the need versus I I just deployment

think maybe we should see what's involved in just for the public interest. We're getting a fair price on it. I know it's not a popular position to take. The majority of it is, I'm sure, on salary. I'm not saying it's not, but I like to have it asking somebody to Well, it's a good point because then we know where we're going to be at. Absolutely. Build everything. It keeps building up. Yeah. It would be good to to do building. So, so we're doing separate sub. So, we're going to then do you need a motion and a

to do that. So, do and and real quick to kind of tie that in because I know we did get a couple, you know, firm points here. Um, just to include in that 350, uh, you know, we're looking at from the perspective of, hey, we're not going to be doing the the free stuff at the events and stuff like that. That agreed that that's not So then the May concert, everyone seemed comfortable there. I know there was one at the parade. I almost wanted a little some direction on the parade, too. I know it's a big item. It's 10,000. uh if we don't that we can work. It's such community engagement parade. So what are the expenses for the parade from Wildwood's perspective? It's around $10,000. What we get for that?

A parade. It's for overtime with police like juggling Jeff that comes in. There's this year we had Fred Bird and really the golf carts. Golf carts too. Yeah. It's like I didn't have a golf cart. No. What was he at the golf last year? Do we have any way of gauging that? Because I know allong old Manchester it was pretty empty. What about this too? Like honestly like I don't think council needs golf carts. Like they can walk. It's literally we're we're driving the golf cart as slow as you would walk anyway. Yeah. It's easier to hand out. I'm not as good as the parade.

But you're not in a golf cart anyway. The parade's important, but I don't know that we need to spend 10. Is there a way we can have the parade without spending 10,000? I think I we could I mean, one thing to keep in mind, too, golf carts, that's a pretty major expense of it. And tying that in, we're having the event at at Village Green next year. So, that said, I mean, it would still it would if we include the the golf carts are the majority of the expense. Did we get a farmer with a tractor and a large um ba hay? We did that one year. Not like high school used to do with homecoming. You're right. You're right. All the council goes on one hay ride or something. Yeah. This is a minor point, but I I don't think getting rid of the parade,

you know, nixing it for the you just readjust it, right? started the what if you started the parade at the roundabout down at Taylor and uh Old Manchester came up and took Maine all the way down to that's the well you can you could in theor and this would I would need some advice from the police but if that were to occur you would have to close Taylor um and then you would have to keep that roundabout open there and the light you would just restrict the left and right coming from 100 you'd restrict from the uh the roundabout you could you could in theory close Taylor but Dearbergs would not be happy about that. We would we would get some serious clog. Well, it wouldn't close anything more than what's already closed. Well, and yeah, that's I mean there's there's you can get in

instead of starting at Shnooks coming all the way down going up Taylor then go in Maine. I'm saying just start here, eliminate the Shnooks to the roundabout, start at the roundabout, go up to Maine and come over and end at City Hall, which is be at Village Green, right? But it's just a shorter distance of the parade logistically, but it's all in the heart of downtown going to Village. You still have to line up every Yeah. The line is we have you got two big parking lots, Dearbergs or Shnooks. That's it.

Yeah. And that line up just this year, I mean, we have and each year we have at Shnooks, we start at that front entrance, but it actually stretches back all the way around and goes almost tails outwards towards credit savings. It's really staging. less people standing in that section this year than we've had before. That is along Old Manchester was a little bit more sparse for my opinion, but it seemed like everybody was kind of towards the Taylor Road. Everybody's in the Taylor. Council Rambo and then I got you.

Yeah. Um the we don't have to redesign the parade, but I I think that village green gives us an opportunity to to reset and say, "Hey, this is the new way that we celebrate Wildwood." may not have a parade. Maybe council members can just walk around the crowd in Village Green and pass out candy that way or something. But, um, I think we can save a lot of money on the parade if we only have council members that have a a walking issue. We get them a cart and everybody else, you know, walks and it's a shorter parade. I think there's still the main street we could uh Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Council Rodberg.

Um, yeah, I have a question specifically on item 40-350, which is contractual services for parks. So, we were talking about eliminating city funding for resident pull passes at the Ellisville Aquatic Center in which I think um, Director Bon, correct me if I'm wrong. You said 191 families participate in that and that is saving us $20,000. So the 40,000 that's left is that still include aren't we also subsidizing passes to the Baldwin pool? It would eliminate both but there is that the right line item though or was this I can't find it 40- 40- 350.

