Economic Development Committee - Regular Meeting

He does a lot of rehabs. Big head. Yeah. All right. Second chair adding in and he spends a lot of time with his hopper. That's a cop. It's important and I'm glad he realizes that. All right, chair. We are live on YouTube and we are now recording. All right. Very good. Well, welcome everybody to the meeting of the economic development committee for Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025, 5:30 p.m. here at city hall. Miss Lobec, would you please call roll? Council member Utenberg here. Council member Dowell here. Council member Galani here. Council member Hopper. Council member J. Council member Mabberry here. Council member McCutchen here. Council member Preston here. Very good. And we do have a quorum. So that's excellent. Uh moving along to approval of the minutes from the last meeting. Does anyone have any questions or comments regarding those minutes? Okay. Okay. In that case, I would entertain a motion for approval of the minutes made by Council Member Dodwell, seconded by Council Member McCutchen. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of approval of the minutes say I. I. Opposed? Extensions. All right. Minutes approved. Very good. Moving on to public comment. Do we have anyone um remote that wants to make public comment this time chair? We do not have any attendees in the attendee box. And Miss Becky, you mentioned you do not have any public comment that you wish to make. All right. Very good. Um Miss Lebec, did you

notice that u Mr. Hopper is with us? Okay. Very good. Thank you. Since the start. So, um, next we would typically move on to discussion items, but I don't see a good place to put it into the agenda. I'm going to exercise the chair's prerogative here and ask Mr. Lee to introduce our new communications and economic development manager. Thank you, chair. So, with me tonight, uh, introducing Paula Vassan, our new economic and communication manager. Um, I will let her introduce herself, but uh, Paula comes with a wealth of expertise, especially in the communications sphere. She knows quite a bit of the actors out here in Wildwood. Um, we think she's going to be a great fit. It's only been two weeks, but she's already making some pretty meaningful change. So, just from the department's perspective. Uh, very happy to have her on the team, and we look forward to seeing what she can do. Um, I will turn it over to you, Paula, to introduce yourself. Thank you. Yeah, my name is Paula Bassan. I am so happy to be here as the new communications and economic development manager. I started my career as a business and technology journalist and I can talk about investing and economics and the stock market and then I I switched to be a TV reporter and then an investigative reporter here in St. Louis at KSDK. So I'm happy to be here. I'm very invested in the community and you know I've spent my career really um devoted to community engagement and growth and really impact and that's what I plan to bring here. Super. And um you have a family, correct? I do. Yep. I have two young boys and uh we live in the area actually. So we came here for many reasons but we um being new to the area, not originally from St. Louis, we were drawn to the school district initially and just the beauty of the area. So, um yeah, I have uh two young boys. One is four and the other is one and a half.

So, they keep me busy. Yep. And since you're meeting some of us for the first time, why don't we just go around the table quick and um give brief introductions, what do we cover, you know, that sort of thing. Maybe a little bit about your background just briefly for Paul's benefit. Starting with Okay. God. I'm KG Godwell. Um I'm probably one of the people that's been on the council the longest. I They keep trying to get rid of me and they keep coming back. No. Um I um have lived out here in Wildwood for 32 years now. Moved out here so that I could be close to the wild side of St. Louis County and still have some of the convenience. Um, I'm very vested in um keeping our building codes where they're at so that we still have our green space, we still have our um activities that individuals can do that they can't get in the city, etc. But I'm also very dedicated to figuring out a way that we can bring in new businesses into the city of Wildwoods so that we can help support a tax base that um is needed to provide for our parks, our trails, our staff. We have a very lean staff here as you I'm sure have noticed um and they do a great job, but um we need to figure out how we can continue to support that. So those are my priorities. Bob Mabry up north and eastern side of the city close to Chester Field and uh I've lived out here 38 years built on some acorage back then and had the pleasure of seeing what became Wildwood in 10 years or so after I moved in. It's become exactly what my wife and I had dreamed for. It's uh it's the perfect

place to raise our family and we were drawn um you're not from here but from Bergs and Florison district we said where should we raise our kids and I'm about six eight years in where's the new parkway going to be and this tiny thing called Rockwood and that's where we are my first year serving on coming back home to uh deal with issues that think are important and I feel privileged to be contributing to trying to get them solved the way I'd like. Yeah, I'm Deborah Smith McCuten. Um I was watching the incorporation. So I moved here in 96 because I thought this was the place that I wanted to raise my kids and it was a good school district. Um I'm all about green space. My number one commitment is community service and and interacting with residents and advocating for residents. Um, both of my boys are grown. You have my sympathy. I have grandkids. They're very busy. Um, I was a parent's teachers coordinator before I retired for the Ferguson Florison School District. And, um, I've also worked in various kinds of government. I love the parents as teachers program talked about it today. Yes, we awesome. Such a wonderful program and a great resource for the community. Yes. And you got a wonderful coordinator. She's very good. Yes. Yeah. Um I'm Chris Preston. I'm uh W one. I live back kind of behind Babler off Highway T and Austin Fort area. Um so kind of out in the boonies. And uh I've lived in Wildwood for I think seven years now. um grew up in most of my life

in Chesterfield, but I'm from uh the Northeast. And uh I have two children, a seven-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son that both go to St. Albin Row. And um I'm a business owner and engineer and uh kind of started off as an economics guy and made that transition. But um you know, my main scope for here was looking to make Wildwood kind of a sustainable place. I want to be here for a while still being fairly young and have my kids have the conveniences and everything that a small kind of bedroom community would hopefully offer and you know maybe make this place a little more than it is now. But I mean I love the nature. I love the wild side of it. I love the trails and my whole family just loves be out here. So very important to uh at least help guide that in whatever way we can. Cool. Mike Colani. Um I am the council member for W 8 uh what we refer to here in Wildwood as the promised land but um no it encompasses town center here obviously where city hall and everything is. I've been on the council for five years now. Um and I never had would have you would have asked me prior to running for council if I ever had plans on being on council I would have given you an emphatic no. And uh somehow it uh it just happened to to come upon and glad I did it. Met some great people and um not just the city staff but the other council members and residents are all great people in this city. And so it's a pleasure to to serve and and do that. And uh when it comes to economic development and the long-term viability of the city, um I think there's a constant state of friction in the city of Wildwood between people that want no development and people that realize to remain a municipality long term. We have to have development in order to have uh everybody talks about wanting businesses, but you can't have

businesses without people. And you can't have people without development. And so I've always been a strong advocate for developing and um the master plan and everything we have here has a 2% area of the city that's zoned for high density development which happens to encapsulate town center. Um but when we have proposed developments, people would make it sound like we're trying to switch that to 98% highdensity developments. And um and so you know once again um that's something that kind of drove me to have passion about being on council and and advocating uh sensible development and and um but very much important. And so I think that's something that uh uh I'm of the opinion that we need to develop every square inch of the 2% of town center that's zoned high density and and develop it with high density. And so um anyway that that's my piece but welcome. Thank you. Great to meet all of you. Yes, we have council member Hopper. Council member Hopper, do you want to say? Oh, yeah. I am uh hi, Nathan Hopper. I'm in Ward 7 uh over in the Lake Chesterfield area. Um I've been on council almost four years. Uh but uh wrapping up my term uh here coming up uh this next month once we approve the election and transition over. But uh have enjoyed my time on council. I agree with uh Mr. Galani that I think we need to take a maybe a little more proactive approach and in how we develop the areas of our city that we can while maintaining the areas that were not meant for development um and and utilizing every square inch of space that we can where we can uh and keep the rest of it um the way that it's meant to be. All right, perfect. Uh, Miss Vassan, would you give an update to the group on the FAQs that you developed and how you went about developing those? I think the

