Economic Development Commission - Regular Meeting

have to press the talk button okay yeah okay um calling to order the economic development commission meeting for January 27th 2025 Miss dowy will you call the role please sorry or or Carlos Whoever has the role I I do sorry about that um chairman pack here uh we uh Vice chairman zalinsky here secretary moons here uh commissioner talbat is absent and uh commissioner Jacobs is absent or late well when she gets in okay fantastic um we have pretty full agenda tonight um first of all we have public comments uh technically we do have one public person but uh that person is actually an employee too but um he will have his say later no one else in the audience and no one else online I take it I am not seeing anybody else online what a bummer okay all right um we'll get right to our featured speaker the finance director of the city of alette Darren man our pleasure to have you here good uh thanks for having me I did uh Carlos said I should bring uh something to give away I have sales tax tokens I don't if anybody's ever uh you can take one if you'd like I would like any token m 5 mil and 1 mil and if you're curious what they do uh the internet does a better job than me about what they are are these considered crypto ah you know it's as far as Fringe currency goes this probably would have been right there about as a uh it's not

nearly as valuable though it's it's uh you'd pay back in the day if you wanted to buy something for five cents and you wanted the sales tax thing would round up to a penny if you didn't want to pay a penny you could pay five Mills five tens of a scent to yeah that's interesting little on no problem this is FAS let the record show that we do have a quum now this Jacobs has arrived if you get really into those there is a American tax token society that you can join maybe for a small fee maybe in criminal fee great great that one I'm here to talk about the city's finances um tonight I've been invited and so thank you for that I'll give you a small elevator speech uh some highlights of where we're at uh that we just went over um the audit was uh presented to the council a couple weeks ago sir um our financial statements for the city are uh governmental uh financial statements and there's it's uh like two presentations of the same set of books one's full cruel and one's uh pretty much we'll call it Cash basis uh we report month-to month and do our budgeting Cash basis but then once a year on June 30th of every year we convert it to full acral uh which includes things like pension and the debt ends up back on the back on the like a true balance sheet of what you what you think of so when we think of it that way that's why one reason they're kind of so long and you get these weird comparisons and uh you can make uh sometimes make these things do whatever you want uh we prepare uh additional information for on our financial statements to uh um for additional transparency but more than anything of that transparency is for a certificate of Achievement Award which is like a gold star from the gfoa which is the government Finance Officers Association in addition to that uh so that includes an additional stats

section statistical section that we're going to kind of focus on that uh don sent out like kind of highlights of what we can look at we also include the paer which is the popular annual financial report and that's like a a financial brochure for the city Ong with some profile stuff and I think you have one there with you um those uh together with a budget award it's called the triple crown and that's about as good as you can do as far as awards for your documents so um we're proud of doing that we've been doing six seven or eight years uh and they're really nice to be able to talk about in groups like this um so that stat section uh most of the area cities have the same kind of information in it U most of them has certificate of achievement Awards and it's um kind of a a culture in this area so most of the bigger cities so if you're curious what happens in other places um you can look up you know look up their um annual comprehensive financial report or their financial statements and you'll kind of tell you the same stuff so that's good that's my little uh elevator speech there um I will say you know um some of our the highlights that we we went there uh for the this fiscal year so again we're halfway through a fiscal year again uh just based on kind of how we how we have to audit and why we wait um but uh over 2 million dollars in Grants were administered in that fiscal year which is is quite a lot and it's not only just the arpa money um we're in a Partnerships with uh the Great Rivers Greenway for that Centennial Trail which is a significant uh Grant contributor for us um it's hard to believe but uh Five Oaks has been opened for a year and so this audit covers the first uh six seven months of opening at Five Oaks uh green Rivers uh sorry Great Rivers Greenway like I said there and I'm going the financial highlights sorry in page four of the mdna

um the I'll talk about a little some of these other bullet points here so if we can find this mdna there uh the it's called the management discussion and Analysis and if you only got five or six minutes to read a piece of paper and you're curious about a city you read this stuff right here it starts with these financial highlights on four that I'm going through and then some of the other stuff that it it shows is um I'll go through some of the past the tables and goes towards some of these graphs but if we were to go to like page eight and N um it shows kind of what we were facing this year which was uh what you'd kind of call well what you'd call in a traditional sense a it's a deficit but it's a loss and there's a couple reasons for that and I'll go through them here in in a little bit but mostly more than anything our sales taxes were down um when the Enterprise building vacated there was a a major sales tax revenue Source there um and we can go into that if you want to but what it's coming down to is our the sales taxes and I I'll show you here in just a second um we'll go into a back schedule and it um it went down a lot like 40 45% so our revenues went from like 30 40% in the general fund um uh to about 25% which is a historical Norm norm and so that's going to require some adjustment obviously it's going to require some adjustment when if you look on page 11 there's a p chart there that says um about half of our half of what we spend is in public safety and 75% overall is in people so you know you don't um we've kind of come to a homeostasis on how many people we need the fire department and police departments always want a lot of people Carlos wants a lot of people and so they always like kind of this yes and no where are we going um and so pretty much at a minimum at our call levels we had come to homeostasis on numbers of employees so cutting those numbers as employees becomes pretty

disruptive in in any department and that doesn't matter whether it's here or anywhere else but um Public Safety gets pretty sensitive about cutting expenditures um public works there at 11% and then parks and wreck that purple line go one more page if you could done that's fine I everybody can follow along too you're fine good yep I'm sorry I should have let you caught up oh I know yes yes there is too yep um so with that in mind uh we do these things kind of cutting these things kind of careful they become politically sensitive they become you know disruptive when you're doing 24-hour schedules um it's you know even in the Departments um you the morale of kind of you know cutting positions losing it's a sensitive thing so you do slowly um um and so let's see what I write there the other thing that's um you know a all businesses have kind of faced just like wage pressure over the last three four five years and all of that is uh no exception to that you know our Police Department we had raises in the low to mid 20% in the last couple years and we you know we're still low to mid as far as what other you know comparable places and so that becomes more of a retention thing and so there's a lot of wage pressure sales taxes kind of gave out on us in the last couple you know last year and a half unexpectedly and so that can kind of spell Doom and Gloom at first but then uh back in 2018 when the sales tax ramped up uh the council and everybody kind of the council approved a reserve policy so we kind of started saving money for this exact case and then that bottom um graph there is kind of where we're at so we're going to be leaning on this um Reserve policy in the fund balance that it built up there we're at

about when we started this last year of uh 20 fiscal year 24 we were about a full year of of expenses inside of a savings account or retained earnings in a classic sense yeah what's standard in the industry it depends a lot um gfoa says like a minimum is like two months which is you know we's say 20 25% but it depends on your Revenue mix and that's a good segue if we go up a little a couple you'll see um right there is overall revenues keep going up a little bit it shows our mix and there it is right there the red one at top is the sales tax um the other uh really boring lines at the green and the blues are the property tax and utility taxes and they're very stable um and then the the purple one is all the other rues and it jumps for a lot of reasons but it really we're going to see a baseline increase because of the community center opening uh we would see also in the same there's an expenditure chart you know in there too we also saw the Baseline expenditures increase with that uh it's not right here so go ahead and stay right here were you were you more surprised by how much the sales tax went up in 23 or down in 24 I was very surprised in 2018 when the sales taxs went up if we were to graph a chart of the sales tax it looks just like the last you know 23s and 24s that it did um so yes it is it's surprising when when it and that's what makes it unpredictable it fell out as fast as it was kind of going up and that's a good so go ahead and go down to that next chart you see the revenues and the expenses so there's what we were showing like these are are surpluses and every I always when I look at this it always surprises me because many of these budgets were approved at deficits and they still kept surprising and so we end up with reporting you know pretty close but also at at a little bit of a surplus so yeah there so on your on your expenditures like how much is fixed

