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Transcript

Who Should Pay For Growth In West County? · West Insider

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I will neither I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't say anything.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Why would that be a spoiler?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, Laura.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Why would it be a spoiler?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: You want me, I guess you want me to watch it.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, speaking of spoilers, there's an election coming up on November 3rd.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and plenty of other news coming up in this issue of West News Magazine.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um hello everybody.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I am Dan Fox, managing editor for West News Magazine, and today I am joined by Laura Brown, staff writer of West News Magazine.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into it.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um so let's start with some news first before we get into election stuff.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um at the top of our website, uh, one of the most interesting stories, I think, is the um the downtown Chesterfield project.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's been a residential project that was proposed for downtown Chesterfield.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's along Chesterfield Parkway, uh kind of across from the Y near Central Park.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it had originally been intended to be multifamily development.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and recently the developers uh came back and uh proposed a modification to the site development plan to change it to a single family development.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you may have seen this story popping around various news websites, and that's because it's it's interesting to see developers reacting to, you know, the the local conversation that we've been seeing about multifamily development both in St.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Charles County and in West County.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so yeah, that's I think that's why it's sort of catching catching eyeballs because it's it's turning to a need that we have in the in the region, which is we need more single-family homes of you know various price points.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: These are going to be likely very expensive homes, um, but we still have have that gap in the market.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: It'll be a nice part of Chesterfield, and maybe people who raised families in Chesterfield when their kids are gone and they kind of want to downsize uh living in a villa is pretty um um attractive to that age group because usually you don't have to take care of the yard or you know, some of them have different maintenance agreements.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um HOAs take care of a lot of that stuff on some of these.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know the particular outside stuff, maybe not the inside stuff.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: But um but yeah, I could see it being uh a a nice part, a nice addition to the downtown Chesterfield development.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's a it's interesting, you know, because it it dropped from I think 105 uh proposed multifamily rental units to 87 attached single family villas.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that obviously reduces um the the density of people and therefore has you know somewhat of an impact on traffic and um and and it'll affect that that whole downtown Chesterfield um you know development once once it's done.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's you know, villas are different from apartments, just you know, hard, hard stop.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it it does say too that the the units will be larger, you know, the square footage will be bigger in size.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um so maybe, you know, aga again, we don't know what the price point will be, but it could be also like a starting spot for younger families.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um or you know, on the opposite end of the of the spectrum there, downsizing.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my my guess is it'll be very attractive to people with a lot of money.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um but you know, the houses they vacate may be uh you know attainable by someone with uh with a little less resources.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you know who knows?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: We we have last year we wrote we wrote a a story on um the age demographics and you know density of people in the St.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Louis uh region and St.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Charles region.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um and what we heard in that story was single family housing is one of the most important things that we need.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, uh especially affordable single family housing, which this may or may not be, but um, but we need more of it in the in the region.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: So so I and I just think it's interesting that they they did that pivot given the conversations going on locally.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, even though there haven't, you know, in St.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Charles County there have been moratoriums on apartment buildings um that has not quite reached St.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: Louis County.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it it is something, you know, housing shortages, um not enough good family homes on the market.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's that's a problem everywhere.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, yeah.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've heard a little bit of it um with some apartment developments, but no, uh to my knowledge in the West County area, no no proposed moratoriums on single family or multi, sorry, um apartment buildings.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, apartments are multi-family uh buildings.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: So so yeah, interesting to watch.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh you know, um 2027 is when vertical uh development is supposed to start on downtown Chesterfield, so it's gonna get I think pretty exciting to watch.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: There's also just a story about the grand entrance or the grand stairway.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: So the plans are coming together.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a couple of proposals for that, and they they uh each offer different things, and it's so yeah, it's gonna be exciting to keep an eye on.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I know people keep driving past and saying, what's going on there?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's just been empty and and there should be stuff visibly happening there, which is cool.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um so uh speaking of driving by uh that part of the world on the cover of this coming issue of West News Magazine, you will see Chesterfield Parkway West.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh as we took a photo of it to illustrate this next story.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Laura, do you want to talk a little bit about what's going on with St.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Louis County Roads?