group would be interested in hearing that. Yes, absolutely. So, I my you know, first day, first few days, my really my goal was really to understand who the key stakeholders are both internally and externally. So I set up meetings with one-on-one meetings with everyone um internally and associations um and my goal was really to understand what is important to them. What's the what is what are their thoughts about communications? One of the people I sat next to was Ruth. I sat next to her for an hour and I just wanted to listen to what the calls that came in and the people that came to her desk with the calls on the phone and people who showed up in person. And I immediately noticed that she was getting many of the same questions. And so I thought, why don't we put together a streamlined resource list? So top like most frequently asked questions and resources right there linked with the goal being that people can go onto the website and it reduces the number of clicks that it takes to find the information they need. Um and it would also it's also a social media you know great social media resource as well. We can share it on the newsletter. We can share it on social and then update it as things develop. So it would be a ideally something that's on the homepage FAQ and it's it's evergreen as much as possible and then updated as things change as there are new questions. It's just uh to helps consolidate our efforts. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Getting back into the agenda here. Uh let's see public comment. We don't have any public comment. So we will move into discussion items for information. Uh, letter A, update on business changes and other business news. So, city administrator Lee, I will turn things over to you. Thank you, Chair Bberg. Um, yeah, so obviously as we just discussed, we did hire a new communications economic development

manager. I know we have representative from business of Wildwood here today. Uh, she's met with the business of Wildwood. We look forward to strengthening that partnership. So, first and foremost, welcome aboard, Paula. Um, looking forward to seeing all that you could do here. Um just a quick few other updates. We do have we recently were notified that um American Mattress is moving into the property at 2440 Taylor Road right next to Deerbergs. Uh there were no necessarily contacts with the city at this time, but we did notice um signs up in the windows saying coming soon. So we found that we're now reaching out to them to go through the proper permitting process. That now makes it two mattress stores in the last six months that have opened up in town center. First for something, right? Um, okay. And then so we'll have more information on their their opening and the and what the business is all about, but it seems like they own another location over in Bowwin, Missouri. U, so it seems like maybe an expansion. On top of that, we do have just a quick note, the farmers market's opening. Um, it's coming up here on May 24th. So, we got about a month and a half, but not a month and a half, but about a month where we'll be opening up, but that'll be all throughout the uh season till October 4th. Um, the market will transition at some point this season to the Village Green, but we will be kind of playing that by year as the market kind of progresses into the summer. So, just quick note there. Uh, wanted to real there's uh the Good News Brewing Company update is technically a little outdated. When we posted the agenda on Friday, uh we had not received an update. We were still waiting to hear back that congressional inquiry had been open, but um we didn't know about that permit from the federal government. The permission they've gotten it. So, good news today. Yeah, we got we're about to ring out some good news or good news. Uh but yeah, it's obviously looking great.

They've got their um business license now. They've got their liquor license. No, they they don't have liquor yet. Wait, you said that license. We haven't been able to verify that they've got their Missouri ATF license. It's not on the website yet, but he said they have applied. So, I can't release the license to him or to issue one till we get verification on Missouri ATF that they have it and he's supposed to let me know what that is. In that case, we've had Okay. Well, well, owes me some documents. But there was an update that I think they have that cleared up, but I think maybe they have to get the paperwork sorted. But overall, the soft opening they're planning is coming up in May. So, they're circling May 4th. But, uh, the department will check in on that item to see if their paperwork's in order to, make sure they're they're good to go. But, um, hopefully that congressional inquiry helped. We did reach out to Congresswoman Anne Wagner's office. She helped us out in that regard. At least her office did. So, we appreciate that. Um, so that's the biggest update for today. One of the quick notes that Business of Wildwood will be meeting again on May 8th. Uh, correct me if I'm wrong on this, but May 8th, Thursday, 4:30 to 6 p.m. over at Lucky Dog Central located at 1691 17 Manchester Road. Um, and that's really the main items. But at last council meeting, Cattails Lodge also got a sight specific ordinance approval for a sight specific ordinance vended to have a cat lodge, cat daycare center. Um, and just another small update. We're still waiting for some additional information from Chula Indian Hearth about the new uh restaurant that's going in at 16721 Main Street where uh we had uh previously Benadetto. So now restaurant space is full. Council member Dodwell, do you have any update on where Rose fish and shrimp? And we've reached out to them. They have painted the facility as I think most people have been. They've had activity

going on. They've had activity but they have not announced any different channels and we've reached out a couple times to see is there an official opening. They I think they're still working. They the department was informed before they made the purchase. There was extensive repairs needed to their the interior. There were a couple blown pipes. Uh they had the initial Yes. I I talked to the prior the Hardies owner and that's why they pulled out. They didn't afford to do that. There were a couple interested parties that had it under contract and then that though they started looking under the hood and the repairs started to stack up pretty easily. So they did some aesthetic repairs and they had noted that they have a couple things they had to take care of on the inside and then things kind of got quiet from there. We did we've noticed some activity too. So we've reached out a couple times to see if they have an opening. There's no social media presence or anything along those lines. The most recent things we can find um just curious as to whether they reached out with any status. No status update as of work going on. There's definitely Yes, they I'm not worried about it not opening. I'm just It's been about a month since they had not notified us that it's going to be a lot of work that they still have to do. I think it was once they were getting those final rounds of reoccupancy permitting and the county probably called it out on a couple different and the health department gets involved too. It gets a little a higher bar. Uh that said, I don't believe there's anything to Fred at this point. I think they're going to be moving in. It's just more so when they can do it. They do run that other location over in St. Peters. So, they're kind of splitting time between trying to get the work done on this location and then also keeping the other one open because the original the Sammy Southern Fried UN more that is actually funding this operation to so they got to keep keep the money flowing on that end to have it go out the door on this. But overall, we can provide an update at the next meeting. Um, city administrator, uh, the Good News Brewing Company with the the permit

or license they're waiting for, does he expect any long-term delays in getting that or does is he confident to the best of our knowledge that uh they'll be able to get it without any issues? So, originally the the way the reason why this is an issue is that they usually would go in and just get a normal liquor license from the state. Where this became a problem was they have changed like the classification of what they they do to a brewery, a actual micro brew. Even though they're not brewing the beer on site, they're more so mixing it and carrying it from their Augusta location. Um that classification changes their the way that they're treated as a taxing entity. Um that said, that then stacks it up to the federal government, which always throws a little fun into the mix. Uh so the state how it works now is when we get go through a liquor license we have to notify we have to see if they have a good liquor license from the state and then in this case they had to have a very I have never heard of this license but a u they had to get permission from the uh a manufacturer license in conjunction with a retail by drink which retail by drink we do but their manufacturer piece is different and that had to come from the alcohol and tobacco tax and trade bureau. They made that submission on March 7th and it's an 85day processing window. That's not great. So, we did reach out. That's when we reached out to Congresswoman Anne Wagner's office on his behalf. Got them connected and um he authorized Congresswoman Anne Wagner to then do a congressional inquiry. What that does, it pretty much is from a congressperson to go to that office and say, "Hey, there's a special interest in my district to expedite the process." Obviously, you know, it doesn't mean if there's something wrong with his application, that doesn't wave that, but it more so helps potentially u we don't know, but hopefully move it to the top of the pile. Right now, they're still circling that March May 4th date as a soft opening, but that is the main consideration is getting that paperwork.