first variable like how much is there that you could actually or is it committed to like that Line's going to keep going up for the next two or three years it's a really good question and it will keep going up for the next couple years um so we have uh again 75% of our expenditures are Personnel related so um when you talk about that uh we have a Union contract with our fire department employees and so that's fix those kind of positions the positions and the rates are fixed for two or they just been approved in July so three years um the police department I don't suspect will be able to level that off and stay competitive and keep police officers uh you know applying for jobs and working here um so with that in mind it in a classic sense what's fixed and what's variable keeping the lights on it it gets so strange when you're talking about a public like a service that you're providing you know of how does it how do you get rid of that know I mean you really you really don't and so this is what it cost to have 23 police officers without significant shifts in that service level that or you know would be need to be talked about a lot now when you have a reserve of that magnitude kind of built up that that allows that and so what we are on now is an adjustment period does the re do the revenues adjust up it's very possible we have a lot of development going on um that'll help uh at the same time time we're going to have to do something about you know that chart can't stay that way for a long time it can stay that way for 10 years though that's a long time to kind of run those kinds of deficits so so you're saying most of from what I gather what you've been saying is most of that red line going up is due to wage press pressure yes there's inflation here but you 75% of this is is just insurance and and training costs and and paying people yeah the the other thing that's like there's been a fair amount of change within the city because we're in a new

building um how when was it that this building opened 17 okay we moved in April early April 2017 yep that's right we had a meeting here with firew that's exactly right yeah April do please use your in terms terms of things like headcount or um utilization of space um have you looked at numbers like that with regards to oh you bet how like part of part of the idea behind getting new new buildings was we don't have to put money into Old buildings and waste money but we we did the bond issues ETC um to go ahead and build a nice new building but you do have to fill the building with um with expenses basically sure page 89 well show us our jumping ahead no yes and no it's this is what I'm here for this is pretty much kind of concludes where I'm at um the only thing is I was the final thing where we're going there is that's always been a key thing is diversification of revenues if you don't have this diversity then your fund balance that I need for my Reserve goes up if it goes you know and that's why I I can't really answer the question what's a really what's an industrywide practice for that the the revenue for cities and local governments varies so much state to state you know sometimes it's all comes from the state and you're at the whim of them we have a lot more uh stability and like the our Revenue sources under our control um um the state doesn't monkey with a lot of our our Revenue sources um so there's those FTE if I would really we gained one person well to come here and um it's for like a maintenance person that really lives at public work so um we were able to stay pretty good you know Finance actually lost a person here I think Carlos probably gained a person over that two or three years um it's been fairly stable what you'd find in here is

um probably our the planning department has increased um two or three people which is 30 40% but it's not that not that many the opening of the community center is significant here you can see those that the jump there uh I'm going to guess and there's a lot of um part-time people so not very many FTE but lots of different kind of employees we have a question I'm just clarification Parks and Recreation discontinued Department under the Community Center is that while it was being built yeah so um I'm going to go back to 1976 oh goodness I know uh we created two departments a community center and a recreation department in order to track this thing what are we spending on it and when we moved when we when the community center shut down we combined everything into Recreation and uh the more than anything the reason was the two or three people that were working well everyone pretty much that works at the community center does interchangeable kind of both things so it became more of like a a a shell game of how much how much Community Center cost versus Recreation um it's and that's why you see that thank you so the the FTE are flat for police fire so that's just pure wage growth it's not like adding head that's right exactly yep and I would even say the fire department I bet lost a half FTE in the last two or three years from their secretary position but otherwise yes it's been flat since we added the ambulance in 2018 23 fls so you're halfway through this year right yep are we bouncing back on the sale are we it has come in uh we we lost a little ground early so the one of the things that beneficial for when you collect a whole bunch of sales tax is you share a whole bunch of sales tax too we are sharing like 40 mid 40% of our sales taxes with that pool B pool and that's a whole another meeting if you

want to go into that the a pool B pool yeah that's it yes so when you all of a sudden go down below the countywide average you don't share anything so you get to keep a lot more well I missed it by about two months on the kind of like where we were in the cross it stabilized a lot now um like preliminary this year uh are we're going to be within our budgets uh definitely within our budgets but the sales overall I think we're going to be a little bit lower we're going to end up I think about5 to $700,000 deficit that was this has something to do with being a point of sale versus a pool city are we not point of sale we are point of sale if um if you collect uh in a nutshell if you collect more than uh if you collect within your city more than the countywide average you share on a logarithmic base 10 scale with the pool cities so if you're at the very top it goes like this if you're at the very top which we were compared to your countywide average per capita you share almost all of your revenues and we were up there D can you kind of that's go over how ENT R put us in that boat sure I mean it the long and short of it is uh Enterprise when they moved in about what eight 10 months later they asked for a business license for this company called EC sales and nobody said what you know we wanted like well that's fine you can have a fleet company out here but you know parking everything all your cars down there I'm not interested in that anyway all the fleet uh cars that they bought in the whole country they titled right down the street in state of Missouri where you title your vehicles where the sales tax goes and so when they moved they just packed up in the night and moved to Maryland Heights I think they moved to Maryland Heights in up building there off ball really they moved everybody so there's a a byproduct of Co didn't affect us very much but it definitely affected them and uh that's that's what happened another

question this has changed the subject a little bit but um over the last two terms of Assessments um there have been a you know property values have increased substantially and the assessments have gone up by a minimum of I'd say 15% each time over the last two-year period uh the last two two-year periods um and I I believe that the um that only affects the municipal part of the taxes nothing uh on say the school district or or any of the other um taxing districts that um that are know functional in in developing the tax rates is that is that true that is on page uh 80 80 uh both those things are really close I was trying to uh scramble to find the other one the it has the assess oh yeah so the uh 79 is the value of the property and it is it's astounding it really I mean you put it on a chart and it's it's crazy um what does that relate for us so what we're looking at right here is uh we can zoom in maybe just a little it's not not a terrible deal it's proof that your tax rates have went down over the last 10 years your tax rate went down yeah your taxes went your tax rate your taxes didn't go down your tax rate went down but and that's uh if we go to the the page before it really shows why uh real property went from 199 million and this is actual value so if you take the assessed values and multiply them back out by 19 or you divide them by 19 you get the actual values went for 199 million or say 200 million to $342 million in 10 years that is unbelievable yeah it's fantastic well that represents over 500 um probably 500 teardowns and repurposing of older houses and denure houses well you guys

