2026-09-17 - Citizens' Advisory Board

00:00:00So for the next order of business, I will turn this meeting back over to City

00:00:04Clerk, Anita Cotter, for the election of officers.

00:00:08And before we do that, I think we're going to have Mr. Rosenberry.

00:00:12Yeah. A little social time.

00:00:13Mr. Rosenberry, just before we do election of officers, I think it'd be good for us

00:00:17all to know who is here. So, Mr. Rosenberry.

00:00:21So officially, welcome. Or for some of you, welcome back.

00:00:27Thank you.

00:00:28But certainly for the people that are new to us, thank you for agreeing

00:00:34to serve.

00:00:37I think what I'll do is rather than me read them off, just give everybody a chance

00:00:42to introduce themselves, say a little bit about

00:00:46what or who you affiliate with, and we'll just go

00:00:51down this list.

00:00:53My name is Miriam Benitez. I'm a former president of the Robertson Neighborhood

00:00:58Association and an active member again.

00:01:05We moved here four years ago. I grew up in Kansas City, and I moved

00:01:11here for college, and my friends lived here.

00:01:14It's just wonderful to be back here and be part of this wonderful city full of just

00:01:19so many welcoming and beautiful people. Thank you.

00:01:24I'm Leslie Forrester. By day, I'm the executive director of the Arts Council and a

00:01:2912-year resident of Springfield.

00:01:32I'm Jeff Frederick. I've lived here into my third year now.

00:01:35I work at Drury University, where I also live as an employee and a resident.

00:01:40And we are currently getting a bunch of new roofs from that hateful hailstorm we

00:01:45all remember.

00:01:47Hateful.

00:01:50Aaliyah Lee. I am a corporate event producer, and born and raised hometown girl.

00:01:56Lauren Shontz. Came here in 2015 for college. Go Bears.

00:02:01I currently work at the Springfield Chamber.

00:02:02I do advocacy work, so local, state, and federal.

00:02:05My identity is really my one-year-old, well, in a week, my one-year-old daughter,

00:02:10so

00:02:12that is my whole life. And my husband, he's great, too.

00:02:16That was recorded, so he can watch that.

00:02:20Cliff Smart. Lawyer by trade, retired as president of Missouri State

00:02:26University. Wife, Gail. We've been married 40 years.

00:02:31Is on school board, and

00:02:35that's probably enough.

00:02:37Yeah, how much of our life do you want?

00:02:40So I'm Becky Volz, and I do live in Woodlawn Heights neighborhood in a property

00:02:45that my parents bought 64 years ago.

00:02:48And so we've just kind of established our homestead.

00:02:51So I've been here for a long, long time.

00:02:54Very involved with things in the city, from PTA, getting to know our school board,

00:02:59to doing things in the city via the Neighborhood Advisory Council and other things.

00:03:06I'm Jasmine Watson. I'm chief operations officer for Care to Learn, a local

00:03:10nonprofit here in town, and across the state, actually.

00:03:13And I've lived in town for about 10 years, and I'm excited to be involved in this

00:03:17way.

00:03:19I'm Rusty Worley, and I'm the director of community engagement for Chotzen

00:03:23Associates, the area's largest engineering firm, and serve on a few boards.

00:03:29Maurice Jones, deputy city manager. Huge University of Louisville fan. Go Cards.

00:03:35And I'm Anita Cotter. I'm the city clerk, and I like to joke that I've been here

00:03:39since the dawn of time. Been here 31 years.

00:03:43I'm Julie Greer, the deputy city clerk, and I came shortly after the dawn of time,

00:03:48right after Anita.

00:03:51And I'm Julia Meek. I'm one of the administrative specialists for the city clerk's

00:03:54office, and I actually recently moved to Springfield.

00:03:58And again, Tim Rosenberry. I'm director of quality of place initiatives, and that

00:04:03office is placed in the city manager's office just well next door to Maurice and

00:04:08around the hall from here. So, yeah, we'll throw it back.

00:04:13Okay, so we will move forward now with our election of a chair and vice chair.

00:04:19We'll start with the election of chair.

00:04:21What I'll do is I'll open the floor to nominations, and then we will pass out

00:04:26ballots, and I will have everyone vote and sign.

00:04:31Once a person has five votes, they will be duly elected, and then we'll move on to

00:04:36vice chair. So at this time, I'd like to open the floor for nominations for chair.

00:04:43I'll nominate Rusty Worley.

00:04:48I have a nomination for Rusty Worley. Are there any additional nominations?

00:04:54Okay. Then we will close nominations, and we'll pass out the ballot for vote.

00:05:00So we can officially

00:05:02vote that.

00:06:02And based on receiving nine votes, Rusty Worley is the

00:06:08elected chair.

00:06:11We'd now like to open the floor to nominations for vice chair. Yes, sir.

00:06:16I would nominate Lauren.

00:06:21Are there any additional nominations? We have a nomination for Lauren Shontz.

00:06:28Okay, then we will close the floor for nominations, and I will pass out a ballot.

00:06:45If only our November elections went so smooth.

00:07:32Hey, Rusty, trade places.

00:07:35Okay. All right.

00:07:37And based on receiving nine votes, Lauren Shontz is our duly elected vice chair.

00:07:43If the board could give me just a moment, I would like to give the chair and vice

00:07:47chair an agenda for the rest of the presentation, and then I will turn over the

00:07:52rest of the meeting to our chair.

00:08:02And you'll have a seat right there.

00:08:05Swap you.

00:08:06Thank you.

00:08:14All right. Thank you, Anita. I appreciate that.

00:08:18Just as one of the continuing board members, I want to just recognize all the new

00:08:23entries and welcome you to serving on this group.

00:08:27Even though we've just been meeting a year, it's been a good group, and we've had a

00:08:30lot of good discussion, and I think everyone has kept the ideals

00:08:36of Ford SGF and our fellow Springfield neighbors in mind.

00:08:40So, I anticipate continuing in

00:08:45that process. I also want to take a minute and just recognize our three retiring

00:08:48members who did an outstanding job.

00:08:51Erin D'Anastasio was a great chair, and we appreciate her service on this board and

00:08:56throughout the community. And then Christina Engel and then Andy Peebles,

00:09:02all great community servants. And thankfully, they're young enough that they have

00:09:06many, many years of community service and adding to Springfield.

00:09:10And so anyway, thank you to everyone.

00:09:13With that, we have the consideration of the February 25th minutes.

00:09:17Those were sent out yesterday.

00:09:21Are there any comments or suggested changes to this?

00:09:27Hearing none, I take a motion to approve those minutes as presented.

00:09:31So motioned.

00:09:32I second.

00:09:33Got a second. Any further discussion?

00:09:37All those in favor--

00:09:38Well, you'll call the-

00:09:40Yes, sir.

00:09:41I'm used to nonprofit boards where we don't have a secretary.

00:09:45Bonetti.

00:09:47Aye.

00:09:48Smart.

00:09:49Aye.

00:09:49Fultz.

00:09:50Aye.

00:09:51Watson.

00:09:52Aye.

00:09:52Forrester.

00:09:53Aye.

00:09:53Schantz.

00:09:54Aye.

00:09:55Lee. Aye. Worley.

00:09:57Aye.

00:09:57Frederick.

00:09:58Aye.

00:10:03All right.

00:10:07Go ahead and now entertain a motion to take the agenda out of order so we can hear

00:10:13the Neighborworksplus presentation.

00:10:17And

00:10:19just a note that the city's looking for us to make a decision on this today so we

00:10:23can forward this information on to the city council for their consideration.

00:10:29We did have, Colin Quigley and I had conversations with the new board members, so

00:10:34you got to have a little sneak preview to this and know.

00:10:39But with that, we'll turn it over to our team.

00:10:43So Dan, you want to start?

00:10:45Actually, we need to take a motion to take it out of order.

00:10:48Sure.

00:10:48So if we could get a motion to take the agenda out of order and a second.

00:10:52I'll make a motion to take the agenda out of order for purposes of the Neighborhood

00:10:55Works presentation.

00:10:57Second.

00:10:59Okay.

00:11:01Call the roll.

00:11:03Smart.

00:11:04Yes.

00:11:04Fultz.

00:11:05Yes.

00:11:06Watson.

00:11:06Yes.

00:11:07Forrester.

00:11:07Yes.

00:11:08Schantz.

00:11:08Yes.

00:11:09Lee. Yes. Worley.

00:11:11Aye.

00:11:11Bonetti.

00:11:12Aye.

00:11:13Frederick.

00:11:13Yes.

00:11:18So I will at this time introduce Tim Rosenberry, Director of Quality of Place, to

00:11:23walk us through or introduce the rest of our team doing the presentation.

00:11:29I'm going to move the slides down to

00:11:34where we start with Neighborhood Works.

00:11:38And

00:11:40let's see. Slideshow

00:11:44from current. Are we good? Yes. And with that, I will turn it over to

00:11:50Assistant Director of Public Works Department, Brett Foster.

00:11:55Sure. I just want to celebrate. Thank you. I appreciate your service.

00:11:58We're really excited to bring this to you early.

00:12:00It's one of the first major things we're really going to be able to get going out

00:12:03of this program, pending your approval.

00:12:06When you guys in the previous CAB gave us some funding to get this process started,

00:12:11it was a lot. It was a lot to do in a very short amount of time, and we put

00:12:15together a fantastic team. I'm not going to introduce that team, but it involved a

00:12:18lot of our neighborhoods, a lot of our public works, and planning staff, and we

00:12:22also went out to get a little help. So Mr. Seiler, he's a community person.

00:12:26He's done a great job of being that consultant to help us put that together.

00:12:30So I want to turn it over to Dan.

00:12:33All right. Thank you, Brett. Like Brett said, my name's Dan Seiler, and I've been

00:12:38fortunate enough to help lead the program over the last nine months, and we're

00:12:42going to walk through kind of what we did.

00:12:44I also would recognize Brian Sayre with the City of Springfield.

00:12:47We've kind of been co-leaders is what we like to call it, that have helped kind of

00:12:50walk the program through the process that we went through.

00:12:55So Neighborhood Worksplus really built on Neighborhood Works, which if you're not

00:12:59familiar with, was a community-based program for neighborhoods to apply and do

00:13:04projects within their neighborhood.

00:13:06And Neighborhood Worksplus really worked to take some of the restrictions off

00:13:12that. That was capped at $100,000, so it really kind of limited what could be done

00:13:17with the Neighborhood Works dollars.

