Watershed Erosion Task Force - Regular Meeting

of the watershed erosion task force. Uh I guess we can get started with a roll call. Member Bartlesmeer. Um member Delante here. Member Oaks here. Member Sturman here. Member Burgger. Member Patton here. Member Sher here and member Donaldson and Chair Farmer here. Thank you. All right. Um, so as I said, this is our this is the watershed erotion task force forc's 40th meeting. Uh, it's been a while since we've gotten together. Um, it's been I when I look back and just signed the minutes from our last meeting, it's been almost a year. So, it's been quite quite some time. Um, but uh I think that we've made a lot of progress over the last several months. Um, and there's been some good progress, I think, made from a city council level in terms of what we're looking to do. So, tonight, uh, for those of you that will can think back to when we were meeting again, uh, our meeting is maybe going to seem a little bit different because I'm going to try to shift us from more of just a kind of discussion based thing to really more of a starting to put some action to some things. We have some good plans, I think, coming together. We've got some good pieces coming together. And after having conversations with the mayor and our city administrator and our director of parks and planning, um, you know, my goal is not to say that I think our task force's work is done, but it's to kind of start getting to the place where we can wind things down and hand this off in an appropriate way to the people that can start to actually get shovels on the ground and things necessary. I think it's very fair to say that um, especially uh, some of the members that have been here from the very beginning like Mr. German have literally turned over every single rock and exhausted every opportunity to try to find uh funding in different ways to help our projects and um we keep coming back to that problem which is we don't have the funding that is necessary. So we're very hopeful this is our third year in a row.

We've got a few days left unless Tom gives me a sad look that uh the governor could theoretically still veto this amount of money that we've uh sought. And in this case, we've reduced it down to $250,000. Um, and so we're hopeful that that will come through. We've been hopeful the last couple years with a little bit more money, but uh, our former governor kept line item item vetoing us. So, here here we find ourselves. But, um, I don't want to take up too much of our time. Uh, we got a lot to do tonight. So, why don't we go ahead and get started. Um, and we can get started with um, do we have to reelect This isn't right. Reelect the committee officers. No, this is old one. Sorry, guys. Um, we just need to approve the amendments, I suppose. Does anybody remember back to our last meeting and care to make a motion to approve our minutes? All right. Uh, we've got a motion seconded by Mr. Sturman. Any questions, concerns, discussions on the minutes? Everybody cool with what we've got in there? All right. Seeing none, uh, all those in favor of approving our minutes from our last meeting, please say I. I. I. I. Any abstensions. And right, minutes pass. All right. Uh, up first, um, Mr. Voonage, would you like me to do this one or do you want to feel like you got a handle on this thing and we can tag team it? What do you say? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, we do have some guests in the room this evening. Uh, so public comment, uh, if anybody cares to speak, um, you can approach the, um, microphone up here. We usually try to keep it to about 5 minutes. Um, please let us know your address, your ward, um, and whatever you'd like to say. Anybody here would like to make public comment, feel free. I don't think I see anybody online. Travis, is there anybody online

on there? All right. any of our guests care to say a word? Uh, now would be the time. Okay, for starters, my name is Mike Hurley. Um, I live in Wildwood Meadows Court 2166. I am not a trustee. There are a couple of trustees here. Um, I think some information may have been passed on to Joe in regards to some serious erosion problems we have to the point where it's within 10 ft of fence lines. And with all the water we've had this past spring, we're losing 2 3 feet every time it rains and it's about to impede on fence lines and pools and property values in that area. It's it's bad. Um I have approached MSD by way of um kelp contracting. He helped me um get a hold of MSD the core of engineers and both of them directed me to you guys to see if we get some help because the we need apparently a study done before we can do anything to stabilize this bank. um MSD and I can't think of the gentleman was saying it was John, one of the chief engineers for MSD said that they had distributed some funds to local municipalities to address situations like this. I don't know if that's true for Wildwood or not, but um both MSD said that they would rush something through for us. You know, they have the pictures. Uh Tom Kelp has been incredible to help us try to determine he's given us some ideas um on how to stabilize the bank and

I think that with all the red tape that goes with MSD and the core of engineers that I'm not sure we have that kind of time to be quite honest. Um we as a group have discussed a temporary fix with Cox Creek. What's happened is in the middle of the creek, the rock has done this and on either side of the creek, it's just undercutting nothing but pure top soil. And it we've lost three or four trees in the last year into the creek and it keeps cutting our I mean myself and and Mark is with 8 ft of the creek right now. Excuse me. I've been in the house eight years. It was 25 ft when we moved in. Could you orient me to where this place is? I'm not sure. We um Wildwood Meadows is north of Clayton on Streker. It's about I think there's 24 25 homes altogether. Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's an old picture if I can tell you that right now. Yeah. the the the east side of the subdivision where I guess half the homes are back up to Fox Creek. Um unfortunately MSD and their response to me, you know, they're we're way we've been on the list since 20 I think 2020 and they're telling us 2030. Yeah. Easily. and they, you know, we're a 0.52 which doesn't give us much of a a chance. I think we're willing to a certain extent to help a little bit financially, not a whole lot, but maybe chip in a little bit. Um, whether it be the study. Um, and I guess like I said

before, I don't think we have the time to go through all the bureaucratic Yeah. Um, I think it's it's bad. It's really bad. I'd say by the end of summer it's going to be in into our into the property lines and and fences collapsing. Um so if we could get some help or the okay to get into that creek to rearrange that rock temporarily to buy us some time. I think that would really really help. Now is the core going to go for that or is the MSD going to go for that? MSD said, "Approach Wildwood. We're willing to work to approve anything we can to help you." But as far as their participation, it's probably 10 years away. Yeah. Yes. Uh I uh Yeah. I mean, that's a pretty pretty common story for our for our meetings, unfortunately. Um one of our members house is caving into a creek, the same creek for much of the same reason. So, um, I did get some messages from you guys. I certainly empathize with what's going on. As I said in the email, um, you know, I I was friends with Ken Remy when he started this thing and and that was a big reason for it was the area over there. We've studied I mean, we've spent a lot of money with the USGS to study a lot of what's going on with Cox Creek and other things. Um, Mr. Mr. Vunage, hopefully we'll have some information on some of these MSD funds later in the evening, although I'm not holding my breath on that. Um, it's a big problem. I mean, it's a problem everywhere in the city. I wish we've talked about it a lot that we could say, let's just get some bobcats down in the creek and move some rocks around. Can't do it. It's it's a navigable waterway. The Army Corps of Engineers has 100% control of the space. We put permit applications in. I don't even

remember, Joe. When how long ago was that? It's been several years. Yeah. Several years to start to be able to prime some things up. You chime in right there because what's falling into the creek is property that we own. That's common ground. Yeah. And we can't even replace our own common ground. Why is that? It's it is really the reason that we have this entire task force because the issue is that across the board. It's that way in Point Clayton. It's that way in Westland Farms. It's that way behind the church. And what we have is a situation where my house also backs up to Cox Creek. It's it's the deal where those of us that live along the creek are paying the price for all of the water that comes off of those of them that do not. And so the only funding mechanism, the only things that we can do is, you know, to try to um educate the public about what is going on because a lot of people if they don't live on the creek, they don't they don't see much of a problem. We we all know because we've been down in it and looked at it like in your guys' neck of the woods or even near the triple meander which is back behind the elegant child where the the banks uh in point Clayton are 40t tall I think at this point with just ready to come down bring the road with it take out striker punch a hole through the triple meander you know the the ability for our city from a financial standpoint to do much is limited for a lot of different reasons. But then the ability um of our partners, those being MSD and the Army Corps of Engineers to at certain points even just be generally helpful is it's difficult. Um I mean just this year uh we'd put in a a huge amount of effort to try to get a couple

locations that we had pegged as our most critical spots fixed. MSD decided to come in and then now after all the effort and all the work, MSD has decided they're going to fix it, but it's going to be another year and a half or two years down the road. And so it is a it is a very problematic issue. One of the items we're going to talk about tonight, which does will directly affect you guys, is this storm water basin situation that we got to talk about because all of our best efforts and all of our studies from the USGS is saying if we can expand, if we can hold the water back, the problem is that the water comes through that creek like a jetream most of the time. Um, and so if we can hold the water back, it can start to alleviate some of that pressure. Now, all of that was studied before we started getting 3 in of rain every two days or whatever we're getting now. Um, so we always seem to find ourselves, I would say, a little bit behind the eightball in this stuff. But, you know, I'm not I don't I'm not trying to lessen what you guys are saying. I hear your frustration. It's why we've been doing this for the last four years. It's this is a uh an incredibly frustrating and broken process that we're doing the best we can to try to solve. Correct. We've contacted them. Uh, you know, it it is, as you described, it's I I would just say it's just it's like a huge red tape circular firing squad situation. So what they say is we need to we need to study these things. So the city has spent what was it Tom? $200,000 with the USGS over several years to study that exact stretch of the creek along with the rest of it. They came back. The report is super comprehensive. Everybody up on this

panel assumed it was going to be very bad. And when they explained it to us, they made it very clear it is significantly worse than what we think it is. And so their answer is I I don't know because if we move rocks around it creates problems in other parts of the creek. That's the big issue anytime. So anytime for instance you guys could theoretically I'm not advising this or endorsing it in any way but you could put concrete pillars down all all along the common ground area that would block your dirt from being affected by the water. And all that does is accelerate the dirt down the road, which is what happens in a lot of places. So, I'm in West Glenn Farms. American Water had a huge chunk of concrete the size of a school bus that got flipped up a couple years ago in a storm and disappeared. Nobody can even find it. That's how fast the water was going. It exposed a water line. They came in, repaved everything, concrete it all of it. And all that does is create a speed ramp for water to plow directly into the bank in front of it. Same thing with the outlet uh by Mr. Ber's house. It dumps directly into the anchor of his deck which is currently doing this into the creek. Um and they're they have money and when did I mean what do they say a year and a half or something? two years, three years before they can before they're able to do anything. And they won't allow us to go in and do it even though we have money to do it. We said, "Hey, we will pay for this. How about you? We'll do this one. You guys do the next one." And they said, "No thanks." So, what I I have I don't know if you saw all the all the correspondence that I had with MSD, but I spoke with them and they said that uh there could be a temporary fix Uhhuh. that we could approve, but you guys would have to approve it. Now, I'm not talking about a couple of little willy-nilly bobcats in that creek. I'm

talking about hiring kelp with, you know, a scoop about 12t wide. He's there one day and he opens up that whole area right there. And he's done temporarily to buy us some time because it is that serious. Hey, I have the chair farmer. Yes. Who said that? I did. Chair Farmer. Yes, sir. Can I interject please? So the gentleman is correct. MSD is not telling you misinformation. It is feasible if you have money and you have rights to access the creek, property rights, an easement um and you do the engineering, it is feasible that you could go into the creek and move the rock around. That is a small project. There is engineering that would have to be done. The city would have to permit it. Core of engineers would have to permit it. DNR would have to permit it. um you have to show no rise in the flood flood elevations. But the question is, do you really want to do it because it won't solve the problem? Basically, it'll solve the problem for one major storm event and then that rock will be right back where it's at. I'm not sure how long. It would depend upon the weather and the rain we have in the future. But it would right now we're talking months before people start losing their backyards into the creek. Months if not weeks. And I talked to John, I can't think of John's name. He's very nice. I spoke with a guy at the core. Um Tom Kelp is willing to work with us. I was in the construction business. I worked with Tom for 30 years. He's great great guy. He's done a lot of work for the city. Um he's actually given me some numbers to stabilize the bank and I don't think that that would take too long permit-wise. the temporary get Tom in there we get the you know we get a study done and if we pay for that or we can we can split that somehow I don't know but I think we're talking you know a civil engineer a one a one line one

sheet drawing stamp probably 3500 to 5,000 bucks talking about what happens down downstream after this temporary moving of rock but it is I mean the rock in the middle is almost as high as the bank itself And it's going on either side. And the people on the other side, the soil conditions are totally different. There's a lot of of of stone and and and big rock that's not being eaten away like we are. I think that that retention pond that we have, all that soil was put behind our houses and they planted those white pines to try to stabilize that. Well, it didn't last long, but that's where that soil came from. So, I mean, if there is a way that we can get a temporary fix, um, I think it would it would buy us quite a bit of time. Yeah. Comment on do we have the tools or the people or the decision makers here to find a way to rectify immediate? Uh I think I have uh been sitting on my hands for probably seven years uh working with MSC multiple times and sitting on the task force. My house is about to fall. U I panic about it a lot. It's happened. I can see it. Um I understand that we need to move through appropriate bureaucratic processes. Uh but we have some uh really immediate needs that and we have some that are longer term that we can see are going to be a problem. They're going to require a significant investment. We've got to go after that. Uh how do we proceed? Well, that's kind of what we're going to talk about tonight. I mean, the idea is,

