Board of Aldermen - Regular Meeting

Tonight's meeting to order. If you would, please stand and join me in the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Sue, would you do a roll call, please?

Alderman Dobbs. Here. Alderman Fahey.

Here.

Alderman Yui. Here.

Here.

Alderman Eidman. Here. Alderman Steiger. Here. Alderman Ross.

Here.

And Mayor, we do have one.

Thank you very much. At this time, I will look for approval of tonight's agenda. Motion to approve. Motion. Second. Okay, I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Thank you very much. I don't believe we have any presentations or personal appearances tonight, so we will move along to our city administrator's report.

Good evening, everyone. You've got an updated report at your seat. I just want to draw attention to a few things. Bowman's is scheduled to begin work on Prop S Phase 2 asphalt streets the week of the 22nd later this month. It will probably be not Monday, but later in the week. Jokers Dink is close to finishing up the first part of the water line on the northern half of Leahy. Still to tie in the service lines, but the main itself is laid. Just want to let everyone know city offices will be closed next Friday June 19th for the Juneteenth federal holiday on down to number four Later on in tonight's agenda, we have some insurance renewals, so I wanted to give you this update that we met with Lakeman this past week to discuss renewals. Our assessment for FY2027 was approximately $17,000 less than last year. Now that doesn't include the fire department, obviously, so that's part of that savings. And then it also includes, Murmur used to not offer cyber, or they did and got out of it, but they have picked that back up, so... That assessment will include $1.25 million in cyber insurance. That was not included last year. Lakeman suggested we then lower our Tokyo Marine cyber insurance from $3 million to $2 million, which also saved us some money. And then we negotiated a lower rate with Lakeman also from $17,000 down to $10,000. On down to number six, I'll share out a short survey next week regarding citywide solid waste services. We had a committee that meant, so this is one of the steps that came out of that meeting. So I'll share out probably a four or five question survey next week citywide. We'll put it on the text notification, we'll put it on the website, put it on Facebook, and then you all can share it from there as can anybody. And then probably At one of the July meeting work sessions, we'll have either one or two solid waste companies here to answer any questions you may have about that process.

On down to the updates.

In addition to my report, you have some images laying at your seat of a project the Rotary Club has inquired about, installing a Veterans Memorial area in front of City Hall near the flagpole. There'd be no cost to the city. They don't have the statue picked out yet, but there are three images there of what you're looking at. Just wanted to kind of get your feedback on and thoughts on if you're okay with that. Yes, sir.

What size is this? What size are the figurines in this flag?

Well, those rocks are probably about a foot by a foot. They're pretty small, maybe 18 inches. And then the monument itself, I would say, is maybe four foot tall.

Four foot.

And it's going to be where the flag is now, directly in front? That's the suggestion. So directly in front, but offset to the left where the flag is, yes sir.

There's two big voids on either side of the flagpole, so I think it eventually might need something to balance it out on one side of the other flagpole. If we do this, I think it'll have a big void on the other side of the flagpole, so we'll have to kind of consider something, maybe something for our first responders or something like that.

It could be. And part of

when we talk capital in a month or so will be some improvements outside so maybe we can include that in that but this is no cost to the city and the rotary club is going to maintain the little bit that it needs to be there the flowers yeah and they're going to move pretty quickly on this because it's for a grant the correct cap grant or whatever they their district grant or something like that so they i think they have to have it done by the end of the month Or at least purchase. I think it's submitted. It's submitted at least by the end of the month. So, I mean, we need to let them know, I think, ASAP.

Does anyone have any issues with allowing that to be placed out front? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Lastly, I just wanted to point out a few things. I'm probably stealing some thunder from Aaron, but he can reiterate these things. Just wanted to point out that St. Genevieve has been featured in several media outlets lately, including Missouri Humanities Small Town Showcase, a feature article on travel and leisure online. St. Louis Magazine featured us in their Travel News You Can Use section as eight small towns to visit in Missouri. The U.S. 250 event at the end of May, in addition to many other outlets, was featured on KFPS 12. And then the French Heritage Festival, which is this weekend, was featured on Great Day St. Louis on KMOV Channel 4. So getting a lot of press out there. Aaron's doing good work there, and so is Jasper Paul, and I think he's going to discuss that also. But just wanted to give you that update.

You skipped number five, and I think it's worth mentioning that continuing education and that networking with other CAs and assistant CAs. I think that's worth mentioning, Dave.

Robert and I will be out of the office next Wednesday attending an MML MCMA seminar in Jeff City. So I continue my professional development. Robert continues his. This seminar will help us both. Kudos.

Thank you. Any other questions for David regarding his report? Okay. Thank you, David. Thank you. I'll move along to staff reports tonight. First up, we have our Community Development Administrator, Robert Sullivan.

Good evening, Mayor, Alderwoman, and Alderman. Tonight you have my staff report for May. Start with historic preservation. There's a lot of work going on. with historic preservation in the community back in May. And then currently we've got six items on the next meeting, which will be the 15th, which will be Monday. So there's a lot of work happening in that area. Not all those items will need permits, but you will see a lot of activity. So that's a great sign. Grant update. We've submitted, made changes and submitted back to the state a grant for the historic data layer update. That grant total is $13,984, so roughly $14,000. The grant will cover 40% of that. We're fairly confident, I think, that we'll be able to get grants awarded to us for that, but we're waiting for the state to give us notice and that will happen sometime in July. Building and code enforcement, like I said, with a lot of work going on in historic preservation, there's also several building activities taking place and a lot on the horizon as well. I'm meeting someone tomorrow about a demolition of a building, and hopefully we hear news that one's going to take its place. So there's a lot of work happening. Planning and zoning, we didn't have a meeting in June. Next meeting will be July 2nd. And at that meeting, based on what you all had asked me to do at the last meeting, we will be discussing short-term rentals as a generalized topic. Nothing on Board of Adjustment, floodplain management, the river's down. The ferry continues to operate on the weekend schedule. I had the privilege to have my son and daughter here this week. And they've visited St. Jim quite often, as I have in the past. We ate lunch, went to the park, and I had a little short time left where I had to come back to work. And we went down to the river down at the ferry. And, you know, a lot of neat activity down there. Just happened to be there at the right time to see a tugboat go by. Now, what's the importance about a tugboat? Except for we just got our nice new iPhone, so my son's taking a picture of the tugboat. He showed me the zoomed-in picture of the tugboat. The tugboat is actually from New Orleans, stationed there. And it's a Coast Guard tugboat. They do maintenance to, he looked it up, based on the number of the boat. So they do maintenance to buoys. They set them and do maintenance to buoys. So it's a lot of times all about being at the right place, right time. But it's amazing what you see. Everything from the history of our town to... Things going up and down the river. I got to explain about the rock and what happens with the rock. They didn't know about that, so we got to have a little visit about that. So it's great to be able to bring your family to the community or something like that. So I appreciate the opportunity to do that. And additional items, well, property maintenance. Can you continue with that? We're working with PD. They're hitting hot and heavy. As you know, the vegetation is growing like crazy. And they're handling that. I'm just taking care of a couple issues that I've started, and I'm finishing those out. But they're handling all those. We do have some property maintenance issues, nuisance properties, and had some hearings and code violations on those properties. So you're going to see some action on some properties, and they're either going to be repaired or some of them may actually be torn down. So we're moving forward with those. As the city administrator said, we're continuing with leadership and training classes. One of those that I do every month is through the Chamber of Commerce. This past month, we did small manufacturing month. So we visited the St. Genevieve Industries and Ultraflow Corporation. Some of these, if you didn't know these things were here... It's amazing what's going on. So the Altiflor Corporation, and I'm not plugging anybody here at all, they make valves that are typically seen on, like, tanker trucks and tanker trailers. And, I mean, there's not a big advertisement out there on the outside of the building, so you don't even know what they do in there. But a lot of that, those valves are just made right here and only right here. So it's kind of really neat to know that that's happening in our community. Also with the St. Genevieve Industries, they have a multitude of things that they do out there, everything from ice to pallets. Now they're taking apart, let's say they had a recall on items, they'll get pallets of recalls and they take them apart and separate them and sort them. So there's all kinds of work going on out there, and all those folks are glad to have a job, and they're proud of it when you talk to them. So it's neat to go out and find out about your community and what's all in there and how those businesses operate. That helps us move forward in the future to look at bringing people into our community. As far as the Progress Point project, did the infrastructure plan review, gave them comments. We've been working back and forth with them multiple times between Cochran and Sterling Engineering and all the other people involved with that project. I'd hope to hear and get a resubmittal soon. I'd say probably, depending on what they do with some information, probably a week or so, we might actually see a response with an updated plan, which is great so we can move forward with that project. At this time, that's all I have unless anybody has any questions.

