Administration / Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

better. It's coming. You're very last Sunday. You saw someone right there. There's five. One, two, three, four, five. Five before, but now the five are not where the five were. Sir, we're ready. Thank you. I could I didn't do that. Um just down. All right. Welcome everybody to our July meeting of the uh administration public works committee. Um I don't have too much to say here this evening. So why don't we start with our roll call. Council member Preston here. Council member Mabberry here. Council member Nyion here. Council member Farmer here. Council member Marshall present. Council member Bcker. Council member Banick here. Council member Als. Okay. Uh that brings us to the approval of minutes. I know Mr. Mayor wanted to make a quick adjustment. Um not least approve the meeting minutes with the correction of spelling of Marbert to the other Marberry spelled M A R Y. So where's that file? Motion made by council member Mabberry with a quick tweak on the name. Anybody care to second it? Seconded by Mr. Marshall. All those in favor of approving our June minutes, please say I. I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions. All right. Uh, that brings us to public participation. There's nobody in the room with us. I don't think I see anybody online. Miss Clark, I believe, is online. Okay. Uh Teresa, if you wanted to say anything for public participation, just

raise your hand. Or if you're just watching, that's cool, too. Just let us know. She good. All right. Uh that brings us to our administration portion with an update on the state funding request for erosion mitigation. Okay. Mr. Lee, and thank you, Chair Farmer. Uh as uh the council on the committee here is well aware of last week's email out to the council is that the governor had decided to line item veto the city's $250,000 appropriation uh for watershed erosion mitigation projects here in the city. Uh that funding would have been allowed to be utilized. It's a 100% match. So the city did have 300,000 set aside this year for watershed erosion projects. Um so 250 of that would have just had to been dedicated towards one of the eligible projects which in this case gave us pretty vast reach considering that the council had a couple projects in Q. Um of those would have been the evergreen forest creek restoration going towards that uh the highlands at Wild Horse that project uh pushing towards that ba the basin retrofit project along Cox Creek but also uh potentially putting together something for the storm water management master plan. So either of those four projects could have you know receded a lot further um this year if that additional funding could have come on. That said it is noted that without u additional funding external funding on top of that we would have kind of had to choose one. So those four would have been eligible but to give a little history we had requested back in 2023 500,000 from the state. They originally had wanted a 25% match, but then waved it uh in 2024. Uh we reduced it at the governor's office's direction to 350,000 um with a 40% match based off the recommendation, but then they the legislature ended up w legislature ended

up waving that as well. Uh but then that was line item vetoed by Governor Parson. And then 2025 we had once again went back and changed the amount being requested and increased our match to 100%. Uh based off the governor's direction and in this case we had a new governor. So we had thought that that would uh potentially lead to a different outcome and in early February and then into March there was some indication that we would it would be a if it could get through the legislature that it would uh would not be targeted for a veto. That said, after the legislature had completed their session and passed the budget on to the governor's office at that point, uh we did not hear too too much from the governor's office even though we had requested a meeting and u had originally set one up. Uh and that said never got they never got back to us. Our legislative consultant and the department had been reaching out to them pretty consistently. Uh quite a bit of information was provided to them plus the legislature. All in all though it somewhat went dark and then we had um the decision that came out. So in this case it does not seem that uh this method in the report here tonight does not seem that this method is you know the kind of the definition of insanity would be you know going back and doing the same thing and expecting different results this time. We actually did have a different governor and there was some some hope there because they had given us some positive feedback from the from the get-go in those initial meetings. Um that said, the idea tonight was to brief the council. It is a for information item, but just start kind of giving some ideas. It's going to be a broader discussion at the council meeting, upcoming council meeting, but just broader discussion about potential opportunities available to the city. Um doing some research. There are a couple different ways. They're not none of these are necessarily going to give you a ton of money in grant funding. you know, at 250,000 would probably be on the high end for most of these, but um there is some data out there that would need to be uh confirmed by consultant

that you could potentially isolate one watershed in a 319 called nine element plan for 319 funding. That's one avenue that could be looked at if that is true. Um on top of that, there's also some FEMA funding that is available. It's right now it seems very difficult to to get anything from FEMA uh when it comes to emergency preparedness really wershed erosion just based off what's been communicated to me. U and then also there are some other options with the Metropolitan Solar District that's supposed to be coming up here in 2026. We do not know what that that program is supposed to look like just yet, but there could be some funding coming our way. Um, and I actually did want to ask this of our director of planning, but the Missouri state revolving fund, I believe we had actually uh that was part of some of the applications we had submitted previously and we were unsuccessful. Correct. Mr. Sturman who's on the watershed erosion task force had contacted them. That's where we kind of I think heard first about the nine element plan. Okay. So, in that case, that was noted here too. That said, um it does seem that a lot of these avenues uh they're limited in funding and it doesn't seem like there's a very big effort for on their end to planning it out for these types of projects. That said, this does kind of go back to maybe we could isolate one single watershed and focus in on that. That is something that at least from preliminary research that shows that you can do that. You just have to show how it drains into the the river system that it's going into and show the entirety of it. But that would isolate one watershed over the eight remaining in the city. So there are some drawbacks to that approach as well and further research would be need to be done to confirm that that is uh makes it eligible with the nine element plan. So that's one item, but the other is potentially looking at um neighborhood improvement districts. That's one item we could discuss. Uh this is something that was recently passed within uh it's

being recently passed by the legislature and is being considered by the governor as another part of legislation uh allowing neighborhood improvement districts to be created specifically for um well they've always been able to be created for watershed erosion mitigation projects but they would have to affect public property. The change in recent legislation that the governor may be passing here shortly is that it would allow it for the benefit to a private property. So in that case we could identify in theory um a large group of residents that are impacted by the wershed maybe everyone that is draining into Cox Creek or draining into each wedded and then identify it that way and in that case it wouldn't be you know one group of residents in the city funding the improvements it would be the residents that are being directly impacted by the the wershed itself. So just some ideas. Uh obviously the city general obligation bonds are listed here but that said it it's something that um we have not done since well we've done it for the SID but it's something we typically don't do as city but obviously it is an opportunity available. Um and then there are also other funding mechanisms that are tied directly to taxes. So, wanted to open up the discussion, but this will be something for information tonight, but we'll have a little bit more uh information going forward to the city council. Thank you, chair. All right, question. And so, on the neighborhood, if we did a neighborhood um district, it says property owners in these areas would agree to special assessment. So, how does that work? So, there's two way creator. Yeah. So, there's two ways that a NID can be produced. We had we have had a nid for the the sewer district that we did down in Manchester. The way that was produced is the way that is the state I would almost say encourages is by petition. I think Mr. Marshall would be able to hear here here would attest to this that the residents actually came to the city in that case and that's the same with this. They would need to come to the city with a petition showing three4s of the residents that would be

impacted would be in this district u support it and then the council could pass ballot language that then would have to be voted on by the whole populace. The other way to do it would be um I believe it is 10 uh I'd have to get the exact percentage but a certain percentage I think it's 10 or 11 council members could approve ballot language without the petition. So there's two ways to get it on the ballot but it does have to be approved by the voters. So the council in theory could with almost it's not a perfect twothirds uh you know reforce majority it's like 10. There's a strange equation within the state code that I calculated out to 10 or 11 council members out of the 16 would have to vote to put it on the ballot without the petition. If it had the petition with it, it would be a simple simple majority. So, in that case, either or it would be defined by the city um and then approved by the council, but that is something that could be looked into if we wanted to explore it at least along Cox Creek for the other the other wersheds have not been studied as much. Anybody else? Mr. May I don't want to be out of turn, but um this this is a big hitter all things erosion. And just a question, Mr. Chair, are we looking to uh devote as much attention to this whole realm of erosion control and the traumas that's coming from it uh as one as one big bite? Either before or will it be after? tonight's agenda, other issues. So that whatever time's remaining for a otherwise sane departing time back to our families, we would then take whether that's the a half hour block or my word, we've got an hour to spend on this. Are we going to hit it now? Take whatever half hour or hour or hour and a half it

takes to um consume all the issues so we can give Mr. something to chew in on and report later. So, it's just it's a kind of a simple question, but just looking how we're going to bite this off. And I I mean, I would say that now is kind of an appropriate time to do it, having spent a pretty significant amount of time on this. You know, while I am pleased that we have a lot of different options on the table, um you know, I think one of the things that strikes me with this, much like, um I guess before some of you guys were on the council, you know, we approached the internet issue a while back and we expended a great deal of federal money at the time to do, I guess, as good as we could do. It certainly could have been better. Um, so when we look at our priority list of the cities or our council's kind of priority list of projects, watershed erosion has moved to the top pretty much across the board. And so, um, you know, for me, while I'm very frustrated and, um, sadly not surprised that we wound up getting line item vetoed on this thing, and I would have I would have greatly appreciated the $250,000 from the state, that is less than a small drop of water in the problem that we have here. So, um, I think, and we've spent an enormous amount of time on this, as Mr. Bunish can attest to at the task force like our our concept of continuing to chase other people's money for this problem is a fool's errand. It doesn't matter what version of it we look at. Um I think it is uh we were talking about this before the meeting went live. You know we've there was this terrible flooding incident in Texas which thankfully we don't have those issues here at the moment. But that's another one of these places where it is a very clear and

present danger and problem and for whatever reason the powers that be just choose to not do seemingly anything about it. Um and so you know whether it's we've you know Tom and I have talked a lot about the NID and different versions of this thing and I use this example in our task force a lot. You know, I happen to my subdivision happens to have one of the largest basins in the city. And when I became a trustee before I was a council member, you know, we got nothing but complaints about how ugly and awful this thing was. And so we spend a lot of money every year to make this thing look nice. And three houses in my 400 house neighborhood feed water into this pond. So there is a a concept for the people um you know we've got Greg Burgerer who's on our task force whose house is literally caving into a creek who you know yes the pe those of us myself included that live on the creek it's a personal issue for us but everybody's water winds up in this place it doesn't matter how far away from a creek or whatever you are the the the sewer systems dump into these tributaries that's where they go so we have to have I think a very real conversation about um from a city standpoint our spending priorities. I I'm frustrated about the governor, but I go back and I look and you know, we have a line item in our budget for $500,000 for a pickle ball court. What are we asking the state for $250 grand for a watershed for? You can't say you can't pay for something when you can pay for all kinds of other stuff. So, at the end of the day, we can have a a much longer conversation if you want. I I do not see after spending however many years we've been doing this, Joe, four, five, I think six, I think I'm almost to six years on this now. The only viable solution to this is what some of our neighboring municipalities has done. And that is to approach our residents as a whole with a storm and

parks and storm water tax, which by the way will also only fund a very tiny percentage of what it is. And then we need to look at a city um as we're doing with other places. We had this conversation about this too. You know, we have spent a great deal of money on 100 and and Old State, which is of course important to Mr. Vanic and some of these other places that these are not our problems to fix. We are that, you know, I'm all for deer beer deer culling because that's helped a lot, but again, not not really our deal. And so, we're spending hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars a year on fixing problems that aren't ours. And to a large extent throughout at least half of our city, this is an MSD problem. It is not a city of Wildwood problem. So, um, we've spent a lot of money and gotten a lot of great information from the USGS and the best piece of information we got is they are telling us that if we can retrofit the a select number of basins that they've picked out and ideally add a handful more in some very specific places, I mean, what were they saying, Joe? It's like 50 to 75% of the pressure comes off of the system. And to me, that's a city thing we can do. If I don't want it to happen, but if the triple meander gets blown out of one of these storms, that is not our problem. I mean, it's our inconvenience. Somebody else is going to have to fix that. That's MSD or the state or whatever. So, um, I don't want to be I don't want to become a person and I don't want our city to become a collective that doesn't help where help is necessary and where we can't partner in a smart way. But we are investing an enormous amount of money in things that are just not our problem which enables us to not fix the things that either are kind of our problem or are a like very real danger to what we are doing. Um, so I mean I'm happy to have

whatever kind of conversation you guys want, but I I don't see any other path other than that that makes any level of sense. You said that it was like half a dozen of these that take 50 to 75% of the load off. Well, is is there a ballpark right now to to fix? So, not including I think it's three they wanted to add, right? So, not including the three that they want to add because that's a little bit more complicated. Um, but the r the kind of rough estimate to fix the rest of them was what, a million and a half, something like that. It ranged anywhere from around $200,000 to $300,000, which was inexpensive compared to almost everything else we looked at. Yeah. So, when you t when you total it all up, it's a million and a half dollars basically. Um, and you know, some and you know, the the philosophy on that is, you know, that's what this is one of those things where that's what science is telling us. hopefully will work. The biggest issue and I'm a very firm believer in this kind of science, but the biggest problem we have is a lot of the data that they're using is old data. Like they're not did this whatever this thing is that hit today. I mean that was a lot of rain and that's what we find a lot. It's not it's not that we're getting more rain total. We are just getting more rain in shorter bursts. And so it almost doesn't matter what you do to your water system. It's just our current one is for sure not built to handle that. Um, but some of these other things might help. Yes, sir. Well, I I would certainly be in favor of looking at the budget to see what could be carved out of that to go go to some of these projects, you know, and u I have kind of a question and the need to know more about this. If if we repaired certain of these things, would there be

a risk that if a big rain came that it could uh get destroyed again by by maybe some of the other ones that aren't able to handle that and it it kind of carries over to what we just fixed and wrecks everything? Yeah. So, is that making sense? Yeah. I think I mean and Joe or Rick, correct me if I'm wrong on this, too. like what what they've basically what we've kind of figured out is really outside of this retention detention basin thing which is a logistically pretty simple idea. They just hold more water for longer periods of time. Any repair that we make on any one of these critical areas in the creek in theory will fix that area and in practice will injure something further down the creek. It's just how it works. So, it's it's sort of like, you know, if you had a broken finger, you can you can splint that finger, but we're going to break one of the other fingers for you. Okay. That's that's just kind of how it goes. What What would be the process to change the budget? How does that work? We'd like to pull things out of the budget. We're going to be talking about the fiscal year 2026 capital this year. And we're I was actually looking to today to kind of be anformational basis to kind of show what we're contractually obligated via grant funding, but we could do a and also open to doing a you know shared screen uh type approach where we could walk through them. Um that said, I mean if if the council truly wanted to do it, it would come up as an actual appropriation item. So approving an agreement. I think more work would need to be done to finalize the plans and easement acquisition for the basins, but that change was needed. you could have an amendment to the budget corresponding with uh the actual contract itself. So if we were doing one, you could do them both at the same time practically. The council can do that at any time. Yeah. I mean, I I will say, you know, I've I've looked I I've been thinking

about this um a lot and just how we want to kind of approach the budget in 2026 because I kind of always feel like we're scrambling at the last minute to figure all this stuff out. So, you know, one of the things that helps me to make some decisions is to say, you know, this is the framework I'm going to use to look at all things. It doesn't make one thing better than the other thing. It's just like this is what it is. So, um you know, whether we're going down our um capital improvement thing and you know, something like the the Green Pines Trail is on there, which I know would be very useful and helpful, but is that a thing that the city has to have in order to function? Probably not. So, to me, that's a pretty easy thing to go, well, that moves to a list of things we would like to have if we all of a sudden have a bunch of extra cash, but there's a lot of other stuff that is necessary before we can get there. Um, that that's how I would do it, but everybody I mean, obviously there's 16 of us, so we can all figure out our own way to do that. But I I would I would maybe look at some of those things in that way. like what are things that are just absolutely impossible to, you know, stop or whatever we want to call it versus things that are like, you know, like our pickle ball court, which we kind of put an indefinite pause on, you know, would I like to have pickle ball? I mean, personally, me, not so much, but I guess people like it. Um, but again, this kind of relates back to some of that other stuff. So, I think we can make those adjustments as we go. And you know, if we start talking about them now, we've got several months in front of us to get it figured out. Yes, sir. Mr. Marshall. Well, I'm I'm going to back and put the old history hat on. This is not new. And when we finished and did the ribbon cutting at Anniversary Park, we said once the park is done, people know we have it and we start working on trails. We're going back to the voters to get park and storm water runoff tax

approved. And every time we brought it up, everybody backs out from it. But I know back in 1998 council. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm going to run next year. I don't want any taxes on there. How are we going to do this? And unfortunately in 199899, we had the same problem with our capital. Um we went out and knocked on doors. And I mean we met every Sunday. We did flyers because you the city can't pay to do this stuff. So we had to do it ourselves, but right now we're getting $3 million a year from that half a cent tax. So now it's 20 years, but what that's $60 million we would have had. So but nobody would help push that through in today's world. I think with the the ability to communicate to people, to show videos to people, to get people to see the physical damage. I mean, we were looking for aren't the trails nice and isn't that a nice pavilion to the point that what's realistic when right as after we incorporated I lived off of Valley Road and this was before Rick's time, but Valley Road was shut down because the water coming out of out of uh Brent Moore and and the other area actually washed Valley Road out. It was down 40t. So in that particular case, we were going to have to we had to get and move the creek over into my subdivision, rebuild it to put the road in. So it does happen. In that particular case, when the roads wash out in their city roads, we have to eat that. So we have all of those examples of of where and how those things happen. I guess my question would be is I think we should just just my thoughts we should go to the ballot and we should ask the voters and we have to communicate to the voters the park lovers the watershed people and the other people who just like what's going on and really share with them the amount of money and what's this does to a city that doesn't have a real estate tax doesn't have the I don't think you'd have a chance at all to get a mid