you know, the truth of the matter is, which is what I said in my email. I mean the the budget items that the city can finance for these things is currently nothing. I I mean there is no there is no money in the budget remaining in 2025. Now the conversations are in 2026. Um the budget for the city is pretty limited in what it is anyways. Um and I will say you know from a council standpoint and for those of you guys that don't know I am the only council member that's up here. Everybody else is a citizen um member which is awesome but I I guess when the decision-m comes down when it goes to the council I'm the one that gets to vote on those things. Um Mr. Mabry's in the audience he's also on the council. Um you know as a city we put together a priority list that we're trying to keep updated every year and at the top of that list now is the watershed. So um you know we have begged and pleaded to the state to get money. They're giving us in theory $250,000. At best guess the problem is about a 30 to50 million problem to fix. It's complicated. It involves private property, public property, public infrastructure. So the unfortunate reality of the municipality being what it is or any municipality really is the the finances that the city can put into things have to go to things that impact public infrastructure before they impact anything else. That's just how it works. So I do think that Mr. Brown is he is correct in telling you that you need to get all these permits. I think the permit from the Army Corps of Engineers takes 6 to9 months. Right Rick? I mean, that's what it did the last time around. So, I have in writing from them that they would turn this around very quickly. They understand the situation. That is in writing from MSD. And they

directed me to you, right? MSD, this is an MSD. And I will tell you, MSD does not help us. I'm They don't do anything for us. They came in here and told us, can we as a group apply for the permit or do we have to go through you? So, you apply to MSD? Uh, you would have to get a I mean, Mr. Brunes, you want to I would encourage you to have the homeowners association file it. That's the representative of all of that. What MFBs bold mean? Yeah. I I will I will tell you this. There is no there is no motivation within the city to prevent you guys from fixing your part of the creek if that's what you want to try to do. Uh, I agree though, having done this for several years and looked at all these studies, you you should be very aware whatever money you invest in that fix is going to get washed down the creek at the the first or second storm. We understand that it's a temporary fix. We understand that it's there's no one up here that's going to dissuade you from spending your money to try to fix this problem. That's what I will tell you. But I can also tell you from a city standpoint, you know, there's nobody that's going to hold hold this stuff up if the engineering is where it needs to go. I'm certain that Mr. Voonage will or Travis or whoever's doing it will get this thing going. I You guys are welcome to try. I'm just telling you, we've we've been doing this for a while. The these people say a lot of things that sound really nice and none of it ever happens. That's that's just how it works. Well, I don't think I would have the the cooperation that I did from either MSD or the core of engineers without Tom Kelp's help. He directed me to these individuals. He It doesn't work for both of them all the time. Yeah. Tom's a great guy. Yeah. And and MSD in an email said, "Get the study done. We'll rush this through. Approach Wildwood." Um

I don't know what it would cost overall. I really don't. I know what Tom quoted me after giving him some dimensions on this particular part of the bank. It wasn't that bad. I know the MSD estimate to do all 500 ft was like $400,000. Right. We're not looking at that right now. We're looking at a temporary fix to get that volcano that's in the middle of the creek to uh go away. Do we know what it is that we would have to do to allow that to happen? Well, Rick, chair, I was just going to suggest I'd be glad to talk to the resident tomorrow and we can go through the requirements and maybe get a little better handle on the engineering that would be required in the extent of I I thought that this meeting I read somewhere that you were going to agree on a consultant engineer tonight or not or Well, yes, but that's a different type of engineer. Okay. Yeah. Oh, I I am being in in the construction business, I know a lot of civil engineers. So, if we need to initiate that study and I need to put some money down myself, I'm willing to do that. Yeah. I mean, I I can just tell you, I mean, I I think it will be I can't I can't speak for everybody in the council, but I think it would be unlikely that the city is going to have funds to put towards that. I I just there's too big of a problem in other places. I I empathize with what you guys are saying, but I mean, we can't put money towards a one of the members of the task force's house that's been here for four years that it's caving in. So, I mean, uh, I think my situation's likely very different. Um, I live uh probably 25 to 30 feet up above the creek. The creek

has reached bedrock and has been washing the bank out and so I lose 5 to 10 feet of bank at a time. Um, it I think and you have a literal like sewer like storm water discharge. It's pointed directly at the bank. and playing directly. Um, and I've had them out multiple times and uh, you know, at first they told me, "Yeah, we we are responsible for maintaining this waterway, but we do not have funding to fix it. Uh, if you had a sewer line that was impacted, we could address it." Well, now we passed a ballot measure and they do have funding. um which is wonderful except that we had the city lined up to step in and say our residents are in trouble. We're prioritizing a couple places that need our help. We're going to do it. Uh we did all the studies. We did the engineering. We're pretty much ready to go. And MSD came back and said, "Well, now we have the funding. It's on our list. We need to redo the studies." Um, and so they've come back out and I think we're probably two or three years out from them doing anything. And we we really don't have that long. Um, I put my deck on when my son was born uh 9 years ago. There was no evidence of any of this stuff going on and we've now lost 20 feet of bank and my deck is about to go into the creek. Um, and I I don't know what to do except to keep showing up. Um, I sympathize with what everybody has going on. I think Mr. Farmer makes a really great point that um, I think we all can uh, feel sympathetic for individual use cases, the panic that it induces. I mean, trust me, every time it rains, I'm like up in the middle of the night looking out the

window. Um, but we need help. Uh, and we've asked the state for help multiple times and it's been line itemmed out several years in a row at the last minute passing of of state budgets. Um, and I don't know what the next steps are. Uh, potentially we need to start getting some news agencies involved and we need to start um raising our voice because we aren't a huge community. Um, we need some help. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I don't want to um I mean we're I was going to talk about this later, but you know, one one of the things that has become very clear to me over the this last several years and e even with this $250,000 that hopefully the state's going to give us, which we're incredibly appreciative of. Um the amount of energy and effort that that took from our city staff, the mayor, people, you know, our our con our uh political consultant down in Jeff City like trying to get people tied down. We had people that took it out because they their their their statement was the people of Wildwood are too wealthy to get any state money. Why would we give them any money? And so that is sort of the uphill battle that we're on. I mean, I went back over the last several weeks. I went through every single agenda that this committee has had. So, the last 39 agendas and back in 2019, which feels like a lifetime ago at this point, the recommendation that the committee started to lean towards was well obviously we need to as a city start to look very realistically at putting a ballot measure on that's for for storm water and parks. That is what the state allows us to put it into. Those are two huge issues that our city has. We have an incredible park system here in Wildwood, but the truth of the matter is we don't have a way to pay for it

ongoing. We have a enormous watershed problem. By the way, everybody here, all the work that we've done, the problem you guys are having is on Cox Creek. That is one of nine waterways. We haven't even looked at the other eight. And I can assure you they are in as bad of, if not worse shape than Cox Creek. So we have no real concept of how massive this problem is. It is a problem all of us inherited because you know this is the result of kind of unfiltered development which is what Wildwood was founded to stop. But these houses were built before that happened and people didn't really realize it. And I think Rick correct me if I'm wrong. I mean they just put the new flood tables out. Wasn't it like last year or was it earlier this year? the the our like flood limits or whatever it is and even that stuff is on data that's 10 years old. So every every single step that we make to try to make this better is like walking backwards in quicksand. So everything we're going to try to talk through tonight, we've got a couple items that we need to certainly get to and you know we'll we'll get going on this thing. But it is it is my opinion that the only solution to any part to begin to fix any part of this is that the city of Wildwood needs to look very seriously and the city council needs to consider very seriously, which we will do, the the language to put a parks and storm water tax on the ballot. That allows the citizens of Wildwood to determine what's going to go on. That means that all of us, myself included, I can't exactly because I'm I'm am restricted by being a council member. But those of us that are directly affected by these storms and this erosion need to get out and talk to our neighbors because most people assume I don't live anywhere near a creek. The water comes off my house and it goes in the sewer. Well, yeah. And then that sewer dumps into Caucus Creek or it dumps into the retention pond that's in

my neighborhood that we pay thousands of dollars every year for. and exactly three of our houses sit on it or see it and not a drop of water from any of them go into the creek. It's the repository for like 700 other homes around us that don't pay a dime and only complain about how it looks. So that's that's us to a tea, right? We're down in the valley there, but we're getting everybody's That's right. That's right. So So this is a situation where as frustrating as it is and I'm again it's your guys money. You are free to spend it how you want. I will I will advocate for you with our staff and with the council if necessary. If you want to try to go for these permits and do these repairs, you are more than welcome. I will tell you I personally don't think they will be affected for very long and I think it will just exacerbate a problem down you're just passing the problem down the creek which is just an unfortunate reality but that's kind of how this all works. I also right and I I also realize I did not address your question of whether or not it would be worth it um in my own extensive discovery uh with legal counsel uh regarding liability and waterways. It's tricky. Anything you do to uh your own property, you can be held liable upstream and downstream for impacts. And so, uh, basically that left me saying I don't want to touch it. I can't touch it. I can't afford to fix the problem myself and I can't afford any other liabilities down the line. Right? Because I'm not again I'm not saying there is if you create damage MSD has done and they approve what you're doing. Where is our liability? You think MSD is going to assume liability? MS

downstream with what we're doing behind our home. It is a flood study and how it affects downstream. Correct. That's what I was told. It depends on the study. But I I will tell you after hundreds of hours of sitting here doing these things and reading stuff. If you put something, let's just say you put this wall I'm describing or whatever you're going to do, you're going to move the rocks around and that's going to alter the flow. and that flow starts to damage something else. MSD is not going to take responsibility for that, nor is the city of Wildwood. They don't take responsibility for it now. That's correct. Much less. But then they would be happy to pass that responsibility on to you guys. That's that's what Greg is saying. They they are not I had that conversation with John. He did not leave me to believe that. But hey, we we've had numerous MSD people come in here and tell us all kinds of stuff. I look back before we had this ballot initiative, we had a person from MSD stand right there and tell us if we as a body advocated for this bill and it got passed. That meant $300,000 in cash every year coming to our city to do with what we want to fix flood problems. It's on tape. You know how much money we've gotten so far? None. Mr. Vunich, how much money are we planning on getting this year? I think Rick Brown can answer that, but I think the distribution is being delayed, but we are hopeful that that distribution will come either in 2026 or no later than 2027. Yeah, my understanding was that it'll be available in 2026 and it'll show up on individuals property tax. I know we're getting a little off track here, but if we get that distribution, do we get to use it as we see fit according to our prioritization? I think again Mr. Brown's been in more contact with the individual or individuals at the district that are

administering this, but it appears it may now be a competitive grant program. Well, I I don't know I would say it would be competitive, Joe, but what they were leading us to believe is we would have to submit an application essentially allowing them to approve the project so that we're not using it for something that's not allowed essentially. But we're not going to be competing necessarily with other cities. We will have our own monies 300,000 years what they have quoted us. Um that has not changed to my knowledge yet. Um but they obviously do have the ability to review it and deny it if it doesn't meet the criteria or I assume they'll get to select which projects that we would submit that they're going to do the work on. Right. We're not going to do that. I'm sorry. Of course they have their list of projects that they've identified. uh that they are intending to respond to which your home is one of them. Um and so they've retained some of the funds for that purpose. They have split off another chunk for the municipalities to use as they feel is necessary to meet their goals and objectives. So essentially both agencies are pursuing storm water solutions, the municipalities and MSD. Yeah, Mr. Chair, with your permission. So Mr. Brown. I I want to make sure I heard this correctly. The the collection of the taxes to begin in 2026. I understood you would be paying it on your property tax bill this year. This year. So they would collect the monies end of year and it would be available for next year. Okay. So 2026. I will believe that when I see it. Um all right. So, I appreciate it, guys. We've we've uh we've had our public comment go for quite longer than five minutes. Um, and again, we empathize for

sure with you. Um, we're happy to try to support you however you ca we can. I'm just telling you that when I started on this thing, my suggestion was why don't we get bobcats and just drive them down this thing and spread the rocks out? That seems like it would fix this problem, at least in this in the short term. And every single expert that we've had that has come in here says it does seem like that would be what would happen. That is not in fact what would happen. And we've had study after study and expert after expert tell us that it's an unfortunate. So what has happened behind our homes is the creek has gotten much much wider obviously and much much shallower. And I know that 7 8 years ago that um MSD put a 30-in waistline right next to the creek, which was a concern of theirs initially, thinking, "Hey, that bank goes, we're going to be dumping 3,000 gallons a minute of human waste in the middle of this creek." Well, they send somebody out and the creek has gotten so shallow that now that line is below the bottom of the creek. Now, over years, it may affect that waistline that they installed a few years ago, but not their concern because the creek's gotten so shallow and much wider. Yes, sir. Well, Mr. Vunich, I I I guess um your frustration with them, I understand that frustration, but now I am very frustrated with the whole thing, including this situation. I mean, I I got more I got more positive response from the core of engineers and MSD than I'm getting from my own people. Well, I think I would say that that's not the case. We're telling you we're happy to try to support you as best we can. I I plan on moving forward with a study and if I have to pay for it or we as a group, as a homeowners association pays for this study, you're willing to say, "Okay." Yep. I would I would get with Mr. Brown