You know, at the museum meeting last night, it was about the REA and Citizens Electric, and they talked about Perryville standing out for the number of economic development industry moving to Perryville, that they've been one of the leaders in the state. What's going on in Perryville? Are they doing something? Do they have something we don't? Do you know anything about that?

Just... Perryville geography wise I would say has more of an industrial established industrial park so they've already got buildings there and if somebody moves out of one of those buildings are moving people in and out all the time there's a lot that can happen here We've just got to get situated right for it, and that's one of the things that training does is puts us in a place to where we can see what could be coming down at us and finding that place for somebody. That's the important thing. When somebody's calling or looking at our website and everybody that we talk to is having that information ready for people to be able to know what they can bring to Saint Genevieve. So knowing what can go in what spot. Access to the river, that's huge. We've got rail. So we've got a lot of those that Prairieville does have, but they don't have a lot as well. More marketing and that side of things will get us there too, and that's things that we're working toward.

We've also got two different community colleges. They have a Mac campus down there, small, but then they also have the for-profit Rankin with a couple different programs down there that lends to that industry base that they have down there too. So that gives them a big leg up with those two community college secondary education facilities, whatever you want to call those.

And some of the bigger industry facilities down there have sub-facilities that... make parts and pieces and do things mainly for them, but they do sub them out. But once the biggest industry shows up, there's lots of minor ones that show up along with it as well.

Any other questions for Robert?

Thank you.

Thank you. And then next up tonight, we have our tourism director, Aaron Smith. Hey, everyone.

Got my report in hand. Lots of good, like David said, lots of good publicity going out there. That's the main talk about my report. Placer AI visitation is still showing up 21% year-to-date over the same timeframe last year. I will give you a full Placer AI report next month for the quarterly report. Lots of great articles. That Travel and Leisure online article, I hope everybody's seen it, but what I wanted to point out is that article reached 11.19 million viewers across the nation, so that's incredible. And just the other opportunities, The Great Day, St. Louis, this all came from Jasper Paul helping me put these sort of press releases out there. So they're more than holding up their weight. The US 250 event I thought was really good. We don't have the PLACER AI data yet. It's still got to populate. but shows where we promoted that. And I think some of the big things is the vendors all had a great time. We had some, if you look at that letter on the second page of my report, it's the email from Dan Shippey, who is the first-person interpreter for George Washington. So he does that at Mount Vernon. So he's the guy. was just talking about how great this event was. From a first-time event, he's never seen the kind of vendors that we've had, and also just kind of the support calls the town a gem. So that was pretty excellent. And then we also finished up with this week having our first influencer trip. So we have all this publicity coming in, and we've only had one journalist come through, through Jasper Paul. So This past week we had another influencer came, did a great itinerary, got a ton of views and comments and likes, and also helped us get a lot of followers on our social media accounts. Questions?

Did you require George Washington to sign off by saying, remain your most humble and obedient servant?

I mean, I could have. I mean, I've got that kind of power, but... No. Yeah, his... It was very interesting. The... Day before the event started, Ronnie and Justine had a little party at their house where everybody dressed up, and he invited me. I was like, well, I got to go. George Washington's there. And we were all dancing in this house, and I'm looking at my feet while I dance. I'm like, oh, let me look up. And I look, and I lock eyes with George Washington, and he's doing the, I'm like, what century am I in? It was pretty cool. And that guy looked just like George Washington. That's nuts.

All right. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you, Aaron.

All right. At this time, we will open up the floor to public comment. Just a reminder, please state your name for the minutes and try to keep your comments to five minutes or less.

Okay.

All right. There's no public comment. Actually, I'd like to...

Come on up.

We have your item. Is it about your item? No.

So my name is Ernest Kovac, resident of the city. I'd like to bring up something about the trucks going through 4th Street and our weight limits. We don't have one currently at 4th and Leahy. We really need to have one established. And I drove for all the trucking companies in and out of Mississippi line. There's no reason for them to go down 4th Street. So I brought up getting some kind of signage for a generic truck route, anything, just to keep our bridges longer. Because a few years ago I sent everybody on the border of Alderman at the time, I know you've seen them, the underside of our bridges. And they are not pretty. If you still have them in your email, you might share them at some point. So if we can just get something at uh industrial river road where they usually turn to come down in and look trucks no right turn you know another thing that can happen is any official industry room can go on google and they will help you update a truck route thing in google maps regular google maps not trucking maps And they will update. So these trucks aren't going on bridges that are really not designed for 80,000 pounds. Buhlmann trucks will not go down the road unless they weigh 79,000 pounds or more. I work there, so I know. And then all the SMX, there's a couple other ones that are hauling lime that are on that bridge that it's not a good idea because if that ever goes... It's going to take years to fix, and that is a main thoroughfare. High traffic, all you guys know that. Forth and Leahy, over the creek. So, I mean, if you want me to donate some money to some signage, I'd be glad to do it.

Is that a project that we can, I know this is public comments, but when that bridge was closed down during the flood of 93, it made a... huge inconvenience for everybody in this town i mean it was really hard to get off from one side of town to the other uh when that thing is shut down so i don't know if robert could at least maybe work with him and look into that a little bit or not i mean we can certainly look into it but i'll tell you happy engineers look at it i've had engineers look at it and they find no issue with the structural integrity but we don't i mean we don't we need to overdo it yeah but preventative measures of signage i mean i was a truck driver

I'd be more than happy to help with the truck route.