through right that's just too hard unless it's your own sewer system or where you're going to have to get property owners and subdivisions. But I think the one question though is the percentage to get it approved on a ballot at one election is 50% and one election is 60%. So I would certainly tell you to go for the 50%. Right. So when you do and even if you had to do a special election, sure, that's about 124,000 it used to be to the city to have a special election. And then you got to really try to get people out there to get that over that number. We wouldn't see the money right away. It would be a year or two years, but then I would be in favor of going into our reserves and start making the changes that we think long term is right for the city of Wildwood and not one of these things about well until we can get funding. It's not going to happen. It it's just way too political and quite honestly they have us some pretty good points. I mean, we do very well for a city, but we've done without, you know, for almost 30 years. I mean, there's a lot of stuff we would have liked to have had. So, nope, can't do that. Can't do that. So, I I think if we'd look at that, the other thing I would question is that percentage is important. And then, um maybe we get an ad hoc committee or something to work on it because we did a lot of stuff back and I think I'm probably the only one still alive that because that was tough because we didn't I think about that. We were spending millions of dollars for road improvement out of our general budget. And to get people to vote for that, and I remember the thing that we knocked on the door and told them is that the only time you're going to see a noticeable change is when you buy a car because that half a cent would be like an extra back then $400, $500. Oh, well, you know, I guess you're probably right. But you look, our sales tax level is lower than a lot. So, I mean, I don't think it's an insurmountable challenge. It's not going to be easy. And it would be really one of getting all of our ducks in the row, figure out when and how and

how we get group together to try to fund it. But I just think we've postponed it for so many years. It just it's not going to get any better. It's going to continue to to get worse. And then I don't know, maybe that's another opportunity where you go back and does Ann Wagner have any monies? Well, I'll tell you, it's interesting you bring this up. Uh at least Mr. Lee and I I can't I think maybe she's always here when she wants something. you know, we we had an opportunity to meet with her uh chief of staff and we asked a lot of these questions and he made it number one, he said, "Well, Congresswoman Wagner doesn't believe in pork barrel politics." And I think I said, "I'm not good luck in the next election. I'm not sure that's what this is." And then he made it very clear she has no interest in bringing any money back to the district. She thinks that that is just not the purpose of her job. So I just think as long as that writing is documented because when she wants something she's out here in a heartbeat and oh we need to look what I'm doing that that's not and then I think if that's that way we ought to use all the opportunities we have to communicate her opinion. Yeah because that will that's not going to help any anybody in election. So I just throw that out as another option. We're we're one of the only cities that doesn't do something for our parks like this too. Right. Correct. Yep. and and we've got the largest parks, so it's a little and one of the largest cities. Yeah. A little bit of a Yeah. And I think I mean to your point about the the reserve, I think Trace and I are the only two that were on when we we voted to do a big chunk of money to internet and a big chunk of money to watershed and seemingly overnight that just shifted to well we got federal money for the internet and everything else goes away. I I just again I didn't have a chance to vote on that but I think we missed some really opportunities to nothing happens tomorrow if you don't start it now you're you're not going to see that but I also believe that we do have some pretty smart residents but we have to do a really really good job of

communicating because they will do they will do a really big job about why do we have this why do we have that but that's just my two cents worth but I think if we want to move in that direction it's really one that we need to do all the basic homework what what election Do you put it on? Do you do a special election? What, you know, how much money do we think it would take? Because you have to raise that money. The city can't pay for it, right? What can the city do communication wise? Because you got to kind of do both sides of it. But I think we have enough examples of how bad it is. It ought to be pretty easy to do a sideby-side. Well, and we have a lot of neighboring municipalities that have been very successful at this recently, so it should be I mean, yeah, at least we can ask them how they did it. Their situation is different, but that's my two cents. Thank you. And I got a quick answer for I believe from what I'm looking at here. If there is a general obligation tied to the ballot and it is on the April municipal election, that's when it needs the 57.14, which is commonly referred to as the 60%. So, it seems like we went to November or in the August election. When When's the August primaries? Aren't they in August? I mean, I know we're probably too late now, but I you just want to make sure you don't set yourself up to fail by by picking up needing an extra six or seven percent that you don't you Well, and that also puts it into an awkward thing with the municipal election because, you know, No, they're going to be people you beg to come out. Yeah. Yeah, that's why it seems like it's tied directly to that that municipal election. I think it's because they they did that. But what about a special election? That would be 50 plus one vote. There you go. Sounds like a So for the money you would spend and I don't know it used to be I we used to have 25 election polls and it was $18,000 but that was an oldtime money. I don't know what it would be now. How did the check I remember it was something CN was something like it was like 25k last time I well the last one we did was no that was just W one though for the tie vote and I think that the only time we

I don't know when we ever did a special election now thinking about it. It was a first time for everything. Well, yeah, but I mean it is an avenue and and uh it's one of those issues where that's what it cost you to have the I mean you could check and see that. But I just think we need to really do some homework if we got to have 9 11 people say, "Hey, I'm willing to go out and and and do that because most people don't want a tax increase, right? But I also believe they like to maintain their backyard and the roads and the parks." I've had a I've had a lot of conversations with people that are very opposed to tax increases in general and specifically not at all opposed to this kind of attacks. This makes a lot of sense. Although to what we've been saying like we we do have to be able to justify some of these other things that we're doing because you know to totally agree but I think and I guess this is back to Thomas and you guys doing but I think this is the best preparation for a budget I've ever seen. So congratulations. I think that's uh that's a big step forward. So yeah, it probably wouldn't look good to put in a pickle ball cord 500k and then ask the residents for quite honestly it's not good to be setting on the kind of reserves we have and going to the residents asking them for money either in my opinion. I agree because soon as somebody puts out there oh they have 11 12 Oh really? No problem. Mr. Manner, just uh curious. Um I you were speaking of the three homes around you, but uh I'm sure there's other homes that are in danger. So with my Go ahead. You mean with the pond by me? Yeah. So basically there's three houses in our So our neighborhood is 383 homes. We have three houses that are that back up to the pond. So they're fine. They're not getting in any trouble. But and they're the only ones where the front half or the I guess the back half of their house water goes into the pond. Yeah. All the other water is not theirs. Yeah. All the other water comes from all the houses going up from Thunderhead Canyon to Lafayette. That's what all

seems to flow down. So, um you know, Mr. for Vunage and I have had a lot of conversations about this where it's like, hey, I I I think the pond I'm happy to have the pond look great, but you know, we have 383 people whose HOA fees are not very high and a big chunk of this is going to a pond that none of them care about. They don't have to look at it or see it. And when I when I would get complaints from the other residents and other subdivisions, I would go, "Hey, I'm happy to how about we split it?" And they were like, "Why would we split it? You're wrong." Yeah. So I I think that you know that's a very telling you're downstream from us buddy. Right. So the uh I mean there's other things in danger here. There's bridges there roads commercial development commercial development infra you know like sewer lines water lines if this gets washed out then it's comes back to city of wildwood too. Yeah. I mean I think the biggest example that we've used and um is you know the triple meander which is behind the elegant child. you know, there is a I would say strong likelihood that that is going to get punched straight through. And if that happens, all of that collapses, including the houses in Point Clayton and then Streker Road on the on the right side, but then it goes directly into a bridge that we built that was like, I don't know, several million dollars that is currently seemingly sort of just hanging in space. So you could the before picture could be all those junk cars, Joe, that used to be styled up that so in that man. They're still back there. They're still in there. Yeah. The county's way to solve that was to put junk flat cars in there and they just stacked them. Yep. They're still there. So yeah. Um All right. Anybody Mr. Maber, you got something? It would help me to know that we are giving Mr. Lee um feelers to to point

himself toward self-sufficiency and a ballot measure and not uh continuing to feel like he has to try to give us options. Yeah. Or other fe federal money, state money. Uh let's let's see if we can invent it from somewhere else. Even to the extent that I hear about reortioning our own budget, our surplus, our priorities to make this the new number one and pickle balls now reduce three where this old boomer thinks it ought to be 25 priority in case of other things that are a lot more important uh even business development. But uh can we do that much farm? We're we're we're after the we're after the uh attack on the people to uh enlighten them against their will into convincing themselves that it's good money for them because they're not going to do anything if it's not something in for them. Right. To that end, where I thought the discussion would be is things like uh are we going to u direct that recommendation he made to the council that Mr. Lee's report, not the one that that's in this report here because it's been changed a little bit even to the extent that there was a little comment about there was a comment made by our uh legislative representative. There might have been a political component to we don't need that. We don't and it wasn't in Mr. Lee's report. We we we need to be brutally uh dry and factual. And that report was that that needs to be arked from the mountaintop and and frontload our residents into a quick a quick education that isn't going to take a slow roll for five more years and trying to convince council members to to support it too. Yeah.

Is that an easy cell with me? So I just wondered can is that a is that a feature of the goal of our long discussion about this tonight is to give him Yeah. So I mean technically I guess it's a it's a for information item. So I mean we can certainly I mean I think you're kind of clear on where we're going with this thing but we can we can for sure make a motion if that's what you would like. Yeah. I mean it would it's going to be also discussed at council is the understanding. So either way works. The main thing though we want tonight if we want to communicate and really push on I know we had something in the e newswsletter last week that communicated what we're what was sent out um but was repackaged just for more resident facing not an email facing um if we want to really push that messaging that could be something we get a motion on tonight while also I think we should go ahead oh I just I thought in conjunction with that as we move ahead on investigating putting a tax on the ballot can we also talk about using some reserves in control to get things going faster and then when we do go to the taxpayers we can say we're already doing this but we need I don't know I was trying to remember I know well you guys would make were there Tommy you weren't here yet I thought I thought it was I thought we approved $3 million for this for I thought it was three million for the internet and three million for watershed yeah and then from the reserve and then all of a sudden it was 7 million from ARPA and no more wershed anything so that's what I'm saying can we look into whatever that was or could be or whatever to get it started before it becomes more expensive and and then you know replace it later if we pass the tax or whatever however that needs to work but can that be like a joint conversation can yeah I mean I think so um I'll get you so Tom and I talked a little bit about this and what I understand and I could be wrong is if we were to go to the ballot for this we have the choice that we make as a city is one are we going to put it on the ballot And if we're going

to put it on the ballot, are we going to say this is a storm water tax, a parks tax, or a storm water and parks tax? And if it is the storm water and parks, then we as the elective body get to determine what percentage of that is going where. Some could go to maintenance, the other would go to bonding. I mean, you could make that decision. Yeah, we could, right? And so I think I mean, I think because this is kind of an all-encompassing thing and Joe, it's a good thing you're here. I mean like I think we also need to have a very real and honest conversation about this is how much our current park system actually costs us every year if we were to do nothing else which I think a large portion of the people in the city are wanting even more stuff. So it's like it independent of building whatever else we you know all the other stuff we've got in here it costs however much to maintain. And by the way we don't have that amount of money like that's not just some of there's not some money tree sitting somewhere and so when we're having to take our funds and go that way with it now that means we have to limit what else we can do with them because we have to cover over maintenance. I think I think having a very real and regular conversation about every part of this should be going on and I agree with Mr. from Avery like the the original email that you wrote Tom about your feelings on this subject should not be sugarcoated that that is a re th those were facts and we shouldn't be afraid of communicating facts to people even if certain people don't like those facts that's how facts work. Got the got the late night version. Yeah, that's fine. Um, one more thing regarding the apartments and the tax deferrals, right?

Uh, one of them was a sales tax for 10 years. Is that correct? Yeah. I mean, and that would go to this I mean the if if we didn't give that to the developer, right? That portion just sales tax. Yeah. give him the other. Uh I mean he comes in with what he wants, you know, obviously he's very successful and he knows he can ask for it. If he gets it, it's good. If he doesn't, you know, maybe gets a portion of it. We've never done this before, right? We're stepping our toe, you know, instead of jumping in to the pool, right? We're sticking our toe in the water, giving him half of what he wants, but saying perhaps, perhaps saying, you know, we can't do the sales tax because we need that money for all the issues that we have going on. We can't get money for the state. We can't get money for the federal government to do all this watershed stuff. It's necessary, you know, it's necessary to the city and it's I'm just planting the seed for tomorrow night. Yeah. No, I mean that that's a very real the the other side of it is I mean we can and Mr. Dvunage, I'm sure, has to the best of his ability looked at what level of impact that apartment building will have or I mean, he'll still probably build it, but he's just not going to get everything, right? I just mean if they whether we give it to them or not that building that building there and you know, same thing with the reserve or whatever, whatever, those things all have genuine impacts on the wershed. And so, you know, for us to go, here's a chapter 100 to build this clean building because we want to get more people in a town center, which puts more pressure on the wershed, which we aren't paying for. Sure. To me is kind of a hard round circle. Yeah. Yeah.

Just some thoughts, Mr. Marshall. Good thoughts, by the way. Um, and before I make the motion, I just want kind of get throw throw one more thing out there is as we do decide to do the research on this, I think we also ought to consider the charter requires us capping 4.2. I'd have two issues on the ballot. One to spend the money necessary above that 4.2 for storm water and parks so you don't have to do this every time, right? And then the other is to actually put a 1%, you know, sales tax on for that so that you get it both at the same time and not have to go back and say, "Well, we can't spend any more money than that." Because when you start talking to capital improvements, I I don't know that the capital improvements fall as much in the watershed as it would in the parks. So that would then open up you to be able to spend the money down the road in the parks without having to go back each and every time you get to the point you're whatever the number is now. Is it 4.1 or Oh, 4.12. So, just just a thought to put in. I think that that would be a good question for the attorney to make sure that if you go that direction, we put both items on the ballot. It's going to cost the same amount to do the ballot, right? Whether you have two questions on it or one and then you the con the the consideration would be what happens if one fails and the other doesn't. I I don't know that that's the case either, but Right. So, yeah, but to clarify what you're saying is start exploring having two ballot initiatives at the same time. One would be increasing or changing that equation for that threshold for the capital expenditure and then the other would be the actual tax whatever. One would be to get approval from the voters to let us go over the $4.1 million whenever on any projects which would then allow us to go to go ahead and do storm water stuff in excess of seven 8 million down the road without having to go back every time. So in that case, would it tie it directly? Would you be saying, well, not you, but in general, would this requirement to the voters anyway, say, hey, we're getting rid of this provision

of the charter, or are we going to we're just going to put it storm. We have to do it because it's in the charter. Yeah. So, yeah. Okay. Perfect. I'm just saying we're not going to have somebody come in and tell us we can't do the election because you're violating the charter. Yeah. Then then you've lost your money and you get it defeated. So, I just I think those are things we should be thinking about uh how you will position it. I might be totally wrong on it. I just think that those are both two issues that we have provisions in our policies to handle it that we ought to. So, do you want to exclude storm water and parks or just change the number in the vote? Like, do we want to say cuz like right now it's a 4.2. Do we want to take a have these guys figure out it should be eight? I I actually think you don't have to explain it as long as you know it's possible to go over the 4.2. too. And you don't have to break out the split between uh parks and watershed. I think you can then the city can decide down the road how you want to break that out. So if you want to do bonding for the watershed or you know I mean if you had the money coming in for the parks you could take some of the capital fund money and put it over a wershed if you needed to. So I just think that you could maybe put the two together keep I I would not do a park and a water uh shed one. I would do a combined one because that's the way our neighbors have it, everyone else. I think it makes more sense. But from our internal purposes, I would put it on there as a combined. And then I just think acknowledging that in the parks and water uh runoff thing, there's a potential that we'll be going over the 4.2. So, we're going to go ahead and get the voters's approval on that. Uh so, you're saying the same I get what if you're with your permission, chair. Yeah. You're saying that back when we did the capital, we have that threshold there. So, this would since we're creating, you're going to be creating a new fund with this new in theory assess tax and this would not have that same provision just for the stormwater parks

like fund just for just for any infrastructure or any capital projects that the city takes on. I I you know, I would have argued over and I did and didn't go anywhere. I don't think you technically by the charter I don't think you could do that internet project. I think that's a violation of the charter because that we knowingly it doesn't say where the money comes from. It says anytime the city spends the money over that amount it will go to the voters. So in that particular case I think if we go forward I would do both in the same proposal then you're free to go with more money for the parks more money down the road for that and you don't have to go back and visit it every time you come up to that. Just my two cents worth. No, I may I hope this is short. Today I I had occasion to have some time. I drove on a road I never knew existed before Old Manchester called it called Etherington. It's in six. We've got nine of us. This was Buness Road off of Old Manchester where it jumps across 100. And then I took a beer off Country Point. Um, and as I turned around in the short length before the circle, came across an old man coming out, 80 years old, with his little tiny white dog. And I jumped out of my car and introduced myself. Boy, am I glad I caught you. I'm just looking driving around. What What is What do I make of this buness road and this out here? It looks old. He talked about the fact that there is heritage sites on it and the fact that there were wagon tracks on Boness something at one point in the past and uh he just blurted out that uh one thing I want to tell you 80-year-old man with a little tiny dog. There's just too many damn parks around here. Everything is parks. That was that was out of nowhere and uh pretty