• 6:00
  unknown: Sure.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: So uh county executive Sam Page wrote a letter to the county council recently uh proposing an idea to help reduce the county's uh budget deficit, and that was to turn over maintenance of some county roads across the whole county to municipalities.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: And this, of course, got the attention of some local mayors and municipal leaders who kind of didn't like the way that it was talked about or presented, where the county could just decide by a vote of the council to end their maintenance on these roadways.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um I talked to County Councilman Mark Carter in District 7 uh in West County, and you know, he there is a list of the roads that the county is proposing to turn over.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, Mark Carter, he said that some of them are small segments of roads, like some of them are less than a tenth of a mile.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um and he was just saying the resources expended by the county to maintain those roads, it's just not efficient to go plow a tenth of a mile stretch of road when it's attached to um a county municipal road, where you know, if they're already plowing the road, just keep going and do it a little bit further.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um but there are some bigger pieces.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Chesterfield probably has the most, you know, linear mileage of roadways, and they would be affected the most by this.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um Wildwood, there I did talk to Wildwood Mayor Joe Garitano.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I talked to former Ellisville Mayor Mike Roerman, who's the president of the Missouri Municipal League, um, which is an organization of all the municipalities across the state.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: And he he said too, he used the example in Ellisville, that they plan their road maintenance five years in advance.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so if suddenly they were given several miles, several new miles of roads to maintain, it would kind of throw a little wrench in their plans.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um and Joe Garantano, the mayor of Wildwood, he kind of he made the point, his point was that um you know the county residents and municipality, municipal residents are paying taxes.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: They're still paying the same amount of taxes to the county, and now they're getting less services.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um he sort of called it double dipping.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because the cities would have to, I mean, if if just someone waved a magic wand and these sections of roadway returned over to the cities for them to maintain, the cities would have to fund that maintenance out of their own pocket, which for some of these stretches of road would not be, you know, astronomical.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them they're very large stretches of roadway.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um it adds up.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: It does, it does add up.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Roadwork's very expensive, uh, and maintenance is expensive.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, the logistics of changing your snow plowing route and all that.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's a lot to there's a lot of little pieces to consider.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: And the ADA requirements have changed over the years as far as curb cuts and crossings and things like that.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so it it does add up.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think my my opinion that uh will probably make some of the mayors mad is I think it's a great idea with a big asterisk on it.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it's kind of silly that we have, you know, a tenth of a mile, you know, in the middle of one of these cities that the county is in charge of maintaining when we have, you know, when the rest of the roadway or adjoining roadways are are the city.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think from a logistical perspective, it makes way more sp sense to have these be under the purview of the cities.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um however, uh that's not how it's historically been handled.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so the cities can't just absorb that cost, you know, right off the bat.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was at Merrick Arantano uh that you interviewed where he said if there was some sort of funding mechanism, the cities the county provided the cities with the funds to maintain these new roads.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I that could be a good way of handling that.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Some sort of compromise.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Mark Carter, even he said everything's on the table at this point.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: He wants to put a task force together at the county to talk about it, but he said maybe it's where the counties bring the roads all the way up um to the current um levels that that are needed, and then they turn them over.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: Because some of these roads, I forget which of the politicians said this, but they said there none of them are maintained as well as they should be right now.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: They're all kind of in bad shape.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: So you know, the county's not doing a good job of taking care of it.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if the m municipalities will would do better.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, should they inherit a roadway that needs a lot of improvements, or should the county bring it up to code or whatever the requirements are and then hand it over?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's um that would be, I think, the ideal thing uh if they were if they were to hand it over.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um but this the cities are are concerned about this.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think notably uh at least a month or maybe a little longer ago, Chesterfield actually came out way ahead of this.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um they they you know they got a rumbling that this was being discussed, I suppose.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the city council had passed a passed a resolution.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, passed a resolution opposing opposing this before uh Sam Page sent out his his letter.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: So um the cities obviously just don't want to incur new expenses that have been the county's you know responsibilities moving forward.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think is one of those pain points that you know it'll really be rough budgeting for a while, but you know, 10, 20 years down the road, I think it it makes more sense uh just to have all these services, you know, have the city roads be handled by the city roads.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because because you also have Modot in the mix, too.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we have three separate entities that are running roads in one city, and you know, and it's it gets it gets confusing.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's confusing for the residents.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: The residents don't know who to call if there's an issue with the roads.