So, um he is going to do brewing at that particular eventually, but not during phase one. Yeah. All right. They have they do all their brewing at their Augusta location currently. How they would work, they would have the big um big tubs. I don't know exactly the name, but the tanks tanks the big tanks there that would serve it, but they would be filling that up with their uh with with the brew that they get from their Augusta location. Okay. But they eventually do plan if um if you can recall back to when they first made their proposal, their idea was to break this out into three phases. one was to get it open, you know, re kind of rebrand the building, if you will. Um, get the outdoor patio fixed up. Then they were going to kind of expand on that initial building just to have a larger footprint. And then the third stop was to build a a very nice looking facility that would brew uh would become their primary brew location. But that will be each step you're going to be talking about amending the the use on that site. Uh so that's something that the council will have to check at each at each interval. Um, if I can ask a quick question on something that you didn't bring up in your update some time back, um, people at JNB Wellness had expressed some concern over their signage, that it was too that we were being too restrictive with them on their signage and they weren't able to adequately promote their business. Have we done anything in terms of communicating with them on that issue to see we have touched base with them to see if there's anything? I mean the main thing is they would have to go get go to the board of adjustment to get a change. I mean what we had offered to them is we they could put a sandwich board sign out there for pedestrians. Um it has that hasn't been done yet. But the other idea would be potentially to replace their current signage with some type of they could use projection signage having it off of Manchester. It's just a kind of a weird location in the small building. That said, the owner um Paula recently

met with the owner. Did they mention anything about um JB Wellness? I assume it probably it's not his he owns the building. He didn't mention JB Wellness, but he did say he's brought up the same issue for Wildwood Fitness Collective. So that's formerly CrossFit Wildwood. Okay. So in that case, the sandwich board was kind of the idea where maybe you don't have to go through a new process. You could put this out. U that said that has not been explored yet. They have not put that out. They have a sandwich board out there. They put it out there, but it's not it's not Yeah, they there's a way that you can get a permanent fixture or have it where it goes out each day. We do allow for that. So, you just mentioned something that piqu my curiosity. You mentioned Wildwood Fitness Collective. They just rebranded. Okay. So, is he not associated with CrossFit any longer? No, he's not. It was a marketing decision. Okay. So, that it's it's the same. they saying they're not moving or anything like that. They just changed the name to be they found that the CrossFit side that was kind of attracting they they found that their clientele was not necessarily all the individuals that would typically do CrossFit. They were doing some personal training. So, they wanted to make sure that they were attracting that, you know, building off the success they've been having. They still offer CrossFit classes u but they just wanted to make sure it's a gym that can also help do your personal training with you. But they they're still doing good. He still owns both properties with um both JB Wellness and the uh the physical therapy office. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Lee or Ms. Van? All right. Very good. Well, thank you for that update. We'll move on then to the next item under board information update on the planning and zoning commission's review of the sign code and in particular use of electronic message

board sign. Yes. So thank you chair. Uh wanted to provide a quick update today on the where the planning and zoning commission is in their review of the sign code. Last month, um, at our last meeting, March 25th, we discussed the results of the sign code survey that were sent out to the business community, we had about 25 responses. That feedback was submitted to the planning and zoning commission during their initial work session. Um, there's going to be another work session at next month's meeting. So, the department thought it was a good opportunity to kind of provide a generalized update of what they had discussed, kind of the direction they were moving, where they were at, um, but also get some feedback from the committee tonight to then consolidate into a report to go to the planning and zoning commission. So, when they have their second work session where they'll close this matter out and move back into the regular session that they would have some feedback from the committee as well on the general direction of where they're going. So, just some we'll go through the electronic message board signs for well, maybe we do that second. Um, the items that they're looking at for general signage changes for the sign code was something that we've discussed a couple times this committee, but the removal of the $500 sign escrow uh when you had that business opening. Um, also discussing the equation that goes into the wall signage calculation, whether that be removing the height limitation in general, which could lead to um, you know, some taller signs, but it would also be just based off a percentage of the facade. Uh, there also could be just increasing that height limit. So maybe it's not 24 in, it's 36. Um, or it just goes to that straight percentage. The other item that they wanted to look at, they're going to just be going over their architectural standards here in the town center uh to make sure that they're the review process when someone submits that information is easy uh easy to go through. And then uh on top of that as well, just reclarifying we did

just update our temporary sign code. So clarifying that that has been updated um revisiting it, but also understanding that it was just recently recently taken care of back in 2023. and then uh really reinforce the illegal side of things when you should not be placing signage. So those are the general other regulations if you kind of look at review of sign code in general. But then the bigger question I think that um the planning and zoning commission the majority of the discussion was focused in on uh was the use of electronic message board signs. Who should use them if they should be used at all? Currently Wildwood strictly prohibits the use of electronic message board signs. Um, this all kind of started and got sprung up from a request from Lafayette High School to utilize an electronic message board sign. U, they've wanted to put it on the educating in 109 for some time now. Uh, that said, it is we let them know is currently prohibited. There is another sign that has gone up that was not not necessarily permitted. That sign's not being turned on at this time. So, it kind of prompted a couple institutional uses that were kind of pushing the pushing the boundaries of could we do this electronic message board. We have gotten calls from other uh schools in our um in our city that have asked has there been a decision made because they're wanting to do electronic message board signs as well. Uh so, just know that's something to keep in mind is that those if we were to approve them as a city, they would be going up. Whoever gets them, they there's definitely interest. That's true. Um that said, the planning and zoning commission initially had mentioned that they had reviewed this not too long ago, but they said if we're going to do this, we want to get a thorough review of it and have a consultant come in. So, some feedback and just general overview of what occurred at the first meeting. Um some items that were called out was that over time while would you know in general you

know east of 109 maybe that could be more accommodating because um there are more businesses more dense populations and the lights the night sky is a little less a little bit more polluted out to the east side of Wildwood versus the west. Um, I think there's a general understanding that if you're west of 109 there there's no chance that you're going to be getting an electric message board signed just based off the preservation of the night sky. U, that was kind of the feedback received. Uh, in general to the city attorney, this was an interesting finding, but after some research had found that regulations for governing the use of it, you know, really you could package it into almost a conditional use permit that would be layered in on the property would have to go through the same approval process. Um that said the interesting component of all of this is that you can kind of distinguish between the use of the property. So you could make it where institutional use can can use this but commercial cannot. So that in that case usually you have issues with that. Um, but with electronic message boards, it does seem, at least from the research so far, that you could allow, for instance, schools and any other institutions to put these signs up while also restricting the rest of the city. But they would have to do it under a conditional use permit. You could almost do it on a case-byase basis, too, if there's specific need. Um, so that's one item to consider. Uh the other um is just really that other cities they are really more so looking at the illumination level of the electronic message board sign. Do you keep it static? These are just generalized questions but overall it seems like there is somewhat of a an understanding of the need for it knowing that you know the technology has evolved. Uh that being said it is a big change. You're going to see these pop up wherever they can if they are permitted. So it's a the next work session should be pretty pretty direct given a good directive on

what where this is going but the department wanted to get some feedback from the committee to hand off to them being as you guys in this uh room do represent the business interest. So just a little bit of more background I had a conversation with Mr. Lee here recently regarding religious institutions. Should we allow electronic message boards digital signs for religious institutions? And the initial thought is that we would and I would want to get the input of everybody here on the committee, but that we might not allow them to have them simply because 90% of the time the messages would probably never be an issue, but I can see where somebody puts up a sign, you know, down with all the infidels or something of that sort, and it creates us, it creates um a concern by, you know, members of the public, and then we're having to go back to that particular institution and tell them that they need to modify or change their message. And then we get into freedom of speech issues and freedom of religion issues. So we thought probably the e my thought would be the easiest thing to do would be to just not allow religious institutions to have electronic signs. So M. Dodwell, you had your hand up before and then Mr. Galani. Um, I'm kind of torn because there's, you know, it's new technology and I'm a retired ITV VP, so I love technology, but um, I'm not real keen on putting up message boards at any of our locations because to me, it's a distraction to the driver because they're trying to read it as they go down the road and then they turn and look and I've watched people as they pass Crest View go wonky on Clayton Road. So, I'm not