unsolicited. It made me remember that every time we talk about parks and eroding, you got a nice to have and you got a must have or you'll die. So, it's by pure ignorance in my just not knowing the system. I'm bringing up the fact that whether it's by design or by the fact that it's if you you're going to get something that's unromantic as long as you keep throwing the word parts in with it or if the parks is nothing more than a maintenance or else everything's going to go to follow and you're going to ruin everything you spent a lot of money to build in the first place. So that's my confusing point that I hope to be my last one. So if you're asking why the two together, it's the way the state structured it. Okay, good. Yeah. But why? But have we assured ourselves, satisfied ourselves, that we're not just happy to think that everyone wants parks and everyone wants all the money you can think of and throw more parks at the city. Uh, and when you say the word parks, you got a shoe in yes vote. Or if if there's a reason for some people, as this old contraer came up with is uh he probably will vote no if it's got the darn word parks anywhere on the vote on the ballot. Yeah. I mean, I I would say it's it's probably just a more a matter of our communication with this thing. I mean, I think that you're going to have um people I mean, there are just people that don't care about the parks and there are people that don't care about the watershed. I guess the hope is or pickle ball, but I guess the hope is that we you know, maybe somebody cares about one or the other or gets the bigger picture of it. I mean, I I kind of think and you know, my I told this to Tom, like I I I think we put this thing on the ballot and let the citizens figure it out because if they if they don't want either one of these things, well, I think that that's the wrong choice. Let's leverage them. Let's leverage by that that first message will be the C. And you're going to you're going to uh

you're going to a lot of dissonance and upset and confusion with people with that with that thing that I would like to have the motion. whoever makes it hard ordained that that message from Mr. Please report be put in the the the West News magazine if we can space to do it and or it shall go in the something else publication that's public not just an e letter that people don't like reading because it's online like our online put it out there or that it doesn't go out in something else that'll be not mass consumed but that's the kind of thing it's time for the action and not kick it as you brought up in the past things get kicked down the road. Oh, don't bring up taxes. I don't want to get my my seat is is suspect or anything like that. U whoever makes a motion, I'd like to have it appointed clear. Um we're going to win this. We're not going to get a second chance at Can I and uh no problem communicating that message. I think it's it's the blunt truth. But that said, if we were to proceed with some type of ballot initiative, the minute that that was approved by the council and we start working up the legal ease to have it added to the ballot, the only thing the city can do is provide information on how that revenue would be spent. We cannot support it one way or another. If we were to pay for an advertisement, like say we put it on West News that was saying, "Hey, here's the reason why we need this." that could be constituted as arguing the city's case when we're supposed to be contentneutral on anything that's within our if it's our ballot measure. So just wanted to make sure that Yeah, exactly. We can do that now. I would do that tomorrow. Yeah, after that ballot goes up. We just want to make sure put together some stuff. No, I would say I mean I think none of us I mean I think even Ed, you haven't been through one of these things, right? A ballot measure like that. Well, you did with the original park thing, but like

or the capital tax. The capital tax. So, I mean, I would suggest if we go down that road, which I think we probably will, we probably want to have a have John or whoever come in and like explain exactly how we are as elected officials able to communicate these things and then as and anything you do distribute it cannot be pro or against. It has to be balanced. Right. Yeah. But before the ballot before or what are our abilities kind of thing? Did you know that this is what this looked like and now this is what the erosion? Did you know how many parks we have? Did you know we have more parks than anybody? Did you know it costs this much every year to make just to maintain and not build any like have a whole series of like and then magically initiative comes out. But I mean I think a lot of that works up front and really educate people. Mr. Vunich just as a point of information we did put this particular issue to the voters in November 2008. it was the national election. Prevailing thought at that time was the more people that show up to vote, marks usually car is carried in that wave of um voters. Um it was the largest election I think in terms of Wildwood turnout. 21,000 people voted, 11,000 against the Park and Storm oil tax, 10,000 for But we have a whole lot of information. Yeah, that was before we were explaining anything. How how much was the increase? Half cent. Half cent. Okay. Yeah, that's the that's still the max. Okay. Well, um so I've got if you would like, Ed, I'm happy I came up with fancy motions. If this is what you're talking about, I bet it is. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Uh so it suggests to move to direct the city administrator to evaluate and report back to the city council on the feasibility structure and potential timing of placing a ballot measure before the voters of Wildwood that would

establish a dedicated parks and storm water sales tax pursuant to RSM 64432 and applicable local statutes and include language within that same measure to remove the current voter imposed spending threshold specifically for expenditures made from the new parks and stormwater fund, thereby allowing the city to efficiently allocate funds towards eligible parks and stormwater projects without requiring separate voter approval for each individual project. The city administrator is further authorized to engage with legal counsel, financial adviserss, and relevant staff to prepare background materials, identify statutory requirements, and assess potential ballot timelines and voter education strategies. No final action on the ballot measure is authorized at this time. That sounds pretty good. No, I'm pleased with that. Read that back. Yeah. Well, but I I kind of think it's one of those issues that we need to decide as a committee that that's what we want to move forward and then the work would begin. Yeah. I mean, there's so many resources out there, but I think it it could certainly be done by a subcommittee to do that, but I'd take that to I'll make that motion. All right. Anybody care to second? Second by Mr. Melers. We'll go that way. We'll get you on the next one. Tracy. No, that's it. Thanks. Uh, any discussion on the motion? Everybody just just one comment. The idea is not whether they'll vote for the park, the waterershed. It's just it's going to be a lot more voters will come out. You'll have people I would tell you in my opinion 90% of the people don't know we have a watershed problem. But I would also believe that 90% of people tell you we have a lot of parks. So, I mean, I I think you want to draw those people in uh to to get the approval to get the taxes on there. And if you put it combined to what it's supposed to be, then then it adds up the council down the road how you want to divide that money up uh in order to do it. But I think it's just a bigger a bigger draw of people because I just don't think you could get many people for the watershed unless you've

experienced it. I I mean I I will say this when we started this thing six years ago and we would put like the tented stuff out to celebrate Wildwood or whatever, the vast majority of the people would come up and say, "What is a watershed?" And now I have people stopping me in the grocery store. Do you know there's a water? Are you the one that is? Do you have anything to do with this? And so in the last several years, I think that this has become a very real thing that people are even people that normally wouldn't care in any way are at least cognizant of the brain we're getting. It's drawing a lot of attention in the news and other locations like that's a big factor too. All right. Any other discussion on the motion? Okay. All those in favor please say I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Amy, I'll send this to you so you don't have to try to try to keep it all one page. Um, all right. So, Tom, you got your marching orders on that one? You feeling good? Now, Mr. Mabberry, if you if you care to, you can certainly make a motion to encourage Mr. Lee to put this letter out in its entirety the way that it was originally sent to us. Um, although I think he is aware that that is what we would like to have happen, but I'm happy, as I'm sure he would be, if you would like to make a motion along those lines, to do that, too. and we can button this whole thing up. After a year, I'm still learning. Um, do we have the authority to make a motion to instruct Mr. Lee to do anything or do we have only the uh authority to recommend to the council that they instruct Mr. Lee to do anything? I mean, I would say in this case, this is probably more of a committee thing than a full council thing. So, you know, usually what what some of these things does and when we lean on, you know, our our city ministries in this way, if there's a kind of a gray area to that question, they Tom or previous ones would be like, well, we probably want to talk to the whole council about this. So, if we make this motion and then Tom

says that, then we certainly can do that. But I um I get a feeling that he's not going to do that. So, I think we're going to be in good shape. I request Mr. Lee to give me the top three most visible and exposing expo exposure in quantity uh media aside from the e newswsletter and uh aside from anything else that's sponsored by the city uh as an email blast or postcard. What what public what more visible venues could you see greater exposure of this to if there are even three? Maybe there's only two. Well, I mean, I would I would definitely look to social media. Um social media is going to if you do a a public post that also has a like a public notice to it. Typically, we can see traction of 20,000 viewers on some of those that when we do a road closure, amplify it. um if we actually amplified the message and paid to do it, you could you could see hundreds of thousands, but that then you're not getting. So like we have to be very targeted in the approach of West West News Magazine is a a good slug of 33,000 people that might look at it if it comes to them in their mailbox. Facebook is a given. It's free. So that that ought to be not part of the big three. That's an automatic no matter what it is. And then if there's a Eureka Ledger too, the who? Eureka Ledger goes out to Yeah, you're in that one this week. As a matter of last week saw that. What if we did it? What if this is just a suggestion, what if we did it this way, what if we had um suggested that, you know, either Tom engaged Paula or Paula can do this on her own where um you know, she can reach out to the Eureka West magazine and sort of implore them that an article like this is necessary. And in the event that they were to disagree that it is a necessary uh article, there is something that's

called native content that comes with a price. And then I can assure you that that price is well within the city administrator's spending authority. And so to the best of his ability, he can figure out if that is a worthwhile uh avenue to take. I would suggest in this very limited case it probably is but I would defer to his authority to figure that out. Yeah. And just as with your permission chair um as a aside last year when this occurred and it might be this actually kind of is earned media um KSDK ran a story and interviewed the former mayor about the the issue and how the governor had vetoed it and then um this could very well be something where we could get some earned media. We wouldn't even have to pay for it. In this case, if you'd like with the with committee's um comfortability here, we would be more than happy to reach out to some media outlet just to let them know and provide the information that's provided in that message. What's what's her name? June. Okay. You put me on the spot. Tracy Tracy. Yes. She's a Wilder resident. And she actually interviewed uh Mayor Garano and I earlier this year about Cox Creek right next to anniversary. It's she'll be in start building those houses. Yeah. I I would I mean this is just me. I I would suggest that we need to start yelling this from the boots. I mean any and everywhere we got to start talking about this in in real world terms. Do you want a motion, Tom? Are you comfortable? Uh let's go ahead and a motion to to if we could wrap a motion into advocating this simple fact of what what just happened. Well, I just defer to the letter messaging what was included in that original email. Oh, yeah. To as many people in the public through as many channels as possible directed to staff. That's really that would be nice to have a motion. All right, let me make sure I got it all in here and then Amy doesn't have to try to write all this down. And I bet

there's a lot going on now that the governor has granted tax breaks on the top end after he vetoed all of the city monies for everybody or all the municipality monies. Um there's probably some controversy that could be done in the newspapers after that. All right. So see if this makes sense here. Um, I move that the administration and public works committee formally acknowledge and disseminate the letter provided by the city administrator regarding the governor's line item veto of the previously approved stormwater funding allocation. This communication shall be shared not only to all council members but be made accessible to the public via the city's website and any other means necessary as part of the as part of the official record. Further, the committee may request a future agenda item for review and operational and fiscal implications of the veto for long range storm water planning. How's that sound? Well, he said that makes sense, Tom. All right. So, we have that made by Mr. Mabry. Anybody care to second? Tracy is going to second. Good job. Uh, any discussion or questions on the motion? All right. All those in favor, please say I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? All right, that motion carries. So, that ought to be a whole lot of fun to get out. I think that'll be great. Up next, we've got our master plan update. Tom, I assume that's also you. Yes. U and we also have Mr. Blanch here too if he'd like to share some information about just the process. But overall uh to give a little background here earlier this year uh the department had put together a way for council members uh on each individual sitting committee to provide direct feedback on

the goals, objectives and policies that are listed in the current update of the master plan which was from 2016. The idea was to provide literally a point blank copy and then allow each council member to review it u and provide direct input on each goal then objective and then policy and then work that in. um into a summary and also just provide the actual data itself to the citizen oversight group that's currently reviewing these processes specifically the community services and transportation elements. Um and from there we have a little bit of a we put together a synopsis tonight. Just wanted to read through that. Um one's a major consensus but the secondary one is more of a in-depth feedback um summary of the feedback. But overall the feedback consensus that was received tonight you'll see that there were all the ones that were turned in by last week were included. Uh the administration public works committee shows a high degree of cohesion across the master plan response set while stylistic and tonal differences appear in some answers particularly around technology priorities. There's a broad alignment on foundational principles such as fiscal responsibility contractor oversight capacity of conscious development the preservation of Wildwood's community character. This alignment provides a strong platform the committee to proceed with implementation strategies confident and the shared values guiding its work. So that's the the consensus. Uh that said, if we want, we can dive into a little bit more of the summary of the feedback which is included in the memorandum tonight. If there are any questions or if we want to read through that, more than happy to do so. Um that said, this tonight is to get feedback and then also to request a motion to package this and then distribute it to the um citizen oversight group for the review of both the community services and the transportation elements. All right. So I know Mr. Lee read that pretty quickly in case you guys didn't quite catch on. It basically says while we have a couple subtle differences here and there, more or less we're in alignment and so certainly we can discuss each one if you guys want or I think we can just say send this to the people however you guys would like to go. Mr.

Mark, I screwed up. I didn't send mine through, but I have a couple items I'd like to see added someplace on there. And this is kind of falls back under the utilities. I don't know if you all noticed, but you know, fire hydrants are rated. Green is over a,000, yellow is 750, and under 500 is red. There's areas where they're putting new hydrants in that are under 250 gallons per minute. So, I I just think there ought to be some opportunity for us as a city to get to the water company to ask them where they are on water pressure for the, you know, for the fire hydrants and those plugs because you'll see when the line breaks, they'll come in and, you know, now we're at least 30 years old. So, there's a lot of that infrastructure that probably needs to be repaired. So, not only for the water, but I think the same thing holds true with some of the natural gas stuff and then likewise with the sewer stuff. So somewhere in the whole master plan, we talk about utilities, but I think considering we're getting an older city, we ought to really try to figure out how can we get the buy in from the water companies and and these others because you will see them out there tearing everything up, but then they put a brand new hydrant in a new water line and it's the lowest rating that that you can get. I mean, you you can't you can't run a fire truck off 250 gallons a minute. So for those the next thing will happen is our home insurance will start going up because the water pressures are too low. So that that was one. The the other area that I and I think that boy number three did an outstanding job by the way in those comments, but I would like to see us really focus and this is more setting and listening to some of the master uh or the citizens over review thing. I don't think they have a clue as how the finances work for the city. And so every every opportunity that we have, everybody wants you to go and buy things and do things. But I think the more we can explain to them, and I don't know what that actual number is, of$ 112 or

$113 per year per person, you can't be spending millions and millions of dollars on things they think are nice. And and I just think we're guilty in letting people constantly bring it up without any constant reminder that all of these great things that we want to do are have financial restrictions to it. I started looking at different places to put it in there and I kept cutting and pasting it and I figured that's just not going to be a nice way to do it. So, they're just two things that and I'm sure they'll be in there and know we'll see it later on, but I just think as I guess this is the third time I've seen this. I I think that we have an opportunity to make some things a little simpler and uh and to hopefully get anybody who decides to read it to to buy into the fact. So, thanks. Yep. I like that. Anybody else? All right. Um, so then Tommy, you would like a you need a motion, I guess, to push this forward. Yeah, a motion to push forward and then also a motion with that motion to also include the feedback and we'll add it after the fact u to work with the water utility companies to figure out a well that would be I would probably say a goal to Yeah, I mean I I think we need more than just me. I just think it's so noticeable when they have a water line blow out the next day there's a new plug with a little lower rating. So, it tells you the pipes underneath there are not what they should be. So, I would make that motion if you have it. All right. Um, you want me to come up with a fancy motion, Tom, or Amy? Are you guys good on that one? This one. All right. Motion made by Mr. Marshall. Anybody care to second pushing this forward? Second by Mr. Alers. Uh, any discussion on the motion? All right. All those in favor of pushing this forward to the master plan committee, please say I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Okay, that brings us to our monthly reporting templates. All right, here. And uh we do have Mr.