We have signage on Market Street. We have signage on 4th Street. It's just not followed. We've reached out to Google. We've tried to work with Google. I'm not knocking what Mr. Kovac is saying, but we have went down these paths. I will certainly reach out to MoDOT and see if they want to put some signs up.

Yeah, because I know there is no sign, I believe, at Industrial River and white sands or something.

Outside city limits, but I will certainly reach out.

Yeah, because I got a couple of fieldman trucks I caught the other day while I was pouring cement on a sidewalk job. And yeah, they didn't get in trouble with the city, but they got in trouble with fieldmen because they know for a fact they're not supposed to go down those. Delivery trucks, they're not particularly probably going to weigh 80,000 pounds that are going to like the VFW and some of the other places in town, the school. But these lime trucks weigh 79,000 pounds minimum. I've even seen a grain hauler go across that bridge, and those average 90,000 pounds. So, I mean, like you said, I'd hate to see that that bridge goes down. That would be a nightmare. Anything you guys can do to maybe help prevent that from happening? either through signage, put a fine on there for crossing. I mean, anything deterrent, truckers don't want to pay fines. And there could even be something at Mississippi Line. All those drivers have to go in the scale house to weigh in and weigh out. Maybe we can work something out with Mississippi Line saying, look, this is a restricted route. They can't say they didn't see it. It'll be easily posted in plain view. And because, like you said, you've seen some of the pictures of the underside of the bridge, and that was like three or four years ago. I even did the one right outside City Hall here. Rebar, concrete, I mean, it's all showing. All the rebar is showing underneath that bridge right outside these doors. So I know there's works, and some of you guys have told me that there's some things in place that are going to be coming up for that bridge, but I'm more concerned about the other one. That's about it. Thank you.

Any other public comment at this time? Okay. If there's no further public comment, we will move along to tonight's consent agenda.

Did approve.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Any opposed?

Okay. Thank you very much.

Move along to some old business tonight. First up, we have a second reading of bill number 4725. This is an ordinance approving a special use permit for Ernest and Lisa Kovac that will allow the operation of a guest lodging establishment hostel at 539 North Main Street.

Move to approve.

Second. Okay, I have a motion and a second. Sue, would you do a roll call, please?

I'll do a roll call, yes. Yes. Alderman Fahey? Yes. Alderman Yui?

Yes.

Alderman Eidman? Yes. Alderman Steiger? Yes. Alderman Ross?

Yes.

We have six yes votes with two absent. Bill number 4725 now becomes ordinance number 4646. Thank you very much.

Next up tonight, we have a second reading of bill number 4726. This is an ordinance approving a special use permit for Lauren Odenwald that will allow the operation of a guest lodging establishment at 996 Market Street.

Second.

Okay, I have a motion and a second. Sue, would you do a roll call, please?

Alderman Dobbs? Yes. Alderman Fahey?

Yes.

Alderman Uy?

Yes.

Alderman Eidman? Yes. Alderman Steiger?

Yes.

Alderman Ross?

Yes.

We have six yes votes with two absent. Bill number 4726 now becomes ordinance number 4647. Thank you very much.

Next up, we have a second reading of bill number 4727. This is an ordinance of the city of St. Genevieve, Missouri, amending municipal code chapter 715, user charge systems, specifically section 715.040, user charge rates, subsections A and B, by revising the water use charges.

Would you approve?

Second. Okay, I have a motion and a second. Who would you do a roll call, please?

Alderman Dodds. Yes. Alderman Fahey. Yes. Alderman Yui.

Yes.

Alderman Idren. Yes. Alderman Steiger. Yes. Alderman Ross.

Yes.

Six yes votes, two being absent. Bill number 4727 now becomes ordinance number 4648. Thank you.

Moving along to a second reading of Bill number 4728. This is an ordinance of the City of St. Genevieve, Missouri, amending Municipal Code Chapter 715, User Charge Systems, specifically Section 715.140, Sewer Charges and Billings, Subsection D, by revising the sewer use charges. Most approved. Second. Okay. I have a motion and a second. Sue, would you do a roll call, please?

Alderman Dobbs? Yes. Yes. Alderman Fahey? Yes. Alderman Yui?

Yes.

Alderman Eidman? Yes. Alderman Steiger? Yes. Alderman Ross?

Yes.

Six yes votes, two absent. Bill number 4728 now becomes ordinance number 4649. Thank you.

Next up is a second reading of Bill number 4729. This is an ordinance approving a budget amendment to the City of St. Genevieve for the fiscal year 2026 budget relating to the various revenue and expenditure increases.

Move to approve.

Second. Okay, I have a motion and a second. Sue, would you do a roll call, please?

Other woman dies. Yes. Alderman Fahey? Yes. Alderman Yui?

Yes.

Alderman Eidman? Yes. Alderman Steiger? Yes. Alderman Ross?

Yes.

I have six yes votes, two absent. Bill number 4729 now becomes ordinance number 4650.

Thank you. And then the last item from old business this evening is a second reading of bill number 4730. This is an ordinance of the city of St. Genevieve authorizing the mayor to enter into an agreement with Jokers Incorporated for the Crest Lawn Cemetery expansion project in an amount of $65,454. Motion to approve. Second. Okay. I have a motion and a second. Who would you do a roll call, please?

Alderman Dobbs. Yes. Alderman Fahey.

Yes.

Alderman Yui.

Yes.

Alderman Eidman. Yes. Alderman Steiger. Yes. Alderman Ross.

Yes.

Six yes votes, two absent. Bill number 4730 now becomes ordinance number 4651.

Thank you very much. Moving along to some new business tonight. First up, we have a first reading of Bill number 4731. This is an ordinance of the City of St. Genevieve, Missouri, authorizing the city administrator to execute a broker agreement with Lakenan Insurance. Motion to approve.

Second.

Okay, I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, thank you very much. That will conclude our scheduled business for this evening. Is there anything else to discuss right now between the board?

I'm just going back to that monument outside. I don't think we want one that's real tall to kind of interfere with, you know, maybe pass that on to...

Four-foot, same old thing?

Yeah, something like that, but it's not above that wall out front, kind of maybe breaking up the, but some of those look great. I mean, they all probably, that one that had the people in there, maybe that's too tall, maybe that would look aesthetically, I don't know. So, just a thought.

Okay. Dave, on Arnie's complaint about that bridge, the trucks that I see most going through southern Illinois transportation, it may be worth a call to their dispatch over there, their safety guy. Okay. Because That's what they used to do to us if we lived there. We were running a road they didn't like. They'd call a child and say, why are they running it? Before we were there, people told them to go there on permits. But that's what we did, calls all the time. Why don't the big trucks come through here? You can do that. Everyone tells them to go here, and they say, stay out of town. If you're a new driver, don't go there.

Yeah, typically when someone... hits a bridge, or we recently had a truck that tried to cross railroad tracks, ferry landing, and the driver gets out, they say, well, this is where Google took me. So, hopefully, if we reach out to some of these folks, like Southern Illinois, they can...