It's on second page. So what is 40-262? 40-350. It pays for inflatable uh inflatables that we get for some of our music on main events. It also pays for um we only have inflatables at the back to school party and celebrate Wwoods. So again, if you have Mr. Roblowski said the Wwood Celebration Commission's been asked by the county police to forgo the place because they have serious safety concerns. Or go the parade. forgo the parade because on Taylor Road Grace mentioned he couldn't see where the kids were. They were so close to his car. Yeah,

true. There was residents complaining from the villages that got stuck and couldn't get out and they missed their doctor's appointment. I got position has been let's forgo the parade until Main Street is completed. We can control a well designed safe parade once Main Street's completed. We can start, we can finish, and never have to block Taylor Road or any particular subdivision that way. A lot of this has been discussed and Mr. Blowski and the volunteers you've chosen to manage this are are already working on the parade. So, all I would ask is give them a chance. Cool.

And let them come to you. It was in the memo that came to you in the October packet. um city council. Um so yeah. So can I just get confirmation then on um the item uh 40-350? So you're including not just Ellisville but the elimination of the passes at Paul one included. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Y that's another four year or so. Yeah. All right. So so the council Dodwell. So the the motion on the floor is to allocate 350 grand out of the reserve towards not second.

You're second council. So 350,000 out of the reserve fund to go towards the 483,000 deficit with you looking for ways to cut the difference to get to that 350. 350. You said 350. It was 35 said 325 then he said 3. I'm fine with 350. If you guys own 350 seems like it's a pledge. You said 350. I'm voting on I'm I'm 350. All right. Now going once, going twice. 350. You got the directive. All right. All in favor of the motion, please say I. I. Any opposed? Well, I He didn't say 350. He did. I did. I I asked. I just asked you. You said no.

No, I I said that because I from 3 it was 325. I asked because I heard 350 and I wanted to make sure the number All right. I didn't hear you. I'm sorry. Yeah. And I know I kind of made a face like I didn't know. I'm a yes folk. And I think any of our trail swag stuff we should get rid of or at least offer them to pay for it. I don't know how much that would cut. Hold on. We were in the middle of vote. So we got finish up. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed?

Any obstension? So motion passes. Council. So, uh, just a question. If you take a look at the second item on the budget here, which is 40-262, regarding the portable restrooms, the costs that are there is some part of that cost does deal with vandalism to these portaotties. Yes, that is correct, too. We've had we definitely had some spikes on our joy more than I can but

it does not we provide a portable water closet to pay and we said no that's not a cost we're going to incur that's the risk of you doing business that's why we pulled the restroom facilities out of John El so no we don't the reason I brought that up is because I know from recent experience when we had the tour to Wildwood we had the two portaotties down at McCabe trail head and they were brought in I think at the night previous and by the following morning you know Melvin mentioned to me that the toilet paper and the dispenser had been stolen out of one of them already. You can't have one down there. Yeah.

And the solution the police department offered was to put a street light out there with a camera and that was a solution that was almost like $50,000. Sure. It's like no we'll get rid of them. Yeah. You can go down to the city of Chesterfield and use their permanent facilities. Igrove that. Yeah. All right. Cool. Well, good. So, you've got your directive and got what you need.

Yeah. And that's So, the plan will be to uh work that in and then uh that said, I mean, I know it'll be confusing, but I just wanted to say it here. So, when we go to council, there will be the original. I don't want to get rid of any of the original stuff submitted. So, it's the original piece, but we will have this almost. Do we want to call it like option C or something like that from planning and parks? I can say the recommended recommend. You say option C. We're gonna start all over. I know I say recommend recommendation based on the options presented. You presented option A and B and this is a recommendation of the committee for the budget. That's what we're

another quick question and this may not be the right place but what is the exact forum in which everyone will discuss um long-term my stupid example is that buy a couple of those portable toilet kind of thing. um when are we going to discuss um expenditures from our surplus from our our reserve that will benefit us on the bottom line short term but in the future we could have that discussion now we don't I don't have the exact number of how much it costs so I don't I have

you know I mean there are there are lots of things other than those stupid toilets that was just my example suggesting that we should have that discussion uh openly um for each item Um, and maybe we spend 5 million in the next three years, but we save 15 over the next 20 and we provide amenities for our residents that they wouldn't that they wouldn't they would otherwise miss. It's very smart thing to do and I don't know where we would do it. customer.