00:13:18So Neighborhood Worksplus really allowed us to do some bigger things, and you'll

00:13:22see some of that in the presentation.

00:13:24And it really focused on visible, high-impact, community-driven projects.

00:13:28That was the goal, was let's find these visible, high-impact, community-driven

00:13:32projects.

00:13:34And like Brett said, we had a great team, and this is a great group of folks.

00:13:38You're going to probably hear me say the word collaboration way too many times

00:13:43during this presentation, because that's really what this effort was, was a

00:13:46collaborative process through a lot of folks. And this is kind of the core group.

00:13:51Of course, Public Works was the lead department on it, but we worked with a lot of

00:13:56divisions within Public Works throughout the process, Stormwater, Traffic a lot,

00:14:01Engineering, Construction Inspection, and everybody was very helpful in help

00:14:06guiding the program. But beyond that, we worked with the Planning Department as

00:14:10well. They were really helping us get connected with the neighborhoods, and the

00:14:15Planning Department team with the neighborhoods really got us connected to that

00:14:19group. And then PIO, of course, led the effort for our public-facing documents and

00:14:24how we engaged the public, and they did a great job of getting the word out there

00:14:28about the program, helping us collect that data, and then helping us navigate

00:14:32through some of our processes. But also in that, we had the Neighborhood Advisory

00:14:36Council. So they were a great group of folks that helped also guide the program.

00:14:42Them, I think, combined with Public Information Office really helped us get the

00:14:46word out there to folks and really get a lot of great feedback.

00:14:51And then they also helped us form a subcommittee, and I'll call them the

00:14:54subcommittee throughout this presentation, but we'd like to thank them a little

00:14:57more as a steering committee. They did a lot more than just kind of help us

00:15:02prioritize things. They helped us problem solve, figure out where we needed to

00:15:06maybe go next on some items to figure those out.

00:15:08So, and then beyond this ring, there were folks well beyond that we've engaged

00:15:14with, whether that be City Utilities, MoDOT, Parks, lots of various groups that

00:15:19we've engaged with in this process that have helped guide it forward.

00:15:24So we started the program off with a pretty simple question to the public: How

00:15:28would you improve your neighborhood?

00:15:29And I think we can all think about where we live and the place that we live in and

00:15:32think about things that we could do to improve our neighborhood or the place where

00:15:36we live. And so we got a lot of great response for that.

00:15:39That kicked off in December, and we collected ideas through the end of January.

00:15:46And we got 560 ideas, actually over 560.

00:15:49It was overwhelming for Brian and I to see those come in because we knew February

00:15:55was going to be very busy for us to work through all those comments and try to

00:15:59figure out how to move them forward. But it was great to see.

00:16:03We really enjoyed that. I think, again, it goes back to that combination between

00:16:06PIO and the neighborhoods helping us get the word out.

00:16:09We saw a lot of feedback from the neighborhoods in that process, overwhelmingly, so

00:16:14it was great to get that many ideas.

00:16:17So this is kind of a breakdown of those 560 ideas. How did they come in?

00:16:23So roughly about 40% were related to traffic safety or traffic calming, so there's

00:16:28speeding in my neighborhood on this road and would like to see that fixed, or this

00:16:33intersection always seems to be an issue.

00:16:35Is there something that we could do here to fix it?

00:16:38Another 20%, so like one in five comments, was related to sidewalk requests, either

00:16:42a missing piece of sidewalk that would be nice to get completed or maybe a piece of

00:16:47sidewalk that needs some TLC, has maybe some upgrading there.

00:16:52The other things that we got quite a bit on were stormwater.

00:16:56It was about 10% of the comments, and then quality of place.

00:17:00And so those were kind of the things that we worked within.

00:17:04So after we had those 560 comments, we now had to assemble them into projects, and

00:17:09that's where we really started engaging those various departments and divisions and

00:17:14talking to the technical experts.

00:17:16Brian's a construction inspector for the city, so his construction knowledge was

00:17:21great to have when we start to try to assemble these ideas.

00:17:23But he also, in his past life, was a land surveyor.

00:17:26So it's always great to know where the property's at when you're putting a project

00:17:29together to know, hey, is this going to be able to move forward quickly, or are we

00:17:32going to have to maybe take a step back on this project and have to do some design

00:17:37work to figure out the proper engagement we need?

00:17:40We think about one over there off Brookside.

00:17:42There's a sidewalk that the neighborhood wanted.

00:17:44Great project, but that was one, once we found the right-of-way, we realized, oh,

00:17:48it's going to take a little bit more time to get something like that done.

00:17:52So having that type of expertise on the team was great.

00:17:54But we also engaged other experts, whether that be City Utilities or Traffic or

00:17:59Stormwater, to help guide the projects and help us assemble the projects into what

00:18:05we would ultimately see built. And so as we assembled those

00:18:11560 ideas into projects, we ended up with about 160 projects, and

00:18:17we estimated about a $70 million need of those projects is what we ended up with.

00:18:23And

00:18:25After we got those projects, that was mostly Brian and I's February is assembling

00:18:28those projects, getting them together. We went out to zone meetings.

00:18:33And I say, if you talk to my wife, she'll say I'm a good listener, but I don't

00:18:37always hear well. And that's what these zone meetings really were, was we got your

00:18:42ideas, we listened to them, we tried to figure out what projects made sense, but

00:18:46did we hear you? And does the project actually fit with the vision of your comment?

00:18:50So we wanted to give the public the opportunity to come back in.

00:18:54We had maps for each neighborhood.

00:18:56They could look at the potential projects in their neighborhoods, see what those

00:19:00could look like, and offer really ways of refinement.

00:19:04So, if that wasn't exactly what they meant, how could we change the project or

00:19:09enhance the project? If we had one that was maybe we did this here, but hey, if we

00:19:13did something over here that would really enhance this project, we could get that

00:19:17added in.

00:19:19The other great thing that that allowed us to do, too, is help us have the

00:19:23neighborhoods give us some priorities.

00:19:25Because as you can imagine, we ended up with a fairly good list of projects in a

00:19:30lot of neighborhoods, but we didn't know what the specific neighborhoods'

00:19:33priorities were. So what we asked the neighborhoods to do that attended the zone

00:19:37meetings, or the neighbors to do that attended the zone meetings, was, "Here's your

00:19:41dots to vote on your projects. Help us prioritize these projects in your

00:19:44neighborhood so we know what you all would like to see done first or towards the

00:19:49top." And that really helped us as we moved through the program to make decisions

00:19:55to figure out how we would fit within that $5 million budget allocation.

00:20:01And so this was the challenge, right?

00:20:03160 plus projects, roughly $72 million worth of projects.

00:20:08And we started off by kind of breaking that down into three big chunks.

00:20:12One was capital improvement projects.

00:20:14So we had some projects that were fairly large that would probably be on what a

00:20:18Neighborhood Works project would be, and that was about a third of them.

00:20:22The other one was planning and engineering projects, so that was around $21 million

00:20:26worth of projects. So like I said, the Brookside one's a great example of that.

00:20:31Unfortunately, we don't have the right of way to go put a sidewalk there today, so

00:20:34it's going to require some engineering, some property acquisition, and that's more

00:20:39of a long-term project. So we had about $21 million of those.

00:20:43The other great example of those type of projects are stormwater projects.

00:20:47And if you think about a stormwater project, they need a little bit more analysis

00:20:51and planning, and usually you need some sort of easement to get a stormwater

00:20:56project done. So when we worked with the subcommittee, we really focused on this

00:21:01green section, which we call construction priority.

00:21:04That was the projects that were fairly ready to go. We could move quickly on.

00:21:09We didn't think we needed right of way.

00:21:10Utilities were pretty minor to adjust if we needed to adjust any utilities.

00:21:14And then the goal was then to get down into the kind of the $5 million allocation

00:21:19that you all had given.

00:21:22And to do that, we engaged with that subcommittee from NAC, and I cannot

00:21:28say enough about this group. They're very thoughtful.

00:21:31It was a group of eight citizens, two from each zone, and they really helped us

00:21:36navigate through the prioritization process with these 160 projects.

00:21:42Early in January, we met with them and established criteria for how we would

00:21:47evaluate the projects to figure out which ones would be done first.

00:21:50And so we came up with nine pieces of criteria to evaluate the projects with, and

00:21:56then we brought the projects back to them, and they helped us evaluate the projects

00:22:01based upon that criteria. They also guided the program in other ways.

00:22:06One of the things that we had a challenge with early on was there were a lot of

00:22:10good quality of place ideas, but it was hard for us to kind of wrap our minds

00:22:14around what those would look like and what kind of support was out there for them.

00:22:18So they offered maybe we should do an application process similar to the previous

00:22:23Neighborhood Works program to kind of evaluate those and work through departments

00:22:28on those. So they really helped guide the program a lot and get us within the

00:22:33allocation.

00:22:36And so they did come around and ultimately make a round one recommendation, which

00:22:41what we're talking about today, and this is roughly the breakdown of that.

00:22:46And you can see it's real similar to the pie chart that we had early on with the

00:22:49comments, where we had a lot of traffic calming.

00:22:52If you remember, speeding and traffic safety was roughly 40%, and so we got a lot

00:22:56of traffic calming here and sidewalks. And then we also got a lot of sidewalks.

00:23:01Sidewalks was another big one. I think on this one, the big one that we don't see

00:23:04show up is storm, but a lot of that is because those require a lot of that

00:23:08longer-term planning, that property acquisition, which we wanted to focus on stuff

00:23:14that we could start getting done in neighborhoods pretty quickly.

00:23:17And so unfortunately, those processes take a little longer.

00:23:22And so we really felt we got a great reach with the round one projects.

00:23:26We got to 21 neighborhoods,

00:23:29with a project, and some got multiples. We felt like we got a lot done.

00:23:33As you can imagine, with 160 projects, and doing just 21 neighborhoods, we

00:23:39still have some great projects on there for the future.

00:23:42But I feel like really the reach, too, of the program has been working with

00:23:46neighborhoods, listening to them, figuring out what we can do to improve their

00:23:50neighborhoods. And I really wanted at this point to introduce to you Nancy

00:23:54Williams, who is the current chair of the Neighborhood Advisory Council, and she

00:24:00also has served on our subcommittee. So I'll hand it over to Nancy.

00:24:04All right. So thank you, Dane. And I want to mention, since he's so complimentary

00:24:10of the subcommittee, what a joy it was to work with Ryan and Dane.

