Administration / Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

one that we did last summer. I really want to hear some more about this procedure putting stuff on agendas. Oh, yeah. There's some stuff on here that there's some other stuff just how you handle it. Yeah. How you would handle stuff? Sure. We got five. We are live. Chair. All right. Lauren, can you hear us and everything? Okay. Uh, all right, everybody. Um, welcome to the May meeting of the admin and public works committee. This will be the last meeting of this council uh and the last meeting of this committee as formulated as it currently is. So, uh, with that, we'll do the roll call. Chair Farmer here. Vice Chair Edens here. Council member Marshall present. Council member Hopper. Council member Alers here. Council member Nyion. Council member Jackson here. All right. With that, we've got enough people to press on. So I don't see anybody in the room and I don't think I see anybody online for public participation. Right. Um so we will press on from that and move directly into our four information item on administration update on safe speeds safe streets initiative. Thanks chair. I'll take this one. And uh just wanted to give a brief update on something that the city's been doing with uh partnership with our precinct police over the course of April. Um, in 2025, we had, well, over the last couple years, we've received reports of loud vehicle noises down Clayton, Highway 100, and State Route 109. Um, along with that, Old States's also gotten some speeding complaints as of late. And, um,

we wanted to create a kind of a focused approach towards enforcement, but also communicating that it's dangerous um, to speed on these roadways to kind of trickle back and enforce the law. And we thought it paired really well with the fact that they were starting the state route 100. So in this case in April when construction had started for these day route 100 resurfacing left turn lanes the J turns project uh we also worked with the Wildwood precinct police to step up some enforcement over four total coordinated weekends over the course of April and May. Uh two of those weekends have transpired. Um of that over a 100 stops were made in these dedicated enforcement zones. Uh so in that case just wanted to provide a quick update tonight. Uh the memorandum kind of provides a little bit of a background. This information's been shared on our website. Uh we've been putting it out on social media quite frequently, just reminding residents. But the idea here is not only should you be abiding by the law, but you should be driving respectfully. Uh not at 2 am flaring your exhaust down the street and burning out tires. And on top of that, also uh just making sure you're driving respectfully in these construction zones because uh it lined well too with National Works Zone Awareness Week that took place from the 21st to the 26th. Uh so all this came together. Um we do have a message board also deployed on State Route 100 near uh the pathway. Um and also we are working to get a speed trailer put on Old State Road. So that's the most recent update. There will be two weekends um in the month of May. not hasn't been determined if it's this weekend or going to start up again next weekend, but there will be two additional weekends this month. And we'll try to sporadically, you know, touch upon this here then in the future, but we're trying to really focus in on the first two months to make sure the message is clear and have a coordinated effort towards it, but department's available for any questions. Right. Any questions? Any repeat offenders? Uh, not it's not from what I've heard. Uh, it

seems I guess we have one officer in the room. I don't know if you could speak to that, but it seems like it's uh definitely a wide ranging group of folks that are I figured that's good though. I know the neighbors are brightly the ones that were so concerned about it. Um again, you you come outside and the noise and again they're just really pleased with something about it. So what how is this in comparison to not speed track month or whatever we want to call it. So where it comes down to and I would like to thank our precinct Kathine because he was able to secure um some additional funding from the state to make this happen because quite frankly it's very expensive to have those bodies out there. U typically you're having our officers we have two traffic officers that are constantly rotating through and through u but they do split their shifts and the other thing is we have five beats that are being maintained hopefully at all given times. this has dedicated um in excess of five I won't say the exact word because I don't want to give people a counting number but in excess of five additional officers um along these roadways specifically focused on speed enforcement and hearing monitoring for the loud excessive noise so it net gain of about excess of five well I guess I'm asking like we've pulled over a 100 people or so right in a normal amount of time it would be most that would it's kind of Hard to compare because it's two different weekends, but it's most likely sitting or more like 20. So, it's not nearly as high. Great. Awesome. So, what's the ticket going these days for? Well, kind of ticket will they be cited? Well, it depends on that depends on how fast they're going, too. So, I mean, if they're going usually the police officer, they're going to give some leeway. Once again, there's a police officer in here, so I don't want to overspeak their operations. Um, but you know, they're going to give them some leeway because some vehicles they're the gauge that shows them the speed limit within the within the vehicle can be off. So that's when you hear that five mile per hour up or down. Um, that's where that comes

from. But I would say if you're going, you know, 20 over, you're going to be you're going to be having a good time in court. U, so we'll probably see these come through then on court reports. Yep. That it should you should see a small uptick probably within the next two months, I would say. I mean, it's actually less about that and more about the awareness side of it. I I would say that we definitely it the at the end of the day tickets we're writing are one thing, but I would say that this also speaks to the awareness where we're putting it out on social and whatnot too is just hopefully the folks that are speeding through 100 or 109. Uh they maybe they got pulled over, they maybe they got their first ticket in a long time and uh and they see the messaging on our social media. They see it through our e newsletter and they say, "Oh, wow. this is uh they're redoing the road and they're not they're not playing around. Uh so I'd say public safety is the number one goal here. I'm just thinking specifically in Manchester, I don't know if we'll know this. Uh are we writing are we stopping more people going west or coming east? It seems like the where it opens up is individuals that are uh well where where people really speed is they're going west and you pass the the pedestri where actually we strategically put that message board sign in a good spot right as you come up to the pedestrian [ __ ] you you pass Route 109 that intersection and then you get to the two-lane section and that's quite a bit of speeding takes place. I just didn't I thought it was I mean that sign is quite large. So I would I was curious to think like do we need to put the sign in the other side coming back and and let those people know or are we are people just ignoring the 8ft tall sign that says slow down and then blowing past it? I think that the former is because the other thing is with that the placement of the sign where it's at now on 100 it kind of accomplishes two goals. If you're going west, um, you get exposed to it, but also if you're going north or east, north or south on Route 109, you're also seeing it because

you're most likely coming from outside the city. So, you're taking 100 down. So, you're obviously not getting it if you're heading eastbound, but then when you go back, you'll see it. So, the hope is if you're hitting at least those two major thorough affairs, you're getting exposed to it and then hopefully taking the hint. um if you haven't seen it in the on our website, social media, the large message board posted, but sure enough, I would assume a lot of those people are not Wildwood residents. That could be. Um we have I do not have the data for that, so I I can't speak to that, but that would be an interesting statistic to know, too, because we do know Franklin County residents utilize it. And then if you look at 109, it's a whole plethora of individuals that use it. I think you're doing a great job, though. So, very good. Y good stuff. Oh, and we did not I don't think we did, did we? Oh, we didn't. I forgot. All right, we'll go back. Mr. Marshall is going to move to uh approve the minutes. Anybody care to second it? Any discussion or questions or anything like that? Lauren, you good? All right. All those in favor of the minutes, please say I. I. Anyone opposed? Tracy's going to abstain. Can I get a second? Oh. Uh yeah, Cliff seconded or Lauren. Either one. All right, the minutes pass. Uh that brings us anything else on the streets other than we'll uh the department will continue to provide some updates in the weekly report. So we'll usually on Fridays if it's about to be one of those enforcement weekends up the hey this weekend we'll be rolling them out there. But other than that it's going to be two weekends in May. Um focusing in hopefully we can take advantage of the Memorial Day holiday too. I think I I might suggest once it's all done and we have some time to like actually compile that data that we find a equitable way to like put that out too. Even including are they Wildwood residents? Are they coming from other places? It's not to like disparage anyone in particular, but I think it would be interesting to note that if you know 80% of them are Are they doing it on a holiday weekend at all? Memorial. As of right now, it's dependent on the resources the police department has on

them. So in this case, it's kind of by year, but it will be two weekends in May. Just one uh further suggestion. Rick helped out. I think it was about two years ago. I received a complaint of a resident on Hanken about speeding. And we put just the speed the speed monitoring sign out there on the road just to flash how fast people were going. So it it alerted the driver that they were sometimes people don't even know. Yeah. I mentioned it as a maybe after everything is said and done if that's inexpens I don't know if that was you deployed it I feel like for a month or two maybe deployment afterwards to reinforce the message on pay right now we're actually the pathar police precinct is working to get a permit from St. Louis County, which should be easy enough, but it is somewhat difficult for Old State to put it on Old State Road, so we can kind of expand the It's tough to put a plethora of officers over there. So, we're trying to actually put that same trailer up, which we can definitely do uh on 100 or 109, too. We will just have We will have to get a permit, though, from What if we just put it there? You could do that. What are they going to do? Tell us to move it? Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. It's It's happened before. And we could definitely we could definitely try. I'm just saying widen the road. Yeah. I didn't know we couldn't do that. Uh okay. Um anything else. All right. Moving on into our four action section. We've got a review and feed. Oh, yeah. Lauren, go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, just just I have a real quick question because I was talking to um an officer at the last council meeting before it started and he was explaining that the modifications that the cars had undergone to have the loud backfiring and to have the loud shift changes and um I know the cars do not come like that because there's a Mercedes in my neighborhood that's been altered by a teenage boy. So, I was just wondering in the same way that um you know normally if it was a different type

of crime, you would go after a place that's you know hawking goods or selling it. Is it possible to um have posters put up at the auto body shops that are making the modifications that like be aware if you invest in this or your child wants this that it violates noise codes and communities and it's a ticketable offense. I mean is that worth pursuing because there's areas making money off of this and so I don't I don't know where they're getting it done at. I would think that it'll be the same as when I was a teenage boy and everybody had limo tinted windows. Like if people are willing to pay for it, somebody's going to be willing to put it in and they don't care that much. I would guess. I mean, I can't figure that like a normal dealership does it. It's got to be someplace else. So, I don't know. Just thought Just a thought. All right. Anything else? Okay. Uh that takes us to our four actions section. We've got a review and feedback of our city mission and vision statements. And before you do that, Tom, I have something that I didn't send to you yet. That's right. But um I will send it to you, but I thought I would read it because everybody spent a pretty good amount of time on it and it lines up perfectly with this. So if that's all right, if everybody can bear with me for a moment, I'll try to do my public reading out loud, which is always exciting. Uh all right. This is a the council survey summary for the spring of 2025 compiled with a reflection of shared values and future considerations. In the summer of 2024, members of the Wildwood City Council were invited to complete a values and priority survey designed to explore shared priorities, long-term vision, and areas of alignment. Each participant completed this individually, and it was structured to allow self-reflection without group influence or attribution. The intent was to clarify where consensus naturally emerged while still preserving each member's independent perspective. The survey was also intended to give city staff and residents a clearer understanding of this council's shared priorities and guiding principles by surfacing areas of alignment. The goal

was to make long-term direction more legible both internally and externally. This summary represents the first time those insights have been compiled into a collective reflection. It is not intended as a mandate or pol policy position, but as a snapshot of shared themes, open questions, and common values expressed by this council. As new members take office, their perspectives will naturally shape the next phase of this conversation. This document is offered as a foundation, not a finish line for thoughtful governance moving forward. So, here's what we came up with. Um, governance, alignment, and shared direction. By the way, I didn't This is a it'll comes out at the end. All we did was take all of our answers and I put them into AI and then it read them and spit this out. So, we'll see what it says. Uh, government governance, alignment, and shared direction. One of the clearest shared themes to emerge from the survey was the importance of developing and maintaining clear citywide goals, not as an abstraction, but as a framework for evaluating and advancing wle level decisions. Rather than allowing localized pressure or proximity to drive outcomes, council members emphasize the value of transparent principal-based structure that ensures all projects policies and investments regardless of geography can be understood and measured against shared objectives. Quote, "Ensure that all ward specific projects align with an overarching citywide vision to promote consistency and unity while addressing the needs of individual areas." One of us said that. I'm not sure who it was, but that's where they pulled that from. Uh this reflect uh this reflects a broader understanding of the council's dual role. As one respondent put it, while each of us is elected to represent the interests of our specific ward, we are also elected to ensure the city as a whole fits into the vision our ward residents believe in. To do that, we must have a clear and consistent framework that applies across the city so that what we do and why we do it is transparent to everyone. And uh full disclosure being that that was me with that. Uh this council's willingness to reflect, listen, and

collaborate created an environment where shared values could surface naturally, offering future bodies a clear starting point to build a mutual trust. Areas of clear alignment. Environmental preservation is foundational. Respondents broadly emphasized the importance of protecting Wildwood's green space, trail systems, and topography. Preservation was framed not only as an identity marker, but as a planning constraint and long-term safeguard. Community character matters. Wildwood's neighborhood-based family centered structure balanced between rural and suburban zones was seen as central to the city's continued appeal. Respondents showed strong interest in maintaining identity as growers increase. Transparency and ethical governance are non-negotiable. Council members consistently affirm the importance of public accountability, clear communication, and decision-making rooted in community trust and fiscal responsibility. The master plan should guide growth with some flexibility. The master plan was affirmed as a vital policy tool. While some called for responsiveness to changing conditions, nearly all agreed that it should remain the city's structural backbone, not overridden, but adapted carefully and transparently as needed. Stewardship of parks and public spaces. Council members consistently identified Wildwood's parks, trails, and open spaces as a core strength of the city and a defining element of its character. The emotional and civic value of these assets was strongly affirmed. The consensus was clear. Preserve and care for what we've already built. Nearly all respondents emphasized the need to maintain and steward the park system, especially in light of challenges like erosion, invasive species, and infrastructure load. Quote, "The reason our founders and many of us live in Wildwood, is because of the beautiful outdoor spaces to enjoy. Parks and trails are nice, but we cannot continue to build them without resources to maintain them. No significant push for expansion was present. Instead, the shared sentiment was that Wildwood Park system is a civic achievement, and its continued care is a priority." Strategic emphasis and planning lenses. While council members align strongly on values, they often emphasize different priorities or planning angles. These aren't

disagreements so much as different emphasises on how and when to act. Tone of communication. Most supported a communication tone that is clear, modern, and accessible to residents. A few expressed caution about tone becoming too casual or overly branded, underscoring the need to balance approachability with professionalism. Growth strategy and town center development. All respondents agreed that growth should be intentional. However, what that meant in practice varied. Some supported modest mixeduse opportunities to support families and local businesses. Others prioritized caution, citing infrastructure capacity and rural character. There was broad agreement that any future activity in Town Center must be carefully aligned with infrastructure readiness, visual consistency, and community input. The focus was not on expansion, but on getting it right, balancing present needs, and future viability. Some respondents focused on meeting the practical needs of today's residents, maintenance, fiscal care, while others emphasized long-term vision and adaptability. These are not competing views, but complimentary planning timelines that will continue to shape policy trade-offs. Quote, many responses reflected a commitment to governing not only for current residents, but with an eye toward the families and stakeholders will shape who will shape Wildwood's future. Acknowledged challenges still in progress. Though many priorities were aligned, a few shared challen a few shared challenges remain. Infrastructure and environmental stress, storm water management, aging infrastructure and trail degradation was cited as continuing burdens, especially as weather patterns shift and development ages. Restoration of degraded spaces. While preservation is strong, several members noted that many green spaces are now degrading or ecologically unstable, calling for more coordinated restoration strategies. Quote, "We make no effort to salvage degraded spaces into worthwhile ones. Our watersheds are in crisis. These are not these are were not presented as crises, but as an ongoing responsibility that future councils will need to weigh in on carefully. Economic development and local business. While not a central focus of the survey, several members noted that responsibly

supporting local business vitality is important for Wildwood's long-term sustainability. There was little support for large-scale commercial expansion. The most ex the most consistent thread was interest compatible economic development that protects character while enabling a sustainable tax base. Closing note, this report is not intended as a position paper or directive. It is a snapshot, a reflection of shared values, civic care, and thoughtful differences of opinion among the current council. It honors the service of those stepping down and offers a foundation for future members to build upon as the council transitions. This summary may serve as a bridge, offering future members a snapshot of the values and questions this body sought to navigate in service of the community. While not an official action, the summary may also serve as a helpful resource for future council members, city staff, and residents seeking to understand the current council's priorities. Processing note. This summary was compiled using data provided directly through the city council value survey conducted in the summer of 2024 and was processed without modification or reinterpretation by a thirdparty AI system chat GPT by open AAI. Responses were not altered or anonymized during analysis. Quotations are either directly pulled from submitted responses or were noted which I didn't see any notes are statements made publicly but by participating council members. This document is intended as a reflection, not a directive, and does not represent a formal action of the council. So, there we go. That was our big survey thing that we did. I appreciate everybody taking the time. Um, I think although nobody got to hear these things beforehand, at least I think in the last year, we've certainly lined up pretty well on those. So, that's a good thing. Uh, and I'm excited to see what the next council will bring to the table as well. How many out of 16? 15. So that's pretty much everybody. I was pretty surprised. Yes, sir. You know, just um you know, reflecting off the things stated about parks, has there ever been an initiative for a tax increase to support parks?