Bish here who can uh respond a little bit to the code enforcement side of things. Um what else? So really tonight, the idea is to share uh what our police department is police is currently sharing on a monthly basis. Uh after speaking with the court, we're still ironing it out, but just to get the ball rolling. Um the idea was to start putting start recording this starting July 1st and then start bringing reports back in August. So uh tonight the idea is to provide just a general categories that would go under each uh with a sample of the code enforcement reporting um that will also include a little bit more of a general summary, but then with the court reporting as well. Uh that said, I will note there is slight differences when the original motion uh last month and the motion tonight. U and the reason for that is it ties back to the fact that we have one prosecutor and we have one municipal judge. Typically we can provide some general operational reporting and what is included tonight is the uh how we would break out the cases. So right now in the monthly report showing that financial side this is speaking to the courts but it break will break down cases by category in the future by traffic code enforcement general ordinance violations and also the domestic assault cases. Typically those domestic assault cases do get kicked over to the county. So just as a heads up those will typically be low. Um and then the key statistics that are almost and I'll tie this in in a second that are very fair to request are the number of convictions were active cases new tickets summoned in that reporting period. um summons filed, warrants issued, and the number of closed cases that in that reporting period. Those are all very safe, if you will, after the Ferguson uh Ferguson updates that were made back in the 2015 period. But the real reason why we're a little bit more limited. We have one judge and one prosecuting attorney. And if we require too too much detail, it could be con conveyed that we are collecting the

information to somehow sway decisions um and what some have called court monitoring. So we have to be very careful. So the difference between that what was originally requested and what we're still kind of ironing out if we can report on it. Um so let's say let me back up. uh there's no also problem tying the data together with repeat defendants like if there's someone that's consistently coming back we can we can note that there is a a strategic nuisance for instance so that's not a problem but uh where it becomes a little bit more of an issue is the uh like giving specifics on diversion alternative resolutions like what did the judge specifically decide to do um the average time from citation to resolution we can typically do that but that will need to be explained a little more and that could be something that it's included in the summary section. Um also on top of that the cases with victim advocacy referrals and DB related cases that can be provided. We don't have too many here. Uh just as heads up um one other one I want to note the number of continuences also is not included in the memo tonight but can be included. That said there will need to be an understanding that a continuence can mean multiple a plethora of different things. It can mean someone requested an attorney, uh, someone didn't show up, the judge said, "Hey, we we'll pick the case." Or it could literally just mean that they paid that day and now they're going to hear the case at the next meeting. It's so there's a lot of different interpretations of a continuance. So, we just want to make sure that that information is shared properly and makes sense. So, still looking into it, but this is the base statistics that we can definitely provide in in the state safe category, if you will. Uh where this ties in is for this code enforcement and police reporting and the police reporting is already showing this but showing the year-to- date and also the previous month. Obviously, we're building up that reporting data as of this moment. So, as time goes on, we'll eventually have the the data present in the categories that have been agreed upon to be able to

start showing that comparison. They can work on ways to make that a little bit better looking too like the police have been doing with the the actual graphs and tables. Um that said, the idea would be to have some first round of reporting coming up here in the month of August, but just wanted to get feedback on this initial round, what needs to be added, what is, you know, absolutely necessary, and what what? Thank you. All right. Anybody have any thoughts or questions or concerns? I feel bad. I got a couple. Sure. Um any way on the court records just to tell us how many are getting transferred to the county? I didn't print that off, but I don't think it says on there. I can check. But I just think it'd be interesting for us to know that of all the cases coming in, 23% or 40% get transferred to the county judge to to deal with and they always have that right to do it. Um the second question would be and this is kind of Mr. Voon's question is under the reporting for the code enforcement stuff would we be able to track the number of rental inspections? Yes. that are being done, you know, not only for county gives us something update, but then what we issue that I just kind of think that would be interesting for all of us to to know about certainly and obviously we just initiated the program, but we can we can certainly provide you that information and I apologize. I think there is something missing from that table. And when Mr. Farmer and I had a conversation about this a while back. We were both, I think, concerned about privacy, not putting someone up to public ridicule, but we also, I think Mr. Farmer's request that we could do it by ward so you could have an idea of what's going on in each individual ward. That's not on this table. It needs to be at. Probably don't want to know. Well, then we can also take it off the table. Thank you. That's it for me. Anybody else?

Um I Yeah. No, I think the word thing is a good thing. I also think I was I was thinking about this mostly because I've been dealing with it for the last couple days on the rental thing. What do we do if anything if if a if a rental it's good to know how many inspections we're having done, but it would also be important to know like which ones are failing because I don't know how we like I know in in my in my neighborhood the HOA has to approve the a rental, not the person. And as part of that, it's like you got to give us your certificate from the city that says you can you've passed this inspection. But I'm just I'm just wondering if there's some type of a notification that we need to give to somebody about that so that they would know what's going on. That data is captured by the county and under our contract with the county we have access to it. So we can include that. I think the obviously an inspection's requested so we can track how many reinspections are required to bring it into compliance. They could have a hundred. You'd only have 80 that pass and there' be 20 that pass the next time. So, I know that when they came in to pitch it, they talked about being able to track that. Yeah. I'm just I mean I was thinking about the specific one we were going back and forth on and I'm like I mean I don't know how that I don't know how that works. Yeah. And first and foremost, what we're trying to do now in that particular one is to understand with the lease information, did they was that leased after we implemented the program, right? And if so, did we miss it? And if not, then obviously we haven't we have some other tools. I mean, I think in that specific one, I don't think he told anybody what's going on because I know how that all. So, the rental component will be added and then we'll also do a general geographic distribution. Um, and then I I I don't know if it's possible um to do, but I think we also talked about Joe like trying to figure out a

way for people to understand or at least for us to understand like if there's a problem property, we don't have to necessarily identify the specific address, but like it would be good to know if there's three code violations written somewhere that it's always this place. Like it's just, you know, it's not like we're randomly out doing this. I I had a conversation with a resident today who had a whole stack of code things and she was very confused and I was like I mean my understanding is they're going to come out and talk to you about one thing and if they find 12 other things they're going to write you up on those two so you can get them all taken care of at once rather than fixing one and coming back and so that made a lot of sense to her but at the same time it would be good to know like we've got a couple places where this is just a repeat issue and we could certainly say let me talk with Melanie who is our my go expert and also our rental expert to see what we can come up with. Um but yes, sometimes we got a complaint from a trustee about a dilapidated fence. I got two calls on that one. She don't worry, I'm working with Mr. Obviously their trash cans were visible from the roadway, right? They had some dead vegetation. They had overgrown vegetation. So yes, a number of notices were issued when we really just went out there to look at the fence. So it happens sometimes, but we again for newer members, we primarily base our enforcement off of complaints. We don't necessarily go looking. Complaints keep us busy, but when we do go to a location, we do do the thorough inspection. Yeah. I I just think I mean that way, you know, we'll know if there's 24 of them, but 12 of them were at one place, that's just a good thing for us to know what's going on. Um that be a parenthetical. Six of these were at one location. Yep. Uh and then the only other thing I noticed which I talked to Tom about and and we're gonna talk to the captain

about and and you're on public safety now, right? You can take this up too. Um well, I I like this report that the police are giving us better than what they previously gave us. It's also not it's still not super clear to me and there's some as I told Tom, there are some pretty interesting discrepancies in some of these numbers. So I almost need an index at the bottom. I mean, I I can't figure it out. So, yeah, like, you know, when we're and and I I you know, I greatly appreciate everything the police are doing for us, but they do they do take up as a very significant portion of our budget. So, if I'm looking at this and then seeing we haven't had a 43% drop in self-initiated calls. I don't know if that's good or bad. I just perhaps a sentence in there to last officers. Does that work? Yeah, I don't know. Seems like they were doing a lot of a lot of calls. It was those two guys. Um, so we're going to work with them to get that figured out, but other than that, I think that this is a pretty good start. And I think Tom, correct me if I'm wrong. The idea is to kind of allow this to evolve as we move forward. So that's a good thing, too. Um, so if anybody has anything else or Tom, you need a motion or I'm just good. Uh, as long as there's no significant changes other than, you know, just the items that are added, that's fine. I think it's great. Awesome. All right, moving on. uh capital improvement budget. All right, chair with your permission. But tonight, wanted to provide uh an early notice just as we're kind of not quite there yet, but usually uh the capital improvement budgets the item that we really like to dive in, especially with the discussion we're having funding. uh wanted to kind of put together what projects are currently tied directly to funding which and kind of show you'll see a couple different uh charts in the attachment tonight. uh one that shows the fiscal year 2025 budget uh the anticipated. So, some of those may be corrected as we get further into the

year. But then showing three additional columns, well, four additional columns, but three additional for 2026, which shows 2026 current, which ties back to the capital improvement sales tax fund five-year program, not the fund uh 5-year capital. The anticipated, which uh shows there's three changes that were made for the additional payments to MDOT that were needed for the route 100 improvements, the J turns and the left turn lanes. And if you look at that attachment, you'll see the exact denomination added, which was 293,000 for the J turns and then 337,000 for the left turn lanes. To make that project proceed, we had to push back some projects which included pushing back the Green Pines Green Pines Park connector trail, the construction of it, and then also pushing back the resurfacing of anniversary parks u drive aisle and parking lot along with trail development for the year. So all those items when you see the fiscal year 2026 anticipated you'll note that those dollar amounts were pushed back to 2026 which does change the overall dollar amount as listed. And then the last column the fiscal year 2026 just without a good way of fitting in a good title. We called it B2. Um and the department is noting these are the current projects listed in 2026 that are eye directly to federal funding or an external funding source that we would need to proceed with. Um, one of those being the, and you don't see it because it's in 2027, but the bridge 387, 386, those are tied to federal funding, but the construction isn't planned until 2027. So, tonight we're really focusing on other capital investment, bridge, and roads. Um, this is something we'll be sharing with the planning and parks committee as well for the parks side. That said, wanted to we can even go through this tonight. Um, or we can let everybody kind of take a quick quick peek at what we have tonight, get feedback, and then bring this back next month to kind of do a deep dive. But either way works best for for department tonight. All right, Mr. Alers,

just uh I was wondering what the pilot program is on the sound mitigation. So that is something that has been requested and it would be looking into the addition of sound mitigation walls on route 100 and 109 to control for sound. No, for the pub. Uh no, that would be for the interchange, just general traffic noise. Okay. I didn't know if it was related to that ongoing thing. Okay. I don't get I mean Clarkson Road couldn't even get it through for Clarkson Valley and they're 150 ft closer. I I just I just question if it's even how much practical we're getting. Yeah. I mean I uh remember we did a lot of sound studies and um the house where the homes are is not a problem, right? Actually, there are certain areas along those two arterial roadways that do exceed the sound levels, but not many locations is between Forest Leaf Parkway. They have a road extension those homes that back to Route 100. So, the thought to see if we could do some type of pilot address that sound and if the pilot was successful, could it be a future um we do projects of a similar nature. One particular council person advocated for it. Um it was included in the budget, but as you know, we've identified it as a potential source of assembly of the SR. Okay. Nobody else is talking. Um, not going to frame it as those people knew what they were building or buying their house next to when they built or bought their house next to what that is, which is called uh 100. It's a super highway.

Um, I'm not doing that. But what I'm wondering is can there be anything else if it's got to be a pilot that can that can represent an improvement whether it's a a dished uh six foot tall air deflector that does this instead of a 40 foot tall concrete barrier or can there be foliage? I thought of this the first time I ever heard of this and I was thinking, don't these people know what they were building or buying their house right next to when they bought or built their house right next to them? What are these people thinking? So, is there any other uh alternates besides the giant wall? Well, certainly there are alternates and the consultant that we engaged from Rockford Illinois, Dr. Thunder gave us a list of potential options. The worst case scenario is his recommendation was don't approve a development within two to 300 feet of the edge of rideway. And so basically we're taking property and so the point would be now we are we having to purchase it. The most effective tool according to Dr. Thunder is as you described a tall sound wall mass that blocks the sound and Rick knows this better than I from his years at MDOT. What I will tell you though is the area that had been considered for the pilot that was reszoned by St. Louis County in 1977, the relocation in the new 100 came after that. So there are a few people that actually they got a surprise, but nobody in No, nobody in in that development we're talking about. Well, I mean, how long ago did they expand that road? That was in like 92. Yeah. So, but that when the city incorporated that Evergreen was the oldest subdivision in there with the highest density, right? And then the road got wider,

right? No. Yeah. That part, but those they didn't know. I mean, obviously at that point, but Bright Leaf, I don't think there's anything about Bright Leaf that should be a surprise. It I remember walking it was just a field. Who would buy this if you know and there are people that doesn't doesn't bother and the houses. So, yeah. I just I mean my thought when we did the study was I sympathize with the people who are the road expanded but I'm also just going I'm not sure how many people are left that bought a house in 1980 before 1982. That's got to be a I honestly have not had anybody from Evergreen make a comment about that at all. That's to me uh I know that initially Deborah had people in Bright Leaf but I thought as you have all these trustees over there they don't seem to think it's a problem. You know, the homes are built differently, too, but the, you know, the Bright Leaf one are are I'm sorry, the Evergreen ones are much older building and and everything down over the hill there. But I've not had anyone make it an issue at this point. So, let me let me ask this just so I can make sure I'm clear. So Tom on this cars um for cars breakout here we fiscal year 2026 V2 that's is that just that's just talking about the money that that's like money we need to spend to honor our current external agreements that tie to federal funding. So if we So we have two items, right? That is right. Well, no. Wild Horse Bridge for the right of way and the right of way for both 386 387 are both tied together. I would make it into We have a million and a half out of $8 million. Yes, that's correct. And tonight I have u just a quick equation in here. If we wanted to add ones back in, I can show what that does to the net revenue expenditure. tonight. We can either kind of let this and then come back the suggestions. I know we got these out a little bit late. Um that said, if if not, um we can go

through these today too either way. Um so I I just have a question because I'm striker sidewalk segment C, E, and F. Where are those? So those are currently not I mean like where physically on the road are those to Rick but those are the ones that are currently tied up with uh some litigation that we're in. Yeah, I get it. So that looks like $300,000. So if if he comes in to develop he would have to put that in himself, right? You bet. So there there is the developer is looking at something and if he did it, he would have to put that well. So I mean and this is maybe and I may be the only one. So for those of you guys that are new or old or whatever and I'm just the guy that doesn't quite fully grasp how this works, that's okay. Um like this Streker Road sidewalk thing has been on the budget for a while, 30 years. So, so my question is like I don't expect us to have the ability to do this anytime soon. So, why do we continue to tie this into the budget if we're not if like we know we're not doing that? Well, the the thing is if that case were to get settled, it would allow for funding to be available if there was some type of settlement where hey, you're g not without getting into the case too much, but if there was a certain agreement that came up with the impacted individual where maybe they do some of the things that we have asked them to do. I get it. And then we say, okay, well, we'll cover a portion of the sidewalk or we'll help with the sidewalk. I guess what I'm saying is like, so we have I'll just call it roughly $300,000 in this budget. Okay. So, if that were to happen, then we have all of next year to figure out what we want to do. And then couldn't we just reinsert this in 2027? We could we could 100% do that. So, I guess my question is for like a

lot of these items, I just I don't I'm unsure why we why we keep an item in the budget that we know we're not going to do if we have other items where we can spend the money and then is it a fear that we're not going to put the money back in? Like I'm just not I'm not picking on, but I'm looking at the $40,000 for the soundwall. That is the least of the problems that I think we have, including the people in that area. So, and I can answer for representing those folks over on Strucker for 20 years. Those people were told in 1997 there would never be a sidewalk in near that development took place. A few years ago, when Mayor Bolan said, "Let the council members set priorities." Warren come up and said, "Hey, we have to have these sidewalks." Well, those people wanted them. Back in 1997, we said, "No, not until when a development goes through, then we'll do it." Yeah. And I just think that that's kind of where our our position I don't believe as a city should be. we're going to go in and buy right away, buy ground and put something in when it's really a developer issue or or we I mean my thing is I'm kind of with you on that, but even if we did decide we wanted to do that specific to this location, we can't do that, right? So, I don't know. I don't know why we keep putting this on there. It just seems like it ties up a bunch of money for no reason. It is in our strategic plan. So it was it it's exactly said it was something fix that next. Yeah. So it's whatever that discussion then heavily was concentrated on keeping this in and like you said gets removed there is fear that it doesn't get added back when the opportunity I guess a question for Mr. or or for Thomas is whenever we have this and we take it back out of the capital budget then when we come back and decide that's changed we want to do it are we in violation of not having it in approved capital budget five years ahead that we keep saying that it wasn't in the capital budget is that anything to

that or is that just self-ined there I mean it's you want to have a decent fiveyear capital budget you want to set those priorities but if the council if something comes up it the council can add it at their sad part is that we're going to make decisions on things that aren't as pertinent just because we put in a five-year plan. So, I don't know how I I just always remember anytime somebody wanted to spend something, it wasn't in there. Well, you can't do that because it's not in the capital plan, five-year plan, but then we put things in the plan for 10 years and never do it. And the idea tonight, well, tonight, but also in general to not include I didn't include the five-year plan here, oh, the department didn't was to kind of get away from the mindset of, you know, I didn't I just I just brought that up to ask the dumb question. Yeah. Yeah. You're exactly right, though. The council each year reviews the five-year capital plan. Obviously, there's going to be staff will have some discussion topics. If you're saying, "Hey, let's move this." If there's already been a ton of money spent on engineering and design on a certain project, but if we haven't picked up the shovels yet, all depends up yet for a project, then it's it should be fair game. And even if the even if we have spent money on uh the engineering, there could be some serious repercussions to future awards. But the council has the discretion to fund what it that is. I was just curious that we didn't get ourselves where we create a bigger problem down the road. So, as I know it, that's the reason for both W five and W two as to how those things got in there. So, does any does anybody ha want to go through a specific item or how or if if not I have a thought on on maybe how some of this would at least help me figure some of these components out. Um, but Mr. Vanick, I see you got some questions. No. Um, I'll pass. Okay. So, so I will say I like this what you guys have presented a lot more than what we have seen in the past. So, that is a very good thing. I I would maybe