They're like, you see one coming through Tannatoys, Southern Illinois.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other discussion at this time? Okay.

Okay.

If not, then we will adjourn and we'll move into work session. Thank you all.

Work session to order.

At this time I will look for approval of tonight's work session agenda. So moved. Second. Okay, I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, first up tonight we're going to go over our budget questionnaire.

So the board requested a work session to discuss the questionnaire back on the May 14th meeting. So basically this questionnaire that I handed out, I mean it was the calendar, the questionnaire, and some other information, but basically it's this page. Basically staff are asking for your thoughts on any programs or services you'd like to see implemented. eliminated by the department. There are five other questions on there to kind of give us guidance as we begin the process. I think I mentioned that night and some of this is mentioned in this narrative here that says about the budget, but you just want to consider the comprehensive plan, feedback obviously from constituents, long-term financial stability, consider how budget decisions support essential services, infrastructure maintenance, economic development, public safety, quality of life, and then if you can, if you have any feedback to give, I'd like to have those by June 19th. I got one from Alderman Ross this evening. Next week, we'll begin five-year capital improvement plan meetings with department heads. If I can get your questionnaires submitted by the end of next week, then we'll have a work session July 9th on some economic development things I'd like to get your opinions on. And then we'll have budget meetings with department heads. We'll have the capital improvement meetings next week. We'll have budget meetings with department heads July 13th to the 22nd. Speak about the capital plan with you at a work session on the 23rd. And then I have a rough draft for you August 13th. You'll take that with you or look at it at home. And then August 20th we'll have a special off-meeting schedule work session as we've done in previous years where we'll go department by department.

Questions? Everybody okay with that timeline?

Yeah. Do we want to talk about any of these tonight while we're here?

What did you have in mind?

Well, sometimes just sitting by yourself thinking about these, pondering what we should be doing as a city, it's better to brainstorm and go through that exercise together as a group. And so I don't know exactly what I'm asking, but sometimes I know that You just hear other people's ideas or thoughts that they have, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, I hadn't even thought about that. And so it's kind of that nucleus to get things started. And you hear the naysayers about what's going on in town, and you also hear the positive. And so it's like, how do we keep that momentum going, and how do we continue that momentum? smart growth for St. Genevieve. I say this all the time. I don't think we want to be Perryville. I don't think we want to be Festus. I don't think we want to be Farmington, you know. Would I like to have a Chick-fil-A every once in a while? Yeah, but I can drive to St. Louis or Farmington occasionally when I want, you know, my chicken sandwich, you know. So, what is it? Steak, yeah. So, I don't know. I think we... I don't think we ever have these good group sessions where we talk about big picture ideas of the direction that we want the city to go. So, again, I don't know exactly what I'm asking. It's just those that, you know. I know the two on here that hit me the most is economic development and tourism. We're really kicking butt, I think, in the tourism department. And I'm impressed with the things that are happening and the media coverage and the marketing that's being done. Kudos to Aaron and lack of his staff to get things done. Do I think we need another person? I don't know. I don't know about that, but like what are the tools can we give Aaron to keep that momentum going? Same thing with economic development. I mean, you know, Alderman Fahey was talking about Perryville does have an industrial base that we don't have. I don't know if we have the population to support it either. And so those are the kind of things, if we look at economic development, are we trying to entice industry here or are we trying to trying to encourage small businesses here you know and that's the thing now we've got Robert in place I know you're kind of wanting to spend some of his time and some of Aaron's time towards that economic development aspect of this and and that's you know we've got our city plan and where these things kind of fit together so that when we make all these mundane issues about water rates and sewer rates tonight and changing the the budget amendments you know are we in line with that and are we going towards our goals um towards all these things so that's kind of what what my goal was tonight is just kind of brainstorm and talk about a few things and what direction we're headed as a city i agree with joe because i look at this and i don't you know like the tourism is doing fine as joe said and stuff like that but i don't really

Personally, I don't see a problem in there. You know, where the big problem is in that we have a big problem in this. Is this something that I would ask these questions to some of my neighbors, people in the community, and get their input and go off of that? Absolutely. I'm new to this, so I'm asking this question. In my opinion, it really doesn't matter. It's what they think. Really, it comes down to it.

you know trying economic development we've always relied on the big industries Mississippi line other mining companies I was out there I had a big tour of mine for the first time but their plan is to do it with fewer and fewer people and hire fewer people and continue production our hospital which is the second largest employer just closed the OB program and is not looking at any big growth if anything they may well be purchased by Mercy or something years ahead. I'm just saying that what we've relied on is big, stable employers. We can't take that for granted. And I think this economic development, getting these other businesses, industries, whatever we're doing, the kind of energy we put into tourism, I think we have to put into economic development as well.

100%. I mean, if we had as much momentum as we have in the tourism right now towards economic development, I mean, that could be really refreshing to see what will happen. And again, I don't know if we're talking about commercial entities, heavy industry, or just small retail operations. That I don't know. It goes back to all the time, you hear the debate, well, we need a Walmart in town. And most people don't think, but there's a few people that do. And it would definitely change the dynamic of St. John. But you also look at what happens, what happens, yeah, and you're absolutely right on the fade. what how much tax dollars are we losing because we don't have kind of a big retailer because people have to go and so I don't I'm sure there's other communities that go through this all the time right there's other small rural communities that people drive to go to the big-box stores and then they get gas and they have lunch and all of a sudden that $300 is grocery bill turns into a eight hundred dollar day and we've lost out on that a thousand times um people who live on the western edge of the county i know that's in the county and that's not in the city but people on the western edge of the county are going to farmington they're not driving back into saint genevieve to go to country more you know they're just not doing that same way people on the northern end they're probably driving to festus and having those choices up there so how much of that tax base are we losing by not bringing those people back to the center of the county and shopping here locally inside city limits and capturing those sales tax dollars. And I don't know how we do that, and I'm not smart enough to. I've never been trained and went through all those exercises, but that's my thought is how do we keep that small rural community that we have without trying to shock the system by landing some big fish with an industrial company coming here and they're looking I'll be curious what happens in Festus when that hardy cement opens up there I think it's five six seven hundred people that's going to change the whole dynamic of the northern part of our county and all of Jefferson County because where are you going to find 500 workers to start filling that and so are people going to start moving north and So those are the questions that I have about the economic development piece of this. And I want to know where everybody else sits and kind of what you hear from feedback from your constituents. Because I'm water and sewer, I think, between a city staff and alliance. I think you guys are doing great and you've got a long-term plan and things are going pretty good there. I don't have a lot of input there. Same thing with police department. We've got a new chief. I think he's finally got enough time under his belt. Things are going pretty well there. I probably don't have a lot of input as far as that goes. But when you start talking community development and economic development, I think Aaron is doing a great job. Tourism, again, not much there. So that community development and economic development, that's where I want to learn more about what I don't know to ask the right questions so that we can kind of guide ourselves and and do that. So I don't know how to do that.