So, you bring up a good point and I don't know that it's uh the place for this this meeting uh to to come to the solution, but for the grander budget, I think the reserve needs to be broken down into buckets. A bucket for just mitigating expenses, a bucket for investment, uh meaning something you're going to buy that's going to pay off in the long run. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then and then the whatever the ultimate reserve needs to be. But this needs to be segregated into pieces because you're going to have an expense component that's going to just eat away and give you nothing other than Right. Yeah. Because I think separate from the budget, you could say like for instance, if we're allocating 350k a year for the next, let's just say 10 years,

right? I'm not saying we're doing it for this year, but I'm saying if you said five years, that's 1.75 million over the next five years that we would spend out of the reserve towards expenses. Just Yeah. But then we could have a separate conversation I think would which would be separate from the budget but a council strategic session on how many million do we want to take out of the reserve to do what council Rambo's talking about and making some purchases on the front end that would save us long term and then how much needs to stay in the reserve but that would be more of a strategic planning session.

Yeah, it would be it would actually be an ad hoc some sort of a subcommittee. Matt's a great one. Couple I mean Vicki is participating in one already. There are folks here and in inpw that would be great in that group. But we need to do it because the the the exact methodology that you just suggested we've talked about since I've been on before even through this four years ago and we put together a top priorities list and rated each of them. But that was a strategic plan not having anything to do with the reserve. I know. But we could go through that same kind of process again is what I'm saying.

Like I said, Council Member Bro was advocating for that from the time I came on council six years ago and we just we kept saying we were going to do it, but we never actually did it. So, how do we move that ball forward? How do we charge Tom with that? Well, I think we need I think we need to get this year's budget done. Yeah. And then I think in January and February of next year, we need to have not our normal council meeting, but we need to have a strategic analysis of the reserve planning meeting of some sort, which is what we did five years ago. And for the reserves specifically with respect to the reserve

for the reserves so that we can understand how we can use them everybody can get on the same page and that sounds like a motion and I will second it. Okay. Okay. Take that motion for to to make that recommendation to council. Discussion. Can we have discussion first? needs to be in January and February because we need to get it done. Just some of the things to think about, uh 3.2 million for Main Street to complete that and we got storm water erosion, but we're getting $300,000 now. That's going to help out. These are my and the city hall needs to to be addressed, too. So, those are things,

but that's all things we could talk about in that session. Let's say let's extra fun. All in favor of the motion, please say I. I. I. Any oppose? area of section. All right. All right. All right. So, we're done with that. Let's move on to We've done enough damage. Next item, which is city recreation schedule for 26. And is that do we director, do you need to talk about that or is that just a notification? Typically, the city council committee planning and parks endorses it before it proceeds to city council. I request a postponement. No, he's requesting a postponement. All right. Good.

Done there. Next item is the village green reopening ceremony. I think that requires a motion. I move that we postpone the recreation schedule discussion. I'll second. Got a further second. All in favor, please say I. I. Any oppose? Any obst? All right. Next item is the village green opening ceremony. Director Munich. Mr. Chair, members of the committee, would you like to hold an opening ceremony for Village Green when we get to that point? In the spring? I for the spring? Because I was thinking about that. Depending on the weather, it could it could get all messed up if it was like rainy or snowy or Yeah. Do it right. Do it in the spring. Yeah.

End of April. Do it in May instead of the concert. End of end of April. First week of May. Look at the schedule and see what we got. All right. Do we need a motion for that? I make the said motion end of April first week in May. Second. You stole my motion. I didn't steal yours. Second the motion. Second motion. Council cr. All in favor of the motion, please say I. I. Any opposed? Any obstessions? All right. Planning matters. We got the Veterans Memorial Wall.