didn't probably build a new house and it's uh affected you too yeah I not everybody here you know that it it it's up and it your taxes have not went down and so here's the factors on that page 80 the factors that went into it um your The Debt Service rates uh so I'm going to start at the top that General front rate that should roughly follow inverse to your um the assess valuations in total maybe not at your particular house but uh if we throw a blanket over everybody and so then the the other factors that there so the pension uh fund the pension contribution part of that also same thing um if we were just to rewind one year in 2014 you wouldn't have saw have seen this debt service and so I've always said if you look it back at a 10 or 15 year period the increases in your taxes have been things you voted on for the most part and that's that was that was a collective choice of the community so stop voting for those things you going your taxes stop going up but the schools makes good good cases you know the city makes good cases and it doesn't cost that much the good thing about a a bond vote is commercial people pay to and they're temporary and they're temporary there you go um we did see though it's an interesting thing 20 20 years is temporary I mean hopefully your house value went up by about the amount of you paid in your in your increase in assessments but this debt service it's uh those valuations have went up so much look if you look at 24 the it's a far left column third R number down is 43 cents per 100 right next to it for the last three or four years was is 54 cents 400 the assess valuations have went up so much that we've collected too much into this uh Reserve fund that the The Debt Service rates are rolling down the classic uh no tax increase votes this is how they happen is you

collect enough on your you can you're allowed to we're allowed to collect two years of Debt Service payments in reserve and then either have a no tax increase Vote or we can uh just roll down the tax rates and that's what you see here and how does um how does Hancock um fact good question uh Debt Service is uh agnostic to Hancock because you voted on it uhuh and so the 54 cents per here that's s written right here in the 21 22 and 23 is our limitation on it because that's what we promised you the city promised you 54 cents per 100 would pay for it and it does it doesn't fact so much with increased property valuation what is Han it's actually convoluted at um it's something about cost of living um the the rates for property increases cannot be uh over a certain amount uh just Statewide General Revenue cannot be a certain it can't over collect taxes right you collect a certain amount of taxes you got to give it back you're it's a state the real like the the one sentence answer is you cannot collect Revenue in excessive inflation on taxes that existed in 19807 be before that right it's yeah so lot a lot of other states kind of have it you don't hear but it it comes up a lot here um it really as a a whole another meeting topic but yes it is agnostic to or it doesn't it dis Debt Service is disregarded for Hancock because you voted on it afterwards well Debt Service sure yeah and that's why that's why it it stays level that's why it de service basically that's Debt Service is servicing the bonds that we voted on and since we voted on after Co was implemented then there's no special rules other than pay it back right at the full faith in credit yeah because when you put that out you say you're going to be paying this much per 100 you're going to be doing this people will know so these numbers the first

year we could have went to like 78 cents per 100 to collect it because we had no Reserve sitting there and the property taxes you know this is what it what it could have cost to service up to two full years we promis 54 and that's what you should do yeah in certain in certain circumstances as I understand Hancock is that if um if assessments Etc go up to by a certain amount the rates have to roll back to a certain amount so that the actual increase is not that's you see than between the to go from 67 to 48 cents 484 now the other weird thing about Hancock is in the mid 80s I don't think anybody ever anticipated 10 years of zero inflation but that's what we had so that's uh that Reven chart you'll see that was that's detrimental a little bit to to some cities because if you don't have uh gains in your property taxes in excessive inflation you don't like get to bring your tax rates back up to collect it you're just out the money and we did run into that a couple years on our commercial properties but it has recovered nicely now um the other thing is it's the you get to collect up to inflation well during the mid 80s they also did anticipate that inflation could get about 5% so they put a limit of 5% on it so now we had 10 or 15 years of zero inflation and then all of a sudden good we have some good inflation six s% well too bad and C kicks in we're limited to 5% expain me what good inflation is for uh for me for me trying to do a city budget yes understand we get to we don't get to capture it you you cap you got to capture it in the property values and everything else but the city doesn't get to I know I do get caught up in the other side this is my business I can I can explain good inflation the rising in wages yes it is that's uh okay so I think you might have answered my question but I'm not as smart as all you are so we've spent the last five or six years seven years doing all this Redevelopment we got all these

great new properties the property values have gone up yeah but that line is still just Meandering is that because we can't move the needle that much or we're not realizing the full benefits or we're just we're topped out like that's just what it's going to be good question are we collecting all these taxes that's on page our tax collection percentage is we're all in the same area and I I got mixed up here a second I'm even backwards um got that I think it's right after this so Darren let me just let me just reflect that the Hancock Amendment went in effect in 1980 okay and it was really to deal with controlling of Missouri's tax limits now I mean everybody knows Ronald Reagan this was like a big wave of like California did it in the mid 70s prop r i mean this was a big a big deal like the last kind of real big anti-government wave of you know we can't shouldn't be living on on the windfalls of of you all too we can we can limit ourselves a little bit and uh it it and it's true but that nice and steady is very nice to be accountable for you know when it comes to things and um on top of that if we need to buy something we just need to sell it to everybody we build a building you know if we need to build a building we need to build a building if we need to uh lease a fire truck you know a big purchase that's what we should do we shouldn't be just waiting for the Assessor's you know number to come around um oh I can't find it it's oh there it is you got it good for you good the um yes that's it so we're collecting all our taxes for that uh scrolling just a little 82 thank you this is upside down we are seeing a lot of these delinquencies get caught back up um it the county takes care of for this for us

we can we know who the delinquencies are I know who challenges thing we can also have a whole another meeting on protesting of sale of of property taxes and what the assessor's office doesy is no it is oh no it is not people do pay under protest there's a process where you pay under protest and you go to the State Tax Commission all this stuff some people just don't you know they don't pay um so we can have a whole another meeting on Pro protests and the ramifications for us and for the rest of of of the county as far as government is concerned but we won't go into that now unless you lure me in oh be game page 78 has um the sales taxes by different kind now another thing that we've seen you know since I've worked here this is I've worked here for this whole time period I started in 14 um what you'll see more than anything is the expansion of government revenues of in the local governments at least in St Louis County between Public Safety you know the fire operations tax was fairly new in 15 it had been around for a little while but you can see here we just kind of keep adding these things on and then when uh something comes in uh cares act money here we got a that was a lot of the purple the big bumps we'll get a car act money you know we got now some marpa money um we had a one-time settlement of from Charter on Old utility taxes and so that has really helped like kind of prop up these like one-time things and that's where you get these big uh surpluses too you don't plan for Car Act money to come you don't plan on a a big settlement to come from Charter to prop up your budget for the year and you you don't we didn't count on the public safety tax coming it passed in like a may I think and we were a little leery of where it came it started in November um so there's uh but you do see that very top left number that's what we're uh we're talking about today it's about you know 60% of of what it was just the year before and the year before was was

good uh and it every year was a little bit better um you know more than happy to ask any questions but what um we're in a transition here I don't want you know anybody to see this come here and say Here's what we're going you know and it's like kind of Doom and Gloom stuff we're just in an adjustment time this is leveled off about where we thought it would level off um we do have wage pressures we do have expenses we keep going up but we do have a lot of um uh a lot of development going on um a lot of it's abated to some some degree but there is some others that that isn't and there's the retail part at the Tiff we get to keep half of the sales tax the property taxes there uh will be fully captured outside of the um outside of the base which is there was an Office Max there so there was you know some significant decent base there so what could we as the economic development do make your job easier is it more development is it to get rid of certain businesses and flip out for higher I mean what what would be your dream that we were do as an advisory committee I would hope that I could you know um a a lot of what we do is is sell the fact that this is is transparency I'm more than happy to talk about this with any I talked about it with most of you at some point you you just to some degree um but this is a stable community right I mean we got a plan for this we're in bad shape and you know uh it's we we still got a plan it's fine we got 10 years of this before we before anything kind of implodes not one not two not we're having special meetings and deciding what we're going to do uh and that's that's good um or we're responsible with people's money it's a nice place we got nice buildings um we have nice documents and that that paer that popular an financial report it reads more like a brochure into what what we got going on here and I know that's something you the economic development commission has been interested in in the past um people want to spend their money here and people