tomorrow. He's happy to walk you through the steps. It's it's I assume extensive as it has been for a lot of the stuff that we've done. Well, he gave us MSD sent me a copy of a similar study with one p one page, no narrative whatsoever, one drawing with calculations. I can't believe that that would take a whole lot of time to do. He gave me here's what you need to do, Mike. Here's what you need to do and we will rush this through. I would implore you to keep us updated. If if you were able to um inspire action out of other agencies in a way that we've not been able to uncover, please let us know. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, we we've had a lot of conversations where they come in and they're very positive and this is going to be a very simple thing and it's really easy going to going to be great. Everything's going to be great. Well, that that's not what it's anyway. Sir, I'll be glad to talk to you tomorrow. We do the studies, we go back to them, they go, "We don't have any money. How much, you know, what about out this? Can you get this thing now? You have to jump through this hoop." Um, if it it it's Yeah. I mean, the reality is, and this is, and it could change. I mean, it's possible that with this new thing, it will change because the reality is for ever there, they had two MSD had two like basically directives. One was to manage wastewater and the other was to manage storm water and the state which is the kind of primary decision maker for MSD so to speak only allowed them to fund one of the two things. So they could only fund wastewater activity. So as Greg said if some if along the line somewhere there was danger to the waistline MSD is happy to spend whatever amount of money to go in and fix that. But every time they would come in, they would go, "Yep, this is look at you did all the work. This is great. There's no

money for us to fix. There's no money for anybody to fix it." And mind you, would say, "Yes, we are responsible for managing this waterway. This is our responsibility problem. We don't have funding to fix it." Mr. Chair, could I Mr. Chair, thanks for recognizing the department. And there's some clarity I'd like to provide. So, as you know, we've spent a great deal of time studying Cox Creek wershed and several of the others, not to the extent of Cox Creek, but we have spent time doing the analysis that we needed to do. We've had Dr. David Hammer, we've had Todd Wagner, Joe Wilson, all well-known engineers in the field of watershed management, erosion control, etc. So we have a list of critical projects. First and foremost was the triple meander by the elican child. The cost of that to achieve a relative balance and control the extent of erosion and the meander was $3 million. And this group basically said that would basically negate almost any other project for the foreseeable future. So we put that on the back burner. That meant that Evergreen Forest Court, the Highlands at Wild Horse, and Wildwood Meadows became the top three projects. So, the good news to the the individuals in attendance tonight is we've recognized the issue for a long period of time. We came up with this list in 2021 and as Mr. farmers has elegantly stated we've been working on a funding solution for them for that period of time and now in the present. So, we have three priority projects. We've identified them. MSD obviously is

looking at your issue first and foremost. And I believe that's a direct outcome of our efforts, having them here in attendance, having them out in the creek seeing the problem instead of just telling us the standard answer. I would encourage the residents in Wildwood Meadows to contact Rick and I before you do the study. Let's make sure that we all are on the same page. We can certainly help you in that regard. I would note that first and foremost, we have core authorization for Mr. Berger's property, so to speak, the Evergreen Forest Cohort, and we have core approval for the Highlands at Wild Horse. This task force authorized us to proceed forward with the applications. We did. We got the approvals. That was the effort of Joel Wilson and Todd Wagner. We can Mr. Will those extend to MSD if they decide to proceed those authorizations. I would hope so. If we can transfer those, and this is more in Mr. Brown's area of expertise, but we had the permits. In fact, we had that on the agenda one night acknowledging that we finally had received approval after months of the submittal process proceeding forward. Um, I like to think we could do that for Baldwood Meadows. The cost was nominal to PO due to permitting process. So, again, we're focusing on the critical locations that we identified and I think that's good. The other thing is Mr. Brown and I have had conversations and there's an opportunity I think with regards to Ever Forest Court that if we can fund it, MSD will reimburse us and we're more nimble and probably could do it quicker. And so those conversations are ongoing. We're waiting for them to get the funding so that we know that if we fund it, we'll

get paid back and not have to wait years and years and years. So there's a lot of positives and a lot of it is circulated around the task force and its efforts. So folks in Meadows of Wildwood Meadows talk with us first before you do anything so we can make sure that what you do is targeted and it'll be the right solution for MDNR core MSD in the city. Once you do all of that, you'll be in good shape. Um, so again, I just want to kind of put a positive spin on all of this. There has been progress and I think we can make progress. Um, we have $250,000 um coming from the state unless something changed. And not to correct you, Mr. Farmer, but we have $250,000 in the capital improvement program this year for watershed erosion. So the question becomes do we do the projects or do we do the storm water management master plan right and that's a decision for you all to make not me. Thank you. Yeah I I mean I will just say this too just to give you guys an idea um we a couple months ago I guess were invited or we had hosted it over here. Uh there is a study going on in the Hamilton car leg of our watershed and in that meeting Travis I think you were down there right there was what 13 different entities that had something to do with the Hamilton car wershed which is like not very big in in comparison to Cox Creek and things like that. So the the red tape and the hoops is is frustrating and exhausting. uh and you know, but we're we're trying to press on and get some things moving forward. So, um so, okay. Does anybody else have any

other public comment? Yes, sir. Yeah, just I'll be brief. Um I'm Mike Mlullen. I'm from the Highlands uh neighborhood. Got my neighbor uh Joe over here with me. Uh the story I've learned a lot here today. I can tell you that much. But um we've also got Cox Creek kind of running I think most you know kind of right by kind of a common area right there. Um some of the stories that you've you've told and uh Greg what you've told are pretty severe. So I I sympathize with you there. But um at any rate I've just kind of studied since 1996 till today the rate of erosion in our neck of the woods there and just using Google Earth and stuff like that. Basically it's a foot a year. sounds like more severe more severe but um being unfamiliar with this committee I didn't know if we needed to kind of register hey put us somewhere in the line or do something with it but um anyway noted we're here for that and I guess the other question is uh despite you know our situation is a lot like everybody else where there's just a sheer cliff of mud that nothing's going to grow on the water comes around it but I've also observed from the top side coming down just as it runs down grass, it's just nibbling away at it, letting eating it from the top side as well as the the fast water there. But I guess my question is aside from pushing gravel iron, which I totally get, water is really strong and uh you can't really stop it. Um what would be $250,000, $300,000, a million? What's a solution that anybody's ever proposed that would work acknowledging the fact that somebody that is upstream of somebody that's downstream like you you said concrete peers or pillars or what in the world would tame the solution even if somebody said here's a million bucks do something with it what would that look like or is every solution a little bit

different yeah so I would say every solution is a little bit different um but the other side of it which is what we've kind of tried to work through here as a task force is um the the I'm not going to call them the best practices. The common practice has always been there is an erosion problem here at this spot. Let's fix that spot. And then two years down the road all of a sudden MSD or whoever's like, "Well, that's weird. Now there's an erosion problem 20 ft down down the thing. I guess maybe we should fix that spot now." or they'll go, "No, there's a there's a worse spot 100 feet down. We'll start fixing that spot." And so what winds up happening is you sort of are more or less patching bullet holes with band-aids and it just creates a much bigger problem. Yeah. No, that that makes sense. Uh but what would be to to patch one spot? What would it even be? A giant wall of concrete or pillars or hypothetically if we acknowledge we're going to squirt it downstream. But yeah, the best the best thing that we have found the thing that we've sort of recommended and and looked at the most is um kind of a I guess it would be a hybrid I would define as like a bio a bow wall. So basically they go in they kind of put more or less they they back flo backload it with rocks terrace it or something. Yeah. And then it's kind of terrace with like a like a it's a bofabric I guess is what they call it. And then it starts to grow geopabric. Sorry. Yeah. And then it kind of starts to grow. Yeah. Roots set in that holds it together, stuff like that. Exactly. So, to that point, you can't build this thing on a sheer wall like what, you know, so we're going to have to terrace it down, but that would be assume that you have something to dig into. But if your deck's right there, you're probably not going to dig your deck out to terrace it down. Yeah. Um No, that makes sense. I would say if you if you haven't seen if you haven't ever done it, if you go um if you're heading back that way and

you go up West Glenn Farms Drive and you make a left on um Fullerton Meadows, I think is what it is, and you'll come there's Shiva Court. It's like one block up. If you look to the right, I think MSD spent like $2 million or something terracing the creek literally up to like the back doors of people's houses. And since they did that, it worked. For that part of the creek, it worked just fine. Sure. The rest of us down the line, not so much. Yeah. Um, so but if you if I mean and and that's sort of the other issue that we have started to confront and and and Rick and Joe are trying to have these conversations with MSD. You know, the MSD's preferred method of repairing things is I would say cheap and fast. Ours is well permanent, right? And so we kind of have a differing of philosophies where they're like we'll go we'll they'll come in and tear they'll do exactly what they did. I'm not saying they would do this, but they will do what they did at Shiva Court in both of your guys' neighborhoods and then then they go, "Okay, we fixed it." And then everything happens down the way. Gotcha. Um, how about is there any other effort to like if you could go back in time, as you said, Wildwood kind of exploded without a lot of thinking as far as what, you know, where where we built houses and pools and stuff like that, knowing how this going to go down. Um, again, as far as I can tell, going back to 1996, which I don't know when we would say we really started digging in, that's when satellite imagery starts coming on there. The rate of erosion, at least where I'm monitoring, is is basically the same. It hasn't like exploded. But if we went back to 1980, maybe we'd see as soon as we start putting in foundations and streets, that's when it went up. But I don't have that data. Um, I guess my question is, is there an opportunity to learn what would be the ideal solution in a in a city if you had

that hindsight and what would they do to try to, you know, have a better MSD type solution? Yeah. I mean, I I would say I I think and you know, I Mr. Vunage and I have had a lot of conversations about this. Um but you know as I'm sure all of you are aware that live in Wildwood development in our city housing developments whatever kind of development is always sort of a hot button issue and part of that now is because of the the amount of water that can be dispersed by these places. So I I would say from what I have seen, you know, our city has done I think as good a job as they knew how to do at the time um you know we probably as a city if we if we started today could say we need to be significantly more proactive and ahead of this curve. But then we run into the issue of um you know developers say well why do we why do I have to get penalized and pay all this extra money to do these things that don't always work. We we had some issues um in Bright Leaf which is kind of like our our most recent big neighborhood. It's right across the street over here. Um I think Joe correct me if I'm wrong. that was the first neighborhood to put the like bio retention basins in and that was at the time supposed to be a really great idea and here we are you know whatever it is 10 years down the road and it's as it turns out maybe not such a great idea um so I I think you know I think that all of the people involved in this whether it's the you know FEMA or the engineers or the army corps or whatever it is I I think everybody's trying to do their best to make sense of this but the reality real is all of these regulations, everything we're doing came from a time that the weather didn't behave the way that it does. You know, there is supposed to be a pretty natural amount of movement in any kind of creek. So, I mean, I've gone back to I think 1908 is the first images I've seen of Cox Creek. And I mean, it's moved a lot

since that amount of time. Some of it is normal, some of it isn't. Um, but you know, we need to and we've tried and and I think Greg is a is a an incredible example of this because he is I think of probably anybody in the city, he is most directly impacted by this specific issue and he has done all of his due diligence and all of his work and and I think he has kind of come to the place of like if somebody can fix behind my house that would be great but he is aware that that is just going to transfer that problem to his neighbor one house or three horse houses are five houses down and so now that problem just starts over again. So as a task force we've really tried to take a systemic look at this rather than a individual case thing. Um there are critical areas of importance that we're looking at. Um Mr. Vun just talked about a few of them. We're going to come up we're going to talk about a rubric here to figure out the rest of them. But it's um it's a very very big problem for sure. Yes. Right. So, one of the decisions that we're going to get to here in a little bit is um you'll see here in just a it's three items down on the agenda. So, we're going to try to blow through these other two items fast so we aren't here all night. Um but you'll see them here in a minute. So, nobody has anything else. We're going to jump to this next one. Joe, if you want me to tee this thing up, I'm happy to do it. Um, so one of the items that we I went back in time and looked at and and kind of realized that we have although we have uh these critical locations that we have identified and spent a great deal of time on, one of the things that we didn't do as a group is sort of codify how we did that and how we apply that moving forward. So, as we talk later this evening, uh, in terms of our storm water master plan and some of these other items, I think one of the things that's important for the city and

something that we've been doing in a couple other areas is getting a very specific set of scoring requirements that aren't like kind of left up to too much interpretation and then that can be put on a list. So, as an example, if this thing were in place, you guys would be able to fill out a form online, the guy, we go out and score it, and then you understand, hey, we scored a nine or whatever it is, and the next, you know, there's 17 people that have 15s or however it is. It kind of allows you to see where you are. And that's not to say that your problem doesn't affect you more than the next person. It's just to say that this is a, you know, an unemotional, non-ambiguous way to score things. So, um, the process that we put together, as I said, we've done this in I've done this in a couple other areas that we've been working through, but it's basically designed to score, um, specific places on several categories. Uh, severity of erosion impact, proximity to infrastructure, proximity to structures, downstream amplification, engineering readiness, permit feasibility, cost to impact efficiency, co-unding opportunities, community priority. So, this is all based on sort of a more or less a 10-point scale and then you get a a scoring threshold that all adds up. So, a top tier priority project would be something that scores between 75 and 100. Um, obviously, if you score a 75 and there's another that's 100, theoretically, you might think, well, that 100 one's going to get done faster. But, as Mr. Vunich has said, you know, we're pretty confident that the biggest issue in our city is what we call the triple meander, which is sort of this S turn that happens behind the elegant child. And that is the most important one in the city, but it also is probably going to cost us seven several million dollars to fix. So the question that we get tasked with and soon the council would get tasked with is do we spend $3 million to fix that project and then we don't have any money to do anything for the next several years or do we start to fix projects like your guys project or Greg's project or whatever and we kind of roll the dice