too thrilled about making those kinds of signs available. Um, I think we should do some changes to make signs more visible, make them larger to be legible as you drive by if that's possible. But that's just my upending. Mr. Mr. G. Yeah. I say we go Time Square. I'm shifting. No, I um so regarding the my opinion on it is that um I'm I'm not opposed to to allowing it. I think at least in the town center area where we talk about once again development and high density. I mean, when you talk about a message board sign, I think I think there can be certain components of the illumination, you know, um, amount and things like that, but I mean, at the end of the day, if you're over here in in town center and deerbergs and all the lights and everything, I mean, having lit up message boards, it's going to have absolutely zero impact. And I think if we did the town center 2% high density area, you know, and and and did that, I don't think it would be a problem. And I think it's just it's part of life today. I mean, to not have it or not allow it is to say like, you know, like why don't we just this extreme example, but like why don't we go back to horse buggies, which was probably the predominant mode of transportation in Wildwood 100 years ago, versus cars because they create pollution and make noise and have lights and everything. So, um, I'm just saying it's everywhere. Um, I don't have a problem with it. And I also think that if you're going to do it, it's got to be everybody. You can't start segregating who gets to do it and who doesn't because that, how do you explain that? Like, oh, it's okay if Lafayette High School does it, but Dearbergs can't do it because you're a business. And we're sitting here saying we want to attract businesses and keep businesses and have economic development. To me, that's a thumb in the nose to say, "Well, you can't have one if you're a business, but

you can if you're a school." Um, and then furthermore on the religious aspect, I disagree with that because I mean a church can put up a sign today that says whatever they want on it. There's no difference between a sign they have out front where they could put whatever message they want in there. I mean to say that it's a a digital message board is just a different type of sign, but it can still have the same message. So I think it we're talking about censorship there if we're going to start telling them what they can or can't say. And if somebody puts something inflammatory or defamatory or something that could be considered illegal or inciting violence or whatever, that would be a legal issue regardless of whether they put it as as a real estate type sign in the yard or whether it was a litup message board. Um, so I don't think that changes someone's ability to to deliver a message. But, um, I mean, we live in a highly technological world. I mean, every single aspect of everything we do is is controlled or dictated by technology. So, I I don't see a problem with it at all. I think, you know, once again, I think it goes back to, you know, economic development. This is a committee we're sitting here talking about, right? Like, we can't say we want more businesses to come to Wildwood, but we want to beat Wildwood back in the 60s when it comes to what you're allowed to do and how you're allowed to do it. I think to city administrator Lee's point, you know, west of 109, you know, just like when we have conversations about development, you know, it was interesting just using the latitude um thing we just went through, the number of people that live in Cambury and Main Street crossing that were here saying that they moved to Wildwood for the wild and the wood. I mean, that's like me buying a condo outside Bush Stadium and saying I hate baseball and the noise and people that it brings. Um, it's just, but you know what I'm saying? I'm using these examples because it's it's insanity to me, right? Because you can't buy a home

in the most high density part of the city in downtown and then say that you're against high density developments. I mean, it's count it's it's it's so once again, if if I think my opinion on this is if we want to be a city in 10 or 15 or 20 years, we need economic development. We need businesses. We don't have to become Ellisville or Ballwin, but we need to do a hell of a lot more than we've done and that we are doing as Wildwood or we're just you because they are going to change. I mean the pool tax could go away. Um it will go away at some point because these other municipalities are going to be like why are we sharing our our tax revenue with Wildwood and they're blocking everything that's coming their way. So it just comes down to do we want to like get stuck in our ways from the past and say we're just a bedroom community. We're not going to allow anything in here. we're not going to be a city anymore. We'll become unincorporated. It's just economic numbers. Like you gota So I think once again it goes back to attracting businesses, attracting people. This is just something that is not a major thing, but it's part of moving forward in time and modernizing. And I think we can put parameters around. Once again, it goes back to sensible progression. Um, we're not just going to sit here and say you can put some huge, you know, monstrous sign out there and as bright as you want, but I think if we limit it to the town center area and then maybe we could do conditional use permits for like a Lafayette high school that might fall outside a town center and say, you know, that for a special circumstance, you could apply for for special consideration if you're not in the immediate high density zone area. But if if you are, I don't see why it should be a problem. But it's, you know, limitations on the scope. My opinion. Good input, Miss Dwell. I just going to have a question for you, Mike. Um, is there any way we could do some type of a

a survey, an online survey to the constituents and your ward who we're talking about setting up a little bit more um open signage format on things that they don't want to see or do want to see or Yeah. where they wouldn't want one. What you're saying makes sense. I'm just trying to figure out How do we engage the residents before we put something in place so that we we get positive approach to it versus you could also say like you know for instance like if you're a church along Old Manchester Road and you face a neighborhood the back of a neighborhood well maybe you would have more stringent guidelines or have to go through a stricter approval process or meet certain more you know more strict um parameters than like a Deerbergs or something where like Elway if they want to pull one out like they're not offend anybody right and that's a heavily home surrounded location and if you're facing a neighborhood or the back of homes or something then maybe there's stricter guidelines on the illumination or the times of of the night you can do it and things like that. Um whereas like I said, if you're the movie theater right here and then you're facing the hotel, then you're not bothering anybody, right? Yeah. Um so anyway, Miss McCutchen and then Mr. Preston, when Lafayette school refers to the other high schools that have electronic signs, they're not in Wildwood. They're not within the city of Wildwood. They're in other cities. Um so I don't think that's a valid argument. Um, Lafayette High School's in my ward. So is Pigglius. So is a daycare. And so is Babra

Elementary. So if you give them all electronic permission for electronic lighted signs, you're going to have, you know, the whole area lit up all around houses of Westland Farms. Yes. It's surrounded by homes. Yeah. And look how that looks when you go past that that shopping center with all those bright white light things. And the city of Wildwood was designated as a nighttime sky. We had some kind of I don't know what you call it. Dark sky. Yeah. And I think you know there's a reason people move to Wildwood and it is it is for nature and it is you know for a different kind of environment. And you know if Ellisville wants to be lit up you know that's part of their history you know but part of our history is that you know we don't allow a lot of lighted things because we do value the night sky. We do value the impact it's going to have on residents. I can tell you that the lights over here at Deerbergs when you're coming down uh Forestleaf Parkway you can see them. So even if they're away from a neighborhood and they're bright, residents are going to be able to see it. We move here for a reason, you know, and who knows what's going to happen in 20 or 60 years. I certainly hope Wildwood stays Wildwood. I mean, that's why people move here. And it is a bedroom community. And I understand what you're saying that we need some economic development. I understand that. But I think our first priority should be our residents in keeping our community the reason people moved here. Um, I could have moved in Ellisville or Bowwin or wherever and had all kinds of lights in my face. Um, so I, you know, I don't I don't think lighted signs are the best approach. Um, and if you start giving conditional use permits to one person, then you're going