There was a couple years ago and didn't pass. It didn't pass, but I mean, from my recollection, it also wasn't communicated effectively. So, it's been a while. I mean, am I right? Yeah. But that it was not to maintain it that part. It was to buy the community part. Oh, okay. Well, so then voted it down, but then we bought it anyway. And we bought it anyway. That was a real popular campaign issue. You go out there and knock on those doors. How much was the uh increase for to buy that, do you think? What was the It was over 3 million, 2.3 million. No, what was the how was it? I think should the city should the city buy? Oh, I thought it it wasn't like it wasn't increase. I think maintaining would pass. I really I think we I mean that I know I'm sorry to interrupt you this time. So like I know we've had conversations 2009 or 2008 was when it was on the ballot where more than likely I think it's like a storm water and parks tax like I think Leoo has passed that recently. We have talked since 2000. Yeah. That once we had a park bill built once we had some trail usage we should go out and get for water erosion and for park maintenance right and get a half a cent sales tax. But the whole idea is let's show them anniversary park first. Yeah. Let's build something so that they know that we're doing it and you just could never get the council built all the things. And I think I mean correct me if I'm wrong Tom. My reading of the tea leaves we're not going to get this money from the state most likely again. Yeah, it seems that way right now for the for the water jet. So I mean you know this is now three years in a row that we've we need to do it ourselves. We're going to have to do it if we want it done. We got to do it. Think we need to fire our guy. That's uh maybe I mean I don't know that it's honestly I'm not sure that there's a lot of levers he can pull. I mean this the the conversation that has happened now is the I don't know what the I have a guess what the former governor's problem with this was. I know what this guy's problem with it is and it's that Wildwood is just too affilent to get any

money which is a perspective but also I'm fairly sure that Wildwood puts an awful lot of money into the state. So, it would be curious to know how much of that comes back our direction, especially on things like this. Um, okay. No, it might be time to look at that kind of tax, you know, for the erosion and parks maintenance. Lauren, I see your hand. Yeah, I I've said it before, but just because I'm leaving, I I'll throw one more Hail Mary football, which is to consider passing the internet use sales tax first. And the reason why is because you can only place that as a local point of sales tax for the parks and storm water. If you think about our our stores and and restaurants and and businesses that we have here, it's not a huge base and we already have, you know, prop capital improvement sales tax, all these other taxes in our our small municipal business load. But if you start with internet use sales tax, you're capturing a wider net and then you can always wait a couple of years and add that other tax level on and that will still be, you know, the sales if if it's put through an online purchase as well. and there's a a storefront. So, you know, a lot of the stores that we have there are boutiques. You can order and pay some things online and have it shipped. So, you're still not going to capture some of that money even at the local level. So, I I still think make the case for that that broader net because the way people are purchasing things has changed forever and once you do one in this economy, it's going to be really hard to go back and do the other. So, And I mean, we have a lot of stuff to pay for here and no way to do it. So, we got to get that sorted. Um, all right. Anybody have any other thoughts on our survey or any of that stuff? I'll turn it over here to Tom and he can Good job, though. Thank you. Thanks. I think it'll be useful to the new members. I hope so. Yeah. I mean, the idea will be, you know, anybody that's still on the council can read if they have opinions

that have changed, they can fill it back out and we'll certainly invite the new folks and, you know, or even dig into some of the questions a little deeper. Yeah. I mean, my thing is, you know, if we're if we're in a place where we have a I mean, it's not going to ever be, it's rarely going to be agreement 100%. But if we know that we've got a majority consensus, which is what this is saying, then some of these questions can kind of be put to bed and we can focus on the ones that Well, so much of, you know, 25, 30 years ago, society's changed totally. Yeah. And unfortunately, you look around and say, well, the town center was never designed to look like we have now, you know. So, I mean, all of those different pieces have changed. People's demanding change. I mean, it's not a walking community. Yeah. So, you wouldn't, oh, it's going to be all walking me. I live a mile from here. You know, I walk over. It's intentional, right? But that's not the case for other people. So, when we have all these stores built to go in the front side and out the backside, that's just not working when you don't have people walking on the streets. So, I think a lot of the the stuff, it's not that it was wrong, it's just times have changed. 30 years is a long time. All right. Tommy, anything you want to add? I didn't mean to steal your thunder. Well, I think that was that was very nicely put. I'm excited to review it. But uh with that and I guess you know I see I wish we could have that feedback to work. I actually compared the two if you want me to tell you what the comparison is. Yeah, let's let's see that. Pull it up here. One sec. And then uh I guess I can provide a little brief overview of where this is stemming from to uh well we'll wait. Hi. Um, one of the things I know when I ran this the first time, I'm just going to pull it up and make sure I get it right the second time around, is um, they basically line up pretty much

exactly with what your memo is going to say here. Um, the priorities I think the uh, the order is maybe a little bit different, but that doesn't mean that they're any less important. Um, so that's I think I would suggest like I did actually think I thought about this after I we approved the memo. I thought it was kind of a strange time to do this since we're having new people come in, but I also know that it's important to get done. Um, so here's where the lineup is. You keep going. you go and I will and this is something that you know obviously um everyone knows that we've hired a new communications economic development manager and something that the city team has been working on as a dedicated group of us has been working to put together u a refresh of the city's website but as we've been doing that we're also kind of auditing the website in a sense to see what documents and what um pages uh really asking the question looking at Google Google Analytics and looking at all types of data sources to see are people actually visiting this page of the site is it helpful? Um, this has resulted in the creation of an FAQ that we're actually situating on the homepage. Um, that's based off the calls that are coming into the front desk, but also consistent emails that we get, but really those quick easy to answer. If they just had access to quick answer, they might not even have to make the calls. Trying to get that info out. U, the other component though is that our communications manager was reviewing some of our language and had asked just a general question of, hey, uh, when was the last time the mission and vision statement had been updated? and I said, "It's been a long time." Um, so me and her work together to put together what's before you tonight is kind of just a refresher, but the idea is to kind of make it a little bit more direct, clear, and approach. I think the a good word there what I heard from summary uh was approachable but professional. Um trying to make make the language a little bit more like that so it can be utilized on um other documents that we're

publishing. So that was the thought tonight. we have some provided and proposed language. Uh that said, obviously we wanted to open it up to the committee to get feedback and see if we want to change anything or if we want to keep it the same way, that's fine, too. Uh or we could wait until we get the new council in as well, which would be uh would be a pretty short time to wait, too. So, we could just bring this back as well. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I I know we originally when we did our survey we talked about trying to have a a kind of a broader conversation among the council and obviously for a lot of reasons which we were doing other city business we didn't get a chance to do that but I think now that we've kind of seen it play out and how it lined up which seems to line up pretty well how votes go I do think I know in talking to Mayor Garano it's important for him and for you guys to be able to get a real clear understanding. So, I mean, I think we can get I mean, from a math standpoint, there are what, four new council members coming in, I think. So, the odds of this shifting dramatically is pretty slim. That being said, I do think it's important to get their perspective on where they're at. Um, but I mean I think I'm happy to give this to you guys and you know I think a lot of those details are in here and if you have like really more specific questions I can put them in this thing and it can probably answer them based on what we got. Um, so this was going to spit this out in just a second. So, it says, "All right, here we go." Um, maybe. So, we got to work on the internet in this building. Oh, uh, speaking of which, a little side topic. I know they're doing the stuff across the way at Deerbergs. I think that's the fiber cable running across the road. Is that right? Very aware of that. Yes. So I yeah I noticed the other over the weekend that there was like a three-ft section just hanging over the curb that

I was like somebody's going to hit this and then somebody wise like wisely went and moved that over and then left a giant section in the middle where people are just probably assumed driving directly over it. I know it's probably meant to take a load. I don't know that it's meant to take that much of a load. It's not and it's something that we've addressed the spectrum. They should have been out there to clean it up today. Yeah, I was going to say they should have been out there. I don't know if they're they're trying to get it underground restored and um that should be happening as quickly as possible. Yeah. I just don't I mean I I I went back and forth over the weekend like I don't know how much of the responsibility we as a city should have to have in terms of getting these guys to do what seems like literally the most basic thinking on something like probably don't create a tripping and car hazard with a thing that I imagine if it rips takes out half of the internet in that complex. It it it definitely resulted in the u each time that that had an issue and it did three different times to eight businesses. Cool. And that's good to know. Yeah. Um okay, here's the comparison. Uh so the we aligned on the governance framework. Both agreed on the need for citywide vision as the compass for local decisions. So we're going to work hard putting that together. Um we aligned on the environmental preservation. The message is the same. The memo elevates it a little bit more clearly. Um, parks and trails. The memo reorganizes this under alignment rather than challenge, but the message is identical and framed well. Growth and town center. The memo reframes the discussion as getting it right rather than choosing sides, but the substance is still the same. Yeah, that matches. Yes, there is nothing that does not match from what we got and what you got. Um, so in that case, is that comparing it to the revised statements? So this is comparing what I read to your memo. Awesome. On that case, uh we can I'll take a

look. Well, the idea today, this has to be uh for the mission and vision statements. This will be published on our website used in publishing documentation. Um we'll probably do something on in the gazette about it too, like we're rejuvenating this effort to and kind of goes with our website redesign. It would to actually solidify a mission and vision statement since it's an organizationalwide statement. It would need to be approved most likely through a resolution by the full city council. That would in theory go in front of the new city council and during the second session next week. So So here here I I mean we can do it however you want. The department would be fine with the postponement. I think we wait because these guys aren't going to know at least one month or two. Yeah. Give them a month to get it under their belt. So just a comment on this. Yeah. One thing I always think is interesting and I think that people have this belief that when they hear something that's what it is and they have no clue that it's not something that they control, right? And I just wonder if somehow tweaking a few of the words we could clarify a little bit where it is up to the city because when the state and if you go back and look now I mean all of our cell phone towers we have no control of the stuff that we thought we had control over as we incorporated gone. Right. So I I just wonder how you build that communication that when you can I guess you can assume you can always do it but it's really hard for people to stomach the fact that the city can't do anything about those things. Yeah, I thought the same thing. I know over the weekend there was you know the news came out a couple days ago about the Lasale Institute and there was a quite a conversation on Mayor Gitano's page about that. But I mean the truth of the matter is I think it's important for the city to put out a statement to say I mean there's only so much if they want us it's just like if your neighbor wants to sell their house like you can love your neighbor all you want if they're moving that's how it works and then we can maybe put out like you know at this moment if it if nothing were to change technically speaking this is what could go there I mean I think that can apply all over the place because you know

whether it's the it's the two you know kind of historical sites or even you know over by you know N38 or or where the you know and so I mean we keep it we always come back saying our master plan our chart and all that stuff but really conjunction we don't own the land right so then you're dealing with you unhappy people or people with more money we've had situations where they didn't like what we did so they went to the state and got to override it to used to be the driving range down across high school that lawsuit after lawsuit terminated employee after terminated employee because we wouldn't let him sell liquor across from the high and next thing you know the state came back and said well actually he can annex into Eureka now. Yeah. So there's an and that was a Wildwood representative who made that happen at the state. So I mean I just think that's the kind of stuff that's really hard for people to grasp and I think it's hard for all of us sometimes to wonder why don't we have any say in that. Um, so I don't know how you tweak it or how you work it in there, but maybe that's something that have something that's like decisions within our own control kind of reframing like we can only we can only um represent and respect the constituents for things we have any say on, right? You know, when it's not ours to control. Yeah. I mean the the conversation was obviously unfavorable in terms of what people thought would go in if the institute gets sold but we we have I mean number one it would have to be sold and number two we would have to wait for somebody to bring us a proposal but to kind of quell some of what's going on it would make sense because I mean people are like they're going to put 700 houses here. Yeah. Okay. Well, probably not. 109 has got to be widened. Yeah. Right. And so I think putting out, you know, getting ahead and and I do think where Paula will come into play with this and with her kind of history is, you know, understanding we as a city need to do a better job of getting out in front of these stories rather than letting, you