00:24:14They made, I wouldn't call it a difficult process, but it was challenging, it was

00:24:18engaging,

00:24:20and yeah, a little difficult when you have that many projects that you really

00:24:24wanted to do, but you needed to weed through and get to the $5 million.

00:24:28But they made it easy. They gave us a binder where we looked at every single one of

00:24:31those projects and ranked them, and then they compiled those rankings.

00:24:35This was after the neighborhoods had already ranked them, so we had that

00:24:39information as well. In case you're wondering, I'm trying to anticipate the

00:24:43questions that you might have. In case you're wondering why out of 24 neighborhoods

00:24:48did we end up with projects in 21, this is a different process this time.

00:24:52Before, neighborhoods would turn in the applications.

00:24:55They would get together as a neighborhood.

00:24:57They would kind of prepare one application and turn it in with sort of one cohesive

00:25:03project. This time it was everybody from all over, not necessarily even

00:25:07neighborhood people. They could be outside of the organized neighborhoods.

00:25:11But they were submitting individual ideas, kind of informally, kind of formally, so

00:25:17that's how we ended up with so many that were then whittled down.

00:25:20So we talked about this the other night at our last meeting.

00:25:25Grant Beach had some ideas, and some of those are already getting done through the

00:25:30natural city processes. Oak Grove had mostly stormwater and right of way issues

00:25:36that need to be resolved before we can do those projects.

00:25:39And then on the west side, the projects that we looked at there, they were a little

00:25:42bit lower on the connectivity.

00:25:45When we looked at specifically sidewalk or walkability issues, we were

00:25:51looking at where are they? Where do they go? Do they connect to something else?

00:25:55Are they just a segment of a street that doesn't really help get someplace else in

00:25:59the neighborhood? So that's why those neighborhoods were set aside for now.

00:26:04I don't know how much you want to know about each of the individual neighborhood

00:26:08projects. Do you have the list of the... Oh, okay.

00:26:13You can look back there. You can look right over Becky's head back there.

00:26:17But as Dane said, a lot of them were traffic calming, sidewalk updates and

00:26:22additions and trail ways, not those are greenways, but regular city trails.

00:26:28Improvements to an athletic field in Lafayette Park was something that the school

00:26:31district had actually asked for some help with.

00:26:35A little bit of stormwater improvement.

00:26:37So that's the bulk of it, as Dane had kind of gone through.

00:26:41But that really is a lot of what we've heard about for years and in all parts of

00:26:47the city is the people racing through neighborhoods, right?

00:26:52I mean, let alone the noise from the main corridors of Glenstone and the Nationals,

00:26:57but people using those through streets, through neighborhoods as cut-throughs and

00:27:03racing through and running stop signs and things like that.

00:27:06So what you'll be seeing from this list is a lot of speed cushions, raised

00:27:12crosswalks, that kind of thing throughout the neighborhoods.

00:27:15So I think that's going to help a lot.

00:27:19So yeah, mostly

00:27:22sidewalk updates. There's a little bit of

00:27:27... of other beautifications on here, and then we got the 200,000 for tree

00:27:30plantings and the 400,000 for quality of place projects. So, Cliff.

00:27:36Talk to me about those two. What's the tree strategy?

00:27:41What can you do with $200,000? And what's the general quality of place fund?

00:27:46Okay. I'm going to toss the tree question back to Dan in a second.

00:27:50Can I talk about the quality of place? Okay.

00:27:52Yeah.

00:27:53So we had a list of, was it 20? It's one of 20 quality of place

00:27:59contributions or applications.

00:28:02We ranked them into three different tiers. There are seven in the first tier.

00:28:07Three of those projects deal with

00:28:11city lots that are flood plain or sinkhole properties, so they can't be used for

00:28:15building or anything like that. So one already exists in Rountree, the Fairway Glen

00:28:21property. So they're going to get some more work done there.

00:28:25Part of the West Side has that property at the corner of West and Calhoun, I think.

00:28:30That's a sinkhole. They're looking for some improvements there, so it's not as

00:28:34totally ugly as it's been for decades. I'm sorry.

00:28:38And then Delaware also has a property-- We don't have it.

00:28:44The city has a property on South Kentwood, just a vacant lot where a house used to

00:28:48be. It sank into a hole, and so the house was removed, and the city owns it.

00:28:52And we're looking at tree plantings.

00:28:56I will mention the P word. It's a petanque court, potentially.

00:29:00If you need to look that up, I'll give you time to do that.

00:29:03It's like bocce, it's just a more fixed situation.

00:29:06So,

00:29:07that's been an idea floating around the Delaware neighborhood for a while.

00:29:12And then others are just--

00:29:15Some is remove a large stand of invasive bamboo along the railroad in

00:29:21Rountree. It's been a place where folks hang out when they shouldn't and that kind

00:29:26of thing. If you live around the Phelps Grove Park, there's a couple of rock

00:29:31structures on the north end of that as you're driving down Allison.

00:29:35They're going to do some repair and tuckpointing and things like that on that for

00:29:38quality of place, so that's kind of where we got with that budget. Let's see.

00:29:43Did I miss anything? Some planters in midtown.

00:29:47Actually, we're moving that one lower because there's some other issues with that

00:29:50traffic calming location.

00:29:52But they're specific projects.

00:29:54They are.

00:29:54It's not just a fund.

00:29:55Yes. And that's just the first of three pages.

00:29:57So, as we're looking at these, doing some more looking at engineering and that sort

00:30:01of thing, some of those may move down, and some of those may move up. So, yeah.

00:30:06So for our purposes today, will we be voting on specific projects

00:30:12within that quality of place line, or will that come before it goes to city

00:30:16council? Or what's the process for when you're going to take that to city council?

00:30:21So, what we would like to do, and this is with your approval, of course, we already

00:30:24have a council bill slated pending your approval for Monday night, because we

00:30:28really want to get moving on this. This is an iterative process.

00:30:33We don't know the exact budget of every one of these.

00:30:35I want to be clear about this. This is an estimate.

00:30:37We do know we can deliver all this for this much money.

00:30:40There could be a few projects that are on the list the MAC has already done that we

00:30:44feel like can probably move up into this if the full amount is programmed.

00:30:48To move as fast as we need to, we're going to ask that you just approve the $5

00:30:52million for the Neighborhood Works process as we've done it.

00:30:56These projects are planned. We're committed to doing those.

00:30:58We're committed to doing the quality of place.

00:31:01Quality of place and the tree planting, and Dan will go into this, it's very hard

00:31:04to estimate that till we're on the ground.

00:31:06So I can spend a ton of time deciding what each one of these costs are, or I can

00:31:09say, "Here's a list of stuff that MAC supported," and we can just go after it until

00:31:13we're out of the fund, and it will all go back through the MAC subcommittee.

00:31:17Anything we would do that would be not on this list.

00:31:20We just showed you the list of what's the 5 million, because we felt like that was

00:31:24prudent. But there are more projects that MAC has right there that they've been on

00:31:27board with, and the neighborhood's on board with, that we're hoping we can move up

00:31:31in there. And so that's why we're just going to be asking with, of course, with

00:31:36your approval, just to fund the $5 million for this list of projects and the

00:31:39program itself, is how the council supports it.

00:31:42These projects are likely to be completed by summer of '27?

00:31:47That would be our goal, would be by the end of summer next year.

00:31:52So some of our work has been coordinating with stakeholders, and as you can see,

00:31:58one of the things that the subcommittee did that I thought was great was

00:32:03they just wanted to connect community assets, but they didn't define community

00:32:07assets well. As you can imagine, in a lot of our neighborhoods, the biggest

00:32:10community asset's the school. So in our coordination with the school, they've

00:32:14asked, "Can you hold off till next summer when we don't have a bunch of kids and

00:32:17cars around our facilities?" So yes, the goal would be the end of next

00:32:23summer because we have a lot of those. About probably six of those will be done.

00:32:27I think to answer the plantings question,

00:32:31so we've been working with Urban Forestry to come up with a budget for that.

00:32:34We also have said that each one of these projects we do, we want to include some

00:32:38sort of planting or enhancement. In working with Urban Forestry, something they

00:32:42helped us identify is they have a long list of folks that have requested trees or

00:32:48plantings, but they can't necessarily do because of the restrictions on their

00:32:52funding. But this funding could help them do that.

00:32:54So they helped us come up with that budget number.

00:32:57So what we're doing is coming up with a process in which people can come to us, and

00:33:02then the biggest thing is making sure they're going to, of course, take care of the

00:33:05plants and maintain them, and we'll have

00:33:09an agreement with that. And then we can work through that process.

00:33:13But the big piece of it is to try to work it into the projects that you see on the

00:33:17list.

00:33:18So the strategy is to plant trees among the projects that we have.

00:33:23Yes.

00:33:24And so if we approve this and

00:33:28you spend $4.7 million, then 300,000 rolls over for the next two

00:33:33projects or whatever.

00:33:34Correct. Yeah.

00:33:35Okay.

00:33:35So if we don't spend that 200,000 in the plantings, that could easily roll over

00:33:40into another new project that's next on the priority list.

00:33:42You plant $100,000 worth of trees, and then you got 100,000 to spend on something

00:33:46else if you don't finish it.

00:33:47Correct.

00:33:47Okay.

00:33:48And one thing I wanted to note on the timing that's very important to note so

00:33:51there's groups aware of. Brian and his group, we put a contracting mechanism in

00:33:55place preparing for this called our job order contracting.

00:33:57How many contractors did we award?

00:33:59Four.

00:33:59We have four contractors in place that are City of Springfield contractors to begin

00:34:03work on this. You guys know how contractors work, and if we don't get things

00:34:07scheduled, then we get behind. And then so we want to try to get it scheduled so we

00:34:11can get in the queue and really start.

00:34:12So every little bit we wait, especially this time of year, we get further behind

00:34:17because they will move to other things for the wintertime work.

00:34:19So we have those people ready to go.

00:34:22With approval and council's approval, we're ready to hit.

00:34:24We'll start getting job order contracts together if council approves Tuesday.

00:34:28We'll be sending out job orders and telling people when can we have pre-cons and

00:34:31when can we get started. So we're not going to lag months to get started.

00:34:35As soon as we can get those contractors on board and get here, but like I said,

00:34:38we're still dealing with contractors, and so we still have to get them here and get

00:34:42the work done, but our anticipation is to get done as fast as we possibly can.

00:34:46If I may. So the contractors are primarily sidewalk, because it seems like sidewalk

00:34:52is really the biggest-

00:34:53It's primarily sidewalk and traffic calming, yes.