to be, well, why aren't you giving them to another one? um or if you give them to businesses but you know not not schools or not churches or whatever because if you start giving one entity a lighted sign you're not going to have much reason to stand and say no you can't have one. Um and I'm you know I think we should leave Wildwood as Wildwood and if somebody wants to change it in 20 years because they feel like we're following behind the times then let them change it. But I think right now it's just not a good good idea and the history has been no lighted sides and I think there's a reason for that. Thank you, Mr. Preston. Um I guess maybe I kind of approaching this from maybe a slightly different angle that um I mean modern lighted signs aren't necessarily the uh animated brightly outputting you know maybe signs of 30 years ago. I mean, quite honestly, I I kind of think of a modern-day lighted sign as almost probably less light pollution that than that of like street lamps shining out or shining out on to a building or um I think if you had a still lettered LED type sun, I think that would be almost less light pollution than that would be given off than from traditional like um you know telescoping light fixtures or something like that. So, I don't think necessarily it would increase any light pollution, but we'd have to set parameters to make sure it didn't. Um, but second to that is also, I mean, I can see where the the moving script would be at a, you know, if you're trying to make something informative like a message board at Lafayette or a school that's trying to get a message out with like, hey, you know, pep rally this Friday, tendo, whatever. um that would be a little bit more I think of what Deb's concerned

about where it would draw attention. It would be um maybe a little disruptive to what people are typically you know accustomed to out here. But I guess I kind of question even if you said okay we can have lighted signs now. What percentage of people are actually going to put them up? I mean if I were Deerbergs why would I spend the money? A lot of comp I mean Elmaguay why are they going to start spending extra money on a sign they don't need. I just I mean maybe you might have some businesses that are maybe struggling or think oh man we're not getting enough publicity out there. We'd like to get our name a little bit out there. I mean there might be a percentage and I think albeit probably small that might actually make the investment but I think a lot of the core businesses here in Wildwood that are established I mean I always kind of refer back to like why would Kleenex advertise. People call Tissues Kleenex. Basically, it's like they don't need the name recognition. So, why would someone who's already very very well known in the community even go to those lengths? I I think we'd be dealing with a very small amount of people that would actually want have interest in it, I guess, would be my point. So, for our communications manager, this discussion is at the heart of what we struggle with as part of the economic development committee. protecting the rural character of this city while at the same time attracting businesses into our town center and helping them grow and helping them uh with uh giving them the ability to promote their businesses and so on. Mr. Galani. Yeah, I just had a followup. Um you know I my my point was also that you know keeping it in the town center. I'm not saying that we make this a citywide situation and anywhere you are in the city of Wildwood that you could do that. I think if you want to preserve I mean once again we're talking about 2% of the entire Wildwood's what the third largest municipality by land in the state and we only have 2% of that land bass that is zoned town center. So

you're talking about a a needle in a hay stack when it comes to that. And so you know I agree and I understand that people move to Wildwood for the nature and the parks and I think we're we have more nature in parks than anywhere else in St. county and but we also have to realize the fact that we can't sit here and say that we're going to stay exactly the way we are forever and we're going to stay who we are cuz we're not like we're not going to be a city in 20 years if we think we're going to be right here in the middle of this bustling metropolis but we're going to maintain this rural bedroom community of just parks and trees and all this stuff. It's just it's not practical. I grew up in Chesterfield and 25 years ago Chesterfield was no different than Wild is what is today. And today Chesterfield looks like Clayton was Yeah. 25 years ago. So this just a look at St. Charles County. I mean the city's moving out. Population grows. It expands. Like we we're on the you know 25 30 years ago when we were founded we were way out in the sticks and we were this rural community way outside of the town of St. Louis. Today we're considered a close suburb of the city of St. Louis. Right. It's a 25 30 minute drive downtown. We're not going to be able to stay this rural little park community forever. It's just it's it we can sit here and say that that's what we want, but it's not it's not viable. It's not practical. It's not economically viable. Once again, we have to generate revenue. We have to be able to serve the residents, and we have to be able to attract businesses and and be somewhere that businesses want to come to and be. And businesses need to make money. And in order to make money, they need to have people and developments and they need to have some of the parameters in place that allow them to function like the businesses in neighboring communities do. And all the neighboring communities to Wildwood all have lightup signs. So once again, I'm not trying to sound like a hard ass. I'm just I'm a business person and I speak on behalf of what a businessman would say. I would not move

my business to Wildwood right now. I wouldn't. you couldn't pay me to because we're not set up to be successful and a Deerbergs can be successful because they're Deerbergs and people need to buy food and and so um a Target would be successful, but we won't ever let a Target in here because we're so sticklers on everything. But I give kudos to all these small businesses that do come in here and take a chance because they're taking a much bigger risk than if they move their business to Ellisville and and they're successful because they're really good at what they do. But I'm just calling a spade a spade. And if we want to grow and we we we have this committee and we spend so much time talking about what we want to do and we we have economic development managers as a position. I think it's awesome and I love it, but we're like we bite our hands off, you know, we say we want to do these things, but then we completely block the activities and the things we need to do to get to where we say we're trying to go, right? So, it's kind of like I don't know that frustrates me to no end on council and it has since I've been here. Um because I feel like we talk out of one side of our mouth and our actions don't match up what we say. And so goes back to what I said when I was introducing myself that, you know, we want to be stuck in what we were 30 years ago when we were founded and we're a bedroom community and we're only parks and our residents only want rural and we don't want anything else. But but we want to keep building parks and want to keep adding to our parks and do all these things. Well, that costs money and we don't have money. They don't. Right. So, anyway, I'm sorry for my soap box. No, that's all right. I get passionate about it. That's all right. So, I think we've got Mr. Mabry, then Miss Dog, and then Miss McCutchen. U Thank you, Chair. When I read through this brief, um, I tried to grab what the real issues are and what struck me was the top of page four in considering the because I didn't really think I understood the variety of

issues center ones at the mention of safety. very first thing I think about any action the city ever takes out translates to safety anything else is always second but it says in considering these types of signs the department would note much the current literature regarding five areas regulations okay that's the five areas of regulations we should be talking about if they are allowed in any community these five areas including brightness wonderful we can argue brightness all day and the fifth one is area of square footage of electric message board percentage of allow square feet. Again, that's that's wonderful. Um, those are important features. Those should be discussed about anything to do with NEO, but it's number twos, three, and four. Message hold time. How long a single message is visible. That tells me we're going to have a story book played out before us. and the remark that it would have some component of speed relation as opposed to uh a distractable uh driving incident and a really large potential one on any 50 mph road or even a 40 mph road is as in front of Lafayette. But then number three, transition method also known as the frame effect. How fast it changes to the next. And then four, transition duration, how long that change takes to complete. I don't like anything about any of those three items with relation to safety. Uh except for people walking down a sidewalk that for any sign that's going to move to any degree, a sign on a road should provide a message, not not a short story. And um that's my soapbox as to what the actual value ad is to someone's life. uh while we were reading a story driving a car. So I boil it down to about the

most simple most simplistic um and maybe immature approach but that's that's just my and I think we can have wonderful development in town center reading stories on the sidewalk. You have a message provide that message. you want to learn more about that business that that message is in front of, you go inside that business and learn about it. So they get to pick one very most important message and if the type of face is too small to read from a car doing 30 or 40 or 50, you need a better message. All right. Thank you. This as hard as I can say it, Miss Dwell. Well, while everybody was talking, I went I thought, "Okay, let me think of a town that's back on the east coast somewhere where they have these town center places that were built hundreds of years ago, etc." And Charleston, Carolina, South Carolina, has a sign code that is pretty straightforward. And I'm just going to go ahead and send that over to Thomas um and we can maybe dig into it a little bit more at the next meeting. But um in listening to Mr. Galani, I do understand what you're saying and that we have to be able to um help promote our businesses and we've been turning this sign thing for two years now and we need to just get it finished. So, whatever you guys want to do, I don't care anymore. You're doing it. I do care. No, I do care. But everybody's had a valid point. Um,