want to live here and people want to develop properties here we're more choosy than the other people on what gets built here and what other people other communities sure uh we have different design standards you know and the the pcdc meetings don't they don't go for two hours because you know we let there's like a whole bunch of things going on is because we don't want certain things to look that's the way they do um we spent a lot of time on trees sign you know the signs of sign es the the development of Olive and that's not something everybody gets to do um and so you know I think we could that's the part of the finance piece of this to me you know the other part of it is development like we've seen takes a long time to move those needles but it does move it and those you know no uh budgets are built in built on nickels and dimes they're not built on you know counting on these like big Revenue sources they really are built on nickel and dimes and that's kind of what you get when you develop commercial property sometimes you'll get a sales tax now the other weird thing you get a Walmart in here you get a big grocery store in here it doesn't take very long before the calls go up and guess who you know needs more people to answer those calls at night time and so there is there's not much of a windfall when it comes that you'd see right away saying the Aldi is not going to be a windfall it's not in the budget as a as a nice it is in the reserve it is in the planning documents now Aldi has a whole different model they are not open 24 hours uh they don't have a lot of things that people like to take you know people you it's most of people that take stuff from there they're not taking like fresh produce and stuff volume store though it's a high volume store it's they have you have to bring your own bags yeah it's it's difficult to we're not

getting a whole lot of tiny Tims in stealing bread because they're super hungry I mean most of people that that we have they're after high volume high volume uh sorry high dollar items they can C has the uh the jewelry store that we have here has that increase the pressure on the um on Public Safety uh no you know they have limited hours kind of thing um they are good that was that was a really good ad to the city too you it's before my time but when you you see these charts they they they bump um from when that company opened to before and after yeah um and that's a that's a really high-end ad if you can get those kinds of stores of course you know wine merchant is a good ad too yeah um there we can do a whole a whole a whole another meeting on on incentivizing versus just not incentivizing properties and like how do you get somebody to curate this uh retail mix legally well I mean it's you put it in some no there's nothing I mean it's nothing yes legally of course right why would we do anything we would do anything other other way I have nothing to gain from no no but it really is it how do you properly incentivize someone to to build a retail place there's not a whole lot of tools we have but we do have some in place here um and they're kind of planned I would welcome that discussion actually if you could formulate and provide back to us and better educate us maybe not tonight okay yeah that's fine but like this is what our commission's tasked with doing I think we know the levers we have to pull but if you're saying there's something more structured and we should understand we have it in place right now and that's so we kind of look around Carlos we've talked about with Carlos he's more than happy more than welcome to and more than uh able to kind of discuss those kinds of things now Carlos always gets in it for the Parkland in this open space but there's other incentives that are that are there besides this curation this for there's actual hooks you know of putting this Partnerships together

with developers let take for example like um olive olive Crossing yeah I think are we are we done with that because we gave tax abatements and that and they were accelerated um and I think we're um it's been we're two years off the roles now yes two years away it was 100% abatement for 10 10 and then 50% for five if I right yeah it's something it's done for a couple years now and again successful um now so I'll get like just a two-minute thing there's a there's a sid as part of the Redevelopment agreement with the tiff with the developer is there's a a sid overlay a community community improvement district which has a 1% sales tax well now all of a sudden we've incentivized someone to generate sales tax for us because they um the developer the owner of that property gets to keep half of it for like we'll call it like common aary cam cam fees so they can so now instead of uh reducing lease rates for property taxes savings you can now replace it with a a sales tax that he gets to keep now would you would you rather have a bank or would you rather have somebody selling stuff all of a sudden I don't care what the if it was just a lower lease uh lease rate I want 100% lease at the maximum amount that I can charge and I get to keep and I know that I can uh I'm under market rate as far as my overall expenses as a property manager because my property tax bills wellow well now I had property tax bill went to 100% what can I do and one of the things was a incentivized uh Sid so that Sid now goes to that same common area maintenance and we the city gets to keep the other half over over time now we've pledged our half to the Tiff Tiff notes but when that ends in we go through this what

year in many years 15 years we get to keep that other half so we've incentivized someone to to put a retail location that sells a lot of stuff versus a a bank or what else what we put in there storage facility storage facilities what density then can't change theity but anyway yes um there's a there is a disclosure on the abatements in there we the different abatements we have we have three going on right now between the Oliver easy storage and Irvington Place Apartments and all with different different styles and uh different timings uh I would with that I always say the city's in it for the long game we are just fine getting through these humps and bumps 10 years we get the payout yeah like years ago we did some The Tile Store did we not and that's changed hands a couple of times yep AMC tile had a sales tax rebate so all they had to do is turn in there and I don't know the full details of it but I know that we had we had one there uh and so they had had to turn in their sales tax returns that they paid to the state and then we would give them that money back uh I don't know why that is a that is a tool that you don't have to you pay for it out of general fund Revenue so you don't have that's not even like a bonded or anything like that that it's just a a rebate look at the wheels turning maybe I should relocate all of that I'm not sure we want your glad around here definitely and we're also like 100% nearly 100% uh 100% uh There's No Vacancy up so that's it open another right just go ahead and

build is that and half yeah yeah right right by the tracks yeah we can have that it's all yours so in the end you know kind of kind to wrap things up it's I think you know again like I said the finances are stable it's we got a a hump and a bump we have and now we're kind of in a bump but we've kind of saved for it um Redevelopment takes a long time and we've spent a lot of energy on it in 20 years I mean it it the 10 years that I've been here it's been a lot of re a development of properties City properties of of all kinds and it's it's for the better it seems to be paying off always gotta wait for the for the payoff well one of the big things that I noticed too like that you had the pie chart there um revenue from different streams um yeah you got commercial residential sales tax utility taxes Etc and we' we're kind of we've got our foot in a lot of our fingers in a lot of different pies so if like say for example I understand that uh like Richmond Heights had some um you know it's fantastic they have all the sales tax but what happens in the recession when their their sales taxes go down and they rely heavily on that um it really affects the entire budget it makes it yeah the volatility affects that Reserve policy require what what makes you feel comfortable and it's it's no different than if you got a job or you're a sales job you don't get only work on commission I if nobody's buying your stuff I mean you gotta you better you better you know button up a little bit um and so that is true uh the only kind of thing there is a lot of a lot of municipalities around here we're like maxed out on taxes we don't have another