00:34:56Okay. So-

00:34:57The sidewalk ones are probably the ones that would-- They'll go first because

00:35:01they're ready. Brian's got a lot of them ready just to go as soon as we get the

00:35:05green light. So...

00:35:06Okay, you may not have an answer for this part, but these sidewalk improvements, do

00:35:11they include any of the brick sidewalks? Were any of those in the request?

00:35:17No.

00:35:17Okay.

00:35:20And there's a reason for that. This is where it's not that we wouldn't do it.

00:35:23We don't have anybody that can do it right now.

00:35:26And we're going to have a bigger conversation with neighborhoods, I know we've

00:35:28talked about that, but it's just trying to figure out who can actually put in brick

00:35:31sidewalk that doesn't cost an absolute fortune.

00:35:35And so we have really struggled with getting a contractor on board to do that.

00:35:38We've made some phone calls and things.

00:35:40We couldn't find anybody that was interested in giving us any pricing on that.

00:35:43And so to keep moving, we'll consider that in the future.

00:35:46But yeah, if we have to figure that out, that's a bigger issue within the city than

00:35:50this process can solve.

00:35:53And-

00:35:53Go ahead.

00:35:54Oh, just my last brick sidewalk question.

00:35:59Like in these sidewalk projects, if any of them are meant to replace brick,

00:36:04will neighborhoods have an opportunity to

00:36:08discuss that before the bricks are taken up and concrete's put down?

00:36:13Yeah.

00:36:13Yeah? Okay.

00:36:15I don't know. Brian, we can get offline and talk specifically on that.

00:36:18No, that's okay.

00:36:19We've got those identified, and Brian knows where those are.

00:36:21We've discussed with the neighborhood.

00:36:23I'm not sure exactly how many of those we have.

00:36:25That's okay.

00:36:26How do you plan to let the community know that projects have been completed and

00:36:30that they came out of this funding and this process? Yep.

00:36:34That's what we're here for. And so we have a variety of ways, including news

00:36:39releases, video features, social media, direct targeted communication,

00:36:45that we're going to be loud and clear in tying it back.

00:36:49What's that?

00:36:49Signage. And signage is another big way as well.

00:36:53We want to demonstrate that we are delivering on this promise.

00:36:57Amen.

00:36:58And we have a coordinated campaign.

00:37:00Yeah. The progress is promised signage that has been part of the 1/8 and quarter

00:37:05cent have been great advertisements for, and helped with the renewals

00:37:11to get those at a high percentage.

00:37:15Yes.

00:37:16I'm very supportive of the process that you've gone through.

00:37:19I think it makes sense that the subcommittee and staff that have worked

00:37:25together figure out exactly what project gets done and exactly how much money and

00:37:30what priority. I think we are not well-suited to do that, and I certainly have

00:37:36the confidence to approve of the allocation as you've set it

00:37:42out. And if things drastically change, well, then, just make sure we're in the loop

00:37:47on why we're not doing these five projects and these got substituted over here.

00:37:52Just so, because we're your ambassadors in the community as well-

00:37:56Sure

00:37:57... to talk about this. I think this is as important as the big projects we're

00:38:02talking about, so that people have ownership that this tax is meaningful and it's

00:38:08changing their neighborhoods. And so again, I appreciate the process you've gone

00:38:12through.

00:38:13I do want to clarify that this is a two-reading bill, so it's just been worth it.

00:38:20Sorry.

00:38:20Dan, I don't know if this is a question for you in terms of how much you work with

00:38:23Neighborhood Works, not Plus. This may be a Brent question, because that still

00:38:28exists, correct? It's still funded normally.

00:38:31There's just the cap and slightly different uses.

00:38:33Is the plan for these projects to keep them, sort of the priority list is solely

00:38:38under Neighborhood Works Plus, or is the thought that any of them, if they have

00:38:42high priorities, can be used under Neighborhood Works blank, the original

00:38:48Neighborhood Works, or is that two totally separate of a process?

00:38:51Do you know what I'm... Yeah. Some of them feel infrastructure based and they could

00:38:55fit under there, but I don't know how you're thinking about these two programs.

00:38:58Honestly, this is a little bit underpromise and overachieve.

00:39:01The rest of that money in there, we'll be very transparent, we'll work with the

00:39:04neighborhoods on it. But if we get to some of these projects and realize the next

00:39:07block we should do that too, even though the neighborhood in half, that's where

00:39:10that funding comes into place, along with our program funding for maintenance.

00:39:14And so we fully intend that there's going to be locations that we identify that we

00:39:19can extend the limits of what the neighborhood and do more.

00:39:22That's been the history of this program. We generally stretch that.

00:39:25It's hard to promise that because again, we get out on the ground and find things

00:39:29we don't know about or things that change, these project limits have to change.

00:39:32But again, it'll be fully transparent.

00:39:35That process is simply something that's approved by the manager's office,

00:39:39as approved by NAC. So it's under still under the old language and the legality of

00:39:44the quarter cent. So we'll fully follow that, but we'll be transparent where those

00:39:47dollars are being spent. We'll report that out.

00:39:49We'll make sure this group's aware of it as well.

00:39:51But there could be some crossover.

00:39:53Mm-hmm.

00:39:53There could be some crossover is what I'm hearing.

00:39:56Yeah.

00:39:56I'm not what that amount is.

00:39:57Yeah, that amount is $800,000 over four years.

00:40:03So we don't quite have the full 800 available just yet. It's a cash flow thing.

00:40:07In reality, we will by the end of it, but it's not all available at the same time.

00:40:11So we have to kind of work through that as the funds become available.

00:40:14But

00:40:16our goal is to fully get all these projects done, hopefully come back with some

00:40:19more and say, "Hey, what do you guys think about these under the $5 million?" And

00:40:23then we can move on with some more because I think it's a really great opportunity

00:40:27to grow and move. And if you saw the total dollar amount, the $72 million,

00:40:32I have faith in our staff. I know I'm overwhelmed, but as we get out there, we're

00:40:34not going to have any trouble spending another $800,000 on neighborhood projects.

00:40:38I think we'll fully find that availability, but we kind of have to bottle ourselves

00:40:42to what we actually have.

00:40:43And I'm just thinking moving forward, I don't want two similar named but slightly

00:40:48separate processes to end up being confusing for someone who thought, "I suggested

00:40:52this, it's a priority. Where does it fit into the grand scheme of work?" Or get

00:40:55confusing.

00:40:56It is a confusing thing. And as we move forward, by the time the next quarter cent

00:41:00round comes around, we'll be able to readdress this and figure out how this is

00:41:03named and how this works. Unfortunately, not unfortunately, I mean, this has been a

00:41:07program that's been successful for a long time, still exists.

00:41:10So we're really merging the two together, but we'll keep the funding separate.

00:41:15I suspect that the brand is not necessarily Neighborhood Works Plus, but

00:41:21Spring Forward SGF, even the signage and all that because it's the

00:41:27entire program that we're promoting.

00:41:31I just had one more question, Brent.

00:41:33To clarify what Lauren said, the $800,000 that is in the

00:41:39Neighborhood Works budget with public works, would you use that as contingencies?

00:41:44Like if you get into this $5 million and you run into something, a project's going

00:41:48to cost a little bit more, would you use that as a contingency money?

00:41:53With approval for the... I can't speak solely, but yes, that would be the plan,

00:41:57would be to ask for approval.

00:41:57That would be the first place to go for any extras on this.

00:42:01Does that make sense, Lauren?

00:42:02Yeah.

00:42:03Thank you.

00:42:07One more thought. It looked like some bigger projects came out of

00:42:13this conversation. I'd encourage you, if we think those are valuable, to

00:42:19not let those drop off, that they can circle back out,

00:42:24also to be considered for funding. That's thought one.

00:42:27Thought two was, I think everybody, my guess is everybody supports this kind of

00:42:33project, and so we ought to already be thinking about, well, a year from now, is

00:42:38there another $5 million of projects so that we can keep building

00:42:43on the progress we're making in neighborhoods?

00:42:46That's simply something to think about.

00:42:48I don't know, Brent, for us to close on that.

00:42:51I was going to say, just to build on that, Cliff, when we got to those capital

00:42:55improvement projects, those larger projects, we shared that list with public works

00:43:00engineering staff as they go through their planning process, as they think about

00:43:04the new next capital project. So yeah, we've been trying to think about those

00:43:07things and make sure that we're informing other folks of what we're hearing and

00:43:11passing it along when we can, so.

00:43:14And I would echo that. I hope that some of this community feedback finds its way

00:43:19into the CIP programming and that your staff's taking that into consideration when

00:43:24you're looking at other funding, particularly for stormwater and other capital

00:43:28needs, that you get some credit that they came through this process.

00:43:33Yeah, absolutely. It's being considered.

00:43:34We're in the process right now, actually, of starting our transportation master

00:43:37plan again, which includes more than just transportation.

00:43:40But all these things are taken into consideration.

00:43:42They're fully plugged into our capital planning.

00:43:44And also, anything that we have advanced from this group that we can use just helps

00:43:49us advance that further ahead of time.

00:43:52The further out we know that we have funding available, even if it's just

00:43:55earmarked, the better job we can do planning and getting ready for that.

00:43:59So that's always a help.

00:44:02Right. I want to thank Nancy for her work in shepherding the NAC.

00:44:07Becky and I have served in this process in prior years, and it's one of the best

00:44:11examples of grassroots democracy because it's neighbors working together.

00:44:16There's also, and hopefully Dane has seen, when those neighborhoods get together as

00:44:22far as the advisory committee, they will sacrifice one another and

00:44:27prioritize other projects in other parts of town because they hear no more now and,

00:44:33"We got some funding last year. It's your turn." There's a lot of give and

00:44:39take, and again, it's really a good process, so thank you.

00:44:43Yeah. We even saw that in the subcommittee,

00:44:47where one neighborhood said, "Hey, I think we're good.

00:44:49Let's see what else we can do with these dollars." I definitely want to, before we

00:44:54leave this, want to thank the

00:44:56Neighborhood Advisory Council. They've been instrumental in this, in helping guide

00:45:00it. I want to thank Springfield residents for submitting over 560 comments.

00:45:05The subcommittee has been invaluable to this process, really.

00:45:09Couldn't thank them more. But I also would say that city staff have been amazing

00:45:14and super professional, and we have a great set of professional public

00:45:20servants here that really helped this process and informed it along the way.

00:45:24So we want to thank really everybody that's been involved in the process.

