Administration / Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

I bet you have attendance already. I still have Oh, you're going to call it. All right. Oh, listen. We'll go ahead and get an email. [Music] for the administration and public works committee for October 14th. And Amy is going to be kind enough to do roll call. Council member Preston here. Council member Mabberry here. Council member Nton

here. Council member Farmer. Council member Marshall present. Council member Vakert. Council member Vanic. Council member Albert here again. Mr. Vanic and Mr. Farmer are joining us beh.

Hey guys, I'm here. Good. And then we did you say you got Jim Banic is also he was an attendee. We're promoting him now. Okay, cool. Thank you, sir. You're welcome. All right, so the first thing we have now that roll call is completed and we have three people on here. So, we're right up to the almost the whole forum um or the whole committee. We need to uh do the minutes from the last meeting, but I had a question if I had to lead.

And I and maybe somebody could explain it and possibly Rick, you could or Thomas. uh under the furberry minutes that are here, it doesn't really explain what the next steps would be. And I know that person came to a meeting last night. There's something they're doing their own assessment or something. Yeah. Nothing was really indicated in the minutes. So, I was just curious.

Did you minutes are to be signed or right there? There's chair farmers. I'm not sure what minutes you're looking at. I I'm looking at the one that I just I mean I printed off this page because I don't understand what we did under the Turnberry Place. It kind of left it open as to what they they were concerned that we we did a bad assessment and then the city administrator Lee and and director Rick Brown and Joe Joe provided information to the residents regarding their concerns explained at a speed study with afteraction reports. Nothing really and I had to leave to go planning and zoning. So, I don't know exactly how we left that in a minute. So, before somebody removed it, I need to make

Well, I I don't believe it was for action. Maybe I'm wrong. I think it was for information. So, okay, that item was in front of the Department of Public Works at the moment per the policy that the council had passed. So, the woman that came up last night, there's nothing that anybody's going to be doing about what she she will need to and has she submitted anything for So, they did submit a a letter to me um in accordance with policy for the letter that we submitted to them. They followed up. I haven't even read the letter. Quite frankly, it was several pages long. I've got to review that and I will be in a position to evaluate or re-evaluate my score depending on what information was provided. But we like them back here or go directly to the council.

Go next to the council, I think. But I think the way it's written, but I'd have to reread it, is that essentially if the score changes, I recommend it go back to the council. Okay, that's correct. So, the way the policyy's written is that if the score were to change based off of factual introduction of information, in that case, the director does and it does have a provision in there that it's up to the director's discretion. If that happens, then it was the council. The other portion of the motion was that uh to find the quickest and most equitable way of opening it, which would be working it into our normal maintenance operations, which we can discuss over the night.

And that's a part I missed. I I wasn't here for that, but it doesn't really say the next step there does say they have the 30 days to do an assessment. Oh, Mr. Farmer has a Go ahead, Mr. Farmer. He's just waiting at us. He's away. All right. What's his phone?

Well, he may be able to clarify, but I think that's all I was trying to do is figure out where's it going to go because I know they will be contacting the council members. Um, and it nothing was set in here. And then she said she's completed it, which that would have been a month ago. And I know it's a short time frame, right? 30 days. Yeah. They had to they they submitted it to us just within the 30 days. I've only had it in hand since I think last Wednesday or Thursday, but last week. So, um that's fine then. Yeah. So,

we can have I mean, if you'd like to we can go back and revise a postponement on it. Well, I just there after last night's situation and then not knowing exactly what was said, I was just concerned if we should have any clarification. Um, if if Amy wants to add a little bit to it or we might hear from council member farmer typically try to keep the minutes pretty brief and limited mainly to the motions that are made by the c committee members and approved. So, we don't generally try to add a lot of extra verbiage.

I just there was nothing here. So if you if you think this is the way you want it, you can get a motion to approve them. I just didn't it didn't say anything when you read the minutes as far as other than they were concerned about it and they wanted to go through that process. So this is if and this going to be up to committee if the committee believes this is how it was reported. I had to go to the other meeting. So,

we typically don't make too many changes, but if there wants to be a motion tonight, I don't think the department would uh would argue if we want to have, especially if it's recalled by the other council members that during that discussion, maybe a sentence or two be added regarding the inclusion in a future budget to align with maintenance needs and to uh to obviously oblige by the policy with the 30-day time. I wasn't here. I didn't hear and honestly I didn't go back to listen to the tape. So if uh the two people I guess two of you would and then council member Farmer were here just how do you remember it? I don't remember too much about it to be honest with you and I didn't think we were really entertaining anything.

They went on for a long time but I had to go to that other meeting so I'm not sure. Um okay. When I recall they had they had definitely indicated that they they were planning to look into the appeal. uh the appeal policy was explained to them and it was kind of left at that that they would they that's fine. I'm I'm okay. Um

commercial what's being discussed really. most surprised that they they didn't like the fact that we didn't give them a lower score in this case a passing score and they alleged that scoring this night you heard was that they had gone through and done some things that looked like they found errors in the scoring and then based on discussion they had with the TR West fire chief that's them think at least it made it sound like they had had a steam behind them in having that component up scored lower

and I I think Chair Farmer explained to him it really isn't up to the fire department. It's not. So that was explained pretty clearly multiple times but that's fine. Anyway, we know then where it's going to go. So I'm fine. I'm just going to abstain from approving the minutes because I wasn't here to hear that part of it. But if I could get a motion to approve the minutes as they're presented, we can go forward. That's fine. Okay. Mr. Vanic and Mr. Mabry second that I'm sorry, Albert. Any other questions or discussion? So, all in favor of approving the minutes as submitted say I. I. I.

Any abstensions? to council member Neil and Nyl abstaining. Did we get a I think Chris nothing from the other two just texted your I know. Okay, Amy, you got what you need? Perfect. My we had two extensions. You had three three out of five. You should be okay. Could we retake that just since uh you okay so on? He

he's changing phones I think. Okay. I was a yes. All right. And there's Mr. Van. Okay. So that Joe, sorry my phone crapped out on me. Mr. So we're just getting a vote on the minutes as submitted. Yes, I could I could hear everything. I just couldn't see anything or respond in any way, which is always exciting. So we got a little bit of clarification. So if you're in favor uh of approving the minutes Yeah.

All right, Mr. Vanic as well. So now we have everyone but two abstensions. Got it. All right. So public participation. I know Amy, you probably have some cards. I only have two. Yeah. Well, we'll try to do that. So you can uh call the first card in five five minutes and give us what you want to talk about. We to stand here up there. Comfortable. Richard Dana. That's me. Thanks, Richard.

Okay. Yeah, I'm Richard Dana. Uh, I've lived in Wildwood or well, St. Louis County because it wasn't Wildwood when I moved here in 1980. Um, it was unincorporated. I think it was then Chesterfield and now Wildwood. Uh, I believe I'm in three, which they've already had the deer culture. But just a couple of things um with it that concern me as an avid outdoorsman bow hunt not my day job but a professional archer as well. Um the way that it's being done concerns me a little bit. Um couple things. One is I feel like it's it's not being managed well. Um it's more of a um let's wipe them out instead of manage the population. Um and as an avid hunter um you're you grow and you learn especially as you get older that the management part of it is what's most important because you want to preserve uh the wildlife for future generations. Um I mean I want to have grandchildren and things like that and I want them to be able to hunt on my property. It's a way of life for us. It's a delicacy in our house. um it's a treat at Christmas and Thanksgiving and those sorts of things. Um but what I've noticed is as a person that manages the deer or tries to um which is difficult when you have adjoining properties and all those things around you, but um who doesn't go in the woods as a hunter? And I don't know if any of you are hunters or not, but who doesn't go in the woods and you know want to shoot a big buck, right? That's everyone thinks, "Oh, a big buck." Well, that's great and it's fun, but the majority of people don't do that. It's a rarity just to kill a big bug and it's a it's a real treat to do that, right? Um the majority of us, we kill those, right? Because we want food.

Um it's again, it's a family thing. We process the meat, we make broughtwurst and sausage and all these things. Um but what I've noticed is that the dough population in my area has dwindled and now I'm seeing mostly just bucks. Um and so that's a problem because you have to keep the buck to dough ratio um correct for the herd to grow, right? Um and so that's an issue. Another issue though is if you are going to control the population, of course you need to kill the doe's, right? Because those get pregnant, they can have twins or triplets or whatever. And that's how you really control it. Um, and the buck issue, uh, if you are an avid hunter and you are someone who tries to manage your deer, you want to kill mature bucks, right? Um, so what I've noticed is I will be hunting in a tree, uh, bow hunting, and I will see a very nice buck that's a mature buck, but not quite mature enough. So, I let him go. I let him go, and I'll shoot a dough. Instead of shooting that buck, I let them go because I want them to grow for the next year. Well, what I found is is those bucks that I've been letting go, someone else has been killing them in February at night and they're gone. So, I'm here spending my time, work hard, get out of work, go straight to the stand, you know, hunt hard, um, try to manage, try to do the right thing, and someone else is killing those deer that I'm letting go because I want them to grow. I'm doing my part by shooting the doese's and I'm doing it. I'm killing doese's and and we eat those doe's and we share them and do things and but I don't I don't think it's right that someone can come in and just kill something that I've I feel like I've invested so much time in watching that deer grow and letting it get bigger.

Sure. And and and trying to do it the right way. And and another thing that really bothers me is that I'll be done here just one second. Is they're able to do it in a manner that if I did it the way they're doing it, I'd be in jail, right? I can't shoot a deer at night over a bank over a pile of horn with a spotlight and a rifle. I mean, I could, right? But I that's illegal for me. So, I feel like that there should be some sort of um I don't understand why the state or the county or the city would allow someone to do something that's basically against their own rules. So, thank you for your comments. Are you hunting on your own property? They came in on your property. Sure. on my property and a couple adjoining properties around.

But are you saying that somebody came in and shot the buck on your property? Not on mine, I don't let them, but the neighbors. Okay. You know, they let them down the street and that's the same deer. You know, I mean, I understand. I'm just trying to make sure. White buffalo. White buffalo. White buffalo is the people that are killed deer, but they don't run on people's property without permission. Correct. Yeah. Illegally. That's No. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yes. Yeah. Next. Yeah. Jeremy

Good evening. Thanks for having me. Um I'm take a little bit different angle and I don't know if many of you are aware of share the harvest program and basically um you know you donate the meat at the nominal fee for the hunter and then the meat processing subsidized through the conservation department. Reason why I bring this up is because a lot like what he was saying is managing your property in the herd. Well, that we used to shoot three to five dos, six dough um every year. And the reason why we did that is a for deer management and b it's also a kind of a feel-good and you get to share the harvest with with the needy. Prime example I have is um a guy that I've actually just donated personally to now and this is I'm gonna you'll see where I'm going with this is a lot of these meat shops don't take share the harvest anymore. So why is that is because the conservation department m makes them hold on to that meat until it gets tested for CWD even though we're not a CWD zone. And so what I've done is gone on Facebook groups, whatever have you tell people that I'll donate a whole entire deer to them. They have to get them processed or they have to butcher them themselves. One guy in particular I had to tell this year because we have zero deer left on our property after this calling is that I'm not going to be able to support him this year and his wife got COVID really bad. Beef tasted like gasoline and they eat deer 365. So where am where am I going with all this? If we're paying $750 basically a deer for this outfitter to come in here, I think the residents would be able to contribute more to this management um if we did something as a city partner with K&A meets say we would rent a refrigerated trailer for you so you can maintain and hold that much meat before the testing gets back so then it gets

released to the needy. I mean, that's a simple solution that would be a lot from a cost perspective a lot cheaper than what we're doing um per head. Um the other issue since the safety commit being I I'm assuming that 109 and 100 are kind of the areas of concern for deer strikes because they're two-lane road, no shoulder, high higher rate of speed than a Shephard road where we are. Um, I don't understand why those particular areas that are much more would be a higher impact, more dangerous, why those weren't addressed first to see how this program is going to work. I I don't I don't understand why they went to areas where those deer are never going to travel to our hotspots, let's call it, um, and started there. I I I that makes zero sense to me. The other thing that I would like the council to look at is if we really care about safety, I mean, we have a power pole about every 75 ft on 109 with no shoulder and nowhere to go to hit that pole. Why don't we talk to Amaran about burying those power lines? If we're spending a half million to a million, million and a half to call these deer, surely we have the funds to talk to Amaran or partner with them because my understanding with talking to Amaran is these lines need to be dictated to be buried by the city. not not they don't they don't determine that. So that's something I'd like to look have us look into a little bit and I think that's pretty much everything I have here tonight. But thanks for your time.

Sure. Amy next Mitchell.

Okay. Yeah. I just want to pick up on a little bit of last night just to recap. But before I do that, I just want to acknowledge, you know, I don't usually get involved in the government process and I'm really impressed by the the way you guys do your business. You come in, you you're organized. I just want to thank you for your service. I know you're not getting rich doing this and you listen to a lot of crazy things like, you know, what I heard last night with the property boundaries. So, I just want to make sure I acknowledge that. I'm sincere about it. I thank you for giving us a voice. I do want to recap a little bit from last night. Number one, uh there has been an overkill and we know there's been an overkill based upon our hunting observations spending hours in the woods this season. We know there's been an overkill just from our observations driving during deer 30 we call it during the dust hours coming home. We're not seeing any deer. So there has been an overkill in sections any two. And as I mentioned, if you do the math using Wildwood's own data of 72 deer per square mile, they took 66 deer per square mile. That leaves six deer. That's about what I'm seeing right now in those se in those areas. Uh the herd has definitely been driven to a point of no return. It's called a minimally viable population. And to Richard's point, I call him Rick, you if you have an imbalanced herd, they can't breed. They inbreed. They die of winter winter uh you know death because there's not enough. They don't survive. You can literally make a herd extinct. And something I've heard from the council from a few people is they think the herd is going to move to a new area. That's not true. Does have a small core home area. Bucks have a small comb core home area and they tend to stay in those home areas for their entire lives. The dough, the mother dough kicks the yearling buck out. That's a year and a halfyear-old buck. that yearling buck will roam sometimes 14 miles looking for a home range and once he finds a home range he'll stay there. So that's the only time where you see a migration of white

tail deer. So these areas that have been called they're actually ruined at least for a generation if not not long. So our goal is to take a more conservation-minded approach. I didn't get involved in this process. I say process have friends in the UK until I saw no deer. And then I dug into Wildwood's online data. I requested the contracts from White Buffalo which they provided very quickly. I requested other documentation not available to the public which they provided very quickly. And I found some data problems. Number one, the Northeast section, according to this information, uh, was supposed to have only spent $148,500. The Northeast 2 section was only supposed to have spent $65,000. That's about $214,000. $474,000 was spent. So that's my question is why did it go so high when this is the screenshot of the budget of the master plan? Secondary to that, only 297 deer were to be removed from Northeast 1 and only 130 deer were to be removed from Northeast 2. That is 430 deer. They took 661. We don't know why. Why did the number go up? I think the answer goes back to the original plan was to reduce the herd to 40 deer per square mile. Then it was 20. I think that's where the mistake happened. It ended up being six per square mile. So, we're here to be your friends. We're here to be an asset to you. Use us and the rest of the army that we have behind us to make this a management conservation city while still controlling your population. Okay. Thank you for your comments. Any other speaker cards? Anyone else in the audience or on Zoom would like to make a comment on public participation?

We're good. I didn't know we could join on Zoom, but thank you for that. We know now you can. We can. Thank you, sir. Okay, I'm done. All right, so we're going to move on and do the administration expensed budgeted first. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thank you for coming in. Thank you for your comments. So, wanted to take these almost at least the operating expenditures collectively to kind of approach a couple subjects. Um, so the department's been working pretty vigorously. We've had some changes. Police actually have come in. There's been slight changes that are operating for the year still working. It's work in progress, but the police budget isn't reviewed in this committee. This is just an general expenditure summary sheet. What's the password? us.

You got it. Yes.

Oh, thank you. that group. So overall, I wanted to point out a couple things because the budget, even though we're not reviewing these portions, the parks and the planning side of it today, um there had to be some pretty significant cuts based off the revenue that's anticipated. The team has conducted a pretty in-depth analysis looking at five different years, uh going back five years, and now projecting outwards. We're only expecting to see a net increase in revenue for the operating of about $5,9500 $59,500 and police services themselves, which we originally had gotten a quote for 5% increase, which would have been a $260,000 increase. Luckily, the police uh have come back, it's going to be a 3% increase, and it's about equal to $156,000. So, that did help and that has impacted just this document here. We've had to go back. We just found this out before the meeting, so we haven't had a chance to go through all the other documentation. That said, when you're working with that that windfall, I can kind of break this up in a couple different areas. One, with the actual revenue itself, spending patterns, we've been recording and this month for se the month of September, we're actually seeing revenue tick back up for sales tax and prop tax, which is tied directly to sales within St. Louis County. That's good to see. Um that said, overall two different tax sources have been decreasing year-over-year. One is the gross se uh our gross receipts tax for telephone. Um where this revenue came from most times it is from people that have landlines installed at their homes that is decreased over the years. And then the secondary component of it is when someone buys a cell phone on a data plan and they actually get charged for phone minutes um that is taxed. But if they go off a data package that isn't directly tied to minutes u then or number of calls then that that isn't taxed and most providers T-Mobile uh US etc. they are going off that model these

days and that over the last five years we've seen I pretty much a $200,000 decrease in telephone revenue. The other side of it is the cable uh franchise fee. That one is actually from state legislation they have implemented in 2023 the tax was to decrease by 0.25 25% each year annually um until it got down to 2.5% of the the fee that's charged on your when you got cable hooked up to your home. When that was done um we once again saw a net decrease over about three or four years about $200,000. So overall to the bottom line we've seen a net decrease about 400,000 bucks from both of these revenue sources while other revenue sources are relatively stagnant. It's not necessarily you know declining in any regard. Those are the two that we wanted to point out tonight. Um, but the other side of it is we've got with spending patterns remaining relatively consistent, we can expect to keep getting what we have, but we without any introduction of a different revenue source, it seems that this is going to keep repeating at a similar level. So, we've almost reached where we're going to be with our current revenue sources unless you know there's major inflation like 2022 that did lead to some significant bumps in 23 and 24. Uh, that's somewhat tailed off a bit. We'll know a little bit more when we get the holiday months in November and December this year. Those are typically when you'll see that gross expenditure go up and we'll see the the year end pretty much cap out. But when the defi the finance team is looking at this, we have to be very conservative with our estimates because it's better to guess low than than to be guess high. The only other thing I'd point out is that our utility tax um it is showing pretty much stagnant across the board. The one that has a little bit of room for growth because we're now seeing September um hitting is the Amron tax. So electric tax that actually has gone up. We do anticipate about $55,000 more this year than we were anticipating earlier this year, but that's because

everybody's bill went up.

Exact. Everyone's bill went up and we had we had a little bit of a hotter fall than anticipated, I would say. But that exactly right. um where this ties in with utility tax too. And sorry to just throw a bunch of information at you. U this will all be in a a budget report that will be distributed Friday just as an FYI going through these but wanted to explain them one by one. Back in 2022 we had a gas tax increase and we typically for gas, telephone, water and electric we charge 5%. Um, for the gas tax, we do get an option as a city that charges a gross receipts tax uh to be able to decrease based off keep pretty much the tax level the same. In that case, we elected to use that option and now we tax at 4.86% versus the 5%. And that's where when you see the minimal growth within utility tax, that's where it's coming from. U so those things wanted to kind of point out a few revenue updates there, but overall, you know, it's consistently hitting our mark. it's just not really growing too much and we don't anticipate too much growth. Uh I'd happy to answer any questions on that but I can jump into the other component which is

I would just like to make a suggestion. All of those are true and I remember 20 years how the we knew the phone t the phone taxes were going away. The same thing with cable but I think you should break out the last five years on the utility taxes so people can see everybody kind of smiles when Jeff City makes these kind of decisions and these are coming right out of our our pockets from a taxpayer standpoint. So, I think if you could break it out to show how those are are decreasing. And then I think we need to take credit to when the council decided not to let the state gas price go through. I think that was the biggest mistake. I came in a resident to speak to that, but we let that go and then we said, well, why don't we didn't have to do anything but let it go. We were going to show how we're going to save everybody's money. Well, now you see the the repercussions of that. But I think we need to put the the stuff out there so that you don't have to worry about explaining it that way, but to be able and maybe you can just do it under the utility and just put here's the last the trend from maybe the last five years and then break out the cable versus the phone and the cell phone or whatever. Um I don't think we get any tax on um spectrum through charter, do we?

Uh that's from the that's from the cable gross receipt uh sorry cable franchise fee. We do get it, but it's max it's capped at 2.5%. We used to have that at 5% which was great. Um that was a nice revenue source. The top peak of that and you'll see it I that can be provided by the way that was what we were looking at was I believe $397,000 per year just for that alone. That has now decreased. I think we're anticipating about 220 from that source this year because we got 2,000 more people with internet. Yeah. Exactly.

Exactly. So that is somewhat that is the the basis of the problem is that we're seeing and we can include that most definitely five years pack and we'll actually include the break it out by the utility and the cable franchise fee as well. Um that said one thing to note is this all is based off consumption patterns as well. It's based off weather. Um people you know when you turn on your electric that's a utility. If it's hotter you're going to be using more of it. If it's colder you're going to be using more gas etc. So typically that's when you'll see u some fluctuation. But the cable uh and the telephone, those have been interesting to watch because we've seen some rebounds, but we've also had that net decrease for cable each year. It's it's been interesting to watch, but overall the trend line for both of them is down another one. It's not as critical. It's not 400,000 versus 200,000. Uh but folks aren't buying as many cigarettes. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I think that's a generally a positive thing, but there is a tax that's applied there. um we've seen about a net decrease about $20,000. So just a lot of taxes that were passed uh at the found around the founding of the city over time there's been some molding within consumer patterns that have and state legislation quite frankly that has kind of trailed it off a bit. So that kind of gets into the second component here is keeping up with our police expenditures, which we the last couple weeks we were actually looking, you know, we were going to get this out a lot earlier, but there was a a pretty large increase that was imposed and with the police making up a little bit over 40% of our gross. Uh they they take up 40% of the revenues for operating period. And that has increased from 40 to about 42.5 uh with this most recent increase. And with that, when you only are bringing in an additional 59.5 this year, but you have 260 growing from the police alone and then you also have to account for insurance going up for our general liability. You have to we don't have the firm estimate for health insurance and things along those lines. But those we have to round in a 10% estimate for that just in case. I don't

think it'll be that high, but you have to be a little bit conservative. It's very difficult to keep up with the rising cost of just our continuity of services without looking at our budget internally and saying what what can be cut. And now we're looking at core services and what's included tonight. You know, admin u public works clerk and the clerk and the court. Both of those budgets are relatively they're relatively lean. I mean that that's pretty much staff and the computers that they use and a couple charges that go directly to the state. But overall with when you look at it where you're going to find that money, it really comes down to, you know, are we going to keep buying salt? Are we going to keep mowing the grass in the parks? Or are we going to continue offering the same number of events? Like there are a lot of different questions that get posed here. And I think we're going to have some difficult discussions to have because we have to make up a little bit of a windfall. We're the department's gone in um and made some some recommendations and we're still 13,000 right now. I think we could get it at balanced budget, but that's going to include some pretty major changes. Um, which I mean just a few of them off the top of the head. Uh, we actually I've got a list here. We'll go through those. Uh, do we want to break these down by department or

I think so, but first I I wanted to go ahead and get to Councilman Van and then Councilman Farmer. Certainly. So, um, we'll hold you right there, but I do believe we need we need to get to detail in order to to look at that. So go ahead. Um, Mr. Van,

hey everybody. Uh, just curious, you know, I mean, the 188 luxury apartments was sold to us in part, you know, uh, not only as a um, you know, to invigorate the downtown and downtown businesses, but as a as a tax uh, resource. And uh uh when along with that with the 188 luxury apartments, there's also on the west side of 109 south of 100, there's a rather large uh development going in. And I expect, you know, there's utility taxes and stuff like that that we'll we'll see, you know, from that. when can we expect uh those taxes to start coming in and when you know have you allotted for this and what kind of amounts are we looking at?