like hey just let's let's go to vote and we we'll get ourselves out of this thing um we would have an economic development sales tax is final quarter percent no wait an economic development what would sales tax yeah and how much percent could it be quarter percent it would uh the it'd be half of that fire sales tax or a quarter of those other ones if you want to it's not a significant amount of money and compared to like this overall budget but nichels and dimes always hope um and so some other cities have a use tax that maybe they could you're talking about eats right now uh not necessarily eats are for me eats are generally part of the Tiff the economic activity taxes that the a tiff would spin off but there's is a quarter percent economic activity sales tax is that Citywide or just Statewide it would it's a state okay yeah uh so if we're going shopping for ways to grow the pie that's about all the cities got we're 10% is the max you can do for utilities uh we're a little we're now within compliance but you know just fine on the property taxes was limited to 1% a one out of 100 uh we a little bit above that for a while uh and then property tax of course were as far as up as we can go uh so utility tax and then the sales tax of course we'd have that a quarter percent where we could go so that leaves that remainder we focused on that remainder several years ago and that's what I call remainder that's like business licenses permits uh now charges ambulance revenue is a big one and then now with the community center opening that is something within our control that we should be able to manage our so so like that quarter percent tax you talked about that would be considered to transfer from the state uh no it would be our own source Revenue we we could vote on that yeah it'd be like a fire operation sales tax a storm

waterer Park sales tax we got uh like the public safety is countywide but those all those it would stack up with those other sales taxes and use for economic development now right uh right now I don't know that we have a whole lot of usually when you see those you see a program go into place because there's special revenue for economic development purposes if we get that hotel in here could have a a vote to the public with regard to a a hotel tax for our downtown yes do we have a downtown we are downtown we do have a um new an area defined for the Olivette Corridor which is 950 ft from both sides of olive oh that's is do we end up keeping that in the comp plan Uptown it's a thing it's a thing huh 900 feet on either side Olive from 170 to Warson yeah don't get caught looking up pretty tall what am I missing it's not very tall it it's like it was it's a it's a more of a more of a yeah we were at the city center here like the city center area and then yes sorry caros it's on almost all the maps so yeah which you beautifully created I homework for me no what were you asking about that you wanted him to do homework on I think the Sid was one example of what you're talking about um just levers that we can pull as a commission to further and sent the right businesses to help contribute to fill your budget deficit sure and you know the caros has spent a lot of time um making sure that we don't just get anything

here and if that's what you want him to do right then that's what we need to say and I always uh like I call it utility we don't have a whole lot of things that are going to be like silver bullets in our budgets or anything that's going to and I don't know that we want that and so with that get what you want and make sure when people say why don't we have it this make sure you let them know it's we don't really want that and and if that's but if at the same time if that's a different direction we need to go then that's the advice I think we'd probably give give Carlos and that and that council is you know we really do need a revenue kind of source and I don't think that that's a get what you want if you want a Domo you know an ice cream shop we worked hard to kind of get something like that ice we need let topic T def I'm sorry thanks Darren this is great yeah actually too high in this town I think most impressive is that you memorized every page of the document oh I didn't though I haven't give me another couple years another 10 years and all know which pages on which but then they'll change the reporting model and it'll all be different but then we'll have new stuff to talk about okay thank you for having me great thank you thank you so much for coming Darren all right y we need we allow some trucks this and and this was um daren's last daren's last what what uh the picture on the screen is Darren's last win um for the paper I thought you were saying it was last something ELP okay too bad you couldn't give us speech because it looks like they gagged you in this

picture good thanks again Mas right okay um does anybody have any comments or anything they'd like to say or be heard all right oh fantastic all right moving right along um the uh next item number four uh 2025 Business Awards Don take it away give me one second sorry for the [Music] delay so we do have some very important things decide regarding the the 2025 Business Awards uh I did put together some preliminary um results um although that's a little bit further down the line it's just happens to be what's on our screen right now uh so our award categories are currently business of the year and Restaurant of the Year voting for this year I feel has is going really well uh I don't think that we were uh we we've only have like 55 or something uh votes or nomination or sorry no there are 55 different individuals who have nominated but you are able to uh nominate up to six restaurants and businesses per person so there is 60 some I don't remember what the total is So This is just nominations not voting for The Winner uh technically the nomination

same thing it it's a little bit of a one and the same okay um we haven't this is our second year we have largely based our interest and you know or the winner on who got the most nominations um we haven't had an occasion where we had to enforce any rules because it was the yeah there were no rules and uh that's kind of are one of the most important things that we need to talk about is is solidifying these rules as um we currently are uh we only have the two categories we could develop an additional category uh but as far as the process and rules go the nominations um have you know they serve as votes you as a um as the Commissioners you determine from the nominees who actually wins okay so there are besides the number of votes you know just pure number of votes that they get we also look at attributes uh I have a defined list of attributes that you can choose for for every nominee uh so it was kind of interesting to look at uh these nominees by attribute these are just the restaurants um fallons has gotten quite a few votes uh very proud there um 32 votes so wa I'm confused about this attributes thing go back there who okay can we back up for a second sure okay how are people aware that they should be nominating anything anyway and then what does the attributes have to do with that uh so the uh they could have gone I had no idea we

should be nominating businesses and I'm on this committee oh um uhhuh through what means Facebook through our our blast what blast I don't get any Blast from the city of Al because you're not connected you didn't say put this committee what do you mean I'm not connected if you're on the committee you would have known from the past two meetings okay we've been having prolonged discussions on this for quite some time and then after that yeah through our social media okay well I'll will make a point of following our social media but I honestly did not have any idea this was even going on oh um and it's been the emails that I've sent um that I'm working on better than I was Don I responded but it but it is a good point I mean if you look at if you go back one slide if there's only 50 or what did you say 50s something people who responded I can't be the only one well and and here here it is because it's a perfect example because if you look at the blue box uh I believe that's 12 votes that have been cast and each one of you can cast three votes so only four people have voted well and I'm assuming is just us that are voting or is it the community no no um so it it's um it it gets divided as far as and some people put the wrong businesses in the wrong slot so I just end up discom you know dismembering all of all of it on the back end uh and then tabbing up your businesses and your restaurants so we have the categories uh but only one person has nominated slad what is slad sorry oh St Louis Academy of Dance oh yeah okay that's what I thought it was and they were our previous winners which brings me to the next Point well before that I think we need to talk about commissioner Jacobs because I think there there there is correct I mean right now we're using social media uh in there and you're you're right not everybody is signed up

to that website we will have an article in the newsletter which comes out in March but that's an an important newsletter because that's also going to have the candidates running for office uh we Don's talking to the chamber uh to advertise that we're selecting business of the years after that it comes down to Word of Mouth and you know one of the things we need to encourage Don talked about putting some posters up at some of the restaurants you know saying you know advocating people to to vote or take in some of the restaurants have initiated getting their clients you know k k is putting some stuff out too Facebook social media type you know our social Communications but if there's other methods that what do we have like Facebook she's active on next door okay I don't know Twitter I guess I just thought that was a really low number for a community of 7,000 people to have that many few and I going shame on me for not following well no but it's a good point and and if there's it's difficult it's difficult to get the word out and like for for us on the planning side I mean it's not till the shovel goes out there to build to start building that people start calling like what's going on well it's been going on for two years before the shovel even goes in the dirt I get it so well we'll take a look at and see what other means I get it I get I didn't mean to come across so angry I didn't mean to come out that way no not at all no um but we do we need your help in getting the word out uh we had our biggest bumps and numbers from whenever the businesses themselves found out about the competition and and told their um either their employees or they told their patrons so and and slad honestly they got 57 votes in one day that's how they took it last year so the other question that I asked you though in addition to that so that's helpful thank you I appreciate that then the other question the next slide was attributes