00:45:29But we would ask that we do want to request that you all

00:45:34approve the $5 million program so that we can move it forward to City Council.

00:45:38So that's kind of our ask.

00:45:41Any last questions or comments? With that, I'd entertain a motion to approve the $5

00:45:47million as suggested here.

00:45:50Second.

00:45:52Is there a motion?

00:45:54Oh.

00:45:54Is there a motion?

00:45:55Second.

00:45:55And your second still stands?

00:45:57Sorry. Thought I was talking.

00:45:59Any further discussion? All those in favor?

00:46:00Well, I'm sorry to let Lea

00:46:04do all the talking.

00:46:06Lea guitar.

00:46:07Anita, I know this question has come up before, but do you want to read back what

00:46:12the minutes will reflect

00:46:15so everyone's on the same page?

00:46:17Yes. Who

00:46:20made the motion? Dr. Fred? No, Lauren Chaunce made the motion on this one.

00:46:24The motion would be the Citizens Advisory Board recommended--

00:46:31I had it here, so sorry. To recommend to City Council to recommend the $5 million

00:46:37allocation to advance the projects and programs for Neighborhood Works Plus.

00:46:43Is that-

00:46:44Do you need to detail that it's the programs and projects presented in this

00:46:49presentation for the $5 million, or is it just going to be-

00:46:52That's really my question, exactly.

00:46:53Yeah.

00:46:54I think that's where I would ask that we do the program.

00:46:56That's your call, because I said those, like Mr.

00:46:59Smart was saying, we might get three or four more projects through the program, the

00:47:03Neighborhood Works Plus beyond what was listed here, but we'd be fully transparent.

00:47:07We're happy to bring those back for your recommendation as well.

00:47:10It just gives us more flexibility if the motion is like this versus for the

00:47:14specific project.

00:47:15And that's really the question for the committee is do you want to say, "Take your

00:47:18$5 million, get as much done with this list as possible," or do you want them to

00:47:23specifically come back if they want to add to the list?

00:47:26I think that's what the minutes need to be clear about.

00:47:28So right now it is the Neighborhood Works Plus without specifically

00:47:34listing the projects. Is that what you're saying?

00:47:38I'm saying the programs and projects that are listed are intended to be delivered,

00:47:42but that's not an all-inclusive list if the program recommends more.

00:47:45Yeah.

00:47:46Knowing that additional sort of oversight is already baked in through the

00:47:50subcommittee process, I would like to keep my motion broad.

00:47:54Okay.

00:47:54And then if, yeah, there's disagreement, we can obviously change it, but I think

00:47:58that makes the most sense to me.

00:47:59Okay.

00:48:01Your second, you're still okay with your second?

00:48:02My second still stands.

00:48:04Okay. Any other discussion on that clarification?

00:48:08Okay.

00:48:11Bolz? Yes. Watson?

00:48:14Yes.

00:48:14Forster? Yes. Chaunce?

00:48:16Yes.

00:48:17Lee? Yes. Frederick?

00:48:19Yes.

00:48:20Worley?

00:48:21Yes.

00:48:21Bennetti?

00:48:22Yes.

00:48:23Smart?

00:48:24Yes.

00:48:28And you said this is a two reading?

00:48:31Two.

00:48:32Okay. This is a contract enhancement.

00:48:34Well, and get budget adjustment.

00:48:35And a budget adjustment. Okay. Thank you for that explanation.

00:48:40All right. Thank you. And again, appreciate everybody's good work on this.

00:48:45I really see this as a down payment or a first wave of these investments.

00:48:50This is a 10-year fund, and we're at the beginning of this 10-year fund.

00:48:55But I think we've seen it's a good process, and we get good community engagement,

00:49:00and we'll learn from this, and then there'll be second and third phases, hopefully,

00:49:04of this before we have the end of the 10 years. So stay tuned.

00:49:08If we could do this every year or every other year so that you knock out five or

00:49:13six or seven tranches of this, I think that'd be great.

00:49:18My guess is it's probably an every other year scenario.

00:49:21Yeah.

00:49:21Based on our experience and in previous years, it just takes a while to execute

00:49:25this number of projects across the whole city, but there will be other phases come

00:49:31forward.

00:49:33All right. So Mr. Jones, can you introduce the presenter for the next round?

00:49:36Absolutely. Well, we're about to dive into the fun part of the meeting.

00:49:40So I'm going to introduce Tim Rose and Barry, who's going to walk us through the

00:49:44background on some of those board roles, and then we're going to dive into legal

00:49:47considerations, Sunshine Law, and just some really good stuff.

00:49:50So for the returning veterans, this is a refresher.

00:49:55For our

00:49:58new members, this is something we want to just take you through to just affirm some

00:50:04things that I suspect you already maybe know.

00:50:09But the reason why we even have this thing is that back in March

00:50:15of 2025, the end of March,

00:50:18a three-quarter cent sales tax that was in place for funding the police and fire

00:50:23pension fund,

00:50:26and it was expiring. And so prior to that expiration,

00:50:32we

00:50:35went to work on thinking what would replace this tax.

00:50:39By the way, that tax

00:50:42went all the way back to 2009. It was renewed a couple of times, so

00:50:48that we could continue to fund that pension fund.

00:50:53And

00:50:55it really, in many ways, saved the city.

00:50:59That was a big overhang, and having that taken care of has

00:51:05meant a lot for the fiscal condition of the city.

00:51:09Three-quarter cent sales tax generates about $45 million a year.

00:51:16So keep that number in mind.

00:51:19There was a group that was called together,

00:51:2330 people, 30 citizens, and said, "Take a look at what we do

00:51:29with this tax that is expiring. What do we do with the three-quarter cent?" One of

00:51:33the things we could've done was just said, "No more tax." But people were used to

00:51:38doing that, and so what were other ways that three-quarter cent could be put

00:51:43into service on behalf of the city?

00:51:48And so the proposal was bring forward SGF and taking that three-quarter cent

00:51:55and reallocating it a little bit different.

00:51:59One-quarter cent of that three-quarter cent would go to public safety, and that has

00:52:05been in effect, and it is making a difference in the morale and

00:52:11the offerings that our public safety agencies, primarily police and

00:52:17fire,

00:52:19offer back to the community. But then the half cent is to forward SGF

00:52:25initiatives. Forward SGF, you'll remember, is our comprehensive plan that was

00:52:31adopted back in November of 2022. So

00:52:37still, it was a no tax increase, just different uses of the tax.

00:52:43One of the things that was in there in the proposal was that there would be this

00:52:48board. This board would do the deep dive

00:52:54work of trying to figure out what happens with that $30 million a year that comes

00:53:00in. Remember, $45 for three-quarter cent, so half cent,

00:53:0530.

00:53:08And it's really in three broad categories.

00:53:13I'm going to try not to say buckets.

00:53:16And I don't want to say buckets, and I don't want to say spreadsheet, but I'll

00:53:20probably say those again. But capital improvements, significant capital

00:53:25improvements, transformational game-changing capital improvements.

00:53:31Community and neighborhood initiatives, which you just voted on. You just did it.

00:53:37Congratulations and thank you. And then parks projects.

00:53:42This tax

00:53:44expires

00:53:46at the end of March in 2035. So we have 10 years of

00:53:52revenue that starts out at $30 million a year, but each year, as the community

00:53:58grows, as inflation occurs, that $30 million is going to increase.

00:54:03And I think we looked at one time, it's almost $350 million over 10 years.

00:54:08And so you all will be vetting proposals to

00:54:13look at how we best invest that money back into the community.

00:54:21And

00:54:22these are the criteria that you all will use in part.

00:54:28I'm not going to read them. I have them in my three-ring binder.

00:54:33I'm guessing everybody else does, too.

00:54:36But this is

00:54:38a big part of the rubric right here about the criteria of how we want to use this

00:54:45money. So if you haven't looked at that in your free time, I recommend that

00:54:51you do take a look at it

00:54:53That'll be in the very front pocket of your binder.

00:54:56Thank you, Anita.

00:54:57You're welcome.

00:54:59We also have the slides in the September-

00:55:03Exactly

00:55:03... package.

00:55:04Yeah. They're going to be just about everywhere.

00:55:07We also have a board sometimes up on an easel that has those on there.

00:55:12So, those are our 10 Commandments, folks. That's what we live by.

00:55:18And then in addition to those, council asked that these be

00:55:24included as things to consider.

00:55:28And so these are

00:55:31pretty specific as

00:55:36far as how

00:55:39the list finally gets approved. Okay?

00:55:43With that,

00:55:46I'll ask City Attorney Jordan Paul to present on legal considerations.

00:55:51You've already seen some of that, again, working on that last motion.

00:55:56So, Jordan, I invite you to the front.

00:56:02Yeah. This will be your shortest legal considerations presentation ever.

00:56:06Good.

00:56:07Much to your relief. So, I'm just going to run over a couple of brief

00:56:13ethics considerations for you mostly.

00:56:18I will let you know, available on demand is city council's ethics presentation,

00:56:23which runs closer to 16 slides. Again, if you get really bored, if you run out of

00:56:27projects, let me know. I'll come give you the full deal.

00:56:31But there's just a couple of things I want to call your attention to.

00:56:33And again, the takeaway from this is if you have a question, just let me know and

00:56:38we will deal with your individual questions as they come up.

00:56:41So, I don't think you will encounter Section 1916.

00:56:45This is the one charter section I'll call your attention to.

00:56:49But it is highly punitive, so I do point it out.

00:56:521916 is our main conflict of interest provision that is in the actual charter,

00:56:58which basically prevents council members, board members, employees from having an

00:57:02interest in a contract with the city.

00:57:04Now, as it applies to boards, it is specific to contracts managed or operated by

00:57:10that board. So, from a board perspective, this board is probably not going to

00:57:15actually oversee or manage any contracts. You make recommendations to city council.

00:57:20But for example, the park board, a member cannot have an interest in a lease

00:57:27or sale of park property, right? But they could, for instance, in their private

00:57:32capacity, have an interest in a sale to the airport board.

00:57:35So, it's pretty narrow when it comes to boards and commissions, but you are

00:57:39unlikely to encounter it. Because the penalty is forfeiture, though, I do call it

00:57:44to your attention, just so you know that it's out there.

00:57:48I know there was a question previously.

00:57:50The example of Visit Springfield Board and Convention Center.

00:57:54Would that apply under this? Where we wouldn't have been managing the convention

00:57:58center build.

00:58:00Right.