know, a well-meaning but very misinformed person spreading things that are just factually inaccurate. I mean, we had that in a way. We had that last time with with the N38 with the news here that like I don't know if anybody watched that story, but very little of that was actually accurate in any way, including showing what was being built, which happened to be our park. So I mean we need to do a good job of whatever it is whether it's the speed things or the you know hey we're putting out we have invested this amount of money into putting this surface on old state road which in all honesty is the extent that what the city can do like just be honest and make it simple and I would also say and maybe this is more of a conversation I guess for planning and zoning but like I just am of the opinion the vast majority of residents have no idea idea what zoning designations actually mean. There are four and neighborhood edge and whatever. All they see is 10,000 houses coming in and so we need to just say, "Hey, if Leelis 2 got sold and was built tomorrow, it could accommodate whatever it is. 99 houses. That's it. We can definitely have that discussion. That's and we for the LEAL press release. I don't see any issue with that. We'll have to have the statement framed by the city attorney, but Sure. Other than that, it's Yeah, but I mean I think and I think it's just that process like the things that we know that are going or happening because even I mean I didn't I haven't seen it but you know when the church across the way they're sold and I'm I know I got some phone calls that were let's call them strange and I would assume that that will continue as that becomes a little bit more noticeable. Um but getting out in front of that stuff is any suggestions about putting a park in where they're Mhm. I mean, everybody would I think there's 120 acres there. I think, you know, that's a pretty expensive part. But the

other thing and and you know, I mean, you know, in fairness to the guy selling it, you know, it it would also help people to understand, yeah, this is like the the asking price is whatever it is, $3 million. So, the city's not the city doesn't have $3 million. So, even if we wanted to put a park in here, we couldn't. 12 15 million. But they will have city water now. That's important. There you go. Sorry. individ cemetery there, too. That going to be They got all kinds of stuff over there. That'll be weird. Um, okay. Anybody have anything else on our mission statement or any of that stuff? Good job. Go ahead and bring that back. Yeah. Oh, do you want a motion or does it matter? Uh, no, it doesn't matter. Oh, I guess could we do a motion to postpone until a specific date? You want to postpone like six six two months? Made by Mr. Marshall. Anybody care? Second. Seconded by Miss Nian or Lauren, either one. All right. Uh, all those in favor of bringing this back in 60 days, please say I. I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. We'll bring it back for the new council to get their perspectives on. Moving on. That brings us to our deer sampling analysis. Very exciting, I'm sure. Here we go. Thank you, Chair Farmer. Um, so the department's given a couple of reports. Obviously, it's the final report that was submitted recently. uh and we won't have to rehash those items if if the department needs to. We weren't happy to. Um that said, recently we had 361 deer that were cold in the NE2 region. That's the region that's north of the Strucker Shepard area Shipper Road area. Then also um east of 109 uh all the way up into the Wildwood city limit. U that said, after the completion of the most recent work, we wanted to have a deer sampling analysis conducted. We did one in 2024. The one before that was in 2020 when we first started uh discussing this this uh professional targeted sharpshooting as a

um as a reasonable solution. That said, this year we were focused in on a couple different areas. Uh obviously going back and checking the work for NE1 and NE2 and then also looking at a new area which encompasses the city hall that we are sitting in now. Uh which is the SE1 region. Uh we've actually gotten quite a few calls and few residents have reached out along Old State and some other areas that would qualify in the SE1 region. So we wanted to revisit that area just to see the data from 2020 was actually showing that there wasn't too high of a population. We wanted to check and see if that had changed because it almost serves as a good base statistic for us. Um that said, data is pretty good. It's showing that in any one in 2020 we went and this needs to be taken with somewhat of a grain of salt because there are the 95% confidence interval is an important statistic to look at that can range. Usually you're trying to tighten that range um when doing these modelings. But truly what it is when you do a sampling you having officers go out and run a transect. A transect is just a a route. You choose specific streets that you're going down. You have two folks that are sitting on both sides looking out into the the adjacent yards, the areas, and they're counting deer. They're looking to spot deer and they've been um trained up by the Department of Conservation. So, that's helpful, but they're just collecting the raw data. When we get that data in, it's literally just the weather conditions. It's a how many deer at each location, what that uh what that exact location was, and then we send that data to White Buffalo, who did not collect it, but we're keeping data separate. uh and then they come back with an analysis using it's a pretty complicated uh software tool that we've tried to use a couple times and it's very difficult to do the statistical modeling. It's seems like it's built in 2003 though it's been very difficult but that said they have come back and any one we've seen significant significant

improvement over the last two years and one little anecdote at the bottom uh will also kind of show that if you don't control for a certain area it can affect your whole data set. So, one, I mean, in 2020, you saw anyone at 94.5 deer per square mile. Um, and that's the average, and you have somewhat of a range, but that was the average. Then you saw in 2024 that go down to 73.5. And then in 2025, you saw it go down to 58.8 deer per square mile. So you see after working for the last two years, you're seeing a consistent decrease, which is good to see because that means especially with working there two years in a row, u it shows that the replacement level of the deer is most likely close close to zero. We can't confirm that, but it does seem that when when we're providing the work in these areas that it's decreasing the numbers. So, one thing I want to point out about NE1, um, which is the the large farm farm property we have on the northern bound of any one, if you take into account the deer that are observed along the uh, that property and along, you know, along the valley road area, those types of areas, you actually bring that number down to 37.1 deer per square miles. So, if you control for an area that we have not had good access, um you actually bring that number down to where we're we're targeting. That said, I don't know if we'll that the circumstances will change in the future that'll allow us to get access to those properties. One that we have looked at and worked at on the last two years is the Boy Scouts properties, a very large um acre tract over valley. But overall, uh it's good to see that, you know, decrease each year over year. We actually had less work in the N1 region this year than we did last. So, this was really going back and doing some of the cleanup. So, that said, uh that seems to be at a pretty pretty good number for now, especially when you control for the the large farmland on the northern edge.

And then the NE2 region, you actually see even some even better stats. You saw it's a little wonky though. Here's where we want to really just be put this data under a spotlight because it is sampling analysis. So if you see NE2 in 2020 it was at 64.2 deer per mile square mile and then in 2024 it jumped up to 94.2 deer per square mile. So that's a clear increase. I mean there was no work done in the NE2 region um during year year one and obviously from 2020 to 2024 that was a 4year uh each year increase for the deer population. But when we did the count uh back in March of 2025 we did the majority of the work in the NE2 region. Uh we actually got that down to 34 deer per square mile which is under the threshold of 40. Uh now the idea is can we have it translate into deer vehicle collisions which along Shepard along uh Shreker we're thinking it will and hopefully along Wild Horse and then 109 on those adjacent properties too. Um and then kind of the control here that that shows that even though this is this data can fluctuate it does also show u that it's a pretty good way method of collecting. consistent. You know, at the SE1, which no work has been completed over the last two years, uh in 2020, you had a deer population of 40.3 deer per square mile, and in 2025, you saw it increased to about 42.9. So, it's remained pretty consistent, but that brings up the the next issue within our kind of our planning stage is right now we're getting into that phase of it. uh the SE1 region, we were kind of thinking that we would we were expecting to see a pretty significant increase just based off what we saw in NE2 u and with the fact that our uh white buffalo when they were out in the field, they did not have issues finding and calling deer out in the N2 region. So there's clearly an overabundance of deer in those areas. But in SE1, our target, at least from the the program goal is that 40 deer per

square mile and it seems as if SE1 is kind of hovered right around that target goal. Uh that said, when thinking of next steps, there's a couple ideas that the department wanted to present. Uh one would include you doing some touch-up work in SE1 to see if White Buffalo goes out and gets property access along some key corridors in SE1 and then has a very easy job at hunting them um and calling them that could show that there's maybe a larger maybe it's closer to the upper bound, which was recorded at 61.4 deer per square mile. uh but if they don't really have too much trouble uh if they have quite a bit of trouble calling enough deer in the SC1 region maybe that's not an area we should be working. So the idea is not to throw a ton of resources in year three toward SE1 since the data suggesting that it's at a pretty reasonable level um and approach it in three with three different way in three different ways. one uh revisit any two with conditions. So reapproach the uh send out another letter and reapproach all the HOAs that did not allow common ground access and 2024 and 25 and ask them um we will include you but we need guarantees up front. So before a contract would be signed we would have that that write off or the common ground access and that would almost be the um the permission slip needed to pro proceed. The next step would be going and having a limited footprint in the SE1 region, specifically along Old State, some more traffic corridors on the south side of 100. Um maybe a couple spots, but not necessarily throwing the whole um the whole the whole campaign and all the resources at them. The other component which could prove more difficult and may it's just based off distance is potentially choosing a route either state route 100 or state route 109 and creating it's kind of moving away from our process here but sandwiching one or the other and tackling the roadways that

we're seeing the most deer vehicle collisions. So at the end of the day right now in 100 and 109 Shepard and Shreker that's where we're experiencing the most numbers of DVCs each year. So we're looking at it from a perspective we want to see the biggest decrease in DVC's as possible and stretch our dollar dollar the furthest because at the end of the day we want to be able to show that direct correlation. Uh this year, the most recent deer uh annual crash analysis showed approximately 20 deer uh 20 less collisions in the NE1 region. Um in deal that was just from 23 to 24. So we saw 20 less car accidents at least for one year. It needs to be repeated over time, but that shows some significant progress. Now it's looking at the areas west of 100 but just along the state route 100 area and then also maybe looking at 109 or choosing an area with the highest density of deer vehicle collisions and then sending out a letter to about point. We know that deer do not travel too far outside of their their natural habitat. So they're not going from one side of the city to the other. So if you take a u you know a dot put it in the center of highway 100 and you go north and south half mile each side you're containing a large percentage of deer population effectively the ones that are trafficking across the road and getting hit by cars. Uh so the department's somewhat different approach this year would be since we did not see a drastic increase in the number of deer in the SE1 region would be to deploy some resources there and still have them be included but also to utilize the additional resources to actually start most likely looking at 109 or 100. We'd only we had between one because if white buffalo traveling back and forth from sites it's going to reduce the number amount of time they're actually spending uh calling the herd. That said, um we've got a pretty good understanding of where the deer are being hit. Usually it's west of 109 on 100 and we also see quite a few deer hit along the entire corridor

of 10. But the department's just looking for feedback tonight. Uh we're working with White Buffalo on some of these ideas. They did say that we would have to kind of choose a chunk of 100 or 109. We could not do the whole thing. It would limit their just their capabilities. But I do think you need to have also a revisiting of some of those subdivisions in SE I mean any two and then also look at SE1 and offer that to some of the residents especially along State Road for any questions. Lauren. Yeah, I think what made this year and last year so successful is we revisited NU1. So I think any proposal should include N2 again. Um just to just to rehit it like like you said. Um and I think the other one you mentioned was SE1. I I just want to make sure I understand if we target the road areas based on the heat map, are we still expecting to call the same amount? You say call the same amount? Yeah, because I I guess what I'm asking is is, you know, you might have density that's that's higher over here and you could get more volume and maybe like less deer, but they're more, you know, close to the road over here. So, I didn't know if we did this if we wouldn't reduce the population as significantly and I understand that that the car strikes are very important. I want to work on that, but it's not my only health concern. So, um the county just and we need to advertise this too anytime we do deer updates, but the county is collecting ticks this year because alpha gal is spreading beyond deer ticks and and or two deer ticks beyond um the lonear tick. So there's there's other issues where bringing the population density down is is still very important in addition to the the cartr. So if you have your tick, you're supposed to bag them and drop them off. Just so you know, any tick at all, they want them. Mr. commercial. I I just think that if we did get some of the information on the automobile hits and then maybe in

those areas where we know there seems to be some residents that are in favor versus the homeowners association that may not be, I think we could make a pretty good fact sheet that would really be able to give the trustees what they need to support it based on the fact that how do you say no if there's been 15 deer accidents right outside your entrance? I mean, put dollars to it and and you know those that we were spending 300 bucks a year for plants that the deer would just ride off, you know. So, I mean, just when you get back to everybody, oh, they're so cute. They're so cute. Yeah. But there's a lot of car damage and and you know, property damage um that could be. So, I think having the right information to go to the homeowners association and say, "Hey, we'd like to get 10 minutes of your meeting and share this with you." and they said, "No, then let's figure out how to get something on their website." You know, they they I just need help. HOA go straight to the residents. Yeah. And just try to figure it out. But that would help. That's the other convincing thing we do have is we have in the HOAs that we've had some issues getting the property access. We have on average about five residents at least. And that's just on the bottom end that express interest because we did try that. We tried reaching out directly to the residents. They were responded, but then you know the property that they they live on and it was never the neighbor. We never got four neighbors in a row that were like, "Hey, let's all get together and you know, and they would always ask, is the HOA cool with this?" And we would say, "Well, we talked to them. They're not letting us use their common ground." Then they would back off. Um, so that's I think going straight to the HOA and providing, "Hey, we've not exactly where, but if you need it, technically, you can make a public records request. We have at least five residents in your area, and I can name the address and the person who lives there." Um, well, face it, none of the trustees want that job. They don't. I mean, I'm just anybody who's ever done it. So, I mean, it'd be one more way to take some of that hassle off their is to let them say, "Hey, the city said that this

is a way to make sure that we can reduce car accidents and property damage and that kind. Let us be the bad guys there." But we do I think we have some pretty valuable information just like us. They don't want to get involved and they you get one or two neighbors who just will continuously blame the trustees for everything. Mr. Um um do do we get many complaints on the cost of this? Not really. Not as many as you think. And we've had maybe I got the only guy. Okay. Yeah. There there is, you know, there's one or two, but nobody's done it. We haven't done it over in W 8 yet. Everywhere we've done it. This guy was in W 8 that I accidentally talked to, you know, and uh he thinks it's a ridiculous amount of money. And is he a bow hunter? I don't think he is, but but he he thinks he he thinks we should be able to get a manage hunt of residents, blah blah blah. And I said, there's a lot of liability issues there. What it said, it's not just that. Encourage him to read the deer the the the the writeup that's been done on this, the deer management paper. Yeah. The managed hunts can't keep up. They're not keeping up. No, I Okay. Yeah. I just I just wondered if And that's something else I could say. Well, you know, most residents are on board with this. I think I already said that to them, you know, and city's really happy with that. We do actually have, just for everyone's information here, we have um well, we don't, but the county uh goes out to Greensfelder and I think they do Babler as well. Yeah. Uh where they actually do have managed hunts, but the return on those hunts. So you can problem is with manage hunts is you're having folks from all different skill levels that go out and thing is too they're looking for a buck. They they're going out and they're getting a good opportunity um to go after that real big trophy deer and quite frankly once they fill up their the problem is when whenever you have a group of hunters in general if they fill up their freezer and they fill up their