Yeah. So there we did a little breakdown of the apartment complex and we are anticipating for the utility tax anywhere between about 15 on the high end $30,000. So each year that's a that's going to be a nice chunk that won't be constructed till 2028 though u from everything we're able to see and based off the development and performance agreement the reserve u similar number of homes probably going to be having a little bit more of a high utility usage uh I've done a little bit more studying on the the actual uh apartment building but those houses aren't expected to be completed here until 2027 so they weren't included in 26 model but we do anticipate that'll probably reduce that'll probably turn in about 15 to $20,000 itself

but the people have to be living in there and they have to be turning on their their utilities. We'll be having that discussion though probably in 2027 for the reserve and then for 2028 second half probably 2029 is when you can get a full picture of it is when we're going to start incorporating the apartment utility. Okay. And are there any other capital improvement taxes? Was that you got to maintain the roads in the reserve as well? Yes. So that and that's a that's an excellent point. But um can you repeat that? Sorry, Mr. Ric. Well, uh is there a capital improvement tax? Is

Yeah. So that that said, there are going to be, you know, the fact that we're adding households right in the heart of town center. That's kind of the idea behind it is to hope that we can actually see a nice increase not only to the the pool tax. that one will probably be less impacted just because you know an individual they move from outside the county into the county and they choose Wildwood as a destination that will have a net increase to the pool tax. But for the capital improvement sales tax fund, that's a half cent tax in Wildwood itself and the apartment building specifically uh if we and we calculated based off of per capita what we get in the capital improvement sales tax fund based off the number of residents we have currently. Once again, we saw about 15 to 30,000 pe uh dollars that we'd be generating annually on the low end and the high end depending on how many residents there are. So that those are estimates based off just consumer patterns of other folks. they will be in the heart of town center which I believe will help um and honestly that will help direct them to buy things at Deerbergs, Walgreens, etc. So I think those will start returning but the main thing is they got to be built and have some folks in them beforehand and typically we need a little bit of data u from there we'll we'll notice it once we see an increase in revenue but then we can start tracking once it's done we need to have the people moved in.

Okay, thank you Mr. Farmer.

Yeah. Uh hey guy. Um, so a couple other things I might suggest uh along with Mr. Marshall's idea is that we should also plot out uh where we think the police contracts are going to be. And then also, you know, I didn't I'm sure you'll get to it here in a minute, Tom, but you didn't mention the fact that we are currently understaffed. And I I mean, you and I have had some conversations at length about this, but even the increases that we're budgeting are pretty slim in my opinion. And so if we want to continue to have good people work for the city, um you know, we need to take care of them to the best of our ability. And all of our um tax structure seems to be built on models that are kind of slowly going out of business. And so I think it's time, I mean, we have it in our strategic plan to look at new revenue sources. I mean, I think we probably need to start looking at that because depending on taxes for utilities people don't use anymore and, you know, not passing ones that they do, it it just doesn't seem like a sustainable model for us to s to do much of anything. I mean, we're we operate pretty lean currently and we're going to have to get leaner because we don't have the money to maintain the stuff that we've got. It it just seems like a a bad plan. I think I think we've got some time to fix it, but I think we need to kind of start steering that ship right now.

Thank you, Mr. Man. Another comment.

Your hand was still up. I didn't know if you wanted to make another comment. I did. Okay, there I am. Okay. Um, oh, uh, regarding the celebration of Wildwood, that happens every year, correct? That is correct. I mean, I love celebrating Wildwood. I think it's a great thing, but we're talking about $80,000 and maybe we could as a city or as a city council consider going to every five years, you know? Just a thought. just a thought, throw it out there.

And but, you know, if we're looking at trying to save money, that's that's a lot of money and maybe we don't need to do it every year. Okay. I I mean, we're going to be looking for all kind of comments. So, um that's just one of the many things I think we have to look at and see. There's a lot of stuff that we do spend money on that. Bad idea during brainstorming, too.

Yeah. And just as a FYI when looking at this the more summary sheet here um that was something that was considered and two things that are on the table and were included were potentially reducing taking away the uh the parade. It cost about $10,000 to run the parade um and potentially looking at well we will see a cost efficiency with the fact we're moving to the village green. We no longer have to pay for generators for electricity which is about $15,000 per year for that event too. So that in of itself are two major things, but can save upwards of $30,000 if you combine a couple other small things. So it go from 95 was what was presented by the commission. Um currently worked in the modeling, it's looking more like 60 and then letting the sponsors kind of take the reigns on the remainder of it. uh that will be talked about during the parks meeting, but the this is we're going to have to that's included in this is that some changes have been recommended including moving some portaotties for some of our parks. Uh Al Foster, uh Glen Co. There's some that you know get service quite a bit. Maybe we could reduce the servicing and we're able to find some efficiencies there, but that is a reduction in service to our residents at the end of the day and you know the department doesn't take that lightly. We do have a list where we'll be publishing out with with the documentation as well, but just wanted to give an FYI that is something we're we're looking at and quite frankly everything's kind of on the table at this point other than stuff to do public notices and keeping people on board.

Sure. So I just one more question but I know we'll go into that more detail. Our actual police contract used to we had a capped out percentage for the five-year contract.

Is that what we had that's what we had included in the contract or now you're saying they're coming in with a higher number? So currently we have in our contract that was signed in 2021 carries out 2022 is the first year of the contract. It goes to 2031 and it's a 10 year with an annual appropriation. So you amend it each year to adjust based off the cost. They submit a cost sheet. That cost sheet was originally at 5% which is the cap. That was the most that they could charge us in any given single year. The year after that though I mean not the year just recently they did come back and we can confirm that it's going to be in a 3% increase versus the 5%. at 5% it was uh there were some even looking it was very chaotic trying to figure out where we could line up the stacks but that said you know when looking at this with that cap which good that we do have that I think it's safe to say and something that Mr. farmer touched upon here and will be included in in the documentation is that kind of drawn out like what does it look like if every year we see a 5% u because quite frankly at least for next year I don't necessarily think it'll be every year but most definitely next year with u giving us due notice and whatnot I think we could anticipate a 5% increase after this 3%

that is kind of interesting but years ago when we first engaged I mean we did a lot of study about having our own police force use Chesterfield use Eureka and and use the county and part of that contract was built on the fact that they did cap, but I believe it was a two 2% in those first years uh of being able to do that. Then we got cop grants for several years, so we had to keep those officers in our numbers, but you know, believe it or not, used to we only had like two police officers. So, we've come a long way and that's a big budget and I think we just need to look at um you know, some any of those options. But that is a big jump when uh and I know last year we we restructured some and took some out of there. So yeah. Okay. Any other questions or comments or we're going to start on down through [ __ ] Do you any comment?

Uh no I am here for the deer management discussion mostly to answer questions but I do I will have a comment at the beginning of that. That's it.

Okay cool. That's it. I mean just to add to it uh we will include that with it projected out but the big the big equation that we keep finding here after looking into it quite a bit is that each with it being 42% of our operating um and having it be contingent on the service contract that's project that's that is submitted to us um and having it you know the city we don't own the police department so us not being able to adjust routing or whatever it might it is. We have to pay that or we have to we have to negotiate. That is kind of the deal with the police. That said, um when our revenues are staying relatively stagnant and we can anticipate a growth like this, that that's where I'm trying to point out is that this may be the symptom of a long-term issue where I know Mr. Farmer mentioned that we may want to explore u something the department's been doing is already going back to all the fees and permitting and licensing fees that we currently have on the books. I don't know how much more juice we can get out of those. I know we did uh produce about $30,000 in revenue just from adding $50 to our zoning authorizations. So that change in of itself, $30,000 is helpful. That said, in the long term, even if we went back and maximize where we could, I do think not necessarily this year, we might have to make some cuts that are a little uncomfortable at, you know, two, three years down the road, we we may not be able to have, you know, events at all. We might not be able to keep the staff that we have currently. So, so one that would be new this year and I'm sure somebody has it calculated is what's the fee for the rental inspections?

Uh, that all is the fee actually goes directly to St. Louis County. The city doesn't make a net anything off that. I thought we got $25. I think that's the case. I can look into that. Given I believe there is though because we talked about why why wouldn't we do that? It's going to take additional staffing, additional explaining. And I I do believe I was on that committee a couple years ago when that first went through. But yeah, the city does, but they have to come in here and pay for the certification. You on that committee? I I uh yeah, I I do have a comment that may be useful. Go ahead.

Um yeah, thinking about reduction in services and thinking about the portaotties and the costs to maintain them and so on and so forth. Um, if we look at this a different way, which it just popped into my head, it may be stupid, but um those modular concrete um uh structures that are um you know, essentially a portaotti that you hoist into place and you leave there. That would probably be less maintenance. We certainly wouldn't have the it would be an improvement to the parks and we could it seems like we could justify that in the handful of places where we have those um by using part of our reserve funds for that. So we spend a few hundred,000 dollars which is a big chunk of money but it comes out of that nut and it saves us money long term because we don't have to maintain the portaotties and it's an improvement to the parks and I think people would get behind that and that maybe those kinds of thoughts might environmental toilets.

Yeah, they are they are pre-cast. Yeah. Right. Right. It's um it's like an um there's no flushing water required and it doesn't require any you know does it require cleaning and anything like that? Like maybe less maintenance. Yes, it does require maintenance but a lot less. Okay. And it's like getting your septic tank pumped. Like I just had mine done and it was 14 years since the last time I had it done. And um it was the the it was getting to the right time, but it wasn't uh required yet. So probably every 15 years or so. All the Boy Scout and Girl Scout camps have them now. So, they work slick. Joe Vunich is sold on them and they're expensive, but there's not that ongoing maintenance and and they're durable. Yeah, they stay forever

and they look good. And it's a it could be seen as an amenity because the alternative is if we stop maintaining portaotties, people will just be used in the woods and we don't need too many incidents of that kind to really get a bad a bad rap. So, that's my Thank you guys. I I didn't I didn't know those existed just yet. So, we'll be we'll look into those. You give it tomorrow and you park your car, get out and see what that is you're sitting next to. Go ahead.

What is this? What's this brick brick building? Um, okay. So, back to the administration budget. This the only thing that wanted to note uh now that we the police have come back, we have a reduced cost. we didn't have to talk it very negatively and potentially not have uh we are still including a communications economic development manager and we'll be looking this was something we wanted to figure out prior to uh putting the the we wanted to get approval for the expenditures and get start getting the budget going then we'll be publishing uh that role to go out to the public and then filling that role u this does incorporate only a 2% increase right now with the department wanted to be more around 3.5 uh% with a 1.5 merit, a 2% cola. Uh that said, and this is the same for city clerk, for all departments right now, the you calculate it out, it it can we can afford about a 2% increase over all folks. Uh that said, the other items, you know, it's really right now the only one I really want to point out too when it comes to the personnel expenditures, we do have a 10% right now contingency for employee bene health benefits. That typically doesn't happen. you don't see a net 10%. Um, but we wanted to include that because we haven't gotten back from our our the broker that handles it to get the exact number and we didn't want to underestimate. So, that number could go down as you're doing that again only because I've done this too many times. We need to go back and look at what the benefits are by employee overall because I was the one some here today and a couple of these sheets of full-time employees $29,000 in benefits. Not saying whether it's right or wrong, but part of that uh I just think you're gonna that's something we should be looking at. Uh and I know that you always wait to get the benefits back, but over the years that was a real push to try to because we've been trying to keep it to where the employees are all covered and you weren't paying for that. Most of business hasn't changed that. I

don't know whether the municipal league has any better input on that or not, but it's a such a big issue anymore. And uh you know, you said, well, let's add a full-time person, but when you do that and 50% of their salary on top of the salary, that's a lot of money. That's exactly right. I just think if you get a breakdown so it can kind of answer all the unknowns uh on on what the you know, not names, but the averages of of what the different salary levels would be. I had some. Okay. And I'm sure there's some stuff in the old budget stuff, but I mean I think it's a pretty good way to look at the overall cost for our 161 17 employees and what that benefit breakdown is, including the contribution of the pension and all that stuff because it's all overhead. Yes, sir.

Pam, with the economic development position, are you able to put any budget in for that position to work with? Not the salary. Oh, the actual person like as of right now and I think we can find it after originally there was a little concern but once we got confirmation that the police were going to be at the level they're at which did really uh lead to some decent cost savings u that yes right now we think we can well I just in my short period of time here I really saw what an effective person could do in that job and if that person had some additional budget to do they could do a I think you know

and typically just and we'll talk about this at the EDC but that budget is not big. I mean quite frankly it is about 20,000 bucks that is for community relations. It's coded in this budget here. Um that said that 20,000 a lot of it goes towards the new resident packets that the folders we had to get professionally printed and you know quite frankly it cost a decent amount to to send those out. Um it is a benefit to our businesses. I think most folks that have come in in that position too, they they fully support it because it's a good way to enter into the conversation with some of the business owners that they might be meeting with like, "Hey, did you hear did you know that this was an opportunity for you?"

Um, business the business community really appreciates it. We always have a full folder. Uh, and the other component, it actually helps cover our holiday tree lighting because originally that was a Wildwood Business Association event and it was supposed to be something that help we would help support them uh through helping put on this event and

quite frankly they dropped the ball and the city kind of picked it up because we didn't want to have our names associated with with a with a an event. When we do an event, we want to make sure it's done professionally. Um, so that said, there's not much increase allowed to there's enough for the employee themselves. There's enough for a little bit of leeway and they could honestly use some of the consulting um budget that's in the part of our admin costs uh to be able to maybe work with a you know a consultant to do like a marketing campaign or something like that. But it's nothing too crazy. They're going to be more so regated to inerson objectives. That said, if we wanted to and where I would almost say if we're going to do something big for the business community, like we're going to add some type of signage, we're going to have a program, I would almost say that could be something we would consider under capital expenditure just to get it out since operating is is quite thin at this point.

That could be that could be a hiring factor. If you have somebody good and that person asks, well, what kind of budget do I have to work with other than my salary? and and if it isn't much that might uh deter that person from coming aboard you know

yeah I I don't disagree that said the other side of it though that role and I I will say just as you said that the individual in that role you know if done well it does make a huge difference is the communication side of it quite frankly we have to have and that's why I would really fight hard to have someone in that role is to have someone that can manage our social media keep our website updated and just be reviewing that constantly Because that in an ever evolving world that does end up taking the person almost wear they do wear two hats. Um they come in and quite frankly a lot of it is focused on the day-to-day is filling in that information on the website getting information from team members then passing it on in a in a way that's is that a different job

and I would say that there's probably an argument to be had there. We don't have the funding. I mean it's hard to find. Well I'm saying it's hard to find combined people but it is with with the improvements in technology and stuff. you probably don't have to go as high on wages as you do to send the direction of how they want to do that. Mr. Farmer, your hand up.

Yeah, I I was going to um suggest and I know, you know, we've had a couple people for different reasons and short terms in that role, but I I just wonder, you know, our our budget for the EDC department is not big. I I would be more inclined to say it might be worthwhile to look for a person that could be a communications director and maybe a deputy city admin or somebody underneath Utah that can take on some of these other issues because while I'm while I'm in favor of getting our economy developed here and I think it is important um you know we have a lot of work every day and those things you know like you you can't do every you cannot do everything. Um, it's just not possible. So, it might be worthwhile to try to look into that role. I mean, that's an expensive role to get, but if we don't have those things happening, I'm not sure what real difference the, you know, adding some signs for businesses and stuff makes. I mean, we're we're talking about trying to cut down on, you know, public services and things like that. I I'm you know I think communication I am of the opinion communication is the most important thing we do. Um but I also know that the money that we're talking about is not a lot of money in that business. So you know we're not talking about particularly seasoned people. So we need to we need to hire for the right positions. We need to hire those people but we got to be careful not to try to just have them do everything. I mean I I know that originally I mean I think originally you came in as economic development director right after Julian left if I remember right Tom is that correct?

Yeah that's correct Mr. Farmer.

So um like you know just I had a conversation with Julian after he left and you know he he was really good at what he did. Everybody liked him. He wanted to stay but his budget in Colorado is like millions of dollars. not tens of thousands of dollars. So, you know, we need to be realistic about what economic development actually is in a city and if that's something that, you know, 10 or 12,000 of new resident packets qualifies as. I I don't know that it is. That's that's a communications thing. So, I I I mean I think we look for good candidates, but I do think it is important that, you know, we need to hire the right people. We need to know, you know, from a priority standpoint. I mean, you and I, Tom, have had this conversation. I I am of the opinion we are understaffed. I think you are of that opinion as well. And that is not just understaffed because, you know, we just had Paula, you know, leave because she her husband got transferred. We were understaffed to begin with. So, how many understaffed crew people do you think that we are if and

I mean, in an ideal world where money wasn't a subject, I mean, I I could probably find a hole for five different folks most likely. I mean that there there's a lot of work to be done, right? There are some well just fiscal realities that that do come up.

No, that that part I understand. But I do think we need to we need to make sure that we're you know from a communication standpoint and from an administration standpoint, we need to be honest that you know we are under the best of circumstances I think we're five people short. And so, you know, anything that we are trying to do, um, we need to keep those things in mind. And, and, you know, while I appreciate, you know, saving $5,000 here, $5,000 there, it's all good. Um, this is a pretty significant hole that we have coming at us. And I don't know that those, you know, three or four $10,000 fixes are going to help us that much. We I think this is a bigger bigger problem than what we're looking at. that that is I I would agree with this you Mr. firmer on that in that regard is that quite frankly it's more so when you elongate this out you look at long term I mean if all the you know 5,000 here 5,000 there even 30,000 here that number will be dwarfed that will be gone and then next year when we get another 5% increase or something like that or another expenditure comes in um and it's just it's it's high then we'll be we'll be looking down the same we'll be pretty much looking at the same board but now it's just reducing I almost look at it as one pie and the piece of the pie keeps getting bigger and that means that the upstairs of the building has to in response get small. That's what's currently projected.

Yeah. I I just you know I've I know when I went down to Jeff City to testify about the grocery thing, you know, one of the things I said was you know you can't take money away from a city without giving us some level of an alternative to get it back. I I kind of feel that way with what we're talking about here. We have um you know, if we're talking about reducing city services, maybe we've offered too many city services. That's certainly a possibility. Um but the stuff we're talking about seems like pretty basic city services. So then at what point is the city doing much of anything? I mean, you know, the I would say and I, you know, I was a kid when it was founded, but I mean, it was it was founded for a reason and I think the reason was good, but I think that we've maybe lost sight of how to get there because we're relying on things that are now 30 years old and we keep missing some opportunities. As Mr. Marshall said, you know, we we gave up free money for I'm not sure why. I I think it was silly. Um, we talked about a Wayfair tax that then quickly got sheld. I mean, people don't go to stores anymore. They buy things online. So, we're crippling all of the local businesses that we want to try to help by allowing anybody to buy something on Amazon and it costs them less money. I I I just think that, you know, my suggestion is we maybe need to look creatively for a short pocket here with some reserve money to have a much bigger conversation about what we want to do because it's not sustainable to be five people short minimally on a staff. It's not sustainable to not be able to offer even basic cost of living adjustments to people. Um, I'm I'm agree. I think Ed, I was understanding you correctly when you were saying that, you know, a lot of companies these days, you know, the company isn't paying all the health costs and and benefit costs. I think that's true, but we can't not do that and not give people raises. It's a kind of a handoff thing at some point.

So, you know, we we've got some big questions that we've got to answer. And I just don't know that, you know, the little tiny pieces of solutions that we have are what's going to do that. And it's the same conversation we've had for years. Yeah. The diagonals aren't any different than they were 20 years ago. We we don't have a revenue stream. Um and we're depending on what the state's going to let us have or the countyy's going to give us and that's not very dependable because they want to use it first. So, all right. Other Yes, Mr. Van.

Yeah. Uh going back to what Mr. firmer was talking about as far as an economic development committee out in Colorado somewhere and their budgets being millions of dollars or or maybe not that much. Not sure exactly what he said, but I'm trying to figure out, you know, I mean, it's nice obviously to have a full-time uh person in charge of the economic development on the staff side. Uh but I'm trying to figure out you know I mean there's certain basics uh but why would you need such a huge budget to to try and develop relationships and bring people businesses into into Wildwood? I'm not sure. I I mean I I I'm just I'm probably very ignorant about this subject, but uh why would uh uh a community uh perhaps in Colorado, why would they need such a huge budget for economic development?