00:58:00But I'm trying to think of something that was specifically highlighted, knowing

00:58:04that a lot of us serve on different boards.

00:58:06Right.

00:58:07Does that apply or no?

00:58:09No, not in this context. It may apply in the next context we'll get to,

00:58:15but this is really talking about you being personally involved or having a personal

00:58:19financial interest in it. But you do raise a good point, which gets to what

00:58:25we have in the code. And so City Council employees and boards all have additional

00:58:31ethics sections. They largely track state law, which is in Section 105452

00:58:36predominantly. It really regulates four different things.

00:58:40One is confidential information.

00:58:42You will be privy to information through this committee that may not be known

00:58:46generally to the public. I don't believe that the code specifies the definition of

00:58:49confidential information, so we tend to borrow the one from state law, which, that

00:58:54is the definition. It's not generally known to the public.

00:58:57This board, I don't think, has encountered anything yet that would be in the realm

00:59:03of a closed meeting, a real estate transaction, economic development item.

00:59:08It is possible, based on

00:59:10where you all might go over the next couple of years, that you do encounter one of

00:59:14those things. You may receive confidential memos from myself, the economic

00:59:18development team. Basically, you cannot use those for personal financial gain, and

00:59:24you're really not supposed to let it outside of the organization.

00:59:28The other three items are basically, quid pro quo is don't trade your

00:59:34influence on the board for bribes or anything else, don't deal to yourself, and

00:59:40don't coerce or extort people. So, pretty basic rules that are largely reflected

00:59:46in our local code. So, on conflicts of interest, and I think, Lauren, this is what

00:59:50you were mostly talking about, if you have an interest, it's always a good idea to

00:59:55disclose it. And we get into this in more detail with City Council, but the law

01:00:00does make a distinction between when you're acting in a legislative capacity versus

01:00:03an administrative capacity. When you're in an administrative capacity, that's the

01:00:08one time you absolutely can't vote because the nature is different.

01:00:12But in a legislative capacity, you're technically allowed to vote as long as you

01:00:16disclose your interest in the measure.

01:00:19We usually don't encourage folks to do that, just because then it still becomes bad

01:00:24for public perception, reputational harm, all those kinds of things.

01:00:29So, generally, when a question like that does come up, please let us know.

01:00:34Out of caution, if nothing else, we'll suggest probably that if there is a

01:00:38conflict, that you disclose it, announce it, formally recuse.

01:00:42But if for whatever reason you decided that you wanted to vote on it for some

01:00:47reason, if it was a legislative decision, technically that might be an option.

01:00:52Again, the takeaway from here is if you've got a question about it, let us know.

01:00:56For instance, Visit Springfield

01:00:59is unique because it's a nonprofit, but it is also principally funded by the city,

01:01:04so it occupies kind of a gray space, and depending on the nature of what we were

01:01:07looking at,

01:01:11a recusal may or may not be a good idea.

01:01:14Certainly, the stuff that I think came up last time was not anything that caused me

01:01:19any concern. There is an attendance policy for all of the boards that generally

01:01:24says if you miss more than three meetings and you don't have a good reason, you can

01:01:28technically be removed. You're not allowed to come before the board and advocate

01:01:34for your own personal interest. This is fairly similar to the conflicts provision.

01:01:39And then finally, accepting any valuable gift is don't take bribes.

01:01:43And then the last section is the disclosure, which I just went over.

01:01:47You can disclose, and depending on the facts, it may or may not be able to vote.

01:01:52Advisor opinions are very important because they basically say, "Hey, I did my

01:01:56best. I asked a lawyer," and then it becomes my fault if I get it wrong, and you

01:02:00are insulated from basically any kind of culpability.

01:02:03So, that is another reason why we encourage you to ask ahead of time, because it

01:02:07generally washes your hands of any kind of wrongdoing.

01:02:11So, those are

01:02:14all of your legal considerations. Any questions for me now?

01:02:20All right. Anita, you're up.

01:02:22Big takeaway. When in doubt, you can ask Jordan, and he can let you know whether or

01:02:27not it's an issue or not, and that does provide us some cover.

01:02:31So, thank you, Jordan.

01:02:32Thank you, sir.

01:02:32That's how I live every day. Ask Jordan.

01:02:38So, keeping in line with things you really don't want to listen to, legal opinions

01:02:43and Sunshine Law. So, we're going to take the Sunshine Law and go through this

01:02:48again. For those of you who are on the board, again, this is a refresher.

01:02:52For those of you that are new to the board, let me introduce you to the Missouri

01:02:56Sunshine Law. It's not a guided suggestion.

01:03:00It is state law, and it does govern this board.

01:03:03That's why it's important for me to bring that to your attention.

01:03:07So, one thing that's really important to understand about the Sunshine Law is this

01:03:12highlighted portion. It talks about the policy itself should be liberal

01:03:17construction. So, you should always lean towards that transparency, that

01:03:22openness. That should be very liberal.

01:03:25And the part of the Sunshine Law that lets you close things, that lets you

01:03:31withhold those documents, is very strict construction.

01:03:36So basically, keep it very narrow on what you close and what you prevent the public

01:03:41from seeing, and be very liberal in being transparent and following the Sunshine

01:03:47Law. Don't try to find those loopholes.

01:03:50So, saying, "Well, the Sunshine Law doesn't expressly say this," keep in mind that

01:03:56intent, because that is the spirit of the Sunshine Law.

01:04:01Again, any public governmental body and- ...

01:04:06bodies that are created by that public governmental body, which is where you fall

01:04:10into this.

01:04:12A meeting is any meeting business such as we're having today.

01:04:18Subcommittees are also included. Generally, a quorum must be present.

01:04:22We do have some limited exceptions.

01:04:25If you were having a social gathering, if you had a Christmas party, say, or a

01:04:29holiday party of some sort, that might be able to just be posted as an attendance

01:04:34posting where no city business was happening.

01:04:37But keep in mind that when a group of you, a quorum of you, is meeting, that

01:04:42could unintentionally become an illegal meeting.

01:04:47That doesn't have to happen in person.

01:04:50If you are emailing each other, if you are texting each other and discussing

01:04:54business of this board, that could result in an illegal meeting.

01:04:59That's why you need to be very cognizant of that.

01:05:03Public business is any

01:05:05matter that would come

01:05:10before you for consideration.

01:05:14What is required? So all of these, I'm going to read through all of these, all of

01:05:17these things are required under Sunshine Law.

01:05:23The agenda you receive must reasonably tell individuals what they're going to be

01:05:28discussing in this meeting. So that's why we won't ever have an any other business,

01:05:34or we won't bring up a brand-new topic.

01:05:37It has to be publicly noted ahead of time so that citizens do have that

01:05:43opportunity to come in and know what their body's going to talk about.

01:05:48We also date and timestamp that as a best practice, and we take care of all of this

01:05:53for you. I just want you to know what's going on behind the scenes.

01:05:57Additional requirements, we have to maintain minutes, correspondence, text.

01:06:03Again, we ensure that that's taken care of, but we ask you to use your city

01:06:09email that you've all been given, we're going to talk about that in a minute, to do

01:06:13any of that correspondence. That way, we have a way to track that and maintain it,

01:06:17and you don't have to keep those records to provide to me.

01:06:24Any record that you do includes email, text, files that are saved electronically,

01:06:30or any paper documents that you would have.

01:06:33Anything that we provide to you, we have a record of.

01:06:36So you don't have to worry about, oh, I have to have a huge file cabinet at home to

01:06:40keep all of this in case it's asked for.

01:06:43The big pieces, again, going back to emails, that your emails, if you could do any

01:06:49email about board business, if you could please do it on your city email.

01:06:54And I'm going to talk to the three of you that don't know you have a city email

01:06:57yet. You do have one. We're going to get there.

01:07:00Text are usually our biggest issue.

01:07:03If you send a text and you're communicating by text regarding business of this

01:07:09board, I need you to maintain that. You can do a screenshot.

01:07:13You can send it to an email. It's best not to,

01:07:18because it's hard to maintain, and it's hard to produce, but if we receive a

01:07:22Sunshine request, I do have to try to get those records from you, and by law, you

01:07:27have to produce those.

01:07:29So like I said, anything that is exchanged between the clerk's office, the city,

01:07:34and the board will be maintained by our office.

01:07:37Your emails are maintained for 13 months to complete a year retention requirement.

01:07:43And if we get a request, we're not going to ask you to pull all your emails.

01:07:46We're going to do that through our IS system, unless you email outside of your city

01:07:52email account. If you do that, we are going to ask you to retrieve those emails

01:07:58and get those to us.

01:08:02So how can we help you with this? Each member has a city email address.

01:08:07They were under the Correspondence tab.

01:08:13No, I'm sorry. It was in your books, originally under the Membership tab, your

01:08:18email address. For the three of you that have new email addresses, if you will see

01:08:24Julie and I right after this meeting, we will tell you how to get signed on, show

01:08:28you what that is. For you board members, you will notice an uptick in, "You have

01:08:34won a $10 gift card from Starbucks."

01:08:37Yes.

01:08:37"Your package is delayed because we can't reach you right now."

01:08:43Those are phishing tests from our information systems department because you will

01:08:48also get those in real life. Rule of thumb, if you haven't requested it, if it

01:08:54sounds too good to be true, if it is coming to you out of the blue, and you don't

01:08:58know anything about it, don't click on it. Okay?

01:09:02Very simple, but you will see a lot of those.

01:09:05Some are generated in-house to kind of keep that at the forefront of employees.

01:09:09Because you're board members and you have a city email address, you will also

01:09:13receive those.

01:09:15General correspondence to the board will come in through Citizens Advisory Board.

01:09:21I will forward those back out to all of you and to the staff members that

01:09:26support this board every time I receive something.

01:09:31When you receive something from our office, if you have a question and you're

01:09:35replying, please don't reply all, because then we start a whole conversation with

01:09:40the whole board. Send it back to our office, send it to the staff member that's

01:09:44dealing with whatever you're dealing with. Don't just do that reply all.

01:09:49And again, we maintain all of this to comply with state law.

01:09:54So please ensure all business is conducted through the appropriate email.

01:09:58Always stop before hitting reply all, and this is an avenue for you to receive

01:10:03information. But remember, all of your discussions should take place here.

01:10:08All your discussions should take place as a body.

01:10:13One thing that

01:10:16I do want to point out, there are some pretty specific violations.

01:10:22You could have a civil fine for up to $1,000 for knowingly doing a Sunshine

01:10:27violation, for deleting something, not providing it, holding a meeting

01:10:33illegally.