All right. Um well, as you're aware, the city has been making a concerted effort to increase programs and uh recognition for our veterans, which includes smaller things that are less noticeable, like the overhaul of the veterans page on the website. Um to things that are more visible like hometown heroes, which are on display right now. Um and um celebrations like the one we have coming up uh for Veterans Day on November 6th. um that is just more inclusive of veterans. Um, so this led to, you know, a more permanent display conversation and, uh, when the department researched it, we, uh, came back with this is maybe a little out of budget to do some kind of big memorial something at one of the parks. And so, um, in the process of researching it, came up with kind of the hall of honor concept that we've discussed a few times in this committee. And uh the committee was in favor of moving forward with this especially because it didn't necessarily limit the possibility of doing a more formal memorial in a park later, but it would be more cost effective. Also highly visible um doing some kind of uh signage on the uh wall that is between on the hallway that goes down here. Um, if you happen to go by there, I did note in the staff report that there was an area marked off in that hallway and that is for the sign that that I will be showing you in a minute. We discussed um kind of doing a donor wall, something like this, and represented with a bunch of images. Um, so these costs varied from like $5,000 to like $15,000 or over, sometimes 30 depending on the materials and such. Um and uh these can be um you know if the city decided to do it kind of like a donor wall sponsorship kind of like the

hometown heroes you know we could have veterans actually you know or veterans families buy the little tile with their dedicated name on it. Um well we do have uh 40 to 50 veterans names right now that we can start off the recognition with. Um, so that being said, the city's been working with and graphics and came up with um this sign here that you can kind of see. Um, you can see it better in your packet. I also blew up just the sign to kind of put and I put it on the wall in the hallway just to I'm I'm a visual person, so I kind of needed to see the size of it and and how much of the hallway it would be taken up. Um so this sign here overall uh the sign panels are approximately 10 feet wide and 4 feet in height. Uh the department has approximately 50 veterans. This will have 154 spaces. So it leaves uh quite a bit of room for growth and given that those are panels it can be added on to. Like if we wanted to do another we needed to do additional panels on either side we could. But this would probably hold us out for a little while. Uh the top it's I think it's about four and a half inch lettering that says uh veterans wall of honor. We can change that to whatever we like. Um um but overall the sign height would be less than five feet. Um leaving approximately 2 feetish above it in which we could do the military seals or just leave it blank and if we wanted to we could do the seals along the side. Um, the overall estimated cost of the sign itself with installation is $7,200. Um, so it was less than I was anticipating. Um, uh, but of course nothing is ever easy, right? So we have the whole acoustic panel issue to deal with in the

hallway. And so I've discussed it with painter um also with um a gentleman that I think I think they're actually the company that put in the acoustic panels in um city hall. And so um that being said, those panels can't be p painted. They have um cloth over them and so you can't paint that without losing the um the sound dampening quality of it. And so, um, he had made the suggestion of taking down those panels and replacing them with, uh, or smooth surface panel that can be painted any color that we want. Um, and so that would give us kind of the the larger sign. If you look at if you look at the sign itself in the hallway there, it kind of gets lost along those panels. There's a total of nine panels. And so what both him and the professional painter that I spoke with suggested was not painting the area below um but just replacing five of those panels. So that um the sign itself is about three of the acoustic panels wide. And so they suggested doing five out of the nine. So it would give us some room on either side which would make the overall composition of the sign look bigger. and with a smooth surface, it would kind of be an extension of the sign and so it wouldn't get quite so lost on the walls. Um, and so that being said, um, so he he recogn Well, if we're going with such a dark blue, that could present a challenge in of itself because it might make that hallway super dark.

Um, so so is this the only color? No, no, we can we can go any color. And honestly, I don't like the teal. I would go with more of like a navy blue, you know, more of a military blue. It was just what he sent it over in. Um, and so you can see here, it's the the sign component itself. When I was getting it has to go in the hallway. We paid good money for the sound panels. We already have, if you're at a council meeting, there's people down here in the hallway after they don't get what they want, come out and discuss things out here in the hallway. Is there any reason we can't put it out here in this huge atrium that we have on the back wall?

Sure. Well, a couple of a couple of things. The if we if we replace the panels, I mean, the panels would still be there. And the sign is designed to be on French cleats, so it holds it away from the wall. So you would still have the effectiveness of the sound panels. It would just be the cost of replacing them. You can add on to it. I got C Rambo. Yeah. I I think um that was my question. We discussed this before and there's too much art

change. Yeah. I mean this is a valuable useful space for us. That hallway seems it seems reasonable to dedicate it. I was going to suggest a couple things. Um, something that would make it look nicer and more like a a memorial wall than just a hallway that's got some stuff that nobody notices. Have some little lights that come out, you know, gooseeneck or something like that that shine down on the blue to mitigate the concern of it being darker in there. We can always we can also look at LEDs in the ceiling lights and just make it bright um rather than kind of dingy. But my my real suggestion was going to be like every arena, even Yeah. Especially the old crappy ones, you go in them and they have hanging um fabric

that that Yeah, right. That that does the um job of acoustic dampening that we were counting on the walls to do. And so if we can incorporate that um we can you know because otherwise this thing is going to make it echoey in there and we just spend a lot of money on So that's the thing is the the sound panels if we replace them with the painted panels they are still acoustic panels. Oh okay. So it's just replacing the fabric acoustic panels with painted acoustic panels. Oh good. Actually increased the overall display size a hard surface in there. So, it's going to be it might be um a little bit echoier, but it sounds like it's not enough to make a difference.