That that just happens to be the way their city runs. And I think the comparison was the individual that was here before with our minimal budget because you're right, we have nothing to offer people other than the flyers and trying to encourage them to stay there. In cities in Colorado where they have retail sales, they have the others. They're willing to spend millions of dollars to try to people to get people to come in and use their economy and drive it that way. That's not ours. Ours is just the opposite. Very little dollars. you the biggest cost there certainly is the person and uh and then you're looking at what you know what can they actually generate because we as a city don't have anything to give businesses you know we give them a business license for 25 bucks or something but so it's just a big flip-flop in how much money do you put into that and I'm sure that uh you Thomas can go through that I kind of share the same concern as council member Farmer you can't do it all and my my my fear is I you go through and look at some of this stuff you know you're doing you're doing it all So there's got to be some way to, you know, reassign some of the stuff to look at it and determine what those jobs are. And, you know, I know there's a lot of technology improvements. And I I know that as city government, we do a lot of paper. So, I'm sure there's some, but none savings are going to make up for gigantic uh deficit in the amount of revenue coming in. So, it it's not one that we're going to solve five bucks at a time. That's the conclusion right now that and and quite frankly there's there's there's some factors in and I Mr. Vanick actually brought up a good point but it won't necessarily I think outpace it but I I do think with the growth of folks that are going to couple things to consider. So you've got the the apartment building going in, you've got the reserve, you've got the point um there are going to be a lot of homes constructed which those people hope we will then turn and spend money in Wildwood which that will give us.5% and then also go to the pool. Um that said that 0.5 cents great we can go towards capital projects eventually we're going to have to resurface their road you know for the reserve that's going to be dedicated to us we'll have we'll most

likely take over the point of right uh the villages at the point uh their roads as well so that's kind of where that goes but that said I do think we would probably see a nominal increase um in the actual revenue but they're going to have to move in so it's going to be a couple years before we start seeing I think you're talking three years before you actually be able to measure the utility taxes or c capital uh taxes on that. So that's and we'll still have a problem then too. That's exactly

any any other comments at this point. So let's keep going on your budget. All right. Other than that, just going through here u you know as we were talking about community relations was uh still included under econ. Like I said that includes the holiday tree, includes the packets um that go out going through here too. I mean we have memberships that we keep up we do do keep up to date. Missouri Department of Economic Development, uh St. Louis, great the Greater St. Louis, Inc., that's where Miss D's memberships are going in. Um the West St. Louis County Chamber. Luckily, we don't have to pay a fee for the businesses of Wildwood. They are still a free organization. Um equipment leasing, that's including just our standard RICO printer. We pay to lease it because it after it's done, we turn it back in and we get a new one. And it does turn into a better, at least from what we've seen, it seems like that's the best model because every other year you can get rid of it. We print a lot of stuff here. Um that said too, insurance expected to be relatively consistent for general liability and other u across the board and also for our property insurance which is good. We just had an increase last year which was really what wasn't too much but that should be relatively consistent. maintenance on the grounds should be stable for the general maintenance but when we get to capital we'll discuss uh some improvements done to the building itself uh which might include IT infrastructure and also include uh some of the issues with the rain garden itself uh other than that really for administration we've we've reduced in quite a few different areas I can go through the ones for what was originally proposed and then what was reduced uh setting here it doesn't show the full picture here. This will be included. But um a big change that's part of these annual numbers is that the city newsletter, we had to cut that in half. And that means we can do one gazette next year. And that does save $26,000. I mean, it's not chump change, but when looking at it,

and that was like I as mentioned earlier before, we were dealing with a another $150,000 we had to find. So that was a very we had to start really digging in deep. Um, that said, right now what's currently being pro proposed would only be one version of the gazette. We would also take advantage of it to be maybe use a less glossy paper and we could probably publish a check-in Charlie edition um through issue online and maybe have a printout version available at city hall. So, we could still do that for half the cost. Um, that said, it won't be two full publications a year. It would go to one. We can change that. Council has full authority to do so. I just wanted to point that out. It's a pretty pretty big one. Uh we typically have a under admin a community relations contingency for the community relations for econ about $1,500 that was reduced zero to start making up some of these uh some of these shortfalls if you will. And for publications we had $500 budgeted u the previous mayor had had indicated that there was a need for St. Louis Post Dispatch. There was a lot of articles that were published and we weren't able to access them because you had to pay a fee. So he kept a standard journal. we were able to get it delivered and we had it available for all the council members that wanted it. We no longer kept getting those requests as time kind of has gone on. Um something we could look into, but that saves us about 500 bucks as well. Um one thing that the department doesn't like to see, but we were trying to find dollars wherever we could. Uh we have an account under admin 10264, which is special events. That's money specifically put away for doing, you know, small little events here at city hall for staff. um our Christmas lunch uh Christmas lunch in the um having you know a hot dog you know cookout something along those lines that helps pay for those things. We were able to reduce that in 2025 uh to $5,000 but quite frankly with the expenditures coming in where they were we had to reduce it down to 3,000. I think there may be some things that could be shifted around with the changes that happened

late this afternoon. Um but overall that was definitely wanted to still include that the computer uh item uh under 5K. We had just replaced the computer uh for the econ dev manager role prior to our last econ manager's departure. So we do not need to do that replacement. Uh that's really the main things that were cut out of the admin. Uh unfortunately though, I mean fortunately, sorry. Um before we got the news that we're we weren't going to see as much of a rate increase, there was consideration of could we afford the communications role as a whole. That was a discussion. So right now it seems like it could be retained. Uh quite frankly, we could maybe even talk about doing some secondary edition of the gazette, maybe something different. uh there's a little bit more of an opening, but quite frankly, a lot of these expenditures, they're just day-to-day operation. There's nothing too special. I mean, the other thing we do pay 31,000 for um our lobbyist or our legisl legislative consultant that goes down to Jeff City for us. I think that is important to have in some capacity. I did check just some rates from other firms that are out there and I think that we're getting a pretty good deal from what I've seen out there. I mean, I've seen anywhere between $200,000 in some instances.

I guess I just question

I've gone we've gone through this before and Mayor Bolton didn't like the guy we had hired originally who I think was a much better lobbyist, but he didn't like what he was hearing that we weren't going to get all these things. So then we kind of evolved into what we have now. I guess my question is three years in a row of thinking we had this money and oh, he's down there meeting with them and all that stuff and it doesn't happen. that's $25,000 that that may not be used that well. Maybe get a couple people go down and set in those offices of of the people, but they're going to tell you the same thing. And then the new governor vetos it. So, I would really question another area that do we need somebody to do that right now? And it's, you know, we have all new elected people there. We have new senator, new rep, a new governor. It's not like he has these old relationships. So you we're paying somebody to tell us that they have this great relationship and I've never our state our state rep came to one meeting and came late for that meeting. So those are the kind of issues that I question. If we can't get him to come to the city and we're his largest city, why would we pay a lobbyist to go try to meet with him? So just my two cents, but I I would put that on the list of things. Do we really is this the best thing for the city for the next couple three years? I think that could be defin I think that should be part of the discussion because I mean it is it is an expenditure and it's it is a decent chunk of change each year. U the returns have not been there. We haven't gotten the veto has the governor has vetoed bill last

I know that's not his fault but we've still enough we keep paying change the same thing. it does kind of repeat if you know if you go crazy. I will say that he does uh our the current legislative consultant whenever there's an issue like the most recent one u and I think Mr. farmer actually went down there too was that the uh they were looking at the sales tax for well they ended up doing hygiene products feminine hygiene products but u they were actually looking at food too and I will say this if we end up losing that tax and I hope this the state's listening because we would we would be our capital improvement sales tax fund would be demolished in a night y

u that would be a very bad day for wildwood and also the pool tax would be very much disrupted and that would affect obviously the distribution the city gets which is about uh 002% of the pool. Uh 2%. Are we able to find out like who somebody like Chesterfield uses as a lobbyist? Is that public? Yeah, it is. I was able to I No, it wasn't Chesterfield. I found it. The other ones I was looking at there were some of the nicer firms. I can come back to this team to the group here.

Former mayor of Town and Country is a lobbyist and he was our lobbyist for a few years. He was very good. But it like everything else changes, you know, if an attorney doesn't get the answer he wants, it kind of gets moved differently. And don't ask me his name. I have to look. No, I I just didn't know if John Dalton if you if you can uh look at

and he his he he actually worked in Jeff City, but he was the mayor of town and country. Okay. And then his law firm, the law firm that he works for, he's a lobbyist in Jefferson City. So he we came in and we did an RFP probably 2016 2017 and by far he jumped out as being he's already there. He knows the city. He knows what we can and can't get and he obviously gave us information that wasn't real pleasing to Mar. You know you weren't going to force them to do things and sometimes you shoot the messenger. I think the messenger got shot, but that he is a he is a lobbyist and he certainly knew enough about uh it represented while we did an RFP a few years ago.

We could go back and take a look at that. I I will say I mean it he may not even be doing it anymore. I mean he's

I think and I guess this would be a a collective discussion we could have and I mean if there's a motion tonight we can look into it for sure. Uh but the idea maybe is the question first. Do we need one? and you know that if there isn't any the idea was if we got this funding that that would have paid for itself. That was the idea. It's been a couple years we haven't seen an actual return. Um you know there is other times where they're testifying in favor or in opposition of something especially you know something as big as the tax on you know food and things along those lines. The right of way bill that ended up passing um that now we would have to pay Spectrum or uh AT&T if we wanted to move a line for a road project. There's a lot of things going on at city hall down in um Jefferson City. I guess it would be a question to the council too. You know, I know they pro he provides those reports of tracking legislation that is impact not all of it is as impactful. He tries to include a couple things that are like this is most impactful. We include that in the CA report during session. If that's not finding bene if that's not beneficial, I think first of all, we need to get back to him and say this needs to be reformatted um and make it beneficial to the council to get interactive and to ask just generally. I mean, the contract typically goes up and gets reviewed in December. So, he's going to be coming up anyways. We can have him admit

last year and we decided, oh, let's go ahead and do it another year. Mr. Vanette, your hand is up.

Okay. Yeah. Uh, I love what you were saying, Ed, and you know, there's there's got to be a look at, you know, uh, a return on investment basically and cost effectiveness of what we're doing. And uh I I'm not sure where we are on that. I have my questions and uh my doubts and uh concerns and um we just need to look at this uh further I'm sure. Um so that's all I had to say.

Great. Thank you. I don't think there's going to be any watershed erosion funds coming anywhere in the near or distant future. So, I'm not sure what else a lobbyist can do for us. You know, I I don't know where they can help us out or get us some funds. But when you have, in my experience, when you have a good rep and a good senator, they stay on top of stuff for you. Um John Gishheimer when he was our senator man he called once or twice a week and said what would this do to affect City Wildwood and said that's not good he said okay he said and that was it just put he pushed the stuff down but he was over the municipal arm of the Senate

and we were his biggest city but it it really worked well for us but you know he's long gone and other people in there so I think you kind of have to look at it and figure out what are some of those things but and I know the municipal league tries really hard to get the stuff laid out on the table and uh but then even being able to set it up. I mean, that's where if you had somebody doing communication stuff when they say, "Let your senators and your state reps know, we should be able to bulletin something and send it from 16 17 elected officials uh to at least get their attention." I mean, that's one of the advant same Same with the municipal leaf. We do have 17 members, which is bigger than most other cities.

That could be done. it would have to be done almost through like a motion at a council meeting to get the full body of the the council. Um, but if there was a motion that was approved to approve a a statement, we could technically pass that on his testimony. The the one thing I would say is beneficial is if we could start unlocking that for different issues that hopefully he would pull out, which he does, you know, I see them that come in each week during session. But if he was able to pull those out and then the council could act and give a statement and then he goes and testifies and translate it, you have to be there in person to do the testimony and actually get recorded down in these public hearings. I think that would be beneficial. I just don't know if it's

I just think all those things should be looked at. I mean, I think the days of the lobbyist before being there to, you know, take them out for drinks and stuff, I think those days are long gone. That is true. Uh but I think we also have opportunities to use technology to our advantage, too. Uh and I think that works at a lot of different levels. So, welcome. Hey, guys. One question. She win. She They did. They won. It's good. Good game. All right. Anything else? Uh, Mr. Lee, under your admin budget.

Nothing too crazy under the admin budget. Just wanted to point out. Uh, so we will look in that for right now. Do we want to is it okay to keep that cost until the evaluation is done? I know we'll be reviewing that that agreement with that individual u in December. So that said, this could happen concurrently or we could have him at us at a next at the next meeting too while we're doing some research on the side to see. I think it's I think we need to pull some stuff together and then decide whether we want to have him come in to tell us why we should do it that way. Um Joe, we were just talking about our our lobbyist. Should we resign up or should we say no, we're not going to do it? What aren't we getting or what are we getting? So that's what we've unfortunately spent the last 15 minutes on. And

well, I'm glad I missed that part. I know. I could tell. Like I said, a little we little weepy eyed. Yeah. Okay. You want to go? So now you want to go to the clerk? Yes. That's uh Can I get a motion uh to have this these expenditures proceed as part of the full buck review? That's going to be Can we get that motion? Yeah. Do you want to do them individually? Yeah. Okay. Oh, we could do them. I guess we could do them. I would just I thought we maybe Especially the ones that have very few dollars involved in it. Yeah, that's fine. Uh everybody, how many total would there be? I don't know. There's like there's like five. There's there's four departments.

Yeah. Administration covers uh admin, city clerk, uh municipal court, and then public works for departmental expenditures. They also review the capital improvement sales tax uh fund and the five-year uh capital fund with road bridge as well. So there's a couple items, but road and bridge and I think capital I would I would recommend treating separately. Yeah. So this point we're just going to do the department ones that we had in yours and then we'll go to the capital. So the next one you had was for was for Clarks and we went from 317 367 to 320. Yes. So the really

Yeah, it is. I mean it is very bare. Uh that said, you know, quite frankly the city clerk role I mean it doesn't necess they use a lot of the the tools that admin has. does mean the supplies there are on our side of the building. Um that said, the big difference here is that the the current rules coded under uh the city clerk account, but it doesn't necessarily mean that's going to be the future of the position. We had a deputy city clerk position and we ended up once we had the our deputy city clerk turn into the city clerk. Um, we're now looking at that position as uh could it be the deputy portion be filled in by more of an administrative assistant to the department of administration and city clerk. So it' be more of an admin to the admin u and city clerk office. So that said, it is included in the city clerk budget uh for another position. So there's technically two vacancies, two seats empty up in the admin department right now. Um and that's that's what where you see you're seeing that increase from. So that's the biggest change. Other than that, we did reduce one account. Uh this this does cover things like if the council wants to go to the um the annual municipal league conference, it covers the trainings, things like that that the council wants to participate in. I think it's important to have those available. Uh the memberships to the Missouri Municipal League, it's not getting cheaper. The uh those are the biggest expenditures in this account. I mean, it's really Missouri Municipal League, the St. ain't a Louis Metro Mayor's Association, Slackma, uh, a couple different organizations that we pay our memberships, but that's really it. And then MUN code, of course.

So, I'm going to finish this and then turn it back to you. Sure.

So, I guess my question would be is and I I just love you back and look, the role of the city clerk was much greater than what we have Colleen's doing. I mean, we used for years we had the city clerk fill in as a city administrator. So, I mean, you get hit by a bus tomorrow, the city clerk was the person who would be the uh the fillin for this, you know, the the actual administrator. And there's guidelines in the charter and other positions as to what they can and can't do. But I I just think to me that we took the position that Colleen's right now and we've downgraded it to just being more of an administrative person. I believe she needs help because if we can't get agendas out two days earlier, we're all in deep doodoo. I don't know how everybody I don't have to work, but it took me all day reading this and then trying to print. I wish wish somebody said, "Oh, we're going to print it all out." But to have this stuff earlier, we could make these meetings. I think I'm I'm I mean I'm not trying to cut the meetings back, but when we're down to one meeting a month, we've got agendas that are way way way too big to get any good discussion about it. So, back to the Colleen's position. If we can't get agendas out, it used to be Wednesday, then was this be Thursday, now we're coming in at six o'clock on a Friday night. Anybody who's coming in for a public hearing has a real legitimate concern because they don't hear about it till offices are closed on Friday and they're supposed to show up Monday night for a public hearing. I just think we as a city should do better than that. I I don't think that if we can't get the stuff ready for the meeting, then it shouldn't we shouldn't be holding up the agenda. And this isn't I mean, we over the years we said, "Look, if you want it on the agenda, the mayor's going to look at it at 2:00 Wednesday afternoon. It's locked down. You don't come running in Friday and say, "Hey, I want to add this one more ordinance." Again, we used to do it twice a month. So, but you you weren't waiting to the last minute. And

there's a lot of stuff that we do have a calendar time frame for now. Um performance reviews th those are on a really tight schedule too, but when we only have one meeting a month, that even compresses us more to try to get the stuff done because you're going to want to move that forward the next meeting and we haven't got stuff out there yet. So, all I'm saying is I I just kind of think that to try to get more help for you. I'm not exactly sure bringing making this deputy clerk more of a administrative person. Maybe we just need to redefine what what those roles are and what we want them, you know, what they should be doing in order to do it.

Well, we can retain I mean, it is in the city clerk budget. I mean, we can retain the deputy city clerk role. Uh and I agree, you know, the agenda is going to be out soon, right? We we're working on that and that I will take salt from that too. So that said, I mean we can keep it there. That's why I kept it in this this budget in the first place. Those are just my two cents for this. It's fair criticisms.

I just think that when the when you have people going to come in for a public hearing, they shouldn't and we can say, well, we posted it on the invest view at 4:30. I mean, they also have an opportunity to decide are they going to be prepared or what what's the city's position on this stuff? We used to do that by Wednesday. If they didn't like it, they could, you know, they had a chance to come back and try to change it. You don't have to do it the way we used to do things. I'm just saying it just seemed to be a heck of a lot more predictable instead of just waiting waiting to see or as we see so often, you have 15 days to accept this. Well, if we don't have a meeting for 38, right,

you don't really get you're not really following through on what I think people's expectations are. Um, you know, that elected us to to be in office. So that's just my I just think that the role that and the stuff that she's trying to do uh and then maybe but she has a good idea of what the deputy clerk did. So I don't know for sure but I just think that there's two valuable positions there. Are we getting the best out of the the two people? So

yeah, Mr. Mayor, question for Mr. Lee. U there had been a a a grand amount of contracts with what I saw as intentionally last minute almost too late information coming in on repetitive changes, modifications, deconfusions, reinterpretations, definitions regarding NAR 238. And it made me think that the developers proposers are using a tactic of big word use intentionally to really um panic the council into erratic decision making or get as Mr. Delani says kicked down the cans in another month. Um I sense that with Colleen. I sensed it with the city clerk before. They're not going to give up. They're gonna they're going to consume themselves. And I see some overtime numbers that, you know, by the dollars don't mean anything to me. But when I see a number that says overtime has gone up 9001%. 900% of any going up three years.

That that number's off because that didn't include that's based that number is taken from this year's estimated and we didn't have a deputy city clerk for the majority of the year. So that number is off. Okay. Okay. So that so what we're seeing there 900% Yeah. 900% is based off over time for two folks versus one. So that would be Yeah. If you add another person, it's going to that should have explained.

I just sense that u if I'm the only one in the room, I'll be glad to be the only one in the room, but I'm not going to admit not going to say that. I don't see it. The employees here are consuming themselves and they don't quit. They don't they don't say, "I'll catch that tomorrow." They'll stay until six o'clock on Friday night. You're not supposed to to get something out that should have gone out on Wednesday. So, it it isn't changing job descriptions. It isn't changing protocols. It's changing their workload, which means that their workload fits what humans can do. Um, and that's I've been quiet, but I'm I don't I don't like seeing our employees um consuming themselves. And there isn't a single city employee that I've noted as slacking. Their little green check mark is on their thing when it's not supposed to be on the email thing. So, I don't know what that's supposed to be called, but uh there's never been a time I've called off hours and not gotten a reply, whether it's just text or email. So, another two cents, Mr. Marshall, it's all I'm offered exactly as you stated.

Um, that's the problem to fix, not not a budget. Uh, Mr. Vanic,

I know I probably come up with a lot of crazy ideas, but uh bear with me. Uh, just curious. I'm I I'm not too familiar with the colleges in Missouri and if there's very many universities with uh degrees in public administration, but you know, u hiring interns perhaps could relieve a little bit of our workload for city staff. uh we probably wouldn't have to pay, you know, health care costs for those people, you know, and is there any thought or any, you know, has this been done in the past in Wildwood? Is this something that we could look look to do in the future? I don't know. You tell them. we've done uh and there's a big difference between paying the intern and not if as a city government if we do not pay the intern then we're technically not allowed to assign them work we can only have educational opportunities provided to that person um we have done that with the Rockwoods partners in education we've actually I personally mentored uh two individuals over the course of a summer but it's more so assigning just having them look at stuff and kind of have a new fresh perspective talking with different folks at the city and help them understand if this is a career for them. Uh that said, if we wanted to pay an intern, the question I would have is how long are you planning on being with us? If it's only for six months, then by the time they understand our internal approval processes and how the workflow moves, they would be out the door. If it's someone that would be going through a master's program at Slooh or something along those lines and they wanted to stick around uh do part-time for two years, that could be an attractive option. It would it would be an ROI, but there would be some ROI there. That said, if it's anything less than six months, it almost takes six months for someone to really get caught up to speed with if they're assigned to a certain committee or if they're

assigned to a certain item that is dayto-day. It takes a second to get up. But that's something we could definitely look into. I mean, we can reach out to some of the masters programs. The main thing is just longevity. If we can at least get two years with some maybe guarantee that you know hey that that person may fill in and have a role in the future too that that I think would be helpful. Um it's more so if we know there's an exit getting attached to them there may also be some inclinations. Hey, maybe we don't, you know, some folks, you know, with their with a tough workload, you know, training an individual when you're already stretched in can be, you got to justify the means. If it's a permanent employee, you're you're saying, "Oh, yeah, this person's going to eventually once I teach them be able to take this this load away." If that person's going to be gone in six months and, you know, there's a return, but I think we'd have to have more staff up front to be able to onboard those folks. Correct. Tom.

Yeah. Can I add something?

Yeah. So, I mean, I know you're speaking probably more from your perspective, but from the public works perspective, I think there's a number of cities who do hire interns during the summer, paid interns, and usually they're engineering students that can provide some pretty good expertise and help over the summer months, which quite frankly, it's when we really need the help. So, I think I think I would be very open to that in the future if we could ever cobble together a few bucks to do it. It's always been difficult as of late to come up with monies to do that because our budget is so tight. But if we could do it, especially with Destin using GIS, there's a whole world of data collection that we could do with an intern or an intern or maybe two in the over the summer months. I just wanted to share that. It's a little bit different perspective than we thought about that before. The one that really gets me is that paying a consultant $80,000 to take samples for country testing. And I know, but I mean that during that time period, um, that's got to be something that there's got to be another option to because you look at what you're billing out, most of those hours are administrative hours like $30. The actual engineering qualifications at 45 bucks or something is a very small portion of that. I'm not saying we can solve it today, but I I kind of agree with Cleon. I think there are a lot of things. Our problem is we're so used to it on full-time people. We're not looking at it to say how could you put that stuff in different buckets and who could be doing more things. I mean, I think those economic packets are great, but are we being the most efficient in having Ruth try to do those? Is there something else she could be doing? I don't know. I mean, those are all just opportunities to look at.