and take our chances on this bigger thing. So um Mr. Vun, you got anything you want to add? Well, certainly. Um, thank you u Mr. Brown, Mr. Newberry, Mr. Lee, and I appreciate the presentation of the priority rubrics and we certainly believe it's consistent with what we've done in the past. I think it's a bit better detailed and simpler to understand. I would also I would I would ask the task force to accommodate a bit of a different motion. First and foremost, MSD has a similar scoring system. I believe the gentleman mentioned it. He was at the podium. I think it would be to the benefit of the task force, if you allow public works and planning, to kind of compare the two to make sure we're not counter to the the scorings, so to speak, and that we're consistent. I like the fact that there's one that's more Wildwood centric than MSC. And so the intent would be is for public works and planning to review the two scoring rubrics, ensure that there's consistency, lean toward the Wildwood one, and then also maybe build on the definitions that Mr. Farmer provided. I think there's some better the the engineering side of the city could enhance those and then have something back to you at our next meeting for application. Mr. Farmer provided these. It says a great deal of work, but we've just seen it within the last few days ourselves. So, we'd I think we'd like to kind of do a little bit more analysis, bring back a final product, and then move forward. Yeah. So, I don't disagree. My my only suggested change, and Joe, I'm happy to take or Tom or Rick, I'm happy to take your guys' advice on this as well, just to sort of maybe a conversation piece for the group. Um, I might suggest if

you if we are all okay with that philosophy, then you guys should do that. And then at the end of the day, the the council is going to determine these things or whatever committee it's going to next. So, I would almost move it up the line. We don't need to hold it back just to make sure that your guys eight is the same as this eight. That would be my take, but I'm happy to defer to you guys. Well, it certainly shows confidence in us in their interpreting MSD's matrix as well as your Rubik's and we appreciate that. I'm always cautious because I want you all to be feel like you're adding value to whatever we do. But certainly we can have something back to council sooner if we can have the endorsement of all of you to proceed forward with what I've described and then like city council where Mr. Farmer sits and Mr. Mayberry who's in attendance and take it from there. Mr. Funich, could I ask for a point of clarity? Uh, for the MSSE matrix versus the one that we've developed, who would be scoring those exactly? Ours would be done internally by the city staff and any of the consultants that Mr. Brown and I feel would be beneficial to ensure that maybe those first couple times out we have somebody to help us so we know we're doing it right. And then from that point forward, we've learned, we've educated ourselves, we have a great deal of expertise as well. So from that perspective, I think successful. Can I safely assume that when MSD does the same thing, it's their own internal staff that is doing that? That's my understanding. And correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Brown. That would be my understanding as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's a benefit to that because obviously um we know Wildwood better than MSD. I truly believe that and we have engaged with a lot of residents over the years that have erosion problems along the

tributaries and we know what's at risk better I think as well. And so I think the idea of a Rubik's for the city is a great one and I think we can basically put it on a solid foundation if we ensure it's not contrary to MSDS and then move forward. All right. Agreed. If you're relying on MSD to be a partner, we should be aligned and not fighting about where we fit in the matrix. Um, okay. Does anybody have any questions or concerns or care to make a motion to endorse Mr. Vunich's idea to compare this to MSD? and then I'll make the motion to endorse it. All right, we've got a motion. Mr. Sturman will make second. Second. Any discussion or concerns on it? I I read it. I thought it was good and detailed and very complete approach. I likewise. I thought it was well done. And again, it was done by Mr. Farmer, so they should go that direction. But I just want to make sure and sometimes the devil's in the details as you all know. And I just want to make sure the definitions are something that we consistently have applied in the past. If we have and been successful, then that's what we need to do in the future. All right. Uh any other discussion? Okay. All those in favor of pressing this forward, please say I. I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Uh Joe and Rick, let's get uh comparing that stuff. That'll be good. Um okay, glad to do it, sir. Up next, you guys are going to like this one, I think. Uh it is a uh a draft idea establishing a pre-approved a pre-approved design and permitting pathway for residential stream bank repairs. So, this would be a system that the city puts in place where basically uh you would be able to um fill out an online form, answer a couple generally pretty simple questions that would tell

you does your project would your project qualify to move on to a fasttrack or are there some details in it that maybe are different. So, as an example, if Mr. Sturman wanted to fill this out for Point Clayton and the fir one of the questions is is the bank higher than 12 ft and his answer would be yes. It's four times higher than that. Then the answer on the fasttrack would be probably not. That takes a pretty extensive amount of engineering. So the idea with this is to try to speed this process up for everybody. This isn't something that we've put in place before. Um it also helps to streamline the permitting. Um and it puts together an entire basically uh toolkit. So, it's a site eligibility checklist, a list of exempt or pre-approved designs, a permit trigger guide, public facing flowcharts on do I need a permit, who do I go to first, staff and trustee communication language. So, as Mr. Vunage said, especially for those of us that lives in subdivisions that have HOAs, a good idea is to get your HOA involved in that because the odds are that that is a common area, not exactly your backyard. So, you're going to want to get that since theoretically the HOA would own that property. Um, but the idea would be if we put this in place, it would empower residents to act safely and legally on erosion issues, reduce long-term strain on public infrastructure, allow staff to shift attention to top priority public sites, support equity by helping residents who cannot afford full consultants, and build trust through clear, transparent process guidance rather than what you guys are seeing here this evening. We're trying to fix all this stuff. Um, I'm happy and Joe, you can certainly I know you didn't get this that long ago, but you can answer some things. I guess if anybody has any questions, I'm happy to try to talk through it as well. Um, but this is one of those items that um to me as we kind of move this into a a more of an action phase than a kind of constant conversation phase, this makes the most sense to me. It allows our residents to have a little bit clearer picture of, you know, here's how this process starts

and here's where we wind up and and I the hope is and I think it's very possible that if you submit one of these things, whether you're going to get a a yes, you're on the fast track or no, you're not should get a you should get a response within about a five business days from the city letting you know where you fall and what the next steps might be. as I tell a lot of my um constituents in Ward 4, you know, they're not always going to like the answers I give them, but I'm always going to give them the answer that is an actual answer. So, my hope and expectation, as I know they always do, um on a staff side, is, you know, they certainly don't like to deliver bad news to residents. Sometimes they have to do that. So, some people might want to have a fast track and it's just not a realistic possibility and this will give them a little bit of a way to to say that. U Mr. Vun, you got anything you want to add? Well, a couple of things and thank you again and I would encourage Mr. Lee, Mr. Brown or Mr. Newberry to add. So, first and foremost, again, this is something we all received fairly recently. I would love to have this document presented to our communications manager since it is going to be the front-facing component out on the website where residents can go and begin the process to solve the problem. So with that in mind, obviously I'd like to have Paul on. Secondly, I'd like the Department of Public Works to kind of take a look at it as well. And I think it's a great opportunity to apply it as a test case in Wildwood Meadows. So we could basically test it there as we address their issue as best we can with the resources we have available at this time. So I would like as I would like an endorsement of it so we could proceed forward to those three steps public works communications manager and then actually take it out in the field and see how it works. All right. Anybody have any questions, concerns or care to

make a motion? So moved. All right. Do we have a second? Seconded. All righty. Uh we have a first and a second. Anybody care to say anything else before we press forward? Okay. All those in favor of Mr. Vun's recommendations to get this in front of Paula, have public works take a look, get it out in the field and moving, and then get it implemented as quickly as possible. Please say I. I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Excellent. Yes, sir. Coming up to ping, Bob. Till action was taken. Uh Bob Mabry, ward two off of Arville Road. Um council representative, have you succeeded in being able to fasttrack this fasttracking process so that it does not need nor want to go to uh the admin public works committee and or um the council. Can it be something that is executed without delay or without necessary approval procedures uh in the city charter? Yeah, I don't think it needs an ordinance or anything. Does it, Tom? No, there would be no need for an ordinance. If we wanted to, we could codify it with a resolution being a full action by the council if that was necessary, but would not. I would almost suggest and I think if it if it's not in there already, I neglected to put it in. I apologize. My idea would be get it activated and then in a like either in a handful of months or a handful of cases, whatever comes first, we just I can pull it into admin PW just to make sure that it's working correctly and and give them the directive that they don't really need to fix it assuming that it isn't. But the idea is to not have this hang up anymore.

That's good news. Um favorable. I had recalled the reviewing the action of agency committee commission uh inner activivity interbreeding amongst themselves and wondered if uh this effort was going to be uh I didn't say bismerched but I did if this was going to be impacted time-wise or implementation and experiment sounds like a beta which is a legal beta. Yeah, it shouldn't. I mean most of the things that I remember kind of going to the next stage usually involve like money. So if if if this is uh you know like we we have previously done like certain education things or like we would have a booth at Celebrate Wildwood or whatever nobody else needs to have that conversation. I think as long as we're not um as long as we're not uh you know racking up a large bill or something like that or unless which I don't think she she will but we'll run it by her you know if Paula came back with some kind of a concern the best course of action in my opinion would be to get that to admin PW next because that's we have the next meeting. So if if there is a something that would slow this down, I think just get it on the agenda at the next available meeting rather than, you know, cuz our our meetings here are a little bit fluid sometimes. All right, I promise my last question. I I heard a smattering of talk about the next meeting. I take it be the next task force meeting and the 41st one. All right. Um, is there a a bogey, a target, a plan, a schedule for that meeting? Yeah. So, um, I mean, this we have a couple big items here coming up on our agenda, but my I mean, at my very serious, uh, thought on this is that we're going to have another couple meetings here throughout the end of the year and then at the end of the year, everything that the task force needs to

do is going to be handed off to us to make financial decisions and figure these things out. I think that we're we've kind of reached a point with this where especially when we're talking about our master plan or this retention detention thing that that we have kind of spent a long time figuring out we don't need to get new people involved in that. Once we get those things done and these systems in place, this should be an actionoriented situation rather than let's sit around and figure it out. Um, and so then it's a matter of budgeting things appropriately and figuring it out and that goes through the different committees and then the council at the end of the day. Thank you, chair. Yep. Um, okay. Yes, sir. Just a couple things. Um, in the past the policy has been that if the watershed erosion task force makes a recommendation, we actually bypass the council committees. you serve that role, so to speak, to basically vet out what's being proposed, ask the questions about money, and then when your recommendation is complete, we take it to city council to do exactly what Mr. Farmer said, not let it be belabored by discussion, discussion, discussion, and all going through what may be a typical process for many things. So, that's just what we've done in the past. Certainly if admin and public works or planning and parks, whatever committee it might be, feels it's essential to seat, certainly we can do that and we'll do it as quickly as possible. I can just speak for myself because I chair the admin public works thing. I'm fine with this stuff going straight to the council unless there's something you know Rick or Tom or you guys feel is imperative that we talk about beforehand. Just let's get it going as fast as we can. Well, the for example the USGS study of the um upper and middle reaches of uh Cox Creek that was recommended by watershed erosion task

force and went straight to city council for for the funding component. So, we've done it for large uh large ticket items, so to speak, and certainly I feel comfortable with the task force continuing that, but that's not a decision necessarily for public works or planning for the city administrator, that city council, and the task force. Yeah, I I I can just speak I'll tell all you guys because I'm certain you don't watch the videos of all the other meetings that we have in the city, but a couple meetings ago, we talked about uh there was a survey that went out to the previous council. We've had a couple new council members come on. Um but it was really very clear the the primary priority for the city council was completing internet access to our citizens as obviously had been going on for a long time. We had the whole COVID thing and then 1A was the was watershed and erosion issues and so we to the best of our ability have accomplished our internet goal and so now our the priority of the council is this watershed thing. So they are primed and ready to receive these items and act quickly. So I I would at every opportunity get it in front of them as quickly as possible. So do you want a motion to say that Joe or you just good with what we've been doing? I would say since we've done it for the past four plus years, I think we're okay if we proceed forward unless Mr. Lee says otherwise. All right, business as usual. Um, okay. That brings us to, I believe, our detention and retention basin study. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. chair and members of the task force. As you know, approximately 18 months or so ago, the task force

endorsed entering into a contract with Wagner and Associates to analyze detention retention basins that had been constructed as part of subdivision development, but constructed prior to the new standards that the Metropolitan St. Louis Seist adopted. simply stated is the basins as designed and engineered and constructed were done at a standard that was probably woefully short of what was needed at the time and certainly now with what we're seeing in terms of storm patterns uh ineffective. The Cox Creek study completed by the United States Geological Survey said the primary step that the city needs to do is basically find more storage for storm water runoff. And so we were a little ahead of the curve relative to the recommendations from the geologic survey but certainly endorsed what we were doing and made it I think from the standpoint of any future funding solid decision. So um Mr. Wagner had some health issues at the end of 2024 that continued forward into 2025. But tonight I do have a summary and we will have the final report in August. And so from that perspective, I did hand out the summary so you could at least take it home, take a look at it, uh let us know what you think. He's open to any comments, uh suggestions, um anything that you would like to add. I would note that as one of the items I wasn't necessarily expecting, the USGS study, as I just stated, talked about additional storage. Mr. Wagner went ahead and identified potential locations for that additional storage and not only the existing basins but also potential new basins and locations that might be effective. So I would encourage you to take a close look at