It's going to sit off of the wall. So, it'll be a quarter inch off of the wall. And the sign itself is only 10 by4. You thought about the lighting suggestion that I mentioned? Yes. Well, the the concern with it being dark if we painted the whole hallway that dark color. I'm just thinking it draws your eye. It draw it draws people's eye and it makes it more like a memorial because we're trying to cheap out on Veterans Memorial. Sorry guys, I got to jump out. I got to take my son to soccer practice because my wife's at Bridgestone with my daughter in a game. Okay. See you. All right. Bust it out on you guys. So McCuten, who's the vice chair, will finish up the meeting for you guys. Thanks. Be with you in spirit. All right. Take it easy. Don't do anything. I would Yeah. So it sounds like you've covered all the bases with with that anyway.

Right. Well, it's it's a solution with keeping it in there, still keeping the acoustic paneling. Um, and then it also increases the overall size of the sign. One of uh the gentleman I was working with actually kind of threw the sign up on the wall and so it leaves the white wall here, but it allows space on either side, which makes the sign seem more substantial and it also gives room for if we wanted to do the military seals along the side or if we needed to expand it at a later point, it gives us some room to work with there. Um, you know, and so I'm just looking for a threedimensional, something threedimensional. And the light seemed like a good place to start. I really wanted to not just fade into the Okay, this is the hallway. It's kind of blue over here. I don't know what this is, you know.

Well, and there are options with doing that. Um, you know, I mean, there's there's all kinds of options as far as adding things to the And then what color goes onto each of these diamonds here? So, that's also a choice that we can make. Um, they have it shown on kind of like a blue on blue. um here, but they're just slightly different. And the the actual little tiles are different thicknesses, so they stand off and kind of give it a textured kind of feel to it. Tile is where the person's name is. Yes. So they're 4x4 inch tiles and that's it would have like just their name and maybe rank. Maybe we'll see how much you know room is. Nice name, rank, and service. How much uh for for somebody to purchase one?

Well, we haven't discussed that yet. And I think it depends greatly on So you don't know how much it cost, right? So the sign itself is $7,200 installed and that's taking into account installing it on sound panels. Um and then um how much are the sound panels?

So the sound panels I got estimates uh they were included in the memo that start off with zero of them at $0 and go up to both walls which was over $10,000. Um what the department would recommend is just doing the five panels because I think that if we did the whole wall in the blue panels again the sign again the size it's three panels long out of nine panels I think that this will increase the overall size of it and kind of look like an extension of the sign. And so with five panels, um the total cost with the sign comes to $11,522. Um but the city again is planning to um apply for the humanities grant. Um and if that happens and if the city gets the full grant, it's a 50% match. And so the overall sign with the panels included and I reached out to the um humanities grant um organization and they said that we can include the cost of like the panels um but they won't pay for it like the sign they will pay for but so therefore they will contribute to that and so overall if we went for the larger grant um would be $5,761 with the panels included. Um so it' be 50% of the cost. Again, they don't necessarily have to award you the entirety of what you're asking for. Um, but that is uh potentially how much. And so that would be the department's recommendation as far as um how many panels? So, five panels with the sign would be just under $6,000 for um with everything installed.