friend's freezer typically that's when you'll see them stop showing up. And then uh the other thing is I mean if you don't somehow the good thing about white buffalo I will say this that since they're being compensated they are professionals in the field too they've been excellent to work with but since they're compensated they really don't care if it's a buck dough or you know a fawn whatever it is on a on a manage hunt who would run that or oversee that typically it's St. Louis County in coordination with Missouri Department of Conservation. So they they do they they tag team them in our national park not national sorry our parks within our city our county parks and they actually do they do a operation in Babler as well but it does not yield too many results. It it's I think it was like they had a hundred hunters in Greensfelder and they ended up only calling like 80 deer over a course of a month. So, it was it it's a it it's just not ideal if you're try what I almost look at it as for utilizing these services. It's almost like a surgeon going in and surgically removing the abscess around the problem and you're able to do it without having a large impact on the surrounding tissue, which would be our recipe. Okay. But that So, I've got a motion for you or somebody if they'd like to make it. But I do have a question. How many deer strikes are we getting in that shepherd striker where that farm where we can't get access? I was actually pulling that up. You know the Department of Conservation did a kill on that property. That's the right they did that how many He does do it on his own. Yes. But he doesn't let us Yeah. He apparently doesn't do it well because there's there's a ton of deer over there. They took they took 35 deer out there in one year bottom department conservation 10 15 years. Um, well, while you're looking this up, here's a motion I came up with. So, if anybody wants to pick this up, I assume you're looking for a motion, right? Okay. So, here's what it is. Uh, we'd like to recognize the success of the 2025 deer

management program and continuing it in 2026 with a refined corridor-based strategy focused on areas with high deer vehicle collisions in herd density. The city further urges subdivisions along these corridors to grant access to common ground as continued refusal undermines public safety and shifts the burden onto other neighborhoods. Broader participation is essential to achieving citywide impact. If new access cannot be secured, the program will return to previously participating areas to preserve gains and prevent population rebound. If anybody likes that, they can pick it up or change it or whatever you want to do. But I think that does what you're asking, right? I think so too. Uh I agree. And to give you just a rough summation, it's the majority of the strikes are really occurring uh along 109 100, but you do have the HOAs that were we needed access for truly uh they're along 109 on the east side. So that would getting access to those properties would have provided a better opportunity for us to really address a small grouping of accidents along 109 as you're approaching Babler is kind of the area that I'm talking about. And then we actually don't have too many uh collisions that are taking place along Wild Horse. There's, you know, in 2024 alone there was four. It's not none. So it's not zero. So that's still um still concerning. had said that was the other access point. That's same thing though you have um that area would still impact the deer that are crossing 109. It was close enough. And then the same could be said, you know, you still have and that this the deer the crash analysis that I'm looking at right now, it does not reflect uh the most recent calling. So, we actually are hoping to see a decrease that whole quadrant up north pretty much north of 100 um and east of 109. We should just see that slowly turn off. I mean, at the end of the day, you could

have residents that still hit them, but you should see it reduced. Um, it's still pretty much tightly packed right north of 100 and going along. All right, Tracy. So, when you talk about um subdivisions along 109, because I do believe the density of the car accidents, but I also think the density of the residents because odds go up if there's more drivers and there's and so you're talking like Garden Valley, Oakidge Trails, West Hampton, right along there, right? Because that's right. And that and the other thing is too what originally how these maps were made they were kind of well I I quite frankly the department was not involved in making the maps but I would have had this is just a personal recommendation I would have had the map extend across the street of 109 because you want to sandwich the main road. We did end up doing that for our mailers. So, not to fret, but when it comes to a an analysis of where this took place, you know, where we could actually study, you want to repeat that same surface, that same area. Um, so that said, we still op we did operate west of 109 in some spaces. Well, this this would fix that then because if you get enough people on both sides. Yep. That's exact. That's the approach. So going back and kind of revisiting and using kind of a sandwich approach in some of these areas to really try to crank down because the other thing is you know this program noticing that this program is not the cheapest thing that the city does. So one of the things that the department wants to be able to hold you know hold tall. We saw 20 less deer accidents it seems. Want to see that repeated. But um if you would head on attack 100 or 109 north of one north 10 109 and you're able to say we reduced you know number of car accidents each year by 50 to 60. You know we start getting into 100 that's a 100 people that's lives are changed overnight. So I mean over the course of a year. So, I mean, that's I almost feel like deer vehicle collisions when I speak with residents and I've spoken to many of them. That is the most and I I bring up I would say that the

the ticks are a problem too. There are serious issues with ticks the damage to properties. I get a lot of that as well. But the thing that is really going to get a a resident motivated to to participate is when you bring up the fact that we have on average in the last five years 242.6 deer hit by a car in Wildwood each year. That's being reported. That's that's being reported. Yep. That's that's per the police reports. Yeah. And then what's the average damage per car? I mean, that's exactly it. You just bring the dollar amount. Yeah. And then if you take that, you start multiplying that out. I mean, I'm interested to actually know how much what percentage of the city and it's not all Wildwood residents, but I mean almost every staff member on the team has hit a deer going home. Um I I would I would actually guess that the number is much higher. My do my daughter totaled a car with a deer six months ago and it wasn't reported because there was no reason to report it. It was there was no other motorist involved. It went straight to the insurance company. Exa Exactly. And see that happens quite a bit and and a deer wasn't killed along the road. The only time when time they take off. And to provide some clarity on when those are reported, it's one or two ways. It's, you know, person hits the deer, it does die, but they report it to the police, they come out. Um then it's taken care of there. The city actually does remove deer off our rightway, but then the state removes theirs. So, we're not necessarily collecting that data. Uh, but the other side of it is if the police are called out to a scene, the deer is injured grievously and and it's putting them down that they do also do that. So, those are the two that we're referring to when we say at 246. I mean, it's much higher. Yeah. So, when someone hits them and especially if like they're in their neighborhood, it's a it's a ding and they're just going to turn it into insurance. If it drives, they're probably just going to go home. Well, and I've put deer down in my neighborhood that have been hit, not wanting to use their time. Yeah. So, there are deer that are not going to be reported and so that number is low.

Yeah. All right. Well, who wants to who has interest in making this motion or a different one? Are there Mr. Alers? I'll make your motion. Okay. Anybody care to second it? Did Did the motion include the open houses or does that need to be part of the motion? Although that'll we'll do those naturally with the for the whatever the next we'll bring just for two things. We'll bring this back once we have like a not even a firm proposal but like a very we're going directly here but we'll also at least hold at least two open houses we'll offer them digitally and in person. Um and then we'll also send out mailers to any of the targeted areas. Amy I'll email it to you. All right. Uh everybody clear on the motion? You guys want me to re reread it? Are everybody good? Okay. All those in favor of uh our motion to continue deer management and make it better, please say I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Okay, that motion will head your way here at the end of the meeting. Amy, thank you. Uh next up, uh where are we here? Board uh board action request process discussions establishing procedures for submitting action items to committees. Mr. Lee, is that you or is that me? Combo. Uh well, we can definitely we can both do it. All right. So, uh the chair and the mayor and I have discussed a couple of, you know, just general requests that come in. And one thing that came up, we had a board of public safety meeting and one of the the board of public safety members had asked the question of, "Hey, how do I get an item put on the agenda?" Um, and you know, it is something where they could have reached out to the marshall directly and said, "Hey, can I get this on the agenda?" Um what this process that's being proposed and is in

front of you tonight for consideration would do is offer a direct and almost a u a highway avenue kind of uh approach to getting something on the agenda that a specific council member and maybe another committee member u wishes to have a full-on discussion about. So the department after discussing with the chair u and the mayor came up with somewhat of a process that's mimicked in other cities that pretty much a couple b if you get buyin from a couple council members anything can be discussed at at the council at the committee level. It just needs to have a little bit some rules based upon it having a description and then also having some specific you know how much how much resources are going to be used for whatever the project may be. Uh that said, this would create a form online which if something say and it's not necessarily, hey, someone hit a deer and they called me and we need to clean that up or hey, we need a pothole fix. Those are part of our day-to-day operations. This would be something more so, hey, I got a call and we need to, you know, grade this side of this road because the site distance is a problem. I need a I need a report done, which we do to get those calls every now and then. um and which would take a significant amount of staff time, could potentially take a lot of capital resources. It would be more so for like projects that are that are being started or studied. Um that said, this would create a form online that would pretty much it'd be almost like sponsoring legislation at the state level. You would sponsor an item, a subject, and in this case, it would be just submitting the form. It would notify the chair via email automatically, and then it would have the support of two other committee members that are sitting on that committee. Uh and once that's done, it automatically gets added to the agenda for discussion. So it just be an exact way. And this would be applied to our standing committees, but could also be applied to our board of public safety, to our historic preservation commission, to our uh why would the idea would be to

make kind of a universal process across the board. So this isn't to like stop you guys from if I'm the chair, it's not to stop you to from asking you to put something on. That's not broad. But it's more especially if it's in a if it's in a place where it's like hey we need to do a sound study or whatever and I would be like I don't okay but I don't want to have any idea how much that actually what that actually means. So, it's the idea of saying like if it is something that we determine is going to take a substantial amount of staff time or money, then the decision we're making in the committee when it's on the agenda is if we're authorizing the staff to spend that time and money, not supporting whatever the thing was. That then still comes back. But it's just to try to more or less to protect the staff from an individual phone call or two that's like, "Hey, can you do X, Y, and Z?" and then they don't have the ability to say I think that that's not a good idea. So it's it's so they do have the ability to say no. They do have the ability technically and and the bigger issue then is the council doesn't really have the authority to go to staff and tell them to do anything. That's just uh the way our city is set up. A council member can't call and say, "Rick, you have to do this." Right? So, I mean, those are violations we've had over the years to try to say, "Okay, here's the way stuff works." I think maybe some of our problem is because I don't think a lot of people understand what falls under the two standing committees. That's very true. But I'd be very concerned about having that protocol set up for some of these other ad hoc committees, sending stuff to historic preservation or sending stuff to these other committees because the people don't understand what that comm I just know for years doing the safety committee. Just be coming in there and complaining is not going to get you the street light. But people think, well, if I just go in there, I'm

going to get that. Well, they have no authority to do any of that. So I mean part of it is to really kind of clarify on these type things what gets done and when it gets done and then the chair has the authority to put it onto there but the same way the mayor has the authority to set the agenda for the meeting and if the mayor elects not to do it 11 man members can put it on there so I mean the idea would be the mayor this is more of a committee thing than a council meeting thing and then I would say part of this which we is maybe not super well described and here it is. There's going to be the idea is to put a real clear line of what is a sub essensively a subcommittee to a standing committee. So, you know, public safety is great, but everything they're doing winds up here. So they can do their stuff and offer their suggestions, but before we're putting a lot of time and energy into stuff, maybe those things metriculate to where they're supposed to start. So, you know, like nothing, for instance, against the historic preservation committee, but they seem to be under the uh understanding that there's just a citywide open checkbook of whatever. And when it winds up getting to us, that is sometimes problematic. So, it's it's really more to kind of streamline this as much as possible and not not I I I mean, I don't think it takes authority away from me as a chair. I think it actually to be honest, it's designed to make a council member put a little bit more work into whatever that is that they're asking because it's not like I got a phone call from somebody, they want to do this. It's like, okay, what does that actually mean? Um, so that's my kind of spot. Lauren, what's what's up? I was just trying to make sure I understand. So if we're just in the committee and we get to the part on the agenda normally like topics for future

inclusion, so we can't all agree as a committee and just add something at the meeting. We'd have to go through this paperwork process because that seems like we're just adding a lot of busy work if we can kind of agree on something as a committee. So the idea would be that if like if if something needs to go on and you know you want to send a message to a chair and go hey can I put whatever it is on there the chair can do that or not but if it's something that they're maybe not doing then you have the ability to go and get a couple other council members that are on that committee to go no we actually would like to have this conversation and here's how that starts because I think when we do it in a session then at the end of a meeting, everybody's like, "Yeah, yeah, sure, whatever." Because we kind of want to, we're not thinking about it in those terms. We're not thinking about it in terms of how much time and energy this takes or how much capital is being invested in stuff because we're trying to move through other things. The main thing that this does is it it it's a protection mechanism, I think, of everybody's time and and resources because we h we do spend an enormous amount of time on things that seemingly come out of nowhere and we never have the votes to carry the full council. Exactly. And then when it gets to us, it's like, how have we spent six months talking about this for no reason? It's not going to happen. And I understand that. It's just if you get a full group that says, "Yeah, that makes sense. then I think you know you don't need to go through the paperwork process. If if I bring up something in the topics for inclusion for the future agenda and you guys go why don't you get some feedback from your colleagues that's appropriate. I just don't think adding red tape for the sake of red tape is appropriate in every situation. And so I see the use of it for part of it, but I don't think, you know, I think, you know, if you've got everybody in the room that says, "Oh, yeah, we need to talk about this."

Because we we've had plenty of meetings like that. Yeah. But I think in that case, everybody's I'm looking at this room. Everybody's got their screen out. So you send an email and you go, you know, Ed, Cliff, you want to sign off on this thing? Yep. Done. Email sent. Now it goes into like an official hopper where it doesn't get dropped. We don't have like we were talking about this like we don't have a sewer lateral thing for nine months on a coming soon meeting or what whatever it is like we it just it helps to ensure that what is appropriate to talk about is actually spent time on and we're not inadvertently dropping things in the cracks or or whatever. that that would just be my suggestion on I mean I I think as a chair of a couple different committees I know it would be it's very rare that I don't even think I can think of a time where somebody said hey can we talk about this and I say no we can't but in the event I did or somebody else did it's a it's a way to get that where it needs to be but so one one of the areas that I I think because the way we do things whenever um and it it ended up being part of some planning and and always being a dumping ground for public hearings. We went through a few years where anytime somebody on council didn't like something coming forward, they'd make a motion to send it back for another public hearing and that went to parks and planning. They would have meetings with three public hearings. Yeah. that they had no desire to have those meetings but that venue was it got thrown back over to them to do it and the chair really didn't at that point more the staff was controlling what those agendas were. So I would always be cautious and that's why I kind of think flipping people from year to year uh you don't get people dumping on their committee if they know they're going to be in it. I guess the other options you just don't have to come to the meetings. But those are the kind some of the things that when you've seen it as

broken as it can be. Um you just want to make sure you don't set something up that gives that tool for people to start sending these in with two three people unhappy on a couple committees could be pushing it over. You can still say no, right? Uh I mean we hired a city administrator one time when the mayor wouldn't put it on the agenda. So I mean those things happen and so you just have to kind of figure out how's it really supposed to work. The question I would have though is when these things come up, we're not going to be as good at putting it together as what I think the chairs would need. But the advantage of of being able to do it is to you to look at it and actually dollarize those. The one thing I think we just needed a whole lot more on is looking at budget expenses. Yeah. And if you can't do that, if you got all this stuff in work and nobody is putting a dollar amount to it, well, that'd be really nice. What do you want to give up? Right. you know, so I if that's part of the whole planning process, I just think that would be a real good way to get us to think nothing's free. So the idea is you go to your it's not even an email like it's a it's a form where it's tracked and it's like you know what is where is this coming from? Is this a resident complaint? Whatever. What priority is this touching? Does this is this going to cost money of some kind? Yes or no? And so then you can look at that very quickly and go, okay, well, you know, if this costs $100,000, is it in the budget? No. So what is it that what is it now that comes out? That's really kind of a question I think that because people can make these asks without actually having to go through that exercise. It's a lot easier for them to be like, well, I don't know. That's not really my problem to figure out. That's everybody else's. And this puts a little bit of a finer point on it for you to go this $100,000 is super important to me and I'm willing to convince nine other people or whatever it is that it is should be important to them. And if you're not, then probably we're not going to have that conversation.