Well, one of the plans I had on this July 9th work session was to come to you with some thoughts on economic development. And I know Alderman Steiger mentioned, you know, kind of Aaron and Robert's job description, and we've talked about that and incorporating economic development. But definitely that night, and we can certainly do it tonight also, but get some feedback on what do you want to see. Do we need a mid-sized, not a big box retailer, but a mid-sized retailer? Definitely, I think, luring small businesses here. Restaurants, I want those opinions because I want to push forward with an improved economic development plan for the city. We can certainly talk about it tonight, but I have some I don't have everything put together yet, but for that July 9th meeting, I'll bring some suggestions to you.

Amy, what do you hear from your constituents about economic growth for St. Genevieve? Do you hear them clamoring for anything in particular?

A few things, but I do think that we definitely need to look into retail because I know a lot of people are really, that's the main thing that you hear about is the retail. There's nothing to do, there's nowhere to shop, there's nothing to get here in town. So, I mean, I'm gonna be honest, I don't do any shopping here in town. I go out of town and all my stuff is right there. I usually go to Farmington. That's a problem. I'd like to stay here because I want to give it back to my community, but we don't have anything. That's the number one thing, issue that I hear from all of the people around me is we need more places to shop at.

You know one of them was housing before that. The Chamber did that study a few years ago and the new subdivision is going to be coming online soon so that could really shift the dynamic of housing because there's so many people so I don't I think that should address some of those, you know. But now that we get potentially a lot more people moving to St. Genevieve, maybe from the county end or maybe from outside the county end, how do we keep them here with the retail operation?

And I totally understand what you're saying. And on the back flip of that, you've got to think, too, if you – housing is one thing. I know there's a housing shortage, and that's pretty much everywhere. But if you don't have the retail and stuff – and I know that our town is that small-town charm. I understand that. But if you don't have anything to bring them here, you can bring them here all day long with houses. You can build as many houses as you want. But that doesn't mean everybody's going to want to live in a town where you can't even buy a swimming suit with a big water park. That is the problem here. I know we had Grandpa's and we had Alco and stuff. Those were great stores. And if we could get something more smaller scale like that, a little bit bigger than a Dollar General, Maybe not a Walmart. If we could maybe get a Walmart out by the interstate. I don't know what the answer really is here. But I think we need to get something that at least we can buy socks, underwear, swimming suits, things like that. That's just how I feel. And a seafood place at a steak place would be great.

But, you know, and some of those big box stores, though, they run the studies, right? So they probably have looked at saying that the metrics aren't here. The dynamics are not here. They don't have the traffic counts. They don't have the population. They don't have the household incomes. You know, they don't have the property.

But we can get it here, though. Yeah. Well, we have to start somewhere. Yeah. That's the problem.

You just don't take the step. We probably don't have the numbers. If we're going to use Walmart, there's one in Perryville, there's one in Farmington, there's one in Festus. So when you crunch the numbers, there's probably no way you're ever going to get a Walmart in St. Genevieve because you would be stealing their customers from their other stores. I don't know. I don't run Walmart, of course, but I would think that Walmart probably wouldn't fare well Another one here in St. Genevieve.

Well, also you have to think too, everybody says, well, if you get a Walmart, it's going to throw out all the businesses downtown. I understand that. I see both sides of it here. I can see, I'm on the outside looking in and I understand both sides. However, there's a lot of places that have Walmarts and still have all the stores downtown. Look at Festus. I mean, that Main Street thrives and they got a Walmart right down the road. Farmington is another one. That Walmart is always packed and Farmington, you got all them shops downtown. You know, I'm not saying that Walmart is the answer guys. I'm not saying that at all. I just, I think that we need something a little bit more retail.

There were no articles written about come visit Farmington for the weekend or Perryville wasn't featured in one of the great little towns to visit. Part of ours is this charm that we are not one big box piled up on top of another. And there is no doubt that a big box anywhere near us would suck the energy of everything downtown.

But you also hear people all over the town saying, if we're not growing, we're dying, guys. Right. There's so many stuff that's leaving. There's so many shops that are empty. There's so many shops that aren't open a lot. And I do agree with that to a certain extent. If we're not growing, we're dying.

We need to grow a little bit.

We don't need to grow a whole bunch. We need to grow a little bit.

Is small retail kind of an alternative solution than trying to throw in something? Because if you had ten new small businesses open in St. John, I don't know where you'd put them. I mean, there's a few empty spots in the downtown area, but When you start looking out to the other end of town, there's not a lot of place to put them. And it's hard to grow going out 32 because there's also not a lot of available space going out 32. It's hard to go out 61 because Mississippi line kind of has this landlocked there and You're not going to go south on 61 because there's not going to be any growth there, and you can't go across the river. So really, trying to go out 32 might be the only place. Out Progress Parkway would be a great one. We've got that land there.

There's not a whole lot of land left there, though.

No, but the city owns 14 acres, which would make a great kind of a mixed use, maybe, potential there. Yeah. that would be a kind of a loop or corridor around the city there that could stand some really good growth. If you put five or ten businesses out there over the next 10 or 15 years, what would that do for St. Genevieve?

Maybe a little plaza?

Yeah, yeah.

You know, we've been talking about this for a long time. We know what we need. We just don't have the population to support it. You know, it's economics. If you bring a business in, the people have to shop there. They don't shop there, you're not making any money, and you're going to go someplace else. So that's one of our problems. People on Facebook say, oh, I want a bowling alley. I want this and this. Well, you had them. What happened to them? They didn't make any money.

They left. People travel a lot more now, right? It's easy to get in a car and do 75 miles an hour, you know, compared to 30 years ago, you just didn't do that. But Teddy, I'm going to be very positive here and think that, you know, McBride is suggesting that they can build those homes probably within five years. So if you put 135 homes at three or four persons apiece, On average, so now your population grows maybe an additional 400 or 500 people. So you add 10% growth to your city. Will that sustain new business and new growth with the construction, the production that you get? So I'm going to be optimistic and say the population will finally break that 5,000 threshold in the next few years. We'll finally break that 5,000. So how do we be smart about our economic development? It won't be huge. I agree with you. Will we have a skating rink and a bowling rink and a movie theater? Probably not support all that. But we could support potentially some new businesses. And where will we put them? How do we get them a place to call home and to build or to move into?

When you're talking about support, how are we going to support these businesses? Are we going to give them a tax break? Or, I mean, how do you support them? Just getting and saying, oh, shop here. They're going to convince the people they need to shop in their community. But, like a lot of people say, I can't buy any jeans. I can't buy clothes. I can't buy this. But I know a lot of them, they can buy it here and they go to Walmart. So there you go.

We don't have any land for them to even build. I don't really want to give them tax breaks. I don't think the government should be in picking winners and losers. But how do we even give them a place that if they want to start a business, Where can they go? It's really hard to find available property or a building to lease or to purchase. It's tough on the commercial side. You know, we've got one empty commercial building. It's now being leased, the old pedestal board building. It's 25,000 square feet. That's not a small business that's going to move in there. You know, that one's pretty unique. That's going to be tough. But if you looked at how many empty suites do we have in a strip mall, I don't know if we have any. Is there anything in the plaza right now? Is... We don't have any empty units in the plaza right now. So there's no place for, I'm sorry? We need another plaza. Yeah. Maybe on the other end where Thrive was. Was Thrive was? I think that one's in. Maybe there's one empty unit right now. But again, I don't know if that's the answer. I'm just kind of wanting to talk about this to see if we can help kind of support growth in St. John.