yeah so when I go on to whatever Source it is I'm supposed to go to to nominate are those things listed there yes so that's what they're voting on and let me go ahead and and uh what I was going to offer today was or this evening if we had time if people wanted to walk through the website a little bit um because we do have um so many things on here uh under on our Economic Development commission web page isn't it beautiful you it is beautiful you a great job excellent thank well we uh there and these were some of these suggestions were just mentioned recently but I'm really glad we added the you know push push the business directory up into this part of the page we also I have the dining guide that's basically you can base your whole restaurant you know thing on that if you want although we have businesses on the the dining guide that are technically just under businesses so um but on the nomination page so you can select you can see where you know if you're looking to make sure that the business is located and all of that you can use the address locator but you click business of the year and you put the business of the N business of the Year name in but then your qualifications this is your free form methodology of saying how much you love that business and we have gotten some really Stellar I remember from last year there were some great ones there were and I didn't I actually purposely didn't put it together for a preview so that we could just have again because it does it's a lot of warm and fuzzies uh the attributes these this is a list that Carlos and I had come up with and we didn't really have I mean we had a few

additions I want to say last year uh but I am always happy to change this we can't change it for this year but for next year if we want to produce this list um it's not exactly you know the most friendly to De discombobulate from the from the information as far as a backend survey goes uh it just comes out as a single string uh uh content so it's not my favorite uh however not a problem either uh the restaurant of the year um it there are slight there's a slight difference like you can put great food in whereas great food is not an option under your business of the year so it's not it's not all together personalized but it is a little bit uh you know more to the point of restaurants there any other questions before we are you don't have to vote for three you could only vote for one you yeah if you want to just support 314 sports cards you could do that no it's a great store it's a big customer I want to see who they recognize me or David I'm walking through the door yes I was gonna say they they' recognize my kid not me at all so um it is yes I all those ones under business of the year we haven't had very many nominations business of the Year versus restaurant of the Year restaurant of the year is coming out really strong people are showing their support but

that is also the reason for if we are considering another category we should consider a commissioner's category that would allow us to elevate more of the regular everyday businesses that people in alet do not even know about right so that's still on my kind of where I was coming from like yeah how do you know yeah um we had uh tried uh different ways of doing the survey we have 35 businesses currently um uh I guess you say registered they have valid B business licenses uh we didn't necessarily want to limit it we wanted to make sure we had all of our businesses represented even though they might not have they not might not be in good standing or be clear of code violations uh oh right you have to check that first right yes so if I so they don't make it even like so past the nomination they can get nominated by a hundred different people but then you check them so instead of giving a list of those companies that are in good standing rather than putting that in a public light well just do it on the back end yeah that makes good sense it it it was also very um cumbersome you with 300 and something list you know I did that in a drop down at first and even though it would break it out into like a ABC and and like the groups for me or I got it too um it was a lot of work so I really based ours off of uh Cree cores uh where it was theirs is almost completely free entry uh like they don't have a list of

attributes we we design who do you think and why do you think in the end yeah well those attributes are basically used for us once we once we evaluate the it is the people yeah just so if there's a tie or something like that we can kind of see what people what the pulse is of people and these are also the attributes that we agreed for lack of a better term were representative of what we found to be good in a business you know what what we were looking for in businesses because we wanted it to be clear um you know that it I don't know we want not to put words in people's mouths but uh to give them the option to choose well and it gives them something to like I have a hard time coming up with those words but if you give me options like oh I can talk to those things so yeah I get it um and I thought that you know the uh the business so that was the restaurants on the previous one but this one looks a little bit nicer since they're you know the it doesn't have bance skewing that uh High uh the the chart higher than it needs to be um and even though you know it's it's one1 but look at how the UPS store and um you know what they what they have there for uh I believe it is exemplary customer service is what people say for them all the time they're great yeah they're pretty wonderful they get rid of all my Amazon stuff I I like you need to use oh yeah I still think that you that the idea of putting posters up in the businesses especially the ones that are retail specifically yeah good idea yeah yeah okay that'll help them I mean like I said I didn't know about it so Q QR code would be great too yep done yeah no problem yeah all right okay good and I

guess one thing you have down here is uh concurrent winners okay yeah so for our our rules um I we can't change it this year because voting has already begun uh but concurrent Year winners um people are the two you mean consecutive cons yeah sorry right okay consecutive uh so we we had made because there were so few rules uh that you couldn't win one year over another uh so the people who won last year St Louis Academy of Dance and all of that Diner they simply cannot win again this year they could win next year um do we want to keep that rule yes yes yes okay that is good to know want to get that opening for 314 business cards okay all right well good so that is a rule for this year it is it's a rule for this year and um I certainly wouldn't want to try to undo any any rules since the Voting is already or nominations however you want to put it have has already started um people have definitely like SLA is getting way fewer you know votes than they had gotten last year and same thing with all of that Diner even though they are still getting to the to the voter the it is is not a live tabulation so it's blind blind yes okay good all right and is it a rule that we cannot nominate we do there is no rule that we cannot nominate and please do nominate but I feel like that's a conflict of interest I felt that last year as well but we are making the decision because we haven't decided that just

we've never said that the most nominations win I would like to make a motion that the most nominations win that's true it's it's blind we won't know what what what three you nominated in there well the rest of us won't but you will yeah well I'm just saying the the perception of conflict of interest I'm not saying there is conflict of interest but I think that that's something can we clarify in a way that can I make a motion that we just accept the rule that the most nominations it was actually a long discussion last year about that uh in there and we're unless think in the end maybe after this year that we need to put those in writing okay and in you know in there this is our second attempt the other thing I don't know Don if we notified slad and all of a diner that they can't win I don't know where that's in writing you said I I I had mentioned that but that's I'm not the it's only been on the web page and on the survey that it indicates previous winner and the previous winners that's all we need yeah as long as it's written some written somewhere then sled can't come back and say something or I'll have it done it's fine I hope we're not worried about a lawsuit overing do you have to be an olette resident to vote no actually yeah you have to be as long as the business is here yeah the business has to be in Al you can be from anywhere and then you said you can nominate up to three businesses actually six three for each topic can you nominate the same business three times like you know stacking the the The Ballot Box as they say stuff in the ballot Bo I would be able to see it I know you would well I'm just saying like

um no if I if I caught that then I would probably reduce it to one vote one vote yeah I wouldn't let yall be just I'm just throwing it out no it's a good question a thought no but yeah I mean that's how all those you know sauce magazine and all those things that I can vote it every day if I want to that is true and you know like whenever I vote for the zoo right to be number one you know that's because I'm voting five times exactly you are being recorded all right okay so um I think we've I think we're good things have moved along we're getting votes we need to get more people to nominate so you know put The Feelers out get your email lists and stuff I promise to check my email better I'm really sorry no that's fine I mean you're doing great um you KN on your do you whatever you know um but get just get participation I think that's that's great um and actually I don't um it's too much to go after 300 businesses and saying hey you could win so um we have been thinking about that in the office would you have all the emails not technically not technically probably you're going to miss a few yeah and that would not necessarily be fair but I don't know do you want to go ahead if they file for a permit they have to put an email and if they forgot to put it then well there are we do have people that do not have emails people who have businesses that do not have emails you may think that that is is it a cobbler yeah so I can some I I have a I have very few but yeah no they exist they do