Mr. Treasurer. Yes. If you could remind me, please, how much reserve do we have? Reserve do we have as a city? What's our what's our reserve budget currently? Like how much money exact number, but I know we have to keep uh one 125 1.25. We have to have 25% operating contingency. We have approximately $18 million in operating reserves. Down. Well, I was going next time is so far we've talked about $33,000 increase. So, and we've been at it for quite some time.

What what I would say and I'm gonna I'm just going to keep there's so many ways we want to use harping on this. there there's a there are a million ways that we want to use it but the reality is you know there's a couple different things here like I I would suggest this I know you know when I started on the council we had two meetings a month if I remember right we also had two committee meetings a month I literally felt like I was in this building every day

and while there is benefit to that there's also a cost to that when it comes to the staff and things like that being said I find it just a little weird that we've cut our number of meetings in half, but we still have the same problem getting agendas and things put together regardless of how many items there are on them. That like I feel like a lot of times as a city we we we make a choice. So in this case, we chose to go from one meeting to two meetings, okay? But then we don't change any of the other stuff that goes along with it. And that just creates breaks all over the place. So like you know I would say with if it with the city clerk's budget if we go with this budget is that money locked into a deputy city clerk or is that just an amount of money that is sitting on the budget somewhere

that is locked into a city clerk role. You know it could be someone in that they will report to the city clerk vicinity a deputy city clerk and doesn't have to be for it can be for any amount of money up to that amount but

it's about $60,000. Okay. or like salary. Like to me, I think that we are at a place where we need to get some band-aids out and put some band-aids on some of these issues and then sort of reconfigure how a lot of this stuff goes because, you know, we've spent over the last few years, we've spent an inordinate amount of money on cost shared projects. Not to say that they're bad projects, they're just super expensive. We've spent less money than we should in my opinion on our staff. We've hired good people that have left for a variety of reasons. Um, you know, I don't I have in my old job if we're talking about $30,000. I don't I mean, it's not that that's an insignificant amount of money in a lot of places, but $30,000 in our city budget is a pretty insignificant amount of money. Am I correct?

So from a treasurer standpoint, what's a significant amount of money that we should be talking about? Significant amount of money from from our our balance. Like if we're looking like so I used to do this when I would sit down with my managers and things and and they I would say, "Hey, we need to we need to figure out we need to move some money around. We need to figure some things out." Or I would have this conversation with my wife when we were young and she would be like, "We got to cut Netflix." And I'd be like, "You think saving $12 is going to help us right now?" Yeah. This is not the problem that we have. Be an actor, right? We can't do this.

Come on. So, like $5,000 here, $30,000 there. Of course, that all adds up. But like, you know, when we got hit with a 200 possible $200,000 enhancement on the police contract, that was cripplingly bad news. We're we're taking machetes to things. So is it $200,000? Is it $75,000? Like what is the number where it's like for this year it's $59,500.

Okay. So but and I exactly so for years and years I would run a varian reports in all these different departments. If it were over 10% or $1,000 I need an explanation otherwise just keep going. Right. And and so it could be both ways, but you know if something pops out, you probably had an either miscoding back in the days where it was coded or you just didn't have the budget in the right categories. But what I was the same thing I was just going to say is for these three categories that you've given us, I make a motion that you move them forward with the dollars and backup you have now. Yeah.

To the next stage and then at the same time try to go back and and and see if some of these bigger issues. I I also think we should get into the reserve and take care of some of these things that futuristically are going to eat our lunch. Yeah. Um and and I know that there that been controversial, but as long as I've been around here, I think the biggest mistake we ever made is we we can't spend that because that's more than we Well, when we came in, we had a million dollar in a budget and now we're sitting there saying, "Well, we can't afford to do that." Right?

And you're not going to increase that. You know, you're it's not going to get any bigger. But any of those things that we have in here that we could move that money over with the watershed stuff or any of the other improvements because you're never going to go get more money from the taxpayers as long as you're sitting on reserves like we have. I mean, that's silly. And I I think I don't think we would move it forward that way. But we can't be stupid enough to let dollar opportunities walk out the front door because we think that the citizens are going to really appreciate the fact we save them a half a cent on gas tax. It just doesn't make sense. But you know that it it depends on where you're coming from on that. But I would be happy to make a motion for these categories we've reviewed so far that we move forward with those to the next budget step.

Be acceptable. Anyone want to second that? All right. Seconded by Mr. Alers. Uh all right. All those in favor of pushing these forward, please say I. I. I. I. Uh. Anyone disagree? I don't think so. Any abstensions? Okay. Yes sir. When would we have that kind of discussion about the So that's the thing I was just going to say. So I I think what I I would suggest and we you know

I guess since I'm the chair of the committee at least for a few more months we can do this once this budget gets passed. You know we've had this conversation long enough about how much are we going to keep in the reserve and what are we going to do for this and how are we going to do that. I I think it is time that we really do need to start having some very real conversations about the reserve, about structurally, you know, what is what is important to us as representatives of the city. I'm you know, I don't think I I think it would be crazy in municipal work having not done it professionally. Like I don't know that people get the big bonuses. You can't do bonuses, I know, but you can't do the big raises and things like you do in the private sector. You know, I think it is patently unfair to be able to go, well, we have a we can afford a 3% raises here and 2.8% of that is a cost of living adjustment. You're that's just not how I mean I I would leave a job if that's what was h or I wouldn't you know if I had the if I had a better opportunity I would take it. And so I I just think from a from a city perspective, we need to say what are the things that are important to us and we need to kind of reconfigure the how we look at this budget thing because I know Tom and these guys have been killing themselves for weeks here putting this thing together. They do every single year. But we always also I mean we did a great work I think with our tears and figuring these things out this time. That was a big step. But I I think we need to do something along those lines as a budget as a whole to say, you know, the first thing we should be caring about obviously is providing for our citizens. But a big part of that is the people that doing the actual work isn't really us. Um so I think what we do after we get through this budget process is that is what our focus becomes is figuring out those things. Yes, sir. So, I would love to make a motion if somebody would back it up that we ask the city administrator and the department heads if you were to come up

with dollar amounts that are smart dollars that we be paying towards something that we're going to have to repair in the future

storm water stuff. Do we need $500,000? And if so, what are we going to do for that $500,000? So, it's just not putting money in a budget to wait and see what it is. If it's certain road improvements or bridge improvements that we need to do something now to get it done, let's look at those things that are outside that routine of just routine maintenance stuff and say, what can we do that will save money down the road that would be a good investment to use some of that reserve for that. I mean, I know 20 years ago we said, "Well, let's get Anniversary Park built and then we'll get trails and we'll go get park tax money." Well, all we did is put more money in reserves. you know, we went for a couple million dollars up to 17 or whatever. So, that's not a good strategy. And I think that if we could have the staff and you guys look and say, "Here are some things that we think are priorities." And we have to wait till the next meeting, have him put it together and give it to Tom and say, you know, we're looking at it's 1.6 million or because once you do get to the budget, there's a little tiny thing in the charter that says you can't go over the revenues coming in. So we need to take the proper steps to figure out how that would be positioned so that it doesn't violate the charter in order to do that. So

yeah, Mr. May, no, I didn't want to cut you off. No, I just I just I I would make a recommendation that we have the department and and Thomas has put together and Tony wants to help. I mean, yeah, I just think that we need to come back and somebody say, "Okay, here's what we think would take give us some breathing room." Uh but at the same time invest good money, not just making something disappear off the list for one year, right?

We uh talking about reserves and about efficient use of funding where we're going to get the money whether it's from reserves, but it sounds like that's the only place to get it now. And we uh we talked around staffing. We talked around smart governance with the right headcount, the right positions and I feel we got afflicted and befuddled amongst ourselves. Um when do we talk about uh what group talks about um either helping or making the city staff come up with a plan to devise their vision of the perfect city staff. I don't know how that's been done, whether we say and blame the city administrator, Tom, go do it and come back when you're done and tell us how much it cost and we're probably going to have to take it out of reserves. That's one logic flow diagram. Um, what group what committee that I don't know about is the one that says we're not staffed properly. We're behind headcount. We got the wrong job descriptions in the wrong people's hands. Where what committee is that?

You're sitting on it. Okay, good. accidentally good. I didn't even know that I could be that lucky. Um, when are we going to have that knocked down? That I think that's what I'm talking about. So, after we do this budget approval, which is just a laborous process every year, that is

that's what we need to do. So, it's I think I think what Ed's idea is great and I think it's the same it's all the same thing. It should say, you know, that's why earlier I said, "How many people do we think we're down?" Well, we think we're down five people. Okay. I don't work on the staff every day, but I think we're down more than that. And I don't know how much any of that costs. So, we should figure those things out because, you know, we do have an we do have an outsized reserve, but that reserve has been built by, in my opinion, not maintaining things properly, not hiring people appropriately. So, it's not actually a reserve. If you're pretty self-inflicted,

supposed to be spending that money on other things and you just choose not to. Um that in my opinion that is just as bad financial management as it would be if we had no money because we blew it all on you know hot air balloon rides for everybody in town.

If we we're making it easy Mr. Lee to carry the motion to run with all the papers and numbers you've assembled because it sounds like that's we're saying give free reign run wild with all the work you've already put in. We're not going to try and second guess you. How soon before the end of the year when we have to pass a budget can we have this knockdown and come up with uh now that he doesn't have to work on this so hard. How do we allow him and his staff to come up with the perfect city admin city per perfect perfect city staff and then tell us what those uh what that wish list is going to cost and we decide whether to take that money out of reserves because that's the only place we're going to get the money and authorize that in next year's budget because we've decided that since there's nowhere to go except the reserves that's where we're going and we're going to do it because we're going to do it. We're going to not wait fiscal year 27 or 28 to do what we should be doing before the end of this calendar year.

I mean, order. Yeah. I I don't know that they can get that done in think um or any of us can get that done appropriately. Second guessing all his numbers here. Is that free you up to We only got four departments. So, you got all the ad stuff still to go. That's what I we have I don't feel we've talked about any of

I I would Tom and I had a little bit of this conversation earlier. I I would kind of look at this as you know like I am a fan of moving things quickly. I have learned to my great sugarin most of the time in this position that that is exceedingly difficult to do with anything. So I I would almost say what I don't want to do. Well, I want these things done quickly. I don't think it is a good idea to rush these things in a way either, but I also don't think we want to just keep kicking this can the way that we have for take a bite of it

the last five years. So my thought was, you know, we can suggest to our staff, hey, let's get these things put in place and then we, you know, we can start to figure out timelines to do it. Like at for an example, it gets weird. Budget time gets weird. Then we got a period of time where seemingly nothing happens. Then it's election time. Then you got new people that come in and we got to get new people up to speed on things. And it just sort of is this like cycle that goes forward. So, what I would suggest, the best thing that we can do is to get this budget thing put together, give our staff the directive and the freedom to figure out, you know, from a staffing situation, what should this look like from a project standpoint? What should this look like? and then we can all get into a room and have, you know, a knockdown dragout maybe like we're doing with the budget thing here in another, you know, whatever it is, week or two where it's like, let's start to have this conversation because one of the things that winds up happening is each one of us represent our wards in different ways. We all have our own little priorities and things like that. And so sometimes we just get focused on that stuff and we and we sort of drift on these other things until all of a sudden we have these numbers staring us in the face. I think, and I don't know, Ed, if you'll disagree on this, but like I think we're closer than we've ever been at trying to get this thing right, but it does feel like we've been pushing this boulder up the hill for

and I do think I did read it all today, but this is the best budget presentation I've seen put together by far. Cut a third of the words out, but I'm okay. I mean, I I just think that that it takes that type of stuff. Oh, okay. That's a good point. So, I think that the work that's going into it really well, but I do think we need to take it to to another level. um to try to figure out how and again it isn't something you do overnight. Part of it is how do you position that and then if you identify those things then they can come out of the operating budget

and I think that you know as what you're talking about I mean having this discussion about staff work I mean I think it would be important potentially to have I mean I I'd be very interested first foremost to have just discussions with the staff you know hey don't think about the numbers but think about you know what things are those little boiling points that take you away from the main priorities and then start putting them on a list to then and quite frankly what you'll do is you'll start creating job descriptions. U that said, maybe there's something where those those individuals can either, you know, have a meeting with myself, the directors, or they could have a meeting with the whole council. Maybe it's like a work session setup where, you know, honest dialogue is started after a report is generated or something along those lines. I do think budget's a little tough, but I think same time it's a good time to talk about it. Well,

I mean, we got to have the convers. I mean, I I think, you know, for it's not a fancy conversation. We got to have it. So, you know, obviously we're not we're not paying somebody $800,000 a year to work at for the city. So, you know, if but but I I think if we are continually understaffed the way we are, it's it's it's a death by a thousand cuts because you guys Shab's right. I you guys are going to burn out. Just us talking here is going to burn you out. I think it would be I'm burned out right now.

Here we go. When you talk about the additional positions, I think it would be helpful if any of those responsibilities would save us from having to go out and hire someone else that we've had contracted to do it. I mean, I know we're not talking about mowing lawns or whatever, but some of the management things or the consulting fee, like that would help understand too, like, hey, if we had this position and we're paying this person decent, we we wouldn't have had to maybe do this and this and that would have justified that cost right away and kept it all in house. Mr. You, Tom, do you have an organizational chart? Yeah. Okay.

It'll be in the budget like Yeah, but we can I can send that to you, right? No, I was just going to suggest that might be a good way to project the new responsibilities or positions you need and uh and it be kind of illustrated, you know, where the the gaps are. Is it on the website? Yes. Yeah. So, on the website, you can go to say and it'll show you how it breaks down. But I kind of think what you're saying be good is if you have one where it's an empty position, right, get a different color. Yep. And then you can or a new position. That's what I'm saying. You use that to create the new positions, empty positions like you said. But

uh Mr. Vanic.

Yeah. Another idea. Sorry. Sorry. Uh but uh perhaps there are times during the year that um a temp service could be used and might be beneficial for short periods of time for I'm not sure what you know what role that would take or you know do you Mr. really see any use in in that type of service that you know that would help uh your your you know the people on the city staff you know get through these crunch moments. I don't know.

I mean I think I could see that I mean I'll defer to Rick if there's something special with the engineering field that there's like temp organizations that are able to provide and fill those holes. I mean, I think it's it if it's if we're looking at something like maybe we want to replace or cut down cost on contractors cutting grass and that temp service can provide you with flat feed worker. I think we've actually ironed out some piece of knife with our mowing. But like some manual labor type thing, I think that could help in the summertime where we see a ton of extra work. But I mean, I'd actually be interested more from the day-to-day. From an admin side, I wouldn't necessarily see it because I it's been a you need that person either pretty specialized.

Yeah. You just need that person to really sit down with you and and if you don't spend that time with them, they're not going to know what they're doing in some regards. And then if you do spend that time, they and then they leave it, you you'll you will catch yourself second guessing, you know, gosh, they really put in a lot of time in that that that teaching that individual X, Y, or Z. But I mean, you know, I' said other departments may have different needs, which that's I'd like to maybe go back and get some input from the whole staff, see if there's some holes to fill there. Yes, sir. Anything department?

Something you said took a second to sink in. Um, if we pushed along the paper that's been put together and it's including three quarters of 1% merit increase and the rest of the budgeted or what we're telling him is the allowed is all just 3% cost of lift. That ain't right. So, how do we how do we I say cushion or sweet and pot? How are we going to protect the the staff from only being allowed to get three and three/4ers percent? That's what's stuck in here and not be allowed to to draw from a larger pool based on merit. Saying, "Well, I'm sorry that your merit is the same threequarters of a percent after cost of living at the person that's doesn't deserve an exemplary escalation. So do we need to add something a 5% maximum buffer to something? So that

that's when we add a when you add like a maximum buffer like a 5% I will have to calculate it as a unless there's an absolute guarantee that an individual will not get that which will show them that in the in the budget. We typically would have to budget for the each department I guess could do it differently but we have to budget for what the the worst case scenario is. That's what I'm saying. Or in this case the best case scenario. Yeah, that would be the best. Well, finally doesn't mean you have to give every staff the same merit. No, you could do it by differently by department. You could calculate it out and kind of thought you did the stuff by individual. I don't know how very weird. Well, you do you do performance individuations on based on the individual, but for the part increase,

it's worked into a total. That's what you're saying on the page today is that I just don't think that if the total number for cost of living and merit increase is 3.75. I don't even know what the number is. It could be six. It could be three or two. Yeah. So we we So this number in here is that including cost of living or No, that including a 2% total increase 1.5 cola uh cost of living and then looking for 2% next year. That's that's why I I'm calling this out today is this. We've got problems. We got problems. And this is including that 2% 6%. Yes. Corporate America went to that years ago. Everybody went to 3%. It was just

I get 3% just for cost of living on social security and I don't even work. Well, so unless I'm totally wrong, the council determines the salary increase for the city administrator and the clerk. That's correct. Yeah. The money dollars that we as council give the city administrator, he is responsible for how that is given among the employees. There's no flat increase across the board. It's based on performance. And so you'll have some that are not up doing their job. They may not get an increase. So that's the way I think. Yeah.

I feel like we've I feel like we've always said I think the conversation has always been are we going to there was a conversation where was even are we going to offer a cost of living adjustment which insane. Um and and then but yeah, it is a just a you know here's here's an amount of money you Thomas can do for for not for Thomas and for Colleen but for everybody else. So we give him a budget pocket to be able to mess around with. We just have to free up that amount of money. Is there enough time to keep all your employees hired right now? There's enough to if everyone were to let's just say everyone were to get a 2% raise. That's what there's enough for. 2% raise or 2% plus 3% cost of living. two 1.5 cost of living and then 0.5 for America

already knows cost of living this year is going to be three and a half cost of living at the CPIU is 2.7% this year and then a recommended adjustment would be about 4.1 total is the allocation that a lot of other municipalities involve and that said if we were to implement those types of numbers we will be very much in the red that's the reality why do you build a piece of paper that's automatically you know is going to put you in the red before we approve it. We have to do this before the year endelcome city budget. I'm not just not getting so we want to pass we want to pass this. Well, so we have we have a motion for those three categories. Yeah. So I would

move that forward to the next budget step. So you want to think about this too, Bob. It does not stop here. This just moves it to the next step. So we have between basically we have between now and the end of the year well it'll be three we have an extra one in there and there can always be another one if it's necessary um to get the budget thing ironed out. So usually the way that this works is we'll agree to this stuff you know parks and planning everybody agrees to their opponents and then we all get together and we yell at each other for a while. We yell at their numbers and they yell at our yell at ours. I did this last year and I didn't understand any of the process as a newbie.

Exactly. Right. I don't want it to be our fault this year and we know what the economy is. We know that whatever crazy number 2% or 3% or half percent those numbers are not those are ludicrous. So those numbers those ludicrous numbers are in here and we've approved a motion to have you work on these numbers. gave you a bad action to work on and I I we have a chance in this meeting to do something about it instead of saying we got two or three more meetings. I can I can bring back what it looks like and I'm and I have this version available. I can bring back what it looks like to do it at the rate that would be recommended but it's going to put the number further in the we need to know that. Yeah, but that's

and that's fine to us to figure out. I know that's why at FA I wanted to kind of present this as hey red lights but I need you guys to tell me to do that I can't I can't present a un let's go ahead we need a different so Tom would like he's gently requesting to bring back a different version of the salary number that would be in the red but what he feels would be the appropriate adjustments to the staff that's fine Okay, that is fun. And can we can we know that in time to be able to make it'll be action that we will take money? Yeah, you can send that in an email, right?

Yeah, that would be I mean that said, I plan on distributing getting some feedback this week, but I was planning on distributing this in the I guess it'll be separate document too. U Friday we have everything ready to have another week board meeting.

Yeah. Can the 26 budget include what you're going to provide for us on Friday so that we can already budget it from the reserves, which is the only place on earth we know how to get stuff come. It's going to be a million dollars taken out of the reserves of 13 million. It's going to be a half million dollars taken out of the 13 million. It's going to be some number of hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover this worst red story, but it's going to all happen for the budget that gets approved on the end of November or something. um we're already going to know that we've already taken x number of dollars out of reserves instead of doing a whole lot of things and then worrying about how to do this after 26 which will mean we'll be doing this at the end of 26 or 27. We're going to lose a year and we already know we need to take it out of reserves. We can't sell used trucks. That's not going to make it. So reserves is the only place we're going to get it. I'm I'm I'm uh

No, the reserves are for additional additional you too, Joe. Getting not for merit increases. I mean, the reserves are the reserves are for what anything. I don't think we need I don't think we need the reserves for getting the right uh merit increases for the staff right now. What if it's $2 million? I don't So, what if it's a million dollars? I'll add it to that. It isn't a half million dollar. It's six dollar anywhere else. What would it be? Six to 8%. You know, well, and not necessarily putting in at 6 to 8% either. But that said, I mean, it

I could do the math. It it it is a nice jump. I mean, the thing is it it's not just the employees salary that goes into it. That's FICA. You're you're doing 7.65% of the increase. You're talking pension. That is a match on the actual amount that they're making. So that increase has to be compounded into it. Uh those those costs do go up as well. So I mean it's I'd have to do the math on it to do like a breakdown where it is at one two

maybe then I would suggest this because there's a couple other components to this which is a little bit weird. So, you know, whenever we are talking about whenever we're talking about like your increases or Colleen's or whatever, you know, we get the the number from the municipal league that's like here's the average and here's where everybody fits and here's where everybody falls. You know, we've got I I don't know. I is there a do our employees hit a cap at a certain point at a position? Okay. So like getting having knowing those pieces of information helps to make a better decision because you know we might be saying everybody gets 7%. They may not be able to get that

and we have salary ranges of cap. So yeah I know that they've not been updated but we shouldn't.