um suggest that if it's possible um we figure out like I would do it almost as like a like a tiered system. So like obviously the stuff that you know we have federal money or whatever we have this million and a half dollars that we have to spend because we spent other money that's an important thing but some of these other items. So like I'm not picking I'm just going to keep picking on pickle ball I guess but like we've got our pickle ball court in here again at half a million dollars. It is on the strategic plan. I understand that it shouldn't be in my opinion but whatever. But like to me in terms of that would fall under you right Mr. Brun. So what I would suggest is if it's possible to go through, you know, like the pickle ball court, the fa phase 2 village green, the repairs here, whatever it is, and and rank them in three tiers to say like I know nobody understands, and I'm not just saying it's because it's in my word. I think the parking lot's fine. But like the parking lot at Anniversary Park has got to be resurfaced this year for whatever the reason is. I don't really care. But whatever it is, like that is a tier one priority. So then that helps us understand like okay we now we know we've gone from a million and a half to 3.6 or whatever it is. And then Rick, I think if you can do the like there are certain things obviously that we are tied to lots of federal money on with that but like you know we're not certainly the roundabout has to go through because that's a like things that have taken forever or helping us to understand even from like a process standpoint like how much have we invested thus far because the other thing I think we run into is we spend money on stuff that maybe not everybody's quite understanding what we're spending money on and then it's like well I mean we've already spent $80,000 on this so we don't want uh just let that go go go to waste and it's like well I mean I'm sure we've spent some money on the Striker Road sidewalks they're not getting built I know I know

that for sure for an extended period of time so um that I think would help me to figure this stuff out. Same thing with like, you know, Rick or I assume it's for you, Rick, like the sound mitigation pilot program. Like $40,000 isn't in the city budget isn't an enormous amount of money, but you know, what we did on Old State Road was I think like 400 grand. So that's 10% of a project like that. And that to me makes a lot more sense than trying to build a bunch of walls that nobody's going to care about anyways and they're just going to bounce us somewhere else. That that would be my suggestion. I don't know if anybody thinks that's a good or bad idea. Would we want to try to define tier one, tier two, tier three right now so that we could use that calendar to I mean we we can tier one I would just to really call it out quickly. Tier one would be that we spent significant funding already on it and that it is tied to it could be the external grant partnership or we spent a lot of money on it already. Tier two is we spent a little bit money on it and there's no grants tied to it. Tier three is it has nothing tied to it just yet. So it's literally it is an open discussion. But do we want to also tie in like resident feedback or I know there's just some things that come up with I I guess the one thing that just think that would be and I these guys nobody knows it better than what they know it but I think exactly what Joe was saying is to be able to prioritize it but there seems to be that every couple years something comes flying in and we didn't even think about and then we have to go back and cut out stuff that we didn't plan. So is there a ballpark number maybe it's 10% 15%. That we kind of earmark as a contingency for those type of think that either overfunded you know they're more expensive than what we thought or not. Um but I I also agree I think this is the best and we're in the best time ever to start talking about

this this idea coming in uh you know for a night in November is not the way you do budgets. Um, so, so I just think that it's a good start, but I you guys I think could prioritize it and say, "Okay, here's one." So the parking lot's a good example. If it's $25,000 to receal it now, if we don't do that for two years, is it going to be $40,000 to have to replace, you know, more pavement? So, I mean, that's the kind of thing where, yeah, we could we get a year here, but we need to move it up a notch then next year. We pushed off repairs to city hall because nobody didn't want to spend the money and then it got worse and worse and now we're or even like you know that's what I look for is like advice like okay it's here and yeah none nobody wants to spend it on this but if we don't do it it's going to be not only the expense is more because costs are going up but the damage or whatever it's going to cost us much more. this is a critical item to get done this year or next year like pond school repairs like I don't know what's wrong with the pond school does it need it really badly and people use it get water inside of it and it's going to destroy what's it I don't know I'm just saying it you know to understand what the city feels like is a priority from a maintenance standpoint I guess and we can come back with just like I know that I literally the department just provided a blank think like here's what grant funded and grant type fundics, but we can come back with artification for this 2020. And I think that's great. I think you've done a good job putting the dates in there and that type of stuff. So, I just think this is a great great document. I I also think and um I this kind of piqued my interest a little bit at the last watershed meeting, but you know, we were talking about doing the detention basins and I think Ricky, you were like I mean there's still some more engineering that needs to be done. Like I don't know. I have no idea how many rounds of whatever something takes. And if we're having, you know, if you do this and then you find something else, it's like shoots and ladders and then

you got to go back and start over. So like for me, if we're doing this, like if we've done engineering on the stretch of sidewalk and that was 15 years ago, is that worth anything? Like is there a time period that those things last or is it just like if if we are spending money on this thing and we don't get this done within five years, there's no reason to spend money here because by the time we get there, none of this is going to make any difference. those things would help me out a lot too just because like I don't know how many times it takes to look at these things or you know even like um you know when we're doing the roundabouts like there was doing engineering and then it was more engineering and I'm sure all the engineering is necessary I just never know how much engineering is left or or whatever. Um, so I think something like that would really help too, just to go like to try to give, you know, a person that doesn't do this every day an understanding of like this is part one of 15 and this is normally it takes this amount of time. So, you're seeing this every single meeting or every single year in the budget to understand the full process because right now it's I don't I mean, you know, I I still don't understand why some things take forever and other things like pickle ball show up and all of a sudden we're going to drop a bunch of money on this thing because Dan Flasher wanted it five years ago. That was the deal. I I I think that that's where the department heads could really help us look at how to do those type of things so that that we're not and I'm sure that they're doing it. It's just another one where I don't think that half the council people even look at the numbers. No. So then the money gets through there. Then we sit there and say, "Wow, we can't afford this." Until you start cutting stuff, nobody thinks it's a problem. And I'm not saying we shouldn't. I'll be the first to tell you, I don't think we should have a reserve as big as it is. But I think we should be very selective on how we want to use one-time money for big projects. And I'm as guilty as anyone. we saved

and we didn't do things and we saved we but we do have money now so I think we we probably need to look and say okay all of that scrimping that we did was it the right thing to do in order to do that but I think the department heads are the best way and we as a committee and a council anytime somebody throws something out there it's going to cost money to do a study we just shouldn't jump on it we said well wait a minute and I think that setting those priorities would really help us make better decisions but and I mean I also think it'll help you guys when we put this um board action request thing will help too because I mean we were we did this a little bit with the gate thing. I mean that even based on the residents that came from seemingly a specific council person that created a whole lot of work for not a lot of results. So we got to be careful about that stuff too. So, so from a action standpoint, do you want us to try to come up with like some clear tiers or do you guys I mean I I would think that they might be different for what you guys do because it's kind of different stuff, but I don't know. Mr. May, are we at a point? We can make a motion or if we still asking for the department's you can make a motion if if you want. I move we give them the reigns and we take exceptions. Not that we bark the rules and then they quibble about that's not the best thing in the world and what you're recommending but don't have pros. They're going to be here long after we're all gone. Yeah. They've lived with it for 30 years. My thing with this is if it's like a three- tier system, I don't care what your guys tiers are. If you tell me it's a tier one project, then that is a Joe Vunage tier one project. And Rick, if you tell me it's a tier one project, then that's what it is. if it's a tier three, doesn't make any difference to me why they are those things. I don't spend my day doing that stuff. So, it would just help me to know these are the most mission critical items that have to get through and then maybe these are the things that would be super great if we

could do it. Um, but we understand there's some other stuff that's going on. We'll have to farm the justification when we create the tiers and so we'll be able to answer your questions. Why is that a low tier or a high tier? Yeah. Um, all right. That said, one thing too. So, we do put aside monies for storm water management each year. Uh, that said, you know, right now we have 300,000 set aside this year to kickstart a project with the anticipation that we were going to get 250,000 additional dollars. But, um, moving forward, we had kind of had a an placeholder of like 500, then 250, 500, but it's just because we didn't have kind of a consistent revenue source for it. Is there something tonight that the department should be aware of so we can work with that? That's the big kind of when I'm looking at this and I'm trying to figure out how much can we set aside for city hall and and trying to fit it all within I mean the main problem here is that our capital budget specifically is we've got too many projects on deck. That's that's the true problem here and we're going to have to make some cuts if we want to keep it you know below the the hoop. Yes, sir. Mr. Lee U. So, you're telling us, and that's fine if you're telling us there's going to be a whole lot of items in tier three. That's what we're looking for you to tell us. Okay? Pick from the tier three, but don't don't let any of the tier one or tier two go by according to the city's uh expert opinion. But you got these 14 tier three. Go ahead and pick any three of them. That kind of thing. But that is a whole lot more sanction and credibility coming from you than than I think that you guys see daily coming from from all of us who just want to get reelected. Yeah. And I mean I I would even I I'm I'm not necessarily advocating for this exactly, but I'm just like I'm looking at our 2026 budget for watershed erosion. We got half a million dollars in there. So we have money still this year, right, left over. How much do we have left over from this year's? Most of it.

Okay. So, if we don't, here would be my question. If we don't spend it a dollar this year on watershed erosion, that then theoretically gives us 800,000, right? In theory, it would go to the ending fund balance. So, it doesn't go anywhere. It's it's saved. So, in that case, but that said, the one thing you always got to keep in mind when we're doing budgeting though is that will make the overall budget look weird because that 300,000 even though it wasn't spent this year and we're technically putting it aside and saying, "Hey, we're going to save that for next year." Unless you have a contract and you encumber those funds, it's going to show now you're negative 300 in the hole for fiscal year 2020. As long as we're okay with that for this specific fun, this is my thing and and I am but one person. I don't care about budget awards or any of this stuff. Oh, it doesn't I mean I'm not saying I'm not glad we we win them or whatever, but like to me from a factual statement, if we don't spend $300,000 and we move it to next year, we have $800,000. If we don't do the sidewalks, which we're not going to do, we're now approaching a million dollars. I I still keep coming back. I I know it's really great to have this big reserve, but it's not good to have a big reserve when we can't operate the city and we can't take care of things that are going to cost us 10 times more, right? And it's been that Jonah, it's been that way for 15 years. And you keep saying when do you think, well, we ought to and it's the grants are great and all this, but guess what? Somebody has to maintain. Well, she said we we should spend 50% of it roughly, right? She's Yeah. So, we do hold and this is a legal mandate from the state. We have to we have to keep 25% of our general funds. So that's just an operating contingency. But we we put that in here to go as well. A good example, Kurs Mill Bridge went out. It was out for what, three years. The county had no money to put it in. And the Wildwood residents had to drive around. So I mean, those are water erosion problems that anybody who's lived here very long can tell you, "Oh yeah, I remember that." So, I mean, part of I think but I I honestly think if we

do a good job of trimming up this and get the priorities right, I'll go to bat for going into the reserves to take care of those things that are our fault. Water erosion, city hall, whatever those things are that shouldn't go in and and had been cut out of the budget because we were going to have a balanced budget. We did that for 25 years and now we have an excess budget. Nobody's going to vote for any additional support for us because they look why are you doing that? You have all that money. So, I just think we ought to be sensible enough to look at it and say, okay, if if the decision is from a water to get in front of it, we need to take $1.5 million out of the reserve. What is more important, right, than correcting that problem? Uh, and you know, now what I don't know is how much that would correct, but I don't think we should drive it back around. we can only do 300,000 or we can what do what steps could we do without any funding. If we get the funding then we've had then it doesn't become a next year problem. It's down the road you have that opportunity to lay it out. So that works for us. I mean one half million dollars the seven basins that have been studied to be retrofit. Yeah. And we maybe to fix the budget issue we spend we got 300 grand. We I don't know how much it costs to engineer the rest of this thing, but something tells me it's going to be right around that number. Well, and then you could look at it and we don't we don't have to do it all in one year because of the time it would take. But I just think we don't it's kind of like the deer thing. If you don't put it in the budget, yeah, then you keep coming, well, we have to cut that out and we did all the cutout on city hall and what we have now, right? You know. All right. So Tom, do you need anything additionally from us or are you good? We'll come back. Do we need a second? Mr. May maybe made the he made this motion. We didn't get a second and we didn't take I don't want to do every motion. Oh, I can't. Amy, will you repeat the motion that you got?

I have a motion. Oh, all right. It's a jumbled It's It's It's kind of a motion. It's a It's an assemblage. We'll get it. We'll get it in. You can withdraw it. Yeah, withdraw it. uh information tear out the current project listed for fiscal year 2026 bring that back and then pretty much make the argument if you what what do you need for each of these? Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't hear what you said. I I was uh break out a three- tiered system and then define that those three tiers and then take the projects listed for the 2026 budget for capital and then list those out tier one, tier two, tier three. So, show how we're getting there with a write up for those tiers and then show what is needed for each of these projects even even if it's different than what is currently listed. Okay. I I heard I thought I heard recalled you saying that be good to have a motion. So, I jumped in. But you're making it the motion. That was the motion. That was the mot. That was my interpretation. I accepted it. And now, okay. So, there was a point where I thought I heard someone say that we don't need a Well, we're going to do the motion. We're going to do the motion. So, if you if you're cool with that motion, yes, you will make it. I liked it exactly as I heard it. Tracy Tracy will second it. All right, everybody clear on the motion. Okay. All those in favor of our three- tiered system and budget continuation, please say I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Okay, great. Um, up next, communication policy for substantive changes to committee motions. Sim, let me do this real fast because it's starting to break. Okay. So, I wrote this thing up and um Tom did a good job of doing a little bit of this here earlier today when it came to our um sheets from code enforcement and things like that. The idea is when an item comes from a committee or the council and then it needs to come back around if there are whatever the substantive

changes might be, if it's legal or whatever, the staff is still fine to make those changes. they just have to point the changes out and tell us what they're doing. So it in in the case of the um the reports that from the courts and things like that, we ask for a certain set of things, not 100% of those things came back the way that we asked. So Tom is saying, "Hey, here's why this didn't come back and here's what that mean." So that way everybody is understanding what's going on. So we don't go into something thinking we talked about we're doing this thing and then it turns out to be the other thing. That makes sense to everybody. Um, anybody have any? Yes, sir. It's because I remember it happening before, so that's why this makes sense. Yeah. I mean, it happens. I mean, it it it happens all the time for a lot of different reasons. And, you know, in some cases, like if especially if we're talking to John, there's some legal reason we can't do something, that's totally fine. They he they'll just say, "Hey, legal reasons." and we'll go in a dark room and talk about why those legal reasons are if we need to do that. Um the biggest Well, did I interrupt? I'm sorry. No, that's okay. Go ahead. The biggest repetitive instance these with latitude in R38 or N pretty disconcerting to find out that something's written down as either a recommendation or an agreement that I didn't remember it that way. Yeah. And some of those I mean that gets a little weird because you get the develop I mean in that case I think the developer was coming back seemingly the day before meeting and changing of whatever was going on. Um but the goal with this is it's not really to hopefully create more work for our staff but just it should just be like a pretty clear like hey you guys asked for this here's what we're doing here is why and then we know what's going on. Well, I interpreted this as when there is a change, it it isn't a it isn't a a smelly thing that we discover after we take the lid off. Correct. It's hey, there's something smelly. It's

under this lid and here's what it is. Kind of like a a red line. We're prepared for it. We'll we'll get over it. Correct. Not when it's the words. I think we should redline those or change the color of the ink. So, when you make a change in something, change it to red. Mr. You do an outstanding job in updates. when you go in and read the updates, you can see everything happened in the last month is is in in red fonts. Boy, it just makes it a lot easier because then you can think about, oh, okay, we talked about that and it reminds you. So, I don't know if that's possible to kind of work in it, but I think it just makes because you spend a lot you spend a lot of time looking through these reports and then you're trying to think, did I see it in that page or did I see it back and then I look I start printing this stuff out and going back and highlight a minute. So, that would be helpful. I think I think this is great. I just think if we could highlight a little bit to say when you do make those changes, send it back to us. I don't know where you have to put it in the outgoing public document, right? But I think that it would be a good way to remind us this were the three changes that you made last especially if it's coming back to the committee to look at. So, all right. Anybody have any other thoughts on that? So, we have a Yes, sir. Just as you know, if a if a bill is introduced at city council and there are amendments, you'll usually see it a month later as an amended bill, typically the changes are highlighted so that you can see that what your input input provided is addressed. And then again, um, a lot of the reports that were prepared by Tom, Rick, and I, we highlight the changes. We add editor's notes. So, if there's something we're missing, I'll be the first to say I'd like to know because then I can add it. All right. All right. Uh, so we have a You want the proposed motion, Tom? Yeah, it's fine. Okay. So, the proposed motion is I move that the administration public works committee recommend that the city adopt the following protocol for all