Town Center's different than out on Melrose, which is different than down at Clayton and Streker. And so we need to look at those different parts of our city, too, and see if we can identify how we want sign regulations to occur in different places. Well, typically just uh Go ahead. Uh typically how you've seen some other communities transition into utilization. Can you speak up a little bit? Oh yeah, sorry. U typically how you've seen cities transition in the utilization of this type of technology is not necessarily commercial entities using them. Typically it's you see their the monument signs that are out there these like now. Um you'll see those slowly transition into some type of electronic message board sign. Um that said, most of the time what you'll actually see is most it's churches and it's schools that end up using these the most versus the uh the business community as was me mentioned by Mr. President. A lot of the business communities, they're either established in the community or if they're not that established, they're opening and they're pretty new and they don't have 5 to$10,000 to in pay for the signage. So, in that case, usually it is. And what we've had thus far is a bunch of schools that have been kind of chomping at the bit to see if this would be something the city would consider. So, I think you're going to see mostly school districts um not school districts, but schools in general uh put these signs up. You may have a couple that are, you know, tucked in businesses, but some of those things could be solved with a bigger monument sign, too. So, maybe there's a a good mix of the two, maybe implementation with the CUP, because right now it's just flatout restricted. There's no cup, nothing like that. So, um, yeah, just run a little bit more background. Perfect. Thank you. Um, Miss McCutchen. Yeah, I I don't know. I sat on town center update committee. Um, and I I don't think people realize how big Town

Center is. I mean, it goes all the way out to um the YMCA, you know, and that includes and that includes pond and that includes the industrial area. And, you know, this little section here is not just Town Center. Town Center goes in all kinds of different directions. So, you start allowing electronic signs. I mean, they can go all the way this way. They can go all the way that way. Um I I I have no problem with with increasing the you know the size of you know the business signs are doing the percentage for the business signs but um I think there's going would be a lot of trouble with electronic signs and you know there's the night sky and if you like Bright Leaf that's town center you know I know it's houses and they probably wouldn't put that sign up but if they live across the street over here and there's, you know, several lighted signs, then it's going to impact, you know, their quality of life. So, you know, I'm looking more at the quality of life. I think the businesses can promote themselves without having, you know, lighted signs. The school districts have other ways of getting information out. They have school newsletters. They have social media. I mean, it's not just if we don't have a light sign, we can't let people know what we're doing because they have a whole another network of getting information out there. Um, and it it's not it's not so much, you know, I don't think having a lighted sign is going to help a business if it's going to irritate and and decrease the quality of life of the people around it. Um, I mean, we can have high distance all that way out because it's considered town center. And I I really don't think that's what the majority of people move to Wildwood for. Um, you know, and but I'm I'm just I'll be honest, I'm totally

against lighted signs. I think it's going to decrease the the quality of life for our residents. I'd rather see the signs that they have on businesses made bigger than to add lighted signs. And again, if you do it for school, then you're going to get, especially CPU, then you're going to get other people saying, "Oh, what? Why can't I have one?" Um, and it is a ride on Clayton Road. It's on Clayton Road 109. How distracting is that going to be when you're driving? So, Mr. May, I will get back to you here shortly. Mr. Hopper's had his hand up, too. All right. Um, Mr. Hopper, if you if you've had your hand up for a while, I probably haven't noticed it, so I'm sorry if we kept you waiting. might be frozen. He's frozen. His computer's frozen. All right. It's not our It's not our screen. Let's see. We will move on temporarily here. So, Mr. Lee, I have uh two questions for you for the committee. Would you just give us an update on what the progression is of the consideration of the changes to the sign code in various work sessions and then when legislation may be brought to the council? Yes, most definitely. We right now it's still in the preliminary phases, but we can just keep providing updates and as it gets through there. Okay. But um did I understand correctly that I think maybe it was Mr. Vunich that had mentioned that some legislation might be ready for consideration by the council in June. No, my understanding is that it would go back for the work session then it still has to go through the the general regular session okay planning and zoning commission which that can be I mean technically they could pretty quickly on it but for a large code change where you're changing something that large I think it would probably go with a traditional two

meeting review. So that it's had a public hearing. That part has been taken care of, but the actual final recommendation would need some additional time. Right. Perfect. And the other question I have is this. Uh were you looking for some type of consensus from the committee? That may be rather hard to come by. That's why the department put on for information. We did u as we were talking here today did take some notes on some of the points that were mentioned. We can bring that back as kind of a summary at the next meeting and just get a sign off on that. to to forward to the to the planning and studying commission or if everyone's comfortable I can just take those notes in order. So what I'm going to do is um depart from the regular agenda right now and and from this discussion that we're having just to recognize our mayor pro Tim who just joined us here and uh Joe did you want to um address the group or any comments or suggestions? Uh, no. I was just I was waiting for my kid to get done playing with her friends, so I thought I'd stop in and say hi, but um No, I mean it sounds like you guys I didn't hear the whole conversation, but I know I sent you some stuff. I don't know if you guys got to that. So, I mean, that's kind of Yeah, I forwarded that on to Tom. We talked about it earlier in the week and um he sent it to Joe Vunich. They're taking a look at it to see if there's anything from there that they may want to uh you know, consider for proposed changes to the code. Cool. Yeah. I mean, I I for those of you that don't know, I just I put together a list of some pretty detailed things that we can probably do to check off a lot of these boxes that everybody has different concerns of. So, we shall see how it comes back. There was actually a proposed comprehensive sign code and I wondered where did this guy get the time to put all this together and then I think you mentioned to me in a conversation that it was AI generated. It was It helps a lot. Yeah. I mean, I I uh we've done it. We've used it in admin and public works a few times. I built a little system that helps streamline that stuff. So, that helped a lot because it pulls in all the

our codes, other codes, you know, St. Louis County codes, all that kind of stuff. So, it should help steer it pretty well, I would think. We'll find out. Sounds good. Um, in fact, um, city administrator, if you don't mind, if you still have that, uh, information that I forwarded from Mr. Farmer, would you mind sending that out when you have the opportunity to the rest of the members of the committee? Certainly. All right. Now, Mr. Mayor, you had your hand up. Yes. Um, I'm not going to try and say y'all are playing into my hands, but you're really striking exactly on what I went through when I read this brief. And I've seen a couple of instances in just this discussion that had me scratch my head the same way. I had considered that tonight we were discussing not nearly as much digital or lit up, illuminated, bright, large, but we were talking about storyboards. Um, it's stated uh specifically with respect to the terms for these these story boards are the ones that tell stories as you're walking or driving by. and I'll get the get the term that's used for it. I said, "Okay, that's that's a completely different um government electronic message boards." Now, everything that's a message that must mean there's more than one screen because a message can be put on one screen or it's these things that change uh repeatedly. And then I went and found those five things. Oh, they are talking about storyboards. uh the the the features that I pointed out earlier and I've seen in our meeting tonight that there's there's two arguments that are completely either separate from each other, exclusive from each other, or one comes after the other. First, we decide whether we want brightly lit skies at

night and air and then light pollution and now we're no longer the city we were 30 years ago. And then after that, after we've figured out the lumens and the colors of the Ks and and all goes with that and the sizes by percentage of anything, then we decide a separate issue of whether we're going to put digital storyboards, which I think comes after the decision on how bright and how loud and how big and how small. So, uh, I'm glad I wasn't the only one. this this print this print out could be read a couple of different ways and I read it the way they're specifically zooming in on the story um oh I'm sorry no I'm I'm perfect um city administrator when the um final proposals for the changes to the sign are ready will they have to be a topic for public comment at a public hearing yes at city council Okay. Yeah. All right. Very good. So, we've had a good discussion tonight. A lot of good input from all sides of the sign issue. So, I appreciate that everyone. Um, city administrator. No particular suggestions. I Well, you heard various suggestions. I don't think we have any consensus here tonight. Yeah, we took note. Uh, well, I took some notes here. We'll summarize that. We'll forward it over to the planning and zone commission. This was a for information item tonight. So, it was more so for discussion to get the feedback and then be able to pass it along. All right. Um, one second though. I did want to just Okay. Uh, Mr. Hopper is not here. So, I was just making sure that he didn't. Yeah. He had his hand up. We were just make I want to make sure he comment on this before we moved on. Okay. Yep. We're good. Good. Um, will be moving on here to ready for action. Master Plan update 2026 economic