That would be my take on it. Primary targeting it though it's on two two large standing committees not going to do with economic development. Well, in theory, something could go to economic development if there's a there's something that we there there's some some business issues that definitely come up that could go there. I mean, I think the the sign or code review kind of initiated from EDC, but yeah, planning and parks and having PW would have probably a bit Yeah, we probably have a bit more of them. And kind of like we did with the budget stuff, this is I think going to be like a part one of what's happening. Like it's a part one of these are the committees that wind up like this is the direction this information goes. So rather than starting, you know, bottom up, it kind of turns the table on that a little bit where like, you know, if if if Rick goes to public safety and is like, we're getting requests to put parking signs in at whatever, maybe that comes this way first and we go, are we willing to consider spending $9,000 on parking signs? If the answer is no, we don't need to waste everybody's time on this. If the answer is maybe. So from a timing standpoint, if I just up one more time, if from a timing standpoint, if the request comes in, then it goes, you guys put the dollar amounts to it, then it goes the chair, then it gets on the next meeting. If it's already in the budget, they're just going to do their job anyway, right? If it's within the purchasing a Yes. If I just think that those are the kind of things that this is this is really hard to communicate to 16 people. Yeah. to get them to understand it. It's not for you you picking up the things that are are part of ongoing department response, right? Unless you end up thinking that's totally broken, but timeliness of it. I think it's a challenge. Yeah. I mean, basically the idea would be like if we for instance, if we had this if this was in place and somebody put something in tonight to talk about next month, it makes sense assuming you can get that information to to actually put that on the agenda for next month. If somebody puts a request in, you know, Friday night to have talk about today, that's

probably going to be the next meeting if it is taking, you know, a large amount of effort or conversation or even compiling information. So, it's really just about I mean I when I was on I know I think that this is more of an issue probably in parks and planning. When I was on that, I I had a a lot of conversations or I was part of them where I was like, I don't even understand where this is coming from. And this seems like we're spending a lot of sometimes real money, but a lot of times just time capital of everybody trying to figure this stuff out and writing memos and I agree. No, I'm not. Yeah. I think we spend so much time on some things that we should never even be spending. We don't have the money. Well, so you know, people eat. But Nathan, I see you got your hand up. Yeah, I guess that's part of where I'm trying to get on this is is ultimately what's the root issue we're really trying to solve with this because it it seems like we're trying to replace just having a conversation and adding something to an agenda with a form. I think I think the real issue is it puts into real context where things are actually coming from. So, you know, it's not to say that it replaces a conversation. In most cases, if somebody's having a conversation, I I think it it also kind of makes the role probably of the person who is the chair a little bit more important than just the person facilitating the meeting because they have to have the thought process of like, does this take time and money to do this? And if so, here's the direction we probably need to go. It's really not to uh make everything take longer. It's to it is to correct an issue that at the moment doesn't seem to be a big issue but in the past has been a major problem. So so it's a mechanism of anything. If I can devil's advocate

this just a little bit here then why wouldn't the chair when they are requested to have something added to the agenda already be doing that? because it we do I mean I do but at the same time like somebody might have a thing that I don't I just don't like so I'm not going to I'm just not going to do it and then it gives the council members that are in that committee the opportunity to go well we have three of eight people that actually want to have this conversation. So whether you want to do it or not for whatever reason is is up to you. But if you can get if you can get agreement on some of this stuff, I think it can happen. And I think it needs to be, you know, to me, if you're putting your name on something, it's not just a uh it's not necessarily just a rubber stamp on stuff. If it is like you going like, "No, this is important and I want to talk about it." Um, I think that's where it comes from. I I don't I mean me personally I don't I really can't think of anything I've said no to to this point, but um I know that that is a I know that that is a struggle in other places. So I I mean I think that's I guess for me I guess that's kind of where I'm coming from a little bit. That sounds to me like the issue is not if that's what's happening and things aren't having a valid conversation and irrelevant things are continuing in a committee meeting that should not be continuing in a conversation. To me that is an ineffective chair and an ineffective committee and a form doesn't fill that. So to be quite blunt you have somebody running a committee that shouldn't be and everybody on the committee is just letting it happen. So, if they're not standing up for it, I I don't know that this form, especially because it has to come from somebody on that committee is not really going to solve your problem. You're going to continue to have this, well, now

these you're still kind of playing the sort of both sides of like, well, the chair still has control over what gets on the on the agenda, but you can submit this form with two people, not directly. I I just think of this sort of of the the uh I guess the best phrase is a text message tough guy, right? Like, oh, I can easily fill out a a form and get a couple people behind me to back me up in a form. And then you get to the meeting, it's like, all right, you guys really want to divorce this. What's what's, you know, kind of behind it? And then all a sudden it's like, oh well, you know, we kind of thought it'd be a good idea and we just everybody we kind of agreed and then well in a meeting if the chair still steps up and goes like oh well I still don't think that's important and they take over the meeting and they kind of shove it down anyway. Like you're still not really fixing the problem that's that's coming up, right? Like it's still a procedural problem of who's in what places. And to me, it's more of a what do we do when a chairperson is not doing their job and allowing relevant items to be on an agenda. Something to noodle. I'm just gonna over we're kind of trying to overprocess a problem in communication and just addressing the elephant in the room in those situations where and and I'm sorry Lauren, you had your hand up for a minute there. I know you really like have a lot of talker, but this feels to me like it is more of a if you have a chairperson who's running a committee and not allowing relevant things are and not maintaining order in a way of like, hey, this thing's been kicked around 17 times, do we really need to continue with this or not? Um, that that's not a form. That's a bigger problem of how do you address an

issue when a committee chair is ineffective? Sure. So, Uh, I got something for you on that. Lauren, what's what do you have? Yeah, two two things. Well, three, but what one is I my initial response when I read it was the same as Nathan's, but I do see the benefit of if you're creating a track record of requests. Um, it can take the politics out it and it can prevent maybe some of that pocket staff detail. So, I I do see that side of it. There is that benefit, but I do really agree with Nathan. The other thing is we we've talked about really wasting staff time um and about managing expectations, but I I want to reframe their conversation because there is value in exploring residents requests even if we have to tell them no. That's part of the job that we're supposed to do and staff it. So, is it really a waste to find out that we can't afford something or that it's not going to work? Because that's answering their questions and concerns. That's part of the job. So just because it didn't result in something we could do doesn't make it a waste. It answers the questions of the constituents. And that's what you'll see, you know, later is that I had an issue that was brought up for years and we have a different answer than we have before. And that's okay, but that doesn't make it a waste of the committee or or the staff time. The other thing is sometimes without exploring something, we don't actually have an expectation for how it can be done or how much it costs. So just throwing out the idea of we can't afford it. Okay, well maybe we can't afford it this year, but maybe we can start budgeting for it or put it on the strategic goals and and budget for it five years from now. But if we don't spend the staff time finding out that we can't afford it this year, we can't afford it five years from now because we're not planning for it. So, what I don't want to see is us just go throw our hands up and say, "Well, we can't do it because if we did that in watershed,

nothing would ever ever get planned for or done, but we still have to plan to budget or try to afford it, right?" And we're we're still at that stage now, but we can't just go, "Well, we can never afford anything, so we won't start anywhere." So, I I don't want that to happen. And I'm concerned that if that if the mindset is everything that we don't agree to do as a committee is a waste of time, that's not the point of the committee. Sometimes it is having discussions and as a body going, "No, this doesn't make sense because that's what the public expects from us." And so I just want I I'm you know um just saying no, it won't work isn't enough to make my constituents happy. We have to demonstrate that we did due diligence and looked into something that's not a waste of time. So I I would say I would say this and I think this maybe applies to both uh Lauren your point and Nathan's point and and I mean we I we have four staff members in the room so I'm I don't mean to offend anybody when I say this. You guys do a great job of all these things but as Mr. Marshall mentioned earlier technically we are not supposed to call staff people and ask them to do things. Technically speaking we are not supposed to do that. Practically speaking, everybody does that. So, it allows our staff to have an ability to where, you know, at the end of the day, they are lovely people that work really hard. They are not inclined to say no to any of us or a resident because they want to make everybody happy. That's what they are part of what their job kind of is. I mean, I I'm of the opinion that we should be saying no to a lot more things than we do, but I am I don't have that job. So, what this allows the staff to do is to say, "Hey, I understand what you're talking about. Here's the process that you need to go to do that, send this form in, and then the committee that is directed to can

have a conversation about whether we want to authorize time to be spent on this thing. And if the committee decides they do, then that conversation happens. If the committee decides they don't, then that's the end of that conversation until the next time around." Um, but I think what is happening more often than not is we're tasking our staff members with uh a litany of things that is it's not that any of them are wrong. It's just they can't everything can't happen at once. And right now and for some time that's kind of how this has functioned. Everybody is um it's a lot of like putting fires out rather than planning stuff out. And so, you know, to be honest, this is a lot less about who the chair and what that is and more about putting a protection mechanism in for our staff. I would just add and then I'll I'll I'll give up the floor that this dovetales with part of the workforce strategic plan planning because it could it may not be a reflection entirely of the the folks on council or the requests or the personalities. It could be also a reflection that we're underst staffed. and so might be putting a process in place that would be better solved with if we hired more people and and plan for that. But I I I get where you're coming from, but I I still think um Nathan, what you got? Sorry, just circling back around, but um adding an addendum, I guess, to what I had stated, but I I think from that standpoint, I see the value in having a process for having things added to an agenda. I don't know that and I and I will say process very loosely but um I think it's valuable to have a format in which things should be added to an agenda or be considered to added to an agenda and maybe that's a conversation that we have

um outside of like what you need to get to people's approval or to to jump on board with you or just like hey this is if you're going to submit something to be added to an item do a little homework first before you want to add it on. Um, so having some sort of format that says this is how you submit items to be added to an agenda to the committee chair, it needs to include these things. If one of its if any of it's missing, then you know it's it decreases your chance of the committee chairs taking their consideration of adding that to an agenda item. Again, if an issue is if policy and and our standard operating procedures and rules and regulations and all that say that council should not be contacting staff directly, then just tell everybody you cannot contact staff directly. I mean, I I'm sorry. I'm just I'm a very black and white person in most cases. So when it's a thing that says and I know the staff is always going to be super helpful and they're going to want to jump in and it's not an illitent from anybody on council that's they're just trying to get things accomplished for their generally it's probably going to be a constituent that reaches out and like hey can you help me with this and then they'll reach out somebody or hey I had a question about this. So totally understand both sides where it would come from. But if everything needs to go through committee and it needs and that's just what it is, then just make it what it is and just let everybody know this is these are the guard rails that you need to work within and you should not email requests to city staff specifically. Like if you have something it needs to go through a committee and then we can have the conversation and choose as a committee whether or not city staff dedicates time to that. But again, I I I just don't like putting process in place to accommodate those that just don't want to follow a policy appropriately. I agree. I agree 100%. But I think we

have to remember we're going to get some new people and sometimes you just get somebody calling you and whatever and people are going to forget and do whatever. But I guess I look at this as an attempt to solve an issue and maybe it's not the perfect solution, but we could try it, reconvene on it, whatever. for three months, six months or whatever and say, "Hey, is this working? How could we tweak this a little bit? We don't maybe we don't need it at all anymore. Maybe everybody's gotten how it needs to be done without filling this out or I don't know. I just feel like there has to be a starting point. Um, and maybe this is it." And then at that time too get feedback from staff like is this helping you? Is this saving you time? Is this wasting more of your time because you're getting these forms in or what are your suggestions? So they won't get the forms the forms will just come come to the okay but then they would get them well if they get approved here then they go that way okay I don't know I guess I feel like we need to start somewhere this does not I just want to mention like if there's a your resident calls you because there's a pothole this does not include that type of work it it's more so like hey you know we need to go do we need to start a project and we need to investigate you know adding a shoulder to this road where it's going to take a significant amount of staff time to go out there visit the site and then you know most likely hire an engineering firm. The idea is to bring that to committee through one of these board action requests and then have finances attach attached to it. Hey, if we do this, you know, just doing an RFP that could be, you know, 10 hours of staff time because you got to do legal. It's going to add a city attorney's review if it's a big enough project. um adding in those cost components that take something that may be just a simmering thought because maybe it's not thought of because it's done by the staff and adding some tan tangible numbers to it. But definitely yeah. Just I one quick thought I think you started with you modeled this off of the process in other cities and and that

tells me that or for me I take that to say that maybe formalizing a process offers us a capability we haven't had. I'm with you Tracy. Let's start somewhere and see what happens. So I I support it. And to me it's a data point. Like I honestly I've been doing this I think this is my sixth year. I don't know how much it costs to figure out if we need to put a stoplight in somewhere or do a traffic study. I just go, "Can we have one?" And then, but if I knew, yeah, if you want to have one, it's $26,000. Then I might, it's not that I wouldn't necessarily ask for it. I would just have a better understanding of like, you know, what am I actually asking for? That's kind of the key side to it. Yes, sir. I just want to clarify what I said earlier is council members can talk to staff all they want. They just don't direct staff to do something. You can call it staff. That's what I'm saying. I mean, but that's the way the rules are supposed to be. You can talk to them and they can tell you, but you don't say, "I want this done now." Right. And we've had that before. So that I mean, that's part of, you know, and to always make sure the city administrator is included in if we were to do this. And I I think it's going to end, but the other part would be is once it does get on the agenda, hopefully we could have the research done as to what the cost is or it's already in budget or it's already been planned. so that it may only be a note on the agenda that it was taken care of or is scheduled next month or or whatever in order to do that. But I think it's kind of it's a good way to get the discussion going, but let's not take it for one meeting and then say now we need to research it, you know, unless the whole committee wants to do it. Um I think it would let the staff then at least look at the dollar amounts or give you some estimates so we don't lose our mind. Yeah, I think there's a threshold where like you know if they have a pretty good assessment of like okay this is what this might this is going to cost that's we need we did it three years ago and here results that kind of stuff it could be easily it's more so like if you got to do an analysis to get the analysis if you will to get the cost because it