that as well. that could be our key to success in terms of managing um the Cox Creek issues that we have which is inclusive of Wildwood Meadows, the triple meander, the detention basin at Elegant Child, etc., etc. So, um a lot of good information, more to follow, but just wanted to introduce it to you tonight and get you the item that was provided around 4:50 this afternoon. Yes, sir. I have a question uh just for the people that are here in the audience. I'm not sure that you're aware that the detention and retention I don't mean to step on your toes Joe has to do with the whole issue of water flow and the fact that uh not being able to control the the mainstream itself. The idea was that if we can capture some of that water before it hits the creek that the likelihood of it being able to flow into Rick's yard or whatever, the intent was to see if we could capture some of that water and slow that flow down um as not as kind of a secondary idea, but at least uh if we can't redo the whole creek, is there a way to mitigate the flow of that water? And so the detention and retention idea that we came up with uh really had to do with well can we attack this from another view. Uh it's still going to rain. We know that. But if we can capture and at least um eliminate some of that quick flow into the creek,

that may help the whole problem. That was the intent of what we're looking at here. And this I think Mr. Farmy, you can or either of you can explain better what this little report talks about. Sure. I just wanted you to know that that was part of what we've been working on. When we don't have $10 million to do everything, can we do something else? Right. Uh, anybody have anything else? I'm happy I can fill in some of that stuff, but I don't want Yeah, I had one question on that. I don't know if you've seen how much of the detail you've seen on this, but I know when this came up last September when we met, you know, this seemed to me to be one of the primary means we were going to be using to stretch our dollars to, as you say, mitigate the problem. Um do we have an idea you know at this point are we uh are we saying that uh there is going to be this is going to be our first priority or are we going to be waiting for another study to come through from the uh the other two uh green and and MS3 or whatever it is. It's a very good question and a question I think we'll try to answer a little later in on in tonight's agenda. But we initially started this effort with the priority focusing on the critical locations and making repairs to those critical locations to preserve public infrastructure as Mr. the farmer said and then obviously private property where we have a situation where a dwelling's being threatened and the residents that reside in it. So the critical locations was

first and foremost. What we realized very shortly thereafter is those are expensive projects and how might we spread our dollars further and still improve the situation or certainly not worsen it and that was the base and study. What Mr. Sturman found out from his exhaustive research on financing funding and opportunities in terms of grants and loans is that most told us that we need a stormwater management master plan to make ourselves eligible for that funding. And so that's where that came from. So that was late to the party, but from a standpoint, we thought costwise might be affordable and be the seed that would produce the plants funds that would allow us to come back and do basins and projects. And what we found is is the study itself is almost as much as the cost to repair the triple meander. And so the struggle we had when we talked to the consultants was wow that's a lot of money. So to answer your question I hope I did but make it as simply as stated is we've we've reorientated the priorities as we've learned more through the efforts of the task force members. But tonight, we're presenting to you a a proposal from the two consultants that were selected through our RFQ process. That's the storm water management master plan light. And it's still $300,000. And we know we have basins that could be fixed. We know we have projects that could be potentially completed. So that's tough question. It comes a little later. Yeah. So I'll add a little bit to

that. So, uh, this detention and retention basin idea, um, stemmed from a pretty extensive multi-year study we had with the USGS and what they came back with was if we were able to they they just studied Cox Creek. So, they didn't look at the other places, but the idea would be if the math works here, it should also be able to be applied elsewhere because it just sort of makes sense. So, as has been stated, the idea is to lessen the flow into the creek since we can't fix all of the creek. So, it just so happens that the um the first basin on our list, which is the largest basin uh that exists in this area that we're talking about is in Westland Farms, which is where I live. And the way that that works currently, if you have ever seen it, if you drive up Thunderhead Canyon, there's a little lake/pond thing on the right. It's about 3 acres large. It's quite large. and very expensive for us to care for. But but the way that it works right now is um as soon as the as soon as it starts to rain, the water from all of the neighborhoods kind of like going up towards Lafayette come down the pipes and into that pond. And the way that that pond is currently configured, as soon as that water starts coming in, it immediately starts going out the backside right into the creek. So, what this is designed to do is to make that pond and then the other ponds also in this list function the way that they're supposed to, which is it's going to fill with water. that water is going to slowly drain into the creek over the course of maybe several days and then that lessens this kind of like insane flow because I I mean at least I know behind my house where they've put concrete in for these water lines. Some of these storms I mean there are white water rapids that are 15 ft high in the air. It's and so those things will still happen but now you're not going to get an extra you know several hundred homes up the street filling in in. So, I don't remember the exact percentage that the

USGS theorized with this if we could implement this, but it was an enormous amount of pressure to come off of the creek, which is really what we need to have happen. So, um I I've obviously gotten this the same amount of time that you guys did, uh which wasn't a lot of time today, but I'm looking at this and looking back at the prices that we thought we would be getting when we started this and and based on inflation, everything else, this hasn't gone up that much, which is a good thing. Um, so, um, obviously I'm happy to have any conversation you guys would like. I might suggest, you know, much like we've done with some of these other things. You know, this is an item that, you know, I think the Mr. Wagner's probably going to have a little bit finer point on the money angle on this on his next iteration, the final Yeah. report. um which we can certainly wait to have that conversation at our next meeting or if like we've done in the past um you know you guys are okay with saying theoretically we like what this is saying and let's let the city council that determines who's getting what money when let them figure out if this money works or not and how to break this thing down. Um, I mean, I'm I guess it is my pond, but I mean, $275,000 to fix that seems like a very small drop in the bucket compared to some of these other problems that we're trying to deal with. And especially if it can lessen the issues you guys are having or the triple meander doesn't help you any, Greg. I I apologize. Um, but some of these ones are suggesting are not that far from your house, it looks like. So, that's another thing we can look into. Um, but I mean, what kind of action would you like, Joe? Does it make sense to say we like this plan and pass it on or would you prefer we wait and look at the final draft? What would you like? I think we need to wait for the final draft. I think that would be Mr. Wagner's recommendation to the task force if he was here tonight. It's just what I want to emphasize is the task force knew we had to do something. We

had limited funds. They chose this and based upon the USGS study, you chose the best approach. So, good job. Y and we'll have the final recommendation. We'll have Mr. Wagner to be able to present it. And I think it as of August when we have that meeting, I think we'll be in a position to go into the budgeting cycle for 2026 with all the information available. Yes, sir. Just a question, Jill. Um how does this fit into the uh the master plan of greens? Is it a separate item or does it get rolled up into that plan? It's a separate item. So, you know, what I'm going to be asking in the next agenda item is how do we play the shell game? We've got three shells. We've got x amount of dollars. Which one do we pick? And hopefully it's the one that we can fund. Mr. Stern, yeah. In this final report, is there going to be a recheck on the estimating? Uh, also that's I think what he's doing right now. I had a conversation with him after I received the email. He was available to take the call and he said yes. The numbers are general. I'm working on that and then there's some refinements in the engineering he wanted I think to run by Mr. Brown as well. Will he uh will you send that out to us as soon as you get it or do we save it for the meeting? Yes. No, tonight you got it as soon as I got it. So okay quite frankly but yes the longer you have the report the better off our conversation will be in the decision that got from that conversation. Just a quick question um there's some pretty impressive numbers in here for increased storage retention. Is there any idea of how it would impact downstream impacts to our friends here and others?

Well certainly the intent was is as I think Mr. Dante eloquently stated is the more we hold the water in these basins and meter or manage the discharge, the less stress on the creek, which means downstream the water isn't as violent as it is now because quite frankly the detention basins and retention basins that we have in most of the older subdivisions, they were designed for a single storm event. And that single storm event is It's just not it's not it's I I don't understand how it became the standard we use. So yes, anything we can do to increase storage according to the USGS is going to be possible. Okay. So my direct more direct question is can that be quantified in any way? That's a question I'll ask Mr. Wagner. Yeah, because that could be important. Yeah. So did just to respond for those who don't have the report in front of them uh there's an estimated 50% increase in retention with these uh modified changes. So I think the question being put forth is if we have 50% more retention what type of relief does that provide the building starts does that mean instead of having 15 foot um rapids house it's five feet I don't know or or some of you I'm not sure where all these are but when you put and when you add them all together how what's that combined benefit downstream my question on that to to piggyback on that. Yeah. Can he give this in a volume? He's saying 100%. Well, can he give us what the volumes are? Cuz then we can quantify. Does this pond give you three ponds worth? So that money is more important

than say the three other projects. I'm sure you can. I think if I'm reading this right, these are in descending order of impact. Okay. I mean, which is great. It would be good to know and I like what you're saying. I like to see this that it's 100% increase. 100% of what is kind of the question there. So because I would also venture to guess the order in which they are contributing to the creek is going to have a large impact on downstream effect. So you could have a smaller pond further upstream um that might have a bigger impact than a larger pond further downstream. Yeah, sure. So, I will pass those questions on and I'll also ask him just to review this segment of the video so that he can hear specifically what you described versus me summarizing it and probably missing some key points. Anybody else have anything on the ponds? Um, I might just add this and I'm happy to defer until the time, Joe, but I I I know how our budget conversations wind up going and I I'm sympathetic to Mr. Wagner's been on the mend here, but I I I'm going to say in the event that we don't get a report by August, I'm going to suggest that we move this thing forward anyways so that we don't miss the budget cycle. Mr. Wagner was very apologetic, but as I told him, you sometimes you can control your health, but when you're in sometimes you can't. And so certainly he was struggling for the first part of the year. He has promised that this is priority one because he knows that we've been very patient with him. A lot of his other clients appear have not. All right. I would, if appropriate, make a motion to recommend that we do take this in confidence and move forward for budgeting um with the uh you know kind of final tip of the cap with a final report. All right. Does that make work for you, Joe? Certainly. Anybody care to

second? I'll second. All right, Mr. Sterminal second everybody. All right, so the idea would be um we'll wait for our final report in the event we don't get it in August, we're going to have obviously we'll have a conversation about this again, but the idea would be to move that forward uh hopefully with our answers, but without we can have that conversation. Um all those in favor of that plan, please say I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? All right. Well, looking forward to seeing the final numbers here in a couple months. That'll be very very exciting. Well, certainly if I can get the report before the meeting and give you ample time, I will follow the direction I've received. So that would be great. Press on it as best I can. Um, okay. That brings us to our storm water management master plan. So again, thank you, Mr. Chair, and I again offer to Mr. Brown, Mr. Lee, and Mr. Newberry to assist in the discussion. The as you know in March of 2024 we held interviews with engineering firms. The tests were selected too. We decided to break up the city into basically two quadrants or two halves and we selected a a consultant for one half and the other consultant for the other. The intent was is that with nine watersheds um and 68 square miles of um drainageways, creeks and streams and rivers, it was the only logical approach to ensure that we had a timely master plan completion. The departments of public works, administration, and planning spent a great deal of time working with the consultants as they prepared their proposal and initial proposal. The initial proposal generated comments from those three departments and ultimately a proposal was submitted with cost. costs were a million and a half dollars

and certainly from the perspective of I think all three of the departments the cost was just um not a not a manageable uh amount and certainly from the perspective of our residents. It would be difficult to stand at the podium and say that we're going to do basically an 18 to 24 month study while your house slips into the creek while your pool fence and potentially your house slips into the creek. So we asked them, is there a way that we could identify those a couple of watersheds that might ultimately be the most are the most stressed and might ultimately lead us to a solution for them as well as potential funding options. They came back with the proposal you have before you tonight, which is a proposal to do all nine watersheds, to do two halves of the city, to assign the consultants to the respective halves, and basically come back with something that ultimately within 6 to9 months would allow us to basically have something in terms of a storm water management master plan. Um the issue is given what we've heard tonight, given what we know of the basins and given what we know of the cost for this storm water management master plan light, is it something you all want to proceed forward with? I'm asking you to tell tell us so we can tell city council with Mr. Farmer and Mr. Maybury's held the priorities may be shifting. And so again, do you want to do a light plan at $300,000? Do you want to focus on projects or do you want to get the basins underway as soon as we

can? I guess that's the question before you tonight. Yes, sir. Joe, um, this divided the all nine watersheds, right? Yes. But it seems like most of the action is in the Cox Creek watershed. You know, that's the that's the house that's on fire. Um, do we need to have both halves of the study done? Do we need to have the entire northern part of the study done by green? or can we just focus on one or two of the most critical watersheds and save some of that $300,000? Well, the last item in your statement was what we was the direction we gave them. Can you identify the two most stressed water sheds and give us a proposal? A proposal that gives us basically information in terms of the problem, the extent of problems, potential solutions, and how best to fund them. they came back with this proposal for all nine watersheds still following the original um direction of the task force and city and so we were a little surprised I guess that we got this proposal versus the one we kind of asked them about. Um but maybe their thought is without all nine watersheds your funding opportunities are going to be limited and Mr. strokes. I will tell you that if you talk to council people from W 6, Fox Creek is ravaging some of the areas down there. Bottom Creek is threatening properties in the northwest quadrant of the city and Hamilton Car Creek actually is underststudied by another entity, the open space council of St. Louis. But we have some real issues in wits of work at Route 109. We're at Cliff Place. So I think from