Well the salary ranges get updated. So there's two things they're very important to note. Uh salary ranges get updated each year per the cola. That's the where it gets updated not the merit. So if somebody outpaces their year-long time and there's not another study, there is money set aside to have CBZ go in and do a compensation study next year. So that is part of it where we would have new numbers identified based off the current market. That said, we can easily pull together the salary u brackets for every position we have and provide that to you all. I I would use your recommendations and and I guess the bigger issue is I think we have some desperate work to do on the job descriptions before we bring CBiz into the role. Yeah,

I would get them cleaned up and look at what those new roles are. Um especially on so much of of the administration and the technology stuff that you have. Um but I think it'd be kind of silly to do it the other way around. I' I'd clean up the job descriptions and then have C biz do it. And again, I used to get it from the municipal league all the time. They give a pretty good range on it and so you can know what other city usually when you lose city employees to other cities so you might as well know where their salaries are and that's all public information. Okay. It is it's actually on St. Louis Post dispatch they publish every they request ours and the municipal link should give it to you directly too though with more detail than what the Yeah, we can get that. I was just saying in case anybody says they can

Okay. So, so let's think about now how we want to configure this because I do think we want to pass these things forward but we want to give you the the freedom on the salary range. Yeah, I would say just as passing these three as is but with the caveat that the salary range po portion should be presented back with an alternative salary. You cool with that? Yeah, that's an cool. Okay. All those in favor of that, please say I. I. Anyone opposed? Any extensions? Okay, we got those moving. Next up, where are we at? Deer, deer. Does anybody want to make a motion to put the deer thing all the way at the bottom so Mr. Rambo can stay for the rest of

when you go to a meeting? It cames for purpose. I was I thought maybe you'd fill out a speaker card and we could let you weigh in on what they here as a scientist. So, it's Dr. Rambo. Dr. Dr. Rambo, we're moving on to uh the deer. Tom, you want to start or?

Yeah, I I can start off and I can would be more than happy to have Dr. Rambo join in. Appreciate you being here today. Um, I did want to just answer some of the questions that were brought up. I know I mentioned this briefly yesterday, but just answering some of the things that have been brought up at public comment. Um, you know, it's not perfect science, but the city is not working off 2020 numbers. each individual area that we've operated in. Immediately after operations have ceased, we've sent not White Buffalo, but the Wildwood Police precinct that have been trained with retired Sergeant Brad Windling um leading their way down each and every road within that area over three different nights to view transexs and then submit that data. Uh that's what we've been using for updated information to show that the deer populations it has shrunk since the operations have taken place but it's still showing a drastic drastic amount over 20. It's not at 20. It's not even at 40 in some instances unless on the low end. Um that said as well uh I just wanted to also mention

more than six that live in my front yard. I can get you six any night in my backyard. That that's

and that's the thing too is that we've had over and it's taken a lot of work to get reachouts to folks send a lot of letters but it's been worth it because we've had over 200 residents contact the city. Yes. Only 60 properties were ended up used it used in the first two years. That said out of that over 200 reached out to the city said use my property. You can come on my property and you know call the deer population. That's not a that that is the main I wouldn't say that's the main message for me because I'm the one who's making the call most of the time is that that resident is interested but they're like who is going to be here doing this and if they don't feel like they can trust the individuals or people coming up there and they can't look at you know look them up and see okay you know they're registered with MDC they're a good organization then it's it becomes a problem I just wanted to point that out up front because people are signing the ability to shoot firearms on their property. That is very serious. And we have to trust that that individual is trained, is qualified, and is there, you know, quite frankly, yes, they're being paid, but they're being paid to go into extremely dense subdivisions. And I call it strategically calling the deer instead of saying it's a managed hunt because we've seen it, you know, in Greenfelder and other parks. They go in there and there's like 20 guys that go in, 20 guys and gals and over five, six nights they'll end up calling like 14 deer. We're calling 14 deer with three guys in one night. I mean, that's one site. So, it's it's just a completely different ball field, if you will. Uh I will say that for and I I want to let Dr. Rambo speak on this too, but that was going to get

be you're doing fine.

Okay. Well, this getting into next year's uh proposal. There is a slight adjustment that will be made and something we wanted to talk about tonight. Um White Buffalo's uh Ryan Roach's been excellent to work with. Uh he was going out of town. He did submit something to us with the understanding that we would most likely be making a modification. Um, what we're currently proposing, and this was discussed at the MNPW meeting back in early summer, was that we would focus in a couple subdivisions, including Shepherd Oaks, which I'll be giving you a call. Uh, and then Wild Horse where we've sent out some comms over in the Northeast 2 area. Northeast one, there are a few spots. If we could get Many involved, that's always I will just mention it. That would be very nice. We'd hope that they would participate because that's the area that still has quite a bit of density, but really this new phase will be uh focused in on the SE1 region which we are in and it goes south to Old State Road. That said, the change that's not presented in the proposal tonight is that we've wanted to those those boundaries that we had prior, the the six different boundaries, those were defined by roadways because you have to use the transexs to be able to break up this the population study. That said, we want to kind of hug 109 and Old State Road. That means you'll be including a small strip of land about 2.25 miles to the west of 109 all the way up from Old State to uh Wild Horse Creek Road, including those properties and then also using about 0.25 miles south of Old State Road into the study, I mean into the program area. What that's expected to do though is I mean they mentioned it today. But one thing they were saying that is very much correct is most deer, you know, the established deer do stay in the relatively the same area. So if they are within 025 miles of the roadway, White Buffalo has a good understanding that they've confirmed that that that's a deer that could be hit by a car in the future. Old State Road 109, those are clear areas. That said, that will most likely adjust uh the number of days they

may need. So this is almost as a base and then we'll be maybe increasing it. The other question that White Buffalo wanted to pose which we are paying and I just wanted to make this clear too. We are paying for their time here. Uh so that said our current target goal that is being used is 40 deer per square mile. I know it was mentioned it may have been shrunk down to 20. That is not the case. It's still using 40. We're using a recruitment number of 1.2 in our calculations to help establish what maintenance looks like. And that number is still double what MDC is uh would recommend. So the question I guess tonight is um are we okay with this path? The idea is to go back and include those buffer areas and come back with the firm proposal, bring that to council. It shouldn't change the cost all too much, but it will kind of change the boundary. And then the secondary component is if we adjust the the actual target density that will probably that that will most definitely change the cost but it will also you'll get a higher return on your investment over the term because we are simply paying for how many days they're here.

Just ask a clarification question based on what they were talking about tonight. So they said NE1 was supposed to be 297 and NE2 was supposed to be 130 but in actuality it was 661. Is that right or how are they getting six deer instead of what we're saying is 20 or 40?

So there's um it's it's grade school arithmetic uh that that right it's um uh jump right into that particular point. um uh white buffalo killed let's say 330 deer in his 10 square mile mile area. They um the um recruitment rate that Tom was suggesting MDC the latest one that I heard um Aaron Shank recommend from MDC was 1.6 uh recruitment rate which means the population increases by about 80 80% from that baseline. So after the cull, if there's um they killed 330 deer, um there are 370 deer of those supposed 700 left, right? Well, if you if you multiply that times 1.8, you get up close to the 700 number and then you cull again and knock them back down again and then your recruitment uh rate brings them relatively close to the 700 number again. But that 1.2 um uh fawns per deer recruitment rate uh is seems to be the experience that that White Buffalo is having. I haven't I have tried to stay in my lane because this is not my Bailey Wick. It's the admin in public works, but I I kind of, you know, keep my ear to the to the to the ground. And um it seems like if you go through that math process for two years again with the with the appropriate with the white buffalo's recruitment rates we come up to like 37 to 40 deer per square mile which is precisely what the count uh has given us. So the six deal per square mile is okay they killed 661 deer not including

any recruitment rate times two which was two years. Right. Right. So, so that's where they're getting to that number. It's a it's a it's a completely erroneous number. I will say I mean it may have been well-intentioned, but it's it's it's not accurate. And there's every statement. It was the reason I'm here to be real honest is my name was mentioned and it was BS. Nonsense. BS. What the hell? BS, Rambo, nonsense, BS. And um I don't like that as a scientist. I'm an accurate sort of guy by nature, at least when I put my mind to it. And the the every I have um I made a list. I went through the dang I mean, I've got better things to do with my time to be real honest. But I went through the recording today and I wrote down every statement that was made by these by the um the four folks that spoke and there was virtually nothing that was factually accurate. All the things that caused you to say, "Oh, I didn't know that." It's because you didn't. It's not factual and that's why you didn't know it. Right? So, we can I what I'm intending to do and I'm kind of skipping around here because um I'm burned out by the budget discussion. Um but um

we get the stuff.

Yeah. But but I was um I was intending to offer that um I will write up a one to two page public comment that's publicly available. I'll be it'll be done by Friday and it will address each of those questions in a pretty ironclad manner. And if I need to come back with references or whatever because there's some push back, I'd be happy to do that. But the the the good news is that I was surprised at the a little bit surprised at the animosity last night, but there wasn't any tonight, so felt much better. Um, but the um the the bottom line is hunter assistance was a key part of the plan from the beginning. It's just that they can't go in and muck about where what Buffalo is doing their co because they will kill onesie twoosies and the gear get wise and they they stay away from those areas.

That's why I know where he was talking about if if somebody's coming on his property, but no, he just wants to be able to go where he wants to hunt. Yeah. And the and the um the idea that um he sees mostly bucks and at the same time they're suggesting that white buffalo is killing all the bucks. Shooting all the bucks. Yeah. Right. So it, you know, a lot of those things, it's just it's emotion and passion. And yeah, these guys love hunting, but they're 2% of our population. The other 98% deserve the public safety protection that we're trying to provide and and the other uh, you know, the other things and they can hunt in the appropriate places.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And so the point was um the hunter community needs to step up to the plate and work with Wildwood to develop a program for maintenance. so that we don't have to spend money for Northeast One and Northeast 2 while um um White Buffalo to go in there every year forever. But nobody has stood up. And the problem is the incentives just aren't there because they have to do the hunting. They have to give the meat to Share the Harvest, which is what we do. We've donated 10,000 pounds of meat last year, I think, to Share the Harvest. Good, nutritious meat that tastes nasty, and I hate it, and I'll die happy if I never eat another bite of it. But some of these guys love it. It's made of that.

They donate to the zoo too. Yeah. Yeah. We donate to the wolf sanctuary. I guess my concern is tonight. I just didn't want to get into that because everything there said we're doing most of that, you know. I mean, we are donating the food and that, but that's not what they wanted to hear.

Right. Right. Right. And so I I figured a document would be um would be the appropriate place to do that. I'd encourage you guys to look at it because it'll be as accurate as I try to make everything. And if you have any questions, please run it by me. But the bottom line point here is um those guys have a a strong role to play if they're willing to play it. It's just that they can't keep the rack, they can't keep the meat. Um they have to kill, you know, uh mostly does and so forth. And it's just a hassle for nothing and and and the incentive, you know, of the the um very few people want to do it. And archery hunt archery hunting is notoriously

unreliable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And uh there's all kinds of statistics that I can go into, but it would just be, you know, notably offensive to the letters that were just here, so I just do. Um, yes. Did you receive an email from an Adam Epstein at Saturday? Yeah, he was here last night. Hey, he was here. I understand that. Did you receive an email from him on Saturday at 9:49 a.m. with a litany of the same thing that they've been talking about, but this time it's all in writing. all of the diet tribe and all of the malarkey and the silliness that we've all heard

is in writing. Did you receive that email? And did you receive the email that both I've confirmed that Matt Troutier and I uh received? And has every other one of the 14 other council members received both of those two letters? I got I got a brief letter from from from uh Mr. Epstein and then I got a two lengthy things from Tom Mitchell. Okay. Uh including an attachment. Sounds like everybody was individually blanketed with these two they did intentionally before the meeting.

Yes, of course. Now what both Matt and I we knew that we couldn't be just the only two because we happened to be in North. It had to be everybody individually. Um what what Matt an attorney had uh told me was that they are building a case for um expression of freedom of of of language or religion or something be and the wording he says that's very peculiar not peculiarly very specifically catered to lawsuit cause of action type stuff we're denying them they're going to say to freedom of killing deer in America. Um, so what Matt had recommended very strongly was that Mr. Lee take these two letters that are very welldetailed and very carefully languaged. And then not only that, but something called minimum viable population, 137 kilobytes, which is a real rampage of weirdness.

Yeah. And there's nothing there's nothing there. Yeah, there's nothing there. We're we're providing an an inbred gene pool. uh we're going to be decimating the herd that they will never recover and we're going to go to zero deer population and now we're going to have all the diseases come when you have no deer. It was just u out of this world. So you sound like you're going to satisfy that admirably by having those two letters going through and looking at them now with an attorney slant that I had honestly not going. Matt, you're right. That's that's really weirdly worded that we're denying them their American freedoms access guaranteed by the Constitution to go kids ears.

I don't think that has any legs, but I'm not the attorney. We can run what I'm going to do past the attorney, which was a coalation of the verbal comments last night and I will combine that with the letters that you you you so silly that both Matt and I were laughing over the phone. Yeah, we can run it by with that kind of division. If you can try,

we can run it by um uh our um our wonderful city attorney and um I didn't still have done by Friday. I it's all written up. It's just not formatted or I brought brought it in case I was, you know, questioned about anything any particular point. But but yeah, um they they can either, you know, cooperate with us and step up to the plate and do what they're saying they're going to do. But if if the deer are down to six per square mile in northeast one, White Buffalo is going to fall flat on his face, right? And so they won't be able to callull whatever number of deer that they're planning to callull. But we've got counts that say otherwise. And that counts seem the counts match up with the arithmetic. You know, it's not high-end math. This is not statistics or anything like that. It's just counting. Um but um

Rob, were you looking to have a meeting, propose a meeting? I believe we should have a meeting to talk to these guys because they're residents. Most of them are a couple, you know, one guy last night was St. Charles resident, you know, he can go Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. One guy who's the with the archery group that's in Bowwin, he didn't show up last night. He he'd been here for Yeah. He kind of gave up because he, you know, his

didn't even live in the city. He was quite belligerent, but he finally saw the light and decided we're not susceptible to the kind of nonsense that he was spreading. And I didn't even roll out the big guns, which is that he's got a business to run, which involves beating the bushes for every archer that wants to hunt in Wildwood and charging them 300 bucks for a membership and then he sets them on a stand somewhere and um you know, that's his business model. So, he's got a vested interest, but but archery is incompatible with culling. Um, just because these guys bait for a couple weeks, come in and shoot an entire family unit, 6, 8, 10 deer, throw them on a flatbed, and get them processed. An archer will stick one. Maybe it'll die, maybe it won't. And um the rest of them will scatter in fear and um and they'll never they won't, you know, they won't be back for a while, right? So, it's it's just in an, you know, complete ridiculously inefficient way to manage the deer population. So, I can carry on about that forever. Um, I won't do it. I will honor that commitment. I think it's very smart for you to have a couple of town halls in November as you suggested. And I think and and that might help us um get more people volunteering their land. And um it might kind of appease some of the folks out in my neck of the woods that are still saying, "Wait a minute, I'm hitting, you know, my daughter hit a deer day before yesterday. What are we doing out here on Highway 100 to the west?" And so, you know, we have to um you know, include that uh information in the in the town halls, but um I do think a separate meeting with the archery community um that could be positive and say, "Here's here's your challenge." Um, but they're not going to like tracking their arrows because they miss too often. They're not going to like um um you know any of the

constraints. They're not going to like a competency test. But you guys have heard me say this and I'm happy to say it again, but mo in my deep and lengthy experience with bow hunters, most of them um talk like Robin Hood and shoot like Ray Charles. And that's the absolute reality of the situation. And so they have to be they have to be competent competency tested. And the the good old boy standard is hitting a hitting a 10-in paper plate from 20 yards away in your backyard. Good light. You get to draw a bead and if you hit it most of the time, you're good to go. Well, the deer's vital zone from 20 yards away. if it's quartering away from you. It's only about the size of a baseball and it's just you're you've you're you're not you're not your ability is not sufficient to the task and um you know so anyway I can carry on about that for forever but I won't. Um I think that's all I came to say

unless you guys have any questions whatsoever. Go ahead. I can say that I would also suggest reach out to Aaron and find out when when are they any hills in the parks there some going on in Greensfeller right now. Well, that's but I think that's the other part to be communicating. Aaron left. It's a new galler. I can give you contact. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just it's another piece of information that you know they don't think that we coordinate with any I think that's just really wrong. Yeah. I mean,

let's get let's get Mr. Vanic real quick and then we'll hop on the rest. Mr. Vanic, what you got? Oh, okay. Um, series of questions for Mr. Lee and just a basic comment. Uh, I've been borderline on this whole thing uh for a long time uh before I was on the city council and uh because I really feel it's a state issue. It's a it's a it's Missouri Department Conservation and it's uh we're paying city money to solve a state issue. Uh and they're not stepping up to the plate to come up with the ideas necessary in order to uh long-term long-term u find a solution to this problem because um my first question for Mr. Lee is what was the initial amount that was projected for this uh culling or the over five years

about a thousand deer? Oh, no, no. The the cost to the city, it was rough. I mean, we set aside as a council about million dollars to do a program over five years, but Okay. That was I mean, before I'd have to go back and check, but that's the number I I've been working from. It was And are we still on on budget? Basically, this will be the third year coming up. Is that correct? And I think based off the numbers that have been presented this year and and being able to maximize especially if we can maximize some efficiencies, maybe lower that target density down, I think we could most definitely be on I mean we're there. Yes.

Okay. Good, good, good. I'm good news on all on all accounts there. the uh uh lot of questions last night or comments. Uh there was a lot of concern about accurate data and there was the thermal imaging. Have you had an opportunity to look into that at all? And how how confident are we that these numbers that we're using are accurate? I mean there is some variance with them, but I mean Dr. Rambo is correct. when you do the math, they line up well with what our police department, not White Buffalo, has been recording in the field. So, go ahead.

There's some clarity. I think there's a pretty decent argument behind that that they're accurate. I mean, at the end of the day, yes, if we could use drones and do a thermal study. I think you need to properly vet that individual because there are some issues with um having them at the right you have to have them flown at the exact same altitude. You have to have all the same settings. There are organizations that can do that. We have not had a chance to look into the organization mentioned yesterday and some of these quite frankly we might end up spending 20 to $40,000 on a study with drones. Um it's more cost effective to use our internal police department and pay them u if we need to utilize the services we have at our disposal uh that are trained by MDC to record this information. I mean will a drone study potentially create a little bit more accurate results? I mean, it might be good one time to do it, but I I almost would guarantee it's going to represent the same figures we've gotten back.

I believe that as well. And it's a whole lot cheaper to do distance sampling, which has been proven over decades to be accurate enough, right? I mean, we don't need to count every, you know, we don't need to be down to the deer. We need to be down to the um percentages, you know, a handful of percent. They are they counting in the winter like pace? So they typically count what we try to do is right after the calling period ends couple weeks because you got to get them organized but they will go out and they usually get it done within a twoe period. So they're do they have to do three to four different nights for each individual transact. So that's covering any one any two. Those are covered in their own week. Um what month is that about? April.

Oh was my question. Sorry to re ask for to regain the floor here, but uh what what efforts and what results have we seen with uh local representatives uh our local um you know, Sparks and the Senator and members of you know, I mean, uh of Missouri Department of Conservation to participate with the citizens and to look for because this is going to end in a couple years. Well, we hope it's going to end in a couple years, but who knows? I mean, but uh you know, I mean, once it stops, it seems like it's just going to go back to where it was. I don't know how long that takes, but then we're going to start the whole project over again. And my concern is that we spend all this money and then five, six years down the road, we're looking at spending another million dollars. And unless we have a wellthoughtout long-term plan with the state that um it seems like we're looking at this a little bit shortsighted. That's mine and I'll return.

Yes. Two cents, right? Um I can answer some of that for you. There is like with everything else, there is little to no participation, communication, or assistance from our state elected officials. Perhaps we could have a parade and invite the deers and then they might show up. Um Good point. I I Yeah,

I in talking with Thomas a little more in depth with this the other day, I I think the key points are the liability that White Buffalo provides. You know, they're they're insured for what' you say, three three million. Uh they're Yes, around that amount. I'd have to look it up. They're insured for both us and the property owner. These guys, these guys tell me they can do that too. You know, they can get that kind of coverage. I I don't know if that's accurate. And then speaking of the word accurate, their efficiency outweighs any other group. Correct. Absolutely. There's there's no there's really no comparison, right?

Yeah. I mean, that that's true. I mean, it's they do not have to take extra shots. Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Vanic, your hand up again. Or is it Did you say N? Okay.

Yeah. Um, yeah. I don't know. It's uh this this attitude that we make a phone call to these guys and then we kind of just give up as far as sparks and and the rest. You know, it's it's a little bit frustrating to me. It seems like uh we're not putting enough pressure on them uh to be doing um doing their jobs and call them out in the press if they're not, you know. And uh we that that is one frustration I have uh with what is occurring I guess that we we don't do enough to uh get these guys to show up. It doesn't I don't you know I'm not there making the phone calls so I I don't know what's going on with Mr. and and the mayor, but um uh I mean, you can make the invitation. Do they actually say no, we're not going to show up or do they just don't reply? I you know, those would be interesting things for me to know. Um the

I can tell you that we did ask Representative Sparks to come to a meeting. Katie did and he said he would love to come to the meeting and talk to us about the property taxes in Wildwood and then she said we don't have any. So it is curious that our singular representative at the state house has no concept how his citizens pay for anything.

Oh, I get it. I get it. Uh but uh so that's that's one frustration of mine, but still he he needs to be more involved or he needs to be publicly embarrassed, one of the two. the um but uh we do need we do need a long-term solution to this and not just a five-year thing and then cross our fingers hopes it hope it doesn't come back and not have to spend another million uh down the road away. So, I mean, I'm all for uh the proper uh maintaining of the herd, but uh I'm not sure if uh we're doing all we can at this point. Uh

there always has been. So, the initial million dollars was designed for the five-year kind of initial call of each of these spaces that was going to try to get theoretically these areas into more workable spaces. that seems to be happening very well. And the and then the com it was going to be a combination of the hunters in Wildwood, those that want to work with us, our our bow hunting friends that come to the meetings uh participating and then also uh looking into doing more maintenance than what we're doing now. So instead of doing, you know, very very large numbers, we're talking about uh in maintenance plans, you know, significantly less, but it is kind of an ongoing thing. I mean, I think when we looked at this several years ago, I feel like it was maybe Town and Country. Is that right, Rob?

Yeah. You know, Town and Country had transported. Somebody had done something and then stopped and it was a colossal failure and somebody did something and didn't and then it worked. So now they have a program and they budget for it every year and so forth, but the um the um it's kind of like painting a house, right?