There's a question, fourth one down. I'm just looking for any answers. Do you believe we should offer any incentives to recruit more local small business and suggestions as to what those are? So that could range anything. I know Alderman Steiger mentioned we shouldn't be giving tax breaks, but that could range from anywhere from tax breaks to fee reductions to site development assistance. I'm just looking for your thoughts.

if they're donations in kind or you know um you know if they're they're things that and they're not a a 10-year tax abatement you know something crazy like that i mean if we can reduce a tap fee for new businesses okay you know we miss out on an 800 tap fee or whatever it might be i mean yeah if that's something that will get a business here that that's a no-brainer i think that's a small business absolutely you know if we're talking about uh someone to put a plaza in or

take over an empty building and rehab it into a factory or a retail, they're going to look for something larger than that.

Yeah, they're going to look for incentives. I mean, I'm for incentives. If it brings them here, you can't give them huge incentives because we've got to make money too, but if that's what brings them in, that's what you've got to do.

You know, a lot of people always talk about what they lost. All these businesses left. We got a lot of new businesses coming down. You know, it's not, people are trying. People are investing money into this town, trying to start new businesses. And so far, I think everybody's doing okay.

I think we'd probably be net neutral. I think you're right, Teddy. I don't think we're net negative in numbers of businesses. I think if you look at how many new ones, I think most of them have been replaced. We have lost some, but we've also gained some. So I don't know the official number, but I would think that we're probably net neutral on them. you know businesses i wouldn't there's not that many empty buildings there's a few but not many you're always going to have a few i'm sorry little house building yeah yeah well is sales tax revenue a reliable way to look at what's going on in the city i mean it can be but it's also affected by the economy at large obviously

So our sales tax is currently trending above our budget. And remember, we budget conservatively. It's trending flat to slight increase over last year.

Is that something?

I don't know.

One of the small businesses' biggest enemies is the internet. Amazon, because music stores, they come up all the time. They make it three months and they're done because people buy everything. It's so easy to just click and have it in two days. That's the real enemy to small business right there.

Yeah, and I pointed out that our sales tax is flat. The use tax is up 15%.

with the what tax?

Use tax. So online. Online, yes, thank you, sir.

Online. I was talking to a lady from Harold's Bee Company, which was kind of a nice little startup and was of interest for people out of town, kind of unique in doing all of it. But she got out of bricks and mortar because she's doing all of her honey sales online. And it wasn't worth having somebody sit in the store for eight or ten hours when they could be back doing the mortars with no overheads.

To back up there, Dave, did we receive revenue then from online sales? Do we get money back from that? The city has a use tax, yes.

The county does not, but the city does.

I wasn't aware of that. So there is, we get something back from what's bought on the line.

Every Amazon order in town, we get something. Correct. Okay.

Next slide. I don't know what we can offer, like, We can't support the businesses with the population we have. How do you attract outside people to businesses? that are here.

I mean, I don't know what business it would be, but... Our population in the city doubles during the day, so we have people here. It's getting them to purchase here, and I think many of you have mentioned they need more choices. You know, just like Alderman Dobbs mentioned, she goes to work in Farmington, she shops in Farmington. When people travel here as a teacher, I don't know, a physician. There's plenty of those that come this way. We need to somehow figure out a way for them to shop here before they go back home. I think we're attracting, we definitely have plenty of employees that come this direction. We're now going to offer them more homes. to live here if they'd like, to increase our property tax base, and hopefully what will follow, we've talked about this ad nauseum, is a boost in retail or otherwise, restaurant, service industry, and then the sales tax to follow.

Aaron got the study done by the USDA team that came here a few weeks ago, and more people drive into St. Gen to work than drive out of St. Gen to work. There's a fair amount that leave and drive to St. Louis or whatever to commute to work, but there is more people that actually drive into St. Genevieve to work than leave St. Genevieve to work.

But there's a lot of people that cannot get the medical... help in the community and they had to go outside to Festus and other communities because they have the doctors and they have the facilities to take care of you. Besides work, a lot of people will go outside the community for these kinds of services.

One small change and probably not big, I was told that Bloomsdale now is going to be a one day, within a one day hub of like an Amazon warehouse. So you can be able to order a product on Amazon and get it that same day. I think it says one day, but I think it means basically same day. If you order it in the morning, it will be at your house that evening. from an Amazon hub in, I guess, St. Louis. But I've heard Bloomsdale is now gonna be a cutoff where, so that's something else that's gonna hurt. I mean, I think at a very small, I don't think it'd be a huge thing, but if you can order something online at your house and not have to drive into Country Mart or Cotton's or something like that, you're gonna probably do that if you can get it the same day. I mean, if you order by, again, I don't know the specifics, but if you can order by nine o'clock instead of by three o'clock, That'd be crazy to think that you can do that. I mean, it's like drones dropping your package off out of the sky every, you know, but I, Bloomsdale, it's coming soon in the next few months, I think, for.

There's already a hub in Bloomsdale.

Oh, okay. So, yeah. So it's coming. And that one day shipping.

There's three, four hubs here. On two.

And then we got Proposition 5 coming up to vote on. How's that going to impact us? Say it passes. I mean, you don't know, but if it does pass, how does that impact this town? I think we'd be losing money, our tax, because there's not a lot to buy big items here. There's no cars, no new cars, nothing like that. Buy big items, you get a lot of tax.

You pay your motor vehicle tax where you live.

You buy a new car in St. Louis, that money comes back here.

Right, it does. But there's other things out there.

It would be interesting locally what would happen if there was no income tax and it was all basically sales tax based. I mean, you've got to, I don't know how we would study that, but there's a fair amount of people that travel to shop, you know, just because you can't buy everything you need in town. So if you start losing, if the sales tax gets raised to match what the state income, it doesn't change our city tax rate. So I don't know if it would have, I'm just thinking, would it have much impact locally? Because our sales tax number, our percentage of sales tax wouldn't change. So I don't know if people's spending habits would change much. Would people's spending habits change much if they had no income tax?

Well, that depends on what the income tax is replaced with. Yeah. If another 4% is added to the state sales tax, that's going to impact people.

It's going to impact them, but is it going to change where they shop? I don't know. That's my question. Absolutely, it'll change, but, you know, am I going to go across the river to Chester Walmart? I don't know, you know.

We'll laugh about that, Joe, but some of the taxes in Chester are cheaper than Missouri. Are they? Well, yes. I shop at Chester Walmart.

Okay.

Because that's what my sales tax is, but it's cheaper than Missouri. That's why Bob's not here to talk about it. That's a real factor with his business, that construction services. over there on a home job, they can beat him on lumber price, because bottom line, the sales tax is higher here in Illinois on building materials.