01:10:35For a knowing and willful, they bump that up to 5,000, but that's not where the

01:10:40problem is. You're also responsible for attorney fees at that time.

01:10:44That's where the real money is. Just ask Jordan. That's where the real money is.

01:10:49And the court can fine an individual member, or they can fine the

01:10:55body. The city will always work with you.

01:11:00Just if there's a question, always contact either my office or the attorney's

01:11:05office, depending on the level of what the question is. And we will help.

01:11:10We will take you through those processes. We want to protect you.

01:11:14We never want you to be in a position where you're going to be sued.

01:11:18So that's why we try to protect you, and if you will use your city email and do the

01:11:22things that we're asking here, we have a pretty good path to keeping you safe.

01:11:27Before we go to public communications, one last thing I want to let you know.

01:11:31You will be receiving an email from my office periodically for agendas, for various

01:11:37things like that, but you're also going to be receiving an email, there will be

01:11:40some training that will be rolled out through our system, which you'll watch

01:11:44online.

01:11:47Very short, take a little test online. You'll go through that.

01:11:51And it is going to start being required for all board members.

01:11:54You are the first board to hear about this.

01:11:57And it will be probably a few weeks before you receive that, and then it's going to

01:12:01be a normal part of onboarding onto our boards and commissions. Yes, ma'am?

01:12:05Can you define what an illegal meeting is?

01:12:08How many board members have to be together for it to be illegal?

01:12:11So the intent of the Sunshine Law is that you guys don't meet and make decisions

01:12:16outside of this. Technically, it's a quorum, which in your situation is five.

01:12:22If you have a subcommittee, it's half plus one of that subcommittee.

01:12:26If you have a subcommittee of four, it's three.

01:12:30But the intent is you really should not be having discussions about what you're

01:12:34going to do in the meeting. Does that preclude you from talking to Lauren about

01:12:39something, going, "You know, that was really interesting in the meeting yet I had

01:12:42no idea"? No, that's not what I'm saying.

01:12:44What I'm saying is going, "Hey, Lauren, they're going to be talking to us about

01:12:49this, and I really think we should do this, and I really think that if you could

01:12:54vote for that, I'll vote for that." That's where it crosses the line.

01:12:58Having just those conversations with your fellow board members, "Hey, I

01:13:04was really surprised to hear that" or "Did you know that?" That's not what we're

01:13:08talking about. What we're talking about is having business of the board discussed,

01:13:13decisions being made

01:13:16outside.

01:13:17So no notice quorum, committee business.

01:13:21Yeah.

01:13:23And we will stop you if something starts being discussed in a board

01:13:28meeting that's not on the agenda. We will go, "Hey, we're going to put a pin in

01:13:33that. We will put it on our next agenda, and we'd love to discuss that, but we

01:13:39can't do it today." Those are the type of things we're talking about that we will

01:13:42keep trying to keep you safe. Okay?

01:13:44Okay. One last thing that brings to mind.

01:13:47If there is a topic that I wanted to bring to the board, do I send a request to you

01:13:52or to the chair?

01:13:54What I would prefer, and this will be to your discretion, how we've handled it in

01:13:58the past is it goes to the chair and to the clerk's office, so we can talk about

01:14:03putting it on the agenda.

01:14:04Got it. Thank you.

01:14:06Okay.

01:14:06And that's a good question, though, because that is something that is up to you all

01:14:11in your bylaws. And so you all can decide, is that something you want to decide as

01:14:15a group ahead of time? Do you want them to be submitted individually to the chair?

01:14:19Do you want to have it on the request of not a quorum, obviously, but three

01:14:23members? I don't know that the bylaws specify that.

01:14:27I think by default, we would do it as Anita describes.

01:14:30But if you all want a different system, that's something that you can adopt.

01:14:33Okay.

01:14:34Okay.

01:14:35And email is the official form of communication for something like that?

01:14:37Yes. Yes, please.

01:14:40Okay, so without any further ado, I'm going to introduce Cora Scott, who

01:14:46really doesn't need an introduction. You all know her.

01:14:48Public information and civic engagement.

01:14:52She's going to do a much more interesting part than me.

01:14:55I don't know about that. Don't give me any pressure.

01:14:58Welcome back, everyone, and welcome to the new members.

01:15:01This is stuff I get really jazzed about when people volunteer to serve their

01:15:04community, and this organization couldn't function without you all.

01:15:08And your service is really, really important.

01:15:11I also am really giddy about that Neighborhood Works Plus process because it's not

01:15:16always easy to invite all to the table, and it was a very in-depth and lengthy

01:15:22process, but Chris and I both agree that it just makes our little hearts dance that

01:15:28as many people can get involved as possible. Over 500 entries.

01:15:32Now, our engineers and public works aren't always thrilled about that, but you saw

01:15:35Dane and the team. They're just really great to really engage with citizens.

01:15:40And to me, that's what this is about, and that's what investing these tax dollars

01:15:43are about as well. So, we appreciate all of that.

01:15:47And thank you for approving that allocation.

01:15:50So, we do have a home base for communications for this particular tax initiative,

01:15:57and it's springlemowe.gov/springforwardsgf. Is that right?

01:16:02And we're going to revamp it a little bit because even as we're sitting here today,

01:16:05I'm seeing how it needs to be more refreshed on an ongoing basis.

01:16:09So you're going to see everything really branded that Spring Forward SGF.

01:16:15Maybe we should have told you this at the beginning of the meeting.

01:16:17All of these meetings are live streamed to springfieldmo.gov and

01:16:22facebook.com/cityofsgf. So sorry for the interruptions over there.

01:16:27I had a reporter who was not in the room texting me, having trouble accessing our

01:16:31feed. So I was checking the feed over there. It is working.

01:16:34But these cameras in the room capture everything from the moment of gavel to gavel.

01:16:39We don't really have a physical gavel in here, but you know what I mean.

01:16:42We also have very high tech sensitive microphones in here. Okay?

01:16:48The recordings are posted after the fact at cityview.springfieldmo.gov and on the

01:16:54Citizens Advisory Board page. So you all will have a page.

01:16:57You do have a page with your information on there.

01:17:00Meetings are open to the media and the public. It's not a public hearing.

01:17:04That's why when we open the meeting, we said this, we don't typically open it to

01:17:07questions from the gallery because it's more like a workshop, like council's Monday

01:17:12workshops.

01:17:14And our practice has been that news releases about significant milestones will be

01:17:18sent out to keep the public informed of board activity and these decisions.

01:17:23So, taking a cue from your question earlier about how do we get the word out about

01:17:27these things? We've already sent out a news release, and I hope that's okay.

01:17:32But the real question I'm bringing you today is if you want to keep the practice in

01:17:37place that our team, the PIO team, serves at the pleasure of this group.

01:17:42We have worked with the chair and the vice chair to kind of be a central point of

01:17:47contact for news media, both coming and going.

01:17:50So you don't have to answer that right now.

01:17:52I'll just need a head nod on that before we end this discussion.

01:17:57A little bit about our team. We're really fortunate that we provide full-scale

01:18:01communication and outreach services, so that's why you hear about us going out and

01:18:05having these outreach and engagements.

01:18:08If this group should want to do something like that, we certainly help facilitate

01:18:12that. We do survey and public input gathering, so we can get out surveys.

01:18:17If you have a question that you want to get out to the community, we can help you

01:18:20with that. Media relations, as I just mentioned, website, digital communications,

01:18:25and social media, video and photography.

01:18:28And then we do special event meeting coordination and promotion.

01:18:32So, we're here to help with whatever you might need our services for.

01:18:37But leave you with a question. Would you like to keep the centralized media

01:18:41activity through our office, or would you like to designate a person on your team

01:18:46to do that?

01:18:50Thank you, Cora. You should do it.

01:18:52Yeah. Okay.

01:18:55That's what we'll do. So if you did get a question from media, all you have to do

01:18:58is forward that email or get them to me.

01:19:02Make sure that the clerk stays in the loop on all communication just so that we

01:19:05have it all documented properly, and then I'll take care of it, and then I'll work

01:19:10to see how we get those questions answered, keeping you all fully in the loop, of

01:19:13course. One last request from us, help us get the word out.

01:19:18I know a lot of you are on social media.

01:19:20Amplify the messages that we're putting out there that just keep the community

01:19:24informed on what you're hearing about, what you're deliberating on, what you're

01:19:29recommending, and also ultimately what council decides.

01:19:33So, this is a big deal for our community.

01:19:35This is a game changer to have this level of investment.

01:19:39We want to make sure that people are fully aware of what's going on with these tax

01:19:44dollars. So that's it.

01:19:46Any other questions for Cora?

01:19:49I just have a quick question. The form portal, I'm probably saying something

01:19:53incorrectly, that we started at the beginning of this-

01:19:55Uh-huh

01:19:55... in terms of citizen ideas.

01:19:58Yes.

01:19:58Is that still live? Where does it live? Are we promoting it? Are we not?

01:20:03What is just the status of that?

01:20:04That's a good question. We are not promoting it, but I don't even know that it's

01:20:08live. Do you know, Anita? We'll have to check.

01:20:10I believe so because I have received one within the last week.

01:20:14Okay.

01:20:15But we're not promoting it, but I do believe it still lives on that page, and it is

01:20:20still live at this point.

01:20:22I think a future conversation to your agenda point about sort of how we're looking

01:20:27at that, knowing that we've had, makes sense, more city proposals because of the

01:20:32ability to engage in VED.

01:20:34Mm-hmm.

01:20:34But then what are we doing with some of those?

01:20:36Just I'd love to have a broad discussion on sort of-

01:20:39Absolutely

01:20:39... if we need to keep it live. Is that still the goal of this group?

01:20:43Just that would be helpful.

01:20:44That's a great question. And of course, we do have all of those ideas still in

01:20:48electronic form. At any point in time, if you want to see a spreadsheet with those,

01:20:53we can provide that.

01:20:54Spreadsheet.

01:20:56Am I not supposed to say spreadsheet?

01:21:00Spreadsheet.

01:21:00Thank you all.

01:21:01I think just putting the last three topics together, from time to time, members of

01:21:04the community will reach out to one of us with a recommendation for what we should

01:21:08do.

01:21:08Yeah.

01:21:08What is your preferred approach for how we respond to such entreaties?

01:21:15That's a good question because that will happen.

01:21:18So recommendations from the chair, the...

01:21:21If it's a project, they need to go through the application process.