development element. All right. Thank you, chair. Uh wanted to provide a quick update on this item as well. Uh we had back in February a discussion about just the economic development element of the master plan in general. But this year we will be reviewing all seven elements within the plan uh with the citizen oversight group. Um that said, the department wanted to get some initial feedback from the committee on one component obviously economic development. It was added in 2016 um to update the goals, objectives, and policies included in the it itself and could either be updated or could be revised, etc. We did send that out and tonight the memo here has some feedback that was reviewed. Uh the department wanted to provide a couple options to the committee. If we wanted to go through these goals and kind of just get generalized feedback uh from the committee on them, we could do that. Or if we're okay with the the feedback that was provided in the memorandum today, uh then we could solidify this and then pass this along to the master plan update group. So, if we can uh I think M hand up first and then Miss Mcuss. I'm a little disappointed that only two people responded. That's what I was going to ask. I I don't So I say it needs to go back out and the rest of the folks need to Yeah. Yes. If they missed it in their email or we could in theory we do have time for that if we wanted to resend it out. Uh we could have it returned because right now they're getting to the first element. So we're not looking to actually review the economic development element at that group probably till um July July in Julyish or maybe even maybe even August. So in this case we would have plenty of time but we wanted to have some time to discuss the feedback too. So if we wanted to push it back the next meeting that could so I think that would be a good idea. I I I would be in favor of

that. Um do you need a motion to that effect? Yeah let's um I'll make motion second. There you have it. And uh committee members, if you have not had a chance to take a look at the survey and return it, if you could do so, it would be appreciated. All of the input we get um beneficial. Mr. Mabry. Yes. Thank you. Um I was confused. Frankly, I had thought that because there were only two or three responses in a couple cases that this had gone out to someone else somewhere else. um like perhaps the master plan update committee or some group of specially chosen residents. But uh I responded to this and I don't see my responses in here. Mr. Mayberry, did you happen to respond? Do you know what time you respond? This was as of published as of Friday when we published the agenda. Published as of just this Friday. It responded to one a couple of weeks ago. There was one answer. So this was what was we pulled the the data on Friday. So this was there was one responses. I have I've done this since Friday. I apologize. Well, we can we can send it out reset it out and then I'll check I'll double check to make sure this only go to businesses. No, this was just going to committee members committee members and I didn't see it either. I thought it was going to business. email every day. Oh, not a problem. Like the city administrator said, we've got time, so he can resend it and revisit it. Cool. Yes. Yes, I'll do it right away. Administrator, are are we encouraged to provide oneline responses or could we write? No, you can write as you can write a book. Not saying you need to do that, but Bob,

you are not required to. You're not required to write a Are we paid by the page? No. No. But if you would like to write, you know, a decent amount, I know the box when you fill out the survey, it's just done that way to it's easy to export the data. Um, but if you want to fill it out, it could be, you know, it could literally be a couple paragraphs. There's no limit in that box. No limit in the box. Even though it looks like it I wrote this much on some of these things a few weeks ago. Couple. So Nick, that's Did the email go out through Survey Monkey? Was that the one that Sorry, it could go in the junky. It could be in a junk email box. Well, I have access. I saved every one of the responses. I do with every one of these surveys. So, just to cut and paste for me. Well, I had four responses, but one didn't have the answer. Just print off your deliver them to the city administrator and he can type them out since you've already done it. So, a couple of weeks from now, for those of you who still haven't completed the survey, I have some of my old friends from up in Chicago who will be following That said too, um, real quick, sorry. Can we put a due date on it to be like Yes. two weeks or 10 days before the next EDC meeting? If 10 days would be sufficient to give you Okay. So, are you going to email it to us or? Yes, I will email the link back out. U, I could do that as early as right after the meeting. So, we'll send that back. Um, and just in case I don't I didn't know this was going to happen, but I was thinking we might review it today. I actually have paper copies. I don't know if you'll fill it in, but if you'd like, you can write you can write it in. I will transpire it back into the computer if needed. So, there are paper cops here. Maybe easier for some. Yes, Mr. Lee, do you know how hard it is to keep up good penmanship after you? That's what I was worried about. That was more so for note takingaking today, but I was like, well, now that I have them here, I'll I'll at least offer. Yeah, I can't read my own handwriting. So there you go. We'll have to get a Yeah, I don't

think you want us to deciphering wizard to be able to take a look at it. In that case, we uh the next meeting is on the 18th. So 10 days before would be not the 18th. Uh next meeting like could we do the 12th of May? Would that be uh okay with everybody? People are only going to get busier after the 12th. So yeah. Is that the survey? This for the survey? Yes. And we'll send the department will send out another copy tonight. Take a look. So, is there a discussion on the master plan update? Um, a motion to postpone and and have and that's right. Motion and we have a second. So, all those in favor say I. I. Opposed? Abstensions? Motion carries. Thank you, Colleen. You need the second. I didn't. Oh, okay. Thanks. Review of business spotlight program. And for this one, I assume we turn things over to Miss Vassad. Yes. Okay. So, this is a new initiative that we'd like to start profiling local businesses in our area. And um it would be a almost feature story really engaging telling their story humanizing the business um capturing not just people in our area but definitely but farther out it really it could capture any type of business owner but I the goal would be to tell their story in a way that is as maximum viewer outreach but is also actionable and gives people in this area actionable steps of understanding the obstacles that they have they have dealt with here um but

also the opportunities that they see and how they've been successful sounds great so the one thing we're trying to confirm now and it's we're going to do this in one way or another but how's the fairest way to select the individual business um because we can't say anything about promotions or deals or anything along those lines you have to keep it very neutral the who, what, when, where, why type of answers. But then the next step is how do you decide which businesses go first? Especially if it's something we might only do six to 10 times a year. It's going to be kind of seen as an exclusive u decision. So that might be something we bring back to the committee to make an official decision on who gets featured each time. Perfect. Yeah, I think that's fine. Yeah. first one. I mean, we have one business that's gotten the Genie Hood award that um we think that that most likely could be a good first candidate to do a follow-up story on the Genie Hood, and it kind of turns into our spotlight, which in this case it was CrossFit Wildwood. Uh but they have now turned over into a new collective, the Wildwood Fitness Collective. I keep forgetting that. That's right. Wildwood Fitness Collective. Mr. Mabry, I think you had your hand up. It was just a twist of phrase and I want to make sure I get your pronunciation, your name correct. Is it Bashan? Bassan. Bassan. Thank you. Uh you you mentioned uh not only our area but outlying or something to that effect. You are containing all activity to just the city of Wildwood confines. Not not surrounding. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. The profiles would be businesses here in the city. Okay. not not in Ellisville or Chesterfield that wants to do business or does business with us and wants to put their two cents. Thank you. All so we have Mr. Preston next and then Mr. Galani. Um I was just hoping to maybe put some sort of emphasis on you I mean and I don't think it'll come out this way but