So, the the back wall here doesn't have any sound panels on it. Um this over here? No. No, it Yeah. So it would be more cost effective if we use this wall and when anybody comes in the door they would see it automatically versus having to go down. Not everybody's going to go down this hallway. That is very true and that is something that we could definitely take into consideration. I think the only thing that I would caution is that you know like right now we have our kids coloring contests out there. you know, we have, you know, we installed these arch things um on both walls to display, you know, the various different things. You can display those in the

You could put those in here. We put like those kinds of things, paintings and stuff in here. We've done that before. That is definitely something that I mean, it would be less costly because we wouldn't have to replace the panels and the panels are perfectly good. So, why are we going to replace them, you know, if there's not an issue? I think it's a great idea, Melanie. I'm just looking at cost. Oh, no, absolutely. It was just Yeah, I was going to say we use the lobby for a lot of events and I think that having a memorial there would limit our use of um you know, like we have the awards ceremony for plane air and and things like that. And so that would be awesome. That's the suggestion. Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Does anybody else have any comments? I my only comment on this is this is one of the budget items that we've tked uh Thomas to figure out. So I if we're voting on this, we're then this is going to definitely be considered when incorporating it back in. Yeah. Right. And so that was the other thing. Does it have to be done this year or can it be done? So I would I would put a pause with my recommendation.

So Alex, what what's going on? What's the other issue? There was a a line item within the budget that we are going to be looking now to restore with the uh the supplement if you will from the committee that was just our base program which is our hometown heroes banner. We purchase those every year. We make them for the individual that reaches out to us and that covers the operational expenditures tied to that. That could be you know something we discuss is incorporating back in as part of the directive from tonight. Um further discussion with the team is going to be warrant that said this would be in addition to that for that program. So I would make a motion to great uh work and I think everything looks great but I think we need to pause given the uh budgetary analysis that we're doing.

I would agree with you on Is that a motion? A motion. Yes. We're going to keep the banners right or are you going to discontinue that? If you would like to give us uh some direction on that tonight, that can be we could use that as our guiding tool when working at I would like to. We just had a motion on the floor. Okay. I'm sorry. The second Mr. TR, your motion is to postpone this item until a later date. Yes. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstain? So, can we talk about the banners for a second? Sure. Uh so that could be removed from the uh budget

as part of the that when we were cutting down at the floorboards that was part so um that could upset some veterans. Uh I know one in particular that was proud that his banner is in front of Larry's and I told him I had to fight for spot but uh um if we could keep that in I would you know The idea was and and that well if we could get a motion to you know put heightened consideration upon that program. I think it's been a great program. I think it's wellrun. I think veterans really I'll make that motion. Okay. What motion are you making to keep the $7,000 in the budget for the banners

for just the banners? Not the panels. No, just the program itself incorpor but um when doing the review where we're trying to get this the 483 down to 350 the goal will be there to incorporate and put emphasis on retaining that program. Correct. Do I have a second? 80 seconds. All those in favor? I I any opposed any abstaining? Motion passes. Mr. Bunich.

Thank you, ma'am. Madame chair and members of the committee, I just wanted to provide a brief update on the subject relating to utility test vehicles and golf carts. The department identified at the last meeting September that there are a number of other experts that need to review this. We are in the process of preparing that information for them and we'll hopefully have to you on November 18th responses from that group of six. Equally important, the department has done some initial research and there seems to be a trend toward not authorizing utility task vehicles to UTVs on public streets, but there is an inclination amongst many of the communities to consider golf carts. I included legislation that is in discussion now in the city of St. Louis to allow golf carts on public streets as well as in Forest Park. So, tonight it's just a brief update. I hope to have a better report and much more information for your consideration. Thank you. Are there any questions?

Yeah, just um one question, Director Vich. Um would we be potentially considering if we are going to consider you allowing the use of golf carts on city streets here? Would that also mean that we're considering allowing them on the shared use paths throughout the city?

It's it's really a discussion point. The city of St. Louis is prohibiting them on sidewalks and trails, at least under their proposed legislation, but on streets. And we also prohibit almost all types of motorized or electric vehicles on our sidewalk system because they're dedicated to pedestrians. We do allow them on multiple use trails. Um yeah, um that's an accommodation because ebikes are a little bit of a different kind of

So again, we'll come back with some options for you to consider. I think from a pedestrian standpoint mixing in things that go regardless of speed but have a width that's so most common that limits the ability for people on the on a on the sidewalk or trail has to be considered. Anything else? Any comments? So the next item is recent developmental trends within the city of Wildwood and fever for authorization. Is that you Mr. V?

Well typically we just asked if there's any questions on any of the items that have been identified. I would note as the as of September we have collected almost $31,000 through our zoning authorization fees. And now we want to go to parks matters. And the first one is Village Green phase one update.