exist on there the world one is but um yeah I mean they they just do exist so um it it's not a bad idea it's something that we've definitely floated I didn't know um because we are very close to our business license renewal um we didn't want it to get confused or make it feel like we were asking for like I well I also thought about combining the emails so as long as we don't combine the emails then it probably won't come off as you know participate and pay your tax I I think maybe just the monthly letter the alet newsletter like if if all the new Council potential members are going to be included in that next one if this is just a blurb there that says nominate businesses here's the link I think we'll get a lot of well this thing says that they have to be done by the 24th of March is that what that said so when does the newsletter go out cool yeah I think I think we're going to get plenty and you know what for businesses to go to their clientele and say hey make me special like that's sort of is a weird thing I do it all the time you do sure are you kidding every time the the A-list thing comes to my across my desk I send that to my social media guy and he pushes that out vote for us vote for us all time all right so that is excellent marketing but that was was going to ask you though there's 300 and something businesses some of them are homebased businesses that would never would never want do this yeah so it's really just the ones that are more retail or public based right it's true um however uh you never really know there there was a

healthc care company that had every single employee vote for their and and like it was impressive that is impressive and they can tell their customers too they whole ex yeah they were their patients yeah you like the work we're doing please honestly it makes them look very very good to be all et's business of the year it does it's a great marketing thing so I think it's good I'm a fan are how how are you guys feeling about emailing the businesses is that a do it yes I think though some of the emails we have we we try to keep as proprietary type of information for those things because we get a lot of solicitations on those and honestly we get like the comproller or we'll get a business firm that represents Walgreens out of Columbia Missouri it it's I I would hate to to ruin that line of communication like with who we have for a business license well there's a couple of those things that you just mentioned I can't imagine they would Garner many nominations so I I do promise people that they will receive no solicitations yeah and we we take pride in that because I think of a hey we're doing this if you want your business to be recognized feel free to we're not asking them for anything true we're giving them information that we're doing this thing and it would be a great opportunity for you to reach your customers we're not going to solicit you for anybody it's a benefit it's free here's a free thing well we may need to talk about the emails in interior you know for sure I think we agre that it's a good idea I disagree okay would we have to take a vote on no then I think we wait till next year let's let's finish this year see where we land and then we'll wait till next year see to put up a poster is a good idea

make a note this is a contentious issue that we have to decide by next year well thank you all for your candid um opinion we need to go back to the the this our meeting in March is when we we need uh don will come up come back with all the collected information so EXA We Will We Will select correct and then that gives put this to that giv it gives her a month to put so yeah it it did come we were going to try to push the nomination uh time frame a little bit um but it with the excuse me with with the awards actually being in May with the way our meeting fell this the March 24th really seemed to be the longest we could go before we run into problems with act or like buying the award and getting it delivered on time that's great make a make a decision go with this good March 31st that'll be a decision oh yeah all right moving right along uh other business meeting minutes do we have any yes we do there are two sets of meeting minutes in your packets they are behind all of Darren's awesom are no they're behind the agenda I also put together um not that you don't need time to reflect on your minutes but um I put together a little calendar of things that are coming up there's one meeting that we need to uh look at uh and that is May 26 it's Memorial Day

yep well let's get back to the minutes oh yeah I motion AC I [Music] second all right I'm gonna give that second to Nate so selfish yeah we should probably do that I would like to move that Memorial Day meeting please yes to not be on Memorial Day do who want to I I hi moving stuff done I love it [Music] when let's do the Monday before yes the Monday before is good the 19th May 19th yeah is that not in the middle of graduation and it totally is but they're not on Mondays it's a Monday ah true that proba Father's Day it's probably gonna be the first day or some days or some kids vacations well awesome uh reports the staff reports on okay so as far as um reports go uh we have a lot going on as we almost always do the Aldi is uh having their grand opening celebration on February 6th I hope you all can make it uh there is prizes yes there are prizes um and I

don't know actually all the details on their first 100 uh it is at 8:45 amm yes there is there there are 100 February 6 so if that is next week next week maybe next Thursday next Thursday 8:45 a.m yes and that time is important because the first 100 customers I believe have uh some kind of yeah good or something yeah you get a quarter put in the I already have my coin thing to hold my quarter yes good okay that's Aldi okay and then is there a ribb ribbon cutting or anything like that where the members of the EDC can come and show their smiling faes to to get their picture taken so as far as I know this um creep cor elette chamber will be there on the six yeah so that we will be able to participate um I'm not sure what um all of the events like pump and Circumstance may be but it'll be pumped in circum circumstan yeah who planned this was it was it the company was it Aldi was it the developer who who put this they had set the timeline Aldi did yeah um as far as you know uh the event and our participation uh I'm not the one I know yeah so it they're not here so yeah well we're I mean we're participating no I'm glad we participated that's awesome so we can show up and

yeah all right next item uh we had a an announcement for the brass tap um who had uh did a public a press release that they were going to come into one of the other Outlaws along with Paris Baguette at Olive Crossing so that's very exciting what has it opened oh no they not they have it broken when's the when's the uh expected date well um I don't know I don't remember from the article they have to be handed over the the the building shell in May early May wow and then they'll do their tenant finishes that's probably about a 60 90 day max early May of this year is when they get hand it over the key so they can start their work inside so after after May you're looking at 6090 days so probably around SE so they're going to break ground when they are starting construction hopefully this week go damn but again that's for the shell and then once the Shell's complete then the tenants will come progress we're going to have progress that's great so so that shell is actually not just at one out building it's connected there's like there would be at least five tenants or close to five tenants in that and one of those is the Paris bagette that is correct and is there a Smoothie King or something or I don't know the Smoothie King is still in the works but there would be some type of dessert option I guess where are we talking about this would be what we call lot three at Olive Crossing so it's the it's going to be across from the Ali right by the the interstate ramps oh and on on Greg's property yes okay it's like I looked it up there's like Brass Tap they have like dozens of draft beer

taps so they know their Market the ultimate beer bar is that what their tagline is nice okay all right um other exciting developments uh Miss doie um I do not other than um anything on greatart greatart um I know that or we don't have a date still uh yet but they are um I know that they're they're they're on their finishing touches I saw lights on in there they are that's what I thought we were talking about uh oh no yeah uh great harbur is in the uh plant Haven Building and so that is different and separate from the brass tap that we were T just talking about so greatart um they are Brewing currently and they have been for a couple months um they were looking at they were looking at February and as far as I but I don't know if they'll they'll actually make that let us know when the ribbon cutting is for that one we yes uh can someone help me cracked down my suits and shirts from the dry cleaner love dry cleaner the one that's gone what what at the Olivette Center yes oh my gosh I did not know that oh the one down by by the D yeah the real nice lady she's just gone and all my clothes are gone you're kidding no well then my clothes is missing too I I showed up and it just cleaned out there's closer B I go I mean I don't I don't go that often but I don't have a tag either because we they wer there for like 30 days were they more than that