might include but I think most of the time we've done most of the things at least once or twice where we've had contract we test it before we have it legally all documented put into the protocol or I mean can it not be tested by the different the two committees to try out? I mean it can't. I think the big thing is you I would suggest we need to have some level of official action to have it made as like a hey guys like procedure. Yeah, this is what we're going to do. not if you would please do this because I mean at the moment we've got a lot of we have people I think that do this the right way but we haven't always had that and we don't know that that's how it's always going to be and so part of this is trying to put in a good planning and data point while we can to understand what's going on because the other thing I think that's interesting with this is you know if somebody's asking for something and it's constantly it's a resident request it's a resident request it's a resident request you know to me I happen to have a resident I have one resident of 2500 that makes repeated requests. So I know he does. Um so that's not to say like I am of the opinion that I appreciate his requests. I just don't do much with it to run for office. Yeah, I did too. I'd be happy to compete. He never answers after that. Um that's I think that's a a good way to click, you got anything? No. All right. Okay. Uh Nathan, you got anything else? Okay. Um, well, here we can wait till Rob comes back. Okay. So then in terms of our next steps here, I think I saw, if I remember right, there's a motion in here. I I move that we adopt a board action request process to guide how items are added to council committee agendas under this process. Do we want to add an adjustment in there for like a certain period of time to see how that works? Um, I mean I would suggest probably six months just because

yeah, some of it you might want to tweak in six months from now. Yeah. Um, so uh do you want do you guys want me to read the motion? I assume I move that the city council adopt the board action request process to guide how items are added to council committee agendas. Under this process, a council member serving on a committee may submit a bar if it is co-signed by two other committee members, each representing a different ward. The bar is submitted to the committee chair and the city administrator. Must schedule the item within one committee meeting cycle, 30 days, unless placed sooner. If the item may require staff time, it shall be agendaized solely as a request for approval of staff involvement, not an endorsement of the proposal itself. Each bar must include a clear description of the issue, requested staff action, if any, relevant background, and its connection to the city ward prior city or ward priorities. Council members not on the committee may ask a committee member to sponsor a bar or request the chair's direct consideration. This process does not limit the chair's authority to place items on the agenda or affect the mayor's discretion over the full council agendas. The council accepts the bar form as provided and directs this process be integrated into standing council committee procedures. And then I guess we want to say we'll run this for six months. Anything else anybody wants to add? Put it on the agenda. Six months. Yeah. Um, okay. If everybody's clear on that, did you write it all down, Amy? Absolutely. We'll get it over to Amy. So, if everybody's clear on that, um, and again, this will be a web- based form kind of a thing. Yeah, it's on there. I'll email it to you. Um, anybody care to make that motion? Mr. Jackson make it. Anybody care to second it? Trace is going to second it. All those in favor, please say I. I. Anybody opposed? Opposed. Lauren are opposed. Any abstensions? All right. Well, sorry guys. The good news is neither of you are going to be back, so you don't have to worry about it. Go ahead and send some in next week or

so. Yeah, you got some time. You got a couple more weeks. Send some stuff in. Um, okay. Well, with that, that motion passes. takes us to public works and our status on the MDOT improvement projects in Wildwood. Mr. Brown, um chair for Palmer, council members, um provided this to you last month. This is just an update of the current projects that are underway or expected to start shortly um relative to not only what MODAP, but also city of Wildwood. So, um I didn't intend to go through it um project by project. I'm available for any questions. If you have any at this time, we'll probably provide another update next month just to keep the current status on. I just have kind of a generic one. Are there any ongoing projects that you're not really pleased with progress on? Um, not as of yet. Not as of yet. No. Okay. Things will continue as is. We mean the roundabout hasn't started. So from that perspect prospect, I'm not happy with that. No. Um the 109B South roundabout. We are at this point waiting for authorization from MDOT through the Federal Highway Administration to allow us to bid the project for construction. The the roundabout at Wild Horse seems to be taking a long time. Not surprised based on the amount of work that had to be done in that area, I'm guessing engineering wise, but you think that it's moving at a reasonable pace? Well, until December. That's that's the issue is that MDOT gave them a very long schedule. So allow they allow them until essentially this December to finish the project. So they're using the time that they were allotted to build it. Did they incentivize getting it done early? Um, no. But I I will say there are incentives like one of the next phases

is going to be to close South A Road. Now there is an incentive in there that says um you can only use and don't quote me on the number of days but I want to say it's like 10 days. Um so they did incentivize the contractor to keep that closure short. So from that scale yes but overall um I don't check the contract documents. Bottom line is they have until basically December to finish the project. And they're going to route everybody down Centaur for that, right? They're supposed to route them over to Long Road, but that's not local. Right. Do we have a we have a bridge? That's if the um they're following their their schedule. I just have like one question on that because someone was asking so I don't think I've seen this but I maybe I'm not looking at it right. It said um they're they're redoing the new concrete paving being demolished. So they're demolishing some that was already done and replacing it on southbound 109 or Wellers Creek of it it was placed at the wrong elevation relative to the new northbound lane and now they're having to rip it out. That is correct. It it didn't look like that though. No, I think what you're seeing there is they did some temporary widening. Okay. Out of concrete. Okay. So, that is being removed because it was only intended for temporary use for staging. So, it wasn't done incorrectly and then ripped out because it didn't match. Pretty common with roundabouts. Yeah. They did it on wild horse too where it was like a three all of a sudden it was a three foot difference and then overnight it was not. Oh, that's the right answer. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. You don't see him use concrete that much for temporary work, but that's they had some leftover from the islands on anybody got anything else. Oh my god.

Um, the only thing I would I I don't think we have any control over it, but um and I don't think it's going to be as complicated, but when they started putting the new one in at BA, like there was a lot of like there was a lot of weird elevation changes at Wild Horse and 109 where like your car is tipping and you don't know which way somebody's coming from and it it's elaborate. So I don't I mean the one at BA is I think significantly less confusing or there's maybe less people coming from different directions but if we can maybe try to ask them to think a little bit harder about how that works out or something that would be good because it was I'm yeah because I was it is it is challenging to get all the pieces of the puzzle built and roundabouts are probably more difficult than a lot of projects in that regard. Well, I mean, I don't I I almost wondered if like a temporary stoplight up there would have made more sense than the stop signs because you can't really even see where people are maybe coming from at times. It's gotten much better. It has been confusing the last couple pages. Yeah, but I mean, so I mean, I don't know if they can throw that in the I don't know what the difference is on that, but that might be worth looking at. Okay, anything else? Okay, moving on. Uh, review of contractor bids for ash treement program. Chair Farmer, Council members. Um, this next item is been an annual item essentially since about 2020 with our ash trees. We made a conscious decision in 2020 or 2021 to start treating our ash trees the better of the remaining ones that we had. we felt we could um I guess defer some of the cost to remove and replace the ash trees but also preserve some of the better species that we had or some of the better trees that we had uh in neighborhoods around Wildwood. So the original goal was to treat about 400 of those trees and do it on an alternating year basis. So essentially 200 the first year or 200

the second year. It ended up being 394 the first were was the total number that we identified and then we have continued in alternate years treating those trees. However, what we found out was in the odd years 2021 of EAB it started to progress far enough that I think that impacted our effectiveness uh for the odd number of years. So essentially we would like to are proposing to continue treatment. This time we are again in an odd year of 2025. So the number of trees is actually 87 trees down from the original close to 200 number. Um nonetheless we would we do have a contract or a proposal from Omni Tree Service to treat trees for 2025 that I'd like to move forward with if the uh if the committee is in agreement. Uh prior to this year, we we engaged uh Arbor Masters to do the treatment process and that was based on original bid in 2020. They extended their cost all the way up through last year from their original quote in 2020. So we went with them, but they declined to do that this year and it's not really a surprise obviously. So, we did put a new RFP out on the street and um we got two responses to the RFP. One was Omnitri Service, which we work with as you probably know. The second was Diamond Edge Outdoor Management. So, Omni was the cheaper of the two. So, that's why we were recommending moving forward with Omni this year to treat 87 of the remaining trees in the odd number of years for no more than $15,000. Um, I would say that the cost we would estimate if we wanted to go forward and remove those 87 trees, which is certainly an option, would be about $130,500. It's obviously much cheaper to treat them, but at some point, if we wanted to make the decision to cease

treating the trees and just remove and replace, that is certainly an option. And the cost to do that would be about 130,500. That's assuming 1,500 bucks total cost to remove and to replace the tree, right? Would they then have to be replaced? I mean, there's an additional replacement cost or would they just not be replaced with something else? So, essentially, it's $1,000 to remove the tree, $500 to replace it. So, $1,500. You got anything? And the uh this this is an annual will be ongoing this process this for the ash trees it has for a couple years it's the treatment for two years so effectively two years from now I may be asking you for the same request if we um I will I will say originally I think we did start this like right around the time I came on the council and I thought that this was a dumb idea but I happen to have two of these trees that we treat on my street and they look so much better than they used to. So, that's nice. But, I'm wondering, have we had Mike go out and just assess the ones and then like I'm not saying we take them all out at once, but if we're if he goes, "Hey, these 15, there's like no saving them. Let's get rid of them." We did part of our tree replacement project last fall and last spring was doing just that. Taking these BHS trees that are in the worst condition and then removing those and replacing with more suitable suitable species. He has not done that for this year because they've just leafed out, but that is our plan. So if if they are too far gone, we won't treat them. Yeah. I'm just thinking I mean this is a chance I mean and you maybe you don't need us to say this in a motion sense, but like this does work. I've seen it work. It works in some places better than others. I think we can lean on Mike and if he says hey half of these trees are not worth doing then I I personally would be cool with like great let's treat these get rid of those and we can keep moving this thing. He will not treat the tree

if he deems it to be too far gone at this point. And we have seen that more likely the case in the odd years. Even years seem to have done much better because we got those trees earlier than the odd years. All right. Well, so I assume you're looking for a motion to move forward with this recommendation. Okay. Anybody Mr. Marshall's going to move? Oh, all right. Mr. Marshall's going to make it. Mr. Jackson will second it. Uh Lauren and Nathan, are you guys good on this? Okay. All those in favor of moving forward with the department's recommendation on the asht tree treatments, please say I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? All right, that motion passes. Thank you. That brings us to the board of public safety recommendation. Gates, blockages, and turnberry access two. A question on the ash thing. Yes. What about subdivisions in their common grounds? Do they come to us and ask us about who they should see to take those trees down or do we recommend to them or we just don't get involved in it at all? We try not to get involved in it at all. But if Mike's out there, I kne I do know in some instances if Mike's out in the field and he's responded to something on the right of way and and a resident notices him out there and asks a question, he's he's a friendly guy. He's going to help you give advice. And if someone wants to call, it's just more so if someone wants to call and get some advice on a tree in the common ground. It shouldn't be like every day because then it's taking up all his time when he have quite a few trees. But if it's an HOA and they're looking at common ground, he'll go out there and I know I think most people have met Mike and probably have seen Mike go out there and meet with some HOAs to help them with some of those decisions. Just curious, did you get calls from because I know some of them have had a lot of dead trees on their property and uh we do and I mean it's it's I mean it's a good service that we have an arborist in the house and if he has the time it is a good thing to add and um I mean our goal as a city is to keep trees healthy. So we can do that even if we're not necessarily responsible for it. Thank you.

All right. Um moving forward I guess I can talk to this one since it's from me unless you want to do it. Rick I had a little bit of information I was going to provide. If you want me to start and if you want to finish it up it's fine. So council members certainly I think you're aware of this issue um because it's been in front of you previously. Um, wanted to pass along some I guess some newer information relative to the gate that's been proposed at Burberry Place and Stucker Road. I think as you know that that location has been restricted for some years um due to concerns from the residents in the subdivision. Um, this was more recently in front of a full council and we were directed to provide um I guess costs or more explicit quotes for cost to install the gate. So, we did put together an RFP and got it advertised and got three quotes for a gate that is intended to meet the requirements of the fire marshall with Metro West. Uh the good news was the low bid was comparable to what we had previously received. It was a company from out of state in Lynchburg, Virginia. So, um they say they travel around the country and do this kind of work and they feel like they can certainly do it here. But uh the quote was comparable to what we had previously expected. So I wanted to pass that along. Um but I wanted to also reiterate some discussions that we had with the the fire marshal. He is the new he has replaced the prior fire marshall and um certainly expressed some concerns over the gate to the department and again the intent was if he could move forward we would want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to address their concerns. But first and foremost, he was concerned about the impact on their response relative to the current condition and effectively the concern was it will and to slow their response

having a gate in place of the current configuration with the flexible posts. So we did take this to board of public safety um by and large because of those comments to see what the board's response to this would be and they did I have lost the audio. Uh, you're locked up, Lauren. You're not moving. I guess she can't hear us. We've got any Mr. Hopper, can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you guys just fine. Thanks, Council Member Hopper. She bailing that. Oh, there she is. Can you hear us now, Lauren? Not moving. It's probably on her end. Well, I'll text her. Rick, you can keep going. Okay. So, I guess I I was willing to pass along the board did pass a motion opposing the installation of the gate at Turnberry Place as has been proposed. And they actually took a step further and made a motion to endorse a prohibition on installation of gates or other obstructions on any public street and essentially in Wildwood and then look to potentially remove any existing ones. So, it was a pretty strong motion opposed to the idea of of moving forward with the gate and I and I would say Captain Mundelle was there as well and and stated the same concerns relative to potential impacts to their response slowing their response. So, I wanted to to mention that and of course farmer is our council lison on so he can speak directly to that as well. Um, and then finally, I don't think I'd mentioned it previously. I guess there's two final things I was

going to mention. Joe Venshai got our heads together and if you're curious, we did come up with a table and the memorandum that was provided um indicating that we believe there's 13 gates essentially installed in Wildwood and they are installed for two purposes two purposes essentially that are allowed under the existing code. One is secondary emergency access. Second is for private streets. Private rental residential streets and subdivisions can have a gate over their roads if it meets certain condition. So we have four gates that are have been installed essentially for secondary emergency access. We have four that are over private streets and private subdivisions. And then we have four that are also installed for access control in the parks whether that's Rockwood reservations or Greensfelder parks. So those don't necessarily apply the same way and there's actually a gated hidden valley for hidden valley control of their access. So um I wanted to point out those two things as well that we actually allow it for two reasons. Um, and if they're installed on private residential streets, they have to meet a number of explicit requirements, but they they can be allowed under those conditions. So, with that, I will mention that we expect that we will have this in front of the whole council work session Monday night um in a similar manner. Um, and I guess I will defer to Chair Farmer if he wants to talk further um regarding his memory. Yeah. Um, so I mean I'll just say a couple things. I mean, uh, our new fire marshall and Kevin Mandell both were pretty clear that neither love gates. Uh, the fire marshall specifically, especially because of the kind of complexity of what that intersection is is it just will affect safety and response time. Now, also because of where it is, I would imagine the fire department might