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's you know, it's it's frustrating for the cities too, because they, you know, they have to work together with the county, with Modot to, you know, do road maintenance, do all these upgrades that they are constantly doing.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's the less complicated you can make it, I think the better, you know, but there there needs to be some sort of equitable equitable funding for it so the cities aren't double dipping like like uh well yeah, so the residents aren't paying twice, I guess.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that was one of the questions I asked.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think I asked Joe Garantano and Mike Romerman, uh, you know, if this if the county is doing a bad job maintaining the roads, wouldn't it be better for the municipalities to do it?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, they neither one of them really wanted to say yes.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: They they said as long as the funding's there, the financing is there.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's interesting.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh topic we'll be keeping an eye on moving moving forward.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's there's been a lot of things proposed from the county executive's office that she try to um bridge the gap in the budget.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so we'll see if this one sticks or if it doesn't.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because he won't be county executive come January.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: We'll have a new one.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so um so we'll see.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Stay tuned.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, stay tuned.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um let's talk about uh stuff on the ballot.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there is a lot of things on the November 3rd ballot coming up.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's several bond issues proposed locally.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one for the schools, yes.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh for Parkway.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um so Parkway has proposition P on the ballot.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Laura, do you want to break down what that is?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: It is a tax levy increase.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so it's the first time they've asked for a tax levy increase since 2006.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: And this would uh increase the sorry the tax levy by 46 cents per$100 of assessed valuation.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and the district says that this money is needed to maintain student programs, staffing, and school safety because they they have a projected$75 million budget shortfall over the next decade.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what the they're hoping to close that gap with this uh tax levy increase.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um It'll be interesting to see how the vote goes, because in the August election there were a couple tax levies on the ballot.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think the ambulance districts or the fire districts um asked and not very many of them passed.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um there were those those were primarily a sales tax, a sales tax to replace potentially property tax things.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: So um but but uh a a more analogous uh example would be uh Rockwood with prop what prop S from last year?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Am I is it last year or earlier this year?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh might have been April.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Was it earlier this year?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was recently.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um all the elections are blurring together.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: They break my brain.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: But Rockwood recently went to its voters as well uh with a request for an increase.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it did not it did not pass.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um Yes.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so the Parkway School District uh they were holding meetings with uh, you know, residents and family members and stakeholders just to find out what was important to the people of Parkway.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, they came back with they want to maintain the student, they call it the student experience.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: They don't want the students to suffer any cuts to programming or materials or things like that.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um and Parkway Superintendent uh Dr.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: Melissa Schneider um said between last year and this year, the board um did cut their budget by$15 million total for the two years.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: And but she said those are one-time cuts.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: So further reductions on the budget, you know, might have an impact on the student experience.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um just just in interesting.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: I had thought that that pro the gap between what was being requested from Rockwood's Prop S and Pro Parkway's Prop P was bigger, but Rockwood had requested a 46 45 cent increase per$100 of assessed valuation and and Prop P is a 46 increase.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's kind of in the ballpark.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think in the story, one of the things that was interesting to me um in Parkway's favor for the the request is the cost of educating students just continues to grow.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's all these special programs that they're required to provide.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: By the state, by the state or federal programming.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Special services, um well the testing, testing compliance.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, compute apply uh providing computers to the students.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so it is, you know, you don't just have 20 kids in a classroom with a chalkboard anymore.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: You have specialized classrooms for uh special needs kids.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a lot of there's a lot more that goes into it.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I can see I can see what they're saying about it.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: Parkway, the special school district, is should be paying for that.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, and that's something Dr.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Schneider touched on too, is that the So when I talked to someone, um, Dennis Gannall from uh Mo Tax Relief Now, he he said he wanted to know why you know student enrollment is going down across the state of Missouri and in Parkway, and you know, projections show that student enrollment will continue to go down just because people aren't having you know children as much as they were in previous years.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um but you know, Dr.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: Schneider said the cost to educate each individual student has gone up.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think she said that the cost of or that the the annual cost the the volume of students in the district has not decreased to a point where it's yeah, not yet.