the perspective of public works and planning we identified those those four as the priorities and probably out of those four which two need the immediate attention. What we heard tonight is obviously Cox Creek is still a a mighty threat and from there um we have some opinions but we're here to listen to you more so than me. Mr. Vage, can I can I clarify? The intent of doing the watershed uh master plan is to put us in a better position to in the future manage uh watershed erosion uh but also to secure funding from outside agencies. Um, so that would be my question is if we have an impartial uh survey for a plan, does that put at risk any opportunity for funding? Well, Mr. Brown used to be in the consulting business and he is, I think, an expert in many regards given his engineering background. If you wouldn't mind maybe lending some lending some thoughts on this, I sure appreciate it. I'm sorry, Joe. Mr. Lee was had bent my ear there for a second, so I didn't quite quite hear everything. Mr. Burgerer, would you mind repeating? Happy to repeat. So, the question uh was that if we were to uh potentially uh monitor and put together a plan for uh not the entire watershed in the region, would that put at risk our opportunity to get funding from say the state or even potentially federal agencies? Well, I guess I thought one of the things that we did talk about was the potential for the city to pursue funding through sales tax citywide. And I think that was one of the areas that we felt by doing the full city, they would set

us up potentially to do that or at least have the study in hand that was not focused strictly on one or two wersheds, but the whole city so we could have a better grasp of the problem citywide. So I think that was one key point in my my opinion. Yeah, I could maybe add a little bit that. So um so when we got the original proposal back um I asked to be on a call with the consultants with our staff just to try to un understand because it was it seemed a little bit out of the scope of what I thought we were trying to do. Um and I did spend some time looking at it and obviously I'm super aware of the efforts that you know Mr. Sterman has undertaken across the board and then we've done at a state level to get this $250,000 that we hopefully still have coming to us. And and the the kind of calculus I came up with on the call was, you know, if we spend a a million half dollars with the expectation that we might get $100,000 a year, why would we spend 15 years of money to get this? And so with our kind of light plan that we're talking about again like this plan from my understanding and I'm not an expert so if you guys read this differently please correct me but if we did this light plan the $300,000 that they're suggesting tonight that takes us out of the running for the EPA like 619 funding which is unfortunate but the but the truth of the matter is when I was looking at it again like I'm not 100 I'm not really how much other money there is out there and no matter what we wind up doing we are going out hatand every year for what are wind up being pennies. So the suggestion that I offered and um you know again as I said earlier I can't speak for the whole council this is a council decision to make but from my perspective um the only realistic solution and it's not

even a it's not I don't know that I would call it a solution but the best way to support what is going on here is this parks and storm water tax that I referenced earlier and so because I know I've had conversations with the representatives from W 6 and other places that haven't gotten the attention that Cox Creek has Um, you know, there is a level of frustration and we hear this on a lot of items with the city where we kind of have a a real divide in the city. We have 109 that cuts us kind of in half and the the western half of the city functions differently and and looks differently and and and they feel are treated differently than the other side of the city. So, my goal and my thought was if we could get the information to make a ballot init make the conversation about a possible ballot initiative uh answer whatever questions we might wind up with from a resident that would be good. Now, that being said, I as a person, as Mr. Mabry will be as well, they would have to vote on this. I still have a hard time spending several hundred,000 on another report when your house is caving in and your neighborhood is caving in and you know it's I I think what it is is it's a it's a question that um it's a hard question because our city to this point in 30 years has no tax. We don't have any taxes for anything um outside of you know limited sales tax and things like that. our our funds come from the county. And so, um, we find more and more that we are kind of forced to take money that we could spend on other things and apply it to things that are not our responsibility. And while I think that our watershed, I believe wholeheartedly that our wershed is something we all need to care for, our partner in MSD has admitted that for a large portion of the city, it is not our problem. It is theirs and they are not going to fix it. And if we don't fix it for our residents, then I'm not sure I understand genuinely the point of having a city to be honest. So, um, you know,

my suggestion for thought for you guys is, you know, I know you probably are not as well acquainted with the other council members as as I might be, but I, you know, I think the question would be asked, have we gotten enough information? We've spent a lot of money on the USGS studies. We have, I think, a good plan with our uh devices that we put in place tonight to get scores from places that aren't on Cox Creek. And that might answer that question for those people that um you know have heartburn in the possibility of trying to levy tax. But the reality of this is is whether we spend $300,000 to fix your neighborhood or your house or whatever, next year there's going to be another $300,000 that has to get spent on something else because that's just how this works. So, if we don't have a long-term thing where we can control our own destiny in this regard, I don't I don't just I don't see a a feasible way that this becomes solvable at all. Can I ask what might be considered a ridiculous question because I'm not latigious in nature, but um some of the response that I've gotten from my fellow neighbors has been you're going to have to sue MSD, right? That's not really going to be very successful as a single homeowner. Uh as a community, however, if we decided to band together, fund the projects that we felt were important to fund and hold an entity like that responsible for what they are responsible for. Is that a potential option for us to recoup some of that funding? I mean, I'm not an attorney, Mr. Lee. That'd be something we'd want to defer to our city attorney for, but not open for public comment. Yeah, I mean I I I I would say this. I mean, I think everybody's got to we all have to be neighbors and and I empathize with MSD. They they genuinely did not have money to fund these things and they at this very moment still don't. And so the way that that plan gets rolled out, that might help. But regardless, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Joe, like half

of the city is not under MSD's jurisdiction anyways. So whether M if MSD came in tomorrow with all of their money to fix all of our problems, that still leaves 50% of our of our city unprotected. Um and and in a in a scary way, I mean, it's 50% of our city we haven't even looked at yet. So, you know, we are it's easy to see from our backyards and, you know, from driving down Clayton Road that this looks pretty bad, but I mean, a lot of those parts you can't see. You don't even know what's there. Um it's scary. I I would uh venture to say I'm less than a novice at, you know, getting uh tax bills passed, right? But um I I would venture to guess that money spent in additional study could be potentially better spent in educating our own residents on the problem um and potentially giving, you know, the open opportunity for informed consent on attacks like that. Um, is that something we would consider putting funding towards as an education campaign? Um, I mean, Mr. Lean can speak to this a little bit. I mean, we there's a little bit of a weird thing with the city. We can't really um advocate for things like that. we can notify. But but really I think I I genuinely I know in order to get that what you're talking about to happen that would require a group of motivated citizens that would want to spread that word to their neighbors and and advocate for that so that people understand what's going on. I mean, I think I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Tom. From a city standpoint, we can go, "Yeah, we have a bad watershed program problem and and this would help, but that's about the extent of what we can say other than here's a picture of the creek and here's what we've spent that this is what it's told us, but we can't go, you know, please pass this for us." Um, it's one of those funny little quirks of government, I guess. Yeah. as the city uh with your permission, chair, um we the department would recommend more so

focusing in on what we've done thus far, what is needed in outlining the the costs, but and you can kind of put two and two together in those public communications, but when you cross a line of saying we endorse a and it could be something that one individual um can support, but as a city, we cannot support the the whole initiative because we'll be creating the language. Mr. Sturman. Yeah, I uh I carefully read through both their proposals which same scope basically and I went past the original was 1.2 million the to do the 1.5 million 1.5 million. Wow. when I read through that uh I've been involved with master plans of different nature before they they do quite a lot and in each plan and I guess each is going to what they call 10 projects and they mention quite a few creeks. And so when I read through that, it just uh I just was thinking that it was much more of a the scope was higher than I guess it really is because 3,000. You know, it's 15. So this master plan would only cover a total master plan that would sound good to possible funding agencies, agencies to get funds from. Uh would not be too much. I guess that would be puny to the point where they wouldn't even consider it. So then I would wonder when they do a ma they each one takes in green takes the north and M3 takes the south. Could the scope of the master plan be reduced to being maybe not quite so extensive and detailed but yet could show a basic plan to handle our nine watersheds except a little bit more

I say not quite the amount of detail labor and effort to drive the whole thing up to 1.5 million. Uh, I'm just wondering. Uh, $300,000, you know, just I don't know. Uh, yeah, that's basically my question. My assumption is is the $300,000 proposal is what you've described, trying to do lesser but still provide information that's usable and tangible to our problems. Um but again we can go back to HR green and M3 engineering and say here are the concerns we've heard. Is there another proposal out there that helps us but doesn't necessarily follow the the template that we had given you and and certainly the engineering consulting firms are not at blame because it was clearly stated to them we want to do the 9point EPA process for our storm water management master plan so we can make ourselves available or make ourselves better available for potential funding opportunities in the future. So we gave them those parameters. Now what we're seeing is boy that's expensive and it's an 18 to 24month process as well. Yeah. Will will they be I suppose they're going to maximize pulling in all of the studies many studies we've had done a lot of work to be pulling that in and that is something they don't have to duplicate you know to give an overall um I tell you what might uh Mr. bottles being an architect I've been involved master plants through building projects

and with working with architects you know um if you were to convert what you do over to showing the basics of how we're going to handle the flooding in general in nine watersheds how much you could do for $300,000 that may be a ridiculous thing I'm asking but uh not much outside my depth well to to make schematic layout things like that and what is to be done mainly uh you know I'm thinking from my experience you can do a lot of that for 300,000 yeah I think I mean I I really do think the question that we're kind of being tasked with this evening is in my opinion and you we can vote And you I have but one vote on this task force, but a million half dollars for master plan is not and I told the consultants this it's not something I can fathom anyone on the city council or in the city being super excited about. I think I think our our question tonight is with this kind of light version, this $300,000 plan that takes us out of the running for I guess what you would call the big EPA money, which I I just think we would be pretty unlikely to get anyways. Um, and so that takes us to our sources of funding that we currently have access to, which is um our friends in Jeff City. And you know, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, guys, we started ask, we asked them for 500,000 and then 350,000 and now 250,000. And I would assume I was going to message Jake or have you do, but I didn't. But like, you know, I'm going to guess that if if the governor doesn't veto this, we're going to have a hard time getting another $250,000 from the state next year. That would just be my

guess. So, um, to me that brings us back to this idea of trying to put a ballot initiative on the table. And so as the people of our city that I think are probably the most well-versed in the things that we've done, you know, if you were to put yourself in the shoes of a of an everyday resident, is the information that we've gotten the couple years of the USGS study and all of the other engineering and all the other components that we've put together, does that allow us to tell a story to the residents that live on the creeks and off the creeks why it's important? and have we checked all the boxes so that we're not left going, "Well, we tried to put this ballot initiative on, it didn't make it, and then there's going to be an immediate like reflex to be like, well, we're not doing that again cuz it didn't work." I mean, we've seen, I think, in other municipalities, Leoo is the most recent one. They passed with a pretty I feel like it was a pretty wide margin their storm and parks storm water and parks tax a couple years ago. So, I think the question for us is, do we have enough information or do we feel like it's worth $300,000 to try to get this again? Because I'm I don't remember exactly. I mean, it would be a half cent sales tax. Do we have a guess on what we think that equates to annually? Uh, we did an analysis. It was probably more than 5 years ago, but it was roughly back then um estimated to bring in a little bit over $350,000 per year. Right. So if we do that and we can get this thing going with MSD where they're doing that that gives us a little bit and then you know there's other capital improvement issues I guess that we can you know if it's a priority to the city council it's not just like this is the only money you have access to in theory. Um, so I mean that to me that's the question is is and I appreciate our our our friends at you know at these companies that went and sharpened their pencils like we asked and came back with this number, but I'm I'm still find myself asking like is $300,000 for another study worth you know Greg's house or their backyard or

whatever it is. I I have a hard time with that. Well, you know, going back to your point, I think it's this question of return on investment. I mean, if we're if if we're not in a position to really know whether or not that cost is effective in terms of what it's going to give us back, um I don't think anybody really is happy doing that. Um so, you know, kind of the return on investment is what I asked the question about. Um, and if it's a it may very well be well written and it gives us all the information we need on all the nine watersheds. But if in fact when a form goes to somebody else that says, you know, do we have enough here to get money from you, they're going to say, I don't think so. Well, then I think to myself, $300,000 probably wasn't worth it in my opinion. Um, Mr. One other thing, yeah, just of all the creeks that are really pressing and I know about Cox Creek because I live in a subdivision also, Point Clayton uh and uh Fox Creek. Those two seem to be the primary the two that have got severe problems. Um, I'm wondering if we could have a master plan that really addresses a master plan for those two for now if that is something to consider rather than all the creeks throughout nine watersheds. Well, Mr. Sturman, I would argue Cox Creek from the work of Dr. David Hammer, from Todd Wagner, Joe Wilson, and now the United States Geological Survey, we know the problem areas pretty well. So if we were to pick prioritize based upon just analysis or study, I

would say Fox Creek is one of the primary ones. And I would waver back between Wild Horse Creek and Hamilton Car Creek knowing that Hamilton Car Creek is under study by the Open Space Council of St. Louis, St. Louis region. So, like I say, there's probably a good discussion that could be held. What are our two most stressed and underststudied watersheds? And then make that decision. Um, here's the communities in blue that have a parks and storm water sales tax and communities in red do not. As you can see, all wood is that big. Yeah. And some of those that do not are in the area of the airport. They're combined. Put them all together. They don't even come close to covering what Wildwood has. And none of them have nine watersheds. And so it's an effective tool. everybody else has seeing the need and addressed it and use it to hopefully do the things we'd like to do. Help our residents, maintain our parks and trails, and stop watershed erosion where we can. I I guess I'll ask the question in a different way is what will we learn that's new from this and will it guide our work down the road? for the long term in a sustainable way. And if we already have means to get to those two things, then it's hard for me to see the need versus some other pressing needs. But on the other hand, if it does help us prevent issues like our friends have,

then I could support something like that. Well, I'm going to respond to the la last part of your statement. Since the incorporation of the city of Wildwood, we have established that non-urban is not a holding category for future development. We made it a true residential district and gave it standing that will stand the test of time. Meaning that in areas where we know we have sensitive ecology, all the issues that we we've talked about, we we basically are saying one unit for every 3 acres. In the other portions of the city, notwithstanding town center, we basically say it's an acre density. And for the most part, available land in that area of acre density is about three lots. I mean, three undeveloped properties. Then we went with tree preservation and restoration code, the grading code, floodplane management regulations, natural resource protection standards. So I actually believe in the last 30 years we've implemented the steps through the efforts of the department of public works, our city administration and the department of planning to not make the situation worse. And so from that perspective, if they were to come back and said you need this set of regulations, I would argue we've done that. So I feel comfortable that through the efforts of the last 30 years, we've tailored our our our land use policies through our master plan and through the promagation and adoption of regulations to protect to basically stop what had been done done and to protect what we have. It's the developments that occurred before Wildwood that we're struggling with now and the unpredictability of weather.