Uh you got to paint your house again a few years later. Um uh but if you did the preparation work, right, it's not going to be as hard as as you know, having neglected it for you know 20 years or whatever. So, it's just we were I think it was always envisioned that this would be an ongoing program hoping the local hunting community, archery hunting community would step up in the more in the more urbanized areas of Wildwood. Um, but there's always going to have to be a place for um for White Buffalo or some organization like them to come in and do the, you know, help with the culls. Uh because the alternative is to go back to the population that the deer population that we had before we started which is as you suggest pretty ridiculous notion. Um the um the uh um the the public safety issue is the overarching one deer vehicle collisions. And

do we have the police report yet for last year? For last year. Yeah. It didn't go down overall too much, but in the anyone any two regions, it went about there was 20 about 20 deer less deer accident. I think we need to put that in the reports because I mean everybody who's lived out here has hit a deer. I saw the very nice buck get smacked on Clayton Road and just flopping around. A lot of them aren't reported.

Well, the problem that Yeah, that was just going to be my point of everybody that hits No, you're fine. But everybody that hits a deer, they call the insurance company. They don't call the police unless there's a fatality or a police report required. And um you know because I have to you I I carry a handgun in my woods all fall um not because I'm afraid of my neighbors or I'm afraid to walk the mean streets of Wildwood or the mean woods of Wildwood alone, but because I have to euthanize deer from two sources of injury. One is um inept archers. Shoot them in the butt and then they run off and their legs rotten off. And the other is um deer that were hit but not killed, but they've got one broken leg or two broken legs. I was It's It's heartbreaking to me because a deer their drive to their drive to live is so powerful that they will run on two broken legs on the same side and they're trying to get away. And here I am wanting to shoot him in the head for a quick shot. And um my meanwhile I'm trying to fight my dog sometimes two dogs that are trying to you know tear them limb from limb them and so on and so forth. It's crushing every time I have to do it but I have to do it for those reasons. And so and and it's it's even that is irrelevant when you consider that one of these days a big old buck's going to join a a a bunch of Girl Scouts in the back of mommy's van and we're going to have a tragedy real tragedy on our hands and the property damage and the other things those kind of fade into the background when you think about

I think it's noteworthy that should be something that's part of communication that in those two areas we've seen a a reduction not that it's all of them but at least enough that the police haven't been called out to uh to investigate a deer accident because yeah that's there will be that caveat because that's across the six different deer are well it's across the whole city but the six deer areas we have it does show a slight correlation but it it's difficult to to know we'll have to have that little disclaimer that's fine what do what do we need here to move forward

u so the idea though is to proceed uh the contract will be somewhat adjusted if the question I need to answer though too. So, I can go back to White Buffalo and if they need to revise their numbers, that's okay because it will affect how many they can they could potentially call in the pot the amount of days they have set aside. Uh, are we wanting to stick with 40 deer per square mile? Do you want us to go reach out to MDC? MDC would most likely push that number down um speaking with them. But if we keep it at 40 deer per square mile, that number of deer removed within that time frame will most likely be it won't change very

a good number is 30 30 to 35. MDC will recommend will is very likely to recommend 20 as you well know. Or is still too high. The um the um the the true benefits come at the lower end of the scale. And again, if they can't, if white buffalo has killed them down to six deer per square mile, they're going to fall flat on their face and they won't do that. So, um, you know, it will the proof will be it will be self-evident. Deer will either be there or they won't be there. Exactly. That's exactly right. Okay, Mr. Lee.

So, question I had in mind was that for the online deer management updates, this one's posted on October 1st. You familiar with that? interested in participating in the program. Please feedback form. Is this the venue? This same venue. I was wondering if that would be the most appropriate most uh most obvious uh place to provide the city's report that Mr. Rambo.

Oh, yeah. The deer man. Yes, that would be fine. And and this this this loads both barrels that anybody who cares to read it is going to see how to do math. They're going to see how to understand property liability is the fact that $3 million coverage is not something we can do. It's something that unless you got a lot of money for the policy, you're never going to do. And then the remarks I heard about uh they shoot him in the brain and that's a very tragic death for the deer and bow hunting has been proven the most hygienic and the most um most u most considerate of the deer. I read that in one of these emails. But that's the type of thing that um is going to be the only thing successful to to have people who want to read details and not jump down social media rabbit holes. Um I I wouldn't I just would be the only one that would say don't pull any punches. Show them the math. We've had some people that come up with 66 divided by 11 is 600. Uh it's actually different formula than that. um not being as insulting as I just was, but it gets close and we've seen seen that repeatedly and uh the majority of our 13,000 citizens deserve that. They don't deserve to hear something that gets repeated 600 times and then they think that must be the truth because nobody forgot.

Can I make a quick comment on that particular point? Um yeah, the white buffalo protocol, you know, couple weeks of bait uh feeding and then they wait for family group to come in. They drop mom with a suppressed firearm and the others just mill about because there was no there's no nothing that startled them. and there's mom laying there on the ground and they take five or six more. That's the way it works. But they're um they have um I have um several rifles that are capable of subminent of angle accuracy which means you you can cover it with a dime. You can essentially you can hit a dime every time from 100 yards away. Um I used to be that accurate. I am nowhere near nowhere near the marksmen that the least of the white buffalo marksmen uh happens to be. They have they have suppressed weaponry, special frangible bullets. Typically, they go in the skull, but nothing leaves the skull. It just rattles around in there, pulverizes the brain, and the animal is dead. They drop like puppets with their strings cut, and I have seen it. It's amazing. Um, it's it's it's they won't take the shot unless they are 100% certain that they're going to kill that animal instantly. It's as humane it's as humane as you can possibly imagine. One minute they're alive and then like a light switch, the next instant they're laying on the ground stone dead, nothing has left their head. This the idea of the pions in the brain getting out on the ground. Um what happens when an a deer is running for the w through the woods for mile after mile bleeding out his side or whatever gently out his rear end. Um you know that's that's that's the true concern. Um and I don't know how in the heck these guys possibly got

to the point where they can say that um archery is somehow more humane because the whole point is to slice through some arteries. the blood supply and then have them hemorrhage, you know, so they bleed out and they don't drop like puppets with their strings cut. They, you know, if you're lucky, it runs a few yards and then lays down and expires, but most of the time it runs off um to someone else's property,

right, to someone else's property. You can't you you have to get permission. You can't trespass to to retrieve the deer. A lot of people won't give you permission. A lot of guys will give up after 20 minutes looking around because it's supper time and there's another one to stick tomorrow and those kinds of things. And so there's all those I'm not suggesting that the hunters that came and talked to us are that way, but I I know for a fact that a whole lot of them in my experience have been. And um the idea that it's somehow humane to to stick a deer and let it bleed out over the course of the next couple of days out in the woods somewhere is is preferable to shooting them in the head and having them drop like a puppet with cut strings is ridiculous.

So I'm just trying to figure out your numbers here. So you you said that the southeast two southeast one. But we will be what we're trying to think to do here to do here is have southeast one. If you look at the property distribution in southeast one, it's mostly pound center and you know there's a couple properties as you get closer to Old State where it kind of opens up a bit. So the idea is to include within 0.25 miles of 109 and Old State Road entering in SE2 and going up 109. So it's more the so number if I add up in this in their proposal it's 239 deer.

Yes. So that Oh, the breakout of each. Okay. So yes, that is 150 in SE1 is the that area and then 50/50 in northeast one, northeast 2. Okay. That can give or take a You're not This proposal was for 239 year, not 600. No, no, that 600's already been called. They were saying we we already got, but I thought going into this year Oh, no, no, no. It's for right now it's at 239 is how they're estimating with their figures. But if we were to reduce that number down to 3035, then that's going to increase without decreasing the next 5 days.

But then I only have one more question then I'll make whatever motion you want me. Is when you look at the cost and they talk about in their final page they're showing that if you take the 239 at $94 per deer that matches to their proposal. But then they come down and take out the cost of processing the meat. There's a 17% variance in that per deer cost. I just curious as to how that So that when you take the 754 times $239, it's $180,000 versus the 216,000. And so the the question was if that's the difference in rate on processing, we process the beer, they're processing the deer as well. So why why would it be that much of a reduction? Let me take a look at that. Sorry, one second.

If the same number of deer, 239 deer, they're saying either processing or not processing. And the they had a special deal with a butcher shop in I think it was in in like um uh Wen Woods or something like that. And um they'd pull up a whole flatbed full of deer and um they would process it for like 40 or 50 bucks per. Processing normally is a hundred bucks and up. because that's what they have in here. But um some of them, you know, some of I don't I don't know I don't know how they accounted for the reality that 60 or 80 of those carcasses are going to go to the sanctuary.

25% have been processed and it's coming up to 17 just a dollar. So not a big deal. It just it doesn't seem to match. Initially they said 25% would be not dressed given to the zoo for the wildlife thing. I didn't see the and something to note too is that and we can get clarification there. U something something to note as well though is that the the St. Louis zoo they have to confirm their numbers with us prior and then usually MDC will then authorize permit with a maximum allotment to um to the zoo. So that said, that could maybe account for they don't know their zoo number yet, but we have had instances where

I'm just curious. I mean, when you look at their proposal, there wasn't anything denoting why that dollar was amount was different. And I would think that we wouldn't be paying to a year out if we were going to do 20 or 25, but 17 just didn't seem to work out the right way. But we can get some clarification on that. But I also think maybe we make a phone call or point them into the direction of the guy that the hunters were talking about, the bar, the butcher shop or whatever it is, and maybe they can come up with a Well, they mentioned K&A meets which is right up the road from me. Um, my uncle Armen opened the place 70 years ago and it's still there. The pl you can get the best jerky in the world. It's right there between on the road between on the 100 before you get to St. Albins's by where the car lot is.

I mean I mean before you get Yeah. before you get uh to a great summit. Yeah. It used to be used to be Zerna's used cars and Yeah. Yeah. It's it's famous on YouTube, which is a great Ed, you want to make a motion? I would. I'd like to make a motion that we proceed forward with the proposal from White Buffalo after Mr. Lee firms up the numbers and we confirm the the few pieces that are missing with the suggested new plan. Yeah. And do we want to do we want to include that

add in the or go to the 30 35 range instead of the 40 as our target. So that would add a couple more deer but also as Thomas is saying it makes the time more efficient. I'm fine with that if that's Yeah, I think that's a that's a very very wise decision. All right. Do we have a motion? I make the motion. We need a second. Mr. Mabel second it. Uh any discussion? All right. All those in favor please say I. Hi I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Oh, he he raised his hand. You opposed or obstaining or opposed? All right, Mr. Van's going to oppose. Uh, motion passes.

Hey, Tom. Uh, how are you going to handle the um setting up something with the archery guys? Are you going to do that or Yeah, we can book works. We're going to talk real fast. But I mean I'll just No, no, I mean it's not it's not for me obviously, but I mean it'd be nice to have you there. We've reached where the real Oh, no. I would definitely be there, but I mean, no, you just have to make a motion to continue tomorrow. Thanks for coming out, Dr. For that. I'll say we're starting unless you guys are going to talk about more fascinating budget stuff.

So much more budget stuff. I I will say I I think and I said this to Tom, this deer program has been honestly one of the best done programs I think that our city has done in quite some time. And and I think from a communication standpoint, I think one of the things I I appreciate the enthusiasm that the hunters have. I am not a hunter. It's just not my thing. Um but you know, I look at this a lot like a snowstorm. Like I'm sure Rick loves when kids go out and shovel driveways and things, but they're not clearing streets, and that's what we're doing here. So, we need to get the streets cleared so then the uh the rest of the people can go out and do the the fine-tuning of

I just thought the presentations they did a couple times coming in when the owners, the property owners were here. The one classic was she said, "So, what do you do when you miss the deer?" Well, we've never experienced that yet. It's like, "Oh, okay. I'll sign up." Yeah. It's a I mean they are doing a great job. Yeah. And and Tom has done a great job too with all those other with all those other priorities. I really think it's been a well you know a well-run program and I don't know how much involvement has but it's a team effort. It's yeah whoever you guys want to I'd like to put my six in the list to be adopted.

I had a guy come and work on a sprink where four deer have been laying here. I said they do every night. The problem is wait till you get down to work on the sprinkler going. Oh man, this is terrible. They're all over. They've eaten everything that they could eat. Yeah. And now we have silk from China. All right. Okay. Moving into public works for information. Rick, what do what do we have for our update on MODOT and city projects?

Well, uh, council members, I'm provided the same update. We not same update, the same general idea, uh, projects that are ongoing. So, I didn't intend to cover it in detail, but if you have any questions, I'd be glad to try to address them. It's basically the same information I believe that was provided to council for the meeting last night and uh projects are moving forward and and wrapping up and I think pleasantly enough 100 work and the 109 MBA projects are on schedule and should be wrapped up this year as they originally had stated. So, um you you might have said this last night, I may have missed it. Uh, when are they going to strike 100? Is that like last?

It's going to be last, but it's getting close. Um, they were saying they should have the the asphalt basically done here in the next week. Asphalt should be done, all asphalt, shoulders, entrances. Um, they were hoping this week I'll have a meeting with them in the morning to find out if that's still on schedule. But um I would imagine all the crossover work at pond and tea will be have to be completed and that striping should be the very last thing honestly.

Um and then they might have fixed it. I didn't notice this morning but I know the sign the flashing sign that was on 100 talking about the J turns was really aggressively flashing. like I'm not sure if they were doing that to try to let people know what was going on, but it was flashing to the point where I was like, what does it want me to do? I can mention it tomorrow. Um I didn't see I didn't pay attention this morning, but the other day I was like, that's that might be too fast. I do think some flashing is good. Are we planning on trying to do any kind of communication about what to do in a J turn? Yeah, people have no idea. It's pretty scary. It's kind of like the old jug hand on me. I was like, "Oh, man. What to do?"

It's like some of the people driving the roundabouts still. Well, yeah. And they they cut four lanes, you know, that they're trying to get over there. So, I'm just curious if they have a way that something we could start putting on the newsletter. Well, there's information and they've promoted it themselves to some degree. Um, if you Google it, you'll find there is videos out there on how to drive a J turn, that kind of thing. Shouldn't that be something we try to put in our newsletter? Maybe. I'm sure we could probably do um some effort towards that. Um Tom's gonna make a cool AI video all about it. Pretty sure we might have it on the website right here. Why not? Uh the J turn. Uh how to use a J turn. Tom will complete the video.

Just putting something out on social media about how to how to properly go through the Journ. Oh, Mod's got that uh that video that shows it really well. But that's I mean that actually could be something on AIS too. The main thing did you explain like that overall the conflict points do decrease. It's just it is one lane you do have to cross over but well I'm not saying like why we did it. I'm saying how do you use it because we have people that are swinging basically a sign that says use the J turn. Yeah. What do you do? It is new that okay I have no idea what it any any other project questions. Um did we know what they were doing on Clayton with all the fire hydrants open? American Water was up there. broken water line. Something crazy.

It was on next door this morning. So from West Clint all the way up into three and all of the top part of yours for water line. I saw them up there yesterday. They were working up front off. They had some big stuff up there tonight and so it's uh they had it all all the water was off. All right. I'm glad I missed that. Okay. Uh moving into some cool budget stuff, I'm sure. uh operating budget. What do you got, Rick? Well, I was going to figure that Thomas was going to handle that. All right, Tom. I mean, I'll let him add some notes on to I mean, really, it's again, same story. Uh there is,

you know, we had to make some cuts. Luckily,

there was a big when the the police were originally thinking they were going to be at the 5% that was adding 260 to the bottom line. uh there was some concern that we would have to uh move some things to road and bridge that we didn't want to and luckily with that cost reduction we were able to keep it within the operating uh where it should be. So maintaining maintains the integrity of the operating budget for public works. Um let me get this open. I have one open that said uh the only couple things I wanted to note was there was a decision to combine tree trimming and tree removal into one count. Um this is a a net increase for the year last year, but that said, we have seen I mean we have removed a lot of trees this year and quite frankly there I don't think there's enough put into the miscellaneous right of way because that usually serves as our buffer and as a contingency amount of the two tornadoes we've got hit with this year and having a pretty hectic snow uh snow just four different snow storms that required mobilization. We're It seems like these storms and I would like that's where I would like our director public to speak to a little bit. It does seem like these storm events and preparing for them. We have to pay for the amount of operating. Maybe that's maybe there's a lead for that later on with road and bridge. But I I the more we spend, say we were to utilize like road clearing for snow or utilize u tree removal on the ride ofway, it has to be a roadway cons roadway consideration. But if it's a tree that gets removed from the road, it's for operations. You can put that in road and bridge, but that's money being taken away from our roadway improvement program, which helps us keep up with our decaying infrastructure. I mean, it's you almost want to keep that. And we'll get to the road and bridge fund. It's relatively simple as we've had it in last previous years.

Sounds like it should be a different thing. Yeah. Well, road bridge you can. No, no. I'm saying the storm stuff should be

Yeah. That's That's right. So, I mean, you can include it if it is directly inhibiting the the roadway and it it's leading to you not being able to utilize the roadway. But that said, it's not great practice because we can have bigger snowstorm situations where you're having to do additional snow removal. You can have tornadoes where if that spikes, you're now cutting off. You're going to say, "Hey, we're not going to resurface this road any year." So, it's it is a little difficult to justify moving that, which that's why we didn't. And luckily, the police weren't uh they were able to come back down a little bit with us. That said, I mean, in the past, we have moved asphalt patching, crack and joint ceiling, permanent mark pavement marking, and guardrail installations down into the road and bridge fund. I don't remember exactly what year that was. It was prior to my time. about it was probably about seven years ago now. But we those used to be funded out of operating and because of the tightness of that operating budget chose to move them through bridge which effectively took money that we had been using in Robridge for capital type improvements or kind of routine maintenance now.

So that's Robin Robin Peter to pay Paul that's that's how it is and that's what we're trying to avoid in most instances where we can. And that that said though I mean I The one thing I do worry about u is snow removal just the costs that are associated with I worry about the like us getting hit with tornadoes again as we did because you don't really get to choose like hey you know let's let's maybe divvy up the contractor work when heart road is completely closed because it's covered in debris. Um you have to just get it done and we do do our right ofway maintenance contracts each year which gives us a a roster if you will but it doesn't seem like these storms are cooling down. Um, none of that got covered under any uh state.

We have we have applied for the second event. So, the first event, the March event was the bad that was the one that really hit us on the nose and I know you weren't affected by that one, but the the uh May one was technically eligible, but we have not received any funds as of yet. But you we still have that identified, right? Yes, we have submitted information to them. We've submitted all the paperwork necessary. That said, how much was it? $20,000. So, it's not anything too crazy comparatively to the March storm where we were not eligible for reimbursement from. So, I have a question. Where's your um snow removal in your budget? Get out of there. It's a zero. We're going to have snow. I know. Well, we had years that happened.

That is incorrect. Amy, do you have those printed out? It was 67 last zero last year. That That was an older version that I think was prior to Yes. being updated. Yeah. the one that was hand. Sorry. Can we look at the one that's handed out? I do apologize for that. That was We were going back and forth and then we got the notice that it was being Okay. I printed this off this afternoon. That's okay. That was before we I know. Well, and then you look down, we're down 600,000. That's the difference.

No, that's that is still the same. That said, the the most recent year is is included. Um, so I don't want to cut off any conversation or anything on this. I'm just wondering since we've kind of started this conversation on the other side of the on the other side of this is like I understand how we have set this up in the past, but you know, we're doing the robbing Peter to pay Paul thing, whatever. Can we just set it up the way that we it's supposed to be set up? Like not how we've always done it. Is there like a is there like an actual way that that this should be done? So we have like a storm fund so if we get a tornado or whatever that comes out of a different pot of money.

Well, it'd be it would be general fund rather. So it's going to be general you you can pay for that expense out of general fund. You can all the other funds come with strings attached. So road and bridge you can use for snow. you could use for a tree that's directly impacting the ability for someone to use the roadway. I think the state and the county would probably they might poke at you for that. So, you want to kind of stay away from that. But when it comes to like storm removal in general, that has to come from general fund revenue sources or it could come from, you know, if you do a wayfare legislation or if you do a utility tax, any adjustments to the gross utility tax, you could use that to go after, you could set up a storm fund dedicated with a new tax source. You wouldn't set the defined in the legislation. No, I just mean I mean

No, I I I think what you're saying is like if we budgeted this used to be a lot easier when our fiscal year was ended in June because you had the winner behind you. But in this particular case is if we spend $300,000 a year on that. Any excess over that shouldn't come out of you shouldn't have to rob other operating budgets. We should be able to go to the reserve and say the year that we only spent $100,000 that $200,000 had that same effect. So take what that average is and and you know that last 675 that would push that average up. But I would think the best way if I were managing the individual business I would go back and look at where my trend was and say on usual basis it's $350,000 a year and we've had that before where we didn't have to buy salt for a whole year. Then we had other ones where we couldn't get enough salt. So, I mean, but part of that is we keep letting it churn up our operating budgets instead of saying, "Okay, we can't control the weather, but this year, this was the effect that we had on those kind of funds." Now, I don't know from a treasur standpoint, but it just seems to me that it's silly that we keep screwing up with those exceptional things that we can't control that we keep going back in and say now we can't do anything else because we don't have the operating income where we have a reserve sitting there and that reserve is there because we didn't spend doing snow three years ago. You know what I mean? That excess money that that wasn't used was dumped back over into the reserve. So,

yeah. So, I'm just saying, is there a way is there a way to structure the account properly to do that? Not find a new source for the money. I I mean, that would be great, too. But, you know, I you know, as Ed said, there's plenty of I don't know that we're going to get another winter where we're not going to get any snow, but Well, but even if you look backwards, we might not get two tornadoes next year. Yeah. Where it was only 200,000, that's a lot less than the 600,000. So if we were that's why I was looking to say where's the 200,000 and there wasn't anything in my copy of the budget but that's where I think that we ought to be able to come back and say based on the trend it's got to go from 200,000 to 350 right

but that doesn't mean you need to go in and take 600,000 out just because we did it last year. That's where we're kind and we I'm more than happy to take that direction today. But that said I mean I know coming in and asking for just a budget completely in the red. I mean that's that's we can do that. I mean that's fine. It's just we need Tom. That's what we've been doing. We got now we got this gigantic reserve and we can't afford to pay for a lot. I mean for year and year and year we may have underspent our budgets and gone. I can assure you we've been

I can assure you at least my 29 years in this city that every year when we had an excess it went to that reserve. We started out with a million dollars and the county said you're never going to make it. just keep working at it and and now you look away. But I I just don't think we should sit here and be concerned about how cost-effective we were in the past and you know that 25% I put that in 20 years ago because they had a bridge go out on Kursz Mill and it was out for two years because the county had no money. We're never going to let that happen to us. So then we start putting the 25% reserve in even if we had 100% which I don't think we need to be that high. We I just think we need to spend the money and understand what's operating versus what's extraneous type things that pop up that we have no control over. You know, if a bridge goes out, we didn't plan for it to go out, right? But if we have to repair it and it's 800,000 or whatever, we need to have and say, "Well, that's an emergency reserve. We didn't think that was going to happen." I I just think that would be a much more palpable way to explain it. And and I believe me, I understand the charter about going in with a negative budget, but I don't think it needs to be a negative. It needs to be saying we're allocating our reserve funds for these situations

that are long-term investments that are not operating in a 12-month window, right? I And that's kind of what you were too. Is there a way to set it up where that is almost the bail the city out because that is over the amount that typically we'd spend. But that said, when you have, you know, an extra crazy snowstorm, it's able to act. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense in any realm that you would say, well, we we just react. We got to have We had two tornadoes last year, so we got to budget for two tornadoes this year. Like, that doesn't make sense. My house burned down last year. Probably going to happen again, you know? And it's newer now.