Thank you again, Madame Chair and members of the committee. As you can see, there's been, excuse me, substantial progress made at Billy Green phase one. Um, obviously we're getting very close to the conclusion now, at least I hope we are. Um on in the report I would note that your department has developed list of items that remained and have been able to strike through at least seven of those based upon the current progress of the project. Mr. Lee and I did have a setback recently. We received from Andy Do you know contractor for production that he was having difficulty obtaining the park furniture. Um there is a six to eight month lead time. He had yet the artery.

Oh my goodness. We're a little bit baffled how that happened. Um what we are looking at is there's a there is a company in the United States that offers a similar type somewhat contemporary. They claim they can have it in six to eight weeks. So we are considering some options in that regard. Um but that's the downside. The upside is if you haven't seen it in the daylight, I think it's really it's the place you all hoped and directed the city staff to create. So hopefully when it's all said and done, you'll be satisfied. What's the price difference? Do you know?

Um actually we think they might be less expensive because of the equally sturdy like durability is the thing. I mean the style a little bit different. The charge I gave to Ken Kitel who's been helping Tom and I with the project was to find something that's comparable aesthetics but also we want something that'll last that stand the test of time and he's had success with this furniture and other parts around the metropolitan area. So that's why he brought it back to us. Okay, great.

So I said back in November I'll have some options unless Mr. Dob's been able to work a miracle and I've asked him to try Is this the appropriate time to ask about the um the cabin and if it's out if everything's out of the way and we're going to save five grand because the wheels are greased or whatever. So, Sheret Creek Excavating is doing two projects for the city. The trash enclosure down at Baldwood Avenue as well as the SNL cabin reassembly. I've charged Mr. 727

Mr. McDonald Cherret Creek Excavating to get started on the trash enclosure and that will keep you busy for a few weeks. In a few weeks, I think we'll have clear access to the cabin site, which means we'll receive a $5,000 additional deduct, which means the cabin cost will now be around $283,000. He seems satisfied with that. He has just asked that we'll proceed forward with the contract so as he can start ordering the materials and get them in into the process and the cabin will be ready when we have our grand opening of the park. He thinks although it's not it's going to be more weather dependent. Sure. Sure. Sure.

He still believes he can do it abbreviated time frame somewhere around 12 weeks or so. Thank you. Miss Ripto Village Green phase 2 fundraising efforts. Yep. Thank you.

Thank you chair members of the committee. Um so by now you're pretty familiar with this uh topic of conversation as far as the fundraising goes. So I will skip all the background on it. Um uh the group has been meeting regularly and it's uh truly a great group to uh work with and thus far uh we have received $18,000 in sponsorship for equipment and um Unlimited Play is anticipating another check for $10,000. So we should be up to $28,000 fairly soon here. Um the group most recently met October 8th and discuss current and future fundraising efforts. And um one of the members of the group works for the Rocket School District and has said that they are interested in hosting fundraising events. Um there's another that mentioned that a restaurant might be interested as well as uh one of our local businesses who actually reached out to me today to uh see if they could borrow our poster for their event. And uh yeah, so it's very exciting. Things are definitely happening. Um they uh also discussed the city's efforts thus far and since then uh I don't know if you've noticed but it's up on the city's website on the news flashash um which then also takes you to the story map. Um as far as the story map updates uh the sponsors are now on there. So when you click on the individual pieces of equipment it says at the bottom sponsored by and then there's also a section at the bottom for sponsors. So uh we're working on recognition. We discussed other ways of you know formally recognizing our sponsors and uh intend to do uh social media you know thank you for your sponsorship which will also let people know that you know that the this opportunity is available in a less obnoxious way than hey you know sponsor me. So yeah so that's uh kind of it. Um we're also working on getting a list of inkind donations like potentially you know plants or concrete and stuff like that. So unlimited play

is going to get back to us with that. Um and additionally um one of the members is creating social media posts for us which is very helpful since uh Paul is no longer working on that. And um yeah the group also discussed uh signage. It's been a hot topic of conversation but um is also faced with the reality of signage costs money that is not budgeted into the park's budget. And so therefore, we don't want the cost of the signage to exceed um the cost of the donations and thus make it moot. So that conversation is kind of on pause and um unlimited play is working on getting back to us with the costs associated with various different kinds of signage. Um so but that is kind of on pause for now. Um but the group does have realistic expectations as far as the signage is concerned and uh that is all I have on my list for updates. Uh we don't need any action on this. just to kind of catch you up to speed with where they're at. Um, and we'll the group will meet again in November to uh discuss where where we're at then and future events and such. Uh, we've also discussed doing a potential event on site. Um, but it's getting into cooler weather and so I don't know exactly how that's going to work, but Unlimited Play will come out and actually mark where all the equipment is and put up signs of like, you know, the that show the piece of equipment and where it's going to be. So people actually have a realistic idea of of what the playground's going to look like and kind of bring some excitement. And we were talking about maybe doing it with the village green opening or something like that. But that might be on pause as we get closer. We'll see.