So, maybe I can ask it this way and and for our city staff, you know, Travis, you two, I don't know if if you're comfortable answering this or you can't, but I also had this idea in my head that, you know, over the the last several years, we've done a lot of things. We've now got this idea, this rubric in place and some of these other methods that I think can be reproduced in other places is our hope was if we did this master plan there was going to be some you know pot of gold at the end of the rainbow which we I think determined that is probably not the case. So, are we are we taking what we've done in doing this and just wrapping it up in a prettier box than what it is currently in? Or is there like real actionable things that could come out of this that we have missed? I could surely add my own two cents if you like, Joe. I mean I I guess I feel like from the staff perspective, the reason we want to do the study is just to have a comprehensive summary in written format of the problems and all the watersheds that we can point to and we can say to residents this was done this was created by consultants to define the problem that's out there based on the feedback of the residents in all those areas and it does include I think two openhouse public meetings. So, there's going to be additional outreach to the public when we do the study, the master plan. Um, but it'll give us a better comprehensive summary of the problems that are out there and the solutions to those problems and how to address them. And so, we can go to the public and say, look, if we pass this tax, we'll have X dollars and we can use those dollars in this manner to address the problems that are out there. Now, obviously, it's more than just looking at Cox Creek. It would

be citywide storm water and erosion problems. But we have consistently getting we are consistently getting calls from as staff from residents with problems in their yards on their private property that they're asking for help. Not just stream banks, but other storm water issues that are out there. So, this would go a long ways and is more comprehensive than just looking at stream bank erosion, frankly. But I guess my question as one of the people that gets to determine what we're spending money on are like the open houses, a lot of the communication stuff I saw in here, I was going to talk to Tom and Paula because I I actually think that can probably be handled better in-house than it would I think having some of these guys come in. I don't I don't know. Um but I am like this number keeps coming to my head. If we if if we pass this tax, that gives us roughly $600,000 a year, we think. So then half of a year's worth of that money is spent to give us a piece of paper that says we need to get the money to do this thing. And I I I I personally just feel like we've done a lot of that. I mean, I I I think we can if we're getting calls from residents all the time, which I know we are. I'm getting emails from people of in neighborhoods I've never heard of. And I I I think that the awareness has happened is happening in a very real way. So I mean I my I guess the idea Joe is we want to decide whether we want to proceed with this or go back with them and ask them to knock it down again. I don't I mean I don't know that they are probably even able to do that. I don't know until we ask and if that's the request of the task force we'll be glad to ask the question. I've made it clear to them that the task force as well as all of us that work together to create this proposal appreciate their time and resources. This doesn't come without a

cost to them, right? And certainly I I I recognized that we've all all of us have acknowledged that and have shown our appreciation by by thanking them. But as I say, it's a struggle. You know, we've always talked about the if we could do projects, we could tell people we're making progress. We could show them things that are tangible. And but we've always couched that as we need to know the solutions. So, as we when we do do the projects, we're doing them right and they'll last the term we we hope they will that they won't be washed down with the next big storm, which is happened, as you said, so often. Yeah. And I can give you examples across the city where I've gotten calls from people that have spent tens of thousands of dollars, the first stom, it's gone, and now they're asking, "What next?" Yeah. So, I don't know. It's It's a It was an unfair question in some regards to say we've got three shells and we've got one one. Yeah. Which one do you want to pick and so we can move forward? Mr. Bartmire. So, I've not been on the the panel since the init I came on a couple years ago and I just know since I've been on here our pretty pretty much our biggest issue has been funding. Um, which is basically there is none. Um, and everywhere we've looked for it, it doesn't come. Um, so when I to me when I'm looking at this, from what it sounds like, from what you're saying, Joe, is that basically you believe our best bet at getting any sort of funding is a tax at this point.

Um, and what I'm hearing from the city is they believe we need a comprehensive plan because we don't really have or comprehensive study of the entire city cuz we don't really have one of those. I kind of agree with the city. It's hard to ask the entire city to fund this when for the most part we have focused on a few areas of major issue. they are the primary issue, but it's hard to ask the entire city to fund it when the only thing we really have to show for them is a part of the city. Um, so I kind of agree if we believe a study or not the tax is the most likely and and at this point the most feasible way of getting money, I lean towards doing the study if we believe that is the best way of getting that tax. So and I think I would tie it's an excellent point. I think it would tie it into going back to these consultants and potentially just going saying, can you couch this in a way to make it where they've worked with cities across the the entire region that have implemented these types of taxes. Um, if that is the true goal of the city, then I think we almost go back and say we need to understand the problem and we need to dilute it in a way that the everyday resident can understand it and understand how this funding will be able to address the issues head-on. So, I'd almost say my this is my two cents, but my personal idea with the master plan I the whole thing was to get 319 grant funding and that is an extensive process that with the city's just sheer size, it it seems like it's impossible at this point without not addressing the projects we have sitting on the on the deck. Um, that said, if we go back and ask them to couch it, I do think it is important to understand what is going on with these other wersheds we have in our city. And

then the other thing would be to then couch it. How has it worked in the past with other cities? And how did you indirectly, you know, explain this to the public in a way that's digestible instead of just the creeks are eroding and and how do you sell to somebody that doesn't live near a creek? Right. Yes, sir. I uh I certainly understand it. It does look like this whole watershed program is not going to go anywhere unless we can get city council to get behind some funding. And I guess my question is if we uh uh you know what's the best way to do that? One avenue is to do the study and and show that everybody's got u you know got waterheds to be taken care of. But you know possible uh you know backwash from that could be that what happens if you the study shows that out of the nine watersheds there are three of them that are serious problems and the others aren't you've just lost a lot of your your council votes right there I think and you've spent $300,000 is it uh you know maybe maybe what we do is just do some kind of a cursory survey um with the data that we got as you say and let it go at that. don't put any more money into this thing because in the you know if it shows that nobody else has a significant problem other than a few of the you know two or three wards and it's not going to go anywhere unless we have a very uh uh altruistic council and I don't know I think I would want those people to know that quite frankly if that were the case um you

know if we only had two or three creeks that were the issue and the were not and we knew that. Everyone should be aware of that. Um I would be curious however uh if some portion of the funding if we were decide to proceed with that is if we're shifting our focus from you know getting uh state or federal funding with the watershed management program or master plan and now instead the idea is that um for us to secure community support. we feel like we need this as a comprehensive perspective. Great. Um maybe let's decide to do that. But as a part of that initiative, we should maybe also uncover how other municipalities have gotten success uh in getting that to pass. Um because it seems like I don't know in my experience if you kind of hinge your whole bet just on data like Yeah, it's not good. That's about a tenth of the deal, you know. Yeah. I I mean I I again I can't speak for the council but I do know I mean my guess would be that there will probably be a handful of council people that just are sort of like I don't know what the right word would be not morally they're just it doesn't matter what we're going to they're just not a fan of taxes. So there's that. There are some other people um that you know ask repeatedly like when are we actually going to do something? When are we going to put a shovel in the ground somewhere? because um I mean we don't have we have spent a lot of money on studies and things like that which is necessary um but again it's it's this rate of return thing like I you know I looked up I mean I think at best we might be getting $250,000 from the federal government or $300,000 and so um you know it's it's very strange. I mean, I'm I am not at all opposed to taking our staff's recommendation if

they if they feel like the be I've never passed one of these tax things either. So, um my vote would be to put it on the ballot and I think what does that cost us, Tom? 10 grand or something like that. So, great. But, um it is about communicating out to our residents and the best and most effective way to do that. So, I think that um you know, I know for myself when I started on this committee, I think it was about 6 years ago, nobody I talked to knew what a watershed even was. And now I get people, a lot of people, they stop me in the grocery store and they're like, "Are you the guy that does the waterershed thing, right?" And I'm like, "I guess I sure." So, um so I don't I mean, I'm I'm happy if you need a vote, Joe, for us to, you know, go back to these guys and see if we can whittle this down or figure out how do we engage them to talk to these other municipalities and get that on board. Um, I'm happy to try to facilitate that however you guys want. Um, I mean, I think, you know, as as all of you know, it'll be I think it'll be an interesting conversation about putting anything on the on the ballot anyways when it comes to attacks, but I I you know, I've sat here for a lot of years and I don't there I I just don't see a diff I don't see another option. Do do we know if um these master plans and the blue areas up there have contributed towards the passing of a tax? I don't certainly we could contact the municipal league and ask if they have any. Loo did I I worked over there when they did theirs. They were I mean there was banners up and all kinds of you know if it's done the right way is the tax it sounds like and if the master plan is a means to do that because we need a plan that guides our actions and we need to understand all nine watersheds then that could make sense but I also like your point about some kind of communication plan and I

know the city can't do that but maybe we can I guess not can we an entity of the city. Okay. So, but you as a non entity of the city can. Okay. So, maybe we reach out to our wards and educate our neighbors about what other neighbors are dealing with. So, I think there's a way through it, but I do think the communication piece is super critical because nobody likes taxes. Maybe uh I don't know guys, you tell me. Would it make sense to um try to have a conversation with our consultants and see what if any adjustments can be made and maybe you guys get some time to look at this and we have Paula look at this and maybe in August at our next meeting, you know, we can have a the best kind of a conversation we can have with those port pieces of information. I mean, you know, Paul is pretty good at getting the word out on things. At least she was when she was a reporter. So, I think we'd be in pretty good shape. Um, or is there a better course of action, Joe, that you think makes more sense? Maybe we could spend some of the 300,000 on somebody helping us consult on how to pass a tax levy. Yeah. I mean, I know some of these funds are kind of locked into certain things that we can and can't do with them. Yeah, these would need well these funds would be spent on storm water management projects or this master plan either way. But I your permission shar kind of going back to do we lose the feed? Okay. Um, I think, you know, the main piece that I think we need to be able to put together is I think the staff can do quite a bit, but that said, I think if we don't have something that's really simplified, I think we need the communication tool to be able to sell this X initiative. But maybe, and it's a lot of good points been brought up tonight, but maybe it is something where

you almost need to throw your fishing line out to see if it would even pass without I mean, we'll communicate it, but just try and see if it happens and then communicate the best we can without spending any additional money because any more money that goes into the bucket, you know, the return on investment is getting less and less. Yeah. I mean, I I was going to bring this up for our next meeting and maybe and I was going to talk to you and Paula about it anyways, but you know, our for those of you that don't know, we have a new um economic development and communication director. Her name is Paula and she's been doing a lot of great stuff and making some changes and some things. So, I was going to talk to her about trying to do something silly like she's doing uh some business um like highlights for different places around town. Maybe we can do something like a watershed Wednesday where she is telling this story every single week, putting out polls, gauging interest in things. I mean, I know it's not the most scientific thing in the world, um, but that could get us a long way to know like how far down the road we might be or not be because, you know, I know, um, you know, certainly for Bob and myself, you know, we if we vote to put something on a ballot, I guess people can be mad or not about that or whatever. Um, I don't think that that's the issue. I think the issue will wind up being, you know, what is it that we're going to do with this half cent tax? And obviously there's plenty we can do. There's parks and storm water things, but um Chair Farmer, I think that would be a great way to gauge engagement from the community relative to other topics. Um and I think as you've mentioned, I would advocate for anything with a bias for action at this point. Um even if that gets a negative response at this point in time, I think we should try it. All right. So, city staff, what what do you need from us? I mean, I I think a motion to go back and ask them. The one thing I would mention is in and our communications manager is is very good and she's she's really good at getting the message out and I think posting stories about what's going on and just