councilbound motions uh emerging from committees. Well, uh, if any substantive changes, technical, legal, or otherwise, are made to the language of a motion after it has been approved by a council committee and before it is presented to the full council, those changes must be clearly documented in the council work session packet and verbally identified during the council work session by the mayor, presiding officer, or appropriate staff member. A substantive change is defined as any alteration that modifies the intent, scope, enforcability, or impact of emotion, policy, or legislative action that includes but is not limited to adding or removing policy requirements, shifting the authority or burden between staff and residents, converting between ordinance and resolution formats, altering timelines, thresholds, or applicability, modifying procedural safeguards or enforcement mechanisms. This protocol is not intended to limit staff or legal edits, but to ensure transparency, alignment, and legislative integrity. The operating committee's work must be respected and accurately represented to the full council. This protocol shall apply to all council committees. It may be formalized by the city administrator or council via resolution, administrative directive, or inclusion in the council manual as appropriate. If anybody wants to make any changes to that or make the motion, happy to move. I don't know. You said operating on here. It says originating. Oh, does it? Yeah. Well, maybe I read. Oh, I did. The originating committee's work. Got it. Just making sure. Bad read. My My fault. Okay. Uh, so anybody want to make any changes or make the motion? Little more discussion. Sure, ma'am. Some of the So, I know you have the the standing committees. Will this work in economic development? I would I mean, depending on what they're doing, I would think so. I mean the most of the idea would be like for instance having just started on there like we have the sign ordinance thing that we're talking about. So we had a whole bunch of conversation about the signed ordinance and then we sent it off somewhere and so then if that comes back

and it's now kind of like substantively different that's not to say it's wrong. It's just to say hey when it left here this is what it was and now it's come back and here's what it is. That's kind of how I now it's over P&Z for two months right? And then when that gets out of P&Z, then it'll come back again. Will it then go to economic development or will go directly to the uh council? It'll go to from planning and zoning commission, the city council. And the planning and zoning commission's already received the motion as approved by EDC as part of their last work session packet. So I mean I would suggest in that case like if curious if P and Z accepts the motion great or if they alter it then it would be this is this is what they got. This is what is now coming back. So number six is different or whatever it is anything that comes to council to planning and zoning commission has to be addressed. So, as you know, it was adored and if it was changed, why it was changed. That's typical process. I'm I'm worried. Does this happen often? Well, I I think it I mean, it happens more than you think. I mean, we've had a couple There's a a handful of times with previous folks that it was happening a lot. So, the idea is just to ensure that we have it. I mean, if there were a policy on the books, it would be it would have been easier to go like what we were talking about with the money for the watershed and the and the internet's a good example of that where like everybody left the room with one understanding and then we showed back up and it was like no it's a different thing now and that was that was the extent of the explanation. I understand now. Thank you. Um so yeah, so I mean I think for the most part I think you guys are doing a great job. This is more just a process to so people actually when we're all not

around anymore is we don't want to screw up the work you guys are told. That's part of the problem too. Yeah. Um also offer that if we present something template and you don't like the template, you need to let us know, right? Because we want to get it right so it's easy for you to understand and then um it helps you make your decision. All right. So, you want any more discussion? Want to make a motion? Want to make some changes question. I'm good. Elbert, what is it? Your turn to make a motion. Do we need a motion here? Yeah. Oh, just to accept uh make a motion to accept. Unless you want to change the proposed motion, you could just say we'll go with the proposed motion and I'll email it to anybody. Yeah, I make a motion to uh go with what uh Mr. Farmer just read. If that if that Mr. Phoenix second everybody's engaging on the Dan here. Okay. Any more discussion? If not, all those in favor, please say I. I. Anyone opposed? Any extensions? Okay, that one passes. Up next, uh, we've got our, uh, communication standards for city projects and development adjacent activities. Tom, you want me to do this one, too, or you want to you can I can add. Okay. So, uh, this is an item that is I think I think is kind of a long overdue thing here for us. There's been a couple issues that the city has dealt with. I had one with AT&T when they came in and did some things. we have different road projects uh you know wild horse being closed and that or whatever was a good another good one. So the idea is to really um make a very concerted and clear effort as to

how we are going to communicate these kinds of projects out. So, like in my mind, even as an example, like I think I saw them today either doing sidewalks or roads in my neighborhood, which I'm very appreciative of, and I did read it in the city administrator's report last week that they were going to be doing it, which is great, but like we don't have to keep that a secret until the week before it's done. We can put those things out. Um so the idea would be um you know like when road work utility activity is scheduled within a subdivision or a high traffic corridor clear communication advance you know social media posts email notice website updates things like that um I think over the years at least last time I even suggested like we can get a little sign we can stick up where people can hit a QR code it takes them right there to say hey we're resurfacing these roads over the next two weeks so be prepared. Um, ideally I think especially now with uh with Paula in place, this is probably going to be a thing where I would assume unless Tom disagrees that, you know, we can lean on her expertise on how to get the word out. But the idea is to get the word out widely and appropriately as much as we poss. I think it would help us to target that to the subdivision trustees. Sure. Because we it seems like it's always a one-sided event where they call us and say, "Hey, is this going on?" where we'd have the opportunity to get their names and their emails so that we could, you know, go in and say, "Okay, next week or whenever." That way when they get asked, they'll they'd be able to answer that, too. Yeah. And we've done a little bit about of this. We did it with uh I think Tommy you did it with the Lel thing where the idea is like when we have some very large piece of property that people care for you know go up. There's not a lot we can do but we can say hey this is for sale and if somebody were to buy it this is what technically is allowed to go there right now but you know we don't have anything to do with it. We're just putting the information out there so that the kind of like

crazy talk cycle doesn't kick in. Frequently asked questions. Correct. new part. Um, so yeah, I don't know. Tom, you got anything you want to add? The main thing I would say is some things, well, bigger trends, like if it's our road work, you know, I just want to speak to a couple of them. AT&T like that first one, they definitely roughed it up a bit. We are able to iron that out. So that said, yeah, we kind of know when when fiber projects are coming in, what to we've learned quite a bit what to conclude. We have a good process in place. like the the one like Wild Horse Creek Road being like actually that signage issue that was one that we were communicated. I would just say when it's out of our control and it's something that we we can communicate what's given to us, but for that specific instance and things like it, you know, MDOT says, "Hey, they're only closing the the westbound leg of it. Um you can get through it though and make that right as you're coming up north." Uh but then they put that sign up that has the exact opposite information. We actually did contact them and say, "Hey, stop that. Turn that around." And I would once we're notified of it, I would just make sure that it's some things we might even be led astray. The staff might be. Yeah. I I just think like those kinds of things. I mean, we're not It's important for us to communicate like we it's a MDOT thing. We don't have anything to do with it. This is what they have told us. And so, it's just a matter of getting those things out. Be honest. They don't tell us. Well, and then then we should be communicating that is that they don't tell us and and most of our partners don't tell us either. So, we're doing the best we can to communicate what we know and what we're able to find out, but they don't communicate it to us directly in most cases. So I would then say our communication out needs to be exactly that because like it is it for instance I mean whatever they were doing on the sewers on Clayton Road today I'm certainly glad that they did it but it was a bit of a mess up there and I'm certain they didn't tell us they were doing anything

example they nobody told us a thing about that work we drove by this morning too I have no idea they put up I noticed they put up new crosswalk signs by Lafayette I was expecting those in three years so I was excited But, you know, there they are. So, I I just think like we need to much like we talked about earlier with um Tom's letter about the line item veto like we should be honest with our residents about the fact that our utility partners, MDOT, the county, whatever it is, they don't communicate with us the way that they're supposed to. And so that is why we are not able to communicate this out because what winds up happening is our residents internalize this as something we are not doing which we aren't communicating it out because we don't have the information but if we did we should get it out as best and I think when we don't have it we should tell them who to call. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think if people I just know with the the Rockwood thing, man, the the ones I know have been trustees for years. They'd already called the school board and they were quick to call and say, "Hey, the guy retired and they're tearing up the street." So, I mean, in that particular situation, when it's out of our hands, just let them know that this is what they most of them have a pretty good understanding of how it works. But I think any place where we don't get it, when they start getting people reaching out to them that then they will in turn realize that and we're we're never going to be perfect, but I think we could help be better. Yeah. And I think it's important too like for our own internal things like you know if we're spending a lot of time or getting a lot of calls on something that isn't our it is not our problem then I think it is important whether it falls on deaf ears or not to communicate back to wherever that agency is to go hey like we're we are fielding a lot of calls about things that we don't have anything to do with. So, if you could do a better job of communicating it to us, that would be great because we just spent 45 hours of our staff time dealing

with this thing that we don't have anything to do with. Um, so this I think is more a the concept of, you know, giving you guys in the city a a genuine functional voice in terms of how these things work and to try to get ahead of the problems because even in limited areas like my stuff, it's always somebody's mad that something has happened, not that something is going to happen. And then those are the harder conversations to have. Did that make sense to everybody? Um, so Tom, is there anything that you don't like in here or you want to for our stuff? I think we're fine. And if and if we're okay with, hey, you know, and I'm fine with also recording if we're getting calls on something or if we're getting if we're getting mud thrown on us for a specific thing that maybe didn't require a permit, but they just did it. Maybe you should have gave us a heads up. I'm fine with noting that as well and then communicating that out. Hey, we're hearing about this. Um that said, if we're okay with just saying here's who to contact, we typically can know who's doing it. Yeah. But sometimes they it just, you know, even coming from my office, they don't they don't tell. Amron's really getting better. I will say Amar's getting a lot better. But I mean it it it's sometimes it's like pulling teeth to to get get the information. If it's our project, we should be communicating it out. I'd say that's the least expectation. um not going to be perfect, but I honestly think when people are faced with that, they'll realize that and even if it just becomes emails coming in, if they get 10 or 12 emails from people, they'll say, "You know what? Maybe we didn't do a good job communicating that or however you do it." And I mean I I would I would maybe look at um I noticed it like may the way that Mayor or Garitano put some things out specifically like when you know we had the vote about trying to get Clayton Road resurface and then the next day they were out there patching six spots and everybody got excited and it was like oh just kidding

and he should have gone two days later when they restriped it there's no f there's nothing going to be redone nothing more is coming this way. As soon as I saw that I no that's it. It worked. That's exactly a good Mr. Mabry. I'm just dubvetailing off of the earlier length of time we invested in u our first topic communications city's communication to its residents the right and the obligation of the residents to know what's going on. it's their obligation to to be a part of the city as much as it is our obligation to to educate them or to inform them. So, is there anything about this, Mr. Lee, that you consider uh adds more to your plate than benefits uh your your staff's time and resources and and value? No, I think you think we should go uh and I'm adding or you think we should go further and say in spades everything you're doing about educating uh about this upcoming referendum for ballot measure. Do all that in spades for everything else that we're discussing about this particular action so that you can just whatever you're doing there do it again here. And you got the sanction, you've got the direction or the mandate. Do you like that or is it just more work for you? No. And I think that's overall it's when we have the information it's good to get it out and I think it's our responsibility to share that information with the residents. I would just say to call out the distinction and with the erosion issue. I mean, that's something we can easily share, especially since that's going to be completely controlled by us, especially comparison other cities. We won't necessarily share how they did it unless they share it with us. But we'll be able to say, "Hey, here's what we're doing." But some of these issues like the the Clayton sewer issue. I mean, you know, I that that's something that we just we had no idea. Once we know about it, we can share it. But just understanding there's limitations because that's that said if and I'll just point this out with the

communications manager I think it is going to be helpful. Um but I will say just operationally sometimes when these things pop up during the middle of the day and if it's an emergency we do drop everything. You know usually you you sometimes will get Rick Joe and I all three you know responding to a situation depending on what it is. That said, sometimes if it's, you know, a low level, you know, we might just need to keep train and Paula up on it just because it can disrupt the normal day-to-day operations if every it's almost like categorizing what this does here. Um, what rises to the level that it needs to get a social media post, a spotlight on the city website, potentially we have the ability to do an alert on the city website. Do we do a special e newswsletter that blasts out that's not on its regular schedule? Um, and do we do a, you know, a mailer or something if it's something that's longterm? I that's those are questions that we ask, but typically we do try to get out, you know, when we did get info that MDOT was like closing the interchange for the repair work, we got out the schedule that they gave us. That schedule changed. So, it's we have to just be very careful once again saying, "Hey, MDOT's overseeing this project." And kind of having that caveat because we had bad weather, they then changed their schedule. Then that schedule we still had up on the on our on our social because we can't delete the post. That said, folks that might have seen that later in the week, they ended up thinking, "Oh, they it was closed last week. We're good." But they were actually starting it. They didn't give us an updated schedule. So, it just that is it is frustrating for us because we want to get the information out for projects that aren't ours. I think ours our projects and projects we have access to our over oversight power. We can definitely build off that, but I I just think with the external partners that maybe do things without telling us that those can sometimes sort of fur and add more work when we're kind of well we're doing our day-to-day it can be very disruptive. Maybe just use some corrective wording

in there based on the least the last information from MDOT or something like that so that that you know you're at least communicating what's been communicated to us. And I think a lot of the ones where I see where you put them in are pretty good. Weather permitting. I mean kind of knows that's a change. Big big big compliments on the roundabout at Wild Horse and one night. Larry McGowan told me he went through there six times yesterday and not once was there traffic. He said no stops on. He said I just want to set for a ramp. I mean maybe I don't know if this is I don't know if this is the appropriate place for this time but maybe maybe what we do is you know we either you know lean on Paul or your expertise to to tell us like like I think for a long time our the city has tried to communicate in every avenue possible and in my experience doing that you just communicate poorly everywhere instead of saying hey we're going to try to get you wherever we are But this is if you want this information, this is where this information is. So here's the here's the link to come back here or here's whatever it is. Um, so maybe what we want to do is we want to figure out or have Paula figure out the the the methodology that makes the most sense. So you know like to me these kinds of things going in the gazette probably don't make a lot of sense because that's you know six months at a time. While I would love to communicate out that whoever was do MSD was doing something to the sewers on Clayton, I'm assuming that they're done today. So, it was an inconvenience today, but like that's not exactly the same thing as like communicating to the HOA like, hey, we're going to be resurfacing all your roads in two weeks. So, let you know if people start calling or whatever you like. put the onus of that communication somewhat on the people that are in that space rather than taking it on as the city.

Yeah. And that that makes sense. I mean, at the end of the day, I think that's that is appropriate. Um, if we're send I will say if we're sending out mailers, we're going to put a QR code that gets them to our website, but if it's another party, I would almost say lock it in on we'll do a social media post about it. every time we get a water main outage or water repair work that we we see, we get the notifications. We have them all set. If anything, you know, this phone rings for a million different things, it rises to the level. Um we we're usually going to do a social post. We're going to create a spotlight that'll be active for about 48 hours depending on the instance and then we'll put it on uh we'll if it's big enough, we'll put it in the e newswsletter as well. But that's typically it. Um and then that that spotlight, which if you go on our website, there's usually eight at a time. We try not to go over eight because it can be clunky and take the the homepage a long time to load if you have too many. Um, big enough emergencies you can have a banner across the top. I would almost say I'm almost thinking about this. It's we almost have like a weekly roundup or something like that that shared. You could maybe call Ellisville. I mean they have some sign like our uh public notice sign size. It looks like that's just a QR code and it goes to whatever website they're deemed it to go to. But I mean it's like you know if they're having a like I was even thinking that even with like our public notices like the one up by me. It's like it is it is technically there and that is what we are required to do. But you got to stop your car, go get the piece of paper. It's tiny. Like if we just put a if it's possible to just say here's a QR code for public hearings and it just takes them right to a site. I think that that is significantly easier from a staffing perspective other than updating a website than going and putting out a sign and making sure you have the right brochures and if the brochures are gone I assume we have to go put more out or whatever it is. Yeah. I mean for probably notices I think there are some legal requirements that said if we have one that just has here is the history of our it's going to

store a lot of data but if we had the limit like hey we remove the one that's you know we do 10 at a time after the 10th that one gets removed but the document doesn't get deleted for record retention purposes obviously we keep the notice elsewhere um because we'll have a copy of it but we would just have a copy of the the notice I mean that that wouldn't be an issue I also don't think we we can create a page too that's says as I like the weekly roundup or like the the very important news that doesn't necessarily rise to the level of a a spotlight, which the spotlight is like kind of, you know, it's either a nice achievement or it's a pretty big deal or like a road closure, something like that. So, it we could incorporate something different. I I can check on what Ellisville has as well. I think they have a phone number on theirs, too. I mean, when they put their signs up, because if you can't read them very well, I think it says contact City of Ellisville with that phone number. And then when you go to their voicemail, it will, you know, you can click on and and then it tells you. That's the way they were doing it. So, I mean, that's pretty antiquated, but do they do you know if they still do that for their public notice, Joe? I don't know. Last one I saw was just a QR code. I was like, that's weird. I don't I thought you had to be a little bit more specific than that. They do have a page. I'm looking at it right now. They do have a page for all their public notices going back all the way to 2014. It's like a public It's like a public share drive. All 12 of them. Yeah. Right. I still don't want Kmart down there. Um, okay. Does anybody have anything else they want to add? Yes, sir. Some of the things we do are code driven. So, and just remember if the code says we do it this way, that's the way we do it. And that has to do with postings and public notices. We can change the code if that's what you all that's the direction you all want to go. Certainly. And in terms of certain processes relative to permitted uses in our zoning districts clear this is how we process