come from the other side because it's closer, but something really bad's going on with whatever. So there, you know, this, as the memo says, it's not, it's not designed like we're not going to go out and start ripping every gate down in the city or anything like that. But when something comes up and it, you know, it needs to be looked at and especially in this case because it has been a bad looking thing. And Lauren just texted me and said, "Oh, she's back. Can you hear us, Lauren? I don't think she can hear us." Um anyways, the idea the turnberry thing is one instance of this, but this is kind of like a city-wide thing. We had that conversation about the gate also on another newer neighborhood. So the idea would be, you know, the request or the whatever from the board of public safety was, you know, they're not really in favor of any gates or obstructions to roads, period, which makes sense because whatever they're doing is going to slow something down. Um and so you know my thought would be on this that you know we can certainly we don't have to do anything other than just to say that we've heard what they have said and we agree or whatever and then that can go to the full council. Um but I mean I I think it's a good I think it's a good thing to put this in place because we are having this conversation a little bit more than maybe we did previously. It is um this is kind of one of those things although it did move around and up and down and out. I mean, I'm certain that Rick and the guys have spent and ladies have spent a good amount of time trying to figure this out, not just here, but in other places. Um, so I think that the idea of not blocking roads period is a good thing from a council standpoint. And then specific to this, I mean, their recommendation as it was in 2009 was to reopen this road because it is it is ugly and it's weird and I don't the HOA doesn't care for it. seemingly we don't care for it and shouldn't because it's not really our stuff. So, it's just

complicated. Um, so that that's a maybe a bigger question, but if we were going to take this to uh to the council on Monday, I mean, that is one of those things where, you know, everybody that is currently about to leave has a lot of understanding on this. Certainly, we can spend some time getting other people up to speed, but um something sooner rather than later would be good. It was it was not ambiguous that the first responders are not a fan of any part of these things. So So for the 20 years that I was in W 2, I was there when the first gates went up. But the whole intersections are different. You never had street lights down by Zixs. There was none there. And there was a really bad hairpin turn there on down the hill. The school buses wouldn't even go up that way. So the idea was Turnberry said, "We will take care of the driveovers." and the then the fire department could drive right over them and everything else. Well, the gates a whole different scenario because you can't drive through those or over that. The other challenge was um structure was so narrow the police couldn't even do speed enforcement because they couldn't get a car off there. So, it's several times anytime it got point there was two pylons laying down. They go back to we have to take care of Well, I think those trustes have all changed and you know, so the whole scenario has changed. They knew it was a public street. they had to pay to do it or we would have taken them out right away. So, I just think that public streets should be and where the gates aren't new, we've had them for years, right? But I think in this particular case and then the same things, this one over here in Town Center, there's just no way we should put fire gates up blocking stuff, right? The tric trucks, the Amazon deliveries and and you from the fire department standpoint, if they have a bad fire, they want other companies coming in the other way with other equipment. They don't want to have to drive. And it's it's really bad in War II over in in Wild Horse. Yeah. It's 20 minute drive back in there. Back in there. Right. Now they have the firegates, but I know for my 20 years, they never open those gates up, you know, in order to go there. And

then so all of these secondary access were only driven by Monarch. Metro West and Eureka said, "No, that we we don't have that problem." But Monarch Fire District uh said they had to have them. And they destroyed a lot of property putting them in. So uh one second. if Lauren can can you hear us now? I can finally hear you guys. I heard a little bit of Ed. I don't know what happened. All of a sudden, I just lost audio. I froze. You froze. And it kept booting me on and off and on and off. So, I'm on my cell phone. So, Spectrum isn't helping anybody tonight. So, um I'm sorry I missed everything, but just whenever Ed's done, I'll I'll get in line for a comment. But I can hear you now. You're you're good. We were just talking, Ed was just given some history on the gates and stuff and we were I didn't get a chance to read your message, but I was saying that in the meeting that, you know, the fire department and the police were not um ambiguous in whether they wanted roads to be blocked or not. And they have real concerns about how that intersection works for them anyways. It is very difficult even as it is currently configured to get up trucks in there the way that they would like. So you're you're up, Lauren, if you got if you want to add something. Yeah. No, I was just going to say um initially with the other fire marshall, we thought it was an option. We meaning the HOA that that wanted to see a change. Um I'll I'll just restate for anybody else, you know, their concern is the speed coming down off that hill. Um which is why they felt like it was safer with the road closed. And the the previous traffic studies I think they were done as far back as like 2009 showed I guess a lot of their concerns. My point is this. I am okay if a gate is not a viable solution. what I want is just something and I think the residents want something too because um they they would rather

uh feel feel safe and and and I did have a HOA meeting with Strucker Farms and they had somebody flying out of that neighborhood and again there's no stop sign there because the road's supposed to be closed. It almost hit somebody on Strucker Road the other day. So if the purpose of a traffic delineator is to stop traffic but be passible for emergency vehicles, it is not serving that function. So the solution that we have is not working. So all I'm looking for is a solution that is acceptable that is more attractive and and stops the vehicles. So stop sign. Stop sign. Yeah. Open it up. Put a stop sign. I I other residents don't want that and I'm going to say that again. Um, and it's because again the speed of going down that hill. Uh, it's just it's just the way that the the county I guess plotted that. Um, there's some real concerns about parked cars um getting your mailbox and whatnot. So, you know, I'm you're going to have a a bunch of angry angry angry residents if you try to open that up. I I mean I understand and appreciate that, but if the if the directive from the people that need to get in there to fix stuff and if we do this from a city standpoint and say we're not going to block roads or put in gates, then it I don't know how we do this one time and then not do it another time. Also, I mean that intersection for as long as I can remember has looked not good. And even after the last storm, the fence got blown over whatever that plastic thing is. Um, I mean, I hear what you're saying, Lauren. I just I I am I am cautioning you that the direction from public safety, which obviously we don't have to take if we don't want to, is to not do that and in fact to look at when it would be appropriate to open up places. Not that we're looking for places to do that, but to look at what that looks like. Sure. I would just

point out, but we just did the opposite for Deb because, you know, put in the stakes that can be removed on two dead ends. And I realize that's two dead ends between subdivisions, but I don't disagree. I I didn't vote for that either because I thought that was dumb, but whatever. I mean, this is a bigger a different conversation, I think, than that. My preference would have been to have that this conversation then. Um, but we didn't just like we didn't, you know, in 2009 when they said to open it up the first time. Mr. Jackson, you got anything? Okay. Um, oh, is public safety sending us something about the gates? This is it. Okay. Let's hear from that committee. Yeah. Okay. Um, yeah. I mean, so public safety's suggestion is to not put any gates anywhere, not have any delineators up anywhere, and where possible, I mean, obviously we're not like going to go like hunting and pull pulling stuff down, but where possible to get an understanding of what that looks like. So, you know, this is a thing that hasn't really been cared for properly in a long time. So, this makes sense. I know the people over in Wild Horse. There's a picture in the middle, but there's also that which has always been weird to me. I mean, people got to drive 30 minutes to get out of their house. That seems nuts, but whatever. I I think you told me this and I I I kind of sick of the gate word, too, you know. Yeah, you're the one that said gota get out of the gate business. I think I saw that in the paper. We were going to have it at N38 and and then this Ashley thing they they've changed it now. They want to put Ballard. So see that would also be I mean so so for what we need I mean basically if unless you guys want to add or change anything or whatever we can do that but this is basically just saying yeah we hear what public safety is saying and we're pushing out for Yeah I I I see that. And there is currently a white picket fence that's in pretty

decrepit condition at this time. And the the homeowners association put that in. The city has never done any maintenance at all to that. Yep. And it's maintained by them. We actually had our staff go out there and take the piece because it was like hanging in the middle of the road causing a hazard. We have it in the garage and then there's only four posts that are remaining. So what they're pretty much what what the the installation would do is we'd keep this the way it is obviously with the curb and then the gate would be installed here just to replace the post. Oh I so the other thing to think about here is there's now there are islands that also didn't used to be there. So for fire trucks and stuff making that turn no matter what is it's different than it used to be. That was a one of the first council members lived on that street. I'm surprised that that's how that worked out. She moved then I I came in 999. Yeah. Um but it was a it was a big part of back then. It was I mean when I was a kid that was a dangerous way to get down that road and that that entire section has been redone. So the other one of Lauren's comments though the advantage of if you were to open it up with the stop signs on there the police could patrol the public street. Right now they're not going to go back up in there and set there right because there shouldn't be anybody coming in that way. And that was a challenge for us. Said, "Well, how about these people D? We have no place on Shreker Road to get a car." Yeah. Yeah. We had a hard time when we did the study. I think if I remember right, we had a hard time even putting the camera up there because we didn't have is so narrow. So, uh, but I I I think they come with a pretty good understanding safety standpoint of um, this is ever like if there is a discussion ever to if you mind scrolling out a little bit there. there's ever a discussion of opening this road. We could in theory check both ends of it. Okay. Well, in that case, we could quietly remove the posts. We don't ne we obviously the HOA would understand that. The residents would understand that, but we wouldn't tell the outside world, hey,

we're removing these posts. Take this shortcut. It's not even a shortcut when you It's not a shortcut anymore. It's not It's actually not a shortcut. Um, but we could put uh some type of counter here and then at the other entrance and then have that data because that'll show well we'll be able to take the net and that's who's cutting through. We we could certainly do a study to figure out if people do cut through. I think the key though but the fact is those turns are restricted. That's part of the traffic code that was done first thing, right? Only out, right? So this it's there's no out. You cannot exit there. We'd have to change the traffic. Either we leave it the way it is and just remove the posts and then police could effectively enforce it because it's signed that way. It's signed no exit, I believe. I'll double check it, but that's what's on the books. You can't make a turn, a left turn in there. So, where would you go? It's Well, it's closed. So, you're not supposed to just like it is now. You have to turn around at that point. But then I mean, I got it. I think I might suggest and I mean, I don't know if you'll know these. I mean, you may not know this. the top of your head, Rick. But I mean, right now, what I mean, there's an island, so that's an automatic kind of slow an island in the road. Then there's like a weird curb or something. Yeah. On that side of that was split. That island's in the middle of of Turnberry. Yeah. Drive. So, you used to come in and turn to the right to go in and come out and turn to the right to come out. Uh, and then they built the fence over there because there was nobody going in and the out was for trash and emergency vehicles. So, I mean, I might suggest like if we were to go down the road to say we're not going to do delineator posts and gates or whatever anymore. Okay. So, that that answers this side of the question. There's going to be a gate and get rid of the delineators. Great. There is also then this weird thing where half of this fence is now missing. And to be honest, I don't get a lot of complaints from other people, but the one thing I do hear about is that specific area is unattractive. So I I mean I would think that's not up to the HOA obviously to do

a curb cut or whatever that I don't even know what I don't know how to do that. I don't know how much that costs. I don't know what any of that is. So that's kind of one of those things where if we if we were to be able to decide, hey, we'd like to get some information so we know is it $200,000 to open the road. If it is, we probably don't want to do that. If it's $20,000, it's also still not in the budget. Um but I mean all of this section is in bad shape. I mean, this was this is from this year. No, this is from 12 years ago. That's an older photo. Probably. It looks worse. You can get some different dates. Um, so I mean, I don't I mean 22. Yeah. And all the islands on striker were put in well after this was closed off. Yeah. So, I mean, I I I don't know. I don't know what it takes to take that curb out. I I don't know. But I I think you're talking tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands. But it certainly is an expense. But yeah, I just think like that's the kind to me that's the kind of thing if we're going to have the if we're going to have the conversation, then it enables us to go is that it is the mechanism that this public safety people are asking us to figure out like what is the mechanism that does this. So whether it's here or you know on Joe's way or whatever it is up there like if some I don't you know it's interesting because they would never let us close it off 20 something years ago right they had to have the driveovers to do this I mean that was the fire district west would not allow that to be blocked that way so that was the option and the homeowners said they would take care of full maintenance on that because the city said it's a public street and and I also think I mean from a from a a larger process standpoint this enables us to kind of take like well this guy was here and now that guy is there or this is what we're doing like this is just the answer. We're not doing this. You're not here yet. Um so along those lines does anybody uh let's see what are we talking is there is

there Thomas is there any what you suggested is there any public safety uh concerns with what youing yeah I think that you know you you're you need to do a study to understand I I think the didn't we do a study Rick that showed there was not four cars yeah wasn't very many and it was the same car four times yeah And I think that, you know, there could be, you know, it depends. People speed everywhere. So, it's a people problem, right? If you're driving through that street, you're just most you're just as likely probably to speed than you are on Shreker. Um, I will say if there's cars that are parked on Turnberry, that will help with the speed. But overall, I mean, I think a lot of people have most likely been naturally taught that they just don't use that entrance. And I think they would they would notice us doing something if we cleared out the other side. But I think if you slowly remove those posts and change the well, you're going to have to do a or to change the traffic code, but you put a stop sign there and then have the traffic code corrected. I think it could be done at least for now and then plan. So figure out what it is. I mean, it's probably I mean, like Mr. Brown said, it's not hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's removing it and then it Okay. Well, so here is our suggested motion. If somebody wants to amend it or change it or whatever, this is what it says. Uh, I move that the administration public works committee acknowledge the recommendation from the board of public safety regarding street obstructions and request that staff provide a framework for implementation. This should include an inventory of current barriers, which we've already got, criteria for evaluating and uh removal based on risk or disrepair and policy guidance for future developments. Upon completion of this review, the item should then advance to the full council for discussion. We seem to have most of that. So I guess maybe it's just moving up. Yes, sir. So maybe the motion that you have is to move forward with recommendation from the safety board,

but have it have the council now adopt our policies and then behind that is to do something about Turnberry. Sure. I mean, I wouldn't tie the two together. I would There's definitely separate things, but the money you're going to spend on Turnberry will more than clean up that intersection. Yep. I mean, I think it'll it would make it a much better, but the enforcement of whatever you're going to do, I think should be the big thing because it's always been a chance. There was no place to put a police put in driveways and they could get a few, but uh but Shreker Road once the islands went in, it slowed down some, too. So, Lauren, I see you got your hand up. Yeah. Can you just So, you're making it two separate motions now. Is that correct? The general board and then a separate one about Turnberry. Uh, yes. So the general one I guess is to accept the the the general one would just be to accept the whatever public safety said basically move that forward and then there will be a secondary one specific to Turnberry. Yeah. For for public streets for the whole city. So that would take out of anything in planning planning now then t turnberry would would the study and all that stuff could take a lot longer to get done. Right. Um well in this case would this be well I guess it's going to full house but I guess is the recommendation tonight though to start looking at opening it up and having that study done to do the net of who's crossing over but not I just think it make it a little bit easier than just saying public safety said this so that part we need to change our ordinances move forward then how to best handle the the turnberry scenario so that it the neighbors are all in the so we'll okay so we'll do two motions The first one is suggesting and Rick tell me how much of this I think you've got most of this already in place right like the uh inventory and all that stuff. So let's see we've got this should