Well, that's the thing, too, with snow. I mean, that's that's an honest assessment is that some years we get a ton of snow, some years we don't get as much. I mean, we had years we didn't buy salt and other years where we were buying extra salt because we had the money and we went ahead and filled up all these different places. So, if the last three months fell in the middle of the winter, we'd have been really in good shape.

Yeah. So, I mean, like again, I I genuinely appreciate all of the effort that you guys are putting into this stuff, but I I'm telling the new I think that you keep doing this in like a very broken system that is penalizing everybody in the wrong direction. Most especially the people that work for the city that don't have any money for raises because we're budgeting for tornadoes that may or may not occur. We can make some changes. Uh, but that I mean it I I gotta go back and see if how to legally set that up.

Yeah, that's I would I what I would say is I would I would much rather be able to have that that argument amongst 16 people than whether or not we're going to put a sidewalk in my neighborhood because I want it. So in that case though for each year though are you saying we have the average trend line baseline amount to remove snow that is given but that does not define it because it's going you're you're practically saying I'm going to utilize reserve funds to cover snow expenditure moving forward and potentially rideway for tornadoes that those extreme weather conditions to clear the roads and make sure residents can use. So instead of so if we would have had 200,000 in budget last year and you ended up at 675 when you did your mid-year budget

we should have gone and said we need to make an adjustment take it out of the reserves put the money back in the operating expenses instead of cancelling everything else that you had put in a fiveyear plan or a three-year plan and I you guys did a good job because we didn't lose any of the federal matching funds but that we have that money sitting there and I'm telling you there's there's nothing there's not a reason in the world to sit there with that much money in reserve and and it's not your fault. we did it 20 years ago. you try to get people

the other side of that is there there isn't but also there are a lot of projects that many of us have said hey we can just spend a couple million dollars on this or a couple million dollars on that which is great but then our structure is not set up correctly so we don't actually have a 10 from 17 even if we said we have $9 million okay well now I get $3 million to go do my thing well just kidding because we got to actually spend an extra $500,000 a year on this that's that's how I we look at it we lose I lose a lot of sleepover that exactly

but what it really I think what I I mean and I don't know what the right amount of time is. I will leave that up to the experts but let's say it's a fiveyear span. So over five years we're averaging this amount of money for snow and then we have like a super bad snow event this year and we're like okay well then as we budget it incrementally moves up. It's not the you take it out of reserve and and you're not butchering your operating expenses every time.

Right. Well, that I think actually can be done. So, it's just more of an expectation up front from the council. Here's where that number comes from instead of us kind of spitballing. We are putting in an average even though that every dollar that goes into that snow that's over what the average may be, which I mean it might be it's probably going to be around 255 probably somewhat consistent. U that said, if you go, you know, if you actually try to budget for the 600, then there is no money. Well, exactly. I mean, that's the the issue is we do have money for those kind of situations that I think it's a whole lot easier to explain why we use the money from the reserve for those things that are one-time events and and how

somebody would do it screws up all of your budgeting and when you look at from year to year, it just doesn't make sense. But yeah, I mean, if your if your roof caves in with that is that almost like I I think we could definitely have it as an addendum know this is a forecast and almost define, you know, what that use is. It's an emergency situation that is dependent on not city decision but weather things that we are expected to do which is clear the road tornadoes snowtorms things that you you're not planning have control over those things. Yeah. Okay. That I mean we can definitely do. So it's not like well we didn't plan to cut the grass enough. That's not good. Yeah. After $600 in water bill I'm not mowing.

Yeah. Yeah, that that would be my suggest like I'm and we can talk through each part of this, but I I just think I think if you I know for myself that's how I operate money for the businesses that I operate and my house. And so when I come into this space, it's always really weird to me because I'm like, why are we doing this? Doesn't this is not how money works. I will say there's probably some goofy little rule that is attached to it, but I almost think using a forecast that's the I mean, what other way are you supposed to identify for snow removal specifically? You should be using trend line. I I think we could work around it and make it work.

That said, I mean, would that would it be acceptable then to go back? We can actually pull the trend line for five years. We'll throw that in there. Um, and then we'll also come back with almost like a statement that states these are five-year forecast numbers that said based off of the weather next year, the idea would be spend this amount that we've procured on the side, but anything over that is used by the reserves obviously being spent cautiously with, you know, team here behind it, but not necessarily hampering the rest of our our general fund.

Yeah, it should. Yeah. And it should I I mean I think you have a great I think you have a really good example year in this year where we have like crazy snowstorms and two tornadoes. And we're all going to hope that that's not how every year is. But it gives you a really good idea to go hey by the way if this happens every year

and that amount of excess what you could have used it for that's not going to cost more. I mean even it's like resurfacing it at anniversary park. It's $10,000 more this year than it was last year. So, that's the kind of stuff I'm saying is if you know what those things are and you can plan for them. I wouldn't I wouldn't take those big items. I mean, before we were happy to take those reserves and budget them and say, "Well, look at that. We put $300,000 in reserves only because we had a good year and every or we didn't do things that that we should have done." That's Yeah, I think it was probably more often than that.

Definitely. We'll incorporate, we'll have, you know, something that explains just that and it'll be really weather dependent on things that the city just has to do. I mean, it's not, we don't have a choice and that's where our emergency plan kicks in.

Well, the other issue, too, is if it is a disaster like that, then you have the opportunity for recovery, which we've had before with ice and snow and you would get a couple hundred thousand back once it got bad enough, but you got to be keeping track, as you guys do, all of those associated costs. Uh, and then you can recover that. And I mean I would think you could almost if it was necessary it would be pretty easy to put a provision in that just says we're going to this is the plan the city will present it to the city council to say hey we're initiating you sent out an email I need to initiate the emergency storm spending plan. Okay. In Rick's side, you get a pretty good forecast three months into the year as to, you know, where you think you're going to be because if you get early ones, uh, and

usually it's it's December is when we one or two will peep its ugly head. So, okay. So, then do with this new plan, do you guys want to go through go through each part of this? Do we have any questions on this? I mean, I think snow and then I mean, Rick, I'll let you speak to some of it, but I think I would like to with that all said, I'd almost like to go back and, you know, emergency rideway repairs. I mean, I'd like to track that for five years, too, and include that. I would apply that to like everything that makes sense along those lines just like

and when you play with that number then you could come up with what that percentage variance would be. Then in the future you would say that you know anything is 15% greater than what the actual cost is goes to the reserve or we adjust it and just put some simple rules in there that you everybody would understand. That's fine. I mean, there's some that are going to be tied directly to a like we know what it's going to be, but the ones that are based off maintenance, I think that's very fair. You're just stretchizing over there. Stretch. Yeah. I I I that's just that's just my two cents. I'd get everybody else to I just think that we fooled ourselves by That's a good plan. Cutting all the money out of the operating expenses because we had a bad snow. Yes. I I don't disagree. Yeah.

All right. Well, then do you need a a motion? Yes. Could you uh the motion could be to proceed with getting this to the work session for council. That said, with the understanding that we're going to go back in and put together these kind of rules of engagement for emergency funds and then also um the item that we're just reviewing the stuff that's associated with weather. Got it. That makes sense. Oh, well Amy, we're going to do a motion to move this section of the budget along to the work session with the caveat that they're going to go through uh the weather the contingency weather plans that we were discussing

this whole section this whole public works. I I just wanted to make sure that I had I would say that they're going to identify those line items that would fluctuate based on extreme weather bridge comes down or whatever. That's that way it's not part of the operating plan on a budget. I mean you still budget but you budget for what the trend was right and and we live within that and then when it goes over that you don't butcher the rest of the budgets. All right. You're happy to make that? I'd make that motion. It's a very realistic plan. Tracy is going to second it. Uh, any conversation? All right. All those in favor, please say I. I.

I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? All right. Motion passes. Look at that. That was so much easier than I thought it was going to be. Um, imagine much easier it'll be in the future.

So much better. Uh, that brings us to the road and bridge front. Um, no, the uh road and bridge. I mean, I'll let Rick speak to this a little bit further, but overall, I mean, this one is pretty easy to to plan out a little bit because we have revenue stagnant. It's coming from two different sources. Uh, one is an assessed property tax that's not ours, but St. Louis County disperses a piece of it to us. And then the other is from the motor fuel tax that was passed not too long ago by MDOT which is allowing them to do the projects you see around town. Uh that said uh for 2026 I mean it's going to be inclusive of a 2026 a annual streets slab replacement project. Um I know some areas in town center were identified for replacement. I don't know if it's I think it is actually asphalt being changed over in some of these spots but I mean Rick do you have any ideas on what the breakout is where we're going? from Dakota, but

well, so I can provide you the little bit of knowledge I have so far, but um we've got about um guess 600,000 in the budget for asphalt resurfacing. Considering maybe trying to wrap up a little more of the streets around some town center, maybe even look at redoing resurfacing main street, some of the town center streets since we did um Taylor and did Manchester last year. So that would be consistent with some of the work right around here. And then also doing Ria Road is one we've had on our list for for several years now. We've not quite gotten to it, but Ria Road west of Pond Road. Um that with potentially the roads right around town center would part of the resurfacing for the 600,000 that we have budgeted. We got 1.3 again for Acre Street replacement project. Um nice we had more money there. Frankly, I think there could be an argument made we could spend those are a couple hundred thousand dollars pretty easily on streets on concrete streets if we had it. So that'd be a thing where if we were going to pull money out of the reserves, I would put it on concrete streets potentially. Um the rest of the items that we have are generally um I guess reasonably well funded. um there's no growth there, but um in the short term, I I think we're probably fine, but yeah, it's not a sustainable situation over the long term perhaps, and that's probably the bigger concern, frankly.

Did you say Main Street, you can resurface it potentially? Yeah. Why don't you wait till the apartments are all done? Well, then that that's certainly a valid point. Um we kind of mentioned that as well, so we'll kick that around. I mean, I know we could charge them for, but it just kind of seems silly. If they're going to be doing construction for a year and a half, they're going to tear up new pavement as well as they'll tear up old pavement and concrete. Anybody else?

Um, extension too. Can I don't know I don't know who's supposed to do it but like so 100 got redone but all the kind of like on and off lanes not they look terrible pretty bad. Is that a mod? I don't Is that supposed to be a mod thing? So, um I I mean I know they stopped that project sooner than we were anticipating in terms of distance, but you know, I think I think certainly for those residents that are kind of along those entryways, like we need to explain why that is. It's the same thing we had with the storm when they just forgot to plow that part of the road or their own road for a lot of it. But, you know, I I think like that's kind of one of those communication things where I'd love if we could do it. I'd love if they would have done it correctly in my opinion, but whatever. But I mean, I don't I mean, it's not slated to get done anytime soon. So I mean is there is there some kind of a method that we can come up with that ex that we can start harping on these guys to say this is below you know this is reached a point because I mean that like you know even the turn lanes on West Glenn Farms they seemingly filled one crack with asphalt and then left everything else which seemed like a it was certainly a choice.

You're not wrong. We had and I we got this up. We kicked this can tried to anyways get it up to the all the way to our our district engineer responded officially and I mean they're I don't think they're going to be doing anything unless we decide to throw some money at it or we want to wait till that other project is going to connect. They're planning.

Yeah. But they're not going to go back and do like forest leaf stuff. So I mean those things are What is it? Forest Leaf and White Leaf I guess is or Taylor I guess is relatively okay over there. But you know Westland Farms and Old Manchester going up the other way and like all the roads going out west are just like rot assuming for the next ever. I would guess

it's hit and miss. I think some of them they did get frankly and then some of them like Linda Jane I think we brought that much of their attention and they agreed to do it. Now West Farms we pushed hard at Westland Farms and we didn't get them to budge. Now their reaction was we'll be back now and wait for 2016 right clearly they're going to do something on pond because they've taken all that down yeah ground out or whatever there's a little bit to be done with the J term project there but um leaf

no they had they didn't touch forestly so it might be worth like I don't know I I'm not sure how much money it's is appropriate for us to expend because we're trying to dial back on doing those kinds of things. But I do think it might be worthwhile for certain projects like that to be able to say, "Hey, you know, city invested $2 million. MDOT did this, but there's still whatever it is left out there." And so, you know, it allows our residents to understand what's what's going on because my the conversations I have with people is they just assume that's all us not doing our job.

And certainly, well, if if there's issues on Forest Leaf Parkway at 100 and we choose to take them on, we can do that. They'll generally let us do that, right? Um it's not an issue. It's just that if we can get them to do it, all the better. Um, so we we certainly have that option and we can get that addressed.

I I'm just wondering like, you know, because we've run into this a couple times and I don't know I don't think that we have it's a little bit off the budget conversation, but I don't know that we have a policy that says like we know MDOT is not extending out beyond these curbs, but this 30 ft, which is technically theirs, they're not going to do anything with. And so we either need to start figuring out at some point how we're going to do that or we just let it crumble into gravel and then I guess enough people complain to MDOT and they might come out and do something. Um I I just think you know I just know people don't understand like you know how far up the road is MDOT and how far down you know this side is this other thing. We spent all the money to do Old Manchester and put in all the lights and all the stuff and then there's, you know, 15 feet of road that isn't touched. It's doesn't make sense. And I'm not saying we did anything wrong. I'm just saying we

we should have a policy that says like, you know, they're not going to we know they're not going to do this. Well, we we certainly have taken that approach plenty of times in the past. And I tend to feel like the attitude is when it makes sense and we know they're not going to do it, just do it. Because again, as you mentioned, public doesn't understand it, right? They just look for government to take care of it. So you're kind of reinforcing my mindset a lot of times that we just are better off doing it. So assuming we're not getting carried away in what we're spending money on, right,

within within reason, it it probably is a good a good use of money. But I mean like I you may not be able to know this off the top of your head, but like you know that forest leaf thing is not large. I I don't I mean signs down again.

Yeah. But I mean like how I mean is that a is that a $500,000 project? Is that a $70,000 project to just resurface the area so that it is sensible? Oh, I would think you're talking thousands of dollars, you know, maybe $10,000. You're not talking half a million or anything of that nature. Um, and it's hard for me to second guess exactly what their mindset was. I think at Taylor Road, they were trying to reduce their need to rebuild the islands and all the pedestrian accommodations. So what they get into is if they they just strictly overlay the road, right?

Then they've got to raise up all the pedestrian islands and all the sidewalks have to come up and that's typically what they're going to do. And that's what they did in most places on 100. But back in Taylor, they actually milled down and they they match the existing pavement kind of to avoid that. So it it it reduced cost and simplified the project from their perspective. I'm sure they felt that Taylor was new and didn't really require any attention. Forest Leaf, not so much. Westland, I'm sure they figured we'll be back. We'll just do it later. Well, doesn't match up whatever. It doesn't really match up with what we're what our goals are when we're out there doing that.

I mean, I'm excited that they talked about rebuilding that entire intersection because it's bad, but I'm not excited that it's going to take 35 years to do it. And I hope it certainly does take that horse. Yeah, I probably won't be alive. Hope it's not that long either, but um All right. All right. So, we could try to I mean, the thing is they are I mean they they mean how often do they tell you they they're not the best at telling us exactly where the lines are either. It's it's somewhat they've got their mission and it's been difficult with mod. They they've just had so much work on their plate and I think they've been focused on getting it out the door.

They're doing the big I get it. They're doing the big projects. I understand. I think every other city in St. Louis would tell you they're not getting a lot of good communication out of MOD right now. Yeah. And it is what it is. Um I suspect it'll get a little better as they get over this first hurdle of getting all the work out the door that they've been struggling with. That's not, you know, well, I mean, maybe we can just say, "Hey, when you guys can get around to communicating with us, if you could give us a heads up on when you think you might be back to repave the 15t of all these side streets, we'd sure like to know." and then we can adjust accordingly because my assumption is they're not coming back plan.

Yeah. No way, man. They're they're they're heading down to 141. Okay, back to the budget. You guys need uh Oh, the only thing on road bridge 2 and I know that they have the appeal and progress too, but we do not have plans currently for 2026, my understanding very late. Um that said, if the council were to want to include a project to open that barrier in 26, it would most likely be it'll probably recommend it be budget under just bringing that up. Okay. Good. Yes. Put it in there. We could we could pay for it out there.

It's a road. Can we build a bridge? Just kidding. They do have a bridge down here. Don't mention that. Um Okay. Jill. Yes, sir. I heard turnberry place. I heard 26. I heard let's go ahead and do it. Did I hear all that right? Yes. Okay. What happened to the next time we repave the entire stretch? I was saying we're not doing work there. We don't have planned work there in 26, but I'm saying if the council committee would like to do it, that's their option. It's not currently it can be absorbed in the the road and bridge fund for 26. Oh, I think I did hear it. Um, we're going to let it go ahead. It's not a 26 budgeted.

I I think there was an indication from some that they to to so so there's a couple things that are happening all at once. they have they have their appeal process that's going on and that plays out however that plays out we would but because we don't have a project for whatever it is two three years or something like that we would put the we put it in the budget now because we have the number we have the estimates and things to do it now so technically it would be budgeted in there assuming everything stays the way that it is we would handle that project at some point but it is whatever whatever we call it programmed, right? Or you have something in the neighborhood. Yeah.

Concrete in Ward 4. Yeah. But as an example, it's not in the road and judges thing, but we've had a sidewalk scheduled to go in there for the entire time I've been on the city council one. The lawsuit longer than correct. Okay. I'm not getting it. It's late. My bedtime. Sure. But I'm not getting it. Wait, I I actually am kind of lost. is the No, I mean we're going to budget and put it in there. The process still all plays out. Okay. Process still plays out, but we are like I my understanding was go ahead and throw it in. Okay. Yeah, we're going to budget it. That doesn't I mean why is this to scare the residents and tell them it's not an if thing. It's a when thing

why we go if it's not an if thing now it's a when thing. It's a when thing but they think it's an if thing. That's fine. Yeah. that they will think that right up. The only way to really tell them it's a when thing, not an if thing, is we have budgeted. It's it could it could come tomorrow. That would be the only reason I'd see to go ahead and put funds in it when we know we're not going to worry about it for 26 and probably even 27. Well, purpose of committing funds to it because we we if we commit the funds now that we have the budget and everything, I mean the estimates and everything, if the appeals process plays out and doesn't go anywhere, then we do open that thing up because

we're it it avoids this thing that we do a lot, which is like, well, we'll just, you know, it'll be down the road somewhere. It's available. there's a slot that's available in the budget and so we can slot it in.

We'd be $33,000 less in the bad red uh if we don't bother with sticking that $33,000 project in there for 26. I don't not seeing any any communicated or actual or fiscal or budgetary advantage to keying that $33,000 in for that project. From a safety standpoint, Board of Public Safety decided that those roads were not to be blocked. Public streets weren't to be blocked. So, in that particular case, out of the 18 other ones we have, that's the only public street that should never have been blocked. Understood.

And now, in order to correct that problem is it needs to be done when it's cost effective for us to now. I I get to $33,000, whatever. But the idea of laying out those projects is they'll be there somewhere where they'll have the equipment in there to tear up the concrete and put the new concrete in. When that happens, then that's when it should be done. It it shouldn't be a separate project to just go do that. That would cost you 60,000 by the time you get all but if if they're doing something over in Clayton Woods or those places, any street repair, then the equipment will already be there. So the plan is not as I thought it was to always wait until we redid the concrete along that entire stretch of structure.

Oh, you'll never do that. That we we wouldn't do all of that. It's not it's that part of structure already got just got done. Turnberry is concrete. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Concrete. So you're saying the Turnberry Place Drive is concrete, but all of the pavement along Streer in front of it is all asphalt. Correct. We just did. Yeah. Streker and that all just got re the past part just got I kept hearing well when we do the next concrete work in streer we'll include that yeah the idea was when we would be doing a lot of and like the idea was and I at least from the motion was when we would go into turnberry place for concrete street slab placement when we would just have a culmination of different work included under that portion

for turnberry place drive concrete. Yeah. Yeah. That's not Shrek. Not Striker. That was the original project. No, Shreker's done. Yeah, Striker's done. This is just that intersection is nice, by the way. I think that's great. All the way up the chest. Okay. Okay. Good. You're welcome. Okay. Anything else, Tom? All right. Anybody care to make a motion on our road and bridges budget? Ed, you're betting a thousand tonight. Yeah, I can make the motion. You just should get somebody different occasionally. Tracy, you'll make it. I'll second it. There we go. Ed'll second it. Okay.

Uh, all those in favor of moving our road and bridges uh with our subtle adjustments there that Thomas has forward, please say I. I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Look at us. We're just sailing three. capital improvement budget. This is going to be Tom's favorite one.