just to at least keep in mind that you know try and maybe spotlight up and coming or newer out businesses here. I mean, I I don't think hate to use it again, but I don't think Elway is going to show up here wanting a story, but like, you know, like Mick Martin would be a great story. Someone that's only been here for a year or two that might be newer to the community that finding out some backstory and everything like that would be very useful. So hopefully just keep that in mind. I really filter it through the lens of impacts. I think that there should be variety in terms of industries. So different types of different size, me, small, medium, large, different industries. There should be variety of um that should all be different and we should really weigh them all equally because we want to get the pulse of Wildwood. But um I also think we should filter through the lens of impact and the impact that they've had on our community. Prioritizing if we prioritize at that and filter it through that lens, they those rise to the top. And so that's the reasoning and that's why we did Wildwood Fitness Collective first, why we're doing them first because of the award, because of you know impact. And I also think that we've we're saying that we want to do this at least monthly. And I would push for weekly. I think we need to do it much more than just once a month because um that's how we gain traction. That's how we gain visibility, social media following. I think that there's so many businesses and they all need attention. So doing it at a higher frequency would be my preference. Mr. Gan, you can go to Mr. Farmer. You had to hand it before me. Sorry. I was just going to ask, so um Paul, are you going to write all of these pieces? I mean, one of the ways to think about it is you could almost create like a native content, for lack of a better word, form so the business can get it and sort of fill fill some things out and then, you know, it can generate the piece because the problem will be if we start picking the problem will be when we're picking businesses where there's a competing business in

the city, somebody is not going to be thrilled. It won't matter what it is. So like you know even with um giving it doing it with the award winners like there's a certain sense that we've already sort of highlighted those people and so rehighlighting them there's a different design company or whatever in town could be a problem. So I might I might say like helping these businesses understand how to create the native content and then you're absolutely right like we got to put these things out a lot doing this six or 10 times a year is going to do like literally nothing complete waste of time. The other thing that I've heard from businesses is that they want help being marketed and exposure. And so this is a way to help give them exposure. And I think the other element of this is really sitting down face to face. And so that's what I think it's there's a real real importance of I'm not calling them. I talk to them and do a pre-in sitting down with them getting a sense of the energy and how it feels and also taking pictures. So we we embed within the piece visual content and that can be shared. Then there's so many opportunities for that on social media. We can have a picture, we can have a quote. Um, and so that could be something we share on Facebook with a link to the story, but they're just different being there in person gives other different opportunities to share better on social. There there's always also like a hope a little bit more than a small handful, but there's a couple of businesses that are routinely involved in like everything that we do. who they're at, you know, the farmers market or if they're promoting things and they're doing booths and stuff. I would maybe suggest looking at those people maybe first and giving them first crack at it just because they do participate with us. And then we have Mint Martine is a good example. We'll have another one and and certainly the new market. You know, there's a couple businesses here that are going to have perhaps a language barrier. So, some of that might be something that we got to consider too is there, you know, there might be a little bit of hesitation in trying to frame their story because they just aren't comfortable with the language necessary.

Um, yeah, I was going to just follow up a couple things. Um, I like the idea of the diversity of different industries and things like that. And I think perhaps maybe one approach could be like picking a a business that's newer to the city and and part of that process asking them like why they chose Wildwood and then also maybe at the same time highlighting another business that's been here for a long time and ask them why they're still here and why what's so great about it. So you have that contrasting um long-term vision versus new people coming in here. And there's there's multiple different reasons. And then the other thing I was going to say is there's so many different things like when you go on the website there's so much to read and so many different things to click through and like think verbal stuff is so difficult. I think we live in an age of of multimedia, right? Where maybe there's it would have a bigger impact if we if you did almost like a podcast like a video and interview with them and then it was posted on the website and shared on our social media page because I guarantee you my opinion is that dramatically more people would engage and watch that and actually see it and and hear it versus if it's just posted in text. Are you talking about a podcast or video? No, like a podcast style video, but like an interview. an interview. So just audio or video as well? Like a video like a sit down like at the business, you know, you're talking about marketing. I'm like if you went into the business and like just had a whatever it's going to be, you know, you can do five or 10 minute thing and then edit it down to two minutes and you've got a background in that. I think you do a great job with it. Um, you know, I think it make them feel I think it would make the business feel special and you're highlighting their like their location and then then I think posting it on social media and having it maybe a section on the website that's highlight here's the business of the week or whatever people are going to watch it. I think tremendously more people will see that those videos than

we'll read anything that we post in my opinion. when city posts I will say when city posts a video online on Facebook specifically you get a lot of views you get significant traction so so I think that would be a YouTube channel we have a YouTube channel if we I would we'd probably want to create a new YouTube channel for that uh just because we would be tying official city there's a lot of all our public meetings go in one bucket we could create a YouTube channel get we have camera equipment we have a cell phone so yes they've got I am definitely not the so easy to call JSDK. I have my sources. Would Instagram be a better route to go than um YouTube? Well, so I think that quality is the quality really matters a lot. So if we were going to do this, we'd need really good audio camera equipment. We need a video editing software. And if it's not at a high level and we I would suggest not doing that right away um because I think quality matters. And so the but what we could do that's more in the near term much more easy. I'm not saying to not not saying to not do that because I think that's that's of course all medium is important. But to initially have a really high quality product that is an article and video. We we could do not video photos a slideshow things like that with with really good quality images. We can start with that and see where it goes. Yeah. No, I was just saying whatever something that can just engage like visual, right? Yeah. Like I'm a visual person. Like we do it all. If there's if there's like a text post like even if it's a city or anything there's a text post, I'll scroll through it most of the time. Whereas if it's like a video or something like you know visual, I'll stop and look at it. And video so I don't video could also be not it doesn't have to be a 10-minute video interview. We could do a quick Yeah. 10

second tease on a cell phone. Sure. Which I think would be great as opposed to having that back and forth audio because the audio would not be the highest quality. Sure. So it could be instead like walking through the business with a cell phone 10 seconds and that could still do really well on Facebook. Sure. Yeah. I agree. Good discussion. Yeah. All right. Not ready. There's nothing under not ready for action. So, I guess there's nothing that needs to be done there. In this case, there's we still have So, we'll be sending out the master plan update uh survey after this uh meeting. So, just be on the lookout there. The department will send that over right now. Um and we'll we'll go from there. We'll bring that back at the next meeting. Perfect. Thank you. Um miscellaneous, anyone? Um, thank you very much for joining us, Paula. We really appreciate having your expertise. I'm looking very forward to uh being able to uh learn more about how we can communicate what we've been talking about here tonight to our citizens and to people beyond uh the city of Wildwood so that we can get more businesses in this sector of the city uh and continue to keep Wildwood running. So, thanks so much for coming and joining us. Yeah, appreciate it. Awesome. Anything else under miscellaneous that anyone would like to bring up? Next meeting date is Monday, May 19th at 5:30 p.m. Good discussion tonight, everyone. Thank you everyone for your input. Uh couple members of the committee will not be here next um term. Hopper will no longer be with us. Uh Mr. Jackson will no longer be on council.

So, I appreciate everyone's input during the last term and uh look forward to seeing everyone again next term. That motion to adjourn. All right. Second by Mr. Preston. You guys saw it. I forgot to bring that up. All right. So, we have a motion to adjurnn. Non-debatable. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed. Motion carries. Thanks everyone. Mr. Hopper didn't join back in. I think he saw that. But uh Mr. Hopper, I just wanted to recognize you. I know that your audio and video was messing up there for a second. Mr. Hopper, uh thank you for your time on this committee and good luck to you going forward. Thank you all. It's u been a pleasure working with everyone. I guess uh since I have the floor for a second, I will just say that you know I just my hope for this committee is that we uh just try to continue to progress and move forward and not get um mired in the how things have been, how things are and look for how we can improve and what we can do better. Um it's nice to keep some things the same, but sometimes you got to change in order to improve and and grow. So just embrace it. Thank you for that. We appreciate it. All right. Thank you, Mr. All right. Thanks, everyone. All right. Your turn.