them. The notification to the individual council members certainly something we can do. We do a development trends report every month for planning and parks committee and then it is forwarded to city council thereafter. There's a better way to do that. We often tell the planning and parks committee members let us know. Sure. We'd love to hear from you because we it's a new report relatively speaking. When we first published it, we made some modifications based upon input from the committee members. But if it's a better way to do it, let us know. Then finally, sometimes what I think is important may not be to you and vice versa. Sometimes what I think isn't important is important to you. So have a measure of mercy because we're not going to be right all the time. And that's not because we're trying to hide facts or not be transparent or pull one over on the residence. It's just from our perspective at professionals, we see things a little differently than someone that lives on a subdivision street in W three. So well, as far as count, you can't force council to read that report either. I think that's a great report, but if you sit there and people start arguing about stuff, it's in the report. I mean, I I just don't get that part, but they they won't take the time to read it. They residents, you can put it out a lot and they're still going to say, "Well, you had no idea what Well, you've got to look." So, a lot of it is on the residents, too, because it's out there somewhere 99% of the time. They just don't take the time to look or don't know. saying if there's a better way to do it and you can figure it out, let us know because we're more than willing to try. If it doesn't work, we'll try. It's another way. But I know Travis works very hard on it and then we edit it a lot before it even goes out to the committee and then city council. But we want to make sure it's correct. But if

there's a better way to basically present that information, please let us know. I mean, this is and I think this is covering a different topic. I mean, at the end of the day, I we could probably take this and convert it into a quick URL on the city website, so you're not having to do any extra work. It' be something we can have Paula automatically do once a year. But then this literally shows and they have no excuse. We can link this on the homepage and say every permit that is approved this year or this month is right here. Click. And if they click it, they I mean it is a little reading, but there's a there's a beautiful it says what? It says the date of it. It tells like a couple summary words, you know, is it offense? I have had trustees call and thank us for having the turnaround that the thing was approved or you know they applied for this. They said we never had that before. That's just fantastic. Um so I yeah I've been getting a lot more emails about I don't know what you guys changed but I I'm not exactly sure what they're thanking you for but we don't get them that often. So but they all said that you know the permitting process has really helped some of the trustees because now they know that it was done the right way and that they they have that information too. 100%, you know, um maybe a bit of communication. I don't think our trustee list is very up to date. So, I don't know if that could be communicated to we've done a couple drives in the past to say, hey, it was it was like almost dominated a lot of our major communications to have HOAs updated. We have a form at our website that says, hey, you know, this helps us connect with you. And we unfortunately I mean we did I mean I will say we did that it was probably about a year ago where we repushed it. Um and I'll I'll be honest with you I thought you know hey we just need to give this a good push and it'll get get updated. we did get, you know, like 15 or 20 folks that updated it and we now have something I what we've been trying to do and what I do personally and I've talked with um a couple of the team members here to when we talk to HOA members, we try to convince them to do

emails based on their like their HOA.com, whatever it is, then that never I know it's not great to password share or anything, but if there's three HOA trustees, if they all share amongst it, then okay, maybe just leave it with one that's the president. But that means someone is constantly feeding into that communication channel because right now when we use them, we try to tap and leverage it every time for dear management, we just don't get a response and it's usually oh that person was a trustee back in 2010 and they it takes a lot of work but but I also believe that if we were sharing information with them much better reason some one of those people who lived there say here's the three trustees and they'll give you their name and address and phone number. That's how I get a lots of time to say, you know, I'd love to get your trusty. They won't tell us who it is. I mean, I'm looking at our list. The villages of Cherry Hills doesn't have any trustees listed. Neither does Neither does the village of Whiting Trails. I I'll just give I'll send you guys the emails because those guys are pretty dialed in. Cherry Hills doesn't. It's It's not a great list. Yeah, it's based off it's based off the form. So, it's like it's self-reported. We don't go in. We if some if we get a notification from the form that says hey u someone updated this then we say okay then we have a designated we call complain about stuff I just always say you know this is this is a great opportunity I just want to confirm who these people are and you do get some of them I mean it's just it's not going to be perfect but it does kind of cut down on the complaining um okay so um if you would Mike, I have a proposed motion we can make that gives you guys the flexibility to Google with this thing a little bit if you would give us. Okay. So, it is I move that the administration public works committee recommend the development and adoption of a standardized communications protocol for capital projects and development adjacent activities based on the key

points and checklist outlined in the communication standards for city projects and development adjacent activities memo. Staff are further directed to return with the draft policy and implementation timeline for review within 60 days. Do that. That sound good for everybody. I think that gives you guys the freedom to do figure it all out. All right. It's Tracy's turn. Tracy. Yeah. Oh, it's my turn. It's your turn. Okay. I move that we accept that. You will make that motion. All right. Motion made by N, seconded by Mr. Mabberry. All those in favor, please say I. I. Anyone oppose? Any abstensions? Okay, cool. That brings us to Mr. Brown. Um, status report on MODOT improvement projects. Thank you, Sher. Committee members, appreciate that. Um, this is the update we've been providing you for a couple months now. I wasn't going to go through this in detail. Um, I would mention to you that the memo says we're going to be be resurfacing on road tonight. Um that's already slid to rain. You need an umbrella, a big one. Um so anyway, the resurfacing has slid and uh right now it's scheduled for Wednesday, but with the rain tonight, it very well may slide again. So that's the challenge we face unfortunately trying to communicate these things. But um Taylor Road should be resurfished soon followed by Manchester Road and then they'll go back hopefully and do village Parkway during the day. So TE the Manchester Taylor project is moving forward and um the signals are almost completed but not entirely. They do have to put luminaries on the signal posts but not been delivered to us just yet either. Um so there's a few uh cleanup items that will still remain after the resurfacing is done but it's it's approaching substantial completion. So,

and as you mentioned, the one block roundabout has been uh substantially completed there as well. Um, traffic seems to be operating well. I myself noticed that as well. Hopefully, when the coming back in the school starts up in the fall, it'll continue to do well. That's a welcome improvement for sure. Are there any other questions you might have relative to projects that are underway that you want to ask? Not think I got my answer as I went on through the agenda. Valley Road was moved to 2026, but that's because you end up now have to go back and get the rideways. Is that correct? I mean, before that was scheduled for 2025 late later this fall and now I see it's your project expected to do it is in 2026. construction specific construction yes we we have um and as we're going to talk about shortly we have to acquire 10 improvements on that on that project so um that will take I think based on past experience a good part of a year to do so that was my question that I read that is correct um not to sideline this too much but we talked about the rightway right you and changing the way looking at changing the word of doing that. Yes, we do. We probably should put that on agenda. Yes, but specifically for fally funded projects. Yeah. I just I mean I don't know if it's just fally funded or any of them. I I just don't know if we want to maybe talk about that as a group later just to so we don't I mean we talk about tonight. No, we skip we can do that next time. I'm just saying it's we may be doing it right. I we should practice talking. That's the way. And just as a quick note, it's right away it's the most tedious. At least from my perspective. I'll I'll let the traffic engineer speak to that. But um that said, it seems like

it's the most it has the most variables added to it because you're not necessarily just paying a contractor to produce X product and then you have it, you get it reviewed, it's good to go. It's you add in people u which can as you can see in some instances lately can add some some layers of complexity. That said, the idea would be the way that tip apps work is work is there and it doesn't really matter if you have right of way acquired. I mean, I mean, Rick, I'll ask you. I mean, does that would that increase our score if we submitted the application that had the right of way acquired? I mean, it it can indirectly, I think, is the answer to that because when you apply for federal funding, essentially the less you apply for, the less you're asking for, you're probably increasing your odds of getting funding. So if you if you wait and this is what we've talked about doing essentially when we do apply for fally funded projects we're going to maybe wait a little bit longer do more work on the front end and then uh maybe get the rightway acquired in advance and then apply for construction funds potentially. That way we don't struggle with the schedule because the schedule is very restrictive when we get those federal funds and then we have more clarity in terms of what the construction cost is because we clearly are challenged um we have been very challenged over the last five years estimating these projects accurately when we put in the the funding application. So if you wait later, you have more conciseness about the amount of money you need and the schedule is much easier to meet in terms of expectation and just achieving the the progress. One hit on that is that you don't get reimbursed for the acquisition. So the city's paying out of pocket for the actual cost of the land, whatever it is. But as we I mean we'll talk about this in another meeting but like when we were kind of running the numbers it's one of those things where like the number winds up being pretty nominal that we wind up

paying in order to make the process much easier. And also I mean in my thought process was it's probably better for the city to just have more right away anyways for us to do things. So in places that we can like let's be proactive in the thought and go get it and then not just everywhere willy-nilly but yeah figure out if that's the right spot to go. So, so my question is on Valley Road and we make it to with Lars being over for all that time and all the properties over there. I just could the subdivision give you the common ground and who who would do the legal work on writing that up because I don't know that you have to pay for it if they think they're going to get a sidewalk or they're going to get better improvement. Um, most cases they're just struggling who they're going to get to mow it, you know. So, but I'm just was curious. I don't know where all the places are along there, but I do know over the years, and Mr. May could take that, but for 20 years, I know all those people and their problems, but and there are some there who we'll probably expect you to to pay for something, but there might be some who' be more than you know, if we're going to get a sidewalk here, give you that ground. I don't know. Just curious if that's something that we could do in lie of having to buy from them. Well, yeah. I I think that isn't the traditional process that you try to engage with and ask for the donation first and then offer you we can and we have asked for donations and certainly if there's an HOA and it's minimal impact um certainly that's feasible we could do that it's just when they when the ask gets pretty big it's it it's difficult to do that and then if we're going to do it we need to be consistent do it with all the property owners and that's very difficult. So then if you don't, you're paying some and you're not others. And that's what I struggle with a little bit. A lot of times these are fairly nominal payments. And a lot of times the

payment is just, you know, honestly compensating them for their time and and impact of, you know, you're going to be challenged when construction occurs and I need you to look at this and and review it and approve it. It's just time spent. It's a lot of hassle, frankly. I just know my old subdivision um mill there is no common ground in the front. Those are actually the homes own that land. Uh and that's why there's no there's no sidewalk along valley road. But um that was done by Flower Homes. It was a lawsuit 30 some years ago. So I think there are some of those situations, but then they have all of that common ground uh down around there that they paid they paid to mow and actually that's where we moved we moved the creek over uh onto their common ground. So, I don't know if there's a way we could help with that. It just seems to me that sometimes when you go in and you're trying to set up a meeting when they know somebody's going to be willing to pay them something where maybe you could see if the legal work could be done, you know, if we could do the legal work, they didn't have to pay for that. I don't know. Might be an option. Well, we could certainly keep that as a possibility. All right. Um, so is this just information or you need something from us? That is anformational item. Uh, Chair Farley. All right. Um, up next we've got I mean I guess that was a Valley Road, right? Started to talk about Valley Road and that's the next item on the agenda. All right. So, as uh was referenced by council member Marshall. Um we are moving forward with our uh valley road project um and we have completed preliminary plans and designs and received um environmental approvals and we have identified 10 properties properties of which we need easements in order to construct the project. So we'd like to move forward with that that process of acquiring those easements to allow us to construct the project. So to

do that, we did obtain four quotes from four companies to help us in that uh process of raising those appeasements, um putting together potential offers, contacting the property owners, developing the easement grant documentation, getting it recorded, and all the things that go into that process. Um it is a lot more than you might expect. Um we hire companies to do it. it does help us a great deal um in public works keeping things moving forward. So uh right away acquisition is a little different than engineering. It's it's not considered professional services. It's the same manner. We can get out and out bids for the work. So that's what we did. We contacted four companies that do this type of work for us. One of them which is O colon has previously worked for us. Um, this time the lowest quote we got was from Urban Humanity Developments Corporation. Their price was $32,000 to do the acquisition work for us. So essentially, we are recommending tonight moving forward with a agreement with Planning Development Corporation to help us obtain the 10 easements for the project. The amount of their bid was $32,000. So with that, I'll be glad to answer any questions committee tonight. Any questions, Mr. So that's a consulting fee. What do you think it'll cost us to buy the right away? Well, Mr. Marshall, we haven't um we haven't put those costs together just yet. Um I think most of these easements are relatively minor. Um, I would not expect them to be as impactful as the Old State Road shared use path. Um, we're not, we are doing, there are two sidewalk sections that we'd like to construct.

Those two properties, those two areas, I guess, may be a little bit more impactful there. Other ones are, you know, we're we're addressing a storm sewer that goes under the road. It may not have a ement currently and we're thinking we need to add it or we're extending it or doing some work. I would feel pretty comfortable we're going to be under 100,000 hopefully less than that. Um but I until we get into it I really don't know for sure. Just curious. I mean this is certainly a cost but once you get into this then you got to be prepared to pay the other for for the properties. So anybody have any other questions? You've got you've got no bogeies, no heritage sites or someone who thinks they've got rare canary birds resting there. None of that as we rar as it has on old state. Um, no, I'm not aware of anything. Again, we have gotten the environmental clearances. Um, that's not to say that when we get into talking with folks, it's I just can't predict how that's going to go. Some sometimes it goes quite well, sometimes it's a challenge. So what about the property that's in Clarkson Valley? So everything from on Valley Road all the way down that first subdivision is all Clarkson Valley. Then when you get down into Valley across from Thomas' where the log cabin is, that's Clarkson Valley. So will we have to coordinate with them or do we certainly won't be buying easements in Clarkson Valley, would we? I it's possible. Well, I'm not aware that we do have any that are physically in Clarkson Valley. Um, we have talked about the need to coordinate uh more directly with Clarkson Valley and and we haven't done that. One of the things that we may do um is a public meeting of sorts. Um probably would be worth doing that um just to allow people the opportunity to to get more familiar what we're proposing to do. And that way we could also extend, you know, an

invitation to Clarkson Valley as well. Um, so that's something we may want to do here in the next few months because, you know, there isn't a sidewalk from the Crest View Middle School. Um, there's not a sidewalk to get my kids used to have to until they put the sidewalk in across the street. They they couldn't even ride a bike or walk to school. Had to wait for the buses. But all that along the uh school property and back there's a guy used to live over on the hillside, Charlie Wright. He wanted to put a sidewalk in there. And I kept saying, "It's not Wildwood. you can't do that because he was then paying people to mow that because the Rockwood School District was not mowing it and a ball would come out of there or or whatever. So that that there's a quite a view quite a bit of that that is Clarkson Valley until you're halfway down the hill there across from Sun Meadow. It's about where it it shifts on the that other side of the street. So, just curious. The sidewalk sections that we're proposing to do are on the other side of the road. It's it's the section opposite the middle school um where it stops all the way up to Clayton Road, filling that gap in. Yeah. And then putting the U crosswalk, upgrading that crosswalk over because right now that crosswalk is where the sidewalk stops. Yeah. Yeah. And the other one is down to Creper Mill, that last gap that that exists. And those property owners are we've spoken to them a few times and they're they're somewhat receptive, but it's it's difficult to get. Anybody have anything else? So you you need a motion. I just had a quick question on the contract. So within this contract, do we give the them some type of an expectation as to how long they have to get these easements or is this like a year-long contract or how does that work? Well, I think they have in here um a general I remember what I read um what their expectation is how long it will take. Um

but I will generally set the agreement up to give them a reasonable amount of time to get through the process. So, I'll probably set if we move forward with an agreement with them, um I would set the starting date to be um it August I was thinking August 15th through potentially June of next year, which is essentially our deadline to get the the acquisition complete. So, um it would allow them enough time to get through the process of completing all the steps and getting everyone signed and then at that point, we have to record all the documents and then turn them over to MDOT for their inspection. So there's a a long a long list of steps that have to be completed that should give them enough time. I I mean I don't know that we can do this. I just I know we've talked about it with the roundabout at Wild Horse that like maybe for certain items like this is possible if we offer some kind of an incentive for them to go faster because I mean my assumption is with that amount of money they would like to get it done as quickly as they can. But if we can incentivize them to do it quicker, that gives us more time and in case somebody's problem or whatever it is. No, absolutely. And and we have to be clear with our schedule relative to the funding that we have so that we can get through all the steps um in time and and usually they're pretty good about getting the initial offers out. It's just once that happens and it tends to fall into the lap of the property owner, things tend to get difficult. people vary in how receptive they are to the offer and how much right available they are. So I just I mean I don't know I mean I don't even know if legally we can do that on any of our contracts to say hey we our expectation is you know you got till July June of next year but if you can get it is by whatever March here's an extra three grand or whatever the whatever it is. I would have to double check, but I