Does anybody have any questions for Melanie? I do. Yeah. Um I'm excited about this. I don't know exactly what the timeline is to get really started. And do we have a time to for completion. Um well that those are my first two questions but I had other questions. We have great hopes always. Um so uh engineering is happening now. We hope to have that done by the beginning of the year and um uh I would defer to 26 is the goal

sometime in the summer like maybe the end of summer maybe. grant process says June of 2026 probably need an extension to that but still by the end of next summer hopeful yeah okay we given the process the single source contract so there's not all the delays through the bidding process and etc now so once we get the design and engineering plans done and committee endorses them and council approves them get started so we have the Um you discussed liming up raising the canopy of the trees between It's all done.

Is that all done? See, I haven't been over there in a couple weeks and um so they must have jumped right on it. And um is there any other clearing to be done because we got the bat guideline concerns through the winter. The trees that have been retained are trees I hope we can integrate into the playground because they're nice trees. Great. Great. Okay. The intent of the shift in the design of the playground location was to save the trees. But yeah, like I say, Omni Tree Service, I think, did a wonderful job. This require every day. Hope you found it to be a nice looks, it actually looks like part of the park now.

Great. So, so if we walk over there, we're going to be able to see the trees that hopefully will be there when the when the park is when the the playground's completed. Okay, that's great news. And you like it? Planting. Look good. Yeah, it looks great. I mean, if you went three weeks ago, it looks totally probably two weeks ago. Yeah. Awesome. Mr. Boon, Wildwood Recreation Programming. Is that something you want to address or is that just information? Just any questions on the last two items relative to the programming we do and then facilities and reservations and expenditures. Does anybody have any miscellaneous?

Yes. I'm not sure if it really fits in with this, so if it doesn't, uh, let me know. But I know we brought this up last night, uh, briefly, and that is, uh, I'm seeing more and more people the shared use paths, um, motor scooters, um, motorbikes, and I know, uh, he was kind enough last night to give us a little bit of an update as to how the Wild Root Police are addressing that. Now, I wonder if maybe we could ask our officer that's here with us tonight just for, you know, quick 60 seconds on how your something in his pocket. I'm pretty sure.

Oh, yeah. Um, I can pull it out. The department ordinances and kind of made up handouts that we can give to the public. Um, so officers do have these. We have a small stack of them. So when we get phone calls and are able to find the kids or whoever's from riding ebike or not the ebikes but the scooters and minibikes and whatnot that we can address that we can hand that to them and say hey look here's what the city requires and doesn't allow. We can address this to your parents. Um sometimes depending on the individual circumstance uh those children are their parents are also contacted and say hey your kids can't have this here they can't have it here these are the requirements. So you as a parent need to be responsible and make sure that they're following that. Otherwise, you know, if need be, the first time could be a warning. The second time if we need to issue a a violation ticket and confiscate your scooter, that's a possibility. Um, so we have

Thank you. We have a convenience, you know, kind of how things are enforced on this. had a big

appreciate the police for they they had requested those uh some printouts and it was a great idea. Seems like it's helping a little bit there too and thing is it actually it does a great job at tying in that document. It looks like a ticket. It's not a ticket but it looks like one. Um it's very similar. It's on postcard material. It looks very official and it it you read through it, you kind of see a narrative of what our code states and the second component of it on the back page explains how this is for any parents that might have their child riding electric scooters. It can be considered and interpreted as child endangerment if your child does something silly with a product that you bought them. So, it's that's really the picture that gets painted with these handouts. Um just a friendly reminder to our friends online.

Anybody any other comments before we adjourn? Not hearing any. May I hear a motion to adjurnn? I'll make that motion. Second. I'll second it. All those in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Say nay. Any abstensions? Thank you everybody. Thank you, Vice Chair.