include an inventory of the current barriers. So we have that um criteria for evaluating removal based on risk andor disrepair. You kind of have that. You could probably put something like that together, I assume. Right. Off the line. Yeah. Okay. Um, so that'll stay there. Um, removal. Uh, and policy guidance for future developments. That's I assume that's kind of more of Is that you or is that Joe, Rick? I don't even know. It might be more of Joe. Um, but certainly Joanne made the minimum. Okay. So basically, I mean, I would think that the I mean, the way I'm reading this is the guidance for future developments is there are no gates or delineators. I don't know how much more guidance we need on public streets. Um, so I guess we could take that out because that's part of that's accepting in what they've already got. Uh, okay. And then we're going to send this to the council. When is that? next week. Okay. The the motion from the council originally was to get bids on the gate. So, they will get copies of the bids with the recommendations from both the board of public safety and but that would be two different things, right? Because if we're going to split them up, then this is this is the first thing and then we get the bids for turn bar. So, have a new item. So, have turn bearings because there should really be two different things and then have the more general discussion about removing obstructions from the right of way. Right. That sound right? Public safety is the first one, right? Yeah. So, the first one is no gates or delineators, correct? Period. Then that will kind of go over to where it's in the development of planning and then we go Yep. And then we can go. So, you guys asked before to get this ostensibly. It doesn't matter, but this is what it is. And now we're gonna have a conversation about the best way to what we do next. Um, okay. Let me let me clarify this one a

little bit because it seems more complicated than it needs to be. Um, Okay. So, I move that the admin and public works committee I'll send it to you to Amy around. So, I'm not sure this will I move that the admin and public works committee acknowledge the recommendation from the board of public safety regarding the evaluation and potential removal of street obstructions and request the city staff to develop a framework for implementation. The framework should include clear criteria for assessing removal based on public safety risk, access limitations, and the condition of disrepair of the obstructions. Uh let's see if we might have. Uh furthermore, the city shall not authorize the installation of any new gates or permanent street obstructions moving forward in order to maintain consistent access for emergency services, maintenance, and public circulation. Upon completion of this review, the item shall be scheduled for discussion at the next city council work session. Sound right? Sure. Is that that good for you guys? The term Yeah, that not the term. This is just in general. which that might take a little bit of work for Monday. But are we talking about all gates, private streets too or just not private streets? No, this is just public streets. So the idea would be what this is ostensibly what this motion is saying and you guys correct me if I'm wrong. What we're saying is moving forward, no more gates or blockage of streets on public or blockages of roads on public roadways. Period. On top of that, on public roadways, we

need to have just a generalized process of what triggers a removal of something that is already there. Like we're not just we're not getting in the cars on Tuesday and going jackhammering out the gates. That's not what this is about. Um and then the next part will be specific to Turnberry. So again, with Turnberry, it does look like we've cold patched some of the concrete up there. So maybe in this year, next year, maybe you'd want some slab replacement and give you a little bit more opportunity to do anything that way if you needed to. I don't think it's a rush because there's traffic's been what's limited except taking the delineators out and moving them back down and cleaning up the gate or whatever. But you can see that the patch has been put in there. Trash trucks can drive over, snow plows can get over. though it's no access for public but it allows emergency vehicles in that. So Rick or Tom would it be better for you guys to have it in maybe three parts. So one is everything moving forward no gates and blockages standpoint to adopt the policy for no gates moving forward for and then two is reviewing well all the gates really okay that exists public gates. So this is so one is no gates and delineators moving forward. two, reviewing whatever gates are there and whatever our assessment is on what triggers the removal of whatever is there. And then three is public right away. Public right away. And then three is going to be whatever we're going to do this other thing. Does that make sense to everybody? Okay. Do you guys want a fancy one or is everybody good on that? Amy, I can write it a fancy one if you want. I think I think it's good. But I think by breaking it that way, it it deals with the whole issue to start with. I mean, we still have some pretty tight regulations on private property. Yeah. You know, all the owners and all that because those have been some knockown dragout fights

over the years. Then raise Molina left town, right? Okay. So, let's start this. Let's start this over a little bit. Then we're almost I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Okay. So first one, establish a policy pres prohibiting the installation of any new gates or permanent street obstructions on public roadways effective immediately. This action is intended to preserve public public access, ensure emergency service availability, and maintain consistent citywide infrastructure standards. Anybody care to make that Mr. Alers? Anybody care to second it? Tracy will second it. Okay. All those in favor? Uh Nathan and Lauren, you hear that one? Okay. All those in favor of motion number one to uh prohibit the installation of any gates or permanent street obstructions moving forward, please say I. I. Anyone uh object? Anyone abstain? Okay, that one passes. Um, number two is going to be uh I move that the staff review and review and create a framework for the evaluation of existing street obstructions. Five. I think that other than based off this list other than Turnberry, there wouldn't be any other major obstructions we'd be looking to review. Yeah, that's fine. But you still need to say like we know that there's 13 or whatever whatever there is. So, in order to not have the people of Wild Horse or wherever think that we're coming tomorrow to get

their gates. We're going to say this is the policy in terms of how this works. Does that make sense to everybody? Yeah. Are are you you proposing that all the other gates be reviewed? I mean, we need an inventory, which we have. Okay. And then we need to have just like the city needs to have a policy of like this is what triggers one being removed. So if it is in if it's you know if somebody drives a car through it and it's now damaged then probably it's going to get removed not replaced that kind of that kind of thing. Um but I think we want to make sure that people understand like we're not just okay ripping what I was clarifying and last is the turnberry item right separately. [Music] So, so the city staff is directed to develop a formal policy outline outlining the criteria and process for the removal of existing gates and permanent street obstructions. This policy should consider factors such as public safety risk, infrastructure condition, access limitations, and alignment with city-wide mobility goals. Sound right? Do we need to add anything about enforcement should to tie into the ordinances or those all have to be individually done? So by doing all of this making the enforcement of any of these changes you make should that be included in that motion or not? So like the police like yeah the police because you're still going to have to go back and treat those as otherwise people will take the ticket and go to the traffic. Oh, you're talking about you're talking about going back and correcting the traffic code when necessary. Exactly. Yeah, we can I think it would correspond just one more step to think that if we put it in the ordinance then it kind of makes that you guys don't have to do the readingsberry specifically. I think that one will be if that's the direction the

council wishes to go that'll that could be him together same night wouldn't we also but for the wider city though I think what I think Ed what you're saying is like and we're not doing this I'm just saying like that one in wild horse for instance like if if there's something in the if there is something in the code that says you can or can't do whatever then along with the the explanation as to why and why what we're doing the city the the traffic code should be in there to go this is what it says. If we take it out, this is what we have to do. Even like on the privacy, you have to how many feet you have to give them to allow school bus to get off there. There's there's some pretty tight regulations there. But the question would be then when you do make these changes, you kind of have to go back and and look at the traffic ordinances to make sure that we haven't blocked them ourselves. Right. You need that in the motion or you kind of get that? I need that in Yeah, we can we will those will go hand in hand. Okay. Uh anybody want to make the second one? just in terms of like they're going to give us this inventory and tell us how this is supposed to work. Mr. Marshall, anybody want to second it? Mr. Jaxi. Okay. Uh Lauren and Nathan, you guys hear that one? Yeah. It sounds is not just specific to Turnberry, correct? No. So, this is this is going to be across this is going to be like a citywide thing. This is the mechanisms required to do whatever we're going to do. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Okay, that one passes. Amy, I will I will email that one to you. And now now we get to our last component here, which I guess is going to be our turnberry conversation. So, what do we want to say for that one? To have staff review the appropriate options of reopening safely. termary place drive I think is what it's

called. So, um Yep. Okay. So, the gate quotes have to go forward to the council just technically. Yeah. As a because that motion requested them come back, but it'll come with what you guys are saying right now. So, the first Yeah. So, the first thing will be Yes. Yes. Right. Yes. Yes. Lauren. Yeah. Look, I this is this has been an issue that came up a couple of years ago actually and just it just you know we're just now coming to conclusions. This is going to be such a what what would be considered a betrayal of trust because all of the conversations that they've had on staff with staff on Zoom with us uh back when Don was on council um what they made clear from the beginning is that they wanted to work with the city to have a change but they did not want the road open. So, no one's asking for this but council. And I don't envision a world where somebody isn't broadsided for trying to take a lefthand turn that's illegal there. I just I think we're going to have I think we're going to have wrecks. So, from their perspective, they're going to come to a meeting. They're not going to get the improvement they were expecting, which we can we can explain why because it affects response time. That's all fair. I agree with that. but they're going to get the one thing that they didn't ask for and specifically said they didn't want. And I think they would just rather leave it alone and have it look like heck. I I I just I feel really bad about that. And then they're going to look at other areas where there is a gate because we've done an inventory on it and it's not a big deal for council to spend the money and remove a gate that already exists, right? So they're going to go, not only did we not get a gate, but they get to keep theirs. That's what's going to happen. So, it's going to make a ton of people angry for nothing that they asked for. It's just

us deciding that it should be open. Well, it's it's I hear you, but it isn't it isn't us. I mean, it's the people that go fix houses that are burning, and this is the second time, but they already 2009, but they can they can turn in there as it is now over top of the delineators. What they're asking for was us not to change it with a gate. they they can already get through the intersection and do get through the intersection. They they were saying that it is difficult in the way it is currently configured for them to get in there even now without the gate because it's a weird turn around that thing. By the way, this isn't again this isn't saying we're going to go open this road up tomorrow. This is implying this is applying the the process that the city is creating which would apply anywhere. If if Turnber's intersection is found to be deficient, which in my estimation it currently is, then my question would be like even if we're talking about a gate, why haven't they fixed it to this point? They haven't fixed it for I don't know 15 years. Yeah, I I I guess my point is the department the the department never said, "Hey, we want this widened so we can turn more easily." The fire department didn't say that before and bring it to our attention. But if that's what they want now, it we could widen that and still keep the road closed. There's a way, you know, I get it. I I hear what you're saying, Lauren. I would just say, and I appreciate it. It is an important issue to you and it is part of your ward and I am I am not trying to lessen that at all. Um, and you can certainly advocate that position and I I support you in your ability to do that. But I think that, you know, of all of the places that I'm I'm aware of in the city, this is one that, you know, there the resolution, hey, this could go to this could go to the council and nobody likes it. I have no idea. Our job is to move

it to the place where people talk about it. And so, you know, I think that you have the ability to have those conversations. Um, but I I understand people of Turnberry may not be super thrilled about this. There's a lot of people that drive that road that aren't thrilled about what it looks like currently. So, I don't know how we make one set of people feel good and the other bad. We don't have a policy as of yet. We're about to create one and then we apply it. That's how policy works. Think she might have locked it. No. Okay. All right. So, she's on mute. Yeah. Okay. So, this is the suggestion. You can take it or leave it, change it, don't do it, whatever. The suggestion is, I move that city staff be directed to develop a plan for safely reopening the Turnberry crossing at Striker Road, which is currently obstructed. This plan should include appropriate traffic calming measures, signage, and design adjustments to ensure safe access for all users. Once complete, the proposed plan shall be forwarded to the full city council for review and consideration of further implementation. You guys, anybody want to make that or change it or whatever? Or do you want to say um research the possibility of opening? Like it's we're saying open it. No, no. We're we're saying we're telling them to look I mean we're not telling them to open it right now. We're saying look at the possib I mean if they come back and they a million dollars and the answer is like okay. So, do you need to in this motion, do you need to u address the fact that you had the bids, but now the bids I think that this needs like per the motion from council that came out. The reason why we got bids in the first place was to get bids and bring them back to council, but we had board of public safety weigh in since the fire department reached out. Then we now we're having a broader discussion. So I think the idea is you still have to bring those bids to the full council to say these are the bids we got per the motion but since then board of public safety has met here's the feedback from board of public safety

um administration public works committee has met here's their uh here's the information from there as well and and then at the same time the Ashley subdivision that gate won't exist so there will be no other gates right now there aren't any gates on any public streets public streets but there will be no more in the planning process. So just shutting down turn bear I mean we don't have a gate to take out. It's just to figure out what to do with a road that a public street that has been uh shut down to through traffic um for for you know 30 years. So you don't need I guess my question was do you need to tie in anything about the bids on the gate or is you just let that die as the motion moves forward? I think you have to present the just per the motion that was requested you have to present it but you have like the information provided with it that says hey it seems as if the council committee is moving in a different direction. So this is what it says the motion theoretically would be I guess assuming that that other thing goes. So um I move that the city council formally acknowledge that the prior motion to solicit bids for gates at the turnberry crossing is no longer applicable under the city's updated policy prohibiting new street obstructions. City st city staff is directed to evaluate and develop options for safely reopening the turn grade crossing at Striker Road, including traffic calming, signage, or other design measures as needed. These opt options should be presented to the full city council for review and determination of next appropriate steps. So send that to us. Yeah, I mean assuming that that's what you guys want to do. Lauren or you have any comments? I'm okay. Okay. So, Cliff will make it. Ed will second it. Anybody want to talk any more about it? I know that this is not fun. Lauren, I understand. I apologize. Um, all right. Uh, with no discussion, all those in favor of

pushing this one forward on Turnberry, please say I. I. I. Anyone opposed? Opposed. Any abstensions? All right. So, we will have this conversation up the road here a little bit. So, that was a good one. All right. Um, last but not least, um, and I'm sorry we're going out on a downer for you, Lauren, but I did want to give anybody uh a chance since this is our last meeting as this group. If anybody wanted to say anything, especially those of you guys that won't be returning, now would be the time. Um, keep it clean. Yeah, let's try to keep it let's try to keep unknown for otherwise. Um, uh, if nobody has anything to say, I will just say I I do greatly appreciate your guys, um, votes in making me the chair. You guys have been a a great group to work with and I'm, you know, sad that Larry isn't here with us tonight because he's certainly added a lot to these conversations over the years. So, um, you will hear this again in a week or so, couple days here at the council meeting. But for those of you guys that are leaving the council, I have greatly appreciated working with all of you and I will sincerely miss the opportunity to keep doing that. So, um, I thank you guys all for your service on everything we do here. I know it isn't the most exciting thing in the world, um, but it's important work. So, with that, I guess we'll take a motion to adjurnn. Made by Miss Nan. Anybody care to second? Second by Mr. Alers. All those in favor, please.