probably but still like everyone's clothes are gone yes they're at the uh Goodwill down the street back where's there where was there oh yeah that's gone hope you didn't need those they were ruffled shirts You' been there so Longs interested all right all right and um anything anything on um the retail establishments uh at the easy easy storage we have one person who's operating yes Domo is operating and I have seen a pretty good you know group there on night after night it seems what about the other vacant properties uh I have not had any um commercials or well any tenant finishes that I've seen recently actually one one thing that opened um in the last probably six months that we really didn't talk about was the uh the new eye store the uh the optician oh yeah true Vision yeah that took over where LaMar's Donuts used to be yeah it was a Massage Envy too for a time uh I was more interested in the donuts massage well um I have there I know the true Vision place they are very very nice uh and I would recommend uh I'd recommend the place it's very clean nice selection and they sponsor the turkey truck nice people yes that's my goal next year to actually do the turkey trap I've never run in my life but I might do that we we welcome Walkers it's it's it's it's fun to sponsor active Community SP Cy one year but nobody ever asked again so we were right beside the the beer vendor so had a good time active involvement is an attribute that we look

for I did I sponsor gonna have face on it this glasses facial hair all right you to get Roc cup to sponsor the coffee picture yes yes definitely Mr moons make a note okay um any other things pressing I do not have anything else on top of mine Carlos do you have anything else to mention Breakman trailer is uh up and running behind the CVS putting up the um I've got foundations in um walls are up yeah what are we building walls are up now the um the next apartment building oh which is no longer U what's that Irvington place the Irvington Place Apartments Place apartment and how many units again is that that one has 205 units Ma on that little bitty postage it's pretty sizable they took they took about got about eight homes 23 eight or 10 homes back probably more than probably yeah it was it was exactly 23 homes yeah or 23 plus a street true or two streets technically Irvington and Ryan okay um all right is there anything else that you had to talk about it before our illustrious mayor or short-term mayor goes ahead and says I have pictures you're done April one yeah Miss no the end of April when there's always The Changing of the Guard right there the election's the beginning of April yeah um this Friday on the 31st of January I'll be uh par participating in a ribbon cutting ceremony for a business in all

that in the 9666 building called ceve core counseling on the I want to make sure I give the right date the city council's workshop for February 4th has been uh cancelled uh coffee with the mayor will be Wednesday morning at 8:30 uh February 12th and my guest will be the newly elected St Louis County council member uh The Honorable Gretchen bangard um uh there are four people that have filed for running for the city council two seats that are open um do you know who they are I I I do but I don't I don't remember all their names uh one is Brian Lewis another is Kate hman pasan another one's name is Jasmine younger female and a gentleman that I can't remember his name but I'm familiar with him through pcdc action so cool um um things are going along well in this community um they already went over the ribbon cutting and uh opening for Aldi's and I will be there Becca you know that uh there's your grocery store 25 years to get the grocery store yeah so again thank you all for everything that you do uh economic development is extremely important to this community and I appreciate the work that you do uh congratulations on another yeah I know it's really gone by fast it really has gone by fast and I'm so appreciative of so many people that have done so much throughout the years you guys here stepping it up and you know just being grateful that we didn't choose to decide to have a pizza joint here if you can remember a little bit of History

uh um so um appreciate everything we have a great uh a great uh um holiday and we will hopefully see you all at the Al and um hopefully we will not have to use a lot of our police enforcement um in our community the way US city has to with regard to Costco so let's see what you do okay thanks actually interesting that's ating point because Carlos did you have any um any ideas on you know talking with us City how that um development's being affected um to our resources no but there'll be an opportunity the coffee at the mayor in March we're trying to coordinate the planner with University City creef core and myself to talk about the Olive Boulevard Corridor uh and then how the the you know noting how each Community has its own vision of what they're looking to do on the corridor so that's a good good question to ask crazy yeah all right can I just make a a note on behalf of the EDC to thank Missy for all of her many many years of community service yeah and your and your leadership and really a role model for other people and all of that to look to uh on how to give back so thank you for everything you do thank you and I will continue to be a me a mentor absolutely you're great all of that family you're not going anywhere I know neither of y'all still be around all right um I do want to say one more thing to you guys um I forgot which meeting but I'd like for you to possibly come and sit in the audience uh we are having Sansone come

back instead of being Thea electronic I said you need to be be physically here and sanson's coming to talk about the empty lot that they have at their apartment complex it was supposed to be a restaurant the front portion yes sign right right right so so he's coming to to the city to speak with the council is that the first or the second I think it's February 25th I think it's the second meeting I will be at that meeting I I would like you all to no because I was also sitting here when we were told and promis that this apartment complex was going to have a retail element to it and that was part of the rational behind our approval and support of it right right and I'm interested to see what he has to say because we said uh your Lots empty what's up what's going on and all the you know yes they do okay the building but not the front what time city council meeting these days 7 o'clock never changed oh yes it did be it used to be 7:30 um back in our day um so yeah I would really you know if he could be there I'd like you to be there because I want you to hear what he has to say or let me say what he doesn't have to say as well but questions because this group knows a little bit more than the average well the economic development Comm and they remember just as well as I'm remembering what was the conversation and what was going to be going there or with their intentions what so this sort of this sort of thing is important because the thing like we've talked about this before David you mentioned before when the um when they made their pitch for the um the

easy uh Easy Storage they they're saying well you know the cost of lumber is going up and then when you look at how they built it it's all metal studs you know and you know things like that are just sort of um I I would love to be able to foresee some of these pitfalls that maybe we've fallen into and it's very difficult to to be very you know get into the minutia of of a contract and say well if you do not perform to this level we can do this we can do that but I I I I really don't know if really that's if that's something we can do rather than show up at a meeting and just well you know we don't know what what what they're going to present or not present but you are the EDC and I think you're important enter to the city and if you can please be at the council meeting to uh to be there uh who's to say I won't open up the floor for questions curious I this is sorry I know this is completely one person's question mine would that discussion be at the beginning of the meeting perhaps um no I no let me uh let me talk with uh the city manager on how we'll we'll we'll Define the agenda and you know and I have some other things on my calendar that day that's why I'm asking okay so if it's at the beginning I'm all in if not I gotta rearrange thanks though appreciate the all right okay is there anything else yeah yeah I think while we have our Lea on for the mayor representing our Lia on we have one member that hasn't attended for over a year and multiple attempts have been made yes and I think it's time to bring it to the council um so as an official during the meetings think is what you're saying yes so yeah so about a month and a half ago

I approached the city manager and said okay what's up and I'm not sure I thought it was going to you into Carlos to have that dialogue and it is now coming back to where you're asking me to go ahead and and deal with this gentleman and and and look at filling the position because he has not been showing is that my understanding uh non-communicative oh really yeah you've already communicated that I have not you have not actually because I thought I thought that it was going to counsil first that you were the appointees we this is the discussion we had the last meeting so okay got cross there okay so so I will begin the steps I will then have that conversation with the city manager and the City attorney and the council um if you need me to do anything let me know yeah I I think at this point it was I think we wanted to know where where this body stood before you know Council took action to go ahead and say thank you very much um and opening at the um a slot within this board and and and advertising it right and we're a small body we you know uh forum is important it is yes absolutely and I've noticed blank spots under that uh a graph that has been going on for quite some time so okay I will begin my action thank you right very good now is there nothing more hereby but it brings back to if you know anybody that we should be considered or so to for information all right with that uh I do adjourn the meeting thank you thank you thank you thank you actually you know what should I actually