01:21:24And so I think having that-

01:21:25Project idea form

01:21:26... continue to be live, so that ideas can come forward through that, and then it

01:21:31gets sent to all of us. So that's a good paper trail on that.

01:21:36That's a good reason to keep that. We call it a form, and this has actually been a

01:21:40thing this week with me. There's a difference between an application and a form.

01:21:44This is an idea form. It's not like we're taking applications that you all may

01:21:48consider every single one. It's just these are project idea forms that we will

01:21:54get your attention on. So-

01:21:56And if there's also additional questions that don't fall in that category, that's

01:22:00absolutely the best way to handle that.

01:22:02But if you have other questions that are being asked, you can always send them to

01:22:07the clerk's office. We'll disseminate it with the context, "Hey, I think the whole

01:22:13board needs to receive this information." That takes you out of it.

01:22:17You're sending it to us. We'll disseminate what needs to go to the full board or

01:22:22respond to their question. And that kind of takes that pressure off of you to go

01:22:26back and forth with them.

01:22:28So from

01:22:30A guy who's been on this for a year and a half.

01:22:33Mm-hmm.

01:22:35People will reach out to you that you know and have a relationship with and are

01:22:40thoughtful people. The pickleball group comes to mind.

01:22:46And several of us met with them, and I thought it was helpful to get their

01:22:52perspective. I think it's just important not to-- For me, it

01:22:58was to not commit that I'm for your program.

01:23:02But I think it's oftentimes helpful to get a perspective that is not just city

01:23:07staff giving you the project. So my practice is that if I

01:23:13know someone and trust someone and think they're a valuable source, I'm willing to

01:23:18meet with them and hear, and then I pass on that I've done that.

01:23:23Just don't let yourself get in a pickle, is what I'm saying.

01:23:25Right.

01:23:27So what I've done when I've had citizens contact me about a project or an idea that

01:23:32they would like to see if Spring Forward money could support is I've said, "Go

01:23:37submit on the form."

01:23:40And that is easily found on the city website where the Spring Forward tax

01:23:46project idea. Am I still on the right track by saying, "That's a

01:23:51great idea. Go submit it"?

01:23:53I think you are.

01:23:54And then-

01:23:54Unless you all decide differently.

01:23:57Yeah. And then when that idea goes in, it goes to city

01:24:02clerk? Is that where it goes? And then you guys let us know?

01:24:06To the city clerk, to the public information office.

01:24:09I don't know if it does it go anywhere.

01:24:10I think it goes-

01:24:10I think it just goes to the two of us

01:24:12... but then you forward those to us.

01:24:13We coordinate it-

01:24:14Mm-hmm

01:24:14... and we send it out to the full board.

01:24:16Okay.

01:24:16You will see every submission that comes in.

01:24:18Okay, good.

01:24:19Yeah.

01:24:19Good, good.

01:24:21Before we shut down, I have one more question.

01:24:23It also allows those who are interested to submit, but it forces them to put a

01:24:28little more thought in. It isn't just a passing comment.

01:24:32They have to graduate to the next level so that then it can be considered.

01:24:37It's a commitment.

01:24:37Yeah.

01:24:38And this is a nuance, but I think it's an important nuance, and I noticed that when

01:24:42we were talking about Neighborhood Works!, it wasn't totally laser accurate that it

01:24:47was asking for approval. This group is a recommending body, not an approval body.

01:24:53So that's also a good thing for you to be able to remind your friends and folks

01:24:57that talk to you that you do have those brought forward.

01:25:01You recommend or not recommend to council, and council's the deciding body.

01:25:06Sorry, council.

01:25:08That's why they get paid the big bucks.

01:25:10I don't know who has the answer to this question, but I was just wondering if we

01:25:14could have a refresher on our three-- Okay, buckets.

01:25:18Don't listen to buckets. Our three categories of what we have allocated so far.

01:25:23We-

01:25:24A great segue-

01:25:26Oh, we-

01:25:27... that's in our look ahead.

01:25:28Okay. Okay, very good, then I will leave it there, and I'll let you address that.

01:25:33Thank you.

01:25:34Is it time?

01:25:35Sure.

01:25:36Okay. Yeah. Since we're still using the slides, I think this is the last one.

01:25:42Oh, goodness, I've got to go through all these.

01:25:47Sorry about that, y'all.

01:25:49Well, that project idea form is active, so okay.

01:25:53So

01:25:55next meeting is the 15th? Ah,

01:26:01thank you. The next meeting is, yeah, October 15th.

01:26:06And at that meeting, these are the topics we've identified so far.

01:26:10If we want other topics on there, contact

01:26:15your

01:26:16chair and the clerk. But

01:26:20one is consultant status and role.

01:26:23We currently have an RFP out for a program

01:26:29manager.

01:26:31This is something that other cities that have programs like this do, where they do

01:26:36basically what Dane did for Neighborhood Works!

01:26:41We're going to ask them, we're asking

01:26:46the program manager to do that for the entire program to support you all in

01:26:52your work. And so

01:26:57RFPs are due not next week, but the week after next, and we will probably have

01:27:03the consultant or the program manager on board and in

01:27:08attendance at our December meeting.

01:27:12So that's going to help everyone get this thing moved together.

01:27:17But we will also, next time, do a financial status update,

01:27:23including the big

01:27:27chart. I didn't say spreadsheet. Big chart-

01:27:31Oh, God.

01:27:31... that shows what we've allocated.

01:27:35So one thing,

01:27:38as a part of that, the first thing we did was vote $30 million for a convention

01:27:43center that's not going to be built.

01:27:46And so I would like to know, does city council want that money to come back to us

01:27:51for reallocation? Do they want to hold it in that bucket,

01:27:56pending development?

01:27:59Because to me,

01:28:02we were looking at big projects. We did that as a big project.

01:28:06We did the art museum expansion as a big project, and it looks like our first big

01:28:12project's gone away. And so I'd like to know what city council would

01:28:18like us to do with that money, if anything.

01:28:21Well, you hit the right on the head.

01:28:22It is right now in the laps of city council, and that is what they're looking at.

01:28:26So hopefully we'll have some ideas about what the next steps are concerning that,

01:28:30hopefully by the next meeting, but definitely fairly soon.

01:28:33Okay.

01:28:35Then the other thing that's going to happen is we're going to have some project

01:28:37updates. Ron

01:28:40Schneider, the head of the parks department, is here.

01:28:44But next time, he's going to be one of the presenters, just to give you a very

01:28:49brief update on what's happening with some of the projects and planning

01:28:55money that this board has approved, and council has approved.

01:29:01Also, Steve will be here from planning, talking about where we are with the

01:29:06neighborhood plans. I'll be sharing a little bit about around the art museum and

01:29:11the work there. And so, we'll just bring you up to date so that you all can get

01:29:17some comfort, I hope, and some good feelings about

01:29:23the work that you have authorized and how it's already making a

01:29:29difference. So, if there's any other topics that you want to have included

01:29:35in the agenda, again, Rusty, Anita.

01:29:39All right. Thank you, Tim. Just to follow up on Cliff's comments, from my

01:29:44perspective, I think we made good progress over the past year with the art museum,

01:29:48parks, greenways, NeighborWorks!, and the neighborhood plans.

01:29:53So those four areas are on a good trajectory.

01:29:56We'll be getting updates in future meetings.

01:29:59I think a couple of areas that are still out there and where we need to get

01:30:02updates, one is the expo lot and where that stands, as Maurice mentioned, and then

01:30:08the other one is community applications.

01:30:11As Lauren mentioned, it'd be good for us to get an update of where those stand and

01:30:16a summary of everything that's been received through the portal so we can see what

01:30:21has been addressed and where that stands as a group.

01:30:24We haven't really had a chance to do that

01:30:27recently. And then looking forward into what's next, corridors.

01:30:33Christina Engeld brought up several times the importance of corridors.

01:30:38If you look at ForwardSF,

01:30:41corridors is one of the chapters and one of the priorities in that.

01:30:44And so I think it would warrant further discussion.

01:30:49Also want to point out in the Spring Forward initiative, the I-N-G in Spring,

01:30:55it's an acronym, Investing in the Next Generation.

01:30:58And so for the new members, that's part of our charge is investing these

01:31:02transformational funds into the next generation.

01:31:05That's why I'm glad to see some younger faces around the table again, so.

01:31:13Young at heart.

01:31:16And then housing is a topic. I think there continues to be a lot of work.

01:31:21For those of us who attended the housing forum or the summit this morning,

01:31:27a lot of really good discussion. That will be an ongoing discussion, so stay tuned

01:31:32for that. And then Amanda and her team in economic vitality will have, I think,

01:31:37information for us to consider, and so there's several things that are up next.

01:31:43And then we'll see what else comes up from our discussions and what we hear from

01:31:48the community portal. So Cliff.

01:31:50So would you envision the next several meetings, we're not going to be voting on

01:31:53projects. It's going to be getting information and updates on a whole series of

01:31:59things.

01:32:00Yeah, you may see some presentations on some

01:32:05projects, but yeah, calling for a hard vote,

01:32:09probably not.

01:32:10Right. Yeah. I would say probably at least the next two meetings being

01:32:16reconstituting a baseline of knowledge and getting updates on what was

01:32:22progressed over the last six months.

01:32:25But at some point later this fall, I do hope we start then making recommendations

01:32:30to city council again.

01:32:32Okay.

01:32:34Any other comments or questions?

01:32:38With that, I'd take a motion to adjourn.

01:32:40Nope.

01:32:41Sorry.

01:32:48No.

01:32:48I can take the motion.

01:32:49We need a motion to get-

01:32:50Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were-

01:32:53I can take the motion. She calls the roll.

01:32:55Yeah. No problem.

01:32:57All right. Is there a motion to adjourn?

01:32:59Second.

01:33:00All right. Second?

01:33:01Second.

01:33:02Awesome. All right.

01:33:03Let's go.

01:33:06Sorry, I'm a little bit slow, but the names are in a new order, so I apologize.

01:33:11Watson?

01:33:12Yes.

01:33:12Forester?

01:33:13Yes.

01:33:13Shaunce?

01:33:14Yes.

01:33:15Frederick?

01:33:16Yes.

01:33:16Lee?

01:33:17Yes.

01:33:18Bennetti?

01:33:19Yes.

01:33:19Smart?

01:33:20Yes.

01:33:20Fultz?

01:33:21Yes.

01:33:21Worley.

01:33:22Yes.

01:33:24Thank you, everyone. We will see you on October

01:33:2615th.