we can even go out to the the actual storm water channels themselves. But I think you do need someone that is a specialist, an engineer to explain this almost in a high technical level to be able to explain it in a simpler level. I know we have very specific examples of what's going on in Cox Creek, but to explain watershed erosion as a big theme and how it affects all nine wersheds. Even if it's not necessarily studying each individual wershed and then providing a detailed report, it may be of very much interest to the city to have obviously our communications manager, myself and the team um involved in the communication of the the issue, but also having a specialist, a consultant at least consult on what we're communicating out to make sure it's correct. That's that's the only thing I would add is going back either to them or someone different but someone that has a background in in in watershed erosion mitigation. Okay. Well, maybe we maybe we reach out to our surrounding municipalities that are on the blue list and we figure out if they used anybody like that and it might be the people we're talking to. I don't know. Mr. Chair, with your permission. So, at the start of the meeting, we did talk about what's available funding, and we're hopeful that we'll get $250,000 from the state of Missouri, and we do have money in this year's capital improvement program of of the same amount. So, collectively, we have $500,000. Certainly, if we were to proceed forward with the storm water management master plan, we'd have approximately $200,000. And it's not necessarily an item that we've talked about at length, but based upon the conversation that we had tonight relative to the public comment, is there a willingness for us to the task force

to allow the departments to explore maybe providing um engineering assistance with some of that money to some of the subdivisions that are experiencing problems so that We're from the perspective of what we heard tonight, if there is a plan requirement, and we know there is, and that plan requirement is a key to being able to address either the problem on a temporary or permanent basis, could we we legally can do it? Could we use some of that remaining money, the $200,000 to help with engineering assistance? I get the idea from I think what you said in one of your memorandums is that we provide some permitting assistance and things like that. So if like I say I'm just trying to we've got immediate needs. Is there something we can do to address those? Yeah. I mean I I don't I mean I think I think that that's certainly a workable idea. I I also think though we need to be careful about how we're engaging with those things like you know part of the scoring idea is to go out and go you know yes this problem is high and it checks all these other boxes be I think we need to be very cautious about just writing checks for engineering while I understand it is very important I just know from conversations with other committee members like the they're not uh they're not dismissing the importance of engineering but they are ready for stuff beyond engineering right I mean it's not an option to do the engineering or not you have to do the engineering that part I get but we've we've done like what I'm saying is we've done engineering in other places and so now their question is why are we doing more engineering instead of fixing the places we've done well like I probably shouldn't mention it but

the reality is we have a lot more engineering to do on all these locations and that's that's the reality And it's it's a challenge that we face with residents all the time is the the flood planes and the floodways are heavily regulated and their permitting requirements are strenuous and it requires us to hire a qualified engineer to do a flood study as was referenced tonight and then to put plans together to bid for contractors to do the work and delineate what exactly needs to be done so that the project is successful. It just takes time, effort, and money and engineering and construction unfortunately. Yeah. And and that's why I think though because we don't have any one of them that is like ready all the way ready to go. My my concern is just based on conversations. The question I get is, you know, how many more projects are we adding to the list that we don't have any ability to do anything with, which is, I mean, it's not a I mean, I'm looking I I'm just thinking about if we took all the $500,000, and I'm not saying we would do this, and this thing with the detention ponds costs a million dollars, and that's going to save 50% of this thing. I I can't think of anybody of the 16 members on the city council that will go, I don't want to do that. They're the question will become when we're have to go do you know if because I think they don't know like how many engineering steps are there are there five are there 10 the the answer that they get is it's just it just keeps going and then the residents feel the same way it's like you know if it was me I think I said this in a meeting I would have got a Bobcat and driven it in the creek myself and let the Army Corps of Engineers come tell me I shouldn't have done it and I would go oh gosh I'm sorry I didn't know that but look we've solved this problem here for a little bit. I I'm I don't I'm not trying to diminish all the all the components that we have. I just know the people that wind up making the decisions

are are getting to a place. It's the it's the same conversation we would have had with the internet. They're getting to the place where they're like, "How many more years do we talk about this before we're doing it?" And that happened to be a huge pile of money that fell into our lap. So, that helped out. Um, obviously I would never wish for another pandemic so we could get the federal government and state government off their collective and start funding things that actually help people, right? Um, so okay. So you guys would like a motion to talk to M3, right? Find a consultant, do this research into our blue cities. That's what you want, Tom? Yeah. Yeah. And then als and we can make it much as limited as possible but just something to help with the communication for the eventual and I guess we'd be asking it here to then also discuss the idea of this tax as well. Is that the direction we're going with with the committee? Yeah. I mean, I guess I mean I I mean, we can if you if it's easier, we can break it up into parts and we can say, "Hey, as a group, unless you guys want to hear more information, which we can certainly get, you know, in general, we're in favor of pursuing this storm water parks tax." So, that that now moves up the chain. And then if it is a matter of like this would be my thing, I don't know if it's legal or appropriate or whatever. If we if we're spending $300,000 on a consultant, I'd probably rather spend $300,000 on a communication consultant that's going to get this thing passed than a than something else. Um, that's just me. I don't think it would cost $300,000. That seems insane to me. But, you know, don't hold that to me. Consultants who might be watching this. Um, yes, sir. come on up to the mic. I'd like to speak with resident 38 years

at city of Wildwood that's um spent their entire career in contracting as I understand a couple few others have. Um first question I got is the 300,000 something is for a something. Um, but then there was something for a million and a half that was by two contractors that was for something we didn't ask them to bid on. Have I got that accurate so far? Not quite. So, we have we did a pretty extensive interview interview process. We selected two contractors to help us come up with this master plan. Their initial proposal came back at about a million half dollars. And Mr. Vunage and Mr. Brown and I think Travis was on the call as well as a couple others. I got on the call and said there is no way that we are paying you a million and a half dollars. This is how much money is available. Come back with a proposal that fits into this box and then we can have that conversation. And so what they did was they took their big million half dollar plan and did it in what I would call a light version. um which didn't honestly I mean there was some p some pieces that came out but it was not a it it was not as paired down as I was expecting it to be. Um that being said it did take out the portion that would allow us to go after the much larger possibility of federal grants. And so that's the proposal we're looking at now which is roughly $300,000 to kind of have a a light version that would study the the entire city. Um, my understanding based on extensive conversations with these people is it would take into account all of the USGS studies, all of the things that we did, they're not really going to go redo that work again. Um, but then, you know, and we had part of that conversation was the idea with this is more than likely cuz I mean they were very forthcoming when I said I don't see a possibility that this investment returns what it's supposed to and they said, yeah, I mean there's just not huge

amounts of money out there for cities to get to fix this problem. So um so they were very very um open and honest with us about how that works. What they've brought back I think is not a bad proposal. It's just a question of do we want to spend that money? Do we need to spend that money to get the the tax if that's what we're going to do or are we better serve spending this money to fix a a location or in the terms of these water, you know, of the detention basins, you know, $500,000 is half of the stuff we're talking about. So that could go a long way. So that there was never a condition where the city had gone to two separate contractors and asked for them to provide a proposal to engineer solutions to uh two u four total but two watersheds of their reg of their territory. One south of something, one north of something. and that they then were non-responsive biders by coming back and biting off a giant monster of a a big project to to increase their their their bid totals. I had that part. Yeah. No, we we the the original bid was I mean I guess maybe Joe or Rick, tell me if I'm wrong. I mean we interviewed them extensively. we asked for the moon basically to get this stuff and you know maybe we weren't 100% sure it was going to come back quite with that price tag. Um so then you know kind of like when you go buy a car and you go see a really nice one and you're like this is great I think I want I need that one now. That's kind of where we're at. Okay. Um as a resident I've learned that u uh it's it's always better to u self-perform that you know you get the quality you need. you know, you're getting the best um return on what you have to pay your hard money for. Um the the thought of subbing it out um is

always second when unless the scope of work is something more than any individual can can contend with. I I will say the people, you know, specifically with M3 and and our other folks as well. I mean, the these people are genuinely experts in what they do. They've done huge projects like this in St. Charles and in Brentwood. They they were the groups that were involved in all of the very very large water management issues that have gone on here and in other places. So I mean there I I have no doubt that these are the right people to do this work. It's just a matter of whether or not the work is what is the right decision for us to do. I I applaud the city's as a resident. I applaud the city's um uh drive not to not to content with the thought of getting money from the federal agencies or the state agencies that we've already been proven we're not going to get. The state is not our friend in this instance. Well, they're hopefully going to be our friend in a couple weeks by Monday. We'll know for a diminished amount. I'm certain they might come through. There is a couple of weeks left though. Um but the the pie in the sky that struck me immediately uh as it has already you uh so you conveyed that con that thought really pretty quickly to me just sitting in the audience. Um, not really a recommendation except that uh I I know that one lousy year of experience as council member. Um, I agree with Joe that uh of 16 people, there will be a quarter who give it a hell no. It involves money and taxes. Tax is bad. Tax is bad. and then another quarter who uh are going to get in the weeds and then the middle half who will gauge the

room and uh um I've sort of figured out who the people who want to get in the weeds and they're going to need facts. So that struck me with a reason to speak. The council will need facts so that the quarter naysayers um are going to be counteracted effectively by the middle of the road who are going to look to the people getting in the weeds. That's that's about as simple. So it sounds like it's probably pretty redundant because most y'all sound like you've had careers that required intelligence. Thank you. Thank you. And I mean, I do think to that end, we have a lot of facts that demonstrate there's a pretty big portion of our residents that uh have property that are impacted by this issue and um we're not going to get help. So Tom, uh we're going to try this one more time. I'm going to read this a little bit clearer so everybody knows what's up. You tell me if I'm missing everything. Okay. All right. So, if somebody would be interested or willing to make a motion to seek an updated final proposal from the master plan consultants reflecting the reduced scope currently presented with particular attention to streamlining or refocusing public the public engagement portion. Consult with communication experts to develop an effective public outreach strategy on storm water issues aligned with potential future funding efforts. and engage with peer cities that have successfully implemented parks and storm water sales taxes to gather lessons learned and best practices to inform the city's approach. Is there anything else? I can't think of any. That's good. I will make that motion. Okay. Second to email that to us. I sure I sure will. All right. So, Greg made it. Alex, did you second? Okay. Any any

discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say I. I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? All right, that was a good conversation, everybody. Thank you. Um, I think that's it, right? We've beat this horse to death. Okay. Um All right. Well, then if uh anybody unless anybody has anything additional they'd like to add, um we'll go ahead and seek a motion to adjurnn. And the plan is to come back in August. If we have some of this information sooner than later, I probably will be asking for a meeting maybe in the latter part middle of the latter part of July. That's fine. I I think that we have uh all made this clear and if not, I'm going to make it clear again. If and when things come in, my email box is always open and I'm happy to read things. So, we don't have to have a meeting to share this stuff. We can all get around and talk about it. But, as you said, the longer we have to digest, the better. I do I do have just one quickment and that is that I think a lot of uh at least a lot of my interest is going to be in the Wagner report. Okay. And you think that'll be by August? He believes he'll have it ready by the end of July, early August. Um he he too had mentioned as soon as I have it I'll send it and you need to get it out to the task force members so they can read it thoroughly. Now if I understand correctly that is the direction we were headed before the whole master plan thing came up right. Uh so it's two different things basically. So the the the master plan, the original plan was we have this master plan and that's where the our city funding was going to go. And then the conversation about this detention basin thing was to see if it would be possible to do one or two of those with any kind of remaining money,

if that was worth it or how that all worked. So I'm I'm hopeful that Mr. Wagner comes back with numbers that are close to this, but these are pretty close to what we had before. So I am going to imagine that they're going to come back probably a little higher than what this is saying. Well, even even at those those prices that uh if that can take the heat off the lower end of Cox Creek, that's the place to put the money. Yeah. Oh, I was I guess maybe I I don't know if it's appropriate to go back, but I am the chair, so I guess I get to do that anyways. Um do you need anything, Joe or Tom? Does it make sense since he's already got a kind of like preliminary thing in here, Mr. Wagner? that is with these parcels that could be additional detention spots. Do who would we talk to about that? Is that a John thing? How does that work? Yeah, that would be a city attorney question. So maybe we Yeah, maybe we start that conversation lightly as well. I don't know if he knows about this or not, but let's get him let's get him moving on that. Okay. Do you need a motion for that or you just you guys just good on that one? I would. Yeah, we could take care of it. Tommy, do you do you want a motion? Yeah, let's go ahead throw a motion in there. Okay. Anybody care to make a motion to uh alert and engage the city attorney with the possible additional detention base and locations identified by Mr. Wagner? So made. All right. Thank you, sir. Anybody care to second? Second. Excellent. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any objections? Any abstensions? Okay, thanks. We'll get John going on that. And now if anybody unless anybody has anything else to add, I hope not. If anybody wants to make make a motion to adjurnn, I would happily accept that. One comment. Yes, sir. Early on, um I

had talked to Brentwood about what they did to promote their uh effort and I can dig it out if someone's interested in. I'm sure it's on my hard drive someplace. Yeah, that'd be great. You've probably got it. I don't know. All right. Okay. I'll try to find it. All right. Anybody care to make a motion to leave this place? Excellent. We've got a first seconded by Mr. Bartles Meyer. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Any abstensions, please? No. Any objections?