Yeah. Um thank you Mr. Farmer. Uh so we have been working on our priority matrix to kind of go through these and at the last meeting for 2026 we had outlined you know for tier ones, tier 2s, tier threes. U that said Mr. Farmer had a good question at the last meeting to say hey these scores what's like the total amount of score that you can you can achieve? What are the what are the what count constitutes a tier one? What constitutes a tier two? Uh well, there's two qualifying factors. A tier one is usually getting over 51% of the total score, the total points available if you run through the entirety of the matrix. But the other side is it of it is how much money does the city have in revenue coming in that year and what is that set against uh the grant revenue that we would have put to the side. So that said, uh this upcoming year, originally we had bouquet road culberts. I mean there are some removals here uh from the capital improvement sales tax fund because we were quite frankly spending too much on capital projects over the course of the five years. There was a projection to go to completely drain the not the full reserves of the general fund but to tank our capital improvement sales tax fund reserve. So the department has gone in and and stripped projects out. Um I will read through these but that said what we'll be doing and we had the unfunded needs list added for 2026. The idea is if there's any project listed on the unfunded needs list that I mean we can talk about all of them each individually too but if there are any projects on the unfunded needs list the council or committee would like to add back into that fiscal year's budget um for capital then we can have the discussion here and then bring that project almost back to life with a vote. Uh that said it was programmed too. So it's more so just making sure that there's still that re-engagement um after going through the

matricy and ensuring that each project is still top of mind for the current council. So that said, uh I'll just go through these. I mean there's a couple updates. One that we do have uh we did just get confirmation that uh AT&T has been provisionally awarded the majority of the houses under the BE program for uh and it seems like they are I just had a discussion with AT&T they will be negotiate including your house. Um yeah so not not confirmed just yet but it does seem if you go to the broadband website a lot of those houses have provisionally awarded listed on them. Uh, from what I understand, it is contingent on signing a contract, but they have been awarded over 400 homes in Wildwood, which would leave about uh a little less than 50 houses uh in Wildwood, but we need to let AT&T get the word, I would say, done because if we're going to go in and spend all this money, u we might be double dipping, if you will, where the federal government is about to pay for it. Uh that said, we're working to consolidate that entire AT&T list. They have been pretty close-lipped about it. We have to go individually to each address and see if it has that s insignia. Your application area did, Mr. Bry. The whole Orville area did. Um, happy to see that. That said, uh, we may be able to along with the satellite rebate program kind of doing a dual combination here of maybe we even extend that out. We have seven applications as to date. We've approved seven applications uh, for the rebate program. And then we will also uh we got bead programming provisionally awarded and I think there I think it's moving in the right direction. So right now I think if anything we let AT&T come in complete their work and if there are still houses that you know once the dust settles we identify as in need then that could be carved out as a smaller project. And quite frankly there might be the way I'm seeing it is probably one

or two houses spread out in the western portions of Wildwood from the maps. But good news. How about that? I'll go for it. All right. So, that said, the idea is to Oh, sorry. Sorry. Hey, just one type. Well, not typo, but I think it was duplicated under park development 40-480-75. The old state shared use path. It says connecting the villages of Bright Leaf and the Green Park mines under the description what you got over there.

And then the next I just think it's the wrong description under 75. Oh, sorry about that. I was Oh, what the Oh. That's typo. Yeah. No, I just wrong description because it's because you got um that is a typo. The description. That description is off. Right. Right.

That the page number on that. So, is it on the matrix? No, it's not on the matrix. It's on the actual There's a whole another section that's called the project description. It's just a description. Yeah, but the dollar amount everything is still Yeah, dollar amounts, right? It was just I think it was probably a copying error. Copying it over from a different spreadsheet

because you got them next to each other. Green pines and village green and just I mean old state it's just a copied wrong. Same thing instead of specific for old state. Okay, we'll uh review that. The numbers are not incorrect from what I'm seeing and my understanding state. Well, we'll talk about that here in a second, but that's all go. Um, okay. We'll make a note of that and make we'll make updates to the description page. All right.

Um, back to unfunded needs and we wanted to go through these real quick. Uh, Bouquet Road was it did score highly on the matrix. That said, um it needs to be done and I think the Department of Public Works will convey that as well. That said, it is $825,000 to replace two culverts and uh when looking at the projects we had available in the in the fund practically, it it would be difficult to do with uh while keeping things well quite frankly while keeping the team engaged here. I mean, we got quite a few projects actually going out the door next year uh and planning efforts still proceeding for both bridge projects. Um that said, this project is not going to be one that seems like it would be a great fally funded project. I think this is one the city is going to have to just do at some point. um it has been pushed back till 2029 at right now, but if in a future year where some money is freed up, the idea was to balance this budget for the fiveyear and then if needed the the council can have some flexibility instead of being able to say there's no money set aside whatsoever and we are locked in for five full years and quite frankly in 2028 we have a million dollars just for the building alone. So there was trying to find that room because we need this this next year we have 300,000 set aside for the building to design and engineer a potential improvement, make some other improvements uh both to the IT infrastructure we have but also take on the the bigger issue in the design phase and then execute u that entirety and then we can talk about that further at an ad hoc building committee how we want to separate that 300. But the idea is we're we're looking at when the projects are being dispersed uh and when they're hitting it just that's when money becomes available to actually do a project. It's almost we don't want to

those are the kind of projects that we need to pull out of this and have those as separate items because three years from now that million would be a million five or or whatever you think it is. I think those are the kind of exceptional things that we proudly sat there with all this money that we never spent when we should have been spending it to do that. So I I just as a suggestion, anything like that where you're pushing it out that far because you don't have the money, it's not going to get any better. And if we need to pull the money out of the reserve now, I I don't think anybody here would argue with you that we have a real problem with a 10-year-old building and it's only going to continue getting worse. So, if that's going to be a half a million or if it's going to be another 250,000, we got to do something.

Yeah, we've got stuff here that um just needs to be repaired. Um I don't think it's a big choice, you know.

No, I would also suggest I I've had I haven't had this conversation fully with director yet, so I'm this is just my opinion. I haven't talked to him about it, but even when it comes to like the the 500,000 for the watershed thing, in my mind and the conversation we've sort of had at Watershed, we think we have a pretty good plan in terms of, you know, doing these retention detention basins, which is like a, you know, two million bucks and something to do several of these things. But then we have this $300,000 in theory that's supposed to be coming from MSD. So, I'm not, you know, like I I want to get some of these projects done, but the like the projects that we're describing in here for the half million dollars, MSD is already doing two of them. We don't have anything to do with them. So, like they're fixing those without

basins in of themselves, weren't those? I mean, those are not not the basins. the um this is the big docu um like the wild the uh the thing off wild horse and so I'm just saying along the lines with like what Ed's talking about like I yeah so several major projects are designed and planned for construction including basin retrofits and cross [ __ ] creek repairs that is some cockrete [ __ ] Creek repairs at Evergreen Forest and Highlands description. Yeah, that's just in the description part. So, like that may be a pre Sorry, that might actually be a previous description.

Yeah, that's okay. I don't know why that that's also outdated from what I had written. I'm just saying this might be one of those like once we know when that money is coming in that's $300,000. The retrofits, depending on how we do it, I will probably wind up being like $2 million I would guess. And that's one of those things where like it's $2 million today if we

three million in two years or yeah or sooner. So that might be one of those things where you know the reserves can come into play where we fix that. that is our kind of this is how this works and then you know we use that $300,000 to apply that into other places and do some of these other fixes that we need to do because I mean I I might also suggest and I could be looking at this the wrong way but this you know these culverts on Bokeh Road that sounds like a watershed issue. I mean, if they don't work, then it's going to flood the road, you know? That is an issue.

So, I I just think like, you know, to me, that's one of those things where, you know, I don't think that that MSD money will apply out there because that's I think only supposed to be used, you know, within their purview. So, we just need to balance out how we work all that stuff. I don't want you to like blow this thing up or anything. I'm just saying that's a that's a pretty good chunk of money. It is. Uh, and I mean right now we can't budget for that 300k. We know it could be coming, but until we get confirmation, that would be something in mid year if we had that all lined up, we would include it. Um, that said, when I'm looking at

the one thing I wanted to just point out is last year when we had these projects budgeted, I know we we just were overprogrammed. And maybe there's a difference between not even just tearing them out, but identifying which ones have certain emergency characteristics. If it's like maintenance versus aesthetically changing something like that, I think there's a big difference between the two. Yes, totally. And and if that is agreeable to the full council, uh that only does that that can simplify. We can still do the matrix to have the background data, but that said, that's black and white. It really is.

I I I just think I mean we have lots of beautiful stuff in our city. It's all great, but like you can't have crumbling box culverts and super nice landscaping in the middle of roads. Doesn't make any sense. Yes. And that's what I mean scores that the scores take that into account, but it is it it is a concern. I mean that's the thing. I mean, if that was fixing, it's the same thing with city hall. Like, you can't It's like I would, for instance, I would love to get new AV stuff in the council chambers because I think that stuff's really bad. But, you know, the whole building is caving in. So, the other other three because that one's not working.

Yeah. But like it doesn't matter if the building is in a hole in the ground. So, we should probably fix that first. But you're not going to put that on me. Meaning like I asked with the new AV stuff. Yeah. I may sweat a while. I'd love to. You don't use it, Bob. Yeah. Mostly if the microphone I want it automatic. Avery, if it's automatic, that means they're going to catch. So I don't I don't know if that confuses this or or helps

it. It somewhat confuses because we want the whole idea here was to balance this thing. And I get the operating we want to proceed and have the emergency definitions very firmly and I would almost say tightly confined. You don't want to let that loose because you really shouldn't be as a practice just digging into the reserves for this. So I agree and I think everyone agrees here but I don't think you will. Yeah I Yeah. That said, for the capital project side, I mean like I think there's almost like a you assign it a one or a two and two is discretionary, one is you're maintaining like we did the scoring thing on those bridges. Did we score this? Have we scored this bridge too? The bouquet the bouquet culver was scored. It was the highest tier two that existed. How many tiers are there?

But it had the highest tier two. So it was almost a tier three. It was almost tier one. Almost a tier one. Okay. Very highly rated. How many tier ones we got? Uh how many millions? Well, right now we have a balanced budget in the capital improvement sales tax funds which is the first time in a long time for capital. That said, uh we've got one and there's difference between design, construction, and rightway acquisition here. But you've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 different items. But some are actual construction like the village green. I might have misunderstood this. So we have we have 1.3 million for internet access.

No, that got removed. That's an unfunded. Let me see what you That is unfunded. Okay, great. Perfect. That list is showing what was and what was it removed and the reason why. Got it. For fiscal year 2026. I just I mean like to me I think as an example if this bouquet road thing was a was a tier one is there like can't be punted. Okay. Yeah. very close to being Kier. That's fine. But it's not. This is the one that's on. You know what I'm saying? I get you. I get you. That said, I mean, I think Yeah. And I'll let I think the director of public works, would you say that that needs to be done it?

Well, I mean, it's point if if it's like, well, we're not going to do it this year, but we're going to do it next year and it's going to cost a million two, then we need to have that, you know, that's something we got to figure out.

Well, everything goes up in cost generally speaking. That's that's the rule. But um we're going to reinspect those structures here this winter time. So we'll know again what what the recommendation is. But u hopefully the condition hasn't degraded significantly and we can make an assessment that we're still able to use it in place for the foreseeable future. But if again the prior inspection reports recommended that we look at removing and placing. So that's kind of vibrant. And if it deteriorated to a a more like a crazy extent this year, then that would actually push it. That would be enough to push it into 2017. Weight limits on that.

It's we have weight limits on quite a few of our posted though. I mean, they're posted. They would if they're out there, they should be posting. Fine.

Okay. Uh, I mean, other than that, I mean, if anybody has any qu I can go through these, too. But most of the ones that were removed, it was either like crosswalk improvements. We had that one on Dartmouth Crest, but St. Louis County has taken it over. Um, we were wanting to incorporate one of those in the future. Main thing is probably repairing some of the ones we have if we're making new ones. Um the Shreker Road sidewalk was removed based on the fact that that we're currently dealing with some litigation. We can't get the Yeah, we can't do it until that's solved. Um two big ones that I did want to bring up, Ethereon Road and Center Avenue. Those two are important to bring up. They're not necessarily gone. But the one thing about Center Avenue, and I I will want to defer a little bit to the city engineer about the plan sheet, but as it's currently put out in the plan sheet, we just resurfaced it. It's not saying that perfect fix because if we were adding sidewalks on both sides or we were adding sidewalks on one side, that would be great. Right now, there is no sidewalks being planned in the plan sheet because um no one will give us the rightway to do it. That said, what you're going to be paying for to do this project, which most likely is increased in cost, I would have to say, is we're going to be paying now because AT&T and Spectrum both are over there, too. So, now we're going to be paying to move their lines, uh, which was an unincurred cost prior to the state legislation change. And you're not actually adding sidewalks. You're going to be adding some herbs and having some storm water improvements, I guess, added, which is good. I mean, those are beneficial, but you're not actually cleaning up the streetscape. We can add it back in, but it is a pretty high expenditure when we just resurf.

When they say they're not going to give you the sidewalk space, I wouldn't I wouldn't worry about it. That's where I mean, unfortunately, that's where we're at. It it was a pain just to get the people to sign up to get over with the idea that, hey, we're going to go ahead. The good news is you got the subdivision Ashley Grove going in that's going to be in making improvements to that frontage. Um it's that sidewalk's going to be a perfect place to just either extend it, but the only way it makes sense is where it's currently at where it ends. We're almost going to have to have it cross the street. And those people still haven't signed off on it, but you can't have a sidewalk forced to cross the street, which is,

you know, and you're going to get less cooperation after the Ashley Grove Street didn't go through. Uh Mr. Bossworth is, you know, telling people not to sell to the city for those improvements. So why why spend any more money on that right now? I would say.

Yep. I think that's and that's where unfortunately that's where it's at. I know it's something I mean quite frankly if the residents were to come over here and say, "Hey, we're ready to we're ready to play ball. We can put a sidewalk in." I think that I think the council would also be willing to have that conversation. We've done a lot of engineering to to put it in a good spot, but the right of way doesn't make sense if they don't if we don't get cooperation and you can't force a sidewalk in someone's front. You can Okay, the other one was Ethet Road, but the idea and I guess this ties in with Main Street. Right now, we have the villas at N38 back in front of us. U Main Street is still included as an item. That said, it's more so to have monies available if that goes through so we can receive. we have design uh ready to go or honestly ready to start proceeding into the rightways section of it. But I think we need to first and foremost solve the N38 issue as a whole. Uh get affirmation on what is going to happen with that property because um one way or the other you've got to you you need the 37 feet from that individual and you're going to need 10 to 15 feet from the folks on the north end. U the same could be said for Etheertton. got se 17 easements at least that I count counted that you're going to need access to. So, it's going to be an intensive project. Um, I think improvements are necessary to that very much, but I also think we need to kind of pair it together because you're going to have to redesign that that intersection with Main Street. You're going to do the work and then you're going to connect the dead end at the same time. So it's almost just looking at it more naturally of once we get Main Street done throwing Etherton improvements in at the same time and doing it almost as one collective project. Just wanted to point out those two since they are breathing back on or we already have the right place.

We don't have I I think I think gets developed as additional housing units go in there. You know, they'll be like Main Street. You know, right now, you know, you got the three, what's that called? Etherton Heights. Yeah, there's three three. So, that street will look nice there. And I think it'll continue as development occurs. You know,

that is kind of the thought process, too, because it it's just it's when you get that many folks involved in the especially with the easements, we would that would be necessary. It's going to be a I mean it could take two years just to get the right ofway itself. U that said I mean we're in a good spot you know I think tying that in with you know if we're going to do Main Street extension selling that as or maybe you you connect Main Street then you use that momentum people are when Main Street gets done someone's going to and developers going to come in and try to develop up and down etherton but also on north side of Main Street as well. Isn't there a path in the plans on Edington?

We when the plan that we had developed, we showed a trail on the east side and a sidewalk on the west. Yeah, it's going to be hard to get it, but Okay. No, no problem. All right. Anything else on on the capital improvement? Those are the two big ones for next year. But other than that, obviously the council this feel free to review the unfunded needs piece. But if there are any questions or if there's one that you want to bring back or take some more time, we can talk about it session. Main thing was we were trying to get use the priority matrix but get that capital budget to a point where it's sustainable. Yes, that is a

All right. Well, you guys did a you did a that was a lot of work and a lot of hard choices. So, I appreciate it. Um, anybody care to make a motion to approve it? I'll change. Make it. Anybody care to second? Mr. Mabel second it. Uh, all those in favor of moving forward the capital improvement budget, please say I. I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Uh, public roads right away and park maintenance. It's all right. I'll take this one. You been talking got to rest my my lyrics.

Um, council members, uh, typically every year this time when I bring these bids to you, uh, as you know, we will hire any number of contractors to help us do our routine maintenance through the course of the year. we split the bid out and usually September and open bids this time of year as we did earlier this month. So um tonight essentially we are recommending moving forward city contractor agreements with 19 firms 19 contractors to provide services to the city um next year under our rightway maintenance um and parks contracts. Um, there's a lot of information that I provide to you. I I recognize this every year. We ask for bids from these contractors for pretty much everything that we do, whether that's no removal, just general equipment um that they might need to provide uh or just crack sealing um concrete street replacement, sidewalk replacement, mowing, um you name it. So we we collect rates from all these contractors and then uh based on the ones that um have performed we will allocate contract amounts to them um in accordance with our budgets that we determine here basically tonight going forward. So tonight we are asking to move forward with city contractor agreements with 19 contractors to provide services to the city next year. These would all be effective January 1st. So if the recommendations is approved tonight, it'll go to council for first reading in November and second reading in December and effective January 1st. I would say that 17 of these are contractors that we have worked with previously. Um so not a lot of changes. Uh we did have basically two new contractors this year that we've

really not worked with before. Uh ZM Terrell and then CFCX. So, um, we're recommending fairly modest contracts with both of those two, maybe just to see what they can do and get more, um, familiar with their capabilities and what what they're good at. Um, and then finally, I was going to mention that we did actually have seven of our contractors held their pricing from 2025. So, we don't have any increases for seven of the existing contractors that we're working with. So, with that, I'll up and address any questions that you may have. I can add one quick note that we do have uh rates included for mowing. That said, we will be coming back with a specified mowing bid for a ride ofway, trails, and parks. So, that we want to have something as baseline for emergency mowing or things like that where we get a call that's outside the standard, but truly we're wanting to have a flat rate for the year and have people bid on that because we have broken down the parcels that we cut down to a square foot. So, that will be coming. Usually we do that bid in January as we gear up for spring cuts

that'll be coming out as will a bid and I meant to mention it too. So we have a separate bid for landscape maintenance and actually maintenance of stormwater VMP. So that with the mowing bid those will be coming out a little bit later in the wintertime and those would be effective at least we plan to have them effective April 1. All right. Any questions or concerns? Anybody care to make a motion to approve our list of vendors? Made by Miss Seconded by Mr. Mabry. All those in favor, please say I. I.

I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Uh, contractor bids for Old State shared Old State Road shared use path. Good news. I was going to suggest if it's all right we take these last two together if you'd like. I would think I think that we do the m the last three together include a German in that third one. Oh yes.

Well that was the two one that furniture the old state road share newspap project. We did open bids and had some good news. Um well, we had some good news in that we opened bids for that project and they did come on under under budget which is not one we've been seeing a lot of recently but um so that was the good news. The low bidder was Till Construction which again was a real positive at least from our perspective. Till is one is our main maintenance contractor. They great working relationship with us. They do good work. Um, we had four bids come in. Kelp actually put in the second low bid. Um, and we had to deem their bid basically non-responsive because it was not very accurate unfortunately. But, um,

was there a reason after 30 years? He doesn't know how to do the bidding. There was a change in the quantities during the bidding process. They just didn't they didn't update that, right? That was the main reason. But there was some matter errors in it, too. Um, were they in our favor?

They were the second low. But anyway, we had four biders. Till was the lowest. Now, we got it there was a bit of a roller coaster ride with this one because as Tom was alluding to, we got a phone call or an email literally the next day after we opened the bids and with all the changes at the federal level, one of the things that apparently is going on at MDOT, we were notified by email is they are eliminating um DBE program, this disadvantaged business enterprise program that's been in place for decades. And u so they sent an email and notified us it's going away and the future contracts do not include any DBE requirements. Well, this one did. It had an 8% DBE goal. So we were notified that we would have to repin the project. Um and so we then immediately turned around and Tom was on the phone to MDOT and we actually got a favorable reconsideration of that requirement. So we can move forward and uh we can award the bid um based on this contract with the DB well with the idea that the DB goal will be zero. So assuming no one objects to that uh we should be able to move forward. So we got a win through MODOT which has not been something we've seen a lot of lately.

So that was a good thing.

So we get it. The uh recommendation for construction is to move forward with award of the low bid to T-hill construction to construct the project. Um the not to see not to exceed cost includes a 10% contingency for change orders field changes as may be necessary. That not to exceed amount would be 1 million22,475. And then the second part of it is to go through the process of constructing it uh to meet the federal requirements that are dictated with use of the federal funds. We need to do a separate contract for construction engineering. This is what we've done more recently on Manchester Taylor and also on 109BA because they are federally funded. But we'd like to move forward and we are recommending separate uh consultant services agreement with Cochran to do the construction engineering for the project um as a separate agreement. That's so that's part B. Cochran did the work for us on Manchester Taylor. They did a good job and they've been doing our construction inspection and material inspection work for our street projects for some years now. and they do do a good job and they're very cost-effective uh frequently when we compare them to other companies. So um that's the recommendation is to move forward with that agreement with Cochran to do the construction engineering and not to not to exceed on that one was $80,442. I did include a 10% contingency there as well for potential changes um if they are necessary during the contract to address field changes

which still keeps us under budget which still keeps us the budget amount for that project um which I think we are moving to 2026. Yep, that's correct. We expect the construction generally to occur next year. So with that, I'll wrap up. If there's any specific questions, I'll do my best. Any questions or concerns? I make that motion but did want to ask a question but not really about this about more about when all of our federal bids next year go through. We have the same deal now with ODOT cutting their ratio for disable.

No. So that's okay because I get what you're saying. The good news is that and whatever you think about the changes that are being made by the federal government, they have let us know the notification was any projects that come through here for concurrence in the future better not have DVE in it. And that was something that I think the federal government told them, hey, you've got to do this or you're not getting your funding. Correct. Luckily, MDOT gives us that DVE goal. So, anytime we go before we would go out to bid, they're just going to not assign a DV goal anymore. So, I don't think any of our projects are threatened. It's just more so what was the problem here was that we went out to bid, they told us to use a DB Eagle and then they turned around and said we're not going to accept projects with DB Eagles. So we don't have a glitch in our numbers for next year or the year after that.

No. As far as we knowed, in theory it might it's hard to know for sure. It really is because the DBED program if there there was a criticism is that it could have increased construction costs because you are limiting certain percentage of the work correct to minority firms frankly. So in theory it could be that we see costs come down but I don't know that you'll really see it significantly if that occurs should be. So I made the motion move forward with this in a second. Tracy will second it. Cliff, you get to second. Look at you. You've been here all night. You've done a great job. All right. Uh all those in favor of moving ahead on these two projects, uh please say I.

I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Okay, that passes. I believe that brings us to miscellaneous. Anybody have anything they want to add here after all this time? All right. Thank you, Mr. Marshall, for filling in for me while I was there at the games this evening. And thanks all you guys for sticking it out and doing all this hard work. It's good stuff. Uh with that, I will look for a motion to adjurnn. Yes, sir. I make that motion. Made by Mr. Seconded by Tracy. Tracy will do it. Excellent. Second by Tracy. Non-debatable. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. I. Opposed. Any abstensions? Excellent. We will see you guys next