A lot of these states that do have sales tax but no property tax, I guess like Tennessee or Florida or whatever, but they do have a cap on the sales tax. Yeah, I think it's like 10 is the highest they can go. I'm not sure, but I thought it was like they already have to nine something here or here to buy something. Getting close to 10%.

That's a combination of state, city, county.

increase theirs, does that mean we would lose? We had the lower hours, the standard 10, if that's what they want to do?

Those are all things that are to be discussed.

The last thing I'll say is, you know, how do we study that to find out do we really not want to try to attract heavy industry? Do we really want to try to get some staff effort into increasing retail? We know that can't hurt. I wouldn't think... So we want to try to pick off the low-hanging fruit with some small businesses and, you know, kind of see... And how do we work with the Chamber? How do we work with Progress St. Gen? And try to bring those efforts to bring some more retail. And then also study, you know... What else do we need besides some retail? Are there resources out there to kind of help us study this to figure out what good product mix we need to have?

Yeah, I mean, these are some of the things that are on my agenda, for sure, of determining what small businesses. Retail comes up all the time. I think that's a no-brainer, and I'm not knocking any retail that's currently in town, but as is mentioned here tonight, you need a pair of underwear, you need a swimsuit, you need... school supplies beyond just a tablet. Those are things that are hard to find.

That's a big thing, back to school shopping.

But beyond that, I think we do need to do some surveying, do some work ourselves. You know, there's also the possibility of hiring an outside company to get that information and get it to us.

I agree.

Okay. That's a good discussion.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, I guess that... I mean, I guess everybody's kind of got some thoughts probably ringing in their heads right now. So, you know, we've got a pretty good, a pretty detailed, you know, calendar here. So there's going to be a lot of opportunity to discuss these things. So I think you're best to bring back your thoughts, future meetings. We can talk them out then. I think, you know, we get a few different mixes of opinions and ideas and see what comes of it.

What's the general feeling going into the budget season? Are we optimistic that we are on solid financial ground? Do we have reason to think about expanding some programs? Or are we in defensive mode and we have to be thinking more about what do we need?

I think it depends on What department are you talking about? Water and sewer are in much better shape than they were last year. We had that study. We saw some rate increases. We just did what we were asked to do, raise it again. Police department, Chief Halleck's gone out and got multiple grants and is in good shape, has been fully staffed for a while. Streets, we're doing tons of projects there. This board proposed a bond issue, passed, and we're doing well. It's just going to circle back to what we've been talking about. Community development and economic development, tourism, those are the departments I think where we have some opportunity and we're currently in good financial standing, but some of these things will take more money than our tax revenue currently produces.

I forget about this every day as we kind of go, but The quality of our streets are such a positive feedback to be in a town where every pothole doesn't remind you what the hell's the matter that we can't get these fixed.

Almost take it for granted how wonderful these streets are since we've done that. We've got three more miles that'll get down here in the next two months.

It's just amazing and I can't thank the voters enough for giving us their support to do that. I mean it just is, I can't imagine what it's going to look like in the fall when we finish these three more miles.

Look for the signs. Signs are great.

Our town is definitely going in the right direction. I'm proud of everybody for doing it.

Can you get a good chicken sandwich? No.

I mean, I don't know. Who has a good chicken sandwich?

I like Audubon's chicken sandwich. I think Amy needs to go around all the restaurants. There you go.

I do.

Report back at the next budget meeting.

Yeah. I know where I get a good steak. If anybody wants to know, I'll tell you where I get a good steak here in town.

Talk later. All right. No, thank you everybody for the input there. I thought that was a really good discussion. And I think I agree with a lot of what was said tonight. We do have some challenges, but I think they are limited to a few certain areas. I think we've done a lot over the last few years to really address some needs that were lingering and they were out there. And they were probably things that your constituents...

Can I ask one more thing? Maybe Dave, you guys could talk about this. What challenges, if any, are we going to face with the county still struggling with their sales tax? Are we going to see, can we maybe put that as another, and just maybe kind of think through that? Yeah, and just kind of see, are we going to face any impacts with the continued struggles that the county has?

Okay. So anything else to discuss on item one? Comfortable to move on to item two? Okay. So our next item tonight on the work session agenda, there's an agreement I believe that's been proposed. by the Foundation for Restoration regarding the Memorial Cemetery.

Dave, do you want to expand on that? Yes, sir. So the Foundation sent me some signage rules and regulations. I think they've had some organizations approach them lately. It's a popular site. Obviously, they interpret it. We have a link from our website to their website for that interpretation. They have events there. They fundraise for it. It's our property. So we have it mowed. We pay for the mowing. We help them financially pay for the other tree maintenance and upkeep, but they're basically responsible for They do gravestone restoration in conjunction with the National Park Service, probably the state also. But they've had some organizations come to them about signage and other things. And I reached out to them. There was concern that this request may be tied to... Some commercial enterprises that want to do things there, that was not what their concern was about. It's about organizations reaching out and wanting to put more signs here and signs there. And Mr. Nick Dunsey is here tonight. If you have questions from the foundation standpoint, ask him to come and I appreciate you coming, sir. My suggestions are, you have this proposal from them. One of the things in there is the addition of signage. Any sign permit applied for has to be approved by the city already. So that ordinance is already in place, that process. They've asked to kind of be able to work with us. So I guess my suggestion here, and I don't have any issue with the restoration work performed. you know, being focused on the things that are listed at number three here, but is that basically any sign requests we get for the memorial cemetery property would come to us anyway, and we would then send it on to them for recommendation, yes or no, and then we could make the decision after all. My only other addition to the request that you have there on their proposed rules and regulations is that we add something of the nature of any new features or restoration project must be approved by the city with recommendation from the foundation.

We didn't get that in our packet.

I sent it out in a second email.

It was in an email, but normally I don't have a copy of it.

I will make some copies for you.

Can we maybe ask Mr. Gunsey if he wants to maybe just kind of give a... Yeah. Dave probably knows all this stuff, so I don't think you know what I mean.

Good evening, everyone. I am Nick Donzie. I'm currently the president for the Foundation Restoration of St. Genevieve. And I have been since the first of the year. Right after I started my position there, it seemed like we got inundated several times from... well-wished people, and I appreciate what they're wanting to do, particularly the daughters of the American Revolution, sons of the American Revolution, have some French Revolutionary veterans buried in our cemetery, as well as a lot of other very influential people from the past buried there. So some of these requests, we asked what type they were wanting to recognize, you know, some of their veterans, French veterans in particular from the revolution with some signage. And we simply requested what type of signage were they wanting to put in there, and it was really pretty substantial, some of the things. And, again, I actually appreciate what they are wanting to do. I'm all for all that. But the board and some of the members expressed concern about if this was – accepted and went forward, where does it stop? Particularly with this cemetery with so many influential people that deserve the recognition. This individual in particular, we don't know exactly where he is buried, but we know about where he is buried, right? So I could see where they were coming from. But then again, we really want to help preserve the integrity in the history of and the appearance of the cemetery. So after actually a lot of discussion and contemplation by a lot of our board members and members, we came up with this suggestion for you all to consider. And we did have a few other actual requests kind of in the same time period as the Daughters of Mecklen Revolution request.