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, where it's not helping the the budget, the bottom line.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, annual cost of educating a student was sixteen thousand three.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I mean that's a that's a lot.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Costs costs for everybody are going up, but but you know, like like Mr.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Gnall says, uh sometimes you just have to tighten your belt and look at what can be cut.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, you look at you always hear people talking about um the administrative staff salaries.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um Dr.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Schneider also touched on how you know the different requirements from the state, like for testing and you know, mandating all these statewide testing, um they have to have an administrator to handle all of that.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: So that that's a position, and they have to pay that person something.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um and also, you know, they want to be competitive with the other districts in the area or you know, other districts of a similar size so that they can attract quality candidates.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, like the the superintendent, for example, they like that is an important position that handles a lot of important stuff.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're not just sitting around playing Tetris all day, they're they're they're putting in work, so you do want to provide a salary that will entice them.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: But like the superintendent.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, we need to entice teachers.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: We need we need teachers to be paid more.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the superintendents do make a uh hefty salary.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: So um so yeah, I I I don't know.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I uh what the the tax levy overall, if it's passed, will go to three dollars and three point one three three six, right?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um still hundred dollars of assessed valuation.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I think for the example the district put out is for a$400,000 home, um the increase would amount to about seven dollars per week or three hundred sixty-four dollars a year.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: So that that's the increase that you're looking at there.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: And when you, you know, seven dollars a week, it doesn't sound like like much, but um right now inflation is so high, like every dollar counts.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's two gallons of milk a week.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yes, that's it adds it adds up.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: But like I said, everyone's costs are going up, and that that includes the school districts.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um all right, one more thing on the upcoming election.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, next podcast issue, we're gonna do a lot more election-related things.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so let's get one more out of our system before that.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um also on the November 3rd ballot, uh, Creve Corps has proposition G.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is uh a um proposition to raise$14 million in general obligation bonds uh to fund a new government center.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um we I wanted to bring it up just because we wrote an article about it back in August when the city council approved it.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's you know it's still on the ballot, uh, which I was reminded about today while scrolling through our website.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um seems like years ago in August.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: August does seem like years ago.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the current government center, it was built as a school, I think, in the 60s.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow hilarious fact.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is my favorite fact of the year, possibly the decade.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Our uh Crevecore reporter, Jeffrey Greenberg, he said he attended that school.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: So he he now works where he attended school covering city councils.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I did think that was funny.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which may be my whole reason for bringing this up at the end of this episode.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, so if you live in Krieve Corps, uh the city has an info page on it.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: You can check out our story at westnewsmagazine.com about it to get some of the details um uh and see why the city's arguing for uh in favor of the bond.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, uh see um see where you come in on it.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um well the bond, that's it's not increasing taxes at all.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's just giving permission for the city to borrow money for the correct okay.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is um is it gonna be built in the same place?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not gonna increase the city's debt service rate, um, the which is currently 8.2 cents per$100 assessed valuation.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and those bonds would be retired within 20 years.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um so uh and this the city's already been soliciting um uh like architectural work ahead of time, you know, uh with the the goal in mind of being able to hit the ground running if this passes.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um so well I know a lot of the city halls along Manchester Road in West County are new in the past few years.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, Eureka, Ellisville, uh Manchester, um I'm sure I'm for Baldwin Bollin has a new police station, DePair has a new uh public safety.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's you know, the the public infrastructure, it degrades and it does need to be kept up.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, so I'm sure the like the safety and security too is way different now than that you know, 60 years ago or whenever it was that Jeffrey Greenberg went to school there.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: So um so if you live in Creavecore, go check that out.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um and in the meantime, if you don't live in Crevecore, uh, or you still do, go to Westnewsmagazine.com, uh, check out some of our other stories.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of election-related stuff regarding the amendments.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: And um our November 3rd issue also has our candidate questionnaire.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's a huge list of candidates, uh, and almost all of our races are contested races.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: So go find out more about the candidates in your districts now, Westnewsmagazine.com and uh social media.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And on our social media and subscribe to our newsletter.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and in the meantime, we'll see you next time.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: All right, bye.