I think there's a way to do that the way you're phrasing it if you were trying there' be a way that that's not that wouldn't be legal. But if you're saying, you know, hey, here's the deadline and if you meet this threshold, you get this amount, then I think that can be like I'm I mean, I'm not saying to use these other people's numbers, but like if if we were to go with the most expensive bidder, it's $39,000. So if we were to say, you know,000 more, well, we go, okay, this is a, you know, this is our approval is to not to exceed this amount of money, but here's how that money would come out. If it's fast, it it happens this way, and if it's slow, it's this other way. The other thing is I think you would 100% need to incorporate something like that within the the bidding documents for the the proposals. Yeah. They would everyone would have their shake at getting this. Yes. That's and I'm just wondering if in not for this specific thing but in the future if that's a way to do it that might actually maybe it's working like a and I can talk to the city attorney about this but it's like a maybe it's a percentage of the overall bid like it's not much but it's like hey yes sir when I heard your word legal man can we make there is there are certainly provisions in many clients I've worked with that they provide for value ad voluntary alternatives and that is it sounds to me like the way these dates are stacking up as late as next June you're going to theoretically miss an entire con construction span by having to go through contracting after June and then missing construction through the following next spring's season. So that the premise or the or the sanction for being able to uh legally request this in some attorney's

eyes would be that here's your base bid to June not to exceed and you're then provided for voluntary ohiance is the owner a voluntary alternate ad for um accelerating your uh deadline. July to to March or to yeah to March like it's just more time another fiscal quarter for contracting and then you're still capturing fall which it shouldn't take much longer to build some sidewalks. I don't think that'd be a problem as long as the it would then the question would be and I think it's you could we could definitely try it'd be do we get proposals on it because if they if it also asked do we do we have do we require that you have that add alternate too that hey get it done by March if no one if we require that that gets filled out allowed to no bid and you're allowed to call them non-responsive reject the proposal hey Rick I mean you work with I guess what I would suggest to you is that the right of acquisition process that we follow is dictated by federal law because we're using federal funds. I don't know there's a lot of chance we could do what you're suggesting if we're using federal funds because the process is quite quite ro and the the process that we have to follow. If you don't follow, we lose our federal funding. So feel they've already locked you out of that option. Yeah, they it's established in federal law and um there's not a lot we can likely do to change it. Clients aren't allowed to add voluntary alternate ads to our It's it's extremely uh regimented and they when we get done with the acquisition, we turn in a file for every partial and they look at every document that we we've executed and go through with a fine tooth code. So it it has to follow exactly what what their requirements are and their requirements are very explicit and very

detailed. If we're not using federal funds, that might be an option. And yeah, that's I can agree with some of that. And then also the other thing is uh when they're looking at stuff, they're they're trying to cut our funding. They want they want us to lose our So when when we do the money we spend by acquire the rightway plus the cost of the consulting doing that, does that go into the total cost or is that all city cost? That would be that should be reimburseable, but up to that amount that the federal government's cover, which is 80, I believe. So engineering costs ne uh rightaway uh costs are all ne are all reimburseable expenses as as is the construction. So when you when you set your budget up when you apply for the funding you can request reimbursement for those expenses. Um but you have to put it all up front and estimate those costs up front. And the problem is it's very difficult to do accurately. So frequently we do get in a situation where we underestimate those costs. And so we get a a fixed dollar amount from the federal government that we don't exceed. So if those costs come in higher, then the percentage that we're getting goes down. It's like if for an example, and I'm just think ones that I know of on Valley Road, those are all there's no homeowners association owning anything. It's all private lots from uh Clayton Road. The ones that there's no sidewalks in front of. My question would be is when you get down to like the one there, Peppermill, the private property owner, if they elect not to sell it, can we still get the federal funding, just not put a sidewalk in there? Well, it does get a little tricky because um when we applied for the funding, we said we're going to do X, Y, and Z. So, if we drop off Z, we generally go back to East West Gateway and say we're not doing Z. Can you

please let us know that that's a okay? And sometimes it's not a problem, but sometimes they might say it is a problem and you're going to lose your federal funding, so you better not do it. That can happen. I'm just kind of curious because I think that's part of that whole time lapse, how long, you know, it takes. I'm thinking a couple of those owners, they have actually died. And I don't know who who actually owns the property now. But other than that, they're not I don't think that they'd be unrealistic in the fact that it's going to happen. But the longer you wait the and if it's a that contingency on the back end. So I find I think we need to to do whatever. But it is kind of interesting how what's in front of it. You know the carder the horse. It just kind of seems sometimes it's backwards. Are you looking for a motion to move forward with the recommendation from the department? So moved. Made by Mr. Marshall. Seconded by Mr. Vanic. All those in favor of moving forward with the department's recommendation, please say I. I. I. Anyone opposed? Extensions. Okay. Uh that brings us to our roundabout bids. Council members, Chair Farmer. Um next item is relative to the construction of our proposed roundabout at Route 109 in DA South. Um as you know, we've been working on this for a few years now. Um this is another federal improvement project. Uh is of course on mod system install a new roundabout at that intersection and we do have 1.36 million in federal funds that have been came um through this for this improvement project. We did open bids for construction of the project um recently last week. Um, we did get five biders responding, uh, which was a good a good positive for the for the project. Um, the low bid was

from Gersian Construction, uh, about 2,468,000. I'm not going to read the entire total. The second lowest was M&H Concrete Contractors which was about 26,000 higher or about 2,4 94,000. Um the good thing was we had five biders. The the downside was that the low bid was above our engineers estimate which was about $2,70,000. Think I may have written that incorrect. 2 million and maybe $90,000 um was the engine the engineers estimate of probable cost. So Gersinson came in about 19% above. M&H was about 20% above. So they were both pretty close. And incidentally, the high bid was LMP. Um they were 53% above the engineers estimate at 3 point almost 3.2 million. So, pretty good range from the low to the high there. So, tonight um we're looking for direction regarding moving forward with this construction project. Um and this is a quite frankly a difficult um recommendation to move forward with and I think what I'm suggesting is considering the possibility of rejecting the bids because the low bid was above the engineer's estimate. Um we do have some time to reject the bids and revertise it again. Um we did check with MDOT and we have about five months with which to work with effectively um that we have to have essentially concurrence of award from MDOT. So I believe we have the time to reject the bids and revertise it and move forward. Of course there's nothing saying we have

to move forward at all. Frankly, um it is a it is an important project um it is a project on Modat system um that we we've worked on for several years now. It's unfortunate this was the case. I will say that we are going through an unprecedented historic period of time right now with construction in the state of Missouri. I think you're probably aware that we are spending over 30 million to improve roads in and around Wildwood currently and MODOT is putting a billion dollars or has put a billion dollars towards I70 statewide with another 2.2 billion to come. So it's it's a record time for construction of projects right now. Um so it I think we're expecting to see and are starting to see the price of materials at the minimum going up. uh when you look at unit prices that that they bid um across the board for all these contractors, I mean they are definitely up over where we were at five years ago. No doubt. So we're seeing some inflation and I think that's likely not going to change if we rebid it. But the thought would be if we rebid it, we will try to uh lessen some of the requirements that uh would allow more competition. For example, we believe that we can allow options on some of the pavement to be either concrete or asphalt and that should reduce or increase competitiveness and lower unit prices for pavement. We talked to mod about doing this and something they do allow. We think we have an option of potentially reducing costs in that manner and possibly by tightening up a few other things here and there after we talk to some of the biders. goal will be to get more competitive bids and reduce costs. Flip side of it is we're going to wait another month or two

and during that period of time we don't know what's going to happen. So there is definitely risk if we don't move forward at this point. There is no guarantee that we're going to see cost savings. You might see an increase in cost. So it's a difficult decision that we're faced with at the moment. Um, I think with that I'll stop and and answer any questions that you might have. Mabria. Yes. Thanks. And I I don't want to mischaracterize. It sounded like you were stating that you were making the the uncomfortable recommendation to uh reject all bids. Did I hear that part correct? that that that's the department's position is that they're they're regretting it. But it's the seems like the the most prudent attack is to reject all bids and hope against hope for uh opportunities to tighten up scope and loosen up scope to attract a greater quantity of biders that might bid cheaper. Is that is that kind of a thumbnail or am I getting some of that wrong? Council member, I think that's fairly accurate. Again, the the anticipated start of of construction really isn't until after the first of the year. We had to do that based on the fact that we'd have to build a wall in the first phase of construction. And what we found was we couldn't get the wall materials shipped and on site really much before that point. So, um I don't anticipate actual construction to any large degree to occur before um the first of the year. So if we postpone the ward of the project by another month or so, I don't expect that it's going to change that to any degree. So I don't think you're going to see construction delayed by doing this. The question is, are we going to see costs come down or we will we actually see costs go up in the bid.

Quite frankly, when we do this, most cases we don't save money. We just don't because you're delaying you are delaying commitments for material costs that that's what we would be doing because right now they have those in place and if we don't move forward they'll have to rebid it. So they'll have to reach back out to suppliers and then get new commitments. So based on what materials could be doing it they could be going up and that would be factored into the bids. Okay. It it sounds all the world to me like um what it's really being proposed and I would agree 100% this that it's being proposed that though there's an if chance that something might occur, the department's of the opinion that there's an almost assured uh tilt toward the if chance not paying off. And instead of opening up the the bids to greater quantity of more economically minded contractors, we might actually be um thwarting our goals by uh shunning those legitimate contractors who we thought capable enough to bid the job in the first place. and they'll become disenchanted or they'll figure that now the bidding pool is going to be diluted and they've got less chance than they thought they had before. We've now lost some portion of those five original biders. We might gain another five or another five or seven. Um we have to now cheapen up the project from what our optimal scope included. um that I'm being just left ambivalent and uh um wondering that for the 17% which equated to some 50 or $70,000 but is that

between our two 2 million 90,000 and the 2 million 4 thou 400,000 that came in something like that 300,000 is that the delta in dollars? Mhm. Yeah. The the low bid was 2,468,000 and then the engineers estimate was 2,70,000. So it's about 400,000 400,000. Um in and given just a month now I could see if we were going to wait seven or eight months we might be looking at a different market or a different a different uh multiplier. But I think that we won't get even 2% chance at anything less than another another slug of 2 million fours, 2 million sevens. Um, and it's just given that that that you know the amount of time that I've had an opportunity to talk. I did not look at this one. So, apologies for that. Um, I won't make a recommendation except that uh it sounds like just on the face of it, we've got a lot more to lose than the game. Not allowed to go back to the lowest bidder and say, "What if we change the scope?" Okay. Bid is it? That's my thought. It's federal money out here. Yeah. And now that would be any that'd be for any project. We couldn't negotiate. If we do an if we do a request for bid, we we have to that we have to honor whatever we're asking for and what's provided through that process. We can't go back and negotiate. It's a there are ways for RFPs that are different, but that's not for large construction projects. CL had something. Yeah, I I don't know if I missed it when I left, but was there any um explanation from the engineers about what they thought and the 20 almost 20% increase was due

to um well, we've had limited discussions with the contractors at this point, quite frankly, and I I don't know that it's appropriate for us to get too far in the weeds them just yet. Um, that's why if we do reject the bids, we would like to follow up with each each one of them in more detail to get some feedback. We we did receive some comments. Um, and again, I don't want to mischaracterize. I'm not suggesting we're going to get bids that would be equivalent to the engineers estimate. That's not what I'm thinking would happen. We'd be if if we got bids that were 100,000 lower, I would be tickled to death. Frankly, if if we saved any money, I think I'd be satisfied just because we we expended the effort. We made the we we tried to see if if if that was indeed possible. The worst case again would be if it comes in above what we have right now, and that could happen. So, um with the five bids, you just don't know what Gersson's future holds. They may get another big contract in the meantime, um somewhere else and decide they don't want to bid it. No, I I I was just trying to ask do the engineers are they attributing this to inflation are or have what or what I'm sorry that's I think you said it was mostly because all the other work right I when I look at the unit prices in large part it's it's inflation it's it's the unit prices are reflective of of a lot of construction that's going on in the industry right and I would probably agree that it's not going to get any better in the short run to run the bids again probably. So, okay. I just was wondering if what the what they thought the increases were due to Mr. B.

Yeah. Um just so I completely understand the East West Gateway award is for 2.4 mill for for the roundabout. Correct. But this is just the construction the engineering estimate. Was was this the estimate that was done when the application was submitted or was this No, this was updated LA 6 months ago. This fall, right? That's correct. Okay. And so we're 400,000 over on the cheapest bid. Does this does the East West Gateway funding can it absorb this increase? It cannot. It it that's it will not. That's correct. So, we get a we get a fixed amount per our agreement for federal projects. So, in this case, it's 1.36 million and that's all we're going to get. Now, they did have a program a year ago where it was kind of a one-time increase, and we were lucky and we were able to get about 400,000 extra for the Manchester Taylor project. They did not extend that program. So, we did check on that, but it it did not get extended. So, if we go with the cheapest bit, how much are we looking as a city in order to make up the difference between what East Gateway has funded us for And is it 400,000? So we're we're on the hook for 400,000 if Well, we're we're overbudgeted by 400,000 at this point. Yes. We're only going to get 1.36 from the federal government to cover the cost of construction out of the total 2.4 million. There go the pickle ball courts for

Marshall. I guess just going again, it is sad that you can't go back and negotiate to go asphalt versus concrete, but unfortunately I just I mean every bid we've had is coming in 20% over what we thought it was six months ago. So I just don't believe it's going to be any less uh in order to do that. If anything, I think it could end up going much higher than what we have now. So that's just my opinion. I don't think that there's any reason to think that anything's going to come down considering a billion dollars on Highway 70. I mean, they are spending all that money we voted for and uh unfortunately it's just not we're not getting our what we think it should be our fair share. But so I don't know that going back and trying to rebid it over the next five months would save us any money at all. I my gut feel is I think it would end up costing us more but just two cents worth. All right. Anybody else? Just just the capper is um applaud the the the gumption to to tighten up the scope economize where possible to the extent that the percentage of the 100,000 that comes off of the 2,400 would be enough to get the 100,000 it would be a county coup in in in speaking so to speak. I'd like to see the original quality of the project uh live for posterity and had known that I was part of paying that extra 100,000 over what the what the best case scenario would be in this market. So a really short sentence of that is I would motion for proceeding with low bid. Okay. So got a motion to proceed with the low bid. Anybody care to make a second or have any thoughts or discussions on

it? I would just add this. I'm I appreciate Rick that you're and I'm, you know, personally I would be somewhat inclined to defer to your expertise on this and I appreciate that you're suggesting that we maybe take a pause and reassess this thing because that's something that, you know, is important for us to do. I'm just wondering if we find, as you said, if we just find ourselves in this very weird point in time where apparently everybody's building all the roads imaginable, so everything is just more expensive. And it doesn't sound like because of the funding we have tied to this that we have the ability to go, you know what, we're just going to pause on this for 24 months while everybody else's roads get done, right? I mean, we have to do something. We need I would always say this, we can rebid it, but you're probably gonna refer to him. You're going to probably get a higher amount back, but I don't have a crystal ball. None of us do, unfortunately. But yeah, that said, it's either it's kind of we've gotten the numbers back. We're probably not going to get better numbers. Do we need to decide whether or not we want to go forward? If we don't go forward, we will lose the funding. Okay. So, we've got a motion to go forward with a low bid. Mr. Alers, I'll second it. Mr. Alers, second it. Okay. So, we got a first and second to move forward with the low bid. Any discussion on the motion? Yes, we got well have we got well over a fourth house I'll see Mr. Yeah, we're Chris is out. We got enough people. I was just frighten what I can see. Sorry for the interruption. Um I any further discussion on the motion. Okay. All those in favor of moving forward with a low bid, please say I. I. Opposed? Any abstensions? All right. Unfortunately, we're paying a lot for roads these days. Hopefully it'll be a really nice roof. I was wondering there Rick. So they haven't because we're gonna do this right. What about the part by they redo them? I imagine they didn't

waiting on the traffic signals to get completed and the and the furbing at those intersections and the ones. All right. So we have one more item on the agenda tonight, but Mr. Lee and I have been secretly communicating with one another and we've been here for quite a while. So, I'm going to make a suggestion that we postpone this item until next meeting. And if everybody is okay with that, I don't think we need an official meeting to do. No, I don't know. Never know. But out there. Yes, sir. Just a miscellaneous item. Um, lots of great content tonight. I just want to thank everybody for their hard work, you know. Yeah. Been very good. Do we need a motion to postpone it? We need a motion to postpone. Let's do a motion to postpone our snow thing. made by Miss NY, seconded by Mr. Marshall. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Anyone opposed? Any extensions? Okay. Uh, yeah. Good job everybody tonight. Lots of good stuff. Sorry we're here a little bit late, but we're getting some things happening. Uh, anybody care to make a motion to adjurnn? Made by Miss Nan, seconded by Mr. Alers. All those in favor, please say I. I. All right. We'll see you uh next month. And I guess we'll see you guys next week. Is it next week? Monday. Monday. Monday for the council meeting. All right. Thanks everybody. Thank you Thursday.