I'm sorry. New to this. Maybe you and Dave, Nick, are the right ones to do this. The cemetery, the city of St. Genevieve, we own that cemetery.

Correct.

And ultimately are in charge. We can decide who's going to mow the lawn, whether things are going to be maintained or whatever. Yes, sir. And every sign would have to be approved by us.

Yes, sir.

But for some amount of the operations, we've turned things over to the foundation?

Yes. I think also temporary signs are a little bit different. Okay. A good example is yard signs, and I think the foundation also wants some knowledge and control over that process within that cemetery.

So we have a working relationship that's formalized with the foundation in terms of their role at the cemetery? Non-formalized, but yes, definitely a working relationship. And they come up with ideas such as this with the sons of the American Revolution wanting to highlight their little fellow with a flashing neon sign or something, you would.

Yes, that's correct. They would come to you first, and then you would make recommendations. That is correct.

That's my suggestion is, when we get a permit request or they receive a request, they would give us a recommendation and we would decide if that permit was issued.

Because we recognize, what do we recognize about them? Their interest in restoration and preserving the best of St. Genevieve, that's the primary... That is correct.

The history and the culture of St. Genevieve, yes. Not just French culture, but all cultures that have reflected on what St. Genevieve is today.

Any signage in the Memorial Cemetery would also need a certificate of appropriateness, so that's a contributing property. So I'm not talking about a yard sign. I'm talking about some large sign.

Now, I believe it's item three on our proposal. We did suggest, so as you walk into Memorial Cemetery, there's a, I call it a plaza. You walk in a gravel entryway. There is one interpretive sign there, which I think was very tastefully done. There has been some discussion that we may need to eventually modify that or in a small measure, perhaps, add some information to it but we want to do it on a very limited basis again to to keep the general integrity of the cemetery intact and not to impact impact that so that is something we had talked about so we did suggest that i think it's an item number three for you nick are you opposed to signs that would have

QR codes that link up to a page of history about the person or persons that are in the cemetery. I know that that's kind of been one of the things where our tourism We're trending that direction, right, where that's become, you know, between the mobile, walking tours and things of that nature. Absolutely. That kind of feeds in and it does kind of align with some of the initiatives that we're working on.

It does.

Just through the tourism space. Right. Is that a pain point for the foundation or do we feel like some of the modernization and giving, you know, maybe history at their fingertips there, is that something that... I feel like the daughters, I feel like that's part of one of their signage requests, right, or one of the things that they were wanting to do, had some signage with QR codes. They kind of gave me an elevator pitch on it. Included with what they were wanting.

Yes. No, I think QR codes are awesome, particularly with what our philosophy is on the cemetery to not impact visually what's going on and we've discussed that and that is sort of part of why we added that number three in there as well as opposed to having a QR code on whatever cemetery site you could actually have a smaller display as you walk in with individual QR codes with DAR, SAR, whoever else might be interested to interpret who they have buried there. And you can actually have that there, QR code, and then from there you can go out and explore the cemetery using that. And then it would not physically or physically impact the appearance of the cemetery.

Because it would be like a small little kiosk. A foot marker down by the tombstone or not?

We would prefer not to. Yeah, we would prefer not to. Because, I mean, we're very sensitive to the cemetery. It's nationally historic, you know, historic site. So we're very careful not to impede on its existing history. Condition other than the restoration work that we we have been doing there And I think as we stayed in our suggestion here that that should be done With the intent of it be restored to its original appearance and condition The opposite is that some people are attracted to signage If I'm walking in front of the old brick and I see a sign about liver dumplings

I stop, I take a picture, I read it, and I love those. You go to Lions Club Park and they've got a good signage by the courthouse. They've got the Rio Camino. Sometimes those signage really draws tourists and visitors and people in. So I don't know how you're going to balance this. That's my only question. When it changes, it's going to be... So I think you're in for a slight challenge to balance the needs of trying to get people interested in, trying to draw them in. Because if I saw a cemetery with nothing in there, and I saw a bunch of old graves that were almost faded and not... You know, I know we're trying to do some restoration work on a lot of them, but I'm like, I'm not going to learn anything by walking in there because I won't be able to read any of the grave sites or most of them. I won't be able to read. I won't be able to interpret really what happened there. So, like, what did you call when you first walk in?

Just the entry plaza.

Yeah, the plaza. The plaza is great because it has some, you know, it has that way to kind of help you figure out who's there and their impact and their importance. And so...

I agree with you I think the work would need to be done to get information about the cemetery into other places at the National Visitor Center at our at our website and things like that and those people who are interested to that degree I think we'll find it I think like you said if I were to walk by I'm a little different. I like old cemeteries.

I do too, but I don't like going in and not knowing. If I don't know who so-and-so is, you know, and the grave is kind of, you know.

And I think that number three addition to where we could, you know, talk about adding some additional information that might help that.

Yeah.

But I 100% understand what you're saying, yeah.

I mean, you go to New Orleans or Mississippi, or you go to some of those older, New York. Austin is a really good example. They have a lot of burial sites. Yeah, indeed.

Cemeteries are cool. I mean, they are very cool. They tell the story of the area for sure, yeah.

When I initially read this, I was a little taken aback because it sounded like the foundation was in charge of the cemetery. I think your additions, Dave, are really important because ultimately everything has to be with our approval. They may well have a philosophy that we totally agree with about how restoration work is going to be formed and all, but it's our cemetery.

It is, and I think we need to work together because they're caring for it. I mean, we're paying for mowing, but I think... I think your additions, your...

to the city for that. We really have to be clear that ultimately it stops here.

And Foundation has no problem with that. We want to continue the working relationship that we have now. We think it's a very positive asset for the community to have that here, and we'd like to keep it going.

Memorial Cemetery will be on the mobile app walking tour that was just discussed. So that will be one of the stops on the tour. We tried to make it two stops, but it's going to be one. But at the bottom of that narrative will be a link which we also have on our website, which links to the foundation's website, which will walk you through the cemetery. I mean, not in the instance that it's a mobile app, but you can pull up a map and it tells you... Who's where. Yes, in most instances, or at least a range of where they're at. So do you need... Do you need a board approval on this? Just kind of a consensus. It sounds like if I draft something and we put it on a consent agenda in the future.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I can't read all the handwritten notes out here, but I have an idea. I have an idea if we could get...

Yes. Okay. My chicken's scratching.

No, no, no. It's not.

So my plan is then to, after the city approves it, then we'll take it back to our board and say we're good to go.

When I draft something, I'll send it to you.

Perfect.

Okay.

Perfect. Sounds good. Very good.

Thank you. Thank you for all you do. We appreciate it. Thank you.

Okay. So that will conclude our scheduled business tonight. Anything else to discuss at this time? Okay. If not...

Then we will adjourn. Thank you all. Thank you all very much.